by Jim Rudnick
The satellite lay on its side, the large array propped up on one end and the solid hull facing the group.
"Sir, here she is—we so far have noted the following," Sheldon stated.
"Normal steel and magnesium alloy is the hull material; arrays all in copper and tungsten, which is a bit odd, but they've held up very well. The hull itself has no entry point that we could find—at least ‘til Chief Warrant Officer Hartford here thought to send a coded signal to the satellite just like we did up on the bridge. Watch this, Sir," Sheldon said as Hartford moved ahead with a tablet at the ready.
He keyed in something, Tanner saw, and then hit the submit button, and the satellite did nothing. But in the center of the hull, a section of ot suddenly turned a bright blue—almost the usual force field blue that was familiar here on the RIM, and it stayed lit that way for a full moment.
"What did you send?" Tanner asked.
"Sir, just the same message as any foundry would send to the satellite INBOX, the simple 'good to go' message that we used earlier. I just wish I had something else to send, like an 'open the door' type message. But we've no idea on the fabricator’s language or the like to be able to craft that kind of key to the door—if that blue area is a door."
They all stood and stared, and a minute or two later, the blue section of the hull went back to flat gray in color, and the efficacy of that message had obviously been passed.
"Comments?" Tanner asked them all.
Chief Warrant Officer Hartford spoke up first. "Sir, with the proper language or code skills, we may be able to open that up. Of course, failing that, we can simply laser it open, but we've no idea on what that might cost us in the long run," he said, but everyone could tell he wanted to use the laser to gain entry.
"Sir," Sheldon said, "with the satellite here—in our hands—we have effectively broken the ability of the foundries to 'talk' to their home world, wherever that might be. Or whenever too, I'd imagine. So a cautionary note that if anyone is monitoring this satellite from afar, it's just gone dead. Which might bring someone looking for same. Course, that might be two thousand years out of date—we've no real idea, Sir."
Everyone there weighed that information too.
The XO said. "Lets open her up and see what's inside—if we have the um, authority to do that, Sir?"
Tanner had no real answer yet, so he took the easy path for now. "Seal this bay off. No entry without explicit authorizations from me, let's make it. I'll put together a master report—but I want your own on my console within the day, and I'll send it off to the Executive Council STAT. Will that suffice, captain Siegel," he queried.
The RIM Navy captain nodded. "And of course, I'll reply with my own report to the admiral. But so far, I see nothing here that I don't agree with—other than at my age, sometimes opening up a box whose contents you don't know can get you in big troubles. Especially with alien technology, Captain," he said rather dryly, and the ad hoc investigative team broke up to go their separate ways.
#####
Later that evening, over what could only be called drinks, Tanner nodded at the Lady St. August, and yet he frowned at the same time.
Still in high orbit around Memories, the Sterling had arrived with a group of the refugees for their visits down to the planet tomorrow, but Tanner had been quickly invited over to the Sterling for a private dinner with Helena.
They had had a nice dinner prepared by the Sterling chefs, and he especially enjoyed something called foie gras, which appeared to be the liver of a duck. A huge Garnuthian duck, he assumed, as the delicate yet oh so tasty slice had been all of nine inches across. Seared, he thought, and with some kind of reduction—but hey, I'm a navy guy not some kind of gourmet—but boy it had tasted great!
Since the dinner, they'd been talking. She talked about her latest readings in the Blood of the Barony—the book that was passed down from one baron to another, generation after generation, that held whatever a baron or baroness had wanted to write down. Handwritten. From the minds and souls of the men and women who ruled billions. Thoughts on what they did or said or planets they conquered or lost to over the thousands of years since the book began. The fact that the Baron who had died just a few years ago had passed it to his daughter, the Lady St. August, instead of to his wife, the current Baroness, said much. And the book, as Helena said repeatedly, had much to tell.
They talked about Throth and her recent visit to see how the Ikarians had settled into their new home world. She had been pleased with just about everything she'd seen and heard, and the children? Thousands of them all within a year or two in age, yet studious, solemn, and the most polite aliens she'd ever met. Ahanu was the best greeter and tour leader she'd ever had in visiting more than sixty planets here on the RIM, and yet, there was still something about him that made her think there was more there, hiding somehow.
Tanner was grateful she avoided the subject of the Ikarian payment for the Atlas. She had been at his side when the Ikarians turned over some of their children to the Seenra to pay the bill for the new Atlas ship, and that was something he would never forget. He'd been most upset that the Barony had given the Ikarians a world of their own and in exchange, the Ikarians gave up those children to the Seenra—so that the Ikarian virus could be made into a vaccine for their race. Wrong, plain wrong, but then as a mere captain here on the RIM, it was way above his pay grade.
Helena shared about the Sterling and her thoughts that her captain, Flannery was his name, was getting ready to pull the pin and retire, and what was she to do about that? Finding a good captain—one who could handle a Royal every single day—was an issue she was not looking forward to for sure.
After general conversation, Helena broached the subject of their personal relationship and their future. She mentioned the point they were at now, and while he could have found many things already discussed to find fault with—it was this that seemed to cause him some concern.
She looked at him, and he knew he'd just missed a question. He had been listening but somehow ...
