Space Trader (Galactic Axia Adventure)

by Laughter, Jim

  “Good night, Delmar, I’ll contact you more often. Let’s stay in touch.”

  ∞∞∞

  Ian looked around the office he had been brought to while his host was detained somewhere else. He looked at the different artifacts on display and found himself evaluating each for its potential worth on the trader’s net. Although he was not able to identify a few of the items, he could still attach some value based upon their oddity.

  The opening of the office door interrupted his inspection. Ian turned from his strictly visual examination of an odd-shaped glass object on a shelf just as an older man strode into the room. Someone in the hall outside reached in and shut the door, leaving the two men alone.

  “I see you’re curious about my collection,” the man said. His demeanor was warm and friendly. “I’m Cap Embrel, provost for this region,” he added, extending his hand.

  “Glad to meet you, sir,” Ian replied, shaking hands. “Ian Cahill.”

  He stared firmly into the eyes of the man, taking his measure in a glance. Ian judged by the gray around his temples that Cap was well into his fifties and clearly a man who was comfortable with responsibility. He’s probably an excellent negotiator as well, thought Ian.

  Cap released his own firm grip and motioned for Ian to sit down while he stepped over to a small wet bar in the corner. Glancing at his guest, Cap raised his eyebrows.

  “Tea, please,” Ian said in response.

  The man busied himself while Ian sat down in one of the easy chairs surrounding a simple coffee table. Cap soon crossed the room carrying a tray with a small hot pot and two cups on it. From the way he handled it, he was not used to doing it this way. Ian suspected this indicated that someone else normally made the tea and waited on Mr. Embrel. Either that or ‘Cap’ as he preferred to be called, usually just made a single cup of tea without the fanfare of teapots and trays. Setting it down on the table between the two chairs, Cap poured the water and then sat down.

  Taking his cup, Ian sniffed and noted that it had a rather strong, sharp aroma to it. He added what it told him to the mental picture he was forming of his host. That the tea the man preferred was of a strong nature bespoke of someone who had an active mind and liked to stay sharp.

  Everything is a negotiation, Ian thought. At least that had been the general pattern he’d observed in his travels. Carefully, he took a sip. As was indicated by its aroma, the tea was both strong and sharp, perfect for clearing one’s head in the morning. Ian smiled and nodded toward his host.

  “Ah... you like it then?” Cap said as he took a sip from his own cup.

  “We have similar teas where I come from.”

  “And where might that be?” Cap said, shifting smoothly into the questions he wanted answered. Ian was impressed with the transition.

  “Most recently the planet Urun,” Ian answered, stating his last port of call. He decided to hold off on stating his home port for now. Revealing that later may or may not prove useful.

  “Never heard of it,” Cap replied honestly. “But I can’t say that I have done much traveling myself. Where is it located?”

  “It’s in the Scarpitti sector,” Ian replied quickly, substituting the older name for the one currently in use. The change had taken place a couple hundred years ago when the Axia had reestablished a base in the sector. Once again, his knowledge of history had worked in his favor.

  “Oh, I know where you mean,” Cap said enthusiastically. “Although I will admit that galactic cartography isn’t one of my strong points.”

  “There have been a few changes in recent years,” Ian admitted. He decided to take a stab in this verbal fencing match. “I take it from your comment that your planet has been isolated for some time.”

  “That is correct,” Cap answered honestly. The forthrightness of his answer earned Cap points in Ian’s estimation. “It’s been quite a while since we last entertained a visitor. We gave him a rather different welcome, I should say.”

  “Dare I ask?” Ian asked, clearly curious.

  “Since you are obviously from Galactic Axia, then you are well aware of the Red-tails.”

  “Personally,” Ian affirmed, unconsciously stroking the scar on his neck.

  “The last ship that came our way was a lone Red-tail scout,” Cap continued. “He was headed directly toward our planet, obviously unaware we were here.”

  “So what did you do?” Ian asked. He would inquire about hiding of the planet later.

