Five Empires: An Epic Space Opera Read online

  Emilia said in approval.

  Michael reloaded his harpoon with satisfaction. He wasn’t planning on using it again but liked to keep it loaded.

  he said over his shoulder as he stroked toward the dark barricade.

 

 

  Michael’s bleak humor couldn’t completely erase his sense of trepidation. Being hit with some serious cell time was a real possibility here. He’d lose his job and his reputation. He needed the former without doubt. The latter? Well, he already had a rep for being a stubborn maverick so that didn’t matter so much.

  Time to move. Michael surged forward, leaving Emilia alone in the watery twilight. He’d tried to play down the danger posed by Coller’s guards, but there was every chance they would shoot on sight. Especially with the food shortages across the planet.

  Michael urged his body onward. More light was filtering down here and he could make out the huge, elongated kelp mats thirty yards above. The tangled mass of roots formed the base of the kelp forest that had been painstakingly cultivated over several decades by Coller himself. Michael grudgingly admired the farmer even if he disliked the man.

  Despite the thickness of the root base, Michael was able to squeeze through one of the several holes and had to blink in the light-saturated upper depth profile. Huge strands of kelp rose right up to the lake’s dancing surface. The hulking silhouette of a kelp barge drifted into view, blocking some of the ambient light.

  Michael didn’t mind at all. He set to work climbing the nearest kelp stalk, marveling at the rubbery strength of the plant. Coller’s forest must’ve covered several square miles, making this farm one of the largest on Solitude.

  Michael reached the part of the stalk he was interested in - the wide sheet that absorbed incoming sunlight. He drew a hand-held heat torch from his utility belt. He’d only acquired the tool from a spare parts dealer last week. Cost him 73 AU. Almost five weeks of wages.

  Still, it would pay for itself if it could work right now. At first the underwater torch spluttered, but after a few ignitions it caught and glowed bright orange in the murk. Feeling his anxiety rising, Michael concentrated on cutting the rectangular kelp sheet from the stalk. The rubbery flesh was dense and tough.

  A full minute had passed by the time Michael managed to cut the green slab free. The natural buoyancy of the thing surprised him. After he strapped it to his back he began to rise immediately. No amount of counteracting strength could keep him below the lake surface.

  His eyes struggled to adjust to the weak early afternoon sunlight as his head broke free of the frigid water. Thankfully the kelp barge puttered its way in the opposite direction. Michael used the valuable seconds to assess the farm. The lake surface was dotted with tiny pink beacons that marked the location of kelp crowns. There were other kelp barges at work, but these were too far away to be an immediate threat.

  The problem was the charge barricade. Michael couldn’t dive to escape through the shorted section he’d created down in the midnight zone. The chances of clearing the barricade on the lake’s surface were slim to none.

  Damn. He hadn’t thought this scenario through too well. He figured he’d be able to dive back through the shorted barricade. As he considered his next move, a movement caught his eye. A bedraggled man wearing a dirty shift had stumbled to the aft prow of the kelp barge to discard a frisson stick. Michael wanted to bury his head under the water but it was too late. The kelp farmer’s beady eyes widened when he saw Michael and he returned to the front of the barge.

  “Shit,” Michael said out loud, hoping the curse would trigger some kind of plan. The only viable option was probably the most dangerous. All he could do was meet this threat head on.

  Panicking now, Michael swam closer to the kelp barge. The salty, fleshy slab on his back hampered his movement but he managed a stuttering stroke. The sluggish barge was turning a wide circle. It was so slow that Michael was able to approach the flat skid bay on its starboard side.

  A pair of heavy boots appeared before his eyes and he yanked on an ankle with all his might. The kelper fell feet first into the cold water. Michael had no time to lay a second blow, rolling himself onto the side of the barge. He struggled to rise, the kelp slab messing with his sense of balance.

  A second kelper appeared along the starboard rail, this one brandishing a fish hook. Michael stepped forward brazenly, forcing the kelper’s hand. The man swung the hook in a wide arc. There was power behind the attack but it was telegraphed. Michael instinctively turned his back on the kelper, barely registering the wet thunk of the hook against the kelp slab.

