Tales from the Inbox: KR-451

2947-04-09 - Tales from the Inbox: KR-451

While there have been a few more notable reports of Sagittarian aggression across the Gap, there’s no major news on that front that hasn’t been covered sufficiently by our vidcast programs in the past few days. Instead, I want to bring to you another story of a KR-X ship – I’ve heard several people tell me about ghost ships seen on the Frontier, but since sightings of this particular class of ghost ship were among the earliest Tales from the Inbox episodes and I regularly field requests to publish more accounts of such encounters, I would be remiss to keep this particular tale from this audience.

As with many recent episodes, this story was created from notes taken during an in-person interview which took place recently here at Håkøya. Interacting with interstellar professionals with stories to tell personally does cut down on my free time considerably, but I think it results in better content.

On most runs between Maribel and remote Deana’s Rock, Henricus never even picked up another star-ship on any of his sensors. Two weeks out and two weeks back without being hailed by passers-by or boarded for random customs inspections suited him fine, compared to the relative bustle of Core Worlds space. When he wasn’t fixing his old Bois Bennette, a ship which whose main disadvantage was that it was designed to be crewed by at least six spacers, he had plenty of time to himself.

As usual, at the end of the final jump, Henricus steered away from the ruddy light of Damnation’s Candle, heading for its distant binary partner, the yellow-white pinprick of Deana. Only when the computer had plotted a course through the chaotic debris rings around the pair of stars did he notice gravitic echo on the plot. There were other ships in the system – three of them, to be precise, all of them quite small and appearing to fly in convoy.

Deana’s Rock being one of the most distant official Confederated colonies, Henricus was at first apprehensive of this presence. Dedicated brigand operations on the Coreward frontier were quite rare, but the hard-luck denizens of unregistered colonies did occasionally resort to space-lanes piracy to survive. Three vessels arriving at such a remote world at the same time as his own regularly scheduled supply run seemed a recipe for trouble.

Three shifts later, this suspicion was reinforced when the ships still hadn’t responded to transponder queries sent in their direction. Henricus sent a query to the diminutive Deana’s Rock orbital station, and received an equally uninformative reply – though the station control center had been in audio-transmission contact with the three small ships, they remained as puzzled as he. The crews of the three claimed to be lost and wanted to dock for full navigation system overhauls, but the always-frosty Deana’s Rock natives had refused until the “lost” ships provided proper IFF transponder signals. These demands had been ignored, and the three ships continued to plod inward, making inefficient maneuvers and generally behaving as if they indeed were operating with bad navcomputers.

Henricus didn’t believe the ships’ excuses for a second, of course. His cargo was only a load of parts and food for the colonists, but a bulk hauler like Bois Bennette was a prize even empty. He continued inward, watching the ships for any sign of aggressive maneuvers; though big, his ship was quick enough in an emergency to outrun most pirates who took it to be as sluggish as its configuration suggested.

After five shifts of awkward silene, Henricus tried to raise the lead stranger on an unencrypted audio channel. “Unidentified vessel, your transponder is off. Advise you re-enable it.”

Several minutes later, he got a reply. “Hauler Bois Bennette, it should be on? We are sorry. Experiencing equipment trouble.” The voice was that of a young woman who couldn’t have been older than twenty T-years, and transmission lag being what it was, he estimated the ship had sat on his message for nearly a minute before sending its response. Most likely, the commander had coached one of his subordinates into sending the reply, perhaps to sell the idea that the vessels were crewed by incompetents.

Henricus, of course, wasn’t buying it. “You know damn well it’s off. Turn it on, or your engine profile goes into the known pirate database when I get back to Maribel.” He was trying to coax the ships – pirates, he had decided – into dropping their cover early, when Bennette’s surprisingly high acceleration would still protect him.

After a delay, again longer than strictly necessary, the young woman’s voice replied again. “This is KR-451, on route from Alipran to Nova Corsica with KR-407 and KR-383 on private business. I can provide any transponder information over audio link if the equipment is still not operating.”

