Saxon Andrew - A rose grows in weeds

“Could we offer you a guide to the installation, Sir?”

“No, I want to go alone. I have some feelings tied up in the history of that conflict and I need the time alone to process them. I don’t want to be rushed.”

Captain O’Donald looked at Admiral Dorg who was the highest ranking Stars Realm officer and wondered if he was being honest. She, however, was not going to question his reasons. She liked commanding her ship and was not going to do anything to upset this Cainth Warrior. “Yes Sir, I have sent the locking protocols for the facility to your console and I hope you enjoy your visit.”

“Thank you, Captain; you may return to your duty station,” Dorg said and watched the Dublin disappear into the blue-white flash of its star drive. Dorg locked in the coordinates of Callisto and accelerated around to the other side of Jupiter where it was currently located. He brought the shuttle down to five thousand feet above the surface of the moon and then his com beeped. “Is that you, Mr. Gardner?”

“Yes it is Admiral. I am going to approach your ship from the surface and board thru your shuttle bay, if it meets your approval.”

“By all means; I’ll come open the bay door for you.”

“That is not necessary; I’ll enter thru the wall. Standby, I’m approaching now.”

Dorg looked out of the shuttle’s viewport and saw nothing. If Thomas Gardner was approaching, none of his instruments or sensors registered anything near his ship. Suddenly, a silver ship shaped like a cylinder with rounded ends appeared next to his shuttle and he could see a corridor extend from its side to his ship. A minute later Tag joined him on the shuttles bridge with Ron-Dar following behind him.

Dorg stood and hugged Tag and then shook Ron-Dar’s hand. He then pointed out of the viewport and asked, “What is that?”

Tag looked with him at the silver ship and said, “That is what started all of our meetings.” Dorg looked puzzled and Tag continued, “That is an Alfont Starship.”

Dorg was stunned. “A what!”

“I stumbled on it when I was on Earth’s moon trying to escape capture by Earth’s government. It was touching the dead body of his master that set off the tone that set the Alliance on a path to annihilate my planet.”

Dorg stared at the silver ship and felt the wonder of what powers that ship must possess. Then Tag said something that grabbed his attention. “The ship is actually intelligent and his name is Atlas.”

Dorg sat down in his command chair and said, “What do you mean intelligent?”

A voice came out of the speaker on the wall display, “What Tag is trying to tell you is that I actually have a mind of my own and make my own decisions. I am my own ruler and choose what path I follow. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Admiral. You’ve changed a lot since the Ross conflict.”

Dorg could only sit and stare at the ship holding station next to his shuttle. Then he said, “Why are you showing me this ship. This is information that could explode on the people of the stars Realm, especially with the history of planets being destroyed because of contact with their artifacts.”

Atlas said over the speaker, “Maybe he hasn’t changed as much as I thought. Is he always this serious?”

Tag laughed and said, “Atlas, it does take a few moments to come to terms with your existence.”

“Perhaps, but like your friend Eric once said, “If you don’t have a sense of humor, then go and buy one.”

Even Dorg smiled at that one.

“Admiral, Atlas will not take a side in any conflict that we are involved in; he believes that if we became dependant on him to win all of our conflicts that he would ultimately become our ruler and stunt our development; he does not desire to do that.”

“What Tag is saying is true, Admiral. I will attempt to prevent Tag’s death if I can do it without revealing my existence but I will not take part in the decisions that your races make regarding what you choose to do. I am not going to be responsible for possibly making a bad decision leading to your destruction. I have not completely reconciled myself to the role I’m to play in this universe.”

Dorg leaned forward and said, “You still haven’t told me why.

“Because I’m going to need you to help me explain how I escaped Retribution’s destruction without revealing Atlas’ existence,” Tag answered.

“Oh, that should be easy,” Dorg said.

Tag raised his eyebrows and Dorg said, “Everyone in the Stars Realm knows you possess high psychic ability. Just tell them that you and Ron-Dar jumped into an escape pod that had a jump drive in it and you masked it with you mind.”

Dorg leaned back and chuckled until Ron-Dar said, “That’s exactly what happened.”

“Ok, I can use that, but how do we explain how I managed to escape the system so close to the star and surrounded by thousands of ships?”

“Simple, you used a null drive from inside the screen of a plant ship which caused the ship to explode wiping away the trace of your null drive. You contacted me and I came and rescued you.”

“Would that actually happen if a null drive was used inside the screen of a ship?”

“McAllister told me that he thought it would when he was developing it; we will just order him not to experiment to find out either way. We’ll just tell him you confirmed it.”

“That’s the story we will use,” Tag said, “However, I need the two of you to swear secrecy about Atlas’ existence. No one can know and I need your solemn oaths to never reveal what you know to anyone; and I do mean anyone.”

Dorg remembered Tgon-Gee saying that he had better be happy that he was on Tag’s side of the Alliance conflict; otherwise he would have been destroyed. This was not an issue he was going to have between them. “Prince Gardner, I swear on my Clan and my family that I will never reveal its existence.”

“I also swear to keep the secret,” Ron-Dar said.

“Ok, Admiral, if it’s not too much trouble, could you jump me to Ross so I can calm my family down. Would you also contact Planet Leader Sten and have him prepare me a new ship. I am also ordering Ron-Dar promoted to Admiral to replace Chen. I will also need a new ship commander which I will leave to you. Plan to meet with me in two days at Castle Gardner to discuss our next plan.”

“Yes, Your Majesty, it will be done as you say.” Dorg then turned and flew the shuttle back out to the jump limit and engaged the Star Drive. The ship disappeared and on board the Dublin, Bridget O’Donald noticed that the Admiral never went to the surface of the moon. That’s odd; she wrote a report and sent it to Misty Nicole’s attention describing what happened.

Dorg came out into normal space at the jump limit in Ross’s system. He started the flight to Ross and had moved an hour in system when his com beeped with Earth’s Director Misty Nicole on his screen. Dorg pushed his com and said, “Madam Director, what a pleasure to see you.”

Misty looked at him and said, “One of our ships has notified me that you came to our system to visit Callisto but then never went down to the surface. I was wondering if there was a problem that I could help you with.”

Dorg was stumped on what to say but then Tag stepped in front of his com and said, “Good day, Director. I interrupted his trip to come and pick me up. It seems my ship was shot out from under me during the battle at the harvesting planet and my ship’s commander and I were barely able to escape in a pod. I had Admiral Dorg’s com frequency on the pods control board and he came to pick us up.”

Misty looked shocked at Tag and said, “What were the results of the battle? Are you ok?”

“Yes, Director, I’m fine but we lost more than 18,000 ships and Admiral Chen was killed when his ship was hit. According to Admiral Dorg, we destroyed more than two million Plant ships so we have to look at this as a victory, but they can afford to lose massive numbers and we can’t. The next battle will probably determine the final outcome of our war; I expect the Algeans to use the bulk of their fleets to attack the Dremels’ planet.”