literature

Ten Thousand Miles Up--pt. 2

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"Captain," the ringel addressed from the viewscreen. The words lagged behind the image as the translator, unhooked from the central computer, struggled to interpret his language without help of the predictor module. The computer did a fine job of matching his voice, however, with its gruff, insulting tone. The ringel had kicked his boots onto the desk in front of him, and he held in each arm a ringel female.

Ringel were unlike the geroo; gray and white fur covered their slim bodies. They had round black noses instead of broad flat ones, and dark patches of fur most notable around their eyes. Were he not wearing boots, the ringel would be displaying his five-toed feet. Their tails compensated for their verminesque slenderness by growing thick bushy fur with dark rings--hence their moniker.

Given the sharp and accented manner in which he was dressed, in a fur-lined sleeveless vest and gloves, Ateri assumed it was for either confidence or intimidation. But this source of dread came from his eyes, hidden in a dark mask of fur, which glowed half as bright as an arc welder despite no obvious light source. He had dimmed the lights in his cabin to enhance this effect, and the same of the females surrounding him.

The females were underdressed compared to him, in thin outfits that hugged close to their forms. Neither of them acknowledged the conference. Ateri was not up to speed on the social habits of ringel pirates, but he hoped that they wouldn't try any more intimidating--not because they alarmed him, but degraded themselves.

"I hope this is important," Ateri said, and added a fully superfluous, "Sir." He sat alone in the chamber which Lieutenant Gurt modified, not much more than a glorified electrical access closet. The room was not perfectly soundproof, but they had no equipment onboard to detect faint tremors traveling through the metal. (The krakun had a private communication chamber of their own and despised eavesdropping.)

"Call me Sinon," he said. "Let's not bother with formalities."

"Certainly," Ateri said flatly, "why should we start now?"

"I assume your flippant tone means our connection is secure," Sinon said. "Good. Because what I'm proposing is treason."

"Anything you propose would be treasonous," Ateri said, "it's against the charter and high law to negotiate with pirates."

"Extra-treasonous, then," Sinon said, with a smile.

He already knew what Sinon was after; Ateri, however, was not so eager to sell his loyalty--if only because he relied on the last remaining vestiges of company loyalty to carry out his predecessor's intentions.

Ateri said, "Why should I agree to endanger my crew?"

"Are you your peoples' representative or not?" Sinon demanded. "Do you enjoy watching your people languish under a reptile's heel?"

"Our lives are not terrible," Ateri lied, "but I will hear you out."

Sinon drew out a copper nut that shone as bright as his eyes and tossed it to himself as he laid out the proposal. "This planet. You're preparing to terraform it, na?" he stated, rather than asked.

"Such information would be classified, were it not transparent," Ateri said. It was their ship's sole task. "But in case your proposal hinges on its success, our current results do not appear promising."

"Viable or not," Sinon said, "Let's say you overlook a little . . . hacking," he said, as though attempting to avoid the distasteful word but lacking the vocabulary. "Then, you discover the planet is fit for terraforming. Your overlords are pleased, and they gate in the terraformer. We nuke the bastards and get away with ten trillion credits' worth of technology, you and us together."

"Outright theft is hardly a novel approach," Ateri said. "Planetary Acquisitions is not an enterprise, it's a paramilitary organization. Remote region of space or not, their every move is observed and they're aware of it. Not to mention the occasional trailing pirates--when did you start following us, anyway?"

Sinon tapped his lip. "Hmm. Three years ago and change, from the gate at Missun-3."

Even before the pirates showed themselves, Ateri had ordered that gate erased from their report. Gates allowed for instantaneous travel, and anything else took ages. The White Flower II, however, had a gate to Krakuntec built-in. The krakun could keep their expensive, secret technology on their home world and not cart it over a thousand light-years in hopes of finding a planet to convert. In practice, their (AWOL) Commissioner Sarsuk used it to take day-trips back home, to catch up on affairs. In all the word's shades of meaning.

This setup, with the traveling gate ship, was impractical for anyone except the krakun. Instantaneous travel by gate was useful, but nobody could toss a gate in front of an enemy homeworld unnoticed. They radiated enough emissions that even a cursory scan could pick them up at several AU out. So interplanetary governments sent out exploratory gates instead, sometimes left in certain areas as a matter of strategy.

The known galaxy was one hundred and twenty thousand light-years in diameter. Though the krakun proliferated, they could not hope to destroy every gate left by their enemies (everyone). But even if their enemies decided to amass, the closest gate would still be four or five years away from the Krakun primary worlds, cold travel time.

"Of course," Ateri said. "How do you plan to overcome the defense force? Surely you don't expect them to buckle simply because you lob a few torpedoes at them."

