Of course, he turned a chair so he could put his arms on the backrest and he was chewing something. His toothy smile, however, was unchanged. He waved at his companion to find a seat, too, and said to her, “That’s the tough as nails Union jock responsible for getting us out of the slave pens.” He leaned forward and whistled as he checked out my ribbon display. “Holy Phoenix, Lagda, look at that. Medal of Honor, Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, Space Ace and that’s just the top row.” He kept grinning, “You weren’t fibbing either; you are of the Devi.”
Finally, I managed to say something, “I did not expect to see you here either, but I am glad to see you made it off that cursed dustball.”
He waved for the waiter and ordered Hatar. As far as I knew, it was some sort of very strong alcoholic beverage made by a Galactic Council species; I could not remember which one at the moment.
His companion simply looked me over with her left eye but said nothing.
He said, “I met a few friends and we liberated the surviving rest of my crew and hired on a bunch more and paid a late-night visit to the local lord. He was very accommodating and let us borrow his private ship.” He laughed loud, took the drink right off the waiter’s tray and poured the greenish liquid, throwing it right down his throat and smacked his lips, saying to the waiter, “Get a few more of these, good man.”
To me, he said, “Of course, he wasn’t all that happy that we left him tied up on the middle of the landing field. I wonder if he made it or if they found him after he baked for a few hours in the sun.”
I sipped at my lemonade and said, “As far as it concerns me, I would not mind hearing that a ship landed on him or a lizard dragged him away for food.”
He downed another, and his companion did the same. Then he said, “I guess it was bound to happen that we ran into each other here on this Outpost. It is the closest one to Alvor’s after all. We’re here to lay low and safe until the Hard Eight, my personal flagship, arrives. The local lord, as you might suspect, is a little upset and has a bounty on my head, but as soon as the Hard Eight and my crew arrive, this is not a problem.”
He didn’t even wait for me to say anything and pointed at my patches. “I guess my offer could not compete with being a fighter jock aboard the Devastator, but if you ever change your mind, give me a buzz.”
He snapped his fingers, and the woman handed me a business card, and he explained, “I don’t advertise where I keep my HQ, but I maintain an office on Pluribus and usually can be reached, unless, of course, I end up in a slave pen again or worse.”
The woman spoke for the first time and her synthetically enhanced voice with a metallic background and echo gave me the creeps. “Now we never had a friend inside the mighty fleet. Maybe you could help us with a little Intel. All we want to know is where that cursed Harlequin currently can be found. All you Union fleeter need to do is raise your voice just about anywhere, and a computronic provides you with all sorts of data.”
I looked at her as cold and business-like as I could. “I am glad you know that part. Only because of respect to Tirkov I am not raising my voice and calling for security, but let me make that clear to both of you. I am not your friend inside the fleet and should I ever witness you breaking the law, I will do whatever is necessary to restore order and bring you to justice.”
Tirkov raised both hands and leaned back. “Whoa, don’t get your black underwear all bunched up. All we did was ask. I owe that mercenary colleague of mine a nice vacation on Alvor’s Cove and I put all other business on hold until I can make sure he knows how much I loved his travel arrangements. For you, it would be easy to check scanner results all up and down the line and find the last location of that SOB, but you got your regulations and laws and all that, and that’s exactly the reason I run my own outfit.”
He got up and tipped his head. “Well, thanks for getting me out of that cage; I owe you one for that. Maybe we run into each other again. Not that I want to be anywhere near where that flying continent does business.”
“Take care, Tirkov.”
She got up as well, but put her hands on the table surface and leaned close, scanning me with her one good eye. “You’re just a little boy in a black uniform. I am not impressed by those medals. The boss says you helped him escape and that is the only reason I am leaving you alive right now.”
I got up and moved close, almost touching her forehead. “Anywhere anytime, Cyberbitch. Maybe I should simply arrest you under the suspicion of espionage activity and see what other dirt we find. Starting with your cyberware and checking if it is properly registered.”
