The Seeds of War- Omnibus Edition

by T S Hottle

  “It’s the start of the summer planting season,” said Kray. “Farmers have already planned their warm-weather crops for the year. Come back in a couple of months. Bring your permits.”

  “Well, Kray, this is our problem. The old-line GMO concerns, the ones from the World War Era and those that sprang up from the first interstellar settlements, they hold sway with ComAg.” ComAg referred to the Compact Agricultural Commission. “Every one of the commissioners once held a board seat or a commissar position with them. A newer company like Juno… Well, we’re always told permits might come ‘Someday,’ or, ‘If you can get a colony to sign off.’ See my problem?”

  It was an old story, one Kray and John Parker, a constable in neighboring Harlan Township, heard every few months. Some company or planetary project had figured out a way to make better food but couldn’t get the Compact to approve it for flatland farming. Any commercial or socialist entity that emerged in the past century and a half found itself frozen out of the market for one very simple reason.

  Mars Ag provided money to fund a supposedly money-less world. The old-line commercial firms, once the corporate villains of the World War Era, had firmly ensconced themselves in the minds of humans and their friendlier neighbors as the guardians of ethical genetic manipulation. Companies like Leitman’s often found themselves relegated to vertical farms and underground hydroponics complexes.

  “See the governor,” said Kray flatly and started to turn away.

  “I did,” said Leitman. “He told us to show him proof it worked somewhere else. The only place to agree is a new colony called Gallifrey.”

  “So what do you need me for?”

  “Gallifrey isn’t ready for settlement yet. And their parent world is Jefivah.”

  Kray found himself wrinkling his nose at the mention of the world. “Didn’t install a tacky statue of their goddess yet?”

  “That particular sect now has its own colony.”

  Kray did not pretend to know what he was talking about. He only knew that Jefivah made Amargosa look like Earth in its golden age. He picked up the mass of creeper Leitman had left on the table. “So you want me to convince a few farmers to let this stuff crawl over their fields for an easy payday. What happens if it leaves the fields unusable after harvest? What if it contaminates the other crops?”

  “I’ll compensate your farmers,” said Leitman. “Juno is prepared to do everything it can to make sure we don’t leave them without a livelihood. But…” The strange little smile reappeared. “…if this works, and Gallifrey likes the results, both your farmers and theirs could open a new era of food customization.” His eyes now focused on Kray’s, as though waiting for a scripted reaction. “Think about it. And all you have to do is to convince a few farmers to let this happen while you turn a blind eye to the cultivation regs for a single season.”

  Kray suspected Parker, who had his own farm in addition to being Harlan Township’s constable, had heard this pitch earlier that day in Lansdorp. He also suspected Parker shot Leitman down cold. “Now why would I want to do that?”

  “What do you want, Mr. Kray? I can make it worth your while.”

  “What do I want?”

  “He wants his own citizens’ militia.” Saja’s words came like bullets. “But Mars and the colonial government won’t let him form one.”

  “Then perhaps,” said Leitman, “both of us can turn a blind eye to each other’s endeavors.”

  “You can make this happen?”

  Leitman polished off his ale. “I made seven nukes disappear. What do you think?”

  ***

  The Seattle Orbital Staging Grounds, the city’s spaceport, actually lay some thirty kilometers south of the city. While JT found his access to his mother’s credit and ground vehicles cut off, he still had no trouble getting off the estate’s platform. Getting into the city and out to the Grounds proved a little more difficult. Fortunately for JT, his parents did not think to cut off access to the household staff’s vehicles. Why would they? JT would never be caught dead riding a servant’s skiff or using one of their transit passes. And after all, JT was only a misguided teenager, not a felony suspect.

