Vict

by Jessie Rose Case

  Connect me with the Admiral.

  Vict waited. He struggled to remain logical, keeping his anger under control. If, what he feared was true, the Empire was going to war. The Admiral wouldn’t accept this as chance. None of them would. Logic was logic. His people were coming. And if what he expected was going on, those responsible were dead men.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mina looked at the code again. It made no sense. A lot of it seemed conflicting as it was multi layered. She couldn’t understand the point of it. No one was going to be interested in buying this, it was too fragmented to be useful. She mused trying to link it again. It had tags that were buried deep. It came from an Earth Corp source, that was clear, she recognised the old styling but it was fresher than the original code they had. It wasn’t as degraded or basic. Seemed newer somehow. Mina shook her head, that was not impossible. They’d been no new code from Earth Corp since the last ship had arrived.

  Mina looked at it again and thought about what she’d been asked to do. Strip down the code. Give a list of it’s applications. Mina sat back in her chair. She wasn’t sure what applications this could be used for. One step at a time, she reminded herself. What were they up to this time? Strip down the code, she told herself. She could do that and got to work.

  ***

  “Are you sure?” Vict nodded. The leader of their Empire looked pissed. So did his seconds, Pain and Dark. Vict could see them all on the vid screen.

  “We’ve been through all their social media, there’s no definitive record of anyone crashing here. There’s plenty of rumour. Sightings of ships over the years, a couple of incidences where people are sure they’ve seen ships in the sky, a crash was reported some 30 years ago but it’s always been played down by the Government here. It was in the desert area, we’re scanning now for any known materials. I’m going on world to make a search after this. The rebel underground movement here has been most helpful.

  “They substantiated that there’s a lot going on here that the public don’t know about. The world is run by the Corporations. They were set up by Earth Corp as we thought. Their role, is still not clear but it centres around a new alloy they found here before seeding. They mine it and it seems, a flexible toughened metal that anything can be created from it. We have some we’re testing. Their role, to find applications for it.

  “There’s a CEO and a Board. They make all the decisions for these people. From birth, their channelled into fields of work, no choice given. It’s an expectation with incentives for the families to make sure it happens. Bonuses of credits and food, better housing. Those that oppose, they have a security force that deals with that. People go missing. I’m sending you my full report now.” Vict made the mental connection and gave the order for it to be sent on.

  “I doubt,” he continued. “That this world just happened to come across our tech. I’ve found nothing to support that theory. This world was seeded long before our creation and supply ships from Earth Corp stopped some 20 odd years before our originals. I would say, it’s clear that this comes from us.”

  Rage leaned forward. “They don’t have space capabilities?”

  Vict shook his head. “They don’t have the fuel for it but have space satellites. I’m sure they could create them alright and I’d be surprised, if they were not experimenting with it based on this new alloy. That would make perfect sense but, this world does not have the tech or power source to fuel inter-galactic travel or it’s in it’s infancy.”

  “I don’t like it.” Rage told him. “Find out, I want to know exactly what their capabilities are and if they have our people. Get back to me. I’ll take this to our Council. Report back after you see the crash site.”

  “Affirmative.” Vict told him and the screen went blank.

  His people were going to be coming. In what strength, was yet to be decided. He looked at the Planet below him. It’s blues and sandy colours reminding him of places on Old Earth. Only there was no surface water on this world, it was all underground, hidden in an underground river and lake that encompassed the planet. It had protected it from evaporation and the mineral content was good and had sealed its fate as a seed world for Earth Corp. People needed water and it made mining dangerous but Vict guessed, it was worth the risk to those that the decisions.

  They’d found only a few select areas where mining could take place. Where the river did not go. It was a delicate balance. Mine too near it and it would wash out the mine, lives would be lost and the water contaminated. They’d learnt by their mistakes and quickly. A terrible disaster soon after the mining had started, made the Corporations sit up and take notice. Loosing two essential elements on this world would have meant death, so they put in safeguards and made it work.

  From what he’d read, they’d been a lot of talk about cost verses lives. The lives won, mainly because the water had been damaged and that affected all of them. This world had more water than it needed. It’s unique make up of subterranean waters with a hot desert crust, created the perfect dissipation effect. It created it own water and wasn’t governed by a sun or moon. This worlds sun had lost its potency to burn a long time ago. Now, it was a bright light in the sky until it went down, and the stars came out. This world had no moon. When it was dark, it was pitch black.

  Erosion evidence across the planet from waters bursting forth from underground sources, washing across the surface for a short time, then receding again, told of its circle of life. Vict expected this was in times of over production and full storage capacity in the underground lakes. Since the city had arrived, humans were using the water to drink, wash, clean, make gardens, and run their lives. There was little evidence of it over flowing now. Waste water was recycled through a system not linked to the underground lakes. They were to check that out as well.

