by Andrew Beery
Ciru was a lifeless rock that was completely uninteresting to his people… except that it contained vast stores of tritium in its upmost soil layers. As a result, there was an extensive mining operation in place. The operation was owned by General Hull Dynamics, a mega-corporation that had moved into the Mardarus star system with promises of superior medical technology and a welcoming hand from the larger galactic community. What Munch’s people had gotten was nothing short of corporate sponsored slavery. Slavery that was all but encouraged and supported by the so-called Galactic Coalition of Planets.
Sadly, his people were not the only victims of this oppression. Nac Nac was a Hupenstanii miner that had been brought in by GHD to oversee the construction of the mining operation. What his corporate overlords did not realize was that Nac Nac was part of a growing interstellar underground that was plotting to overthrow their masters. The Hupenstanii were every bit as oppressed as the Mardarians.
Nac Nac had arranged for this shuttle flight. The craft was actually part of a larger pirate fleet that was even now making its way through the system’s innermost asteroid belt. The rebel underground and the Pirate Syndicate had formed a loose alliance based on shared goals… namely the extinction of the Galactic Coalition and, from Munch’s point of view, the mega-corporations that flourished under its seal of approval.
The small shuttle was crowded with seven sentients onboard. The Captain was an older human named McCarthy. One of the females was his mate. They were most certainly pirates or at least employed by them. The boy and his older sister were crèche-mates from one of the larger cities below. As Munch understood the situation, they were exchanging their services for a chance to escape the inherited debt their parents had saddled them with. The girl, Nakita, was some type of software engineer. Munch and Matti were the only Mardarians onboard. Munch, being a male was smaller than his mate. His diminutive size is what allowed him to be useful in their current enterprise. His role was to get the team into the target.
Nac Nac, the Hupenstanii was whispering in the captain’s ear… directing him to the proper landing point on the rocky moon. They needed to be close enough to the linear accelerator complex to be able to reach it while the moon was still shielded from the harsh rays of the sun by the planet below. At the same time they needed to be far enough away that the BCI security forces which protected the complex would not easily detect them. The moon was tidally locked to the planet below so the only variable they had to account for was the speed of orbit. By timing their descent to the moon’s surface just right they were giving themselves about four hours to achieve their goal. If they were unable to reach the accelerator complex or if Munch was unable to get them inside, the solar radiation from Mardarus’ sun would bake them alive.
“Touch down in five minutes. Everyone that’s going on our little field trip better suit up,” Captain McCarthy said in a gruff voice.
Munch, Nac Nac, Nakita and Captain McCarthy headed over to the airlock. The older man typed a code into a panel on the wall. A recessed door slid open revealing EVA suits. The group geared up and were ready at about the same time McCarthy’s wife landed the shuttle.
“We have three hours and 56 minutes until sunrise. Let’s get a hustle on,” McCarthy barked as the group headed out the airlock.
As the group moved across the lunar surface, Munch had time to contemplate what they were doing. The massive linear accelerators were used to launch tritium fuel pods into planetary orbit. From there the pods could be easily scooped up by GHD cargo ships for transport to fusion power facilities. Care had to be taken to insure the fuel pods entered safe orbits that would not interfere with other orbital structures.
One such structure was the Deep Space FTL relay. If something were to happen to that relay Mardarus would be cut off from direct communication with the GCP. This would result in a three week window of opportunity so the local resistance forces could destroy valuable infrastructure. If the cost of operating in the Mardarus system became too high maybe the various mega-corporations would seek their fortunes elsewhere. If the mega-corporations vacated the system then the Galactic Coalition’s enforcement wing, the BCI would have no reason to continue harassing his people. Maybe they would be left alone.
In the distant Munch could see the outline of the accelerator complex. A long series of tubes snaked out from the lunar surface in an absolutely straight line. A smaller series of robotic service tubes paralleled the larger ones. These shafts provided access to the magnetic induction coils that provided the acceleration. It was an access port on one of these smaller tubes that was their target. He checked his chronometer. They still had a full hour before sunrise… plenty of time for what they were intending.
As they reached their destination Captain McCarthy pulled a series of tools from his carry-pouch. He began to work on the access panel. Nac Nac provided advice and handed the human various other tools. It took a full fifteen minutes but eventually the service hatch opened.
Munch moved forward and peered into the small opening. It would be tight even for him but he was confident he could manage it. He had spent much of his professional career operating as an acquisitions expert. In human terms, he was a thief. It was that particular skill that had caused the others to seek out his services.
He reached forward and pulled himself into the small space. The EVA suit was skin-tight which allowed him to adopt the same type of slither motion his people used in water to inch down the shaft. He paused at several points to remove minor obstacles from his path.
“We are coming up on the fifteen minute mark,” Nac Nac said over the short-range radio. These suits won’t protect us from the sun’s UV. How close are you?”
