Transmit

“So how’s Nai?” I asked Dyn.

Ordinarily, I would have sat in with Dyn yesterday evening to do our regular battery of medical tests just to ensure there weren’t blatant changes in my body that might be about to kill me.

But since Nai had been relegated to one of his beds, it had seemed prudent to reschedule.

“Well she actually slept for longer than thirty minutes, so that’s a huge improvement.”

Dyn slid a needle into my arm and started the blood draw. He’d gotten quite good at sticking my human veins. I’d stopped flinching at the poke a long time ago too.

“That [kinda] eliminates any possibility that it wasn’t my mirror, doesn’t it?”

“You made an abstract Adept creation explicitly for the purpose of keeping someone awake, it wound up in someone else’s mind, and they then developed insomnia. You thought there was a possibility it wasn’t your mirror?”

“Well when you put it like that…” I balked.

The medic shrugged. “Hindsight is always clearer. I’m mostly just giving you a hard time.”

“It isn’t even that I never thought about the mirror,” I admitted. “I just had no idea she wasn’t sleeping. I had no clue the mirror was that geared for what I had in mind in the moment. As far as I could tell, the construct was only advantageous for her, because it can hide her from my radar.”

“So you thought you shouldn’t mention it because it seemed to only inconvenience you?”

“Hindsight is always clearer,” I echoed. “She’s terrifying and fear makes people do stupid things.”

“Mmm,” Dyn hummed sagely.

“Did she say anything when she was here?”

“She woke up, said nothing, and left. I believe there was more work to be done cleaning up after the storm.”

“Like what, clearing roads? That can’t possibly be worth using her fire for.”

“I think it was more about clearing ice and snow that was piled up in the process of clearing the roads. Our buildings weren’t the only ones buried under solid ice.”

“With what happened with Nai, I forgot a little about cracking open that bunker. Were you one of the medics they called to check on the people inside?”

Dyn shook his head, “No, but everyone even remotely involved is talking about it. There were a few people who panicked when they saw Nai start burning through the exterior. I heard about your idea to protect those inside. The buffer was a clever protection.”

“Wait, how did you hear about that?” I asked.

“Well, there’s an administrator raising a stink about ruining their shelter, the risks taken…don’t worry about it though. They’re all talk. It might have been rough there for a bit, but the end result is hard to argue with. Everyone got out safe.”

“Feels like there should have been more of a stir,” I admitted. “The way Serral talked about it, I thought there would be a lot of Casti upset to learn that I exist.”

“I’m sure Ase is receiving quite significant criticism for your reveal, but Nai was right. I can’t think of a better way to announce yourself than helping out like that.”

“Doesn’t feel like I actually helped that much,” I said.

“You might not have,” Dyn said. “But that doesn’t mean you didn’t help at least some.”

I conceded that with a nod.

“How’s my blood looking?”

“The same as all the other weeks.”

“No change is good, right?”

“Right.”

It wasn’t hard to tell when I was fishing too much for conversation with Dyn. He usually obliged me, but he must have been exceptionally busy the last few days with the storm preparations and its aftermath.

That suited me fine. It had been a stressful few days.

I leaned back on the alien hospital bed, settling in for Dyn to perform more odd scans. But I hadn’t been lying back for more than a minute when Nemuleki burst through the door without knocking.

“Rahi Dyn, is Caleb—oh, there you are.” She gave an urgent wave at me, “You need to come with me, Ase’s orders.”

“I’m in the middle of prepping him for a kinetic check, Raho,” Dyn said irritably. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

“No, it can’t.” Nemuleki said. “All four of us need to be in the security office now.”

“The four of us?”

Everyone who had escaped from Korbanok.

“Yes.”

“What’s the hurry?” I asked, hopping to my feet.

“A broadcast from Coalition command,” she said breathlessly.

“Isn’t Coalition command on one of the outer planets? That’s light-hours away.”

“It’s someone from command, not just a broadcast,” she explained. “The timing window is tiny—they’re in orbit right now and we’re running out of time to talk back.”

