The Rebel Faction

"Well?" demanded Mich. "How's it going?"

His partner, who had just arrived out of a small side door, grinned at Mich's anxiousness.

"Can't you wait?"

"I've been waiting for three years. 'Fess up."

"Favorable, actually, overwhelmingly favorable. The opposition was three."

Mich gaped. An opposition of only three meant that it was a landslide win.

"Y... Y... YES!" he yelled, throwing his hat into the air. A few people paused to look at him curiously, before continuing on their way.

They were standing in a large gallery, right outside the meeting hall of the Congress of Trogan. Today was the second day of deliberations for this Congress, and they had just voted to approve a measure to grant mining rights to Trogan Minerals Unlimited for Trogan Minor, Trogan's sole moon.


*


Maralu of Clakor studied the paper he was reading with great interest. It was an old fashioned paper, made of a durable flimsy, not a phase shifting plasti. The new phase shifting plasti papers were catching on, rather than having to produce millions of copies of their subscription on flimsy, the newspapers simply sold the customer a single sheet of plasti which accepted a signal once daily, and shifted to display the current paper. However, enough people still enjoyed the standard flimsy enough to pay the raised rates for home delivery that it would substantially hurt business to discontinue the 'old fashioned' media. Maralu was a Bith who enjoyed archiving his flimsies at home for future reference, and as such did not mind paying the extra fee for delivery.

"Trogan Minor to be Mined, TMU given exclusive mining rights" blared his paper across the front page. It was the latest news all across Trogan. For decades the special interest group 'Historical Trogan' had resisted any sort of action against the moon. They had blocked all attempts to colonize, explore, or exploit the satellite with their substantial political sway, outright bribery, and other devious methods. Because of their actions, Trogan was one of the last systems in the Anthos sector to still have an untouched, unpopulated, and un-mined moon.

"Future generations would only be able to gaze upon the beauty of an unspoiled moon through the view ports of a holo-cam" claimed Historical Trogan in their weekly newsletters. "Save Trogan Minor for future generations to enjoy," was their rallying cry.

Bunch of lunatics, was Maralu's thought. Who cared about how a moon looked? There were minerals there that could help move Trogan back into the galactic economy, out of the cess pool the planet wallowed in now.

It had taken years of political maneuvering by TMU to obtain permission to exploit Trogan Minor's potential. Historical Trogan had bucked, swayed, squealed like stuck Gamorians at every suggestion, and in general been complete morons about the entire thing. Finally, when TMU's patience with the radical group had worn to its end, it appeared the Congress' patience had worn out as well. In an overwhelming five hundred and twelve to three vote, mining rights had been granted.

Historical Trogan's backlash had been interesting, to say the least. Every single of their bought media sources printed a single, striking image. It was obviously a fake, drawn by some armature artist who managed to get his grimy paws on the trial version of some holoshop program, but it was striking. It was an image of Trogan Minor, covered in scaly, blistering warts, whole chunks of the moon gone, the atmosphere tinted a vomitious green, and columns of smoke rising from various points around the equator.


But alas for Historical Trogan, the public response to the artistic vision was not nearly as great as they had thought. There were a few dozen parades, and protest groups lined up on the streets of various cities, but in general there was a general lack of knowledge about the 'great atrocity' that had been committed.

Maralu smiled to himself, as he folded his paper and stood. Perhaps there would have been a larger outcry if Historical Trogan's newspaper distribution system had not been hacked, and the image replaced with a growth chart of Trogan's economy over the last few years, compared directly to the level of political action taken by Historical Trogan, as well as a theoretical growth chart that portrayed the best, and worst case scenario for the next five years... the worst case scenario involved the Trogan government receiving an incredibly large amount of money from TMU for access rights to the planet. The best case involved the discovery of a long suspected network of minerals that would catapult Trogan back into the galactic economy, and out of the galactic low-levels.

The phase shifting plasti papers were notoriously venerable to hacking, and Historical Trogan had embraced the things whole-heartedly.







