BECMI Chapter 124 – Diplomatic Dealings

“Contrary to popular belief, Corporal, access to higher technology doesn’t mean you automatically win all applicable contests with arcanists wielding personal power that rivals or eclipses technological achievements. Psionic talents are not unknown in the Federation, and the capabilities of us natives to this world regularly exceed that which psionics are capable of.

“Now, the fact remains that you Federation people do have extraordinary capabilities that most of us natives do not have exposure to and have not adapted to yet. When those dragons out there figure out that it isn’t hard to neutralize all forms of energy projection you use, and some methods to overcome your grenades, missiles, and other projectile weapons, you are going to have some extremely difficult times ahead of you.

“But that is in the future. I was wondering if the Captain might be available? You already have a utility droid right here, and it looks like it is equipped with a holoprojector if he would like to have a video conference. Notify him and set him up promptly, would you, Corporal?”

My tone didn’t indicate I’d be taking much in the way of backtalk. I could hear him swallow slightly as I just lifted an unkind eyebrow at the scanning droid, obviously unafraid of it.

“Relaying up the ranks, Lady Edge,” he said smartly. “I, uh, think there’s a good chance he’ll take the message…”

“I came during the day so as not to interrupt his rest, so I hope so, Corporal,” I sniffed. “Tell him it’s about Protocol Fourteen-Four, would you?”

“Fourteen? Which one is Fourteen-Four?…” he repeated, clearly caught out of sorts. Typetypetype… “Fourteen is… Contact initiation with a post-apocalyptic regressed civilization?”

There we went. Word on that would spread like a virus. We weren’t savage barbarians who didn’t have space flight and thus some overly strict first contact protocol had to be followed. It was also lifted right from their own rules and regulations!

“Ohmygods,” the Corporal mumbled, staring at the Protocol. “This, this changes everything, Lady Edge!”

“Yes, yes, I am aware,” I replied, unimpressed. “Waiting on the Captain…” Which gave him time to spread the word to the rest of the crew, starting a new ball rolling.

It still took a minute for the report to race up the ranks on wings of Holy Shitness. The utility bot that was quickly gathering up the scrap of the downed drone finished its job, turned around, and zipped right for us.

I mostly ignored it, so Duum and Cirru feigned disinterest, too, even as a circular lens poked out of it and a play of lights shimmered in front of me as a hologram was projected out of it.

He was tall and broadly built, completely bald, a dad body a little out of shape, likely maintained more by nerve treatments and nanobots than actual exercise. His skin was a bit darker green than most of the aliens we’d met, and he had a hunted and haunted look about the eyes, like he hadn’t gotten much sleep due to his paranoia. His uniform was still perfectly turned out and his posture still firm, however, and he was still over a full head taller than I was.

“Lady Edge, I am Captain Emeril of the Federation Starship ,” the image said to me, looking me up and down warily. “I’ve been told you’ve invoked Protocol Fourteen-Four. May I ask how you learned of this protocol, my Lady?” Ah, he had manners down, at least.

“The datafiles retrieved from some members of your crew who have left your ship have it among their core information resources, Captain. It did not take much effort to bring them up and go through current Fleet regulations, especially the ones dealing with interaction with natives of new worlds which were applicable here. I find the fact this world has not had contact with the Federation for over three thousand years quite suspicious, but also to be expected.”

He visibly took a deep breath, as if I was just wasting his time. “Your ability to learn our technology and language notwithstanding, this does not qualify you suddenly for a Fourteen-Four…” he trailed off as I gestured off to the side.

An illusion rode up, a man in none-such armor that definitely was not hammered into being or shape… and on a horse that was definitely a horse.

“I would like to introduce you to Old Steel, the mount of the Azure Knight, a champion and great warrior of the Kingdom of Darkmoor to your magnetic north. He is riding what appears to be a Vehrenschult Industries Model robohorse. However, closer examination of the build and design reveals that this particular design is not listed anywhere in the technology database of Vehrenschult Industries… and the robohorse is dated to 3400 years old, held in stasis in an underground chamber.” He literally jumped as I waved the datafile on the specs for the device over to him casually. “The materials are locally sourced, which leads to two logical conclusions: the technological level of this world was considerably higher in the past than it is now, and Vehrenshult Industries had contact with this world, unabashedly copying and modifying their robohorse designs in the greater Federation.

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“I don’t think I have to tell you the legal and financial complications that might result if Vehrenschult was revealed to have stolen technology from an unknown world and profited from it, Captain.

“It’s also an interesting fact that there are absolutely no surveys of this system within over thirty-five centuries, as if someone was taking pains to make sure this system was not discovered by the greater Federation. Most interesting, don’t you think?”

