Rarely in the history of the universe has the fate of a galaxy hinged on such a simple thing as a bar brawl. But then, rarely does the universe try to be predictable.

 

Ace was in a foul mood to begin with. He had lost his new cruiser in a poker game last week, and today he actually had to ride the public transport to work. Do you have any idea how humiliating it is for the most famous space pilot in the galaxy to have to ride in the back of a space craft piloted by a fat, middle aged balding zortarian?

 

To top it all off, the new commander of the squadron had arrived yesterday. Ace could tell at first glance that they would not get along. Typical fast tracker, this guy could not possibly have been out of diapers when Ace graduated from the Academy. Ace was already irritated at being passed over for promotion to commander to begin with, add to that a superior arrogance that just rankled Ace from the get go and it was a sure thing that they would tangle sooner or later. As fate would have it, it came sooner than later.

 

The Hangar was the acknowledged hangout for space pilots in this quadrant. The 201st Screaming Dragons were known for being a rough and tumble unit, and the Hangar was their off duty home. Other spacers were welcome, as long as they followed the rules. If not, they were quickly shown the door, usually face first. All incoming officers were required by tradition to take their first dinner in the club. Commander Olbandan had protested, but eventually relented and accompanied all of his other senior officers to the club. This group should have included Ace, but he drew garrison duty that morning and had arrived after the party was well underway. Not feeling like joining the party, he took a seat in the opposite corner, where non squadron spacers usually hung out. He ordered a stiff drink and a slightly less stiff chaser. When the stiff drink had disappeared in two huge swallows, he sat nursing the weaker drink and staring at the inane antics playing out on the holovision over the bar. The forced laughter of the other officers dining with the new commander drifted through the smoky air towards him and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. One of the officers was actually standing up, proposing a toast to the new commander. Ace stifled an urge to throw something across the bar, but his hands trembled nonetheless.

 

Fate chose that moment to cross Ace’s path with that of a rather inebriated merchant spacer. His mining freighter was docked at the space station for repairs, and he was visiting all of the clubs in town trying to spend every last dime of his paycheck on synthehol. He staggered up to the bar, and chose the stool next to Ace. He slurred an order for more booze to the bartender, and then turned his head unsteadily to Ace. Ace did his level best to pretend that the man did not exist, but failed miserably when the man clapped him roughly on the shoulder and pointing to the unit crest mounted above the mirror behind the bar asked in a loud voice:

      “Hey, what’s the big deal about the stupid bird? Ain’t those things extinct? Who cares about some stupid bird who ain’t even smart enough to avoid extinction?”

He brayed laughter at his clever joke, and shook Ace’s shoulder back and forth for emphasis. Ace decided that he was in the mood to kill, but was not quite ready to expend the energy on this waste of flesh just yet. Instead, he silently stood up and moved down the bar a few stools, and signaled the bartender for another drink. The drunken spacer stared after him for a minute, as his impaired brain tried to decide whether or not this should be taken as an insult. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that it should, and he staggered down the bar to where Ace was just tipping up his new drink. He reached out and tapped the bottom of the glass, upending it and spilling it all down the front of Ace’s uniform. Again braying his insane laughter, the spacer pointed to the dark stain and remarked:

      “Say there flyboy, it looks like you got a drinking problem! Watch out you don’t go extinct like them stupid eagle!”

 

Ace slowly sat his glass back on the bar, still staring straight ahead. The bartender, having witnessed the entire scene tried desperately to save his bar from the impending thrashing that was about to ensue.

      “Ace, forget that guy, I’ll have him thrown out, and your drinks are on the house tonight. Let it go! Please?” The last word squeaked out almost fearfully as Ace turned to look in the direction of the bartender. The bartender had seen that look in his eyes before, and knew that little this side of a sudden super nova in the near vicinity of the bar would prevent the impending brawl.

      “Got nothing to say huh? Wassa matter flyboy? Afraid to fight a real pilot?” the drunk was now right in Ace’s face. Ace pushed slowly back from the bar, and then stood up. He slowly brushed the ice from the front of his blouse, and then turned, as if to go. His hands gripped the back of the bar stool with white knuckles and he muttered through clenched lips:

      “Not today piggy, you didn’t just do that… not today.”

The drunk spacer mistakenly interpreted this to mean that he was going to leave the bar, and triumphantly crowed:

      “That’s right flyboy, you just get on out of…”

He was cut off in mid sentence as the bar stool suddenly flashed up and arced down square in the middle of his face. He flew backwards and sprawled weakly in the middle of a group of [aliens] playing some complex game involving white plastic tiles. Tiles and glasses flew in every direction, and the table overturned, spilling a foul brown substance in the lap of the largest Sinoan. The Sinoan looked up to see Ace striding towards the table with the bar stool still in his hands, and opened his humungous fang filled mouth in an unearthly growl. Ace never hesitated, although the drunk spacer was now sprawled on the floor. His blood was boiling, and he fully intended to beat the inert form on the floor until someone stopped him. This happened sooner than he expected however, as the Sinoan leaped over the overturned table and snatched the stool out of Ace’s hands with one gnarled claw while the other swung in a long arc to strike Ace high on the cheek. By now, the other members of the squadron in the club had noticed that one of their own was in trouble, and they came streaming down the stairs to join the fray. Within moments the bar was complete mayhem as human and aliens all joined in the effort to destroy anyone who came within reach.

 

Above the fray, Commander Olbandan sat stiffly at his table, his face stiff with disapproval. None of the officers had moved, glancing sideways at the new commander in an attempt to discern how he was going to react. He stood up, and snarled in a voice filled with contempt.

      “Is this the kind of place that this squadron frequents? And is it common for a senior officer to not only be involved in a brawl, but to start them? That explains a lot of what I have heard about this unit. A bunch of lazy, undisciplined…”

His angry speech was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Captain (Senior Grade) Ace Pedona at the officer’s table. He had been flung there by the large Sinoan from the lower level, and he landed in the middle of the table. Surprisingly, the table remained upright, and Ace sat up and shook his head before beginning to scoot himself to the edge of the table to rejoin the fray. Commander Olbandan stepped forward and clapped Ace on the shoulder. He opened his mouth to bark a command but Ace, acting purely on instinct swung a fist and drilled it directly into the new squadron commanders open mouth. All of the officers heard a sickening crunch as his jaw fractured, and they all stood perfectly still, their mouths hanging open as he crumpled to the floor.

 

Ace, still running red-hot didn’t even notice what had happened. He got to the edge of the table, and leapt up and over the railing and back to the fight.

 

Chapter two.

 

Ace woke up in his bed, not sure how he had gotten back there, only aware that his entire body hurt. He tried for a second to remember what had happened, but the very effort caused too much pain and he abandoned it as a useless enterprise. He lay back in bed, trying to relax and make the pounding in his head go away but the call of nature forced him to push through it and get out of bed anyway. As he passed the bathroom mirror, he looked and saw that his face was purple and swollen in more than one place, and an ugly red gash ran from ear to eye along his left cheekbone. He was not entirely surprised, as this was not the first morning that he had awoken with scars from the bar the night before. He relieved himself into the urinal, and the automatic analysis informed him that there was a high level of alcohol in his urine, and small traces of blood. It instructed him to visit the medical clinic at the first opportunity, but Ace simply muttered some obscenities in its general direction and staggered back towards the sink. He turned on the faucet and splashed water on his face. The coolness awoke him further, and the stinging from the gash on his face brought him to full consciousness. He could finally remember at least the beginning of the bar fight, the drunk spacer and the pissed Sinoan but the whole fight got kind of fuzzy after that big green toothy bastard clocked him with its claw.

 

He couldn’t escape the feeling however, that something really bad had happened. Tearing up the Hangar was not out of the ordinary, it happened with regularity at least once a month, so that was not what was weighing on his mind. He shrugged his shoulders and staggered back to the bed. Too much effort to remember things from the night before would only make his head throb more, so better to just get some more sleep and wait for the brain to repair itself enough to reconstruct the memories without blinding pain. He had just settled into a restless sleep when the entry signal followed by pounding on the door snapped him back out of it. He sat slowly up, cursing the entire ancestry of whoever dared to wake him up so early on his day off. He walked towards the door, and looked at the external monitor hanging next to it.

 

He sobered up rather suddenly when he saw the two uniformed Space Police officers standing outside in the hallway. The vague feeling that something above and beyond the typical brawl had happened last night returned, but he still couldn’t put his finger on just what it might be. He saw one of the officers raise his hand to pound on the door again, so Ace quickly yanked the door open to prevent him from doing so.

      “Yeah, I’m here. What do you want?” Ace mumbled at the two officers. The taller one, wearing non commissioned officer stripes snapped to attention and saluted.

      “Sir, we are to escort you to the squadron commander’s office immediately.” He barked out sharply.

      “On whose orders? I am off duty today.” Ace snapped back, unwilling to simply accept the young man’s statement as the final word.

      “Commander Olbandan himself sir. He is waiting for you now.”

 

Ace felt his stomach drop. He still did not remember exactly what had happened, but he was starting to worry that it had something to do with the new squadron commander. He remembered that he had been at the club last night. Hopefully, it would just be the normal lecture about behavior unbecoming an officer, setting an example for the men, all the other crap that Ace had heard a hundred times from a hundred other superior officers. What could one more lecture hurt, right?

      “All right, let me change into a clean uniform. I will be out in five minutes.” Ace snapped, and closed the door without waiting for a reply. He looked at the monitor, and saw the two officers look at each other and shrug as if to say: “what can we do?”. Ace turned back to the bathroom, and started the shower.

 

45 minutes later, Ace stood at attention in front of the squadron commander’s desk. As soon as he came in, and saw the ugly purple bruise on his face and the handwavium jaw splint, he knew exactly why he had been called here. He still was not aware that he had personally broken the commander’s jaw, but it was quite obvious that it had happened as a result of the previous night’s activities. It was also patently obvious that the commander was beyond pissed off, and that Ace might find his career shortened considerably. Fortunately, the broken jaw did not allow the commander to yell, instead, the entire lecture was hissed through his teeth. The jaw splint held his mouth closed, and saliva dripped continually down the front of his uniform blouse.

      “I should shrow you in the brig for dis…” Commander Olbandan hissed.

      “Unfortunately, you are some kind of hero in dis unit, and I faced a near mutiny at the vewy suggestion, especially with the upcoming Karos sweep. My staff seems to bewieve that having you fwown in neural westraints would dwag ‘da mowale of the entire unit down, and would affect our abiwity to wun smuggling interdiction.” He reached for a tissue on his desk and wiped a long strand of drool off of his chin.

      “However, you are on thin ice Captain Pedona. One false move and I will see you dwummed out of the Space Corps and flying a pubwic transport faster than you can say…” his tirade faded here, as he failed to find a suitable analogy.

      “You are hereby put on permanent gawison duty, every day until the Karos sweep begins. You will have to use your pewsonal time to get in your flying hours, and I am pwacing a letter of wepwimand in your permanent file.”

Commander Olbandan waved his hand at the door.

      “Now get out of my sight. I have a doctow’s appointment in five minutes.”

 

Ace spun on his heel without a word or salute and marched to the door. His headache, which had receded slightly after the shower and short ride to squadron Headquarters returned now with a vengeance. As his hand grasped the doorknob, the commander’s hissing voice called out one more insult:

      “By the way, garrison duty begins now. Report to the staff duty desk immediately.”

Ace’s hand hesitated only a second, this was nearly too much. But in no way surprising. Such was life. He left the office, stifling his desire to slam the door underneath the knowledge of what such a noise would do to his head.

 

Chapter Three – The Karos Sweep.

 

Ace reclined the seat in his small craft and leaned back, grateful for the respite from constant vigilance. He had just been relieved in his watch by the leader of the second watch, but was scheduled to return to patrol in less than four hours. Rather than consume any of the precious downtime with mundane things like docking, after operation maintenance and debriefing, he elected to simply park his ship and nap in place. His four man patrol had likewise decided to forgo a trip back to the station, and they had selected a larger than average asteroid as a temporary hangar. Not trusting the notoriously unstable surface of the asteroid enough to make an actual landing, they positioned their ships 20 or 30 meters over the surface, just close enough for their gravitic generators to create an anchor connection to the asteroids gravitic field. Close enough to the object that they were not in danger of a collision with any other objects, but far enough away to be safe from any surface debris that may result from a surface collapse or some such event.

The asteroids in this particular belt were not typical asteroids. In fact, their uniqueness was the very reason why one of the most infamous space forces squadrons were currently assigned to patrol this sector of the belt. The Karos belt was made up almost entirely of pure gravitonium. Each asteroid in the belt carried more of this extremely dense and gravnetic element than could be mined out of an entire Earth sized planet. Astrogeologists had proposed many different theories to explain its existence, ranging from a planet collision to a collapsed black hole. Regardless of how it came into existence, the asteroid belt was the center of gravitonium mining in the universe. Mining corporations had made the Karos galactic government extremely wealthy by purchasing leases for various portions of the asteroid belt. Of course, the presence of giant rocks floating freely in space attracted all kinds of unsavory characters bent on harvesting and making off with some of the valuable mineral. For this reason, the galactic space forces had built a massive sensor field all around and through the asteroid belt. Space stations ringed the belt at regular intervals, and passive sensor bots were scattered in both deliberate and random patterns throughout the asteroids. Regular patrols of small interceptor craft weaved in and out of the debris, responding to contacts on the sensor bots, and pursuing any unauthorized craft. Capture was not even a consideration, the penalty for smuggling gravitonium was death, and the patrols had orders to destroy any intercepted spacecraft.

For that purpose, the Advanced Interspace Sub light (AIS)interceptors were the best of the best when it came to sub light fighting ships. Due to the humongous power demand of gravitic propulsion and artificial gravity field generation, very few small craft utilized either. However the AIS interceptor came equipped with the latest cold fusion power plant that provided plenty of power to run  gravitic thrusters, gravitic generators capable of creating the negative gravitic pull necessary to dampen the inertial effects of acceleration and deceleration that the fighters might encounter while maneuvering at high speed thorough the debris field. Defensive measures included a gravomagnetic energy shields which would absorb and transform into electrical energy any attack on the ship including a kinetic energy warhead. The energy received from the attack, including the kinetic energy of a high speed projectile would be drained away as it passed through a weak warp field kept in place around the ship by a gravomagnetic bubble. The energy bled off and back into the warp generator, which could use the extra power to continue generating the warp field. In an intense battle, where the ship was constantly taking hits from enemies or by colliding with space debris the shield system could very well become self sustaining. If the absorbed energy ever exceeded the ship’s power needs, an exhaust system would instead convert the energy to heat, which in turn would heat the helium gas vented by the fusion power plant and vent it as a plasma into the cold vacuum of space.

Offensive armaments included the standard plasma projectile mini guns as well as guided fission missiles, neutron bursters, and an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) generator.

All in all, the squadrons patrolling the Karos belt were feared throughout the galactic smuggling community. Very few had the temerity to confront them openly. Most of the effort to obtain gravitonium from the asteroids was focused on stealth and deception. Disregarding the very real danger of being detected and destroyed, the astronomical prices for gravitonium on the black market ensured that plenty were willing to give it a try, although very few succeeded.

Ace and his four companions were nearing the end of their rest period when they were all awakened by the all hands signal from their comm units on the squadron command net.

      “All teams, come to full alert instantly. We have experienced a massive sensor bot failure all across the delta sector. Go to one hundred percent security immediately. Team leaders, execute patrol patterns six one alpha until further notice.”

The message repeated once more on all team channels and the team leaders began calling to confirm compliance in order of their team designation. Ace waited until the golf team had replied and then he keyed his mike and relayed the readiness of hotel team. His team had responded without a word from him, countless hours of drilling ensured that they knew the procedures before he even spoke them. He saw the dull red glow of the fusion exhaust vents on the ships in front of him glare brightly as the space craft one by one came to life. He punched a button on his own console and felt the slight shudder as the gravitic anchor released its hold on the weak gravitic pull of the asteroid. As soon as his power indicator switched from amber to green, indicating that his power plant was back to full power, he switched his transmitter to the hotel team channel and requested readiness reports from his team. One by one, in the proper order they responded and he felt a certain satisfaction and pride that they worked as such a well oiled machine. Once he was certain that they were all ready, he gave the order and they all pulled away from the asteroid in tight formation. Patrol pattern six alpha dictated that they make visual contact with the team on their right, and then fan out, maintaining visual contact with each other until they made contact with the team on their left. Once horizontal contact was established, they would then look up and left to make four points of reference between their own team and the teams in adjacent sectors. In the blackness of space, visual recognition was next to impossible, the asteroid belt was far enough from the binary stars at the center of the system that they appeared as nothing more than extra points of light in the dark velvet of space. The visors each pilot wore over their face as part of the uniform were linked to the external sensors, which gave the pilot the illusion of being outside his or her own craft. One of the first things a space pilot learned was the imperative need to memorize the location of every control on the console. Although the heads up display provided some controls which the pilot could manipulate and activate using ocular movements, much of the work was done the old fashioned way, with two steady hands at the controls.

Maneuvering controls consisted of two slightly rounded mounds, with the imprint of the pilot’s own hands slightly impressed into it. The pilot would place his or her hands on the imprint, and by swiveling the mounds would direct the directional thrusters to give the craft direction. Ace loved the feel of the hand prints, and often while flying he would have the unmistakable feeling that they had actually merged and become a single entity with the ship as their exoskeleton.

Today however, he felt an unusual tension in the air. Patrol pattern six alpha was the highest level of readiness and the tightest amount of control that the squadron used to control a sector of the belt. Although sensor bots failed all the time, even widespread failures generally resulted in nothing more than an increased level of alert until the sensor carriers could make it to the affected sector and replace the missing bots. Many different things could cause the bots to fail en masse. An asteroid collision of a sufficient size could result in a fine cloud of gravitonium, which blinded the sensors and if large enough, could cause a small, localized electro magnetic pulse which destroyed anything electronic in the region. However this type of event was easily measurable, and the only concern was to plug the hole in the sensor net with interceptors until full connectivity was restored. Calling the squadron to one hundred percent readiness and instituting such a restrictive patrol pattern gave Ace the feeling that something more was going on than a simple bot failure.

      “Team hotel, this is team leader, keep your eyes open and your guns hot. I have a bad feeling about this.” Ace spoke evenly on the team channel.

      “Team leader, this is hotel three, do we have any intel on the situation yet?” replied a clear female voice.

      “You know as much as I do hotel three, but we both know how often we pull six alpha.” Ace spoke back. “Something is going on.”

The rest of the team communication for the next few minutes revolved around the tight maneuvering and contact with the four other teams they would be contacting. Ace checked his operations manual for this mission, and was reassured that Baldo Monson would be the team leader to his right. He flipped to the correct channel, and listening to ensure it was clear transmitted to the team leader of echo team.

      “Echo team lead, this is hotel team lead. Are your folks in position yet?” For a few minutes, only the humming of the inertial dampeners could be heard but then the familiar voice of Baldo cut through the darkness.

      “Hotel team lead, this is echo lead. We have been here for hours, where are you?” The playfulness in the voice was evident, and Ace grinned under his visor. Only Baldo would have the guts to crack jokes on the open channel when the squadron was at high alert. His sense of humor was the only thing that had kept him from moving into higher command, just as Ace’s predilection to bar brawls had held him back.

      “Echo lead, we are just a few minutes out. Watch for my right hand ship coming into position any second.” Ace answered, just as serious as before, although a grin still hovered around the corners of his mouth.

      “We’ll try not to blast him out of the sky when he shows up. But you never know, we do seem to be at red alert…” Baldo replied, completely disregarding the strict communications protocols instituted by commander Olbandan. His indiscretion did not go unnoticed either. Commander Olbandan’ voice cut across the channel almost immediately.

      “Echo lead this is Eagle lead, cut the chatter and stick to protocol. Hotel Lead, pull your team and head back to station. Tango Lead, move your team and take up Hotel’s position. Acknowledge.”

 

Ace paused in disbelief. Return to station? What in the hell for? It was Baldo making the smart alec comments on the comm channel, why was he being pulled off. In the few seconds that Ace took to puzzle over this turn of events, Eagle Lead came back on the channel, his impatience evident even over the comm link.

      “Hotel Lead, acknowledge immediately! Return to station, have your team stand down. Report to the operations room to assist.” Olbandan barked impatiently.

      “Eagle Lead, we are already in position, we just came off of rest cycle. My team is ready to go. Request that we be allowed to remain.” Ace replied, somewhat hesitantly. He was beginning to feel the anger welling up in him as he suddenly realized exactly why he was being sent back to the rear.

      “Hotel Lead, you have your orders. Acknowledge immediately.” Olbandan was unbending, and Ace was positive he could hear a note of triumphant derision in his voice.

      “Roger. Team Hotel acknowledges. Returning to station.” Ace spit bitterly into the comm link. Switching channels, he transmitted to his team.

      “Team Hotel, form up on me, looks like we are getting the day off today.” He could imagine the groans of disappointment as each of the pilots realized what that meant. Rather than being a good thing, it would mean only that they would all be sitting around the space station, performing maintenance on their craft or other menial tasks, waiting for the other pilots to return and regale them with tales of the action they had missed.

Each of the pilots acknowledged the command, and despite his disappointment, Ace was proud to note that although the disappointment was clear in each of their voices, not one hesitated to acknowledge, and immediately moved to obey the command. Ace knew that his team was easily among the best, which made it even more obvious why Commander Olbandan was sending them out of the fight. Ever since Ace had broken his jaw in the bar brawl in the Hangar, Olbandan had had it in for Ace. Every crappy detail that came along, every chance to embarrass him in front of others, every chance to sabotage him he took advantage of. Ace’s life had become a living hell since then, and this was just the latest in that series of personal attacks. Ace had tried applying for a transfer, but all transfer requests had to go through the squadron commander, who had naturally denied it without explanation. Even the members of his team received persecution, this event being a perfect example. He did his best to protect them from it, but there was little he could do in most cases.

 

As they approached the space station, flying in close formation, Hotel Three called Ace on the team’s private channel.

      “Sir, why did we get pulled back out there? If the situation is so serious, how can they afford to yank even one team out?” she asked incredulously. Ace took a deep breath and considered carefully before answering. Caitlin Cantu, call sign Hotel Three was the rookie of Ace’s team. She was an excellent pilot, with the speed and reactions only youth could provide. However, she was still pretty green, and completely naïve when it came to the politics of a military unit.

      “Cantu, not sure what the commander has in mind exactly…” Ace hedged, not wanting to criticize the commander on even their private channel. It was not completely impossible that it could be monitored even now.

      “We can discuss this when we are all dismounted. Now just focus on docking and then we can figure out what we can do to help from here.”

      “Roger sir, understood.” She replied, and Ace was surprised to realize that she meant that more literally than it sounded on the surface. Maybe she was less naïve than they all thought.

 

As the team began docking one at a time at the space station, Ace held back as usual waiting until all of his team members were safely docked before beginning his landing run. As the last ship descended slowly to the docking bay, Ace heard some urgent traffic on the squadron command channel.

      “Eagle Ops, this is Echo Lead. We have some activity over here. Nothing visual yet, but gravitic sensors report something massive moving around out there.” Baldo’s voice had lost all of its humor, and was now all business.

      “Echo Lead, there is no authorized traffic in your sector. You have weapons free. Engage anything you find.”

      “Roger Ops, weapons free.”

The last ship had landed, and the docking station signaled Ace to begin his docking maneuver. However, his hands remained motionless on the controls. That slight feeling of unease had just blossomed into a full blown premonition.

      “Mayday… Ops, this is Echo, we have contact… We are caught in a grav…”

Ace started as the familiar voice of his buddy screamed through the system then just as suddenly went silent. Instantly he punched up the situational awareness display and found the last known position of the Echo team. Their icons were all moving towards each other, and one or two were actually on top of each other already and had turned grey, the color the computer used to indicate that the transponder was no longer communicating. At least that was how the instructors explained it to the pilots. In real life, everyone recognized that the transponder was probably the most protected piece of equipment on the craft, and that by the time it had quit communicating, there was not much else left. In short, a non communicating transponder meant a dead pilot and destroyed craft.  Without a second thought, Ace pulled his ship around in a tight circle and headed for the coordinates. He knew that he would catch hell for this, but there was no way he was going to sit in the ops center while his friend might already be dead out there.

The docking controller began sputtering angry commands at Ace, but he ignored them and shut the channel. There was only one thing he cared about right now, and some flunky flight controller was not it. As he accelerated to the coordinates, the voices coming across the net became more frantic and frightened. Echo team’s channel was silent, but the nearby teams were scrambling to fill the gap and find out what had happened. The display now showed all of the Echo team ships in a single location and all gray. Ace swore and accelerated even more. Flying through an asteroid belt at this speed was tricky at best, and the shield generators were already beginning to heat up from the near constant impact of debris.

      “Eagle Ops, this is Foxtrot six, we have lost our lead, no mayday, nothing. Our sensors are not picking up anything but the gravitic disturbance! No Infrared, no gamma, nothing!” The frantic voice was also familiar to Ace, a very good pilot, not prone to excitement or panic.

      “Foxtrot six, pull your team out. All teams, pull back to pattern niner six delta until we can figure out what is out there.”

      “Eagle Ops! Our ships are caught in some sort of gravitic well, we can’t break free! Our thrusters…” the transmission cut off and for a second, nothing but silence flooded the channel.

Ace checked his nav display and saw that he should be getting close to visual range now. A sudden transmission caught him off guard, and he started at the anger and vehemence he heard in it.

      “Pedona what in the hell are you doing out there? I thought I ordered you back an hour ago! Get your stupid ship out of there before…” Ace slapped the volume control and reduced the voice to a whisper, then shrugged and cut the comm link altogether. He knew he was in trouble, but he had an idea what was happening and was not about to sit back and watch it happen. The descriptions of the struggling ships over the comm link reminded him of a battle they had been in quite a few years ago. Ships from the Emdee sector had infiltrated the Terran system, and were attacking any traffic they could find. Attempts to detect them had been highly unsuccessful, and eventually it was discovered that the Emdee ships were outfitted with crude cloaking devices. A warp field was projected all around the ship, and all sensor beams would be swallowed by the warp field rather than returning to their source. Even light was swallowed by the cloaked craft, as the photons would also be sucked into the warp field and directed off into space millions of light years away.

The problem with these devices, once they were discovered was two fold. First, they consumed an obscene amount of energy. The best fusion power plants available would quickly overheat after only a few hours, so the attackers had to use guerilla style hit and run tactics in order to stay cloaked throughout the battle. Second, the warp generators could easily be detected by anyone who knew where to look for them. Most sensor banks did not search for warp signature by default, and many did not even bother to include such a thing. Because the only time a warp generator had a discernable signature was when it actually opened the warp tunnel, and that only happened just before a ship disappeared into it. That would only let you know that a split second earlier, a ship HAD been at that location, but could now be light years away. However, a stationary warp field, such as that used by the Emdee attackers constantly leaked warp radiation and were easily visible with the right sensor configuration.

Ace pulled up his sensor configuration menu and quickly pulled up the warp radiation configuration. As he suspected, the configuration he needed was not already available, and so he had to concentrate for a few seconds to get the right settings. Just as he finished, a brilliant flash of light erupted in the space directly ahead of him. Swearing under his breath, he tapped the controls to change the display to the situational awareness screen. Just as it came up, one of the green icons flipped to gray. Another interceptor had been destroyed. He powered up the sensor banks with the new settings, and just as he had suspected, directly in front of him where the explosion had occurred, there appeared a large, shimmery bubble. Since the sensors were passive, and were still only showing the radiated warp energy, Ace could not see the ship inside the cloak, but the size of the bubble made him gasp. This was no small hit and run smuggling vessel. Whatever was in that bubble was nearly as large as the station itself.

 

Ace cut his thrusters, but allowed the ship to continue drifting towards the intruder. He prepared two fission missiles and powered up the electromagnetic pulse generator. Warp generators were notoriously sensitive to a good EMP attack, and Ace had more than once used one to disable a ship’s warp drive before it made the leap and escaped from him. When the display indicated that it was ready, Ace banked the ship so that the pulse generator on its belly faced towards the enemy craft and triggered the pulse. He heard the characteristic whine as the generator aimed a burst of magnetic energy at the distant craft. Three times the whine rose in pitch and with a small pop the capacitor released its charge into the pulse generator. By aiming three blasts at slightly varied frequencies, he ensured that any shielding would be quickly overloaded trying to compensate for the attack. As soon as the third pulse was off, he flipped the ship over and launched the two nukes simultaneously, at opposite ends of the craft. Already he could see the bubble oscillating madly as the warp generators dealt with the magnetic energy washing over them. The missile boosters were a bright trail of light streaking away from his ship and closing fast on either side. The bubble was losing its cohesion fast, and Ace defaulted his sensors and ran a full power sweep, waiting for the warp field to collapse and give him the opportunity to send targeting data back to the station.

Just then, the two nukes detonated causing the visual sensors to temporarily shut down to protect themselves from overload. Ace was dowsed in sudden blackness as his visual link went dark. The magnetic shields hummed angrily as the radiation wave washed over him, and in a few seconds, the scene leaped back to life as visual information once again began feeding itself to Ace’s visor. Sure enough, the combination of three targeted magnetic pulses combined with the nuclear blast generated magnetic pulse had fried the warp generators. There where the shimmering bubble had been was a huge Emdeean cruiser. Although Ace had plenty of experience with these guys, he had no desire to tackle one on his own. He began speaking into the comm link, but then remembered that he had turned it off rather than listen to pissy rants about his future and the origin of his ancestry.

Quickly flicking the set back on, Ace immediately transmitted his targeting data back to station, and gave a report.

      “Eagle Ops, this is Hotel Lead, I have blown the intruder’s cover. We have an Emdeean man o’ war here. Had a warp cloak on. Send in some bigger fire power right away. I’m getting out of here.”

As he spoke, Ace spun his craft around, the inertial dampener whining as he didn’t even try to bank, but just spun the ship one hundred and eighty degrees and engaged the thrusters at maximum thrust. Warning lights flicked on all over his heads up display, but he ignored them. He knew the limits of the inertial dampeners and had pulled this same maneuver plenty of times. A normal ship and its occupants would have been pulled to pieces by a sudden reversal of thrust at almost half light speed. The AIS interceptor had been built with an extra powerful dampener for just this reason. Pilots were able to forget about delta-v and turn vectors and focus on pursuing their prey.

This time however, something was different. Although the thrusters reported full power, and the dampeners reported that they had bled off all of his inertia, he was still moving slowly towards the enemy cruiser. The dampeners indicated that they were still absorbing kinetic energy, and although his speed had reduced to only a few kilometers an hour, the warning lights were telling him that the dampener was over heating and threatened to shut down. Ace reduced the power to the thrusters and was alarmed to see his backwards velocity increase. It was then that he realized that he was caught in a tractor beam. A gravity generator on board the cruiser was projecting a gravitic anomaly towards his ship, causing it to begin falling slowly towards it. Ace slammed the thrusters back to maximum, knowing that this was nothing more than a stalling tactic. The dampener’s whining increased in pitch as it worked even harder to equalize the tidal forces pulling on the craft. The thrusters were pushing the graviton field one way, the tractor beam pulling it another. In between the dampener tried to keep Ace and the rest of the ship from simply collapsing like an empty beer can.

      “Eagle Ops, it has me in its tractor beam. I need some assistance out here quick.” Ace radioed frantically on the command channel. The voice that replied chilled his bones.

      “Hotel Lead, you are on an unauthorized flight. We cannot risk any other pilots or craft to come to your aid. Your targeting data has been received and will be acted upon in time. For now, you are on your own.” Commander Olbandan himself hissed icily over the comm link.

      “Sorry Pedona, perhaps next time you will learn to follow orders.” The sarcasm fairly dripped from Olbandan’ voice, even over the electronically modulated comm link.

Ace was suddenly too frightened to be angry. Against the firepower of a battle cruiser, even the vaunted AIS interceptor was nothing but a nuisance. After just a moment, the fright vanished, and a steady resolve took over. This wasn’t the first time that Ace had faced death and won, and if he survived today it would surely not be the last. Ace cut the comm link and concentrated on the task at hand.

 

The Ops center had suddenly become deathly silent. Commander Olbandan returned to his seat at the rear of the room, but nobody stirred. Nobody could remember ever hearing a commander willingly and happily abandon one of his men in such a situation. Each of the men in the control room would willingly have gone then and there and piloted their craft into the face of danger for anyone in the unit. How was it possible that the commander could so coldly abandon Ace in such a situation? The question hung in the air like stale smoke, and each person at that moment lost whatever loyalty and respect they may have had for Commander Olbandan.

      “Comms, tell all teams to create a cordon around that sector. Monitor and observe, nobody goes in without a direct order.”

      “Yes sir…” the comms officer responded quietly and then relayed the order into her microphone.

