ST:Beta Part 1
Dabo-Tables. They are a phenomenon in the Galaxy. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a mining facility in a gaseous giant, floating in zero-g on a heavy space orbital or in deep space on some remote Y Class planet, somebody, somehow knows where the nearest table is. And would be happy to point out the way, for the right price.
The Ziggurat 3 was such a vessel in a far off place and was unknowingly part of said phenomenon. Although it couldn’t understand why, even if you tried explaining it very slowly because, you see, this junky old mining vessel was part of a Dabo wager and and its unfortunate Captain spoke a language no ship for a thousand Light years could understand. English.
I mention this in past tense because the Ziggurat 3 was minutes away from being totally obliterated by a planetary defensive system.
The ‘Zig’ sat in orbit over a barely Class M planet whose number was escaping the Zigs Captain at the moment, this was due to the fact that vicious bipedal baboon looking creatures in sleek military battle fatigues were firing Plasma bursts over his head.
Captain Aldus Banks, had been a space Captain since his early teens. The story of how he came to be such a man in such a position and in soo far distant a place from his own kind is a great mystery to those who’ve crossed his path over the years. The air of mystique had indeed penetrated deep into the Beta Quadrant. The tales of Aldus reach even the Klingon Empire, Some ships tell stories of the Earth Orphan, as the legend says. The tale varies depending on which Klingon War ship you are on. It starts with a family of earthlings, who set out into the deepest space hoping to find a new planet to call their own. Hopelessly, and inevitably they land on the nearest habitable planet, half starved rationing every meal, no sooner do they arrive do the troubles begin, as with any tale of people stuck starving on a ship and shortly there after coming into prosperity. Fighting over power and hoarding materials nearly rips the society apart. The Earth Orphan, depending on who you ask becomes the only survivor of that group. The HOW is where all tales loose their similarity, every variation you can imagine has been told. From him killing off the entire colony in a dispute over a bad harvest, a lack of attractive HU-MAN females, to him valiantly defending his people from some horrible invading party and being left the only one still alive. One thing IS true, and that is nobody knows the real answer. Banks learned early on in his nefarious space fairing days that a legend about you has more weight than any blood line or sir name. And he liked it that way.
But back to the issue at hand. The air in front of his face was being burnt by the release of green plasma bursts. It made breathing a medal worthy exercise. Banks was lying flat behind a low but solid metal bulkhead in the main corridor of the Zig. He was stuck in this position for two reasons, one his friends with the guns were only able to get part of the upward sliding door open and had to crouch down to fire. And second, he woke up that way. The last thing he remembered doing was running to the blast door controls which was directly above him now. He guessed that he must have been hit by some Biological EMP judging by the fading paralysis in his limbs.
The Metal blast door creaked a bit as the Tahlese Soldiers began lifting it up from the otherside. Banks laughed at the attempt at first, but quickly noticed the door started to shift upwards and his smile fell. He realized this would be as good a time as any to grab for his modified Carbon welder which he converted to a full blown disruptor. But the bulk head didn’t offer enough height and he’d surely lose a hand in the process. Considering he hadn’t lost any limbs thus far he wasn’t about to start.
Again the blast door nudged upwards. A second volley of fire came at him this time hitting just over his toes. “Shit” he said to himself; swearing he’d never abandon a ship again, just because somebody wanted him dead. But this was getting rediculous. He’d done something horribly wrong this time. Who knows why or how. He looked over at his side. The conduit panel opposite his corner of the corridor was a false one. Inside it the previous owner constructed an escape pod which was cleverly hidden inside the ship. If only he could reach the latch and tear off the panel at the same time.
For a split second he thought about using the Wrist Wrench that was fastened around this right hand. It resembled a wrist watch band but the face was more rectangular in shape, it was slim, tightly engineered and perfectly ergonomic. Inside, the pod held three metallic prongs that shot out like alien antennae though the worked just like extended fingers. He doused the thought of risking his wrench because them getting shot was not only as painful but far more expensive to replace.
He gave up, half form impatience and half from fearing his only life. The split was 60/40. He didn’t even bother thinking the odds of survival when the thought struck him that the previous owner of the vessel was all to likely the man behind the attack. Banks should have known better, Dabo winnings always seem to go sour. Which was the more universally agreed to phenomenon.
