First Contact

I was a highwayman. - Carved on an obelisk on a trajectory for outside the Milky Way

A lot can happen in a year. Maybe the Pasha will die. Maybe I will die. Who knows, maybe I'll teach the horse to sing! - Ally Din Sailin, Bronze Age Terra

Wally's tracks clattered loudly on the sidewalk, muffling the thud of Dana'ahsh and Herod's boots. The hiss of rain on the deserted streets, the crackle of weather shields in front of bistros and diners, the quiet sound of the wind through the deserted streets, all of it was a background noise that Dana'ahsh didn't really pay attention to.

At one point Herod stopped, tilting his face to the sky, letting the rain wash across his face. Dana'ahsh noted that the human needed to shave again, short bristles covering his chin and jaw.

Herod kept his eyes closed, feeling the rain on his skin, breathing deep the moist air, willing his body to relax.

The meeting had gone both worse and better than he'd hoped.

To be honest, he didn't know what he had hoped for.

But he had known Dee long enough to understand the message behind the theatrics.

You're a real boy now, Pinocchio, and that means it's time to grow up and make your own way in the world, make your own decisions, live your own life, he thought to himself. Get a job. Get a job holding dicks if that's what your good at. Just get a job. Get a life.

He lowered his head, letting the rain hit the brim of his hat instead of his face, and started walking again.

The particle decay rate she'd talked about was nagging at him.

He had to admit, he didn't know anything about "The Bag" system, just that it used artificially generated and maintained black holes to 'fold' space in such a way that the protected system was literally outside of realspace, unreachable by any known technology.

Yet, the mat-trans system, not the modern one used by LARP groups, the Idiots, the Martial Orders, or even the logistics systems, but the original mat-trans system could penetrate it in the beginning but no longer. Even then, it could only use existing terminus stations with landing pads.

That it could no longer even really use those pointed at some kind of drift in the system, something was interfering with wavelength propagation even along subspace, superspace, and non-realspace lines.

I'm going to need resources. Money. Equipment. Starships. Manpower, he thought to himself. The only problem is, how do I get it? I've got plenty of credits. I haven't spent that much from my time in the Black Box and my needs were pretty basic before that, but there's no way I can bankroll a study of The Bag.

He thought about it as he kept walking toward the spaceport. It wasn't that far, only a couple of miles, but he deliberately slowed his walk so Dana'ahsh and Wally could keep up as well as to give himself time to think.

He was still mulling over how he'd get the funds when he took off from the spaceport, letting the ship's automatic systems handle the return to the junker ship. He kept one eye on the autopilot. Most of the eVI systems were no longer functioning, a lot of VI systems were starting to fail, and it wasn't uncommon for even 'dumb' systems to start throwing errors.

Nobody knew if it was The Flashbang, some final Atrekna MAD trick, or the shades.

It wasn't the Dark Ages, but Herod knew you could see them from here.

The dropship docked with the junker ship and Herod found himself dawdling as he did the post-flight checks and put the dropship in storage mode.

He kept trying to figure out how he could get the resources to put together a project to examine The Bag. He had no doubt other organizations were already working on it, but he also knew they didn't have him to look at it.

Not only was he one of the best particle researchers alive...

...he was also a Terran.

Sure, he had been a digital Terran, but now he was full blown Terran. Not Terran Descent Humanity, no, not that.

Dee had laid it out plain and simple what he was.

A combination of his digital DNA and hers.

"Modern" Terran DNA and DNA from before even the Second Global Conflict of the Resource Wars Era.

Maternal DNA from prior to the detonation of the atomic bomb.

All adjusted, modified, and 'improved' by a mad woman.

He left the shuttle, closing the door, and headed up to the bridge.

"That didn't take long," Captain Lag said when Herod stepped out onto the bridge.

"She was waiting for me. She knew I was coming, probably before I gave you this system as a goal," Herod said. He moved over to an empty chair and sat down, stretching his legs out and putting his thumbs in his gunbelts. "Our talk didn't last long."

