Frontline sf-4

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Have you seen the footage of this Valance character? You two are nothing alike, Jonas was nothing like him either.”

  “You didn't know Jonas. He knew how to speak to his crew, how to build their confidence. Jake does the same thing only he inspires people to fight for what's right. I've seen the profile Fleet has on him, and I've seen the speech he gave in the Enreega system. Even if he didn't have Jonas' memories, he'd be someone I wouldn't pass the chance at meeting.”

  “Would you cross further into the outer fringes of the galaxy to meet him? You don't even know what you're risking! It's war out there, Regent Galactic against everyone else and they're winning. There are even reports of the Eden Fleet expanding their territory. Just stay here until things settle down.”

  Ayan closed her eyes and just tried to relax for a moment before replying. “I don't want to leave like this, but I'm going. With or without your blessing, even your permission, it doesn't matter,” she looked to her mother who looked beaten, worn down.

  “I was afraid of this. I wish we had taken the scan years before,” she said quietly as she handed Ayan a small velvet drawstring bag.

  “What's this?” she asked as she carefully looked inside. Its contents weighed several ounces despite being palm sized.

  “I just finished collecting all of Ayan's records, research and personal journals from after the scan. The scan results are in there as well. Doctor Anderson gave the chip to me this morning, it can't be copied. I have all her things in storage for you. You can look at them before you leave if you like. They'll be here when you get back if you don't take the time.”

  ' Ayan's records' was what she said. Not 'her records,' not 'what she did after the scan was taken.' “I'll never be your daughter. Not your real daughter, will I?”

  Her mother's eyes went wide. “Of course you are,” she whispered with urgency.

  “No, I'll be the replacement, maybe the second generation, but I'll never be as real to you. Even if I were, what's to say you'd be around this time? You weren't around for me when I needed you last time, so why now?”

  “I made mistakes before and I'm sorry. We have a second chance now and I can do better. I just need time.”

  Ayan looked at her, she was desperate, near tears, but it was too late. As much as it hurt to leave her like that, it was time for her to find her way back to a life she enjoyed living, to engage in another challenge. She closed the distance between them and embraced her mother again. “I love you Mom,” she whispered. Despite the frustration, anger and resentment she felt towards the woman, she was absolutely sincere.

  Silence was the first response, but as her mother put her arms around her she whispered; “I love you too.”

  She drew back slowly and looked up. “I have to go, but I'll be back.”

  Her mother took her face in both of her hands, something she hadn't done since Ayan was a little girl and looked her right in the eyes. Ayan hadn't seen Jessica Rice so much as tear up for ages, but there were tears rolling down her cheeks as she locked her gaze with her mother. “Be careful. I promise I'll do everything I can to pave the way for the Triton's return here if that's what it takes to have you home. You're my daughter, I'll do everything I can to help you have a good life. I am so proud of you, no matter where your life takes you.”

  “Thank you,” Ayan whispered, blinking away tears of her own.

  They embraced again for a long moment, taking comfort in her mother's tight embrace.

  Lucius Wheeler The Second

  The chill of High Valley combined with falling snow and rising humidity would have been picturesque if Lucius was better dressed, but in his weathered miner's jumpsuit it was downright freezing. Planetary shuttles weren't always maintained as well as space vessels, and that couldn't have been more evident to Lucius as he piloted the small four person air car and bashed the heater in the dash with his fist. It ground for several seconds, sputtered and clicked loudly before it came on to offer a brief burst of hot air before stopping altogether. The thick chill was nipping at his ears, his bald head and rough, calloused fingers. If there was anything he hated it was the cold.

  “Next time I'll just steal a proper hopper,” he grumbled as he jerked the stiff throttle lever. Wheeler could plainly see his breath in front of him, the windscreen was starting to fog up again and the right turbine was making an ominous rattling sound as he cleared a line of tall evergreen trees standing out from a low ridge.

