by Nick Webb
Alessandro laughed. “It is good. Is good. But yes, Commander, you are quite right. My associates and I at CERN were working on a solution to the neutrino flux problem when we stumbled upon the Milan Approximation, but high-neutrino-flux gravitic shifting is still a hot area of research right now. I’m sure the person to figure it out will win the next ten Nobel prizes at once. It would mean we could travel not just to the center of our own galaxy with as much energy as it takes to shift to Vega, but we could shift to the center of the Andromeda galaxy as well.”
Ben rubbed his chin. “Did you say the Milan Approximation? Are you telling me that you came up with it?”
“Well … not exactly. Me and a few others were primarily resp—”
Jake made a raspberry sound. “Don’t listen to him, Ben. The Milan Approximation is sitting its ass approximately right there,” he said, pointing to Alessandro’s chair. “Would have been called the Bernoulli Approximation if our friend here didn’t hate the limelight so much.”
Alessandro shrugged. “I would have had to give speech. I hate speeches. Especially in front of people.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “You’ve got no problem delivering speeches to me.”
“But you’re not people, you’re just Captain Mercer,” Alessandro retorted. “And besides, you ask for it. Didn’t you realize that I make those speeches to you during our chess games just to keep you distracted? Most of what I tell you is complete bullshit—all I’m really doing is planning out my next ten moves.”
The two marines, dressed in the frontier attire like the rest of them, chuckled at Bernoulli’s remark. One of them, Corporal Suarez, checked the sidearms strapped underneath his vest, and tightened the long knife strapped to his shin underneath the dusty old black jeans. Sergeant Avery, a grim-faced, experienced spec-ops soldier sat next to him, peering out the window at the thickening atmosphere.
The ship trembled a little harder. Jake peered out the window through the atmosphere to the land below. “Ben, buddy, are you even flying this thing? Or are we falling?”
“It’s on autopilot. It’s just a normal reentry, nothing the computer can’t handle.”
“Yeah, but all the same, let’s just make sure we don’t crash land in one of those wheat fields or something. Or is that just dust?” He watched the ground approach them with gut-wrenching speed. Jake knew, intellectually at least, that the gravitics would kick in 1000 meters from the ground and they’d decelerate from five or so kps down to just dozens of klicks per hour, but the approach to the ground still always made Jake nervous—at least when he wasn’t at the controls.
“The computer can fly this thing better than you or I could even dream of, Jake,” his friend said.
“I doubt it. Computers have glitches. I’d rather control my fate with my own two hands on the stick and not some piece of silicon.”
“There’s a higher chance of your brain glitching than the triply redundant auto-pilot software.” But Ben knew about Jake’s squeamishness with computers flying ships, and took the controls in his hands. “Starting our deceleration curve. Don’t worry, Captain, we’ll all live to see the Phoenix.”
“We’d better,” Jake said, “or I’ll kick your ass.”
The shuttle landed just behind Captain Volaski’s ship, which had parked in a giant, dusty field next to what would have looked like a spaceport, except for the sagebrush caught in all the fencing and the dust piled high over the landing lights and signs. Stepping out of the shuttle, Jake instantly saw that Velar was not exaggerating—he didn’t see how the main export of Destiny was anything other than fine, brown dust.
“Captain, welcome to Destiny,” said Velar, sweeping her arms wide and greeting them with a grin. It was the first time he’d seen her truly smile.
“Thank you. It’s a lovely world.…” he trailed off as he coughed, having inhaled a mouthful of dust as the wind picked up. Glancing upwards, he saw that the sky glowed a little more violet than the Earth’s atmosphere, but just barely. The sun felt hot on his skin, and the light coming from it seemed whiter somehow, like the florescent lights that lined the hallways of the Phoenix. The glare from the sand was almost intolerable.
While the sun felt remarkable hot against his skin, Jake noticed how cold it actually was. Not cold enough to be terribly uncomfortable, but enough to make him want to start walking briskly to warm up.
“So, not a farming world, huh?” said Jake, noticing the unending white-brown landscape all around them, punctuated only by occasional scraggly brush and the rare, squat tree.
