by Mark Wandrey
“Aren’t you concerned about the Tortantula?” Paka eventually asked as they rode the lift up toward the ship’s control room.
“Of course,” she said, “but a Tortantula is going to do what a Tortantula is going to do.” It was quiet for a bit as she thought. “I figure we can’t get in much more trouble before we pick up additional crew. Two more jumps and we’re at Karma.”
* * * * *
Chapter 11
Mars Station Varley
Mars Orbit – Sol System
Rick floated down the docking collar and expertly caught one of the yellow/black-striped handholds that surrounded the passageway, locked a leg under another, and leaned over backward just in time to intercept the cargo container. It had far too much mass to stop, but using all of his upper body strength, he redirected it toward the rear of the cargo module.
He turned and inspected his work. The module sailed across the hold with nearly zero spin and perfectly on target to where two other cargo handlers waited for it. Both strong men like himself, they braced and used their bodies like biological springs, bringing it to a stop.
“Good bounce, Rick!” one of them called. He waved and shoved back down the docking collar. He grabbed a handhold at the edge, stopping himself and checking for the next cargo container. They were still maneuvering it out of the station storage area. With a minute to kill, Rick enjoyed the view.
The receiving area of the Martian Transfer Station was a huge plastic dome that afforded an incredible view of the planet 300 miles below. At the relatively low orbit, the landscape whisked by quite quickly. He’d spent some of the three days’ transit to Mars studying the planet’s geography. Unless he was wrong, they were currently passing over the Acidalia Planitia. Its landscape had a distinctively blacker appearance than most of the rest of the planet. A moment later the edge of the massive Lloyt crater came into view, confirming his guess.
“Heads up!” called the station crew, and Rick prepared for the next container. Two hours and 30 containers later, they’d finished loading Coronado. Captain Holland floated among the dozens of cargo containers inside the inflatable hold linked to his ship and examined the rigging with a critical eye. Rick and the two other loaders floated nearby, holding on with a foot or a hand, waiting on his pronouncement.
He’d mumble something, pull on a polyrope here, or pretend to tighten a strap there, but the truth was, he didn’t find anything to criticize.
“Not bad,” he finally said. The loaders all smiled and nodded to each other. Rick thought it was an excellent job, considering all he did was move containers. The other two men did all the stowage. He took his clue from their reactions and smiled too. He already knew from his short time on the Coronado that Holland was not liberal with his praise. “Now secure all those unused straps and gear; I want to get underway in an hour.”
“We finished ahead of schedule,” one of the loaders said, a question hinted in his voice. Holland glanced at his watch.
“Huh, so you did.” The other two men grinned hugely. “Fine, go over and take two hours.”
“Yea!” they both cheered and leaped toward the docking collar. Rick watched them go and shook his head.
“What about you?”
Rick looked at the captain. “Me, sir?”
“Yeah. You’re half their age. You don’t want to go drink Martian rot gut and act like a fool?”
“No sir, I’d rather just stay aboard.”
“A merc? Bullshit, get off my ship and don’t come back for two hours.”
“I don’t have any money, sir.”
“Oh, for the love of…” Holland growled and reached into his pocket, then floated over to Rick and held out his hand. Rick took what was offered. There were 20 plastic coins.
“Real Union credits,” Rick said in amazement. They were pressed with the symbol of the Union Credit Exchange inside the symbol for the Trade Guild. But in the center, set in the plastic, was a tiny red gem. Rick held it up so the light shown through to cast a red spot on his eye. “I’ve never seen a red diamond before!”
“They’re in all the Union’s hard credits,” Holland explained. “Bigger the denomination, bigger the diamond. It’s never quite as big a diamond as the credit’s value, keeps people from chopping up the chit for the gem. Still, idiots on Earth do it all the time.” Holland shook his head. “I saw a million-credit chit once. They’re slightly oblong and have a five-carat red diamond in them!” Rick looked at the pile in his hand. Around the edge was about 100 tiny symbols, none of which he recognized. The captain saw him examining them. “Oh, that’s the denomination. Five credits, in all the most common languages.”