  Several roughly built sheet steel buildings came into view and he grinned. The entire valley basin was filled with old hulls from small ships, mounds covered with tarpaulins, and hastily built shacks with severely sloped steel roofs. Makeshift hangars for small and medium sized craft, he assumed. There was a larger spot in front of a more permanent looking structure that had been cleared as a landing space.

  Without much consideration for the air car's landing gear he descended, touching down hard enough for him to bounce in his seat. As Lucius disembarked a fellow with rheumy, awkwardly bent fingers came out of the large barn. His winter coat and thick clothing looked like it had gone unwashed for decades, his white and grey hair was roughly tied back in a ponytail and his beard was bound up by a small band. “You're Wheeler?” he asked with a thick Asian accent. He must have grown up on an inner or upper core world, Wheeler supposed.

  He nodded and closed up his thin insulated jacket. Lucius constantly found himself missing his vacsuit. “Osamu?” he asked.

  “Yes. When Gomez told me what you wanted I could not believe.”

  “Do you have the mass conversion unit?”

  “It is in here,” Osamu said as he turned away. “I have brought some chairs so you may choose where you sit, and I brought what medical supplies I have.”

  “I won't need them, don't worry.”

  The large barn was host to an old disarmed fighter, a small lifter ship and an interplanetary sports vessel that had seen better days. Right in front of it all was a large device with a wide, rectangular aperture at the front. It was old, but looked like just what Wheeler needed, a mass recycler with a quick burn rate, made to convert heavy materials into energy in the space of milliseconds. There were several chairs of different heights lined up in front of it. “This thing can burn through fifty kilos of hardened metal in less than half a second?” Wheeler asked.

  “Yes, it works very quickly,” the other fellow replied reassuringly as he made sure the thick power cables were connected securely to the rear. “You pay me first.”

  Lucius pulled a soft bag from his pocket and tossed it to Osamu. “That's enough for the machine and a small working ship.”

  His fingers were in the small bag, clumsily turning it inside out and pinching a small green diamond between his fingers. Carefully he dropped it atop a small, beat up hand scanner and nodded. “You are generous but I don't know if you will be able to fly once you use the machine.”

  Wheeler sat in one of the higher chairs and adjusted the height. “As long as this thing works as quickly as you say, I'll have no problem. Got something to test it?”

  Osamu nodded and picked up two thick, meter long logs and tossed them into the dark aperture of the mass converter. He retrieved the beaten control box attached to a thick cable and pointed out the activator switch. “Press here once, safety is off. Press here twice, big red button, and everything inside is made into energy.”

  He followed directions and cringed at the high screech the machine made as the logs disintegrated into fine splinters and disappeared in less than half a second. It was violent but quick.

  Every instinct he had told him to get out of there as fast as he could, to leave the barn, the machine and the valley behind but he knew he didn't have any real choice. The receiver in his head had been deactivated, now he just needed to finish removing whatever Vindyne or Regent Galactic had built into him.

  He turned the unit off and shifted in his chair, rolling it forward and locking the wheels. The yawning opening accepted his legs all the way up to th
e middle of his thighs all too easily. His palms were immediately sweaty despite the cold, there was a knot in his stomach and a fear unlike anything he had ever known raging like an inferno in his brain.

  Osamu put his hand on the other man's and fixed him with a look of urgent concern. “I cannot let you do this! It is crazy.”

  “I have to do this old man, someone put a dangerous device inside my leg bones, just above the knees.”

  “You can't remove?” he made a sawing motion with his hand. “While you're asleep?”

  “No, if I try to remove it too slowly it'll go off killing me and everyone nearby. Trust me old timer, if there was any other way…” Wheeler said as he pushed the old man's hand away from the control. “Any other way,” he took a deep breath, turned the safety off, pressed the activation button once, began to exhale shakily and pressed it again.

  The pain was no surprise, his whole body convulsed as everything below his mid thigh was shredded and converted into energy. He fell to the floor screaming, his head bashed against the base of the mass converter, its humming filled his senses between cries of pain.

