Chapter 5: Defenders of Gore

The Swing Tram ride was something else. Passenger cabins, suspended on a long cable released from a docking port, swung across the canyon and went into a similar port on the other side. For a short moment I felt weightless, then at the base of the swing several gee pressed down on me while the rock wall came rushing towards the capsule. The docking station was cleverly disguised behind a holo image of rock. People were screaming as loud speakers transmitted crashing sounds. I’d never tell anyone, but I think I screamed too, the first time.

The roller coaster ride was bolted right to the rock wall and then rushed with great speed towards the river. A force field created a tunnel at the last moment, I rode the thing three times.

I was kicked out of an attraction called the Haunted Space Station after I knocked out a ghost that actually was a floating actor in a glowing costume. Even though I told them I’d never seen such an attraction before and I really thought the apparition was attacking the woman in front of me. The ghost actor did accept my apologies after I paid him two thousand credits for the pain he suffered from the broken jaw. They didn’t call the authorities either, but asked me never to come back.

The Spider Bot ride I tried next went up and down the sheer rock walls of the canyon while I was strapped to the back of a six-legged robot spider. It was quite unnerving. I was told there had been no accidents in the last 100 years of that attraction and the robots were specially designed for that and had safety features, like directional arti-grav, that prevented a fall.

It all was fun but it would have been more fun if I were with someone to share the thrills and then discuss later. Doing them alone was just not the same. I so wished I could do this with Elena or maybe Gunnar or Ygral. I wondered where those two were at the moment. I still had plenty of time before I had to report in at Arsenal, maybe I should call Yngve and visit him.

With this idea in my head I left the amusement park and went to Dusk, the main shopping area of the city. I couldn’t believe the size of the buildings or put my mind around the fact that they all were occupied and that all those flyers and taxis carried passengers. Yet, according to a tour guide drone I had rented, this wasn’t even the biggest city on Twilight and all the cities combined, when compared to the real big cities of major planets, were like a mere flicker fish hatchling compared to a full size tri-eight Tyranno.

Maybe I should visit Pluribus and see it for myself. I could visit Egill and maybe even talk a little to Sif. I agreed with myself that this was a good idea. With no real care or hurry, I strolled along a wide boulevard, and while doing so I observed all the different life forms and tried to remember my lessons from Xeno class. I cursed my decisions to skip the neural uploads at school in favor of watching Captain Iron Hand virtus on the small school library viewer. I could identify only the most common species such as Klack, Botnaars, and Spindlar. I was amazed at the strange but fast gait of a Quadi-Ped seemingly running for exercise. One shop’s advertisement sign caught my eye: ‘A. Vogt – Weapon Merchant’.

I had sent Mördaren home and I was a Neo Viking. Since I was unable to stay out of trouble maybe it would be a good idea to get myself another sword or other weapon. So I stepped inside, where there were rows of transparent cases and projected displays of every weapon imaginable. Spears, axes, swords, guns, beamers, rocket launchers and everything in between. A lit sign over the main counter displayed an odd version of the Union Flag. It had red and white stripes, and a rectangular blue field with little white stars. An artfully written line of words below it read, ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.’ Next to it, a sign promised that all weapons in that section of the store were genuine Terran. Why this was a selling point eluded me, but it seemed to impress a fish-faced Ult talking to a Klack while looking at the displayed weapons. “Those monkey-boys from Terra sure know how to make fine weapons, don’t they?”

The Klack responded, “Everything they touch becomes a weapon. I’m sure this was at least part of the Queen’s consideration when she had us join the Union. It was a good one.”

The Ult laughed. “H’tkik you’re a Terran. Weren’t you born there?”

“Why do you think I’m in a weapons store, old friend. Klack on the outside, Terran to the core.”

Whatever the Ult responded I didn’t hear because a bald, bright-blue skinned humanoid approached me and said, “Welcome to Vogt’s. Can I help you to find something?”