      “Does anybody have any problem with the order I have just given?” Commander Olbandan glared around the room. “If Pedona had been on an authorized mission, obeying orders, I would have sacrificed the entire squadron to save him. But we cannot sacrifice men and ships to save an out of control cowboy from his own stupidity!” The last words were spat with such force that his newly healed jaw crackled with pain and his face went pale. The reminder of the reason that he hated Ace with such passion multiplied his hatred exponentially.

      “Operations, where is the nearest battle group located?” he muttered to the operations officer.

      “Two parsecs away, we have already alerted them, and they are preparing for the warp jump. They await only your request to move sir.” Major Peterson was an experienced staff officer, although it had been years since he had actively flown on combat missions.

      “Give them the word. Forward the targeting data from Pedona’s sensor sweep, let them know that they have gravitic weaponry.” Olbandan hissed.

 

[delete me in December] Damn that Pedona he thought, if he hadn’t gone off on his own and forced me to make an example of him I would not have to worry about this kind of thing.

 

      “Yes sir” Peterson replied and the command center came back to life as all present returned from their shock at the utterly cold dismissal of Ace and resumed their duties. Commander Olbandan glanced sideways at his monitor, which happened to be displaying the situational awareness screen. The green icon which represented Hotel Lead was moving slowly towards the group of several gray icons and the new, angry red hostile icon which had been revealed by Ace’s data. If there was one bright spot in all of this, thought the commander, it is the fact that Pedona has relieved me of the hassle of kicking him out of the Corps. His face lit up momentarily at this thought, but he forced his grim battle face back before anyone noticed.

 

Delyer Olbandan had never been a popular person. Born to wealth and privilege as most natives of the Terminus system’s capital planet Earth, his parents were both wealthy politicians who were far too busy to pay much attention to their only son. Raised by nannies and butlers and maids, he was well into his teens before he realized that there were people in the world who had to choose their own clothing in the morning. His disdain for people of lower social station was only matched by his natural talent for the operation of vehicles. Whether a hover car or an atmospheric cruiser or even an ancient winged airplane, he seemed to be able to make most machines respond to his touch with almost frightening dexterity. This talent combined with his well connected family made him a natural candidate for the Space Forces Academy, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was immediately assigned to an assignment which would provide an easy route to command positions. It was at this first assignment that his personality began to be a burden. His arrogance and disdain towards those in subordinate positions made him a very unpopular leader. Although most personnel in the Space Corps gave him the proper respect and deference due a superior officer, without exception he was never regarded as a good leader. After the first assignment, he was transferred to a staff job, away from flying where his natural talents went unused. Frustrated at his lack of progress, he would complain to his father, who would pull some political strings and get him promoted and assigned to a command slot once again. He would remain there until those in his command threatened mutiny, which nearly always happened. Then, once again, he would find himself behind a desk pushing papers. Olbandan felt that he was born to greatness, but that he was being held back by conspiring enemies who were jealous of his abilities and his situation. His paranoia weighed heavily on his repeated failures at command, since he would inevitably alienate anyone below him who showed any promise of becoming a useful ally. He dreamed of rising through the ranks, then retiring into politics where he could have real power and influence. But time and again his own insecurity and paranoia caused him to be passed over for meaningful promotions and assignments. It was for this reason that he finally was assigned to the 201st Interceptor Squadron. Not considered a promising career move, at least it was a command position, and far away from the galactic center where the Space Corps command could forget about him for a while. Until the rotation into the Karos sweeps, the squadron was tasked with port security in a backwater system called Dumain where the biggest threat to the peace was that the synthehol shipments may be delayed because of a broken down supply freighter.

It was while stationed here that Commander Olbandan had his jaw broken on the very first day of his new command. The pain of the actual injury was nothing compared to the embarrassment he felt at such an affront to his leadership image. He tried to throw Ace out of the Space Corps immediately, but was informed by his chain of command that such an incident was not grounds for such a harsh action. Fellow squad members had come forward to report that Ace was acting in self defense when the merchant spacer had confronted him, and again when he was attacked by the Sinoan. Not wanting to foment a rebellion so soon after taking command, Olbandan had relented and settled for a letter of reprimand to be placed in Ace’s record. However, he had vowed to make his life as miserable as possible, and if he could not force him into voluntary retirement, the first time he stepped out of line he would come down on him with as much force as he could muster and see him removed from the service. Now, Ace had made the whole thing much easier by so willfully disobeying direct orders and creating such a dangerous situation.

 

Ace racked his brain for some way to defeat the tractor beam. He tried accelerating perpendicular to the pull, but that only caused him to spiral like a kite on too short of a string in too strong of a wind. The spiral action actually seemed to increase the speed of his movement towards the ship, so he quickly returned to a direction of thrust exactly opposite of the gravitic attraction. However, time was running out quickly, the inertial dampener was warning that it was near to overheating, as were the gravitic thrusters, and even the fusion power plant was now displaying an overload warning. Just when Ace thought the situation was as bad as it could get, the first plasma shell impacted on his rear shields. He was now in range of the cruiser’s weaponry, and it would not take long before they battered his shields down and his small craft would also be destroyed. There was a bright side to the attack, since the energy the shields absorbed took some of the load off of the fusion reactor, and allowed it to cool down some. But the longer this tug of war went on, the worse it boded for Ace, since he continued slipping closer to the event horizon of the artificial gravity well and every meter closer increased the gravitic force being exerted on his ship and its overloaded systems. Another plasma attack rocked the ship, then several in quick succession. The power system was now screaming that it was being overloaded by the power fluctuation, and the power plant was once again signaling overload. Finally, Ace knew that he had to do something. The power plant was becoming as much a liability as an asset, since if he did not shut it or the thrusters down soon he would become a flaming ball of fusion powered energy and save the Emdeeans the trouble of destroying his craft.

The thought of his overheated reactor going super nova gave him a sudden idea. He checked the power system, and saw that his storage cells were at maximum capacity, the ongoing attack on his shields had seen to that. In fact, a steady stream of helium plasma was streaming back towards the gravity well as the power system vented the excess energy. Pulling up the power system configuration screen, he shut off all of the safety controls which would cause the plant to shut itself down, then cranked the fusion reaction up to the maximum. Warning sirens now began to sound in the cockpit in addition to the already flashing warning lights, and Ace estimated that he had less than a minute to execute his plan. Calling up the emergency procedures display, he hit what most pilots called the “Panic Button”.

In the early days of fusion energy, the power plant was encased in a massive container, in order to attempt to control any out of control reaction. Many tragic accidents quickly proved that this tactic was unsuccessful at best. When a fusion reaction got out of control, even a small cold fusion reaction would create an explosion that destroyed just about anything nearby. This led to the technique of mounting the fusion reactor on the exterior of the craft, and including provisions for jettisoning the entire thing in case of emergency. Most also included a set of rocket boosters which would accelerate the reactor away from the crippled craft, which would now be relying completely on battery power until rescue.

As soon as Ace hit the panic button, the computer began its fifteen second countdown. This allowed the pilot a short period of time in which to cancel the operation if it had been initiated accidentally. Ace cursed the fact that while he had fifteen seconds to cancel the operation, there was no option to cancel the countdown. If he survived, he would definitely bring this up to the first spacecraft engineer he could corner. The fifteen seconds was the longest of Ace’s life, and the entire time the craft continued to be battered by the plasma guns, and now it seemed that a particle beam had now joined the attack as Ace noticed the unique light show created when the beam was absorbed by the magnetic shielding. It was now a race between the countdown timer and the reactor core. Which would blow first? Ace had never felt so helpless. He had done as much as he could, the rest was up to whatever Gods governed the luck of hopeless pilots in impossible situations.

When the reactor finally blew free of the ship, Ace nearly jumped out of his restraints, believing that the reactor had finally reached meltdown. The flare of the rocket motors temporarily blinded the visual sensors, and the entire ship shuddered as the heavy reactor with its shielding plates reduced the overall mass of the ship by about one quarter. As soon as Ace recovered, he began computing targeting vectors on the enemy cruiser, in anticipation of what he expected to happen next.

Being at the center of the artificial gravity well’s focus and assisted by four high speed rocket boosters, the fusion reactor’s velocity quickly accelerated to an extremely velocity directly towards the enemy cruiser.

Having lost one fourth of its mass by jettisoning the fusion reactor, the ship began making some headway against the gravitational pull. Ace kept an eye on the power level however, and cranked the thrusters back until he was simply holding position to conserve power.

      “As long as those pigs keep up the fire, my shields may be able to keep me powered up…” Ace muttered under his breath.

At that instant, the fusion reactor finally reached the event horizon created by the gravity generator. Here the gravitational force was immense, and the heavy reactor was quickly crushed. The fuel inside was already overheated, and the increased pressure only added to the speed of the out of control fusion reaction. In a burst of heat and radiation, the reactor exploded with tremendous force. Unfortunately for the Emmdeans, they had projected the gravity well fairly close to their own hull. Creating an artificial gravity well required an immense amount of power, and projecting it any kind of distance increased the power consumption exponentially. So it made sense to direct the gravity flow as near to the generator as was safely possible. In this case, the exact location of the artificial singularity was only about one hundred meters directly in front of the ship. When the reactor exploded, the shock wave hit the cruiser point blank. Its shields faltered for a moment, then failed. Already weakened by Ace’s earlier attack, the power system on the ship suddenly cut back to emergency level functionality. At this level, all that was operational were defensive measures and life support. This of course did not include such a power hungry offensive device as the gravity generator.

Ace knew immediately when the gravity generator shut off, because his craft nearly shot off into space out of control. In addition to the thrusters at near maximum thrust, when the gravitational singularity collapsed, it sent a gravitic shock wave like a small tidal wave along the path. This shock wave repelled instead of attracted, and so accelerated the small interceptor away from the enemy craft. Ace quickly got control of his craft, but now that he was free from the tractor beam, he forgot about survival, and bent his remaining power at revenge. Spinning the craft about, he cut the thrusters off completely. Not forgetting that even injured as it was the cruiser was still a formidable enemy Ace allowed his ship to ride the gravitic tide away from it. However, not wanting to just get away, he began launching every weapon he had that did not require energy from the ship itself. The remaining fission warheads rapid fired from their launchers as fast as they could be cycled, and each one arced towards the cruiser at a slightly different angle, in order to ensure that the blast wave of the preceding missile would not destroy the ones coming after. As soon as Ace saw the first missile impact the hull of the ship he fired all of his neutron bursters. Any living creature who survived the first barrage and was not behind some pretty good radiation shielding would soon be hammered by the deadly neutron radiation. The fission warheads were doing an excellent job of tearing open the outer armor of the cruiser, since the shields were still down from the effects of the reactor blast. When the neutron bursters began detonating their focused radiation blasts at the torn armor, the ship lost power altogether and began to lose its attitude control. Its own reactor core had been damaged by the nuclear blasts, and the neutron bursts were simply too much. The ship had receded nearly out of visual range when it followed the example of Ace’s own reactor earlier and melted down and exploded violently.

This explosion was orders of magnitude greater than that created by the small interceptor reactor. This cruiser had been specially fitted for its mission with a planetary sized reactor. The entire cargo bay had been used to make room for the massive structure, and the entire ship was manned by a skeleton staff since the crew quarters were gutted to make more room as well. The resulting radiation shock wave traveled quickly out to where Ace was still riding the tidal wave away. Seeing the blast and knowing what was coming he shut down everything but the shields and transferred all available power to the front shields. When the wave hit him, the shields crackled with the energy, and his power storage was quickly recharged and a stream of violet plasma shot from the exhaust vents as the shield generators neared overload from the effort of repelling all of the incoming energy.

Ace watched nervously as the indicators peaked, then began to return to normal as the blast wave finally passed. Had he been much closer when the reactor detonated, his shields may have also been overwhelmed and collapsed, leaving him at to be buffeted by the deadly radiation. As it was, he found himself with plenty of stored power, but heading at a very high velocity away from where he needed to go. A quick burst of his thrusters brought him to a stop, and he took stock of his situation. In the end, he had ended up on the far side of the cruiser from the station. His certainly had enough power to get back, but it would be a delicate balancing act. Ace had to carefully consider every last bit of energy usage. If he accelerated too much, the thrusters and the inertial dampener would burn all of his power and he would run out of life support before making it back. On the other hand, traveling at a slow speed would cause him to take too long, and he would run out of power anyway before arriving. Either way, without hope of a rescue mission, he was on his own.

      “Not today piggy,” he spoke to the silence of the cockpit, and slapped the console top affectionately. “We ain't going out today.”

 

Chapter Four – Drummed out

Commander Olbandan listened in disbelief as the operations center erupted in cheers. The monitors had just shown the massive energy pulse from the exploding Emdeean cruiser, and the situational awareness monitor showed Hotel Lead’s icon as still green, and moving slowly back towards station. Cursing quietly under his breath, he wondered how such an undisciplined and uneducated slob as Ace Pedona was able to accomplish such a heroic feat. Single handedly destroying a battle cruiser with a tiny interceptor while caught in a gravity well was the stuff of legends, not something that a drunken barfly ought to be able to accomplish.

No matter. He had blatantly disobeyed orders and put the lives of his fellow pilots at risk. Even now, they would have to send out a recovery party, since he was adrift in space without a power source. Even reducing power consumption to bare minimum there was little chance of him making it back to the station on his own power. Pilots would have to be pulled from their patrol sectors, leaving vulnerable spots in the perimeter, expending time and resources to rescue an insubordinate drunk. Well, he would have to wait. There were more pressing issues at hand, and…

      “Commander, the commander of the Arclight has just notified us that they have picked up Hotel Lead’s craft. They will be at our location in a few minutes.” Major Peterson was standing near the main display. Olbandan had been so lost in his musings on how to best punish Ace that he had forgotten about the battle group he had called earlier. Now, they had made their warp jump, and arriving at the location of the now destroyed enemy cruiser had found Ace limping slowly back towards station on battery power.

      “Like a damn cockroach…” Olbandan muttered to himself, before rising out of his chair and turning towards the door.

      “Major, who is the commander of the Arclight?” He snapped at his operations officer.

      “Admiral Stafford sir. He also wished to let you know he will be coming aboard the station to take a look around.” A gleam of apparent smugness had crept inexplicably into the officer’s voice, but it went right over Olbandan’ head. He had frozen before the entry door to the operations deck, his hand hovering over the controls.

      “What… Who did you say?” he asked incredulously.

      “Admiral Stafford, the Space Corps command…”

      “Yes Major, I know very well who Admiral Stafford is. Why in the hell is he coming here?” Commander Olbandan sputtered.

      “To take a look around. It seems that he was in the area doing surprise inspections when we put the call out for a battle group. The Arclight was the first to respond to our call.” The Major responded, more than a little nervously.

      “Fine, notify the command staff. I will be in the docking bay, and I expect them to report in five minutes. Or less.” Olbandan snapped, then turning he slapped the door control and stalked out.

 

 

Chapter Whatever

 

      “So why did you not think to order the warp energy scan Commander? The warp field cloaking device is a well known Emdeean tactic.” Admiral Stafford was seated comfortably on a luxurious sofa in Commander Olbandan’ office, a cup of tea held casually in one hand. “Protocol dictates that as soon as a cloaked vessel is suspected that all scanners should be adjusted to scan for warp energy.”

 

Commander Olbandan thought carefully before answering. He wanted to place as much blame on Ace as possible, without appearing to be ducking his own responsibility.

      “Sir, the first team was destroyed so rapidly, that we had barely begun analyzing the data when Captain Pedona disobeyed a direct order and flew off towards the intruder. We were unable to continue any analysis until we had some control over that situation.” Olbandan spoke briskly, attempting to remove any emotion from his voice.

      “And why was Hotel Team recalled from their patrol? After calling for one hundred percent security and implementing the tightest patrol pattern possible, suddenly you decide to punch a huge hole in your perimeter by removing one of the best teams in your squadron? For what purpose were they needed back at the station at that particular moment?” The General asked matter of factly, almost as if he was completely unconcerned with the answer. Olbandan knew however, that he was treading on very thin ice. Weakening his forces at the very instant of conflict could be interpreted as incompetence at best, traitorous betrayal at worst. He would have to make this sound as convincing and unemotional as possible.

      “Sir, Captain Pedona had displayed in the past a tendency to act without orders and I was simply not comfortable having him leading a team during such an unusual operation. I feared that he might do precisely what he actually did do, which is to take it upon himself to put himself in harm’s way in a vain effort to seek glory. He nearly…” Olbandan was beginning to ramble, and the Admiral interrupted him here.

      “Destroyed an enemy battle cruiser fifty times his own size, using a tactic that is taught to first year cadets at the Space Academy. While you were back here worrying that he might actually succeed and make you look foolish, he was out there doing what he had been trained for years to do, and did it so well that he was successful, despite your apparent lack of support.” The Admiral was now beginning to show some emotion, and Olbandan knew that his fears were about to be realized. His next words however, caught Commander Olbandan completely off guard.

      “How is your jaw healing Commander? Still a little sore?” The Admiral said, settling back into the sofa and sipping his tea. When Olbandan began stammering a reply, he set the tea cup down on the table nearby and stood up.

      “If you think I am going to tolerate a squadron commander who allows petty grudges to dictate his decisions in battle, you are sadly mistaken. You are otherwise a competent officer, and so may retain your command here, with a letter of reprimand in your file however, I am confident you will go no higher until I or my successor is satisfied that you have matured beyond such pettiness.” Commander Olbandan snapped to his feet, immediately assuming a position of attention.

      “Captain Pedona will be given his retirement papers. His years of exemplary service and the commendations he will receive for saving your squadron from certain destruction have saved him from any punitive action. While I understand completely why he disobeyed your orders, and would have probably done the same thing in his place, I cannot allow such blatant disregard of command to go completely unpunished.” He turned towards the door, then stopped and glared at Commander Olbandan with all of the anger he could muster.

      “No matter how petty and immature the command may be.” After staring for just a moment to ensure that the message had sunk in, Admiral Stafford casually walked out of the office.

 

Chapter Whatever – The Tinker

 

The Tinker was a singular person, and most people were either completely fascinated with him, or feared him completely. Nobody really liked him, and many actually hated him. But he had a valuable talent, and so made his way in the world. Right now, he was employed by the Karos Mining Corporation. The Human Resources records listed him as a janitor, but only so that they could pay him the absolute minimum salary possible. The Tinker did not care, the money accumulated in his account at the end of each month untouched. He was generally not much aware of such things as money and possessions. As long as he had a place to sleep and food to eat, and machines to fix, he could seriously care less if he had money or not. Right now, he lived in a janitor’s closet in the basement of the Karos Mining Corporation’s main research lab, for which the going rate for a rather expensive loft apartment was deducted from his pay. The cafeteria had been instructed to simply feed him whatever he requested, then deduct the pay from his account, along with a healthy gratuity as assurance that nobody would ask questions about why a janitor was never seen janitoring. Other than the cafeteria staff and the Human Resources department the only other employees of the corporation who even knew that such a person existed were the scientists in the research and development lab. The Tinker had been born Elroy Osvaldo Brennan many years ago, on the planet Sefanae. The birth records simply show that he was born, parents undocumented, and abandoned at birth. He was raised in a succession of orphanages, until his eighteenth birthday, at which time he was given a one way ticket off the planet. The destination planet was unimportant, the idea was to get all of the feeble minded people off of the planet before the Emdeean attack. They were unmerciful to anyone not fully healthy, and the Sefanaean government wanted to preserve all of their resources for the coming battle. Half way to his intended destination, The Tinker wandered away from the transport during a layover on a sparsely populated desert moon called Ruco-Su. He had seen through the transport windows what to him amounted to heaven, Shangri-La and nirvana all rolled up in one. A spacecraft graveyard, stretching for thousands of square kilometers over the sand dunes. The metal surfaces reflecting the blazing sun attracted him like a humming bird to a flower. As soon as the craft was on the ground, he wandered away from the terminal, some innate sense directing him towards tons of old, rotting machines.

That was The Tinker’s talent. Anything mechanical or technological held endless fascination for him. And he was able to create completely unusual and seemingly impossible devices from nothing more than what most would consider trash. The only reason that he was still an insignificant refugee was the fact that while he could create such wonderful miracles, he was absolutely unable to explain to anyone how they worked, or sometimes even what they were supposed to do. He had once resurrected a defunct food processor at an orphanage where he lived, and for weeks turned out hundreds of kilos of cheese, his favorite food. Until he had to be hospitalized for an intestinal blockage, and the orphanage maintenance guy finally found the contraption in the cellar and carried it out to the trash.

The Tinker never returned to that orphanage, it closed down the very next month when it was unable to pay or even explain the astronomical power bill that the food replicator had created.

Landing on Ruco-Su proved to be quite serendipitous for The Tinker. The owner of the ship graveyard found him a few days later, motoring around the place in a rebuilt hover car. He had stripped components from a dozen different space craft from a dozen different star systems and cobbled them together into a perfectly functional vehicle. Nochonis was nothing if not a shrewd businessman, and he immediately took The Tinker in as an employee. A surreptitious search of the galactic personnel records revealed that The Tinker had no family, and nobody was looking for him, so he was as good as a free slave. The Tinker did not mind, in fact was probably completely unaware that anyone would consider his situation anything other than absolute paradise. Nochonis kept him fed, housed and clothed, and provided a constant stream of new machines to tinker with. It was Nochonis who christened him The Tinker, and soon he had forgotten that he had ever been called Elroy.

Soon Nochonis gained a reputation as a wizard at repairing any kind of machine. Of course he was the same old scruffy junk dealer that he had always been, but he kept The Tinker a closely guarded secret and so reaped all the rewards of his talents. When he had repaired a particularly nasty and difficult problem with a mining freighter, he was approached by the lead engineer of the Karos Mining Corporation about a position in their Research and Development department. The shrewd businessman in Nochonis saw that keeping his secret any longer was not in his best interest, and so he revealed the real source of his reputation, and then for a considerable sum and future considerations, let The Tinker go with them back to Karos.

 

The Tinker genuinely enjoyed life, and the change from working in the dusty hot hangar at the ship graveyard on Ruco-Su to the thoroughly modern and climate controlled laboratories at the Karos Mining Corporation was nothing short of miraculous. The engineers would bring him a prototype that they were working on, and making sure that he understood what they wanted him to do, would then leave him alone. He was always under close observation of course, to ensure that nothing he made got out of control. The Tinker’s gift for technological wizardry did not extend to the end result of his efforts, and more than once the engineers had to cut power to the lab to prevent the destruction of one or more parts of the building when he tried to power on a new invention. Like the time that he was working on a new form of anti matter propulsion unit. The engineers knew the result of powering on such a possibly destructive power source in a laboratory, and had done their best to convince The Tinker to simply put the components together, and then wait until they had moved the propulsion unit to the test bed before powering it on. Of course, The Tinker nodded happily, and set to work. In the middle of the night, the engineer on duty was snoozing when he felt the building beginning to shake. Too late, he hit the panic button which supplied power to the lab. However, the propulsion unit had already taken flight, smashing through one wall of the laboratory. It took five minutes for the matter anti matter reaction to completely shut down, by which time one a path of destruction led from the gigantic hole in the wall nearly a kilometer into the rocky badlands beyond where the blackened unit was finally found. Luckily, the lab was situated in a rural area, and The Tinker had the engine pointed away from the rest of the building, and himself when he powered it on.

 

They also had to observe his work closely, since there were no notes to examine, and The Tinker was unable to explain to them how something worked. Only by watching closely, making their own notes and then doing some extensive reverse engineering could they make use of the creations turned out in their lab. This inability to explain the functionality led to a disaster beyond the imagination of anyone at Karos Mining Corporation, or anyone in the entire Karos system for that matter.

 

The lead engineer for the Research and Development department at Karos Mining Corporation was a man named Theodore Barrera. He had long ago lost any scientific excitement that might be expected of a man in such a position. The mining boom in the Karos system had made many men very rich, and he was one of them. This position of wealth made him greedy for more, and he spent his time looking not for new and exciting ways to use science, but for new and exciting ways to exploit science for gain. It was Theodore who had discovered The Tinker on the desert moon and imagined how much money he could gain by using his talent and taking credit, just as the junk dealer had done. Just a few great inventions or even simple innovations to existing technology would be just enough to pay for that retirement home somewhere on a resort world where he could do nothing but hang out with other rich retirees and spend every night getting slobbering drunk.

His frustration with the way The Tinker worked did not take long to convince him that he had made a mistake. But every time he would convince himself to get rid of him, an amazing invention would bring a bonus check and recognition from the scientific community and he would decide to keep him around for a little while longer. The incident with the matter antimatter propulsion unit was the last straw however, and The Tinker’s fate was all but sealed when Theodore was presented with the cost of the disaster. It was all about money, and The Tinker had just cost him a great deal of it.

The problem was that he seemed to be on the verge of a break through in his research into gravitic technology. He was working to overcome the power barrier that existed with projected gravitic wells. Artificial gravity for the occupants of a ship was relatively simple, and involved low power generators built into the floor panels. Projecting a gravity well powerful enough to move an object somewhere in space was another thing altogether. All of the projectors that had been built so far were gigantic, power hungry behemoths. They had a limited range, were weak, and highly unstable. Anyone who was able to build one that could be projected over great distances with a reasonable level of power consumption stood to make a tremendous profit. The board of directors for the corporation had guaranteed to make his every dream come true if he could make such a device work, since the work of mining the extremely dense asteroid belt in their star system could be greatly improved. At the time, expensive mining rigs had to be constructed on larger asteroids while freighter tugs pulled massive barges full of ore to the processing plant. Theodore was convinced that if he could project a sufficiently powerful gravitic well near an asteroid, he could move it in its entirety to the processing plant, where it could be processed as fast as the machinery could crush it with no lengthy and expensive barge operation. There were many more applications for a good projected gravity well, not all of them as peaceful as asteroid mining. Imagine that a gravity well could be projected in the middle of an enemy space craft! Right in their reactor core even!

So Theodore waited, removing all other projects from The Tinker except the gravitic projector. But as soon as there was a working prototype, he would be right back on Ruco-Su fixing relics.

 

The Tinker was stumped, and that did not happen very often. This new project was something else. The nervous man he called Theo (because it made him mad) had insisted that he could not work on anything else until this project was done. But he refused to give The Tinker many of the things he needed to make it work. This was new, and frustrated The Tinker. Usually he got anything he wanted, sometimes before he even asked.

      “These guys are smart, not like me…” he thought. “I have a hard time remembering where I put my shoes in the morning, but not what I like to eat. Cheese! Even though they told me it was bad to eat too much that one time when I got to sleep in the hospital. I need more power! For the love of cheese, I can not make the gravity bend and twist without a lot of power. But Theo said no more power. I have to use the small power supply in the lab. I hate Theo. He hates me too. That is why I call him Theo. Because it makes him mad, and then he goes away and does not ask me all of his stupid questions that remind me of that stupid orphanage lady that…”

The Tinker stopped his internal rambling and stared off into space for a moment. The engineers watching from the control room instantly zoomed in and held their breath. They knew this look, had seen it many times in the past few years as they had observed The Tinker. It usually preceded some breakthrough. Some had joked that it was when he communicated with the mother ship to get the information he needed to solve some problem. Others did not joke about it, because they were not so sure that the mother ship may not exist.

      “A reflector… by cheese that is what I need. A gosh darn reflector. Gravy  gets mad when you bounce them around. I could bounce them around. Make them real mad, then they get bigger without much power. Then the warp field…” The Tinker mumbled out loud in his excitement. The engineers scrambled to enhance and replay the audio, and nearly missed The Tinker’s mad dash out of the lab.

      “Where did he go?” the senior of the two demanded, glaring accusingly at the younger man as if he had not also taken his focus away from the monitors.

      “Uhhh… down the hall, looks like he is going to the front lobby for some reason.” He was quickly flipping through security camera feeds trying to follow The Tinker’s shuffling run through the halls.

      “Should we stop him?” The younger man asked, somewhat unsure what this new duty of watching the idiot really entailed.

      “Are you insane? Barrera said to only interfere if he was about to blow something up or kill himself. Just keep an eye on him, let security know, and they know enough to stay out of sight. Let him do whatever the voices in his head are telling him to do.” The older man seemed excited at this turn of events, and the younger man began to really wonder what might be happening.

 

The Tinker knew where he could find a reflector dish of the right shape and material. He kept repeating its name over and over in his head as he shuffled down the hall.

      “Traveling Shovel, traveling shovel, traveling shovel…” in his excitement, a thin string of drool had dripped down his chin, but intent on his goal, he did not notice.

He finally arrived at the front lobby. The security guards on duty there had already placed themselves casually near the exits, but so far pretended not to even notice that he was there. However The Tinker was not interested in leaving, would have in fact thrown a gigantic tantrum if anyone had tried. He had found what he was looking for, and was now beginning to puzzle how to get at it. Displayed prominently in the lobby of the office, was a historical artifact from the early days of the Karos Mining Corporation. It was a shovel, its blade and handle all cast from a single piece of metal. It was made of pure gravitonium, and had been cast from the first asteroid that the Karos Mining Corporation had ever harvested. It was called the “Traveling Shovel of Death ™ due to the mysterious deaths of several private collectors who had owned it. Over and over again, the rich and powerful had tried to add it to their collection, but each had one by one been killed in freak accidents involving the shovel, although heretofore, the shovel itself had not been the actual instrument of death. One victim had been trying to mount it high on a wall when the hover ladder he was using suddenly gave out and he fell thirty feet. Another was carrying it home when a freak thunderstorm appeared out of nowhere and the shovel was struck by lightning. Finally the mining corporation itself had taken custody of it, and had confined it to the Research and Development labs where they hoped that nobody else would ever have to touch it.

The dull grey metal was polished to a mysterious sheen, and daily polishing (accomplished by robot of course…) ensured that not a speck of dust was found on it. It was considered something of a national treasure, along with several other mining artifacts from the history of the company being stored in a trans steel case. The Tinker cared nothing for anything else in the case however, his attention was only on the shovel. His quiet mumblings slowly increased in volume, until he was actually standing before the display case, in an almost reverent attitude with his arms raised high above his head.

      “Traveling Shovel… Traveling Shovel… TRAVELLING SHOVEL OF DEATH BY CHEESE!” he shouted the last so loudly that his voice screeched, and the guards began slowly moving towards him, still careful not to appear to even notice him. The thought that perhaps the weird pet of the chief engineer had flipped his lid and was considering going on a murderous rampage with the infamous shovel. The one behind the desk spoke quietly into a comm link on his lapel.

      “Are you sure we shouldn’t do something? I think he is having some sort of seizure! And he is worshipping the shovel of death.” He whispered worriedly. The reply was quick and positive, so he signaled the other guards to maintain their attitude of nonchalance and pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary. They all loosened the straps securing their blasters in the holsters nonetheless.

 

By now, The Tinker had finished his ablutions, and was fiddling with the lock on the case. The lead guard had just spoke into his comm link again, and was rising up with a key ring to go and open the case when The Tinker opened it himself and swung the heavy transparent steel doors wide open. The guards all looked at each other and shook their heads. They could not wait for the day that they got the order to vaporize this guy. He was beyond creepy. The Tinker clambered up the shelves, kicking priceless historical artifacts every which way until he reached the shelf holding the shovel. It took only a second to release it from the mounting brackets, and he climbed back down with it. Three more guards had arrived, trying their best to act like a half wit worshipping a legendary cursed shovel and then picking a secure crypto lock with only a pocket screwdriver was normal. Anyone paying attention would have noticed however that they too had their blasters loosened in the holsters and they were not set to stun.

As The Tinker shuffled back down the hall with his treasure, he turned it over and over in his hands, measuring the blade against his arm, holding it up to sight along the handle as if it were an ancient rifle barrel. At one point, he even put it in his mouth and bit down hard, until he cried out in sudden pain and spit out a tooth fragment. Through all of this, he never hesitated but continued unerringly through the maze of hallways and lifts until he disappeared once again behind the laboratory doors. The guards who had been shadowing him breathed a deep sigh of relief and refastened the securing straps on their holsters. Then they chose numbers for a randomizer, and the loser had to stand security in the hall outside the lab. The rest returned to their normal patrols, and the maintenance crew was summoned to come and clean up the mess of artifacts in the front lobby.

 

 

Chapter Whatever – The Spiraling Sky

The followers of the Spiraling Sky cult were nearing the peak of their annual festivities. The celebrations this year were even more frenzied than usual, due to a very unusual alignment of the two planets which were the focus of their worship. The Karos system was unique in several ways. We have already heard of the unusually dense asteroid belt, rich in the rare element of gravitonium. Besides this unique feature, the solar system was binary, with not one but two Solaris class suns orbiting each other at the center of the system. Scientists predicted that in a few million years, they would eventually collide, destroying everything in the solar system, but since the longest lived habitants of the galaxy existed a mere century and a half, nobody really worried about it much. There were the normal range of planets for a habitable star system, however since this was in fact the merger of two solar systems, there were two of each. The two habitable planets were named Uro and Oro, two twins of ancient legend. All of the other planet twins were likewise named, with twins being a common theme of much of the mythology of this star system, for obvious reasons. The Spiraling Sky however focused on the two most powerful of the mythological pairs: Raba-Peg, and Ultros, otherwise known as the “Giant Twins”. These two massive gas giants were even larger than most gas giants, their combined mass nearly equal to a quarter of the smaller of the two suns. Scientists theorized that over time, their immense size and gravity had attracted more than the normal share of space debris, especially since they each orbited at the edge of the asteroid belt.

