by Clay Moore
A said: "you eat food base when transporting cargo?"
"There is no equipment to store any cold or frozen foods. The only thing I can do is use food base. It doesn't spoil, and has a moderate taste."
One of A's bodyguards spoke up about food base. "You may think it has a moderate taste. I hate that vanilla shit."
John looked at that man who was tall and wide. It is evident that he was carrying under his jacket. He was not required to get a bespoke suit. They look a little bit cheap when you compare what they were wearing with what A was wearing.
"this must be the transversal corridor. We access the captain's cabin, what you turned into the Autodoc room. We also managed to hit the control room, and the control room for the duo mounted 30 mm Rotary Canon blasters."
"So I went a little overboard," said John. "When I thought what I was going up against I decided that I would err on the side of prudence."
"30 mm?"
"Okay, I wanted to be the guy on top regardless. No fighter could outgun me. I can even take on gunboats and some frigates."
"You're going to keep your guns, but they are not a reason to take on enemy ships. Do you understand?"
"If I'm keeping my guns, and I keeping my ship?"
"A pain in the ass Z level agent keeps indicating to me that it might be worth our while to have a few agents on their own ships. They all might not have light freighters. So, you and a few other agents are going to be allowed their ships. You are the only one with a light freighter."
"What does that do for my legend?"
"We will have to be circumspect about that. Since you will have a freighter, you will have to have cargo for your target planet. What you are down on the planet and have given your cargo to the owners, then you can put on the suit and begin your mission. I'm hoping that the bespoke suits that you wear will make you someone who is not a pilot. Is this the control deck?"
"Yes, this is the control deck. A would you like to sit in the copilot's chair?"
"Indeed nothing would give me more pleasure."
John turned around to the locker that was behind the pilot seat. He took off his jacket and put it in that cabinet. Then John went back to the pilot's position and sat in it. He made sure that A's set up was correct. Then he went and strapped himself down.
John hit the two buttons which started the two Radamite jet engines that powered and thrust his ship. He hit the button which also brought Rosie in touch with him. In many cases, Rosie was the copilot that he did not have.
"John! You're back. I don't see Vivana. Where is she?"
"She was assassinated during the mission on the maglev train."
There was one of those natural pauses that made John think of Rosie as a real human being. Leave it to the Eridani High Guard to actually produce a real AI.
"Rosie, a lot has changed since your last activated."
"I know I am downloading all of the newspapers and other media concerning what has happened. Apparently, the Eridani High Guard has been sold to Eridani itself. That means some of the things that the Eridani High Guard had were shut down. They were replaced by a larger organization. By your suit without the suit jacket, you are one of the agents in the Eridani Secret Service who are referred to as Z agents. This gives you mean permission to kill anything that gets in your way, or kill the enemy if that will work better. I believe they call it a license to kill."
"Yeah, I think you got that done really quick. In fact, the man to my right in the copilot's seat is my boss."
"You are A that is your designation as far as your agents and other people are concerned. But your name is-"
"Let's keep that secret. Between you and I."
"I can see where having a single designator for you would make it's simpler to live."
"Rosie, I am looking for a fabric of the ship check. Is the ship ready to take off and travel in space?"
"All telltales are green. It is as if somebody has been through the ship and repaired every little thing."
"Secure the cargo hatch. communicate with Starport's traffic control and get us permission to take off."
"What are you doing?" Asked A.
"Most people love to travel in space. I think you do. I'm going to give you that experience that you're missing. I'm going to give it to you from a spot that most people would die to be. From the copilot's chair. I can't give you control of the ship, but I can give you a view of space, and a view of the traffic around me Eridani."
"We are now number three in the queue for takeoff. For such a small Starport it is quite busy."
"What are your intentions for my trip?"
"I want to give you the whole space travel view."
"We are now number one on the Q."
John turned to the two bodyguards. "Behind you are the jump seats. You will get in them. You will buckle up the four-point restraints. You will remain there for the entirety of this flight."
