Tethered Worlds: Star in Bankruptcy

by Gregory Faccone

  Damn the Sojourners and the Draconem Battle.

  He grimaced, banishing thoughts of personal loss dating back to long adolescence. His ambition would grow parched without unrelenting focus.

  As usual, Starmada units had to be deployed near the Strident Cluster. Another worthless protectorate world, little more than a ghost system, needed to learn the folly of secession. The Perigeum was not a community abandoned without governmental assent. Two-bit powers and backwater Dukedoms infested the region, always looking for new worlds. It was risky using heavy-handed tactics near the Svalbergen Blacksea Corporation's sphere of influence. Yet checking their power— and straining their naval budget, was a goal worth pursuing. Especially under the guise of disciplining a planet not worth a squadron to patrol it.

  Clashes just needed to stay below squadron level. The Svals wouldn't risk their precious ships in large offensives over small provocations. After all, they were poor. A factor that made their pride a secondary consideration, and them vulnerable to accepting questionable but lucrative contracts.

  Fortunately for me.

  He'd freed up more units from Raetia occupation duty. The increasingly worthless system needed less to keep it under thumb. Maintaining the Starmada's allotment of hulls was becoming more difficult in the declining economy of the Perigeum. A problem only exacerbated by losses at Adam's Rush and Windermere.

  But he didn't need many ships to demonstrate the folly of causing trouble for the Perigeum. The ongoing punishment of Raetia was worth the small investment in special forces. It was good for propaganda, especially since the Cohortium was too weak-willed to do anything about it. Of course it had been time to scale back at Raetia almost 50 years before when they had taken back their egress, and it was even more so now. Other deadwood planets came to mind that Janus would also like to excise from the Perigeum tab.

  These woes will be Braksaw's problem soon enough.

  He had little doubt that regardless of anything he might do to prop up Parium, the man, devoid of zest, would lose.

  Spinning a far-off losing battle into political gain is a trick beyond the likes of Parium. He's no warrior king... nor warrior, nor king.

  Raetia was hardly worth the trouble to occupy now that what could be taken was stripped. They'd mined the system with ruthless abandon, always with an eye on the clock, never believing they would be there for so many years.

  Unlike the Cohortium, the Banking Confederation would act when their interests were threatened. They'd succeed in recruiting responsible do-gooders from the Asterfraeo, sending a delegation to rein in their wayward brother.

  I just need to get to Aventicia first.

  Janus deployed ships to far-flung hotspots using the egress network, their unmatchable force multiplier. Disbursing them had a secondary benefit. No large formations would be near Aventicia to interfere with his plans.

  A secure message scrolled across his VADs. He could tell from its anonymous style that it was Dysig. The expected secure package finally arrived from the disorganized bay. It awaited his acceptance as nothing entered his quarters without it.

  With hardly a thought his command chair sank into the deck and the irises closed above him. His dark quarters awakened with dim light as he authorized the hatch. A maintenance bot wheeled in a reinforced case the size of a traditional coffin. A VAD showing Dysig materialized off the bot's projectors.

  “What's wrong with this ship?” Dysig asked. “It's like a skeleton crew of losers.”

  Indeed it is.

  “It's none of your business. Just do your job.”

  “Getting the package to you is part of my job. I had to crack this bot's programming to conscript it.”

  “I'm not interested in excuses.”

  Dysig squinted and his thin mouth compressed. “When it comes to this project, even I need time to wrangle the complexity.”

  Janus watched with mild interest as the maintenance bot settled the container and adjusted controls. It was obvious the contents were frigid.

  “What about the virus? What comes next has no allowance for hitches, no room for misguided heroics by some beached, over-the-hill captain.”

  “I've tried to tell you, Prime Orator, it's much more complex than a virus. I have three high-end attack AIs ready to inject and corrupt—”

  Janus curled his lip. “Spare me the techno-drak. Can you do it or not?”

