by Rolf Nelson
Helton: Not many food product engineering companies there. Mostly just bulk producers.
Helton turns to Kwon.
Kwon: We can do bulk scratch, no problem. Beans and rice go anywhere. We could convert just about any room on the ship into a fridge or freezer for fresh or frozen meats and veggies.
Helton: Really? How?
Kwon: Fire suppression system can chill just about anywhere. I asked the AI about it after a small galley fire. Iced a flaming pan of blazing bacon in a few seconds. Whole room chilled. Something about reversed microwaves, I think. Missed the technobabble.
Sar: Really slick. Back to work hardly missing a beat. Bacon was still good, even.
Lag (cautiously): That’s a new one to me. Good to know fire suppression works well. Especially if we are hauling ammo.
Helton: Cooper, keep your eyes on conditions and see if it makes time-sense to swing by New Texas. We’ll see if we can clean out a closet or two to make a meat locker. Now, then–
A chime sounds, and the main wall screen displays an avatar: a knit orange cap.
Ship AI (brisk male voice): A call from Cobb’s about the contract.
Helton: Put him on.
After a brief pause, the cap icon starts rotating slowly and Cobb’s voice issues from the screen.
Cobb (gruff and unapologetic): Can’t do it. Money guys said they won’t do it unless you got insurance.
Helton: But, you said. I mean. What? Why?
Cobb (slowly, as if to a child): You got a uninsured ship more than four hundred years old, no history of shipping, and you’re asking to take nearly a hundred million worth of cargo through two war zones. They won’t issue the letter of credit unless you post a performance bond or offer proof of delivery insurance.
Bipasha: But didn’t you fight off the–
Harbin: Yes, we are fighters. But Helton and his ship have no official track record of trans-light cargo transport. It is a lot of cargo for an unknown.
Cobb: Exactly. I think you’ll do your best, but the money guys won’t trust anybody unless you can offer a guarantee against their cash loss risk if you lose or steal the cargo.
Helton: Any ideas?
Bipasha (deviously): Maybe. Could you please wait a minute?
Cobb (snorts): Sure, if you think you can still swing it.
The screen shows a MUTE icon.
Bipasha: Lag, you said you were interested in buying a chunk of it, right?
Lag: Not personally, but some of the units I’m working with, yes.
Bipasha: What percentage, value-wise?
Lag: About a quarter of it.
Bipasha: Do you think Cobb’s money guys know you?
Lag glances at Harbin.
Lag: Almost assuredly.
Bipasha: You were going to be going with us anyway. If you posted a payment bond for a quarter of it and told them you and a squad of Plataean Space Marines were going as escorts on contract, would that carry enough weight with them?
Harbin: What squad?
Bipasha: You two, Kaminski and Kaushik, the rest of them.
Harbin: All ten of them, if you include Stenson and his engineering and maintenance crew?
Bipasha: Technically, it’s a squad, isn’t it?
Lag (grinning): If you stretch the words far enough.
Helton: Which it seems you are good at.
Bipasha: Maybe you could get a discount on your portion?
Lag: Yes, that might be doable. Yes. Tajemnica: Back on screen.
The MUTE icon disappears.
Lag: This is Colonel Lag.
Cobb: Hey! Haven’t heard from you since that, uh, job we did a while back. Didn’t know you were with them. A colonel, now, eh?
Lag: Just to see if we can get on the same page: sell me a third of the ammo at cost, and–
Cobb: A THIRD! Are you CRAZY?
Lag: –a third at cost. I’ll put my name on a bond post for delivery here for the whole package. I’m going with them on other business and bringing some men along, so we can officially act as armed escort.
Cobb: I work my ass off to get this killer deal, and you want to walk away with a THIRD OF IT at cost?
Lag: Pretty much.
Cobb: You greedy bastard!
Lag: And of course you want to just give it all away, right?
Cobb: COURSE NOT!
Lag: Last I checked, the markup on two thirds of something was a lot more than the profits on a hundred percent of nothing. And knowing you, this deal likely fell in your lap.
