Star Thief

by T. Jackson King

  “Thank you, Controller Hok-donen for that information. I will be careful upon entering the space of the Empire of Senses. I wish you well in your advancement within the Wokan Domain.”

  “My advancement has already been good. Now, with this gravband, it will be better.” It looked aside at some of its crew beings. “I may even allow my crew to detach from my control fibers once we arrive at a market world. Continued loyalty to me will result in similar rewards in the future.”

  I almost cussed the bastard. He controlled by electric shocks. He rewarded by brief release from pain. And he suggested his crew beings could enjoy themselves on a market world where only sex and drugs were priced low. All the better to create long-term debt. I gestured at the giant reptile.

  “I depart your presence.”

  “You have my permission to—”

  The image vanished. Flow had heard me and had acted. I appreciated that. The image of beings subject to electric shocks was not surprising. Other domains and empires treated their servants worse. I just did not like seeing any being forced to perform a duty. It was far too similar to the arky work I was forced to do in order for my parents to obtain Galactic Credits. While they had shown me love in my early years, they were all too human. Greed also controlled them. So I had been indentured to the alien Lik Sotomor. It was the primary way most humans got into space, since humanity had only a small number of star vessels and just six colony worlds. The area of space we controlled in the Orion Arm was just 700 light years across. Not even the size of the smallest domain in the galaxy. Still, we were in interstellar space and we were lucky as a species. And stubborn. I felt my stubbornness rise within me. Soon enough we would transit through the three remaining Wokan Domain Gates and arrive in the Empire of Senses space. Maybe Claw would get her chance to fight to live again.

  “Captain,” spoke my armrest. “The spybot is returning from the Wokan vessel. Scanning of it and an internal videye show the presence of only seven personal floater pads. Your orders?”

  The floater pads might look normal. But did they contain explosives? Even a vial of antimatter? “Weapons, return to the Control Chamber. I will have Akantha dispatch a second spybot to me it, with a repair bot attached. The bot can enter the returning spybot and test the functioning of the personal floater pads. If they check out, both spybots will return to our hangar. And we will depart this system.”

  “Weapons is returning to my post,” Claw hissed

  I sat back and watched the vidscreen with its system graphic, sensor image of the Wokan vessel and the white-yellow F-class star that glowed in the blackness of space. Close up, a star looked lonely. Only when one viewed millions of stars from somewhere above the galactic ecliptic did space look crowded. Well, I was not headed south to the two Magellanic Clouds mini-galaxies. They and other dwarf galaxies that were close to the Milky Way were too far away. And seeing stars and planets within the Scutum-Centaurus Arm would be a first for me. My four years of conveying rich aliens to loot dead worlds had never taken me out of the Sagittarius-Carina Arm. At least my forced labor would now take me to some place new.

  Seven days later Sharp Claw awaited their exit into system 12,662, the first Gate in the Empire of Senses. She knew from her study of the red transit route dictated by Stars That Beckon they had to cross two Gates within the Senses empire, this one and a second further on. Then they would enter another empire. That would leave one more empire and two more corporate domains to cross. Those three Gates lay in the Scutum-Centaurus Arm. Eventually they would enter the unknown portion of the arm. To her left Flow the Pilot chirped.

  “Captain, we exit from wormhole space in 23 seconds.”

  “Pilot, thank you.”

  Claw looked down at her control panel. She claw-tapped multiple control dots for her energy weapons. Sending out a missile with thermonuclear or antimatter warheads was worthless in view of the speed of attack available when one used lightspeed weapons. Though the six missile silos at their stern would do well bombarding any planetary surface. Green activation lights came on for her CO2, gamma ray and x-ray lasers, and her plasma beamers up top and below. The single antimatter beamer and gravity projector on their rear globe also went active, which told her the control nexus crystal was alert to the threat posed by Empire of Senses vessels.

  “Captain, Weapons is ready,” she hissed.

  “Well done. However, empire vessels may—”

  “Exiting,” chirped Flow.

