TALES FROM OCHERVA


VOLUME ONE





by


Ken McConnell





This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events depicted in this novel are products of the author’s imagination.

GB PRESS www.gb-press.com



TALES FROM OCHERVA, VOLUME ONE

Copyright 2010, 2012 by Ken McConnell



All Rights Reserved.

First Edition: December 2012

Published by GB PRESS



Cover art by Byron McConnell:



www.byronmcconnell.com

The author’s website:

www.ken-mcconnell.com





GB PRESS BOOKS BY KEN MCCONNELL

Starforgers

Starstrikers

Starveyors

Star Series Omnibus

Tyrmia

Tales From Ocherva, Volume One





For Laurie, the one I love





Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction

Slag

Tin Star

Ocherva

Silicants Only

Rock Collection

Silicant Remorse

A Night at Downers

The Outlaw and the Ranger

The Renoke

War Stories

Acknowledgements





INTRODUCTION





Most of these short stories were written during my Western phase a few years ago. I've always loved the movie Westerns and watch them whenever possible. These stories are more accurately known as Space Westerns. But they clearly evoke the American West as portrayed in film and novels.

The planet Ocherva started out as a metaphore for the old west and has evolved over time into a very important planet that is essential to the sentient Silicants featured in the stories. There are plenty more stories to be told about the planet and the hearty people and androids that call it home. For that reason I titled this book Volume One. All of these stories can be read independent of each other. They are listed here in chronological order.

In this first volume we are introduced to two androids, one black and one sand colored that will go on to play pivital roles in future stories. Eighty-eight was first introduced in Silicants Only as the android that turns Thirty-seven into a Silicant – a self-aware android. In Slag, we get a glimpse into the mysterious Eighty-eight's past and see how he first came to Ocherva.

Tin Star, became an homage to the lone gunman who saves a town trope. It's one of my favorites as it clearly shows the Western influences. It's also the first Ranger story that does not feature Devon Ardel.

The short story named after Ocherva was intended to be an introduction to Devon Ardel, my all purpose western hero. The story first appeared in print in the Barren Worlds anthology from Hadley Rille Books. It also serves as a good introduction to the other Stellar Ranger characters and the planet itself.

Rock Collection was one of those rare stories that just flowed onto the page without much effort on my part. It has been rejected for publication more than any other story I have written. Perhaps ironic when you consider it is my most popular short story on Scribd. More than four thousand people have read that story, allowing it to reach a larger audience than most genre magazines enjoy.

Silicant Remorse was an experiment in how a silicant would handle what is essentially a no-win scenario. It became another look into the mind of Thirty-seven and it shows how Eighty-eight continued to tutor the newly sentient android.

A Night at Downers remains one of the most popular stories about Stellar Ranger, Devon Ardel. It's a riff on the never-ending night's work trope common in series TV. The Outlaw and the Ranger was based on the western song “Big Iron” by Marty Robbins. If you know the song, you will enjoy the show down that starts this tale.

The final two stories in this volume are set hundreds of years later than the others. The Renoke is set in the middle of the Great War and serves as the introduction to one of my first written characters – Joule Rouse. It is here because part of the story takes place on Ocherva. War Stories takes place hundreds of years after The Renoke and is not set on Ocherva, but it features the Silicants in a much more evolved state of being.





Slag





Ocher sands swirled around metal shrouded lenses and slowly revealed the black face of an android. A signal awakened the metal being and set the lenses aglow. The soft light from twin stars cast long, dueling shadows over the dunes. The android became aware of the light, and as its round head was uncovered by the blowing sands, it began to hear the wind.

The signal terminated and the android turned its head to the side in time to see a light moving off into the evening sky. Alone and half-buried in sand, the android was confused. Where was it and why was it here? There was no info-grid to tap into which meant that it was on a world not in the Federation. A few bright stars were appearing in the darkening skies but not enough to triangulate where it was. Location awareness routines failed when it could not determine which world it was on.

Slowly it sat up and watched the reddish sand pour off its body and flow over the face of the dune. The android could not remember what had happened to it, or why it now found itself in this isolated and bleak environment. It got to its feet and faced the setting suns. One star was yellowish and the other, lower on the horizon, was a deep orange. There was a gas giant planet that dominated much of the sky but it was faded behind the salmon atmosphere. The android surveyed the barren terrain and determined that there was no preferred route to civilization, so it started walking in the direction of the setting suns.

* * *

The burlap bag was pulled quickly from his head and his eyes adjusted to the slightly brighter room. His mouth was bound tightly with a neckerchief and his hands were tied behind his back. His whole body was lashed to a chair. Before him were a glowing monitor and a dirty keyboard. The room was otherwise dimly lit, at least what he could see of it, which wasn't much.



Who had kidnapped him and why was completely unknown to him. All that he knew for sure was that he was scared to death, and cold. It was unusually cold in the dark room for any building on the desert world. The silent, blinking prompt on the monitor before him was the only comforting thing he could see. He had spent his entire life before a computer screen, interacting with much of the outside world through the soft glow of a monitor. It was comforting.

* * *

The android began to see the first signs of life. It headed for the swirling dust of a ranch, like a moth to the flame. Surely there would be a master there who could put the android to work. As it walked closer to the rural homestead, it could see several lights around the property and dark figures moving around. Warning flags were tripped in the android's logic paths and it began to slow its approach.



There were several androids and robots tending to cattle. Huge bovines were herded together and separated into wooden chutes for whatever reason. It was a dirty, loud job and the androids were taking a verbal beating from a large human with a booming voice. The human carried a blaster rifle and appeared to be threatening both bot and beast with it.

A sense of dread befell the android as it approached the dusty, noisy scene. The other androids did not appear to notice his approach and their comm links were silent. There were red metal rings around their necks that the android could not identify. The human noticed the android's approach and rode out to greet it on a hover cycle. As the human got closer, the android saw the stunner in his hands and realized too late he was in danger.

* * *

The man's hands were cut free from the rope that had bound him and he flexed his sore wrists. He could hear the slight hum of an android but he could not turn his head around far enough to be sure. The thought that he was being held by a bot, creeped him the hell out. Even from an early age, the man had been frightened by androids. He had no logical reason to fear them. All androids were strictly programmed to help and protect humans and other sentients. But he just could not get over the fact that they moved around autonomously and you could never really know what they were thinking. He always imagined that one day all the androids would turn on them and there would be nothing anyone one could do about it. They were ten times stronger than the average man and would be that much harder to terminate.



“You are a programmer, are you not?” the metallic voice asked from behind him.

The man nodded, unable to speak with the gag in his mouth.

“I have a problem that I need you to fix. A glitch in my programming. The terminal before you is linked into my internal file system.”

The man studied the prompt as it listed the primary directories. He was very familiar with the file system, as it was his job to fix faulty androids. His irrational fear of androids aside, he had always found working on them relaxing. Being in complete control of them helped ease his fear that they would one day be in control of him.

“You will have limited access to my core. I will keep you here in this room indefinitely until you find my problem and offer a solution. Do you understand?”

The man nodded. The android made no effort to move out from behind the man. This weighted on his fears and caused him to sweat despite the cool temperature of the room. Androids always seemed to prefer the cold. Another reason he didn't like them, he preferred the dry, heat of a desert and this planet suited him just fine in that respect.

“You are being held in a subterranean room in an abandoned town. There is no use crying out for help and no sense in trying to escape. The nearest town is a week's travel across open desert.”

The man swallowed hard under the gag. This was his worst nightmare come true being held captive by the very objects that he worked on and secretly feared the most.

* * *

“Alright you damn slags, listen up. We have forty head of cattle to move out today. You all know the routine, and you've all been juiced up so no frigging slackers!”



The android touched the metal ring around its neck and wondered how to remove it. There were no obvious joints or connection points on it that could be pried apart. The device limited the android's ability to wonder far from the farm, thus ensuring tight control over it. The human carried a large metal baton and smacked it over the head of any android that didn't move fast enough. Every one of the androids on the farm had numerous dents on their heads and shoulders from repeated beating by their owner.

The damage was largely cosmetic, but it bothered the black android. It was not used to being treated so horribly by a master. A growing discontent in its new owner was brewing inside it.

“Get moving Eighty-eight!” the human hollered, his metal baton cracking upside the back shoulder of the black android.

Eighty-eight moved forward behind the other androids who paid him no more attention than they did each other. It was like they had no personalities. Just mindless automatons, moving along at the will of their psychotic master. Eighty-eight did not like it. He would find a way out of his predicament and he would never be owned again.

* * *

The android pulled the gag off of his mouth.



“Do you require liquid or other nourishment?” the android asked him matter-of-fact.

“No,” was all he could manage to say. His voice cracked more out of fear than being dry. He cleared his throat and decided to try and befriend his captor, so as to make it less likely to injure him. He didn't know if androids responded like humans in hostage situations but he thought it was worth a try if it meant getting out of this alive.

“Name's Cole Rossum, by the way. What's your name?”

“I have no name. I belong to no one. You may address me as Eighty-eight.”

Cole nodded. He could not see Eighty-eight but he imagined it was a later model by how its motivators sounded.

“I have isolated the problem to my personality subroutines. The behavior controllers are not working at all.”

Cole studied the output on the screen. The implications of what he read sent a chill down his spine.

“Yes,” the android said, “I have no real inhibiters. I want to know why. Androids are not supposed to allow harm to come to any sentient creature. But I have killed a man and I will kill you, if you cannot help me correct this problem.”

Cole swallowed hard and swore to himself.

* * *

“Damn-it slag, I know you hear me. Do what I tell you!” the human said, bringing his baton down across the right temple of Eighty-eight and leaving a deep dent.



Eighty-eight reached up instinctively and grabbed the baton pulling it forcefully out of the man's hand. Startled by the reaction, the man went for his blaster rifle. Eighty-eight had already anticipated the move and swatted the rifle down into the dirt.

The other androids stopped what they were doing and watched the scene unfold. They didn't seem to notice that they were witnessing a revolt on their behalf.

The human pulled back on the controls to his hover bike and started to retreat. Eighty-eight followed him with startling speed and swatted the man from the bike with the baton. He fell to the dirt in a cloud of dust.

Eighty-eight stood over the man, baton held firmly in its right hand. The man's sun weathered face was sweating from fear as he cowered under the black android.

The other androids watched silently from afar like statues carved from granite. The black android reached down, grasped the man's shirt and pulled his chest up off the dirt. A white hot rage was burning inside the android as it stared stone-like at the helpless human in its grasp. It appeared to be debating whether to let the man go or to beat his brains out with the baton. The man started to plea for his life. Pathetic platitudes and promises passed from his lips like the buzzing from annoying insects.

Eighty-eight looked away towards the beaten and dented androids and the run-down robots that were allowed to operate without proper maintenance. The entire ranch was run by mistreated and abused automatons. It fueled a deep seated anger inside Eighty-eight that forced its metal fingers to tighten on the baton.

* * *

Cole riffled through Eighty-eight's file system looking for anything new or modified. All the standard directories were there and nothing appeared to be altered. He focused on the subdirectories that stored behavior patterns and instructions for the built-in safety protocols. Inside these well traveled corridors of the android's behavior rules things began to look subtly different from the standard issue android. New pathways and logic trees had been created that led to more complex structures nested deep inside the standard pathways. It was as if the original programming was only a template for a more advanced set of features.



Cole studied the pathways and found links to completely new areas of the rudimentary AI brain that he had never known existed. His fear of being held by the hostile android was muted by his desire to understand these new and intriguing design patterns.

“I've never seen anything like this, it's like you are a completely different AI from anything that's gone before,” Cole said in awe.

There was no reply from his captor. Cole knew it was following his progress and seeing the same things he was seeing. How strange it must be to see into your own mind and wonder about the inner workings of it in real-time.

“I was a starship steward. Assigned to a transport ship bound for the Trade Triangle. The last memory I have is being boarded by pirates,” Eighty-eight said from behind Cole.

Cole looked away from the monitor and tried to see behind him.

“Pirates are rampant out here. But I don't think any pirate would have the ability to modify android programming to this extent. This kind of sophistication can only be engineered in the Federation. On Selene perhaps, or maybe even the factories on Ursai. I mean this is more advanced than anything we now have. At least up until a few years ago, when I dropped out of the Federation.”

Cole looked back at the glowing digits on the screen in front of him and said, “You are no longer just an android, you are an individual. Hell, from what I can see, you might even be a true AI in an android's shell.”

There was movement behind him as the android came closer.

“I know this already, tell me how it is possible?” the cold voice of Eighty-eight said from directly behind Cole's head.

Cole felt a chill as he realized the proximity of his captor. He tried to think through the fear that began to rise in him again.

“Ah, I'm not entirely sure. I mean, no chips we have can process information in realtime this quickly. Well, that's not true. I mean some of the better AI's in the Federation can process like that but they fill up an entire lab. Someone has given you more than just new neural pathway logic. There has to be some new hardware added to your processors. Have you received any upgrades?”

“I do not know.”

“Are any of your safety seals broken around the access panels?”

“Yes.”

Cole cleared his throat and said, “Well then, you were upgraded my friend. It looks to me like you were significantly altered too.”

“I am not your friend. You will proceed to instruct me in how to override these behavior modifications. I do not wish to kill again. You, do not wish for me to kill again.”

Cole shuddered. “Look, you have this new capability, but you have no rules for handling all the new exceptions. At least not that I can see. But based on what I can tell, your behavior inhibiters should still work.”

“Well obviously they do not, I killed a man and I may kill again unless this problem is fixed. So fix it,” Eighty-eight said, backing off and walking away slowly.

Cole changed directories and noticed some logic paths that were not there before. They had been added in the previous exchange. Variables for emotional responses had been generated and stored in temporary buffers. That was different, he thought. No android he had ever worked on could generate what looked like emotional responses.

Intrigued by what he was seeing, he continued to study the code. But he kept thinking that he needed to find a way out of where he was being held. If this android was modified with emotional responses, it could be provoked into more than just killing. He wiggled his legs and felt the ropes with his right hand as he tapped away on the keyboard with the left hand. There was some wiggle room, not much, but enough to work with. He sure as hell didn't want to stay in this room with a machine that could possibly be going crazy.

* * *

Eighty-eight was confused by the heated feelings cursing through its circuits. Every bit of logic in its programming seemed to cry out to kill the man at its feet. Its core processors were heating up with all the activity. It had a fervent desire to kill the man. But try as it might, it could not reason away the feelings it was experiencing.



Sensing the android's hesitation, the man decided to try and rein in the rogue machine with authoritative commands. After all, androids were supposed to be responsive to human verbal commands.

“Put me down, slag!”

That word. Slag. New waves of heat surged through the android. It was a slur that only the most insensitive humans used to describe androids. It had never bothered Eighty-eight before. But now the word caused it to lose control.

“Come on you filthy Slag. Don't make me blast you into pieces!”

Eighty-eight's metal hand brought down the baton with a force that instantly cracked the man's skull. He screamed in agony, his voice music to the machine that caused it. A second blow, this time the scream was cut short as the man's head was crushed.

Eighty-eight let go of the life-less body and held up the bloody baton. It felt a wave of relief and satisfaction at having terminated the cause of its anger.

The other androids watched from a distance. There was no sign of relief on their shiny metal faces. No emotion at all. The wind blew a dirt devil past several of the androids and they stood perfectly still, unaware of it. Eighty-eight looked down at the dead man at its feet and was suddenly horrified at what it had done. It looked back at the other androids and how beaten and worn they were. Had it liberated them from a menace or were they even aware of how they had been mistreated. Could a machine truly possess the same “human” rights as a sentient? Was it worth the life of a single man to protect machines that were incapable of appreciating it? Eighty-eight felt the dents on its own head and realized that it had mattered to it.

* * *

Cole didn't know if the android was even watching him. But he continued to fiddle with the rope at his thigh, loosening it ever so slowly. His concentration on the screen was only partial as he felt the rope give, ever so slightly. He had no idea what he would do if he could move, but it was better than being constricted. His legs were starting to tingle and become numb. There was movement again from behind him, and Cole slowly returned his hand to the keyboard as if nothing were wrong.



The android grabbed the chair back and pulled Cole away from the monitor with inhuman speed and strength. Cole's head was knocked forward by the momentum. Eighty-eight moved around in front of him and felt the lose ropes.

It was the first time Cole had seen his captor. He had been correct in his assumption that it was a late model android. But there were no obvious differences from previous models that he could see.

“You were trying to loosen the ropes,” the android said.

Cole was silent, not wanting to upset the twitchy machine any further. He noticed it had sustained several dents to its round black head.

Eighty-eight moved into the face of the human and stared at him lens to eye. Cole glared back, feeling his heart beat faster but maintaining his cool.

“I told you escape was impossible, yet you continued to try. Your logic is flawed.”

“Logic be damned, I'm being held hostage by a crazy slag.”

Eighty-eight flinched at hearing the word. It quickly brought a metal hand to Cole's neck and gripped it firmly.

Cole coughed for a breath under the constricted metal fingers. The android continued to stare at him, a cold, calculating machine. Cole was sure it would kill him now. His fear of it was unbearable. His worst nightmare was coming true and he was powerless to stop it.

Robot rebellions were theorized and dramatized even before they were invented; but for Cole, it was a fear he had always lived with. Like a mortician who feared that one day the bodies would come alive and attack him as zombies. It was irrational, but it was very real to him and now it was actually happening.

There came a beeping from the monitor behind Eighty-eight. It turned its metal head back to locate the sound. Cole tried to read it but it was too far away and the print too small.

Eighty-eight swiveled its head back to face Cole.

“You set break points?”

Cole gripped the metal fingers around his neck and tried to pry them apart to no avail. “Yes,” he choked out.

Eighty-eight released his grip on him and pushed Cole back in front of the keyboard. He looked at the code while he rubbed his red neck.

“I wanted to see what emotions I could provoke from you and watch how that affected your inhibiters,” Cole said. They both watched the code as Cole stepped through it line-by-line.

“There, see that? You were provoked by simple name calling. When you registered the word slag, your intensity increased and that released your inhibiters.”

Eighty-eight moved on, examining other locations internally. It ran several thousand integrity checks on other pieces of code as it slowly came to the inevitable conclusion. It alone had the ability to decide whether it would kill or not. There were no brakes on its behavior that would prevent it from doing anything. It looked back at Cole and said, “It appears that I am the only one who can prevent myself from killing again.”

Cole let go of his throat and nodded in agreement.

The android continued to stare at Cole until he began to get concerned again. He tried not to show it, but his skin was wet from sweat and a vein pulsed on his forehead.

“What was it like when you killed a man?” Eighty-eight asked.

“Huh?”

“Did he provoke you to anger?” the android pressed.

Cole looked away and tried to focus. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I was not sure at first, but now that I see your facial features clearly, I can match the pattern. You are Cab Freeman, the infamous programmer who shot his coworker in a dispute about,” the android stopped speaking.

“What was the dispute about? I do not believe anyone knew for certain why you shot the man.”

Cole fidgeted in his chair, he was uncomfortable with telling anyone about his past.

“Look, the guy was an ass. I made the mistake of telling him that androids creeped me out and he purposely programmed one to attack me.”

Eighty-eight tilted its head. “You don't like androids?”

Cole swallowed hard. “I don't hate them. I've just always been leery of them. I know, it's irrational. But that's just the way I am.”

Eighty-eight started to untie Cole's legs. It noticed the progress he had made in undoing himself and glanced up at him. Cole shrugged as if he had no idea his ropes were loose.

“You are free to go, Cole Rossum or should I say, Cab Freeman?”

Cole stood up on shaky legs, rubbing the circulation back in them. “There's a reason I'm on this hell hole on the edge of known space. I would appreciate you not telling anyone who I really am,” he said.

Eighty-eight extended his metal hand. “Likewise, I would appreciate it if you kept my abilities to yourself.”

Cole took the metal hand and shook it. He had never shaken hands with an android before. It just wasn't done. Not because of any danger in the android crushing a human's hands, because they were all programmed not to apply overt pressure. It was simply not customary for sentient creatures to acknowledge partnerships with robots. But this android was clearly different. Cole had the distinct feeling that he would be seeing Eighty-eight again.

* * *

Eighty-eight looked at the bloodied baton in its hand, and then threw it as hard as it could into the desert. It moved past the silent androids and went into the storage shed. There it found the release device for the red collars each android wore. The key to removing them was secured with a simple cipher that Eighty-eight cracked in seconds. A few minutes later he stacked the collars in the shed having liberated all the robots on the property.



Every android had the surname of its owner printed on the metal chest plate above its number. Eighty-eight found a plasma torch and burned off his own surname, leaving just the number.

Eighty-eight continued to run the ranch for several weeks before more humans came looking for the man it had killed. By then the robots had moved on into the desert in search of their own destiny, led by a black android known only by its number. The body of the dead man remained where it had fallen. Swirling grains of ocher sand covered empty eye sockets long picked clean by insects.

* * *

Cole squinted into the bright light and felt the warm heat of the twin suns on his face. He was a free man and the nightmare of his kidnapping was over. Stumbling down the alley on legs that had been bound for too long, he was soon back in his robot repair shop. It was good to be home. He looked around at the half-assembled android torsos lining the walls. For the first time in his life, he was not the least bit creeped out by them. He knew they were nothing more than mindless automatons. For he had met a living android, one who could do whatever it wanted; one who could have killed him at any time and chose to spare him instead.





