StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Again, with a little help and tech clarification from Ford, I bring you a segmented story. The first part is rather slow-paced, but it should speed up nicely with each weekly update. Enjoy.


Ignore me now, I dare you

---------- based upon The Logical World

Part One


'A stone among towers'



Andrew pressed his forehead against the shuttle’s icy cold buckyglass window, tuning out the soft chatter of his comrades as he willed the lengthy day to just slip by and come to an end. He ran his eyes over the massive cityscape and flowing aerial traffic below which stretched for hundreds of kilometers up to the edge of the horizon and, of course, over it. Amoroso – one planet, and one massive city home to quadrillions of sapient beings of many kinds.

The transport shuttle carrying the professional security team had just dropped into Amoroso’s atmosphere a few minutes ago, and was now speeding across the crowded upper skies to reach its destination. For Andrew’s team it was the last assignment of the day. It couldn’t have come soon enough.

They had spent the better part of the afternoon protecting a lavish politician’s banquet up in one of the orbitals - Andrew had been at half his strength since morning, but he couldn’t quite force his overheated brain to produce a reason for it. It’s everything, an anonymous part of him said. Someone strode across the lofty shuttle hold and sat down next to him with a lighthearted sigh.

“Been a long day for you too, Andy?” Without even unsticking his forehead from the glass, Andrew could tell it was Ford, the team’s supervisor.

He let out a barely audible chuckle, still absentmindedly flooding his vision with the urban mass below. “Yeah, it has been…” Andrew found himself too drained for the task of making meaningless conversation, but Ford was one of the rare people who didn’t make him feel obligated to produce it. He abruptly straightened his spine and peeled his eyes off the window, recalling the most likely reason he had just been accompanied, “This next one’s a pretty high-profile job, isn’t it?” Ford Prefect nodded with a warm smirk in his eyes, running a few fingers through the soft mass of black hair billowing back from his genial face.

“We’re on security duty for a certain woman named Lesedia Ogden – I don’t know if you’ve heard of her, but she’s on the board of directors of the Adonis Corporation.” Ford wasn’t just restating what he’d told Andrew previously – the client’s affiliation was news to the young man. It kept him listening. “Of course, that means she’s just as extremely rich as the rest of them,” Captain Prefect added to state the obvious. Andrew’s weary brain was sure it had picked up on the name somewhere; perhaps another related mention would bring it to the surface. Of course, he’d definitely heard of Adonis before – it was only one of the most well-to-do, behemoth mining corporations in the galaxy and the Local Group at large. Such a fitting name it had. Blurred memories attempted to resurface in his mind. Leaning against the wall, Ford restfully sipped from a slender cup of steaming coffee.

Andrew let his forehead fall back onto the smooth buckyglass surface, but a moment later, his slouching eyes were somewhat widened by the sight of even more impossibly elevated buildings. The captain caught his surprise again and smiled.

“Yep, we’re going to town. Well.. the Octagon to be specific.” Ford took another sip from his coffee and exhaled. Tracking the cityscape with a renewed interest, Andrew almost had a hard time believing it; they were actually going on duty for one of the high-ranking Adonis executives in their massive headquarters building. He’d be tired until bedtime, but more than interested in the proceedings.

The muddled conversation was punctured by the driver hollering an announcement over his shoulder and the rest of the team. “Hey, Ford! I’m taking us down to the docking platform now.” Looking straight ahead at Liam, the team’s usual chauffer on these kids of assignments, Andrew’s supervisor nodded.

“Get your gear ready, we’ll be getting off soon.” Ford set down his coffee cup and started toward the driver’s section in the front. Waking up his lungs with a full breath, the day-worn figure climbed to his feet, shouldering a standard mini-rifle by its strap. Andrew knew the team would be treated to one of Ford’s briefings about the building’s layout and where exits were. He pulled ‘every security agent’s best friend’ closer to his weary body. Definitely something to be awake for.

