Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales Read online

  His arrival to the bridge was greeted with yet another surprise. They had already landed sometime while he was asleep. Jason had watched countless Space Shuttle landings on television and the re-entry process looked quite rough, but somehow he had slept through the entire thing. He saw that they were parked at the edge of an unfathomably large ravine. Valles Marineris? Jason was also startled at the change on the bridge. The walls were gleaming and clean, the pall of burnt electrical components was gone, and the displays that ringed the command deck were all lit cheerfully.

  “Looks like you’ve got everything up and running,” he said as a way of announcing his presence. The last time he’d surprised the synth he took a nasty shot from something.

  “We’re in much better shape than we were, that’s for certain. Some of the major systems are still being repaired but the hull is one hundred percent and the main computer is back up and talking to the individual subsystems. Most importantly, the slip-drive will be back up soon.” Deetz stood near the canopy on the starboard side of the bridge, appearing to look down into the trench.

  “Something interesting?”

  “Not particularly. Just watching the bots drag up raw material. We couldn’t safely land any closer to the structure they’re dismantling and bringing back up to feed into the fabricators, so the process is taking longer than it should.” Deetz turned towards him, appearing pensive.

  “Fabricator?”

  “Machines that are part of the damage control system. You can feed them raw material and they will rearrange the molecular structure and produce completed parts needed for repairs. It’s almost unheard of on a ship this small, but the smaller versions we have on board are invaluable.”

  “So there’s the ruins of an ancient Martian civilization down there?” Jason’s voice had a hint of awe in it.

  “Indeed. It appears that the structure embedded in the walls of this trench was some sort of emergency shelter. So with all the probes crawling and flying over this planet you haven’t detected any signs of the life that was here before the atmosphere bled off?” Deetz’s question seemed more an effort at idle conversation than a genuine curiosity.

  “Nope. But our sensor capability is far less than what you have here.” Jason could sense there was something Deetz was wanting to ask him, and considering how accommodating it had been since he woke up he assumed that it needed help with something. He didn’t have to wait long for confirmation of this.

  “So I have a proposition for you, Jason.” And here comes the pitch. “How anxious are you to get back to Earth?” Is this thing fucking kidding me?

  “Well, Deetz, I’d have to say the sooner the better. For both of us I’d imagine.”

  “Maybe not.” The synth clasped its hands behind its back and started pacing along the forward edge of the ship’s canopy. “There may be a way we can help each other. As you may have noticed, I’m currently short a crew. I won’t go into the details about where they might be as it is not germane to the topic. What is, however, is the fact that we were in the middle of a job that, at this juncture, requires a biological.” Deetz paused his pacing and turned to fix Jason with a stare. When the human didn’t respond other than to cross his arms over his chest, the synth continued, “As shocking as it may seem, there are some backwards planets that don’t recognize the rights of synthetics. In other words, I am little more than an animated curiosity to these people. But as a biological, you would be able to operate freely at these places.”

  “That’s all very light in details, Deetz. What, exactly, am I supposed to be doing?”

  “It couldn’t be simpler. We have some cargo that had an extended delivery date. We stored it on a safe world so we could free up our cargo bay with the intention of retrieving it later. But with the aforementioned prejudices, I cannot secure the release of the cargo from those who are currently holding it for us.” The synth’s humanistic mannerisms had been dropped; a blank machine stared back at Jason. Damn, don’t ever play poker with this thing.

  “So the only reason you need me is because this place doesn’t recognize you as a … person. Why would they give a shit about me?”

  “The ship’s transponder is the only proof of signature required. Once we land, the cargo will be released to any member of the crew automatically. All I have to do is add you to the manifest.” The sincerity Deetz managed to put into that blank expression was admirable. Jason still didn’t trust it, and moreover, had no reason to want to help it. He had boarded this ship in good faith believing he was responding to an aviation mishap; moonlighting as an interstellar FedEx man wasn’t in the cards for him. But … it would be a hell of an adventure. Since boarding the ship he had felt himself coming alive again in a way that he hadn’t experienced since before the wars. Not that he was a combat junkie, but the highs and lows during that part of his life were so high and so low that he only felt a numbness inside since he had come home. As tempting as it was, however, his sense of self-preservation was still strong, and he still knew this thing was lying to him on some level.

