by Ken Pence
Shanghai Tavern
I awoke on the Victoria. The others were with me. I should say most of us were with me. Phillips was not here; nor, were any of the local security guards. We didn’t know what the hell had happened but it was nightfall and our MemDex and Victoria control module were warning us that there was a hostile force around us. The Odin was hailing us too.
“Williams here,” Andrew responded to the hail.
“What the hell happened down there?” Shuler’s visage asked.
“We don’t know yet. We’ll advise. We don’t seem to be taking fire currently. We’ll get right back with you. Give us a few minutes.”
“Ten minutes,” Shuler said.
Andrew looked around groggily. Shiv was still out. He was one of the few that were conscious, and he was barely conscious – with a hangover. He told his MemDex to compile a summary of video images and sound from the tavern from all our MemDexs that could better explain what happened.
The video started just prior to the alarm and showed the proprietor leaning over and whispering into the ear of a grizzled Ullumff. An arm was raised along with a small canister all around the room. We were too busy laughing and drinking. It showed at least twenty Ullumff with the canisters moving into position around the room from the different cameras on all our suits. Then the Ullumff pointed the canister at Shiv and LeiLei first and then at me. I heard the alarm go off like I did before I passed out and then pandemonium ensued. The suits recognized an attack was in progress but its operators were out so the MemDexs took over. Phillips and the guards were being dragged out but the rest of us had the full defensive capability and our suits fought. Our suits crushed arms, Shiv’s ripped off the arms of its would-be attacker and LeiLei’s sliced several Ullumff into itty-bitty pieces. She was awesome. Our suits stunned many of the attackers or just vaporized them. The suits turned en masse toward the outside wall – vaporized it and flew off to the Victoria. The view changed to the exterior cameras and showed massing forces around the ship. They looked like a ragtag bunch of species – definitely not official or anything. I sent the video to the Odin and requested them to come in low on camouflage. They spent the five minutes watching the video.
“Shuler has sent the Albert for your support,” said Admiral Brad Kyger’s angry image on the display. “It will be about ten minutes. See if you can stall them ‘til then. The Odin will be over you and I am having half our battle armor out and moving in on all those beings outside. Give the word and I’ll kill them all. I want Phillips and those guards back. Heaven help them if they injured or killed anyone. We need to set an example. Back you all the way Captain Williams.”
Andrew put on a spare helmet and stepped out of the Victoria. He stood there and shouted in Ullumff through his suit amplifier. “Send me your leader.”
A large, scraggly looking Ullumff came walking up with a plasma rifle pointed at Andrew. Another was with him and he was large too. “You have injured members of my crew. You will open your vessel and come with me or I will burn you down where you stand,” growled the Ullumff leader.
“You do not understand beings from Earth yet. I am going to give you a lesson,” Andrew said in Ullumff.
“Vaporize the upper torso of every creature with a weapon around us. Leave the arms and weapon intact if you can,” Andrew said in English. “MemDex – confirm when all are targeted but the leader.” Andrew’s MemDex gave it affirming tone.
The Ullumff said, “I will not wait. You are stalling.”
“Ready. Ready. Ready. Fire,” Andrew said.
There was a hum and the sound of bodies crashing all around the perimeter in one crash. The Ullumff leader’s backup’s lower torso, arms and weapon crashed to the ground still trickling blood. The leader pointed his plasma rifle at Andrew but Andrew’s suit ripped it from his hand and bent the barrel backwards.
“You are by yourself. All your crew here is dead but you. I want my crew and guards back. We will get angry if you do not take us to where they are,” Andrew said.
“Earth beings have spirits that protect us. Andrew had two battle-armored airmen appear behind him and then go invisible again. Take us to where they are held or you will not live to see the morning,” Andrew said.
The Ullumff leader didn’t believe in spirits but he felt the powerful force holding the back of neck and his belt. That force, in Ullumff, told him. “Take us to them.”
The Ullumff pointed and away he flew. He defecated en route.
