The Last Stand - Brad Ferguson [13]
“The losses don’t matter anymore, not when we’re so close to our goal,” yet another observed. “We’ll restock.”
“What will we do about Nemtar’s ship?” the first one asked again.
“Have a dispatch team from the scout go aboard JTO-52D and remainder the top officers,” Hek said almost absently. “No need to remainder the ship as well, given these circumstances. Reassign JTO-52D to ferry and light cargo work in the rear until we can restaff its officer complement and return the ship to normal duty. That will allow us to put one of the veteran cargo runners on the front line.”
The light level in the room was brought up, and the members of the court-martial panel were able to see each other again. The five panelists were sitting behind a trial bench that curved around the prisoner dock in a gentle arc. Hek Portside Hull Patcher, currently the Presider of the Fleet Congress, was in the middle chair. Hek was a burly, middle-aged man, one who looked as if he’d spent most of his life wearing a pressure suit and working outside, which he’d done day in and day out until he entered Fleet politics. Now he was the youngest Presider in six generations.
“I wish that Nemtar had had an answer for us,” Hek told his colleagues. “We need to know how that alien ship slipped by our security watch.”
“The high-velocity probes will arrive at Nem Ma’ak Bratuna in a matter of hours,” someone pointed out. “They have been ordered to examine the alien ship as part of their surveillance routine. We will know more about it then.”
Pelaka Theoretician sighed. “We already know enough about it,” the old man said. “I almost wish Nemtar Ship Commander and his people had made an error. That would have explained everything rather neatly.”
“Your considered opinion of what occurred, then, Pelaka,” the Presider said. “I think we’ve all been waiting to hear it.”
Pelaka cleared his throat. “As the late ship commander just told us, Presider, I have no facts to offer you.”
“The tone of your voice suggests you have more to say, though.”
Pelaka nodded. “I do, Hek. I believe I could make a good guess.”
“Give it to us, then.”
“Very well,” Pelaka said. “Our JTO-series scanner ships are equipped and personnel trained to detect everything there is to detect, see everything there is to see, and make note of it all. I believe the alien ship evaded detection because it was never really there to be detected.”
“Pardon me?” The Presider rarely needed to fumble for something to say, but this was one of those times. “Of course it was there, Pelaka. It had to be.”
“No, Hek, it need not have been there at all. The alien ship did not seem to appear suddenly near the orbit of Ma’ak Unselbe. It actually did do so.”
The Presider laughed gently. It was a dangerous sound, and the others stirred. “How do you figure that?” he asked.
The old theoretician would not be intimidated. “We know a great deal now about this ship from our long-range observations of it,” Pelaka explained. “This is a spacecraft, a ‘starship,’ from an obviously technologically advanced organization called the United Federation of Planets. It is a ship of impressive size, but it is not large enough for interstellar travel—that is, interstellar travel as we know it. Not even one generation of travelers aboard it could survive a star trip.”
“How do you know?” Hek asked.
“Simple, Presider. We have detected the presence of more than a thousand beings aboard the ship, yet they have with them enough consumables to last for only a few months, at best. Further, while the engines of the alien ship are of a type unknown to us, we can easily detect the extent of the ship’s energy reserves. They are enormous, capable of generating almost unimaginable motive power.”
“Your conclusion, then?”
“There can be only one, Presider,” Pelaka said. “The alien ship is able to travel at speeds faster than light.”
The others around the bench, including Hek, gasped.
“Since we know translight travel to be impossible in normal space,” Pelaka continued, “the aliens must travel in another kind of space. Perhaps it is one