Tales from the Inbox: The Dirtside Job

2952-12-18 – Tales from the Inbox: The Dirtside Job 

The last we heard of captain Svetlana Cremonesi of the Tycho Spike, she was trying to save Nestor Palazzo from ferrying a group of Gilhedat on their diplomatic mission. Though she was not entirely successful in this effort, Mr. Palazzo does seem to have benefitted from her intervention all the same. 

When I reached out to see if she had any new accounts of her travels as a light-duty spacer here in Sagittarius, her first response was a rather colorful refusal, which I am not permitted to publish because of our editorial rules on profanity. 

Evidently she changed her mind, because a few days later this story found its way into my inbox. It reveals tantalizingly little about her current activities, but much about her current fears, which still revolve around unwelcome life-forms getting aboard her ship. 

An unfamiliar alarm woke Svetlana from troubled sleep. As usual, she was vertical and pulling on her trousers before she was even fully awake to marvel at the fact that she had never heard this particular alarm sound before, in her decade of operating Tycho Spike. 

“Hells, what now.” Svetlana hopped over to the desk console and smacked the surface to wake the display. As she wrestled with the catches that fastened a standard set of spacer’s smart-fabric fatigues, her eyes roved across the ship status panel that appeared there. At first, the board looked normal - nothing was on fire, nothing important was unpowered that should be, and nothing was powered that shouldn’t be. 

It was the outside temperature reading – thirty Celsius – that snapped Svetlana back to her senses. Her ship wasn’t on an automated course between station and system jump limit, or vice versa. Nor was it docked to the side of one of Confederated Sagittarius’s many stations, awaiting cargo.  

No, she had landed on a planet – a habitable planet at that – and that explained the unfamiliarity of the alarm. She hadn’t actually landed Tycho Spike since the first year she’d owned it, after all. It must be related to external conditions, not to the ship’s internal status. 

Sure enough, when Svetlana called up the detailed alert list, it was full of “PERIMETER BREACH SENSED” - a clear enough phrase, though even in its clarity she was confused. She hadn’t realized her ship had a ground perimeter sensor system installed.  

A few more commands called up the external camera feeds, and soon she was looking out four digital windows onto the rolling, mauve-colored grassland that went on for miles around her landing site. She’d gotten a decent look at the place from orbit, but had landed after dark, so this was her first real look at the world she’d landed on.  

Svetlana had to admit it was beautiful, even though normally she didn’t go in for any place that threatened to get her boots dirty. Supposedly the place was on the Survey colonization list for after the war, and she hoped whichever ship-full of clod-shovelers landed here first were wise enough to respect what they had been given. 

She had only a moment to appreciate the aesthetics of the world, though. At least two dark shapes were weaving through the tall grassy plants toward the ship. When visible light offered no clue as to what they were, she switched to thermal, but that was no good either, showing only bright, hot ellipses. 

At first, Svetlana thought these might be emissaries of her employer – this was no pleasure trip, after all – but something in the way they moved suggested wild animals, not people. Normally, those would be no threat to her or the ship, but this was an unfamiliar world, one for which Survey had never published a biosphere report. What was out there could be almost anything. 

Svetlana grabbed her gun-belt and fastened it around her hips. She’d heard all the usual watering-hole stories of alien peril: acid-spitting horrors that could eat holes in a small ship’s hull, titanic megafauna which could tear metal like tissue paper, hive-mind drones kamikaze-diving into air-vents and access ports by the thousands, and of course the ever-popular monsters composed largely of phased matter, capable of sidling through solid bulkheads to rend the unsuspecting crew within. No doubt such fears were misplaced on such a pleasant world as this, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. 

As Svetlana configured the hull loudspeakers to shriek an alarm every time the proximity alert went off, one of the creatures briefly revealed itself in a clearing. It was long of body and low to the ground, slinking forward with its narrow muzzle lowered as if smelling its way. She saw no eyes, nor ears, nor fur; the body seemed almost a sculpture of liquid obsidian, rippling with the motion of every tendon and muscle. She shuddered at the idea of running into something like that unawares. Hopefully her employer’s goons knew the local hazards better than she. 

