One Last Flight: Book One Of The Holy Terran Empire

by Carlos Carrasco

  It exploded on impact.

  The spotlight found us next. I took the aero into a steep dive. A short burst of bullets whistled over our heads.

  “We should surrender,” Estrella pleaded.

  “No!” Ridge snarled. “We’re almost there!”

  Estrella dug her fingers into my forearm. The spotlight illuminated us again. I gave the wheel a hard counter-clockwise turn which tore my forearm out of Estrella’s grip. “Gael!” she shrieked over the second burst of fire from behind. “We have to give up!”

  The spotlight found us again and I darted to the right. The third round of fire found its mark regardless. Bullets pinged as they tore through our aero. One of Ridge’s men on the flatbed cried out as he was struck and screamed as he fell to his death. The aero spun in the air as it fell. Its power fluttered on and off. Estrella, Ridge and his men behind me all screamed in terror as I wrestled with the wheel and the pedals. The second man on the flatbed was hurled from it before I could stop the aero’s spinning.

  I could not stop its fall however. The intermittent bursts of power to the refractors were not frequent or powerful enough to resist the pull of gravity. I slowed our rate of descent but not, I feared, sufficiently to survive impact. I kept the nose up and aimed the aero for the treeline I hoped would break our fall.

  We survived, except for the man seated behind Ridge. He was impaled through the neck by a tree limb on the way down. I learned of it and the fate of the others hours later when I finally regained consciousness in the custody of the Federation Forces Military Police.

  I woke in an infirmary, propped up into a near sitting position on a gurney. I was strapped to it, tied down at the wrists, ankles and across the waist and chest. The room was all white and chrome, plasteel siding and machines. It was lit by blinding white light pouring out of the room’s crown molding fixtures. My eyes burned in their glare. My head was bandaged. My mouth tasted of blood and two of my lower teeth were chipped. My left leg was in a cast. I was dizzy, nauseous. I ached all over.

  In the room with me were two FF officers. They were lieutenants. The man was a medic. The woman was Federation Military Police.

  “Welcome back, Gaelic of Commune Arkum,” said the Federation Military Police lieutenant. She was a pale, middle-aged, short-haired brunette with an ocular implant in lieu of her left eye. Her right eye was a dark mahogany and it regarded me just as coldly as the cybernetic one. She was lean of body and face; wolfish, I thought.

  I looked to her equally thin companion. The medic was a male. He was younger, slightly darker, in possession of both of his natural brown eyes and he sported a pencil-thin mustache over pouting lips.

  Haltingly, through a painfully dry throat, I asked him, “Have you got anything for the pain, doc?”

  It was the FMP lieutenant who stepped forward from the foot of the gurney to respond, “I’m Lieutenant Lyles and I’m afraid that the only thing we can offer for your pain right now is our sympathy,” She pressed down on my wounded leg. A bolt of pain shot through it and up my spine. I grimaced and let out a short, angry grunt. She smiled. “Or maybe not. We’ve patched you up, which is more than a traitor like yourself deserves. We’re not inclined to do anything more for you until you cooperate with us.”

  “What do you want?”

  Her smile widened. “I want to know who these three friends of yours are.” Her ocular implant projected a holographic still into the air between us. The blurred shot was of Estrella, Ridge and one of his men running from the crashed aero. Estrella was hunched over, her arms wrapped around several slim cases of bionites. The men had a couple of cases each under one arm while they used their other arms to fire their guns behind and above them.

  I felt relieved to learn that Estrella was alive and free.

  “What are their names and where are they likely to be hiding?” The FMP officer pushed down on the break in my leg again. A muted groan escaped through my gritted teeth. “We’ll find them with or without your help, Gaelic,” she continued. “I just thought you might want to help yourself out by helping us.”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “No?” She pushed down on the leg three times. By the third one, I could not help but roar with pain. I strained against my restraints to get at her. It only made her laugh. “Your sense of loyalty, while admirable in the abstract, is wasted on them, Gaelic of Arkum.”

  “It’s a pity you didn’t have such loyalty for the Federation Forces,” said the medic.

  “A true pity,” Lyles concurred. “We appreciate loyalty in the FF. We know how to return loyalty for loyalty. Your friends, Gaelic? Not so much. They had none to spare on your account.”

  The hologram flickered, vanished and reappeared as a video playing from an earlier moment in the evening. I watched silently as Ridge, Estrella and his one surviving minion crawled out of our crumpled vehicle and into the trembling circle of a spotlight. The men fired up at the aero recording the scene. The figures shrunk as the aero retreated out of range of their weapons. Federation fire chewed up the ground around Estrella and company as it retreated. The figures on the holo then swelled in size again as the camera adjusted the focus. Ridge and his man returned fire and then began scooping up some of the scattered cases of bionites.

  Estrella was at my side, shaking me throughout the exchange. I stirred and, trying to climb out of the aero, I fell out of my seat onto the ground. She helped me up to my knees. My head was bleeding. I couldn’t keep it raised for more than a second at a time. Estrella draped one of my arms over her shoulders and lifted me to my feet. My left leg folded beneath me and I dragged us both down. Estrella positioned herself to try again.

