by T J Bryan
Jahleel handed OM his vid-com. With apparent reluctance OM accepted the comms device and stared at Wu. "You promise we will live if we dock our ship? That you will release us?"
Wu leaned back in his throne, "Yes, yes. We are not barbarians. Are we Jahleel?" Wu smiled a thin smile and Jahleel laughed.
Moments later OM called the bridge of the Iceland and ordered them to dock.
Helen ordered the Iceland to proceed at a very slow speed toward the dock Wu Station indicated as their destination. "Make the docking a bit sloppy Mr. Zanos. Lets put a dent in that hatch. Not to big, just enough to rupture the seals and vent the deck."
Zanos smiled, "Aye, aye Sir."
Zanos brought the massive ship in at dead slow. If anyone on the station had cared to look their weapons emplacements on the top and bottom of the ship were now apparent. However no one was paying attention. They are probably all on the dock awaiting our arrival and the fun to be had.
Pilot Zanos managed to wobble the ship ever so slightly and then jink just a meter or so too far to the left. The hatch buckled and it began to vent atmosphere. "My, my. How sloppy of you Mr. Zanos. I'll make sure to put this on your permanent record," Helen said and smiled.
Moments later the main hatch of Iceland opened and two armour clad marines placed explosive charges on the buckled hatch then pulled back. There is no sound in space, but there is light, and the flash would blind a normal man if he looked into it, but Marine helmets obscured the flash just long enough to preserve sight. The hatch swung lazily on one hinge at the marines assaulted the hold.
The battle was brief but initially intense. The pirates seemed few and badly coordinated. Their weapons a hodge podge of ancient and modern and all poorly maintained if at all. Armed with the tracking map provided by OM and Farn the marines traced their way through the passages, past the frightened and terrified prisoners, and into the entrance of the station master's quarters. Plasma fire erupted from the hatch and Wain Peters directed his 'bouncer' forward with its' three plasma rifles and impact cannon aimed forward. The 'bouncer' never fired a shot as Jahleel, his armed guards and Wu himself fell to their keens begging for mercy.
Few of the other pirates remained as the prisoners realized that they were liberated. The OCN Marines, busy with liberating OM and Farn did little to stop the violent retribution visited upon the pirates.
...
Wu System - Wu Station - Year 3246. February 17 ET: 05:56
The trial had lasted less than an hour. More than seventy liberated prisoners, once the crews of captured and looted ships, stepped forward and offered to testify. Silvi selected less than six, two of which had been captains on freighters. One freighter had been from Bizon and captured three years ago and the second was from Hyder, but had recently traded with New Carthago. Both described in detail the murder and cruelty of the pirates of Wu. Farn and OM's testimony of the murder of the young woman at Wu's foot was more than enough to pass judgement.
"Mr. Wu and Mr. Jahleel, this court finds you guilty of piracy, murder, and slave trading. You are to be spaced immediately. Mr. Peters, Mr. Renner, please escort Mr Wu and Jahleel to the nearest air lock."
Wu fell quivering to his knees. He was begging to be forgiven all the while denying his crime. Wu kept claiming he had saved his prisoners from The Dark and that they were ungrateful for his compassion. Silvi looked into the faces of the freed prisoners and knew no mercy was due. "Mr. Peters, Mr. Renner, if you please.
Silvi had spoken for a half hour before the trial to Captain Tallsberg of the freighter Marion out of Bizon and with Captain Smilot of the Saint Joan out of Hyder a distant system but with an entry portal to both Wu and New Carthago. Captain Smilot was an elderly woman who had watched Jahleel murder her husband and two sons. To her Silvi gave the honor of pressing the hatch evacuation lever. All watched, including hundreds on the decks above through the plasticene windows, as the bodies of Jaheel and Wu tumbled out into space. Justice had been done although the pain for many would linger a lifetime.
