Chapter 7
With a hiss of equalizing air pressures, the shuttle completed docking to Oakes's new command, the strike cruiser Nike. Oakes had watched the whole process with a detached air. It hadn't seemed real- not too long ago, he had expected to be cashiered, even potentially executed. Now, he was about to take command of one of the most powerful ships in the Human Stars Fleet, one of only a couple dozen strike cruisers.
The ensign conning the shuttle eyed him warily. No doubt the captain's seeming lack of interest or excitement unnerved him slightly. Most new commanders- especially one coming to a crack ship like the Nike - would have been ebullient. Oakes ignored him. He had more important things to consider than the concerns of a single ensign.
The docking light showed green. Oakes instinctively checked the readouts to ensure that they also confirmed there was atmosphere behind the airlock door. He still remembered his instructor in Basic. "Never trust a green light until you've cross-checked it," the woman would say. "Because if you walk into vacuum, oh, how embarrassed you'd be. You know, if you were alive."
Space was harsh. There was no room for error.
Oakes triggered the airlock door and stepped through.
Immediately, the three officers and honor guard of Star Marines snapped to attention. He heard a low modulated tone, the electronic equivalent of a bosun's whistle. No one knew how the custom had started, but the Fleet never changed anything just because they didn't know why they did it.
Oakes turned toward the Human Stars flag prominently displayed and saluted precisely. He then turned to the female officer and saluted her. "Captain Jonathan Oakes. Permission to come aboard?"
She returned his salute snappily. "Commander Clara Tosetti," she replied. "Permission granted, captain." She was probably around forty years old, making her of more or less average age for her rank. Meaning she hadn't distinguished or disgraced herself more than the usual amount. Trim and fit, with blonde hair cropped short at her ears, she kept her face blank as she surveyed her new captain.
He dropped his salute and stepped forward, taking a paper from his pocket- his orders. Tosetti frowned slightly- he was moving very quickly. "Open a channel for ship-wide address, commander."
She nodded to an enlisted spacer who was standing unobtrusively by the door. The spacer turned to a panel and tapped in some instructions. "Shipwide address standing by."
Oakes held up his orders. "To Jonathan Oakes, holding the rank of Captain in the Human Stars Fleet:
"Sir. You are hereby required and directed to proceed upon board the Strike Cruiser Nike and take upon you the charge and command of commander of her; willing and requiring all the officers and enlisted personnel belonging to the said Strike Cruiser to behave themselves in their several employments with all due respect and obedience to you their commander; and you likewise to observe as well the General Regulations of the Human Star Fleet, as well as what specific orders and instructions you shall from time to time receive from any superior officer in the Human Stars Fleet. You are specifically enjoined to seek out any and all enemies of humanity, which at this time includes the Karathi, the Drex, and in a declared state of war recently the Larrats, and take, breach, burn, or destroy their vessels of war or civilian vessels which fail to surrender upon being required to do so. Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the contrary at your peril.
"And for so doing this shall be your order."
Oakes folded the copy of his orders and replaced them in his pocket. "End shipwide address." He waited until the spacer at the control panel nodded, then turned back to Commander Tosetti. "Would you please introduce me to the other command staff?" he asked, nodding to the other two officers with her.
A little surprised at his abruptness- but unwilling to show it- she turned businesslike. "Yes, captain. This is Iosef Vasilescu, our chief engineer." A dark-haired, muscular officer with a trimmed moustache nodded, clicking his heels. Luytenian, most likely- their Fleet academy was renowned for their punctiliousness and love of military courtesies. "And this is-"
"Colonel Alonzo Gomez Rodolfo de Santa Domingo de los Estados Unidos y la Mancha," said the Marine colonel.
Oakes blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"Not to worry, captain," said the colonel breezily. "Again, it was Colonel Alonzo Gomez Rodolfo-"
Oakes held up a hand. "Colonel la Mancha."
"Yes, but before that-"
"Colonel, I fear I have some five hundred shipmates whose names I have to learn, and learning all of yours sounds like it will double that burden. Will Colonel la Mancha do?"
He looked wounded, but nodded. "Yes, sir."
"So how are our marines?"
"Ah, a splendid bunch, captain! Brave, intelligent, resourceful, impetuous, daring, punctual, studious-"
"Wait. Studious? Marines?" Oakes glanced at Tossetti and Vasilescu, who appeared to be pretending to be elsewhere.
