The Good, the Bad, and the Merc: Even More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 8)

by Chris Kennedy

  The Galactic Union had standardized a lot about starships, despite the fact that a dozen races manufactured their own ships or variants of other ships. They stuck to standard design requirements, so many parts were interchangeable, or at least adaptable in a pinch. As Earth was already a backwater, it was easy to find spare parts on the ships that had died there. Most of the parts were already worn out, but Shoop was skilled in his trade and brought seemingly dead technology back to life, quickly integrating it into Dante. While the elSha and his team worked, Yegor began loading the ship.

  He’d gotten together with his only exploration team and had gotten them to sign off on the plan by using a dazzlingly brilliant presentation where he threw around unbelievable numbers for profits. As his dad once said, when it came to business, “fake it until you make it” is a valid tactic. The 20-man exploration and drill team put their names on the dotted line for various percentages that added up to another 21% of the profits. Shoop and his people were in for 2% as well, leaving Yegor with 57%. However, he wasn’t done.

  Next, he found and hired a crew to operate Dante. Jim had kept his people, who were all registered mercs anyway. Luckily, the ship was easy to operate, as far as 700-year-old alien technology went. Rife with various mercs coming and going, Earth had plenty of qualified pilots and other crew, like Shoop and his team. Not all were Human, though most were. He hired a Human pilot named Ripley, who was also qualified as a navigator. She found a flight crew of seven more pilots, navigators, and sensor operators. Five more percent.

  The last component was the one he’d been hoping to avoid. The problem was his goal of F11, which was the most valuable element in the galaxy. Countless wars had been fought over it, and he intended to have a bunch when he was done. His claim was public knowledge; anyone could pay the Trade Guild 250 credits and look up all the F11 claims in the galaxy, and where they were. He needed security.

  Not wanting to go to Houston, he contracted locally from one of the few Russian merc units operating. He hired a platoon from Smerch, for another 4% with a contractual agreement to keep them fed and in vodka for the entire operation. And, finally, he lost another 2% in licensing his operation to the Russian government.

  “Forty-six percent,” he grumbled from his office on Dante in the final days before they left. Just making the operation come together had cost him his majority share. He used a slate to look at the numbers. There were modular tanks stored in the cargo hold. Once all the equipment was off-loaded, and the holds converted to tankage, Dante could hold 340,000 liters of F11. The Trade Guild spot price for F11 on the market that morning was 6,227 credits per liter. Dante fully loaded was worth 2.1 billion credits. Even with overhead, it would be close to 1 billion. One billion credits. That came to something like three quarters of a trillion rubles. A grin chased across his face just thinking about it. His country’s GDP was around 100 trillion. He was staring at almost 1% of his nation’s GDP. On one trip.

  The next day, final preparations were completed. Yegor transferred control of SPK to a company vice president, one of his cousins, in a small formal ceremony done over the internet. The company headquarters were in St. Petersburg, and he was in Dante at Sevastopol. The company only had a few dozen operations underway, making a modest amount of money. His estates and various personal enterprises would run without him for the 12 months he guessed he’d be gone. The 340 remaining employees of SPK gave him an emotional sendoff to which he broke down and promised to split 1% of the profits with the company as bonuses. The cheering overloaded the connections speakers, and he cut it with a wave.

  Forty-five percent, he chided himself. If they succeeded, each employee stood to make about 30,000 credits each, or more than ten million rubles. It was a gesture he could afford. Yegor left the little office/stateroom and went to the bridge. Unlike a warship, Dante’s bridge was located near her nose and had outside windows. She needed visibility to maneuver, dock with space stations, and land. Captain Ripley gave him a nod of acknowledgement as he entered.

  “Ready to lift, sir,” she said. Yegor took a seat off to one side and out of the way, which was his right as the owner, and buckled the three-point harness.

  “At your discretion,” he said after making extra sure the straps were in place.

  “Beaverton,” Ripley said, “inform ground control we’re ready to lift.” One of the men at another station spoke into his headset then turned back to the captain.

