Chapter 22: The Planet Arlicherb

The rest of the journey was quite uneventful. We learned to stand at ease and other commands. We slept in actual crew quarters, two cadets to a cabin. I shared mine with Two-Three. I had almost forgotten about Bennett Waite and my dilemma. Should I report him? Every morning we repeated that oath and pledge not to tolerate intolerance to other sentient beings. On the other hand, I had never liked tattletales.

We had been told the ship was already approaching the Arlicherb system and we were assembled in a conference room with the instructors telling us what an honor it was to be addressed by the Admiral of the Fleet and even to be on the same ship.

It didn’t take long until McElligott arrived and gave us our final briefing. Basically the orders were to stay together, act friendly to the natives and answer questions put to us about the Union in a preferably positive way.

Waite muttered something about the stinking natives that should be bombed and forced to do whatever Humans commanded them to do.

I said to him, in the sharpest tone I could muster, “I’m warning you fair and square, the next time you open your mouth or utter any deprecatory remarks against anyone, I will report you. I’ve made up my mind! My oath is more important!”

“You wouldn’t rat out a fellow Human! Not even you could be that low!”

“Don’t test me! I’ll do what I said!”

“You could always die in an accident,” he hissed.

“I’m not afraid of you and the first time we have some off-duty time I’m going to show you exactly what I think about assholes and bigots.”

From the briefing room we had a viewport view of our approach and the landing procedures. Arlicherb was a beautiful world with lots of blues and greens and a sprinkling of clouds. It had oceans and large continents.

According to the information we had received, almost six billion Yokuta populated the world and it had several big metropolises. Even though it was considered primitive, since the Yokuta only had reached TL3, it was still a highly industrialized world and far busier than Nilfeheim. The Nogoll had kept the locals under strict control and promoted industrial and agricultural growth. While much of the planet’s resources and products were drained by the Goats, the locals had a strong economy. Even though they had some sort of Elder-based government, here the young were heard and had a voice, unlike on Nilfeheim.

The Shetland touched down at the planet’s main spaceport. Yokuta ships and Nogoll freighters looked like toys compared to the Union battleship.

The Admiral himself inspected our uniforms and state of dress and then we followed a delegation of businessmen, a delegation of Assembly representatives and a detachment of Marines.

The first thing I noticed was a strange smell in the air. Pure coughed and said, “The first thing we need to teach them is how to run a cleaning industry.”

At the bottom of the wide ramp was a Yokuta band playing the Union anthem and several officials in colorful uniforms greeting the Admiral first.

Pure curled his chops. “I never thought my first official mission would be so soon and a diplomatic one of all things! I hoped for something more exciting!”

I grinned back. “Could be worse. We could be in a big pool swimming with the others!”

Ninio behind me trumpeted in my ear, “I’m no expert on Academy procedures but I’d bet the others didn’t have a leisurely day at the pool and they found a way to make them wish they were with us. We had a good night’s rest and we’ll get a lot of good Yokuta food!”

Fectiv groaned, “If you find it good, I’m already afraid!”

GalNet Entry: Saturnian

>>> Genetically altered Humans. Previously corporate-owned clone slaves. Now recognized as a sub-species and their own race.

After Earth ascended with the help of the Sarans and before Earth became known as Terra and a founding member of the Unites Stars of the Galaxy (Union), there was a time of fast and virtually unchecked scientific and technological advances. Even before the ascent, Earth’s scientists made vast progress in bionetic sciences and mega-corporations put great sums of money and enormous efforts into bionetic and genetic research. Virtually every possible life-form with compatible DNA, both native to Earth and alien, were crossed, linked, tweaked and genetically altered to create new life forms for all kinds of purposes.

It started with the Canadians introducing an organ donor pig. Hogs and later great apes were altered to grow Human-compatible organs that could be transplanted.

Almost every settler and colonist group that left Earth to migrate to another world received some form of genetic tailoring to make them better suited to their new environment. The mega-corporations also tried to develop the perfect soldier, worker and slave.

During the years between 2099 and 2110, new artificially created life-forms, ranging from special bacteria, to new fruits and vegetables, to new breeds of draft animals and meat-producing animals were patented almost daily. Literally millions of patents were issued to corporations for life forms and new gene combinations. While moral and ethical restrictions hampered them, there was no legal or moral boundary that stopped research during that time. It produced many successes but also horrible failures and catastrophes.