  “Even my wizardry has limits, but what you've provided should be enough to get me in. It's probably why no one has done anything like this. That said, both projects are unique and need more tuning.”

  The maintenance bot stood away from the container. Janus wiped at icy condensation across its crystal view pane. He spied re-created elegant features. They pleased him despite their artificiality.

  “I normally detest such things, although I may make an exception if this one lives up to your hype.”

  “I remind you, Prime Orator, it'll need frequent software maintenance, at least for the near term. But none are better qualified than I to make it permanently stable. And then we'll both have a significant source of future income.

  “What about this maintenance dolt? I want no records.”

  “I'm going to leave it in front of Bot Central and slag its brain. I doubt your bot wrangler will appreciate it.”

  Janus didn't remove his eyes from the frozen features before him. “Who cares.”

  “You know, only a handful of facilities might be vulnerable to this type of software attack. I doubt even you would unleash it upon Umbria Magnus, which leaves few options.”

  “Watch your tone, Dysig. Hektors are always looking to prove their worth. You wouldn't want to accidentally end up on their list, would you?”

  The bitsmith reined himself in. But his trepidation, Janus surmised, had as much to do with their dangerous and implausible scheme as it did threats. That said something considering Janus was not known for issuing idle threats.

  “Yes, well, I'd rather live to reap the rewards of creating forbidden fruit.”

  “Then get out.” Janus broke his gaze from the container and pushed the maintenance bot toward the hatch. He chose to continue the metaphor. “And see to it your apples bring forth the expected end.”

  ▪ ▫ ▪

  Jordahk looked at the first officer and his cronies along the back wall and couldn't stop a head shake. “My father runs a closed range,” he sub-whispered to Max. “They're safe enough behind the hard air barrier, but they're breaking protocol. I don't think he'll make an issue of it, although I bet the captain will be briefed.”

  Kord ignored them and offered his closing remarks. He made it a point to remember people's shooting skills, and complimented each individual where they'd improved. It was just another reason he never had trouble booking gigs.

  At the end of a seminar he liked to throw in the fun stuff. It gave people something to talk about.

  “What do you say we wrap things up with a demonstration?” Heads bobbed all around. He looked back at the first officer. “Okay. My son will demonstrate confidence course level three, with an autobuss,” Kord finished with a flourish. The clients exchanged glances and whispered. The first officer narrowed his gaze.

  Jordahk rolled his eyes and suppressed a grin. His father trusted him with the finale of the seminar, and with a weapon not suited to the rigid requirements of the course. No doubt the top scorers used race guns, specialized weapons with minimal recoil, finicky match-grade components, and no ability to reconfigure. They weren't practical field weapons.

  “I'll do what I can to help,” Max link-said, “but you've got to get me close.”

  Jordahk nodded to his father, swept the clients with a smile, and stepped up to the line isolated by hard air.

  Max was referring to smart-barrel adjustments an AI made at the point of fire. They could turn a near miss into a hit, but they couldn't save a bad shot, especially at close range.

  “I wonder how big an adjustment a race gun can make?”

 
“More than ours, but that's about all those hunks of metal are good for.”

  Jordahk drew the autobuss across his body from the sling bag. It was unnecessary during the seminar, so this was their clients first look. Murmurs filled the range as the gleaming pearlescent pistol caught the light. Rainbow shimmers reflected across its organic swirl patterns. The Spirit's legacy shell had transformed the weapon last year. He wondered if “autobuss” really described it anymore. It was now a mystic tool mimicking the form of the old pistol.

  “I've turned the recorders off,” Kord commed. “But don't do anything out of the ordinary. You know what I mean. Performing well with an autobuss will be entertainment enough.”

  No one could possibly know what they were seeing when it came to his unique pistol. They'd likely think it some surfacing option. A mental command and a flick opened the breach with a subtle ping. Max presented the ammo in the sling bag, and feeling along them he picked one mystic cartridge to join the five scientum already loaded.