  Three red proton laser beams crossed in front of her vessel, coming from three different vessels of the Aggressor class. Ranges to each were 11,045, 10,023 and 8,745 kilometers. A fourth vessel lay at 31,400 kilometers. It did not fire. But her neutrino sensors picked up encrypted neutrino signals arriving at the three vessels. Likely from the distant vessel. Even as she became aware of these matters her claw-fingers moved in a blur, ordering a counter-attack. The two CO2 lasers on the right and left sides of the Akantha fired green beams in unison at the most distant attacker. The purple beam of the top plasma beamer hit a second vessel while the belly plasma beamer hit the third attacker. The middle of the distant attacker erupted in jets of black smoke and red flame that quickly became fluorescing gases. The vessel fired again. Its red proton laser hit just above the hangar entry. The other two vessels became clouds of red gas, black smoke, white air and silvery globules of water. She sent two more plasma beams at the surviving attacker. The purple beams impacted. The vessel’s damaged hull blew up. Most of it became incandescent gas. She noted their one psol speed and the range to the last Empire of Senses vessel.

  “Captain! The fourth empire vessel is within range of the antimatter beamer. Soon it will be in range of my plasma beamers. Orders?”

  “Fuck! Why did they attack? They didn’t even ask for a bribe. Akantha, do you have the neutrino comsignal frequency of that vessel?”

  “I do,” she said in her musical tones.

  “Then transmit my image to that vessel.”

  “Transmitting.”

  “Empire of Senses vessel, why did you attack us? We are an exploration star vessel headed to the next arm. Respond or be destroyed.”

  Claw’s panel said the empire vessel range was now 19,771 kilometers. Well within plasma beam range. She reached out and held her finger-claw atop the dots for the two plasma weapons. “Captain, Weapons is ready to destroy the fourth vessel.”

  “Understood. Empire vessel, respond or become vapor.”

  “Incoming neutrino comsignal,” clicked Lotan amidst a flow of strange-smelling pheromones. Claw closed her nostrils and tried not to breathe deeply.

  The front vidscreen now showed the image of a Control space. Crew beings were present at panels that dotted the walls and ceiling of the space. Half the beings in the image were avians with feathers of various colors. A large avian occupied a suspended roost rail in the room’s center. Its red beak made chirping sounds.

  “Tessene vessel, spare us! We will withdraw. You may pass through our empire.”

  “Explain!” yelled the captain from his seat behind Claw. “How did you know my vessel is Tessene-built? And why did you attack us?”

  The large avian fluttered green feathered wings. “A Wokan controller sent us word of your passage into our empire. He provided imagery of your vessel. He said your vessel was filled with Harl technology,” it chirped. “He demanded we share whatever we scavenged when we defeated your vessel. But you are more powerful than we expected!”

  “Damn that Hok-donen bastard! I should have just vaporized him,” the captain said in his flowing language. “Weapons, is the empire vessel still in range?”

  “It is. Though it is reversing orientation and aiming for a vector track away from us.”

  “Damn. They could signal our future arrival to the next empire Gate.”

  Or not if you destroy their neutrino transmitter.

  Right. Thanks Akantha.

  You are welcome. I gather you do not wish to use the antimatter beamer to simply vaporize
them?

  I do not. There could be spybots watching this encounter. Our secret weapons need to remain secret, for now.

  Understood.

  “Empire vessel, identify the location of your neutrino transmitter. We will laser it so you cannot tell other empire vessels to attack us. Is there an empire base within this system?”

  “There is one on the third planet,” the avian chirped. “We are transmitting an image of our transmitter’s location. Destroy it and allow us to live!”

  “Weapons?”

  Claw tapped her CO2 and gamma ray lasers into targeting mode. They locked onto the departing empire vessel and moved their beam aim until it kept pace with a spot on the front of the vessel’s fat triangle.

  “Targeting locked in.”

  “Destroy the transmitter.”

