Star Trader Update .015

015.01

“Sam? Get them off of us, now!” I yelled from the bridge. The iisadsu were not afraid of Ma-rye-a. They had attacked the ship as soon as she entered the level of the atmosphere that the iisadsu inhabited. I didn’t think they could do much damage, but I was in a pissy mood. It was as though they had expected us.

What they didn’t expect was Sam’s electrical pulse coming through Ma-rye-a’s outer hull. When he fired, their stunned bodies were blown off her like shooflies off a bug zapper. That action kept the rest at bay until we landed. There were a horde of them. The sky was full of the winged beings circling over Ma-rye-a like so many vultures over a carcass, but we weren’t dead yet. Not by a long shot.

“Ma-rye-a, now that we are down can you locate Attalla?” I asked.

“He is approximately 50 yards in front of us and 100 feet down,” she replied without hesitation.

I looked out the viewport in front of us. All I could see was a slip of the sandy beach and then the ocean.

“He’s underwater?” I asked in disbelief over the den of the iisadsu as they hammered on the hull with their makeshift weapons.

“Yes,” Ma-rye-a replied evenly. “I detect an underwater cave. He is still alive, though his pulse is a bit irregular,” she continued.

“Underwater?” I asked again, even though I had heard her the first time. “100 feet?” I didn’t have any scuba gear aboard. How was I going to get to him? How would I get him back to the surface?

I was trying to think my way through the problem when I heard, “3su?”

“Attalla?” I answered back. “Are you all right?”

“A bit damaged, but still alive thanks to Tt’i.” Attalla spoke in my head. “Do you know where I am?”

“Ma-rye-a says you are about 100 feet underwater directly in front of us. We are on the beach. I had to bring Ma-rye-a down. Sam is going to remotely retrieve the pod.” I automatically took a breath even though I was thinking rather than speaking. “I have no way of getting to you. Can you make it to the surface?”

“Tt’i is with me. I can get him to bring me if you can run interference to keep the iisadsu at bay.”

“Consider it done,” I confirmed. “They’re already having second thoughts about messing with Ma-rye-a. We’ll give them more to think about before you crest.”

There was a void in my mind as I felt Attalla leave me. A few moments later he was back.

“We’re coming up,” he announced. “See you in a few minutes.”

“Sam, get ready to lay cover fire for Attalla. He’s on his way up,” I ordered. “I don’t want any of those iisadsu getting to him.”

I ran to my cabin and pulled my blaster from the holder by the door. I was shouting orders as I ran to the escape hatch strapping my blaster on.

“Ma-rye-a retrieve the pod. Horus, help her if you can. Carrie get Attalla’s room ready, raise the temp and warm the blankets.” As an afterthought, I spoke to Moby. “Moby?”

“I’m whipping up a nice warming soup and some of the Ambassador’s favorite herb biscuits,” Moby piped in.

“Good man,” I complimented him.

I went into Attalla’s room as I passed to check on Chee. She was still asleep and oblivious to the activity around her. I was thankful that Attalla left her in my care. He surely would have lost her in whatever event had taken him down 100 feet underwater.

I pressed the panel release by the side escape hatch. “Ma-rye-a?”

“He is within 20 feet of the surface,” she updated me.

“Sam, cover me. I’m going out the south hatch.” I threw my legs over the sill and dropped to the sandy beach below.

*****

015.02

The iisadsu were falling all around me. If I hadn’t hit them with my blaster Sam was picking them off with his from the mounted turrets on Ma-rye-a. We were all set on stun. I didn’t mind wreaking havoc, but I didn’t want to start an intergalactic incident. I was in for a rescue, not murder.

I ran a zigzagged pattern through the downed bodies jumping over unfurled wings and outstretched appendages.

I was headed toward the water when one caught me by the shoulders and started to lift me up off the ground. I raised my weapon and stunned him in the chest. We both fell about 6 feet. I struggled momentarily below him trying to get through the feathers and the tangle of a being made up of six foot wings.

I glimpsed Attalla, and someone I assumed was Tt’i, break the surface. Attalla looked like he had been pulled through a keyhole backwards. I ran to take him from Tt’i because he obviously needed help to even remain standing. Sam continued to rake the flock of iisadsu.

To my surprise, as soon as I reached Attalla Tt’i’s people all popped to the surface. They were armed with nets and tridents. They started in on the iisadsu and they were not as kind as Sam and I were. They were out for the kill. Before I could get Attalla to shore the shallow waters of the beach were red with the iisadsu’s blood.