* * *

One of the things that makes the Octagon so impressive is that its elegant, shiny black exterior actually stands out among its surrounding starscrapers – no small feat in Amoroso’s global skyline, much less in one of its big corporate districts. Just below the observatory deck occupying the three thousand two hundredth floor sits the board of directors’ meeting chamber. There, twice a week, some of the most powerful businesswomen and businessmen in their sub-sector of the Imperial Commonwealth gather to discuss affairs of the Adonis Corporation. Some – including Lesedia Ogden – have been on the board for a century or more, and Ogden herself was no stranger to the endless kilometers of embellished hallways and myriad elevators within the immense eight-sided tower. In fact, it was rumored she knew more about the building than most security personnel.

The mid-sized transport broke from its crawling traffic lane and swooped down to meet Adonis Corporation’s headquarters. Had it not been for the vehicle’s custom-made gravitics compensators, a lovely soup of people with a cup of coffee dashed in would have splashed up against the ceiling and back wall of the hold. Ford used to give their driver mild verbal hell about making such sudden dives, but the shuttle’s stronger-than-average compensators kept them from even noticing the harsh G-forces each time. Even so, seven pairs of feet shifted nervously as they drew closer to the polished superstructure.

Tongue in cheek, Liam sliced through the landing area’s shield system into a calm and pressurized haven. Spying right and left, the driver touched his prized craft down onto a docking platform, letting its hydraulic legs grunt against the ferrocrete surface. Andrew noticed his boss directing an obvious scowl at Liam while the rest of the team internally smiled, but he was only a bit disappointed himself. A longer look at the skyline would have been nice…

“Come on – get to the booth, let’s go. The client’s arriving in about half an hour.” Ford stood by the door, practically shoving people out onto the platform. Even Andrew felt his shoulder being lightly pushed as he stepped off the transport; the captain was famously paranoid about being late to these kinds of assignments. “In this business, WE wait for and on our customers – NOT the other way around!” He was bitingly correct whenever he preached that line.

Street clothes flapping around him as he ran, Andrew milked the day’s final bursts of strength out of his legs to dash across the platform. Ford turned and raised an arm in authentic thanks to Liam, who was already lifting away to rejoin orderly swarms of traffic in the high-up turbulence. A couple of others behind them waved to the familiar shuttle pilot. Most of Prefect’s team had gone into the booth and were making themselves comfortable, taking a few available chairs, some leaning against the painted green buckysteel walls in exhaustion not unlike Andrew’s, with weapons clumsily butted against the ferrocrete floor. Andrew stumbled to a halt at the glorified metal box’s opening. Walking inside unnoticed, he found an available spot on a side of the small, dimly lit room.

The end-of-the-day chatter died out as soon as Ford came into the booth on a quick stride, nervously sticking a finger behind his ear. Without a word the captain sat down, dropped his navi onto the cold makeshift slab of a table and hooked it up to a presentation-size holographic display. A slowly rotating true-color model of the Octagon flicked to life.

Prefect quickly gestured toward the building’s miniature twin as it collectively drew the team’s attention. He drew in a waveless breath before launching into the usual briefing. “We’re here on the north side of the three thousand one hundred ninety-ninth floor.” With the touch of a key on his navi, the captain’s building model highlighted their location and faded away the surrounding thicket of structures to zoom in. “I could spend hours talking about the entire building, but we just need to know about this floor. This,” Ford jabbed his index finger at the most bulky modeled room floating above the table, “is the meeting chamber – we’ll be on duty during the board of directors’ regular gathering which should last about an hour and a half, give or take.” Andrew could definitely sympathize with the silenced groans now issuing from his fellow team members; as it was, nobody wanted to play statue on the edges of a room for ninety minutes, even with the full body support of a standard powersuit. Tuning out his crew’s distress, Ford puffed his cheeks with a sighing outward breath as he checked the time.

“Alright, the basic rundown: the room has three access hallways. One connects the landing platform to the chamber’s main entrance with double doors on both ends, second hall is more of a ramp as you can see – it leads up to the observatory deck on the top floor, and the third is a service access that leads to a smaller docking bay. All of them are shield-interlaced and reinforced against concentrated blasts up to one point two megatons.” The captain cleared his throat as red lines traced over the areas he had just named off. Andrew was privately raising his eyebrows a bit through a haze of sleepiness and information. Only three access points to an exclusive room? How paranoid is this woman to hire a private security team like us? He shook his head and blinked, deciding it was probably best not to know.

