Law's End (3 page)
Authors: Glenn Douglass
Tags: #adventure, #travel, #dog, #future, #space, #rescue, #supercluster
Chapter 2: "The Sabha"
FOR SALE: Previously owned (demilitarized)
Nadir class starship. All systems are in working order and suitable
for a variety of commercial and private uses. No reasonable offer
will be refused. Serious inquiries should contact owner at this
link.
-Classified advertisement.
precisely where indicated in the large cylindrical hanger. The
robot's tiny sensor mount head swiveled to assess the approval of
the individual directing their work. In many deliberate ways the
robot mimicked a well trained pet in the fashion that was intended
to help those who suffered from common robot related phobias.
Ursula Greene gave the machine a forced smile
and nod in order to dismiss it as she struggled to adjust her new
spacer's suit for the umpteenth time. At a tenth over two meters in
height she'd found plenty of off the rack options that were
presumably compatible with her fashionably well defined
musculature. After thousands of years of space travel she expected
that the compact and light weight life support suits should have
fit like a glove. In spite of this history the life support systems
built into what looked like no more than a one piece swimsuit over
the skin tight pressure garment kept shifting to her left. This
perpetual shifting required her to periodically twist and stretch
her torso to force the suit back around to where its weight was
more evenly distributed.
Whistling happily the cargo handling robot
lifted up and out of the hanger leaving Greene rolling her
shoulders in exaggerated fashion. It was an act of mild
desperation, taking of advice from the store clerk who had sold her
the suit, and ignored the many years of experience from Greene's
own youth. Amazingly this act did manage to seat the suit properly
and in fact it now felt more natural on her form than it had since
she'd first put it on. Experimentally twisting and flexing Greene
smiled approvingly at the fit then cycled through the preprogrammed
high visibility patterns until settling on a light pink and yellow
combination.
A twinge of unease swept over her as she
remembered that the suit was all that might stand between her and
death by vacuum or radiation. She'd practically grown up in space,
and at one time had been comfortable with its dangers and
methodical procedures that kept them at bay. It wasn't until the
second year she'd spent down a world's gravity well that the weight
of having to constantly check and double check life vital systems
finally lifted. Now the quiet fear threatened to rush back with its
insistent demanding that she check her new suit's systems and then
check them again.
It went without saying that Greene would have
given just about anything to avoid going into space. These days she
was a data analyst with a narrow specialist set of skills and not a
heroic deep space rescue crewman. It also went without saying that
for the mission to have the best chance of success someone who knew
what to expect should be along.
In the absence of the rest of the research team
Misses Ursula Greene had been left as the leading Laws End expert
on this side of the barrier. Abstract analysis of non-mathematical
data that had to be justified to predictive models that in turn
were based on very fluid math was a highly specialized field with
few practitioners. That she hadn't been in the actual field where
the work was being done had been almost purely a result of her
almost phobic aversion to space travel of any kind.
Having grown up the daughter of an ambitious
corporate troubleshooter, whose work had taken them all over the
hundred thousand galaxies, Greene had developed a keen love of
routine and predictability. The old adage that there was 'no
substitute for being there' had no weight when she measured it
against 'all the comforts of home'. Her father had risen through
the ranks to achieve his goals and his daughter had worked hard to
create a life for herself that was as much the polar opposite of
what she had grown up with as possible.
It was Greene's own distaste for space travel
that made her involvement in the whole disaster that much more
frustrating. If she'd simply heeded her own wisdom in the first
place she would now be safely at home with her husband. Instead
she'd convinced herself and then her husband to take the job that
had ultimately stranded him beyond Law's End. All the opportunities
that the work would have opened up for both of them had been
greedily pursued against her own common sense.
That it was very likely neither of them would
have a job, if and when they made it back, was of little concern.
Abandonment by the University was just another obstacle to be
overcome, and one quite distant. Questions of 'how' demanded
answers and questions of 'what next' would wait. The only thing
that mattered now was saving the man she'd promised to spend the
rest of her life with.
