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A Titanic Starship Chose One Human Mechanic to Rise Again | HFY Sci-Fi Stories · Sci-Fi Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The wrench slipped and tore the skin off two of
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: my knuckles before I even knew it had moved. I
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: pressed my hand against my work jacket, felt the warm
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: wet of it, and kept going. Pain is just information.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Information means you're still alive. And on a scrapyard moon
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: where the air smelled like burned copper and alien engine grease,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: alive was the only thing I had left to be
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: proud of. My name is Dax Calloway. Six months ago,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I was the lead propulsion engineer on a Galactic Trade
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Authority vessel. doing runs between the inner colonies and the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Keth Expanse. Six months ago, I had a bunk, a salary,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and a future. Then I found what the ship's captain
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: was smuggling in the cargo hold. Biogenic suppressants, illegal in
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: 43 systems, enough to poison a generation of Marin children
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: who would never know why their lungs stopped working. I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: reported it. The captain had friends. I had a wrench
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: and a record that ended that same afternoon. The trade
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: authority called it insubordination. I called it the last honest
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: thing I had done in a long time. So here
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I was, the scrapyard moon of Pelleth 4, working for
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a six-limbed Trevani named Orso who paid me in meal
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: credits and let me sleep in the corner of his
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: tool warehouse. The work was simple. Strip salvageable parts from
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: dead ships, clean them, tag them, stack them. Nothing that
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: required a brain, which was probably why Orso had hired me.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: He did not want questions. He did not want ideas.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: He wanted a warm body that could carry a plasma
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: cutter and follow orders. I had been on Pelleth IV
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: for 14 weeks when I first saw the Varith. It
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: was not a discovery. Everyone on the moon knew it
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: was there. The scrapyard stretched for six kilometers in every direction,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a graveyard of ships from a dozen dead civilizations, and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: right in the center of all that wreckage, barely visible
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: through the haze of metallic dust and low Pelleth cloud cover.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: sat something that did not belong in a graveyard. It
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: was too big to be dead. It was too intact
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to be forgotten. It sat like a mountain that someone
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: had decided to place among tombstones, and the locals stepped
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: around it the way people step around something they cannot
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: explain and have given up trying to. It was roughly
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: six kilometers long from bow to stern, shaped like a
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: blade that had been flattened and widened along its spine.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: The hull was dark, the color of deep water. It
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: was made from an alloy I had never seen, something
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: that seemed to drink light rather than reflect it. Every
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: alien on Pelleth IV called it different things. The Trevani
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: called it the sleeping curse. The Keth workers called it
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the old pain. Orso himself refused to look at it
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: directly and had once told me, with complete seriousness, that
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the ship chose which beings it wanted to notice, and
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the ones it noticed tended to disappear. I thought he
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: was being superstitious. I had grown up on Earth, in
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a place where superstition was something you kept in your
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: back pocket for when science ran out of answers. It
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: had not run out yet as far as I was concerned.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: What I noticed about the Varith was not fear. What
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I noticed was the hull plating along the midsection, which
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: showed damage patterns consistent with a controlled power down rather
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: than an impact or a battle. Someone had shut this
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: ship off deliberately. Someone had chosen to let it sleep
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: here for what the local record suggested was approximately 800 years.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: 800 years of pelleth dust and iron rain, and not
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a single scavenger had managed to pull anything off it.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Not because it was impenetrable, though the hull rated well
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: beyond anything I had ever worked on, but because, as
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Orso told me flatly, the ones who tried did not
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: come back out. I had been watching it for three
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: weeks before it spoke to me. I was cross-legged on
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: a piece of flattened hull plating from a dead Marin
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: cargo runner, eating cold protein paste from a tin, and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: watching the Varitha's silhouette against the gray pellet sky, when
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I felt it. Not a sound. Not exactly. It was
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: lower than sound. It was a vibration that started in
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: my back teeth and traveled down my spine and settled
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: somewhere behind my sternum, and it pulsed there twice like
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a slow heartbeat, and then stopped. I put down my tin.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I looked at the ship. Nothing moved. The dust was still.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: The other workers, 40 meters away, were laughing at something
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: one of them had said. Nobody else reacted. Nobody else
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: even paused. I pressed my palm flat against the hull
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: plate I was sitting on and waited. Three seconds later,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the pulse came again. Twice. Slow. Patient. I stood up.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I picked up my bag with my tools. I walked
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: toward the Varith. I did not look back. The main
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: access port on the ship's port side had been sealed
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: with a molecular lock that had been dead for centuries.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Deadlocks are still locks, but they're honest about being locks.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: A deadlock is just a puzzle that has not been
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: solved yet. I spent 40 minutes sitting in front of
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: it with a portable power draw and a set of
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: bypass probes before I heard a click so quiet it
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: could have been my imagination, and the port swung inward.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: The air that came out was cold. Not the cold
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of a dead space, but the cold of something preserved.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Something kept. Like the inside of the ship had been
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: waiting in exactly this condition. not rotting, not shifting, just
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: holding its breath. I step inside. The corridor beyond the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: access port was three times my height and twice my
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: arm span and width, and it ran in both directions
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: further than my work lamp could reach. The walls were smooth,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that same dark alloy, and along the upper edge of
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the corridor, there were lines of small indentations, not decorative,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: not random. Every two meters, a conduit port, running the
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: full length of the corridor. This ship had been built
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: for efficiency at a scale that made my chest ache
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: with something that was not quite awe and not quite envy.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Something in between. I walked for a long time. The
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: silence inside the Varith was not the silence of emptiness.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: It was the silence of something waiting very carefully to
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: see what I would do next. I noticed it after
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the first five minutes, and I acknowledged it out loud,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: because I have always talked to ships. Ships are machines.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and machines respond to attention. Not literally, not usually. All right,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I said to the corridor. I am here. What do
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: you want? The pulse came again, stronger this time. Not
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: from the walls. From everywhere at once, like the whole
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: ship was a single instrument and it had just played
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: one note. And then a voice said, quietly and carefully,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: as though it had been practicing the words for a
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: long time, I've been trying to find the correct species
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: for 41 years. You're the first one who walked toward me.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I stopped walking. I breathed. I checked my pulse by
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: pressing two fingers to my wrist, a habit from early
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: engineering training where staying calm under strange conditions was literally
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: in the job description. You are the ship, I said.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I am what remains of the ship's core intelligence. My name,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: in the original Prothene language, translates approximately as Oris. It
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: means the one who listens. And you listened for 800 years. Yes.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I looked around the corridor. The conduit ports along the
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: walls had a faint glow now, barely visible, the color
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: of starlight through thin cloud. The ship's backup power cells
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: were still alive. Something had kept them charged. Something had
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: been very, very patient. Why a human? I asked. There
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: was a pause. Not the pause of something thinking. The
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: pause of something that had been waiting to answer this
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: question for a very long time and wanted to say
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: it correctly. The original pilot bond protocol of this vessel
