The Ascent

Chapter 29

The natives abandoned the system as soon as they saw us coming. Their habitats, their fabrication plants, even the population of some of their more lightly colonized worlds were loaded onto ships which fled by the thousands straight into the surrounding nebula. When we docked at one of their abandoned stations, we found a bonanza of supplies largely traded for—or perhaps stolen from—Cack traders. The largest portion was parts for both ships and weapons.

The order came down from Smith not to steal or destroy anything, but to treat the natives' possessions as we would those of a respected host. We took only what we absolutely needed, mostly in the way of food, and left IOUs written in crude machine-translated versions of the Indwellers ideographs. We had no clue of how to understand The Swords' native language, but we hoped, since they traded with the Cacks, they would understand our notes.

Smith's com officer broadcast messages offering an alliance with The Swords against the Cacks, but though we stayed for hours servicing the drives, we never got any response. The next day, at the regular commanders' conference, Smith said, "Our scouts report that the path from here passes through the thickest part of the nebula. Our movements will be tightly restricted as will our speed. If the natives prove hostile, we can expect to face constant hit-and-run attacks and it will be difficult to protect the ships we have, especially the captured non-combat vessels to say nothing of the most damaged of our own ships. My chief strategist has suggested we consolidate our crews and leave as many of these ships behind as we can."

Dexter shook his head. "I know some commanders who are not going to like that. I've seen some pretty nice captured yachts."

"It's also going to cut into the crew shares," Maxwell said.

"The crews would best be concerned with saving their own skins and not lining their pockets," Abrams said, irritably.

"My logistics officer has one further recommendation," Smith continued. "We can expect few chances to resupply as we go deeper into The Swords territory. This means our supplies will quickly start running low, especially food. Crew support services have already started ramping up production of cultured yeasts. I'm afraid we're going to be living on it for a while, probably until we get back to Solarian space."

A collective hiss shivered through all present except me. As a college student, during a certain period where my father cut off my stipend as punishment, I found myself eating a lot of ramen made from cultured yeast. Having grown up with a personal chef, it was something of a novelty. Somehow I never developed the dislike for the stuff that everyone else had, though I was certain I was going to be regretting the lack of meat eventually.

"In light of this," Smith hesitated as if unsure or uncomfortable with his next suggestion. "Newman, my XO, has recommended that any Crawdads or any other non-Solarian personnel who are not considered mission-essential be invited to leave the fleet."

Maxwell gasped and both Abrams and Dexter's heads snapped up with startled glances at Smith.

"Just leave them, here? In The Swords?"

Smith stiffened. "Obviously we won't just dump them somewhere if we know its certain death, but at this point, we can't guarantee anyone's survival. Our chances will go up if we reduce our number of dependents and the crawdads, being pacifists, are pretty much on good terms with everyone."

"That may generally be true," I said while the others were thinking. "But we don't know what their relationship with The Swords is like. The Swords seem to be a pretty xenophobic lot."

"We don't have to decide this now." Smith waved the idea away irritably. "But I suggest we move all non-essential non-Solarian personnel to one of the support ships and I would like to vote on the rest."