Continued From E1:P1
Aquillas watched the main viewscreen of the shuttle as they disconnected from the large Dean Yatne pattern container ship. The cargo vessel slowly shrinking as they sped away on twin glowing plasma plumes.
“This is parasite vessel two, requesting permission to dock.” He heard Bobbie say as she piloted the smaller vessel towards the Mortifying Command.
Gorshk replied over the link, his voice much clearer without the interference of the container vessel in the way. “This is the Mort, I read you. You are clear to dock, welcome back. We are reading an incoming warp signature, approximately twenty minutes out and closing.”
Aquillas watched the small counter that was slowly ticking down on his console. It was the rangefinder and it slowly spun down towards zero, the shuttle shaking as it reached zero and they reconnected with his ship.
He stood and gave a small twist as he popped his lower back. Rolling his neck he gave a nod to several of the other crew “Another hard day’s work.”
One of the crew, a young human male with blond hair and grey eyes, spoke up in response. “Yeah, I love this. It’s a lot easier than kicking those Hegemony bastards asses all day long.”
Aquillas looked at the young man. His name was Jack Treble, and he was the youngest man in his crew, and he was barely twenty-one standard years old. Only one year in the service on active duty, he had by far the freshest outlook on the SCU and the war in general. And from what he had seen, it was all a bunch of shit. When Aquillas had run, Jack had been one of the voices telling him to give it all up and strike it out on his own.
He made a gesture of displeasure to the young man as he stated bluntly “Yeah? And what we are doing is so noble in comparison? I agree with you that I am happy to get out from under the thumb of the corrupt government, but there are a lot of good people dying on both sides, Jack. So have a little respect for the tragedies that unfold around us on a daily basis. What happened today has probably been mirrored a thousand times across the Union and beyond, only probably with more violence and death.”
He let out a breath as the young man hung his head. Bobbie gave a small chuckle “What our overly sentimental captain is trying to tell you Jack is to keep things in perspective.”
Jack gave a small nod that Aquillas returned. The kid hadn’t said anything that Aquillas himself didn’t agree with, but he needed to nip that kind of sentiment in the bud as early as possible. If he didn’t he knew exactly where it would lead, because that was the exact path of justification that had led to his desertion in the first place.
He led the way off the shuttle onto the ship. The smooth interior walls gave way to the strangely familiar textured walls of the ship’s interior. They were made to mimic some sort of dark volcanic rock, likely a native variant to abyss. They were still relatively smooth, but gave just enough of an impression of natural stone that he sometimes forgot he was aboard a metal ship in the deep void of space. It was a welcome distraction that he had grown to appreciate over the years he had served as the Mortifying Command’s captain.
Raising his wrist worn assistant to his mouth he spoke quickly, “Gorshk, take us to maximum warp. I want to be well and truly gone before that unknown signature turns up. Take us off the lane.”
Gorshk didn’t reply, but he felt a subtle shift as the ship started to accelerate away. A slow steady hum began to build as the warp drives charged and he braced himself for warp translation.
A wave of force seemed to pass through him and he almost missed a step as for the barest fraction of a second his mind seemed to stare into the depths of eternity. But the glimpse was far too brief to leave a lasting impression on his mind. Only the hint of existential horror lingering in his head as it had glimpsed something truly vast, far too vast for his mind to comprehend.
“Blasted warpshock.” he muttered under his breath.
Next to him Bobbie swore loudly. “Shit I hate that. I wish he had given us any warning at all before he warped us.”
Aquillas squinted as his slightly blurred vision started to clear. “I am glad he listens to orders better than he thinks about our comfort. That approaching warp signature could have been anything. Imagine it was Feds, or a battleship.”
Bobbie threw a hand up towards the ceiling in exasperation as they walked towards the bridge. “Yeah? And it could have just as easily been a refinery bloc full of Osmir or a celestipod farmer. You have no way of knowing unless they send an Em-radio ping.”
Aquillas had to give her that. The artificial event horizon that was generated around ships as they went to warp was impenetrable by normal means. A gravitational sphere that separated the ship inside from the rest of the Known. For the duration of their travel, they might as well be in a universe that consisted of just their ship, except for the fact that hundreds of years of chipping away at the fabric of reality had revealed several clever ways to bypass this otherwise impermeable barrier.
