Chapter One - Extraction [2]
Oh wow, you could just taste the hostility in the air. "Stand down!" Captain Nobel barked in a hurry. On my face remained a blank smile.
In my mind, I was going (Well, shit. So the Nautilus Pirates are a thing? I… may be contractually obligated to hunt down and exterminate pirate scum.) Slowly I withdrew my hand. "If you know your classics well, Captain, you should also know that Nemo has more reason than anyone to despise pirates."
He sighed and rubbed at his faceplate. "Please, I apologize for my crew. They're just stressed. We mean you no harm and we're still thankful for the rescue…" and here he coughed "Mister Nemo? Captain Nemo?"
"Commander, if you please. There's only so far we can go having fun with the classics."
"Commander Nemo, then. Again, my thanks. The Gaian Navy will surely compensate your time for this."
I waved aside. "Don't worry about it. Welcome aboard the Matilda. I'm going to have to apologize for the lack of creature comforts." I looked past him to the lifeboats. "Actually, do you have any coffee in your supplies? I haven't had any in ages. This ship doesn't even have a kitchen."
Confusion settled across his features. The Hulk-class Matilda was, very obviously, a ship made for the long haul. You could take half an army of troops in one. Even a civilian cargo ship, made to maximize container capacity, was designed to make life as convenient as possible for its crew.
Captain Nobel licked his lips, his lower teeth catching the edge of his bushy mustache, and hesitantly broke the unmissable detail. "May I ask, where is the rest of your crew, Commander?"
"There isn't any." I replied with a somewhat demented grin. "This ship was completed in a hurry and it's on autonav." I spread out my arms. "If you're willing to fight me to seize it, you'll probably succeed."
He blinked in surprise, but rallied quickly. "Oh. I don't think that's any –"
"But that doesn't matter anyway. I'm going to give it to you. Captain Nobel! I, Commander Nemo, formally declare my intent to defect to the Gaian Faction of the planet Chiron."
"What."
The Matilda was just a big-ass barge.
Early in the war, we'd already decided to abandon such silly things are MREs in favor of intravenous nutrient feeds. Flash-cloned soldiers had a life-expectancy of seconds. The plans for the Hulk-class Transport Vessel held in my memory banks was never meant to service human beings.
The bridge still had manual controls though. The actually command core was buried deep in the bowels of the ship. Such an artifact remained because there was still the possibility of a human being taking control; the only human being in an army of K-bots. Me.
The ARM Commander.
It's not like it added any more seconds to the nanolathing. We did have to remove the kitchen and the mess hall to make room for more K-Bots. Complexity was never an issue, but volume could not be compromised.
I've fought in planets were the sky was literally poison, the seas literally acid. This version of the Hulk was the design used during the very apex of the War, just prior to the siege on Core Prime. Yet in the Hulk there was still the possibility for life support and environmentally-sealed chambers.
Is it not inefficient?
I guess some small part of me hoped that we might find some pocket of human life out there, somehow having escaped the war. Somehow I hoped that a refugee ship might be needed.
Even Empyrean was not spared. There were no more civilians. Our only hope was to defeat the CORE and then, using stored genetic material and mental maps, rebuild our civilization using clones. It was perhaps the greatest irony of the war that we had to rely on something practically identical to the CORE's demand for mind uploads – patterning – only the difference is that we worked the opposite way. Fresh brains made with old minds.
A part of me still believes it is that hope which gave us strength and drive greater than the cold logic of CORE. The mind that hopes, that entertains delusions when there is no hope of success, is one that can dare where the odds speak against it, and somehow prevail.
It was not hatred that drove us to Core Prime. It was the fervent belief that the end was in sight.
We won against the brilliance of the CORE Commander because our minds sang with promise of victory. We leapt past the limitations of the program. And the murder-machine that was CORE was extinguished at last.
Prior to the CORE Contingency, there was a hundred years of peace, a rebirth of civilization, and time to rediscover the lost technologies. Civilian technologies like micro-lathes, the stored holographic build patterns of ancient cultural treasures, and genetic recipes for long-extinct flora and fauna - we rebuilt. And we sang. I experienced very little of that, the last and victorious ARM Commander choosing to rest at last.
The sword, once turned into a plowshare, has no place in the new galaxy. And that was just fine.
I chose this pattern of the Hulk because it was the easiest to produce and lacked the micro-lathes that could replicate near anything out of raw Metal and Energy. As I said, this ship would be my gift to the Gaians.
Why them?
Because "I" am different from the "me" that fought CORE. I cannot bear to remake ARM again from the genetic information in my databanks. I am a human being that craves companionship that won't look at me as if I'm some form of a god. I cannot be a culture's progenitor, no, not again.
It feels… disrespectful… to the children that I've failed to protect.
The Gaians may end up proving totally nutso, but at least they may be manageable nutbars.
