Chapter: Fort VI
The Beem Drive is an awesome piece of Beems technology, capable of propelling a ship to any one of many hidden and public nodepoints, or simply depositing the ship randomly in the universe in emergency situations. It is imperative, however, that before you and your starship attempt your first Beem Sequence, you follow all the preparation techniques outlined in section 002-2-C. Not following these preparation techniques may result in a misaligned IFOR navigation system or zero-split distortion field. You may realize you have done an unsuccessful beem sequence when you or your ship are either a) Unendingly nauseous. b) Trapped in a different color spectrum and / or dimension. or c) Dead. Please report any other symptoms of an unsuccessful Beem Sequence to the Zemorian Registrar on the Perseus continent, if able – an excerpt from ‘Your Biomechanoid Starship and You.’ Section 872-1-B. Uploaded 4301RY.
–
When Matt opened his eyes, he realized he hadn’t. A torrent of senses were flooding his mind, knocking him unconscious almost immediately.
He came to again, exactly three hours, thirty-two minutes, and forty-seven seconds later. He wasn’t quite sure how he knew, but he knew. This time the senses were significantly more controlled. He opened his eyes, seeing the walls of the cargo bay and a nice little pile of vomit he was lying in. He sanitarily moved aside and lied down near a cleaner section of the port cargo bay. He wasn’t quite sure how he knew this was the port cargo bay, but he knew. He also knew he should send some maintenance drones out to clean up the vomit as soon as possible, and that one of his skids had been sprained.
“Ok.” Matt muttered, toppling over every time he tried to stand, he finally hit something hard, a bulkhead of some sort, and pushed himself into it until he was upright. He wasn’t, he was lying on the bulkhead he had pushed up against a moment ago, the vomit splattered onto the same bulkhead, a few meters next to him, and he threw up again from the disorientation.
Pain and sorrow filled his mind, someone else’s memories, years of oppression. The hull shook violently, and for a moment Matt wondered if he had dreamt it. He awoke again, floating in the middle of the dark chamber. Why was it so dark?
As if on cue, the chamber lit up to a bright red. Too bright, the lights dimmed, with the walls of the cargo bay bestowing fluorescent red streaks – very similar to the patterns he had seen on the outer hull.
And why was he floating? He thought he was going to throw up again, but there was nothing left to throw up. He just belched a little, and tried to air-swim towards the hatch that didn’t lead outside; in fact, it led to the upper tier, where the bridge was. Again, he wondered how he knew this, but continued on, his pyjamas sticky and wet. Whoever had taken him up into space should have at least introduced himself to him first.
When he finally arrived at the hatch: he was tired, and decided to take another short nap. More dreams of sorrow filled his mind, cries of anguish and pain that he couldn’t quite understand. He awoke feeling worse than before, but realized he had somehow made it onto the bridge.
“Hello.” someone beeped. Well they said it, he understood, but he also knew it was a series of beeps, rather high pitched. He categorized that under ‘young’ as these were young beeps, whoever was talking to him was undoubtedly young, and male, a child, a little kid?
“Hello there.” he said, or thought, he wasn’t quite sure, the words didn’t really come out right, his throat was too sore.
The bridge had a half-circle shape, with consoles littered along the wall of the half circle, all of the walls except for the straight bit. The straight bit had two doors instead. One of them led into a smaller room, and the other led into a tiny hallway with two hatches on either side, leading into the two ventral cargo bays. The tiny hallway had another door as well, across from the door to the bridge, but he couldn’t quite see through it for some odd reason. Actually, the fact that he could see through the other doors was significantly odder. He thought about this for a moment.
That door leads to AHC control. It can’t be accessed without my permission.
The strange thought that permeated his mind and told him where the door led to made him jump. The sudden ‘jump’ thought also expanded the ship’s distortion field and shot them forward at six gees, engulfing both of them in vertigo. Matt threw up again and collapsed onto the floor for the umpteenth time. Someone was getting annoyed with him. There were several drones by his side this time, small beetle-looking contraptions with vacuum nozzles that were feverishly cleaning up all the vomit. One of them was also running its nozzle along his shirt and pants, dry-cleaning him.
I’ve done an in-flight alignment, how do you feel?
He thought he had dreamt that, he didn’t say anything. He was probably just losing his mind.
Hello, can you sense me? Matt?
“Hello, can you hear me?” the chirping sound returned again, it sounded worried, pleading. Ambient chirps continued, telling him the ship was currently in critical condition and traveling at thirty-three kilometres per second. He considered that for a moment and ‘looked’ outside, staggering from the sudden stimuli. There were senses there that were obviously beyond his comprehension. He let his mind review the memory and make adjustments to the external feed. He attempted to look out past the bulkheads again. What he saw was beautiful: an orchestra of colors coming together in perfect harmony, his newfound knowledge of things told him that it was a Type-7 Nebula, and that it had an ambient energy emission rating of four-point-zero-one, while they currently had an energy emission rating of three-point-three-seven. This was a good thing. He decided to sit down against the straight-bit bulkhead by one of the doors.
“Why do you always find it necessary to place your posterior on the floor? Are your pedals incapable of sustained support?”
“My what?” Matt asked.
The speaker chirped with glee, “You understand me! I’m so grateful. Your…” Agitated lookups, “legs, are they damaged?”
“I don’t know.” Matt replied.
“I don’t understand.” the voice chirped.
“I want to sleep, can I sleep? Is there a bed?”
There was a slight pause as his host looked up ‘bed’.
“That looks necessary for sleep, doesn’t it?”
“It is – do you have one?”
“No – I – one second.”
Matt’s mind was buzzing as it tried to track the movements of this entity through the ship’s databanks. It seemed to be everywhere at once, processing something feverishly.
“How long have we been floating here?”
“Eleven of your Earth days. Eleven Raumen days as well, as a matter of fact.”
“What is Raumen?”
“Raumen are my enemies, I almost killed you before I did a more detailed scan of your genetic structure.”
“Nice…” Matt said equanimously. He began to wonder if this was a dream again.
“But I wouldn’t kill you now! I’ve taken the days to learn a few things, how to speak, first off, in the standard Beems and Beems-Hybrid dialects. I’ve also learnt how to transmit across the neural band! And I’ve looked across several guides! Captain Matt Bowen, son of Philip Bowen, I request that you name me!”
He remained equanimous. A hallucination would obviously know who his father was.
The presence continued looming about him expectantly. Maybe it wasn’t a hallucination… maybe it was the ship? That would make more sense. Wait no it would make less sense.
“Were you just built?” Matt asked, extra equanimously.
“Sort of… didn’t you sense the dreams?”
“Oh those were dreams; I thought I was just losing my mind.” he said with a disturbed smile.
“You’re so funny!” An electric shock traveled down through the neural interface, knocking Matt off his feet. Okay, he was either having seizures or this was not a hallucination.
“I demand that you name me!” the chirps seemed harsher.
“Ow, damn, okay, I name you, err, Crimson, calm down!”
“Crimson… in your language that’s a color isn’t it?”
“Don’t you like it?”