Andrew went inside the Victoria as the medical team was coming in. Shiv was the only one that concerned them, as she seemed more affected than everyone else. They were coming to with no ill effects other than hangovers from too much ale. They carried Shiv back to the Odin and the Albert set out after the ten flying, battle armored suits that escorted the Ullumff leader.
Andrew told them to leave the leader and two others alive to spread the word. Killing everyone would just leave a mystery. The bodies and survivors would be a good object lesson.
Newly promoted Petty Officer Second Class Peters held the Ullumff leader as they approached a large docked ship. The damn thing was as big as the Odin if not bigger but it was nasty looking – dirty and unaesthetic. It had quite a few weapon mounts and two armed guards at the personnel entrance ramp. Peters landed the Ullumff nearby and had him walk toward the entrance. He would shove him forward when he started to balk.
The guards came to a semi-attention as their leader approached and asked, “How did the grab go Captain? Did you get more of them? One of them had a pretty neat suit on – never seen his kind before,” one Ullumff guard said.
Suddenly their weapons were jerked from their hands and holsters and they were shoved into the interior. The two guards were shoved ahead of the Captain.
“Take us to the new prisoners,” came a voice in Ullumff – out of nowhere.
The guards were scared. One of them tried to run and was dissolved down to the stubs of his feet that stood on the deck oozing. “Do not run. Walk,” Came the voice out of nowhere.
The guard took them down a few levels and they came to long corridors that stretched forward and back...three corridors forward and three back toward the stern. There were bars covering the corridors and guards at each. They turned toward the guard and the Captain as the Captain yelled, “Intruders,” or some such crap in Ullumff. The remaining guards looked at each other and then all of their upper torsos disappeared with arms falling to the deck. All the bars disappeared. “Take us to the new prisoners,” said a voice in the remaining guard’s ear.
This guard walked down the far rear corridor and went from cell to cell looking in – yes – there were cells all along those damn corridors. Andrew and Brad could see through the MemDex feed. They had dropped off soldiers at every strategic junction. The first cell was empty but the second cell held a couple of the local security guards and the third held Phillips lying on a cot in his underwear. They dissolved his door lock with their molecular disruptor and the Senior Chief appeared in his battle armor.
“Hope you’re okay,” he said in English. “I’m glad you had the rejuve sir – not sure you would have made it otherwise. We’ll get you some clothes in a minute,“ the senior chief said. They quickly scanned the cells along the rest of the corridor and it seemed like the rest of the guards were there. There were many other miserable looking specimens from a number of species – mostly humanoid.
“It’s a damn slave ship Admiral. My people tell me the other corridors hold other racial types. Guess that makes taking care of them easier. Your orders?” the senior Chief asked.
“Hold what you got. We’re not equipped to handle that many freed prisoners. They may have trustee types so watch out for them, as they’ll probably have warped loyalties. I’m sending you forty more to clean out the ship. Good job on finding our people Senior Chief. Keep ‘em safe.”
“Copy, keep them safe Admiral. The crew here?” The Chief asked.
“Keep those two if you can. Use your lasers on t
he lowest setting and think of good tattoos for their foreheads if you would,” the Admiral said.
The reinforcements showed up in another twenty minutes. They had been getting the feeds from the MemDex videos inside and were properly prepared and pissed – angry that is... The MemDexs would fill in the shared interior layout diagram as soon as anyone entered a room that had not been viewed before. The layout diagrams became more and more detailed as the battle suited soldiers moved throughout the ship. There was little resistance but the slaver crew was mostly killed on the spot. Some slaver crew was used to explain what functions their compartments handled. This added to the shared ship interior diagrams on the MemDexs. The laundry was manned – if manned is the right word – by Tros trustees. The kitchen had some species reminiscent of the Marmut but different – not artists in any event.
We found the armory and the bridge and decided to keep a couple from the bridge alive for a time. We got them to unroll diagrams of their ship and the MemDexs quickly filled in the missing pieces of the diagram.