Trust was something he and the Zig never had. Banks spent months trying to teach the ship English, but couldn’t retain the simplest verb no matter how many times Banks shouted it. It was, stupefyingly simple. After a while they both found mutual ground with what Banks refered to as “Bleep Code” a universal syntax all ship designers built into mainframes of space traveling automatons like Zig so navigation can be controlled while operating inside a larger structure or space station. Because Zing and Banks could only communicate over this machine language he converted the entire system to display and speak in Bleeps and Chrips. The visuals resembled a large grid of black and green pixels forming patterns and its voice was like a Modem attached to a loud speaker.
Banks knew there was only one way out. A regrettable one that involved pissing off the planets Defense system to the point of him losing 100% profitability on the Zig. He slapped the communicator on his belt and the computers Bleeping Chirping responded happy as ever, clueless about the pirate vessel that just drilled a hole in its hull. “Fucking moron”, Banks thought, “doesn’t even know when somebodies drilled it a new asshole”. He tapped some buttons and twisted some knobs to activate the mining laser but the machine kept buzzing a repulsive negative response. Finally he shouted at it “Commence Mining, Please”. It paused as if to contemplate his words for a moment. Suddenly the old familiar sound of the ships mining laser started rotating its motors. He could hear the coils heating up. Banks laughed at the pitiful timing of his stupid ship. It gave him one last hopeful chirp asking for permission to begin. Banks calmly replied “Yes the large planet below. Thank you.” ‘chirp?’ it replied, “Yes, Commence” Aldus ordered.
The mining laser would start as soon as it finished warming up. Banks noticed the Tahlese stopped firing for a moment. He could hear them whispering to each other from behind the wall. Banks took a chance and pulled his Carbon Disruptor from his side and twisted his arm slightly to pull the firing mechanism forward until it locked into place. He waited still as a corpse even after the drill began firing. Knowing that the defense system would respond with a phaser blast across the bow at first then land a burst directly on Zig’s hull to let it know ‘it means business’.
A warning shot ripped across the front view screen alright, sooner that he expected and close enough to bathe the main corridor in a bath of blood red light. Its all down to timing now, he thought. The second volley came, this time it hit the hull what felt like next to his head and Zig lunged out throwing trash and creature alike off their footing.
Banks swung out his Disruptor and fired a shot at the latch which depressed into the wall, immediately flipping open the false panel leading to a clean brushed metal box inside. He noticed this especially because nowhere did the ship have clean brushed metal, anything. Before the Tahlese had time to react Banks was up and blindly firing bursts at the blast door as he ran to the tiny box.
With its cargo safely stowed the panel closed by itself and the floor panel released dropping Banks down a shaft and into a pool of G-Force sensitive Shock Gell. The tanks ceiling closed in over him the moment he was submerged. A light came one which bathed the tank in a slimly greenish tint. As the gel forced its way into Banks esaphagus chocking out the remaining air, he reflected on his situation and thought it would have been wise to test out this high tech version of a panic room before putting it into full effect. The smaller escape vessel aptly named on hits main hull plate: Ziggurette blew off the hull shield plate and was hurdling toward the planets surface.
Aboard the Zig, its invading party had pushed open the blast door enough to squeeze through and were already at the helm. They wrestled over taking turns on the main panel unable to figure out how to to stop the ship from doing what ever the hell it was up to. As misfortune would have it the Bleep Code as Banks had become so familiar with, was a complete mystery to Tahlese Army grunts and they were left dumbfounded. Adding insult to injury the Planetary Defence system seemed uncaring about its destructive force and continued its assault and concentrated all of its phasers at once, obliterating the Zig into a million pieces of monkey flesh and rusted metal.
In all the chaos, Bank’s escape ship fell through atmosphere unnoticed by the planets defences. About several hundred feet above sea level the mini ships engines kicked in and brought it from free fall to coasting arc. It finally came to a stop just inside a coast line north of the equator. A serene looking topical planet completely devoid of any signs of sentient interaction.
The ship coasted to a stop, hovering a few feet off the ground until it safely rested on its landing gear. Inside the Ziggurette a circular shaft about four feet in diameter lay against a box inside the ships mini hull, the box went from floor to ceiling and seemed to be a more recent addition. The Shock gel around Banks turned to liquid and started to recess through a grate at the bottom of the tank. The Circular rings opened, into the hull allowing him to crawl out coughing and spitting out the liquid in his respiratory system.
Banks sprawled out on the Mini-Zigs hull floor amazed he’d survived another ridiculous escape attempt. It was such a common occurrence that he now thought of it as a job. One that paid in adrenaline withdrawal on the weekends.
A soft female voice came into his ears. It was a Y’thulian womans voice he thought at first, then realized it was the computer best attempt at one. She asked him again very politely “Would you like a refreshment Captain?”
