by Chris Hechtl
“Are we ready?” Renee typed, breaking him out of his woolgathering.
“Let the games begin. I bet Dad set up a dozy,” Josh said.
“Remember the plan,” Taylor texted to the others. “Stay focused.
“Ah, so there is a plan,” Walter said into his microphone. He watched his voice turned into text to be transmitted to each of them as he pulled up the scenario. He'd let them go four against one but he'd held out for the choice of the battlefield and mission.
“Okay, the game is simple. Four against one. I'm it, you four have to take me out.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Renee said dubiously.
“Too simple,” Kenneth said warily. “Where is the other shoe, Dad?”
“Well, I've got the battlecruiser, each of you have a heavy cruiser. I'll give you a few minutes to set your ship's stats up of course. Real world physics apply. The time scale is a hundred to one, but there will be a time lag. Oh, there is a time limit since I've got a shift in seven and a half hours.”
“No special weapons?” Kenneth asked.
“Only weapons we know work currently. No special toys,” Walter agreed.
“Humph, sounds too easy,” Taylor said.
“Well, since I'm the target I've got a five-minute head start. Which I'll take advantage of now while you get your ships in order,” Walter replied as he started the scenario and loaded his battlecruiser. It wasn't his favorite ship but it outgunned each of the kid's cruisers. They'd have to come at him with more than one ship to take him down.
But, on the flip side, if he could pick them off one by one they were toast. Even two on one he'd still inflict a lot of damage on them he thought as the computer started the scenario. He watched the planets move into their proper positions and then the asteroid belts and other things paint themselves in. He had a short-range sensor field, but he'd taken advantage of choosing the map to memorize it. He knew where all the planets were and where there were some good hiding spots. He also had four general plans already plotted out in his mind.
Now it was time to see if they'd work he thought as the countdown began to fall. He wiggled his fingers as he sent the ship off to his first waypoint. He kicked out a decoy, spy sat, and a mine then used a large rock to slingshot around on a new heading to his second waypoint. He loaded a new script into a bot and prepped his next deployment. Another decoy, spy sat, and mine were launched when the countdown hit the two-minute mark.
“This should be interesting,” he murmured, as the timer hit the one-minute mark. One last decoy, spy sat, and mine and then he kicked his ship's engines into afterburner for a brief moment before he cut them and went dark at the ten-second mark. As the seconds ticked down, his virtual ship went into stealth.
~~*^*~~
“I can't believe he did that!” Kenneth grumbled, voice amused yet resigned as he watched Renee run from the battlecruiser. She'd burned too much fuel trying to rush to Josh's aide however, so she was in trouble.
“Watch it,” he murmured, checking her course. She couldn't hear him, but he still acted like she could. Sure enough, she headed for a slingshot around a large rock, and as she rounded the rock, the glitter of a spy sat and a mine were waiting there. The mine went off as she frantically tried to change course.
“Frack!” Renee muttered as her ship took damage. She pitched over and headed to the sun, intent on doing a slingshot and loosing herself in the sun's radiation, but her father's ship was already inside her course, cutting her off. One salvo was all it took to finish the job his mine had started.
When the game concluded, Captain Lewis teased his kids about not quite being up to taking down dear old dad. “Even together you couldn't do it!”
“I thought they'd learn a lesson from the wolf pack but they came apart in the execution,” Tiffany said in disappointment.
“Timing. Time lag is still something we need to work on,” Taylor, their eldest son replied.
“Next time Dad, Mom. Or the next one after that. You know you are getting on in years. You are getting slow and sloppy in your dotage,” Kenneth, teased right back. “Another year and you'll be in a rocking chair.”
His twin brother Josh snickered loudly.
“Yeah right,” Walter scoffed.
“You know it. Mom'll be right there with you. Of course, then we'll be playing you all the time and you'll be insufferable,” Renee replied. As the baby of the family and since she'd just started a semester ago, she still had a few years to go before she graduated college. She was still adjusting to being away from mom and dad. Having three overbearing brothers around to watch her maintain her virginity hadn't been an easy adjustment for her either.
Seeing their little sister on campus had been something of an adjustment for the brothers too. Suddenly they saw the girls they'd been dating as someone else's sister. It had put a damper on some of their dating antics.
“I heard that,” Tiffany retorted from her seat. “You're going to have a fat ear and tanned ass if you keep running off with that mouth,” she warned. That got the kids sputtering in amusement. Tiffany had threatened them a few times but rarely had ever had to raise her hands to the kids. She had other ways of getting her point across they all knew.
“Sure,” Walter said as he sat back in amusement. He knew it wasn't true; they would get a few games together but not many more. The kids were nearly of the age to take on their own ship assignments.
“You lot get back to your studies. I'm looking forward to seeing Jan Kepler tomorrow to play some against a real challenge,” he said.
“That's right, there is a tournament coming up,” Kenneth murmured wickedly. “Better be on time dad or you'll get dethroned,” he warned.
“Not by the likes of you. Even if I have to log in and play with a handicap across the solar system, I'll still play and win,” Walter said.
