Chapter 9

Trash Island

Circuit had done a terrific job, gluing and welding armor plates over the sleek form of a Landing Tank. Rusty steel chain curtains covered the wide Ultronit Tracks and the whole thing looked like an old, many times repaired, all terrain crawler with an ArtiGrav. The main cannon was still there but looked like an old artillery piece and not like the High energy QGP it was.

The Mission Pod module on this tank had been changed from Combat to surface survey and science. Instead of more weapons, advanced shields and a troop compartment, this module was equipped with external manipulators, mini lab equipment and a science sensor suit.

Shea had left to go to the temple, being torn between going there and coming with us. Hans and the Golden had left as well.

Circuit stood next to the modified tank and said:

“Do you mind if I pull a Level Two on our Energy Tap system?”

“Is there something wrong with it?”

His face was unchanged as ever and I could not say or pinpoint how I was able to sense his moods and emotions, but to me he sounded somewhat concerned.

“As you know it is experimental technology and we are the first ship really using it, other than test platforms. The maintenance manuals and documentation is very rudimentary. It was Three-Four who first saw a minute energy leak. Basically it is a small hole if you will bleeding a previous unknown form of transdim energy past the chandeliers, but it is inside the system and very small.”

“What are you trying to tell me? Is the ship in danger? Are we able to leave if we have to?”

“The ship is not in danger and we always have the conventional back up. I am also certain I can fix it, but I need about six hours. Neither the shields nor the Janus System will be affected.”

“You’re my Chief Engineer and I trust your judgment, just keep me informed.”

Circuit promised and left.

I contemplated to stay but then decided to trust my crew and a few moments later we left the Tigershark and flew due south. It was true; no one cared about us and after a few minutes we were simply another armed skimmer in the skies. Krabbel sat at the controls and Dien Tallow sat next to him in the Mission command seat. Narth went along out of scientific curiosity, TheOther manned the turret and there were four other crew members in the crawler as well, all from the science department, and I was simply a passenger, more or less.

Tallow directed us South away from the city and air traffic became less, consisting almost entirely of dirty open freight skimmers loaded to the brim with waste. Most of them were just wooden contraptions with fitted ArtiGrav lifters and simple propellers for locomotion.

One of the scientists sat next to me. She was maybe a dress size two and if it wasn’t for her older looking face, she could easily be taken for a teenager. She brushed a lock of her chestnut brown hair out of her face. She had long thin fingers and a doll like appearance. She was excited and said to me:

“Thank you Captain for making this opportunity available to us. You see, every type of vermin you could think of has been brought here to SIN 4, either by accident or on purpose. There are no hygiene or import rules. And for over five hundred years they have been dumping trash and waste on this island along with life forms from all across the Galaxy. I can’t wait to see how Terran rats have adapted to this environment.”

I shivered, involuntarily remembering the white tentacle thing in the sewers, and said:”To each its own. I guess everyone needs a hobby.”

She smiled. “Captain, I am a Xenobiologist and to me such things are quite fascinating. About sixty years ago there was a Galactic Geographic expedition to Sin 4 and they focused on Trash Island and found some of the strangest life forms there. It was never done again, because two expedition members got killed, most of the gear stolen and two abducted for ransom. So I look forward to see what has changed and what is still there.”

“I am always amazed what scientists find fascinating.”

“You have seen the landing field? It is cracked and large patches are corroded and disintegrated into to dust.”

I nodded. “I have.”

“It was leveled and installed by Karthanian civil engineers about 1500 years ago in the hopes to get this planet chosen as a neutral meeting place.

The material used is very similar to our Duro-Crete and should have lasted thousands of years. But someone imported probably by accident, a mineral eating microbe and it mated with another perhaps local microorganism and a new life form emerged that finds the polymer compounds used in that Karthanian concrete especially delicious. The result is crumbling and cracking concrete.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Now that is actually interesting, if that microbe could be altered and delivered by bombs. It could turn an entire Spaceport to dust.”

Krabbel laughed.

