Myra,: The start of a galactic adventure. (Dave Travise Book 1)

by Richard Dee

  Trans-papers were really plastic; the images on their surface hiding the layers of capacitors woven into them; to sign I merely had to tap the bar at the bottom, my ID chip would be interrogated. The information would be digitally encoded into the document, and the micro transmitter in it would store it on the ship’s computer. It could then be passed to customs or anyone else as part of the crew list. The contract would be on my cabin viewer, so I could check that out later. Rixon was still talking.

  “They’re all required by various places we go to, keeps the customs happy, and the majority of the stuff we do is in the open, despite what the late Captain Dror thought.”

  I tapped them all, and passed the sheaf back to him.

  “Thanks,” he smiled, putting them into a drawer which he locked. “Now ask away, what else do you want to know?”

  Suddenly, I couldn’t think of anything much to ask, “Where do you turn on the Nav? And where do you get the food? It’s the best packaged stuff I’ve ever tasted.”

  “But you don’t recognise the boxes? Well Griff gets it, it’s from the Independent Worlds, there’s a place where we go on a semi-regular basis and we pick it up when we can. We don’t get it all the time, so make the most of it. In between its frozen concentrates, I’m afraid. And the Nav control is on the port instrument panel, it’s on all the time normally though, just say ‘Hello, Nancy’.”

  “Okay, what about the stuff in my cabin?”

  “It’s your stuff, keep what you want and dump the rest, by the way, the laundry is down on–”

  “Gamma deck port aft,” I finished, and we laughed together.

  I left Rixon and returned to my cabin. I attacked the pile of stuff, not really knowing what I would find. There was a large amount of clothing, most of which actually fitted me and was taken down to the laundry and washed. I also found some new clothes and toiletries in the drawers and washroom storage. There were a few things that I dumped in a pile for disposal, and some stuff that I really needed. I would have to get it when I could. Perhaps we would have time on Wishart.

  Apart from the clothes, there was little to suggest what kind of a man Dave Travise had been, the personal effects were minimal, just a few action films and a viewer. There were various souvenirs from some of the more interesting places they had been and some encrypted letters. Then I found a flash drive, it was sewn into the leg of one of the overalls and I could feel it as I was putting them into the washer. Using my knife, I cut it out and stuffed it in my pocket. At the bottom of one of the drawers was a small locked box, which rattled when I shook it. It had a DNA key, and of course I had just put the best source of DNA in the washer.

  Before I plugged the drive into the cabin viewer, I isolated it from the ship’s network. I didn’t want whatever was on it setting off any alarms.

  Disappointingly, it was password protected. I didn’t want to risk wiping it by guesswork so I would have to think of something else.

  Someone knocked at my door. Quickly, I ejected the drive and stuffed it into my pocket. “Come in,” I called and Griff entered, ducking under the doorway.

  “How’s it going, boy?” he asked. “You settling in, anything you need, clothes, luxuries? I can organise it for when we get to Wishart, I know a man there.”

  “Actually there is, Griff; can you get me some clothes and a few bits and pieces?”

  “No problems, just message me a list and I’ll pass it on,” he eyed the much reduced pile of Dave Travise’s things. “Need any help?”

  “No thanks, I’m just about done, that lots all for the disposal.”

  “Find anything interesting?” it was said casually, but I didn’t know him well enough to let on about the drive and the box. “Not really, just some letters and a few souvenirs.”

  “Okay, well don’t forget you’re on watch later, it might be an idea to get a snooze, see you.” And he breezed out. It seemed like good advice. But first I put the box at the back of a drawer where I had found it, behind the spare blankets. I left the drive there as well. It wasn’t the best hiding place but it would have to do. I retrieved my laundry and decided to take Griff’s advice and have a snooze.

  This time the dream was different, I missed the crash and it started when I came round.

  Chapter Eleven

  Then

  I woke aching all over, I was in a dark cave and when I tried to move, my hands were tied together, as were my ankles. I was dressed in a Blessed robe and I wondered where my uniform was. Movement brought pain, and I remembered the crash and the destruction of the Moth. And the massacre; both of the marines and the settlers. My head throbbed and my neck felt stiff. How long had I been unconscious?

