Starship Conquistador (Conquest of Stars Book 1) (7 page)

Capitan Jag Manus landed his spaceship next
to a canyon on the outskirts of the base that hosted Beacon’s military space
traffic control station. Beacon was a rocky planet with mountains and canyons
galore and it was the last populated planet of Nestorian Republic that had
representation in the Senate and there was vast, frontier space beyond. Its
population was no more than thirty million and concentrated around a few mining
towns. As a rocky planet it had no shortage of metal and mineral resources but
most had not been explored yet. The costs of transportation were high and it
was not easy to defend Beacon militarily.

    Jag Manus was dressed today in a green
suit, white shirt and black pants. He had decided against wearing his uniform
but carried his badge, ID and a laser pistol in his suit’s inner pocket. He had
not announced his arrival to the space traffic control and while that was a
minor violation of the rules the Vice-Chancellor could easily get him out of
any trouble that might cause him. He knew that the only really effective
gravitron scanner on this planet was aimed towards the frontier space. To avoid
radar he had flown low after entering the atmosphere. There weren’t many radar
installations here either. But the radar near the space traffic tower would be
powerful so he had parked behind a canyon and he walked the remaining distance.

    It took him two hours of walk to reach
the Nestorian military base that was enclosed with a steel fence ten feet high
with five feet of barb wire above. A black, octagonal tower rose out a few
hundred meters in the air some distance from the perimeter fence. Soldiers
stood inside at interval around the entire fence. Along with laser guns, they
had land-to-air laser artillery on the ground next to them.

    An airship was dispatched to intercept
Jag when he was sighted by the soldiers. It cleared the fence and flew towards
Jag and hovered down two feet from land.

    “Who are you?” two soldiers got out
with their laser guns drawn at him.

    “Capitan Jag Manus of Republican
Guard,” he said and handed them his ID card. They passed the ID card to a
soldier inside the airship who scanned and verified it.

    “Please come in, we will give you a
ride,” the soldier said and Jag walked inside the airship and it took off back
to the base.

    “You could have given us a heads up.
Where are you walking from?” the pilot asked.

    “Some problems developed with my
spaceship. It’s day time and the distance wasn’t far,” Jag said.

    The airship landed inside the base very
near to the tower and Jag walked inside the tower. The airship had sent his
credentials ahead and the soldiers did not stop him when he walked into the
archives office.

    “How can I help you?” the archives
officer asked him from behind the reception desk.

    “I want to access the computer records
of all the foreign departures in the frontier space for the spaceships in the
last year,” Jag said. He did not want to mention the particular ship VC Remus
had traveled in to maintain secrecy. He handed over his ID and the archives
officer scanned it for the authorization codes. Republican Guard was the only
force in Nestorian Republic with powers of both the army and the police and
thus able to access records of either. 

    “You are cleared Capitan Jag, follow
me,” archives officer was an older man, slightly stooped in the back and
shoulders and he led Jag to a metallic door and swiped his card. The door
slowly opened inwards and the archives person pointed inside with his hand, “Do
you need help with accessing records?”

    “I used to be a detective, no help,
thank you,” Jag walked inside and the man closed the door behind him and walked
back to the reception.

    The computer room was empty but Jag
took a seat in the far corner, scanned his ID again and the computer started
up. He searched for all the spaceships that had left around the time of VC
Remus and was not surprised when his wasn’t displayed. Then he took out a
metallic card that Remus had given him with his own authorization codes and
entered them and searched again and this time he had the time and
identification of the ship and metadata of Remus’s departure. He pointed his
finger to the part of the screen with the option ‘Data Access: Authorized
Users’ and it displayed a list of eight names:

1. Chancellor Augus Grave

2. Vice-Chancellor Remus Torus

3. General Bakus Ferran

4. Capitan Jag Manus

5. Major Tolus Gerum

6. Pilot Roofus Bolfus

7. Commander Nolfus Berrum

8. Boutrous Golus

    The last two names surprised him. He
memorized the list but to be sure he took out a camera from his pocket and took
a picture. He did not want to download it or print it out for fear of leaving a
trace. He closed the search and shut down the computer and left the archives
room. The search was performed using Vice-Chancellor’s codes and thus would not
be visible in the computer history to anyone else.    

    When he walked out of the space traffic
tower the airship was waiting for him and flew him out of the base. This time
he let them fly all the way over to his spaceship behind the canyon and was
soon airborne and then spaceborne.

    After his spaceship had left the
planet’s gravity field and settled on a cruise speed, he flicked on the
auto-pilot, sat back in the chair with his legs up on the dashboard and looked
at the list on the camera. The culprit behind the assassination attempt had to
be either one of these individuals or someone who got the information through
them.

