Chapter 49. The Council of Generals
He turned to her and stared at her. In the gloom of the night, her outlines blurred, she looked even more slender and fragile than usual. He felt like she was a ghost. Compared to him, she was a head shorter. He recalled again that she had celebrated her seventieth birthday four months earlier. Of course, that's not old. Thanks to improved medical conditions, most people can live to be one hundred and twenty. However, this age seems to be the time when a person begins to think about his or her own mortality. Is she worried about never seeing him again? But this is so ridiculous. Of course, she would see him again. After completing his next mission, he would stand in front of her house again, pissing her and her father off and leaving her to fend for herself. But is this certain? It had never really worried him so far, it seemed like a given. But things move so quickly, how many times does he just narrowly escape death? Just one hit is enough to destroy the entire ship if the shields are breached. He had no chance then. During the last mission, they were attacked frequently. His mother's concerns didn't seem entirely unfounded.
He embraced her and held her close to him. "This won't be a dangerous mission," he said softly, trying to sound convincing. "don’t worry."
"I'm not worried," she summoned the courage to respond. "I was just wondering. You're definitely going to give me a lot of gray hair as well."
He smiled. "Your hair is all white already. There's no more."
She ignored his retort and said, "Come inside with me. You'll catch a cold outside. And you have to go to work tomorrow, so you'd better go to bed early."
"Am I ten?" suddenly flashed into his mind, but he just said, "Okay, Mom." Then he followed her back into the house, longing to be back at his quarters on the Republic.
With his heart pounding, Ingemar woke up from his sleep. The alarm clock rang mercilessly around him. There was darkness all around. Through the window, the faint dawn light illuminated the colorless silhouette. It took him a few seconds to recognize his room. This is his old bedroom at his parents' house, where he currently lives temporarily. Whenever he spends the night here, he uses this old-fashioned alarm clock, which doesn't wake him up like a soft and gentle alarm clock, but simply rings loudly. Usually, he doesn't mind. It made him feel at home. But tonight for the first time in a long time he had a nightmare. After the Republic returned, most of the crew had this nightmare. This is the consequence of being imprisoned in the slave mine of demonic flames. A team of psychologists then treated the crew and developed a treatment plan. He himself had long conversations with his counselor. Regular sessions helped, and gradually the nightmares disappeared. Recently, however, he has been less likely to participate in these treatments. He didn't expect to have nightmares again.
He stared at a point in the room, a small speck of light. He didn't want to close his eyes now, lest those images reappear. He forced himself to breathe calmly. He groped blindly for the quilt he had dropped when he suddenly woke up. Then he realized he was sweating profusely. His shirt was soaked and he felt cold. He realized there was little way to stay warm. And his alarm clock was already reminding him that it was time to get up.
Driven by sheer force of will, he stood up and trudged toward the bathroom. The light there hurt his eyes. But after the first flush of cold water on his face, he felt better. Slowly, the dream was replaced by reality.
After a good shower, that nightmare was no longer so scary. Now the first rays of sunlight filtered through the windows, driving away the remaining fears.
When he walked into the kitchen, as usual, breakfast was ready. His mother would not pass up this opportunity. Every morning, she gets up earlier than him and prepares breakfast for him. He tried to talk her out of it, but that was as impossible as trying to stop the stars from shining. She said she couldn't sleep at all. So he's used to it now. However, he couldn't enjoy his breakfast because he didn't have enough time. He has never been interested in breakfast. He would rather set his alarm clock as close to work time as possible so he could get some extra sleep. Any nutritionist would shake his head at this, but for him, sleep is clearly more important.
He ate hastily from a bowl of cereal that had been prepared for him. If his mother could see him like this, she would definitely scold him. Swallowing it so quickly is not good for your health. Plus, you don’t really taste the food at all when you eat it that way. But she couldn't blame him because she was back in bed again. A year ago, when he just came back, she wanted to have breakfast with him. But she soon realized he wasn't interested. He's not a morning person and it's best to leave him to eat in silence. So she preferred to stay in bed again while he ate breakfast.
After breakfast, Ingmar hurriedly left the house and rushed to the next shuttle bus. This bus connects the suburbs with the city center. From there, he can easily walk to his destination.
