Alpha Rises

by James David Victor

Behind one of the tall potted plants, one of the diners, a woman with a fantastical headdress, happened to look up. El saw her suddenly open her mouth to scream, her dish went flying everywhere, and he saw her point up to the window that El was now sliding down. More of the customers, and then the black-dressed staff of the restaurant, noted the captain’s predicament, and the commotion spread throughout the restaurant. A staff member waved at him, pointing to the porthole that he had so recently tried to break into.

  Cassandra… Where’s Cassandra? El nodded and turned to see that Cassandra was calmly floating a little behind him, making small movements with her hands and legs. Of the Lobo Worm, there was no sign, and El had the strongest impression that she was laughing at him.

  “Fine. See how you like getting eaten by a sea monster!” the captain shouted at her in silence, as the nearest porthole finally whirred open and a shaft of light pierced the gloom from inside.

  Cassandra was already swimming toward it as El scrambled along the hull in awkward frog-like leaps before they fell through the glittering energy field and landed in a drenched heap on a metal landing gantry on the other side.

  “Whose dumb idea was it to come to a water world anyway? I hate water worlds.” El opened his mouth to gasp but didn’t hear himself say.

  “Captain?” His wrist communicator, unaffected by his watery emotion, bleeped, and El was surprised to see the face of Irie sitting at his own cockpit and grinning as she called to him.

  “Irie? What are you doing in my chair!” he said.

  “You’re technically AWOL. That puts me in command,” Irie said petulantly.

  “I’m not AWOL! I’m right here. And you’ll have to argue with Val over who gets my coveted captaincy when I’m gone, thank you…” El muttered. He was wet, and he was tired, and he needed to get off this planet.

  “Well, Val appears to be kind of busy right now,” Irie said with a shadow of nervousness to her smile. “Anyway, I want you to get to the staff elevator at the back of that restaurant, take it up to the service floors, and then get to the stairs up to the service hangars outside the platform.”

  “Outside the platform?” As much as the idea of fresh air that hadn’t been recycled by a few thousand citizens was appealing to the captain, he was aware that he would be nearer the wet of the seas once again. “What’s going on, Irie?”

  “No time to explain— THUD –just get up there, please, sir.” El watched the screen shake from side to side as if something had shaken the entire ship. But what? What was Irie doing to his beloved Mercury?

  “Is that Irie?” Cassandra had already thanked the waiters for their rescue, and the petal-door had closed behind them.

  “Yeah,” El informed Cassandra of his engineer’s bizarre set of requests before shrugging. “But she’s never failed me before.” He turned and took off into the depths of the restaurant, diving behind the bar, through the hissing seafood kitchens, and to the elevator.

  “Hey! Watch it! You can’t go in there!” The shouts followed them as the captain and Cassandra made their escape, rushing up through the levels as high as they could go, to emerge into an area that was much less refined than the main platform below. The pipes and struts were exposed, and there was the constant hiss and drip of water.

  “We must be near the hull,” Cassandra said, peering first one way and then through the forest of wires and metal, until she spotted a ladder. “This way, Captain!” She gestured, and they started to climb.

  They were halfway up the metal ladder, through the realm of support beams and steel cross-braces, when they heard the distant sound of warning klaxons coming from below.

  “Is that for us?” El said at first, as they had just escaped not only Trader Hogan and his thugs, but Mela security as well.

  “No, I don’t think so. It would be getting closer, wouldn’t it?” Cassandra paused and tilted her head before she continued climbing.

  El listened as he followed. “You’re right. If I’m not mistaken, that seems to be a station-wide alarm.”

  “But what could be a bad enough situation that it required a station-wide alarm?” Cassandra muttered. “Here, we’ve reached the top.” She paused and started to twist the heavy bars that unscrewed the manhole-like cover to the air outside.

