Читать книгу The Time Free Zone - Gregory J. McKenzie - Страница 6

Once you are identified as someone with military experience, it is hard to shake that perception of this being the best use of your talents. So the Investigator was chosen to be the Inspector-General's observer at the latest attempt to stop an invasion by Space Imps. These annoying pirates who always caused trouble in the galaxy border regions were now making chaotic raids on inter galaxy trade routes. They would intercept the enormously large robot freighters that carried trade goods from neighboring galaxies. Then the Space Imps would hold them for ransom. Three galaxy class ships were dispatched to catch these space pirates.

Finding himself on the same galaxy class ship as before, the Investigator did not hesitate to reacquaint himself with the Captain. They had a beverages session after the Captain's last bridge watch before the ship went to light speed. The Captain was happy to see the Investigator. He said in a conversational tone of voice.

"So you did get that painful Professor onto the government weapons project team?"

Realizing that he could say little about that particular project, the Investigator kept his answers brief. In a non-committal tone of voice he said,

"Yes he was made an expert adviser!"

Laughing the Captain defused any awkwardness by saying in a joking manner,

"I pity anyone who had to get advice from that opinionated genius. Well I can see you are not allowed to talk about it, so let's talk about your family instead. Did you get a chance to get back home?"

Grateful for this act of discretion, the Investigator said in a happy tone of voice,

"Yes! I had two weeks with them. It was great to be able to use names not titles. I was able to disconnect my universal translator. I really do get sick of those monotone translations, don't you?"

The Captain nodded his head before saying in a sarcastic tone of voice,

"Mine sounds like my wife's voice. It never stops nagging away at me to get my pronunciations right."

Now the Investigator was laughing along with this new friend. They spent an enjoyable session just relaxing.

Arriving at the time-space coordinates given for the last Space Imps attack, the galaxy ships began tracking with their long range scanners. Faint nuclear trails led in three very different directions so the galaxy ships separated to follow these trails. The Investigator's ship had the furthest to go, so it was soon travelling at light speed. Arriving at the zone where their chosen trail ended, the Captain brought his ship back to combat speed.

Scanners located a nearby settlement which was checked out first for life signs. As the galaxy ship arrived in orbit around the settled planet, a message was received from the surface authorities. The Captain decided to leave any negotiations between planetary authorities and officialdom with the Investigator.

The Investigator went to the surface welcome center. Entering the formal welcome chamber, the Investigator, sensing trouble, started negotiations cautiously. In a clearly official tone of voice, he gave the traditional invocation from Galaxy Central,

"The galaxy government sends its warmest regards to your planet. It needs your help to track down enemies of galactic good order. How say you to this request?"

There was an inevitable time lapse whilst the translators struggled with these archaic words. Finally one of the local planetary officials spoke. Now it was the Investigator's turn to wait for his translator to search for word matches. Finally he heard this in the toneless voice of computer speak,

"We welcome the representatives of Galaxy Central. But as a free species we recognize no government but our own. We will help you if it does not involve harming are own species. State the details of your request."

Every fiber of the Investigator's being was screaming that something was very wrong here with this planetary delegation. For a start his research on this planet showed it to be friendly to Galaxy Central. Then there was the strange way only one representative spoke for all. His research suggested this planet had a very loose commonwealth of subspecies. There was no indication of any one dominant ruler. So the investigator kept his request modest and his purpose hidden. He said,

"We seek only water replenishment and some guidance. Nothing more."

There seemed to be a moment when the planetary representatives all seemed to relax. But even then the Investigator noticed the tense stance of a few males at the back. If anything these few seemed to become distressed. The Investigator was now even more ready to end this charade by returning to the galaxy class ship. Most of the planetary representatives were now smiling. Their chosen speaker said,

"Water we have in great abundance. Guidance is mandatory to strangers lost in our zone."

A clever answer like that only further aroused the Investigator's suspicions. But he was an expert in hiding his thoughts, so he said,

"Thank you for the water. When I return to the ship I will have our navigator send down his directional queries."

Having concluded the formal part of the negotiations, the Investigator was keen to get back safely to the galaxy class ship. He left the formal welcome area as soon as he could without risking alerting any hostile watchers. Before he left he secretly scanned the binary code numbers of everyone in the room.

