Chapter 21
He rarely laughed out loud and this hard – in fact, his sides were starting to hurt because he was laughing so hard – but it was the only suitable reaction for this. In one fell swoop, Tekkadan and Teiwaz had disrupted everything, and in the process, tarnished Gjallarhorn’s reputation beyond anyone’s expectations. McGillis sensed the hand of McMurdo Barriston in the idea to use the aliens in this way, but the execution was all Tekkadan and Kudelia Aina Bernstein, and they delivered it with aplomb.
“Bravo,” he said as his laughter died down, and he paid attention to the aliens’ words.
“Listen to them,” Todo muttered at his side. “They’re practically daring Gjallarhorn to touch them.”
McGillis smiled as the Arianrhod fleet’s mobile suits came to a halt. “The Seven Stars won’t allow it. It would turn an already bad situation into a disaster.”
“If you say so boss,” Todo replied, shaking his head in disbelief.
McGillis took stock of the bridge crews’ reactions. They were in various states of shock, although as far as he could discern, none of them were incapable of handling their duties. That would be sufficient to execute the next phase of his plan, although it would be less than optimal – at the very least, he expected some reluctance and trepidation at the thought of rendezvousing with Tekkadan.
As soon as the broadcast ended, he gave the order to proceed to the prearranged coordinates – there was a slight hesitation, but nothing too worrying. Satisfied, McGillis proceeded to his quarters, removing his coat and carefully laying the mask in a box that fit inside his luggage.
As he finished putting the box away, the intercom came to life. “Sir, you’ve got an urgent call from a… Gaelio Bauduin on your private line.”
McGillis nodded to himself. Early in the planning of this mission, he had brought up the point that communication in the field might be necessary, and had set up this line to facilitate that. The fact that it did not go to a passenger vessel was something Gjallarhorn overlooked, although some falsified records made it harder for them to notice that.
“Very well, put him on,” McGillis replied, tossing his vest and tie on the bed. In his button-down shirt and slacks, he not only distanced himself from his appearance on Dort 3, but he looked like one of the higher ranked workers without a sweater on. Normally, he wouldn’t be concerned with Gaelio even being aware of details like that, but he’d presented said details during the planning phase of the mission and therefore needed them to maintain his cover.
McGillis sat down and pulled the folding desk down from its stowed position, allowing the built-in monitor to pop up and come to life. When Gaelio’s face appeared onscreen, he was struck by how out of sorts the other man was. His face was pale and sweaty, his hair was mussed up far beyond what a helmet would do, and he seemed to be shaking a bit.
“McGillis?” Gaelio’s voice sounded as shaky as he seemed to be, and more than a little childish too. “Where are you?”
“I’m on the transport. It looks like our intelligence was off base – there wasn’t a single sign of Kudelia on Dort 2. It seems she was on Dort 3 the whole time.”
Gaelio’s eyes widened at the mention of the girl’s name. “Did you see her message? Did you see—” The scion of House Bauduin pressed a hand to the side of his head. “This can’t be real, can it?”
McGillis sat there, mouth slightly agape as he processed what he was seeing. “I think it is very real.” He paused. “I take it you didn’t succeed in your part of the mission?”
Gaelio looked down for a second, and when he looked back at the camera, his eyes were watering. “N-no… and… and Ein didn’t make it.”
“Are you sure?” McGillis found the young Gjallarhorn ensign to be a rather dour and narrowminded individual, but one that was useful in spite of his limitations. If he was merely heavily wounded, Ein could serve as a valuable test subject for one of McGillis’ long term projects.
“I… I’m pretty sure.” Gaelio’s self-control continued its sliding decline. “I-I saw-“
A notification popped up on the screen, interrupting whatever Gaelio was going to say. It was a message from the bridge, letting him know there was a pending call from Lord Bauduin. McGillis raised his eyebrows in surprise, then returned his attention to his friend.
“Gaelio, your father is trying to call me.” That seemed to calm the shaken major a bit. “As soon as I’m done talking to him, I’ll have him call you, alright?”
“Ye-yeah, that sounds good.” Gaelio’s nod was a bit too fast and still a little shaky, but he at least didn’t seem to be in the midst of a mental breakdown. “I-I’ll talk to you later then.”
The connection cut from Gaelio’s end, allowing the signal from Vingolf to immediately replace it. The image of Gallus Bauduin’s face was grim and more than a little anxious. “McGillis, things are falling apart down here – I hope you have an explanation for… for this disaster.”
