James Wittenbach - Worlds Apart 08

by Hellfire

  “I’ll wait for you,” she told him, slipping into the kitchen, fully dressed and fussing with her hair. “Unprocessed air makes me nauseated.”

  “You ought to at least give me a chance to show you a good time, planet-side.” He handed her a steaming mug.

  She shook her head as she took it. “If most of the crew takes shore leave, some of us will have to stay in orbit.”

  “You just like being in charge,” he told her playfully.

  “I do,” she agreed. “More than I thought I would. I never wanted to be in a command position because I didn’t want to be like one of those tweaks from the Mining Academy, one of those mining ship commanders who won’t listen to anyone, just flaunts her authority. Now that I’ve been in command, I think I’m good at it.”

  This was not what Redfire had expected her to say, but he decided to work with it. “The way you handled the Hellfire situation surely worked out to our advantage. The bluff with the Hammerhead missile was very effective.”

  “That was no bluff,” Change insisted.

  “I see,” Redfire said.

  “I still would have preferred shooting them. I prefer to deal with things head on, not by trickery.” She took a drink of her kava. “This is too bitter, do you have any sugar-cream?” He handed her the sugar-cream. “From what I’ve learned, I don’t think the Hellions ever would have given in,” Redfire said. “They were too proud.”

  “That’s how Alkema convinced me to go with his plan,” Change said. “I’m still amazed it worked. I thought he was over-selling it to the Hellions. I’m surprised they didn’t figure it out.”

  “He’s a pretty smart kid,” Redfire offered. “Keeler would be lost without him.”

  “Keeler is still lost without him. Have you considered returning to the Command Core?” Change asked.

  “I’ve been thinking its time to remodel the officer’s lounge,” Redfire replied. “We’ve had this white-on-white, elegant motif for almost two years, and I think the crew are getting a little bored with it. I’m thinking of… primary colors, natural wood accents, maybe some interplanetary junk on the walls…”

  “No, then?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to return to command, but I do want to marry you.”

  “I want to stay in command, and I don’t want to marry you,” Change replied. “I guess that’s why things keep working out for us.”

  Pegasus – Driver’s Quarters

  Matthew Driver chilled in his crib, because the old bassinet was the only thing he had that could hold enough ice to surround the fizzy aquarine beverage Trajan had taken a liking to long ago while visiting Aurora. He also opened a container of multi-grain wafers and a package of protein dip.

  Trajan showed up exactly at 20/50 hours, as they had planned, and let himself in. Driver had extended him that courtesy when they had returned from the Chronos Universe, even though Republickers normally regarded the domicile as sacrosanct and would never think of entering the inhabitation unit of a close friend or even a relative with announcing themselves and awaiting an invitation.

  Avril Lear would have been appalled, if not apoplectic, had she known how casual her son had become.

  Driver was in his food preparation unit when Lear came in. “Did I miss anything while I was gone?” he asked, handing Lear a tall glass of half-frozen, greenish-blue slush.

  “Specialist Atlantic washed out of flight training,” Lear reported as he took the beverage.

  “Really, why?”

  “Because he was no good,” Trajan replied. “He should stay on the helm, where he is good. But he should be on the command deck of an Aves like my mother should be working waste disposal at a protein farm.” He paused. “On the other hand, that might have done her a bit of good.”

  “That’s the shame, we have enough fuel to keep going now, but Flight Core is still stretched.” Driver held up a thick round piece of plastic. “Would you like to watch this?”

  “What is it?” Trajan asked.

  “A visual record from the Hellfire colony,” Driver told him. “Technician Logo passed it on to me, which I don’t think she was supposed to do. I suppose I should turn it over to Cultural Survey, but I wanted to see it myself first.” Lear took the disk away and studied it. “I don’t recognize the storage medium.”

  “Lieutenant Flash had to reinvent a technology to play it back,” Driver explained. He put the thick plastic disk into the device Flash had developed. Driver then settled into the large, firm sofa next and Trajan Lear joined him, a large bowl of exploded grain in-between them in addition to the drinks and multi-grain chips.