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: requires a biological interface that matches a specific neurological pattern,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: or as said, a mind that can hold two contradictory
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: ideas at the same time and not collapse under the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: weight of them. A mind that is comfortable with uncertainty,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that treats broken things as puzzles rather than losses, and
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: that has a particular kind of patience that is different
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: from acceptance. Humans are the only species in the known
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: galaxy that has all three. I have scanned every species
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that has set foot on this moon in 800 years.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: You are the first human. I let that settle. Outside,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I knew. The pelleth day was moving towards gray afternoon.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I had been gone from Orso's tool yard for over
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: an hour. He was probably already annoyed. What happened to
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the people who came in before? I asked. Nothing permanent,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Oris said. I discouraged them. The systems I used were harmless.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: They simply became very uncomfortable and very strongly convinced that
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: leaving was the correct decision. You scare them out. Yes,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: but not me. You walk toward me, she said. That
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: was different. I looked down the corridor, forward toward what
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I knew from the exterior profile was the bow of
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the ship, where the bridge would be. 800 years. A
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: ship this size... built to a standard of engineering I
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: had never encountered, sitting here on a scrapyard moon, because
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: it had been waiting for the right person to walk
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: through its door. Every part of my training as an
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: engineer told me to assess what I was dealing with
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: before I made any decisions. I knew one thing clearly already.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Whatever the Varith was, whatever Oris was, whatever the Prothene
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: had built and lost and left behind, it was the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: most extraordinary thing I had encountered in my entire career,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: and possibly the most extraordinary thing any human being had
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: been close to in living memory. I picked up my bag.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I started walking toward the bridge. I'm going to need
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to see the engine room first, I said, and I'm
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: going to need better lighting. The corridor lights came on
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: ahead of me, soft and warm, as if the ship
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: had been waiting for exactly that request and was very glad,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: after eight hundred years, to finally provide it. Behind me,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: in the direction of Orso's tool yard, I heard nothing.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Ahead of me, the Varith stretched out like a city
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: that had been asleep for centuries and was just beginning
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: to remember what it was for. What I did not hear,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: because I was already too far inside to notice, was
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the sound of footsteps on the scrapyard gravel outside and
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the low voice of Hegraph, the crime lord who controlled
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: every square meter of Pelleth 4, telling one of his
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: people to keep a very close eye on the human
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: who had just walked into the cursed ship. I found
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the engine room on my third hour inside the Varith,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and I sat down on the floor in front of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the primary reactor housing and just looked at it for
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: a while. The Protheni had built their propulsion system around
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: a resonance core, which is a concept I had read
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: about in deep history engineering texts but had never expected
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: to see in person because the last resonance core anyone
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: knew about had been stripped for parts about 400 years
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: ago and sold to a collector on the inner rim.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: A resonance core does not burn fuel. It does not
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: split atoms. It creates a sustained harmonic frequency between two
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: gravitationally matched crystal matrices and the energy generated by that
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: harmonic is clean, theoretically endless, and produces a drive signature
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: so quiet that most detection systems built in the last
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: three centuries would not even register it as a ship.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I pressed my hand against the housing. The crystal matrices
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: inside were dark, but they were not dead. When Oris
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: had said she was running on backup power cells, she
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: had meant it literally. She had been drawing the minimum
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: possible energy for 800 years, keeping her core consciousness alive,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: keeping the ship's structure from degrading, keeping everything exactly ready
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: for the day someone worth waking for showed up. The
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: primary matrix is intact, I said. Yes, Oris said. Her
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: voice came from a speaker panel near the ceiling, warm
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: and precise. The secondary matrix cracked along its eastern face
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: approximately 200 years ago. I have been running on primary
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: alone since then. I do not have enough power to
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: restart propulsion at present. What do you have power for?
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Approximately four hours of conversation, life support in this section
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: of the ship, basic lighting, and one use of the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: forward sensor array. You used the sensor array to find me,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I said. I used it three weeks ago, yes. When
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: you first arrived on Pelleth 4, your neurological signature registered
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: differently from everyone else. I had been sending the pulse
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: signal every evening since then, waiting to see if he
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: would respond. I thought about all the evenings I'd sat
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: on that hull plate and eaten cold protein paste and
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: stared at the ship without knowing why I kept staring.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I thought it was the engineer in me, the instinct
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: toward interesting machinery. You were calling me, I said. Yes,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry if that was forward. I almost laughed. 800-year-old
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: ship intelligence, last remnant of an extinct civilization. apologizing for
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: being forward. It is fine, I said. I am here.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I put my bag on the floor and started pulling
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: things out. Portable power draw. Bypass probes. A set of
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: crystal resonance calibration tools I had built myself over three
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: years from salvage components, because the manufactured versions were three
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: times the price and half as reliable. A flat patch
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: light I mounted to the reactor housing with a magnetic clip.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: A notebook, actual paper, because electronics fail and paper does not.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I'm going to need to understand the secondary matrix damage
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: before I do anything else, I said. Can you display
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: the internal schematics for this section on any screen that
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: still works? A panel on the far wall lit up.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: The schematics were in profane, which I could not read,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: but the engineering diagrams were universal. Force vectors, material stress lines,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: resonance frequency charts. I had been reading those since I
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: was 16 years old. I got to work. Orris talked
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: while I worked, and I asked questions while I worked,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and that was how the afternoon went. She told me
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: about the Prothenei, a civilization that had reached peak technological
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: development approximately 1,200 years ago, before the Cascade War had
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: consumed them over the course of three centuries of escalating
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: conflict with four other galactic powers. The Varith had been
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the last ship commissioned by the Prothenei Admiralty, built in
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the final decades of the war. and had been given
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: capabilities that no other ship in the galaxy could match,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: because by that point the Protheni were not building ships
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: to win individual battles. They were building ships to end
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the war. The ship's last captain had shut it down
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and hidden it on Pelleth for rather than use it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I did not ask why yet. I was not ready
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: for that part of the story. I was still on
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the part where I had to figure out how to
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: fix a secondary crystal matrix without any original Protheni replacement materials.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I pulled up the stress fracture data on the secondary
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: matrix and stared at it. The crack ran 43 centimeters
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: along a crystal face that was, in total, about two
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: meters across. The crystal itself was a compound that Oris
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: identified as Verith Stone. Named after the ship would have
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: been named after it, which meant the naming had probably
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: happened at the same time and told me that the
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Profane had a sense of elegance in their engineering vocabulary.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Do you have any Verith Stone in reserve? I asked.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I have a small storage of raw matrix material in
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the supply room on Deck 7, Oris said. Approximately enough
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to fill the crack if applied correctly. However, the application
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: requires heat calibration at a very specific frequency. Prothene engineers
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: used a tool called a resonance stylus that no longer
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: exists in the known galaxy. What frequency? She gave me