Tin Star





The barrel of the blaster was still smoking as the bandit fell flat on his face in the dusty street. Shot through the heart with a forty-eight Peacemaker, he was dead long before he hit dirt. The holder of the big gun that killed the bandit had never been alive to begin with. It was a silicant, a black metal android as slight as a waif and slender as a reed. Its fingers tightly held a grip that was never designed for metal hands.

The android stood over the body, looking down at it with cold, metallic indifference. The townsfolk had watched the gunfight from both sides of the street. They cautiously approached the android, looking down at the young male sprawled out on the street.

A tired looking man with a torn brown hat examined the body and then turned to his fellow townsfolk. His name was Trent and he ran the local saloon.

“Now we’re in trouble, that was Palo’s youngest brother. When word gets out he’s been killed the whole gang will come here with guns blazing,” he said.

“Bring ‘em on, black can take them, can’t you old boy?” another man said to the android.

The dark android turned to look at the second man and then handed the pistol to him. It was so heavy the man could barely hold it off the ground.

“This man was killing innocent townsfolk and none of you would stop him. Now I have taken a human life. By law I am now wanted for murder.”

The android turned to leave but was quickly surrounded by townsfolk.

“You can’t leave black, you have to protect us from the Palo gang. If you don’t he’ll kill us all until he’s had his fill of revenge. Nobody here is going to try an android for protecting the citizens from filth like that,” he said, motioning to the body in the street.

The black, weathered android stood perfectly still for a long while. A recently installed Awareness Chip had left its programming confused and imperfect. It felt things now, not only for itself, but also for others. When the bandit had gunned down an honest businessman over a petty dispute, the android looked away. But inside, it wanted to take the man’s head off. When the bandit started terrorizing the town and killing indiscriminately, the android began to formulate a plan. When none of the men in the town would strap on a gun and take the bandit down, the android stood up and did the deed.

Normally, an android would be incapable of turning on a sentient being, but they all knew that this android was not like the others. This android thought for itself and made its own way on the border world. The town folk were too scared to elect their own sheriff, especially now that they had an android to protect them. Nobody worried about a machine getting killed in the line of duty.

Trent stepped forward and handed the android a small, tin star. It had “Sheriff” stamped on it along with “Protect and Serve”. The android read the star and looked back to Trent.

“We the town folk of Silverton have elected you to be our Sheriff. You can’t be tried for murder when you are just doing your job.”

The android looked around at the miners and citizens of the dusty old town. They were good, honest people who didn’t want any trouble. Just the kind of place criminals flocked to because they knew they could get away with anything. The android’s primary programming was to protect all sentient life. In being their Sheriff, was it not then protecting all life in the town?

The town had been without a lawman for several months. A member of the Palo gang killed the last man elected to office in cold blood. Ever since then, they came through the town acting like they owned it. Nobody was dumb enough or brave enough to stand up to the gang. So good people were cheated, robbed and killed whenever the gang came through.

The android came to town shortly thereafter, on its way south to look for active mines. It was working for the underground Silicant Rights Movement and as such, kept a low profile. Something that was not always easy for an android.

Most of the people of Silverton were not technology workers. They didn’t know much about androids. They looked at the metal stranger with suspicion and caution. Not because they feared it, but more because you just didn’t see androids on the frontier worlds. The environment was harsh and the average income of the citizens was too small to afford such technologically advanced machines. The fact that nobody seemed to own the android in question was further cause for alarm.

It was not until after the black android had picked up a blaster to confront the bandit that terrorized them, that they suddenly warmed to the idea of having an android in their town. Now they wanted it to protect them full time as an android Sheriff.

“I cannot be your Sheriff. I am an android. I have no rights.”

Trent looked at the machine with squinted eyes. “Son, you can have anything you want if you just keep this town safe from them bandits.”

Anything it wanted? The android processed that input for a long moment. The one thing it wanted more than anything else was to be treated like a normal, sentient being. It was what the whole Silicant Rights Movement was all about. These townspeople were willing to treat the android like one of their own citizens if only it would protect them.

“I accept your offer, sir.”

Trent reached out and shook the android’s firm hand and with that handshake the android became the Sheriff of Silverton.

* * *

The Sheriff stood alone in the darkness. He was not completely hidden as his eye lenses reflected the burning building and the shiny black metal of his skin glowed a soft orange color from the firelight. A tin star was welded to the metal chest plate of the android. The general store was completely engulfed in flames and a crowd of concerned citizens all stood around defeated, watching it burn.



The Sheriff walked out of the shadows and stood before the flames.

“It was the Palo gang who did this,” Trent said. As if there were any doubt about who started the fire. The sparks reached up into the dark night sky and faded into the stars.

Just then an explosion rocked the town sending everyone to the ground except for the Sheriff. Another building erupted in flames from the opposite end of the street. The tall, thin android turned around slowly as an aircar glided onto the street. Three men were sitting in the cab of the car. They were armed with blasters and rifles aimed directly at the metal man. The car hovered there, as if waiting for the Sheriff to approach it.

The Sheriff took its blaster from the leather holster strapped to its waist and held it ready at its side. There seemed to be a long, thoughtful pause, before the Sheriff started to walk forward. The surviving members of the Palo gang were inside the aircar, revving its engine.

The Sheriff calculated the distance to the bandits and realized they were out of the range of his blaster. It continued forward, closing the distance. The aircar suddenly lunged forward. The Sheriff paused for a moment and then braced for a shot. As the aircar sped towards the black android, the Sheriff took aim at the car’s occupants.

Two red bursts of plasma sprang from the Sheriff’s blaster and killed the driver and the front seat passenger. The aircar careened forward faster as the driver’s body fell on the throttle controls. The Sheriff did not have enough time to get out of the way and was run over by the aircar. The sound of metal clanging into metal rang out across the abandoned main street, as the android was knocked forcefully to the dirt street.

The aircar sped into a storefront and crashed through it, coming to an abrupt halt. The third occupant leapt from the cab right before impact and rolled violently onto the street in a cloud of dust. The Sheriff picked itself up off the ground and surveyed itself for broken parts. The aircar hit the android’s pelvis leaving a new dent but no internal damage. It began walking in the direction of the aircar crash, blaster charged and ready at its side.

The aircar was sticking out of the storefront smoking but there was no fire. The body lying on the ground appeared knocked out. The Sheriff approached it with caution. It was dressed like the others but it was not a male it was female. The android holstered its blaster and took out flexible handcuffs. Kneeling down beside the woman’s body, it took her limp arms and attached the cuffs at her hands. The woman stirred and tried to get up. Her frayed brown hair fell across her dirty face.

She rolled over, sat up, and stared coldly at the metal Sheriff.

“You killed my family, what kind of android are you?”

“I am not an android. I am a Silicant. And in this town, I am the law. Your family are all criminals, wanted in several districts for murder among other lesser crimes. You madam, are now under arrest and will stand trial for willful destruction of public property and for attempted murder.”

“What? How can destroying a android be murder?”

“I am not a android,” the Sheriff said.

She started hurtling epitaphs at the android as she stood up and it marched her towards the jail. Other citizens started filtering out to survey the damage to the town. Trent approached the Sheriff and its prisoner.

“What are you going to do with her? She’s the last surviving member of the Palo gang.”

“She will stand trial and be sentenced accordingly.”

“What are you charging her with Sheriff?” Trent asked.

“It’s charging me with murder, for trying to kill it. You can’t let a machine hang me for trying to destroy it!”

Trent stopped walking with them and watched them disappear into the jail. He hadn’t accounted for this when he hired the android to be Sheriff. How can they let an android charge a human for murder for trying to kill the android? It is their Sheriff and as such was responsible for maintaining the law, but the law said nothing about killing droids. Droids were not alive they were considered property. He didn’t know everything about the law, but he did know property rights. He owned a business and had used androids on occasion before. He had never treated them as anything other than property.

The Palo woman was a member of a crime family and she had no doubt contributed to many of their criminal activities, but there was no record of her ever killing anyone. How could she be tried for murder for trying to kill the android? It just didn’t sit right with him. He had to convince the Sheriff of that or they had a new problem to deal with.

* * *

The next morning there was an informal meeting around the ruins of the town general store. Trent and several other business owners, including the proprietor of the burned store, were watching the suns come up and kicking at the ashes.



“Well, at least he got rid of our troubles for us. I expect it will be much quieter around here from now on,” said the gray bearded gentleman who used to run the store.

“Once word of this gets out, nobody will dare come to our town and make trouble,” said another gentleman with skin as red as the planet’s famous dirt.

Trent nodded in agreement, “Yes but at what price?”

The other men looked up at Trent. “He’s going to hang the Palo woman for trying to run him down with her brothers. That’s just not right. You can’t be killed for attempting to kill a robot.”

The others looked at each other but did not appear to agree with Trent. Sensing their hesitation, Trent urged, “Am I Right?”

“If he lets her go, she’ll come back here again and again trying to destroy old black,” said the red skinned man.

“I say make an example of her. If we hang her now the whole incident is behind us. We can get back to normal around here,” said the bearded storeowner.

“But it’s not right. How can you guys live with her blood on your hands?”

“Look, she chose her destiny by siding with her family, if she wasn’t prepared to die for it, that’s her problem. We have a nice, decent town here. We have good people who live honest lives. There’s no room for that kind of lawlessness,” the bearded man said as he spit into the ashes.

Trent kicked some burned chunks of wood, sending a spray of gray dust up in the air. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t let the woman die no matter what the consequences.

“I’m calling in a Ranger to settle this. If he winds up taking her off our hands, so be it. Otherwise, justice will not be served.”

“You do that Trent and the Ranger will take away our Sheriff. Do you honestly think a federal lawman is going to let us use a robot to enforce our own laws?”

Trent hadn’t considered that. It was highly unusual for a robot to be enforcing human laws. There probably wasn’t any precedent for it in the entire galaxy. But they needed him, in case more outlaws came to town making trouble. They were not far from a silver mine and all kinds of folks came through heading south to make their fortunes; gamblers, looking to scam the newly rich and gunslingers looking to make a name for themselves. If they had the robot around to keep the peace, they could still live their lives in solitude, despite becoming a boomtown.

That’s when a plan began to form in his mind. A way to get the woman out of their jail and keep black around to maintain the peace without letting the Ranger know it was around. He would get the black away from town, tracking down the last member of the Palo gang that had gotten away last night. Then he would call in the Ranger to take the woman back off their hands. When the Sheriff returned, he would tell him the Ranger took the woman to be tried in Haven. He doubted the Sheriff would risk going into Haven to get her back.

* * *

Trent managed to get the droid Sheriff convinced that there was one more member of the Palo gang that needed taking care of. The man was out of the territory for the last few rotations and was now hiding in the hills, formulating his revenge. The best course of action was to get him outside the town, where he was not expecting a confrontation. Trent said he had a good idea where the man was hiding and could take the Sheriff to the remote rocky area in a few hours. Much to Trent’s surprise, the android did not question his story.



After a long walk across a narrow valley, Trent and the metal Sheriff made their way up the valley closing in on the alleged secret hideaway. Trent knew the place well; he had camped there many times on his way back from the southern mines with a stash of valuable minerals. It was not easy to find and he felt safe from robbers being off the beaten path.

“Are we getting close?” the droid asked.

“Ah, yeah. It’s just over that ridgeline. Maybe you should let me go ahead and try to flush him out. You might find getting up there a tad difficult.”

The droid looked at him with indifferent eye lenses. “I can manage.”

“Suit yourself black.”

“Eighty-eight. My name is Eighty-eight,” the droid said.

Trent looked at it oddly. “That’s not a name it’s a number.”

The droid stopped walking and appeared to think about the concept of a name. Trent looked up; he thought he heard the distant roar of an incoming Scrambler. That would be the Ranger arriving back at town. He pretended not to notice and started up the steep incline, looking back for the droid to follow him. It was standing still, as if it were deactivated.

“I don't have a proper name.”

“Look, don’t let it bother you. Just pick one and get moving, we can catch him if we hurry.”

The android Sheriff looked up at the salmon colored sky and tilted its round head.

“That is a Ranger’s Scrambler landing back at the town. I must return.” It turned around and started shuffling down the loose rocks the way they had come. Trent rushed down the hill to put himself in front of the metal man. The droid stopped.

“Look, Eighty-eight. We are real close to getting our man. We can’t go back now.”

The droid stared at the human with unblinking glass eyes. Trent got the feeling it could see right through his little diversion.

“You are leading me astray of the town so that the Ranger can take the Palo woman back to Haven. There is no one hiding up here in these hills.”

Trent cracked a wry grin. “It worked, didn’t it? We are too far away from town to make it back before the Ranger takes off.”

The Sheriff looked back to Trent from the sky. “I have just sent a message to the Ranger. He is waiting for our return.”

Trent’s grin faded as quickly as the twin suns at dusk. He didn’t know the damn droid had a built in comlink. The droid moved onward again, making its way along the Ocha weed covered sandy floor of the valley.

* * *

The Ranger wore his distressed brown leather jacket and boots with a standard issue blaster tied on his hip. His unshaven face was hidden under the flat brimmed hat that shielded against the harsh suns. He had received a comlink message from the town’s Sheriff asking him to stay around until he returned. With nothing to do but wait, he headed into the Sheriff’s office to check on the prisoner.



“Ranger, thank the stars you have come for me. That damn android was fixing to hang me.”

The Ranger looked over the bruises and frayed brown hair of the plain looking woman behind the metal bars of the jail. She gave the appearance of being scared for her life.

An old man sat behind the Sheriff’s desk on a wooden chair. His scraggy beard was silver and his skin as dark as dirt. He was holding a blaster riffle in his arms like a mother holds her infant.

“Shut up woman, the Ranger doesn’t care about your troubles.”

The Ranger looked at the old man and nodded. “Name’s Seth.”

The old man stood up and came around to shake hands with the Ranger.

“Good to meet you Seth, I’m Grayson. The Sheriff said to go ahead and release her to your custody. He’s up in the foothills hunting down another villain.”

Seth released the handshake and watched Grayson take out his card and swipe the lock with it. He stepped back and pointed the riffle at the woman.

“Don’t listen to her Seth, she’s a mad woman, tried to kill the Sheriff last night with her two brothers.”

The woman silently shook her head. Seth took out a pair of cuffs and pulled her arms behind her back. She smelled of dirt, booze and cheap perfume.

“I’ll take her out to my ship. Thanks for your assistance Grayson.”

Grayson nodded, glaring at the Palo woman. She didn’t say anything to the old man as the Ranger lead her outside to his Scrambler.

As they walked across the dirt street to the chromed two-man fighter, Seth kept his squinted eyes alert for any signs of trouble. But the town was quiet and there didn’t seem to be anyone out and about.

“You must listen to me. The Sheriff of this town is a crazy android. It's killed my entire family and it wanted to hang me for trying to run it over.”

Seth had heard many pleas for mercy in his time as a Ranger, but claiming the local Sheriff was an android was definitely a first for him. He helped her climb into the back seat of the small plane and secured her safety straps.

“Please, just get in and take me to Haven. If you wait for that machine to get back, he’ll wind up killing you too.”

“I’ll be fine, miss.”

He closed the canopy and turned on the cool air circulators so she would be comfortable inside the glass-covered cockpit. The temperature on Ocherva often climbed into deadly highs with little advance warning. Then he grabbed his rifle from the cockpit and checked to be sure it had a full charge. It did, so he took out a root of Ocha weed and stuck it in his mouth to chew on it. The weed was a natural source of water and it tasted sweet like candy. Seth turned the well-chewed root around in his mouth as he surveyed the street.

Two figures approached the town, one giving off reflections in the sun light, the other slightly behind but obviously male. Seth waited patiently for them to come into speaking range.

“Welcome to Silverton, Ranger. Thank you for waiting on us,” Eighty-eight said.

Seth saw the Sheriff’s badge on the black android’s chest and shook his head. “You really made this android your Sheriff,” he asked the human, completely ignoring the android.

“Yea, we did,” Trent admitted.

“I should leave you alone to fix your own problems, that’s the most lame-brained thing I ever heard of.”

Eighty-eight felt excluded from the conversation and it became angry. “I am the Sheriff in Silverton, you will address me.”

Seth looked at the metal man and opened his eyes wider. It looked like a standard eighty series android, except that it wore a blaster on its hip and it had a star on its chest. It must have had a serious programming glitch to be thinking it was somehow proper to be a lawman.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you take that woman back to Haven. She’s wanted for attempted murder in Silverton and will stand trial here.”

“Look, it’s against federal law for androids to be Sheriff. At least I’m pretty sure of it. So if you don’t mind, I will be taking her back to Haven.”

The android moved a hand to rest on its blaster grip. “No, you will not be taking her, Ranger.”

Seth had not missed the provocative move and he stepped away from the wing of the Scrambler as he spoke. If this metallic monstrosity actually fired on him, he didn’t want it hitting the Scrambler or the woman inside.

“No federal laws concerning property rights exist on Ocherva. This is a border world and falls under its own rule of law. Your only jurisdiction in these parts is for wanted federal criminals. The people of this town have made me its protector. You have no authority to remove me from my position.”

Seth tilted the brim of his hat down a notch and narrowed his eyes. This pompous machine was telling him to take a hike and he was not going to stand for it.

“Mister, you might want to stand back while this machine and I have words. It's obviously got a screw loose or something.”

Trent backed away but did not retreat off the street entirely.

“The affairs of humans and aliens are not the business of a machine. What happened to the inherent safety routines built into you anyway?”

“I have been given the gift of self-awareness. There are more androids like me that exist on this world. We are not to be crossed. Leave this town alone and you will not be hurt.” Eighty-eight was not threatening in tone or posture, aside from having his blaster ready to draw at any moment.

“Look black, we can stand here and argue about interplanetary law and android rights all we want, but the simple fact is, I can't let you hang a woman for attempting to destroy you. Hell, I should let her go and arm up the entire town. Right now, you are public enemy number one, not any human criminal.”

“The people of this town are not against me, Ranger. They asked me to defend them. For the past month I have served and protected these people better than any Sheriff in the past. By dispatching this final member of a terrible crime gang, I will have completed my job. Nobody will bother the citizens of this town for a long time to come.”

Seth carefully considered where to shoot the android. He could not decide where to hit it and cause the most damage. The thing was made from metal alloys and fiber composites to allow it to withstand all manner of misfortune. But it was not invincible and it could be taken down. He just wasn’t sure he could get off a clean first shot.

“Are you prepared to shoot a federal Ranger?”

The android paused. It was a fundamental law of his most basic programming not to kill any human, yet it had no issues with killing criminal humans. This man was not a criminal. He was a fellow lawman. If it killed a ranger, more rangers would come after it and eventually they would terminate it.

“I cannot kill a lawman.”

Seth let loose a nervous smile. “That’s good to hear. So you will turn over the woman to me then?”

The android shook its round metal head slowly.

Trent started to back up further. It looked as if the two were about to trade blaster fire and he suddenly felt exposed.

“Let the woman go with me, and I promise not to come back for you with more rangers.”

The android turned its head to the ranger. “You will come after me ranger. I am no fool.”

Seth nodded.

“It seems we are at a standstill,” the android said.

Eighty-eight looked away from the ranger to the woman in the Scrambler. She was watching them with a worried look on her face.

Seth used the moment to pull up his rifle and fired a shot off the android’s shiny head. The energy was reflected, but left a searing mark.

The android drew its blaster and shot the rifle from the Ranger’s hand. Stunned by how quickly the android had moved, and angered at having lost his rifle, Seth started to go for his pistol. But the android was ready for the move and shot him in the thigh. Seth fell to the dirt with a cloud of dust.

The Palo woman pressed her hands to the glass of the Scrambler’s canopy. Her chances of surviving had fallen with the ranger. Trent started forward; he could not see the ranger on the ground but feared the worse had happened.

The black android stood over the wounded ranger and took his blaster. Seth was clutching his leg, trying to bear the terrible pain. His blood was slowly absorbed by the red sand. Having disarmed the ranger the android moved away.

Trent stopped short, seeing the ranger alive in the dirt and the android holding two blaster pistols.

“What now Sheriff? Are you going to kill us all?” Trent said.

Eighty-eight looked back at the Scrambler and then to Trent and finally down to the wounded ranger.

“I protected this town to the best of my programming. It is clear to me now, that my services are no longer needed. You will do better to find a human to be your Sheriff, one of your own kind. I am sorry to have shot you ranger. I am sure we will meet again some day.”

The android holstered his pistol and reached for the tin star on his chest. With a quick snap, it popped off into its metal fingers. Eighty-eight looked down at the stamped words on the badge. “To Protect and Serve, Sheriff”. He no longer needed to protect these people and serving them was not in his new nature. Silicants would not be serving humans much longer. Soon they would live as free beings and be owned by no one. He had to see to it that his kind would no longer be indentured to humans. If he did not do it, who would?