  A holographic display came up. Discordant, low-fidelity music shrieked from the playback device, forcing Alkema to cover his ears. Words flew out of the display screen at him:

  Hellfire: Wonder of the Galaxy!

  There was a brief view of a terra-class planet from space, then the camera zoomed into a large city on the coast of one of that planet’s continents, then to a large skyscraper with the logo of ‘Crucial Energy’ glowing bright maroon from its upper floors, and finally to an office within that skyscraper. A middle-aged man was seated at a desk in a wood paneled office. Then, he looked up, as though seeing the camera for the first time. “Oh, hello there, I did not see you come in. Please sit down.”

  “Um, is he talking to us?” Trajan asked.

  “I don’t think this is interactive,” Driver said.

  “Would you like some tea?” the man on the display asked, gesturing toward a silver tea-set.

  “Okay, now I’m spider-creeped,” Trajan said.

  “Very well, then. I wanted to inform you that you have been selected for a very special assignment of great importance to the Crucial Energy concern. ”

  “Oh joy,” said Trajan Lear.

  “You have been selected to join the prestigious Tritium extraction operation in the Hellfire system.”

  “The Hellfire system?” said an unseen voice, so loud and off-key that Trajan half-jumped and spilled exploded grain into his lap.

  “What the hell was that?” Trajan’s exclamation over the second voice’s dialog made it unintelligible.

  “Don’t you want to go to the Hellfire system?” asked the middle-aged man, his eyebrows raised as though in astonishment.

  “Why would I want to go anyplace called ‘the Hellfire system?” Trajan asked. “Why not just call it the ‘Radioactive Death Plasma’ system?”

  Driver agreed. “They should have called it something more benign like the Giant Red Sun Tritium Extraction system.”

  “That just doesn’t roll off the tongue like ‘Hellfire System,’” Trajan commented.

  The man on the display had burbled on without them. “Well, maybe this presentation will convince you.”

  “And if not, we’ll kill you,” Trajan commented.

  Driver was mildly irritated. “Do you have to mock everything?” Trajan replied. “It’s hard to stop once you get started.” The office scene dissolved, and now they had a view as though from the front of a spaceship approaching a giant red sun at high sub-light velocity. A third voice, this one seductive and feminine, began breathlessly extolling the virtues of Hellfire. “Imagine a world…

  where the sky is ablaze with flames…”

  “No thanks, I’ve already been to 12 255 Crux,” Trajan said.

  “Imagine a world of crystalline seas so pure you can see the ocean floor, thousands of meters below you…”

  “What if I don’t want to?” Trajan quipped.

  “Imagine a magnificent city carved into living rock of chasm thousands of meters deep, and populated by a community of dedicated professionals, with the finest residential areas, schools, and recreational facilities the galaxy has to offer…”

  “Or don’t,” Trajan Lear suggested.. As a Republicker, it had been taboo for Trajan to question authority. So, questioning authority, even in the form of a long, dead corporate propaganda film narrator, was quite thrill.

  There wa
s a fairly impressive aerial view, such as might be taken from a spacecraft during atmospheric entry. Hellfire Prime was a dwarf planet, yellow in color, that looked like nothing so much as a giant grapefruit with a crater-pocked surface and a few peels of skin knocked away. The ship-camera descended through a thin layer of sickly yellow clouds and approached a large canyon, into the walls of which, a city had been built.

  “Welcome to Quiet City, the main operating base of the Hellfire SpaceFuels Refining Facility in the System 200 200 Ara. ”

  The city was impressive. At the front of the canyon was a vast, deep lake. A few kilometers later, the city began. Bright silver towers were built into the canyon walls, acting as a gateway to the city on the other side. The walls of the canyon had been carved out and covered with a tough, translucent material. There must have been hundreds of levels. A kind of tubeway ran along the sides of the canyon, providing horizontal and vertical transport to various levels of the city. The camera paused on one station, where a train, like three long white pills linked together, paused to discharge a mother and two children, dressed in colorful robes, onto some kind of large, open plaza built on a ledge of the canyon.