I frowned for a second, not quite understanding the urgency. It took a few moments for the right words to settle correctly.

Talking back. Oh.

Oh!

This wasn’t just going to be a recording or some simple message. Someone important was a few miles above our heads ready to communicate on light- second delay, rather than light- hour.

I scrambled to follow her.

The security office was a mess of monitors showing camera feeds from all over the garrison and reactor buildings. In some capacity though, the security room’s video setup doubled as an AV room, because I knew that most of the transmissions the base received were routed through the security room.

Serral stood in front of one of the larger screens where the nearly stationary image of a Casti faced the camera. Tasser was also already in the office when Nemuleki and I rushed in. Nai was too, to my surprise. She wasn’t giving off any smothering Adept pressure.

She put the mirror back in place, I realized.

Since she could manipulate it herself now, why wouldn’t she? In fact, now that she could, she might have tweaked it so it didn’t affect her sleep at all.

She was already talking, “—ank you, shen.”

There was a moment of delay on the connection, presumably the time it took the signal to reach this Casti in orbit and bounce back, but it wasn’t more than a stutter.

“Your welcome, Nai. Your sister sends her regards.”

I must have been catching the tail end of Nai’s discussion because she took a step back and allowed the Casti to address Serral.

“So,” she said. Her voice was this paradoxical smooth rasp, like a heavy smoker had been given impeccable voice coaching. “I was very interested to see yesterday that a written piece was publicized about a new alien in Sassik province.”

“I’m juggling correspondence with eight different colony administrators, and I’ve had more diplomatic probes from Vorak on the ground in the last two days than the last six months combined. I am aware of how fast this is spreading.”

“I’m aghast at what compelled you to let him be seen after all this time,” the Casti said.

“It was a judgement call, Nosoth,” Serral said. “I didn’t expect the Vorak to be this touchy about it however. They’ve known he was in our custody for months now, but they’re intent on overreacting anyway.”

“Isn’t it a little premature to say they’re overreacting?” the rasping Casti asked. She was talking almost informally. With Serral, one of the highest-ranking Coalition officers I knew of.

Who was this person the Coalition had sent to talk?

A closer look at the monitor showed that she was strapped into a seat and totally sealed in on all sides. She wasn’t in a large ship or something. No, if anything her surroundings were most like the pod that I’d ridden in from Korbanok to Yawhere’s surface.

Only this pod was even smaller, because it didn’t appear to accommodate anyone besides this Casti.

She snuck into orbit, I realized.

It was the only reason I could think of that she would take such a small craft. I didn’t know the finer points of spaceship design, but redundancies and safety features took up space just like any other device or system you wanted in a vehicle.

But the pod she was in couldn’t be bigger than a camping tent.

She was hurtling into orbit above our planet for just long enough to have a conversation, take the opportunity to transmit some data, and rocket back to a Coalition planet all before the Vorak could realize the tiny pod wasn’t a stray asteroid.

I leaned over to Tasser, “Who is this?”

He gave a startled jump. He’d been entirely focused on the screen and hadn’t noticed me enter.

The disturbance cut off Serral’s conversation with the Casti in orbit and every alien in the room plus one was staring at me.

“You must be [Mister] Caleb,” the Casti said. “My Ase Serralinitus says we need to talk.”

I gave Ase Serral an inquisitive look. He was the only alien who’d bothered to learn the word, much less use it. ‘My,’ she’d said. This was Serral’s superior.

“Serral, I swear if you gave me the wrong word for a prank…”

I didn’t have to look to know that Tasser and Nai’s eyes were bugging out just like mine. Just the idea of a prank like that…

“No! No, it’s the right word,” I said. “I was just surprised. Tasser is the only alien I’m used to hearing any English from.”

There was a very heavy moment of hesitation where it seemed like she might ask what ‘English’ was. But we were either in even more of a hurry than I’d thought, or the meaning was clear enough from context.

“You, ah…already know my name,” I said lamely. “And you are the one in charge…?”

Good grief, why had I even bothered learning Starspeak if that was the best I could come up with…

“I am Nosoth Ki’Tham Laranta, the highest-ranking Coalition commander in this star system.”

