Tales from the Inbox: The Anakoni Contract

2947-03-05: Tales from the Inbox: The Anakoni Contract

This tale was told to me by a (reformed) old Smuggler in the bar on Argyris Spaceport here in the Håkøya star system. Gunna T. claims this odd episode happened almost ten years ago, but given the ill repute the planet Anakoni has fallen into in intervening years, I have some reasons to suspect it was more recent than she claims.

I should also apologize for the late delivery of this feed item; we are still dealing with a few system issues in the new studio. It's nothing particularly serious, but it did prevent me from doing a full-capture vidcast interview with the new Håkøya station chief for the Naval Survey Auxiliary, Stamatis Choi, who just arrived in-system this week. Since his office is in another station in planetary orbit, we'll reschedule the interview as soon as we can.

Gunna pretended to watch a pod of zeppelin whales and an accompanying cloud of smaller aerial creatures soar past as the minutes ticked by, each one making her contact sixty seconds further behind schedule. She had gone through a lot of trouble bringing her little ship down on Anakoni without attracting the attention of local traffic control, and even more trouble hiding it so the planet’s navigation and survey satellites didn’t pick up any traces of its presence. All that trouble now appeared to be for nothing – her contact had not appeared, and the spectacle drifting by overhead had attracted a gaggle of local onlookers and photographers. Even if he had made it, any exchange in view of so many witnesses would be impossible.

One of the locals, focusing a headband-mounted array of cameras at the impressive cloud of xenofauna, wandered uncomfortably close to Gunna, and she tried not to show how wary she was of the man’s approach. Most likely, he was just an overzealous cameraman trying to get the perfect angle for a full-capture shoot, but it was possible he was a suspicious local or even the late contact, trying to determine Gunna’s identity. Whoever it was, she determined not to acknowledge the intrusion. Instead, she extended the monopod of her multi-recorder to its maximum two-meter length, and steadied the device against the rocky coastal hill below her feet. Even if the shipment stayed in the hold for a few extra day, Gunna knew she could find another buyer – there was no harm in being the gawker she was pretending to be. A few good pictures to place in the holoframes onboard her little Selwyn Sawyer might brighten its spartan cabin.

As the full-capture cameraman wandered away down the hill, Gunna noticed a round, metallic object resting on the rock near her feet. It certainly hadn’t been there when she arrived; its shiny exterior was hard to miss. Perhaps the object represented a ham-handed attempt to slip her a message about the shipment. Without giving the object another glance, the smuggler shifted her footing to shelter it in the instep of her foot, focusing on the still shots her multi-recorder was collecting. With the setting sun at their backs, the zeppelin whales were a truly impressive sight, and it was obvious why so many thousands of tourists flocked to Anakoni every T-year to see the unique creatures for themselves.

A slight rumble in the ground caused the pebbles below Gunna’s feet to shift, and the little metallic orb to jump and roll a few feet down the hillside. Anakoni was not a tectonically active world, she knew; most of the other onlookers didn’t notice at first, but the rumble built in intensity slowly, until even the most dedicated tourist began to gasp and mutter. It sounded, to Gunna, less like an earthquake and more like a-

Without waiting to even finish the thought, she took off running down the hill, ignoring the surprised looks of the locals and tourists. As she closed in on the hidden, wide-mouthed sea-cave where her ship lay concealed, the rumbling grew to a deafening roar, and her idle suspicion became a dread certainty. The rumble was no quake; it was the vibration of a gravitic drive spun up at emergency speed. The only ship for a hundred klicks was, of course, her own.

Just as she reached the mouth of the cave, Gunna was knocked backward by a hot blast of displaced air, as a sleek white shape leapt forth. Her ship, her prized Selwyn Sawyer, clawed into the sky, its drive casting off two streamers of gray mist. At the appearance of the little ship, the pod of zeppelin whales drifting lazily across the sky honked in terror and fled in all directions. The smaller flying animals following in their wake did their best to follow the dispersing behemoths, and many of them lost track of the whales as they disappeared into a bank of pinkish cloud.

Gunna watched her ship dwindle to a pinprick in the sky, cursing. As the planet’s stellar primary slid below the horizon, she trudged back up to the hillside, finding it newly deserted – the photographers and onlookers had not stayed long past the disappearance of the majestic zeppelin whales. The little metal sphere was still there, gleaming softly in the deepening twilight. Scowling, Gunna picked it up.

