Star Kitten (47 page)

Much of New Australia and
its different tribal territories functioned for the most part like
the old European feudal system from Earth’s ancient history; with
roles assigned and fealty sworn to an overlord being rather common
in most of these little kingdoms. War between tribal territories
was not allowed of course, but disputes could and did arise on
occasion; all of which were settled in Tribal Confederation
Assembly. Now that so many years had passed since open warfare
erupted between tribes, those disputes were still rather rare.
But...
RIVALRY
was certainly commonplace as many tribes had experienced
conflict with each other during the planetary civil war—only to
remain contentious neighbors several years later. Resentments had
certainly cooled over the many years since then, but opportunities
for one-upmanship were eagerly seized upon among tribes who
traditionally despised or resented neighbors with whom they had a
conflictive “past”.

It was only natural therefore, that when one
tribe's Chieftain staged an impressive wedding, then its rival
neighboring tribal Headman just had to try and top them. And when
Chieftains of the many tribes got married, their assorted loyal
warlords in their tribe followed along eagerly to the altar.
Weddings gradually became so commonplace; that it became a booming
industry on the planet. A whole commercial wedding planning and
ceremonial arrangement business developed. It was certainly an
exciting time on New Australia. Wedding bells were a’ ringing it
seemed; almost every week.

Rex Middlefield even
started his own catering business; and franchised the business
model for it throughout the planet. Felina was so very proud of her
old entrepreneurial friend! He’d made quite a good life for himself
on New Australia and never really had to work as hard as he used to
unless he wanted to. That said, he usually downright enjoyed the
frenetic stress of planning a wedding party and dealing with all
the challenges of last minute
foul-ups
. He was the happiest she’d
seen him in years. Besides he ended up getting quite wealthy while
growing the wealth of his tribe in the process. Once he explained
the concepts of franchise “royalties” and percentages of ownership
to his tribal Chieftain, there was no further objection. His
Chieftain realized that when he’d bought Rex as a slave years
before, he’d not just acquired a great cook… the balding paunchy
human was actually a damned good businessman. The chieftain not
only made him a member of the tribe; he eventually even knighted
him and gave him lands within the tribe’s kingdom! Felina just
loved teasing him about this, calling him “Sir Rex” whenever she
just felt like kidding with him.

Meanwhile however, things had been
developing quite differently millions of miles away on the planet
Earth….

On Earth, reports had been
coming in for years ever since the straggling, coughing, wheezing
humans from the
Chengshi
staggered into one of the shore bases on Kapteyn
B. They’d struggled through miles of wasteland and choking swamps
and barren desserts to make it to safety, it was reported. And once
recovered, they all spun harrowing tales of captivity on board a
barbaric pirate vessel. The
Chengshi
, they said, had been their
original ship; and when their Captain had been duped into halting
their voyage to take on “passengers” posing as Pumalar nobles
making their way back to Pumalar for a funeral; they had been
overwhelmed and taken captive by brutal filthy pirates. The
survivors then proceeded to shock their rescuers—and later the
notorious Earth media—with sordid details of what all happened
“below decks.”

Several of these survivors
even hired publicists and went on the video media talk show
circuit. One or two… then several… tried writing a book; and
eventually at least three different versions did get published;
based either directly (or rather “loosely” in some cases) on the
events that unfolded on board. One version in particular, a book
called
They Come to Me in the Dark: A
Survivor’s Account of Captivity and Terror Aboard a Space Pirate
Ship
was an intergalactic bestseller,
published in three languages and also made into a movie, simply
called "
Captive
",
that was a box office smash on Earth (as well as on Pumalar). It
made for scintillating reading that was for sure; but even more
significantly, it played into the hands of political conservatives
who began campaigning for tougher policies toward Earth’s relations
with the Interplanetary Authority.

Accusations of ineptitude and malaise flowed
regularly from the Earth press. Editorials pointed fingers at
government officials; or at the government itself (since that was
always so much easier to do than to try and identify a single
culprit). No one in office or in any position of power wanted to be
the target of this hot media spotlight—that was for sure.
Investigative reporters were all too keen to point out the supposed
conspiracy; and found many “expert witnesses” and “highly placed
officials” whom they could bring on screen to verify or at least
allude to an ongoing cover-up by Interplanetary Authority in regard
to pirate bases and raids. “Unnamed official sources” were commonly
cited; and when they ran out of those, there was always the
venerated retired Star Fleet officer or eager campaigning
politician quite willing to weigh in on the issue. Action needed to
be taken—everyone seemed to agree—and like what so often happens
with emotional political topics, people and factions took sides
based on respective political agendas.

First there was the Earth military complex:
Not just the generals and their officers either, but the whole
military machine and the contractors feeding materials, machinery,
supplies, and weapons to the military. They were the first to
champion the cause of using deadly force or at least taking
definitive action. Vengeance for the nearly one hundred pirate
raids—and justice on behalf of the victims who’d died or suffered
the degradations and depravity of pirate captivity—that was what
they demanded. Many upstanding citizens supported this as well.

Actually the Earth
military had been clamoring for a mission to "Rijel 12" ever since
a few months after the Star Pussy raid itself. Back then the
pursuing Star Fleet squadron reported that they'd detected the
infamous earth freighter
Unity
, and of all credible unbiased
sources that could be relied upon, nothing topped a Star Fleet
battleship’s sensors. Not unless the ship itself landed right in
the middle of Nebraska and surrendered to authorities, could anyone
in the galaxy have any more definitive proof than a battleship’s
computer. Star Fleet did eventually break off the pursuit, yes; but
only because whoever was flying the
Unity
, had headed into deepest space
and the battleship’s captain finally just chose to let them go.
Frankly the chase “became pointless,” he maintained. Wherever these
pirates were from, if they kept traveling that far from any known
civilization, they'd likely perish in uncharted space anyway. The
Star Fleet Squadron Admiral also emphasized that he could “rule out
without any reservation that the raiders might have been from
another galaxy deep in space.” They weren’t “unknown aliens” he
assured his superiors; and no one doubted him.

