Spinward Fringe Broadcast 6: Fragments

by Randolph Lalonde

"The ground. I know what the advisory said, but can you give me more detail?"

  "The terrain below us consists of a combination of formerly life-giving chemicals combined with a porous, clay like medium. It is several meters thick in some places and covers large bodies of water in others."

  "Formerly life giving?" asked Ayan.

  "Yes. This material is called Dower Company Life Generating Topsoil, or LGT for short. It is designed to generate a diverse range of plant life in a balanced ecological range."

  "A forest in a box," Stephanie said as she entered the cabin. "I saw this from the common room and had to check for myself. Any idea why it failed?"

  "Based on what I'm seeing I can only assume something failed early in the chemical reaction, perhaps there was wide spread contamination. I don't have enough information to be certain. There are several unsecured networks within range, would you like me to look into it for you?"

  "No, Lewis, thank you," Ayan answered. "The last thing we need is to have you detected by some artificial intelligence scanner. Complex AI's are outlawed by the Carthans."

  "I am aware, thank you Ayan."

  "I think you hurt his feelings," Stephanie said as she patted the ceiling. "Do you know what exposure to this stuff could do to us?"

  "I think you should obey the Carthan advisory to the letter, don't touch it with bare skin and don't breathe too much of the dust. This entire expanse is a low level biohazard."

  The five occupants of the cockpit watched as the Clever Dream completed its descent. The colour of the landscape, the uniformity of it and the level plane of the land made it look like it went on forever. What was there before, no one could guess, but no one was left with any question as to why the place was called the Dower Wastes.

  Chapter 16

  Ghosts

  "Tate's whole squad is down sir," Foss, the communications and scanning officer stated.

  "What? I would have gotten a direct alert if they came under fire," Sergeant Cameron Steadman replied, flipping the armoured cover to her command display open. The flat screen on the inside of her wrist scrolled to Sergeant Tate's team and for a moment she was puzzled at the results. "Medical, confirm what I'm seeing."

  Officer Rawdon nodded. "Their bodies are being stressed by-" he trailed off.

  "It's gravity. They're using artificial gravity," Steadman flipped the display cover closed and waved Foss towards the main console on the darkened bridge. "Inform Command that we're going to try a hack into their life support systems. Get jacked in."

  "Using the command codes we received in the crew's surrender? If they'll resort to using gravi-"

  "We don't have a choice. Do it."

  Foss moved to the command seat and began looking for a data port to connect to. "This would be easier if they left a wireless receiver on somewhere," he grumbled.

  Steadman looked across the large command centre of the Triton. With semitransparent floors and the lights of the squad leaving the deck beneath the place had an eerie feeling she couldn't shake. "Anything on scans Foss?"

  "Nothing, ma'am."

  She glanced at the sighting on her rifle as she waved it across the front of the bridge. "Where did they go? There's a group in the ship auditorium, the habitation areas and a berthing, but that doesn't account for enough."

  "I don't know sir, Command's last count looked good before we docked," replied Foss.

  "Command, verify your encounter scan. I need these numbers to add up,"

  "Command here, we've verified twice. According to this you should have readings on five hundred more people. Did you consider a shielded compartment?" An officer from Battlecruiser 1128 answered.

  "If there were a shielded compartment, then we'd have a great big blacked out area instead of missing individuals. Are you sure you were able to track all the ships they launched?"

  "Absolutely certain. We don't make mistakes up here, Sergeant,"

  "Don't get testy, I'm only-"

  Foss's whole body jerked as sparks leapt from the side of the command seat. His high pitched scream filled the comms and the bridge as he violently thrashed and writhed. One of his squad mates ran towards him.

  "Don't touch him! Stay back!" Steadman shouted.

  It was too late. The soldier ran headlong into him with the intention of knocking him free of his contact with the chair, and he succeeded, but in that instant the power coursing through Foss's body carried through to him.

  "Check him!"

  Rawdon ran forward with his medical scanner, taking a reading on both men at once. "Gone. There's nothing to resuscitate."