  Hoping like hell the kelp wasn’t damaged, Michael backed into the kelper and shoveled him along the starboard rail. He built up enough momentum to send the man over the rail and into the water. By this stage the first kelper had recovered his position on the skid bay, only this time he was dripping wet and ready to kill Michael.

  The forager decided to continue down the starboard rail, determined to test his luck a little further. There were two kelpers standing on the fore deck further down the way. A ladder ran the side of the wheelhouse to his right. Without hesitation he climbed it, groaning at the ridiculous weight at his back.

  The pilot was a grizzled, wind-lashed kelper, a man unlucky enough to be looking the wrong way. Michael buffeted him with the kelp slab, careful not to send the man tumbling off the other side. Bereft of ideas, he assessed the small cabin. He didn’t want to kill any of these men but they would be swarming him within seconds.

  Operating on nothing but the risky fumes of instinct, he pushed the throttle bar to full power. The barge surged forward and the pilot, already off balance, almost knocked himself out on the back wall. A heavy object clattered to the floor - a sawed-off pulse rifle. It must have been mounted on the wall in case of emergency. Michael lifted it with some difficulty, the kelp slab barely fitting in the wheelhouse.

  “Out,” he commanded calmly, the pulse rifle trained on the pilot’s chest. The barge was now running at full speed toward the rocky lake shore to the west.

  “You won’t kill me, kid,” said the kelper through yellowed teeth.

  “No,” admitted Michael, lashing out with a mule kick to deter climbers at the starboard ladder. It was only a matter of time before he was overrun. “But I’m not playing around, all the same.”

  Michael lowered the rifle to the man’s thigh and fired. The weapon thrummed in the forager’s hand and he felt a wave of adrenalin - that was the first time he’d fired one of these things. The pilot screamed - a fist-sized chunk had been taken from his thigh muscle, which now smoked and sizzled from the impact. He would live, but would forever be hampered. Unless he had access to the kind of Medical the Navy enjoyed, which wasn’t likely.

  Michael hated causing harm to his own kind, but the way he saw it, there was much more at stake here than the old thighs of a kelper from Bosk Lake. He wasn’t stupid - he read the news feeds every morning. He knew about the worrying buildup of Cavan forces in the Tobera system. He knew about the unexpected arrival of a Nostromic ambassador in the southern reaches of Solitude. Centuries of galactic stability looked to be coming to an end.

  For Michael, this was a chance to show the Aegisi Round Table what he could offer the Navy. Over the years the Aegisi had steadily built their Republic on Solitude with reasonable success. That success, however, was dependent on decades of peace and prosperity elsewhere in the galaxy.

  The Aegisi had never needed to divert precious resources into building a powerful army. Michael could only guess at the current strength of Aegisi Blue forces. Twenty thousand infantry? Thirty? Not much in the way of mechanized land or air units. Rumor had it that the Navy had developed an effective sea unit, but surely that would only be useful in the defense of Solitude?

  No. Michael, like most intelligent Aegisi citizens, was well aware of his peoples’ vulnerabilities. The armor he had
to offer was a potential game changer. Which is why the old kelper’s scream affected Michael, but only for a moment.

  “Stand down or the next will hit you between the eyes,” he said in a flat tone. Probably in too much pain to argue, the pilot acquiesced and climbed down to the fore deck. His crew mates gathered around him. They all gazed menacingly at the young upstart in the wheelhouse. Thankfully, none were armed with guns. The last thing Michael wanted was a gunfight on deck.

  The kelp barge careened toward the angular rocks on the shore line, passing through the charge barricade unscathed. Must have been coded for safe passage. Michael tried not to smile, delighted at the turn of events.

  “I’m stepping off this tub with my kelp,” Michael said firmly. “None of you can stop me.”

  “I know you,” the pilot said through gritted teeth. “How do you expect to keep your lousy job, forager?”

  Michael smiled with what he hoped was bravado, because he certainly didn’t feel it. “That’s my concern.”

