by Blaze Ward
So she had instructed Daniel to just observe tonight, leaving his native paranoia against unwelcome surprises, but not reading or affecting the Trade Factor while they worked.
Kathra had no idea if the man might come to understand what had happened later, or work through his own mind when she was gone and perhaps find the welds and seams from someone working on his psyche. Best not to leave any.
After all, if this worked, she might bring back several more vessels to auction off. Wouldn’t do to have alienated the wealthiest man in the sector at that point.
Even if she didn’t end up selling some of the stranger vessels. After all, not every species had used a valence drive as humans understood it, even if physics was physics.
“So it is in my interest in making you a deal for a good vessel,” the Trade Factor laughed after a moment. “That you can make it back safe, as well as feel some level of obligation for such a deal?”
Kathra smiled about a millimeter deep at the man. In essence, he was correct.
“Some of the legends I am pursuing involve something other than a valence drive to travel between worlds,” Daniel spoke up now.
The effect was similar to a large asteroid slamming into a small planet. All four of the men on the other side cried out in shock or negation, but fell silent a moment later when they realized that she and Daniel were serious.
“Surely, that is impossible, Commander,” Isaev ventured.
“Surely,” she agreed with a serene smile. “But what would a vessel be worth to a naval shipyard, if they could use something different. Possibly better?”
It was like the Goddess of Avarice had come down from the Sky Hells and seated herself at the end of the table, just touching each of those men with her stellar staff in turn. Faces flushed, which was exceptionally obvious when all four were Anglos. Breathing got heavy and rushed. Eyes went wide and lost focus on the present tense.
“Good, you understand me finally,” Kathra said.
“Warships require a denser crew than civilian ships, even carriers,” one of the mechanics finally spoke up.
The taller of the two. Younger by a few years, but not anybody that Kathra found interesting enough to remember. If nothing else, he was male. Daniel was enough male for her command vessel, and he had earned his place. Let these pitiful creatures go back to their natural place in the nursery or the classroom.
Or learn to cook.
“I have begun accepting resumes,” Kathra said, laughing inside as she had exactly one so far, and that because of Erin. “Understand that preference of place will go to women already in the Mbaysey, aboard one of the ClanStars, but if there are a few worthy men here, they might find spaces with the Clans, replacing those women.”
The rudeness of that statement, in this group, was worth it alone. The Free Worlds were more open-minded about many things than the Sept Empire, not that they were all that much better at the end of the day. Tavle Jocia, at least this TradeStation, was still dominated and largely owned by males.
She could have taken her business to places where the women were mostly in charge, like Cylou, but they were too close to the Sept Border for Kathra to feel comfortable. A Septagon or a few Patrols could slip quietly across the border and be upon her before she could do anything but run, possibly costing her dearly if she had teams on the station who couldn’t escape in the mess.
Maybe she needed to modify a few SkyCamels with valence drives, just in case. It would play hell with their cargo capacity, but one vessel in six would allow all the pilots to escape if that happened.
Kathra made a note to inquire with her flight deck leaders.
“Would any other men be welcome to fly with you, if some volunteered?” Isaev asked, trying to find a loophole he could exploit.
Certainly, the man didn’t have a high enough opinion of women to send a spy into their midst that way.
“Men are always welcome to apply,” Kathra said, still smiling. “We maintain a population of around fifteen percent, once vetted, to meet most of our procreative needs. They work on one of the ClanStars as artists or farm hands. A few eventually find their way to ForgeStar or IronStar, doing heavier labor and metal-bashing. All the crew of WinterStar are female except Daniel. All the crew of this new vessel will be as well.”
“Have you considered an armored cruiser, instead?” the other mechanic asked. “If you built a larger vessel, you could include standard grav field inducers and follow a different architecture. Sturdier and more resilient.”
“We’re comfortable with a ship that spins along a central axis and has a thick ring hanging from the center for the flight deck and the living quarters,” Kathra said. “WinterStar is starting to show his age, and we would rather have a purpose-built warship that could carry a larger comitatus, say perhaps sixty or eighty Spectres instead of twenty-five. Plus Ram Cannons in case we need to pummel something into submission. We will still fight at carrier distances. Plus, grav field inducers are large and wasteful of mass and energy. I have no interest in building something as large as a Septagon at present. It is enough to drive off a Sept Patrol with their noses thoroughly bloodied.”
Kathra liked the way the two mechanics clammed up, and the majordomo’s mouth fell open when she suggested building a Septagon. Let them know she was thinking large in the future. And dangerous.
Worse, that she might be able to afford something like that, with whatever treasure she brought back from the unknown depths of space.
Isaev smiled finally, greed welling up and snuffing out all his good sense. Like, why would Kathra Omezi want her own Septagon? What would she do with something like that?
She had no idea. The Star Turtle already had enough space that she could move the entire Mbaysey over there if she chose, and live comfortably.
But a new ship, a big one, would let her find a new series of stars to call a homeland. Not that she would ever colonize the surface of a planet again, but if she was far enough away from everybody else, then her grandchildren might decide to.
