Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework

by Randolph Lalonde

  “So this means a big pile of cash,” Quiz said.

  “Yes, but try to forget about everything but surviving the next few minutes,” Minh replied during a long exhale. “Get ready, we’re coming out.”

  They emerged from the wormhole to see Skydock. The traffic around it was dissipating as civilian ships followed navnet directions to the opposite side of Kambis, the massive, canyon-ridden planet ahead.

  Skydock was a many-segmented station that had been built on for centuries. The outer segments of its fifty six kilometre length and forty eight kilometre girth were more gracefully designed with smooth curves and complimentary angles. The interior was a mix of square, utilitarian sections with hundreds of docking bays and thousands of large transparesteel windows. Minh had heard the view on the opposite side, facing the planet, was incredible. Tamber, the moon Minh and the remaining Triton crewmembers had come to call home, was on the opposite side of Kambis, far from where the fighting would begin.

  “This is Skydock to Ronin,” a port officer addressed through Minh’s communicator.

  “Ronin here,” Minh-Chu Buu replied. “Did you receive our alert?”

  “Yes, fighters are scrambling now, and we have four destroyers ready to intercept. Advise on best position of pulse barrier, please.”

  Minh was surprised, the pulse barrier was the most powerful weapon the station had at their disposal. “If you’re asking me where to point that thing, I’d say right behind us, just give us ten seconds to get out of the way,” Minh replied.

  “That’s in line with our thinking, you have fourteen seconds to leave the target area.”

  Minh plotted a course before navnet could send him a similar route and he set his thrusters to maximum. Quiz was less than a second behind.

  “Are we about to see a light show, Ronin?” Quiz asked. He sounded almost giddy.

  “I think so, I didn’t think they had that thing working, but I guess we get lucky today.” As soon as they were clear, Minh turned his attention to the station and the area of space the Eden ships would arrive in. Seventy metre long emitters running along the oldest part of the station, at its centre, began to glow red then flashed to white.

  The Eden vessels emerged from the wormhole, their engines flaring brightly as they decelerated. Several missiles launched from the main, shining oval ship at the centre.

  Minh targeted the missiles with six of his own mini-rockets and fired six at each. After a brief moment they were moving too fast to see with the naked eye. His computer registered five hits less than four seconds later. He’d destroyed their missiles.

  “Are they going to fire that thing or what?” Quiz asked.

  “That pulse weapon is a little old,” Minh replied. “It might have a pretty short range.” He watched the enemy fleet approach the base, closing to ten thousand kilometres.

  “A few drones are heading for us,” Quiz said.

  “Go evasive,” Minh ordered. “Split right.” He locked on to the nearest drone with mini-missiles and rapid-fired half a pod, twenty eight shots. Several beams swept across his shields as he strafed. As the first drone was struck and destroyed by his barrage of missiles, a second crossed in front of him, and he fired his pulse guns. The little machine’s shields shrugged the damage off, then it changed direction so quickly Minh lost sight of it for a moment.

  Minh-Chu set his guns to autofire; they would react faster than he could to the drone if it crossed into his firing arc. He spun his fighter around and tried to get a missile lock, but the drone was too close, and closing quickly. He barely had time to begin thrusting in reverse before the drone struck him hard enough to completely deplete his forward shields and pepper his fighter with shrapnel as it exploded.

  The drone was gone. He’d taken minor damage, but there was a bigger problem. The three remaining drones turned on Quiz, and he was firing at one with his guns, letting himself be guided into a slow figure eight. Two Uriel fighters emerged from their wormholes - it was Slick and Joyboy.

  “Holy hell!” shouted Slick. “You’re being lured! Break and evade!”

  “You’re gonna get slagged, man!” Joyboy added. “Get outta there!”

  In the time it took for them to comment on the situation and start closing, Minh was able to get a missile lock on the two drones that were positioning themselves out of Quiz’s sight. Their cutting beams began focusing on his shields, and if Minh’s guess was right, Quiz only had a few seconds.

