📘The Star Pirate's Folly | 5: Commission
Gate-based wormhole travel between stars was commonplace until the war.
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Chapter 5: Commission
A thunderous knock at the door made Bee jump and she ended the call with Silver.
“Police,” a muffled male voice said. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Okay, sorry,” she said. “Coming out.”
She’d have to call Silver back. She swiped the screen on the little pad to activate it, but it prompted her for a four-digit pin—no way to verify Silver’s claims. Bee stuck it in her pocket and changed out of her uniform’s top. It occurred to her that she didn’t really know how she would get her money. Some kind of transfer? Panic bubbled up in her chest—she was flying blind, way out of her league.
More pounding on the door. “Let’s go! Waiting on you here!”
She wriggled into a thick long-sleeved shirt. “Coming out!”
Bee grabbed her pack from its spot next to the door and slung it over her shoulder. She lingered a moment to look back over her room. The bed was made, its sheets arranged just the way Hargrove taught her. Nothing cluttered the bare desk. Already prepared for another guest. Bee turned the door handle.
“Sorry,” she said to the two officers.
Her pack had everything she needed already—a habit she’d picked up long ago in preparation for the day she found Mother’s killer. She wasn’t sure if she’d tell Hargrove about the map yet, or Silver’s offer, but she knew she had to at least say goodbye before she left. He’d worry if he noticed her missing.
She might be gone for hours and didn’t want him calling her later at some inconvenient moment. Just then Slack Dog’s pad went off in her pocket again. She hurried the rest of the way down the hall and answered it as she opened the door to the stairwell.
Silver’s face appeared on the screen. “So far I’ve found working with you extremely unprofessional.”
“Yeah, sorry I hung up on you. But I never claimed to be a professional,” Bee said, her voice echoing off the walls.
“Well do you want your half up front or not? I don’t like waiting.”
“How will you pay me?”
“Go to the Rising Star Bank on inner Fifth. Just walk in, ask for Julissa—remember that: Julissa—and tell her you’re interested in opening a new account. Mention my name. Julissa will take care of the rest.”
“Okay, I know where it is,” Bee said.
“Good. I’ll call again when it goes through.”
Silver hung up. Bee pocketed the device again and continued downstairs. The Rising Star Bank was only a five-minute walk from the hotel, but she still had to track down Hargrove.
Upon reaching the bottom floor she opened the door and walked into the empty lobby. She was used to seeing it like this during the night shifts, but even then someone was always behind the front desk. Now in the middle of the day, no one.
Bee heard a thump and a yell from Hargrove’s office. She edged her way around the front desk so she could peek through the blinds. Hargrove sat inside at his computer. He pounded a fist against the desk and ran his other hand back through his thick hair in frustration.
She tapped her fingers against the glass and Hargrove flinched. He turned and glared through the window but softened when he saw Bee. She opened the door and stepped in, shut it behind her.
“Just trying to chip away at these endless incident reports,” he said, waving a hand at the computer. “But this piece of junk machine—!”
“Let me see,” she said, and Hargrove scooted off to the side in his rolling chair. He had about a thousand windows open. The man truly had a talent for making computers suffer.
Bee closed some of the programs gumming up the ancient machine’s dwindling memory, but stopped when she saw a news window about the bombing. A photo of Jensen Lee stared at her from the screen.
“They find him?”
“Not yet.”
“They know why he did it?”
“Could be someone was trying to send a message. They’ve been coming closer to the Core every year.” Hargrove noticed her pack and poked it. “You going somewhere?”
Bee closed one last program and stepped away.
“Yeah,” Bee said. “Yeah, just for a little while. I’ll be back by tonight.”
Hargrove scowled. “Jensen Lee may know you’re the one who tipped the police off. I need you safe, little worker Bee.”
Bee smiled at the nickname. “The streets are crawling with police right now. If he’s still in the city he won’t be looking for me. And besides, he didn’t look too bright.”
Her joke didn’t even crack Hargrove’s grim mask.
“I figured you would stay in like every other night in your life.”
“I’ll be back tonight,” she said.
Bee stung with shame at lying to him, but she couldn’t tell him the truth. She could see he’d never let her go in peace. Her lame excuse hung in the air as Hargrove searched her face.
“Okay,” he said.
He turned back to his forms.
“Look here please,” said Julissa, a plump middle-aged woman with shimmering pink lipstick. She pointed to a biometric scanner on the desk.
Red light flashed across Bee’s eyes and her information immediately popped up on Julissa’s display. She looked maybe fifteen in the photo, thin as a rail and glaring at the camera. She never liked having her picture taken.
“Lovely,” Julissa said. “We’ll have your account open in just a moment, that’s the easy part. Then you can deposit any funds you obtain into your account. That’s the part people tend to have trouble with.”
Bee laughed since Julissa seemed to be looking for one. “Well, I actually have some money waiting already,” Bee began, unsure what to say. “From my… boss. I’m working for him.”
“And what’s his name?”
“It’s Bill Silver.”