Velar shrugged. “It does rain here—you’d be surprised at what the summer months look like. A monsoon sweeps up out of the ocean like clockwork at around the point the sun reaches its zenith. The year is only eleven months long, so I’m sure that will take some getting used to. But for me, it’s home.”
That was an odd way to put it, as Jake had no intention of getting used to the month cycle on Destiny, but he brushed the comment aside and glanced up at Volaski who was descending his ship’s ramp.
“Captain Mercer, I trust you’re all armed and ready to go into town?”
Jake patted the sidearm under his vest and nodded. “We’re ready when you are. Is your contact far away? We’d like to get this over with if you don’t mind. We try not to spend too much time in any one system. Too tempting of a target, you might say, and not just for the Imperials.”
Volaski nodded. “I understand. Right this way. We’ll take ground transport to the town.” He led them to a small, tattered building that housed half a dozen ground vehicles, each with large, deeply grooved tires, which Jake supposed would be useful for driving through the mud during the monsoon season. Volaski sat in the driver’s seat of one while Velar took the wheel of a second car.
“You’ll have to split up for a moment. We can’t fit you all in one,” said Velar. She fumbled with the ignition controls, and a low rumble sounded from the front hood.
“Are these things gas-powered?” asked Jake. He hadn’t ridden on a gas-powered ground vehicle for ages. His mom’s neighbor, an older fellow with an eye for antique technology, kept a twenty-first century gasoline vehicle in his garage, but he’d never seen it run.
“Methane, yes,” said Velar. “Destiny has methane in abundance—it’s about .5 percent of the atmosphere. Too low of a concentration to react with the oxygen, but high enough that we can easily distill it out of the air. And it means that Destiny is far warmer than it should be, given its distance from our sun. Methane is an excellent greenhouse gas.”
“No carbon dioxide?” asked Alessandro. But then he nodded to himself, as if understanding.
“Barely,” continued Velar as she put the vehicle into gear with a grinding thrust of the shifter. “There is no native multicellular life on Destiny to speak of. Just the cyanobacteria that is the source of the planet’s oxygen. Most of the carbon is in the form of methane, which suits us just fine. We’ve never lacked for power here.”
As they spoke, the barren landscape flew past, and the passengers bounced up and down over the unpaved dust. Jake held his vest over his face to filter out most of the grit, but he still felt a veneer of powder coat his teeth. He turned to Bernoulli and the marine in the back seat, Corporal Suarez.
Suarez nodded his youthful face at him, indicating his readiness for whatever they might encounter in the town, which now loomed just ahead of them. It was actually a small city, though without any tall buildings—just an assortment of ramshackle homes and businesses that stretched out to the low, distant hills.
“Looks like it’s seen better days,” said Jake, eyeing the tattered remains of a few buildings on the outer edge of town. A few stray dogs bolted through a front door hanging by one hinge.
Velar nodded. “It’s the price we pay for privacy. The standard of living would certainly improve if the Empire were here, but, and I think you’d agree, we wouldn’t want it any other way.”
The vehicles ground to a halt outside what looked like a vast warehouse building, at
least 200 meters long. Hundreds of other vehicles were parked haphazardly in front, in no discernible order. In fact, everything on Destiny seemed to be a free-for-all. The streets were a maze, the houses built at odd angles and with no obvious regularity. Jake spied a few men ambling down the street, guns openly hanging from their belts.
“Here we are. This is one of the central markets where the merchants gather to trade and sell,” said Velar as she jumped out of the vehicle.
“Is your contact here?” asked Jake.
“No,” she replied, to Jake’s surprise. “I just need to pick up a few supplies here. You’re welcome to come inside, of course. Have a look around.” She eyed him with a sidelong glance, looking down at the bulge beneath his vest, indicating the sidearm underneath. “Or not, if you’d prefer not to attract attention. But you might find something useful for the Phoenix. The pirates, as you call them, often come across rather interesting technologies that haven’t filtered their way out to the Empire or to Earth yet.”
