Nova Wars

"The ship is not under attack. It has not suffered massive catastrophic damage," the being stated. "The reasons for my deployment are unclear."

The Captain moved across the stage, a strange predatory movement to Hetmwit, who went suddenly still, stopping breathing, staring with wide eyes at the strange looking biped who walked up and stopped only a pace or two from him.

The biped, Captain Decken, stared down at him. Hetmwit noticed that hair between the nose and mouth, the thick horizontal patches of hair above the eyes about as wide as two fingers, and the short prickly looking hair on top of the head. The Captain stared down at him for a long moment.

"Report, Seaman Hetmwit," the Captain said.

Hetmwit blinked a few times. "Uh..."

The Captain waited.

"I got drunk with the Marines and passed out in my bunk..." he started.

Hetmwit went through all of it. Waking up in an empty ship. Getting the reactor restarted. Programming the robots and drones to do an hourly sweep through the starship The Star of Jurakak in the vain hope of finding other crew members. Of getting the computer core working. Of studying and working. Of getting the sensors working. Of preparing for the excursion to the ship he was currently on. To trying to figure things out.

The whole time the Captain stood in front of him, staring down at him, as he rapidly explained everything.

"And then I was told to report for graduation and you came out," Hetmwit said. He looked around. "That's it, basically."

The Captain nodded. "An interesting tale that does not bode well for either of us," the biped said. Hetmwit noted that the voice was deep and rumbled in the creature's chest. "You just kept studying and learning. Time well spent rather than giving into the despair you obviously felt."

Hetmwit felt thrown off balance.

"Wait, you listened to the whole thing?" he asked.

The Captain nodded. "It was a long report, but full of vital information," the Captain said. He turned, waving. "With me, Seaman. We'll replenish ourselves with a meal. If your people can talk and eat at the same time, I will ask questions that I have some belief you can answer."

Hetmwit ran and caught up. The biped made him nervous. The way it moved, the intent way it stared at everything, including him, the feeling of barely restrained menace.

He'll forget about me before we get to the nearest dining section, Hetmwit figured.

At one point the Captain turned a corner and Hetmwit paused a moment, trying to decide if he wanted to return to his quarters.

The Captain unsettled him.

"Do you see something out of place, Seaman?" the Captain asked.

Hetmwit blinked. Usually just looking away from him made people forget he existed.

"No. Just... stopped a moment to think," Hetmwit answered.

"Very well. Tell me when you are able to move again," the Captain said, his voice neutral.

"I'm ready," Hetmwit said quietly.

"Coming, Seaman Hetmwit?" the Captain asked from around the corner.

Hetmwit turned and saw the Captain was facing away, still roughly three of his strides away from Hetmwit.

"Stopping to think is something that you will eventually learn to overcome. You will learn to think and act at the same time," the Captain said. "It can take a bit for some species to learn, but everyone the Confederacy has encountered has been able to learn such a skill at different rates."

"Yes, Captain," Hetmwit said.

They rounded another corner and Hetmwit saw two of the big glossy black combat robots patrolling the hallway. When the Captain was five paces from them the stopped, rotated, and backed up, putting their backs against the wall.

The Captain nodded as he went past. "Carry on," he ordered.

After Hetmwit went by the robots stepped out, pivoted, and continued marching down the corridor.

He noted how authority, command, and competence just radiated from the Captain. He had been in the presence of two ship's commanders over his career and while they seemed competent and skilled enough, they had lacked the sheer force of presence that the biped in front of his effortless projected.

The Officer's Mess was clear, empty, brightly lit, and spotless. The Captain moved up, ordered a tray quickly, including a cup of steaming coffee, then waited for Hetmwit to order a meal. It took a few times for the computer to recognize and process his order.

He had the feeling that the Captain was studying what he ate, how many times he had to reinput his requests, and how many times his stomach rumbled.

Finally, they were sitting down.

"May I ask a question, Captain?" Hetmwit asked, pausing between his noodles and his meat dish.

The Captain sipped at the cup of steaming liquid and nodded.

"You may, Seaman Hetmwit," the Captain said. He looked at the plate. "First, is it customary for your people to only speak when the noodle appetizer is finished?"

Hetmwit nodded. "Yes, Captain."

The Captain just nodded. "Ask your question, Seaman."

"What are you? I studied the species in the database for my testing of recognizing allied species, but I did not see you," Hetmwit said.

The Captain looked thoughtful for a moment. "I am a biomechanical construct. A clone of a long dead naval officer, created in a cellular printer and loaded with a personality template, memories, and knowledge," he said. "In common parlance, I am a Born Whole emergency biological backup system."

The Captain sipped at his cup. "But at base, I am a Terran, from the planet Terra in the Sol System."