Making sure his own face was appropriately grim, he reiterated his explanation, then added, “Gaelio and I should have foreseen the possibility of Teiwaz and Tekkadan colluding with the aliens to deceive us.”
“No, don’t blame yourselves,” Gallus muttered wearily. “We all missed that possibility. And now we’re paying for it, dearly.” He sighed deeply, then ran his hand over his mouth. “How soon can you return to Vingolf?”
“Once the lockdown is lifted, it shouldn’t take me more than 24 hours to return.” On the inside, McGillis smiled – the elder Bauduin’s didn’t know that his ship had already departed Dort airspace, and the figure he’d given was more than enough time to conclude his business with Tekkadan.
“Good. There’ll be a board of inquiry into this – not due to anything you or Gaelio did,” Gallus added. “Standard procedure for a combat mission with casualties.”
“I am well aware of that, sir.” McGillis hesitated, which caught the man’s attention, as he knew it would. “About Gaelio… it might be best if you call him right away.”
“What happened to him?” For a moment, McGillis was taken aback by the sudden harshness in Gallus’ voice, before realizing it was merely an expression of his anxiety and parental concern.
“Gaelio’s physically fine, but…” Again, he hesitated. “He just lost his protégé, and I think that caused the news to hit him harder that it might have otherwise.”
“I see.” Gallus’ expression softened, and a wave of relief and exhaustion briefly crossed his face. “Thank you for letting me know. I’ll get on it right away.”
“No thanks are necessary, sir. I’m only doing what any friend would do.”
“Don’t be so modest, McGillis. Just get back here as soon as you can.” Once again the connection cut out, leaving McGillis alone with his thoughts.
Gaelio’s situation was intriguing, to say the least. While he hadn’t suffered a full mental breakdown yet – or at least, he didn’t appear to have, his mental state meant that he was likely far more susceptible to manipulation than he’d normally be. And that made him a far more useful asset alive than dead, given the uncertain timeframe McGillis now had to achieve his goals. If done properly, it wouldn’t take much to leverage Gaelio’s own misgivings about Gjallarhorn’s behavior and actions into firm support for McGillis’ own plans.
As he contemplated this, he became aware of an odd sensation, one that he realized, after several seconds, was relief. Relief that he no longer needed to kill his best – his only – friend. That realization shamed him.
Is this truly how weak my resolve is? He asked himself. How can I reach the heights that Agnika Kaieru achieved, never mind surpass them, if this is how I feel when I avoid the truly great sacrifices?
There was no answer in the silent cabin.
“The DCN launch is on its way.”
With that, Orga sighed in relief and sagged into the captain’s chair. For such a tumultuous day, it felt like it’d taken a week to get through it all, and he was starting to feel a little burnt out. Thankfully, Kudelia and Vass had offered to shepherd the news crew off the ship, a task that had taken three times as long as it should have, because the reporters kept stopping to talk to various human and non-human crew members. The practical part of him didn’t blame them – they could string that footage out for at least a week and make good money off of it, but he just wanted to be done with today. After months of dread, a little relief was something he was looking forward to.
With Eugene at the helm punching in the coordinates for their rendezvous with their mysterious “friend” from Dort 3, Orga seriously contemplated closing his eyes and sleeping for a bit. That hope was dashed when the communications console began bleeping.
“I’ve got it,” Chad announced, moving from his station over to Fumitan’s old position. A bitter taste filled his mouth as he remembered that she’d never be around to help them again. “It’s a call from home base, back on Mars!”
“Wha-“ Orga cut himself off as he realized what was going on. “Put them on the main viewer.”
Dexter Culastor, the treasurer of Tekkadan, appeared on screen. He was in one of the office workspaces with multiple computers, and in the background, a whole lot of children were at the workstations. As the meek, glasses wearing accountant started speaking, Orga could swear all the kids were saying some variation of “Please hold.”
“Uh, boss, we have a situation here.” The middle aged man shifted uncomfortably and wiped some sweat off his brow. “We’re getting bombarded by calls from news agencies throughout the system, asking for more information on some aliens?”
It took a second for Orga to realize what he said. “Wait, you haven’t seen the news?”
“No, I’ve seen it – some of the kids were watching TV when Ms. Kudelia’s speech came on, so I listened in.”
Orga thought the man was remarkably nonplussed about the whole thing, but that was probably a good thing.
