Wizardness

He glanced out the window. The inky blackness of space reflected his face back at himself. He saw himself blink. The inky blackness of space wasn’t what he was expecting. There should have been a large planet hanging instead of inky blackness.
Sven slid his hand across the edge of the window. Sven snorted to himself, it’s not really a window, it’s a monitor. As he his hand slid the image changed to a different camera, not that there was much to indicate this other than a few pieces of ship that changed.
Sven frantically swiped through all the different cameras. Nothing but blackness. Sven paused then. His hand centimeters from the edge.
No stars.
There was less than nothing outside of the ship.
Sven pushed a hidden button and a keyboard popped out. The blackness with bits of ship changed to a terminal. Sven navigated to pull up operational controls. He found an outboard drone. He remotely connected a retrieval wire to the drone.
Sources of tension like the tether were always points of rotation for flight in space. The drone would have to account for this as it flew. Not that Sven had any plan other than fly directly away from the ship until the tether stops the drone.
Sven keyed in the program.
He opened multiple camera views and trained them on the drone. On the camera almost directly below the drone, it remained visible. However, on the camera at the bow of the ship, the drone disappeared into the blackness.
As the drone hit the tethered length, it was surrounded in darkness. Sven, saw the darkness move to embrace the drone.
Alarms blared. The drone’s camera showed nothing but blackness. The camera cracked, splintering as if it was under massive pressure.
Sven’s computer showed the drone had gone offline or at least the signal was lot.
A message appeared on his monitor, “This system is under my protection. Leave and never return.”
Stars appeared in a single camera. It was the aft camera.
Sven slammed the “EMERGENCY” button next to the monitor. Klaxon blared throughout the kilometer long ship. Sven was in no position to make that sort of decision.
Sven paced. His face felt flush. He touched his ears, his fingers came away wet. He felt his stomach turn.
He ran to nearest trash receptacle.
“What’s this emergency?” Boomed a voice behind him.
It was senior staff. Sweat oozed out of Sven.
“Answer her, young man.” called a soothing voice. The crew was still walking towards the bridge, but the airlock had been opened ahead of them.
“Sirs,” Sven’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “I detected an anomaly in space. I only saw blackness. Then I got a message from that blackness.”
A voice scoffed, “Blackness in space, imagine that. Probably saw a constellation and got spoked.”
“Silence” The captain commanded.
“Yes, Sir.” came the tense reply.
Sven punched in a few commands and pulled up the sequence of video the computer automatically recorded. He showed them on the main screen for the full bridge crew to review.
“Did you review the video of when this,” the captain hesitated, “Blackness appeared?”
Sven shook his head, “No. I panicked when the blackness sent that message.”
She smiled at Sven. Sven felt his shoulders relax then. “You did the right thing, Ensign. Please pull up that information.”
“Um, sir. It still has the tether.” Sven replied.
“WHAT?”
“I have been attempting to retract the tether since before I got that message. No cable has retracted.” Sven coughed, “sir.”
She rubbed her chin. “Hmm, Xeno?”
“There have been other systems where there are protectors, but they are usually more aggressive. This is different.”
“Security?”
“Destroy it and claim this system as our own.”
She sighed, “Operations and Engineering?”
The main screen changed before O&E could respond. Sven replayed the video history. The images showed bits of starts blinking in and out. Then all at once the ship was surrounded. The drone appeared to rocket from the ship. The stars appeared aft out of nothing.
“How long did that envelopment take?” She asked.
Sven swallowed, “According to the computer’s analysis, 1 millisecond. The blinking of the stars took place over the span of several hours, which is reflected in the size of the planet.”
“Estimated size?”
“At least 15 km3, it’s unclear how thick the object is. Based on the drone’s penetration, at least several hundred meters.” Sven quickly finished with, “Sir.”
“O&E, how quickly can we turn?”
“It will take us another hour to turn around and leave. It would be faster if we could accelerate and sling ourselves -”
“Thank you. Helm, chart a course to turn and burn.” She stood. After pausing to straighten her uniform, she said, “I’ll be in my office. Esign, come with me.”
“Sir.”
“Please let me know if -” before she could finish the entire vessel had lurched to the side.
A message appeared on the main screen and every other screen on the ship. “YOU HAVE NOT CHANGED COURSE. LEAVE. This planet is under my protection.”
“Ensign, can you send a message back?” The Captain asked.
“Sir, I did not try, as I am not permitted to initiate first contact with Xeno-Intelligences. What would you like me to say? Sir.”
“Tell the protector that we are in progress of changing course.”
Sven keyed his computer and brought up a terminal to send a message to the drone. “Protector we are currently plotting a new course to leave.” Sven typed.
The captain nodded tersely. “Helm, get us out of here.”
“To whom am I speaking?”