“Lean on me,” I comforted Attalla. “It’s just a few yards.”

I wasn’t sure Attalla could see or had heard me. He had a huge open gash on his forehead above his right eye. That whole side of his face was bloody, bruised and swollen. I was sure he couldn’t see out of that eye.

Just as one of the iisadsu dove for us, Attalla stumbled and went down. I thought we were caught until I heard the cry and saw the iisadsu over shoot us and hit the sand in a pile of tangled wings – a trident through his chest.

I quickly gathered up Attalla and we made it the last few yards to the ship. Sam manned the entry and took down several more of the enemy before he could get the door closed behind us. Once inside I felt we had a measure of safety. I dragged Attalla down the hall to his room and onto the bed. After staunching the blood flowing from his head I got him out of his wet clothes and wrapped him up in warm blankets Carrie had prepared.

The soup and some hot tea appeared in the prep unit at the foot of the bed. I propped Attalla up and tried in vain to spoon soup into him to take the chill off. He was shivering and as far as I could see unconscious. He had not spoken to me physically or mentally since I grabbed him at the water’s edge.

“Ma-rye-a, please raise the temp a couple of degrees in here,” I said.

“Done,” Ma-rye-a confirmed. “Should I lay in a course for the nearest Mother Ship?”

Mother Ships are the traveling hospital ships of our universe. “Is there one close?”

“Two Q’s,” Ma-rye-a confirmed. “We could be there in eight hours if we jump at the window at Trade post #89.”

Jumping was not my idea of fun. You could get into a lot of trouble if you didn’t do it right or worse yet, the person before you hadn’t done it right and their derelict ship was floating at the other end of the window just waiting for you to crash into it upon exiting.

I looked down at Attalla. His injuries were way beyond what I could handle. I pulled the covers up higher under his chin.

“Take us out,” I said. “Call me to the bridge before you make the jump. Until then I am going to stay here with Attalla.”

*****

015.03

I sat on the bridge crying uncontrollably. Attalla was dead. He had never regained consciousness. He just quietly slipped away. I was sobbing so hard I did not hear Ma-rye-a’s soothing voice. I didn’t register Moby’s offer of tea. I didn’t acknowledge Sam asking me if he should remove the body for refrigeration.

All I could see and hear in my head were the times Attalla had comforted me - the sound of his laughter as he threw morsels for Chee to catch. The tiny mahserg was wrapped around my neck trying to give and receive comfort from me. I had no doubt that she knew Attalla was lost to us both.

I reached up and stroked her soft fur. She trilled and nosed the palm of my hand affectionately.

I wanted to turn Ma-rye-a around and go back to blast those feathered freaks to the four corners of the verse. I wanted revenge. I wanted, for the first time in my life to kill.

“Ma-rye-a, lay in a course back to Ambassador Attalla’s home planet. Contact his superiors – I want to talk to them as soon as possible. They have to be updated on the situation.”

“Immediately,” Ma-rye-a confirmed.

I absentmindedly stroked Chee again. She unwrapped herself from around my neck and perched on my shoulder. I had to pull myself together. My crew and Chee were depending on me. As much as I wanted to wreck havoc on Attalla’s killers, I couldn’t. I had to go through proper channels. I had to stay calm - rein in my anger and all the pent up emotions.

“I’m going to get Chee something to eat. Patch the call into me in the galley when you get them.”

Taking care of Chee would calm me down. Knowing she depended on me now would keep me headed straight.

I picked up the mug of tea from the prep unit and headed for the mess. Tomorrow, next day at the latest, we would see that justice was done.

*****

015.04

I had no idea three days ago, that I would be picking up a replacement for Attalla when I contacted his home world. After I reported the death of Attalla and detailed all I knew of the incident, my government contact told me to report immediately to pick up a ‘replacement Ambassador.’ That is how they had phrased it ‘replacement Ambassador,’ as if Attalla could be replaced like a faulty part on a hyper drive. It irritated me – no, it made me downright angry, but I had a contract and I wasn’t about to acquire any bad credits for not following through on my mission.

Here it was three days later and I was at the rendezvous point as instructed.

“Permission to come aboard?” a familiar voice asked.

“Sam?” I asked.

“The pod is off our port bow,” Sam confirmed.

“Permission granted,” I replied as I mentally scratched me head. “I’m coming down, Sam.”