Jake nodded. “Sure thing. Meet you back out here in half an hour? Is that enough time?”
“That should suffice, Mercer,” and she led them to the front entrance, which was guarded by two masked men with assault rifles, who—Jake wasn’t exactly sure if it was the message the market’s management intended to send—were sound asleep in chairs propped up against the walls.
Volaski stayed in the vehicle. “I’m trying to figure out a shipping schedule,” he said, studying a data pad and waving them off. “I’ll wait out here.”
They followed their guide into the warehouse. Velar disappeared into the milling crowds of merchants and customers, and Jake supposed that there must have been an additional parking field out behind the building since the hundred or so vehicles out front could not have accounted for such a large number of people. Everyone was dressed like Velar, and Jake noticed, like himself and his men. Rough, dusty, worn clothing and a sea of hats. Banners indicated the location of merchant’s tables; the entire warehouse was alive with shouted negotiations and haggling.
Besides English, Jake saw a smattering of other languages covering many of the signs: Spanish, Chinese, or some other Asian language—he could never tell them apart—and even what looked like Russian on a banner that hung limply and bedraggled between two posts.
“Well, Alessandro? This is your playground. Lead the way.”
Bernoulli grinned. “With pleasure, friend. I bet we can find some caps the right size, or if not quite right, I can string together a bunch in parallel,” Alessandro pushed ahead into the crowd. Jake noticed some people stare at the man’s half-mustache, but otherwise he seemed to blend right in.
Ben leaned over to him. “Hey, Jake, I’m going over to the wall down there. Looks like a fun assortment of knives and plasma-based small arms that might be helpful.”
“A winning combination. Take Corporal Suarez with you,” he pointed at one of the marines, and glanced at the other one. “Sergeant Avery, stay with Alessandro and me.” He leaned in close to the man, who, though empty handed, kept one hand very close to one of his sidearms. “And be vigilant. Stay on the lookout for anything out of place—anyone staring at us for too long.”
Sergeant Avery nodded his grizzled face once. Jake was glad Ben had chosen him. The man did special ops in the North American Marines before joining the Resistance, and served in the special forces there for many years and many successful missions before being assigned to the Phoenix.
Alessandro, however, had no inhibition whatsoever. He plunged into the crowd, not even noticing anyone who bumped into him, keeping his gaze locked on an array of tables in the center of the huge warehouse full of electronics, parts, and other odd pieces of equipment that Jake couldn’t recognize.
“Friend! We’re in luck! And so soon, too.” Bernoulli reached down to pick up a massive block. It looked like a white brick, except two fat metal prongs stuck out the top. He read the inscription on the side. “One megafarad. Perfect. We can link up fifty or so of these in parallel and we’ve got ourselves another cap.”
The merchant who owned the tables waddled over. A heavyset man in his fifties, he grinned as he watched Bernoulli examine the white brick. “Straight from the factory in the Manchuria system. Came in just yesterday. They sell for fifty thousand off-world, but I can give it to you for thirty.”
Alessandro nodded. “A fair price, I’m sure. But I don’t think it’s quite what I’m looking for.”
A scowl crossed the man’s face. “Well then be a little more gentle with it, sir, and save it for the next paying customer.”
Bernoulli set the cap down gently before facing the merchant again with a sly smile. “Really what I need is, oh, say, fifty of them. Do you have that many in stock today?”
The merchant’s eyes grew large, and Jake could almost see the man crunch numbers in his head. “Fifty! What on Old Earth do you need fifty for? One or two is plenty for a standard sized freighter. Unless you have one of the really old models of gravitic drive?”
Alessandro chuckled. “No, state of the art, in fact.” Jake glared at him, and Bernoulli caught his eye. “Let’s just say I have friends who find themselves in need of them. A lot of them. Seems there’s an entire merchant fleet of freighters out in the Vitari Sector that needs new cap banks. The whole lot of them flew too close to some star there and the induction currents from a coronal mass ejection blew out the banks of every ship. They’re stranded until I get out there to them. Profit highs for me and you both if we can meet the demand.”
