Thumar
Chapter 9: The Orion Syndicate

On a deep space science ship in the Orion sector.

A lone science ship, with a blood red scorpion in a barbed circle painted on the hull, passed an uninhabitable planet in the Orion Sector. Inside the ship, a top-secret coded message arrived on a secure subspace channel. Vander was relieved of his boredom as he watched it come in. His thoughts drifted to The Orion Syndicate’s mission. Destroy the strong systems, and sow discord in the weak ones. Then, step in and take over, ruling with fear, and making deadly examples of anyone who threatened their right to rule.

“Mikal, we just received a message from HQ. It’s marked urgent. Mikal!”

Mikal roused himself from his nap. “Vander, you’re on this shift. What’s so damned important that you have to wake me up?”

“HQ sent orders to initiate a class-A storm in the Pegasus Sector. Now!” Vander snapped back.

“Shit! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Mikal responded. For such a large man, he rose, quickly, out of his bunk. Most of Mikal’s bulk was muscle. He had a little belly that he swore he was going to work off when the present assignment was over. He joined Vander at the central console and studied the message.

“Check the Pegasus sector for any inhabited systems. What have we got?”

“There are the Kek, Terelian, Ducta, Murbesian, and the Thumarian systems.”

“The Kek, Terelian, Murbesian, and the Ducta systems we could live without,” Mikal reasoned. “The Thumarians could play a vital role in our future plans.” Mikal paused as he made up his mind. “Plot the storm’s path to intercept the Kek and Terelians. The Thumarian system should only catch the very edge. Target the star P1-A42b. Set course immediately,” he commanded.

“I’ve got a relative on Thumar, sort of, I think. Derak Jamar. Let me check.” Vander bent over his panel and studied the information, and after a few minutes, he looked up. “Yeah, he’s an admiral now, and the Alliance’s representative to Thumar. He’s also the commander of the Kalidar Naval base outside of their capital city,” Vander paused, thinking. “Oh shit, you’re not going to like this, Mikal. Admiral Morton and his battle group are in orbit, with The Andromeda. It’s a new class of warship. The entire group appears to be outfitted with the new RMT drives.”

“Reverse Magnetic Thrust space drives. Damn…” he hissed. “That drive could be the bane of our existence. We could be set back at least two-hundred years if they replace out how to use it.”

“Don’t worry Mik. Pundant will never figure it out.” He mused.

“You’re an idiot Vander! Pundant never invented the RMT. Your so-called relative did. What’s his name? Derak? He’s one of us, and he could figure it out. Don’t forget that.”

“Sorry, Mik, I wasn’t —”

“You never do. That’s why I’m in charge. What’s so special about your ‘relative’ anyway?” asked Mikal with sarcasm.

“Well, he’s my relative in a manner of speaking,” said Vander. “He is, and he isn’t.”

“Don’t talk to me with your science mumbo jumbo. Speak English.”

“He’s a product of my scientific formula,” Vander replied. “We have similar DNA.”

“What is he then? Is he one of your lab experiments?” Mikal probed.

“It’s a long story that played out well before your time.”

“You can tell it to me while were getting the bomb prepared,” said Mikal, impatiently. “Stay the course and make way. We should arrive in two hours. In the meantime, get the autopilot set, and meet me in cargo bay 3.”

When he finished, Vander joined Mikal in the cargo bay and unpacked the equipment.

“Watch out for the sails,” Mikal warned. “They’re very fragile until the current charges them. Where did you pack the matter-antimatter bomb, the Magna-S1?”

“Right in front of your nose,” said Vander, in a sneering tone.

“Don’t get smart with me, Vander, I see it,” said Mikal, annoyed. “Don’t forget the connectors and control rods. Let’s get the probe ready for launch. We won’t have the “boom” without them.” Mikal’s face broke into a vicious grin at the thought of another star exploding. Losing a few billion Keks and Terelians along the way wouldn’t be a big loss.

The probe was a scout ship of Alliance registration, so any detection would be too late to prevent the inevitable. The Magna-S1 was carefully mounted in the nose of the scout. The main sails were installed on the stern and lay forward on the fuselage after the connecting arms were secured. After this, a smaller front sail was mounted facing the ship. They would grow and expand to the required size once the probe was stationary. The front sail directed the initial blast back to the main sail, spreading the blast in a full-spread pattern before disintegrating the sails and scout ship.

