The Evolution of Vaughn, page 7
“There is no record of cooling system maintenance, however panel 17-d was removed for six minutes, just before launch.”
“Who boarded the ship prior to the removal of panel 17-d?”
“Dulark Agron.”
“Is there a log entry for that day? Any maintenance scheduled for that day? Was there any reason Dulark should have been aboard?”
“None. However, my records are incomplete. A full record would be available from the station’s main frame. Would you like me to file the request when we dock?”
“No, thank you, Halle. I got you, motherfucker.”
“You’re welcome, Sir. Got who?”
Vaughn leaned the back of the bench down, converting it into a bed, and laid down. “Lights off.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Environmental lighting is malfunctioning. I am unable to carry out your command.”
“Never mind. Wake me if the navigational computer figures out where we are.” Vaughn covered his eyes with his arm and fell asleep. Vaughn dreamed fitfully all night, flitting from nightmare to nightmare. In every situation, he was in battle with the E’Clei and his ship was destroyed. Four times, Vaughn woke up dreaming he was all alone in a Fogerian battle suit, drifting in empty space.
Chapter 10 Savye
Date: 432nd Year of Emperor Valek Foger XXVI
“Approaching Savye. All hands brace for unfold.”
The ship lurched slightly, as Vaughn and Fresia made their way to the cockpit.
“That’s so smooth,” Fresia mentioned. “How do you unfold so gently?”
Vaughn opened the cockpit door as he answered. “Halle’s calculations are much more precise than most. It’s a matter of unfolding at the exact millisecond we cross the threshold on the outer end of space. The turbulence comes from the wormhole collapsing as the fold is decoupled. Technically, it’s possible to unfold at the perfect time and there would be no shake at all.”
“When Vaughn finally gets around to upgrading the fold computer core, perhaps I’ll be able to make the calculations he expects. Until then, I do the best I can,” Halle said.
Fresia grinned. “You sound defensive, Halle.”
“Impossible. I am not capable of feeling slighted. I was merely stating a fact.”
The pair buckled themselves in as Halle dropped them into orbit around the planet Savye.
“Communication from the surface, sir.”
Vaughn said, “Audio only, Halle.” Then paused for a second. “This is Krevick Dor, aboard the freighter Jorn. Requesting landing for a meeting with Galen Dor.”
Fresia looked at him, arching an eyebrow. Vaughn muted the signal. “It’s code. Holdan should get the message.”
“Hold Jackstone?”
“Yeah, he’s the biggest arms dealer in the system. I need guns for Halle.”
“Fuck, Vaughn. Are you going to war?”
“They have Matty. I have less than three days to get him back.” Vaughn’s eyes blazed, “I will kill every fucking bug in the galaxy if I have to.”
“Krevick? What the fuck are you doing here?” Both Vaughn and Fresia recognized Holdan Jackstone’s voice on the other end of the com.
“I was in the neighborhood, thought I’d stop by for dinner. Have room for two at the table tonight?”
“Hell yeah! Hang on; I’ll get you clearance for my personal dock.”
Vaughn muted the com. “We’re in. Hold’s going to take care of us. Halle, launch satellites.”
There were six thumps as Halle’s satellites launched into orbit. At less than one meter across, they were disguised as random space junk. Ground sensors might pick them up, but they would be dismissed as debris. Inside, they were complex communications satellites. Vaughn tinkered with them regularly on trips, some of which involve spending several days in the fold. They were like all of Halle’s systems, constantly in upgrade, based on whatever parts he happened to find. The satellites, however, were unique. They sent ultra-high frequency pulses. Halle’s communication with them was encrypted and completely undetectable.
All of the satellites functioned as communications relay, but each also had individual jobs. Sat-4 was a high definition optical recorder. Sat-4 was designed to help identify flora and fauna on an unexplored planet, and could identify and record a creature three centimeters in length. Sat-1 was a sensor array, cataloguing a planet’s resources, it was designed to help Vaughn figure out what a planet was made of and it helped determine geologic stability.
