1 Eamis 1117: Gashuumi – Tlianke/Hinterworlds (1206 B527769-7 O:1104 923 Na M4 V M9 D)
We stayed out way too late last night. We first went back to Early Late Night, but there wasn’t much going on, so we went a few kilometers away to a place called Hidden Hideaway. It turned out to be fairly busy, even at the early hour.
After a few hours there, we headed back to the resort and had dinner at Evelyn’s. From there, we went back to Early Late Night, now quite busy, and spent the rest of the evening on the dance floor.
I almost convinced myself that I was getting better, but I woke up completely sore this morning. My knee may have been feeling better since the rejuve treatment, but now my hip wanted to have a few words with me.
—-
I had been trying to stay in the bunk a bit longer this morning, and Saahna seemed to be happy to have some extra bunk time herself, but my comm started buzzing. I tried to shut it up, but it kept repeating until I finally acknowledged it.
“What?”
“Where the hells are you?” It was Pelter. “We’ve been trying to get up with you!”
“We’re at The Excellent Ocean!, down on Halaphon. It’s our contract week, remember?”
“Yeah? It’s also the week that you asked someone else to carry out a jailbreak for you. Maybe try to be a bit more available when you ask someone for something? Maybe?”
“Fine. Sorry. So, what do you need?”
“To arrange pickup?”
“Do you have the Stetons out?”
He let out an audible groan. “Yeah, are you not paying attention to the local newsnet?”
I hesitated a bit at that. Usually, I would have been, but this week…
“No, sorry. Again, we’re down at one of your resorts where we don’t have net access. Much. Plus, it’s our contract week. What’s up?”
There was a few seconds delay, and from the tone of his voice, I could tell that he had probably let loose with a few choice explatives before coming back online. “Yeah, we got them out three days ago. We’ve been talking to them, and… yeah, they had some interesting intel.”
“Oh? What did you find out?”
“You can ask our people later. We’ve got them out, but we’re not putting them on your ship. You have too much attention directed at you. But we have some other assets that we need to exfiltrate. They know what we know and will give you that in exchange for you getting them out-system. Sound good?”
“I knew what I was getting into. We’ll take them.”
“It will be complicated.”
“It always is.”
“OK. Our assets are on a fungus barge out in the middle of the Efferian. You’ll need to figure out an excuse to have your ship hang out in that area about a half-dozen kilometers above the surface. Gashuumi doesn’t have any in-atmosphere coverage there. We’ll send you a schedule of when it will be out of satellite coverage. Oh, we’ll need your air-raft.”
“What?”
“We’ll need your air-raft. This whole thing was your idea, so you get to risk some resources as well. Give us access to your air-raft; using it will help whatever cover you come up with. You’re just picking up some passengers that couldn’t get to the Starport or something. However you decide to spin it, the air-raft will dock with your ship somewhere above the barge. After that, you can resume your lift and, hopefully, get to your Jump distance before anyone here realizes what has happened.”
The Efferian was one of the oceans on Gashuiimi, about a third of the way around the planet. Where the Tellman Archipeligo was, now that I thought about it. I frowned.
“We’ve had some developments on our side as well.” I quickly told him about our encounter with Harris a few days ago, and what we had heard from the rest of the crew..
“It seems as if TliSec has figured out something is going on and that it might be related to us. They haven’t talked to either of us here, but the rest of our crew has been interrogated.”
I had expected him to be angry, but his response was immediate and calm. “Did any of them say anything?”
“I’m not sure they could. No one showed up at our meeting with you except us, remember? And we decided not to mention anything about it to them until our pre-lift meeting tomorrow. They had a chance to be involved in that meeting, but declined. They don’t get to argue.”
“And if they do?”
“I’m the Captain.”
“Yeah, OK. Are you staying at the Open Hearth again?”
“Well, yeah, we are. Unless you think we should go somewhere else.”
“No, that’s fine. Just send the access code, and we’ll take it from there.”
I frowned but pulled out my ident and tapped, then sent the code via my comm. “There. We should be there in a couple of hours.”
