by Robert Boren
“Do your best, okay?”
“I’ll give it a shot, but what you ask is nearly impossible. Let me explain it in the framework of Earth history, since your puny minds can’t seem to break out of that paradigm.”
“There you are, being an asshole again,” Tim said.
“Given the tools I have to study this, I would have suspected that leaders like Genghis Khan or Charlemagne were rogues. Or thinkers like Leonardo Da Vinci. The whole problem is a non-issue anyway.”
“Why is it a non-issue?” Izzy asked.
“Because if they’re rogue, they will want to hide from us. They certainly won’t call the Central Authority. They’d be in worse trouble than we would.”
I chuckled, shooting him a sidelong glance. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Then what are you worried about?” Nolan asked.
“A rogue despot from a level five or four world would love to have certain technology at their disposal, and we have that. Hell, several of our sidearms would give him an edge over the entire population.”
“We’d have to be noticed by the rogue, and we won’t be there that long,” Nolan said, “but I’ll do my best, okay? At least you focused on the only real danger. Kudos to you. You’re a credit to your planet.”
Izzy looked at her PA. “Captain, Nolan just sent me new frequency coordinates. Should I change course now, or wait until he does the workup?”
Nolan locked eyes with me. “You guys can’t even follow your own conversation. Timmy there said we’d better change course quickly, and I’ve been working that while talking to you. It’s one of the smartest comments he’s made since I met him, although that’s not saying much.”
“Fine, do it, but we’ll park in orbit before we go down, got it? I want that workup.”
“It’s already halfway done.”
“So it’s a go, Captain?” Izzy asked.
“Yeah, get on the new frequency coordinates.”
Izzy swiped her PA a few times, then talked into it, the console screen lighting up with a pathway. She touched the accept button. “Done, sir.”
“Thanks,” I said, getting up. “I’m off to my quarters for a little while.”
“Mind if I go get some shuteye too?” Tim asked.
“Mind? No, I want you to. We’ve both been up for nearly forty hours. I want us sharp.”
We left the bridge together, headed down the main corridor towards the staterooms.
Tim shot me a glance as we walked. “How can you put up with that Nolan asshole?”
“We have the same goals, and he came up with the frequency modulator. The guy’s a genius, that’s for sure. He’ll keep us safe from a technical standpoint, although I worry about his ego a little.”
“A little?”
We both chuckled.
“What is the big difference with his modulation, anyway?” Tim asked. “Is it just a cloaking device?”
“No, it’s much more powerful than that. You know how the Samson drive works, right?”
“It creates a wormhole between our location and the destination, then forces the ship through it at the highest speeds possible.”
“Correct. His system encrypts the wormhole frequency and modulates it continuously. There’s no way to track our position or our destination. We’re invisible to any Central Authority sensor.”
“If we’re invisible to all other traffic, what’s to keep another ship from crossing our path?”
“That’s why just the encryption wasn’t enough,” I said. “This new system is constantly watching and adjusting. We have a 99.537 percent chance of avoiding a collision should there be another ship in our path.”
“Not a hundred percent?”
“Nothing is a hundred percent. That’s something Nolan doesn’t understand. It’s his main weakness.”
“Well, that, and being a jerk,” Tim said.
{ 2 }
Probability
I awoke with a start. It was that familiar feeling. We were coming out of the wormhole, heading into orbit around a planet near Valla Cappos. How long did I sleep? My PA said five hours. Dammit. I crawled out of bed, stripped, and got into the cleaning module. The jets came on and the floor spun, getting me wet, covering me with cleansing gel. After a few seconds for the gel to work I was rinsed and dried. My PA beeped.
“Yeah,” I said.
“We just came out of the wormhole, Captain,” Izzy said. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“I just finished cleansing. I’ll be dressed and back to the bridge in ten minutes.”
“Thank you, sir. Nolan provided his workup on Valla Cappos. I’ve got some concerns.”
“I can imagine.”
“Something else happened too, but I don’t want to use the PA to discuss it.”
“No problem. Are we in trouble?”
“Not exactly,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll see you soon.”
My cabin was small, but that’s understandable. The Zephyrus isn’t a huge craft by the standards of the day. It’s basically an armed cargo ship converted to a test bed, only three hundred meters long, holding a crew of fifty. Nolan suggested the gold plating, which would have been very expensive before we had synthetic gold. We’ve beefed up the weapons too, but the real kicker is Nolan’s enhanced controller for the Samson drive. It’s one of two that exist. The other one is in the hands of the Central Authority, taken when Nolan was captured, but it was damaged beyond repair.
Central Authority scientists would love to reverse-engineer the enhanced control module, but they can’t even reverse-engineer the Samson drive, thanks to the original inventor. His company still exists, affiliated with the United States, still the dominant nation on Earth. Samson drives are built to explode if an un-authorized person tries to open them. We aren’t talking about a little bang, either. We’re talking about a city-killing event with environmental consequences. More than one world has suffered that fate. Now nobody tries, but Earth has been under sanctions from the time the first attempt was made. Since the black market is huge in our part of the galaxy, that has probably saved Earth a lot of money over the last four-hundred years. Of course the sanctions allowed us to sell Samson drives across the Universe. Imagine that.
