1. Some of the players

1. Some of the players


The room was buzzing with static electricity. It was literally crawling along the walls with small cracks and puffs of lightning, in some places creating small auroras. It was very pretty and perfectly safe; the equipment was shielded against the electricity and the staff had long ago learned the hard way to use their elbows to press the control for the access tunnel to the outside, thus saving them from nasty jolts in their sensitive fingertips. The only thing the constant barrage of static electricity messed up was hair, creating big puffy globes of hair and securing the name "The Einstein Gang" for the crew. 


Regardless, Utia Taerow was happy that he was wearing his thickly soled non-conducting boots instead of the light sandals that was the usual footwear of the research team in department Omega. Contrary to the other members of the team, he was not a scientist but a captain of the Itani Defence Force. And contrary to the other members of the crew, he didn't exactly want to be here. The other members of the team were supposed to see how far they could drive the subject, and he was supposed to help and to find useful applications for it. It, the subject, they had yet come up with a fitting name for the... phenomenon he guessed was an appropriate word. Anomaly or even freak would be just as fitting he reckoned, and if not for the complete incapacity to find anything humorous, he would have smiled at that.


He looked over at the freak and grimaced as he usually did, turning his head away. Like most people he had a hard time looking directly at the thing, not that it hurt or anything. It was the sense of something large and ominous scraping on the inside of his skull that made him flinch and look away. As a matter of fact, only two persons seemed to be unaffected and you could easily put them in the freak category as well. A set of former Siamese twins, jokingly named Huey and Dewey, were as usual totally oblivious to the mental strain everyone else were subject to by being inside the isolated area. Still, they had been gene-engineered to be able to do something like that. As a matter of fact they had been produced to be like the phenomenon itself, but had failed like the rest of their crèche. Though, where the others had been complete failures, dying within weeks of conception, the single set that lived through infancy proved very useful in adjusting the next gene-engineered crèche with the subject as the result. 


The freak was placed inside a Faraday cage, a device that took most of the spill-over static electricity, with the freak's body inside on a table and fixated by two xithricite chains; not to keep it inside, but to keep it from hurting itself while being experimented on. The door opened and professor Raewon walked in closely followed by his aide, Ms. Oselasis. Raewon nodded to the techs and scientists around the room and moved towards his chair. Taerow didn't really notice it; instead he admired the efficient feline movements of the young woman as she secured the professor to his seat near the centre console. She was bent over him while fastening his straps, but quickly looked up and directly at Taerow, catching his eyes and allowing the slightest of smiles to affect her Asian features. Taerow equally quickly looked away like a teenager caught looking at the older girls in the school yard and felt a warm sensation bubble up from his chest. Damn, she did it every time. The professor cleared his throat and Taerow looked back at him, noticing that Ms. Oselasis had moved to her own position and was now focusing fully on the professor. He missed her move across the floor, ah well there would be other times.


"Right team, this is going to be the first real test of the Omega project. We will focus the Omega", the professor's name for the freak's effect,” into the special energy focus mounted on a standard IDF Valkyrie loaded with triple neutron gun mark III remote piloted by Captain Taerow and activate the systems. Once the system is up and running, we will send a series of IDF crewed fast attack ships to attempt and destroy the Valkyrie. Captain Taerow, when you are ready you may launch, the Omega should be ready when you are."


Taerow nodded to the Omega controller on the other side to indicate his readiness. He nodded back, and Taerow donned his helmet and inserted his hands into the controllers. He launched his Valkyrie.


###


Ruteli Vielio knew he wasn't allowed to fly security as long as the Itani Secret Police employed him as security, but the offer had simply been too sweet to let up. He would fly his Vulture Mk III along a force of six heavy Behemoths, three Centaurs and three Warthog Defenders to the huge Metana barracks station Sorus Hold as security. And furthermore, he would be flying rearguard, so not even a realistic chance of getting involved in combat apart from the odd hive bot or so. The 38.000 Standard Itani Credits, or SIC's that he would pull from this assignment along with credits for possible bot kills, would hopefully be enough for him and Edia to buy an in-vitro fertilisation, and maybe even from a good source too.


He would be in and out in six hours at the max; he even had a dinner appointment later with Edia.  The night shift would be a pain to get through, but it would be worth it.


###


.... Earlier that week



"I tell you, they are up to no good."


Commander Fletholm turned towards the pale, thin, pimpled and bespectacled looking civilian in the bad-fitting suit that had just come to a conclusion.


"What do you mean Eggert?"


He didn't have to ask who" they" were; after all Eggert was the UIT expert on the Itani military research and development and thus "they" would be the scientists at the most secret facility placed in the space station Tellus Research circling Cantus. 


"Look at these readouts and these power consumptions Sir. If you correlate them with the daily shipments of supplies and the amount of persons onboard the station you will see no anomaly. But if you take the trend and extrapolate over a month you have a slightly higher consumption than is expected. So more matter and energy goes into the station than comes out. There is a net loss, Sir."


Fletholm looked at the young man and smiled. He understood what the eager data genius said, but just what should be concluded, he was not sure.


"So, the station is leaky or something?"


"Ah, that is what they want us to believe Sir." 


Eggert looked triumphantly at his boss. He punched up another image beside the others, of two stations, one fuzzy.


"See, the picture on the left is how the computer analysis shows how it would look if the station was leaky by the amount indicated, but instead the long range image in full spectrum is as clear as any other station that is well kept."


Fletholm looked closer at the two pictures and frowned. 


"So, what are they up to?"


Eggert grinned like a madman and pointed to a Valkyrie that was exiting from the station.


"See the small extra bulge on the top of that ship? If we assume that the ship has a standard weight and standard configuration, which is a safe bet, the ship is heavier by an amount that corresponds to about nineteen months of divergence. Besides, it has no IFF."


Fletholm looked closer at the image without seeing anything really.


"So, what is it?"


"I have no idea Sir, but I am going to try and find out. If it is a new modification to the Valkyrie it has to be something that is worthwhile. The ship is more than three thousand kilos heavier."


Fletholm scratched his ample belly and felt a small stab of fear in the reptilian parts of his brain. He would have to present this to his boss Admiral Stiern, the current head of the UIT military. But for now he would like some more information and some nice pictures from Tellus preferably showing the Valkyrie in question. He sent forth a message to the trade guild with a request for 100 crates of Eo Roses to be delivered to Dau Senate. It took less than a minute for the request to be received and answered. The free trader that took the assignment had for a long time been a paid agent of UIT intelligence, he would know what to do.


###


Hasdrubal Peppermint Peroncini the Third chuckled as he read his trade mission. A hundred crates of red roses from Eo, that could only mean one thing. He readied his battered Heavy Mining Moth with a mix of proximity and concussion mines before launching from the docking bay in Dau Senate. The advanced multi-spectrum scanner and camera fit perfectly into the small slot in front of his cockpit with a feed directly into the auxiliary computer that would normally be used for ore analysis.  He loved the mining moth; it was the perfect spy vessel. Who in their right mind would spy in a moth after all? Besides, it had a larger than normal cargo hold allowing him to make a buck on the side. As most freelance spies he had several employers, but recently his UIT customers had been very active in getting information from Eo. Fortunately it was information he could sell to his other main customers as well, the Serco Geira Secret Territorial Border Office, better known as GESTEBO.