The Drifting Elders
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“Have you ever been on this moon, Miles?”
Through the clear frost crystals parging the faulty window appeared a puffed up fawn-tinged bean-shaped satellite. Except for the small mountain near the southern pole, shallow craters from which rose pulsing wreaths of anthracite smoke speckled its surface. The northern hemisphere of the woebegone rock was choking on the dark veil swathing it.
“No,” the Forlorn pilot replied, hastily buckling his harness. “I’d remember a place lookin’ like that guy Jay Leno’s head.” The flight deck swapped to fighter-mode for the delicate approach. “Napoléon and I are usually dispatched to stations along the Space Highway. Don’t venture much into the Deep Rings.”
Fate adjusted her seat next to him. “What do you mean by Deep Rings?” she asked, before securing her coffee cup on the armrest.
“The Rings encompass all the disks of the gas giants. The highway only connects their outer moons to Jupiter and the belt.” To illustrate his words, Miles opened the 3D-map of Saturn’s colonies on the central monitor placed between them. “Places like Titan or Hyperion are mostly pro-Technos micro-societies,” he explained, pointing to the small flickering moons following their distant irregular orbit. “However, the inner satellites boast about being different worlds. We call them the ‘Deep Rings’—on Saturn especially, they’re also titled ‘Plasticland’.”
“I see... Because of the many oil fields and plastic plantations.”
“Correct.”
“On Uranus and Neptune, they never use the term ‘Deep Rings’,” Fate went on, opening the holographic ghost of the bulls-eye planet. “The inner moons are nicknamed Los Arriesgados. The Perilous.”
The Alliance man coughed. “No way I’ll ever wander there. Y’all loonies near Kuiper. Don’t even know the King.”
“Solaris is indeed widely different beyond Saturn…”
“Wild country, even.”
“How long have you been doing this? Whatever you do.”
“Been a couple of years. As a simple administrative assistant for the litigation department.” He sarcastically tapped his square-shaped Alliance brass badge, then changed the reactor cycle to set up their approach. “My job’s damage control. But these days, I mostly collect ship taxes.”
Several warning lights on the dashboard warned the crew about the Forlorn’s speed, which the onboard computer rectified after asking permission.
“Like on Enceladus…” Fate noted. “Going from world to world, counting casualties and inspecting rusty nefs doesn’t seem very appealing to me.”
Miles shrugged as the spacecraft crossed the black veil which gradually turned brownish.
The Forlorn Hope engaged her descent, and the gradual deceleration slowly melted the ice. Near a southern mountain, a human-made crater emerged from a fading cloud of smoke. The chasm hid the Old Dodge City entrance. Bleached steel gates similar to giant teeth protected the underground corral from the vacuum.
Her reactor cut, the old mining ship hovered in front of the gloomy mouth. The hull shrieked and, coming from the faulty joint, another substantial crack crossed the windshield.
Fate gasped. Jumping on the pilot’s laps, Napoléon quacked. The hitherto remarkably quiet duck then frantically swept the channels with his beak until it locked onto the space traffic tower.
Adjusting his headphones, Miles tried to contact an agent on duty: “This is the Forlorn Hope. Alliance ship registered on Hyperion. My tag is #MI-1-20XX-AA. Request permission to land. This is an emergency. Over.”
The buzzing channel remained suspiciously silent.
Fate stopped her pilot from unconsciously scratching the newly growing V-shaped ice crystals keeping the windshield in one piece. Her worried face bathed in the alternating red lights warning of major system failure regarding the airtightness. Oxygen levels started plummeting.
“Not a single AI or human…” Miles worried after a while. He slightly turned up the heat. Space’s frosty hand had reached the controls.
Her cheeks reddened by the cold, Fate pointed at the still-closed mouth: “I can guess a lot of impacts on the iron doors.”
“Could be meteorites. It’s an old world—that bulgin’ hatch dates back to the first colonization. Even before Titan got terraformed.” He then hawked before grabbing his twisted microphone: “This is the Forlorn Hope. Do you copy, Old Dodge? Over.”
Pulling his sleeve, his passenger shivered. After clearing a secured part of the windshield with her other hand, she probed the outskirts of the giant mouth. “The impacts do seem too linear for meteorites. They have been recently fired at.”