At this time, the shuttle bus was full and he had to stand. It wasn't a big deal, the shuttle's inertial dampers made it almost impossible to feel the flight. This allows him to stand relatively easily without having to struggle to maintain his balance.
People in various civilian costumes stood around. There are also some guys in red Starfleet uniforms. This is not surprising. Starfleet Headquarters has more than four thousand employees. Most were officers. Only a small proportion are civilian personnel.
He looked out the window, watching the landscape pass by quickly.
After landing, he walked with the other Starfleet officers toward the headquarters entrance. He has a regular job here, fixed working hours. Currently they need to test the control system for the new shuttle ship developed by engineers. This means spending most of the time in the simulator on test flights. He enjoys such tasks. But now he feels like it's torture. Mainly because it’s spring and the high pressure brings sunny days. In the simulator, he couldn't feel the sun. This nice weather should be taken advantage of. When they returned to the ship again, the sunlight disappeared. And those cute girls whose clothes were getting more and more revealing and whose moods were getting better and better also disappeared. Spring is such a wonderful season. Everything seems possible.
He also plans to rest for a week before taking off. During that week, he was going to go out and have a blast, and he was determined to do just that as he walked through the entrance to the headquarters. Then his mind was focused solely on the upcoming test. The nightmare of that night is far away now.
Along with his deputy Carol, Noah left his office at Starfleet Headquarters. Here he can get some work done. Carol's office was in another wing of the building, which made it inconvenient for them to work together. Fortunately, most of the time this is not a problem as they are assigned different tasks. Only at the very beginning, together they submitted many reports and forms about previous missions and related events. Starfleet wants to know a lot about the species they're dealing with. There is also an investigation into whether the captain or members of the leadership team were responsible for the attack on the Republic and the numerous deaths that followed. Countless expert opinions are produced, and vast amounts of data are collected and stored in many storage devices. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that Noah and his crew acted correctly. Any charges that may have been filed previously were dropped. Since then, most of the crew have been on other missions, assigned tasks that no longer have much contact with Noah, at least professionally.
He and Carol only began working together again in recent weeks. They began reviewing the crew list. Typically, crews are assigned among Starfleet's admirals, but the captain still has some influence. Therefore, he can make claims for specific people. Whether those requests will be considered is another matter.
Together they walked down the hallway to the conference room. This is usually the time for the weekly status meeting with the admirals in charge of the repair dock. But today is a meeting with the entire corps of admirals. This is a monthly meeting covering the current situation to keep everyone on the same page. This event is known as the Great Chiefs Conference. Noah and Carol would not normally be invited to this round of meetings. So maybe today they will learn about the Republic's next mission.
As they entered the room, they were directly met by Admiral Isaac. He greeted them with a brief handshake. He then hurried on, making brief claims with the others.
They walked to their assigned seats and from there observed the activities of the dignitaries. Noah never liked these people. In his opinion, most people are far away from practice. Few people can look back on their careers on spacecraft. Often the most common career path is to work in various positions within headquarters. This may be because few people can imagine choosing a desk job after experiencing the vastness and wonder of the universe. This disconnect from practice sometimes leads to decisions that leave captains across the fleet shaking their heads and incomprehensible.
When everyone was seated, Admiral Isaac made a speech. He is the highest ranking officer and leader of Starfleet. "Welcome everyone. We have convened this meeting to discuss the latest developments in area 859J. Not long ago, we regarded this area as a neutral zone. No force has made any claims to this place. But now the situation seems to have changed." He He folded his dark hands on the table. His face was serious. "We can't say for sure yet, but it's clear that Cindy has taken over the area. That's what we draw from intelligence reports."
Some people present expressed surprise, while others seemed to have been informed. Noah and Carol were in the surprised category, although their surprise wasn't very big. After meeting Cindy in the Demon Flame Mine, they knew it was only a matter of time before they met again. Although other responsible persons in Starfleet disagreed with this.
"Already know their intentions?" Admiral Jim sat in the middle of the table. Apparently, he had realized that he had been summoned here for more than just telling them this. No one has ever claimed that the occupation of an unclaimed portion of space by a race or alliance is a cause for concern. The Federation also continued to expand in this way. This only becomes interesting if the corresponding system has special features that give others an advantage, or if a hitherto unknown force is involved.