Quantum links, Em-radios, gravitational sweeps and gravspecs were just a few of the ways one was able to monitor their surroundings while at warp. But even then it was mostly blind hopping. That's why most of the traffic in the Union made its way along the warp lanes. The warp lanes were regularly patrolled by both Trade Escort Convoy or TEC units and the Federal Space Surveyors Service. The FSSS was in charge of monitoring the lanes for environmental hazards like ion storms and rogue dwarf stars, such things could be incredibly hazardous if they were allowed to wander into the lanes without warning.
Aquillas stopped as he entered the ship’s bridge. The small chamber was just taller than his pointed ears and recessed into the deck plates a little. He looked around, Denni was standing at one of the far consoles next to another of his crew, the slaaveth man she was talking to was his gunnery sergeant and weapons officer Yag Ja’Bron. The scaled alien’s head frill was standing on end, likely because Denni was trying to flirt with the younger man again.
As Yag saw him enter the bridge he threw out a hand and scrambled his way over as casually as he could. He smelled a little off putting, his slightly oily alien scent reminding Aquillas of the ocean, even though the man had likely not been submerged in seawater for many months. He did spend a decent amount of his free time swimming in the ship’s gymnasium however, it was possible that contributed to his slightly musty scent.
“Oh am I glad to see you commander, she is insufferable. Can you believe it she even had the audacity to offer to suck on my..” Aquillas cut him off with a two-handed gesture, hands waving in front of his face to say no more.
He took a breath, “Yag… I don't want to know. Denni’s depravity aside, where are we on the damaged launcher?”
One of the missile launchers had taken a direct impact from a particularly dark chondrite asteroid that made it through the ship’s automated point defenses. The damage had been minimal due to the soft nature of the carbonaceous asteroid, but it warranted further work as he hated to be anywhere less than one hundred percent.
Yag stood at attention, his old habits showing through as he reported briskly, “The left ‘Eraser’ missile launcher has suffered damage to its second and fourth launch tubes and the horizontal elevation mechanism is clogged with grit. I was planning on sending Jack out to clean it before I took a second look at it personally. I don't think the launchers need to be replaced, and it's a good thing the asteroid hit at an angle so it did not damage any of the ordinance itself. But I think it would be in our best interest to unload the launcher anyway so as to determine the condition of the missiles. Sir.” he finished with a nod.
Aquillas Nodded in satisfaction. “Okay, that sounds like a plan, get it done. Unloading twenty-one-hundred-and-eighty millimeter missiles by hand is going to be a bastard and a half. You should bring young Osbert with you. He should be able to help move the ordinance at the very least.”
Osbert was one of the original crew, a young yeown male, he had only been aboard the ship for a few months before the incident. When the hard questions were asked he had decided to stay, and for that Aquillas was grateful. It was nice to have another yeown on the ship to speak too, the fact that the welp was only half his age was only a minor concern. It meant he knew who was in charge at the very least, Aquillas might have not been a female, but on the Mortifying Command he was alpha.
Aquillas watched the scaled alien run off the bridge and shook his head slightly. It was amazing what passed for entertainment on the ship sometimes. Denni needed to lighten up on the man, she was going to end up giving him a heart attack from stress or excitement. Either would be bad.
As he took his seat that had recently been vacated by his helmsman Gorshk, he turned to the pilot who was now seated in the main pilot's seat. “Gorshk, are we plotted for the Solarmon System?”
Gorshk just smiled and gestured towards his bank of screens and consoles. “I anticipated that move from you yea. We should be arriving in just two days give or take a few hours for my rough calculations. Of course, we wanted to get out of the lanes so I have us swinging by the devil's heart nebula and under that big ion storm we detected on the way out here. Should save us a full day of travel without too much risk.” Aquillas nodded, his trust in the man’s skills absolute.
If Gorshk said it would be faster, then faster it would indeed be. He was by far the most skilled navigator that Aquillas had ever had the fortune of serving with, and it was just his luck that the man had lost his two sons to the war. This had made him very easy to convince to abandon the Union when Aquillas had fled the slaughter on Hillsdown Station. The memory of panicked screams echoed unbidden through his haunted mind once more but he shook them off. All he was guilty of was not taking action sooner to stop the catastrophe.
