“Battle is an orgy of disorder.”
–Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
They say in battle, time slows down.
Eyrn, Naskia, and Sorcha all wished what they said was true.
Instead, the peacekeepers kept moving at a steady pace. Too steady, too fast. Almost. Almost….
A soft click and a whoosh came from the ceiling. It could barely be heard above the din; the guards didn’t even react, until a very tall woman jumped down, and opened fire.
Rixie took four shots, landing four projectile tasers on four guards in the back rank, all of whom fell unconscious almost immediately. She rearmed, as a short man, dusty but regal in his bearing, dropped out of the ceiling and, moving to her side, opened fire as well.
Tig hadn’t even had a chance to drop and fire yet when Eyrn and Sorcha each shouted a cry of pure rage and charged the guards. Sorcha caught a guard who had turned to face the attackers, she didn’t have time to get her weapon back around. Sorcha took said weapon and pistol-whipped a second peacekeeper, hitting a third with a backhand before arming herself with the disruptor rifle. Meanwhile, Eyrn leaped into the middle of the pack, swinging her stun-prod like a berserker, whipping three men before they could even process it.
Naskia did not follow so quickly into battle, not just because she did not wish to risk Niall, but because it was over so quickly she barely had time to react. Of the twenty men and women caught between Sorcha in front of them, Eyrn in the middle, and Rixie, Tig, Ulala and Aerti behind them, precisely one managed to stumble into the watch room and raise his weapon, only for Naskia to clout him on the head with her stun-prod.
“Report!” Aertimus barked, as the two remaining conscious guards dropped their weapons and surrendered.
“Watch room secure!” Sorcha shouted; this time, it was true.
“Darren?” Eyrn called.
“Eyrn Bass, that was got’damn amazing,” he said, with a broad smile. “Hell, we didn’t even start to head for the vents.”
“Shang Xiao, are you all right?” Aerti said, pausing to pat Sorcha on the shoulder as he headed in.
“Yes,” Xú said, though she was shaking. She had managed to avoid battle for twenty years, but a part of her mind was screaming in terror that those things were coming up out of the lab, and would be here any second.
She shook her head. She had no time for that. She looked over her crew. “Everyone all right?” she asked. “Any injuries?”
“No ma’am,” Yelena said. “I….”
But she stopped, because she saw two humans racing down the hallway, dodging the unconscious peacekeepers in their way. “Shang Xiao!” Tatenda roared, happily. “Commander Marachera, reporting for duty!”
Three members of her crew stepped forward; it was fortunate their Titan allies were used to working alongside humans, for they froze in place, allowing them to weave in and out. Viktor and Tatenda were greeted with hugs and cheers some time before they were able to make it over to their commanding officer.
“Permission to rejoin our crew, ma’am,” Tatenda said.
“Granted, Commander,” Xú said, saluting. Now if only….
“Excuse me,” one of the giants said, approaching slowly. She was young, and tall even for one of them. She lowered herself carefully, if perhaps a bit nervously. “Captain? I have two members of your crew.”
She reached in, and gently lifted Ted and Hala out of her pocket, setting them down with their crewmates. If Xú noticed that Ted was essentially dressed in a scrap of fabric, she gave no indication. Instead, she snapped to attention, saluted again, and said, “Crew of the Sally Ride, welcome back.”
“Thank you, Shang Xiao,” Ted and Hala said at once. Xú clapped a hand on Hala’s shoulder. “Nice work, Major. Well done. Who is your friend?”
“Decanus Belfsec?” Ted called up.
Tig had stepped away, not wanting to intrude on Ted’s reunion. She turned back. “Yes?”
“Shang Xiao Xú, this is Decanus Tigoni Belfsec; she was on the ship that accidentally collided with the Sally Ride, and she helped both save and later rescue Hala.”
“I am sorry,” Tig said, lowering herself back to the ground. “I didn’t….”
“Accidents happen,” Xú said, with a smile. “You saved a member of my crew. Twice. We are in your debt.”
“That’s kind of you to say, Shang Xiao. I just wish you were safe and on your way home.”
As she said this, the door to the humans’ cell slid shut, and there was a hissing noise; the ventilation system hummed, as it pumped something into the room for a solid minute, before stopping.
“What was that?” Aerti said. He was without internal comms, and the detention cell in question was locked out to the Navarchos Imperii’s command codes.