    He crossed VC Remus and himself off of
the list. Then he crossed Chancellor Augus and General Bakus of the list as
well. Remus trusted them as much as he trusted him and that was sufficient.
Major Tolus was the space tower’s commanding officer, but he was only one of
the four as it ran on continuous four shift schedule and his being on shift at
the time of Remus’ departure was random. Conspirators would not know it in
advance and could not have recruited him. Besides, while Beacon was closet to
Starfire space there were other planets for departure. He crossed Major Tolus
of the list. He also crossed Pilot Roofus off the list. Roofus was the pilot of
the fastest spaceship made in Nestorian Republic that was their premier spy
ship. Remus had personally requested it from Roofus and once again the
conspirators could not have known this.

    Commander Nolfus was the head of
Nestorian Republican Guard and his own boss. It was strange that he had the
permission to access this data. But he would have to tread carefully with
regards to Nolfus. He might have been assigned to VC Remus but Nolfus was his
permanent boss and after Remus’s term in Senate was over he could end up
patrolling some slummy area if he offended Nolfus.

    Jag had been a detective with Nestor
Police and had been happy with his life. He received a middle-class salary and
since Nestor was the richest planet in the republic, that meant a comfortable
life. But for his family he had applied to the Republican Guard. His salary had
not increased a lot but perks and privileges had that allowed him to save a
much larger part of his salary and upgrade his family’s lifestyle. He did not
want to risk it and hoped that the last person on the list was the lead to the
conspiracy.

    But who the hell is Boutrous Golus?  

    Jag was woken up from his slumber by a
continuous beep on his dashboard. He turned off the sound and saw that a
message had arrived from VC Remus. He had sent an encrypted message to him
asking him to search for Boutrous Golus using his authorization codes because a
vice-chancellor could literally access every database of the republic. But when
he read the message he had to rub his eyes to make sure that he was fully
awake.

    Remus: No person named ‘Boutrous Golus’
found.

    How could this be? Someone who had
access to a government database but wasn’t in it? This was a dead end Jag
thought. Then something clicked in his mind and he realized there was one
possibility he could try. He changed the destination coordinates on his
spaceship and reprogrammed them to the nearest orbital station that the ship
had in its database.

    A few hours later his spaceship had
docked at a scientific research station orbiting an uninhabited ice planet. The
scientists were taking measurements of the ice samples to analyze the
composition of the planet and they returned to the orbital station for their
residence.

    They were accommodating and let him
access a computer that was connected to the Nestorian InfoNet – a network of
communications and private databases. He went on a paid Q&A communications
channel and loaded 1,000 credits of Nests. He probably wouldn’t get officially
reimbursed for it but VC Remus had promised to pay any expenses arising from
the investigation out of his own pocket.

    He sent the question out there on the
communications channel with 1,000 Nest of reward for whoever answered. This
drew the attention of professional questioners, experts who spent their entire
work day answering paid questions and a few of them had made a big fortune from
it. Someone answered him in five minutes.

    Creditor: Who is Boutrous Golus?

    Mr. Botanikus: Was.

    Creditor: Who was he? When did he die?

    Jag felt a tinge of excitement as well
as a little bit of guilt. Poor Mr. Golus was dead but that meant the
conspirators were covering their tracks. But the answer threw cold water on his
hopes.

    Mr. Botanikus: He was the founder and
chief engineer of my company. He had been dead for five years when I joined the
company 40 years ago.

    Creditor: What company was that? What
did you guys make?

    Mr. Botanikus: Golus Gravitron Company.
We were the first company to make and install long range gravitron scanners for
our frontier bases.

    Jag jumped up with joy and this
startled the other scientists in the computer lab. He whispered ‘sorry’,
approved the thousand credits for whoever Mr. Botanikus was, and left. In no
time he was back in his spaceship and back on track for the original
destination.

    In a second he had realized how the
culprit had accessed the information for Remus’s spaceship in Beacon’s
database. If Mr. Golus was the original engineer of gravitron scanner he
obviously needed full access to the database to make sure that the scanners
were working properly and catching all the spaceships. For all he knew, it was
his company itself which had made the database. Perhaps he had a master account
that had just remained in the database.

    Now the question was who knew about it?
Perhaps someone in the company? But he would inquire into that later. He had a
second line of inquiry to take care of.

Commodore Raptor Warwyk could not believe
his new starship. It was new and shiny and long. It was twenty-five miles long
on its longest axis and was the biggest spaceship that Sixth Frontier Fleet had
ever received by a far shot. His own previous ship Victory was fifteen miles
long and that was the standard size for frontier starships give or take a
couple miles.

    It was also very beautiful. It was painted
in a shiny metallic silver coat that would be its permanent color. But the
color could be changed to black, red, yellow or any combination thereof to
camouflage the starship from visual scanners. This was accomplished by painting
over the permanent coat with another layer of usually transparent millions of
glass nanoparticles through which different colored light could be passed. But
the silver paint was interrupted at some places with stripes and markings with
rose red and black which were the official colors of the Starfire Empire.