“Oh, you’re Mister Silver’s associate.” Julissa’s green eyes flared with excitement. “He’s already cleared the funds to be transferred. Just let me take care of that.”
Mister Silver. He commanded respect from this woman. Bee wondered who he really was. Julissa turned the projected screen out of Bee’s line of sight and tapped away at the keyboard, issuing a flurry of commands in quick succession.
“All set,” Julissa said brightly as she swiveled the screen back with practiced precision. Bee struggled to contain her joy when she saw the balance.
After leaving the bank, Bee hung a right onto Gateway Street and headed to the heart of the city. The gate station was the city’s only path between Surface and Overlook Station. There were dozens of other cities on their planet equipped with similar gates, and each could be reached from any gate station. Instant travel between the planets was possible with the proper equipment, but there were no interplanetary gates left.
Short-range gates set up at intervals between the planets lessened the distance between them, but the majority of the journey still had to be made in sleek nullsteel ships. Bee knew at one point they had access to an incredibly powerful gate that could bridge the gaps between stars, but the only one in the Luxar System had been destroyed in the Interstellar Revolution.
Decades of work went into those machines, and in a few instants of violence they were rendered totally useless. Scrap metal. People said back when it was just Sol, before any of the other systems had been settled, great scientists discovered how to stabilize and manipulate tiny wormholes that randomly appeared and disappeared in space.
They started very small—just enough to see through to the other side—and gradually the technology improved. Locations were charted, equations were written, and before long there was a database of locations all across the universe that they could observe from afar.
The next big breakthrough was the discovery of wormholes that opened near other Earthlike planets. By the time that happened, the technology had improved to the point that the wormholes could be expanded wide enough and held open long enough to send matter through. They sent through drones and materials to build a sister gate to open the two points permanently, and humanity thus began its expansion across the so-called “infinite frontier.” Colony ships were ferried through, easing the massive burden of human life on Mother Sol. It was the Golden Age of Expansion.
But in order for it to be properly considered a golden age, it had to end. Eventually the supply lines stretched far across the Milky Way, shipping valuable resources back to hungry Mother Sol and her closest colonies. It became unsustainable. Some settlements that would have otherwise been self-sufficient were forced to send so much they barely had enough for themselves. They attempted to use the proper bureaucratic channels, but Earth was far and the settlements had such distant voices.
Several colonized star systems revolted against Sol, having seen that they needed to act quickly to secure their futures. The crucial objective of each rebel cell was to take down the interstellar gate in each system—they were ludicrously expensive, and each system had only one at most. It was the perfect Goliath for the underdog resistance.
As largely a confederation of laborers—miners, farmers, dock workers—they used what tools they had at their disposal. Asteroid wranglers supplied ammunition while others cobbled together slings made up of industrial-grade antigravity equipment. Biding their time, keeping to the shadows, the resistance seeded the asteroid belt with dozens of these gigantic gravity slingshots. And when the time was right, they started throwing stones.
The first system to successfully cut itself off by destroying its own gate was Bee’s, the Luxar System. The system's interstellar gate had been built between Surface and the asteroid belt, and they never saw the first few shots coming. The initial barrage was partially destroyed by the planet’s orbital defenses; the gate was damaged and disabled, but far from beyond repair.
The Fleet stationed in the system took defensive measures to prevent more asteroids from being slung at them, but the rebels assaulted the gate in full force before reinforcements could be rallied. With the rebels engaging their warships and asteroids being flung at the gate, the Interstellar Fleet was kept busy long enough for another shot to get through—and the gate was smashed for good.
The Interstellar Fleet reinforced the Luxar System after news of the rebel victory reached Earth. They managed to punch a few ships through, but without the sister gate there to hold the wormhole open their response time was crippled—and crucially, they couldn’t retreat. It was a one-way flight for every soldier sent out there. The Fleet immediately got to work on repairing the gate, but the guerilla-style resistance of the system’s rebels impeded their construction efforts.
No matter how many of the asteroid slings the Fleet destroyed, another they didn’t know about would start lobbing rocks their way—all while the rebels worked on more. The asteroids they chose were large enough to be dangerous, but small enough to be difficult to detect on approach. With the assault coming from all around the belt, it became impossible to predict where the next attack would come from.
Other oppressed systems threw their lot in with the upstarts, and soon what started as another rebellion to be crushed turned into the Interstellar Fleet fighting a war of many fronts, struggling to defend their precious interstellar gates. The ships they sent to reinforce the fleets already in combat were too little too late, and many of the gates were destroyed along with a significant portion of the Interstellar Fleet.
Mother Sol saw her back was broken, and retracted what claws she had left. The Interstellar Fleet ships still left in the rebel systems surrendered or retreated. Earth still controlled the majority of settled star systems, most of which were near Sol. The colonized systems which revolted declared themselves independent—and in some cases, were cut off from Earth anyway since they had no interstellar gate.
The Interstellar Revolution was unarguably a success, but it came at a high cost. Despite the oppressive nature of Earth, cutting off all contact and trade was a drastic measure which not everyone agreed with. A lot of people from the Core planets signed up with the Fleet when they came blazing in to quash the rebellion, and there were simmering resentments on both sides.
