And All The Stars A Grave. Read online

  He got up and turned around to yell at the guards for their rough treatment, just in time to see the door sliding shut behind him, and a pair of Xetan faces staring briefly at him from the other side. Checking that he was still there, still breathing he guessed, and that nothing was broken. Then they disappeared and he was left naked and alone in his new quarters.

  For the longest while, all he could do was stand there, shaking, trying to accept what had happened to him. Prison was one thing, but that brutal assault on his person was something else entirely. Something that made him want to find the safety of the Sparrow and never leave.

  In time though, when his heart slowed down to a more normal speed and he stopped shaking, he realised he was safe and, though it took even a little longer to accept it, had actually been treated fairly by their standards. They hadn’t harmed him, and by the looks of things they weren’t going to. No torture, no chain gang. Except for his pride, he wasn’t injured, and he was exactly where he’d expected to be sent, jail. Moreover, while it took a lot for him to accept it just then, by their laws he had committed a crime. He was a criminal and they had just treated him as such. Something to remember.

  After his breathing had returned to something more normal, and his thoughts were once more orderly, he started to inspect his new home. His cell. The one thing it clearly wasn’t was filled. Bare metal walls, a mattress along one wall, a single chair beside it and a toilet and shower unit along the opposite one. That was it. That was everything for the next few months or years. And they were soundproof too, though it took him a while to realise it. But soon the intense silence made itself known to him, and he realised that that was why when he’d arrived and seen the other prisoners, he hadn’t heard anything from them. No communication between prisoners. It would only help them to pass the time more quickly or plot mischief. No doubt the silence would give him plenty of time to think about his sins.

  In addition, he eventually discovered, they’d left him some clothes. Some sort of white gown and leggings, that looked most like a karate outfit complete with white wrap around belt. It had red symbols all over it, a circle with a wavy line through the middle crossed on the right side, and he realised they were probably the local equivalent of prison stripes. Wherever he went he knew, he would be forced to wear the markings, and be identified as a criminal of some sort. A badge of shame. But how much worse could it be he wondered? He was already a pariah. This would just make it official.

  When he put it on he realised that despite the fact that it was a one size fits all type garment, it clearly wasn’t his size. Myran’s with their bulky forms and loose sagging skin were clearly a lot broader than him. As a result it sagged everywhere, no matter how much he tightened the belt. The shoulders hung almost down to his elbows and the pants were balloons around his legs.

  Still, he figured as he sat down on the single plastic seat, finding it less than comfortable and prepared to begin his sentence, he was alive, and as far as he knew, and hopefully they never would, a successful information smuggler. Forty quads of Calderonian data, and the Sparrow’s complete data files on the Targ, all that he could squeeze on to the memory chip, were now on their way home, where they could do some good. So he’d have something to feel proud of as he did his time. Besides, he had been told by the captain he would be allowed out to study, under escort of course. And probably to go to the gym as well, he couldn’t imagine that they would miss a chance to watch him suffer. So at least he’d have something to occupy his time.

  This voyage wasn’t turning out to be a pleasure cruise. But then he hadn’t expected it to be one, and he had also expected to get caught. He would get through it. And maybe he’d teach these asteroidally arrogant aliens a thing or two on the way.

  Chapter Three.

  After four and a half weeks in the brig, Daryl had slowly arrived at the conclusion that life in jail wasn’t such a terrible thing after all.

  Quiet and peaceful, it actually gave him a chance to work without interruption or insult. Though it could also be described as unbelievably boring during the times when he’d run out of concentration on the problem at hand. In fact he was starting to grow a little stir crazy, almost to the point where he was almost looking forward to the coming meeting. Almost.

  He still found the relative peace and quiet a godsend though. Unbelievably, the brig was the only place on the ship where he could work without listening to the constant abuse from the other scientists. As a result he often found the times when he was escorted out of it and to the research facilities, an annoyance. If he could, he’d much rather have had the material brought to him. Of course it would have been good to have some more walls, as he was running out of room as he scrawled all over them with the marker pen he’d been allowed.

  His jailers were actually quite pleasant, as far as he understood them. They were a mixed up group of course, members of all the great races staffed the Force and many of the others as well. His jailers were mostly Myran and Xetan, but despite their lofty positions relative to his criminal status, quite reasonable. They did their job of course, and very thoroughly. He never went anywhere unescorted and they checked every reference, every bit of equipment he asked for like hawks. But unlike everyone else on board this alien insane asylum they called a ship, they were reasonably polite. They didn’t abuse him. They didn’t, at least openly, look down upon him for being a mere human. They were actually professional. And within limits they were even prepared to help him, translating a word here and there, carrying the odd record, and even acting as bouncers when the other scientists became too strident in their abuse.