“Alipran?” Henricus knew the place; it was one of the other outermost settlements, but it was one he knew to avoid. Alipran was an unregistered settlement, neither definitely illegal under Confederated law nor sanctioned by its government. As with most like it, the planet was no place to make honest deliveries. It was also halfway across the Frontier, and the listed destination, Nova Corsica, was in the other direction. “Like hell any of that is true. You’re in violation of at least three counts of the Law of the Spacelanes, KR-451. Station control would be in their rights to open fire as soon as you get into range.”

The delay this time was much longer, perhaps long enough for KR-451 to perform some scans of the station and determine what Henricus knew – its secondhand defense network was in no shape to be fighting off three small, agile ships. “I hope that doesn’t happen. Many systems on manual control… They need to let us dock.”

Henricus snorted at the brazen declaration, then recorded a final reply. “They don’t need to do anything, kid. This joyride is over.”

Before he could hit send, however, he looked up at the plot once more, and saw that the three ships had all vanished without a trace. Being close enough to detect them on radar as well as tracing their engines’ gravitic echo, he ran an active scan, but that came up empty – the ships had simply vanished.

“Station control, did you see what happened to those three ships?”

The station replied as quickly as signal delay could allow. “Negative, Bennette. They just up and disappeared. We’re scanning for debris clouds, but nothing yet.”

Henricus shook his head and stared at the plot some more. He’d heard of ghost ships, just like any other spacer, but he had a hunch KR-451 and its compatriots were still out there, somewhere, and he didn’t like it.

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Tales from the Inbox: Sagittarian Snippets

2947-04-02 - Tales from the Inbox: Sagittarian Snippets

Those of you who follow other components of the Cosmic Background media suite have heard of the odd reports coming back from the other side of the Gap in far greater detail than this space can provide, but Ning’s account (backed up by shipboard data streams which the Navy has analyzed) is not the only run-in with the odd, cruiser-scale warships which have been combing the far shore of the Gap. Because of where they are being encountered, the name “Sagittarians” appears to have become datasphere canon.

Though quick-moving and aggressively curious about human vessels in the region, the unknown sapients operating these vessels have not yet been involved in any confirmed hostilities with our explorers. That is not to say that they are not deadly; both Survey and private exploration efforts have reported that a large number of their crews are overdue and potentially missing. It’s an unavoidable possibility that these mystery vessels have captured or killed at least one crew.

These incidents have been going on since at least October. Keep in mind that it takes a minimum of five weeks and usually more than seven for a vessel to cross the Gap, and that until the Navy’s Hypercast relay chain across the Gap is complete, we only have what reports vessels which are returning from half-year and year-long tours can carry back.

I have been inundated with requests to provide accounts of these seemingly hostile vessels, and also with obliging spacers’ accounts, credible and otherwise. Rather than dribble them out over several weeks’ Tales from the Inbox entries, I’ve chosen to list the five most credible in brief, in one post. These are not presented in order of when I received them rather than chronological order.

Tutankhamun E. reports seeing a squadron of four of the “Sagittarian” warships operating with a much larger vessel which his instruments suggested was a hauler at the edge of an unnamed star system. This five-vessel flotilla appeared outside the star’s grav shadow and began moving at a fairly slow (for the Sagittarians, anyway) pace toward the life-bearing second planet, which Tut’s crew was surveying. His commander wisely fled with all speed, and the Sagittarians stuck close to their larger charge, suggesting it was of high value.

Lurking at the edge of the system, the survey crew was able to capture a wealth of data broadcast by their planetary orbiter drones before the Sagittarians found and disabled them. This data, later shared with the Confederated Navy, provided clear images of the large hauler-type starship, which, next to the sleek, elegant warships, appears crude and ungainly. It is Tut’s hypothesis that this less advanced vessel was the work of yet another culture working in concert with the Sagittarians – perhaps they, like our own spacers, are the products of a conglomerated society.

Mikkal T., second-in-command of a small Naval Survey Auxiliary vessel, describes seeing the shattered hulk of a Sagittarian warship drifting in a debris field in orbit around a cloud-wreathed planet. His crew moved in to investigate, but an automated orbiter started broadcasting a garbled, unintelligible message. Whether it was a warning or a greeting, the spooked Survey crew fled to the edge of the grav shadow and moved on to the next system. The location of the wreck was handed over to Survey and the Navy, but it has been kept from the public for obvious reasons.

