Multiverse Boogie
Chapter 30
Boss Dulus, Foreman Pike
Foreman Pike monitored the progress of the emergency jump ship as the gigantic winches lowered it on to the main hanger with surprising gentleness. The clamps released and retracted without incident considering that regular maintenance on the Titan had not been kept up on. In fact it had been all but ignored since Dulus won the contract for this cattle run three years ago.
It still rankled him that his own bid was overlooked by the Trade Synod while Dulus, who had no previous experience in the industry or even anything close to it had won the contract in nearly record time. He thought of his own level of experience working in the industry for nearly thirty one years.
Pike had slogged through every position from Wrangler to Doctor. He even spent time as a Night Herd chasing down run away cattle. Which was not an easy job. The cattle are often times panicky and stupid. It was hard to bring them in without injuring them but he had managed it. He had worked as a Foreman now close to five years now on one of the most profitable cattle runs in the multiverse but without the backing of a clan to pay the fees, or more importantly the bribes, it is hard to even gain the Trade Synod’s attention.
He managed glowing recommendations from all who had worked with him in the past.
In fact, some had even opted to back his bid financially. Why does the Trade Synod even require recommendations as part of the bid process when someone with no experience and with more money than sense can win the bid?
Not for the first time did he wondered how big was that financial package Dulus and his clan Talalar put together to win the bid or what promises were made. It was obvious that making quota was part of it. Which was really just an arbitrary number made up by some clerk working for the Inliba Market.
He focused on not letting his vocal sac expand in his anger at the unfairness of it all. If he was in charge, regular maintenance would be a priority. Computer crashes had become a serious problem by now. It was because of them that whole sections of the ship were closed off. Doors sprang open at random. One unused storage hangers deployed its crash webbing. All but three elevators had to be shut down and what’s worse the surveillance system is down. The whole computer system needed a reboot and an update, badly, but Dulus kept pushing that off so he can what? Make quota? Dulus risked their lives and this operation, whole herds of cattle, and let us not forget that there are three cattle still wandering lose somewhere on this desolate rock of a planet, either onboard the Titan or wandering the lava landscape. He had no idea. Why? Because the surveillance system is down!
Even Bebo had stopped complaining about his lack of cattle to help him
keep up on maintenance. He and Bebo had commiserated together about Dulus. They both agreed that Dulus was really only interested in pushing his Highbrow creatures. Granted those creatures will revolutionize the cattle business. With just two of those squid-like Highbrow creatures, one in Engineering and the other in Med Bay they have been able to program cattle with extremely passive personalities and make them a blank slates for additional programing later. Meaning the whole Cattle Drive could save money in manpower required to keep the cattle in line. Whole herds of cattle could be programed with skills and knowledge needed to keep the Titan up and running and programed with that knowledge in minutes not years.
So far as either Bebo or Pike were able to discover the Highbrows abilities seemed to only work on cattle although Bebo had his suspicions considering the how fast Dulus won the bid. One week after it was posted that he put in a bid to the time he won it. The fastest ever recorded in Trade Synod history. They had a feeling that the full extent of the Highbrow’s abilities, much like their home universe, has been the best kept industrial secret.
His control board chimed and he spoke automatically for Dulus benefit. Since he could not be bothered to learn how a cattle run worked, “Transfer complete. Final engine checks commencing.”
Pike’s thoughts landed on the seven clan system that ruled the Trade Synod and thus Toren society. He had to send his conscious thoughts back to not letting his vocal sac expand.
It was hard, entirely too hard in Pike’s opinion, to gain and hold positions in Toren society. To advance you needed two things; One be claimed by a clan, and two not being born with any genetic anomalies say like a throwback to their more primitive ancestors and have a vocal sac. It wasn’t like Pike asked for it but as long as he kept his emotions in check, most Toren wouldn’t notice it.
Bebo, on the other hand, had a harder time of it. With the loss of his right eye to some industrial accident that, to this day, he refuses to elaborate on, most other Toren would have nothing to do with him. Losing eyes is a punishment for murderers of fellow Toren, endorsed by the Holy Five, even though murderers are very rarely granted permission to replace the eye with a prosthetic. It boggled Pike’s mind as to why he chose an electric blue eye instead of a natural occurring eye color for a Toren either black, orange or the very rare green. None the less, the difficulties he had to endure were considerable compared to himself from work to gaining permission to procreate, even Dulus denied Bebo’s requests with some regularity and for no apparent reason but he can do so.
A chime brought Pike’s attention to his control board. It indicated that the ship’s engines had passed inspection. The ground crew chief, Logo an older Ahti-Ahti who has been working this cattle run with Pike for the past ten years. A solid worker, dependable and experienced, messaged for permission to start coupling the jump ship to Pen Three.
