People pay for a story. If they knew the dirty truth of what was behind some of their favorite holo vids they wouldn’t spend a single credit on them. Not that Zosma really cared all that much about the details. She was only interested in what the story was worth and as an information broker on the backwater world of Cruor all information was valuable. The Diktat had severe controls on what could and could not be freely distributed under their baleful gaze. Any information, no matter how seemingly insignificant, took on value when it was hard to come by.
Zosma paged through her contacts in her private booth. She was eager to find someone with an insight into the latest arrivals on the planet. A newly docked transport had disgorged a fresh batch of colonial hopefuls looking to escape the doldrums that was life on Volturn. She had Volturnian Lobster before, it was buttery and smooth but it had the kind of deep blandness that can only be created by synthetic evolution. Nothing would ever have evolved to be so utterly flavorless. That ennui seemed to ooze from every person who came from the planet reinforced her belief that nothing truly exciting ever happened on Volturn.
Nevertheless shiploads of technicians left the water world for the hostile environment of Cruor in droves. Some sought their fortune as prospectors on the surface as they looked for new exposed deposits of precious transplutonic ores. Others hoped to strike it rich in one of the few places the Diktat allowed a black market to openly exist. You could buy a handful of hover tank parts on the black market on Sindria, but you could buy a fully assembled and battle-ready one on Cruor (and the dealer would probably throw in a couple guerrilla-grade weapons for good measure).
Zosma was one of the few people on Cruor who had been born there. Her parents had decided that the government stipend for raising a child was a solid financial decision, but they had not factored in the fact that they were living on a constantly changing and mostly uninhabitable rock with an annual birth rate that usually rounded down to zero. There were no child care facilities on the entire colony, so Zosma was raised by the people closest to her—the incarcerated workers her parents oversaw.
Rivas had shown her what materials the security scanners could not see through and how to conceal anything on your body. Surya had taught her how to make a weapon out of common materials and what parts of a person were the softest. Jamux had taught her to listen and how to sneak through the checkpoints without notice. But a soft-faced man named Shrapnel had been the most kind and taught her how to make deals with people and given her the first job she ever did for the underworld.
She was 17 standard cycles old when Shrapnel had placed a small information cube into her hands. He had given her express instructions to deliver it to a dead-drop on the main docking level for the ore freighters. She hadn’t thought twice about it when she slid the little cube into the side of her Tri-Pad. In the contents of the drive were thousands of records for ore shipments, mostly incredibly boring and mundane things like departure times and inspection certificates. She was nearly ready to close the viewer and disconnect the drive when she noticed all the dates were for the following shift. Only the port authority and government police would know these schedules. Anyone else who did could use them to bring a shipment at the right moment under the guise of a regular ore freighter.
Zosma dutifully brought the data cube to the dead drop and left it in a crevice behind a loader-charging port, but Not before she had made several copies of the contents on several spares she purchased from an electronics dealer on the commercial concourse. She spent the next shift at the Three Body Problem, a local dive-bar notorious for its more lucrative side operations. Zosma had made her first true information broker connections that shift, ones that she still depended on to this day for their consistently good information.
Today, though, they were giving her nothing. The Queen of the Gates sat empty in her berth and not a soul on the station could feed her more than the manifest. She pulled up a video feed of the docking complex and focused down in the Queen. There was precious little to be gleaned from the cruise-ship-turned-transport’s shining hull and total lack of defining character. It lacked a functioning faster-than-light drive field generator and had little in the way of shielding beyond a cursory radiation protection system. The ship had arrived in the sector before the collapse as a thrilling adventure for wealthy families to see how the new colonies were coming along. When the gate network shut down the families had been touring the Askonia system and marveling at the namesake red giant’s flares. The ship had never left the system after that. None of the crew or passengers had access to their Domain-backed funds and the passenger ship languished at the periphery of the system unable to purchase passage out.
Enterprising colonists had sought to purchase it from the remaining crew but arrived to a grisly scene of carnage onboard. Numerous legends around the murder of the crew and passengers persisted, but were unprovable. At least no one mentioned them at the fare gates as they booked more and more travelers. The ship ran double-duty as a bulk transport for people looking to relocate within the Diktat’s sphere of influence and as a sight-seeing ship for the massive electrical storms on Salus.
Zosma pressed an icon on her Tri-Pad that signaled the bartender for another drink and sighed deeply. The manifest would have to do for now.
“Our two greatest problems are gravity and paperwork. We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.” - Wernher von Braun, Chicago Sun Times, July 10, 1958
Ayala shielded their eyes from the harsh light of the docking bay. The weight of the travel bag bit into their shoulder for the first time in a week. The transport they had booked had taken its leisurely time in making the trip from Volturn to Cruor. The conventional drives made the ship slow to begin with and the cheapness of the captain meant that most of the trip was spent without acceleration. The novelty of zero-gravity wears off the first time you have to use a toilet.
Ayala was a field technician in Philip Andrada’s Grand Vision. They had spent most of their youth performing regular maintenance on the organics processors on Volturn, toiling away at ensuring the Diktat had the right materials to create the Standard Meal Rations. SMRs were essential to the Diktat just as surely as the fuel production. Without either the Diktat would not survive. Without technicians like Ayala the Diktat would not survive. Only the Diktat didn’t pay nearly enough for technicians like Ayala to survive.
They had left the relative placidity of Volturnian life to seek fortune elsewhere within the Diktat. Passports to leave the Askonia volume were only available to those with adequate financial support. Papers had to be filed correctly by greedy bureaucrats who only took payment from equally greedy deal-makers. Without the correct grease in the correct wheel applications for travel often got stuck in terminal loops—passing from one desk to another within the great government machine. All that before the costs of booking a real transport or purchasing working permits for one of the interstellar trading companies.
Ayala desperately wanted to leave this system and its giant red star as soon as possible and that meant heading to Cruor and trying to find a profitable claim. They had a penchant for mechanical things, often able to diagnose a faulty bearing in a fractioning plant by feel alone.
They had seen fit to tell one of the crew that the Queen of the Gates’ primary air handling loop had insufficient pressure to properly circulate to every cabin. The crew member had shrugged and walked off. Ayala spent the next two days creating an automatic diverter that could be inserted into their cabin vents and would direct more air flow from that corridor to their cabin. This had made their cabin feel a little less claustrophobic for the following four days.
