Chapter 1
“ and send!” I sat back in my chair stretching. I had just finished my final project for funded schooling or what used to be called high school. I did my report on the Sedona Incident and the Accords that followed which took place 7 years after our colony declared and fought a war of independence from the Star League. I watched the publicly available sensor report one more time closely tracking my great grandpa's ship the Paladin I remembered when I was younger listening to his stories from the Theocracy War but the one he told most often was of his first fight, the Sedona Incident.
Both sides wanted to forget about it once the Theocracy launched its invasion and raid’s but great grandpa would always say he lost a good friend that day and while he held no Ill will for the League that doesn’t mean that we should forget about those who died that day on both sides. Last month on the 75th anniversary the League had quietly released their sensor records from the battle which had much better definition than the previously available Paledes logs. I watched it again because although I had seen both 100 times something was bothering me.
“hmmm it's close to the end” I mumbled to myself fast forwarding to right when the battleship broke in half I hit play again and watched the next thirty minutes in real time but still couldn’t see it. “ hmm let's do this” I pulled up a second tab and divided my screen down the middle then played both recordings side by side from that point again “there!”. I shouted jumping from my seat and pausing the logs. I was tracking the Paladin; she had lost her engines when she was spreading out from the rest of the fleet to get an angle on one of the carriers the battleship shot off her engines.
grandpa would tell me about this part he had just landed to rearm when the whole ship shook violently he fell off the ladder and hit his head on the floor luckily he saw someone crack their skull during training from falling off even the bottom of the ladder so he got in the habit of leaving his helmet on until both feet were on the ground. The blow stunned him and he was taken to medical an hour later when the crew determined the ship was going to hit the atmosphere and break up before anyone could get a tug to recover it an orderly evacuation was made onto two of the armed merchant men. As I watched all this happen I overlaid his story in my mind with the events on the log. I watched the two merchant men pull away and the Paladin enter the ring around the planet where its signal was lost.
“except wait a minute” there was a brief ping from one of the League’s cruisers sensors showing a shape about the right size sliding around the bottom of the planet. “ no that can’t be right” I pulled up the suspected heading and speed of the contact from the sensor report. I had just finished my flight training last week to get my hauler and small ship license it was free in exchange for signing up for the militia I’m sure my aunt and uncle would have paid for it if I asked but the Militia hadn’t be activated since the Theocracy War so two weeks a year and one weekend every other month of essentially starfighter laser tag for the next 13 years in exchange for the training I needed for a career as an independent miner was a no brainer.
I pulled up the training software that I had and pulled up a medium class freighter similar to the frame the Paladin was built on then I accessed the Longbow’s web page. Longbow and the other two ships of her class that survived the war were decommissioned thanks to the new agreements with the League. the Paledes yards only every built frigates, destroyers, and starfighters which we mostly sold to the League. and the League had us three carriers over the years for our fleets use. But unlike her two sisters who were scrapped, Longbow became a floating museum covering the early years and the war of independence.
All of Longbow's stats were available on the website, things like weight, thrust, etc. so I plugged those into the software and adjusted the scenario for full engine destruction into the program. Then I took the Sedona III gravity and added the planet to the scenario. Finally I set the initial speed and starting position and set the autopilot to attempt to avoid a crash. “ well this should be interesting” I hit play and watched. I also queued up the sensor log one more time. About three seconds after the ship disappeared on the actual log the simulation vessel suddenly hauled over and applied maximum burn on all portside thrusters acting like a poor set of engines.
Nevertheless the ship began to swing around the bottom of the planet. A quick glance told me the numbers were close to the ghost contact the League vessel picked up. I sped up the simulation and a short time later the computer dinged “ simulation complete “ and a red x appeared signifying failure “ I figured as much” looking at the cause of failure instead of ship destroyed it said total power failure. I raised an eyebrow and confusion and ran it again in fast forward, sure enough the ship survived the maneuver but over-stressed the reactor causing a safety shutdown. “ no way” if my rough shot experiment was right the Paladin may have survived the maneuver.