Captain Aldus Banks, gave out a sigh of relief and rested his head on his hands. Wearing a jumpsuit covered in goo and a shit eating grin from ear to ear.
Part 2
His name is Captain Aldus Banks and he is stuck in a tropical paradise with a glass Y’thulain grub wine in hand.
From the exterior planet 903884-11 looked like any class-M planet capable of supporting life. Its endlessly fractured map comprised of rolling green hills surround vista’s that grew lush vegetation. Rivers from endless aquifers and streams feed into a deep crystal blue ocean. A fine place for anybody that isn’t Banks. To him it was giant round cage.
Aldus stood at the zenith of it all from the beach head where Zig, his mini-escape pod landed. Space debris from the Zigguratt was still falling into the upper atmosphere. He knew from the behavior of most planets defencive systems that this one would be on high alert. So, trying to break orbit in a sub-warp class vessel was out of the question. For a man who spent so much of his life in space on a ship eating re-sequenced protein meals, a few days retreat in a desert island planet would, to a normal human, be a welcomed vacation.
Sadly Banks knew better than to allow himself a moment of tranquility because 903884-11 or DASH ELEVEN as he thought of it now was not part of some vast celestial prairie. Dash Eleven was the sole property of a Real Estate magnet. An inner-galactic commercial dictator named Brene owned the entire solar system and several others just like it. The planets and their sun’s were nothing more than monikers of his wealth and the alarm has been tripped.
So the countdown had started and his options were few. He thought about the amount of time he had, divided it in half and sternly walked back aboard the Zig mini. On board the sexy Y’thulian politely pointed out an in coming ship. His blood ran cold. Aldus asked what class of ship; which she replied:
“Zethin class luxury vessel” Banks held his breath “it does not seem to notice us captain”.
Zig continued to track the ship as it hovered around orbit scanning the parent ships wreckage. Aldus marveled for a moment at the Zigs computational prowess. Never before had a ship, to his knowledge been, capable of expressing concern over a situation with an almost emotional concern.
The reason for being boarded just hours before may have actually been for his escape pod. A ship of this capability probably HAD to be smuggled through the Y’thulian system if it was going to be safe from pirates and spies.
The Y’thul systems are not a criminal safe harbor, any more that is. They are in-fact a cruel and methodical commercial oligarchy. The Prime solar systems, of which there are 3 rest at the nexus of 3 mega systems. Each of the Prime systems grew and traded with its neighbor for nearly a thousand years, spreading their trade and economical wisdom like seeds across the galaxy. Today the Y’thulian are more like a royal family. Their offspring are just as crude as their forefathers but now competition between the three families has dissolved into land disputes and patent lawsuits lasting entire lifetimes. So its no surprise that technology smuggling and industrial espionage was the favorable career path in the this part of the Beta Quadrant, as opposed to peaceful space exploring federation.
Aldus, now an unfortunate part of said espionage had to figure a way off this planet. Fast. No matter how intelligent his new ship was, it couldn’t hide its power signal or the heat trail its landing generated. He boarded the Zig, its hatch closed automatically. Her voice came in through the hidden speakers felt like a real person standing on the bridge with him.
“So you’ve made a decision captain?”
Aldus looked around for a speaker or display to respond to but couldn’t find one so he just glared out the front window. “Ship, can you take us closer to the planets defensive platform without being fired upon?”
“I’ve already plotted that course as one possible scenario. Along with accessing the defensive administration system.” she replied.
“Great, can you program its system to let us get away?”
“No, its system control is on a closed circuit and cannot be over written by remote systems.”
“Then how did we avoid bombardment on our decent?”
“It would seem that we temporarily confused the planets computer into thinking we were wreckage.”
Banks wondered what a ships computer was doing making assumptions. Even more disturbing was the fact that this computer was making assumptions he himself had made. “And obviously there’s no fooling a computer into thinking that ship wreckage falls upwards.”
“Obviously, captain.”
“You can call me Aldus ship, there’s no crew here to warrant a title.”
“Very well, Aldus. You may call me Idyll, and the ship I control goes by Ziggurette.”
“Okay Idyll, take the Zig and pilot us to the defencive tower. Keep it as low to the ground as you can.”
“As you wish sir.”
The Zig promptly lifted its landing gear back up into its hull cavity and floated away at a terribly fast and low speed barely keeping its body feet away from the desert island fawna.
Aldus rumaged through the hull for a life suit and any weaponry he could find. Each case seemed to unlock one more treasure trove after the other. It worried him more and more with every click of every latch. The pessimism of space adventure he thought.
Finally he found what he’d hoped for. A full panic survivor suit.