  She tapped the two laser systems. Green and orange beams shot out and impacted on that part of the empire vessel. White air and silvery water globules jetted out. A black hole appeared in the scope image of the vessel. Its fusion pulse thrusters flared yellow-orange, pushing it off on a diverging vector track.

  “Transmitter destroyed, captain.”

  “Good. Empire vessel, transmit us a safe passage code for when we return through your empire. It is my price for letting you live.”

  “Code transmitted!” squawked the avian leader. “We leave! Let us live!”

  “Leave. And never again attack this vessel.”

  “Captain, code has been received,” clicked Lotan.

  The image of the avian disappeared from the front vidscreen. Her sensors and the scope image showed it moving inward toward the third world. It had a long journey to reach that world. But at least it was mobile and intact. She felt it was a mistake to leave an enemy alive. On her world any being that attacked a Notem never lived to do it again.

  “Pilot, reverse course. Head us back to the Gate. Astrogator, send out the star light curve for the next empire Gate. Weapons, be ready to defend us if somehow these avians manage to warn the vessels at the next Gate.”

  She acknowledged the captain’s order. As did Flow and Meander.

  “Engineer, go to full fusion pulse thrust. Astrogator, get us out of this system!”

  In fewer moments than it had taken to battle the empire vessels they entered the blue disk of the Gate and began a new transit. Claw told herself the passage of two days would allow her to review her combat records to see how she could improve her attack abilities. Though one lesson was clear. Using any weapons less powerful than a plasma beam gave the enemy a chance to inflict damage on the Akantha. Her sensors told her the proton beam had been stopped by the water jacket that lay between the outer and inner hulls. Which meant none of the stasis tubes were damaged. Nor was the shuttle. Next time she would make sure no enemy beam ever hit her vessel!

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Laserta sat in her Control Chamber seat, accel straps across her chest, and wished she could crush the galaxy down to the size of a planet. The Akantha vessel had just emerged from a Gate that served a red dwarf M-class star. But this star lay midways between the Sagittarius Arm and the Scutum Arm. Due to the light year limits on Gate transits they had had to emerge here, on their way to the first Gate inside Scutum. Impatience filled her. The accursed Harl had built Gates which did not allow one to instantly transit from one side of the galaxy to the other side. She would have punished them, but they were all dead. Or so it seemed. Instead, their trip to the Harl home world involved passage through bothersome empires and corporate domains. At least the passage through the Quikit Empire of furry mound beings had required only the payment of three gold bars. The Vitades Human had not given away more gravbands. Or other Harl tech like the galactic Gate/star vidlist, the two mechbots, the Harl statue imagery, or any of the eight zero-point power blocks. She considered all of them her property under Employer’s Claim. After all she had paid in advance for the upstart Human to take her to the world of Boundary. But collecting what was due her still required doing as the Stars crystal demanded. She looked at the vidscreen’s image of black space illuminated only by the pale red star that hosted seven worlds, three of them close enough to be in the star’s habitable zone.

  “Captain,” chirped the avian pilot. “Sensors report no other moving sources of neutrinos. There are no other star vessels in this system. And the third world out from the star is the site of the Harl installation.”

  She knew that. They all knew that. The Harl vidlist of Gates and stars included notes on whether a Harl facility existed within the system served by the Gate. They had all studied that hologram list during their last transit. At least the three Quikit Empire Gate systems had not held Harl ruins. So they had not had to visit a world for pointless exploration. The one thing she and Vitades agreed on was that stasis tubes were not to be found in every Harl ruin, or even in most. But there were enough Harl systems on the way to their home world that she felt like her vessel was slow-walking across the galaxy.

  “Pilot, thank you. What is the distance to the third world?”

  “About 28 AU, or a journey of four days.”

  More time wasted!

  “Pilot, do you sense any Harl graviton sources lying on the way inward?” the Human asked. “Such as on an asteroid or a comet?”

  The avian spread her purple-feathered wings in a sign of her eagerness to pilot through the stellar winds and magnetic fields of this new system. She recognized the behavior, having seen it often enough since she had boarded the Akantha a month ago.

