The bridge of a Lordek starship in combat wasn’t the best time for a lengthy discussion. Communication pheromones were hard to release under stress. The chime for 17 blork had already passed to indicate a refresh was needed. The captain failed to do so. Distracted by the lack of authority, most of the crew was busy looking after internal damage. Only one was looking at the enemy ship directly. Lieutenant Garken tried to put the situation as succinctly as possible. “They’re overclocking their beam weapons, they’re going to burn out!” He managed to exude a small amount of certainty scent.
The captain didn’t believe him. The smell hadn’t registered. They were taking to much damage to last much longer. Flee now, or they might not survive. Unless Garken was right. Except there was no way to tell. All the energy of the ship was being fed into the rather inefficient shields. “Retreat.” ordered the captain.
The lieutenant did the unthinkable, he switched stations and threw a quarter of the current power output into sensors. It dropped the shields down a magnitude in power, but it gave them the reading they were looking for. The beam weapons on the enemy ship were actually melting.
Garken pushed the advantage and aimed their own beam weapons at the overheating ones, to hasten their malfunction. It worked. The bridge crew cheered. Except for the captain.
“Lieutenant Garken!” bellowed the enraged commander. “My council room! Now!”
Garken threw up his torso limb nodes as the older Lordek sloshed off the bridge. He was right – he had destroyed the enemy ship, but he had disobeyed a direct order.
Officially, the wrong was worse than the redeeming result and everyone knew it.
The two Lordek shared an uneasy moment as they faced each other in the council room.
The captain spoke first. “You were right.” The tension in the room dropped as the words echoed in the small space. “I couldn’t assert my command scent and you stepped up.” Garken could hardly believe what he heard and answered in the most humble acknowledgement pose possible.
The commander also relaxed. “Good, don’t let it go to your processor nodule.” The two were calm enough to expel communication pheromones.
“Yes. What do we do about it?” they both voiced at the same time. The rules for the situation were fixed. The chain of command was paramount. There should be no insubordination in the ranks, no matter the result.
The older Lordek exuded the deference pheromone. “There is one solution, but there’s no going back from it.” Garken breathed in the signal and fluttered as his outer sheen changed from passive green, to command red. The other Lordek did the reverse.
They both walked out to the bridge again and spoke in unison. “There has been a change of command. Retroactive to 17 blork. All shall defer to your new Captain!”
The crew were taken aback. It was an unconventional way to get around the disobedience shown. There was some confusion till the new pheromones balanced the room, but none voiced a protest. Technically, there was no command scent from the last chime and that was good enough reason to excuse the haphazard transfer of power.
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