From the exterior planet 903884-11 looked like any class-M planet capable of supporting life. Its endlessly fractured map comprised of rolling green hills surround vista’s that grew lush vegetation. Rivers from endless aquifers and streams feed into a deep crystal blue ocean. A fine place for anybody that isn’t Banks. To him it was giant round cage.
Aldus stood at the zenith of it all from the beach head where Zig, his mini-escape pod landed. Space debris from the Zigguratt was still falling into the upper atmosphere. He knew from the behavior of most planets defencive systems that this one would be on high alert. So, trying to break orbit in a sub-warp class vessel was out of the question. For a man who spent so much of his life in space on a ship eating re-sequenced protein meals, a few days retreat in a desert island planet would, to a normal human, be a welcomed vacation.
Sadly Banks knew better than to allow himself a moment of tranquility because 903884-11 or DASH ELEVEN as he thought of it now was not part of some vast celestial prairie. Dash Eleven was the sole property of a Real Estate magnet. An inner-galactic commercial dictator named Brene owned the entire solar system and several others just like it. The planets and their sun’s were nothing more than monikers of his wealth and the alarm has been tripped.
So the countdown had started and his options were few. He thought about the amount of time he had, divided it in half and sternly walked back aboard the Zig mini. On board the sexy Y’thulian politely pointed out an in coming ship. His blood ran cold. Aldus asked what class of ship; which she replied:
“Zethin class luxury vessel” Banks held his breath “it does not seem to notice us captain”.
Zig continued to track the ship as it hovered around orbit scanning the parent ships wreckage. Aldus marveled for a moment at the Zigs computational prowess. Never before had a ship, to his knowledge been, capable of expressing concern over a situation with an almost emotional concern.
The reason for being boarded just hours before may have actually been for his escape pod. A ship of this capability probably HAD to be smuggled through the Y’thulian system if it was going to be safe from pirates and spies.
The Y’thul systems are not a criminal safe harbor, any more that is. They are in-fact a cruel and methodical commercial oligarchy. The Prime solar systems, of which there are 3 rest at the nexus of 3 mega systems. Each of the Prime systems grew and traded with its neighbor for nearly a thousand years, spreading their trade and economical wisdom like seeds across the galaxy. Today the Y’thulian are more like a royal family. Their offspring are just as crude as their forefathers but now competition between the three families has dissolved into land disputes and patent lawsuits lasting entire lifetimes. So its no surprise that technology smuggling and industrial espionage was the favorable career path in the this part of the Beta Quadrant, as opposed to peaceful space exploring federation.
Aldus, now an unfortunate part of said espionage had to figure a way off this planet. Fast. No matter how intelligent his new ship was, it couldn’t hide its power signal or the heat trail its landing generated. He boarded the Zig, its hatch closed automatically. Her voice came in through the hidden speakers felt like a real person standing on the bridge with him.
“So you’ve made a decision captain?”
Aldus looked around for a speaker or display to respond to but couldn’t find one so he just glared out the front window. “Ship, can you take us closer to the planets defensive platform without being fired upon?”
“I’ve already plotted that course as one possible scenario. Along with accessing the defensive administration system.” she replied.
“Great, can you program its system to let us get away?”
“No, its system control is on a closed circuit and cannot be over written by remote systems.”
“Then how did we avoid bombardment on our decent?”
“It would seem that we temporarily confused the planets computer into thinking we were wreckage.”
Banks wondered what a ships computer was doing making assumptions. Even more disturbing was the fact that this computer was making assumptions he himself had made. “And obviously there’s no fooling a computer into thinking that ship wreckage falls upwards.”
“Obviously, captain.”
“You can call me Aldus ship, there’s no crew here to warrant a title.”
“Very well, Aldus. You may call me Idyll, and the ship I control goes by Ziggurette.”
“Okay Idyll, take the Zig and pilot us to the defencive tower. Keep it as low to the ground as you can.”
“As you wish sir.”
The Zig promptly lifted its landing gear back up into its hull cavity and floated away at a terribly fast and low speed barely keeping its body feet away from the desert island fawna.
Aldus rumaged through the hull for a life suit and any weaponry he could find. Each case seemed to unlock one more treasure trove after the other. It worried him more and more with every click of every latch. The pessimism of space adventure he thought.
Finally he found what he’d hoped for. A full panic survivor suit.