  He’d only been allowed back on the Sparrow once in all that time, and that was under heavy guard. Four officers with him at every step, which he thought was a little overkill. Especially when there was nothing more he could do. He had no way of sending more information off the ship. But if they’d had their way he wouldn’t have even been allowed back at all. It was only that, as he’d pointed out, he’d had no choice. He had to put his cat into the hyper-sleep pod. The Sparrow could feed Scratch, and allow her access to the small garden area to do her business. But it couldn’t entertain her. The longer she spent with nothing to do and no one to talk to, the more bored she’d become, and the less she’d remember Daryl, as she slowly returned to her wild ways. That was simply cruel.

  Actually, putting Scratch in her specially designed pod had been harder than he would have guessed. That was the only time he’d really felt like breaking down and just giving up. It wasn’t just the affection that his cat gave him, though she was always glad to see him. It was the realisation that as he put her to sleep for however many months, he was losing his last remaining contact with his own world.

  That was the very reason he had a cat in the first place. Every off world solo researcher, long distance freighter pilot or trader was required to have at least one pet with them. It was a measure to help keep them sane throughout the lengthy isolation. Between psychological assessments, pets and weekly video links home, Earth Fleet believed it could keep its few deep space scientists on an even keel, and for the most part they were right. Scratch was a great comfort to him. She had been for many years, and still he’d hoped, she had a couple more trips in her, or at least the rest of this one. A full year or more among the great races would still have been trying for him even with her waiting for him every evening. Now he no longer had that emotional support.

  From the moment he’d placed her in the pod and activated it he’d suddenly realised that everything in his universe was alien. And none of it liked him.

  Over time though, the darkness had passed and he’d moved into a routine. Much the same routine as he’d followed before he’d been imprisoned. During the day he’d wake, bathe, have breakfast and then be escorted out to the research facility. There he’d be generally abused by Doctor Li and all his staff for an hour or so, while he tried to obtain the data he wanted. Six hours of study would then pass reasonably easily, as he sat quietly at hi
s station and sifted his way through the entire Interstellar Community’s database relating to the Calderonians, which was extensive.

  About 1:00 pm ship time he’d be escorted back to his cell where he’d have a light lunch, and then work with the hard copies of records he’d been allowed to take from the library until tea, another six hours. From then he was at his leisure, with absolutely nothing to do until lights out a few hours later. One thing he wasn’t short of, was time to do absolutely nothing, and that was the only thing he truly hated. That accounted for the endless scrawls he’d decorated the walls with. A man had to do something after all.

  Three times a week he would go to the gym and work through his routine, whether he wanted to or not. But at least it was better than lying on his bunk staring at the ceiling. His captors seemed to have some sort of fixation with physical fitness, and not for the first time he wondered whether the Force was truly a police force as much as a military outfit. Especially when they started timing his runs and informing him of his progress. Or lack of it. And of course giving him a hard time about it. Just like basic training.

  They had a point though. It was embarrassing to admit it, but he was unfit even by his own modest standards. Thin and weedy, he had almost no muscle tone, and as for stamina, it was just a word he didn’t recognise. And when they compared him to their extensive databases on what a normal human being should be able to do, things just got worse. But then spending nearly a year on a planet with a barely acceptable atmosphere and for the most part being cramped inside tiny metal cockpits or a collapsible house, was bound to have consequences as he told them. It would take time to gain back his fitness, and time was the one thing he was reasonably sure he had plenty of.

  Once a week he was allowed to send a message home to his family, who would no doubt worry. Naturally it was recorded in his cell using the Force’s own equipment, and he was watched like a hawk every second, just in case he tried to get some sort of code out. Not that he could have if he’d wanted to. He knew he’d already given his last intelligence report for a very long time. But in one of his return messages, from Professor Scott of his faculty at UEU, he was given a vague reference to the fleet being very excited about some new discovery they’d uncovered, so he figured they’d got his chip. It was, as intended, a major morale booster. On the other hand when the Community found out they’d be angry, so he wasn’t about to mention it to them.

  However, they would find out sooner or later, because if the humans were busy spying on the great races, then they in turn were watching the humans closely. And sooner or later some of those new schematics he’d sent would turn up in the human craft. Stars, would the great races get a shock when they saw Earth Fleet cruisers with Calderonian shields and drives. He almost couldn’t wait, except that it would surely be linked back to him, even if they couldn’t prove it. That penal colony kept getting closer in his thoughts.

  The sad thing was that he knew that even what he’d already sent was nothing compared with what he could now add to it. The more he studied the Calderonians, the more he learned that his people would find invaluable. Locked up in his mind were the secrets of at least five major advances that could transform humanity. New drives capable of reaching at least terrig eight, an advanced gravetic generator that could multiply Earth’s power supply tenfold, advanced terra-forming techniques, a new interstellar communicator, and the beginnings of black hole technology. Yet the crew knew he had that information as well. He’d surely never be allowed to take it home.