Hetmwit thought, spearing a piece of meat and chewing it to signify he was thinking. After a moment he looked up. "What does Born Whole mean? I mean, I'm born whole, with all my parts, but it seems that means something different."

The Captain nodded. "You are a robotic maintenance and repair specialist, correct, Seaman?"

Hetmwit nodded.

"If you loaded into a robot the manual for military operations in urban terrain into the robot's memory, would that make it into an effective infantry asset for house to house fighting in a metropolis?"

Hetmwit thought, then shook his head. "No. The robot would not even know to access the data, and without being told, would not know it possesses the knowledge."

"The Born Whole system downloads everything I need to know," The Captain said. He sipped at his coffee again. "However, the system ensures that I know that I possess that knowledge, as well as how to apply and utilize it. I am imparted with the skill to apply the knowledge, the ability to adapt that knowledge to various situations."

Hetmwit frowned, taking another bite of meat and chewing slowly.

The Captain sipped at his coffee, waiting for Hetmwit to finish his second piece of meat in a row.

"Were you once a normal person?" Hetmwit asked.

The Captain nodded. "I served in the Third Terran Republic, then the Combine, then the Imperium, then the Dominion during the Post-Second Mantid War Reconstruction. I was templated during the Terran Dominion years and, according to what I know, I have never been actively deployed aboard this ship, although my knowledge has been kept updated."

Hetmwit speared another piece of meat and chewed slowly.

"Will other crew members be printed up?" he asked.

The Captain shook his head. "No. The primary computer systems are all offline. Mine is a separate system."

Hetmwit sighed. "I don't know what we can do. There's only two of us," he said softly.

The Captain gave a barking sound that made Hetmwit flinch slightly.

"Easy, Seaman. I was laughing," the Captain stated. "Vocally expressing amusement."

"What is so funny?" Hetmwit asked.

"One person, in the right place at the right time, or perhaps the wrong place at the wrong time and the wrong person, has altered the fate of entire multi-stellar empires," the Captain said. "When General Daxin Freeborn slew the Mantid Omniqueen on Mantid Prime, he was only one man and the Omniqueen but was one being, but the results were felt throughout the galactic arm spur."

Hetmwit just looked back at his plate. "If you say so, Captain." He speared the vegetables, chewing on them, signifying he had no questions and nothing to say but was willing to take part in conversation.

The Captain was silent and Hetmwit looked up at him. Hetmwit could see a faint flickering glow across the Captain's retinas and realized that the Captain was using the implant that Hetmwit used a reticle to simulate.

The Captain blinked rapidly and picked up his coffee cup, which had somehow magically refilled. He sipped at it, staring at Hetmwit.

"You stated you left an open channel on The Star of Jurakak, correct?" the Captain asked.

"Yes, Captain."

The Captain nodded. "I'll need that channel," he said.

Hetmwit gave him the frequency and the codes.

"We'll exchange and process lexicons, then see what we can do," the Captain said.

"Do you think we can do anything?" Hetmwit asked.

The Captain nodded. "We have a Sun Shin class heavy battleship flagship at our disposal, your ship at our disposal, and whatever ships are nearby in this interstellar Sargasso Sea," he said. "We have parts, and together, we have a wide variety of skills," the Captain sipped at his coffee again then continued. "What we do not know, we can learn at the learning annexes, just as you learned what you needed to know even as you accidentally enlisted in the Confederate Space Force Navy."

Hetmwit thought. "What is a Sargasso Sea?"

The Captain nodded slightly. "It refers to a region of my homeworld's ocean. In a warmer area, oceanic vegetation grew from the ocean bed toward the surface until it was only a few feet below the surface. Due to the warmth, nutrients, and sunshine, as well as almost no current, the plants grew thick. Early sailing vessels would sail into it, the vegetation would stop movement, and the wind would end. It was impossible to row out of or use wind power. Even early cavitation propeller blades would get tangled. Hundreds of ships over thousands of years were trapped there," the Captain said. "Despite the lack of vegetation and although we are in space, this is much the same. Somehow, we are trapped in this area with the majority of the ship's critical operation systems non-functional."

Hetmwit nodded, idly stirring the meat after putting a piece in his mouth.

"Lexicons are exchanged and computer systems are analyzing them," the Captain said. "Well, Number One, that is at least the first step we will need to take."

"Number One?" Hetmwit asked.

"You are, by default, the Executive Officer, second in command, to my Captain," the Captain said.

Hetmwit frowned. "I'm not even actually a member of your military, and definitely not an officer. How am I the Executive Officer. I have no experience or training."

"None of that matters, Number One," the Captain stated, drawing himself up.

The sheer authority radiating from the Captain made Hetmwit draw himself up into a sitting at attention posture.

