Retired?

Retired? By Sean M. Campbell

Retired?

By Sean M. Campbell

© Sean M Campbell 2014

Non-Published work

Forward

This story was originally written for a short story contest, and it got out of hand. Sixty-five thousand words, does not a short story make.

The original story had several sex scenes in it and I felt they actually added nothing to the story. For this release I edited out the sex and added more of the flashback scenes to fill in some gaps. The original story never explained how the hero got his swords or how the children started calling him their uncle.

The story seems awful low tech, for a space age empire that incorporates more than a thousand worlds. That will be explained in the following paragraphs.

***

In the early twenty-second century man invented several things which allowed the colonization of other planets. The first was faster than light drive. It was discovered that traveling faster than light broke the rules. Time dilation was not a problem because once you crossed the light barrier the laws of physics changed. You actually exited normal space and entered a separate space in the universe.

This led to the second invention – jump drive. Man learned how to cross into that separate space without moving. He also plunged deeper into this different dimension and distances became distorted. A jump drive could make the trip between distant worlds in seconds. Of course the government kept this invention to themselves for many centuries.

Over the next few centuries, humankind started to colonize every rock within reach. His barbaric nature took over again and his expansion became aggressive. If we saw it, it was ours. Many alien races in the early centuries of their development were wiped out.

By the thirty-fifth century, this started to cause a huge public outcry and wars broke out between worlds. Humans fought and died against humans. Humankind was scattered and broken. His own technology was his undoing.

Mankind had learned to kill with such efficiency, whole planetary populations could be wiped out in seconds. In the end mankind was reduced to a few scattered worlds and thrown back nearly to the Stone Age.

Out of the ashes, in the early fifth millennium, on the planet Earth, a single man started to forge an empire. He offered the people a different way. The great technologies of destruction were outlawed. Most of the incredible technologies were left behind. Humankind again had learned to do for themselves. Farmers and ranchers became the life blood of the empire.

Late in the sixth millennium, the empire built its first Jump Ship and traveled to the closest colonial world to Earth. In peace they offered the ragtag population a place in the empire, if they would simply agree to the laws of the empire.

The people there were hacking a living out of the soil with handmade tools and determination. They jumped at the chance to rise above the animals of their planet, once again.

One planet at a time, over the next five millennia, the colonial worlds of humankind again rose. It took the empire millennia to fix what had been built in centuries, and destroyed in years.

People started living a simpler life. The great technologies of the past were not forgotten, but they became employed less often. A common saying was heard many times over the centuries. Why have a robot do it, when you can do it yourself.

Humankind could have a robot which cooked his meals and cleaned his house, but why? Robots were only used to do the things humankind could not. People became useful again.

The axiom of technology was simple. Humans build technology and technology negates the need for humans, only a fool makes themselves useless.

In the middle of the fifteenth millennia, humankind invented a way to rapidly terraform a planet using a very hardy form of rapidly growing moss. A process which took centuries had been cut to a handful of years. Humankind began to expand again.

This time he had learned from his mistakes of the past. Worlds with budding races, were left alone. Worlds with early space age civilizations were approached and offered a place in the empire.

The empire became more and more organized. Humans still outnumbered the alien races thousands to one, so seeing an alien race was fairly rare.

In the early eighteenth millennium, life had reached a plateau. Great star liners started to ply the star ways, and the rich began to buy private jump yachts. The jump drive was very expensive to operate, so most of the liners used faster than light drives. The Jump Drive became a toy of the rich and the government.

Following the liners was the great cargo ships, the goods of worlds moved through space. You could easily buy Altarian fruit in a D’neebian market. Earth was the center of an empire which spanned more than a thousand worlds. The royal line was unbroken from the first emperor, Stanley Michael Stavio.

In the early twenty-first millennium, a group of people wanted to break away from the empire. They declared open rebellion and war. This movement started on a world known as Spinward.

The empire nearly shattered and many attempts were made to kill the emperor and shatter the empire. A new ruler on Spinward was declared.

To quiet the rebellion and bring peace again, the emperor, Augustus Tyberius Stavio, agreed to marry the oldest daughter of the rebellious emperor, Rebecca Ruth Noir, and join the lines. Their son was named, Terrance David Stavio-Noir.

This ended the war, officially. However, a group of people still wanted the worlds to separate. They are known as Spinners and they use terrorist tactics to try and break the empire. The movement does not gather much support, but they do manage sporadic attacks.

To protect the emperor, Zieth Tobias Stavio-Noir, an elite group of military commandoes was formed. Their only duty is to protect the royal family and they only accept the best. The bodyguards of the royal family took a name for their unit, from the pages of history, nearly twenty thousand years before their time. They became the Praetorian Guard.

This story begins during the twenty-fourth millennium, in the Grand Duchy of Spinward, on a planet in the Duchy of Merith.