  “As soon as he traversed the barrier, it disabled his ship completely, including communications,” Cap continued. “Since he was clearly a Red-tail, we decided to let nature take its course.”

  “Did any wreckage reach the ground after he burned?” Ian asked, remembering his own recent experience.

  “Not much,” Cap said. “In fact, that piece of glass you were examining was the melted remains of his forward viewport.”

  He took another sip of tea and watched Ian’s reaction. Ian did likewise while he pondered this bit of information. Before he could say anything, there was a knock at the door. A young man in uniform stuck his head inside.

  “Come on in, Lyyle!” Cap said enthusiastically as he stood up. Ian also stood. “I want you to meet our guest.”

  Lyyle entered the rest of the way, shutting the door behind him. Cap made the introductions. Lyyle dragged over another chair and they sat back down.

  “So, you’re the one that was throwing rocks at us!” Lyyle declared. “Pretty neat trick. The last ship that came by blundered straight in and was burned up before he hit.”

  “Cap was just telling me about it,” Ian said. “I’m glad I received a kinder reception.”

  “Well, anyone who can disable missiles and then skip stones to find the atmosphere, we just had to meet,” Lyyle came back. “So we decided to draw you within reach of our tractor rays and bring you down intact.”

  “The curiosity was mutual,” Ian admitted. “Anyone who can hide an entire planet is someone I want on my side.”

  “I expect you’re a bit curious about that,” Cap said, looking sidelong at Ian. The trader suspected he was being sized up on whether he could be trusted or not. He hoped he passed muster.

  “You could say that,” Ian replied carefully. “It is an admirable feat.”

  For the space of an eye blink, there was a pause and then Cap, after glancing at Lyyle spoke, “Since you asked, we might as well show you.”

  ∞∞∞

  Ian watched from an observation center while long-range sensors tracked an incoming asteroid of several hundred tons. He had been invited by Lyyle to observe a demonstration of their tractor rays.

  “We have these asteroids on a somewhat regular basis,” Lyyle told him. “When we had serviceable ships they would take care of the problem.”

  “What happened to your ships?” Ian asked.

  “They failed one by one as their power sources died.”

  “You mean the green boxes?”

  “You still call it by the old name?” Lyyle asked in surprise. “I wasn’t sure so I tried to phrase it so you’d understand.”

  “Rest assured, I am well versed in the historical aspects of different technologies,” Ian said. “I find it helpful in my business as a trader.”

  “I can see where it would,” Lyyle agreed. “Well anyway, all of our small ship-size green boxes came from off planet. After the Axia withdrew from this region of the galaxy, we lost our only source.”

  “Didn’t you have means to develop it on your own?”

  “We did, but only on an industrial scale,” answered Lyyle. “We tried to downsize that technology but it wasn’t successful. We have power plants on the surface that can provide all the power we could ever use but nothing small enough to power a ship.”

  “So where are your ships now?” Ian asked. He knew he hadn’t seen any on the surface when he first approached the field.

  Lyyle pointed to a series of markers on the grid that indicated underground facilities.

>   “They’re stored in underground bunkers,” he answered. “As far as I know, they’re all still operational. We just don’t have the power supplies to drive them.”

  Ian looked at the field grid, amazement showing on his face. “You mean to tell me you have whole fleets of ships stored underground?”

  “Yep,” Lyyle answered. “And not just here. We have them all over the planet. Hundreds of ships that haven’t been in space in decades, just waiting for the day when we can reactivate them.”

  “You’re kidding,” Ian chided.

  “No, I’m not,” Lyyle assured him.

  “Imagine that,” Ian said with a laugh. “A whole fleet deactivated for want of a power source. I wonder what the Council of Nine on Shalimar would say to that on a requisition.”

  “Shalimar?” Lyyle asked in obvious interest. “I haven’t heard anyone say that name in ages!”

