First Contact

Chapter 816: Ultimis Diebus Hominum

It's a universal rule. Sometimes you have to start over whether you like it or not. - Junker's Saying

If you lose everything, upgrade upgrade upgrade. - Junker Maxim #42

There's no such thing as lost profit, merely lessons. - Junker Maxim #18

Breket had started out as a lowly Telkan worker overseeing robots caring for the Overseers bushes and plants on their estate gardens. Drafted to fight, he became to a Home Guard soldier during the latter half of the First Telkan War and all of the Second Telkan War. Afterwards he had taken advantage of loans, training, and opportunity.

He had bought a Terran troop transport that had been damaged and slated for mass reclamation, refurbished it, hired beings to train him and his friends, and christened it What, Me Worry? and started cruising the shipping lanes.

Eight years later, exciting, heady years full of danger, excitement, and opportunity, he'd made it to a successful interstellar trader. He had encountered strange Terrans that wanted puppies and kittens, he'd encountered a Pubvian warship that had been drifting for nearly eight thousand years, and even gotten in a fight with one of the smaller PAWMs and come out on top, saving an entire stellar system.

His small crew was loyal and had been with him through thick and thin.

Breket had a nose for opportunity, for profit, and other traders considered him to have nerves of steel when it came to chasing profit.

Still, he had to admit, his latest passenger had taught him more in four months than he had learned prior. Breket considered the fact that he had an opportunity to learn from his passenger to be pure unicorn horn pressed gold coins. A Terran, but better yet, a trader, salvager, and scavenger with centuries of experience under his belt, willing to trade training and other esoterics for transportation of himself and a handful of other beings.

The Terran was nearly legendary in junker circles.

One Max-a-Millions, a "Pure Strain Human" guild registered junker. A senior junker in high standing with the guild. A being with contacts all over Confederate space as well as an ever expanding circle of contacts in the former Unified Council areas.

Breket had dropped off the passengers, then listened as Max made an offer.

Take Max into the Tomb Worlds area of the Confederacy and Breket could load his holds with gray market or clear market goods of his choice.

Still, the Tomb Worlds were a place to be very careful.

The Terran Xenocide Attacks had left those worlds completely empty. Even the Digital Sentiences were gone. Entire planets were run by little more than advanced Virtual Intelligences, dutifully keeping the systems humming along for dead planets, empty space stations, and silent extraction and construction platforms.

But just because the Terrans were gone didn't mean their protections were cold and dead.

Every trader knew, the Tomb Worlds were still guarded like any other Terran stellar system.

If I can't have it, nobody can, Breket had heard as an explanation of why the Terran defense systems were still live and on high active in the Tomb Worlds. A wholly human belief that Breket understood after holding a rifle for the long years of the Telkan Wars.

"We'll be dropping into the Oort Cloud," Grektik, the ship's navigator, stated.

Breket nodded.

"Run IFF and debris shielding only," Max said. His voice was firm, confident, and the Terran was leaned back in a crash couch. He wore a vac-suit covered in cartoons that moved, capered, danced, and waved with glee. "Keep all your weapons unpowered. Shut down even passive systems."

"Do as he says," Breket said.

"Aye, sir," Grektik said from navigation.

"Aye, sir," Revelk said from astrogation.

Treglet looked up from his communications station. "All channels open. Receive only," he said.

Breket nodded.

"DCC on standby," Vutplent stated, his voice tight.

"Engineering at stations," Pretkwik reported.

"Gunnery stations offline, Captain" Normak stated.

"Scanning ready, Captain," Helgret'tik, the sole female Telkan on deck, said quietly. She shook her head. "I hate this."

"It'll be all right, Guns," Breket said.

"Medical ready," Ptavri checked in.

"Ships core: ready," the sole DS on the ship, Easy jump-3238 said from one of the secondary holotanks. She was wearing heavy armor, a lesson from being boarded by a lean and mean combat DS a couple of years prior.

"Dropping in 3... 2... 1... MARK!" Grektik warned.

There was a loud THUMP off in the distance. Breket looked at Vutplent, who just shook his head. He glanced at Max and saw the Terran had his hands folded over his midsection and looked completely unconcerned.