There were some nuances to translating many Starspeak words that I didn’t have a strong grasp on, military ranks especially. I still had no clue where ‘Ase’ fell comparatively. ‘Raho’ was a bit simpler, it was the lowest rank you could have and still be in command of something.

‘Nosoth,’ by comparison, was not a hard rank to translate. This Casti was the big buck-stopping badass leader of a whole military.

Admiral.

This was Admiral Laranta.

“Caleb, Admiral Laranta is in orbit above us right now, we have very limited time to talk,” Serral told me.

“What about?” I asked.

“You entered public visibility, ko-”

She trailed off and I got the distinct impression she’d just abridged a scathing insult.

The Admiral didn’t seem to be flustered by her slip of the tongue, but nonetheless took a moment to compose herself.

“You appeared in public, Mister Caleb. You’re no longer a military secret. The Vorak already attacked Demon’s Pit to get you once, only now it’s not just the Vorak command that knows you’re there. Soon enough, every person in the star system is going to know there’s a new First Contact idling away on the Sassik province coast.”

I couldn’t help but frown. Those were all very reasonable things to point out, but put all together and it didn’t seem like she’d actually said anything new at all.

Before I could bite off the response my mouth blurted out, “And?”

Deafening silence rang out in the security room while the transmission delay sank in. Only instead of the Admiral responding, it was Nai who burst out into uncontrollable laughter.

I silently thanked the Farnata a thousand times: her outburst distracted everyone, however momentarily, from my response.

“Nai, are you quite alright?” Laranta asked.

“I’m-I’m fine…” Nai wheezed. “Ignore me, I’m just—” She practically fell out of her chair, doubling over with laughter again.

Tasser gave her a sharp poke to the belly which shut her up long enough for the Admiral to continue.

“…‘And?’ ” she prompted me.

“Well…[yeah], ‘and’ what?” I said. “Nemuleki made this sound super urgent, but these are all things we already…knew…”

Nai stifling another fit of laughter reinforced the idea that every word out of my mouth sounded like an incendiary breach of protocol. It dawned on me that Serral had been very lax with formality with me, whereas this Admiral might operate quite differently.

“…Fair words,” Laranta conceded, to my surprise. “But I couldn’t wait for the next broadcast window to reach you and Serralinitus. Because too many public entities are going to demand answers that I don’t have right now. I’d like those answers from you: all of you.”

I almost asked, ‘right now?’ but thought better of it when I imagined Nai bursting into more laughter.

The Admiral must have sensed the question I didn’t quite want to ask, which impressed me. Most Casti weren’t so quick on their feet the first time they met me.

“My staff came up with a revised battery of questions to supplement the existing reports. Complete them immediately after this transmission expires.”

“Yes, Admiral,” the military in the room said.

“Now, I want to know what diraksi any of you were thinking when you pushed our First Contact into the public view.”

In unison that felt so perfectly rehearsed, Nai, Nemuleki, and Tasser all said, “First to rank.”

“First to…rank?” I asked, partly lost, partly mimicking on reflex.

“You heard the troops,” Laranta said cruelly. “You first, Ase. What compelled you to leap into this with no plan?”

“The colony leadership was vocally asking for Adept support,” Serral said. “We were hit with an ending storm two days ago, and local infrastructure was damaged. Rescue operations for a frozen bunker called for more delicate Adept work than Nai was capable of.”

“Serral, if you pushed a First Contact into public Adept work, just to get a few dozen people out of a shelter faster…”

“I volunteered,” I stated. “He didn’t push me anywhere. In fact, he rather strongly warned me of the risks.”

Laranta looked at me critically for a few moments, recognizing that I’d stepped up to support Serral.

“Why did you volunteer?” she asked simply.

“I was told people needed help getting out of one of the storm shelters. I knew there were already rumors about me, so it seemed like a good idea to help out—make a good first impression.”

Laranta’s gaze narrowed shrewdly, flitting almost imperceptibly between me and Nai.

