by Ryk Brown
“Are you all right, sir?” the sergeant major asked, noticing Willard’s start.
“Yes, of course,” Willard insisted. “It is this foul air,” he lied. “Most unpleasant.”
“Yes, it does take some getting used to,” the sergeant major agreed as he pulled the data chip from his reader and handed it back to the Lieutenant. “Everything appears to be in order, sir,” the sergeant major stated respectfully. “You may proceed, sir.”
“Thank you, Sergeant Major.” Willard struggled to maintain control, feeling he would surely fall to his knees with relief at any moment. He just had to continue the charade for a few more minutes. “Sergeant of the guard!”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” the volunteer dressed as a Takaran sergeant responded.
“You may load the inductees.”
“Yes, sir!” the sergeant answered. “Attention on the line!” he bellowed at the group of inductees, causing the group to immediately come to attention. “You are about to board the shuttles. When you do so you will move to the back and be seated in an orderly fashion. The first group will board the shuttle on the left. The second group will board the shuttle on the right. If you are too stupid to know your right from your left, just follow the man in front of you. If you are too stupid to do that, then just drop dead right where you are, because you are a waste of air and will not be allowed aboard my shuttles. Now, single file, move out!”
The inductees began boarding as per the sergeant’s orders. Within a few minutes, all two hundred of them were aboard and the guards divided into two groups, four to a shuttle, following the inductees on board.
“Sergeant Major,” Willard began, “it has been a pleasure.”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant, but will your captain be coming down? Our commanding officer claims to be an old friend and was hoping to visit with him.”
“I am afraid not,” Willard explained. “We are on the last leg of a three-year patrol, and Captain de Winter in quite a hurry to get home… as are we all, for that matter.”
“I understand,” the sergeant major said. “I am sure you are anxious to get the refit started.”
“Yes, the refit, indeed,” Willard responded, even though he had no idea what the sergeant major was speaking of.
“Please convey my commanding officer’s greeting to your captain, and his regrets that duty prevented them from enjoying one another’s company.”
“I shall do so, Sergeant Major.”
The sergeant major snapped a salute, which Willard quickly returned before spinning around in the same pompous manner as most noblemen.
The sergeant major watched as Willard marched away. “Arrogant nobles,” he muttered to himself.
* * *
Though not as organized and efficient as the cities on Corinair, Ancot city, the planet’s only major metropolis, had a character all its own. The city was situated along a large, nearly enclosed bay, and was built up along all its shores. Two-thirds of the planet’s surface was covered with water, and most of the land was relatively flat with only a few mountainous areas in the upper latitudes.
On Ancot, the weather was almost always the same: morning showers, sunny afternoons, and partly cloudy evenings. It rained daily at least half the year, and weekly the other half. While a nuisance for planning outdoor events, it was perfect for agriculture. Nearly every stitch of arable land was used for growing crops, and any land that had not been cultivated was used to support the planets massive agricultural industry. Nearly ninety percent of the food grown on Ancot was eaten by people living elsewhere, and most of those lived in the Takaran system.
Ask any Ancotan and they’d tell you that the Ta’Akar didn’t conquer their planet, they invested in it. The people of Ancot lived good, healthy lives because they produced what the Takarans needed most, food. For this reason, being a Karuzari on Ancot was not an easy task.
The military staff vehicle pulled up in front of one of the best hotels in the downtown area of Ancot city. An attendant immediately opened the passenger door to the vehicle and helped the lady out. Jalea stood and looked about.
“May I get your bag, miss?” the attendant asked politely.
“Yes, please,” she answered, pointing to the back seat. She leaned into the front door of the vehicle. “Thank you, Corporal. I will be fine from here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the corporal answered as she closed the door.
“Checking in, miss?” the attendant answered as the vehicle pulled away. It was a logical assumption on the attendant’s part, considering Jalea’s attire.
“Yes, but I would like to use the restroom first,” Jalea told him.
“Of course, miss. Across the lobby and to the right, near the side entrance,” he directed.
“Thank you,” Jalea answered, taking her bag from him and draping it over her shoulder. The attendant opened the door for her and she entered the lobby. Strolling across the open floor, she looked every bit the royal auditor her credentials claimed.
Jalea found the restrooms exactly where the attendant had indicated. After pausing for a moment to make sure no one was paying her undue attention, she entered the restroom.
The inside of the restroom was quite large, with rows of doors down each side. She continued down the length of the room until she found a door that showed ‘available’ and stepped inside. As the door clicked shut, the light in the little room came on. There was a sink, a toilet, a mirror, and several hooks on the wall. All the nicer hotels were equipped in this manner, with individual private rooms instead of rows of semi-private stalls. It was for this reason she had asked the corporal to take her to one of the nicer hotels. Besides maintaining her cover, she needed privacy for the next step of her mission.
Twenty minutes later, the door to her room opened and Jalea stepped out into the main foyer of the restroom again. This time, her brown hair and green eyes were gone, replaced with blonde hair and blue eyes, like so many of the Ancotans. Gone, also, was her fashionable business suit, replaced by attire more fitting a young Ancotan woman. She slung her bag—which had changed from black like her business suit to pale blue to match her dress—back over her shoulder as she headed across the foyer. Her walk had changed as well. Instead of her previous business-like stride, she now swung her hips more subtly from side to side in the same manner as most young women about the town in Ancot city.
