Robber Baron

by Wil C. Fry

  He glanced at Destiny, then looked back at me, raising an eyebrow. "Can we talk?"

  "Go ahead. This is my wife, Destiny, and I am Philipp. And you are?"

  "Oh. Pardon my manners. My name is Gwandon. James Gwandon. I saw you hit Dan. Where did you learn that?"

  "That's not important, is it? Maybe next time 'Dan' will learn to be more polite to a lady. And her husband."

  "Of course, Philipp. My point is this: if you are not presently employed, I think I may have a job for you."

  *

  As it turned out, "Dan" had been a good friend of James Gwandon. Gwandon worked for one of the two main crime bosses in Farlaya, and was head of the bodyguard service. Dan had been a recent addition to the bodyguard crew, mainly because of his imposing size. I took the job, after a lengthy examination by Gwandon.

  He tested my accuracy with several weapons, had the organization's physician give me a complete check-up - which I passed with flying colors, and briefly tested my skill in hand-to- hand combat. Then he outlined my job duties: Never let anyone touch the boss, not even cops with warrants (unless the judge had personally called first.) While at home, the boss was not to be bothered, except by those on a short list. While the boss was traveling, or visiting "business" contacts, I was to keep my eyes peeled for possible members of the opposing organizations or secret police. The boss was The Boss; if he told me to get coffee or clean the toilet, that was my job. I was to be paid 200nd a week, plus a 1,000nd bonus for every assailant I personally apprehended.

  After all that rigmarole, I found myself playing cards most of the time. I learned that The Boss stayed at home most of the time, and that the home pretty much guarded itself There were dozens of security cameras, which I took turns watching and there was a high wall around the place, with a security mesh overhead (to keep cars from flying over the wall.)

  Once in a great while, I took a turn standing with another goon outside the Boss's door, and on even more rare occasions, I played a game of chess with Gwandon.

  Then I began asking around about a ship.

  Seven.

  Destiny didn't like the fact that I was working for a known criminal figure, and let me know it. She said crime bosses always have cops of some kind watching them. I agreed with her, of course, but I felt it was the best way to buy a ship of our own. We had a few "disagreements," because she thought I should be able to buy a ship without being in his employ. Maybe she was right - I don't know. Once, she even said that maybe we shouldn't get a ship, if it meant I had to get that close to the police. After several months, I was ready to quit, myself, when I found the ship I wanted. I had worked for "The Boss" for about a year, known to him only as "Philipp Dester."

  For one million newdollars, I bought a 150-foot barque, from a contact I had met while working for the Boss. The chassis had begun as a Shimki-made scientific cruiser, hence the clear bubble dome on the upper side. It had since been refitted as a luxury yacht, with back-yard type deck furniture replacing scientific instruments under the dome, and a game room and a spa replacing other equipment inside.

  I paid a little extra to have further refitting done; I took out the game room and added a wide back door. This created a small cargo area, and the door was large enough to drive a large car through. I also upgraded the ship's meager defense system. It had been equipped only with COWS (Close Object Warning System), and the AADS (Asteroid Avoidance or Destruction System). To these, I added several rocket launchers and a new program for the AADS, which allowed the lasers to aim at other space ships or objects besides asteroids.

  *

  It wasn't long after buying the ship (and several well-faked registrations) that I quit working with Gwandon and the Boss. I quit without hard feelings, and remained in contact with Gwandon who continuously tried to get me to rejoin.

  Maybe I got a little greedy, but I got the idea into my head that Gwandon could help us in our own trade. After discussing it thoroughly with Destiny, we let Gwandon help us with our next robbery. I was a little nervous about it, but I made sure that we never met him at our home, and that neither of us had been followed. The only reason that Destiny agreed to let him in on our scores was the fact that he had always been very discreet, and she didn't think he was the type of person that would leak any information.

  Destiny drove the car, while James and I went inside the bank in Pleasure City, Junxle. We made three million newdollars and gave James one million. That was in late 2489. By early 2490, the three of us had robbed three more banks, always giving James a third of the take.

  When Destiny got another promotion and transfer (to Tuf), James Gwandon made a tough decision. He quit working for the Boss, and came with us. I thought it would be an easy decision, since we were making so much money, but I didn't take into account that he had been working for the same man for more than twenty years.

  We sold our house and Destiny's Cyr Sport car, bringing the Grumman Cruiser along, in the new hold of our ship, which we named the S.S. Baron. Destiny became New Planet Spacelines' youngest office manager ever, at 23, in the spaceport at Tabumb, Tuf. James took a nice apartment in Otok, and made several contacts with the organized crime syndicates there.

  So, after twenty years, I had come full circle. I was living in the very city in which I had been born. I spent the first few weeks in Tabumb going to some of the sites, and even took a tour through Jerth, the ancient capital city of the Trayaks. The old throne room, where Kthorpa had made his treaty with the People's Ruling Council is now a tourist spot, with plaques and photographs commemorating that historic time - the end of the Ninety Year War.

