Alacritous Regress

Installment 12: Programing Bugs, They're a Safety Feature

Adrien sits at a round table filled with aliens. Surrounding one side of the table are all the Australians in their neatly pressed uniforms covered in medals, and next to them are their four armed, flat faced, Avlicin allies. Surrounding her on this side of the table are the assorted races of the Council. There's her co-ambassador, Ms. Smith and Miz'en, representing the Humans and Corins of the ITA, and Virk representing the Blaits. Further around the table is a sleek Sveck in a loose fitting suit, two Pīērin in silvery robes, an Avin in a gray jumpsuit, a Kaltin in a brightly embroidered vest, and two Myren in their natural state, one in a long gown and the other in an orange T-shirt.

"But what proof do we have that you can offer additional protection for us!" shouts one of the Australians. That single statement sums up the past two hours of negotiation. Few of the people there are actually for the proposed treaty. Members from both sides have fought at every inch that the meeting has attempted to take, leaving the terms of the current treaty blank.

Adrien sighs, wishing that they could all argue over the terms of the treaty, not whether they should be sitting here arguing in the first place.

She sighs again as one of the Pīērin starts yelling back at the Australians. She envies the people at home, she envies the others on the stations, she envies all those away from the debating. She even envies the crews of the Council ships, who left on their own, must be feeling the discrimination of the xenophobic Australians.

She'd rather be with those b___ards, discrimination or not, than at this cr_py meeting.

<<>>

"Wait a second, you were half way through the depression cycle before you realized?"

Quick looks at the laughing man. "Yeah, not having one sets off a few alarms, but it's not necessary." Quick, Brian, and Shooting are in the mess of the Alacritous. The three of them sit with four Australians, and a collection of three assorted alien, all playing Terran poker.

"I didn't know this though, I thought I was about to die," she continues, to the laughing amusement of the others. "I yanked the emergency pressurization valve, knocking Brian out of the way to do so." The others laugh.

"And I land right in front of a release valve," Brian continues. "You normally don't feel anything during pressurization. This felt like a punch to the guts though."

The ten of them had been chatting for an hour now. Not discussing politics, or the hopeless problems of their planets, but light recounting of their funnier encounters. They lay down their cards and the pile of chips is pushed over to a tiny little Corin that already has half the chips on the table. No one care though, the chips are just that, chips. Without a conversion rate for the currencies of the two nations, using real money is pointless.

"So we had no idea what the convoy was transporting, above our paygrade," one of the Australians babbles. "All we know is that it's our job to protect it, which guarantees that all hell breaks loose."

"We hit a gravity field at 3Kc and get thrown out of warp," another person continues. "Next thing we know we're being swarmed by Dronies. We make sure that convoy gets out of there, then we make a hard jump to warp."

"We get nine of the ships through," the first one explains. The one speaking is Ardwik, a guy I met yesterday. "So the commander freaks out because we lost one." Today he is wearing a jumpsuit that I assume is their day to day dress. "They blamed it on us, can you believe it. We get attacked by Dronies and suddenly it's our fault."

"They never did find it or any signs of wreckage," says the second, an average looking man with a little stubble and glasses, actual glasses.

Me, Quick, and Brian look at each other. Several months ago we had found an Avlicin transport. We had boarded the ship and managed to subdue most of the crew. We never checked the cargo bay, but whatever was in there must of been important. Important enough that the captain was willing to sacrifice himself, his crew, and his ship to keep it from us.