By David C. Daoust
The ability to haul things throughout the Onion was limited not by how fast a ship could travel, but rather the effects of high speeds on the human body and mind.
The dangers of acceleration and deceleration were a point of concern, though there was something called the ‘Branigan Barrier’ which was the limit on the minds ability to function properly coming out of such high speeds.
Many early test pilots were rendered completely insane by the effect of jumbled synapses unable to regulate properly within the brain after long flights at super high speeds (the first and most famous of which was named Branigan). All this was why so many cargo ships were autonomous and thus, obviously, run by the Ark Ships.
When it came to smuggling though, smugglers were on their own, as Ark Ships were not going to help people break laws. Many a product were smuggled through normal channels, though every now and then, someone needed something that couldn’t be hidden amongst legal goods, yet still needed to be moved at a speed greater than a manned crew could haul.
Enter Colin Vice, the fastest smuggler in the known universe, without compare the only one of his kind.
Colin’s particular set of implants, allowed him to enter and control specialized machines with his mind, namely his light freighter, the Spectre, all from the comfort of home, a home once known as a Crucible. These special machines were known as ‘Mechs’.
The actual technology behind Colin’s implants, were designed for military pilots to man Mechs designed for combat, including star fighters, ground vehicles, even robotic infantry, from a place of relative safety, while still maintaining the ark laws against drone tech. All this technology was still in its infancy. Though Colin’s father, Bernard, found that such devices could help him move products twice as fast as a manned crew, without involving, or tricking, ark ships into doing it for him… So once his son’s body had been altered to take cybernetics, he jumped at the opportunity to include the mech implants.
Colin’s latest haul had been a ship full of Battle Drones. Machines built for the sole purpose to destroy, free of the Artificial intelligence of the Ark Ships, though held an AI all its own. The Ark Ships deemed drone tech a virus, their very existence broke Ark law, and the arks would stop at nothing to destroy them on sight.
The ‘Holo-mech’ was relatively new technology, largely unseen throughout the Solar System. This mech was a small device that projected Colin’s image not only as a hologram, but with a solid light lattice, a force field of sorts, that supported it. He was able to do most anything anyone else could do, even get dressed and tote around guns, though without fatigue, nor any limitations of the human body.
Normally, Colin used the device only when meeting with possible employers, those that had already hired his services, or possibly to ward off inspectors sniffing around too close to his otherwise unmanned ship.
Once the ship had become crippled, he was forced to use the Holo-mech to find a way to fix it.
This ploy led to him working for more than six weeks on the small moon of Twin Crown, all in the hopes of pooling enough coin to legally fix his ship and make it off-moon without leaving a trail that he was ever there. Being arrested did not help, though the funds sent to bail one of his aliases, were far different than moving funds to pay for a coil in a ship that not only held a belly full of illegal tech, was largely considered a prototype, and also held an inordinate amount of stealth tech that would surely raise questions.
In fact, he had to go through the ‘Felthorne Elite’ just to have the piece fabricated.
The Felthorne were the only ones that could do this work outside of normal regulations, and still leave any trace unseen, which made the price steep. Which insured Colin was hard pressed for coin in a section of the Onion, that notoriously had little care for such things.
Colin’s head slowly rose up out of the pool of pink liquid. He awoke gasping, which was the norm when he returned, as though his brain had to remember how to breathe. The stasis pod, which had immersed him within the fluids that held his body in hibernation, began to lift him back into the world. The small crew of nurses suddenly flooded the room, some working at separate terminals throughout, others coming to check on his body, and the devices imbedded in his flesh, directly.
It took a while for his eyes to focus, his mind felt slower now that he was back in his natural form, and the constant pain of a human body was a distraction to say the least. He thought a lot different in this state, and his eyes wandered over the ample nurse’s form long before he realized why.
The nurse grabbed him by the chin, and shined a light in his eye, something she did every time, yet still the sudden flash startled him. She slapped him hard in the face and he realized she was asking him something.
“Colin,” he actually guessed from past experience that she was asking his name, though it was a good guess, and one way or the other, showed that his brain was working, it wasn’t quite what she’d asked this time.
“No, MY name,” the nurse clarified.
“Deloris,” Colin said as the gears turned.
“How many fingers, Colin?” the nurse, Deloris, asked as he still tried to focus his mind.
“Two?” Colin asked.
“Want to try again?” the woman said dryly.
“Four.” Colin said with a smirk, his focus shifted from the woman’s chest, to the four fingers she had held up in front of his face.
“You seem about normal,” she said to him, though said it loud enough that the other women about the room took it as a cue that they could continue on without deviation. “We couldn’t believe it when we saw it, the solar gate was completely shut down.”
“That explains a lot…” Colin said as memories started to rise to the surface of the moments before his link was suddenly severed. “What’s the status on the Holo-mech device?”
“No way to tell at the moment. It will self destruct if someone without clearance tampers with it,” Deloris answered, as she began to unplug the wires that attached him to the pod. “There should be more within the Spectre’s hold though, right?”
“Provided they weren’t discovered,” Colin said simply as he was released from the pod. Considering his cargo was scattered throughout the rubble formerly known as the port town Grady, he honestly had no idea how well the scavengers had searched through his ship…
He stretched high to the ceiling, the pain of ‘being’ started to feel more like a human body as the seconds ticked by; as in, his mind started to regulate what was pain and what was just sensation. He pulled off the top portion of the thin stasis suit that covered him. His skin was warm and tingly as he picked up a towel to dry the remaining fluid that had held his body in stasis. The scars that riddled his back and chest could be seen by all, damage like this was unique in the Onion, his body was brought its very limit. They were unable to use healing tech to fully heal him before the scars had become permanent. Once he was healthy, had no interest in ever going back into surgery to have them removed. These damages were mirrored in his holo form, as the image duplicated every detail. He already had one eye on the door that would lead to the showers, though his eyes quickly wandered back to the ample young nurse that had just kick started his body back into the living.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” the nurse dismissed the unspoken suggestion before it was suggested, “Your father does NOT pay us for that.”
“I don’t know,” Colin smiled a sly smile as he prodded, “how can you truly say my body is fully functioning without a closer examination?”
“We take care of your body in stasis,” the young nurse laughed, used to the man’s antics, especially when he’d just returned to the flesh, “How it functions outside of the pod, is none of my concern.”
“Suite yourself,” Colin said with a smile as he had caught the eye of a familiar face. “I’m sure I’ll work something out.”
Colin dropped the towel to the floor before he headed to the showers. Deloris casually turned away, turning a blind eye, as one of the other nurses followed along behind Colin as he disappeared through the door.
