Chaos Quarter

by Welch, David

  Now, with all that and a dozen nights interrupted by Quintus’s crying behind them, they jumped into the Qahira System, home of the living world Cordelia. The jump, as always, ended pretty much the moment it began. One second they were in some unknown, unsettled system with a red star, dead rocks and a gas giant; the next he was staring at a distant yellow sun. Beyond depleted jump drive readings and a slight fuzzy feeling in his shoulders, there was no evidence that anything had even happened.

  “We’re here,” Lucius spoke.

  “Looks like. Computer, collect every piece of information you can. Correlate with what we’ve been told about Cordelia and the Qahira system,” Rex ordered.

  “Observations indicate six rocky worlds within two hundred million miles of the sun. At least three gas giants in farther reaches.”

  “Good. Which worlds are likely within the habitable zone?”

  “The third and fourth.”

  “Set course for the third, .04C,” he ordered.

  “Nine hours until arrival.”

  He glanced over at the radar sphere. The hologram floated lazily before his seat, empty and quiet. A lovely sight.

  “Go see your kid,” Rex said with a wave. “And send Chaki up, need to show her a few things.”

  “She hates that name, you know,” Lucius spoke.

  Rex shot him a half-smiled, “Does she? Or do you?”

  Lucius glowered and left the bridge. Rex continued to chuckle.

  “Ah, young lust…”

  Two minutes passed before the young woman appeared, dressed in form-fitting slacks and a sleeveless blouse. She also had a confident respectability about her now; the new, more concealing clothing offered protection. He found it strange, given how assertive she’d been while nude.

  “Lucius says you need to see me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, getting up from the pilot’s station. “Sit.”

  He gestured at the chair; she hesitated.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “You want to get paid more, and I need somebody who can fly this bucket if I get knocked in the head. So you get to learn to fly,” he replied.

  Her face froze in shock, fear etching lines around her eyes.

  “This-this is crazy. I-I’ve never flown anything! I’ve never even driven a car!”

  “Well after this a car will seem simple. Don’t worry, we have plenty of time to learn. Sit,” he said with an air of finality.

  She reluctantly sat in the seat, but kept her hands tucked against her sides.

  “Computer, on my voice command, return the ship to our current course.”

  “What?!” Chakrika said, buzzing with anxiety.

  “Relax. We’re hours away from contact with another ship; we’ve got space and time. We’ll start with the basic layout.”

  He pointed to the computer panel before her. On the left was a control lever, a single protruding stick eight inches high with two buttons on the top. On the right was a similar lever, though it had no buttons. Between the two was a screen, with touch-screen controls should the computer’s voice abilities fail.

  “That’s your emergency screen. Shows you all the data you need if the main one goes down,” he spoke.

  “Main one?” Chakrika asked.

  “In front of you,” he pointed.

  She glanced up at the wall-spanning viewscreen.

  “That’s not a window?” she asked.

  “No. Windows make good targets to anyone who wants to shoot you. That’s an image from a camera on the front of the ship. See all those numbers on the left?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “One on the bottom is speed; next one up is radiation levels. Don’t use that one much, but it’s one of those things that when you need it, you really need it. Next up is reactor performance,” he informed.

  “It’s only at eighty-two percent,” she pointed out.

  “No reason to run her hot right now. Puts a lot of wear on it when you do,” he explained. “Above that the computer likes to flash information regarding our surroundings: planets and asteroids and star types and all that.”

  “OK,” she said uneasily.

  “See the green line in the middle of the screen, heading slightly to the left of this system’s sun?”

  “I see it,” she replied.

  “That’s our course. If the ship stays on that, we’ll end up where we want to go.”

  “This is a lot to remember,” she spoke.

  “You pick it up quick enough; don’t worry if you don’t get it all right now. See that lever next to the backup screen?”

  She placed her hand on it, but didn’t push it in any way.

