Chapter 4 #2
"You don't have options," Vaxon said, his massive frame appearing in the medical bay doorway. The security chief moved like violence barely contained, all predatory grace and tactical awareness. "You accept the Captain's offer, or we drop you on the nearest habitable planet and wish you luck."
"Vaxon," Er'dox said sharply.
"What? She wants realism, I'm giving her realism. This isn't a passenger ship. We're not running a charity for lost civilizations. We rescue, we evaluate, we integrate those who can contribute. That's the protocol."
I looked between the two Zandovians, reading the tension in their body language. Er'dox was uncomfortable with Vaxon's bluntness. Vaxon was impatient with what he probably saw as Er'dox's softness.
"He's right," I said, and Er'dox's attention snapped back to me. "We don't have leverage. We don't have options. We're refugees in the truest sense as displaced, desperate, and dependent on the goodwill of strangers. So we take the deal. Whatever the deal is."
"Dana—" Jalina started.
"We take the deal," I repeated, louder. "Because the alternative is death on some random planet in a galaxy where we don't even know which way is up. At least here, we're together. At least here, we've got a chance to make something of this cosmic disaster."
The other women were watching me with expressions that ranged from relief to resignation. They'd follow my lead because they had since the Liberty disaster. Because someone had to make the calls, and I'd stepped up to make them.
I just wished I felt as confident as I was pretending to be.
"Treat the critical cases," I told Zorn. "We'll worry about the bill later."
He nodded and immediately began moving equipment, his medical team, other Zandovians, mostly, though I spotted a few beings that looked like they might be from different species—falling into practiced routines.
"The rest of you, come with me," Er'dox said. "Captain Tor'van wants to meet with you. And we need to assign you temporary quarters until we can evaluate your skills and determine proper positions."
We followed him through Mothership's corridors, a ragged line of exhausted humans trailing after a Zandovian engineer who moved with the confidence of someone who knew every inch of his domain.
The ship was massive. City-sized, Er'dox had said, and I believed it.
The corridors were wide enough to accommodate Zandovian height and bulk, the ceilings high enough that I felt like a child in an adult's world.
We passed other crew members, and I forced myself to catalog details despite the exhaustion pulling at my thoughts.
Zandovians made up the majority, but I saw other species too.
Beings with scales, beings with fur, beings that defied easy categorization.
A mobile civilization, Er'dox had called it.
Fifty thousand beings from dozens of worlds, all living and working together in this flying city.
And now sixteen humans were about to join them.
We arrived at a conference room, at least that's what I assumed it was, based on the large table and the observation window showing the star field beyond.
Captain Tor'van waited inside, his scarred face and cybernetic eye giving him an air of authority that probably didn't need the captain's insignia on his uniform.
"Sit," he said simply.
We sat. Because what else were we going to do?
Tor'van studied us for a moment, his biological eye and cybernetic eye both focused with uncomfortable intensity. Then he spoke, his voice resounding as someone used to being obeyed.
"You are the first humans Mothership has encountered. The first humans anyone in Shorstar Galaxy has encountered, to my knowledge. This presents certain... complications."
"Complications seem to be trending today," I muttered.
Tor'van's cybernetic eye focused on me. "You are Dana. Er'dox tells me you're their leader."
"I'm the one who kept them alive. Not sure that qualifies as leadership."
"It qualifies." He pulled up a holographic display, and I saw data streaming across it with presumably information about us, about our condition, about the rescue.
"Here is your situation. You have no resources, no currency, and no way to return to your home galaxy even if we could locate it.
Abandoning you on a habitable planet would be effectively murdering you, as you lack the technology and knowledge to survive in Shorstar civilization. "
"So we're at your mercy," Elena said, her voice tight.
"Yes. But mercy is not without cost. Mothership operates on a carefully balanced economy.
We rescue stranded beings, but they must contribute to maintain that balance.
You will be evaluated based on your skills and assigned positions within Mothership's crew.