  In his haste to escape his mother’s house, he forgot to factor in the storm blowing down from Juneau that night and nearly swamped the craft he’d lifted before reaching the city harbor. He trudged ashore with a dripping backpack and his shoes squishing with every step. The attendant at the maglev platform almost did not let him on. A soaking wet man without identification and unwilling to have his wrist chip scanned was a homeless squatter in most people’s minds. JT adopted a cornpone accent and told the attendant he was a drifter from Appalachia working as a temp at the Orbital Grounds.

  Once there, his wrist chip got him into the Dasarius Interstellar freight handling area. That was when he hit his first real obstacle.

  “No,” said Cardona, the big Nicaraguan loading tech whom JT had recruited for his escapades. “Your little trip to the orbital resort nearly cost me my job. Did you really tell some slut in the bar that you were a vice president?”

  JT grinned. “I said I would be soon.”

  “You know it’s a crime to lie to an adult to get sex,” said Cardona. “They said I’d have been considered an accomplice if she had pressed charges.”

  “Look, this will be the last time. I need to get off this planet for good.”

  “Everyone needs to get off this planet. It’s Earth, armpit of the Compact.”

  “I thought Jefivah was the armpit.”

  “That’s the rectum. So where do you want to go?”

  JT looked up at the stars and picked one out that, in modern times, went by the name Helios. “Tian. I want to go to Tian.”

  Cardona whistled. “Don’t want much. Do you?”

  ***

  Kray and Saja spent the night at the inn. Despite Kray’s insistence on getting a room for her, Saja chose to stand guard all night inside the door. In the morning, he ordered her to sleep in the bat wagon’s backseat while he drove. The sun rose in the west behind them, changing the foothills ahead from a dull, dark gray to a riot of reds and yellows, patches of green in the plains beyond becoming visible as the mist lifted.

  The inn staff had charged up the bat wagon overnight without telling Kray or Saja. While constables, sheriffs, and various agents of colonial law enforcement could occasionally expect a free meal or a place to stay, the idea of paying nothing for the entire night unsettled Kray. He was not defending a position. He was defending his home. As he made his way down the slope and toward the next peak, he thought of what the inn keeper said as he saw Kray and Saja off.

  “We know what you’re doing,” he said, almost in a conspiratorial whisper. “And we support you.”

  It both touched and infuriated Kray. The people wanted his militia. Their leaders…

  The truth was their leaders were too addicted to the long teat of their Martian overlords, those same benefactors who frowned on Amargosa’s entire way of life.

  “Until they want fresh vegetables,” he muttered as he negotiated a particularly sharp turn, “that didn’t come out of a skyscraper.”

  Two hours later, the bat wagon entered the last of the Misty Mountain foothills. When nature demanded he pull over and visit the woods, he returned to the bat wagon only to find Saja sitting at the controls.

  “Let’s go,” she said curtly. “Your wife is waiting, and I have paperwork to do.”

  Kray wondered when Saja ever gave a damn about his wife. “Brendie will wait. And I thought I ordered you to sleep.”

  “I did. Now I am awake. Let’s go, sir.”

  Kray dutifully climbed into the cab.

  The sun’s eastward march put it at its peak by the time they pulled up to the constable’s office in Dagar’s main settlement. Inside, one of the deputies came towards them. He did not ask about the meeting in Lansdorp. No doubt Kray’s sour expression had told him how it went.

  “Sir,” said the deputy, “there’s a large
crate in the back that someone dropped off last night. I think you should have a look.”

  Kray and Saja made their way back to the Evidence Room where a large plastite crate sat on a sorting table. Silently, the deputy removed the lid.

  “KR-27s,” said Kray as he eyed the assault rifles inside. “I haven’t seen one of these since the day I left the Marines.”

  “Those are illegal for civilian use,” said Saja. “Technically, they’re war machines.”

  The underside of the lid had a display layer painted onto it. A text message scrolled across it. It read, “A token of goodwill, Lucius. But only the first one’s free. Your friend, Marcus.”

  “Shall I call the Bureau of Ordnance and Arms, sir?” asked Saja.