  “We have permission to lift off,” he said. “Launch laser is standing by.”

  “Very well. Mr. Tosh, engage ascent motors.” Another crewmember worked the controls and, with a thunderous roar, ECS Dante shuddered into the air. Yegor did his best to hide his nervousness as the 12,000-ton transport slowly slipped sideways, balanced on its six screaming lift motors. After a minute of the banshee wail of the motors, the pilot spoke up again.

  “We’re in ascent position,” he said.

  “Very well, hold position. Beaverton, inform ascent laser control they may fire when ready.” The man spoke again, and, a second later, there was a screeching roar of tortured metal and Yegor was pushed back into his padded chair by 3Gs of thrust. “Ascent motors to station keeping,” Ripley yelled over the scream, “keep us in the groove.”

  Yegor knew that most of the hard work of positioning the multi-terawatt ascent laser squarely on Dante’s ablative dome was done by the laser control computer. He also knew that should an ascending ship not at least make the job doable, that same laser could deviate off the vaporizing shield and carve the ship like butter. He tried not to think about it.

  Unlike a rocket, the laser was able to maintain a specific impulse during their climb. After a minute, their course altered into a turn, and they were thrusting laterally. The ship shuddered for a moment as it passed through Max Q, the highest pressure the atmosphere would exert on them as they went transonic, and then the rest was easy. A hundred ships a week rode one of the four starport lasers around Earth into orbit. They were ubiquitous around the Galactic Union, and, driven by fusion power, far more economical than to have the ships burning their fuel. There were also much easier on the environment. A ship didn’t need to have true ascent engines to reach space; it just needed to be able to lift off and hover. Dante could reach space, but it was easier to use the laser and not have to refuel in orbit.

  “LCO in 10 seconds,” Tosh, the pilot announced. Laser cut off was instantaneous; the 3Gs just disappeared and everyone slammed forward into their restrains.

  “I do wish they’d work that out,” Ripley said. “Tosh, check our ascent corridor and ship condition.”

  “Our orbital insertion is nominal,” the pilot reported. “We’ll only need about 1,500 meters per second to break orbit. No red lights on the board.”

  “Excellent,” Ripley said and glanced at Yegor. “Welcome to space.”

  “I’ve been here,” he admitted. He was looking out the window for any sign of the stargate, which was out at the LaGrange point. He’d flown around the system in his little yacht, but he’d never been through the stargate. “How long to the stargate?”

  “Four hours,” she said. He made a face. “We have a scheduled transition window, Mr. Pestov. Do you know how much it costs to get an unscheduled stargate transition?”

  “No,” he said, “and I can’t afford it, anyway.” He unstrapped and floated toward the bridge exit. “I’m going to do some paperwork. Kindly inform me before we make transition?” He tried to sound casual and mostly succeeded. The captain nodded, and he went below.

  Yegor floated around his office for a time, staring at the desk, which now appeared mounted to a wall. He was glad he’d been to space a fair amount, although his stomach was still flipping around uncomfortably. He eventually pulled himself into the chair and latched the handy seatbelt there before looking over the operation’s lengthy equipment stores. So much of his wealth was tied up in this venture—not to mention other people’s wealth. He doubted he’d ever have any investment again if he
failed. He just needed time to make it work.

  Finally, the captain called that they were set to enter the stargate, and Yegor floated back up to the bridge. He belted himself into his seat and got ready.

  “First time in hyperspace?” the captain asked.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. She gave a knowing smile.

  “It’s unique,” she said.

  “Unique,” Yegor repeated.

  “Transition in 1 minute,” the pilot, Tosh, announced. Yegor felt his sphincter tighten to truly frightening levels. The clock ran down, and a huge circle within the stargate apparatus began to shimmer outside the window. “Moving forward on automatic,” the pilot said. “Ten seconds.” The shimmer became a swirling effect, and Yegor thought he could see a distorted reflection of ECS Dante.

