Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  “Good thinking, I guess. How’s he?” Jason gestured with his chin towards the pilot.

  “Stable. He’ll recover, surprisingly. You may want to talk to Crusher and impose some controls. If he’s left to his own devices, someone could end up seriously hurt or killed,” Doc said. Jason looked at him incredulously.

  “I’m not telling that behemoth anything he can or can’t do. My self-preservation instinct is too strong for that,” he said.

  “Your self-preservation instinct is questionable, at best—”

  “Hey!”

  “—and at any rate, he’ll listen to you. Just tell him no killing or maiming until he asks first.” Jason rolled his eyes at that and got up to leave.

  “I need to get something to eat,” he said as he walked out of the infirmary, intent on hitting up the galley before going to the bridge.

  After a quick meal, he walked up to an empty bridge and stopped himself before he sat in the copilot seat. Instead, he walked back around and hopped into the pilot’s seat and waited as it adjusted itself to his body. As soon as he laid eyes on the controls at the helm, it was like someone opened the floodgates in his brain. He instinctively knew what every control did and what each display represented without having to consciously think about it. He also now understood how the gravity drive and main engines complemented each other and when each was appropriate; he even knew at what speed the lifting body would stall within an atmosphere and when the repulsors would kick in. It went beyond simple memorization: he truly knew what he needed to do in order to fly the DL7. I’d have killed for this implant back in high school. He observed that they were on the final leg to their destination with forty-two hours remaining until they meshed into real-space. That would mean he had been out for around thirty-six hours.

  “Commander Burke, please come to the cargo bay,” Doc’s voice floated through the ship’s PA. Jason’s nerves were already frayed as it was; he fervently hoped there was no new disaster waiting for him in the cargo bay.

  “On my way,” he said as he hopped out of his chair and headed aft. Entering the cargo bay, he paused. There were twenty-two aliens milling around on the deck with all but one stasis pod pushed up against the port side of the bay. Mats were scattered throughout the cargo bay where the freed prisoners had obviously been sleeping. Jason spotted Doc and Crusher standing by the last stasis pod that still had power applied. Crusher was still armed with the plasma carbine and eyeing the prisoners with thinly veiled menace. Jason sighed, realizing he would indeed have to have a talk with him.

  “What’s this?”

  “The last prisoner,” Doc said. “But we’re a little unsure how to handle him.” Jason peered into the pod and let out an audible gasp at what he saw. Nestled in the pod was a synth, but nothing like Deetz. This machine was easily two meters tall and looked heavily armored. Even his face was armored with only the eyes visible.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Indeed. He’s a battlesynth, a rarity even among such a rare species,” Doc said, eyeing the bulky synth. “The issue is that he’s loaded with integrated weaponry and he’s unbelievable strong. If we let him loose in here and he becomes disagreeable, the entire ship is at risk.”

  “I see your point. Is there any way to only activate his cognitive functions so we can talk to him?” Jason asked. Doc turned and began poking at the controls of the stasis pod before answering.

  “It appears we can. You want to wake him?” he asked.

  “Yeah, let’s talk to him and see what’s what. Keep your hand on the control to shut him down again if it goes wrong,” Jason said. After a few more seconds, the head of the synth snapped up and the eyes moved, focusing first on Jason and then sweeping the room.

  “Identify yourself,” the synth demanded.

  “I’m Commander Jason Burke. My associates are Dr. Ma’Fredich and Crusher,” Jason said.

  “I recognize you,” the synth said to Crusher. “Am I to understand we’ve been delivered to our new keepers?” The tone was unmistakably contemptuous.

  “You understand wrong,” Crusher said. “These men have gone to great risk to rescue us.”

  “Rescue?” the synth said skeptically. “To what end?”

  “To whatever end we choose. We’re to be freed.” Crusher’s tone was surprisingly gentle as he addressed the synth.

  “What’s your name?” Jason asked, trying to maintain control of the conversation.

  “I am Combat Unit 777,” the synth said.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me … Your name is a serial number?” Jason asked, the cliché of it almost too much for him. “You don’t have a name besides that?”

  “Why would I?” 777 seemed genuinely confused. “I do not interact with biologicals on a social level and my designation is sufficient to accomplish my tasking.”

  “Fair enough,” Jason said. “So, Lucky 777, if we restore the rest of your functions and let you out, do you promise not to destroy the ship, or us, until we land and you can go your own way?” The synth looked at Jason and then to Crusher, who nodded to him.

  “I am no threat to you or your vessel. I do wish to be left alone, however,” 777 said quietly.

  “No problem. Doc, go ahead and fire him up and release the restraints.” Jason knew he was taking a huge risk, but the idea of keeping 777 chained up was repugnant to him. Freedom for some but not for all? That wasn’t what he had risked his life for at The Vault, so he’d take his chances and hope his decision didn’t end in a lunatic synth butchering everyone in the cargo bay. Looking at the impressive machine, Jason had his doubts that even Crusher would fare too well against him.

