Starship Conquistador (Conquest of Stars Book 1) (16 page)

    “Colonel Tollvyk, please help escort
Com. Antrar to his quarters,” Raptor said, “He has been with us through his
injury and all. He needs rest.”

    “My pleasure,” Tollvyk replied and
helped Antrar out of the room. They fetched a hovercraft and Tollvyk directed
it to the containment bay where Antrar’s spaceship was still sitting. Antrar
had put on a boot cast and could walk almost normal now. Tollvyk ordered the starship
guards to clear the spaceship for takeoff as Antrar took his seat in the
pilot’s chair and prepared for his personal journey to Pirates’ Heaven.

Nolfus beamed his identification code to
the air traffic control and received permission to fly his airship forward over
the nature preserve. The nature preserve was a small slice of forests and wild
animals preserved amidst the jungle of steel and concrete that was the crowded
planet of Nestor with a population of 3 billion people and hundreds of
thousands of skyscrapers. The air space over nature preserve was off limits to
airships to prevent collision with birds, most of whom were rare species, but
as the traffic control answered to Republican Guard, Nolfus could not really be
denied permission.

    The cloaked man sat next to him wearing
the same robe and cloak he had worn last time. There was no one else and Nolfus
had dispensed with his personal guards.

    “Did we have to come here?” Cloaked Man
asked, “Your airship is secured to prevent electronic eavesdropping.”

    “It is,” Nolfus replied, “against known
methods but I don’t know what secret sensors the Army may possess that will be
available to general Bakus. But in the nature preserve strictly no construction
is allowed and there are no sensors in this area.”

    “Good,” Cloaked Man said, “Now what I
had predicted has come true. Hasn’t it?”

    “Unfortunately,” Nolfus replied.

    “You were skeptical of Remus – Bakus
plot to take over our Republic,” Cloaked Man said, “But now the Chancellor has
granted permission for all the battleships to be placed under Bakus’ control.
No announcement has been made outside the senate although they do plan on
informing you and the generals.”

    “I don’t need it from the official
channels,” Nolfus said, “the news has leaked to us at the headquarters since
there are Republican Guard troops abroad a few battleships as light infantry.”

    “What do you plan to do about it?”
Cloaked Man asked.

    “Suppose Bakus is right and there are
indeed 15 battleships of these aliens on our way?” Nolfus asked.

    “You don’t believe that, do you?”
Cloaked Man said, “That would be almost half our total fleet. Would we send out
such numbers far away in the enemy territory we know nothing about?”

    “Probably not,” Nolfus said.

    “But if you are not fully convinced of
the conspiracy,” Cloaked Man said, “Suppose Bakus is right, then we will join
him in the fight with the other generals and the Battleships orbiting this
planet,” Cloaked Man said, “But if it is a conspiracy and Bakus takes command
of all the battleships then he will replace the officers with his yes-men and
who can stop him then?”

    “What do you want me to do?” Nolfus
asked.

    “Take command of Nestor,” Cloaked Man
said, “You hold the future of the Republic in your hands.”

    “What about the four battleships in the
orbit?” Nolfus said, “If General Vegus Sukus doesn’t go along, we could have a
pitched battle with our ground batteries. A lot of civilians would die if the
battleships try to take this planet by force.”

    “Seriously?” Cloaked Man turned to look
at him, “You are the elite troops of the republic. Don’t tell me you haven’t
trained for the scenarios to take the orbital spaceships by surprise raids.”

    “We have,” Nolfus said.

    “You are an army man, I don’t need to
tell you the operational sequences,” Cloaked Man said, “Let’s turn around. I
have to get back to the senate and you have a mission to plan.”

    General Vegus Sukus was filing his
nails while pushing out his lips as he was wont to do when locked in deep
thinking. It was not right for Bakus to use Nestor as the bait and leave only
their four battleships to bear the brunt of the initial assault. He had just
been informed of the battleplan and he was none too happy about it. This
Mercurian Empire as it was now designated would come in hard and they would
have to absorb the first strike. Bakus and his battleships would ride to the
rescue as heroes but him and his crew may be dead.