Three weeks later the barges began to ship out. They would have shipped out a week earlier, save for a Historical Trogan demonstration that had somehow resulted in a riot, and the subsequent arrest of everyone involved, including many TMU employees.


There were three barges, each filled to the brim with the basics that the miners would need to begin construction of basic living faculties, as well as the basics for initial probing. Trogan had received remarkably little exploration, or mapping, and because of this TMU was going to have to start from the very beginning. These three barges would be the first of probably hundreds of similar ships who's sole purpose was to shuttle equipment from the surface of Trogan to the mining sites.

The journey took a little over ten hours, the engines on the barges powering ahead at full sublight. Battle fleets might have the luxury of throwing caution to the wind and performing a micro jump out of a system on a whim, but the rest of the galaxy was required to practice safe space way habits.


Barge number one contained three insta-shelters, a slew of lightweight vehicles for the prospectors to putter around in, twelve dozen sets of rebreathers and other basic eqipment, as well as five prospectors.

"About time we got moving," said the first, a heavy set man who was trying very hard to grow a respectable beard.

"Yah," replied a slim man who had not only succeeded in growing a respectable beard, but was now having trouble in keeping the beard to stay on his face only. "About time."

"Sure hope we find a vein," continued the heavy man, "I have a lot of friends at home who could use a job."

"Same here," replied the skinny man, "Most people I know need a job of some sort. D'ya really think the discov'ry of a vein would bring t'at many jobs to Trogan?"

"Yes, and more. It's not just minors, friend, we need refineries, more equipment, a steady shuttle system... heck, Trogan Mining Unlimited is nutten but a shell. There's hardly any infrastructure to the company. Saw it on the news last night."

"Oh," said the thin man, nodding as if he understood. "Maybe m'brother will get a job programming."

"Wouldn't you know it!" came an irritated voice from behind one of the insta-shelter packing crates, "They forgot to pack the stakes!"

"Eh?" asked the heavyset man, "Stakes? What are you babbling about?"

"Stakes, you know, the pins that hold the doors together."

"I'm sure they're around here somewhere," responded the heavyset man, as he began to move over to see for himself. "A little thing like that could set us back a whole day... Say, what are you doing in there anyhow?"

By now he had gotten up, and moved over to the source of the annoyed voice. A hole had been cut in the accessories packing crate for one of the insta-shelters, and a young miner was digging through a manual he had found.

"Oh, never mind, they're here, just not listed under 'stakes', but instead 'infrastructure support systems'. Hard to see the names through all these warning labels."

"Never heard of a hinge pin referred to as a 'stake' before," muttered the heavy man, as he returned to his seat.

"Anyone want some food?" asked a hollow, disembodied voice from the front of the barge. "I've got this thing working."

"All I want, is a cup of beer," muttered the heavy set man, stroking the sparse stubble on his chin.

"And a cup of tea," said the thin man.

"TEA?" asked the fat man, in disbelief.

"Tea, a nice hot cup of tea."

"I could go for a thermos of caf," interjected the dark-haired man, the one who had been poking around the insta-shelters. "A whole thermos. This space travel doesn't go well with me."

"I wouldn't mind a cup of caf... Hey, got any Caf over there?" cried the skinny man with a raised voice.

"No," returned the disembodied voice, "Just mineral water."

"Bah."



Barge number two contained a medium drilling machine, who's purpose was to dig exploratory tunnels in search of minerals, and ten miners assigned to keeping the system in working order. A few crates had been squeezed in containing environmental suits and hand tools, but for the most part the drilling machine took up most of the space. Loading the thing up onto the barge had been the easy part, taking it out and setting it up was going to be a pain. True, Trogan Minor had a lower level of gravity, but it was still a heck of a lot of material for ten men to set up without the aid of a crane or two.

"When do you suppose they'll get an injunction to stop us?" asked one of the miners. "I doubt Historical Trogan is going to just sit on their bums and let us rape their baby."

"Oh, I give'em a week at most. Ten we'll be shuttled back, and it'll be another year or two before we can move in again. And by then all the equipment will have been nuked by asteroids and other space debris."