    Two big towers rose up near the top
rear of the ship and held a large screen in between them that displayed
Starfire Empire’s flag: Red Square with a Black Composite Bow in the center.
These towers could be elevated down inside the hull at times of battle and were
more for display at a parade.

      The command room was enclosed by a
fully transparent, thick semi-spherical diamond layer that made it the hardest
section of the ship. Option was available to turn off the transparency from the
command room as there was a one way transparent glass layer before the diamond
layer. There was also an optional metallic shield that covered the rest of the
Starship that could be activated to cover off the outside.

    Raptor looked up and saw the beautiful
galactic space with uncountable stars twinkling across the entire arc of the
room. It made him feel nostalgic and romantic. This was why he had joined the
Army in the first place to travel across the space amidst the stars and it reminded
him of his early days as a spacefighter pilot.

    “VC is on its way on the rocketship,”
Col. Tollvyk informed him.

    “Great,” Raptor said, “I want to say a
few words after he arrives to the command room officers.”

    “Have you checked the entire officer
list, sir?” Tollvyk asked.

    “Hundreds of names,” Raptor asked,
“Why? Come up here.”

    The Commodore had an elevated throne
like circular personal section on a stage that was the highest in the command
room and was smack dab in the center of it all. There were two more circular
stages below with panels and instruments where officers who personally aided
the Commodore would take seats. Rest of the computers and controls were
arranged in two circles around the central section with walking space in
between. The Vice-Commodore’s section was in the inner circle and directly
beneath and front of Commodore’s. There was one set of stairs to reach the
Commodore’s throne and Tollvyk walked up to Raptor, handed him a list and
pointed to a name.

    Laser Fire Officer: Capitan Alvina
Lytar. Raptor read the name and his breath stopped for a few seconds. 

    “I…I don’t know what to say,” Raptor
whispered.

    “We will talk more about it in
private,” Tollvyk whispered back, “Don’t say anything now and give that
speech.”

    “Right…” Raptor said and Tollvyk walked
back down. The officers were slowly strolling in the command room and Raptor
looked around but didn’t see Alvina yet. He could not let his heart get the
better of him now and took deep breaths to calm himself and drank couple
glasses of water.

    Fifteen minutes later an older man who
was in his fifties but still had a head full of lush hair and a thick, walrus
mustaches and slightly wrinkled yet still hard face walked in and stood before
Raptor and saluted him sharply, “Vice-Commodore Barryett Wuft reporting for
duty, sir.”

    Raptor saluted him back and said, “My
pleasure to have such an experienced officer as my Vice-Commodore. Please step
up.”

    Raptor maintained a smile on his face
while VC Barryett walked up the stairs but he was not happy. He had been
shocked when he had first noticed his name. Barryett Wuft was the only officer
still present in the sixth frontier fleet who had actually been demoted. He
used to be a commodore himself more than a decade ago but had made some
mistakes in battle maneuvers whose exact nature was still a state secret.
Indeed, a large part of his officer and crew list was like this. He had spent
an entire day sampling some records and had found that most were mediocre and a
few were downright failures. Of course it was impossible to know the
backgrounds and records of most of the personnel as there were over fifty
thousand present on this ship.

    “Take a seat VC Barryett,” Raptor said
and pointed to the smaller, cushioned seat in front of the control panels table
of the Commodore.

    “Thank you, sir,” Barryett replied.

    “I don’t want to bring back any bad
memories for you but you were the Commodore of Starship Falcon for a decade,”
Raptor said, “I will need your advice.”

    “You can always count on my advice, but
do you want me to give you the best advice I can?” Barryett asked.

    “What is it?” Raptor said.

    “Always keep your own counsel,”
Barryett said, “You have been trained by the best officers in Starfire Empire
at the academy and you were chosen for some reason. Trust yourself and the crew
will fight with you all the way from deep space to black hole.”

    Raptor thought for a few seconds and
then said, “please assemble all the command room officers.”

    “Yes sir,” VC Barryett walked back down
and then made an announcement for all the officers assigned to the command room
to present themselves promptly. Within five minutes all had arrived and taken
their seats at their stations.  Raptor got up from his seat and spoke to the
communications officer, “Capitan Dorrvyk, please turn on the intercom for full
ship transmission and bring all crew to attention.”

    Capitan Dorrvyk flipped on a switch and
entered a code. He picked a transmitter and spoke and the voice went out in
every nook and cranny of the starship, “Attention! Attention for Commodore’s
announcement.”

    Then he put down his transmitter and
turned to Raptor, “Sir, intercom is ready.”

