Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales Read online

  Another couple of hours passed and finally Jason rose out of his seat and stretched. “Does this tub have any coffee aboard?” He was fading fast but he didn’t want to go to sleep until they had transitioned into slip-space, whatever the hell that was. Deetz cocked its head as if pondering the question for a fraction of a second.

  “Ah, yes. Ask for chroot. It’s very similar to your coffee drink and has the same stimulant effect.”

  “Thanks,” Jason replied as he hopped down from the command station and walked off the bridge. He was very aware that at some point during his meals and rest, his rifle had gone missing from the place where he had set it on the bridge. Initially he had intended to ask Deetz directly about where the weapon had gone, but for now he decided to see how it would play out. While he doubted the synth was holding it for safekeeping, he also knew it would do him no good right now as anything other than a “security blanket.” If Deetz meant to harm him or had any other nefarious designs regarding him, the AR-15 and its single magazine of ammo would not likely save him.

  He walked with more confidence up to the terminal in the galley and instructed it with a single word, “Chroot.”

  “How would you like it, sir?”

  “Um, black?”

  “Processing…” He was once again rewarded with a ding and the panel slid up to reveal a steaming mug that looked like it was made from some sort of brushed metal. He grabbed the handle and peered into it. It certainly looked like coffee, and even at this distance it had that pungent smell he recognized. He brought it to his lips and took a small, slurping sip. After letting it roll around in his mouth, he took another and a smile spread across his face. It was similar to an Arabica blend with some subtle clove notes that left a slight numbness on his tongue. It wasn’t exactly “coffee” but it was damn close. One of his major food groups had been satisfied: caffeine (or at least something close to it.) If he could teach the machine to spit out a Taco Supreme he’d be set. He sat down at the galley table to drink his chroot rather than go back to the bridge.

  “Computer,” he said suddenly, “where is the original crew for this ship?”

  “Insufficient detail provided. This vessel has had multiple rotations of crewmembers at every post,” the computer’s dispassionate voice intoned. This gave Jason pause; he really had no idea as to the history of this ship. It looked state-of-the-art to him, but it could well be an immaculately maintained antique.

  “How old is this ship? Please give the answer in Earth years.” Jason felt he was on to something, or at least he had a source of information that was somewhat independent of the being that was on the bridge at that moment.

  “This vessel was constructed eleven Earth years ago and was in active military service until two years ago.”

  It could hardly be considered outdated. Jason’s own truck was a few years older. “So this ship is no longer affiliated with a military branch? Explain, please.”

  “The Benztral Mining Concern is no longer a viable entity. This vessel was sold on the open market as part of an asset liquidation and purchased by a private citizen.” The ship’s computer was a veritable gold mine as it seemed to be completely unconcerned about shielding any information from him. It seemed more than willing to give him anything he asked for.

  Jason surmised that the ship must have been part of a private military. It was just one more clue as to the nature of the universe he’d unwittingly flung himself into. He continued his query. “Please tell me what happened to the last crew of this ship.”

  “The last crew on the manifest disembarked at Oltrest Prime thirty-nine Earth-days prior and has yet to re-embark. Their whereabouts are currently unknown,” the ship answered. Jason was quickly realizing that while the computer was not withholding any information, it also wasn’t going to embellish or volunteer additional answers without being specifically asked.

  “Do you know where they might be? Or why?” Jason assumed that the entire crew was not on vacation somewhere.

  “Unknown.”

  Jason’s instincts led him to the next question: “Is Deetz part of the former crew that is currently missing?”

  “The synthetic being called Deetz is the property of Captain Klegsh and serves as an administrative facilitator while on board.”

  “Property? Now that is interesting,” he said. Were all synths considered property, or would Deetz more accurately be described as a slave? The conversations he’d had with Deetz as to why exactly he was needed on this current mission floated back up to the top of his mind. It seems this … species? … wasn’t universally recognized as a free people. Jason’s almost compulsive need to categorize everything led him to try and draw parallels between the apparent situation of this synth and the institution of slavery on his home world. For some reason, however, he just couldn’t make that emotional connection between the two. The revulsion he felt towards his own species for its treatment of dissimilar races throughout history didn’t come when he thought about Deetz living in servitude. Was it because Deetz would be considered a machine on Earth, or was it simply that the situation he was in was so outside of his “normal” that he couldn’t apply any of his values to it? What did that say about him if his values were so arbitrary?

  “We’re exiting your star system now. We’ll be flying by a few interesting objects on our way out if you’re interested.” Deetz’s voice over the intercom stirred Jason from his thoughts. He swallowed the last room-temperature gulp of chroot and made his way back to the bridge.

  “On my way,” he said, leaving his mug behind for one of the little service bots to collect.

  Walking onto the bridge, Jason saw that there were indeed some objects outside the canopy, and they appeared to be illuminated by something other than the sun. “I’ve spotlighted this asteroid while the ship completes a scan of it. All the objects out here are the leftover debris from the formation of your star system. The forward sensors flagged this one as possibly having some rare compounds that may be worth extracting while we’re out here. We’re not necessarily on a tight schedule, after all,” Deetz informed him as he slid into the copilot’s seat. As soon as he sat down, the displays all faded out and came back up in English, displaying units of measure he could actually understand.