Ayala felt a hand push into their back and they nearly topped over with the new force. Catching themself on the handrail they turned back to see a sea of people eagerly pushing forward towards the end of the docking ramp. Every one of them had the same plan as Ayala. A deep worry set in for the first time, there was so much competition for resources here that it would be nearly impossible for any one person to make enough to afford a trip out of the system. The government bureaucracy was designed to prevent that.
They steadied themself and pushed back into the flowing column of people heading down the ramp. Ayala would need something special to break out, a lead on a claim or perhaps early rights to mine a particularly profitable claim. Perhaps there was someone on the station that could point them in the right direction. Ayala new from their time working for the lobster union that all the old-timers liked to talk up their stories at the bar.
They had gotten a particularly juicy story from a man in his second century as he told them about how he had once had to wrangle, by hand, a lobster so large that it would not fit into the standard shipping container. The man had shown several scars on his arm where the supposed giant crustacean had grabbed him with its claws. Most of them looked like burn marks from an overheated drum bearing. The story had been good though, and at the end of it the man had given Ayala his battered transfer papers to start work in the organics processing facility. The lobster life was all he knew and all he wanted.
The extra income from the organics job had paid for Ayala’s ticket to Cruor. Maybe there were equally old men with equally tall tales of ore veins and volatile geysers waiting to be exploited. There was a holo ad at the end of the docking bay for a bar called Three Body Problem and Ayala pulled up a navigation panel on their Tri-Pad.
If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? - Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)
The Tri-Pad produced a synthesized two-tone chime that let Mathis know he had a new order for delivery. He grabbed a single drink from the automatic dispenser and made for one of the private booths in the Three Body Problem. On the way back a different set of tones let him know he had a booking for the evening as an escort. The service industry on Cruor had its reputation and Mathis had been working in it since he was able to buy his freedom from the mining prison. Piloting a temperamental mining rig used the same set of skills as consoling a visiting diplomat and both involved heavy amounts of synthetic alcohol before and after. It was work he excelled at.
He paused at the entrance to the private booth and confirmed the booking on his Tri-Pad. Returning to the job at hand he knocked lightly on the door and said, “Ma’am I have your drink order.”
A sharp, mousy, voice replied from inside, “Thank you. You may leave it on the serving stand outside.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said a touch of disappointment in his voice. Another perk of the job was getting information he wasn’t supposed to have, and the private booths were often filled with such things. He had never been able to get inside this one however, and it’s keen-voiced occupant had rebuffed several attempts. As he was about to leave the hallway he caught sight of a slender hand reaching out of the booth to pull the new drink in and seized an opportunity. “Pardon me, but if you have an empty glass I can take that from you.”
The door opened fully and a pair of nearly black eyes bored into his unflinchingly. “Thank you,” said the woman holding several empty glasses. Mathis broke eye-contact with the woman and looked down at the glasses. He bit the inside of his lip and sent a signal to the cybernetic implant in his retina to take a picture of everything in his field of view. A warm sensation washed over his eyes and for a moment flecks of static appeared in his vision. He looked back up into the woman’s eyes without missing a beat.
“You’re welcome ma’am,” he said, taking the glasses in hand and giving a short bow, again without breaking eye contact. The woman closed the door to the booth and a small red “do not disturb” hologram floated above the latch.
On his way back to the bar Mathis passed his Tri-Pad over his temple and downloaded the captured images. A 3D scene reconstructed itself before him based on the captured information in his implants. It was woefully sparse. The only thing he was able to make out was the open ship manifest for the transport currently docked. He personally knew the captain of the vessel, and had spent nights with more than a few of the crew. They were all regulars to the vices of Cruor.
The details of the manifest were mostly worthless; the staff at the port authority sold that information regularly and cheaply. However the fact that someone was looking at that manifest in this bar meant a little more. This woman was interested in what was on that ship. He was able to run a facial identity check against the Diktat’s population database but came up with nothing. Any serious data broker would be able to have their identity removed from any government database or pay to have their face reconstructed.
He opened a communication interface and sent a message to his handler for the Askonian Revolutionary Council based out of Umbra. He immediately got a reply: Priority Contact, Install Listening Chip, Perform Tailing Operation. He sighed and closed the interface paging over to his scheduler. He tapped cancel on this evening’s booking.
“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible.” - Stephen Hawking, British Telecom advertisement (1993)
Ayala’s Tri-Pad chirped that they had reached their destination. They looked up at the garish faux-neon sign illuminated in a blood-red. Three orbs chaotically danced around the bold lettering Three Body Problem. “This is it,” they thought and walked up to the front door. The automatic opener gave slight gasp as the door slid to the side revealing the dark interior.
This bar was unlike the ones on Volturn they were used to. Those bars often smelled like salt-laden filters on an aquaponics system; this place smelled of mildew and decomposing aromatics from the synthetic alcohol. There was no lively banter or shouts of exuberance; everyone here looked like they were in the midst of a funeral.
“C’mon, order something or get out of the door,” said a tall muscular man next to the bar. A two-tone chirp came from somewhere nearby and he grabbed a drink and walked off. Ayala moved up to where the man had been standing and opened their Tri-Pad. A proximity window opened and showed several drink options available for purchase. It took several seconds of scrolling before they found something even remotely appealing. After confirming the purchase a glass with a thin layer of dark brown liquid slid from the automated dispenser.
Ayala swirled the liquid in the glass looking for anyone who even remotely looked like they would chat. A pungent peaty aroma wafted up from the glass and enticed them to drink. Ayala downed the shot in a neat flick then looked for a receptacle for their glass.
They were interrupted by a quick tap on their shoulder. “I’ll take that,” said a calm strong voice. Ayala turned and stood eye-to-eye with the large man from earlier.
“Thanks,” they said and handed the glass over. “Is this place always so quiet?”
“Yup. And the clientele pay to keep it that way,” the man said with disinterest as he started to return to the bar.
“I’m not looking to cause trouble, I’m just looking for some information,” Ayala said trying to keep up with the long strides of the man.
The man stopped and turned abruptly to face them. A practiced expressionless gaze assessed Ayala before the man said, “Information does not come cheaply. Do you have something to barter or knowledge to trade?”
