The Pilots and the Passengers
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: You guessed it. I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: An AU future, and see below.
Authors note: This is a sequel to The Pilot, and The Pilots.
Author's note: Some sci fi fans may note some things that I have borrowed from other fandoms.
"What the hell is that?" Rick asked. "That ship looks like a giant mushroom. There's no way that a sane engineer would design an interstellar ship that looked like that. The engineering would be all wrong."
"What about that big cube just coming into view. That doesn't make any engineering sense either, lover." Kate said.
"Let's forget about the ships and check out the planet. Later, someone can come back and open a Starship Museum here." Rick decided.
"It's sort of habitable." Kate said. "But the air pressure is so low it would be like being perhaps fifteen thousand meters up on Earth. You'd need an oxygen tank. And it's damned cold."
"Just look for a big building."
They looked, but found no buildings of any sort on the planet. So, they headed for the next star. Their next stop was a red super giant.
"The star is a super giant, and so the solar system is giant." Skinny said. "Assuming we translated the old records correctly, the tenth and eleventh planets are habitable and the twelfth is marginally so at the equator."
That turned out to be incorrect.
"The tenth, eleventh and twelfth planets are gas giants." Jane said, with Kate, Simone, Andine and Lindane peering over her shoulders at the sensor readouts. "There's no way those were ever habitable by any oxygen breathers."
Lindane thought for a moment and then spoke. "I think the star is a variable star. It expands and contracts over tens of thousands of years. I think this one has probably expanded to the point where the innermost planets were destroyed by the star."
"Will it contract again?" Rick asked.
"Probably, or it might go nova, or supernova."
"When might that happen?"
Lindane shrugged. "Any time from right now to a couple of hundred thousand years from now."
Rick sighed. "Let's check out the planets, starting with the ones closest to the sun."
The first three planets were too hot to even consider landing on to check for any buildings. The fourth was cooler, relatively speaking.
"The drone shows the temperature a kilometer in the air at the equator as 152 degrees Fahrenheit." She continued as the drone flew over the planet. "153, 155, 155,160…"
"Everything on the planet that can burn or melt looks like it has." Moecious said. "I think there might have been cities down there, but the Quinncunx would spontaneously combust if we took him there and tried to use him as a key. We need to try the next planet out."
The next planet was a bit better, relatively speaking.
"Not as hot," Kate said, "but I don't see any big buildings at all. It looks like the inhabitants burrowed deep underground to escape the heat. I see no signs of any life, either."
"One more planet to go." Rick said.
The next planet was actually rather nice. What had been a cold planet with settlements only around the equator, was now rather balmy. They did take the ship down, but bearing in mind Lindane's warning that the sun could go nova, they didn't leave the ship.
"They must have left at the same time that the inhabitants of the other planets left." Skinny said. "They lived in domed structures along the equator and didn't stay long enough to enjoy the good weather."
"Looking up at the sun everyday and wondering if this was the day it was going to explode and incinerate your whole planet isn't conducive to getting a good tan." Rick said sarcastically.
Skinny shrugged. "Death is all about us. For the star, death could come now or in a hundred thousand years. I'd consider those fine odds."
"I'd consider going to a nice stable star a lot better bet."
"What do you suppose happened to all the people?" Lindane asked.
"They left." Rick said, happy to change the subject. "We've sent drones into some of the domes here. There's no sign of mass deaths, panic or disorder. It looks like everyone left in an orderly manner. They had centuries or even millennia to leave. Whether they went in FTL ships or slower than light generation ships, we'll probably never know."
"What we do know is that what we came for isn't here." Skinny broke in. "We need to leave."
The next planet was equally useless.
"I've never seen a planet like that." Kate said "What happened?"
"I've seen it, too many times." Rick said. "The planet was bombarded from space with thermonuclear weapons. The surface is nothing but overlapping, radioactive craters. Some kind of life might exist at the bottom of the deepest oceans, but I doubt it. Whoever did this wanted to exterminate all the life on the planet."
"They may still be around." Simone said.
"What? Where?" Rick demanded.
"The large moon. I'm picking up very weak radio signals."
"So?" Skinny said." The building we're searching for can't be here, even if it once was. We need to go to the next planet."
"We'll check out the moon." Rick said. "One, maybe we can help. Two, if they had the technology to reach their moon, maybe they can tell us what there is around here. Can't hurt to try."
Skinny grunted but said nothing.
They orbited the moon and scanned it.
"That's a landing spot." Kate said. "And it's near where the radio signals are coming from. We should land there."
"Okay, when we get there, Skinny, Moecious and I will check it out."
"No." Kate said. "I'm going with you. Moecious knows how to fly the ship. He flew us all the way back from the Sky Cave."
"Kate, this could be dangerous…." Rick began.
Kate cut him off. "Dangerous? Do you remember Kate's World? How about the woman known as Bent Leg? Do you remember that I killed fifty-seven Head Choppers? I did it with a bad leg and worn out weapons? Do you want to tell me about dangerous? You're my husband and I love you, and I'm tired of staying in the stupid ship. I'm going with you."