Jake reminded himself to never believe a word Alessandro said ever again. The man lied like it was the most natural thing in the world.
If it were possible for the merchant’s eyes to grow any larger, they’d fall out. He fumbled in his pocket for a data pad and punched at it feverishly. “Well, I can give you thirty now. And if you wait another few days I can get you the other twenty. And a whole lot more if you need them.” He glanced up with a hopeful expression. “Twenty-five each?”
Bernoulli shook his head with a scowl, and wiped his half-mustache. “Ten thousand.”
“Ten! That’s what I paid for them! I won’t go any lower than twenty-thousand. Final offer.” He shoved the data pad into his pocket and folded his plump, hairy arms.
Bernoulli glanced up at Jake, who nodded. He was sure they could scrounge up a million bucks or so on board. Every Imperial fleet ship embarked with a small supply of hard cash for emergencies, for just such situations—dealing with people who would not take Imperial credits.
Alessandro nodded and said, “Deal. When we offload our equipment we’re selling, I’ll come back and make the payment. Probably later today,” he added, with another glance at Jake, who inclined his head again. He was pretty sure they could finish their deal with Velar’s contact by then.
The merchant agreed, and the three of them continued browsing the various wares until Velar was finished with whatever her business was. Jake noticed that many of the merchants wore a sort of band around their necks, just like Volaski, as if it were some sort of neckwarmer or fashion statement—though he doubted that anyone on Destiny had even a remote interest in fashion. He glanced around the nearby tables and down the narrow pathway between them at all the customers browsing the merchandise. Sure enough, many of the customers wore them too. He made a mental note to ask Velar about them.
Alessandro sidled up to him. “Hey, friend, come take a look at this.” He pointed over to one of the tables piled high with numerous instruments.
“What is it?”
“If that’s what I think it is, we might find them handy, though I can’t believe they sell them here. They’re incredibly dangerous.” They approached the table, and Bernoulli bent down to inspect a pile of electronic devices.
Jake read the sign above the table. The larger script was in Russian, but next to it were the words, Uncommon Defense. The name of the shop, most likely, though Jake supposed that a few tables set up in a warehouse didn’t really deserve to b
e called a shop.
“Gentlemen,” said a woman in a thick Russian accent. “You have interest in my product, yes?” She eyed them up and down. Standing at over six feet, Jake almost had to look up to her. A full, ill-fitting jumpsuit didn’t quite reach down to her ankles, and a bulge under her long vest indicated the presence of at least a sidearm, though judging by the length of the bulge she could very well have an assault rifle hidden under there.
Bernoulli cleared his throat and looked up at her with a grin. “Hello, sweetheart.” Jake shot him a glance, as if to say, careful. Bernoulli continued, “Vesuvius mines? I didn’t know cloaked anti-ship mines were legal these days. Much less that they were still in production.”
She furrowed her bushy eyebrows, and cast them a suspicious look. “Most customers don’t mind. You? If you mind, you’re welcome to get hell out.” She pointed to the next table as if telling them to move along.
Alessandro held up his hands. “Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just pleasantly surprised, is all. Does the cloak work? Most cloaks only go into the infrared these days, but does it do optical? Radar?”
Jake peered at the diminutive, cylindrical black shapes. He supposed the black would be enough to hide it from most optical sensors, given its size, which meant that a good infrared cloak and proper stealth geometry would be sufficient to escape most detection. He remembered reading about Vesuvius mines in the academy. When the Empire first starting spreading its influence 150 years ago, they outlawed the sale and manufacture of the devices, on pain of detention in the Glasov penal colony. Most offenders never returned.
She grunted. “They do well enough. And the antimatter is fresh. Very low leakage, too. Less than an attogram per day. You can lay these in almost any orbit, and when target matching specifications appears nearby, it will do a slow release of the anti-matter into the microthrusters and steer into the ship. Explodes on contact. Taking half ship with it, of course.”
Bernoulli nodded. “Almost a good thing the Empire banned these things, right? They lost dozens of ships in the early days of the Empire before they tracked down the manufacturers and … dealt with them,” he finished with a grimace.