He put it out of mind as the sound of footsteps reached him and he looked up to see Bobbi standing by his side. Her face only slightly softer than steel, but he could tell she was asking if he was alright. She always seemed to instinctively know when he was suffering from the traumatic memories, and she seemed to be there by his side whenever he was feeling alone.
He gave her a wide pointed grin and asked “What is it? Is there a problem with the cargo?”
She looked around in mild amusement before she whispered, only just audibly at first. “I see through the masks you wear Aquillas. And no, there was nothing wrong with the shipment. Just the opposite in fact as it seems there was more than we had originally been informed.”
This made Aquillas sit up in surprise. “More? More what? Stims?”
She nodded. Her shimmering green cybernetic eyes unblinking as she rattled off the figures. “We were informed of a shipment of twenty-thousand units, about four crates. The container has ten crates, that’s fifty-thousand units. More than double the amount that already had Boogas scampering up the wall. I imagine she is going to shit a solid gold brick when we turn up with fifty-thousand units of military combat stims.” her impassive face cracked into a small smile as the thought of the incredible amount of money they were standing to make.
He breathed out heavily. Even at an eight percent commission, eight percent of fifty-thousand units of adrenaline stims was worth nearly three million osmir on the black market. Now they would likely not be getting that full cut, but he could imagine a payday of two-point-five million would still boost the crew’s spirits tremendously. They hadn’t been making a bad living as renegade privateers so far, but it had amounted to little more than their standard military rates so far. This payday would be equal to almost two years of full time service pay in a single go. That was something to smile about alright.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He found himself laughing quietly, the growling noise making Bobbi cock her dark haired head. “What’s funny?” She asked him with what felt like genuine curiosity.
Aquillas didn’t answer her immediately, instead settling further into his uncomfortable command chair and smoothing the creases from his uniform. After a few more moments of this he nodded towards the bridge window and the millions of stars beyond it.
“I never really thought about it before, but we can do anything we want now, I mean literally anything we can think of. If we wanted to, we could turn towards the farthest star and try to reach it, or fly into the core worlds under a false name. Nothing is really stopping us, nobody is looking for us” He told her in a more serious tone of voice than he had been using previously.
Bobbie shook her head and cautiously warned him, “I wouldn't be so sure of that. You made some big waves when you decided to desert.”
Aquillas waved his hands in a dismissive gesture. “Yeah, so who cares. That slimy wart of a Captain wasn’t in the right and the others knew it. I just had the guts to walk away from it all.” he huffed angrily, a small growl escaping from him as he thought of that waste of space getting commendations for his actions.
Bobbie just patted him on the shoulder and sat on the arm of his chair. He thought of telling her to shove off but then thought better of it. And she smiled as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. “Fine. I’ll be more careful, but don’t expect me to be happy about it.” he grumbled under his breath.
He turned his attention back to his consoles as she let out a small chuckle at his small tantrum. It seemed that he wasn’t as in control as he liked to think he was. Damn females and their subtle manipulations.
***********
The atmosphere in the small conference room was as dark as the topics commonly discussed in the small cramped space. Around the table sat several severe looking figures of incredible potency, their word as good as law on ten thousand worlds all across the width of the Sapient Congressional Union.
At the head of the table sat an old man, grey hair and lined features like that of a wax statue left too close to the light. He had been a young man once, strong backed and full of lively vigor and a sense of justice and good. The years had not been kind to him and the recent war with the Hegemony of Independent Systems had aged him decades; it seemed to the others seated around the table. Still, he was their leader, their Grand Investigator as it were.
The Grand Investigator of the Union Intelligence Agency slumped tiredly in his chair as he addressed the gathered members of his inner cabinet. “So the situation near Dreyvan looks dire, but we are holding the line against the stream of saboteurs from those thrice damned rebels. Aurthur, what's next on the agenda, please be good news.” The nerivith man he had named hesitated for a second and the Grand Investigator slammed a withered hand down on the table, his bionically enhanced limp hitting with much more force than its gaunt appearance would have otherwise suggested.
Arthur jumped as the Grand Investigator roared “Out with it man! The war marches on with or without us and this silly little meeting.”
The nerivith man swallowed and glanced around the room as he passed out a single sheet of paper to the others seated around the table. “This was forwarded to us by a member of the naval intelligence committee, I know it’s not normally something that would be worthy of your personal attention, but the channels that this came along were quite explicit that you deal with the matter personally… Sir.” the man gulped as the Grand Investigator groaned and picked up the document.
