by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
Captain Carroway’s heart skipped a beat. At least, it felt that way to her.
They were being hailed. By aliens from another galaxy.
The Tri-Galactic Union may have tried to throw her away on a suicide mission, but they had failed. She was on the far side of the cosmos, about to make first contact with aliens from the Tetra Galaxy. Answering this hail was possibly the most important thing that any captain in the Tri-Galactic Union had ever done. Or any officer. Or any uplifted animal from Earth. And she was ready for it. She would prove all the dogs who’d tried to hold her down, all the superior officers who’d tried to hold her back wrong. She would be immortalized in history books, remembered forever as the first cat to talk to someone from the Tetra Galaxy.
Never mind that The Wanderlust would need to find a way home for any of this to be remembered… They would find a way. And when they got home, holy fishcakes, would she be vindicated.
Captain Carroway straightened her tunic, smoothed down the long fur that always escaped around her collar in fluffy wisps, and stood taller than she had in days. Then she meowed, “Answer the hail, put it on the main viewscreen.”
Ensign Diaz glared with wide-set eyes at her captain for a long moment. The canine didn’t look like a normal Tri-Galactic Union officer with her necklace of reeds worn over her uniform and the ornate facial tattoo of red-dyed fur on one side of her face. None of that was regulation. Of course, neither were all the gold earrings that lined the sides of Commander Chestnut’s round ears. But Captain Carroway hadn’t thought it would win many points with the Anti-Ra side of her crew to insist on following strict regulations out here in the middle of nowhere. The Norwegian Forest cat was starting to question the wisdom of that choice though. Maybe if she’d tried to hold a tighter reign while beginning the integration of the crew yesterday, she wouldn’t be facing so much defiance from Ensign Diaz today.
But then the canine turned back toward the main viewscreen and barked sharply, “Yes, Captain.”
The beautiful forested back of the giant space turtle disappeared from the main viewscreen and was replaced by a new image that twisted and distorted at first, while The Wanderlust’s computers worked to translate the foreign video encoding, but soon snapped into place. The new image wasn’t anything that Captain Carroway would have expected. She’d expected something truly alien and surprising, something hard to interpret or understand. Instead, she found herself looking at the pointy, pinched face of a fuzzy, brown, mammalian alien with prickly quills poking out all around his face. The quills looked like they covered his whole back, and many of them had small colorful objects stuck onto their ends, giving the creature a cluttered look, a bit like a pin cushion or some kind of half-finished craft.
Overall, the alien looked a lot like an Earthen hedgehog might look if they’d ever been uplifted. He twitched his nose and spoke in a high-pitched voice, but The Wanderlust’s computers hadn’t figured out how to translate the alien’s words yet.
The alien spoke quickly, jabbering away with only the occasional break in his stream of words. The words sounded urgent, but also, completely indistinguishable for people from another galaxy who simply didn’t know the language.
“How long will it take for the computer’s algorithms to work out the language this creature is speaking?” Captain Carroway asked. The sound of her words interrupted the alien’s flow, and she found herself staring at an alien hedgehog in silence. The alien’s stare was quite intense, like he really, really wanted something from Captain Carroway and The Wanderlust.
“Longer now that the creature has stopped talking,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie observed drily. “It would help if you could get them speaking again.”
Captain Carroway sighed deeply, and her shoulders slumped forward. She’d felt moments away from the greatest discovery of her time, and now, she was trying to get a jabbering hedgehog covered in baubles to keep talking. She shouldn’t be disappointed. This creature was still a member of a spacefaring alien race from an entirely different galaxy who might have invaluable information to share with them. And this was still a case of first contact. But it no longer felt quite as momentous.
Speaking slowly and clearly, even though she knew it would make no difference before the computer figured out a translation algorithm, Captain Carroway meowed, “Please, keep talking so our computer can learn your language.”
The alien hedgehog on the viewscreen blinked its beady eyes, and for a moment, Captain Carroway thought she’d have to try a different strategy. But then he opened his pointy muzzle and began jabbering again, even more hurriedly.
Speaking lowly so as to hopefully not interrupt the hedgehog’s flow again, Captain Carroway asked Lt. Cmdr. Vossie, “Does it matter that they’re talking so quickly?”
