Chapter 8: Ori Major

By the time the shuttle arrived and docked at our airlock, we were all dressed in our away team uniforms and assembled on our side. Jem and I had fetched Tobis from our brig and put restraints on him. He did not fight us. I guess he did not know the number of our crew or he might have tried something. I did not trust him. I felt somehow this was not over yet.

Ship indicated it was safe to transfer, so we entered our airlock. A moment later it closed and the shuttle airlock opened and we stepped out into the shuttle.

We were greeted by a familiar face.

“Commander Quon, this is a pleasant surprise,” said Koluna.

“I was fortunate to be in the system when the news came through that you were visiting. I volunteered for the assignment. Is this your prisoner?” asked the commander.

“Yes. His name is Tobis. He is the leader of the pirates responsible for the destruction of the Opolu Naa and many other civilian freighters. I trust your team will take good care of him,” said Koluna. I raised my eyebrows at that. She seemed to value life, but she was all but spelling out to the commander this was the being responsible for the death of his family member Yarin.

“Is that so?” he waived at two of his team and they secured him to a seat in the back of the shuttle. They scanned his ID chip.

“Brian, good to see you in person. I believe a drink is in our future,” said the commander as he clasped my forearm in what I recognized as a warrior greeting. I did not think of myself as a warrior, but as a diplomat I reciprocated.

“Yes. May I present Jem. Captain Jem this is commander Quon,” I said. The commander saluted the senior ranking officer.

“Pleased to meet you commander,” said Jem. “This is Laine, a recent addition to our crew.”

“I am honoured to meet you all. If you will please take a seat, we can undock and take you down to the planet surface,” replied the commander.

We all took our seats. Commander Quon waved to the pilot. Soon we undocked and were descending through the atmosphere. Ori Major is a beautiful planet and the view from the shuttle as we descended gave us an excellent view.

We landed at the spaceport where Koluna and I had arrived last time. This time we were greeted by minister Tarron himself. Our status as allies made life so much easier. Tobis was taken away by commander Quon and his team. I wondered if he would be likely to suffer an accident in his captivity or not. I did not care if he did. He tried to kill me, so he is lucky to still be alive as far as I was concerned.

Koluna and I made the introductions to the minister. One of his staff ran an ID scanner over Jem and Laine’s arms.

Minister Tarron tapped a few things into his device. “I have made sure you each have diplomatic status for your visit to the Ori Confederation. It should help you get through any red tape, should the need arise.”

“That is most kind minister,” said Jem.

“Before we proceed, do you have need of rest or food or anything?” asked the minister. It was about midmorning local time here at the spaceport.

“No, we are ready to proceed minister,” replied Jem.

“Excellent,” said Tarron. He escorted us to a rather deluxe looking ground transport, which took us to Ori High Command offices.

“I have arranged for investigators from the criminal justice unit to meet with us. By now they have received the evidence you transmitted to us. I am excited to see what you have for us this time,” he said.

“You won’t be disappointed,” I said.

We arrived at the Ori High Command. It was a huge sprawling complex of buildings. We followed Tarron as he directed us into a large meeting room with tall ceilings. There were about a dozen investigators in there, already viewing video footage on multiple displays around the room.

As we walked into the room, they all paused their viewing and turned towards us. One being approached our group.

“This is chief investigator Yus. He has been appointed to lead our team of investigators on this project,” said minister Tarron.

“We are pleased to meet you chief investigator Yus. I am captain Jem, this is commander Brian, lieutenant Koluna and ensign Laine,” said Jem.

“We have only begun to examine the evidence you have provided us. What I have seen so far is impressive,” said Yus.

“Thank you. We are here to walk you through the events that happened, and the evidence gathered. I would like to have my commander start by outlining the events, and then we could go into the evidence. Would that be acceptable?” said Jem.

“Most acceptable,” replied Yus. I did not realize I had to give a speech, or I would have prepared. Or maybe I would have feigned an illness to avoid coming!

Everyone took their seats as I walked up to one end of the room where there was a large display. I had an idea. I approached Yus.