“I happen to know our Torabin rather well. That’s her advice and not the answer I asked for. I want to know: why did you volunteer? Not merely why you helped.”

I hadn’t been obligated. Except, of course I had been. Not by Serral or Nai, or anyone else.

“…It felt like the right thing to do. Because I felt like I should, and there wasn’t a good enough reason not to.”

I didn’t feel comfortable giving the answer. It felt a bit corny, if completely honest. If Laranta was moved at all, she didn’t show it.

“Well, at least you didn’t say anything,” she consoled herself. “You snuck him there and back like you were worried about sharp- nipskats jumping from the trees. There aren’t even three photos of him, and by tomorrow morning every news venue in the star system is going to publishing rampant speculation.”

“The Reds have tried getting into the neighboring boroughs,” Serral said. “They were fishing for information from the public first. Now I have pending diplomatic requests from every Vorak controlled colony on the planet.”

“Even now that Mister Caleb is public, don’t confirm anything yet. He was on Korbanok and they’re desperate to know what we know. Respond to the requests with a delay. Give them a concrete date, but nothing too soon. Make them sit for at least a month and make sure they know they’re being stalled.”

“Are we hoping that we might know more by the time we stop stalling?” he asked.

“Maybe, but I doubt it. Unless Mister Caleb has anything to add?”

“Uhh, you lost me in that conversation…” I admitted.

“The Vorak are demanding we share all the information we have on you,” Serral explained. “They already knew you’re here, only now the public does too, and there’s no point for them to pretend they don’t know about you.”

“Okay, I think I’m still lost on why you’d stall them, but I don’t think it’s too much of my business…”

“It’s about you,” Nai said, having finally stopped laughing a little while ago. “It’s your business whether you like it or not.”

Fair.

“We’re stalling partially because we know how little there is to know,” Laranta said. “You didn’t journey the void with your people close behind you. You’re cut off from your home. But the Vorak can still put pressure on us publicly by demanding to know more about this First Contact.”

They were playing a very complicated game of military force and politics that I wasn’t remotely qualified to understand. I might have been fluent, or close to it, but even lifelong speakers weren’t always ready to talk through convoluted topics like this.

Still, this was about the Assembly and the Coalition. The Vorak occupiers and this Casti star system. And me, abducted right into the middle of it.

If the Vorak were playing dumb about me…

“…This might be too much to ask, but can I talk to the Admiral alone?”

Only Tasser didn’t show any surprise.

I saw Serralinitus hesitate to answer, opting to look toward Laranta for an answer.

“I would be willing, but if Serralinitus decides otherwise then I won’t countermand him,” the admiral said.

“I’m curious what you intend to ask…but alright.” Serralinitus said.

The Ase stood and beckoned the other Coalition officers to follow him out of the room.

Now it was just me and likely the most powerful Casti in the star system.

“So,” Laranta smoothly rasped, “what can I answer for you?”

“I know we’re short on time, so I’ll try to be quick. I’d like to know your response when I say, ‘I was abducted by the Vorak.’ ”

She froze. It was a millisecond of stutter, a single frame on this quality of video feed. But I’d been looking for it. It was the same freeze Serralinitus had whenever I brought it up.

Laranta pursed her lips, she’d seen that I was anticipating the reaction.

“I think I understand your question, Mister Caleb…but we have no true evidence of that.”

I nodded slowly. It was the answer I’d expected.

Hours upon hours of stray minutes all piled up into a collection of notes, theories, and observations; and the end conclusions I’d reached were…disquieting.

The rocket that had brought me to this star system was in Vorak hands. All the corpses of my fellow abductees too. There was just nothing to prove that the Vorak had been the ones controlling the ship I was on. I didn’t like to think about it because I couldn’t understand why events would have unfolded as they did if the Vorak were innocent.

“On my planet, just someone’s word wouldn’t be considered proper evidence,” I hazarded. “We would call it ‘circumstantial.’ It proposes a viable version of events, but absent of anything else…”

“Absent of anything tangible, it is not truly credible, no,” Laranta admitted. “For what little it’s worth, Serralinitus does not believe you are lying about any of it.”