But why was the transponder lost before the shut down if it didn’t crash. The transponder had cut out shortly after entering the ring so I decided to check that first looking at public database for the Sedona III survey report the only thing found out of the ordinary was slightly higher concentration of three elements I couldn’t pronounce but a quick search on the planet net revealed that those elements plus other unnamed materials were mixed into paints for stealth ships, was it possible it was just enough to block the signal from a failing transponder? I couldn’t answer that but I knew who could I grabbed my communication device or com.d and called my cousin Alex.
“Hey, Ben what’s up you finish that report yet?” I smiled even though he couldn’t see me. Alex was three years older than me and my cousin on my mom’s side. After the accident when a miner who was operating a company hauler drunk crashed into their shuttle and killed them I had been living with Alex and his family and for the last 7 years they have treated me as one of their own. Even if I don’t plan on going into the family business of long haul shipping. “ yep just sent it in, are you at the office? I have some numbers I’d like to run by Ali.''
A.L.I or Artificial Learning Intelligence was a high end AI the company had bought to help them plan shipping routes, loads, and other important stuff, and she was really good at helping with my homework “yep I’m here and sure you trying to figure out which hauler to buy?” The rock haulers company had settled out of court. Legally they weren’t responsible for their employee flying drunk but the event would have greatly damaged their reputation so I agreed not to go to the press and they gave me a decent amount of money. Between that and summer jobs I had been picking up the last few years I had just enough to buy my own hauler which would allow me to be my own boss.
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The refinery in system was subsidized by the government and only charged independent haulers five percent of their load to process the ore they bring in and another five to find a buyer but I planned to sell to the family business so I would get to keep 95% of my loads worth. “ no it's probably nothing but..” I trailed off not sure what to say luckily Alex finished my sentence for me “but it could be something yeah swing on by” I thanked him and hung up. I quickly sent the files and data I had been working with to A.L.I net address then got up grabbed my coat and holster, Paledes militia culture was still strong most everyone went armed and some folks even owned personal Starfighters that were better then the massive stockpile of spare units the government kept just incase for the militia to use.
Checking my dart pistol I made sure the red magazine was in it. I carried three magazines, two red and one green. the reds fired darts a selector on the pistol would set them to one large dart or separate into a shotgun style blast. The green rounds were armor piercing, not illegal but harder to get a hold of and would get you funny looks and probably a visit from the constabulary if you bought in bulk. Grabbing my keys I walked out to my town car. Town cars were cheap and really only made for use in town. They had a small onboard battery but were mostly powered by remote chargers in the road. It had two seats one in front of the other and a small trunk you could fit two town cars in the space of an old combustion vehicle.
I climbed in and shut the door “ where to Mr. Miles?” the computer asked “ Morison Corporation headquarters please.” Most people found my politeness to dumb computers funny but I spent a lot of time with A.L.I. and while the company that designed her swears the A.L.I’s aren’t sentient I’m sure I’ve seen her get annoyed and give intentionally correct but misleading answer to rude company employees who never seemed to last long in the company and since I didn’t know which smart toaster was going to become the A.I. overlord in the future I was just going to err on the side of politeness.
“manual or auto?”, “auto” the car began navigating from my apartment complex to the office. Fifteen minutes later I pulled into the main parking lot and walked into the main lobby with a large scale model of the Camel hanging from the ceiling. The Camel was the water haul the original Morison family head volunteered to have converted at his own expense to be a fleet tender. I walked over to the front desk where Rick the retired marine and long time company employee sat. He was part greeter part security. “ Hey Rick, I’m here to meet up with Alex.” Rick smiled back and hit the button under his desk that unlocked the interior door. “Sounds good Ben, I’ll let him know your on your way up.”
