by Nick Webb
Bernoulli, liberated from his word quota, jumped right in. “The device projects the gravitic field at a target, and all the target sees is a giant mass in the direction of the source. It affects every piece, every atom, every subatomic particle of the target at the same time, which is why there is no sensation of acceleration when one is attracted towards the origin of the gravitic signal. In fact—“
“That’s probably good, buddy,” said Jake. He knew that his friend could easily talk about gravitics for hours, in spite of their circumstances.
Tovra nodded. “Exactly. Oberon Prime—the star—is extremely low mass, sure. And that prevents most ships from shifting to it. But the government of Oberon, unbeknownst to just about everyone, has designed a network of gravitic generators orbiting the star. Every month or so the generators all align to a specific direction and project a gravitic field at a specific vector away from the star. The signal is so strong that it basically collapses the regular four-dimensional space within the core of the beam, enabling it to travel far faster than light. Any ship near that beam, for light years around, can use it to shift to Oberon Prime. Like a beacon. The ships suddenly see the star not as a puny red dwarf star, but a supermassive behemoth.”
Tovra’s use of the word behemoth brought up images in Jake’s mind of the flaming hulk of the former Imperial ship that had nearly killed him three years earlier. He shook his head. “And if it’s so secret, how do you know about it?”
“I told you. I was a captain of a merchant freighter.”
Jake shook his head again, this time in disbelief. “Uh huh. You just said it was some big state secret. How would a common merchant know about it?”
Tovra shrugged. “State secret? Yeah, kinda. I was put through a rigorous security examination and background check. I passed, and so they told me.” Jake studied the man’s eyes. They looked honest, but there was something else there. “Really. The Oberanian government depends on the merchant fleet to keep the home world supplied with raw material. Common things like iron, aluminum, copper—they don’t exist on Oberon. At least, not in large enough quantities to mine. We depend on shipping from the surrounding systems, and merchants like me met that need. And so, once a month, on the very first day, at noon standard Earth Greenwich time, the beam shines out from Oberon, towards Vega. It’s masked with random noise so that passersby won’t notice. But those who are looking for it can find it.”
Jake squinted. Something about the man’s disposition had changed. A subtle change, sure, but Jake could feel it. But if the man could help them out….
“So tell us, Tovra, what do you know? How do we get out of here?”
“Well that depends,” Tovra smiled, “I assume by your performance earlier today that your friend here has figured out how to defeat the Domitian Collars?”
So, he’d seen that. The man noticed a lot. Jake nodded.
“Well, if you can get us out of this cavern and up the elevator shaft, I can take it from there. I made it, once, but this damned collar was my undoing.” Tovra fingered the nicked and worn device hanging around his bony shoulder.
“What exactly can you do for us?” Alessandro said.
“I overheard you talking about needing a way to make a distraction with that little vial of yours. Anti-matter, huh? Potent stuff. Probably don’t want to be setting that thing off on the ground.”
The meaning of Tovra’s words sunk into Jake. He nodded in understanding. “Sure, ok. How do you propose we launch the thing?”
“It just so happens that this compound has defenses. A few laser turrets. A missile battery. Pretty standard stuff. But what most people don’t know is that there is an old railgun in one of the ore storage buildings.”
Both Jake’s and Alessandro’s eyes went wide. A railgun? Here? Those things packed a punch. “Are you sure? Does it work?”
“Yes, and yes, I’m pretty sure it works. Velar set up the thing years ago to defend the compound from any attack by capital ships in orbit, back in her more paranoid phase. But she found that even owning it brought more attention than it was worth. So she stowed it and powered it down. I’m betting that if you fire that vial through the roof, it would explode pretty much on contact.”
Jake stared at him. “And? That helps us how?”
Tovra sped up, apparently sensing that he was losing his audience. “But the thing will be flying so fast that it’ll be a mile up before the shock wave bursts though the container. Railguns fire things pretty fast, you know. Escape velocity. Maybe higher.”
Jake glanced over at Alessandro for confirmation of what Tovra had suggested they do.
