Mark and his crew looked off from the loading bay as they left Gebo. While it had originally been nothing more than a backwater planet to them, constantly defending it, meeting all the people there, and building relationships with the locals had softened the crew up to the planet. Mark also felt a patriarchal duty to the planet, now that he had inexplicably become its elected representative.
The crew was now adjusting to life aboard their new ship, which Mark had dubbed “The Cutter” and Luciana had dubbed, “The Rust Bucket”. The Cutter won out, but unofficially, many of the crew seemed to sympathize with the name Luciana gave it.
They were in the bridge, far smaller than either of their respective ships. The could only hold a pilot and copilot, a single navigator, one gunner, and an engineering officer.
Mark added in the data that EVE and his headless friend had calculated to create a set of coordinates. He prayed that they wouldn’t be jumping into a planet or an asteroid. The idea of aborting the mission until they could build a gigantic telescope to see out into the areas around there was a tempting fantasy, but he quickly pushed it aside. Space was mostly barren and empty, and between the two superminds, he doubted that they would lead him into instant death.
He pushed the jump and felt the queasiness in him settle down. Jumps warped time and space, which created an uneasy feeling in Mark’s stomach, even if it was probably only a psychosomatic symptom. The feeling passed, Mark looked at his display. Then he looked again.
“Get us out of here as stealthily as possible,” Mark ordered. What he say was breathtaking in its beauty and sheer size. A several mile circumference metal sphere with interlocking plates that could be shifted out. Mark had seen one of these before. He dug through his memory before EVE pulled up the correct answer. It was a fucking death star.
His navigation officer tried to ease them away, but a gigantic red beam started powering up from the base of the death star. If that thing hit them, they’d be toast. No amount of maneuvering would get them clear of a blast that big. The communications panel lit up.
“Get a comm officer in here, swap out with engineering,” Mark said. Technically, Luciana was the LEM, Least Essential Member in military slang, but he wanted her present for whomever was about to introduce themselves. Arabella Scott bustled her way into the station, getting very cozy with the other officers as she hit the panels.
“Greetings,” an older man said. His voice sounded stern, but not hostile. “I see you’ve either somehow stumbled onto this place or have somehow managed to find it. Whichever the case, this is a secret project that we simply can’t have leaking out to the World at large. Until we know who you are and what you’re doing here, we cannot allow you to leave. Attempting to flee will result in your immediate destruction. Failing to follow the orders of your escorts will result in your demise. Questions?”
Mark looked around the room, but they only had a mixture of dread and curiosity on their faces.
He replied with as much authority as the situation would allow him, “We have no questions at this time, proceed with your escorts.”
The comm channel shut off. Two fighter ships flew out of the left side of the Death Star in a side by side formation. They leisurely swung around Mark’s ship until they were behind it by a few hundred meters. The first ship shot out a towing clip into Mark’s ship and moved ahead, the other fell behind. Mark cut off the engine power and let the ship get pulled in.
“What do we do?” Arabella Scott asked. Mark was running through scenarios in his head. Attempting to evacuate some of the crew would just leave them stranded here in the middle of nowhere and they’d be easily seen. He didn’t see a way out except to let themselves be taken in.
He opened up communications to the entire ship.
“Everyone, we are going to be taken in and boarded. Until we know the situation, we can only hope for the best. Say as little as possible if you can. Almost certainly, any group that can amass this amount of resources will be able to find out our cover story is not real. So keep your heads down, but if you see a chance to escape safely, take it.”
He sat down in his commander’s chair, suddenly feeling dread. After coming this far, he might be done for. What a waste. Impotent rage filled him, but he maintained composure. As long as he was the commander of the ship, he was going to act like it.
After an uncomfortably long time, their ship went through several decompression chambers before coming to a halt inside the Death Star. The cultured voice came back on the comm channel.
“Have everyone line up, one behind the other. No weapons are permitted, each person will be scanned. Walk down the exit ramp one at a time, hands up and palms facing outwards . Anyone who is not in that position or attempts to exit too soon or has a weapon on their person will be eliminated.” The comm cut off.
The team had little choice but to comply with the orders, so they did. Portable mounted machine gun turrets greeted them on their exit. The turrets looked like gigantic electric scooters with a massive electromagnetic bolt in the back that locked it in place while firing. A portable scanner was set up at the end of the ramp for them to walk through, turrets pointed at them in case they tried anything. After getting scanned, each crew member was handcuffed on their hands and ankles.
When they were all handcuffed and scanned, a man in a military uniform not quite regulation, but close enough that his rank could still be seen as a five star general. Mark immediately recognized the man, though in game, he hadn’t seen him in nearly twenty years. It was his game Dad.
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Mark’s real dad had been a bear of a man, but Mark had unfortunately inherited the streamlined build of his mother’s side of the family. But this Dad had the same slender build that Mark had. He had deep brown skin, grey, close-cut hair, and a walk that showed he was man accustomed to power and authority. He also had a baritone voice that made him sound more powerful than his skinny frame would allow.