"Secrets, Captain," Sinon said, leaning back and squeezing the rump of his leftside female. "But in this I can assure you; we have thoroughly researched our attack schema. As you must expect, it will be a surprise attack."

"Naturally," Ateri said. "Though deception bears the greatest fruit if your enemy cannot conceive of your movement."

"Don't quote the Book of War at me," Sinon said. "I know what it says. Once we cripple the krakun force, we'll have approximately fifteen years before a retrieval fleet could even hope to arrive. I imagine either Liotec or Turektec will pay us a handsome bounty, na?"

"If it's money you're after," Ateri said. "What's our cooperation worth to you?"

"Is money not enough?" Sinon asked, his head tilted slightly.

"Money, perhaps, but not money alone. Limitations strangle our growth. Do you know the population of this ship is ten thousand, and has been ten thousand for nearly three hundred years? There is no safety net that prevents us from exceeding our bounds, and yet we are bound. We have no recourse and no options. What I want, Captain Sinon, is to walk from sunup to sundown and never see the same landscape twice."

Sinon stared solidly. He said, "I can deliver. I'll tell you what: we'd loan you one of our ships, so you can jump through the gate three light-years back. Then we'll give you a full ten percent of whatever we rake in."

Ateri raised an eyebrow.

"Ten percent of a terraformer's price would let you and your whole crew live like kings," Sinon said, scowling.

"You missed something important," Ateri said, "there is no Gerootec. Wherever the gate on Missun-3 leads, it cannot take us home."

"Don't act so disappointed, Captain," Sinon said, "I've seen many refugee arks populated by your kind. They're doing quite well for themselves." He adjusted his jaw. "Strong, too. Or, if you like, Liotec II is six hops away from the gate, with a sizeable geroo population."

Ateri knew of the arks. The White Flower II came across a fleet in his grandfather's time, and Planetary Acquisitions executed that captain. They nearly decommissioned the whole ship. The information Ateri had inherited from such contact was invaluable.

"So I'm expected to displace my entire population and expect them to adjust?"

"You insult me, Captain," Sinon said. "For all you desire, it is worth some piddling trouble, na?"

Ateri huffed. The pirates only compounded their current troubles. Planetary Acquisition's ears stood alert and sleepless. However, Ateri was not convinced that the plan needed go to waste.

"Still," Ateri said, "ten percent is a pitiful percentage. I agree to no less than fifty-fifty--that is the price."

Sinon chewed on his tongue for a moment.

"And if you return with fifteen, or twenty, or thirty, I'm rejecting the deal. I will not haggle."

"Oy, you're no fun," Sinon said, throwing his arms up. The ladies, aware of their unwanted presence, left. Sinon pointed at Ateri directly. "Minus the price of our ship--a loan, not a gift."

"Of course," Ateri said.

"I'll need to speak to my directors, but I assume we've reached an agreement."

"Hold on. We have no assurance you'll hold up your end of the bargain."

At this, Sinon dropped his feet off the desk and leaned toward the camera, staring at it directly. "I will give you the numbers of my entire fleet. That's twelve ships, not including small fighters. Your loaner is our flagship--the only one large enough to hold ten thousand crewmembers. If you like, fire upon us right now and we'll scatter and flee back to Missun-3. A waste of time, but such is the fate of us deep-space vessels, na?"

Ateri set his jaw. The pirates knew the White Flower II was nigh defenseless; it was simply a polite expression of make the agreement or die of asphyxiation. Still, he could make it work. "I will contact you again once we have more information. Pending complications in our arrangement, if your battle plan is sound . . . "

Sinon grinned. "I'll notify our hackers."
This is the second part out of four I am posting!

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Comments8
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Scyphi's avatar
Okay, the intrigue is starting to pick up now, I like it. :D

Minor quibble, though; while you've been getting the necessities down well enough in due time, some of these vital details (like the details of the ship, it's crew, it's relations with Planetary Requisitions, etc.) would have been useful to know in advance to now. You alluded to some of them in the last chapter, but not very clearly, and your presentation of them in this chapter feels rather after the fact, and leaves spots blank simply because the context of the conversation provided no real need to feel them in, but the holes are still there, and are large enough that they could cause mild confusion for some readers.

But I'm probably making it sound worse than it really is. The story is all pretty good and works well enough right now as is, and I'm not saying you have to stop and deliver a detailed explanation of the whole universe the story's set in right off the bat, far from it in fact, I actually quite like the 'filling in the details as you go along' tactic, it just feels like it needs a touch more of those details just a little sooner. Again, I'm probably making it sound worse than it really is.

Aw heck, if you just walk away with this knowing that the story is great enough as is, though, that works too. :P