The Pilots and the Frontier
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: After all this time, you know what this means, right? Rating: K Time: About three years after my story the Pilots and the Passengers.
Yorovak Speaker to Others spoke. "We know that the Empire has no real interest in extending itself this far out, your Emperor intends to reunite all of humanity within one political entity, plus any others such as the Vorlags and Kzin who might wish to join. Now, you just wish to enforce a peace with the pirates, warlords and raiders beyond the borders of the Spican Marches. A noble cause."
Yorovak pointed to a large hologram of the local stellar neighborhood that had appeared by him.
"We, the Confederacy of Hobbinnette, are a grouping of trading republics that covers some fifty worlds and have contacts with hundreds more. We have a strong and technologically advanced navy, not in comparison with the Empire, of course, but much more powerful that any other local power. We have been trading with the Empire through middlemen until Chupallo Far Trader visited the Empire and brought back many wonderful items. "
"We believe it would be to both parties' advantage for the Empire to have a powerful ally on the other side of the Spican Marches, and for us to have the advantage of trade and military relations with the Empire. Allow me to explain further."
Seven hours later they trudged back to Pika-Don.
"Once on a really slow night at the Jolly Spacer, I had to listen to a Senkallite miner tell me all about his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren. They were the most boring children ever, but that was better than listening to Yorovak Speaker Forever drone on and on and on."
"I had an instructor at the Kzin Space Academy that had one fighter kill to his credit. He'd explain it to his cadets micro-second by micro-second. It was action packed drama compared to that."
Castle nodded.
"That reminds me of…."
Kate cut him off.
"Not another word. If I hear one more word, my ears will start to bleed. Plus, how did I get stuck carrying all the data cubes he gave us? There must be a couple of hundred of them."
"We'll help." Simone said, taking several packs of cubes from Kate and handing them to Jane, and taking some for herself.
The next day, Castle commed Chupallo.
"It doesn't look like Tada has any useful skills, at least where the Confederacy is concerned. Do you know of any planets around here that might be able to use his engineering skills, such as they are?"
"I'm afraid not. The more prosperous planets are too advanced for his skill set, and the less advanced planets would reduce a human to slavery."
"What about Du Laric? Could Grandfather help him out, one human to another?"
"Grandfather is not a charitable man. He assisted you because he can see an advantage for himself or his family at some future time in having done a favor for the Empire." Chupallo stopped and thought. "However, there are areas of Du Laric that are not nearly as advanced as the city you saw. Tada and his family might prosper there."
"Could you take them there?" Castle quickly added, "I'd pay for their passages of course."
Chupallo smiled.
"Of course, and I'll give them a bargain price."
Once Rick had arranged passage for Tada and his family, he talked to Tada and Latad and told them what he'd arranged.
"It's not that I don't trust Chupallo. He and the whole Confederacy are too anxious to become friends with the Empire, but in the past couple of years I've become professionally paranoid and cynical. When we leave you with Chupallo, I'm going to give you ten thousand Imperial crowns. That's a very large sum of money. Since the Empire trades with Du Laric, at least indirectly, you should have no trouble getting the money accepted. But do be careful not to let anyone, anyone at all, know you have that amount of money."
Both humans nodded.
"We'll be very careful." Latad said.
They kept Tada and his family aboard the Pika-Don as they went through the Confederacy. They stopped at three planets where Chupallo had business. They were able to confirm that the planetary defenses and the ships stationed there were as they had been told. Of course, they had no way of telling if the rest of the Confederacy was as well protected.
They left the Confederacy and headed for a planet that Chupallo sometimes traded with.
"They're iron age savages, but they have some furs that are valuable. The individual hairs refract light, so that when a wearer moves, the colors of the fur change. It can be quite pleasing. I'll give you a bale to take back to the Empire. Perhaps it'll become fashionable."
"I prefer fur that remains on its original owner." Moecious grumped, but not loud enough for Chupallo to hear.
That was where they transferred Tada and his family to the Itchy Feet and began the long, lonely journey to the distant human Commonwealth. Their route took them through uninhabited and uninhabitable solar systems. They had gone over a hundred light years before their first problem.
"There are two ships ahead of us, Rick." Kate said.
"What are they doing?"
"They seem to be circling each other. I think this might be the start of a space navy battle."
"We'd better go to battle stations then."
They watched as the two ships lumbered very slowly around each other, apparently looking for an opening.
"They're huge and very slow? What kind of ships are those things?"
"Rick, I believe they have an old-fashioned K&K drive." Lindane said.
"It must be old fashioned. I've never heard of it."
"It was one of the first FTL drives, but they required engines that weighed over a million tons, so the ships were massive. They could only manage about fifteen times the speed of light and were soon made obsolete by other types of FTL drives."
"Do you think their sensors can pick us up?"
"No. I see no evidence of it."
"Okay, we'll just stay here where no one can see us and wait for them to go away or do something."
They watched for two hours as the two ships very slowly maneuvered.
"This is more fun than watching paint dry." Moecious said.
"Just be glad they aren't shooting at us." Rick replied.