  Kray smiled. “No. Contact Juno’s colonial branch in Riverside. Tell them I accept Mr. Leitman’s proposal.”

  “Sir?” said the deputy. “Shouldn’t we pack these off to Lansdorp and open…”

  “We should begin recruiting our militia immediately. And quietly.”

  ***

  Cardona put JT to work loading tractbots onto a freighter called the Ralan Underhill. JT had no idea who Ralan Underhill was or why his mother’s company would name a ship after him. Or her. Offworld names could be so confusing.

  Loading the tractbots was easy. He simply climbed onto one as it came off the conveyor from a maglev car a kilometer away, powered it up, and told the AI unit where to go. The bots ran in factory mode and still reeked of spot welding and the 3D printing process that created most of their parts. It took two hours to park all the bots in cradles for transport. Occasionally, JT had to put a tractbot into manual mode as the AI could barely comprehend the directions he gave it. All in all, it was probably the easiest job between the docks and Orbital Staging.

  “Come on,” said Cardona, “I’ll show you where to hide.” He led JT to a storage bin near the bay where they had stowed the tractbots.

  “Why are we shipping farm equipment to Tian?” asked JT. “I thought they manufactured their own.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the customers are cheap?” Cardona’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “Now hurry up, before I have to explain your presence here.” He opened the storage bay and handed JT a master key. “Here. Use this to get out when you get to Tian. Wait until the ship lands or docks, then pretend you’re a Dasarius Interstellar employee once the crews start off-loading. Find the break room, then the transit center. Once there, you’re home free.”

  Yeah, JT realized, without any money or access to Dasarius resources. But then that was the whole point of fleeing to Tian, wasn’t it? If you could make it there, you could make it anywhere.

  Cardona pointed to an empty bin at the base of a shelf. “Slide in and keep your back flat against the wall. Lift off will compress your spine if you don’t. Same with reentry. If you hear the reentry alarm, flatten your back again. They turn the gravity off just before they enter the hypergate, so make sure you brace yourself when they do. The ship actually comes to a full stop even though it’s getting flung light years through a hole in space. It’ll toss you around like a toy if you’re not careful.”

  JT reached out and offered his hand to Cardona. “Thanks, buddy. I won’t forget this.”

  “See that you don’t. This is the last time I help you JT. If you come back, I’m out of a job. And I don’t want to go to work in a 3D print shop in the Congo. They spit on us Westerners there.”

  When JT was in place, Cardona slammed the door to the storage room, plunging him into total darkness. Half an hour later, lift-off did indeed flatten JT against the bulkhead. The warning for hypergate transit sounded moments after that.

  JT smiled in the dark. He was going to Tian. He was starting his life anew. He’d show his mother and father he didn’t need them. Maybe from there, he would find his way to one of the newer colonies and stake a claim. Jefivah, after centuries of being humanity’s laughingstock, had finally settled three of them, one entirely dedicated to that weird cult that considered some ancient actress a goddess. He had heard their initiates had to have sex with a priest or priestess before joining the faith. Maybe he would settle on their colony and become a Marilynist. Or he could simply create a new identity on Tian and start fresh. A smart guy like JT should have no trouble …

  “Ten seconds to hypergate transit,” said the captain over the ship’s com system.

  JT had already braced himself against the loss of artificial gravity.

  “Five… Four… Three… Two… One…”

  Something was wrong. The hypergates between Earth and the other major core worlds should be unnoticeable to anyone not sensitive to their effects during transit. The only time wormhole transit had ever proved a problem for JT was when he was nine and dared himself to look out the window. He was sick for days after that.

  This felt worse. He felt like his body was being pulled in directions his mind could not comprehend. Even the brain inside his skull felt as though it were being squashed and pulled apart at the same time.

  He passed out from the sheer overload of sensation.

  When he awoke, he had no idea how much time had passed. He only knew his stomach rumbled ominously and he could barely standup. He had to get out of there, get into the light.