The sixteen survivors lounged around the control room, sitting on the bare hull. The ship, to them, looked very obviously unfinished. Yet, the fact still remained that it was such a big-ass ship. It was practically a floating base. It could be useful in so very many ways. Now they could finally take off their clumsy enviro-suits with the large transparent helmets. As they ate biscuits and drank their coffee, laughing and chatting amongst themselves, they shot suspicious glances towards where I and Captain Nobel stood over a tabletop that doubled as a tactical screen.
"Lady Dierdre is always ready to accept new citizens into the fold, but if you're going to formally defect, doesn't that mean you need to say who – or what – you're defecting from?" (Where did this monster of a ship come from?!) he wanted to ask, but didn't want to breach propriety with his rescuer.
"I am Nemo. I'm as stateless as you can get." I paused to take a sip from the plastic cup-cover of a battery-powered thermal flask. Hot instant coffee - ah. Such bliss. "I guess you could say… I am a defector from decadence?"
His eyes narrowed. Morgans? Probably Morgans. It was predictable, they were the only ones on Planet with the industrial capacity for this. And the whole thing does look like something stolen out of drydock.
"You people don't have a world map yet?" I asked in turn. "Whatever happened to the planetary survey?"
"The Unity was sabotaged on the approach to the Alpha Centauri system. There was no time to perform a survey." The question didn't trouble him, it seemed it may not be common knowledge. But then "… what do you mean 'you people'?" Captain Nobel asked in a carefully even tone.
"Uh. Gaians? You know. People. A cultural group?" I blinked. "Did I say something offensive? If so, I apologize."
"No, no. I'm the one who should apologize." He sighed again and sagged. He lost three ships just less than an hour ago, and over three dozen comrades. "I'm over-reacting. Please, excuse me."
I must have triggered something from how the Spartans act with the pacifistic Gaians. For it was they that attacked and destroyed the convoy and its escorts. I turned to the map again.
The Gaians were settled along the left side of the vertical chain of mountains called the Pholus Ridge. It was the upper-left part of an L-shaped continent that they shared with two other factions. Below them, near the center around the great Freshwater Sea were the Spartans. Then to the right of them, the Morganites.
I pointed to the Sea of Nessus right below the Morgans territory. "You are very far from home, Captain."
To reach it, they either must go through the Howling Straits along southern polar caps, which is completely under Spartan control, or the very long way around the continent up towards the Great Northern Ocean, down the Sea of Pholus, head east through the Mouth of Hercules, carefully navigate through the Straits of Prometheus, circle around past the Geothermal Shallows and around the Ixion isle that contained the supervolcano Mount Planet, past its partner isle, some more island chains, then finally the deep Sea of Nessus.
Obviously, most trade happened around the Mouth of Hercules, since above it is the continent where the University of Planet and Peacekeepers lived. But what was valuable enough to send the Gaians into the Sea of Nessus?
Caution warred with gratitude on Nobel's face, until finally he relented. "We were scouting ahead for a Sea Colony Pod. The ocean shelf off to the west of the Nephelen Isle has the potential for a self-sustaining trade base. The Morgans were willing to allow us to set up a colony because they... lack the patience to stay in one place too far from the intrigues and luxuries of their celebrities. They get the benefit of extra income from tariffs, but they don't have to work for any of it offshore."
"Why would the Spartans attack you? Are you at war?"
He shook his head. "The Spartans are blockading the Nessus Gulf, forcing the Morgans to send their goods all the way around the Pheres Arch to the mines at Ixion and vice versa." At least the Sea Colony Pod managed to get away. A thousand civilians… surely not even the Spartans would be that murderous? "Our attempt to build a colony, and our neutrality, may have seemed a way for Morgan Industries to loophole through the conflict between them and the Spartan Federation."
I clacked my tongue. "You know, I don't personally have any experience with Santiago's faction, but I have a strong feeling after attacking your ships they'll use this as a casus belli anyway. They're going to extort Lady Deidre for the effort of killing you, or risk even more of her people being put to the sword."
Nobel hissed. "Quite so, sir. That is my fear."
People dying for little more than political points; no wonder Gaians seemed so isolationist. This deal with the Morganites surely had some hell of a sweetener. I guessed that with the Gaian emphasis on ecological harmony, they had very poor resource extraction from the mountains of the Pholus Ridge. Later I would learn that a lot of their income came from offshore kelp farms and tidal harnesses, rather than messy Mines and Solar Collectors.
The game was just an abstraction. I could not be sure that they could really command Mind Worms just from a positive Planet rating in the early phase of colonization. Some of my other memories hinted that the Gaians only managed to make practical combat use of Mind Worms at a time when Needlejets and Hovertanks were in use. And against Morganite troops at that.
"I see. Well. This doesn't impact my decision to apply for citizenship," I gestured around the bridge "But as you can see, this ship really isn't meant for long-term occupancy. I may have to put you to shore on a Morgan base, then sail off towards Gaia's Landing. Is that acceptable?"