This year was a singular year of celebration for the Spiraling Sky, because the two giants were to pass extraordinarily close to each other in their orbits. There was even some speculation that this was in fulfillment of an ancient prophecy which predicted that one day the giant twins would unite and rise up in rebellion against their father and mother, the binary stars. The celebrations had accordingly been singularly huge and boisterous as well, as even non Spiraling Sky adherents got into the party mood. Charter ships sailed daily for the month long sub light cruise to the twin giants, and for those with the financial ability to do so, day trips via warp transport were also popular. An old mining rig had been moved to the vicinity of the historic juncture, and there began a month long permanent party. Converted into something of a temple to the twin giants, every adherent to the Spiraling Sky spent at least a day there, examining the two giants through high powered telescopes and competing to see who could consume the most “Gas Giants” at the bar. (Gas Giants were a potent real alcohol drink made of fermented fruit which when mixed formed a milky multicolored appearance not unlike that of the two gas giants.) Many employers, rather than deal with all of the “sick” employees had declared the entire month a holiday, and closed down operations.

The Karos Mining Corporation was no exception, except for a few of the engineers in the Research and Development department. And of course, except for The Tinker. The Tinker was completely unaware of the gigantic celebration engulfing two planets, in fact was mostly unaware of anything but how well the graviton beam was reflecting off of his new reflector dish. Gravitonium was such a valuable element, for nothing more than its ability to affect the graviton flow around it. When charged with an electromagnetic charge, the natural graviton flow around it was disrupted. By manipulating the electrical frequency and the magnetic orientation the gravitational disruption was able to be directed and controlled. This discovery led to a great many inventions which made space travel much safer and easier. When it was discovered that the age old principles of motion, of inertia and kinetic energy were all by products of the graviton flow, the new gravity manipulation technology were put to work to tame these as well. Kinetic energy was found to be nothing more than the wave of graviton particles that built up behind any item with mass moving through the universal graviton field. The faster that object moved, the larger the graviton wave that followed it. When that object impacted another and came to a stop, what used to be called the kinetic energy transfer was actually a graviton shock wave as the moving gravitons transferred their energy to the stationary object. Inertia, or the tendency of an object at rest to stay at rest was nothing more than the effect of the omnipresent gravitational pressures. Any object with mass attracted a graviton stream, and that stream had to be overcome to move the object anywhere in space. An object as large as a planet therefore had a huge graviton field surrounding it, and smaller objects were pressed towards it by the influx.

To eliminate the harmful effects of inertia and kinetic energy on space travelers, inertial dampeners were constructed. These dampeners would interfere with the graviton wave that followed the moving ship, allowing it to decelerate from a high speed to a stop in a very short distance without the risk of destroying the vessel, or turning all of the occupants into goo. Likewise, it could “part the seas” like the pointed prow of a waterborne vessel and allow the ship to accelerate much faster than ever before, even accelerating beyond light speed without reaching critical mass. Centrifugal forces could also be cancelled out, since these two were nothing more than the effect of the following graviton wave attempting to keep the moving object going in a straight line. Breaking up the graviton shock wave was all that was needed to allow the moving object to change directions without feeling a corresponding increase in gravitational pressure.

 

Of course, The Tinker had no inkling of all of this, at least in the way that a normal person would understand them. His concepts of physics and science were ultimately childlike. He understood them as personalities, and instinctively knew how different types of particles or energies would behave in a certain way, not through mathematical calculations, but simply by sensing their “emotions”. He knew that when electricity was passed through gravitonium, the gravitons became confused and were not sure which direction to travel. He also knew that he could provide that direction by shaping the gravitonium certain ways, and by manipulating the electro magnetic field surrounding it. He liked to use electricity prodigiously, when it was available. However, he had learned many tricks over time to make use of very small or unreliable power sources as well.

 

The engineers watched, fascinated as The Tinker mounted the traveling shovel of death on his latest contraption. They were still unsure about what he intended to happen. He had cobbled together a gravity generator, a warp field generator, and a small fusion reactor. As near as they could tell, he intended to create a warp field and then project the gravity into it. This made them extremely nervous, since it was well known that warp energy did strange and unpredictable things to energy streams that were projected into them. It had taken generations to perfect the ability to transmit radio signals through a warp tunnel, and even then the connections could be flaky and unreliable depending on the strength of the warp generator and the size of the tunnel. Warp travel was generally reliable, but ships with a warp drive were gigantic behemoths with the power required to open a tunnel sufficiently large to permit the entire ship.

None of them believed that it would work however, the fusion reactor he was using for a power supply was a small household device, enough to power a hover lift or  household appliances. Nowhere near enough power to generate either a gravitic field or a warp tunnel and certainly not both at once.

 

The Tinker finished mounting the shovel, and stood back, muttering under his breath to examine his work. He seemed to be reassuring the contraption that all was well, and his hands were continually waving around it, as if simulating the energy waves it would create. Finally, satisfied with how everything appeared, he shuffled back to the control panel. The laboratory where he worked was actually a converted aircraft hangar. The engineers wanted to ensure that The Tinker had plenty of room to play with his inventions, to reduce the possibility of destroying another building. Looking down to the far end of the hangar, The Tinker estimated the distance to an old reactor housing that sat on the floor near the large bay doors. It was a massive old relic, leftover from the days when fusion reactors were less dependable and the thick lead housing was still mostly intact. It weighed at least several hundred tons, and in fact, the reason it was still sitting there was that a lift of sufficient capacity to haul it away had not yet been obtained. The Tinker looked down at the control panel and punched a few buttons, then walked over to the fusion power supply and connected the power supply cable to the contraption. Immediately, it came to life, and a shimmering beam of energy shot out of the warp generator and hit the shovel where it was reflected back to a spot about three meters behind the contraption. Here it coalesced into a swirling pool of warp energy, and after a few seconds formed a more solid looking circle. The engineers were amazed to realize that the Tinker had just created a warp tunnel in their own laboratory! It took them a few minutes to recover from their shock. Then they realized that they had no idea where the other end of that warp tunnel was. The frantically scanned all of their instruments, and were amazed to find that an identical circle had just appeared in the air above the old reactor housing. The Tinker had successfully created a warp tunnel from one end of the lab to the other, and everything appeared to be completely stable and normal. All from the power generated by a household power supply!

      “Better get Barrera on the line. He is going to crap his pants when he sees this.” The senior engineer shoved the other away from the control panel and towards the comm unit. The junior engineer nodded slowly, not wanting to take his eyes off of the strange person in the lab who had just passed in his reckoning from weird and frightening to awe inspiring and even more frightening. Another impatient slap on the shoulder brought him out of his trance, and he hurried away to alert the chief engineer.

 

The Tinker next powered on the gravity generator. The senior engineer watching winced as it came online, convinced that the small reactor would certainly overload and explode, his hand hovering over the panic button which would shut off the reactor in case of emergency. Surprisingly however, all indicators remained in safe operational range, and the gravity generator began to spew a grayish column of energy towards the shovel reflector. Just as the warp energy beam had done, it bounced off the gravitonium shovel blade, where it seemed to grow in power and size, changing from the dull grey color to an almost silvery shine. When it entered the warp tunnel, The Tinker actually began jumping up and down, shouting in his garbled language about angry gravitons, helpful “warpies” and more than one unusual reference to cheese. The engineer watching was so busy watching all of the safety indicators that he completely missed what happened next. The junior engineer, having returned from making the call to Barrera tapped him on the shoulder and pointed in silent shock at the monitor showing what was happening at the other end of the bay.

 

The old reactor housing, weighing several thousand tons of massive lead shielding was floating up off of the floor. The graviton beam coming out of the warp tunnel opening over it had changed in its warp transit to a blinding silver white, and came out in a twisting cyclone of gravitic energy. Where it hit the top of the housing, it broke into a thousand tendrils crawling all over the gigantic hulk, and it was lifting slowly upwards, towards the warp hole near the ceiling. Both engineers stood there, transfixed with a look of stunned amazement at what they were witnessing. Right here, before their eyes thousands of years of gravitic and warp research were intersecting to form the first known example of a gravitic field being transmitted through a warp tunnel. The concept had been studied for a long time, but the power required to accomplish it, and the ability to focus and control the warp tunnel were much too difficult to overcome.

 

The Tinker was beside himself with elation. He resembled a religious fanatic as he danced around the generator, waving his arms above his head. Dancing and singing in a semi circle on the safe side of the generator, he exulted in the feeling of accomplishment.

      “Traveling shovel! Traveling shovel! By all the cheese in the moon, it worked! Reflecting shovel! No more traveling, now you belong to me, and you are home. Have some cheese!” he shouted.

 

It was about this point that the junior engineer noticed something that caused his stomach to drop to somewhere near his toes. The reactor housing had continued to slowly rise, growing closer and closer to the swirling circle of warp energy which was holding open a tunnel through another dimension of space to the other end of the hangar. As it approached, he noticed that the warp tunnel was beginning to enlarge itself, as if in anticipation of swallowing the massive structure. Not sure what would happen, if anything when the housing contacted the warp tunnel, but not being able to imagine anything but destruction and mayhem, he reached over and slapped the panic button.

 

Theodore Barrera was in the best mood he had been in for quite some time. If what the junior engineer had babbled to him on the comm link a minute ago was anything near true, then he had finally reached the breakthrough he had been wishing for. Apparently, the idiot had finally figured out how to project a gravity well across space through a warp tunnel, and to do so with a tiny amount of power. He hurried through the lobby doors, ignoring the looks of the security guards who knew better than to interfere with him when he came through the door. He did glance curiously at the maintenance men who were finishing up their work on the display case, but none of that was important now. Now, he was about to become one of the richest and most prominent men in the Karos system, and he could finally get rid of that disaster waiting to happen…

At that moment, the power to the contraption suddenly stopped. The gravity generator and the warp generator both shut off simultaneously, and the warp tunnel collapsed with an active graviton flow still passing through it. Collapsing a warp tunnel without proper control is hazardous enough. Instead of dispelling the warp energy holding the tunnel open in a controlled and deliberate manner, it simply scatters across space. If any matter is hit with enough warp energy, parts of it tend to simply disappear into warp space, and without a controlling and focusing function, what parts disappear and what parts stay is completely random. When the warp tunnel also contains a graviton beam, the results are even more unpredictable.

The warp energy from the two tunnel openings scattered with a boom across the laboratory, and wherever they hit anything, a gravitational warp flux was created. Some matter was instantly transported to warp space, while others were compressed and destroyed by tiny spontaneous black holes. One of these vicious vortexes immediately blew a hole in the roof of the lab, others destroyed walls, equipment, and generally wreaked havoc on the structure of the old hangar. However, the worst damage occurred when the reactor housing, which was currently hovering three meters in the air suddenly came back under the influence of the planetary gravitational field. Thousands of tons of lead and steel crashed back to the floor of the building, sending a seismic shockwave through the ground that was felt for miles around. The hangar, already weakened by the miniature black holes tearing holes in anything they touched began collapsing.

The Tinker had frozen in the middle of his celebratory dance, his arms still in the air over his head. He watched in fascination as the warp energy sizzled around him, one digging a sudden trench in the floor at his feet. Lending credence to the ancient belief that the gods protect children and fools, The Tinker was miraculously untouched by any of the destruction. When the rector housing crashed to the floor, he was knocked off his feet by the shaking of the ground, and this finally brought him to his senses. Realizing that he was in danger, he began running as fast as he could towards the exit. Debris crashed around him as he ran, the entire building was coming apart now. The Tinker was not smart according to the normal measures, but he had an animal instinct for survival, and this instinct served him very well in this case. Instead of heading for the interior exit doors, which were nearer, he headed for the external fire exits on the far wall. In a few seconds, he reached the doors. Next to the doors, he saw the small red box used to sound the fire alarm. More than once, a nervous engineer tasked with “Tinker Duty” had shown him this switch and encouraged him to feel free to pull it if anything went wrong. In The Tinker’s mind, this was definitely one of those times. He paused long enough to pull the small switch out, and when a loud klaxon horn began sounding, he turned back to the doors, and shoving them open, he ran out into the cool night air.

 

 

Chapter Whatever – NikkOll of Emdee

 

Overlord Lormm cowered before the assembly. He had good reason, as his life as it was now was mere minutes from being ended. The supreme dictator, NikkOll towered over him, her purple eyes blazing with fury from all seven heads at once. When she spoke, all seven mouths moved simultaneously, and their voices rushed out in a booming condemnation of death.

      “Overlord Lormm, you have failed in your mission. The mission to mine gravitonium was essential to our ongoing battle plans. You were provided with everything you needed, including a cloaking device for your main battle cruiser. Explain again to this council, now before you die, the reason why it appeared in enemy space without so much as a single accompanying shuttle?” The seven heads all smirked at the last comment, and a long leathery tendril grafted in place of a hand on one arm snaked out and lashed viciously at the Overlord’s exposed head.

      “Magnanimous lord, giver of life and taker of souls, it was an error beyond our control. The captain of the battle cruiser jumped through hyperspace before the order was given. We could not contact him because he put up his cloak as soon as he exited hyperspace. We arrived soon after, but could not locate him and…”

      “SILENCE, GROVELLING FOOL!” NikkOll thundered, some of her voices cracking with the effort.

      “YOU LIE! The reason your cruiser departed early was because you were feuding with the captain over a mate, is this not true?” the seven mouths hissed evilly. Lormm’s head jerked up, his eyes wide with terror. How did anyone know about that? He wondered.

The Emdee alliance was a confederation of worlds ruled by the iron fist of NikkOll, the seven headed Supreme Dictator. Her formal title was “Supreme Overlord, Protector of Loyal Planets, Conqueror of the Filthy Humans and Eternal Host of The Supreme Leaders’ Life Force”. Her race had made many advances in the technology of grafting body parts from one creature to another, and her current seven headed incarnation included the heads of the first seven supreme Emdeean leaders. Whenever a new leader came to power, they would traditionally have their heads removed  and grafted into the body of NikkOll. If the grafting was successful, all of the intelligence contained in the new brain was joined and molded into the overall personality. Since it took a very devious and evil personality to become a supreme leader in this vicious and warlike race, by the time seven such personalities had merged, the resulting entity was so horribly evil that it was nearly unstoppable. The only thing preventing the Emdeean forces from conquering the entire known universe in short order were the Emdeean forces themselves. Willing to commit to mortal combat at the slightest excuse, more often than not any gathering of Emdeean forces of any size would inevitably turn into a battle over some perceived insult, or in this case, the ownership of a mate.

      “Yes, NikkOll knows all and sees all, when will you stupid worms learn this? You purposely sent Captain Ruthego into battle alone, by sending the execute command early, just to spite him for stealing your mate.” The voices had reduced their volume, to an almost gentle croon, then suddenly returning to a terrifying thunder:

       “CONFESS, AND EARN A QUICK DEATH!” Three more tentacles were now whipping the trembling overlord, drawing blood in a dozen places.

       “Yes! I did! And then his brother, who was with the follow on forces attacked my ship in revenge, further delaying our hyperspace jump! It was his fault, I was prepared to finish the mission, after punishing Ruthego…”

       “YOU ARE NOT THE PUNISHER! YOU ARE A WEAK MINDED AND PUNY BEING WHOSE FLESH IS NOT WORTHY TO BE CONSUMED BY SUCH AS I! I AM THE PUNISHER!” NikkOll rose up to her full four meter height, and all fourteen arms, some armed with the leathery whips, some with grafted claws, or other vicious looking implements spread out in a horrendous fan above the doomed overlord. For a moment, she froze there, poised for the kill, but relishing the waves of terror her empathic mind could feel pouring off of her intended victim.

       “Let all present testify of the mercy shown to this ungrateful wretch who dared allow his own personal desires interfere with the glorious march of the Emdeean reign across the universe! Let him stand as an example to any who would do likewise!” at the last word, the arms all descended, and Overlord Lormm was instantly mutilated in a bloody shower of flesh and bone. All but his head was soon reduced to bloody fragments. NikkOll raised the head in two of her hands, high above her heads.

       “Bring the new host for the mind of former Overlord Lormm!” the seven voices thundered.

The assembly parted as two small attendants drug a struggling animal into the room. It was a gotihag, and the looks of disgust on the faces of those assembled attested to the disdain in which this race of creature was held. It resembled a pig, but with gray matted fur and the long hairless tail of a rat. They lived in the sewers of the Emdeean home world, and ate the refuse that poured into their habitat every day. The grafting operation was completed quickly, and when the head of former Overlord Lormm opened its eyes and saw the new shape of its body, its mouth opened in a soundless scream. The vocal cords had of course been severed, and the mouth was no longer even connected to the respiratory system. Only the life force remained, and would live until the body died in the sewers beneath the palace of NikkOll.

     

 

Chapter Whatever – Public Test

 

      “Ladies and Gentlemen of the board. Today, we are about to witness history in the making. The Karos Mining Corporation is proud to present the first ever demonstration of the power of Warp Transmitted Gravitronic Manipulation. This new technology will allow us to reach out from our mining rigs and bring the asteroids to us, instead of risking life and equipment to go out to each asteroid and harvest. No longer will pilots have to endure long, tedious and dangerous missions to pull barges full of ore from the asteroid belt to the processing plant. Now, the asteroids will come to us, directly to the processing plant. This will create a fifty per cent reduction in cost, a seventy five per cent reduction in production, and will open up a whole new line of business as we license this technology for use in other applications.”

As the applause filled the assembly hall, Theodore felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Never had he been as nervous as he was now, because never before had he been so responsible for something this important which was so nearly out of his control. After the disaster at the lab, he had immediately sent The Tinker back to his desert moon. He never wanted to see that walking disaster again. It had taken hours for the miniature black holes to finally burn out and stop bouncing around sucking matter into warp space. When they finally did, they still had an entire hangar which had been destroyed, along with a couple of decades worth of research equipment. Theodore had personally overseen the cleanup effort, in order to try to salvage The Tinker’s contraption. It had been more or less complete, and what had been destroyed was repairable. His entire staff had been working up until sunrise this morning to get it back together, and they had not had any time to test it out yet.

In trying to make restitution for the disaster in the lab, he had promised the board of directors to provide a demonstration of the new technology within ten days. Every engineer in the Research and Development department had been working on this project to the exclusion of all else, and they assured him that they had reassembled the device exactly the way The Tinker had built it. The controls were still somewhat wonky, since The Tinker did not build controls according to any kind of recognizable protocol but they were confident that they had it figured out.

The plan was to project a gravity well near an asteroid in the belt, demonstrate that the rock would move towards the well, and then shut it off. They had selected a smaller rock, one approximately the mass of the reactor housing that The Tinker had lifted. And just to be sure that the whole thing would work, they had hooked into the planetary power grid so that they could guarantee that there was enough power to make the thing work. A large display screen had been set up in the assembly hall, and the target asteroid had been lit up with enormous floodlights so that it was clearly visible on screen. Its galactic coordinates were displayed across the bottom of the screen in large red numbers, so that it would be easily apparent if it moved out of its normal orbit towards the location of the artificial well.

 

The applause had died down, and the crowd was now watching Theodore expectantly. He suddenly realized that he was sweating profusely, yet he felt cold all over. He looked down at the giant lever in front of him. Although it was not even really connected to the machine, but only to a signal light in the real control room, he suddenly felt terrified to even touch it. Looking back at the assembled board of directors and major stock holders, he saw that they were beginning to wonder what was wrong. Especially the face of the president of the company, who less than a week ago was threatening criminal charges against him for the catastrophe wreaked by The Tinker in the lab. Memories of The Tinker’s grinning, slobbery face pulled him out of his terror, as hatred for the unending happiness of his simple world brought him back to reality.

 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the next step in the evolution of mankind!” He announced grandly, although a slight tremor persisted in his voice. Then reaching down, he threw the lever. The public relations folks had planned the next few minutes, as he assured them it would take a minute or two before the warp field and gravity beam could be generated. The lights in the hall went dim, and the display on the screen increased in brightness forcing all eyes to look towards it. Triumphant music began playing in the background, and a voice began reciting the exciting and successful history of the Karos Mining Corporation.

 

Meanwhile, in the control room, the engineers were scrambling madly to get the device in operation. The warp generators were running, and the warp tunnel opening had been created. They checked their sensors to confirm a successful tunnel had been created, but could find no  warp energy signature anywhere near the target asteroid. They widened their scanner sweeps, but to no avail. There was no apparent warp energy anywhere in the entire sector. The new senior engineer picked up a comm link and called Theodore. (The old senior engineer was still in the hospital, a portion of his left leg having been chewed off by a rampaging miniature black hole the week before.) Theodore left the hall and hit the makeshift laboratory door in a full sprint.

      “What do you mean you can’t locate the exit hole?” he screamed. “I thought you ignorant retards said that you knew how to run this thing! Why is it not working?” his voice was cracking and had turned to something of a girlish scream. Engineers scrambled away from the control panel as he sprinted over there and started madly pushing buttons and throwing switches. The instruments all indicated a successful and smoothly functioning warp tunnel, of exactly the size and location ordered. But it was not there. It simply had not arrived in the desired location. Theodore pushed the power supply up a few notches, increasing the power feed to the warp generator.

      “The signal must be attenuating, we need more power.” He muttered, pushing the input up a few more jigawatts. The generator was fairly humming now, and the instruments showed that the warp hole had doubled in size. And in fact, the visible warp tunnel on this end was visibly larger as well. It had been projected into area, and any larger and it would begin to touch the walls of the enclosure. Still, the sensors at the target asteroid reported all was normal. The comm link in Theodore’s pocket began vibrating, signaling an incoming call. It was the public relations guy, warning him that the history presentation would be finished in under a minute, and that the audience was beginning to get antsy. Theodore promptly panicked.

      “Get Out! Everyone Out!” he screamed in his broken, maniacal girly voice. “I will handle this myself. Get out before you are all fired!”

Theodore’s panicked mind seized on an idea that was as wrong as it could possibly be, but the extent of his error would not become apparent for a few hours. By which time events would be in motion which would ensure that there was no chance of turning back.

      “Got to be the sensors. They are just not detecting the warp signature.” Theodore was muttering to himself, while frantically adjusting the sensors banks.

      “No time. I just have to trust that the coordinates are correct. Otherwise, the directors will call of the test and I will be finished.”

With much less hesitation than he had given to the fake lever at the ceremony earlier, he reached over and threw the switch sending power to the gravity generator. The generator came to life, and its dull grey beam reflected off of the traveling shovel of death and went obediently into the now oversized warp tunnel opening.

 

With that one small act, Theodore Barrera, Chief Engineer of the Karos Mining Corporation sealed the fate of an entire star system.

 

On the other side of the asteroid belt, exactly one hundred and eighty degrees from the target asteroid, the twin giants had reached the moment of celebration for the Spiraling Sky cultists. The party atmosphere had been silenced, as the high priestess of the Spiraling Sky began performing the Rite of The Union of The Giants. This ceremony was held every hundred years when the two giant planets passed closest to each other. The first rite was the recital of the ancient prophecy in the old tongue. It was simultaneously translated into standard galactic for the masses and transmitted via a subspace audio link to devotees across the solar system.

 

      “Through out the ages the giants dance

      Sleeping in their endless path

      Waiting for the One

      Who with greed and anger

      Awakens them

      The Great One, Ultros

      The Terrible One, Raba-Peg

      Together, they gather their armies

      Together, they make their march

      Together, they bring together

      Their mother, Diponert

      Their father, Diolusonu

      Their Family, terrible and black

      Consumes the cosmos.

 

The high priestess had waited all her life to recite these historical lines, had been prepared since infancy to do so. She recited them as a chant, her eyes closed, her arms spread to the viewport before her. Not a whisper was heard anywhere that the devotees gathered, as her voice crescendoed to the names of the giants, then decrescendoed down to the family. Then, a dramatic pause, then, with all of the sound she could muster, in a voice of ultimate devotion and adoration sang the last line. Before the echoes of her voice had died down, all of the occupants of the makeshift temple felt a rumbling in their feet. Murmurs of wonderment rippled through the crowd, as the rumbling grew into a distinct vibration. The High Priestess was the first to notice, due to her excellent vantage point at the viewport. The old mining rig had been positioned in just such a location that each giant was easily visible at the far left and right ends of the viewport. Infrared enhancers aided the naked eyes in seeing the glowing gases of the giant globes. In the exact center of the two twins, there appeared a swirling vortex. This vortex grew and changed, until it formed a nearly perfect circle, with rays of infrared light shooting off at random angles and intervals. It had the appearance of a halo of black smoke and red fire, and the High Priestess stood transfixed as it shimmered and danced in empty space. By now the crowd was no longer fascinated by the apparent power of the incantation, and were noticing that it felt as if the floor was tilting down, away from them. However, the two planets stayed in exactly the same position as before, showing them that the rig itself was not tilting. Besides, with artificial gravity, the rig could flip upside down, and nobody would be the wiser.

Then a scream erupted from the mouth of the high priestess. While everyone else had been puzzling over the apparently malfunctioning artificial gravity, she had continued to watch the circular halo hovering in space between the two giants. She had screamed, when she noticed that a column of gas had erupted from the surface of both giants, and was streaming towards the halo.

 

Theodore sat on the floor of the lab, sobbing. It still did not work. His career, his life was finished. He looked up at the monitor showing the position of the asteroid, and the numbers remained mockingly motionless. All other indicators showed that the gravity generator was running at near peak capacity, and the warp generator reported that it was transporting a high energy graviton beam across space to the a location just a few hundred meters from the target asteroid. But the asteroid remained stubbornly in place.

 

Then, anger replaced the desperation.

      “Stupid The Tinker… probably just didn’t realize how much power it would take to push a graviton beam all the way across the galaxy… Just needs more power…” and rising to his feet, he fiddled with the controls, diverting as much power as he could from the planetary grid to the gravity generator. The beam doubled, then quadrupled in size, until it nearly filled the entire warp tunnel opening. Satisfied, he turned to the monitors to await what he still believed would be his moment of triumph.

 

The High Priestess watched in horror as the columns of gas swirled closer and closer to the horrible circle in the middle. They were tracing lazy spirals now, as the gas began to follow the gravitational vortex formed by the strange singularity.

 

What nobody knew about transmitting a graviton beam through a warp tunnel, was the effect that warp space would have on a graviton beam. Radio signals transmitted more or less normally through warp tunnels, as long as the tunnels were kept extremely small. The larger the tunnels, the worse the signal would attenuate as it traveled through that mysterious dimension of space where it seemed as if distance was immaterial. Since nobody had ever tried transmitting a graviton beam through a warp tunnel, it was obvious that nobody could even guess that such an operation would amplify the power of the beam exponentially. The longer the distance traveled in real space measurement, the more the amplification. When The Tinker projected a graviton beam across the laboratory on that fateful night so recently, the graviton beam entering the warp field was almost enough to attract particles of dust if they were found to be floating in space far enough from any other gravitational influence. By the time it had traveled the fifty meters or so to the other end of the lab, it had enough strength to cancel out the planetary gravitational attraction on the reactor housing, and accelerate it, even if very slowly, towards itself. This represented an amplification of many orders of magnitude, and that just traveling through a small warp tunnel less than a hundred meters.

 

Fast forward to what would go down in history as the Karos disaster. Theodore had started the device with approximately the same power input as The Tinker had. However, he then cranked up the power on the warp tunnel, increasing the net amplification effect, and then using the same amount of energy with the gravity generator, transmitted a graviton beam through warp space halfway across the galaxy, a journey of several million miles. By the time it arrived, it had enough gravitational pull to affect weather patterns on nearby planets. When he cranked the energy input to near maximum capacity for the system, another few orders of magnitude were added to the gravitational pull of the graviton beam.

 

All of this would never have happened, if the warp tunnel had arrived where it had been intended. The hole would have opened, as expected very near to the asteroid. The graviton beam would have traveled through the tunnel to appear as expected very near to the target asteroid. The amplified graviton beam would most likely have caused the asteroid to break up instead of moving slowly towards the singularity, but even this would have been judged a successful experiment, and Theodore Barrera would have gone down in history with other greats like Newton and Einstein.

 

But the tunnel opening never appeared, and the beam never materialized. Or so the instruments indicated. This was only because they were looking in the wrong direction. When The Tinker had realized that he needed to bounce the warp field off of a gravitonium reflector, (also known as the Traveling Shovel of Death) he had of course realized, that this would create the resulting tunnel opening in the opposite direction. The Tinker being who he was, simply kept this little gem of knowledge in whatever place in his simple mind it needed to be kept, and never recalibrated the controls to adjust for it. When he set the coordinates for his experiment, he simply entered spatial coordinates that were one hundred and eighty degrees off and voila! The warp tunnel opened exactly where he thought it would.

 

Theodore Barrera would have loved to have known this little fact. In fact, the entire population of the Karos solar system would have found this little gem of knowledge very useful. For in the next few hours, faster than any astrophysicist would have thought possible, the tiny contraption made by The Tinker and misused by Theodore would prove to be the most powerful weapon ever devised by man, intentionally or, as in this case, unintentionally.

 

The rig was moving now, the twin planets were quickly growing in size and shifting off to the left and right out of sight. The station was rapidly accelerating towards the singularity, as was a good portion of the atmosphere of the two twin giants. The High Priestess was still in her place, although she was now standing on the viewport itself, since the pull of gravity was now completely towards the evil circle of fire and smoke. As she watched, a moon was drawn into the circle. No longer a neat globe, it had fragmented and left a long tail of dust and debris circling in behind it into the vortex. Panic reigned throughout the makeshift temple. Some attempted to flee in their spacecraft. A few even succeeded. More were so confused by the change in gravitational pull that they ended up crashing into the rig itself or each other. Through it all, the priestess continued her vigil. Watching as the two giants grew closer and closer.

 

Theodore was more determined than ever. Nothing continued to happen, and angry shouts in the hall now accompanied the loud pounding. No matter. They could not get in unless he let them, unless they blew the door down. And they would not dare. There was enough energy funneling through this room to fry the entire city. He had been thorough enough to hack into the power grid and prevent them from cutting the power off unless they shut down the entire planetary reactor. He just knew that it was a matter of time until the warp tunnel would open up, the asteroid would move, and he would walk out of this hell and into the glory of a hero’s welcome. He could see their faces now as they apologized for ever doubting. They would regret their unbelief. Impatiently, he looked at the power display again. There had to be some way he could squeeze some more power out of that grid…

 

Within hours, the old mining rig slash temple of the Twin Giants and the Swirling Sky had impacted the gravity well. As it added its infinitesimal mass to the rapidly forming object there, the iron core of the first giant began to break up and speed towards the well. The majority of its gas atmosphere had already been siphoned off by the hungry monster, and now billions of metric tons of iron ore began streaming towards the hole.

 

[Delete In December]

The molten core lit up the spiraling gasses, creating a dazzling light show and illuminating the dark space for miles around. Of course, this far out in the galaxy, light took several days to reach back to the inhabited planets.

 

As it spun around and around in the gravitational vortex, the magnetic field began to generate a massive electromagnetic field. Asteroids from the nearby belt rich in gravitonium began to spiral in, and began picking up an electrical charge from the electromagnetic field. After a few hours, the warp tunnel opening began to grow, as the entire singularity itself began to generate its own energy. The monster had now become self sustaining.

 

Theodore had fallen asleep, curled in the fetal position at the base of the control panel. His entire body twitched and quivered, as his dreams alternated between visions of triumphant vindication and abject failure. Suddenly his body jerked awake, and he screamed, a long trembling vocalization of pure terror. It took him a minute to realize that what had awakened him was a sudden silence in the room. His eyes widened in surprise, and he stood up and looked at the control panel. It was completely dead. The only light in the room was the emergency light above the door, which was barely sufficient to outline the now defunct Warp Transmitted Gravitronic Manipulator. The only thing clearly visible was the traveling shovel of death, which was still glowing with heat from all of the energy it had so recently reflected. Someone had finally figured out how to bypass all of the obstacles he had thrown up, and had killed the power. Failure, now that it had arrived was even more terrifying than he had imagined it would be. He stood there, numb and motionless even when the door was blown open and the security police stormed the room. As they carried him unresisting from the room, his eyes remained fixed on the ghostly blue glow of the slowly cooling shovel. He still had no idea how much death that doomed shovel had yet to deal.