I reached the bay just as the new Ambassador’s pod pulled in. The engines shut down. I waited for the Ambassador to immerge.

My brain had just enough time to register that it was Attalla that had immerged from the pod before I did a most annoying female thing, I fainted dead away. 

*****

015.05

“She’s coming around,” I heard Ma-rye-a announce.

“I’ve had people be surprised, but I have never had anyone faint before,” I heard Attalla say to Ma-rye-a.

“She was very fond of your predecessor,” Ma-rye-a said.

I was just awake enough to think this was a very odd conversation. When I opened my eyes I found myself lying on the bed in my cabin with Attalla sitting on a chair at my side.

“Are you all right?” Attalla asked. I noted that Chee had left me and was curled affectionately around Attalla’s neck.

“I held you when you died,” I said in a stunned voice. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that Attalla had arrived from the surface and was sitting at my side when I knew his body was in stasis below decks in the storage bay.

“No,” Attalla said. “You held Attalla Five when he died. I am Attalla Six.”

“They are clones,” Ma-rye-a tried to explain. “There has been an Ambassador Attalla for over five hundred years.”

“There was an original Attalla centuries ago,” Attalla picked up the thread of the story. “Number One was elected by the people. He was a popular and effective Ambassador. He managed to establish treaties that others before him found impossible to accomplish. He brought peace and prosperity to the solar system. It was decided that the system could not live without his wisdom and guidance. Doctors and scientists were commissioned to clone him so that the people would never be without his leadership. There is always a new Attalla ready to step in and take over. We all have his collective memory, his morals, and his general outlook. Of course, we do have individual experiences when we venture out from the collective.”

“How many Attalla’s are there?” I asked coming up on one elbow to a sitting position.

“Currently, me and three others,” Attalla answered. He offered me a glass of water supplied by Moby from the prep unit. “The cloning is spaced out so the people have one available anytime we are needed to take over. I am approximately ten years younger than Attalla Five. Seven is ten years younger than me and Eight is ten years younger than Seven.”

I shook my head to his offer of a drink.

“Nine is ten years younger and Ten is currently being cloned. He is in the tube still,” Attalla finished.

Whether it was the shock, or the so-matter-of-fact explanation of the loss of someone I thought was so special and unique, I started to cry. Even though I had only known him a few months, I loved him. I could have become very attached to him.

“Please, don’t cry,” Attalla soothed. “Five will be missed, but he is not gone. I am the better part of him and can hopefully settle the dispute between the iisadsu and the oacoco.”

Six was mistaken. He was just a copy of the man I knew. The man I knew was a product of his personal experiences and he was gone.

*****

015.06

It is very uncomfortable having Attalla Six onboard. I have tried to see things from his point of view – from his people’s point of view, but I just can’t. Attalla Six unsettles me as much as Attalla Five seemed to fit in.

It is not that the current Attalla has not tried to fit in – he has. He explained to me that only the current Ambassador is active in public, the rest of them live together in a compound on the home planet. They eat, sleep and school together in order to have similar memories from which to draw. The active Attalla comes home each night to the compound and tells the others all about his encounters and decisions during the day to keep all the others in the loop.

It was told my Attalla kept a journal and sent daily reports back to the compound via his sub-space com-link along with his reports to his superiors. The current Attalla knew everything about my ship and crew – however, it seems he and his ‘brothers’ were not privy to Attalla Five’s feeling for me. My Attalla kept those to himself. Attalla Six is blissfully ignorant of what was developing between us.

Chee lived with them all. She has had no trouble adjusting – in fact, she is happier now that Attalla Six is aboard.

However, I cannot feel for this stranger in the same way I felt for his predecessor no matter how much alike they seem to be. He is not the Attalla I shared meals with or played CU or drank tea. He is his own version of the man I loved. Unlike Chee, for me, they are not interchangeable.

We will arrive at the iisadsu planet shortly. I hope he is more successful than my Attalla in reaching a treaty. I do not care to meet Attalla Seven. I wish to be done with this mission and away as soon as possible.

*****

015.07

“Ma-rye-a said she did not detect you sleeping,” Sam said as introduction for his intrusion into my bedroom so late at night.

“No, I’m awake,” I answered. “What’s up?”

“I have been very unsettled by this new Attalla,” Sam started to explain.

“As have I,” I interjected.

“There is a box in his room that I cannot access. It makes me very uncomfortable.”

This statement from an AI, even if it was my security AI, made me extremely uncomfortable.