He seemed to scan the document for a few moments before he threw it down in disgust. “What is this shit! The fate of the Union revolves around the decisions made in this chamber and some cock in naval intelligence thinks he can use his connections to get this bullcrap on my desk? I want a name!” He shouted angrily, his jowls fluttering as angry spittle flew from his parched lips.
“I wasn’t given a name your prominence, they replied through back channels along…” The pink horned alien started to reply but was once more cut off.
“What are we, the Union bakery association for cooked up excuses?!? We are the premier Intelligence gathering agency in this whole god-damned pile. Get me answers, and put some fuck up junior agent on this. I don't care about a single rogue element in the backwaters near Drivil. I want them to know how little shits we give about this.” The Grand Investigator said with a wave of his frail looking arms. “Get out of my sight, hop to it now man! And I had better not hear about this again, ridiculous!”
As the raven haired nerivith scurried out the Grand Investigator turned to his slightly shaken underlings and readdressed them. “Now, about the falling prices for tritium near the front. Here’s my new plan for raising the prices…”
**********
The trip to the Solarmon system took two days and a handful of hours, pretty much exactly as long as Gorshk had said it would. Aquillas groaned in mild discomfort as a wave of warpshock slammed through him as the ship transitioned back to sublight.
“I will never not hate that.” he muttered to himself. After thousands of warp jumps the feeling of being powerless still sat ill with him, it was as if the universe itself was angry with their perversion of its most basic tenants.
But the fact of the matter was it was worth the moments of discomfort to shave thousands of years off of their travel time. He watched as Gorshk turned the ship, the main view feed on the front showing a magnified view of the inner system many light hours away. It was standard procedure to exit warp at least a full light day from the inner system of most inhabited systems, much less chance of accidentally hitting something important that way. They could always realign and hit one of the in-system warp lanes to get there in just a few minutes or less.
Gorshk pinged the inner system with the ship’s gravspec, the device able to detect the real-time gravitational influence of objects using some sort of quantum magic. He wasn’t sure exactly how the device worked, only that it did. The gravspec painted a clear picture of the inner system, more massive objects like the system’s home star and planets easily detected. Much smaller objects like space stations and asteroids were much fainter blots, the ship’s powerful computer working on the details and sharpening the image with several lower power pulses.
While it was incredibly useful information to have, anyone else with their gravspec on passive detection would have been able to pinpoint their exact location from their active FTL pings. Aquillas wasn’t expecting trouble though and so was not worried overmuch.
They might have been able to see their pings, but they wouldn't know who they were without getting close enough for the Mortifying Command to spot them.
Gorshk nodded to the display, the image now much clearer. The shape of the system and its millions of asteroids, moons and inhabited structures now mapped and in the computer. “I can take us straight to Junios, the second gas giant is a clear shot commander.”
Aquillas nodded to the human. “Do it, but give us a thirty second warning this time please. I feel the crew’s complaints about lack of warning before jumps.”
The man seemed to roll his eyes. Once more Aquillas wondered to himself if the man somehow enjoyed the sensation of warpshock, or was he simply insensitive? He may never know, and the two times he had asked the man Gorshk had just shook his head and claimed not to understand.
As was requested, the ship’s yellow alert lights flicked on and a klaxon sounded. Three blasts of noise signifying only thirty seconds till warp jump. Aquillas positioned himself as comfortably as he could in his chair as the seconds ticked down. Finally the flashing alert lights turned a solid yellow as the ship was surrounded in an artificial event horizon that bent spacetime infinitely around them. This effect had no physical effect but was still somehow felt mentally by living beings inside the distortion. This strange tearing of spacetime had effects on the mind known as warpshock, a momentary dissociation from reality. Aquillas had always personally felt that entering a warp field was worse than exiting one, and his theory was seemingly confirmed as a much more powerful warpshock passed through him when the Mortifying Command jumped further in system.
For the smallest moment he thought he was surrounded by a trillion shining stars, till they all blinked at once and he saw them as pupiless eyes. Before he could even truly comprehend the vision, it was over. His slightly perturbed mind reeling from its glimpse of infinity.
“We should be arriving in the vicinity of Junios in about ten more seconds.” Gorshk said cheerfully. Seemingly unaffected by the shattering of universal laws.
