Exiles (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book One)

by Dan Worth

  Moving on, the displays dealt with the first attempts at mining minerals off Earth. Early attempts, it seemed, had met with little success. The cost of launching missions and returning safely was excessive, despite the vast mineral wealth to be found in the Solar System’s asteroids. The loads brought back by the first missions barely covered their costs, and after a few attempts and one disaster in which the entire crew was killed by explosive decompression, the effort was abandoned.

  Katherine studied a photo of the crew of the ill-fated mission, the eight men and two women were standing behind a model of their ship dressed in their pristine white flight suits. No doubt state of the art in its time, to her twenty-fourth century eyes it looked like a death trap, no jump drive, no energy shielding and chemically fired engines. She couldn’t imagine being cooped up in something that flimsy whilst floating in space.

  Following the advent of jump technology and fusion drives in the twenty second century, astro-mining enjoyed something of a renaissance. The new drives made it economical to drill for ore on asteroids and alien worlds. A tiny piece of iron, a relic of the first asteroid to be profitably mined, sat in a small transparent case. Its significance was not lost on Katherine. As on Earth before, where the hunt for wealth had played a major part in the expansion of nations overseas, now it formed a major driving force in interstellar exploration. The result was the creation of undreamed of wealth.

  Something of the gold rush returned in those initial years as hopefuls flocked to the frontier settlements in and around the asteroids and planets of freshly colonised systems, men and women seeking their fortunes or just the chance of a better existence. It was clear to Katherine, from her own knowledge and from the exhibits on display, that life in those early years had been harsh. Settlers had been lost in all manner of mishaps and disasters, largely related to humanity’s inexperience in interstellar colonisation. Habitat domes cracked, asteroids shattered when mined incorrectly and killed thousands, whole colonies starved to death when their hydroponics failed and no relief arrived, unwary colonists were devoured by hostile wildlife and innumerable industrial accidents occurred every day, most of them preventable. The list went on and on.

  Katherine studied a collage of images: the first habitat dome on 61 Cygni 4, the return of the abortive first mission to Vega, a gang of traders and miners celebrating the successful initial runs between Eta Cassiopeia and Van Maanen’s Star, a squadron of heavy mover craft wrestling a hundred thousand tonne asteroid to stabilise its orbit.

  A dummy dressed in an antique mining-grade spacesuit stood between the display and the stairs to the next floor. Reminiscent of a medieval suit of armour, its heavy plated bulk was pitted and scarred by years of usage. Katherine stepped around the stocky carapace and headed for the exhibition on the next floor which was devoted to the history of the Klondike system itself. After browsing the initial displays she began to feel a distinct sense of déjà vu; it seemed all very similar to exhibition on the floor below, lots of photos of mining achievements, accounts of the early colonisation struggles. She was sure it meant much more to the locals than to a tourist such as herself, for example she had never heard of ‘the Famous Diamond Strike of ’94’. Still, she had nothing better to do for a few hours so she persevered.

  It seemed Klondike had been initially colonised during the middle of the twenty third century due to the rich mineral deposits found in the system’s extensive asteroid belts and its unusually high number of small rocky planets: seven in all. Hence the system’s name. The system had prospered quickly due to its own deposits, and due to its location at the heart of a cluster of other similar systems. New Colorado was hollowed out and finally settled in 2315 and designated as the system’s capital and it became the hub of trade in the region.

  This section Katherine did find amazing, the images and accounts of the huge New Colorado asteroid being cored like an enormous apple were quite something. One particularly spectacular film showed the second docking facility being eased onto the end of the asteroid; a ten kilometre diameter plug of metal that dwarfed the swarms of ships that surrounded it. A series of images also showed the terraforming of the interior, the building of the lakes and countryside and the construction of the various towns and villages. Katherine couldn’t help but be impressed by the scale of it all. There was also a large cut-away model, constructed by a local resident, which showed in intricate detail the workings of New Colorado, from its docking ports and solar panels, its factories and workshops, to its lakes and rivers. It lay cradled in an AG field inside its display case.