Cobb: Ah, hell, man. You sure know how to kick a guy when he’s tied into a corner.
Lag: Pass the offer on to the money guys. Let us know.
Cobb: Shit! Knew this deal was too good to last. Out here.
The screen goes blank.
Bipasha (uncertain for once): That didn’t sound too smooth.
Lag: He’s in. He’s just got to convince the financiers.
Sar: I don’t like the sound of him. Can you trust him?
Lag: We understand one another. He knows I’m honest, and I know he’s not. He also knows he’ll die in a heartbeat if he tries to double-cross me.
Helton: What if they don’t bite?
Lag: Unlikely, but if they don’t then we find someone else who will trust you, and buy it from him at a quarter-percent markup, as-is where-is, and ship it and sell it ourselves. That much ammo would make a tidy profit in a war zone.
Bipasha (snarkily): I thought you were a soldier, not a businessman.
Lag: I’m in business to resolve disputes, and there are no good military options without profits. The non-military options without profits are even worse. No profits mean few good options for anyone.
Harbin: As I’ve tried to tell you many times, Bipasha, we fight when it’s the low-cost solution for us, and we make others not fight by making it their high-cost solution.
Bipasha: That’s a weird way of looking at it.
Helton: Everyone trades in lives. Soldiers are just more obvious about it. Wages trade money for a part of a person’s lifetime. The price tag is just a measure of the portion.
Robo-Moon
The Geminorum sun is a G-class star, the center-point in the system orbited by the inhabited planets Geminorum and Emirate II. About 4 AUs out hangs a cold, rocky planet with a small flock of moons, orbiting slowly in the vastness. Unlike most small worlds, this one has a gorgeous, colorful span of rings spread out wide in space. Farthest out, a moon pockmarked with small circles slowly spins. A patch of space shimmers as the few molecules of dust and gas in the near-vacuum get really pissed off by an emerging starship. Their universe briefly shares its space with a bunch of others, and they don’t quite know which physics book to follow. The transition field collapses, and Tajemnica emerges.
“Welcome to Geminorum!” Cooper announces.
“Well done!” Helton says. “Made good time, and nothing major broken. Very good!” His good mood is infectious. He looks around the bridge: Bipasha is at sensors, Allonia at com, and Kaushik at nav. “Let’s see how the field training went on the flight over: a quick scan, lay in a course for Emirate II, and beam over the custom orders to Geminorum Prime for Stenson. Bipasha, anything interesting around here?”
“Nothing big around here but that moon for a thousand kilometers. And those rings! Beautiful!”
“We are being hailed by someone, but it doesn’t make sense,” Allonia says. “Challenge Acton tax trust ambition?” She speaks into her mic. “Please repeat, I don’t understand.”
“On speaker!” Cooper snaps.
A voice announces over the cabin speakers, “Challenge Galt actinide Charlie turtle.”
“Oh, shit,” Cooper and Helton say simultaneously.
“Counter or send cladistic profiler.”
“What? Please say again,” Allonia says into the mic.
Sirens blare. “Targeting lock detected!” the Ship AI says in a loud, male, military voice.
“Exclusion zone breached,” the voice announc
es. “Violation.”
“Cooper!” Helton yells, “Transition ANYWHERE, NOW!” But Cooper’s hands are already flying.
The glowing sphere of annoyed atoms appears around Tajemnica. A streak of light erupts from the moonlet, exhaust from a missile that accelerates and draws closer rapidly. The shimmer of excited atoms around the ship intensifies.
Brighter. Closer.
Then Tajemnica disappears, the glow fading almost instantly, as the missile arrives on target and detonates in a spherical ball of light.
“What was that?” Bipasha asks in a small voice.
“A gazillion cubic kilometers of empty space, and we pop out less than a thousand klicks from a Corp-War robo-moon.” Helton says.
“Good thing I didn’t try to get an even better view,” Cooper says.
“Cooper. New rule,” Helton says. “First entry in a new system must be at least a half-million klicks from anything big enough to be trans-space detectable.”
“Good idea. Just trying to get an impressive first view.”
