Captive Galaxy 1: The Bellerophon: Ambush

by J. W. Kurtz

  Wray did make what he considered to be an important distinction in his new endeavor. He considered himself a privateer rather than a raider or pirate. He had rigid rules of conduct for his crew and himself as a result. Within his conscience he maintained a clear and determinedly stanch ethos which he instilled upon his hired hands. He was only steeling from those that stole as the whole modern privateering endeavor was built upon aggressive industrial espionage practiced for hundreds of years. It had become an even more profitable venture with the discovery of the Minervan system and the ancient technology found therein, a distant 60 or so light years from Earth. Modern technologies such as stasis-sleep, inertial dampeners, and artificial gravity, as well as improved nano technologies were all derived through backwards engineering devices and relics associated with the once existent and now vanished sentient race. The only sentient race other than man to have been proven to have existed within 100 light-years of Sol. A race that, despite all their advanced technologies, had apparently, and very strangely, lacked a faster-than-light drive.

  This second career as a privateer promised a new beginning. He would be free to travel amongst the stars that had called to him and offered him wonder as a youth. He would be free to assemble a crew that he wanted, untainted by political connections. It was true that there was also the allure of finding his fortune if he worked hard and of course was lucky. Now however, the signed agreement with I2, the agreement that Wray believed had given him freedom now seemed more and more like a dozen-years of indentured servitude.

  There simply were not as many freedoms as he believed he would have in this second career as he still answered to a master, a higher power. A corporate power that didn't pretend to not be corrupt, as corruption was a matter of daily business and operation. He could at least deal with the constant corporate corruption because they at least did it in the open, whereas the politicians and their underlings on Earth tried to do same in veils of secrecy to protect themselves from scandal. Sadly they were consistently and absolutely terrible at preventing the scandals of their illegal corruption, their asses regularly saved by pardons and spin doctoring.

  Currently, the operation headed by Wray barely broke even. The ledger balanced by a hair if at that. And with a dozen more years of costly, intensive, and near constant repairs on a ship designed to be maintained and operated by more than four times the crew he currently employed, things didn't look to be getting better in the near future. Wray sighed to himself as he was thinking of such things, knowing that he should have taken a walk to take his mind of these matters. It was times like this, with strayed heavy thoughts, that he came close to admission that resigning so close to retirement. A resignation which was a protest to the way things were, even knowing that his protest would fall on deaf ears. It was an expensive payment for what he believed to be both the right thing and his freedom. He needed a walk, a long walk as his head was beginning to spin, but instead he chose to take the faster route to the hangar, not in hopes that the newly captured shuttle would offer a solid payout but because he feared he would come across items that needed fixing. As luck would have it the portside fast-pipe off the command deck seemed to still be functioning properly. Wray entered his destination on the old analog control board next to the sliding hatch and then sat in one of the dozen unoccupied seats surrounding an empty space meant for cargo or major component transport. A yellow light was supposed to flash twice as the hatch closed, but the LED had long since burned out. Sad because LED's pretty much last forever. With the hatch secured, the green LED next to the overhead yellow caution light did come on brightly to confirm the maglev conveyance was heading toward the requested destination.

  Chapter 3:

  Time: 14:13 (Zulu)

  The 500-meter ride aft took all of 3-seconds to complete. The sequence of opening and closing the hatch took far longer than the ride itself. There was no feeling of acceleration. Wray was happy with this as it meant the work crew that worked on this particular fast-pipe calibrated the localized inertial dampener field properly, no doubt because they had the correct parts on-hand which probably meant they cannibalized them from one of the other three maglev's on the ship. Most likely the #4, which always seemed to be down, and will probably be down for good if the dampener was again a no-go. There wouldn't be a sign-off for a complete refit for that pipe coming from Wray anytime soon. They could survive with the three that were currently working. Even with two up and running, as long as one ran along the port and one ran along the starboard length, they would be okay.

