The Eravate Job, Part 2
09 Feb 2017Tisiphone Moreau
Eclipse Industries.The name didn’t mean anything to me but I suppose that shouldn’t come as a surprise. For every Faulcon DeLacy there are a thousand Eclipse Industries; contractors and subcontractors you’ve never heard of who make all the bits and pieces that go into the things made by the manufacturers whose names you actually know.
Companies like Eclipse don’t advertise - at least not out where the average person will ever see it. Ordinary consumers aren’t their market. Ordinary consumers want to buy one, maybe two of whatever it is you’re selling. Companies like Eclipse don’t want to sell one or two - they want to sell two million.
Corporate agents like Sam Moscovitch won’t even get out of bed for deals that aren’t going to move an entire bulk freighter’s worth of product. If the volume isn’t there, the profit margins aren’t worth the air it takes to talk about them. So why had she gotten out of bed to meet me? I was hauling ten tons of material - a meager amount by any measure. Why not simply let the dock crew handle the paperwork and move the goods to storage to deal with in the morning?
As she made her introduction and shook my hand, a twisting icicle in my gut told me that I’d been sent out for more than a simple delivery run. Tiler was lifting the curtain on the thing he’d spent the last two years putting together and I was getting a front row seat.
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Agricultural Station ACKERMAN MARKET
Federation System ERAVATE
3/1/3303 05:13:03
I gave Sam’s hand a couple of awkward shakes before I managed to recover from my initial shock.
“Ms. Moscovitch, good morning. I’m sorry, I was expecting…”
“A man,” she filled in the blank, nodding and making to step around from behind the reception desk. “It happens all the time.” She waved the whole matter off with an airy gesture of her hand, all offense forgiven.
I felt a beat of relief before I realized she’d set it up this way on purpose. The tone of her initial message was direct, masculine. She could have signed it as ‘Samantha’ but went with the more ambiguous ‘Sam’ instead. She’d placed herself in the receptionist’s chair, leading me to assume she was a subordinate, and then after tripping me up with my own assumptions she’d turned it around so that she was doing me the favor of not being insulted.
It was a shrewd negotiation tactic. Not a minute into our meeting and I was already off-balance and in her debt. I was going to have to be careful around her.
“My navigator is getting the cargo unloaded, she’s probably finished by now.” Right to business, deciding it was better to get things over with quickly, I brought up my dataslate again and called up the manifest. “Just need a signature here… and here… and we’ll release it to your porter.”
It seemed that Sam wasn’t expecting me to get right into the details of the delivery and I couldn’t help but feel a bit vindicated by it. Now we’re both off-balance, I thought, holding the pad out expectantly.
“Ah…,” she started, hesitant now. “I believe Mister Kelzun was hoping I would show you around a little first. He… didn’t mention any of this to you, did he?” The last was more statement than question, the slight drop of her shoulders suggesting that things had gotten a lot more complicated for her as well.
“Mister Kelzun?” I repeated, brows raising. I hadn’t actually heard anyone refer to Tiler as that in all of the years I’d been with the Dragoons. “Tiler? No, he didn’t mention any of this to me. I’m here to deliver ten canisters of fissile material. He didn’t even tell me why.”
She seized on the opening. Beckoning with manicured fingers - and me feeling suddenly self-conscious about the grease I hadn’t bothered scrubbing out from under my nails in the shower - she walked backwards out of the office lobby and pushed through the door that led into the cavernous expanse of the adjacent warehouse.
“Are you familiar with Eclipse Industries, Commander Moreau?” Sam assumed, correctly, my answer and continued without it. “We primarily produce powerplants for the medium- and heavy-industrial sector. Mining machinery, agricultural equipment, and these…” She stopped near a shelving rack bearing cylinders the size of a large human thigh. “These cells are used in a wide range of commercial vehicles, you’ve probably driven in something running on one of them without even knowing it!”
I tipped my head to the side and gave her a small smile, pushing my brows up again. I didn’t need a sales pitch. I wasn’t buying.
“Mister Kelzun is a major stakeholder,” she continued, dropping pretense and turning severe. “It was important to him that you see what we’re doing here, so I’m doing what I’ve been asked. We both know you’re not just some freighter pilot pulled in off the job boards.”
I sighed, stuffed the dataslate back into its pocket and gave Sam a helpless shrug. “No, I’m not just some freighter pilot, at least not where Tiler’s concerned. I haven’t a clue about any of… this, though.” I motioned at the ranks upon ranks of crated powerplants standing in lines off into the darkness of the warehouse. “These are hydrogen fusion reactors. Why is your company buying fissile matter from us?”
Sam answered with a shrug of her own, her tailored grey jacket barely moving from its place around her. “Research,” she said. “We’re looking to diversify. It’s Mister Kelzun’s initiative, actually.”
“Diversify into what exactly, Sam?” A feeling like ice ran down my spine.
“Weapons, Commander. Eclipse is getting into the arms industry.”
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3/1/3303 05:25:19
Sam led me further into the warehouse. I felt like I’d just been kicked in the stomach but I followed her anyway. One of the rear corners had been converted into a test range; prototype rifles in various states of assembly were laid out on heavy steel tables along the wall. An agri-station seemed a strange place to be doing weapons research, but I wasn’t in the mood to point that out.