“I’m from Nilfeheim and we usually carry only swords. I’m no expert on distance weapons.”

He checked his PDD and said, “We have many GalNet customers on your world. We send them harpoon guns, swords and knives. We also carry a few Friesenheim spear gun models in our catalogue.” He kept on swiping the display of his PDD. “I just checked our data base. It shows Nilfeheim has no local restriction laws on any weapon class or type. I can fix you up with a Federal Class III license in no time. Class III is the highest civilian level. Only a few civilians are permitted to own Mil Grade Class IV or higher, like the citizens of Green Hell, for example. But mind you, there’s a great selection in Class III.”

I said, “Alright fix me up then.”

Ten minutes later my CITI had a new add-on. Federal Weapons Bearer license - Class III. He then guided me to a display case. “These are more advanced swords than the ones we ship to Nilfeheim.” He placed one on the counter. “This is the pinnacle of sword technology. A Marine Corps issue chain sword. Three thousand molecular compacted, mono filament Ultronit teeth, with a nano-coating of Neutronium. Revolving around the blade, extendable to 150 cm, at five times the speed of sound. Each tooth vibrates at 25,000 cycles a second. No known material can withstand this baby, except for compacted Ultronit. It will cut a Nul in battle armor in half like cutting butter with a hot knife.”

I picked it up. It was heavy. He spread his hands. “Even an atom-thin layer of Neutronium is quite heavy.”

He handed me something that looked like a sword handle. No blade at all. “This, my Viking friend is a mono-field sword. Activate it here and you see it generates a 180 cm long purple, barely visible, para-dim force field. It’s technically only two-dimensional and slides right between the molecular bond of most materials and severs it. These force field swords are also able to cut most materials up to compacted Ultronit, and it’s quite effective against a shielded person.”

He pointed behind him to the racks of swords and bladed weapons. “We have low tech versions of every sword and bladed weapon known to the Union. For those you don’t need any license. How about guns?”

“As I said I’m no expert in guns and I’d rather stick with something I know.”

“We have self-aiming weapons, but you would need a neuro-connector for those. Beam gloves, shoot fingers and laser eyes are all class VIII weapons. By law, most weapons must look like weapons and can’t be hidden in something else or made to look like something else, unless you have a Class VIII license.”

“I think I’ll take that chain sword. It sure looks awesome and if it’s good enough for the Marines it’s bound to be good for me.”

“Good choice. It comes with a twelve-shot Nuc flamer, recommended to be used indoors.”

In its retracted state it was just underarm length for me and came with a matching leg holster. Feeling much more like a Viking again, I still needed to make up my mind where to go. Maybe there was a bus going somewhere interesting and in the general direction of Terra, Arsenal or maybe Pluribus.

There was a sudden commotion outside. Several of the gun store’s customers and sales personnel went out to see what it was all about and I followed them. Marching down the main street was a group of about twenty men and women, all dressed in loose-fitting robes. The robes were white and were stained with blood or red paint. The group looked unkempt and they carried simple home-made signs and banners. The signs displayed the same words and slogans the strange group was chanting, “Free Gore”, “Stop killing the living planet”, “Expel all corporations form Gore”, “Fight for the rights of Gore.”

The protest group was trailed by four policemen and an equal number of robots. Whatever the protest was about, the pedestrians and shoppers appeared either completely uninterested or annoyed by the protesters. The group that had stepped out of the gun store, the group I was more or less part of, voiced their opinion more vocally.

A Klack said, “Useless maggots. Gal Drifts the whole lot. They never worked a day in their life. You won’t find a single Klack among them.”

A blue-faced Thauran agreed. “The Azure Emperor would never allow any of that scum on any of the Thauran worlds.”

A Saran woman, at least I was assuming the olive-skinned beauty with shiny black hair and a revealing dress was a Saran, shook her head. “They should arrest the whole lot and ship them to Free Space. If they don’t like it here why don’t they leave?”

