Starship Liberator

by B. V. Larson

  “Why do you believe I do not care about the Sweet Pleasure of Inevitable Revenge Against Our Enemies?”

  “That’s the name of this ship?”

  “As well as I can translate it,” Zaxby replied on his own. “I shortened it considerably.”

  “We’ll call her Revenge,” Straker said. “To answer your purple queen’s question, with these shipyards and three million subjects she could have built more ships like this one, or at least more conventional warships, and raided the enemy from time to time. Instead, she’s sat on her ass for eighty years and all she’s done is make more Ruxins and build colony ships for expansion into the nebula, an expansion she hasn’t even started yet. I can’t imagine any human society being so cowardly, hiding in a hole and pulling it in after themselves for so long. Zaxby, I thought you said your people were brave warriors.”

  “Yes they are, when neuters become males, led by a War Male. But males—warriors—must be created by specific hormonal triggers. It appears that, in order to keep peace and order in her inbred society, Freenix has suppressed widespread male production, especially War Males. They’re a bit troublesome when there is no war to be fought.”

  Straker’s mind whirled. What kind of insane society disarmed itself of all its warriors when the war wasn’t over? Sure, he could see the logic of hiding for a while, but only as a tactical measure, not as a way of life. At best, Freenix was overcautious. At worst, she’d given up her people’s long-term survival in order to secure a short-term tranquility. Now, though, the population problem had caught up with her.

  “Zaxby,” Straker asked, “are you sure a crew of these Ruxin non-males will be competent? Will they fight hard if I lead them?”

  “Of course, if they confine themselves to shipboard activities, maneuvering and firing ship weapons and so on, at the direction of an experienced officer like you. However, without War Males, they will make indifferent ground troops.”

  Straker pounded his fist into his palm. “So we’ll still need marines. I have an idea about that.” He pointed a dramatic finger at Freenix. “Do you agree? Will you give me my ship and crew?”

  “I will think about it.”

  Seized by an instinct—after all, he’d represented himself as a War Male—Straker strode around the table to loom over the seated Premier Freenix. In his suit, he seemed even larger. He roared, making grand gestures with his hands and arms, “You will give me my answer now, or the trouble you fear begins!”

  Freenix shrank back. “You have convinced me. I will give you the Revenge and a suitable crew.”

  Straker remained staring at the Ruxin and said out of the side of his mouth, “Will she keep her word?”

  “Of course,” said Zaxby. “I believe it’s what she wanted anyway. She merely needed an excuse to agree. Your ape-like intimidation worked splendidly.”

  “And she won’t hold a grudge?”

  “No. Despite your inexperience, you performed a passing imitation of a War Male. Her instincts are to accept your judgment in all things related to war.”

  “Good.” Straker stepped aside and made a sweeping you-may-go gesture. “Tell the premier it has been wonderful speaking with her and I look forward to the crew’s arrival, along with all the food, supplies, energy packs, fissionables and everything else to bring the Revenge up to full operating capacity. Make sure she sends skilled shipyard personnel for a thorough overhaul. I’m not going to take such an old ship into battle without a full refit.”

  Zaxby translated, “It will be convenient to move the Revenge to the shipyards. The job will get done much faster that way.”

  “Agreed. Zaxby, can you pilot this thing?”

  “If I do so with due care.”

  “Do it,” Straker said. “Oh, and Zaxby?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve been bragging about your superior intellect and amazing capabilities for some time. I’m going to test those boasts to the limit. You can begin by vetting all the Ruxins that Freenix sends, and setting up a program to teach them the Earthan language so you aren’t the sole translator. After that, coordinate with Chief Gurung to whip the crew into shape.”

  “Why do you think they’ll need whipping into shape, as you put it? All Ruxins rapidly become highly competent at whatever tasks they are assigned.”