"Tanner—do you have nothing to say to that? I just asked you if Flannery leaves the Barony Navy, then I might consider giving up my Sterling and coming here to the Atlas to be the Royal in residence. You'd be my captain, Captain," she said, and there was a hint of playfulness in her statement.
Ah … our future. Got it, he thought.
"Ma’am—you're royalty. You can, of course, do what you will—and we'd love to have you here on the Atlas as our official Royal. That's not a problem at all," he said while inside he could think of many issues that would bring up. Familiarity, disagreements, and ship’s duties to name a few, and yet he smiled at her.
"Another way to put this, Tanner, is that we appear to be a couple. I'd even say a couple in love—do you agree?" and he nodded to that as yes, he really did think that he was in love with Helena.
"And as such, our future is therefore plain to see. As I do not want to be what do they call it—a 'kept woman,' then we will need to think of Royal bands, marriage issues and needs, and then what we might want to do with the rest of our lives together. Agreed, my love?" she said.
He nodded. If they were to continue as they had been, yes, she would be his “occasional whenever their paths crossed” woman. But more? Then that led to the fact that he'd be marrying a Royal. Good Christ, then I’d be a Royal too!
She watched his eyes expand and nodded. She had known that if he thought about this at all, then he'd finally get the fact that he would be becoming a Royal too.
"Yes, I see you've just gotten the only catch in our future—that yes, you would become a Royal via marriage to me too. We would also grant you a peerage too, so that our children would eventually become barons and baronesses too. This is all new, I know, but we have lots of time to work out the details and all, don't we, hon?" she said as she took another big slurp of the Quaran Cabernet Sauvignon they were sharing.
He'd not checked, but he was sure that whatever the vintage, it would be wor
th more than his whole month's salary. Royals, he thought, live outside of things like pay and budgets and savings. He smiled at her.
He didn't know what else to do. It was like being caught up in a whirlwind on Earth and not seeing where you were going, nor for that matter what might lay ahead.
He really did care—love, he thought, was the proper word for his feelings—for Helena. Sensitive, smart, honest, yet somehow still a Royal when it came to cunning and planning and strategic thinking.
Yet this all was happening faster than he'd thought possible.
He was going to get married.
He was going to be a Royal.
He probably would have to give up his Navy captaincy.
He was moving to a new level that he had no idea what was offered—other than this woman.
He nodded as he smiled and moved in to kiss her on the cheek., He was lost—that he did know.
#####
"We look like—or will look like—to anyone who comes searching for their terraformers, that we are aggressors," the Master Adept said, and that hung over the Executive Council meeting like a sword.
The meeting had gone well so far, and the only real bone of contention to one and all was the vetting of the recommendation from all their experts on Memories about what to do with these terraformer foundries.
All of them—the Lady St. August, Captain Siegel of the Nugent, representing the RIM Confederacy Navy, the Barony Navy represented by captain Tanner Scott, and even the Roma refugees—agreed on one thing. That the foundries should be destroyed. It was better to pre-empt upfront any new race that would come to sit a few lights off their southern border. It was better to simply bomb the foundries from space and then await the next step of what would happen.
But all, as the Master Adept had foreseen, had to agree that they had no jurisdiction outside their boundaries.
The Baroness spoke to that in measured tones. "While it's not news to anyone at the table, might I remind you all that just a year and some back, that the Barony asked the RIM Confederacy for permission to annex the planet Ghayth—outside of our boundaries at that time as well. We were granted that permission and our planet building is a roaring success. Plus, the RIM Navy moved our boundary buoys to now include the Valissian system too—which effectively is the same situation that we have here," she said calmly.
That got some nods around the table.
The admiral spoke up then. "But other than the fact that these refugees have asked for help from the Barony, that realm is not involved—so I'd think that the closest member of the Confederacy, which is KappaD, should then annex Memories, we move the buoys, and voila—we are not aggressors at all but simply increasing our own borders. That and the fact that as a KappaD annexed world, Memories would then get the full support of the combined RIM forces. That seems to be the prudent way to go—am I not correct?" he said, and his voice was anything but a question.
The Doge of Conclusion, Oskar Arndt, nodded and said simply, "We agree to the annexation."
The Duke d'Avigdor nodded as well indicating his agreement.
The Caliph said, "Yes, that'll work fine."
The Master Adept nodded only.
And the Chairman called for a vote, which the clerk recorded as a unanimous record and it was carried.
"Someone will need to speak to the gerent of KappaD—and as I'm sure you all know," the Chairman said dryly, "there will be some squawking about costs and budgets as well. That will be worked out, but for now, yes, let's move on to the Customs questions over on Hope," he said and nodded to the clerk who rose to lay out the back story on the new squabbles on customs for ores leaving Hope.
#####
"Sir, the Nugent is pulling up, she's arrived," Lieutenant Irving said on the Ansible station.
Tanner nodded and almost spilled his tea onto his uniform. He smiled. Hadn't been too long ago that I’d do that on purpose to just make a quick visit to my quarters to add some Scotch to my coffee. Now, it was tea and I haven’t thought of booze in quite a while. No needs, he thought, and he turned almost around to speak to Major Stal, his Marine CO on the Atlas.
