by Troy Osgood
Really did need to visit my sister at some point soon, but whenever I thought about taking the trip back to Sol things always came up. I bet Kaylia would love them and my sister would love the kid.
I moved behind the couch and watched Torsi play with the controls. The screen came to life showing the standard Galactic Feed image, an artistic rendering of the galaxy, and then the menu options appeared. Hadn’t taken long for her to figure it out. The kids starting talking, excited, and I smiled as I walked away.
That didn’t last long.
*****
Yersk is a small system. Four planets, each with two to four moons. Only Yersk Prime is inhabited by the Yers, a race of mottled gray skinned amphibious humanoids with webbed feet and hands and four long tentacles growing out of their backs. Not the friendliest beings in the galaxy. They’re grounders, planetlocked, meaning that they don’t have the technology to starhop from system to system. Still see them out and about, not that common, but they hitch rides with ships coming out of the Yerbig colony on the planet as they end up working for the green skinned and big headed Yerbigs.
Yerbig’s are somewhat amphibious so it’s no surprise that they established a colony on Yersk. Their home system, Uin, is only a six hour hop away.
There’s no reason for anyone else to care about Yersk Prime so the system is just a hop point. Lots of traffic at the edges as ship’s hop in and out again.
My co-pilot and I were awake at the same time as we hopped in. One of her tasks was downloading the Feed for the latest updates. There was some automatic stuff, vidmail and the such, but the rest had to be grabbed manually.
I was checking the navorders, making sure all was in order when Kaylia tapped on the console. I turned to look and saw she was almost in tears.
“What?”
The planet.
She had to be talking about Storw and from her expression I knew it was going to be bad.
Hitting a couple buttons on one of my screens I brought up the latest news. It didn’t matter the channel, this wouldn’t be an unbiased report. The problem with such a large galaxy is that there is so much news out there and it’s all biased in some way. It’s hard to get an unfiltered view.
But for this it didn’t matter. Everyone would be saying the same thing the same way.
“Tragic news for the last remaining people on the planet Storw in the Wils System,” the newscaster was saying, a Kry. “The rogue asteroid’s close proximity has cracked the planet’s moon even more, sending larger shards to the planet’s surface. Striking the surface has caused massive earthquakes over the entire planet, increased storm activity and other natural disasters. Because of this, no more ships can land and the evacuation has been called off. Nearly five million Storwi remain on the planet.”
That was it then. The planet itself had days before the asteroid struck but for the people remaining, it was over. No ship would land in those conditions.
“Well damn,” I said shutting off the video.
I turned to Kaylia, tears running down her cheeks, crying silently.
All those people.
“I know kiddo.”
Walking over to her, I leaned down and pulled her tight. Her arms wrapped around me and she buried her head into my chest. I could feel her body shaking with silent sobs.
If we had never stopped to help, if she’d never met any of the Storwo, would she still have felt this bad about the planet’s doom? Probably. I knew that Kaylia was a smart kid, but I was also finding out how empathic she was as well. Wasn’t getting it from me. Empathy was not one of my strong points.
*****
The news spread quickly. We didn’t tell anyone but they got it through the Feed access that Torsi had set up. Didn’t know if it was her or one of the others that had caught the news segment, but it spread throughout the Wind.
Somber atmosphere, lots of crying. No anger, just more of the resignation. I was afraid of someone taking that anger out on the ship or other Storwo. Didn’t happen. It takes a long time for someone to stop looking at other races through the cultural filter of their race. All of us travelers through the galaxy based our reactions around our culture and judged others by those same guidelines. It wasn’t fair, but it was what it was. That was the baseline and sometimes, more often than not, people were able to change and start being more understanding of the cultural differences. Not expecting other races to react the same as theirs.
I was looking at the Storwo through the lens of a Terran. I was expecting them to react as I knew my people would when faced with the same news.
Was one reaction better than the other? That kind of deep thinking is beyond me.
I was just glad no one was damaging my ship.
No way would I be able to get them to pay for the repairs and I didn’t have the extra money. The Wind isn’t the fanciest ship around and usually needs some kind of repair, but I try hard to not let her turn into a piece of junk. There are some that say it’s only what’s inside that counts, the engine and the strength of the ship, and well there is some truth to that the more important truth is that I have to live in the ship and take some pride in its appearance.
Everyone was silent, even the kids who picked up on their parents mood.
I had no idea what to say to them so I said nothing.
Torsi was in the lounge hugging another female Storwo as the vidscreen was on behind her. I recognized the same newscast as the one I had seen. It was now paused, the newsperson in mid-comment. I made my way through the crowded room and shut it off.
I saw Dresla walk in from the hold, wiping a hand across her face. She gave me a weak smile walking pass, stopping to talk quietly with a couple of the other Storwo. These ones followed her into the kitchen. I did as well and saw them start taking supplies out of the crates they had brought on board.
Smart woman. Get back into the routine. Give the people something else to think about.