  “Because none of them have done anything like this for eighty years, or maybe ever. Knowledge is good, practice is better, experience is the best.” Straker turned to Engels, Loco and Gurung, thoroughly energized. Eagerness sang though his veins and he felt better than any time since waking up as a prisoner, now that his military expertise came into play. “Let’s go, people. Life just got interesting.”

  * * *

  The refit took forty days. The crew of the Liberator worked like demons alongside the Ruxin personnel to get both ships as ready as possible.

  The first test of the refurbished Revenge amazed Straker. He stood on the soaking wet bridge surrounded by Ruxins clad in minimal utility harnesses—they didn’t care about clothing in the human sense, unless needed for protection—and after an extended systems check, he gave the order. “Initiate insertion sequence.”

  Zaxby, now his liaison, spoke Earthan, for all of the Ruxins had been drilled intensively in the language, concentrating on the terminology they would need to run the ship. “Initiate protective field and test.”

  “Field on,” replied the engineer. “Test shows nominal.”

  “Underspace generators stand by.”

  “Standing by.”

  “Full power to generators.”

  The engineer manipulated heavy manual controls, more reliable than computers during this first test. “Full power. Emitters building the insertion field. Pseudo-singularity is stable. Fifty percent. Eighty. One hundred percent.”

  “Insert into underspace.”

  The ship seemed to dim slightly in Straker’s eyes, the greenish colors becoming muted. He felt a chill, despite assurances that the protective field would shield against freezing.

  Straker stared at the synthetic view on the main visiplate. Since almost nothing leaked across the dimensional barrier between normal space and underspace, the ship’s computer system modeled what it knew and saw, and updated the model as they moved.

  Of course, the longer the ship stayed in underspace, the more out-of-date the model became. With non-maneuvering objects such as the hollow asteroid shell, this was not a problem. Against enemy ships it became a matter of shrewd guessing, the art of prediction and chance.

  “Take us out, Lieutenant Zaxby,” said Straker.

  “Z-axis turn, ninety degrees.”

  “Ninety degrees, aye.”

  “Ahead one-quarter.”

  “Ahead one-quarter, aye.”

  The synthetic view rotated on the first order, and then accelerated toward the viewer on the second. Revenge leaped at the inner wall of the asteroid, and Straker involuntarily grasped the railing in front of him. Then they passed through and came out the other side as if the solid rock wall were nothing.

  “Yes!” he exulted, prying his hands off the railing. For him, that was the acid test. They’d ghosted through a kilometer of rock without the slightest bump. Actually, they’d slipped under it, into another dimension.

  “All stop,” Zaxby said. “Deactivate underspace engine to emerge.”

  “Deactivating.”

  The main visiplate rippled and replaced its synthetic view with a real one, aggregated from its optics and sensors. Nothing but glowing gas could be seen.

  “Power down protective field and switch off,” said Zaxby.

  “Protective field powering down. Protective field is off.”

  “Rotate Z-axis one-hundred eighty degrees.”

  The main screen view swung through a long arc, coming to rest pointing at the outside of the Ruxin asteroid.

  “That was outstanding,” said Straker. “Well done, everyone. They aren’t going to know what hit them.”

  * * *

 
; During the refit, Straker and his officers had pored over the Unmutual databases Zaxby had copied and brought with him. They matched up the information with that stored in the corvette’s computer, and they looked for a way to take their first steps toward Straker’s goals.

  When they slipped into sidespace five days later, Straker had two warships. He had two untested but well-drilled crews.

  And he had two targets.

  Chapter 32

  Two weeks later.

  Inquisitor Lazarus-211 watched with guarded satisfaction as the fast fleet auxiliary Mutual Lockstep landed on the snow-covered ground next to Re-education and Training Camp 17. The ship was battered and poorly painted, but appeared to be in good working order. The pilot set her down more skillfully than usual with these vessels, her rounded belly sinking slightly into the frozen landscape.

