The Legend of Corinair

by Ryk Brown

  “Interesting. However, I wasn’t aware that our flight plans required your government’s approval.”

  Jessica smiled. She already liked the position Nathan was taking with this guy. She was able to lean forward just enough to be able to turn her head and see the man’s image on the viewer without her image being picked up by the viewer’s camera and transmitted back to the Yamaro. As best they could tell, the pompous captain wasn’t even aware that she was in the room.

  “Yes. Well, your recent activities have earned you some degree of notoriety among those of us tasked with maintaining order out here amongst the stars. To put it bluntly, sir, there is a price on your head, as well as the heads of the Karuzari you harbor. Command would prefer that your ship be taken intact.” The man thought for a moment. “However, they made no such specification regarding you or your crew.”

  Nathan didn’t care much for threats, veiled or otherwise. His father had always said that threats were the sign of weakness or fear. This man, however, did not appear to be displaying either emotion.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” Nathan told him. His use of the phrase was met with a puzzled look. “What is it you require from me in return for safe passage?”

  “Nothing much. Simply turn over all members of the Karuzari currently on board your vessel, as well as any information you have about the whereabouts of any other members you might possess.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “We also require all information regarding the technology you use to so effortlessly jump between the stars. It’s really quite an impressive feat, I must say.”

  “And if we refuse?”

  “Then you will be captured and executed. Either way, we shall have the secret of your miraculous method of interstellar travel.”

  “Captain, I’m curious about one thing. What gives you the right to make such demands?”

  “You have fired on and destroyed ships of the Ta’Akar. This, sir, makes you an enemy of the Ta’Akar. As well, you have entered our domain without permission, with the obvious intent of aggression.”

  “We entered your domain by accident, sir, and without any intent. In fact, we didn’t even know anyone’s domain was out here. And for the record, your ships fired on us. We merely defended ourselves.”

  “Furthermore, Captain Scott, you have provided aid and support to the Karuzari, who are also sworn enemies of the Ta’Akar.”

  Nathan made no immediate response to Captain de Winter’s last accusation, preferring to consider it before responding. His careful consideration before speaking surprised Jessica, as it was not a trait for which he was known.

  “I’m afraid your facts are in error,” Nathan began. “The people you speak of came aboard our ship while we were helplessly adrift, after the mistaken engagement with one of your warships. They offered to help and we accepted. At the time, we did not know of their political agenda or of their conflict with your people. And, I might add, we had little choice in the matter, as more of your ships were on their way.”

  “While that may be the case, Captain, at this point it is irrelevant. In the eyes of my government, you are guilty as charged. Your only option is to abandon your Karuzari friends and ally yourself with us. Then together we can swiftly end this annoying rebellion and restore order to the galaxy.” The captain was getting a bit irritated at Nathan’s unwillingness to cooperate, forcing him to take pause to regain his composure. “Captain, do you truly know who you have allied yourself with?”

  “I’m sure you’re about to explain it to me,” Nathan quipped.

  The captain of the Yamaro ignored his sarcasm. “The Karuzari are terrorists, Captain. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “They claim to be freedom fighters.”

  “What they are is responsible for the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands over more than two decades.”

  “That’s a pretty big claim, Captain. But it’s my understanding that the Ta’Akar are responsible for just as many deaths, if not more.”

  “The Ta’Akar do what must be done in order to prevent the support of these terrorists. We do what must be done to end this unrest once and for all. We do what must be done to maintain order!”

  Nathan was pretty sure that he struck a nerve. He decided to push a little harder. “You do what must be done in order to force your population to worship your leader as a god. And you have the arrogance to pretend that you are justified in your actions.”

  Unfortunately, Nathan’s plan did not work. Captain de Winter had not taken the bait. Instead, he was again recomposing himself. “Captain. Do you really think that people of nobility and rank, such as myself, actually believe that our king is a god? Those of us who serve the crown do so in order to establish our own power and position. Not as a result of some religious idealism.”

  “And this is how you justify the atrocities committed by your commanders?”

  “Of course not,” the captain answered with a sigh. “But at times, a seemingly unforgivable atrocity must be committed in order to avoid committing an even greater one. It is unfortunate, but nevertheless true, that sometimes, the only way to fight terrible evil is to become just as evil.”

  “Is that what you were doing when you tried to glass the planet that the Karuzari were hiding on?” Nathan stood, wanting to appear strong and resolute. He waited several seconds for a response that he was already sure would not come. “We shall not be accepting your offer, Captain.”

  “You do realize what will happen if you do not?”

  “Yes. We’ll simply jump away before you even get within firing range.”

  “Then I suppose we’ll have to chase you all the way back to Earth, won’t we?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Captain. Even your comm-drones would take at least a decade to reach Earth. And your ships are nowhere near as fast.”

  “Not yet, but soon. Of course, meanwhile, as punishment for welcoming you into their system, Corinair will have to be obliterated. A pity, really. It is a lovely planet after all.”

  Try as he might, Nathan could not hide his shock at the man’s threat. “Those people don’t even know we are here,” Nathan argued. “You couldn’t possibly—”

  “I can, and I will. Make no mistake—”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “Bluffing?” the Captain asked with that same puzzled look as before. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that term.”