  The next section dealt with the system’s part in the war against the K’Soth and was altogether more disturbing. Katherine had heard the stories about the hostility of people in this part of the Commonwealth to certain aliens, and she knew most of the jokes too, but she hadn’t really appreciated it fully having never been this far north of Earth before.

  Lying a short distance from the border between the two nations, Klondike had lain in the path of the main K’Soth assault following their surprise attack in 2324 and it had been quickly overrun. The K’Soth had pressed on towards Earth but had left behind a garrison of second line troops to keep control of the worlds they had captured.

  At this point the locals had struck back. The Commonwealth Navy was tied down mounting the last desperate defence of the core systems, so without outside help the citizens of Klondike had cached what weapons and ships they could and used them to storm a number of K’Soth ships, seizing them and turning them on their former owners. The response had been swift. A squadron of K’Soth vessels returned to the system, rounded up the resistance and anyone else they could find, and then ritually executed them all over a period of nine days. They then began laying waste to settlements and stations.

  A total system-wide massacre was only averted when the K’Soth were forced to flee before the advancing Arkari relief forces who uncovered the evidence of their butchery. Katherine flinched at some of the evidence on display; photographs that displayed piles of mutilated bodies and parts of bodies, corpses that been exposed to vacuum following the destruction of an orbital station, Arkari medical staff tending to a man screaming uncontrollably, his eyes having been torn from his head by his former captors. Last of all; a photo of discarded K’Soth food bowls that appeared to contain human remains.

  Of the artefacts on display, most prominent were two preserved fighter craft that hung in AG fields. The first one was human, an old Marlin class heavy attack fighter. It had been used in the rebellion by one Captain Graf, a navy pilot from Klondike credited with more K’Soth kills than any other human during the war. The second was of K’Soth design, a Retribution class bomber captured intact during the retaking of the system. Below these two craft on a plinth was a large glass jar, inside which was the pickled head of a K’Soth, apparently that of the executed leader of the counter-insurgency operations in Klondike. Her two glassy golden eyes stared blankly at Katherine through the glass, fanged mouth agape, dark tongue lolling. The russet brown of her scales’ neutral colour had dulled with time to a murky brown-black. Mounted below was a small metal plaque inscribed with a quote from the then Governor of the system which read:

  ‘This trophy remains a testament to our hatred for the K’Soth, I for one will not forgive or forget their deeds.’- Gov. Ashok Lal, 6/7/25

  Katherine wondered how these sentiments would bode for the ongoing tensions between the two powers of late. From what she had gleaned from the press a large proportion of the public and government ministers still held this view. She had no doubt that this was reciprocated by the K’Soth also, and in their case their hostility was supplemented by their religious fanaticism.

  She had come to the museum to relax for a few hours. She hadn’t expected to be confronted by such a collection of charnel house images and gruesome artefacts and they had come as something of a shock. Her mood now darkened, she moved on to the top floor which covered the post-war regeneration of the system as well as a display
of modern mining equipment, but her heart wasn’t in it and she retired to the museum’s café in the grounds around the back of the building.

  The gardens were pleasantly laid out; there were plenty of ornate flower beds and gracefully drooping willow trees that shaded the tables of the museum’s café. Katherine sat at a wooden bench and table, sipped her overpriced tea and nibbled on an equally extortionately priced doughnut. The gardens were noisy with the sound of children, not that she minded that much. A playground was situated a hundred yards away on a square of wood chippings. The school party had moved in in force and were swarming all over it, their squeals and yells drowning out the garden’s birdsong. A few of the kids were running around the playground arms outstretched; evidently they were playing at being space pilots. The humans seemed to be losing, owing to a tubby ‘K’Soth’ who kept sitting on them until they gave in. Victory for humanity was achieved when the K’Soth champion was made to stand in the corner by one of the adults keeping watch over them. As usual, children had turned recent bloody history into a playground game. Katherine hoped this was as close as any of them would get to the real thing. Their grandparents hadn’t been so fortunate.