  “We'll reload if we need to. Save the mystic cartridge for the power portion,” Jordahk sub-whispered and holstered.

  Lights counted down then flashed green. He bolted to the first station and drew smoothly with Max controlling the slingbag to present the weapon. His rets displayed the autobuss's reticle which he maneuvered onto the first target. He relaxed for an instant, fired, and didn't look back. He heard his father addressing the clients in the background. Jordahk understood the words but wasn't listening.

  “For those who don't know, an autobuss is about as far from a race gun as you can get,” Kord said. “It's a real world weapon that doesn't power down well. You can see the recoil for yourselves. As far as hardware goes, Jordahk will be at a disadvantage.”

  Jordahk worked through the classic shooting stances, starting with standing, then kneeling, braced kneeling, and finally ending with prone. Targets darted at first, but slowed as range increased and the stances grew more stable.

  His father always insisted that they train for the real world, so Jordahk wore his long coat. The expensive gift from his grandfather became armor when necessary, could camouflage, had a sensor suite, and still did more things than he knew. Right now, he was grateful for its cooling, because his temperature spiked when he slipped out of position trying to get into braced kneeling. The crowd murmured.

  The ghost of eighth place ran by him and faded while the ghost of ninth place appeared just behind. Maybe he could make it up on the long-distance shots. He better make it up in the shoot house. He willed the autobuss to power down some, and to his surprise it did without compromising accuracy.

  This isn't a standard autobuss anymore… I don't know what it is.

  But it was more of a drain on the mystic freecells. For whatever reason, at lower power, the pistol couldn't recoup as much energy with each shot. But he'd make it through the exercise with plenty to spare. A Sojourner's connection with a mystic device joined him to it in a special way. He knew all its functions as if displayed on VADs before him.

  It wasn't the kind of pistol that needed to shoot the same target twice. It hit hard. The distant targets appeared farther than the back of the range through forced perspective and VAD trickery. With the power adjustment, he hit them on the first shot, catching and passing eighth place.

  “Remember what I told you about making your first shot count,” Kord narrated for the clients. “Shooting long range too quickly, before you're ready, only delays aimed shots.”

  By the time Jordahk arrived at the shoot house he was chasing seventh place, and all but out of non-mystic ammo. The course required at least one reload. He kept an eye on the first corner, approaching it while opening the breach and loading more cartridges in mechanical habit.

  “Become familiar with your equipment, so you can reload without looking,” Kord said.

  If nothing else, Jordahk was confident he could gain ground in the shoot house. After all his training against targets that shot back, nothing this exercise could conjure would rattle him. It was interesting that he didn't add his real life deadly encounters—like a desperate battle against armored suits on the egress. Or contending against well-armed Artisan mercenaries in the mining asteroid at Beuker.

  For Khromas' sake, we faced a Hektor on Adams Rush!

  He seemed to always fall back upon his training. As he approached official adulthood he understood more what his parents had done for him over the years. But even so, a level three shoot house was intense. Two civilians ran past him, chased by a hostile. He almost shot all three as his adrenaline pumped, but discipline overrode the impulse. He lunged between the two friendlies and shot the hostile square in the head.

  “Of course, certain moves one shouldn't try without extensive training.” Jordahk could hear the smirk in his father's voice. “And even then some should be reconsidered.”

  Jordahk sliced the pie of the next room, scoping it out wedge by wedge as he rounded the corner. But his progress was faster than could be safely done. A flailing hostage target surprised him, and broke his rhythm. The hostage taker stayed behind his human shield, barely exposing his head.

  The bad guy peeked around once, then again, but Jordahk missed the opportunities. When finally poised to shoot, he couldn't afford to burn any more time waiting for a third exposure. Taking a hit, shooting the hostage, or failure to save the innocent would cost serious points and almost certainly knock him out of top-tier contention. He took a chance, broke protocol, and charged.