Even as she thought this, the chime of incoming comms sounded. Svetlana brought up the lights, rubbed the remaining sleep out of her eyes, then hurried forward to the cockpit to take it from there, in case a video transmission was requested. 

Sure enough, the incoming request was from Piers Jerome, her current employer. His ship, the Leyla Robbins, was entering orbit, and had presumably spotted her transmitter.  

Jerome’s chubby face and insincere grin filled the center viewpanel as soon as Svetlana slapped the “accept” control. “I’m surprised you beat us here, Captain Cremonesi.” 

“It wasn’t hard to find.” Svetlana shrugged. “I got here day before yesterday and didn’t see you for three shifts, so I decided to land.” 

“Shame you don’t have high-end gravimetric sensors. We were already in-system by then.” Jerome clapped his hands together. “We will be planetside in about two hours.” 

“I’ll be waiting.” Svetlana hesitated. “Going to be all kinds of fun transferring cargo in normal-gee. Plus there’s a good bit of local wildlife skulking around down here.”  

Jerome waved one pudgy hand. “Xenolife shouldn’t give us much trouble. Nothing on this world is classified as sapient.” 

“I’m more concerned about it being classified as hungry.” Svetlana started as another perimeter alarm sounded. “But we’ll figure that out when you get here. Tycho Spike out.” 

Details

Tales from the Inbox: The Mission of Force 72

 2952-12-04 – Tales from the Inbox: The Mission of Force 72 

As you probably know by now, Seventh Fleet has dispatched a task force into Kyaroh space to assist them in resisting the Incarnation offensive, and that force reached the Kyaroh world of Obzahi yesterday. A little math suggests that the force was dispatched days before we published the interview with Adviser Lved, otherwise it would never have reached such a remote location in time without going through Incarnation held regions. I learned that it was dispatched weeks ago, but obviously I do not know the precise date. 

What is curious to me is how the fleet knows the task force has arrived. Obviously we have no Hypercast relay connections built that far out, and they would be easily destroyed if we did. Perhaps this was merely the arranged date of rendezvous on station, and Admiral Abarca is merely banking on the fact that even if that fleet is days behind, no-one on this side of the lines can possibly know it for some time. 

What is interesting is that the force is led by a familiar face to this publication. When we talked to him last in October for the main vidcast, Samuel Bosch did not let on that he was already preparing for a behind the lines operation, but he certainly was. The leader of the Lost Squadrons is the logical choice to lead Force 72, obviously. His new command is centered around two of the fleet’s newest ships: the brand-new Farragut-class heavy cruisers Raymond Spruance and Isaac Macready. Neither of these vessels has been in service longer than a year and a half and they seem to have all of the fancy upgrades the Admiralty has devised to optimize its ships for this conflict. 

In addition to these two capital vessels, Force 72 is composed of at least three light cruisers and a dozen destroyers, plus frigates, cutters, and support vessels. Obviously the specific strength was not listed by the fleet’s announcement, but it is surprising that any vessels besides Bosch’s own Spruance were listed by name. 

I did ask Mr. Lved if he had any comment on the fleet’s announcement, and he said only that he was glad that this action was made public. 

With the last four feed items of the year, I did want to spend some time revisiting people who have made their mark on this publication over the years, both within military service and otherwise. When I suggested this idea to Nojus, he thought it very sensible, but he was less enthusiastic about my desire that he be the subject of the first of these entries. Nojus’s signature commentary has been absent from most of our feed items of late because he and I have been splitting up to cover multiple things at once – we are rarely both in the same place to jointly author each scheduled publication. 

Nevertheless, I was able to extract from him this very brief account of a recent adventure in his work behind the scenes for Cosmic Background. 

“Anyway, there I was, facing down a hellreaper...” Nojus swept one big hand through the air to imitate the scything claws of the notorious monster of Glitterwold. “With nothing but my camera drones and my multitool, as usual. I’d heard they were big, but let me tell you, they’re a lot bigger in person. And sharper.” 