Ideally they'd have recruited a licensed rescue
and recovery operation, however there simply weren't any both able
and willing to take the job. After that option had been exhausted
word had gotten around and even the salvage crews quickly refused
any part of the rescue. In the end Fitzgerald had been forced to
call upon less reputable resources who wouldn't ask any questions
as long as the money was right.
In the time of plenty and peace that those
alive had been lucky enough to be born into there were few willing
to risk their lives for simple monetary rewards while the vastness
of space rendered pursuits of fame meaningless. The richness of
Laniakea and advances in technology provided even the poorest a
standard of living unimaginable in ages past. It took a special
sort of madness to make someone willingly work in that deadliest of
environments and University professionals sometimes found
cultivating such contacts to be worthwhile.
Under the spinning wheels of commerce and well
below any sense of greater belonging it was the steady flow of
information that was the glue that made things work. Nothing else
came close to the universal appeal of information among the
radically alien and loosely associated civilizations of Laniakea.
Fortunes could be spent but information was eternal, and it was the
University that kept the flow of information going.
Whenever Greene permitted herself to fume
internally for a moment about the University's abandoning of the
expedition the release only served to fuel her frustration. It was
frustrating that all the progress they'd made was now going to be
lost. It was even more frustrating that they'd had to rely on some
kind of space-pirate to do the work more reputable persons would
not.
On its face the idea of a space-pirate was
something Greene found laughable. That someone might fancy
themselves in that image was certainly possible, but it mainly
spoke to mental illness. That anyone could long ply such a trade
was implausible. That the person in question would go to such
lengths to modify a vessel for that purpose was worrying. Taken
altogether the vessel she now looked over told a story that was
equal parts troubling and absurd.
Greene was going over the manifest for the
third time when at the other end of the hanger the space-pirate in
question arrived. Even though the figure was obscured by the bulk
of the spacecraft Greene had already painted a complete portrait of
a self-envisioned swashbuckling rogue in her mind. She found that
she was annoyed with the individual before having ever met them and
rather than introduce herself Greene began organizing the cargo and
ignoring the ship's captain entirely.
For his part Kassad made no move to introduce
himself as he was captivated by the stark beauty of his vessel. It
never failed to make Kassad's heart leap when setting eyes on his
ship after a separation no matter how short. The pride and joy of
Kassad's life was the Sabha. Every line and surface about her spoke
to Kassad of opportunities and freedom.
The Sabha had started its life as a classic
Terran design long range patrol ship where it had served
unspectacularly for many years until finally retired. Sold at
auction she'd been converted to use as a speculative merchant and
passed through several hands in strokes of fortune both good and
bad. Finally she'd been rebuilt as a jack-of-all-trades
adventurer's ship.
At least that's what it said in the official
registries. Of course what some called adventuring other less
charitable sorts called smuggling, blockade running, and sometime
pirating. More often than not it was the legitimate work as
speculative merchant, long range survey freelancer, and contract
transport that kept the books in the black and the authorities from
labeling her a pirate vessel. Sabha did it all and she did it
well.
Sabha was a windowless sleek and sturdy craft
with many fine attributes inherited from her military design. The
glossy black flattened and conjoined tear drop hull was a
concession to atmospheric maneuvering that did much to minimize her
cross section to active scans. Inside the hull the graceful sloping
provided many small voids around the hull of which any number could
see service as concealed smuggler's holds.
The Sabha's combat grade hull was
compartmentalized, armored, and heavily shielded against radiation
and magnetic effects. Originally outfitted with a military
specification plasma shield, long since removed, this had allowed
her to lurk inside otherwise deadly zones of radiation. In private
service these features had allowed her to undertake dangerous and
lucrative missions to map the edges of Law's End without making the
task a suicide mission.
Military service and private Law's End mapping
missions were all part of Sabha's history before coming into
Kassad's possession. His relationship with the vessel that now
provided and consumed most of his livelihood had begun only a
decade prior. It had been a love at first sight which had only
intensified as he came to know her strengths more intimately.
It terms of her prowess there were few ships
faster or more maneuverable under slower than light conditions.