"Meh," agreed one of the other miners. "How much space debris are we going to have to deal with anyway huh? I heard that Minor had a good bit of atmosphere floating around it."

"There's enough atmosphere for us to not have to haul oxygen up, but not enough to walk around without a rebreather. Most small 'stroids are nuked in the atmosphere, but not nearly all of them. We'll get pelted by quite afew 'stroids until we find a good spot, and get a deflector screen set up."

"Comforting."

"Yeah, the deflector screen is scheduled to come in in a month."

"Pity they don't ship important stuff like that when we need it, like, now," grumbled one of the miners.

"Yeah, and have to move it once we find where we'll be working? Like that'll happen."

"You mean we don't know where we're working even?"

"Nah, we're here to explore the areas the prospectors think contain the best chances, haven't you read the news lately? Minor hasn't had a foot set on it since that crazy teenager crash-landed and had to be rescued three years ago. It's never been mapped or even prospected."

"You're kidding."

"No. If it wasn't for the desperate need of money we have, we wouldn't be doing any prospecting now."

"Even with the supplement coming from the Republic our government still manages to screw us over."

"You got that right."


Barge number three contained only miners, their personal equipment, and some more prospector cars. A lively game of strip sabbac was in progress and it didn't look like it was going to slow down any until about ten minutes before landing. Three men had already been kicked out, and were desperately hunting up some of their spare clothing. The pile near the game board was getting larger and larger as miners laughed, whooped, and stripped. Everyone was having a grand old time; after all, they had work now. Their families would have money to spend on more than just food.

CIN Headquarters - Dorthal

Agatha Fegreen, head of the Counter Intelligence Network for the Anthos Republic sat at his desk, contemplating the most recent report given him. Two other men were present in the room, one Alfred Green, head of Anthos Intelligence, as well as Marcus Barnardo, head of Internal Security. All three men were engaged in an earnest conversation about the report Agatha was reading, which apparently the two visitors had already seen.

"You're going to crucify one of my men!" yelled Alfred Green.

"No! No!," replied Marcus, as equally enthusiastic. "there's nothing about his manner that would otherwise cause us to suspect him, other than the incident last night. We're not going to crucify him, or otherwise hurt his reputation."

"Nothing to suspect, other than a chance meeting last night. Yet you want to set up a twenty-four hour surveillance team around him, one of my men?" said Alfred Green, his voice coming out in a piglike squeal. He had strep throat, or so he said.

"A precaution. He does have high level access in several departments... wouldn't pay to be careless..."

"I agree," said Agatha, quickly. "As head of CIN," he continued, "the responsibility for this comes to me. My men will run the op, 24 hours a day for the next nine days. If nothing turns up after that, it will pass down to you, Alfred.

"Thank you," said Marcus.

"I suppose," said Alfred, slightly miffed. It was one of his men, after all.

Adam Crystlar," he said as he stuck his hand out in a cordial greeting to the Sienar desk jockey before him. The man shifted a sheaf of papers to his other hand, and took the paw offered him.

"Um.. can I do something for you?" he asked quizzically. "Yeah, actually," said Adam, "I'm supposed to, uh, meet with the president of Sienar, ten minutes ago."

The Sienar employee raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Yeah, but, um, there wasn't anyone to meet me at the door below," continued Adam, gesturing toward the elevator behind him, "I don't suppose you could point me toward the proper hallway?"

"Yeah, um.. for one thing you're on the wrong floor," replied the Sienar employee, once again shifting the papers he was carrying. "You need to be on the thirty-second floor or above to be in the administrative levels."

"Right, right, thanks," muttered Adam in response, embarrassed.

"No problem," replied the Sienar employee, as the two men parted ways. As he left, once again shifting which hand held his sheaf of paper, the Sienar employee wondered how the frell someone meeting with the president had managed to blunder his way into accounting.




Bastasi, muttered Adam as he entered the elevator. How the frell had he ended up in accounting?

"Bad day?" asked the only other occupant of the elevator, a verpine-ish female.