With the sails in place, the control rods were slowly placed in position to initiate a matter-antimatter explosion. The extra mass of the scout ship, packed with small atomic warheads, guaranteed an explosion massive enough to cause any star to supernova. The sail’s purpose was to direct the supernova’s energy on a pre-determined course.

Mikal grunted in approval after the entire operation was complete.

“Let’s double check everything again. If anything goes wrong this time, the Prime Council will have my head, and you’ll go down with me, Vander.”

“Why are you such a jerk, Mik? You’re the one who screwed up last time. Pelar was wiped out because you messed up the settings. I backed you up on that one, so chill out!”

“Yeah, yeah, and you’re never going to let me forget it, are you?” Mikal shot back. “Now get to work. We’ve almost reached our star.”

After double-checking the shuttle, they made their way back to the bridge.

“Thirty minutes and counting to star P1-A42b, pre-launch check complete. All systems go for launch in thirty minutes and counting.” Vander eyes were focused on the controls.

“I’m sorry, Vander. You know how tense I get,” said Mikal. “We can’t survive the prime council on another Pelar incident. Tell me your story about your Derak, I’m all ears.”

“The old Earth countries of China, Russia, and the United States combined resources, in the year 2031, to create a super soldier. I was the lead geneticist on the project.”

“Hold on a second, Vander! You were not the lead on that project! You’re not that old.”

“Check the records Mik, I am. We had just completed a DNA sequence that worked. We had our super soldier, complete with four separate strands of DNA that were connected with a nodal web. When one strand saturates with nucleotides, the next two up turn on until the fourth strand finally activates, turning our test subject into a perfect killing machine. The best part is the body heals itself immediately.”

“Holy shit, Vander! Is that what your Derak is?”

“Yeah, I think so, that’s why he’s so dangerous. He can never replace out what I’m telling you now.”

Mik’s attention shifted back to the job at hand. “Class A storm generation sequence started. Verify com uplink with the probe.”

“Check.”

“Time till target acquisition?” Mikal asked.

“Twenty minutes.”

“Double check the calculations. Verify the target and set detonation sequence.”

“Checked and verified.”

“Good. We have twenty minutes. Let’s grab a beer, and sit back and wait.” Mikal walked to the galley and returned with two open beers. Handing one to Vander, he grinned and toasted, “Another one bites the dust. Let’s get back to your super soldier.”

“One of the lead scientists, Michau Li, grew a conscience and leaked the results to the press,” continued Vander.

“That little shit. What happened to him? I would have killed him, myself.”

“We tried and failed. Apparently, he is a master martial artist, as well. He evaded all of our attempts and escaped with a small group of key scientists. They were never heard from again.”

“What happened after that?” asked Mikal, intrigued.

“The press smothered the airwaves with the details, and the public outcry was enough to shut the program down. What they didn’t know was that I underwent the same gene therapy,” Vander said, with a sly smile.

“No wonder you’re so old. Did the program shut down?”

“No. It went underground, still funded by the original three countries. After ten years, other countries signed on. The trouble was that in shutting down the labs, I lost my formula. Dr. Li’s fingerprints were all over the erasures, and it took me eighty years to come close to the original formula. But I never hit four strands again. The nearest I could get to, was three.”

“I’ll bet that pissed you off,” said Mikal.

“It did,” said Vander. “The worst part was when I was getting close to four strands again.

The central committee got impatient and pulled the plug. I’m responsible for their long life spans, and that’s the thanks I get!”

“So, you’re responsible for me spending hundreds of years stuck on a cramped science ship. Thanks a lot, Vander!”

“I made your lifespan, and you made your assignments, Mik.”

“Don’t remind me. Is that all? It can’t end there,” he pressed.

“It continued, tightly controlled by the governments who funded it as black ops assignments. The jerks that ran it were a bunch of bureaucratic idiots. ‘Take the slow road,’ they said. Thanks to them, we lost one hundred and fifty years off of our timeline.”

“What timeline?” Mikal asked.

“That doesn’t matter, now. Thanks to the second American Civil War of 2175, we were able to get back on track. After the war, we took over operations and kicked out the central committee. Then, we blackmailed the countries that were left. They complained like hell, but after more than a few dead politicians, they came into line.” Vander smiled.

“Nothing’s changed. We just pick bigger targets.” Mikal grinned, anticipating another completed mission.