"Realspace entry successful," Grektik said.

"Passives coming back. Gravatics coming back," Helgret'tik said. She leaned forward. "Lightspeed lag is still in effect. Gravitics show fifteen planetary bodies, including seven gas giants, two hypermassive gas giants. Three planets within the Terran Green Zone. Two in the Terran Yellow Zone. One in red zone, close to the star. Star is a yellow class three."

Breket looked at Max, who just blinked a few times.

"No queries. No hypercom or superluminal traffic. No GalNet, SolNet, or other communication line," Helgret'tik continued. "We'll have to wait for more data."

Breket looked over at Max. "Suggestions?"

"Keep scanning. We won't want to move for at least ten hours. I'd give it at least a full thirty hour shift," Max stated. He looked at Bretek with a serious expression on his face. "This place is going to be full of problems. You'll need to be very careful, but the rewards are worth it."

"It's a Tomb World," Breket shrugged. "That makes it dangerous."

"Wait till we get the scans back, then I'll know how bad it is," Max said. He got up and the little cartoon characters ran back and forth on his armored vac-suit.

Breket watched the Terran leave and leaned back in his command cradle, tapping his foot on the 'oh-shit' plate at the bottom.

-----

At thirty hours Breket had ordered another thirty of scanning. All passive.

Now he stood on the bridge, looking into the holotank.

The five planets within the Terran Green and Yellow Zones all showed power sources in orbit, on the surface, and in high orbit. Their orbital bodies showed power sources. Around the gas giants and super-massive gas giants were obvious orbital facilities, including the huge latticework of shipyards around two of them.

"Lots of damage," Helgret'tik said, chewing on a Slender James meatstick. She jabbed the chewy at one of the shipyards. "Huge holes blown in this one. Looks like a lot of hulls were being laid or being refurbished got hit with nukes."

"What happened here?" Breket asked Max. "I want to know before we go in. If it's too bad, you can borrow one of the combat shuttles."

Max rubbed his eyes for a second. "There's a reason I knew this place would be deserted," he said softly.

Breket waited.

"This place took a one-two-three punch combo, even before the Big-C3," the Terran said. He tapped the edge of the Oort Cloud. "The Mar-gite came over the boundary, tore the place up. That's why we had to drop this far back. Space Force managed to eradicate them from the system," he said. He tapped the five 'habitable' planets. "but not before they ate everyone in the system, right down to the bugs, moss, and algae," he tapped the Oort Cloud again. "That's why there's defense platform with a two light minute engagement range out here," he tapped the gas giants. "The Mar-gite started breeding in the gas giants before Space Force wiped them out. That's why only two of the gas giants have shipbuilding yards left. Those were built later."

Breket nodded.

"An Elven Queen sent one of her daughters with a High Court to fix the planetary ecospheres, make sure the gas giants were clear as well as the various moons. This system has fifty-two lunar bodies orbiting the gas giants, larger orbital masses, and the planets," Max said. He gave a weird grunt. "Then the Mithril Nebula Conflict happened."

He tapped the habitable planets. "The High Court slaughtered almost a billion settlers. Used this region as a launch point," he tapped the stellar mass. "Space Force eradicated them. After a while there was another resettlement attempt."

Max gave another grunt. "The place was a mess by that point. It needed a massive effort for cleanup and debris clearing. Still, the settlers came in and started work."

Max tapped one of the defensive rings. "Then Clownface happened. That shitshow gobbled this region up. Pogroms, Final Solutions, the whole nine yards plus the chupacabra," Max tapped what looked like a ring around one of the moons. "Then the Lanks hit it. They got stopped dead by the automated systems before they could planetcrack anything, but that's more debris. There wasn't anyone here trying to clear the system when the final blow was struck."

"The Terran Xenocide Event," Normak said.

Max nodded. "Yes."

Breket gave a slow, low whistle, moving around the holotank and staring at it all. "So this place is full of five hundred years of combat salvage."

"That and other stuff," Max stated. He tapped one of the furthest out orbital bodies. A frozen ball of gasses. "Right here is enough to keep you busy for years," he said.

"What's out there?" Treglet asked.

"Decommissioning yard. There's some colossus class vessels out there for reclamation and stripping down," Max said.

