Prison Planet (THE RIM CONFEDERACY Book 3)

by Jim Rudnick

  The head of maintenance looked back up at the diagrammatic wondering if this was a one-off or if there could be more fluctuations coming, and he turned back to look again at the techies.

  He stared at them all for a moment and then said, “So, you heard her. Can we do this?”

  He waited as more heads back there nodded too.

  “Okay, then I hereby order that the fluctuation settings be similar—let’s say, any increase of twenty percent will automatically make the probe levels add—what’s our envelope?” he said, questioning the techs.

  “We use 100 feet only as the volcano is so, so stable, Sir,” one of the techs in a white coat said as he half-stood and then sat down again quickly.

  “Okay, then maintenance order for today—mark it as priority Alpha Number One—is that the envelope gets doubled as of right now to 200 feet. That our new automatic doubling of same goes to twenty percent, and if there is ever another twenty-plus percent increase, that it doubles again as needed. Got that?” he said to the head tech, who was quickly digitizing that order onto his tablet and then swinging the unit over to the Thronian, who simply added his thumbprint to the security screen, and the job was done.

  As the groups headed back down the long control room to the entrance to go their separate ways, he looked at the guard captain beside him on the walk.

  “Captain Terrance, exactly what is that convict Muri in here for?” he said with a degree of interest.

  “Sir,” she said, “I’m only aware that she has five years here, but not more than that,” she said, attempting to give a small degree of privacy between the convicts under her command. The issue that had sent Muri to Halberd was one with Power Plant issues, which might be significant to some, but not to her. A convict was a convict until they left Halberd—end of story.

  #

  Nusayr applied more polish to his polishing cloth and went back to slow circular swipes along the fender of the yellow pod he was finishing as the last one of the day. He was alone now, and the rest of his detailing team had moved off to gather up the used goods and equipment to return to the Pod Plant quartermaster stores to show nothing had been taken or destroyed by their crew.

  Turning the cloth over, he wondered where this pod would be going and which planet would be its new owner. Olbia didn’t even have a space elevator, so it’d not end up there, and found himself thinking about the last time he was on his home world more than a year ago now.

  He remembered being summoned out to the Olbia landing port to meet the Caliph who was coming down to see him. The large indigo shuttle had swooped down to its assigned landing pad at the Olbia landing port and settled onto its landing struts with ease. It had made great time from the Caliph’s ship, the CN Roc, which was up in low orbit. The simple fact the Sharia had decided not to land but to shuttle down was a sign. But a sign of what? Nusayr thought.

  He shrugged and went out to meet the leader of the Caliphate realm and stood waiting as the shuttle door opened up a few feet away. As it opened, he smiled at the ranks of the Caliphate guards, who stood just inside the door, and waited for the landing door to swing completely out of the way.

  The guards filed out and instead of moving off to one side, they surrounded him and stood awaiting something further. Nusayr waited too and was not disappointed as a moment later a Ramat Colonel appeared in the newly opened shuttle port and looked directly at Nusayr. His face was solemn with no smile. He even looked a bit nervous, but he spoke in even tones, almost in a monotone.

  “Nusayr al-Rashid, leader of the Council of Nine, you are commanded to appear before the Caliph in that you and the Council are hereby to be charged with the crime of sedition. You may now acknowledge your guilt and confess at this point. Due to your familial relationship to the Caliph, I have been ordered to offer up this one chance. How do you respond?” the colonel said.

  Nusayr was taken aback, but showed nothing on his face. Instead, a few seconds later, he smiled at the colonel and simply said, “I have nothing to confess, Colonel.”

  The Ramat guards closest to him moved forward and quickly applied their Needler guns to his back and sides at the same time. He shook as he began to fall but was then held up by more of them. Moving quickly, they shackled his wrists and then hustled him into the shuttle. As the door slid in place, the engines lit, and they jumped up and left the surface. As the shuttle yawed to port, it tilted backward and then accelerated quickly up and toward outer space. A minute or two later, the blue darkened as the shuttle still climbed and then slowly turned black as the CN Roc could be seen coming up in the distance. The shuttle spun in a large starboard circle and came about as the Roc’s landing port force field dropped, and the shuttle entered the bay and eased inside the ship to come to a halt as it landed.