It led to the Corporate Bio Wars of 2111 to 2114 that escalated into the Bio-Robotnik™ Miner revolt on Rasmussen Planet in 2115 and escalated into the all-out Super Clone Wars of 2116 that lasted until 2121 with the gene clone attack on Antarctica and the bombing of the Terran Assembly.

The Clone Wars ended in 2122 with the declaration that all genetic altering and experimentation with sentient life forms had to undergo the strictest government controls.

Anyone, including a corporation, caught disregarding these laws and continuing any sort of unsupervised genetic tailoring was to be be destroyed, with every one of the management team found to be responsible facing death sentences.

The same laws and concessions of the United Earth government gave all gene clones the right to freedom and self-government and to be a fully accepted part of the Human race with all rights every sentient being was entitled to.

Schwartz Bio Engineering officially didn’t participate in the Clone or Corporate Wars, but had to release all their gene clone products. Among the most extreme were the Alpha-War Workers™, designed to withstand the most extreme environmental conditions and be able to fight and work under crushing gravitation. In one commercial, the AWW’s were praised as a worker that could even work on Saturn if it had a solid surface and an atmosphere to breathe.

The AWW’s got the nickname Saturnians. The average Saturnian stood 320 cm and was almost 150 cm wide, with a tough carbon nano tube-laced double skeleton, thick carbon nano-mesh skin and super dense muscle structure. The average Saturnian could lift up to 2500 kilos under one standard gee, stay submerged under water for up to four hours and work at depths or large planetary gee forces that would crush a normal Human. This enormous strength and size had a price and they lost much of their fine-motor abilities. No Saturnian can manipulate objects smaller than three cm without cybernetic or mechanical assistance. Saturnians completely lack body hair and must have artificially implanted eyelashes to prevent small particles from entering their eyes.

Saturnians settled on the large planet Odin, which has a high natural gravitation of nine gee. They joined the Union in 2210. While Saturnians are able to reproduce, extensive pre- and postnatal cyber-technical assistance, such as bone structure weaving, has to be done artificially, Such services are provided at a Union clinic.

Today there are approximately thirty-four billion Saturnians and many adults can be found either in the United Stars Marine Corps or in the security field. Saturnian bodyguards are among the highest paid, especially if they are graduates of the Saturnian Fight and Security Academy. The entire culture is focused on security and guard duties and is strongly Germanic and duty-oriented. Saturnians enjoy extreme sports such as ultra wrestling and beyond-limits strongman competitions. The annual Saturnian Strongman Festivities are among the most watched sporting events in the Union.

Interlude 22: Planet Odin

Hans Neugruber was what you would call a troubled youth. Even among Saturnians he was considered stronger than most and he had already reached 352 centimeters and was still growing. At first he seemed to turn out alright.

His family considered themselves to be of German Terran descent. This was considered a special social bonus as the Saturnians almost fanatically worshipped old Germanic legends of the Riesen (Giants) and the Teutonic Knights. His father was First Paladin of the Granit und Eichen Order, an old and honored society focusing on fighting and guarding the weak. Hermann Neugruber had great plans for his son Hans and trained him from early on in many combat-related skills. Hans won the Odin-wide Schützen meisterschaft, a marksmanship competition, for the third time when he was 14. After his 15^th birthday he was exposed to the forbidden past by old fanatics of the Falkenhorst Reich and the Reinheits-Bruederschaft, a secret society inside the Saturnian society that fanatically worshiped the old Falkenhorst ideals and historical events of the Terran national state of Germany, before the Ascent and what was called Earth’s Second World War.

Upon learning of his son’s involvement in this illegal society, his father tried to reach his son with discussion and education. However Hans was in a serious rebellious teenager phase of development and the verbal attempts of his father did nothing. So his father used physical punishment. This only hardened his son’s stance. Herman decided to send his son to a distant uncle far away from the city, but close to the spaceport, in the hopes the distance to the secret society’s meeting places in the capital city would help get Hans back on track. However Hans and two of his friends stowed away on a freighter and managed to leave the planet, hidden inside a container. Their plan was to go to Falkenhorst, a planetary society of Human supremacists, not members of the Union.

