The Immortal Empire – Episode 17: Victoria II
Author's Note: Due to the unfortunate implications of the name since this after this series began, 'Karen' Badono-Badono is now 'Clara' Badono-Badono. Past chapters will be updated to reflect this change.
"What do you think of Hoburn, Harry?"
"Well, geeze, Ron. I don't think you're interested in my opinion."
"Why wouldn't I be?" Ron MacDougall was almost a little offended at his brother's accusation over the earpiece he was wearing, and being alone, made no effort to conceal the fact.
The AI voice giggled back. "Well, I've never met him to start."
"But you have seen every meeting I've had with him."
"Good point." There was a dramatic pause, as he climbed over the crest of a snowdrift. Even with the cold weather gear he was wearing, the high-latitude continent in the Victoria's southern hemisphere he'd arrived on was freezing with a bite in the current season. The whole southern hemisphere of the planet was peppered with Space Forces wreckage, more so than the north, left behind by the First Freespace War. Ron's job had been primarily in orbit, and the Shangri-La could manage without him; he wanted to see this in person.
"So?" Ron asked, with what poise he could manage with a face full of almost horizontal snow.
"Well, I think he's pretty modern for a pirate. I think he pays well. I don't think he's some deranged upstart trying to carve out his own empire, which means he's working for someone a lot higher up the food chain, even if he pretends he's not. The average person doesn't need crap this heavy."
"Well, that's a relief," Ron almost laughed.
"Is it?"
"I'm getting older. If I'm taking a job from the Kei Guild or whoever, I want it to actually be from the Kei Guild, and not some would-be emperor," he announced resolutely. "Something reasonable." Like sinking the XGP for the Space Forces, you know.
"Really? Sounds kind of boring."
"I'm tired of political crap. Political crap like Hazanko," Ron explained as he descended down the other side of the drift, boots leaving pits in the ground behind him. These weren't a good choice.
"That doesn't sound like you."
"It should," he gently corrected the voice. "Who wants to rule the Tenpa Empire? It sounds like a nightmare even on the face of it. A thousand worlds verging in bankruptcy, a decrepit war fleet like all the others, a border with the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire, rival pirates, mercs, Outlaws like us."
"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds bad. I guess you and Hoburn have that in common."
"Hoburn was military, no way he's hiding that. Rough time of it too. Probably gave his heart and soul to it, until half the fleet was axed after the Second Freespace War." Even in the sea of white, Ron could still make out a number of angular, dark colored objects in front of him, leading up to not a drift but a ridge of some kind. He continued in same direction as one of the closest came up to him: the compartmentalized service block separate from the rest of a Space Forces warship, a large one, Terran. "You know, that kind of sob story."
"What, so you think he's cobbling together a bunch of Ctarl-Ctarl weapons to get revenge on the Space Forces?"
"No," Ron said. "He's not doing this for his own ambitions. But I wouldn't be surprised if the people who hired him are a lot more selfish. There's a block here, can you do a scan of my position."
"Roger that," Harry replied, more mechanically. With some effort, Ron closed the distant to the block, literally a giant-sized cube of starship that had fallen from the sky and embedded itself awkwardly in the ground. "Looks like it came off a fighter carrier."
"How can you tell?"
"They used this modular design to transport and store smaller fighters, reconnaissance ships, that kind of thing. Allowed for quick modification based on the carrier's mission profile."
I never tire of the military's buzzwords. "I don't suppose I'm going to find an even semi-intact ship in one of these things, would I?"
"You might, actually. With good luck, a compact ship could survive reentry and impact. Maybe your instincts were right!"
Ron smirked. "I'll mark it for pickup. Even if that's true, it's not like this whole planet isn't surrounded by one gigantic warship graveyard. I just wanted to see the crater."
"Under a meter of snow?"
"Yes, under a meter of snow." Gathering himself, Ron continued onward to the next block, closer to the ridge. "Lucky you, Harry, you'll never have to march up to your knees in snow first thing after waking up in the morning."