  777’s whole body twitched once as Doc restored full system control to him. After he was clearly supporting his own weight on his legs, they popped the restraints off and let him step out of the pod. “Do I need to stay in here with them?” he asked distrustfully, almost fearfully as he looked at the huddle of other prisoners. Jason thought hard about that one. Letting him out of the pod was one thing, but letting him into the guts of the ship was quite another.

  “Where would you be most comfortable?” Jason asked, hoping to reach a compromise.

  “I would prefer to remain with you three,” he said, indicating Jason, Doc, and Crusher. Jason looked to Doc, who shrugged noncommittally.

  “Follow us then,” Jason said to 777. “Everyone else,” he addressed the others who were leerily watching the synth move about and exercise his servos, “we’re nearly to our destination. Once we land we’ll meet up with the others we’ve freed and discuss what the next move is. I’m guessing for a lot of you it’ll be a trip home.” The other three followed Jason out of the cargo bay to the sound of cheers and clapping. They made their way to the bridge where Jason immediately slouched back into the pilot’s seat as 777 slowly walked around the bridge following Crusher and Doc.

  “How much longer?” Doc asked.

  “About another thirty-two hours,” Jason said after a glance at his displays. “I’ll take first watch if you guys want to grab some sleep. You can relieve me and then I’ll take a quick power nap before we come out of slip-space.” Doc and Crusher grudgingly agreed and left him alone on the bridge with 777.

  Jason was content to let the synth stand off to the side in silence as he continued to familiarize himself with the ship’s controls to reinforce his newly acquired skills. 777 was the first to speak. “Commander, why did you call me Lucky 777?”

  “Hmm? Oh … on my world the number seven is considered lucky. Since you’re triple-seven, I would have to say that you’re three times lucky.” Jason regretted his glib response after he said it. The synth had just recently been a packaged piece of property, after all. He could hardly consider him “lucky,” all things considered.

  “Lucky. I suppose I would have to consider myself lucky if I thought about it,” 777 said quietly. “I was abducted to serve a cruel purpose, of that I am sure. Most consider my kind to be simply highly advanced machines: intelligent, but u
ltimately just a piece of equipment. Once they realize we cannot be reprogrammed or coerced, they usually dispose of us.”

  “So your design doesn’t allow you to be controlled by reprogramming?”

  “No. Our personalities and processing structure are unique to each individual. This was done intentionally. We were given free will by our creators and it cannot be taken away.” 777’s choice of words struck home for Jason as he thought about the Declaration of Independence from his own country. In many ways it seemed the synths would never be free, rather unwelcome and unrecognized as free-thinking beings by the majority of governments. He was saddened to think he had freed this sentient being only to release him into an uncaring galaxy to make his own way.

  The pair fell silent for a while as each was lost in his own thoughts. Jason got up to go get a mug of chroot when 777’s hand reached out to touch his shoulder.

  “Commander, thank you for freeing me.” Jason put his own hand on the synth’s shoulder in turn.

  “You’re welcome,” he said simply, unable to think of anything else to say that wouldn’t sound trite.

  Jason milled about in the galley for a little while, thinking about the very real consequences of his recent actions. He had, without a doubt, just formed some powerful enemies. He didn’t know exactly how powerful these crime lords might be, but he was certain they were at least strong enough to cause serious problems for Earth if they ever found out where he had come from. He wracked his brain to think of a way to keep his home planet a secret, but by virtue of having to take a ship back to Earth at least once to get home he always ran the risk of at least one other knowing its location.

  He continued to mull things over in his head until he heard footsteps approaching from the direction of crew berthing. Looking up, he saw Crusher walking towards him while in the middle of an open-mouthed, feline-like yawn. “Where is 777?”

  “Up on the bridge. We talked a bit and I don’t think there’s any risk in letting him stay up there alone,” Jason said sleepily, the long day catching up with him.

  “Nor do I,” Crusher said. “Go ahead and get some sleep, Commander. I’d prefer you to be well rested before attempting your first landfall.”

  “That may not make a huge difference,” Jason mumbled as he walked by on the way to his quarters.

  CHAPTER 16

  Sitting in the pilot’s seat, Jason felt a growing sense of dread as the counter ticked off the final few minutes before the ship would drop back into real-space. He felt well-rested and he had his friends around him, but none of them had ever made a landing either so for now they were more or less useless. Crusher had claimed the copilot’s seat and Doc was sitting at one of the sensor stations. 777 seemed to have an aversion to sitting, so he stood behind Jason’s seat so he could see both the displays and the view outside.

  The brief flash and lurch Jason now associated with slip transitions marked their arrival into the destination system. He gave the instruments a glance while the canopy returned to translucent before engaging the grav-drive and angling them onto a course to intercept the fourth planet: a massive, rocky “super-Earth” that had a habitable but deserted moon orbiting it. The planet itself also harbored life, but the massive gravity would be deadly to all of them.

  Easing the ship into a low orbit, Jason asked the computer to begin scanning the surface and, sure enough, they spotted the cargo ship his friends had taken from The Vault. Still using the grav-drive, he slowed the ship further and dipped the nose down to begin entering the atmosphere. He could opt to use a tremendous amount of power and simply stop the ship and descend straight to their landing target, but any ship in the system would see them on their sensors if they were looking for any gravitational anomalies.