“It’s great, because my Captain gave it to me. I’m so excited. I’ve read a lot from this book. We’re supposed to explore the stars, fight pirates, kill Raumen.” The entire bridge seemed to become a darker red as he said that last bit.
“Who are the Raumen?” Matt asked.
An image was superimposed in the front of Matt’s vision, showing a standard Raumen male, a Raumen female was situated right next to it. It was like a memory, but much more controllable, and interestingly ignorable. He could look past the image to whatever he wanted, or look at the image and whatever he wanted, or a mix of either.
“I can multi-task.” Matt gasped.
“Yes, the Neural Interface can help you do things like that, it’s quite the tool. I made it when I was born, you know.” the presence shifted again, it must have been the ship’s awareness. It was looking out at the sea of stars before them. “But now we have to go. I need nutrients. I’m still in the first stage of my growth. I should be feeding off my mother’s nutrient umbilicals. It will be difficult to find supplements.”
The entire mood of the conversation seemed to suddenly change as they stared out at the stars together.
“I don’t know what to do, Matt. I want my mom.”
“Me too.” Matt said, wondering which one of those stars had Earth.
“Then we will find our moms!”
“Ok, where?” Matt asked, shifting his pose slightly on the hard floor, rubbing his back as he looked up at the ceiling and the stars beyond them.
“They have her.” the chirp was barely audible. The sorrow was unbearable.
“Who?” Matt whispered.
The Coalition.
Suddenly Matt was bombarded by information about the Coalition. Ships, fleet sizes, weapons. Their territory was shown as three circles somewhat overlapped, and then one circle off to the galactic southeast, far away from everything else. Matt’s mental vision zoomed in on that circle, and kept zooming in, until it was in a one AU by one AU box.
This is where she was, far from the bulk of the Coalition’s territory in this region.
This is just one region? The area encompassed must be several hundred light-years. Matt was getting the hang of this neural transmission business.
The Coalition are the dominant organization of this Galaxy, and the Raumen are the dominant species. They are an ever-expanding organization, like… a pause like the Romans of your time. The Coalition must expand, economic figures demand it, otherwise they would implode. They would not be able to maintain their massive armadas. I’ve already formulated a battle plan.
“A battle plan?” Matt asked aloud. “You were just born!”
We have to act quickly! It will take me several years to reach the remote research facility.
No, wait. I’ve played space ship games back on Earth, no. No! We’ll die, one ship against the Coalition fleet, no. We need supplies; we need food; we need a bed.
We have to save my mother! he pleaded.
Crimson! Matt visualized placing his hand on the heated ship’s nose, which seemed to work, surprisingly, it also decelerated them slightly. Calm down.
The ship’s thoughts were a torrent of rage and despair.
They—
It’s ok, it’s ok.
Would Matt really have to be a father figure, he himself only fourteen? Well at least they said he was a mature kid for his age. And perhaps asserting himself as such would keep the ship from trying to shock him again in its panic.
Zemoria. Crimson transmitted.
The planet Zemoria appeared on the map, its little political sphere of influence was precariously close to the massive blobs the Coalition controlled in that region.
Matt’s poor teenage mind was flooded with information on Zemoria, pages upon pages of information, political, regional, economical. He raised his hand to stop the flow of information, and imagined it in book form.
Ok what about Zemoria? I don’t want to read all of this information.
Why? It would only take a few seconds.
No, there are hundreds of thousands of words.
There aren’t, your mind perceived the information in word-form but you have to go beyond that.
How?
Imagine the information as a movie… no… a dream, imagine it as a dream. Focus on it that way.
It took a few seconds, but the book disappeared from his mind, replaced with a beautiful spherical planet eclipsing a bright sun. Knowledge about the planet immediately flowed into his mind, information that seemed obvious. He knew Zemoria was inhabited by a species of pale bipeds that were dubbed Zemorians. He knew that they had a massive defence grid of koveran cannons to ward off any Coalition invasion, and he knew that they were very, very Beems friendly. In fact, the Zemorians were the only legit Beems-trading civilization in this galaxy, and had the most easily visible node-point of all. Matt realized that node-points were jump points used by Beems ships, and that Beems were the only viable source of interstellar transportation.
Why? Matt asked.
Crimson didn’t need to ask to understand the question, he was following his Captain’s thoughts intently. Breaking the light barrier isn’t easy. It takes an animal instinct that basic mechanical technology can’t replicate. It was prophesized that The Builders had created the Beems to allow travel between their worlds, but that they themselves had died out or transcended.
How do you know this?
The same way you not know of Zemoria, it’s in my databanks, I’m just better at reading my own mind than you.
Right—
But you’ll get better at it! Don’t worry, it takes practice, especially for inferior minds – I mean… brains with… lower… err…
Touch your nose, Crimson. Matt said lightly, placing a finger on his nose.
I—
Right, until you can touch your nose, don’t talk to me about inferiority.
But—
Ah ah ah. Quiet, now, I’ve learnt that Zemoria uses a nodepoint, can we go there?
It’s one-thousand four-hundred and thirty-nine light-years away.
There was a slight pause as Matt considered that.
Is that far? Matt finally asked.
A few years out – it’s the nearest sensible nodepoint in that direction.
A few years? And I still don’t understand this nodepoint stuff.
Yeah, and neither do I – but there’s a bigger problem Matt.
A bigger problem than being stranded in the middle of nowhere with an inability to navigate proficiently?
Yes, we’re stranded in the middle of nowhere with no food. My nova reactors and main capacitor can keep us alive for a while, but the koverans it leeches out of Beemspace can’t sustain all of our systems forever. For that we’d need to move to a place richer with koverans, and even then, koverans are very low on essential vitamins, like vitamin B. And I’d like to see you travel at five-hundred times the speed of light!
Right… you eat?
I only need nutrients for the first few months of my life, then I’m apparently weaned off it and learn to live off of koverans. That’s what ‘Your Biomechanoid Starship and You’ says.
And if you don’t get nutrients?
Well then I die.
Why did he have to get into the first alien ship that crashed into his house, Matt thought to himself, sighing dejectedly.
“Is there anything we can do, Crimson?” Matt asked, wondering how long he had been lying up against this bulkhead.
I need to get to my mother.
“Your mother is thousands of light-years away.”
More sorrow, it was digging into his chest like a knife. Matt would have to say something before this ship’s thoughts started making him cry.
“Crimson, how do you eat?”
A schematic of Crimson appeared in Matt neural vision, top-down view; several small hatches were highlighted along the ship.
Any of those umbilical ports will allow me to digest nutrients.
“Can any Beems produce these nutrients?”
No, not the ones I specifically need—
“What do you specifically need?”
A list appeared, showing a few hundred vitamins and minerals, most of which Matt had never seen before
“And how much of this stuff do you need?”
A few tons… – three-hundred cubic feet.
“Ok.”
Twice a day… for two months. Followed by language and self-awareness training, as well as basic etiquette.
“You seem to already know all that.”
Yes, I’m a little different.
“Maybe you don’t need that many nutrients either, do you know how many you, specifically, need?”
I don’t know.
“Well are you hungry?”