  The blood was a surprise, there was so much. I should have tied tourniquets. He found himself thinking as the pain lessened a little. He opened his eyes and saw his framework skeleton performing its magic.

  Replacement bones appeared, followed by working, moving muscle, sinew, flesh and finally skin. The whole ordeal only took ten seconds, but it was an experience he'd never forget and never wanted to relive. He laughed and slowly came to his feet, looking at the stunned old man. “Could you throw in some new shoes for the freakshow?”

  Osamu turned and quickly shuffled off to one of many old trunks lining a section of the sheet metal wall. A couple minutes later he returned with a pair of old work boots and an insulated jumpsuit that was in even worse condition than the one he had arrived in. Lucius was already scanning his new legs with a brand new hand tool. “All gone. Thanks to you Regent Galactic can't set me off whenever they get the urge.”

  “Regent Galactic?” the older fellow said in dismay. “You go now, take Intrepid model. Good ship, I just finish rebuilding,” he handed Wheeler the jumpsuit and boots then pointed to the small ship at the front of his barn. It would easily fit through the tall doors.

  “You're not going to tell anyone about this, right?” Wheeler said as he took his jacket off and started to pull the jumpsuit on.

  “No, no one will hear,” he replied vehemently, waving his hands between them as though warding Wheeler off.

  “Good, because I'll know if you spread the word.”

  Wheeler settled into the pilot seat of the small, sporty short range interplanetary vessel and entered the code Osamu had given him. The tiny holographic display ran through the code list and then acknowledged him as the new owner. As the reactor started he watched Osamu run to a tall locker and retrieve a small pressure washer. He's really going to clean everything up right away, he'll probably put the mass converter in the back too, out of sight. Old guy's smarter than he looks. I probably won't have to come back and kill him before I leave this rock.

  He checked the small, cheaply made communication and organizing unit on his wrist and saw that he was running out of time. “Damn, can't be late to meet Gabriel. No telling what that freak'll do if I'm not there on his schedule.”

  With the reactor reading ready, the environmental controls heating the inside of the small, streamlined ship, he slowly lifted off and guided the vessel out through the front of the barn. “Free at last oh baby! Free at last! ” He laughed manically and drummed his feet against the cockpit floorboards. “Time to see what's what and work my way back up from the bottom!”

  The flight to Erdon was uneventful until he reached the radius mark, two hundred kilometres away from the neglected port. He transmitted the twenty credit Navnet fee and followed the trajectory assigned to him by the automated system. Coming down below the clouds Lucius could see the excuse for a port he was actually landing in.

  Pit mining was common on Lectivus V, and one of the oldest sites had been roughly fortified and turned into Erdon Port. Extending hundreds of meters below the surface, the tapering pit was host to hotels, bars, mooring and landing sites for smaller ships, port stores and zealous traders who paid far too much for small booths and patches of ground along the major walkways.

  He guided his ship down to a landing patch outside the yawning pit city only just large enough for it and input his locking code as the engines wound down. “Damn, this ship can't be more than ten years old but the engines have gotta be fifty,” he stood and squeezed between the four seats behind him in the main cabin and opened an access hatch. He was greeted by a mess of cables and small components. Picking a small blackened box with numerous ports sticking out from all sides he chuckled. “Universal converters? There's no way I'm taking this thing into hyperspace,” he stuffed the tangle of cables back into the compartment and made sure nothing had become disconnected. “Good thing I paid for this heap with a stolen diamond, otherwise I'd feel ripped.”

  The trip between the landing spot and his destination took him through the winding tunnels leading into the city proper. A true cultivation world, Lectivus V played host to buyers, miners, loggers, prospectors and anyone else who prayed on them or had just been stuck there, like him. Hallways and merchant spaces were just barely fit for use and despite the smell and sight of the open walkways eroding under the constant traffic of millions of beings on foot, being on one of the main paths open to the cold air was a relief.

