Shadow Space Chronicles 1: The Fallen Race

by Kal Spriggs

  “That’s what?” Lucius asked matter-of-factly, “Two destroyers, a patrol cutter, maybe a squadron of fighters or so, and a couple of corvettes? If that force couldn’t destroy a crippled battlecruiser, what exactly do you think it will do to two fully armed and operational capital ships?”

  There was a longer pause on behalf of the patrol craft. “I repeat, turn aside from your course or you will be fired upon.”

  Lucius smiled even more, “Patrol cutter, you seem to be losing forces as we speak.” One of the destroyers and both corvettes began to break orbit, not in the direction of Lucius, but in the opposite direction.

  “No doubt they are going for reinforcements?” Lucius asked. “You just cannot trust mercenaries anymore, can you?” He let that bit of information sink in, and then he turned up the heat. “Our ships will move into a high altitude orbit of your planet in a little less than an hour. We will not initiate any hostile moves and we hope that you will not. Any use of force against us will bring instant retaliation.”

  Lucius waited.

  “What do you want?” the voice was subdued now.

  “I want to talk to whoever is in charge down there.” Lucius replied. He kept his voice level. He did not want to sound hostile, merely strong.

  “The Contractor is a busy person–”

  “Whom, without a doubt, will want to meet with the commander of the two ships that can turn your colony to cinders,” Lucius answered. He didn’t like making threats, but he had to make it clear who held the better hand up front.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  ***

  The planet was quite beautiful, Lucius decided upon arrival. No pleasure world, to be sure, no West Eden or Hannishland, but beautiful all the same. Just beyond the spaceport he saw a dense forest, with hills and mountains rising beyond. The spaceport could adequately be described as ‘quaint,’ from the simple concrete pads and metal-roofed sheds to the small brick customs station squatting next to the gate.

  In the distance, however, he noticed what looked like a scrapyard, dozens of ships, mostly tramp freighters, squatted in a large field near some large structures. He wondered at that, particularly since he saw a great deal of activity in the area. Almost looks like a refugee fleet, he realized.

  He stepped off the shuttle, followed by two Marines in full battle armor. He didn’t expect anything as… foolish as an assassination attempt, but Major Proscia had insisted. Lucius hadn't wanted to argue and a part of him had agreed.

  The group of well-armed men who awaited him suggested the wisdom of that decision. They wore dark green uniforms and several wore body armor. “I am Captain Giovanni, I’ve come in good faith.”

  The group that faced him stood still, obviously hesitant to start a fight with Marines in power armor. A couple of them looked back, as if they weren’t sure what to do.

  In his ear bud, he heard Major William’s voice, “Baron, my men have the second shuttle ready to launch with the rest of my Marines. I spoke with your escort. You will now have a full squad accompany you while on planet.”

  “Who is in charge?” Lucius snapped at the waiting men.

  Finally a uniformed officer stepped around the armed men gathered at the ramp, “I’m Captain Beeson of the Faraday Defense Forces.” He was a tall, beefy man, with dark brown hair and a ruddy complexion.

  “Captain Beeson, I am Captain Giovanni. I was assured I would be granted access to your Contractor and would not be harmed along the way,” Lucius said.

  The other man flushed, “We do not negotiate with pirates.”

  Lucius walked down the ramp and extended his hand. The other man towered over him, and not for the first time, Lucius wished he stood at least a little taller, “Good. I’m not a pirate. I’m a military officer. As a military officer, I know that the military is bound by a code of honor. Will you honor our agreement?”

  The other man spat at Lucius's feet, “We’ll honor our end, leave your men here.”

  Lucius ignored the insult, though he mentally made note of the man's behavior. Either he was some kind of hothead or he was willing to deliberately provoke Lucius and his men into a firefight, possibly because he had additional forces ready to commit. The first spoke poorly of his temper, the latter suggested that he was brave and dangerous. Lucius shook his head, “They accompany me.”

  “Or else?” Captain Beeson’s eyes narrowed.

