Star Man 1: Star Bourne Read online

  I replied, “The non-violence promise is an easy one for me to make as long as someone doesn’t attack me. By nature, I am not a violent person anyway, although I won’t stand by and be a victim either. You know I don’t have much choice but to cooperate, so as far as I’m concerned, we have an agreement.”

  In hindsight, when I consider what I have become and what I have done since then, this comment about me being non-violent was an interesting one for me to make, but at the time I genuinely believed it. Till then, I’d never been a violent person. My natural tendency was to avoid situations that were likely to lead to violence. As it turns out, since then, with the assistance of my comrades and subordinates in the Federation Navy, I have visited a great deal of violence against slavers, pirates and various other assorted criminals.

  Now we’d come to an agreement about my future behaviour, Eri checked her instruments and chatted to me about my world as well as telling me a little about hers. Even then, we seemed to have the beginning of a friendship forming and I thought I should make the effort to encourage that with other crew members as well. I asked about the crew, how many there were, what sort of people they were, how many species were part of the Federation and many other things.

  Eri was much more forthcoming during this conversation and explained how all the crew on this ship were one species, the Tangesha. She told me the Tangesha people originated on the planet Tarilyn. They were one of the original founding species of the Federation of Sentient Peoples. This Federation, she explained, was a ‘Nation’ comprising multiple star systems and containing multiple species. The Federation had come together to encourage trade between the different peoples within it, to formulate a united foreign policy and to provide defence against external threats. Individual States within the Federation retained control of their own internal laws, though a very small number of behaviours such as the taking and keeping of slaves, piracy and a few others are banned at the level of the Federation itself. For a State to become a full member of the Federation, it must sign up to these overarching policies, and it must have both a belief in the rule of law, and the resources to back up that belief.

  She explained to me that in general, most ships crews within the Federation Navy, comprise only a single species. This is necessary for a number of reasons associated with ownership and interspecies compatibility although the Federation Navy does have some ships with multi-species crews where this is required due to manning or other reasons.

  Eri told me FNS Destiny is a Federation naval vessel, owned and manned by the Tangesha. She has a crew of eighty-four, six ships line officers, one Trooper leader and thirty-eight Troopers for a total of 129 people, 130 if I included myself in the count. The Troopers are there to provide on board security, carry out boarding operations and any other duties requiring soldiers. They are something akin to the Marines within some of Earth’s Navies. I eventually found out that FNS Destiny is approximately 240 metres long, 60 metres deep and has a beam of approximately 80 metres at her widest point. She carries three stealthed shuttles. Two of these shuttles dock to airlocks, one on either side of the keel beam and when they are docked, large doors close over them for protection but the outer hulls of these two shuttles remain in vacuum. The third shuttle is a spare and is stored in a hanger compartment within the ship’s hull.

  This hangar compartment is available to carry out external repairs or servicing’s to shuttles when necessary. The reason for this arrangement is that it takes quite a long time (up to an hour) to pump the hangar compartment down to a low enough air pressure to be able to safely open the outer doors. Even then, some atmosphere is lost, more than the ship can comfortably afford if she needs to launch her shuttles regularly on a long voyage. Eri told me some larger classes of ships have force fields that are used when launching shuttles and other small craft but these are expensive, complex, power hungry and considered to be a very inefficient way of retaining air pressure within the ship. These force fields are only used where the ability to launch and recover small craft regularly and quickly is necessary, along with a need to regularly gain access to these small craft’s outer hull for tasks such as mounting missiles on external hard points.

  FNS Destiny is classified as a deep space explorer vessel. She is tasked with seeking out and studying new species and habitable planets, looking for areas where trouble might be coming, and passing any intelligence they gather back to the Federation authorities as opportunity permits. Because of the types of missions they are sent on, deep space explorer vessels carry elite crews who tend to be both tough and resourceful. These ships are relatively lightly armed, at least compared to the cruisers sharing the same basic hull design, but they do have excellent shielding and are also very fast. The general idea is for deep space explorers to avoid confrontation if at all possible. If this is impossible and they are attacked, they should rely on the shielding to buy time, fire the limited armament to keep the attacker occupied and run towards help as fast as they can.

  In return, I told Eri a little about the society I came from. I found it quite interesting that the Federation was a political entity made up of a number of different species and it seemed to be able to function quite well. At least that was the impression I formed based on the information Eri gave me. Meanwhile we humans on Earth, were continually warring with ourselves even though we only had one species to contend with. Later in the voyage, I came to realise how little she’d told me about her people and their society, it turned out she’d skilfully told me just enough to draw me out about humanity. I told her I came from a country we call Australia. I explained to her how in my homeland we liked to tell each other we were founded on the premise of fairness and giving people a chance. That was the theory at least. In general, we do make the effort to live these values but of course, we often fail at it or disagree about what these values really mean. Eri and I spoke for what seemed like hours, with her telling me about her people and the various cultures within the Federation and me telling her as much as I I knew about humanity’s cultures. Eventually, I began to tire, my eyes started to grow heavy and I began to yawn. Eri told me to go to sleep before leaving to perform some of her other duties.