    “General, a Republican Guard contingent
is requesting permission to dock,” shuttle and bay staff officer Tolus informed
him.

    “What for?” Vegus asked, “We haven’t
requested any yet.”

    Tolus sent a request over the
communications channels to the shuttles floating outside Battleship Defender’s
shuttle bay and received an instant reply.

    “They say they have orders from the
Chancellor to defend these Battleships against alien boarding parties,” Tolus
replied.

    “I doubt these aliens want to board
us,” Vegus said, “and we have Battleship Guards to protect us if there is a
shooting battle abroad the ship. Besides I have received no such orders.”

    “The Senate is probably in chaos, they
might have forgotten to inform us,” his second-in-command Joules said.

    “Could be,” Vegus said, “Can’t hurt to
have additional soldiers. Allow them to dock.”

    “Republican Guard shuttle leader,
permission granted to board Battleship Defender,” Tolus said over the radio
communication.

    Vegus hated his thinking to be
interrupted and he was trying to catch his thought where he had left off when
alarms started ringing. It was a strange alarm that he had only heard in
training and it took him a few seconds to realize that it was for a combat
situation abroad his spaceship.

    “What the hell is going on?” Vegus
asked, “who ordered a damn drill?”

    The entire bridge was confused and the
officers tried to communicate with the crew and get answers but there was only
confusion on the other end. A few minutes later they heard laser blasts ringing
off the battleship’s interior and the sound of sparks and metal pieces breaking
off.

    The half dozen Battleship Guards
present inside the bridge took off their laser long guns from their shoulder
slings and took positions against the two doors leading to the ship’s interior.
General Vegus and the officers ducked behind the panels and peaked over their
desks.

    The doors blew up simultaneously and
tens of Republican Guard troops rushed inside. The Battleship Guard soldiers
opened fire and felled many in the corridor but they themselves were shot down
in retaliatory firing.

    “Enough,” General yelled standing up,
“Enough.” The Republican Guards had stopped firing but it was because no one
was resisting. A few officers had laser pistols but dare not reach for them
with laser guns pointed at them.

    “What is going on here, Capitan…” he
said to an officer who walked in after his troops had secured the bridge.

    “Capitan Oilus Barrlus, general” he
said, “apologize for our dramatic entrance but we couldn’t trust your
cooperation.”

    “And what the hell do you think you are
doing?” Vegus spoke defiantly even with two laser guns pointed at him.

    “Saving the Republic,” Capitan Oilus
answered, “From Bakus’ conspiracy.”

    “That is madness,” Vegus said.

    “You shall see soon,” Oilus said, “we
mean no harm to you or your crew. Once Nestor is secured and your cooperation
is assured, Commander Nolfus will have need of you to combat general Bakus and
his battleships.”

    Vegus was left speechless. He didn’t know
what to say. He had never been interested in politics in his life and paid no
attention to it. Perhaps that is why, of the five battleship generals, he was
put in charge of Nestor’s security because the senators felt safe with his
apolitical outlook on life. He didn’t even have a whiff of the shady politics
brewing in Nestor’s sewers that now threatened a coup for the first time in
Nestorian Republic’s history.

Antrar Wyft decelerated his spaceship as it
approached the asteroid belt that was colloquially known as the ‘Pirates
Heaven’ amongst the smugglers, pirates, space outlaws, and the frontier fleet
crews that chased them across deep space. There were millions and millions of
asteroids that circled a star that wasn’t unusual in size or intensity. What
had turned this asteroid belt into a preferred location for the scofflaws and
the fugitives was first its location and secondly the astronomy. It was in the
space that served as a buffer between three empires and thus neither one
maintained a permanent fleet presence to avoid provoking the other two.
Secondly, there was no planet orbiting outside of the asteroid belt, all three
planets were nearer to the sun. This allowed pirates and smugglers to
accelerate fast if an Army Starship showed up. There was no strong gravity
field to escape beyond the asteroid field itself.