The Sagittarians may have allies, but they also appear to have enemies who can hurt them.

Wilfreda E. counts herself lucky that she went to Sagittarius with a fast ship (a custom-built long-range surveyor). When entering a system to investigate a life-bearing planet, her crew was horrified to see the drive signature of a Sagittarian warship appear in orbit around the system’s outer gas giant behind them. Fortunately, the explorers were able to accelerate into a stellar slingshot maneuver back to the edge of the grav shadow before the pursuing ship got close.

Wilfreda is convinced that the ship was lying in wait, hoping a human exploration vessel would drive in-system to examine a new life-bearing world. Only the high emergency acceleration of the ship saved her crew from this apparent trap.

Sabree I. is the captain of a small ship which, like Ning’s, was forced to ground by the sudden appearance of a much faster Sagittarian warship. Hidden in the tangled rings of a bloated gas giant, his ship would have eventually been found, had the Sagittarians stayed as long as they had in Ning’s case. Fortunately for him, the cruiser hunted for less than ten shifts before it mysteriously left and burned its way to the edge of the grav shadow at a very high rate of acceleration.

Sabree (who only learned of Ning’s encounter after his ship’s return to the near side of the Gap) speculates that, being vessels of a well-organized military (as we must assume they are, given the size and standardization of their vessels), the Sagittarians abandoned their search for him simply because they had orders they couldn’t abandon to chase a curious interloper.

Mari A., a lone-wolf independent explorer, hailed a Sagittarian warship with the standard first-contact program, not having heard any stories of their aggressive behavior before making the Gap crossing. Unlike in other encounters, the big ship made no attempt to pursue her; it continued on its course, sending a garbled reply which seemed to contain a few snatches of audio recording. Most of these were grinding or roaring noises, and are being analyzed as potential sources of xenolinguistic data.

In one of these seconds-long audio segments, one can clearly hear a human-like voice speaking, though its words are marred by static – the most common interpretation of the most intelligible section is that the voice is saying, “now, in the appointed time” but there are other theories as well. The voice has a distinctly pastoral tone, and Mari told me she thinks this is an indication that at least one of the eccentric religious groups which moved whole-sale across the Gap made an impression on the Sagittarians.

I found five well-reported examples of such a migration with a quick datasphere search. This is an optimistic interpretation to be sure, but I have no other explanation for the recording, or for the nonaggressive behavior of this particular Sagittarian vessel.

 

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Tales from the Inbox: Spacers' Limbo

2947-03-26: Tales from the Inbox: Spacers' Limbo

Ning knew holding his breath was utterly useless, but he held it anyway as the huge unknown vessel swept overhead, as it had done several dozen times already.

The shape silhouetted against the stars on the command deck displays utterly failed to convey the sheer size of the incoming vessel. Its sharp-nosed, graceful outline was the sort of shape a human shipwright would assign to a smaller, more nimble vessel like a racer or a Frontier survey ship, rather than to a behemoth outweighing most Confederated Navy cruisers.

Whatever the alien logic behind its construction, the fact that the unknown ship had responded to Linn Rhee’s regulation first-contact transmission with an intercept course had demonstrated its intent. Now Rhee was pinned down, hurriedly set down in a deep-shadowed crater on the surface of a barren moon, while the stranger orbited patiently, waiting.

“He’s not going anywhere, is he?” Ning hadn’t heard Zhen enter the command deck, so focused was he on the silhouette crossing the sky above. When he turned around, she pressed a cup of steaming shipboard coffee into his hand.

“You were right. He means to wait us out, skipper.” Silently cursing the stammer in his voice, Ning set aside the coffee he’d been given, then duplicated the camera feeds to one of the other stations for the ship’s owner. It was a sign of her fraying nerves that Zhen had forgotten that she was the only member of the crew who could stomach food-processor coffee.

Zhen sat down and watched the shadowy alien ship cross the starfield at what, from the surface, seemed an unhurried pace. “We have time. Let’s see how patient they can afford to be.” Confidence rung in her tone; Rhee had been outfitted for long-range endurance in order to operate across the Gap, and could sit tight in its shadowed refuge for months.