Sporting a conventional iron core reactionless drive ample to a
vessel of her mass Sabha could maintain one and a half gravity
acceleration as long as power was supplied to it. Reactionless
thrust was supplemented by a pair of fuel guzzling independently
vectored fusion drives that could briefly increase acceleration to
an excess of six gravities of acceleration.
In addition to her conventional propulsion
systems Sabha had been equipped with two separate drive systems for
faster than light travel both of which operated on different
principles. There was a fourth generation long range jump drive for
instantaneous travel, and then there was a more modest sixth
generation warp drive for both shorter distances and long duration
flights. Neither of these systems were original equipment as those
had been outdated even before her initial retirement. With shrewd
use of the drive systems the Sabha could travel anywhere within the
hundred thousand galaxies, no matter how isolated or remote, in
under a month.
As a civilian ship all of Sabha's weapons had
been removed for the sake of appearances, but those appearances
were only surface deep. While the authorities may look dimly upon
military weapons on a civilian craft they wouldn't look twice at a
mining survey laser or long range gas analysis particle beam. Each
was tuned to work exactly as advertised and in a pinch could be
safely overloaded to provide long range firepower not too
dissimilar to what the ship had originally been outfitted for.
In all respects Sabha was a fine ship, and she
was probably as perfect for this mission as any other that could be
named. Unfortunately that was an assumption based on almost no
evidence. It was one thing to skirt the edges of Law's End. It was
something else entirely to dive fully in. Few ships, no matter how
well outfitted, had ever returned from deep dives through the
barrier.
There were a lot of unanswered questions. There
were a lot of potentially deadly variables. Unfortunately the
people with the answers were all beyond Law's End and a great deal
would have to be taken on faith.
Thirty years worth of income encouraged a lot
of faith, but Kassad was no simple mercenary. More than the
financial incentive there was the potential to have some of
Laniakea's finest minds indebted to him in gratitude for saving
their lives. Thumbing his nose at the University which had
effectively exiled him was a serious temptation as well. Perhaps
more than anything else after hearing spacer's tales about the
barrier for so many years Kassad just wanted to see what all the
fuss was about with his own eyes. On faith he felt that with all
things considered together the job had to be worth some risk.
FOR SALE: Previously owned (demilitarized)
Nadir class starship. All systems are in working order and suitable
for a variety of commercial and private uses. No reasonable offer
will be refused. Serious inquiries should contact owner at this
link.
-Classified advertisement.
precisely where indicated in the large cylindrical hanger. The
robot's tiny sensor mount head swiveled to assess the approval of
the individual directing their work. In many deliberate ways the
robot mimicked a well trained pet in the fashion that was intended
to help those who suffered from common robot related phobias.
Ursula Greene gave the machine a forced smile
and nod in order to dismiss it as she struggled to adjust her new
spacer's suit for the umpteenth time. At a tenth over two meters in
height she'd found plenty of off the rack options that were
presumably compatible with her fashionably well defined
musculature. After thousands of years of space travel she expected
that the compact and light weight life support suits should have
fit like a glove. In spite of this history the life support systems
built into what looked like no more than a one piece swimsuit over
the skin tight pressure garment kept shifting to her left. This
perpetual shifting required her to periodically twist and stretch
her torso to force the suit back around to where its weight was
more evenly distributed.
Whistling happily the cargo handling robot
lifted up and out of the hanger leaving Greene rolling her
shoulders in exaggerated fashion. It was an act of mild
desperation, taking of advice from the store clerk who had sold her
the suit, and ignored the many years of experience from Greene's
own youth. Amazingly this act did manage to seat the suit properly
and in fact it now felt more natural on her form than it had since
she'd first put it on. Experimentally twisting and flexing Greene
smiled approvingly at the fit then cycled through the preprogrammed
high visibility patterns until settling on a light pink and yellow
combination.
A twinge of unease swept over her as she
remembered that the suit was all that might stand between her and
death by vacuum or radiation. She'd practically grown up in space,
and at one time had been comfortable with its dangers and
methodical procedures that kept them at bay. It wasn't until the
second year she'd spent down a world's gravity well that the weight
of having to constantly check and double check life vital systems
finally lifted. Now the quiet fear threatened to rush back with its
insistent demanding that she check her new suit's systems and then
check them again.