The pretty brown-haired woman leaning on the bar next to him smiled, but something in her manner told Nojus she was not listening with her full attention. Perhaps she thought this was a mere tall tale, but Nojus, as a rule, never made up any of his adventures, nor exaggerated anything, because almost all of it was on the datasphere in full-capture. He was no stranger to poetical language, but exaggeration which could be disproved? That might ruin him. 

“I had planned to try to take it on, you know. I’ve killed bigger beasts with nothing but my trusty RSSM. I’d even got the right hunting tag in case I came across one.” This, too, was no lie. “But the moment I saw it clambering up over that ledge, I knew I wasn’t going to be killing it. Getting anywhere near it was suicide. So I started-” 

“Excuse me.” A smooth, elegant voice behind Nojus interrupted. 

Nojus turned around, and was surprised to meet the ruby-gemstone gaze of a Gilhedat female. He knew she was a female at first glance, even though his eyes scrambled to find any solid evidence of this; the species had none of the usual feminine or masculine features to go by.  

Others might be intimidated by those piercing eyes that seemed to see too much – thoughts and emotions, even – but this wasn’t Nojus’s first experience with the species. He had nothing to hide for the hyper-perceptive xeno to divine. Besides, as they went, this one wasn’t bad looking, and she was bound to be more interesting company than the brunette who couldn’t even pay attention for a short anecdote. “You are excused. Can I help you?” 

 “Am I mistaken in identifying the Nojus Brand?” The Gilhedat placed one golden hand on the bar, two fingers upraised toward the proprietor in a familiar way. The portly man picked up the signal immediately and scurried off into the back. 

“You are not mistaken.” Nojus bowed his head. “And you have the advantage over me, Councilor, since we have not met.” This title wasn’t much of a guess; nearly every Gilhedat one ran into in Sagittarius Gate was a member of the Grand Journey diplomatic corps. 

“I wonder if I do.” Her faceted eyes caught the dim light as she threw back her hood, revealing a smooth, bald golden head. Gilhedat were hairless; that was, as far as Nojus was concerned, the strangest thing about them. “My name is Nahsa. Perhaps you can assist me in something.” 

“Unfortunately, Nahsa, I’ve hung up my muddy boots.” Nojus shrugged, barely conscious of the fact that the audience of his interrupted story was getting up to leave. “No more hazard romps. At least until after this war is over, eh?” 

Nahsa smiled. It wasn’t a broad grin, just a little smirk, but it was enough to brighten the whole bar, if only for an instant, and only for Nojus himself. He wondered how much of that winning grin was calculated, and how much was spontaneous; he’d heard plenty about the Gilhedat councilor training to know that nothing they did was ever purely spontaneous. “You are precisely as you seem in the media, aren’t you?” 

“Never had the patience to be someone else for the cameras.” Nojus caught the bartender’s eyes as he returned, and gestured to the empty glass in front of himself. “I might turn it up a little sometimes, but who doesn’t?” 

“There is wisdom in that.” Nahsa leaned over and lowered her voice. “Are you read into the mission of the seventy-two?” 

Nojus frowned. He was, but that wasn’t something an alien representative should know about, nor something that should be discussed in so public a place. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Admirable.” Nahsa nodded. “I will say my piece, then, and let you be. The Grand Journey wishes to contribute diplomatically to the seventy-two operation. We need only some way to send word of our coming to those taking part.” 

Nahsa fell silent as the bartender placed a glass of something brilliantly green in front of her, then refilled Nojus’s whiskey. She and did not speak again until he had wandered off. “Convey this notice to someone who can make use of it. I will not be difficult for them to find.” 

Nojus shook his head. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Again, that is admirable.” Nahsa placed a hand on his arm for a moment. “Convey my message then to whoever you think it would be wise.” 

