Private Top Gluk

[Tass Arceneau]

AMMUUD
FORMER LEVANTINE SANCTUM TERRITORY
TINGEL ARM

After six weeks learning traditional ridership, the pterosaurs still wanted to eat him. This felt unfair. Oh, they were well trained here at the city's racing eyries, they'd carried him through ring courses and canyon runs alike, but the way they eyed him was the exact way they eyed a six-legged speeder-sized antlered grazer that dawdled behind its herd. This region's racing pterosaurs were out for blood just by default, no matter how many treats you gave them.

All of the above was easy to forget while soaring above the plains, a good distance from transorbital traffic. The city boasted, in addition to a basic public port and a traditional pterosaur raceway, a good-sized ATC facility. He'd been passing through when he saw the pterosaur riders. He'd cancelled the next leg of his trip in under a minute.

By this point he was trusted to go out alone and stay safe from traffic from the public port and the ATC facility. Traffic that strayed from those two lanes, though, or didn't use them at all...

Makai Dashiell

 

[Makai Dashiell]

Standing at the base of a chain of jagged mountains, in the sloping valley, Makai held a pair of macrobinoculars to his face. He was standing with a group of fellow sentients outside a large mining entrance ; the outpost and mineral rights freshly purchased from the Authority and the local clan in the area. All part of Salacia's expansion, this one just closer to their home base in the Tingel Arm.

Nothing unusual, another day in his life.

What was unusual was the giant flying lizards gracing the field of his macrobinoculars. Pterosaur he was told, a local creature that was large enough to be ridden. Some were as domesticated as possible while others were still wild and roamed the skies and woodlands. The wild ones gave him pause. Seemed like an insurance nightmare, how many were struck from the skies from passing mining vessels heading out of planet? What if they took out a windscreen?

"Mister Dashiell? Mister Dashiell?...Excuse me..."

L3-37 reached out and tapped his shoulder. [ Sir, that's you ].

Right, still getting used to the fact Mister Dashiell was clearly not just his father anymore. Macrobinoculars were lowered.

"Uh, sorry....Yes?"

"If you're concerned about the pterosaurs, don't be. Only a small number die in accidents each year. Typically the riderless ones."

How reassuring. Maybe we could put up shock netting lest a worker gets carted off by one of them....

"I'll keep that in mind. I'm sure we'll be in touch as Salacia transitions its workers to the site."

Business concluded, L3-37 was quick to helpfully remind them they weren't quite done on Ammuud.

[ Mistress Arceneau has informed me to remind you not to forget to visit the trade station before departing. ]

"As you've reminded me several times."

Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

The pterosaur saddle and riding gear were woven in traditional ways but augmented with tasteful, unobtrusive tech: altimeter, attitude indicator, emergency soft-landing antigrav, and a small satellite map. The map showed local alerts like weather and herd movements, but he generally kept that off. The wind, the clouds, felt less real as a map. He came up here to be immersed in the genuine article.

A priority alert intruded, insistent, down on the corner of the panel by his right hand. A quarantine order was in effect for the city's port district, which included the pterosaur stables.

Thinking that through - what it meant, where to go, what to do - wasn't practical up here, not after just six weeks of lessons. He needed to comm people, look through maps, find out what this quarantine was up to, figure out what to do with and for the pterosaur. He needed to put down.

There was a facility nearby, showing as private, a mining site in a valley at the base of the nearby mountains. Not a bad place to land and it would, at least, have a washroom. He headed that way to touch down.

Makai Dashiell

 

[Makai Dashiell]

[ Sir, we've been placed under a quarantine alert. ]

Fellow beings had scattered back to their normal day for the most part ; heading back into the major city or the next mining town, leaving him and L3-37 out at the mining facility. Makai had his head down, focused on typing a reply to a message when the tinny voice of L3 broke the silence. Shaggy head popped up, looking at the droid.

"Just us or everyone?"

[ City wide. Port is closed. Lockdown going into effect. Unsure of reason at this moment. ]

Considering his vessel was back at Arceneau Trade, it looked like he wasn't going anywhere in the short term. The mining facility had water, more than enough rations, shelter. There were far worse places to be stuck. Hopefully in a few days it would all blow over and he could be on his way. If not, a backup plan of calling in a Salacia vessel to land in the valley could be arranged, Celestia Station wasn't far off.

"Looks like we're spending some time here. L3 make a note of this ; if its something serious we may have to look into long term solutions for the miners."