  Lucius sighed, “Captain, I have no intentions of harming your world. I want to make an offer to your Contractor, one that I believe, will make your world safer.”

  “Oh... you’re a merc.” Captain Beeson sneered and he looked as if he’d stepped in something foul. “Well... follow me.”

  ***

  The Office of the Contractor lay at the top of a high-rise.

  The relative lack of ostentation surprised Lucius. Most fringe worlds had peacock-like dictators or corrupt oligarchies that luxuriated in wealth. The offices did display wealth and power, but nothing more than a powerful corporation’s offices.

  He stumbled a bit, on entering the Contractor’s presence. He had not expected anything so progressive as a female leader, not on a backwater colony off the books. The Contractor was a woman of medium height with closely cut blonde hair and blue eyes. She was not classically attractive, Lucius decided. Her nose was too long and her jaw too strong, though there was a strength about her that he found attractive. She did not rise from her desk to greet him or offer him a seat in one of the chairs. She remained behind her desk, her blue eyes evaluated him. She absently brushed a lock of her blonde hair out of her eyes, “I am the Contractor.”

  He nodded politely, “I am Baron Lucius Giovanni, until lately of the Nova Roma Empire, and I’ve come to you with a business proposition.”

  She looked him up and down. He could see her eyes dissect him from his perfectly polished dress boots to his impeccable black dress uniform. Her eyes ranged over his service ribbons, though he doubted she recognized any of them. “You're a little short to be a warlord. You're a mercenary?”

  He felt a bit of tension relax in the muscles between his shoulder-blades. He realized that she didn't care about who his father was, or what he'd done. “I was once of the Imperial Fleet.”

  “So you’re a deserter then, and probably a pirate.”

  Lucius’s polite smile went away. “I did not desert. Nova Roma fell to the Chxor four days ago. We took too much damage in a recent battle to make it back in time.”

  She paled, “Nova Roma fell?” He could see her drawing the implications to her own world’s security. They weren’t good, Lucius knew, not with an entire sector of space now under the control of an expansionist alien power. “Four days ago, you said?”

  Lucius nodded, “There will probably be a number of ships fleeing the fall. It’s probable many pirates will take advantage of the chaos.”

  She grimaced, “You Nova Romans aren’t much better. We’ve a number of Saragossa refugees here. I’ve heard what you did there.”

  Lucius shrugged, “I didn’t make the foreign policy of my world. Every nation has done what it must to survive, since the fall of Amalgamated Worlds. At the time, we hoped turning Saragossa into a target would buy us a decade before the Chxor turned their attention to us.”

  “Well, we see how that little debacle turned out, don’t we?” the Contractor replied dryly.

  Lucius gritted his teeth, “Look, we can snipe at each other all day, or you can listen to my offer, and then go back to whatever business you do on this backwater colony.”

  She smiled icily, “Well, then, state your business.”

  “Thank you,” Lucius nodded, “Simply put, I’ve two warships. You could spend hundreds of millions of whatever currency you use building a shipyard large enough and then hundreds of millions more building the ships. You can outfit those ships for millions more, and then spend millions paying upkeep.” Lucius smiled, “Or you could pay me a few million to stick around and defend your system.”

  Th
e Contractor's eyes narrowed ,“Captain Beeson said one of those ships fired on us not too long ago.”

  “The Ghornath aboard said your people fired without warning when they questioned your people about a Ghornath refugee ship,” Lucius held her gaze until she looked away.

  “The last mercenaries we hired, the ones who fled your arrival, did the firing. Their captain assured us the Ghornath could not be trusted,” she cocked her head at him. “It is hard to get hired guns that aren't either bullies, opportunistic pirates, or cowards.”

  Lucius held out one hand, palm upwards, “Then you see the importance of having someone trustworthy around.”

  “Can you be trusted?” The Contractor arched an eyebrow.

  Lucius sighed, “Madame Contractor, if we work out a deal, I will honor it, I swear.”

  They locked gazes for a long moment. Lucius could see determination and strength in her blue eyes, but he wondered what she saw in his own dark eyes. “Very well,” she sighed, “What are your terms?”