  Once they had burned through the upper atmosphere, Jason took manual control of the ship and started flying them towards the beacon on his display that indicated where the cargo ship was. Flying the DL7 wasn’t as difficult as he had imagined, but it certainly wasn’t something he would have been able to figure out on his own.

  He overflew the cargo ship and saw a few dozen aliens standing in the tall grass, waving enthusiastically at them. He pulled the gunship into a tight circle and tried to bring it to a hover. He soon realized, however, that possessing the knowledge of how to fly the ship and having the muscle memory and instincts honed from countless hours of experience were two very different things. The nose dipped precariously, causing the drives to whine in protest as they fought to level the ship out. Then he overcorrected and brought the nose up too sharply and began to bleed off precious altitude as they slid backwards. Thankfully his companions kept quiet save for the occasional muttered curse or sharp intake of breath as Jason was finally able to get the ship back under control after some more unintended aerobatics and began a wobbly descent to the surface. He cycled the landing gear at one-hundred feet and let the computer take over as the DL7 touched down with a gentle bump.

  “Well that wasn’t so bad,” Jason said to himself. Turning to his crewmates he asked, “Right?” Nobody answered as they walked off the bridge. He thought he heard Crusher mutter something about wishing he had been back in his stasis pod. “Everybody’s a critic,” Jason said as he secured the drives and leveled the ship on its landing gear. The last thing he did was release the security hold on the cargo ramp before departing the bridge.

  He made his way back to the cargo bay by way of the armory, grabbing a plasma sidearm and his railgun. He didn’t necessarily distrust the former prisoners outside, but he didn’t exactly trust them either. He walked out and saw the ramp was already down and most of the passengers had already disembarked. A larger-than-life laugh coming from just outside let Jason know Twingo had arrived to greet them. Smiling, he broke into a jog to go meet up with his friend as he slung the railgun over his shoulder. Twingo and Doc were already trying to compare who had the harder time of escaping The Vault when he walked down the ramp. Kage and Crusher stood by as spectators, and 777 had moved somewhat apart from the others, appearing uncertain as to what he should be doing.

  “Nice landing, Jason! We were all about to take cover back in the ship before you finally got this beast under control,” Twingo called out with a laugh.

  “Piss off,” Jason laughed as he grabbed the engineer into a bear hug, lifting him off the ground. They all laughed good naturedly at Jason’s expense and were generally in high spirits; they had pulled it off and the natural high from an accomplished mission was potent.

  “You won’t believe what’s in that ship,” Twingo was saying. “It wasn’t just stasis pods: the bosses had cargo containers full of precious metals and other high-value items. We’ve released all the prisoners, staged all the cargo, and dumped the pods.”

  “So do they have a full flight crew for that ship?” Jason asked. When Twingo and Kage both nodded, Jason continued, “I figure once they get it unloaded they can board and head to whichever civilized planet they choose. Most of them were taken against their will and aren’t criminals. Let’s leave it to the authorities to start getting them back home. Otherwise, we’ll be ferrying them back and forth for years.”

  “That’s a good idea, but how do they explain how they obtained the ship and fled The Vault without getting us involved?” Doc asked.

  “We still have the dead flight crew and some of Bondrass’ men. They can spin it that a pod malfunctioned and they were able to release the others and overpower the crew, stealing the ship,” Twingo offered.

  “It’s fairly weak,” Jason said with a frown. “But it’s the best we have. Get with the replacement flight crew and try to hash out the details and then tell everyone else they didn’t know anything until they were brought out of stasis, which is more or less the truth.”

  “So what’s next for us?” Twingo asked. Doc cut Jason off before he could even open his mouth fully to speak.

  “There’s still one more thing we should do before we call this done,” Doc said quickly. “Bondrass wasn’t just into abduct
ion and trafficking. Part of what I did for him involved some pretty heavy, and illegal, genetic engineering. He has a vast, automated facility into which he’s invested a substantial part of his fortune. Taking it out would break him.”

  “Doc,” Jason spoke up first, “freeing the people in The Vault was a righteous move, and it was in parallel with our need to escape ourselves. But this seems to be nothing but revenge, which I understand. Bondrass deserves that, and much more, for what he did to you. But, you have to understand … we were incredibly lucky on this mission. There’s no way that we should have been able to get away that easily.”

  “I know what I’m asking,” Doc said, “and I know that some of you would like to walk away and go home now while we still can. I’m asking you to trust me in that the implications of letting this facility continue to exist are far more profound than any one crime boss’ wallet. It’s not likely I’ll ever be in a position again to really do something about it either.” He gestured to the hissing DL7 gunship as he finished. Once Doc stopped talking, Jason realized that they were all looking at him, waiting to see what his answer would be. He looked away from them for a moment and out over the alien landscape of the moon. The planet was rising up over the horizon to share the sky with the primary star and the effect was simply breathtaking.

  After a moment’s deliberation, Jason spoke again. “You’re asking too much,” he insisted. “We were more or less forced into action in this instance. You’re talking about a deliberate assault on a civilian target. I may not be up on all the ins and outs of legalities in this part of the galaxy, but I have to believe that what you’re proposing is highly criminal.”