  Interestingly, there was no farming. They’d not found any live stock or old school food production. But these people were eating, they used other means, Vict just needed to know how. His neuro net pinged.

  We are ready to launch. Vict gave a mental nod and headed back to the loading bay. Getting answers started now.

  ***

  Mina frowned reading the code. She’d broken it down. It didn’t make sense. It was a very complex piece of coding, far surpassing, anything they had used before. She’d looked to find links to their current systems and come up empty. It had no creative links to anything that was in use. She couldn’t find any provenance. It was as if it had materialised out of thin air and suddenly existed. Mina knew that wasn’t impossible. All code held tags and creative links to previous pieces of work. All their coding had started with the Earth Corp code. This had something similar, but it wasn’t the same. It was more advanced, more technical and had lines of code they’d never used before.

  Mina stared at it. Maybe if she looked at it long enough the answer would come to her? Mina realised how stupid she sounded. She shook her head and got up, heading to the refreshment area. She filled her cup her caffeine favourite, hoping it would help in finding some genius. She took several swigs before heading back and sitting down again.

  Maybe she was looking at this all wrong? Maybe she should start with what the whole piece of code could be used for? Inspiration struck, and Mina had a new lead. She took several more gulps of her caffeine nourishment then put it to one side. She pulled up the fragments of code and started putting it back together. She could run a programme to define it’s use once completed. That was simple. It would give her a starting point and now that she thought about it, it seemed obvious to start there. So the question was, why didn’t her boss just say to do that? He’d have his answers a lot quicker. Why didn’t he want her working on that?

  Mina looked around her. Her gut told her she was in trouble with this. No one seemed to gave her any special attention, everyone just getting on with their work, but she couldn’t shift the feeling she was missing something here. She’d have to be careful. She had no instructions to re-create the code. Mina set up a secondary work platfor
m and took it off line. Then spent the next five hours patching and matching code, switching between her work platform and the one-off line. She needed to have an online working presence, just in case her boss or someone else, started asking questions. Questions, she didn’t want to answer.

  ***

  Vict looked at the scans being sent to his optic. They’d landed in the area reported as a possible crash site. There was no obvious debris from the sky. But then, it had been over 30 years ago, he knew anything could have happened in that time. His men walked out in a grid pattern covering a huge area. They would be scanning the ground for unusual soil displacement and taking samples, of what had shown up as an usual gouging of the ground and a large crater. It was unique to this world. Nothing like it had shown up in any other places on the Planet. It seemed logical that this, was a possible crash site. Then again, it could also be a meteor site. His logic supplying him with all the options. However, crashing meteors, had no record in this sector of the Universe.

  Focusing on his men as they fanned out, coming at it from several directions, looking for clues along the way, Vict checked out his own area. Looking for anything. Broken pieces of craft, fuel trails, looking for anything out of place, that would indicate a crash had happened. They’d been at it a while, circling the area, moving ever closer to the possible crash zone. He had nothing. His men indicating, they had nothing as well.

  Vict looked across the horizon. This particular piece of land was in a valley. It was surrounded in nearly every direction, by hills, rocks. Vict looked at the direction of the gouge starting point and trailed it back to the hills. There seemed to be a jagged niche cut out of it. Vict realised that couldn’t be seen from above. He started to move towards it.

  Cover this ground, two with me. He called out over his net. They might have been good at clearing up the main crash site but, it’s possible they forgot about an impact further up. He started to jog. Time was short, he had no idea if this area was monitored or not, and their cloaking was only so good.

  ***

  Mina picked at her dinner. Idea’s and theories ran rampant through her brain. She was no nearer finding out what the code was, than she’d been, this morning. Her boss was getting testy. Geshum demanded to see what she’d achieved before she left for the day. He wasn’t happy. She had little to show for the days work and he’d dismissed her with the promise of a reprimand if she didn’t deliver.

  He was such an asshole. Mina sneered. Constantly brown nosing, as her father would have said. Mina smiled remembering him. He’d been a good man. Too constrained for his own good. He’d battled privately against the system. Keeping it under the radar, even from her. Not wanting her in danger. Particularly not since her mother had died and he was all she had. The letter he’d left her explained a lot.

  This wasn’t the life he’d wanted, and he’d always felt pushed into it. He’d began to hate it and hate himself, for not being strong enough to try and change things. Mina didn’t believe that. Her father had been one of the strongest men she’d known. No, he’d not wanted to rock the boat for her. His actions, would have affected her chances or worse, would have tainted her with it. He’d protected her at the cost to himself.

  She guessed that’s why she didn’t take the government line to heart. Her eyes were open. She saw things a bit more clearly than most or chose to. Their system was broken. The freedoms of a new life hadn’t materialised, they were ruled. Step out of line and you gambled with your life and everyone you knew. Only those in high value positions were bartered with, given incentives to keep quiet, bribes or threats to toe the line, those less valuable went missing.