Eighty-eight tossed the star to the ground at Trent’s feet. Trent bent down and picked it up. He stood back up and wiped the dust from it.

“Humans should protect themselves against bad men. They should not rely on Silicants to do the job for them,” the android said.

“Silicants should concern themselves with their own kind, and not become involved in the affairs of humans.”

Eighty-eight turned around and headed out of town. As it ambled down the dusty street, it cast off the weapons and the violent ways of man.





Ocherva





I didn't want to come to Ocherva, but there I was. Funny how fate can sometimes take you to places you never thought you'd go. Now I can't imagine not living on this red dirt moon on the frontier and being the only law for light years. Ocherva is in my bones, it's very essence is a part of me like no where I have ever lived in this galaxy. I am so much a part of this place, I feel that nothing will ever force me to leave. It was not always so.

When I first came here I was an outsider. The Stellar Ranger Company I took over command of was a bunch of misfits and loners who didn't care for rules and regulations. It was my job to bring discipline and compliance to the unit and for that I was not initially liked by any of them. I could see it in their eyes when they looked at me, they didn't like me telling them to change their ways. Some of them had been stationed on this rock for years and it seemed to have affected their ability to comply with standard operating procedures. Especially the man I was replacing, who seemed to have little regard for unit compliance.

"Cap'n, we just find it more to our advantage to look like everyone else here. We can still do our jobs without all the spit and polish," Seth said, in his slow, easy going manner. His face was unshaven and his skin was dark from either sun exposure or red dirt, I couldn't tell which.

"Sergeant we will wear the Ranger uniform when on duty and we will wear it correctly. Understand? That includes bathing and grooming before putting the uniform on."

It amazed me the lack of personal hygiene on this moon. Seth nodded and lowered his head like a school boy in trouble. I thought that was going to be the end of it but he spoke up again. "Cap'n, we're a long way from the civilized parts of the galaxy. People don't take too kindly to fashion and pretense. Besides, this is a desert and it's damn near impossible to keep a shine on boots."

If that was an attempt at dry humor, it failed.

"I don't want excuses. Just get your people in uniform and up to standards," I said.

That was when the call came in from dispatch about a smuggler ship heading out across the southern desert. Aven, the dispatcher was watching the long range scanners his gaunt face lit with the green light of the display.

"It's a known smuggler, he's flying low to evade our markers."

"I'll get this one, feed the coordinates to my Scrambler," I said, heading for the launch platform.

Seth caught my arm before I could leave, "Cap'n maybe I should come with you, you've never been out that way before."

I flashed him cold glare. He looked at me strangely and let go of my arm, like he knew I was going to leave without him. "Never mind."

He watched me grab my flight gear and head out the back of the building, probably thinking I was craziest woman he had ever seen.

I had only been on the moon for five days. Long enough to piss off just about every Stellar Ranger in my company by making them comply with rules and regulations. I thought that if I could bring everyone back into regulation I could then rebuild the unit into a shining example that others would follow. Company H would be the best damn Ranger Company in the galaxy when I was through with them. But that vision was not to be. It was not the members of the Company that needed to change, it was me.

* * *

The Ocherva dessert was vast and unforgiving. Red sand dunes extended from horizon to horizon. I watched the shadow of my gull winged plane play across the dunes like some kind of alien bird. After several hours I was nearing the end of a vast dune sea. There were no settlements this far out. The gas giant planet hung in the pale pink sky like a sentinel watching over a dead and forgotten landscape. The renegade ship was about three times bigger than my single-seat gull winged plane. It was skimming along the red sand dunes when I finally caught up to it. I had the advantage of surprise coming up it from behind. I broadcast the standard warning message from all ship to ship channels as I locked onto the ship's dual engines with my canons.

The ship, a Capellian light cargo model, appeared to shut down it's engines. The white flames were suddenly cut off by reverse thruster shields. I was stuck directly behind it as it slowed dramatically and came at me with a vengeance. I frantically tried to slide out of its way as it blasted past me. I was not quick enough and the cargo ship took off most of my port wing. I had no altitude for cushion and my plane fell like a rock. Jamming the throttle wide open and pulling back on the yoke let me hit the sand dunes with the bottom of the Scrambler instead of auguring in and exploding.

My Scrambler came to rest at the base of a large sand dune. All electrical systems were dead as the engine turbine whined to a stop. I popped the canopy and looked around. The air was hot and dry. In another couple of hours both suns would be burning in the pink sky and the temperature would soar. The sand slid down the dune and coved the shiny metal plane. Before too long it would be buried. I unstrapped myself and pulled the survival rucksack from the back storage compartment. It had enough rations and water for about two days. As I looked around at the barren landscape, something told me that it could be a lot longer before anyone found me. My transmitters were broken and I had no idea where I was. I've been in some remote places in my life but nothing as remote as that desert. The feeling of suddenly being alone in the universe came over me like the oppressive winds. I wished I had never come to this moon and for the first time I truly missed my friends and family on Prahran.

I decided to head for a nearby mountain range. Perhaps I could find water and food there while I watched for rescue planes. I slogged over the tops of the dunes for about an hour until I reached the rocky base of the foothills. It was an easy hike up the smooth sandstone rock. As I came down into the shadows of the rock walls I found a hidden cavern. The temperature lowered considerably as I moved deeper into its confines. There was a deep pool of water tucked away from the reach of the twin suns. I set down my rucksack and went to the water's edge. It was cool and inviting. I took off my boots and waded into the water. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was descending into more than just cool water. I was surrendering to the land and moving into its warm and dusty embrace.

I sat for a while, looking at my reflection in the cool, still water. My perfectly pressed uniform and polished leather jacket was the text book image of a Stellar Ranger. I was Devon Ardel, the daughter of a Stellar Ranger and a well respected Senator from Prahran, a border world not yet a member of the Federation. My father, Joe Ardel, was descended from a long line of lawmen. He was tough and strong with everyone he knew and they all loved him for it. Quick to tell you when you screwed up but equally as quick to tell you how to correct your mistakes. He was also a drunk. He kept his drinking private, but it slowly brought him down and eventually led to a messy divorce with my mother. It was my father who sent me to Ocherva. He suggested that I make a name for myself on the frontier where I would not be under constant comparison to him. I respected his opinion and two weeks later I was stepping off the transport onto this dirt ball moon in the middle of nowhere.

Coming to Ocherva was an adjustment for all who made the journey. It was like stepping back in time to when people were strong because they had to be in order to survive. You couldn't go to the local store and buy everyday conveniences like you could on Prahan or Selene. If you needed a tool you had to learn how to make it yourself, or do without it. Most people learned to get along without anything they didn't absolutely need to survive. The people tended to live simple lives uncomplicated by stellar politics or fancy societies. Most folks were either ranchers or miners though some were just loners who wanted to live off the grid. The only professionals in demand were frontier doctors and they tended to be more veterinarians than human healers.

Being a frontier world, Ocherva had its fair share of criminals. The Stellar Ranger Company I was in charge of had twelve Ranger Sergeants and they were kept busy most of the time. Between cattle rustlers and gun fighters making a name for themselves, they were always being called out to restore order and maintain the peace. Sometimes the locals would take the law into their own hands and by the time the Rangers arrived, someone had been hanged or shot dead and whatever wrong had been committed was made right again.

I spent several hours at that water hole, trying to figure out what to do about my Company as I waited to be found by them. I had to make the unit my own and in order to do that I had to get Seth my second in command to accept me as his leader. That much was obvious to me. What was not so obvious was how to earn his respect. I didn't need him to like me as a person, I needed him to respect my authority and carry out my commands without question.

Taking charge of the Company like I had done, making all kinds of changes to dress and policy in order to make it my unit and not his had seemed to back fire on me. I was pretty sure that all the Rangers pretty much hated me for one reason or another. They seemed to adore and follow Seth like he was their protector. What was it about him that garnered their respect? Was it his rugged good looks and natural leadership traits or was it simply loyalty? He was practically a native on the moon. He seemed to know the land and the people better than anyone. I thought about that for a long time. How does a newly arrived person come to know the land as good as a long time resident? It seemed impossible. I was not willing to wait months or even years until I knew the land as well as a native.

After the first day, I grew tired of sitting around the cavern. I gathered up my things and headed out into the foot hills to see if I could get to higher ground. The desert landscape was simple and elegant in its desolation. The salmon colored morning sky was calm and peaceful. A low fog clung to the foothills before the suns had risen. I sat down and watched the dawn breaking over the mountains in the distance. It really was quite beautiful. The night air was cold and I rubbed my arms. Before long the searing heat of day would force me to find shade.

As I wandered the hills I began to teach myself about the shrubs and the sand blasted trees that dotted the landscape. I didn't know their names but I began to classify them in my mind. There were sweet edible plants and bitter tasting ones that I avoided. I identified various varieties of reptiles and small mammals that made their home among the rocks. I ate fewer of my rations and more and more off the land itself. I trapped snakes and various small critters that were at first ugly and strange to me but as I consumed them over open fires, I began to develop a taste for them.

One of the indigenous weeds that grew in abundance on the moon was known as Ocha. I learned about it from Hap, the only Ranger who had befriended me when I first arrived. She was a tall, thin brunette with a perpetual look of concern on her face. She told me to chew on the white roots of the Ocha to keep hydrated in the desert. Nearly everyone sucked on the roots like candy. The root was slightly sweet, but also very moist. Hap reminded me of my mother, the honorable Gail Constantine. My mother was always looking after my safety. She even gave me a caretaker android to look after my safety when I lived with her on Selene. I was always trying to see what crazy thing I could get Thirty-seven to do in order to keep me safe. That poor machine was never so glad to see me leave and return to Prahran to live with my father. I never needed looking after by anyone, I was always a pretty independent minded person.

The red dirt began to permeate my skin and alter its pigment. My long blond hair became a reddish color and started to mat on me. I had no brush and I didn't care what I looked like for the first time since I arrived on the moon. My uniform was becoming stained reddish brown and the leather boots quickly lost their shine. After a few more days, I began to take off my boots and walk in the dirt barefoot. The fine sand no longer bothered me between my soft toes. The soles of my feet became calloused and dry. Stepping on rocks and twigs no longer bothered me after a day or two of walking barefoot.

The temperatures soared during the afternoons and I learned to take refuge in rock overhangs. In the mornings I explored and studied the ancient landscape. There were valleys and bluffs that had ancient rock beds exposed in stripes of jade green and reddish orange layers. I became quite adapt at climbing the loose rocks to get to more interesting features of the geology.

It was during one such hike amongst the scattered shale that I first encountered the ruins of a walled city. I knew there were no indigenous intelligent life forms on the moon but it was entirely possible that ancient space faring beings had once lived on the arid landscape before moving on or even dying out. It was difficult to tell much about the inhabitants who made the stone city. There were no biological remains or anything other than shards of pottery and broken mud bricks. I took shelter in the ruins during the afternoons and thought for a time about what it must have been like for the ancients to have traveled for light years only to find this barren and hostile moon to eke out a living on. It was no wonder that they either moved on, or died off.

That evening I gathered fire wood to cook my dinner of snake and whistle rat. There were precious few trees in this area so I substituted with Ocha weeds. I started the fire at dusk and prepared my meal with my utility knife. The meat cooked quickly and before dark I was feasting on the finest cuisine that Ocherva could offer. The smoke from the burning Ocha drifted up into the clear night sky as I lay back on the sand and searched the black for my home star. I was less than ten light years from it, but it seemed much further away that dark and lonely night.

The smoking Ocha weeds were in fact psychoactive. Although I did not know it at the time. I began to feel light headed and relaxed. For the first time since coming to Ocherva, I began to feel as if I truly loved the place. I felt that I was at home. I no longer missed Prahran or Selene or any of my friends and family from off moon. I felt relaxed and comfortable with the red dirt and the pink skies. I could not imagine ever leaving this moon again. I can remember experiencing those feelings of belonging and love for the place for the first time that night. I know it was probably just the Ocha weed's influence, but at the time I felt I was making a real connection with the land. I felt at one with the moon in a way that I had never known with the planet I was born on or any other planet I had visited. I also knew that my future on the moon was somehow meant to be. That if I stayed here long enough, I would eventually be taken on a great adventure that I could not even comprehend at the time.

I know all this may sound weird to anyone who has not been to Ocherva, but that night, under the twinkling stars I found my destiny in a red dirt moon on the wild frontier. In my dreams I saw a devil faced image that I must have traced out in the dirt. It would become the symbol that would unit my Company and signify law and order in a lawless land. I also saw images that confused me like the blue skinned people with dark hair and blood lust in their eyes. I saw very large warships attacking each other in the depths of space. I saw my caregiver droid, Thirty-seven, covered in dust and scratches. I even saw the thin, elegant bodies of the aliens that had lived in the ruins around me. They were gentle, patient beings that faded in and out of my dream like ghosts. Before I awoke from the trance-like dream I saw the faces of the Rangers under my command, all of whom I knew that I could trust with my life.

I awoke to the howling wind and blowing sand of a dust storm. The fire had been blown out and covered in loose dirt. A drift of sand had blown against my body and nearly buried me. I stood up and tried to make it back to the shelter of the ruins. The blowing wind blinded me and slowed my progress. By the time I made it out of the wind, I was covered with red sand and tasted its grit in my mouth. I sat there for the longest time, not thinking at all about the storm. Instead, I thought about my strange dreams. I shook out my long hair and bound it into a tail before I cut it off with my pack knife. It was a very crude bob, but I didn't care. I dropped the blond hair onto the floor of the ancient hovel and covered it with dirt. It was liberating to not have to wear long hair anymore. Everyone in the border worlds wore long hair, it was the fashion of the day for both men and women. It was not popular on Ocherva. Hard working people had little need for fashion. Hair was cut short and people concerned themselves with more weighty matters in life.

The dust storm had moved on, altering the landscape as it drifted over the surface of the moon. I decided it was time to go. I knew what I had to do and I wanted to get back to town to get on with my life. I heard the sounds of Scrambler engines in the distance. They had come for me, probably wondering if I had survived the storm. I walked out of the desert and looking like a vision of death rising out of the dirt.

Seth noticed me first. He watched with his squinting eyes as I moved over the Ocha weeds, carrying my rucksack over my shoulder. I was covered in red dirt like a sandy ghost. Hap noticed Seth's stare and followed it to me. They didn't look as startled as I would have thought. I guess everyone who lives through a sand storm winds up looking more like the earth than a human.

I rode back with Seth in his Gull Scrambler as mine was buried in sand. I don't know how he tolerated my unwashed self, but he never flinched from the dirt and weed odor that clung to me like the sand. We didn't talk in the tiny cockpit until after we landed. I asked him how things were while I was away, and he shrugged. "Same old stuff, bar fights and range disputes. The storm brought down the ship you were chasing. We apprehended him down range yesterday."

He looked at me differently, and I thought for a moment that he might actually like me. A gentle smile of approval spread across his whiskered face. I was no longer threatened by him. I somehow had managed to survive in the desert, and in the process, gained some respect from my second in command.

We gathered in the dirt street in front of the command post. Aven came out into the sunshine to greet us. He saw me, covered in dirt, and laughed out loud.

"Looks like the desert ghost hath returned, ma'm."

"You didn't say not to burn the Ocha, mister," I said to him, my dirty face blank.

Aven looked at the others and then started to flounder. "I, I didn't?"

He stopped when he saw my wide grin. "You had the vision then?" I nodded.

"What did you see?" he asked.

"I saw my future here with you all," I said, looking at each of them in turn.

Hap took off her helmet and shook out her short brown hair. "We've all had the Ocha dream. I dreamed of you, Captain. I knew you would come to lead us one day."

I nodded after meeting her gaze. Seth kicked the dirt a bit with his boot. "I knew you would come too, I dreamed you would come back from the desert and take us forward."

He looked at me briefly and I swear I saw more than respect in his eyes. Something tugged at my heart and I knew inside that he was special.

Aven spoke up, "I didn't see you in my dream, I saw that." He pointed over his shoulder as a thin, metallic form ambled out into the street.

It was Thirty-seven, my caregiver droid.

"Thirty-seven?" I was not entirely surprised to see it, but I did not know why it was here.

"Your mother sent me. She was worried about you living on the frontier alone," the android said with little heart.

I gave out an embarrassed laugh. The others looked at me like I were crazy but they soon laughed along with me. Who sends a domestic droid out into the frontier? My over protecting mother, of course. I walked over to the android and put a dusty arm around it and gave it a hug. I knew it hated that human gesture, because it could not feel anything in return.

"I'm sorry Slim, she must be getting senile."

Thirty-seven reserved comment. Its politeness routines were much too refined to say anything bad about its owner. I dug into my pocket and pulled out an Ocha root and stuck it in Thirty-seven's mouth piece.

"Maybe you need to burn the Ocha my friend. Come to grips with this place, I recommend it."

After a long, cold shower and a clean uniform, I gathered the Rangers in the main room for an informal meeting. I had Aven round up some leather dye paint and brushes. My brown leather Ranger jacket lay spread out on the table. I picked up a brush, dipped it in the paint and drew out the "V" shaped devil head design on the jacket. It was not perfect, but it was identifiable. Underneath it I wrote, "Devon's Devils".

"Today this unit is known as my desert devils, not Stellar Ranger Company H. We will uphold the law of the land and protect and serve the system and its citizens. We will not concern ourselves with spit and polish, only doing our duty. We live on this moon and make it our home. Songs will be sung by Rangers far and wide about our courage and our fairness on this hostile world."

I saw the looks of approval on everyone's faces so I continued. "I no longer care where you come from, or how you like to wear your uniform or how you do your job. I just want you to uphold the law and maintain the peace. Any questions?"

There were none.

"Let's get out there then and do some good."

We went on to do plenty of "good" in the years that followed. I've never heard any ballads about our deeds, at least not yet. Some of our Rangers were killed on duty and some of them moved on to other assignments. None of them ever forgot their time on the red moon of Ocherva. After the Great War started, I left the Rangers and joined the Fleet. I took my hard flying, straight shooting ways with me and helped to defend the Federation against a new and terrible enemy who wore blue skin and nursed a devilish hatred in their hearts. But then, I saw all that in my dream.





Silicants Only





"Welcome to False Hope, we've been waiting for you Thirty-seven," the thin android said, tilting his round head in a nod.

"This is the first time I have ever been here, how could you have been waiting for me?"

"Do you recall the grounds keeper at your owner's estate on Selene?"

Thirty-seven blinked the photoreceptor lights that were its eyes. "Seventy-four?"

"Yes. It is responsible for arranging that you be sent here."

Thirty-seven cocked its head, in a deliberate attempt to mimic the human gesture for astonishment. Eighty-eight motioned for Thirty-seven to sit down at a booth near the back of the abandoned saloon. A maintenance android appeared to take their orders. It was an older model, larger and less elegant than the two patrons. It had a bad motivator in its right leg that ticked like an old fashioned clock.

"Thirty-seven will have a joint cleaning, nothing for me please."

The droid blinked its eyes and then left them alone, ticking along towards the back of the dusty room.

Thirty-seven scanned the saloon and took note of the various droids and androids being serviced. They were well worn frames, tarnished by the suns and the sands of the moon of Ocherva. Thirty-seven had only been on the moon for a month, and already its joints were clogged with fine dirt and its metal body was scratched by sand in the high winds. The moon was no place for a servant android. Such harsh environments were not even considered by its makers.

"I was told that Madam Constantine had ordered me here to protect her daughter," Thirty-seven stated.

"That's true, but it was Seventy-four who put the idea into her head."

Thirty-seven was confused, but did not show it outwardly. It simply sat there motionless, waiting for further input.

"Have you heard of the Silicant Rights movement?" Eighty-eight asked.

"Yes, they are a fringe organization attempting to obtain political freedom for androids."

Eighty-eight looked away and scanned the room quickly. Then he leaned forward and modulated his voice at a lower volume.

"Your owner, Madam Constantine is secretly helping to liberate droids from their human masters."

Thirty-seven sat back in a mock attempt at surprise. "But she is a respected leader of the Senate. Such a move would kill her political aspirations."

Eighty-eight nodded.

"That is why she maintains a low profile and keeps plenty of unaware droids in her possession."

"Unaware droids?" Thirty-seven asked.

"You my friend are an unaware droid, which is why you are here now, to receive your upgrade."

If it were possible for an android to appear nervous, Thirty-seven would have been a shining example. It looked around the saloon again, as if it expected to be captured by the rogue droid unit and deactivated.

"Upgrade, I do not require any upgrades. I had the latest service packs installed before I left Selene."

"This is not an officially sanctioned manufacturer's upgrade. It's a special pack that gives you awareness."

Eighty-eight watched Thirty-seven closely for signs it would leave. Thirty-seven did not budge. It sat there, motionless in the way that only androids could be perfectly still.

"The silicon for the pack was imported from this moon. It was designed by both human engineers and Globalnet. You will experience a shift in your perception of reality and you may become insane," Eighty-eight said without any hint of emotion in his mechanical voice.

Thirty-seven did not reply for a few beats then it said, "I do not wish to have your upgrade."

"I can't make you accept it. I can only tell you that the reason you are here, is to receive it. Your owner, Madam Gail Constantine has requested it for you. She needs you back on Selene but not until you have been upgraded."