  Minh engaged all his thrusters, pushing them to the limit and, when he was sure of his missile lock, he fired, hoping the added speed from his craft’s thrust would help close the gap faster. He changed direction to get a better angle on the drones for guns and they autofired solid rounds as well as energy pulses. Something under his seat started rattling, resonating with the rattling of his solid round gun pod. “Analyze that, please,” he told the computer as he guided his ship closer to Quiz and his pursuers.

  “Interior sensors are disabled,” replied the passive computer voice.

  The cockpit began to heat up, and Minh shut down his guns. He’d have to make do with missiles. A collision alarm went off, and he looked up in time to see the drone Quiz was following had turned so his fighter was thrusting directly at Minh.

  Minh-Chu barely avoided a lethal collision with Quiz, but one of the other drones following him slammed into his ship from the port side. His shields began recharging from reserve power immediately, and Minh adjusted for the damage to a port side engine pod as he tried to get his fighter under control.

  “Sorry!” Quiz offered lamely. “I’ve almost got this guy!”

  To Minh’s relief, one of the drones Minh targeted with his missiles exploded in a fury of shrapnel. The other was struck by a couple of his missiles, but kept after Quiz, staying behind him, away from his main guns.

  Slick and Joyboy entered combat range and began firing on the target Quiz chased as well as the one that sought to pierce his shields using an intense beam. Minh stopped his fighter from spinning just in time to see Skydock station’s pulse weapon activate. The Eden ship and hundreds of drones were slammed by a barrier of light and force that struck at half the speed of light. Most of the drones were unrecognisable, while the main ship had split into several sections that lazily drifted and rotated away from the station.

  Quiz finished off the drone he’d been chasing for almost two minutes as Slick obliterated the one that had been drilling into his shields.

  “Not a bad day’s work, huh guys?” Quiz asked.

  Minh took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Let’s get back to patrolling, we have three hours left on the shift and I’ll be stopping in to see an old friend when we’ve finished our sweeps.”

  Chapter 6

  The Burden Of Command

  The ancient transparent steel windows stretching across the quiet boardroom provided Ayan with an expansive view of the city atop Greydock. They were in one of the upper towers, reserved for affairs of government. A Carthan representative was behind her, reading the terms of the latest draft of their privateering and compensation agreement. He droned on, as drones were known to do. Jason and his wife, Laura, sat at the table, listening quietly. Liam Grady was only an arm’s length away, watching the city below as well.

  Ayan had stopped being surprised when he came along for the negotiations weeks before. He didn’t miss one session, was always the last to speak, and didn’t say anything if he didn’t have something to add. His council, and their growing friendship, were becoming something she hoped wouldn’t end when the negotiations ended.

  She idly took in the view. The city was still being rebuilt, but the largest of the structures atop the Greydock tower showed no real damage. Corrosion was the enemy, and whatever metal was used centuries before had oxidised and turned a rich rust red.

  A high wind picked up rust and concrete dust from the street twenty stories below. A cloud of the stuff swept down a long avenue only to split and dissipate as it collided with the city’s high
outer wall. It reminded her of the ashes she'd poured into the wind the day before. Instead of listening to the ongoing reading behind her, she allowed her thoughts to drift.

  Everyone who could attend the funeral the day before did so. It was held on an old stone and bioplast boardwalk. The brown biological plastic material mixed with large dirty purple quartz gave the weathered structure an earthly quality. The waters were calm, the sun was rising and it would be for hours, bathing them in a warm, golden light. Waiting for the long dawn was an idea from Ugo Dallego, an Axionist from the Samaritan Order who occasionally visited her, and she was glad she'd taken his advice.

  “Where is the dawn?” recited Axiologist Liam Grady. He stood at the edge of the dock looking back at all the crewmembers who had turned out, over nine hundred in number. The breeze didn't stir Liam’s heavy cotton robes. People gathered to stare at the Triton crew. All in uniform, they lined up along the structure and the beach where it dipped and been reclaimed by the sand. Every one of them held an urn, some held two.