  *

  After a few months of vacationing and touring humanity's oldest colonized planet, I began planning more robberies. With James' help, and the help of some of his new friends, we robbed banks in Tabumb, Otok, Jingbill, and other towns across the planet. Of course, we paid off those who had given us computer help, and inside information, but the three of us kept most of the earnings, and James and I made a special trip in our ship, to Justine, where we deposited a lot of the money. Destiny and I decided that it really was easier to rob banks with more people. With computer hackers on our payroll, we could walk into the bank, already knowing the combination of the safe, and the general layout of the place. With a paid getaway driver, we didn't have to worry about one of us staying with the car. Extra guns meant that we were less likely to get shot.

  Still, though, Destiny and I made our own getaway plans, every time. We never walked into a bank, without having a backup plan. Just because you're paying someone, doesn't mean you can trust them.

  After James bought his own ship - slightly larger than ours, he set off on his own, robbing several jewelry stores and banks in Otok, with his own crew. I think he had just stayed with us long enough to learn the trade, knowing the whole time that he wanted to work on his own. I heard, through the grapevine, that he wasn't paying his partners nearly as much as we had been, and so his personal fortune was growing much faster than ours was.

  Then he got caught, along with two of his accomplices.

  *

  The court in Otok sentenced him to fifteen years on Taak, the smaller of Tuf's two moons, thinking he was the "Robber Baron" that so many planets were looking for. It was reported in the papers that he had named "Philipp Dester" and "Destiny Bates" as accomplices in earlier robberies, in an attempt to get a lighter sentence. On the evening holovision news, an anchorman said that Gwandon' s sentence would only be shortened if his two accomplices were caught.

  So, we destroyed all documents bearing those two names, and considered moving. James had also given the police accurate descriptions of us, nearly matching the descriptions released on Persiphone, years earlier, by the Tarkin Police Department.

  Destiny was brought in for questioning, because her first name and description matched those given by Gwandon. However, there was no other evidence incriminating her except the fact that she had lived on Persiphone at the same time as the other robberies
years before. And, in those years, the police forces on different planets weren't cooperating much with each other. She told the police that she had once dated a "Philipp," but that his last name hadn't been Dester. The detectives seemed to believe her when she told them that she had broken up with that Philipp on Junxle, and hadn't seen him since. She also denied knowing any "James Gwandon." Destiny proved to the Tuf Planetary Security forces that her real name was Destiny Dester, not "Bates." After making sure that she was indeed the office manager at the Tuf division of New Planet Spacelines, they let her go. There were quite a few other women named "Destiny" that they needed to question. The cops attempted to get warrants for her banking records, but Destiny surprised them by showing up with paperwork in hand. She showed them only one account, of course, the one that matched the name she had given them. The account's activity matched her current salary. She also showed them other financial statements, showing car payments on her Cyr Luxury Sport and house, all in accordance with her recorded earnings.

  I saw on the news that police on Junxle were looking for me on Junxle and Persiphone. Nothing ever came of it. I was glad that the Great Separation hadn't quite ended yet. If it had not been for that, they might have caught up with us. Later, the police quit looking for me, deciding that Gwandon had merely been trying to get a reduced sentence by naming some people he had met on Junxle.

  Destiny got a letter from her father, saying he had been questioned briefly about the two of us. He had called Harry Bates (now in his second term as governor on Persiphone), who had put an end to the investigation on Persiphone. Harry even went the "second mile," and wrote a letter to the heads of government of Tuf and Junxle, telling them that Philipp Kaplan Bates was his own adopted son, describing the entire situation of my parents' death. He also informed them of the trust fund that I had closed on Persiphone, so they would know that I was financially able to drive a nice car, or live in a nice home.

  Things settled down for a while.

  After that little scare, though, I always kept the news on, wherever I happened to be. If at home, I kept the holovision set tuned to the all-news channel. I bought a police scanner, and a wireless earphone. That way, if I had to leave the house for any reason, I could still know what was going on. In the car, I listened to the police scanner in one ear, and kept my other ear tuned to the all-news channel on the radio.

  I wanted to be ready, if we were really in trouble.

  *

  By 2492, the older planets had come to terms once and for all, and the Second Galactic Rim Federation came into being. Otok, Tuf, became the capital of the new Federation. Word was sent out by special couriers to all other colonized planets, and a special delegation from the new Federation met with the leaders of the Colonial Commission, still the most powerful organization in the known Galaxy. A new age was dawning for mankind, an age of interplanetary cooperation and great economic expansion. Those of us who had lived through the Great Separation were finally going to find out what it was like to live under an all- encompassing government.

  Persiphone's population finally passed the one million-mark. In 2491, Golian had joined the ranks of incorporated planets, choosing a "complete and total" democracy. Every citizen on Golian was provided with a special "voter's computer," with which to help control the planet. Every issue for the entire planet was debated by and voted on by every citizen who wished to participate.

  The people of the new planet Wederr elected to be ruled by a constitutional monarchy, while Jalla took the popular route of a representative democracy.