Arriving back on the ship the Investigator sought an immediate private meeting with the Captain. Not wasting any time he came straight to the matter of his suspicions about the planetary welcoming party. In a steady voice he said, "Captain there is something wrong on that planet. I will give a section's pay if the group I met turns out to be the real officials of that species. The ones I saw at the front of the delegation were too fit, too nasty to be mere officials. There were a few at the back of the delegation that did look like your classic planetary official. But they only stood there silently."

Worried by this report the Captain asked,

"What are your worst fears?"

Shrugging his shoulders, the Investigator said cautiously,

"I will know more when the ship's communication system access galaxy central databases. I took everyone's binary code readings. That should tell us something."

Going over to his official digital assistant the Captain said,

"I want those binary code search details sent to me as soon as they arrive. See to it as a priority one command."

The digital assistant replied,

"Yes Captain. I will get access with the communications assistant at once."

After his digital assistant had hovered out of their cubicle, the Captain said,

"Unofficially what do you think went on down there at that welcoming?"

The Investigator replied,

"I can't be certain of this but I think we were being tricked. Having been part of many such welcoming ceremonies, I know that it is normal for every species to exhibit some fear. No administration is completely honest. This far away from Galaxy Central scrutiny, some low level corruption is to be expected. That is why their portrayal of having nothing to hide rang so false."

Nodding his head, the Captain began pacing the length of the cubicle. Just then his digital assistant hovered back into the cubicle. It awaited a command to download the acquired data. The Captain said,

"Give the Investigator's official recorder full access to the data you just collected."

Looking down at his recorder, the Investigator saw the 'Data Received' icon light up on his recorder. Opening up this stored new data gave the Investigator pause for thought. After a brief interval he said,

"Well that confirms my suspicions. Only three of the individuals in that room are registered as officials of that planet. Surprisingly enough another three are NOT on the galaxy central database."

"WHAT?" shouted the Captain. "But that's impossible. Every member of the galaxy regardless of the species has a binary code number assigned at birth. It cannot be erased or changed except by direct order from Galaxy Central High Command."

Nodding his head, the Investigator said,

"What you say is true, but there has long been a suspicion that criminals never notify anyone of an impending birth in their family. That means that three members of that welcoming party are from criminal parents."

Having settled down under the clinical outline of a possible explanation, the Captain said,

"Then you were right. There is something going on with that planet. But what it is I have no idea. Do you?"

"Luckily you were very wise to send me in your place. I picked the lapses in welcoming protocol at once. That set my instincts to a higher level of alertness than they would normally be set for a mere beginning to negotiations. I suspect the Space Imps have seized control of this settlement. They must have hostages to make those three high officials not speak up in my presence."

"Great galaxies, that is terrible news. How do we complete our mission now without harming innocent members of this planet?"

The Investigator replied with a grin on his face,

"There is a way. I have a plan. But it will require you to be deceitful and show duplicity. Right up your alley really....only joking.. but we will have to act with less than honest transparency to fool them"

Snorting the Captain said,

"As you said that is right up my alley. I am not joking. Now cut out throwing space dust in my eyes and outline your plan. It better be good or drinks are on you."

After going over the intricate details of his plan three times, the Investigator started to see the beginning of a smile on the face of his friend. The Captain finally said,

"If your plan works we will capture the Space Imps WITH their space ships. That would be good for my career especially if no 'unconnected individuals' are hurt in the crossfire. As for hurting the Space Imps, after seeing what they did to that last space station crew that tried to resist their boarding I could not care less about inflicting pain on such space scum."

Relieved that he had finally got across the finer points of his risky plan, the Investigator said,

"Okay I will go back to accept their water transfer gift. Whilst I am down there I will ask for directions to a distant solar system. I will be as far away as is believable, leaving them all in no doubt that we are moving on immediately the water is stored on our ship. The rest is up to you and your crew. Can you do it Captain?"

Showing scorn on her features, the Captain replied,

"Just you do your part of this. Leave tricky maneuvers to my crew. That is all you Investigators are good at when you call on the military to save your skin. You can safely leave the difficult bit to the best ship's crew in this galaxy. We will catch those Space Imps in open space with no chance of escape by them going to light speed."

With that, the Investigator left the meeting to return to the planet's surface.

After the water transfer was completed the galaxy class ship powered away from the planet. When it was clear of any satellites it went to light speed. Then, once out of scanner range of the planet, it did a loop that brought it back to a point in time-space that hid it behind a large moon. There it waited for its prey.

