Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales Read online

  This reverie was interrupted by a drop in the pitch of what Jason assumed was the sound of the engines. He watched silently as Deetz strode across the bridge and looked at a display at one of the forward stations, then out through the canopy, and then back at the display again. He walked back to the station on the raised dais and started manipulating the controls. The stars tilted wildly outside the canopy and the engines came back up to power.

  “So, what’s up?” Jason couldn’t stand being a chair decoration any longer.

  “Just trying to get a bearing on Mars so I can get a good orbital insertion vector,” Deetz said.

  “Seems like this thing would have a more precise way to locate it,” Jason stated, more out of an attempt to keep the conversation going.

  “Oh, it does,” Deetz was openly glaring at him. “But someone shot a hole in it.” Jason fell silent and pretended to be fascinated by the trim on the terminal in front of him.

  It was another thirty minutes or so, at least as near as Jason could tell, before Mars began to dominate the forward view. He couldn’t believe how different it was to see the planet with his own eyes rather than through a telescope eyepiece or a digital image. It was with a pang of regret that he realized he didn’t really get to appreciate the view of Saturn when he had the chance. Being debilitated by sheer terror and then getting hit with an anti-personnel weapon had kind of spoiled the whole thing.

  As much as he was in awe of the view, the rate of closure on the planet was beginning to alarm him. Although he knew next to nothing about orbital mechanics, he had seen the film Apollo 13 a few dozen times while deployed; at this rate of speed, there was no way they could safely enter the atmosphere or achieve a stable orbit. As his muscles tensed involuntarily and he gripped the armrests of his seat, his fears proved to be unfounded. Deetz further manipulated the controls and the ship decelerated abruptly, so quickly in fact that it seemed like they had simply stopped in space. Jason knew this sort of drastic negative acceleration should have put him through the forward canopy, and it was only then that he consciously realized that he was still firmly planted on the floor. Artificial gravity. It stood to reason that if whoever built this thing had the technology to keep him from floating out of his seat, then they also had the ability to null out the effects of inertia.

  Though moving markedly slower, the ship was still moving at a few tens of thousands of miles per hour. Soon Deetz swung the ship from a head-on collision course with the red planet to a heading that would put them into a geosynchronous orbit over the equator. The synth rolled the ship so that Mars now hung above their heads in the canopy. It looked over to Jason and did a quick double brow raise that reminded him of Groucho Marx, along with a tight, closed-mouth grin. Again, the human was startled at how very human-like the alien machine’s mannerisms were. He assumed it was for his benefit and he wasn’t sure if he felt better knowing that or not. He looked up to notice Deetz was marching off the bridge.

  “What’s up?” Jason asked for the second time in the last twenty minutes.

  “Sensor stations on the bridge are still down. I’m going to astral navigation to use the ship sensors to locate our landing site.” The synth said this last part over its right shoulder, turning its head far more than a biological biped with a spine would be able to do. Jason hopped out of his seat and went to follow it. He paused at the AR-15 he had laid on the floor when he’d entered. While it was useless without ammo and seemingly unnecessary, the military part of his brain couldn’t abide his weapon lying haphazardly on the deck. He picked it up, cleared it out of habit, and propped it up in one of the seats on the bridge after collapsing down the stock.

  Shuffling quickly off the bridge, Jason found the synth in one of the side rooms off the starboard side of the passageway right outside the bridge entrance. The room was dominated by a large tabletop display that Deetz was hunched over; it didn’t even look up as Jason entered the small room. Looking around, he saw the bulkheads were festooned with additional displays and control panels, most of which were in that strange written language that was found all throughout the ship that he couldn’t hope to comprehend.

  “What are we doing again?” He found long gaps in the conversation between the alien machine and himself to be unnerving.

  “We are doing nothing. I am preparing to use the dorsal tactical sensor array to find a good landing spot. You are standing in my way as well as distracting me.” Deetz gently nudged him out of the way as he manipulated the touch panel controls of the large tabletop display. “The terrain mapping sensor array is, of course, offline. The tactical array isn’t really designed for this sort of thing, but it should be able to detect a large enough concentration of refined metals to indicate the location we want.” An alert sound cut off the synth and multiple displays began streaming data that Jason couldn’t read. He was watching Deetz as it frowned.

  “Does your species have a presence on this planet?”

  “No, we’ve only been as far as our own moon. Oh … wait, there are some robotic probes in orbit as well as a handful of landers and rovers on the surface. Nothing that poses any kind of threat, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Ah. That would explain why so many active satellites are completely ignoring us. Strictly exploratory then?” When Jason nodded it continued, “Very good. As primitive as your tech is, in our current shape a few of your concussive missiles could prove problematic.” For some reason Jason still bristled at the casual insults the synth tossed out about humanity and its level of sophistication.

  “So I thought you said this thing was indestructible. Seems something took a chunk out of its ass.”