  A sudden gust of cool air greeted Wray, and tussled his now longer than CDF regulation salt and pepper hair, as the hatch quickly lifted out of the way allowing him to disembark on the main hangar deck. Before him a half-dozen of the Belle's crew moved about their business with professional precision as they secured the two assault skiffs used in the operation and the newly captured Osprey as well. He was very happy to see the two assault skiffs, the oh-so-costly assault skiffs, being handled with such care. This was the first time these new craft, new to the Belle's crew anyway, had been used in a boarding operation having just become part of the operating inventory.

  Kyler Bachman, being a man of many hats was currently acting as the deck boss. Bachman spotted the Captain across the deck and walked over to join him.

  "Hey there, Boss," Bachman addressed Wray sans salute which most assuredly felt odd to the former trooper. Two-years out of the service and it was only now beginning to feel the least bit normal to be so informal with a commanding officer. Calling him "boss" was more correct than "sir" however as they were both private business men now. Maybe not so private as they were both beholden to contracts, that if violated, would land them in bankruptcy and legal indentured servitude in one of the corporate colonies. Not many were known to have pulled themselves out of that mess. They both probably had more rights under the law if they were still in the Colonial Defense Fleet, as Wray had of course been, or the Colonial Defense Marine Corps, where Bachman "served with distinction"...or so his file read. Bachman would argue that his lone distinction was continually surviving the mistakes made by his commanding officers. But they weren't in the service any more. They were here and now, scratching out this exciting life that was, while hopefully paying the bills due.

  Wray nodded to Bachman upon the greeting. Bachman pulled a fresh cigar from a breast pocket, offered his boss one knowing that it would be turned down, which was why he never carried more than one, and then lit it with an old silver lighter produced as if by magic. That was his lighter trick; producing it seemingly from thin air. Soon a thick blue cloud of cigar smoke soon hovered around the two. Bachman stood next to Wray and both rested silently with arms crossed taking in the scene. Bachman steadily drew on his cigar and attempted to blow the smoke away from the two but the local artificial gravity field decided to exert just enough of a hold to keep the cloud collecting around the two. He soon extinguished his cigar out of respect for Wray, as he was not much of a smoker, though the Captain respected the rituals and traditions of his people, so much as they did not interfere with the desired results. For Bachman it was tradition that whenever he completed a mission or assignment where he might get shot, maimed, or killed, which was just about every working day of his adult life when he thought about it, that he smoke a cigar. It was an old and clichéd thing to do...but so is life if one is lucky.

  Bachman had worked for the Captain long enough now to know his process, and silently waiting was what was required here. The steel blue gray eyes of Wray moved up and down the length of the Osprey. He took in the stark white paint of the fuselage. Dark blue horizontal piping, as a stark contrast to the sterile white, ran the length of the shuttle. Five-foot tall letters could be seen in black block letters just below the starboard cockpit window reading "The Corporation" with "Osprey" in a smaller and more stylized script just below. The 35-meter vessel sat on sets of double tricycle landing gear atop the once bright yellow deck, now faded with age and scarred with stains
from old pools of solvents and grease.

  "Give me another rundown, Kyler," the Captain directed as he completed his visual inspection.

  "No change, Captain," Bachman responded. "The prize is secured. Reactors and drives are cold. She had a little more than a half tank of drive fuel remaining which is what we expected from where we took her from transit during her hop to Sol. The four crew are still in stasis with no change in status. Ayad ran a status pull from the couches and it reports two of them have injuries requiring medical attention. He sent the data to medical, as the doctor declined the invite to come down here. " Bachman said with a smirk on his face to which the Captain curtly nodded. "No real surprise there...that chain smoking weirdo never leaves that place. Has he ever left the medbay?"

  To which Wray replied, "be glad he's our chain smoking weirdo 'cause if you get shot up he's pretty darn good at reassembling the pieces."

