by B. V. Larson
Maybe, just maybe, we could find one and order it on a place like Tech World. If we could find a better weapon, shouldn’t we buy it and use it instead of these older weapons systems? We had the credits, I was sure of that. The belchers were reliable most of the time, but they had notorious problems with heat. They also took powerful hands and arms to operate which was why I suspected they were originally designed for much larger beings. Maybe my belcher was nothing more than a hunting rifle on its distant world of origin.
Schemes to gain better weaponry wormed in my head as I stood at the far left end of my unit’s third rank. Together, we formed ten ranks of ten troops each. A perfect square on parade.
My unit’s square was one of nearly a hundred such formations. There was only one chamber big enough to contain so many of us at once, and it wasn’t a spot I liked much. We were in the open hold standing on top of our unit modules. There were gaps between these modules—alarming crevasses five meters wide. Above us was the “roof” of the ship, the top of the main hold. Dull and crenulated with equipment, the roof was really the inside of the primary hull. Beyond that was open space. Assembling our entire legion on top of these modules seemed dangerous to me. If there was a hull breach, we’d be hurled out into the void like so many motes of dust.
But no one had asked me about the pageantry of legion rotation. It was a tradition for the arriving legion and the legion being relieved to stand in full dress in a single area if at all possible. I knew our Tribune Drusus wasn’t about to let Germanica look more formal than we did.
There wasn’t any artificial gravity in the hold, so we had to use our magnetics to hold us down. We braced ourselves against the jolts of deceleration and course adjustments as we eased our way closer to the gigantic space station outside.
Throughout the lengthy docking process, the brass wanted us all on parade. There were camera drones buzzing everywhere. I had to smile at that. Drusus had even told us to hold up our unit flags. The rumpled banners displayed our Wolfshead emblem and our unit numbers, but the flags themselves hung oddly in null-G, looking as if it was the most shockingly windless day in history.
All this sounded more exciting than it was. In practice, it meant standing around at attention on the flat roof of a module for an hour or two waiting for something, anything, to happen. I was left with plenty of time to think. I was excited to be arriving at Tech World. This would be my third visit to a new planet.
There was so little we knew about the Galactic Empire as a whole. I’d been impressed by the influx of funds, but so far I hadn’t heard much in the way of new information from the Empire beyond Frontier 921. Natasha was excited by the new gadgets we’d gained access to, but I wanted something bigger. I wanted information—preferably in its rawest form.
I was jolted out of my reverie. Without warning, a tremendous clang rang out sweeping the hold. It was a sonic blast of such power it might have deafened the exposed troops if we hadn’t been sheltering inside helmets and suits. Even so, I saw men put their gauntlets up to the sides of their heads futilely trying to protect their ears.
Somehow, I knew what might happen next. I bent my knees and spread my feet a half-step wider. Even so, I was almost thrown flat by the rippling wave of vibration that swept through the ship. My feet felt like they were buzzing, and my head hurt.
“We’ve hit something!” Carlos shouted. I walked over to him, threw a hand out, and hauled him back to his feet.
Harris was marching the line, kicking and shoving troops back into line.
“Up, up!” he shouted. “It’s nothing—we’ve arrived, that’s all. Get up off your cans! You look like a bunch of recruits crying for mama!”
Within seconds, we were back in formation, but we were wary now. Every helmet rotated to watch for cracks in the hull overhead.
My audio crackled, and Graves’ voice came into my helmet. “That was a dirty trick,” he said. “Germanica is operating that boom. I can almost hear their people laughing.”
I frowned. Could he be right? Legion rivalry had always been strong, and there was no legion more reviled than Varus. Germanica troops, on the other hand, had a pretty huge opinion of themselves. If they’d played a dangerous trick to knock us all on our butts while the cameras were running—well, that didn’t bode well for a smooth transition between the legions.
What felt like five minutes later, the ceiling lit up. We all gawked and stared. There they were, projected on the ceiling like a mirror in the sky, ten thousand strong. Legion Germanica in all its glory was displayed directly above us. I didn’t know where they’d managed to assemble, but they looked good.
Reluctantly, I had to admit they were sharp troops. Their blue-white flags fluttered majestically whereas our red and gold equivalents hung like limp towels. Every suit of armor shined like it’d been polished and dipped in chrome. Not a trooper was out of place. Not a hand or a helmet was out of alignment with the next man in line. In comparison, we were a ragged band of tarnished yokels.
“They must have fans or something to keep their banners up like that,” Carlos marveled. “Conceited bastards.”
“They’re pretty, aren’t they?” asked Veteran Harris loudly. He held the staff of our banner. As the senior non-com in the unit, the honor had fallen to him. “Their armor is unscratched because they never fight! They’d run like beetles if faced with a real battle.”
A roar of approval went up from our unit members, and I joined them. But I knew better. Germanica wasn’t as hard-scrabble as we were, and I’d bet our troops had twice the combat experience as their troops on average—but they were still the real deal. They were disciplined, organized, and deadly when a fight really came down.