“I don’t see English,” Rick said.
The captain chuckled. “Son, we ain’t common. Many thousand races in the galaxy, and we’re one of the newest. Maybe we’ll be on there some day, if we live that long.”
“Huh?”
The captain laughed and closed Rick’s hand around the credits. “That’s 100 credits, advance on your next pay. Won’t buy too much here, but you can get a few drinks and maybe some pussy.” Rick’s face turned red, and the captain roared with laughter. “Shit, you are as green as the summer grass! Go on, git.”
The Mars station served several purposes. It was a sprawling affair, unlike the big double wheel of Heinlein station in Earth orbit, which was mainly habitat and orbit-to-ground transfer. Varley station sat in low Martian orbit because it wore so many hats—cargo transfer, research in a dozen fields, hub of the Beanstalk Project, and Earth Defense military base. It was a huge ball, with a single ring orbiting on tracks to serve as its gravity deck.
Through the center of the ball was the tether which would maybe someday be a space elevator to the surface of Mars. The bottom would be anchored to the surface at the equator, the other end on Deimos. If the project ever got past the concept stage, both the station and the moon would need to be relocated.
Rick spent a few minutes visiting the Martian Elevator Project office and watching a Tri-V show on what they hoped to do. He’d learned about it two years ago in high school, though, so this was nothing new. He wandered to the gravity ring where he could see through the floor and watch Mars rotate by every 92 seconds.
There were a few shops along one section. He got a burrito and a bulb of fruit juice for three credits (be sure to put the empty in the marked bins) and ate as he walked. Several of the shops sold handmade items, all crafted in the settlement of Bradbury, below, or one of the outlying settlements. He did find an interesting bracelet in a tiny shop full of hand-crafted jewelry. It was silver and Martian malachite. He liked it and payed the exorbitant price of 5 credits.
Rick re-boarded Coronado at the appointed time. His fellow cargo handlers were well laid and thoroughly intoxicated. Captain Holland pushed them toward their bunks as he signed off for the last of the hydrogen and other consumables being loaded aboard. He glanced at Rick and frowned.
“You at least get a drink or a souvenir?” he asked. “God knows when you’ll be back in-system.”
“Yeah,” he said and touched the bracelet, “I got something.”
“What is it?” the ship’s master asked. “Hope you didn’t buy some line about ancient Martian alien artifacts to clean out your pockets.”
“No,” he said, “just something to remember Mars by.” Ten minutes later, Coronado pushed away from Varley station and began building speed to break orbit. Rick got to watch on the monitor from his acceleration station in enlisted country. As they moved around Mars, he got a great look at the shipyards on the far side of the planet from Varley; it was a vast gossamer web of struts and supports surrounding numerous nearly-complete and partial ships. He knew from school it had taken humanity decades to get to where they could build their own capital ships, and the Martian yard was only capable of cruiser-sized ships and smaller.
Coronado steadily picked up velocity and on the next orbit the shipyard was so far below it was nearly lost against the red of Mars. In only
one more trip around the planet, the ship broke orbit and headed for her next stop, Jupiter.
* * * * *
Chapter 12
EMS Pegasus
Approaching the Sulaadar System
Hyperspace
“Transition in T-minus one minute,” the computer announced throughout the ship. The crew rushed to complete final preparations before emerging into normal space.
“Paka,” Captain Cromwell addressed her XO, “set Condition One throughout the ship.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” the Veetanho said and entered the command on her control board. The alarm for battle stations sounded, a harsh alien whistle that went up and down in intensity, and the CIC’s lighting changed from yellow to red. Some things, like the alarm, had been left unchanged since the ship’s creation, while the lighting had been altered to a more Human norm.
“Ship reports Condition One set,” Glick, the SitCon, reported after less than 20 seconds.