“Aerosolized zamik,” a weary voice said. “Enough to kill anything in that cell.”
Rixie strode over to the man, who was struggling to sit up.
“Gorram, Kir,” she said, in a tone so menacing that it was frightening even given the condition of her voice, “How could you?”
“The Navarchos Imperii ordered me to do it. Said he’d keep my niece out of the academy if I didn’t. Bust me down to Opito, too, but that wasn’t important. He said I couldn’t trust Navarchos Bass, he was too close to humans.”
Rixie looked down in fury at her friend. “Kir, you were going to murder eighteen class two sentient beings.”
“Nineteen,” Naskia said, quietly. “Nobody suggested we remove Niall.”
Rixie backhanded Kir for that, hard enough that blood from his nose flew a good unit.
She was about to ask another question, when Kir’s terminal chimed with an incoming communique. Aertimus walked over to it, noted the sender, and opened the channel.
“Well. Navarchos Bass. What a surprise.”
“You failed, Solis,” Aerti said, not even bothering to hide his rage. “You tried to murder 19 people, including my sister’s husband, threatened the lives of my sister and my wife – but you failed.”
“Well,” Solis said, leaning back. “You managed to clear the cell then. Is Kir dead?”
“Nobody’s dead, Solis,” Aertimus barked. “I told you, you failed.”
“You should address me as Navarchos or sir, Navarchos Bass.”
“You disgrace the uniform,” Aertimus spat. “There’s already a flag imperator here who knows of your actions. I’m directing her to pursue charges. You’re done. Now give me back my gorram communications so I can call for assistance.”
Solis smiled a twisted smile. “No, Aertimus.”
“It’s over!” Aerti said, slamming his hands on the console. “You’ve lost! We aren’t going to let the humans die. You can’t keep Titan Station locked down forever. You’ve failed.”
“Aertimus, I’ve been three steps ahead of you this entire time. What makes you think I failed to plan for this contingency? I can still kill the humans. This will just make it messier. Ninety minute countdown from my mark…mark.”
“Attention: Environmental Controls Offline. Attention: Environmental Controls Offline,” a warning voice repeated.
The color drained from Aerti’s face. “What have you done?”
“Zamik isn’t just routed into the detention ventilation system, Aertimus. As you likely know, we have several tons of the stuff available in case of pest infestation.”
“Stations only use that a section at a time, in areas of the base that have been cleared of people.”
“Yes, that’s how they use it. I will use it throughout the base. Now, it will make all the Titans sick, unfortunately. You may experience dizziness, vomiting, nausea, double vision – but it will pass. At least, it will for all but the sick, the young, and the old. Still, at the levels that will be released, very few Titans will die.
“Of course, every human on the station will most certainly die. And I can’t swear the Dunnermacs and Avartle will be okay. But then, in order to rid your station of this infestation, desperate measures must be taken.”
“You’re mad,” Aertimus said. “Why? Why would you do this?”
“To preserve the Empire,” Solis said. “I will contact you again in one hour. If the humans are back in their cell – including Dr. Freeman, as I have no intention of allowing him to defect – then I will end this countdown, and simply execute them. No Titans will die. None of your…pets will die either. I will contact you in one hour, not before. Solis out.”
Aertimus stared around the room, which was dead silent. Everyone in the room was staring at him in horror.
He straightened up.
“All right,” he said. “We’re going to need a plan.”
* * *
Solis had no sooner concluded his discussion with Aertimus Bass than his pad lit up again.
“Busy, busy,” he murmured, answering. “Hello, Mr. Floor Leader.”
“You’re fired, Solis.”
“Really? By whom?”
“You lied to me. You told Bass to lie to me. You’ve probably told others to lie to me. That’s insubordination, you gorram felgercarber. I’ve filed the paperwork already; if you resign immediately, I won’t have you arrested.”
Solis leaned back. “Mr. Floor Leader…it’s too late for that.”
“What do you mean? You tuppshaka, you’re fired!”
“In ninety minutes, all of the human explorers on Titan Station will be dead, and I will transmit images of their dead bodies to Earth. And do you know what will happen then?”
“I’ll see you hanged, you bastard, that’s what will happen!”
“The people of Earth will be outraged. They will demand revenge. They will push their leaders to launch a war they have no hope of winning, and may the Emperor protect us all – but most especially them.”