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” El muttered. “Everywhere I take Val, it seems to end up with alarms and screaming…”

  With a clunk, there was an influx of brisk wind from above as Cassandra pushed open the porthole and clambered out onto the sloping ‘roof’ of the floating platform. El followed suit, to suddenly have to snatch Cassandra’s hand to avoid them both losing their footing on the slightly domed expanse. The top of Mela Platform 2, like all of the Mela platforms, swept gradually toward the sea, with the starfish-like arms splayed out like long, immobile tentacles toward the horizon. Behind them sat the squat shape of the control tower, with its navigational lights blinking.

  There was a sudden shudder and the hiss of escaping steam as something broke through the hull of the platform on the other side.

  “What was that? Cassandra crouched, turning to see a plume of smoke and a jagged hole in the metal as laser fire shot out into the clouds.

  “Ah.” El knew, almost without turning, what it would be. “That would be Val Pathok.”

  Rising through the hole that its heavy guns had just created came the Mercury Blade, with the shot from laser blasters exploding across its hull. Just seeing its sleek, wedge-like shape filled El’s heart with pride. He watched as the orange and gold ship glistened in the bright sun, rocking slightly in the strong headwinds, and turned in their direction, powering toward them.

  “They’re mad,” Cassandra said. “All you pirates are mad.”

  “We’re not mad, just…unconventional.” El rose to his feet as he saw the loading bay doors open as the Blade hovered over their position. It took a jump and a scramble, but within a few seconds, the doors were slowly closing behind them and they were safely inside once more.

  “Get some!” El heard Val shout from his seat on one of the inter-linked gun controls, swiveling and firing the heavy meson railgun back at the broken-open port doors that they had blasted their way through.

  “Irie?” El was already running to the steps up to the cockpit.

  “Full engine power to booster rockets, and we won’t have to worry about being tracked,” she informed him as she hurriedly slid away from the wheel to let the captain take it.

  “Okay, then. I won’t ask how you did that.” El pulled hard on the ship’s wheel, tipping the arrow-tip nose almost directly upright, before punching the booster rockets. Flames and smoke scorched the top of the Mela platform as the Mercury Blade burnt its way into the sky. Val’s bottom-mounted guns continued to blast away at the spot they had emerged from. As the blue atmosphere started to darken, and the Blade started to shake with exit tensions, El could only grin.

  “You know what, crew? If I ever suggest going to a water world again, you have my permission to mutiny!”

  7

  Interlude I: Senior Tomas

  Senior Tomas was a large man. He was also not a very happy man at the moment. He smoothed a hand over his slightly greasy black hair, pushing it back from his forehead even though his hair was receding. He could get metabolic therapy to cure that, of course, but a part of him absurdly liked how his appearance sometimes shocked the younger, effete nobles of the Coalition that came to his doors.

  “It doesn’t matter what you do, say, or look like. Just so long as you stand out!” He remembered the advice of his old father, the Senior Tomas before him, who had stood in this very spot and looked out over the glory that was his empire.

  The large man stood in a small room that opened out into a curving balcony, encased in plexi-crystal. He did as his father had done, leaning on the ornate brass railings and looking out at the star-lit sky, studded with stationary ships, and beyond that, just the hint of reddish nebula.

  Behind him, the gallery had its own com
fortable chair, with mechanized compartments that would produce glasses of the finest Old Earth wine at a gesture of his hand. Behind that, wooden steps led down, past the statues of previous seniors standing in noble silence, to the bulkhead door to which he, like every senior had before him, had the only access key.

  “What would you say if you could see me now, Father?” Senior Tomas the Junior asked of the stellar night. If anyone had witnessed this one-sided conversation, they might have thought that they were witnessing a moment of weakness from the ruthless overload of the Armcore Conglomerate.

  But of course, there would be no one watching. Just as the seniors had never allowed any surveillance equipment into this room, it was hermetically and electronically sealed in all ways apart from allowing the air to still flow.