We asked the ones on the bridge about the ship complement, capacity and payload. We synced with their computer and downloaded everything it had in one digital slurp. It didn’t take our MemDexs long to look at past routes of travel and ship manifests. We kept the comm tech and removed remnants of all other crew. There was supposed to be a crew of about eighty and we had removed twenty at the Victoria skirmish. We found and eliminated all but the Captain, the guard and the comm tech. Senior Chief Watanabe came up with appropriate tattoos which we etched into those three and then took them to the center of town and dropped them off. We didn’t admonish them – we just dropped them off. They were our advertisements not to screw with Earth.
One of our guys found Phillips suit and got him showered and suited up. Be damned if he didn’t figure out what to do with the ship. He suggested we get rid of all the hints this had been a slave ship. Upgrade a few bits, find the sharpest prisoners and offer them a job trading for Earth. We would give them a good share of any profits or we would give them some money and cut them loose right on Bellatrix 5 – Chu that is – we did find out Chu was the name for the planet. Philips said he’d help set it up if we wanted and it sounded good to us. The SOB was smart and knew business – no one ever doubted that.
We found a Marcle – looked kind of – like a Marmot’s lower body with four thick feet but it had four upper arms and four eyes. It spoke through a translator box like a Vicvic. It said it had been here a long time and knew all the prisoners since it/he fed them all – seems slaves and prisoners are synonymous terms in Trade. Gave us a little pause about what we had done on Sirius – if they were prisoners for some misdeed instead of slaves --- it might twitch our consciences – nah... This Marcle said he had been an administrator on a rural outpost and this ship had landed and said they wanted to trade. He was head guy so he shared drinks with them and ended up here. He said they killed almost everyone else and looted his town. Phillips decided we’d put him in charge. The Marcle said he had to feed everyone even if we released all the prisoners. It made sense.
Phillips and the Marcle took the food to every cell and they would remove the lock on five cells at a time and serve the food at the same time. Five Earth soldiers in armor accompanied them as they explained what was happening. There were 120 prisoners and 37 wanted to leave right then. We gave them each a lamlee and turned them loose with no questions asked. They bailed. Don’t blame them but a lot had already lost everything and wanted to give trading a try. They had never heard of Earth but we showed them the video on how we had been attacked just like them. That kept some who were wavering, with us. You know it must be a shock to go from slave to trader in a heartbeat. They all agreed that the Marcle should be in charge because he had always been fair to them and helped heal them when they were sick. It sounded good to us.
We asked the Marcle – Captain Miracle we called him and the name stuck when we explained what it meant in our language. All the former prisoners liked it and four eyes did too. He appointed a hierarchy that Phillips thought was sound and they asked us what we wanted to do to upgrade the ship. They asked what they would do for money for this upgrade and we gave them a credit pad and said they could do anything they wanted – unlimited. We said we’d help them upgrade their navigation, fields, weapons, and communications. We said we wanted them to find all the coolest stuff to trade at Bellatrix and showed them catalogs and brochures from Earth.
We told them staying on Earth would be free for them and they were starting to get really fired up about the idea. Guess we were the best thing since sliced bread to them – or some weird alien equivalent. They ripped out walls and turned the place into a damn Queen Elizabeth ocean…space liner. They even named the thing the Queen once we explained about what the name implied. They combined adjacent cells and turned them into lush suites with Phillips recommendations. He had studied all the manuals and made this thing a luxury liner with a large cargo capacity. He explained the economics of passenger versus cargo and sold them on the ideas. Captain Miracle got copies of the ES Manuals and we outfitted the cabins and crew quarters with the latest conveniences for each species. The humanoids had never had it so good and generally appreciated the changes once they understood what those changes were.