Munch used his suit’s head-mounted flashlight to peer down the corridor. He was actually quite close to an access port but there was no reason to let the others know that just yet. “Not sure buddy. I’m guessing no more than fifteen to twenty minutes.” At the same time he actuated the internal hatch release and dropped into the service airlock. A moment later and he was in the habitable portion of the complex. Fortunately the entire facility was manned by only three people – only two of which were on duty at any one time. It would have been the worst possible luck to encounter one of them while he was breaking into the facility.
Unfortunately for Munch, his luck was the type that defied logic. As he opened the hatch and dropped to the floor a young human wearing a red and gold GHD corporate jumpsuit walked around the corner. Before he could react Munch had his helmet off and went on the offensive.
“Why in the hell are you not answering the comms!” the diminutive Mardarian barked in a voice at complete odds with his size. “Your egress port is inop and no one is answering the damn phone. We thought you were all dead. I’ve got a team outside waiting to come in and assist.”
The young man stood staring at Munch with a slack jaw. Obviously his mind was still attempting to process what he was seeing. Munch was not about to give him that time.
“MOVE! We have people outside and we are only a few minutes from sunrise!”
The man nodded as if making up his mind and turned to run past Munch. “I didn’t even know the comms were down,” he yelled over his shoulder. “The manual override for the egress port is right here,” he said as he stopped by a big wheel mounted to the wall near the internal airlock door. He immediately began to turn the wheel and the light above the door changed from green to red indicating a vacuum on the other side.
Munch toggled his suit’s radio. “Ladies and gentlemen, the outer hatch should be opening now.”
A few minutes later the others entered the complex. Captain McCarthy was the first to remove his helmet. He looked between Munch and the younger GHD officer. Munch used his prehensile tongue to smooth down his ruffled beard. “I had to improvise,” was all he said in response to the older man’s querying gaze.
“What’s your name young man,” McCarthy ordered in a no nonsense voice. He turned to place his helmet on the ground.
“Say good night Gracey,” the older man said as he spun around quickly and landed a solid punch on the younger man’s jaw.
Chapter 7: Honey Get My Gun…
“Captain, I’m picking up quite a bit of communication traffic from one of the moons orbiting that gas giant.”
“Aye mister Ortega,” Captain Cunningham nodded. “That be our destination - Talus IV.”
Honey leaned back in her chair. She had stationed herself near Harry’s navigational console and reconfigured the terminals there to act as a secondary sensor station. Partially she did so to be nearer to Harry in case something happened where he would need her protection but partially because his station and the area near it were the cleanest parts of the bridge.
“Sir we are being hailed. The message is ‘Queen to queen’s level three’.”
“Respond ‘Queen to Kings level one’,” Captain Cunningham responded immediately. “Be quick about it Mr. Ortega… these lads have a quick finger on their guns.”
Randy Duggal pressed a single button on his console and sat further back in his seat. His gambit was now in motion. He had seen the young BCI Lieutenant work her way into the crew and essentially take over his duties at sensors. How long would it be before the captain realized he didn’t need two sensor officers? His actions had piggybacked a data packet on the backend of the captain’s response to the challenge code. If he wasn’t to have a place on this crew then he would make a spot for himself elsewhere.
Honey looked at her board. Several of the ships that had been in close orbit around the target moon suddenly broke orbit and were making best time towards the Recluse. What was disturbing was that Randy must certainly have seen the same thing from his board. Why had he not said something to the captain? What game was he playing?
“Begging the captain’s pardon,” Honey began, “but we seem to be about to have some company. Six ships are on an approach vector and every one of them is weapons hot.”
“I sent the challenge response!” Ortega protested.
Captain Cunningham looked at Randy Duggal for confirmation. The young man only smiled back.
“Mother of sacred pearls… What have you done boy!”
Randy stood up and in one swift motion drew a hand pointer. The small weapon was ideal for use in the close confines of a spaceship. It produced a small but powerful laser that ionized the air into a conductive plasma that a high-voltage charge could travel along. As a result it, could be used as either a stun weapon or a killing device depending on the duration of the laser.
“I’ve done nothing but insured my future. I cut my own deal for a share of the profits… and there is not a damn thing you can do about it… captain,” Randy spat out with every ounce of vitriol he could muster.
“You young fool!” Cunningham bellowed. “Do ya not know what they will do now that they know what we be carrying? The moment they pull the access codes from the Recluse’s memory banks every one of us is as good as dead.”
“That’s where you are wrong,” Randy grinned. “I already sent them the codes. I’m perfectly safe. I have a deal with the port master. Personally I’d be looking for a way to sweet-talk your way onto another ship because the Recluse is mine after they take over our cargo.”
“That was your deal? Ya daft imbecile!” The older man started to walk towards his brash sensor officer, intent on disarming him and beating some sense into his foolish head. He never got the chance. About the same time he made his move, the ship shuddered under a barrage of weapons fire. Randy’s finger on his weapon twitched. The point which was set on kill discharged at point blank range.
Captain Randel Hoffman-Cunningham III stared down at his chest. A hole the size of his fist had burned through his sternum. His eyes widened as the first flicker of pain was replaced with the realization that he was already dead. Slowly his feet crumpled beneath him and he collapsed to the deck.
