1 Isten 1117: Venad – Adar/Hinterworlds (0402 A221621-B Ni Po Na 324 Im M0V M6D)
Venad is hot. Yeah, Yazeal–its primary–may be a red dwarf, but those things put out a lot of heat when you get close enough. Here, it takes up a considerable chunk of the sky.
We had landed at the main starport of Yamar. The Scouts were apparently near the end of the alphabet when they got to this place. Anyway, Yamar is situated between a small sea to the east and a mountain range to the west, so it is cooler than it would otherwise be. But the temps were still around 30°. Fortunately, Venadians prefer doing most of their business over the local net rather than in person, so I didn’t have to leave the hotel for most of the day.
I did have to make one pickup before heading out to meet the crew at the Galloping Garan. I stuck my snub pistol under my jacket before I left. I usually wouldn’t have been too worried, but after the news of the assassination had come in a few weeks ago, the local situation had become somewhat tense. Venad had been a part of the Ral Rantan Federation until about 20 years ago, when the Imperium had annexed the system during a local civil war that got a bit too hot. They are perfectly happy to let systems fight among themselves, but the second a nuke goes off, the Imperial Navy is there in force. To “protect Imperial Trade Concerns” is the usual official reason, as it was here. The locals still resented the Imperial “occupation” and openly hoped that problems back in Core would force them to leave.
Like that would happen. The Imperium loves to protect its trade.
About an hour after leaving the hotel, I was at the Garan. It was a typical Startown dive, crews from the various ships passing through hanging out and making deals before heading back out to the trade routes again, while lower-tier brokers and some of the more adventurous locals hung out, hoping to talk to them.
As I stepped through the pressure door, the first thing I noticed was a pair of Hivers sitting at a table in the middle of the main room. The few tables around them were empty, and the other patrons were giving them a wide berth. It was rare to see Hivers hanging out in a Humaniti bar, even this close to the Federation. I wondered what they were up to.
And they had to be up to something; they were Hivers.
I pulled my breather off and looked around. Most of the wall-screens in the place were set to news-net channels and, of course, the main topic was the assassination. The screens drew most of the room’s attention. I finally saw the rest of the crew sitting in a booth near the corner in the back, as usual.
Saahna waved me over, and Varan shoved a chair towards me as I approached. Do’rex was sitting in the back of the booth, looking uncomfortable. He always did when off-ship. Vegans were even less common here than Hivers, and he usually got some curious looks.
“Heya, Number One,” said Saahna, pushing a beer towards me. “Um… sorry. Captain.”
I shook my head. “Derek is fine. I’m not going to stand on formality as much as Captain Martin did.”
She frowned at that. “Rank and order are important, Captain.” She emphasized the word.
I shrugged. “We’ll see how that goes then.” I dropped my pack and reached into it. “Presents for everyone.” I had stopped at a clothing store and had new ship’s jackets for everyone.
Saahna had been wearing her Phantasmal Hope jacket and immediately shrugged out of it. I noticed she was wearing her Gauss pistol. I wasn’t the only one who was a bit paranoid. On the other hand, it was her job to be paranoid.
She pulled the Grayswandir jacket on and looked at it. “I like the darker colors,” she said. “A bit less obvious in the dark.”
The Phantasmal Hope‘s colors had been white and light blue. I had changed them to dark blue and dark gray. I hadn’t been thinking about how visible they were when I picked those out; I was more thinking about how the old colors showed every speck of dirt that landed on them.
Do’rex had been wearing street clothes, but immediately put his jacket on as well. I was impressed at how well the local tailor had been able to fit a Vegan based only on his avatar.
Varan was wearing his ship’s jumpsuit and just shoved his jacket into his own pack.
A waitbot hovered over to ask what I wanted to eat. I ordered stioshi pods. Stioshi was a local aquatic plant with long stalks that were held up in the water by thick-skinned air sacs. The locals harvested the sacs, filled them with some kind of cheese, then breaded and deep-fried them. They were spicy enough that you could probably use them to strip paint, but they were insanely good, as well as being slightly euphoric. I always had them whenever we were near this end of the sector.
Saahna shook her head. “I never understood how you can eat those.”
I shrugged and pointed at her bowl, which contained strips of almost raw meat in a thick sauce with noodles. “I never understood how you can eat anything that raw.”
“You weren’t complaining the other night,” she said with a smirk. Varan laughed, and even Do’rex made a staccato clicking sound. Saahna and I had been on-again/off-again together for a few years now. Whenever either of us wasn’t with someone else. Neither of us was at the moment.