“Once all the board members and service personnel have entered the room, it’s sealed off. Nothing comes or goes until the session is over – that includes people, outside air, or any kind of data signal unless it’s a total emergency.” After a moment Prefect smirked, picking up on the appreciative vibe coming from his squad. Closed systems usually meant clean and simple work. He flicked off the display to leave only cool, drafty air where the Octagon’s replica sat vanishing. “Any questions?”

Keeping an impressive poker face while his surrounding buddies barely restrained their grins, Hale spoke up from the side of the booth opposite Ford. “Ah – suppose…,” he artfully waved a hand to ensure all eyes were on him, “that a member of our unit should find nature calling whilst guarding this fine establishment?” Andrew smiled down at the floor. Titters began rising from the rest of the baffled team as Ford’s face noticeably relaxed. He gave an equally dry reply, “Then thou shalt take a piss before going on duty.” The captain turned from Hale and called out over a rising tide of delirious snickers and laughter at Hale’s insanity. “Okay, come on – less than twenty minutes left here! Any real questions?”

“Um, captain,” Azure quipped from her seat at the table, “that third access hall you mentioned? Is there anything else about it that we need to be aware of?” Seriousness restored, everyone was hearing this important notice. Andrew found himself mentally frowning at the couple of squad hands near Hale who were still giggling away unnoticed.

Ford nodded at the young lady, “Apart from the heavy deadbolt doors that I told you all about yesterday, that service docking area has a keyed entry system and only a few people actually know the code. It’s probably not going to be any kind of liability, but we will have two people standing by that exit for good measure.”

The supervisor lightly clapped his hands together after it was clear that there were no more questions. Pointing toward a rack of activated and ready to go powersuits, Ford urged his team on. “Then let’s suit up and get on with the last job of the day.” Andrew lifted himself and his rifle up onto the floor in unison with his team, trudging into line for that familiar gray suit offering strength and agility enhanced by many orders of magnitude as well as protection against all sorts of nasty weaponry.

..Last job of the day, he mulled over gratefully while slipping on the suit.

It's a promising start; I'm looking forward to updates myself. I'm just hoping you get more readers.

I do have more readers elsewhere - on other forums and my website. Time to get part two underway..

I read it. It was good.

And I admit I read it. Because I'm a nice guy. Or something. Eitherway, do continue.

Continuing.

---



Ignore me now, I dare you

---------- based upon The Logical World

Part Two


'Flashes in a heartbeat




“Whoa…”

Andrew could hear Hale mumble to himself softly as he scrutinized the burnished hardwood surface beneath his feet, “this stuff isn’t even synthetic…”

“What is it?”

Hale diverted his eyes from the meeting chamber’s floor to his partner. “Mahogany, I’m pretty sure. The cheap stuff is usually mass grown with hydroponics and it’s got a lighter color to it… but this wood’s dark.” Looking out over the airy, whisper-quiet room two dozen meters on each side, Andrew wondered how much it would cost to cover such a vast expanse with natural mahogany. Probably not even one millionth percent of Adonis’s daily gross.

A powersuit-clad Ford was making his rounds about the quietly waiting room, stopping to chat with other members of the team. “Hey guys,” He made a hushed call at Hale and Andrew as he held out a pair of devices. “I need you two to sweep for bugs – it’s a special request that the client made. Apparently these people have had nanomicrophones planted in the room before and they obviously don’t want to repeat that experience.”

Andrew gave an understanding nod, taking both handheld scanners and passing one to his partner. He flipped open the readout screen and Hale did the same. It made sense that corporate espionage would be threatening even to a mining company.

“So Andrew,” his teammate’s sudden invitation and its tone set Andrew’s nerves on edge, “I’ve never heard; where do you come from?”

It was one of those benign queries forged out of friendly conversation more than anything else, yet he couldn’t shake that feeling of being cornered by it somehow. He looked down from a decidedly bug-free ceiling. “I’m from the Miranda system – it’s just outside this sector.” Damnit, why is it so difficult to answer that every time?

“Hmm…” Hale was running his scanner’s beam over the heavy table now, “can’t say I’ve heard of that star system.”

