Song belongs to Space Battleship Yamato 2199
"And... action!" The documentary crew scurried around, monitoring their cameras and equipment.
The documentary head, Miss Adair, cleared her throat. "Please identify yourself."
The insectoid being before her shifted uncomfortably. "Ah, I'm Captain Andar, formerly of the Warnard merchant ship Kitz Circle. I was present during the Solar Event of Pralis Nine." He looked a bit like a trilobite.
"What were you doing there that day?"
"We were transporting refugees from the genocide on Setlik 3, and we entered the Pralis Nine system. It was packed with ships like it usually was. I'm sure that will be in the background of this documentary somewhere. Some tin pot tyrant... some petty bullshit..." He sighed. "Well, petty now. It was hell back then. Me? I had a paycheck to make. I felt for the poor bastards. I mean, I felt terrible! That was our colony! It was hard to imagine anyone in this century doing what we were doing..." He shook his head. "Hell, I still wonder if they were the ones who did it." He shifted his front pincers, the two smaller ones on his chest between his large arms. "We were on final approach to the station. Had to refuel. There were a few other refugee ships in our convoy. The military couldn't spare any escorts. So I wonder if the bad guys snuck something over to try and scare us. Or maybe it was something bigger."
"Investigation proves it was almost certainly an accident," Miss Adair commented.
"90% still leaves ten percent, doesn't it?" Andar asked. He scoffed, "Anyway, where was I?" He shifted again, "It was some sort of... I'm not sure. Some say it was like a baby gamma ray burst. As far as I know, the sun was very unstable." He eyed the reporter. His eyes didn't have pupils, "Officially, it was some old fusion bomb, or one of those anti-fusion devices, I can't remember. Either way, that sun was cranky, and something like this was bound to happen. There were laws about dumping sensitive high-energy materials into the star's influence, but they didn't enforce them well. There were so many ships, it was a lucrative port, who would be coming in with something that heavy anyway? Somebody must've dumped something they shouldn't have. Basically, it ignited all the solar fuel on the outer layer. A sun is big, and that thing will burn for a few billion yet, but this would flash anything organic in the area." He coughed, "including all our ships."
"What was Enterprise doing at this time?"
"Enterprise?" The name sounded odd from his voice box. "We didn't even notice her. We heard there was some new race poking around, and we maybe noticed her fusion drive, but we were busy!"
"You had a paycheck to make," The woman smiled.
"Exactly!" The male said, and gave his race's version of a grin; mandibles open as if about to clamp down on a smaller creature and devour it. "People don't appreciate cargo haulers, you know."
"My grandfather was on the first laser freighter to Mars," Miss Adair commented, "Don't worry, I know all the rants."
Andar's mandibles grinned again. "They didn't bother us, so I guess they knew it too." He sighed, "We were trying to make our quota. We got to the main star station. It had fuel and food, and we got to sort out our water situation." His grin faded. "Our engines got flooded. Literally. We were struck by an object a few systems back. It went on a tangent and we didn't notice until it was too late; the main water tank had a hairline fracture and it burst when we jumped. It flooded the engine room."
Adair nodded. "Our early Salyut stations had to deal with that, once."
"So we were making do with minimal power. We got settled. We had to pay our bills... then it happened."
"How did it start?"
"I think Enterprise was the first ones to realize what happened." Andar paused. He made a chattering sound. "One minute, they were studying the star. The next thing you know they and five other ships are flying like the Deep Ones were behind them."
"What was your response?"
"Are you joking? We ran too. We all did. The docks were mayhem. Everyone scrambled, trying to escape. We took on as many as we could, even with our life support strained."
"That can't have been easy."
"What else could we do?" He closed his eyes. "I didn't leave anyone behind I could. We directed them to the next ships. I don't want to know how many got left behind..." His voice choked.
Miss Adair nodded. "So, I presume the entire area was chaos."
"Oh, it was. Everyone was moving. There wasn't much in the way of coordination, but some things spacers can intuit from one another." He wiped his face. "But...we started in the first wave and left with the last."
"How did that happen?"
"Our engines. We managed to get fifty percent power out of the reactor but it was still soaked. We hadn't finished the repairs. I think that was half the reason anyone from station maintenance escaped. So many just didn't leave the ships they were repairing and hung on."