“Anything new?” I asked, tilting my head towards the nearest screen as the waitbot brought my order over. I popped the first pod into my mouth, grimaced, and took a drink of my beer. The first bite was always a killer.
Varan shook his head. “Same thing as the last few weeks. A bunch of nobles are still complaining about Lucan dismissing the Moot and then sending most of the Core Fleet off to the Ilelish Sector chasing Dulinor.”
“I just hope that they glass whatever planet they find him on,” Saahna said under her breath. “Dulinor was an idiot.”
I sighed. Emperor Strephon’s assassination had dominated the discussion for the past month-and-a-half, ever since the news from Core had come in via X-Boat. Dulinor–the Archduke of the Domain of Ilelish–had killed Emperor Strephon during an audience, declared himself Emperor via the ‘Right of Assassination’, then fled back to his home Domain. Since then, we had learned that Lucan–Strephon’s nephew and the senior surviving relative; Dulinor had also assassinated the Empress Iolanthe and the Princess Iphegenia–had become Emperor. Over the objections of the Moot–the body made up of the Archdukes, Dukes, and Barons of the various Domains, Sectors, and Subsectors of the Imperium.
Well, their designated representatives. The reality of Jump travel means that it takes months for news from Core to reach the outer Domains, and even more months for any orders from them to make their way back. So, the representatives to the Moot had great power.
Not that it made much of a difference in this case. Lucan had immediately declared Dulinor a traitor, then sent most of the Core fleet after him. The Moot had objected to the rapid transition of power, and his response was to dissolve it for one year.
There was also the problem that Lucan would have been, after the deaths of Strephon’s immediate family, only second in line for the Iridium Throne, but his older brother Varian was also found dead. Lucan blamed it on Dulinor, but Dulinor had been very careful to record everything he did, and Varian’s death wasn’t on anything that he had broadcast. Nor was there any surveillance footage showing him going anywhere in that wing of the palace. So, there were many sophonts who were dubious of Lucan’s claims.
Not that any of that mattered.
But all of this was old news known for several weeks, and there was very little new information. So, the talking heads on the nets were doing nothing but rehashing what we already knew while offering wilder and wilder speculation about what might happen next.
“Look,” I said. “Strephon was popular. I don’t know what Dulinor thought he was doing, but he didn’t win any friends. Anywhere. The Fleet will go in, flatten him and anyone and anything that happens to be near him, and that will be the end of it. It’ll give the tabloids something to argue about for the next few years, but that’s it.”
I finished my beer and waved the waitbot back over. “Besides, all of that is way over to Spinward. It won’t affect us here.”
Saahna exchanged her own beer for a new one as well. “I hope you’re right.”
“The Imperium has survived worse. Sure, Strephon was probably the best Emperor we’ve had for a long time, but in the end, he was only one man. We’ll survive.”
Varan shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait and see what the next X-Boat says.” He finished his beer, looked to see that the waitbot had just left, sighed, and summoned it back over again.
“So let’s talk about our more immediate concerns. Where are we off to next, Captain?” He emphasized the word a bit too much as well, but his was more in amusement.
“Well, first of all, are all of you staying?” I looked around the table. Saahna nodded, as if surprised that the question was even being asked. Do’rex waved a tentacle and clicked in agreement, while Varan hesitated a moment before nodding as well.
“Good,” I said. “Glad all of you are still with me.” I pulled out my remote and dropped it on the table, then tapped my comp. A three-dimensional holo of the Adar subsector appeared on the table. I tapped again, and it collapsed into a two-dimensional Jumpspace map, showing the systems reachable from Venad via Jumpspace. Despite our being a star-travelling civilization for the past few thousand years, humaniti still found it easier to look at flat maps. Few people could even visualize three-dimensional normal space, much less all 11 dimensions of Jumpspace.
“We just came in from Kaggits,” I said, pointing, “So I don’t want to just turn around and head back. Besides… maybe we should stay out of Imperial space for a while.”
“Didn’t you just say we had nothing to worry about?” Varan said with a smirk.
“Let’s just play it safe anyway.” I gestured at the chart again. “That gives us Luki, Dermif Na, Fugitak, and Ginshar. Jumping to Ginshar means we’ll either have to immediately Jump back or go on up into the Glimmerdrift. Both Luki and Dermif Na lead us into Ral Rantan space, and I’d rather get a few Jumps under my belt before I deal with them again. So that leaves Fugitak.” I tapped its icon on the table. It’s also on the main trade route to Trailing from here.
