Ep.#4 - Rebellion (The Frontiers Saga - Part 2: Rogue Castes)

by Ryk Brown

  “Sure about what?” Birk exclaimed.

  “That you were not a Dusahn spy.”

  “A what?” Birk was appalled. “A spy?”

  “One cannot be too careful, these days. The same can be said for you, young man. We could have just as easily been Dusahn spies ourselves.”

  “You killed my friend!” Birk yelled, enraged.

  “Your friend is still alive,” Anji replied calmly. “He is here, in another room.”

  “But… Why the hell…”

  “Like I said, we had to be sure.”

  “Oh my God,” Birk exclaimed, holding back his tears.

  “Approaching someone you do not know, in order to sell them illegal weapons, during an occupation, no less, is very dangerous,” Anji said. “Surely, you considered something like this might happen.”

  “Of course I didn’t!” Birk cried.

  “Then you are even dumber than I thought.”

  Birk couldn’t believe what was happening. “Can I see my friend?”

  “In time,” Anji replied. “Who told you about me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I mean, I heard it around, in the past.”

  “What did you hear?” Anji asked.

  “That you bought things. Things to sell.”

  “I have a market. I sell things in that market. No secret there.”

  “No, I mean you sell things. Things that people are not supposed to be able to buy. You know, black-market stuff?”

  Anji laughed. “People use that term as if they are describing some underground organization, when in fact, it is simply regular people, selling and trading things they own, with others. Just because no tax is paid to the government for such transactions, it becomes a vast conspiracy.”

  “Then you do sell things?”

  “What else did you hear about me?” Anji wondered.

  “Some people say you were once in the Corinari,” Birk admitted.

  “Don’t such men usually display their service credentials proudly on the wall, for all to see?”

  “I heard you were a covert operative, in the Corinari.”

  “Ah, I see,” Anji said, nodding his head in understanding. “That would explain why I had no such display, would it not?” He laughed again. “Young man, had I once been in the Corinari, I would already be in hiding, like all the other ex-Corinari, to avoid arrest. Did you ever think of that?”

  Birk suddenly felt embarrassed. “No.”

  “So, I am to believe that you simply wanted to sell the weapons to make money. Even though doing so would put you at risk of execution at the hands of the Dusahn.”

  Birk said nothing.

  “How much did you think you would get for such a dangerous commodity? One hundred? Two hundred? Three? Would that have been worth the life of your friend? Was that truly your only reason? Greed? Your planet; your people; your entire way of life is threatened, and all you can think about are your own needs?” Anji was shouting by now.

  “I thought I could help,” Birk admitted meekly.

  “What!” he demanded.

  “I thought, that maybe, if I found someone who wanted to buy the weapons, that I would be helping the resistance.”

  “Resistance?” Anji yelled. “What resistance?”

  “I thought that surely, someone would rise up,” Birk said. “I mean, all those guns dropping from the sky. The message from Na-Tan…”

  “Na-Tan is dead! We all saw his memorial! His place on the Walk of Heroes!”

  “I know! But what if he is alive?”

  “Then you would follow him?” Anji yelled defiantly, bursting out laughing. “You? A meek little college student with delusions of grandeur? What could you do?”

  “I could help,” Birk argued.

  “You’re going to fight?” Anji laughed again. “Have you ever even held a weapon?”

  “No, but I could learn,” Birk insisted, feeling insulted.

  “You want to learn to fight?” Anji asked, taunting him.

  “Maybe,” Birk replied, becoming more angry.

  “Then stand up and fight!” Anji exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “You heard me! Stand! You want to fight? Then stand up! Fight me!”

  “What?” Birk said, confused.

  Anji slapped Birk across the face, catching him off guard.

  “What the hell!” Birk exclaimed, his hand instinctively reaching for his reddened cheek.

  “You can’t fight! I’m an old man, and you won’t even fight me!” Anji slapped him again.

  “Why are you…”

  “You want to kill Dusahn, but you sit here and let an old man slap you like you’re a child?” Anji slapped him a third time, then grabbed Birk by the collar of his jacket, pulling him to his feet and shaking him. “Are you going to fight back?” Anji screamed in Birk’s face, spittle spewing from his mouth. “Are you a man?”

  Anji pulled back one hand to slap Birk again, but the young man raised his hand to block the blow. Birk pushed Anji away from him, his face now red with anger.

  “That’s it! Fight me! Fight me, you little bastard!” Anji swung at him again. Birk tried to block the blow, but Anji pulled it short and swung with his other hand, catching Birk in the mouth. Birk stumbled backward, blood and spit flying from his mouth. He screamed in anger, lunging at the old man, grabbing him around the middle. Anji countered, quickly twisting and using the young man’s own momentum against him. A split second later, he had the angry young man from behind, his arm around Birk’s throat. He spun the man around, pushing him up against the rocky wall, pinning him with ease. “You want to fight?” he asked again.

  “Yes,” Birk said, pleading.

  “Do-you-want-to-kill-Dusahn?” Anji asked in slow, deliberate fashion.

  “Yes! I want to kill them all!” Birk screamed.