It went without saying that Greene would have
given just about anything to avoid going into space. These days she
was a data analyst with a narrow specialist set of skills and not a
heroic deep space rescue crewman. It also went without saying that
for the mission to have the best chance of success someone who knew
what to expect should be along.
In the absence of the rest of the research team
Misses Ursula Greene had been left as the leading Laws End expert
on this side of the barrier. Abstract analysis of non-mathematical
data that had to be justified to predictive models that in turn
were based on very fluid math was a highly specialized field with
few practitioners. That she hadn't been in the actual field where
the work was being done had been almost purely a result of her
almost phobic aversion to space travel of any kind.
Having grown up the daughter of an ambitious
corporate troubleshooter, whose work had taken them all over the
hundred thousand galaxies, Greene had developed a keen love of
routine and predictability. The old adage that there was 'no
substitute for being there' had no weight when she measured it
against 'all the comforts of home'. Her father had risen through
the ranks to achieve his goals and his daughter had worked hard to
create a life for herself that was as much the polar opposite of
what she had grown up with as possible.
It was Greene's own distaste for space travel
that made her involvement in the whole disaster that much more
frustrating. If she'd simply heeded her own wisdom in the first
place she would now be safely at home with her husband. Instead
she'd convinced herself and then her husband to take the job that
had ultimately stranded him beyond Law's End. All the opportunities
that the work would have opened up for both of them had been
greedily pursued against her own common sense.
That it was very likely neither of them would
have a job, if and when they made it back, was of little concern.
Abandonment by the University was just another obstacle to be
overcome, and one quite distant. Questions of 'how' demanded
answers and questions of 'what next' would wait. The only thing
that mattered now was saving the man she'd promised to spend the
rest of her life with.
Ideally they'd have recruited a licensed rescue
and recovery operation, however there simply weren't any both able
and willing to take the job. After that option had been exhausted
word had gotten around and even the salvage crews quickly refused
any part of the rescue. In the end Fitzgerald had been forced to
call upon less reputable resources who wouldn't ask any questions
as long as the money was right.
In the time of plenty and peace that those
alive had been lucky enough to be born into there were few willing
to risk their lives for simple monetary rewards while the vastness
of space rendered pursuits of fame meaningless. The richness of
Laniakea and advances in technology provided even the poorest a
standard of living unimaginable in ages past. It took a special
sort of madness to make someone willingly work in that deadliest of
environments and University professionals sometimes found
cultivating such contacts to be worthwhile.
Under the spinning wheels of commerce and well
below any sense of greater belonging it was the steady flow of
information that was the glue that made things work. Nothing else
came close to the universal appeal of information among the
radically alien and loosely associated civilizations of Laniakea.
Fortunes could be spent but information was eternal, and it was the
University that kept the flow of information going.
Whenever Greene permitted herself to fume
internally for a moment about the University's abandoning of the
expedition the release only served to fuel her frustration. It was
frustrating that all the progress they'd made was now going to be
lost. It was even more frustrating that they'd had to rely on some
kind of space-pirate to do the work more reputable persons would
not.
On its face the idea of a space-pirate was
something Greene found laughable. That someone might fancy
themselves in that image was certainly possible, but it mainly
spoke to mental illness. That anyone could long ply such a trade
was implausible. That the person in question would go to such
lengths to modify a vessel for that purpose was worrying. Taken
altogether the vessel she now looked over told a story that was
equal parts troubling and absurd.
Greene was going over the manifest for the
third time when at the other end of the hanger the space-pirate in
question arrived. Even though the figure was obscured by the bulk
of the spacecraft Greene had already painted a complete portrait of
a self-envisioned swashbuckling rogue in her mind. She found that
she was annoyed with the individual before having ever met them and
rather than introduce herself Greene began organizing the cargo and
ignoring the ship's captain entirely.