There was a lot of collateral damage done, most notably to the network of gates that created “roads” throughout the Luxar System. At times, it was tactically necessary for one side or the other to destroy the gates. It took decades to rebuild them.
During that time, tensions increased between the more developed Core planets and the frontier-like resource planets beyond the asteroid belt Styx. It became much more difficult to transport supplies and equipment to the distant planets, so most people abandoned the frontier for the safety of the Core.
That was over fifty years ago. No one in the Luxar System really knew what became of Earth and its vast empire. Most people thought Earth maintained the silence out of choice, fearing that they might lose control of their colonies once again if other star systems saw the fruits of revolution. Others said they simply expanded their conquest of the stars to uninhabited planets which they could freely exploit, following the path of least resistance to greater wealth and power.
Bee stood at the base of the marble staircase in front of the gate station and looked up, following the lines of the thick white columns around the building. The gate station had been around since the old days, before the revolution.
The quiet was eerie. It had been a long time since Bee was last there, but what she did remember was the buzz of voices, footsteps, doors opening and closing. All she heard now was the occasional siren.
Find him, came Mother’s whisper.
“Working on it,” she said under her breath.
As if in response, Slack Dog’s pad in her pocket pulsed twice. A text message. She tried to swipe it open and it prompted for the four-digit code again. A preview of the text scrolled across the top of the screen, but the message was short enough to be read in its entirety.
Buffalo Bill: Dock B46
Well, now she knew where she was going. She snickered at the nickname Slack Dog had given to “Buffalo Bill,” wondering what it even meant, and walked up the steps to the gate station. After passing through the automatic sliding doors, she approached one of the dozen or so ticket screens that lined the walls. Two guards stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the hallway to the inner station.
Bee poked some commands into a ticket screen, and it presented a list of destinations and prices. She clicked on the icon for a ticket to Overlook Station’s docking bay and back, and a text box popped up on the screen: 250 credits will be charged.
Yes, she selected underneath the message.
Thank you for your purchase, the screen said. Your ticket may be redeemed via retinal scan at the gateway. Enjoy your journey!
Bee approached the uniformed guards. The two looked identical in their lightly armored navy nullsuits. The guard on her right pulled something off his belt—one of the little spherical scanners she had seen the police at the hotel use.
He stepped toward her, clicked the scanner with his thumb, and tossed it toward Bee. She flinched as it whizzed around her and snaked a wavering tongue of red light over her whole body.
“Going up?” the guard asked as he snatched the scanner out of the air and put it away. His doppelganger remained silent, staring straight forward.
“Yeah. Dock B46,” she said. “Can you tell me where that is?”
“Just go down the hall and take a right.” He jerked a thumb behind him. “You'll see a map of the station when you get up there. You never been up before?”
“Not since I was little,” she said.
“Just keep going; you’ll be shown to your gate, and they’ll shut the doors behind you. It’ll know where you’re going. The gate opens, you walk through, and you’re there.”
“Thanks.”
“What made you pick today?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“You know, to go up today with all this going on.”
“All what?” she said, feigning ignorance. She didn't want to have to explain herself.
The guard just laughed. “Well, don’t worry yourself about it then.”
He took up his position again opposite his partner, who hadn’t moved for the entire conversation. Bee walked between them and down the hallway, trailing her left hand along the velvety blue ropes that separated the hall into an entrance and exit lane.
Both walls had huge projection displays of live feeds from cameras in other gate stations around the world. She knew roughly where most of the cities were, and tried to get a mental image in her head of where each one would be on a globe.
Bee stopped when she got to the feed of Overlook City’s gate station. It was a shot of cargo being auto-loaded into massive transport rooms. Tiny pallet bots swarmed to and fro like bugs, carrying gargantuan loads on their backs hundreds of times their own weight.
She kept moving and took a right at the end of the hallway, following the signs. The other way was blocked and seemed to be where passengers would normally be filtering out of the building, walking the opposite way down the hallway she had just come from. There was no one today. She continued left around another corner and found herself in a long, wide room. The walls were lined with airlocks, maybe five on each side, distanced at regular intervals.
A bored-looking doorman straightened his back when she entered. He was younger than herself, and much shorter. He waved her inside the airlock he was holding open for her.
She entered the pod-shaped room and smiled her thanks at him, noting the name on his badge—Juanito. He sealed the door behind them and excused himself as he slid by her to open the inner airlock.
“Lucky you,” he said, turning the wheel. “You get the whole thing to yourself. Sometimes we really gotta cram you in there.”
“Yeah, it’s so empty in here.”
“Well, you know Cap City folks,” Juanito said. “Obedience is a virtue. The Governor asked everyone to stay indoors and keep gate traffic down while they search the city. They even cancelled the Fated Lovers Festival. Oh, but since you’re going up there you should be able to see Orpheus. Down here he won't be visible again until tonight.”
“Okay, thanks. I'll take a look.”
Juanito swung the door open and stepped to the side. He gestured for her to proceed with one arm and Bee entered the transport room.
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