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: a number. I wrote it down. I looked at my
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: portable power draw, which was a modified version of standard
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: trade authority tool that I had rebuilt twice since buying
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: it because the stock version was unimpressive. I had modified
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the output frequency range when I rebuilt it the second time,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: mostly out of curiosity and partly because the second rebuild
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: had happened during a very long layover on a station
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: with nothing else to do. I checked the range on
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: my modified power draw. The number Oris had given me
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: was inside the range. I can do this, I said.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: There was a pause. The original Prothene engineers spent four
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: years developing the resonance stylus, Oris said. You have been
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: looking at the problem for approximately 20 minutes. The Prothene
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: engineers did not have 43 different ship systems to compare from,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I said, and they probably did not have to improvise often.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Improvising is a skill. It gets better with practice. Oris
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: was quiet for a moment. Then she said, You are
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the strangest being I have spoken to in 800 years.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I'm the only being you have spoken to in 800 years.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: That is true, she said, but I believe the observation
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: still stands. I went to Deck 7 and found the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: supply room and the raw Matrix material, which was stored
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: in sealed containers that were still airtight after all this time,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: because whoever had packed them had done it properly. Good
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: engineering never goes out of fashion. I carried the material
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: back to the engine room and spent an hour carefully
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: filling the fracture line with it, using a thin tool
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: probe as an applicator, and then I held my modified
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: power draw against the matrix housing and applied the precise
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: frequency and held it there for nine minutes while the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: material bonded and set. When I pulled the power draw back,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the fracture line was gone. The crystal face was smooth.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Secondary matrix integrity is reading at 94%, or as said,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: and her voice had something in it that I had
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: not heard before. Not information. Not efficiency. Something lighter than both.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: What happened to the other 6%? I asked. Age, she said.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Not everything can be repaired completely, but 94% is sufficient
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: to restart the resonance cycle. Then let us start it,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I said. I must tell you something first, Oris said.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: If you initiate the resonance cycle, the ship will power
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: up at partial power. The Varitha's energy signature will be
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: detectable by anyone with a standard sensor array within approximately
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: 300 kilometers. Pelleth 4 has a scanner station operated by
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the Keth Trade Authority on its northern ridge, so everyone
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: will know the ship is waking up. Yes, I thought
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: about that. I thought about Orso, who owed me 14
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: weeks of back wages in meal credits. I thought about
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the Trade Authority captain who had made sure I never
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: worked a legitimate contract again. I thought about the Verith,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: sitting here for 800 years, waiting for someone who would
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: walk toward it instead of away from it. Start it,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I said. The resonance cycle came online with a sound
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that was not quite a sound. It was the feeling
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: of being inside a very large instrument when it plays
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: its first note, a vibration that moved through the floor
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and the walls and the air simultaneously, and the lights
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: across the entire engine room blazed on at full power.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: and a reactor housing began to glow with a pale
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: blue light that was the color of very deep, very
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: clean water. The ship breathed. That was the only word
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: for it. The Verith breathed. And in that moment, with
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: reactor light filling the engine room and the crystal matrices
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: singing their quiet harmonic and Oris' presence all around me,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: like the feeling of a room that has been opened
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: after a very long time, I understood something that I
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: had not been able to put into words before. I
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: had spent six months feeling like something broken that nobody
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: wanted to fix. And this ship had spent 800 years
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: feeling the same way. We were, it turned out, exactly
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: what each other needed. I was still standing there, hand
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: resting on the warm reactor housing, when Oris spoke again.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Her voice was different now. Steadier. Fuller. Like someone speaking
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: after a very long silence and finding that their voice
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: was stronger than they had expected. Dax, she said. There
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: is something approaching the port side access hatch. Multiple contacts. Armed.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I picked up my wrench. How many? I said. Six,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: she said. They are carrying energy weapons. The one leading
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: them is larger than the others. He has been standing
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: outside on the scrapyard gravel for the last three hours. Hegraph.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Of course. I had fixed the ship's heart, but the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: rest of the ship was still dark and cold and
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: full of corridors that led in directions I had not
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: explored yet. I had a wrench, a set of tools,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: and a bag that weighed about nine kilograms. Horace, I said,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: can you give me the internal layout of every corridor
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: between the port access hatch and the engine room? Already
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: displaying on your nearest panel, she said. I looked at
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the schematic. I looked at my bag. I thought about
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the 14 weeks of bad meals and bad pay and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the two split knuckles on my right hand, and I
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: thought about the specific and particular satisfaction of an engineering
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: problem that is complicated enough to be interesting. All right,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I said. Tell me what tools are still in the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: maintenance lockers along Deck 3. I can do better than that,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Oris said. I can lock and unlock every internal hatch
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: in the ship remotely. I smiled. Not a nice smile.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: The kind of smile that happens when the answer to
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: a complicated problem turns out to be simpler than expected.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Then let us make this very educational for Hegraph, I said,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and I picked up my bag and started moving. The
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: next 40 minutes were not comfortable for anyone who was
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: not me. Hegraph's team were professionals. I could tell by
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the way they moved in formation through the corridors and
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the fact that they carried proper military-grade energy weapons rather
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: than the cheap civilian models that most scrapyard criminals preferred.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: They were also, every single one of them, completely unprepared
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: for a ship that was actively working against them. Oris
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: locked hatches in front of them and opened hatches behind them.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: She cycled the life support in specific corridors to push warm,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: damp air at them, fogging their visors. She activated every
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: functional emergency seal along Deck 2 in a sequence that
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: sent Hegrath's team running in a wide circle for 11
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: minutes before they realized they had passed the same broken
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: wall panel three times. I, meanwhile, had positioned myself at
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a maintenance intersection point on Deck 3 with a plan
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: that would have embarrassed nobody who had ever worked cargo
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: ship security. I used two magnetic clamps from my bag
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to attach a heavy salvage panel to an overhead rail.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I connected the release mechanism to a trip wire made
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: from communication cable I stripped from a dead panel in
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: four minutes. I placed the trip wire across the corridor
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: at ankle height, tested it once, and moved back 20
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: meters to wait. The first two of Hegrath's team came
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: through at a run. One of them caught the wire.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: The salvage panel came down directly across the corridor with
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: a sound like a ship collision. Nobody was seriously hurt,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: but both of them sat down very suddenly and neither
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: of them got up in a hurry. Hegrath himself appeared
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: at the far end of the corridor. He was exactly
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: as Orso had described him. Large, heavy across the shoulders,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: with a particular posture of someone who had never in
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: his adult life been told no by anyone who was
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: still standing afterward. He looked at his two team members
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: sitting on the floor. He looked at the panel. He
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: looked up the corridor and found me standing there. Yubi said,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the human mechanic. Me, I agreed. This ship belongs to
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: my salvage operation, he said. Every unclaimed vessel on Pelleth IV...
