Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 7: The Roundabout
Scene 2: Aliens
7.2
Aliens
“Do you really think this is a good idea?”
Commodore Yui Song was more than a little doubtful about Captain Skip Howard’s endorsement of Pel’s bizarre and roundabout plan. One thing had become very clear - the minuscule ferengi had an enormous capacity for digesting vast amounts of information.
Skip Howard was amused. “I seem to recall a mission not too long ago when our bold, direct action led to the immediate self-destruction of a machine intelligence. And I recall a certain Star Fleet commodore saying that we need to do better…”
“Oohh - touche…” Yui Song grimaced. “I suppose from that viewpoint, Pel’s plan is very conservative. It just seems very risky for the personnel involved.”
“Pel wanted to go it alone,” Howard rejoined. “I’m thinking having an armed guard enhances his ploy in several ways.”
“And gives you some leverage,” Yui replied with an amused noise. “I was just amused at the visual - he just looked so tiny standing among those marines. But even as big as Sgt. Lone Wolf and that Soko kid are, are you sure six marines will be enough?”
Howard smiled. “If those six marines can’t handle it, sending in 20 or 30 marines isn’t likely to make things much better. And I’m sending Spike along. It’s a bit of a wrench, I prefer having her and her group detailed to me. But I trust her instincts and so does Chavez. They came up together.”
Abelind was a mid-level mining bureaucrat. That’s what his people were born for - born mid-level managers, bureaucrats, squadron to brigade military officers. And they had thick, rubbery skin, that was very useful for bureaucrats. Thick, rubbery skin; thick, rubbery lips; hairless, armor-plated heads, backs and bellies. Born bureaucrats. That’s what it meant to be orseld. Oules ruled. Eadh led. Orseld managed. Oeast worked. Heethed were tolerated and dealt with - the heethed often refused to recognize the natural, sacred order.
The ghoal mine was located on a distant moon on the far border of oules territory. The only reason anyone traveled to this star system was for the mass shipments of ghoal, a multi-purpose chemical that served as fuel and also an important building material.
Abelind’s miners were mostly oeast, but there were about a dozen heethed scattered among them. Abelind had a hard time telling the two apart. There were only two other orseld who worked in the mine - both of them junior administrators. One of them, Ephanistad, came into his office. It was clear she was unusually excited - an emotion that Abelind detested. Never get excited. Never let anyone know what you are thinking or feeling as it was so easy for such things to be used against you.
“We have strangers out here,” Ephanistad said.
Abelind didn’t demonstrate his rush of anxiety, maintaining the semblance of boredom that was the key to his success. Maybe his breath was just a little faster, his vocal pitch just a little higher: “Eadh?” He could tell from Ephanistad’s expression it was worse than that. “Oules?” Could it possibly be worse than one of those predators showing up at the mine?
Ephanistad was even more shaken than the sudden presence of the large, predatory oules would make her. Orselds were tough, armored, difficult for either the oules or eadh to seriously harm…
The junior administrator was out of breath with fear:
“Aliens…”
7.2