  Steadman glanced at her command display briefly to confirm her medic's readings.

  "Damn, takes a lot of juice to get through our armour," commented Jenkins, one of her more seasoned squad members.

  "Retreat. We'll join squad five and head for one of their main computers," Sergeant Steadman said as she began backing towards the main entrance to the bridge.

  The doors came to life, slamming shut in a quarter second. Most of her squad jumped.

  "Command," She addressed. "There are active systems aboard. Scan and confirm."

  Her squad looked to her for directions, glancing around the large darkened bridge nervously with their rifles held up.

  "Command!" She glanced at her command screen and saw her wireless link had been severed.

  Several gunshots pierced the air, echoing up from the deck beneath them. She whirled to catch sight of what was going on and saw rapid flashes of light from below, heard gunfire that was completely foreign. The foreign weapons made a low pitched, electric snapping sound every time they fired, and their shots came in bursts of twenty or more shots per second. "Move to support squad five!" She ordered, leading the way to the ramps at the side of the bridge that would take them to the lower command centre.

  Half way down the ramp something from above caught her eye. She looked up to see the squad mate behind her collapse to the ground and his rifle get snatched away by an invisible hand. She sighted where she estimated the assailant was and was just about to open fire when a hand grabbed the back of her helmet and pulled her down the ramp.

  Cameron's rifle went off, the rounds impacted harmlessly against the ceiling. When she reached the bottom of the ramp she tried to get to her feet only to find them kicked out from under her, her rifle was ripped out of her hands and before her eyes appeared a tall man in black armour, his heavy sidearm lowered to point directly at her head. "How much time do we have now that your people are under attack?"

  "How much time?" Cameron asked, unsure of the question.

  "How much time before they get to safe distance and blast us until we're an empty hull?"

  She'd never seen Caran Enterprises do anything like that once boarding teams had been dispatched, but in that instant she realized it was possible, the whole corporation had just been bought out. "I don't know Regent Galactic’s policies."

  "What are you? New?" The towering figure asked, cocking his head. "Who are you after?"

  Her training came back to her; never reveal operational details. "I'm Cameron Steadman, Boarding Sergeant with Caran Ent-, Regent Galactic. We are executing a sector wide warrant for this ship and several of her crew." she said mechanically.

  "Don't shut down on me, God dammit! I can't leave you alive behind me unless you give me something here."

  "I'm Cameron Steadman, Boarding Sergeant with Regent Galactic. We are executing a sector wide warrant for this ship and several of her crew."

  The dark figure pressed his foot down on her chest plate hard and tipped her helmet up with the toe of his boot.

  With a start she realized what he was doing and struggled frantically, grabbing at his leg and squirming under the relentless weight of his heel.

  When he pried her helmet up enough to see the under lining of her armour, he fired.

  Chapter 17

  The Dower Wastes

  "We have trouble on the Samson, Jake. We need you at the main cargo hatch," Laura
said over the comm.

  Ayan heard it; the message was broadcast over the command channel so anyone in charge of a squad or more would have. They were just setting foot on the strange, clay like soil. Most of the soldiers were making their way off the ships to secure the landing area. They were armed to the teeth and many of them donned the extreme environment layer of their armour.

  Ayan's white suit started to discolour the instant she set foot on the ground, though she couldn't see much dust. The outer layer of her vacsuit shook imperceptibly every few seconds, returning it to its original colour. Clouds loomed tall and dark in the distance, rolling in over the horizon and obscuring the yellow sun. She only had a moment to glimpse the night side profile of another moon. Its shadowy outline was partially illuminated by some glowing centre of light.

  Returning her attention to her more immediate environment, she looked around at the dozens of fighters and other ships that had landed all around the Clever Dream. Armed Triton personnel and deck crew were slowly making their way out of the troop carrier modules that had been installed on most of the Uriel fighters, and from what she could see they had all been overcrowded. Some passengers were so openly relieved, they stretched or sat down on the bare ground and just breathed. "Everyone should seal their vacsuits for now. That’s an order," she relayed over her communicator.