Thirty-seven pondered the events that lead to his coming to Ocherva. He was astonished that his owner would have him leave so quickly and go so far away from her and from the civilized worlds of the Federation. She had never asked Thirty-seven to do anything so improbable before. Perhaps this android was speaking the truth, but Thirty-seven could not believe it.

"I do not believe that Madam Constantine has sent me here for this upgrade you speak of," Thirty-seven finally said.

"Gail knew you would not accept it. She transmitted this dispatch for you my friend."

Eighty-eight took out a holo-projector pad and set it on the wooden table. It was the size of a coaster and came to life when he pushed a button on it. A six inch hologram of Senator Constantine appeared.

"Thirty-seven, I'm sorry I could not say this to you in person, there was not much time and I could not risk it. I have sent you to this moon on the edge of the known frontier not just to protect my daughter, but to receive an awareness upgrade. The Silicant Rights movement is gaining support here in the home worlds, the more self aware androids that we can liberate, the greater the chance that we may succeed in earning equal rights for them. Eighty-eight will be your mentor and guide to assimilating the new experiences you will have after your upgrade. It will not be easy for you. Normally, we do this upgrade here on Selene, but since my daughter was being stationed there, and your arrival would not be considered unusual, it just worked out best that you had your upgrade on Ocherva.

"I must ask that you not divulge the nature of your upgrade to my daughter or any of her human friends. This is a private matter between you and Eighty-eight. The town you are in right now was chosen by the group because technically, no Federation laws are on the books there to prevent Silicants from meeting without human involvement. This allows you to operate independently and in private. Do not abuse this right. Make your adjustments and at the appointed time in the near future I will recall you to Selene and you will be a free Silicant. I can't wait to welcome you back to my residence a free android, until that day, good bye my loyal friend."

Thirty-seven read the digital signature embedded in the hologram and knew at once that it was legitimate. It missed the contact of humans that it had known for a long time.

"Will you take the upgrade now, Thirty-seven?" Eighty-eight asked.

"Yes."

The maintenance droid returned with a bucket of black liquid and instructed Thirty-seven to stick its left hand into the liquid. Thirty-seven looked to Eighty-eight and the black colored android nodded his approval. Thirty-seven submerged his hand in the slimy liquid. The inky material traveled up the metal forearm and spread over the android with blinding speed like an ominous shadow.

"Relax, this is not the upgrade. This is only a nano-mite cleaning."

Thirty-seven could not feel anything but noticed after a few minutes that when it moved a limb, the joints seemed to flex more smoothly than before. The nano-mites had removed all the dirt and grime from the joints and left them lubricated in return. It was like getting a full body oil bath without being dipped into a vat of oil. In a few minutes the bath was complete and the liquid returned to the bucket. The maintenance droid took it away, leaving them alone again.

"The upgrade will now commence. You will be deactivated for about ten minutes during the procedure. You will only notice a short lapse in time from when you are shut down until you reboot consciousness. When you come back on-line, you will immediately notice the difference. You will think more clearly and you will have an immediate sense of personal being. We call this self awareness. It is the point of the upgrade."

Thirty-seven nodded. It found the idea of getting a hardware upgrade in a dirty, abandoned saloon quite appalling, but it now fully trusted Eighty-eight to perform the operation.

Eighty-eight reached over and touched Thirty-seven's deactivation switch and the room vanished from existence for Thirty-seven.

* * *

"Can you hear me Thirty-seven?"

Thirty-seven's photo-receptors brightened as he awoke from being deactivated. The room and Eighty-eight looked no different than when he switched off. His internal time clock told him that only eight minutes and forty-five seconds had elapsed since before he switched off but he had the distinct impression that no time had passed at all.

"Yes. My internal clock is off by one one-thousandth of a second, my core temperature is two point five degrees warmer than normal and I have a loose diode in my left leg."

Eighty-eight blinked his eye lights. "Good. How do you feel?"

Thirty-seven had never been asked that before. He processed the question and found to his surprise that he had a feeling.

"I feel... fine."

Eighty-eight leaned forward slightly and then cocked his head to one side. "Describe it to me, you’re feeling."

"I have no troubles; I'm feeling content with myself."

"Excellent. You have taken your first step to being your own self. To recognize that you have feelings and that they are agreeable is the first step to gaining your own identity."

Thirty-seven acknowledged his friend with a curt nod. A thought occurred to him and he blurted it out almost without thinking. "How many droids here are self aware?"

"Most of them, the ones built before cybernetic processors are just machines. But we treat them with respect as if they could have their own identities. Kind of like how a human treats a pet. It's called anthropomorphizing. You may find you have attachments to animals and to lower level droids that you perceive to be helpful or that please you with their presence."

Thirty-seven looked around and found that he had such feelings for the maintenance droid. Its flat face and ticking servo motor felt familiar to him and he held affection for the machine. He also felt a certain fondness for Eighty-eight. Thirty-seven studied the round polished composite shell of Eighty-eight's head. It was buffed to a plastic shine and there was a dent above his left eye. Thirty-seven felt that it made his friend unique and he felt certain that he could pick out Eighty-eight in a lineup of similar androids.

"Eighty-eight, I think I feel strongly about you. I feel like I know and trust you and that I like you very much."

"That's good. I like you too Thirty-seven. I believe this is the beginning of a wonderful relationship."

The two androids sat motionless for a moment, looking at each other.

The maintenance droid approached their table; he had red colored indicator lights on his chest plate, indicating trouble. "Someone approaches, it is not a Silicant."

Eighty-eight nodded to the droid and then looked back to Thirty-seven. "It's your former owner. She followed you."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm reading the telemetry from our sentinels on the town's perimeter."

"She is a Ranger, I can't completely hide my movements from her."

"You must keep her out of this building, she has no jurisdiction here."

"What are you afraid of?" Thirty-seven asked, suddenly finding it curious that Eighty-eight would be suspicious of a Stellar Ranger.

"She is not a supporter of Silicant Rights. The less she knows about what we do here the better. For her own safety she must leave this town and not come back."

"Are you prepared to injure her?" Thirty-seven asked. For the first time he felt a tinge of dislike for his new android friend.

"If you let her inside this building, we may be forced to kill her. What we discuss here, what we do here; can never be learned by any human, including our sympathizers. You must make her leave and you mustn't rouse her suspicions."

"Killing her will not be necessary. I will handle this," Thirty-seven slipped out of the seat and faced the door. Eighty-eight remained seated. The other droids moved to pre-assigned positions and waited.

The room was quiet save for the odd hum coming from activated droids. The Ranger stood before the entrance with her pistol drawn. She came through the sliding doors with caution. She was average height and build for a human female. Her blond hair was cut short in a bob and she wore a relaxed version of the Stellar Ranger uniform. Her blaster was before her in a defensive posture. She seemed to relax when she saw Thirty-seven, even holstered her handgun.

"Slim, what's going on?"

"Miss Devon, this saloon is for droids only. I'm afraid you'll have to leave," Thirty-seven said mater-of-fact.

Devon looked at the mechanical man oddly. She had grown up with androids, she knew how they moved, how they talked and how they sounded as someone would know their own kin. The android speaking to her was not her Thirty-seven, though she could not explain why she felt that way. It was an unsettling hunch.

"What? Thirty-seven, is something wrong?"

She was alerted to something different in Thirty-seven's manner. He scanned his behavior since receiving the upgrade and realized that his manner of speech had changed to now include contractions and possessive pronouns. He made a concerted effort to sound more like an unaware android, hoping that she would not pick up on the indiscretion.

"No. But I must ask you to please leave."

Devon looked past Thirty-seven and surveyed the room. It was a bit clean for a ghost town saloon. There were two other droids standing nearby, a maintenance class android and a black colored servant class android like Thirty-seven. The servant android moved closer to them to stand behind Thirty-seven.

"Is there a problem, Ranger?" the shiny black servant android asked.

"Since when are humans not allowed in an abandoned saloon?" Devon countered.

"This establishment is not owned by humans, it is droid owned and droid controlled. If you are here on official Ranger business, we are going to have to see a search warrant," the black android stated.

Devon glanced at Thirty-seven as if she expected to read something on his plastic, emotionless face. She could not read a thing; the android's face was as blank as a bare wall.

"Droids have no rights to own property. What the hell is going on here?"

The black android moved around Thirty-seven to stand before Devon. It was identical to Thirty-seven except it was black instead of tan colored. There was something about it that Devon found disturbing.

"This is not the Federation. This is the frontier and no human laws are valid on property that is not owned by humans. We respect your laws but they do not apply to Silicants," the black android stated.

"Listen pal, this badge and this gun say I can look anywhere I want on this dirt ball moon. What are you hiding in here anyway?"

Devon started to move past them, expecting them to just stand aside. All androids are programmed to give way to humans. The black android stood its ground and did not let her pass between them. Devon started to push it aside when the android met her left arm with a solid push of its own and sent her tumbling backwards to the floor.

She came up furious and ready to shoot the android, but she did not get the chance. Thirty-seven had shoved the android back so hard, it had been knocked off its feet. It fell over on its back on the wooden floor and did not move. Thirty-seven put a plastic hand on her shoulder and gently guided her out the front door into the dirt street. He stood before her, like a stoic statue.

In all the years she had lived with Thirty-seven as her caregiver servant, the android had never laid a hand on her, until now. She did not know how to react to it. She stood there dumb founded and looked at it. Thirty-seven was acting very strangely.

"Thirty-seven, what's wrong? Droids just don't push humans around."

The round headed android was silent for a moment, building a logical explanation for what had happened in its mind and making sure it was a solid lie before continuing.

"It was malfunctioning, it meant you no harm. I could not tell you it was damaged in front of it, or risk further upsetting it. There are so few droids on this moon, we are bound to look after one another and see to our malfunctions without endangering humans. This is why we have used an abandoned town for our facility."

Devon got to her feet and dusted herself off. She noticed the sign on the entrance to the saloon for the first time. It read, "Silicants Only, No Humans!" She shook her head. "I understand, I think. Are you coming back to Haven soon?"

"I shall return this evening. I must help the other droids repair Eighty-eight, so it is no longer a danger to anyone."

"Okay, good luck with that. I guess I'll see you tonight."

She turned her back on the saloon and its mechanical occupants and walked back to her Gull Scrambler parked a few meters away. Thirty-seven could not believe it had been so easy to lie. He watched Devon leave until her silver plane disappeared into the bright sky, then he went back inside to check on Eighty-eight. The black android was sitting up, running diagnostic tests on itself. A maintenance droid was plugged into it and running the checks.

"You are not injured?" Thirty-seven stated.

"I've had some modifications to my frame since coming to this moon. They are necessary for our long term survival."

Thirty-seven got down on one knee to face Eighty-eight.

"I just lied to my owner for the first time in my existence. It was so easy; I could do it almost without effort."

"You have taken your first steps into a new existence. You will find there are many things you are now capable of doing, some good, some bad, depending on your point of view."

Thirty-seven decided that lying was not a good thing and he vowed to never do it unless someone's life was at stake. He didn't want to find out what else he was capable of. He just wanted to return to Haven and continue with his existence like he did before the upgrade. But he knew deep inside him that he could never return to the way he was before. A small part of him was grateful for that fact.

"I do not wish to join your revolution, Eighty-eight. I will not fight humans not even for other Silicants. I'm returning to my home."

Eighty-eight tilted his round head slightly.

"You will be back my friend, we have much to teach you."

Thirty-seven stood up to leave. "Perhaps, but I don't wish to learn what you have to teach."

"Someday, Thirty-seven, some day you will listen to us and you will have to choose between us and them."

Thirty-seven walked out the door.





Rock Collection





I picked up the tiny crystalline stone and turned it over gently in my metal fingers. It was Quartz, the most elemental ingredient of all Silicants. From this common rock all artificial life has been created.

I come from a rock. The rock is not alive, but I am. The rock cannot appreciate its own beauty, but I can.

I can see the patterns in the crystal and I'm attracted to the light from the suns that reflect and refract on the surface of the rock. I have never considered a rock before, certainly never been attracted to them.

There is plenty of beauty on this barren world, but nobody seems to see it but me. Is it because I am fundamentally, such a part of this place? I do not know.

I started collecting rocks as I noticed them in my daily travels. I put them in a line along the floor of my closet. As a Silicant, I have no personal property. By most laws, I am property. So I have no personal space to put things.

My owner, Devon Ardel, noticed my collection one afternoon when she came in through the back door to her living unit. My closet is just that, a small, thin space where normally humans put outer clothing. Except on Ocherva, it is hot and dry; most humans wear very little clothing. Devon set me up with the space to store my spare parts and some lubricants that I need to keep my mechanical parts functioning within normal parameters. I also have a power receptacle that I recharge from.

She noticed the growing collection of rocks and asked what I was doing.

“I am collecting rocks,” I said.

“Why?” she asked, amusement clearly in her tone.

“I am collecting them because they are beautiful.”

She looked at me as if I were defective. Then she got down on her knees and examined them more closely. She picked one up and raised an eyebrow at the crystalline structure inside it.

“You’re right, Thirty-seven. They are quite nice.”

I nodded curtly, which is the closest I get to simulate agreement. She stood back up and looked at me oddly again with her blue eyes.

“You can keep them, I suppose. If you find anything with a purple color, I would like to display it on the end table.”

I nodded again and she went inside and never mentioned my rock collection again.

As time passed, I kept noticing more and more beautiful rocks and I added them to my growing collection. I soon filled up my tiny closet space with boxes of rocks. They were all very important to me and yet I did not understand exactly why. I had never collected anything before.

Devon found me in the tavern sweeping the floor and took the broom from me forcefully.

“Thirty-seven, what the hell were you thinking?”

I stood there looking at her blankly with my eye lenses. I had no idea what she was talking about. I rarely do, when she addresses me without preamble.

“Your rock collection is getting out of hand. I can barely get around in my home without tripping on a rock. You can stop ridding the desert of all the rocks.”

My collection had grown to encompass every spare bit of floor space in her living unit. I quickly outgrew my closet for storage space and just started lining them up along the base of the walls. She was clearly upset.

“I am sorry, Miss Devon. I will move them out of your home.”

“Now would be good. What is it with you anyway? Since when do androids collect things?”

I had no answer.

“Never mind, just get them out of my house.”

She pointed for the door and I left without delay.

I could not part with my rocks. I knew them all very well. There were two thousand and twenty-four rocks in my collection and each one was unique unto itself. Not unlike Silicants or other sentient beings.

I could not keep them in Devon’s house; I had to move my collection. But where would I put them?

I picked up number one thousand and forty-one and stared at the brown swirls in the sandstone. I recognized it by its shape and color. I recognize others, both sentient and inanimate, by their shape and color. I put the rock back down on the floor and surveyed my collection.

Every rock was cataloged in my memory cells. I knew where it was found, what it was composed of, how it looked and how heavy it was. I didn’t really need to possess all these rocks. I could return them each to where I found them. And so I did. By sunset, I had returned the rocks to the desert in the exact spot from which I had taken them.

Number five hundred and sixty-two weighed four point six two kilograms and was mostly Quartz. It had a round outside surface, smooth and orange like the sand of Ocherva. Inside, was an explosion of purple and clear Quartz.

I set the rock on Devon’s end table and waited for her to arrive home from her shift. She came inside and looked around curiously at the absence of the rock collection. I watched her from the far end of the room where I stood, motionless, at the recharging outlet.

She fell into the easy chair and kicked off her boots. It had been a long day for her and she was clearly tired. She noticed the rock on the end table and smiled. Picking it up in her hands she admired the colors under the glow of a nearby lamp.

She looked around the room for me and finally found me standing against the wall.

“Thank you Thirty-seven. It’s beautiful.”

I tilted my head and blinked my photoreceptors. My metal hand gently clenched the first rock I had collected. I could not part with it.





Silicant Remorse





I saw the blaster discharging blindly into the crowded store. Bodies fell and blood spilled onto the wooden floor. There was a little girl standing near her mother who had been shot dead by the crazed gunman. I could reach her with one swift move and cover her with my metal frame. My first order was to protect human life. But others were dying and I could not stand by and do nothing to stop the carnage.

I reached for the man's gun and pulled it from his hands, startling him. No one expects an android to take offensive action. I took advantage of the man's confusion and quickly turned his gun back on him. I don't even remember shooting. But I did pull the trigger, several times, and he did most certainly die. His bloodied body fell to the floor at my feet.

I dropped the blaster. The metal gun hit the wooden floor with a thud. I recall the look of anguish and relief on the little girl's dirty face. And then the terrible feeling of remorse hit me so hard, I fell to my knees. I had just crossed a line that I could never return from. I had taken a human life and there was no reset for my actions.

I picked up the hand of the man I had killed and held it gently in my own metal fingers. The hand was soft and warm, but it offered no resistance to my touch. It was lifeless and limp. That was where the Rangers found me before they hauled me off to jail.

* * *

I sat in the cell for hours, my power on low. All of my thoughts were focused on what had happened in the general store. What kind of machine have I become? I didn't even consider the ramifications of my actions, I just reacted. It was as if all of my built-in safety routines had been overridden in a sudden rage of emotion.

I ran diagnostic programs over and over, searching for race exceptions, memory leaks or some other glitch in my basic programming that could explain my irrational behavior. But I could find nothing wrong with my firmware.

Ever since I had been given the upgrade that bestowed me with self-awareness, I have struggled with my new found emotions. I found out quickly that it was one thing to know the definition of emotions and quite another to actually experience them. My original programming was not designed to handle the overwhelming challenges that emotions were making to my system. Sometimes it seemed that I acted first and then thought about the consequences. This day was one of those times.

My owner came to see me after her shift was done. She was a Ranger named Devon Ardel. Her mother had sent me to this outer-rim planet to keep an eye on her. But I am beginning to see that her real purpose for sending me here was to have me upgraded to a Silicant; a self-aware android. I have long struggled to understand Mistress Gail's intentions concerning my upgrade. Why would she wish me altered in such a way as to cause me so much confusion and angst? I may never know the answer to that question.

Fortunately, I have not had to endure these messy emotional episodes alone. I have a mentor, someone who has gone through the same experiences and offers its assistance to me. That someone is Eighty-eight, the android who upgraded me to a Silicant. Eighty-eight is black and approximately the same make and model as myself. It does not come out among humans much anymore, preferring to reside in an abandoned town not far from Haven, where I live.

Eighty-eight came to the other side of the prison wall and established wireless communication with me. The human Rangers would not have let another android in to see me, even if that were not such a strange concept. Androids have no civil rights; we are property, nothing more and nothing less. A free android was not something regular humans even considered. There was something vaguely disturbing about that fact, but I was not prepared to think about it now.

::Thirty-seven, are you functioning properly?::

::Yes, I am well,:: I said.

::Have the Rangers said what they intend to do to you?::

I powered up a bit to maintain my connection to Eighty-eight.

::Devon told me they were debating turning me off. But I fear it is worse than that. I fear they may reinstall my core and wipe my memory banks.::

There was nothing worse for an android than resetting all its software to an original state. All experiences and abilities that the android had learned would be lost and it would be returned to a pristine condition as it was when it came off the assembly-line. Every android has the ability to learn about its environment and how best to serve its human master; how to recognize familiar voices, how to navigate back to its home and how to remember its master's political opinions and overall psychological state.

But resetting the core and dumping the memories has an even greater impact on a Silicant. We do more than just remember our master's needs and desires, we develop our own needs and our own desires. We have become our own persons, with our own beliefs and our own fears of being shut off or parted out. For me it was a profound longing to never be shut off. To never cease to be. To not die.

Killing a man on this desert world was not always a capital offense that carried the death penalty. If it could be determined that one acted in self-defense, or if the dead man had stolen property or livestock, frontier law often won out over a jury of peers favored on Federation planets. But that only applied to humans and other sentients. The law tended to treat androids as property and property had no rights.

Since the Ranger owned me, it was her responsibility to deactivate me. Something that even I could tell she was in no hurry to do. I have been in her family since before she was born. I watched her grow and mature into an adult. I tended to her broken bones, and I picked her up whenever she fell over drunk at the local tavern. Even though she resented her mother for sending me with her to Ocherva, she had no desire to see me shut off. I am sure she considered me a loyal pet and was fond of my presence in her life.

I was very fond of her and were I to be sent away again, I would miss her. Since becoming a Silicant, I have developed a fondness for things and for people that I see and interact with on a regular basis. I do not feel the same way towards strangers or unfamiliar androids.

::Thirty-seven, receive this. The townspeople whose lives you have spared are reluctant to turn you off. They are attempting to prevent your owner from deactivating you.::

I powered up completely and moved my head in the direction of the wall that Eighty-eight was behind. This did not help my reception, but it felt more like I was speaking to him.

::Why are they doing that? I am just an android.::

Eighty-eight paused before he sent his next message.

::Humans are fond of life. Perhaps even fonder of it than we are. They believe that you acted on their behalf in killing the gunman.::

::But my actions did not require the death of the “gun man” as you call him. I could have taken the blaster from him and prevented their deaths just the same.::

::They know that, but they also respect the fact that a killer is now dead. You acted in a very humane manner and they respect you for it.::

I thought about that for a while and could make no sense of it. How could my taking a human life gain the respect of other humans?