Vander continued, “After we took over, we attracted rogue scientists and technicians. We took the symbol of the blood red scorpion in a barbed circle and called ourselves the Orion Syndicate.

“It has taken us two hundred, forty three years to get to where we are today. I used to sit on the prime council until the prime mathematician showed up. He’s the one who got me kicked off and stuck me out here with the likes of you,” grumbled Vander.

“Back off, Vander, I saved your skin more than once, and don’t forget it.”

“Who’s saved whom the most times? I think you know the answer to that question.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s a fine story, Vander, but right now we have a job to do.”

The science ship stopped at a safe distance. It verified that they arrived at the target star, a stable class O star with three uninhabitable planets.

“Is it time to launch?” Mikal asked.

“Three minutes and counting,” said Vander, as he opened the cargo bay doors. The docking clamps released, and the scout ship dropped from Cargo Bay-3. When it had cleared the bay, the scout ship started its engines. “Weapon stable and com-uplink verified.”

Mik grinned and took another swig of his beer. “We can go home after this one. It’s about time we had some decent leave, maybe one month, if all goes well. Start the countdown, five, four, three, two, one, launch.”

Vander pressed the launch button, and the scout shot into space.

Once at its stopping point, the sails unfurled. The inner sail spread out to over one thousand feet in diameter, and the main sail extended out to one mile.

“Charge the sails,” Mikal ordered.

Vander sent a current into both sails, and they stiffened, considerably, once they were fully charged.

“Arm the scout’s warhead. Start the Magna-S1,” Mikal ordered. The warhead armed, the timer started, and the Magna-S1 controls came alive. “Back off to a safe distance, and we’ll blow this star. Start recording. We’re just about home.”

“Are we going to visit April’s place?” Vander asked.

“Yeah, for at least a week straight,” Mikal answered with a grin, thinking about April’s beautiful whores.

“We’re in place and ready to initiate detonation,” said Vander.

“Shields up, close blast doors, and start the timer.”

“Blast shields closing. Shields up full… T-minus twenty-seconds.”

“Thar she blows!” Mikal roared, in his best imitation of captain Ahab from his favorite book, Moby Dick.

The control rods were five seconds from contact when a small meteorite struck a shield arm on the main sail, breaking it at a mid-joint support. The explosion was blinding. It worked like clockwork until it reached the broken strut in less than a millisecond. The solar sail and scout disintegrated, and a portion of the explosion went off course.

The amplified matter-antimatter explosion reached the star in less than five seconds. The resulting energy pulse hit the star, compressing its atmosphere, causing the star to supernova. The star’s explosion, combined with the original matter-antimatter detonation, swept its three planets into oblivion. It was as if the star and its planets had never existed. The resulting gamma ray burst spread into the Pegasus sector at near light speed.

Alarms sounded on the science ship. “What the…” Mikal exclaimed. “What happened, Vander? What in the hell just happened? I thought you checked it out before launch!”

“We both did, Mik. Let me check the vids.”

“Shit! Not again. Shit! Shit!” Mikal was pacing the bridge, cursing. “Well, Vander, do we have anything yet?”

“Wait, I think I have something. Damn it! Five seconds before detonation, a meteorite hit a mid-joint on the shield arm.”

“Let me see,” Mikal pushed Vander out of the way. “You’re right, Vander.

You just saved our asses. Lock the vid in this crystal memory chip. We’ll need it when we return, track where that abhorrent arm of the explosion is heading.”

After a few minutes of searching, Vander went white.

“What’s wrong?” Mik asked.

“It’s heading straight for The Thumarian system. They’re all dead!” Vander sank back into his chair, in despair.

“Shit happens, Vander. We have to save ourselves now.”

“Don’t you understand, Mikal? That’s my handiwork you’re talking about, you shit. Billions of peaceful people are going to die.”

“What do you fear the most, Vander, a dead planet or the prime council? We’re covered. It was an act of God.”

“We have to at least warn them,” Vander insisted.

“Are you crazy? That would blow our cover. We’ll be on asteroid duty for one hundred years. Do you want that?”

“You’re right, Mik. Screw the beer. Set the ship’s auto pilot, and grab the whiskey.” Vander went silent as he poured the whiskey. “I really wanted to meet him, you know. I really did,” Vander said aloud, as he downed his shot.