The space imps ships came by a little time later. Caught completely by surprise, their captains only became aware of the trap when they were crowed by surrounding moons and asteroids. Not able to safely jump to light speed they had to try and fight their way to free space. Overpowered by the superior weaponry of the galaxy class ship the space imps ships were completely immobilized. Boarding party had little trouble with the space imps as their ships now sat under the weapons of the powerful galaxy class ship.

After formerly charging every crew member with offences including aggravated violence, kidnapping, theft and various other acts of piracy, the Investigator settled down to send out his arrest report.

His space ship rendezvoused with the other two galaxy hunter ships. They had equal success but at a much higher cost in unintended causalities. By the time all three galaxy class ships had returned to Galaxy Central, there was a large number of accused persons for galaxy legal section to process. This meant that the Investigator's possible court date was many cycles away. He applied for and was granted temporary home planet leave.

Once he had returned to duty, the Investigator documented his cases. Then he sat back at Investigation Central to wait his turn in the longest running space piracy litigation in galaxy history. His many cases took up most of his time over many cycles.

Only much later was he at last able to talk to his new friend. The Captain of the galaxy ship that had so ably handled the capture of three pirate ships was now famous in military circles.

The Investigator offered to pay for food and drink at a catch up session. The Captain finally took him up on that offer. They met at a civilian eatery to minimize the chances of either one of them being ambushed by colleagues. The Investigator was genuinely happy to see his friend. So his greeting was effusive, if a bit off beat,

"You old space dog, it's great to see you outside official duties. But how did you put on so much weight so quickly?"

Getting the intent of this jibe, the Captain responded in curt but not in an unfriendly manner. His comeback was cutting but not brutal, when he said,

"At least I did not become stupid overnight like someone I could mention. But it is good still to see you in such casual clothes. Where can I get that style of dress. Its late Twenty-Fifth Century isn't it? My ancestors wore something like that back in our dark age."

Ready to banter all night with this friendly sparing partner, the Investigator laughed out loud before conceding defeat. He put his hands up palm outwards as he said,

"Okay you win that round. Now, before the second round starts, how about some liquid refreshment?"

To a space veteran this was definitely the right sort of invitation to break the ice. So the Captain said,

"You're paying right? Then I will have the most expensive drink this place has to offer."

More of a chortle now escaped from the Investigator's mouth as he nodded before saying,

"I thought that is what you would want, so I ordered a double for both of us."

This seemed to act as some sort of signal to the drinks waiter because the drinks robot turned up at that exact moment with their drinks.

As the Captain drained perhaps the most expensive drink he had ever consumed, the calming effect was obvious. By the time he had emptied his container a smile was entrenched on his facial features. Relaxation signs seemed to spread across his whole massive frame. When he tried to speak he found he was too relaxed to joke in any coherent manner. So the Captain gave up witty retorts to simply say,

"That has to be the best drink in the galaxy. What do they call it?"

Laughing with genuine pleasure, the Investigator said,

"Its full name is unpronounceable in most galaxy languages. I can give you its binary code number latter for your future enjoyment of what is essentially the juice of perhaps the most revolting looking species in the galaxy. It was some fanatical astro-biologist who discovered that, if this species was in extreme danger, male members of that species excreted this juice. Some vain attempt, I think, to convince a predator not to kill it."

Cringing at images in his head, the Captain said,

"Way too much information my friend. Please leave me with some illusions, so I can go on drinking this amazing liquid. Now tell me what you thought of all those show trails we just witnessed."

Thanking his lucky icons that they were not anywhere official, the Investigator said,

"So you did notice the farcical nature of the prosecution case? What the blue moon happened there I like to know? It was an open and shut conviction for all of the accused. Yet only the simple space crew members were sent to a galactic prison. Not one of the ship captains was even convicted. I cannot explain what happened any more than you can my esteemed Captain."

Not deceived at this late attempt at levity, the Captain said,

"There was some political deal done that we know nothing about. All the captains have now been commissioned as galaxy space navigators. Can you believe that piece of space junk? They are now supposed to be on our side."

Shaking his head, the Investigator said,

"Incredible outcome! No matter what way you look at it. Almost as if that was the plan from the very beginning. Why send us to capture pirates then only imprison a token number? Makes no sense."

They both stopped talking at the next round of drinks arrived. Due to the Investigator's limited budget this round was much less expensive. A common enough drink for hard drinking people nonetheless, so both of them took their time consuming this cheaper less palatable liquid now in their containers.