  “Do I have to decide right now?”

  “No. We are still some hours away from being ready to launch. You should take some time to consider everything. I understand it’s a lot to take in. Perhaps a walk would do you some good.”

  “A walk? Where? Around the cargo bay?”

  “If you wish. But there,” Deetz said, nodding towards the view outside the canopy, “would probably be a bit more interesting for you.” The little boy inside Jason that had wanted to be an astronaut started jumping up and down.

  “Seriously?”

  “Of course. Your bipedal configuration is fairly common. We have environmental suits on board that would easily fit you. Interested?” Deetz, as did any good salesman, seemed to sense he had Jason hooked. Now he just had to reel him in.

  “Oh, hell yeah, I’m interested. Let’s do this.” Jason followed Deetz off the bridge at a quick clip. “So why did you turn the gravity down some more?”

  “I didn’t. This is Mars-normal. I had to turn all the grav generators off when repairs to the slip-drive reactor started, that includes deck plating.”

  “There was reactor damage?” Jason was alarmed by this, having only a vague working knowledge of nuclear fission reactors used on Earth.

  “Yes. Not to worry, though. The slip-drive reactor is well established technology. When it goes offline the binary fuel can be harmlessly shunted overboard so the pressures don’t reach critical levels.” The nonchalant manner of Deetz’s explanation set Jason’s mind at ease. Somewhat.

  CHAPTER 5

  The environmental suit wasn’t exactly what Jason was imagining. While he was picturing the bulky space suits like the NASA astronauts used, the system he wore was no more cumbersome than a jogging suit. The first layer of the suit was custom-made by the computer in a few minutes to fit skintight over his body. This was the pressure layer; the active material could maintain the correct pressure against his skin so that a pressurized environment wouldn’t be necessary within the suit. The outer layer was a tougher, thicker material that controlled his body temperature and protected against punctures. Finally, there was a sort of hard-shell vest that controlled all suit functions, handled communications, and housed the re-breather apparatus. Once Deetz had programmed the unit for an Earth-like oxygen/nitrogen mixture, Jason was nearly ready. The last step had been for the synth to program the helmet to display English on the heads-up display so Jason would be able to understand the warnings and status indicators. The helmet itself was also unlike the familiar NASA equipment; instead of a large, pressurized “bell” in which a person could move their head about, this was more like a fitted motorsports helmet with an oversized visor. Getting fitted and decked out in the gear had taken less than thirty minutes.

  A few minutes after walking back into the corridor, carrying his helmet under his right arm like any other Earth-born astronaut, Jason was once again entering the main cargo hold. Before he could even think about
donning his helmet, Deetz walked over and began punching controls on the touchscreen panel that was mounted in the pedestal next to the main rear doors. A loud alarm started up a cadence and red strobes began flashing on either side of the doors as they slid apart, revealing the cargo ramp still up in the locked position. But, to Jason’s horror, it also began to move as it jerked and then lowered smoothly away, revealing the barren Martian landscape.

  “Shit!” Jason shouted as he clumsily tried to jam the helmet onto his head in a panic. After two attempts, he still couldn’t get the locking collar that sealed to the outer layer to go over his head.

  “What is your problem? I thought you wanted to go out there,” Deetz’s calm voice floated across the cargo bay to him. Jason then realized that not only had there been no explosive decompression, but he could hear the other’s voice so there had to still be atmosphere in the bay. That and he was still hyperventilating. He pulled the helmet back off and lowered it slowly, trying to salvage as much of his dignity as he could.

  “So I take it there’s something keeping the air inside?”

