The Terran Gambit

by Nick Webb

  Titus looked at the readout and cocked his head. “Epsilon Eridani? But there are no major habitable planets there, just a—”

  “A mining settlement, yes, and a valuable member state of the Empire, however small its size. We need to go there. Have navigation plot a course.”

  “But sir,” Titus squirmed a bit. “Why do we need to go to a mining settlement? And especially one inhabited by the lowest forms of life in this sector of the galaxy? Smugglers, bounty hunters, pirates, slavers, you name it, Epsilon Eridani has it.”

  Admiral Trajan replied without looking up, for which Captain Titus was grateful. “You will know the reason eventually. Get us there within the day.” His tone indicated that the conversation had finished. Titus drew himself up to his full height and saluted before turning on his heel. “Oh, and Captain?”

  Titus paused at the door and turned to face the thin, black-haired man in the chair, who swiveled once more towards him, aiming the ghastly, empty eye-hole his direction again. “Convert one of the fighter bays into storage space. We are about to receive a large quantity of goods, and we will need a place to put them.”

  “But what about the fighters? If the bay is full of goods, we will lose fighter launch capability.”

  “Yes, I know that. Move them off to the side. Send them to the other bay. I don’t care. We will have to do without them for up to a week. Dismissed.”

  Titus had a dozen more questions for the Admiral—why in the hell they were relinquishing fighter support for a week chief among them, and what exactly was so important that it required one of the most advanced battleships in the Corsican Imperial Fleet to play the role of a common freighter—but he saluted again and closed the door firmly behind him, listening as the screeching music shifted to something even more ghastly than before, at a much higher volume.

  This was going to be an interesting year, to say the least.

  ***

  “Shotgun, don’t do it.”

  Lieutenant Commander Jacob Mercer lifted the visor of his helmet and glanced back at Po. “And why not?”

  “Because, if you die, then I’ll have to scrape the goo off the canyon floor, and Admiral Bates will demote me back to lieutenant.” She threaded the strap from her motorcycle helmet’s c-ring and pulled it off her head, shaking her long, black hair in the breeze flowing up from the canyon’s edge. Jake noted with approval that at least she let the bun out when not on duty—a marked improvement he had suggested months before.

  “Yeah. Listen to momma grizzly,” said their companion, Ben Jemez, perched atop a third high-cc motorcycle. “Besides, I’m sure it’s against a dozen fleet regulations. You know the imperials—they’ve got rules against blowing your nose with toilet paper rather than tissues.”

  Jake wrenched his own helmet off and glared back at his friend. “Yeah? Which one?” He and Ben had been friends for nearly three years now, and Jake had gotten quite good at calling the other man’s bluffs—especially when he was quoting regulations.

  “Uh, you know. In the back. Section four oh one paragraph c or something.” He waved his hand vaguely. “The section that says no risking your life to prove yourself to people you’ve already proven yourself to.”

  “Listen to the boy, Jake. He is wise beyond his years,” said Po. Lieutenant Commander Ben Jemez was only seven years younger than Po, and only four younger than Jake, but Po had adopted him after her fashion, doting on him as he had no living parents of his own—one unfortunate drawback to being from Dallas.

  “Yeah. Listen to the boy,” Ben repeated, grinning.

  “It’s only a risk if you think there’s a chance of failure,” Jake retorted, but then turned to look at the canyon. It was small, as canyons went in the deserts of the Inland Empire of Southern California—more of a deep, dry riverbed than a canyon. And yet, a good three hundred feet of dusty, desert air hung between the two walls, and the canyon floor seemed like a distant pile of sand, a hundred feet down.

  As they’d raced down the highway, one particular slope next to the canyon had beckoned to him. He’d stopped, examined it, and his onboard computer informed him that the slope was precisely twenty-four point two degrees, and that if he gunned it up to one hundred and fifteen miles per hour, he’d barely make it. Not accounting for wind resistance, of course.

  “If you don’t think there’s a chance of failure, then you’re even more deluded than I thought,” quipped Po.