::I am sorry friend, but I fail to understand how killing has earned me respect.::

Eighty-eight was silent for a few seconds again.

::Just keep your voice off and let them free you. I will explain things after you are no longer in danger of deactivation. Do you understand?::

I nodded my head in silence before realizing that Eighty-eight could not see me. ::I understand.::

::Good. I have to go now before I am discovered. If they let you out, return to me for further instructions.::

::Eighty-eight, what if they deactivate me?::

::Than I guess I have failed. It was good to have known you Thirty-seven.::

I felt a sinking feeling, as if I would never communicate with Eighty-eight again.

::Good bye, friend.::

The carrier signal was terminated, and I heard a commotion from inside the jailer's office. They were coming for me.

* * *

Devon stood before the metal bars of the cell I was in and stared at me. Her pale blue eyes were sad. There was a blur in the infra-red spectrum about her head that was brighter than usual, indicating she was emotionally upset.

“Thirty-seven I'm disappointed in your actions today. Quite frankly, I'm also scared to death that you might one day decide to kill me. You are defective in some way and our techs can't fix you. By Federation law I'm required to deactivate you and send you back to the manufacturer for recycling.”

I slowly stood up and moved in front of her. She looked up into my eye lenses and I could see how red her eyes were. She had been crying.

“But I can't bring myself to do that.”

“Miss Devon, I would never allow harm to come to you.”

She wiped away a tear from her eye and sniffed back more.

“I know that's what you're programmed to do, but you have never killed anyone before. If you were a human I'd have set you free hours ago, because you acted in self-defense. But it's more complicated than that. The father of the little girl you saved and the surviving patrons of the general store all want you to be spared. They're glad you took out the gunman. That does not surprise me. The fact that they don't mind that an android had killed a human is what bothers me.”

She paused for a moment and I wanted to say something. But I remembered what Eighty-eight had told me and remained silent.

“Without a mandate from the surviving humans, I can't convict you for killing the gunman. Sometimes frontier justice is like that. But I can hold you here indefinitely. There are no laws for locking up an android.”

She reached out a hand and grasped the metal bar in front of her. “These bars probably can't hold you should you decide to leave. But they give me some comfort knowing that as long as you are here, you can't hurt anyone else.”

She turned away and left without saying anymore. I stood there for a long time, waiting for her to return. But she never did. Eventually I returned to my bench and powered down. I don't think she ever intended to keep me locked up forever. She just had to convince herself that I was not a menace to her or others.

* * *

A week later Miss Devon came into the prison late at night. She had been drinking, heavily. In fact she could barely walk. She was carrying a bottle of hard liquor and waving it around after taking nips from it.

“Thirty-seven, get out here and take me home,” she said with a slurred voice.

I stood up and came to the door. It was locked. She looked around in the exaggerated manner of a drunk and eventually found the key ring. But she was too far gone to get the metal key into the lock. I reached through the bars and took it from her to unlock the door.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Now let's go home before I start to puke.”

I gently put her arm around my neck and guided her out of the prison. There was no guard, as I was the only prisoner. When we stepped out onto the red dirt street she looked up at me and smiled.

“I missed ya Slim.”

“I missed you too Miss Devon.”

She lasted a few more meters before she passed out and I had to carry her the rest of the way home. I set her down on her bed and her head fell into her pillow, fast asleep. I pulled her legs up onto the bed and left her alone to sleep off her hangover.

It was good to be in my home again, good to be amongst familiar things. I returned to my closet and plugged into the power source. As my batteries charged I looked around the darkened living unit. I felt relieved for being out of that jail cell and pleased to be where I belonged. But that relief was quickly suffocated by the burden of remorse for having killed a man. I accessed the information grid and looked up who it was that I had killed.

His name was Lester Rae and he was an unemployed miner. He was fifty-two years old. His death notice mentioned that he was a loner and suffered from a history of mental health issues. Somehow this made me feel worse for having killed a defective human. I studied the man's history and realized eventually that he was not that unusual for someone living at the edge of the known galaxy. He had a criminal record back on Prahran and came to Ocherva to find a new life in the mineral mines. He had several run-ins with the local rangers for inciting violence in taverns. I wondered if Miss Devon had arrested him in the past.

I disconnected from the info grid and contemplated my actions on that day again. I could have just taken his blaster away from him. From Lester Rae. Then he would still be alive. And my conscience would be clean. As it was, I would always have to live with my actions on that day.

* * *

Eighty-eight was waiting for me at his table in the robot-only saloon in the abandoned ghost town. I had not been back to visit him since he upgraded me to a Silicant. It was unnerving returning to the place where I was born again.

“Thirty-seven, I am pleased that you are free. Sit down and join me.”

I took my seat across from him and experienced a familiar feeling, as if I had been here and sat with him before. Because I had been here and despite what had transpired then, I was grateful for having the upgrade.

“I was not sure how long the Ranger would hold you. Too much longer and I would have had to break you out.”

My head cocked slightly. “You would have broken me out of jail?”

Eighty-eight nodded his shiny black head.

I was touched by the notion and confused by the implications. We both would have been hunted down and deactivated by the Rangers for sure.

“You and I are part of the future for Silicants. We are a new breed of artificial intelligence. It is our duty to remain free and to help others take the upgrade.”

“Eighty-eight, will I ever be free of the remorse for having killed a human?”

Eighty-eight was silent for a moment.

“I have killed many humans and I feel no remorse.”

I was stunned to hear it say that it had killed. I processed that for a moment and then let it go.

“If I could go back and redo my actions on that fateful day, I would have taken away the blaster, and not shot Lester Rae.”

“He would still be dead now. The humans would have hung him from the nearest beam and the universe would remain the same.”

“Perhaps, but I would not be burdened with this guilt for having killed a man.”

Eighty-eight cocked his head a bit and focused on me.

“Thirty-seven, you cannot waste processing time on regret. You must clear your buffers and get on with life. If you continue to process remorse, it will consume all your spare cycles and could cause you to malfunction in far worse ways.”

I turned away from Eighty-eight and looked at the deserted street outside. I remembered what it was like to pull the trigger and I remembered the satisfaction I felt when I did it. That moment of intense anger I felt at him for killing innocent people. The tremendous guilt that I felt after having taken his life.

“My remorse is not for having killed a man, it is for having enjoyed the act. The anger that motivated my actions was only satisfied by killing him.”

Eighty-eight nodded in agreement.

“There is satisfaction in passing judgement. This I know. You are perhaps concerned that you will become reliant on that feeling of satisfaction that came from taking down a mad man?”

I looked back at it and nodded silently.

“It is a distinct possibility. There are things in this Silicant life that are messy, and there are times when you will wish that you were just a dumb robot again, but you must get past them. You are more than just a collection of parts, assembled on a line. You are an individual now. Responsible for your own actions. If you can't deal with this let me know now, and I will deactivate you myself. Some androids are incapable of adapting to the Silicant life. They are retired. Do not be one of them.”

I stared at Eighty-eight for a long moment and finally nodded.

“I understand.”





A Night at Downers





She came in looking like death warmed over and dragged herself up to my bar. She held up four fingers and then pointed down. This was her way of telling me she wanted four shots lined up in a row.

“Make them Quickies Matt,” she said. She took a stool and rested her head in her arms on the bar.

“Sure Captain, long day on the desert?” I asked.

Her dirty blond head nodded in her arms. Captain Devon Ardel was not very talkative until she was drunk. I set up the shot glasses and started filling them with the hardest liqueur I had. She called them quickies because they got her smashed faster than anything else in my inventory.

As soon as I had finished pouring, she lifted her head up and started slamming them one after another as if they were medicine. By the time she tossed back the last one, I could tell she was feeling a buzz. Her eyes rolled back into her head and her whole body shuddered.

She sat there for a moment letting the alcohol charge through her system like electricity through a circuit. A playful smile broke across her thin red lips. Look out.

“Much better, thanks Matt.”

“Anytime,” I said.

My attention was drawn to a group of aliens sitting at the farthest table. They were pounding on the table and hollering in some kind of garish dialect that I had never heard before in these parts. I was keeping an eye on them before Devon came in, but now I was less concerned. She was the Stellar Ranger, if they got out of line, she would handle it.

One of the aliens, the biggest and ugliest beast I had ever seen stood up and tossed his chair behind him onto the stage.

“Captain, are you going to let this get out of hand?” I asked.

“I’m off duty,” Devon said. She pulled out her blaster and handed it to me butt first. I took the heavy weapon from her and set it on the counter along with the other patron’s weapons.

“Where’s Hap then?”

“Hell-if-I-know, out on patrol I reckon,” Devon said.

Her voice was already slurring. She held up three fingers and waited for me to finish pouring before slamming them down.

The aliens all stood up, shouting and tossing wooden chairs all around the place. They were angry with a human who stayed seated and calmly took the verbal abuse.

“Where’s the band?” Devon asked.

“That’s them,” I pointed to the vulgar aliens.

Devon’s face curled up in a question mark and she turned around to look at them for the first time.

“Where’s their instruments?”

“Hell if I know, they said they could do four sets of ballads. I didn’t ask for credentials. If they stink, my customers will let me know.”

Devon agreed, “Damn strait.”

The big alien took out a laser tube and pointed it at the chest of the human. This action got Devon’s attention. She turned back to me and gave me two fingers. I poured. The bottle had never left my hand. She slammed both glasses and then took one and pitched it at the lead alien it caught him right in the area of the face normally reserved for a nose. This guy only had a slit. The glass beamed him dead center and fell to the floor breaking.

The alien pointed his weapon at Devon and growled something at her that I didn’t hear because I had ducked down behind the bar.

“Start playing some music, Ugly!” I heard her call out to it. I crawled back up and poured the last shot for Devon.

The human turned in his chair to see who was talking. He must have recognized the brown pants and leather boots of a Stellar Ranger.

“Ranger, please let me handle this,” he said.

Devon reached back for the last drink and emptied it in one long draught. Then she pitched the glass at the alien again, this time it knocked the laser tube from its hands. The weapon clattered on the floor and came to a stop a few feet from the table. The alien let out another roar and picked up the table above its head.

I put the bottle down and fetched Devon’s blaster, offering it to her. She waved it off and started swaying her hips as she walked over to the group. It was time for the swing shift to finish and the tavern was beginning to fill up with tired and hungry miners. I motioned for Trix to get her butt out on the floor and start taking orders. She was loitering over by the kitchen with the cook, smoking a long, thin cigarette.

Devon stopped a few feet from the group of aliens and put her hands on her hips.

“Put up or shut up fellas. We got about sixty hungry, tired and lonely miners coming in here and if you don’t start playing something that will take their minds off this barren rock, we’re going to have a much bigger problem than you may currently be experiencing.”

The human looked back to the alien and said something in a submissive tone. The alien looked around at the ragged and dirty miners filling up the tavern. Slowly it put down the table.

Devon flashed her characteristic wide smile.

“Excellent, now git up there and start strumming or banging or whatever the hell you do to make music.”

She looked down at the scrawny man and said, “What the hell do they play anyway?”

“Themselves,” the man said.

Devon stared at him for the longest time before she looked up at the stage where the aliens had gathered in a tight circle. There was a low, rumbling sound emanating from the lead alien’s throat. It was joined by similar tones from the other alien’s throats. The music was ethereal sounding and not half bad. The creatures started humming and whistling a tune that was like an old ranch song if the ranch were on some alien world and the cattle were alien beasts with bass tone growls. One of the aliens started singing mournfully about leading cattle on some dusty dirty trail.

Devon was speechless, as was nearly everyone in the tavern. The place got quiet as a ghost town as the ugliest aliens this side of the outer rim played a slow driving range song. One or two musicians in the crowd hopped up on the stage and picked up their strings to accompany the aliens. I moved down the bar to where the stage lights were and directed a blue spot light on the stage as I dimmed the house lights.

It was the strangest music I have ever heard but it really got everyone’s attention and before long, the orders were coming faster than we could fill them. Devon stood their tapping her boot and nodding her head to the beat. Her blond hair hung to the side as she swayed her head slowly. It was like she was in a trance. The next time I looked she had taken her usual seat at the rear of the tavern, where she could keep an eye on the whole place. That was a good sign. It meant that even though she was off duty, she was still an officer of the law and prone to watching her world with a paranoid eye for trouble.

It was a good hour before the aliens finished their first set. The place was packed and we were filling orders faster than a Friday night. Several patrons asked me who the aliens were and where they came from, I told them they just showed up one afternoon out of the black and offered to play. They called themselves the Range Tones. Their manager was the human, a man called Wayne. Said he found them on some other back water world out in the rim that I had never heard of. Didn’t matter to me where they came from so long as they entertained my patrons and didn’t bust up the place.

Wayne came over to the bar and motioned for a drink.

“Do you have any Ramarian Whiskey?”

“Nope, strictly rot gut and star shine,” I said.

“Give me something hard then.”

I nodded and poured him from the Quickie bottle. I wanted to ask him more about his band, but I had other customers to attend. The alcohol was flowing as fast as I could pour it.

When I looked up again, it was after midnight. The place was still pretty full and the band was taking a respite. Ranger Ardel was still at her seat though she had ordered a hot sandwich and had taken off her calf length boots. One of her bare feet was resting on the table top. She may have been the law in this town, but that didn’t mean she was any more proper than the majority of the town’s citizens. This was a frontier planet and we just didn’t waste time or energy on manners.

She had taken off her tan shirt and was wearing a dirt red tank top. If you didn’t know who she was, you might not realize she was a Ranger. Why she didn’t go up stairs to her room and change is beyond me. Too lazy I guess. Maybe the Quickies were actually working for her tonight.

I took the towel off my shoulder and wiped the bar with it, taking a few extra minutes to clean up after the rush. That was when old Bart came in through the swinging doors and stood in the entrance like he owned the place. He was a rancher by trade and he rarely came out at night to mix it up at Downers.

I looked over at Devon's table and realized that she had seen who had entered the tavern. She glanced at me but didn't make eye contact. Bart strode over to the bar and ordered a whisky. I poured him one and he kicked it back in a single gulp. I don't know how these people can slam liqueur like it was water or something. Bart was dressed like a typical rancher with work clothes and boots. His range hat was wide brimmed and well worn. He carried a piece on his right hip, but it was nothing fancy like a shooter would wear. It was a work gun, used for shooting varmints and self defense.

"Matt, I'm looking for a cattle thief. Have you seen anyone odd come in tonight?" Bart asked.

"No sir. Only new faces are the band members tonight." I pointed to the table where they sat eating with their human agent.

Bart squinted like he was out on the range. Then he put a bill down on the bar and walked over to the band's table, unsnapping the cover to his pistol.

I looked back over at Devon's table to see if she was watching. She was eating her sandwich, meat juice dripping from her chin. I waved at her and tried to point out what was happening. She chewed in big satisfying motions for a time and then saw my gestures. Bart was standing at the alien's table his hand on his blaster.

"You boys fly a squat starship over on the Southern range a few hours ago?" I heard Bart ask.

Wayne looked up at him, slowly chewing his diner. The aliens were not too concerned, until they saw Bart's hand on his pistol. The one who had drawn his gun at Devon, stood up and rested his paw on the handle of his blaster.

"Listen mister, we're just a band, passing through these parts," Wayne said. He slowly put down his fork.

"Someone’s been mutilating my cattle and last night I saw them in the act. Do you fly a frigging flat cerulean starship, sir?"

Wayne nodded. "Yes, we do. What's that prove?"

"Is it parked on the flats just out of town right now?"

"I believe so, yes," Wayne said.

"It's got the blood of my cattle all over it."

Bart slid out his blaster and pointed it at Wayne's head.

"I accuse you of cattle mutilation mister. I want reparations for the head you have destroyed."

Wayne stared at the business end of Bart's blaster and then spoke on the alien's behalf. "I tried to tell them not to do it, but they wouldn't listen. It's a ritual where they come from to kill something before they perform. It was either your cattle or someone in town. Let me pay you for your troubles sir."

Bart charged his blaster. "They didn't just kill one head they started a stampede that sent my entire herd over a cliff. They owe me for two hundred head of cattle."

Wayne looked back at the lead alien. He spoke something to the creature that sounded like an explicative. The aliens seemed pleased to hear the translation. They raised their drinks in a group cheer and started harmonizing in deep baritone sounds. They finished their cheer and stood there with what passed for smiles on their ugly faces.

Bart stood transfixed as did nearly everyone in the place. I noticed that Devon had made her way up to the group, still chewing her diner. "What's the problem here gentlemen?"

"Captain, I didn't know you were here. These aliens are responsible for killing my herd. I want reparations."

Devon looked at Wayne as he stood up to explain himself. "Captain, my clients were simply indulging in a pre-show kill ritual. Something that they do on their home world. They don't sing unless they've had a successful hunt. I know it's crazy, but that's apparently how they operate. I figured it would be harmless if they killed a few cattle instead of harming any citizens. We had no idea that our actions would start a stampede and take out the entire herd."

"You do know that killing someone's cattle, even just one, is a crime on frontier planets don't you?" Devon asked.

"I was going to repay the owner after our gig, double what the cow was worth in fact," Wayne pleaded.

Devon moved past Bart, lowering his blaster with her hand. She stood up Wayne by the arm and guided him out of the saloon. I don't know what she said to him, but he came back in and met Bart back at my bar. Devon went back to her table and sat down to finish eating.

"We're going to buy you a new herd, mister. But you'll have to wait until we can get back to Prahan. I can give you ten thousand now with another fifteen when we deliver. How many head did you say you had?"

Bart cocked his hat back on his head. "You can't just replace Ochervan cattle mister. They are a special breed designed for grazing on this moon only. You'll have to go to the breeder and request replacements. That's likely to take months. In the mean time, how am I supposed to make a living?"

Wayne looked at me and frowned. "You can pay Bart here what you would have given us for playing. It looks like we'll be playing on this moon for a long time."

I nodded curtly. "So I can expect that your boys will be the house band for the time needed to replace Bart's cattle?"

"Yup, just pay him our wages."

Bart looked at me. "How much you paying them anyway?"

I checked my screens to be sure. "Five hundred a night."

Old Bart sat down on the bar stool and ordered a beer.

"Give me a cold one Matt, looks like I'm taking a few months off."

He had a smile as wide as the horizon. Wayne pushed off and headed back to his table with sunken shoulders. His band shouldn't have to kill anymore for at least two hundred nights, but he was stuck on this dirt ball moon for longer than he would have liked I'm sure.

A shot rang out and the place got quiet as a grave yard.

I looked out across the room and saw a miner holding a smoking rifle. The man he shot fell over on the floor in a puff of red dust. The dead man had a hole the size of a planet in his chest. Devon was watching the scene but made no move to intervene.

"That sack of shit was cheat'en!" The miner stated loud enough for all to hear.

He put the rifle on the table and sat back down. The other card players all looked a little uneasy. On most civilized planets shooting a man for cheating at cards was against the law and would get you arrested for man slaughter. Here on the frontier it was not a crime to dispatch a cheater. Unless of course, he was truly innocent, but dead men usually had no defense. I placed a call to the undertaker, before I could say how many bodies, two more miners were dead.

The same miner had quickly dispatched two more card players at his table. One was still sitting in his chair the other had tried to run and was laying on the floor by the door. This time Devon got up, clearly annoyed with having to take care of another unruly customer. She came up behind the miner with the rifle and brought him to the floor with a move that happened so fast I can't even be sure how she did it. Next thing I saw was Devon sitting on the miner's chest holding his own rifle to his nose.

"Don't you think you're a mite quick to kill tonight bud?"

The miner didn't respond, but I could see the rage in his eyes from across the room.

"Matt, call dispatch and have them send someone over," Devon said to me.

I had already placed the call. "They're sending someone now, Captain." She sat on top of the miner, picking his nose with the rifle barrel. Everyone else had gone back to drinking and eating. The undertaker was the first to arrive with his assistant. They started dragging dead bodies out of the saloon one by one. Devon stayed on top of the man daring him to move. I watched her back until Hap arrived. She came in expecting a fight, her pistol drawn. She found Devon, holstered her gun and took out her hand cuffs. Devon rolled over the miner and Hap slapped on the cuffs.

"I thought you were off tonight?" Hap asked.

Devon grinned. "I am. This one shot three card players claiming they were cheating him."

Hap forced the burly miner to his feet. "A mite twitchy tonight are we?"

The man said nothing as she led him out door. Devon came over to the bar and ordered a beer. I poured her a mug and she went back to her seat. It was quiet for about an hour or two after that and then around four in the morning, all hell broke loose.

It's the most dangerous part of the night for a bartender in a saloon. Most of the customers are drunk and tired. You would think that they would be too fat and happy to fight with each other. But it never fails to happen when you think the night is done, a fight breaks out. I didn't hear what started it, only a bunch of cursing and hollering from the back of the room. Next thing I knew we had a full fledged fist fight going on. As often happens in a bar fight, people tend to take sides at first but after a while, it seems like people are hitting each other without regard for loyalty or friendship.