There was a pause. “OK, got it. We’ll meet you here.” There was a ping as something got sent to my comm. “Here are the coordinates. You will be picking up two of our people. We’ll be ready on the 3rd at about 1200. Can you be there?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good.” There was a long pause. I almost thought he had disconnected before he came back online. “We’re going to stop using this frequency and encryption code after this, and then change all of our other codes. That way, if this does go coreward, nothing can get traced back to us. Is that OK?”
“Sure.”
“Good. It… it’s been good working with you, Captain Kodai.”
“And you.”
“I’m not just saying that. We got more intel from the Stetons in a few hours than we had gathered on our own in the past few years. Talk to the people we’re sending you; the Stetons had everything we needed to know about what Tlianke is up to. Thank you for helping them.”
“Um… You’re welcome?”
“And, for what it’s worth… they aren’t Solomani. They just got found out something they shouldn’t have. They’re safe and, hopefully, we’ve kept the attention away from you.”
“Thanks.”
“Just… keep doing what you’re doing, Captain. What we got about you from Jestin was obviously correct. But this is the last you will hear from us unless you try to contact us again. Just… I don’t know… OK, next time you are here? Put out a request for Terran, pre-Jump seed packets. That should be random enough. For now. Have a safe Jump.” He clicked off.
Saahna had been watching and listening. “Can we do that pickup?”
“We’ll say that we need to do some calibrations to test the replacement of the seals in the air-raft bay and that we’re heading to an area where we’re out of the way. And that we need to do it in atmosphere instead of in vacuum. They really can’t argue about that. And hopefully, we can get it done before someone catches on and sends something out to check on us. Beyond that, what can we do?”
She had her eyes closed. “Nothing, really. OK, I would have avoided getting involved at all, but… I trust you. We’ll do this.”
I was overcome with relief. “I don’t think I’ll mention this at the crew meeting tomorrow. I’ll just let everyone know when we’re about to lift. That way… you know.”
“Yeah. Good idea.” She paused. “I think everyone will go along with you. Except…” She suddenly cut herself off.
“Except…”
She sighed. “Varan is the most upset with the things you are doing. Jami doesn’t care because she’s making more Credits with less risk than her last ship. And that includes all the biowaste we’ve been dealing with. Shelly still doesn’t understand how this works and will go along with it as long as she gets viewers for her net-vids. Do’rex is fine with whatever we’re doing as long as he can Jump. And Doctor Korvusar thinks we’re the ‘Chosen Ones’ or something. So probably the only pushback you’ll get is from Varan.”
“I can talk to Varan.”
“Can you? I’m not sure you realize how much you’ve upset him lately.”
“We’ve had a lot of Jumps together. I’ll talk to him.”
“Good.” She paused. “So, what’s up today?”
“I figured you had everything planned.”
“I planned for us to be leaving today, so I didn’t schedule anything. So, what did you have in mind.”
I smiled. “We could stay here for a while.”
She rolled her eyes. “I could actually do with breakfast myself.”
I made a show of groaning and rolling back over. “Well, you hit the fresher first then. I’ve learned that you take a lot longer than I do to get ready.”
—-
We went down to the Bayside Bitesize and had a quick brunch, then piled all of our stuff back into the air-raft and headed back toward Embala. We had barely cleared the boundary of the resort when a comm came in.
“Grayswandir One, this is Tlianke Security. Please divert course to Karanon for inspection.”
I opened our own comms. “Security? Karanon? What is this about?”
“We need to speak to you. Please alter course to Karanon.”
“This can’t wait until we get back to Embala?”
“No. Please divert your course. Now.”
I let out an audible sigh, but stayed online. “Certainly, Security. I am diverting course now.” I cut off, then found Karnon in the nav-system. It was actually behind us, on the major ground-road leading into The Excellent Ocean!. I punched it in, then looked over at Saahna.
“They’re going to ask us about the Stetons, you know.”
“We don’t know anything. And we’ve been at the resort for the past few days. How could we possibly know anything about them?”