“It was impressive, but what was it?” Allonia asks.
“And why did they shoot at us?” Bipasha adds.
“Robot military moon base,” Kaushik answers. “Know anything about the Corporation-Nation war?” Both of the ladies shake their heads.
“I’ve heard of it, but–”
“Wait. Let’s drop out and take a fast look.” Cooper moves the controls, and the lights flash their transition warning.
The void of space glows slightly, and Tajemnica pops back into this universe, small and insignificant, alone in the blackness.
“Fast-scan the whole ball,” Helton orders.
“Looks clear here.” Kaushik reports.
“Nothing,” Allonia agrees.
Bipasha watches as scan data flashes across her screens. “Nothing inside a millisecond. Five milliseconds. Nothing of note within a hundred light-milliseconds.” Everyone relaxes.
“I’ll take sensors, Bipasha. I know about mil-moons.” Kaushik offers.
“Thanks.”
“Okay,” Helton says. “Once we’re clear to two light seconds, we start getting a fix on things, plot a course for Emirate II that avoids the moonlet. Cooper, run through the fast list and cross-check with Stenson to make sure nothing broke with our sudden transition.” He grabs the mic on the spiral cord. “All hands, sorry for the extra bounce. Had a small problem, taken care of now. Check your stations, gear, and people. Report any problems to the AI, or me if it goes circular.”
“You were saying?” Allonia prompts.
“When terraforming planets started it was funded by governments, and it was agreed that the sponsoring government owned the newly terraformed planet. Some corporations started to terraform planets on their own and claimed private ownership, essentially starting new corporate world-nations. Existing governments didn’t like that of course, because the corp-sponsored planets were better organized and happening faster. But most governments buy their weapons from private contractors, so things got ugly and confused very fast, then festered for a while. The corporate heads wanted to cover their asses, so they used some of their terraforming tech and sent out totally automated weapons factories to go to new systems, land on a suitable moon or asteroid, and start building weapons and tunneling out space for growing crops and living quarters as fall-back positions. Basically, a bunch of little robot ‘arks’ being built in case they had to flee. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, not really sure just how many. The governments decided to fight them by cloning genetically engineered super-soldiers. Some real geniuses involved in the whole mess.”
“Genetically engineered soldiers?” Allonia asks, suddenly extra alert.
“Yup. Spliced in a lot of extra copies of genes for strength and endurance and such, searched for existing mutations for useful things, cleaned out bad genes, put in experimental stuff. Some died young, some were total aggressive badasses that were absolutely great psychotic killers, but not so mentally well-connected on more ordinary activities. Some seemed pretty normal until they were ‘triggered’ in battle, then they were totally different beasts. Lots of conspiracies and rumors, not a lot of hard data.”
“So, they looked normal, but might … suddenly go crazy for no obvious reason?”
“Dunno. Long before my time. Gone now. All sorts of experiments done, from very nice, to wildly crazy and unpredictable. Anyway, both sides started copying the others’ ideas and designs. Just when it was about to start getting really ugly, a series of nuke strikes took out a bunch of the key leadership on both sides, and security codes and command-and-control were mostly lost on both sides. No one could shut the little robo-factories down. As long as you don’t get too close to their exclusion zones, they ignore you, so we ignore them, mostly.
“The engineered soldiers, figuring they were the new badasses on the block, just like all too many in history that think they are God’s special chosen few, tried to take over a few places, but they got themselves killed off, and future creations were outlawed. Then Eta Carinae blew, and the robo-moons had centuries to twiddle their electrons and build defenses and missiles and whatever else their programming directed.”
Kaushik looks up from the sensors. “Nothing inside two light seconds.”
“Good. Start working out a fix and course.”
“So, the genetically engineered soldiers are all gone,” Allonia says, “and these robot moons just sit there, making weapons and stuff? No way to shut them down?”
“Not that I know of,” Helton answers.
The Ship AI speaks, its tone no longer urgent: “One robo-moon malfunction and failure has been reported, Captain.”
“Really? Where?”