 

A few hours after the first giant’s planetary core had crumbled under the tidal forces drawing it towards its twin, the second planet’s core also crumbled under the pressure. Another fluke of nature caused the chain reaction already set in motion to accelerate yet again. The core of the first planet was composed mostly of iron, as was the case with most gas giants. However, the second twin shared ancestry with whatever cosmic accident had created the unusually dense asteroid belt which was currently contributing so much gravitonium to the growing gravimetric disturbance. This meant that instead of having an iron core, its core was composed of materials more closely resembling those in the asteroids. Where the asteroids were slowly pouring gravitonium into the reaction, when the core of the second giant crumbled and began flying at near light speeds towards the swirling vortex, billions of metric tons of gravitonium rich debris began swirling into the existing electromagnetic field. The neat circular warp tunnel that had appeared initially had now become a tortured irregular tear in the very fabric of space time, and an infant black hole was rapidly forming just inside its yawing mouth. Had the warp tunnel been closed in a slow and deliberate manner, this tear would have most likely have slowly healed itself and closed on its own. However, shortly after the second giant began pouring its gravity inducing soul into the mix, a utilities technician a million miles away finally figured out the last of Theodore’s blocks, and was finally able to cut power to the infernal device, the warp tunnel collapsed uncontrollably, sending a shock wave of warp energy and negative gravimetric energy through the tunnel, once again being amplified by several orders of magnitude as it traveled through warp space. When it hit the other end of the tunnel, instead of closing the opening, it ripped it even larger. A gravitic shock wave traveled outwards from the tear, and the tidal forces accelerated all matter within a million miles suddenly at near light speed to the center of the tear, where the hungry monster swallowed it whole. As the matter was violently compressed in the torn space time, it began drifting into warp space until the entire vortex itself was no longer visible in real space, only a stream of matter flowing into a jagged and ugly line. At some point, the compressed matter reached a tipping point, and began slipping away through warp space towards the next largest gravitational field in the galaxy.

 

Astronomers at the [exotic sounding name] observatory were scrambling to verify reports that the two gas giants had suddenly and inexplicably disappeared from their places in space. Early observers had produced some photographs of what appeared to be both planets bulging outwards towards a column of gas which had erupted from their surface, but before the telescopes could be reconfigured and the photographs refined enough to be analyzed, the planets seemed to disappear entirely. There were no communications whatsoever from space craft known to be in the area, and some sort of warp disturbance was interfering with any attempt to send a faster than light ship to investigate.

 One astronomer however was more annoyed by all of the sudden attention than most. He was trying to complete a ten year study of the binary suns, and was having a hard time getting any scope time for his project. The deadline for submitting his final results to the scientific journals was quickly approaching, and he only needed a few more measurements to confirm his theories. Finally growing too frustrated to wait anymore, he jumped on an atmospheric transport and flew to a private observatory operated by a friend of his who had promised to allow him exclusive access. It would be a little difficult to obtain the readings he needed using the smaller and cheaper equipment, but it would be possible, and better than standing around waiting for a turn on the better government owned one.

He had just gotten the instruments tuned, and was beginning to focus on the area at the center of gravity between the two suns where his theory reported that a small black hole was located. He hoped to explain why the two solar systems had joined together so many eons ago, and why they would one day collide and create a fantastic super nova that would send shock waves across space. Besides trying to capture images of the black hole itself, he needed to verify the gravitational force of the singularity, as well as any electromagnetic or warp energy signatures that might exist. He had some preliminary numbers already, but there were some inconsistencies that he hoped to resolve before attempting to publish. Finally, all of the instruments were configured and he began recording data. It was rough, and would require further polishing but initial results showed that his calculations were more or less accurate. Then, something happened, and the numbers began to skew. Warp energy began fluctuating wildly all across the known spectrum, and the electromagnetic field produced by the black hole began to also fluctuate. The scientist was excited beyond expression. He seemed to be witnessing some sort of disturbance in the black hole, and he forgot everything that he had been working on and focused instead on documenting the new and unheard of tantrum apparently being thrown by the giant monster. The gravitational signature of the black hole began to change as well, but unlike the random and unpredictable fluctuations of the warp and electromagnetic fields, the gravitational field was only doing one thing, and that at a steadily accelerating rate. It was becoming stronger. Suddenly, the warp energy radiating from the black hole pegged every instrument in the observatory at maximum readable, and as the unbelieving scientist watched, a hole was ripped into real space and the infant black hole emerged precisely at the center of the existing black hole.

 

The infant had grown considerably as it traveled through warp space. The gravimetric energy had been amplified again, until the raging child was now more powerful and hungry as its older sibling at the center of the system, with which it now merged into a single, hungry entity. A gravimetric wave of immeasurable force radiated outwards from the newly joined black holes. The tear in space time through which the monster had emerged began closing, trapping the now doubled in size black hole squarely between the two suns. Within minutes, the shock wave traveling at light speed had reached the two suns. They both began to bulge towards each other, in a freak imitation of the mutation of the two gas giant planets. Within seconds, the same column of gas began erupting from each star, and the final death throes of the Karos system had begun.

 

The scientist watched all of this in dread silence. Even if he had the strength to speak, he would not have known what to say. It took about ten minutes for the shock wave to hit the planet. Just enough time for the startled scientist to mutter his final words.

      “I guess I was right…”

 

 

Chapter Whatever – Evacuation

 

Commander Olbandan was awakened by the clanging of the alarm klaxons throughout the station. His jaw ached, and he was pretty sure he had been having a nightmare about Ace again, but his foggy mind was unable to grasp anything solid to remember. Reacting on pure instinct, he grabbed the controller on the night stand next to his bed and punched up a video conference with the watch officer.

      “Captain, what is going on?” he demanded in a half sleepy voice.

      “Sir, we have reports from all over the galaxy that the suns have collided, and a gravimetric shock wave is headed this way. It will have abated considerably by the time it gets here, but the suns are still in the process of colliding, and are expected to go super nova at anytime. Central command has issued an immediate evacuation of all personnel and as much equipment as we can possibly move in the next ninety minutes.” A young newly promoted Captain recited nervously, reading from a tablet in his hand. This was a hell of a way to break a new staff officer in, thought Olbandan.

      “Very well. I will be down in five minutes. Continue the evacuation as ordered. Is there a carrier on its way to pick up the interceptors?”

      “Yes sir, Central has dispatched the Arclight group with the ship carrier Beavis empty for our ships.” The Captain seemed relieved to be able to relay some good news. Commander Olbandan winced at the name of the battle group but retained his composure despite a sudden urge to spit and curse.

      “Ensure that all personnel have their ships ready to transport the minute they arrive. No support personnel will be evacuated until their assigned vessel is off the deck.”

      “Yes Sir.” The young Captain saluted just as Olbandan closed the link. He then turned to the business of packing his things and getting dressed. He did not have much to do personally, since he had aides who would do most of the heavy lifting. He only had to worry about getting together those personal items which he did not want anyone else to touch or see. This included a piece of communication enclosed in an ancient looking parchment envelope and written by hand on an equally ancient piece of what Olbandan was sure used to be called paper. He had read it through several times, each time with equal measures of revulsion and excitement but had yet to decide what to do with it. For now, he packed it away with the rest of his personal things, and then left the locked valise in the front room of his quarters. When he opened the door to leave, two young non comms were standing there with his flight gear. Without a word he took it from them, and they moved into his quarters to pack the rest of his things and load them on the transport. He walked away, his flight helmet under one arm towards the flight deck of the doomed station.

 

Admiral Stafford was not entirely happy to be back at the mining station so soon after the last time. He contented himself that at least this time it was not in order to rescue a pilot abandoned in deep space by his command. Something about Commander Olbandan got under his skin in a very irritating way, and while he would have been happy to simply demote him to the lowest possible rank and discharge him, his father did have a great deal of influence in the government, and it would have been a career ending move to have done so without a very good reason. Nonetheless he was glad to be able to help the rest of the pilots in the squadron and see that they were brought to safety before the oncoming graviton storm and the quickly forming super nova explosion. The interceptors were not equipped with warp drives, and although they could accelerate to near light speed that was still not fast enough to outrun the oncoming shock wave and whatever else might be coming with it. The station would of course be abandoned. It was capable of being repositioned, but being such a large and ungainly structure, it would take weeks to reconfigure it for anything but a slow and gentle repositioning. It would be only a few hours to transfer all of the interceptors and some of the most valuable support vessels to the carrier. A good deal of the common equipment would be left to possible destruction on the station since there was limited room on even a large space craft carrier like the Beavis. He had also brought a couple of light speed transports and three battle cruisers for security. There was nothing that would attract every space pilot and Emdeean operative in the sector like news that a carrier full of the AIS interceptors was traveling alone through space. The carriers were impressive vehicles, with a considerable defensive arsenal but with the maneuvering capabilities of a beached whale. Inertial dampeners could only do so much to cancel out the effects of inertia on such a large object. In case of attack, the battle cruisers would maneuver into a defensive posture and the interceptors would be launched to swarm the attackers. With heavy weapons attacks from the cruisers and a million small injuries inflicted by the interceptors it was a sure thing that any attackers would quickly be overwhelmed. Only a fool, or someone with inside help would ever consider attacking a fully armed battle group.

 

Chapter Whatever – The Piglet

 

Ace was bored. Whatever he could say about his new job, all of it bad, the worst was the boredom. Piloting a civilian transport just had absolutely no thrill to it whatsoever, especially for one accustomed to zooming at high speed through asteroid fields with bad guys either chasing or being chased. The most excitement he had experienced so far was the time that one of the passengers managed to smuggle a Carbonian Picki Fowl on board. (Think a twenty pound chicken with teeth.) It was the only time that Ace had even been acknowledged by the passengers, and most simply complained of the Picki Fowl entrails that they had to clean out of their clothing after he disintegrated it with a microwave blaster. (This was barely even a weapon, intended to be “non lethal” and was issued to transport pilots in order to disrupt any disturbances on their ships. The microwave blast caused instant discomfort and even mild pain in target subjects by increasing the temperature of the water molecules in their skin. Ace had easily managed to crank up the voltage until the beam caused much more than simple “discomfort” as the manufacturer had intended.)

Today looked to be one of the worst, as he was scheduled for a seventy two hour layover on the desert moon of Ruco-Su which boasted one dingy diner, one bedbug infested hotel, and the largest terrestrial space craft grave yard in the known universe. The diner did not serve drinks, at least not the kind Ace was craving, he had already satisfied himself that sleeping in his pilot seat on board the shuttle was preferable to the hotel, and so the grave yard was the only thing that promised at least some kind of diversion. He wondered if he might find an old wreck that he had once flown, but given the size of the place soon gave that up as a bad idea.

Opting to bypass the local ground transportation in favor of wasting some time, Ace soon came to understand why this place was known as a desert moon. By the time he arrived at the entrance to the grave yard, he was hot, dusty, and feeling a little dizzy. The dazzling brilliance of the white hot sun beat down without mercy on the flimsy hat that was part of his pilot’s uniform, and the dark cloth of the uniform itself, while looking proper and appropriate on a public transport, absorbed heat with a vicious hunger. He thought of removing the blouse once or twice, and continuing in just the tank top he wore underneath, but the thought of the vicious sunburn he would receive in short order forced him to keep it on. At least it was protecting his skin from severe damage, although the burning on the back of his neck told him that he was not completely safe.

The grave yard was surrounded by a stone wall of the same dull tan material used by everything on this miserable rock, which had been quarried from the ground. The gates at the entrance were also enormous, cast from some dark metal that even in the blazing heat felt cool to the touch. He noticed a sign in some other language, but he understood the bright red arrow pointing to an ancient button at the right edge of the gate. He pushed it, then leaned his head against the cool metal, hoping to transfer some of the heat he felt in his head to it and thus cool his own body some.

      “Wouldn’t lean against that if I were you.” A rough voice rang out from somewhere inside. “Our guard beast has long arms, and has been known to reach folks standing much farther back than that.” A short, squat little man of uncertain ancestry was waddling towards the gate, a gigantic ring of electronic keys dangling from one grubby hand. Nochonis was actually mostly human, but family rumors hinted at an Sinoan in the woodpile sometime back which suddenly expressed itself in him. It was more than the stubby row of horns down the crown of his head, it was the odd way he spoke and his ability to understand and communicate with creatures of much lower intelligence that made most people wonder. He had befriended all kinds of dumb animals from all across the universe, his favorite being a mildly retarded spider monkey an Earth native had dropped off on his way through the spaceport. He had heard that Nochonis had good luck with such animals, and feeling sorry for the little guy had brought him here for adoption. The so called “guard beast” was another example, it was actually a hybrid [alien planet] [alien beast] that had been used for genetic testing in a government lab. It was certainly a blood thirsty beast and had feasted on the flesh of plenty of would be thieves who crept over the wall to get some free parts. However, Nochonis had long ago learned that it actually preferred to eat chocolate, and would happily perform any number of tricks to obtain it. This was a closely guarded secret however, since any crook who desired to do so could use it to steal whatever they wanted without fear of the beast.

 

Ace jumped back from the bars, startled at the sudden voice. The sudden movement made his head swirl, and he staggered backwards a few feet trying to regain his balance. The heat and the long walk had been too much for him however, and he failed in the attempt. Sprawling headlong into the dry dust, stars exploded in his vision as his head bounced once on the hard ground. Nochonis was through the gate and at his side in an instant, helping him unsteadily to his feet.

      “Whoa there partner! How long have you been out in the sun today? Don’t you know any better than to wander around Ruco-So without thermal shielding? Geez louise, I am surprised your clothing hasn’t burst into flames! Don’t you know that there is a public transport for just this reason?” Nochonis rambled on and on about other tourists who had wandered away from the space port and been found blackened and charred where they fell. Ace’s head was still spinning at a rather alarming speed, and he was having a pretty hard time following any of the conversation.

Nochonis helped him into the ramshackle building that served as both office, shop, and home to Nochonis and his menagerie of off world creatures. The ammonia stench did Ace a world of good by snapping him back to full consciousness, but his legs still felt rather weak and wobbly and he was grateful when Nochonis finally dumped him unceremoniously onto a very beastly smelling counch. After clanking around in the nearby kitchen for a few minutes, Nochonis reappeared with a nominally clean glass of mostly clear water. Ace hesitated only a second, then accepted the proffered liquid and downed it all in a single draught. Nochonis watched this with apparent glee, and when Ace’s stomach rebelled at the sudden onslaught he laughed out loud. Ace was doubled over retching onto the floor and wondering what kind of sadistic lair he had wandered into.

      “You should know better than to gulp water when you’ve been out into the heat! Good heavens, one would think you were nothing but a spacer, and never lived on a planet your whole life! Where you from by the way?” Nochonis rescued the glass from Ace’s limp hand and wandered back to the kitchen for a refill. Ace did not answer until after he had more carefully this time, sipped about half of the water. Nochonis plopped himself down on the floor, unabashedly watching Ace and waiting for his answer.

      “Earth originally, but you are right about space. It has been years since I actually lived on a planet. I was serving in…” Ace began, but the bitterness at being thrown out of the space forces was still very fresh and he had to stop for a minute to make sure that his stomach was not getting ready to rebel again. Nochonis nodded knowingly.

      “I knowed you was a spacer, even without the frilly uneeform you got on. Way too pale, and too stupid to know how dangerous it is to wander around unprotected from the sun on a tiny rock like this. Ain’t but about a mile of atmosphere between you and the full fury of the sun, and if it wasn’t for the magnetic field of the planet we orbit, this rock wouldn’t even be habitable. Just lucky its big enough to keep us inside the field and that we are far enough from the sun that we can be here. Good news is that the absolute lack of humidity makes for a good environment to store old parts in. Nothing ever rusts here, any moisture evaporates before it gets a chance to start oxidizing anything.”

Ace was beginning to get the idea that this man did not get a lot of conversation, and when he did get someone cornered, he was more than capable of talking their leg completely off with a random stream of topics that had only the most tenuous of connections. When Ace tipped up the glass to sip the last of the luke warm water Nochonis snatched the glass out of his hand and shuffled off to refill it again, never missing a beat. Ace was beginning to feel a little better, although his neck was now beginning to sting like a thousand pins were being plunged in and out repeatedly. He reached back and touched it gingerly. When his fingers touched the skin, he found that it was so hot that for a second he was convinced that his fingers had been scorched by the contact. He drew in a hissing breath at the explosion of searing pain where his fingers had brushed the skin and Nochonis finally noticed the painful looking burn.

      “Got yourself a good looking burn there. You will want to put a cold compress on it as soon as you can.” He remarked casually, handing Ace another glass of water.

      “You got one?” Ace asked hopefully.

      “Nope, refrigeration unit’s broke, so I got nothing to freeze it with. I used to have a chemical one in a first aid kit around here somewhere, but I have no idea where that got to. The Tinker used to carry that thing around like it was his lunch box or something. Funny thing about The Tinker, I heard the Karos system where that nervous guy took him blew up. Wonder if he got out first. Wonder if he caused it. That The Tinker. That’s how he called himself. I started calling him just Tinker, but he would insist I add the The first. Strangest guy I ever met.” Nochonis had been pawing through a pile of boxes and electronic components on the far end of the room. Apparently giving up on his quest, he wandered back over to Ace and plopped down on the floor again.

      “Nope, no cold pack. You can get one back at the station. What are you doing out here anyway?” he asked, with his head cocked to one side like a dog. The sudden silence in the room made Ace painfully aware that his head was actually throbbing with pain now that the dizziness was wearing off.

      “Thought I would come out and take a look at some of your old stuff I guess.” Ace mumbled. “Got a seventy two hour layover at the station, and I didn’t plan on spending it in the terminal with the passengers arguing over whether or not I needed to vaporize their pet picki fowl.” The last was growled out through clenched teeth, and Nochonis understood that this might not be the time to discuss his love of animals and his disapproval of their vaporization. He did have some social graces after all, his mother had tried to raise him right at least until the neighborhood kids started making up stories about… but that was in the past, and this poor spacer had nothing to do with that.

      “Well, this aint just some old museum you know. It is a place of business, or at least it was when The Tinker was here. I tell you what that guy could fix anything.” Nochonis rambled on for a while, as Ace began to doze off on the couch.

 

Ace was awakened the next morning by a tiny spider monkey which landed in the middle of his chest. It sat there staring stupidly, and Ace wondered what exactly it was trying to figure out. He was somewhat surprised to find himself stretched out on the ratty sofa in the space craft grave yard office. He did not remember falling asleep there, and certainly did not remember the odd looking proprietor placing the ratty rag of a blanket that he had wadded up at his feet. The monkey, after careful consideration reached out one tremulous hand and felt Ace’s nose, trying to decide if it was any sort of food. Ace reached up to swat it away, and startled the monkey. It screamed an ear splitting shriek and leapt away. The noise of the monkey aroused all of the other creatures in the room, and they each began making their own kind of racket. Fortunately, most were in cages, but the monkey and a few other rodent like creatures had free roam of the room. Several flying creatures zoomed back and forth across the space, each making their own fashion of aural protest at the apparent abuse suffered by their mildly retarded comrade. Ace sat up, and the skin on his neck screamed in utter protest. It had stretched tight in the night and large blisters had formed. Some had already burst, and the tender skin beneath them lent an entirely new level of pain to that already present. Ace did not dare get off the couch. Some of the rodent creatures had respectably sized teeth, and were not looking very friendly at the moment. Ace pulled his feet up onto the couch, and wrapped his arms around his knees. Too bad he had left the microwave blaster back in the locker on the ship. He would have gladly evaporated a few of these screeching critters to make them stop their infernal racket. His eyes felt as if they were filled with sand, and his head was beginning the drum beats again. His toungue felt as if it was too big for his mouth and his throat could easily have been the source of the sand in his eyes for the way it scratched when he tried to swallow.

Just as Ace was about to make a break for the kitchen to find a weapon with which to defend himself, his host made an entrance and not a moment too soon. The rodents had apparently made up their mind that he was their breakfast, and while one kept Ace’s attention by making a rather obvious display of ferocity two others had crept up along the sides of the couch and were prepared to spring.

Nochonis hissed at them, and in a pitch perfect imitation of their own snarling language apparently ordered them back to their dens. All three slunk off to regions unknown beneath the clutter, and Ace was left to gaze up gratefully into the old man’s concerned face.

      “That neck isn’t getting any better. I told you to get a cold compress on it. But then you just crashed out on the couch. Right in the middle of a story too, which some folks might find a little bit rude, but I understand. I got caught outside without shielding once, for twelve hours or more. Good thing my skin is pretty thick, and I am kind of used to it…” Nochonis rambled on for a while, as he wandered off to the kitchen with a large sack of something clutched to his chest. Not wanting to take his chances with the rodents, Ace struggled to his feet to follow. The pounding in his head suddenly tripled, then just as quickly quadrupled beyond that. He could actually feel his heart thumping in his chest, and each beat transmitted a searing pulse of pain across the tortured skin of his neck and terminating in a small explosion of pain at the very front of his skull. At each beat, he was convinced that his eyeballs would simply explode out of their sockets, the pressure and pain was so intense.

He fought through the fog of pain and staggered over to a counter where a battered old bar stool leaned crazily to one side. He sat on it gingerly, and it held but barely. He kept one foot on the floor and one hand on the counter just to be sure he could catch himself if it gave up the ghost in response to his weight.

      Nochonis started pulling objects out of the bag and setting them on the counter. Suddenly, a blood curdling scream erupted outside. Despite his precautions, Ace jumped and the stool collapsed underneath him. He went down to the floor and from that uncomfortable vantage point, saw his seemingly slow guest moving to the door with a speed that was nothing short of impossible for such a heavy person. He scrambled to his feet, swaying a little from the effort and stumbled after him, wondering what fresh hell was waiting outside. The scream ended as quickly as it had begun, and by the time he got to the door, Nochonis was standing by the gate holding tightly to a collar which was fastened around the neck of one of the ugliest and most vicious looking creatures he had ever seen. Despite the creature’s appearance, it was no longer the focus of Nochonis’ attention. He was enthusiastically greeting someone outside the gate I a language which Ace finally recognized as an almost infantile corruption of the galactic standard, while fumbling with one hand to find the correct electronic card which would open the latch. The man on the outside was also excited, and was babbling incoherently in the same type of language. He apparently grew impatient with waiting for Nochonis to open the gate, and withdrawing a small screwdriver from his pocket, reached over and in a few seconds popped the lock and entered. He first greeted the hellish creature on the ground, which promptly rolled over to have its belly rubbed. Then he greeted Nochonis with a clumsy and overly enthusiastic hug. They turned and headed back towards the building, where they found Ace standing uncertainly in the doorway.

      “Hey! This is The Tinker! The guy I told you about! He did not get destroyed when the Karos system blew up! His boss sent him back here first. Its kind of hard to understand what he is telling me, but I gather that he did have something to do with the whole disaster. And something about a shovel, but that could just be him babbling like he always does about cheese.”

Nochonis turned back to The Tinker and introduced Ace.

      “Hey The Tinker, this is my new friend… umm… did you tell me your name yet? You may have done, but I plumb forgot it if you did. I remember that you are a spacer, without enough sense to stay out of the sun, but what was your name?”

      “Ace, Pedona. And I really should get going. My flight leaves in a little under twelve hours, and I need to find some medical attention for my neck.” Ace answered.

      “Oh yeah, that. Well our scatter brained friend The Tinker has let his transport leave already, and since it is the only one on the whole god forsaken moon, you will not be able to call for it until it gets back to the space port. Come inside and have some breakfast, I got some stuff for your neck and I can run you back into town when we are finished. Unless you want to try hoofing it again?” He answered with a broad toothy grin.

 

Ace had to admit that another walk in the Ruco-Suan sun was not really high on his list of things to do today, and while he was somewhat leery of whatever Nochonis may have brought back to treat the severe sunburn on his neck, it couldn’t be any worse than simply enduring.

The breakfast turned out to be half way decent, but only just. The food was completely unfamiliar, and what was not undercooked by the ancient microwave oven was over cooked or maybe should not have been cooked at all. But the appetite with which the other two diners tucked into the meal encouraged Ace, and he had to admit afterwards that he felt much better. The treatment for his neck turned out to be an evil smelling salve that nonetheless instantly banished the pain. Of course, he had to be careful not to inhale too deeply lest he get too strong a whiff of the stuff and vomit. Ace felt rather left out of the breakfast conversation, since The Tinker and Nochonis continued to ramble on in their odd language. He was surprised how disappointed he felt about being left out of the conversation. He had found Nochonis’ constant rambling rather annoying, but now that he was being basically ignored, he was not sure he would have been annoyed any more. Finally, glancing at his chronometer Ace realized that he really needed to get back to the space port and start prepping for his flight. He cleared his throat and pouncing on a near lull in the flow of gibberish, announced his intentions to leave.

      “Uhh.. hey can I get that ride back into town now? I really need to get…”

Nochonis interrupted him excitedly.

      “Hey, you want to see what The Tinker brought with him, it really is a one of a kind now, since the galaxy blew up. I don’t know anywhere else in the universe you could find something like this. Probably the guy who sent him in it thought he was getting rid of some junk, but since The Tinker went and destroyed the galaxy I am pretty sure the rest of the fleet got destroyed along with it. I mean, if you have something powerful enough to destroy two suns, won’t it destroy a fleet of lumbering freighters? I mean, what could survive something like that?” Nochonis rambled on as he and The Tinker got up and headed outside.

      “Frieghter! More power! Big power in this one, by cheese! More power than a cheese darn cruiser this one! But slow, is he ever slow! No warpies in this one, but she’s a good un I  think!” The Tinker addressed Ace directly for the first time. Whatever he was rambling on about, he was extremely excited about it.

      “What is it? What are you two blabbering about?” Ace snapped, not sure yet whether he was curious, or annoyed, or glad they had finally started paying attention to him.

      “Karos freighter! By cheese, mining freighter, with a gigantic pusher! Push an entire asteroid, if its small enough.” The tinker rambled on for a while, and Ace finally decided that he was definitely interested. While working with the squadron on smuggler interdiction patrols in the Karos system, he had more than once seen one of the mining tugs pushing what appeared to be an endless line of barges loaded with the expensive gravitonium ore. He had always wanted to see what kind of power plant those things had under the hood, and apparently The Tinker had brought one back with him.

      “Where is it? I would like to see one of those, but then I really have to go.” Ace admitted. The Tinker seemed to find this extremely humorous for some reason and burst into a loud braying laugh which would have been somewhat alarming on any other person, but seemed almost perfect for the person that Ace was finding in The Tinker.

 

A few minutes of winding through the haphazardly placed space hulks in Nochonis’ terrestrial transport found them at his makeshift spaceport where The Tinker had landed a few hours ago. Although The Tinker was not actually a pilot, whoever had been assigned the task of getting rid of him had simply placed him on the freighter, then programmed the auto pilot to take him back to the barren desert moon. This was a pretty risky thing to do, for the passengers. Auto pilot was excellent at getting a craft from point a to point b, but horrible at dealing with any of the unanticipated emergencies a space craft might encounter along the way. Anything from a wayward asteroid to equipment failure and the auto pilot would either keep the ship heading directly into the danger or simply shut off and leave the ship speeding on in the same direction until it ran into something.

Fortunately, as we have already seen, The Tinker lived something of a charmed life, and had arrived without incident. This was even more remarkable when the three began to evaluate the condition of the old ship. It seemed that the Karos Mining Corporation had not wanted to spend the money to either transport The Tinker properly, or to dispose of an old freighter tug on its last legs. Perhaps Chief Engineer Barrera had intended for something to happen to The Tinker on his journey, and both dispose of the evidence of his own greed and give the corporation an insurance claim for a lost space craft. The decrepit condition of the ship apparently meant nothing to The Tinker, who seemed to be entirely in love with the old hulk. Nochonis seemed to recognize the work required to bring it back to a dependable condition, but had enough confidence in The Tinker’s ability to make it so. Ace was fascinated with the craft, despite its condition but purely from an intellectual standpoint. Having been fascinated with space craft from an early age, he never passed up an opportunity to take a new craft for a spin. However, today he was a little nervous about getting back to the spaceport. As bad as he hated his job, he still didn’t much like the thought of finding another one any better. He was about to bring this topic up, when Nochonis suddenly turned away from a rather intense exchange with The Tinker and asked Ace a question which would change his life.

      “Have you ever heard of the Trans Universal Sub Light Race?”

 

Ace had to admit that he was pretty intrigued. He had indeed heard of the race, and thought that it would be pretty fun to try. However Space Patrol regulations prohibited pilots from participating an any off duty flying that was considered dangerous, and the Great Race, as it was called was definitely that. Hundreds of pilots competed to make the best time getting from one end of known space to the other. The hard part was that the rules of the race prohibited warp travel, and the racer had to land on and take off from over a thousand planets in the course of the race. Traveling without the benefit of warp technology meant that the pilots had to carefully time their acceleration and deceleration to make sure that they didn’t damage their craft due to excessive inertial forces. Inertial dampeners had contributed greatly, as had gravitic thrusters which would allow near light speeds without warp travel, but the course was set up in such a way that the pilot still had to be extremely careful and to plan his or her route in such a way that they could avoid heavy gravitational fields and unanticipated space debris that could shred a vessel traveling at that speed. The specific course was not specified, only the requirement that the pilot land on each of the one thousand planets, check in with the race official, and take off again. The racer had to carry a “baton” which recorded the check ins on each planet, and also had a warp field detector which would reveal if the ship had at any time passed through a warp tunnel. Any tampering with the electronics in the baton was grounds for disqualification, and any evidence of warp energy would automatically activate the baton and when it was examined at the next waypoint, the racer would also be disqualified. There were no restrictions agains interfering with other racers, and since many of the planets were in restricted space on worlds whose goverments had banned participation in the race, flying a heavily armed and shielded vehicle was an automatic consideration.

So what would motivate pilots to risk everything to participate in such a dangerous enterprise? First of all, the reputation. Simply being able to claim that you had completed the course was enough to earn the instant respect and envy of any pilot in the universe. Second, the prize was a king’s ransom in the currency of the pilot’s native government. More money than the winning pilot’s grandchildren could spend, and then some. There had not been a winner for several decades, since the Emdeean empire had begun their quest to dominate the universe. Instead of capturing and detaining stray racers, they tended to simply destroy them.

 

Ace knew all of this, but never considered that he would ever be able to enter the race. The cost of obtaining a proper craft, then outfitting it with the necessary armaments and equipment, and finally paying the entry fee were more than he thought he could make, either as a Space Forces pilot or especially as the pilot of a public transport craft. So it was even more surprising when Nochonis asked such a question out of nowhere. Ace was flummoxed, and simply stood there staring at Nochonis as if he had sprouted a new set of horns.

      “What do you mean? The Race? Why, are you… what do you mean?” Ace stammered uncertainly.

      “The Tinker thinks he can make this ship fast enough to win it. But he needs someone to fly it. You are a pilot aren’t you? You want to enter the Race?” Nochonis asked eagerly. Ace was even more flabbergasted at this than he was at the initial question.

      “This… in the Race? Me, flying…In the Race? In a mining tug? Are you insane? I have to get back to the space port. Are you going to take me or should I walk?” Ace snapped. The Tinker wandered over, a look of concern on his face.

      “Can he fly? He doesn’t look like a flyer guy. Flyer guys are tough guys. This guys is scaredy guy. He can’t fly. I bet he can’t fly. Lets go find a flyer ‘Choney… lets find a real pilot.” The Tinker started tugging on Nochonis’ shirt sleeve, pulling him towards the transport. Ace felt his neck start to burn again, but this time it was not the sunburn that was bothering him.

      “Can’t fly? What do you mean can’t fly you half wit. I was the best flyer in the in the space forces until they kicked me out. I destroyed an Emdeean battle cruiser single handedly and they threw me out for it. Just because I wouldn’t follow the orders of an arrogant spoiled rotten politicians brat who wasn’t fit to command a garbage scow. I can fly anything with a propulsion unit and a control stick.” Ace had not had a realy chance to vent his frustration since being drummed out of the forces, and The Tinker had hit a nerve with his innocent comment. Nochonis however was nonplussed at this sudden outburst.    “Let’s see what you can do with this pig then, if you are that good.”

      “You got it. Let’s see what this decrepit old piglet can do. Come on.” Ace turned and strode angrily up the ramp into the ship. When he got to the top, he turned and looked back. The Tinker was excitedly following, having decided that Ace’s sudden burst of anger was confirmation that he was indeed a pilot. But Nochonis was still standing on the ground at then end of the ramp.

      “Well, are you coming? Don’t you want to see me make this thing do backflips?” Ace demanded angrily.

      “Nope, don’t fly. Ever.” Nochonis stated nonchalantly. Ace stood there, his mouth gaping open as his angry brain attempted to process this incongruous statement.

      “What do you mean you don’t fly? Why not? How did you get to this place then? Didn’t you fly here?” Ace questioned.

      “Every time I get on one of those things, it crashes. How did I get here? I crashed. How did I start a space craft grave yard? The first three ships I tried to get off of here on were the first three hulks I added to the collection. Some god somewhere has decreed that Rocu-Su is my new home, and any time I attempt to leave the surface, I am violently returned to it. I have actually been banned from the public transport system for that very reason.” Nochonis seemed rather unemotional about his curse.

      “Its not too bad, I really don’t want to go anywhere else. I like it here.” He shrugged.

Ace stood there staring for another few minutes, then decided he really didn’t want to pursue the topic any further. Turning into the ship, he wandered down to the pilot’s compartment.