“You know, it sounds absolutely insane,” said Alessandro, “but it just might work.”
“I was afraid you’d say that, buddy.”
A shadow darkened Tovra’s face. Something was blocking the pale light cast by the hanging receptacle.
“I thought I told you rats no talking,” a voice growled. The boss. His voice sounded tired to Jake’s ears, and, possibly worse, extremely annoyed.
A well-aimed boot connected with Jake’s stomach. Knocking the air out of him. But something inside Jake snapped. Something primordial and raw. Now that he knew the virtual handcuffs were off, he felt overcome by the same violent energy that had overtaken him at that bar on the Earth Shipyards a few weeks ago. The same energy that left that unfortunate, boorish drunk laying in a heap with a broken everything.
With a grunt Jake swung his foot towards the man’s leg and the boss fell, grunting in surprise. Jake grit his teeth against the sudden jolt of pain up his leg. His sprain from his motorcycle crash several weeks earlier still had not completely healed, and the swipe at the boss’s legs didn’t help. The boss twisted around to reach in his pocket for the Domitian device as Alessandro fumbled in his own pocket for the modified omni-scanner, but Jake had already tackled the boss and started pounding his face with balled fists as the man held up his hands to ward off the attack and shouted for help.
From across the giant cavern the boss’s two henchmen came running, brandishing wicked-looking batons that looked like they could split a skull open with one swipe. Tovra rose to his feet to meet them, but Jake continued pounding on the boss, knowing that if he escaped he’d bring back plenty of reinforcements.
The two henchmen were nearly there, and out of the corner of his eye Jake saw Tovra tense up, crouching down slightly as if preparing to charge. He wondered how the frail man would stand a chance against the burly guards running towards them, now only ten feet away.
Jake had forgotten completely about Avery: the man snored like a boar and hadn’t made any sign of waking. But Avery sprang up like a coiled snake as the men passed, lashing out with his feet to drop one of them and slamming his fist into the nose of the other. Even in the dim light Jake could see blood spurt out of the man’s face as he risked a quick look in Avery’s direction before turning back to the boss.
A fist smashed into Jake’s face and he saw stars. He looked down. The fist hadn’t come from the cowering man underneath him, holding his hands up to his bloody face to ward off Jake’s attack.
Stars flared again. The fist had struck the side of his head hard, and a third punch swiftly followed the second, this time grazing his nose and snapping it to the left. He jumped off the boss and faced his attacker.
It was the boy. Jeremiah. The one that tailed Tovra and whom others had mockingly called “the prophet.” Though scrawny, obviously malnourished, and small for an eighteen year old, there was fire in his eyes, and he lunged at Jake with a fury that seemed almost unnatural. Jake dodged a few punches, but his ankle still smarted from knocking the boss’s legs out from under him and he fell backwards as Jeremiah leapt with superhuman ability onto Jake’s shoulders.
He landed with the boy on top of him and a flurry of fists came beating down.
“Ha! Good, boy, good,” Jake heard the boss say. Luckily, he still had his arms raised in front of him and most of the blows glanced off of them, but a few made
it through. The boss continued, “The picobots may not have completely worked on him, but it’s made him remarkably susceptible to suggestion. I’ve placed an order in him to protect me from all bodily harm, even at the risk of his own life. Good, Jeremiah, good—“
Jake heard a thud, and he risked a glance at the boss. He’d been knocked over, and Avery now stood over him, a boot placed firmly on the man’s throat. “Call him off. Now! Or I’ll break your neck,” said the burly former special forces officer. He wiped some blood off his hands and Jake noticed the sprawled, broken bodies of the two henchmen lying nearby. At least one of them was still breathing, but Jake wasn’t so sure about the other.
The boss wheezed and coughed at the pressure of the boot and started to resist, but the boot clamped down harder, the heel digging in to his neck. Jeremiah continued pounding on Jake, who couldn’t manage to dislodge the youth, and several more blows had gotten through his outstretched arms, aggravating the profuse bleeding from Jake’s nose.