"Kate…"
This time it was Moecious that cut him off. "I'll take the pilot's chair."
"I'll look in the arms locker and see what I can get for Kate." Skinny said.
"You people do remember that I'm in command here?"
"Do you want to see just how far being in command gets you with your wife, lover?" Kate said in a very sultry voice.
Rick knew when he was beaten.
Upon landing, Rick, Skinny and Kate left the ship. They were in space suits and all were quite heavily armed. Of course, Skinny's space suit was fully armored and he carried all manner of weapons. The other two suits weren't combat armor, but were quite sturdy.
They found an airlock, and like most of its kind, it was very simple to use. And, as soon as they went through the airlock, they were in the middle of a fight. Two beings in space suits were flailing away at each other with what looked like bars of metal. Neither seemed to be doing the other any real damage.
"I don't know why they're suited up." Kate said. "The air is nominal for humans and it's rather warm."
"We'll leave the suits on in case they know something we don't." Rick said. "Skinny, can you separate those two?"
The Kzin roared, shoved the two combatants apart, then grabbed their weapons and tied them neatly into a knot.
"No wonder they weren't hurting each other. The weapons are mode of some very light alloy. Even I'd have trouble hurting someone with one of those."
"Give me back my weapon, you monster." Screamed the smaller of the two. She screamed in accented Anglic.
"You speak Anglic?" Rick said. "Are you human?"
"Of course." Once the helmet was off, they saw she was an elderly, white haired and painfully thin woman.
"I'm not human, but I speak Anglic as well." The other said. While he was humanoid in shape, bipedal with opposed arms, with his helmet off he rather looked like a walrus. It was hard to tell with unfamiliar species, but Rick thought he was old as well.
"Okay, what's going on here?"
Both started yelling at once and in no time at all, they were yelling curses at each other.
"ENOUGH!" Skinny bellowed, quieting them down. "You!" He pointed to the walrus-like alien. "We're going down the hall while Commander Castle talks to the other one."
"She'll tell you nothing but lies." He yelled as Skinny carried him down the hall.
"You're not one of us." The old woman said. "Are you from the Commonwealth?"
"The Commonwealth is gone, replaced by an Empire. Now, as quickly and succinctly as possible, tell me what happened here, from the beginning."
The old woman took a deep breath and thought for a moment. "In my great grandfather's time, there was war everywhere. The only chance our people had was to flee as far and as fast as we could. We had twenty-two ships, each carrying some five thousand people. Once we left the Commonwealth, we kept going until our ships began to fail. We stopped here, a planet with a less advanced technology than ours. At first, all was well, they welcomed us and all we could do. But then they became greedy. They wanted all we had. They demanded our secrets and all of our technology. We refused and withdrew to one part of the world below us. They attacked us and we defended ourselves. When it was over, the planet was dead. A few thousand of us and a few thousand of them were all that was left on this moon. And still we fight to keep them from slaughtering us, as they would if they could."
"Couldn't you just go elsewhere on this moon?" Rick asked.
"The moon is honeycombed with tens of thousands of miles of caves and tunnels. No one really knows how many tunnels there are, or how far they go. We can never get away from each other, so we fight."
"With clubs made out of light alloys? Neither of you could hurt each other."
"We have much better weapons, but that was all I was issued. I am no longer a Warrior Maiden, nor a Breeder for the Race. Not even a Worker. Soon I will face death. My husband died a wonderful death. He went outside and carried a bomb to where one of their tunnels neared the surface. When he blew himself up, he took many with him. I hope to die as well as he did."
"Okay, stay here. I'm going to talk to the other one."
"He'll just lie. They all do."
Rick walked to where Skinny had the other one.
"His name is Garrend. Apparently, he'll only talk to humans." Skinny said with a grin. "Of course, I could make him talk, but I have the feeling you'll have trouble getting him to shut up once he starts."
Garrend told his story. "We were a happy, peaceful people until they came, with their faster than light ships, their thinking machines, all of their technology. They acted as if we were savages and began to reorder our world to suit themselves. Our ships that mined the outer planets could not compete with their much faster ships. Thousands and thousands of spacefolk lost their livelihoods. Not that they cared. They called it progress. Oh, they had very advanced medicine, which they used to heal our wealthy and powerful, so as to bind them to their cause. When we complained, they laughed. They said we didn't understand. We should be appreciative of what they were doing for us. They did nothing for us, just for themselves. Finally, we insisted they pay taxes and obey our laws. They refused and took over part of our planet, chasing out clans that had lived there from time immemorial. People who wouldn't leave were attacked and many killed. We sent our police and military to help those of us being attacked. They used their weapons on us and we fought back. Our planet, our beautiful home was destroyed. Now we sit here on this moon and live only to kill them all and make a new home for ourselves here."
TBC