  Ben fiddled with his helmet. “Tell you what, Shotgun, you make it over, you can have the bike. If you don’t, you buy me a new one. Deal?” Jake could tell he was just angling for a new motorcycle, but that he had every expectation his friend would back down at the last second, as he had done twice earlier in the day at smaller ravines.

  Revving the engine a few times, he breathed in the smell of the exhaust of the retro throwback. Based on models of late twenty-first century sport bikes, the twenty-seventh century versions featured microgravitic thrusters, which not only improved the gas mileage to over one thousand miles per gallon, but also increased the maximum speed to well over what humans should sensibly travel over pavement.

  But at least the microgravitics would provide a modicum of safe deceleration in the event of a crash. At least, he hoped they would—the onboard computer had been acting finicky. It was a twenty-year-old bike, after all.

  “I’m wearing an ASA suit, for heaven’s sake, Grizzly. It’s not like I’m going to die if I fall. And there’s the gravitic deceleration. And there’s the—” he continued listing off the safety features, more for his sake than for Po’s.

  “Look, if you’re going to go, go. It’s your funeral.” Po had a habit of passive aggressiveness when it came to the safety of others. It had served her well as Jake’s co-pilot and gunner for two years, and now as a fighter squad leader herself.

  He’d threatened to jump at two previous, smaller canyons, but this time, Jake grit his teeth and made up his mind. “Ok, here I go. See you on the other side.” And before he could change his mind, he gunned the engine, revving it to well past twenty thousand rpm. Eyeing the old-school speedometer as he raced up the incline, he hunched over, preparing himself to jerk the handles up slightly to counteract the change in slope at the top. One hundred fifty … one hundred seventy … the wind buffeted his sleek red helmet and gleaming red ASA suit—armor that could repel a plasma-rpg at point blank range—one hundred seventy-five, and … liftoff.

  He soared high into the air, feeling as free as he did while in his fighter—his trusty old bird. In his speaker-set, he could hear Po and Ben chatter, but in his altered consciousness he couldn’t tell what they were saying. All he could feel was freedom. Freedom and weightlessness, the two best feelings in the world—though a brief flashback to a certain women’s restroom mirror reminded him of a third.

  An unexpected blast of wind slammed into him laterally, introducing a slight rotation to his flight. He thumbed the stabilizer, and the gravitics kicked in to right his descent, but out of the blue, the wind shifted and blasted him the other direction, knocking his right arm loose, and when he grabbed the handle again, he inadvertently hit the lateral stabilizer, but the same direction as before, sending him into a lateral spin.

  “Well shit,” was the last thing he said before colliding with the top of the opposite canyon wall and blacking out.

  ***

  They watched as Jacob Mercer tumbled through the air, slammed into the wall on the other side, and plummeted down the steep vertical slope to the dry riverbed below. Po’s hands darted over the tiny console perched on the handlebars of her ride in an attempt to get a reading on him, her eyes wide in horror.

  “Is he … uh … tell me he’s ok,” Ben murmured.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “He’s alive. The gravitics kicked in before the collision and blunted the impact, and slowed his fall down the wall too. I’m reading a steady life sign.” She looked up at him with a lopsided grin. “No such luck for the bike.”

  “Dammit,” Ben
said, pounding the top of the gas tank.

  “Hey, at least you get a new bike out of it.”

  Ben looked at her askance. “You really think he’s going to pay up? He hasn’t got that kind of money. His old man spends it all on booze.” He took off his helmet and ran his fingers through his close-cut brown hair, perfectly styled despite two hours cramped in a helmet, paused a moment, then pounded the gas tank again.

  “Dammit.”

  Po studied her dashboard readout. “Hey, if it’s any consolation, he broke at least one bone,” she offered helpfully.

  He sighed. “I suppose we have to go down there to get him.” Ben Jemez had met Jacob Mercer in the aftermath of Dallas, three years ago. The Imperial Senate was in an uproar, and demanded that the Imperial Fleet stand down, implementing a process of truth and reconciliation, which included a formal amnesty to all but the top political and military leaders of the Resistance. Ben, having lost his parents in the blast, joined the Resistance, now underground, and was encouraged to join the Imperial Fleet, where he met Mercer and Po. They took him under their wings, and soon, he’d surpassed all but the best and brightest in skill, leadership qualities, and his ability to memorize chapter and verse of the fleet regulations, the tech manuals of every fighter and cruiser, and just about any other spec sheet or instruction book. By all accounts, he was slated to make captain by thirty.