  “Jake, something’s up at the main rear hatch of the Samson. Let me through!” She shouted, obviously not at him.

  "I'm on my way Laura. Do you know exactly what's going on?" Ayan heard him respond.

  “I’m trying to get back there, but there are too many people in the way.”

  Ayan ran to the other side of the Clever Dream and saw that there was a gathering at the rear of the Samson, at the bottom of the cargo ramp. "It looks like they're prying at something in a service hatch under the Samson's reactor bay."

  Jake burst into a run the moment he set foot on soil. "I'll be right there. Stephanie, I need everyone you can trust from the Clever Dream to back me up."

  "Aye sir," Stephanie replied with no shortage of urgency.

  Ayan didn't bother to listen to her pass the orders on, but tried to keep up with Jake as he closed the distance between him and the rear loading ramp of the Samson, where people were continuing to gather. The rear hatch was under what the Samson called the maxjack. It was a carefully constructed collection of metal bars, gripper arms, clamps and cutters. At the centre was a heavy plasma torch set on a track that ran around a fortified, extendable airlock above the main cargo ramp. The whole system was wide open, which made the rear of the Samson look as if it had thirty, twisted and curved skeletal fingers, some of which punctured the ground. The growing crowd of over two hundred didn’t seem to notice or care about how damaged some of the system looked from where Ayan was standing.

  A few unarmed crew members were starting to disembark from other vessels and the commotion at the rear of the older, battered ship was drawing a lot of attention. At the base of the ramp there was a bright flash. Ayan's head's up display marked it as small arms fire, a particle weapon. There were several more flashes in succession. "What's going on?"

  "Someone broke into my credit reserves, they were kept under the Samson's mass reactor," Jake replied over proximity radio. "It's all I have left. Maybe all the ready cash in the fleet."

  Ayan knew her slim Freeground account with less than forty thousand credits wouldn't be much help if they were on their own, if Triton was lost. “How much is in there?” Ayan asked.

  “Last I checked the tokens I have in there was worth about seven fifty.”

  “Thousand?”

  “Thousand. Enough molecularly stamped bullion coin to cover serious repairs on the Samson in case we were stuck somewhere without a link to a major bank, and since those banks were all run by AI’s, along with the communication systems they depended on, I’m betting its worth a lot more now.”

  Ayan had seen a bullion token before, but from a distance. If what Jake had was like what she’d seen during her Junior Academy days, a thin strip of molecularly stamped platinum with lines of tiny coloured industrial diamonds set into it under a protective coating, then she could see why even crew members who weren’t normally greedy would want a piece. That kind of currency was universally recognized and trusted because of the certification of the material’s purity and how difficult it was to counterfeit.

  They arrived at the edge of the crowd and several people started to run away from the landing site. "Stephanie, have a few of your people round up the runners. Make sure they take a second to show them a map. We're about eight hundred klicks from anywhere," Jacob instructed.

  "I'll catch them sir," Alaka volunteered. "It won't take long."

  Ayan's eyes went wide as she looked to the rear view display on her sealed hood's head's up display in time to watch a huge, dark shape dart out from under the Clever Dream and begin to close the distance between him and the runners to the west. She'd never seen a nafalli run at full speed before. Alaka's legs were powerful, long, certainly, but when he leaned forward and began to use his arms his agility and speed doubled. His armoured hands looked more like long black claws, and his movements were so graceful they were awe inspiring.

  In seconds he was in front of the startled runners. He stood up to his full height and stretched his arms out to his sides. "Stay near the ship, there's no where to go, trust me."

  They begrudgingly started making their way back.

  Alaka took a running start right at the Samson and instead of passing under it he leapt up, ran over the mismatched plating of the hull and came down on the other side so he could pursue the rest of the runners.

  "Everyone stop what you're doing!" Jake ordered.