  “So why light it up?”

  “Actually that was for your benefit. The ship obviously doesn’t need illumination to do the scans. I surmised what part of the spectrum is visible to your species from your medical scan and had the emitters project those wavelengths to illuminate the object.” Deetz seemed especially pleased with himself as he favored Jason with one of those odd, closed-mouth smiles.

  “Thanks, I appreciate that.” And he did. The opportunity to view a Kuiper Belt object up close and in person was something to be savored, but it was also more than just that. Since the beginning of this trip he had walked on Mars, looked upon Jupiter, and was now observing an asteroid tumble through the interminable blackness of space at the edge of Sol’s influence. All of this wonder to behold, and while on an alien spaceship and accompanied by an alien being to boot. Jason had met everything that had happened thus far with a childlike wonder and awe, and he was certain this innocence would not—could not—last as he left his own world further behind. The fact that he was aboard a machine of war was indicative of the nature of the universe that waited for him.

  A series of beeps from his displays grabbed his attention; the ship had completed its scan of the object and hadn’t found anything of note, certainly nothing worth staying for. Without a word, Deetz grabbed the controls and turned the ship away from the object and began accelerating out of the system. This far up the gravity well, the ship had enough power to pull directly away without taxing the engines. The acceleration numbers, presented in G-forces on his display, were astonishing. So much so that it became abstract. Jason knew if an Earth-bound vehicle accelerated this fast its occupants would be pulverized into a gelatinous mash against the rear bulkheads.

  Another set of
warnings appeared on his display as they were still accelerating out into interstellar space. This one said “Stand by for slip-space transition.” Having been a science fiction fan for much of his life, Jason was looking forward to being there when the ship began travelling faster than the speed of light. A countdown from “5” appeared in the middle of his display and began winding down slightly faster than the Earth-seconds he was used to. At “1” the canopy suddenly went opaque and the lights on the bridge dimmed slightly for a split second, indicating an enormous power drain on the ship’s power plant. That was it. There was no dramatic flash, no thunderclap of sound as the ship defied relativity, nothing to indicate that the “warp drive” had engaged. Jason let out an audible “humph.”

  “Try not to be too disappointed. The energies involved in propelling the ship through slip-space would be blinding to you, so the canopy automatically dims. Honestly, there isn’t much to see; the ship is inside of a slip-space bubble, for lack of a better term, and won’t emerge into real-space until power to the emitters is cut off.”

  Jason sat back into his seat, still disappointed, but also thrilled as he realized he was sitting in a spacecraft that was now travelling faster than the speed of light. He stretched out and yawned, feeling very tired again. He knew his sleep cycle must be completely screwed up since there was no discernible day or night on board the ship. He stood and hopped down from the command station. “I’m going to grab a couple hours of sleep. It doesn’t seem like there’s much going on right now,” he said as he walked towards the bridge exit.

  “You are correct, there will be very little to see while we’re traveling though slip-space,” Deetz confirmed. “We’ll reach our destination in approximately seventy-two hours. We could probably make it a little quicker, but in the shape the ship is currently in, I don’t want to push the slip-drive too hard. If it fails, we’re stranded.”

  “By all means, let’s take our time and not spend the rest of our lives floating through space,” Jason called over his shoulder as he walked off the bridge. He made his way down to the stateroom that he had already begun to think of as “his” and took the time to strip down before climbing into the bed. He was sound asleep within minutes.

  CHAPTER 7

  The next few cycles—(Can’t really call them days anymore)—ran together as Jason slept, ate, and explored the ship. He worked out in the cargo bay, poked around in the engineering bays, and spent hours talking to the ship trying to glean as much intel as he could from a source other than Deetz, a being whose motives still weren’t entirely clear. As for Deetz himself, Jason didn’t see him much as he spent most of the time locked in the communications room. Jason wasn’t entirely sure exactly when he started thinking of the synth as a “he” rather than an “it,” but the more time they spent together, the more a pronounced masculine character became apparent. It wasn’t that the synth was overly macho, or even that the timbre of his voice couldn’t also belong to a female, it was something more intangible that Jason interpreted as male gender-specific. The topic of gender within a society of constructed beings might be interesting, but for all Jason knew it could also be highly taboo or offensive in some way. While he was curious, that curiosity wasn’t strong enough for him to risk being stranded light years from his home.

  It was after a vigorous heavy-gravity workout in the cargo bay that Jason was specifically addressed by the ship for the first time. “Passenger Burke, the ship is approaching the target destination. Four hours until transition to real-space,” the computer told him. A soft double-beep let him know that there was nothing else forthcoming over the intercom.

  “Thanks. Where is Deetz?” Jason didn’t know if he was being foolish thanking a computer or not, but it never hurt to err on the side of politeness.

  “The synthetic Deetz is heading towards the bridge.”