“Your phrasing makes it seem like you don’t,” I said.

She gave a hearty laugh, an odd sound given the smooth rasp to her tone. “Oh I have no idea,” she said. “I’m not in a position where I can afford to believe one way or the other. But I am strongly attentive to the fact you have no apparent reason to lie. Moreover, that’s only my personal judgement. As a Coalition leader, I can tell you that the Admiralty Board is operating under the assumption you are being truthful. So please don’t take my personal reticence badly, and if you do, chalk it up to cultural differences.”

“That was…a significantly more candid answer than I’d been expecting,” I told her, struggling not to smile.

“The Board is pulling on its own resources in nine different directions: we’re a messy bunch. But we’d have to be idiots to ignore a First Contact that claimed to be abducted by our military opponents.”

I didn’t respond to that immediately, if only because it felt like she was leading the conversation toward a certain point. One that I didn’t relish digging into.

But the clock was ticking.

“There’s two reasons there would be no evidence that the Vorak abducted me,” I said.

“Mmm…” Laranta hummed, “I was curious how much you’d thought about such. The first reason is that they were very thorough: that they left no evidence. Someone in charge might have kept it secret from the rank and file, carefully waited out your abduction knowing none of it would implicate them…”

She trailed off, implicitly leading me to answer the second. I didn’t doubt for a second she already knew.

“…the second is that they didn’t abduct me, and there would therefore be no evidence.”

“I…am not unaware of what that could imply,” Laranta said quietly.

“Admiral,” I said, raising my head so she could look me in the eye again. “Did you abduct us?”

The video feed’s delay staggered her answer just like it had everything she said, but the moment I asked the question, my skin crawled.

“No,” she said.

“Did the Coalition abduct us?” I asked.

That variation to my question had not been unexpected and she grimaced.

“I cannot answer that certainly, Mister Caleb.”

“Because…?” I prompted. Just like her, I was decently sure I knew the answer in advance, but I wanted to hear her say it.

“Because I am not the only Coalition Admiral,” she said. “And if I, or one of my contemporaries, were to abduct someone, for whatever reason, there are strategic reasons to deliver them to our enemies.”

I nodded, materializing the note I’d made predicting the answer. It read: ‘The Coalition military is similar to the Assembly’s individual fleets—compartmentalized.’

She nodded with a scoff.

“But,” she said, “That works both ways. For the same reason a different branch of the Coalition could have abducted you, some other void fleet besides the Red Sails might have also.”

The Deep Coils could have abducted me, arranged my and Daniel’s ship to wind up at Korbanok. The Red Sails would genuinely be uninvolved before I was dumped in their lap, and the Deep Coils could conceal their own involvement.

“I’d thought of that too,” I said. “Which raises the question of ‘why abduct us in the first place?’”

“The unclear motive is troubling,” Laranta admitted. “I’ve read the reports from Ase Serralinitus, so I have the details you gave him. The fact that you’re Adept is hard to ignore, but given that you’re the only survivor, there’s no way to know if that was coincidence.”

“The early reports I gave him aren’t very comprehensive,” I admitted. “There was one other survivor who died just before we reached the Vorak. He was Adept too.”

“I’m sorry,” she said soberly. “I understand it’s an intensely disorienting experience to activate Adept powers. I can only imagine it would be more so under those circumstances.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Still, two out of twenty-four is well within statistical bounds. I think it would be hasty to assume anything based on your Adeptry.”

Nai had told me there was no way to predict Adept abilities before they emerged. There were exercises to help them emerge, if they were there in the first place, but nothing that actually predicted the capability.

“So, in the absence of any further evidence, I have to depend on your help going forward.”

“You intend to acquire some evidence,” she guessed.

I nodded. “I didn’t know it then, but I have firsthand knowledge that they broke First Contact procedures with me.”

“The medical tests?”

I nodded. One of the reasons my presence was such a delicate topic was the biohazard risk that I didn’t seem to actually end up posing. But no one could have known that ahead of time.