Tirkov called, “Leave him alone, Phoenix. He has a short temper, and I saw him slice and dice a Togar warrior with his own knife.”
She gave me one more look and then left. After a few hundred meters, they both disappeared behind trees following the winding forest path.
I could not shake the feeling that this wasn’t the last time I heard from him or her.
The next day, I reported to the Fleet post commandant as ordered and reminded myself that she was a commander and had completed Academy and basic training. She was about the cutest thing I had ever seen. The fur that stuck out of the black uniform had a peach-colored shine to it and looked softer than anything I had ever seen. The urge to touch it just once was great.
She had somewhat longer pointed ears, and her nose was pink instead of black. The large all-black eyes shimmered soft, and I was certain she had black eyelashes.
She sat behind her desk, or more correctly she actually sat on the desk and looked over my file. “No sense to keep a young man idle. We are always short handed out here.”
She got up from the pillow she used as a seat and paced up and down her massive desk, and then she threw her small hands in the air and said, “It’s bad enough to be out here as it is, but during that crazy religious season on Netlor, we are simply overwhelmed. I only got one battleship and two super cruisers to keep an eye on 580-square light years of spatial borderline, but we have the dubious luck to be the closest Union system to Sin 4 and Netlor. Every scum and spy is trying to get past us into Union space. Now they send me a midshipman decorated like the Silver Rat of Mount Aktura, from the Devastator, no less, and Orders directly from Annapolis.”
She stopped her pacing turned right before me and looked at me with quivering whiskers; her little fists stemmed in her sides. I could not say much, as I was still standing in attention. She then pointed her pinkish paw-like hand that was covered with the finest touch of fur at my nose. “You appear out of the blue, no ship has landed I don’t know, and no officers or soon to be officers have been transferred. You are here to check on me, right? Annapolis doesn’t think a female Holdian can do the job and sends me midshipman to give him something to do.”
She made quotation marks with her fingers as she said, “Midshipman.”
She pointed her little finger at me again. “What do you say to that?”
“Ma’am, I am still at attention.”
She snapped with her fingers in a very human gesture and said, “Oh, right, sorry about that, Midshipman Olafson, at ease! I worked very hard to be where I am, and it wasn’t easy, oh no. Everyone thinks of me as some cute cuddle thing and rarely do I get the respect other commanders get.” She glared at me. “Do you find me cute?”
“Well, perhaps if I compare you to a Perthanian, I might come to the conclusion, but otherwise, you’re just another officer to me, ma’am.”
“Liar!” she accused, and I could not even defend myself without lying more, so I didn’t.
Then she went back to her pillow and sat down.
Now since I could talk, I said, “Ma’am, I assure you I am just a midshipman and I arrived here from Netlor. I am not here to evaluate you or report on you. I know next to nothing about this checkpoint other than that it exists and until yesterday, I had never seen a Holdian nor did I know a Holdian commands this base.”
She was still giving me a smoldering stare and said, “Netlor, I se
e, perhaps a spook. I don’t trust you NAVINT guys one bit. Yes, I know you are necessary, and no disrespect meant. Perhaps you are not a spook and just a believer like the rest who go to that place. I am supposed to give you something to do for four days and then what?”
“Then I hope to be reassigned, ma’am, back on my ship to hopefully graduate.”
She waved. “Your ship is the Devastator; she won’t come here to pick up a midshipman.” She pressed a contact on her desk unit. “Command and Control, check for me what ship is supposed to come to pick up our guest?”
A voice responded, “The Devi is on her way, ma’am. Mr. Olafson is scheduled to transfer in four days.”
She glared at me even more. “Simple midshipman, my furry behind, excuse my language, Mr. Olafson. Now report to Lieutenant Yordat. He is the flight boss here. You’re supposed to be a Wolfcraft ace, and we got lots of patrols to fly.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I turned and was about to leave, fighting to keep the grin that was creeping in my face under control until I was out the door.