“No,” the Morphican answered slowly, analyzing the data streaming across their console. “I think it’s a good thing, actually. It means more data, more quickly for the computer to process.”
Captain Carroway nodded, keeping her eyes on the hedgehog who was continuing to stare at her just as intensely. However, her ears twisted and turned, hearing sounds at the back of the bridge — shuffling footsteps, whispered words that she couldn’t quite make out. Word of this first contact must have spread to the rest of the crew, and on such a small ship, that meant she suddenly had an audience that might well include absolutely everyone aboard. And of course, even if an officer or two wasn’t crowded at the back of the bridge watching, whatever happened here would be common knowledge and shared with anyone who missed it.
Knowing she was being watched actually made Captain Carroway feel oddly better. She’d wanted to be in the eyes of history. And maybe, right now, that only meant a meager half-dozen or so people, but it was all of the people from her galaxy who were out here. Suddenly, what she was doing felt important again. Her tail lashed excitedly, and her ears stood tall.
The Norwegian Forest cat was more than ready for it when The Wanderlust’s translation algorithms suddenly kicked in, and the hedgehog alien on her viewscreen said, “Help us, you have to help us, please, oh please, I’ve already done everything I can, but there’s no one else out here, and we don’t have any weapons to protect us! You have to help me protect these people! The Ollallans are a beautiful, peaceful race, and I can’t stand to see them being hurt like this!”
Captain Carroway raised her paws, keeping her claws retracted even though that wouldn’t be visible through the viewscreen, in a gesture designed to make the hedgehog alien slow down. “Hold on, hold on,” she meowed, trusting that if the computer could translate the hedgehog’s words for her, it could also translate her words for the hedgehog. “We’re going to need some more information before we get started here. First off, who are you? Where are you? Who’s attacking you? And…” Captain Carroway halted, thinking her words over, before continuing. “Actually, that should be a good starting point.”
The hedgehog made a squeak of impatient frustration, but then he started over, slower this time. “My name is Korvax, and I’m on a small spaceship, hidden behind the Waykeeper’s left hind flipper right now. I’ve been living with the Ollallans who inhabit this wise Waykeeper for many years, and I’m the only one here with any sort of spaceflight. The Ollallans are a peaceful, naturalistic people with no way of defending themselves from the attacking Zakonraptors. You have to help them!”
“What’s a Zakonraptor?” Captain Carroway meowed, intrigued in spite of herself. She hadn’t wanted to be drawn into yet another violent conflict, but since she was here and it was happening anyway, she wanted to understand it.
“Oh!” Korvax squeaked on the viewscreen, his pointy nose twitching to one side. When he spoke again, his words rushed into a blur like they’d been doing before, but this time the computer translated the verbal downpour: “They’re horrible reptilian, feathered, dinosaur beast things! And their spaceships are burning down the Waykeeper’s beautiful forests! It’s just a travesty! A travesty!”
Captain Carroway felt the small shape of Commander Chestnut step up beside her. Someone must have awoken the golden-mantled squirrel and told him to come. She couldn’t blame whichever Anti-Ra officer had made that choice, wanting their own leader on the bridge for this. Besides, Captain Carroway didn’t mind the back-up. She had long wanted to be a captain, but she’d never expected to lead alone. Tri-Galactic Union captains weren’t all-powerful rulers who could never be questioned — although, some dogs who Captain Carroway had known seemed to forget that. No, Tri-Galactic Union captains were meant to lead with assistance, consultation, and advice.
To that end, Captain Carroway said to the hedgehog on her viewscreen, “Allow me a minute to consult with my first officer, please.” Then glancing over at Lt. Cmdr. Vossie, she swept one paw across her neck in a gesture meant to tell him that he should cut the sound.
The Morphican nodded, pressed a few keys on his console, and said, “I’ve turned the sound off, Captain.”
Holy lobster tails, Captain Carroway wished Lt. Cmdr. Vossie was still himself and still her first officer. Even as shaken as he’d been by the events of the last few days — losing a huge part of himself — he was still perfectly in synch with her. Unfortunately, their lives hadn’t turned out that way.
The Norwegian Forest cat turned to the small golden-mantled squirrel beside her. Commander Chestnut was literally bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He didn’t look at all like he’d just been woken up by Ensign Risqua or Ensign Werik, even though that was clearly what had happened.