That said, he hadn’t expected – and in retrospect, he should have – a media blitz on headquarters once the news got out. It wouldn’t take anyone long to figure out where Tekkadan’s base was and what its contact info was, because it was on public record in the Arbrau databases, as required by law. And a news organization would naturally have plenty of people on hand to search for things like that, especially when the story of the century – perhaps of all centuries – happened.
“Alright, here’s what I want you to do. Tell them all that you’ve got nothing more to say, and that we’ll talk to them once we get to Edmonton.”
“You want me to send that as an official statement?”
Orga shrugged. “I mean, make it sound a little better, but yeah, basically.”
Dexter sighed. “I don’t know if it’ll work, but thanks, boss. I’ll get it done as fast as possible.”
The connection cut off, and an uncomfortable silence filled the room.
After several long moments, Biscuit Griffon, sitting in the copilot’s chair, spoke up. “Hey Orga… do you think we should see what the news is saying?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Orga’s voice sounded a little hollow in his own ears. “Where would we even start?”
The three other teens in the room looked at each other.
“How about Earth news?” Eugene suggested. “We’re going there eventually, so we might as well see what they think.”
“Alright then. Chad, get us some news.”
“Right, boss.” Chad fiddled with the controls for a few minutes. “How does MultiNational News sound?”
“Perfect. Put it on, nice and big.”
A video window spanning the whole main viewport appeared, showing a frazzled looking black woman sitting behind a polished metal and glass curved desk. A news ticker feed whirled wildly at the bottom, while a large red banner, going from one side of the window to the other, declared in large, bold white text WE ARE NOT ALONE. The weight of that proclamation dazed Orga for a second, and distracted him from the reporter’s words.
“If you are just joining us, mankind has just learned that life outside this solar system exists. At 3:18 Greenwich Mean Time, during a statement condemning a Gjallarhorn false flag attack against the laborers of the Dort Colonies, Kudelia Aina Bernstein introduced the crew of an alien exploratory vessel that has been stranded in our solar system. Miguel Masterson has been gathering details on this historic story – Miguel, what’s new?”
The camera cut to an equally frazzled, but somewhat dazed middle-aged man somewhere backstage in the news facility. He was surrounded by people frantically using their workstation computers – every screen in the camera’s view had something related to Kudelia’s statement.
“Well Diedra, Dort Colony Network is currently running a live broadcast of the return of its anchors. We’re getting word that they’ll be held in medical isolation for a few days as a precaution, to prevent the spread of alien germs.” The man paused, looking down and holding a finger to an earpiece before continuing. “This just in – the Martian private military company Tekkadan has put out an official statement that reads ‘At this time, Tekkadan Headquarters has no additional information to provide regarding the aliens or the company’s relationship with said aliens. Any and all questions should be forwarded to Tekkadan representatives, once they arrive in Edmonton.’”
“I see we made quite the impression,” a familiar voice said from the rear of the bridge. Orga turned his chair sharply – there stood Dr. Vass and Kudelia, and he hadn’t even heard them enter. He noted that Kudelia looked a little gobsmacked by it all, and he found it hard to blame her. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you put on a business network? I find that they are a little less likely to waste time on minutia.”
Orga rotated his chair back to face the screen. “Chad?”
“Gimme a second… okay, let’s try this.”
The video flickered black for a second, then resolved onto a new broadcast. Unlike the last news set, there was a great deal of wood in the furniture, as well as a large sign hanging from the ceiling announcing that they were watching the “InterPlanetary Business Network.” A pale, bald middle aged man sat this news desk, while a bored looking Asian woman sat across from him.
“This just in – Dort Company stock has dropped 33% in the last fifteen minutes. Trinie, given what we’ve seen, what are the odds that this freefall won’t continue?”
The woman simply said, “Well Bill, that depends on whether the company can convince investors that it’s not as culpable in what is likely to be the worst PR disaster in human history as it appears to be. From the outside, it looks like they hired Gjallarhorn to kill workers who wanted better pay and better living conditions. That’s going to be hard to shake.”
A sudden realization struck Orga. “Hey, Biscuit. Now might be a good time to send a message to your brother.”
Biscuit turned towards him in confusion, then understanding dawned on him. “Can I use your office?”
“Sure.”
Orga looked off to the side, catching Kudelia’s face out of the corner of his eye. She was staring straight at the IPBN video feed, her expression shifting between astonishment, shock, and horror. As the anchors droned on about the various upheavals and potential financial impact of the existence of aliens, she finally managed to choke out a few words. “This is what we did?”
Orga glanced back at the screen and nodded. “Yup.”
