Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  As they’d raced down the highway, one particular slope next to the canyon had beckoned to him. He’d stopped, examined it, and his onboard computer informed him that the slope was precisely twenty-four point two degrees, and that if he gunned it up to one hundred and fifteen miles per hour, he’d barely make it. Not accounting for wind resistance, of course.

  “If you don’t think there’s a chance of failure, then you’re even more deluded than I thought,” quipped Po.

  Ben fiddled with his helmet. “Tell you what, Shotgun, you make it over, you can have the bike. If you don’t, you buy me a new one. Deal?” Jake could tell he was just angling for a new motorcycle, but that he had every expectation his friend would back down at the last second, as he had done twice earlier in the day at smaller ravines.

  Revving the engine a few times, he breathed in the smell of the exhaust of the retro throwback. Based on models of late twenty-first century sport bikes, the twenty-seventh century versions featured microgravitic thrusters, which not only improved the gas mileage to over one thousand miles per gallon, but also increased the maximum speed to well over what humans should sensibly travel over pavement.

  But at least the microgravitics would provide a modicum of safe deceleration in the event of a crash. At least, he hoped they would—the onboard computer had been acting finicky. It was a twenty-year-old bike, after all.

  “I’m wearing an ASA suit, for heaven’s sake, Grizzly. It’s not like I’m going to die if I fall. And there’s the gravitic deceleration. And there’s the—” he continued listing off the safety features, more for his sake than for Po’s.

  “Look, if you’re going to go, go. It’s your funeral.” Po had a habit of passive aggressiveness when it came to the safety of others. It had served her well as Jake’s co-pilot and gunner for two years, and now as a fighter squad leader herself.

  He’d threatened to jump at two previous, smaller canyons, but this time, Jake grit his teeth and made up his mind. “Ok, here I go. See you on the other side.” And before he could change his mind, he gunned the engine, revving it to well past twenty thousand rpm. Eyeing the old-school speedometer as he raced up the incline, he hunched over, preparing himself to jerk the handles up slightly to counteract the change in slope at the top. One hundred fifty … one hundred seventy … the wind buffeted his sleek red helmet and gleaming red ASA suit—armor that could repel a plasma-rpg at point blank range—one hundred seventy-five, and … liftoff.

  He soared high into the air, feeling as free as he did while in his fighter—his trusty old bird. In his speaker-set, he could hear Po and Ben chatter, but in his altered consciousness he couldn’t tell what they were saying. All he could feel was freedom. Freedom and weightlessness, the two best feelings in the world—though a brief flashback to a certain women’s restroom mirror reminded him of a third.

  An unexpected blast of wind slammed into him laterally, introducing a slight rotation to his flight. He thumbed the stabilizer, and the gravitics kicked in to right his descent, but out of the blue, the wind shifted and blasted him the other direction, knocking his right arm loose, and when he grabbed the handle again, he inadvertently hit the lateral stabilizer, but the same direction as before, sending him into a lateral spin.

  “Well shit,” was the last thing he said before colliding with the top of the opposite canyon wall and blacking out.

  -o0o-

  They watched as Jacob Mercer tumbled through the air, and slammed into the wall on the other side, and plummeted down the steep vertical slope to the dry riverbed below. Po’s hands darted over the tiny console perched on the handlebars of her ride, eyes wide in horror. Po cupped her hand over her mouth.

  “Is he … uh … tell me he’s ok,” Ben murmured.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “He’s alive. The gravitics kicked in before the collision and blunted the impact, and slowed his fall down the wall too. I’m reading a steady life sign.” She looked up at him. “No such luck for the bike.”

  “Dammit,” Ben said, pounding the top of the gas tank.

  “Hey, at least you get a new bike out of it.”

  Ben looked at her askance. “You really think he’s going to pay up? He hasn’t got that kind of money. His old man spends it all on booze.” He took off his helmet and ran his fingers through his close-cut brown hair, perfectly styled despite two hours cramped in a helmet, paused a moment, then pounded the gas tank again.

  “Dammit.”

  Po studied her dashboard readout. “Hey, if it’s any consolation, he broke at least one bone,” she offered helpfully.