  The view screen suddenly switched back to the news broadcast from Corinair being fed to him by the Sig-Int staff. Nathan immediately activated his comm-panel. “Comms! What happened to the connection to the Ta’Akar ship?”

  “The signal transmission was discontinued by the Ta’Akar, sir.”

  * * *

  As Tug and Jalea made their way along the raised walkway from the monorail platform to the main terminal at the spaceport, they could see numerous pillars of angry, black smoke rising from the city in the distance. The fires were obviously the result of the riots and other general panic that was taking place on the streets and pathways of the city. Although she did not say as much to Tug, she knew that the panic had been set into motion by the words spoken to the priest of the Order yesterday afternoon. She did not feel guilty, despite the fact that many people may have already suffered or even died as a direct result of her actions. Things were going exactly as she had hoped.

  “Jesus,” Marcus exclaimed as he wheeled the crates full of supplies on board the shuttle. “Do you think they bought enough food?”

  “Stop complaining,” Josh told him. “At least we won’t be eating any more molo.”

  Just as they were loading the last of the supplies, Tug and Jalea came running across the tarmac.

  “We must…depart…immediately,” Tug ordered, out of breath.

  “What’s going on?” Loki asked.

  “Yeah, what are all those fires we saw coming in?” Josh asked.

  “Religious zealots,” Tug explained between breaths. “Fools, rambling on about salv
ation and the end of the world.”

  “Bunch of idiots,” Marcus exclaimed. “I mean, who cares where we’re from? We’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

  “We must go!” Jalea urged. Josh and Loki went back into the shuttle, climbing over the mounds of supplies filling their cargo bay in order to get to the cockpit. Tug and Jalea climbed up the ramp and took their seats near the massive aft hatch that doubled as a cargo ramp.

  “Hey!” Marcus called out toward the cockpit as he ascended the ramp. “Whattaya think they’d all say if they knew the ship we’re crewing on is actually from Earth?” At the top of the ramp he took his seat on the opposite side from Tug and Jalea and put on his headset. “Let’s get the hell off this rock!” he called to Josh as he hit the button and start retracting the boarding ramp to close up over the rear opening.

  “Light up the mains,” Josh ordered as he dropped into his seat.

  “I’m on it,” Loki answered. He reached up over his head and started flipping switches in preparation to start the engines, but nothing was happening. “What the hell?”

  “What’s wrong?” Josh asked.

  “The mains are cycling over. I can’t get the turbines to light up.”

  “Did you prime them first?”

  “Of course I primed them first!”

  “Oh shit,” Josh exclaimed as he noticed the flashing red display on the center data display console. “We’re locked out.”

  “What? Why would we be—”

  “Attention all vessels,” the voice came over the surface traffic control frequency. “This facility is on full operational lock down, by order of the Ta’Akar warship Yamaro. All flight crews will shut down their systems, disembark, and stand beside their ships.”

  Loki looked at Josh as the message repeated. “Oh, we’re in so much trouble.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “Get this ship in the air!” Marcus shouted over the comms from the back of the shuttle.

  “We can’t,” Josh responded. “We’re locked out. The whole facility is on lock down.”

  “Then bypass the auto-flight system, you idiots!”

  “You can’t bypass the auto-flight system, Marcus!” Loki argued. “It’s hardwired into the ship’s flight systems.”

  “Not if someone un-hardwired it! Just flip the damn bypass switch, under the starboard console, all the way to the outboard edge. It’s a lockset switch. Just pull the toggle down and then flip it forward.”

  Josh felt along the underside of his console, running his hand until he felt the switch. He pulled the toggle switch down, disengaging the toggle’s locking mechanism, and then flipped the switch forward. The flashing red display stopped flashing and suddenly changed to ‘Auto-flight Disengaged’. “That’s it! It worked!”

  “Of course it worked,” Marcus muttered.

  “How the hell did you know about that?” Loki asked as he fired up the engines.

  “Who the hell do you think un-hardwired the damn thing?” Marcus bragged. “Now get us in the air!”

  Moments later, the shuttle began to roll forward on its way to the flight line.

  “What are you, idiots?” Marcus hollered. “Just take off from here!”

  Josh felt pretty stupid for not thinking of that himself. After all, if they were going against a lockdown order, breaking the rules by taking off from the loading area instead of the flight line was the least of their worries.

  The shuttle’s engines screamed as Josh applied full thrust, causing the ship to suddenly leap into the air. The cargo shuttle wasn’t pretty, but it was made to haul several tons of heavy rock and ore, so a few dozen crates of food and a handful of passengers was no trouble at all.

  Nathan stormed onto the bridge from his ready room with Jessica hot on his heels.

  “Contact!” Kaylah reported as he entered. “Just came up on passive. Transferring to tactical.”

  Jessica stepped up to the tactical console along with Nathan. “It’s on the outer rim of the system,” she reported. “It’s decelerating. Based on its speed I’d say it dropped out of FTL at least five or ten minutes ago.”

  “Got an ID?” Nathan asked, although he already knew the answer.