It was, she realized to her surprise, a high-denomination credit chit – the number of zeroes etched into its smooth skin made the smuggler’s eyes pop out. The chit carried almost five hundred times as much money as what she’d been promised for her cargo; enough to purchase Sawyer ten times over.

Still scowling, Gunna turned on her comm and patched into the local datasphere to call herself a ride to the local spaceport.

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Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Gamble

2947-02-26 - Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Gamble

Blake checked the batteries on his long, slender hunting rifle as the pair of visiting lighters touched down beside the compound and cut their engines. Junia found the man difficult to read, but the concerned expression on her mother’s face hovering nearby sent a clear signal about what was expected out of visitors in the middle of the local night.

Ever since the compound had been raised, they had expected someone, discovering what Blake and Gus had done to the interstices of the emigration liner, to come looking for Sapphire. The common-sense illegality of trafficking a poorly understood xenospecies to a new colony world guaranteed that if Berkant’s loose authority structure learned of the fifth resident of the little outpost, there would be a high price to pay, and Gus spent whatever time he did not spend working the land and maintaining Sapphire’s terrarium concocting methods to better conceal his alien friend’s living nest.

Of course, Gus’s plans were all based on the arrival of legitimate authorities, who were bound by strict rules of conduct. The lighters, in cutting their running lights and descending quietly, had announced themselves not to be bound to those rules – the motivation of their pilots remained a perilous unknown. Junia assumed they were after Sapphire and shuddered at the thought of whatever inhumanity might be in store for the kindly xeno, should they succeed.

Gus burst from the terarrium wing, his pistol slung low on his hip for the first time in months. “Cameras say there are four of them. Blake, think you can get to the roof?”

With a nod and a brief, meaningful look toward Faye, the big man hurried off to the compound’s central hub, where he could climb up to the roof. How he’d do this without making a miserable racket, Junia could only guess; the rickety prefabricated structure creaked abominably when anyone had to climb to the roof to inspect the various comms equipment and security monitors installed there.

“What about us?” Junia wanted to go hide in the terarrium, where surely Sapphire’s calming presence would moderate the intruders’ violent intentions, but she was usually not allowed to linger near the sensitive equipment which kept Sapphire’s host growths alive.

“Stay here. Both of you. And hold onto that dog.” Gus didn’t even break his stride to answer the question. Though he had advocated for the purchase of a dog when Faye and even Blake had resisted the idea, Gus and Anas didn’t get along. “If you hear shooting, run for the back.”

As soon as the two men had disappeared, Junia grabbed her mother’s hand and placed it on Anas’s collar. Faye might be content to hide and let the two former ruffians handle the situation, but she was not. “I’m going to have a look.”

“Junia!” Faye’s call was reinforced by a long, forlorn whine from the dog, but the teenager paid it no mind. She would have a look at this new threat to their life on Berkant – the danger of being spotted spying on the confrontation would be little greater than the danger she was already in.

Slipping out the compound’s tiny back door, Junia felt a tug on her ankle, and turned around to find a half-sized version of Sapphire’s favorite beautiful, statue-like shape, a form the alien had purportedly derived from her first interaction with Gus. The usual feeling of calm which cloaked Sapphire was muted, as if she too was hiding from the danger.

“You’re safer in your terrarium, Saph.” Junia whispered. “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

Sapphire shook her carven head silently, her spun-glass pseudo-hair glittering in the starlight spilling in through the door. The tug on her ankle was gentle, an invitation to consider the planned course rather than an attempt to prevent it.

“I’m just going to look.” Even as she said it, Junia cringed, knowing that she was going to look for a way to take action and help the men protect the compound.

Sapphire, who didn’t have any use for words, saw right through the protest. With a child-sized hand, she reached up to take Junia’s own, gripping the teenager’s fingers firmly. The gesture felt almost like a farewell.

After a moment cradling Sapphire’s carefully sculpted hand in her own, Junia slipped free and stepped outside the compound. Already, she could hear raised voices from the front, as well as the hiss and hum of lighter turbines cooling off after a flight. Sticking to the tall grass which had grown up around the walls, she crept around for a look. With two moons in the sky, the imperfect darkness itself was no protection.

“… who you are or what that card says.” Gus’s voice was calm, but icy cold. “Come back at dawn.”

Two voices, speaking quietly, both tried to respond, and Junia couldn’t make either of them out. Eventually, one quieted down, letting the other address Gus’s demand. As they spoke, Junia spotted the dark forms of the lighters, parked on the marked landing field next to the storage barn. Both of the canopies were open, and it appeared that the intruders had not left anyone to watch their rides.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Come back at dawn, and bring coffee.”