“What would you advise?” Captain Carroway asked the squirrel. She had her own thoughts, but she knew better than to say them first. Her role was to make the final decision, not to put her decision up for others to review and critique. But she wanted to know what kind of resistance she might or might not be dealing with when she ordered her crew to assist these Ollallans, whoever they were. She wanted to find out who they were, and that meant they needed to not all die in forest fires.
The side that’s burning down forests is rarely — if ever — the right side.
With an internal wince, Captain Carroway found herself comparing the dastardliness of setting forest fires to… collapsing perfectly good stars into brand new black holes, sucking everything around them into a crushing death.
The comparison didn’t look good.
It didn’t make her look good.
Or the Tri-Galactic Union.
She was going to do the right thing here, regardless of what Commander Chestnut said. Fortunately, when the golden-mantled squirrel spoke, he said, “As an Arborealist, I cannot support the wanton destruction of forests. If we can, then we need to help them.”
Captain Carroway felt the fur on her back, underneath her uniform, twitch with discomfort at the mysticism inherent to the squirrel’s reasoning. “I’m not entirely sure that your personal religious beliefs should enter into this,” the Norwegian Forest cat meowed in a measured tone. “However, I’m inclined to agree with your conclusion here. I do think it’s our duty to help them.”
Captain Carroway glanced quickly around the bridge, trying not to show she was doing it. She wanted to gauge the reactions of her crew, without giving away that she cared what her subordinate officers thought about her orders. It wasn’t that she would change her mind to match popular opinion… But knowing if she’d be up against a fomenting rebellion would give her more time to figure out how to deal with it before it came to a head.
Fortunately, all of the officers crowded at the back of the bridge — which was all of the officers who weren’t actually serving on the bridge, so absolutely everyone — looked mostly intrigued by the funny little spiky-backed alien on the viewscreen. Intrigue was good. Intrigue was an emotion that Captain Carroway could work with. Intrigue was the emotion that drove the entire Tri-Galactic Union towards discovery and exploration. It was the emotion that the Tri-Galactic Union had been founded upon.
Captain Carroway gestured with a paw to Lt. Cmdr. Vossie, signaling for him to turn the sound back on. The Morphican pressed a few keys on his console and then nodded, long ears swaying with the movement of his head.
“It’s nice to meet you Korvax,” Captain Carroway meowed. “Although, I’m sure we all wish it were under better circumstances. I’m Captain Carroway of the Tri-Galactic Union vessel The Wanderlust, and this is my first officer, Commander Chestnut–” She gestured at the golden-mantled squirrel beside her who ducked his head in a polite, friendly bow. “We’re going to do our best to help you. However, our ship isn’t equipped to fight six of those Zakonraptor ships. Even working together, I don’t think our two ships are a match for them.”
“Excuse me,” the hedgehog on the viewscreen said politely. “But don’t you mean the three of us? It looks like you have two ships.”
Captain Carroway hadn’t thought about The Last Chance, which The Wanderlust was still towing. It wasn’t extremely useful as a ship right now, but there might be a clever way to use it.
What this situation really called for was cleverness, not brute force. With a thrill that ran all the way from the tips of her tufted ears along her spine and down to the end of her fluffy tail, Captain Carroway realized this was exactly the moment she’d been living for her whole life. She was going to collect suggestions from her crew, and then she would get to decide which suggestion had the best chance of success. Because that’s the job of the captain — collect suggestions, make decisions. The whole point of the Tri-Galactic Union was that people were better when they came together, worked together, and figured things out together. Captain Carroway didn’t have to figure this out alone. She had a whole crew to call on, and figuring out this problem together would pull them together, blending the crew more thoroughly than any games or gimmicks about how Captain Carroway arranged them onto shifts or into sleeping quarters possibly could.
With a sense of profound gravity, the Norwegian Forest cat turned to her crew, green eyes bright and gleaming, and she meowed, “You’ve all heard the situation. We need to drive away six attacking Zakonraptor ships — a fleet that severely outnumbers us. What we have to work with is our ship, Korvax’s ship, and the broken vessel we’ve been towing. Please, give me your suggestions.”
Continue on to Chapter 19…