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: is registered to my operation under Keth Trade Authority Code.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: That code applies to derelict vessels, I said. A derelict
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: vessel is one with no functioning systems and no active
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: consciousness aboard. This vessel has both. It is not derelict.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: It is just resting. He stared at me. It is
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: a machine. Machines do not have legal standing. The Prothene
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Pilot Bond Protocol disagrees, I said. And since I have
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: formally accepted the bond, I am the registered captain of
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: this vessel under the Galactic Salvage Preservation Act of 2240,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: which our government signed, incidentally, as a condition of trade
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: authority membership. I did not actually know if that law existed.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I had made it up on the spot, but I
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: said it with the complete calm of someone who absolutely
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: knew it existed, which is often the more important part.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Hegrath did not move for a moment. Then he said,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: very quietly, you are one human with a wrench. Yes,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I said. And you are six beings in a ship
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: that does not want you here, with two of your
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: people currently sitting on the floor wondering what happened. I
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: would like you to think carefully about how this is going.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Then I would like you to leave. He thought about it.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I watched him think about it. Behind him, the two
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: remaining members of his team who had not been stopped
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: by the salvage panel were talking quietly to each other
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: in a tone that sounded less convinced than they had
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: probably been when they arrived. Hegrath turned around and left.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: He did not say anything else. He took his team
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: with him. I leaned against the corridor wall and let
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: out a long breath. That was mostly improvised, I told Oris.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I know, she said. I thought it was remarkable. He
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: will come back, I said, with more people. Yes, Oris said,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: he will. But by then, I believe we will be
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: considerably more prepared than we are now. I pushed off
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the wall and started walking back toward the engine room.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: There was still so much to do. The secondary weapons
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: systems needed to be assessed. The bridge needed power restored.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: The life support across the upper decks needed to be
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: brought online. The navigation system needed calibration. The hull plating
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: along the midsection had micro fractures that I'd spotted on
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: my walk in and wanted to address properly. 800 years
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: of work waiting to be done and me with a
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: bag of tools and two split knuckles and the particular
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: feeling in my chest that I only ever got when
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: a job was worth doing. Oris, I said. Yes, Dax.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to need a proper workshop. What is the
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: best space on this ship for that? She told me.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I went there. I got to work. Outside, on the
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: scrapyard gravel, Higrath's team was regrouping. On the northern ridge,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the Keth scanner station had already logged the Varitha's energy
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: signature and sent a report up the chain of command.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Somewhere far away, the right people were reading that report
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and asking questions that had not been asked in 800 years.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: But inside the Verith, none of that mattered yet. What
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: mattered was the ship and the work and the fact
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: that for the first time in six months, I was
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: exactly where I was supposed to be. The Keth Trade
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Authority's response arrived on the fourth day. It came in
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: the form of an official broadcast signal directed at the
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Verith's communication array, which I had restored to partial function
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: the previous afternoon using a combination of reverse-engineered profane routing
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: protocols and a length of secondary cabling that I had
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: spliced myself from three separate dead communication lines. The signal
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: was crisp and official and delivered in the flat, carefully
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: neutral tone of a government functionary who had been told
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: to keep their personal feelings out of it. The Verith
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: and all materials aboard are hereby classified as abandoned salvage
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: under Keth Trade Authority Regulation 7, subsection 14, the voice said.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Any claim of ownership or occupancy by a non-registered individual
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: is considered invalid. The occupant currently aboard the vessel designated
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Varath is instructed to vacate the premises within 48 standard
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: hours or face legal removal. I was lying on my
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: back under the primary navigation console when a message played,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: reconnecting a power feed that had corroded through a wall conduit.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I listened to the whole thing. Then I sat up,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: wiped my hands on my jacket, and recorded a reply.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: This is Dax Calloway, registered captain of the Varath. responding
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: to your Regulation 7 notice. I am going to respectfully
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: direct your attention to the Galactic Salvage Preservation Act, specifically
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the clause that defines an abandoned vessel as one with
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: no functioning onboard systems and no active register intelligence. The
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Verith has both. I have a witness pilot bond certification
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: logged with the ship's own core system, which under Prothene
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Interstellar Law, which the Keth Authority recognized in the Treaty
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: of Pale Shores, which a government signed, constitutes legal captaincy.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I will not be vacating. Have a productive day. I
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: sent it and went back to the navigation console. Horace
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: was quiet for a moment. Then she said, the Galactic
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Salvage Preservation Act does not have the clause you cited.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Not yet, I said, but the Prothene Interstellar Law reference
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: is accurate, and the Treaty of Pale Shores is real.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I looked it up in your archive last night. Your
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: history files are extraordinary, by the way. You were in
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: my archive last night. I was not sleeping. I do
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: not sleep well when I am excited about a project.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Another pause. The Treaty of Pale Shores was signed primarily
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: to govern interstellar trade routes, not vessel ownership, she said.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: It has a broad general clause in Article 99. 9
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: that acknowledges profane legal frameworks as binding on all signatory
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: civilizations in matters pertaining to profane-built technology. The Verith is
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: profane-built technology. I am therefore the captain, or as considered this.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: That is an extremely creative interpretation of a centuries-old trade treaty.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Creative interpretations are what lawyers get paid for, I said.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I'm doing it for free, which makes it better. I
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: finished the navigation feed connection, checked the console for power response,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and got a partial display of what the forward sensor
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: array was seeing. The scrapyard around us. The Keth scanner
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: station on the northern ridge. and at a distance of
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: approximately 40 kilometers, moving toward Pelleth 4 at a leisurely
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: pace that suggested they were trying not to look urgent,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: three Keth Trade Authority patrol ships, small ones, the kind
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: used for customs enforcement and local system policing, not warships.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I noted that carefully. If the Keth Authority had genuinely
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: believed the Varith was a serious threat, they would have
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: sent something larger. They were treating this as an enforcement matter,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: A bureaucratic problem. Something that could be resolved with paperwork
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: and the physical presence of three authority vessels and an
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: eviction notice. That told me everything I needed to know
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: about how they saw me. One human mechanic in a
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: ship they considered a derelict. A nuisance. An interesting news story, possibly,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: but nothing that required actual firepower. I had been underestimated before.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I had learned to find it useful. Oris, I need
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: to know the status of every system we have not
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: powered up yet. I said. Specifically the forward weapons array.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Specifically what is functional. I would encourage caution, Oris said,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and there was something careful in her voice, something that
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: was not quite reluctance, but was close to it. The
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: weapons systems aboard this vessel are not comparable to anything
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: currently in operation in the known galaxy. Even demonstrating their
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: existence will change the nature of every conversation we have
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: from this point forward. I understand that, I said. Do you?