  Avoiding crowds of people trying to get where they were going was an art form and he fit into the crowd all too well. He certainly looked the part, especially in the old, filthy jumpsuit he had taken from the old man, but years of hiding in plain sight while he worked for Intelligence, then captained the Triton gave him the instincts and habits one required when navigating through a press of people. Those memories only served him subconsciously, however. Regent Galactic had built a biocircuit that suppressed concious recollection until he was reactivated.

  He'd never forget what he was doing when the reactivation signal reached him. His hands had worn permanent grooves into the excavation scoop controls he had manipulated for over a year while he earned a pathetic wage in an open pit mine. The place was just ninety miles from Erdon and he never wanted to see it again. It was a good thing too, since he shutdown the excavator and

  walked off the job the instant he realized he wasn't just some lost miner trapped on Lectivus V.

  The place he had planned to meet Gabriel had become a regular haunt for Wheeler over the time he had spent as a miner. Lombardy's was just a rectangular room held up by old metal netting filled with chairs and tables. Down one side was a bar, behind were crates and boxes on their sides so the bottle caps faced the bartender. They were stacked half way to the rough ceiling. The place couldn't afford the power costs for a materializer, so they overcharged for cheap beverages and worse food.

  Wheeler looked around, there were twenty three people seated in mismatched chairs. He took a seat on a stool at the bar. “Just gimmie a Fobar and Candorian Lager,” he ordered from the bartender.

  The gruff, grey faced woman shook her head as she took a brown meal replacement bar out from under the counter and dropped it in front of Lucius. “No Candarian Gold Lager hon, doubt they'll get any out to us this month,” she said offhandedly.

  “You'd think they'd treat the most resource rich world in the sector a little better, considering the markup on an ounce of anything worth taking out of the solar system. I'll just take what you've got on tap.”

  “Markup's so high 'cause people are greedy, not on account of how much they pay you diggers,” she finished pouring a tall pint of dark yellow beer and put it down in front of Wheeler as he unwrapped the slim compressed fodder bar. “If you spent half as much on food as you did what you drink you might get some meat on those bones.”

  “I'd care if they were my bones. Being RG brand doesn't do much fo
r the self esteem.”

  “Did you meet with my friend?”

  “Yup, Gomez set me up with the man who had just the right machine. Got rid of that stuff I was holding just fine.”

  “Glad to hear it. What kind of junk were you destroyin' that needed a mass converter with so much power anyhow?”

  He finished chewing a bite of the dense, gritty meal bar before looking up at her seriously. “Like you too much to let you in on that, Lucy. We're all better of with it gone though, a whole lot better off.”

  “Our man of mystery, Lucius Wheeler,” she shook her head as she wiped the crumbs from his short meal off the bar with a damp rag.

  “Any news from civilized parts?”

  “Sure, galaxy's getting her teeth kicked in. Every civilized world this side of the core is covered in mad bots with minds of their own or the Eden Fleet is ripping the hell out of everything in their way. Regent Galactic is doing their best to pick up the pieces, but…” she shrugged.

  “What a life. We're all getting to watch the fourth fall from a safe distance. I haven't met anyone who can afford an AI on this rock and as it turns out it makes all us poor ones the safest bunch in the galaxy. Here's to the meek getting their due.”

  “Yup, who knew bein' poor would pay off in the end. Still, don't think this is so bad as it's the fourth fall of man. Galaxy's still turning, sun's still warm, we're still eating.”

  “Well, I'm still stuck here, you're still stuck back there, who cares if the galaxy's burning?”

  “Could be worse I guess,” Lucy said mildly. She looked up as the door opened to admit a thin, sickly looking man with scraggly long dark hair and a tall woman with angular features. She made her companion look even sicklier in comparison, she was the picture of health in a slightly loose fitting dark blue vacsuit, her long red hair pulled back into a ponytail. After glancing around the fluorescent lit bar room she fixed on Wheeler and smiled. “Don't they look just clean and new, friends of yours?” Lucy asked quietly.