Ayala thought hard for a moment. “I have the security codes to the ship that just docked,” they lied.
The man’s eyes betrayed a sudden shock. “Is that so?” He asked drawing out the last syllable. “How did you come about possessing these codes?”
“I was a passenger on the last run, and they wouldn’t listen to me about the air system so I took matters into my own hands,” said Ayala. They knew the best lies were always built on a foundation of truth.
The man nodded almost imperceptibly. “And what would you like in return for a trade?” He asked.
“I want to know about any lucrative mining opportunities,” said Ayala.
“It is impossible, by the way, when picking one example of anything, to avoid picking one which is atypical in some sense.” - Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (1965)
The drink was flat by the time Zosma got around to it. She pulled up the security footage of the technician that had entered the bar a few hours earlier. There were rarely visitors that stood out so much and obviously had no idea what they were doing. Most people took one look at the Three Body Problem and kept walking to one of the other bars in the colony.
She had already run the usual background checks and database lookups and found absolutely nothing interesting. They had departed the transport ship without incident, and all the paperwork for their transit actually seemed legitimate. For all appearances this “Ayala Langsdale” was just another technician lost in the hostile world of Cruor.
But lost technicians don’t walk out of the bar with the highest paid male escort in the district without something going on. Conveniently their path away had been obscured by several large transport skiffs and neither face had been picked up in the last hour by the security scanners. They had effectively disappeared.
Zosma set her drink down again and furiously tapped through multiple feeds looking for any sign of their presence. A notification from one of her informants in the mining guild told her that someone matching Ayala’s description had just rented a survey craft. She checked the registry and the credit account matched the one used to pay for the passage to Cruor.
Immediately she had four screens open to track all the planetary vessels until the transponder linked to the rented craft appeared on the traffic display. The craft was outbound at full speed from the colony and headed over an area know for its instability. She had to find out where this technician was headed and why, nothing a little interrogation wouldn’t uncover. Zosma placed a call to her personal shuttle pilot and told him to begin preparing for a rapid launch.
It took 15 minutes to get from the commercial districts to her personal docking bay and another 3 to brief the pilot on her plan. Before she had even strapped in to her chair the ship glided out of its docking restraints and the low rumble of the shuttle’s engines rolled through the hull.
Her tracking software would be able to keep a close watch on the survey craft for as long as the transponder was active. She knew it was possible to disable them on the rental craft but she had bribed the rental company to provide her with their proprietary tracking frequencies just in case. The craft was crude and designed to skim only a few hundred meters above the surface. Her shuttle, with several orders of magnitude more performance, would be able to intercept the craft in relatively short order.
The little craft buffeted close to the surface. Its pilot clearly not used to the extreme convection currents that boiled up from the rapid release of heat in the constantly shifting crust. Zosma’s own pilot was an expert and had been flying combat bombers for the Diktat before she had recruited him. He aligned their vectors perfectly and descended almost on top of the small craft before it veered wildly. The shuttle was equipped with a hidden EMP projector disguised as a laser comm array.
There were no wasted shots from Zosma’s pilot.
The survey craft’s engines sputtered and it rapidly lost altitude. It glided towards the surface completely uncontrolled and impacted with relatively little fuss. The shuttle circled closely overhead before Zosma ordered the ship down and the rest of the crew to prepare for an important guest.
A dusty pressure suit was hoisted out of the wreckage and corralled at the end of several CP-carbines into the loading bay of the shuttle. When the bay was repressurized one of the hired marines began removing the figure’s helmet.
Zosma looked at the dazed face before her and waved her Tri-Pad over their face to confirm it was the same technician from the bar. The ID system returned a 95% match, the discrepancies were notably in areas where some swelling was starting to occur. The shock of off-white hair on their head was tamped down by sweat and grime. “Who are you?” asked Zosma forcibly.
The person began, “I’m Technician First Class Ayala…”
“No.” Zosma interrupted them. “No technician of any rank has the ability to completely disappear from station security for 3 hours and then somehow appear in a rented ship heading towards one of the most desolate regions of the planet. Who. Are. You.”
“I don’t… I don’t know what you mean. I went with that man from the bar…” said the technician, clearly confused.
“That… Man… happens to be a very skilled consort with many connections to people far worse than me,” said Zosma, contempt filling her with rage.
“I just asked him about claims he may have heard about,” said the technician. “He gave me these coordinates and said there was rumors of a massive deposit of transplutonics.” They tapped a couple buttons on their wrist terminal and a set of points illuminated on a map of the surface. Zosma leaned in and scrutinized each point.
“He gave you nothing. Two of these are empty basalt flows that are ancient by Cruor standards. And the other is an abandoned wreck known to harbor pirates.” Zosma paused. “I take it back. He was probably trying to get you killed. What did you give him for this information?” She asked wrapping the words around the technician like a boa constrictor.
“I tried to give him fake security codes for the Queen of the Gates,” said the technician with a weak voice.
“Did you have the real codes?” asked Zosma coiling the words tighter.
The technician looked ashamed and began worrying at a fold in the pressure suit. “No. I lied. I figured I could come up with a persuading enough fake to fool all of them long enough to get to a ship and stake a claim before they figured it out.”
Zosma tensed. “Wait. Who was it you made a deal with?”
“I don’t know their names, but the man brought me to a hotel and in one of the rooms there was a holo-presence suite. There were at least three others with different avatars waiting. I offered them the codes and they told the man to ‘give me what I asked for,'” said the technician, obviously hiding something. Zosma opened her Tri-Pad and accessed the colony’s data streams. A holo-presence suite would create noticeable traffic on the network for anything other than local transmissions. The packets practically screamed their presence to her. The comm buffer on the colony only stored the first relay hop for the packets but it was enough to be sure.
Zosma looked the technician directly in the eyes and asked, “The avatars. Were they a dragon, a polar bear, and gryphon?”
“Yes. That’s them exactly,” said the technician excitedly.
Zosma straightened and backed away from the technician. “You have made some very, very powerful enemies today. Those were the leaders of the Askonian Revolutionary Council, or at least some form of them. The ARC has many voices to fill the roles of the three as needed.” A sudden realization spread across her mind. “The man that brought you to them, did he mention anything else to you. A meeting location, dead drop, anything at all to follow up with you?”
