A corporation, a sovereign nation, a military junta? It did not matter what it called itself, it was one sprawling entity. To the average person, it appeared that many companies, nations and organisations existed, but at the top they were all part of the same single web. There inevitably existed different camps of power but they all still existed to maintain the status quo.
There was no explicit pain of death for taking part in a mutiny, but any privateer ship's captain or crew who tried, had entire fleets sent out to search and destroy them, with the convenient cover of hunting pirates. Some believed that was actually what was going on. There were also too many rumours of entire families and groups of friends of mutineers disappearing. The risk to openly rebel was evidently too great.
The alien races were all but impossible to contact, there would be no haven with them, though Mishra and her closest confidants hoped to change that. Mr Bentley would be vital to their plan.
They entered the private accommodation and found Mr Bentley sitting at a large immaculately polished mahogany dining table. One of several pieces of furniture he had arrived with. Richards understood on seeing the executive why Mishra had made her comment. The executive could not have looked older than fifty; he had mostly black hair with only a few flecks of grey, skin with a very slight tan and the build of someone who used to be an all round athlete. He wore rather bland, workman like, office clothes, a particular fashion that had not changed in hundreds of years.
Mr Bentley looked up from some documents he was studying and rose to greet them, 'Ah, Commander Benjamin Richards, an absolute honour to meet you,' he said smiling and went to shake Richards' hand.
'Good to meet you too,' Richards said, returning the handshake and forcing a warm smile.
Mr Bentley continued, 'Yes, it really is quite a relief to meet you here. Our last resource acquisition endeavour did not go as well as hoped. I actually feared for my life at one point,' he gave a quiet chuckle to himself while looking at Mishra, 'Quite an event!'
'Yes sir,' she said, obviously already tired of him.
'No need for that again Admiral, I'm just here to observe.' He spoke with what appeared to be a genuine conviction.
For once Richards thanked his old age and the experience it brought him. He saw through Mr Bentley's careful act. He did not doubt that what he was seeing was ninety or even ninety nine percent true Mr Bentley. It only took a small part of the person to be acting for Richards to know there was a lie hidden inside.
'Well I guess that's what happens when you attack and steal from people. No matter what planet they're from. They fight back,' Richards said in a slightly confrontational tone.
'Oh no, they were the instigators, the aggressors, they always are. You can read the reports,' nothing but innocence from Bentley.
'I'm sure they all back up your version of events.' Richards was quite enjoying playing the, almost bad cop to Mishra's, not quite as bad cop, in this little routine of theirs.
'Yes they do, and of course any cargo taken is returned. We will actually be leaving a considerable amount with your station for reallocation. There is no point to just let it drift away in space.' Mr Bentley kept his act up. Richards thought the executive was probably having some fun of his own.
'That's what it's been doing for millions of years already. Anyway, not all of it is returned, I know that for sure.'
'Of course it isn't, we have to cover our costs,' again, so sincere from Mr Bentley, why should costs not be covered?
'I'm no longer hungry,' Richards feigned the indignation of a grumpy old man and left, returning to his space station.
Mishra turned to Mr Bentley as Richards was leaving, 'Sorry, he seemed more receptive to lunch with you on our initial meeting,' she went to go after Richards, giving the impression she was to scold him for insubordination.
'No no, leave him, I'm just an observer remember.'
'Yes,' she turned back and they both sat at the table ready for lunch; with Mishra continuing her long performed act of reluctant but loyal servant.
Richards found it rather hard not to smile on his walk back through the Enyo, lest any cameras pick up an out of character grin. The meeting had gone swimmingly. Richards had met his target: nothing like first hand intelligence.
Richards had also acted in a manner that, should he do anything untoward, there would be enough suspicion and doubt in Mr Bentley's mind to believe it was real. This was quite an important impression to give, as Richards and Mishra were both planning to kidnap Mr Bentley and hand him over to the aliens.
The next day Richards boarded the Enyo again, this time to "inspect" the alien prisoners. Mishra escorted him down to the holding cells. They had arranged the time to be when one of her most loyal would be on guard duty. They would not have long, as the shadow corporation had flooded privateer ships, Enyo included, with mercenaries. The guard activated a dummy virtual feed to the security systems. This gave Richards and Mishra a few minutes to have a private conversation with the aliens. Richards was impressed with the fact they could talk in real time to the aliens.
After the initial pirate attacks the aliens had demanded another meeting. At the meeting they initiated conversation and asked humanity to explain its actions. The humans feigned total innocence. The human delegation told stories of how humanity was suffering much worse from the piracy. They promised to put a stop to it and return any looted cargo; however the humans could not guarantee the safe return of any crews, apparently the pirates were quite ruthless. Over the intervening years there had been more sporadic meetings, communication had become easier with each one. Despite the increased amount of contact the aliens had grown more and more indignant while the humans had perpetuated their lie.