“At least we know it is coming.” She paused. “I’ve had counter-interrogation training. Do you think you’ll be OK?”
“Have you seen some of the deals I’ve made?”
She leaned back against the headrest and, closing her eyes, sighed. “Yeah, I’m not sure why I was asking.”
—-
We reached Karanon in only a few minutes. It was a tiny place, mostly a cluster of stores selling goods that weren’t available inside the resort and the residences of the sophonts who worked there. And a surprisingly large TliSec facility. We landed at the parking deck we were directed to and, after donning breathers, stepped out.
We were met by a half-dozen TliSec officers. Four of them surrounded the air-raft while the other two approached.
I gestured toward the air-raft as the two stopped in front of us. “Is this really necessary?”
“Just checkign on a few things, Captain Kodai. We need you to allow us access to your air-raft. We would prefer that you do that willingly, as opposed to us requiring you to do so. Will you allow it?”
“Um… sure?” There was nothing in it that they would be upset about. Well, my Body Pistol and Saahna’s Gauss Pistol, but we were both still carrying those under our vests. “What is this about?”
“What do you know about the passengers you brought here, Damaris and Kyris Steton?”
“Well, I was unconscious when I got here. From what I understand, you arrested them as soon as the Grayswandir landed. That’s all I know.”
“They attacked your ship, so of course we arrested them. But… you are on record as saying that you don’t think that they were involved.”
“I don’t. I think they were being set up for something. I don’t think it was them. But I haven’t talked to them since we landed. And I told your agent Jarns everything I knew when I was still in the med-center. Why are we here?”
As if on cue, one of the other TliSec agents came up. “There’s nothing of interest in the air-raft. No sign that they have ever been there.”
The man facing us sighed. “OK, have you had any contact with the Stetons since arriving?”
“What did I just say? No. Again, hells, I was evacuated from the Grayswandir before we even landed! How could I have talked to them?”
He regarded me for a few moments, then nodded. “Thank you, Captain Kodai. I’m sorry we had to do this, but… the Stetons have managed to escape from where they were being kept.”
“What!” I said with feigned surprise.
He nodded. “Yes. Apparently, they had contacts here that they were planning to meet with. Don’t worry, there is nothing to connect them to you or the Grayswandir. We’re sorry to have intercepted you.” He glanced at his monocular.
“You’re free to go.” He looked again. “Oh, and congratulations on your contract.” He shook both my and Saahna’s hand. “We’re always glad when our allies find each other. Please, enjoy your last few days on Gashuiimi.”
—-
We both made appropriate responses then climbed back into the air-raft. I glanced into the back long enough to see that everything had obviously been gone through, then brought us up to flight level and set our course back to Embala.
Sahana started to say something, but I waved at her, then climbed out of the pilot’s seat and started crawling around the raft with my comm out.
I quickly found what I was looking for. A small, almost transparent disc, the likes of which I had seen before. I pulled it away from the side of the cargo bay, then returned to the pilot’s seat and lowered my window long enough to toss it out. Saahna had been watching me the entire time.
“Are you sure that’s the only one?”
“I doubt it, but it was the only one transmitting right now. Later?”
She nodded. “Later.”
—-
We arrived back at the Open Hearth and headed back to our still-reserved room. Once there, we both went through all of the luggage we had taken to the resort. Saahna found another disc inside of hers and immediately tossed it into the disposal. Once I was sure it was gone, I turned to her.
“They know something is going on, but they can’t pin it on us. Yet.”
She was shaking her head. “Is this really a good idea?”
“We aren’t picking them up. So they won’t be on the Grayswandir even if they try to check. But, we’re involved, whether we want to be or not. And… even if they never connect this back to us, we’ll get a reputation of being someone trustworthy. That’s worth it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. We’ve got a good plan. It will probably fall apart almost immediately, but… we’ve got a plan.”
She closed her eyes. “OK… I trust you.”
“I doubt there was another sensor. They must know we’re suspicious, given what they know about us, so they wouldn’t want to do too much.”