All across the hold, Varus troops were waving fists and lofting weapons over their heads. Germanica troops stood in perfect ranks, motionless. They didn’t respond to our taunts which they were surely able to see. They stayed at attention and ignored us, and I came to understand we looked like so many apes making an embarrassing spectacle of ourselves.
The hullabaloo went on for a full minute before our officers roared for quiet. They got their wish, and we tightened up standing in silent neat rows again.
Above us, the projected image of shining ranks of ant-like troops was overlaid with another image. A huge, leering face appeared.
The face belonged to Germanica’s tribune, Maurice Armel. The first thing I noticed about him was that he was he looked like he smelled something bad. Real bad. His aristocratic nose was pinched up over pursed lips. His whisper of a mustache lay over his lip like a humped caterpillar, and his eyes were narrowed in disgust.
Carlos whistled. “That’s Armel all right,” he said. “I’ve read about him on the net. He thinks he’s pretty hot stuff.”
“That just means he’s soft,” I said without conviction.
Despite my words, those eyes didn’t look soft. They looked as hard as a man’s eyes could look. And considering that his face loomed directly above us like the very face of God himself, it was hard not to feel overawed by him.
“Legion Varus,” Tribune Armel began solemnly. “Legion Germanica welcomes you to our long-term station. May you perform your mission here as flawlessly as we have.”
Inside my helmet, my lips twisted themselves up like a pretzel. This guy sure did think a lot of himself. Standing watch at a quiet post didn’t indicate heroism—not in my book, anyway.
“Let’s play a game,” Carlos said. “Let’s count how many times Armel gives himself a compliment.”
I smiled despite myself. “I’d rather count how many times he slyly insults our legion.”
“Would you two shut up?” Harris demanded suddenly. “If I wasn’t standing in perfect ranks right now, I’d come down there and kick your butts off this module. Do you want to play that game?”
“No, Vet,” we muttered together. Others in the ranks chuckled at our expense.
The speech did go on for what I counted as twelve full minutes. Later, Carlos claimed
it was fifteen. Whatever the case, he managed to pat himself and his legion on the back multiple times—while subtly suggesting we were substandard cretins barely capable of standing on two legs.
Finally, it was Tribune Drusus’ turn. His own face was alarmingly youthful and unimpressive in comparison to Armel’s, but I knew that wasn’t an accurate reflection of his capacities. He’d died a number of times in service to Legion Varus, and he wore his apparent youth like a badge.
His speech was blissfully brief and to the point. He accepted the mission from Germanica and formally requested permission to disembark. Armel gave it, and that was that.
The big screen overhead faded with the final images showing Germanica troops cheering and congratulating one another.
We were allowed to break ranks as well, and Natasha found her way to my side.
“They look pretty happy to be going home,” I remarked.
“They aren’t out of here yet,” Natasha said.
The ranks had broken as the cameras buzzed away, and we were left to file to the roof exits. I fell into step alongside her. I felt like an armored oaf clanking along beside the relatively tiny tech specialist.
“How long will the switchover take?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “A few weeks. Legion Germanica has to be satisfied that we’re capable of performing the mission then they’ll officially pass the duty to us.”
I snorted. “Compared to hot-dropping on a hostile world, this is a joke.”
“They don’t see it that way.”
Nearly ten long hours later, I was finally allowed off-ship and onto the massive space station named Gelt. There were several of these stations hanging in space over Tau Ceti. They were unbelievably huge and tethered permanently to the planet with an umbilical. The stations were called ‘megahabs,’ as they were capable of housing millions of humanoids each.
Transferring to Gelt Station was a daunting experience. The structure was an amazing sight. Built like a spinning top, it had artificial gravity due to centrifugal force. The lower portion that hung down near the atmosphere contained all the machinery to keep the internals working. Power, water, atmosphere—it all came from the conical section at the bottom.
The planet had three small moons, the configuration of which allowed for La Grange points close to the planet. These were points where relatively stable orbits could be found for objects like this massive station.
The planet itself was almost as impressive as Gelt Station. Stretching out in an impossibly broad arc, the world was bigger than Earth, but due to a different composition, the gravity was reasonable. I wondered if I would ever get the opportunity to set foot on that gray-green, cloud-shrouded world.
Gliding aboard our lifter into a massive landing bay, we soon disembarked. Every head was craning and every mouth was gawking. The interior of the station was amazing. There were colored lights and holograms everywhere. The interior space was so vast it was as if we’d entered a new world. In a way, we had. The sheer number of galleries, holds, workshops, and massive cylindrical passageways we marched by kept everyone in awe.
The interior of Gelt Station was a single massive city. It was probably the largest city I’d ever visited in my life. There were countless marvels to see. The transportation system by itself made me feel like a primitive.
By setting foot on a broad flying disk, I was able to state my destination to the pilot, apply my tapper to a credit voucher to the console, and be whisked away to anywhere I cared to go.
The pilot was a fast-talking guy who looked like a blue turtle. He gestured and chattered until I stumped up to try one of the disks. We’d been ordered to find our own way to our new quarters which were currently located on the sun-side of the station. Due to Gelt Station’s stable orbit, part of the megahab faced the planet while the other half faced the local star, but as the station rotated, everyone had a day-night cycle. As a species that preferred warmth, we’d been given living space on the upper rim, a region of the massive structure that tended to stay warmer.