Maybe some more background would be helpful. I’ve got a few minutes before I have to be on the bridge, so here goes:
The inventor of the Samson drive was a genius named Alexander Carlson. He was born in Earth Year 2010. His drive was first used in 2050. It only took about four years of space travel for the Central Authority to notice and reveal themselves.
There’s an old saying that timing is everything, and that certainly came into play here. Normally the Central Authority takes total control of any world that graduates to level five. They started pushing us around almost immediately, but Carlson wouldn’t have it. He refused to share his technology except on his terms. The Central Authority wanted to come down hard against us for that, but there was a war on at the time, and they were losing.
You’d think that with a name like Central Authority, this group would be the supreme leaders of the Universe. Wrong. They controlled roughly one third of the Universe in 2054, and were in danger of losing it all.
The rest of the Universe was run by a far more militant government called The Clan (well, that’s the closest English translation, anyway). The salvation of the Central Authority was the Samson Drive. Before this drive existed, starships had to use existing worm holes to travel long distances. It could take a ship months just to get to the opening of a wormhole, and the ship could only travel to where the wormhole ended. The Samson drive creates its own wormhole as it’s traveling. That was a revelation. Using that drive, ships could take off from anywhere they wanted and arrive anywhere they wanted. Add to that the fact that the Samson drive was much faster through wormholes than any other type of ship, and you have a war-winning situation. The Central Authority could show up and attack Clan ships who thought they were safe.
Bottom line, Carlson made the Central Authority an offer they couldn’t turn down. He’d provide the drives, but he would keep their technology a secret, and he would retain self-destruct capability for each and every drive he sold. The Central Authority reluctantly agreed. The war ended in a hurry after that, but the problems were just beginning.
My PA beeped. “Captain, are you coming or what?” Izzy asked.
“Sorry, I was in the middle of something,” I said, pulling on my boots. “Be there in five minutes, okay?”
“Please,” she said.
Well, looks like we’re running out of time, but I can finish in a couple minutes.
After the Central Authority finally understood the full impact of the Samson Drive’s capability (they are a government, after all), they decided that simply kicking the Clan out of their territory wasn’t enough. They made plans to take over the Clan’s territory. Carlson didn’t trust the Central Authority or the Clan, so he did something that would forever change Earth’s place in the Universe. He sold the Samson Drive to the Clan, under the same arrangement he’d made with the Central Authority. Talk about somebody pissing in the Central Authority’s punchbowl. Along with the sale, he told both sides that if they didn’t make peace right away, he’d blow up their ships by self-destructing the drives. That was game over.
In a deal signed by all parties, the Universe was cut into three pieces. The third that the Central Authority controlled before hostilities started went to them. Another third that had originally belonged to The Clan went to them. The remaining third, comprised mainly of disputed territory, was set up as a free zone, ruled by nobody and off-limits for warfare of any kind. As you can imagine, the Free Zone became very popular in a hurry, and the laws regarding visiting and activities on worlds below level five were extended into that zone. Special laws were drawn up regarding those worlds who found themselves in the Free Zone, but they all realized that being in the Free Zone was much more of a blessing than a curse. There’s never much rancor in the Free Zone. Great place to vacation.
Enough for now. I’ve got to go.
“Finally,” Izzy said as I entered the bridge.
“What’s going on?” I asked, taking my captain’s seat.
“The Central Authority has demanded that we hand over the fugitive and the Zephyrus,” Izzy said.
“They contacted us?”
“No, I sent the message you requested to Sheppard One, and they told me there was an official order transmitted to every planet in the Central Authority Zone.”
“How’d Nolan take it?”
“He doesn’t know yet,” Izzy said. “He went to his stateroom a couple hours after you and Tim turned in.”
Tim walked in, hair still damp from cleansing. He froze when he saw the look on Izzy’s face.
“Uh oh, what’d I miss?”
Izzy shrugged. “The Central Authority released a zone-wide order for us to surrender the Zephyrus and hand Nolan over.”
“How’d they even know he was with us?”
“They can’t track us,” Izzy said. “It’s pretty obvious that we have him.”
“Why do think they have the right to take the Zephyrus?” Tim asked.
“They said our ship breaks the law. We aren’t allowed to have a ship which can’t be tracked.”
“Who cares,” I said. “They don’t have that kind of authority over private property. Simone is behind this. Her and the Overlords. They’re turning the Central Authority Zone into a frigging police state.”
“Think they know what our payload is?” Tim asked.
I shook my head no. “Not a chance. I thought Nolan was nuts for wanting to do this. Not so much now.”
“Don’t mention what it is when the PA system is on,” Tim said. “They’ll eventually get any info it records. We need to find a way around that.”
“Yes, these things are a problem,” Izzy said. “Should we wake the prima donna?”
I looked at Tim and we both cracked up.
“I heard that,” Nolan said, strolling in. “They’ve made their demands already, I’ll bet.”