“I hope you’re right.”
—-
After changing and putting away what we had brought with us from Halaphon, we headed out to Parshan’s. Once there, we put in an order for a few drinks and some tama leaves, then I tossed the scrambler onto the table.
“OK, do we invite everyone down here tonight, or just go with our scheduled meeting tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. The less time someone has to leak something, the less we have to worry about.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
I stared at the wall screens. There seemed to be an abnormal number of talking heads on them, as opposed to the entertainment programming and sporting events that I would have expected to see. I pulled out my remote, activated it, and tossed it onto the table.
“…gives an unexpected level of legitimacy to the recently-formed ‘Hinterworlds Alliance.’ How does this affect our own diplomatic relations?”
The view cut to someone in an overly-ornate Tlianke Jumpsuit, staring gravely at the camera. “The so-called ‘Empress Margaret’ is trying to grasp for any allies that she can, given her precarious claim to the Imperial Throne. She obviously has no idea how things work here, outside her Imperium, and her choice of allies shows that lack of knowledge. Her reign will end as soon as the legitimate rulers of the Imperium turn their attention to her insignificant actions. Then the worlds of the ‘Hinterworlds Alliance’ will find that, without the support of the Imperium, they too are insignificant. The proper order will soon be restored here in the Hinterworlds. We just need to wait for the inevitable.”
“Thank you, Security Minister Jarik. Now, in more local news…” I clicked the remote off.
“What have we missed?” I asked.
Saahna had been flipping through her comp. “Emperess Margaret officially recognized the Hinterworlds Alliance and asked for their support. She is offering favorable trade deals to any systems in the Hinterworlds that joins the Alliance.”
‘The fact that her husband owns Tukera Lines has nothing to do with her desire for trade contracts, I’m sure.”
“But isn’t that what the Imperium is? Trade? I know you’ve said that before.”
“Well, yeah… Most of the worlds in the Imperium could probably survive without trade, but the trade network allows them to be far more successful than they could be on their own.”
“Really?” She looked at me for a long moment. “Is that what your father thought?”
“Hey! Don’t bring my father into this!”
“That’s also what drove Dulinor to assassinate Strephon, remember? He thought the Imperium should actually try to help the worlds it controlled, not just use them as cogs in its economic machine.” She paused. “I think your father might have supported him.”
I clenched my teeth in quiet rage. “You have no idea what my father thought!”
“I looked him up after you told me about your past, remember? And he apparently realized what I’ve been trying to convince you of. Maybe, just maybe, making as many Credits as you can isn’t the best thing for everyone. Maybe make a few less, but help the people around you?”
“Oh gods, is this about shares again! I’ve already told you…”
“No! It isn’t about our rutting shares!” She leaned forward and grabbed my hand. “Just, maybe… making as many Credits as you can isn’t the goal?”
I pulled away. “What the hells? Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly decided that Dulinor is right! Hells, he has destabilized the most long-lived government in all of recorded history! And that destabilization is now spreading! How the hells can you support him!”
“Oh, for rutting’s sake, I don’t support starting a Civil War! I was a Marine! I know how those end up. But… maybe he, initially, had the right idea.”
“Oh really?” I pulled out my comp and started going through our status again. It looked like all repairs were complete, and Jami had signed off on them. All freight was already on-board, and most of our cargo had been delivered. The rest of it was still sitting on the pad while we waited for final mass-and-balance calculations.
“Derek.”
I ignored her.
“Derek! Look at me!”
I sighed and put my comp down. “What!”
She had her gaze fixed on me. “I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day. About how Gashuiimi can’t fully support itself without trade from Traders like us.”
I scoffed. “Well, no. They’ll be fine. Places like Halaphon show that they can take care of themselves. Maybe they won’t have the best of everything, but they won’t be starving either.”
“And that Rejuve tech they used on you and Shelly? Or the air-raft we’re flying right now?”
“I suspect that the vast majority of the population here never had a chance at that Rejuve tech. And yeah, we have an air-raft, but they can get from place-to-place just as well without one. You saw the number of boats and ground vehicles back at the resort.”