Aquillas only had time to register what the man had said before another wave of warpshock passed through him, this time noticeably more mild however.
“Thanks for the warning.” Aquillas grumbled. His frustration was soon forgotten as he looked upon one of the most beautiful vista’s he had ever experienced.
The second gas giant of the Solarmon System was called Junios. A jovian class planet with a trio of massive dwarf planet sized moons and wide rings that would have put Sol’s Saturn to shame. The planet’s atmosphere was rich in ionised heavy metals giving it an ever shifting rainbow hued appearance that seemed to shine like a trillion gemstones in the light of the system’s distant star.
While the view was fantastic, it wasn't the real reason they had come. Instead it was the small lumpy corroded space station locally called the Port of Yaen’Freh hanging in the upper orbit of the planet’s largest moon of Tragstum that was their real target. It was a haven for the downtrodden and unsavory in the region. And the home of Boogas Hartook, their current employer.
The flight to the station was uneventful, a welcome relief after the craziness of the last few weeks. Gorsk requested permission to dock, using their universal identifier instead of the ship’s actual transponder which they had switched off as soon as they entered the system. Sure they were the only slaaveth manufactured military vessel in the vicinity, but unless they were ID’ed specifically then their identity should remain relatively anonymous.
As they approached the Port of Yaen’Freh Gorshk parked the ship directly onto one of the outstretched docking gantries, the long arms of bare structural steel looking like vast skeletal fingers reaching out towards the jewel of the planet far below. The station itself was much the same in aspect, its skeletal outer appearance like the vast carcass of some forgotten celestial leviathan.
Aquillas stood by the main personnel airlock with Bobbi and three other members of the Mortifying Command’s crew in preparation to disembark. There was the ship’s cook Neama, the large vinarfelien female looking like a six meter long insectoid snake with her many short stabbing legs and large yellow compound eyes. With her were two of the original voidsmen from their previous days in Union service. The first an albino human woman of average height named Amiel, her pure white hair in a long ponytail. The second a rather short and stocky slaaveth male with wide shoulders named Wess.
They would act as both Neama’s escort and assist her with her food order. The ship had fifteen hungry mouths to feed and a range of dietary needs and culinary preferences. It was the dour insectoid’s job to see that they were all met in a satisfactory manner. And she did her job well without complaint.
As the door opened Neama scuttled off down the long connection corridor towards the station proper, her two companions having to run to keep up. Aquillas chuckled as he and Bobbie walked off the ship in a much calmer manner.
Bobbie noted with some satisfaction “I remember my days as a lowly voidsman recruit, always having to run errands and perform menial duties. It’s nice to be on top for a change.”
Aquillas gave her upper arm a soft bump as he agreed. “Indeed it is, I spent more than enough years as a bottom feeder in the command chain. Not that I ever regretted my decision to join, not when I was still young and naive at least.” he finished with a hint of bitterness.
All he had ever wanted to do was to serve the people that mattered most in his life, and he had always seen the great Union navy as the best way to do that. Now he knew better, the navy was just as corrupted as the bureaucrats that called the shots from their lavishly furnished bunkers back on the core worlds. The fat bastards living their cushy little lives, ten-thousand trillion kilometers from the front lines.
Aquillas hated thinking about the state of the Union. Everytime he did it only worked to piss him off more. No matter where one looked on the chain of command there was corruption, and then he had gotten a taste of the terrible suffering such callous individuals could perpetuate. He had fled, yes, but not out of fear or cowardice. No, he had fled with the intention to bring the system down, one bloody brick at a time if needed.
Bobbie spoke, interrupting his darkening train of thought. “Which direction was that stumbler’s den again?” She looked around and shivered slightly, the air on the station was cold. Much cooler than the ambient temperature on the Mortifying Command, likely due to the station being owned and run by atraxses. The large shaggy furred aliens evolution on a frozen ice cube of a world giving them a preference for cooler climates.
He was fine however, his own fur insulating him from the chill air, his hot breath made clouds in front of his mouth though as he panted slightly. Looking around he took in their position. The last time they had visited The Port of Yaen’Freh they had been docked in a different location. He didn't immediately recognise any of the low rounded structures in front of him, so he decided to pick a direction and start walking. They were not in any real hurry after all.
Continued In E1:P3