0300 Book 2 - 12. Chapter 12: Treaty of Amity

Chapter 12: Treaty of Amity

The morning after the admiral’s visit, Corey, Artie, and I spent an hour in private, talking and writing. At the end of the hour, we signed a document. I sent a copy to Admiral Davis with a note. Here’s what we came up with. There’s room on the bottom for the Fleet Council to ratify it. It would be in our best interests to do so. We want the people from U-Long as allies; we want the right people from U-Cal as allies. There is no higher authority on the right side of U-Cal than Colonel Stewart; Captain Long will have this ratified by Starfleet as soon as he gets home. I signed the note, simply, Paul.

As soon as I hit the send button and stood up, Corey slammed into me and squeezed me in a very intense hug. He pressed his head into my chest, and allowed himself a single sob.

“Where did that come from, Corey?” I whispered.

“You told the admiral, as soon as he gets back. Not if he gets back.”

Artie hesitated for a moment, but jumped in when I held out my arm. Our three-way hug was the real seal on what we’d written.

The Charleston was ten times bigger than the Hope. Moving in all of the people from U-Cal and U-Long didn’t strain its capabilities. I waited until all the U-Cal survivors were ambulatory, and then called a meeting of everyone from U-Cal, U-Long, and my Flag Team. We also invited Captain Moultrie and a couple of his folks who we had brought onto our side of the veil.

“Atten—hut!” George’s voice echoed through the auditorium. The Fleet people jumped to their feet instantly. The older boys from U-Long were quick to follow. The boys in black and gray were a little slower, but stood just as rigidly as we stepped to the center of the dais.

“At ease, be seated,” I said. I had a wireless mike, so I didn’t have to yell.

The boys were sitting in three distinct groups. The nearly 700 boys from F-U—sorry—U-Cal, were the largest, and had taken seats in the rear. The boys from U-Long were clustered on the left side; the Fleet folks, by far the smallest group, were in the front rows of the right side. I hope his meeting will start integrating them, I thought.

“I am Commodore Paul Stewart, commander of Task Force Rift, which includes this ship and eleven others. To my left is Captain Corey Long, Commander of the Long Forces. To his left is Colonel Artie Stewart, Commander of the California Liberation Army in Exile.”

Artie looked good in a new uniform that fit him. By now, his people were all wearing new gray and black uniforms, too.

I continued. “Our host, the captain of the Charleston, Captain Moultrie, is seated on the front row. Captain?” Moultrie stood and waved before sitting down.

I punched a button on the clicker, and the screen behind us lit up. A document was displayed, but it was grayed out.

“Some of you were never taught to read, so we will read this to you all.” I hit the clicker again, and the upper left corner illuminated; the rest of the document was still dark.

“I, Paul Stewart, Commodore, United Earth Fleet, Commander of Task Force Rift, make this promise:”

I hit the clicker again, and the top center of the document illuminated. Corey spoke. “I, Corey Long, Commander of the Long Forces, Captain in Starfleet, make this promise:”

Another click, and the top right lit. Artie was learning to read, but had memorized what was written. “I, Artie Stewart, Colonel in Command of the California Liberation Army, make this promise:”

Another click. The center illuminated. I read for us all. “We swear from this moment forward, eternal amity among ourselves and among all those beholden to us or under our protection.”

Another click, and the three signatures at the bottom of the page lit. Below mine was the seal of the Fleet Council. It had taken Admiral Davis less than a day to get it.

“What this means,” I said. “Is that we are friends and allies: Corey, Artie, and I, and all of you—everyone in this room, and more. It means that we all will do everything we can to help one another; it means that we will never deliberately harm one another; it means that we will be careful not to accidentally harm one another. Corey, Artie, and I have sworn this oath, and made this promise for ourselves and for all of you.”

“Any questions?” My team was waiting for this, and scattered through the room, holding wireless microphones. Before they could get in position, one of the boys in gray and black stood and called, “How come Artie has a last name, and it’s the same as yours?”