The Thauran laughed. “BoCA offered these Gal Drifts a colony of their own a few years back, but a colony means work. They don’t like that and none of these society parasites went.”

A gorgeous woman with long silvery hair, wearing a skin tight velvet suit and high heeled boots added her opinion. “As much as I personally want to send them to Togar and make a profit for the Union. They’re sentient and have the right to express their opinions. Freedom of speech is a fundamental right guaranteed to all sentient life. I dislike those filthy scum but I would die to defend their rights.”

I was quite impressed by that statement and she sounded just like Mr. Walthers, one of my basic school teachers. The protest group suddenly stopped and pelted everyone in sight with red plastic bags. A Human blonde with a fanatical glare in her face tossed one in my direction. I was able to avoid it only partially. The thing burst, hitting my shoulder instead of my face and splattered me with a red stinking liquid. Only one substance I knew smelled that way, blood.

I really had to use all my self-control to rein in my impulse to tell her what I thought about this, but I didn’t want to get into more trouble. No, not this time. The blood could be washed off and I had enough money to afford another night in the Crystal Suite or somewhere else to take a bath and get my things cleaned. The cops and robots reacted quickly. Then an open flier appeared and swiftly swooped down. In it were several of the bed-sheet-wearing protesters and they were dropping football-sized objects. The things exploded in bright white flashes. Instantly, street lights all over went dark and the police robots collapsed. Several of the gun store customers had drawn their weapons, but none seemed to work.

I turned to run inside the gun store for cover. No need for me to be involved in something I had no idea what it was all about. I rushed in and stared into a gun. Three men and a woman in blood-stained sheets and hoods held guns. The bald headed Blue that served me was lying wounded on the floor and two others were quite dead. One was missing a head and the other had a fist size black hole where his heart had been. A fourth employee had his hands raised.

The masked men were grabbing guns and weapons and putting them in low-grav carry bags. The gun pointing at me was held by a woman. Even the white sheet didn’t hide her female shape completely and there was red hair sticking out from underneath the white hood.

“Don’t be a hero. Stick your hands toward the ceiling and you’ll walk out alive.” I did as ordered and I wondered what the odds were of being the victim of a crime twice within two days. I was proud of myself for not doing what I wanted to do. I kept telling myself. Those weren’t my guns. The police were already here and I’d be on a space bus out of here the first chance I got. One of the masked men looked out the window.

“The decoys aren’t doing too well. The Tech Stop bombs did their job, but there are more police now and they’re shielded. I think they shot down our flier.”

The bald Blue didn’t look good. His left arm was a burned stump and he was shivering, a clear sign of shock. He looked pleadingly at me for help. The girl covering me turned to look, that was my chance and I grabbed the wrist of her hand holding the blaster, twisting her arm to her back with one move, and turning her around at the same time, in a painful way. I used her as a shield in front of me. She yelped in pain and I took her gun with the other hand and pressed it in her back. The rest of her gang turned to face me. Aiming their weapons at me.

“Let her go, bastard, and we’ll let you get away alive,” said one of the men.

I replied, “Your mouthpiece will die first. I’ll blast her to bits. I don’t know what kind of gun this is but my finger is at the trigger and I’m very nervous.”

“Hero, you don’t know who you’re messing with.”

“A bunch of crooks dressed like idiots robbing a gun store, right?”

He said, “Last chance hero. Our cause is more important than her. I’ll shoot right through her if I have to. We are the Gore Defenders and if you even care a little about Gore, you’ll let us do our thing.”

I said, “I have no clue who or what that is. Now quit talking and drop your guns.”

Just then an amplified voice said, “This is Twilight Police. Union Police are on their way to assist us. The store is surrounded. Surrender and we will guarantee a fair trial.”