He watched the robohorse ride by, and then fade into dissipating colors. “We did a deep scan of this world, and detected no residual signs of advanced civilizations, Lady Edge,” the captain began defensively.

“Did you happen to scan the moon, too?” I asked him.

He paused significantly, glancing to the side. “We did,” he stated confidently.

“And how long after that, presuming you found nothing, were you blown out of orbit by a factor or force you did not detect at all, Captain?”

He hesitated again, looking away at some information ahead of him. “Minutes…” he admitted softly.

“Do you believe you were attacked, Captain, or was this merely some kind of accident in your ship’s power system?” I went on blithely.

He paused again. “There is no evidence there was anything wrong with the ship at all, and the strike… was too precise. It was either sabotage from within or a meticulously-aimed precision strike that avoided all our sensors and defenses. It could not have been an external hit from an orbital defense system. There was no hull penetration whatsoever.”

“You were shot down, and yet you managed to land your ship and stay reasonably intact. Yet somehow your beacons have not managed to reach any allied vessels despite the years you’ve been on this planet. Indeed, given the amount of care that has been taken that this system remains uncharted, it might well be that your ship will never be found, as it will be selectively omitted from your itinerary, and you simply vanished between the Gladius system and Scutum Trios, another loss in the void to be marked off the ledgers of the Federation with a sigh.

“There is no help coming, Captain. I know this because I come from an alternate timeline four thousand years in the future of this time. The records of your crew, separated across time and space for a thousand years after this present day, indicate no relief ship ever arrives. No Federation ship ever makes orbit and comes to relieve you, and the never flies again, naturally.

“Captain, you are stuck here, and that should be informing and defining all your actions from this moment forward.

“If you attempt to leverage your technology in a war of conquest, I fear you will stir up powers that are you are very, very much not capable of dealing with… the same powers that tore your ship out of the heavens so easily, yet ensured that you landed safely and with almost no casualties.

“Your suspicions that you’ve stumbled into something very much bigger than you and out of your league are indeed correct. The strange energy about this world, registered nowhere else in the Federation, is a conduit to powers that make the mystical psionic disciplines known by the gifted few of your Federation seem like parlor tricks. The masters of those powers saw your ship arrive, and they made sure it could not leave, Captain.

“Those powers have plans for you, your people, and what they portend, and none of them are conducive to peaceful and pleasant lives, Captain, especially if you choose to remain in your ship.

“Now, Protocol Fourteen-Four is in play. This planet has had contact with your Federation in the past. Its technology is still in use by a powerful corporation, and clearly was sufficient to involve spaceflight, even if miraculously all evidence of such technology seems to have evaporated from the system entire, barring a possibly very detailed scan which amazingly you are no longer capable of.

“You are no longer bound strictly by non-involvement protocols, and have capability and even a duty to leave your ship and deal with the surrounding civilizations. It behooves you to find a civilization willing to accept you for who and what you are, or you could follow your former security chief’s plan and try out the whole conquest of an underdeveloped culture not armed with an arsenal of high-tech weaponry.

“Or you could have a reasonable dialogue, choose someone of decently high moral fiber, and help with rebuilding and restoring their civilization back towards a place you feel comfortable dwelling in… and maybe, maybe getting a chance to exercise your curiosity about the powers some of the natives of this world have which are granted by this mysterious energy field which for some reason does not exist in any of your records.

“Tell me, Captain Emeril, which scenario do you like more: holing up in your ship for a rescue which is not coming, and which will prosecute you for dereliction of duty, abuse of ship and crew and illegal modifications to crew and complement?

“Or, getting out of that ship, using your technology for a positive purpose which doesn’t involve violent conquest or setting yourself up as an invading king, and doing something decent with your life, instead of dying a paranoid dictator inside your shell of a ship as it rots around you?”

“It’s time for some , Captain Emeril.”

He shuddered and nearly fell down, right through the com-link, gasping in shock as all his doubts, the commands he shouldn’t have issued, the failures that were his and the ones that weren’t that he had over-reacted to, hit him all at once.

The holo-link cut out before I could see him collapse under the stress of what he was going through.

I just nodded at nobody. “Corporal Derrimond, are you still there?” I asked plainly.

There was a click as the channel switched back over. “Yes, Lady Edge. I, I’m still here…”

“I am one of those natives with mysterious powers I mentioned, as you have full visual files. I am not an invasive threat trying to steal your technology, and I have no malicious designs upon the crew of the .

“The magicks I wield include those that heal the mind, body, and soul, and I believe I just crippled your captain with forced recognition of the things he’s done trying to keep his command and crew safe and legal, not realizing that he could have done things differently.

“If you are loyal to the man your captain was, you will let me inside and minister to him. I am capable of breaking in and entering your ship without your approval, for your information, but I don’t think you would take it well.

“What do you say, Corporal?”