  A figure loomed over me, light shining bright in my face. “Get up,” a rough voice commanded. With difficulty I stood.

  “Finn Douglas, Navigator Second Class, and that’s all I’m saying,” I tried to sound brave but it came out as a squeak. With my ankles tied I was finding it hard to balance.

  “Don’t be stupid, lad, you’re alive, let’s not spoil it.” The voice softened. “There’s been enough killing, I don’t want secrets, I know as much about Dror, the Navy and the Moth as I need, especially now.” The silence stretched out and I could hear water drip. I couldn’t see where I was or who was asking because the light in my eyes was blinding.

  “Alright then, who are you and what are you going to do with me?”

  “I’m asking the questions,” he said, “but fair’s fair I guess. I’m Dolmen and I’m in charge here. The priest; he tells me you tried to argue with Dror about destroying the settlement, is that true?”

  “Yes, it is,” I replied carefully, aware of a possible trap. “I might not agree with your lifestyle, or your actions, but the law is the law and I felt Dror had gone too far when he shot the priest. But I don’t see why you had to kill the first squad.” The light moved away from my face.

  His voice took on a harder tone. “They got too close to the truth and found some things that they weren’t supposed to. Things got out of hand and the leader, stupid bitch, was the first to go, all her talk about justice.” He spat. “She didn’t know there were so many of us hidden here; she was surrounded and outgunned before she even started.” My eyes were adjusting to the gloom, I could see large groups of people, there were a few dim lights and shadows flickered. That explained why there were so few men visible when we had arrived, they must all have been hiding here.

  “Where are Tanner and the rest of the marines from my ship?” Even as I asked, I think I knew the answer.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. They weren’t strapped in when you crashed, messy business, there was blood everywhere and broken bones. The only reason you’re still alive is that you stopped Dror killing the priest, and you spoke up for us. For that, and to show that we’re not all bad, we are prepared to let you go, we’ve finished here anyhow.”

  He smiled. “You’ll never see any of us again; we’re off to the Independent Worlds to start over. And don’t worry; you didn’t kill all of us, just a few who wanted to be martyrs and the stupid ones who wouldn’t keep their heads down.”

  He looked me over. “You know,” he said, “you’d make a convincing acolyte, just the right amount of piety and honest eyes.”

  “Where’s my uniform?” I asked, feeling self-conscious in the robe.

  “Your uniform was covered in blood and worse, so it’s gone now,” he told me. “I’m sending you off to Basilan; the priest has got to go there for his knee, just remember to keep your mouth shut.” This was pretty unnecessary advice; I was the one who would stand out there, not his men. I was starting to understand my situation, I was in deep trouble.

  “But what am I going to do? I’m chipped and enlisted; I’ll be scanned and stopped faster than you can say.” I felt desperate, almost wishing that I had not survived. I certainly wouldn’t last long once the authorities got hold of me, arriving with a bunch of criminals.

  “Don’t worry,” Dolmen said, in a t
one that suggested that I should worry a lot. “I’ve sorted it all out, you’ll be taken to a man who will make it all go away.” He paused. “And don’t forget, we can always make it all come back again.”

  I didn’t know what he intended but I wasn’t in any position to argue, I was stuck with whatever he had in mind. Two men came over to us, my legs were untied and I was marched through the caves for an hour or so. We arrived in another clearing, there my ankles were retied and they bundled me into the hold of a Dragonfly scouter. The hatch slammed shut and we took off.

  As soon as we had cleared atmosphere, my pilot, who said his name was Eric, took my bonds off, after nervously asking if I intended to kill him. As he was only about sixteen, the thought hadn’t even occurred to me, and anyway, he had already told me that the ship was rigged to respond only to his voice.

  It seemed to me that they had gone soft, after killing all the rest of my crew; why stop?

