The Stars Came Back (31 page)

MUTE icon
disappears.

Lag: This is Col
onel Lag.

Cobb: Hey! Haven’t heard from you since that, uh, job we did a while back. Didn’t know you were with them. A colonel, now, eh?

Lag: Just to see if we can get on the same page: sell me a third of the ammo at cost, and-

Cobb: A THIRD!? Are you CRAZY?

Lag: -a third at cost, I’ll put my name on a bond post for delivery here for the whole package. I’m going with them on other business and bringing some men along, so we can officially act as armed escort.

Cobb: I work my ass off to get this
killer
deal, and you want to walk away with a THIRD OF IT at
cost
?

Lag: Pretty much.

Cobb: You greedy bastard!

Lag: And of course
you
want to just
give
it all away, right?

Cobb: ‘COURSE NOT!

Lag: Last I checked, the markup on two thirds of something was a
lot
more than the profits on a hundred percent of
nothing
. And knowing you, this deal likely fell in your lap.

Cobb: Ah,
hell
, man… You sure know how to kick a guy when he’s tied into a corner.

Lag: Pass the offer on to the money
guys. Let us know.

Cobb: (
Discouraged) Shit! Knew this deal was too good to last. Out here.

S
creen goes blank.

Bipasha: That didn’t sound too smooth.

Lag: He’s in. He’s just got to convince the financiers.

Sar: I don’t like the sound of him. Can you trust him?

Lag: We understand one another. He knows I’m honest, and I know he’s not. He also knows he’ll die in a heartbeat if he tries to double-cross me.

Helton: What if they don’t bite?

Lag: Unlikely, but if they don’t then we find someone else who
will
trust you, and buy it from him at a quarter-percent markup, as is where is, and ship it and sell it ourselves. That much ammo would make a tidy profit in a war zone.

Bipasha: I thought you were a soldier, not
a businessman.

Lag: I’m in business to resolve disputes, and there are no good military options without profits. The non
-military options without profits are even worse. No profits mean few good options for
anyone
.

Harbin: As I’ve tried to tell you many times
, we fight when it’s the low-cost solution for
us
, and we make others
not
fight by making it their
high
-cost solution.

Bipasha: That’s a weird way of looking at it.

Helton:
Everyone
trades in lives; soldiers are just more obvious about it. Wages trade money for a part of a person’s lifetime. The price tag is just a measure of the portion.

DISSOLVE TO

EXT -
NIGHT - Above the planet Newoz

The curve of the planet arches across the lower edge of our view, the horizon’s atmosphere aglow from the distant star. Above the horizon,
in the near distance silhouetted against the black, a large space station gleaming and rotating slowly in the sunlight. A small shiny glint rises, barely seen, from the planet below. As it gradually picks up speed, music starts swelling. Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild.” The glint moves faster, becoming recognizable as
Tajemnica
, slowly rotating as it arcs up and away. It rises, faster and faster. Heavy metal thunder, indeed.
[note - go listen to the song. Loud. Read the lyrics.]

FADE TO BLACK

RoboMoon

FADE IN

EXT - NIGHT - Space, Geminorum system, about four AUs from the G-class star

D
arkness and star-field span as far as the eye can see. The Geminorum sun is the largest star. In the distance hangs a cold, rocky planet with a small flock of moons, orbiting slowly in the vastness. Unlike most small worlds, this one has a gorgeous, colorful span of rings spread out wide in space. In the nearer distance, a pock-marked moon covered with small circles slowly spins. A patch of space shimmers as the few molecules of dust and gas in the near vacuum of space get
really
pissed off by an emerging starship. The dust glows as their universe shares its space with a bunch of others, and don’t quite know which physics book to follow. The transition field collapses, revealing
Tajemnica
in its center.

CUT TO

INT - DAY -
Bridge of
Tajemnica

Helton at command, Cooper
piloting, Allonia at com, Bipasha at sensors, Kaushik at nav.

Cooper: Welcome to
Geminorum!

Helton:
Well done! Made good time, and nothing major broken. Very good! Let’s see how the field training went on the flight over: a quick scan, lay in a course for Emirate II, and beam over the custom orders to Geminorum Prime for Stenson. Anything interesting around here?

Bipasha: Nothing big around here but that moon for a
thousand kilometers. And those
rings
! Beautiful!

Allonia: We are being hailed by someone, but it doesn’t make sense. “Challenge
Acton tax trust ambition?” (Into mic) Please repeat, I don’t understand.

Cooper: (
Urgently) On speaker!

Moonlet: (OC, on cabin speaker) Challenge
Galt actinide Charlie turtle

Helton and C
ooper, simultaneously: Oh, shit.

Moonlet: (OC, on cabin speaker)
Counter or send cladistic profiler.

Allonia: (
Into mic) What? Please say again.

Sirens blar
e.

Ship AI: (OC, loud, male, military/brisk, urgent) Targeting lock detected!

Moonlet: (OC, on cabin speaker) Exclusion zone breached. Violation.

Helton: Cooper!
Transition ANYWHERE, NOW!

Coopers hands are already flying.