I felt a vibration through the Nomad’s Wind as we hopped into wildspace for the trip from Yersk to Tuint, a six hour hop. The course had been programmed in so all Kaylia had to do was watch the controls and make sure no warnings popped up. She knew which button was the hop override and since I had heard no alarms, figured it was a good hop. I’d go up and double check in a few. It was also time for her to get some sleep.
The vidscreen was turned back on and I heard the sound of some kids show. The language sounded Storwoi. Where had they managed to find that? Could hear the sounds of kids talking and starting to laugh, shuffling around to watch the show.
They’d have a proper mourning for their world when they arrived at the refugee camp on Hoin.
I stood at the bottom of the spiral stairs for a minute or two watching the meal prep. There wasn’t any of the usually talking, sharing of stories. They were going through the motions, something that had to be done.
Everyone has experienced loss at one time or another. Death of a family member, a loved one or a friend. Hell, even a beloved family pet. But there is something different in experiencing the loss of a planet. There has to be.
There’s another race, the Derty, that lost their world to pollution a couple of centuries ago. Way before humans were wandering the galaxy. Without the benefit of a home world, or a place to call home and set up most of the population, the race starts to die out. It’s inevitable when there’s no one location to find others of your own kind. Interbreeding with other races, if it’s possible and it’s normally not, doesn’t help. No, for your race to survive, they needed to breed with others of their kind.
For most races, only a small percent of their population lives in space. The majority live on the homeworld, the colonies or the space stations. Some never even leave their place of birth.
I never heard why, but the Derty didn’t have a planet to evacuate to. They scattered across the galaxy and over time just started to die out. That’s why the Planetary Council tried so hard to find a place for the Storwo to go. There’s a lot of life in the galaxy and all
of it is precious.
Dresla directed the silent Storwo, keeping them on track.
I watched for a little longer and then went back upstairs to relieve Kaylia and send her to bed.
Sitting in the pilot’s chair, watching the featureless and calming white of wildspace, I had time to think on fate and all that higher stuff but I try to leave that deeper thinking to others. I’m not a big picture kind of guy. Instead I thought about the galaxy and its people and how close we all were to disaster on a daily basis.
The Planetary Council, for the most part, is a waste of time and energy. They try to be big, come up with all these grand ideas and galactic law. The only true law is the basic law of society. You need people to live and help you survive so you don’t try to piss them off because someday you’ll probably need them.
A bit cynical, but true.
The Council is comprised of ambassadors from most of the major galactic races, at least those that have colonies outside their home system. Except the Tiat. They were invited and refused. No surprise. The group tries to have authority and some planets grant them more than others, but it’s really just the different empires pushing their own agendas.
Every race that travels the stars is expansionist at heart. They want more, that’s why they’re out there. Sure, some went to other planets because their own couldn’t support their growing populations anymore, but it’s still expansion.
Most races learned a long time ago to give space to the others. It’s a large galaxy, plenty of planets to go around. And that’s why us earthlings are almost galactically hated. When we expanded, we basically started a galactic war.
Good times.
So I had to wonder what the Planetary Council had promised the Hoinites to allow the Storwo to settle on their planet. Had to be something major. Hoin was a large planet with a small population and there had to be some reason they had kept it small. It was a grounder planet, no spacefaring tech of their own.
Maybe that was what the Council was giving them? The ability to hop the stars.
And a population of people indebted to them.
Yeah, that made sense.
And it sucked.
The Council, or whatever planets pushed for this resettlement, would be reaping some kind of reward. This felt like a Coulson plan. General, retired, Frank Coulson was the Terran Ambassador to the Planetary Council. The head one anyway, there were a couple of them, each representing a planet or colony that Earth controlled. Coulson was just the big guy with the others essentially following his lead. I’d run into him a couple times during my soldiering days. He was behind a lot of black ops that unfortunately I was involved in. We didn’t get along then and still didn’t.
Luckily, we ran in different circles. His was the bright lights of the Inner Core worlds and the Planetary Council. Mine was the wilds of Deep Space.
I liked my circle better.
Guaranteed that Coulson had his hand in this resettlement. No clue why. It would mean the government of Earth would be getting something out of it but Coulson would be personally getting more.
Not my concern.
The Storwo, or at least some of them, had to know they were ultimately getting a raw deal. But if it was that or lose your entire species? Easy choice to make.
I had to remind myself to just think small picture. I was saving a shipful of people. A very small amount in the grand scheme of things but at least they would live. Doing my part. And not getting paid.
The kid and I would have to work twice as hard for a month or two after this.
But it was worth it.
I’d remind myself of that when struggling to buy fuel for the Wind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The cloudy white of wildspace gave way to the black with millions of white dots of normal space. Same view as any other system. They all looked basically alike. Pilots had to rely on the navsystems to let them know what system they were in. Without it, they were blind.