“Boy! Stop! Stop at once! Ah, fuck it!” The boss grit his teeth as Avery’s boot ground deeper into his neck. Jeremiah was not stopping. Jake saw Alessandro approach the enraged youth from behind and made as if to tackle him, but in a blink Jeremiah twisted around to meet the man with a fist to the face and the scientist went sprawling backward onto the ground.
But it was enough. With the boy off-balance for a split second, Jake shifted his weight and Jeremiah toppled off. There was a tussle of thrashing arms, legs, and heads, and Jake’s ankle screamed at him in pain, but eventually he came to rest on top of the boy and pinned his thin arms to his side.
“Hey! Hey! Stop it! Wake up!” Jake maneuvered the boy’s arms so that he kneeled on them, freeing up his own hands. He slapped the boy once. Jeremiah roared and thrashed even more. Veins throbbed in his neck and spittle flecked out of his foaming mouth. His sandy brown hair smeared with blood at having his head on the rocky floor.
“What the hell have you freak shows done to him?” Jake yelled back at the boss, prone on the floor underneath the weight of Avery’s boot. He now noticed out of his peripheral view that most in the cavern had awoken and stood around them in a giant circle of several hundred people, staring at them with gaunt eyes, made even more haggard by the dim light.
“The picobots didn’t take. They didn’t work like they did for others. I can place orders in him, but only when he’s calm. Not when he’s riled up like this,” spat the boss.
“You bastards,” breathed Jake. How could people do this? The boy was, well, a boy. Eighteen, and technically an adult, but how long had he lived in the darkness? Under a whip and a Domitian Collar? His entire childhood? The thought of it made Jake’s head spin with the cruel injustice of it all. These people must be stopped.
“Jeremiah,” said Jake, in as soft a voice as he could muster given the circumstances. “Jeremiah, wouldn’t you like to get out of here? I can get you away from him, you know. Jeremiah, listen to me,” he elevated his voice slightly to make himself heard over the boy’s howling.
“It’s no use, rat. If you want him to shut up you’ll have to kill him. For all the good it’ll do you. I’ve got reinforcements showing up in a minute anyway and then all you fuckers are dead,” the boss spat.
“Shut it,” said Jake, but then turned back to the thrashing boy. “Jeremiah, listen to me. I can get you out, but you’ve got to calm down.” He paused and thought for a moment. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt him, so you don’t have to hurt me. I promise I won’t hurt the boss. You don’t have to defend him from me.”
Almost like cutting the strings of a marionette, Jeremiah relaxed and stopped screaming. Panting and sweating, he looked up at Jake and their eyes met.
“P—p—promise?”
Damn it. Jake really wanted to rip the boss’s head off, but now his hands were virtually tied. Again. And now in a completely unexpected way. The boy was hardwired, it seemed, to protect his captor. They had to get the kid out of here. Jake looked around at the crowd surrounding them. They had to get all of them out, but there was no way. The poor souls would have to make their own fortune.
But he’d at least give them a fighting chance.
“I promise, Jeremiah. I won’t harm the boss. We’ll let him go, unharmed, as soon as we can get up the shaft. Back up to the real world. The sunlight. You remember the sun, right?”
Jeremiah thought for a moment, and then nodded apprehensively. “It’s hot, right? White hot. That’s all I remember. Father would make me work in the white hot all day. And then I was here.”
Dear God. Jake shook his head at the barbarity of the hunk of rock they called Destiny. For the briefest of moments he entertained the idea that maybe it would be better if the Empire controlled the world after all. Controlled all worlds. At least then kids wouldn’t be sent to work in mines, never to see the sunlight again.
But no. The Empire had done far worse, and he couldn’t forget it. The girls abducted, destined for pleasure houses. The political prisoners. Children—toddlers—taken to Glasov along with their parents. And he’d never forget the look in Po’s face and the tone of her voice when she described finding her children’s and husband’s bodies, blackened and scorched from a midnight Imperial strike in San Bernardino.
The Empire must die. And he would kick the stool out from under it as it hung.