“Artie has honored me by allowing me to adopt him. He is my son.

“Please, raise your hand if you have a question; someone will bring a microphone to you.”

The next was another of Artie’s people, a kid who looked like he was about 12. “Commodore Stewart, will you adopt me, too?” A couple of the older boys started to laugh at him, but were quickly shushed by the boys next to them.

“What’s your name, Cadet?” Artie asked.

“Um, Terry, but I’m not a cadet,” the boy said.

“You are, now, Terry. All of you except the officers who have already been appointed to the staff are cadets. About adopting. When Paul adopted me, he explained something important. We—the California Liberation Army—we have a mission. Just because we didn’t complete our plan to take out the Reverends at their retreat in Las Vegas doesn’t mean our mission is over or that we failed.

“We are alive; Paul and his people are going to train us. They’re going to help us get ready to go back to our world to continue our battle.

“We’re still working out the details. We’ll tell you more about this, later.”

“What does this have to do with adopting?” someone called.

“It means that when I go back to our world, my father, Paul, and my brothers, Danny and George, may not be able to go with me. It means that we may be separated. Maybe forever. That’s something you have to think about before forming bonds by adoption or anything else. It’s something that Paul and I talked about a lot.”

There was a long silence.

“Here’s what we’ve decided,” Artie continued. “There are 4,500 or so men on the Charleston. There are 685 boys who survived the First Battle for Las Vegas. We’re going to be here for a while. You will all have a chance to meet and work with the crew of the Charleston. You and they know that some of you want dads. If you find someone, and he wants to adopt you, Fleet will make it happen. Some of the crew already have families; some of you may get mothers and brothers and sisters, too.

“We know that we’re going to Earth, this universe’s earth, for training. When we do, you’ll get a chance to meet your families. You’ll get a chance to find happiness and love . . . until we have to go to war, again. Paul, what’s that thing you told me, about grabbing happiness?”

“Carpe diem,” I said. “It means seize the day. What it really means is just about everything the Reverends didn’t believe in, and that is ‘be happy, be as happy as you can, when you can. As long as your happiness doesn’t hurt someone else.’ ”

“Just remember,” Artie said. “When we go back to our world, you may be separated from your dads and your families, forever. That’s the nature of things.

“Think hard. If you want this, then Paul and I and Fleet will do everything we can to make it happen.”

“Sir, when are we going to get our weapons and communicators back?” That was one of the Long group.

Corey took that question. We’d already talked about it. “Our communicators don’t work here,” he said. “Except for short-range-direct, and that’s usually blocked by the metal of the ship’s walls. The communicators also may cause interference with some of the ships’ electronics. So, I’m going to hold on to them. Our phasers—as well as our shuttle power supplies—were pretty much exhausted during the battle and medevac. We’ve solved the power problem; as soon as we get a couple of shuttles converted, we’ll charge phasers and return them, now that we’re officially friends and allies.

“Everyone will be issued communicators that do work. However, there aren’t enough to go around. More have been requisitioned, but they’re low on the list of essential supplies. Apparently, someone decided that pizza should be at the top of the list.”

That got a laugh. The Long group had broken even my team’s record for per capita pizza consumption, and Artie’s people were fast picking up the habit.

“How about our guns?” That was one of Artie’s boys.

Artie and I had talked about that, as well. He took the question. “You all know by now that we’re in a spaceship, about 250,000 miles above Earth.

“There’s no air outside the ship. The walls are metal, but a bullet from one of our guns might punch a hole in the wall and let out the air. We probably wouldn’t all die, but someone might.

“The Quartermaster has requisitioned a supply of different guns and bullets for us.”

“What kind of guns?” one of Artie’s people asked.

I took that one. “Ensign Stewart-Rogers? Please bring your weapon up here and tell us about it.”

George double-timed to the dais and stood beside me, at attention, his gun at port arms.