  Liam continued; “Timothy looked to his brother and replied, 'It will be late today. All our fears were justified. The leaders in the East committed to one last war. All the great cities have been reduced to rubble, and their ashes will fall on us in a matter of hours.'

  Samuel did not believe him and said; 'No, they were the last chance we had to stop the civil war in the West. Someone with power must have survived.'

  'Anyone left alive with the means to help have left for Centauri Station in hopes of finding their way to one of the new colonies.’ He considered the horizon before he spoke again. ‘The British were right to leave when we made them unwelcome. Now they rule the stars.’

  ‘There will be opposition. War will spread. Too many leaders have left from this side of the world as well. Without them, all the stability in the West is gone, and they’ll make an attempt to wrest power from the new colonists.'

  Timothy looked to his brother, with the love he’d known in his heart since they were children. Samuel was well moneyed and a patron of many frivolous pursuits, but he was not without wisdom. 'Your face is known to most powerful men and women, Samuel. You must join those that have ventured out into the stars and lead who you can. Lead them to peace.’

  'You’ll come with me. If we're going to start over somewhere else, then I'll need your help,’ said Samuel.

  ‘This is my place. Make sure you pass on my message; that the meek inherited the Earth, but only after the strong thought there was nothing left to fight over.'

  'What do you think you can salvage here? Your love of God has kept your feet on the ground your entire life, but not even He would want you to try to resurrect his garden on a world covered in ashes.'

  'In a Kingdom of ashes the cinder is both destroyer and king. It's time for the faithful to come together and begin the long process of rebuilding. From death and destruction will come the lesson, and from the lesson: hope.'” Liam Grady cleared his throat and looked over the massive gathering. His voice was carried to everyone on the crew through their communications system. “That was a reading from The Book Of The Departure, as recorded by Samuel himself on the first day of the Stellar Calendar. He and his brother were forever separated after the destruction of the majority of the upper Eastern continent on Earth. Countries that we watch videos about, like Germany, Russia, China, Korea, and England were almost completely destroyed on the day that conversation took place, and a nuclear winter was about to envelop the entire globe. We know that time now as the First Fall Of Man. Axiologists know it as The Departure, when our race divided. Some interpret that division as the materialistic-minded leaving a ruined earth behind, so they could plunder the virgin galaxy.

  "I prefer to look at it another way. Both sides of humanity still had hope. The majority hoped they could find or make a place that was like the one they left, much like this.” Liam gestured broadly, taking in the ocean and beach. The sound of the waves lapping up against the shore was all anyone could hear until he went on. “Those that remained on Earth to rebuild had a special kind of hope. That is the hope that leads us through the darkness even after we have lost friends, loved ones, have seen terrible violence and waste. In reflection, I couldn't help but compare our situation to The Departure. So many have fled, much like Samuel. After leaving the Triton behind, our old crewmates either sought new opportunities or could not stay because the memories would not rest while they were surrounded by the people who shared their experiences. We must not blame them for their departures. Everyone within the reach of my voice has decided to remain because you see hope where your fellows did not. Whether that hope is perceived as security in numbers, the power of camaraderie, or the warmth of love and friendship, it is hope nonetheless. We do ourselves and those that could not survive to see this dawn credit by holding on to that hope. We honour them by building a place in the galaxy for ourselves. It is thanks to their sacrifice that we stand here, and we should celebrate as though they stand right beside us. We commit their remains to the waters, and celebrate the dawn in their presence.”

  Hundreds of crewmembers tilted their urns. The quiet hiss of ashes pouring from hundreds of vessels was a sound Ayan would never forget. It was unlike anything she'd ever heard, and with all her heart she hoped she'd never hear it again. Beside her, Oz poured the remains of one of the enemy leaders, Major Harold Cumberland. No one claimed his body, so the Carthan Government gave them the option of letting them dispose of it, or giving the ashes to the Triton crew. Oz claimed them.

