by Ryk Brown
Lord Dusahn resisted the urge to glare at the man or reach out and kill him with a single blow. “Perhaps I should only buy four of them.”
“I’m afraid the price only applies to the purchase of all six ships as a group.”
“Really,” Lord Dusahn commented, annoyed.
“A small fleet of warships has a very limited market. Most buyers are only interested in one, maybe two vessels. Selling them individually would fetch a far lesser profit for my client.”
“And a far lesser commission for yourself,” Lord Dusahn added.
Mister Dekkan smiled. “Ninety-five trillion credits per ship, and that is as low as I can go. I too have mouths to feed.”
“I suspect you feed them quite well, Mister Dekkan,” Lord Dusahn stated. “Ninety-five trillion per ship, all six ships then.”
Mister Dekkan could barely contain his glee. “And how would you like to make payment?”
“It will take me a few days to get an escrow account created and to move funds into that account.”
“Actually, we have an escrow account that we use for such transactions.”
“I would prefer to create one myself,” Lord Dusahn insisted.
“I’m afraid I must insist that you use our escrow account,” Mister Dekkan insisted.
“I will not put five hundred seventy trillion credits into an escrow account of your choosing,” Lord Dusahn replied emphatically.
“I’m afraid it is a requirement of the sale.”
Lord Dusahn rose without hesitation. “Then I shall not waste any more of your time,” he stated, turning to exit. “Good day, Mister Dekkan.”
“Wait…”
Lord Dusahn, his back now to Mister Dekkan, smiled.
“I’m sure my client would be willing to make an exception, considering the size of this transaction,” Mister Dekkan offered, barely able to hide his desperation.
Lord Dusahn turned slowly to face Mister Dekkan again. “Give me three days, and I will meet you here, at these same coordinates.”
“Actually, the exchange will take place at a different location. That, I must insist on.”
Lord Dusahn sighed. “Very well,” he acquiesced. “But how am I to find you?”
Mister Dekkan pulled out a small data card, sliding it across the desk to Lord Dusahn. “This data card contains instructions on how to contact me. Once we have received verification that the full amount is in your escrow account, we will send you the rendezvous coordinates. Once your crews are in place on all six vessels and our people have disembarked, you will provide me with the escrow account’s control chip. Once I have verified control of the escrow account, I will transmit the control codes for all six ships, and the transaction will be complete.”
Lord Dusahn did not look impressed. “I suppose that will have to do.” He looked at Mister Dekkan, his eyes narrowing. “Should you cross me, Mister Dekkan, I will take it as a personal slight and will seek appropriate recompense.”
“I wouldn’t dream of slighting you, sir,” Mister Dekkan assured him. “Just as you would not dream of slighting me,” he added, his own expression becoming somewhat sinister. After a moment, his expression returned to normal. “Would you care for some more kuffel?” he asked, picking up the sampling platter.
“Yes I would,” Lord Dusahn replied, taking another piece of the colorful fruit and popping it in his mouth. “A very interesting taste,” he stated as the sweet juice exploded in his mouth.
“It is quite rare and quite expensive.”
“I don’t suppose you could leave some in the ship’s galley for us?” Lord Dusahn wondered.
“I’m certain that can be arranged,” Mister Dekkan said, smiling as he took a piece for himself.
Enjoy your fruit, Lord Dusahn thought. Your days are numbered.
* * *
“Yawing one-eighty,” Josh announced as he twisted the Voss’s flight control stick to the right.
“Why do you insist on doing such things manually?” Dylan complained.
“It’s all about getting a feel for her,” Josh defended.
“I mean, I could see if you were doing more complex maneuvers, but a simple yaw?”
“Does this guy have an off switch?” Josh wondered.
“Just let him do what he does,” Loki told Dylan. “Trust me, you’re not going to change him.”
“But this is an unnecessary risk!” Dylan exclaimed. “Look how close we are!” he added, pointing out the windows at the much bigger Aurora only a hundred meters away.
“You call this close?” Josh laughed.
“I’d suggest you don’t look out the windows when Josh is flying,” Loki suggested.
“You’re kidding, right?” Dylan surmised.
“Works for me,” Loki assured him, his attention on his console, and not out the windows.
The much smaller XK yawed to the right as it slid alongside the port side of the Aurora. As the Voss’s nose came around, its thrusters fired again, arresting its rotation around its vertical center axis. A tiny blast from its dorsal translation thrusters, and it began to descend relative to the Aurora, approaching its new, wide-open, port aft flight deck.
“Yaw maneuver complete,” Loki reported, closely monitoring the Voss’s flight displays as Josh manually guided the ship toward its final touchdown point. “Thirty seconds to pressure shield penetration.”
Nathan reached up and switched one of the view screens above him to display the aft-facing camera. He could clearly see the pale blue glow of the shield.
“That’s different,” Josh noted as Loki switched the camera view on the center console to the same, aft-facing camera. “You sure that thing works?”
“We’ve been using pressure shields since before I was born,” Dylan replied. “I’ve never heard of them failing. In fact, we have a modified version over our backyard. It can be cold and rainy everywhere else, and still be warm and dry in our yard.”
