by Jim Rudnick
Bram nodded and then thanked the crewman. Big trading holiday, eh? he thought. Seems like we can use that to chat with others as well as planetary citizens too.
He watched, as the whole bridge crew did, as the clouds came up at them and then parted eventually to show the city that lay off to starboard. There was a large curved bay of an ocean farther to the right, and the city occupied the whole end of the wide expanse of water. Bram saw beaches of sand and watercraft out on the sea. As the Crimson I dropped farther, the view changed to a coastal mountain range on the north side of the bay running toward the west. The city itself was not so high-tech looking. There were no towers taller than a dozen floors or so, nor were there any real expressways with traffic. Instead, it looked more, Bram thought, like a city that just grew as it grew … no design or city fathers had worried much about how it looked, he surmised.
“XO, what can you tell us of who’s in charge here?”
Daika stood at her bridge station behind him and spoke out clearly. “Sir, while not having been here in over five years, things have changed, I would think. We’ve heard that the whole Pentyaan Oligarchy has fractured into four separate and distinct groupings. This one, Oirus, belongs to Warlord Tunander, or so he’s called, the Gallipedia entry says—updated, I note, only a month ago. From the original five ruling families, with the loss of one completely which broke up the oligarchy, there are four warlords who now run their own realms. Tunander has four planets, Warlord Genro has three, just adjacent to Tunander. Then there’s the big two other warlords, Noriega with six and Konoe with ten planets. Each appears to be a separate realm, with little or no intercourse between them. Very much a change from what we experienced here just half a decade ago.”
Bram nodded.
“The only family who had made up the ruling class had all been killed in a huge explosion—their spaceship, it was said, had been destroyed in less than a second. As it had carried the whole family on an outing, there was no one left to rule, and that is what caused the Pentyaan Oligarchy to begin fighting among themselves. And the results were that the four remaining families became warlords in charge of their own realms of planets,” Daika finished.
It’s this kind of milieu that we find ourselves in, Bram thought. And this is the kind of semi-vicious change that we might be able to make work for the RIM.
At least he hoped so, and the Crimson I settled down on the ground.
On the landing pad, waiting for the Crimson I to land, were Customs and Health officers, like on all worlds, with clipboards in their hands. As the frigate’s landing ramp came down off Deck One, the landing party, led by Major Stal, trooped down same.
First, the greetings occurred. Paperwork was handed over for the crew lists, manifests of cargo which were empty, health records for the whole crew, and finally any exemptions and notifications. Normal check-ins, Bram thought, and he was more than impressed with his XO. Daika not only knew what to tender but knew to find a few things to compliment the low-level clerks with. Her promise to tell their bosses later, via her survey report of the landing process, was smiled at warmly.
A little schmaltz works, Bram knew, and he lightly touched the minds of their hosts and saw they were more than pleased with this new visitor to Oirus. Nods and promises of a beer later in the landing port pub were also well received.
As the officials began to move away, one who had been standing at the rear of the group stepped forward and spoke to the XO.
“Ma’am, might I inquire about your purpose in visiting Oirus? I am Sithe Ogrunder who works for the warlord’s communication section. I ask as we note that the ship is a RIM Confederacy ship and that you carry no cargo at all … and I would like to update our files,” he asked nicely.
The XO smiled and pointed at Bram. “This is our ship’s captain, and he can certainly answer you,” she said.
Bram thought about this for a whole second, and then he smiled. “Yes, we’re from the RIM Confederacy,” he said as he pointed to the ship, “and our Duchy d’Avigdor Navy badge is plain to see.”
Up above at the bridge level on the ship, the Duchy d’Avigdor Navy icon of the three red planets around a blue sun on a field of white was brand new and still shiny.
“And yes, this is our first trip into Pentyaan space—”
Sithe Ogrunder held up a hand. “Captain—with all due respect—we no longer refer to the old oligarchy as such—this is now referred to by one and all as the Tunander Coalition. So welcome on behalf of our warlord to the Tunander Coalition,” he said.
