Chapter 3
There is an old, old saying. "The best laid plans..." I can't remember the rest, but it means that you plan for something, trying to cover all eventualities, but then something comes along and cancels out all your preparations.
I had planned on departing early this morning, but a warship of the People's Union (or "PU") broke out of hyper and threatened to destroy any ship that was moving in system other than those that were already on an inward or outward track.
I frowned when I heard of their break out from hyper. The PU was a thinly disguised, totalitarian form of government masquerading as a religious organization. Unfortunately, they had a lot of power.
The last I had heard, the PU was seven planets strong, and two of those planets were very high tech in nature. Producing and supporting a warship of this size was no problem for them. They had arrived at this station in a very large, heavy cruiser, that was named the "St. Mathew."
I watched with interest as the St. Mathew slowed from a very high rate of speed to a more sedate closing speed. This was the way that warships normally operated. Come in fast to try to beat any incoming fire. A good tactic, but not necessary in this case.
The captain of the St. Mathew finally decided that no one here was going to try to blow his ship out of space, so he allowed the station's space control to resume ship movement. By the time this decision was made, it was late afternoon, local time. I was curious now, and I decided to put off my departure to another day, as I wanted to see what was going on.
I was still connected to the station's dock, since I had only begun to bring my ship's systems on line when I was stopped because of the order from the St. Mathew. As a final readiness test, I now brought my power core to full output, and I started to bring all the remaining systems on line.
"Sensors indicate a military grade scan is being done on the Misty," stated the voice of my AI.
I acknowledged the statement and then continued to power up systems and bring others back on line. I was almost done when the AI announced an incoming communication from the St. Mathew. I raised my eyebrows at this. There was no reason for them to be calling me.
I told the AI to initiate contact and soon I was looking through the communications view screen into the control room of the heavy cruiser.
"Captain Connor?" A serious looking young man asked.
"Yes? How may I help you?" I asked curiously.
"Please stand by for the Captain," he said and my view screen shifted.
"By the beard of the prophet! It is you!" said a man in a Peoples' uniform and tightly trimmed beard.
It took a moment, but then I remembered him! We had met a number of years ago when I was a Captain in the Terran Marines. He had been the liaison officer for a joint operation in which our nations were involved.
"Jamal Orman? And a Captain now? Congratulations," I told him.
"Alexander Connor, my bridge crew tells me that you are powering up to leave this system. Yet when I query departure control, they cannot tell me exactly where you are going. Surely you can stay a while and reminisce with an old friend?" Jamal told me in a tone that said much more then his words.
I sighed. "Give me a few minutes to place everything on standby. Do you wish to meet me on station here? Or did you want to send a gig for me?" I asked with some trepidation.
"Let us meet on my ship! I wish to show you my command. Then we can take my gig to the station and you can show me which den of iniquity has the best drinks on this god forsaken station!" he told me jovially.
"Well, I have only been here a couple days myself. So we might have to explore a bit to find the best one," I replied.
He laughed and slapped his knee. "I had heard of you leaving the Marines. I have watched afar your rise in the circles of finance. You have done well since I last saw you ten years ago," Jamal told me.
"I'm surprised. I realize that we had become a bit friendly, but to pay that much attention to me?" I said with some surprise.
"Come, Alex. You were an officer in Special Operations! Of course we would pay attention to you. Don't worry, we know you are not active, and that you have had no more than cursory contact with anyone of interest," he said.
"You do? Well, it's nice to know that I was important at one time anyway," I said a bit ruefully.
A short time later, my ship was powered up but on "Standby", which was a higher level of readiness than before. I now found myself watching the gig's forward view screen as we approached the St. Mathew. God but that ship was huge!
The gig moved into a cavernous opening that was a shuttle bay, and docked. A tube was run out to the airlock and when pressure was equalized, the hatch opened and I went out, through the short tube, and into the ship itself. Everything sealed behind me as I had passed.
"Gig will depart in two minutes. Shuttle returning in one hour and 30 minutes," I heard over the department intercom.
"Mr. Connor? If you will follow me, the Captain is waiting for you," a young ensign told me.
I nodded and told him to lead the way. He did, and it was a bewildering trip to say the least. After about 15 minutes, we arrived at a door marked Officer's Wardroom 2. We entered and I was met by Jamal
"Alexander Connor! It is good to see you again, my friend," Jamal said and his hand was reaching for mine. I found myself trying desperately to keep up with his handshake.
"Nice to see you again Jamal," I answered with more reserve.
"Come, let's sit and talk a little. What have you gotten yourself into that brings you way out here?" he asked straight away.
"Well, I decided to qualify for my pilots certificate, and I decided to do some exploration. The, 'World of Finance, ' as you called it, got to be boring," I said to him.
He went to the huge coffee urn, and poured two coffee's. He put two spoons of sugar into mine.
"Two spoons of sugar, right?" he asked belatedly.
I nodded. "You have a very good memory," I said with undisguised astonishment, while accepting the cup from him.