…Except perhaps for my abductors.

“The evidence either was, or is still on Korbanok,” I said.

“Well, that brings us to a tricky conversation. Because for us, Ase Serralinitus especially, this is still First Contact. We, but specifically he, are responsible for your safety. It would be negligent of us to allow you to put yourself in danger.”

“I know,” I told her. “But I told Serralinitus that I’m in danger even if I stay with you.”

“Then I feel there is an… elegant solution to pursue, at least in the interim,” Laranta said. “One that would undoubtedly provide us all with information and evidence surrounding your abduction and arrival on Korbanok. It would even satisfy a large part of the Coalition’s First Contact obligations.”

“Why so hesitant to say ‘elegant’?” I asked.

“Because the idea does represent a substantial risk to you, but as you said, the difference in risk between doing something and nothing is murky at best.”

“So what is it?”

“Getting you off that planet,” Laranta said. “Both the elegant and risky parts come as the prerequisites for that.”

She leaned forward, tempering her eagerness with grave concern.

“How much do you know about the Organic Authority?”

“I’ve heard the basic idea,” I said. “They put themselves in charge of making sure planets don’t catch or spread plagues.”

“Yes, and are insistently neutral when it comes to anything else, like the Coalition’s war.”

“You’re not happy with them?”

“Not most days, but they literally wrote the book on First Contact, and they’ll be very upset if you keep being moved around a star system without more extensive biological risk assessment.”

“Dyn said I was pretty much safe after this many months,” I said.

“Rahi Dyn is a fine medic, but his resources are limited. The Organic Authority does not share that constraint. Consulting them and having their approval to move you would be an enormous disincentive to any Vorak trying to keep you on that planet.”

“They already attacked your people just for helping me out, are they really going to respect the Organic Authority’s approval if they give it?”

“In all likelihood, they might not. But if that’s the case then it’s something the Coalition will be able to bleed them for diplomatically.”

“It sounds a bit like taking me to the Organic Authority really helps you guys more than me.”

“Not untrue,” Laranta conceded, “but regardless of how much we happen to benefit from such, it remains our responsibility to determine or ensure that you are not at risk from our biosphere and vice versa.”

“You’re doing the right thing and just happening to benefit immensely from it?” I asked wryly.

Laranta gave a sly grin. “It will take quite some work for the Coalition to actually benefit from these events, but yes. That is a broadly accurate summary.”

“Well, at least you’re not [sugarcoating] it…” I muttered.

The Admiral elected to ignore my English.

“The Organic Authority isn’t going to be very happy about how long it took for them to get a look at you, but they’ll have to live with it. Even if they don’t directly support the Vorak occupation, they don’t really oppose it either. Given that the Red Sails, at the very least, pose an immediate threat to you, we can justify not bringing you in for examination sooner. The fact that you’re fluent will go a long way too. Informed consent is a rather important part of medical testing, especially for First Contact.”

“Well there—” I began, but a light flashed on the panel near her head.

“Sorry, but we’re running short on time. There’s still some details to go over, but I need to talk to Serralinitus.”

Even cut short, this had been a very enlightening conversation.

I pulled open the security office door to bring everyone else back inside.

Tasser and Nemuleki gave me very curious glances, but I told them “talk later.”

“Admiral,” Serral said, “Was Caleb—"

“Save it, Ase, I just got the cutoff warning. I’m about to reenter Red Sails surveillance so let’s wrap up fast,” Laranta said. “I’ve deemed it appropriate to take a chance: I’m granting Caleb provisional clearance to any Coalition data about our Korbanok raid. Provide it.”

Serral responded cautiously, “Is that including…?”

“Yes, including the Green Complex. Read him in. I expect you to thoroughly inform him of the risks involved,” she gave me a glance through the screen, “…but I expect he will intend to go regardless.”

“Understood, Admiral,” Serral said.

“Don’t muck this up, any of you. Nai, it was good to hear your voice. I’ll make sure Nerin knows you’re okay.”

Nai nodded gratefully before Laranta flicked a switch and the transmission cut off.