She exited the restroom foyer back into the lobby and headed out the side entrance. The afternoon sun was warm and bright. She donned her sunglasses and continued down the street, blending into the crowd. Jalea Torren was now undercover on Ancot.
* * *
The inductees stared out the windows of the shuttle as it approached what they thought was the Ta’Akar warship, Yamaro. None of them had ever seen a warship. Most of them had never left their home planet for that matter. However, more than a few of them had seen images of many of the empire’s ships, and those that had seen such images were quite sure that the ship they were about to land on did not belong to the Ta’Akar.
The men began talking among themselves, first in whispers. Soon, the whispers became louder. Then, they began to escalate into shouts as they demanded to know what was happening. Within minutes of the first sighting of the Aurora, Ensign Willard had to order his guards to shoot anyone who got out of their seat. There were one hundred agitated young men on board the shuttle, and there were only five armed guards including Ensign Willard. In retrospect, it might have been better to seal the windows shut.
Luckily, none of the young men wished to be the first to die at the barrel of a Takaran energy weapon, and they chose to remain in their seats. Ensign Willard promised them that they would not be harmed, that everything would be explained once they landed, and that they would all be kept safe until they could be returned to their homes. He could see in the eyes of most of the inductees that the thought of returning home without having to spend years in service of the empire was enough reason for them to be patient.
* * *
; “Captain, the hangar deck reports the shuttles are in the transfer airlocks,” Naralena reported.
“Very well,” Nathan answered, relief washing over him. It had been a tense few hours as they waited in stellar orbit just beyond Savoy’s fifth planet, Deikon. Finally it was over and they could return to Darvano. “Helm, set course for Takara and accelerate smartly to half-light.”
“Aye, Captain,” Josh answered. “Changing course for Takara. Accelerating smartly to half-light."
“Doctor,” Nathan said, turning toward Abby, “as soon as we exit the system, jump us to a few light months along our course to Takara. Then we’ll decelerate, change course for Darvano, and jump home.”
“Yes, Captain,” Abby answered.
Nathan rose from his seat and headed for the exit.
“Where are you going?” Jessica asked.
“To meet Tug in the hangar deck,” Nathan told her. “There are a couple hundred farm boys from Ancot who need some answers.”
“What are you going to tell them?” Jessica asked.
“Only what I have to, Jess. You have the bridge.”
Chapter Eight
“Tug, Aurora. You are clear to launch,” Naralena’s voice came over the comms.
“Aurora, Tug. Launching.” Tug fired a blast of his ascent thrusters, pushing his interceptor up and away from the flight apron of the Aurora. The jolt pressed him down in his seat for a moment as his ship leapt upward, quickly climbing above the Aurora’s massive drive section. “Aurora, Tug. I’m clear.”
“Copy, Tug. See you on the other side,” Naralena answered.
Tug looked out his canopy as the Aurora fired her main engines and began to pull away from him. By the time her engine ports passed under him, she had already shut down her drive, having gained enough additional speed to pull away from them at an acceptable rate. Within a minute, the massive ship was no more than an abnormally large, irregularly shaped gray dot against the background of stars. There was a flash of blue-white light, and she was gone.
“That’s what it looks like when you jump?” the man’s voice asked.
“Yes, that’s what it looks like, Mister Cauley,” Tug responded.
“A little frightening, is it not?” Mister Cauley commented.
Tug could hear the nervousness in the scientist’s voice. As much as Tug had urged for this to be a solo test flight of the new, miniature jump drive installed in his interceptor, the Corinairans had insisted that one of their team needed to be present to monitor the performance of the system during the tests. Unfortunately for Mister Cauley, he had been considered the most qualified for the ride.
The Karuzari had vehemently protested the idea of their leader conducting the test flight, but Tug had stood firm in his decision, stating that no one was more qualified to deal with whatever emergency might come about during the tests. He and Josh were currently the only two pilots in the system that were qualified to pilot the interceptor, and Josh had only flown it a few times. There were many pilots on Corinair, of course, all of which could be taught to pilot the interceptor, but time was short. Jalea had already been on Ancot for two weeks without any contact, as the Aurora did not want to risk exposure in the Savoy system again so soon after her mission masquerading as the Yamaro.
In the end, Tug had won the argument, and Mister Cauley had lost. The knowledge that he would be forever registered in Corinairan history as the first of his people to operate such a system didn’t seem to ease the poor man’s tension. Tug smiled to himself as he remembered how difficult it had been to get the terrified man into the cockpit of the interceptor. As they had walked across the Aurora’s hangar bay toward the interceptor, he had feared the scientist’s legs were about to give out. Fortunately in the end, the man had summoned up enough courage to climb into the cockpit. It was either courage or fear of looking silly in front of his fellow Corinairans, as most of them would’ve given anything to be the one climbing into the interceptor.
“Mister Cauley,” Tug called over his helmet comm, “are you ready?”