“Yeah, I did.” She paused. “I had never thought about it before, really. You know?”
“About what?”
“How the systems we visit depend upon each other. And on Traders like us to take care of them.” She fell silent, staring into the distance.
“Yeah? And?” I was still irritated. What the hells was she getting at? And what did my father have to do with it?
“I’ve been thinking about some of the missions I was on as a Marine,” she said, still looking into the distance. “I had never really thought about them before. There was a problem on some planet; we went there, enforced the Imperial mandate on that planet, then left. I never really thought about why we were there. It was just a job.”
She refocused her gaze on me. “We were there to make sure that whatever system we were in was continuing to play its role in the Imperial economy. That’s what I’m just now starting to understand!”
“Understand what?”
“That the only way the Imperium could survive is for all of its systems to continue to support each other. And now, that support is failing!”
“What? No! OK, look, you’re getting caught up in all the conspiracies around the assassination. The Imperium…”
“Is abandoning its member systems!” she interrupted. “You’ve seen the info on the net. Look, Lucan pulled the main fleets out of the Old Expanses. Then Margaret pulled the reserve fleets out. Now, who is protecting trade there?”
“Oh, come on. Who is going to disrupt trade?”
“Pirates?”
I laughed. “Those don’t exist outside of Captain Spaceways. Someone will occasionally claim some cargo was stolen by pirates, but mostly it’s just a code-word for smugglers.”
“And with no Imperial fleet support?”
“The local systems will patrol their Jump Points! Come on, you just admitted that they all depend on trade!”
“So, when a couple of SDBs are hanging around the Jump point and demand that incoming ships transfer all of their cargo over to them, what is that?”
“No system would do that! The Imperium would…” I trailed off. I suddenly realized what she was saying.
She was nodding. “Exactly. What happens when the Imperium isn’t there anymore to enforce the Pax? When systems start getting desperate and grabbing for any resources that they can? And are willing to use their own local fleets to claim whatever resources they can.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “No system would ever try that! No one would ever trade with them again!”
“Ships can only Jump so far. Trade ships, especially. How much more cargo could we be carrying if we were a standard Beowulf-class trader? Yeah, we couldn’t make some of the Jumps we do now, but how much more profit could we be making?”
“Again, you were just telling me how well we are doing! Why are you…”
“Because every other ship out there isn’t us!” A tinge of anger entered her voice. “We have you for trade. We have Jami for keeping the ship running. We have Do’rex for getting us to where we need to go! And we have Varan and me when things go bad! We’re good! But… what about everyone else out there?”
I shook my head. “What has gotten into you! We’re…”
“Quite probably one of the best crewed and best equipped Free Traders around to deal with what is coming. That’s why our Doctor chose us. Without the Pax Imperium, a lot of worlds are going to be cut off. Without the Pax Imperium, a lot of foreign polities are going to try to take advantage of things. And, without the Pax Imperium, it will be Free Traders like us who keep worlds connected!”
I shook my head again. “Oh, come on! We aren’t ‘special,’ no matter what Doctor Korvusar might think!”
“But what if we are? We have an exceptional crew and a ship operating beyond what anyone just seeing us might think. What if we are?”
“I don’t believe in being a ‘chosen one.’ Those are fine for net-vids, but…”
“Think about every system we have visited since you became Captain.”
“What? I’m just…”
“We prevented the assassination of a political leader between Boilingbrook and Kupakii, which led to the establishment of a new polity, one that the Imperium, or at least some part of the Imperium, has recognized. At Gimisapun, you shifted the balance of power with someone who feels that they owe their success to you. And, since entering Tlianke space, we’ve apparently set some huge response into motion, even though we have no idea what we’ve gotten involved in!”
She leaned forward and took my hands. “We are important! Doctor Korvusar is right! Whatever is coming, we’re going to be one of the players in it!”
I was still shaking my head. “Look, I’m just trying to run the ship as best as I can.”
“Which means carrying cargo?”