As Gus stalled, Junia crept toward the lighters. As she moved away from the wall, she could see the light from the foyer spilling out over the meadow, interrupted by four shadows – Gus’s towering shadow framed in the doorway, and the lesser, darker shadows of three others. Faint light from the still-active instrument panels inside each aircraft cabin reflected off the upraised canopy panels, and Junia, hoping to spy an insignia or a registration number, approached the nearer vehicle, shining the weak light of her wrist-comm on its polymer hull.

“Hey!” A nearer voice cried out, prompting Junia to cut the light and dive for the shelter offered by the open barn. Only then did she remember Gus’s claim that there were four visitors, and that there had only been three shadows at the compound door.

As the sentry hunted for the source of the light, Junia watched him creep steadily nearer. He would check the structure, and there was only one doorway – she had to get past him, somehow. The only other cover before the tall grass behind the compound was the dubious concealment offerred by the lighters themselves.

Junia might have thought better of the idea had she been given the time to think at all, but the opportunity was only open for a moment. The sentry paused to check the landing-gear wells of one of the two aircraft, and as he did he was faced away from Junia and the other. She sprinted across the wet moss of the landing field and leapt into the open cockpit of the second vehicle, still hoping to collect images of its registration or other useful data that would justify the risk she was taking.

At the front of the compound, Gus’s icy rejections had devolved into a tense standoff. Junia peeked over the control panel in time to see the compound’s unofficial leader draw his pistol and wave it at the three intruders, who all reached slowly for weapons of their own. Somewhere in the shadows on the roof, Blake was probably watching the same scene through the thermal lens of a hunting scope. Junia thought shooting might start at any moment.

Before it did, though, another shadow appeared in the long cone of light spilling from the doorway. With a bark of overstimulated confusion, Anas bounded past Gus’s legs and out into the fray.

This week's entry continues the story provided by Junia (for the first installment, see Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Frontier) about her departure, from an odd little family unit, as well as from the colony world of Berkant.

Junia's foolhardy decision to investigate the intruders' aircraft nearly got her killed - but as we will see in the next installment, the decision put her in the right place to save a life, and start her own.

The next installment in this story will not be next week - I've been collecting potential stories in the station bar for several days following the completion of the new studio, and there are several which I think are deserving of this audience's attention. Junia's story will return, but I don't want to let this text feed feature focus too much on certain personalities or stories.

Cosmic Background is also in final negotiations for a new sponsor for this feed; some of you have asked what happened to our previous sponsor, and the only thing I am allowed to announce is that Cosmic Background is no longer in a formal business arrangement with that firm. Fortunately, the low cost and high audience engagement of this medium allowed it to thrive without a dedicated sponsor for many months, but sponsorship of this content was always intended by the studio.

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Tales from the Inbox: Hermit of Håkøya

2947-02-19 - Tales from the Inbox: Hermit on Håkøya

Today's Tales from the Inbox represents the first story which I am ingesting from the new studio in the Håkøya star system. While I had several items in our usual inbox which would have been excellent stories, I had a chance encounter with Hussein Haberkorn on Argyris Spaceport.

His name may be known to portions of this audience, but I will save the others a datasphere search. Mr. Haberkorn was a senior and well-known Navy captain who was embroiled in scandal in 2936, who has always insisted that he was innocent of the wrongdoing which the Navy used to drum him out of the service. He is probably best known for being the central to the Strand Crisis of 2932, the closest the Confederated Worlds and Rahl Hegemony have come to war in our lifetimes. His downfall, according to the Navy version of events, was related to unauthorized and untoward contact with the Ironstar Corporation, a security firm with known ties to the Hegemon's intelligence services.

Mr. Haberkorn was forced into retirement and stripped of his accolades, and he largely fell out of the public eye; he apparently lived on Håkøya until this month, when persistent messengers from the Navy, likely looking to pull senior officers out of retirement to recover from the Great Purge, rendered his retirement home, in his words, "completely unsuitable."

I found Mr. Haberkorn to be gruff but personable, and though he refused to sit for an interview, he did tell me about his troubles with the Navy's insistent badgering, troubles which have persuaded him to relocate farther out into the Frontier. I sympathized with his irritation - Håkøya is a beautiful world any of us might dream of retiring to, and agreed to share his story.