  “Vertical and lateral controls, very important in landing. Push forward, we go up; pull back, we go down. Push left, we lurch left; push right, we lurch right—all relative to the course we’re travelling. Try it.”

  Her fingers closed gingerly around the lever. She pushed forward. The view screen shifted as the ship rose directly upward like a helicopter of old. Chakrika pulled the throttle back to its neutral position, ending the rise. On the viewscreen the green line adjusted, the computer recalculating the course due to their slight movement.

  “Simple enough,” Rex spoke. “OK, take your hand off the vertical control. Best to do this one limb at a time until you’re ready. Take your left hand and grasp the lever on the left side of the console.”

  She grabbed it, keeping her hands away from the two buttons on the top.

  “What you are now holding is attitude control. You push left, the ship spins left, staying on a horizontal plain. You push right, it goes right; push forward, it spins up; pull back, it spins down—again, all relative to our current course and position. There’s really no up and down or left and right out here.”

  “There isn’t?” she asked.

  He shook his head, saying, “Gotta be on a planet with gravity. Out here there’s only orbital elliptical plains and stars. Long Haul’s gravity drive pulls us toward the floor no matter how we maneuver the ship, so no matter what we do, it’ll seem like we’re upright.”

  “I don’t understand. What’s an elliptical plain?” she asked.

  “We’ll worry about that stuff later. Rotate the ship,” Rex ordered.

  She pulled the lever to the left. It required more force than she expected, but eventually it moved. Again the viewscreen shifted, the stars blurring as the vessel spun.

  “Wait, if we’re spinning won’t the engines push us in another direction?”

  “Engines are off,” Rex said.

  “What? How are we—”

  “No air in space, no friction. Unless we use the engines to change direction, we’ll continue on this course, at this speed, infinitely. No use wasting fuel coasting into a system,” he informed her.

  “Oh,” she spoke, trying to take in what she just heard. “Don’t you have to use the engines then to spin us?”

  “The maneuvering jets, yeah. They’ll push us a little off course and slow us down a bit, but nothing to worry about. By the way, we’ve gone around twice,” he pointed out.

  She instinctively withdrew her hand from the control lever. It snapped back to center, telling the computer to stop the spin.

  “Return us to course,” Rex spoke. The computer righted the ship. “Whenever you need to know which way you’re facing, look at the sphere.”

  He pointed. The holographic sphere floated to the right of the command station. Chakrika did a double take and then looked closely. At the center of the sphere, a small image of the ship sat, facing forward.

  “Next step, feel around with your right foot. You’ll find two pedals under the console,” Rex continued.

  She did. The pedal on the right was longer and thinner, the one on the left, squarish.

  “Engine control. Right pedal controls forward propulsion. Give it a tap.”

  She did so. On the viewscreen the speed increased slightly. She focused on the numbers. Two speed figures were the
re, one next to the other. The first had eight digits and changed quickly. The second had three digits and the letter C.

  “The figure on the left is miles per hour, not really that important outside of a planet’s atmosphere. The one on the right is our speed compared to C, which is the speed of light. That tap of your foot told the engine to burn, accelerating us up to .077C, or 7.7 percent the speed of light,” Rex explained.

  “I know that, the speed of light,” Chakrika spoke hopefully. “That’s the fastest speed in the galaxy, right?”

  “Yep. Fastest known. We can get up to 10 percent speed of light if we need to. Now, move your foot to the left pedal. Give it a tap.”

  She did. The screen shifted slightly as the ship slowed.

  “Reversing engines, kind of like the brake. It burns opposite the main engines to kill speed,” he explained. “Last, take your left foot and find the sleeve on the left side, near the floor.”

  She probed around with her foot until she found it and slid her foot inside.

  “Rotational control. To rotate the ship along the long axis, you use this.”

  “Long axis? I’m not sure what you mean?” she asked.

  “You ever seen a barrel roll?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, eyes lighting up with recognition.

  “Move your foot to the left,” he spoke.