There was no way Star
fleet was going to waste a battleship and its escort flotilla to
follow this “ghost pirate ship” into infinite space and vanish
forever. This was too valuable of an attack force. And by the time
that fleet returned into Earth’s solar system, it didn’t matter
anyway. The story had already leaked out about the released
captives on Kapteyn B. Their harrowing stories of abuse by the
pirates on board was plenty enough to confirm, that the
perpetrators of the Star Pussy raid were indeed pirates from
several different
known
species
. And where then
could they have possibly come from? All indications were that it
was Rijel 12, just like most everyone had been assuming for years.
Sure they could have been from elsewhere. Pirate bands… were often
a hodgepodge of assorted species. However,
someone
knew the truth. Someone
somewhere high up in the IPA knew who they really were, but
officially no one in the government was talking.

So what about the released
captives? What did they say? Most had no real idea; but many were
happy to speculate about their observations in the news. True, a
couple of plump, plus-size women from among the survivors did say
they’d been forced to become the personal consorts of the pirate
Captain… a Porkonji whom they’d heard addressed as
Snout
. But that’s about
it as far as anyone could provide in terms of specific
identification. Unfortunately for them though, Earth media
brutalized those two mercilessly as trying to “hog some attention”
(as a few less ethical reporters put it or cruelly inferred). The
derogatory and hateful moniker stuck, and in time other broadcast
personalities and even nightclub comics picked up on the joke.
Every “fat” or “pig” pun imaginable soon followed; and the public
gradually rejected their “accounts” as being attempts at
shamelessly grabbing the public spotlight. It wasn’t their fault,
those poor women. They merely told the honest truth about their
ordeal and how they’d made the best of their circumstances to
survive, but the media punished them unmercifully for their fifteen
minutes of fame.

Then there were the
ultra-conservative Earther political activists. They were the
“extreme right”, if one wanted to call them that—or “Firebrands” as
they were often called in the media. These factions quickly glommed
onto the public outrage and sudden surge in militarism, by urging
Earth to just sieze this returned battle fleet and turn right
around to raid Rijel 12 with it. Chances were good, they
proclaimed, this had been the Pirate Base for the Star Pussy raid
all along; and few disagreed with this theory. Most any average man
on the streets of Moscow, Paris, or the inland-relocated New York
City believed it to be so anyway. “
IPA
just doesn’t want to admit it
,” they
raved. “
IPA wants to ignore the
problem
,” they speculated. Cooler heads
among them even speculated “
logically
” that Interplanetary
Authority wanted to bury the issue by just letting the Pirates all
kill themselves off over time (or be eliminated in skirmishes with
Star Fleet forces). This theory made sense with a lot of people on
Earth… but it did little to quell the growing
bitterness.

And then there were the
families of prisoners unaccounted for. This group often found its
way into the media over the years and when no further attacks
occurred after Star Pussy raid, they wildly accused that IPA had
the excuse it needed to just let it all go and hope the pirates had
just disappeared somewhere or otherwise perished. Of course this
political group had been lied to and brushed off so often over the
decades… that they were no longer willing to listen to any official
rational explanation; no matter how logically put to them. In their
minds, their loved ones were still alive somewhere; and the
government needed to go find them.
Never
mind that in reality, most reports were indicating that humans also
had been perpetrators on many of the raids—including Star
Pussy.
It did no good trying to convince
those families that their once-incarcerated relatives might well
have all turned pirate right along with the other rebelling
prisoners from New Australia Planetary Prison. They simply wouldn’t
hear of it.

However above all that, the main issue was
Earth’s economy. After Rijel 12 was put out of business as a major
source of mineral ore and quartz crystal nearly nine years earlier;
Earth developed an entirely new mining industry of its own. The
booming opportunity for bringing new energy crystals back to earth
for its space craft and industrial needs led to the creation of
nearly a hundred new millionaire tycoons and hundreds of thousands
of new jobs created. Miners, mining engineers, shipping managers,
Transportation Workers, security forces: all of these new jobs were
created and filled quickly by the working classes. Plus these new
workers needed housing and food services (plumbing and
infrastructure too) to be able to live on newly colonized
planets—some of which were barely inhabitable to begin with.

This industry soon had
money—lots of it actually—with which to influence politics and
politicians. But several years later when New Australia
started
selling
vast mineral loads, quartz crystals, silver ore, and precious
gemstones on the black market at what equated to fractions of
market rates, within only a few months Porko and Zorg traders began
driving down prices throughout the galaxy. The earth mining
industry was gradually devastated. When prices dropped just 20%,
profits plunged and mines started closing or laying off workers.
When they fell further, many other industries on Earth became
affected negatively as well. Layoffs, shutdowns, and even complete
abandonment of colonies occurred in some cases, with speculators in
the exchange markets of Chicago and New York making or losing
millions overnight as they tried taking advantage of the wild
swings in commodity futures prices.

Basically it happened this way because New
Australia’s barter exchanges for food equated to—on average—a mere
60% of going market rates for energy crystals and silver ore.
Bartering for comparatively cheaper food supplies and building
materials created the equivalent of a mass dumping of product onto
a market whose established suppliers back on Earth—and out on her
colonized planets—tried to regulate supply with demand to keep
prices stable and profitability high.