“For real?”
The Forlorn swirled over the ominous doors. But the second she entered the restricted area, clouds of dust rose around. The dashboard flashed even brighter. A warning message blinked on the central monitor when 88mm rotative turrets sprang from the rocky ground.
“Quack!” the duck reacted. Frightened, the angry animal bit Miles’ fingers firmly anchored on the unsteady stick.
“Don’t be such a coward, Napoléon…” his partner scolded him. “Fate? Help me here.” Miles then showed the lateral machine guns’ manual arming button as he needed his two hands to stabilize the old Forlorn.
“Quack!”
“What now?” growled the pilot, crunching a sugar pill. The daunting report flashed on the screen. “Empty? You unloaded for C$2,000 of rock-clearing ammo on those MKs?”
“Quack…”
“I hate you, stupid bird!”
“Quack!”
A first cycle engaged, the ship turned around in a hopeless move, pinning the crew against their respective seat or Miles’ stomach. In the process, the roaring turbines thumped into something, slowing the risky maneuver.
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“What was that?” Fate worried. She turned white. Mutant-robot or not, she hadn’t fully recovered from her blood loss yet.
“The least of our problems…” Miles reacted as the computer warned them of a looming target lock. They had to dust off as quickly as possible; because the turbines were then completely exposed to the deadly Gatlings. “Get ready!”
“Miles!”
“Quack!”
“No time!”
The radio fortunately chirped before anyone could throw up its Morning Funnies. “Allo? This is Old Dodge! Hold the line, s’il te plait.” It was the reedy voice of an old French woman highly distorted by static.
Fate heaved.
“You alright?” the pilot asked while turning to her.
“Yes. Are you?”
“Sugar and overconfidence dispatch the stress.”
The open canal sizzled again: “Andrew will be here in a minute. He’s getting up from his nap. It won’t be long.”
Napoléon loudly quacked as the others exchanged an incredulous look. A minute later, a second person came on the air. This time, an elderly man spoke with a weaker tone: “Don’t tell anyone I sleep on the job, you paunchy goat…”
His wife’s response in French was more distant and almost drowned by TV noise: “Voyons donc! They’ve been trying to reach you for 10 minutes! I’d have opened up if your whole ostie d’mess wasn’t so complicated.”
“Why are the Gatlings armed, Ginette! Goddam—Hello?” The alarms suddenly ceased, as the turrets protecting Old Dodge disappeared behind the crown of rocks. “Hello? Who are you? What do you want—Ginette! Is the channel still open?”
“Sir?” Miles tried, slowly recovering from the senses sharpening drug. “We’re the Forl—”
“Ils sont de l’Alliance des Auxiliaires de Justice!” interjected the old lady again, shouting to cover the musical intro of Cheers.
“The Alliance, you say? Bloody hell! You folks took your time, eh? Come on in!” The white teeth of the moon’s door unwrapped, revealing a dimly lit throat sinking into the ferrous mantle. “Alveolus number 3. The first two are OOS,” the switchman resumed. “Ginette! Ginette! Go warn Lady Carnegie! The Mounties have arrived!”
The Forlorn Hope followed the still running LEDs along the uncertain walls until it reached her hatch. The new portcullis featured the old flag of the Technocracy, from the time where the Reds occupied the main belt.
After the airlock opened, a 2-axis giant arm grabbed the hull near the wings thanks to four adjustable rubbery fingers. Spinning, the arm gradually placed the Forlorn upright between two badly laid-out sets of clamps.
From the cockpit turning to bridge mode, Miles saw the hangar. Wide 50 feet tall silos covered the walls in front of the alveoli. Hanging from the railing, crab-like robots were maintaining the steel valves from which leaked a red Jell-O bubbling into the low gravity.
“Take your iron,” the pilot said to Fate, sitting over the cockpit hatch. “If anyone asks, you’re my bodyguard. My invincible bodyguard.”
The woman nodded and let herself fall in the hold. After grabbing her weapon, she started unbarring the airlock’s second door. While she poked her head against the porthole, she inquired: “Is the welcoming committee usual?”