  The barge struck an intertidal rock platform with a piercing crunch. The crewmen were scattered across the fore deck but Michael, who had anticipated the impact, was already climbing down the starboard ladder. Before anyone could stop him he had eased himself off the starboard skid bay and was running as fast as he could through knee-deep water on the rock platform. He tossed the rifle away with a gleeful yelp, daring to believe that he might actually make it out of this mess.

  3

  Reeling from the full weight of the waterlogged kelp, Michael scurried up the rocky beach and into a thicket of lakeside pine trees. The fragrance of the montane forest invigorated his senses as he pushed through several clinging branches.

  The terrain opened up after a minute or two. Michael spotted a sandy goat track barely visible under a dense mat of rust-colored pine needles. He knew the way north would eventually see him to the Depot and relative safety. That was also where Emilia would be waiting for him. The other way was up Clemmens Hill - murder with the heavy kelp secured to his back.

  A commotion in the trees behind him drew Michael’s attention. It looked like the kelpers were determined to bring him to justice. He swore under his breath - wasn’t it enough to simply identify him to Aegisec?

  Why did they feel the need to pursue him over a kelp slab? It might’ve have been the principle of the thing, or simply because he’d drawn the pilot’s blood. Whatever the case, Michael had no chance of outrunning them through the forest. But the other way was even worse… or was it? A plan materialized in Michael’s frantic mind. It was crazy but it was all he had. He selected the southwest path that wound its way up Clemmens Hill.

  Within five minutes Michael was blowing hard. It was one thing to carry the wet kelp across even terrain, another entirely to lug it up a steep goat track. A swirling wind chilled Michael to the bone as he ascended the hill.

  Snow-covered cypress and bohibi overshadowed the track at irregular intervals. The lake shore forest spread out beneath him. Another few minutes and he could see Bosk Lake glinting in the afternoon light. Clemmens Hill wasn’t especially tall, but at this altitude it was almost always covered with snow. Senafal was nestled in the next valley, at the base of the hill’s northern face.

  A grunt floated up from the goat track behind Michael. Those damned kelpers had guessed which way he’d gone. They must’ve been seriously angry to follow him up Clemmens Hill. He guessed the kelp barge had foundered on those rocks and was now taking in water. The thought made him smile.

  Still, his lungs burned and his legs felt like lead. Would he reach the summit before the kelpers got their hands on him? Judging from the footfalls behind him, it would be a close thing.

  Michael urged his body onward even though he felt like kneeling and vomiting. A bracing wind whipped around his ears as he willed himself over a fallen tree and through ankle-deep snow. He could hear the ragged breath of his closest pursuer as he stumbled along the spine of a ridge at the summit of Clemmens Hill.

  The kelper behind him couldn’t be more than a yard away. Michael fumbled at the strap around his waist and released it. The kelp slab began slipping down his back. With one last burst of strength Michael hauled the kelp over his head. The heavy slab landed flush on the snow and skidded across the ridge.

  Elated to be free of its weight, Michael launched himself through the air and landed on the spongy kelp sheet. His arrival gave it enough momentum to clear the end of the ridge and begin what would hopefully be a long descent down the north slope of the hill. Michael whooped with delight as the kelp sheet bounced and skidded down the hill. The vehement curses from his pursuers only enhanced the experience.

  The initial ride across bare, well-packed snow was a dream. Once the snow began thinning out and allowed bushes and shrubs to poke through, Michael’s trajectory became a little more problematic.

  The kelp sheet was heavy enough to flatten most of the shrubs in its path, but Michael had to pull on the sheet’s corners to avoid trees and rocks. He hurtled through lightly wooded terrain, glad for the pine needle padding but concerned a stray branch would take him out at any moment.

  Ducking under a bough, a granite boulder loomed with little warning. Michael instinctively lifted the top of the sheet in a move that probably saved his life. The kelp impacted savagely against the lichen-covered rock and the recoil sent Michael flying over the top. Helpless, the forager could do nothing but pray he didn’t land on a sharp stump. As it turned out he thudded awkwardly in a carpet of bracken and ended up curled around a thin spruce.

