The Agathon: Reign of Arturo

by Colin Weldon

  “Have a seat,” Aron said to the big man.

  Stanley hesitated for a moment before climbing into India’s chair. There was an awkward silence as Aron once again flicked his eyes down to the compartment which held his pulse gun.

  “It’s not there,” said Stanley looking out of the window.

  Shit, thought Aron.

  “What isn’t there?” he said knowing the answer.

  “Your pulse gun, Mr Elstone. I removed it, please don’t take it personally,” he said smiling to him for the first time since he boarded The Unity. Aron didn’t reply.

  “The chancellor permitted me the use of the weapon when I was given this ship, Mr Stanley, has that order also been rescinded?”

  Stanley didn’t reply. He sat quietly looking out at the stars. He closed his eyes slowly and laid his head back into India’s chair.

  “What’s on your mind, Mr Elstone?” he said, “I assume you asked India to leave because you wanted to discuss something?” he said breathing in slowly almost in a meditative state.

  “Okay,” Aron said, “Why are you here? Surely this mission did not require your personal attention, Stanley. We could have deployed these communication buoys without being overseen. The chancellor has never requested the presence of the Guard for any of my missions, why this one?”

  Stanley opened his eyes and turned his head over to look at him.

  “The chancellor does not need to explain himself to you, Elstone,” he said.

  “Stanley, we’ve been at this our whole lives,” said Aron, “I have shown you nothing but respect in your position and have devoted my loyalty to the chancellor. You know that.”

  Aron tried to inject as much sincerity into his voice as he could. They should have both been on the same side. Growing up in the colony, Stanley had earned a reputation as a bully, regularly dishing out beatings to colonists for various reasons. Some of them simply because of the mood he had been in at the time. He was widely feared. . Although separated by nearly eight years in age, Elstone had had his fair share of run ins with the head of the Colonial Guard. Stanley had always been a loner, but had been hand selected by the previous chancellor, Rogan Soanes. Although information about Soanes was thin on the ground, there were stories from the elders that he had been a fair and just man. His death had been a mysterious one. An accident on board a mining ship. It was a widely accepted theory that Stanley had assassinated him on the orders of Arturo Verge. Aron didn’t have first-hand experience with Stanley’s violent side, although he had come close. Not as close as his encounter with Escat, an encounter that normally would have cost him his life had Arturo not stepped in and prevented it. An action that Aron still to this day could not understand. He somehow felt on some level that Stanley held some sort of respect for him. Not enough to stop him from killing him, but they were at least on speaking terms which was a lot to be said.

  “You and I are warriors, Elstone, of that you can be certain,” Stanley said.

  Aron was taken aback by the strange comment.

  “You know the value of following orders and you know how to lead. I remember when you were young and first came to the attention of the chancellor. He asked me to keep a very close eye on you. You have a way with people that the chancellor admires, did you know that?” he said.

  There was a strange calmness to Stanley’s voice that was unnerving to hear. He was beginning to wish that he had stashed another pulse gun somewhere else in the cockpit.

  “The colony needs people like you, Aron, we are lost as a people. We need leaders like you,” Stanley said.

  Aron couldn’t help but take it as some sort of threat.

  “That’s appreciated, Stanley, but it still doesn’t answer my question,” Aron decided to push the issue to see where his boundaries actually lay with the head of the Colonial Guard.

  “I am here because the chancellor requested me here. Contact with The Agathon is his highest priority and unfortunately, it requires the highest level of security. You are not at that level, Elstone. Should we contact The Agathon, there could be severe consequences to the balance of our society, so it must be handled with the utmost delicacy,” he said.

  Aron couldn’t fault the logic and had to admit that there could be restlessness within the people if contact were actually made with the lost and ancient vessel.

  “Do you remember the life support crisis fifteen years ago?” Stanley said.

  Of course Aron remembered. Everyone did. It had almost cost the lives of the entire colony. There had been an explosion in one of the primary reactors in the forbidden zone, or so they had been told. The force had blown a hole in the side of the Village and all life support throughout the colony had been shut down. Aron could remember it vividly as he had been working on The Unity at the time in the engine room. Arturo had ordered all vessels to detach from the station. The captain of The Unity at the time, Len Miret, had initially refused the order insisting that he render aid to the colonists trapped under the debris and cut off from the rest of the structure. It was only under threat of a Colonial Guard pulse rifle that he had sealed the airlock and drifted away from the station. He disappeared soon after the crisis, no explanation given. They stayed on board the ship for seven days while tales of suffocation and mass panic filtered through the comm systems. Occasionally they would see a body floating past their windows. He couldn’t remember how many, but he had been told that there had been a mixture of deaths caused by oxygen deprivation and “voluntary air-locked” citizens who had given up their lives in order to preserve oxygen. Apparently Vishal had repaired the reactor and somehow managed to restore full life support and power levels. There was never a full explanation as to what had happened as the whole event was shrouded in mystery.

  “I remember it,” Aron said.

  “Well, you remember the panic then, don’t you? We nearly lost the race, again, because of one simple and flawed human component built into our DNA. Fear,” he said matter of factly.

