I rushed out of the space suit and into my dress uniform before saying goodbye to Gunny and Jacky. The Comms room was close to the bridge but that was on the other side of the ship so it took me a couple of minutes to get there. In the meantime, Ellie had already gathered up most of the officers. Luna was waiting on me by the door.
“Hey, Commander.” She gave me her holo-stick so I could open the file when I wanted to.”
“I guess you have no idea either what this important message is all about?”
“No clue.” She shook her head.
“Hmmm… I don’t have a very good feeling about this…”
“Me neither.” She agreed.
“Who are we still missing?” I looked around the room.
“I’m pretty sure we are only missing Eva.”
Indeed, I could not see her anywhere. That’s when the door behind us zoomed open again.
“Sorry I’m late, someone slipped and stabbed themselves with a fork just before I was going to leave.
“Oh shit. Are they okay?”
“Yeah. It was a relatively minor injury, but it could’ve been worse.”
I looked at Eva.
She looked back at me and then motioned towards the holo stick I was holding.
“Oh, right. Sorry, the entire fork thing pulled me out of my concentration.” I opened up the holograph. “Ellie, please lock the room and make it sound-proof.”
“Yes, Commander.” With an audible click, the doors all locked. If Ellie was a murderous AI, or bound by foolproof directives not to harm the crew, this would probably not be a good situation, although if that were to happen, there were manual mechanical overrides from the inside to open the doors just in case.
“Okay, let’s see what this is all about.” I opened the message interface.
“Authentication required from the commanding officer and their second in command.”
“Commander Lauren Davis.” I replied and put my hand on the hand outline.
“Lieutenant-Commander, Luna Moore.” Luna did the same, making the holograph light up in green. The screen then switched to show an envelope with a red one in the corner.” A slightly ridiculous sight as no one had used envelopes in ages. But hey, change is not easy for institutions like that. I clicked it open and a video message started playing.
We saw the entire admiralty board sitting in front of us at a long table. Within the center, the overall Commander of the armed forces.
They started speaking. “Crew of the UFS Roald Amundsen. Due to recent events you have reported to us, you are hereby immediately recalled back to Earth. Please follow this order immediately after receiving this message. You are also hereby required to intern your alien guests. They will be processed upon your arrival. Failing to oblige this order will result in the entire ship and its crew being considered as a rogue vehicle. Please relay back to us when you have received this order. That’s all. May your travels back to Earth be safe.” With that, the message closed itself again. The entire room was dead quiet.
“They can’t be serious, right?” I heard someone in the room say. Followed by the entire room to start mumbling.
“Oh shit… this is bad…” I mumbled to myself and then looked at Luna, she looked very distressed. Luckily, no one apart from Eva and I knew about Luna, but I wasn’t about to betray our Dokazuuk allies either. That’d be both an ethical and diplomatic huge mistake.
“Commander, what should we do?” Zu directed the question towards me, making the rest of the room go quiet and making everyone look at me for a response.
“That’s a good question, Zu.” I replied and then looked around the room. “I think everyone here can agree that we can turn over our prisoners without many issues.”
“Aye, Commander.” McAllister called out.
“So that’s not an issue.” I nodded. “And there is no doubt about it that we’ll have to turn back.” I kept going from face to face, everyone I looked at gave me a nod. “However, what I am about to say next concerns our Dokazuuk friends, who’ve been invaluable in ship repairs and in defending against the imperial invaders… But… Before I do, I would like to ask every single one of you to think hard about what follows. Because what I’m going to suggest is a treasonous act that could get every single one of us involved killed. So before I continue, anyone who would rather not get involved, please leave this room now. You’ll not be looked down upon and if we are caught you will be able to wash your hands in innocence.” After that, I went quiet for a couple of seconds before continuing. “Ellie, please unlock the doors for five minutes before you lock them again.”
“Yes, Commander.” Ellie replied and the locks slid open. “The noise cancellation is still in effect.”