  She didn’t like what this new coding was adding up to. This had to have arrived after the last of the ships. That would mean the Corporations were hiding that fact. It was either a genuine ship drop or a crash of some kind. Mina wreaked her brains, she remembered reading about a supposed crash in the disinformation from the underground. She wondered if it was linked. She needed to know. She’d make a drop tomorrow and ask. Pushing the meal away, she stood and walked to the recycling dumping everything in and starting it, then headed to the shower. She’d get in an early night if she was going to be on time and stop on her way in tomorrow. They didn’t like you late. It raised questions.

  ***

  Vict looked at the area around him. They had several pings on their scans. It looked like they might be lucky. The damage to the ridge was not organic but had been relatively recently. There was plenty of evidence of broken sharp, not so weathered rocks, displaced earth and rock over the ridge. It did look like something had crashed over it.

  Report. He called out over his neuro net and a list of information crossed his optic. It looked like he was right. Information flowed. His men working a grid pattern looking for anything that supported the theory of a crash. This area had also been cleared but they were not Cyborg. Vict smiled. They had a number of fragments for analysis. Some had blood on several of the rocks. Continue to sweep the area. I want all samples taken before we leave.

  A chorus of; Affirmatives, crossed his neuro net. They had the answers they needed.

  ***

  Mina strode into the mail shop and walked through the door to the mail boxes. She was glad to see it busy. She was going to need that. Walking to her box, she opened it and took out her mail. She had a number of dummy letters she’d put in there sometime ago but today, she had actual mail. That was better. She knew cameras were posted behind her and in front. She closed her box and slowly moved forward opening one of the letters, stopping to look like she was reading it. Mina’s mind wandered. She had no idea why the Corporations had insisted on using this method of communication on this world. It wasn’t needed with the electronic data streaming. She hoped someone came in soon and stood at one of the boxes she needed. There was only so much she could pretend.

  She was opening her second letter when someone came in and stood where she needed them. She moved forward again, looking as if she was putting her key back in her pocket, and withdrew her note. She moved slowly forward again, keeping her eyes on her letter, looking intensely at it as if concerned about the information on it. She looked up exasperated and leaned against the boxes slipping her note inside the one she wanted, then re-folded her mail and headed out, giving her best pissed off expression.

  Mina walked into the Refreshment Bar next door and stood in the line, feeling confident she’d done that without being seen. Tonight, she’d be going to meet her ‘friend’ at the agreed time.

  ***

  Vict looked at the results as they played out across the vid screen. The metal had Old Earth configurations. That in itself, was not convincing of this being a Cyborg crash. The blood however, although dried and crusted with years of exposure, had survived being buried upside down on the soil. They had managed to get DNA from it and sent the results to the Space Station for their Medical Director to check against their data base.

  There was a good chance, they might be able to identify it as Cyborg and if they have a record of who it is or not. What they couldn’t tell, was if these ‘Cyborgs’ were alive at the time of the crash, or still were. Vict was frustrated. He took comfort in the knowledge that it was hard to kill a Cyborg and they lived for generations. They could lose limbs and still function.

  There was little they could do until they had answers. Vict looked at his men. He’d been sensing their anxiety over believing one or more of their kind was held somewhere. None of them liked that idea. They’d all suffered from being imprisoned. Being finally free, had been worth life itself. To think others of their kind, were back in captivity was difficult. Even with their logical thinking, it wasn’t easy to deal with.

  Vict connected his neuro net to the ship. There is a possibility of captive Cyborgs on this world. Send out Cyborg ID coding, on all frequencies. Monitor for any responses.

  Affirmative. If they were here, they would find them.

  ***

  Mina looked at the coding again. She
was sure this wasn’t from this world. She’d done what Geshum had asked her to do. She’d broken it down in to useful parts and found a number of applications it could be used to improve existing systems.

  She kept her other data pad off line and under wraps. She’d be taking that tonight. Picking up her work pad she walked to Geshum’s office, she knocked and waited for him to give her the ok to come in. As usual he made her wait. He was such a fucking ass, thought Mina, plastering that smile on her face. He waved her in. Mina opened the door and closed it behind her.

  “I have the information you requested.” She handed over the pad and watched him go through the information. “This is useful,” she told him, “but I’m sure there is a lot more we could do if we had access to the original article. This is a valuable piece of tech, could be, next level stuff.”

  She didn’t want to push to hard. Her boss was an ass but a smart one. He gave no sign of hearing her and ignored her comments. Nothing new there, thought Mina dryly. But, she knew him, he would have registered the golden words, valuable and next level. She waited. He eventually looked up and handed it back to her.