  “That must be your ol’ lady there,” the FFP officer said. “It’s sweet how she’s trying to rescue you, but just wait…”

  Ridge approaches Estrella in the video. They exchange words. Ridge shoves a stack of cases into her arms and gestures towards the woods. Estrella hesitates, looks at me as I struggle to lift myself up. My trembling limbs fail me and I collapse, face down, into the dirt. I raise my muddied face to her. My right hand shakes as I reach for her. She shoots a glance up at the approaching aero, at me and then runs off, clutching the cases of bionites tightly to her chest.

  “Looks like your girl prefers the thrills of enhancement to whatever jollies you might have been giving her.”

  I said nothing and watched the video play. Ridge and minion followed Estrella, pausing to squeeze off a couple of rounds at the Federation aero. The trio then disappeared into the woods. The video finally stopped and the hologram vanished.

  “You see now how little your friends cared about you, Gaelic” the FMP lieutenant said. “You don’t owe them anything. So why don’t you tell me who they are and where I can find them.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Lieutenant Lyles shook her head and turned to the medic. “I guess we won’t be needing your services after all.”

  The medic nodded and left the infirmary without giving me a second look.

  “You’re going to be tried for treason, Gaelic of Arkum,” Lyles said when the door closed behind the medic. “And because one of the soldiers on the base died of the wounds he received during the robbery, you will undoubtedly be found guilty. Ordinarily we would then hang you and be done with it. But these are not ordinary times, Gaelic. Your lawyer will undoubtedly play the ‘pity the junkie’ card. They will remind us and the public that it was our use of enhancers which created such a helplessly pathetic creature such as you. Your neck will probably be spared the noose and we’ll have to settle for a life sentence. Don’t gloat however, because I assure you, your fate, if such be the outcome of the trial, will, well… Let’s just say you will wish that we had condemned you to the gallows instead.”

  She gave my leg one last torturous press on its break and left me to wallow in pain.

  Just as Lieutenant Lyles had predicted, I was found guilty of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment. The prosecutor suggested, that rather th
an saddling the FF with the cost of feeding and housing my useless hide for the next eighty to ninety years, I should instead be sold as a laborer to the Psion/Federation combine jointly terraforming Gamma VI. The judge agreed, noting with undisguised satisfaction, that such a fate would be preferable to hanging for the likes of me.

  And so three months later I found myself hauling rocks on a Psion prison planet.

  Over the next few years memory would replay that holo of Estrella abandoning me. I would see her leaving me behind with the precious enhancers clutched tightly to her breast and I would seeth with indignation. As the torturous months piled one atop the other, it didn’t matter how often I would tell myself that Estrella didn’t have much of a choice. I could not convince myself because I knew that I would have stayed at her side if our roles had been reversed. I would have stayed and, if necessary, died defending her.

  ‘Together to the end.’

  I had meant it.

  She had not.

  It took a few years of living under the mantle of Gamma VI before I stopped hearing Estrella’s voice assuring me, “You and me Gael, together to the end!” Eventually, I buried her promise and every memory of her under the long years of toil, pain, hatred and guilt.

  *****

  I could hear her broken promise again eight hours and twenty-three minutes later when the Strumpet started pulling away from Ganesh and Vishnu. With the gas giant and red dwarf behind us, there was no chance of being spotted by the Federation ships making their way to Ramage. We were going the wrong way however, if I wanted to end my existence like a ‘bug against a zapper,’ to borrow Kimili’s metaphor. I checked my scope to consider my alternatives. With only the slightest alteration to our present course, I thought…

  “Strumpet, we’re going to Krestor Station.”

  11

  After peeling off my EVA suit and shooting up again, I returned to the cockpit and sat at my command chair for the three hours it took the Strumpet to jump into Aetherium Space. We spacers called it jumping but the transition from normal space to the Aetherium was, in fact, a rather smooth one. One second you’re looking at a field of stars, and then the instant you exceed the speed of light, the stars disappear, replaced by an endless vista of blinding white light.

  Depending on who you asked, the Aetherium was either composed of a single undulation of a super wave of what the latest physics called the Supra Quantum Primordial Light or it was an illusion created by the relative flattening of all light waves and their blending into the background microwave radiation of the universe when travelling at superluminal speeds. Mystics and even some physicists argued that the Aetherium was no less than the very veil that hid the face of God. Many had gone blind trying to peer through it in the hope of catching a glimpse of the hidden Divinity. Some had gone mad with the effort. Other, less mystically inclined, scientists argued that this realm of pure light was a sidereal universe of sorts, or possibly the boundary between the infinite iterations of a multiverse. Still others saw just another strata of a multiplanar but single universe, a stratum of pure potential from which radiated the writhing web of electromagnetism that animated the universe.

  There were mathematical models for each theory and their many variations. The models were of varying degrees of elegance but none of them compelling enough to create consensus. I rather enjoyed reading layman’s distillations of the esoteric theories and the ruminations of astrophysicists and cosmologists. While I kept myself abreast of the latest thoughts on the subject, I was no wiser as to the true nature of the Aetherium than the scientists. As a spacer, all I really needed to know was that the Aetherium was the medium through which superluminal travel between the stars occurred.