For his part Kassad made no move to introduce
himself as he was captivated by the stark beauty of his vessel. It
never failed to make Kassad's heart leap when setting eyes on his
ship after a separation no matter how short. The pride and joy of
Kassad's life was the Sabha. Every line and surface about her spoke
to Kassad of opportunities and freedom.
The Sabha had started its life as a classic
Terran design long range patrol ship where it had served
unspectacularly for many years until finally retired. Sold at
auction she'd been converted to use as a speculative merchant and
passed through several hands in strokes of fortune both good and
bad. Finally she'd been rebuilt as a jack-of-all-trades
adventurer's ship.
At least that's what it said in the official
registries. Of course what some called adventuring other less
charitable sorts called smuggling, blockade running, and sometime
pirating. More often than not it was the legitimate work as
speculative merchant, long range survey freelancer, and contract
transport that kept the books in the black and the authorities from
labeling her a pirate vessel. Sabha did it all and she did it
well.
Sabha was a windowless sleek and sturdy craft
with many fine attributes inherited from her military design. The
glossy black flattened and conjoined tear drop hull was a
concession to atmospheric maneuvering that did much to minimize her
cross section to active scans. Inside the hull the graceful sloping
provided many small voids around the hull of which any number could
see service as concealed smuggler's holds.
The Sabha's combat grade hull was
compartmentalized, armored, and heavily shielded against radiation
and magnetic effects. Originally outfitted with a military
specification plasma shield, long since removed, this had allowed
her to lurk inside otherwise deadly zones of radiation. In private
service these features had allowed her to undertake dangerous and
lucrative missions to map the edges of Law's End without making the
task a suicide mission.
Military service and private Law's End mapping
missions were all part of Sabha's history before coming into
Kassad's possession. His relationship with the vessel that now
provided and consumed most of his livelihood had begun only a
decade prior. It had been a love at first sight which had only
intensified as he came to know her strengths more intimately.
It terms of her prowess there were few ships
faster or more maneuverable under slower than light conditions.
Sporting a conventional iron core reactionless drive ample to a
vessel of her mass Sabha could maintain one and a half gravity
acceleration as long as power was supplied to it. Reactionless
thrust was supplemented by a pair of fuel guzzling independently
vectored fusion drives that could briefly increase acceleration to
an excess of six gravities of acceleration.
In addition to her conventional propulsion
systems Sabha had been equipped with two separate drive systems for
faster than light travel both of which operated on different
principles. There was a fourth generation long range jump drive for
instantaneous travel, and then there was a more modest sixth
generation warp drive for both shorter distances and long duration
flights. Neither of these systems were original equipment as those
had been outdated even before her initial retirement. With shrewd
use of the drive systems the Sabha could travel anywhere within the
hundred thousand galaxies, no matter how isolated or remote, in
under a month.
As a civilian ship all of Sabha's weapons had
been removed for the sake of appearances, but those appearances
were only surface deep. While the authorities may look dimly upon
military weapons on a civilian craft they wouldn't look twice at a
mining survey laser or long range gas analysis particle beam. Each
was tuned to work exactly as advertised and in a pinch could be
safely overloaded to provide long range firepower not too
dissimilar to what the ship had originally been outfitted for.
In all respects Sabha was a fine ship, and she
was probably as perfect for this mission as any other that could be
named. Unfortunately that was an assumption based on almost no
evidence. It was one thing to skirt the edges of Law's End. It was
something else entirely to dive fully in. Few ships, no matter how
well outfitted, had ever returned from deep dives through the
barrier.
There were a lot of unanswered questions. There
were a lot of potentially deadly variables. Unfortunately the
people with the answers were all beyond Law's End and a great deal
would have to be taken on faith.
Thirty years worth of income encouraged a lot
of faith, but Kassad was no simple mercenary. More than the
financial incentive there was the potential to have some of
Laniakea's finest minds indebted to him in gratitude for saving
their lives. Thumbing his nose at the University which had
effectively exiled him was a serious temptation as well. Perhaps
more than anything else after hearing spacer's tales about the
barrier for so many years Kassad just wanted to see what all the
fuss was about with his own eyes. On faith he felt that with all
things considered together the job had to be worth some risk.
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