Natasha caught me before I touched my credit voucher to the console.
“Just a minute,” she said. “How much is this little ride going to cost?”
The turtle-guy threw up two stump arms—or were they legs? “A pittance, citizen. A pittance. The exact amount is impossible to calculate until you’ve arrived. Traffic conditions may lengthen the journey, you see.”
I frowned. “You mean I’m paying for time spent in transit?”
“Of course, sir! Naturally! Would you deny my children their feed?”
People on Tech World often talked like this according to the briefing. Anything you suggested that might lower a price was considered offensive and downright miserly. All the same, haggling was expected.
“Maybe you could share the fare,” I suggested to Natasha.
She shook her head. “How much per minute?” she asked.
“Always the questions! Always they doubt me, they suspect me. Already I’ve lost a full credit’s worth of time talking to you two. Would you deny me my next meal just to stand here and chit-chat?”
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Come on, James.”
“Wait! A credit, a single credit piece per minute! You’ll not find anything cheaper.”
“A full credit per minute?” I demanded incredulously. “You are a cheat.”
We turned to go. A credit on Earth—a Galactic credit—was easily a full hour’s wage for a skilled human worker. You could rent an apartment for a ten credits a week—a good one.
“Wait!” cried the turtle again. “I give you bargain. Five credits, whole trip. You can’t walk. It’s thirty kilometers at least.”
“All right,” Natasha said. “But we’re sharing the fare.”
The turtle grumbled, but at last we climbed aboard his disk and shot off, beginning the wildest ride I’ve ever been on. I can’t tell you what it was like because there aren’t any earthly equivalents. Imagine, if you will, a rollercoaster car without tracks that’s let loose in a modern major city—but this rollercoaster flies and is piloted by an insane blue turtle that moves like a mongoose.
We were almost sick by the time we arrived at our quarters ten long minutes later. The turtle threw us out then shook a stumpy appendage at me.
“What?” I asked.
“A gratuity is customary in your culture,” he explained.
I scoffed. “You just got a day’s wages off me for a ten minute flight. Here’s your tip: don’t gouge people.”
The turtle flew off in a huff, and we were blasted by a wash of ozone-tasting exhaust.
-9-
The majority of Tau Ceti’s population wasn’t made up of turtles, blue or otherwise. Most citizens were a humanoid race known as the Tau. They roughly matched the size and dimensions of an Asian person from Earth. That’s where the similarities stopped, however. Up close, they were pretty alien-looking. They had reddish-pink skin, black bug-eyes, and fringes of squirmy eating-tentacles that surrounded their mouths like a fleshy beard. Frankly, to me the tentacles were disgusting.
If you didn’t look at their faces they looked human enough. But as I understood it, if you eyed them closely (something I’d never done) the differences became glaringly obvious. For one thing, they had a lot more visible ropy veins than we do. The bio people said that was because Tau stored their body fat internally rather than as an outer coating under the skin. When their muscles moved or their organs churned, you could watch the action right through their thin hides.
It was the Tau who had built this amazing space station. A megahab floating in orbit over the sole habitable planet in the Tau Ceti system, Gelt Station was an amazing achievement by itself. The Tau had also developed the amazing level of commerce that trafficked here. As far as I could tell, every alien product that Earth purchased each year, plus our banking connection to the Core Systems, funneled through this single structure. As a result, the Gelt space station was the mercantile capital of Frontier 921 servi
ng our local network of a few dozen inhabited star systems. For that achievement alone, I found the Tau to be an impressive species.
Unfortunately, their individual personalities were lacking. They were a universally self-serving and suspicious people. They fawned over anyone who had money and reviled those who didn’t. In their society, everything had a price with wealth being the sole indicator of social status.
The neighborhood surrounding our barracks was a case in point. There were countless salesmen manning booths as well as fully automated kiosks all of which relentlessly hawked all sorts of garbage to relieve the troops of any credits they may have brought with them. The products sold looked to be high quality at first glance, but a cursory inspection of “genuine saurian leather boots” turned up a cheap synthetic with bad stitching. Sexual aids shoved into boxes with human anatomical imagery on the label contained devices obviously incompatible with our physiology. The list went on.
Worse, the selling-machines were noisy. There seemed to be no limit to how gaudy, irritating and loud you could make an advertisement on Tech World. I had to push my way past a grasping mechanical hand that played loud discordant noises, which apparently passed for music somewhere in the universe, just to get into the lobby.
Inside the barracks, relative quiet reigned. I heaved a sigh and turned to Natasha.
“It’s hell out there,” I said. “I’m disappointed.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re stuck here in this loony bin for a whole year, that’s why.”
She seemed incredulous. “To me this place is fantastic,” she said with feeling. “I’m looking forward to searching every inch of Gelt Station for good products to take home. Don’t worry about those vendors at the door they’ll be gone in a few hours. Whoever owns them probably bought a short-term permit to catch newcomers. Every major Earth city has stuff like that to watch out for. You just have to keep your hand on your wallet—and don’t get too drunk.”