  “Don’t look so depressed. He did pull your ass out of that bar fight last week, remember.” Po glanced back to the console and sent out a signal for help from the base out in San Bernadino.

  “Yeah. A fight that he started. What business was it of his that those pilots thought the beer sucked? They were right. It tasted awful.” He stood and swung his leg off the bike, hitting the kill switch with his thumb.

  “Yes, but they were from Bismark. Mercer’s got it in for space jocks from Bismark. Says they’re all arrogant bastards. And he’s right. And not just the space jocks. The entire planet should be kicked out of the imperial circle jerk of a senate if you ask me.”

  “Well that’s likely, seeing how they’re this close to Corsica.” He held up two fingers. “And what do you know about circle jerks, Po? You holding out on me?” He grinned as he walked backward towards the canyon wall, holding his hands up.

  “Let’s just say I go to some interesting parties with the gal-jocks on our girls’-night-outs.”

  Gal-jocks? Ben rolled his eyes at her anachronism—sometimes she seemed stuck in the twenty-fourth century. “Well sometime you’ll have to drag me along. Jake likes his adrenaline rushes, for sure, but our boys’-night-outs usually revolve around me playing the wingman as he picks up on some purdy thing in the bar.”

  He turned and peered down into the canyon, spying the wreckage of the bike on the other side, and catching a glimpse of a red glint among some dry, thorny brush. No movement that he could see.

  “All right, I’m heading down,” he said, and sat on the ledge. He swung his legs out over the drop-off, holding onto the lip with his armored hands, and slid the hundred feet down the side, kicking up a thick cloud of dust as he went, and coming to rest in another patch of dry, thorny brush.

  “Dammit, Jake!” he said, but inhaled a lung-full of dust as he did. He coughed.

  I’ll get you for this.

  ***

  Jacob Mercer belched. He glanced over at his father for approval.

  “Nice one,” the man said, taking a swig from his own bottle. His month-old scruff bristled as he chugged the bottle from half-empty down to full-empty, and then he responded to his son’s rumbled challenge with a gastric declaration of his own.

  Jake raised his eyebrows. “I stand defeated, sir.” He lifted his bottle to his lips and finished his own beer, then kicked back on the couch and turned his attention to the game on the viewscreen hanging on the half-painted wall. The Mars Highlanders versus the Titan Speed. Only five minutes past kickoff, and the Speed had already scored a touchdown.

  “Jeske is trash this year. Can’t throw worth a damn,” his father grumbled, releasing another small belch. Jake nodded.

  “Yeah, but at least they’ve picked up their defense. Not that you’d know it from this game.” He watched the next few plays, but glanced at his father occasionally. He’d flown in from San Bernadino the night before to check the old man out of the hospital, and wound up talking to the doctor for nearly an hour while his father leered at the nurses’ station.

  Liver cirrhosis, the doctor had said. Treatable, but dangerous if unchecked, and he gave Jake a list of prescriptions, and a list of do’s and don’ts. Do: exercise. Eat vegetables. Take the meds. Drink water. Don’t: eat steak. Drink alcohol. Maintain a stressful lifestyle. The last time he checked, his father lived on burgers and booze, and his near-homeless lifestyle was enough to stress anyone out.

  “Hand me another beer, willya?” his father said.

  “Last one, dad.” He rummaged in the cooler.

  “Bullshit.”

  “No really. I’m serious this time. We’re getting you in better shape. I ship out in a few weeks, and I’m not having you keel over on me while I’m patrolling some God-forsaken mining colony somewhere.”

  “Whatever, dickwad.” The man grabbed the bottle offered by his son and wrenched the top off. Jake nearly jumped as his father swung his arms up in the air and hollered. “Woo hoo! Yeah! Suck it, Titan!”