"According to the reports, you were behind even the ships that evacuated the crews from the station."
Andar nodded, "Yes, us and a few others." He sighed, and chittered, "I knew we were dead. What a way to go, right? Drowned with our chitin full of water," It was a common idiom from his homeworld.
"Didn't anyone try to help?"
"They did. The last big megafreighter grabbed the others, but we were so big, they needed to use the entire tractor beam emitter on us. But by the time they got the others... it was too late. The solar radiation was interfering with the beam sensors."
Miss Adair nodded, with rapt attention. "Go on."
"We were dead. I could hear the refugees wailing funeral dirges even on the bridge." Andar choked, "It was terrifying. The megafreighter tried to help us, but they had to leave. They... they..."
"And then Enterprise came."
"She'd stayed," Andar hissed, "That woman stayed! She stayed to make sure everyone got out!"
"Captain Dallaire was known for her--"
"She didn't have to, but she waited for us!" Andar chattered, "She knew our engines were dead! So she used those damn grappling hooks! Only your people in that sector used them! A grappling hook doesn't need to compensate for solar radiation!" He swept a claw through the air, "They grabbed us and pushed us forward! They were running hot, and still pulling us together!" He was getting excited now, his green eyes wide, "They burned out their engines and flung us, literally, toward the jump point! It was like a multistage rocket! Only..." He slumped.
"...only they were the booster," Miss Adair finished. "The explorer ship *Enterprise* risked their lives and pushed a refugee ship carrying ten times the number of crew and passengers aboard out of harms way. There were eighty crew aboard her, and a thousand refugees aboard the Kitz Circle. They went to full acceleration and released the freighter so it could use their momentum." Miss Adair hesitated. "The act destroyed their engines with the strain."
Andar choked again, "I thanked them. In exchange, they transmitted their black box data." He looked at Adair with the saddest expression, "All their research, all the data they'd gathered, even personal notes from the crew. All that and they still did it!" He made a sound like a snuffle, "They told us to give it to you. And... then I watched. I saw them turn on the plasma field."
"Based on the black box data, they hoped their energy shield would block some of the radiation, if your ship didn't make it in time."
Andar nodded. "I... I could see it overwhelming them. And... I heard Captain Dallaire telling them how brave they'd been. She thanked me for taking the message, and then she... she began to sing."
"Sing?"
"O’er the gelid waves of galactic streams, Set course for the fixed star of Centauri Our glorious cosmoship crosses o’er the void far, Beyond those twinkling stars Set Sail! We’re casting off, anchors aweigh Stand on your bearing, steady as she goes..."
Miss Adair nodded. "The Galactic Pilot."
He made a keening sound, the noise his people made instead of tears. "I still think about them every day. Every single one of our passengers survived, but the Enterprise didn't make it. Everything was destroyed, the crew, the databanks... it was a hulk."
"We retrieved the ship. It's a museum now."
"I don't understand why they did it," Andar choked. "They could've saved themselves, but they didn't! They waited for us! And we're alive! ...Instead of them." He made the tears sound again. "The genocide didn't stop. They still kept fighting. Dallaire died, and the galaxy just went on turning! I don't understand..."
Miss Adair frowned. As a documentarian, she shouldn't interfere with her subjects. On the other hand, it was her responsibility to analyze what she depicted. And here, seeing this broken captain, she couldn't help but... "interfere".
"Because that's the way we are. Humans jump without counting the cost. Sometimes we'll throw it all away to save another." She paused, looking at him. "They did the right thing. The logic made sense to Captain Dallaire. You had more people."
"But--"
'You didn't do anything wrong. You weren't responsible for them being there. Captain Dallaire made her choice. And she chose to save your lives. Eighty against a thousand? She could have made that choice a thousand times over and picked the same option each time." Adair paused again, "It's a good thing to do. You can't save everyone, but you save everyone you can. You count those you save as much as those you lost. They're just as important if not more. That means you too, Captain. They wanted you to live more than to grieve for them. You and everyone else. It's the right thing to do. Trade eighty for a thousand."
The captain looked into the middle distance. He nodded.