by Andrew Beery
It was then that Sam heard the sound of metal on metal some distance ahead. Again, it was only because of his enhancements that he had been able to do so. Fortunately, these were enhancements that Rhino shared. If the Coalition Senate, and more specifically the BCI had known that the insurgents were using augments to carry out their destabilization program they might have made a better effort to hide their nefarious activities.
Rhino made a circling motion with his hand and pointed back the way they came. There was an access point a few hundred yards back. It was too close to the city center but it seemed it was going to be their only option.
The grate covering the access point was rusted shut, but for a man the size of Rhino this was of little concern. The sound of rusty hinges being forced was loud in Sam’s ears. He could only hope the BCI personnel working their way through the tunnels were too far back to hear it or where making too much noise in their own right.
Rhino finally got the grate opened and signaled Sam to climb the metal ladder ahead of him. The rungs were slimy with years of ‘God knows what’ coating them. Sam tried hard not to think about it. He could see the light of the city above him peeking through the holes of the manhole cover that guarded the street-level entrance to the sewer systems.
With all the advancements humanity had made over the last several hundred years, especially now that the bulk of Heshe technology was no longer available, it seemed amazing that the best solution for covering a sewer entrance still came down to a heavy metal lid. In this case, the heavy lid covered a hole on the corner of Nine Tomorrows and Martian Way.
Sam gently pushed the metal disc up. The sound of the city effectively drowned out any noise he made… unfortunately it also hid the sounds of people – in this case heavily armed BCI agents, standing on the street waiting for him and Rhino to emerge from the sewer depths.
***
“Wow, that is a lot of muscle floating in orbit,” Ben remarked to no one in particular. The bridge of the GCP Yorktown was otherwise quiet as the ship made its way, under heavy escort, into a polar orbit of the ninth planet.
Ken looked over to his First Officer. “Makes one wonder why they need it. Keep all stations on yellow alert until further notice, Number One.”
“Aye Captain, All stations at condition yellow until further notice,” Ben echoed.
Cat nodded her agreement. Yellow alert meant all stations where manned and ready to go to a higher alert status in a moment’s notice. Sensors were online and actively sweeping the surrounding area. Weapons, while not hot, were ready and manned. Shields were powered up at 10% but the collectors on the hyperfield emitters were fully energized and could go to full power in a fraction of a millisecond. Cat turned to the communications officer. “Ziggy, signal the Relentless. Ask them to remain dark and to launch stealth probes in a picket formation around both the planet and the hyperfield entry points we know of. The Mador and the Exeter are to maintain active scans. I want everybody intent on watching the three of us so that the Relentless continues unnoticed.”
Ziggy straighten in his seat. “Captain, we are being hailed. A Chief Administrator Collins from the planet surface.”
“On screen,” Ken ordered.
A middle-aged man with a heavily receding hairline filled the forward viewscreen.
“What? Oh… only a 2D imagine… is that the best you can do?” The man said to someone off screen. Some type of mumbled response was made and the man looked mollified but not happy. Turning back to the screen, he spoke as if noticing the people on the other end of the connection for the first time.
“Greetings… ah… Yorktown. I am Chief Administer Victor Collins. Can you please identify yourselves? We seem to have some confusion as to who you are.”
Cat stepped forward. The reaction from the Chief Administrator was immediate. Clearly Cat had not been visible in his limited view of the Yorktown’s bridge.
“We have identified ourselves. I am Admiral Catherine Kimbridge in command of this taskforce. My ComSec ID is Sierra Tango Foxtrox Niner Five One. Auth Code Whiskey Three. Voice confirm and acknowledge.”
The man looked off to his left for a few seconds. When he turned back, his face was ashen. “We confirm your codes… Admiral but as you know, voice prints are very easy to forge and have not been accepted for authentication for many years.”
Cat smiled. “We seem to be a few years behind the times. What is currently used for authentication within the Coalition?”
Victor Collins raised his right hand and showed his palm. “Birth tax ident-chips.”