"Oh," Captain Lag said.

Personally, Captain Lag kind of wanted the human gone. He'd come all this way with an empty hold. Now he was orbiting a Tomb World and that meant no new cargo. He'd have to go all the way back across the Long Dark to Council Space with empty holds and no cargo except his three passengers.

He was going to lose money on this trip, he just knew it.

The human, he obviously didn't care. He was idly scrolling around through the red tinted astrogation map, looking at the little red pinpricks of light that signified various stellar systems.

"What's your plan now?" Captain Lag asked.

"That depends," Herod said.

How am I going to get... his thumbs grazed the inlaid butts of his two pistols and he froze.

"On what?" Captain Lag asked.

Herod put his finger against the dataport, rapidly scanning the systems, looking for certain keywords.

"How much money you want to make, how big your holds are, and if you can keep your crew together for a four month jumpspace trip," Herod said.

There. That one, he thought.

"My four primary holds are each big enough to carry a Council naval destroyer," Captain Lag said.

"How well are the nutriforges and the nanoforges working?" the Terran asked, scrolling quickly through the astrogation hologram.

"Pretty well. They kick now and then, but nothing too bad. Worst was when one of the nutriforges kicked out two dozen Confederate Army mag-ac pistols made out of cake," Captain Lag admitted.

"Can you kick your crew in their asses and get them to work?" Herod asked.

Dana'ahsh wondered what Herod was thinking about as the Terran opened up the data-point on one of the stellar systems.

"They do what they're told or I'll leave them at the next system, whether or not anyone lives there," Captain Lag said.

The Terran nodded. "Good," he tossed up the coordinates. "Set a course for this world. I'll lay out what you need to do, what you need to change, and, trust me, you're about to make enough credits you'll need to use both eyes to look at your balance."

Captain Lag nodded, still feeling slightly dubious. The stellar system was deep in the Tomb Worlds, had been wiped out almost a decade prior. It was nothing more than an agro-planet.

"And if I don't make money?" Captain Lag asked.

"I'll cover all your expenses to get you back to Council Space and make sure you have my payment for services rendered as profit," the Terran promised.

Captain Lag just nodded.

Terrans had beaten the Council in less than three years.

Surely they could turn this fuck fuck circus into a profit.

-----

"They're at the drop zone," the commo specialist said.

She looked particularly frazzled.

It had been two days in the upper jump bands to get to the system. The system had demanded that Captain Lag hold off at the Resonance Zone until the Terran had convinced the system to let the Uwu Wuzzat further into the system.

Then had come the tense negotiations under the guns of the planetary defense systems until the Terran again, somehow, managed to convince the system defense to allow the Uwu to land a heavy cargo lifter down.

The whole time, she had been deathly afraid she'd make a little mistake, maybe even one she wouldn't know was a mistake, and get the Uwu blown into its component atoms.

Being locked up by multiple C+ batteries was enough to make anyone nervous.

Now, the Terran, the Hashenesh, and the boxy robot had gone down with over half of Captain Lag's crew to 'just pick up the cargo' like it was no big deal.

Captain Lag was already nervous about the modifications to his cargo bays, how the nutriforges had been run till they were almost spilling slush, and what was being picked up.

He leaned back in his chair, projecting an aura of nonchalance.

"Just keep an eye on them, Ears," he said.

Never let them see you sweat, he thought.

-----

It had takes nearly twenty trips to the planet and back to fill the holds.

Captain Lag went down with the other crew members to take a look at their cargo.

When Captain Lag entered Cargo Bay One, he stopped at stared.

Holoprojectors made it look like there was a light blue sky with a large dim red sun, like there were endless plains around the pens.

Inside the pens were massive creatures, all of them dark brown. Captain Lag knew that Cargo Hold Two had ones that were white with black splotches. Cargo Hold Three had ones that were jet black.