  He didn’t even feel as though he would really be stealing the info, assuming he ever got it away. He was giving good value for everything he got. Though he suspected the other scientists and the Force would never accept that. But his research had been going well as he delved deep into the Calderon and their technology, breaking down the details as he tried to work out what they might face ahead. Calderon Six had been a difficult dig, only made possible by the advanced deterioration of the site, and the devious way in which he’d approached it. The one they were approaching he suspected would be in much better condition. The same age or actually slightly newer, it was also unlikely to be on a world which was gradually becoming desert as the sun heated up over thousands of years.

  Trigger fields which had largely been inactive on Calderon Six, would likely work perfectly, and thousands of years of time would not have dulled the city’s mechanical reactions as it unleashed its defences on anyone foolish enough to try and enter it. He knew it, he suspected the captain did too from the fact that he let him continue his studies, and maybe some of the more cautious scientists also guessed it. But the majority he suspected either didn’t know or didn’t care. Helos and Li both fell in that camp, and they dragged a lot of disciples with them.

  By the end of the third week, Daryl had known he needed to go one step further, and so with the permission of the captain, he had been granted some lab time. Not that Scientist Trin had been particularly pleased by the thought of a human touching his equipment. But under the firm guidance of the Force he had graciously acquiesced. He even limited himself to only occasionally criticising Daryl for his sloppy lab technique. It was only a small matter after all. He was a nobody. There were other scientists who were much higher on his spite list.

  Either way, Daryl was finding the facilities as advanced as anything he’d ever imagined. And surprisingly adaptable to his human nature. It was more than just the height and arm reach factors. The instruments could display their readouts in English, measure in the various human units, and even give him detailed reports of their operation. By the end of his first hour in the lab he was more than a little impressed, not least by the fact that they had obviously been adjusted just for him. By the end of the day he was using them to advance his research a hundred times more easily than those on board the Sparrow, and growing ever more awed by what they could do for him.

  Mainly he was simply recreating the Calderonian trigger fields, and trying to find ways to spot them from further away and circumvent them without being destroyed. Because if there was one thing the Calderonians had been it was paranoid. They had at least a dozen different designs of traps, and all of them lethal. Some were relatively easy to overcome. The standard laser field trap that they’d used for thousands of years could be easily defeated. Send a small drone ahead to get blown apart, and a second unit behind it could spot the laser sources and simply blast them out of existence from relative safety. It had worked on Calderon Six, and he had no doubt it would work again.

  The only real hassle was that the Calderonians had advanced the trap’s capability in some of the other newer cities explored by the Community. To the scientists of the past’s great cost. The little mechanical worms that carried the devices had not been limited to travelling just in the vertical plain as they had on Calderon Six, but could burrow in all directions. Which meant his own probes had to have better detection programmes to allow for the target potentially being either under their feet or over their heads instead of in front of them. They’d also increased the range of the worms, so that once a tunnel was detected, they could burrow their way to it from over two hundred metres away. Thus there was a good chance his probes would not have to take out just one of them at a time, but perhaps three or four.

  Others were much more tricky. They’d had a trap he termed a tachyon shock wave, which was nearly invisible. A standard tachyon detector could spot one, or rather the general vicinity of one. But it couldn’t find either the source or the transmitter, both of which were more tiny worm like machines which could also bore their way through solid rock. And waiting until after it activated was likely to be deadly, since the response was unimaginably violent, as a shock wave of vibrational energy expanded out in all directions. Usually because he tunnelled in to the cities the shock wave would run straight back down the tunnel from which the intruder had come, and could take out whoever had triggered the trap even many hundreds of metres away. The only good news about the shock wave was that it could only t
ravel in straight lines, which meant that as long as he had a groove big enough cut into the side of a solid rock wall, he could take shelter in it and let it pass him safely by. Then, while the field was regenerating there was roughly seven seconds of safety - he hoped - during which he could fire an explosive device or missile of some sort to take out everything in the chamber ahead. Crude but effective.

  Again he had done just that before and it had worked, though at a horrendous expense. Guided missiles cost a fortune, and for a civilian scientist to have the materials to build nearly a hundred of them, had shocked the Earth authorities more than a little. He remembered being questioned for days about his need for such things, and then having the Sparrow and the bug fitted out with advanced monitoring equipment, just to make sure they had records of every single occasion he armed or used one, and why. Somehow though, he suspected that might not be such an issue on the Targ. It was after all, a warship.

  It was the bolos that really worried him though. Computer controlled tanks, he’d never actually encountered one on Calderon Six. They’d all turned to dust long before his arrival. But the great races had encountered them on their digs, and paid a dreadful price for that meeting. Laser cannon, explosive projectile weapons, energy shells, even sound cannon. Only two thirds the size of the bug, the damn things had every armament imaginable, and they were unbelievably tough, fast and difficult to target. His only solution thus far had been a bait and run type approach. Project some sort of energy image through a probe, and draw the tank to him, then hope that some form of carefully prepared static charge could take it out.