Inspection of Girots Bountiful revealed that the bulk of her cargo of foodstuffs had been looted. Captain Smilot said the cargo had been sold to a ship bound for far away Elegy. There remained on the station a portion of Bountiful's cargo enough to feed those on the station for two years, but not nearly enough to even make a dent in Jamon's needs. Silvi and the OCN Captains knew they could not take the freed prisoners aboard with them on their journey. The needs of another 1,130 souls would swamp the systems of both freighters. The OCN had simply not prepared the ships with enough critical nutrients and minerals to take on a huge increase in crew or passengers. It was better to leave the prisoners here on Wu and return later with relief.
Silvi had made a difficult decision. She decided to stay at Wu for almost seven days to install fusion engines, two doc-in-a-box installations, atmosphere scrubbers, clothing fabricators, and other trade goods from the Iceland and Greenland to make Wu Station habitable. They had even repaired the sewerage and recycling system, and within a few days the stench of the place was reduced and the inhabitants began cleaning up the trash and debris that fouled the station. There was much work to do but things were beginning to look 'ship shape.'
The anti-matter ship which Wu had used in its' piracy was found to be dangerous and structurally deficient. Flying the ship was bound to lead to system wide failure sooner or latter, and in the case of the ship sooner was more probable. Iceland put a dialled down 'K' class missile into her midships and she was reduced to plasma. Two other freighters appeared to be intact and with some effort might be able to fly again. Two of the revenue cutters were clearly able to operate but had been ignored by the pirates due to their slow propulsion system. The cutter's large bore plasma cannons were intact and with some work they could defend the system against anything but a true warship. Pirates didn't fly warships but rather adopted freighters and armed them. The cutter could probably defend the station with ease against a freighter even if armed. Wu station had all the makings of a potential trading station if the liberated prisoners were up to the task, and to Silvi's reckoning they were. However The Dark was a dangerous place and chaos could easily descend once again upon Wu.
...
Wu System - Iceland - Year 3246. February 21 ET: 16:40
Captain Smilot sat drinking tea across from Silvi and the other captains in the Greenland mess. Silvi could see that Smilot was a hard woman, made hard by years of sailing a freighter through The Dark, and harder still by captivity at Wu and the murder of her family. However Silvi found Smilot friendly and anxious for human contact and the crew of Iceland provided much of what she longed for.
"So, you have been to New Carthago?" asked Silvi.
"Yes," Smilot replied. "I'd guess about six times in the last fifteen or so years. It's an odd place New Carthago. Very odd."
Helen spoke, "We know very little about New Carthago but the simple facts. A sub giant sun, six planets, one goldilocks with an ice moon as well. A stable orbit and prior to the Great War one of the big 16 food suppliers to this arm of the galaxy."
"True," replied Smilot. "The Great War seems to have passed New Carthago by, or if it did intervene on their system no permanent damage was done. The system still produces massive amounts of food. Without New Carthago's production of food systems like Elegy, Timmons Rock, Far Spec, and dozens of others would perish. It's an odd tenant of their odd religion that they are driven to overproduce foodstuff while still limiting their population. Very strange religion that."
Silvi asked, "So there is still commerce between New Carthago and other systems in this area?"
"Yes," replied Smilot, "but not what it was before the Great War. Commerce nearly died here. A little trade bounced back perhaps ninety years ago and then the pirates moved in and traders quickly learned to avoid Wu. Once New Carthago received perhaps three hundred trading ships per year, now it is down to two or three at the most, and that is very irregular."
"About the religion?" asked Helen.
"It's a weird one at that." Smilot paused a moment to sip her tea. "I love tea. I have not had any in ages, years actually. This is so good."
Helen was about to speak when Smilot continued, "They have in New Carthago a kind of God Emperor which they worship. The God Emperor they call the Emperator, grants them favourable crops and weather if they pray hard enough. If the Emperator is displeased the rains do not come and the crops fail. But what they don't know is that the God Emperor has three weather satellites above the planet. All he is really doing is telling them the weather. Their prayers have nothing to do with the rain or crops. But the people are convinced. When the Emperator tells them their prayers are to be granted, and for the next week it will rain, they believe the Emperator made it so. If the Emperator says they have failed in their devotions to him and he has decided to deny them rain, but sends them devastating winds of retribution, they believe it. Very odd. You would think they could figure it out, but they don't.