"Getting there," he replied after a moment, not wanting to be rude.

"Been there," she said, with a slight smile, "I just quit."

"Ah..."

The elevator halted on the thirty-second floor, and the female got out only to be replaced with two geeky techies with a large file cabinet on wheels each. Apparently this wasn't the executive elevator.

"Going down?" asked one of the techies inquisitively.

"Up, 36."

"Ok."

A minute later, Adam found himself before a receptionist help desk. He returned the measured gaze the receptionist gave him, she was probably measuring him up and comparing him to a mental 'terrorist, push red button now' profile every employee up here probably had pounded into their brains day in and day out.

"Adam Crystlar," he said, "Here to meet with the president?"

She raised an eyebrow, as if to communicate how utterly ridiculous such a statement was, before turning to hit a few keys on her terminal. A moment later, she smiled and turned back.

"You're four hours early, Mr. Crystlar."

"Oh?" he returned, the realization of his mistake dawning upon him now.

"We have an additional eight hours to the galactic standard here."

Vos, thought Adam.

"I can call Mr. Asakawa now, though, and see if he can ... inconvenience himself to see you early..."

"Please, don't bother ma'am. I'll be back in four hours."

"Whatever you want, Mr. Crystlar."

Adam smiled congenially, and turned away. This time, however, he did not go to the 'bulk' elevator, as he had before. Instead, he headed toward an executive lift that matched his expensive and immaculate suit. Four extra hours? They would be well spent on a self-guided tour of the Sienar faculty...

*

Life aboard the Stalkers was different from that aboard a typical military craft. For one thing, it was quiet. Cook clanging pots together was not, as was the norm, heard hundreds of meters down the craft. The thick, absorbent material on the walls and floor ensured that internal noise was kept to a minimum.

There was also a lot less freedom aboard a Stalker, than aboard its almost identical cousin, the Maruader. Extra systems, not the least of being the massive cloak, prohibited extra movement. The crew was compromised of mostly men of small build.

Orientation with the new systems was a pain as well, especially for the communications men. Their gear was radically different from what they had trained with.

"Far more advanced," mentioned one of the ensigns assigned to a 'listener' station, often nicknamed a 'sonar' station after the sea-based sonar of old.

"With a user interface from the pit of hell," added in his replacement partner sardonically. "I swear, the moment they let me I'm redoing the GUI on that thing, absolutely nothing is where you need it. I can't imagine using it in battle.

The words "Then redo it," made all five crewmen jump, and salute.

"That's what you're here to do," continued the voice, a voice that held authority. It was their Instructor. "Reprogram it, if you wish," he finished, before continuing in his way.

"Yes Sir!" was the reply, before they went to their ease with the superior officers exit.

"You got time to redo the turbolaser targeting systems as well?" joked one of the weapons men.



Johnson, the first officer aboard this Stalker, reached over to grab a wired com from the communications desk next to him. He was aboard the bridge of the Stalker, and several tests were about to be run.

"All hands to battle stations," he said into the mic. "Repeat, all hands to battle stations."

He turned, and looked to the captain of the ship - the Instructor.

"Prepare to initialize the cloak," said the Instructor, noticing his glance.

"Aye Aye, Sir," replied Johnson, whereupon he turned and repeated the order to the duo at the cloak console. They, in turn, replied with their own "Aye, Sir," and went about prepping the cloaking system.

"Prepare to drop shields," said the Instructor, and once again the orders were relayed down the chain of command. Almost a minute passed, as the bridge crew completed their duties.

"On the count of three, drop shields. Raise the cloak on my count of five...

"One ... two ... three ..."

"Shields down," said the man at defense.

"Four ... five"

"Cloak initialized, fifty, sixty, seventy ... one hundred percent."

The entire bridge crew glanced up to the viewports before and above them. Nothing seemed to have changed. Indeed, the entire ship was looking out the nearest viewports - the entire operation had been broadcasted over the ships com system.

"Gentlemen," said the Instructor with an air of finality, "Welcome to the Secret Service."