“Night kids. Love you all,” Tiffany interjected before the trash talk got out of hand again. “Go to bed at a decent hour all of you! I'll be watching!” she warned in a mother's ominous tone of voice.
“Yes, Mom,” each of the kids said meekly. Walter snorted as they signed off.
~~*^*~~
Jan Kepler rubbed the small of her back, then placed her hands on her hips to roll her shoulders. She needed to get the kinks out; she'd been sitting too long. When that didn't help, she did a couple of yoga exercises to relieve some of the strain on her lower back and hamstrings.
She was a Kepler, a spacer family going back five generations. Her ancestors had built habitats, walked on asteroids and moons, and had plied space between all of them. Jan Kelper was a ship's captain; her family owned her sublight ship, the Kepler Express, a multipurpose vessel. Her parents had worked for Radick Industries in the shipyard for decades before their retirement. Her parents, aunts, uncles, and even her grandparents had worked in shipping or in the shipyards during the A.I. war.
She has three siblings that were ship captains. Together the family owned a small but growing sublight shipping business, Kepler Shipping Inc. “Keep it Kepler” was the company motto. For the past two years, they had been trying to make the jump to interstellar. So far, they'd been close to purchasing a ship, but the sale had fallen apart. They had no intention of purchasing a Spaceduck, which made the process difficult. Her parents had tried to work their contacts in Radick Industries to get a better deal, but so far, they hadn't managed to get lucky
The colony lottery was still the most lucrative funding method for interstellar ventures, second only to public funding projects. Starships were coming and going to the docks in Mars and Earth orbit. They took on fuel, provisions, cargo, and loads of hopeful colonists looking for a fresh start on a new world. Her family wanted in on that growing market. Freight was still light, but eventually the colonies would have to begin paying back their debt to the banks and the government she knew. Which meant they'd have to find a way to move goods to and from the colonies.
And eventually those colonies would ship goods between each o
ther. Trade was the sinew that bound an economy together.
The most recent star system, Wolf 1061, had a planet in the habitation zone, Wolf 1061c, that Mars Tek had just begun terraforming. The star system was fourteen light years away with at least one planet that was like Venus she thought as she continued her stretching exercises. Regular milk runs back and forth would be great, though they'd most likely saturate the market pretty quickly.
Which meant the colony needed time. Time to grow into the market in the first place she reminded herself. Every colony had a debt to work off, and every colony needed more manufactured goods from Sol. The balance of trade was not in their favor, which was why she was still trying to find a better hook for the investors to latch onto.
Part of her problem was Colony Ship. The media show was popular, trending near the top of all fictional shows in the solar system currently in production. But there were a host of other shows too, including one show that was a documentary of a real colony ship and crew. The fictional one did far better in the ratings though, fantasy trumped realism of course Jan thought as she pursed her lips. Every week the fictional ship's crew dealt with various emergencies, some equipment failures, but the most exciting were fighting off marauding pirates or strange aliens.
Stories about space weather were popular. Though many who lived in space knew that cosmic rays were more or less everywhere, and solar storms were dangerous … if you were in the path of it. But try telling the story writers that!
The occasional claim jumper story line had prompted Congress to act and pass a law banning such practices as well as laying out severe penalties to anyone who sold the rights to a fictional planet or committed mass murder. How they could enforce any of it was anyone's guess. It had become pretty clear that the law had no teeth.
Her other problem was Congress. They were still dealing with the dozens of no-interest loans that had been passed out like candy to the colonies in the past two decades. A few months ago someone had realized that the loans were long term and that they were a losing proposition. Earth First had put a stop on them. It hadn't cut off the colony movement, but it had temporarily stopped funding of new colonies.
Now all that was coming to roost with the public she knew. Earth First was no longer popular with the masses on Earth after attacking the colony movement.
The government had passed a series of laws to prevent the exo-colonies from slipping out from under their debt. Some were concerned over the government becoming tyrannical with the over regulation and “nanny state.”
“We're just projecting our financial investments,” Senator Calhoun had said in an interview.
There was growing concern from investors that some colonists might default on loan payments. From the colonist's point of view, they were concerned that the investors would change the rates without their consent and even hire mercenaries to enforce new rules … or sell off the rights to a planet right out from under them. Already they'd had problems with some unscrupulous companies sending unwanted shipments of colonists to existing colonies and tacking a lien on the star system, adding to their debt.
She shook her head. Congress should act on that, she thought. Not that they would, she thought moodily.
Regular mail runs had been established with the Radick Spaceduck class ships. The local market within ten light years of Sol was sown up. There were few interstellar freighters; most leased their services as colony haulers. Trade with the colonies was light she knew. Why go through the trouble of shipping food across the interstellar void?
She shook her head at such bleak thoughts. Something had to be done. She had to find a niche, a market to exploit if the company was ever going to go interstellar.
Maybe getting a Spaceduck was the way to go, she thought. Or send someone out on a duck as crew, see what it was like, get a report and decide to go from there? She frowned and then checked the log. Everything was running shipshape so she ditched the long-term planning in favor of an energy bar and a quick game of naval strategy before she made the rounds in the ship.