“And you’re fine with that?”
He gave her a quick once over, and wrote off Kudelia’s attitude as a delayed stress reaction. “Honestly, I figure that after a few days, things will settle down and get back to normal for everyone, except for Gjallarhorn. They’re probably in for a whole lot of trouble right now.”
Kudelia started to say something, then shook her head. “You might be right. So, what are we doing now?”
“Well, we’re following up on this message we got on Dort 3.” Orga pulled the paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Vass. “Whoever left it also put a tracker on you – that’s how we managed to find out where you were.”
She moved to his side and leaned on the arm of his chair. “If that was left in my room, then that person was the same one who threatened me and Fumitan, and I want nothing to do with him.”
Orga’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me more.”
“He barged into my room, told me that… told me stuff about the workers’ revolt and about Fumitan.” Frustration spread across her face as she realized Orga wasn’t being persuaded. “He hid his face under a gold mask! He could’ve killed us – or worse!”
“Kudelia,” Vass said in a gentle voice, laying a friendly hand on her shoulder. “You do realize that you’ve only made it more imperative that we meet this individual?”
She looked at him in disbelief. “What?!”
“That man was clearly a covert agent,” the Salarian patiently explained. “One connected to a well-informed source of information and with at least some resources. The fact that you and Fumitan were allowed to leave indicates that there was at least some value to him and his employers in keeping you alive, which means we may share common interests and could possibly form an alliance with these people.”
That shook her out of her outrage, and she seemed to shrink in on herself, her face a sea of troubles. Orga looked over at Chad and Eugene, and the uncertainty in their eyes said all that needed to be said.
“We’ll continue as planned to this rendezvous,” he announced. “I want to hear this guy out… because like it or not, we’re going to need every ally we can get. We embarrassed Gjallarhorn so bad, they’ll literally write about it in the history books – so they’ll come down on us harder than we can imagine. I want every edge I can get before that happens.” He turned to face Kudelia. “That said, if he turns out to be potential threat, I won’t hesitate to take him out – permanently.”
Kudelia locked eyes with him and nodded. “That’s fine by me.”
“Good.” Orga turned back to the front of the bridge. “Full speed ahead. We’ve got an appointment to keep.”
For the first time in centuries, the council chambers of the Seven Stars of Gjallarhorn were the bustling hive of activity that they originally were. Some aides darted in and out of the room, delivering tablets containing data or news reports from throughout the system, while other aides huddled by the outside walls, maintaining muted conversations with colleagues outside the room. Every so often, someone would burst in with a new bit of catastrophy for their attention.
Gallus Bauduin chugged half a glass of water in an attempt to moderate the growing migraine pounding in his right temple. He knew he’d regret it soon, but the last thing he needed to do was lose his temper, as Lord Nemo Baklazan did early in the meeting.
That said, he could not fault Baklazan for his enraged rant at Lord Ellion – the commander of the Arianrhod fleet had certainly set up and tipped most of the dominos that led to this disaster, and the chain reaction was still going. A small part of him realized that they wouldn’t know the full extent of it for years, possibly decades, down the line – it was simply too big to grasp the entire picture.
One of the aides whispering along the walls stepped forward. “Sirs, we’ve just confirmed that massive protests are forming outside all groundside facilities throughout the system. What are your orders?”
“Lock down the bases,” Iznario Fareed growled before Ellion could say anything. “If the perimeters are breached, use non-lethal weaponry only. Civilian casualties are to be avoided at all costs.”
Another aide burst into the room, holding up a tablet with a news report. “Sirs, the President of the African Union has just put out warrants for the arrests of the Dort Company executive board, as well as a statement denouncing the Arianrhod fleet!”
“No surprise there,” mumbled the portly Elek Falk. “He had protestors practically on his door step – what else was he to do?”
“He could’ve showed some spine!” Iok Kujan shot back. “He came to us to mediate the dispute!”
“I suspect he assumed that the mediation would actually involve negotiation, as opposed to he actually received,” Gallus wearily replied, studiously avoiding Rustal Ellion’s face. “Like it or not, we did kill a large number of his citizens, so we have to deal with that… on top of this whole alien situation.”
Carta Issue, head of the Issue family and commander of the Outer Earth Orbit Regulatory Joint Fleet, sat up straighter at that. “The Outer Earth Orbit Regulatory Joint Fleet stands ready to defend Earth, if necessary.”