Pike acknowledged and messaged the go ahead. He also logged in his official protest against the decision to use the escape ship in the log. Which was his prerogative and within the regulations as foreman. He hoped that if anything went wrong with this shipment it would give him some insulation from the inspectors. If they were audited now, the inspectors would note every single maintenance violation, the broken chain of custody of cattle, and the use of an escape ship for transport of cattle. All are huge violations with huge fines. The operation would bleed money if not be out and out broke. The only thing that would make things worse is if they lost the pen and the jump ship. The Trade Synod would waste no time in sending inspectors when they reported it. A finding of gross incompetence from an inspector is a life ending judgment. He had no intention of dying because of Dulus’ ignorant arrogance.
Four faint booms rumbled in quick succession from the launch bay. A follow up message appeared on his screen which popped blank for a second then came back up before he could read the message.
“All four locks are solid and confirmed. Jump ship ready to receive the coordinates and slave programming.”
He messaged back, “Jump packet uploading. Clear crew for immediate launch.”
His long fingers that ended in round pads painted their way across his screen dropping the jump packet icon onto the jump ship screen icon.
His screen instantly flashed an error message. “Memory exceeded. Delete previous jump ship packets.”
“What previous packets?” he said incredulous, “why are their previous jump packets?”
Dulus’s voice flicked at him, “What was that Foreman Pike?”
Another habit that Dulus had that irritated Pike to no end. Who in their right minds
calls beings by their job title all the time and then on top of that insist the entire crew do the same. So asinine!
The next message from the jump ship’s computer sent Pike’s fingers slipping and sliding all over his screen in terror filled desperation as he tried to stop the launch.
“Jump ship packet accepted. Jumping.”
There was a pause before Dulus turned and said, “What is happening?! Why is the ship jumping while still in the hanger!? I can see the jump shields rising from here!”
Pike ignored Dulus as now he had a bigger problem. If he didn’t get that jump ship out of the main hangar before it fully opened a wormhole, a third of the Titan would be sucked in and scatter in bits and pieces throughout space-time.
“What is happening Foreman Pike!?”
“We should have rebooted like Wrangler Bebo suggested!” he drew a direct audio connection between him and the launch chief Logo. Activating the translation mod along the way as Toren voices are pitched so low that very few beings in the multiverse can hear them, he said, “Logo this is Pike. Launch booster. Now!”
“Great! Another violation, but it cannot be helped,” thought Pike.
The Trade Synod regulations required all communications to be written. He just hoped that the old launch system still worked or it would not matter.
Originally the Titan was a long ranged deep space war and raid ship designed to emerge from a wormhole push quickly to it’s target, unload half of it’s payload of weaponry in an overwhelming burst then swarm what was left with the fighters. The fighters would be flung out into space to conserve the fighter’s fuel. Afterwards after the enemy was decimated the next tactic was to send out scavengers to pick over the remains for slaves, precious metals, and usable technology.
Pike watched his screen and hoped to see the launch booster switch from stand-by to go status. Instead his screen went blank. He slapped at it several times only to be rewarded for his effort with an error screen which listed any and all errors and violations that had occurred in the system.
He cursed then pushed away from his station and made his way to stand beside Dulus at his customary spot at the launch window in three easy leaps. He could have easily done the whole fifty feet in one jump of his solid amphibious legs but the ceiling was too low. He got there just in time to see Logo pilot his exosuit over the lip of the launch pad.
Dulus asked “What is he doing?”
Pike’s vocal sac expanded then deflated as he snapped, “The remote to the launch booster must not be working. Logo is running to the manual switch.”
Blue white flashes ran the length of the jump ship like lightning as the jump drive started to open a spinning sphere of a wormhole through space-time. An unearthly high pitched whistle began as atmosphere was sucked out of the hanger as inside the wormhole. Pike could imagine the dozens of universes that could be glimpsed spinning in a clockwise pattern inside the wormhole.
A disused loader that sat near the opening shivered then was sucked into the aperture.
A machine twice as big as any two Ahti-Ahti in their exosuits combined. They watched as the loader’s matter was pulled into a thin string past the wormhole’s event horizon until it broke then was shredded into a sphere no wider than Pike’s open palm.
Pike stood with Dulus and watched the sphere expand. He contemplated his life. All he saw was the unrealized potential. His goal of owning his own planet to retire on. His other goal of starting his own clan with his own progeny. He would call it Donora he had decided long ago, after his caregiver, and it would accept beings like himself; the outcast of Toren society. The lost who, from no fault of their own, had nowhere to turn because the prejudices the Seven Clans perpetuated. With the right investments, a competent council, and him at the head they would break the ceiling that oppressed them. All of that gone. Just gone because some idiot with his own agenda had gambled with all their lives and lost.
He considered making a serious attempt at beating Dulus to death before the wormhole killed them both. So he could, at least, put a mark in the accomplishment column in his head but a loud clunk rattled the jump ship.
Pike found that both he and Dulus had pressed their faces to the window as the ship moved in three short quick jerks, then paused. Paused long enough for Pike to worry that the launch boost system had failed.
A blink later and the ship was hurled out the hanger bay. It took the wormhole with it. Pike rested his weight against the window and sighed in relief.
“Where is that ship going?” was whispered a moment later into the long silence.
Pike inhaled and sighed again as he admitted, “I do not know,” as he realized all of the implications of that statement.