  His father did not answer him, and Senior Dane Tomas thought that was perhaps fitting. His father had been a rigorously skeptical man, after all. He had despised any attempt at levity, art, or ‘dalliance,’ as he had called it, instead preferring the cold hard facts of profits and guns. Senior Tomas the Elder had been a worthy inheritor of the CEO-ship of Armcore Prime, and sometimes Dane his son thought that his father only regarded him as a liability.

  It was because he had been a fretful child. Dane frowned at his own reflection in the plexi-crystal. He was prone to wild theories and fantasies as a child, despite the hours of grueling training that his father had put him through. Never enough to shift his stubborn build, it had turned his weight into a hundred and twenty kilograms of muscle.

  But all that was gone now. Dane regarded his large figure in reflection. Not that he cared anymore. His days of running circuit drills were long gone. He had the largest private army in Coalition space between him and any possible danger. Being the Chief of Armcore should come with some benefits, after all.

  But still, the knowledge that his father had died despising him still left a poisoned thorn in his side. Even after all these years.

  Beep. There was an electronic noise from the doors, and Dane Tomas, Jr. realized that it was time for his next appointment. Ah yes. The one that he was actually looking forward to.

  The Armcore Commander-in-Chief always liked it when he had to fire someone.

  Straightening his black and gold military jacket and smoothing his hair back once again from his forehead, he sat down and swiveled the chair so that it faced the door before his rather high-pitched voice called, “Enter.” He knew the impression that he would make as the doors hissed open. The thin man at the far end, illuminated by light, would see the stairs and the looming statues of the previous Seniors of Armcore, and right up there, surrounded by the stars, would sit this little man’s personal god. Him.

  “Ah…uh, Senior?” It was that fool General Farlow. Thin, aging—probably a little older than Tomas himself—but already with his crew cut hair gone to silver grey. He wore the black and red uniform that was appropriate to his rank, and Tomas appreciated the way that he had even worn all of his service medals and shined every large button to approach his boss.

  Dane waited for a moment, in silence. Let the man stew. Let him think that I might not be here, that he somehow has got off lightly, before…

  “General Farlow. Don’t dawdle by the door!” Tomas snipped, his voice echoing in the gallery.

  “Yes, of course, sir, of course.” The older man saluted and sharply stepped into the main vestibule. The doors hissed shut behind him solidly. He waited.

  “Well!?” Tomas snapped and was pleased to see the slight tremor run through the man. How ridiculous and thrilling power is! Dane thought. This man below him was older than he was, he was a career soldier, clearly in far better shape than Dane would be or ever was. Farlow had even trained the younger Dane back when his father had been in charge, and now he quailed and jumped at his every command. It was a delicious reversal of reality for the man. “Your report?” Dane prompted. The fact that I had to tell you to report will cost you, old man. Dane smiled to himself.

  “Yes. Well. We received an alert from one of our informants that the vessel in question, the Mercury Blade, had been spotted approaching the world of Mela, Coalition space,” Farlow said.

  “Had?” Dane said like a knife point.

  “Yes. I mean, sir, the vessel isn’t on Mela anymore,” the general stated quickly.

  “Then where is it?” Dane already knew the answers to these questions, he had a live feed of alerts sent to his office on the next floor, but he liked watching people squirm. Especially officers like Farlow.

  “Location unknown, sir,” the general replied.

  The senior was silent. It was best to let the general ponder precisely how mad he had made him. Naturally, it was Farlow who broke the silence first.

  “I dispatched the battle cruiser as soon as we heard word. I ordered our agents on Mela to apprehend the crew of the Mercury Blade, but it seems that they had some kind of outside help.”

  “Outside help,” Dane stated. Not a question.

  “Yes, Senior. The Mela Security had been successful in apprehending this Captain Eliard and another woman, but as they were being brought to a secure holding cell, to be transported here as per your orders, sir, they were attacked and freed by persons impersonating Mela Security officers.”

  “And this outside help… Have they been tracked?” Dane asked quickly. This actually was news to the commander. He knew that the Mercury Blade had managed to escape, with all crew on board, but he did not know that they had allies on Mela. He would have to remember to talk to the colonial overseer there.