She guided me to a small crate on one of the tables and flipped open the latches, then gestured for me to open it. Inside, cradled in foam, were four oversized pistols, the frames curved and sleek and vaguely organic like something you’d expect to come out of the Empire. The flat metallic coloration made it something utilitarian rather than fanciful. I had no idea what I was looking at.
“These are based on work we’d been doing with portable resonating separators. We’ve been calling them ‘sick guns’, at least until marketing can come up with something better.” Sam stood beside me, hands clasped in front of her, and with a tip of her head urged me to pick one of the guns up.
I did what she wanted, lifting one out of the crate and turning it over in my hands. It was surprisingly heavy and cold to the touch, and the grip was folded up underneath the rest of the weapon’s length. When I swung the grip down and locked it into place, a couple of indicator gauges lit up on the side.
“What does it do?” I asked, staring down at the thing uncertainly.
“It emits a variable-intensity, variable-frequency sonic pulse,” Sam answered, like it were obvious. “At the low setting, it can induce fear and paranoia. Higher up, nausea and physical discomfort. The third setting creates dizziness and disrupts balance, making it impossible to stay standing.”
“It’s non-lethal,” I concluded, warming to the idea and hefting the pistol again with some appreciation.
“It’s designed for use in sensitive areas,” Sam explained, gesturing at the gun. “Aboard a ship like yours, for example, where bullets or lasers could make a bad situation into something a whole lot worse. Hull breach, reactor failure, punctured coolant lines…”
I nodded. I’d seen it happen a few times. Something on the ‘sick gun’ caught my eye. Just above the pistol’s grip were two columns of four diodes each, nearly identical to the power distributor readouts used on the standard shipboard interface. The first clearly displayed the current power level, the other appeared to indicate the intensity setting.
“What’s the fourth setting?” I wondered, glancing back up at Sam.
The corner of Sam’s mouth curled up in a crooked smile. “Level four is full strength - an ultrasonic pulse with enough force to knock a grown man off his feet.”
I laughed a bit at the mental image of it, and made to return the gun to the small crate. “Well, it’s very impressive.”
“It’s also yours,” Sam said, reaching out to stop me. My confusion must have been written all over my face. “We’re nearly ready to go into production but some more field testing would help. Mister Kelzun thought you would be a good candidate.” She nodded at me and pressed the pistol back into my hands.
“We like to show our appreciation to our investors.”
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3/1/3303 06:02:33
I rode the trams back to Redemption’s berth in a daze, certain Tiler had meant for me to see something at Eclipse Industries but just as certain I had no idea what it was. It wasn’t like him to brag; had he simply wanted me to see he’d become a shareholder in some mid-level manufacturer? I knew it was more than that, that it tied in with why he’d recalled the Dragoons for a Moot. We were mercenaries - new and exciting weapons were always high on the list of interests. As a rule, companies like ours relied on salvage, surplus, and last-generation technology handed down at a discount from the militaries and megacorporations. Having our own weapons research and production capabilities would be unheard of among the space-born mercenary companies.
It seemed like just the sort of edge Tiler would want.
When I stepped out onto the docking pad, Kristal was busy supervising the dock crew as they loaded up Redemption’s hold with crates of fresh produce, fish, meat, coffee and beer - thirty-two tons of everything a private army needed to keep running.
“I got some for us too,” Kristal said as I came up to stand beside her and watch the labor. Grinning over at me, she indicated upwards at the ship’s galley with her thumb. “Fresh coffee and a couple of steaks for the trip back. And what the hell is that?” She was looking down at the sonic pistol, folded up and stuffed awkwardly under my belt.
“It’s a... present from Eclipse Industries,” I replied, not needing the look on her face to know I wasn’t being helpful. I gestured dismissively. “Something Tiler wanted me to have, I guess. I’ll tell you the whole story on the way. Did you get any fruit for us?”
I spent the rest of the wait up in the ship’s galley, savoring every bite of one of the oranges Kristal had found and sipping the heady black coffee. Ackerman Market orbited the fifth planet in Eravate, and the coffee growing regions of the planet produced some damned fine beans. We departed from the station once the ship was loaded and the jump out of Eravate was uneventful. Later in the day we set down on some meteor-pocked dustball to enjoy our steaks in normal-grav and spent the night in the shadow of a crater wall.
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Rogue Planet JERICHO
4/1/3303 10:45:04
The following morning I plotted the final jump to Jericho and we dropped out of witchspace above the wide ice ring girdling the dark planet. As Redemption circled the planet I brought her in low over the asteroids to a closer look. Their crystalline surfaces glittered like diamonds in the searchlights that played over them. The Dragoons relied on water ice from the asteroids to replenish the supply of High Redoubt, but here and there I could see evidence of large-scale mining - swathes cut through the ring where anything of any value had been extracted, leaving behind only dust.
What is really going on here? I found myself asking yet again. Tiler would have answers. I reminded myself that he’d called the Moot to explain.
Redemption arced down through Jericho’s clouds, buffeted by wind and thick atmosphere. The bright lights of High Redoubt were visible below, a shining crown at the tip of a spear of magma. I keyed the security code and transmitted our landing request, continuing the approach while I waited for the reply.
“Welcome home, Redemption!” It was Tiler himself, speaking as flight control. “Everyone’s here, come in and we’ll get started. I hope you brought plenty to eat!”