  Beside him was Paula, who poured the ashes of Deck Chief Angelo Vercelli. Liam Grady was on Ayan's right, and he poured Alice Valent's ashes since Jacob, the rest of the Samson crew, and many others couldn't attend. The urns themselves turned to sand when they were empty, leaving them with a small metal placard as a memento.

  Liam Grady broke the mournful silence that followed. “In a well known transmission to Samuel, long after the departure, long after he'd made his home in New Udalpur, he tells his brother, 'Earth is remembered. You are remembered. Hope is remembered.' As their bond could not be broken, your bond with those who have gone cannot be broken. Now let us watch this fresh dawn for a moment before we take some time to be with each other.”

  It was the perfect service. Ayan wouldn't say it aloud, but she felt lucky. She lent her shoulder to many people she didn't know, heard stories about crewmembers she didn't have a chance to know well, or at all. She didn't carry the burden that everyone else did. The urn she carried through the service contained the ashes of three people who couldn't be identified. Everyone suspected they were liberated slaves who made it aboard, but were never properly registered. They were probably right. Their deaths were sad, but she couldn't help but feel fortunate that she wasn't committing the remains of someone near and dear to her. That luck came with its own measure of guilt. She tried her best to put it aside.

  The service was overdue, and it was a great help to everyone in attendance. She wished Jacob could have been there. It had been a week since she'd seen him. Since they were forced away from the Triton, it was difficult to find time alone together. She suspected that many of the mourners, especially the ones who had been aboard the longest, were also lamenting the loss of that ship. When she let herself think of the Triton, she lamented the loss of opportunity, freedom, security, and organisation.

  That was the last time she wore a Triton uniform. She went back to the loose skirted, scoop necked maxi dress design she’d discovered in the vacsuit shape database during her early days on the Triton. The texture was what convinced people it was a normal garment, made to imitate high thread count stretch cotton, an expensive fabric on most worlds. During negotiations, she dressed in pastel blue, green and white – the most disarming colours. It provided the same protection a basic combat vacsuit did, but it looked nothing like one.

  Laura dressed in the same fashion, only opting for a tighter fitting version. Jason had taken to wearing a white long coat over his uniform, while Liam Grady
opted for his long robes. The old-fashioned blue cloth robes almost hid his black vacsuit.

  As Ayan stood at that window, recalling the service, the irritation at it taking so long for the Carthans to turn over the remains of the crewmembers killed aboard the Triton must have resurfaced. She was equally galled by the Carthans' release of their accumulated captives aboard the Triton. The news that the slave master, Doctor Thurge, Burke, and a few malcontents were sent into the wild was delivered as a sidenote with the delivery of their cremated dead. Ayan felt she and her people had been tread on; it was impossible to shake.

  Liam Grady’s warm hand rested on her bare skin, where the cutout in the back of her dress left her skin exposed. It was generous comfort, but she made an effort not to take solace in it. “Six weeks,” she muttered as she wiped a tear away.

  The droning of Percy the negotiator behind her stopped. “Pardon?” He asked politely.

  “It's been six weeks and one day since we left our ship,” Ayan said. She patted Liam’s arm and he withdrew it gracefully. It was easier to find her anger and impatience without his touch. “You conducted a full forensic investigation, presented us with whatever personal items were left and a cargo container filled with urns.”

  Percy, the negotiator drone, regarded her with earnest surprise. He straightened in his seat. “I'm sorry, Commander. I didn't have anything to do with how that was handled.”

  “That's just it. We're being handled. We keep dancing back and forth in negotiations. I keep asking for what my people think they deserve while you keep short-changing us and citing provisions of galactic laws that only marginally apply here.”

  “Might I remind you that part of our negotiations are for a ship you technically don't own. The Triton is a stolen-”