  “Yeah, don’t get too excited, dad. It’s only six to seven, and it’s a long game.”

  “Seven to seven. Kulp never misses his kicks.” The man slumped back into his fraying easy-chair. The stuffing had started to spill out of the ripped arms, mixing with the assortment of other refuse and old food and dirty dishes on the floor.

  They watched the game, and Jake fell back into a rhythm he’d grown accustomed to over the last three years whenever he visited his father. They’d watch some games. Banter. Belch. Laugh. Tell crude jokes. And eventually get too drunk to speak coherently, which, for the elder Mercer, was par for the course. Jake at least took a few days off between these hedonistically drunk ‘man sessions,’ as Jake’s dad called them.

  “What’s that new ship of yours called?” his father asked at halftime as the station anthem played.

  “The Phoenix,” Jake replied, declining to use the NPQR prefix. He still had yet to bring himself to say it when out of earshot of his imperial commanders. “Captain Watson. He’s a decorated Resistance commander,” he added, hoping to impress the old man.

  “Brand new, huh? How much do they spend on those things? Over a quadrillion each?” The man shook his head. “Shit. Imagine how many general welfare checks that could pay out. Why the hell are they building new cruisers, anyway?”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “The galaxy’s a big place, dad. We’ve only explored like a tiny sliver of it. What with pax humana, new settlements are popping up all over the place. There’s a colonist carrier group leaving Cleveland next week—don’t you watch the news? In fact, I think that’s the Phoenix’s first mission—escort duty for colonists.”

  His father had been conserving the beer in his bottle, knowing that his son would probably deny him a third. He took a small sip. “Damn. Sounds awfully exciting, son. I’m sure you’ll be a great chaperone.”

  “Come on, dad, it’s not like the pirate threat is entirely ended. There’s whole sectors still under the sway of the big families. The November family? The empire still hasn’t managed to put them down, not to mention all the other little syndicates and small timers out there. There must be thousands of one-ship deals running around, catching hard working merchant ships and making them pay a tax,” he said, using air quotes on the word tax.

  “Yeah, I bet the Corsicans take their cut of it when no one’s looking. Half those pirates are probably on the imperial paycheck,” his father said, but Jake closed his eyes and shook his head. For as well informed as he thought he was, his father had no idea how galactic politics operated.

  “The pirates are the whole raison d’être f
or the empire, dad.” The syndicates could be ruthless. Inhumane. Their repression was the one bright spot of the Corsican empire and its pax humana, even if that repression seemed to extend to just about everyone else, law-abiding or not.

  His father sneered. “Well look at you, with your big fancy Italian words. Jeez, Jakey, you sound like a prancing university wannabe.” The old man sipped his beer again and waved to the viewscreen to switch football games, dropping his hand when he saw the New England Patriots versus the Europa Tigers.

  “You still hanging around that fighter chick?” said his father. His thoughts drifted to the blissful memory of the first half of Dallas-day—D-day, as pro-Resistance Terrans were wont to say—that perfect body and the swirly tattoos, reflecting in the bathroom mirror back to him. The close-cropped blonde hair that smelled like fighter fuel. The firm, albeit small, boobs. Then he realized the old man was probably not talking about the girl from the bar. He couldn’t recall her name, anyway.

  “Po? She’s my colleague, dad. You know the word colleague, right?”

  “Don’t play shit with me. I know what a colleague is,” the man said, matching Jake’s emphasis of the word. Despite his weakness for the bottle and his allergy to work, he bristled whenever he perceived someone questioning his intelligence or ability to work. “Shit, Jake. It’s like you think I’ve never worked a day in my life or something.”

  “Well, dad, if the shoe fits….” Jake shook his head and silently swore at himself. The booze was loosening his tongue in unhelpful ways, and he wished he could take it back.

  “Look, buddy, I didn’t ask you to start coming around. If I wanted some kiss-ass imperial wanker to start lecturing me I’d have called your regulation manual totin’ roommate. So if you’re going to keep this up, go back to your mom and tell her to stop begging you to visit me.” He glowered at Jake before turning his attention back to the game.