  He sighed. “I suppose we have to go down there to get him.” Ben Jemez had met Jacob Mercer in the aftermath of Dallas, three years ago. The Imperial Senate was in an uproar, and demanded that the Imperial Fleet stand down, implementing a process of truth and reconciliation, which included a formal amnesty to all but the top political and military leaders of the Resistance. Ben, having lost his parents in the blast, joined the Resistance, now underground, and was encouraged to join the Imperial Fleet, where he met Mercer and Po. They took him under their wings, and soon, he’d surpassed all but the best and brightest in skill, leadership qualities, and his ability to memorize chapter and verse of the regulation manual, the tech manuals of every fighter and cruiser, and just about any other spec sheet or instruction book. By all accounts, he was slated to make captain by thirty.

  “Don’t look so depressed. He did pull your ass out of that bar fight last week, remember.” Po glanced back to the console and sent out a signal for help from the base out in San Bernadino.

  “Yeah. A fight that he started. What business was it of his that those pilots thought the beer sucked? They were right. It tasted awful.” He stood and swung his leg off the bike, hitting the kill switch with his thumb.

  “Yes, but they were from Bismark. Mercer’s got it in for space jocks from Bismark. Says they’re all arrogant bastards. And he’s right. And not just the space jocks. The entire planet should be kicked out of the imperial circle jerk of a senate if you ask me.”

  “Well that’s likely, seeing how they’re this close to Corsica.” He held up two fingers. “And what do you know about circle jerks, Po? You holding out on me?” He grinned as he walked backward towards the canyon wall, holding his hands up.

  “Let’s just say I go to some interesting parties with the gal-jocks on our girls’-night-outs.”

  Gal-jocks? Ben rolled his eyes at her anachronism—sometimes she seemed stuck in the twenty-fourth century. “Well sometime you’ll have to drag me along. Jake likes his adrenaline rushes, for sure, but our boys’-night-outs usually revolve around me playing the wingman as he picks up on some purdy thing in the bar.”

  He turned and peered down into the canyon, spying the wreckage of the bike on the other side, and catching a glimpse of a red glint among some dry, thorny brush. No movement that he could see.

  “All right, I’m heading down,” he said, and sat on the ledge. He swung his legs out over the drop-off, holding onto the lip with his armored hands, and slid the hundred feet down the side, kicking up a thick cloud of dust as he went, and coming to rest in another patch of dry, thorny brush.

  “Dammit, Jake!” he said, but inhaled a lung-full of dust as he did. He coughed.

  I’ll get you for this.

  -o0o-

  Jacob Mercer belched. He glanced over at his father for approval.

  “Nice one,” the man said, taking a swig from his own bottle. His month-old scruff bristled as he chugged the bottle from half-full down to empty, and then he responded to his son’s rumbled challenge with a gastric declaration of his own.

  Jake raised his eyebrows. “I stand defeated, sir.” He raised his bottle to his lips and finished his own beer, then kicked back on the couch and turned his attention to the game on the viewscreen hanging on the half-painted wall. The Mars Highlanders versus the Titan Speed. Only five minutes past kickoff, and the Speed had already scored a touchdown.

  “Jeske
is trash this year. Can’t throw worth a damn,” his father said, releasing another small belch. Jake nodded.

  “Yeah, but at least they’ve picked up their defense. Not that you’d know it from this game.” He watched the next few plays, but glanced at his father occasionally. He’d flown in from San Bernadino the night before to check the old man out of the hospital, and wound up talking to the doctor for nearly an hour while his father leered at the nurses’ station.

  Liver cirrhosis, the doctor had said. Treatable, but dangerous if unchecked, and he gave Jake a list of prescriptions, and a list of do’s and don’ts. Do: exercise. Eat vegetables. Take the meds. Drink water. Don’t: eat steak. Drink alcohol. Maintain a stressful lifestyle. The last time he checked, his father lived on burgers and booze, and his near-homeless lifestyle was enough to stress anyone out.

  “Hand me another beer, willya?” his father said.

  “Last one, dad.” He rummaged in the cooler.

  “Bite me.”