  “Obviously. There’s an electrostatic shield keeping the atmosphere in, though it won’t do anything to stop solid objects from coming in or out.” Deetz walked back to the middle of the bay where Jason still stood and took the helmet from his hands. It flipped it around and helped him slide it easily down over his head. After verifying the seals and ensuring the re-breather was attached and functioning, he slapped Jason on top of the helmet and pointed outside the bay. “Have fun. You can call back to me if you have any trouble. Just stay out of the way of the bots that are shuttling up material from the trench. They’re not very smart or attentive. You don’t want one to smack into you.” With that, it turned and walked back up the stairs and disappeared back into the ship through the hatch, leaving Jason standing alone in the cargo hold.

  Passing through the shield that was holding in the cargo hold’s atmosphere was fairly anticlimactic; he couldn’t tell any difference at all, save for the display in his helmet alerting him of the external pressure change. The suit took up the slack seamlessly and he soon found himself standing with the toes of both boots right at the edge of the cargo ramp. He couldn’t help but feel a chill run up his spine as he was about to leapfrog over decades of human technological development (and astronaut screening) to become the first human to walk on Mars. He felt he should say something inspirational, but his mind was so numbed from recent events he just stared blankly down at the reddish-brown dirt in front of him. Fuck it. Inspirational isn’t really my style anyway. He picked his right foot up, let himself drop down, and put a boot print in the soil. Despite himself, he could feel his eyes well up with tears as the enormity of what he had just done hit him.

  The lighter gravity of Mars made locomotion a bit of a challenge at first. He tried to do the hop-skip thing like Buzz Aldrin had done on Earth’s moon, but the gravity was too strong for that. He eventually found that if he moved with a normal gait but pushed off with his toes at the very end he would drift a good distance for not a lot of effort spent. He looked back at the ship and noticed a few squat, multi-appendage robots dragging what looked to be chunks of slag metal under the ship and lifting them up into an iris-type opening that was forward and port of the main cargo hold. He surmised that it must be the input to the fabricators. Turning his back on the ship and all the repair activity, Jason set off along the perimeter of Valles Marineris, marveling at its enormity. He had been to the Grand Canyon back on Earth a couple of times, but this was something else entirely. It was almost like the world stopped right before him. After what felt like a couple of kilometers, he came up to a small outcropping and stopped. He stared out over the canyon for a few minutes, then sat down cross-legged in the Martian dirt and looked out while his thoughts turned inward. The place looked like northern Iraq after a haboob blew through; it even had the same reddish hue from the weak light filtering through the dust.

  Jason stared out, unseeing, as his thoughts flitted around in his head. He was a person who was naturally able to compartmentalize during situations of extreme stress—it was how he was able to operate so successfully during the war. However, he was starting to fully realize what it was that he had stumbled into, and he suddenly felt very, very small. Not only had he inadvertently gotten himself shanghaied aboard an alien spacecraft, but now the sole occupant (a smartassed alien machine) wanted to take him along on a job of some sort. What could the ramifications of this be? What if something unforeseen happened and, as Earth’s unofficial, unsanctioned ambassador to the stars, his world was made to suffer the consequences for his actions? His thoughts drifted to the beautiful blonde in the picture he carried; what would happen to her? He quickly shoved the entire line of reasoning from his head lest he rip open that wound again. While she was never far from his mind, he had learned to keep those memories buried, if only just under the surface.

  Even as he went through the mental tedium of trying to talk himself out of going along with Deetz on this mission, he knew what his answer would be in the end. In spite of everything, the adventure was simply too much for him to pass up. That same lust for excitement that made him enlist in the Air Force at eighteen was also pushing him to climb aboard the gunship and blast off for the stars.

  “Jason, can you hear me?”

  Speaking of the devil …

  “Yes Deetz, I copy. What can I do for you? Over.”

  “Over what?”

  “Never mind,” Jason rolled his eyes. “What do you need?”

  “Just curious about how much longer you’ll be. We’re about done with repairs and will be ready for lift in approximately an hour.”

  “Already? That was fast.”

  “Not especially so. You’ve been out there for a few hours now.”