CUT TO

EXT - NIGHT - Space, viewing
Tajemnica
and the moon

Against the backdrop of moon and rings, t
he glowing sphere of annoyed atoms appear around
Tajemnica
, then intensify. A streak of light and smoke from a missile fired from the moonlet heads toward them, accelerating. It gets closer. The shimmer of excited atoms grows brighter. Brighter. Missile closer, closer.
Tajemnica
disappears, the glow fades almost instantly, the missile arrives on target and detonates in a spherical ball of light, right where
Tajemnica
was.

CUT TO

INT - DAY
- Bridge of the
Tajemnica

Everyone looks a bit shaken

Bipasha: What was THAT?

Helton: A gazillion cubic kilometers of empty space, and we pop out less than
a thousand klicks from a Corp-War robo-moon.

Cooper: Good thing I didn’t try to get
an even better view.

Helton: New rule: first entry in a new system at least a half-million klicks from anything big enough to be trans-space detectable.

Cooper: Good idea. Just trying to get an impressive first view.

Allonia: It
was impressive, but what
was
it?

Bipasha: And
why did they shoot at us!?

Kaushik: Robo
t military moon base. Know anything about the Corporation-Nation war?

Both shake their heads.

Bipasha: I’ve heard of it, but…

Cooper: Wait
. Let’s drop out and take a fast look.

He moves the controls, and the lights flash their transition warning.

CUT TO

EXT - NIGHT - Empty space

The void glows
slightly, and the
Tajemnica
pops back into this universe, looking small and insignificant, alone in the blackness.

CUT TO

INT - DAY
-
Tajemnica
Bridge

Helton: Fast
scan the whole ball.

Kaushik: Looks clear here.

Allonia: Nothing.

Bipasha: Nothing inside a millisecond. Five milliseconds… Nothing of note within a hundred light-milliseconds.

Everyone starts to relax

Kaus
hik: I’ll take sensors, Bipasha; I know about mil-moons.

Bipasha: Thanks.

Helton: OK, once we’re clear to two light seconds, start getting a fix on things, plot a course for Emirate II that avoids the moonlet. Cooper, run through the fast list and cross-check with Stenson to make sure nothing broke with our sudden transition. (Into mic on a spiral cord he takes from the ceiling above his position) All hands, sorry for the extra bounce. Had a small problem, taken care of now. Check your stations, gear, and people. Report any problems to the AI, or me if it goes circular.

Allonia: You were saying?

Helton: When terraforming planets started it was funded by governments, and it was agreed that the sponsoring government owned the newly terraformed planet. Some corporations started to terraform planets on their own, and claimed private ownership, essentially starting new corporate world-nations. Existing governments didn’t like that of course, because the corp sponsored planets were better organized and happening faster. But most governments buy their weapons from private contractors, so things got ugly and confused
very
fast, then festered for a while. The corporate heads wanted to cover their asses, so they used some of their terraforming tech and sent out totally automated weapons factories to go to new systems, land on a suitable moon or asteroid, and start building weapons and tunneling out space for growing crops and living quarters as fall-back positions. Basically, a bunch of little robot “arks” being built in case they had to flee. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, not really sure just how many. The governments decided to fight them by making genetically engineered and cloned super soldiers. Some real geniuses involved in the whole mess.

Allonia: (
Suddenly extra alert) Genetically engineered soldiers?

Helton: Yup. Spliced in a lot of extra copies of genes for strength and endurance and such, searched for existing mutations for useful things, cleaned out bad genes, put in experimental stuff. Some died young, some were total aggressive badasses that were absolutely
great
psychotic killers, but not so mentally well connected on more ordinary activities. Some seemed pretty normal until they were “triggered” in battle, then they were totally different beasts. Lots of conspiracies and rumors, not a lot of hard data.

Allonia: So, they looked normal, but might… suddenly go
crazy for no obvious reason?

Helton: Dunno.
Long before my time. Gone now. All sorts of experiments done, from very nice, to wildly crazy and unpredictable. Anyway, both sides started copying the others’ ideas and designs. Just when it was about to start getting really ugly, a series of nuke strikes took out a bunch of the key leadership on both sides, and security codes and command-and-control were mostly lost on
both
sides. No one could shut the little robo-factories down. As long as you don’t get too close to their exclusion zone, they ignore you, so we ignore them, mostly. The engineered soldiers, figuring they were the new badasses on the block, just like all too many in history that think they are God’s special chosen few, tried to take over a few places, but they got themselves killed off and future creations were outlawed. Then Eta Carinae blew, and the robo-moons had centuries to twiddle their electrons and build defenses and missiles and whatever else their programming directed.

Allonia: (
Concerned) Oh. So, the genetically engineered soldiers are all gone, and these robot moons just sit there, making weapons and stuff? No way to shut them down?

Kaushik: (
Turning from sensors) Nothing inside two light seconds.

Helton: Good. OK, start working out a fix and course. (
Back to Allonia) Not that
I
know of.

Ship AI: (OC) One malfunction and failure has been reported.

Helton: Really? Where?

Ship AI: (OC) 18 years ago, on an asteroid in the Baen system.

Bipasha: What happened?

Ship AI: (OC) A careless prospector found a disabled one on accident, went in, and was able to take partial control. In the ensuing control struggle between interested governments, corporations, and freelancers it was entirely destroyed, along with its 2.2 billion tons of food, 3.7 trillion rounds of ammunition, 2.7 million offensive and 15 million defensive missile batteries.