“Yes! Of course! What the hells, we’re a Free Trader!”
“And the systems that are… difficult to get to?”
“Those are the systems willing to pay the premium!”
“So, there we go! As things fall apart, there will be more demand for ships like us, who are willing to take the risk to continue to service systems that may otherwise be cut off! That’s what makes us ‘special!'”
I started to object but stopped. I suddenly saw my father. We were in the kitchen, which seemed oddly important for some reason, but he was earnestly looking at me.
—-
Things are going to be bad for a while, he was saying to me, But it will get better soon. I promise. In the meantime, you… need to stay on the compound for a while.
Why! I responded with as much anger as a 15-year-old who thought they knew everything could bring up. You can’t tell me what to do!
He sighed and looked away. I fidgeted; I really wanted to go back and start playing my VRMMO again, but his continued presence kept me there. Usually, he was distant, emotionally, if not physically, which was most of the time. Doing “work.” But for the past few days, he had been hanging around our house and I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Have you ever heard the phrase “Noblis Oblige?” he asked, finally.
Um… yeah? It’s one of the principles of the Imperium.
But do you know what it means?
It means the people support us, and we support the people in return, right?
Close. The phrase is from Terra, in a language they called “Latin,” from 5,000 years ago. It means “Nobility obligates.” Not just that we support our people and they support us, but that we, as nobility, are obligated to take care of the people under us as best we can.
I really didn’t want to be subjected to another of his impromptu lessons. Yeah, sure. I get it…
He wasn’t looking at me as he resumed talking. But… who do we really serve? Our people, or our superiors in the Imperium?
The people here, on Keystone, right?
He sighed and shook his head. Do we? I’m… not sure anymore.
He was silent for a long time. I wasn’t sure what he was saying, but I finally got up and went around the table to give him a hug.
I trust you to do what you need to do, Dad.
He hugged me tightly back. Thank you, Derek. Thank you.
In retrospect, I could tell that he had been fighting tears as he said that. I had just wanted to go back to my room to get back on the net.
That was the last time I really saw my father.
—-
“Derek? Derek! Are you OK!” Saahna was looking at me in concern. “What’s wrong?”
I touched my face. I had been crying without realizing it. “Crap! Sorry, sorry. I’m…” I grabbed a napkin to wipe my face with.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I… I think I just now understood something that I was told long ago.”
“What?” she asked, concern in her voice.
“That we do need to make ourselves less obvious. But that, regardless of how well we are doing, we need to make sure we’re helping the systems we visit.”
“Well, yeah. That’s what I’ve been saying; we need to lower our profile.”
I shook my head. “No. We need a profile. But what we need is a different profile!”
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t need to be known as the ship that is extracting every credit out of every system we visit. Instead, we need to be known as the ship that helps the systems we visit. So, any essentials we bring in we’ll be careful to sell them at less profit. Any time we can help the locals, we do. That’s what we need to focus on!”
“But… wait! I didn’t say that we…”
“Don’t worry, we’ll still make a profit. We need that to operate.” I paused and stared at the ceiling; plans running through my head. “It’s just where we make the profit that will change. Food? Basically, at cost. Entertainment Systems? How much can I get.”
I lowered my head to look at her again. “Yeah, we’ll make less profit, overall, but we’ll be making a greater impact on the systems we visit. And Shelly will be recording all of that, and her contacts will be spreading that information around! Look, if things get bad like you said, we’ll be coming into systems that recognize us as someone who wants to help them! We’ll get support, not attacked. And that’s what we need to work toward.”
She was waving her hands. “Whoa! Wait! Calm down! Do we really want to pivot that fast?”
“Is it a ‘pivot?’ Or are we just settling into a pattern?”
“We’ll still be making a name for ourselves,” she said with a sigh.
“Yeah, but one that will make it look even worse on anyone who tries to do something to us.”
“Fair enough. But don’t get me wrong, I like our new shares. Maybe don’t take away too much from our profit?”
“Hey, you know me.”
She laughed. “Too well.”