  “Money is the first issue. We will, of course, accept the local currency, so long as we can use it to buy supplies and some items we can’t build aboard ship,” Lucius said. “I’m unsure of the value of your currency, so, for the first payment, I’ll accept what you paid those fellows who just ran off.”

  “Their rates were extortionate.”

  Lucius shrugged, “You will recieve more for your money.”

  “We already paid them this month.”

  “Well, you can ask them for a refund,” Lucius said with a slight smile.

  She sighed, “What do you know about the politics of Faraday?”

  Lucius smiled slightly, “Until we got to this system, I didn’t know Faraday existed.”

  “We have a three party parliamentary system here, Captain. The Liberals, the Moderates, and the Conservatives. I’m a Liberal.” She shrugged, “The Liberals want change here on Faraday.”

  “Change can be bad or good,” Lucius said, uncertain where this conversation led.

  The Contractor snorted at his neutral answer, “Right now, you might consider yourself an immigrant. Do you think you might want to become a citizen?”

  Lucius shrugged, “It’s not inconceivable.”

  “Under the Contract, under the law, it is,” the Contractor’s voice was flat. “Immigrants are not citizens. Citizenship on Faraday requires being born on world, to at least one Faraday citizen.” She shook her head, “On top of that, if you don’t have citizenship, you have no legal rights. You can’t be represented in court, you can’t press charges for a crime, you have no rights. We have tens of thousands of refugees here, you may have seen the boneyard near the spaceport. They've no rights to speak of and Faraday's wealthy extort them for labor.”

  Lucius raised his eyebrows, “That’s… interesting.”

  “It’s barbaric,” the Contractor snapped. “It’s unacceptable. Right now, my party is trying to change that, and we’ve got a number of Moderates on our governing council, the Shareholders, leaning our way. We've had power for only five years, and the Conservatives have fought ever move we've made tooth and nail. They'd still have power if not for an incident we had here five years ago that exposed some of their more severe corruption. That’s how I came to be the Contractor.”

  “I’m seeing implications with this I’m not liking,” Lucius admitted.

  “You should. The Liberals also believe in a stronger military and increased foreign policy. In short, we believe that Faraday cannot stay on the fringe, alone and without allies for long.”

  “And the Conservatives?”

  “They like the status quo,” the Contractor grimaced, “I would call some of their factories slavery, but at least a master cares for his slaves somewhat. The Conservatives control much of the industry, and they view the refugee populace as a resource to be used.”

  “I see.” Lucius frowned, “So not only will I be representing something they won’t like, that being a strong foreigner, but I’ll also have to purchase things from them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, thank you for the warning.”

  “You still wish to tie your future to Faraday?” The Contractor looked surprised.

  “Madam, I’ve seen worse systems. Frankly, some of Nova Roma’s frontier worlds were… worse in a way. And if my presence causes the corrupt here discomfort, maybe even a loss of political power…” Lucius grinned, “So much the better.”

  “Well…” She cocked her head in surprise, “In that case,” She rose offering her hand, “I’m Kate Bueller, and I have to ask… are you that Lucius Giovanni?”

  ***

  “So, Captain, is this payment satisfactory?”

  Lucius looked up from the paper at the monitor, “Most satisfactory. There remains only one other thing I’d like to ask. As you have no doubt read, both my ships are low on crew. I wonder if you would allow me to send out recruiters.”

  The Contractor’s face grew cold. “There will be no drafting of our populace.”

  Lucius shook his head. “We’d like to sign up some of your people voluntarily. We will sign them up only for the length of the contract and any who stay aboard longer than that will be purely voluntary as well.”

  The Contractor nodded. “Faraday was founded as an isolationist colony, you understand, so if I took any direct action in assisting young people to foreign ideas, it could mean my job.” She frowned, “However, you would do good to buy some airtime on the radio, or on holovideo, and you can probably get a number of recruits.” Lucius nodded. “And Captain, do you think that different sexes as well as races would be a good idea?”

