prompt: Write a story where someone sees the shadow of someone standing behind them.
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Fleet Mother Andkura sat before a desk in her ready room. The air above the desk was littered with holograms of reports from systems throughout the Gathering. Her four large, compound eyes took in the chaos. The thin, wiry muscles of her arms writhed under blue-grey skin as her clawed hands opened and closed. Her whip-like tail swished side-to-side in agitation.
One notification popped up among the holos, demanding attention in harsh, blue light. With a wave of her hand, the reports closed, leaving only the notification. She motioned to the floating icon. “Fleet Mother Andkura.”
The person on the other end was not what she expected. A human, making a direct call to someone of her rank and stature. The real-time holo meant that they were in Krinn space, close by.
“Greetings, Fleet Mother Andkura. I have important information for you about your home world.”
“I doubt it. I just left Gathering Prime and have had recent communication with them.”
“I’m talking about your real home world, cradle world of the Krinn,” he said. “I should introduce myself. Dr. Allen Stund, director of the data archeology project on Krialla.”
“You have my attention,” she said. “What have you found?”
“This is something you need to see in person, not over a non-secured link. And we have some sensitive…artifacts that need to be returned to your people.”
“Where do you expect that to happen?”
“The Terran Science Vessel Turing is approaching your location. We would prefer to meet here.” He raised his hands to shoulder height, palms forward. “Please feel free to scan the ship carefully. We have no weapons beyond small meteorite defenses. You are welcome to bring an armed escort for your protection if you feel you need it, although I can guarantee you don’t.”
Andkura pulled up information on her holo display and linked in the bridge. “We have confirmed your location. You are ordered to heave-to for a boarding inspection. Helm, maneuver for contact and boarding. I’ll be leading the boarding party.”
“Affirmed, Mother,” came the reply from the bridge.
“I look forward to meeting you,” Allen said, offering a slight bow before turning off his comms.
Andkura stood at the shuttle door, waiting for the airlock seal to be complete. Her mantle flowed to just above her feet, decked out in designs of platinum thread and the collection of awards she’d earned in her long career. She was flanked either side by armed troops in simple grey combat uniforms, their weapons slung in a casual yet easy-to-access position.
When the airlock doors opened, Allen greeted her. “Welcome aboard, Fleet Mother Andkura.”
“You are not of the Gathering Fleet, you can just call me Andkura, Dr. Stund.”
“Certainly, Andkura…and please, Allen is fine.”
“Thank you, Allen. May I send the inspection team to make sure your vessel is within treaty?”
“Of course,” he said. “There is one area that is off-limits due to privacy concerns, but that is where we will be showing you the…artifacts. Your guards are welcome to accompany us if you trust them with the most sensitive of matters.”
“If I didn’t, they wouldn’t be my guards,” she said. She turned toward the shuttle. “Standard compliance inspection. I’ll be personally inspecting the sensitive area.”
The inspection team, each armed with a light sidearm, filed out of the shuttle in teams of two to spread through the ship. Andkura noticed tension in Allen, but not the sort that smugglers or pirates displayed. Rather than concern for the inspection teams, he ignored them entirely and was focused solely on her.
“If you would, then, Allen.”
He nodded and turned to go. “Follow me, please.”
They walked through the ship, past crew members busy about their business who seemed more interested in the armed guards than a Fleet Mother in full regalia. Their path led them to a storage area in the back of the massive lab where the humans did their data archaeology.
The lab was unguarded, but the storage door was flanked by two women in security uniforms, armed with stun batons. They nodded as the group approached. “Director,” one of them said, “I see we’re getting rid of the ghosts. This is your authorized guest?”
“Guests,” he corrected.
“Orders are, no weapons in the artifacts storage,” the other guard said, nodding toward the weapons Andkura’s guards wore.
“I’m certain that the guards of the Fleet Mother are not going to discharge their weapons near the artifacts,” Allen said.
“As you say, Allen,” Andkura assured. The guards nodded and put their hands behind their backs.
“See, all good.”
“If anything happens, it’s on you,” the first guard said, pointing at the surveillance camera overhead. With that clarified, she pressed her palm against the door activator and the room opened. “I don’t really care, as long as we get the ghosts off the ship.”