 

The Karos Freighter Tug was a very basic machine. Nothing special about them, except for the enormous fusion reactor which was necessary to operate the gravitic thrusters. Squat and boxy, there were none of the usual provisions to make a space craft pleasing to the eye. The cockpit consisted of a box, with a rather large and unwieldy protuberance in front with magnetic couplers used to connect the tug to its ore barges. It could also be used to push a smaller asteroid itself into a better position to be harvested. Behind the cockpit, there was a long flat bed, to which various modules could be mounted. For long term deployments, a crew quarters could be mounted, connected to the cockpit by a narrow walkway. Or various types of cargo bays could be used, and cargo could even be secured to the bed itself when necessary. Beneath the cargo bed was the power plant, and the long gravitic thrusters. The power plant and the thrusters were both of a sufficient size and output that they would not have been out of place on a large freighter or even a battle cruiser. It took a lot of thrust to get even a small asteroid in motion or to bring it to a stop and an inertial dampening field was far too small and weak to be of much help. Therefore, the inertia of an asteroid had to be overcome the old fashioned way, by brute force. The ore barges had built in inertial dampeners, but since they did not have their own power sources, the power plant on the tug was used to power them. This was another reason for the outsized plant on the tugs.

 

It was this outsized plant and equally outsized thrusters that had caught the attention of The Tinker. Ace did not know him well enough to understand what surprisingly innovative designs The Tinker could come up with using that much power, but Nochonis had no doubt that whatever it was, it would be well worth looking into. But The Tinker could not be bothered with all of the tedium of flying, and had therefore never learned. He was just as likely to be in the engine room of the ship fiddling with the equipment while the ship flew directly into a star. Nochonis had vowed to never board another space craft, owing to his apparent curse. This left Ace as the next available pilot who might be able to take advantage of The Tinker’s gift. But Ace had not yet recognized the opportunity staring him in the face. Luckily, this opportunity would actually knock twice.

 

Ace sat down at the pilot’s console in the cramped cockpit of the mining tug. The Tinker stood behind his seat, hunched over to watch out the viewports. It took Ace a few seconds to get the lay of the controls, and with a few helpful hints from The Tinker, he powered up the reactor, and then brought the gravitic thrusters online. Powering up the thrusters themselves while sitting on the ground would have wreaked all sorts of havoc as ground debris got caught in the accelerated graviton stream being propelled out the back of the thrusters. However, their graviton manipulating properties were still used to get the craft away from the planet. Instead of thrusting, they simply created an anti gravity field underneath the craft, which then began “falling” upwards propelled by the actual gravity field of the planet (or in this case, desert moon) from which they were taking off. Once airborne a few hundred feet, Ace searched the control panel for an atmospheric thruster control. Gravitic thrusters were generally not used for atmospheric flight, since too strong of an accelerated graviton stream could also have unfortunate effects on the weather patterns of a planet. Instead, most planetary craft were equipped with some sort of rocket booster or air turbine propulsion for use inside a planetary atmosphere. He turned and questioned The Tinker about their apparent lack on this craft.

      “Hey there Tink, does this piglet come with atmospheric thrusters or what?”

      “Name is The Tinker. Not Tink. I don’t know Tink. He may be away right now. Can I take a message?” The Tinker answered earnestly. Ace stared at him for a few seconds, trying to decide if he was being serious.

      “You are Tink. It’s a nick name. And who gives a crap? Does this thing have atmospheric propulsion or do we just go straight up until we leave the atmosphere?” Ace answered, beginning to feel a slight annoyance rising up in his mind.

      “Tink’s not here right now. Can I take a message?” The Tinker answered, his expression turning slightly confused.

      “Forget about it. Mr. THE TINKER sir, does this flying hunk of debris have atmospheric thrusters or not?” Ace snapped, tiring of the game. The Tinker’s face lit up at the proper use of his name, and he answered happily.

      “Nope, none, nada no cheese today. Not meant for planetary work, only meant for asteroid mining. No atmosphere there. No atmosphere thrusting about to worry about. I can fix it though. Take hydrogenies from the reactor reaction and pipe it to thruster nozzles outside. Then we can thruster in the air. Then the Piglet will go where you want him to.” Ace beamed at this, feeling confident that Ace was agreeing to fly the craft in the race.

      “Whatever you want mister The Tinker sir.” Ace responded icily. “You can paint it pink and call it the Piglet and attach booster nozzles to every square inch of it if you want, but I have a flight to get back to, and you have just informed me that in order to maneuver without causing moon wide weather havoc, I will have to go into orbit and then try to get this thing to fall back to the surface using nothing but the anti grav to keep us from falling like a rock.”

      “Yep! True as true. You are smart mister Ace the pilot sir.” The Tinker beamed back, imitating the sarcastic tone Ace used with the pretended honorifics. Ace was now convinced that he was being made fun of, and without another word turned around in his seat and slamming the controls around, started the tug in a downward fall. While he didn’t have any atmospheric thrusters, he did know a trick or two. Quickly snapping the seat belts on the pilot’s seat, he reduced the anti grav to nearly zero, and the tug was quickly free falling towards the planet. The Tinker not being in a seat was suddenly subjected to zero gravity, and began floating away from the floor. Luckily there was not much room to float in the cramped cockpit, and he was soon wedged against the ceiling only a few inches above where he had been standing.

Ace meanwhile had been fiddling with the anti grav system. He found that, just as he had suspected, that it consisted of two separate gravity generators, one located in each gravitic thruster. When the thrusters were used, these generators would create the graviton stream which was then accelerated the length of the thruster tubes and ejecting from the end provided the propulsion for the craft. The maneuvering thrust was provided by tweaking the orientation of the graviton stream slightly so that as the streams exited the thrusters, they would rotate the craft in the desired direction. To provide backwards thrust, the generators would simply reverse the polarity of the graviton beam, and then the stream being emitted would pull on the craft rather than pushing it. Of course, Ace was still in the atmosphere and could not use the thrusters. But he could alternate the direction in which the anti grav field was oriented, and then using the air pressure of the atmosphere he could glide the craft in roughly the direction he wanted. Of course, it worked better in a more aero dynamic ship. The mining tug was basically a flying box, with no aerodynamic properties whatsoever. Ace angled the anti gravity field towards the rear of the vessel, and it quickly tipped forwards, accelerating faster than before but also slipping forwards relative to the moon’s surface. The navigational screen that was provided showed that this was the proper direction to move towards the space station, but Ace had to use his best judgement to decide how far to go, since the nav computer had no program in place to deal with such an unnormal procedure. When he felt that he was in the right spot, Ace returned the anti gravity field to normal, and the ship quickly righted itself although it continued its forward motion. Ace checked the nav screen again and reversed the anti grav field once more to slow their forward speed. The space port was now visible on the ground, and when Ace was satisfied that they would not over shoot it, he righted the ship again, and then brought the anti grav power back up to slow their descent. The free fall slowed, and The Tinker’s feet had just contacted the deck again when a red light began flashing on the panel and a harsh siren began to sound. Ace scrambled to figure out what was wrong, when he felt the sensation of free fall returning with alarming suddenness. The Tinker shot upwards and slammed violently into the ceiling of the craft, and Ace was pushed upwards against the seat belts. The gravity generators had given out, and the ship was suddenly in true free fall, with only seconds before impacting the surface. Ace was surprised, but only for a second. This had happened before, and his hands performed their job almost as fast as his mind found the correct controls. He ran down a sort of a checklist in his mind, of all the methods available to overcome such a disaster. Since the tug was never designed with atmospheric flight in mind, no kind of parachute system was onboard. There were no wings or other lift producing surfaces, so any hope of gliding to a dead stick landing was out. The fusion reactor was functioning, so they had plenty of power, it was just the anti grav field that had collapsed for some reason. Finally settling on his only available option, he powered up the thrusters and directed them to flip the back end of the tug upwards, and away from the surface. A short burst of the gravitic thrusters did the job, but also revealed the location of the failure. The starboard grav generator failed to fire its graviton stream. Instead of a neat reorientation the craft flipped, and began to spiral madly at an odd angle to the ground. Adjusting the one working thruster to correct the spin, Ace fired another short burst which brought the craft back to square with the rapidly approaching surface. As soon as he was satisfied with the orientation he cut all power to the grav system altogether, and fired up the magnetic coupler on the front of the tug. Hoping madly that the moon was composed of at least some magnetic sensitive material, he set the bumper to repel and cranked the power to max. The moon was indeed composed a mostly iron, and a scarce one hundred meters above the surface, the powerful magnetic repulsor kicked on. Unfortunately for Ace, there was no inertial dampening, and he felt himself being crushed against the seatbelts as their speed went from near terminal velocity to a dead halt in the space of a few hundred meters. Even more unfortunately for The Tinker, he was not strapped in to a seat, and was simply thrown forwards and against the view port at the front of the cockpit where he lay groaning with the pressure. Even with the powerful magnetic repulsors working at max capacity the tug still hit the ground and dug itself into the sandy surface nearly two meters.

 

Being strapped into the seat protected Ace from the worst of the impact, but The Tinker was laying directly on the front of the cockpit when it impacted. He was protected somewhat by the bumper of the tug, which had been designed to absorb a large amount of physical impact as a natural hazard of its intended function. It absorbed much of the impact, but there was still enough remaining to crush some ribs and fracture his skull. Ace had done an admirable job of landing near the Space port, and their small emergency force was soon on hand to extract the pair and provide medical care. Ace was treated for bruises and whiplash injuries at the scene, but The Tinker was put on a warp transport and whisked away to the nearest medical facility.

The transport had just lifted off and disappeared into the darkening sky when Nochonis scooted up in his decrepit old hover car. He had watched the tug as it shot upwards until it went out of sight, then again when it began its tortured descent. Hearing the impact and seeing the mushroom cloud of dust he feared the worst, and coaxed his hover car to its maximum speed, which was honestly just above walking speed towards the space port.

Arriving, he dismounted and shuffled towards Ace with concern in his eyes.

      “Are you all right? Where is The Tinker? What happened?” Nochonis asked, stifling his innate desire to ramble on and on when he saw the concern in Ace’s upturned face.

      “The Tinker is pretty bad off. They took him to [nearby planet] for medical treatment there. I… I couldn’t figure out what was wrong fast enough. We were just falling too fast. I have never injured a passenger in anything I have piloted before. Well, at least not by crashing…” Ace mused. Nochonis nodded in understanding.

      “I guess one of the grav generators failed. With only one, the system just shut off the anti grav system altogether, instead of trying to create the field with only one. I didn’t have time to try and recycle power. All I could think of was slowing our descent. I just couldn’t…” Ace broke off here, and Nochonis placed one gnarly hand on his shoulder.

      “Well, you are alive, and The Tinker is in good hands. At least he survived, you did that much. Come back to the yard and we’ll have something to eat. Then you can go to [nearby planet] and see how he is doing.” Nochonis turned to go.

      “No, I have to go. My flight is scheduled to take off in an hour and I haven’t even began pre flight checks. I have another flight through here in a week, I will stop in then and see how The Tinker is doing.” Ace mumbled dejectedly. He couldn’t decide exactly what he felt worse about. It was true that he had never had an injured passenger, at least from crashing. Several times through his career he had intentionally injured passengers that go out of line, and had been in several hairy scrapes where he ended up crashing or otherwise destroying his craft. But he had always been able to minimize the injuries suffered by his passengers. It was a point of pride with him, to protect those who put their lives in his hands. But he also blamed his stupid pride for the crash. He had climbed into that ship without any pre flight checks, without even knowing very well how to fly it. He knew it was a raggedy old cast off from a mining company. Mining companies were notorious for the way in which their equipment was abused. By the time a mining tug was deemed too beat up to continue service it was more than likely too beat up to even fly.

 

Ace had no more to say. He stood up, and shaking Nochonis hand silently turned and slowly walked up the steps to the space port and his dreaded but safe and uneventful job.

 

      “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Terminus Public Transit flight 1956-023A with service from the Tauranian system homeworld to Piablo Alpha One in the Disscuss sector.” Ace began his pre flight announcement then added wearily, “With an entirely unnecessary layover on Ruco-su.”

 

The transport vehicle was very sparsely populated, with only those with absolutely no other recourse having stayed the entire seventy two hour layover without finding other flights coming or going from the space station. Ace had noticed as he came aboard that the family whose [alien bird] he had microwaved during the first leg of the flight were one of the few who had returned for the next leg. Their angry glares as he passed through the cabin made the churning in the pit of his stomach even more intense than before. His first task upon entering the cabin was to check the microwave blaster in its secure box next to his seat. The setting was still at the extra high location he had had it before, so he turned it back to the recommended setting, just in case.

 

      “Please prepare your seats for take off. You must be buckled in your seats until we are free of the atmosphere and moving to our warp jump location. The travel time to the warp jump will be just under three hours, with another three on the other side before landing on Piablo Alpha one.”

 

Ace was simply reciting the words streaming past on his display, his mind was somewhere else entirely. He was thinking of the Race, and how the flying required to complete it, let alone win it would be so much more exciting than this boring and insignificant job. How much good he could do with that prize money, he could free himself from the need for such a mundane job as this. But then, pie in the sky dreams would never pay for school uniforms, or health insurance for an active five year old. So Ace took a deep sigh, and read the final line of the pre board briefing.

      “Once again, thanks for flying with the Terminus Public Transport system. Have a nice flight.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter  Whatever – The Betrayal.

 

Admiral Stafford was nervous. Things were just not right, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what the problem was. The evacuation had gone perfectly. They had even been able to rescue more of the utility vehicles than expected, and the entire battle group had made the jump through the warp tunnel an easy hour ahead of the gravitic shock wave traveling through the galaxy. Exiting the warp tunnel however, he began to feel nervous. And his anxiety centered around a person who until very recently had been little more than an annoyance. Commander Jones had been acting quite differently lately, and his years of dealing with space pilots told him that something was up.

Normally acting superior and disdainful of his troops, Commander Jones had suddenly began acting as if they were his best friends. On the surface, he seemed to have turned over a new leaf. Taking meals with the pilots, asking questions about their families and personal interests and hobbies, he seemed to be the very picture of a commander who cared about those he commanded. But behind his smiling countenance, Admiral Stafford detected something much less friendly. Something sinister and hateful. Having nothing more than his suspicions, Admiral Stafford had not shared his feelings with anyone yet. The Fighting Eagle squadron would only be in the care of his battle group for another week, when they would be deployed to the border war between the Terminus Confederation and the Emdeean Empire. If he could not get a better handle on what was happening by then, he would see what he could do to take him out of command. The action of a real live shooting war was no place for a commander with a secret agenda.

 

Commander Olbandan sat silently in his darkened berth. In his hands was the same sheet of ancient paper that he had packed away so recently on the mining station. He had been reading it over and over again since then, and had actually responded to its inquiry. The feeling of revulsion was completely gone now. He was now deliriously happy to have accepted its offer. Rule of a planet. Now that was a fitting job for one of his intelligence and birth. So he would be turning his back on everything and everyone in his life. He would start a new life, one in which he had supreme control over the workings of an entire planetary population. There would only be one higher than him, and Delyer was pretty certain that if he played his cards right, he would have nothing to fear from him. Vicious dictators were easy to please, so long as you followed their commands with precision and promptness. With an entire planet and the associated defense forces such a position would include at his disposal, it would not be long before Commander Olbandon, now known as Overlord Olbandon would be in a position to challenge even the mighty NikkOll herself for the supreme position.

 

Admiral Stafford slammed a fist down on the commo panel shutting the link.

      “Damn bureaucrats and their fancy procedures. They will be the death of this Confederation if nothing else.” He spat in anger. His aide sat nearby, shaking his head at the conversation he had just witnessed.

      “Is there any way you can get around that sir?” He questioned.

      “Not right now, they have their little group of buddies wrapped up tight. Dismissing Commander Olbandan for anything short of outright treason would be near impossible right now. The entire force is short staffed, and the Emdeeans have launched a new counter offensive to try and take the Maradras system. With the Karos system gone, the Maradras is the only outpost we have in this end of the universe. If it falls, the Emdeeans will be poised to strike directly at the Terminus sector.” Stafford angrily wiped some notes from the screen of his screen and started tapping in short rhythmic strokes as he began filling out the necessary forms.

      “Fill out this form, have it authenticated and approved by central command, and then send a copy to the reassignments division. Should only take about three months just to get approved or denied. And my instinct tells me the latter is more likely.” He grumbled and then handed the screen to his aide.

      “Looks like we are taking Commander Olbandan to battle whether I like it or not.” He snapped and then stalked out of the room.

 

Captain Caitlin Cantu, recently promoted and assigned to take over the role of Hotel Lead toggled the commo switch on her flight helmet and addressed her team.

      “Hotel Team, this is Lead. Form up on me, we have just received our orders to move out to sector six alpha. The sector is hot, there is known enemy activity. Fire on anything not showing as friendly on your situational awareness display.” Her confident voice betrayed the anxiety she felt. After only a few weeks of leadership she was taking her team, many much more experienced than herself into battle. Admiral Stafford had explained to her that the position of Team Lead was not so much about experience as it was about leadership and the ability to think quickly while under fire. He had witnessed her abilities to do both and had made the decision to promote her ahead of her peers. Being a very tight knit group there was not much discontent at this, at least within her own team. Some pilots from other teams had been eyeing the vacancy created by Ace’s retirement and had openly and vocally protested her promotion. While she could care less what they thought, this added additional pressure to her desire to perform well. She wanted to show that she was worthy of the unusual move, and completely capable of performing the job. This was her first real chance to do so as well.

      “Eagle Ops, this is Hotel Lead. We are in position and beginning patrols.” She sent to the operations bay. Major [operations] answered sharply.

      “Stay on your toes. The Emdeeans have been moving through that sector heavily in the past few days. All weapons are hot. Perform a last transponder check before breaking visual contact. We don’t need any friendly fire incidents.”

      “Roger Ops. Beginning transponder check now.” Cantu responded. Switching to the team channel, she repeated the instruction.

      “Hotel Team, this is Lead. Perform a transponder check, in call sign order and then move out to your assigned patrol sector.” One at a time, each of her six team members radioed their call sign to her, and then ran the transponder check. It was a simple operation, by choosing the test from their control panel the transponder would cycle power, interrupting its signal for a designated length of time. When the transmitter came back on line it would automatically send an updated position and ship condition report. This gave the team lead and the ops center a baseline for all of the ships before making contact and ensured that the system was operational. When all six ships had responded, Cantu performed her own test and confirmed success with Ops.

      “Transponder test complete Ops. All stations reporting. We are now in position.”

      “Hotel Lead, stand by for Eagle Lead. He will be at your position in approximately five minutes.” Operations responded. Cantu’s heart dropped into her stomach. Why in the universe would the Squadron Commander want to actually fly out to her patrol sector? Was he coming to check her out, or to take over? Commander Olbandan had been acting very strangely of late, and nobody knew quite how to take him. He had made a lot of new friends, but most of the squadron distrusted him even more than before. She had seen his eyes, when he thought nobody was watching, and they were even more cold and arrogant than when he first arrived at the station. So why was he acting like he had changed and now wanted to be liked and respected?

In precisely five minutes, she caught sight of his interceptor closing in on her position and she called him on a private channel.

      “Eagle Lead, this is Hotel Lead. Welcome to our space. What can we do for you today?” She asked cheerfully, hoping that she was able to hide the anxiety in her voice.

      “Hotel Lead, just thought you might want a bit of backup out here today. Plus I just got tired of sitting around the Ops center watching little green and red dots move around!” He responded in that same false cheeriness that he had adopted lately.

      “Never know when you might need an extra hand!” He added.

Captain Cantu was even more suspicious than usual. It was highly unusual for a senior commander to leave the operations during an active operation. It was even more so for him to claim sheer boredom as the reason. There were no less than five of the squadron’s teams involved in active combat at this very minute, and yet the commander had decided to leave everything in the hands of his executive officer and come out here to… help out?

      “Great sir. I will be sure to let you know if we need anything. Would you like to be assigned a patrol? Or will you be monitoring things from here? She asked, wanting to get going to her own assigned sector.

      “I think I will just tail you for a while Hotel Lead.” He answered noncommittally.

      “Understood. Hotel Lead out.” Cantu replied uncertainly. She was even more suspicious than ever now, but there was little she could do about it. Seconds later, she forgot all about the Commander as reports of contact began pouring in.

 

Admiral Stafford was monitoring the activity of three battle groups and no less than fifteen different interceptor squadrons, spread throughout a billion miles of space. His battle group had been given the command duties for the defense of the Maradras system, and he had done his best to deploy his scarce resources in such a way that they could detect and respond to any attack. Two battle groups were arrayed in a spherical patter across the side of the galaxy that was the most likely entry point for an Emdeean attack. The other battle group was patrolling the far side of the sphere, at half strength. If the Emdeeans wished to attack that side they would have to travel that far and it was unlikely that they would be able to do so without detection.

Suddenly, alerts from an interceptor squadron began pouring in. Triumphantly, he noticed that it was precisely where he had anticipated the Emdeean attack, and his forces were already concentrated there. The Emdeeans were walking into a well planned trap, and he had every right to believe that it would be over in a few short hours. He also noticed with a twinge of apprehension however that it was the two hundred and first’s sector which was serving as the main entry point for the attack. Well, it was time to find out if his suspicions of Commander Olbandan were correct, or if he was just getting paranoid in his old age.

 

      “Hotel Lead, this is Hotel Six, I have six Emdeean battle cruisers heading into my sector. Sending telemetry data now.”

      “Hotel Six, stay out of their way. There is nothing you can do. We are relaying to Arclight Ops and requesting a quick reaction force.”

      “Hotel Lead, this is Hotel two. Contact with five…wait six enemy ships, interceptor class. They seem to be escorting a carrier class ship. Wait! There is a cruiser out there too! Sending telemetry on targets.”

      “Hotel Three, stay sharp! We need you to keep an eye on them as long as you can without engaging. Do not engage until we get reinforcements.”

 

Captain Cantu was sweating. Contact reports were pouring in from not only her sector, but from all across the squadron’s assigned space. It was easily apparent to all of the pilots that they were bearing the brunt of a full scale invasion force. Fortunately, they knew that the bulk of two complete battle groups were arrayed behind them. They were just a recon force, an early warning system for the real defense forces behind them.

      “Hotel Lead, this is Arclight ops. You have two battle groups targeting your contacts. Do your best to keep the bad guys in sight until we can engage.”

      “Roger Arclight ops, but make it quick. Its getting pretty crowded out here!” Cantu responded. Suddenly, on a private channel, an angry biting voice cut in.

      “Cantu, why aren’t I getting telemetry data? What is your problem you incompetent twit?” It was Commander Olbandan, and the friendly, engaging voice he had affected for the past weeks was gone, replaced by an even angrier and petulant voice than even the original.

      “uh…sir, I guess, aren’t you getting the situational awareness feed? I mean, we weren’t briefed that you were… I guess we didn’t set you in the distro…” Cantu stammered.

      “NO EXCUSES! Transmit the data NOW!” Olbandan screamed into the commo link.

      “Yes sir.” Cantu replied, already punching up the data stream and wondering what she did to earn this singular honor. The second the computer acknowledged receipt of the information by Eagle Lead’s nav computer, the craft turned, and without any further transmissions rocketed off towards the approaching enemy. Captain Cantu sat there, dumbfounded. Had she just witnessed the last act of a suicidal man? The truth turned out to be much worse.

 

Admiral Stafford was carefully watching the situational awareness displays. As the enemy fleet was spotted and their position plotted, they would appear on the situational awareness display as a red icon. Obviously, these red icons were best guesses based on the threat reports sent in by the recon ships. Until an active sensor lock could be made, the red dots would move according to the last reported speed and heading. The blue or friendly icons on the other hand, were generated by the transponders on each vessel which constantly sent location and condition reports back to the main command computer, which compiled all of this information and re-destributed it back to the fleet via the same transponder signal.

Stafford was watching with particular interest a scattering of blue icons which was retreating slowly before a growing cloud of red icons. This was Hotel Team of the 202st interceptor squadron, Eagle Team. They were doing a great job of sending reports, and thus far had avoided any active contact with the superior armament of the enemy attack force. Their tiny craft would be quite hard to detect without an active sensor sweep which would be a star bright beacon to locate the enemy ships themselves. Thus far, the enemy seemed to be attempting to maintain sensory silence, and if they were aware of the recon ships, they were at least ignoring them for now.

This boded well for the defense forces, which were moving quickly to intercept the attackers with a force of at least equal strength, if not superior. Admiral Stafford was confident that they would be able to withstand a much larger attack, and if they could hold out for another couple of hours, more forces would be able to join the fray on his side. Suddenly his eyes picked up an unexpected movement on the screen. One of the blue icons was moving rapidly towards the enemy formations. Reaching out he tapped the icon and a display popped up. The craft was Eagle Lead, the commander of the Eagle squadron. Weeks of suspicion and uncertainty were instantly confirmed and justified in an instant.

      “We’ve got a runaway people.” He yelled to nobody in particular, but his words caused several of the officers in the room to begin scrambling to discover the craft being referred to and to craft some sort of a response.

      “It’s that damned Olbandan, Eagle Lead. He is running towards the enemy at high speed. Either he is suicidal or he has turned traitor. Either way, we need to stop him.” Admiral Stafford was suddenly in full crisis management mode, and for a thirty year veteran of space combat this was a sight to behold.

      “Try to disable his nav computer, and send a destruct signal. Scramble some of those nearby interceptors as well. Tell them to shoot first. I should have confined that shifty no good traitor when I had the chance…”

      “Sir! Shouldn’t we attempt radio contact first?” One operations officer was brave enough to venture.

      “Fine, try to contact him and see if he answers. If he does, I will resign my post. Make sure your transmission includes the fact that he will be dead momentarily if he does not respond.” The Admiral snapped.

      “Yes sir!” The officer responded, already bowing over a commo unit. The Admiral was not at all worried about the outcome, he was confident but also very worried that he was right.

 

Captain Cantu was stunned, but only for a second. The order to pursue and destroy Commander Olbandan’s ship if possible was like a dream come true. Calling the nearest two team members, she turned her interceptor and pushed the throttle to the limit. He was still within range of her long range weapons, and feeding his transponder data to the weapons computer, launched a fission warhead missile. The missile streaked off into the darkness, but the blue dot on her display suddenly winked off. Cantu was not sure what had caused that to happen, but she quickly plotted an enemy contact at his last known speed and heading. Now, a red icon appeared in its place. Still, the icon was now only an estimate, and depending on it to behave as predicted would be a dangerous error. Reducing speed, she began a passive scan for any evidence that would pinpoint his current location. The missile reported that it had lost lock, and would self destruct at the last known coordinates of the target. A few seconds later it did, and the flare of the exploding warhead was much closer than she expected. Her shields crackled with light as they deflected the shock wave. Suddenly alarms sounded in the cockpit. Several enemy craft were headed her way, this time not as reported by friendlies, but real sensor confirmed bogeys. Suddenly realizing her predicament, Cantu called the two wingmen:

      “This is Hotel Lead. Abort, we have incoming enemy. Get back to station, I will cover your rear.” Without waiting for a response, she spun her ship around in the tightest circle the inertial dampener would compensate for, and accelerated back towards the defensive perimeter. Seeing her two team members also make tight turns and race back towards the waiting battle group, she checked on the pursuers. What she saw initially confused her, and then cold terror gripped her heart as she realized what had happened.” On her situational awareness display, the two angry red icons had suddenly turned blue. They were still pursuing, and sensors reported that they were actually firing at her. But they were transmitting a friendly beacon, and closing fast.

      “Arclight Ops, we lost the runaway, and it seems that some of the enemy craft are…”

Her warning never reached the command center. Three nuclear warheads simultaneously slammed into her aft shields. They quickly overloaded, and the hot plasma spewing from the vents instead melted the outer skin of the ship. Within nanoseconds, Captain Caitlin Cantu and her interceptor were nothing more than space debris. Her two wingmen followed in quick succession, as the Emdeean missle frigates used their transponder signal to slam a triplet of nukes into each one with absolute precision.

 

Admiral Stafford could not believe what he was seeing. Just as his battle groups with their full complements of battle cruisers, missile frigates, and swarms of interceptors had made contact with the enemy, some bug in the situational awareness system had begun turning all of the enemy icons into friendlies. He had lost the pursuit team that had been sent after the runaway Commander Olbandan, but now the battle space was cluttered with apparent friendlies. To make matters worse, they were not just impersonating friendly ships, they were taking on the identities of specific vessels. His staff was frantically trying to unravel the mystery and come up with a solution.

      “Sir…” one of the younger officers blurted out, his face white with fear,

      “They appear to have obtained the transponder codes and frequencies. Not only can they impersonate our vessels, they have precise targeting data on every single one.”

As if on cue, a deadly accurate barrage of missiles struck the Arclight and alarms started sounding across all decks. The shields held, but the attack was targeted so precisely that they were instantly at near overload.

      “That damn Olbandan! He gave them the codes! That was why he ran! Signal the fleet to turn off their transponders! Use sensor sweeps to identify targets! Get the crypto guys and have them transmit the backup codes!” Admiral Stafford was, for the first time in a very long time, terrified.

 

The battle was going well for Overlord Kandelko. As soon as the enemy traitor made contact, and transmitted the transponder codes they had begun their attack in earnest. The first victims were a team of interceptors which had begun pursuing the traitor. The transponder codes allowed them to target their attacks with horrifying accuracy. They didn’t even have to take time to computer speed and trajectory, they just locked the missile guidance system on to the transponder beam and let them go. They followed the beam right in to an easy kill.

Knowing that it was only a matter of time before the fleet discovered their disadvantage and moved to scramble the signals, twenty four missile ships began disgorging their payload as fast as the launchers could cycle. Priority was given to the command vessels and missile ships, to cripple the command and control and long range strike capability. The battle cruisers were still quite daunting, but Kandelko was confident that they could take them in a head to head battle, especially with an impaired command structure. The damage assessment reports began flooding in, and the news was all good. Nearly fifty vessels were destroyed in a matter of minutes, until the transponder signals began shutting off. This impaired their pinpoint precision attacks somewhat, but friendly fire began working in their favor as well. Without the transponder signals, the Terminus Confederation ships were shooting blind. They had to run active sensor sweeps of any suspected target, which served to both alert the target that they were under attack and provide them with a good location of the attacker.

On the Emdeean command ship, Overlord Kandelko was meeting Commander Olbandan for the first time.

      “Commander Olbandan, your timely assistance is greatly appreciated by the Emdeean forces. The Supreme Leader herself has relayed her gratitude to you for this information.” Kandelko spoke in formal tones, belying the disdain in which he held the man before him. Olbandan was aware of the disdain that he must certainly be inspiring, for no fighting man or woman could ever fully trust someone who had betrayed their fellow fighters. No matter, he was now overlord of an entire planet, and would have the respect he was accorded. However, he needed to be sure that this battle was a spectacular success. He did not want to begin his career by witnessing any of the heroic comeback victories that the Terminus Confederation was famous for.

      “Take me to your battle command center. I will oversee the rest of the battle from there. I will not have some incompetent ruin my triumphant entry into the Emdeean empire.” Olbandan commanded sharply. Kandelko was taken aback, and a row of spikes implanted in rows on his head began rising in anger.

      “You dare to command me? You traitorous wretch! What makes you think you are anything but a stupid pawn in Her Supreme plan to annihilate your entire race?” Kandelko roared back. Olbandan was unfazed; he had a trump card that would ensure that he received all that he asked.

      “You miserable, insignificant tyrant. Do you really think you can defeat the confederation defense just because you surprised them at the beginning? Already they have figured out what happened, and have shut off their transponders…” Kandelko interrupted proudly,

      “And are butchering each other blindly while we continue to destroy their command cruisers!” Olbandan stepped forward until he was mere inches from the huge toothy face of Kandelko and spoke quietly, but loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

      “And any second now, they will have reconfigured the transponder codes, changed the frequency range, and turned them back on. When they have their sight back, how then will you defeat them?” Kandelko’s mouth froze in an intended retort. He did not want to give way to the human, but the possibility that he was right was too great to disregard.

      “Andung! Check the status of the enemy. Do their transponders appear to be working again?” He snarled, his eyes remaining locked with Olbandan’s. Olbandan grinned, his eyes not flinching a bit.

      “Confederation Space Forces battle doctrine says that the fleet should be able to reconfigure and recode transponder signals within five minutes. By my calculation, it has been six.” He hissed.

      “Overlord Kandelko! The enemy is indeed mounting a successful counter attack. They are forming up and firing at only our vessels once again.” Andung reported. Kandelko sat back, his hard and angry features softening up slightly. He realized that this traitor had not yet outlived his usefulness. Nonetheless, he vowed to himself that he would see him disembowled and would select a souvenir to be grafted to himself as a reminder to never underestimate one who would betray his own.

