by Ryk Brown
Their ship had landed on one of four small pads carved into the rocky landscape near the Palean ship graveyard. Located at a slightly higher elevation than the facility itself, they had been able to get a good overview of the facility’s layout. He had expected a large, flat, desolate area, like most such facilities. Instead, he found a sea of precariously parked ships, unevenly spaced along the irregular rocky landscape. Like much of the planet, the entire area had once been at the bottom of a sea. Thus, hard sands filled the nooks and crevices between the rocks, forming small surfaces large enough to hold derelict spacecraft, but unable to support agriculture.
Such was Palee. Everything here existed between rocks and mountains. Everything here was either soaking wet, or still drying from the last rainstorm. The rocks and abandoned spacecrafts were covered with moss and fungus, creating a lingering stench that filled the air and caused many a visitor not to linger.
Still, it was not the worst world Lord Dusahn had visited in his lifetime. In the Pentaurus sector, he had found Haven to be the worst. Dry, dusty, and arid, with temperatures that swung from arctic to hell in a matter of hours. He had done humanity a great service by practically destroying that world’s meager infrastructure. Those who survived should have thanked him and immigrated elsewhere, happy for the excuse he had given them.
Griogair Dusahn had chosen a commoner’s outfit of dark pants and a long-sleeved shirt, along with boots and an overcoat. His intent was to appear as a well-to-do man who had built his business in nefarious dealings that commonly required the use of spacecraft of various types. The more wealthy his appearance, the more risk he would be in. Too poorly dressed, and his interest in a bulk purchase of spacecraft would not be taken seriously. It was a delicate balance, one that he hoped would help convince whomever he dealt with to provide discretion in regards to the local authorities. Despite the fact that he had created a trail of business credentials that encircled the entire sector, if one looked too closely, they would eventually discover the true origin of the funds he would be transferring to this world to complete the purchase.
Griogair actually enjoyed the subterfuge. His entire adult life, from the moment he had killed his last older brother and ascended to his current position, he had but to beckon to get what he desired. The act of tricking others into doing his bidding tickled his sense of adventure in a most unfamiliar way. He had even spent time during the journey to Palee studying several dialects of the Angla language that had once been universal to this region of space and had been resurrected since the fall of Caius Ta’Akar’s regime.
Griogair often thought he might have liked Caius Ta’Akar. The man had some unusual beliefs about how to run an empire, but he was not afraid to use his power to force his will upon his subjects. For that alone, Griogair respected him. He also respected Caius’s father before him, for the creation of the Ghatazhak. The concept of making a soldier more deadly and more loyal through incredible levels of education was an angle he had never considered. That, along with the loyalty programming instituted by Caius, had created near-perfect soldiers. The Ghatazhak did not have the ferocity of his Zen-Anor, but he could see the benefits that the Ghatazhak’s training regimen might bring to his own special forces. He also secretly wanted to fight a Ghatazhak himself, as a test of his own Chankarti skills. Alas, the Ghatazhak were more likely to die in combat than to be taken prisoner; yet another reason he respected them.
Lord Dusahn made his way down the path that wound between the rocks to the front door of the facility’s main office, his two Zen-Anor in civilian attire following behind him.
“One moment, sir,” the Zen-Anor sergeant insisted. The sergeant looked around, then gestured for his Zen-Anor comrade to take a position outside. “Okay, sir,” the sergeant finally told his leader.
Lord Dusahn pushed the door open and stepped inside. The office was unimpressive, with a small, unmanned reception desk and a few chairs. He could see down a small corridor leading to a back door, with doors on either side that likely led to other offices.
Within moments, a man at least twenty years his junior appeared, dressed in shabby, casual business attire. The first thing Lord Dusahn noticed was that Palean fashion was as uninspiring as its landscape.
“Good afternoon,” the young man greeted. “How may I help you?”
“It is my understanding that you sell spacecraft here,” Lord Dusahn replied.
“Indeed we do. Sell them we do. Lots of them. All kinds and all sizes,” the young man spouted eagerly.
Lord Dusahn hoped the young man was not representative of the population’s average level of intelligence. If so, he might have to reconsider reconquering this rock.
“What type of ships are you interested in?”
“Cargo ships, mostly. Preferably ones with some measure of defensive capabilities.”
“Defensive capabilities?” the young man questioned.
“Your name?” Lord Dusahn wondered.
“Oh, terribly sorry,” the young man replied, embarrassed that he had forgotten the first rule of sales. “Beal Dorona, at your service. You were saying you need defensive capabilities?”
“I run a small shipping company, and I am hoping to expand our operations. You know, to take advantage of the lack of available services now that the Dusahn have been run off.”
“Then why do you need defenses?” Beal wondered. “Not that it is any of my business, of course.”
“Let’s just say that I do not believe the Dusahn will give up control of this sector so easily, and since we are risking considerable capital in this expansion, I wish to minimize risk.”