  Jason wondered what Deetz had been doing while locked up in the com room. He walked back to his room to grab a shower and change into clean clothes before heading up to the bridge himself. The “shower” had been an interesting adventure unto itself; it operated on jets of pressurized mist and seemed to adapt itself to his body chemistry. The first shower had been overly hot and left him feeling oily all over, the next had been much better, and by the third day he was left feeling more clean and refreshed than after any Earth-based shower he could remember. He assumed that the first few attempts had been from the shower still being set for the room’s previous occupant, which did alarm Jason somewhat. Glad the last guy in here wasn’t a species that took sulfuric acid baths …

  Once showered and dried, he grabbed his new clothes off the bed. He was quite proud of his new threads; he had managed to program one of the ship’s fabricators to produce them himself. Well, mostly with the help of the ship’s computer, if truth be told. The clothes closely resembled the uniform he had worn in the military, but instead of a terrestrial camouflage pattern, he had opted for a flat, dark gray that matched the interior bulkheads of the ship. The boots were a soft, black synthetic material that resembled suede leather, and the pants were bloused over them. The base layer was even more impressive however, as it incorporated technology not found on Earth. While it resembled the newest commercially available base layers that were designed to wick away moisture, these undergarments were also capable of regulating his body temperature by monitoring heat and perspiration and adjusting the material temperature accordingly. Jason could see no discernible power source, yet he could feel it cooling off as soon as he put it on, compensating for his still-elevated skin temperature from the workout in the cargo bay and the hot shower.

  After donning his new “uniform,” he made his way to the bridge by way of the galley (although they were in opposite directions) and grabbed a mug of chroot. Wishing for a touch of vanilla creamer to go with it, he took his drink with him as he ambled up to the bridge. Nodding to Deetz as he walked in, he paused to look at the main canopy. It was still blacked out while in slip-space, but now the entire surface showed an enormous holographic projection of a planet, ostensibly their destination, and some scrolling data alongside it. Over that, a timer counted down to what Jason assumed to be their arrival. He slid into his seat next to Deetz and watched as his displays came to life. It looked like they had a little more than two hours remaining until they made orbit. He hid his grin behind the mug as he took a drink; the excitement was building the closer the ship got to the first exoplanet to be seen by humans.

  “So what’s this planet called?” He really did expect some exotic, unpronounceable name with a ton of consonant sounds.

  “Breaker’s World.”

  “You said what?” Jason knew he had to be mistaken, or Deetz’s translation was off.

  “Breaker’s World. You look horribly disappointed. What were you expecting?” Deetz was looking at him with his metallic brow furled.

  “Well, something a little more … I don’t know…” Jason was floundering while Deetz just stared at him with one brow cocked. He moved on. “So what does the name mean?”

  Deetz slowly turned back to the displays. “Presumably someone called Breaker colonized it. It’s not a very important or even useful planet by most standards. While it’s a nice, medium-sized rocky world with an atmosphere, it’s also pretty far out in the spiral arm. Also, for some reason, non-indigenous crops will not grow there nor are the local plants edible by most species. So, Breaker’s World is largely ignored by most governments and corporations, which makes it attractive to certain parties who like to work in private.”

  “That sounds like said parties are engaged in less-than-legal activities,” Jason said. Deetz gave a non-committal shrug and continued to watch the displays. As the countdown timer reached zero, the ship gave a barely perceptible shudder and the canopy returned to fully transparent as it streaked into the star system, now flying in real-space. There was nothing of note outside the canopy, however. Just a nondescript star field that could have been anywhere. As Jason strained his eyes to see anything out
side the ship, his console beeped and the section displaying navigational data went from having a red border to green. The scrolling text announced that the ship’s location had been verified and then a stylized representation of the star system came up showing the location of both Breaker’s World and the ship in relation to the primary star. It looked like they had dropped out of slip-space just outside the heliopause, well away from the system’s equivalent to the Kuiper Belt.

  After days of hearing the constant drone of the ship’s slip-space drive, the bridge felt deathly quiet once it had shut down. Jason assumed that there were either safety or procedural reasons as to why they had exited slip-space so far away from their destination, so he didn’t bother asking Deetz. A few minutes after all the displays had greened up, Jason could feel the main engines fire up and watched the acceleration indicator in front of him climb; the rumble from the four mains was distinctly different than the more high-pitched whine of the slip-space drive. Eyeing the holograph of the star system, Jason noticed that they wouldn’t pass close to any other planets on their way to Breaker’s World, so he ignored the view outside and set about re-configuring his console now that he had a better handle on how to get the computer to do what he wanted.

  Once he had the displays showing all the information he felt was pertinent, and in units he understood, he was dismayed to find that they were still sixteen hours from reaching orbit even at the incredible rate of acceleration they were achieving. “Not a chance in hell I’m sitting here for sixteen more hours literally staring off into space,” Jason said. He hopped out of his seat and headed for the galley without a word to Deetz who, for his part, didn’t even acknowledge that Jason was leaving the bridge.