A long bout of laughter followed, almost enough to make Ron remove his earpiece. "I don't even know where to begin, Ron. About never having snow up to my knees, or never having to wake up again."
"Don't be so dramatic, Harry," Ron chided him. "Just send out the recovery team." He wanted a moment alone, even if it was just a short one.
Hoburn, Ron decided, wasn't a serious risk. It wasn't like every client that hired his services betrayed him anyway; on the whole it was rare. Hoburn was probably being straightforward and maybe even honest with him. And that was why Hoburn wasn't telling him who was above him; it was possible he didn't even trust the infamous Ron MacDougall to recommend him further up the hierarchy, that the surviving MacDougall brother wouldn't try and play him against a rival or an enemy for more money. Don't worry about dishonesty. It's the honest people who're the real problem in the long term. There was probably no manipulating Hoburn and the mountain of Wong he'd been entrusted with.
So then maybe it's time I considered retiring, he thought. It was definitely something he didn't want to say aloud. As oppose to some nonexistent revenge on someone I'll probably never see again.
"Hey Ron? They're inbound, E.T.A. one minute."
"Cool," he concluded with mild irony. "There's another block up ahead but I can already tell someone's gotten to it. Probably salvaged, doesn't look like it tumbled open on its own or something. I'll take a closer look."
"Ron, if you're so sure it's empty, doesn't that make it past the purview of the job?"
"Yes, it is," he confessed. "But there might be something valuable still. It's not like the old days, Harry."
"I know."
As expected, the second block was empty, making it another relatively-worthless chunk of scrap near the massive crater left when a sunk warship slammed into the planet with the force of a large thermonuclear weapon. "Even with starship-grade titanium alloy, it's not worth the price to drag this off the planet I bet..." he muttered as he craned his head over and stared into it. "Huh."
"What is it, Ron?"
"Someone wrote something here."
"Really? Probably some old Ctarl-Ctarl graffiti, the navy had troop camps all over the hemisphere." Harry's general dislike for the Ctarl-Ctarl on the whole was evident.
"No, it's definitely written in English. So I'm guessing it wasn't them. Probably left by some Space Forces sailor who got stuck here."
"Check if there's a skeleton."
Ron stood up straight, frowning. "Why a skeleton?"
"Just 'cause it'd be cool, I don't know."
"Grow up, Harry." Too late for that.
He entered the block, which even flooded with snow over a couple decades was still large enough for a human male to stand it. After blinking his eyes a few times, he grumbled under his breath and produced a utility flashlight, which he pointed up against the wall. The text was handwritten with some kind of edged tool in the comparatively soft metal of a panel on the inside of the block, surprisingly legible. "Lieutenant A. S. Chandrasekhar, of the USFS Free Virtue, Ninth Expeditionary Fleet, United Space Forces, was here on Victoria II for three-hundred and thirty nine days. Escaped on craft salvaged from the descending USFS Augustus. Preserve my memory for my beloved family, the Chandrasekhars of Ji Ward, Eastern Capital, Tenpa Imperial Capital World," he read aloud. "Sounds like he found a ship inside here and tried to leave," he noted ironically.
"Sounds like a loser."
"That too," Ron conceded. Though he survived eleven months of Ctarl-Ctarl patrols. Not bad, I suppose. I don't know if I could do the same, and it'd be an ironic way to die before I retired.
Gene looked almost sick. It reminded Jim of the early days shortly after they met Melfina, when he was riding on the Horus, his first extraterrestrial flight in the years he'd known him. Except they were aboard a converted passenger liner massive enough and moving so slowly it was practically impossible to tell when they had returned to sub-ether space without looking out one of the windows that lined the halls on the passenger deck.
Looming to the far right of their view, against the stunningly bright backdrop of the Nochi-Nochi Cluster and partially obscuring a blue-white supergiant star was a super-Earth planet Terrans incorrectly called Ctarl-Ctarl Prime. It's actual name should've been Hashiyo-Hashiyo Prime, or Hokiyo, as Jim had learned an almost archaic Ctarl-Ctarl word for "home" or "homeland." Even without a convenient point of reference, Jim had enough experience in the last two years of space travel to guess that Hokiyo's diameter along the equator was between one and two times that of Earth. The planet, however, had an unusually low density for a rocky world with an iron core that gave it "only" a surface gravity of 1.3g though Jim hadn't memorized its structural composition from the reports he'd pilfered.