  The forager took several moments to recover his breath and his wits. Feeling a headache coming on already, he rose gingerly to his feet and trudged up the slope to fetch his kelp. Reasonably sure he wouldn’t be pursued any further, he allowed his body to relax a little as he made his way through the forest. The glowing perimeter bulbs of Senafal winked in the distance - Solitude’s capital city was less than fifteen minutes away.

  Michael closed the distance without incident, though his wrists ached from dragging the kelp over uneven ground. At length he tied it to his back. It weighed heavy but there was no other viable option.

  Before long Michael’s path was lined with the low, simple habs on the outskirts of Senafal. Aegisi folk went about their afternoon business with barely a glance at the forager. He was fairly well known in the area and could reliably be seen dragging some carcass or another behind him.

  Senafal had the look of a reasonably new city grafted onto a landscape that was still a work in progress. The only area that exuded a genuine sense of culture and history was the docks area, where the terrestrial part of the town transitioned to that which lay underneath the water.

  Michael trudged tiredly down Orleans Way, a thoroughfare that bisected the middle class habs and ran all the way down to the shores of Bosk Lake. All around him glowing orange spheres were flickering into life. He checked his wrist pad - it was around 1530 and the meek sun would soon abandon the Aegisi to the night.

  The surrounding architecture became more distinctive as Michael approached the docks. The locale had been a hub of activity for several centuries now, ever since fisherman had begun hauling silver perch from the lake. Senafal was an ordered, efficient town, where systems and infrastructure were designed with long term sustainability in mind.

  The glowing bars and nightspots to Michael’s left and right were prime examples of the expansionist architecture that dominated Aegisi settlements. Straight parallel lines terminating in graceful arcs were the order of the day, a distinctive style that could apparently be traced all the way back to the doomed human civilization of Cirrus Two.

  The dominant color in the warm and lively street was the official color of the Aegisi - cobalt blue. The color represented many concepts dear to the Aegisi - water, sober-headed thinking, innovative engineering and a sanguine, diplomatic political outlook. The way of the Aegisi was to make the most of limited resources, not to steal resources from others.

  Within an hou
r this section of town would be flooded with respectable families coming together to discuss the day. Michael could already smell a delectable concoction of butter, onion, sunfish and paprika. On any other day he might have parked himself in front of an open hearth to enjoy the warmth seeping into his bones. Today, though, time was at a premium.

  Michael hustled through the colorful docks area, deliberately heading right through the Lakeside Tech Bazaar. Even though he was in a hurry, he never missed an opportunity to immerse himself in the exotic sights, sounds and smells of civilian tech. The Aegisi had a well-earned reputation as elite innovators in the science and technology industry and the sheer size of this twenty-four hour market reflected that.

  The forager had always believed that if he should fail to impress the Aegisi Round Table with his designs he would go straight to the open market to make his mark. For the moment, patriotism overruled any mercenary considerations. What good would a private business be if the Aegisi were wiped out by a hostile species?

  Orleans Way terminated at the lake shore itself, where a huge steel ramp disappeared into the freshwater. Thousands of Aegisi passed in and out of the lake every day, their amphibious suits well adapted for drying out.

  Filling his leg sheaths with lead weights from a communal dispenser by the water, Michael waded into the cold murk. Lead weights were often used by divers who preferred buoyant suits for safety reasons. For the forager, the weights would allow him to dive even though he had a kelp slab on his back.

  His mind was a flurry of troubling calculations. It wouldn’t have taken long for the ragtag band of kelpers to report the theft. Depending on the level of criminal activity that day, Michael would probably have a minimum of two hours before Aegisec was knocking at his door.

  He dived into the water, flinching just a little at the extreme cold. He was surrounded on all sides by swimmers heading in the opposite direction. Government types heading back to their terrestrial habs. Michael veered to the side to avoid the crush, careful not to stray into the mechanized zone, where passenger transports made regular runs between Senafal’s two spheres. Michael’s lowly foraging pay grade precluded him from enjoying such luxuries.