  Anji suddenly released the young man and stepped back. “Welcome to the resistance.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Nathan, Jessica, and Vladimir all stood behind Josh and Loki in the cramped cockpit of the Seiiki, as Josh maneuvered the ship alongside the Mystic Empress.

  “This has got to be one of the prettiest ships I have ever seen,” Nathan commented.

  “Her lines are beautiful, yes,” Vladimir agreed, “but it is all for show. All those massive exposed windows? If their shields failed, they would surely suffer catastrophic decompression.”

  “I’m sure her designers thought of that, Vlad,” Nathan responded.

  “Still, it is an unnecessary luxury,” Vladimir argued.

  “It’s a cruise ship, Vlad,” Jessica said. “It’s all about unnecessary luxury.”

  “There’s the docking port,” Josh announced, pointing out the left forward window.

  Nathan looked in the direction Josh was pointing, immediately spotting the Mystic’s starboard docking arm as it began to extend out from the cruise ship’s hull, just behind her starboard hangar bay doors. “Looks like a uni,” Nathan noticed.

  “A uni?” Vladimir asked.

  “Universal docking adapter,” Jessica explained. “As jump drives began to increase in the Pentaurus sector, they developed a docking system that could adapt to just about any hull shape or surface, and maintain a proper seal. Actually, it was Ranni Enterprises that developed it.”

  “Very clever,” Vladimir said, impressed. “She probably made quite a bit of profit off that idea.”

  “I’m sure she did.” Jessica thought for a moment. “Now that I think of it, in a way, the uni probably paid for cloning you, Nathan.”

  Nathan looked at her in surprise. “Seriously?”

  Vladimir nodded. “We should install on
e of those on the Aurora. Think she will give us a discount?”

  Nathan smiled. “I think she might consider it.”

  “Seiiki, Mystic Empress. You are cleared for hard dock.”

  “Mystic Empress, Seiiki,” Loki replied. “Maneuvering for hard dock.”

  Nathan, Jessica, and Vladimir watched as Josh and Loki maneuvered the Seiiki carefully up to the Mystic Empress’s docking arm, then slowly slid her up against its universal docking adapter. There was a small thud, and the ship rocked slightly.

  “Contact,” Loki stated.

  “You still doin’ that?” Josh asked wearily.

  “Doing what?”

  “Always stating the obvious?”

  “That’s my job,” Loki defended, sounding annoyed.

  “We all heard the contact, Loki. The ship shook and everything.”

  “Just following procedures,” Loki said, as he began shutting down systems. “Mystic, Seiiki. We have hard dock.”

  “Docking adapter is secure. We show a good seal. We will notify you when you are cleared to board.”

  “I guess I better go put on my good clothes, huh?” Nathan joked, turning to exit.

  * * *

  The door swung open, and Birk stepped out of the small room he had been trapped in for hours. The next room wasn’t much better. Two young men he recognized from the market stood in the next room, waiting to escort him.

  Birk looked at them both with disdain, assuming that they had been involved in his abduction.

  “This way,” one of the young men told him, leading him through the room and into the next.

  At that moment, Birk realized he was in a stone walled basement, and that his prison was a cave dug out of one side of the basement.

  When Birk entered the next room, a wave of relief washed over him. There, smiling at him, was his friend Cuddy, who looked as miserable and scared as Birk felt. The two friends embraced, relieved to see one another. “They told me you were dead,” Birk said as he hugged his friend.

  “They told me the same,” Cuddy replied.

  “We must move you both out of the city,” Anji explained, interrupting their reunion.

  “What? I thought you were going to set us free?” Birk said. “I thought we could go home.”

  “It is only a matter of time before the Dusahn come for you both. Surely, someone saw you take the weapons when they fell from the sky. The Dusahn have been combing the city, arresting everyone they even think knows something about those weapons. And now, you know about this place.”

  “We won’t say anything about you,” Cuddy promised.

  Anji scoffed. “The two of you would not last a minute under Dusahn interrogation. You have but two choices, I’m afraid. Join the resistance, or die here and now. I am sorry, but I cannot allow you to reveal us to the Dusahn.”

  “You would kill us?” Birk said in shock. “Just like that? But we’re Corinairan, just like you.”

  “I’m sorry, but this is much bigger than any of us. Our entire world is at stake. We suffered too long under the reign of Caius. We will not suffer yet another dictator, not again.”

  “We don’t deserve to die,” Cuddy argued. “We’ve done nothing to you.”

  “You sealed your fate when you came here trying to sell us contraband.”

  “Why didn’t you just ignore us and tell us that we were mistaken?” Birk asked.

  “We had to know what you knew. We had to know if the Dusahn were on to us.”

  “Damn it, Birk!” Cuddy exclaimed. “I told you this was a bad idea!”

  “You can still join the resistance,” Anji suggested.

  “We’re not soldiers,” Birk said.

  “You said you wanted to kill Dusahn, did you not?”

  “Yes, but, that was in the heat of the moment.”

  “There are many ways to serve in the resistance,” Anji said. “What vocation are you studying?”