  “It’s still there. Stronger than ever,” Ian said. “There have been advancements in ships in recent decades that have changed the way we fly. The bedsprings drive system is almost obsolete, and the ships fly faster with less heat problems than ever before.”

  Lyyle inwardly hoped that he would have the opportunity to visit the capital planet someday. “Shalimar must be a beautiful place.”

  “It is,” Ian agreed. “I’ve been there a couple of times. You won’t believe it, but I’ve heard that they’ve even developed a series of sentient spaceships at the institute on Shalimar.”

  Now Lyyle new Ian was pulling his leg. “Living spaceships?” Lyyle exclaimed. “You’re pulling my leg. Let me rolled my pants leg up. It’s already too late to save my shoes.”

  “Seriously,” Ian answered. “And I’ve heard about an ancient computer somebody discovered on a dead planet somewhere. I heard they transported that computer to the computer school on Mica and some whiz kid students there activated it and now it’s sentient. Can you imagine that? A living computer?”

  “Do I have a sign on my back that says kick me?” Lyyle asked, laughing at the obvious whopper Ian was telling.

  Ian smiled at Lyyle’s astonishment. For a man that didn’t like people, he found himself starting to like this young man.

  “My friend, you folks have been out of the mainstream for a long time. You’d be amazed at the advancements in computer and spacecraft technology. And if this planetary shielding technology of yours can be adapted to spaceships on a massive scale, you can rest assured I’ll work a deal with the Axia to provide you with all the green boxes you’ll ever need to get your fleet back into space.”

  “Wouldn’t that be something?” Lyyle said in a whisper. “I’ve been up in the interceptors before, but never actually off the planet. We might be able to adapt the system to a ship.”

  “I’m listening,” Ian said, hoping it would prompt Lyyle to reveal more about the method they used to hide the entire planet.

  “Well, when the ships were obviously failing, we were faced with two very serious problems,” Lyyle continued. “We had both Red-tails to deal with and these asteroids that came regularly. Either could do us in sooner or later.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Our first major effort was focused on power production,” Lyyle began, warming to his subject. “They tried any hair-brained idea that came along. Nothing could be done to solve the problem of re-powering the ships. But some interesting discoveries were made along the way.”

  “Like what?”

  “Someone came up with the idea of transmitting power to the ships from surface-based emitters,” Lyyle answered. “Experiments showed it was possible but it would take large amounts of energy to power the emitters. We had more than enough power, so that was tried.”

  “What happened?” Ian asked.

  “It worked,” Lyyle replied. “In fact, those escorts that brought you in were powered that way. We just couldn’t make it work beyond a certain altitude. The upper atmosphere created interference that dissipated the beam.”

  “Still, it looked most impressive when they appeared beside my ship,” Ian stated.

  “They work well within the atmosphere,” Lyyle agreed. “But they don’t help us with the Red-tails or the asteroids. The Red-tails can simply stay out of our flying range, and intercepting the asteroids that low would be too late.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “It was when they were trying to refine the power carrier that we came up with the tractor beams,” Lyyle said. “We found that those could reach far beyond our atmosphere if we knew where to focus them. We can track the asteroids months in advance. With practice, we’ve gotten down to being able to predict their entering our atmosphere to the minute. Then all we have to do is focus a beam at the intersection point and wait. Once the asteroid comes within range of the tractor rays, we grab it. Then we steer it within range of the ground-based weapons arrays. You’ll see a demonstration of that here in a little bit.”

  At the mention of that, both men involuntarily glanced at the screen of the long-range detectors. The asteroid was still on track and rapidly drawing closer. Ian thought of something.

  “What if the asteroid is too large?” he asked. “The inertia of say several thousand tons would be quite a bit of mass and energy to deal with.”

  “That is true,” Lyyle said. “And we have dealt with some in that range. What we do is use multiple tractor rays on it at once. It dissipates the load on any one station and tends to cause the asteroid to fracture. It really doesn’t take much since it is already being stressed by the gravitational forces of our planet.”

  “So you break it up,” Ian observed. “What then?”