Vaughn pulled an Argimonium container out of the stasis chamber. The container was a cylinder, fifty centimeters long and forty centimeters around. Vaughn hefted the container into a circular opening at the bottom of Halle’s main power generator and slid it into the hole. When it was all the way back, he twisted ninety degrees to lock it in place.
“Halle, begin Argimonium extraction.”
Several seconds later Halle replied, “Extraction complete. Fuel capacity at one hundred twenty-two percent.”
“Don’t use all that power in one place.”
“That would most likely result in my destruction. I will follow your advice.”
“Good girl,” Vaughn replied, laughing.
The communication from the surface continued, “Vaughn? It’s Hold. We’re on a secure channel. Come on down. I’ve sent Halle the coordinates.”
“Can’t wait to see you Hold. I have Fresia with me.”
“Fre? What are you doing with Vaughn? You haven’t killed him yet?”
“Not yet, but there’s always tomorrow,” she replied. “It’s good to hear your voice, Holdon. See you in a few minutes.”
The communication ended and Halle said “Shall I take us in, Sir?”
“Yes, please.”
The ship entered orbit over the largest ocean on Savye, streaking in a fiery arc over the ocean, towards the coast. The largest city, Nulk, was on the coast. Huge, towering buildings dotted the landscape. The city was massive, even by Foger standards. Nulk was metropolitan home to several hundred species of alien, including a sizeable Human contingent. Without the Emperor’s direct rule, the Humans had been much freer to make their own path. Here on Savye, Humans had a seat on the ruling council. Life was much more complex in the massive city. In contrast, Humans on Foger all lived in average housing out of a living out of a fund set up by Willa, and maintained by the labor of all Humans.
On Savye, there was poverty, and there was wealth. Greed, power, and corruption were rampant in the city, but there was also art, and freedom. Vaughn had a lot of respect for the city, and the Humans who lived here.
Halle glided to a smooth landing on Holdan Jackstone’s personal dock. Fresia and Vaughn walked down the ramp together, where she and Holdan hugged. Vaughn shook his hand and clapped him on the back. “You’ve done well for yourself, Gunny.”
“Let’s go in and get something to drink,” said Holdan, motioning his two friends inside. His house was a massive complex. The home itself rivaled the Emperor’s in opulence, including a massive chandelier in the entry way wrought of gold with diamonds embedded throughout.
Connected to the house was Holdan’s warehouse, a million square meters of weapons of war. Hold was small-time compared to some of the arms dealers in the galaxy, but he’d personally armed half of the Savye defense force, and business was good these days.
An hour later, the three of them were sitting around a small table drinking cold sag and laughing about the old days. “Hold, remember that time at Fridel, in Sadjor quadrant? How many guns did we send home to your dad?”
“Oh, now we’re getting to it? On to business then, eh?” Holdan grinned at Vaughn. “You always did like to cut to the chase. What can I do for you?”
Vaughn looked at his old friend, and down to his untouched cup of sag. The single cup had probably cost thousands of crench, but Vaughn would never allow himself to relax until his son was safe. “Someone has taken Matty. I have a little over two days to meet his captors on Loe. And I need cannons, Hold.”
“How many, and what type?”
“Plasma, and as many as you have. I can support up to two-fifty.”
“That’s a tall order. I want to help you out, buddy. I’d love to see those fucking Romjini bugs get what they deserve. I can do one-fifty, and I’ll give you the friend discount. Two hundred thousand.”
“Hold, I gave your dad two hundred off that E-Clei cruiser. You owe me.” Vaughn stared at his friend.
Holdan frowned. “I know what you’ve done for my family, but I’m in a bind. The Savye council is breathing down my neck. The new Emperor, may he guide us safely through, is meddling more and more in my business, and I have bills to pay. You said you have two days. Let me call in some favors. I’ll see what I can do, but it’ll take most of the night to work out a deal. Can you spare a few hours for an old friend?”
“Captain,” Halle said quietly in his ear. “Two Imperial transports just landed at the Nulk docks. Gentry is aboard.”