“Our Captain really is Terran, no sense denying it. The first thing they always think of is how something could be used as a weapon.”

I shrugged. “It was a logical conclusion was it not?”

Narth raised his head.

“Indeed especially logical to Terrans.”

The chestnut haired Xenobiologist said. “Also, we can devise materials immune to these effects. These microbes are just one example. There is a common weed on Terra called Dandelion. It too found its way to Sin 4 and it has developed a symbiosis with a flesh eating plant. Now the little seed pods that look so lovely on Earth carry tiny flesh eating pods that instantly burrow into unprotected skin and cause serious infections.”

Dien Tallow turned in his seat to add his expertise and he said. “The standard hygiene procedures developed for all Union ships are based on such research. Did you know that the Tigershark and all Union ships, for example, have special anti contamination systems fitted to our landing gear wells.Every time landing gear is retracted, it is sterilized.

Our decontamination field at the air locks, we hardly notice. The harmful aerosol scan procedures that are strictly observed by your environmental engineers, our bio form transfer laws were all developed using research like that.”

I raised my hand.

“You made a point. Maybe I was not entirely fair in my assessment and I know we are supposed to hunt Pirates, that is our primary goal, but the pursuit of knowledge is also important, and this is why even a ship like the Tigershark has extensive lab facilities. I am not against scientific exploration and I would love to simply go on an exploring mission without masking as pirates. That is why I agreed to this and I am sure it is time well spent. We just need to be careful, pirates don’t explore much and we can’t risk our cover.”

TheOther did not take his eyes of his targeting and scanning oculars but he said:

“I feel very blessed to be here and on a mission that adds to the body of knowledge. Y’All do not explore at least not as far as I know. This thirst for knowledge is what makes the Union and you humans truly superior to us.”

Krabbel said. “I hate to interrupt this conversation, but we are here. Trash Island is below us.

I asked. “TheOther, are we followed?”

“No Ma’am. All I have noticed are garbage scow floaters and none of the ones within range has any scanning hardware.”

I looked out the view port on my side and if there was a hell in the Universe, I was sure we had found it. The water around the Trash Island was a dark brown soup with floating spots of shimmering oil and solid waste. How the island once might have looked I could not say all I saw were mountains and more mountains of trash, waste and rotting garbage. Smoldering heaps belching black smoke into the air that even made the sky over this island look dirty and somewhat greenish. Krabbel landed in a valley between two mountains and engaged the tracks. In the distance we saw one floater dumping trash and I could clearly see the form of two human bodies falling down as well, the two man crew of the floater had bare bodies and used simple shovels to clear the cargo bed. They paid no attention to us at all.

It was Narth who pointed out the viewport. “Please stop. I believe I see an Itomarian Vision Staff.”

Krabbel stopped and Dien became excited. “I believe you are correct. It indeed looks that way. What an eye.”

Before I could ask, Narth’s voice answered as usual in my mind. “A long disappeared species of space travelers, believed to be active even before the UNI and the Pree. They had a large empire long before the Seenians. There is scholastic evidence suggesting they belonged to the First League, the one the Conck mentioned. We had little contact with them as we Narth isolated ourselves as much as possible from other species. However their technology was highly developed and very unique.”

We cycled through the small airlock, wearing our new Atlas Battle Suits, altered in such a way that they did not look like Union technology. Even Narth choose to put a battle suit on. Krabbel remained and kept an eye on the scanners.

I sank to my knees into the mass of moist waste before the suit adjusted and lowered the gravimetric ground pressure so I could walk on top of it. Something like a centipede with many segments and as long as my arm had coiled itself around my left leg and tried to bury sharp looking mandibles into the material of my suit.

The Xenobiologist, Rebecca Dunns, made her Atlas suit look petite, grabbed the trashing thing and placed it, not without difficulties in an unfolding stasis box. “Could be an Amel originally from Troga, but six times the original size.”

TheOther stomped past me and he truly looked terrifying in that battle suit as his had four arms. “What amazing technology these new suits are! I was always at awe at the Quasimodos and I remember well how Union Marines fought us wearing them. Now I am wearing one that is so much advanced I believe I could hold an entire Y’All landing force off all by myself with it.”