  Talks continued with the newly discovered Sleebb people, and the new Federation began a flashy ad campaign, in an attempt to build a new Federation military force. The spokesmen for the new Federation military announced plans for a small Space Navy, for scouting, transporting, and planetary defense forces. In addition, the new Federation Infantry was planned, for any ground fighting that could be expected in a future war.

  People who read too much novice science fiction, or who like to watch the older, Terran video movies, can easily be fooled into thinking that a space war will actually be fought in space. This is only rarely true. I'm not really speaking from experience here, just from logic. Spaceships cannot possibly fight like the sea ships of old did. Space is not like the oceans, where two fleets of ships can draw up a battle line, and fire salvoes across the waters. Space is simply too big.

  Yes, I know, many of our larger ships are equipped with laser weapons, and missiles of different kinds, to ward off pirates. And, once in a great while, these weapons will actually be used. But it is not an efficient way to fight an interstellar war.

  For instance, if I were the leader of a military organization that wanted to take over a certain planet, I would not try to shoot down their ships. If my fleet comes out of the Jump near a solar system, my main goal is going to be to land my troops on the planet. Even if that planet's fleet was in orbit around her, defending the planet, the ships would be spaced too far out. Do you know how many ships it would take to set up an orbital defense screen?

  For one thing, the average inhabited planet is about 7,500 miles in diameter. That makes her circumference - the distance around the planet at her equator - about 23,500 miles. That makes her surface area about 175 million square miles. But we're talking about ships in orbit, right? Say the ships are a thousand miles from the surface of the planet. That makes a new, imaginary sphere, with a surface area of almost 285 million square miles. Now, how far apart did you want to place your ships? Do you see what I mean? To defend your planet with to any reasonable degree, you'd need thousand - perhaps millions - of warships.

  Besides, I don't want to conquer the space around your planet; I want the planet itself. So, I'm going to land ground troops, after first attempting to bomb your main defense installations.

  The point of all this is to say that a space war will not be fought between ships in space. It will be fought between invading ships and ground-based defenders, at first, and then between two opposing ground forces. The space fleets will be comprised mostly of troop carriers and bomb platforms. And both sides would use the bombs sparingly, since no one wants to take possession of a ruined planet. And that's what the new Federation wanted, a force that could successfully defend or conquer a planet, without devastating it.

  New taxes came into effect, for the planets under the new Federation. In addition to any planetary taxes, the Federation charged every citizen exactly five percent of their annual income, unless they made over 30,000nd per year; then the tax jumped to nine percent.

  The Cyr Corporation received the government contract for all ground fighting vehicles - tanks, boats, a-grav attack ships - and their stock went through the roof. The Shimki Corporation got the contract for the Space Navy ships - mostly troop carriers, and moved their headquarters to Tuf. Grumman, the other major vehicle builder, did not get any government contracts. But, of course, they didn't need them: they still held the contract for the Colonial Commission's spacecraft.

  *

  Throughout the years, Destiny and I kept a diary of our exploits, listing every bank, every city, every planet, where we did what we did best. We kept the diary in a safety deposit box in a - you guessed it - in a bank. After every score, we would retrieve the diary, make our entry, and then return it to its resting-place.

  Let it suffice to say that after the Federation carne into being, we tripled our number of false IDs, and false ship registrations. We robbed banks on Tuf, Tiffany's World, Yavin, Junxle, Willsworld, Aurora, Johnny's World, Garbage, Paradise, Maze, Ibeen, Leech, Mars II, Bliss, Blrange, Earth II, Graph, Bleen, Gooey, Blown, Yurple, Moonworld, Fod, Habachi, Malachi, Old Yeller II, Poois, Reblown, Yink, Flekzedge, Orblu, Blabrow, Grack, Pred, Reenue, Orblack, Mouwor, Yeblink, Brink, Feebellight, Laust, Skledge, Pinky II, Wotfrov, Pluto III, Saivalaurie, New Earth, New Luna, Hemm, Saturn II-C; Turner's Planet, Glucose, the nine worlds of the Jagg-Mall system, and others.

  At first, we decided not to rob any banks on Just
ine, since that's where most of our accounts were handled, but we thought that it would be awfully suspicious if we didn't, so we held two small and "amateur" heists there.

  We visited Persiphone in 2494, the year of their "Monarchy" elections, using New Planet Spacelines for travel accommodations. Destiny traveled as herself - an employee - and I traveled in a separate cabin, under a different name. While there, we robbed two banks.

  During that same trip, acting as ourselves, we visited Habdes I, her father's increasingly crowded and wealthy space habitat in the asteroid belt. I didn't really like it there, even though it was neat, clean, and well organized. I guess I'm more of a planet type person.

  I spent a lot of time with Harry, on the surface of Persiphone. He was trying to get out of the government business, while at the same time, the people of the planet were trying to vote him in as their first "Monarch." Just after we left, they succeeded, and Harry gave in, accepting a 20-year term as the First Constitutional Monarch of the Kingdom of Persiphone.

  While traveling with Harry, I went with him to Basplace, and met Michael Hubbard Cyr again. He seemed amused when I told him that Destiny had bought stock in his company. In fact, he was so amused that he pulled a sheaf of papers out of his desk.