Hussein led a simple life, and he liked it that way. He found Håkøya to be a pleasant planet, rugged and remote, and his little plot of land possessed of a mild equatorial climate, in which very little effort was required to grow an abundance of food. It was not the retirement Hussein had imagined as a young Navy officer, but he loved it all the same. Rather than managing the Navy’s thorniest problems, he needed only to maintain his extensive gardens.

Of course, even this responsibility had its complications. His least favorite of these was that the patch of ground-hugging tartberries in front of his hut appeared, from the air, to be an ideal landing pad. Only three days before the fragile plants were ready to be harvested, pressed, and fermented, Hussein emerged from his home just in time to watch a visiting lighter plop down in the middle of the plot.

Not realizing what she was doing, the pilot jumped down from the craft, crushing yet more plants under her smartly polished Navy boots. With a wave of greeting, the officer – her bearing could belong to no-one else – held up a bottle of strong but tasteless Core Worlds liquor.

Despite this infuriating intrusion, Hussein waved her inside and accepted the bottle. Swallowing his ire, he ushered the visitor into his hut. The walls, being little more than loose thatch of sticks, offered no protection from the elements, but the day’s elements were so wildly pleasant that it would have been sinful to protect oneself from them.

Hussein, taking out two carefully-carved wooden cups, poured out his carefully marshalled chillhusk nectar into both, then gestured to one of the two haphazard chairs.

Already sweating in her stifling smartfabric uniform, the visitor took one of the cups and drained it, not bothering to ask what was being offered. “Captain Haberkorn.” She finally spoke. “You’re a hard man to find, you know.”

“That is by design.” The woman was hardly young, but her impatient air made her seem younger, young enough almost to be Hussein’s granddaughter. He’d been in retirement for a decade, but unfortunately, that time had not allowed him to be forgotten, even though it had allowed his offenses against the service – offenses which ensured that it was a breach of formal protocol to address him as “captain” -  to vanish from the Navy’s memory. “I’m sorry, but whoever sent you, the answer is no.”

“You haven’t-”

“You are the fourth person to come here bearing the same query in as many months, miss.” Hussein sipped his chillhusk nectar as she processed this, which her superiors had obviously not bothered to explain beforehand. “If they wanted anything else of me, they should not have run me out of the fleet with a drumhead court-martial.”

“Captain, the security of-”

“There are ten million sapients in the service. My expertise was not critical ten years ago, and it is not critical now.” Hussein held the bottle of liquor up to the light, read the label, then handed it back. At least his betrayers had seen fit to send an expensive drink as a peace offering; the bottle likely cost nearly four hundred credits back in Centauri. “And when you get back, make sure that their next messenger is going to land on the marked landing pad up on the hilltop, rather than in the middle of my garden.”

Finishing off his drink, Hussein walked out of the hut, hearing his guest get up and follow behind him, stopping at the threshold to see that she had in fact planted her lighter on top of tilled and fertile ground. He ignored her, stalking off into the woods to gather sticks for the expansion of his hut he’d been planning for nearly a month. 

When he returned ten minutes later, messenger and lighter were gone, but the bottle of liquor remained. Set next to the bottle was a data-slate, its screen waking up as Hussein approached. Carefully avoiding the text on the screen, he carefully gathered up both objects and swiftly buried them behind the hut. Whatever scheme the Admiralty was brewing, he wouldn’t be dragged into it.  

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Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Frontier

2947-02-12 - Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Frontier

I'll be more or less incommunicado for several weeks; this post was prepared in late January for publication. By now you all have probably read the reason for my unannounced disappearance so shortly after the holidays. The next time I dispatch Tales from the Inbox the day of publication, it will be from our new studio at Håkøya!

Junia stood at the bank of the luminescent stream, content for the moment to take in the sights. She was not technically allowed out of the compound at night, but with her mother spending more and more time with Blake, and Gus entertaining Sapphire as usual, it was becoming easier to sneak out every day. 

Berkant was a notably picturesque world during the day, but at night, the hills around the group's remote homestead were even more beautiful. Bioluminescent freshwater microbes lit up the streams as they wound their way down into the valley, the subtle green glow competing with the bluish illumination provided by the planet's two moons. A small herd of rotund buffadillos dozed standing upright near the gurgling water, with fast-growing creep grass climbing up around their splayed feet, seeking a position from which to catch the morning sun.