  “No really. I’m serious this time. We’re getting you in better shape. I ship out in a few weeks, and I’m not having you keel over on me while I’m patrolling some God-forsaken mining colony somewhere.”

  “Whatever, dickwad.” The man grabbed the bottle offered by his son and wrenched the top off. Jake nearly jumped as his father swung his arms up in the air and hollered. “Woo hoo! Yeah! Suck it, Titan!”

  “Yeah, don’t get too excited, dad. It’s only six to seven, and it’s a long game.”

  “Seven to seven. Kulp never misses his kicks.” The man slumped back into his fraying easy-chair. The stuffing had started to spill out of the ripped arms, mixing with the assortment of other refuse and old food and dirty dishes on the floor.

  They watched the game, and Jake fell back into a rhythm he’d grown accustomed to over the last three years whenever he visited his father. They’d watch some games. Banter. Belch. Laugh. Tell crude jokes. And eventually get too drunk to speak coherently, which, for the elder Mercer, was par for the course. Jake at least took a few days off between these hedonistically drunk ‘man sessions,’ as Jake’s dad called them.

  “What’s that new ship of yours called?” his father asked at halftime as the station anthem played.

  “The Phoenix,” Jake replied, declining to use the NPQR prefix. He still had yet to bring himself to say it when out of earshot of his imperial commanders. “Captain Watson. He’s a decorated Resistance commander,” he added, hoping to possibly impress the old man.

  “Brand new, huh? How much do they spend on those things? Over a quadrillion each?” The man shook his head. “Shit. Imagine how many general welfare checks that could pay out. Why the hell are they building new cruisers, anyway?”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “The galaxy is a big place, dad. We’ve only explored like a tiny sliver of it. What with pax humana, new settlements are popping up all over the place. There’s a colonist carrier group leaving Cleveland next week—don’t you watch the news? In fact, I think that’s the Phoenix’s first mission—escort duty for colonists.”

  His father had been conserving the beer in his bottle, knowing that his son would probably deny him a third. He took a small sip. “Damn. Sounds awfully exciting, son. I’m sure you’ll be a great chaperone.”

  “Come on, dad, it’s not like the pirate threat is entirely ended. There’s whole sectors still under the sway of the big families. The November family? The empire still hasn’t managed to put them down, not to mention all the other little syndicates and small timers out there. There must be thousands of one-ship deals running around, catching hard working merchant ships and making them pay a tax,” he said, using air quotes on the word tax.

  “Yeah, I bet the Corsicans take their cut of it when no one’s looking. Half those pirates are probably on the imperial paycheck,” his father said, but Jake closed his eyes and shook his head. For as well informed as he thought he was, his father had no idea how galactic politics operated.

  “The pirates are the whole raison d’être for the empire, dad.” The syndicates could be ruthless. Inhumane. Their repression was the one bright spot of the Corsican empire and its pax humana, even if that repression seemed to extend to just about everyone else, law-abiding or not.

  His father sneered. “Well look at you, with your big fancy Italian words. Jeez, Jakey, you sound like a prancing university wannabe.” The old man sipped his beer again and waved to the viewscreen to switch football games, dropping his hand when he saw the New England Patriots versus the Europa Tigers.

  “You still hanging around that fighter chick?” said his father. His thoughts drifted to the blissful memory of the first half of Dallas-day—D-day, as pro-Resistance Terrans were wont to say—that perfect body and the swirly tattoos, reflecting in the bathroom mirror back to him. The close-cropped blonde hair that smelled like fighter fuel. The firm, albeit small, boobs. Then he realized the old man was probably not talking about the girl from the bar. He couldn’t recall her name, anyway.

  “Po? She’s my colleague, dad. You know the word colleague, right?”

  “Don’t play shit with me. I know what a colleague is,” the man said, matching Jake’s emphasis of the word. Despite his weakness for the bottle and his allergy to work, he bristled whenever he perceived someone questioning his intelligence or ability to work. “Shit, Jake. It’s like you think I’ve never worked a day in my life or something.”

  “Well, dad, if the shoe fits…” Jake shook his head and silently swore at himself. The booze was loosening his tongue in unhelpful ways, and he wished he could take it back.