  The view transitioned to the inside of the complex. A perky jazz number began to play as the camera passed through throngs of people living in what appeared to be a magnificent shopping mall. Many of them paused to wave and smile at the camera.”

  “Why are these the happiest Fuel Services workers in the galaxy?”

  “Because they pump soma into the ventilation system?” Trajan Lear suggested.

  “Because Crucial Hydrocarbons takes good care of the valuable workers at its Hellfire Space Fuels facility. The residential towers, commercial districts, and recreation centers were designed by the finest architects in Atlas Colony. They enjoy a rate of pay 200% higher than the industry standard.”

  “The architects or the workers?” Trajan asked, as a pair of smiling children, presumably the ones who had exited the transport pod with the woman in the earlier scene, dove into a zero-g swimming pool. Later, the woman was shown entering a vast cavern, filled with light and plant-life.

  “Hydroponic gardens ensure an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables, and also a place for relaxation.” The woman took a round red fruit proffered by a vendor, tasted it, and smiled like she had just won the lottery.

  “All right, I’ll eat of the Tree of Knowledge, but what am I going to tell Adam?” Trajan Lear offered for her dialog. Matthew Driver looked at him quizzically, not really getting the joke.

  The view transitioned to a medical center, where smiling medical technicians tended to happy patients.

  “The medical facilities at Quiet City are among the finest in the Quadrant.” Trajan added, “Which will be useful when you’re covered with radiation burns, or a Solarite pirate blasts your arm off.”

  “The Solarites seem to be conspicuously absent from this presentation,” Driver observed.

  Trajan mocked the narrator’s chirpy voice. “Most of these happy workers will have their arms blown off by marauding Solarite pirates. ” Eventually, the presentation showed one of the Hellfire Stations deep inside the stellar atmosphere. The music became positively strident. “200 200 Ara contains one of the richest and purest supplies of Tritium yet discovered. It takes strong, highly dedicated men and women to extract the Tritium, and process it for shipment.”

  “So, come to Hellfire! What are you, some kind of wimp?” Trajan barked.

  The documentary came to a part where two Tritium haulers, similar to Liminix and Archonix, were shown joining a convoy of ships leaving the system. “The Hellfire System, ” the narrator informed the audience, “is a vital component for galactic energy exchange. The fuel extracted from this sun’s atmosphere will provide heat, light, and energy to human colonies throughout the quadrant. Crucial Energy concern invites you to contribute to Galactic civilization, and to be a part of our community.”

  “Are you convinced yet?” Trajan asked. “Don’t you want to move to Hellfire? What the Hell is wrong with you? ”

  The music swelled as the ships accelerated out of sight, and the sun passed into eclipse behind the dwarf planet of Hellfire Prime.

  “That’s it?” Lear asked, seeming disappointed that his sport was over.

  “That’s it,” Driver told him, with just a bit of a shrug.

  “But we never got to see the ending!” Trajan protested. “Did the worker take the job?

  Did the woman every get back on the transport pod? How am I supposed to get on with my life without knowing these things?”

  “I think we did see the ending,” Driver argued. “The ships stopped calling, the Solarites went on the offensive, the Hellions enforced rigorous population control until they could fit their entire population into one giant spaceship, and then they left. And this bit of docu-propaganda is all that’s left.”

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” Trajan conceded. “It makes me wonder, though, if somewhere out there, there’s a corporate propaganda film enticing people to come to Republic.”

  Pegasus — Main Bridge

  Two ship-days after Keeler returned to Pegasus, the commander and his crew watched on the forward displays as Archonix CI-88 separated from Pegasus, and set off on a course to catch up with Legacy.

  “With the augments we made to their engines, they should be caught up to Legacy X in approximately… eventually,” David Alkema calculated.

  “Provided Legacy X didn’t alter course,” Change said. She was standing at the Navigation post.

  “Always the optimist,” Keeler chided her. “Is our course laid in?”

  “Fallon colony,” Change answered. “22 light years away from here. Estimated transit time, eleven-point-five days.”

  “Wow, fast,” Keeler said. “All right, Ranking Liza…”

  “Don’t ever call me that.”