  “Not yet. He’s too far out to ID using passive. And if we go active, we’ll give away our location.”

  “Well I’m pretty sure we know who it is.” Nathan took in a deep breath and sighed. “General quarters,” he ordered calmly. “All hands to battle stations and prepare to get underway.”

  “General quarters, aye, sir.”

  “I’m pretty sure we’re going to need an escape jump pretty soon, Doctor,” he said to Abby as he moved to the helm to start prepping the ship for departure.

  “Captain, we just finished hooking up the shuttle’s computer core to our jump system. We haven’t even run any simulations yet.”

  “How long will it take you to unhook it?” he asked as he worked the helm console.

  Abby looked at Deliza, who had done most of the work installing the new, improved computer core.

  “An hour? But we’d still have to recalibrate your original core after that, so maybe ninety minutes?”

  Abby turned to look at Nathan as he shot her a glance.

  Nathan felt his heart sink. The jump drive was the one thing they had going in their favor in this part of the galaxy. And now there was a possibility that it wouldn’t work when he needed it most. But there was nothing he could do about it now. If he had them disconnect it, he wouldn’t be able to jump for over an hour. He seriously doubted they could remain hidden that long. And even if they did, Captain de Winter might become impatient and start laying waste to the surface of Corinair. He briefly considered getting the enemy warship to chase him, possibly buying time until they could jump. But he didn’t have linear FTL capabilities, which meant he couldn’t outrun the Ta’Akar warship for more than a few minutes. Once again, their fate was left to luck.

  “Guess you’re gonna have to test it on the fly again, Doc.”

  Abby felt as if she were turning pale, as a cold shiver went through her body. “I’m really getting tired of this,” she mumbled to herself as she began calculating an escape plot on the new system.

  “Shuttle two-four-one-eight, you are in violation of a lockdown order. Land immediately or interceptors will be dispatched and you will be shot down.”

  “Help!” Josh cried over the comms. “They’ve got a gun!” he added, right before he started clicking the talk button over and over. “They’re forcing me to take……em……moon……help—” Josh ended the fake broadcast, turning to Loki looking very pleased with himself. “You think they bought it?”

  “Oh, sure,” Loki said.

  “Maybe they’re already too busy, what with all the riots and stuff,” Josh said hopefully.

  “Don’t think so,” Loki muttered. “We’ve got company coming up real fast.”

  Josh looked over at Loki’s display. Besides the multitude of outbound contacts, there was a red flashing triangle coming up from behind them.”

  “Hang on back there,” Loki called over the comms. “We’ve got company.”

  “Who is it?” Marcus asked. Suddenly, the shuttle jumped as something exploded in the air just outside their starboard side. Marcus was nearly thrown out of his seat. “Never mind.”

  Marcus stood up and pulled a long safety strap from the ceiling, connecting it to his harness. “You two buckled in?” he asked Tug and Jalea.

  “Yes!” Tug answered. “Why?”

  Marcus grinned and slapped the big red button along the side of the rear cargo hatch. The massive cargo door hissed as it began to open, starting its slow lowering into its ramp position. The sudden change in cabin pressure was immediately felt by all, as the wind rushed in around the widening crack between the door and the frame.

  “Shuttle two-four-one-eight, you are in violation of a lockdown order. Land immediately or we will fire on you.”

  “What the hell are you doing, you crazy old fart
?” Josh yelled over the comms from the cockpit.”

  “Just try to keep this thing low enough so we don’t all suffocate, while I shed this bugger from our ass!” Marcus declared.

  The rear hatch continued to lower until Marcus stopped it at its standard platform position, parallel to the deck.

  “Give me a hand!” he shouted at Tug.

  “With what?”

  “We gotta start tossin’ some of this stuff,” he declared as he picked up the first crate and tossed it out the back of the ship. The crate bounced off the end of the ramp, broke open, and sent vegetables flying towards the local police interceptor that was rapidly closing on them.”

  Tug’s eyes widened. “You don’t really think you’re gonna stop that interceptor by throwing produce at him, do you?”

  “Whattaya think I am, stupid? I need room for my new toy!”

  His explanation didn’t inspire any confidence in Tug, who rose to help nevertheless. After securing himself to the ceiling in similar fashion, Tug also began tossing boxes of food out the back of the shuttle. Somewhat to Marcus’s amusement, the tumbling produce did cause the compact interceptor to dodge back and forth wildly, trying to avoid messing up his windshield.

  After a few minutes, they had tossed nearly a third of the boxes out of the back. “That’s enough!” Marcus yelled as he started to cycle the hatch closed again. Now Tug was even more confused.

  “I’m pretty sure he’s lost it,” Loki decided.

  “What the hell are you doing, Marcus?” Josh cried out.

  “Just hold’er steady for a few minutes while I get setup,” Marcus told him while he inserted a heavy stand into a socket in the middle of the aft section of the cargo deck, less than a meter from the rear hatch which was now fully closed.

  “Gimme a hand with this thing!” Marcus ordered. Tug crossed over to the other side of the cargo bay as Marcus opened a long compartment and started pulling out what looked like one of the energy cannons off Tug’s fighter.