  She did. The stars on the viewscreen began spinning as the ship rotated counter-clockwise.

  “Right will spin it clockwise. Move your foot back to the center.”

  She did and the rotation stopped. The ship returned to a course parallel with the system’s elliptical plane.

  “That’s all there is to it,” Rex said, sinking into the gunner’s position.

  “You have to do all four of these at once?” she asked after a moment of thought.

  “Yeah. It takes a while to get used to. But once you master it, you not only can fly most ships, but you have the potential to be an awesome drummer,” Rex spoke. An uncomprehending stare answered him.

  “Never mind. It will take a bit of time. I trained for five years. But if you know some basics, you can fly simple courses without the computer,” he continued.

  She let out a heavy breath.

  “Can I go now?” she asked.

  “Yeah, go on,” he replied.

  She darted out of the room, relief dripping off her. Rex shook his head and smiled, then moved back to the command station, sighing to himself.

  “Think she’s got potential?”

  “I am incapable of giving opinion,” the computer replied.

  Rex chuckled, “Keep forgetting that. Return us to course, continue on at present speed.”

  * * *

  By Chaos Quarter standards, Cordelia was an advanced world. The seat of the Qahiran Confederacy, it controlled all of the inner half of its solar system and had several ships large enough to qualify as frigates in a stronger nation, though with far more primitive weapons. Flying into orbit of Cordelia, which had turned out to be the fourth world of the system, they passed by several Hastav-class fighters. While underpowered and lightly armed by Commonwealth or Europan standards, the Hastav was a status symbol in the quarter. If you could afford to buy them, you had to have some economic ability, which meant you had some power.

  The world itself was fairly standard. It was fairly similar to Earth: ice caps at the poles, large continents with deserts, plains, forests, and rugged mountains. The capital city, Khors, rested in the planet’s northern hemisphere, on a high plateau surrounded by jungle.

  Standing at the spaceport, Rex took a deep breath, tasting the air. It was damp and heavy with water. It clung close to his skin, making everything feel slimy and moist. Yet the oxygen remained thin, making him breathe more quickly than he was used to doing.

  Whose bright idea was it to build the capital nine thousand feet up and surrounded by rain forest?

  Chakrika didn’t seem to mind. The spaceport sat atop a hill overlooking the city. The hill’s summit had been flattened to build the spaceport, but still reached high enough to give them a good view of Khors. The city stretched ahead of them for several miles, two thirds of it to the west of a large, lagoon-like lake, the rest to the east. The streets were paved and bustling with traffic.

  He didn’t see any buildings above ten stories, but the various structures looked solid and well maintained. Most were plain cement with minimal ornamentation, often painted in an off-white color that reminded Rex of the sea-shells you’d see on a beach. Jungle vines broke the monotony of the color, streaking across the buildings, in some places so thick that it looked like ivy. Monkeys perched on the roofs, tiny little furry figures oblivious to the human clatter below. Several on the nearby terminal roof dropped the stems from some tiny reddish fruit that they ate furiously.

  “I’ve never fired one of these,” he heard Chakrika say. Rex turned to face her. She was looking at the gun he had given her, holding it in one hand and Quintus in the other.

  “Not that hard. Take off the safety, raise it to eye level, fire at whatever you want to die. Make sure to use two hands to hold it,” he spoke.

  “Won’t it recoil?”

  “No powder. They’re electromagnetically accelerated. Little if any recoil. Just make sure not to point it at anything you’re not willing to kill,” he stressed.

  “You sure you shouldn’t bring Lucius?”

  “Lucius has never seen this man,” Rex replied.

  “I know…” she muttered. “I’m just not sure about this. If this man talks for that region of space, he might have powerful friends. What if they don’t want us snooping around?”

  “Nobody ever wants people snooping around,” Rex replied. “But it’s what I’ve been ordered to do.”

  “By a navy that betrayed and abandoned you,” she pointed out.