No… I don’t think so.
“Good, that’s a start, neither am I, we’ll be fine.” Matt said with blind optimism.
I’m still losing koverans faster than gaining them, they’re making up for something, I need nutrients.
Yes he should definitely finally ask: “What the hell are koverans?”
They’re my life-blood, and also yours at the moment. They are currently keeping our cells nourished and keeping our bodies from drying out. I also need koverans to break the light barrier. Unless we get nutrients, I can’t go anywhere.
And our second problem is born: Matt transmits. We can’t get nutrients, without going somewhere, but we can’t go somewhere, without nutrients.
Exactly! Are we going to die, Matt? Crimson asked despondently.
How did we get here?
I jumped here – with my Beem Drive.
Can you… jump us again—
No! Weren’t you listening!? I need koverans! The lights dimmed depressingly. We’re going to die.
The mood didn’t get much better, and after a few hours of bickering, both Matt and Crimson lacked the energy to stay awake much longer, slipping away into unconsciousness.
–
They awoke an indefinite amount of time later, which meant whatever gave him exact time was now broken, and they were moving relative to their inertial reference point, which he knew meant something was making them move. Matt painfully activated Crimson’s ocular strips – his eyes, looking up at the large unidentified vessel with the two grappling hooks trailing behind it. The hooks were attached to Crimson’s skids.
Matt then opened his own eyes, looking up at the three humanoid individuals holding him at gun-point. Apparently he wasn’t aboard Crimson anymore – he was aboard that large unidentified vessel and Crimson was still unconscious (Ah, that must have been why he didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious for!) He continued staring at the three individuals, who were watching him expectantly. Finally, he mustered up enough courage to break the silence with an amazing feat of charisma and dialogue, “Hi.” Which he followed with a meek shaky wave.
He was in a small chamber with a single entrance. The walls had a metallic silver sheen to them, and the entire room was no more than a few meters in length and width.
The three people holding him at gunpoint were obviously taken aback by this greeting, and seemed to look down their gun sights even more intently. It was very comforting to know that at that very moment, Matt’s neural interface decided to sift through Crimson’s databanks and tell him that those were Type-4 Plasma Rifles, decommissioned by the Coalition military for inefficiently inflicting ten times more damage than necessary to take down a standard biped, and for the mess that they left. Apparently ‘cold plasma’ was not the cleanest way to kill someone as it didn’t incinerate the entire body the way ‘hot plasma’ did. Matt surmised that all forms of plasma were reasonably hot, and promised himself that he would try not to get hit by either.
He stared at the three individuals for several more minutes before one of them decided to take a step forward and grab Matt by one of his frail arms, standing him up on his little legs. A fourth person immediately entered. The neural interface politely pointed out that it was important to note that the three individuals that had been holding him at gunpoint up until this moment wore very standard type-1 battle armour, and that the fourth individual, who was now standing directly in front of Matt, wore type-7 semi-plasma-resistant armour. This individual was most definitely the higher ranking person aboard this ship.
Matt repeated his greeting, only to be punched in the stomach. The individual that had been holding his hand now held him upright as Matt keeled over in pain, wishing he could lie back down. Tears were rolling down his eyes and he couldn’t quite breathe properly for several moments after the hit. They finally let him go, letting him slump down on the ground, coughing and panting as if he had just run a marathon.
“Who are you?” asked one of the individuals, probably the assumed higher ranking one, Matt didn’t bother to look.
“Matt Bowen.” he coughed.
“What unit?”
“What?”
A kick in the stomach, lifting him several meters off the ground, the pain was unbearable. He hoped there wasn’t any internal damage.
“Please stop—” Matt muttered, coughing up a little blood. His ribs were probably broken. He couldn’t get up again.
“You come here… with a starship that wears a Coalition transponder, and all you can say in your defence is that you wish to stop being hit?”
His interrogator readied another kick but stopped, his heel inches from Matt’s strained red face, “Where is your uniform?”
“I don’t have a uniform…” Matt could barely get the words out, in tears, “we aren’t a Coalition ship.”
“He won’t tell us the truth, kill him.” said the interrogator abjectly, disappearing behind the three soldiers.
It can’t end like this. Matt thought to himself, watching the three individuals slowly begin to raise their rifles.
At that moment, Matt was overcome with a surge of energy, and he shot up into the air, his foot kicking one of the individuals in the chest with superhuman strength, knocking him several feet back and onto the ground. As Matt landed from his aerobatic up-shoot, he immediately got a hand on the type 4 rifle that belonged to the second individual, who was still staring down at the ground where Matt had been a split second before, ripping the rifle out of the man’s grip with such unyielding force that he heard ligaments tearing. He trained the stolen rifle on the third individual instantly, and fired. He then pointed the gun at the first individual, who was just now getting up, recovering from the kick, and raising his rifle. Matt fired again. He then pointed his weapon at the final, disarmed individual, who was now covered in blood and raising his hands up in a hopeless effort at shielding himself. Matt didn’t want to fire, but it wasn’t under his control, and fired. He then brought the gun to bear on his interrogator, who had not yet raised his rifle and had his back turned. The interrogator’s smile was apparent through Crimson’s eyes. This time he wanted to fire, but his body wasn’t letting him.
“Now you start telling us the truth.” said the interrogator. “Your abilities will fetch a hefty price on the market. Thank you for demonstrating them to me.”
“I.” Matt couldn’t believe what he had just done.
Do not say anything, he will kill you. He is only leaving you alive because he thinks you are a Coalition officer.
Matt sat back down, against his will, and the pain suddenly returned, sprawling him on the floor.
“We will arrive at Fort VI in two hours.” said the interrogator, and the chamber door slammed shut.
“I think my ribs are broken.” Matt whispered, crying.
I’ll keep your condition stable, Matt.
“Are you ok, Crimson? I thought you were dead.”
They gave me a booster of some sort, I’m generating more koverans than losing, I should be fine for a few hours. In fact I think they gave me the booster for the test you just went through.
That was a test? Matt transmitted, it hurt to talk.
You aren’t very quick, are you Matt? Crimson teased.
Go to hell! I just got the shit kicked out of me.
Crimson was so surprised at the insult that Matt automatically apologized.
No, I should have intervened sooner, but I didn’t know how. I have to learn all this… on the fly. Crimson transmitted, proud of his first ever pun.
Where are we going?
Information permeated Matt’s mind, a lot easier this time. They were going to Fort VI. It was a planetoid one-hundred and twelve million kilometres away. They had been being towed for three days and eleven hours exactly. Crimson hadn’t noticed their proximity to the star system because it had a very young red dwarf star that left its six planets in subzero temperatures. The star was barely noticeable on the luminosity scale. There’s an outlaw base there – a great haven for mercenaries and pirates. Crimson explained.
Aren’t you scared? Shouldn’t we try to get away? Matt suggested.
I’m a warship, and they have access to the nutrients I need to survive. Oh, and the pool of blood is going to reach where you’re lying in less than forty-five seconds, you should move over to that corner over there, the blood should dry out before it reaches that bit.