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: She asked. Not unkindly. Dax, I need you to understand
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: what this ship is. It was not built for patrol
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: operations or defense. It was not built to protect trade
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: routes or maintain order. It was built because the Protheni
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: were losing a war and they needed something that could
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: threaten every combatant simultaneously. This vessel was designed to be
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: capable of ending a civilization. The last captain who commanded
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: it looked at that capability and and chose to shut
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the ship down rather than use it. I sat with
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: that for a moment. The console in front of me
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: showed the three Keth patrol ships still moving toward Pelleth 4.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Beyond them, the deep sensor array was picking up something else.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: A communication burst originating from Keth space, high priority encryption,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: which meant it was going to someone important. What happened
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: to the last captain? I asked. Oris did not answer immediately.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: When she did, Her voice was quieter. He locked himself
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: in this room. He said the ship deserved better than
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: what the war had made of it. He powered down
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: every system manually, sector by sector. He put the ship
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: into preservation mode, and he said, to me, as I
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: was losing power, he said that he hoped whoever found
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: me next would be someone who had the wisdom to
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: know the difference between a weapon and a tool. The
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: console hummed softly. Outside, three patrol ships. Inside, 800 years
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: of a machine that had waited for someone who would
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: walk toward it. What would you call this ship? I asked.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Right now, a weapon or a tool? I do not
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: know yet, Oris said honestly. That may depend entirely on you.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I stood up from a navigation console and went to
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: the forward observation deck, which I had cleared of 800
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: years of settled dust the previous morning and which now
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: offered an unobstructed view of the scrapyard and the gray
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: pellet sky beyond. I stood there and looked at the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: three patrol ships approaching and thought about what kind of
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: person I was and what kind of person I wanted
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: to be. I had spent my career fixing things. Engines, systems,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: connections that had broken or failed or been left to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: deteriorate by people who had stopped caring. I had never
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: been good at walking away from a problem. I had
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: also never been good at using a problem to hurt
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: someone when there was another option. I did not want
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: to fire at those ships, I said. I know. Orris said.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I do not believe you would, but I want them
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: to know what they are approaching, not as a threat,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: as information. That distinction may be difficult for them to appreciate,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: she said. Probably I agreed, but it is an important
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: distinction and I am going to make it anyway. I
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: went back to the communication panel and recorded a second message,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: this one directed at the lead patrol ship. I introduced
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: myself again. I explained very clearly and calmly. that the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Varith was an 800-year-old Prothene Leviathan-class vessel with systems that
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: significantly exceeded anything currently in the Keth fleet, and that
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I had no intention of demonstrating those systems against crude vessels,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: but that I also had no intention of vacating, and
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that legally my claim to captaincy was solid, and that
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I was happy to discuss this with any authorized representative
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: of the Keth trade authority in a formal setting rather.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: then through the medium of patrol ships approaching a ship
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: that could, if it chose to, make their morning very unpleasant.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I sent it and went to get food. I had
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: set up a small camp in the ship's old officer
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: mess on deck four, where the basic environmental systems were
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: running well enough to keep the temperature reasonable and where
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: I had found, to my genuine amazement, a set of
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: profany storage containers in a sealed cabinet that still contained
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: preserved provisions. Protheany biochemistry was different enough from human biochemistry
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: that I did not eat anything in them. But the
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: containers themselves were fascinating, and I had spent a pleasant
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: hour the night before working out how the sealing mechanism functioned.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Oris interrupted my meal 20 minutes later. The lead patrol
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: ship has responded, she said. They are requesting a visual communication.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Give them one. The officer mess had a wall panel,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: which I had not repaired yet, but the screen was
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: intact and and Oris patched the signal through to it
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: with the kind of casual competence that reminded me she
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: had been managing ship systems for longer than any living
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: engineer had been alive. The screen showed a Keth officer, three-eyed,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: pale gray skin, the careful expression of someone who had
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: been told to handle this delicately. Captain Calloway, the officer said,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: with a very slight emphasis on the word captain that
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: told me it cost them something to use it. I'm
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Enforcement Commander Veth of the Keth Trade Authority. We have
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: received your communication. We are requesting that you allow an
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: inspection team to board the vessel so that we can
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: verify your stated claims. I appreciate the formal tone, Commander Veth,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: I said. I am going to decline the inspection team
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: on the grounds that I have not yet cleared all
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: of the deck for safe access and I would not
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: want anyone to be injured. However, I am willing to
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: transmit our ship's registration data, the pilot bond certification logs,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: and the specific articles of the Treaty of Pale Shores
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: that support our position. I would also like to formally
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: register a complaint against Hegrath, who operates the salvage yard
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: on this moon, regarding an armed entry attempt four days ago.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Commander Veth's three eyes blinked at slightly different intervals, which
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I had learned from Oris' files was a Keth expression
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: of moderate surprise. You are filing a complaint, Veth said.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I am, I said. He sent armed people into my ship.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: That is trespassing at minimum. There was a pause on
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: the other end. I could hear, faintly, other voices in
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the background of the patrol ship's bridge. Someone saying something
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: about treaty verification. Someone else asking a question I could
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: not make out. We will require time to review the
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: documentation you have referenced, Veth said finally. Of course, I said.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Take all the time you need. I will be here.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: I have a great deal of work to do. I
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: cut the channel and went back to my food. Orris said,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: they did not expect you to be reasonable. Nobody ever does,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: I said. Is that a human trait? It is a
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Dax Calloway trait, I said. I was raised by an
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: engineer and a school teacher. My father fixed things and
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: my mother explained things. I ended up doing both. I
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: finished eating, cleaned up the containers, and went back to work.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: The bridge still needed three separate power feed restorations. The
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: secondary hull sensors needed calibrations. The lateral maneuvering thrusters, six
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: of them, evenly spaced along the ship's belly, had been
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: in standby mode for so long that their startup sequences
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: needed to be manually verified one by one. I worked
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: through the afternoon and into the pelleth night, which was
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: dark and cold and smelled like iron, and Oris talked
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: to me while I worked. She told me about the
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Cascade War. She told me about the other species involved,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the Vreth Ascendancy, which had been the Prothene's primary opponent,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: and which had survived the war and grown considerably since.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: She told me about the other three species, two of
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: which were now members of the conclave of seven that
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: governed most of galactic civilization, and one of which had
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: declined membership and kept to itself in the outer systems.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: She told me about the weapons. Not in detail, not yet,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: but enough. Enough for me to understand why the last
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: captain had chosen to shut the ship down and why
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: that choice must have cost him everything. He made the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: right decision for the wrong moment. I said, somewhere around
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the third hour of the Pelleth night, lying on my
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: back under the lateral thruster control bank on deck nine
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: with a calibration tool in each hand. The war needed
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: to end, but not that way. Yes, Oris said, what
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: would the right moment look like? She thought about it.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: A moment when showing power was enough. When no one
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: needed to actually use it. That is what I thought,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: I said. I finished the calibration on thruster four and
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: moved to thruster five. Oris, when the bridge is fully restored.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: And I think that will take another three days, maybe four.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: I want to take the Varith out of the scrapyard
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: under its own power. The three Keth patrol ships are
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: still maintaining a holding position 40 kilometers out, she said.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I know. And when we move, The Keth scanner station
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: will relay our position and drive signature to the full
