by Sid Kar
Stardjacker Capitan Norvyk scanned Megaship Maverick’s hull as he flew his Mystery class spyship very close to it. He was looking for a section that would not have any presence of Mercurians, nor contain any important piece of machinery that would have sensors and detectors for intruders. Finally, his scanner found an empty section of Maverick’s hull and Norvyk slowly brought his spaceship to a halt and again attached it to Maverick with an attraction induced by magnetic force.
He scanned for internal movement and found none. He opened a switch panel under his front controls and flicked on a switch labeled ‘Plasma Penetration’. These spyships hull were built with special alloy material to withstand high levels of heat that would melt most spaceship hulls and shields. And that is exactly what the heat generated by heat ducts built onto the spyship’s exteriors did. They slowly but steadily melted Megaship Maverick’s hull and spyship’s computer gradually moved the spyship itself into position till it was half way inside the larger starship and half way in space. There was no open space left to avoid setting off any ‘shield damage’ alarms in the control room. Instead, the shield officers’ terminals flickered for less than a moment and then went back to normal. It did not even register in their thoughts as the Mercurians were relaxed after their victory and being amidst the presence of their large fleet.
Norvyk put on the Stardjacker armor and helmet and sealed it shut. Then he stepped out of the spyship and looked around. It was total dark in this area but he had turned on the night vision. The large warehouse type of room was totally empty and Norvyk was not surprised. Starship manufacturers built important functions as deep inside the starship as they could to provide them maximum protection from the effects of external strikes.
He nearly put his feet down on the blue, metallic floor but not quite. There were micro-air pumps built into the sole of his metallic boots that would allow him to hover just a hundredth of an inch or so above the floor. This was necessary to prevent setting off alarms that were built into some empty sections of spaceship floors to detect intruders. To defeat motion sensors his armor contained absorption layers as well as deceptive micro-relays that fed false information to the sensors by manipulating emission of rays and waves.
His helmet detected and analyzed the starship’s atmosphere and its chemical composition and determined it wasn’t suitable for his breathing. Stardjacker soldiers had micro-reactors built inside their body to provide them constant energy if needed. They did not need to eat, drink or even breathe to stay alive.
But the most difficult part was fighting the primal instincts of hunger, thrust and suffocation. A Stardjacker could live indefinitely abroad an alien starship or on an inhospitable planet without food, water or breathable air, but he would be constantly wracked with pangs of hunger, his throat would be hoarse for water and the feeling of suffocation would be his dear companion.
Norvyk was acclimatized and trained many times to withstand, ignore and overcome these instincts. But it was not easy, it would take time. He wandered around in the dark a bit exploring the area and then settled down for rest behind a wide column. First he had to get used to operating on just the artificially generated energy of the micro-reactors. The war was going nowhere, there would be time enough for him to fight.
Grand Admiral Valorun was pacing his room contemplating his decision to return to the Mercurian Empire for consultation with state leaders. It was against the grain of his own war philosophy of rapid, decisive strikes and giving the enemy no time to regroup or no breathing space. But he had no choice in the matter, unless he secured his own position as the sole decision maker of battles with support from the Emperor and the Corporatstad; he would always stand in the danger of receiving a foolish order from Admiralstad that he would be bound to execute per the military hierarchy and the chain of command. They had taken a hands off approach till now because they were scared of forcing a plan of action on him that might go sour and the blame then falling right on their heads. But after his spectacular victory, the Admiralstad was likely to become overconfident and start issuing orders to him.
They were flying through space for many weeks now. The distances were vast and they were literally crossing the length of the galaxy. But now they were finally back inside the space territory of the Mercurian Empire and Maverick headed not for the capital, not just yet, but to another planet on which resided the man who held the key to Valorun’s plans.
“Grand Admiral, we are approaching the orbital checkpoint station of Mercuris Minoris,” one of his communications officer from the command room spoke over the intercom.
“Very well, I will be right there,” Valorun said and exited his personal quarters.
As Valorun walked in the command room he saw Vice-Admiral Lewyn at the communications station with a frown on his face talking to the space traffic controllers at the checkpoint station.
“Flight Staff of spaceship Maverick, please await your assignment in the visiting spaceship’s queue. Your unexpected arrival requires us to get permission to allow you to proceed further into Minoris space,” the space traffic controller’s voice came over their system.
“How long will that take…” a junior communications officer began to speak but Lewyn cut him off.
“No, no, you bloody fools, this is the flagship of Mercurian Imperial Navy, you don’t assign us to any queues. We are flying to Mercuris right now. If you try to stop us, we will blast your entire station to pieces,” VC Lewyn replied.
“What is going on here?” Valorun asked.
“Some two-bit bureaucrats are giving us bad attitude, I am setting them straight,” Lewyn replied.
There was silence on the other end for a few moments but then a voice spoke tepidly, “Admiral, please proceed at your own will.”
But Maverick was not waiting along. Lewyn had ordered the spaceship to keep moving even as it communicated with the space station and it had already crossed beyond the station when the traffic controller spoke.
Valorun walked over to the large window to look at the space station and the space traffic that had arrayed beyond it waiting for their turns and permissions to proceed further. Vice Admiral Lewyn walked over to him and stood by his side.
