McCall let the bags slide from each shoulder just inside the door. He arched his shoulders, feeling the dull pain which filled him change with each movement of his muscles. Three long weeks, three horrible weeks of near sleepless nights and the mild, but ever present fear which only the unknown can cause, and he had gained nothing more than this pain. Come to think of it he had something else to show for it. The miniature barbs which penetrated deep into his left palm, a reminder never to touch plants you aren’t familiar with, could not be removed without surgery.
A quick shower removed the smell he’d built up and he tossed the laundry into the machine at the end of the hall. The fridge had little in it, but he rummaged around until finding a grapefruit as well as lettuce and chicken. Three weeks in the jungle had left him with an urge to avoid native foodstuffs. Normally McCall mixed earthlife and NC foods without complaint. Now he looked disdainfully at the food in his fridge. He made salad with the lettuce and chicken and dropped chunks of grapefruit in it. He didn’t just need variety, NC foods were too different in makeup from their Terran counterparts. Vitamin deficiencies had likely already reached unhealthy levels.
The Data-Nets were buzzing as always. McCall set out to makeup several weeks worth of information deprivation in an hour, and maybe get a lead for some new work. He ate while scanning the news briefs without interface because he wanted to use up some time.
It didn’t take long until something caught his attention. Somebody had found another Outsider colony a hundred light years rimward and analysts and the prominent proxies were making predictions of every sort based on the discovery. A few suggested attempting to open diplomatic relations with the Outsiders, most stressed the need to remain hidden from them. McCall didn’t think it would be hard to hide. The evidence suggested the Outsiders were xenophobes, isolationists and afraid of AI’s and they were still a long way off. A lonely few advocated war, the others ridiculed them, asking how New Canaan could wage war across that distance, against an opponent of unknown size, when New Canaan’s population was under two million and only two-thirds were human.
McCall moved quickly to the governments net and instructed his proxy broker to flag the names of those that had advocated diplomacy or war as undesirable for future reference. In response to the publics concern over the news the systems military had announced the completion of the Mercury, an Armaggedon class battleship. In the early days after the end of the Flight it was recognized that the very few humans now inhabiting this region of space, as always they weren’t including the Outsiders, might need to defend themselves against the far more numerous members of alien civilizations they were in contact with.
The Armageddon Fleet was the best answer anyone had come up with. Twelve ships were to be built, each named for one of the bodies within the Sol System that humanity had inhabited before the coming of the Marauders. They likely couldn’t protect humanity from extinction, but they could prevent invasion and the ability to retaliate had been foremost in the minds of the designers. The ships were large, but there were larger. Their strength lie in the ships brain. They were piloted by AI’s rumored to be of extreme ability. Most spacecraft are a shell inhabited by a crew. These ships were rocks. Solid from the outer layers of armor down to the core with the A.I. protected in the center. In the central cavity glowing blue-green tubes dangled from A.I. constructs, their arcing bands supported by immersion in acceleration gel, leaving the ship able accelerate faster than a biological crew could survive. They had never been needed, but the Founders had been survivalist with centuries of training and they had urged preparation to the point of paranoia.
None of this was any use as far as work was concerned and his last contracts provision for an early ending mission had left him practically broke. He’d dropped his savings into equipment for the expedition and the pay had failed to reimburse even that.
There was a lot of discussion over a new problem with the Burrows atmospheric controls. McCall looked out his window at the dome which rose over the Sandling Embassy. They were having problems stabilizing the nitrogen levels in the giant desert terrarium.
The city stretched out beneath him, reaching from the coastal ridgeline to the sea. The buildings were laid out among the rings of roads that landers had seared into the ground with fusion thrusters two hundred and sixty years before. They’d since been paved, but their paths still shaped construction in the city.
Those very landers lay in the city’s center, just inside the oldest buildings. The landers themselves had served as communal homes and offices until permanent structures were erected. The city grew taller and newer as it receded from the landing site. Halfway to the outer high rises sat the government buildings. Four of them. Three were identical and arranged in a triangle. The buildings themselves were bluish three sided towers. The Redcaps, the Military and the Courts. In their center sat the Proxy Council. A relatively small structure, it was a low wide triangle built of the local black stone.
He focused on the nearer two towers. Was that where he was headed? He had resisted joining the Redcaps and the Marines for a long time. The Redcaps held no interest for him. Police work was decent pay, but people, and Centaurs, became Redcaps for the prestige. Having graduated from the Academy a person could expect an extra look over for just about any job.
The military however, he had truly considered. A ten year Marine enlistment, if one could survive and complete entry training, guaranteed not only prestige, but travel and cybernetic enhancements required for your job. McCall had always wanted to do indie work, but those enhancements were hellishly expensive for someone young and without capital. The Marines would give them to him in exchange for ten years, after which he could find work on his own.
But all that order. That lifestyle was voluntary slavery and he just couldn’t bring himself to sign the papers. He’d backed out during the swearing in eight years ago in that very building. The officer behind the lectern had caught his eye with a look of disapproval. He could have done it though. He would have made it through training and he would have had just two years left till retirement now.
He’d come too close to making it on his own now, he didn’t want to start over. How long could he hold out though? He was broke. McCall turned from the window and moved back to his computer. He plugged the interface into the port in his forearm this time and reclined in his chair. His mind swam. He pulled up the information he’d been avoiding. The obituaries. There it was. Johann Xiang. There weren’t a lot of details. His immediate relatives, age, and plans for his recycling. There was a short recount of his death and a recommendation that further inquiry be referred to the NC Native Biology Archive with a specific request for information on Spindle Tree Symbiotes.
That bastard had cost McCall a job. He had no pity for Johann. The man had been careless and the planet had made him pay. Would you mourn a man who removed his pressure suit in vacuum? Johann hadn’t done anything that stupid, but stupidity got what stupidity deserved, you just hoped nobody else had to suffer for it. McCall should never have agreed to the contract. He’d been too eager. The "Early Out" provision had left him with one weeks pay for three weeks work and all the bonuses had been contingent on completion of the full term.
Reluctantly, he began to search for work outright. He contacted every potential employer, followed up on certain news articles, and never stopped thinking of the triangular building which offered financial reprieve.
Four hours in he received a message.
You can find me at the Red Lantern tonight.
Please come packed. We are planning a bit
of a trip.
ID 4718921
McCall anxiously ran an identification check. It belonged to a woman named Sharrael Evans. A second search located the Red Lantern. A restaurant/bar in Port Town, on the opposite side of the planet. He scanned the menu. It consisted of earthlife vegetation combined with native sealife and the prices were high. Hopefully, she’d be paying. Her reservation was there, for two and at 1900 standard, which gave him six hours to make the trip.
He packed his bags with clothes and armor. A thorough weapons breakdown and cleaning on the livingroom floor took half an hour and he decided he had enough time left to clean and reload a stack of magazines. The Magrifle went over his shoulder and the pistol into a loop in his jacket liner.
He left the buildings lobby a few moments later. The protesters chants didn’t follow him as he walked. They saw the rifle and assumed he was joining the protest. The magtube was only a few minutes away and it would take him to the skyport. He’d catch a semi-orbital there and be at the restaurant in plenty of time. He looked at the triangular military tower in the distance and hoped this job came through. He could still hear the creaking sound of his credit about to collapse.