Nojus stared hard at the Gilhedat woman as she sipped her drink. As usual with her kind, she had a way of seeming unnaturally relaxed and tightly wound all at once, and that conveyed no useful information to him. “I can promise nothing.” 

“I did not ask for promises.” Nahsa arched one thin eyebrow. “But now my duty is complete, and I would like to hear what became of the slashing beast.” 

Despite himself, Nojus could only chuckle. “Well I do know something about that.” He arched his fingers back into an imitation of raking claws. “So when I saw it, I knew it was suicide to try to kill it, right?” He swiped at the air in pantomime of the monster’s fury. 

“As you said.” 

“But I couldn’t outrun it either, and it was mad as all hells. So I had to do some fast thinking.” Nojus kept his voice lower than before; this time, it was a story for a private audience. “So here’s what I came up with. Mind you, quick thinking isn’t usually sound thinking, so this is going to sound pretty stupid...” 

Details

Tales from the Service: A Life on Prospero

2952-11-27 – Tales from the Service: A Life on Prospero

“Dogs.” Sebastian made a note. “I can certainly get you Sigurd terriers.” He took his slate back, tapped in a few commands, then handed it back. There was little expectation that the Incarnation had any of the same breeds of dogs as Earth-based society, after all.

Shakil scrutinized the images of young and adult dogs, then nodded. “Yes. They’re a little like the Greenwatch dogs we keep to hunt burrowers on Prospero.”

“Excellent.” Sebastian pulled the images of dogs back to his side of the table. “Now start talking.”

Shakil shrugged. “I grew up in a town of maybe two hundred people. Not much to say about it, except that it was a peaceful life.” He sighed. “My father drove the supply crawler – a one week round trip to the big city. My brothers and I helped him unload at the depot, and helped him load produce for the inbound run. Nothing about that helps you much.”

“Sounds nice.” Sebastian agreed, making another note. “What sorts of supplies?”

“Oh, nearly everything. Essentials, plus anything someone requested special from central. No matter what you requested, it would come in eventually, no matter how silly.”

“How did someone pay for these requisitions? Was there some sort of exchange system?”

“In the Incarnation?” Shakil made a horrified expression. “We’re saving humanity. We can’t put a price on our duty to prevent extinction.”

“So it’s a rationing and queue system, then.” Sebastian had heard about the economics of Incarnation society quite a bit when talking with other prisoners, but none of them were from small towns on the world of Prospero. “They tell you that economics cannot be a barrier to survival, or some such slogan.”

Shakil bristled. “If you know all of this, why are you asking me?”

“We like to get a broad swath of perspectives.” That there were only a handful of prisoners who had grown up on Prospero in particular was something Sebastian didn’t think the man needed to know. “So, you loaded food on the outbound shipments, and got tools, home goods, and electronics when it returned?”

“Who said anything about food?” Shakil looked around the nearly-empty mess hall, then lowered his voice. “They didn’t tell us what our crops were for, they just sent down seeds and instructions each season. Father told me once that he was unloading them at a Navy depot.”

Sebastian frowned. He’d never actually found a prisoner who could explain to him what the Incarnation was growing on its worlds; everyone seemed to have been involved in helping with the harvest, but no-one seemed to know what the produce was for. “So you didn’t grow food, then?”

“Almost every house had a garden.” Shakil shrugged. “But other than that? No.”

Sebastian leaned in. “Are you telling me most of the town’s food came in on the crawler?”

“Most of the calories, sure. Standard issue nutrient blocks.” Shakil gestured to the bank of food-fab machines. “They taste a fair bit better than what those machines give us, but there are only four flavor patterns, so you really have to have some vegetables and herbs for variety. Obviously we hunted wild animals too, in the winter. There’s a lifeform we call a banker-bird there whose meat can feed a whole family for three days.”

Sebastian wrote this down. This was not quite the same story he’d heard from other Incarnation civilians, but none of them had been Prospero natives. “How do they make sure the shipments arrive on time, so nobody starves?”