The technician worried at the fold again. “No. I don’t think so.”
One of Zosma’s marines moved to her side and whispered in her ear, “The Queen of the Gates is getting ready for departure ma’am. Unscheduled. Flight plan as filed is for the standard sight-seeing tour, but there are no VIPs on the manifest.”
Zosma nodded an understanding and looked back to the technician. “I have a developing situation that you may be of use for.”
“So Einstein was wrong when he said, ‘God does not play dice.’ Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that he sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen.” - The Nature of Space and Time (1996) by Stephen Hawking
Mathis pressed his palm against the concealed flechette pistol. Its weight created unnatural folds in his jacket and anyone astute enough would be able to see it. Nothing else had quite the same effect it had when used appropriately and he needed certain tools to complete his new assignment.
Earlier he had returned to the bar to find his target had already left. He opened a line to his handler and reported his failure. He waited for a reprimand but none came. Instead a new line of orders came through, these ones marked as high priority. The long list of coded phrases instructed him to board the Queen of the Gates and secure the command deck shortly after departure.
The ship was to rendezvous with another transport in low Salus orbit and take on a new crew. The Queen was already slated to perform the standard sight-seeing tour along the same route. This new objective wouldn’t raise any traffic control concerns and the ship could proceed to Sindria under normal scrutiny.
The ship was originally to then to pick up a load of political dissidents from Sindria and bring them to Cruor for assignment to labor camps. Instead of delivering them to the labor camps they were going to free them under the auspices of the ARC. It never hurt to have a few hundred politically motivated rebels owe you a favor.
Mathis had been working towards this mission for nearly three cycles. He had surreptitiously stolen access codes, ship diagrams, and loads of other information on the Queen from her many crew, most of whom had booked nights with him or one of his fellow operatives. However the final key was the security codes provided to him by the unwitting technician.
The council had instructed him to give the technician coordinates for one of the clandestine operations on the planet. The mercenaries stationed there would capture the tech and interrogate them for any additional information. After that it was none of Mathis’ concern.
He loped up the boarding ramp for the transport ship and made a sharp left turn. He knew from memorizing the ship diagrams that there would be a maintenance access here. That access would take him to a damage control station and from there he could follow a spider web of infrastructure to the command deck.
All the panels on the loading decks had a low-security bypass for emergency personnel. He had acquired the codes from an unscrupulous EMT a month prior. The biometrics he had stolen from the quartermaster would get him into the DC station. The last piece of the puzzle was how to unlock the ship when the crew inevitably retaliated to his take over of the command deck. Armed with the new security codes he would be able to wrest control of the ship and guide it to the waiting ARC transport.
The plan was perfect, but he knew better than to blindly trust a plan. The first thing to go badly was the sudden lurch in his stomach from the ship accelerating. The Queen wasn’t supposed to undock for another 3 hours. Mathis had checked the loading status before attempting his own unscheduled departure; almost none of the VIPs had boarded yet.
He maneuvered in the tight crawl space and double-checked his Tri-Pad. The ship was definitely leaving early, but the flight plan was still the same. It was still over two days’ journey to Salus on the ship’s ancient drive. That was plenty of time to neutralize key members of the crew and prepare the ship for its new occupants.
Mathis swapped the Tri-Pad for his flechette pistol and checked the charge on the weapon. The three status indicators glowed a dull green. With the ship underway the crew was more likely to be performing random checks of systems and Mathis didn’t want any delay in dispatching witnesses. He made his way meter by meter down the access and soon a closed hatch appeared around the curve of the passage.
Mathis pressed his palm against the sealed doors and felt the cold, unyielding metal. The sensory implants in his hands could pick up minute vibrations; technically they were designed for medical applications where trauma kits and auto-medics would need to be able to sense even the faintest of heartbeats. He occasionally used them for their original purpose, but most of the time he employed them as a way to listen through walls.
He sensed the low thrum of the ship’s reactor and the irregular impacts of someone moving objects in low gravity, but he picked up nothing from the space immediately beyond the hatch. The security here was an easily spoofed signal and the hatch dutifully unsealed and opened to reveal the central damage control station.
Racks of tools stood by in magnetic holders illuminated by the soft low-power lighting. Emergency patch kits were haphazardly lashed against every available surface and the room gave off a claustrophobic feeling of immense clutter. As Mathis swung himself out of the crawl space the door indicator flashed green and someone began entering the room. Mathis spun and trained the pistol on the door.
The door slid open as his fingers pressed on the trigger mechanism. The pistol shaved off several darts from its caseless ammunition and fed them to an electromagnetic launcher. The only sound was a zipper-like buzz as the darts whizzed through the air.
A crew member’s face appeared for a moment and was replaced by a slowly inflating balloon of red blood. In an incomprehensibly fast motion Mathis had the floating corpse by the waist and was dragging it into the room. A quick glance up and down the hallway assured him this crew member was alone and he closed the door.
He used one of the patch kits to attach the body inside an access passage and sealed the hatch. No one would find it in the next few days but he made a mental note to tell his employers about it so that it wouldn’t be too much of a mess. Mathis tucked one of his errant hairs back into place and consulted his Tri-Pad.
There were two ways of getting to the command deck: he could crawl through yet another interminable access passage or simply walk up through the passenger compartments. He suspected that with the lack of bulk passengers and a limited load of sightseers he would go mostly unnoticed. The counter argument was that because there were so few people on board anyone moving around was likely to be under higher scrutiny.
Mathis ran his hand along his pistol thoughtfully. If he had thought to bring a carbine he could make short work of the entire crew, as it stood he had limited confidence in his current tool’s ability. He exhaled slowly through his nose and closed his eyes. A mental map of the ship played through his mind; two minutes along this deck, go up one level—likely no-one, four minutes back along the main axis—likely three to four contacts, open a security door, three minutes through crew quarters—likely five to six contacts, the CIC would be locked down during flight—one minute to override, standard flight compliment was four plus officer on duty—five contacts. It was too risky.
He sent the override to the access tunnel and began to climb in. Once inside there was no room to turn around so he cycled the hatch with his foot. He felt a slight shudder in the ship, but not the same as a drive correction. Someone had docked with the ship. His contacts knew he was on the ship, had they come early?