“That’s right, son. It’s hot. But it’s nice. Nicer than down here. You’ll see. I can take you up there and you’ll never be forced to work again. I’ll feed you real food. You’ll have a soft bed. You can run. And climb. You like climbing, don’t you? But I need you to calm down and promise you won’t hit me. Can you do that?”
Jeremiah nodded. Jake stood up, and pulled the boy to his feet. For the barest moment, Jake could swear a smile threatened to cross the boy’s mouth, before Jeremiah’s face contorted, and he breathed out, almost in a whisper, “You’ll die. You’ll die before the end. You’ll liberate, but in the darkness you’ll die alone.”
Jake froze.
The boss, who’d been silent until then, snorted. “Ha! Jeremiah the prophet indeed! He’s right, you know. I called for help just before I ran over here. You’re all about to die. Let me go and I’ll let you live,” he sneered.
Was he bluffing? Jake shook his head. There was no time to debate. No time to think it through. They had to get out of there, and fast.
“As I promised Jeremiah, I’ll let you go. But not until we get in that elevator shaft. Alessandro,” he looked at his friend, who was still nursing his bloody nose, “get the Domitian controller device from him. It’s still in his pocket, I think.” He pointed to the boss, and Alessandro fished in the man’s pocket until he pulled out the familiar hand-pad.
“All right. Let’s move,” said Jake. He wrapped an arm around Jeremiah’s shoulder and led the way out of the cavern and towards the elevator shaft. Avery jostled the boss to his feet and pushed him forward. Most of the other slaves followed in a huge crowd behind them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a few bedraggled slaves descend on the still breathing henchman, but he averted his gaze at what happened next.
Once at the shaft, Jake wrenched the door open and indicated for the others to enter. Avery maintained a firm grip on the boss’s arms from behind. Jake took the Domitian device from Alessandro, and walked up to a tall, gaunt man who’d followed them.
“Think you can use this?” Jake asked.
The man glanced at the boss, and back to Jake with a smile. “I think I can manage it.” He examined the device Jake shoved in his hands. “How long do you think we should wait to come up? What do you think we should do?”
Jake shook his head. “I’m sorry. You’re on your own. I can only look after my people. I’ll do what I can to clear the way, best I can do is say you’re best off if you work as a group.” He raised his voice to speak to all of them. Hundreds of people staring with sallow, sunken eyes. “They can stop one of you, two of you, but they can’t stop 300 of you. Work together and you might
live.”
The man nodded and turned towards the boss with an evil grin on his face, as if his wildest, most vengeful dream were about to come true. Avery shoved the boss out into the crowd, which had begun to hoot and shout at their former captor, and they both dove into the elevator shaft.
The boss’s face was the last thing Jake saw just before he shut the door.
He’d never seen fear like that in his life.
***
Captain Titus gripped the arms of his chair. It wouldn’t be long now—just moments ago the tactical officer had fired the two torpedoes, and they now sped away towards the sea of water and ice at the north pole of Destiny. He glanced around the bridge—officers and enlisted men alike sat staring at the viewscreen at the magnified image of the torpedoes speeding towards the surface—some with their jaws slightly parted as they waited with baited breath.
Finally, victory was in sight and they could have their ship back. They could return to their normal duties. The regular patrols. Destroying or taxing the occasional pirate, ferrying various senators to conferences, the shore leaves. Not this mad quest to suppress a minor rebellion—a rebellion that was already and hopelessly crushed.
“Science station, would the Phoenix’s scanners be able to see anything above the ice? I assume the salt water will make that impossible.…” Trajan asked the officers huddled near the rear of the bridge.
“Aye, sir. Highly unlikely that they’re seeing this,” said the head scientist on the bridge rotation.
“Excellent.”
Everyone on the silent bridge, even Admiral Trajan, stared at the screen. And then the unthinkable happened.
A giant sheet of ice, and the water surrounding it, bulged upward.
And then the ice sheet cracked, falling into the raging water all around it, revealing a huge ship, rising slowly above the torrent underneath.