A starship of the alien’s size could likely remain in place at least as long, of course; Ning didn’t relish the idea of sitting around for the better part of a year to see whose supply stowage ran dry first. “They won’t wait around long, will they?”

“I sure as hell hope not.” Zhen shook her head. “You’ve been up here two and a half shifts, Ning. Get below and get something to eat, I’ll keep watching him.”

This was a suggestion, not an order, but Ning knew it would be turned into an order if he refused. Blanking his console, he got up, took the untouched coffee, and got into the lift. At least she hadn’t told him to get some sleep – aside from the obvious contradiction between sleep and the offered stimulant-laced beverage, Ning couldn’t sleep properly knowing a vast ship full of malevolent alien creatures patrolled only a few dozen kilometers overhead.

As the lift descended to the cabin deck, Ning wondered whether this was how the first crews to encounter Imperial Rattanai ships had felt, before they were captured and lost to the anonymity of the Imperial chattel market. Nobody aboard Rhee harbored no doubt the sleek alien vessel was a weapon of war; its outline was vaguely reminiscent of a flattened bird-skull, a shape utterly inefficient for hauling cargo but well suited for giving multiple heavy weapons a clear field of fire forward without presenting a large target to return fire.

When Ning stepped out of the lift into the cramped crew lounge, three grim faces looked up from a game of cards, hoping for good news but seeing immediately that he had none. Ning walked past them with a nod of greeting to the food processor, fed it the still-untouched coffee the skipper had given him, and requested a plate of food instead. As the machine gurgled and wheezed through the process of turning inedible protein and starch pastes into barely-edible synthesized food, Ning stared blankly at the card game, needing a direction in which to direct his unseeing eyes but not really interested in the outcome. Taking his food from the output slot, he retreated into his tiny cabin without a word to his crewmates. What was there to say? The alien menace still loomed large, and the best case outcome was that they would trade weeks or months of tedium for the privilege of living a normal span.

Worst case, of course, involved being killed, captured, or dissected. It wasn’t a pretty thought to dwell on while dining on synthetic spacers’ fare, but Ning gulped down the bland dish of facsimile noodles all the same. Zhen had been right; it had been far too long since he’d eaten.

The door chimed, startling Ning into upending his half-eaten meal into his lap. “Dammit.” He could see on his wrist unit that the person responsible for the noise was Danica. Hurriedly scraping most of the food off the stain-repelling smart-fabric of his uniform and back onto the plate, Ning keyed the remote unlock.

Danica, looking as haggard as Ning felt, ducked into the tiny room, then let the door close behind her before she spoke. “You’ve been up in command since we touched down. Do you think we’ll make it?”

Ning let the businesslike greeting from his long-time crewmate and occasional lover pass by without comment, being simply too weary to risk a dispute. “I don’t know, Danica.” Knowing the ship was doomed would, he decided, be a less stressful alternative – the relief of certainty after two nerve-fraying days under the weight of an uncertain future held its own sort of appeal. “I really don’t know.”

Nodding quietly, Danica flopped down on Ning’s bed and covered her face with her hands. “If this is how we go… We knew the risks.” She chose her words carefully, as if the wrong one might bring the alien menace down on Rhee. “But I always expected the end to be…”

“Quick?” Ning filled in, brushing the last of the food off his trousers.

Danika looked up with a look of relief that he understood. “Yeah.” It was, apparently, all she could say.

Brushing the last scraps of food off his trousers, Ning left the cabin’s card-table-sized desk and sat on the bed next to Danica. Hesitantly, he put an arm around her shoulders. There was nothing to say, of course, and there was nothing more to do. All anyone could do was watch and wait.

The Linn Rhee returned from the far side of the Gap early last week, almost three full months after it had been declared missing, and almost a full year since its departure.The Rhee was one of the more well-prepared private Sagittarius expeditions to depart in 2946, and news of its apparent loss was met with widespread dismay here on the Frontier. The return of the ship and its crew has resulted in a fresh wave of widespread rumors, as the story they brought back - along with instrument recordings to back it up - is quite sensational. There can be no doubt they were pinned onto a desolate moon for several months by a curious or malevolent alien vessel of unknown origin - a clear case of first contact with new xenosapient life, but more than that, with highly advanced xenosapient life capable of projecting some level of modern military force on the spacelanes.