  “I said it was nearly indestructible. It’s one of the toughest gunships ever built; however, a direct hit by a plasma bolt from a frontline warship’s main guns is a bit much for even it. Anything else in this class of ship would have been a cloud of ionized particles after a hit like that.”

  Jason was almost positive that he didn’t want to know who had shot at the ship, or why. He hoped that after Deetz repaired the ship it would take him back to Earth, preferably to the same place it had picked him up from. However, he did have to admit that the thrill of the situation was intoxicating. Alien gunships involved in deep space combat; ruins of an ancient civilization on Mars; a walking, talking machine that claimed to be a life form … it was all so much to process that Jason’s mind ignored the fantastic aspects of it and focused on what he could understand. It was also exhausting. He had been running on a constant adrenaline rush since he had spotted the ship streaking though the night sky, excluding the times he had been knocked unconscious, and it was beginning to catch up with him. He stood in the doorway of the room to give Deetz the space he needed to work and he was beginning to have trouble keeping his eyes open. This didn’t go unnoticed by the synth.

  “You should get some sleep. You’ve been stressed and injured. You’re going to fall out where you stand if you don’t get some rest. We’re not going to make landfall for some hours yet; you can sleep in one of the crew staterooms. Follow me.” Deetz brushed past Jason and headed down the corridor towards the flight of stairs and the large common area. The exhausted human stumbled after him while some part of his tired brain again wondered where the rest of the crew for the ship was. The synth led him around to the port side of ship along the outer bulkhead of the common area and into a short side corridor. It stopped before an interior hatch and pressed the control panel that was situated to the right of the door. It slid open to revel a sparse but comfortable-looking stateroom.

  Walking into the room, Jason could see that whoever designed the ship must have had similar physiology as himself: the bed, chair, even the very room looked strikingly similar to rooms he had seen aboard U.S. Navy warships. That was yet one more thing he wanted to ask Deetz about, but for right now the only thing he could think about was the bed.

  “I’ll just lay down for a couple hours, I’ll be good to go after that.”

  “Of cou
rse. Take however long your species needs to recover from your ordeal. I’ll be on the bridge.” Deetz turned and walked out, the door closing automatically behind him. Jason sat on the bed and pondered the strange being for a moment. In addition to swinging between regional dialects of Earth, its personality also seemed to shift between a snarky, biting sarcasm to the very soul of courtesy. He again felt that nagging suspicion that something terrible had befallen the crew of this ship, and that he should be careful how much he trusted the strange being that had walked out of the room moments ago. But, for the moment, nothing seemed more important than getting some sleep. With the multiple instances of unconsciousness, one caused by blunt force trauma, he really had no sense of how long he had actually been on the ship. He was asleep before his head had fully compressed the pillow.

  CHAPTER 4

  In a nice change of pace, Jason awoke naturally, in a comfortable bed, and not terrified, injured, or both. He yawned and stretched as if he had awoken in the bed in his cabin, which was a little over fifteen million miles away at that instant. He swung his legs around the bed and stood up, noticed he had left his boots on when he fell asleep, and made his way out the door after smacking the control on the bulkhead. After a couple of steps he knew something had changed, and this time he knew what it was: the gravity was different again. Unlike when he’d first made his way on board, however, this was a very pronounced change. He took an exploratory leap in the corridor and felt like he glided all the way into the large common area at the heart of the ship. Deetz must be messing with the artificial gravity again.

  Once the novelty of the reduced gravity had run its course, he also noticed the change in smell. While it still had that distinct “aircraft smell,” a unique mixture of lubricants, alloys, and fuels, there was also a strong chemical cleaner smell riding over top of that. He walked out further into the main area and jerked his head around as some small, squat machines zipped across the area and out of his field of view.

  “Those are robots,” Deetz said with a lopsided grin as it made its way down the stairs, apparently coming from the bridge. “They’re part of the ship’s damage control system. They’ll scurry around and continually repair and clean things. They’ll polish holes through the deck plating if you don’t order them into inactivity once in a while.” Deetz gave an odd chuckle at his own joke. “In actuality, they’re always underfoot if you just allow them to run wild. Their big brothers are at work outside on the hull and there are some more specialized models that are doing system level repairs.”

  “Hmm.” Jason was noncommittal. The synth had shown yet another side to itself; now it was the charming host.

  “You must be hungry. The bio analysis the med-bay performed when you were … subdued … indicated that your species’ metabolism requires a fairly regular intake of food.”

  What in the hell is this thing up to. I feel like I’m being set up for something.

  “Yeah. To be honest, I’m starving.” At his response Deetz’s head snapped up and his face assumed an alarmed expression.

  “You’re starving?! Why did you not make me aware of this earlier?” Deetz rushed over and grabbed Jason by the wrist and began to lead him aft towards what he had earlier assumed was the galley. The human’s protests did little against the incredible casual strength of the synth. Deetz was practically dragging Jason like he was a toddler.

  “Deetz! It’s a figure of speech, I’m not actually starving. I’m just really, really hungry. Seriously! Fucking let me go!” The light gravity did little to help Jason’s ability to catch himself after Deetz released him, so he stumbled and sprawled out on the floor face down in an undignified heap. He let out a weary sigh.