  “Hating one commodore doesn’t mean I hate my country,” he replied. “Here comes Lucius with the truck.”

  A pick-up truck pulled to a stop next to them. A centuries-old design that never seemed to outlive its usefulness, the truck his new gunner had bought was like any other: Small cab in the front, large bed in the back for carrying stuff. It was the same off-white color as the buildings. Nothing fancy, just functional.

  After shutting the truck off, Lucius stepped out, tossing the keys to Rex.

  “All is set,” he said, taking his son from Chakrika. The boy’s eyes were wide open, taking in everything around him.

  “You have no idea what’s going on, do you?” Chakrika said playfully, grasping the baby’s tiny hands. Quintus closed his grip around her fingers and then decided the hand would be better off in his mouth.

  “He fed?” asked Lucius.

  “Yes,” she replied, then stroked Quintus’s cheek. “Bye, little one.”

  “Let the locals off-load the metals for sale, but don’t let them past the cargo bay,” Rex said to Lucius. He and Chakrika got into the pick-up truck. The engine hummed as the fuel cell kicked to life.

  “Why the truck?” Chakrika asked.

  “To carry supplies. Figured I should have a ground vehicle anyway,” he explained.

  “You bought this?” she asked.

  “Sure did. Lucius got it for twenty bits gold, only a few years used. Now just gotta figure out which side of the road they drive on here…”

  Honking horns and a near miss answered his question. For some inexplicable reason, they drove on the left. Who did that? Rex mulled about it and wandered the town for a few minutes, looking closely at passing buildings.

  “Are we buying supplies?” Chakrika asked after a while.

  “Eventually, I hope. Gotta get some information first…and this looks like the place.”

  They pulled into a parking lot next to a respectable-looking bar.

  “We’re drinking?” she asked.

  “Whiskey in the morning—breakfast of kings,” he replied.

  They walked in. It was late morning local time, so it was nearly empty. Two women
in toga-like robes chattered in the back and picked at appetizers. Beyond that there was the bartender, who watched the holo-TV projection floating over the center of the room. A game was on, some strange combination of soccer and ping-pong.

  From what Rex could tell, it consisted of men standing on opposite sides of a field, pelting a large, industrial-strength beach-ball with small, dense rubber balls launched from hand-held air cannons, trying to get the large ball into a goal. All the while the other team used their air cannons to try and push it away. Rex wondered why they just didn’t shoot the opposing team with the rubber balls so there’d be no defenders to stop them from putting the large ball wherever they want.

  Seeing them the bartender, a young fellow with copper skin and overly–gelled hair, said something in a language that vaguely resembled Portuguese. When he got no answer, he cleared his throat and spoke in heavily accented English.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes. I need a beer and information. I’ll pay for both,” Rex replied.

  “Subtle,” Chakrika commented.

  “Subtle is overrated,” he quipped as the man placed a beer bottle in front of him. Rex took a swig and fought to hide a grimace, shocked at the bitterness of the brew. Must be an acquired taste.

  “L-looking to trade?” the bartender managed.

  “Yeah. Little bird tells me that there are some worlds looking for grain beyond the Achaean Confederacy,” Rex spoke.

  Silence. The two chattering women stared at them, then hurriedly left the bar, leaving some silver coins on the table. The door swung shut behind them.

  “You know ambassador is here,” the bartender spoke, seeing where this was going. “You want to know where?”

  “If he really does speak for that space, then yeah, couldn’t hurt to work with him,” Rex spoke.

  “He will say no,” the bartender replied.

  “I’d love to take your word on that, but I can’t. We’ve just met and all,” said Rex.

  “Not matter for jokes. People do not go there. Those that go there die,” spoke the bartender. “He will tell you that. Whoever they are, they do not trade.”

  Rex dropped a silver bit on the table.

  “Where?”

  The man looked at the coin for a long moment, then picked it up and rubbed it between his fingers. He glanced up at Chakrika.