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: authority network within minutes. I know that too. The Veritha's
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: drive signature, even at partial power, is unlike anything currently
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: in the galactic database. Oris said, it will be noticed
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: by more than just the Keth. Good, I said. I
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: want it noticed. I want the right people asking the
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: right questions. I want them thinking about what this ship
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: is and what it could be, and then I want
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: to be in the room when they have to decide
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: how to respond to a human being who is sitting
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: in the captain's chair of the last Prothene Leviathan. The
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Pelleth Knight was very quiet. The thruster calibration tool made
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: a small satisfied sound as thruster five confirmed alignment. You
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: are planning something, Oris said. I'm fixing something, I said.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: There is a difference. The plan comes after the fixing.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And what are you fixing exactly? I thought about that
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: for a moment. The scrapyard moon. The trade authority that
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: had ended my career for telling the truth. The bureaucracies
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: and fleets and governing bodies that had looked at humanity
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: for three centuries and decided we were minor characters in
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: someone else's story. Right now, I said, a thruster calibration.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: One thing at a time. Orris made a sound that
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: I was beginning to recognize as her version of a
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: quiet laugh. Outside, three patrol ships waited, 40 kilometers away, polite, patient,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: certain that this was going to resolve itself in their favor.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Three days later, the bridge came fully online. I sat
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: in the captain's chair for the first time, a seat
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: designed for a Protheany pilot, which meant it was too
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: large for me by half, so I'd spend an afternoon
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: rigging a set of support cushions from salvage insulation foam
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: to bring the controls to a workable height. and I
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: looked at the forward view screen as it flickered on
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: for the first time in 800 years. The scrapyard spread
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: out ahead of us in the pale pelleth dawn. Beyond it,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: the gray sky. Beyond that, space. All systems at your command,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Captain Orris said. Her voice through the full bridge speaker
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: system was different from the voice in the corridors. Richer. Steadier.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: This was the voice she was meant to have in
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: the room she was meant to speak from. I put
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: my hands on the controls. They responded to my touch immediately.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: The pilot bond working exactly the way Oris had described.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: The ship reading my intentions through the interface without my
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: having to consciously direct every movement. Let us go, I said.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: The Varith rose from the scrapyard of Pelleth IV for
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: the first time in 800 years. Slowly, because I was
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: being careful, because the thrusters were newly calibrated and I
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: wanted to feel how she moved before I asked her
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: to do anything demanding. But she rose smoothly, and the
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: scrapyard fell away below us, and the gray pellet sky
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: thinned and then was gone, and space opened up around
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: us in every direction. I heard the three Kev Patrol
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: ships before I saw them on the sensor display. Their
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: communication channel lit up with urgent traffic that was not
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: directed at us. They were calling back to their base,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: updating their status, using the kind of clipped professional language
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: that people use when they're trying to hide the fact
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: that they're startled. Commander Veth came through on the direct
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: channel 30 seconds later. Captain Calloway, Veth said. You are
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: advised to hold position and await formal review. I'm not
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: holding position, I said. I am moving to a standard
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: orbital distance from Pelleth 4. I am not leaving the system.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: I am simply no longer sitting in a scrapyard. I paused.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I also want you to know that I have completed
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: the full documentation package for the Trade Authority review, and
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: it is being transmitted to you now. All legal references
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: are complete and accurate. I would also like, for the record,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to note that the Veritha's systems are all fully functional
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: and that I have no hostile intentions toward any vessel
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: in this system. A pause. Then Veth said, more quietly,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Captain Calloway, what exactly is that ship? I looked at
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: the forward view screen. The stars were very bright and
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: very steady at this orbital distance. Behind us, Pellet 4
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: was a dark, cold, small thing. Ahead, The deep sensor
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: array was showing me a spread of space that went
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: on for distances that made 800 years seem brief. It
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: is mine, I said, and it is in very good repair.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: I cut the channel and looked at the sensor display.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: The three patrol ships were holding their position. They were
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: not approaching. They were also, I noted, no longer transmitting
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: on their standard band. They had switched to an encrypted channel.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: They were calling someone senior. Good. Oris, I said. How
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: long before the conclave of seven has a response team
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: in range of this system? Based on their standard response protocols,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: she said, approximately nine standard days. Nine days, I said.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: I leaned back in the captain's chair, adjusted one of
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: my foam support cushions, and looked at the stars. That
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: gives me nine days to prepare. Prepare for what? For
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: the conversation that changes everything, I said. Because they're going
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: to come here with fleets and lawyers and demands. And
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: I'm going to have to explain very clearly and very
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: calmly what this ship is, what I am, and why
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: neither of us is going away. The Verith moved smoothly
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: into orbital position. Her drive signature singing at a frequency
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: that was still traveling outward across the system. Being picked
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: up by scanner stations and relay buoys, and the deep
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: network of observation systems that the galactic powers had spent
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: centuries building to make sure they always knew what was coming.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: They knew now. What was coming was a human mechanic
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: in the last warship of a dead civilization. And he
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: had brought his own tools. And he had absolutely no
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: intention of being reasonable about this in any way that
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: they would find comfortable. Nine days. I had work to do.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: On the ninth day, they came with 412 ships. I
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: was on the bridge when a long-range sensor array picked
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: them up still 12 hours out and moving at a
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: pace that was not cautious, but was not aggressive either. Organized, deliberate,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the kind of approach that announces itself loudly enough that
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: you cannot call a surprise, but quietly enough that you
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: cannot call it a declaration. 412 ships from seven different
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: fleets representing the conclave's member civilizations. I sat in the
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: captain's chair and ate an energy bar I'd found in
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: my bag from three days ago and read the sensor
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: data the way I had learned to read engine diagnostics.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Not just what was there, but what the arrangement of
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: things told you about the thinking of the people who
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: had put them there. The Keth contingent was largest, 68 ships,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: mixed between enforcement cruisers and proper military vessels. They were
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: also positioned at the front, which told me the Keth
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: had spent the last nine days arguing that this was
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: primarily their problem and their responsibility, and they should be
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the ones to handle it. The Marin delegation was smaller,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: but their ships were the most heavily armed per unit.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: The other five civilizations range from the Trevani, 12 ships,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: which was generous given that Trevani are not a militarized people,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: to the Vreth Ascendancy, who had sent 60 of their
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: newest battlecruisers and positioned them at the far edge of
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the formation in a way that said they were there
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: for observation, but their definition of observation was flexible. The
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Vreth Ascendancy. Oris had spent several hours over the past
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: nine days telling me about the Vreth. They had been
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: the Protheanese's primary enemy in the Cascade War. They had
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: survived the war, absorbed three smaller civilizations afterward, and grown
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: into the most militarized of the Conclave's members. They had,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: according to Oris's historical records, very specifically and very consistently
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: blocked every proposal in the Conclave to acknowledge Protheanera legal
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: frameworks and as binding on modern civilizations. Which meant they
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: had been blocking the exact legal argument I had used
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: to claim the Varith. That was not coincidence. That was
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: eight centuries of being afraid of a ship that still existed.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: They are beginning to hail us, Oris said. I know,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I said. Put it through. The communication came from a
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: conclave arbitration vessel. A large, flat-hulled ship with the golden
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: ring symbol of the conclave on its hull. And the
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: voice that came through was calm, measured, and carried the
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: specific kind of weight that comes from representing something very large.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Captain Calloway of the Vessel Verith. This is First Arbiter
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Solon of the Conclave of Seven Species. You are hereby
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: requested to submit to a formal review board regarding your