“Thirty seconds to transition,” the computer updated. Sulaadar was a major star system, and a hub of commerce and industry in the Tolo arm. Situated near the void between it and the Jesc arm, it was as natural a place for intergalactic commerce to be located as Egypt had been on ancient Earth. Alexis and Paka had decided on it after the near disaster in S.G. Skaa. If a nowhere system hadn’t proved safe, maybe a huge hub world would.
“Ten seconds,” the computer said. The ship thrummed with power, though with one reactor down, not as much as her crew was accustomed to feeling.
“I’d really like to have that power from Reactor Two,” Alexis said, aiming her comment at the screen which showed the waving antennae of Long, her chief engineer.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Long said; “we can’t risk a containment loss.” Alexis grunted as the holographic clock counted down. Loss of containment on a fusion plant wasn’t as catastrophic as old science fiction used to make it out to be. However, it also wasn’t something one would hope for, even on a good day. The computer began final countdown.
“Transition in three…two…one…”
A quick sensation of falling, and the wrap-around monitors which displayed the ship’s camera views went from pure white to black with pinpoints of light. One screen (dimmed for easy viewing) showed a blue-white star, and another a circle of brownish light, the closest planet.
“Status?” Paka called.
“Running sensor sweeps,” Flipper said as he operated the ship’s various passive sensors. As was standard procedure when transitioning under Condition One, only passive sensors were used to decrease their visible signature to possible hostiles. Suddenly he issued a snapping, bubbly word that wasn’t immediately translated. His tiny hand danced on the holographic controls and a trio of red triangles appeared on the display. “We have three unidentified ships,” he chittered, “marking Bogey One, Two, and Three. Distance two light-seconds. They were all running hot and active and have altered course for intercept.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Alexis said. “Hoot,” she said to the comms officer.
“Ma’am?” the Buma replied.
“Would you please contact those vessels and inform them we are not hostile?”
“Right away.”
“What are we dealing with, Edwards?”
“Running it,” the tiny man replied. He was manipulating sensor data through his pinplants so fast it was impossible to read on his monitors.
“There appears to be a conflict underway in the system,” Hoot said.
“You think?” Alexis asked.
“So it would seem,” Hoot replied, displaying the typical humorless Buma attitude. He put one of the current transmissions up on the CIC speaker.
“To all ships entering the Sulaadar system,” the alien voice was translated by the computer or the individual crew member’s translator. “This system is under interdiction by the Transki Syndicate. All merchant ships will stand by to be boarded and searched for contraband. All private vessels will be escorted to the stargate for immediate transition out-system. All mercenary vessels will immediately accept employment with Transki or be declared enemy combatants.”
“Well that explains a lot,” Alexis said, and sighed. Transki was one of the biggest pains in the galaxy’s ass. They were the living embodiment of why the libertarian form of government the Galactic Union used wasn’t the best, just what worked. They’d started as a consortium of industrial and trade concerns more than a thousand years ago, and quickly grew in power and wealth. But as the Union provided no promise of assistance or restriction by a government entity, competition became ever more powerful. They began to fight that competition with a creative use of innovation and violence. Eventually it became mostly violence. Although not all mercs were willing to take contracts that involved extortion, enough did.
“I have probable identifications on the bogies,” Edwards announced. Alexis turned her full attention to the TacCom’s screen in the semi-circular CIC. “Bogies One and Two are Sheek-class laser frigates.” Alexis nodded, she was familiar with the class. They were a reliable old design with good firepower and shields, although they weren’t very fast or maneuverable, despite their size. “Bogey Three appears to be a Pakatol-class cruiser.” That was worse. The Pakatol was as venerable as the Sheek, but while the frigates were common and less than top-of-the-line, the Pakatol were made by the Izlian who had been known for making powerful, flexible warships for thousands of years.
“I have the cruiser on comms,” Hoot said. Alexis gestured, and the transmission replaced the repeating statement.
