Journey to the Compact

Based on C.J. Cherryh's Chanur series


The George Washington wasn't a Union ship.

Nor was it Alliance.

Which was why it was speeding as fast as it could to get out of Union or Alliance-controlled territory.

Earth itself was behind. The two major companies, Alliance and Union, controlled the stars. They made ridiculous amounts of money and answered mostly to themselves.

Meanwhile, the people of Earth weren't so prosperous. The stars took all the bright youngsters, full of dreams and hopes and infinite possibilities.

Left were those that couldn't afford to go to space. Those that were living in destitution and poverty. Working the grunt jobs, the non-glamorous, 21st century work.

24th century business was in space. In spaceships and building spaceships. New stars, new worlds. Uncharted territory. Plants, animals, life beyond Earth and the Solar System.

Faster than light travel made this all possible. The major revolutionary discovery in 2300 had opened all these new worlds to humans.

60 some-odd years later, the George Washington was built and ready to fly in the opposite direction of worlds such as Pell, Cyteen, and the rest, in the hopes of finding new worlds to bolster Earth's economy.

David Tullerman, Tully to his friends, looked around the ship with some unease. He just wanted to be out of the "trouble" zone quickly.

The known trouble, anyway.

Tully looked around him at his fellow crew. Good citizens, all. All Earth-born and Earth-trained, loyal to the planet. Not to any of the companies out in space, based on worlds besides Earth.

"Prepare for jump," the captain's voice came over the intercom. Tully leaned into his chair and reached for the syringe that contained the drugs humans needed to get them through the jump between places in space. He strapped himself in and plunged the needle into his arm.

The ship went through jump to the furthest known area, the furthest away from explored space. Tully woke up to his friend Dick James' face. Dick smiled and offered Tully a hand up out of his seat.

"C'mon Tully, time to get up!" Tully groaned, smiling, and playfully tossed a magazine at Dick. Dick laughed and dodged the magazine, pulling Tully to his feet. The two of them walked over to the observation deck, Tully still slightly weak on his feet. The observation deck was absolutely silent. Their fellow crewmembers were just standing there, gazing out at the stars. Tully was moved to silence as he understood their reasons for not saying anything.

We're the first human beings ever to see these stars.

There were millions of stars out there, with countless worlds orbiting them. Tully wondered if he would ever visit any of them. He was awestruck with the enormity of what they saw out there.

Every one of those tiny little dots is a star. And beyond them, more stars. And so on and so forth ... until, millions of years later, you're back where you started.

That was the theory, anyway. That eventually, if you went straight in the universe long enough, you would wind up where you started. But that would take you so many more years than humans had on their lifespan.

So like all those centuries ago when humans started exploring other areas of Earth, these colonists would expand little by little until the known universe was charted. If it ever was.

The captain finally broke the silence by declaring a holiday for their successful jump into uncharted territory. A great cheer went up from everyone there, but only a few people raided the food storage and found the champagne they'd packed for this occasion. Silence still reigned as the George Washington's crew stared at the stars in front of them.

As the days rolled on, probes were sent to planets that looked they might be inhabitable. Of those, a small number had actual potential for inhabitation, and Tully was sent down to one of them to explore further.

The air was far purer from what he was used to on Earth. The flora and fauna were totally alien, but they were friendly enough, surprisingly. One of the plants turned out to be edible, and quite tasty. Tully grinned at Dick James, and the two others that had come down to explore the planet. Jenna O'Neill and Steve Byrnes were recording an indigenous animal nearby. It was so peaceful on the planet they'd unofficially called Utopia. There seemed to be no large, dangerous predators. The animal that Jenna and Steve were recording was the largest they'd found and it was no bigger than a cat on Old Earth.

They broke for noonday meal, with Tully and Steve making a small fire to heat food they'd brought from the George Washington. The animals were curious about the fire, some of the bolder ones even grabbing food Jenna threw their way. Steve commented that they shouldn't really upset the ecosystem, then they all burst out laughing. It was just too peaceful on Utopia to think about "serious" matters.

Their shuttle was parked nearby, and Dick radioed back to make sure everyone was clear on what was going on.

They saw the intruder ship. They were deep inside knnn space, these kif, but there was another ship. Two more ships, but one was knnn. The other ship did not look like knnn.
They ran an ID on it. It was no knnn ship that they had ever heard of.
"Receiving a message," the comm officer said. "It's gibberish! I've never heard this language before."
"They must be savages," another kif said.
"They are unarmed."
"They are a threat."
"They are unarmed."
"Look," a third kif said, "some are on that planet."
"Foolish, whatever they are," the first kif replied. "Send a team down to the planet. Kill the mothership. We will take the team on the planet."
Kifish heads bobbed in agreement.

Knnn com sang.
"Intruder!"
Knnn scrambled all over their ship to identify the two newcomers that had showed up. "Kif," one was identified as. They didn't recognize the other ship as being any known species. They queried it.

"Dick, come in. Dick? Tully? Steve? Jenna?" The radio in the shuttle came to life, humming with the call from the George Washington.
Dick raced over. "Dick here. Marty, what's going on?"
"We've had contact." Marty's voice was filled with wonder and excitement. "There's an alien ship out there. We sent it the standard greeting, and we're waiting for a response."

A great cheer went up from the four crewmembers gathered on Utopia. A new space-faring civilization! That was something they'd only dreamed of finding. Dick returned to the radio. "What's their ship like, do we have a visual?"

"I'll send it to you via the shuttle's Tri-D output," Marty said. Dick, Tully, Jenna, and Steve crowded around the display. The ship was black, sleek, and somewhat menacing. "We're getting a name ... it's total gibberish. They don't speak anywhere near our language." The view changed to the inside of the ship, and Marty's head. In the background, someone was shouting over a printout, and the view abruptly swung back out to the new ship. "What is that thing?" Marty asked aloud. The visual showed a long tube speeding for the George Washington rapidly. Tully's stomach fell to his feet. "Oh my god..."

The Tri-D screen showed chaos. Fire everywhere, pieces of the George Washington flying around. The sound was horrible, and then it was over almost as soon as it began. The screen was black, punctuated only with "Connection failed. Attempting to reconnect" and a short ping. At the same time, the four crewmembers turned their heads to the sky to see a fireball where their ship had been.

They just stood there for a minute, absorbing what had just happened. "Do you think they know we're down here?" Jenna finally asked.

The thought was given consideration in their brains. "If they don't," Tully said after moments of emptiness, "they will as soon as we try to leave."

Silence reigned once more. "We should hide," Steve said. "Split up and hide. If they leave, we ... can stay here."

I can't ever go home. We're stuck here. Everyone up there is dead. Dead. Gone. No going home. They're all dead. Tully desperately tried not to think those thoughts, but they came anyway.

"Split up sounds good," Jenna said in a soft voice.

"Yeah..."

Abruptly all four turned and ran in opposite directions. Tully had never been much of an athlete, he was in good shape, but not overly so. His legs wanted to give out after the first tenth of a klick [Author's note: Klick = kilometer. Tenth of a klick = 100 meters], but he kept going. He saw a system of caves off to the right, and he ran into them. He went left, right, any way he dared. He thought he might be right in the middle of the caves. He stayed there, huddled to the ground and shivering from fright. He'd never been so alone or so scared.

The knnn watched as the kif ship attacked the intruder. "Explain kif actions," the knnn sent to the kif. "Kif are in knnn territory. Knnn control ships here."