“Yeah, Miranda’s planets are mainly industrial,” Andrew said, neglecting to mention the practical ownership Adonis held over those worlds – or the accident, for that matter.

The two moved around the bulky table to return their instruments just as an additional trickle of suited, weapon-carrying figures breezed through the room’s front entrance. Although there weren’t many additional guards, it was dawning on Andrew just how important security might be to the various board members. Most of Ford’s team was surprised at the new arrivals as well, judging from the looks on their faces.

Slowly but surely Adonis’s board of directors began to collect in the chamber and take their plush, high-backed seats around the table. Receiving an elbow nudge from Hale, Andrew was alerted to put on his helmet. It had come with all the new equipment and powersuits; at the firing of a neuron in his brain Andrew could see on his visor what everyone else was seeing, get up-to-the-picosecond targeting information, and stay in audio communication with all his teammates.

At last, Ogden arrived. She was flanked by what looked like a personal assistant, her hair imprisoned in a tight bun and her body wrapped in a dress noticeably more expensive than the room she was entering. Barely giving a curt nod in Captain Prefect’s direction, the client took a chair and greeted a colleague sitting to her left. Just as he was shifting his feet, Andrew heard the captain’s voice in his ears.

“Glad to see everyone’s in position. We have Azure, Deana, Hale and Andrew closest to Ms. Ogden right now, so you four need to be prepared just in case. Of course that goes for all of us.” He gave an involuntary nod at Ford’s last bit of instruction, heeding the fact that Hale was just on the other side of an obtuse corner from him.

A business suit-clad gentleman stood up at one end of the spacious table and eyed its occupants over his bony nose. “Very well, it seems we have all hands on deck.” The man gave a forged smile. “So jumping right into our first order or business: would you care to give us an update on that research and development project, Rona?”

“Certainly.” From her seat directly across the table from Ogden, the woman named Rona spoke up, “As you have all been notified in our last session, this new method of dense matter extraction could effectively make the planetary strip-mining operations obsolete. However, I am well aware of the fact that those planet based facilities are not altogether useless, so I wanted to bring this up for discussion.” Ogden’s back stiffened as she stepped forth immediately.

“Actually, I quite resent the suggestion that those older mines are in any way useless.” The client’s tone was poignant, drawing a conceding nod from Ms. Rona. “I remember very well when we invested in them – and our efforts were more than rewarded by trillions of tons of minerals from the upstart.”

“But Lesedia,” a lanky board member called on Ogden from his place at the table, “both the government investigations and that tragic power system failure are still fresh in our memories. I for one think it would be a good public relations gesture for us to move away from planetary mining.”

Andrew looked on in morbid fascination as his team’s client started showing a more pronounced scowl. “Dominic, if this is about the supposed ‘mistreatment of employees’ we were slandered with –”

“It is a well-known fact that those mining planets are hellholes,” the tall representative sternly interrupted. For a moment it seemed the entire room was sitting with baited breath. “They may offer minerals cheaper than any matter fabricator farm could, but the way our labor policies are carried out on those worlds is unacceptable. I’d rather put those kinds of practices behind us if at all possible.”

“I must agree with Dominic on this one.” A squat old man sitting next to Ogden jumped into the fray. “With the lack of care and resources we treat planetary mines with, another Baldur-type catastrophe might easily happen.”

Andrew could feel his knee trembling slightly as disagreement ran amok at the table. It was only four years ago that Baldur, his home world, met its end as a useable planet. They had always said that mining outposts in the Miranda system were treated to sub-standard engineering – and Andrew never found occasion to doubt that.

He remembered that day clear as ever. His older brother Nored, a tedious lemming to the local mine gang which called themselves the Mistau, routinely sat at home tinkering with spare parts. Wondering as always if he was actually making something, Andrew stood at the doorway to his room. To ask his sibling if he wanted to go do something would have been pointless; Nored vastly preferred following the Mistau members in their exploits to leading his little brother.

Any other vapid day would have found Andrew simply taking his weight off the doorframe at that point and lumbering down the hallway, but instead that moment became engraved in his memory. Nored turned around to face his relation.