Chapter 13
Kioshi Varbossa shook his head as he went through the motions of his job. It wasn't that he was bored or not taking it seriously, it was all something else. He was the XO of the family's Liberty class freighter and third in the naval strategist game rankings. He was hungry for the top spot but knew he had tough competition in Jan Kepler and Walter Lewis. He was also aware that there were up and coming people under him who were hungry for his own slot.
The only thing he had going for him was the hope that their duties as ship captains would keep Jan and Walter too busy to play regularly. Of course, that hadn't stopped either of them from trouncing him during last season's tournament.
The strategy game was the one place he was allowed to excel at. He'd been told that when his father retired his uncle would take over the family ship. Most likely his uncle would shake the chain of command up, which meant he'd either displace someone lower or end up off the ship in some office. He didn't like that idea at all. However, he was loyal to his family.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he'd look into gaming professionally? It was tempting he thought. The people at the top had the most respect not just because of their standings but also because they were officers. They stood watch on a real ship; they knew the intricacies of shipboard life inside and out. It was why he'd disdained the naval sim packages, the ones that had the player running a ship's crew as an officer. He'd rather stick to the third person strategy games he thought as he mentally worked on his next challenge to remain in his top form. Another hour and he'd be off shift, and he'd be able to log in and play he reminded himself.
That was as long as nothing went wrong and everyone reported for duty as expected he reminded himself.
~~*^*~~
Captain Don Quixote Kar'nage fought to keep an impassive face as the Radick technicians finished up the work on his ship the Iron Vulture. She was a massive multipurpose sublight freighter that he and his backers had purchased from the Marines ten years ago.
If all went according to plan, his ship would do something few others had, make the jump to the stars. But that was only step two he thought as he strode through the ship's decks, avoiding the work parties and stepping over knee knockers.
He was a Neocoyote-dingo half breed, a rare combination in the Neo community. Coyotes had never been popular in the animal kingdom on Earth. His Neo ancestors had been created by Radick Industries as special operatives. He'd kept his ties to the company even when he went independent. When he'd purchased the Iron Vulture, he'd built a solid crew of Neos, most of them canines like himself.
There were plenty of Neos to choose from. Most were in their own habitats in Mars orbit and also in enclaves on Earth and on Mars. Doctor Glass still struggled to keep them together and out of trouble, but Don was past caring what the humans thought of them. He'd argued eloquently to embrace their animal heritage and the food chain. He'd built off of the unity all Neos shared against Lagroose Industries.
Outfitting his beloved ship with grav emitters, sensors, a hyperdrive and other gear had taken a lot of money. Money he'd earned … and sometimes some of his crew had stolen. It would all be worth it in the end he knew.
Once they'd had the funding, the ship had been rebuilt by his contacts in Radick Industries. To some it seemed like a legitimate yet foolhardy deal; to others it had appeared shady. The captain didn't care what others thought of the deal. The company's board knew that the Neos hated Lagroose Industries and saw them as a way to help disrupt their rival.
He grinned slyly as he finished making the rounds. If they only knew he thought, checking out the stasis pods. His stated intention was to create a Neo colony in a star system only he knew about. The truth was … a bit more complex than that.
All they had left was some minor touch ups that his XO and others were overseeing, plus a shipment of parts coming up from a manufacturer on the ground. The parts couldn't be installed of course. There would be too many questi
ons, but the captain knew his crew could do something about that when they were far away from any prying eyes.
~~*^*~~
Wesley Rogers shook his head as he checked the shuttle over. Daringer Shuttle Enterprises was a good gig. His family were fourth-generation Martians, and he didn't mind working for Daringer. It was a good job, running the shuttles up and down the gravity well paid the bills. He had a couple cousins in the Radick shipyard. His parents had been dropship pilots during the A.I. war. His father had died a year after he'd been born.
“We're almost ready to go,” he said as he finished his walk around of the shuttle. He checked the loading progress and then nodded. The cargo was destined for the Radick shipyard. He wasn't certain why they needed so many linear electromagnets, but it wasn't his problem.
~~*^*~~
Roger Daringer checked the stat board and then wiggled his fingers. His father was an owner/operator of a shuttle business that ran cargo and people up and down Mars' gravity well to the habitats and stations in orbit. His grandfather had run supplies for the Space Marines during the A.I. War; Roger's father had served on his grandfather's ship. Their stories and stories he'd read about warships had sparked his interest in all things navy. It was a pity that there wasn't a real one. The virtual one would have to do he thought.
Which was just as well. At thirteen he knew he'd never be a flag officer as he was in the naval game. Not many in the game knew his actual age. Ever since he'd hit puberty, he'd been able to hide it better. It was funny; he'd had a devil of a time getting proper opponents early on due to his age. He'd goaded a few into taking him on, and when he'd gotten trounced or beaten them, he'd done his best to handle the situation with as much maturity as he could muster. Well, as much as a prodigy his age could he reminded himself.