  “Look, buddy, I didn’t ask you to start coming around. If I wanted some kiss-ass imperial wanker to start lecturing me I’d have called your regulation manual totin’ roommate. So if you’re going to keep this up, go back to your mom and tell her to stop begging you to visit me.” He glowered at Jake before turning his attention back to the game.

  “Fine.” Jake got to his feet. “I’ve got to report for duty tomorrow anyway.” He limped to the door—his minor misunderstanding with the canyon wall had given him a few souvenirs. His ankle sprain had healed far slower than the broken arm and nose—the doctors had shots that would encourage new bone growth. Not so much for damaged ligaments. “Hope you get feeling better, dad.” He tried to sound sincere. He didn’t want to end on a sour note before heading out to interstellar space for the next year or two.

  “Yeah, screw you.” The unshaven man swigged from his bottle again, and held it up. “Thanks for the booze.”

  “Sure thing, dad.” He paused at the door. “Look, dad. I’m sorry. I … I—” he struggled for words. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. I wouldn’t be coming around if I didn’t love you, ya know?”

  The old man just stared at the viewscreen. He mumbled something under his breath before responding. “Fine. Yeah, love you too, Jakey, love you too. Say hi to your Captain for me. Sounds like a real winner.”

  Jake forced himself to shut the door softly rather than slam it. Winner. What the hell would his father know about winning?

  -o0o-

  Admiral Trajan strode through the door to the bridge, surprising Captain Titus and the rest of the bridge crew, who snapped to attention. The Admiral, to the Captain’s knowledge, had never even set foot on the bridge yet, and he wasn’t sure he welcomed the sudden change of pace. As long as the Admiral didn’t appropriate his bridge like he had the ready-room.

  “As you were. Status, Captain?” His black eye gleamed in the dim ambient bridge lighting, which cast eerie shadows over the man’s gaping eye-hole. Striding over to tactical to have a look for himself, he continued, pushing a pair of old-fashioned reading spectacles onto his nose, “How long until we make the jump to Epsilon Eridani?”

  “Gravitic capacitor banks are at seventy-five percent, sir.”

  “And the fighter bays?”

  “Cleared, sir.”

  The Admiral smiled, looking up from the terminal. “Good. Who is your communications officer?”<
br />
  Captain Titus waved his arm to the starboard side of the bridge, indicating a stout little man with a bristly, stylish moustache. “Ensign Evans, sir.”

  Striding over to the terrified-looking Evans, the Admiral spoke in an elevated voice for the whole bridge crew to hear. “The information you are all about to not listen to is classified as top-secret and compartmentalized, level twelve. I’m sure you’re all aware of the consequences of breaching level twelve compartmentalization.”

  Titus wasn’t exactly sure that his bridge crew in fact remembered. Breach of classification at that level meant instant detainment, followed by a swift execution if the secret tribunal found the offender guilty of the crime.

  “Ensign. At ease,” the Admiral said, apparently noticing the man’s wide eyes. “I need you to alter the Caligula’s transponder code. You’ll find you’ve been granted the appropriate system clearance to do so. Change it to mxzvd dash eleven dash one-forty-nine dash fifty-two forty-one,” he said, saying the numbers slowly to allow the Ensign to write the numbers down on his terminal’s virtual notepad.

  “When you open a comm-link to any receiver in the Epsilon Eridani system, you are to refer to our ship as the USS Fury. Is that understood?”

  A look of confusion spread over the Ensign’s face. “Yes, sir. USS Fury, sir.”

  Interesting. Titus walked over to the Admiral and the seated Ensign Evans. “Shall we alter the nameplate on the hull of the ship, sir? An astute observer with a camera might be able to read it.”

  The Admiral nodded. “Good thinking, Captain. Can it be done before the capacitor banks finish charging?”

  “The crew will be done within the hour, sir,” he said, turning to his XO and motioning to the door.

  The Admiral smiled, which, when combined with the ghastly chasm on his face, would have reminded Titus of a jack-o-lantern if it weren’t for the spectacles perched on his nose. “Such a pleasure to serve among the best and brightest,” he said.