Wave Mandate

by Schneider, A. C.

  WAVE MANDATE

  by A.C. Schneider

  For F.

  And so it begins…

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by A.C. Schneider.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Prologue

  The Nebulous liner – Deep orbit, Osmos

  It was the fear, he realized, that made everything seem the slightest bit off.

  The decadent decor from floor to ceiling, the woman standing next to him doused with so much perfume she might just be considered a biohazard, the other passengers in their atrociously expensive evening wear, any item of which probably costing more than what he made in an entire year of crewing a ship. Of course, that’s not factoring in the chance of a payday at the end of one of those stints, but really, how often is there ever a payday at the end of it?

  All of those things were as they should be. What shifted everything just sideways of center was the fear. Fear on people’s faces, fear in the shrunken posture of those used to standing above others they considered to be culturally beneath themselves, fear in the tenor of a wife’s sudden outburst asking ‘Why is this happening to us?’ and in the answering ‘Shhhh’ from her husband, who was clearly trying to calm himself down as much as he was trying to calm her down.

  The passengers were all made to line up outside their state rooms. They had no time to change and no time to get rid of any valuables.

  Stupid, he thought, chastising himself. The one time in your life you actually hit payday, real payday, and you keep it on your person? Stupid!

  They were collecting now, working methodically on both sides of the aisle. Two men and a bag to each side. Urithlium bands and Taxon studs from the ladies, and Island Coin-is-King directly from Mr. Man’s wallet. Clearly professionals, there was no harassment of the women and not one of them made so much as a move to skim a bit of payday off the top. He was watching them, and if he weren’t silently cursing them under his breath, he might actually admire their handiwork.

  They were now four couples down from him.

  A short time earlier - could’ve been five minutes, could’ve been half an hour, time sort of blends together when you’re being hijacked - two of the raiders came and picked a man out of the line, taking him away with them. His wife let out a short, shrill cry when they did so. This husband didn’t try to calm his wife down. His only act of reassurance to her was to extend his arms slightly out from his sides, palms up, in a gesture that seemed to say, What can I do? Probably been making that same gesture to that same woman his entire life.

  One couple away now. The couple with perfume lady.

  He wondered how they’d fare with her. It took him half his concentration just to keep from passing out every time he inhaled. No mistakes this time either, though. The husband cooperated fully, shielding his wife while quickly placing her jewelry in the bag. Must have collected it from his odorous other sometime earlier. Smart move. He wondered if she was still hiding some pieces on her person. No way those guys were gonna get any closer to check, professional or not.

  He, on the other hand, did not have any sacrificial valuables or a chivalrous other to distract the raiders from what was hanging around his neck. The smooth stone cooled his skin where it rested above his solar plexus. If only he had more time to stash it.

  “Valuables.” The emotionless voice belonged to the one holding the bag.

  “Ain’t got any.”

  The fist belonged to the silent partner. It hit with a sucker punch that came fast and hard to his gut. He doubled over, dry heaving. In between coughs he asked, “Do I look like I got any Coin on me, skug!”

  This time the fist dropped along his jawline sending him sprawling face down to the deck. He heard the dull thud of something hard hitting something harder but with the ringing in his ears it didn’t register at first that the sound had come from his own head hitting the floor. He felt a tug, then a yank. He heard a snap and felt the distinct sensation of thread running along the skin of his chest.

  Cranking his neck to the side and trying to look up - it wasn’t easy, his head was heavy as rock - he saw the two men holding his payday in their hands and running their fingers along its smooth surface. He tried to say, ‘Give it back,’ but it came out “Gi ih bahh,” the words gargling the blood in his mouth as he spoke them.

  He looked around, his vision still blurry from the blow. The rest of the passengers were staring straight ahead, pretending not to see him. Pretending he didn’t exist.

  Yeah, you just keep thinking about yourselves. How’s that been working out for you lately?

  Another raider came running down the corridor and whispered something in the ear of the skug who’d decked him. The skug looked at his partner holding the bag and some unspoken understanding passed between the two. The other team on the opposite side of the aisle seemed to pick up on it as well. This was not good. Skug number one stuffed his payday into the sack and all five raiders took off back down the corridor.

  “GIVE IT BACK!” he yelled more clearly this time, struggling to his feet and stumbling along after them, his senses returning faster now.

  “Where are you going?” a lady hissed.

  “Stay here,” he ordered back with authority he didn’t have but felt no inhibition in using.

  Every face, still a picture of fear, was now looking to him for instructions and some reassurance. The attackers now gone and he being the only one with the courage to act, suddenly he existed again. He was the center of their universe. “I’ll come back for you,” he added, leaving them with the comfort of what he suspected would be an empty promise.

  He dashed through the next corridor and the one after that. More fear, no hijackers.

  The same question, “Where are you going?”, followed him, and he placated it with the same answer, “I’ll come back for you.” He had half a mind to check the upper deck but a sickening feeling building in the pit of his stomach made him check the Life Pods instead.