I shrugged. “How’d you guess?”
Nolan sat back in the Chief Scientist’s chair. “We’ve talked about this. It was expected. If our allies on Sheppard One were able to send a reply, the Central Authority doesn’t know they’re involved. Assuming the reply actually came from our allies and not one of Simone’s agents.”
Izzy shook her head. “Both the retina scan and the voice print checked out.”
“That doesn’t help if somebody’s holding a spiker to their head,” Tim said.
“That would’ve shown up in the voice print,” Nolan said. “Stress sticks out like a sore thumb.”
I eyed Izzy and Tim, noting the worry on their faces. “Hey, we’re holding all the cards, guys. Don’t worry. If worse comes to worse, we could get into the Free Zone before they could do anything about it.”
“I still have family on Earth,” Izzy said. “That’s not a good long-term solution for me.”
“The Central Authority doesn’t know the identity of anybody on this ship but me,” Nolan said.
“Not only that,” I said. “The Samson Corporation registered the Zephyrus as a prototype.”
“Not because of what I did to it,” Nolan said.
“We are not required to disclose the design elements for this prototype,” I said. “The only things they know about the Zephyrus is that it belongs to the Corporation, it’s a registered prototype, and they can’t track it. We have no legal exposure, if the Central Authority is following the laws their legislature passed.”
“What’s to stop Simone from attacking the Corporation?” Tim asked.
Nolan laughed. “I’d love to see them try that. The Corporation could target and destroy each and every one of the Overlord ships in an instant. All of them have the Samson drive self-destruct system.”
Izzy chuckled. “Yeah, imagine them having to restrict their travels to existing worm holes again. The infrastructure to handle that has been gone for three hundred years. It would have to be rebuilt, and the worlds close to the original worm holes could resist. It’s game over for the Overlords, and maybe for the Central Authority if they aren’t careful.”
I sat in my chair, thinking the situation through.
“What’s on your mind?” Izzy asked me.
“The Corporation isn’t indestructible. It’s run by humans, and humans can be turned.”
“That’s true,” Nolan said. “Second smart thing you’ve said in twelve hours. Good for you, but you always forget mitigating facets of the problem.”
“Like what?”
“Our mission will be complete long before they could turn somebody in the Corporation, and by that time nobody’s going to care about this little situation anyway. The Overlords will be lucky to survive.”
“You have a lot of confidence in this plan,” I said. “It’s basically just an insertion of ideas. People could ignore them. They might not even understand them.”
Nolan shook his head. “You need to read your Earth history. Or any planet’s history, for that matter. Ideas are everything.”
“Let’s get off this,” I said. “Izzy, what were your concerns about Nolan’s workup of Valla Cappos?”
Izzy shot a glance at Nolan, then turned towards me. “There’s two things.”
“Well?” Tim asked.
“The human population is in a Black Plague epidemic. Mortality is high. Things are crazy.”
“Crap, we don’t have immunity to that, and we don’t have a medical team,” Tim said.
“The enhanced anti-biotics are available,” Nolan said. “We can get them on the open market.”
“But we have to physically pick them up,” Tim said. “We’ll be admitting that we went to a pre-level five world without a permit. They’ll lock us up.”
“So we go to the black market instead,” Nolan said.
Tim shook his head. “We’d still have to pick them up ph
ysically.”
“We’ll be sitting in one of their oceans,” I said. “There won’t be any interaction with humans on the planet.”
“The oceans are the other problem,” Izzy said. “They’ve got marine species that were dominant in Earth’s Cretaceous period. Some of them are large and very dangerous. The Mosasaurs, for example.”
“Would they attack the Zephyrus?” I asked.
“They might, and if we use a modern weapon against them, the signature might get picked up. You know the Overlords are scanning for us. They don’t have to be that close.”
“So if that happens, we jump someplace else,” Nolan said. “Not much they can do about that.”
“This ship has high-explosive torpedoes,” Tim said. “They’re in the storage bays.”
“Why would a prototype ship have something like that?” I asked.
“They’re in shipping containers,” Tim said. “I think they were supposed to be delivered somewhere along the line, but it never happened. Hell, maybe they’re part of the original developmental features of the prototype. The Corporation didn’t say anything about them?”
“Nope,” I said.
“We don’t have torpedo tubes,” Izzy said. “The Zephyrus wasn’t designed for undersea warfare.”
“I need to take a look at them,” Nolan said. “They might not require anything more than a trip out one of the airlocks.”
“Anything else?” I asked Izzy.
“No, that was all I saw.”
“Nothing about any rogue leaders?” I asked, eyeing Nolan.
“I could find no evidence of anyone with level five or above thought processes, although they do have some bright people. They already have gunpowder.”
“Really?” I asked. “The dominant culture?”
“Yes. They’ve only got single-shot firearms, but think of the impact they would’ve had during the Roman period on Earth. Most of the planet is at that level of development. They’re just barely level eight.”
I leaned forward in the Captain’s chair, elbows on the arms, cradling my head in my hands, thinking through every scenario that could lead to our discovery on the planet.
