Ep.#6 - For the Triumph of Evil (The Frontiers Saga - Part 2: Rogue Castes)

by Ryk Brown

  It was a mistake.

  “He tagged the gate! He tagged the gate!” Josh squealed in delight. “Fuck yeah! That was some serious pilot shit right there!” he exclaimed to everyone in the control room.

  “Senza’s losing control,” General Telles observed coldly.

  “He is going to collide with the next gate,” Master Koku added.

  Two seconds later, Gunyoki Four One Eight slammed into gate thirty-nine and broke apart.

  “Oh, shit,” Loki exclaimed.

  “What?” Nathan asked as he turned toward the final gate.

  “Senza just slammed into gate thirty-nine.”

  “He tagged it?” Nathan asked, excitement in his tone.

  “No, he slammed into it. He broke apart.”

  “Oh, my God,” Nathan exclaimed, easing his throttles back.

  “It’s okay!” Josh exclaimed over comms. “They punched out! They’re both out! Their beacons are on, and Race Control has launched search and rescue ships!”

  “Are they okay?” Nathan asked as they glided through the final gate, claiming victory of their second heat.

  “They hit that gate at seven hundred meters per second, Captain,” Loki warned. “The punch out had to be automated.”

  “Josh, was the punch out automated?” Nathan asked as Race Control activated his fighter’s auto-flight to bring them back to the race platform.

  “What?”

  “Did they punch out before, or after they hit the gate?”

  “Standby one,” Josh replied.

  Nathan had a sinking feeling in the pit of his gut. He was willing to do anything to win this event, but he had not expected this, especially in only the second round. But the Gunyoki races were designed to simulate both the act and the risks of combat, and Nathan’s argument had been that the current Gunyoki pilots lacked the edge that combat gave a person. Was this not a demonstration of that edge?

  “Before!” Josh finally announced. “They punched out before impact, Cap’n.”

  Nathan felt a wave of relief wash over him, his head falling back against his headrest.

  “Race Control just confirmed that both men are alive,” Josh added.

  “Are they injured?” Loki asked.

  “They’re not saying,” Josh replied. “They’re just reporting that both of their med sensors are sending back strong vital signs, so they are alive.”

  Nathan sighed, closing his eyes. He could feel his hands shaking as he placed them on his thighs. For once, he was terribly grateful for auto-flight.

  * * *

  “Hey! Jess! Where have you been?” Josh exclaimed as Jessica entered the lounge for bay seventy-five. “Did you hear? Nathan won his second heat!”

  “I heard,” Jessica replied, although with far less enthusiasm than Josh. She turned to General Telles. “Where’s Nathan?”

  “He’s on his way back now,” the general replied. “He should be landing in about five minutes. What have you learned?”

  Jessica took the general by the arm, leading him away from the celebration as she spoke. “I’m pretty sure Quory had nothing to do with the device. In fact, I don’t even think he knows it’s there. Turns out, some guy named Darrien Genn was the last one to work on our bird. He’s the chief mechanic for it.”

  “Were you able to speak with him?”

  “He’s not here. No one has seen him all week; not since our bird was delivered.”

  “Then, we are at a dead end?”

  “Nope. I got his address. But I’ll have to go to Rakuen to find him.”

  General Telles looked at the clock on the wall. “If this is all part of some conspiracy, whatever is going to happen will happen during one of Nathan’s races. His next race is just over an hour away. I would prefer that you were here.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Perhaps you should take someone along?”

  “I’ll be less conspicuous on my own.”

  General Telles nodded begrudging agreement. “Transportation?”

  “I was going to take the Reaper.”

  “Are you comfortable piloting it?”

  “What piloting? I push a few buttons. With any luck, Rakuen Control will auto-flight me directly to my destination. All the buildings have landing pads on top.”

  “Flying a Reaper back to Rakuen is not exactly inconspicuous,” the general reminded her.