“No,” he responded. “Are they even in position yet? I mean, they have to go a whole light hour. That’s about a billion kilometers.”
“They arrived at the same instant they disappeared, Mister Cauley,” Tug told him, “just like we will.”
“Thanks. That last part really helped.”
“How does everything look back there?” Tug asked. He could monitor the miniature jump drive from his position in the front seat as well, as the ship had been designed to be operated by one pilot. However, the scientist was there for a reason, and keeping his mind focused on the task at hand was likely to keep his thoughts away from what was about to take place.
“Everything appears normal,” he reported. “The reactors are running at one hundred percent, the energy banks are fully charged, and the jump drive is ready. Jump algorithm is plotted, verified, and locked.”
“Very well,” Tug said. “Accelerating forward.” Tug pushed his throttles forward, causing his main engines to ignite and come up to one percent thrust. They were already moving forward at considerable speed, as they had carried the Aurora’s momentum with them when they had lifted off her deck. However, the first test jump had been calculated and recalculated by the Corinairans prior to this flight. It was to occur at an exact point in space on a precise trajectory at a predetermined speed. The Aurora had performed the exact same jump they were about to attempt, according to the exact same plot, in order to compare performance parameters and accuracy between the two ships.
Tug watched his flight display as he maneuvered the interceptor into the center of the indicated flight path. “Activating auto-flight system,” he announced as he touched the screen to turn the auto-flight system on.” The indicator turned green. “Auto-flight now has control,” Tug announced. “Jump point in thirty seconds.”
“Oh God,” Mister Cauley mumbled as he frantically scanned every little parameter displayed from his consoles at the rear of the cockpit.
“Mister Cauley,” Tug called, “you will have three choices when we jump. You can either drop your auto-visor first, close your eyes really tight, or be blinded for a few seconds and see a blue dot in your vision for an hour afterward.”
“Huh?”
“I would strongly suggest you drop your auto-visor,” Tug said. “Jump point in ten seconds.” Tug pulled down his auto-visor, which was designed to adjust its light filtering qualities automatically to protect the wearer’s eyes from the bright light often encountered during space flight.
“Oh God,” Mister Cauley repeated, dropping his own auto-visor and locking it in place.
“Jumping in five…”
Mister Cauley scanned his instruments again, checking for any anomalies that would require a last moment abort.
“…four…”
Part of him hoped he would see such an anomaly.
“…three…”
Mister Cauley had no wish to go through with the jump…
“…two…”
…but neither did he want his people’s jump drive program to be set back.
“…one…”
There were no anomalies.
“…jump.”
Blue-white light spilled out from the small emitters spread out across the interceptor. In a split second, the light from each emitter seemed to join into one, covering the entire surface of the ship. As the gaps in the field of light closed, the intensity of the blue-white light quickly rose. Although from Mister Cauley’s perspective it seemed to take forever, it all happened in a fraction of a second. The light flashed, momentarily filling the cockpit with the eerie blue-white glow, and then all was normal again.
“Jump complete,” Tug announced.
Mister Cauley looked around. “Are we there? Did we make it?”
“Checking position,” Tug stated.
“Tug, Aurora,” Naralena’s voice called across the comms. “Report your status.”
“Aurora, Tug. All systems are go
od.”
“Congratulations, Mister Tugwell,” Naralena said. Tug could hear the voices of the Aurora’s crew, as well as the Corinairan scientists from the jump drive program that were observing the test from the Aurora’s bridge, all cheering triumphantly.
“You mean we did it?” Mister Cauley asked in amazement.
“We did it,” Tug answered.
“Oh my God, that was incredible,” Mister Cauley exclaimed.
“You see? I told you it was nothing to worry about,” Tug told him.
“You were right. That was easy!”
Ten minutes later, when they climbed down from the interceptor and were greeted by several dozen Corinairan scientists all cheering and laughing, Tug noticed Mister Cauley had somehow developed a bit of a swagger in his walk. Tug couldn’t help but smile.
* * *
Jalea went into the small home on the outskirts of Ancot city. As usual, it was raining outside. It had actually been raining for several days straight, which was not unusual for Ancot city. She shook off her umbrella and placed it in the corner, removing her poncho as well. She hung it on the wall and then made her way through the part in the heavy curtain that separated the entry foyer from the rest of the home. The video screen was flickering in the corner of the dimly lit room, playing some program that no one was watching.
She made her way across the room and down the short hallway, entering the bathroom at the end of the corridor. After closing the door, she stepped into the shower stall, swinging the stall door closed behind her. She pulled down on the shower head, causing the entire wall to slide forward nearly a meter, creating an opening through which she passed.
The hidden doorway was at the head of a long, narrow staircase that descended some four meters below the home. She could see the glow of light coming from the room at the bottom of the stairs and could hear men speaking in low, hushed tones as she descended the staircase.
The room was large, covering nearly the same area as the entire house above it. The ceilings were low and supported by preformed beams and columns that had been brought down in pieces and then fusion-bonded together in position. The bare dirt and rock had been walled over, and the gaps had been filled with a spray-on foam that provided insulation for both temperature and sound. All in all, the room had a very clean and professional appearance.