“Hey Andy,” he’d called out from his workbench, “want to go to Amoroso?”

Quickly deciding that an alpha-class worldcity would play host to none of the mine gang scum found on Baldur, Andrew’s eyes had lit up. Was his brother actually steering him somewhere?

“Um… sure, I guess. But what about mom and dad? Do you have enough money?”

“Are you kidding? They might not even notice we’re gone. And yeah, I’ve got enough for one-way fare.”

It was pure excitement at the time. For once he felt alive, as if he were going somewhere – being taken somewhere. And so he agreed, packing a few essentials and followed Nored out the door.

The brothers elected to hitch a cheap ride on a freighter starship. How delightful it had been to see the stars, each one of them a shining beacon of advanced civilization, become brighter as they left Baldur behind and eventually jumped into the Slipstream, leaving the Miranda system far behind.

They had gotten the news upon their arrival in orbit of Amoroso: one of the large immulsion furnaces on Baldur had overloaded. It caused a chain reaction of power system failures and within hours the planet’s surface had been overtaken by uncontrolled light-mass reactions. Witnesses had said that the planet outshined its star.

On an arrival platform at the destination, Andrew had wondered what would happen next. As Nored stepped out of the cramped hold he turned around to face his sibling again, this time without such a confident expression on his face.

“Well,” he’d said to Andrew, “you know how to reach me – just, just stay in touch.”

Dumbfounded, he allowed his brother to walk away and never be heard from again.

[center]* * *[/center]

It was fifteen minutes into the board of directors’ session already. Andrew opened a two party communication frequency to Hale, not daring to accidentally cause any noise outside of his helmet.

“I spaced out for a little while there, what are they talking about now?”

Hale took a moment to answer. “Right now? They’re putting it to a vote. Seems that continuing to run the planetary mines is winning.” Andrew yawned, finding it rather disgusting that Adonis would choose to scrape the technological and ethical bottom of the barrel even for a miniscule extra profit. Debate raged on in the center of the room.

“What else are these planets good for? Their crusts have been stripped away already, and as long as we hold ownership over them we might as well –”

Something wide and very highly energized came crashing through the meeting chamber’s tall ceiling, flaring against the mahogany floor and setting it ablaze. Several executives seated at the table cried out as intruders started dropping in through the hole and infiltrating the room. Hale seemed to be rooted on the spot. Andrew shoved him out of the way to get to Ogden, setting his target sights on a few of the unannounced break-ins as he went. Ms. Ogden was crouching behind the table in a desperate avoidance of crossfire and got hoisted up by the might of a powersuit immediately. Get the client to safety.

Within two seconds Andrew had Ogden on the edge of the room when he remembered about the service access hallway. Flying around a corner with the board of directors member in arm, he slipped behind a heavy buckysteel blast door just as random shots started burying themselves into the deadly side. Andrew slammed the door tight, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be a permanent solution.

Ogden was panting, her extravagant dress already torn. They found themselves at the start of a long, dark corridor – nearly pitch black toward the end, but Andrew’s visor made up for that. He grabbed the client once more and dashed down to the end where another heavy door met them.

“Miss Ogden, this has a keyed –”

“A keyed entry system, I know,” she finished his thought. “I also know the code to it. Are you ready?”

Ripping off the keypad’s metal cover, Andrew poised his power-assisted fingers and Ogden rattled of the numbers. Halfway through, he heard the random penetrating shots at the first door become more regular. Someone’s trying to open a hole. The second door swung open and he hurried Ogden into the docking bay. Sure enough, there was a small service vehicle there.

Andrew climbed into the driver’s seat, clumsily starting up the car’s repulsors as the client stumbled on board. He heard a dull metallic clunk from the hallway. The repetitive shooting stopped, and it suddenly came back to Andrew that the access halls were reinforced against blasts. Not even bothering to shout at Ogden he hit the accelerator, gunning the vehicle out into high altitude air just seconds before the pipe bomb went off. Guard and client escaped a flowering explosion erupting out of the building’s side.

Andrew merged them into traffic with shaking hands, trying, trying to comprehend that he had just evaded another fiery death.

Some nice development in Andrew's past right there.