The scene in front of Andkura and the other Krinn left them shocked. Four desiccated Krinn corpses, still dressed in the finery of office. One wore the mantle of Great Mother of Krialla. The others wore the mantles of the Grand Council.
“What is the meaning of this?” Andkura asked.
“How much do you know about the devastation of Krialla?” Allen asked.
“I know what remains of our history. The Gathering fought against the Scattering. When the Scattering forces realized they were losing, they bathed the planet in radiation, destroying it. The Great Mother and her entire council were killed in a direct blast on the palace.
“In memory of the beloved Great Mother Nirdik, the Gathering continued on in the colonies, eventually naming one of them Gathering Prime and setting up the new government there.”
“That’s a nice story,” Allen said. “The unfortunate fact is, it’s entirely false.”
Andkura leant over the corpse wearing the mantle of the Great Mother. “There’s no way that’s the real Great Mother.”
“Genetic analysis says it is,” Allen said. “We found them in a hollowed-out asteroid bunker. We found the bunker thanks to a beacon identifier we recovered from what was left of the safe under the Great Mother’s palace.
“We didn’t know what to expect on the asteroid, but that’s what we found…along with some personal journals. It seems Great Mother Nirdik left control of the government to her daughters and nieces in the colonies, albeit with forged documentation so they couldn’t be linked back to her.”
He pointed to a Krinn terminal set up at a desk in the room. “That’s got direct access to all the data we’ve been able to recover from Krialla so far. Everything related to the Great Mother, the Grand Council, and the devastation are indexed for you.”
She sat at the terminal and worked with the six-hundred-year-old technology. It took her just a few minutes to acquaint herself with how it worked, and she dove in.
Andkura had no idea how long she’d been reading document after document, watching holo after holo, learning the history she’d never heard. She’d just opened another document when a shadow fell across the screen. The sudden realization that someone was standing behind her made her start.
The guards had their weapons at the ready, gone from relaxed and bored to ready to fight in a moment. They just as fast retuned to a relaxed state when Andkura waved them off.
“Allen, this is…,” she faltered, “too…. Why did you bring this to me rather than directly to Gathering Prime; to the Council?”
“What have you learned?”
“There was no Scattering. Nirdik and her council were losing favor and began to label any who spoke against them as traitors; part of a plot called the Scattering. It started small, but the more that spoke out, the more the Scattering became the enemy, the more support she and the council had.
“That she would…the whole planet…just to save the party…I—I can’t.”
“Thinking about that,” Allen asked, “why would you think I would bring it to a Fleet Mother rather than the council?”
Andkura’s tail whipped, hitting the floor with a sharp snap. “The current Great Mother is not very popular, and suddenly we’re patrolling for rebels in the colonies.”
“George Santayana, a human philosopher said, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ I, for one, take those words to heart.”
“I’m not sure yet what to do with the bodies,” Andkura said, “but we’ll take them back with us to get the ghosts off your ship. Why you believe in such nonsense is beyond me, but I will honor it by removing them from your presence.”
Allen laughed. “No, that has nothing to do with it. The ‘ghosts’ we’re talking about are the recordings and documents we’ve recovered. They tell a horrific tale of those in power holding on in any way they could.
“Attempting to erase your history was a shrewd move on Nirdik’s part; not to mention the dissidents that died in the nuclear storm.”
Allen put a hand on Andkura’s shoulder. “The reason humans place so much importance on our history…our real history, warts and all, is to remember what not to do again.”
“And those memories are the ghosts you speak of?”
“Yes. They will haunt us as long as we remember, but they will rise again in existence as soon as we forget.”
Allen made a sweeping gesture toward the room. “These are your ghosts, Krinn ghosts; do with them as you will.
“I recommend listening to them, sharing their stories far and wide, and proclaiming ‘Never Again.’”
Andkura stood in silence for a moment. “I will spend the time it takes to return these to our ship to think on the best course of action. Perhaps an appeal can be made to the council.”
Allen smiled, but there was sadness in his eyes. “A human leader, hundreds of years ago, trying to prevent a war said, ‘The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.’
“Forty-one rotations of the planet later, that war started. Brother against brother, a single nation divided against itself. I believe all sapient creatures have ‘better angels of our nature,’ but they fall silent unless we can acknowledge and accept the bitter ghosts of our past.”