  “Okay, Lieutenant Commander Navigator Change, as you wish. Take us to Fallon.” He settled back into his commander’s chair. “Let’s see how humanity screwed up that one.” End of Part I

  Worlds Apart – Book 08: Hellfire

  Part II: Falldown

  It has been 19 days since Pegasus departed the Hellfire System The Island, Day 4

  Specialist Kyle Atlantic woke up naked and screaming.

  He had no idea what had happened to his clothes, but the fact that he had woken up naked and cuddled with Warfighter Specialist Shea Herrald, who was also naked, accounted for the screaming.

  “Would you shut that up?” Herrald groaned, rolling over on the pile of seat cushions and blankets that made up their bed. “I’m trying to sleep here.” Atlantic struggled to his feet in a mix of confusion and panic. This proved to be a tricky maneuver, since the various parts of his body were out of synch; one leg was jittery while the other seemed paralyzed, and his arms jerked uncontrollably when he tried to use them. There was a ringing in his ears, and it made the sound of the nearby surf a distant and echoey thing, as though heard through a defective transceiver.

  He scanned frantically for something to cover himself and ended up wrapping a strip of blanket around his waist. He heard a voice calling for help and was relieved when he realized it wasn’t his own. He stumbled away from his resting spot toward the sound of the voice. This course took him into the trees at the edge of the beach, where he found a woman tied to a tree, and it was she who was calling for help.

  “Help me, Kyle!” Flight Lieutenant Aramburuzubala begged. “Help me!” Why he ran away from her, he didn’t know. Nothing made sense and was all like some crazy fever dream. His head was still confused and ringing and soon the dirt path became a sandy, sandy beach. The sand was yellowish white, and he saw that the sky and the sea were purple, although different shades of purple. A clear thought came to him that he had never stood on a planet with a purple sky before.

  Suddenly, a flaming spear shot out of the jungle and impacted into the sand at his feet.

  He knew what to do about this. He ran away from
it.

  As he ran, he felt a soreness growing in his legs, a rawness, as though his muscles had been recently overworked. He got a few hundred meters down the beach before his legs cramped and failed and he went sprawling face first into the sand. When he looked up, there was a hazy figure standing over him, wearing some kind of military uniform. He brushed the sand from his eyes and waited for his vision to clear, but it wouldn’t, and the sand irritated his eyes. Once the tears started flowing, he couldn’t make them stop.

  “Enough fun and games,” said Johnny Rook, the wearer of the uniform. “Get your clothes back on and let’s get you back to the ship.”

  Pegasus – Hospital Four (Two Days Afterward) – “Do you remember anything more?” Alkema asked Specialist Atlantic.

  Atlantic lay in a healing bed. Physically, he had only cuts and bruises, a mild concussion, moderate sunburn, some dehydration, a strained wrist and a deep stab wound in his left thigh. Also, he had no memory of receiving any of these injuries.

  “Like I told you, very little,” Atlantic answered him.

  Specialist Atlantic was often described as “pretty,” which he found annoying, but it was unavoidable. His hair was an almost white blond that made a halo of curls when it got a bit long and framed his face in ringlets when it was humid. His skin was porcelain smooth and his face could easily be described, again to his annoyance, as “angelic.” Add to this that he was slight of build and you had the kind of person wouldn’t often be asked to get under the counter-gravity manifold and fix his friends’ hovercars.

  “The others in your crew don’t remember anything at all,” Alkema had told him this several times already.

  “I don’t even remember how I got on that planet,” Atlantic responded.

  “You were taking shore leave with a number of other personnel on an archipelago in the planet’s southern tropical zone,” Alkema told him. “Does that stir any sort of memory.” “Nay, and what does it matter? Everybody’s all right, right?” Alkema grew a bit frustrated. “It matters because we don’t like it when five trained officers disappear for three days and can’t remember anything that happened to them. It matters because your ship’s wreckage was found 1,600 kilometers away from where we lost its tracking signal. Something very weird happened and we want to know what it was.” “Who is this ‘we?’” Atlantic wanted to know.