  This same pattern continued over the next few days, with me growing a little stronger each day. Day after day, Eri would make me follow a strict physiotherapy regime requiring me to move my limbs, as well as tense specific muscles in turn before placing muscle stimulators on various parts of my body to help my returning stamina and strength. A few days later, she made me climb out of the bed and walk around the room, at first with assistance, then later, as I grew stronger, on my own. She gradually increased the time I spent on my feet each day. I found these interludes a welcome distraction but they were a little too short to fully occupy me. After a while though, I became very bored with the routine though my conversations with Eri continued to be both stimulating and interesting. I can tell you, sitting in a white featureless room with nothing to do and nothing to break the monotony can be absolutely soul destroying.

  I think Eri realised this because one day, she came in with another of her people and a tray of different foods. She placed the tray on the bedside table and suggested I try a taste of the different foods available on the ship to see what I liked and what I didn’t. Actually, as it turned out, I liked quite a lot of it and told her so. She replied that this was good, the different tastes would be one extra thing I could look forward to for helping to relieve the boredom. She seemed to be very observant and and appeared to easily pick up on my moods.

  After I finished tasting the different foods, she introduced me to her companion. His full name was something I couldn’t even begin to pronounce but the first two syllables seemed to sound like Olin. When I called him that, he bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment and grunted but didn’t seem to mind. I realised Olin was the same, tough looking individual who was with the Captain when he came to speak to me. Eri explained to me that Olin was the leader of the Federation Trooper contingent o
n FNS Destiny, which explained a lot to me. His primary role was to look after ship security. He also needed to ensure that if the ship was ever boarded by an enemy he, and his Troopers, would protect her and hopefully repel the boarders. Other roles included maintaining discipline if any of the crew or passengers became violent or misbehaved in some way and to carry out any landing or boarding operations that became necessary. Olin was a very tough looking character and I quickly decided I’d better behave when I was near him. For all that, he turned out to be both a fair and caring person, willing to listen and to assist in any way he reasonably could.

  Eri explained to me that Olin would be giving me an orientation tour of the ship. He would also be getting me out of this room but first they needed to perform a medical procedure on me to insert an implant. When Eri told me they intended to insert an implant, I must have had a concerned look on my face because she quickly explained how among other things, the implant would act as a translator for me once it could be activated. The implant it seemed, was constructed inside my head using Nanites. These were injected into my body and made their way to my head via the blood stream. When they reached the brain they self-assembled as a sort of fine mesh covering it. When the implant installation was complete and it was activated, I would be able to interact with it by simply thinking.

  What she didn’t tell me then, was that the same device would give me access to those parts of the ship I was authorised for. It would also allow the ship’s crew to keep track of me, assist me to learn and much more. I wouldn’t have cared if she’d told me all of these things, at least I would be able to escape this room and see something else of my current environment. At the time, I didn’t know why they waited till now to give me the implant but admittedly, I didn’t give it a lot of thought either. Later, I found out the primary reason for the delay was that they needed to wait till my healing reached a certain stage before the implant installation could proceed. Though I was still feeling quite depressed I knew I needed to do something to occupy myself. I started thinking perhaps I could convince the Captain to let me do a job on the ship and eventually learn some skills to help me work my way home. Perhaps, I thought, I could even convince them to teach me about this ship. Later, Eri admitted to me one other reason for the delay in implant insertion was so the Captain could have a little more time to assess me and my likely intentions before authorizing it. In fairness, I can’t blame him because an implant could be misused and cause serious issues for the ship’s crew if I was that way inclined. After she explained the need for the implant to me, Eri and Olin left me to my own devices for a short while.

  Eri came back a while later and gave me an injection. I went to sleep then woke up a few hours’ afterwards with nothing more than a foggy feeling in the head and a very slight discomfort where Eri had injected the Nano-machines. These would ultimately self-assemble into the implant. She explained to me how the implant was partly organic and would grow till in a few weeks it would connect itself to my brain and nervous system. I must confess the idea of something growing in my brain like this was quite disconcerting to me at the time, but I also realised I didn’t have much choice, not if I wanted to survive and prosper in the Federation. When I expressed this sentiment, she reassured me that implants were perfectly safe. She told me once the implant installed itself she would calibrate it then connect me to the ships network. After that, when someone spoke to me, I would be able to understand them as if they spoke English in real time. The reverse would also be true, when I spoke to one of the ship’s crew, they would be able to understand me as if I was a native born speaker of the Tangesha language. She also told me that over time, my brain would adapt and I would be able to speak and understand the Tangesha language as if I’d spoken it all my life.