We asked for volunteers from our troops and got Captain Shuler to assign six as a security detachment for the Queen – three men and three women. They set up defense drills and worked on the automated weapons systems with Shiv’s help. Oh – there was a little hiccup. The ship had a smaller male Vicvic on board and Shiv wanted to talk with him. Shiv went into his cabin for quite a while and then there was some bumping and scuffling around sounds coming out. We thought they were getting it on so we didn’t disturb them. Shiv came out a short time later. We asked her how it had gone and asked about the male. He turned out to be a minor maintenance tech that had been sold off by his brood. We asked Shiv how he felt about finally seeing another Vicvic.
Shiv answered that – “He was entertaining and delicious.”
We weren’t sure we had interpreted her words right but the male wasn’t anywhere around. Man, we had a lot to learn.
Outfitting the Queen
Phillips came back to the Hotel and we sat together eating and discussing the Queen. We decided then and there to give them our one spare entangled communications system. We decided that since they were representing Earth that they should have the ungraded field generators and navigation. We gave them a training cylinder recorder/duplicator and showed them how to use it along with a long list of topics we were interested in getting. We gave them copies of many of the training cylinders we had received on Procyon and several of our older learning machines.
Phillips said we were going about this all wrong and we had to agree with him when we thought about it. He said we were treating this as if we were a tinker going from village to village. He explained that our job was to acquire trade routes and not just load up two little ships with some stuff. We had to fund an upcoming massive exodus from Earth as soon as we were able. People would want to explore and trade and colonize now that it was possible. We had to decide what technologies to hide and what to give away. Phillips suggested we give the prolong treatments to those in enclosures first and do it quietly. Then he suggested the ERF military should have it...then settlers and scientists...traders and others should pay a premium. I asked him about business leaders and politicians and he said they’d figure out a way to steal it and have it anyway. He said the last stage was to get it to anyone who could pay for it and people who served the population – sanitation workers, teachers, engineers and the like. He said he didn’t think we could keep the cat in the bag for long but we ought to try for at least until all the ten trading ports were finished.
The bank manager came to see us at the hotel the next day and demanded to know what was going on. He asked if we knew we had a Marcle draining our credit enormously. We played our little MemDex video of the attempted shanghaiing
for him including the reduction of the slavers’ torsos and he said, “That makes a difference.” He hastily tried to back out. We stopped him and asked him if the credit pads were good anywhere on the planet and he said – yes. We told him we wanted to purchase property in the best area in the largest trading city. He said it could be arranged and we told him to get on it and bring back plots to show where they were located. We had already acquired maps of the major cities on the planet but had used the Odin on flyovers to map the largest cities and use its ground penetrating radar to see if we had missed anything.
We found a possible, Ylee, cephalopod city near a dry lakebed in a remote part of the planet and we asked the bank dude to buy the entire area. It was beyond arid and we got title to it cheap. We used the shuttles and excavated the whole thing in a day. Yes – we found ten more lamlee piles – another 600 Kilograms worth. We even hardened the shell of one of the buildings that had the weirdest – coolest design and it had held 300 kilograms of lamlees. It looked like it had several lovely fountains in it. We found hidden plumbing and when we hooked it up to water -- it was breathtaking. We put accent lights inside and made it so there was a mist in the air to keep it cool. We added wiring, insulation and all the electronic displays and devices we could. We made whole walls like the 3D window displays. This whole renovation was Phillips idea. It was to be the pavilion where visitors could see some of Earth. We had tons of brochures and catalogs.
The bank manager gave us several plots to look at, but most were too small. We asked about the building codes and he looked at us funny. We asked if there was water and sewage available on site and he said that would be very expensive. We explained that money was no object and he lit up again. We could have paid for this expedition fifty times over with the lamlee we recovered here on this planet. We finally got a plot and got all the paperwork handled. He gave us keys to the building we said that would not be necessary. Late that night we leveled the building to the ground and added a huge hole under it. We then used field generators and disruptors to carve around the Ylee building we had refurbished and transported it to the newly leveled site. Not many were about when we carefully lowered it into position in the middle of the night. A few bursts of molecular disruptor fire removed material where it wouldn’t fit.