Chapter 1

Characters appearing in the first chapters of this story:

Marianne Riedasel (Mare)

Student from the planet Telchines, a three plus gravity world; 5’-4’’ tall, 240 pounds, 20 standard years old, short brown hair, blue eyes, cute

William Rugelery (Will)

Marianne’s boyfriend, student from the planet Vespa II; 6’-1’’ tall, 180 pounds, 21 standard years old, brown hair, gray eyes

Mac

Gym operator, older man; 5’-10’’ tall, about 175 pounds, 55 years old, gray hair and brown eyes.

I met Marianne when we were both students in the Mine Engineering Program at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) on Earth in 3995. We were both off-planet students who had been sent there by the governments of our home planets at great expense to study geology, mine operations, and management. It wasn’t just that the cost of attending the school for three years or more was expensive, there was also the cost of travel from our home worlds to Earth and back again when we finished that added to the cost. We are talking about something like a Million Credits for each of us to attend school here, but the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), located in Golden, Colorado, was and still is the best and most famous school for Geology and Mining among the human populated planets of the Confederation. Each of us was also the top student from our planet, which is why we had been chosen to come here.

I’m William Rugelery, Will to my friends, and I’m from the planet Vespa II, a fairly Earth like planet with gravity and air similar to that of Terra. The gravity is 1.25 times Terra’s, the air pressure is just a bit higher than that of Terra. The days are 26 hours long but the year is only 310 days long, however we count our ages in stand years of 365 days, which can be a bit confusing. I’m 6’-1’’ tall, weigh 180 pounds here, am 21 standard years old, and I have brown hair and gray eyes.

Marianne Riedasel, Mare to her friends, is another off-planet student who I came to know very well during our stay at CSM. She is from the planet Telchines, a heavy gravity world, having a gravity just over three times that of Earth or Terra with the accompanying higher air pressure. It has a much longer day of 36 hours and a year of 410 days.

Marianne (Mare) is a fairly short, stocky, young woman at about 5’-4’’ tall. I originally estimated her weight here at around 140 pounds from her size and build, but was later proven wrong. She has short brown hair and blue eyes. She is very cute, but a bit standoffish until she gets to know you.

This story starts on the evening of Friday, the 22nd of October, just over a month after classes had started. Of course, the off-planet students had arrived more than a week prior to school starting. Our places in the class had been arranged more than two years previous to that.

On that particular day, a number of the local Terran students in our class had organized a night out to go partying at the various drinking and eating establishments in the surrounding area. Several of us off-planet students had been invited also. I had accepted as had Marianne, which surprised me somewhat, as she had seemed like a very private type, and not prone to loud parties or large groups.

We set out at about 7:30 that evening, more than two hours after sunset, but the full moon was already up, and of course the area where the clubs, bars, and restaurants were located was quite well lit with signs and street lights. We had moved to one club or bar after another for several hours, not finding them to our liking, and eventually wound up at a bar on a not so well lighted street not far from the spaceport.

Denver has one of the largest spaceports on Terra. It’s high elevation giving it an advantage over ports at lower, and more crowded elevations. It also has a fine large airport with lots of space nearby, so business was very good at the clubs and bars near the spaceport and the airport.

Our group was seated at several tables in the bar having a good time, and it was just after midnight when three men who appeared to be workers from the spaceport from their clothing entered and started drinking heavily. We didn’t pay much attention to them initially, being engaged in our own drinking and partying. That is, we didn’t until they started making trouble.

These men were dressed in coveralls which had been worn for quite some time. They smelled of sweat, grease, and other fluids, including some of the beer or whiskey they had been drinking. They started the trouble by bothering some of the young women in our party, who refused to dance or drink with them. Eventually, one of them, a big guy at about 6’-3’’ tall and probably around 250 pounds, approached out table. Since most of us were males, we weren’t particularly worried until he picked out Marianne to bother.

“Hey sweetie, why don’t you leave these losers and go home with me. We could make beautiful music together,” he told her in a less than sober voice and had his left hand on her shoulder as he leaned in to talk to her.

“Take your hand off of me and go away ... far away,” she told him in a growl, surprising me.

“Hey bitch, what makes you think that you’re so hot and can tell others what to do, anyway?” he demanded removing his left hand and reaching out with his right hand to turn her toward him.

What occurred next happened faster than the eye could follow, and by the time we were aware that something had in fact happened, Marianne had a grip on the man’s wrist with her thumb and the first finger of her right hand.

The guy was obviously shocked when he realized that her grip was such that he couldn’t move his right arm forward. He initially tried to shake her grip off, to no avail. He then tried to force his arm forward and hers back by forcing his body forward and over hers without any luck, as he was unable to move her or himself. He was breathing hard and sweating from his exertion by now, and the others had stopped to look at him.

He next tried to kick her chair out from under her, but Marianne kicked him in the knee, and that was when I noticed the boots that she was wearing. They were very heavy miner’s boots, and these appeared to be made heavier than normal. “Why would she be wearing those to a party?” I wondered, as the guy collapsed when his leg would no longer support him.

Quick as a flash then, Marianne slapped him across the face with the palm of her hand, and he fell backward from our table and sprawled out on the floor, unconscious.

“I told you to take your hand off of me and to go away. You should have listened,” she said in a perturbed voice, but she wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Wow ... where did you learn that?” one of the guys at the table asked.

“Hey, that guy isn’t moving, maybe someone should take a look at him,” another guy at the table suggested, but some of his friends were already moving toward him, and we allowed them to check him out.

“Jeez, lady, what the hell did you hit him with? Bob’s got a busted leg and a broken jaw plus you knocked out some of his teeth,” one of those who had come in with him demanded a few minutes later.

“You must be exaggerating,” one of the guys who had helped organize the party said from one of the other tables. “She only slapped him across the face with the palm of her hand, though she did kick him in the knee.”

“Yeah, well she is from Telchines, and that could make a difference,” someone else in our group said, and all of the freight handlers turned pale on hearing this.

“Well, trust that idiot Bob to pick on someone from there out of a group of people,” one of the guy’s buddy said in a quiet voice.

“Let’s get out of here before the ambulance and the cops arrive,” suggested the organizer of the party. Since we were all paid up here, everyone quickly rose, and we all headed out the rear exit of the bar. We were more than a block away on a different street before we heard the sirens. The group decided to split up then, and some went to other bars, but a number of us were ready to call it a night and return to CSM.