As a conversation: that would have been an awkward thing to bring up, but Matt heard that report instantly. He got up without looking at the corpses, staggering over to the corner of the chamber and lying down again, closing his eyes. This room was starting to smell like burnt flesh.
Matt felt Crimson watching the plasma rifle through his own eyes. It was an eerie feeling.
You should take that over to the corner with you, just in case.
I’m not getting up again, it hurts way too much. Can you do something about the pain?
That was Matt’s last thought for the next few hours, as Crimson decided to knock him unconscious by blocking a few synapses for several seconds.
–
When Matt awoke again, he was lying up against the bulkhead with the plasma rifle cradled in his arms. The pain was very mild. He didn’t bother asking how he’d gotten a hold of the plasma rifle.
The neural interface has injected several bemicytes into your bloodstream while you slept. They have healed and re-aligned your damaged skeletal structure, however I will need more bemicytes to heal the rest of your injuries and ward off any further infections.
Before he could even ask, the neural interface told him that bemicytes were a more advanced form of the white and red blood cell, and that he had been infected with several airborne diseases when the three people he had shot had partially evaporated. It also suggested that he hold his breath the next time he evaporates someone at close range with a type-4 plasma rifle.
The neural interface is mocking me. Matt complained.
The neural interface is incapable of rational thought; it’s merely summarizing information that may be useful to you under these particular circumstances.
I still say it’s mocking me.
The doors parted, and the interrogator entered the chamber again, glancing over at the three corpses before looking at Matt. “Let’s go.”
Why don’t I kill him?
His suit will ground out your first plasma rifle shot, and I don’t have the strength to protect you from his counter-attack, we will have to play along with whatever he is planning to do.
You’re the warship. Matt transmitted listlessly, following the interrogator to what the neural interface told him was this ship’s docking hatch.
Crimson was now looking over his captor intently, running his scans along the ship’s hull, This is a Ford class battlecruiser. It is armed with three aft 425s and two fixed energy lances situated parallel to the bow. It has a crew compliment of ninety-three.
Interesting. Matt replied, somewhat admiring the metallic sheen this particular corridor had as they walked through it, much nicer than the metallic sheen of the other three nearly identical corridors.
Its 439-c-13 armour plate is also fractured. Crimson continued.
A small meter by meter armour plate was highlighted in Matt’s neural schematic of the battlecruiser, and a line was drawn from the armour plate to the ship’s reactor core, which was at the very center.
So you get at the right angle— Matt realized.
–And it’s dead! Crimson transmitted sinisterly.
But first you need nutrients.
Yes, which this base we have docked with has plenty of. I believe they are going to give me the nutrients I require and sell me to—
“I can’t help but notice the deep-scans your vessel is performing on my craft.” the interrogator interjected. “I hope you know that if your ship does not get its share of nutrients, as outlined in ‘Your Biomechanoid Starship and You’, it will die.”
“What are you gonna do to us? What is this place?” And why the hell has everyone read that God damned book?
“I’m a trader of… salvage. This is where we operate out of. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it before. Fort VI is a well known establishment in this part of the galaxy. And, as to what we’re going to do to you – that’s up to my client, he’ll be here in a few weeks.”
4301.04.30 0500
Starship: Dauntless
Bombard noticed it on the black market the moment the report was made and immediately sent the ships to intercept. He then called Admiral Leyton and Doctor Pending. They met in the Dauntless’ briefing room: A massive chamber decorated with the red and black stripes of the Coalition fleet. Several plaques and insignias denoting the Dauntless’ many victories were displayed along the bulkheads. The center of the chamber had a marble-top rectangular table that could seat up to twenty four people, and the shortest bulkhead, across from the bulkhead that contained the door, had an open window that gave a view of the command carrier’s starboard side. Several maintenance craft were buzzing by, tiny silhouettes that glowed in the dim K-class star they were three AUs from.
“That’s right, we’ll have the ship in two weeks – we have a Dorian class cruiser inbound to it now under the guise of an unaffiliated buyer!” Bombard exclaimed.
“That’s it?” Pending asked. “You do realize what that thing they captured is right?”
“A baby.” Bombard replied. “We have this. We can make the report to High Command.”
“No, we can’t.” Marina transmitted. She was aboard Kahless. The beems was a few weeks away from Zemoria. She was attending the meeting remotely, an image of her face projected from one of the chairs. There was a panorama of stars behind her, and Pending wondered if that was just a standard background, or if she was standing in front of a window. “The pirates will fail, sir. The Hybrid will destroy them.”
“I agree.” Leyton said, having remained very quiet at the opposite end of the table. They all swivelled their chars to look at him, and Marina’s image shifted to denote her attention. “If Pending says that this thing is capable of taking down a command carrier, then the pirates that captured it don’t stand a chance. By the time our ship arrives to recover the Hybrid, it will be gone.”
“Yes, when it’s full grown, maybe. But it was just born.” Bombard argued. “We still have a good chance of recovering or destroying it.”
“Not full grown! And those were just estimates! And watch your tone! We will never destroy such an important piece of technology” Pending snapped, red-faced and glaring at his assistant hotly.
“We might not have a choice! This situation is spiralling out of control. We were never supposed to let it escape to begin with!” Bombard said, pushing his argument. “Regardless, even if we do not destroy it – the Dorian class that is inbound will be equipped with neural inhibitors, and the pirates that captured the craft must have something similar, how else could they have captured it?”
“Irrelevant.” Pending snapped, waving his hand dismissively. He wished he had a towel. “You should have notified me before sending ships we can’t fully trust to intercept.”
“We have to fix this…” Bombard muttered.
“The Hybrid will escape. It will see the Coalition starship coming.” Leyton repeated.
“It’s too young to surmise such things.” Bombard said. “Our ship has to recover or destroy it before it matures enough to become independent.”
“Which Dorian class ship is recovering the BH-131?” Leyton asked.
“The Daedalus, sir.” Bombard replied.
“It’s part of the Thirteenth Fleet?
Bombard nodded.
“The Thirteenth Fleet can provide support for the Daedalus if it encounters any difficulties; all we’ll have to do is slow the Daedalus down enough as to have it remain within quick-response range.”
“That’s a delay of over a week.” Bombard muttered, head in his hands.
“I will speak to the Admiral of the Thirteenth Fleet via the beemspace band as soon as our transceiver aligns to the proper nodepoint.”
“We can’t afford such a delay. I will divert course to Fort VI and attempt to recover the Hybrid from there.”
“No! If our attempt fails, the Hybrid will most likely jump to Zemoria and you can capture it there.”
“It would be much easier capturing it on Fort VI…”
“Marina is right,” Bombard said, “we should—“
“The Zemorians acquiring this craft would be unacceptable. Marina is our only guarantee that this will not happen.”
“It won’t. Now let me do my job!” She crackled, gazing at Pending levelly.
“Fine…” Pending sighed. “Do whatever you think is right. But remember: Failure to recapture this Hybrid could mean the end for the Coalition.”
–
–
4301.04.30 0439
Starship: Reaper
“Orders updated.” Lance reported. They were in orbit around Zemoria, but were already ready for another jump. “Calculate a jump to Fort VI.”