“It’s been such a long time son,” his Dad told him. The game kept the name of his real life Dad and his fictitious Dad the same.
“Likewise John,” he said. Not calling him Dad was the smallest of small defiances, but it was all he could do in the situation.
His father didn’t appear phased by this. “I’ve come to offer you and your crew a chance to join us.”
Mark laughed in spite of himself. The offer caught him completely off guard. “So we can become traitors and pirates? I think that’s an offer everyone here will pass on.”
“Do you even know what this place is? Or what’s really going on? Of course not, the cabal on Earth isn’t going to clue you in on what’s really going on. So I’ll enlighten you.”
“Oh no,” Mark thought. “He’s going to launch into a villain’s monologue isn’t he? EVE, see if there’s any way to infiltrate the system here. He only knows about you in my head, he doesn’t know about our connection via the ship.”
“I already tried as soon as we boarded,” EVE said, “But your father doesn’t skimp on resources. It will take everything I have to try and crack through this in time.”
“As we’ve explored space,” John started, “We started coming across more and more advanced life forms. From simple bacterium on the Milky Way asteroids and on Mars, to full biological life in some of the further out planets. The galaxy is billions of years old, and we’ve only covered the smallest portion of it.
There is more advanced life out there. Our entire system since the unification has all planets pointing to all other planets. If an alien attacks one, they will find the coordinates to all the others. Security is lax, new warships and designs are minimal, officers are now merely petty bureaucrats with no real combat experience. Everyone has become,” he paused as if to search for a word. “Complacent without fear of an external enemy. So I’ve created one. We’re off any centralized grid, there’s no method for tracking all of us down. We test out new weapons, new tech, and new spaceships against the Alliance. You’ve seen the results yourself. They’ve started hardening their security, upgrading their warships, and training their officers for combat again.”
“And you got all that,” Mark replied, “For the low cost of murder, sabotage, treason, kidnapping, and forced slavery?”
John waived his hand dismissively. “I tried reasoning with the Alliance numerous times, but it never went anywhere. Without a real threat, people become docile. Weak. Iron sharpens iron and humanity is always at its strongest when there’s a common threat to face. Don’t act like you’re on the moral high ground here, you wouldn’t have gotten to this location without using barbaric means of your own.”
Mark thought for a moment before he replied. “All humans are deserving of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But by their own actions, they may lose those rights. We all have the right to self-defense, but those who commit assault show they cannot be trusted with that right, and so we prevent them from owning firearms. Thus I have no problem with killing a murderer, enslaving a human trafficker, or lying to a liar. By their actions, they forfeit their rights. What then did these people you enslave do?”
“A Kantian morality argument, minus the part about lying to a liar. Guess you remembered something from all that fancy education. But I’m more utilitarian. The greater good prevails. And the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
In fact, let me prove that to you.” He said, with a wicked grin. “Iron sharpens iron, so here’s a little test. I’ll let you go one on one with one of my projects. You win, I’ll let you and all your compatriots go. You lose, and I’ll offer a chance for your crew to either join me or stay here as prisoners.”
“Deal,” Mark replied, for what else could he do in this situation? He’d find out if all of his training was going to pay off.
One of the soldiers removed his armor and stepped up. The rest of the guards circled up, creating an impromptu fighting area. The soldier was medium height, maybe an inch or two shorter than Mark, but at least a solid fifty pounds heavier. His thick neck reminded Mark of collegiate wrestlers, though he didn’t have the cauliflower ears that normally go with advanced wrestlers.
When he was through removing his armor, he stepped up to Mark. The two squared each other up, then Mark stepped forward and threw a quick jab at the man’s head, following it up with a roundhouse kick to the man’s ribs as he raised his hands in defense. Though both moves were good, Mark found his punches stopped an inch from the man’s face and his kick did the same, as if an invisible force were stopping them short of impact.
Mark’s bewilderment didn’t last long, as the man didn’t move, but Mark still found himself in the air. He hovered there for a microsecond before getting thrown a few feet across the open bay. He rolled expertly to avoid taking any impact on his sensitive areas, but he was disoriented.
“See, you were the first step in the evolution for homo sapiens to homo superior,” John said. “But I realized a flaw. Any alien life forms that were advanced enough to destroy us would probably be synthetic, not organic. And since you are a synthetic upgrade, they may have counter measures against you. But my team is entirely organic. The new form of homo superior is psionic.”
Mark lunged at the soldier, but it was no use. His skilled attacks never landed, and he was hit with invisible fists from all directions. Muay Thai is known as “The science of eight limbs”. The psionic soldier was using the science of twelve limbs. Mark juiced himself to maximum speed, unleashing a blinding torrent of fists, elbows, knees, headbutts, and kicks. It did him no good.
Tired of toying with Mark, the psionic soldier lifted Mark into the air telepathically and started squeezing the life out of him. Mark saw the edges of his vision go black, then everything went black.