  Something outside chirped. Before JT could fathom what the sound meant, the door slid open, and a slender woman in crew coveralls stood before him. The closet light came on, revealing the name “Brandt” stenciled across the breast pocket of her coveralls. She took a shoulder rig and spoke into it. “Mitch, Teej, we got another stowaway down here in Two.”

  “I’ve got twenty that says Brandt loses another pair of boots,” said a male voice.

  “Teej,” she snapped into her rig, “if you don’t…”

  Before she could finish, JT expelled the contents of his stomach all over Brandt’s boots. Laughter erupted from her rig.

  “You win, Teej,” said another male voice. “That’s three this week. A record.”

  Brandt thumbed her rig once more. “Mitch, shut up and get security down here.”

  JT managed catch his breath after a couple of quick coughs. He looked up at Brandt. “So when do we get to Tian?”

  The look on her face told him before she said anything. “Tian? Kid, this freighter is making a run of the outer colonies. You’re on Amargosa.”

  JT wanted to be sick again, but he had nothing left.

  EPISODE 2

  Kray held the assault rifle over his head. “Who knows what this is?”

  A few of the three dozen farmers gathered around him behind the constable’s office gasped.

  “That’s a KR-27,” said a man near the center of the crowd. “And from the look of that one, its sight will let you shoot the balls off a Laputan at five hundred meters.”

  Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd.

  “Farther,” said Kray, “if you load it with smart ammunition and a targeting interface.” He handed the rifle to Saja and climbed onto a self-guided farm wagon that had been parked behind the constable’s office since long before he arrived on Amargosa. The thing had not moved in years, its solar panels caked in dust. “I have a dozen of these that we have confiscated. I’ve been informed that more are coming, and that they’re coming without the knowledge of anyone in Lansdorp or back on Mars. Now, who among us believes that we’re safe from invasion out here?”

  A woman somewhere in the crowd said, “It’s been fifty years since a core world tried to grab another one’s colony.”

  “Have you forgotten the Polygamy Wars?” said Kray. “Mrs. Bannerjee, do you honestly believe these radical sects that would rise up against their own parent world to kidnap unwilling wives would think twice of coming after you here? That wasn’t even fifteen years ago.” He waited as the crowd murmured among themselves. “And what about the poorer core worlds? Jefivah has three new colonies, but there have been rumors. The military hardware stored on those planets has gone missing. Some say nukes. Some say rods from God. O
r maybe Tian or Earth will think we’re too independent and come to ‘protect’ us. What would you think then?”

  “What about aliens?” someone shouted. It was a fair question, but Kray knew Saja had recruited a plant to call that out. “The war with the Laputans wasn’t that long ago, either.”

  Kray give the crowd just enough time to whip themselves into a frenzy, then waved them silent. “I hear you. I hear you. I go to sleep every night holding my wife tightly, knowing that every human everywhere sleeps under a hostile sky where the enemy looks quite a bit like us. Sure, we’re friendly with most primates, but all of them? And what happens when some Orag radical comes to power, telling his people we systematically exterminated their Terran ancestors back in Earth’s Stone Age? What then? Sure, they’re human, but they’re not us.”

  The crowd erupted into more shouting, and Kray had no doubt that had an Orag happened to pass through town at that moment, he would have left in a body bag.

  “Now,” said Kray as the noise died down, “the governor and our leaders on Mars…” He almost spat the word “leaders” and did sneer when he mentioned Mars. “…do not feel the Compact is much of a threat to itself. That may be true. But we are out on the frontier. We don’t know enough about the aliens, not even our friends, to trust that they won’t come after us. We must prepare. And if the threat never materializes, then we will have lost nothing.”

  Someone, probably another plant by Saja, shouted, “Why should we wait for the government? We should form our own militia.”

  Saja held up the assault rifle she had taken from Kray. “We already are.”

  “I will need a dozen volunteers to start,” said Kray. He already knew he had them.