  I asked Eric if he knew the reason why, “I don’t really know,” was his answer. “The priest was out of it, we had filled him with painkillers and he was delirious. At first Dolmen said that he couldn’t kill you while you were unconscious, it wouldn’t be right, then when he went through your pockets, he found something that made him think. Meanwhile your part in things had been explained by Maws, the other bloke you captured.”

  What had Dolmen found? I racked my brain; all that we carried into combat were our medic-tags. Then I realised, Dror had switched me to the shuttle and I had not been in combats, just my normal uniform. My notebook had been in the pocket. And my last letter, the thing we hoped would never be sent. Mine had been to my father. Of course my uniform was still on the surface, so I couldn’t check, feeling in the pockets of the robes they were empty.

  To be honest that had thrown me a bit, I had no connection to these people that I could think of, and although my mind was still in a state of shock about the deaths of all those people, I realised that I was out of the Navy now. There was no way I could explain my way out of this, maybe if I’d have stayed on Oonal, the only survivor, and somehow got rescued by whoever turned up looking for Dror, then I could have been alright. But accepting a lift from the ‘enemy’ put that course of action beyond me, the story was getting bigger and my chances of talking myself out of it were getting smaller.

  “We’ve got the Black Box,” continued Eric. “From the Moth, the last video and audio from the bridge, and the telemetry up to the missile strike; Dolmen says it might come in handy. Nothing was sent from when you arrived, we had a beacon in orbit jamming you, but you wouldn’t have detected it.”

  I had never heard of a beacon that could do that. “Where did you get that sort of gear?” I asked him.

  He looked pleased. “Independent Worlds,” he said. “They have stuff you won’t believe, it pretends to be the receiving station and soaks it all up, real clever.”

  Maybe the Black Box was handy for them, but if the Navy ever got it, all it would show would be my insubordination. And I was sure that if it came to it, the box would be discovered, and with carefully selected bits of the contents, it was another way of keeping me quiet. Nothing much I could do about that now. I changed the subject.

  “Dolman said you were taking me to Basilan,” I said. I hadn’t really thought about it up to now, I was just relieved to be alive. Eric grinned. “That’s right, you ever been before?”

  “No, it’s not got much of a Navy base on it, and it’s relatively quiet, so it had never been on our patrol route, but I’ve heard of it.” Basilan was an old world, not on the Rim, and a centre for craftsmen of all disciplines, if you needed specialists for big projects, then it was the place to go.

  All the craft guilds had local offices, but the headquarters of most of them were on Basilan. Here planet engineers rubbed shoulders with computer systems designers, and there were welders and builders who could live for months in a pressure suit, in poison atmosphere or under water, and build you a world while they were at it. It was the busiest planet in the Federation and the most polluted. But if you wanted to disappear, it was probably the best place to go. There was a ready market for skilled men, and I was a skilled man. The only problem was that I couldn’t prove it. But I’d bet that I wasn’t alone in that.

  The trip to Basilan would take about a week, and because we were in such close proximity, Eric and I developed a friendship. Not the do or die best friend type, but a mutual respect and understanding. I came to see things from his point of view, particularly regarding the way of life that Dolmen and his group had made for themselves, and their resentment at the Federation’s interference. The more he told me, the more I could see how the frustration had boiled over and we had ended up where we were.

  His was the usual augment, if a law is unjust; it’s almost your moral duty to break it. But I couldn’t help thinking, if only Oonal had been in the Independent Worlds sphere of influence, none of this would have happened.

  “Tell me about where we’re headed on Basilan,” I asked him, when we were still three days out. Eric had stopped locking me up overnight and whenever he went to the bathroom, which was progress.

  “It’s very industrial,” he said. “Lots of factories and stuff, you’ll miss the green open spaces because the whole of the landmass where we’re going to is used, one way or another. And where there are no factories, there are mines and quarries. All the workers live in temporary shanties amongst the buildings, or in floating blocks on the coast.”

  It sounded awful, not the sort of way I would want to live. “How do they put up with it?”