It took me a while to find and reach the base hangars. They were almost exactly on the other side of the small planet. I made a trip on a Trans Planet Mover that traveled not in a tunnel but on a monorail carried on pylons across the planet’s almost featureless ice surface. A TPM employee told me the trip would take about four hours. The TPM would travel at supersonic speed but still had to travel a little over 3,800 kilometers and would have to make two stops on the way.
I didn’t mind. Yes, I was eager to get behind the controls of a Wolfcraft again, but I’d promised Mother Superior, the mysterious Deepa, that I would try to be more patient. The Devi was on her way, along with my friends. I was on a Union planet, and I was on my way to do a job I loved to do. Life could not be much better.
After shooting over the thin monorail for maybe forty minutes, it slowed down, and a voice announced, “Methane-Village, passengers with destination Methane-Village please prepare to debark in three minutes.”
The TPM train slipped into a transparent, brightly lit tunnel. A mother with a small child on her hand passed through the aisle and toward the doors. She wore a bright red padded suit with a folded helmet in the collar. The child looked the same, except its suit had little blue dots all over.
Outside, a lonely S-10 service bot pushed a cleaning tool over the floor.
I watched the mother and the child use a declining slide belt and could see a collection of dome-shaped buildings and a dozen yellow lights not far from the mono track halfway buried in the methane and carbon monoxide snow.
I wondered how it would be to grow up out here or why they had chosen to be there.
The train moved on, and I made it to the fighter base.
The TPM came to a halt, and I exited with three other fleet men. Enlisted, from the looks of it, and perhaps back from a few days R & R.
Most of the base, so it seemed, was built on the surface inside a shallow but sizeable crater. In the distance, I could see they had built Wolfcraft Revolver-starters right into the rim of the crater, aiming into the dark sky at a steep angle. Six large surfaces-to-space planetary defense batteries with long-range trans-locators, mega-load capacity from the looks of it dotted the crater floor. I also counted twelve missile silos, most likely long-range anti-ship drones and eighteen tall turrets with quadruple Loki torpedo starters.
That was some serious firepower for a little planet like this, but then it was near the most pirate-infested and lawless stretch of space in the galaxy, and when the battleship associated to the checkpoint was on patrol, the base was not helpless.
Most prominent in the center of the crater was a humongous Deep Space Scanner Array. I doubted the Devi had bigger scanners.
The installations looked like it could be reached via subsurface tunnels and IBTs.
An IBT carried me right to the local fighter squadron.
I knocked at the designated door for the squadron commander, was called in and faced a short, muscular man. He had his flight suit’s sleeves rolled up to show his sinewy, muscle-bulging arms. His hair was sleek and black, regulation short-styled back. He had bright blue eyes and a goatee and mustache.
The lieutenant rounded his desk and shook my hand after I reported with the proper salute. “No need for that, Midshipman Olafson. I was just informed that we get a real ace, from the Devi’s 12th no less, to fly a few patrol sorties with us.”
I shook his hand, more embarrassed and surprised by his greeting than everything else. “Nice to meet you, too, sir.”
“Rock Hound, the call sign is Rock Hound. Hey, they call you the Viking, right?”
I nodded. “Well, yes, that is because I am from Nilfeheim.”
He offered me a cigar. “Yes, yes. I just got off GalNet with Commander Cotton, and he told me about you.”
He took me to the ready room where six Wolfcraft pilots and two more stood at a pool table and introduced me loudly. “Guys, don’t let the midshipman rank fool you. We got a genuine ace among ourselves, Flying Cross, Ace Ribbon, the works. From the Devi no less.”
This was really getting embarrassing, and I said, “Guys, just let me do my stuff and then judge me. I’d like you to know me for what I am and not for stuff that happened light years elsewhere.”
A Takkian came over and poked his sharp claw in my chest. “I like modest humans, but I am the hottest pilot this side of the Pegasus arm and think I take you up on that. Care for some dogfight action mano e Takkia?”
“That’s exactly what I am eager to do—get some vacuum under my butt.”