Sven typed, “Captain Olivia Vargas.”
“Sir,” cried security, “The blackness has closed in around the ship. It is within 250 meters!”
The screen dissolved into a single word, “LIAR.”
Sven felt sweat drip in to his eyes, he replied quickly, “Ensign Sven Johanson is literally typing, however, I am taking clear direction from Captain Vargas. I have some latitude to answer and act independently, but I am acting as an extension of her.”
Sven felt a hand on his chair. He glanced up and saw Captain Vargas. She nodded. Then she spoke, “Protector, you have us at a disadvantage. It seems you can see everything we do, but we cannot see or know anything about you?”
Sven typed everything verbatim.
The Protector responded, “You know everything you need to know about me. These planets are under my protection. And, that you need to leave. I can assume, given our conversation here, that you are able to understand implied threats. Sven, why were you unable to turn around yourself?”
Captain nodded for Sven to answer himself.
“I am not high enough rank. Only Captain Vargas or another senior officer can make that decision in the case she’s unable.”
“How many senior staff would need to be unable for you to have made this decision.”
Sven counted his fingers, then shrugged, “I’m not sure, more than a dozen but probably less than 200.”
Captain Vargas suddenly fell to the ground. She was rigid locked into taking a step towards Sven. She’d had one foot in the air when she frozen.
“What would you have done?”
Sven licked his lips. He wiped sweat from his forehead. Security’s chair slid out from under him.
“I would have ran, err, left immediately. I could not though.”
Sven called to Helm, “When are we getting the fuck out of here?”
Helm called back, “How dare you ask me that? I’m working on it. I’ve almost got it. Give me five more minutes.”
Sven responded through clenched teeth, “You’re higher rank than me. If you do that,” Sven gestured towards Captain Vargas, “I’ll probably end up getting us all killed. Please hurry.”
Sven looked about. The air, felt as if someone was laughing around him. He squinted at the screen, “Are you laughing at us?” Sven asked.
The feeling increased. Xenobiology frozen.
“Yes, I am laughing. It seems that authority is flexible in your world.”
“Authority is only flexible in the moment. You’ve forced on us that shift in authority. It is very likely that I could be both praised and reprimanded for what’s happening here. IF I make things worse, then I’ll certainly be reprimanded. If we get out of here, alive, I may be reprimanded for breaking the chain of command by acting above my station.”
Sven felt a shift. He was suddenly standing on the drone’s tether. He held his breath and shut his eyes. His wrist computer beeped at him.
He opened his eyes and took a tentative breath.
There was more laughter about him. “Smart boy. Noise means air.”
Sven narrowed in on the voice. It was a small black ball. No larger than a grape. it was floating no more than a meter in front of him.
“What am I doing here?”
“What were your intentions for this system?” the Grape asked.
Sven shrugged, “Me personally? This is my job. My job is to make sure that ship, down that tether, gets to where its supposed to. That ship’s intention, or the intention imbued in our mission, is to deliver colonists to one of the inner planets and get them set up here. Then we would leave and continue towards another system to scout it out.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you leave colonists?”
“After almost destroying our planet, we decided not to leave all our eggs in one basket. Better to have people all over space, than just on one planet. Plus, humans like to explore and live in hostile environments.”
“This system is under my protection. Would you still leave colonists?”
“No. We never leave colonists where there’s a clear Class 3 or greater species. You are at least a class 5 species.”
Air returned to a sense of laughter. “Such a foolish scale. You seek dominion over class 2 and lower? Do you seek to prevent more class 3 from emerging?”
The grape shot into Sven. It moved faster than his eye could see. One moment it was there, the next it was gone.
Sven gasped and shifted.
The ship lurched. The tether was suddenly retracting.
Captain Vargas groaned. Security dizzily sat up, blood was streaming from his forehead.
Helm was busy, he suddenly leaned back sighing with relief. “Sorry Captain, I had to use some emergency maneuvers and spike the Gs well above the safety range for our passengers. I can’t be sure they all will have survived.” Helm cried.
Sven felt himself being thrust to the side. His body spoke then, “Captain Vargas. You should commend this vessel. Sven did very well for you and your species.”
“What have you done with Ensign Sven?” Captain Vargas growled.
“He’s still here. I’m a Protector. Never come back here. Do not let any other ship visit this system. If you do, I will expand my area of protection far beyond this system. I understand you intend to live with species on planets you colonize. If I learn that is not the truth of things, I will expand my sphere of protection. Until then, I have my passion project here.”
Captain Vargas’s jaw worked as she tried to formulate a reply.
“The protector’s gone.” Sven said. He held his head. “Such a beautiful project.” Sven whimpered. He looked back up at Captain Vargas, “Please, tell the Earth Force Federation. Make them listen. We do not want to become the next passion project.”