[ Noted. ]

Eyes caught something in the sky. One of those pterosaurs swooping down in his direction, and quickly. Great, just great. That shock netting was looking like a viable option more and more. Gaze squinted against the sky, at the creature. It looked as if it had a humanoid rider. At least perhaps the rider could control the creature from eating him.

"Think it's coming to eat us?"

[ Only you Sir. I am far from edible. ]


Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

The pterosaur, perhaps sensing disquiet, deigned to accept Tass' input after significant persuasion. The pair of them touched down at the mining site. Tass clambered down from the saddle by way of its back legs.

The pterosaur drew itself up like a proud chicken and gazed imperiously over the valley. It might wait for him, it might not.

He took off his goggles and pulled out a datapad. The quarantine alert was there too: some bioweapon called a telomeric replicator was loose in the city. It apparently made people age backwards, to an extent. Nice if you were old and wanted a new lease on life; not so nice if you found your body regressing back into teenage years, losing coordination and judgment and muscle mass. Or so people were saying.

Since Tass had absolutely zero desire to go back to his mid teens, he decided this particular quarantine deserved his respect.

He pocketed the datapad and looked around for his best shot at a bathroom and a drink.

Makai Dashiell

 

[Makai Dashiell]

Makai was lingering around the mine entrance, just in case he needed to make a break for it if the creature came close. He was in luck, the pterosaur landed and a rider hopped off.

[ Looks as if you will live another day Sir. ]

"For now. Don't forget we've got the quarantine to contend with."

[ According to HoloNet reports it is a disease that ages the affected backwards. Roughly one decade. ]

"One decade?! L3 I cannot go back one decade, I finally have enough muscle mass so I don't look like a scrawny stick with a giant shaggy head. Ellie just started paying attention to me."

[ She does stare at you quite a bit Sir. ]

"Exactly my point. Not to mention a squeaky voice and lack of coordination."

No way he was going back to being a young teen. Wasn't happening. He already experienced that horrible nightmare.

"Any idea on how it's transmitted?"

[ Unknown. Air or water seems most logical. ]

"Good thing we've got mining respirators and bottled water. L3, do me a favor and go ahead and hail a Salacia shuttle for us. It's going to be a few days and I don't want to tempt fate longer than I have to."

[ Understood Sir. ]

Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

The mine entrance contained, apart from the usual qualities and elements of a mine entrance, a human male and a droid. With no real way to know whether the pterosaur would stay out, Tass unbuckled his small pack from the saddle harness and left the creature preening on the hillside. He approached the mine.

"Hi there," he called with a wave, looking to keep his distance. "Got grounded by that quarantine notice. Comm networks are choked. Any chance you've got a 'fresher and a water bottle?"

He was probably going to need a lot more than that, but one thing at a time.

Makai Dashiell

 

[Makai Dashiell]

Makai would take a human over the pterosaur any day. Some danger involved still but at least he knew a sentient creature could be reasoned with from time to time.

"Welcome."

He was sitting on a crate at this point, jacket and tie removed, deciding there wasn't much to do as the man ambled up. Oh, he had every intention of exploring the mine later but there was the issue of quarantine. Makai had wanted to keep an eye on the skies for a moment or two.

"Water, 'fresher, rations. Just go into the entrance and hit the door marked employees only. Should be explanatory from there."

[ Sir, is it wise to let him enter the facility? ]

"I mean, if he and the lizard can cart off an entire mining outpost I'll be impressed."

Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

Tass thanked Makai Dashiell and did as instructed. The place had the air of an old operation just starting to wake up again. As he did his business and secured that drink, he found himself wondering whether his host even had a legitimate reason to be here.

Such questions evaporated as he came back out of the mine to find his pterosaur taking off. The huge critter launched itself down a particularly steep angle and soared out over the slopes of the valley.

"Well...feth, there goes my deposit." He turned to Makai and the droid. "I'm Holder Linco. Thanks for the water, mister...?"

 

[Makai Dashiell]

Makai watched the pterosaur take off, surprisingly quiet as it did so, powerful wings soaring through the slopes of the valley. It just solidified to him that these things were clearly not trained and shock netting was in the cards. If the creature couldn't even wait for its mount he doubted it was going to be discerning about friend or foe.

"Makai. Just Makai. Its a pleasure to meet you."