“We’ll tell them the truth! We’ll tell them a madman killed them, and we’ll apologize for it!”
“And I’m sure they’ll believe you. After all, why wouldn’t they trust us? We just killed their people. No, Floor Leader, those savages will not be able to resist attacking us. And indeed, they have weapons that could do some damage to Titan Station. Destroy it? No, but kill some Titans. And if that happens? What will you do then? Sit by and let Titan Station be attacked by savages because you feel bad about my actions? Or land on Earth and put it under direct Imperial control – as we should have done all along? And don’t tell me you won’t, because if you don’t, I’m sure the representative who succeeds you as Floor Leader will.”
Zeramblin stared at the screen in disbelief. “You can’t…you wouldn’t….”
“I can. I am. Earth is not a threat – yet. But they will be. We can wait for them to face us on equal terms, with the outcome of the battle in doubt, or we can face them now, and crush them into dust. You will despise me, of course; I will be sent to Rura Penthe, or executed. But there’s nothing you can do now. You can send the Imperators, but I’ve secured my office. They can’t get in as long as I’m Imperii. And even pulling the House back into emergency session to remove me will take a few hours; by then it will be too late. Only the command codes of the Imperii can override this, and there is nothing you can do to remove me in time to take them from me.”
Zeramblin pounded his fist on his desk. “You can’t do this, Solis! I’ll go to the Emperor!”
“Very well. The Lornin Act says that to remove me without legislative action, the Emperor must receive three separate credible complaints of Class One offenses from three different sources. Good luck finding two more.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Not at all. I am sacrificing myself in defense of the Imperial Standard, Mr. Floor Leader, like all soldiers are sworn to do. My life and reputation are a small price to pay to preserve the Empire for another thousand years. And I will not sit by and waste my time arguing with petty traitors like yourself. Don’t bother calling back; I will not answer. For the honor of the Emperor!”
Solis switched off the call, walked to the door of his office, and locked it securely. He input a code on his pad, and smiled as he heard the blast doors slide into position. He wondered what the people in the anteroom outside were thinking; he expected they were rather shocked, but it was of no matter. They would either need his codes or a nuclear weapon to break through that seal. Good luck getting either.
He chuckled. There was little the people on the station could do, and he had some more lines of defense there if they tried. He took out his sidearm, laid it on the table, poured a glass of Ol’ Janx Spirit over ice, and patiently, he waited.
* * *
“All right,” Aerti said, rubbing his eyes. “So we can’t get a hold of the Gyfjon, the Xifos, or the Minatar. Solis has all Imperial communications jammed. And Solis has locked us out of the hangars, so we can’t launch one of the ships to get clear. We can’t even use the Lem, as it’s stuck in Hangar One. So basically, there’s no way to warn anyone, anywhere.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” Ted Martínez said. “Have you guys brought in the Sally Ride?”
“I don’t know,” Aertimus said.
“We haven’t,” Kir said, softly. “It’s still out there. We were using it as a lure.”
“That’s likely,” spat Sorcha. “You’re probably hoping we’ll send some humans out to it, let them die on the way.”
“I…I never wanted….”
Sorcha paused from dragging guards into a cell to wheel on Kir. “You were going to kill my father, you tuilli. I should….”
“Sorcha, stop!” Alesia called from the floor. “We don’t have time. Col. Martínez, what are you thinking?”
“Well, the Sally Ride doesn’t have the kind of communications equipment you have, but if you’re jamming that, it might be to our advantage. We can launch it, and send out a call letting someone – anyone – know what’s going on here. Maybe find someone who can help. Of course, our comms are relativistic, but it’s better than nothing. If nothing else…we let people know the truth.”
“We could boost that,” Naskia said. “There’s a communications relay station embedded in Iapetus; if you can tell me a bit about your communications protocols, I can get you access to that station; you can communicate freely across the Empire.”
“Better yet, why don’t you all leave? We could –”
“No, Niall, good suggestion, but we wouldn’t all fit in the Sally Ride, and even if we could, it would never make it back to Earth,” Xú said. “In fact, I think we’re down to two p-suits, meaning we can maybe get two officers aboard.”
“One,” Viktor said. “I lost my mask somewhere along the way.”