Gene wasn't looking at the planet. As it gradually eclipsed its large, lone star, it was possible to make out the fine details of a ring of twinkling matter orbiting the planet. For a split second, Jim thought they were ring system, but such a thin composition couldn't have survived the gravity exchange between Hokiyo and its single, massive moon, practically an Earth-like planet in its own right.
They were tens or hundreds of thousands of ships. Capital ships, orbital space stations, fortress-satellites, and various other artificial objects. Old Earth, or Terra, he remembered likewise counted tens of thousands of large satellites in its orbit, as did the capitals of the great Terran Empires, but as the passenger liner burned propellant and set its trajectory directly for the planet, it was possible for the unassisted eye to that the thin rings around Hokiyo were much, much darker colored than anything in the swarm of satellites and space stations orbiting Earth, an unsuitable color for smaller habitats measured in the hundreds of meters. At that distance, they looked like thousands of tiny asteroids captured too-neatly in Hokiyo's orbit.
"I've heard about this," Jim began informatively. "The Ctarl-Ctarl Empire keeps one of its fleets in orbit around their homeworld until it's replaced by another one. Impressive, but wasteful."
Expecting a biting rejoinder from his old friend, Jim looked over. "What, you didn't expect this? The Ctarl-Ctarl are the biggest warmongers in the known universe, or at least the most successful ones."
Jim mumble something under his breath. With his face up, eyes wide with bewilderment, it sounded less like snide muttering and more like incoherent babbling. "Huh?"
"This is much worse than I expected," Gene declared.
"What exactly did you expect?" Suzuka asked, one thin eyebrow raised. "You've been to at least two of the capitals of the Great Guilds in the time I've known you. And it's not like Aisha never missed a opportunity to reminds us of the military superiority and unstoppable might of her homeland."
"I thought Aisha was full of crap," Gene declared a little too loudly. Blushing, he turned away from the window. "Just like everyone else, don't lie. You know up till now, I've seen a grand total of one Ctarl-Ctarl star cruiser? Twice on different occasions?"
"What about the border crossing, Gene, at the DMZ?" Jim asked with a smirk.
"That doesn't count, a bunch of starships sitting on the other side of the most heavily policed border in the known universe. Besides, it was the Space Forces that were chasing us, remember?"
Suzuka glanced down at Jim who gave unimpressed shrug.
"And we're about to get a lot closer, on top of that."
"I won't dispute that," Suzuka announced. "And here they are."
Wearing her normal civilian wardrobe, Melfina came down the hall holding her small, practically-sized piece of luggage. Following her in her undersized clothes, Bethany carried a pair of large, mismatched suitcases, one on either shoulder, and with a traveling bag slung around her neck. She managed to make the effort look simultaneously easy and bothersome. "You're ready, I hope?" she demanded immediately.
"Bethany's warned us to have all our documentation on hand, any delays will only make us look more suspicious," Melfina translated with a sunny smile.
"Well, we wouldn't want to look suspicious," Jim conceded.
"Oh, and I'm not being paid to be your porter," she reminded them sharply. Gene grinned as he took his suitcase from her.
The Oroko Borono docked at its assigned high-orbit passenger terminal with the expected amount of efficiency and professionalism of a civilian transport company acclimated to not being shot at.
"I really feel like we should've worn those costumes Moran-Go gave us," Jim whispered.
"Really? 'Cause you looked stupid as hell in yours." Jim managed to restrain himself from rising to the insult.
"Trust me, those were only good for one use. If anyone asks, you changed clothes for the trip," Bethany growled gutturally.