  “All hands, prepare for transition to hyperspace,” Captain Ripley said. “In three, two, one…” They touched the event horizon, and Yegor was destroyed.

  “Mr. Pestov, wake up.” Yegor felt someone gently slapping his face, and his eyes snapped open.

  “Bozhe moi!” he exclaimed, looking around wildly. “Oh, my God!”

  “You’re fine,” Captain Ripley said, floating directly in front of him. “You just passed out.”

  “I died,” he said.

  “A lot of people call the translation to hyperspace as a moment of uncreation. So, in a way, you could say you died. But you were reborn instantaneously.”

  He looked around the bridge. Many of the crew were looking at him either askance or with expressions of pity. He shook himself and fought to take control of his emotions. “I’m fine,” he said and unbuckled. “It was just a surprise.”

  “Sure,” the captain replied. As Yegor floated free, he looked out the front window of the bridge into pure whiteness. Hyperspace had no features, no sense of distance or movement. Nothing. It was infinite, all-encompassing white. He quickly pushed off toward the door just so he didn’t have to see it. He decided he would spend the entire seven days in his quarters.

  3

  The subsequent three jumps weren’t any easier for Yegor. He never quite got used to the transition to hyperspace or the look of it. His disquiet wasn’t helped by the transport’s lack of a gravity deck. Instead, the ship was intermittently flipped end over end for a few hours each day to provide a little simulated gravity at the ends of the ship. On such a short baseline, the centrifugal force was extremely noticeable, making you constantly feel like you were going to be flung sideways. He did the bare minimum of 20 minutes exercise in gravity every day, then fled back to his amidships quarters in zero gravity.

  They stopped at the last transition before heading to their final destination and took on reaction mass for the fusion reactors and drive motors. Shoop had Yegor purchase a few spare parts as well, just to be sure. They would be a long way off the beaten path for months, and no Humans had ever been involved in F11 prospecting; this would be a learning experience, and one that needed a fast learning curve to succeed.

  At long last, they arrived.

  “Transition to normal space complete,” Tosh announced. Yegor sighed as he looked out the bridge and was able to see normal space again.

  “Welcome to system X-119,” Captain Ripley said. Systems that were home to black holes were all designated by an X, and they were also the only systems which possessed a stargate where transition were provided free by the Cartography Guild. That was part of an arrangement, which dated back before the Galactic Union existed. As there was no light for a solar charger, these stargates were all fusion powered and operated a maximum of once per standard month. Although you were guaranteed not to be permanently stranded in a black hole system, you might have to wait a long time.

  “Where is it?” Yegor asked.

  “The black hole?” Ripley asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Helm, bring her about to 221 mark 018.” The pilot nodded, and the view spun.

  “Holy shit,” someone said as it came into view. The starfield seemed to distort as light pulled and bent into a band of brilliance along one side.

  “The singularity,” Ripley explained. “We only see the light that can pass by the event horizon. Anything closer falls in and doesn’t make it out.”

  “It’s huge,” Yegor said, “bigger than I thought.”

  “The actual size is probably a lot smaller,” Ripley said, “the light effect is the edge of the gravitation event horizon, which is probably a long way from the collapsed star core.”

  “You’ve seen one before?”

  “No,” she admitted. “I’ve only read a bit about them. There was an old movie on Earth long ago. A science fiction movie about a black hole. This is cooler.”

  “Okay,” Yegor said. “Captain, let’s move inward a few light hours while the survey team begins looking.”

  Dante wasn’t very fast, but she was economical, and she had enough reaction mass to thrust at a 1-gravity constant for weeks on end, which of course was why her decks were oriented so up was toward her nose. The bridge was on gimbals to allow it to rotate for long times under trust, and face in the traditional manner when docking and transferring cargo.

  Over the next week, Dante fell toward the black hole. After two days, they cut thrust and coasted. They could feel the tug of X-119, even though it was billions of kilometers away. The exploration team worked around the clock with the ship’s sensor operators, sifting data and searching for the ancient planetoidal body the survey report said would be there. It wasn’t until the end of that week the truth was discovered.