She would live out her time in space, where no Septagon could catch her.
Eighteen
Pasdar strode out onto the Great Causeway of Septagon Vorgash’s Command Node. Aspbad Rostami was already present, midway through his own command shift as final adjustments and last minute hiccups were addressed.
With an undertaking this grand, there were always bound to be glitches. A good commander did not demand perfection. He demanded answers and implementation plans. Rostami had a good crew under him.
“Are we ready?” Pasdar asked the man as he came to rest.
Ahead of him, out the windows, the tip of the Septagon seemed to point like a bowsprit into deep space. Not entirely the unknown, but certainly a place none of them had ever been before.
“We are, Naupati,” Rostami replied with pride in his voice. “Forward Operating Base Urmia has signaled their readiness.”
“Open a channel to the entire squadron,” Pasdar ordered.
None of his other ships were visible from here. The two Patrols Vorgash carried were docked for transit, and the others were ranging ahead, but most of the resupply ships were within range of his voice right now.
After all, it wasn’t every day that the Sept Empire invaded the Free Worlds.
And even this wasn’t technically an invasion. Pasdar had no intention of attacking any of the Free Worlds themselves, or to engage with whatever defensive forces they might field, other than to drive them off if they chose to protect Kathra Omezi and her so-called Mbaysey Tribal Squadron.
If so, then he would simply crush them before moving on. Scorched earth worked just fine, after all, when your target cannot feed themselves otherwise.
Rostami nodded to him and stepped back into a parade rest position.
“Vorgash Operating Squadron, this is Naupati Amirin Pasdar,” he said in a voice perhaps ranging over into pride, at least more than was his normal wont. The Lords of the Sept Fleet had chosen him after all, and his cr
ews to do this thing.
“We are about to set out on a punitive expedition today,” he continued. “We will cross the Free Worlds, but not engage them. It is even possible we will trade with some systems. In others, you will build forward operating bases such as Urmia behind us. Septagon Vorgash will lead into the darkness, seeking our foe, but we can sail no farther, no faster than the work of all of the support vessels allows. Keep that in mind when you approach your jobs, because every box you deliver is as important as any Ram Cannon gunner firing a shot into our foe. More important, because those gunners can only get there to deliver the killing shot because you have done the hard work necessary ahead of time.”
Pasdar paused to take a breath and let himself pace. It aided his thought processes. These words would be recorded and played back later, either in his victory parade or his disgrace.
“In the whole of the Sept Empire, Vorgash was chosen for this mission. You men were chosen for this mission.”
Pasdar skipped over the women aboard the mighty vessel. As sex servants, they served no useful purpose in the fighting, merely assisting with crew morale by being available for physical release.
“We are about to exit the Sept Empire itself,” Pasdar continued. “We will seek our destiny in the darkness of the Free Worlds, but even that will only be temporary, as our foe will seek to hide in the spaces beyond. We will chase them there as well, running them down like a cat taking down an eland, until they lay supine at our feet.”
His pacing had taken him all the way to the front of the Command Node, so he turned back to look at the men behind him, and the squadron that he would lead into unknown regions, however metaphorically.
“I expect each of you to work hard and pay attention, that we may complete our mission as soon as possible and return home covered in glory by the Emperor and his servants. That is the thing they have laid on our shoulders, my comrades. The Glory of the Emperor himself. Now, all vessels stand by for transition to valence drives.”
Pasdar let his pacing take him to where Rostami was standing above one of his officers, watching a read-out on a screen. He looked up now and nodded.
Pasdar smiled and considered his destiny, laid out in front of him.
“All vessels depart.”
Nineteen
Daniel sighed and scowled at the man once more. They were down in the bowels of the alien transport, alone and cramped, with some of the engine machinery open and a toolbox that left almost no space for movement.
Or for a sense of humor.
It wasn’t that the mechanic was stupid, so much as utterly hidebound in his ways. That made him quite possibly the most wrong person for this job that Daniel could think of, but they were not his Guilders being spent, except as measured by the time he had to spend training this numbskull to do this job.
“It’s not metric, just like it is not imperial,” Daniel explained, again. “That’s why the sockets and screws are lettered rather than numbered. If you ask for a G-socket, it’s going to be different from a number seven. We can’t even use a multi-pin shifter, unless you rebuild one on seven-tenths of a millimeter scale instead of the standard one millimeter you have in your tool box.”
“Then why not pull it all out and replace it with metrics?” the man asked stupidly, for something like the third time.
“What you do tomorrow is not my problem,” Daniel finally snapped at the man. “If you manage to break it after the sale is complete, then Isaev can pay you or someone else to repair it. But I will have trained you correctly, connard.”
“Why did they do it differently?” the moron asked, like a stupid bulldog on a particularly tasty bone.
“They didn’t,” Daniel said. “We did. This ship was built by a species with four arms ending in tentacles, rather than fingers. Their understanding of how to lathe bolts followed the same physics, but a different starting point. A G-socket is not a number seven. It is actually about a six and a quarter, if you wanted to strip irreplaceable bolts in your comical ineptness.”