“I had believed you to be a son of chemical corporatex boss based on your background report that was delivered to me,” Valorun said.
“I still am,” Lewyn smiled, “But I am a navy man, through and through. If corporatex interests stand in our path, I will run them over, just like I would our enemies.”
“Glad to know,” Valorun said then smiled wryly, “but do not say that aloud in public. Corporatex bosses control our commanders.”
“Grand Admiral, my father wanted me to follow in his footsteps and take over his chemical corporatex that has been majority owned by our family for generations. But I never liked petty and tedious work to run an organization obsessed with symbols. The endless manipulations of chemical symbols and endless manipulation of symbols on the screen that represent money were tasks I found too tedious and tiring. Do not let my background cloud your judgement of my position when dealing with Corporatex bosses. I will support you fully,” Lewyn replied.
“Thank you, Vice-Admiral,” Valorun said. Though he knew there was no reason to really thank him as it was the duty of an officer to support his commander. Valorun had suspected all along that Lewyn’s family background and his father’s wealth and power had played a major role in his assignment to Maverick as its Vice-Admiral. His scores in the Space Naval Academy and his record in the live battle simulations were fairly impressive, however there were at least a dozen more equally talented candidates with real battle experience whom Valorun would have chosen if he had a say. But he had been retired. Much of his old crew from the late war had received promotions and were now distributed across myriad of different spaceships. He had to accept whomever the Admiralstad assigned to him.
After they passed the first checkpoint station, a second orbital station, completely black and spherical with a f
ew light sources on its perimeter, came into their view. It was only visible against the backdrop of the planet Mercuris Minoris however this space station orbited the blue-green moon of the planet instead.
“Now there is a den of sin and iniquity that I would love to blast out of space,” Valorun remarked.
“Grand Admiral, the entire moon complex of Nitrostorm would be useless without the research station Black Hydro,” VC Lewyn laughed.
“Would be a shame,” Valorun commented with a hint of sarcasm in his voice then said to Lewyn, “Space station Black Hydro alone earns us more badwill across the galaxy than the operations of our entire imperial navy.”
“Possible,” Lewyn replied, “But how else would our chemical corporatex know of the efficacy of their potions without actual experiments?”
“Actual experiments conducted on alive, intelligent sentient aliens,” Valorun said, “aliens kidnapped from thousands of different civilizations and held against their will.”
Mercuris Minoris and its star system was the only place in Mercurian Empire where laws against kidnapping and involuntary experiments on aliens were suspended. Black Hydro was a joint project of all the chemical corporatexes, each receiving research and experiment results for its chemicals in exchange for funding and the space station itself was totally off limits to the Imperial police and courts. Outsiders required permission from the Emperor himself for access. Its existence was officially denied but rumors of it had spread to many other space civilizations for quite a while now.
“There are very small numbers of them from any particular alien race,” Lewyn said, “and we do discontinue research once our chemists have mastered the chemical composition of a particular alien race.”
“Discontinued and discarded…” Valorun scoffed.
“Don’t blame me, I didn’t join that industry, I chose your commandership instead,” Lewyn said.
And not out of any love or even respect for me, Valorun almost spoke out loud but kept his thoughts to himself. Having served under him, Lewyn would receive an immeasurable boost on his future chances of promotions. He could claim to have absorbed his tactical wisdom as if through a process of osmosis and use that to further his rise in Imperial Navy.
Stardjacker Capitan Norvyk was also staring out of a window of Maverick at the same time. But the space stations did not register an interest in his mind. It was the moon that bewildered him. There it was, an entire moon and it was covered with large rivers and even entire seas but what was strange were myriad hues of colors of all those liquids. Norvyk did not understand how could there be so many different, colorful large pools of liquids that did not mix with each other. He had taken extensive astronomy classes as part of his preparation and remembered of no other moon or planet like this mentioned.
Then he zoomed further with the lenses of his armored helmet and at the same time activated the laser from his wrist and pointed it at the moon. He scanned the moon’s surface with the laser and a small computer spit out the results of the analysis. The magnified sight and the laser spectrometric readouts shocked him even more. These were not rivers or seas but artificial vats of chemicals with huge, metallic barriers separating them and a jungle of pipes and tubes connecting across the entire length of the moon. The moon was not an aberrant, astronomical phenomenon, it was a giant chemical factory.
He was absorbed in his thoughts and reading the analysis displayed on the lenses in his helmet when he heard a slight sound of footsteps and turned around to see a contingent of eight Mercurian soldiers walking down the hallway, who too were startled and equally surprised to see this strange creature.
“Who are you?” their apparent leader asked even as they aimed their yellow colored laser guns at him.
Stardjacker said nothing for a few moments and let the Mercurian soldiers, dressed in their uniform of light blue shirt, medium green pants and blue boots, slowly approach him.