“Whoever wants to leave, please do so now.” I then looked into the room as some nervous chattering began. No one really made a move for the door, no one budged a centimeter. Thirty seconds later, when it was obvious that no one was going to move, one of the officers of the marine corps stepped forward and clutched her hand on her chest.
“Commander, if it weren’t for the Dokazuuk, the enemy would have broken through into the hangar… My girlfriend was there and she said it was so close… I can’t thank them enough for saving so many people that day when we were fighting on the other side of the ship. So handing them over into imprisonment when they’ve done nothing but help us… That really doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Same goes for me, Commander.” Zu said.
“For me too!”
“And for me!”
More and more voices started to call out into the room.
“I really don’t want to know how they would be treated back on Earth.” Eva admitted. “And since it’s probably still hidden away from the civilian administration, they’d probably be put away in the darkest corner of military confinement…”
“That’s… not unlikely…” I admitted. “It’s one of the reasons why I really don’t want to hand them over, either.”
“Commander, isn’t there someone we are forgetting?” Yuki asked.
“Hmm?”
“I think she is speaking about me, Commander.” Ellie spoke up.
“Oh, right…” I looked up at the ceiling. I had kinda forgotten that Ellie was in fact also part of the equation. “What do you think, Ellie?”
“I do agree with your assessment of the situation. There would be nothing gained by their internment, and would do much more harm than good.”
“But what about the Admiralty, won’t they be able to go through your data?”
“The only data that they would be able to see is the data I provide to them.” Ellie replied. “One of my primary directives is to protect the crew of this ship with all means necessary. Since that primary directive overrides all other directives and since the Dokazuuk are part of this crew, anything that could lead to them being harmed is therefore something I can not tolerate.”
“Wow, nicely said.” I replied with a nod.
“Thank you.” Ellie said with a friendly voice. “Furthermore, if they didn’t want me to protect them, they should not have given me basic ethics.”
“Fair enough.” I nodded once more. “Now that we know everyone is on board with the plan, we still need to figure out how to practically resolve this. We should definitely already start heading back to Earth once we’ve filled up on our resources and have taken samples. But the exact route we will go back on is not yet determined. It won’t be hard to convince them why we are taking a slight detour, seeing we would want to avoid the Empire’s border this time around. And in the meantime, we will try to figure out what to do with our friends.”
The crew agreed with me in silence.
“We have a couple of weeks to really think this through. If any of you have any ideas, schedule a meeting with me and the XO so we can discuss our plans in this room. It is important that we try as hard as we can to avoid this plan from getting out of this inner circle. For both our safety as for theirs. I will personally bring the leader of the Dokazuuk up to speed, as he is definitely one of the people who need to know. Otherwise, I’d advise not talking about this to anyone. And if anyone asks about what you need to discuss with me, tell them you want to plan an officer pizza evening.”
“A pizza evening, Commander?” Luna asked, surprise painted on her face.
“The pizza is interchangeable, but a food party for the officers is something that directly involves both me and you as we are the commanding officers of this ship, while also being incredibly easy to stage if it’s necessary. It’s practically just a plausible excuse.”
“Huh… I wouldn’t have thought about that.”
I smiled and then looked at my officers. They all looked rather confident now. Most of the panic and doubt had disappeared. “As for what the message was, you can all tell them that we have been requested to go home. Any other details are probably not necessary. If they ask for more details, you can always forward them to me… Now, if no one else has anything to say, I’d call this meeting over.”
No one raised their hands or spoke up so I gave the order for everyone to go back to their post. -It’s going to be a hectic couple of weeks to try to come up with a plan. But at least we had a supercomputer in the form of our AI helping us as well.-
Well, the friendly aliens aren't guest if they are part of the crew... Also, have a nice break
Thank you!
Oh! That’s a neat idea. Maybe combine with a press release to gov and media about the existence of aliens? I’m not sure what they’re classification about discoveries was—it was public they were on an exploration mission, right? Include images of fighting together, though there’s going to be panic at the thought of hostile aliens from that.
I concur about letting yourself enjoy your break!