Tuint was a large system. Twelve planets, making it one of the largest known, but only one inhabited or even livable. None of the other planets or even their moons could be lived on. Nothing even worth mining. Just the one lonely planet the furthest from its sun with the next nearest planet pretty far away. Tui, the only inhabited planet, was equidistant to its neighbor as it’s neighbor was to the sun.
Basically Tui was pretty damn far from the sun and pretty far from any of the gas giants that made up the system. It had one moon that was just standard rock and iron. Nothing special, nothing making it worth mining.
That and the Tuis themselves were very territorial when it came to their moon. They didn’t care to mine the sacred object and no way would they let anyone else. The surface was covered in the wrecks of those that had tried.
The strange part was that unlike most other systems, Tui wasn’t a ball of ice. In every other known system, the further a planet was from the sun the colder it was. The closer and the hotter it was. The dream zone, for life, was the third or fourth planets usually. But not in Tuint. The sun was so bright that the last planet was a pretty moderate climate.
Lots of green, trees and water.
A decent place to live.
Not a decent place to fly into.
The Tuis Dock Control was notoriously difficult to work with. I’d spent hours waiting for their customs people to show up before I could even start to think about unloading cargo and it was hours after before I could unload. They went through everything. Multiple times.
And the bribes. I had always thought Dynuit was the worse, until my first trip to Tui.
At least the Nomad’s Wind could enter the atmosphere and land on the planet. This was one planet where it paid to have a light freighter. There was no space station in the Tuint system, just the planet, so all large ships had to be unloaded in orbit. That added extra cost and time. Because of this, not many large trading guilds or companies wanted to travel to Tuint.
The bribes meant not many small freighters wanted to either.
There was talk of building a space station, but that had started a couple years ago with no momentum.
Tui didn’t have much to offer and the Tuis themselves were notoriously cheap.
I had no desire to stop there but the Wind’s fuel reserves said we were stopping.
Hearing some footsteps behind me, I turned and saw Torsi standing in the bridge’s doorway. She was looking out the view window at the starfield beyond. It would be an hour or so before the planet itself was visible, so the view was just lots and lots of stars.
“I thought I felt the shift out of wildspace,” she said motioning at the bridge.
I nodded, giving her permission to enter.
An old custom, not practiced by many. Besides no one being allowed to board a ship without the captain’s permission, an old custom that had fallen out of use, was the one where no one could enter the bridge without the captain’s permission. I’d heard it was still enforced on the passenger cruisers but everywhere else it had faded away.
Interesting that a Storwo would know of it.
“You’ve star hopped before?” I asked her turning my seat around again to check the controls.
“A couple times,” she replied coming to stand next to me between the pilots and co-pilots stations. “Not extensively, only to the next system.”
“How far out from the planet are we?” she asked after a bit of silence.
“Hour,” I replied. “We’ll be on planet for a while to refuel.”
From the corner of my eye I saw her glance over at Kahlia’s console and the chrono there. It was set to Terran time and had us midway through the Wind’s night cycle. Everyone else on board was asleep. Not sure why she was up.
“So we’ll be hopping out in a couple hours,” she stated and turned to leave. “Goodnight Captain,” Torsi said as she left the bridge.
When my instincts tell me to run, I run. And I’ve always been a decent judge of people. Something was making my instincts tell me that she was lyin
g. Or at least not telling the full truth. I got enough of a read from her to know she was definitely hiding something.
Just like that I knew who the stowaway was.
There wasn’t one thing that told me that Torsi was the thief. It was a lot of little things.
Her interest was the big thing. The only Storwo besides Dresla to show an interest in me, the Wind, or the travel times. Dresla’s reasons were now known but the rest just tried to get through their days and it was understandable why they wouldn’t want to know exact times. Even the husband that I had saved.
I was convinced that Torsi was the thief.
Now how to convince Dresla.
I remembered the time and realized it would have to wait. Dresla was asleep somewhere in the cargo hold.
It could wait.
Afterall, it wasn’t like Torsi was going anywhere.
*****
I yawned. Tired.
Kaylia was at her station, adjusting the final navorders for bringing the Wind into the atmosphere of Tui as I watched the consoles and readouts. Everything was normal for planetary entry. No storms on our flight patch to Yorunital, the only major port on the planet. No other traffic, which was not a surprise.
Easy flight in and hopefully an easy flight out.
I should have been asleep in my bunk but the timing didn’t work out. Kaylia had never done a planetary entry and this wasn’t the time for her to do it solo. So here I was, awake after I don’t know how many hours, piloting a ship full of refugees onto a planet to get more fuel.
Concentrating on the controls, I put thoughts of bed out of mind.
Tui was a lot of green, the sphere coming closer with the moon beyond the curving horizon. I adjusted the ship, feeling it shudder a little as the thrusters changed our angle. The view started as half green at the bottom of the view window, the moon beyond and the stars filling up the upper part of the view window, and it shifted to more and more green as the Wind’s nose pointed down towards the planet.
Down was relative as from one viewpoint we could be flying up towards the planet, another could be flying sideways. But to us in the ship, we were going down.