SAFETY IS JUST A FOLD AWAY
A small team of officers started to file out of Mudd's office.
Mudd faced the sofa. “See!?” he said with great agitation.
The last officer looked around but couldn't determine who Mudd was talking to... confused he exited like the rest. Mudd was now alone.
Mudd sank in his chair as if stress that had kept him inflated for years just escaped his body. Then he stiffened again and stood. Again to the sofa: "I told you!" A creature the size of a toad and no better looking sat smoking a cigarette.
Mudd was 60-years-old graying with crusty mustache and sporting a uniform with many vanity adornments: metals and other recognitions of accomplishments.
The anxiety level was elevated but not to the point of panic. The Humans had been in similar spots before and had eluded the Zell by virtue of a very recent discovery: The Fold Drive – a technology the Zell lacked.
The Alliance had installed massive fold drives in each of the three Arks. The fold aperture could be made large enough to transport a convoy, enough to send the fleet with the Arks through a fold in space.
The general populace knew that in a matter of hours the entire human race would be enveloped in a magnificent fold bubble, travel through a bright and chaotic interdimensional tunnel and then reemerge in this universe millions of light years away. They knew it would take the Zell ages to find them again.
Fold drives were scarce, not just because the technology required to create them was cutting edge, but because the heart of every fold drive was enabled by a precursor artifact known as a Tzo crystal.
It was safe passage via the Ark folds that Mudd had leveraged in order to force Alexander’s surrender. Mudd held the access keys to all three Arks on his person at all times and was in complete control of mankind's ability to fold space.
With Zell encroaching from every angle, folding was the only escape. Mudd had forced Alexander’s hand by denying his Ronin fleet safe passage unless he finally surrendered.
Mudd pressed a button and gave orders. “Prepare for the Ronin’s surrender. The Red Destiny will be processed by ‘The Hand of God’ All other Ronin ships will receive skeleton command structures from the Alliance until we know who can be trusted.” “The Hand of God” was Mudd’s flagship. It was a very large capital ship with a powerful main cannon.
The surrender would be very ceremonial which Mudd felt was prerequisite in order for the Ronins to accept the change and the populace of the Arks to feel at ease, and it was of great personal importance that Mudd humiliate Alexander in the process for years of personal hurts.
"That technology is mine now!", Mudd was referring to the many innovations the Ronin’s had made to best the Zell… although the Ronin’s were much smaller they were far more innovative and the benefits of that innovation was now in Mudd’s hands.
Mudd started at his couch companion for a reply. The little beastie inhaled from his cigarette, shrugged as if to say "we'll see" and exhaled a deep billow.
Mudd paced in his office pensively as the creature grinned and continued to fill the room with smoke.