In their youthful blue-eyed fantasies, they saw themselves hailed as heroes of Falkenhorst society, but then everything went wrong. The freighter captain knew very well what was in the container and sold the entire box to a slave trader, the three young Saturnians found themselves in shackles and in the training camp of a death fight company on Sin 4.

All these memories went through Hans’s mind once again as he stood in the elevator that was taking him up to the arena, where he’d fight as the Terror Hammer.

He had come to Sin 4 three years ago. Erwin, his friend, had died in the training camp, under the withering fire of Kermac Line Blasters, after he attacked and killed two trainers, and Siegfried had withered away only five months later from the poisonous sting of a Wurlag after fighting a whole herd of those poisonous monsters.

Hans, however, became a star. He had won every match he’d fought and was sold to different syndicates several times, at ever-increasing prices, and won his freedom in a championship match. He was officially an employee of the Donheer syndicate, one of the four ruling syndicates on Sin 4. While he was technically free and no longer a slave, and even enjoyed the perks of a megastar, he wasn’t really free. He couldn’t leave the planet, as no one would want to get Duke Donheer angry by providing Hans the means of escape.

His opponent today was also in the top league and not a slave, but an employee of a different death fight company. It was a Saturday night special and was being transmitted throughout the Union, with tremendous viewer ratings, merchandise and advertisement tie-ins. Even though death matches were illegal in the Union, watching them and advertising them with images and footage wasn’t.

He checked his helmet and his fighting hammer one more time, then he started the elevator platform and rose into the large circular arena, today filled with boiling oil and floating box islands. It mattered little to Hans. All he wanted was to escape this planet and atone to his family for his sins or die right here like his best friends had. He no longer had any ambitions to go to Falkenhorst or belong to the Supremacists. He had made good friends among the strangest aliens on this crazy world. He wanted to make his father proud and become a good security guard or bodyguard and show that he could be a good son and hopefully be allowed to become a Union citizen, as he had left Odin before finishing Union school.

Nuclor the Death Dealer, pride of the Rillo Syndicate was his opponent for this headline and title match. Hans wasn’t sure what race or species his opponent was, as his public information, like Hans’s, was purely fantasy made up by his syndicate’s PR department. Hans was almost certain Nuclor wasn’t from any of the cultures associated with any of the Big Four and hailed from a region of space unknown to the Union. Like Hans, Nuclor had fought his way up and won every grueling and demanding death match.

While both warriors represented a great deal of investment and business to their companies, it wasn’t called a death match for nothing and only one of them would leave the arena. Nuclor relied on a steel ball on a long chain and with it he was an expert, bar none. He could make that ball dance in midair, back and forth, entangle an opponent’s legs, crush bones and take out eyes and teeth.

When Hans stepped from the lift platform onto the floating square it rocked back and forth in the boiling oil. He could still see the gnarled bodies of the undercard fights’ losers floating in the clear liquid. The air was hot and putrid from the stench of whatever oil they used. He felt sorry for his opponent and wished there was another fate for him, but now he had to concentrate.

Nuclor was almost four meters tall, his arms reached to the ground from his boxy body with relatively short but thick legs. This gave Nuclor a low center of gravity and a surefooted stance, but it came with a price. Nuclor wasn’t fast on his legs and this is why he relied on the steel ball with the long chain to keep his opponents at a distance. So far he hadn’t failed doing so, fighting a large number of skilled opponents. He was considered the underdog but wanted the championship belt.

There rose an ear shattering roar from over 250,000 voices, fans of the Terror Hammer, nicknamed the Hammer Fanatics, and all dressed in blue and yellow, and they were chanting his stage name. This chanting got him going. He felt uplifted by it and felt he owed the fans for it. His fans screamed in competition with the fans of Nuclor and the rest of the almost five hundred thousand live spectators filling the seats. He knew there were billions more watching the fight live on GalNet right now.

The announcer introduced Nuclor as a man-eating beast from another dimension and, as usual, the Terror Hammer was from a far distant galaxy, the only survivor of a race of Y’All slayers.

While the announcer was still speaking, Nuclor attacked. This was against the rules, but in a contest where victory meant life and failure meant a painful death, no one was really expected to enforce the rules. The surprise attack would increase Nuclor’s reputation as a ruthless, no-holds-barred monster.

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