  “If I take one of the public shuttles, it will take twice as long,” she pointed out. “Besides, I’m not planning on taking the Reaper into combat, or anything. Just a simple hop down to Rakuen and back. It’s really the only way I have a chance of getting back before his next race.”

  “Very well,” the general agreed. “Need I remind you of the importance of this?”

  “Any and all measures necessary,” Jessica assured him. “I know the drill.”

  * * *

  Cameron stared at General Telles’s image on her view screen. “You should have told me right away,” she finally told him in a stern voice.

  “I was in error,” the general admitted. “I shall not make that mistake again.”

  “You should tell Nathan, as well. I know you think he has enough on his plate, but if you expect him to be in command, he has to know everything. He is not a child who needs to be protected, and you and Jessica need to stop doing so.”

  “Agreed,” the general replied.

  “So, do you think the Dusahn are involved?”

  “It is the most logical theory. Jessica is in the process of gathering more information. I expect to hear from her within the hour. In the meantime, I believe it is best if we assume that is the case.”

  “I’ll put all forces on alert, but not charge shields or weapons, so as not to tip anyone off,” Cameron said.

  “A wise precaution,” General Telles agreed.

  “That was some race, wasn’t it?”

  “Indeed it was,” the general agreed. “Captain Scott’s piloting skills are more impressive than I had anticipated.”

  “Yes,” Cameron agreed. “He’s always been a very instinctive pilot, with a natural aptitude, but I have never seen him fly like that before. For a moment, I thought Josh was doing the flying.”

  “Trust me, he wanted to,” General Telles assured her. “I will contact you as soon as we know more.”

  “And you will speak to Nathan?”

  “Directly. Telles out.”

  Cameron picked up her remote and turned off the view screen, ending the call. She leaned back in her seat a moment. By now, Nathan had proven that he was himself again, and more. At first, the ‘more’ aspect worried her. Now, she was beginning to see it as a significant asset.

  * * *

  General Telles entered the lounge, finding Nathan sitting in the room by himself. “A moment of contemplation?” the general asked as he approached.

  Nathan looked at the general, exhaustion and guilt evident on his face. “Just reviewing things in my head, I guess.”

  “The race?”

  “Yup. What I could have done differently. What I could have done better.”

  “You were victorious,” the general reminded him. “Isn’t that all that matters?”

  “I nearly got those men killed.”

  “Those men chose to climb into that cockpit, fully aware of the risks, same as you and Loki. And that pilot made a bad decision. It was his decision that nearly got him killed.”

  “I ordered the countermeasures launch,” Nathan reminded the general. “They could not have anticipated that move.”

  “If you had been in that pilot’s position, and those flashers had suddenly appeared in your path of flight, what would you have done?”

  “That doesn’t work.”

  “Humor me.”

  “I would have plowed right through them.”

  “And taken the loss of points because of the drain on your shields?” General Telles questioned.

  “Pull up, and you make the gate, but your turn to the next gate is so wide you’d lo
se more ground to the leader. Dive down, and, well, we saw what happened. Myself, I would’ve held my course and plowed right through the flashers. The shields can take the impact just fine. Probably no more than a five percent drop, if that. But I can’t know for sure that I’d do that.”

  “You would’ve,” General Telles insisted. “For the same reason you thought of launching those flashers. At the moment, you put yourself in the other pilot’s seat, and ran those options through your head, just like you explained them to me just now. You determined that two of the three possible reactions by the pilot would assure your victory, and that the third option, the one you would have chosen, still kept the odds in your favor, although, less so than the first two possible reactions. Did you consider any other maneuvers?”

  “Several,” Nathan replied. “Fly faster, take a tighter line to the gate to block him out…but his ship was a bit faster than mine. I could tell. And the turn to the next gate would have favored him, if I had let him get in above me.”

  “So, you chose the maneuver that offered the highest probability of success. And you did so in a split-second, in the heat of simulated battle.”