“Oh!” Tigoni said, fishing in her pocket. “I grabbed this,” she said, pulling out the tiny helmet and bending down, down, down, and handing it to Ted.
“Smart girl,” he said, with a grin. “All right, the next question is, who should pilot, Shang Xiao?”
“You, Ted,” Xú said, pausing not a moment. “You and Hala. Tatenda, Viktor, out of the suits; they should fit close enough for them to make the transfer, at least in a pressurized environment. Now, who can take them to the ship?”
“I’ll do it,” Tigoni said. “I just need to know where it is.”
There was a moment of silence; Rixie looked over at Kir.
“You would know where it was, Kir,” she said, softly. “You haven’t killed anyone yet. You still have a chance to make this right.”
Kir rubbed his face. He had never been a particular fan of humans, but neither did he have anything against them. He certainly preferred them to, say, Insectoids. Here he was, listening to them discuss strategy, the creatures he would have killed.
No. No. Not creatures. People. The people he would have killed.
He let out a sob.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know, it’s not enough. The ship is close. Just 44 units out, straight out from West Airlock 47. I’ve looked at the charts. I can get you there. I’ll go with you.”
Aertimus looked over at him, as Sorcha shouted her objections. “Ms. Belfsec, you’ll lead the group to get Col. Martínez and Maj. Nejem to their ship. Naskia, you go too, you’ll need to fill them in on the way. Both of you, grab disruptor rifles. Mr. Oden, you may accompany them; understand, if you come back without either, I’m not opening the airlock until your oxygen is gone.”
“I understand,” Kir said.
“Shang Xiao Xú, do you agree with this plan?”
Xú looked up in surprise from her position at the Navarchos’s feet; she had not expected to be consulted. “I…I’m sorry?”
“This affects all of you no less than us. I want to make sure that this plan makes sense to you; you’re in command of more people in this room than I am.”
Xú smiled. “Navarchos Bass, I agree with the plan, but before everyone departs, I believe we need to finish securing the guards before they come to.”
“Agreed. Sorcha, how are we doing?”
“Five more to go,” she said, as she carried a groaning guard over her shoulder. “A few are starting to come around, but nobody’s moving much.”
“Now, Rixie, do you have any idea how environmental controls work?”
“Begging your pardon, but I do, sir,” Ulala said. “I did a rotation in environmental control on Tatendi Station during my second year at the academy.”
“Excellent. Ms. Ix, Imperator Tam, go on down to facilities management. Rixie, you take control, Ms. Ix, you try to get a look at what we’re dealing with. Will they need disruptors, Kir?”
Oden shook his head. “I don’t know. Solis recruited me, and I worked with the peacekeepers; I think you’ve taken out all of them. But that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t talked to others.”
“Right, then take disruptors, and take down anyone who gets in your way, that’s an order. The rest of us are going to stay here; I’m going to attempt to establish comms from the watch room. All right, everyone, we’ve got 55 minutes,” Aertimus said. “Move out.”
I realise that Sollis is grasping for straws, but I’m afraid his plan is too easily foiled.
Ignoring the fact that, as others have said, they could shove everyone vulnerable into space suits…. This is a space station; it’s very hard to believe it wasn’t built with disaster shelters with independent air systems.
Also it isn’t said why they can’t just go disconnect the poison tanks? it was intended for pest control, not murder, so I would imagine there’s not a great deal of redundancy.
I can’t see why Floor leader need to the emperor to remove Solis with such complex procedure when he make an simpler egislature action to remove him!
Time. As I understand, the Floor Leader needs a vote in the Legislature to fire Solis and cancel his codes, which could take hours.
Solis said he was three steps ahead. Flooding the whole station with poison is one, locking down the station hanger and coms is two. The good guys are already working around these obstacles. If he needs dead humans to start a war, then I’m still concerned with Jupiter.
They would either need his codes or a nuclear weapon to break through that seal. Good luck getting either.
I suggest they try P. O. E. first seeing as Solis has gone full scale General Jack D. Ripper and has his own definition of how to preserve the peace.
Did they offload the Stanisaw Lem onto Titan Station? Cus they got a nuclear weapon in there…
When I read that, I though “Chekov’s Gun may yet be fired”, and imagined them wedging a little spaceship into a door, and then setting off a nuclear weapon to break into someone’s office. But then Faeriehunter pointed out that “Solis is not on Titan Station. As far as I can tell he hasn’t left his office in the Dodecahedron (the headquarters of the Imperial Military) on Archavia since the story began.”