  “For the money,” he said with a grin. “There’s still one continent with no development, and people have their permanent homes there. They work hard and get good wages, there’s plenty of work for everyone so most folk working on the planet do twelve hour shifts for a month and then have a month off. The ones working off-planet do whatever it takes. They might have to rough it for a time, but it’s worth their while, in ten years they can retire. Then they go to Basilon. It’s the biggest moon in the system; it’s been terraformed and is just a big old folks home.” He pulled a sour face. “It’s all golf courses and spa resorts. It’d drive me crazy in a week or so.”

  I thought about it and could see the attraction of the freer lifestyle of Dolmen’s approach.

  Chapter Twelve

  Now

  The buzzer by my head sounded and Tan’s voice entered my dream, waking me, “Hello, Dave, it’s time to take the watch, come up to the bridge and I’ll hand over.”

  I had a quick wash and dressed myself in some of my ‘new’ clothes. As I entered the wheelhouse Tan was sitting at the console, typing on a portable keypad. She looked up and grinned. “That was easy, I only had to call you once, your… namesake needed a small explosive charge to get him out of his bed. I’ve made you a coffee.” She pointed to a cup sitting on the chart table.

  “Thanks; Rixon said that he was trouble,” I commented, and her face turned grim.

  “When we found out,” she didn’t say what, “it had to be done, but I for one didn’t enjoy it.” She picked up some trans-papers and her keypad, folding them into a wallet, and stood. “Well there you are then, everything is running smoothly, you can turn the alarms over to your cabin and go back to sleep, or if you have any work to do, take the remote.” She pointed to a receiver clipped to the bulkhead. “I try to catch up on paperwork when it’s quiet, but as long as one of us has the alarm, that’s fine. I’ll see you at breakfast, goodnight.”

  I didn’t feel in the least tired, so after she had gone and I had drunk my coffee I took the remote and went to the empty mess room for a snack. It still seemed strange to be here in familiar surroundings with just a handful of people. I kept expecting to see Leonie or Dror or one of the others sitting in the mess or walking down an alleyway. Returning to the bridge my training took over and I spent about twenty minutes checking all the panels and displays for abnormalities. I wasn’t used to this level of automation, and it made
me feel happier to have seen for myself that all was running smoothly.

  Feeling lost, I said, “Hello, Nancy,” and she answered immediately.

  “Hello, Dave, you’re up late, what can I do for you?”

  “Are we on course, Nancy?” I asked.

  “Yes we are,” she replied, sounding slightly annoyed, as if I was questioning her ability. “The engines are at seventy-five per cent, speed is five point two C squared and our ETA at Wishart is seventy-six hours and twelve minutes from now. There are no objects of any description in our vicinity. Will there be anything else?”

  I took a chance. “Mode 101,” I said nervously.

  “I’m sorry, Dave, but mode 101 is not available to you.”

  It had been worth a try, I would have to be a bit cleverer. “Okay, Nancy, forget I said it.” I hoped she would. “Can you show me the entry on Wishart, please?” The words and pictures flickered onto the chart screen and I sat down to read up on our destination.

  Wishart had been the capital of the Blessed’s time as rulers of the Federation. As well as being a huge agricultural planet it had a near monopoly on the manufacturing of farming machinery. It was the site of the last big battle in the Holy Wars, fought in orbit as the Blessed desperately tried to cling on to power on their home world. Debris still littered the orbital plane and symbolically, the Blessed’s flagship had crashed from orbit at the climax of the fight. Everyone in the Federation knew the story and had seen the pictures and video of the event.

  By one of those strange quirks of fate the ship fell to earth on the capital, Brethren’s Host. The crash and subsequent explosion and fires wiped out more than half of the city’s population and razed a lot of the skyscrapers to the ground. Earthquakes were triggered by the impact which completed the destruction. As you approached the old city across the plains it resembled a set of bad teeth jutting up in bent and broken disarray. Rather than try to rebuild it, or level it completely, the survivors left it as a monument and built a new city off to the other side of the space port. After all there was plenty of room.