Mishra and Richards entered holding cell five. It was a dark circular room with a diameter of forty meters. The ceiling could not be seen, it disappeared into darkness above. In its centre was a brightly lit pyramid that looked as if it was made of a self-illuminating glass. Each side measured about six meters. Inside there were five alien beings.
Richards could not believe it, all these years later, he was finally getting the chance to say hello face to face.
'It is good to see you again, I hope you remember me. I am Malati and this is Benjamin,' she said with a friendliness and manner that made her come across more youthful than her seventy plus years.
'Hello, I am pleased to meet you.' he said. They both waited for the translation to be played to the aliens; a small glowing red disc had appeared on the surface of the glass, when it turned blue it would indicate the end of the translation.
While they waited, Richards studied the aliens. He had seen pictures and holograms before, but he thought you just cannot beat seeing something in the flesh.
The aliens looked like centaurs from ancient human myth: a large body supported by four legs, then at the front a smaller torso with two arms, and protruding from their backs two tentacles. Their heads were bear like but with more refined mouths; these enabled complex sounds and thus intelligent conversation. Only their heads were exposed, they were covered in a fine and shiny fur. Each alien had a different shade of brown. The rest of their bodies were covered by either uniforms or space suits. Richards could not quite tell.
The disc turned blue and there was no response. They all just stared back. It was impossible to discern any type of emotion.
Mishra had been expecting this, so she continued, 'We have a plan to help you. Some of us, no, a lot of us do not like what has been happening. Do you understand? Please let us know, we want to help, we can help. The two of us still hold enough power to help you. Understand?'
Richards could hear desperation in her voice. She had obviously tried talking to them with no success before.
Then it came. A dull neutral tone emitted from a hidden speaker, translating the alien's reply, 'Yes. Go on.'
The two humans smiled at each other, both now brimming with excitement as they felt as if twenty years had been lifted off their ages
.
Mishra carried on, 'Okay, thank you. I'll give you a brief outline now and can fill you in on more detail closer to when we carry out the plan.
'It's a lie, you've been fed a lie. There are no pirates, there never were. We've been attacking you for your resources. We, I mean humans, have almost ran out and there isn't any close enough. You either already have or have claimed them all.'
'Space is big.'
'Yes, I know, we know, but we have been too short sighted. We haven't much time, I must carry on.
'It was feared any mining installations we set up in your territory would be attacked so we turned to piracy; as less of a risk for us. We faked attacks on the pirates and vice-versa. We pretended to rescue some of the cargo and return it, but we only return a small amount of what is stolen.
'If any of your crews were returned, the whole charade would be over. So we lied that the pirates were ruthless. Instead, as you've found out, we capture you. We don't execute you but I don't know what exactly happens when you're transferred away. Though I fear my worst suspicions are correct.
But there are- ' She was interrupted.
'We know. Thank you for your official confession Rear Admiral.'
'I'm sorry, we're sorry, so sorry, but humanity can be redeemed,' replied Mishra.
'Yes, there's plenty of us who feel this way, work with us to free humanity,' Richards chimed in, hoping to help.
'No. Your crimes have been committed. We have the evidence. We have the confession. Now you will be punished.'
'Please no, this isn't fair,' Mishra was pleading now.
A low guttural sound emitted from the aliens, some of their tentacles bounced up and down in time with the noise. Are they laughing? Richards wondered, the thought made him feel sick and afraid.
A second later it looked as if the glass pyramid was filled with a swirling vortex of rainbows. The two humans could not believe their eyes, and just as instantaneously the surreal sight was gone. In the aliens' place was a silver ball, roughly a meter in diameter.
They slowly turned to each other, Richards spoke first, 'Did, did they just beam or transport or teleport or something out of here? Did we know they had that level of technology?'
There was no time to reply; the silver ball erupted into a searing white wave of pure destructive energy. It ripped through the hulls of the Enyo and the space station, scattering metal and flesh into the vacuum of space. It left nothing but an expanding wreckage. The Reapers, as the humans would call them, had made their first strike.
And then there was a small shuttle full of lucky survivors.
2847 AD - Welcome to the Project
'He's doing it again.'
'What? Good grief, he is as well,' Harry Tanner groaned. The young advisor had prepared everything just right and now had to watch in despair as his boss went off script... again. Still, his boss was the elected representative, so he could not just go and find another suitable face for the holo-cameras.
The older co-advisor Conner Pallister turned to Harry, 'I knew he'd start up again, he wasn't ready, I told you.'
'Oh shut up Conner. Turn it off, that's enough.' Harry went back to his desk and tried to distract himself with some pointless statistics on sewage management. Conner kept watching, turning their boss's speech up at one point. Harry looked up, swore at Conner and switched on the noise cancellation system on his desk.
Several minutes later Councillor Artimus Spencer strolled into his offices feeling rather happy with himself. He was well into real middle age, there were no life extending treatments available here, and slightly overweight. Until recent months he had been a rather dour but mostly amenable man who had then found a new lease of life. Harry was convinced Artimus was going through a mid-life crisis of old times and would snap out of it soon enough.