At the same moment, the ship rocked again as a second missile slammed into its quickly weakening shielding. Harry rode the motion to launch himself at the younger man. His Heshe enhanced reflexes allowed him to twist out of the way of a second blast from the small weapon. His speed was inhuman and the younger man was unprepared for him. Harry crushed the weapon in one hand while throwing the young man across the bridge. He did not have time for subtlety.
“Honey interface directly with the helm,” he yelled. “Get us out of here. Mister McGinnis, rotate the shields and return fire.”
“Aye Captain,” both echoed at once. In that moment the AM Brown Recluse welcomed what would be her most famous and longest serving captain.
***
Cat was fuming. In truth, she could not remember a time when she had been angrier for a longer period of time. The pot of coffee on the table in the Ready Room had been filled twice by her steward. Her discussions with both admirals had gone on for hours. Finally, she shut down the transmission to Sol with a promise to resume the conversation later.
When Admiral Imera had informed her that Hupenstanii where no longer welcome to serve on GCP starships by order of the Grand Senate she was dumb-founded. She was thankful that her intuition had prompted her to keep the GCP Relentless under the command of Vigit Purohit with her Hupenstanii first officer, Commander Trifa, outside of Epsilon Reticuli 23. The Relentless was currently cloaked and she would remain so for the foreseeable future. Upon hearing the news, Cat had immediately used her subdural commlink to order all Hupenstanii officers and crew currently serving on ships within her taskforce to refrain from all external communications until she could get a handle on the situation.
Cat turned to face Sherry. “Try again. Explain to me how one of the founding members of the GCP and a race whose people include some of the finest individuals I have ever known can be summarily banned from service within the GCP armed forces?”
Sherry Melbourne sighed. There was no good answer to give. Nevertheless, she tried to explain the sequence of events as she understood it. “Shortly after your taskforce left we found ourselves facing a new reality. The universe as we knew it was gone. The Hupenstanii were obsessed with finding a scientific solution to the situation. Ultimately, it came down to energy. There simply was not enough energy left in the universe to make Hyperfield travel work in the same way it had before. Admiral Faragon was part of a team that was supplying military support to the Hupenstanii research effort. One day about a hundred and twenty years ago I got a message from the Admiral. He was excited -- the Hupenstanii had found a potential answer involving something called the Higgs Field Relaxation phenomena.
“I was to report to him as soon as possible in the Sol system. In the meantime, he was going to brief the Grand Senate. I don’t know what happened at that point because it took me three days to reach Sol. When I got there, the Admiral was in a life support stasis tube and the Grand Senate had just voted to isolate and restrict the entire Hupenstanii home world.”
Sherry looked up at her friend. “There is a permanent hyperfield damping quarantine zone setup around their star system and all communication into and out of the system is effectively blocked. The Senate spared no expense in putting all of this in place.
“Many member worlds complained bitterly but the Grand Senate refused to explain why this was being done other than to say it was ‘for the greater good.’”
“Your tone implies you suspect this may not be the case,” Cat said. It was a statement of fact and not a question.
“Fixing the hyperfield problem sounds good on the surface but entire industries and corporations have been build up around the economics attendant to a limited number of jump points. What the Hupenstanii were striving to accomplish would have been a ‘disruptive technology’ in a universe that does not want disruptive technologies that the powers-that-be cannot control.”
“And Bud?”
“Admiral Faragon was supposedly an innocent victim of a gang war drive-by shooting. A stasis chamber is keeping his body preserved but
in the absence of fully functional Heshe technology there really is nothing we can do for him.”
Cat looked up. “Where is his body?”
Sherry smiled. “I hid it a number of years ago. I suspect the parties that engineered his accidental shooting might become fearful that the technology to revive him might someday be developed. I arranged for some ‘pirates’ to steal his body. A considerable conspiracy subculture has formed around speculation as to what happened to him.”
Cat nodded. “I’ve heard reference to ‘Faragon’s ghost’ on a number of occasions.”
“Amazing what the judicious use of a holoprojector can do for establishing a mythos that serves a specific goal.”
“That goal is the resuscitation of the core GCP values that started the Coalition?”
“Exactly.”
Cat looked at her friend. “Why did you say ‘in the absence of fully functional Heshe technology’?”
Sherry sighed and sipped the coffee in her hand.
“The treaty with the Agur stated that most Heshe and Uruk technology had to be disabled. My medical Heshe nanites are still functional but they are locked to my bio-signature. There are a handful of other examples. Your friend Ricky Valen is almost as fully enhanced as you are. Certainly his wife Honey and their ship are. But in all cases, their technology is locked to their personal use. This seems to be the nature of the restrictions placed on both sides.
“In fairness,” Sherry continued, “the restrictions seem to have hurt the Modos Syndicate far more than they did us. The Coalition, especially humanity, has always been especially good at reverse engineering technology.”
Cat nodded. “We had a visit from Yarin when we arrived back in this time line,” Cat said while watching her friends’ reaction. She was not disappointed. Sherry’s eyes widened and she leaned forward.