You will work to pay off your rescue costs, your medical treatment, and your ongoing maintenance. "
"For how long?" Jalina asked.
"That depends on your positions and your efficiency. Minimum five years. Potentially much longer if your debts are significant or if your skills place you in low-value positions."
Five years minimum. Five years trapped on this ship, working off a debt we hadn't asked for, separated from everything we'd ever known by distances that had no meaning.
"What if we refuse?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
"Then we drop you on the nearest habitable planet with basic supplies and wish you well. You'll be free to make your own way in a galaxy where you don't speak any local languages, don't understand the culture, don't have currency, and don't have any means of survival beyond what we provide."
"So no real choice at all."
"Life rarely offers real choices, only degrees of terrible options. This is the least terrible option available to you."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to rage against the cosmic injustice of surviving a disaster only to become indentured servants. But Tor'van was right. This was the least terrible option. And after three weeks of fighting for survival on a death planet, I was intimately familiar with terrible options.
"Okay," I said. "We accept. What happens next?"
"Er'dox will conduct initial evaluations of your skills and knowledge.
Based on those evaluations, you'll be assigned to department heads for training.
You'll be given quarters, shared, initially, until your status changes, and access to Mothership's facilities.
You'll be expected to learn our protocols, our language, and our way of life. "
"And if we don't integrate well?"
Tor'van's expression didn't change. "Then your debt takes longer to pay off, and everyone suffers for it. I suggest you integrate."
The meeting continued for another hour, Tor'van outlining protocols and expectations while we sat there absorbing information that felt simultaneously too much and not enough.
By the time he dismissed us, my head was spinning with details about work schedules and currency exchange rates and cultural expectations that made no sense in context.
Er'dox was waiting outside the conference room. "I'll show you to temporary quarters. You'll share space initially, six to a unit. Not comfortable by your standards, probably, but better than a cave on a burning planet."
"Low bar for comparison," I said.
"Most rescue survivors would say the same." He led us through more corridors, deeper into Mothership's massive structure. "Tomorrow I'll begin your evaluations. I'll need to understand your skills, your knowledge base, your capacity for learning new systems."
"You're looking forward to this," I said, reading something in his body language that might have been enthusiasm.
"Your technology is completely foreign to anything in Shorstar databases.
The engineering principles you used to build that distress beacon, improvised, yes, but showing sophisticated theoretical knowledge, suggest a civilization with advanced capabilities despite limited resources.
From a purely academic standpoint, studying human technology is. .." He paused. "Fascinating."
"We're science projects. Great."
"You're survivors who possess knowledge we don't have. That makes you valuable beyond your immediate labor capacity."
We arrived at a corridor lined with doors, each marked with symbols I couldn't read despite the language upload. Er'dox opened one, revealing a space that was probably considered cramped by Zandovian standards but looked enormous to my Earth-trained eyes.
Six sleeping platforms, basic sanitation facilities, and a common area with seating designed for beings much larger than humans. It wasn't home. It wasn't even close to home. But it was shelter, and safety, and after three weeks of survival mode, that counted for something.
"Rest," Er'dox said. "Medical will send updates on your critical cases. Food will be delivered, standard rations, synthesized to match your nutritional requirements based on Zorn's scans. Tomorrow we begin integrating you into Mothership's systems."
He turned to leave, and I called after him. "Er'dox."
He paused, looking back with those unsettling amber eyes.
"Thank you," I said. "For responding to our signal. For not leaving us to die."
For a moment, understanding and empathy shifted in his expression.
"You're welcome, Dana. Try to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be difficult."
He left, and the door sealed behind him with a hiss of hydraulics.
I looked at the other women—at Jalina's exhausted face, at Bea's carefully controlled expression, at Elena's barely contained fury, and felt the command pressing down on my shoulders.
We'd survived the wormhole. Survived the crash. Survived three weeks on a death planet.
Now we had to survive becoming something entirely new.