“Unidentified warship,” the voice was translated, “this is the cruiser Yushispa. Per the terms of the broadcast you are receiving on system-wide transmission, you must declare your intentions.” Alexis touched the control on her pinplant and saw she was linked into the transmitter.
“This is the unidentified warship,” Alexis sent, “what company do you work for, Yushispa?”
“We are with Quigg du Snoo, unidentified ship.” On one of the screens, Glick instantly put up data on Quigg du Snoo. Alexis glanced from it to her helmsman, Chug, and SitCon, Glick. Both had one eyestalk focused on the display, while the others looked at her. Since Quigg du Snoo and the two crewmen were all Bakulu, it was no surprise they would be interested. The situation kept getting worse—the Bakulu produced good ships and good crews, and the snails were naturals at space combat. “And whom are we addressing?”
“You are addressing Alexis Cromwell, commander of the Winged Hussars, aboard our flagship Pegasus.”
“I see,” the reply came. It would seem to be difficult for a snail to be taken aback, but you would have been convinced otherwise listening to the master of Yushispa. “I am Geshakooka, captain of this vessel, and commander of this squadron. It is an honor to meet one of the famous Human Four Horsemen I’ve heard so much about. A truly fortuitous day.”
“The honor is all mine, Captain Geshakooka. As to it being fortuitous, that would depend on where we go from here. I see two options.”
“I am listening.”
“Bogies have ceased acceleration,” Glick informed her over her pinlink; “however, the frigates have altered course to spread out. I estimate weapons range in 10 minutes.”
“Expected,” Alexis sent back. “Update if they show targeting profiles or begin maneuvering again.” She switched back to comms with the Yushispa. “One, you simply let us transit to the stargate and we go on our way. I know it’s against your blockade rules of engagement, but it’s your best option.”
“What is the other option?”
“I kill your entire squadron,” Alexis said calmly.
“Those are interesting options,” the opposing captain replied, “and worthy of consideration.”
“Glick, Chug,” she sent to her two Bakulu command crew, “I assume you are listening to their un-translated speech.” Both indicated they were. “I need to know if Captain Geshakooka is displaying any emotions.” The two Bakulu swiveled an eyestalk at each other, the
n back to her. Although they had three eyestalks, they could use different numbers independently, depending on their mood. As was common, on the Pegasus bridge, it was the more communicative of the two who replied.
“Not that I can tell, Captain,” Glick said. “If we were to hazard an opinion, we would say the captain is conflicted.”
“I see,” Alexis said and chewed her lip. After a moment with no reply, she transmitted again. “Captain, I don’t know why you are working for the Transki in the first place. They’re little better than thieves with a thin layer of moral justification. I wouldn’t take a contract with them on a dare.”
“It is a complicated arrangement,” the other captain replied. “I do not want to fight you,” it added; “it would be easier if you would just take the retainer and work for the Transki for the duration of this embargo.”
“I’d rather transition to hyperspace with a failing fusion reactor.”
“Weapons range in seven minutes,” Glick informed her.
“Captain, I do not wish to fight you either,” Alexis said, “but if you do not alter course in two minutes, you give me little choice.” Throughout the ship, her crew stood at combat stations and awaited their fates. Space combat was often composed of long waits, followed by moments of intense violence.
“Then I guess we have no choice,” Captain Geshakooka replied. “We must fight.”
Alexis bowed her head and sighed. “Very well. I am sorry.”
“As am I.” The transmission ended.
“Paka, bring us to full combat footing!” Alexis snapped.
“Reactors to full power,” Paka ordered. “Shields up; launch drone fighters!”
“Charge the spinal mount,” Alexis commanded, “and bring us around to face the Yushispa.”
Pegasus fired her oversized maneuvering thrusters and came about to face the enemy ships, which were only just beginning to power their drivers. On the blunt nose of the Pegasus, a multi-segmented door opened like the petals on a flower, exposing the bore of her spinal particle accelerator cannon. Already its channel was sparkling and glowing slightly as the super-dense metal was preheated to reduce stress.
