Abumwe smiled at this. “Then begin.”
“Pilots of the attacking ships,” Daquin said, and his words were broadcast to each of the ships we had disabled. When we could make a reasonable guess as to the identity and species of the pilot of the ship, we automatically translated Daquin’s words into their language. Otherwise we relied on the ships having translation software. “My name is Rafe Daquin. The pilot of the Chandler. I am like you. My ship was attacked and taken by an organization I learned was called Equilibrium. Equilibrium killed my crew and singled me out as a pilot. They took my body from me and forced me, like you, to pilot my ship alone and to do their bidding.
“We know that you have been forced into this attack. We know that you were offered a terrible bargain for your complicity: death if you refused and the promise of your bodies returned if you accepted. You should know Equilibrium never intended to return you to your bodies. To them you are disposable. You were always disposable. After this attack you would have been killed and your ships destroyed in order to preserve their goals and their anonymity.
“You may not have been made fully aware of the scope of your mission. It was to attack this planet, the planet Earth, with nuclear weapons. Those weapons would have obliterated life there and the lingering aftereffects would have made the planet uninhabitable. We, who are human, and for whom this is our home world, could not allow that to happen. We have stopped you from carrying out your mission.
“We have attacked your ships. We could have easily destroyed them, and you. We choose not to do this. We have not destroyed your ships. We have not destroyed you. We did not because we know you did not have a choice. We know because I did not have a choice when I was in the same position as you.
“We are giving you a choice now. The choice is this: Surrender your ships now, and we will care for you, protect you, return you to the Conclave, alive and intact, so you may go home, be with your families, and god willing, be given new bodies to live your lives.
“Some of you may already be trying to repair your ship systems to carry out your mission. If you do, we will have to stop you. If we have to stop you, we may have to destroy you. The weapons you carry have too much death in them. We can’t allow the launch of a single one.
“I am like you. I am still like you. I have stayed this way because I was waiting for a moment like this. So you would know, you would truly know, that you are not alone and that you are not without a choice. That you don’t have to kill in order to live. That your life can be returned to you, and all you have to do is spare the innocent people that an organization who has enslaved you wants you to kill.
“I am Rafe Daquin. I am like you. I live and I am no one’s slave. I am here to ask you to surrender now. Surrender and live. Surrender and let others live. Tell me what you will do.”
And then we waited.
For close to a minute there was dead silence on the comms.
And then.
“I am Chugli Ahgo, pilot of the Frenner Reel. I surrender to you, Rafe Daquin.”
“Iey Iey Noh. Pilot of Chundawoot. I surrender.”
“Lopinigannui Assunderwannaon of the Lhutstun. Holy shit, human. Get me the fuck out of this thing.”
“I am Tunder Spenn. I pilot the Hooh Issa Tun. I want to see my family. I want to go home.”
* * *
I helped Rafe write that. I just want that out there.
One hundred four of the pilots surrendered their ships. Two sabotaged their internal systems after attack and before Rafe sent his message, committing suicide, I guess from fear of what would happen if they were captured—or from fear of what Equilibrium would do to them if they were captured. One pilot had what could best be described as a psychotic break and was unable to surrender or indeed do much of anything else. We took the pilot out of the control loop of its ship before it could hurt itself or anyone else.
One pilot refused to surrender, managed to repair his weapons systems, and tried to launch his nukes. His ship was destroyed before the nukes were out of their tubes.
“You’re going to get credit for this,” Oi said to Abumwe, as the surrender notices came in. “You’ve spared the lives of pilots of dozens of Conclave species. They’ll remember it. It was smart.”
“It was his idea,” Abumwe said, pointing to me.
“Then it was smart of you,” Oi said.
“Thank you,” I said. “But I didn’t suggest it to be smart.”
Oi dipped its tendrils in acknowledgment.
As the surrender notices came in we received the first news from the Conclave attack on Equilibrium’s base on Sedna. The Conclave chose not to wipe out the Equilibrium members it found there. Instead it disabled the base’s life support and communication systems and destroyed any ship or vehicle capable of getting anyone in the base out of it.
Then the commander of the mission gave those inside the base a choice: surrender, or not so slowly freeze to death.