Bram grunted. If they wanted to call the kingdom fruit salad, he couldn’t care less, but he smiled, nodded, and continued. “Yes, as I was saying, it is our first trip here, and we were hoping to talk to someone with the Oirus government about trade deals or ideas for trade between the RIM and the Tunander Coalition. Who might that be?” he asked. But he thought he knew the answer and he was right.
“So happy to hear that, Captain, and the person you’d want to speak to would be the warlord himself. Might I suggest that I contact the correct departments and try to arrange a meeting—while you and your crew enjoy Crisus over the next few days? I will get back to you soonest on this—I am not trying to delay at all, it’s just the huge planet-wide holidays do intrude on new items at times,” he said and smiled once more.
Bram watched the personnel carrier move off toward the far line of buildings at the landing port, and he turned to his landing party. “XO, please, let’s get the crew some shore leave, and Major, same for your marines too—if you folks like to do that,” he said, and the guffaw back from Alver was loud.
“Aye, Sir, will do,” both the XO and Alver replied at the same time, and that got another laugh as well.
“So we’ve days probably before we can meet with the warlord. XO, tomorrow, I think, I’d like to take a quick trip on the Defiant over to see the uh … that previously visited spot of yours. Can that be arranged?” he asked. He wanted to see with his own eyes the moon where the Xithricite mining was still going on.
“And we want that trip to be, what, just a day trip, Sir?” Daika asked.
“Yes,” he said, “a nicely quiet day trip is perfect.”
They all smiled at that, and as they returned to the ship, Bram was smiling.
We landed, we met the Warlord’s clerk, and we’re going to get a meeting with him, and tomorrow we will visit the mining on the moon over Birdland … so far so good …
#####
The Defiant headed out at dead slow, as the XO herself took the pilot’s seat on the Xithricite-clad shuttle. She carefully hovered above the landing pad next to the Crimson I and then pointed her up and accelerated the InertialDrive, and the ship climbed steadily up and out of the gravity well that lay around Oirus.
Aboard, Bram and Alver sat up front immediately behind the pilot’s seat, and behind them, Alver had added a squad of his marines. All wore the silver power belts and all were armed with the .454 Casulls too.
“Why the old-fashioned firearms with the power belts?” Bram questioned.
“One never knows,” Alver said. “Forewarned is forearmed.”
Bram sighed. “Too many old saws in one sentence made the import of same less.”
“One should never count your chickens until their hatched,” Alver said and grinned.
Bram shook his head and chuckled, and the others chuckled too
At the low orbit point, the Defiant, under Daika’s skilled expertise, yawed well to port. The Barony Drive was engaged and the ship leaped toward the star that was dead ahead. It was the Memories system, only five lights away, and it took less than three seconds to make the trip. Once there, the Defiant took a low orbit position and then just sat there.
“How long do you think?” Bram asked his XO who shook her head.
“No idea really, Captain. But let’s sit for a full hour, then hit Birdland. That way if the warlord is tracking us somehow, we can just say that we were looking around at empty planets is all. Won’t las
t through much of an investigation, but as an alibi, it should work. Perhaps, that is … depending on how ‘trusted’ we are …” she finished off.
He nodded and then laid back his head. Time to catch some Z’s with a quick nap if that is possible …
But it wasn’t to be. The Ansible squawked at them, and the XO had to talk to the Memories landing pad officer to refuse to touch down at this point. “The Defiant is just doing some internal diagnostics. I’ll get back to you later if anything changes,” Daika said.
He sat up and looked around. The size of the Defiant was small—about a hundred and fifty feet long—with most of the space in the rear open for cargo or personnel if needed. He smiled as he recalled the way Alver had packed in the two platoons of marines off Ghayth during the Praix ship attack.
Good to have him along, he thought, and he smiled once more.