“That’s just weird,” Josh commented.
“For us it’s normal.”
“I’m with Josh,” Marcus grumbled. “It’s just not natural.
“Penetration in three,” Loki interrupted. “Two……one……”
The Voss settled in a single meter above the Aurora’s port aft flight deck, arresting its descent with a single puff from the translation thrusters along its ventral side, its aft end penetrating the semi-opaque, pale blue shield. A brilliant blue line walked across the hull of the ship, followed by a much paler line two meters behind it. The pair of lines continued forward until the Voss fired its aft thrusters, ceasing its advance relative to the deck it was about to touch down upon.
“That’s it,” Josh reported, taking his hands off the controls as the Voss’s motion relative to the Aurora ceased.
“Aurora Approach, Voss has neutral relative hover at one meter off the deck.”
“Voss, Aurora Approach, bringing up the gravity. Prepare for touchdown.”
“I could’ve parked it, ya know,” Josh insisted.
“A ship this size has a lot more mass than a shuttle or a fighter, Josh,” Nathan pointed out.
“Not much more than the Seiiki,” Josh argued, “and I set her down manually all the time.”
“She’s got three times the mass of the Seiiki,” Loki corrected. “And she’s not even fully loaded.”
“I still could’ve set her down myself,” Josh insisted as all four gear touchdown lights lit up simultaneously.
“Are we down?” Marcus wondered, not having felt anything.
“No way,” Jessica commented.
“Not as gently as that, you couldn’t,” Nathan told Josh.
Josh had no reply.
“Shut down and secure the ship, then take the rest of the day off,” Nathan instructed Josh and Loki as he turned and headed aft. “We’re gear up
again in twenty-four hours. Shall we?” Nathan said to Marcus and Jessica as he passed.
“This should be interesting,” Marcus grumbled, falling in behind Nathan and Jessica.
Nathan led them down the few steps to the short corridor connecting the operations deck of the Voss to its common room. He stepped through the two airlock hatches and into the common room, skirting around the table at its center and stepping through the open hatch on the opposite side.
Another hatch, and he was in the center octagonal compartment that connected the dorsal gun position, the main cargo deck, and the ventral gun positions. He slid down the ladder to the cargo deck, then headed aft through the next hatch and into the Voss’s utility bay at the aft end.
“You sure you wanna do that?” Marcus warned as Nathan reached for the ramp controls.
“Atmo sensors are in the green,” Nathan told him, pointing at the display.
“There ain’t no bulkheads out there, Cap’n.”
“If Vlad says they work, they work,” Nathan insisted, slapping the ramp deployment activation button with his hand.
“You got a lot more faith in that guy than I do,” Marcus grumbled as the ramp motors sounded and the hatch began to deploy. There was a small hiss of escaping air as the minor pressure differential between the interior of the Voss and that of the shielded area outside equalized.
Marcus felt his ears pop, causing him a minor concern at first.
“I guess I should’ve equalized before cracking the hatch, huh,” Nathan admitted, noticing the look of disapproval on his friend’s face.
“Would’ve been nice,” Jessica agreed, stretching her jaw wide open to equalize the pressure within her own ears.
The ramp passed the horizontal plane as it continued to deploy, and Nathan and Jessica headed out as it cycled to its downward, angled position. Timing their progress just right, they stepped off the end of the ramp and onto the deck of the Aurora just as the distal end of the ramp kissed the deck with a small, metallic thud.
“Welcome back,” Cameron greeted as she and Vladimir sauntered toward them from the forward, covered end of the port aft flight deck.
“I never thought I’d be walking on this deck without a pressure suit,” Nathan commented as he paused to turn around and look at the shimmering, semi-opaque shield cutting across the forward half of the Voss’s center main section.
“You could’ve parked a few meters tighter in,” Cameron suggested.
“We need the room to unload,” Nathan explained.
“Unload what?”
“All the stuff that Vlad and his people will be helping us install,” Nathan replied.
“What stuff?” Vladimir asked.
“Missile launching systems.”
“How soon do you need them?” Vladimir asked.
“Twenty-four hours.”
Vladimir said nothing, rolling his eyes and heading toward the Voss.
“We need our main guns working too,” Jessica added.
Thankfully, no one understood what came out of Vlad’s mouth next.
“How was your flight?” Cameron asked as she, Nathan, and Jessica headed toward the main hatch at the forward end of the flight deck.
“Everything worked as expected,” Nathan replied. “But it was a pretty routine series of jumps. Josh was begging me the entire way to let him cut loose on the controls. I finally let him execute the landing manually just to shut him up.”
“I thought you had a sim for the XKs,” Cameron commented as they passed through the main cargo hatch and into the port large transfer airlock, which was now more of a staging area for various equipment.
“According to Josh, its manual flight simulation is woefully lacking,” Nathan explained. “Not surprising, I suppose, since its source code is from a role-playing simulation.”
“So, what’s next?” Cameron wondered as the three of them continued across the bay.
“We plan to depart this time tomorrow for Rakuen.”