“Amber Zone,” Saahna observed.
“Yeah,” I nodded. I flicked the dot on the table and Fugitak’s UWP (Universal World Profile) popped into view, which I then swiped down to reveal the full details.
“TAS has flagged it as an Amber Zone because it has a ridiculous Law Level. Spitting on a sidewalk probably gets you tagged for organ harvesting or something. Then, there’s the fact that if you walk outside without an HE-suit, it’ll be a race to see if you suffocate before your skin melts off. We’ll just stay in the starport.”
“Not much going on,” Varan said, looking at his own comp. No water, poisonous atmosphere, only a few hundred sophonts live there, and even they don’t get along with each other.” He looked up at me. “Why in the galaxy do you want to go there?”
“I don’t.” I indicated the display. “But it’s the first world out of Venad on the Alike Run. We could probably do a bit better going off the beaten track, but I think sticking to the major trade routes is probably a good idea for our first few Jumps.”
Saahna shrugged. “I guess. I’d be just as happy heading up into the Glimmerdrift, but you’re the Captain.”
“OK. Anything else?”
Varan stared at the chart for a few moments longer, then shrugged and leaned back. “Sure, it’s fine. I guess. When are we leaving?”
Now it was my turn to pause. “Well… we aren’t going anywhere without an Engineer.”
“You haven’t started looking for one yet?”
I shook my head. “Honestly, I wanted to make sure all of you were staying first. I’ll post the opening tonight.”
Saahna frowned. “Don’t you have your Engineering cert?”
“Yeah. My Engineering-1 certification. And that’s only for Jump Drives. Do you really want us to depend on that? Besides, I’m still our Astrogator and our Broker. Kinda hard for me to be on the Bridge and in Engineering at the same time.”
“That does bring up something… Captain.” Varan looked around the table uncomfortably. “Are we all… are we still in the same positions?”
I had expected that question to come earlier, and I was prepared for it. “For the moment, yes.” I hesitated, then pointed at Do’rex. “Except for you. You’re 1st Officer now.”
I heard a gasp of surprise from Varan, and Do’rex’s head jerked upwards as he emitted some startled clicks. He said something in Vegan before switching back to his accented Standard.
“I am honored as always, Captain Kodai. Thank you. But why?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” said Varan, sounding angrier than was normal for him.
I held up my hands. “Merchants’ Guild regulations state that the First Officer must have their Pilot certification. That’s Do’rex and me. So I could either leave the position open or give it to him. And he’s kept us out of trouble enough times that he deserves it. So, congratulations!”
“Congratulations, Number One!” Saahna said, throwing him a salute. “Lt. Denan at your command.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Varan, after a pause. “Congrats, man!” He held up his hand, and Do’rex slapped a tentacle against it.
“OK,” I said, relaxing a bit. “So, I guess my next order of business is to find an Engineer.”
“Who gets to be Second?” asked Saahna.
“That one I have to leave open. Those same regulations require an Astrogation certification for the 2nd Officer. We’ll have to see what happens there.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“So, everyone ready for another round?”
We didn’t talk much business for the rest of the night. We somehow wound up in a rather heated discussion of the latest Cross-Spiral Buckyball Run. A pair of Scouts at the next table got involved as well, and the night ended with me somehow owing a case of wine to someone, somewhere, depending on the outcome.
Several hours later, we were heading back to our rooms. My air-cab was arriving when I turned to Saahna.
“One more? There’s a pretty good bar back at my hotel.”
She hesitated a moment, then looked away. “I… can’t.”
“Why?” Things had been going well between us for the past few weeks, and I wasn’t sure what had changed. “Why… what’s wrong?”
She turned back to me, her face set. “I’m sorry. I… we can’t anymore.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you’re my Captain now.”
I started to say something, but she held up her hand. “Look, you’re the Captain. I’m your Security Officer. There may come a time when you have to ask me to do something dangerous. You might have to give me an order that neither of us will like. And you have to be clear to give that order… and I have to be clear to take it. And neither of us can do that if there is anything between us.”
She stepped forward and put her hand on my chest. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad we had the time we did together.” She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then stepped back and gave me an overly formal salute. “Goodnight, Captain.”
I felt a sense of loss, but gave her a smile and a salute of my own. “You too, Lieutenant.”