There have been a few other, less definite, sightings of similar ships - their narrow, avian profiles and distinctly bluish hull alloy are common features of these stories, as is the odd aggression demonstrated by the vessels. It is possible there is only one ship which several explorers have encountered, but that is not likely - it's more probable there are several. Several more expeditions and solitary explorers have gone missing on the far side of the Gap in the last year, it is possible that some of these were not as lucky as the Rhee crew.

The Arrowhawk squadron has only just arrived here at Håkøya, but its time-table to cross the Gap has been accelerated by several weeks in reaction to these events. Such rocky starts to interspecies relations are quite common (first contact at famously friendly Cold Refuge was quite hostile, for example), so we have every reason to believe that the Sagittarius starship builders will eventually prove to be good neighbors.

Of course, as Ning made sure to mention in his account to me, first contact with the old Rattanai Imperium was equally troublesome. If you are involved in exploration efforts on the far side of the Gap, be careful out there.

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Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Goodbye

2947-03-19 - Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Goodbye

This episode of Tales from the Inbox completes the tale which started in Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Frontier and Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Gamble.

With the appearance of the dog, the three men confronting Gus at the compound entrance all reacted differently. The man in front, not having enough time to process Anas’s small size and seeing the animal rushing directly toward him, took an alarmed step backwards, stumbled, and fell onto his back. The  man behind him leapt for the meager cover offered by a small tree while drawing his gun, and the third, farthest from the door, stood his ground, drew his gun, and fired it into the open doorway, where Gus’s shadow was already diving for cover.

The rattle and crackle of a stream of ferroceramic slugs shattering against the durable structure’s outer wall didn’t quite hide Junia’s gasp of alarm, and the fourth man, previously distracted by the confrontation, whirled and spotted her crouching in the open cabin of one of the band’s lighters. A gun appeared in his hand as he stalked closer, and Junia ducked out of sight, searching frantically for something that might get her out of her predicament. The spartan little aircraft had almost no internal cargo stowage, and other than the maintenance toolkit stowed under one seat, there was nothing she could pick up, much less fight off an armed man with. Outside, railshot growled and spat across the meadows around the compound, punctuated occasionally with sharp cracks from Blake’s hunting rifle. The noise didn’t quite hide the crunch of the fourth man’s boots as he crept toward the lighter.

Junia, seeing no alternative, waited until she heard the brigand’s boot on the metal step built into the side of the craft, then leapt out, hoping to pass over his head and land on the gravel behind him. The gamble went badly from the start – her foot caught on one of the acceleration-padded seats. With a shriek of surprise more than anger, Junia tumbled over the side, collided with her pursuer, and bowled him over.

Junia, landing on the man and knocking the wind out of him, recovered first. Seeing that the gun was no longer in his hand, she rolled away and hunted blindly in the shadows, guessing where it might have fallen.

A man’s scream of pain – she hoped fervently that it wasn’t Gus or Blake – indicated that the cacophony of gunfire in front of the compound had drawn its first blood, but Anas, still barking and yipping in confusion, seemed not to notice the streams of deadly pellets tearing through the air around him.

Gasping, the lighter guard got his knees under him just as Junia’s hand closed on the gun. Gus had, citing the possibility of just such a raid, taught the teenager the basic use of a rail handgun, so by the time its owner had risen to his feet, he found his own gun, safety disengaged, pointing in his direction.

At that moment, someone in the compound turned on every one of the exterior floodlights which surrounded the structure, bathing everything for a hundred meters in cold white light. Junia shaded her eyes and backed away, blinking furiously, but the man didn’t make a move – he was just as blinded as she was, and still gasping for breath.

When her eyes cleared, Junia finally got a good look at the man the little raiding band had left to guard their lighters, and found that he wasn’t a man at all – he was a tall, lanky teenager, obviously no older than she was, his hollow cheeks comically decorated with wisps of what could only charitably be described as sideburns.

