Chapter 15 - Sea of Venus(7) - Princess And Sun
Young returned on his own.
“You tired yet?”
‘Yes?”
Young saw the boy’s eyes drooping and then shooting open as he fought to stay awake. Young chuckled, “Just sleep a little. Your house is in a different zone.”
Zero half sleepwalked out of the temple after Young threw each of the old men a credit for their supposed “Hard work” dealing with the little boy.
Orbital Ring Mira, Jupiter
“Where is the oxygen hose!”
“I dunno mate. You gots to find it yourself!”
“Gah.”
The man picked up two tubes and sniffed each of them.
“This one.”
“How can you tell?”
“Bah. The smell of ozone.”
A few of the other members of the Bloodshot Brothers were welding new armor plates onto the old rusty cruiser.
“Ay! Someone checks up on the fighters!”
“On it captain!”
The man burst out laughing, “Captain? Been a while!”
The final checks for the cruiser were completed and the men filed into the cruiser with food supplies and ammunition.
He opened the screen by rolling it out on the pilot’s command consol and saw a small yellow circle on the screen.
Gathering the men around him, he carefully measured out the grey dust that the woman had given him, “Get your ash boys.”
They lined up to take a pouch and exited the cockpit to go to their stations.
The man smiled, “Plotting trajectory to the north pole of Io.”
Alpha Centauri side of the Sol - Alpha Centauri slipstream
“Damn. It’s four and a fifth light years yeah?”
“Yup. Sending all this junk through the stream.”
The two women stared at the small silver string that shot off in a straight line towards Sol. Golden capsules attached to one side seemed to disappear as they closed while incoming capsules were disengaged from the string.
One of them sighed, “What are we shipping this time?”
“More absorption.”
“Why would they want more of that stuff?”
“It’s cheap to produce. And” she leaned into whisper, “we can sell it to the empire for passive profits.”
“Absorption?”
“Yeah, they give us gel for each unit.”
“Gel?”
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“It’s the stuff they produce on Terra.”
A large viscous mass rolled near them, “Your allotted time starts now.”
A pile of metal packages started to be loaded onto the capsule.
“What’s the quality?”
“Point two I think.”
“Wow. Pretty good stuff.”
They started loading up the next capsule when an alarm sounded through the facility.
A robotic voice spoke, “Please pause the deployment of new capsules. We are passing cruisers through the slipgate at theta thirty-four. Please give at least five degrees of clearance.”
“What do you think they’re sending?”
“Probably an aristocrat or something. No need to care really.”
The woman stared up at the cruiser slowly drifting towards the slipstream, correctional pressure thrusters firing in various directions. She frowned, “Now we’re down to three hundred and twelve open degrees.”
The other woman laughed, “Luckily I bid on 60 degrees for the next century. I think we’ll be fine.”
“Princess, what’d you sell to get so many credits?”
She smiled an evil grin, “The sun.”
Venus A-L1
Young decided to call it a day and drop Zero off at his house. At the train station in the residential area, Young flagged down an old beaten light blue car.
Inside the light blue taxi was just a standard car arrangement with very worn leather seats. The only difference being that a wyrm was driving the taxi from above the steering wheel.
Young slipped into the back with Zero who was half awake.
Been a bit since I’ve seen you around here.
Young chuckled, “You’re acting like five years is a lot?”
Well, that’s an eighth of your life without me.
“Ahem. I got the stuff for you.”
Young reached into a pocket and dropped an aluminum tube into a small hole in the glass separating the driver and passenger seats.
Haha you know what I want well.
Young swiped over a panel to the front of the car, “This is the coordinates.”
Ah. That house.
The wyrm seemed to float out of the little round cup holder and came to a stop floating just above the steering wheel. A faint white light flowed around it as it pulsated.
Ready?
Young gave a thumbs up, “Hit it.”
Bunker 271L12 on Pluto
“Sir, the Glorbs are coming for the initial survey of Sol.”
“ETA?”
“Two weeks. Five cruisers were detected on the slipstream.”
“Keep me posted. Prepare an escort fleet of the highest quality.”
“Yes sir!”
“Show me the details of the cruiser fleet.”
The officer swiped a panel up to a large screen.
Glord Gero
Five cruisers of Glorb design with only Glorb habitation in mind. Absurd radiation shielding with a .5 quality shield generator. Energy signatures estimate a .8 ether reactor in the main vessel and .5 in the remaining four escorts. Each cruiser is armed with 3 spinal rail guns that are approximately 50 meters long with eight .3 chargers. The armaments for the five cruisers are described below.
Glord Gero – Undocumented Glorb Cruiser #782 type P1
3 Spinal railguns
12 External Hatches
4 ~.8 ether reactors
5 ~.53 Reflection Shield
~1000 kg of solid 95% ether (HL: 5000 years)
Standard Glorb Propulsion ~.4
Overall ship quality rating: .65-.7
Escort 1,2,3,4 – Undocumented Glorb Cruiser #782 type A1
3 Spinal railguns
8 Undocumented Glorb Turret #15
2 ~.5 ether reactors
2 ~.37 Reflection Shield
Cargo Hidden
Standard Glorb Propulsion ~.34
Overall ship quality rating: .4-.42
Identical readings suggest scan obfuscation. Fleet quality exceeds the .5 threshold, high threat. Dangerous.
The man started up at the screen, “Has Lua noticed?”
The officer nodded. Pointing up at the screen the man muttered, “95% on .8. That’s comical.”
“This fleet is from the Hyades Cluster.”
“So what are they here for?”
“They want to establish a trade for ash and ether gel.”
The man’s eyes widened, “Then why send a big shot?”
“Intelligence states this Glorb is the equivalent of a Baron.”
“Oh wow. Fancy. A space baron. Back to the ancient era huh? But now we’re the barbarians.”
“Sol is a new system. It detached from the network 30 million years ago. The Baron is probably looking for an opportunity with a high ether producing system far from the eyes of the galactic core.”
“What about the other factions?”
“According to the oligarchs, their envoys will be arriving periodically within the next hundred years.”
The man nodded, “What’s our trajectory?”
“Trajectory?”
“Pluto.”
“We’ll be ready in a hundred and eighty-three years.”
“I assume we will host the envoys until then.”
“Yes.”
The man nodded, “If they’re still alive. We’ll have to put on a good show. The Republic and Empire are depending on it.”
Earth, Main temple of the empire. Year ~4576.
Dr. Fritz tapped his foot on the floor as he scribbled away on a blank sheet of paper. In front of him, three marble sized balls rolled around in an ashtray. He scribbled some notes and heard the clacking of the balls hitting each other.
He slammed his hand down on the ashtray, “Stop moving.”
A high-pitched whistling shrieked behind him from a pot above a flickering fire that was coming out of his free hand.
Dr. Fritz stared at the paper, “This doesn’t add up. What am I missing?”
He took out his cigarette and tapped it into the ash tray and picked up one of the green and blue marble now coated in a layer of ash. He remarked, “It’s almost like a white dwarf.”
Dr. Fritz’s eyes opened wide, “White dwarf.”