Being a ship’s captain was, as far as he was learning, more about the thinking of what to do, whom to trust, and what goals one needed to pursue than the ship’s battles and actions with others. Least so far, he thought…
As the hour chimed up, he grinned at Daika and said, “Birdland’s moon, if you please,” and he sat back for the ride.
She powered up the InertialDrive and spun the Defiant to the left. Pushing the throttle a bit, she moved the ship away from Memories and then engaged the Barony Drive.
The Defiant now had a new star in the cross hairs of the bridge view-screen, and in a few seconds, they arrived at what they all called Birdland, a large planet with no sentient creatures at all, it appeared. It was the normal blue, cloud filled, and covered mostly by seas. The duke had told him that at some point a previous duke’s wife must have visited Birdland. That duchess had visited Birdland long enough to note the odd yet interesting bird life on same. She’d even imported some for her aviary back on Neen—and while Bram had not seen same, he thought he might like to one day.
But the planet itself was not the real attraction. Instead it was the asteroid field that surrounded the planet and its moon. Some were small in size, but he could see some were big. Big enough to land a cruiser on, being miles across, he thought.
Daika punched some coordinates into the helm console, and the Defiant went back to InertialDrive and slowly swung into the asteroid field. She carefully threaded the ship around some and over others, and not one seemed to cause the Defiant any degree of difficulty. After more than half an hour of this, she spun the shuttle to starboard, and with caution, she approached a big asteroid. This one had a valley that had craters of other previous smaller meteor strikes from eons ago. At one end of the almost flat plain, he could see a ridge of crags jutting up and into the blackness above.
As their ship slowly crossed over the crater plain, the Ansible sounded. Bram nodded to Daika to put it on speaker. “Yes, this is the BN Defiant—code 7TTY. We are just looking over the mining situation and will not be landing, so please continue,” he replied, quoting the code from his orders.
As his ship moved off the end of that huge crater, below the far lip sat another shuttle, right on the asteroid itself. It too was a Barony Navy ship, and its job was to take a full load of Xithricite ore from the mines, just a few hundred yards away, up and over to Birdland—to land there and move the ore to a Barony frigate, the BN Callisto.
As the Defiant moved over the Callisto, the mine itself could now be seen. It lay against an outcrop ridge where the red ore from the tail end of a meteorite had buried itself. The mining crew had erected three scaffoldings around the thirty-foot-wide ore block. One of the mining crew stood up top, and around his waist, he had tied and supported the metal framework of the saw. Below him and off to either side, two more crew were standing, and their jobs were to swing the saw from side to side from the focal point above, held by the man on top. It looked like slow work, and he’d heard it took almost a full two hours to saw off a piece that was about ten feet long and six feet wide. Each slice was only four inches thick, and while cumbersome to manage, the pieces were all carted off by other crew and stored in the shuttle for transport back to the Callisto later on.
The XO set the Defiant to hover above the mine, and they watched the miners manhandle the huge slab of ore so that it would slide into the shuttle hold. While in space, the ore weighed nothing, but Bram thought that piece alone would weigh ten tons or more on Neres. He smiled.
“XO, I think we’ve about seen enough. Any numbers as to the amount mined so far from this meteor?”
She checked something on her console that only she could see and smiled. “Not really, but the Callisto reports that they’ve made four full runs back to Neres City—and her cargo limits are four thousand tons, Sir.”
Alver whistled. “That’ll cover a lot of ships,” he said, which got many nods throughout the room. “Maybe we should arrange to make a trip out here, say, once a week? Just to keep tabs on the mining and to look around as they’re pretty focused on the asteroid and not so much on the system too. Smart from a military standpoint, XO,” Alver said, which got a nod from Daika.
“Back to Memories and then to Oirus, if you please, XO, and put her down right beside the Crimson I,” Bram said, and he pondered that tonnage. Will need to figure out what it takes to cloak a ship in Xithricite and divide that ship tonnage into the totals gathered so far …
“Captaincy … always in one’s head,” he said to himself as he grunted, and Defiant jumped toward Memories.