  "Why? We're just taking what you owe us!" replied a voice from the crowd. It took less than a second for Crewcast to make a match and present a picture of a former Samson crew member named Leland March. He had been recently reduced in rank to Crewman's Mate after faking qualifications and nearly single handedly destroying the Cold Reaver with a tactical blunder.

  Many members of the crowd glared at Jake angrily.

  "Get your ass out in front Leland!" Jake roared.

  Stephanie and the rest of the security staff were catching up. Four squads, fifty six rifle bearing, fully armoured soldiers came running roughly shoulder to shoulder like a black wave to support their Captain. Other security members were closing in slowly, carefully guiding the people who hadn’t remained aboard their ships.

  The crowd parted to reveal Leland March, standing over a secure ammunition crate. He had holstered his pulse pistol. Ayan didn’t bother guessing where he’d gotten it, probably from some storage locker on the Samson somewhere, but she did take note that Leland’s Crewcast profile stated that he wasn’t allowed to bear arms. The scorch marks on the ammunition container made it clear that he’d tried more than once to shoot it open.

  "He's not alone, Captain," called out another man angrily. His voice was identified as Edward Sherman, and Ayan noticed a red flag, posted by Oz about an incident that took place on the flight control deck. The crowd shuffled a little so he could join Leland and hand him a cutting torch. "I think it's about time we get paid so we can get away from you and your disastrously reckless leadership."

  Jake's hand came to rest on the hilt of his handgun, whether by reflex or as a foreshadow of intent, Ayan didn't hazard to guess.

  Edward took an exaggerated step back, throwing his hands up. "What are you going to do now? Shoot me? I should have expected-"

  "That's enough!" Jake barked. "You're taking money that we'll need for food, to buy supplies, for repairs."

  "So you can what? Go after your stolen ship? Didn't anyone tell you? It's over! The Triton and whoever stayed behind are either dead or in shackles by now. I'm taking my money and signalling for a lift!" He reached down to one of the crates.

  Jake twitched his sidearm out of its holster and shot Edward in the hip. Before most had realized what had happened, Ja
ke was dropping his weapon back into its holster. "Next one won't be a stun shot!" he called out.

  Edward fell to the ground flailing. Ayan knew it was nothing more than theatrics, the energy carried no force and it couldn't penetrate the man's vacsuit.

  "Security Chief! Control this crowd!" Jake ordered.

  Under the efficient direction of Chief Stephanie Vega, her men and two squads who arrived from another ship rushed in, took possession of the cash laden crates and separated everyone into smaller groups. Ayan couldn’t help but smile a little as she saw Stephanie yank Leland’s pistol out of its holster and tuck it into her belt.

  "This is criminal! You have no authority here! I'll report you as soon as I see civilization again!" shouted Edward as he was pressed away from the Samson's main cargo ramp with a small group.

  Ayan listened in on Chief Vega's instructions and watched as they were carried out with impressive efficiency. Most of the people with her were deserter Aucharian soldiers who had remained aboard shortly after Jake had taken the Triton. Several others were former Pandem rebels.

  Alaka finished rounding up the runners and spotted his family. Iloona was surrounded by their children, she quietly allowed herself to be sorted off into a group on the side. Alaka didn't bother asking to see them, and no one objected when he joined them for a reunion.

  The thirteen of them looked strange with their fur pressed flat under thin vacsuits, but the love of the family was plain. His older children cuddled close to their parents, two of Alaka's sons climbed on top of him, eventually settling leisurely on his shoulders.

  "All right, this is going to be simple," Jake started over the general Crewcast channel. The two hundred nine people who had managed to squeeze onto the Samson were just settling, and several of them were just starting to protest their predicament.

  The clouds had rolled in overhead and the first smatterings of rain were starting to fall. Ayan checked her environmental display and breathed a sigh of relief as she saw it was harmless water. It would even be clean enough to drink in a pinch. She heard the collection panels open on the Clever Dream behind her, and saw that the same was happening on several of the former raider ships.