  Having crossed the C threshold into the Aetherium, my Class III Strumpet quickly accelerated to her top speed of nearly three quarters of a lightyear per day. Class I ships could go no faster than a tenth of a light year per day. Class II starships topped out at half an LPD. Exploratory vessels, starliners and high-end corporate sloops were generally Class IV ships which could cross one to three light years a day depending on their particular configurations. With the exception of Imperial Mercy ships, which could plow through seven lightyears a day, most Class V vessels were warships which topped out at five LPD. The Federation and the Empire led the way in the development of ever faster ships. They each regularly launched probes into the unexplored regions of the galaxy and into the starless void beyond it whose speeds approached ten light years a day.

  It was the dream of cosmonautics to one day create a drive capable of utilizing enough of the raw power in the rich plenum of space to travel at the speed of gravity. As exciting as the prospect of making instantaneous jumps between worlds was on a purely technical level, it stirred misgivings on a human level for one such as myself. Instantaneous travel between star systems would banish a whole lot of the elbow room which kept galactic superpowers like the Empire and the Federation at relative bay.

  Not my problem for much longer, I thought letting out a long, weary sigh.

  I polarized the canopy to block the harsh light. Even at full occluding, enough illumination seeped through the Crysteel that I could do without the cockpit’s internal lights. Fully exhausted, I went aft to my quarters and collapsed into bed. I sunk into sleep immediately.

  *****

  The next ten days passed at a crawl, their hours stretched by spells of fever and nausea. I feared the recent exposure to the radioactive miasma between Vishnu and Ganesh had further compromised my already failing health. I shot up three times a day just to blunt the torturous edges of my condition and lift myself out of the lassitude with which it oppressed me. Tempted as I was to increase the number of daily injections even further, I restrained myself. I was afraid the more I resorted to enhancement, the sooner the bionites would fail me altogether.

  That day was coming … and soon. The thought of it, a mere abstraction until recently, started to take on a visceral reality. I was growing afraid of the prospect of being bed-ridden, reduced to helplessly soiling myself while I rotted away from the inside.

  My pride recoiled at the thought. I certainly didn’t want Estrella to find me in that condition. I wanted to be upright when I finally faced her. Failing that, I resolved to drink Jacques D’Llorros’ gentle poison and let Estrella find my rotting corpse with a smile on its face.

  That was about the brightest of thoughts I had during the ten days I spent travelling through the Aetherium. My headaches didn’t allow me the luxury of thinking about much else. The nausea offered me precious little concentration for reading. My chronic fatigue would not permit me the distraction of exercise. I spent the days in bed listening to music or just the soft hum of the Aether Drive, rising only to eat an occasional small meal or relieve myself.

  Mostly, I just slept.

  When the Strumpet finally shunted out of the Aetherium, I returned to the cockpit.

  As per galactic protocols programmed into her, the Strumpet entered Krestor Station space one AU out and at one of their twelve preferred vectors for incoming vessels. Krestor was an Imperial corporation. The station was its headquarters in the Open Zone. They built the station and foundry three and a half centuries ago. The two facilities were constructed in partnership with local firms from the nearby, Open Zone worlds of Aldiss and Haven.

  Calabash Foundry, like every foundry built in the last millennium, was constructed in deep space. It was positioned a tenth of an AU from the station, well beyond the reach of any industrial mishap. Unlike the modern foundries which had their own Aether Reactors in which to forge neutronium crystals, Calabash Foundry drew its power by tapping into the cosmic Birkeland current that lit up and roiled the dusty plasma clouds of its namesake nebula. The foundry regularly produced over three thousand neutronium crystals a year, no small feat for a facility many thought hopelessly antiquated.

  Neutronium crystals were integral to the function of Aether Drives. The drives generated Casimir Fields which harvested raw energy from
the plenums of normal space and the Aetherium. This raw energy was then distilled through the crystals into usable power to propel and run starships. Depending on various factors, the average crystal lasted anywhere between three to five years, making their continued production absolutely vital for interstellar trade and travel and the galactic super powers who depended upon them.

  The Strumpet’s scope was lit up with the comings and goings of various ships. There were six other vessels inbound. Three of these inbounds were small shuttles that ferried workers between the station and the foundry. Two of the other crafts were jitneys that regularly ferried passengers between the station and the planet Haven. The last was an Imperial Halberd, the empire’s counterpart to the Federation Corvette. A quick check of its transponder and trajectory revealed that it was the Prydwen, inbound from Haven.

  There were four outbound ships. One of them was the Annunciation, an Imperial Mercy Ship. She was the farthest one out, quickly approaching jump speed on a course for Imperial space. Two of the three were jitneys and the last was another Imperial Halberd, the Goswhit. The trio were heading towards Haven.

  I had crossed this space a dozen or more times during my career in the OZ. It was with wry amusement that I considered just how close to each other Estrella and I had ended up after so many years in so vast a galaxy.