The bodyguards pulled down the bottom part of the seat. They fell into the chair and very quickly tried to get the four-point restraints. Once all that was done they adjusted the controls to get them tight around them.
"Have transferred control of flight systems to Eridani Secret Service Starport traffic control."
A said: "you mean you don't do anything for takeoff?"
"Eridani is one of the four gigs worlds in the 150 worlds of the human occupation. You have so many things flying around in the sky of the Giga worlds it became standard practice to allow computer-controlled takeoffs. When this was done the number of crashes on Alphacent went down nearly 75%. I think that is worth a little loss of my freedom. If I want to exercise my freedom, I get a grav-car that can achieve orbit. Then I can fly around to my heart's content."
A said: "Okay, I now understand why to extend that way. Don't you wish that you could fly the ship as you wish?"
"Only on the four gig worlds and a few other worlds that are becoming giggle worlds is my freedom removed. All the other worlds I am permitted to land. I am permitted to fly my ship. And that is the reason why I have a pilots license."
"Oh! I thought I had seen it all. I have traveled transports through the atmosphere. Why is it so beautiful today?"
"Yesterday there was extreme amounts of rain. This area had over 20 cm of rain over a couple of days. I call that kind of rain a washing rain."
"Did you know things before we took off?"
"I started to receive some rather interesting communications from people outside of the service. Some of these people were former Marines who were given the privilege of sitting in the copilot seat. They indicated to me that they were making all the repairs necessary to make the ship ready. You don't need to have a degree in the hyperspectral calculation to deduce that my ship was being readied for use. I just thought it was for my use."
A steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. Then he brought down his hands to the armrest of his pilot's chair.
"I thought I was so sneaky. That will teach me not to be sneaky around people who do sneaky things like my agents. Yes, we want you to run your starship. And it is your starship I am reconfirming your ownership of it. However, I cannot condone the use of the name the Rose. Too many people know the rose. You and Vivana are extremely famous."
"How do you expect me to cobble up a backstory for the ship? It was easy the first time because I had built a backstory for the ship."
"You forget who you are dealing with. This is the Eridani Secret Service if anyone could come up with a backstory for your ship it is this organization. While we were flying it to see if the repairs worked, we worked under the name of Eagle. We sort of like the Eagle and we branded her with it on the paint job."
"I noticed the paint job. Did you keep with using the color adjusting paint?"
"We thought that was one of the more interesting things you had. With that paint, you can change the color and even change the logo. This is pretty much how you managed to fool people that you were rather a pirate and not a mild-mannered ship pilot."
John turned his head and looked at A. "I like the Eagle. It is a good strong name. It is a name with a lot of human history. I am satisfied."
The tension in the room dropped about 10 points right off the bat. The bodyguard had been there when They had been introduced to John's ship. They knew that A really wanted to have that boat. He wanted it to be in John's hands.
Then the tension ramped up again. John very surreptitiously touched the hyper button that had been flashing for the past few minutes. This switch was the nonverbal signal for Rosie to perform the hyper that was ordered.
The ship bucked, and the star field streaked across their field of view. The Starfield was with placed by a gray cloud that filled the picture in front of them. The bodyguard didn't know whether to arrest John or shoot him right out. A wave from A put them back in their seats.
"Where are you taking us?"
"the only place in the solar system that I can put you into hyper and have you come out into a spectacular view. A lot of people ask why do you pilot starships. My answer is mostly for the view."
A warbling note announced that something was going to happen. Everyone on the ship assumed that everyone on the boat would be leaving hyper so that Everyone on the starship can view this site. When the warbling ended, the Eagle exited hyper.
After they had gotten used to being jostled, they were not used to seeing the view. On most of the world's in the human sphere of influence, you could still go out into the boondocks and look at the stars in all their glory. The vast majority of people however lived on one of four worlds that could be considered to be Giga worlds. There is no place in those worlds that you can go where the light from one city or another is polluting your site of the stars.
John was pleased to see that he had affected A with this beautiful disease. No doubt A would ask to be taken to where they were now. John was used to this currently. This was the spot he came to every time he arrived in Eridani space. This was the Heliopause. This was the point at which the star could not push out its own star stuff. It was also the beginning of the cosmic pressure.