  The Ramat hustled the shackled Nusayr out of the shuttle, and they marched him across the landing bay and into the Roc, a full destroyer with huge Perseus engines. It took more than a full ten minutes for this squad of Ramat secret policemen to manhandle and muscle their charge up to Deck Fifty and the ship’s ready room, where they deposited their charge into a chair.

  The Caliph sat in the only other chair in the room, and the look on his cousin’s face, was the darkest Nusayr had ever seen. Dressed in his usual blue robe and shawl, an ajrak colored with fields of brown and indigo blue diamonds among the design, and his brown soft boots, the Caliph spoke after a minute.

  “You are a fool, Nusayr,” the Caliph said, his voice loud and filling the room.

  Nusayr shrugged and sat without speaking.

  “You and the rest of the Council have been overtly conducting seditious acts aimed at creating insurrection against our established order. How do you plead?” the Caliph said flatly. He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair as he leaned forward to get a real answer.

  Nusayr sat for a moment and then finally spoke.

  “Exactly how did I—did we—do that, Caliph?” he said quietly.

  “You had your own Ramat forces put down the student protest—which we know you instigated in the first place, and they did so with abandon. They killed some of your own students, and they injured hundreds more. Did you not do this, Nusayr?” he finished his initial charge and leaned back to await verification of this charge.

  “I did not, Caliph,” was his answer.

  “Then by working in the background with promises of better subsidies and tax breaks, you got the Farmers Guilds to strike their normal foodstuff exports, and that was on a global scale. You and some of your Council members did that too, did you not?” That question was emphasized with a pointed finger and a raised eyebrow.

  “We did not, Caliph,” was the answer once more.

  “Then with your party Whip in charge, behind the scenes, the Council of Nine encouraged the quick development of that bill to begin talks on secession from the Caliphate, and that was rammed through the third reading quicker than any other bill in history. Do you also deny that as well?” Sharia added and sat back in disgust.

  “I do again say we had nothing to do with this—in fact, the record shows that we fought to keep that bill from ever reaching the floor to no avail!” Nusayr said, his voice as flat as the Caliph’s tone. He held his hand out palm up toward his cousin and spoke plainly.

  “Sharia, I—we did nothing. This is all based on what one can easily see is the basic inability of the Olbia citizens to accept our rule ... They want their freedom, Sharia, that is plain to see,” he said as he stared at his Caliph.

  Sharia looked away and then shook his head.

  “Will never happen, Nusayr. You and the Council will face trial on Neria for your crimes. We have assembled all the witnesses we need; we have purged your own Ramat terrorists; your student organizers, your Farmers Guild compatriots, and your Parliamentary sycophants have all been quite willing to come forward with their stories of your manipulations. You will be found guilty, Nusayr, and you will be sent to Halberd for your crimes—you and the rest of the Council.”


  He rose and the Ramat secret policemen re-entered the ready room to gather up the prisoner and march him down many decks to the ship’s brig. Nusayr noted that the rest of the Council was already there, and he sat with the same sad look on his face and shook his head when Razin asked if they should talk about this. Instead, the nine of them sat and kept silent for the trip to Neria. He would one day handle the Caliph himself. One day ...

  #

  Tanner marched with some care down the corridor between the lift on the Sterling and the conference room that the EliteGuards were leading him to. Like all cruisers, the decks were the same in number, but various Navy forces set them up as they needed to. On the Marwick, Deck Twenty-three held the gym, mess halls, ship’s library, movie hall, and a few meeting rooms. But here on the Sterling, the deck was off limits to all crew and officers, as notices said just that; only Royals were able to be on this deck along with their attending EliteGuards. Lost space, Tanner thought and then jammed the heel of his hand against his lips to quell the sudden burp. Either too much Scotch, he though, or maybe not quite enough, but the hell with it, all I gotta do is nod and say yes Ma’am.