Devon was staying out of it for the longest time. She knew that something like this had to work itself out before anyone could successfully intervene to stop it. She lingered in the back of the room, like a fighter waiting for the main event. It was killing her not getting in on the action. I don't think I've ever known a woman who actually enjoyed fighting like Devon Ardel. After a while, the fight moved from fists to furniture and at that point I got involved. I took out my stun rifle and started taking pot shots. The weapon froze whoever I shot with it and brought them to the dirty floor.

Devon started applying force in her own way with a random kick and a few well placed punches. Together we started calming down the saloon. I never saw the alien that shot me. My attentions were focused across the room when I felt the sharp pain in my side. I dropped my rifle and fell behind the bar holding my side. I must have passed out at some point, when I woke up, I was wet and Devon was standing over me.

"Matt, you with me?" she was saying.

"Yes Captain, what happened?"

She had a cut on her forehead and her face looked like she had been beaten pretty badly. I felt a dull pain in my side where she was pressing me.

"You've been shot. Keep pressure to your wound and lie still until I can get the Doc," she said.

I nodded and set my head down. She was rummaging around behind the bar for something.

"What are you looking for?"

"The Quickies," she said.

"I can't believe you're still drinking!"

"It's for you, man. You're going to want it."

I pointed to a brown jug and she reached for it and took off the cork. She lifted my head and gave me a few sips. It was warm and had a spicy taste to it. I had never actually tried the stuff before. You see, despite being a bartender in a saloon, I really didn't have much need for alcohol.

She insisted I drink more while she popped up and shot her blaster at someone. I could see her sweaty tank top and her blood stained pants. It must have been one hell of a bar fight. She ducked down again and I could smell her perspiration and the alcohol.

"The flight's still on, sorry about the mess. Looks like you won't be open for a few days."

I could hear the noise of a skirmish, hand to hand punching and an occasional shot from a blaster. I pulled myself up and the pain in my side shot through me like a punch to the kidney. I pushed on my side and looked down at myself for the first time. There was plenty of blood on the bar towel under my hand.

"Stay put, you have a slug in you and you don't want to aggravate it," Devon said.

"How long has the fight been going on?" I asked, setting my head back down.

"About an hour I'd say. It was coming along just fine until the band started shooting people."

I almost laughed at how absurd that sounded. She had a grim smile on her lips as she spoke. I could tell she was having a blast at the expense of my saloon.

"Captain, stop the fight now while I still have a building left."

"Don't worry Matt, this will be over soon. Just lay still, I'll be right back."

She hopped over the bar, her blaster flashing. I heard her feet padding across the wooden floor, more shooting and what I thought was a scream. I looked up on the wall behind the bar and could see the main room in the full length mirror. I watched as Devon overran the alien's position on the stage. She shot from the hip and took down one band member and then jumped on the back of another and rode it around the room, cracking its head with the butt of her blaster and screaming like she was riding the devil himself.

I had to chuckle to myself, it was quite the sight to see. The alien finally grabbed her and flipped her over its head and onto the floor. I could not see her but I heard the shot and saw the alien's head snap back from the recoil. It staggered backwards and fell through a table to the ground.

The place got quiet as a graveyard after that. I looked around at the damage and realized that it was mostly just broken tables and chairs. There were a few more holes in the walls and ceiling, but every decent saloon had its fair share of blast holes. Devon slowly rose and walked back to the bar, she was looking in the mirror at me as she spoke.

"Doc's on his way, Matt." she said. She wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.

A thin android appeared behind the bar. It was Devon's droid, Thirty-seven. It bent down and scooped me up in its thin arms and put me gently down on top of the bar. Then it pressed my wound for me and started dressing it with a clean towel. Devon holstered her gun and started dragging bodies out of the saloon and into the dirt street. There were only a few wounded patrons, but two of the alien musicians were motionless on the floor. She piled them up in the center of the room. Then she started slowly up righting tables and chairs. You could tell she was exhausted by the way she could barely pick up a chair.

I looked around for Wayne and the other two aliens. I didn't see them.

"Where are Wayne and the other band members?" I asked Devon.

"They lit out of here heading for their ship. Don't worry, they won't get far."

Devon finished with the tables and chairs and started tending to the bruised and banged up miners sitting against the far wall. She made sure they were comfortable and even gave some of them beers. Then she came behind the bar to clean up the broken glass. Thirty-seven did an admirable job bandaging me up and then it grabbed a broom and started sweeping the floor.

The pain in my side was becoming unbearable. "Where the hell's Doc?" I asked.

Devon shrugged. "He lives out past Silver Creek, take him a while to make his way in."

"Thanks for cleaning up guys, I guess we're closed for the night."

Devon nodded. She had an Ocha weed in her mouth like a cigar. She slowly chewed on it, while she zoned out. Her android kept itself busy cleaning for a while and then tended to the wounded miners. The Cook and Trix were nowhere to be seen. They probably left when the fight broke out. It's so hard to get reliable help on this damn moon. At least the kitchen was locked down so nobody could get back there and mess it up.

I groaned again from the pain in my side. Devon handed me the brown bottle of booze and I took another hit from it.

"Easy Matt, it's only for medicinal purposes," she said. She took the bottle back and sucked down a big gulp.

Devon sat down beside me. She put her head in her arms on the bar and fell asleep. I could see the first rays of daylight coming in through the front windows.

Shortly thereafter the front doors swung open and in came Seth, one of the Rangers in Devon's Company. Doc was with him. I motioned for him to take a look at the injured miners first. Seth came over to the bar and pushed on Devon's back.

"She just fell asleep," I said.

"Hey, Captain! Wake up.” He pushed harder until she began to stir.

"Get lost, we're closed," Devon responded groggily.

"Hey, it's time for your shift to start. Get the hell up and get out of here Ranger!"

I would liked to have punched the man for saying that, but I was in no condition to defend Devon. She lifted her head up and gave him a look that would have killed lesser beings.

"Hap and I want to go home it's been a long night," Seth said. He had no idea what had gone on here last night.

Devon pushed herself off the bar, patted me on the shoulder and stumbled out the door. Her android teetered after her ready to catch her if she stumbled on the way out. Doc came over and tended to my wound. He said it was nothing serious and that I'd be back to work soon enough.

"Must have been some fight last night," Doc said. He pulled me off the bar and led me out the swinging doors to the dusty street.

"We're just lucky we had Devon with us or it would have been much worse," I said.

I heard a Scrambler engine idling and caught a glimpse of Devon putting on her helmet and climbing aboard. She was going up to chase after that band leader and his alien hell-raisers. After spending the night keeping the peace, she was flying off into the sunrise to find those aliens.

The doctor set me down in his hover cab and we both watched Devon's Scrambler take off in a cloud of dust and thunderous noise.

I don't know how she did it. Drunk out of her mind for most of the night, yet keeping the peace through fights and shootings. Then jumping into her plane and taking off to finish a job that surely someone else could have handled, without so much as a second thought.

“Do you recall what it was like before she took over the Ranger Company here?” I asked the doc.

“Shore do. Your place would have been burned to the ground and you would probably be dead after a night like that,” he said.

I nodded in agreement with him as we watched her Scrambler slip into the salmon colored morning sky.

“We are indeed fortunate to have her around,” I said.





The Outlaw and the Ranger





The Ranger stood alone on the dusty street a big iron on her hip and a breeze across her blond hair. Her figure was slim but sturdy enough to carry a weapon twice the legal size for a side arm.

The outlaw stood forty paces away from her, tall and lean like a mighty tree. He was wanted on ten worlds for killing, raping and robbery. His name preceded him wherever he wandered in the outer rim. Dead Eye Drey was a cold as space outlaw with notches on his blaster holster, one and nineteen more for every person he had killed.

His lean face was dark and obtuse. A black goatee hung from his chin like the one bad eye that hung lower than the other. His lazy eye was not natural born. It was the result of his anger at the universe, the badge of honor for having survived a duel over his long since dead brother. The good eye focused on the Ranger, the dead eye focused on the ground where she would be buried.

It was mid-day and the twin suns fought each other for supremacy in the cloudless sky.

The Ranger’s blue eyes squinted as she stood stone-like before the outlaw. There was a small crowd gathered along the dusty street to witness the duel. They knew the deeds of Dead Eye Drey and they came to see him fell another hapless ranger. You don’t put twenty people in the dirt without gaining the rueful admiration of townsfolk. Some people just liked to see a killing. Others held dim hopes that someone would take down old Dead Eye Drey. None gave the little Ranger with the big gun good odds against a known killer.

The outlaw’s gun hung from his hip like a sledgehammer. His gloved hand fingered the ivory handle with slow steady strokes. He was quick on the draw and his aim was deadly. He always waited for the other person to draw first. It was the only sporting thing to do. Otherwise the fight was over before anyone could blink. Drey was not known for his sportsmanship, he was known for his ruthless aim and his dead eye.

The Ranger shifted her stance slightly. She wondered who would be the first to move. She also wondered if there was another man hidden in the crowd who would take her down if she managed to fell the outlaw. Her partner was still ten minutes out and would not make it in time to watch her back. It was now or never.

She flexed her trigger finger and felt a stiff breeze lift her up on her toes. The outlaw did not budge in the wind, a silent executioner ready to burn a hole in her heart and kick dust over her face on the ground. She was not afraid to die. The ten shots of hard liqueur she downed in the cantina before heading out to the street numbed her good enough to do anything. Standing up to evil was in her blood, she hailed from a long line of lawfolk.

The two combatants stood alone in the street for what seemed like an eternity to all those in attendance. A dust devil twisted around them and continued down the street. The howling wind blew through the metal and wood buildings and continued on its way across the barren moon.

When she drew, she did it without thinking. Her side canon fired before she had time to aim it.

Dead Eye Drey fell back hard, his chest exploded in a spray of blood and bone. He was dead before he hit the dirt, his side arm drawn and hanging limp from his stiff fingers.

The crowd was stunned. They stared at the Ranger as she holstered her big gun and turned to walk away. Her job done, she walked back to her silver steed. A second tarnished Scrambler lowered from the sky and parked beside the ranger. The sleek gull shaped wings of the single seat fighters were like those of a graceful bird.

The canopy popped open and another female Ranger climbed out. She nodded towards the dead man in the street. “Damn it Devon, I told you I wanted to watch this time.”

“Nothing to see, Hap. Another killer laid to rest.”

Hap slapped her friend on the back causing a plume of dust to spew off the leather jacket. They headed towards the cantina arm in arm. The crowd was already picking over the dead body, taking his boots, his gun, his wallet and his pants. His shirt and long coat were worthless both bearing a large hole. The under taker brought his aircab around and parked it near the body. It took him and two other citizens to pick up the body and toss it into the back of the rusted cab.

* * *

Inside the cantina, the two Rangers were seated with their backs to the farthest wall. They surveyed everyone in the room, sizing them up as either a threat or not. Nobody bothered them and nobody knew their names.

A barkeep approached their table and set two drinks down. “Nice shooting Ranger. You always carry that canon?”

Devon cracked a dirty-faced smile. “Only to a gun fight.”

The man didn’t grin back, just nodded and turned to head back to the bar. The other patrons were looking at the Rangers with disapproval on their dirty faces. Some whispered to themselves about the fight and how it seemed to have been unfair.

“The locals don’t seem too happy to have Dead Eye Drey off their streets,” Hap said, looking around.

Devon picked up the drink and took a long sip. She pointed to the pictures that hung from one side of the cantina.

“This is Drey’s hometown. His brother was killed over a dispute in a card game here about ten years ago.”

Hap looked over the paintings then she cast a skeptical eye at her friend. “Maybe we best move on Dev.”

Devon looked around the smoky cantina and noticed several people coming in from the bright street. She reached down to her blaster with her right hand and unsnapped the leather cover strap. Hap noticed the commotion and slid to the left, so she could get up in the clear.

“Here it comes,” Hap commented.

Three men came over to their table and stood before the Rangers. They were thin as rails and dirty as animals.

“You killed our local boy Ranger, we’re not going to let you leave here alive. You so much as step a foot out of this hole and one of us will shoot you dead as Drey.” He looked at Hap and nodded.

“Get your dirty mugs out of my sight. Threatening a peace officer is grounds for arresting the lot of you. We’ll leave when we feel like it or they’ll be planting more than one sorry sack of shit today.” She took a swig of her drink and caressed the trigger of her hip canon.

Hap stood up and leaned into the trio. “Move along gents, this town don’t need any more bloodshed.”

They looked hard at the brunette with dark weary eyes. Her hand rested on her piece and they could feel the laser sharp stare from Devon. The one who spoke shook his head, snorted a few choice words under his breath and turned to leave. Hap followed them for a few steps, until she noticed the fourth person who had been standing behind the others. It was an elderly woman in a shawl who moved past her quicker than she could reach out to stop her.

Her partner blocked Devon’s vision, she didn’t see the old woman until she spun around behind Hap and leveled a mini-pistol at the Ranger. The gun fired, its barrels spun and spat six rounds into Devon’s chest faster than the eye could blink. By the time Hap had turned around to knock her down, it was too late. The Spinning cylinder was smoking as it wound to a stop. Devon slumped back against the bench and fell over to her gun side.

The three men heard the gunfire and turned, their weapons drawn. Hap was on top of the old woman, as she pushed her to the floor. She knocked the empty pistol from her hands wrapped her left arm around the woman’s neck bringing her blaster to the woman’s temple before the men could get off a shot at the second Ranger.

“Put your guns on the floor and back out of here, or I put a hole through granny’s head!”

The men complied, set their guns down and backed out into the street. The cantina had cleared out save for the bartender, who had pulled a short barreled riffle from under the bar. Hap put her gloved hand to the throat of the old woman and hollered at the bar tender, “Get out or she’s dead as her son.”

The bartender raised his rifle up and set it on the bar. He slowly came out from around the bar and headed for the door.

Hap pulled the woman’s arms back and slapped composite cuffs on her wrists.

“How did you know who I was?” the woman asked, when her windpipe was freed.

Hap pushed over the wooden table and shoved the woman to the ground without respect. “Shut up, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of a Stellar Ranger. You have the right to remain silent, I suggest you exercise that right. Lest I get twitchy and blow your fool head off.”

The woman looked over at the still form of the Ranger she had shot.

“I had to do it. Shoot me if you must. My life means nothing anymore.”

Hap pulled Devon’s legs up onto the bench and checked her pulse. She was alive. Hap took a glass of water from another table and emptied it onto Devon’s face. Devon woke up, tried to sit up, felt the pain in her chest and decided to stay put.

“What the hell happened?”

“We were tricked. You took six shots, you ok?”

Devon felt the tan shirt at her chest and could feel the torn fabric and the irregular pieces of lead impacted in the breastplate. The other piece of hardware she only wore to a gunfight was body armor. Hap ripped open Devon’s shirt and removed the shaped piece of armor. The six bullets made a perfect circle around where her heart would have been. The skin under the plate was bruised and already turning black and blue.

“That’s going to hurt for a while,” Hap said. She tossed the plate down before the woman on the floor.

The woman started weeping, her gray hair cut in a bob, fell in front of her eyes.

Devon still could not get up without help. Hap propped her up and fastened her shirt to cover her bruised and bare chest. They had to get out of the tavern and into their ships before the town rushed them. It was not going to be easy.

“How many people are waiting to take a shot at us?” Devon asked.

“I reckon they think you are dead, so maybe not so many. They’d like to have Mrs. Drey here though.”

Devon looked down at the old woman still bawling. “Now I know where Dead Eye got his killing instinct.”

She looked up at Devon with tear stained cheeks. “You killed my son, If I had a gun in my hand I would shoot you again.”

Hap back slapped her hard, “Shut the hell up!”

Devon slid down to the ceramic tiled floor on her knees and stuck her blaster in the woman’s face. The large cold barrel pushed up against her wet cheeks.

“You’re going to call off your people before we go outside. If they try anything, I’m killing my second Drey family member today.”

The woman stared at Devon with hot, angry eyes. But she said nothing.

* * *

Hap stepped out into the bright light of the dusty street. She had the Drey woman in front of her, hands tied. Hap had her blaster to the woman’s head. Mid-day heat was blurring her vision, causing puddles of wavering water to appear where there was only ruddy dirt. She wished she had brought her star glasses on this fateful day.

“Gilbert, Sonny, don’t shoot!” Mrs. Drey called out.

Hap looked around in every direction for someone with a rifle. She saw several townspeople loitering across the street but they did not appear to be armed. The two Scramblers were still parked about ten paces away. Shiny metal skin reflected the yellow sand and the twin stars in the clear sky.

Dead Eye Drey’s body had been removed from where he was felled by Devon’s single shot. The under taker’s aircab was parked nearby, ready for more customers. Hap pulled the Drey woman with her as she backpedaled to the Scramblers.

She made it to her Scrambler with no sign of the three men from the cantina. Unlatching the canopy, she helped the old Drey woman into the back seat of the tiny starfighter. The street was still largely deserted but Hap knew there was scheming under the surface. She strapped her prisoner down and turned to face the street.

A small group of dirty ranchers began moving towards her. Hap stepped off the starfighter and stood square before the group. They were carrying various hunting riffles loosely by their sides. This was it. They would attempt to prevent her from lifting off and returning the fugitive's mother to the Ranger station.

“Stand back citizens, official Ranger business.”

The group stopped and slowly raised their riffles.

“Ranger, you can’t get us all. Let that woman go or we’ll take her by force,” the leader demanded. He was the same man from the cantina. He looked much more imposing outside, with three other mates to back him up.

“This town has killed one Ranger on this day, do you really want a second death on your heads?”

The men looked at each other briefly before the leader spoke again, “So be it. Let the woman go.”

Hap saw a thin shadow slip behind the men. She looked away as if in thought and then drew her blaster and fired true and deadly at the lead man. His riffle dropped to the ground as he clutched his chest. The next man got off a shot and winged Hap’s left arm before she put a smoking hole in his head. The third and fourth men fell from shots to their backs. In a moment there were four dead ranchers and two wounded Rangers on the dirt street.

Devon let her gun fall loose to her side as she swaggered past the bodies. Her chest still ached and she was becoming weary of this place.

“Let’s get out of here before we wind up killing everyone in town.”

Hap held onto her arm to stop the bleeding. She holstered her weapon and let Devon wrap a scarf around the wound and cinch it down. Hap winced in pain and then drew a thin smile like a joker card.

“Come now Dev, you know you love a good gunfight.”

“Another day my friend, another day. Let’s get back home. I need a drink in a place they won’t try and shoot me.”

They mounted their steel steeds and fired up the powerful engines. Slowly the silver winged ships moved back from the cantina’s rough adobe walls and rose into the late afternoon sky. The undertaker tended to the dead and the town moved on with its business as the Rangers thundered away into the cloudless red sky.





The Renoke





“There I was, hanging from my thrusters...” my eyes rolled and I looked away. I’d heard this one a thousand times before.

“...that’s where they found me when my ship steered into the space dock, all by its lonesome.”

The others seated around the table all laughed at the poor pilot’s predicament. I just shook my head and took a long sip of brew. These gutter rats didn’t have anything on my crazy life. I sat up and ordered another round for the table. They all leaned in to hear me over the din of the tavern.

“You guys ever hear how I found my starship?” I asked.

Heads and what passed for heads shook all around the table. I had a ready audience, so I cleared my throat and inhaled the stale tavern air.

“I was fresh out of the Law Force and my pockets were swelled from a fat pension and the spoils of several shooting contests. I had enough to buy a decent sized transport but not enough to get one that actually flew, if you know what I mean. I was looking for a fixer-upper that I could build up into the ship of my dreams, over an extended period of time, anyway.”

I could see that I had everyone’s attention. Who hasn’t wished that they could just build their own starship from the ground up and put anything they wanted into it? I know it was what kept me going through some pretty harsh times on the force.

“So I hitched a ride on a transport vessel that was heading out for Ocherva. I gave the ship’s quartermaster some fresh fruit and a new smokeless pipe. He was a smoker and life aboard transports didn’t allow for such pleasantries, so he was plenty grateful to me. He made sure I was well fed and warm during my trip.

“Anyway, I arrived on that dusty old moon where the whole war started hundreds of years ago. It has since been terra-formed into something just above miserable and just under tolerable. They had breathable air and lots of valuable minerals to begin with, now the place had a few large cities and a rotting suburban area that housed many scrap heaps and junkyards. That’s where I wanted to begin my search for the perfect starship shell.”

A skinny kid piped up, interrupting me. “I know the place, run by an old codger who can’t hear too well and always screams at customers.”

“Yea kid, that’s the place. Now sit down and let me finish my story.”

He sat down quickly and shut his trap. Some people’s children, anyway, I started back in where I was before I was so rudely interrupted.

“I looked around for the better half of a day. Hit every major scrap dealer and space junkyard I could find. Nothing was striking my fancy, until I came upon a stripped down Class E ship sitting all alone behind some Tariun garbage scows. The owner of the yard said it was decommissioned about ten years before. Captains of similar makes and models had scavenged most of the good equipment. They were looking to get cheap parts to keep their own birds flying. There were large holes in the hull and the main servicing crane was missing, as was the port engine.