    “Attention officers and crew, this is
your commanding officer Commodore Raptor Warwyk speaking. I welcome you to your
new assignment, our new assignment together. Starship Conquistador, which will
be your home for months and for some years to come was newly built and shipped
out to the frontiers. You are the first batch to operate it, take good care of
her and she will take good care of you. It is the largest and most powerful
starship of the Sixth Frontier Fleet and you should feel honored to be chosen
for this ship and its first mission.”

    “The details of the mission will be
provided to you as per your rank and as required to carry out your duties. Your
duties and responsibilities have been uploaded to your personal StarCards.
Familiarize yourself with them.”

    Raptor paused for a few seconds and turned
his head to scan the command room. His eye caught capitan Alvina who was
standing in the crowd watching him intently but he quickly moved past her. He
was trying to choose his next words and was unsure if he should utter them. He
decided to go ahead, “Not all of us are the best. Not all of us have perfect
records. If you are one of them, consider this a second chance.” He knew that
meant quite a substantial fraction of them but they would not know it about
others as background records could only be accessed by select officers.

    “Regardless of your past, I want you to
do your best. Fight your hearts out,” Raptor said, “I will not allow the
memories of our great warriors and heroes of old to be sullied by surrender or
defeat. I will fight for victory or I will fight till death.”

    Victory or Death! The officers and crew
across the ship shouted.

    Raptor waited for a few moments for
chants to die down and then said, “Prepare for departure. Commodore over.”

    The flight and navigation officers in
the command room started working to prepare the Starship for departure from
their orbit around Planet Bravo.

    “Starship ready for departure,
Commodore,” senior flight officer Flyptar said.

    “Start the twin fusion engines,” Raptor
said.

    “Twin fusion engines started,” Flyptar
and his assistant punched a code and turned a key each.

    “Accelerate to light speed,” Raptor
said.

    “Accelerating to light speed,” Flyptar
said, “departing the gravity field of planet Bravo.” Flyptar made the adjustments
on the speed control and the velocity control officer monitored the readings.

    “Passed the gravity field of planet
Bravo,” Navigation officer Overyk said.

    “Accelerate at standard rate to 100
light speed,” Raptor said, “hold till the outer boundary of present star system
Halcyon. Thereafter, accelerate to and hold steady at starship cruise standard
of 2,500 light speed.”

    “Yes commodore,” Flyptar replied.

    “Nav. Officer, set our destination as
Planet Nestor, Capital of Nestorian Republic.” Raptor said.

    “Destination set as Planet Nestor,”
Overyk said after his assistant officer had punched in the coordinates into the
navigation computer.

    Raptor sat back down on his chair and
did a computer check of all the systems and equipment on board the Starship and
everything was performing at full capability and without any errors or issues.
There was not much for him to do further. Space travel including faster than
light travel had been mastered by Starfirians for thousands of years now and it
had become routine and standardized. The Starship could even take control of
itself and carry out all the regular steps but that was against the army
regulations in normal conditions and only to be used as a last option.

     Raptor stayed in the command room till
the hour of the lunch break. It had irked him to hear from Commander Carvyk
that he had been too lenient in the past and allowed lapses in the discipline
of his subordinates. He knew that was true to some extent but he was an
understanding person who believed in taking it easy and cutting some slack to
the people who worked to the tune of unquestioned obedience to each and every
order.

    But this time around he intended to set
the right example from the beginning. That was a peacetime fleet orbiting and
patrolling a secure region but this was a potential war mission alone out in
the hostile territory. He would be hard on everyone and hardest on himself.

    When the lunch hour came, he waited for
VC Barryett to leave for the cafeteria then looked for Tollvyk amongst the
crowd below and called out to him.

    “Col. Tollvyk, I was just checking our
weapons list and I do believe we have some rockets that are top secret?” Raptor
said.

    “I believe so too, Commodore,” Tollvyk
pretended to look through his rocket computer database. 

    “I am heading to lunch now,” Raptor
said, “Meet me in my personal quarters after half an hour to discuss the secret
rockets.”

    “Yes sir,” Tollvyk replied.

    Raptor got down from his section and
headed out for lunch. Outside of the command room was a rack of small
hovercrafts and he sat down in one of them and punched the option for one of
the restaurants onboard. He really wanted to talk to Tollvyk about Capitan
Alvina and had been sneaking a glance or two her way every now and then. But
some officers abroad knew of their friendship and he did not want to give an
impression of favoritism, that too on the first day. He hadn’t checked yet if
the Starship had any secret rockets, but that was not the type of information
anyone except Commodore, VC and rocket officers and technicians would be privy
to.

    When he reached the restaurant, he
picked up some premade food, heated it up and ate hurriedly, finishing in ten
minutes. Then he had the hovercraft take him to his personal quarters where he
eagerly awaited Tollvyk.