“One week.” Flam said.
Fort VI was a criminal hub. It was where Lance had acquired most of his contracts, including this one. He was well known there, but that didn’t exactly make him popular, quite the opposite, actually. They would have to guard the ship as if it were Ares’ daughter.
They jumped in at a distance. He sent out a global docking request and waited for a response. Since Fort VI broke nearly all Coalition laws, it was forced to have a cesium-based propulsion drive installed. It was expensive, the modified cesium fuel most likely taking up the majority of the profit the planetoid made off the drug and weapons market. Unless it was all mined in the solar system, Lance didn’t know. Habited planetoids were very difficult to detect. A mining operation on one that wanted to hide, would.
The docking request that usually took days to receive only took half an hour for Lance.
They parked the ship at bay A-4, the northern section of the planetoid.
Cass and Nina left first, glad to finally be able to spend some money. It wouldn’t just be on frivolities, either. She needed food, as well as enhancers. Neither of them could remember their last cup of quaffee.
The four guys stayed with the ship for a while, doing a full inspection and requisitioning for whatever components were needed to get the Reaper shipshape. They’d have to order the parts for a few more backup ‘pseudobrains’ as well. The pseudobrain was what Flam had decided to call the retrofitted processor that made the koveran chamber think it was still part of a Zemorian ship. It was tied into the ship’s main navigation computer, allowing Flam to send co-ordinates through the computer into the pseudobrain, which in turn sent commands out to the entire contraption. Lance occasionally wondered if all this hassle for this jump drive was even worth it. They would have to replace the frontal impact sections of the ship with new ablative plates soon due to the incomprehensible stresses associated with entering beemspace. They would also have to repair the conduction lines that streaked The Reaper’s sleek, arrow shaped hull. If the koveran particles failed to travel through those fake beemveins, the entire ship would ignite. There wouldn’t even be debris. The concentrated koveran run-off, or CKRO, was also a pain to manage, burning the Reaper’s mechanical hull and risking hull breaches, clogged conduction lines, damaged thermal vents, and a myriad of other problems. If they do a good job taking care of the ship here, it’ll mean less environmental suit time there, in the loneliness of space, repairing section after section of plating – which reminded him to punch in an order for a few more welders as well as some extra suits, just in case.
“With the payment from this job I’d assume we can probably afford a beems.” Flam said idly.
“I’d have to speak extensively to Rahjaad about it, generally Zemoria would never sell a beems to mercenaries. And besides, even if we managed to get one, the beems would refuse to serve us. You know how they are.”
“We can do honest transport jobs, couriers—” Tass suggested.
They all looked at the deadly Vorchan and laughed. “That’d be an irony: A Vorchan doing ‘honest transport jobs’.”
“Not all of us are fighters.” he hissed, “Our people have great art and literature. We are far more civilized than you’d imagine.”
“You still look like a cave beast. All you need is a hearty roar and fire breath.” Flam said.
Tass extended his leathery wings, got up on his hind legs, and let out a powerful screeching roar. The roar echoed across their docking bay several times, distorting eerily, frightening the nearby guards. The emission seemed to have the same impact as a concussion grenade going off in a small room, deafening Lance and making him feel as if he were in a high pressure chamber. The tremors of the roar were probably heard in the different bays too: Their neighbours most likely heard the Vorchan roar as clearly as he had heard their ship land. After a long pause, Flam said, “Too screechy, not enough oomph.”
“You’re saying you can do better?” Tass asked.
“Rooaaar!” Flam yelled, his tinny voice faltering and his following cough echoing across the bay pettily.
They all jokingly laughed at him.
“Whatever, you still don’t have fire breath… right?”
Tass made a motion towards him and Flam shielded his face in fear.
This will be a long day. Lance thought to himself.
–
–
4301.05.05 1432
Biomechanoid Starship: Kahless
Kahless was beige, four hundred and thirty seven meters long and eighty three years old. She followed the standard beems one tip stem three tip stern profile. Her crew compliment was approximately two hundred. The crews were needed because the neural inhibitor made control of the ship’s own maintenance drones difficult. Like most ships Kahless’ age, however, she had become very tame and passive, with the inhibitor running at well below full power, allowing the ship to jump farther than technically possible for a fully inhibited craft.
It was that reason that allowed her to get to Fort VI within three days. Another two were needed for Marina to get docking co-ordinates, having to use an unmarked shuttle and a disguise to get on board the base (Fort VI wasn’t exactly Coalition-friendly).
She landed her shuttle in bay A-4. There was another frigate here. The asteroid base was probably running low on space and putting the smaller ships in with the bigger ones. It didn’t take long to figure out why – the talk of the base being the new craft that had been reeled in by a pirate who went by the name of Scorvan.
Since FTL was extremely rare. The odds of capturing a beems, especially an unclassified one like BH-131, were slim to none. The nearest offset points were several light years from Fort VI.
“Here is the data regarding 131. As you can see, there is no way you can possibly contain such a craft.” Marina explained, having scheduled a meeting with Scorvan. He had been elated to talk with her after she had sent him classified reports regarding the Hybrid’s physiology.
They met in his battlecruiser’s meeting room. A small chamber with no windows, decorated with exotic weapons and trophies. There was a painting of a pod of beems across from the entrance. It was the first thing Marina had seen when she came in. Pods were entire family lines of beems traveling as one unit, sometimes comprised of over a hundred vessels. It was a concept drawing. There were no pods anymore.
“I’m aware of that, but we already have a buyer.”
“The Thirteenth Fleet. I know. I have been ordered to pick up the ship for them.”
“You can control this ship?”
“Yes.”
“What should we do with its current captain?”
That took Marina by surprise. It had already chosen a captain? There is no way. This threw a spanner in everything – she had wanted this ship for herself.
“What? How? Did it choose one of your crew? Or—“
“It didn’t. It already had one.” If this Coalition fledgling wasn’t aware of the Hybrid’s captain, then that meant this ship wasn’t really Coalition property. Or perhaps she herself was a fraud… “How much are you offering?”
“A beems and thirteen billion.” Marina said without hesitation. The COMBAT division had given her full access to all of their funds. Pending would undoubtedly approve any transaction involving the Hybrid.
It was an interesting offer; the Thirteenth Fleet had only offered six billion. But both were insignificant for a ship this rare. Scorvan had had no idea before, not until the report this child gave him.
“These offers are miniscule now that it’s confirmed that this ship is one of a kind, probably not even Coalition. I want two trillion.” Scorvan said levelly.
“There is no way we can spare two trillion.” She shouldn’t have given him the data.
“There are plenty of private clients who can.”
“None that you can contact in time! When this ship feels like escaping, it will, especially if it’s coordinated with a skilled captain.
“I wouldn’t call him ‘skilled’.” Scorvan replied snidely.
Who was it? It couldn’t be a Coalition captain.
“You’re making a terrible mistake.”
“Am I? With the data you kindly gave me, our neural inhibitors will be even more effective.”
“I don’t get anything in return for that either do I?”