  “The data is outdated,” the head of the exploration team reported to Yegor in his little office. The captain and sensor technician were present as well.

  “What do you mean, outdated? It’s not a carton of milk!”

  “He means you didn’t check the date of the survey,” Captain Ripley said. She floated a slate over to him, and he looked at it. The image was the cover-page of the survey report. “The date’s in the lower left.” He looked at the number. It was in the Union’s standard 13-digit dating system. The first five digits were the year, the next three the day (320 standard days in a Union year), the next five the time of day (1,276 minutes in a day, 100 seconds to a minute). Yegor had no idea where they got that from and didn’t care. He shrugged.

  “I put that into Google,” Yegor said, “and it told me the date was about a hundred years ago.” Several people sighed as the captain laughed darkly. “What’s the problem?”

  “There’s a conversion program on the GalNet,” she said, but he just looked at her. “Didn’t you double check it?” With a growing feeling of dread, he grabbed his own slate and accessed the GalNet. Union Standard Date conversions provided an immediate result. It was already set for Earth. Good thing, too, because there were thousands of possibilities. He punched in the 13-digit number and instantly got a response. February 17, 1995 BC.

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah,” the search team leader said. “Tracking down a rock around a black hole based on 4,000-year-old orbital data is a lot harder than using 100-year old data.” Everyone looked at Yegor, and he didn’t like the expressions on their faces.

  “What’s 4,000 years to a planet?” he blurted out. “Earth’s been spinning around the sun for billions of years, right?”

  “Earth isn’t going to be eaten by a black hole,” Ripley said with an exasperated sigh.

  “What do you want me to do?” the exploration team leader asked. Yegor looked at the collection of expectant, annoyed, and disgusted faces.

  “Keep looking,” he said.

  “We’re already pretty deep into the gravity well.” The captain looked skeptical.

  “How far in can we go?” She took out a slate and tapped on the screen for a moment.

  “Another 3 days for a fast return. Four times that if you don’t care how long it takes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We go more than three days we’ll have to orbit the black hole and use gravity to sli
ng us back out.” He ground his teeth together for a minute before deciding.

  “Then we have three days, right? See what you can find.”

  4

  The crew was pissed. Yegor didn’t need to be the captain to tell him that. Since they were coasting in zero gravity again, he had to work out, and that meant interacting with them. He also got tired of waiting for two hours after meals for someone to get around to bringing him food, so he started going dejectedly to the galley. By the expressions on the faces he found there, most would have rather that he’d simply starved. He made sure at lunch to grab an extra sandwich so he could skip dinner. It was midwatch on the 2nd day when the sensor crew found something.

  “What do you have?” Yegor asked as he flew into the bridge in response to a summons. He noticed right away his survey team lead was floating with the sensor operator, who was talking excitedly.

  “You are in luck,” Captain Ripley said, “at least partly.” She gestured to the sensor operator, who activated the bridge’s nominal Tri-V screen. It displayed a rocky, slightly irregular planetoid against the stars. Yegor cocked his head; the starlight looked distorted around it. Regardless, though, its irregular shape was unmistakable.

  “You found it!”

  “Yes,” the sensor operator said. The display altered to show a graphic representation of the system. The black hole was in the center with dozens of objects orbiting around it. “Most of these are small to medium-sized asteroids,” he said. They went from far out in the system to nearly at the event horizon. Their target was flashing green. “Your planetoid is a lot closer than it was 4,000 years ago.”

  “But it’s still there,” Yegor said triumphantly. None of the others looked as excited. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s a lot closer to the black hole,” Captain Ripley said.

  “Okay,” Yegor said. “I thought you bragged about Dante having enough power.” He gestured at the planetoid. “That’s a couple hundred million credits floating within our grasp. Billions!” he said with as much emphasis as he could manage. “Can you, or can’t you, get us down there and back?”