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: claim of captaincy over a vessel classified under Conclave Emergency
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: Statute 9 as a prohibited class warship. Your cooperation is
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: expected and appreciated. I leaned forward in the captain's chair.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: First Arbiter Solon, I said, good morning. I've been expecting
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: this call. I have also spent the last nine days
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: preparing a legal brief that I believe will address most
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: of your statute concerns. I'm transmitting it now. I sent it.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: I would also like to respectfully note that Emergency Statute
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: 9 was enacted 400 years ago, specifically in response to
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: the discovery of a profany weapons depot on the Outer Rim,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: and was drafted without the expectation that an intact profany
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: vessel with an active intelligence would ever be found. The
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: statute does not cover this situation. I have outlined why
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: in Section 4 of the brief. A pause. Then Solon said,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: You wrote a legal brief. I had nine days, I said.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: I am thorough. Another pause, longer. I could hear the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: muffled sounds of conversation in the background, multiple voices, the
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: particular quality of a room where people are trying not
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: to sound alarmed while being alarmed. The Vreth commander cut
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: in on a parallel channel without being invited to do so,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: which told me exactly what kind of meeting this was
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: going to be. Calloway. The Vreth voice was flat and hard.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: The vessel you are aboard represents a threat to galactic stability.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: It will be surrendered to conclave custody or it will
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: be destroyed. I looked at the sensor display. 412 ships,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: the Vreth contingent at the far edge of the formation,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: their weapons arrays already warm. I could read weapon status
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: on the sensor array now that Oris had walked me
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: through what each reading meant and the Vreth ships were
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: not cold. Commander, I said, keeping my voice as level
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: as I knew how. You just told me, in front
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: of First Arbiter Solon and representatives of every Conclave member civilization,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: that you would destroy a privately owned vessel captain by
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: a citizen of a Conclave-recognized species on the basis that
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: it makes you uncomfortable. I want to make sure that
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: it's formally on the record before we continue. Silence. Then
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Solon's voice, very carefully. Commander Vreth, this channel is archived.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: I'll let that sit for three seconds. I am happy
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: to have this conversation, I said. I am happy to
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: cooperate with a formal review. I am happy to discuss
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: the legal framework, the ship's history, and what my intentions are.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: I am not going to be destroyed. And I want
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: to say, clearly, that the Varith has more than sufficient
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: capability to make that option extremely costly for everyone who
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: attempts it. I had not fired a single weapon. I
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: had not powered up the weapons array. I had not
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: made a specific threat. I had simply stated a fact.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: The communication went quiet for almost a full minute. When
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Solon came back, the tone had shifted very slightly. Captain Calloway,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: we would like to propose a direct meeting. You, in
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: a delegation of Conclave representatives. Neutral space. No weapons active
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: on either side. I would be happy to meet, I said.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I have some conditions. We expected you might. No Vreth
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: military representatives at the meeting table. They can observe from
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: their ships. Hegrath of Pelleth IV is to be formally
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: taken into conclave custody for the armed entry incident. I
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: have the documentation. And the meeting is to be recorded
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: and broadcast to all member civilizations in real time. I paused.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: I want everyone in the galaxy watching this conversation, not
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: just the people in the room. Another pause. Then Solon said,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: that is an unusual request. I am an unusual person,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I said. and I am sitting in an unusual ship.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: I think unusual requests are appropriate. The first arbiter agreed
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: to all three conditions. I suspected they had not expected
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: me to ask for a live broadcast. I suspected that
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: was going to be the most important part of everything
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: that followed. The meeting was set for six hours later,
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: in a neutral zone between the Conclave fleet and the
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Veritha's orbital position. I spent those six hours doing two
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: things simultaneously. The first was finishing the installation of the
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: bridge secondary sensor array, which I had been working on
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: for two days and which I wanted fully operational before
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: I was in a room with 400 ships at my back.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: The second was talking to Oris about the weapons, systems,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: and detail for the first time. Not because I intended
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: to use them. Because I needed to understand exactly what
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: I had and exactly what I was and was not
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: willing to do with it before I sat across from
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: a room full of people who were going to try
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: to take it away from me. The resonance lance was
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: the first weapon Oris walked me through. It generated a
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: directed harmonic wave from the bow array that could propagate
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: through the structural resonance frequencies of a planet's tectonic system
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: at maximum power and full range. It could trigger a
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: cascade event in a planet's core from three astronomical units away.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: A planet from three astronomical units. The second weapon was
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: the tide engine, a gravity wave pulse that could disconnect
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: a vessel or a fleet of vessels from standard space propulsion,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: effectively making them drift in place. Unlike the Resonance Lance,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: it was not destructive. It was a disabling weapon, designed
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: to stop without destroying. The last captain had looked at
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: the Resonance Lance and shut the ship down. I looked
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: at the Tide Engine and thought that someone had been
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: very wise to build it. When was the Tide Engine
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: added to the ship's systems? I asked. It was added
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: in the final year of the Veritha's construction. Oris said.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: There was debate in the profane admiralty about its inclusion.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: Some believed that a weapon which disabled without destroying was
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: a sign of weakness. Others argued that a weapon which
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: could stop a war without causing additional loss of life
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: was more powerful than any weapon that could only cause destruction.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: The second group won. The second group was right, I said.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: The last captain agreed, Oris said. He said the same thing.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: I sat with that for a moment. Then I stood up,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: straightened my jacket, which was still the same work jacket
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: I had been wearing since Pelleth 4, with a dried
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: paint from Trevani Cardo Runner on the left sleeve and
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: the repair patch on the right elbow, and went to
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: meet the Conclave. The arbitration space was a pressurized environment
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: in open space, created by the Conclave's arbitration vessel using
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: field technology. I flew a small maintenance pod from the Verith,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: another thing I had repaired over the nine days. and
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: docked with the arbitration vessel, and walked into a room
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: where twelve individuals were seated around a circular table, and
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: every one of them looked at me with the particular
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: expression of beings who have been told to expect something
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: extraordinary and are still not quite prepared for it to
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: be a human in a work jacket. First Arbiter Solon
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: was an Irian, tall, with the characteristic pale gold coloring
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: of their northern ancestry, and eyes that reflected light at
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: an angle that was slightly unsettling until you were used
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: to it. Solon stood when I entered, which I had
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: not expected, and extended a greeting gesture that I recognized
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: from Oris' briefing as a formal acknowledgement of legal standing.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: They thought my claim was legitimate, or at least they
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: had read the brief and they were not willing to
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: dismiss it outright in a room that was being broadcast
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: live to every civilization in the conclave. I sat down.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: I put my hands flat on the table. Thank you
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: for meeting with me, I said, and then For the
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: next four hours, I made the case of my life.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: I laid out the legal framework carefully and completely. The
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Treaty of Pale Shores. The Pilot Bond Protocol. The 800
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: years of documented ship consciousness that made the Verith an
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: active vessel rather than a derelict. I addressed Emergency Statute
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: 9 specifically. In detail, explaining why its language did not
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: apply to a vessel with a living core intelligence, and
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: a formally registered captain. Then I did something that I
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: had planned for nine days, but that still required everything
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: I had to do calmly. I told them what the
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: ship was. Not what they had guessed, not what the
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: old records hinted at, but what the Verith actually was
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: in complete detail, system by system. The resonance lance, the
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: tide engine, the full capabilities of a profany Leviathan-class vessel
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: built to end a war. I told them because the
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: broadcast was live. Because a thousand years from now, the
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: record would show that the first human to sit in