  The EliteGuard, a sergeant, stopped beside a closed door to port and knocked gently on it. From inside came a voice that said, “Send him in.”

  Tanner waited while the sergeant opened the door, allowed him to enter, and then closed it behind him. He walked toward the table ahead of him that held only two people—the Lady St. August and her Adept officer, who didn’t even wear the ringed planet badge. He nodded to them, pulled out a conference chair to sit, and was happy to note this little faux pas received no response from either one. He looked around and saw the room was furnished with the large table, about a dozen chairs, and a luncheon spread out for a buffet over on the sideboard. Before he could even look at more than a few of the items, the Lady spoke.

  “You were invited here today, Captain Scott, to listen to a, a proposition which I am to make on behalf of the Barony,” she said quietly but with a look on her face that Tanner knew meant something more was up than her simple sentence.

  Easy, he thought, I have to nod and say yes Ma’am, but now I know that I have to think about what was said before I say yes. He slightly shook his head and then glanced at the Adept in the room and smiled. She might have caught that, and then he started thinking about which nursery rhyme to repeat. He turned more to face the Lady and nodded.

  “I understand, Lady, that you speak for the Barony, so what does the Barony want with me? Or the RIM Navy?”

  He almost burped again, but was able to bite the inside of his cheek to stop that one. Wonder if they’ve got Scotch on this cruiser, he thought and smiled.

  The Lady never stopped looking at him but leaned a bit forward in her chair. Her long blonde hair moved forward so she tossed it behind her ear. She leaned forward farther and spoke to him.

  “The Barony has commissioned a new vessel for our Navy—one of the first of those new super-destroyers from inwards beyond Pentyaan space ... from ... hell,” she said. “I’ve no idea where from, but I do know that this ship has three Perseus engines and will be the fastest ship out here on the RIM. Did you know that, Captain?”

  She picked up the cup off the saucer and took a sip as she watched her luncheon guest.

  Tanner’s mind was racing with the sheer splendor that would go with that new ship. With three engines, she could do a light-year in eight hours. Now that was fast! He nodded and waited, knowing more was to come.

  “And what we want—both the Baroness and myself—we want that ship to be captained by the best captain we have in the Barony Navy. Which is our problem, Captain Tanner. One we hope that you can help us with,” she added and took another sip of whatever was in that cup.

  Tanner sobered up a notch with that last comment and realized what they wanted was counsel. Just a name perhaps or what ... he had no real idea, but then what else?

  “Ma’am, are you after a name? Doesn’t the Barony Navy have many competent and able captains to pick from, Ma’am, as I’d really have no idea on who to recommend from your own captains, Ma’am,” he said and smiled at them both. He wanted a drink, any kind of drink, but the sideboard was way over there, and he didn’t think getting up right now would be a good idea.

  Gillian, the Adept officer, got up just then, went to the sideboard, poured a black coffee into a mug, and dropped it in front of Tanner with a simple nod.

  Should have guessed, he thought as he took a quick sip and burned his tongue a bit. He still looked at the Lady and waited. He knew there was more judging by her stare back at him.

  “Name? No, Captain, we are more than aware of our own Navy captains and their abilities. No, Captain, we do not need a name—we need a new captain. We need you,” she said, finished whatever was in her cup, and set it down with a clank on its saucer.

  Tanner was in shock. He could have the newest super-destroyer to be his own, but yes, there was a cost. He would have to leave the RIM Navy, leave the admiral and what few friends he had, and that was a major issue. Then he realized that he’d be in the service of the Baroness—the one he knew was the perpetrator of the whole Pirate incursion almost a couple of years back. There was so much to put on the negative side of the ledger even considering such a move. Still, that captain’s chair on the fastest ship on the RIM was so strong on the other side. He gulped a large slurp of coffee and burned his mouth even more.