He was still struggling with the fact he was now indeed often referred to as Mister Dashiell. It felt foreign. Odd. All of his life that was clearly his father and now it was suddenly him as well. Being an rather new development it was going to have to grow on him, not that Makai was certain he would get used to it. More of learning to tolerate the fact.

"This is L3-37, or just El-Three."

[ A pleasure to meet you Mister Linco. If I can provide any services for you, please let me know. ]

Gaze left the other for a moment and looked out into the horizon for the pterosaur, wonder if it was just stretching its limbs. Judging by Holder's reaction, he doubted it.

"You live here? If not I've got a shuttle inbound in.... How many days L3?"

[ Three and a half days. ]

"I don't think this quarantine will be lifted by then if you need to get off world."

Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

Tass kept watching his deposit fly away. He'd just realized that the bank terminals where he accessed his accounts were in the quarantine zone. He always kept some hard currency on him specific to the region, but frankly he'd spent most of it last night at a festival of street meat.

"Thanks, El-Three. If this goes on I may need to take you up on that."

He broke away from the view and focused on his hosts.

"I'm not a local and I'd love that ride, if you've got somewhere basic I can crash until then. Where'd you be headed? Bonadan, Etti, Cantonica? Ah feth, some of my maps are back in town..."

 

[Makai Dashiell]

"Etti IV."

Salacia had a location there and while Makai didn't know where the shuttle was coming from, he instinctively knew that would be his drop off point.

"If you want to crash, you're more than welcome to stay here. Plenty of supplies. I already planned on flipping the power on in the tunnels and doing a bit of exploration."

Makai could understand wanting to go back into the city for maps. Seemed like the planet had a great deal of abandoned mines and villages, perhaps the guy was some type of explorer or budding archeologist.

"I get wanting the maps but any idea how this disease spreads? L3 was telling me it ages you backwards a good ten years or so."

Makai shook his head.

"Between all us guys, I finally have gotten a girl to stop and pay attention to me.You have no idea how hard that was. I can't go back to thirteen, that was a hellish nightmare."

Head turned back to the mine.

"Granted, there are suits and such for hazardous situations in the mine...could work for helping to grab those maps you need."

 

[Tass Arceneau]

"Well hey, on the bright side, the alerts I was looking at on the can said it caps out around fourteen for unknown reasons. I could lose four years and keep operating." Most of the impact seemed to be on things like military outfits getting gawky and clumsy, or riots at nursing homes, or traffic jams from the sector's wealthy trying to get into the quarantine zone. "Fourteen again wouldn't be a fun time, but..."

No, on second thought, not a fun time whatsoever.

"Right now they're saying they don't know if the telomeric replicator's airborne, but whichever way, those suits of yours sound like an opportunity, and I'm sure you've got a pressure washer or something around here for afterward. At least it'd be something to do for the next few days. I'm a map collector," he explained. "Not, you know, professionally, I just like maps, and I'd snagged some good ones of the area. That's why I've been taking pterosaur lessons: so I can see those places from above and drop down to visit them. This mountain range has all kinds of interesting little blotches and dotted lines."

 

[Makai Dashiell]

"I haven't had a chance to really tromp through the mines so who knows what else is there. We've already got the speeder here, I say we suit up and get moving before the military enforces roadblocks."

Makai hopped off the crate he was sitting on, stretching a little as they walked towards the entrance to explore and gather supplies.

"Really? I'd like to see them once you get your hands on them. I used to do a lot of mapping but it was nothing spectacular, ore deposits or resources."

"They are ancient maps? Ones locals made? Unknown? Seems this area could have potentially had a boom at one point."

 

[Tass Arceneau]

"They're fifty-year-old copies, give or take, of five-hundred-year-old maps. A look at how things were before the Gulag Virus turned Ammuud into a frigid backwater. There used to be..." He waved vaguely back at the mine entrance and the mountains outside. "...holiday homes, sport lodges, I think an observatory, some other spots with bad or missing labels. This was never a densely populated place, but with a pterosaur or a speeder it's within easy reach of town. So a lot went on here, for the wealthy anyway. Most of it got scavenged down to the foundations and overgrown so far you can barely see it from the air. These days hardly anyone lives in these mountains, far as I can tell."

Apart from the 'freshers, the EMPLOYEES ONLY door yielded a dingy but modern locker room, built decades ago rather than centuries. Adjacent supply closets and emergency signage led to just what Makai Dashiell had suggested: hazard suits, bright yellow. Tass suited up.