  In real life, a hostage taker might just aim through the pistol's gun-eye, staying out of direct sight. That wasn't the case here. He kept peeking around his hostage to aim, and Jordahk put one in his cranial ocular cavity while moving. The crowd murmured, but Jordahk paid it no mind. He had to gain places to substantiate his father's faith and justify the practical skills they taught. And, to be honest, he didn't like the first officer's air of superiority.

  When Jordahk encountered his first heavy-duty enemies, armored humans and bots, it heralded the most aggressive final section. Now the enemies would take it to him, and shoot first.

  “Save our five mystic shots for the bots and armored humans.”

  In the next room Jordahk battled alongside the ghost of third place. While engaging two hostiles, a door opened up from behind. A bot entered. At level three a red line flashed in the air for less than a second along the trajectory of an enemy shot. It encouraged participants to keep moving and not plant themselves. It also provided some small opportunity to dodge incoming fire.

  In the span of a second many things happened. Jordahk sensed the mystic ammo being chambered and with a push of heat powered the autobuss beyond normal. A red line flashed, just touching his side. He contorted away from it, letting go of the autobuss with his support hand and putting one into the center of the bot single handed. The powerful shot caused the pistol to buck. The bot flashed out of existence without the usual animation. Perhaps the simulator AI wasn't expecting such power.

  A loud metal smack reverberated in the range. His shot had penetrated the soft air walls generated to bolster the reality of the shoot house simulation. The hum of extra range systems kicking in joined the increasing cooling of his coat.

  The third place ghost put two shots on the bot, but it still wasn't enough to take it out. Before he could fire a third the bot took him out. The ghost winked out, transported back who knew how many places, and was replaced by the ghost of second place.

  Jordahk raced around the next turn and stopped short. He was face to face with a man in armor about to fire. Jordahk fired a haphazard snap shot, which missed, and threw himself back behind the wall. The ghost of number two moved past him.

  “Radiated ingots!”

  The armored man wore no head protection. Without hesitation Jordahk exposed himself again but continued to move. Surprise would be on his side. The enemy took aim, but Jordahk silenced him with a single well-placed regular shot. But his movement revealed another armored man in the room—fully armored. Max
re-chambered the autobuss again while Jordahk veered hard. A red line appeared as Jordahk put a shot on the armored man's center-of-mass. A head shot would take too long. He had to count on the power of the autobuss.

  The armored man crumpled as if his midsection was hit with a giant log. Apparently the simulation had caught up with the power of the autobuss. The ghost of number two was still shooting when Jordahk left him behind and saw ahead the ghost of the first officer.

  Even in ghost form Jordahk could tell the man used a race gun contraption. It wrapped around the hand, over the wrist and affixed to the forearm. It was the least practical thing he'd seen on any ghost. The course was almost over. If he was going to catch the first officer it had to be now.

  The last challenge started with an old-school door. Jordahk kicked it down, feeling the feedback of soft air. Four armored enemies faced him. His training forced out panic. The scenario required both power and speed, but also benefited from tactical movement. His father inculcated lining up enemies where possible. Jordahk hadn't froze at the sight of four assailants, and kept moving to make them overlap.

  The first officer's ghost stayed behind to overwhelm the four assailants with rapidity of shots punctuated by short, dodging steps. An effective strategy, if not the real-world safest. When encountering multiple hostiles, Jordahk was taught to put one shot on each of them and then come back to those that required more to be stopped. Only three mystic shots remained. The enemy was already spreading back out as to not shoot each other.

  His face flushed with heat and he felt his ears burning. His next two shots connected with hostiles, propelling one backwards, and spinning the second. The third fired. Jordahk slid on his knees to dodge the red line and fired, also missing.

  But the knee slide swept the third's legs. He fell face down, but still aimed his weapon. Having fallen also opened a line for the fourth hostile. Two red lines converged on Jordahk. On his knees they were almost impossible to dodge. It was a mistake to go down like that. Desperation drove him into a prone position and he rolled like a log, aiming at the hostiles. One shot hit his leg.