“Hey,” the man finally barked, having gotten almost as angry as Daniel.
That, in turn, caused him to surge upright and smash his forehead into a pipe with a thunk that almost sounded like the moron had managed to crack bone. Pretty impressive, considering how thick his skull had become to new ideas.
“Are you finally paying attention?” Daniel growled.
“Problems in there?” Joane’s voice suddenly wafted into the crawlspace from where she and several others of the comitatus were keeping watch.
“Shut up and do it my way, or you’ll break the damned thing,” Daniel hissed quietly at the man. “Are you listening?”
He wasn’t. Not really. But if Daniel could say that the fool knew how to open the engines and read the manual on how to service them, then a huge chunk of credit would pass from the accounts of Mikhail Isaev into those of Kathra Omezi, on their way right back into Isaev’s hands once he finished building her a warship.
If you didn’t need grav field inducers installed and painstakingly calibrated, the rest was physics and programming a fabrication robot to turn out the same section of hull enough times to build a ring five times wider than WinterStar’s.
The worker pulled his hand down from his forehead and looked at it.
“You aren’t bleeding,” Daniel told him. “Grow up and act like a professional.”
The man wanted to say something, but even Daniel felt the rage in his eyes and hands right now. It might be like a rabid chipmunk attacking a dog, but the dog would know he’d been bled before he won.
And he might not win.
“Fine,” the man said. “Hand me the H-socket, the extender, and shift the light to your right about thirty degrees so I can see.”
Daniel did. It would take time for the man to learn everything. Daniel had been forced to translate memories as well as ancient records, and then have IronStar turn him out an entirely new, custom tool set capable of handling all the maintenance tasks. Plans for that set, in addition to the one version done in steel, were part of the reason Isaev had been willing to make a deal.
Each of the four custom ships came with bespoke tool sets and measurements to turn out more. And each one of them was slightly different, even with something as basic as a machine-threaded bolt.
But Isaev would have something nobody else in this part of the galaxy had. And he would lord it over the other men who had made a name for themselves as gearheads, just as he would most likely strip these four ships down to the bulkheads so he could study them.
Isaev Heavy Foundries was probably about ten years from upsetting the natural order of things in this sector, if they could fully exploit the tech Kathra had decided to make available.
Daniel was looking forward to finding something really powerful out there. Something that could change the balance of power between the Free Worlds and the Sept. With the Sept and all their neighbors, who had to fear that hand reaching out for them next. A new stardrive they could sell after installing. Better weapon systems than a Ram Cannon or Heavy Particle Cannon that was the current state of the art. Something that would give the Commander a decisive edge over the Sept itself.
The Turtle was alien, but there was no technology there that he could disseminate, other than the various shuttles, none of which were armed.
The mechanic shut his mouth finally and backed out a set of bolts as Daniel watched in silence. Behind that were the louvres and other controls for the fuel feeds. This vessel cracked water for hydrogen, ionized it to break the bonds, and then did something with fusion and a few other things beyond Daniel’s experience to generate thrust. Not a particular improvement over other systems in use, but a completely new way of doing things, and perhaps somebody would come up with something even better by studying it.
As long as Isaev claimed all the credit for the innovations, nobody would come looking for Daniel Lémieux and ask how he had come to know these things. Because he already knew that there were people out th
ere, looking for him. The Sept would not forget Kathra Omezi. Someone had touched him once and withdrawn, but he still didn’t think he had imagined it.
It felt like they were just biding their time until they could attack.
Twenty
The four ships were sold. Financial magic had happened. The future suddenly looked almost bright.
Erin had decided to celebrate on the station with a few of the girls. And make herself visible.
Kathra had been serious about expanding the tribe, but only following the old rules. Small groups of friends were preferable to singles or mobs. New recruits went to work farming on a ClanStar until they proved themselves otherwise, except for very specific technical specialists.
And Erin didn’t think they would find another rock-star chef out of work. Not clear out here. But Daniel and Ndidi had trained up replacements who were already better than Ugonna on her best day, and getting better with every meal.
So Erin was on the station for a night of drinking and maybe a little fighting, just to prove to herself that she still had it. Baby-making wasn’t anywhere on her schedule yet, although she knew Kathra would come after her at some point.
Probably so that their daughters could be born together and grow up as cousins.
The SkyCamel docked at the usual airlock. Station Control had pretty much just assigned it to them at this point, since they had been coming and going so frequently. And it helped that the Trade Factor who owned most of the people on the station could pull strings.
“You girls ready?” Erin asked as she powered everything down and unbuckled.
Iruoma growled happily. Stina and Kam were at the rear hatch, all set to go, looking almost like day and night, considering Stina was Anglo and Kam was a cousin of Kathra who had inherited almost the same deep blackness of skin. Erin joined them and powered the lock open. No cargo on this run, so nothing that required officials to check things off. Just four girls with money burning a hole in their pockets.