“18 years ago, on an asteroid in the Baen system.”
“What happened?” Bipasha asks.
“A careless prospector found a disabled one by accident, went in, and was able to take partial control. In the ensuing struggle between interested governments, corporations, and freelancers it was entirely destroyed, along with its 2.2 billion tons of food, 3.7 trillion rounds of ammunition, 2.7 million offensive and 15 million defensive missile batteries.”
“Holy… That’s a lot of weaponry,” Kaushik says. “Not something I’d like to go up against.”
“Yeah, it would be kind of hard to take them out now, if they are all like that. Are they?”
“There is much speculation but few hard data points, Captain.”
Helton speculates aloud. “I’d have thought they might have built in some sort of recognition system, so that they would ‘know’ their guys in case the password got lost.”
“That would be difficult,” the Ship AI responds flatly.
“Well, if they were also making clones and genetically engineered soldiers, couldn’t they do something with that?” Allonia asks.
“Guessing the right genetic code would be somewhere on the order of one in four to the billionth power.”
“And if they shoot before you get a chance to get scanned, you’d have to know the code before you got there.” Helton adds. “Right, a tough problem indeed.”
“So that was the ‘challenge’ they asked me about? Looking for a code? But how would you tell them your genetic code by voice? You couldn’t tell them the whole thing; it’d take years! Maybe they are looking for just a little-bitty part of it? Coded somehow?”
The Ship AI’s voice gradually becomes more mechanical. “That is an interesting guess. Galt actinide Charlie turtle adenine thymine thymine adenine guanine adenine cytosine thymine. Idem. Cladistic Profiler. Forte.”
“What was that?” Helton asks.
Its normal male voice returning, the Ship AI replies. “Nothing, sir… Minor subroutine glitch. A recently noted pattern was continued unexpectedly. Internal data possibly affecting optimal path selection protocols. Further testing will be needed at another location. No significance at the moment.”
“Okay,” Cooper announces, “everything seems to check out. We can make a
small jump to cut about half the normal-space flight time, then take an easy path in, slightly more than a day conventional.”
“Good, good. Anywhere close to the robo-moon?”
“No, well clear of it.”
“All righty, then. Let’s make another little hop, unless someone has a problem.” Helton picks up the mic. “Any problems to report, now’s the time.” They are rewarded by a few moments of silence. “Can you use the pair of Sokolovs here? We can test them a bit, too.”
“Should work. Yes, adds about … sixteen seconds on this jump. An hour conventional.”
“Not too bad. Double-check with Stenson and spin ‘em up.”
Taking Delivery
Tajemnica arcs across space, headed for the nearby planet, Emirate II. It is a vivid mix of blue seas, greens, tans, with a goodly scattering of clouds. They pass an orbiting space-dock with numerous attached ships. Most are small private craft; some are larger liners and cargo ships, including the liner on which Helton met Lag and Bipasha.
Lag sits at the tiny desk in his cabin. On the screen in front of him is the liner’s Chief Flight Engineer. “Best hire I’ve had in a while,” he says. “Knows his stuff and is learning our particulars fast. The arm re-gen is going well, gives the doc something to do other than band-aid little old ladies.”
Lag’s smile at the news is wide and genuine. “Glad to hear it. Always a pleasure to help good people out. Now, about that custom manufacturing shop you recommended to Stenson on Geminorum…”
Lag stands in the doorway of the bridge at a casual parade rest. Helton, Cooper, Kaushik, and Bipasha are standing or walking slowly in their usual stations.
“We’ll need to be careful,” Lag says. “They got really lucky on the terraforming and pulled through the Dark well, but this is a real know-n-blow system now, so–”
“A what?” Bipasha doesn’t care for the sound of that.
Cooper fills her in. “Know and Blow. Everything happens because of who you know, or who you blow, bribe, have leverage on, or family name. It’ll be safer if you and Allonia stay aboard until it’s all squared away; you can go ashore on Geminorum or New Texas. Allonia knocking off the wrong favorite nephew who thought she was cute and tried to take a free sample could be awkward.”