The speaker of the robbers yelled back, “A fair trial that ends at the gallows. There’s no such thing as fairness when it comes to Union oppression. We have hostages and we’re carrying Spore Bombs. We’re not afraid to use them. Half the planet will be depopulated before you can stop it. We won’t wait until you have a chance to get the PSI Corps here or a Union SWAT team. Our demands are simple. Bring a flier to the front door and have a D-12 FTL shuttle ready at the port. We will release the hostages there.”

I had aimed the gun in the gap between the arm and the body of the girl. “Did you forget about me, loudmouth?”

I fired. The gun blast roasted like thunder, the bright discharge lit up the entire store for a fraction of a second and vaporized the gang member’s head. I fired again even before the headless torso of the first one collapsed and another Gore Defender would never need a mask again. The remaining goons still hesitated to shoot and I roasted a third one. The woman I was holding reacted and hammered the back of her head right into my nose. I was blinded by pain.

She screamed. “Shoot him Josh, now.”

I dropped to the floor as fast as I could. Something incredibly hot singed the top of my head and then my eyesight cleared slightly. I pressed the trigger once again. Aiming a beam was easier than I thought. He had hesitated to fire because his first shot had also hit the woman, her robe was on fire and she tried to get out of it using only one arm. My shot hit the man where his neck met his torso. Police robots and officers burst in almost at the same moment. One of the robots fired at me and everything went dark.

When I regained consciousness, I cursed like a nubhir skinner. “This is the second time I got paralyzed on this Loki-cursed rotting fangsnapper dung heap of a planet.”

I looked around as I sat up. I found myself on some sort of treatment bed in a medical clinic. At least a dozen policemen, a news man complete with hover cam and a doctor were present. The doctor said, “With those kind of burns it was a blessing the robot paralyzed you. I restored your scalp and replaced most of your ear. The hair grower injection will speed up the growth of your hair. You’ll have your hair back in two or three weeks. We can implant or print you new hair right now, if you’d like.”

“My hair?”

A man in civilian clothing shouldered himself past the policemen. “Your head was on fire. The robot put you in stasis and saved your life.”

What he said made me less angry and actually quite thankful towards that robot. I asked, “What now?”

“While you were in reconstructive surgery and in the Re-Gen tank during the last five days we checked on you, Mr. Olafson. It seems the Hero of Nilfeheim just became the Hero of Twilight. I’m William Reynolds, Planetary Governor and I’m here to thank you.”

I answered, “For foiling a gun store robbery? A thank you card and a free subscription to a gun magazine would have been sufficient, sir.”

The Governor said, “One of the Gore Defenders really had a spore bomb on his body and he was fanatical enough to use it. We’re still investigating how they got their hands on one and who supplied them with military issue Tech Stop spheres.”

“I have no idea who the Gore Defenders are and what a spore bomb is, but I’ve got a bus to catch, sir. No offense to your moon, but I need to be on my way.”

“Mr. Olafson, as I said we checked on you. According to your planet’s representative, you’re on your way to Arsenal to apply at the Academy, but that isn’t until the end of the year. You’e traveling by space bus and you still have several months’ time. We would really like to thank you. The least we can do is offer you a luxury passage to anywhere you want to go.”

One of the police officers, a Spindlar if I was correct, who had lots of stripes on his uniform sleeves, said, “The Gore Defenders are a small but fanatical terror group recruiting their members from Galactic Drifters. Their aim is to remove all colonists and companies from a planet called Gore II. That planet is only eighteen light years from here and since the planet is corporate-owned and security is tight, they take their protests to other planets, unfortunately including Twilight.”

A man with blue skin and coppery hair, in civilian attire but with the badge of the Union police, said, “A spore bomb is a Terran and Saresii development that came out of the war spores used by the Piostla a few centuries ago. These devices release self-replicating, genetically engineered spores that eat anything organic. They do that quickly and only stop expanding and reproducing when there’s no organic material left.