  She became aware that her jacket pocket was buzzing gently. Someone was trying to call her. She removed the wafer thin comm. unit from her pocket and unfolded it. The face of a flustered looking middle aged man appeared on the tiny screen, he appeared to be sitting in an office of some sort.

  ‘Dr Katherine O’Reilly?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s me. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you but my name is Donald Hutchinson, I’m calling from the Star Line offices here on New Colorado, I’m afraid your flight today has been cancelled.’

  ‘Oh, great.’

  ‘Yes I’m sorry but the ship developed an engine fault and we’ve had to bring it in for repairs. However, we have managed to secure you a berth on an independent vessel instead, leaving today also. I’m afraid not many ships go to the Fulan system so this was the best we could find, however her captain says he’s ready to go whenever you are.’

  ‘Well, okay. I suppose that’ll do as long as it gets me there. Where do I find this ship?’

  ‘She’s called the Nine Lives, docking bay forty three, northern port. Her captain is a Mr Hideo Minaba.’

  ‘Okay well it’ll have to do, I suppose. Tell Captain Minaba that I’ll be there shortly. I just need to collect my things from the hotel first.’

  ‘I’ll give him a call. Once again I apologise for any inconvenience…’

  ‘It’s no trouble, really. Goodbye Mr Hutchinson.’

  She hung up. Well at least that solved the problem of what to do for the next two hours. Katherine finished her doughnut, brushed the sticky crumbs of sugar from her hands with a napkin and headed back to the tube station. She returned to the hotel, collected her luggage and then caught the train back to Boulder, staying onboard until the carriage reached the final stop at the port.

  Alighting at the busy station she studied the large printed diagram of the port that was mounted on the wall. Arranged like a giant wheel, ships entered at the hub and were then moved via vast radial lifts to the hundreds of bays strung around the circumference of the giant circular structure. Finding the right bay was just a matter of travelling around the circle far enough until you reached the correct number. Katherine wanted number forty three, and nearest one was, she looked at a sign hanging from the ceiling, three hundred and twenty-two. She needed to travel a third of the way clockwise around the port to reach the bay she wanted. She sure as hell wasn’t going to walk twenty odd kilometres and she searched around for some transport. When she had arrived she had simply walked straight out of the nearest exit and had taken it from there.

  It turned out that the port had its own travel system; a fleet of several hundred bullet shaped carriages of Esacir make that ran on maglev tracks and could be programmed by the passengers to take them speedily to the correct bay. Katherine stood impatiently in line for a carriage for several minutes before getting one. Once inside its plush interior, she punched in the number of the bay she wanted and was then pressed into her seat as the tiny vehicle sped towards its destination.

  Half a minute or so later the carriage braked gently to a halt and Katherine exited. She found herself in a broad, steel walled corridor with printed signs directing her toward the docking bay a hundred metres away to her right.

  She walked to the bay and before long she arrived at the cavernous, grimy hangar and was greeted by the sight of her ride, the Nine Lives. The sight of it did not fill her with confidence.

  The vessel appeared to be an old Bison class transport, ex-military. Katherine had ridden in one once before on her way to a dig and repeating the experience was not a prospect she relished. A fat streamlined hull fitted with thick delta wings, stubby tail fins and clamshell doors at the rear, it squatted on its heavy landing gear. The vessel was atmosphere capable, though barely. The heat shielding necessary for re-entry was provided by the vessel’s hull, and not by the more modern energy field systems. Any landing would be only one step away from a controlled crash.

  The ship also seemed to have been subject to a certain amount of mechanical tinkering. A laser ball-turret had been fitted to the spine of the craft and the engines seemed somewhat different in type to the usual ones fitted, if she remembered correctly. A black and white cartoon cat running from a falling anvil had been painted with some skill on the nose, though the rest of the ship’s paintwork could have benefited from re-touching. Katherine walked around to the back of the ship where the clamshell cargo doors lay open and peered inside. There was no-one visible. She called out.