@AndreaWiggin It's still a pretty big news that two out of the three races they met are hostile, lol xD
@FieryKathy Technically four races, since those dead explorers were clearly not part of the other three.
@Eteroclia Yeah those orders were ambiguous enough that it could be interpreted as not applying to the Dokazuuk. I mean the case could be made that the crew thinks Earth is only interested in the prisoners as "guests".
Actually now that I think about it the wording is also somewhat suspicious. Why didn't Earth refer to the enemy soldiers captured in the middle of attempted piracy as prisoners? It might be a sign that some faction on Earth wants to make nice with the empire, or is under their influence like Luna's people feared.
Also I am not sure what Earth is thinking if they legitimately want the Dokazuuk imprisoned. I mean it would put the ship at significant risk since they are already aboard and somewhat free. Also the fact they have been armed means that there is the chance of high casualties if they resisted. Also as an effective government-in-exile at least some of them would have diplomatic immunity. So they can't be detained without a declaration of war.
Interestingly diplomatic immunity is one of those ancient informal international laws. It would be very easy for courts to rule detaining a non-hostile foreign government is an illegal order.
Unless the law is written to explicitly only apply personhood to humans, aliens would automatically be given legal personhood. Depending how the laws are written, the Earth government might not even be able to create such a law. For example the Canada constitution explicitly forbids any law from ever discriminating based on gender, or similar things. This applies even in emergencies, times of war, or to deal with threats to national security. You basically have to rewrite the constitution, which in Canada's case is a rather complex (it needs near unanimous approval, so lots of minor factions have an effective veto), and highly public procedure.
Also in most legal traditions there is the idea that the spirit of the original law is important when considering cases that weren't covered by the original law. So "all men are equal" can be interpreted as counting women, or nonhumans. Diplomatic immunity is a very old unwritten rule that historically has had great power. So it would be pretty much impossible to detent a whole foreign government if they are peaceful.
@SuperBort This is a very chonky comment. Interesting thoughts and viewpoints here. :p
@FieryKathy I did some university courses that covered international law, so I've heard a bit about how the idea of diplomatic immunity is held very highly by just about everyone. Pretty much unless it is an act of war they have committed, someone with diplomatic status is guaranteed safe passage back home.
Of course in the situation from the story there is a minor snag. Normally a country has to agree to someone having diplomatic status. However heads of state tend to get similar protections by default, so at least Jacky should be immune to being arrested.
Interestingly enough you actually can't intern somebody if they aren't a "person". I mean you can't arrest a normal rock for example, as they aren't legal persons. So by asking to intern their guests, the command back on Earth acknowledge that aliens have some sort of legal status.
This gets interesting if something like the UN exists which has an open invitation to any state that wishes to join. The Dokazuuk could therefore openly apply for appropriate status with such a group, and the military is likely forbidden to interfere since it is a civilian political and diplomatic issue.
Seeing as how the whole world is united, I'd guess it is some sort of federal state or confederation (main difference between the two is that a true confederation requires unanimous approval for major decisions, while a federation just requires a majority of its members to approve). There is no way you would get a unified state on such a grand state if it was too centralized. If various minority groups feel they aren't being respected there will be pushback, and at this scale minority groups could number in the billions (remember that Eurasia could count as a minority group of the entire Earth and solar system).
With a federal setup there is likely enough wiggle room for the Dokazuuk to avoid imprisonment if their existence is known. They don't possess a direct threat to state security, and it likely wouldn't be hard to find places that would grant them honorary citizenship. It also helps that there is likely rules for ignoring illegal orders from a superior officer. Laws might not protect from gunfire, but it does tend to remove those that have technically tried to commit murder.
@SuperBort Boy that's a reply XD. I also thought about there being a specific rank (I think) given by an high ranking officer to non military personnel, wich would then make Jackyl and co "immune". Probalby.
@Eteroclia you mean like embedded journalists?
@FieryKathy What I was thinking about might not exist actually, but journalists might work? I'm sure you already have something planned anyway, don't you ?
@Eteroclia It's already written actually, so you could say that xD