I waved and walked into the hallway and over to the elevator and went up to the fifth floor where Alex had his office. His dad still ran the companies day to day after our grandpa stepped down to vice president last year and Alex was assistant vice president while he went to specialization school or College, for business our grandpa was likely to retire fully in a year or two then Alex would take on the Vice President role.
Alex met me at the door “ Ben good to see you, how's your week been?” I smiled and gave him a quick hug “ good, as I mentioned I got my paper in today and the net updated with my small craft license yesterday so can’t complain'' Alex took a seat behind his desk and I sat in the chair “ so you wanted to talk to Ali right? A.li Ben is here” a small hologram project of a woman in her 20’s in conservative business attire appeared on the desk “ Ben, it's good to see you how may I help you today?”, “Hi Ali, can you bring up those files I sent you?”
Ali nodded but then to my surprise recommended “ I believe we should set the office to privacy mode first” Alex looked at me funny “ Ben I’m engaged now buddy, Alysha would have my balls if she caught me looking at anything that required privacy mode.” I rolled my eyes at him “I know that and she’s too good for you anyway I’m not going to be the one to give her an excuse to wise up.” we both chuckled “ o.k. now that we got that settled Ali privacy mode then please” Alex requested and the glass windows to the hall frosted over and his window blinds locked into place and Ali dimmed the lights so only the blue light of her projection filled the room.
I gave Alex some background “ so you know I was doing my report on the Sedona Incident” Alex nodded along “ well I was looking at the new data released by the League last month and saw something odd” Ali helpfully highlighted the sensor return “ so I ran a quick and dirty test” Ali showed a quick demonstration of my programs simulation “so I figured I would ask Ali to run the real numbers and see where I went wrong because there's no way the government would misplace a light cruiser, right?” I half asked. Ali spoke up “I based on all available data there is a 34% chance of the Paladin’s Survival”
Alex whistled “ 34% not bad I wonder how far out system it would be and why no one saw it on sensors in the years after sure the transponder was off but we and the League often run war games in that system and you’d think something that size would have been investigated at least once as a ship playing possum” playing possum was a term apparently dating back to earth something about an animal that pretended to be died to not be attacked, I always thought that would make something more likely to eat it but what did I know. The term was used to refer to ships that would shut down most systems in hopes of not being detected so they could get close to another ship and launch a surprise attack, it rarely worked without other things around to distract the enemy but enough captains had pulled it off over the years that it was still used on occasion.
“ According to my calculations I believe I have an answer to that” Ali interjected “ one of the variables Ben forgot to set was the date of the engagement if I rerun the scenario with the right date and assuming the ship survived it would have likely wound up here.” The 3d map floating in the officer followed a blue line representing the Paladin it swung under the planets south pole then around the back just when it looked like it was going to sail off into space it got caught in the orbit of a small moon or very large asteroid it eventually settled over the next five years into a position between the moon and the planet.
“ as you can see if the Paladin survived she would be in the shadow of this geostationary moon always on the planet side and unlikely to be found by accident which is why I thought we should keep this meeting private because there is a one and three chance there is a derelict light cruiser behind that planet which in accordance with League and Paledes law having been abandoned for over twenty years is now legal property of the first person to find it and claim it” I looked over at Alex “ dibs on the Cruiser” we both laughed “ hey, no argument from me the only way to afford to maintain something like that is to use the flight bay to haul cargo and there is a reason I’m working the company office instead of running one of the freighters space is nice for trips but I want to live under a sky”
I nodded, I didn't feel the same need in fact the lease on my apartment ended next month and I had planned to buy a hauler with a living space to save on rent. “ Alysha’s busy studying for her law exam this weekend so I’m free if you want to go take a look. I’m sure we could barrow grandpa’s runabout its gate capable.” I nodded. It would be a fun little trip even if there was nothing there. A quick walk to grandpa’s office and he agreed to let us borrow the runabout. I made arrangements to meet Alex at the local spaceport in the morning.