“A situation that only exists because your analysts failed to account for the possibility that the aliens remained in this system,” Ellion dryly observed, staring Gallus down.
The elder Bauduin felt his jaw set as tried to keep his disdain from leaking into his voice. “I seem to recall no one, including yourself, even posing said possibility. It seems that if there’s a blindspot in our thinking, it is one shared equally among all the Seven Stars and members of Gjallarhorn.”
“The good thing is,” Lord Falk interjected, “we know the aliens aren’t hostile.”
Carta frowned, and not for the first time, Gallus was stuck by how young she seemed… and it felt like she was a child just yesterday. I need to stop thinking about how old I’m getting. He sighed, and cast another glance at her. It’s a shame that she and Gaelio never became a couple… that would have simplified so many things. He paused and reconsidered that. Actually, her and McGillis would’ve been fine too, and would’ve avoided some of her… eccentricities, but then I’d have to worry more about Almiria…
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Lord Falk.” Carta gestured to one of the tablets strewn on the table. “Yes, I know the aliens said they came in peace, but we have no evidence pointing to that.”
“The fact that we’re still alive is all the evidence we need.”
Carta let out an exasperated sigh. “I still don’t follow.”
“The aliens have a ship that can travel faster than light, yes?”
“I suppose so…”
“Then they could have had it come here and dropped a rock on us, or whatever it is these aliens do to wage war on each other, and escaped before our forces could have reacted.”
Everyone paused as that realization sank in.
“Wait a second,” Iok held up a finger to emphasize his point. “Didn’t they say their ship was disabled?”
“No, they said they suffered an accident outside of Jupiter’s orbit,” Lord Baklazan reminded them. “They never said what that accident was or what it did.”
“We should—”
Rustal Ellion never got to finish that thought, as a new Gjallarhorn officer burst into the room, panting like crazy. It took a second for him to catch his breath, which gave Gallus enough time to realize the man was from the Gjallarhorn Judge Advocate General branch. What do they have to do with this?
“Sirs,” he started, before having to take in another deep breath. “The economic blocks… they’ve all invoked 9-22-R protections on anything related to the aliens!”
Each member of the Seven Stars glanced at the others in complete befuddlement before Carta Issue asked the question on all their minds: “What does that even mean?”
Taken aback by the question, the JAG officer took a few seconds to collect his thoughts. “Article 9, section 22, clause R of the Vingolf Proclamation defines the circumstances under which the four economic blocks can refuse Gjallarhorn mediation for inter-block diplomatic issues and restrict our access to said negotiations.” He gulped, as he got to the really bad news. “The wording differs in each message, but all the blocks state that the alien situation is a matter to be negotiated amongst themselves, and that Gjallarhorn is barred from any and all events related to them until a date yet to be specified… which will be determined once the aliens arrive in Edmonton.”
Gallus buried his face in his hands, almost certain that this news was circulating throughout the system at that very moment. Rustal Ellion and Inzario Fareed’s mouths were compressed into equally dour scowls, while Carta and Iok began arguing with the beleaguered JAG officer over the utility of such a clause, and the final two Seven Stars slumped back in their chairs. And yet more information flowed into the room as the world continued to react to the news, awash in the chaos of such an untimely revelation.
Gallus knew that there’d be a light at the end of this long, miserable tunnel… but at the moment, it was nowhere in sight.
Author's Notes: Hope you enjoy catching up with our good friend McGillis and his reaction to the last chapter. That ending bit of his section is a reaction to his words and actions in the S1 and S2 finales, which reveal a lot about his mindset and attitude throughout the show - and this is the point where he is going to diverge from his canon counterpart, as an indirect result of these events. It won't be as big as Gaelio's divergence, but it should be equally interesting.
One thing that IBO could've used was a little more insight into what the people of the worlds were getting as news, so I worked that into the Orga section. We never did find out about whatever happened to the Dort Company, but having your workers getting shot on TV is really bad for the stock value, so they probably got into a bit of trouble. Well, in this timeline, they're probably going to be facing even worse trouble.
I had a little fun in the obligatory Seven Stars react section - if you're familiar with certain parts of the US legal code, you'll spot the reference. Since we never see the Vingolf Proclamation on screen (and it's only referred to on a piece of onscreen text), I picture it as a sort of US Constitution type of document, where people (especially the Seven Stars) are probably only familiar with the opening and random sections that they use to justify whatever it is they're doing, if at all. Of course, them getting locked out of diplomatic functions related to the aliens is least that could happen to them, but hey, there's still time for things to develop.