"We good, Major?" he said and set the tea down carefully on his messy console. “Damn reports,” he said to himself for the third time today.
The marine major checked—then double-checked—his own monitor and looked up at his captain.
"Sir, we appear to be okay—but then I just got the requests from the Nugent—seems she wants to play today too. Sir. At least that’s what this says," he said, and a new flashing icon lit up on Tanner's monitor. He didn't bother to read it but waved toward his major and tilted his head to one side.
"Sir, they wish to run a smaller squadron—twenty ships—and take the full northern continent—the bigger one. We would then have to stand down, say, at least ten of our own Wing to allow that, Sir," he said, and he turned to Colonel Richards, the Atlas Wing commander who sat beside him, and who nodded.
"Fifteen would be more like it," he said, and one could tell that he wished it was not so.
The bombing of the terraforming foundries would occur later today, and it was the Atlas that was charged with that duty—except a STAT Ansible came in just moments ago that the Nugent, the RIM Confederacy destroyer, was being deployed off Memories as well and she was to take part in the bombing.
Tanner wondered why that was. The Atlas was more than capable of handling such duties, yet the Nugent had been suddenly included. Why was the question, but more than that, at whose real order?
He shook his head. He really had no time for this, and he simply grinned to them both. "Let's play nice here and give them what they want. However, Colonel, I want you in your reply granting them that target continent that you will also be sending along audit vessels so that we can confirm each and every foundry destruction. Note in no uncertain words too, that each is to be totally destroyed—none of this wounding or even knocking them over. We want them dead. Make that plain, please?" Tanner said and sipped his tea again.
An hour later at lunchtime, Tanner received a PDA message from Chief Warrant Officer Hartford, the alien who was his lead on the anti-grav units and their testing, and accepted his lunch invite. As he left the bridge, he let his XO know where he was going.
He went down to Deck Five to the landing bay—through same—down Deck Five again into engineering, and then up to Deck Four where the labs were that the lunch was being held. He smiled at the Provost guard who was on picket duty at the doorway and went through to find Hartford alone at a table with some equipment on the lab benches behind him.
Lunch was delivered within minutes, and Tanner was pleased that it was Garnuthian ribs. They had the best rub he had ever tasted on thirty worlds, and the fact they were from some kind of a bird didn't de-tune his taste buds at all.
"Sir, thanks so much for the acceptance, I wanted you to see what kind of progress we've made—and I wanted it to be private for your eyes only."
"Sounds pretty deep here, Chief, what could be more news than we have discovered anti-gravity? No one else has ever done that in the life of our galaxy—and while to be perfectly honest, we more found it than made it—it works, yes?" Tanner said.
The chief nodded. "Sir, to explain—you will remember that the anti-grav field is generated with three items. The blue lower plate, the copper plate that rises, and the biosensor gel that must lie on top of that copper plate. Three parts, right?" he said matter-of-factly.
"Agreed. What have you discovered then, Chief?"
"Sir we've been playing with the blue plate, Sir—the one that needs to be 'anchored,' if you will, into a gravity well. If it sits on the ground, then the ground is the basis of the upwards movement of the copper plate. If it sits on a ship in orbit—then it's that ship deck that is the gravity well. Well, Sir, we had some thoughts on that, and so we moved the three items outside into space to see what would happen, Sir—and that's the surprise. Here, Sir, take a look," he said as he keyed something onto his tablet and the b
ig view-screen on the wall lit up.
In a makeshift scaffolding, Tanner could see the blue plate on the bottom of the deck of the empty set of tubes. And on top of that blue plate, a tech in a spacesuit placed the copper plate, pressed it down, and then quickly added some of that purple gel they had taken from the original anti-grav units on Ghayth.
What should have happened did happen. The copper plate rose about a few feet and hovered there. The techie moved in to push and try to move the copper plate, but just as on a planet or in a spaceship, the copper plate was immovable.
"Watch here, Sir," Hartford said.
The techie moved down a few feet, picked up the blue plate, and moved it out of alignment with the copper one—and nothing happened. The copper plate with its layer of purple gel did not move. It stayed right where it had been all along, like it was being supported by something else as the blue plate was no longer its counterpart.
The techie went back to the copper plate and again, no matter what he did, the plate did not move a millimeter. He added more gel, and it went up farther from where it had been, but there was no blue plate for it to work with.
Hartford turned off the video and looked at his captain, who went back to his ribs with some ideas percolating in his brain.
"Chief—what does this mean to us?" was his first question as it always made sense to seek counsel when something untoward occurred.
"Sir, yes ... here's what we think. That somehow the technology in the blue plate which forces up the copper plate is definitely using the gravity well that the blue plate finds itself in when the gel is added. That in a real gravity well, like on a planet, the blue and copper plates are immovable, Sir."
He leaned in then. "But Sir, when you take the gravity well away, as you just saw, the same effect is achieved—and we don't know how. Other than to guess that the blue plate itself has no technology at all, but is a simple lens or focus for the gravity well we are all in—the galaxy itself. Sir, this is so exciting!" he finished off.