  In the meantime, she attached a smaller version of the box that was translating for me to my belt. This would translate for me as I moved around the ship, albeit with a slight delay, till the implant was ready for activation in a few weeks time. Eri explained I would need to come back to see her at least once every two days till then so she could monitor my progress. We spoke with each other about various unimportant things until Olin arrived to take me in hand. I was still quite weak but Olin seemed to understand my limitations. As we toured around the ship he pushed me as hard as I could go, all the while seeming to know exactly when we needed to ease off as I started to struggle. Along the way, I noticed the bulkheads were painted in multiple muted pastel shades with the occasional splash of brighter colours here and there. I pondered this before realising this colour scheme would help relieve some of the boredom of being stuck in this enclosed space for long periods.

  The first place Olin took me was to the ship’s stores office where we drew fresh clothing for me. Part of the clothing required on board FNS Destiny, and indeed all Federation naval ships is the ship-suit. Ship-suits are a form of clothing worn constantly when on board a ship, only ever removed when changing of showering. They are worn to give additional protection to the wearer if there was an issue with something like a hull breach. If the surrounding air pressure begins to drop, there is a sort of head covering that is used to cover the head. This head covering seals to the suit and allows the wearer to breath for up to about fifteen minutes. The wearer will then have some chance to make their way to a safer location. When Olin explained all this to me, I realised the figure hugging clothing everyone was wearing were in fact ship-suits. Of course, because of my different proportions and size, they had to alter things a little to fit me, but in the end, the clothing fit very well. With my less than ideal physique, I found myself feeling a little embarrassed at the tight fit, every bump and bulge showed in a most uncomplimentary way. He then took me and showed me to a small cabin which was to be my quarters while I was on board the ship. The area was tiny though, it did have a separate room with a shower and toilet. The room itself contained a bunk with drawers under it, a small closet where I could hang my clothing, a chair and a small desk, really the desk was no more than a shelf attached to the bulkhead. He showed me how to use the various facilities and how to strap myself into the bunk. Once I donned a ship-suit and put my meagre possessions away, he took me to meet his squad of Troopers in what he called the squad bay.

  On the way to the squad bay, he explained how, in the short term, I would not be able to move very far from my quarters, not without an escort and not until the implant installation was completed in a few weeks. He explained once implant installation was complete, it would be connected to the net and I would have free access to all those parts of the ship the Captain authorised me for. Till then though, I was to be assigned a minder. As it turned out, Olin, or one of his Troopers would do this duty until the implant was ready to be activated. I asked him if he could help me by letting me exercise with his Troopers, perhaps teaching me some self-defence techniques and anything else he could about the ship, its mission and the society I would need to live in. I thought learning and practicing the self defence techniques would help me improve my fitness a little more quickly and perhaps add some much needed definition to my muscles. Learning about the ship might allow me to acquire some skills that may eventually, help me find a way home. I also thought having something to do would help me pull myself out of the depression I was currently in because it would give me other things to think about while I processed my situation in the background.

  He readily agreed to the exercise and even the self defence lessons, but pointed out that because of my age and fitness levels, the things I could do, at least for now, would be fairly limited. He mentioned that I should ask medical about rejuvenation although he did also say it was both expensive and hard to arrange unless I did something that brought me to the attention of the Federation Council in the right way. It was not widely available to most Federation citizens and simply having the money to pay for it did not guarantee its availability to any particular individual. He told me there are some very specific requirements for eligibility. A person has to be able to show a
n agile mind, be capable of learning new things and in general, they have to be someone who the Federation needs alive and fit for some reason. They have to be someone who can contribute to the welfare of the Federation and its people as a whole in some way, and they have to be willing to use their talents and abilities in the interests of the Federation. It is very rare for anyone to ever undergo more than one rejuvenation, though the Federation’s medical technologies allow most people to live long and productive lives without this procedure. There were very good reasons for these rules surrounding rejuvenation and its uses. If these treatments became widely available, one or perhaps both of two things are likely to happen. One of these is that society as a whole would be likely to calcify and lose its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. The second thing that could happen would be that only the wealthy and the powerful could afford the treatments resulting in them being able to continue increasing their wealth, and their power while everyone else would eventually become little more than slaves. As they say, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  By the time Olin explained all this to me, we’d reached the squad bay. This is a fairly large area, purpose designed into this class of hull where the Troopers have room to undertake some limited training and exercises. When not on duty, the Troopers usually congregated here to socialize with each other, carry out maintenance on their equipment, or train. Their quarters were contained in a number of compartments off to one side and there was a small shooting range in a separate compartment off to one end. Olin called his people around and introduced us all to each other. He explained to them, I was not a prisoner but had only been granted restricted access to the ship for now. I was to have access to the mess, medical, the squad bay and my quarters till further notice, unless the Captain granted prior permission for other areas. After the introductions were over, He gave me a communications device so I could ask for help if I needed to. With the introductions over, Olin took me up to the mess for food. By the time we finished eating I was feeling quite exhausted so he took me back to my quarters where he left me to rest. As soon as my door was closed, I climbed into my bunk and quickly fell into a deep sleep.