"Ah, but I was told to memorize everything about you. You were a bright and earnest officer in the Terran Marines Special Operations. We were very impressed by your actions on our behalf," Jamal said.
I looked closely at Jamal. I saw a tall black man who was about 40 and was very trim and fit for his age. Military uniforms did not hide flab well. He had wide shoulders, stood just shy of 6 feet tall, and had a tight, neatly trimmed beard as was allowed by his government.
I saw him looking me over, and I knew what he was seeing. A man in his 30's who was almost five-feet and ten-inches tall. I had dark hair and green eyes, with no beard or mustache. My skin had paled to a pasty white over these last few months of indoor activity. I really needed to work on my tan. On the positive side, I had kept up my regimen of martial arts and I was very strong and wiry for my size.
I was wearing my black suit that I had bought while aboard the 211. Okay, so I wanted to impress him. It had been years after all, and I wanted to present my best foot forward so to speak.
"So, when did you make Captain, and get this ship?" I asked curiously.
"Well, I made Captain a couple of years ago. I got this ship six months ago. She's a good and fast ship too! Good crew, well trained. This is my third command," Jamal said with pride.
He had every right to be proud. We spent the next couple of hours touring his ship, and she was impressive. I just didn't like the way that his government named ships after men. It was hard to think of her as a him. Historically, ships were referred to as female. At least in the Terran Federation they were.
We were interrupted several times as he would stop and go blank. I knew he was listening to his implant and responding sub vocally. We finally wound up at a boat bay, and we went aboard what appeared to be the same gig on which I had arrived.
"You never said what brought you out here," I asked gently.
"We are going to decontaminate our algae farm and replant. We picked up something that started killing off the Algae," he replied.
I winced. I had tanks of my own and it would cost like hell to decontaminate and replace the algae. My tank farm was only 12 meters long and 7 meters wide. But the nutrients would have to be drained and replaced, and the plumbing that went into the farm would have to be decontaminated or replaced. I could imagine that the huge farms on this ship would indeed be very expensive to fix.
"What ever made you decide to start your explorations from this location?" Jamal asked me curiously.
"Well, any direction would be good, but my ship is not that fast. I only do one light year every two days. So I decided on an area that had interesting bodies and that were relatively close together," I answered.
"Hell, you should have bought faster engines. I am sure you could afford better," Jamal said absently.
I could, but now I wanted to know how he knew that. This was getting stranger and stranger. We were approaching the station dock area, and the pilot was requesting docking instructions, which were quickly provided.
"Care to give me a tour of your ship while we are here?" Jamal asked me.
"You want to see my ship? It is very small compared to that monster you command!" I exclaimed.
He grinned at me. "We all have to start with some sort of command. You were stunted in your training by being a ground pounder instead of Navy," he finished, laughing.
I laughed along with him. The Navy, hell any navy, always thought itself as the elite of the combat forces. Still, once the space battles were over with, the real battle began on the ground. That was what won the wars. Still, he did have a point. Navies historically softened up the enemy, sometimes even to surrender.
"I would be honored to give you a tour of my ship," I replied.
"Excellent. Then after we find a good bar inside this station, we will adjourn to your ship for a tour. I have cleared my schedule for the next 12 hours," Jamal told me.
So that is what we did. We went to several bars, but kept mostly to non-alcoholic drinks. We talked about the status of everything, except the current tension that existed between the Terran Federation, and the People's Union of Enlightenment.
The friendship that had existed between our two governments years ago was now a thing of the past. It was deteriorating and relations were becoming tense. The reason had to do with a planet that both sides had stumbled upon at almost the same time. The planet was outside of both party's boundaries, but was very rich in power metals.
So both sides had established one mine on the planet, and each kept a jealous watch over the other side to make sure there was no cheating going on. It was a sad situation, but power metals were what drove everyone's economy.
Oh, there was the usual trading, and the arts, and work with thousands to millions of jobs; but everything came down to the power metals. These were what powered the hyper drive engines. Without the power metals, there would be no ships flying through space.
We entered my ship. I escorted Jamal through it, giving him the one credit tour. It didn't take long.
"You have a fine ship, Alex. If it were mine, I would have gotten better hyper engines, but still, you did well. Good upgrades. I noticed you have an older military grade gravity compensator. What is your space normal speed?" he asked curiously.
I told him, and he nodded. "Not bad. Much better than most civilian ships. I imagine you would surprise a lot of planetary cutters if you had too," He said with a grin.
"I didn't get it to surprise planetary law enforcement ships. I got it to give my ship legs if needed," I answered. "I'm an explorer now. I might need the extra speed for emergencies," I concluded.
We ended the tour in my tiny wardroom, and I made coffee. We talked for a while longer, drank coffee, and finally Jamal rose and said that he had to go.
"It was good to see you again," he said, turning serious. "The trouble between our governments is escalating. It might be a good idea to stay away from any Terran controlled planet, or any one of the People's Union planets. Just a friendly warning," he said, and then was gone.
Great. This was conformation of something of which I had only heard
rumors. Now someone from my past had come right out and verified those
rumors. I sighed.