“This is the MK-7 fleet standard over-and-under rifle. It can fire bullets or flechettes, and grenades. Onboard ship, the weapon is loaded only with low-penetration bullets. These bullets are effective against people, but will not penetrate a ship’s walls or ports. The magazine holds 60 rounds. The gun can be set to fire single shot, a burst of three, or can empty a magazine in zero point five seconds.”

“At ease, Ensign. Thank you.” I addressed the audience. “This is Ensign George Stewart-Rogers. He and Ensign Danny Stewart—Danny, stand up, please—they are joint commanders of my security detail, they’re my sons, and they’re boyfriends, and they’re my boyfriends, too. Get to know them. They’ll be in charge of training anyone who wants one of these rifles. We’ll set up a range in one of the recreation spaces.”

I’d just announced to people from three universes that I was having sex with my sons. The risk was worth the potential payoff, though. We’d talked about this, a lot.

“Quartermaster? Got all that?” I grinned. Avery returned my smile. “Aye, aye, sir: pizza, communicators, and guns, in that order.” There was a rustle of laughter.

“Boyfriends?” That was one of Artie’s people. Artie looked at me. I looked at him and turned off my wireless mike. “Your question, Artie.”

Artie nodded and faced the assembly. “Everyone from my universe knows that the Reverends claimed to hate fags.”

That brought some gasps from my folks and the U-Long boys. Fags was a dirty word for us. I held up my hand; Corey saw me and copied the move. People settled down, and Artie continued.

“I know . . . that’s a dirty word . . . in all three universes. It’s just that it’s the only word I’ve known all my life until a few days ago. I’m sorry.

“We knew that if the Reverends caught a couple of boys who loved one another, they’d burn off their sexual organs with branding irons.

“Then they’d cut their heads off—with a sword—on television.”

There were gasps from Corey’s people. All my people had heard it before; still, several looked pale.

“From the time I was twelve years old, I was one of the Reverends’ sex-slaves in Las Vegas. They said gay people were evil, but they didn’t have any problem f . . .f . . .

“Can I say it?” He looked at me. I nodded.

“They didn’t have any problem fucking me, or other little boys and girls.”

“I didn’t like it when the Reverends fucked me; but I wanted, I wanted a friend, someone I could love and do sex stuff with. I wanted a boyfriend.

“The first day I was here, Paul told me he had two boyfriends. I was so jealous, I hated him.

“I’ve never told him that before. I’m glad I didn’t, because it didn’t last, because he showed me that he loved me. He proved that when he adopted me.

“If you want to be boyfriends, you can be boyfriends as long as you’re both old enough to understand what that means. You can tell anyone you want about it, and they won’t make fun of you, they won’t hate you. That’s part of what amity means. It means friendship and love and not hating someone.”

None of Corey’s people asked the most important question: when would they go home. Corey had forestalled that by keeping them informed about the CERN-Higgs team’s work, and by reassuring them that everything that could be done, would be done.

Artie’s people, however, weren’t quite as satisfied with his assurances.

“When can we go back to California? When can we fight the Reverends again? Will your dad help us?” This one was an older boy—older than Artie. I felt the belligerence in his mind; Artie did, as well.

“Listen up, and pay attention,” he said. His voice was firm, his face was firm, and he looked the boy in the eye.

“We lost more than 300 kids, mostly the youngest, the ones with explosives strapped to their little bodies, because we were not prepared.

“We would have been totally destroyed if it hadn’t been for Captain Long’s people. Many of us were wounded so badly we would have died if it hadn’t been for Captain Long and Commodore Stewart’s people.

“We’re not going back until we are prepared. And that means training, it means learning new weapons, it means gathering intelligence, it means planning.

“None of us have family waiting for us, wondering about us. We were all orphans. The only reason for us to go back is to fight, but we’re not ready for that.

“I talked this over with my dad, with Captain Long, and with the admiral who is my dad’s boss. We thought about letting anyone who wanted to quit the California Army, go home. But, you would know too much; we can’t risk that. No one will go home until we all go home. We will go home only when we’re ready. So, the best thing you can do is work hard, train hard, and make us ready.”