  Nathan looked at General Telles. “You and I both know that those races are nothing like real combat. No fighter pilot with actual combat experience would’ve pulled such a dumb maneuver.”

  “Isn’t that what you are trying to prove to the Rakuens?” the general asked. “That their pilots lack the necessary experience? If so, I believe you just gave them a wonderful example.”

  Nathan looked at General Telles again. “How do you do it?” he wondered. “How do you maintain your belief that what you are doing is right?”

  “What else am I supposed to believe?”

  “Don’t you ever question yourself?”

  “Of course,” the general insisted. “I just don’t sit around looking like someone just stole my favorite goba doll.”

  “Goba doll?”

  “A small stuffed doll popular with Takaran children.”

  “Did you just make a joke?”

  “I was attempting to poke fun at you, to point out the folly of your self-introspection.”

  Nathan couldn’t help but laugh. “So, you were trying to make me feel better?”

  “Precisely.”

  Nathan laughed again. “Finally, we found something you suck at.”

  * * *

  Jessica had wasted little time upon landing atop the Pianeese Towers tenement building. However, she had been surprised that, for a technologically advanced world, their security measures were sorely lacking in sophistication. It had taken her all of five minutes to locate the security office, bust her way in and subdue the two men inside, and then locate the seventeenth floor unit in which Darrien Genn resided. The two security officers had even been kind enough to loan her their restraints to ensure that they could not sound the alarm before she had concluded her business.

  As expected, she found a global door pass, as well, which she used to gain unannounced access to Mister Genn’s residence. What she had not expected, was to find him long dead, lying in a pool of his own, coagulated blood, his neck sliced open in a way that she found familiar and troubling at the same time.

  A quick examination of the wound was all she needed, and within a few minutes of entering the man’s residence, she was on her way to the roof, and to her Reaper’s communications gear.

  * * *

  “What do you mean, you didn’t remove it?” Josh exclaimed.

  “The device has tamper sensors,” General Telles explained to the group assembled in the lounge at Gunyoki bay seventy-five.

  Nathan listened, but did not comment.

  “I assure you the device has been rendered harmless,” Vladimir promised. “And whoever is operating it will be unaware that it has been bypassed.”

  “When was this thing installed?” Marcus wondered.

  “To the best of our knowledge, prior to delivery. Jessica has found the mechanic who we believe installed the device,” the general explained.

  “Believe?” Deliza wondered.

  “Yeah, didn’t Jess beat the truth out of him?” Josh asked.

  “He is dead.”

  “She killed him?” Josh exclaimed. “Damn, Jess…”

  “He was long dead when she found him,” the general added.

  “I knew Yokimah was a cheatin’ bastard!” Josh declared.

  “We do not believe it was Yokimah,” General Telles said. “At least, we have no proof that he is involved.”

  “He wants Nathan to lose,” Josh exclaimed. “What more proof do you need?”

  “The general’s right,” Loki insisted. “If we lost all power in the middle of a heat, race officials would be crawling all over our ship as soon as it was recovered. They’d find the device, and Yokimah Racing would lose its accreditation.”

  “Damn, this is some crazy shit,” Dalen exclaimed.

  “If it wasn’t Yokimah, then who?” Abby wondered.

  “The most logical explanation is that the Takaran businessman, Jorkar Seeley, is a Dusahn operative. The mechanic was killed with a Ghatazhak blade, and in a manner consistent with Ghatazhak training.”

  “Seeley is Ghatazhak?”

  “I cannot say. All I can say is that Darrien Genn was killed by a Ghatazhak weapon, by someone with Ghatazhak training. It could have been a Ybaran, for all we know.”

  “Why would a Ybaran work for the Dusahn?” Neli asked. “They glassed their entire world.”

  “The Ybaran can be incredibly duplicitous,” General Telles assured her. “We also cannot overlook the possibility that the Dusahn may have resurrected the Ghatazhak programming system used by Caius.”