  “We keep breaking it up to where individual rays can handle the pieces,” Lyyle came back. “Then the weapon arrays chop it into dust. That’s what it looks like they’ll do today with this one.

  “I look forward to it,” Ian admitted. “But what about the Red-tails? You can’t hope to pull them down to where you can blast them.”

  “True,” Lyyle agreed. “That is where the missile platforms came in. We used to have hundreds up there. And it worked for the occasional Red-tail scout. But we knew it was only buying us time.”

  “And that is when you came up with your invisibility shield,” Ian injected.

  “Yes,” Lyyle replied. “Although it was originally intended to be a shield in the regular sense of the word, we had the power for it, but we couldn’t make it work. It was during experiments with it that someone did a phase shift and the Optiveil was born.”

  “Optiveil? Is that what you call it?”

  “Yes,” Lyyle said with obvious pride. “We found it had several unexpected effects. It was one of the last operational ships that discovered the dampening effect. The pilot had been setting up one of the missile platforms when the tests were being conducted on the shield. He suddenly reported that the planet had disappeared. Flying a reverse of his course he then discovered the dampening effect on his ship’s systems.”

  “Must have been quite a surprise,” Ian said, remembering his own experience.

  “Indeed!” Lyyle agreed. “His ship fell quite a ways before someone thought to turn off the shield. His systems came immediately back to life and he was able to land normally, though the green box was depleted by the incident.”

  “So you had a way to mask the planet visually and a dampening field all rolled into one,” Ian observed.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Lyyle answered. “Between that and the tractor rays, we were pretty much set. But we had one more trick up our sleeve.”

  “I’ll bite,” Ian said with a smile. “What was it?”

  “For the dampening field to work, we had to be able to get Red-tails to enter it,” Lyyle stated, “especially if there was a large group of them. No one knew if we could handle a huge number of ships coming in at once. We had to come up with a way to disrupt them so they would enter the dampening field individually or in small disorganized groups.”

  “How did you do it?” Ian asked. �
��From the way you’re talking, you’ve already accomplished it.”

  “You’re right,” Lyyle admitted. “Several times, in fact. We simply threw rocks at them.”

  “What?” In the background a warning buzzer sounded, signaling that the approaching asteroid was about to come into range.

  “That’s right,” Lyyle repeated. “We threw rocks at them. We had to draw them in closer and we couldn’t drop the Optiveil and reveal the planet as bait or they would come in mass and overwhelm us. It was one of the tractor ray operators who came up with the idea while watching his boy throw rocks at a bee’s nest. He tried it the next time there was a group of Red-tail ships snooping around the missile platforms. Taking a good-sized boulder, he used his tractor array to send it up through the atmosphere and right through their formation. It caught them by surprise and caused them to scatter. Then they charged in along the trajectory of the boulder and the dampening effect took them out one by one. Those above in orbit could not figure it out. Their ships would suddenly disappear as they crossed the threshold of the Optiveil. If they tried to follow, either the missiles would target them or boulders would appear out of nowhere aimed right at them. I guess it spooked them, because after a few years they stopped coming this way.”

  “That’s quite a tale.” Ian admitted. Just then, another alarm came to life.

  “Enough talk for a minute,” Lyyle said. “I want you to watch this,” he added as he led Ian out onto a balcony where a number of others were looking upward. Soon a glow appeared in the sky where the asteroid was starting to encounter the atmosphere. Ian saw several rays lash out and start changing the trajectory of the boulder.

  The shriek of the hurtling asteroid washed over those below as a ground-based ray neatly blasted it into smaller sections. Each of these assumed its own trajectory toward the planet surface below. Quick as a wink, different rays picked off each piece until there was nothing left but dust that the wind blew out to sea. The whole ordeal was over in less than a minute.

  “Wow!” Ian exclaimed when it was all over. “That’s quite a show.”

  “I thought you’d be impressed,” Lyyle said with some pride. “I always enjoy it.”