Activating one of these hellish devices would have killed every organic life form on the Twilight strip. Twilight has no first response team to deal with such an attack, there wouldn’t nave been enough time to evacuate or set up containment fields. The Union Fire Department had been alerted and they can deal with such emergencies, but the closest response team was nine days out.”

Mr. Reynolds took over again and said, “You really did save millions of lives and our economy. Not to mention the life of one of the gun store’s owners. The Blue was only moments from being beyond all medical intervention.”

I grunted. “It was he who made me act. I’m glad he survived.”

The Planetary Governor said, “Why don’t you be our guest for two or three days? Give us a chance to show you that this world is much better than a fangsnapper dung heap. Even then you’ll still be way too early at Arsenal Gate. I’m offering you a personal sight-seeing tour.”

“Heck, why not.”

The Governor kept his word and I was treated like the most important guest of state. To be honest, while it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, it was actually quite cool. He took me on a white water rafting trip, which I enjoyed greatly. Then we went planet-side and visited the beautiful Night Side town. If things were complicated on Nilfeheim due to our oddball orbit, they were nothing compared to Twilight. What the locals called the Night Side was currently, in astronomical terms, the day side, as it was exposed to the star Yutoo every time the planet swung around the star. But since the gas planet was more a failed sun than a Jovian one it radiated its own light and thus there was never any real night or darkness on the planet-facing side. So, despite all astronomic and scientific arguments, locals called it the Day Side.

At first his explanation made my head spin, but as we visited the star-facing side, the local sun was nothing more than a bright star in the sky and it did little to illuminate the stark and desolate waste land. Night Side Town reminded me of Isen Landsby. It was an ocean of many-colored lights and illuminated signs and looked festive and pretty as we approached it. There, the mayor of the city, and a declared friend of the Governor, invited me to a restaurant, which was, according to him, the best seafood and fish restaurant in the entire quadrant. After dinner, I concluded that this was probably not too far from the truth. Of course Uncle Hogun’s was the best. They had no Nilfeheim fish on the menu, but I tried something called salmon and it was delicious.

On the third day we were to visit Day Side town. According to the Governor, the best way to experience Day Side and to get to that city was by dust bouncer. The bouncer was a huge contraption of about fifty meters length. The machine rode on eight enormous balloon tires. It had several cabins inside, with beds and a small staffed kitchen. On its top was a panorama lounge with a great view of the glaring desert.

Giga Ball, the enormous gaseous planet, occupied most of the sky and it was one of the most impressive sights I had seen so far. The gas giant’s atmosphere was a kaleidoscope of swirling colors and two of the other big planet-sized moons could clearly be seen as well. We sat in the comfortable panorama lounge while the vehicle was rolling through the desert.

Mr. Reynolds sipped at his drink and said, “The day side is much more dangerous and unforgiving than the night side. With enough warm clothing and a face mask you can survive outside on the night side for a while, but the day side is bombarded by radiation and heat. Weather has the same patterns all the time and has for billions of years. Winds blow in the same direction due to the convection caused by the temperature differences and they have as long as our moon has existed. They’ve been grinding and corroding whatever mountains this place once had into a fine dust, filling the valleys in between. There are oceans of this powdery dust out here. It’s so fine that it almost behaves like a liquid, or a Newtonian liquid to be exact. It’s so fine you can easily drown in it. Some of these dust lakes are several kilometers deep, that’s why these bouncers have these enormous wheels.

“Most of the traffic nowadays is by fliers, floaters and the recently completed trans-planet mover connection. But dust bouncers still make the four-day trip to and from Day Side City for leisure and sight-seeing passengers.”

“And this dust, is it mined?” I asked.

“Yes it actually has many industrial uses, like bore hole stabilization, but is mined and processed mainly because it also contains many metals and useful minerals, already in microscopic kernel size. Easy to separate and already refined to great purity. Twilight dust mines produce thousands of tonnes of metal ore and minerals every day.”

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