#####
It had taken the admiral what he’d later call too much time, but he had followed the directions—orders may have been a better term—of the chairman, and the Praix captain stood in the executive committee meeting room, awaiting the meeting to start. It had taken some work—and a full squad of RIM Navy marines along as insurance—to go to Ghayth and work out the details with the alien via one of the Issian inner circle. It had taken almost two days—of what the Issian later said were little items—to get the Praix captain to agree.
But yes, he finally agreed he would come along to the executive committee meeting. He would listen to their requests, and if needed, he and the Praix under him would comply. There may be some negotiations, the Praix had added. The Issian had thought that was strange since the word for negotiations was not in the Praix vocabulary.
The Issian had accompanied the Praix here to Navy Hall on Juno, and they’d only just arrived. The admiral sighed. “While the room was more than big enough for the seven usual members, with the much taller Praix now in there too, it felt jammed,” the admiral said to himself.
They had set up one of the alien’s perch plate sets over against the wall-to-wall bookcases, and the alien stood on the upper plate that sat a foot above the lower plate of the pair. The admiral looked over at the alien and noted that while he could usually see the middle four rows of each column of books and knickknacks, the Praix blotted it all out. The Praix stared at the members of the committee as each came in, and with the late arrival of the chairman, McQueen said to himself, “Guess we’re ready to start.”
Chairman Gramsci nodded as he looked at the members seated around the table and then took a moment to look over the Praix. Wonder if the Praix is a guest or a prisoner, the admiral thought. Beside the alien stood two marines—wearing power belts per the admiral’s directions—and each was armed with.454 Casull revolvers. Neither marine looked at anything in the room but the Praix. Beside the alien sat the Issian from the inner circle—Issian apostle Jana Jelinek—who looked at McQueen and smiled.
All seemed to be all right with Chairman Gramsci, and he nodded back to the admiral.
Don’t need to be an Issian to get that pat on the back, McQueen thought and grunted to himself.
He noted the slight smile that appeared on the Master Adept’s face and the apostle’s face too. “Noted,” he said to himself, and he thought for a moment about the weather outside. The first hint of rain hit the windows that looked out the front of Navy Hall as the skies opened up.
“Let’s come to order, shal
l we,” Chairman Grasci said as two hands held the Agenda, two more were clasped over his belly, and the last two were busy with a tablet.
“Talk about multitasking,” McQueen said to himself, and he smiled at anyone who glanced over at him.
To his left sat the Master Adept, then the Baroness of Neres, and then the Doge of Conclusion, and Chairman Gramsci sat directly opposite him. To his right sat the Duke d’Avigdor, Tanner—a protégé of his in his new role as a Royal—and then the Caliph who was, of course, one of the most changeable Royals on the RIM.
“First order—in fact, wait,” the Chairman said, “I’m going to change things up. We’ll go over the less important items first to clear the decks for the Praix issue. First up then is the Tillion female issue. From what we’ve been able to discover—and by we, I mean the best RIM IT team, our Tarvos experts found this out—the vid that appeared to show the Tillion zygote labs is, yes, really verifiable tape. But the voice-over and the point of view that the Tillions intentionally are not raising females is incorrect. Not true. The truth is, that they do try, but that for some reason—and after generations of testing that is still not finished—the females all do not live. Not a one. To hide that—that shame I might think would be the word—they present to the rest of the RIM Confederacy a point of view that women—their own—will never be seen, which one can see is just hiding the fact that they have none. They also therefore—as we all know, fight any contact with any of our own RIM women too. All of this was way blown up out of proportion and presented in a way that seemed to show that the fault lay with the Duchy d’Avigdor for this.” As he said that, the duke stirred and tried to interrupt, but the chairman held up a hand to stop him.