“Let an essential production site starve? The Incarnate would be derelict to allow it.” Shakil made a warding gesture with his hands. “The depot does keep a reserve of food in case bad weather slows the crawlers, but we only used this twice that I can remember.”

“It would take some serious bad weather to slow a heavy crawler down.” Sebastian agreed blandly. “Do you remember what caused those delays?”

“It wasn’t weather the first time. They sent Father to another town because someone loaded him with another town’s cargo. Then he had to go all the way back to Central to get ours.” Shakil sighed. “We ate a lot of vegetables for a few days.”

“And the second time?”

“We were snowed in. Almost three meters of snow. Even the best crawler has to slow down for that. Father was delayed two whole days.”

Sebastian made sure to note that a three-meter snowfall on Prospero was unusual but not unheard of. “What was your town built with?”

“There’s a machine that you feed dirt and some sort of clear goo, and it makes beams and big flat panels.” Shakil traced a square on the table with his forefinger. “Most everything is built with those. They lock together at the corners, all you have to do is fill in the gaps with epoxy.”

“So, not particularly sturdy, but easy to repair.” Sebastian wrote this down, too. He’d seen a report on a curious fabrication machine captured on Hausen’s World; perhaps this is what Mr. Shakil was referring to.

“And warm in the winter.” Shakil nodded, then a sad look passed over his face. “I guess we didn’t know how good we had it back home. Do you think when all this is over, I’ll get to go back?”

Sebastian smiled. “Probably. But that’s not my department.”

I can tell that this account has been retouched a bit to remove bits of the conversation that Naval Intelligence would prefer not to be publicly known at this time, but the glimpse into life on Prospero is nevertheless quite interesting. The fact that food is processed centrally and shipped out to each village is very strange, and comically inefficient – unless one keeps in mind that the Incarnation seems to spend a lot of time policing its own people for any sign of dissent. Controlling the food centrally prevents anyone from having a realistic chance of rebellion; any rebel town would starve as soon as their local reserve ran out, which presumably would be too soon for them to grow full-scale food crops.

Details

Tales from the Service: The Man from Prospero

2952-11-20 – Tales from the Service: The Man from Prospero 

As you may recall from my conversation with Kirsten Reid, recent intelligence harvesting has given Confederated forces a good idea what life is like on at least one of the Incarnation home worlds, Prospero. Theoretically, this is the closest Incarnation world to the front lines, and thus, when its location is discovered, a likely candidate for invasion. This is hardly a surprise to anyone, especially not to Incarnation planners. 

Among the many thousands of enemy personnel who have fallen into Navy hands during this conflict, some have been excellent intelligence sources, but most have given Naval Intelligence nothing of use, either because they could not be persuaded to talk, or because they had nothing of military value to say. 

Lieutenant Reid forwarded me an account sent to her by one of her associates in Naval Intelligence a few days ago. Why he didn’t send it directly, I can’t imagine; perhaps he thought that she would have more influence to get it published on our text feed. For the record, I would have published this account no matter who sent it in, because it represents a rare glimpse into how Incarnation prisoners are being housed here in the Sagittarius Gate system. 

Lieutenant Sebastian Hayes frowned down at his data slate as he walked down the broad master corridor running the length of the habitation module, glancing up only occasionally to examine the numbers on the doors. He usually tried to avoid trips to Facility 41, but orders were orders. 

He stopped at door 59, checked the list on his slate one more time, then pressed his wristcuff to the panel. With a flash of orange lights and a warning buzz, the heavy blast door began to grind open, swinging into the broad compartment beyond. 

Reflexively, Sebastian stepped back from the doors, his imagination picturing a horde of prisoners-of-war flooding outward toward escape, but few of the dozen or so plain-clothed men lounging in the broad antechamber beyond even looked up as the door opened. On each one’s right temple was a patch of shiny metal and blinking lights. They’d all been shown the layout of the station when they arrived; there was no escape for them in the main corridor; it led only to the central hub guard-station. They couldn’t even get into any of the other prisoner compartments without an access code from the officer on duty. 