Harry and Conner were situated just outside Councillor Spencer's private office, the two infrastructure advisers based on two desks that faced each other. Conner threw a bottle top at Harry to get his attention. Harry looked up, about to sarcastically applaud him on his throwing skills but saw Conner nod his head towards the approaching Councillor. Harry subtly turned off his noise cancellation field. For some reason Artimus had an intense hatred of the things. Harry could never work this out, there was no threat of espionage. If Harry spoke when it was active, people would still be able to hear him, so there was no chance of private and secret conversations, the device merely buffered out noises for anyone sitting at the desk, providing them with a quiet environment to work in.
'So what was that?' Harry asked, with a quite matter of fact tone.
'It was me standing by my principles. Don't give me that look,' Artimus replied in a matching manner.
'You have never put your principles before your career before. What exactly do you hope to achieve Mr "Enlightenment"?' The pitch in Harry's voice got higher as he made his way through the sentence.
'You wouldn't understand, you're not a democratically elected representative of the people.' Artimus was short and angry with his reply. He seemed to be as angry at himself as he was at Harry.
'Oh ouch,' Harry feigned an injury to his chest. 'Go on try me,' and he grinned at the Councillor.
'You just concentrate on infrastructure and leave policy on the future of the colony to me. Okay?'
'So I'm taking orders now? Right. Sir yes sir!' and Harry produced a comical salute.
'Oh for... never mind,' and with that Artimus strode into his office.
'I think you're his favourite,' Conner said to Harry, completely deadpan.
'Yeah well, I don't know what he's playing at. He must have known he was only originally placed on the Colony Future Committee as a token gesture.'
'How very perceptive of you.'
'Shut up Conner.'
'I'm actually being serious.'
'No, you can just shut up. Artimus can have a sulk and when Robert's finished with him, a cry,' Harry stopped with mild surprise as he saw the figure that had just appeared in the doorway on the opposite side of the office floor. 'Okay, how does he do that?'
The figure pointed at the closed door to Artimus's office.
Before Conner could fully turn to see who it was, the figure boomed, 'Is he in there?' Everyone had stopped working, some through fright, some through surprise and some through eager anticipation of the confrontation soon to come. Conner and Harry both nodded. Robert, the Chief Executive to the Colony Council, made his way across the floor and opened the door to Councillor Spencer's private office. Harry and Conner both followed Robert in.
'Ah, Robert, glad to see you. You see we need to present both sides of,' but Artimus was sharply cut off before he could continue.
'Leave this world? Leave this world? Are you out of your mind? What has possessed you?' In his anger Robert was pacing up and down the room. As he came to one end he spun and ended up looking straight at Harry and Conner.
'Out! Now! And shut the door!'
They both made their way out, the whole time Robert stared at them with the look of death in his eyes. Artimus was sat at his desk looking down.
Once outside with the door closed behind them Harry and Conner looked at each other with raised eyebrows.
'Well, you can't exactly be surprised can you?' Conner asked.
'Oh, I knew he had it coming the moment you told me. I really don't get it. Artimus is, no, was as spineless as they came. Now he's suddenly developed a backbone. Unless...'
'Unless?'
'Unless the least connected idiot on the Colony Council does know something we, and unbelievably Robert, don't.'
'Stranger things have happened Harry.'
'No they haven't.'
Harry stayed late that night. The flippant idea had grown into quite a convincing one over the afternoon and into the evening. What if Artimus really did know something? The old codger might still have a bit of political nous left in him after all. He wanted the extra time to look for any clues. The suggestion of moving the Colony was borde
rline heresy, but Artimus was publicly advocating this proposal. Did he have a military contact? Harry had to find out.
'Night Harry.' Artimus finally left his office.
'Night sir,' Harry replied. Artimus stopped, was about to say something then sighed, shook his head and carried on walking.
Harry was not going to risk going into Artimus's office tonight, but being on his own at the office gave him the flexibility to go through Artimus's diaries. Central access would be easier to explain than remote access.
A minute later Robert appeared, 'Has he gone home?'
'Yes, but only just, you'll be able to catch him.'
'Good.' With that Robert was gone.
Harry sat still at his desk for a second, then decided he could not miss what was about to come. He ran out of the office and in the direction of the Council member's car hanger. He arrived in the hanger corridor just as he saw Robert entering the main hanger. Trying to act nonchalant Harry walked slowly to the main door and entered the main hanger.
He had picked up a computer pad just in case he was seen; he could just pretend he needed to get something double checked. This was not needed however, no one had noticed him. The only other people in the hanger were Artimus, who was about to get into his car, and Robert, who was striding towards Artimus.
The main flight doors had been lowered to allow for the imminent departure of Artmus's air-car. This made the hanger dark, wet and windy; the lowered doors let in the atmosphere of the semi-tamed planet outside. At this time of night only minimal lighting was on. Fully illuminating the hangers was not seen as a priority for the Colony's strained resources. Any time a powered craft was moving, its own lights would be on, so there was no perceived risk to safety.