"But of course, captain! They are my Marines! No one goes into battle without being able to understand the battle plans I come up with!" La Mancha said, affronted. "And that requires study! Discipline! Pencils!"
"Pencils," said Oakes weakly. "Yes, I suppose-"
"Because ink tends to boil away in vacuum, you see," said la Mancha seriously. "Also they work poorly if at all in microgravity."
"Your marines write a lot during combat, do they?"
"I require them to keep a combat diary, captain. In it they can note the tactics and weaponry used by the enemy, as well as their thoughts, feelings, and any recipes that they learn and would like to try at a later date."
"I see." Oakes looked at the marine colonel thoughtfully. "Seen a lot of combat, colonel?"
"Indeed. I fought in the Juniper Raid."
"I see," said Oakes again, but this time he did. The Juniper Raid was, despite the name, one of the largest full-scale invasions by the Larrat in living memory. The Larrat specialized in psychological warfare- saying a soldier was "juniper" was still a shorthand for indicating someone was suffering from combat-induced psychosis. "Well, colonel, I think we'll end up having work for your marines sooner or later."
"Ah?" La Mancha seemed even more excited. "The Larrat? I still have a few score of scores to settle with them, captain."
"No, likely no combat. Have them brush up on their diplomatic protocol." At la Mancha's blank look he sighed. "It's in the back of the military customs and protocol manual, colonel."
"Diplomacy," said la Mancha reflectively. "Well, it is a grievous challenge, but my boys are always ready to exceed your wildest expectations."
"Oh, good," said Oakes flatly. "Best get to it, then."
"Sir!" La Mancha clicked his heels and did a perfect about face, marching briskly out of the airlock.
There was a long pause. "So is he-" began Oakes.
"No, he's usually more cheerful," said Vasilescu lugubriously. "One time he decided his marines needed to be cross-trained in engineering duties."
"Marine engineers," said Oakes wonderingly. "How did that work out?"
"I managed to keep the reactor stable and eventually activated the non-lethal anti-boarding measures to clear them out of the engine room. La Mancha put me in for a commendation for innovative training techniques."
"He's actually not that bad," said Tosetti anxiously. "In combat, he's quite focused and, well, sane."
"For a marine," muttered the chief engineer.
"So, sir," said Tosetti, trying to change the subject from their eccentric colonel of marines, "Our mission will be a diplomatic one?"
"Yes," said Oakes. He started walking. "We're transporting the new delegation to Terra to try and sort out the mess XSO made."
The other two officers fell in behind him as they walked out of the airlock. "New delegation?" asked Tosetti.
"The old one got PNG'd en masse by the Terran government," explained Oakes. "They agreed to accept a new delegation, however. It was more symbolic than anything."
"Right," said Vasilescu dubiously. "You know, captain, I don't think it's entirely appropriate to have a strike cruiser transporting a diplomatic delegation. Might give the wrong impression."
"I suspect it will give precisely the impression the government wishes to give," said Oakes, fixing him with an icy glare. "And I don't think it's in your remit to question our orders."
Blinking at the reproof, Vasilescu ducked his head slightly. "Sorry, sir." Oakes ignored the look that passed between his two officers.
Frankly, he was working for the Security Directorate now. While not enemies of the Fleet, exactly, there had been a number of Fleet purges by the Directorate. The Fleet as an organization had a very long memory.
He wasn't going to get attached to anyone here. It would make it far too difficult to keep betraying them.
"Well," said Tosetti, breaking the silence. "I suppose that explains the ranger, then."
Oakes missed a step. "The ranger?"
"The one who arrived before you did? We set her up in one of the VIP quarters." Tosetti watched him narrowly. "I assume now she's going with the diplomatic delegation."
The captain grimaced. "Take me to her."
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The door slid open and Oakes stepped inside. "Commander Tosetti, Vasilescu- go on about your duties. I'll convene the officers at a later time to brief them."
He turned his attention to ranger Khabat, who was standing with a smile on her face to greet him. He barely heard the acknowledgements of his orders from Tosetti and Vasilescu. "Khabat."
"Hello, captain. Good to see you again in so much more salubrious circumstances."
Oakes glanced at the door to ensure it had closed. "What are you doing here?" He clenched one fist without entirely realizing it. "Don't trust me? Need to keep an eye on me, is that it?"