“Every experiment destroys some of the knowledge of the system which was obtained by previous experiments.” - Werner Heisenberg, "Critique of the Physical Concepts of the Corpuscular Theory" in The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (1930)
The ship’s captain floated gracefully along the docking tube flanked by a set of well-armed security guards with their mag rifles lazily pointing up the tube. His face was set in a stern expression and he wore a rumpled jumpsuit that had been hastily put on in the last few hours. Ayala kept their feet firmly planted on the shuttle’s hull and greeted her welcoming party with a broad smile.
“What is the meaning of this interruption in our flight,” said the captain with a strong colonial accent.
“I am so sorry Captain,” said Ayala stressing every syllable and genuflecting appropriately. “But I was unaware of the early departure of your ship and very much wanted to see the lights of Salus, so I contracted with this shuttle crew to bring me up here at much expedience so that I might rejoin you on your voyage.” They put as much gentle intonation as they could and flashed their best winning smile.
The captain grumbled something about the dock authority before asking, “I’ll need to see your travel credentials. Diktat policy, I’m afraid.”
“Of course Captain,” said Ayala handing over a small unbranded holo-pad.
The captain took it and immediately his face fell. He brought up his own Tri-Pad to confirm the details and then handed Ayala’s pad back to them. “I’m sorry for the confusion Councillor. We departed dock early to get back to Volturn for the Lobsterfest. We’ll get a berth ready for you immediately.”
“Thank you Captain.” Before Ayala could finish she felt a small vibration on their leg that let her know Zosma and her agents had successfully made the transit and were secured on board the Queen of the Gates. Ayala readied theirself for the next phase of the mission, “While your crew is readying my berth could I possibly take a tour of your fine ship?”
“Of course Councillor, where would you like to begin? I’d be happy to provide a tour with one of our security detail,” said the captain now extremely generous in his attitude.
“I would love to see how this ship is run, there may be things we can implement in the Diktat’s larger mercantile fleets. Supreme Executor Admiral Andrada has taken a more focused approach to trade in the last few cycles and I would love to give him new ideas at the next council meeting,” lied Ayala with a gentle touch on the captain’s wrist. “Lead away my good Captain.”
The captain looked momentarily flustered and confused but acquiesced to Ayala’s implicit command. He turned and began leading Ayala and the two security staff back into his ship. Both officers held their weapons tighter to their chests and scanned the hallways repeatedly, clearly taking their job more seriously than when they floated up the docking tube. The captain stammered slightly as he began by giving the specifications of the ship like a first year lieutenant filling out port authority forms.
“Oh, Captain, if I wanted the keel-capacity of your ship I would ask the port master or the shipwright. I want to know how your ship is run; how do you manage duties, who does your navigation, things of that nature.” Ayala said, chiding the captain and giving him gentle direction. “Let’s head to your command deck and you can go over your shift structure on the way.”
The captain nodded and relaxed slightly. He led the troop up and into the quiet command deck. The space was haphazardly arranged with many of the ship’s stations plastered with dozens of information screens showing various outputs of on-board generators and hull-mounted cameras. Few if any of the ship’s original luxury accommodations were found here, replaced by spartan chairs welded to the floor and harsh orange lighting.
A junior officer looked momentarily confused by the captain’s presence on the deck accompanied both by security officers and a stranger. The captain gave a leer visible from the back of his head and made a gesture mostly obfuscated by his body. The effect was clear though as the officer immediately straitened and shouted, “Captain on deck.”
Confused heads swiveled towards the group with more than one holding a food item in their mouths. As the moment registered across the room scuffling could be heard as drink containers were stowed and command screens hastily changed from non-sequitur video feeds to engine readouts and sensor arcs. The captain coughed and introduced his flight crew. Ayala nodded to each in turn and took interest in the navigation station.
They glided towards the ensign at her post and looked over her shoulder at the projected flight path of the Queen. “So close to Salus, you could practically touch it,” said Ayala.
From behind her the captain said, “Indeed Councilor, we are going to pass through the very upper portions of the giant’s atmosphere. We have to take special precautions not to accumulate too much charge on the hull. We’ve been struck in the past.”
“By the planet’s storms?” ask Ayala genuinely interested.
“Yes. The lightning is spectacular. I’m glad you were able to make it aboard to see it,”said the captain.
“As am I, Captain,” said Ayala. They slipped a small object out of their pressure suit’s utility pocket. “Are those the engine diagnostics?” they asked of a screen at the far side of the deck. When the captain and crew distractedly looked across Ayala placed the listening bug on the underside of the navigation console.
“Yes, Councilor. We use reaction mass drives exclusively, this ship was never equipped with a KL drive. It makes for a leisurely pace, but our operating costs are much lower. Much less power demand, you see, no fusion reactor,” said the captain posting to a different screen. “We can run off of the waste from most of the bigger ships.”
Ayala floated up next to the captain. “Captain, that may well be the thing we need in the Diktat’s fleets. I will be sure to mention your cooperation and insight when I next see The Supreme Executor.”They provided the captain with a small gold lion-emblem. “For now I would like some rest, can you direct me to my quarters?”
The captain looked wide-eyed at the Lion’s Guard token before snapping back to the moment. “Of course Councillor. The security detail will take you there immediately.”
Ayala walked with the two guards until they left the crew quarters and descended into the original luxury berths on the ship. One of the officers gestured at a set of real-wood doors made from a tree that had grown on Old Earth. Ayala nodded politely and grabbed both officers' gloved hands in their own. “Thank you for your service in the name of the Diktat.”
The flash of the stun sticks illuminated the entire hallway for a moment as two agents emerged out of nowhere and felled the security guards. Zosma stepped out from the wooden doors. “I knew where they would take you. This suite is practically a palace. I might have to move my office…” she trailed off in thought gesturing for Ayala and the agents to follow her.
The agents made quick work of disarming the guards and assuming their identities. The two officers were bound and taken further into the cavernous suite. Ayala gawked at the opulent padding on every surface; a full-sized piano was bolted to a far bulkhead and a truly massive transparent-aluminum viewport opposed it. Seemingly suspended in the middle of the room was a circular table with chairs also magically bound in place. Seated at the far side of the table was Zosma, engrossed in something on a Tri-Pad.
“Ma’am,” said Ayala. Zosma did not look up. “Ma’am, did the bug I planted work?”