  Spinning the wheel for the access lock and shouldering into the door, he immediately saw that several of the pods were missing. He ran to one of the hull’s portholes and shielded his eyes around the glass. There they were. He could clearly see the Life Pods shooting away from the liner, their small twin thrusters like many pairs of feral eyes peering out into the blackness of night.

  No time to think.

  He ran to one of the remaining pods, broke the glass to the emergency access mechanism with his elbow and pounded on the depressor with the base of his fist. The pressure lock released with a hiss. Throwing the hatch opened, he stepped inside and shoved his weight back into it, slamming the hatch shut behind him.

  Still leaning against the cool metal and panting, he heard the pressure lock kick back in. For a fraction of a second he thought about the faces of all those people probably still standing in the corridors, the fear robbing them of all sense of time. He thought about the promise he’d made them: I’ll come back for you. But he also thought about the question he had for them while they stood like blind statues bearing silent witness to his attackers beating him to the ground and robbing him of his payday: How’s that been working out for you lately?

  The answer was - it wasn’t. Not at all. Not that it would have made much difference, anyway. There simply wasn’t enough time to help them. In which case, better off dying in fear tempered by a bit of h
ope than spending your last, precious few seconds of life reeling in utter despair. These people weren’t ready to face death with open eyes. No, not these people.

  Rushing to the flight bridge, he strapped himself into the pilot’s seat and yanked down on the lever for emergency docking-release and launch. For once, the screeching sound of metal on metal was music to his ears. The docking mechanism surrendered its grip and the pod detached from the liner. There was the brief sensation of free float and then the thrusters kicked in, throwing him back violently against the seat.

  A blinding flash suffused the pod from the surrounding portholes, searing his eyes and forcing them shut. A rumbling overtook the craft, growing in intensity by the second. The shaking became so overwhelming he wasn’t sure which would be torn apart first, the pod or his own body, limb from limb. A rushing noise enveloped him and he gripped the armrests so tight one of his fingers snapped from the pressure. Still, he refused to let up. He continued to tighten his grip, squeezing with all his might, as if every fiber of muscle in his body were extensions of the pod’s structural frame and nothing short of their full commitment would see himself and the ship escape in one piece from the destruction closing in all around.

  After several eternal seconds, the pressure from the thrusters weakened and his inertia stabilized. The bright lights surrounding the pod began to dim and he exhaled, releasing the breath he’d been holding all this time without realizing it.

  He sat silently for a moment - or an eternity, he couldn’t quite tell which - and all at once it hit him. What he had just avoided. That from the whole liner, he was the only one to escape with his life. And that’s not to mention everything that had happened to him from before the liner. All of it.

  It wasn’t the payday he’d been expecting. Not the object he had carried in his possession and worn about his neck for so long, only to be robbed of its promise on the very last leg of his journey. But it wasn’t nothing, either. One thing he’d learned over the years was that you never turn down a payday when it came to you.

  So he would settle for survival... for now.

  Part 1: Duel

  Chapter 1: Chase

  The Academy, Osmos

  She watched...

  Kelerin stood, peering at himself in the mirror like a hunter stalking prey. He searched his own eyes for the confidence he knew he would need later that day for the duel, but wasn’t absolutely certain he had.

  Where are you? he asked himself, leaning in for a closer look, his hands straddling the edges of the sink below for support. He didn’t bother waiting long for an answer. Letting out a short, bitter laugh, he broke away and conceded defeat to his reflection.

  “If you have to search for it,” he said out loud to no one in particular and turned on the faucet of the sink, “chances are you don’t got it in the first place.”

  Cupping his hands to the water, he paused to study the liquid as it first filled and then overflowed from his collecting fingers. He meditated on the thin stream pouring out from the spout, growing it in his mind until it became a tumultuous waterfall crashing down, his hands, the massive walls of a dam straining in vain to contain its raw power.

  Now that’s what I have to tap into, he thought. “Care like sharing some of your secrets?”

  He was fully aware of how ridiculous he sounded speaking to water, but being alone in a room with no one around to witness one’s willful insanity had a way of curbing inhibitions. He tilted his ear to the small pool in his hands, as if expecting a response. None came. “Didn’t think so.”

  Lifting the water to his face, he washed away the last vestiges of sleep, shook out his hands and dried himself with a towel hanging on a wall hook beside the mirror.

  “Who’re you talking to, Kel?”

  The familiar voice startled him, entering both the room and his thoughts, unannounced as usual. Kelerin quickly turned to face Dunner, hoping his roommate and long time best friend hadn’t heard any part of his one sided conversation. The duel was enough for him to have to deal with that day and he could do without being ragged on nonstop leading up to it.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve let this asylum finally get to you after all this time?” continued Dunner as he made his way over to his bed. On route, he clapped Kelerin on the shoulder and leaped into the air, kicking up his legs and hovering horizontal for a full second while grabbing a textbook entitled Intermediate Wave Theory and Applications off the shelf above where he slept. Dropping down to his mattress, he landed perfectly, legs already crossed and one hand cupping a pillow behind his head. Dunner always did have a flair for the dramatic and relaxing was no exception.