I got a Wolfcraft IV, not a V model, but there were minor differences, and it turned out they all flew IVs.
I almost asked the Auto-Doc to give me a euphoria-dampening drug as the revolver starter catapulted me into deep space. I yelled at the top of my lungs and drew the Wolfcraft in a tight loop so I could feel a little of the gravitons come through. The computronic asked me if I was all right, and I actually patted the Ultronit housing where the computronic was and said, “Girl, I never felt better. Let’s show that walking pinecone what flying means.”
Granted, I did show off a little, despite my initial decision not to. Oh, they were good, they were trained Union Wolfcraft pilots, and I was sure they would do a fine job fighting pirates, but it was hard to be humble after flying against the best the Devi had and then holding my own against Har-Hi.
I didn’t really want to land again. I would have been perfectly content to stay out here till the Devi arrived.
I was the last who landed the Wolfcraft and joined the local jocks in their ready room. There was silence at first, and they all looked at me as if a ghost had entered the room. The Takkian, who went by the call name Hot Stuff, then saluted and said, “I never even considered the things you did with that Wolfcraft possible. I always considered myself a good pilot, but you beat us all even as we tried together. Viking, we tried to make a fool out of you. Didn’t believe the hype Rock Hound told us about you. Boy, you showed us.”
Rock Hound handed out cigars to everyone. “That’s what they smoke on the Devi, Commander Cotton told me. Maybe that’s their secret.” He laughed and pounded his hand on my back.
I received quarters and was assigned a regular duty roster. I completed my first duty shift flying patrol through the system and then escorting a space bus with engine trouble until a Bison came and towed it to the Checkpoint.
Rock Hound, Hot Stuff, and two others told me we all would now complete the day having a drink at the officer’s lounge.
While I was technically a midshipman and not a commissioned officer yet, I was a Medal of Honor recipient, and as such, the lounge was open to me.
The first thing I noticed after the sprawling windows gave a view over the crater, were the many different uniforms. There was a lot of Union Army green around, much more than Fleet Black or Marine Blue. Two light blue Science Corps Officers looked completely out of place sitting at the far end of the bar.
&n
bsp; By an old Assembly decision, it was decreed to maintain an Army. Despite the fact that all tasks an Army would have in a space-born society could be done by spacers and marines. Of course, the only real reasons to keep an Army were traditions, carried over especially by the Pan Sarans and the Terrans.
To give the Army a legitimate task, Union Army was responsible for planetary and system defenses, Pluribus Assembly security and designated for full-scale planetary surface warfare.
The Army also fielded and maintained several specialized units. Among them was the Planetary Army Engineer Corps, the prestigious First Guard of Pluribus, Orbital Para-Assault Divisions and technically the PSI Corps was an Army Unit as well, even though it was independent of all branches. Unlike the Fleet, it was not helmed by an Immortal and did not have the same budget or attention the Fleet received. The Army could by Assembly decree not have ships, so they maintained a fleet of transport barges and drop boats.
To appear as important and relevant as the fleet, the Army compensated by equipping their troops with mega tanks, towering Battle Walkers and mountain-sized Planetary Siege Engines. None of their 25,000 Leviathan PSE had ever been deployed in real war, but every five years, the Army argued before the Armed Forces Committee that they needed better and upgraded ones.
I was on my second pilsner and Aquavit while I was thinking about what I knew of the Union Army, when two Army men started an argument with a Navy officer three tables down.
Hot Stuff, as a true Takkian looked more or less like a walking pinecone, and came from a very hot planet, enjoyed a small vial of water. To Takkians, who were Silicone-based life forms, water was as intoxicating as hard liquor was to me.
Hot Stuff sipped at his water vial and said, “How come you know so much about Takkians?”
I tried to ignore the argument that became louder and answered, “I had the good fortune to serve aboard the USS Hyperion under Captain Zezzazz. The Communication Officer of the Hyperion, Lt. Miglar was Takkian.”
Eric Olafson: Space Pirate Page 18
