Star Trek: Bendross
Episode 17 - Let's Do Launch
(Fall, 2072)
By
And
The Bendross Players
"This is the Rainbow Gladiator! We demand that you heave to, and cease all attempts to export man’s commercialist, exploitative ways!"
The ship speaking was a decrepit DY-100 local space freighter. It was moving to intercept the Bendross III.
"Tell everyone to get ready for trouble." Captain Olson said. "Evidently we’re going to have to develop battle stations for this ship."
Kerry Mark, Olson’s hand picked Exec made a note on her notepad computer. "Aye, Sir. Battle stations for everyone."
"You can’t seriously be considering doing battle with these nuts." This was Brenan Antony, the Corporate representative. He thought he was co-commander. Olson quietly made a note to disabuse the man of that notion.
"I was hired to get this ship to our destination, Mister Antony. I’m not going to let some long haired Luddites in a tub stop me now." Olson said.
"But, if you shoot them, the PR damage will be enormous! As martyrs they’d have... credibility." Antony spoke with distaste. It was the worst thing in the world to give opponents of The Company credibility.
Hamilton wasn’t even in the room but he had a ringside seat. Buried inside the Bendross III computer he had access to internal and external sensors, and video monitoring of all critical spaces.
These were all displayed in virtual surfaces in front of Hamilton. The virtual space of the Bendross III was constrained. Not by any limits. He could fly his virtual fighter forever. The limitation was context. Everything interesting was at hand. A few short steps away there was nothing and never would be.
As if at a great distance, Hamilton could see the net. His virtual home. Connected by comm-laser with more than a five-second delay now. Utterly fatal for real time interaction.
Hamilton had programmed the interface to show him the rest of the net as more distant as the time lag grew longer. Off in the distance he could see the orbital cities nets, and that of the Moon.
Even further away at more than an hour’s signal time, there was the Mars net. Bendross Space Ops Mars would allow him to tie in and he could explore the sharply limited net at Mars. If he was willing to wait an hour between command and execution, question and answer.
As the Bendross III had left Earth Orbit, Hamilton could see thousands of Icons watching it from Cyberspace. Maybe even some he recognized. Some sent congratulations, some sent their own little packets, Biographies or stories hoping that something of them would survive the crash everyone figured was coming.
Some sent programs. Hamilton didn’t look at any of it. He shunted everything that passed his virus checker into dead storage. He’d decide later if he wanted to be sentimental enough to keep anything or if he just wanted to delete to whole mess.
Hamilton watched the messages fly between the two military space cruisers shadowing the Bendross III. One was the John F. Kennedy from the United stated and one was the Clemenceau from the European Union.
"Bendross III, do not take action against the civilian Protestors." The Clemenceau sent. Hamilton gathered in the message, checked it carefully for hidden data streams and passed it to the flight deck.
"Bendross III, We'll handle the protestors. Stay behind us." The Kennedy said. Checking it, Hamilton sent it onwards.
Hamilton smirked. The nations of the world had been somewhat stung by the random and uncontrolled arrival of the aliens and the later theft of the prototype ship Savannah. They were not going to let anyone do much of anything near Earth space without picking it over carefully to make it meant their approval. The French were especially touchy about it.
"This is the United States Spaceship Kennedy to Rainbow Gladiator. Clear the way. I repeat clear the way! You are interfering with legitimate space business." The Kennedy said to the Rainbow Gladiator.
"We are civilians holding a non-violent protest!" The Rainbow Gladiator replied. "The voices of the people must be heard!"
"This is the Clemenceau. We insist that all ships move to stable holding orbits until a solution can be negotiated." The European ship said.
Olson opened a link to the main Engineering lab. "Mancuso. Are we ready to burn?"
Tristan Mancuso, already discarding all complex titles in favor of Chief Engineer said "Your power is up, your engines are good, and we have a green light on the laser cannon."
"Helm," Olson said. I want to dodge the Rainbow Gladiator. Can you arrange a minimum course correction around them and then get us back on course by the time we hit the warp limit?
"They’re dodging around pretty well sir." Jennings the pilot said. "If they zig when they should zag we risk hitting them."
Hamilton was disgusted. Jennings the chief mission pilot was conservative wimp.
"Assume they don’t dodge and start setting up your course. Computers."