  Although small for a sidespace-capable ship, she was larger than most that could land on a planet. Even a small, cold, miserable one like Prael had an interfering atmosphere and gravity-well. As a rule, ships her size and bigger transloaded cargo and passengers to shuttles in order to reduce the fuel expenditure and wear of landings.

  But ships like Lockstep had their uses. The Mutuality often employed them as deployment vessels, cheap substitutes for the much more expensive dropships or assault boats. They could jump in with a fleet and, as soon as defenses had been neutralized, they would land and unload troops, combat vehicles and supplies. Once empty, they could stay for extraction or proceed onward to other missions.

  In short, they were jacks-of-all-trades, albeit unarmed save for small lasers. They carried cargo comfortably and personnel uncomfortably, using modular bulkheads and removable sanitation pods.

  Ships like these were perfect for transporting rehabilitated personnel, mostly those recovered from Hundred Worlds facilities or captured in battle. A few of the transported were recidivist criminals given one final chance to become productive citizens. Those who failed were turned into Hok.

  Lazarus’s eyes lingered on Camp 17, taking in its barracks, its firing ranges, its parade grounds, its mess halls. An efficiently run re-education program dovetailed neatly with basic military training, creating a useful product. He felt quite satisfied with himself and his management. No doubt the Committee for Public Mutuality would too.

  Five hundred men and women marched by platoon out of Camp 17, wearing dull gray-green fatigues and cheap combat harnesses with everything they needed for travel to garrison duty.

  Half of them carried mass-produced laser carbines. The other half were unarmed. The weapons would be passed from person to person as needed. These were not front-line Hok, after all. Their tours of duty as militia represented an intermediate status on their journey to returning to a normal worker’s life of service to the State.

  Or so they were told. In reality, they were often given the Hok biotech and thrown into a desperate fight. What did Mutualist principles matter if battles were lost?

  The only thing the product lacked were the power magazines for their rifles. Those would be loaded separately. Naval crews were far too savvy to allow green militia access to devices that could damage their ships.

  Lines of personnel boarded the boxy vessel, urged on by armed drill instructors wearing traditional campaign hats that hearkened back to Old Earth.

  Lazarus signaled his driver, who maneuvered the groundcar down the unpaved road to stop near the ship. The man leaped out to retrieve two fine travel cases and carried them to the Lockstep in Lazarus’s wake. Lazarus himself picked his way across the snowy field, thankful for his well-worn, well-maintained spacer’s boots.

  His cloned Tachina concubine followed with some difficulty. No matter. The exercise would do her good. She was starting to get a little plump, what with all the extra food and wine she wheedled out of him.

  He’d made trips like these many times and knew the routine. An Inquisitor’s job was, after all, to guide wayward comrades back to full Mutuality, and that meant delivering his product, his work of the last few months, to their new commander.

  Sadly, within a year of Lazarus’s return to Camp 17, many of those he’d rehabilitated would likely be dead. The cowards or failures would be converted into Hok and thrown into one battle or another, sometimes before the biotech even finished the process. In the struggle against the Hundred Worlds, there was never any want of war.

  There was a rumor that a mechsuit program was in the works. Lazarus discounted this possibility, however. He’d heard it all before, how some new technology or trick would bring forth victories for the Mutuality. More often than not, they failed to match the superior Hundred Worlds tech. Even the recent triumph at Corinth had been costly, not to mention the loss of Prison Alpha-Six and the murder of his brother clone, Lazarus-176.

  This Lazarus entered the Lockstep by the crew door. Spacers saluted him and took his bags from the driver, leading him to Spartan quarters next to the captain’s cabin. They’d do the same for his Tachina when she got there.

  At least the stateroom was private and clean, with a narrow bed for himself and a pallet on the floor for Tachina. He mused on the sacrifices he made for the People, and felt satisfied.

  Once Tachina arrived and began unpacking his things, Lazarus visited the crowded personnel compartments, only one-and-a-half meters high to save space. The inhabitants jammed themselves in with stoic attitudes—at least when he was there. No doubt they joked and entertained themselves when he was out of sight.