"No, captain." Her voice abruptly turned brisk. "The situation on Terra requires my attention."
"Oh? Rangers decided to start dabbling in diplomacy?"
"Not exactly." She turned and picked up a folder from her desk in the corner of the small room. "You know what- or who, perhaps- we're after."
"Prometheus," said Oakes. "Yes, surprisingly I've not forgotten. It's been weighing somewhat on my mind, seeing as he nearly got me shot."
"Do you know how Terra was rediscovered?" She opened the folder, perusing the contents.
Oakes shrugged. "I assumed in the usual way. We bored a wormhole through to the system, sent a ship through-"
"It's the human homeworld, Oakes. Why would we have to bore a wormhole?"
Oakes paused. The usual method for faster-than-light travel was to- at enormous expense in energy- gradually bore a wormhole from one system to another. It couldn't be bored any faster than the speed of light, though after it was formed it could be used for near-instantaneous travel. A good analogy was a railroad track- takes time to build, but then can be used for much faster travel than it would have taken to lay the tracks. "But if there was already an active wormhole-"
"It wasn't active. It was closed."
For a long moment, he stared at her as he processed the implications. The technology for "closing" wormholes was long-lost, or so he had thought. They could be- if one were very lucky- detected, but as far as he knew no one knew how to re-open one. "That's impossible."
She shrugged. "Yet it happened. A routine Explorator probe to Wolf 359 detected an active wormhole that wasn't there before. Meaning it must have been set up by our ancestors, and somehow reopened. At a guess, someone sent a ship through to Wolf 359 and re-opened it when no one was around.
That was possible. Wolf 359 had little of value and, until the Terran wormhole had been found, was a "dead-end" system. "So what are you saying?"
"We need that technology, Oakes." Her voice was very serious now. "If we can re-open wormholes- we can rebuild the Old Terran Empire. Rediscover lost colonies. Gain a major military advantage over the Karathi, and possibly the Drex."
"So why come to Terra?"
"The most likely explanation is that someone- perhaps Prometheus- reopened the wormhole from our side," she said. "I'm here to explore the less likely explanation."
He stared at her. "The Terrans? They're primitive."
"No," she corrected. "They're quite advanced. Just not up to our standards yet, at least not in space exploration. But they're also sitting on the most advanced treasure trove of human knowledge in the galaxy."
He shook his head. "I don't understand-"
"Terra, Oakes. The birthplace of the human race. Can you imagine what sort of lost technology it contains?" She sat down again. "Our job is to find out if they have that technology. If they do, we need to get it. No matter the cost."
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Nick and Judy, now dressed in their civilian clothes, stood outside the entrance to the Church of the Fellowship of Terra. It was a nondescript building, with only a cheap printed sign in the window marking it for what it was. Two tigers walked past, a cub in tow, giving them a curious look as they walked into the building.
Judy shivered in the cool breeze as it blew through the street. "You sure about this? The last one of these guys we dealt with tried to kill us."
Nick shrugged. "It'll help to see what we're dealing with. I mean, besides the fact that they essentially worship humans, what do we know about this church, anyway?"
"That one of them tried to kill us," said Judy dryly. "Weren't you listening?"
"Come on, Carrots, time to be daring. They won't try anything in broad daylight. You know as well as I do that most of the, um-" Nick hesitated, trying to think of the word, and brightened as he remembered, "-congregation didn't know about the illegal activity the church father was involved in."
"No, I know they couldn't prove anything. That's different."
Nick sighed. "Do you really not want to go in? Because we don't have to."
She shook her head. "No, I wouldn't have come all the way out here otherwise. I'm just waiting for you to convince me this isn't as stupid as it sounds."
"Oh. Well, can we just pretend I did?"
She smiled at him. "Sure, why not." In a tone of exaggerated surprise, she went on. "Wow, Nick, that's actually a pretty good point, and well argued, too. I should totally walk into the cultist meeting with you instead of studying for my upcoming promotional exam or doing, literally, anything else!"
The fox grimaced down at her. "Okay, now I'm starting to change my mind."
"Oh, come on. Let's get this over with."
They walked inside into a large antechamber, and were immediately greeted by an aged female badger. She handed them both books. Nick and Judy looked at it curiously, realizing the books were, in fact, hymnals. "My," said the badger cheerfully. "Haven't seen you two before! It's always good to see young mammals interested in the Word of Nature."