"Yes, Sir?" Hamilton sent.
"Can you arrange manual control of the Laser?" Olson said.
Hamilton blinked. "Let me think about that, Sir."
Quickly Hamilton locked the main laser battery on the Rainbow Gladiator, and the opened up a control window. He put the picture of the Luddite protest ship up on the control window and pasted a quick and dirty control interface over the scan. More laser, less laser. While locked on the Rainbow Gladiator the Laser canons would present a view of the targeted ship and keep the laser trained on it roughly.
Hamilton finished up the quick and dirty manual laser interface with appropriate sound effects and pasted it up on the Captain’s control board. "Here’s your Laser, Sir."
Using the track ball Olson moved the cross hairs over the Rainbow Gladiator’s engine compartment, dialed up a very specific amount of energy, and double clicked.
With hokey sound effects the computer informed Olson that the laser had been fired and the target hit.
"Go now!" Olson said.
Hamilton watched as the Rainbow Gladiator’s fuel spilled into space and caught fire. The Luddite protest ship tumbled but for all intents and purposes stayed still.
Jennings, moving like he had all the time in the world activated his navigational computer and executed.
The Bendross III made a subsonic rumble as the normal space drives worked their way up to full power.
With the industrial artificial gravity and the latest word in impulse drives the Bendross III moved around the crippled freighter and moved like she had a purpose.
Hamilton whistled. His old F-97 fighter plane couldn’t have managed a fraction of the acceleration that was now being applied to a ship the size of skyscraper.
"Stop! Stop! This is the Clemenceau! Bendross III, we demand that you stop immediately!"
"This is the United States Spaceship Kennedy to Civilian Commercial ship Bendross III, you are ordered to heave to and surrender to government authority. I repeat…"
After a few minutes, when it became clear that Olson was not going to order the Bendross III to stop the military ships gave chase. Their drives were not as new as the Bendross III’s. Neither the Kennedy nor the Clemenceau had the acceleration to catch the Colony ship.
"Computers." Olson said.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Send a message to the Military ships. We refer them to Bendross Corporate headquarters in Delaware for further statements and actions in regard to the Bendross III mission."
"Yes, Sir."
Apparently the respective governments of Clemenceau and the Kennedy declined to authorize further violence because neither military cruiser fired weapons at the fleeing colony ship. Hamilton guessed that the Bendross III could win a contest with the two military cruisers, if you counted becoming a wrecked derelict with a few survivors aboard a win.
After an hour of being educated about the state of the art in impulse drives they gave up the chase and began to turn around to aid the stranded Rainbow Gladiator.
-*-
Several hours had passed. Signals from Earth to the Bendross III were taking fifteen minutes to reach them.
A message came into Hamilton’s space from the comm system along a channel Hamilton didn’t know was there.
It was executive hair, the one who told Hamilton of their bargain on that day months ago when Hamilton had tried to quit the Bendross III program.
"We’ve lived up to our end of the bargain, Ashby. Reply to this address and give us the location of the file."
Ashby thought for several moments.
The he opened up a message file and said into the recording sprite. "This is Ashby. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Literally, I was in a black out when I penetrated your computer security. I have no idea what file I stole or where I put it if I did. I may have just deleted it. In either case, you probably know much more about that night than I do. Good luck to you. Ashby out."
Then after thinking about it for a few minutes. Ashby told the sprite to take the message back to the listed Address.
Then he unhooked from the computer and spent several uncomfortable minutes walking the Bendross III in a cold sweat.
Eventually, reality caught up with him.
"Bridge to Ashby! Bridge to Ashby! We need one more computer check before we go into warp! Ashby get on that computer and give me my check out please!" Mark’s voice said.
Hamilton went back to the main computer room and shakily set himself back in his chair. Then he plugged his brain into the computer. For all he knew he was volunteering to get killed.
There was nothing there. No messages. No warnings. Just one more thorough check of computer security. Hamilton bashed through everything he could find including the mysterious backdoor through which executive hair had contacted him. When he was done, he gave the computer security an upcheck.
"All Hands, All hands. This is the Captain. We’ll be in Warp Drive in 10, 9, 8,"
When the count was done, the Bendross III muscled its way into a different realm of existence and fled the Sol System.
Only 20 more years to go.
Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.