  "If you say so, Boss. The good doctor has only had the data we sent him for about 10-minutes or so, and of course you know how talkative he is... Haven't heard anything back from him, nor do I expect to unless I seek him out or there's a crazy anomaly or something he deems important enough for us to know. I'd love to see if he could string together more than two or three words. How'd you ever interview him in the first place? " Bachman asked, rhetorically, lacking his regular humorous tone. Bachman rarely took anything seriously unless he was annoyed. The recently hired doctor annoyed him greatly. "I do want to know why the medical nanites in the couches didn't fix them up. The wounded sleeping crew of the shuttle here have wounds listed as being well in the wheelhouse of the simple nano medicines offered by the acceleration couches umbilical's. The doc will know better than me but it's not the couches themselves. Diagnostics show they're operating at tip-top. And, if the log is correct, and they have been in stasis for about two-weeks, they should've been fixed up by now." Bachman turned and looked his boss in the eyes, "we may need to pull them to fix them up...unless you don't want the trouble and we just space 'em."

  One of the things about Bachman that concerned Wray was his more cavalier attitude about such things. Wray was a privateer with some pretty rigid and implacable morals whereas Bachman tended to stray a bit too far into the mindset of a true pirate. Perhaps this was a result of the training and experience Bachman had as a Marine. There had always been a rumor, a rumor started hundreds of years ago, that in order to prove one's self and become a Marine, you had to kill a family member first. Wray knew this was a joke, a dark one at that, or propaganda from "the other side," but he wondered about Bachman and if he'd actually go through with it. Wray was just glad that Bachman, despite his "rough edges," could be trusted to follow orders...directions, once they were firmly given.

  "No. You know we don't do that. If they will keep for now we'll leave them be. Will the two that are injured make it to the Cove?" Wray asked.

  Bachman grinned widely before responding.

  "Sure thing Captain. No spacing. Got it. Doesn't cost us anything to keep them plugged in. The couches are being run off the shuttles internal backup and their own individual redundant power units. We're 5-days out from the Cove, right? Again, I'm no medtech, but the readout says 'non-critical' so I think they'll keep in stasis for awhile...but I could be wrong. Your call of course, Boss. Just let me know and it be done," Bachman said with a slight bow.

  Wray ignored the smartassed bow. This was Bachman and he didn't mean anything by it. Unfortunately there was no cure in this modern again for being a smartass despite the centuries of research.

  "Keep 'em where they are and...," Wray was saying when his attention was drawn away from Bachman to two of his boarding team members, Chon Chavez and Marie Weston. The pair were struggling in a rather awkward manner to carry a lone box down the ramp from the Osprey airlock to the Belle's deck. The gracelessness of their work seemed almost comical, which is why it gave Wray pause. With a loud clunk, that shook the deck enough to be felt through the legs of both Bachman and Wray standing 10-meters away, the box was slammed onto the faded yellow steel plating of the deck.

  "Watch your shit!" Chavez exclaimed, "that nearly smashed my fucking foot!"

  Weston instantly got into the face of Chavez. As well as she could anyway as she stood a full foot shorter than him. "Watch your shit, Chavez!" she yelled back, overemphasizing the word 'your.' "I'm not the candy-ass that let go first. Would've been a shame though if it had smashed your 'fucking foot" because it's probably the only part of you that does any real fucking when you kick your dog in the ass!" Weston said with fire lashed from her tongue.

  "You leave Sasha out of this!" Chavez snapped back.

  Wray approached the escalating scene, having made the decision to intervene before it got ugly between these two...again. While serving in the CDF Wray had broken up numerous altercations between sailors, grunts, and even bratty officers. Usually he just walked up, and when they felt his presence or spotted the gleam of bars and stars on his uniform, the altercation came to a rapid and abrupt conclusion. In the private sector, especially this one, where they technically operated as outlaws in the eyes of the home system of Sol, he often needed a heavier hand besides flashing bars and rank as those were meaningless. Rally the only two threats that worked in the private sector was a sanctioned paycheck or barking louder than the other dogs.