  Lucius thought for a moment. “Yes, that probably would be a good idea.” Lucius typed a reminder to himself on his console. The Nova Roma Fleet’s rather homogenized enlisted ranks consisted entirely of human men. It did have some, albeit few, female officers. Lucius had served under a female commander aboard the War Shrike, before he became Captain.

  “There is one other thing…” Lucius said, somewhat hesitantly.

  “Yes?” Kate Bueller said.

  “I wonder, madam Contractor, if your world has… currency speculators.”

  She frowned, “Unfortunately so. They’re a persistent pest and they’ve caused devaluation of the Faraday dollar several times.”

  “I wonder if you’ve let the knowledge of the fall of Nova Roma out yet?” Lucius asked.

  “I’ve kept that pretty close, for now. That kind of knowledge can have—oh.” She narrowed her eyes, “You want me to point you to some currency speculators to get rid of some Drachma?”

  Lucius shrugged, “I’d assume, seeing as the Conservatives are very strong in the economics of your world, they would logically have their hand in currency speculation.”

  “A safe assumption,” She growled.

  “What hurts them economically…”

  “You’re talking about what’s essentially a confidence scam, you know?”

  “I prefer to think of it as turn-about. I have just under fifty thousand Drachma of ships funds in hard currency, and my crew has around the same in personal funds.”

  “You’ll be lucky to get sixty percent of its worth,” she cautioned

  “It’s worth nothing now. I might as well vent it out the airlock. But if I sell it to the currency speculators, who don’t know of the fall of Nova Roma yet…”

  “What you’re proposing is illegal and immoral.” She said, her voice stern. The edges of her mouth however, curled upwards slightly, “I’ll see what I can do to help.”

  “Thank you Contractor, War Shrike out.”

  ***

  “Strike Leader Maygar,” Lucius bowed slightly. “I hear you wanted to see me.”

  The Ghornath nodded, slightly, “I must yield command of the Gebneyr to Burbeg.”

  “I see.” Lucius frowned, “Have I caused you some insult?”

  “No.” The old alien’s hide rapidly shifted through colors, returning to a neutral brown. “I cannot say
why I must leave, only that it comes at the urgings of Fleet Consul Faydeb.” The Ghornath paused, “He has allowed you the loan of the Gebneyr for now, pending its return and a suitable payment at a later date.”

  “Ah.” Lucius said. “That payment would be what?”

  “It remains to be determined.” Maygar said. “He has, provisionally, promoted Burbeg to Leader rank, your equivalent to Commander, I believe.”

  “Yes, close enough.” Lucius said, frowning. “I must ask, do the Ghornath possess shipyards?”

  “I think, Baron, we should not discuss this, right now,” Strike Leader Maygar said.

  “Ah.” Lucius frowned. “Will you need money for passage?”

  “An… agent has arranged for our passage off-world. There is a merchant vessel headed towards Anvil. We will not need currency.” The alien turned to depart. He stopped. “Thank you, Lucius, for repaying my actions with honor. I hope, one day soon, we can work together.”

  “But first you need to get Fleet Consul Faydeb back to Ghornath high command?”

  The alien’s hide briefly turned a pale tan shade that Lucius guessed meant surprise, “As humans say: no comment.”

  “Thank you for your help, Strike Leader. Best of luck with your journey.” Lucius said.

  “And yours. I think yours will be the more difficult.”

  ***

  August 17, 2406

  Faraday System

  Unclaimed Space

  Lucius had several plans for the refit and repairs aboard his two vessels. The cost for both was a minor problem, at least, until the next month's payments arrived from the planet. Currency differed from planet to planet, which meant that the pay Lucius’s ships received wasn’t worth the plastic it was on, unless he spent it on Faraday or converted it to Republic Denari.

  The first payment and the currency exchange had given him some money to work with, which allowed him to pay his men and he had to initiate the sign-up bonus for the new recruits and fund the new training program. After that, there remained a tidy sum left over that he could address to his own plans and to initiate repairs of his ships.