“What do you think is in the box?” I asked Sam to hypothesize.

“We think it is a weapon of some sort,” Horus chimed in.

Horus rarely spoke unless I asked him to assist in decision making. They obviously had been working on this among themselves.

“I have suggested he might be armed to protect himself from the iisadsu that killed Attalla Five,” Ma-rye-a said. “It would be a very logical thing to do.”

“He is an ambassador,” Carrie joined in. “He shouldn’t carry a weapon. Isn’t it against their code?”

“It is in other galaxies, but I don’t know about this one.” I was confused. I had been living in a state of confusion since ‘this’ Attalla arrived.

“I checked the regulations. It is against policy, but not forbidden,” Sam advised us all.

 “So, I can see you have all been talking about this – what do you suggest we do?” I asked.

“I just don’t know if we want to be a part of this any longer,” Horus said. His voice sounded concerned - firm. Of course, that was the way Daniel programmed him in order to make him appear a better decision maker.

“I don’t know how we could get out of it at this late date,” I said.

“We’ll be there by morning,” Ma-rye-a sighed resignation.

“I wanted to bring this up earlier, but…”

Sam was interrupted by Horus.

“I advised waiting. It is my fault,” Horus said. “I wanted to give Ambassador Attalla an opportunity to tell you of his plans. Unfortunately, he has not been forthcoming.”

“Well, I must admit that I would not go back to the planet without a weapon either,” I confessed to my crew. “I do not think anyone is safe in so volatile a situation.”

“I don’t think it is that kind of a weapon,” Sam started to clarify. “We’re not talking a handgun here.”

“I looked directly at Sam’s monitor. “What do you think it is?”

“The box is hermetically sealed,” Sam said. “We think it is some sort of chemical weapon.”

*****

015.08

“As captain of this ship, I insist you show me the contents of that box.” I emphasized my demand by pointing to the locked box in Attalla’s cabin.

“I am afraid I am unable to comply with your request,” Attalla answered formally as he picked up the box and headed past me to the pod bay.

We had arrived less than an hour ago, at our destination, and he was on the move.

 “I will return in approximately one of the planet’s revolutions,” he said over his shoulder to me. “Until then remain onboard your ship,” he ordered in a commanding voice unlike any I had ever heard from Attalla Five.

“Attalla,” I called to his receding back, “I am going to lodge a formal complaint with the Galactic Forces if you do not tell me what your plan is and what you are doing.” I knew it was an idle threat. This galaxy had been at peace for hundreds of years. They did not even belong to the Galactic Forces treaty group – hence the existence of the Attallas.

He put down the box onboard and pushed me back off the platform of his pod.

“Stay here,” he ordered. “Ma-rye-a, are you recording?” he asked.

“Affirmative,” she replied.

He looked me directly in the eyes.

“I will not be responsible for your safety should you follow me down to the planet’s surface. I am officially ordering you to stay onboard your ship until I return.”

With that, he turned and entered the pod – the hatch firmly clanging shut behind him. I heard the lock engage and had just barely enough time to duck behind the booster shield before he hit his thrusters and was gone – on his way to the planet’s surface.

*****

015.09

“3su,” Ma-rye-a called. “I am picking up a large transport ship on the other side of the planet.”

“I’ll be right there,” I answered as I hurried toward the bridge. I literally skidded to a spot in front of the bridge console.

“I don’t see anything,” I said as I scanned the readouts.

“They are making a point of keeping the planet between us and them. I just caught a glimpse a moment ago,” Ma-rye-a said. “I am sure it was a mistake on their part that I got that much.”

“Did you get any ID on it?”

“It’s a Class 8 Battle Cruiser,” Ma-rye-a said. “She won’t talk to me, but I got a scan off and she’s fully loaded.”

“And from Attalla’s planet,” I guessed.

“Correct,” Ma-rye-a confirmed.

“I am liking this less and less,” Sam piped in.

“Me too,” I agreed.

“Ma-rye-a, can you scan the planet and locate Attalla Six?” I asked.

“I have been tracking him since he left the bay. He did not go to any of the iisadsu communities. He seems to be flying in a mid-atmosphere, circular pattern around the equator of the planet.”

“What is he up to?” I asked.

“He’s disbursing the chemical,” Sam said confidently. “That ship hiding on the other side of the planet is a cleanup crew.”

Sam is programmed to think that way, but I couldn’t believe that. Would a race as advanced as Attalla’s kill off a whole other species? In what universe is that right?