“Birth tax?” Ben mumbled.
Cat ignored her friend. “I’m afraid, sir, that ident-chips were not in use when we deployed.”
“So it is your contention that you have traveled forward in time… is that it?” Collins scoffed.
“It is,” Cat said grimly. The Administrator’s attitude was anything but cordial. “We travelled deep into Earth’s past in order to address a proxy challenge issued by the Agur between the Heshe and the Uruk.”
“And why, pray tell,” Collins continued, “did you not return to your own time?”
Ken responded. “In the same way hyperfield travel is limited to specific route-points… temporal translocation is also now limited.”
“I see,” said Administrator Collins in a voice that clearly indicated his doubt. He shook his head. “I don’t know what type of game you are playing. I don’t know where you managed to dig up those antiques you’re flying nor do I care. I have contacted GCP Sector Security.”
***
Retired Admiral Sherry Melbourne yawned as she turned over in bed to face the sapphire glass window that formed the southern wall of her bedroom. The waves of the Norby Sea gently licked the white sand shore a mere twenty meters from her home. The sun was just above the horizon to the east. She could smell fresh coffee being brewed by her home automation system.
Her commlink beeped again and she realized that it was this that had awaken her.
“Melbourne here,” she answered while attempting to wrestle the last vestiges of sleep out of her voice.
“Admiral, sorry to wake you Ma’am, but we have a situation that needs your attention.”
“And you are?”
“Oh, sorry Ma’am. I’m Jeffery Sagamore, Chief Administrator Collins’ aid.”
“Well Jeffery Sagamore, Chief Administrator Collins’ aid… you do know I am retired… yes?”
“Yes Ma’am… I mean no Ma’am… I mean yes ma’am I know you are retired but this is something that requires your personal attention.”
“And this would be…” Sherry prompted.
“There is a person in orbit who claims to be Catherine Kimbridge.”
***
Harry Bedmore scratched his nose. The odor on the bridge of the AM Brown Recluse was better than most of the ship but unfortunately that was not saying much. The AM designation in the ship’s name was a joke that some unnamed soul had inflicted upon the universe several centuries ago. It stood for “Aye Matey” and was used to designate pirate vessels. Most pirate vessels gleefully added the AM to their names much the same way sea-faring vessels in Earth’s distant past used to fly the skull and crossbones. The Brown Recluse was most definitely a pirate vessel.
Harry sighed. The smell onboard the Recluse took some getting used to. Pirates rarely spent much time, effort or money maintaining their ships. This was because such activities took too much time that could be spent either drunk or high. The captain, for his part, worked very hard to encourage his crew to remain in a state of perpetual stupor. It made it easier to goad them into a frenzy when the time was right to attack a heavily armed merchant vessel.
Harry drank as much as the next guy and if you were to look at him you would see the tell-tale signs of a man under the influence of alcohol. In truth, Harry was one of the few men in the known universe who still had access to fully functional Heshe medical nanites. A gift from his wife, they insured he was never truly drunk… especi
ally when he was working in covert operations.
“Ay just goin’a stand there er are ya goin’a take yer station?”
Harry executed a formal bow and doffed a non-existent hat in an elaborate show of respect for his captain, one Randel Hoffman-Cunningham III.
“Ya cheeky bastard… take yer seat,” the Recluse’s captain grunted.
“May wee, mon Captain!” Harry said with a heavily affected French accent. Harry sat at the navigator’s station. He was a relatively new member of the crew. The previous navigator had taken seriously ill with a particularly nasty case of Montezuma’s revenge. A case that mysteriously hit the man after Harry bought him a drink at the Foundations End pub two star systems ago on Asimov prime.
The Recluse had been lying doggo for the better part of a week. The heavily armed but poorly shielded pirate ship was waiting for a juicy target to emerge from one of Epsilon Reticuli’s two hyperfield route points, EG1 and EG2. The points were a mere six light minutes apart which meant the Recluse was three light minutes from either one.