Makes for a rather amusing image though.
This would make more sense if it was a coup d’é·tat but it is being portrayed as just the actions of a crazy guy..It doesn’t make any sense. Los Titans would not have the their military chief of staff as a xenophobe..that would ensure constant conflict with other races. His action would just lead to consternation throughout the empire, especially with the non-titan races..
I could go after his assumptions about earth..but I’ll just say a few things; (assuming his plan is successful)
– Earth would not immediately respond
– Earth would evaluate the Titans comprehensively and come up with a long term plan to overcome their oppressors using whatever military strategy they deem would be most effective.. and whatever that form takes, it would not be pleasant for Los Titans (This could even include non-military force..perhaps even biological, genetic)
– If Earth is directly oppressed/enslaved then the old MAD doctrine of the cold war would be thrown out..It would be ‘fck-it lets hurt them – badly’ nanobots anyone?
– The hostile outside races would see the turmoil and decide to act
I agree, his plan doesn’t make any sense. But as faeriehunter pointed out, this might be an impulsive plan, carried out by the appearance of the human astronauts on Titan. It could be that Solis didn’t think it would happen so soon, hadn’t time to fully prepare and is only reacting at this point.
That would explain his many mistakes, as well as why Aertimus and Lauryna are still around in Gamma Fleet : the first step in a well-thought plan would have been to remove human sympathizers from positions of power in the military. So, a rushed plan would explain why it didn’t happen.
The alternative is Solis is a moron… which for the Empire’s military leader is not fully credible.
“Solis didn’t think it would happen so soon” It’s pretty clear that the only people who saw this coming are Niall and Darren, and the few Titans who listen to them.
I both overestimated and underestimated Solis, I overestimated his scheming and I underestimated his commitment to the removal of Earth as a distant threat to the empire. Never thought he would so casually admit his guilt and be prepared to die for this cause, but at the same time even if he succeeds in killing the astronauts I feel he definitely overrates human savagery, that is provided that’s all he’s currently doing. The ship around Jupiter still has me nervous.
It also implies the Legislature is so incompetent they couldn’t come up with some evidence to back up the apology. Guess he feels humans are so frothing at the mouth they won’t listen to reason.
Trivia question that’s been bugging me:
I recall from Titan: Exile that the Gyfjon used its sensors to get a pretty accurate human population count when it came to Earth to snatch the supposed smuggler. Wouldn’t it have been possible to use the same sensors to find all the humans on or near Titan Station and then cross-reference and eliminate all the humans with a tracking chip so as to instantly locate all the astronauts not yet in custody?
Depends on how the sensors work I suppose, but it sounds reasonable.
Assuming Titan station isn’t shielded from such sensors, or that the much, Much, MUCH thicker walls of the station aren’t going to do more to block whatever active scanning they use more effectively than the predominantly wooden and concrete housing humans tend to use. Would have been a smart plan to try I suppose.
I thought I perceived an implication earlier that Solis was operating on someone else’s schedule; that there was a deadline imposed from some one outside his chain of command, so to speak. We had inferred from that there might be orders from, say, the Insectoids, for example. Especially after he killed Gernhatt.
Can Rixie use the Red line to get to Solis? Perhaps it is beyond his ken, and he doesn’t know about it? Still hoping none of our heroes becomes collateral damage in this insanity…
Btw, I got two emails, the first (old system) more than 90 minutes before the second (new system). So now I will be unable to check when it is actually posted in the future, as it does not seem to be as reliably timely, but, oh well, at least I got it. ;-}. Still read the awesome new chapter from checking my tablet before I checked my email. I expected new reading material this morning, thank you.
Solis is not on Titan Station. As far as I can tell he hasn’t left his office in the Dodecahedron (the headquarters of the Imperial Military) on Archavia since the story began.
In fact he just locked himself into his office there.
“The people of Earth will be outraged. They will demand revenge. They will push their leaders to launch a war they have no hope of winning, and may the Emperor protect us all – but most especially them.”
“We’ll tell them the truth! We’ll tell them a madman killed them, and we’ll apologize for it!”