“You get to leave with your life for not having been useless. Isn’t that enough?”
“You’ll regret this.” Marina said, turning to leave.
“Is that a threat?”
“Quite the opposite.”
–
–
4301.05.08 0719
Fort System Space
It hadn’t taken long for Flam to hack Fort VI’s docking logs and find out where their target was being held: right in the clamps of a Ford battlecruiser.
It was being fed nutrients through a web of umbilicals that connected directly to the Ford class.
Lance was having doubts about this job. The other beems may have been somewhat passive while they planted charges, but this one didn’t seem one to like being encroached upon. The aft-section of the ship was devilish, looking thin and wispy at the mid-aft before expanding into what probably housed its nova reactor. The main body of the ship wasn’t much wider, pitch black too. No heat signatures at all, it seemed to absorb any sensor that washed over it like some massive sponge. The port and starboard side had pylons that extended out to support large parallel wing-like structures that were tucked in to the main body at the moment – like some slumbering skeletal cave beast. Every tip of the ship seemed chiselled and pointed, sharp enough to skewer and disembowel, while the edges were sleek and streamlined. There were no signs of any weapons, but Lance highly doubted it followed the standard peace-mantra associated with its brethren.
The Ford battlecruiser was slightly larger, housing a series of cannons and point defence turrets, but significantly undercrewed. Unlike the mutant beems, the battlecruiser was very susceptible to conventional cyberwarfare, and Flam already had several crawlers in the ship’s database. From what the logs told him, their Captain was a man named Dael Scorvan. An unheard of name until the ship appeared on the galactic registry four standard years prior. That same timeframe was also when a Ford class had mysteriously disappeared investigating the Fort system, only half a light year from Fort VI. Go figure. The battlecruiser had docked for undisclosed reasons at Fort VI eighty seven times. There was no other recorded information about it other than its Fort VI registry number: FF-1437.
They had other problems as well. An entire Coalition fleet was inbound towards Fort VI, but, instead of moving to a different vector to evade the fleet, Fort VI remained where it was. Flam had acquired the reports straight from Fort VI’s sensor suite, which meant that the Coalition fleet was most likely being expected. The fleet would arrive in eight standard days.
Even with all this justification, Lance still had doubts as he floated meters above the black ship’s hull, gently circling one of the nutrient umbilicals. This was undoubtedly the most stupid thing he’d ever do, but Flam had assured him it would work.
With a swift mutter from Lance, Flam used a trojan program to disengage the nutrient umbilical. Lance hopped in before the nutrient hatch sealed, getting sucked a few dozen meters down the pipe before the ship realized there were no more nutrients to be had from this umbilical and instinctively sealed it.
In the oesophagus of the beast, Lance had to continuously remind himself that this was still a ship, with biological parts harmonized with mechanical redundancies and safeties. He scuffled down a few meters to an emergency sphincter hatch and pushed it open, falling out wet and sticky into a bunch of veins and wiring.
It was quiet here, and damp, he checked his environmental suit and slowly got up, his shoulders brushing either side of the cramped space he was in. The powerful throbs of the ship’s primary nutrient pump indicated he was somewhere near Tier Zero, where all the nutrients were refined, filtered, and used. The small tunnel he had emerged from was no higher than his head, and he idly reached for his utility belt. Shit, his utility belt. It was missing, it must have gotten lost in the tunnel. There was no way he could heave himself back up there in this heavy suit. He checked for breathable air. There was. He detached the suit’s glove first, making sure his pressure gauges weren’t lying to him. They weren’t. He then opened the external air valve, sampling the air. It was good enough. He slipped out of his suit as fast as he could, surprised all the noise hadn’t sent something to investigate. He had to find his utility belt. It held his plasma charges. He should have armed them while he was being sucked in. Stupid stupid!
A hint of claustrophobia began to sink in, and he steadied his breath to assuage a panic attack. He was alone here, not wanting to risk his crew in case the ship did retaliate violently. Stupid ship, it hadn’t yet. It should have.
The sole sound of nutrients being pumped was interrupted by more violent ruffling somewhere farther down the nutrient tunnel. He slowly reached for the passive sensor in his utility bel—he cursed and unslung his rifle instead, activating its optics and its passive sensor. He slowly scanned down the corridor with it, increasing the gain until there was nothing but a myriad of digital red and green lines cluttering the scope. He must have imagined the noise. He activated the rifle’s active sensor and aimed it down the tunnel, increasing its strength until it was humming in his hands. Still nothing. He slowly slewed it left, then behind him, then slowly brought it back arou—SQUEEP!—He ducked, a plasma bolt burned through the bulkheads in front and behind him. He ran down the corridor, the nutrient pump becoming louder and louder, drowning out his panting and footsteps. He didn’t know how much farther he could go before he fell into some form of incinerating contraption or whatever the hell these beems digested with. He tripped over something metallic in the darkness and came crashing to the ground with beeping rifle in hand. He veered it towards where he ran and activated the sensor again—SQUEEP!—He fired at the signature, the powerful sabot penetrating the thin membranoid walls and exploding in a flurry of shrapnel. The target was still standing, blinding his rifle’s sensors as it fired a hail of screeching fire back at him. He was crawling now, keeping his head low as the plasma particles shrieked past, using whatever metallic thing he tripped on as cover. The sound of footsteps grew gradually louder as his opponent came to investigate the carnage. Who was it? This didn’t make sense. Why wasn’t the ship retaliating? More weapons fire from his opponent as it made sure he was dead, the plasma rounds deflecting off the small mechanical object he was hiding behind like pellets on Vorchan hide. He felt the mechanical object with his hands. It had the profile of a maintenance drone, but why wasn’t it moving? The ship wasn’t dead, the pumps were active. Then it all clicked for him, but he feared it was too late. Neural inhibition… the Coalition had come to retrieve their monster. He steadied his breathing and nerves. This cover was miniscule, probably useless now, his attacker close enough to fire well over it. He steadied his breathing even more, basically holding his breath, keeping the rifle pointed at where he assumed the attacker would appear, quietly programming a burst sequence. With him lying on his stomach with his thermal jumpsuit, rifle resting in his hands with a dead man’s grip, he might be able to feign death long enough to get a burst off.
“Are you the Captain of this ship?” asked a girl’s voice, seeing through the façade.
“The Captain turned, didn’t he? Went rogue—stole the ship for himself.” Lance asked, noticing the girl was standing right next to him with rifle lowered.
“Who are you?” she asked.
She was young, very young, an adolescent. This wasn’t uncommon for the Coalition. Lance didn’t let age affect his thoughts on how dangerous she was. Single words were now the difference between life and death—slight movements.
“I work for Dael. I was checking this nutrient shaft.”
“Quite heavily armed for a crewman, aren’t we?” she asked, reaching behind her and retrieving the pouch that held his satchel charges. “What were you going to do with these?”
Lance swallowed.
“Were you responsible for the death of the beems at Deep Grey?” she asked.
