Misfire. Weird one. Not very happy with it. Didn’t really have a good concept to begin with. Written for and inspired by Iamoneperson. They liked it.
Misfire
Captain Masterson was… not cherished.
The crew of diplomatic vessel Dusk was not happy with the change of the person in charge. The board has made an unusual decision. Furthermore, the people were not informed why this sudden change. The new man in charge was less communicative than Captain Firewood, far more to the point. It almost seemed like he never took the time to consider his decisions, he just made them. Made to lead, really. But not made to be liked.
The new captain was selected by the board to carry out a „diplomatic” mission in the name of the ScraaK-k federation to discuss a peace treaty with a separatist group of planets in the K.9 sector. That’s the version the crew was told.
What only the new captain knew was that the goal of the journey was to assassinate Theodore Jeddha who was expected to come to the negotiations. The seperatist movement was fragmented and whimpering its last breaths of agony. The Federation could come down and completely annihilate all the criminal planets, so the enemies of the state did not have much negotiating power. The removal of this last person holding the movement together with mud and spindles would make it collapse in on itself, at least that’s what the board hoped for. The new captain was to simply do what he deemed best. No hesitation, no regrets. And absolutely no prisoners.
The plan was for Jeddha and a dummy representative of the Federation to meet under military presence from both sides. A diversive attack would be staged and in the confusion, the entire force of the Federation would be attempting to kill the enemy leader.
These are the type of reasons why the seperatists wanted to seperate in the first place.
Jeddha was a bit of a messiah for them. The Federation had tried assassinating him once already for knowing things he shouldn’t have. He spoke out and gained a following amongs the already disgruntled dwellers of the K.9 sector, which had been exploited thoroughly for mineral resources. The problem was that everyone wanted something else. Some wanted adequate compensation for the damages caused, some wanted to be left in peace and some just wanted war.
The Federation was trying their hand again. Did they not learn from their mistakes? The board is not an intelligent and sentient being. Only the common factors of the members shine through. Like light through a set of colourul lenses. When you have different animals working together, you have a creation functioning like the animals that make it.
But the crew of Dusk were not stupid. They noticed the unknown armed men walking around. The secrecy of the captain. The strange lack of details they had been given on the mission. A conspiracy was starting to form. Engineers, medics, computer specialists, even the vice-captain were trying to figure out what really was going on. They were uncovering pieces of information. An intercepted transmission. An overheard call between the captain and the board.
They didn’t piece it together before it was too late, though.
On 24-85-90:00:00”0 the Federation had committed a far bigger atrocity than they had anticipated.
The incident began on the bridge.
Captain Masterson thought he was alone. But he was bugged by his subordinate.
He was performing a conference call with the board.
„I am not questioning my orders, but have you taken any lessons from the last attempt on Jeddha? He must be extremely careful now. He must be thinking: They can strike at any moment again. He must be surrounding himself with security. We will have to pay in blood for everything we are trying to achieve. We could be causing a full-blown war, who knows if anyone on this ship will leave K.9 breathing?”
Is what the vice-captain had heard.
Enough.
It took 5 minutes for him to rally a few of his co-conspirators to confront the captain. Nobody was signing up for a military operation. A mutiny was about to occur. They were not going to die for the Federation, not today.
They walked back onto the bridge, where the captain was keeping watch of the ship’s systems alone.
– Captain, I have great reasons to believe we must divert our course.
– You need to state these reasons if I am to divert anything.
– …what is the real purpose of our mission?
– It’s classified.
– You lied to us.
– The Federation did.
– Leaving on a voyage without our full knowledge on the intent is equivalent to kidnapping. We need to return to base.
– I am afraid this is not possible.
Fine, then. We will have to play dirty. Each of the conspirators had an ancient gunpowder-based firearm. Impractical, but it could not be detected by security measures.
They drew their guns on the captain.
– Resisting kidnapping is not a crime. Turn the ship around, or we will do it ourselves.
Masterson tapped away on… some screen.
– Don’t move!! Step away from the controls.
– You are making a horrible mistake. I will not give up control of the ship.
– No, it is you. A seperatist warfleet is heading to our ship. If we don’t turn around now, we will all be captured.
He was bluffing, of course.
– You wouldn’t understand, but I physically can not do anything about our situation.
– They will be here in only a few minutes.
The captain was not going to let themselves get captured. But he was not lying, he physically couldn’t resist the board’s orders. Only one solution to that. He went over back to the console.
– Move away!
No response.
– I will shoot!!
Bang.
Masterson’s body fell over onto the screen.
Incidentally, it touched the prompt responsible for activating the ship’s internal defense systems, which he had just reprogrammed to fire on the ship’s crew. He was not going to let the enemy take any prisoners.
Automatic tau ray casters lowered from the ceiling in a few seconds in each and every room on the ship. They had killed everyone before some of the casters even activated.
The captain’s will would be fulfilled and the entire ship would be turned into a mass grave littered with corpses of men and women, all torn to bits and their blood transfused to the hollow veins of the metal monster.
The one positive to come out of the incident was a firework show above the planet Khreat, resulting from the uncontrolled ship hitting its atmosphere.
Jan. October 2019.