"Good thing Terrans are famously weird," Suzuka declared casually, her tone neutral and her sarcasm unclear. In front of them, at the first section of the terminal accessible from their arrival, was a large chamber that closely resembled immigration checkpoint maintained on the border of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire's Outer Periphery border, complete with nicer-quality partitions and a higher ceiling.
"Oh, there's that gravity," Jim remarked, though he was sure it was less than the 1.3 g he expected. Perhaps they were getting newcomers acclimated step-by-step. He looked up at Bethany who was, unsurprisingly, unaffected by her weight increasing by almost thirty percent. Jim quietly held his breath as they entered the nearest queue.
"Please step to your right." The instruction came from a Ctarl-Ctarl man in a government-style greatcoat wearing a bulky headset. Gene looked startled and glanced in that direction: there was another line, albeit seemingly less crowded, there.
"Do we need to start over?"
The Ctarl-Ctarl official gave the distinct impression of not completely grasping Terran Mandarin, but did shake his head subtly and gestured with a gloved hand, suggesting his permission for them to cut in the middle of the line. Bethany's face was devoid of emotion. The four Terrans very gingerly collected their belongings and shifted across to the other queue, followed by the blonde Ctarl-Ctarl. Her ears visibly twitched when the official cocked his head and put a hand against his headset, saying something softly that wasn't in a Terran language under his breath.
"Get out your identification. Your real identification," Bethany commanded, her voice missing its usual dry disdain and taking on a cold authority.
"What's going on?" Jim asked, craning his head over and looking back and forth in opposing direction. "Jim? Melfina? Suzuka?"
"Stay calm, Jim," Suzuka instructed. Among them, she seemed the only one unalarmed. Melfina shrank towards Gene's larger frame, his own eyes wandering back and forth.
"It's fine. I'll try and meet up with you. Call Moran-Go once you can," Bethany instructed, her words slow and succinct, as if trying to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding. Behind and in front of them in the queue, the Ctarl-Ctarl had begun shifting away, leaving open space around them—the Silgrians and Terrans caught on shortly after, beginning to chatter among themselves, in contrast to the dead silence of the Ctarl-Ctarl.
This is how it happens. This is the last thing we all see before we spent the rest of our lives in some Imperial prison, Jim reflected. Even in his own head, it sounded ridiculous. He looked up at Gene, his eyes were still jumping back and forth, even if his face was frozen. One arm was clasped around Melfina's shoulder protectively, the hand of the other clutching his identification. He envied Gene.
From the direction of the inspection desks, a different group of Ctarl-Ctarl officials, of both sexes and with a different color greatcoats and a distinctly more martial air about them despite only being armed with leather holsters on their belts, stomped in on their noisy boots. An identical looking group came in from the other direction. Behind the first group, a tall woman approached—tall relative to Aisha Clan-Clan, because otherwise there was much to remind them of Aisha.
With nothing else to do, Jim studied her intently. She was not particularly attractive, not in the way most Ctarl-Ctarl women in Terran space tended to be, with her tall frame close in height to Suzuka's. She was a gangly almost, with long, muscular arms and legs, visible by virtue of her style of dress: she wore one of Aisha Clan-Clan's low-cut breastplates, buffed to a nearly metallic shine unlike the worn-out white composite material Aisha's had been, over a short dark green miniskirt with gold trim and leggings reaching down to leather boots. Neither was repaired with improvised patches, unlike Aisha's clothing had always been. Over her shoulders she lacked large, segmented pauldrons Aisha wore, instead wearing much smaller spaulders wrapped closely her shoulders, and in lieu of a scarf seemed to be wearing a particularly rich, finely-textured cape that was neatly bunched together over one shoulder, exposing sleeves of fine material that matched her skirt running down to long gloves. Instead of a comically large brass bell, she wore an expensive-looking necklace holding a single, large star inlaid with an absurd number of tiny gems in a geometric pattern—inevitably some kind of rank badge, Jim knew. Likewise, the tiara she wore under her thick dark-blond bangs was far thinner and made of fine material. On the whole, Jim thought, she wasn't unattractive either—her body had that inevitably muscularity that every single Ctarl-Ctarl seemed to possess, but not the obviously large bust that Bethany had been showing off constantly. Despite or because of the resemblance to Aisha, she didn't quite drip with that sort of natural charisma or sexual charm that Ctarl-Ctarl women, at least those who immigrated, could apparently summon with little effort. She looked keen, smart, and older—a neat, disciplined appearance in her body, yet with narrow, qualified dark eyes, instead of the emotive blue orbs in Aisha's head.
