~~
“We have confirmation. The alien ship is about three kilometers in length. It's got a beam of two hundred meters,” the sensor department head, Ms Cannon, said.
Captain Taggart peered at the cylindrical ship on the view screen. It looked like a jet engine in space, with an odd sort of nose in a cavity on the bow. It had two segments rotating slowly in opposite directions for artificial gravity. There were indicators that might refer to antennas, sensor arrays, maybe even weapons, but they couldn't be sure.
Taggart could see the silhouette of his own ship on his displays. The three hundred meter long Shackleton seemed tiny in comparison. A stubby rocket ship with a pair of engine nozzles, and a pointed bow with a large parabolic antenna. Taggart felt the artificial gravity in his bones. The gravity generators always gave him aches when they cut acceleration after a long burn. “Updates?”
“We're still deciphering their transmission. Their transmitter is pretty messy,” Ms Hurley said, looking over the comm systems.
“Use all the juice you need. If their receivers are as bad as the transmitter they just might not be hearing us.”
Time wore on. Taggart looked around the bridge. Hurley was busy as ever, Cannon was pouring over the displays, but Mr Kaysing, navigation officer, had his eyes fixed on the main viewscreen. Taggart could see it. The Shackleton crew were on edge. After the last system they visited, with the loss of one of three shuttles, six crewmates, and a host of other small catastrophes, shipboard discipline was shaky at best. Now, with this alien craft, there was no telling how they would react. Taggart did a sweep of the bridge, checking in with Rickinson, the engineer, and Corwin, the operations officer. All seemed well. The Shackleton wasn’t a warship, it was an exploration ship on its way home.
They began to decipher the language. “They changed it up a bit. It looks like they’re using a form of English, just at pitches and speeds we’re not used to,” Ms Hurley explained, “I’ll have it out soon.”
“So they’ve met us before?” Asked the navigation officer, Mr Kaysing. He straightened up in his chair, turning to face the rest of the bridge. He held a necklace in his fist.
Taggart rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Back to your station, Mr Kaysing.”
“Alright, I got the transmission…” Hurley frowned. “Skipper?”
Taggart walked over. The transmission read “YOU BELONG TO US”.
“What the…?”
“Order them to identify themselves,” Taggart snapped, “Back in their same pattern.”
The reply text scrolled out across the comms display. “WE ARE THE VECTOR COMMITTEE: YOU INTRUDE IN OUR GLORIOUS SPACE.”
There were murmurs from the crew. Kaysing tapped his foot anxiously. Taggart ignored it all. “Send this. ‘The mighty warship Shackleton will not be intimidated. We apologize for the intrusion, we do not wish conflict. How do you know us?’”
“How will that avoid conflict? How will they take ‘warship’?” Cannon asked.
“They know enough English to grasp certain concepts,” Taggart pointed out. He eyed Kaysing again.
Soon the reply came. “YOU ARE HUMAN. PATTERNS ON HULL MATCH KNOWN RECORDS. YOU BELONG TO US.” It took some debate with the anthropology section, and a few extra transmissions, but they kept repeating variations of that. “THOSE OF EARTH BELONG TO US. YOU OWE US EVERYTHING. BOW IN HUMBLE REVERENCE AND OFFER TRIBUTE.”
Taggart was taken aback. Hurley looked at him in distress. Cannon went to her displays and Kaysing clutched that necklace again. Taggart cursed that his first officer was down in the auxiliary control room. And that some of his more reliable crew had been transferred out. “Ask them why we… ask them why they claim anything.”
Hurley sent something along those lines. “Reply is coming…”
“WE ARE YOUR CREATORS. YOU BELONG TO US. WE ARE THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. WE DREDGED YOU UP FROM THE SLIME YOU CAME FROM. YOU ARE BUT TOYS BENEATH US. PREPARE TRIBUTE OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES.”
“Tell them the mighty warship Shackleton will not be threatened. We won’t fight them, and we won’t give them tribute.” Taggart looked at Kaysing, “Helm, best speed out of here. Let’s warp back to home port and let them know what we found.”
“No, sir.”
Taggart tilted his head, “Excuse me, Mr Kaysing?”
Kaysing turned back in his seat toward Taggart. “No, sir. That would be… heresy.”