"How does this Emperator communicate his weather predictions to the people?" asked Silvi.
"They have an enormous temple complex on a mountain range that has somehow been levelled. Flat as a billiard table. The temple complex extends perhaps 15 kilometres long and is never more than one or two kilometres wide. They have some kind of radio station there, and the Emperator's indulgences or weather reports are transmitted to local temples throughout the planet." Smilot paused a moment in thought, "Cause and effect, it's interesting how we make assumptions about cause and effect. But on New Carthago they have it all wrong, but they can't see it."
"And how does their culture work? The government? How do they engage in trade?"
"Well, there is a lot we know and even more we simply do not understand. The temple complex rises above a flat plane; a highly productive agricultural plane at that. But the escarpment that rises is steep and either cannot be climbed or no one wants to climb it. Probably both. On that long string of wavering flat mountain top there is an enormous forest of huge trees. Nothing like it in the galaxy that I have ever seen. Twenty meters at the base and perhaps almost 400 meters tall. And the mountain top is always in a misty fog. Seems that as the wind rushes off the nearby sea, it hits those cliffs, rises, and produces rain and perpetual fog."
"About trade?" Helen asked.
"Well on that mountain top are a string of huge temples made from logs of those trees. I have seen them from a distance on trading missions. I don't know how many there are but more than twenty or thirty temples and they are really enormous, but the odd thing is that the temple population is tiny. The Emperator and his court are less than a thousand people, probably far less. And the ones living in the temples are some kind of monks dedicated to the Emperator. They never leave the mountain top and the populace below never ventures up."
Smilot took another sip of her tea. Smilot continued, "To trade you hail the temple complex on a wide spectrum radio frequency. You announce your presence and what you have to trade. Eventually they will contact you. Sometimes they are interested and sometimes not. If they want something you have then you can easily make a deal. They never welch on a deal. It's kind of sacred. As I said, if they want to deal they will ask you to land at the extreme south of the temple complex. There are landing grounds there for at least a dozen light ships like your frigates. Then you wait. Eventually a delegation of monks shows up and takes you through the mist and rain to one of the temples and you sit down and drink wretched tea for hours and hours. Then they propose a trade. You take it or leave it. I have never seen an unfair or unprofitable trade so it's not a big deal. Then they direct you to a location on the plane, nowhere near the main temple, which varies. There you are to pile up your trade goods. Never at the main temple complex, always in some town or regional temple site. There you find their exchange goods which for New Carthago is food. Grains, legumes, frozen seafood some of which is quite tasty, even canned fruits. Just about everything one would need to feed a system."
Emmitt interjected, "Enough to feed fifty thousand for a year?"
Smilot laughed. "Enough to feed five million for five years, assuming you could carry it away. They would not even notice what you took. Food production by manual labor is sacred to them. The Emperator tells them so."
Silvi asked, "And what kind of trade goods to they need or want?"
"They don't want high tech stuff like fusion engines or that doc-in-a-box. Mostly low tech, like steel pipes, pumps, old steam engines were popular. Some electrical wire and solar panels are often asked for. They like to illuminate their temples at night, otherwise the planet is mostly dark at night. Hand tools are most popular; hammers, sledges, saws, shovels. The kind of stuff farmers need for manual labor."
Silvi, the Captains, and Smilot talked on for hours often about family, home, and past voyages and adventures. But soon Smilot tired and Silvi knew Smilot had another challenging day of cleaning and establishing order of the now free station of Wu. Soon Captain Smilot of the dead ship Saint Joan returned to Wu Station.
Chapter Forty Four
New Carthago System - Ragnarök - Year 3246. February 24 ET: 07:14
Ragnarök entered the New Carthago system two hours ahead of the fleet and immediately headed in system toward the planet of New Carthago. The fleet upon entering was to do as they had done in Wu, and remain at a distance and in stealth until Ragnarök had established contact with the government of the system.