  “No, sir, I am afraid not. We believe them to be rogues of some sort, perhaps mercenaries…” General Farlow snapped to attention.

  “You believe?” Dane allowed some of his ever-present anger to show itself. “Are you here to report the facts to me, Farlow, or to tell me your beliefs?”

  General Farlow went silent. Wise man, the senior thought.

  “You can believe whatever you like, General, but it does nothing to change the fact that those helping these criminals could also be agents from one of the noble houses, or a rival power,” he said. The general nodded silently.

  “So, to recap, General. The people who stole Armcore property and who led our battle group into an ambush at the Trader Worlds have once again escaped. To destinations unknown. Does that sum up the facts to you, General? Or would you like to tell me some of your beliefs again?”

  “No, Commander, sir. And yes, those are the facts.”

  Right. Dane could have purred at that moment. Get them admitting that they are in the wrong and everything is their fault, and then proceed to eviscerate them…

  “How dare you…” he began.

  “Sir?” the general asked.

  “How dare you come to me with this weakness! How dare you stand there, in this hall, where my forefathers have led the glory that is Armcore from its humble beginnings to where we are now! Who do you think you are? Do you think you are worthy of them!?” The commander allowed some of his own knot of feelings to bleed into his tirade. “Better men and officers than you have stood there and reported to their senior, General! Men who would not hesitate to do the right thing for the glory of Armcore. Who knew what orders meant. That an order is a promise. It is a sacred duty. A contract between you and me, with Armcore itself…” At this point, Dane held up his hands to the ceiling, as if invoking the entire company as god. “And…” Dane sneered the last word to come out of his mouth. “You.”

  “I apologize, sir. I accept full responsibility.” General Farlow dropped to one knee, bowing his head as he did so. “If it pleases you, I will tender my resignation.”

  Damn. Tomas could have spat in annoyance. The general really did believe all of this honor crap. He had jumped him to the firing part. Where was the pleasure in firing someone if they already thought that they were doing the right thing? That they deserved it?

  “So you can retire?” Tomas burst out. “You want to run away from your obligations to me and the Core?”


  “With respect sir, no, I don’t want to retire, but if it pleases you…” General Farlow suggested.

  Ugh. Why do I bother? Dane thought in disgust. These self-righteous old guard would probably relish the chance to retire and spread rumors about me to all their old academy buddies.

  “No, General Farlow, for your dismal failure and gross negligence, I have a different task ahead for you.” Dane’s thoughts raced. There is somewhere I can send him, somewhere horrible and nasty where his last thoughts will be why he ever failed me, ever. “You are hereby demoted to the role of captain-without-license,” Tomas said highly. That meant he could fly a ship, but he couldn’t command any marines. A glorified pilot.

  “But, ah, sir…” The general seemed genuinely shocked by this, spluttering into his moustache. “My forty years’ service...”

  “Which have clearly made you complacent, Captain Farlow!” Tomas had to stop himself from sniggering. “You are hereby reassigned to a scouting clipper class, and ordered to scout and report back on the situation at Sebopol, understood?”

  “Sebopol?” The man in his fifties shook his head in confusion. Dane could almost feel sorry for the man, if he was capable of such things.

  “Yes, Sebopol. The trash world. The one that we have been monitoring?” Dane sighed. Other people are so slow.

  “Ah. I see.” Farlow balled his fists as he glared at the floor at his feet. He had been a four-star general, privy to the top-tier information about the suspected whereabouts of the Alpha prototype. The same super-intelligence program that had recently commandeered Sebopol for its unknown purposes.

  And when this stupid, uptight little man gets there, Alpha will reach out and swat him like a fly, Tomas thought gleefully, as Farlow wavered a little in his boots. “You are dismissed, Captain,” Senior Dane Tomas the Junior said cheerfully.

  8

  Harvesting Revenge