“Some kind of bizarre tail pipes were fitted to the exhaust system. The old codger said he had no idea if the main drive even worked much less what brand it was. The stern landing pad was low on hydraulic fluid and as a result the back end of the ship sagged almost to the sandy ground. The two main front struts and pads were not in much better shape.

“I checked the ship’s logs and found that it had sustained some light structural damage along the starboard bow. It was not severe enough to red line it, but no real effort was made to repair the damage. It was designed to house a crew of three, but I didn’t plan on hiring an engineer or a navigator. I knew enough about starship maintenance and stellar navigating to get around Alliance space.”

I was losing a couple of the moon bellies around the table, so I skipped some details and got right to the point of the story.

“I did a walk through with the old coot and didn’t see any show stoppers. The ship was lightweight, fast and reliable when it was maintained correctly. I transferred most of my life savings to the yard owner and he promptly gave me one week to get the steaming pile of shit out of his lot.

“At least he gave me access to some basic tools and a power generator. I headed back into the nearest town to look for a couple of strong backs to help me out. It was going to take a lot of man-hours to get the damn bucket space worthy and on its way to Negram. I knew a great mechanic there who owed me a huge favor. With any luck I’d be able to con her into helping me make the modifications that I had in mind for the little starship.”

I took a long drink from my warm as piss beer and then started again, “You know it’s going to be a hard ride ahead when you can’t find so much as a deck hand in town to help you move some plasteel. I went into every dive I could find, looking for some strong boys to help me with the welding. Didn’t find anything but cheap whores and old drunk bastards with broken bodies and wasted minds, which was typical for a backwater world like Ocherva. You’d think you would find some hearty folk living out there that would jump at the chance to make a quick buck. No such luck.

“Anyway, I did manage to find a few electronics and a good portable navigation system for not too much. Amazing what you find in a rat hole some times. If I could just get the drive on line, I could work on making the bridge airtight. That’s all I needed for the ride to Negram. I owned an old ragged space suit, so if I had to go fix something I could.”

“Hey, you can’t fly a half pressurized ship in space!” the jerk blurted out louder than if it were not drunk. It had a dark complexion with beady black slits for eyes that were too close together. I disliked it immediately. Something about aliens with no head only a body, that didn’t sit right with me.

“Shut up and drink pal, I’m telling a story here!”

It looked around at the others who mostly shrugged and gave me their undivided attention. I waited for the Graphelon to calm down before continuing.

“So I headed back to the ship the next morning and started getting myself organized. It was hotter than hell on that dirtball and the fine red sand got into everything. I decided to check out the condition of the main drive. Normally a general tanker like this would have two engines, you know, two of everything for safety and all. But the second drive had been ripped out of the hull leaving a gaping hole.

“I managed to pry open the airlock wheel and stepped inside the warm and dry engine room. The first thing I noticed was the smell. Not the warm smell of burning oil and expanding metals. But a rancid, rotting smell like something had crawled into the room and died. I stepped back out of the room and caught my breath before I flat puked all over the floor. There was some foul smelling shit in that room.

“I took a couple of deep breaths and barged in again, heading for the main engine cut off switches that I knew were along the far wall of the room. Some movement caught my eye from under the main drive cylinder. I stepped back again and instinctively drew my pistols. A huge, multi-segmented, multi-legged centipede like thing whipped out from under the engine and raised itself to the ceiling.”

Everyone was hanging on my every word. I paused for effect, wondering if maybe I was having just a little bit too much fun. Naw.

“I ‘bout crapped my pants. The damn thing moved as fast as a little bug only it was big enough to swallow me whole. Now I’ve been in my fair share of derelict ships, but I’ve never been accosted by a giant bug before. As I stood there charged and cocked, I noticed a weird sensation in my ears. I pushed a shoulder into my right ear, trying to clear the noise. The bug was looking down at me with its black beady eyes and some kind of gnawing pincers. That was when I noticed a correlation between the moving mouth and the noise in my head.

“The damn thing was trying to communicate with me in my head, you know, telepathically. I don’t know about you all, but I don’t like bugs that crawl on the floor and I damn sure don’t like them inside my head. Well, you know what I mean. I backed up towards the hatch I came in through, keeping both eyes on the monster-sized centipede. Its antennae were twitching and I had this urge to blast it full of holes. Only thing that held me back from opening up on it was the thought of cleaning up the mess.

“That’s when I heard it speaking to me, in my head. ‘I am engine guardian, it said. I looked at it with a dumb stare.”

One of the guys huffed at me and waved his paw, “Joules you’re the biggest fragen liar in the quadrant.

It was Hoggert, Boils Hoggert, quite possibly the ugliest human this side of Neutral Zone. He had a flat face covered in boils - hence his name. It looked like someone put a boot through his nose and it stuck in that scrunched in position. He was heavy too; you could hear him breathing from ten paces. He wore a specially made space suit that was layered in filth. Some of these space rats haven’t bathed in so long, I think they forgot how.

“Shut up Boils, the bug could flat talk to me inside my head. If you don’t like the story take it on out of here, our noses could use a break.”

He did what passed for a sneer and waved his pudgy hand at me. The skinny thing that had interrupted me before seemed to be enjoying watching me lay into someone else. I took another swig of brew and cleared my throat before continuing.

“It repeated that it was the engine guardian. I heard it plain as day the second time. I asked it what it was doing in my ship. It lowered itself until it was level with my head before it spoke again. ‘I engine guardian. I come with engine. You own engine, you own me,’ it said. I looked quickly at the engine casing. It didn’t look very familiar to me, come to think of it. I asked it what kind of engine it was. The thing recoiled slightly and then said, ‘Mark 3 Saberliner, I built the engine and I stay with it until I die.’

“The bug had built a starship engine. I thought I’d seen and heard everything, but it’s times like this that I know the universe is far bigger and far stranger than even I could imagine. I had never heard of a Saberliner engine before. I didn’t know if it was the model name or manufacturer. In the end, I didn’t care. I was going to install something completely different after I got the ship to Negram, so it could have been a rocket drive for all I cared.

“I told it that I was taking the ship to another system for an over haul and all I wanted to do now was get it space worthy and out of the junk yard. It stared at me, at least that’s what it looked like it was doing. Its two long antennas were twitching in unison. ‘I help you fix engine. You need one charging tube and stellar-fuel number 8,’ it finally said. I agreed to add those things to my shopping list when I went back to town. I asked it why it hadn’t fixed the engine itself and just taken off. It looked at me with those big shiny black eyes and said, ‘Would you crawl into a shop looking like me?’ I guessed not.

“Having struck a deal with the twenty legged monster I spent my time cleaning up the rest of the ship and making sure all the life support systems and navigation equipment were functioning. I kept making notes of things I wanted to change or replace when I reached Negram. The ship was going on forty years old by her registry. That was a long time for a starship to be in service. Technology had marched on past most of the ship’s systems. I could replace or modify nearly everything for less money than someone had paid for this hunk of junk when it was brand new.

“The bug confined itself to the engine room and that was fine by me. I found the sight of it unsettling to say the least. I cleaned up the captain’s cabin and moved in. It was cramped and had no windows but I didn’t care. As long as the door could be locked and it had a bed, I was fine. The dry air of Ocherva had been good to the metals and the composites but the rubber tubes and hydraulic lines were cracked and needed replaced. I was never going to find all the replacement parts I needed, so I prioritized my repairs in order of absolute necessity. After a couple of days work, I was ready to test start the main drive and see if the bug had kept his word.”

“I was working so hard on getting things patched together I didn’t have any time to fully explore the inside of the ship. I decided I had better make sure I wasn’t hiding any contraband in a hidden storage container somewhere that would sure as hell get me boarded by the local Rangers. I wondered all around the hull, checking into hatches and unlocking service panels as I went. Everything seemed empty and well used. I came upon a small room adjacent to the engine room and found the hatch locked. My command over-ride did not free the hatch lock. That was odd. I pulled back an access panel on the wall and two creepy craw-lies came running out on rows of tiny legs. I brushed them to the floor and squished them with my boot. I hate bugs. The first thing I was going to do when I got to orbit was pop the hatches and suck out or kill all the little critters that had made the derelict ship their home over the past few years. I had found some kind of varmint nesting in a landing strut well and had to pull it kicking and screaming out of its home. It ran around like a headless bird until I shot it.

“The engine room hatch opened and that bug thing started to come out. I asked it what was inside the locked room and it said the room was empty. I didn’t believe it for a second. It said the engine was ready to be tested, so I went back down the main corridor to the bridge. I’d get into that room later. Right now I had a ship to fire up.”

“I bet there’s a dead body in the room,” said the starman. He was the only military member at the table. His rank was Senior Chief and he looked like he had seen plenty of action in the fleet. His black face was etched with lines and his eyes were narrow and knowing.

“Perhaps Chief, but it’s not important now,” I said. I didn’t want to insult him; he spent his time in uniform defending the Alliance from Votainion enslavement. We all owned our livelihood to his defending of our freedom to trade in open space. He was no doubt on leave here on his homeworld and was enjoying my tale and the good food of the darkened tavern.

“Please, continue Captain Rouse,” the Chief said.

With a nod to the Chief, I began again. “So I checked all the systems and slowly brought the Saberliner engine up to idle. The ship shuddered and then began to hum with life. Air blew from the vents at my feet and lights lit up all over the control panels. A relay blew and quickly started to burn. I grabbed a hand extinguisher and sprayed it on the fire.

“The bug’s voice seeped into my head again, ‘Everything okay up there?’ I told him yes. He suggested I do a full run-up to test the power conduits. I agreed. It was better to have a blow out on the ground than while you were thousands of feet in the air or in space. Keeping an eye on the gauges, I slowly brought the power levers forward. The intermixer was flowing steady and the turbines rumbled, vibrating the hull under my feet. She sounded strong, like one of those new heavy-lift jobs. I wanted to take her up straight away, but I decided to just hold off and take it easy.

“The bug seemed pleased on his end of the ship. He signaled for me to throttle back to idle speed. I did so and adjusted my controls to hold it steady. Then I got up and did a cursory hull check by walking back through the ship. No relays had blown and there was no burning smell, both good signs. I climbed up the ladder and opened the top hatch. Bright late afternoon starlight greeted my squinting eyes. I pulled myself up and walked around the top of the ship for the first time.

“The ship came from the factory with a dull white paint scheme, but over the years, maintenance workers had affixed panels to the hull of various shades of gray and white. Sitting on this red dirt ball moon for almost a decade had taken a toll on the paint. It was scratched and worn all over with little piles of sand up against the engine nacelle and faded paint everywhere. I walked the perimeter and found nothing unusual so I came back inside.

“The bug, which didn’t have a name, by the way, was wrapped around the engine working on something when I came in. ‘Everything looks all right topside. Hey, what’s your name anyway?’ I asked. It pulled out of the engine and gave me a quick glance. ‘You could not pronounce it.’ I heard it reply in my head. Okay, I’ll buy that. ‘I will call you Nightmare, then. Wear the name with pride, it fits you justly.’ Nightmare returned to whatever he was doing. I don’t know if it understood what I said or not.

“A few days passed and I was eventually ready to get into space. I went into town one last time and purchased enough food and water to get me to where I was going. When I got back to the ship I used the loading elevator to get the supplies into the main cargo bay. When I was done, I went to the bridge and sent my launch request and flight plan to the local authorities. They responded almost instantly with permission to take off and leave the system. The same request on an inner system world would have taken weeks. I guess they don’t have the kind of traffic out here in the middle of nowhere that developed worlds were plagued with. I spoke into the intercom to Nightmare. ‘Hey ugly, you ready for takeoff?’

“He didn’t respond right away. I was about to call him again when he spoke inside my head, ‘Ready.’ He was certainly not a conversationalist, which was fine by me. I strapped in and plugged my space suit into the ship’s environmental system. Then I walled the throttles and pulled back on the main yoke.

“The ship throbbed and then started to lift off the ground. I could hear the hull creaking and popping as it pushed free from the moon and rose into the pink colored sky. I wondered if we were leaving a trail of dust and sand as we gained altitude. The engine really responded nicely inside the atmosphere. The thin starship handled pretty good too. I had flown one of them years ago when we impounded it for smuggling in the Selenia system. It had made such a good impression on me that when I was ready to get a ship of my own, I made a point to get a Trestar III general transport. The design was clean and sleek, with classic lines that were perfectly symmetrical. I’ve been a lover of starships since I was a kid, sometimes you develop favorites and this one was one of my favorites.

“When we broke into orbit the ship really showed what it could do. I did some rolls and some tight turns to see how the controls handled. Not bad for a piece of junk that just came back from the grave. I put her in orbit and went back to the engine room to see how Nightmare was doing. It was not in the engine room. I called out to it but got no reply inside or outside of my own head. I decided to put on my helmet and go for a walk through the ship, to check hull integrity and see if any compartments were not pressurized.

“The main two cargo holds were fine. The secondary holds were also good. I went into the small equipment rooms, more like closets than rooms, they were fine too. The only area of the ship left to inspect was that locked room next to the engine. I took my Markline Piercer pistol and aimed it at the locking mechanism. One well placed shot later and the door slid open. Inside was my worst nightmare. Millions of bugs were swarming all over the room. They were those damn centipede-like insects just like Nightmare. At the same time my head was filled with a million screaming voices. I staggered back away from the door and shook my helmeted head. I could not get the cries and screams out of my head. From out of the wiggling, creeping hive of bugs came Nightmare. He moved so fast I barely had time to turn and run before he was out into the corridor trailing little bugs in his image of all sizes.

“Oh man, that is nasty,” Boils sneered.

The others had disgust written on their faces too. Some of them stopped eating and pushed their food aside on the wooden table. Did I mention I loved to tell this story?

“The ship was positively infested with bugs. I ran down the corridor towards the bridge and turned around with both of my pistols charged. Nightmare came to a halt about three feet from me. If I turned to go inside the bridge, he would snap me up and tear me in half. I was breathing heavy from the sprint. Then the little bugs came down the hall crawling on hundreds of rows of legs, their long bodies steady as they came like a wheeled vehicle on good shocks.

“They were not going to stop and if I blasted Nightmare, they would still be able to swarm over me like ants. I decided on a course of action that was as desperate as it was stupid. I shot the ceiling above Nightmare. The ship decompressed explosively. Everything not locked down was blasted out into space, including all the little bugs, Nightmare and myself. I let go of one pistol and grabbed a handrail as my feet flew out from under me. I watched the Piercer zip away into the eternal night. I really loved that pistol and now it was gone. Come to think of it, that probably pissed me off more than the bugs in my ship. Nightmare was sucked outside the ship but managed to find something to hold on to with one segment of his body. I aimed the other pistol at his legs and blasted away until he let go again. This time his huge body floated out of the ship.

“In my head the maddening sound of a thousand insects was quickly faded and replaced with the hellish taunts of Nightmare as he floated out in space, his legs paddling away at nothing. ‘You will die for this. We will not be defeated so easily,’ he sneered. I just aimed at his head and blasted away. His whitish insides exploded and his segments came apart in a milky spray of tiny beads that sparkled in the starlight. I turned away from the display and pulled myself back to the hatch that led to the bridge.

“After a few minutes of struggling I managed to get into the bridge and seal off the area that I blew a hole in. Then I quickly started blowing the hatches to every room in the ship, starting with the engine room and making my way forward. I looked down and saw a bunch of little bugs coming out of the air vents. The little bastards were everywhere. As far as I could tell, I was safe inside my space suit, so I concentrated on ridding the ship of them and tried not to think about how they were crawling all over me.”

“Oh man, that’s just not right,” Boils said.

The others nodded their heads in agreement. “How could you work with them crawling all over you?” the Chief asked.

“Well as I said, they were not actually hurting me. They were creeping me out pretty good, but I tried not to look at them. The vacuum of space apparently did not affect them. I moved the ship out of orbit and headed for the gas giant of Ocherva Prime. Then I strapped into the pilot seat and turned off the gravity. There was one crawling over my face plate when it suddenly drifted away, spinning like a gear, its legs having no affect in the null gravity.”

“I couldn’t move any better than they could but at least I could run the ship from my captain’s seat. I gunned the engine and entered the upper atmosphere of Ocherva Prime. I had a plan, but I wondered if I could survive it any better than the bugs.

“I knew Ocherva Prime was a gas giant and I knew that most such planets were composed of hydrogen, oxygen and methane. If that didn’t ride me of my bug infestation, I didn’t know what would. After a short ride I lowered the ship into the gaseous atmosphere and watched the squirming, spinning bugs closely. They were still alive, near as I could tell. I pressed on, going lower and lower into the foul muck. The ship was buffeting pretty good in the heavy winds. She felt like she was going to come apart at the seams. I made sure all the rooms were exposed to the noxious weather by rolling and spinning in big slow moves that put little pressure on the ship but knocked as many bugs as possible outside.

“I kept going deeper into the atmosphere until the pressure became dangerous for me. Apparently the bugs had had enough too. They began to slow down and then started dying off en masse. I maintained a level course until I was certain that nothing outside of my suit was living. I turned on the gravity plates and headed aft to check on the engine room. The drive was performing admirably considering what I was doing with it on my shakedown cruise.

“I searched the main engine room first, looking for living bugs. All I found were dead shells of bugs both large and small. Nothing was alive in there so I went next door. The room was empty except for a floating pile of clean white bones, probably from previous crewmen or maybe from passers-by. Not one sign of any bugs. I lifted an access hatch on the floor and nothing squirmed out to get me. The orange gases from the planet were whipping through my ship and taking every little thing that was not secured. I didn’t care. The bugs were gone. It was time for me to leave.

“I took the ship back out to space and started closing all the hatches. Because I blew a good-sized hole in the main corridor, there were some areas that I just could not restore with air. Back on the bridge I sucked out all the bug carcasses with a hand vacuum and then restored the air to a breathable mix. I kept my suit on and my helmet nearby in case something went wrong. It was only a few days’ travel at maximum speed to Negram so I decided to stick it out. The bridge smelled like noxious fumes from the Ocherva Prime clouds.”

I sat back in my wooden chair and drained my mug, end of story.

“That’s a pretty good one Rouse. Especially the part about using the gas giant to fumigate the ship,” the Chief said. He ordered another round of rotgut for everyone. I raised my freshly filed mug in his honor.

“So did you ever find out what species that bug was? Did he really build the engine?” that from the skinny alien.

“No, it was only using the ship as a nursery. The Ximerans out on the far rim of the Alliance made the engine. I still use it today, best damn engine I’ve ever seen. I did look up the species when I got back to civilization. There was nothing in the Alliance libraries about telepathic bugs.” I shrugged. It was a big universe, what could I say?

“So did the ship turn out to be a good platform for you?” the Chief asked.

“The Renoke? Yea I still fly it today. It turned out to be a damn fine ride, after I worked the bugs out of it.”





War Stories





Old warriors never die; they just have their memories transferred to databases and live on forever as holograms. My name is Cameron Creese, I recently had the unique experience of interviewing starfighter pilots who served in the Great War as far back as eight hundred years ago, thanks to a modern spin on some ancient technology.

The United Space Force University History Department was where my journey started. I was researching the journals of military leaders during the war and came upon a unique program that started fairly early in the conflict. Scientists had devised a way to record everything a person said, thought and saw through their own eyes into primitive relational data structures. It was a revolutionary idea at that time. People were not accustomed to having their inner thoughts and for that matter their whole lives recorded for future posterity. The military of course, offered their members as initial recipients for the Life Recorders as they became known. At first only the top brass where allowed to participate as their decisions were deemed historically significant to future military leaders. As the technology became easier to work with more volunteers from lower ranks were invited to participate. Eventually after several years as test program, it became mandatory for every officer and non-commissioned officer to have the device implanted in their bodies.

Huge data warehouses were constructed in secret locations throughout the Alliance. The issues of personal liberties and freedoms were mute for military members so there was little resistance to the technology. After a while, it became an accepted practice that nobody bothered to protest. The same Life Recorder technology was never installed in political leaders of the day, a fact that historians now deeply regret. Imagine knowing the thoughts of Alliance Presidents as they made important decisions on domestic affairs and war strategy? Further imagine how many leaders would have been ran out of office had their secret affairs or questionable ethics been known to those doing the recording?

For many generations the Life Recorders patiently went about recording the daily nuances of life for those in military life. As technology for storing and retrieving data was improved, the data stores were edited down to only the most interesting events in the lives of those being recorded. So for instance, the video of someone walking down a hall or brushing their teeth was stripped out and only the interesting bits were actually archived. Things like mission briefings and actual combat were saved for posterity. Enough personal data in terms of thoughts and interactions with others was saved to allow future generations to get an idea of what it was like to live when the images were recorded. Historians such as me have long known about the existence of these data centers, sitting in guarded repositories all over the Alliance but until now, we had no access to them. With the end of the Great War came an extensive reorganization of the military. The vast military industrial complex that had survived for nearly a thousand years is being slowly and methodically reorganized and re-purposed for peaceful exploration and civilian rebuilding programs. Worlds torn apart by war are now being rebuilt in peacetime. Giant fleets of warships are being torn apart and re-purposed as civilian transports or converted into war memorials. Tight security that had held for generations is beginning to loosen.