  “Electronics,” Birk answered.

  “And you?” Anji asked, looking at Cuddy.

  “Programming.”

  “Both useful skills, ones that the resistance will no doubt require.”

  “But our friends…our families,” Birk said.

  “Your friends would be the first to sell you to the Dusahn, to protect themselves,” Anji said. “I have seen it before. And your family? They will just be happy that you are alive.”

  “How will they know?”

  “We will make sure they know,” Anji explained. “And you will be able to communicate with them. Perhaps, in time, you will even be able to return to visit them briefly.”

  Birk sighed, and Cuddy scratched his head.

  “I don’t know,” Birk said.

  “Would you rather I kill you now?” Anji reminded him.

  “Actually, no.” Birk looked at Cuddy. “We wanted a little more excitement in our lives, didn’t we?”

  Cuddy looked at him, mouth open. “Not exactly what I had in mind, Birk.”

  “So, what do we do?” Birk asked. “Is this where we live? Underground? Do you have some kind of tunnel system or something?”

  Anji laughed. “You have been watching too many vid-plays.”

  * * *

  “How did you get all this?” Cameron asked, as she looked at the images on the various overhead view screens in the Aurora’s intelligence office.

  “We’ve been sending recon drones skipping through the Darvano and Takar systems at frequent intervals,” Lieutenant Commander Shinoda explained.

  “No cold-coasts?”

  “No, sir. On the general’s advice, we didn’t even try.”

  “We have already made several such attempts,” General Telles explained. “We have never been able to remain in the system for more than an hour. Usually, the Dusahn are intercepting us within minutes.”

  “I don’t want to lose any drones,” Cameron warned the lieutenant commander.

  “Recon and jump intervals are randomized, as are the distances of each jump. And we always use several drones at once, from varying angles, then stitch the data together here. We also programmed the drones to abort their mission and immediately jump clear of the system at the slightest hint of trouble. If anything gets within striking distance, they’re gone. It would be next to impossible for the Dusahn to intercept one of our drones.”

  General Telles nodded his approval. “A sound tactic, Lieutenant Commander.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “That’s got to be real annoying to the Dusahn,” Commander Kaplan said, a smirk on her face. “Having all our drones buzzing around them like flies, and not being able to do anything about it.”

  “Actually, they probably won’t even notice half of them,” Lieutenant Commander Shinoda pointed out. “The recon drones use the newer attenuated jump emitters. Shorter range, but much more difficult to detect on sensors. And visual? Forget it. You’d have to be less than ten kilometers away to see its flash, and even then, you might mistake it for a reflection or something. And in the daylight, it’d be lost against the sky.”

  “I did not know such technology existed,” General Telles said. “Is it available for manned vessels?”

  “Our recon drones are pretty compact,” Cameron said. “Ranging in size from two to four meters. Manned vessels generally require a considerable amount of power to jump any significant distance, so their jump flashes are much more difficult to attenuate.”

  General Telles seemed impressed. “I wasn’t aware you were so well versed in jump drive technology, Captain.”

  “I’m not,” Cameron admitted. “When they first came out, Vlad wouldn’t shut up about them. I think I learned all I ever wanted to know in the first hour they were on board.”

  “They do ha
ve their limits,” Lieutenant Commander Shinoda warned. “Too many successive attenuated jumps and the emitters overheat and burn out. It’s all about the timing. We generally program them to jump to the edge of the system, and then execute the first insertion jump, without attenuation. Then, we use attenuated jump intervals that prevent overheating. Each jump is designed to be executed before the Dusahn have time to detect and intercept the previous jump flash.”

  “I see,” the general replied.

  “So, how many ships are we talking about?” Commander Kaplan wondered.

  “So far, we’ve confirmed eighteen warships, and twelve gunships. There are still three other ships that we haven’t verified. They look more like troop or cargo ships than warships.”

  “Type and number?” Cameron wondered.

  “Four battleships, six heavy cruisers, and eight missile frigates,” the lieutenant commander replied. “Although they are all much older Jung designs, the battleships and heavy cruisers have both energy weapons and projectile weapons.”

  “And they have shields,” Commander Kaplan added. “That much we’ve seen.”

  “Yes,” the lieutenant commander agreed. “And the Jung in our neck of the woods didn’t get shields until a few decades ago. So the Dusahn ships must have picked up the technology along the way, or developed it independently while en route. Same with the energy weapons. Sol-Jung don’t even have them on their warships yet. They still haven’t solved the heat issues on the larger energy weapons.”

  “The Aurora handled that many ships all by herself the last time you guys were out here,” Commander Kaplan said. “And you weren’t nearly as well equipped.”

  “The Takaran ships didn’t have jump drives,” Cameron reminded her executive officer. “That puts an entirely different spin on things. The Alliance hasn’t even been training to fight a jump-equipped enemy.”

  “We did some,” her XO argued.

  “There are fifty-seven basic tactical maneuvers for ship-to-ship combat,” Cameron pointed out. “Only ten of them are for use against a jump-enabled ship.”

  “But when you add in all the variants on those ten, it’s a lot more,” the commander argued.