      “Commander Olbandan, what do you propose we do to counter this action?” Kandelko sneered. Olbandan stepped forward another half step, and stated in a cool and even voice:

      “First, you will address me properly. I am now Overlord Olbandan, by decree of Her Supreme Leadership NikkOll herself.” Kandelko and all of the others on the deck gasped in fear as Olbandan dared to speak her proper name.

      “Second, you will surrender control of this battle to me, or die.” Olbandan knew the strict cultural taboo of speaking their leader’s name, and had purposely done so in an attempt to break through the hard shell of Kandelko’s demeanor. His gamble was risky, but successful. Kandelko worked hard to maintain an attitude of haughty dismissal, but the possibility that this human actually had the blessings of the supreme leader to take control was something he dared not question. Certainly if he dared invoke her proper name, he had the authorization to do so? Assuming an air of idifference, he challenged Olbandan one final time.

      “And who will be dealing death to me, here on the deck of my own battle cruiser? You?” He asked, and laughed nervously. With a speed that was unimaginable in the minds of the Emdeeans present, Olbandan’s hand flashed to his side and came up with his blaster pistol. Kandelko had enough time to realize that he should have had his visitor searched as soon as he landed before the plasma bolt exploded his skull into a thousand steaming fragments. Olbandan did not hesitate, but reached up with his free hand and grabbing the now lifeless body by the front of his uniform, threw the body from the commander’s chair, and without hesitation, turned and sat there himself.

The deck crew were too stunned for a moment to understand exactly what had just happened. Before they had time to formulate a possible response, Overlord Olbandan began barking orders as if nothing had happened.

      “I need an update on the status of the battle. Give me a display of the battle space, with all of our remaining vessels and their status. Also, open up a communications channel on the emergency sub space frequency.” Reaching into an inner pocket, he tossed a small data disc to a startled Andung who fumbled and caught the disk.

      “You, those are the algorithms used by Federation crypto techs to create the transponder beams. Do you have anyone with enough intelligence to use that data to intercept and match the beams so that we can blind the enemy once again?” Andung nodded weakly, but stayed frozen in one spot staring at his new apparent commander.

      “Well TAKE IT TO THEM BEFORE WE LOSE THIS BATTLE DUE TO YOUR BLATANT STUPIDITY!” Olbandan screamed at the startled officer, who at once jumped and ran towards what Olbandan desperately hoped was the equivalent of a crypto tech. Settling back into the commander’s chair Olbandan exulted in the ease with which he had just deposed Overlord Kandelko and taken his place. It had been a grave gamble, but he was aware just how long he would have lived after the battle had he not taken some action to ensure that he was more valuable alive than dead. Gesturing at another officer who was still standing in place staring he pointed to Kandelko’s body on the floor at his feet.

      “And get rid of that. It is stinking up my command deck.”

 

Admiral Stafford allowed himself to breathe easy for a few seconds at least. For the first time since he noticed Olbandan’s ship streaking off towards the enemy, he felt confident that all would be well. The command cruiser had sustained considerable damage, but the shields were holding and they were starting to give back some of the damage inflicted while they were blinded by the transponder hijack. He was proud of his crypto techs who had performed above requirements and produced a new signal encryption and frequency range scheme in only two mintes. Another five minutes and all ships were once again transmitting successfully. Control over his fleet restored, the experienced battle officer had immediately regrouped the survivors and counter attacked. Most of the Emdeean ships were still transmitting the old transponder signals, either out of ignorance or stupidity he did not care. He was able to begin attacking the enemy ships with the same deadly precision they had battered him with minutes ago. He did not know how long it would last but he intended to take advantage of it. He had lost the entire 201st interceptor squadron since they were closest to the enemy and bore the brunt of the shocking attack. Several command cruisers and missile ships had also been destroyed, and he worked to replace the command structure while cursing the loss of long range attack capability. Bringing up two more interceptor squadrons, he instructed them to single out a missile ship and swarm it to over whelm their defenses. Once it was destroyed, they were to move on to the next. The missile cruisers he had remaining he kept in reserve. He would need them later, and could not afford to lose any more right now. The battle was now between the battle cruisers and the interceptors. Each battle cruiser was given two squadrons of interceptors, and assigned a line of attack through the enemy lines. Each line of attack was at a different angle, in order to disrupt the enemy’s travel path as much as possible. The tactic was going well, and once the first two Emdeean battle cruisers had been destroyed, he began to feel a little relief. Then, an aide looked up from his console.

      “Sir, we are being hailed on the emergency channel. The caller claims to be an Emdeean Overlord named… Olbandan…” The aide’s voice trailed off as he realized why that name had sounded so familiar even with the unfamiliar title. Admiral Stafford felt his blood boiling and wanted nothing more than to simply order the aide to ignore the signal. But perhaps he could buy some time and save some lives by pretending to negotiate some sort of truce with this madman.

      “Put him on my private display Andrew, and record the conversation. I want Central Command to hear this.” He ordered evenly. The order was quickly obeyed, and soon the familiar face of Olbandan appeared on the screen. He was seated in a commander’s chair with what appeared to be blodd spattered across the top, and sneering arrogantly at the picture of Admiral Stafford on his own display.

      “Admiral, it seems that you have discovered my little gift to my new people. I finally got tired of serving underneath people who were inferior and jealous. Now I have finally found someone who recognizes my abilities and is willing to exploit them. Would you like to surrender now, or will we have to destroy every one of your ships first?” Olbandan sneered.

      “I am afraid you are mistaken.” Admiral Stafford replied calmly. “You really should pay more attention to what is going on. Our ships are methodically destroying your fleet as we speak. Transponder frequencies and codes are easily changed. You caused nothing more than a temporary setback. When you are captured, if caught alive I will see to it that you spend the rest of your life in the spice mines at Kessla for your treachery.” Olbandan’s face was growing ever more gleeful as he listened to the admiral’s speech. At the final threat however, he laughed out loud.

      “My dear admiral, you are right. Frequencies are easy to change, if you have the algorithms for the encryption they are also easy to intercept.” As he said this, he reached off screen and touched a control. Instantly, the situational awareness display changed from a moving flow of red and blue icons to all red. Olbandan watched for the Admiral’s reaction, and then touched the control again. All of the icons blinked blue again, then disappeared.

      “Admiral, it has been nice knowing you. You had a chance to save the lives of your troops, but have lost that chance. Prepare for annihilation.” Overlord Olbandan proclaimed gleefully, and then closed the commo link. Admiral Stafford’s face went gray, and before he could even think of anything to do, an Emdeean cruiser a thousand miles away used the encrypted transponder beam to take control of the ships defensive systems. It was then a simple matter to shut down the shield generators, seconds before a barrage of missiles impacted the Arclight and the nuclear energy reduced the mighty battle cruiser to so much space debris.

 

In a few hours, it was over. The defense of the Maradras system had failed, and the Emdeean fleet moved in and razed all human civilazations who put up even the merest resistance. The rest were instantly enslaved and relocated to prison camps throughout Emdeean space. And Overlord Olbandan, formerly of the Terminus Federation became a battle hero of the Emdee Empire.

 

Chapter Whatever – Revenge

 

Ace was asleep in the cockpit, as the transport sat motionless in the space outside the landing zone of Piablo Alpha one. Something was going on, and all travel lanes had been frozen due to some big catastrophe that nobody would give details on. Ace had tried halfheartedly to talk the control tower into giving up something, but had been met with stony silence and noncommittal replies. Finally deciding that he would make no progress on that front, he made a generic delayed landing announcement to the passengers and then turned on the robotic meal servers. He also punched in the code to allow unlimited synthehol service, which was usually limited to an amount per passenger which prevented any actual drunkenness. He figured after a crappy trip like these passengers had, it was the least he could do to let them destroy a few brain cells while they stewed in the passenger bay.

Suddenly, the commo link buzzed, startling Ace and nearly making him fall out of his seat in surprise. His feet came down from the control panel where he had rested them, and he shook the cobwebs from his mind and tried to straighten his pilot’s cap before answering the call. The face that appeared when he opened the channel had two simultaneous effects on him. The first was an absolute euphoria, the feeling a newlywed gets when he sees his new bride unexpectedly and realizes that she is indeed the one he wants for all time. The second was a creeping dread, the fear of a man who knows that he has lost that same love, and possibly on a permanent basis. It was the face of the mother of his only child, but whom he could no longer claim as anything but. The divorce had been final years before, when the reality of being married to a federation space forces officer had finally set in. The knowledge that years could pass between leave, and the loneliness of knowing that the father of her child was willingly facing the very real possibility of death each day. Regrettably, Ace had been less than understanding about it; his offer to let her and his son come with him and live on the space stations only ensured that the entire family was risking life and limb each day. Ace still loved her however, but with none of the feeling that he felt for his son. With a mixture of pride and fear, he watched him grow from afar. Proud that he was such a special young man and terrified as he saw many of his own bad traits beginning to be manifest. Choking back all of the emotion that this sudden appearance summoned, he made his best attempt at a civil greeting.

      “Hey Mar, how are you doing?” He attempted to keep his voice even, not wanting to give her any excuse to go off on an angry rant, as she was wont to do whenever they conversed.

      “Answering endless questions from a precocious five year old as to the continued life or the apparent passing of his father.” She answered, in that even tone that told him that little Adan was within hearing distance, and that she did not want him to hear her berating his father.

      “So what is it, how did you manage to escape the Maradras Massacre and end up piloting a public transport without your own son and his mother hearing a word?” she continued, her voice losing its ability to maintain control. Ace stared at her, confused. He had not relayed news of his dismissal from the space forces on purpose. He saw no reason to give her more reason to hate him than she already had, and really had not come to terms with it himself. But he had no clue what the Maradras Massacre was, or why it should cast doubt as to his life or death.

      “What do you mean? What is the Madness…whatever massacre?” Ace stammered in reply.

      “Are you avoiding the question. How come you never let us know that you were out? Adan cried for hours when he saw the news report about the attack. You think he doesn’t know what squadron you serve in? Or should I say SERVED in. Why would you not let us know about something like that? Or even consider coming home to visit?” Her voice was rising now, and Ace could finally sense the worry that was driving the anger.

      “Do you know how hard it was for me to look you up? I have been turned away by nearly every bureaucrat in the entire industrial military complex of the entire federation to finally find the one who was bored  or stupid enough to punch up your service record and let me know that you no longer were with the 201st!” Her face was flushed, and her beautiful blue eyes were brimming with tears. However, something she had said finally clicked, and Ace suddenly felt as if a hot poker had been rammed into his guts.

      “Wait, Marisol, what did you say about the 201st? What is this massacre you keep referring to. I have heard nothing about a massacre. I have been on the worst flight… nevermind that. What happened to the 201st?” Ace asked urgently, all of the sleep suddenly gone from his mind.

      “You… you really don’t know?” She asked, her tone immediately softening. She was very aware of how Ace felt about the squadron, and especially his fellow pilots. She was suddenly very hesitant to continue, not wanting to be the one who dealt this vicious blow, even to her apparent nemesis.

      “Oh Ace, I am so sorry to be the one to tell you this, but the 201st was just one of the squadrons massacred at Maradras just a few days ago. Almost a fourth of the entire fleet was destroyed by the Emdeeans while they were defending the Maradras system. I’m so sorry bab…” she stopped herself before completing the old pet name she had not used in so long. Ace however, with the shock of the announcement just sinking in didn’t even notice.

      “How did this happen?” He asked, his trembling voice betraying the tremendous amount of self control he was excercising.

      “I am not sure… the news reports were very vague on details, just listed a bunch of units that had been completely destroyed.” Marisol answered softly. Ace stared for a moment, and then as if making a decision, said shortly,

      “I’ve got to go. I need to find out more about this.” And began reaching towards the controls.

      “Don’t you want to talk to Adan?” Marisol asked urgently, her voice cracking. Ace considered very briefly. He loved his son more than anything in the world, but right now, he was afraid that he would not be very good company for an adoring five year old.

      “I’m sorry, not right now. Tell him I love him, and that I will call him again soon.” Ace said, then punched the control severing the connection before Marisol could even begin her protestations.

 

He sat there staring at the blank screen for a few minutes after, unsure of what his next step should be. He wanted to find out more about the deaths of pretty much everyone in the universe he considered a friend, but was not sure how to proceed. Suddenly getting an idea, he began searching through a directory until he found what he was looking for. He then opened a channel to the personnel section of the Federation Space Forces command. There was one person there who might be able to help.

 

Overlord Olbandan knelt before the throne of NikkOll, and her waving tentacles caressed his head approvingly.

      “You have done well, human. We did not expect much more from you than the transponder codes, but you took control of the battle from a weak and indecisive leader who deserved a much more painful death than he received and won a glorious victory over our enemies.” The seven heads spoke together warmly, each of the faces contorted as much as possible into a semblance of a smile.

      “Your knowledge of Federation tactics and technology will provide us an advantage in our quest for the foreseeable future. For this the empire will be forever grateful. As promised, you are hereby awarded the world of Thror as your personal kingdom, to rule as you see fit according to the dictates of the Supreme Leader herself.” The assembled court stirred at this pronouncement, as this was a singular honor, even for a native Emdeean. For such an honor to be bestowed upon a human was absolutely unheard of.

      “You may now speak.” NikkOll gestured to the assembly for silence as Olbandan rose. Keeping his eyes inverted in respect, he began his carefully prepared speech.

      “Great and Benevolent Leader, Terrible to Her enemies and Loving to her subjects. I stand before you in humble admiration of all that you have accomplished in your quest to unite the universe under a single, peaceful rule. I am proud to have been able to contribute to your ever reaching rule, and to present to you the star system called by the humans Maradras. As you are already aware, possession of this star system gives us a permanent base from which to prepare and launch an attack directly into the heart of the Terminus Federation. We are within range of their own galaxy, and the human homeworld. My Lord, within six months, we will have a sufficient force to attack. I beg your blessing and volunteer to be the commander of this impending attack.” At this Olbandan bowed even lower, his forehead nearly touching the floor. NikkOll considered for a moment, and all present were shocked with her reply.

 

Lietenant Leon Mandrigal was a lifetime bureaucrat. With no inkling of leadership ability or even desire, he was more than happy to spend the rest of his career exactly where he was, in the personnel department, processing reassignment requests and promotion orders. He wanted nothing to do with space travel, command of others, and above all, nothing at all to do with combat. He was happy where he was, and had no desire at all to change his position in life. For this reason, when he received a call on his commo display, and saw the familiar face of Ace Pedona, he reached for the disconnect button almost immediately.

      “No! Wait just a second, give me thirty seconds Leon, I promise I won’t ever bother you again!” Ace protested hurriedly. It appeared that Leon did remember him very well after all. But the near panic in Ace’s plea gave him pause. But only for a second.

      “Sir, you have exactly thirty seconds to convince me that I shouldn’t disconnect this call without further discussion.” He remarked sharply, his hand still hovering over the disconnect button.

      “Leon, all I want to know is what happened to the 201st. I just heard that they were all destroyed, but nobody wants to talk about how. I only want to know what happened!” Ace pleaded, knowing that Leon had every right to still be holding a grudge.

Leon and Ace had been in the same graduating class at the Academy, and had reported to their first assignment together, Leon as an admin officer, and Ace as the rookie pilot. Their first weekend on station, Ace had convinced Leon to come with him on a training flight. While trying to show off his flying skills, Ace had nearly killed them both when the craft collided in the sky over the planet with another inbound transport. Ace had managed to land the crippled ship with minimal injury to either occupant, and the transport also made it to the ground without serious incident. But in Leon’s mind, it was far too close to death for him, and it was entirely the fault of Ace’s showing off that it had happened. He had sworn to never speak to him again, and had easily kept his promise. Now, Leon was entirely aware of the reason Ace had called and he did feel some amount of sympathy for him.

      “Ace, they were slaughtered by the Emdeeans while defending the Maradras system. Even I haven’t heard anything from official channels, but scuttlebutt has it that someone pretty high up in the command structure defected to the enemy and brought the transponder codes and the crypto keys. That is the only explanation for a one sided victory like that.” Leon answered, lowering his voice a little.

      “I heard it was your old squadron commander, but again there is nothing official yet.” Ace pondered this information for a moment, then asked:

      “Who would talk to me? I need to know Leon, I really need to know. I should have been there with them. Maybe I could have helped them out. Can you patch me through to anyone?” Ace was beginning to feel desperate. Obviously it was too late for him to stand with his old pals, but he felt there was something he could do to… something to help.

      “Uhh… I don’t know. I saw the reports on your retirement, and Admiral Stafford did a pretty decent job at covering up the real circumstances, but a lot of folks still consider it a good thing that you are out.” Leon admitted, looking off screen to flip through his own directory. Before he found anything however, someone appeared off camera and addressed him. Assuming a sudden air of officiality, he turned back to the display.

      “I am sorry Commander, your retirement pension seems to have been deposited in the First Galalctic bank in the correct account. If the funds are still unavailable, I recommend that you contact a bank representative directly. Thanks for your patience.” The commo link cut off, and Ace was left staring at the Federation Space Forces logo.

 

With more questions now than answers, Ace began raking his memory for anyone else who might be willing to talk. But doing it over an unsecured sub space link would be stupid, and Ace had lived his life trying to be anything but. He needed to get off of this stupid meat wagon and get out where he could run some people down in person. Punching up the planetary flight control, he requested his status in an irritated voice.

      “Piablo control, this is Terminus Public Transit flight 1956-023A requesting permission to land. We have been waiting for six hours. What is the hold-up?”

      “Transit 23A this is plantetary control. Permission denied. Security level has been elevated to redcon alpha, no incoming or outgoing space traffic at this time. You are instructed to return to your point of departure.” The monotone voice at the other end of the commo link was absolutely devoid of emotion. Ace on the other hand was instantly furious.

      “What do you mean return? I had landing clearance when I exited warp space, now you tell me to return? What is the reason for the security elevation?” Ace spluttered angrily.

      “We are not at liberty to disclose. Please exit Piablo space immediately, or you will be intercepted by our defense forces.” The voice replied, a note of frustration creeping into the emotionless monotone.

      “Fine. 23A out.” Ace spat at the commo link and punched the disconnect button with his fist. Turning to the internal intercom, he addressed the passengers.

      “Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that there is some sort of security issue on Piablo Alpha One today, and they have stopped all incoming and outgoing flights. We have been ordered to leave their space at once, so we will be…” Ace was interrupted by an alarm from the control panel. It took him a second to realize what this particular alarm was for, since he had not paid it much attention before. It was a threat warning alarm, notifying him that he was being tracked by what appeared to be a hostile craft. Apparently, Piablo plantetary flight control was not kidding! Ace went immediately into combat mode, his mind ticking off all of the tasks that should be performed along with the options for defense.

This being a low cost public transport, there was absolutely no offensive capability and only the bare minimum defensive measures. A magnetic shield designed only to deflect space debris would not hold up against any kind of sustained attack, and the maneuverability of the large bulky ship defied any attempt to escape. The only hope Ace had was to get the warp tunnel up again and get the transport through it before the attack commenced. Settling on this as his only hope of escape, Ace powered on the warp generator. Without even paying attention, he accepted all of the default answers that were displayed. He didn’t really care where he exited the warp tunnel, as long as he was gone when the defense forces arrived. As soon as the computer displayed the location for the tunnel, Ace began moving the ship towards it. He set a speed that, according to his estimates would put them at the entrance just about the time that the warp tunnel appeared. Checking on the threat indicator, Ace saw that three different vessels were converging on his position, their targeting sensors actively sweeping his vessel. Couldn’t they see that he was a sitting duck, a public transport filled with innocent (if slightly inebriated) civilians? Looking back at the progress of the warp generator, he slowed the craft some. The cheap economy warp generator was taking its sweet time to warm up, he thought. He didn’t want to overshoot the tunnel and have to swing around again. The way this thing maneuvered that would take so long that the attacking ships could forget about long range weapons and simply ram him. Suddenly, the alarm changed pitch, and checking the threat display, Ace saw that the first attacker had fired some sort of long range missile. It was locked on and heading his way.

      “For the love of all that is holy!” Ace exclaimed “Why is this thing taking so long?” The indicator showed that the warp field would be another thirty seconds or so before it was ready, but the threat display predicted impact by the attacking missile in less than fifteen. With nothing else to do, Ace simply sat and watched the two count down timers hoping against hope that the warp generator would win. Finally, about five seconds before impact, the warp generator display turned green, indicating that the tunnel was ready. Slamming the throttle on the sluggish transport to the max, he accelerated into the newly formed warp tunnel just as the missile exploded in the space he had just vacated.

      The warp jump was nearly instantaneous, and it wasn’t until Ace had verified that they were through the tunnel and that nothing had followed them through that he began to think about where they had been catapulted to. Requesting the star charts from the nav computer for the current system took a few seconds, but as soon as they appeared, Ace groaned in recognition. They were approaching the landing zone of the desert moon Ruco-Su.

 

Nochonis was sitting on his couch, doctoring a scratch on the arm of the mildly retarded spider monkey. It had gotten into an argument with another pet over a scrap of food, and had come off worse for wear. There is not much a monkey with even a slight mental defect can do to hurt a zombie penguin, since they by definition aren’t even conscious. Nochonis had confined the strange creature to its cage, where it sat rocking back and forth moaning quietly. As he worked, Nochonis continued to berate it for its intolerance of the poor primate.

      “Flick, you know better! Poor Spidey doesn’t understand that the fish are for you. You know how he eats anything he can get his hands on! Its your fault for leaving it where he could reach. That is why I put your food in your cage, so that the other animals will leave it alone. If you attack poor Spidey again, I may have to return you to the scientists where I got you. How would you like that?” Nochonis shook his finger violently in the general direction of the penguin cage. Spidey was looking at Nochonis with his usual vacuous expression, eyes wide open and mouth slightly agape. Suddenly, the bell on the wall clanged, startling both monkey and owner and setting off a cacophony of wails, hoots and screeches from the various pets throughout the building. Roaring in frustration at both the noise and the surprise, Nochonis rose and headed for the door.

      “Now who in the world would be coming out here at this time of night? Only someone who wants to be fed to [alien mutation creature] I’ll say!” Stomping through the doorway he flicked a switch that flooded the front gate area with light. Standing well away from the gate itself and the vicious [alien mutant creature] that stood there snarling, Ace waved his hand weakly.

      “Hey! Nochonis! Buddy! Remember me? Can I come in?”

Nochonis stood there stunned, staring for a moment. He had just finished hauling the miner tug from its crash site at the space port to his repair shop this morning, and was just feeding the animals before going to bed for the night.

      “Ace! Is that you? Good space man! What are you doing back here? I hope you didn’t crash again! Did you walk out here again? What is going on? Is that you Ace?” Nochonis was so surprised that even his usual random rambling was unusually so. For some reason he couldn’t explain the sight of the large round figure and the loud roaring voice made Ace feel better than he had done since seeing Marisol on the commo display a few hours ago. He had to admit that the man was entertaining, and his genuine friendliness was rather contagious.

      “Yep, its me, I didn’t crash again, but came durn close to getting blown out of the sky. A lot has happened in the few hours since we last met, and I need some help. Have you heard anything from The Tinker?” Ace responded. Nochonis was shuffling towards the gate and fumbling for his keys as he answered.

      “Naw, they won’t give me any details, since I ain’t a relative. I tried to tell ‘em I was, but they didn’t believe me. Something about my alien appearance or something. Never was a very good liar anyways, so I just asked ‘em to give me a call when he wakes up, cause they will have a hard time talkin’ to ‘im unless they know ‘im like I do.” The gate swung open, and the [alien mutant creature] galloped out and jumped up on Ace, licking his face with a foot long green tongue. Nochonis swore loudly and grabbing the thing’s collar yanked him back and away.

      “Aww never mind Fred, he is a good dog. Just excited to see you that’s all. Come on in. Good to have you back Ace.”

 

Ace was seated once again on the raggedy old sofa in Nochonis’ living room. Spidey was perched on the arm of the couch, alternatively staring curiously at Ace and glancing reproachfully back at Flick. He had already eaten the hastily applied bandage that Nochonis had applied to his scraped arm, and was now considering whether or not he could get Ace’s pilot cap without incurring further bodily injury. Nochonis was fiddling around with the commo display, trying to convince the ancient device to make just one more call before completely giving up the ghost. Finally, he succeeded in getting a call through to the hospital. The receptionist obviously recognized him, and immediately began to stammer what sounded like excuses to both Ace and Nochonis. Ace cut her off curtly.

      “Listen, my friend tells me you have my brother at your place and that you won’t tell anyone anything about his condition. I want to know what is going on right now, and you are going to tell me before I call the Legal Authorities and bring a lawsuit down on your facility the likes you have never…” The Receptionist finally succeeded in interrupting Ace.

      “Sir, he’s not here anymore. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! He was in recovery after being treated for his injuries when all of a sudden someone reported that one of our ambulance transports was missing. Apparently, your ummm.. brother? Climbed out of bed and stole the transport. We are not sure where he went, but are working as hard as we can…” Here Nochonis interrupted.

      “Does your ambulance have autopilot?” The question seemed incongruous to the receptionist, who seemed confused for a moment.

      “I… uh I am not really sure, what that has to… well he took the… I’ll have to ask… why does that matter?” She finally managed to ask.

      “Because The Tinker, I mean my brother is mentally challenged, and incapable of flying a space craft. The only way he knows to fly is to turn the auto pilot on and let the ship do its thing. If your transport has auto pilot, and you can tell us what destination might have been saved in the program we can probably tell you where he is.” Ace spoke forcefully, but deliberately as one would to a confused child. “What was the last trip that your transport made before it was stolen?” He asked.

      “Umm… just a second I may be able to find out. Hang on…” She said, and moved out of the display. While she was away, Ace asked Nochonis:

      “Do you have anything around here that flies? If we need to go chasing your friend across the galaxy we will need something more than your decrepit old hover car.” Nochonis replied mournfully.

      “None of the ships here works, that is why people bring them here. What about your transport ship? Didn’t you bring that back here?”

      “Uh, yeah I did, but I don’t think we will be able to use that ship now. Not after…” Ace was interrupted by the receptionist.

      “Gentlemen? It seems as if by some odd coincidence, your brother took the same ambulance that transported him here. It was in the maintenance bay being refitted before going back to rotation. The maintenance folks seem to agree with you, and are trying to get in touch with planetary control on your ummm… moon… to verify.”

      “OK, we will head out to the space port and see if he shows up there. You give us a call if you find anything out.” Ace instructed. The screen went dark, and he turned to Nochonis.

      “Get your hover car ready, I think he should be showing up at the space port any minute.”

 

A few minutes later, Nochonis and Ace were approaching the space port when Ace suddenly asked Nochonis nervously.

      “Is there a different way to get into the space port? You know, a maintenance gate or something?” Nochonis nodded, but answered quizzically,

      “Yeah, we can get in through the back way, I have the key since the entire place is technically on my property, but why would you want to go that way? It is completely out of the way, and wouldn’t the auto pilot land the ship right where it took off from?”

      “Uh yeah, but there are some folks in the main terminal that I really don’t want to run into right now.” Ace mumbled.

      “Why? Do you owe them money?” Nochonis asked, his curiosity mounting. Ace began relating the story.

      “Well, when we came out of the warp tunnel, and I realized where we were I announced what had happened over the intercom.” Nochonis interrupted.

      “You know, you never did get around to telling me how you came back here. You said something about getting blown up, but then we got onto the subject of The Tinker and you never finished telling me.” Ace sighed in exasperation.

      “If you will take us through the back way, I will tell you everything on the way. But please, I don’t want to deal with angry [aliens] right now.” Nochonis agreed, silently for once by pulling the creaking hover car into a tight turn and heading off into the sands at a tangent to his original course. Ace took a moment to wonder how in the world he navigated in this blasted country, but then proceeded to relate what had happened during the flight.

      “Well, we were stopped just outside of Piablo space and told to hold our position until further notice. After six hours, I politely checked to see if we were going to get any further notice. Apparently, this was considered an act of war by the planetary control, and they dispatched some interceptors from the defense force to come and blow us up. I managed to get the ship back into a warp tunnel before they got us, but I didn’t have time to program any other destination, so I sent us back along the exact same path we had just followed, and I found myself descending back to your wonderful home.” Ace added sarcastically. Nochonis, not really catching the sarcasm nodded gratefully at the perceived compliment and motioned for Ace to continue.

      “So I announced to the passengers that we were returning to Rocu-Su, and they weren’t as happy about it as I was, and began to raise a ruckus in the passenger compartment. Well, I figured that they couldn’t hurt too much and since they were mostly drunk anyway, they would soon settle down. I tried to Convince them to settle down by rocking the ship back and forth slightly, you know, to enhance the feeling of drunkenness that they were already feeling.” Nochonis interrupted again to ask:

      “Now why were they drunk? Doesn’t the beverage system disallow excessive amounts of synthehol to be served?” Ace sighed in exasperation.

      “So I thought it would calm them down. I made a small mistake. How was I to know that [aliens] responded differently to inebriation than humans? Anyway, they didn’t like the little roller coaster ride, and to top it off, they were not really happy to be landing back at this place, so as soon as we were on the ground, they tried to storm the cock pit. Well, I couldn’t allow that! They were destroying public property, so I got out my microwave blaster…” Nochonis gasped in shock.

      “Don’t tell me you fired it at the [aliens]? Don’t you know what happens when an Sinoan is hit with microwave energy?” he asked Ace incredulously.

      “I do now!” Ace stated emphatically. “But when they started swelling I thought it was a voluntary thing on their part, you know to look bigger and intimidate me. So I fired again. And, well it was all I could do to squeeze past them and get out the door.” Ace sighed again, and looked out through the darkness beyond the head lights. “And I don’t feel like dealing with them again just yet.” Ace suddenly became rather sober, and Nochonis, sensing it was more than having cooked an unfortunate Sinoan with a supposedly non lethal weapon gave him a few minutes of reverie and then asked in a quiter voice.

      “But that isn’t all that is bothering you is it?” Ace turned, his face betraying the guilt and pain he felt for acting so casually when all of the people that he considered friends were gone.

      “No, Nochonis. There is more. Just before the Piablo Defense Forces showed up, I learned that my former squadron has been massacred. Not a single survivor. And they were apparently betrayed by someone on our side. I need to find out who it was, and then I need to figure out a way to make that person pay. It is the least I can do. I should have been there…” Ace began, but the emotion was too much for him and he turned back to the darkness. Nochonis understood, and for once, was quiet.

 

The Tinker’s head hurt, and he was having a hard time breathing. But at least he was out of the hospital. He hated doctors and nurses, always had and with a passion. He still had terrifying dreams of the doctors and nurses in lab coats, running endless tests, performing endless procedures to try and figure out what was “wrong” with him. The Tinker considered that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, he was content to live life the way he did. The only thing the endless attempts to cure his so called problem had accomplished, was to cement an everlasting hatred for any medical personnel he encountered. So as soon as he awoke, he carefully removed all of the sensors and tubes and wrapping himself in a bed sheet, toga style he wandered away from the room. Following some subconscious instinct, he finally found himself in the ambulance maintenance bay. There was only one ship in there at that moment, and the techs had all gone for a break. Climbing aboard, The Tinker had quickly figured out the auto pilot system, and once the ship began moving he found an empty hover gurney near the back and laid down for a nap.

 

Ace and Nochonis were approaching the main terminal from the backside, where the service vehicles were all parked. (All two of them…) They scanned the skies nervously, hoping to see the telltale landing lights approaching out of the dark sky, but there was nothing. Nochonis parked the hover car near the corner of the building, where they could see around to the landing area. The only space craft visible was the transport that Ace had landed there a couple of hours ago. The angry and swollen Sinoan was still sitting inside, and his howls of discomfort and frustration were audible even at this distance.

      “The swelling should go down in a few hours, and he’ll be as good as new.” Nochonis remarked idly, gesturing towards the trapped Sinoan.

      “Yeah, but I bet he’ll never ride the public transport system again.” Ace answered. Nochonis chortled at this, and nodded in agreement. Ace however didn’t seem to enjoy the joke as much, and remained gloomy. Nochonis finally turned the conversation back to the subject that Ace seemed to be avoiding.

      “Do you even know who it was that betrayed your friends?” Ace looked up, and shaking his head looked away again.

      “No idea, although I did hear a rumor that it may have been our old commander. I just don’t know, and there is not much chance that I will be able to find out from here. I need a ship that I can take to go and try to run some information down in person. Sub space video calls are just too insecure, and nobody is going to give me any real answers unless I can corner them in person.” Nochonis nodded in understanding, and then gesturing towards the terminal, remarked,

      “Well, there is a video monitor inside that receives the Federation News Network, we could at least watch that while we are waiting to see if there is any more news that has been released publicly.” Ace nodded in agreement, and they both walked away from the hover car and into the terminal. Nochonis took them through the maintenance door, in order to avoid the family of the injured Sinoan who were camped out in the terminal area waiting on the public transit authority to send another transport and pilot to rescue them. Gesturing towards them, Nochonis asked Ace.