Two things :
1) I’m “amused” to see both Solis and Zeramblin refer to humans as people here. There is no doubt in their minds at this point. Which makes both their stances so much worse. Solis for attacking people unprovoked, Zeramblin for keeping humans enslaved as long as possible for political convenience.
2) I “hope” Solis has a plan B because, even today, no Earth leader would think to attack a vastly superior alien enemy over a bunch of dead astronauts, public outcry or not. “Nowadays”, in the kumbaya mood of Contact era Earth ? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaase…
Only a direct assault on Earth itself could provoke such a reaction.
Keep in mind that Solis got his information from Gernhat, a guy obsessed with humans being savage little warmongers. He’s going on the assumption that humans will jump at the opportunity to attack. What he doesn’t realize is that much of the examples Gernhat used for his information, while relatively recent by titan standards, is ancient history to humans of Earth. They lack the context of human perception of time. If they fail to stop Solis, and this all goes as he planned, Earth would definitely accept an apology from Archavia.
As head of the military, Solis has much more recent and accurate data about Earth than Gernhat did. But I get your point.
Um, only Solis used the “people” word. Zeramblin just referred to the humans as “them”.
And I’m pretty sure that Solis does not have a plan B. All his actions spring from the belief that humans are savages that cannot be reasoned with (or see reason by themselves), who will inevitably wage war against the Empire; the only question is when. Humanity refusing to be provoked is inconceivable to him.
“No, Floor Leader, those savages will not be able to resist attacking us.”
Yes, but even so, that makes no sense. Even if Solis believes that, what if it takes Earth weeks, months or even years to mount a counterattack ? The Lem is already captured. As far as we know, Earth’s closest ship to Titan station is around Jupiter : even at full speed, probably months away at least.
That leaves way too much time when nothing would happen after killing the astronauts and way too much time for the Legislature to fix this mess before Earth does anything stupid.
Again, Solis’s plan makes no sense so far, even with the assumptions he has about Humans.
I concur that Solis’s plan isn’t very sensible, but I assume that’s because it’s not a well-prepared master plan, it’s the last-ditch effort of a titan driven into a corner. Ziah Solis wasn’t intending to murder the humans or sacrifice himself from the beginning, just contain the situation so he’d have the time to come up with good solution for the Earth problem. However, the situation resisted his attempts to contain it, and now the shaar is getting out of the bag. Ziah knows that he will be shut down eventually, so before that happens he must do enough damage to make conflict between Earth and the Empire inevitable. This makes the current plan a spur-of-the-moment thing, which titans are not very good at, hence the lack of sense.
I’m also unsure how accurate Ziah’s knowledge is regarding the travel time of human ships and missiles from Earth to Saturn. It could be that he’s imagining them to be much faster than they actually are; after all, he lives in an Empire that can bridge those distances in less than an hour.
Yeah I think Solis is only looking it from a titan perspective/titan sense of time. To a Titan humans can send up another ship to Saturn in about half a year, certainly less than a year. So while it would take months/years for humans it would be relatively fast for Titans.
His assumptions also make more sense from a titan perspective of time, where pretty much every global conflict on Earth would have taken place in his lifetime. Humans would seem incapable of going more than a couple years without serious conflict or threat of conflict. Granted this fails under serious scrutiny, but Solis is hardly logical at this point.
Zeramblim is a wholly political animal. He’ll do what is in his best interests..his views may be distasteful to some but he is no xenophobic freakaziod like Sholish..(ish)
“Oh don’t give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don’t you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit”
I had a few this morning..no wonder my coffee tasted weird.. (Besides other things)…
Still prefer the pan-galactic gargle blasters (with just a hint of lime)
Like Arbon said, Ziah Solis’s plan to kill all the Stanislaw Lem crew with zamik is doomed to fail. An hour is more than enough to find an environmental suit meant for a titan and put Mùlán and the others inside, or something similar. But of course that doesn’t protect everyone else on Titan Station (including all pets, 14 of which are human). So the best bet remains to get some communications to work; if they can talk to the ships in Sol Terra, followed by the Emperor, it should either fulfill the “three Class One offenses” requirement, or get the Emperor enough information that he’ll decide to bypass protocol and discharge Ziah without waiting for confirmation of three offenses.
Taking out no less than 20 trained peacekeepers wearing battle gear without even a single KO on the good guys’ part is nothing short of amazing, even accounting for the pincer maneuver. It it just me, or is Titan Station such an unattractive posting that most of the military personnel there are less than competent?