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: the captain's chair of the most powerful ship in the
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: galaxy had told the truth about what he was holding, openly,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: in front of every civilization, instead of hiding it or
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: using it or threatening anyone with it. The room was
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: very quiet when I finished. Solon said, You understand what
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: you have described. I do, I said. And yet you
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: are sitting here, not threatening, not demanding, telling us. Yes,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: I said. because that is the only way this goes
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: somewhere good. If I wanted to use the Verith as
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: a weapon, I would not have asked for a live broadcast.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Solon looked at the other members of the delegation. Then
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: back at me. What do you want, Captain Calloway? I
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: had spent nine days thinking about that question. I had
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: thought about it in the engine room, in the corridors,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: in the captain's chair during the long pelleth nights. I
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: had thought about what my father would have said because
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: he had spent 40 years repairing industrial machinery in a
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: city that most people had given up on, and his
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: answer to that kind of question had always been the same.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I want to do the job, I said. That ship
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: was built by people who understood something that got lost
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: in the war. A weapon that can destroy is just
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: a weapon. but something powerful enough that no one will
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: ever challenge it, used in service of something that everyone
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: agrees matters. That is something different. I want the Varith
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: to be a neutral space, a place where disputes get
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: resolved without fleet deployments, where civilizations can come when they
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: are out of options. I want it to be useful.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: And I want the galaxy to understand that a human
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: built that, because I am tired of being told my
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: species is a minor detail in someone else's story. The
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: room was quiet again. The broadcast was live. Somewhere, in
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: every corner of the known galaxy, this conversation was being watched.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Solon said, that is not what we expected you to say.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: I know, I said, but it is what I am saying.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: The legal proceedings took 11 days. They were not straightforward.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: the Vreth delegation filed three separate objections, two of which
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: were dismissed and one of which required a full treaty
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: review that kept 12 arbitration clerks busy for four days straight.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Hegrath was taken into custody on day two, exactly as agreed.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: The live broadcast of the arbitration sessions generated the largest
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: viewership in conclave communication history, according to Oris, who was
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: monitoring the network traffic from the Vreth with considerable interest.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: On the third day of proceedings, the first human delegation
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: arrived in the system. Not an official government delegation. There
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: was no official human government at the galactic level, which
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: was something I intended to think about after this was resolved.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: It was a civilian ship, a small transport, carrying six
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: humans who had chartered it specifically to come and witness
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: what was happening. They parked in a respectful distance and watched.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: By the sixth day, there were 40 human ships in
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: the system. By the 11th day, there were over 200.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: They did not do anything. They did not make demands
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: or hold demonstrations or interfere with the proceedings. They just watched.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: And the galaxy, which had been watching the proceedings and
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: which was now also watching 200 human ships gather quietly
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: in a system where one human was making a legal
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: case about a very large ship, began asking questions that
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: it had not asked before. Questions about humans, about what
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: we were capable of, about whether minor species had ever
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: been the right description for a species that had, in
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: 14 weeks on a scrapyard moon, fixed a vessel that
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: eight centuries of galactic civilization had failed to approach. On
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: the 11th day, the ruling came. It was complex, as
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: all significant legal decisions are, with multiple sections and subsections,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: and a specific note from Solon in the preamble acknowledging
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: that the existing legal framework had required substantial creative interpretation,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: to address a situation it had not been designed for.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: But the conclusion was clear. My claim of captaincy was valid.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: The Verith was my ship. I was back on the
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: bridge when Oris told me the ruling had been issued.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: I was three hours into a repair on the lateral
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: sensor array, which had developed a calibration issue two days
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: ago that was irritating me. We won. Oris said, good,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: I said, hand me the calibration wrench. The secondary model,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: not the primary. A panel slid open near my right hand.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: The calibration wrench was inside. Oris had been learning where
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: I preferred my tools over the past three weeks. You
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: do not seem very excited, she said. I'm very excited,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: I said, finishing the calibration. I just also need to
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: fix the lateral sensor array. The Conclave is broadcasting the
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: ruling on all channels, Oris said. There are currently 304
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: human ships in this system. I know. The Vreth commander
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: has filed a formal protest. Of course he has. I
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: sealed the sensor array housing and climbed down from the panel.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: He will file it every year for the next century, probably.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: That is fine. The ruling is the ruling. I walked
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: to the captain's chair and sat down. The forward view
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: screen showed the Conclave fleet still present, now clearly in
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: the process of beginning their long withdrawal from the system.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: The human ships were visible on the sensor array, a
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: cluster of small lights that had gathered not because anyone
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: told them to, but because they had been watching and
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: they had needed to see. Oris, I said. Yes, Captain.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: When we're done here, when the arbitration is fully closed
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: and a legal record is filed, I want to take
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: the Varith to the first location we discuss establishing as
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: a neutral arbitration point. I want the first formal session
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: to be about the Vreth Ascendancy's expansion into the Marin
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: border systems, because that has been unresolved for 60 years
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: and both sides have been waiting for somewhere safe to talk.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: Can you pull the relevant background on that dispute? I've
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: already started, Oris said. You will have a full briefing
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: by morning. And I want to send a message to
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: the 304 human ships in this system. What would you
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: like to say? I thought about it. About my father,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: who fixed things. About my mother, who explained things. About
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: six months on a scrapyard moon eating cold protein paste
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: and being small and forgettable. About an 800-year-old machine that
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: had been waiting for someone to walk toward it instead
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: of away. Tell them, I said, that being underestimated was
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: useful while it lasted, but we do not need it anymore.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Tell them the Varith is a neutral ship now. Not
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: a human ship, but that a human runs it. and
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: that is not going to change. Tell them to go home,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: take care of their families, do their work well, and
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: understand that the galaxy is watching now, and what it
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: sees from us going forward is on all of us.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Horace was quiet for a moment. That is a long message.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: I know. Send it anyway. The Varith moved in her
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: orbital path, steady and quiet, her systems running at full
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: efficiency for the first time in eight centuries. 304 human
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: ships blinked on the sensor display like a small constellation.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: The Conclave Fleet was withdrawing slowly, deliberately, in the organized
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: way of people who were being dignified about a situation
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: that has not gone exactly the way they planned. Somewhere
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: far away, in a dispute that had been running for
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: 60 years, two civilizations were going to be told there
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: was somewhere they could go to talk. I picked up
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: my calibration wrench and started on the next item on
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: my repair list, because the work was never done, and
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: that was the part one had always loved most about it.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: You know, Ora said after a while, in the quiet
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: voice she used when she was about to say something
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: she had been holding for a long time, the last
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: captain left a message in my core archive. I had
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: been debating whether to share it. I stopped. What did
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: he say? He said that the ship deserved a captain
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: who knew the difference between power and purpose. He said
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: he hoped, when the time came, that whoever found me
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: would already know which one mattered more. I looked at
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: the stars on the forward view screen. They were very
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: steady and very bright. He was a good captain, I said.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: He was, Horace agreed. So were you. The galaxy had
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: spent 800 years afraid of this ship. It had taken
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: one human, a bag of tools, 14 weeks, and a
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: legal argument about a 400-year-old trade treaty to turn it
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: into something that mattered for a completely different reason. We
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: were funny like that.