"One of them has fired a missile." Lindane said.
The missile was also terribly slow. The target ship let fly with a massive blast of directed energy weapons, missiles and guns. It took twelve minutes of firing to finally destroy the incoming missile.
"An Imperial ship would have destroyed that missile in nanoseconds." Jane said. "This could take days to resolve. Weeks even. Can we just leave now?"
Rick thought and shook his head.
"We need to find out what's out here. We'll stay a bit longer."
Two hours later, both ships fired two missiles apiece, almost simultaneously. This time one missile got through. A thermonuclear explosion destroyed one ship. The other was unscathed and slowly went on its way.
"We'll go in and see what there is to see." Rick decided.
What there was to see was a collection of highly irradiated ships parts, none of which looked interesting. Something that might have been humanoid, or just an oddly shaped piece of debris, sped past them. They went on their way.
At the end of their shifts, Rick came back to the small cabin he shared with Kate to find her crying.
"What's wrong, Babe?"
"Do you know what today is?" She said through her tears.
"Tuesday?" Rick guessed.
"It's the day after Lily's fourth birthday. We weren't there for her and we didn't even celebrate here." She continued to cry as Rick held her.
"I'm sure she had a good time with Uncles Buggsy, Muggsy and Puggsy as well as Aunties Marie and Gina." Rick tried to reassure her.
It didn't work. Kate sobbed more loudly.
"She's going to grow up calling Marie Mommy and the three Vorlags Daddy."
Rick was sure that Lily was smart enough to figure out that she wasn't the offspring of a giant grasshopper and three furry party animals, but wisely said nothing. He just held Kate until she had cried herself out.
They kept heading towards the human Commonwealth and when they were within a hundred light years of its supposed borders, Lindane, again on sensors spotted something.
"Rick, I've detected a trail of ionized vanadium particles. It's a by product of some types of long obsolete FTL drives."
"Could it be from something else?"
"Perhaps, but it would be very odd for some naturally occurring ionized vanadium to form such a trail. I think it's a ship."
"Any idea what kind or where it's headed?"
"No idea of what it is, but it appears to be headed for a planet not too far off our present course."
Rick dug out the star charts they had and other information they'd acquired.
"According to what we have, there's no habitable planet anywhere near here."
Lindane shrugged.
"Not habitable by carbon based, oxygen breathing life forms. That leaves other possibilities."
"How long to get there?"
"A bit less than two days."
"Okay, we'll change course."
Two days later found them on the fringe of a solar system.
"Okay, there are no habitable planets here. At least not for people like us." Rick said.
"We have found evidence of silicon-based life forms within the Empire." Spotty said.
"All of which will need a couple of billion more years to evolve to intelligent life." Moecious added.
"Lindane, what do you see on the sensors?"
"A lot of garbage, Rick. It could be some sort of communications, or just the background noise of…That's not background noise." She suddenly said. "Something is coming our of FTL about two hundred thousand kilometers from us."
They watched the sensors and saw an oddly blocky ship head for a sub-Jovian planet, indicating the locals were hydrogen breathers.
"Okay, it's inhabited. Let's pay them a call."
The Pika-Don approached the small gas giant, making sure to not get so close as to appear threatening. Castle broadcast his message on the frequencies the locals seemed to be using.
"Greetings. I am Captain Richard Castle, commanding the Terran Imperial Space Navy ship Pika-Don. We are on a peaceful mission of exploration and mean you no harm. We would like to learn more about you and your society. Please respond."
He turned to Kate who was on the comm gear.
"Any response yet?"
"Not to us, but I'm picking up a huge spike in comm traffic all over the solar system. We got their attention."
They had to wait several hours before they got a reply. The comm screen lit up with a very bad picture of what must be one of the inhabitants of the planet. He appeared to be something like a big bee with a bit of octopus thrown in. His first words were probably in his native language, but he quickly changed to a harshly accented, but understandable form of Anglic.
"Go away. Leave. Do not approach us. We have weapons. We will fight you to the last gazzwollock. We are serious."
"We are peaceful explorers…" Castle began, but was cut off.
"We have powerful weapons. We will never surrender. Leave now or we will shoot."
"Okay, okay. We'll leave."
The Pika-Don turned around and headed for interstellar space.
"What was that all about?" Spotty asked.
Rick shrugged.
"I have no idea. They may be the most naturally xenophobic race in existence, or maybe we look like their worst nightmares come to life. They did respond in Anglic, though. They've dealt with humans before."
"Do you think this new Commonwealth is violent?" Spotty asked.
Simone and Jane both shook their heads and said "No." at the same time, then laughed.
"We are getting like Rick and Kate." Simone finally said. "But I doubt it. There's very little trade between the Empire and the hydrogen- based life forms we've encountered. We're just too different. I can't imagine a human raider attacking them. What could they have that would be worth raiding for?"
"There could be something." Spotty replied.
"It'll be decades or maybe centuries before another Imperial ship comes this way. Just chalk it up to one of the Universe's mysteries." Rick concluded.
TBC