  “All due respect, Stanley, but I think we’ve shown remarkable resilience over the years,” Aron rebuffed.

  He didn’t want to get into a debate with Stanley about his political views and was careful not to infer a lack of loyalty to Arturo. That would mean a certain premature death for him that he wasn’t quite ready for just yet. Stanley looked at him curiously.

  “Have we now?” he said, “Would you think our survival has been the direct result of the chancellor’s exquisite leadership and innovation?”

  Aron noted the fact that Stanley still hadn’t really answered his question, but he really needed that communications lockout removed, so he decided to try another tactic.

  “Mr Stanley, why don’t we try to come to some other arrangement with regards to the communications lockout?” he said.

  “Such as?” Stanley replied.

  “Remove the lockout on my systems while you are present on the flight deck. That way you will have complete control to lock them out when you are not present to monitor it. By doing so, you avert any risk of the other crew members accessing information when you are not present,” Aron said.

  Aron could see that Stanley was automatically about to reject the notion, so he intervened before that could happen.

  “Look, Stanley, I have no interest in circumventing your authority on this issue, but the chancellor certainly wouldn’t want the safety of my crew to jeopardise any contact that we make with The Agathon. If something were to happen to us out here, then surely he would want to know about it so that he could mount a rescue and retrieve any vital information from the computer banks. If not, then we could drift silently into the void for all eternity and nobody will know anything.”

  Stanley looked at Aron and smiled.

  “I can’t fault your logic, Mr Elstone,” he said suddenly standing up from India’s flight chair, “Let me know when the next deployment is complete please, I will be in my quarters,” he finished standing up and walking to the rear hatch.

  He left the fl
ight deck leaving Aron alone.

  “Fuck,” Aron said to himself.

  9

  The Agathon

  “Approaching geosynchronous orbit, sir,” said Boyett to the captain.

  “Let’s see it, Charly,” said Barrington from the centre seat.

  The view screens overhead switched their angles to various views of the planet that The Agathon had just reached. Its white surface glistened above them as the crew looked up.

  “It’s a ball of ice, sir,” said Chavel from the navigation console beside Boyett.

  Barrington looked over at Chavel and frowned.

  “I need a slightly better description than that, Lieutenant,” he said.

  Chavel looked back at the captain and looked embarrassed.

  “Sorry, sir, one moment,” he said, “42% iron, 28% silicon, 18% magnesium, 4% sulphur, 3% nickel with the rest in trace elements. Its mass is 103% greater than Earth’s, sir, and I am reading trace levels of radioactive materials on the surface although the atmosphere appears to be breathable. I am reading surface temperatures well below the green line, sir, at minus ninety degrees Celsius,” he said looking around at the captain.

  “Confirm that, Lieutenant,” said the captain.

  Chavel ran through his readings.

  “Confirmed, sir, oxygen levels at 22%, nitrogen at 77%,” he said.

  Barrington looked at the ice world below him.

  “Any signals in orbit or on the ground, Mr Ferrate?” he said to the comms officer behind him.

  The young man didn’t answer at first.

  “Well?” repeated the captain looking around him.

  Ferrate was frowning at his console.

  “Nothing in orbit, sir, but I am getting a strange reading from one of the southern continents. It’s like a low level infrared pulse. Seems to come and go, but it’s very faint. Could be a natural occurrence from the planet’s core, but I can’t be certain,” he said nervously.

  Barrington had sensed trepidation from the crew on the bridge during the approach to the planet. The trauma of encountering the Targlagdu that had nearly destroyed them had shaken them.

  “What do you think, sir?” Boyett said from the flight chair suspended off the bridge floor.

  Barrington stroked the stubble that was beginning to accumulate on his face. He hadn’t shaved in days and was sporting the beginning of a dark beard. He needed to land the ship, that much was certain, but he wasn’t going to do it on another alien world that posed a threat to the colonists on board. They had barely survived their last encounter. He reached over and touched the comm panel on his chair.

  “Barrington to Doctor Tyrell,” he said into the device.

  No answer.

  “Barrington to Carrie Barrington,” he said closing the channel and opening a new one.

  No answer. The bridge went quiet. Chavel looked around at the captain who ignored his gaze. If there was one thing that spiked his concern it was silence on the comms system.

  “David, locate Carrie on the internal sensors,” he said to the lieutenant.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied tapping some commands into his computer.

  “Sir, I am showing Carrie and Tyrell in the main shuttle bay,” he said curiously.

  Barrington suddenly became nervous. He opened his mind and tried to let Carrie enter his thoughts. It was blank. There was no response to his instinctual calling of her.

  “Barrington to main shuttle bay,” he said into his comm system.

  It was an open channel and would have been heard from the general announcement speakers. There was no response.

  “Sir, I am showing main shuttle bay hangar doors have been opened,” Chavel suddenly said.

  “What?” Barrington said suddenly running through a multitude of possible horror scenarios that included Tyrell kidnapping his daughter. He stood from his centre chair and moved to Chavel’s station. Boyett turned to look at the pair as Barrington stood over the lieutenant’s shoulder. He tapped the open ship wide comm channel on Chavel’s panel.