    Antrar Wyft had raided this place more
than a few times and had to turn around when his targets had made it into the
belt. A big spaceship could not enter the field for the risk of striking
asteroids one after another and subjecting its shield to continuous depletion.
If a squadron of starfighters were sent inside, then all the residents of this
place joined up to defend one of their kinds and unleashed a torrent of lasers
and rockets. They disliked each other but they were united in their hatred of
state fleets.

    Antrar Wyft was glad his was a civilian
spaceship. If he had borrowed a starfighter than he would have had a lot of
explaining to do, that is if he was lucky to avoid the invariable shots that
would be taken at him. As his spaceship entered the asteroid belt and he dodged
through them, no one fired at him even though he saw a motley crew of
spaceships and floating stations spread about hither and yonder. As far as they
were concerned, he was just another one of them.

    He searched the asteroid belt for the
space station that was Jiggermaster’s holdout.  He had never seen it but he
knew it by the description. It took him a couple of hours of flying at
relatively high speed with a couple close calls when he finally saw a space
station in a relatively empty region of the belt. It was shaped like a vertical
cylinder with a donut-like structure in the center. There were green lights at
the top but the rest of metal was silvery in color. Some distance beyond it was
a large spaceship which he recognized as Jiggermaster’s Sky Raider, a spaceship
he was all too familiar with and could have drawn its exterior with every
detail filled in just by his memory.

    Pirates Heaven contained numerous space
stations controlled by outlaw bosses which served as hotel plus resort for rank
and file outlaws on the run. One had to pay a hefty fee to live in a Boss’s
turf but in return one was protected from other outlaws as well as from space
detectives.

    Antrar slowed down his spaceship as he
flew towards Alligator’s Den as this space station was known and the flight
controls gave him permission to land in one of the open bays. He docked his
spaceship and walked in through the door. There were a couple of armed guards
with laser guns but they weren’t asking for identification; that would have
severely reduced their clientele and revenue.

    There was a narrow corridor decorated
with blue and green light partially hidden by a silver maze on walls, ceiling
and floor. The corridor opened in a large bar and restaurant where an eclectic
collection of various races from tens of different origin planets mingled
about. It was like a galactic trading post except everyone here was an outlaw.
No one looked twice at Antrar as was the custom in these places; one did not
look too closely at a stranger. 

    There was a bar next to the corridor
which also doubled as a registration desk if it could be called that. A
bartender served drinks while a big, tall alien holding a particularly large
laser gun on his shoulder stood behind him. A girl held a scanner and a box
full of metallic chips and she smiled at him and Antrar returned the smile.

    “Hey you,” the tall alien said to him,
“come here and pay the fee.”

    Antrar walked over to the desk and
ordered a drink.

    “How long are you staying?” the tall
alien asked.

    “Can’t say,” Antrar scratched his neck,
“I got to hide out till matters cool down a bit back there before I can
return,” he said.

    “Give him chip for a week,” the alien
said to the girl who scanned a chip, entered a number and handed the chip to
Antrar and said, “700 stars.”

    “That’s a rip off,” Antrar said.

    The alien tapped his laser gun a couple
of times and smiled at him showing his grotesque teeth.

    “Alright,” Antrar said and took out
seven chips each for 100 stars and gave it to the girl.

    “If you stay more than seven come to us
and pay the fee,” the girl said.

    “I will. What about my residence?”
Antrar asked.

    “Stop by on your way out, we will have
an empty asteroid for you,” the girl replied.

    Antrar took their leave and walked
across the restaurant to the other corridor on the opposite end. Two bulky
aliens stood guard at the entrance holding laser guns which they crossed in
front of him when he came near.

    “Den crew only,” one of them said.

    “I want to meet Jiggermaster,” Antrar
said.

    “Oh yeah, why? And who the hell are
you?” the guard asked.

    “Tell Jiggermaster, Antrar Wyft is
here,” Antrar grinned at them, “I promise you he will ask you to present me
immediately.”

    The other alien who had been quiet
turned around and walked into the corridor. He emerged a minute later with two
more armed guards.

    “Let’s go,” he said to Antrar.