  “Are you okay, Jason?” This was the first time the artificial being had used his name, another red flag in Jason’s naturally suspicious mind.

  “Nothing hurt but my pride,” he replied glibly as he bounced back up with a move that only light gravity would allow. “Now. About that food…”

  “Of course. This way.” The synth now assumed the mannerisms of a maître d’ as it gestured towards the galley with a subdued, but still present flourish. Jason gave it an odd look as he walked by and realized that despite the very human mannerisms the machine exhibited, it was still an alien. It had accessed and compiled Earth’s media into a completely disjointed set of responses to Jason’s actions. There was no doubt about its intelligence, but its motives were both a mystery and a concern. He walked across the common area and made his way to the galley. At Deetz’s gesture he sat at the long, high-top-style table that looked like it could seat at least ten people. There was another identical table across from him that led him to believe that the ship’s intended complement must be between fifteen to twenty-five people … er, beings.

  “The ship’s computer was able to devise a safe menu for you from the initial bio scans that were taken when you were injured. While it certainly won’t be an Earth meal, it won’t make you sick either.” Deetz had walked back behind a counter into the food prep area and began stabbing at another of the ship’s touchscreen displays that was mounted in the wall. After a few moments, he walked back around with a tray that held a steaming plate and a tall glass of water. Jason had been too distracted to see where the food had come from so quickly. “Here we are,” Deetz said cheerfully as he set the tray in front of Jason. While it looked odd, it did smell good. Some sort of white meat/protein and a green vegetable that he couldn’t identify. At least the water was still water. He dug in with gusto and was relieved to find that, big surprise, it tasted similar to chicken. While he ate, Deetz sat across from him, propped his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers, fixing him with a steady stare. It was a tad unnerving while he was trying to eat, but he was too hungry to care or pause long enough to tell the synth to stop staring.

  “So … you were a soldier on Earth?” The question caught Jason off guard.

  “Technically I was an airman. But yes, I did serve in the military.” Jason didn’t volunteer any further information. He sensed he was treading on delicate ground right now.

  “I suppose there’s a distinction there I’m missing, but you were a warrior among your people?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s no need for such discomfort, Jason Burke,” Deetz said with that alarming mechanical laugh. “This is not an interrogation. I’m just curious about what type of human you are. Would anyone of your species have boarded a strange ship brandishing a weapon?”

  “No. I suppose I’m a special case, even among the warriors on Earth.” Jason relaxed a bit, but not much. “To be honest, I didn’t realize just how strange this ship was when I first saw it. It looked like it could have possibly been something conceived and built on Earth, at least from the outside. It wasn’t until I saw the language on the bulkheads, and saw you on the bridge, that I realized what I was actually on. My original intent had been to render aid.”

  “Render aid?” Deetz repeated with a frown. “But you brought no medical supplies, only a fairly powerful weapon.” This caused Jason to pause in his eating and shift uncomfortably.

  “There’s a reason I live a remote, solitary life right now. I fought extensively in a few of our wars, and I feel better being well-armed when approaching the unknown. It may be paranoia, but then again, maybe not.” He looked pointedly at the synth as he said the last sentence. Deetz chose to ignore the challenge.

  “What some would deem as paranoia others would see as prudence. So your planet is currently under invasion? I didn’t detect any traces of other ships on my approach, but with the system damage that isn’t saying that they weren’t there.”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. We fight amongst ourselves over political and theological differences.” As Jason said these words to an alien being he realized how truly foolish humanity must seem to an outsider. Not that he saw his world in such overly simplistic strokes, but when distilled down to its base components it did seem that there had to be a better way than slaughtering
each other.

  “You say that as if you’re apologizing on behalf of your species. There’s nothing unusual about your planet’s history. Evolution is a violent struggle in which only the strongest and most fierce reach the pinnacle to become a world’s dominant species. Many species don’t survive their own instincts and destroy themselves before they ever realize they’re part of a much larger interstellar community.” Deetz pushed back from the table and rose as he finished speaking. “Go ahead and finish your meal. You can meet me on the bridge after you’re done.”

  Jason slowly chewed his food as he considered the synth’s words. So if every species that survived to dominate their own world shared that fighting spirit, the idea of the benevolent extraterrestrials coming to Earth and ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity for humanity seemed unlikely. He mentally shrugged; Earth was nowhere near being able to reach out beyond its own star system so it was more of a “what if” fantasy than a real concern.

  He polished off that delightful whatever-the-hell-it-was with the glass of water and felt much better. When he looked around for someplace to put the dishes, one of the small squat robots darted out from behind the counter, snatched the tray from his hands, and hauled ass back around the counter. “What the shit!?” he said aloud. Was that thing watching me eat the whole time? Creepy. He walked out of the galley and up towards the bridge, still contemplating the new world he found himself in and how humanity would ever fit into it. Assuming it even survived that long.