Taggart’s mouth curled. Kaysing had always been a troublesome man, but this was ridiculous. “On my bridge, I expect orders to be followed, Mr Kaysing.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not in the military anymore,” Kaysing growled, “and orders don’t matter in the face of the gods.” He looked around, “Can’t you all see? This is the answer to everything!”
“One ship of fools? I hardly think so,” Taggart said. He had to get a lock on the crew. “As far as you should be concerned, I am the god on this ship.”
“They created us. We belong to them,” Kaysing patted the console, “This isn't ours, it belongs to all of them!” He looked like he’d found an answer to something he’d been looking for. By the expressions on the other crew, Taggart could guess there was more than one who’d found that.
Hurley spoke up, “Captain, they’re telling us we’re right to be… afraid? They’re saying something about a demonstration of power…”
“See?” Kaysing exclaimed, “They’re the ones who created us! Who else could be out here? No one!”
Taggart stared at Kaysing. Then he rolled his eyes, made a noise of disgust, and snarled, “That is the biggest heap of bullshit I have ever heard.”
Kaysing’s face fell. “But they created us!”
“First of all, no they didn’t,” Taggart said, putting up a finger, “If they did, then they’re a bunch of selfish psychotic maniacs who like to point and laugh at us. What, we have to spend our lives on our knees thanking them? A parent is not inherently entitled to respect, authority, or any sort of reward. We are not required to obey anyone. We are not toys or slaves, we're people. We're adults, and we have a say in what happens to us.”
“But sir! They created us for a purpose! We… all of our achievements mean nothing! It all belongs to them!”
“Detain this man,” the captain said, pointing at the officer, and looked around. “Come one, people! This is ridiculous!”
“Captain…” Cannon murmured.
“If they really created us for a purpose, why haven’t we seen them before? Not to mention that concept is truly fucked up!” The captain looked around, “Come on! We are not obligated to give them anything! Who cares if they created us? Why should we give them loyalty? No parent is entitled to loyalty! We aren’t obligated to give it, and they aren’t entitled to receive it!”
A security officer came to grab Kaysing. “But captain!” Corwin exclaimed.
“An offspring is entitled to respect up to a point. But a parent is not entitled to anything. Creation means nothing, you have to be a good parent, not just merely exist! How many of us have bad families?” He looked around, “How many of us refuse to talk to our parents? How many of us are adopted, or have found families?” The captain looked at the alien ship. “They haven't even invented artificial gravity! What kind of morons do they take us for?” He flipped a coin in the air for emphasis, and caught it. “We have artificial gravity, and our so-called ‘masters’ still need to use a centrifuge? Please.”
“Captain, what are your orders?” Rickinson asked.
Taggart looked at the man. Good, a captain without the engineer had no power at all. “Warm up the shuttle laser. Let’s see if those primitive fucks can take a little heat.”
“Yes sir!”
The parabolic antenna on the Shackleton’s bow angled, attached by a giant rotatable mount. The remaining two shuttles were arrayed around it just below, ready to be launched on a trajectory boosted by the ship’s laser propulsion array. It could land or lift a shuttle on an uninhabited planet more efficiently than a chemically-powered vessel. Such a device functioned as scientific research equipment, direct communications, and even a mining tool.
The ship reoriented itself. The antenna bent almost at a ninety degree angle. A blast of stimulated radiation struck one of the alien ship’s rotating centrifuges. Fragments went flying in a stream propelled by centrifugal force and no longer restrained. It wheeled outward, forming a crescent of debris, like a yo-yo with its thread spun out.
The beam slashed across the centrifuge, longitudinally down the length of the ship, and struck the engines. Something exploded, and their engines broke into fragments. As they watched, a pair of missiles darted out from the hull. “Fix on those weapons!” Taggart ordered.
The missiles must’ve been the dumbest ones on the market, with no evasive maneuvers or countermeasures. The dull, slow, parabolic laser picked them off one at a time.
“We’re getting a transmission!” Hurley shouted. “Uh… oh.”
“What?”
She put it up on the main display. The text scrawled out frantically, “WE SURRENDER WE SURRENDER WE SURRENDER MERCY MERCY MERCY HELP”.
Taggart grinned, “Lords of the universe my ass.”
An investigation found that the aliens were notorious con artists, and very, very mean pranksters. They tended to prey on new arrivals.