Zosma moved her eyes to stare at Ayala without even the slightest motion of her head. “Yes. It is providing very valuable information on this ship’s course.”
“Was there any information on why the ship left early,” asked Ayala.
Zosma slammed her Tri-Pad on the table and bored a hole in Ayala’s forehead with her gaze. “Ask the captain that question,” she yelled.
Ayala wanted to reply but found they had accidentally floated a few centimeters above the bulkhead and were now rotating slowly backward. They heard Zosma sigh.
“Tuck your feet to your chest and breathe in, when you rotate around, breathe out and extend your feet,” said Zosma in a gentle tone.
Ayala did as they were told and found their feet gently touching the pillow surface of the bulkhead again. The magnetic anchors activated and they were pulled back into solid contact. “Thanks, I’ve never really spent a lot of time in microgravity. I mean, I never got to leave my cabin when I was on this ship before,” said Ayala.
Zosma appeared concerned for the first time Ayala had ever seen. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You did a better job than any of my agents could have done. I’m just…” she looked back down at her Tri-Pad again a look of surprise on her face. “There’s another ship.”
“What is it that we humans depend on? We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character ... We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word ‘reality’ is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.” - Niels Bohr, Philosophy of Science Vol. 37 (1934)
Mathis risked discovery but he had recognized the voice on the other side of the hatch to the command center. There was no way they had gotten on board the ship without outside assistance, and outside assistance did not factor into his plans. Unable to turn around he had crawled backwards along the same corridor he had just climbed up. His shoulders ached and neck was sore from holding his head up, but he pushed the bodily sensations aside and focused back onto his assigned tasks; take over the ship, prepare for the arrival of the other crew, eliminate any witnesses.
Those objectives had not changed, just the methods he was going to use were flexible. He climbed out into the familiar damage control station and did a quick survey of the hallway outside. The coast was clear. Mathis walked out of the station and proceeded towards the passenger compartments. He estimated they would have a decent head start but he could probably overcome the guards and interrogate that tech in short order.
He stopped at every hallway and intersection and cleared it before proceeding forward. It would do him no good to be caught now. He heard them before he even got to the corner. They were talking to the guards about serving the Diktat, they would be distracted, now was the time to strike.
Mathis leveled his pistol and turned the corner just as the flashes went off. He jumped back assuming it was some sort of flash-bang, but there was only muffled grunts and the sounds of a momentary struggle. He was truly confused and then he heard another voice he recognized. The information broker from the bar was here, on the Queen of the Gates.
He grabbed his Tri-Pad and overrode the secrecy mode. He pressed a link into the communication panel and was able to connect through the ships comm array to the relay on Cruor. He knew his handler would be listening. All he had to do was send the right starting code and his message would be received no matter where he sent it on the planet.
He keyed in the activation phrase and a short code-worded message that would let his handler know the mission parameters had drastically changed. He hit send and waited for a reply. It came faster than he anticipated: Understood. Sending ark. New primary task, subdue target and associates.
Mathis adjusted his pistol to a non-lethal setting. The flechette darts would travel slower and probably wouldn’t have enough energy to penetrate body armor, but they also wouldn’t go through bone. They would hurt and possibly maim but unless they hit something sensitive they would be unlikely to kill. It would be enough to distract or injure his targets and leave them more easily knocked out.
He rounded the corner and jogged towards the suite’s door. He made it there in a few bounds and pressed his hand to the door. Unlike the metal hatches it was difficult to hear through, something about it muffled the sounds on the other side. He had little time, the waiting ship would be spotted as soon as it left the upper atmosphere and then he wouldn’t have surprise as a tool.
He braced against the door frame and tucked his legs to his chest. In the microgravity hitting the door would likely cause it to obstruct his targets in the room beyond. He would have the initiative but they would have cover. There was a yell from the room. He kicked with all his strength and the door flew off its hinges and sailed into the next room.
The door hit something solid and stopped a few meters in. Mathis ducked through the opening and sailed through the air to his left. A security officer with an assault weapon stood flat-footed in front of him. He squeezed the trigger and a set of darts zipped from the end of the gun, impacting the weak points of the armor around the guard's shoulder.
Blood spurted from the wounds as the guard reeled from the impact. A moment later Mathis collided with them at full speed; driving his feet down and elbow up and under the guard's face shield. The officer’s head lifted and Mathis drove the barrel of his gun under the guard’s chin and squeezed. A wet crunching sound reverberated in the helmet.
Mathis turned towards the middle of the room and saw three other targets, his combat implants cataloging them instantly. His primary target was unarmed, the tech from Volturn was knocked unconscious by the impact with the door, and another guard with a rifle stood a few meters from him. This one had time to react and was already leveling their weapon at him. He wasn’t close enough to a wall to launch himself directly at them. He did have some cover. He pulled the body of the dead guard to shield himself.
The rifles the guards had were designed for use inside spacefaring vessels, as was his pistol. They didn’t pack enough energy to break through a hull and depressurize a ship. That had the side effect of making pretty much everything effective cover. The other guard fired uselessly into the corpse as Mathis closed the distance between them.
He could feel the solid thuds of the slugs impacting the body as more blood expanded in a fine mist around him. He was very glad it was not his own. The guard, realizing the futility of their actions, dodged to the side to get a better shot. They were good, but they weren’t nearly as fast as Mathis.
He had already brought up his pistol and switched it back to the lethal setting when the guard realized their mistake. A hail of flechette rounds struck the guard across the chest and neck sparking against the ceramic plates. The armor absorbed much of the impact but several rounds found weaker spots in the fabric and tore through to the flesh beyond.
The guard spun and let a last burst of automatic fire tearing at the room’s padding and raking up Mathis’ left leg and arm. A fair exchange, he thought, as he finally got close enough to the guard to grapple them. The guard struggled with him for a small eternity by most standards. Mathis’ left arm was ruined and his leg was starting to go numb, but he was still far stronger and faster than the injured guard. Soon he had them subdued. He didn’t waste time and dispatched them with a quick shot through the neck.
The guards were dealt with so Mathis turned again towards his primary target. She was still in the middle of the room glowering at him. He raised his pistol and aimed at her leg. He would incapacitate her and prepare her for interrogation by the ARC. He fired a burst of flechettes.