A blinding red light illuminated all the corridors. The drone activated. The hull shuddered. Lance jumped back in fear as the drone came to life. He didn’t know what to do. The girl was gone. The torn walls around him shuddered once more, the blood seeping down the wounds clearly visible in the bright light. The drone seemed to hover off the ground for a few moments as it attached itself to one of the torn sections of the conduit, leaving a trial of oozing sealant behind it as it traveled along the cracks like some sort of mechanical snail. He was out of options. He opened a small compartment on his rifle and took out a stasis pill. He swallowed it, hoping it would keep this creature from noticing him.
–
–
4301.05.08 0719
Starship: Firefly
“It appears there’s been a delay, Matt.” said the interrogator over their usual breakfast aboard his ship’s crowded mess hall. Even Crimson seemed to be there, visible a few hundred meters away through the thick-glassed window that looked over the entire aft section of the battlecruiser. The interrogator had introduced himself as Mr. Scorvan, and the battlecruiser as Firefly.
Matt said nothing, engulfed in a mental argument with Crimson.
“Ok, Scorvy. Did you get your suit because you are an ex-Coalition officer or from the black market?”
“What?”
“Crimson believes you got it because you bought it off the black-market, but I insist you carry yourself in the manner of an officer.”
“Why thanks for the compliment, Matt. But I got this suit off the black market. Though I was drafted in one of the Coalition’s planet-side militias for a few years…”
“Crimson calls bullshit, he says those suits are impossible to steal, they use genetic markers to identify their owner.”
“Mr. Bowen, by now you must realize that everything can be purchased.”
“We’ll see about that.” Matt said challengingly.
Mr. Scorvan had become quite hospitable after the initial bureaucratic tensions on Fort VI. Matt stayed shackled in one of the asteroid settlement’s holding cells for the majority of his free time, but was escorted over to the Firefly for meals. Matt’s shackles were even removed during these outings, but three guards always flanked him, if not a little nervously after the news of Matt’s first encounter with Scorvan’s crew had spread.
“I also have some bad news for you Matt.” Scorvan said, almost with sincere regret.
“What kind of bad news?” Matt asked, his voice fluttering slightly.
“Well, during the past couple of weeks, I’m sure you’ve noticed that you and you’re ship have been allowed to sleep throughout the night, to allow your … koverans to replenish.”
“Yes, of course, so you could skimp on meal quality.” Matt said with a titter.
“Haha no, that wasn’t why. We’ve implanted neural inhibitors into the base of your ship’s neural plexus thanks to some physiological data we had acquired. He proved to be quite the sound sleeper.”
Crimson immediately tried to break free of the Firefly’s restraining clamps, and panicked when he realized he couldn’t move.
I CAN’T MOVE. he bellowed over the neural band.
Matt immediately shot up from his chair, glaring at his host. The three flanking guards raised their rifles nervously.
“I suggest you refrain from stealing any more plasma rifles or shooting any more of my men, Matt, the neural link to your ship can be severed in an instant.”
It suddenly became very cramped as Matt’s senses were confined to those that were transmitted from the inferior ocular bulbs situated in his skull.
A feeling of infinite trepidation engulfed him as his vulnerability became apparent.
“I suggest you sit down, Matt.” Scorvan said calmly, still wearing his usual grin.
The mess hall was now dead quiet, with the sounds of the plasma rifles charging reverberating through the surprisingly acoustic chamber.
“Please, Matt. I could have not said anything.”
“When. Did. This. Happen?” Matt asked with razor sharp intonation.
Scorvan’s eyes widened slightly, but he recovered almost instantly, “A few days ago. I assure you there is no permanent damage.”
“You took away his freedom.” Matt muttered, looking over at Crimson. He could almost imagine his black ocular strips focusing on him desperately, trying to make out his shape in the tinted window.
“Well I thought that was implied when I said I was selling you. Did you think the shackles were cosmetic?”
“Well… I—“
“You just thought you’d be able to escape whenever you want, didn’t you? Get a free dinner for you and your ship? I’m not that gullible!”
Matt said nothing, sitting back down and exhaling dolefully.
“May I at least have the link with my ship back?” Matt asked quietly, prodding the food with his fork.
“Of course,” Scorvan said, tapping a few commands into a wrist-guard he had on his right hand. The neural interface immediately analyzed the wrist-guard with Crimson’s database.
A type-4 remote interface device. Civilian issue, capable of basic binary output. FRAGILE.
“I merely de-activated the link temporarily to ensure we all know where we stand— “
A superheated fork flitted across the room at high speed, digging itself into the wrist-guard and short-circuiting it with a noisy crackle. The neural inhibitor immediately went offline, and Crimson deployed his AHC, an adaptive hypervelocity cannon hidden beneath his dorsal carapace, it telescoped out until it had a barrel diameter of less than three millimetres. He loaded one of several rounds into the breech. He had been working on these rounds for the last few weeks. They were four meter long multi-stage kinetic darts, with a koveran-based reactive tip and a built-in distortion drive. He fired one into the mess hall, the high velocity charge cutting through the battlecruiser’s fractured plate with the koveran-aided dart, and slicing through the energy cell of one of the soldiers that was raising his plasma rifle. The resulting explosion incinerated everything within a five meter radius, everything except for Matt, who was being protected by an electro-static koveran field emitted by his ship. The air seemed to flutter for a moment and the sound dimmed as redundancies kicked in and sealed the decompression in a matter of seconds. Scorvan had been just out of range.
Panic struck the remainder of the crew inside the mess hall, shouts warbled across the large chamber as people fled or took cover behind furniture.
Crimson fired again, the adjacent armour plates having been weakened significantly. This shot was aimed directly at Scorvan.
He missed. Scorvan ducked out of the way with inhuman reflexes, and the blast-proof door leading into the mess hall was knocked open instead. Matt took this opportunity to leg it, and sprinted the ten meters or so to the exit. Several people raised their pistols and rifles at him and began to fire, but the shots either missed or were grounded by his electrostatic field.
The moment Matt exited the mess hall, Crimson fired another round, depressurizing the chamber once more and forcing an emergency bulkhead to slide over the exit Matt had just taken, separating him from a very antagonized Scorvan.
“Holy shit, what now!” Matt yelled and transmitted.
Ovals appeared in his neural vision, showing him the route to take, as well as outlining several armed soldiers that were approaching from different corridors.
Run. I’ll give fire support where I can, but this battlecruiser’s armour is pretty thick, and my koveran reserves are running low. I’ll barely have enough to beem out.
So he ran, watching the silhouettes become real and very startled people as they raised their weapons at Matt’s sudden passing before he disappeared down another corridor, and another.
Where am I going?
The docking port.
But you aren’t there! You’re still tied up in those fucking rope things.
I’ll be fine—
The neural interface shut down again, the inhibitor must have activated. The silhouettes disappeared, the ovals were gone. Matt was running down the corridors blindly now. He cursed under his breath, running past a pair of armed crewmen that were in the corridor perpendicular to his. He wasn’t even sure if he was going the right way anymore. He reached a t-junction. He didn’t know which way to turn, there were people appearing in the corridor behind him a few dozen meters away.
Left! Crimson exclaimed.
Matt immediately started running left.
No your other left!