      “Aren’t you worried about losing your job?” Ace shrugged and replied dejectedly,

      “Honestly, I am pretty sure I am already fired. If not, I quit. I have promised myself to never fly a defenseless target again. Any ship I pilot will have the weaponry and armor to defend itself or I won’t get on board.” Ace walked a few more paces and then asked Nochonis another question,

      “Hey, do you think that mining tug is recoverable? I mean, with a reactor that size and gravitic thrusters like that, you could really outfit a ship with some serious armament couldn’t you? I mean, if The Tinker is as good as you say, then he should be able to get it going again right?” Nochonis considered for a moment, and then nodded his head.

      “The only problem will be parts. You are welcome to scrounge anything you need from my yard, but the reason people bring stuff to me is that it no longer works. That doesn’t help much when you are trying to get something flying again.” He nodded his head. “But I think we could get you a better looking frame. I have a few old light cruisers that you could gut and put the mining tug’s guts into. That would look better than that flying box.” Ace considered for a minute, and then shook his head. “Naw, I like the old pig the way she is. We will need to add a cabin in the back, for crew quarters, and some sort of inertial dampening, and a warp generator. Then she would be a pretty nice ship.”

 

[Insert a scene where Ace finds out that Olbandan was indeed the traitor on the news broadcast.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About that time, they saw what they had been watching for. Flashing red and blue lights, along with a blindingly brilliant floodlight, the ambulance ship appeared over their heads. Descending slowly with the quiet whine of gravitic engines, it came to rest on the landing surface precisely where Ace and Nochonis had watched it take off from a couple of days ago.

      “There it is!” Ace exclaimed “Let’s go see if he is on it!” Nochonis pushed the hover car forwards, and they moved slowly towards the ambulance. Ace did his best to hide behind Nochonis as they passed the still roaring Sinoan in the transport. Apparently he was at least nominally successful, and they arrived at the ambulance without any further incident. The door had opened, and a landing ramp was descending to the ground. Ace and Nochonis climed down from the hover car, and walked around to the ramp. As soon as it rested on the surface, they both climbed up and into the ship. It didn’t take them long to find The Tinker, still asleep on the gurney in the back of the space craft. Nochonis put one hand gingerly on his shoulder and shook him gently.

      “Hey there! The Tinker, are you OK? You are back home again, can you hear me?” The Tinker groaned, then rolled over and stared up at Nochonis with bleary eyes.

      “Coney? Are you really there? I have been having some bad dreams! For cheese sake! I was flying and then we crashed, but I think the pilot saved me. But I got hurt anyway. Wow! That was a pretty bad dream wasn’t it? Don’t you think Coney?” The Tinker tried to sit up, but his head pounded in pain and the world spun crazily and he collapsed back to the gurney.

      “Coney? Something is wrong with my head though, and I can’t catch my breath. It feels like I got punched in my stomach, and my breath don’t go in and out right.” The Tinker lay weakly on the gurney, gasping for breath and Nochonis looked at Ace with a worried expression.

      “What do you think Ace? What should we do?” Ace considered carefully, then answered confidently.

      “He needs medical help. That much I am sure of. But he doesn’t seem to be inclined to stay in the hospital. Let’s get him back to your place, then we’ll call the hospital and see what they can do for us. Either way, we need to keep him here and take care of him. We can’t risk him trying to escape again.” Ace turned away from the gurney, where The Tinker was already drifting back to sleep and towards the control panel at the front of the ship. In a few seconds, he had the ship off the ground again, and moving back towards Nochonis place. Once he had landed the craft on the ground outside the gate, he and Nochonis maneuvered the hover gurney down the ramp and into the ramshackle building where they positioned him in the living room. A few minutes later, another hospital ship landed outside next to the first one, having followed its transponder signal. Ace managed to smooth the tempers of the hospital officials, and then promising to make good any costs incurred, managed to convince them to send a doctor to their location to examine The Tinker. The doctor’s prognosis was good, The Tinker was well on his way to recovery, although he would need to take it easy for a few days to prevent reinjury. His broken ribs had set well, and his skull fracture was healing. He would require daily bone treatments for the next few weeks to ensure a full recovery, but after seeing the panic in his eyes when he was told he would have to return to the hospital, they negotiated for a daily trip by a technician to perform the necessary treatments. All of this was adding up to an extraordinary cost, and Ace was beginning to get a little worried. When he expressed his worry to Nochonis, he waved it off with a shrug.

      “Money is not a problem Ace, I made a lot of money by letting The Tinker go to work for that mining place, and since it is his money, I never touched it. You don’t need to worry about that.”

 

For the next few weeks while The Tinker recovered, Ace and Nochonis worked to recover the old mining tug. Being a very rugged and tough ship, it had survived the crash surprisingly well. The front bumper was destroyed, but that was to be expected. It was designed to fail over time and absorb the energy of impacting barges or asteroids as the ship began pushing them around space. The reactor seemed to be in relatively good shape, as did the gravitic thrusters. The anti-grav generators however were both shot. Apparently, the failure of the one overloaded the other as it tried to compensate, resulting in the frantic free fall. The magnetic coupler that had so heroically averted a complete disaster was also destroyed, since it was located just behind the sacrificial bumper and had been smashed on impact. As Ace assessed what was left behind, he began forming a plan in his mind.

 

It was finished. The Tinker had powered up the reactor last night, and the entire system came online. He was beside himself with excitement to take her out for a test run, and woke Ace up at the crack of dawn to prod him out to the landing area. They stood there, admiring the way the morning sun glinted off of her new cabin. She looked a little more aerodynamic with the ungainly bumper gone from the front, but the new cabin offset that by adding a rather boxy shape to the rear deck. No matter, the sweat that they had put into the thing over the past few weeks overcame any doubts about esthetics they may have had. Nochonis had beat them both in getting out early, and he had added his own touch. In broad brush strokes using a fluorescent pink paint he had given the ungainly craft its name. “The Piglet” was proudly painted over the entrance to the cockpit, and a crude rendering of a grinning pig in the same shocking pink had been added just below that.

      “The Piglet… I like that!” Ace grinned. The Tinker was much less reticent.

      “Piglet! By cheese! That’ll do! Our own piggy, to fly across the galaxy and win the RACE!” The Tinker began flapping his arms and dancing in circles in his own happy universe. Ace and Nochonis traded a guilty glance, wondering how much longer they could stand to motivate their talented friend with this false pretense. Ace hated the thought of deceiving someone who trusted him so implicityly, but the thought of Delyer Olbandan living the rest of his life in splendor as the ruler of a world as a reward for the deaths of his friends was even more disgusting. The Tinker was just finishing his delirious dance, and returned to where Ace was watching with a bemused look on his face.

      “Let’s get her up in the air! Let’s take her out for a spin! We gotta see how much cheese our piggy friend has in her! Let’s go! NOW by cheese!” He was fairly dancing with anticipation, and drug Ace by the arm up to the loading ramp. Ace was excited too, but determined not to make the same mistakes he had made the last time he flew this ship.

      “All right The Tinker, take it easy. We’ll get her up in the sky today, but we are doing it right this time. You go sit down in your seat, and buckle in. I will start doing the pre flight checks. This time, when we go up, we will not come down so quickly!” Ace opened the door and stood aside, making a slight bow as The Tinker bounded past. Turning back to Nochonis, he inquired:

      “Are you sure you won’t be coming with us? I have a really good feeling about this.” Nochonis shook his head emphatically. “Nope, don’t fly Ace, never will again. Already worried enough that I might have jinxed her just by working on her. Nope, you and The Tinker go and have a blast. I will watch from down here.” Ace shrugged his shoulders. “Alright, suit yourself. See ya on the flip side!” Turning he walked through the door and into the cabin area. When the door closed behind him, Nochonis walked back to his hover car, and heaving himself into the driver’s seat, set off back to the house, to watch the test on the monitoring equipment there.

 

Inside, The Tinker had already buckled himself in and was still waving his arms around and shouting excitedly. Ace shook his head in amusement, and wandered back up front and seated himself in the pilot’s seat. Taking a moment to buckle his seat also, he powered on the reactor, and waited for a moment for it to come up to full power. As soon as the indicators read that it was ready, he ran a full series of diagnostics on it, including an emergency shutdown test that would immediately kill the cold fusion reaction if there was an overload. The test went off without a hitch, and he then turned to the flight control systems. All of the automated tests ran flawlessly, until he tried out the voice command recognition routine. Reading the text from the flow chart in his hand, he recited in a loud and even voice:

      “Testing audio command recognition. Perform audio command recognition diagnostics.” The computer beeped in recognition of an audio command, and then responded with a digitally enhanced female voice:

      “What you say?” Ace shook his head, quizzically at the odd response. Uncertain if he had heard correctly, he repeated the command, and once again, the smooth female voice responded, its voice rising perfectly at the end of the question:

      “What you say?” Ace was confused, and wondered what bug had gotten into the new computer to cause this. It was then that he heard The Tinker braying his comical laughter back in the crew cabin.

      “What you say Ace! I made it say what you say! Aint that the funniest thing you ever heard? The Piglet says “What you say?” I love it!” Ace realized that The Tinker had modified the testing routine to play his little joke, and laughed to himself. Still wanting to finish the pre flight checks, he yelled back at The Tinker

      “How do I make it run the audio command diagnostic test then smart guy? What is the new secret command for that The Tinker?” The Tinker responded in typical fashion with his fascination with cheese.

      “Ask her who cut the cheese!” And then exploded in another round of hee hawing guffaws. Ace smiled, and then turned back to the control panel.

      “Allright. Computer, who cut the cheese?” Ace inquired, but the computer simply responded with its even voice: “What you say?” The Tinker, hearing this began laughing so hard that Ace began to worry that he would aggravate either his newly healed ribs or his broken skull or both. Finally, he calmed enough that Ace could ask him again.

       “The Tinker, why will the computer not recognize my question? What is the magic password to run the blasted diagnostics?” The Tinker took a deep breath, and steadying himself to speak replied,

       “You have to call her by name. Her name isn’t computer. She is much too pretty to be called computer. She is our little piglet. You have to call her Piggy!” At this, The Tinker collapsed into hysterical paroxysms again, and Ace, finally getting the joke, called out:

       “Piggy, who cut the cheese?”

The computer finally beeped in recognition of an audio command, and replied: “Testing audio command recognition. Stand by.”

Ace shook his head, and wondered how many more surprises The Tinker had planted in the ships systems. A few seconds later as the computer reported that all audio command recognition systems were reporting normally, Ace went on to the next set of checks. A few minutes later, he was finished and ready to take off. Calling back to The Tinker, he told him that they were ready to go.

      “All right Acey! Let’s get this pig up in the air!” Ace winced at the nickname, and wondered why The Tinker, who was so particular about his own name felt so free to modify anyone else’s name. Not wanting to get into a discussion with him right now, Ace dismissed it as simply one more of the strange anachronisms that made The Tinker such a unique person.

Powering on the anti gravity generators, he applied power and directed the entire ship upwards. It rose smoothly, and Ace realized that he was holding his breath. Letting it out in a long smooth sigh, he chided himself silently for his nerves. Since his first solo flight he could not remember a time when he was as nervous as he was now. Perhaps it was a lingering distrust of the ship itself, but Ace decided that it was more about the strong feelings he had about his intended mission. Using the race as a cover to pursue Olbandan was a pretty bold move in itself. Forget the fact that he was going to try and penetrate deep into Emdeean space to get to him, running the race itself was enough to give even the bravest space pilot a case of the nerves. Shaking off these thoughts, Ace returned to the business of flying the new ship. He had attained an altitude of about a thousand meters or so, and the new inertial dampener was working like a charm. They were accelerating upwards rapidly, but the apparent g-forces remained nonexistent. Ace cut the upwards lift and powered up the atmospheric thrusters up. The Tinker’s unique system for directing gravitic streams was unlike anything Ace had ever used before, and he still worried that they would cause the atmospheric disturbances that he had been told his entire career that they would. Nevertheless, they had not noticed anything in earlier trials, and so he didn’t hesitate to use them now. Gently urging the ship forward, he watched the nav display as his location icon began moving relative to the moon’s surface. As he picked up speed, he checked all of his instruments, and finding everything within normal parameters he increased the acceleration. The ship jumped quickly to the speed of sound, and then with a resounding boom he passed his own sonic shock wave. The inertial dampener eliminated all of the forces that he should have been feeling due to the sudden acceleration, and Ace began to smile. This ship was flying as well as anything he had ever piloted, although he could feel the effects of the thin atmosphere on the unwieldy shape. The external shields were on, set to minimum power and they were doing a pretty good job of keeping the wind resistance from pulling the ship apart. Since there wasn’t an aerodynamic piece on the entire ship, The Tinker had configured the shield generators to create a shield profile that was a perfect teardrop, specifically for atmospheric flying. The tear drop adjusted itself to face in the right direction no matter which way the ship traveled. Ace decided that it was flying well enough to give it some maneuvers, and began making some lazy, low angle turns through the sky. The shields did their job perfectly, and Ace had the feeling that he was flying an air winged craft instead of a bulky, boxy mining tug.

Now it was time to see what she could really do, and to break in that inertial dampener. He began to change the gentle curves into sharper and sharper turns, keeping the same forward velocity but decreasing the angle of the turns. The inertial dampeners did their job, and the ship moved as if it were out of the atmosphere. Ace was satisfied that the craft was ready for any kind of atmospheric trial it may encounter, and wanted to get out into the inky blackness of space and see what she could really do.

      “Hey The Tinker, are you ready to leave this dusty rock behind? See what this piggy can really do?” Ace yelled over his shoulder. The Tinker was singing loudly to himself, some unrecognizable tune that only he knew the words for. Hearing Ace’s query, he shouted at the top of his lungs in an odd sing song accent:

      “Take ‘er up cap’n! She’s just a Chevrolet, and I’m not sure how much more she can take. But you canna get away from the damned Klingons if you don’t try. I’m givin’ her all I’ve got, I’m just an engineer!” Ace was used to random replies without meaning from The Tinker, so he just took this one as tacit approval of his plan.

      “OK, here she goes!” So saying, he tipped the ship up and away from the moon surface and wound up the gravitic thrusters. The old thrusters seemed happy to be set free at last, and they responded with acceleration that even caught the inertial dampeners by surprise. Ace felt a slight backwards push against his chest as the ship accelerated quickly to, and then beyond escape velocity. Within minutes, the deep blue sky of the atmosphere had given way to the inky blackness of space. Ace was at last back in his element, and he exulted in it. Checking all systems, he confirmed that everything was working correctly, and pushed the thrusters even more. The ship leaped forwards, and continued accelerating. The inertial dampeners were running at near capacity now, as the acceleration continued to increase. He wanted to get up near light speed, but needed more room to do so. He was still very near the planet which Rocu-Su orbited, and didn’t want to risk the new ship by trying anything too sticky. Finally, satisfied that the ship was running fine he pulled it into a tight turn and headed back to the planet.

 

Nochonis was waiting for them when they landed, with an anxious look on his face. As soon as the door opened, The Tinker bounded out and promptly fell on his face in the dust off the end of the still descending ramp. Nochonis hurried over to help him up, but he was already back on his feet, jumping up and down and shouting at the top of his lungs.

      “It worked! It worked! The Piglet flies! Flies like a gosh darn birdie! For all the cheese in the universe we are going to win the Race!” At this he set off on another of his patented happy dances, waving his arms and laughing uproariously. Nochonis watched him bemusedly waiting for Ace to exit. When he did Nochonis walked over to him and gesturing towards The Tinker said grimly.

      “You are going to have to tell him sooner or later. And preferably before you take him into harm’s way.” Ace nodded. “Well, I have an idea. I need a good cover for my plan to work anyway. I don’t want anyone to find out that I am trying to get to Olbandan until I get pretty close. So I guess the race is as good a cover as any. Besides, you should have seen him up there Nochonis,” Ace turned and watched The Tinker, who was now laying on his back in the dust and flapping his arms and legs like a dying cockroach, “He just loves to be up there flying. Maybe I will tell him what I am really doing, and he will be OK with it. Or maybe he will not even understand that kind of thing.” Nochonis looked sharply at Ace when he said this. “That sounds like a good reason not to take him somewhere he will be killed to me.” His voice had lowered and the expression on his face was unreadable. Ace looked back, his face just as set. “Then maybe you should just keep him here. Me, I have a traitorous wretch to kill and a loan shark to dodge. If you want to babysit, then you can either come along or keep him here with you.” Nochonis shook his ponderous head and walked away from Ace.

 

 

Chapter Whatever – The Race.

 

Polonia Five was known as the “Gambling Planet” for good reason. Having no real industry besides resorts and gaming, it had attracted a large share of the gambling establishments throughout the galaxy. This included the proprieters of “The Great Galactic Race” as they called it, or simply “The Race” as everyone else referred to it. Betting on the race was as much a part of the entire spectacle as the actual flying, and most pilots showed up a week or two before they were scheduled to launch in order to create publicity and attention for their ships in the hopes of securing a sponsor who would then do everything they could to help them win, in order to increase their chances of winning a bet. Although there were invariably pilots and sponsors who tried, the actual chances of success at betting against your own team and then throwing the race were pretty small. Not much happened in this town that was not soon public knowledge, since every gambler, bookie, loan shark and dealer made sure that they had the best information in order to make the best bets. Any pilot or sponsor who began making bets against themselves would soon attract thousands of other bettors who would begin making the same bet, which would in turn drive down the odds. It was a fairly effective self governance, and only the very best and craftiest sharks were able to pull it off.

Ace and The Tinker pulled into the orbiting Polonia Space Port only hours before their scheduled start. Ace was not interested in betting, in fact was not really even interested in winning the race. He showed up with just enough time to have the ship inspected by race officials and to have his baton synchronized and the tracking mechanism sealed. Any tampering with the seal would void the baton and disqualify the racer. The baton included a warp energy detector which would alert the checkpoint judges if the baton had passed through a warp field during its trip. When the judges first saw The Piglet sitting in its docking bay at the station, one of them actually laughed out loud.

      “You are going to run the race with a mining tug?” He brayed loudly. What is this, some kind of joke?” Ace felt his temper rising, but forced himself to play it cool.

      “She’s been modified a bit, I am pretty sure she will do light speed without warp assistance and the inertial dampener will handle acceleration to point five within one hour and decelerate at least that fast. You don’t need to worry about us.” Ace answered coolly. The judge raised his eyebrows slightly, but still looking doubtful, the team of judges boarded the ship.

 

The cabin was crowded with all five judges in addition to Ace and The Tinker. The Tinker acted nervous, unused to being around crowds and having had bad experiences with strange people, he was unusually reserved and quitet. The judges were mostly interested in checking out the equipment to ensure that it would withstand the rigors of the acceleration and deceleration that the course would require. They checked the configuration of the inertial dampener and the deflector shields. The were rather impressed with the way The Tinker had wired the shields, and Ace caught one actually scrawling some notes on a small pad as they toured the ship. He thought about saying something, but then decided he didn’t care. Let them steal The Tinker’s ideas, he wouldn’t care and it would in no way affect his ability to succeed in his primary mission. After a thorough inspection, the judges deemed the craft sturdy enough to enter the race, and the baton was synchronized with the ship’s computer. Noticing the warp generator, they warned Ace against trying to use it to cheat. Ace laughed and said:

      “Don’t worry about that. I don’t need the warp drive to win. I got all I need in The Tinker’s gravitic thrusters.”

 

The actual start of the race was set for one hour, and Ace and The Tinker chose to spend the time in their ship. They pushed away from the docing station and drifted slowly into position. The Tinker was still sitting quietly, and Ace began to worry about what might be going through that simple mind of his.

      “Why so quiet The Tinker?” he asked over his shoulder. The Tinker, belted tightly into his seat didn’t answer right away, then finally asked in a voice quite unlike his usual happy go lucky braying.

      “Acey, why don’t you want to win the race? Why are you still angry at that man? You can’t bring your friends back by killing him can you?” Ace felt his stomach drop as he processed what The Tinker was saying. How in the world had he found out? Although Nochonis and Ace had not been exactly secretive about the underlying reason for the mission, Ace had no idea that The Tinker had any idea what was really going on.

      “Uhh… The Tinker, how did you know about that? Did Nochonis tell you? Or did you figure it out on your own?” Ace asked in a low voice, feeling somewhat ashamed.

      “The Tinker isn’t stupid, just because I don’t act right all the time, or talk like everyone else. My brain works just fine thank you very much.” Ace felt his face flush red as he realized that he had been treating The Tinker like a child.

      “Well, The Tinker, sometimes when people do bad things, they have to pay. If I don’t make Olbandan pay, nobody will. Then he will keep on doing bad things to people over and over again. We are the only ones who are going to try and do anything about it. So I need your help.” Ace explained lamely. Nochonis had been right, he should have been up front with The Tinker in the first place, but he wasn’t sure he would understand.

      “Acey, I understand. But can’t we do both? The race goes through that place where your bad guy is, maybe we can stop, get his money and leave without losing the race. Don’t you think?” The Tinker asked hopefully, his voice regaining some of its original tenor. Ace opened his mouth to answer, fully intending to make some more excuses about how that just wasn’t practical when the communicator beeped. There was an incoming call from the planet. Ace was not expecting anyone to call, and he stared quizzically at the display for a few moments before reaching over to answer. The sinister face that appeared on the screen startled him, and it took him a few seconds to answer.

      “Yes, what can I do for you?” he stammered. The man on screen seemed to be amused at his discomfiture, and answered in a voice as icy and sinister as his appearance would suggest.

      “I represent your sponsor, the Gangster. He is very pleased with the job you did rebuilding his ship, and wants me to extend his best wishes to you in your endeavor. He also wants to remind you that in order to pay off your loan, you must win the race. This means not just finishing, but winning. Do you understand?” Ace sneered, answering in a flippant voice.

      “Yeah, we will win. You don’t need to worry about that. This ship has done better in our trials than we ever beleieved possible. Tell your boss that he has nothing to worry about. Have someone waiting at the finish line to collect his share of the winnings.” The sinister face smiled again, but Ace instantly felt that he was not as confident as Ace was trying to sound.

      “The Gangster has done his homework, as he usually does, and has discovered that the new Overlord of the Emdeean world Thror is an acquaintance of yours?” The icy voice turned up at the end, forming the sentence into a question that Ace understood to be largely rhetorical. His stomach lurched, but he managed to keep what he thought was a straight face.

      “I think I have heard something about an old commander of mine defecting, but I have been much to immersed in my preparation for the Race to pay it much mind.” Ace was still not sure exactly why he was even talking to this guy. He had never intended to pay off that loan, any more than he intended to win the race. What did he care if this crook didn’t believe that he could win? In the next instant, Ace found out that he very much did care.

      “Captain Pedona, we have some other visitors here that you might like to talk to. Recognize this little guy?” The display zoomed back until Ace could see the man’s entire body, and the small figure standing next to him made his blood run cold. It was Adan, looking uncertainly up at the cruel face of the Gangster’s thug. The small face turned away, and looking up at the screen recognized his father’s beloved face in the display. His face changed totally, and his eyes lit up with happiness.

      “Daddy! Hey, are you really gonna be in the race? Mommy is pretty mad, she called you some names I haven’t heard of when we came here, but I think it is cool! Do you think that after you win, you could come here and see me? Maybe we could go for a ride in your racer?” Ace’s throat was so constricted with fear that he couldn’t speak for a minute/ How had this happened? He forced himself to answer Adan in as normal a voice as possible.

      “Hey buddy, you know your mommy would never let me bring you on such a dangerous trip. She is right, I shouldn’t even be going. But I guess sometimes we havce to do things that are a little bit scary when we are grown ups.” Adan looked disappointed, but had been expecting no less. Ace asked, in a slightly more concerned voice.

      “Adan, where is your mommy? Are you guys ok?” Adan looked up at the thug, who smiled his icy smile and nodded, and Adan looked back at the screen and answered with a shrug.

      “We’re OK, these guys aren’t very much fun, and I think mommy is pretty scared, but they haven’t hurt us or anything. Daddy? Are we kidnapped?” He asked in a hushed voice, as if the man standing next to him couldn’t hear. Ace debated for an instant before answering.

      “No, these guys just want to make sure you guys have a safe place to stay while I am racing. Some scum bags might want to hurt you guys to keep me from winning, and the Gangster wanats to make sure you stay stafe.” Ace spoke to the thug instead of the child, and narrowing his eyes he continued in a sinister voice.

      “And if anything happens to you or mommy, whoever did it will pay. I will make sure of it. They will definitely wish that they had not done it when I get through.” The thug understood perfectly well who Ace was talking to but was completely unfazed.

      “don’t worry your little head about it little guy, you and your mommy will be safe with us, as long as your daddy does what he promised the boss man to do.” Adan looked slightly confused, as the conversation while apparently directed at him seemed to have left him far behind. Ace, noticing his discomfiture looked directly at him, and reassured him.

      “Adan, tell your mommy I will see her at the finish line, when we cross in record time. I will not let anyone hurt you.” Adan smiled brightly, all thoughts of kidnapping or hurting gone in the promise that he would see his daddy again.

      “Promise Daddy? Promise we can meet you at the finish line?” Ace felt his eyes burning as he replied firmly.

      “Yeah buddy, I promise.” The thug signaled to someone off screen, and the display went dark. A voice directly behind him startled him with its suddenness.

      “Acey, we gotta win so that we can keep your little buddy safe. I don’t think that guy was as nice as he pretended.” The Tinker had apparently been watching the entire conversation. Ace was still formulating a response when the baton which had been secured next to the control panel flashed and a recorded voice emerged from a small speaker at one end.

      “Time begins in one minute. Prepare to begin.” Ace stared at The Tinker for another minute, and then shrugging his shoulders said:

      “Well The Tinker, we better get this piglet going then, if we are going to win this race.”

 

Ace stared at the star chart displayed on the nav computer. He and The Tinker were hunched over the display in the crew quarters. The Piglet was cruising through space at just over light speed, all systems humming. Ancient physicists had insisted that faster than light travel was impossible, the same way that they had once upon a time insisted that an object moving faster than the speed of sound would disintegrate. The invention of the gravitic generator had changed the very basis of physics and relativity, when it was found that all laws of motion depended on the force of the graviton field. The universe was immersed in an infinite sea of gravitons. A stream of gravitons flowed towards every atom in the universe, and the more atoms which were packed into a smaller area, the more graviton streams would be focused to that point. This explained the stronger gravitational attraction of large, dense objects. The graviton streams created the equivalent of an atmospheric region of low pressure, and nearby graviton streams of higher pressure would be attracted to the low pressure area. The discovery that graviton streams could be artificially manipulated by creating an electromagnetic field around a piece of gravitonium spurred further discoveries regarding the nature of kinetic energy. Just as an atmospheric wing had to over come the friction of air resistance as it simultaneously used the same wind to create lift, a gravitational generator could create a high or low pressure graviton stream, which could then be manipulated to make gravity pull or push an object in the desired direction. The same gravitic generator could also be used to overcome the problem of critical mass. Early physicists predicted that as an object approached light speed, its mass would begin to increase until, just before reaching light speed it would reach critical mass, which means that further acceleration was possible. While this is true, it is only due to the buildup of graviton streams ahead of the moving object. As an object moves through the graviton sea, it pushes the gravitons ahead of it, as well as dragging a stream behind it. When the object decelerates, or changes direction the following stream would attempt to continue pushing it in the same direction. This principle explains kinetic energy, centrifugal force, and rotational inertia. A gravitational manipulator was able to create graviton streams that could cancel out these leading and following graviton waves and eliminate all three of these forces. This device came to be known as the inertial dampener, and allowed the birth of super light speed. Objects could indeed travel faster than light, provided they had enough power on board to generate the necessary graviton streams and direct them properly.

This kind of power generation was normally limited to gigantic battle cruisers or carriers, or short range transports. However, it was common for pilots entering the race to build small racers with large reactors capable of generating the kind of energy needed to run an inertial dampener at the strength necessary to travel at this speed.

In this way, the Piglet was normal. The large reactor and equally large thrusters were of the type more commonly found on the larger ships. This was due of course to the fact that the ship was intended to push or pull barges or chunks of asteroids with masses as large or larger than those large ships. What made the Piglet unique was the innovation of The Tinker. He had fiddled with the boosters, and managed to double their thrust by an ingenious configuration of the gravitonium grid which was energized to create the graviton stream. Ace had watched with fascination. Any gravitic engineer watching would have laughed out loud. Bending the grid into a shovel shaped dish should have caused the stream to scatter randomly, cancelling out any directional thrust. However, when The Tinker powered up the thrusters for the first time they nearly tore themselves loose from their mounts underneath the Piglet’s chassis. Ace and Nochonis set to work fashioning reinforced thruster mounts while The Tinker moved on to work his magic on the inertial dampener.

Now, Ace and The Tinker were attempting to chart their course through the galaxy. The rules of the Race required them to stop at exactly one thousand planets scattered across the universe. Even using warp technology, the trip would take the better part of a month as the space racer would have to maneuver out of the range of any large gravitational sources to generate the warp tunnel. Factoring in landing and taking off and any other obstacles a space traveler might encounter and the course was nearly guaranteed to be at least ten years at light speed. Ace planned to

 

[Here I am deviating from the original story line. I am changing the rules of the race to permit warp travel. The skill of the pilot is required to maneuver the racing ship to the best possible places to create warp tunnels between way points. When editing, go back and scrub for references to the “No warp” rule of the race.]

 

Ace and The Tinker bent over the nav computer, trying to work out the best route to take between the thousand planets the race required. Every pilot had a theory about the best way to trace a path, some chose to visit the friendly planets first, to get a head start on time before trying the hostile worlds. Others believed the opposite, saying that it was best to get the hard part out of the way first, and then coasting through the easy worlds to finish. Ace and The Tinker were trying to work out a way to make a stop by the Emdeean world of Thror to visit one newly throned Overlord. This world was not on the race course, but that mattered little to Ace. He only wanted to figure out how he could swing by there, wreak enough havoc to hopefully kill Olbandan, and then get back on course. His desire to win the race was now equal to his desire for revenge, since the Gangster had decided to up the stakes somewhat.

      “So, what you are telling me is that we don’t have to be that far from the planet before we open the tunnel?” Ace asked The Tinker intensely. The Tinker nodded vigorously, tapping the display with his finger.

      “Warpie tunnel can works fine right here. You can make tunnel no problem. See this moon? Its gravy cancels out planet gravy right here. Makes a nice spot to have a warpy tunnel without any ugly stretching.”

Ace was getting better at interpreting The Tinkers child like babbling. As far as he could tell, The Tinker was telling him that the planetary gravitational forces which would normally distort a warp tunnel and make it unstable and dangerous would be cancelled out by the gravitational force of the orbiting moon at this one specific spot. He had never heard of such a thing before, but he was learning to trust The Tinker in these matters.

      “So is there one of these spots near every planet with an orbiting moon?” Ace asked. The Tinker laughed, and then in a sing song voice answered “Yeppers sceppers Acey. If the mooney has enough cheese, it makes a nice little home for the warpies, right there. They don’t get all confused and angry at the planet’s gravies.” Ace was very interested. Since warp travel between even the farthest points of the galaxy was very close to instantaneous, the only reason that a racer could not visit each of the thousand planets in the course of a few leisurely hours was the task of exiting the warp tunnel at a distance large enough to avoid the gravitational warp interference, pilot to the proper location on the surface of the planet, bring the baton to the checkpoint officials then blast off again and fly back out to the proper distance to make the next warp tunnel. This was also the period of time when hostile forces could wait to ambush the arriving pilot. The allowance for the pilots to visit the planets in whatever order they deemed best allowed for some safety, in that the hostile forces would have a hard time anticipating which planet the craft would arrive at next. However, being able to materialize at a point between the planet and its satellite would cut this dangerous time down to an almost negligible amount. In most cases, Ace estimated that he could get in and out before anyone even knew what was happening. He also wanted to try something that he remembered from his last battle as a space forces pilot. The first planet they were examining was generally friendly to the Racers, and barring any adverse action by fellow racers, Ace felt there was little chance of getting ambushed on this landing.

      “OK The Tinker, we will try it. Feed the coordinates of your warpies little happy place and we will try to exit the tunnel there. If you are wrong, I guess we will never know it, since our atoms will be scattered randomly across warp space as soon as we enter the tunnel. If you are right, I think we have a pretty good chance of fulfilling both of our goals without breaking a sweat.” The Tinker was already busy programming the nav computer with the proper information, and Ace stepped back into the pilot’s chair in the cockpit. In a few minutes, the computer sounded a gentle chime that indicated that all of the necessary calculations were complete, and that the ship was ready to enter the warp tunnel. Pressing the control that powered on the warp generator and created the tunnel, Ace called back to The Tinker.