“Y-you going to shoot me?” The other teen stammered.

Junia hesitated. The battle in front of the compound was already petering out, and the repetitive crack of Blake’s rifle told Junia who was winning. The compound would hold – she could only hope its two rough but brave defenders had not been wounded. There was no telling what the men would do with a prisoner – even a teenaged one – and they would never allow a stranger into the compound, where the secret of Sapphire’s unauthorized presence on Berkant would be impossible to keep from him. No, she wouldn’t kill him – but if he stayed, he would be just as trapped as she was.

“Can you fly one of these?” Junia asked the lanky youth, gesturing with the gun at one of the lighters. Even as she said it, Sapphire’s oddly final goodbye was fresh in her memory. This, she saw, was her chance. A clean break from her mother, a clean break from the motley little homestead on the Frontier.

“Uh… Sure? Why-”

“Anas!” Junia shouted. Calling the dog would probably reveal what she was doing to Blake, but that couldn’t be helped. “Here, boy!”

Faithful as always, the little dog, miraculously unscathed by the fierce gunfight, rushed through the tall grass to Junia’s side. With a wave, she ordered the young man up into the lighter she’d been hiding in. “Get in.”

He obeyed the order without question, vaulting up into the small aircraft. Junia, watching warily, scooped up Anas and climbed up herself, letting the dog out of her arms only after the cabin had closed. Since the seats were arranged in a row, it was easy to keep a gun on the young man in the pilot’s chair without taking her eyes off where the craft was pointed. “Get us airborne and give me comms to the homestead. Don’t make me shoot you and try to land this myself.” The threat sounded silly even to her own ears; Junia winced, glad her captive was facing away from her and unable to see it.

Twenty seconds later, the lighter was airborne, and the young brigand opened a comms channel back down to the ground. “What do you want and what have you done with my- with the girl?” Faye’s voice was nearly hysterical.

Junia winced at the alarm she had caused her mother. “Mom, it’s me. I’m fine.”

“What do they want, Junia?”

Junia, shaking her head though the audio link didn’t allow her mother to see it, thought of how to best explain the situation. “No, Mom. I’m not… I’ve got the gun up here. Is everyone okay down there?”

“Gus was grazed a few times, but I’ve bandaged…” There was a long, uncomfortable pause. “I don’t understand.” By her tone, Faye clearly did, but she didn’t want to admit it.

“Listen, Mom. I need to go. We both know it.” Junia didn’t have a plan, but there would be hours of flying to sit through before the little aircraft reached any destination of note. There was still more than enough time to plan. “I’m going to make him take me to the city. Maybe I can sign up with a crew.”

“Junia.” Gus’s voice, hoarse from shouting at the would-be bandits, broke in. “You’ll never get a berth that way.”

“He’s right, dear, just come-”

“There’s a ship in the ‘port right now called the Kiriake Tarok. Call up and tell them I sent you. The captain’s an old friend.”

“Gus! Don’t-”

“Faye, she’s made up her mind. Might as well get her hired on with a decent sort of spacer.”

“Thanks, Gus.” Junia tapped the barrel of the gun on the young pilot’s shoulder, then pointed in the direction of the spaceport city. Breathing a sigh of relief that he was not being ordered down into captivity, the young man pulled the aircraft out of its holding circle and pointed it in the indicated direction. “Mom…” Swallowing against a lump in her throat, Junia paused. “I’ll be in touch.”

Whatever response Faye might have sent, the lighter crossed the hill and lost its connection to the compound’s comms antenna. The connection died away into a hiss of static, and the teenaged pilot turned it off with one trembling hand.

Junia didn’t dare look back – she kept her eyes forward, focusing on the horizon where the spaceport would soon appear.

Junia's departure from the Berkant compound represents the beginning of her life as a member of our interstellar community, or so the submissions in her name claim. As with her name and her mother's name, the name of the ship on whose crew she serves has been altered.

An epilogue of sorts to her story indicates that the odd family unit she left behind on Berkant moved on not long after she left, though for obvious reasons no new location for this group of individuals was provided to me.

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