    Antrar walked in the corridor and the
two new guards followed him while pointing their guns at his back. He came out
into a smaller room and saw a man with a slightly wrinkled face and frizzled
hair sitting on a throne. He was an Aurum just like Antrar but wasn’t a
Starfirian. There were chairs on either side and a few sat on them while others
stood around. It was a motley crew of individuals, a few from Aurum, some even
Starfirians, but many aliens from strange and far away worlds of the galaxy.
The place was like a king’s court except this here was an outlaw king on the
throne, the notorious Jiggermaster.

    “Commodore Antrar!” Jiggermaster jumped
up from his throne, “this man here was my most dangerous enemy,” he said to his
crew, “and now he walks into my den all alone. What are you planning
commodore?”

    “Commodore no more,” Antrar replied,
“Didn’t you know I am retired and have no connections to the Starfire Army?”

    “I had heard,” Jiggermaster sat down
and laughed, “I was never relieved as the day I got the news. But what brings
you to my den? Ol’ times memories?”

    “I need a place to stay for a few
days,” Antrar said eyeing the rest of the crew. Some seemed to be suspicious
having a former army officer in their place while others were grinning at his
need to be here.

    “Aha,” Jiggermaster said, “what did you
do?”

    “Me and my company had some
disagreements over company funds,” Antrar said, “they weren’t understanding and
called state detectives on me.”

    “Embezzlement,” Jiggermaster said and
the whole room guffawed, “Imagine the news in Starfire: war hero steals money!
I love it, absolutely.”

    “You will understand I need to hide out
for a few,” Antrar said.

    “Why shouldn’t I just jettison you into
space without a suit?” Jiggermaster squinted at him slyly.

    “I may be considered a thief by some,
but I am still a war hero,” Antrar said, “If you kill me then Starfire Empire
will have no choice but to send every Starship from the Frontier Fleets to hunt
you down.”

    “And why should I help you?” 

    “Jiggermaster, you are a pirate but I
always considered you a professional,” Antrar said, “Piracy is your business
and I was just doing my mission as an officer. Now I am a civilian, I care less
about your raids, that’s between you and the Frontier Fleets.”

    “Hmm…” Jiggermaster stroked his chin,
“I could use a man of your talent for my Sky Raider. What says you?”

    “I will consider,” Antrar said, “but
not now, I have been running across deep space for days. I need rest.”

    “I will let you stay,” Jiggermaster
looked at him narrowly, “But you pay up the fee regularly. And you better not
bring a Starfleet behind you. Otherwise I will tie you to a rocket and send you
hurtling into an asteroid.”

    “I wouldn’t expect anything else from
you,” Antrar smiled, slowly turned around and walked away. He could have
avoided meeting Jiggermaster but that was risky because if he was spotted they
would certainly have been far more suspicious. Now he had put the pirate boss
at ease to a certain extent. As he walked out of the restaurant the girl at the
counter asked him for his chip and scanned a number onto it.

    “You have Asteroid #6561,” she said,
“plug this into your spaceship, it will navigate you there.”

    Antrar went into his spaceship, plugged
in the chip and switched on the auto-pilot. The spaceship lifted off the
platform and slowly cruised towards a large asteroid that was five times the
size of his ship. Then he saw part of the asteroid open up and lights came out
inside. He flew the spaceship through the round opening and into the inside.
The asteroid closed on him but the lights stayed on.

    He looked around the interior of the
asteroid which had been almost completely drilled out. There was a small platform
for his spaceship where he lowered it to the ground. Around the platform it was
like the insides of a small house. It was strange being inside an asteroid and
scary for it being controlled by a pirate. Jiggermaster could lock him inside
permanently if he wanted. Antrar was glad his spaceship had enough firepower to
blast through the asteroid if he needed to.

    Antrar got out and walked around. There
were no walls, no rooms and no corners. All the accouterments of a house were
stacked in a circle against the interior. There was also no place for anyone
else to hide in there. After a few minutes of exploring the interior he got
back into his spaceship and closed the hatch. He did not trust Jiggermaster and
decided to sleep in the spaceship itself. He would begin his search for
Silencer after he woke up.