“You think Vlad and his people can finish things up by then?” Jessica asked.
“As long as he gets our two main guns working, I’ll be happy.”
“I’d rather we had all the weapons systems operational,” Jessica insisted.
“If they can get the launch tubes installed before we depart, we can work on the rack assemblies on Rakuen.”
“How long are we going to be there?” Jessica wondered.
“Same as here,” Nathan replied. “Twenty-four hours.”
* * *
“Comms,” Nathan called to Naralena as he entered the Aurora’s bridge. “Get Captain Gullen on vid-comm and pipe it into my ready room.”
“Aye, sir.”
Nathan continued to his ready room, followed by Cameron and Jessica.
“The real problem will be getting crews trained,” Cameron said, continuing their ongoing conversation as the three of them entered the ready room. “We may not be able to staff the XKs if the Subvert volunteers are able to crank them out as quickly as you say.”
“There are worse scenarios than having more ships than crew,” Nathan said as he took a seat behind his desk. “Besides, Rogen command has been pushing for more of their people to be crewing the Orochi. They’ve had volunteers from both Rakuen and Neramese in training for weeks now. So we should be able to cycle out some of the non-native personnel from the current Orochi crews for the XKs. If we time it right, it may not even impact our current readiness.”
“But aren’t we just swapping one platform for another?” Cameron suggested. “Maybe our resources are better spent elsewhere.”
“The Orochi are big, lumbering boats,” Jessica argued. “Lots of guns and missiles, yes, but they’ve got very little in the way of mission flexibility.”
“Which is why we need the XKs,” Nathan agreed, pointing at Jessica. “They can haul supplies, ferry troops, conduct SAR ops; you name it.”
“They can’t launch massive jump-missile strikes,” Cameron reminded him.
“No, they can’t,” Nathan admitted. “But I’m hoping that such strikes will no longer be necessary. At least not for the immediate future.”
“If you take crew from the Orochi too quickly, Rogen command is going to be unhappy,” Cameron pointed out. “They’re already complaining that most of their ships are protecting other systems and not their own.”
Nathan thought for a moment. “I guess we’ll just have to upgrade the Orochi’s jump drives as well.”
“That will require additional interior space,” Cameron argued. “Something the Orochi don’t have.”
“Take out a few of their missile launchers, or reduce their internal missile storage capacity,” Nathan suggested. “That should make enough room for the longer-range jump drive components.”
“You want to reduce their strike capacity?” Cameron questioned, surprised by his suggestion.
“We’re no longer fighting the war we were a week ago,” Nathan told her. “What we need going forward is flexibility, not single-strike firepower. The more this alliance grows, the greater the possibility that an enemy can lure us to one area while they attack another.”
“An enemy?” Cameron wondered. “You’re expecting someone other than the Dusahn?”
“Aren’t you?” Jessica wondered.
“There are at least three entities who attack SilTek with some degree of regularity,” Nathan explained. “Then there are the Ilyan Gamaze, the Tremen, and let’s not forget that pirate band we had to deal with. That’s just the threats we know of, and across just a few dozen inhabited systems we’re acquainted with. If there are indeed many more colonized worlds out there, then it stands to reason there will be many more potential enemies as well.”
Cameron sighed. “Point taken.”
Jessica looked at both Cameron and Nathan. “Is it just me, or does
anyone else ever wonder if we picked the wrong careers?”
“Every day of my life,” Nathan chuckled.
The intercom beeped, and Naralena’s voice came through. “Captain Gullen on vid-comm, sir.”
“Put him through,” Nathan replied, activating the large view screen on the wall over the couch.
The view screen came to life, and Captain Gullen appeared, sitting in his quarters on the Glendanon.
“Captain Scott,” Edom greeted. “How is your new ship?”
“She still needs some work, but she’s space-worthy,” Nathan replied. “Were you able to locate any of the Glendanon’s shareholders?”
“Only one. Ross Coulthard. He is one of the few surviving shareholders, with one of the largest percentages of shares in the Glendanon.”
“Were you able to speak with him?”
“Yes,” Captain Gullen replied. “He was quite forthcoming and is supportive of your plans for the Glendanon. However, he alone cannot grant permission without at least attempting to speak with the other investors.”
“I don’t get it, we’ve been using it without his permission for months now,” Jessica commented.
“Only because the Glendanon’s operating protocols grant her captain the authority to make any decision necessary when unable to obtain permission from the board,” Captain Gullen explained.
“We would have been better off not contacting the shareholders,” Jessica stated.
“If Mister Coulthard is the only shareholder you could find, he should be able to make the decision, shouldn’t he?” Cameron posited.
“Mister Coulthard has promised to do his best to find as many shareholders as possible. He believes that at least a few of them are still alive but in hiding.”
“And if he is unable to reach them?” Nathan asked.
“The board has its own protocols. One of those states that there must be at least two shareholders present in order to vote on any proposed course of action. If two are not present, then the Glendanon must cease operations until more shareholders can either be located, or more investors buy in, thus giving the board more than one vote.”
“And what if no other investors can be found, or no one else is willing to become an investor?” Nathan wondered.