"My kit's at a rental room near the aerodrome, just this side of the spaceport. What kind of speeder do you have? I wasn't looking too close outside."

 

[Makai Dashiell]

It was difficult to imagine Ammuud as a get away for the wealthy but he supposed the valley made sense. It was relatively quiet, the valley large and expansive, with decent scenery and proximity to a larger city.

Yellow hazard suits were put on, restrictive feeling and warm. Experimentally he moved his arms, hoping they wouldn't run into too much trouble. With the virus running around, he imagined more chaos around looting and a breakdown of public services more than anything.

"Uhm, whatever they gave me at the rental place..."

Despite now owning a speeder company, Makai had never been fascinated by the vehicle in the way some men his age were. Now if they were speaking of speaking of performance boats that would be another story.

[ Sir, do you think this is a wise idea. ]

"Doesn't seem any worse than my other ideas."

He looked back to Holder.

"You think we need L3 to come along or hold down the outpost here?"

Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

Tass shrugged and got in the rental speeder. "Whatever you like, it's your droid."

The speeder was a closed-top model, relatively new and quite clean. Tass settled into the passenger seat and got out his datapad again. The alerts and local news items were coming in volume now. The signal to noise ratio was dropping fast.

Out there through the window, part of the city was visible past high slopes. He could just make out police airspeeders with flashing lights. Getting through the quarantine line was starting to feel more complicated than he'd like. Maybe they could masquerade as medical or scientific personnel, or argue for an exemption because they were suited up.

 

[Makai Dashiell]

Here they were, suited up in hot hazmat suits with L3-37 sitting in the backseat, unusually quiet during the drive. When Makai had looked in the rear view a few times out of habit the droid's photoreceptors were going through phases of brightening and darkening depending on when he glanced back ; no doubt processing information. Hopefully the droid was doing something useful for their current situation.

Quarantine line was backed up and they crept forward. Makai wished he was able to reach his wallet to flash some random card quickly to look official. Wasn't going to have to work so tall tale it was. Fingers drummed on the steering wheel, finally reaching the front, he rolled down the windows for himself and L3.

"Corporal Insa and Corporal Hamil reporting for duty." Makai nodded to Holder next to him. "We need to get through to the power plant. This droid needs to gain access to its systems before a sector of the city experiences a blackout."

"Who sent you?" It was clear these were overwhelmed local police. "I got no notice."

"You think Top Brass is going to let local PD know about our mission? If word got out the power plant needs work the city would be in even more chaos. Let's face it, this is need-to-know Officer."

"Best of luck Corporal. You're going to need it."

Arm of the checkpoint was raised and they were let through. Makai glanced to Holder.

"Alright, where to?"

Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

"Smooth," said Tass. "Very nice. Know what, since you seem like a useful person to have around and you might just run into my actual name when we're rooting through my stuff, I'm Tasander Arceneau. I go by Tass and I use like forty different IDs when traveling, for obvious reasons. To cut your next two questions off at the knees, no, I'm not rich and no, she's not my mom."

He gestured down the road.

"Second left will put us at the rooming houses near the pterosaur arena. I've got a room rented at the yellow one. Shouldn't take long to gather up my stuff, but who knows who'll be there and in what kind of attitude..."

They passed a side street. A number of teenage-looking people in police uniforms were trying and failing to contain significant unrest by middle-aged people in clothes suited to a nursing home. Tass pretended not to see them.

 

[Makai Dashiell]

Arceneau.

Makai knew the Arceneaus well. Hell, he was dating the Arceneau heiress.

He had known Danger Arceneau for nearly two decades at this point. Of all the time spent in her homes, at her businesses, he had never ever seen a boy younger than him around. The only other child had been Ellie and her step-sisters and that didn't happen until later.

Iced blue eyes looked at Holder again, looking for a sign the other might be his half-sibling. Makai had his working theory that his father and Danger had something back in the day. He couldn't see either putting a child in an orphanage or sending one away to live with relatives though. Unless of course it was in that small period when his mother returned.

"I don't think I've ever met you. L3, do I know Tass?"

[ I don't know Sir. We barely know each other. ]

"Helpful. Uh, Tass, where'd you grow up? I've known the Arceneaus for awhile, never seen you around."

They passed a group of now teenage soldiers in too small uniforms trying to guard a private spaceport.

Left turn was made.