"Is that our goal?" Breket asked.

Max shrugged. "Maybe yours. Mine's further in system," he stated. He tapped the second planet from the sun, barely in the Terran Yellow Zone. "I want something from the orbital shipyards right here."

Breket looked at the mechanics. The second planet was a third of the way around the orbit from the What, Me Worry?, but Breket could see several routes that would keep his ship away from any orbital bodies or any of the massive debris fields that the sensors would pick up.

"What's there?" Breket asked.

Max heaved a sigh. "Super-Massive cargo ship construction and refit," he stated.

Breket raised an eyebrow.

"Ships designed from the ground up to be cargo haulers. This system was licensed to produce armed freighters, the Confederate Space Force used that yard, right there, to produce Q-Ships."

"Q-Ships?" Revelk asked.

Max tapped the icon for the planet. "Ships that are cargo vessels but are more heavily armed than civilian ships. We're talking superstring compressor cannons, C+ cannons, temporal resonance cannons. Hell, some of them can drop as many missile pods as a Weber class super-dreadnought."

Revelk and Vutplent both gave low whistles.

"And illegal as fuck for civilian ownership," Jump said from the holotank.

Max shrugged. "I'm a junker. That means deep space salvage, frontier and beyond trading, and other dangerous activites," he gave a laugh. "The HappyTrader, my last ship, was armed up and packed the shielding of a Space Force Heavy Cruiser."

"That's the ship that you lost knocking out the Slorpie attack on a system," Breket said.

"Yes," Max said. He tapped the planet again. "You get me here, I'm a senior junker in high standing with the guild, I can tap you a guild membership."

Breket nodded. That was worth more than anything they'd pick up. Grey market goods suddenly became quasi-legal and his ship could pack more than a few light missile launchers and plasma guns.

"What's on the planet?" Jump asked.

"The standard. Alloy fabrication, mass manufacturing. Place did a lot of spooky and strange matter mass manufacturing," Max said. "Before Clownface, it had a population of about two point two million. Before Mithril, there was nearly twelve million people there. Before the Mar-gite, nearly thirty million people worked in the foundries."

Breket whistled again.

"So, lots of ruins," Jump stated.

"Yeah. Like I told all of you: Tomb World," Max said. "If you don't want to go in, I get it. The place is a shitshow of the highest order. Me and Are-Two, we can use the shuttle to get to the shipyards."

Breket stared at the system for a long time.

"No, we'll take you in. I'll want you on the bridge to advise me," he said.

Max nodded.

Breket turned to his crew. "We'll take the long way, no faster than point one C. Make the azimuth arc for a straight line shot with the stellar mass behind the planetary body. Move fifteen degrees north on the planar meridian," he said.

Everyone nodded.

"Rig for silent running," Breket said, moving to the chair. "Keep our eyes and ears wide."

Jump nodded, chewing on her lips as she shut down the wide datapipes and moved to the one way datalines into her senses.

-----

"Look at it," Grektik said softly.

On the screen a massive vessel slowly slid by. Its hull had severe damage, the inner hull spaces open to space. It was surrounded by a cloud of frozen atmosphere that was diffuse enough to just glimmer. Some of the running lights flashed erratically, electrical arcs could be seen in the massive craters in the superstructure. Bodies slowly orbited the ship, others had succumbed to the microgravity of the huge ship and had fallen to the hull.

"Beacon says in the TCSF Black Water Dancer, out of New Puno," Helgret'tik said. "Database says its a super-heavy superdreadnought, lost in action during the Clownface Nebula Conflict."

Max nodded. "Dead hulk. Still has a lot of weapons, but not worth boarding."

"Why not?" Treglet asked.

Max leaned forward. "Tighten the magnification right here, Helgret'tik," he said, tapping one of the huge gaping holes.

Helgret'tik brought it to full magnification, high enough that the twisted wiring and ruptured piping was visible.

Long moments passed.

"What are we looking..." Grektik started to say.

"There, right there," Max said, his voice low and sharp.

Breket leaned forward.

What looked like a Terran in an armored vac-suit, completely done in white line-art, moved through the gap.