I laughed: “You terrified the crew of an entire ship, that’s for sure, ripping Airlocks out of their sockets like paper.”

“Ah, yes, true, but it was a battle and I had little time thinking just how marvelous these Atlas suits are.”

Narth and Dien uncovered an elaborately decorated three meter long object from the dirt. It had a dull metallic color and roughly looked like a giant ear cleaner with round ends on each side. A red crystal like object was embedded on one side. The coloring and the shape reminded me of the round spheres, I had found in the Cave of Things. This reddish crystal sphere however had the appearance of being damaged.

I watched my small landing party dig through the trash and kept looking over the depressing landscape, with one eye on the battle sensors and said to the big creature next to me: “Do you think the Y’All will return?”

He raised his upper arm pair and said. “I was what we called a battle drone, Captain. I was not given much information. I was grown in a vat along with ten thousand exactly like me and came to this Galaxy aboard a Hatching Ship. I know less about the true motives of my kind than you. My purpose, and only purpose, was to destroy and kill. I had no other reason to exist. When I questioned that existence and wanted to know more I was declared damaged and malfunctioning and my section command put me in Stasis for further evaluation. I was scheduled to be disassembled along with the other Y’All you found.

He made a very human sigh and continued. “I found killing and destroying without reason very disturbing. Be assured I will defend you and the ship and my friends, but I would have a hard time following an order to kill without a very good reason.”

I watched Narth and Dien poke through the trash obviously searching for more artifacts and then saw the petite Xenobiologist transferring something struggling and slimy with lot of legs into another Specimen container. While I observed them having fun I said to the Y’All.

“I think this is a good philosophy and I promise you I won’t order you to kill without a reason, but our mission requires that we terminate individuals.”

He turned his entire body to look at me directly “It will have a reason though. We are defending the way of life of the Union, a place where even one like me receives mercy and a chance. With you I am an individual and the very concept of having friends is a very good reason to fight.”

I wanted to say something but my sensors picked up a human shaped heat source hiding underneath a crate not too far from Narth. I did not read any energy sources indicating weapons or shields so went towards that crate to see who was hiding there, something hit my suit, at the chest area. The suit computronic switched to battle mode and said.

“Chemical projectile weapon impact, threat level zero.”

The sensors homed in on an extremely dirty man crouching behind a wall of trash aiming a weapon at us, next to him a Stik native armed with a spear.

TheOther turned into a lighting fast running battering ram and plowed through the dirt and trash like a cannonball, trash and pieces flying everywhere, and grabbed both the human with one hand and with another hand a gangly, tall and somewhat thin human alien.

The crate before me flew to the side and a meager, dirty girl was exposed and it floated into the air, held by Narth’s telekinetic powers, but I sensed Narth having trouble at first. I lowered my gun to shoot her.

Narth’s voice said.

“No Eric please do not shoot. I have full control now.”

TheOther carried the struggling man; he wore only rags and was barefoot. The tall Alien was in no better shape, almost completely naked, dirty and wounded. The weapon, some kind of rifle, was bent into a pretzel in one of TheOther’s other hands.

The man screamed in perfect Union Lingu. “Let her go you bastards, let her go. She means no harm. Let her go!”

Narth just looked in my direction and I nodded. Narth said. “We mean you no harm as well. It was you who shot at us and I know you only did it to protect that female.”

The man stopped struggling and TheOther let him go. I said to the dirty man. “No matter how fast you try to run, we are faster. So stay until we are done talking to you.”

The native being did not move, it simply hung in the huge fist, like dead.

The dirty man did not relax and eyed us with open mistrust. “You must be Union: No other society in the Universe would poke through trash with million credit equipment and collect vermin.”

I said. “You appear human and you don’t speak Freezone Squawk, are you a Union Citizen?”

His head sank. “Not anymore, I did some bad things a few decades ago and fled to Sin 4.” Now he lowered his hands in a resigning gesture. “I’d say take me. I would give up. I’d rather face charges at home as to spend another day in this hell, but I can’t, I must protect her and stay with my friends here.”