That planet is named Sial’nief IV, but the locals just call it what it is mostly covered with.

Chapter One – Homecoming

The lightning flashed as I stepped off the transport shuttle. The long journey home was finally in its last stages.

The luxury liner on which I had traveled the starways, to bring me from the imperial home world to this world on the very edge of civilization, had finally arrived. To most of the empire, it was known as Sial’nief IV. The locals just called it Mud.

It is an agricultural world. I was raised by my parents here, until they died when I was eight. Then I was a ward of the planet.

Here is where I had learned how to steal, survive, lost my innocence, and became hard.

These streets are where a group of prostitutes tried to be my mothers.

The alleys here are where a troublesome youth had always been one step ahead of the law.

This is the city where my friend and I had shipped out to join the military so many years ago.

It is home.

My foot had not touched the surface of this planet in more than sixty years. I was now seventy-eight years old and in the prime of my life. I was looking forward to a long retirement. With a healthy life, and no more fighting, I could live another two hundred years.

The town of Starjump had not changed much since I left. It was still perpetually damp and musty from the large amount of rainfall this God-forsaken world received. The drainage system was the most important thing in this city. Without it the city would have perpetual puddles deep enough to swim in.

It was still a collection of ugly buildings surrounding the star port. Paint didn’t last long in this damp climate. Most of the buildings were made of faded brick and concrete.

The walk through the rain to the customs building was a wet one. I passed through the security scanner and of course I was carrying no weapons. My days of that were over. I had left that life behind.

I had no luggage to gather. What little I owned was already on a loader skiff, headed for my hotel. I was wearing one of my few sets of civilian clothing.

I moved to one of the news vendors and picked out a world newspaper, all seven pages of it. Nothing newsworthy ever happened on Mud. That is why I came back here to retire. I tapped my card on the credit plate and paid my credit for the paper.

As I walked through the terminal I glanced at the paper. The planetary noble, Countess Lorelei DuMont, had announced a ten million credit plan to update the star port. That would be a good thing for the planet.

There was also an article about the price of beef in the inner systems, and another one about a failed attempt to farm raise pandats.

An Article about the land five thousand kilometers to the west of the city, caught my eye. The clearing crew had finally managed to clear it for farming, and it had sold within three hours of its announcement. They had not managed to contact the buyer for comment.

Land was hard to clear on this world dominated by rain forests. The soil was amazingly fertile and the native plants grew faster than weeds in a garden.

If you cleared ten acres of land and went away for a month, you wouldn’t be able to find it.

To clear the land they had to cut down all the growth in the area. Next, you had to wait a day and send a crew in to clear the seedlings which had sprouted. Clearing the seedling would have to happen every couple days, for the next year or so. If the land was within five hundred feet of the jungle, after you had finally cleared the land, you had to keep the seedlings out. Many of the plants could throw their seeds.

The funny page was still running the same page full of tired old comics. How many times could that cat get hit by a baseball bat, and not get killed.

I turned to the weather. Surprise! There was a chance of rain every day for the next two weeks.

I looked out the glass front of the building, as a huge crash of thunder pealed and echoed. The storm was finishing its latest attempt to wash the stink out of this town. It had failed.

The rain reduced to a drizzle, and I decided this was the best time to head to the hotel.

I headed out the front door and into the noise and rush of a star port city. Most of the produce and meats grown on Mud were shipped out through this town. Freight haulers and loader skiffs moved across the sky. They were all heavy with stasis crates. Mud was not densely populated, but it was densely farmed. Anything less than ten thousand acres was considered a hobby farm.

I looked at the line of taxis waiting along the walkway, and headed out into the drizzle to the one in the lead. As I was reaching for the door, a young woman cut in front of me and jumped into the taxi. Before I could even protest, she had the door closed and was handing her card to the driver. I watched her red hair swing around her head, as she spoke animatedly to the driver.

I just shook my head, as I stood in the rain, and moved to the next taxi in line. As I sat down, I pulled out a small card and handed it to the driver. Do you know this address?

Yes, sir, it will take about fifteen minutes to get there, and the fare will be one hundred and seventy five credits.

I handed him my card, and a moment later he handed me the card and a receipt. I thought the price was ridiculous. That much to travel ten kilometers, maximum, was exorbitant.

As the cab lifted off the ground and started forward, I looked out into the drizzle that still fell from the skies. The battleship gray clouds stared back at me.

I thought back to the last time I had been in this spaceport. I thought back to that day, so long ago, when I left this planet with my best friend, Randall.

***

We scrambled across the tarmac toward the military transport shuttle waiting for us new recruits. This was a small jump shuttle. It had limited range, but could jump out to the heliopause.

The military recruitment ships only came to Mud once a year. Today three hundred young men and women were shipping out to start their basic training. It was one of the few ways to get off this wet ball of dirt.

The shuttle was sleek compared to most. It was designed to be aerodynamic. They sometimes had to get through the atmosphere fast. It was painted battleship gray, like most military ships.