  “I do not sense any localized graviton sources, captain.”

  “Engineer?”

  “Neither do I sense other Harl graviton sources,” the six-legged ground-crawler honked. “Concentrated gravitons, along with intense neutrino sources, are present only on the third world. It is the only rocky world that is not tidal-locked to the local star.”

  Again redundant data. Everyone on her ship knew the details of every planet and star that was next on their transit list. The Human liked stating the obvious multiple times. Perhaps he had infected the other crew beings with his tendency. If so, she would have to watch herself to prevent a similar aberration affecting her. Among her Mogelian people, female dominants spoke an order once. The servant male who received the order understood it immediately and obeyed. Or their existence ended. There were plenty of servant males on Nastura. It was talented dominant females they needed, not sex-hungry males.

  “Engineer, thank you. Pilot, take us inward at 15 psol. That might cut off a day of our travel.”

  Finally a sliver of sense. Using the upgraded magfield drive on top of the fusion pulse thrusters meant the Akantha could travel faster than any other star vessel known to exist. Including Wokan-built vessels. Every other star vessel had only the weak magfield drive which the Tessene vessel had originally had. Perhaps the details of that upgrade could be coaxed from the Akantha AI and recorded on her own vidtablet. The sale of such upgrade data would bring her a small fortune in Galactic Credits.

  “Flying inward,” chirped the avian. “Engineer, please activate fusion pellet flow to the thrusters. Captain, I am activating the magfield drive. My! We are moving nicely!”

  Disgust filled her. While the fellow furry named Lotan had said nothing since transit emergence, just as the arthropod Astrogator and the silver-scaled reptile female had been silent so far, it was clear they were loyal to Vitades. How a newcomer species like Humans had managed to earn the loyalty of pre-existing species like those represented by Vitades’ crew beings, she had no idea. Maybe it was luck. Or maybe he had access to personal data on each crew being that would be harmful if made known to future employers. On Nastura it was fear and training that ensured obedience by servant males. She had no interest in their loyalty. Males had their uses. Females applied those uses. And her world operated best thanks to female dominants being in charge. Time to leave this disgusting scene. She unlocked her straps and stood up.

  “Captain Vitades, I go to my cabin. Have my lunch meal
delivered to me. By a mechbot.”

  “As you wish, Employer.”

  At least this male still understood her status as his real employer, despite her pretending to be one of his crew. That made him useful. That plus his ability to motivate the vessel’s AI into doing what needed to be done. She stepped through the spiral door and headed for her cabin. Perhaps she would don her virtual reality helmet and enjoy chatting about her adventures with fellow dominants. While the venue created by the helmet was not real, it was based on past convocations of dominant females she had attended. At least within the helmet she would receive the proper respect that was due her!

  Flow guided the Akantha into a low orbit about the rocky world which was third in orbit around the red dwarf star. The world’s surface was mostly brown, with a few mountain ranges showing gray-purple on the day-time side. There were no oceans or seas. Only tiny ice caps at the north and south poles. This was a desert world, with very little green showing. That green was concentrated in mountain gorges on the equator, where water could collect and remain liquid in the shade of the gorges. The Harl installation, though, was sited within a cluster of rocky hills that lay in the northern part of a vast sandy basin. She scanned her panel sensors.

  “Captain, the atmosphere below is oxy-nitro at a 15/80 ratio, with strong argon and helium elements. Air pressure is low compared to Boundary’s air. Heavy dust concentrations are present in locations where temperature gradients produce a vortex effect.” She paused and checked other sensor readouts. The nearby three small moons were helpful. “Gravity is seven-tenths gee. Transit from day to night and back to day occupies 20 Earth hours. Radiation from the local star is mild, though flares are more common among red dwarfs than in other star classes.”

  “Sounds decent for most of us,” her captain said, his tone patient. “Put us on track to land at the Harl installation. And put a scope image of it on the vidscreen.”