Over the last week three ships had appeared. Two were military transports that were best ignored. The third was a colony ship that was a tempting target. It had taken some carefully placed tweaks to the ships systems – tweaks put in place by Harry -- to convince the captain to wait for a better opportunity. First the main power failed due to an overloaded relay and then the septic system had backed up when the purging pumps mysteriously reversed. The end result, after all the swearing, was done was that the opportunity had been missed.
“Captain, we have an unescorted fast courier emerging from EG1,” Randy Duggal said from the sensor station. He was a young kid, probably no more than 18 and yet he had been on the Recluse for the better part of five years. He had all the enthusiasm of youth and the absolute conviction that he was invincible. In the brief time Harry had been on the Recluse the young man had been involved in no less than ten fights with men twice his size. Somehow he always managed to survive the encounters with little more than a broken nose or minor concussion. Medical nanites, even the relatively inferior human variety, had no trouble handling such abuses.
“Unescorted?”
“Fat, dumb, and happy sir!”
“Engage the gravity net… let us see what juicy morsel fate has gifted us with today,” the Captain croaked around a long dead and soggy cigar that he still held in his mouth.
The gravity net was a series of small, free-floating hyperfield mines that automatically attached to nearby objects… say the metal hull of a passing starship. Once attached, they rapidly intensified the local Higgs field which resulted in a substantial increase in effective mass. It was a rare ship that could accelerate at sub-light speeds to anything even remotely approaching 0.5c once they were snared by more than one or two gravity buoys. Since the buoys were designed to swarm once the first was activated, they made an effective trap.
The small fast courier, a ship named the Dipper, was apparently no match for the Recluse’s mine field. Within seconds of encountering the first of the mines the little craft’s acceleration curve was showing the effects of their gravitational drag. The Recluse crept forward like its spider namesake and went in for the kill.
Chapter 3: The Brown Recluse…
The interior of the shuttle bay in the GCP Yorktown was a pristine white except for the exterior wall which was dominated by a shimmering force field that exposed the blackness of space. A small shuttle that looked like a silver tear-drop slowly worked its way through the energy field. As the shuttle cleared the force field there was a single soft thump as a little puff of atmosphere escaped the confines of the shuttle bay. There was another thump… deeper and more metallic this time as the silver shuttle settled to a stop in the middle of an illuminated ring on the floor. The ring changed from a flashing red to a green before fading away completely.
Cat watched as a rectangular panel pushed out from the tear-drop and slid to one side. Standing in the newly exposed door was an old friend. Retired Admiral Sherry Melbourne looked great for a woman pushing the three and a half century mark. In truth, her friend had spent many decades in stasis as she and Admiral Faragon traveled at sublight speeds between hyperfield jump points but still she had lived a good many years longer than Cat. That said, physically she looked to be a woman in her early forties. The only clue she was considerably older were her eyes. They held wisdom and intensity that only came from the slow accumulation of experience. In some ways, the years also haunted her eyes. The brief holographic conversation the two women had earlier in the day intimated at secrets yet to be shared.
A shrill noise briefly filled the air as the boatswain's whistle blew. The honor guard, which included about fifty crew members as well as senior department heads, came to attention. Cat was about to salute her friend when she saw Sherry softly shake her head. Instead Sherry approached her friend and came to attention. After a brief pause she saluted Cat. Cat returned the salute.
Sherry reached behind her and a young man who was apparently serving as her aid handed her a small box.
“Admiral Catherine Jackie Kimbridge, by order of the Grand Senate of the Galactic Coalition of Planets, I have been authorized to take the following action on their behalf. Effective 2215, the Grand Senate of the Galactic Coalition of Planets promoted in absentia Catherine Jackie Kimbridge to the rank of Fleet Admiral. This action was taken in consideration of her actions in support of the Galactic Coalition and her sacrifice in defense of all life in this universe.”