With the exception of New Carthago's aging weather satellites, which they had procured in trade from a more advanced system for other goods, New Carthago was low tech and agriculturally and religiously focused. The probability of detection of the Ragnarök and the fleet was low; however Silvi was taking no chances as she approached the planet from the far side of her sun. The approach would mask Ragnarök's appearance until Silvi was ready to broadcast her message seeking trade.
The home planet of the system was the fifth planet out from the sun. The sub giant sun had at some point in the very distant past scorched the inner planets to cinders. New Carthago herself was beautiful as Silvi looked at the vid screens scanning its' surface. One major continent covered 35% of the planets surface and hundreds of islands and archipelagos dotted its' enormous seas. Several mountain ranges crossed the continent from north to south but they were weathered and not very high. There was one exception and Silvi assumed that was where the major temple complex was located. One large polar ice cap verified the planetary tilt described in the EG. As Silvi looked a major storm was forming off of the western shore not far from the temple complex of the God Emperor. A small ice moon circled the planet and its' albedo was quite high and the reflected light from the moon illuminated much of the dark side of the planet. A single gas giant formed the sixth planet and its' orbit was very distant from the other five planets in the system.
"Mr. Brunner," asked Silvi. "Do you have a weather report from the Emperator?"
"Nothing yet." Buddy replied. "I am scanning all the common frequencies. It's night on the temple side perhaps they are sleeping."
Ragnarök continued her slow pace approaching the home planet. As the sun began to rise over the temple complex Silvi got their first good look at the Emperator's home. The escarpment rose from a flat continental plane almost vertically to a height of 3,100 meters. Clearly it had once been a mountain chain, but the uniformity of its' flattened top, now cultivated with enormous trees, astonished the crew. The mountain range had been ragged and in places the flattened table top mountain was only a few meters wide and in other places as wide at 3 kilometres. From their vantage point Ragnarök could make out little visual detail. The clouds forming over the ridge and the dense stand of trees obscured the surface. However Buddy's scans revealed much more. There were a dozen enormous structures scattered throughout the mountain top and perhaps thirty more smaller buildings. The energy signatures of these structures were extremely low with one exception. Silvi realized that their radio station and ground stations for the weather satellites would require
conventional power and that the power source was likely to be near the Emperator's dwelling. Silvi realized that she was making an assumption that might well prove wrong.
"I have a broadcast signal," said Buddy interrupting Silvi's thoughts.
"Put it on our speaker, Mr. Burnner."
Moments later the speaker came to life. The crew could hear an deep base ring of some very large bell. A temple bell thought Silvi. The bell tolled every two minutes and continued for over an hour. Then the tolling stopped. A rather monotonous but sing song voice began to speak in a peculiar accent. The voice spoke some variant of Standard English and with effort it could be understood.
The speaker intoned, "May the Emperator grant me happiness and peace. May the Emperator keep my teachers well and in peace. May the Emperator keep my parents well and peaceful. May the Emperator keep the ancestors well and peaceful. May the Emperator keep strangers well and peaceful. May the Emperator keep all beings well and peaceful." The voice paused for a moment. "Let us pray to God our Emperator for well being and a peaceful life."
An interesting sentiment thought Silvi. Especially the part about strangers. The temple bell tolled again for seven rings. Then the voice returned. "The prayers of the people of the Northern Coast from Big Fish Island to Isle of Tears have been granted by the God Emperor. You shall receive the God Emperors blessings for three days. Rain shall fall to give crops life. Mild breezes shall refresh the air. The sun will shine for days following the rains. Pray now. Pray to the God Emperor in thanks for your gifts of our mighty Emperator."
The bell tolled again seven times. "People of the middle coast from Shark Bay to Tiny Cove, you continue to offend the God Emperor with your blasphemy and sin. Your prayers are insufficient to the God Emperor to grant you his blessings. Storms and thunder and great winds are your punishment. Pray now again. Pray that your sins shall be washed clean by rain, lightening, and high winds. Pray now that you may be redeemed."