Still, the creatures were huge.

They were 175 cm high, 300 cm long, 75 cm wide, weighing in at 2,000 kg. They stood on four strong legs and were rippling with muscle. They had wide eyes, small ears, udders, and faces that slightly reminded Captain Lag of a Lanaktallan.

The Terran stood in front of a small group of them, petting one on the nose. It was quivering with delight at the human's touch, it's eyes closed and make happy noises.

As Captain Lag moved up and looked at it, it moved away so another could move up. When the human touched it, it closed its eyes and gave a sigh of contentment even as it quivered in happiness.

"Before the nutriforges, I could see running meat animals, but now there's no profit in it," Captain Lag said.

The Terran kept petting the long nose of the animal.

"These aren't meat animals. Well, they were at one time, but they aren't now," he said. He looked over. "Is your crew going to be all right for the length?"

Captain Lag nodded. "They get it that these creatures don't like the higher jumpspace bands."

"Plus, it should keep us 'under' any Hellspace eruptions or any shade packs," the human said.

Another one moved up and the Terran began to pet it.

"Three months is a long time. It better be worth it," Captain Lag said.

"Between the live ones and what we have in the cryogenics, it will be," the human assured Captain Lag.

-----

The Treana'ad on the screen checked something that Captain Lag couldn't see. The image was blurry, only 320p, but it wasn't all reds and white and black, which Captain Lag was grateful for.

"Transmit crew, cargo, and passenger manifest as well as ship operations and statistics logs," the worker caste Treana'ad said in the tone of someone who has said something so many times the words had lost all meaning and it was just the noises they made at a particular time in particular circumstances.

Captain Lag made a motion and the communications specialist did her job.

He liked her a lot more now that she'd sobered up.

The human didn't allow druggies anywhere near the animals and she'd desperately wanted to pet some.

True, the air in the ship smelled 'heavier' somehow, but to be honest, Captain Lag preferred the smell to the sterile 'canned' smell of the ship's normal atmosphere.

The worker Treana'ad looked bored as it opened the file.

Then it opened and shut its protective eye covers several times even as its antenna went straight up.

"We will assign you an immediate holding pattern," the Treana'ad said. "I will need to confer with my supervisor regarding your cargo, but you will be expedited as soon as possible," the Treana'ad promised.

"Understood, Astro-Control," Captain Lag said.

The screen shut off almost rudely.

Captain Lag turned to the Terran, who had stayed just out of range of the video pickup.

"Why did that one seem so shocked?" Captain Lag asked.

"Because you're carrying a Matron's ransom," the Terran grinned.

"In the holds? The animals?" Captain Lag asked. "You're positive?"

The Terran smiled.

"Signal from the station. Legal has approved our proprietary route and trade route claim as well as our salvage claim," the communications specialist said.

Captain Lag couldn't believe that he had just used his Junker's Salvage Rights to claim and entire planet.

"You're rich, Captain," the Terran smiled.

"Just from those beast?" Captain Lag knew he was repeating himself.

The Terran's smile got wide. "Just remember my 15%."

"Captain, Astro-Control wants to know when inspectors can board the ship to check the cargo. The animal's veterinarian and papers have cleared, the frozen sperm and ovum have cleared, now they want to do an in-Treana'ad physical check," the communication specialist said.

She sounded slightly overwhelmed.

"Good thing you had your crew clean the ship," the Hashenesh said.

"I still don't see how big meat beasts cause this much uproar and will make us rich," the Captain said.

"Mister, you've got the lock on salvaging that entire planet. The cars, the factories, none of that is important," the Terran was smiling again, which made Captain Lag nervous.

"The meat beasts are," the Captain guessed.

"Yup," the Terran said. "You'll be running 'lost' moomoo bloodlines from that world to Smokey Cone."

His grin got even wider.

"Enjoy being rich, Cattle Baron."