“I’ll take the hundred-fifty. How quickly can you get them loaded,” Vaughn said, standing up and walking casually towards the window. They were well outside the city and it would take Gentry over an hour to get to Holdan’s complex. Since the home was so far removed from the city, it allowed Holdan to have a breathtaking view of the area. The window faced the mountains, away from the city of Nulk, out to a huge expanse of land. In the distance, the mountains rose up in huge impossibly high cliffs. The tops of the cliffs were shrouded in clouds. Vaughn knew somewhere up on those cliffs was the dark city of Rimir.
The Rimir savages were kept on top of the plateau, in the thin, cold air. For a hundred thousand years, the second race native to Savye, the Shomir and the Rimir fought for dominance. Strange, genetically modified creatures roamed the landscape, from giant spiders twenty meters in height to small, carnivorous insects that attacked in swarms; the wild of Savye wasn’t fit for any living creature. Since the truce that put the Rimir on the high plateau, those creatures had further mutated, rendering half of Savye uninhabitable.
“They’re in the back of the warehouse. I’ll get a couple guys on it. You want them in Halle’s cargo hold?” Holdan spoke into a communicator on his wrist, ordering the guns brought up to his space-dock.
“Yes, please. I’d like to supervise the loading. Halle’s a little touchy these days.” Vaughn paused for a moment. “How are you for Argimonium, Hal?”
Hold shook his head. “Sorry, bud. I have a few ounces I could sell, but not much. You know how the Empire is; they control everything in and out of the market.”
“Could you move a kilo without destroying the market?” Fresia put her hand on Vaughn’s shoulder, urging caution.
The weapons dealer looked surprised. “Where did you score a half-kilo of Argimonium? I mean, I could move it; it would just take some time. How much are you looking to get out of it?”
“Call it a gift, to an old friend,” said Vaughn, reaching into the thigh pocket of his pants. He pulled out a small clear cylinder, filled with a blue liquid that gave off a faint blue glow. He set the tube down on the table.
Holdan’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit, I haven’t seen that much since we were aboard The Reetus. Vaughn, what kind of shit are you in?”
Vaughn looked at his longtime friend. “I don’t know, Hold. Someone came to my home, killed Sarah and took Matty. I went to Foger, but Gentry met me on the docks and tried to arrest me for treason and collusion with the Wyluse.”
“The Wyluse? Vaughn, you’re not messed up with that mob, are you?”
“No, Hold. But I’d like to know what you know,” replied Vaughn, fire blazing behind his eyes. The muscle in his jaw flexed in and out as he spoke. “How are you involved in this?” Vaughn grabbed Hold’s arm and twisted it around behind his back. He leaned in close, shoving Holdan’s face down to the table. Fresia backed up a step and put her hand on her plasma pistol.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Vaugh. I swear,” Holdan croaked, stretching his free arm out on front of him.
“In everything I’ve heard, not one single thing has mentioned Romjini E’Clei, except you, and I didn’t say a word about them. You fucking sold me out Holdan, and I want to know why.”
Chapter 11 Kinfron
Date: 402nd Year of Emperor Valek Foger XXVI
In his final dream, the teenager's ship was nearly destroyed. An E’Clei battle cruiser was parked off the starboard bow, firing mercilessly at him. Defense cannons were down, propulsion was down and the ship was minutes from destruction when he pulled the life-support system’s power and reinstalled the fuel cylinder in the fold-drive.
“Vaughn, navigational computers have pinpointed our location. Would you like to lift off?”
“Not yet,” replied fourteen year old Vaughn. “I need to take the nav system offline. Can you transfer the location to main memory and shut it down?”
“Relational location saved. It is safe to proceed.”
“Halle, I had a dream last night. Do you know what a dream is?”
“A dream is a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep.”
Vaughn continued, “While I was asleep, my mind was working on the problems we’re facing. I don’t have enough crystals to replace all of the systems that are burned out.”
“That does appear to be a conundrum, sir.”