  “I thought your people were the last of the Ghatazhak,” Yanni stated.

  “There are bound to be more of us out there; some in hiding, others who simply gave up and blended into civilian life. However, I do find it hard to believe that a true Ghatazhak would collaborate with someone like the Dusahn.”

  “My money is on a Ybaran,” Deliza said, disdain in her voice.

  “I would agree,” General Telles replied.

  “So, what happens next?” Josh wondered.

  “If the Dusahn are involved, their likely goal is to capture or destroy both Nathan and the Aurora.”

  “If they wanted to kill me, they would’ve installed something else,” Nathan insisted, finally speaking up. “Like a bomb.”

  “A bomb would be too easy to detect,” Vladimir insisted. “The beauty of this device is that it appears to be a safety aspect. Like an emergency power interrupter. I almost did not notice that it had a transceiver built into it.”

  “Then put the device on a fuel line, or on the plasma trunk, or on any of twenty different things that would kill us instantly,” Nathan argued. “No, they want to capture me, interrogate me, torture me, and use whatever information they glean from me to find the rest of you and destroy you.”

  “What about the Aurora?” Loki asked.

  “That, they’d just as soon destroy once and for all,” Nathan concluded.

  “The captain is correct,” General Telles agreed. “I believe their intention is to activate the device, robbing the captain’s fighter of all power, then jump in and capture him.”

  “When are they going to try?” Josh wondered.

  “In the final round, in the asteroid course, when we’re at the furthest point from the race platform,” Nathan surmised. “That will make it impossible for the Gunyoki to respond fast enough, since they don’t have jump drives. That means the Aurora must respond. They’ll jump me with gunships, or something just large enough to grab my ship and jump away. As soon as the Aurora jumps to me to intervene, something larger will jump in, like a battleship.”

  “No offense intended, Cap’n, but how would the Dusahn know if you’d even reach the final round?” Marcus asked.

  “By planting similar devices on all the ships I face,” Nathan concluded.

  “Whoa,” Josh sa
id in a low tone. “That would take more than just one mechanic.”

  “Jessica discovered that one of Yokimah’s ships was experiencing unexplainable energy fluctuations. That ship eventually lost in the next heat.”

  “You think Senza’s ship was sabotaged, as well?” Loki suggested.

  “It is a possibility,” the general agreed.

  “No way,” Josh argued. “You totally out flew that guy, Cap’n.”

  “If I may?” Quory said, raising his hand for permission to speak.

  “Please,” General Telles insisted.

  “There is no way that Mister Yokimah is not involved in this,” Quory insisted. “His security is too tight, and he oversees every aspect of these events personally. He has too much invested in the entire Gunyoki Racing Association, and in his racing team.”

  “Then why did he bet all his ships?” Josh argued.

  “Because he planned on fixing the race,” Nathan explained. “He gets a portion of the ticket sales…”

  “A significant portion,” Quory added.

  “…He hands me and the Aurora over to the Dusahn, believing he is securing an alliance and protecting both his world and his profit machine, which he would lose if the Gunyoki decided to join our rebellion,” Nathan explained.

  “I told you he’s a sneaky bastard,” Josh exclaimed.

  “You said he was a cheating bastard,” Loki corrected.

  “Same thing.”

  “Ito Yokimah never had any intention of losing,” Nathan concluded.

  “So, what do we do when they attack?” Josh asked.

  “The same thing we always do,” Nathan replied. “We fly, we fight, and we win.”

  “Damn right!” Josh exclaimed.

  “Uh, has anyone considered telling the Rakuen’s about all this?” Abby wondered.

  “That would be ill-advised,” General Telles insisted.

  “Assuming Seeley is Dusahn, he’d simply notify the warships lying in wait, and they’d just attack outright, for fear of losing the opportunity to destroy the Aurora,” Nathan concluded. “It’s safer for Rakuen if we let them believe their plan has worked, so they attack at a place of our choosing.”