“Boo!” Stardjacker suddenly blurted out disheveling the Mercurians for a second. That was enough. Stardjacker jumped on the side wall and flung himself on to the Mercurians taking down five of them to the floor with him. He kicked the legs out of the sixth one and he slammed sideways into the wall. The last two Mercurian soldiers jumped back and fired their laser guns at Stardjacker. But the Stardjacker had furiously started rolling forward on the floor towards them and avoided the laser hits. They started kicking him but the armor blunted most of the force. Now that they were standing on one foot, Stardjacker easily swept their legs, crashing them into the ground. He jumped up and took off running before any of the Mercurian soldiers could get back to their feet.
Stardjacker made quick turns left and right through multiple empty hallways. He had secretly explored the Mercurian spaceship for the last few weeks and had committed a rough map to his helmet’s database which now illuminated his path. But this mistake could cost him dearly. Here he was deep inside the Mercurian Space. He could not quickly jump into his spyship and make an escape as he could have near Starfire Space or even in Deep Space. His spaceship would not even have starmaps of this galactic region. And he had become slower due to lack of food, water and breathable air. He was getting all the required energy from the micro-reactors, but his senses were telling him he was hungry, thirsty and suffocating. This was making him feel weaker than he was. He would have to hide.
Grand Admiral Valorun, Vice Admiral Lewyn and a force of 100 soldiers were standing in the bay while a couple of pilots prepared their space shuttle to fly them to the largest orbital palatial mansion on Mercuris Minoris.
Suddenly the ‘Security Breach and Intruder Warning’ alarm started blaring out from the entire length of Megaship Maverick and a few seconds later Major Follum Lam, the officer in charge of Maverick’s internal security, came running into the bay.
“What is going on Major?” Valorun asked.
“We have an intruder, a very dangerous one,” Follum said as he saluted the admiral, “he knocked out eight of our soldiers who stumbled upon him carrying out espionage.”
“What kind of chumps would allow one saboteur to take out eight of them?” Lewyn spoke in derision. This angered Follum and he nearly got in the face of Lewyn.
“Vice-Admiral, before you insult my men, consider that it was an armored super-soldier unit, like the one who destroyed one of our forward patrol units on Rainmar,” Follum said.
“I saw that video, it was quite impressive,” Valorun said, “But back there, he was on his own grounds, amongst his own people. Now he is trapped on our spaceship. Take care of him while we are gone.”
“Admiral, I know you don’t like the MegaMacktar unit, but now might be the time to activate him,” Follum said.
“We have thousands of soldiers abroad Maverick,” Valorun said.
“No doubt, we will eventually subdue him with numbers, but many of our soldiers will die,” Follum said. He knew exactly which button to push to get the admiral to see the situation from his point of view.
“I don’t like it and you tell the MegaMacktar to avoid recklessness, but go ahead, activate him,” Valorun said.
“Yes sir,” Follum said, “Indeed, I had asked him to stand by just outside the bay. Come on in.”
Suddenly the bay door flung open and a figure ran at a speed multiples of a regular individual towards the assembled group. Lewyn almost drew his laser pistol, the soldiers were disquieted, but Valorun didn’t bat an eyelid.
“Capitan Tomulan Zall, reporting for action, grand admiral,” the newcomer saluted Valorun stopping just a few feet from him. He had traversed a distance of over 100 meters in less than five seconds.”
“How did he hear us all the way…” Lewyn asked.
“He can hear us through micro-voice amplifiers embedded in his ears,” Follum smiled, “an armored super-soldier of our own.”
MegaMacktar Tomulan was a man with muscles big and thick enough to be twice as large as a regular Mercurian soldier and he was the tallest man in the bay even with 100 soldiers to compare agai
nst. He was dressed in an all blue uniform of a deep, cobalt blue and a few pieces of armor he had put on were a mix of green and light blue.
Valorun took one look at Tomulan and walked past him to his shuttle followed by Lewyn and the soldiers. He had always found the chemically enhanced physique of MegaMacktar unit a revolting sight.
Their shuttle docked at the spacious bay of the orbital mansion and they were met with armed security guards at the exit door.
“This is quite unorthodox,” the guard leader said, “we require prior permission…”
“You will stand aside and assign one of your guards to lead us to the main reception,” Capitan Rolkan Malf said. He was leading the troops accompanying Valorun.
The security guards swallowed hard but they weren’t going to try to stop naval troops with force. One of them escorted them out the bay door and through a large corridor and a few turns later they were in the reception area with two wide doors facing them on the other side which were heavily guarded by armed security.
“What in the world?” the guard leader stationed there exclaimed, “You let them in without asking me?” He asked the escorting guard.
“I am here to meet Joy Corporatex’s boss Morvulan Loyyan,” Valorun said.
“You need an appointment, I can’t just let you…” the guard leader said.
“Grand Admiral, would you like us to push out these wash outs from your way?” Capitan Rolkan asked Valorun with a smile.
“Appreciate your offer Capitan, but I believe it won’t be necessary,” Valorun smiled at the guards who were unnerved at the prospect of facing down a hundred soldiers and their palms and brows sweated even as they clutched their laser guns tightly.
“Let him in,” a voice boomed from the intercom.
The guards opened the door and Valorun walked inside. Lewyn stayed behind because Valorun wanted to have a private conversation but he had tagged along out of curiosity to see the orbital mansion from inside.