"Like I just said, there's not a lot we know yet," Isaac responded to the question. "We will now hand over more detailed information to Admiral Harry of the Intelligence Department."
Harry accepted everyone's gaze. He is a tall, thin, middle-aged man in his fifties. He was once one of the best agents Starfleet has ever had. His work has identified and resolved many conflicts in advance. For his achievements, he was awarded almost a bunch of medals and awards. However, his career ended abruptly when a Klingon who felt insulted by him stabbed Harry in the knee after a brief argument in a bar in the Klingon Empire. Although he managed to leave the Klingon Empire without being recognized, his knee never recovered. The Klingon's bayonet, a cunning three-edged sword, completely destroyed his knee. So he moved to a desk and eight years ago assumed the leadership of the intelligence service.
"Before talking about the current situation, I first want to talk about Cindy herself, because for most of us, they are just a myth." His deep voice was calm and rational, showing a very high level of professionalism. "In fact, we know next to nothing about this race. The most evidence is of their first contact, but that was only through their detectors. We all learned about that event in history class. In April 2153 , a Sindi weapon arrived on Earth. It attacked our planet, creating a trough from Florida to Venezuela, killing seven million people. Starfleet then dispatched the first Wa
The P-5 class ship 'Enterprise', commanded by Colonel Nicholas, went to make contact with Cindy, fearing there might be further attacks. All we know about Cindy is based on the journals from that time. "
"The Enterprise spent nearly a year navigating a region of space called Trigonometry more than a hundred years ago. After that, there was no contact with Cindy. There are now historians questioning the Enterprise's data from that time , they believed that space at that time was new to humans, so their perceptions were different. People were more susceptible to influence. Based on the description of Cindy in old records, some even doubted whether Cindy really existed, and Nicholas Could it be a hoax? Someone is already looking for evidence that the weapons of 2153 were made by another race."
"Let's now take a look at the data about the Sindy described by former Enterprise captain Gulleron. The most important thing is that the Sindy is not just one race. It is said that there are six intelligent races on their home planet .First there are the humanoid Cindy, who look similar to humans but have a distinctly protruding forehead. Then there are the plant Cindy, sloth-like creatures that are arboreal, as the name suggests. They are said to be Cindy The most diplomatic race among the Cindy. On the contrary, the crawling Cindy and the insect Cindy are the aggressive parts of the Cindy. According to the description, Captain Noah encountered the Demon Flame in the mine a year ago. One of the insectoid Sindy-like creatures, or a similar creature. The fifth alleged species of Sindy is the Aquatic Sindy. They are said to live underwater like fish. In order to be able to travel through the universe, they possess huge Water craft. However, this is also the only information we know about this race. Nothing is known about their attitude or possible threats. It is said that there once was a race of intelligent bird Cindy, but they are now extinct. . I think this can only be regarded as a fable."
"There was once such animosity between these different races that their home planet Xin was destroyed in a war. In order to avoid such a disaster from happening again, they formed a committee composed of the remaining five The race works together to protect Cindy’s interests.”
"This is the data we got from Captain Gleron. Although we have been working hard, so far we have no more news about this mysterious race, nor confirmation whether they really exist. But in the 859J triangle area , there seem to be some strange measurements. Our scientists have so far been unable to explain these data. All we can say at the moment is that these values have similarities with chronological radiation."
There was a murmur among the attendees at this announcement. Everyone is aware of the consequences of this statement. Chronological particles are released in time experiments. At least in theory. This means that, in theory, time travel is possible. In practice, however, the current state of the art can only provide an energy cost that cannot be achieved even with matter-antimatter mixing. Therefore, definite evidence for the existence of chronological granules is currently lacking.
Now if Cindy or someone else is found to be conducting such an experiment, it can only mean one thing: someone wants to manipulate the existing timeline. And whatever the goals of this manipulation, we must stop it at all costs. Time must remain an unchanging constant. Any intervention, no matter how well-intentioned it is, can lead to catastrophic changes. Humanity will cease to exist as if they never existed. This kind of intervention must be avoided.
"It's probably not a time experiment because of the similarities," Harry said, trying to reassure those present. "But to make sure, we have to go to the site and see. We have to send a ship there."
"Would the presence of a Starfleet ship be considered a hostile act?" Admiral Ern asked.