Matt stopped and turned around instantly, running past the corridor where the soldiers were and ducking as several plasma rounds exploded behind him. Matt felt an agonizing pain in the back of his neck and reached over to feel it, fearing that he had been hit.
That’s a phantom-signal. I had to pry out the neural inhibitor with one of my maintenance drones.
The welcoming ovals returned, and he followed them as fast as he could.
Ok so this is the tricky bit. Crimson transmitted.
Tricky how?
Well in the next corridor you’ll have reached this ship’s starboard docking hatch. I’ve broken free of the restraints but my projections indicate that you’ll be incinerated before I finish my docking procedure.
Of course, so—
SOOO, I’m going to blow the docking hatch open with a high-yield energy round powered by my main capacitor, and then pick you up from outer space.
From outer space? Matt transmitted, turning right towards the final corridor.
Yes, you ready?
No.
Firing.
I hate you.
The docking hatch exploded inwards towards him. Matt was about to bring his arms up to shield himself, but his body wasn’t responding. Time seemed to slow down as the hatch sped towards him. It would kill him flying directly at him like that. Suddenly the hatch and all of the adjacent debris particles seemed to freeze in time, and both he and the hatch got sucked out into space as the corridor depressurized.
You can hold your breath if you want… or something. Whatever makes you feel better.
I… hate… you! Matt transmitted, grateful he didn’t have to open his mouth to convey his thoughts.
You’re already suffering from hypothermia… interesting, I thought you’d contain your body heat better. I’ll have you scooped up in a moment.
—-you don’t get hypo in space after 30 seconds, cannot radiate the heat effectively. you will have all the air forced out of your body cuz of the negative pressure. Err and radiation-=——-
Matt could barely see Crimson as he approached him head-on, doing a quick one-hundred and eighty degree turn while keeping his vector unperturbed. He opened his starboard cargo bay door and scooped Matt into the welcoming warm chambers. He then used the inertia-dampening effects of his distortion field to keep Matt from splattering up against the far side wall, while simultaneously positioning his skids and shunting power from his nova reactor into his beem veins for the beem sequence. If Scorvan were looking out his mess hall windows at that moment, rather than suffering from an apoplectic attack at the loss of his bounty, he would see the pattern of beem veins on Crimson’s hull light up to a bright red as koveran particles traveled down the three points on Crimson’s stern and excited the glands on the tips of his skids and nose, firing an infinite amount of energy into the space a few meters ahead of him. The Beems Hybrid slid through the subspace interstice instantly, disappearing from conventional space.
–
–
4301.05.08 0801
Space Shuttle: Y-12
Marina couldn’t believe her eyes as she watched the ship stretch into beemspace a mere hundred meters away from her. The stealthed shuttle she was in being the only shield she had against the gravimetric disturbances as her target disappeared.
“Pending’s gonna be pissed…” she muttered, flying back to the Kahless as quickly as she could. Her shuttle wouldn’t show up on any sensors so long as she rode the Hybrid’s gravimetric wake back to Kahless. Or so she hoped, she had been expecting to take the actual ship back to Kahless, not the same shit shuttle she had arrived in.
She ignored the bemused ‘what happened?’ expression on the captain’s face and had him jump straight to Zemoria. Kahless used her tips as antennae, sensing for recent gravimetric disturbances. There was nothing here, no koveran based signature, no Hybrid.
“It must have jumped somewhere else, some outer world, like a floral planet or something like that.” Marina explained.
“YOU SAID YOU WOULD RECOVER THE HYBRID!” Pending yelled over the comms. channel. She was thankful she was alone in Kahless’ communications chamber.
“Their inhibitor failed somehow!”
“You failed somehow!” Pending gibbered, hitting the holomonitor with a towel and disrupting the feed for several seconds.
She let out an array of curses in those moments of privacy before the feed returned.
Pending must have done something similar, as he looked significantly calmer. He swallowed, “Ok, this is what we do. You stay on Zemoria, make sure any news of this Hybrid, no matter how big or small, is immediately erased! I’ll upload a few crawler programs into your datapal that can assist you.”
“I’d rather follow it, it’s—“
“YOU’VE DONE ENOUGH DAMAGE.”
“Please!”
Pending took a deep breath, “We need you there, Marina. In case the Hybrid decides to go to Zemoria after all.”
“But who will pursue it, nobody else in Deep Grey’s division is as qualified as me!”
“We’ll find someone equally loyal and capable from another division.”
“What other division? A division like Deep Grey’s?”
“Focus on your mission, Marina.” He cut the link.
For a moment Marina wondered if there were any other BH projects, maybe run by a different division. Secrecy was paramount in the Coalition. Scorvan had assumed the ship was one of a kind by the design alone. Scorvan was an idiot though – he could have been rich had he played his cards right.
Her datapal rang, startling her.
“Identify.” she said reflexively.
“David Sarune, trans-spatial.” the datapal chimed.
“Answer – what is it David? How did you contact me?” she asked.
“Freya’s captain told me you were aboard Kahless. I’m being transferred!”
Freya was most likely a beems. They were extremely good at beemspace transmissions.
“Transferred where?” Marina asked.
“Ha – like you really care. Either way I don’t know. I just thought I’d talk to you in case there were no beemspace transmitters to reserve there.”
David had been interested in her since she had started basic training. It was painfully obvious, even though he had never admitted to it. He was such a romancer though, probably having been through a dozen girls already. Not that there was anything wrong with that, since the Coalition endorsed it, and it wasn’t like there were any consequences. Any fertilized eggs were just plugged into a womb-tank. But it was wrong for her. She wanted to be more than just a successful lay. She was probably the millionth girl he’d called… billionth.
“That’s very sweet of you, David.” she said in a tinny voice.
In his defence, he was going pretty far: using a beems to locate his marks.
“So where has the Coalition been taking you off to? The rumours have been spreading; Dora thinks you’re an assassin!” David exclaimed.
“An assassin? Wouldn’t that be something.” Marina replied disinterestedly. This really wasn’t the time for small talk.
“Well you did score top in your class in marksmanship and social engineering!”
Was he trying to impress her with the stalkerish details he knew of her?
“I really don’t feel like talking right now, David.” she said finally.
”Is something wrong?”
“I’m in the middle of something. We’ll talk later.”
“Alright, we’re jumping now anyways, see you arou—“
She cut the link manually, holding the datapal in front of her, staring.
“What a player.” she muttered, putting the datapal away.
It was such a short conversation, had she come off as too harsh? Why didn’t he talk to her longer, not that it mattered. No. It didn’t matter. He didn’t really care. He didn’t! The jump alibi was probably what he used on all the other girls too, to cut the time between each conversation short. She had enough friends to be aware of the tactics employed.
“DP, locate David Sarune.”
“Locating…” the DP said in its canned, monotone, standard-male-preset-one voice. “David Sarune is not in conventional space.”
“Kahless, if you’re listening, can you please locate David Sarune and tell me where he really is?”
A red screen with CLASSIFIED written across it appeared in her datapal, disappearing the moment she gave it a good stare.
“Hmm…”
–
–
–