We walked up the ramp as the recruitment officer waved us on. It did not take us long to arrive in front of two of the acceleration couches.

I stuffed my small bag of belongings into the overhead compartment and climbed onto the couch.

Drake, I can’t believe we are running away to join the military. Randall said softly, as we strapped in.

We aren’t exactly running away. We are eighteen years old. I replied, as a young officer started to check the couches in the recruit bay.

This is our ticket out of this dump. All we have to do is serve for five years, and we can muster out with almost a million credits. Then we just decide where we want to go. Randall stopped speaking as the blond officer stopped at his couch.

I know how it works, Randall. I was the one who talked you into joining. I checked my last buckle and relaxed back into the couch.

The officer turned to check my couch and straps. Will you need a relaxer for the flight?

No, ma’am, I answered, as I looked up to see a set of piercing blue eyes framed in a face that would make an angel sing. Her hat covered, shortly cropped, blond hair, which seemed to sparkle in the artificial light.

I see we have a flight veteran here.

No, ma’am, this is the first time I have ever left the surface of Mud.

I would suggest you use a relaxer then. Most people don’t handle their first jump well.

He will be fine, sweetheart. He is the ultimate hard ass. Randall said with a chuckle, from behind her.

She turned and looked back at Randall. You have joined the military, recruit. I am, ’ma’am’, to you. She spoke in a voice that sounded like it contained iron.

Randall shrank back into his couch. Yes, ma’am, he said, with a little quaver in his voice.

The officer checked my buckles and straps before moving on to the other’s couches. It was not long after that, we felt the jump shuttle lift off. An hour later we cleared the moons orbit, and the jump drive activated.

It felt like I was turned inside out and tickled all along my exposed insides. The twisting sensation was like nothing I had ever felt before. My sense of position told me all of my body parts were occupying the same space. My toes overlapped my fingers, and they both shared the same space with my ears and nose. I was glad I had taken a shower that morning. My butt was in that same space, too.

Then, with a snapping sensation, we re-emerged into normal space. We were now at the edge of the star system. Somewhere behind us, and much closer to the star, was the planet we had just left.

I saw the troop transport, as the shuttle turned to make its approach. That was a small starship. It was capable of making holes in the universe and then flying through them. It was nothing like a civilian starliner. Those flew through normal space at warp speeds. A voyage of five light years would take a week in a star liner. A military craft could cover the same distance in seconds.

The shuttle turned in space and headed for the troop transport. The shuttle bay doors were open and waiting.

We all felt the slight jolt, as the shuttle made contact with the deck. Then the female officer came in and shouted, Up and out recruits! It is time to get your gear and start learning how to be a soldier!

I stood up out of the form-fitting couch. The other recruits were scrambling to grab their personal bags. I moved with a deliberate pace.

Drake, you are going to get us in trouble. Move your ass! Randall said, in a hoarse whisper, as he hurried out the door.

I continued to move with my deliberate pace. The others had already scrambled down the boarding ramp and into the bay. They were the typical scared kids. I had not seen anything to fear yet.

The officer stepped in front of me. Recruit, you had better learn how to run when you are told to.

I smiled and looked her straight in the eye. Ma’am, there are only two reasons I have ever found to run. I stepped around her and headed down the ramp.

On the deck was the group of recruits from my shuttle. They were all doing pushups and counting out loud. The sergeant pacing in front of them, looked over towards me with his deep set, dark eyes. Recruit, these people are going to keep doing pushups until you are in formation.

When he finished speaking, I dropped my bag where I was standing, and sat on it. The sergeant came charging over to me and started yelling at the top of his lungs. He was shaking his sausage shaped finger right in front of my face, as he yelled and spittle sprayed from his mouth. You little shit! I am going to beat the ever-loving shit out of you!

He finished his words, just as he stopped in front of me. My leg swept out and pulled his short legs out from under him. He fell backwards to the deck, hard enough that his head made a loud popping sound when it hit the deck. Then I rolled off my bag and brought my leg down hard across his barrel shaped chest. I could hear his ribs crack with the impact.

The officer spoke from behind me. Recruit, you are in a lot of trouble.

Actually, ma’am, according to military regulations, it was self-defense. He threatened me with bodily harm, so I had the right to defend myself up to the level of subdual.

My argument was unheeded as military police came to escort me to the brig.

***

I came out of my memories, as the taxi pulled up in front of a luxury hotel.

I cursed Robert under my breath. He had his people make all my travel arrangements. He knew I was coming home to retire. My days of luxury hotels were now gone. He had booked my reservation at the most exclusive hotel on Mud.

I climbed out of the cab and started to walk towards the lobby doors.

As I reached out for the door handle, a woman brushed past me and into the hotel. I started to wonder about the manners of the people on my world. Then I realized, it was the same young woman from