  Jason rose easily to his feet, looking like a gymnast in the light Martian gravity. “I’m on the bounce. I’ll be back shortly.” On the bounce … he laughed at the irony of using a line from one of his favorite novels as he actually bounced across an alien planet in a spacesuit. If only Heinlein could see him.

  Approaching the gunship, Jason could see significant changes, most notably to the hull which had been splotchy with burn marks and scarred by blast impacts. It was now smooth and shone dully in the light like burnished steel. The cargo ramp was still down so Jason bounced up and into the hold, stumbling slightly as the gravity doubled. It appeared that artificial gravity had been restored, so Jason had to assume the slip-drive reactor was also up and running without incident. After popping the seal on his helmet and removing it, Jason could really feel what the damage control system had done. The ship positively hummed with energy: a low-frequency, omnipresent tingle that hadn’t been there before. As he made his way across the cargo bay, Deetz’s voice came over the ship’s public address system.

  “Meet me in the room you suited up in and I’ll help you out of that thing. We should be ready to get out of here once you’re dressed again.”

  It was at least forty minutes after boarding before Jason was free of the exo-atmospheric suit. “These things aren’t really designed to be quick or convenient. Nearly anyone who would serve aboard a ship like this would have a much more capable combat suit that they would wear. These are more contingency items.” This last comment brought Jason’s thoughts right back to the missing crew, and the synth’s evasiveness about where they might be. He decided to ignore the thought that was nagging at the back of his mind, as he had more or less decided to go with Deetz on this cargo run. Dwelling on it wouldn’t do him any good.

  As he laced up his boots while sitting on a bench, he asked Deetz a question, “So how long of a flight is it to this cargo pickup?” Silence. Looking around, he noticed he was talking to himself as the synth was nowhere in the room. “Well what the hell?” He couldn’t believe Deetz had been able to so easily exit the room without his noticing. Either his situational awareness wasn’t nearly as good as he had been led to believe, or the synth was extr
emely sneaky. Shrugging, he stood up and stretched, enjoying the normal gravity, and strode out of the room on his way to the bridge.

  Walking onto the bridge, Jason was further impressed at how alive the ship seemed now. Deetz stood in the middle of the raised dais in the center, feet shoulder width apart and hands on its hips. Jason had already become accustomed to the human-like gestures and mannerisms the machine exhibited, so its appearance no longer startled him. “So, what’s the play?”

  “I’d say that depends on what your decision is. So, what will it be? Ready for the adventure of a lifetime?” The cheesy, used car salesman act Deetz was doing grated on Jason’s nerves.

  “Yes. I’m going with you,” Jason began, ignoring the wide smile that appeared on the synth’s face. “But, I want it made clear that I’m simply a glorified passenger. I’m trusting that you aren’t planning on tossing me into anything more … involved … than just being a biological at the pickup.” Jason realized how idiotic his speech was. He would be a de facto prisoner once they were there, marooned God knows how many light years from Earth. If Deetz had nefarious intentions, Jason would be in no position to do anything about it. Still, the risk-to-reward ratio was still tipping the scale in favor of going along for the ride.

  “Not an issue. You’ll just disembark, tag a couple forms, and we’ll be on our way. You’ll get to see some incredible things before I bring you back to your planet.”

  “Okay. We ready to rock then? I’m assuming this bird is at one hundred percent.” Jason especially appreciated the clean processed air that the environmental system was pumping out. It was a vast improvement over the acrid aroma of burnt electronics and ozone.

  “Oh, not quite at one hundred percent; the damage control system is good, but it can’t work miracles. There are some things that will require some better equipped facilities to get back to full strength.” Deetz was settling into the left hand seat on the dais and motioned to the seat at his right for Jason to sit in. As soon as he sat in the seat, it began to subtly adjust itself to his body shape. It gave in the right places and bolstered in the others; the result was one of the most comfortable seats he had ever sat in. It gave the initial impression of suede leather, but upon further inspection, was definitely some sort of synthetic material.