"Now, Aris!"
Lodos' docking ports quickly detached from the shipyard and the boarding gates retracted. Lodos was now free to go.
"Mr. Aziz, warn all service vehicles to stay away. Mr. Dave, move us away from the spacedock." I ordered.
"Aye, sir."
"Roger."
Lodos' tactical thrusters activated and started accelerating the ship away from the shipyard. People were curiously looking out of windows of the station to observe this unscheduled departure of the huge cruiser.
Moments later, both the shipyard and Lodos received a message from the Navy headquarters, asking what's going on.
"Tell them that we are in a state of emergency, and we departed the shipyards to prevent possible damage and casualities." I told Ensign Aziz. He hesitated a little bit. He had already understood that this was a lie, but he was hesitant to disobey me. I kept staring at him.
"ENSIGN!"
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." he said and transmitted what I had asked him to say as an answer.
During that time, we were already away from the shipyard's traffic control perimeter. The shipyard's alarms had stopped. Just a few seconds afterwards, we received another message.
"Sir, the station is oredring us to remain in position and shutdown our reactor. Their service tugs will approach the ship and tow us back into the dock." Aziz said.
"Commander..." I turned to Mei.
"Here we go!" she said and activated the MPD thrusters.
We have received another message. This one was from the headquarters... again.
"Sir, you need to have a look at this one." Ensign Aziz said. I walked over to his duty station.
'---===DECRYPTED OUTPUT===---
CO and XO of LC/M LODOS
The commanding officers of LC/M Lodos are ordered to contact Navy HQ in person. Failure to do so in 15 minutes will trigger the following events;
* LC/M Lodos will no longer be considered FRIENDLY
* The commanding officers will be listed M.I.A.
* Immediate action will be taken to recover the ship. Failure may result in the destruction of the vessel.
---===END OF DECRYPTED PACKAGE===---'
Examples of mutinies during the earlier Martian Civil War had caused the Navy to take these actions very seriously. I had to buy myself some time, otherwise... We would be arrested before we could catch Tachibana's shuttle.
I walked over to Commander Mei's station and leaned over.
"The headquarters is asking us to cantact them in person to confirm that we are still in command and this is not a mutiny." I summarised the situation.
"Okay, smarta**, what now?" she asked.
"We need to buy ourselves some time." I said. "Do you have any ideas?"
"Let's just tell them we are looking for one of our shuttles." she said.
"With a missile cruiser." I said with a mocking tone. "Yeah, sure, why not?"
She sighed.
"Hmm... Maybe a medical quarantine situation could justify the departure?" she said.
"Probably." I said. "But in that case, they would try to help us."
"Oh, yeah." she said. "Then... Maybe a reactor safety failure?"
"Okay, this one may work." I said. "But we may need the Chief to lie."
"He can do that pretty well." she said. "They always overestimate everything, it is their thing."
"Wait, we can make it more believable." I said, and left Mei's station. "Ensign Aziz, get me the Chief."
"The Chief Engineer of the Doctor, sir?" he asked.
"The engineer, please." I said, a little annoyed.
"Chief Scott here." he reported.
"Uhh... Chief, can you increase the main power output to 115%?" I asked.
"This is far from safe, Commander." he said. "I am already afraid of raising it to 100%."
"We need some radiation, Chief." I said. "Move all the crew members out of the way and relocate the side radiation shieldings to forward."
"We will send out a whole lot of dangerous radiation around!" he said.
"Yeah, that's exactly what we need." I said. "Get to work."
With a frightened and weak voice, he said "Yes, sir." It sounded like he was about to cry.
About a few minutes later, the damage control station's sirens went off.
"We are emitting dangerous levels of radiation." Lieutenant Karl said.
"Commander Mei!" I said. "It is time."
"Aye, sir." she said and left her station. She walked over to the comms station with me.
"Ensign, contact headquarters." I said.
"Aye, sir." he said. An Admiral was on the line.
"This is CO of LC/M Lodos, reporting." I said.
"XO of LC/M Lodos, reporting." Mei said after me.
"Commanders, please explain your unscheduled and unauthorised departure from Pavonis orbital shipyards. You know this is an easy way to get a court martial, don't you?" he said with a serious tone.
"This was an emergency departure, sir." I said. "Our main reactor's safety has been overridden for repair purposes, and the radiation levels have increased rapidly. I have commanded Lodos to move away from the shipyard to prevent casualities and damage."
"XO, do you confirm your Commander's statement?" the Admiral asked.
"Yes, sir." she replied.
"Do you have anything to add?" the Admiral asked.
"Our engineers are trying to lower our emission levels using the regular procedures. If things go worse, we will contact you again." I said.
"I see." he said. For a while, the Admiral talked to someone in the background. He then returned to talk to us. "We have observed the increase of your emission levels and ordered all vessels to stay clear of Lodos. Please update us regularly. Headquarters, out."
I sighed. It was a huge relief. They had believed our little lie, and our trick had worked.
"Haah." said Mei. "This was way too stressful."
"We did it." I said. "Commander, please get us in position."
Lodos moved to a higher orbit in preparation to intercept the shuttle which would carry Tachibana to planet Earth. During our flight, we did not lower our radiation emission levels, and this was on purpose. Our forward shielding was powerful enough to protect all the decks in front of the main reactor, while the emission from the sides of Lodos were dangerous enough to keep other ships away.
We just had to stay in this state for a few hours, until we have detected Tachibana's shuttle...