Narth said. “Captain, this girl has tremendous psionic powers, almost on par with mine and she is in great danger to harm herself as she had no training at all.”

Our tiny Xeno scientist held out a Ration Bar to the girl. “Are you hungry?”

Narth examined the tall thin Stik:

“This individual is seriously injured.”

The girl was incredibly filthy and her hair resembled the dirtiest mop in Midrill’s broom closet. Somehow she reminded me of Exa, but compared to this one, Exa was sparkling clean the first time I saw her. This girl was also very thin and meager, and looked malnourished. She had big blue and incredibly sad eyes.

She nodded at Specialist Dunns question but didn’t take the bar; instead she looked over to the man.

He said. “Go ahead Alice take it, these are real Union Soldiers like I told you so often about.”

She took the bar and ripped it open and wolfed it down like an animal. I noticed the longing eyes of the man, so I opened my emergency ration compartment and handed him a bar as well. At first he tried to maintain some dignity but his hunger won and he too tore it open and literally inhaled the bar in two or three bites. They both got two more and finally he chewed slower and his eyes glowed with bliss. He said still chewing:

“Oh God in heaven, I never thought a RICE bar would taste so good.”

I was certain he was Union, perhaps even with military background as he knew the acronym for these Ration Individual Combat Emergency bars.

I said. “I think it is better we take you all to the ship, have our med officer check you out and get you a real meal. That Stik friend of yours really needs medical attention. I give you my word that if you want to leave you can. You are not under arrest.”

He nodded. “The word of a Union captain is enough for me. I know you are fleet even though you try to hide it, especially with the others calling you Captain and you having RICE bars with your equipment.”

I frowned and said. “Let’s make sure no one else comes to this conclusion. Let’s go back to the ship before someone else does pay attention to us.”

Narth asked the man holding up the artifact. “Have you ever seen any artifacts that look like this Stik?”

The man looked at it and then nodded. “Yes Gothar the dealer has four cases with the same markings standing in his store. There are little round crystal balls in them just like the busted one in that staff.”

Narth said to me. “We must return here, Captain. We must recover those cases. If I am right, then we have discovered a find perhaps more important than hunting pirates.”

This was a strong statement coming from my friend and I knew he never exaggerated. I nodded. “Then return we will.”

We returned without further incident to the ship. While we thoroughly decontaminated the landing tank, the suits and ourselves, I thought about the words of the Xenobiologist concerning the decontamination process that previously was so routine I barely noticed, and it now become much more significant to me.

Cateria and her staff were ready and waiting. They transferred our three latest guests on Med Bot stretchers and began their work while on their way to Sickbay.

Narth went with them.

Shea came into the landing bay and watched as the scientists unloaded the specimen containers and other finds. She still wore her Sojonit Outfit but took off her mask and said. “I have the blessings of the Mother Superior for our union and she has retired my name.”

I smiled, looked around to make sure no one was watching, and kissed her.

She then handed me a sealed package and said with slight surprise in her voice. “This comes from the Mother Superior. The package contains a real Sojonit costume and she hopes you find time to visit her at the temple tomorrow.”

I took the package and said. “Then I will make the time if at all possible and we go and visit her.”

I checked in on the bridge and was briefed by Mao about the ship status and Elfi reported more communication intercepts between the Merchants Sorrow and the Red Dragon and the arrival of that ship was confirmed.

Then I went to Engineering and found Circuit in the Main Engine room at a towering machine that had all the looks of Union tech but at the same time looked quite alien. A robotic arm had removed a large section of its cover and held it in place hanging from the ceiling and allowing me to see inside this contraption. Eight tubes of about one meter in diameter stuck out from a hexagonal shaped cube. The cube looked as if it was made of glass or some other transparent material and it looked as if bright red glowing liquid syrup was mixed and swirled with a milky, yellowish, thick liquid that also glowed. I saw a bushy tail sticking out from one of the tubes.