The armored door hissed. A retractable ladder reached the ship at their feet shortly after. Down below, an old man with a demilitarized UN exoskeleton over his stained overalls and a wreathed hat made of discolored plastic straws waved at them. Next to him, a large congregation of elderly persons had gathered, behind what must have been the station supervisor.
The latter appeared to be a child draped in a dark and red flowing robe she dragged on the floor. Her black hair was partially dyed with henna. From her neck hung long palladium necklaces while beautiful bracelets adorned her left wrist, concealing her tiny arm-computer.
“What is this place?” Fate asked. She cautiously started descending the ladder with Miles on her heels while Napoléon stayed on the ship.
“A reverse nursery or somethin’…” Miles breathed.
Once on the ground, the ten years old girl greeted the Forlorn crew; first with a polite bow which made her long hair bounce in the hazardous gravity. “Welcome to Old Dodge despite these difficult times,” she said eloquently with a long-forgotten accent from the Sahel. She had a warm tone, but strangely looked colder than the ice invading the cockpit. Despite her young age, she seemed tired. Yet her cerulean irises shone like a comet. “I am Lady Aïssata Carnegie III. The supervisor and owner of this decrepit protein corral battered by solar winds. Are you from the Alliance?”
The man nodded, showing his brass badge.
Lady Carnegie stood up on her toes to look at it. “Then, you come from Titan with the anti-radiation medicine?”
“I’m afraid not. Comin’ from Enceladus. And we’re a bunch of administrative fellows.”
Miles’ words were met with a wave of despair, but Aïssata Carnegie appeased the crowd by raising her tiny hand. “Follow me,” she ordered as her silent citizens scattered; most of them heading directly to the elevators leading to the city below. Only accompanied by the Forlorn crew and the sleepy traffic controller called Andrew, she resumed: “We were expecting someone from Titan. Weeks ago, I generously paid the Alliance to deliver us anti-rads. Solar storms keep piercing through our meager protection. Our safety stock is decreasing at a dangerous rate.”
“Do bounty hunters usually distribute drugs?” Fate reacted.
“The problem is far more serious,” the supervisor explained. “My late father’s beloved Eden is being preyed upon by ruthless renegades from Calamity Grace’s gang. For now, they only asked for our medicine.”
“Probably resellin’ the phials on Polydeuces,” Miles went on. “The prices skyrocketed recently.”
“Undoubtedly,” Aïssata Carnegie said. “The Alliance was supposed to… dispose of them before Calamity Grace returns. But now, my stock is running dry, and we have no hunters. The Techno-Marine remains silent. Without those anti-rads, she’ll take our lives. Or our protein.”
“Calamity Grace?” Fate noted.
“A ruthless bandit coming from Kuiper. She leaves no survivor from her raids.”
“And takes scalps…” Andrew added, speaking for the first time.
“Sorry. I reckon…” Miles said without caring whatsoever.
“My father alway said: never apologize. It’s a sign of weakness. But the mistake is ours, desk man,” Aïssata replied before turning to the old man in the exoskeleton. “Andrew? Take care of our guests’ ship. Make sure she is ready to leave as soon as possible.”
As Miles and Fate thanked their host, Andrew bowed politely. His eye implant which looked like a jeweler’s loupe almost escaped his sinking orbit. Grabbing a bulky diagnostic terminal hanging from his shoulder, he waved to the robot technicians sleeping near a stripped down Baltimore-VII engine inside his workshop.
But as he started heading back to the Forlorn Hope, his radio buzzed. His French-Canadian wife’s voice burst out: “Un vessel approaching, Andrew! Five hundred miles away.”
“A ship?” Aïssata questioned. Worried, she immediately stepped out the closing shaft and glanced at her pulsing wrist implant. The monochrome screen displayed the wavering radar report. “Kanjut—Ginette! Lock the entrance! Lock it right away!”
“What ship? Can you ID the heat signature?” Fate asked.
Like her, Miles feared the ship could also belong to the turbaned man instead of bandits. Even then, both remained dreadful options.
“Calamity Grace,” the supervisor snapped.
Miles heaved a sigh. He reached into his back pocket for a jerky stick but only grasped the tiny steel ball he completely forgot about. Enceladus seemed so far away already.
“Pretty sure this trinket’s cursed…” he mumbled, making the stained marble roll between his scared fingers.