Junia had at first resisted her mother's decision to drag her out to the Frontier, but after a full year on Berkant, she had changed her mind. The reclusive life in the little compound had quickly taken on elements of a vacation trip to paradise, and even after the novelty of the gorgeous surroundings had faded, Junia had not resumed her complaints. The company her mother kept was strange indeed, but that same company almost made up for the remote solitude of their new life.

Not all of that company held Junia’s interest, of course. Blake was friendly, but rough and none too bright; Junia didn’t know what her mother saw in the man, but he divided Faye’s attention, which Junia found liberating. Gus was clever and inventive, but he spent so much time tending Sapphire’s terrarium that he was rarely seen outside the compound. 

Sapphire herself was the compound’s real heart and soul, and the strange creature was the main reason Junia had not complained about the quiet Frontier life even after the idyllic novelty had worn off. Though she couldn’t speak, the sapient had a way of understanding people, and a way of making people understand her, which Junia had come to respect. Though wholly alien, Sapphire had become almost an older sister for the compound’s lone teenager – an older sister who always listened, and didn’t need to interrupt to make her observations known.

Of course, even Sapphire’s calming influence couldn’t keep Junia content forever. She knew that in a year, maybe two, the Frontier would become unbearable, and she would demand permission to leave. A return to the cramped and stifling Core Worlds – they seemed so from the Frontier, at any rate – might be too extreme, but the growing Frontier urban centers at Maribel and Håkøya presented a tempting middle ground.

Turning around at a rustle in the xeno-grass behind her, Junia saw Anas, the dog her mother had acquired at in the planet’s tumbledown spaceport town, slinking to her side. Even though the teen had double checked the seal on the compound’s outer doors as she crept out, the wily little cross-breed had managed to find a way to follow her. Junia knelt down and scratched him behind his ears, whispering for quiet.

When she stood to look back out toward the distant horizon, Junia knew Sapphire was nearby. The odd creature was as silent as always, but a familiar calm feeling had settled among her jumbled thoughts. Outside the compound, Sapphire never manifested a human-like appearance; the farther from her carefully-tended stand of mushroom-like host trees she wanted to go, the more of her form needed to be used to reach the spot. Junia was near the edge of Sapphire's reach; most likely, she had arrived only as a serpent-like pseudopod nosing through the grass.

"Why don't I fit in here, Saph?" Junia whispered. Gus had told her that Sapphire didn’t need to hear her words to know their meaning, but speaking was still the best way to construct a thought. "Do you think it would be better on Maribel?" Junia didn’t think she had quite fit in back on Planet, she hadn’t adjusted well to the teeming people of the liner, and she was beginning to see how the picturesque, rugged back country of Berkant would never feel like home. She was beginning to wonder if there was any place for her in the whole galaxy.

There was no answer. Sapphire could not speak, but not even the usual quiet reply was offered. Anas, sensing Junia’s distress, whined and butted his head against the teenager's leg.

Sapphire tugged Junia’s attention subtly, encouraging her to turn her attention to something. Taking the hint, Junia looked over her own shoulder. told Junia to look behind her. The compound's lights were all dimmed, but its domed atrium and multiple wings still glowed against the darkness of the hills beyond. When the group had first come to the place, Junia had looked at it in awe – the very thought of having so much wide-open space to call her own had seemed too great a fortune to bear. Now, the vast frontier distances seemed hopelessly lonely.

With another gentle nudge, Sapphire retreated back toward the safety of the compound with a sound not unlike a startled Terran snake rushing through the grass. Junia saw what she was being directed to see: a pair of lights crept across the starfield, circling lower toward the compound. The faint whine of turbines in the distance told her what they were. "Lighters." Junia muttered. Their compound had few visitors, and anyone who came by in the middle of the night were likely to be unfriendly.

Junia sprinted back toward the compound, Anas at her heels. "Mom! Blake! Gus!" She shouted, pounding through the front door. Sapphire had retreated into the wing housing the hydroponics system and fungal terrarium; she knew that her presence was better kept as a secret. "Someone’s coming." 

Today's Tales from the Inbox features the return of Junia (not her real name), who some of you may remember from Tales From the Inbox: Smugglers in Second Class. Junia sent this in herself, where prior entries related to her family's story were submitted by her mother. Also, our previous entries took place some years ago; the events Junia sent in are more recent, though I do not have the exact date.

While I have verified the identity of this person (or at least their understanding of details of the prior story which were not published in previous Tales from the Inbox episodes), I do not have any way of verifying the story (which as you can see, does not end here.) As usual, the audience is encouraged to make up its own mind about the veracity of the submitter.

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