“Certainly understandable,” Beal agreed. “However, from what I hear, the Karuzari pretty much wiped out the Dusahn fleet. Those assholes aren’t going to be bothering anyone for a long time.”
Lord Dusahn felt a surge of anger welling up inside. He wanted to reach out and snatch the insolent bastard’s still-beating heart from his chest. Instead, the only emotion he showed was a raised eyebrow. After a moment, he responded. “The absence of the Dusahn leaves a power vacuum in the rest of the sector, one that will be quickly filled with pirates and other nefarious types. I would not be surprised if the Karuzari themselves didn’t show up offering protection. Besides, I have heard, from reliable sources mind you, that the Dusahn still have quite a few smaller gunships and fighters, all of which could pose a threat to shipping. If my resources were greater, I might be inclined to start my own protection racket,” he ended, laughing.
“I see what you mean,” Beal agreed, laughing along with the strange man for fear of offending him.
“So, my time is limited. Do you have what I need?”
“Oh yes, we do. Fighters, shuttles, drop ships, STO shuttles, small and medium cargo…all of them are here at our yards. And if we don’t have it here, we can acquire it from other providers, at a small finder’s fee, of course.”
“What about larger ships?” Lord Dusahn wondered. “I wouldn’t mind having a few medium-sized ships as well, as long as they have their own STO cargo shuttles.”
“Yes, we have several of those. However, they are parked in orbit around Yessin, the fourth planet in the system. I can provide you with the specs on any ship we have, both here and near Yessin, but to visit the ships in space, we would need to make an appointment.”
“I see,” Lord Dusahn replied, displeased.
“Uh, perhaps I can show you what we have here,” Beal suggested, hoping to keep his prospective client engaged long enough to make a sale. “We have an air-car out back so you do not have to climb about the yard. I can show you a few dozen ships in a single pass in less than half an hour, and then you can choose which ones to look at in person. Meanwhile, I’ll send word to my employer and see if he could arrange a tour of some of the ships orbiting Yessin on short notice.”
Lord Dusahn looked at his watch, appearing impatient.
“I promise it will not take long,” Beal assured him. “Some of our ships must be seen to be appreciated. And many of their defensive systems are not listed in their spec sheets—legal purposes—I’m sure you understand.”
Lord Dusahn sighed. “Very well.” He turned to the Zen-Anor sergeant behind him. “Contact the ship. Tell them we will be delayed.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant nodded.
“Very well, Beal,” Lord Dusahn said, gesturing for the young man to lead the way. “Show me what you’ve got.”
The young man smiled from ear to ear. “Right this way, Mister…”
“Griosan,” Lord Dusahn lied. “Denton Griosan.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mister Griosan. That’s a very unusual name. I don’t recognize the lineage.”
“It’s a long story,” Lord Dusahn replied as he and his underling followed the young salesman down the corridor toward the back door.
* * *
It had taken just over an hour for Nathan and Jessica to travel from the Aurora in the Darvano system all the way to SilTek, more than six hundred light years away. Most of that time had been spent shuttling from the Aurora to the Manamu, from the Manamu down to SilTek, and finally from the space port to the shipyards where the XK was being modified. They’d had the ability to jump long range for several weeks now, and though Nathan had made such jumps many times, it still amazed him.
When Nathan’s grandfather gave him his first flying lesson more than thirty years ago, the Earth had only had FTL capabilities for about a decade, and those had been small scout ships that took months to travel a mere ten light years. Nathan’s initial ride up to the Aurora had taken forty minutes.
Nathan and Jessica stepped out of the automated flying vehicle a good distance away from XK Seventy-Three. Nathan paused, taking in the view. There were at least thirty people and a dozen engineer robots of differing designs swarming all over the ship.
“It’s gray,” Jessica commented, a bit surprised.
“It is,” Nathan agreed.
“We weren’t expecting you ‘til tomorrow,” Marcus said as he approached.
“It was either today or three days from now,” Nathan replied. “She’s looking pretty good, Marcus. How did you choose the color scheme?”
“We figured a base coat of two-tone gray like the Aurora was a good start. Then Loki had the idea of adding white and blue highlights which are common for the Takarans, Corinairans, and Rakuens.”
“I think it’s too busy,” Jessica decided. “I would’ve just left it all gray.”
“I kind of like it,” Nathan disagreed. “I think the palette was a good choice.”
“Why even paint it at all?”
“We’re trying to create a unified fleet, Jess,” Nathan explained. “That means making them all look alike. The same reason we wear uniforms. Besides, we need to do as much as possible to make them not look like converted cargo ships.”
“Who cares?” Jessica asked. “As long as they have the firepower.”
“In politics, appearances are often more important than facts,” Nathan told her.
“Probably why I prefer guns.”