“Excuse me, can I make use of your display? Would you permit me to interface the AI from our vessel to this display?” I asked. Yus nodded. He tapped something on his device and nodded again.

I tapped on my communicator, “Ship, I am in a large meeting room and would you be able to interface with the display near me? I have to do an introduction, and perhaps you can use it to show some images or videos that would help my presentation?” I asked.

“Confirmed. Access established. I will keep an open channel on your communicator to listen to your introduction, and I will provide what visual aids as are appropriate,” replied Ship. Awesome!

The display showed a view of the Trading Post from when we approached it and before it was destroyed.

I turned my back to the display and faced the room. I could do this.

“Good morning everyone. I am Brian, commander aboard the Baglogi vessel. I assume you were all briefed about our last visit here, when we reported the loss of the Opolu Naa and the subsequent destruction of all the pirate vessels?” I got several nods. Good!

“Well, one thing that bothered me was how did the pirates know where to intercept the Opolu Naa in deep space? When travelling between star systems, the distance is so large it should be impossible to predict where a freighter will be — unless they had foreknowledge.

“The point of intercept suggests that the pirates knew the flight path of the Opolu Naa. And the last place the freighter visited before being destroyed was the space station known as the Trading Post. We went there to search for information. Our theory was that a being or beings aboard the space station were colluding with the pirates. We asked and got permission to interview staff and check communications logs.

“During our investigation we discovered the body of a communications officer, with what looked to be a faked suicide. Further tracking his movements before his death showing he visited a remote storage room. When we went to investigate, the guards attacked us. We defended ourselves and escaped back to our vessel just before the station was destroyed.

“Lieutenant Koluna was abducted by Tobis and he left aboard his vessel. We pursued him to a remote system, where he had arranged an ambush. We destroyed all the pirate vessels, except Tobis’s vessel, which we captured. That is the vessel we brought with us to transport the crew as prisoners.

“We interviewed the prisoners, and we downloaded and examined the logs from Tobis’s vessel. All their testimony and corroborating evidence is in the package you now have.”

I moved away from the display to show I had concluded my presentation. I had not seen what Ship had shown them, but they were all wide eyed and impressed. Laine was looking at me with admiration and smiles. I did not do this for her and did not mean to encourage her. I was just trying to do my job. Her reaction bothered me, but I tried to hide any negative reaction while in front of an audience.

Jem stood up. “Thank you for your concise introduction. Yus, do we need to take a break before continuing?”

Yus looked a little stunned. “Yes, I think that is a good idea. We will reconvene in half an hour.”

During the break, Jem approached Koluna. “Lieutenant, when we resume I would like you to walk them through the testimony from the interviews.”

“Yes captain,” replied Koluna.

“Ship can interface with the display on the wall. You can just talk about the information and they will see it on the display,” I said.

“Yes, that would help. Thank you,” said Koluna.

About then Yus guided everyone back into the meeting room. I noticed that some of the investigators had remained in there during the break to look through the evidence.

Jem stood and addressed the group. “Next, lieutenant Koluna will walk you through the testimony from the interviews.”

Koluna walked to the front of the room. On the display was a list of names. “This is a crew manifest of Tobis’s vessel. The marked ones are those who have given testimony. We have video recordings and transcripts translated into Ori for each one in the evidence package.

“Further, we have distilled their testimony down to the salient points.” The bullet list of highlights was on the display behind her.

“I won’t go into this, but you see that the pirates under the leadership of Tobis, captured the Trading Post and used the situation to prey upon freighters that visited the station.

“For each of the key points above, we have cross-referenced to the testimonies and also data gathered from other sources such as the logs from Tobis’s vessel. All of that is in the evidence package.”

Koluna indicated she was done. Chief investigator Yus stood. “Thank you lieutenant. Your team has done a thorough job gathering and organizing the evidence. We will need a few days to study it.”

The meeting was adjourned.

As we left the meeting room, the minister gathered us together.

“Captain, I have arranged some suitable accommodation at the hotel across the street from here. The Ori government is picking up the tab for your stay.