He could see the darts sitting there mere centimeters from their target. He fired again and more darts slowed to a halt in mid air. The table and chairs his target was sitting at were also suspended; held in place by an inertial-confining electromagnetic field.
Mathis cursed and he heard her say, “Just *** shoot him!”
To his right the technician from Volturn was holding one of the guards’ rifles. “Yes ma’am.” The slugs passed mercifully through his brain.
“What I cannot create, I do not understand.” - Richard Feynman, written on his blackboard at the time of death (1988)
Zosma passed the scanner over the former bartender's body. “He’s got loads of unregistered cybernetics; retinal cameras, endocrine boosters, a full suite of skin sensors in almost every electromagnetic range, and all very clandestine.”
“You mean had. He had those things,” said Ayala who was standing over the body with the gun still pointed at its chest.
“Yes, he’s fortunately very much in the past tense. The encryption is bad on the data vault in his skull, also fortunate you didn’t just blast it too,” said Zosma.
“What was he doing with all that tech?” Ayala asked, shouldering the rifle a little tighter.
“The same thing I do, but for different masters,” said Zosma.
Ayala nodded an affirmative, and took their eyes off of the body for the first time. “Who do we work for?”
“You work for me. That’s as much as you should know,” said Zosma dismissively. She eased slightly. “This man worked for anyone who would pay him, he had no masters save the one giving him credits. I have more loyalty than that, and let’s just leave it there.”
Ayala looked slightly confused. “He worked for the rebels on Umbra? The revolutionary council? Right?”
Zosma looked over Ayala, “What do you know about the ARC?”
“That’s… That’s what you said when you tracked me out…out to the wastes,” said Ayala clearly flustered.
“Relax, I’m not accusing you of being an operative. The ARC is a bogeyman held aloft by pirates who think they’re good and noble for standing up to the Diktat, or the Hegemony, or the whole Domain of Man. There’s always been an ARC and even if, in the slightest chance in hell, they did manage to overthrow the government, this system is so full of rebels that want to rebel nothing would really change.” Zosma looked down at her chiming Tri-Pad. “And that’s the data vault cracked. I’m going to forward this to that burner I gave you earlier. Do. Not. Lose. It.”
Ayala looked down at the unbranded holo-pad at her hip. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Now how about we go have a chat with our dear captain friend.”Zosma stood up and grabbed Ayala’s shoulder. “Thank you.” She squeezed slightly and continued walking towards the door.
If she had the ability to she would have kicked the door of the command deck open. As it was a solid pressure door she settled for a dramatic opening and confident stride to the captain’s console. Heads turned around suddenly at the sounds of mag boots crossing the deck for the second time that shift, only this time most of them showed signs of terror.
“Captain. I am informing you of an assassin that has been neutralized on board your ship.” Zosma said with extreme confidence. The captain looked from Zosma to Ayala and back.
“Councilor, why are you carrying a rifle, and is that blood?” Asked the captain with a bewildered look on his face.
“Not a councilor, listen to her,” said Ayala gesturing at Zosma with the rifle.
“Right. That ship you’re tracking from Salus. Full of pirates. I suggest we run. Preferably to Cruor, though if you’ve got other suggestions I’ll hear them,” said Zosma moving up to the navigation display.
The ensign at the station looked up at her with awe. “We estimate intercept in 2 hours ma’am.” Said the ensign.
“If we turn and burn with everything how much does that widen the gap,” asked Zosma, engrossed in the screen.
“This ship’s not really built for that kind of travel, but we could sustain a burn for maybe an hour. It’d widen the gap to 4 hours. We’d still have enough reaction mass to slow down into the planet, but we’d be 6 hours out at time of intercept,” said the ensign.
Zosma was still staring at the screen. “Not good enough.” She turned to the captain. “Everyone needs to get off this ship. I can fit thirty people on my shuttle. I’m down two crew and I know there’s seventeen people on board right now. We’ll all fit. Let’s go.” Without even waiting for a reply she turned to leave the room. “You may want to scuttle the ship, those pirates are going to use her to smuggle criminals onto Cruor.” She nodded to Ayala on her way out.
Ayala said to the room, “We're cutting the docking line in 30 minutes. Anyone not on board is staying here.” They followed suit out of the command deck.
Back on her shuttle Zosma pulled up a much more detailed navigation display and planned an escape vector away from the Queen. Her pilot confirmed the flight plan and set to work preparing the ship for an emergency burn. In the minutes that followed all seventeen people still on board the Queen made the decision to board her vessel.
After the last crew member boarded Zosma stood by the airlock and prepared the ship to disconnect. She had undone two of the locking clamps when her pilot came running up the corridor. “Bad news ma’am, I ran the numbers again and it looks like even if we emergency burn away that other ship is too close and already up to speed. They’ll be able to catch us and force a combat volume. I don’t think we have the firepower to take out a fast destroyer, even a pirate one.”
Zosma thought for a moment. The vast horizon of Salus was just beginning to disappear as the two ships passed inexorably through the gas giant’s penumbra. A flash of lightning rolled a third of the way along the planet below. She pointed at the fissures of light snaking through the clouds.
“Yes, ma’am,” said the pilot.
“A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven.” - Richard Feynman, "The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics," (1965)
Ayala shifted uncomfortable in the command chair. There were so many little things that could go wrong with their plan and they all played across their mind; what if the pirate vessel recognized there were two ships, what if the pirates fired early and hit them while they were still connected, what if the pirates were faster and more maneuverable than the pilot had predicted, what if the storms on Salus were more severe, what if their ship broke apart from the atmospheric stresses, what if they just died right there from all of the stress.
Zosma’s strong voice came over the suit coms, “Buckle up folks, we’re about to light the drive.” Ayala had been given command of monitoring engine output. Normally this task would be handled by the ship’s computer, but the ship’s computer didn’t know how to fly through a dense atmosphere of ammonia. Not that Ayala did either, but they did know how to feather a throttle on a repair sub to get back to the floating habs. It seemed like a close enough match.
A countdown clock showed the time remaining until the pirate vessel was within range to detect the two ships. The crew of Queen of the Gates had rigged their ship to burn hard and dirty towards a gravity-assist trajectory. It was a somewhat logical escape plan under normal circumstances. The pirate ship would have to alter course in order to keep up. The only problem was that the Queen had abysmal engines and the most they could do was barely a blip on a KL drive-equipped ship.