"I am Clara Badono-Badono," she announced, right to the point, seeming to mask her accent by volume, flanked on other side by officials, as if it were necessary to give further sigh of her superior status.
She reminded Jim of someone else, but he couldn't quite place who. "And you are the crew of the Outlaw Star," repeating what seemed painfully obvious at this point. "With one exception."
Two officials audibly grabbed Bethany, one on either muscular arm, immediately taking the attention from their superior. Bethany gave an irritable grunt and a look of disdain in either direction, but only struggled for a fraction of a second, just long enough for Gene to closely study the motions of her body moving underneath her overtaxed white blouse. Jim sighed loudly at him.
She said something in Ctarl-Ctarl—one of her captors seemed about to respond, before her superior cut her off, in the same tongue. Then Bethany said nothing, sulking in place, another button on her blouse missing. Gene was still staring at her when one of the captors saluted shortly. "Lady Clara."
Lady Clara nodded, then looked back at them. "Don't concern yourself with her."
"Should we be worried about ourselves?" Jim asked, the accusing tone the most he could muster in bravado.
"No." The response surprised him, as an official behind her stepped forward and collecting their papers. "Gene Starwind, James Hawking, Tasogare no Suzuka, and Melfina Khann. You're here on behalf of a foreign government to complete an arms trade with the Ctarl-Ctarl Imperial government. And I am here on behalf of that government to see that this is completed smoothly." Her Terran, all things considered, was excellent, but then again so had Aisha's been even when they first met.
"Huh," was what Gene managed, rather casually, after he finally turned away from Bethany. Jim gave Gene a clear look, and Gene managed an equally-clear response: don't ask about their guide, the one who was being escorted away under force.
"Please gather your belongings." Her eyes wandered briefly at the large attaché case that Gene had not parted with that day. "We've made arrangements for visa and permits." With that, Lady Clara turned, her textured cape briefly unfolding out behind her, and led the way.
"And that's it?" Melfina asked. She hadn't gotten the message they had, and gave Bethany a long glance as she departed, an official at either arm.
"That's it," Suzuka conceded.
Jim didn't look back, and watched Lady Clara and her entourage moving away. "Now I remember. She reminds me of Hild."
Terms to know:
Mandarin Chinese (官话) - Tied with English as the lingua franca in most Terran worlds we see in Outlaw Star, particularly Heifong. Aside from the use of loanwords, Mandarin or "Standard Chinese" is not particularly compatible with English, and vice versa, leading to multiple incidents of simultaneous English and Chinese text appearing, seemingly interchangeably in the series. Gene Starwind seems capable of reading Chinese, as regularly appears in the Outlaw Star's instrumentation, if not outright speaking it. As it is not particularly exclusive to China on Earth, "Terran Mandarin" or "Tenpa Mandarin" is also sometimes used to describe it.
Hashiyo-Hashiyo Prime - The formal political name for the Ctarl-Ctarl Hokiyo, or homeworld, in conventional Terran use. Each of the three Ctarl-Ctarl stellar imperial dynasties each renamed the planet, and home system, after themselves.
Nguyen Khann (阮可汗) - Also transliterated "Gwen Khan", the scientist charged with the Keyline Project and and the development of both the XGP-15A-II and Melfina VSD02C, effectively her creator.
Victoria II - Second planet in the Victoria star system in what was contested space between the Ctarl-Ctarl and Terran empires, and the terminus of the Abaoaqu Line. In the last year of the First Freespace War, a major Terran Space Forces fleet was routed in the start of a series of major setbacks that eventually led the Terrans to negotiate for peace and abandon a number of planets, Victoria II included.