---Shadow---
---Emiko’s perspective---
I sit in the meeting room, looking at many puzzled, expectant faces.
I am one of four people, sat at this table, who know why this meeting has been called, the others being Thran, Twila and the Captain.
Ambassadors Yeshe and Ong are here, sat beside me to my right.
Victor, Tuun and Samus are here in their capacity as the ship’s security.
Xon and Admiral Yakchutt are here representing the UTC and GU militaries, respectively.
Terran’s are in the unique position, galactically, for having the right to maintain a military independent of galactic command (for obvious reasons).
Leon and Ziva are here, looking professional.
Then there are some faces you might not expect…
Master Yuán…
Kwijj, Mouse and Baorbo, for their technical expertise…
Drs Gato, Shing, Phan, Heart, Aerlyght for their… hopefully unnecessary skills…
And, of course, our latecomer…
The door opens and through steps Waqa’arc, 15thDaughter of Highspire Peak.
She hops on the perch set out for her, her facial expression and body language neutral.
I try not to let my irritation show as I clap my hands together and say “Alright… now that we’re all here, why don’t you tell everyone what this is about, Captain?”
She straightens her back and brings out her wings slightly, to visually indicate herself as the speaker.
It’s not really necessary in a room with only one other R’qali but, I guess, it would be helpful in any kind of consortium of her species, all stood on perches… It might be hard to tell, otherwise, who is speaking. I suppose the alternative would be dismounting the perch to distinguish yourself.
“Yes, well, I shall introduce but I think it is my shipboard manager who’ll have the most helpfully comprehensive outline of the situation… So, I’ll keep my part brief before I pass you over to her…” she extends her wing to Twila’s holograph “…The short version is that we’re being followed and, we have reason to believe, it is either the same assassin who attacked our party on Citadel and killed the Terran Representative to Parliament, shortly after our departure, or an associate from the same organisation.”
The dismayed shift that goes around the room is audible.
Someone decides it needs to be verbal, as well(!)
“So we’re all traveling aboard a ship that is marked for death by deathworld terrorists?! That’s just wonderful(!)” spits Waqa’arc, contemptuously.
“If you are unhappy with our current predicament, Sister, you are welcome to terminate your employment and take the shuttle to convey you to the nearest inhabited planet or space station… I’m sure that our dear coordinator here would be so kind as to waive the punitive termination clauses in your contract for you, under the circumstances…” answers Tcakqaal, coolly, indicating me.
Her clansister only grumbles in response.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Hoping to keep the peace, I smile “Would you fill us in on the finer details, Twila?”
Her holographic avatar stands and calls up a projection of our current quadrant of the Galaxy.
Citadel is on one end, in the Galactic Core, and from it extends a solid, purple line.
Our current position is indicated by a bright purple dot and the rest of the journey to AG10790263b is represented by a ghostly, transparent purple line.
“So…” she winds our journey back almost all the way to Citadel “…the first time I picked up this ship was here, roughly 10 hours after we had left the capital… Obviously, at the time, I didn’t think anything of it since that area is literally the single most congested part of the galaxy. There were tens of millions of ships in the same radius and we hadn’t yet received the news of Mudaliar’s death. Then…” she winds the map forward “…here’s where that news reached us and…” another fastforward “…here’s where that ship came to my attention again. You see, I realised that it should have overtaken us by that point but, rather than doing so, it had slowed down and fallen in behind us… not necessarily suspicious, there could be a number of reasons a shipcaptain might reduce their steam but it made me uneasy… so I ran a little test.” she zooms in massively “Last night, we came to a fork in the spacelane… for our destination, I ought to have taken this turn but I took this one… as if we were headed for Ghirial territory and beyond.”
“On your simple suspicion?! You diverted the entire ship hours out of our way without consulting any members of the crew, machine?!” snarls Waqa’arc, disgustedly “You forget your place! You ought to be decommissioned for this insubordination!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Victor’s outraged face and bodylanguage and (remembering that he was raised by an AI, from his background check) I make to cut him off before he says anything rash to the tiresome woman!
I’m beaten to the punch, however, by Tcakqaal “Sister, Twila is my employee, my friend and a citizen of the Galactic Union… vested with all the rights that entails… it is most certainly against the law to murder crew members for simple unapproved deviations from course in the GU, is it not?… Also, not that it matters but she had my approval before she undertook this action… Do not be so quick to assume things.”
Seething at the effortless undermining of her authority icily delivered by her junior, the elder R’qali says nothing.
Looking back from the woman he came a hair’s breadth from exploding at just now, seeming satisfied that Twila’s honour was sufficiently defended by their employer, Victor asks “So… I assume we took the next left turn back onto the right track and they did as well, in a way that wouldn’t’ve made sense if they weren’t tailin’ us, Twila?”
“Exactly Victor!” smiles Twila “Though… there isn’t really such a thing as ‘left’ in space… I took the next ‘galactic North’ turn(!)”
“You’ll have to forgive my navigational laymanship(!)” he quips back “So… what’re we thinkin’?”
“Maybe we could call the authorities and have them board it?” suggests Tuun.
“There are a few problems with that:…” I smile kindly at her “…First, the evidence we have, though it seems quite conclusive to us, would sound fairly flimsy if we tried to relay it to a third party, they might wave us off as pranksters or think that we’re being paranoid. Second, there is a possibility that our shadows, here, don’t actually know that Lhamo and I are aboard and that broadcasting that information may lead to them marking us as their actual target. Third, there’s the possibility that, if we can get the authorities to take this seriously, the ship goes dark and we don’t see them again until they’re bearing down on us!”
“Right, obviously… sorry…” answers the blue skinned girl, gently beating her temples with her upper fists, the left of which is adorned by a sparkling ring.
“You’ve said nothing to apologise for. It was a sensible suggestion, Tuun.” I reassure her.
She smiles.
“Could we outspeed them? Make them lose our trail?” shrugs Yuán nonchalantly, clearly not caring at all if he sounds foolish with regard to the particulars of interstellar travel.
“Not possible I’m afraid…” answers Twila “…while I can’t tell the make and model of the ship they’re in, at this range, I can easily tell its maximum speed is higher than ours. Even if we could surprise them long enough to get out of their sensor range, it would take weeks for our ion trail to dissipate sufficiently for them not to be able to track it anymore. If we were to play that game with them, we would be risking leading them straight to the new planet!”
“Which is something we obviously want to avoid…” states the Tibetan woman on my right “…I don’t know exactly how a Terran supremacist organisation would react to news of a new deathworld species but I think the two most likely possibilities are that they’ll either try to recruit them as allies or exterminate them as rivals!… Both are, pretty much, worst case scenarios!…”
“So… we can’t outrun them and we can’t get the authorities involved… what does that leave?” asks the Gollogng ambassador.
“Well… I have a plan…” offers Twila, tentatively.