  That burning mouthful made him sit back and think about his drinking and Scotch consumption and what that new captaincy would mean to him personally. He looked away from the table for a moment to the window port that was closed and stared at the blank black glass.

  Gillian looked at the Lady and said simply, “Ma’am, may I say something?” and she waited to get a nod from the Lady.

  “Captain Scott, it would be no surprise to you for you to learn that we—just like everybody else who cared to look into your posting here on Halberd knows—that you are here as a last resort to keeping your own captaincy in the RIM Navy. We know that the admiral has said you need to give up the bottle in the year that you’re to be here—else you will be relieved and de-commissioned. We know, Captain, we know all about that,” she said, looking straight into his eyes.

  Tanner nodded. This was really no surprise. As the Adept had said, almost everyone knew he was here for his last chance at “rehab,” and he had yes, only a year.

  “Well, then if that’s true, why would any Navy think about offering me a commission? A captain who is a drunk would surely not be a suitable candidate for the fastest ship on the RIM. Why would I leave one Navy that was going to get rid of me to take on a new job where I would also be fired? That makes no sense at all,” he said and that rang true for him.

  The Lady looked at Tanner even more closely.

  “Because we know—we really know—that you will beat the hold that the booze has on you, Captain. And we want you in the Barony Navy—captaining the newest, fastest ship we have. We know because we have more than studied you with our full Issian counselors, and they have looked ahead and have seen you in our Barony Navy uniform on the new ship. We know little more than that, of course, but we know it to be true. That, and we don’t really care about what you do with your life on your time, Captain. We want you, and I have a guess that you want that new ship. Am I correct, Captain?” she said.

  The whole meeting came to a standstill as that question hung in the air.

  Tanner toyed with his mug, took a sip, and then pushed it around again for a moment. No one spoke and he knew that he was being stared at, but he looked over at that black screen that held back the view of the Andros landing port tarmac.

  He wondered what he might do and what decision he would make and then realized he couldn’t do that now. He needed time. Leaving the RIM Navy was a small point, though he would miss some of his crew mates. Leaving the admiral was more bothersome as he was his mentor. But leaving the bottle was the biggest factor—if he couldn’t, he’d be c
ashiered out of the RIM Navy. And according to the Lady, they didn’t even care. Scotch and the fastest ship on the RIM did sound good, and he knew that this side of the ledger was suddenly a mighty big factor to leave on the table.

  He turned to the Lady.

  “Ma’am, I thank you for the kind offer, but I am unable to make a decision on it right now. May I have some time, please?” he said quietly.

  The Lady nodded but held up a finger.

  “Yes, of course, Captain—but not months and months. You have probably heard that there will be a large 100th Anniversary Celebration here on Halberd ... 100 years and no successful escape. We would like to know your decision no later than say, that week, which is I think,” she said as she looked down at her PDA, “in about two months. Will that suffice, Captain?”

  Tanner nodded. That would be enough time. It would have to be enough time to either defeat the bottle and stay in the RIM Navy or make the move over to the Barony and keep the Scotch as his best friend. He smiled as he realized this was a win-win situation for him, and he glanced over at the Adept counselor and smiled again as she dipped her head to him and smiled back. She must have heard that, he thought as he piled out of the room and left striding happily.

  Later, the Lady knew she had to EYES ONLY back to the Baroness with the good news that Captain Tanner Scott would soon be in their Navy, and she smiled too.

  #

  Admiral McQueen watched with some degree of boredom as the majordomo finished his measurement of the last of the desk mats at each of the forty RIM Council member stations around the huge horseshoe council table and seemed to have at least satisfied that item on his list. He would go on, McQueen knew, to then do the same with the pads and styluses for each of the members and then again with the trays of refreshments for each too. Perches, water tanks, and chairs had been done first, and McQueen knew today’s agenda would be the final item the man in charge of the setup of each of the Council meetings would deal with. He and his chief steward moved on to those items too.