  He sighed. Jokes were not the lot of an Inquisitor, and his job was his entertainment. That, and Tachina. Unsurprisingly, the pleasure clone had chosen to stay with him rather than be processed into product. That was two years ago. It made for a good relationship, this inequity in power. She knew her place, knew what she would lose by displeasing him, and so became the perfect companion, as she’d been bred to be.

  In fact, she pleased him so much he allowed her to come along on these trips, to reduce the ennui of space travel. It was a minor breach of regulations, but if it improved his own efficiency as an Inquisitor, it followed the moral principles of Liberty, Equality, and Mutuality—so he could rationalize it.

  After inspecting the soldiers, Lazarus shook hands with the senior drill instructor before he exited the ship. “Enjoy your break,” Lazarus said. In five days, hundreds more would arrive at the camp, ready to be re-educated. The schedule wore out even the most mutual.

  “Have a good journey, sir,” the drill instructor replied, his eagerness to be off peeking from beneath the tiredness.

  “Convey my thanks to the staff,” Lazarus replied. “You may go.”

  The man didn’t hesitate to hurry back to the camp and his own concubine. Lazarus mused further on the perfection of the Mutuality system: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, ensuring all were given functions best suited to them, thus ensuring perfect happiness and harmony.

  After all, he was certainly happy, as were all around him. He knew, because they told him they were, and nobody lied to an Inquisitor.

  Crewmen began slamming and sealing hatches and doors. The soldiers would be locked in until the ship slipped into sidespace. The takeoff warning began to beep and count down in its computer voice. “One minute to lift. Take acceleration positions. Fifty-nine seconds to lift…”

  Lazarus strode to his stateroom and strapped himself into his bunk, a familiar ritual. Tachina lay on her pallet. As long as there was no mishap, she would be unharmed by a period of acceleration, two or three Gs for an hour or so.

  This was his twelfth delivery in person, an annoyance, but mandated by Committee directive. At some time in the past, an unnamed apparatchik had no doubt determined it would be beneficial for the Inquisitor to hand over his product personally. Perhaps the rule was meant to ensure nothing went wrong with the process, and that his responsibility meshed seamlessly with the militia commanders.

  He shrugged, remembering the old joke he’d heard long ago in the crèche, before he do
nned the garb of Inquisitor: There’s the Right Way, the Wrong Way, and the Mutual Way. Of course, that was Unmutualist heresy. The Mutual Way was the Right Way… but he admitted to himself in the privacy of his own thoughts that, like most heresies, it contained a kernel of truth.

  Once through Prael’s weak, fetid atmosphere, acceleration was reduced to a comfortable level. The trip became smooth and uneventful out to the transition point. The star system held no other naturally habitable planets, only several heavily fortified asteroid habitats and moon bases for mining various vital minerals.

  A pair of aging destroyers served to patrol the area, one generally grounded for leave and maintenance while the other kept watch. Along with a handful of corvettes and a slew of cheap attack craft with mediocre pilots, these served to fend off the occasional pirate raid or Hundred Worlds scout.

  There’d been a brief sidespace blip some hours back, but nothing had been found. As the area around the optimum transition point was clear, the Lockstep cruised unescorted while the destroyer continued searching on the other side of the system, near the location of the anomalous readings.

  Lazarus spent the time on the naval auxiliary’s bridge, making the captain and officers vaguely uncomfortable. That too was part of an Inquisitor’s job, letting those with responsibility know they were accountable to the Committee and the People.

  He sipped fine whiskey from a glass poured from a bottle he did not share, the better to emphasize his superior equality. He looked over shoulders and ran his fingertip above hatches, examining the results with evident distaste even when he found no grime. He gazed at the main and secondary visiplates at the nothingness of space, nodding occasionally to himself as if he really could see something more than the ordinary officer or rating.

  Thus it was that he was staring straight at it when an oddity appeared, dead ahead.