What it really did was bring their intercept point very close to Salus. They would separate from the Queen and use her bulk as a shield until they could force their way into the upper clouds of the gas planet. The captain had said he had done this maneuver countless times and the trick was to skim across the different gas layers; plunge too deep and you burn up, aim too high and you would get buffeted apart by the convection currents. He had never done it on the night side though, with the inky blackness of the clouds only occasionally seen by the blue flashes of lighting edge-lighting them.
Then there were the electrical storms. The vast amounts of convecting gasses created spectacularly massive bolts of lightning. The captain had mentioned something about depolarizing the hull to protect against strikes and he set about with an industrial degaussing tool. More power to him if it kept the ship from being struck by gigajoules of energy.
The automated countdown went down into seconds and Ayala reflexively grabbed the edges of their chair. The burn would be initiated by the pilot but she would have thrust control shortly after they entered the atmosphere. Zosma’s voice counted down the last remaining seconds. A sudden jolt threw the ship aside as the docking port was sheared off with explosive bolts. The pilot leaned into and the ship raced away under a full emergency burn.
The shuttle was equipped with a low-power KL drive, but this close to the planet and the pirates it was useless. Ayala felt the ship roll to present the larger aspect to the roiling black clouds that rapidly approached. The exterior feeds showed spikes in temperature on every major hull section. They were in it now.
The pilot called out inbound intercept missiles loaded with EMP warheads and engine-seeking guidance. The missiles were not designed to fly though atmosphere and in the wake of the shuttle they spiraled off into the abyss of darkness below. The pirate ship had abandoned their prize and was attempting to reach them now. The distance callout was advancing at a worryingly low pace.
The element of surprise had worn off and the enemy was giving full chase, only they weren’t being slowed by friction with the atmosphere. At least not yet. The pilot gave engine control to Ayala and told them to watch the temperature on engine 2, it was already outside of the standard safety margins.
Ayala looked back and forth from the outside pressure gauges to the engine temperature screens. They were trying to keep the two stable and in the green bands recommended by the captain. It was delicate work and Ayala’s eyes began to water from the concentration. Zosma’s voice broke their revelry calling out that the pirate ship was now in the same soup they were in.
A bright red bolt of light sailed just over the windows in the cockpit. The pilot shouted curses at the pirates in reply. Ayala permitted herself to look up at the flight deck. The pilot shouted back down to them to get back to her job and they looked back just in time to see the pressure indicators rising far into the warning zones. The engine temperatures seemed to be falling in this zone, though, and the ship was handling much smoother. She called for a new bracketing based on their current pressure readings and the screens updated accordingly.
Both ship were now screaming through the black clouds maintaining the same relative distance. The captain of the Queen burst up from the lower decks and screamed something about the lightning. Zosma gave the order to climb and Ayala gave the engines full power. Strange, iridescent flames began to gather at the corners of the flight deck. The captain began to wail in a strange language in a tone that definitely sounded like final rites.
The shuttle burst out of the top-most cloud layer into the star-filled sky. From somewhere deep below the ship a lash of electricity exploded into a million filaments arcing and forking below in a chaotic dance. The hull mounted cameras found the pirate ship for a moment before it sank deep below the clouds. A bright white flash of a failing reactor core was the last evidence of its passing.
Ayala let out a long breath and returned engine control to the pilot. The shuttle limped back to rejoin the Queen of the Gates now out of fuel and drifting harmlessly above the clouds of Salus. It looked almost peaceful after the horrific events of the last day.
Ayala spun her chair around to face the captain and asked him, “How did you know the lightning was about to strike?”
The captain pointed to his leg and revealed a metal prosthetic. “When the charge builds up I can feel the tingles in my leg.”
Ayala stifled a laugh. “I’m glad you were here with us, Captain. We’d be crushed in the depths of Salus by now if you weren’t”
The captain smiled and called up to Zosma, “Hear that, sounds like you owe me a favor.”
Zosma’s cold voice boomed down from her command chair, “I saved your sorry ass from those pirates twice already.” Then in lighter tone. “But I’m willing to call it even… for now.”
The captain shrugged and disappeared back down to gather his crew.
A personal communication from Zosma appeared on Ayala’s screen. They tapped the icon and a map of Cruor popped up. On it where several highlighted zones. They heard Zosma’s voice on the suit comm, “Those are proprietary survey locations from a recent satellite flyover. They’re all yours to file.”
Ayala simply yelled “thank you!” back up to her command chair.
The captain and his crew negotiated a fair trade for just enough fuel to get them back to Volturn in exchange for providing Zosma with detailed information on their passengers and cargo. Their transfer took even less time than the evacuation and soon they were underway. Ayala wished after them, wondering if the life of an interplanetary hauler was a better job than a prospector on a constantly shifting world.
Zosma put that prospect out immediately when she told Ayala how much the average hauler made and following it up with how much each claim she had given them was worth. Several orders of magnitude were hard to argue with.
Upon reaching the private docks on Cruor Zosma said goodbye to Ayala and she headed off towards a meeting with a contact concerning a smuggled shipment of harvested organs that was recently confiscated by the port authority.
Ayala went to the rental office and was about to rent another survey skiff when the clerk recognized them.
“Don’t you already have an ongoing rental?” asked the clerk. “I could have sworn we were down one skiff…”
“I think you’re mistaken. I’ve never rented here before,” they said convincingly.
The clerk looked them over slightly skeptically, but sighed and said, “Fine, yours is in bay 28B. No insurance, bring it back without a scratch on it.”
Ayala smiled and walked briskly to the skiff. She stopped dead in her tracks when the familiar silhouette of the bartender walked out from behind the craft.
“God does not play dice” - Albert Einstein
Mathis smiled at the technician from Volturn. The scar on the back of his neck itched where the clinic had uploaded his saved personality into the data vault designed to be decrypted, uploaded, recovered, and reinstalled in a fresh body.
“Hello, I think there’s some things we should chat about. Won’t you join me for a little afternoon drive?” The lithe man jumped into the craft with astonishing agility and motioned for the technician to join him.
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Topic: Stories from the Sector - A fan fiction collection (Read 255 times)