"While this is a spectacular view I need to know why I am here."
"Sir, this is the Heliopause. All spacers stop here before continuing on to their destination world. This is where we can hear the information from a set of navigational satellites. We keep a galaxy in our computer database. The computer keeps up with it so that we will know exactly where a planet is from another planet. We can do that because all we maintain in our databases is where the star systems are. When we get to a star system, we stop, and we get the information about the contents of that star system."
John had been slightly turning a knob which was connected to his high gain antenna. Then he reached over with his right hand and set a spring loaded knob. This knob fired the attitude adjusters. He brought his ship around slowly because rushing left to right could make people sick. He had a position he wanted, so he stopped his left turn. And pulled out the left corner. He then flipped the switch, and for a moment everyone heard the digital chatter of the navigational satellite.
"What are we listening to?"
"This is the digital tech chatter of the navigational satellite. It obviously does not mean anything to us. However, it is of meaning to Rosie. Rosie, translate a bit of the information flowing from the navigational satellite."
"The position of Eridani three is now at 30° 15 minutes from the solar system zero."
"That entire piece of information will be stored in the database that she uses to build a hyper to whatever my destination is. If I wanted to, I could hyper to Armstrong."
"Why would you want to go to Armstrong?" Said The Bodyguard on the right.
"Armstrong is another world that is owned entirely by Eridani. You could live there and farm. You could live there and have a manufacturing firm. There will come a time in which some of my brethren are going to actually call on Armstrong."
"Does the Emir call on you?" Asked A.
"No, I have no personal knowledge of the Emir. I can see where things are going to go. Eridani is going to continue its journey to complete Giga planet status. When that happens, Armstrong is going to be the planet that saves our lives. They will be local, and they will be farmers. I don't know about you all, but I like to eat."
"I think I understand how you have this appearance of knowledge that you don't have. You know about certain things like Eridani becoming a full Giga planet. You take information that you have as a result of your missions, and the information from various media outlets. You take all of this information, and you distill it down to the basic facts."
"Do you not do that your self Sir? I think it's time for us to return to Eridani. I've ordered Rosie to alert our Starport. We should be down in about 20 minutes."
"I still have my limo here if you need to be taken back to the headquarters building.”
"Iris came in the previous night. Mrs. Murphy did manage to make a bunch of small delectable's. I also opened a bottle of wine and our evening started from there."
"I like it that you are spending time with Admiral lower half Iris Jernwel. I am allowing the Association because I approve of her and I approve of you. Let's hope that nothing comes to change that."
"As to my getting back home. I have already put in for a taxi. In fact, he is already there. I've been sending them communications through Rosie for a few moments."
Everyone in that control deck understood that the Starport only took charge when you entered the atmosphere. So for this part of the flight, everyone watched John and remain entirely silent. Within moments after entering the atmosphere, the Starport contacted John and took over the trip of the eagle. With the efficiency of most flight organizations, the Starport brought the Eagle down to its slip.
John opened the cargo hold ramp. That allowed A and his two bodyguards to depart. Then John walked out of the ship as well. He watched the shore party attach the power, atmosphere, water into the starship. Some of the shore party were filling up the fuel reserves on the port and starboard sides. This is something that differentiated a D 80-a from all the other light freighters. They had a single fuel tankage. John ship had split fuel tankage. He didn't know which one works the best. So he was always saying that the one he had worked the best.
John touches the button on the strut closest to his cargo ramp. The ramp in response rose up into the ship. It provided a gas-tight seal and permitted no one to pass. Now John got in his taxi and had him taken to his apartment where a hot woman was still sleeping in his bed.
John left his apartment with rear Admiral Laura lower half Iris Jernwel still sleeping in his bed. His housekeeper put out some pastries as a breakfast. She knew that the one thing he needed more than anything else was energy in the morning. He needed to be able to put out as much power as he could. That was her calling in this world to keep him fueled. She kept them fed in the best of ways.