      “Hold on The Tinker, here we go!” The warp tunnel appeared almost instantly, (Much faster than that dammned transport! Ace thought to himself.) and Ace maneuvered the Piglet towards the shimmering circle. Accelerating gently, they entered the tunnel. There was the customary moment of feeling as if your body was disconnected from the universe, and the Piglet exited easily into space on the other side of the tunnel. Immediately, sensors sounded alarms to notify Ace that the ship was rapidly approaching orbital distance from the large blue green orb. Rapidly checking the nav readout and their universal position system (UPS) locator, Ace quickly determined that they were indeed beginning to enter orbit around the target planet. He heard The Tinker in the back hooting excitedly as he discovered the same thing, and he released his breath in one long shuddering sigh. He hadn’t even realized that he was holding his breath until he saw that they were still safe, and his head spun with the effort. Or it was the euphoria of knowing that The Tinker’s theory would become an entirely new study in the field of warp transport as the interaction between gravitational fields would need to be completely re examined.

Ace took another deep breath and released it slowly. They were officially underway, and as he moved the ship into orbit around the planet, and began reentry procedures he felt a small glimmer of excitement. Since hatching his plan to get revenge on Olbandan, he had never even considered finishing the race. Now, he felt confident that he could even win. And deep in his heart, he wondered if his competitive nature might even win over his desire for revenge.

 

 

Chapter Whatever – Overlord Olbandan, Emdeean Hero

 

Olbandan felt good. He had never, in his entire life felt this good. Command of a planetary defense force had felt good. He had immediately cleaned house, and no longer fettered by any infantile “ethics” like the federeation forces, his purge of the military force had been bloddy, brutal, and very public. In a move that rewarded shameless loyalty above all else, he executed by public dismemberment hundreds of officers, non comms and enlisted soldiers for reasons both tactical and arbitrary. Anyone who didn’t answer just the right way was executed. Anyone associated with an executed person had good reason to fear, and if they showed any hesitation at all, they were just as likely to suffer the same fate. Within a week, the entire planet buzzed with fear for the new Overlord. New officers were promoted, entire command structures were re created. In the end, Olbandan had a force which for the most part owed its very life to his will and was very keen to demonstrate their continued loyalty. Of course, he had also earned some mortal enemies, but the promotion and continued lavishment of privelige and prestige upon a very select few created a very deadly and committed personal security force. Once his purge of the planetary forces was complete, and his reputation for cold and ruthless leadership had spread to the rest of the Emdeean fleet, he assumed his position of Overlord of an Attack Division as well, with many of the same tactics to gain loyalty and ensure instant and exact obedience to his orders. By rights, he had been given command of the same attack division that he had taken by killing Overlord Kandelko, which was already aware of his ruthless nature. He was given another division as well which had been decimated in the recent battle, to integrate and reinforce his force. This effectively made him commander of the largest attack force in the Emdeean fleet, and of course bestowed upon him the highest rank of any divisional Overlord. Finally, after months of drilling and preparation, he felt that his fleet was finally ready for the next step in the Emdeean march to destroy the Terminus Confederation. Terminus itself would be the next target. Olbandan was intimately familiar with the defenses surrounding the Federation capital world, and he was sure that he had an excellent plan to overcome these measures and strike at the heart of the federation government. After a final briefing to NikkOll and receiving her approval of the plan, Olbandan moved his fleet towards Terminus space.

 

The Tinker screamed in fear, a high pitched squeal of terror that sent spikes of pain through Ace’s head. They had just exited their warp tunnel, and unbeknownst to them, had suddenly materialized in the middle of a very busy and very crowded flight path for ships approaching the planet. A massive freighter was bearing down on them with alarming speed, and Ace instinctively pulled the control yoke up and away from the oncoming ship. Unfortunately, there was another layer of traffic directly above the one they had just left. Fortunately, this one was heading in the same direction as The Piglet and Ace quickly maneuvered the ship into a gap in traffic. He ignored the comm unit’s angry buzz as the displaced and alarmed ships attempted to contact him and give him a piece of their mind. Ace didn’t bother answering, he had a feeling that he already knew what they would say and wasn’t really interested. Settling down into the slow crawl of the flight path, Ace realized that he really should figure out some way to check the area on the other side of the tunnel before they made the jump, just to make sure that they were not going to get plastered all over the side of something huge that just happened to be sitting there. The Tinker had stumbled back to his seat in the crew cabin, and belting himself in sat there muttering to himself angrily. Ace laughed, and checked the nav computer. No way was he going to follow this turtle speed flight path all the way to the planet, he had landed in such crowded conditions before, and knew just how long it could take. Pin pointing the location on the planet surface where the checkpoint was located, he charted a path through the crowded space that he hoped would allow him to land in something like a reasonable amount of time. Settling on a path, he pulled the ship away from the slow moving line again, and took off away from the ships at a tangent. He needed to get to the other side of the planet, so he wanted to stay out of the atmosphere as long as possible, so that he could make faster time. Once he entered the atmosphere he was sure that folks would get a little upset if he went zooming around at several times the speed of sound.

Just then, he noticed a flashing light on his threat display. Tapping the icon to pull up the description, he saw that it was a planetary defense forces ship, and they were hailing him on the emergency frequency. Ace decided he had better take the call, since this planet was reported to be race friendly for the most part, and he might be able to talk his way out of any problems better than running. An angry face appeared on the screen, and in a harsh commanding voice the pilot demanded:

      “Unidentified ship, bring your ship to full stop. You are in violation of Kirjoi flight regulations and in danger of being judged hostile. Identify yourself.” Ace shrugged, and tried to put on an innocent face.

      “This is private ship, freighter class The Piglet, registry, Rocu-Su in the Hurue system. I apologize for any misunderstanding, I have never approached your planet before, and am not quite familiar with your regulations. I am on a rather urgent errand, and didn’t want to wait in line with all of the other ships back there.” The defense forces pilots face softened, but only slightly and took on an arrogant sneer. He was relieved that he didn’t seem to be dealing with an invasion force, but had nothing but contempt for pilots who didn’t bother to investigate the regulations of planets they were visiting.

      “Private freighter Piglet, this planet has a strict rule requiring all incoming vessels to enter through the orbiting space port and then follow the designated flight path to the atmosphere. Once there you will be handed off to planetary flight control for further directions.”

So that was the reason for the long slow moving line of ships. The buraecrats had long arms on this planet, and were now in control of the comings and goings of ships in space. Most likely a stop at the space port would include collection of some sort of fee or tax, and the planetary flight control would also collect their share. Ace decided to play along for another couple of seconds, but no way was he going back to wait in line.

      “I am sorry, I didn’t know. I will only be on your planet for a few minutes, before leaving again. I really have to be back out to space in less than an hour. Is there any way that you can just escort me to my destination and back again?” Ace maintained an air of goofy ignorance, hoping to play to the other pilot’s sympathy for stupid tourists. Unfortunately, this particular one had no such sympathy.

      “Negative. Turn your ship about, and head back to these coordinates. Your orbital tracking number is nine two three seven eight four two dash alpha seven niner. You will be assessed an extra ten percent fee for…” Ace cut the transmission off and hit the flight controls. The Piglet zoomed away from the patrol craft, streaking towards the planet surface.

      “Not today piggy… I don’t have time or patience for beaureaucratic red tape today. Hey! The Tinker, come up here will you?” Ace was concentrating on his flying, and on watching the pursuing patrol craft as it followed.

      “What’s up Acey? Why didn’t you let the nice police man finish? Police mans are here to help us…” Ace interrupted

      “No time for help from nice police mans today The Tinker, I need your help now. Is there any way that you can make just a tiny little warp tunnel for me? Say just large enough to toss the baton through?” The Tinker’s eyebrows raised, then a broad smile opened up his face.

      “Sure! No problems Acey! Easy breezy! Send me coordinateys and I will get it up for you. You going to toss baton in warpey tunnel? Great idea!”

 

Ace tapped the controls and sent the coordinates for the Race’s checkpoint on the planet surface. They were entering the atmosphere now, and the view screen was a solid red as the shields deflected the heat energy created by atmospheric entry. Just as the flaming air began clearing up, a sudden jarring bump from the rear of the Piglet let Ace know that he had been judged hostile, and was now under attack. He reconfigured the shields to provide maximum protection from the rear, and edged the thrusters up another notch or two. As he approached the planet surface, he heard the ship break through the sound barrier, and winced at the ruckus he was creating. No problem, he had avoided much worse, and in much less able ships. The patrol ship was firing plasma bolts, and the shields were easily deflecting them. Ace decided not to return fire, he had no desire to harm these guys, just doing their jobs after all. And he was breaking the law, however stupid it might have been. Ace flipped through the race documentation quickly, until he found the frequency and channel to contact the race official on planet Kirjoi. Hurriedly, he punched the info into the comm unit and the face of an annoyed looking man appeared.

      “Sorry, can you hold?” He snapped, and reached towards the screen without waiting for a response. Ace screamed into the comm display:

      “NO! I CAN”T HOLD! I have a planetary defense patrol ship firing plasma bolts up my backside right now. Are you uhhh.. Mister Kaina, of the Race?” Kaina now looked even more annoyed.

      “yeah, and avoiding the cops is your trouble mister. Don’t come asking me for help.”

      “I aint asking for help! I am just letting you know that I will be over your position in a few minutes, and due to the aforementioned pursuit, will not be able to make a landing. However, I will be sending my baton in. If you could just verify and punch it we can be on our way.” Kaina looked inquisitively at the screen.

      “And how do you propose ‘sending’ your baton in? Postal carrier?” he sneered derisively.

      “Uhh we are working on that still right now. But just be prepared when it appears.” The ship shuddered as the patrol ship tried a bit heavier weapons which taxed the shields a bit more than the small plasma bolts had done.

      “Thanks!” Ace said, and killed the display.

      “Hey The Tinker, you got that warpy ready yet?” The Tinker didn’t respond right away, and Ace was about to yell again when the ship shuddered from another explosive attack.

      “What are they shooting? Nukes in their own atmosphere?” Ace muttered to himself as he began a series of evasive maneuvers. He thought of unlimbering some of the Piglet’s armaments from their hidden compartments, but before he could, The Tinker yelled at him from his seat.

      “Acey! It’s ready! Should I throw it in yet?”

      “No! Let me get this idiot back on comms and then we’ll throw something in to test first!” Ace yelled back, punching redial on the commo unit. The display lit up with the still annoyed (or had it now progressed to genuine anger?) face of the race official.

      “What now? And is that you making all of that noise up in the sky? I hope you know that you are creating planet wide alerts and panic! Everyone is convinced that you are an Emdeean invasion force!” His sneering voice was getting near to panic itself, and Ace thought maybe anger or annoyance was only part of the reason he was acting so contrary.

      “No, well, I mean yeah, that is me you are hearing… probably. Anyway, I want to test out our ummm… delivery system. Watch for uhhh our test object appearing in your office any second now.” Then yelling over his shoulder, he called to The Tinker: “Alright The Tinker, send the test object.”

Ace should have been more specific about what would and would not make a good test object. As it was, The Tinker had selected a dish of left overs from the refridgeration unit. Really old left overs. The kind your mother warned you about. Some cheese concoction that The Tinker had mixed up that even he didn’t want to eat. And the lid was loose. And the warp tunnel had appeared directly over the race officials head. Ace watched in horror as the dish suddenly crashed down on the officials head, broke open and rotten, moldy cheese concoction ala The Tinker ran all down his head. Spitting obscenities in a tongue that Ace was pretty sure he was glad he didn’t understand, He grabbed a cloth and started wiping frantically at the gooey mess. Ace noticed that he was now being pursued by several ships, and when the loud explosions began exploding in volleys on their shields, he screamed at the race official.

      “SORRY ABOUT THAT! My Co pilot is not the brightest bulb in the box, but he is a genius with warp technology. Here comes the baton. If you could punch it as quickly as possible, I need to get out of here!” Turning to Ace, he yelled: “Now the baton, quick!” The Tinker hooted in acknowledgement and Ace saw that baton appear on his screen. It too landed directly on top of the official’s head, inspiring another stream of deity offending curses. The official grabbed the baton, and waving it at the screen, demanded in a high pitched scream:

      “What makes you think I am even going to help you out with this? Look what you’ve done to my new suit? Planet wide chaos, rotten food falling from nowhere, and now a likely concussion! Why in the universe would I help you now! I should disqualify you…” Ace interrupted, not sure he wanted to hear the rest of the lecture.

      “Because if you don’t, I will just land at your location, bringing all of my new planetary defense patrol buddies with me. I don’t know if they are using nukes or some other explosive missile, but my shields are having a dickens of a time staying ahead of the impact. What kind of shielding does your building have?” The official stopped mid rant, his mouth hanging open as he considered this, and snapped quickly “OK, one minute.” And disappeared from the screen. Ace turned to The Tinker and yelled.

      “OK, I hope you can reverse that thing now, so that he can get it back to us!” The Tinker hooted out loud, then screamed as explosions hit the ship simultaneously from two sides.

      “Acey! We need to get out of here! These guys are pissedy!” Ace called back firmly.

      “Get that reverse tunnel up and we will. Find the nearest point for a warp jump and we will get there as soon as we get our baton back. Make it snappy The Tinker!” He heard a grunt of affirmation from the rear, and hoped that meant he understood. A few seconds later, the race official appeared back in the display holding the baton.

      “OK, you have been punched. How am I supposed to return this thing to you now?” He snapped.

      “Look up where it fell from the ceiling. Can you see any kind of a blurry swirling weird looking ring at all?” Ace instructed. The official looked up, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

      “How do you do that?” he asked incredulously. Ace sighed in frustration.

      “Throw the damn baton through the thing and I’ll tell you sometime that I am not being attacked by a planetary defense force! NOW DAMMIT!” Ace screamed as warning lights began to appear on his defense console. The shields were about taxed out, and were warning that they were about to begin emergency strength reduction to avoid overheating the generator. The race official overcame his incredulity and awkwardly tossed the baton upwards. Ace watched hopefully to see that it did not come crashing back down onto his head, and heard The Tinker yell in surprise in the rear. Ace called back to him. “Do you have the baton The Tinker?” The Tinker hooted happily. “Yeppers sceppers Acey! We got the batoney. Let’s blow this cracker stand!” Ace hooted triumphantly, and turned to the official.

      “Nice doing business with ya partner! Sorry about the cheese!” punching the comm button without waiting for a reply, Ace turned to his nav computer in earnestness. Spinning the ship so that it was now headed directly away from the planet, he accelerated to the maximum atmospheric velocity. Several of the planetary patrol ships directly in is new path were taken by surprise and had to scramble quickly out of his way to avoid collision. Ace didn’t alter his course one bit. His advantage in speed would be even more apparent once he left the atmosphere, and his shields could concentrate all of their energy towards deflecting attacks without sparing any for atmospheric deflection as well. Of course, once they were out of the atmosphere, there were some heavier weapons that they could deploy against him as well, but Ace preferred not to think of that for now.

      “Hey The Tinker, you got coordinates for me on that warpy tunnel yet? I really would like to be heading in the right direction here!” Ace called over his shoulder, swerving hard right to avoid a barrage of missile fire which detonated just off the port bow, stressing the shields anyway with the blast and shrapnel.

      “Yeppers Acey. Warpy tunnel numbers are in the navicomp. Just tell the Piggy to go there, and I will open him up for you.” The Tinker answered cheerily. Ace sometimes was amazed at what frightened and did not frighten this guy. He seemed to be cool at all the right times though, which was a definite advantage. Ace pulled the coordinates up, and sure enough saw that he was going in exactly the opposite direction. Pulling another tight one hundred eighty degree circle he headed directly at his attackers once again. He decided that the time had come to unlimber some of the Piglet’s offensive capabilities. Ace still didn’t really want to kill any of these pilots. Bureaucratic drones they may be, they were only doing their jobs, and Ace respected that. He also recognized that if he continued to let them do their jobs unimpeded, that he and The Tinker could end up as so much air pollution when the shields finally failed.

The Tinker had as much fun outfitting the Piglet’s weaponry as he had done with its propulsion and defenses. And just like the propulsion and defensive systems, he had added his own brand of innovation. Ace had had just as much fun testing and learning how to operate them as well. Many old hulks from Nachonis’ stock had gone up in flames in the space around Rocu-Su as The Tinker and Ace put the weapons and targeting systems through their paces. For this situation, Ace needed a weapon that was likely to put the pursuers off without the likelihood of outright destruction. A pinpoint weapon which could disable a propulsion system or a weapon was the best choice here, and Ace quickly powered up his own plasma cannons. Current plasma cannon technology was rather simple. When the weapon cycled, a aluminum rod was sliced with a proton beam creating a disc only a few microns in thickness. A stream of iron plasma was then aimed at the exact center of the disc at high pressure. This caused the disk to stretch and swell like a ballon until the stream was cut off. A powerful magnetic field kept the glowing slug in a perfect spherical shape, and also kept the iron plasma from evaporating the thin aluminum shell. The slug was then propelled using magnetic pulses down the barrel of the weapon. Depending on the size of the slug and the length of the barrel, some plasma cannons were capable of hurling slugs at near light speed. In the vacuum of space, the slugs would travel indefinitely, although they cooled as soon as the imparted magnetic field wore off. In atmospheric conditions, they performed much as normal kinetic energy bullets would, requiring the proper trajectory to hit their targets, and being affected by wind resistance and other atmospheric phenomenon. Their effectiveness upon impact was increased by the multiplication of simple kinetic energy by the added heat energy of the iron plasma. However, they were easily deflected by magnetic shielding, and since they were not self propelled, were not able to change direction to pursue targets. For this purpose, various types of missiles were employed. But for Ace’s purpose, the modified plasma cannons built by The Tinker would more than suffice. The Tinker, as usual had ideas for using technologies together in ways that normal scientists or engineers would consider impossible or impractical. The combination of gravitic generator and warp technology had been an unheard of break through, and had any warp energy scientist been given a chance to examine this plasma cannon, it was more than likely that it would have been dismissed as nothing more than garbage. But Ace had seen it at work, and knew that it was indeed capable of piercing magnetic shielding. The difference was that The Tinker had affixed a warp generator to the plasma cannon. When each slug was fired, as it passed through the end of the barrel it was imbued with a halo of warp energy outside of the magnetic orb which kept the iron plasma in place. This warp field effectively gave the slug no magnetic polarity at all, which allowed it to pass uninhibited through the magnetic shielding.

It took a few seconds for the cannon to warm up, during which time Ace was maneuvering frantically to avoid the missile fire. He was nearing the outer edge of the atmosphere now, and the blue sky of the day time side of the planet was taking on a deeper and darker shade of blue. Ace was not yet ready to take the pursuit to space just yet, the risk that his pursuers would be able to unlimber larger and deadlier weaponry was too great. He still had about one quarter of an orbit to make to approach the location of the gravitational sweet spot where he could safely open his warp tunnel, and he wanted to stay in the air as long as possible until then. But he could thin the crowd slightly, and even the odds somewhat. As soon as the plasma cannons were ready, Ace rotated them to the rear, and targeted the missile launcher of the lead pursuer. A short three round burst and the patrol ship spewed flame and smoke and quickly dropped back from the pack. In rapid succession, Ace targeted two more, and each also dropped back out of pursuit. However, the attackers quickly realized that this was no longer a simple case of a runaway ship trying to outrun them and changed tactics. Splitting into two craft teams, they fanned out and picked up their pursuit from different angles. Ace now concentrated his plasma cannon bursts on the incoming missiles, or a pursuer who got too close. He had gained some time while they rearranged their formation however, and he was now close enough to the sweet spot to begin moving back towards the darkness of space.

      “The Tinker, estimated time to the tunnel coordinates is about two minutes! Do you have it ready yet?” Ace yelled back, while triggering a burst of plasma fire which destroyed the thrusters of a pursuing ship.

      “Yeppers Acey, I could open the hole right now, but lots of other folkses are flying all around the sweet spot right now, I wouldn’t want any of them to stumble into our warpy tunnel and get an ouchy.” The Tinker responded. Ace answered through clenched teeth, “OK, I will let you know when we are thirty seconds out. Is that enough time?” The Tinker answered cheerily.

      “Plenty! Glad to be out of here too! Great cheese these folks are grouchy!”

The Piglet was entirely free of the atmosphere now, and Ace relaxed slightly as he turned off the atmospheric maneuvering shields and allowed all of the shield generator’s power to go to defense. He powered down the plasma cannons, stowing them back in their hidden bays on the attached cargo hull and preparing the ship for the warp jump. Accelerating even more, the attackers began dropping back, and then disappeared altogether. He soon realized why, as the slow, snaking line of ships waiting to enter the atmosphere came into visual range. It looked like word of the pursuit had reached them and they were trying to get out of the way. Unfortunately, this was causing further congestion as each ship suddenly turned and tried to get out of the way. Several had collided, and Ace checked the sensor scopes and saw that the sweet spot was occupied by at least one such victim right now.

      “Stupid lemmings, why can’t they just all get out of my way! The Tinker! Don’t open the warpy tunnel right yet. There is a disabled craft in the exact spot! Give me a second to try and get it out of the way.” Ace didn’t wait for a response. The Tinker was generally reliable and he didn’t have time. He decelerated the ship and brought it right up to where the other ship floated, a smoke trail streaming from a large dent where something had crashed into it very near the reactor housing. Ace checked around for any pursuers. It appeared that there were none for now, most likely they had been called off to prevent any more panic than was already happening in this crowded sector. Powering on the magnetic couplers in the nose of the aircraft, Ace began pushing the other ship out of the way. Gently goosing the thrusters both ships began moving forward. Ace checked his nav display, and saw that in mere seconds, the other ship would pass through the sweet spot and prepared to give The Tinker the command to open the tunnel as soon as it was clear. Before he could do so, the ship vanished before his eyes. Ace was so shocked that he simply stopped and stared, and then the Piglet also passed through the open warp tunnel which The Tinker had opened just a few seconds early.

 

Back on the planet surface, Kaina stared at the oozing mess on the floor at his feet. Now that the anger over being so rudely interrupted and then doused with some sort of rotten dairy product before getting hit in the head with a titanium cylinder had subsided somewhat, he had begun to ponder what had really happened. This racer had managed to open up a warp tunnel, very near the surface of the planet, from a moving ship with enough precision to toss in an object and have it appear at the other end. Kaina decided that he needed to learn a little bit more about this racer. But first, he would need to find out how much damage this little episode had done to the reputation of the Race on this planet. He could already hear the sirens getting closer to his office…

 

Ace breathed a sigh of relief. They were through the warp tunnel, and had closed it behind them. No others could follow him through. He seriously hoped that nobody had been killed back there, he was in enough trouble already, and that would just make it worse. But here, and now he already had some more trouble to deal with. The ship that they had inadvertently pushed ahead of themselves through the warp tunnel was floating in space ahead of them still, drifting slowly away, with what looked like reactor coolant spewing out in a large, radiant cloud. The comm unit was flashing, and Ace decided it was the least he could do to at least explain to the poor folks how they had just ended up a few million light years away.

      “This is the Piglet. Captain Pedona. How can I help you?” The elderly face that answered the other screen stared stupidly out at Ace.

      "How in the universe… I mean, what did you… Do you know anything about reactor cores? Our seems to have been ruptured. Is that bad?” Ace stared back just as stupidly for a few seconds. How could someone flying a space ship be that ignorant?

      “Um, yes! That is definitely bad. You have a matter of minutes before your ship becomes a nuclear device. Don’t you have any crew on board?” The man shook his head. “No, the pilot was injured when that other ship ran into us, he is still out. What do we do?” Ace was frantic. Not only were the inhabitants of this unfortunate craft in imminent danger, the Piglet desperately needed to be on a heading any direction that got them farther away from this ticking bomb. Ace remembered very well what happened to the Emdeean cruiser when his own small reactor core went nuclear next to it, and he wanted to be a very good distance away from this one when it went. His combat instincts, still humming from the recent tangle with planetary defense took over.

      “The Tinker, can you put a warp tunnel from that ship to ours? And get another one ready to get us a few light years away when I tell you?” Ace yelled over his shoulder.

      “Why Acey? We aren’t getting’ chased any more. We can relax, have some cheese.” The Tinker answered, his distorted voice revealing that he had already begun to execute this plan.

      “The Tinker! Their reactor is about to go nuclear, and our shield generator is still glowing from the last little adventure. No way we can handle a full thermo nuclear blast at this range right now! We have to get those folks off that ship, and get the Piglet out of here now!” Ace screamed. He heard objects crashing as The Tinker scrambled to comply. Turning back to the comm display, Ace began to instruct the old spacer.

      “OK, in a minute, you are going to see a kind of swirly smoky kind of thing appear on your ship. Walk through it to get to our ship.” The man still had the same stupid look on his face, but was now nodding as if he understood. Ace doubted it, but decided to wait to see if The Tinker had the tunnel ready before confusing him any more.

      “The Tinker, you got that tunnel ready yet? We are kind of short on time here!” Ace yelled. The Tinker stuck his head into the cockpit.

      “Yep Acey, I got it ready. Tell them to come through. I will have some cheese and crackers ready for them when they get here.” Ace turned back to the display.

      “OK, do you see the swirly smoky circle thingy? Anywhere in your ship there?” The old man turned away from the display, wandered out of sight for a minute, and then reappeared after a minute.

      “umm… no swirly thingy here sir. Isn’t there an easier way to do this? Couldn’t we dock our ships togeth…” Ace almost choked. Dock the Piglet to a ticking hydrogen bomb? Oh, why the heck not! He almost lost his composure as he interrupted the poor confused man.

      “No, not a good idea. Don’t you know how long… no of course you don’t. Just… keep looking and hang on for a minute.” Locking the ship into its current course, he switched the comm display to the aft display and stood up and stomped into the back. The Tinker was bent over the warp control panel, and Ace nearly walked into a swirling smoky ring that he had conjured up in the crew area.

      “The Tinker, do you have the entrance open on their side yet? They can’t find it? Why is there an opening here already? What are you…” The Tinker looked up from the controls with a confused look much like the old man on the doomed yacht drifting slowly farther away.

      “You can go and get them now. If you want…” The Tinker said, his voice high pitched and uncertain. Ace stared for only a second, his mind mulling over the various options presented here.

      “You telling me that this tunnel ends on their ship? And you can reverse it when I am through?” Ace gestured to the circle he had almost stumbled into. The Tinker just nodded, and bent back to a dish of something yellow and melted next to the warp controls. Ace thought about a few dozen more questions that he would really like to ask The Tinker before becoming the first living being, so far as he knew that had ever traveled through warp space without benefit of a craft or even an atmospheric suit, but without sufficient time to really get an answer before the imminent nuclear blast he shrugged and jumped through the ring. He found himself still standing on the deck of the Piglet, on the opposite side of the ring he had just stepped through.

      “No, you have to go through that way…” The Tinker said through a mouthful of food and gesturing with a spoon back through the circle. Ace took a deep breath, then spinning on one heel, took a step back towards the cockpit.

 

Dr. Delmore Hash was standing on the deck of his vacation yacht, frantically scanning the entire area for the swirling smoky ring shaped thingy that the captain of the other ship had told him about. His wife was still sobbing on the seat next to the limp body of the pilot of his own ship and his co pilot. The acrid smell of reactor coolant and fried electronic equipment burned his eyes and made his reactions drugged and slow. The entire deck looked smoky and shimmery to him right now, and he had no more idea where to start trying to drag the injured and dying occupants of his ship than he had how to shut down the reactor manually like that obnoxious computer voice kept telling him to do. He went back to the comm display to ask the other captain for better directions, but nobody was there. Suddenly a voice behind him caused him to jump and smack his head on the display screen. As he collapsed to the deck, the last thing he heard was the sound of his wife screaming.

 

Ace stepped onto the smoky deck of the yacht and immediately his eyes began to water and his throat started burning. He saw the old man standing at a comm display and started to yell at him to give him directions. But as soon as he spoke, the man startled and jumping straight up, hit his head on the display screen. As his body crumpled to the floor, a fragile looking lady on a seat behind him started screaming. The onboard computer took that opportunity to begin warning that a nuclear explosion was imminent in harsh and urgent voice. Ace tried frantically to decide what to take care of first. He decided that finding the way back to the Piglet would be first, and looked around the deck to see if The Tinker had opened the return portal yet. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the shimmering of a warp tunnel, and thanked The Tinker under his breath. The woman continued screaming, and he decided that he needed to get that situation under control before anything else, so he headed in that direction, carefully avoiding the warp tunnel entrance. He arrived at her location, and and bent low to look into her eyes. She was terrified, her silver hair disheveled and an ugly purple bruise marking up one wrinkled cheek. Ace took her chin firmly in one hand and shook her slightly, yelling with all of the breath that he could muster in the smoky room.

      “Ma’am! I am here to help! I need you to stand up and come with me to my ship.” She stopped screaming at least, for which Ace was intensely grateful. She looked at the head of the man in her lap, and Ace followed her look. The man was obviously dead, but she cradled his head gently as if she wanted him not to be.

      “We have to get out of here. Come with me, please!” Ace pleaded, taking one hand away from the bloodied head. Finally understanding, at least partially, she allowed herself to be pulled up from the bench. Turning around, she gently laid the man’s head back on the seat where she had been sitting, and turning back to Ace with a sudden strength that he had somehow missed before, asked:

      “Where is my husband?” Ace indicated the prone body before the commo screen “I think he’s OK, just smacked his head when I came in. You go, I will get him out.” The gray head shook from side to side. “We go together, or you can leave me here.” Ace sighed in frustration, but decided not to argue. “OK, stay close to me. I don’t have time to explain, but you will have to trust me.” A shrug of her shoulders told Ace that she knew how little choice she had, and he walked quickly to where the old man lay crumpled on the floor. Scooping him up easily, he turned and walked back to where the warp tunnel opening shimmered mid decks. The old woman stayed right behind him, and he turned to her and said:

      “I am not sure how this is going to work, so I want you to just wrap your arms around us and step with us through the tunnel. And pray, to whatever deity you worship that this works!” Once again, Ace was amazed at her composure as she silently complied, her frail arms reaching around from behind and grasping the clothing of her unconscious mate. Ace stepped forwards slowly, then with one large step into the tunnel. One more large step through, and he turned to find the woman standing safely on the deck of the Piglet behind him. The Tinker sat at his console watching nonchalantly, and reported in an officious voice.

      “Welcome aboard the Piglet. We will be making a warpy jump in just a minute here guys, so you might want to find a seat.” Ace took a second to set the old man down on the deck gently, the Piglet only had two seats in the crew cabin, and The Tinker and the old woman had those occupied. Striding quickly to the cockpit, he yelled at The Tinker.

      “You got the next tunnel opened yet?” The Tinker replied in his strangely official sounding voice again: “Yes Sir. The Tinker may now take its next warpy jump, as the warpys are all ready to warp us to our… ummm next warp location.” Ace was briefly intrigued as to why The Tinker was making such an attempt to sound officious, but did not have time to ponder it long. Back in the cockpit, he could now see the reactor housing on the damaged ship glowing in the blackness of space, and knew he had seconds. His computer indicated that the tunnel opening was right behind him, so he simply reversed the thrusters and the Piglet backed away and through the warpy tunnel, which closed silently behind them. A few seconds later, the “Evening Shade”, personal yacht of the Kirjoi’s planetary governor went thermonuclear, leaving a smear of radiation and debris across a dark corner of space.

 

 

Chapter Whatever – The Race continues

 

The Tinker sat stiffly at his console as the old woman knelt next to the still form on the floor. An ugly purple lump was forming quickly on his forehead, and the woman was becoming even more distraught as her efforts to wake the man continued to fail. Ace emerged from the cockpit, finally relaxed to be away from impending doom.

      “The Tinker, go get a cleaning cloth from the head, and some ice from the refridgeration unit.” The Tinker, apparently glad to have something to do, jumped up from his seat and scurried off. Ace knelt across the body from the woman, and felt for a pulse.

      “He is still in there, but I guess he hit his head much harder than I thought. Let’s get some ice on the goose egg and then I will get us to some medical treatment right away.” The old woman nodded, and then asked:

      “Who are you? How in the world did we walk from one ship to the other? What world are you from?” the incredulity in her voice was apparent, and Ace stopped for a moment to consider what had actually just happened. Warp technology had never before, to his knowledge anyway, been used to transport people outside of a space craft. The fact that The Tinker was so adept at conjuring up warp tunnels wherever and whenever he wanted had never really given Ace much thought, but it was truly a marvelous thing. He would have to be more careful about using The Tinker’s talents in front of people. Nochonis had already told him about one unfortunate turn of events that had occurred as a result of a greedy person’s desire to use them for his own purposes. Ace didn’t want that to happen again.

      “My name is Ace. This is my partner, The Tinker.” Ace indicated The Tinker, who had just returned with the ice and cloth. Ace wrapped the ice in the cloth, and the woman gently applied it to the growing bump.

      “And how may I address you ma’am?” Ace asked politely. She smiled tiredly, and answered “I guess you can call me Beth. That’s what my friends call me.” Ace nodded, but suddenly The Tinker spoke up.

      “Madam Hash, you may call me The Tinker, although you used to call me Elroy. I am most pleased to re make the acquaintance of you. And thanks for the cheese.” The other two turned surprised looks at The Tinker, Ace for the reverential way The Tinker addressed the woman, and Beth for the honorific she had not heard for so long.

      “Elroy? Do I know you sir?