Nobel nodded. "That would be fine, Commander. You'll have our commendations radioed ahead."
"The Matilda isn't very fast. It'll take a day or so whether we go north or east." Probably better to head north anyway, for a much shorter trip home.
"Our supplies were meant to last for nine days, up to fifteen with rationing." Yet it was clear he had no confidence the Morgans would send any rescue ships at all. "Sir, we cannot thank you enough. But are you sure that it's fine for you?"
"The Morgans have no… legitimate… reason to be hostile to me, captain."
He didn't look much convinced.
By early morning the next day, the Matilda's radar made out a landmass nearby. Also, two ships on the approach.
"Attention, unidentified vessel! You are entering Morgan territory. Halt and state your purpose, or we will be forced to declare you a hostile entity and due lethal force. This is your first and final warning!"
"Good morning Morgan ships! This is the ARM Free Vessel Matilda. I bear you no harm and just want to dock and offload some people you might be missing." I replied over the radio, then gave way for Captain Nobel.
"This is Captain Nobel, previously of the Gaian ship Rosinbloom. We passed through this area four days ago. Our ships were sunk by Spartan ships in an unprovoked attack. We were picked up by the Matilda, and we would very much appreciate it if we were allowed to disembark and contact our Embassy."
"Cut your engines, Matilda. You will submit to a search."
"No problem." I responded.
Captain Nobel was sweating. I'd admitted to him last night that the Matilda had a Fusion power plant. The Morgans might decide to just keep this ship.
"Say, what are those Foils armed with, anyway?"
"I'm not sure, but it's likely they hold Gatling Lasers. Armor's probably Plasma Steel. They're deadly ships… maybe slightly more powerful than Spartan ships, but the Spartans just have more. Particle Impactors and Plasma Steel Foils aren't that much inferior."
"Mmm. What were your ships armed with, Captain?"
"Laser Cannons on a Sythmetal hull." There was no harm in admitting how the Gaians did not have advanced military technology.
The two Foils came abreast of the Matilda. They were 162 meters long, and how they looked so tiny seen from high up in the bridge tower. My deck was so tall, even the tallest portion of their mast barely reached halfway. The Gaian crews had to lower down a ladder.
And quite soon enough, I had heavily-armed men inside my control room pointing guns at my face. I grinned.
One of them walked over, put a hand on my shoulder, spun me around, and slammed my face onto the bridge consoles.
"That's uncalled for!" Captain Nobel yelled. "We have diplomatic rights! This ship belongs to a neutral party to the war!"
"You've got no right to do this!" one of the Gaian crew shouted in support. She still did have her hands raised, because though a pacifist she was not a moron.
"Let him go!"
"Silence! We're taking command of this ship as a possible security risk. You will be taken into custody pending an investigation. You will comply." Morgan Security Forces in their matte black bodysuits nudged their rifles up, communicating how they'd have zero qualms at summarily executing everyone on the bridge.
"Ahm okay." I mumbled from having my face pressed onto a monitor. "It's only mah nose that's busted." The grin on my face was bloody yet unbroken.
Captain Nobel's sour face showed that he was starting to realize that all-hands-lost scenario might make for a better martyr story to drive the Gaians into the war just to distract the Spartans.
MEMSTOR from DATALINKS keyword "Unity Mission"
- n received:
In 2060, after decades of resource wars and a world apparently plunging inevitably into self-destruction, the leaders of the world united to construct a massive colony ship so that mankind would have fresh start elsewhere. The starship Unity was launched towards Alpha Centauri in the year 2060. Ten thousand crew, disavowing their previous countries of origin, so that they may start anew without the baggage that caused so much internecine conflict on Earth, would colonize the planet named "Chiron".
However, on the approach to the star system, unknown saboteurs damaged the Unity and Captain Garland, the only man respected by the different strong personalities of the command crew, was murdered by an unknown assailant. With the ship falling apart around them, the crew woke up the people sympathetic to their cause and evacuated the Unity on Colony Pods to land and begin anew on the planet below.
These would turn into the Factions of Planet, new cultures driven the by philosophies of their leaders.
Chiron was habitable, if just barely. It was a world hostile to the presence of mankind, but the greatest danger would always be each other. The Unity Mission was their last, best hope for unity - and now each of these factions leaders believe that they hold the true path for humanity's prosperity and enlightenment. Who will prove their cause to be the strongest and the most righteous in the end?
MEMSTOR from DATALINKS keyword "Stepdaughters of Gaia"
- n received:
The Stepdaughters of Gaia (Gaians) are led by Deidre Skye, the Unity's Chief Biologist and Xenobotanist. They prefer a "Green" society, founded on ecological conservation and living in harmony with Planet.
In the great commons at Gaia's Landing we have a tall and particularly beautiful stand of white pine, planted at the time of the first colonies. It represents our promise to the people, and to Planet itself, never to repeat the tragedy of Earth.
- Lady Deirdre Skye, "Planet Dreams"