“I’m with her,” Marcus agreed.
The three of them turned and headed toward the XK as they talked.
“How long until she’s ready to fly?” Nathan asked.
“She can fly now,” Marcus replied, “but the entire ship would be in vacuum. We couldn’t make the Cobra ball turrets work, so we had to design entirely new guns. We should be done fabricating all the components by the end of the day, but we’ll still need a couple days to install them.”
“Can you seal the openings up temporarily?” Nathan wondered.
“That’s what we’re doing now,” Marcus assured him, pointing over his shoulder at the people working on top of the XK’s main section.
“What about the rest of the weapons?” Jessica asked.
“We finished installing all eight point-defense mini-turrets and all four plasma torpedo cannons from your brother’s wrecked gunship. So she’s got some teeth, just no fangs yet. She doesn’t have any reach, either.”
“The jump missile launchers?” Nathan surmised.
“Those components have been fabricated as well and are loaded in the aft cargo bays,” Marcus explained as he led them around the stern of the ship. “Problem is the tubes. We need to reroute a lot of systems in order to get a clear run to the exit points on the forward edge of the main section. Hell, we can’t even start assembly of the loading and launch systems until we get the damned launch tube in place. The assembly procedure starts at the aft end of the tube and works back. It’ll be nice once it’s done, though. The Subvert geeks did a nice job designing it. You can choose from three different missile racks. They even figured out how to make the system load and launch both recon and comm-drones as well.”
“What about recovery systems?” Nathan asked.
“Not enough room to automate that, so we’ll have to recover them through the utility bay,” Marcus added as he pointed to the eight-meter-wide opening at the center of the backside of the ship. “But they installed a pressure shield around the opening of the bay, so that will make recovery a hell of a lot easier. And they cut transfer doors into the sides of the bay, so we can reload the recovered units back into the loading racks after we’ve refueled them.”
“Refueled them?” Nathan wondered, surprised.
“Them boys managed to find room for extra propellant tanks with a three-point refueling system.”
“Why three points?” Nathan wondered as they rounded the forward end of the port nacelle.
“One in the back for recovered missiles and drones, and one in each forward bay for those,” Marcus said, pointing at the open doors on the port forward cargo bay.
“What the…” Nathan spotted the ten-meter-wide opening. Inside the bay was a small fighter, its nose pointing outward. There were tanks above and below its wings, leaving barely enough space for the fighter’s wings between them. On the inboard side was a small platform running along the edge of the cockpit, its canopy slid forward. The platform was connected to some sort of articulating arm and had a retractable set of stairs leading from a hatch-landing up high along the inboard bulkhead of the bay. “Are those?”
“P-Seventy-Two Lightnings,” Del confirmed, coming up from behind them. “One on each side.”
“How the hell did you fit them in there?”
“Actually, there was plenty of room for them. The hard part was fitting in the docking clamps, propellant tanks, refueling and charging umbilicals, access ladders, and ordnance storage.”
“Ordnance?” Jessica asked.
“Extra rockets for their pods,” Del explained. “We also managed to redesign the underside of the fighter so we could squeeze in an underhung mini-jump comm-drone. That way, they can still communicate with you from light years away.”
“I thought they could only micro-jump,” Nathan said.
“They managed to boost their single-jump range to one light year,” Marcus explained.
“If we could change out their fusion reactors for mini-ZPEDs, we could get them unlimited series jump range,” Del added. “Currently, they can jump a maximum of one light year, but then they’d need thirty minutes to recharge and jump again.”
“The extra jump range will be a tactical blessing,” Jessica commented.
“Whose idea was this?” Nathan asked.
“Depends,” Marcus replied.
“On what?”
“On whether you like it or not.”
Nathan looked at Marcus.
“It was his idea,” Marcus admitted, pointing at Del.
“It was a good one.”
“You’re going to need a couple of pilots for them,” Del said. “Lan and I are the best around. Actually, we’re
the only ones around.”
“I thought you guys raced these things for sport,” Nathan commented.
“These are not the same, and they do not handle the same as the Lightning racers,” Del pointed out. “Lan and I have been doing all the test flying of these. Everyone else has only been flying them in VR, which is a bit different.”
“I thought SilTek’s VR was supposed to be the same as reality,” Jessica said.
“These were made and flown covertly,” Del explained. “We barely have enough flight data on them to be able to model a basic simulation, let alone a full-immersion VR version. We wouldn’t even have a basic sim if it weren’t for Dylan’s help with our AI code. The point is, there are only two people on SilTek who have ever flown them, and that’s Lan and I.”
“Which is why I need you both here, training pilots,” Nathan told him. “We’re looking at a fleet of twelve ships. That means we need twenty-four pilots who can fly these things, as well as fly the XK itself. And if you and Lan are the only pilots who have ever flown them, that makes you the best people to train twenty more pilots.”