"Word of Nature?" asked Nick curiously. "I mean, you understand we just found out about this church and thought we'd come by..."
"Oh, yes? Well, we believe that everyone and everything has its place under the rule of Nature, and the gods- you know we revere the humans for their creation of us, right?- the gods are set above all. 'And Nature blessed man, and set him to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.'" She said the last with a reverent air, in the manner of someone quoting.
Nick and Judy glanced at one another. "That's from the Libris Naturae?" asked Judy, holding up her copy of that book.
The badger smiled. "It is indeed. Have you been studying it, child?"
"Ye-es," said Judy carefully. "I have. Haven't gotten through it all yet, though."
"Don't worry- the truth is worth it." She glanced at a clock on the wall. "Oh, dear, it's almost time for the service to begin. Please sit anywhere." She gestured towards the far end of the antechamber. The two cops walked through the doors.
The building was small and cramped, but somehow nearly a hundred mammals of many different species had crammed in. They sat on benches arrayed facing the far end of the room, where a worn wooden podium was standing. Most were predators, as they had been led to expect, but there were a fair number of prey mammals as well. In one corner, wedged in and looking distinctly uncomfortable, there was even an elephant.
Nick looked around. "This has got to be a fire code violation."
Judy nodded absently, still scanning the crowd. "Violation of city fire ordinance thirty-six point oh eight, and probable violation of thirty-seven oh one."
Her partner gave her a sidelong look. "Fire code is on the promotional exam?"
"Hmm? Oh, no." She shook her head and frowned at him. "We're supposed to know the laws, you realize."
"Yes, but if you know them to that extent you just look weird."
"Oh, come on, you think it's sexy how I can quote the fire code at a moment's notice."
He hesitated. "Maybe a bit," he admitted. "So where should we sit?"
"Near the back," she answered. "Let's try not to draw too much attention."
As they moved towards the rearmost benches, the quiet murmur of the gathered animals died away into an expectant silence. They had just sat down when an elderly wildebeest walked hesitantly up the steps to the podium. He- apparently the leader of the congregation- grasped the edges of the podium and scanned the congregation with a shrewd gaze.
"Peace be upon you," he said, finally.
"And upon you," said the congregation.
"I speak now from the Book of Nature." Adjusting his spectacles, the wildebeest flipped open a book- presumably a copy of the Libris Naturae- on the podium. It fell open, clearly having been marked beforehand. "'And in that time there shall be wars and rumors of wars, and the way between stars shall be opened. And man, who hath forsaken us, shall return to his children once more. Those who have eyes to see, let them see. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear."
The wildebeest looked up, and his eyes fell upon Nick and Judy. "We have among us two today who have walked with none other than the most blessed Saint Zacharias Hunter, and have heard his great wisdom and seen his great deeds. My brothers, let us welcome Officers Wilde and Hopps of the Zootopian Police Department."
Every mammal in the congregation turned to look at Judy and Nick.
"So much for avoiding notice," said Judy resignedly. She glanced at Nick.
"Nick! Stop waving!"
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"This obstacle course will test your stamina and ability to operate in one of the several unique habitats of Zootopia," announced Friedkin. "For this one, the scorching desert winds of Sahara Square."
The cadets looked nervously at the obstacle course, particularly the massive fans which were revving up at one end of the course. Hunter looked bored.
"What do you think, Mr. Hunter?" whispered Tibbs, who had taken to following him around.
Hunter looked down at the warthog. "About the obstacle course? Piece of cake. I used to live near Sahara Square. I like the heat."
"Excellent, Cadet Hunter," said Friedkin, who had overheard. "Then you'll be the first to go."
Sighing, Hunter moved to the end of the course. "Low crawl to the end, then over the wall and jog around for another run," said Friedkin. "You'll want to keep the sand out of your eyes."
"Got it," said Hunter. He carefully got to his hands and knees, then sank onto his belly, feeling the warm sand. The nice, warm, soft sand...
The fans finished revving up and a massive blast of hot air and sand swept across the course. "All right, Cadet!" shouted Friedkin. "Go!"
There was a long pause. "Did you not hear me, cadet? Go! Go! Go!"
Eland, who was just behind Hunter, prodded him cautiously. "Hunter?"
The only answer was a snore. Hunter was fast asleep.
Friedkin threw up her paws and stalked away, muttering.
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