  ‘Hello? Captain Minaba?’

  There was a clattering and a muffled curse from within the cargo hold before a middle aged man of Japanese descent dressed in scuffed overalls dragged himself out from under a cargo loader. He produced a rag from one of his many pockets and wiped his dirt streaked face, an action which if anything, soiled it still further.

  ‘Dr Katherine O’Reilly?’

  ‘Yes that’s me.’

  ‘Welcome aboard.’ He extended an oily hand, she shook it. ‘We can set off straight away. I was just trying to fix that damn loader; looks like I’ll have to send off for new parts. Come this way, I’ll show you your cabin.’

  Katherine followed Minaba up the rear cargo ramp into his ship, stepping carefully to avoid tripping over the various tools, machinery and cargo crates inside. The interior of the vessel smelled strongly of coolant fluid and spilled lubricant. A corridor led from the front of the hold into the rest of the ship, and her cabin lay a short way down it to the right. Minaba presented it to her with a comical flourish of his hand.

  ‘Here we are. I’m afraid it’s not much - a bit cramped. However the bunk’s fairly comfortable and it’s only a short journey.’

  ‘That’s quite alright, how long should it take to reach Maranos?’

  ‘Oh, I’d say less than two days. It’s not too far, and I just upgraded the power plant on the old girl so we should be there in no time. She may not look much, but she can move alright.’

  ‘Okay, well I’ll just dump my things.’

  ‘Sure, if you like you can ride up front in the cockpit.’ He gave her a grin. She felt like indulging him.

  ‘Alright, I’ll be there in a few minutes.’

  ‘Sure,’ he ambled off toward the nose of the ship.

  She hefted her bags inside the small cabin and dragged the sticking automatic door shut. As shipboard accommodation went it wasn’t much, a steel box four metres by three, with a small adjoining bathroom and a bunk. Minaba had stuck a Van Gogh print on one of the walls, whilst the other had a tiny porthole that gave a view of the docking bay outside.

  Katherine dumped her bags on the floor, washed her face in the lukewarm water from the cold tap in the bathroom sink, and then made her way to the cockpit of the Nine Lives. Minaba was already seated and was fiddling with one of th
e control panels. He wore a look of mild annoyance on his face which brightened when she entered. He grinned at her.

  ‘Welcome! Here, have a seat,’ he said, gestured to the left hand crew position. The cockpit was cramped and packed with instrument displays, some of which looked like they had been added by Minaba. The two couches looked worn. The one Katherine was sitting on had come unstitched at one corner, its foam stuffing poking through the gap. A photo of a woman and three teenagers was stuck to one of the panels in front of her.

  As Minaba flicked a few switches, Katherine could hear the rear doors close and seal themselves. A number of other nameless things whirred and thumped in the bowels of the ship.

  ‘Well, I think she’s ready to go eh?’ said Minaba. ‘Better strap yourself in for launching.’

  Katherine struggled with the couch restraints whilst Minaba spoke to traffic control and let the craft’s engines come up to idle. A faint vibration was detectable through the floor plates as the noise levels increased. The bay outside began to seal itself.

  ‘Okay, we’re off. Brace yourself.’

  There was a jolt and Katherine felt herself pressed down into her seat as the entire bay was pulled quickly upwards with the Nine Lives inside. Minaba jammed a battered forage cap on his greying head, the lettering above the brim read CNV-8867 Cambyses.

  ‘First ship I was stationed on in the Navy,’ he explained, pointing at the cap. ‘I never launch without it.’

  ‘What happens if you don’t?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  The lift continued its progress toward the hub of the port. As it did so the gravity on board began to lessen noticeably and Minaba switched on the Nine Lives’s own gravity field to compensate as magnetic clamps kept the ship fixed firmly in place. Katherine sat and listened to the traffic control chatter audible over the comm. The port seemed busy today. From what she could tell a number of large ore freighters were loading from the facilities around New Colorado and it appeared to be taking longer than expected. She could hear traffic control trying to hurry their crews along.