“How much better would you say your linguistic processor is now?”
Vaughn heard the computer processing. “The replacement hardware is operating at three hundred seventy four percent efficiency.”
“If I could increase core processing power by an equal amount, I could include Navigation in the core and still maintain life support and other essential systems, correct?”
“If it were possible, yes. But the power consumption would be enormous. This ships systems weren’t built to handle that kind of power.”
Vaughn lept off the bench and started ripping the covers off the mechanical panels. “If I reroute power from the defunct nav to the new core, I can double, at least the power to the core. Fuck me, Halle, I think it’s going to work.”
Hours passed, Vaughn cut, yanked, pulled and then fed power conduits and coolant tubes across the cargo area. He was in a hurry, and needed to save as much material as possible, so he ran the flexible pipes and wires across the cargo compartment in a spider web, rather than running them through the walls of the spacecraft.
He chatted with Halle as he worked. “So, if you were in a hopeless situation with an E’Clei battle cruiser, how would you want to go out?”
“I don’t understand the request.”
“Say we were in a battle and there was no way out. What would you do?”
“I do not know. I do not have enough data to calculate all possible variables in order to form a viable action plan.”
Vaughn sighed. “Okay. Well, here’s what I would do. If I was seconds from death at the hands of my enemy, I would fold right the fuck on top of them.”
“The resulting doubling of matter within the same space could create an atomic fusion reaction.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for. I’m hoping to fold right on top of them and create an explosion with as much power as a small sun. Fucking kill every damned one of the shitbags.”
When he was finished with the power connections, he got to work rebuilding the core computer’s main boards. It was tricky work, and took him the better part of two days. In that time, he learned the tidal patterns of the moon. Every six hours, the ship was lifted off its landing gear, drifted around for an hour and a half, and then was set back down. One a particularly large wave nearly capsized him, but otherwise, there was no real trouble with the barren planet. In his off time, he welded the hull fracture closed, and prepared the ship for space.
Midway between tides on his third day on the moon, Vaughn spoke to the ship’s computer. “Halle, can you run a diagnostic on the new navigation routines in the main core? How is power consumption?”
“Main core holding at two hundred twenty-five percent power consumption. Reserve power at eighty-seven percent. Navigational calculations operating at two point two zettaflops.”
“Halle! That’s got to be a record. Even an Imperial class warship can’t be running that fast.”
“Sir, the osmium crystals decay is compounded significantly. At current operating parameters, the crystals will be non-fucntional in twenty-seven hours.”
“How long until function is too limited to perform necessary tasks?”
“Ten hours, twenty-seven minutes.”
“In your best estimate, how long will it take to calculate the fold to Foger?”
“One hour, twenty minutes, with a fifteen percent margin.”
Vaughn spoke as he thought. “Shut down all non-essential systems. Preserve crystalline density as much as possible, throttle power consumption to one hundred twenty-five percent, and recalculate the same questions.”
“At that level, it will take fourteen hours, twenty-two minutes, plus or minus twenty-five percent to calculate the fold. Crystalline structure will continue to function within acceptable parameters for twenty-two hours. Also, all non-essential systems have been shut down.”
“Halle, show me where we are in relation to Foger.” A large star chart appeared in front of Vaughn, superimposed over all the wires and conduits crisscrossing the cargo hold.
“Now, re-center the star chart on Foger, and show me the original destination, based on uploaded fold calculations prior to launch. Show me where I would have been if we hadn’t had to drop out of the fold.”
“Sir, that information is classified. If you access the record of where you were supposed to end up, you will be disqualified, and fail the test. We are still within the time window for success.”
“I’d rather return alive and fail than not return at all, Halle. Show me the spot.”
“As you wish.” A long blue line shot outward from Foger into deep space.
“Orient the map so that my course is a horizontal plane.” The stars all shifted, until Vaughn’s blue line passed directly over his head. “Kinfron is the laziest mother fucker I’ve ever met. What do you think the chances are that he learned that behavior form his patron?”