  Chavez and Weston had tunnel vision, engaged in sizing each other up vocally, prior to their usual scrapping when Wray was suddenly upon them and interrupted the gathering storm.

  "Both of you. Stow it. Stow it now!" Wray looked down at the spritely short-haired Weston, who could go from an angel to a devil faster than the ripper drive tore through space-time. "Weston, back the fuck down. You put Chavez into the medbay one more time and I'll have your share withheld for the next two contract hops." Wray stared into her dark brown eyes, "you get me Marie?"

  The angel returned. "Yeah, I get ya, Boss. Chavo and I are good...and his bitch." She said with a grin.

  "Don't call her that!" Chavez complained. "Sasha ain't no bitch!"

  Wray turned and looked across the meter distance between him and Chavez having made eye-to-eye contact. "Chavez?" Wray said.

  "Yeah?"

  "Time to stow it. You're lucky I like your dog. And you're right, she's not a bitch. But you're acting like one. Grow a pair," Wray said deadpan.

  Chavez responded with a grin and a nod, looking very much like the big puppy dog that he was. Puppy dog or not, in a fight Chavez was surely who you wanted at your side. This wasn't really a fight of course, more of a lover's quarrel between Chon and Marie. The whole crew knew they were knocking boots. They still thought it was a secret. The secret was the crew keeping a secret that they knew about Chavez and Weston's "secret."

  Bachman had wandered over to the trio standing around the box. He was obviously wary of getting near the thing with all the bad voodoo emanating from it according to the scanner. He very carefully eased a boot forward to nudge the box. It was very solidly on the deck. "Heavy," he said.

  "Little bit, yeah," Chavez stated. "Marie won't let me use a grav-sled."

  Weston just about choked in her responded, "because it won't work dumbass! Look at your suit readout, your wrist chrono, comms, any of your electronics! No, they don't!"

  Wray was concerned that this latest exchange would lead to another round of barbs between the two, but he was pleased to see Chavez quietly await Weston to offer an education as to why he was a dumbass.

  Weston loudly stomped over to a nearby maintenance area along the side of the hanger and retrieved a small grav-sled used to carry tool boxes and small parts. She pushed the sled over to the area of the deck where the Minervan box sat. When the sled was about a meter from the box it abruptly dropped to the deck with a noisy clatter. A couple loose nuts and bolts holding the old piece-of-shit grav-sled together rolled away from the now disabled and useless sled.

  "Nothing works a meter or two from that thing," Weston explained. "That's why we didn't use the sled, you
tool. Thankfully the Belle's artificial grav plates are deeper in the deck or who knows what sort of funky shit this thing would be doing to that system. I told you this a minute ago Chavo...don't you listen?"

  When it looked like Chavez was going to start in again with Weston, Wray folded his arms and cleared his throat in the manner that a father would to preempt a fight between siblings. Both Chavez and Weston got the message. Bachman and Wray then pretended to miss the wink from Chavez to Weston. They also pretended to miss her start to blush as a response to the wink.

  "How much does this sucker weigh?" Bachman broke in with curiosity.

  "I'd say more than 50 kilos," Chavez responded.

  "Easily 50 kilos. Feels like a couple bags of ferrocrete at least. If we had an analog scale handy I'd bet it would read closer to 55...say even 60 kilos," Weston speculated. "It's not the weight so much as it's just crazy awkward with no handles on this thing. It's only a cubic foot in volume or so. Awkward as hell to carry between two people."

  Wray bent down and inspected the box for a moment. Silently hopeful that the initial readings were correct in that they weren't being exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. After a moment he stood up and gave the box a good experimental shove with his foot which moved the box a centimeter or two. "Do any of you have any buckyball-poly rope in your kits? How long? How thick?" Wray asked.