Sebastian surveyed the listless faces inside the door for several seconds, then crossed the threshold. This facility didn’t house officers, Immortals, or others with nonstandard implants, so he wasn’t in any particular danger unless they all decided to gang up and pummel him into the deck. He wasn’t armed, of course; the guards wouldn’t risk putting a weapon into the hands of the prisoners. 

The blue pinstripes on Sebastian’s uniform told the residents of this compartment who he was, of course. In their months or even years of confinement, they’d all seen Naval Intelligence analysts enough times to recognize the uniform.  

On both of the long sides of the antechamber were open doors leading into the bunkrooms, which could not be closed during daytime hours. At the far end of the space were two more doors – one leading toward the communal mess hall, and the other toward the sanitary facility. 

Sebastian looked down at his slate, then looked back up. “Yarov Shakil?” He called out. Hopefully, the Incarnation pronunciation of this name was similar to how a Vorkutan would say it.  

Nobody looked up; the trio engaged in a huddled conversation nearby continued their whispering conference as if they had not heard, and most of the rest went back to playing cards or reading the paper books they had been issued by the prison staff. Sebastian frowned and took a few more steps into the compartment as the door behind him slid closed. Just because the prisoners recognized his uniform, didn’t mean they were predisposed to helping him. Most of the ordinary spacers and soldiers interned on Station 41 tried to avoid dealing with anyone wearing blue pinstripes, and he could hardly blame them. 

Fortunately, the dossier on Sergeant Shakil contained a file photo taken at the time he was processed into custody. He was old for an infantryman – he'd given his age at forty-three standard years – but he was fit for his age, thin and wiry, with a tan and much-lined face. None of the people out in the open resembled Shakil. Threading his way around the prisoners, he peeked into each of the open barracks chambers one by one. His man wasn’t in any of them. 

That left the sanitary annex or the mess hall, and Sebastian far preferred to do an interview in a mess hall, so he went there first. If Shakil was using the head, Sebastian’s questions could certainly wait. 

He spotted his man sitting at one of the long mess tables, hunched over a cup of food-fab coffee and a book. Squaring his shoulders, Sebastian marched up to the opposite side of the table. “Yarov Shakil, isn’t it?” 

“Would you be here if it wasn’t?” The man didn’t look up. 

Sebastian looked around, then sat down at the table. He didn’t particularly care whether anyone else heard, but since it was between meal times the mess hall was nearly empty. “I’ll be as quick as I can, Mr. Shakil.” 

“Eh.” The thin man shrugged, still not looking up from his book. 

Sebastian switched his slate to note-taking mode and took a breath. “You grew up on Prospero. I want to know about it.” 

The man shook his head. “Never heard of it.” 

“Really.” Sebastian arched one eyebrow. “Then why do we have record of so much message traffic between you and people on that world?” 

Shakil finally looked up, his eyes narrowed. “How did you-” 

“Not the point.” Sebastian tapped his slate. “I just want to know a few things about Prospero. You spend ten minutes answering my questions, and you can be the barracks hero this week.” 

Shakil slowly closed his book and sat back. “War’s going that bad, is it?” 

Sebastian smiled. “It’s going pretty well, I think.” 

The Incarnation sergeant rolled his eyes. “How would I be the hero?” 

“I talked to the guards.” Sebastian swiped across his slate screen to bring up the image he’d saved on his way over. “Prison regulations permit up to two cats, small dogs, or other domesticated animals per barracks compartment, as long as the prisoners take care of them.” 

Shakil’s eyes darted from side to side, then fell on the image of two adorable gray kittens for sale in a pet-shop over on the Sprawl. Surely, a man who’d grown up in a small agricultural settlement on a world like Prospero would miss the presence of animals that he’d known in his youth. 

A wistful smile crept across Shakil’s much-lined face, only to be smothered in an instant “Make it dogs.” He looked up from the screen, but his voice was still low. “I grew up there, but I don’t know anything secret.” 

Details
  • You are here:  
  • Home
  • Tales from the Inbox