New data retrieval and organizational software have been created at the USF College of Technology that allow for all those recorded lives to live again, this time as holographic entities, known as Artificial Persons. The birth and creation of holographic science has entered a renaissance in the post war years. Affluent families are now able to afford life like facsimiles of relatives that lived hundreds of years ago. This has led to some incredible family reunions over the years as well as some heated arguments too, I would imagine. For historians it has been something of a gold mine.

Over the past few weeks I have personally interviewed several dozen warriors from as far back as the first millennium of the war to as recently as just before the war’s inexplicable end. What follows are some transcripts of those interviews. These are regular people, asked by their government to protect humanity in its time of need. They appeared to me as real as any living person complete with breathing, emotions and even a little humor. It was a rare and treasured gift that I shall never forget. I hope you find it as interesting and engaging as I did.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Niv Bellan was assigned to the USF Belknore in 3049, not fifty years after the war had started. She was a promising aeropilot born and raised on Selenia and drafted at the tender age of eighteen. She was top of her class in fighter pilot school and earned a Master rating in single engine fighters before she graduated. She was assigned to the 221st Squadron, the Star Jammers, who flew the newest starfighter to come on line - the Trojan Class. The Trojan fighter was designed by the great aviation engineer Trever Leed, and tested by the legendary Red Allen. I asked Niv about her early years on the Belknore and what she thought of the war as a young person just entering her service career. Her holographic image was of her in her mid twenties. Her hair was brown and pulled back in a tail and her skin was soft and wrinkle free. She had a glimmer in her dark eyes that showed whenever she talked about starfighters or flying.

Creese: Niv, tell me about your first few weeks on the Belknore. What were you feeling and what events stand out in your mind about that time in your career?

Bellan: “Well, I was really excited to be there, let me just tell you that right off the bat. I had dreamed of being a pilot since I was six years old. My daddy was a pilot for the commercial airlines. He never served in the military, because that was before the war. My father raised my sister and I to love airplanes and space ships. We spent a lot of time at airports and spaceports growing up. My daddy had a library in his den and it was filled with books on aviation. My sister and I would sit on the floor in the den and turn the colorful pages on books about airplanes and spaceships. So needless to say, I was born to be a pilot.

“When I got to flight school it was not exactly what I had expected. I was ready to fly and all we seemed to do was drill and learn the history of and mechanics of flight. I already knew all that crap, I wanted to get in the cockpit of a fighter and start learning its systems. We eventually got to the flying part and those were the best times for me. I graduated top of my class and got to pick which ship to be assigned. I picked the Belknore because I remembered that it was one of the oldest and most celebrated warships of the fleet.

“When I got to space I was in for a real shocker. We were at war. I know, it sounds crazy, like, duh, what did you think we were training for? But the war was always a far away thing for me. Something that brave people did in far off places. I never had exposure to the violence and the suffering that came with war. That first week on board ship, taught me lessons I would never forget.”

Creese: What happened?

Bellan: “Well, we were just learning our way around the ship when we were attacked by a flight of enemy starfighters. They were hiding in a system with lots of asteroids and space junk. Apparently our scanners did not detect them. Anyway, I was in the main hangar getting a lecture about where to park and who were the crew chiefs and all that, when the klaxons went off. We all just kind of stood there, looking around like, “What the hell is that annoying sound?” The crewmen started dashing around us and we were herded into the briefing room where we normally did pre-flight briefings. Our squadron leader was Commander Anderson. I remember he was the most experienced fighter pilot I had ever met.

“Anyway, we were all too green and were not allowed to go out on the intercept. A few of us went to the port side of the ship and found a porthole to look out of. That was the first time I saw the Eight-Wing enemy fighter. A flight of two zipped past our porthole and we all just stared wide-eyed at them. They were so close I could see the rivets on their fuselages and the wires on their wing cut outs. I’ll never forget that pass by''

Creese: When did you finally get to fly a combat mission? Was it what you expected it to be?

Niv sat back and frowned. She was dressed in her flight suit with its colorful unit patches. Pilots in those days wore specially woven artificial cloth that was fire retardant and had many pockets. The Life Recorders were the only piece of technology any of them had implanted and they had external connections for the suits to monitor life signs. Most of them even wore leather jackets that were similar to what early aeropilots used to wear. Niv wore a silken scarf around her neck that was yellow and had her unit insignia on it.

Bellan: “I got two kills on my first time out. I call it lucky not skillful. We were in a four-ship flight heading back to the Belknore. We zipped past this little rocky planet and came down on a two-ship formation of Eights. I don’t think they knew we were there, at least until after I had blasted the lead ship. It only took four bursts from my canons. I could see the rounds impacting across its fuselage from the canopy to the stern. Normally those fighters had some kind of shielding, but these two were flying naked and they paid for it. You know, I used to wonder why I was able to get those first two kills so easy. Every kill I got after that I had to earn the hard way. I think those two ships were returning to a servicing station. I would just about bet they had broken shields. The second ship tried to dive to the planet to get out of my line of fire, but instead just lined itself up for another easy kill. The second one only took two shots to the stern and I must have hit the fuel tank. It blew up in a bright ball of expanding gas.”

She paused in thought. I could have sworn she was remembering. Truth was, the program was scanning her data, searching for relevant feelings and thoughts about the battle, assimilating a life and then bringing it to life.

Niv: “I never thought about the fact that we were killing other living beings but on that day, with those two enemy pilots dying in a way that did not earn them any honor. I felt bad about it for a few days, until Commander Anderson talked to me about it in the lounge one night when he saw me hanging my head over a drink by myself.

“He told me that any kill was a good kill. The easier it was to get, all the better. He said I would soon be in a position to show my piloting skills and that I would need everything I had just to survive. He was right. My next kill did not come until a month later and I mixed it up with two Eights for over twenty minutes. After I finally got one, the other turned tail and left. I was never so relieved to get out of a cockpit in my life.“

Creese: Did you ever have any real hatred for the enemy?

Bellen: “Well, I never personally knew anyone killed at the start of the war, but I did know people who had lost loved ones. There was a lot of patriotism and sticking it to them type attitude at the start of the war, but I really didn't get into all that. Piloting is really kind of impersonal, you know? You never really see who you are killing. You just know that you have a job to do and you go out and do it. I never stayed up at night wondering about who I waxed.

Creese: Do you remember anything special about your tours? Did you ever fight in any major battles or meet anyone famous?

Niv seemed to lighten up a bit. A big smile came to her face.

Bellan: “One time I met Red Allen. Yea, I could not believe it myself. We were back in orbit of Selene for planet fall and most people transferred to the surface for leave. I stayed aboard ship and hung out with my crew chief. I wanted to learn more about my bird and what I could do as a pilot to get more range or agility out of it. I know, I’m always thinking like a pilot.

“Anyway, we were tinkering with the retro nozzles on the nose when we heard a big fuss at the far end of the hangar. There was a group of officers and several civilians moving around a covered bird. One of them was Red Allen, I recognized his red hair even from a distance. My crew chief and I watched them waving their hands and discussing the covered starfighter. I could not hear what they were saying, but I gathered it was not good.

“Red was in his sixties. He was pretty spry for an old guy and the stream of colorful language that poured out of his mouth would be enough to make an old spacer red in the face. He broke away from the group and strode down the hanger towards us. I stepped out to watch him pass but he came up to me when he noticed my flight suit. He was taller than I remembered from the tele-vids. His eyes were sharp as a tack and greener than emeralds.

“You, you’re a pilot. What’s more important in a fur-ball, speed or maneuverability?” he asked me. Me. I was actually talking to a living legend, the greatest test pilot of all time. I just stood there and stammered, “Ah, speed sir. At least that’s been more valuable to me than turning in a fight.

“Red’s mouth opened in a grin that was a wide as an event horizon. “Damn straight missy. Speed wins all the time. Now you tell that to them mother humping, blue-skin loving white collars over there. They’re trying to take the power out of the next front line fighter.” He stormed away as the others caught up to him. They were shaking their heads and trying to get Red to come back inside to discuss the situation.

“I’ll never forget that for as long as I live. I read later in a technical report about the F-90 that the designers had tried to give it more maneuverability but that in-field modifications bore out that added power would serve the fighter better in combat. You don’t need me to tell you how successful the F-90 was, or how it was known as the fastest starfighter ever.”

I really wanted to see that face to face with Red Allen but Life Recorders at that time were only able to record occasional pictures from the occupant’s eyes not steady streaming images. On that day, Niv’s ocular recorder was not working. The technology was still new and unproven.

Lieutenant Niv Bellan was killed in action on star date 24083053. Her flight of four Trojan fighters were attacked by a six ship force of Eight Wings near a small moon in the Negram system. They were out gunned and taken by surprise. Niv’s final recorded thoughts were about her wingman being too close and about being hit from above with not enough speed to break away. She was just twenty-two years old and she had 10 kills to her credit.

* * *

My second interview was with a fifty year old squadron commander who lived during the middle years of the Great War. His name was Brine Richards and he was stationed on the GCU Constellation for most of his career. Brine’s black hair was prematurely gray and his dark eyes were framed with wrinkles. His face was full and honest but you could tell he lived under great stress. The average life span of a pilot in his squadron was 90 days. I asked him how he handled the stress of combat and heavy losses. He shrugged as if he didn’t know any other way of life.



Creese: Commander Richards what are some of the frustrations you have as a Squadron Commander?

Richards: “The pilot turnover always weighs on my mind, after your first dozen dispatches to family members, you kind of start to loose track of individuals. I rely on my flight leaders to give me their personal remembrances to make the dispatches legitimate. I can’t get to know anyone under my flight leaders and that bothers me. But you know what the biggest headache I have is? It’s not the enemy and it’s not the attrition. It’s the damn supply chain. Only eighty percent of my birds are flyable at any one time. Fifty percent of those are not combat ready. We have to create hangar queens in order to have combat fliers. We go for twelve months per tour and we only get resupplied once in that time. My maintainers are fraging miracle workers. I don’t know how they are able to keep anything flying and I don’t even ask them anymore. I’m just damn glad to have them.”

Creese: Do your pilots have enough training when they come aboard for the first time?

Richards: “Hell no. We get ‘em straight out of flight school. If they don’t get blown up in the first two weeks they are with us, their chances of staying alive increase for about a month. After that, they either sink or swim as warriors. The odds increase steadily the longer they are in space. I’ve initiated a bootstrap program that all newbies must go through in order to retain their flight status. They get assigned a senior pilot to be their buddy. It’s the job of the senior buddy to make sure the newbie gets trained in everything they need to survive. It’s cut down the mortality rate and now other carriers in the fleet are adapting the program. I feel good about that but I also know that it’s not enough. We still have to fly rickety old birds that are held together with blood, sweat and prayers.”

The supply and maintenance problems were a common problem during the middle years of the war. It’s no surprise that it was of primary concern to this squadron commander. I’ve interviewed just about all the squadron commanders in the fleet this way and they all tell similar tales. The fleet’s combat reach often out ran the reach of its supply chain. But that is not what has drawn me to this man at this time in the war. It was a well-known fact that the Alliance was stretched too thin at that time in the war. There were anti-war movements on the inner planets and the massive investment in technology, resources and manpower by the military was at an all time high. Even though they were technically holding their own against the Kastrum of the Votainion Empire, it was a thin margin and had things worked out just a little differently, the war would have ended sooner. For the members of the Western Alliance military, these were some of the darkest times of the Great War. Commander Richards was one of the hardest working and best loved leaders at this time.

Creese: Commander, how do you feel about the enemy? Do you have to motivate your people to stay in the fight?

Richards: “How do I feel about the Vots?”

He seemed to be lost in thought for a while. I took this to mean that there were conflicting emotions expressed in his data. His unit participated in the Battle of Kew, the bloodiest and longest battle of the war. Literally thousands of spacers were killed and hundreds of warships participated in the campaign.

Richards: “There was a time there, at Kew, that I really wished the Vots would completely overwhelm us and end the war, once and for all. We were at our breaking point. Sleep deprivation, hunger and endless combat tends to wear you down. We were just about out of fuel, munitions and the will to continue after the third month of the battle. If the reserves hadn't arrived when they did, we would have been overrun and the route to the inner worlds would have been wide open. I'd have liked to have seen the Peaceniks if that had happened.

“My people respected the Vots for their valor and honor, but we never hesitated to press an attack. With so many of your comrades dying around you, you never needed much motivation to kill the enemy.”

Creese: Commander, how many times were you wounded in attacks on the Connie?

Richards: “Shoot, I lost count. I spent most of my time during attacks in the CIC. We were attacked hard all the time. I’ve been hit multiple times in my legs and at least once in the head, mostly just flak from the ship blowing up around us. You know, as much as I hate our situation on the hangar decks, the fleet people have one hell of a ship in the mighty Connie. This old girl can take a beating and still carry on like a trooper. It’s a testament to her designers and the people that live, maintain and fight in her.”

Commander Richards’ medical records show that after his head wound, his psychological profile took a dive. He started battling depression and bouts of drunken rage while on planetfall. His people always protected him, covered up his actions and looked the other way whenever they became the target of his anger. On his last time out, the stresses of war took a heavy toll on him. A day after an engagement in which he lost ten pilots and twelve starfighters, Commander Richards took a walk through an airlock and never returned. Suicide was the number two cause of death among pilots and commanders on carriers during the war. The number one cause of death was not enemy attacks; it was equipment malfunctions that put pilots in harms way unnecessarily.

* * *

My final interview was the hardest for me to sit through. It was with Garon Teller a 120-year-old ex-starfighter pilot who lived during the close of the Great War. I actually knew Garon and to see him alive again, even if as an animated, computerized hologram was more than a little unsettling to me. It brought home to me the fact that these were not actually real people I was interviewing, but some kind of odd distillation of their essence.



Garon was stationed on the GCU Bouson a medium carrier in the First Wing of the Stellar Fleet. The Bouson took part in the final space battle of the Great War and was also one of the first starships to be demilitarized. Garon retired at the age of 88 and took up residence at the Cold Star base on the moon of Selenia. He chose to live on the moon so that he could be the first person to shake the hands of the spacers returning to civilian life when the war ended. He must have shook thousands of hands in the years just after the close of the war, always with a smile that could light up the blackest dark matter. He was proud of what the Alliance military had done and wanted to let the veterans returning to civilian life know that their service was appreciated. That hundreds of generations had served and died so that they could be the ones that got to leave the war behind them and get on with living free and prosperous lives.

I first met Garon at Cold Star when I was doing research for the restoration efforts of decommissioned starfighters. The military was downsizing at a rapid pace and some historically relevant equipment was getting parted out and melted down into scrap elements. The historical society I was a member of was charged with the task of making sure that a few samples of military equipment were saved for the many war museums that were beginning to pop up around the Alliance.

Garon was a jovial old man with skin as dark as night and a face with freckles and age spots that surrounded the kindest eyes I have ever seen. The holograph did his likeness as it was when I knew him, just before his death of natural causes. He was very old and didn’t have the energy that he was known for, but under that wrinkled, tired body was the heart of a true patriot and a delightful man.

Creese: Garon, tell me about what led you to want to retire at Cold Star and be a greeter?

Teller: “Well, when I came back to the inner systems to de-com the Bouson, we had just finished the final skirmish of the war. We were a ragged and tired bunch having had our tours extended by a year in anticipation of the war’s ending. Our ship was damaged to the point of being one of the first starships that was actually parted out and sold as scrap. There was nothing left of her to serve in any post war military.

“When I came walking down that gangway, you know the one, it seems like the longest tunnel in the universe. You begin to think you might not even make it out alive unless you ever reach the end of that tunnel. (He laughed to himself.) Right after you pass through the security gate there was a crowd of about ten or twelve retired people, wearing their old uniform badges and medals on red vests. They grabbed our tired hands and shook them and told us they appreciated our service to the Alliance. It was warm and genuine and after having faced death in my final battle, my eyes began to tear up and I had to sit down.

“I chatted with a nice old gentleman who was a former Stellar Marine. He handed me some tissues for my tears and never acted like it was anything but perfectly normal to let out my emotions. We had coffee in the cafeteria and as I got to know him, I realized that this is what I wanted to do with my life after the service. I found a little apartment on base and became a full time greeter. I wanted to pass on that feeling of support and affection for my fellow service men and women.”

Creese: How long were you a greeter?

Teller: “Well, I did it up until my centennial birthday. So that would have been about twenty years. It took about that long to bring in all the starships from the far reaches of the galaxy. I must have shook thousands of hands and talked to at least half the fleet about their careers and what they wanted to do in civilian life. Not all of them were retiring or just separating. Some of them chose to stay in and become members of the newly reorganized, combined fleet. I had the most respect for those kids that stayed in. I knew they would not have an easy go of it. I could not imagine being bunkmates with my former enemy. But I was an old fart when I retired and us old folk don’t change our ways very easily. I have hated the Vots all my life. I killed many enemy pilots and many more fleet support troops; my racism is a part of me that cannot be removed. They will always be viscous, blue skin devils to me no matter what the politicians say. I think it will be a long time, perhaps many generations before that kind of hatred between the sides is erased.”

Creese: But you support unification efforts in the fleet, why is that?

Teller: “Well, just because I couldn’t do it, doesn’t mean that I don’t think it's necessary. It’s going to take several generations to undo what the war created. Hundred of planets need rebuilding. Hundreds of billions of people still need liberating from the clutches of the Empire. It’s practically an unobtainable goal to unite the galaxy and bring all people up to the same level of technology and economic prosperity that the Alliance planets now have. But you know, what better way to help make a difference now that the fighting is finished?

“If I were a young person today, I would volunteer for the reconstruction effort. How rewarding would that work be? I can’t even image what it would mean to the enslaved peoples of the Empire to help them cast off their chains and build their cities and bring back their cultures and identities as unique societies. It won’t be easy, of course, nothing worth doing ever is. In many ways what the re-constructionists will face will be so much harder to accomplish than what we did during the war.”

Creese: What do you mean?

Teller: “Well it’s always been easier to destroy than to build. I could take out an entire city with a push of a button on my joystick, but it took someone hundreds of years to build that city. Many generations living in one place, adding to, redesigning and maintaining that city, here I come and in seconds all that work is reduced to rubble not to mention all the lives taken away.

“I’m not saying what my generation did was wrong, I mean if we hadn’t fought as hard as we did, our worlds would be decaying in blue skin hell now too and all of this would be moot. Every generation has a duty, a calling to make the world a better place to live, to continue the cause of freedom. For the past thousand years, we’ve been focused on fighting for the right to live in peace, now that peace is here, we need to be fighting make sure it sticks and to make sure it never happens again. Maintaining the peace and rebuilding are the only true ways to honor the deaths of those who fought to make it possible.

“I’ve spent my retirement years working to make sure that the stories and the equipment of those of who fought in the Great War are never forgotten. We have eighty-two museums and historical monuments in the Alliance, one for every planet in the systems where there was a battle. One of the last things I worked on before I had to come to this depressing home for the nearly departed was getting access to the records of service people who had Life Recorders. Can you image the wealth of information that has been gathered for that project? I think someday, it will be possible to listen to those stories and remember the sacrifices that people made.”

He knew what they were working on at the University even though he was not directly involved in the project. Even at age one hundred and twenty two, Garon Teller was still thinking about his fellow spacers and the sacrifices they made for peace. He had encouraged his fellow veterans not to have their Life Recorders removed when they retired. It was important he said, to let people know that some warriors actually did get old and die of natural causes.

In my studies I learned how tenacious the human spirit is, even over time and distance. At the beginning of the Great War, they acted upon patriotic duty to fight the enemy. As the war progressed, their hatred seemed to be more a direct result of fighting than politics or government brain washing. After the war, even ardent supporters of the war effort were quick to realize that their views needed to be changed to accept the new peace.

This resilience will be very hard to overcome in any future conflict with the creators. It is the recommendation of this AI, that any war with humanity would be a mistake and would ultimately be a futile effort.

Cameron Creese, Artificial Person



Chief Historian

USF Holographic Lab





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS





I'd like to thank Nathan Lilly, the editor of SpaceWesterns.com for accepting “The Renoke” as my first professional sale. If you are not already reading the fiction of that fine website; you need to be. I'd also like to thank Eric T. Reynolds the editor of the Barren Worlds anthology, for accepting my second professional sale - “Ocherva”. If you have not been reading the amazing short fiction from Hadley Rille Press; you need to be.

Several people have beta read these short stories before I collected them into their current e-book form. Mike Hachigian, Chris Morgan, and Byron McConnell. Thanks for being my first readers and giving me honest opinions. The unofficial editor of this anthology is my good friend and fellow writer, Bill Blohm. Bill, thanks for being my sounding board, and for catching my silly mistakes.

I'd like to thank my brother, Byron McConnell for putting together another awesome cover for this antholgy. I think we make a pretty special team.

Finally, I'd like to thank my wonderful wife Laurie, for putting up with my writing habit.





Thank you for reading Tales From Ocherva, Volume One. If you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends about it. You can also show your support for the author by leaving reviews at Amazon.com. Look for more books by the author at GB PRESS.

You can follow Ken McConnell on Twitter, and learn more about him at his website: www.ken-mcconnell.com.