Part 3
Banks stood at the landing pad of dash 11’s main defensive platform. Its walls looked like an industrial kitchen, solid brushed stainless steel matte walls that shot up forty feet into the air, at the top of the tower sat the deadly planetary defensive weapons. The phaser banks weren’t capable of striking him at that angle, still that didn’t mean the installation wasn’t equipped with macro lasers or disruptor’s hidden in the paneling. Looking around the landing pad floor he couldn’t make out any scoring from particle fire. This was the best sign he could hope for.
He zipped up the front flap of the survivor suit then clicked its belt into place he could feel its mirco fiber sensors reading all of his vital signs then, the suit started picking up environment data around him and was now feeding that information directly to his mind. He could feel the pressure of he air as clearly as the voltage running through the security panel of the platforms hull door.
Aldus marveled at the paranoia level of the Y’thulian commercial triangle when it came to the protection of their royal families. The suit was designed to give its wearer a full array of plasma armaments as well as full survivability in nearly any environment. Its material was still form fitting around his muscles as he watched the ZIG mini ship float away with his old leather and polylatex merchant rags. The new suits material looked like a combination of charcoal dust with diamond specked evenly throughout it. The belt wrapped around his chest and waist, in it housed the electronic brain that monitored the sensory input along with its hosts homeostasis, when needed it had a reflex built in that would allow defensive reflex actions. Powering all this is a small hydro fusion core or HFC, by extracting the sodium molecules then breaking them down with tiny controlled nuclear reactions it was capable of building and saving an endless and extremely dangerous supply of energy that was being stored at the small of his back.
Aldus held up his hand out at the panel, the fingers of his wrist wrench tingled as a new set of sensors started building synaptic bridges through his already existing wrist implant. He thought about the possibility of unwanted side effects this might be creating for a moment then, pushed the coming tide of anxiety down and focused on getting off the planet was the priority. His prongs shot out and fed directly into the panels input terminal. The synthetic alloy in his wrenches finger tips could interpret more now. Subtle electrical waves in the heat signature emanating from the filaments behind the panel started to feel like a pulse. He touched it with is hand to the panel and wave of data started flooding into his mind. The entire electrical layout of the security grid and the defensive computer hooked up to the door was now clearly visible inside his mind. He let his wrench fingers probe further inside the panel until he could feel the leads of where the doors encrypted key card would be fixed. Banks knew the door was never going to open with brute force hacking for a digital key so employed the crude age old metd of generating a short in the terminal and just as it did the Defense mainframe because nervous and shot a stun burst through the terminal designed to knockout any would be intruder or curious animal. Aldus knew the mainframes action well in advance and had his wrist wrench rewire the terminal to blow its own panel.
It did. Aldus stood back, the shock wave came and fried its own system. Blowing the panel off its foundation and releasing the manual override control. It was an old old security glitch that space faring lock picks built into their own systems when, owners had the absentmindedness of leaving their key cards inside the mega fortress. The door gasped as it creaked open and released the recycled air trapped inside. “Like putting a screen door in a castle wall.”
Aldus Banks squeezed his way inside the building.
Inside the mood of the decor changed dramatically. Banks was now surrounded by industrial pipes and tubing crudely painted reds and blues shooting up from the ground into tighly cut out holes in the ceiling. A small stair case at the back of the hall was the only place to go, so he walked forward letting the wrenches tentacles rub up against the pipes as he passed them. Like a sixth sense he could feel the pipes shoot far down into the ground where the bases power generator was likely to be hidden under thousands of feet of rock and layers of mesophasic steel. A nasty material that could reshape itself from liquid to solid at the first sign of tampering.
Aldus made his way to the control room, there several alien green/yellow computer terminals that resembled vanity desks occupied the walls into a solid fixture. Metal beams with a green tint arced upwards into a vaulted ceiling. He stepped into the room and the screens came to life. A flurry of bleeps and chirps of whizzing screens lighting up echoed around the room then crescendoed away. The language on the screens were clearly Y’thulian and Banks was able to quickly identify the control screen. He slapped the command surface it bleeped back immediately. His wrist wrench fingers stretched out below the panel and tapped directly into the hardware as he tapped at the screen. A red window appears, he is about to tap it then stops. He postulates the situation for a moment. A memory floods back to him. The ship Idyll told him was scanning the surface for his ships wreckage. But everything that has happened suddenly seem to lose all credibility. The Survivor suit, the shock gel tank, the planetary defense system. Even the Tahlese pirates who boarded his original ship started to seem staged. Problem now was, why?
Suspicions began to form in his mind, the likeliest of which was that the Zig was part of some elaborate plot to frame Aldus leaving him the pawn in a Y’thulian industrial war. The entire thing made no sense. The clock was running. It had been running since.. the dabo game.