  “It’s not the asylum, so much as the inmates they keep setting me up with as roommates,” countered Kelerin.

  “Flatterer.” Dunner flipped to a marked page in his book while gearing up for his next barb.

  The quarters Kelerin and Dunner lived in were standard Student issue. Eight square meters of beauty mixed with tradition. Walls and furniture were made of a smooth burnished wood called sheethem. The legs of the desk in the corner, as well as the posts of the two beds and the wall cubbies, were all intricately carved depicting various elements of Academy philosophy through interlocking circular patterns and stream-like paths that wove their way into all elements of the room’s decor.

  It was the way the Academy was designed with everything reminding you of what it represented, what it stood for. Living in the dorms long enough one could not escape the feeling of being responsible to uphold Academy traditions right along with its grand reputation.

  Well, most couldn’t. Dunner seemed to manage just fine, often wondering why his peers had trouble sleeping carrying the weight of the Academy’s name on their shoulders, constantly feeling the pressure that there was still more to do, more to prove, and to therewith make the Academy proud. Dunner shrugged off the pressure as one would a leaf falling on their shoulder while strolling along a tree lined path on a pleasant day. Getting a good night’s sleep in the Academy was no challenge for Dunner. On the contrary, he could sleep in almost any position at any time, as Kelerin was oft amazed to observe.

  For his part, Kelerin would never shirk the responsibility that came along with being a Student of the Academy. Even if it meant being a diurnal creature for the better part of his youth and young adulthood.

  “You see, I thought it might be nerves,” offered Dunner, picking up with the teasing where he had left off. “Ya’ know, about your upcoming duel this evening. Performance jitters or something of that nature.”

  “Is that tonight?”

  “Funny.”

  Humor. A fine defense mechanism. But even to Kelerin’s own ears his voice sounded strained. And if he was picking up on it, so was Dunner. He made his way over to the wall cubbies, opened his own and went about inspecting its contents, as if trying to decide what to wear.

  The ruse was paper thin considering that all there was to choose from were four other Academy Student uniforms, carbon copies of what he had on now. That being, a crisp white tunic double breasted with white buttons reaching from collar to coat tails, trousers colored the same bleach white with razor sharp creases looking like they would cut through skin if touched, and a white belt and cross-shoulder sash to complete the ensemble.

  Ignoring his clothes, Kelerin reached for his Rippler shield resting on the shelf above his wardrobe. A Rippler was a small metal band worn on the wrist with two buttons on either side of a circular face, not unlike a watch. When activated it emitted consecutive subatomic particle waves generated at its center that rippled outward in concentric rings. The waves appeared as minor distortions of air similar to the effect of a haze on a scorching hot summer’s day.

  Collectively, these rings formed a powerful energy shield that would have incoming attacks dispersed, riding along the waves and passing harmlessly over the outer crest of the shield’s circumference. A rather ingenious design, the Rippler was able to handle loads of incoming energy far greater than it itself w
as capable of producing. The size of the wave’s circumference could also be adjusted to cover a larger area in a tradeoff with its deflection strength. The larger the area, the weaker the shield.

  Both buttons on the Rippler had to be pressed simultaneously in order to activate it making unintended deployment an unlikely scenario, although not entirely unheard of. One Student discovered this the hard way when during a commencement ceremony he managed to fold his arms in such a way as to unintentionally activate his Rippler, sending an entire row of Students in front of him sprawling forward in cascade-like fashion. The poor kid had a hard time living that one down thanks to the immortalization of the incident in lessons on mindfulness and equipment safety. Always count on the Academy to turn any blunder into a teachable moment.

  Kelerin hefted his Rippler, feeling its weight. It was light. Almost inconsequentially so. A phenomenal piece of Academy engineering to be sure. He noted the settings, making sure the field was configured for an optimal size when deployed. Checking one’s equipment was a habit ingrained in every Student at the Academy and part of the daily routine. Only Kelerin was checking and rechecking the settings somewhat neurotically, a fact not lost on Dunner who was about to launch into another verbal assault to that effect before thinking better of it. What this called for was an all out intervention, Dunner style.

  Closing his book with a dramatic clap, Dunner hopped out of bed and hovered over Kelerin’s shoulder, peering into his cubby in an unabashed invasion of both privacy and personal space.

  It was obvious to Kelerin what Dunner was trying to do, or so he thought, but he wasn’t about to take the bait. Kelerin was far too experienced in putting up with his roommate’s antics to let them get under his skin. He had years of Dunner training, a true master. Still examining his Rippler he asked, “What are you doing, Dunner?” taking care to sound as bored as possible, anything but annoyed.