"When I was a lowly Lieutenant Junior Grade, during the Darkwater Sea Operations of the Third Digital-Biological War, the ship I was in took a direct hit on the bridge. In a split second the officers around me were dead and I was left with a handful of enlisted. I called out an immediate order to roll the ship, return fire, and order medical to the bridge. Do you know what the navigator replied?" the Captain asked.

Hetmwit shook his head.

"Aye aye, Captain," Captain Decken said. "Do you know why?" Again, Hetmwit shook his head as the Captain sipped his coffee before continuing. "Because, at that moment I was the Captain. All responsibility fell upon my shoulders."

"What happened?" Hetmwit asked.

"Our return fire gutted the DASS Sys32.exe before it could fire a followup salvo. I held command for nine hours until the battle was over and I was relieved by a Commander that transferred from another vessel," the Captain said. "It does not matter who and what you were when the malevolent universe demands you rise to the occasion, only who you are at that moment."

For a crazy moment Hetmwit felt the fire that filled the Terran transfer to him.

"You approached each problem you were faced with by careful analysis, determination, and dedication," the Captain said. "You overcame each obstacle, not by giving up, but by applying yourself. From reading manuals to attending classes," the Captain bared his teeth in an expression that Hetmwit's reticle display informed him was a visual expression of pleasure or happiness. "With a thousand men like you, Seaman Hetmwit, I could win a war."

Hetmwit felt the moment shatter.

"I'm just an average Pagrik," Hetmwit said, looking down. "So unremarkable that others forget about me even while talking to me."

"The observations of others do not matter, Number One," the Captain said. He set his empty coffee cup down, tapped it twice with the spoon, and watched as blackish liquid filled it. "It is the average soldier who forms the ranks that charge the enemy's guns and overwhelms them, the average worker who gathers in masses to build great edifices, and the average maternal unit that raises the next generation of average people to carry society on their backs without thanks."

The Captain sipped at his coffee.

"Do not denigrate the average being," the Captain said. "They are the uncountable masses that supported those who do great things, who carry the culture and society that enables those with that spark of greatness to lead those very masses to achieve great things."

He sipped at his coffee again.

"It does not matter if you are so average and unremarkable that others forget you exist, Seaman Hetmwit, there is only one thing that matters," he said.

"What is that?" Hetmwit asked.

"Can you do what must be done?" the Captain asked.

Hetmwit nodded. "I will."

"Excellent," the Captain said. He gave that 'smile' again. "We will both rise to the challenge then."

Hetmwit believed him.

-----

The Captain sat down at the table, setting his tray down before picking up the coffee cup.

"Status report, Number One?" the Captain asked.

"Engines are offline. Primary and Secondary Computer Cores are offline. Only the secondary emergency backup generators are online. No sensors, no communication, no crew," Hetmwit stated, sitting up straight. "Environmental and artificial gravity are stable. Regenerative food stocks are at maximum, mass tanks are fully topped off. All systems but communications, reactors, engines, sensors, weapons, and non-particle screen defenses are online and are operating at minimal mode due to lack of crew."

The Captain nodded and set down his cup. "Thankfully, with you, I believe we have a way to change that."

"Robots," Hetmwit stated. He had come to that conclusion previously. However, anything more than a limited difference engine refused to come online."

"Correct," the Captain said. "Each robot will be programmed for a specific duty station."

"That will take years of programming," Hetmwit stated.

The Captain shook his head. "No. We use the programs in the Damage Control systems to program the robots. Not only for the task we want to assign it, the station we wish to assign it to, but any station or task within twenty meters in case of catastrophic events and failures."

Hetmwit nodded.

"We'll start with power, working our way up from the emergency generators to the full power plants. Then we will work on the computer cores, from emergency core all the way up to the primary ship's computer systems," the Captain said. "Because you have found that nothing beyond the difference engines your people use will function, we will not bother attempting to bring online the VI or eVI systems, much less the Digital Sentience systems."

Hetmwit had pulled out his worn tablet, taking notes.

"Once we have that, we'll move to the sensors. Take a full sensor sweep, then run the galactic astrogation and navigation systems, see if we can figure out where we are beyond what your ship showed us," the Captain said.

Hetmwit mumbled the words back as he detailed them on his tablet.

"I think I know where we are, just based on the visual data your ship transmitted, but I want to make sure," the Captain said.

Hetmwit nodded. He took the time to jot down thoughts and ideas as the Captain slowly ate.

Finally, Hetmwit looked up. "I'll start by building robots to assist me in the robotics section."

The Captain nodded.

"Excellent, Number One," he sipped his coffee then smiled.

"Between the two of us, we'll get the DJ's Ice Cream Locker up and running and see about getting you home."

The aura of competence and assurance made Hetmwit believe it.