With this she opened the small box that had been handed to her and removed a small pin containing five silver stars arranged in a circle. She reached forward and removed the magnetic insignia clasp from Cat’s collar and replaced it with the new rank. When she was done she stepped back one step and saluted Cat a second time… a broad grin painted her face.
Cat stood dumbfounded. The silence in the shuttle bay was absolute. Slowly and with a rising crescendo the crew of the GCP Yorktown began to clap. Cat returned Sherry’s salute and then reached forward to clasp her hand. The clapping erupted into loud cheers and only Cat’s Heshe enhanced ears allowed her to hear Ben mumble to Captain Kirkland, “About damn time!”
Sherry pulled Cat closer and whispered “I’ve missed you, old friend. We have much to talk about and not much of it is good.”
***
Munch hopped over to his pond-mate. A cloaked shuttle rested in the grass behind him. Its approach had been absolutely silent and yet he knew it was coming. The humans had finally arrived. There were four of them. A boy, two women and an older man. The older man seemed to be in charge. Munch reached a long tongue out and touched his mate’s shoulder.
“They are here beloved. If we are going to join them, now is the time.”
Munch’s mate looked up at him. The concern was plain in her eyes. Ever since the Hupenstanii had arrived and convinced Munch’s people that they need not live under the yoke of the mega-corp that claimed title to their planet… there had been fear that this day would come. The day when his people, along with the Hupenstanii and the humans, would finally stand up against the GCP and their devil-dogs – the BCI.
***
Honey stood on the bridge of the Dipper and watched as the pirate ship approached. They thought they were the aggressors and that Honey’s much smaller fast courier was no match for the heavily-armed pirate vessel. She smiled. Little did they know that the Dipper was one of the few ships in existence that was full of completely functional Heshe tech. Her regenerative shields could easily out-class ships twenty to thirty times her size.
The AM Brown Recluse, as the pirate ship had previously identified itself, pulled within a few kilometers of the Dipper. Honey could see the numerous gun ports dotting the marauder’s hull. She supposed the close approach was intended as a show of force. She powered down her engines and yawned. As a synthetic being she had no need to yawn but she enjoyed effecting human mannerisms if for no other reason than it helped her connect emotionally with her huma
n husband.
Her local space radio beeped signaling an incoming RF transmission.
“Attention GCP NXH314,” a gruff voice said in a semi-drunken slur. “You are ordered to shut down your drive and unlock your airlock. Failure to comply will result in… in… unpleasantries.”
Really? Honey thought. Unpleasantries?
Honey toggled her radio. “Attention approaching craft. This is an official Galactic Coalition courier craft on a mission for the Bureau of Commerce Investigation. Interference is punishable by incarceration for no less than ten years. You are ordered to release this ship and back off.”
“You sound like a girl… are you a girl?” a man with a gruff voice answered.
“I am Lieutenant Heather Arris. Again I order you to back off your ship or face serious consequences,” Honey replied.
“Did you say ten years?” The gruff voice echoed back.
“That is the penalty for interfering with the BCI, yes,” Honey said dryly.
There was a brief pause. “Let me check with my captain and see if he still wants to do this… I mean ten years… that’s a long time.”
Another brief pause. Honey glanced at the approaching pirate ship through the viewport.
“Ah yeah… NXH314, this is the Recluse again. The captain, well, he is somewhat insistent… He still wants to board you. Be a good girl and don’t make any trouble.”
Honey smiled. Trouble was her middle name. She reached forward and launched a standard high velocity message buoy towards EG1. As soon as the probe was launched a powerful laser beam lashed out from the Recluse and vaporized the small device. Honey’s smile deepened. Everything was going according to plan.
***
Harry watched the weapons officer carefully while making every effort to not appear to do so. If he saw the man’s hand wander too close to either the plasma cannon or the missile launchers he was going to trigger a control override that he had put in place days ago. In theory, he could take complete command of the Recluse from his station but to do so would tip his hand and waste the opportunity his covert position on the Brown Recluse represented.