  “Barrington to any personnel on the main shuttle bay, please respond,” he said.

  No answer.

  “Sir, I am showing the departure of the shuttle from the main docking bay,” said Chavel with urgency in his voice.

  “Close the doors!” Barrington said.

  “I can’t, sir, they have been manually overridden from inside the hangar bay,” said Chavel, “Shuttle craft is moving off.”

  “Visual,” said the captain. The view screen overhead flickered as the image of the sleek looking craft slipped into view. It was shaped like an arrowhead, with two dark triangular windows at the front.

  “Move to intercept, Charly,” he said to his first officer in the flight chair.

  The young Latin American woman responded quickly. “On it, sir,” she replied changing course to give chase.

  Barrington watched as the shuttle craft slowly made its way across the view screen.

  “Sir, I have an incoming transmission from the shuttle craft,” said Ferrate from behind the captain.

  “Let’s hear it,” said Barrington fearing the worst.

  The central view screen was replaced with an image of his daughter. She had sadness in her eyes, but she looked uninjured. He scanned the view screen and saw movement behind her. He looked over at Chavel, who was looking up at the screen with his mouth open.

  “Carrie, what the hell are you doing?” Barrington said in shock.

  “Father, I have to leave with Tyrell,” she replied.

  “Excuse me?” Barrington replied thinking how much damage he would do if he just rammed the side of The Agathon into the shuttle.

  “Just listen to me. We are not going to find the Signal Makers on our own out here, and Tyrell, or rather The Black, needs me to come with him,” she said.

  Barrington stood from the centre seat.

  “Carrie, you get your ass back here right now and I may consider not throwing you in the brig for the rest of this journey,” he could tell that the fear that he was feeling was clearly coming through in his voice.

  “Father, you have to trust me, please let me go,” she replied softly.

  “Not gonna happen,” he replied, “Boyett, increase speed. Get us in front of her,” he said.

  Boyett nodded quietly and began manoeuvring the ship past the small craft.

  “I wouldn’t do that, Captain,” Tyrell’s voice said from behind Carrie.

  She regressed back from the image as Tyrell’s face filled the screen.

  “Tyrell, you have ten seconds to bring that shuttle back or I am gonna …”

  “Captain, we do not have time for idle threats, and you have to pay very close attention,” Tyrell said cutting off Barrington who at this point was struggling to control his rage.

  “As your people say, you have my word that no harm will come to Carrie. She is far too important. For the past several hours there has been a coolant leak steadily flowing from the rear of the ship. You can check this with the engine room. In 8 minutes, I am going to send a container of FTL drive plasma towards that leak and detonate it. I suggest you land the ship, as the resulting sub space tear that will form at its centre will likely result in gravitational eddies in the surrounding space time that could destroy The Agathon,” he said.

  The bridge fell silent as Barrington looked over at Boyett. She shook her head at him not knowing anything about the leak. He should have killed Tyrell on the planet when he had the chance. None of this made any sense. Something in him told him that he was telling the truth about not wanting to harm her.

  “Doctor, I can’t do that and you know it. Now bring the shuttle craft back,” he said through gritted teeth.

  He could feel his late wife Jennifer screaming at him from her grave to ’Save Carrie’. Is this what she meant? Save her from Tyrell? He had always told himself that her final words had not actually meant anything, as Carrie had not been in danger at the time. It was probably just some random part of her
speech centre that was firing at the time of her death. A subconscious memory or fear from a dream she once had. Still, the sentence haunted him. In the end, it had been Carrie that had saved him.

  “Captain, you must land the ship on the planet surface below. There is no time to discuss this. For your sake and for mine, Carrie must come with me,” he paused and looked at the captain, “The planet below is an ancient one. Before I left for engineering I located the star system in the limited data charts you have on board the ship. You can access them by entering in the following algorithm.”

  Tyrell flicked his eyes below the screen and looked like he was punching in something on a keypad.

  “Sir, I am receiving a data link from the shuttle,” Chavel said.

  Barrington ignored him. He was furiously trying to think of ways to disable the shuttle craft without destroying it.

  “Included in the data link I have sent you, are the specifications for the FTL drive that will protect the ship from the space time distortions that caused time to slow while in hyperspace, along with coordinates of some habitable worlds that you can land the ship safely. Captain, it is imperative that you do not stay too long on these worlds. The Targlagdu now knows of your existence and will be tracking the ship. If you want The Agathon to survive, you must let me leave with Carrie,” he said.

  The comm system suddenly cut off and Chavel looked back at the captain.

  “Sir, I can run an electromagnetic pulse along the hull of the ship and make contact with their hull. It should knock out their systems,” he said eagerly.

  “Yeah, along with their life support, sir, it could cause an engine overload and blow them up,” replied Boyett.

  Chavel looked at her furiously.

  “We have to do something, sir,” Chavel suddenly said looking panicked.

  Barrington gave his suggestion serious consideration and was about to give the order to proceed when Carrie’s face entered the view screen. She suddenly appeared clearly in his mind.