"Kill the visual, look somewhere else, quick," Max said.

Helgret'tik swung the passive across to the dead engines. "Why?"

"That's a phasic shade. It'll jump through the scanner and straight out of your board, probably swinging a knife," Jump said, her voice tight with anxiety. She looked at Max. "There's phasic shades here?"

Max nodded. "And worse. Clownface, you know."

Jump shook her head. "I was creched after that."

Max looked away from the holotank. "It was a shitshow," he said. "Rack it on top of Mithril and the Mar-gite, this place is dangerous."

Breket frowned. "What, exactly, is a phasic shade?"

"Dead Terran. Psychic impression left by their death strong enough to take form, full of all the emotions at death. Universally omnicidal," Jump said. "I thought they were just ghost stories."

Max made an odd noise. "Yeah. Just ghost stories."

The massive ship slid by and vanished into the darkness.

"Time?" Breket asked.

"Eighteen more hours," Grektik said.

Breket stood up. "Wake me if anything comes up. Remember to change shifts."

Breket left the bridge, pausing for a second in the lift to stare at the Terran.

Max was staring at the holotank with a blank face, just the cold amber fire in the back of his eyes displaying any hint of life.

-----

"Digital Omnimessiah, look at those ships," Pretkwik said softly. "They're all finished."

Max nodded, staring at the holotank. "Almost. You could use them now, but none of them have any armament packages yet."

"My ship could fit in one of the holds," Breket said, staring at the massive trading ships.

"I've salvaged more than one ship that way," Max said.

"Captain, secondary IFF transponder scan coming from that station," Helgret'tik reported. "We're being locked up by at least a dozen point sources."

Breket found himself holding his breath.

"Target locked lost. Scan's finished," Helgret'tik said.

"Your code strings worked," Jump said.

"Or we probably wouldn't have felt it," Breket said.

Max nodded. "One of the batteries on that defense station are ten meter wide C+ cannons."

"How'd you know how to trick it?" Jump asked.

Max shrugged. "A few codes here and there," he said softly, staring at the station. He shook his head. "I can't believe how it's pretty much the same."

"As the last time you were here?" Breket asked.

Max just nodded.

"Station VI has sent us a docking slip assignment," Treglet said from the communications station. "The station wants to handle our docking itself, but the message says its optional."

Breket looked at Max, who nodded.

"Let the station handle it," Breket said.

"I'll keep an eye on the station VI," Jump said.

It took nearly an hour for the What, Me Worry? to dock. Ten minutes after the engines cut off and everything went to standby, the docking tube mated with the primary airlock.

"Now what?" Breket asked Max, who was standing up.

"Now, I build myself a Q-Ship," Max said. He touched his temple. "Are-two, meet me at the primary airlock."

"And us?" Breket asked.

Max tossed him a datacube. "Ten million credits, as agreed. Feel free to strip what you want from the system," he said. He tossed another datacube. "That registers you as a junior, probationary, member of the Junker's Guild."

"Pleasure doing business with you," Breket said.

"You too. Good trading," Max said.

Breket watched the Terran leave the bridge.

He waited until the Terran had left the ship and his entire crew was gathered on the bridge before he spoke. He looked at his crew.

"Opinions?" he asked.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Jump said. "The place is infected with phasic shades. Three of the worst horror shows the Confederacy has seen in a thousand years? Yeah, the shades can keep all this shit."

"I agree," Helgret'tik said.

One by one the other crew members agreed with Jump.

"Excessive greed kills," one of the junior engineers said.

"You can't spend it if you're dead," another junior officer quoted the trader maxims.

"Take us out to the Oort Cloud, silent running, full stealth," Breket said. He leaned back in his command cradle. "Let's not hurry. Speed kills."

The others nodded.

Despite some nervousness, the station let the What, Me Worry? leave, disconnecting the umbilicals and the docking tube.

Breket stayed awake almost the full thirty hours it took to reach the Oort Cloud.

When the What, Me Worry? went to jumpspace, Breket gave a deep sigh of relief and turned over the bridge to Grektik.

As he laid down in his sleeping nest, Breket thought about the vast riches in the system and shook his head.

Place is an Acererak system, he thought. We can't spend it if we're dead.