Speaking of Titan Station, aside from the personnel issue I also find it very disturbing that anyone, even the Navarchos Imperii (or some who has the access codes to pretend being him), can remotely turn the place into a deathtrap and lock the people there out of almost everything. Once the dust settles the Empire may want to take a good long look at the place, make some improvements.
interesting, pretending humans crew dead could be an option. let see what next.
Solis is a monster. Should be dropped into a star for his crimes.
Still not getting any notifications for this unless I have to follow the story itself.
Someone will die. Sense its Aerti. Niall might get a trip to Earth.
I got one, but I think it was after following the story. Getting this nonsense tho:
Chapter Twenty-One: The Trumpet That Shall Never Call Retreat Titan: Contact by D.X. Machina
ok…it decided to parse tags anyway, despite it being in a code block. Anyway, The old notifications looks better, just wish they worked for everyone.
DX implemented a new email notification system. There’s a news post about it on the front page.
Hmm … I find it interesting that, were it not for the pressing need to get communications out and the risk of there being yet some third layer of defense for Solis’s plan to fall back on, the entire strategy of venting toxins into the air system is foiled if the humans he intends to kill have a closed system to hide inside. Be it escape pods, space suits, some titan’s oxygen mask, or everyone hiding out in the Sally ride and just waiting until the hour mark. Perhaps pretending to be dead and having this team of almost superheros cursing out Solis when the man calls up to contact them, for if he thinks he’s already won then he won’t bother finishing the job until it’s already too late.
Also perhaps it’s just the fact we’ve seen Rixie gluck down Alex so recently, but while it doesn’t make much rational sense and would probably have been more fitting in the early Titan series, but I find myself imagining various titans offering to let a human hide out inside their stomach for a few hours.
Right. Humans have many means to survive through this. Which points to the next step Solis would take : what’s that ? Having the Minatar destroy Titan station ? Attack a human colony ? Earth itself ?
I really hope Zeramblin sticks to his guns. He might not be the most likeable guy in the series, but everything we know about him say is smart, cunning, and takes no shit from anyone. That alone should trump self-preservation as Floor Leader. Hopefully.
Regarding Rodrec Zeramblin, at this point I don’t think that leaving Ziah Solis be is even an option for the Floor Leader anymore. Rodrec may not know everything that’s going on, but Ziah has shown that he’s disregarding the Floor Leader’s authority and preparing to martyr himself for the sake of the Empire. It should be clear that whatever is going on, covering it up is going to be impossible. Besides, leaving a man of questionable sanity in charge of the military after he defied you to your face is just asking for more problems down the road.
Escape pods? Space suits?
The Lem is right there. So is Privany’s shuttle. If they can protect you from the vacuum of space, they can protect you from a bit of zamik in the air, whatever that it.
The spaceships are in the hangars, which Ziah locked down. Unless the good guys can override or bypass that lockdown they won’t be getting in.
If they can get the airlock open to get Ted & Hala out to Sally Ride they could put the entire Lem crew in another station airlock. While there might only be a few minutes of breathable air for Titans in a sealed airlock, it should be sufficient for the humans for many hours. Also, they could put the humans into a Titan environmental suit. Indeed what they should do is put vulnerable titans into all available suits with as many humans fitted in with them as is possible.
The Sally Ride is out on the surface of Titan and there are only two human-size suits. While it’s true that they could put the crew into an enclosed system (like a titan space suit), there are still other humans on the station (pets), and the poison will probably kill other species like avartle, ler and dunnermac, and Dr. Geen is still on the station. It even has the potential to kill titans.
Titan Station doubtless has protective systems in place that shut down the ventilation system in limited areas in the event of fire or specifically in Titan’s case detection of methane from an atmosphere breach. It should be possible to move the non-titans to one area of the station and trigger the sensors to seal them off them off from the rest of the ventilation system until after the gas triggers and the system can be purged.
Unfortunately:
““Attention: Environmental Controls Offline. Attention: Environmental Controls Offline,” a warning voice repeated.”
Solis shut all of that down.
Solis has locked out manual control of the environmental system via a terminal. Odds are the Ulala could fool the sensors by starting small fires near sensors to trigger the automatic shutdown.