Philip Palmer - Debatable Space

My focus in those early years was almost exclusively on the colonists of the Asgard star system. I named their planet Hope, and it became my joy. I studied them, and encouraged them, and help shape their society.

But I was at pains to be sure that the new colonists did not ever become resentful of their “master” in a faraway land. The settlers of Hope were my children, not my slaves. I became the perfect parent; all-seeing, all-protective, indulgent, and immune to insult.

And much to my delight, the new colony of Hope turned into a wild and dangerous place. It was the first civilisation in human history to have only one generation, grown from embryo by robots with unerring care. All the babies were babies together; they all went to kindergarten together; and they all graduated to primary school level together. And then they became teenagers together; they were thirteen together, they were fourteen together, they were fifteen together.

And thus, the children grew into adulthood. Every inhabitant of the new colony had the same birthday, the same emotional and mental age. And, knowing that the Quantum Beacon was a constant source of information and wealth, a virtual safety net, they ran riot together.

For five whole years the colony of Hope was a drug and sex and rock and roll Utopia. No useful work was done. Wild oats were sowed. The “accelerated maturity” process became a joke, as the colonists spent the years between fifteen and twenty either stoned or drunk or delirious with sex.

Well, good luck to them I thought. I myself, I must concede, had the dullest-ever teenagerdom. So, by proxy, I was now sowing my own wild oats. Through vidcam and virtual-reality links, I followed the lives of my children, I watched them get spaced out, I watched them fuck, I watched some of them play suicide games that tragically ended their infinitely promising lives. I watched, but I didn’t meddle. I merely waited until my children grew into maturity.

And then I gave them independence. With independence came power; with power came a sense of responsibility. We still kept, through our robots and virtual-control programs, a grip on the mineral and energy wealth of the new colony. Solar panels orbiting Hope’s sun pulsed energy that fuelled its space factories and telescopes. And spaceships travelling down the Beacon’s path carried valuable raw materials back to Earth on a regular basis; the first cargoes took sixty years to arrive, but after than, a cargo ship arrived every three months. All this allowed us to run an Empire with infinite resources, infinite power.

On Earth, we had everything we could possibly desire. So why be greedy? Why dominate, why control, why bully? Why not let the children of Hope have their total freedom?

Why not?

Why fucking not?

“There she is, five sectors off our port bow.”

“I see her.”

“She looks ripe, Cap’n.”

“Fire the flag.”

We shoot a flare into space. It unfurls and creates a holographic skull and crossbones. Our way of saying: let’s do this the easy way, guys, or else.

The merchant ship begins to tack. At the same time, a flotilla of missiles is dispatched towards us.

“Fire the microwarships.”

We fire a cluster of metal ants into space, creating a wall of chaff that sends relentless interference patterns into the path of the missiles’ guidance systems. One by one the enemy missiles explode, well short of our ship.

“Prepare to engage the grapples.”

“We’re prepared,” says Brandon.

“Well fucking well engage them then.”

“We’re too far away.”

“Ah.”

“I’m ready to accelerate into position, Cap’n, if you’re minded to give that command.”

“I took it as read. Accelerate into position, Harry.”

“Aye aye Cap’n.”

We accelerate into position.

“You humansss should sssuit up, perhaps?”

“Indeed. Suit up, people.”

“Your leadership leaves a great deal to be desired Cap’n.”

“Less of the insubordination or I’ll clap you in irons.”

“Ironssssss?”

“Fire our warning shot.”

Harry fires a missile. It ploughs straight through the debris of their wrecked missile defence systems, and crashes through the bow of the merchant ship.

“ That was a warning shot?”

“It must have been caught by the wind,” Kalen says, snidely.

“Engage grapples.”

Two roboships are sent hurtling from our main vessel and they land with an inaudible smash on the surface of the merchant ship. The magno-grapples are switched on automatically, pinning them against the hull, and they then engage with reverse polarity the magnets on our ship. Thus, the merchant ship is locked solidly on to us, unable to move.

A sealed polytunnel unfurls along the length of the magnetic arm that links ship to ship. We are all swiftly suiting up, apart from Alby, who merely flares a little more vividly.

Jamie stays on the bridge, ordering up doughnuts and Coke from the ship’s dispenser, as my pirate crew assembles and enters the airlock.

We are swept downwards along an invisible magnetic tunnel. We use blasters to crack open the hull. And then we are inside.

Robot guns fire at us as we come rolling through. Alliea has an eagle eye for such devices and pops them with lightning-fast laser blasts as we all run. Bullets rain on my body armour but none penetrate. We blow up a connecting door and emerge to find suited beetles preparing to shoot us.

Before they can fire Alliea leaps up and sweeps a nanonet over them, stifling their air supply, coating them with a spider’s-web lattice of diamond-hard fibre. Then she yanks and tugs and knocks them off balance. At the same time, Harry and I are blasting them with stun and flare blasts. We duck and weave away from bullets, capitalising on the fact that these security warriors are trained to shoot accurately, not fast, and don’t know how to move their guns into position in the blink of an eye. Their every shot is telegraphed, and we duck and roll and effortlessly avoid their fusillades. Then I plunge needles through black body armour and feel the humans inside slump into unconsciousness.

We enter the bridge. The rest of the crew surrenders to us. Only the Captain is defiant. I lay down my blaster, and courteously beg him to give up and unlock the ship’s security network. He refuses, and before he has finished his sentence, I have spring-loaded the scimitar I wear strapped to my thigh, then I unpop its blade and swipe.

His head falls from his shoulders. The crew are entirely stunned. I pick up the head and brandish it before them. Living proof that I am a barbarian.

For I am a barbarian.

Only one other crew member possesses the code to unlock the ship’s security lattice, liberating all the treasures of that cargo. The identity of that crew member is a dark and deeply kept secret. So I lop off the purser’s head. Two heads, two deaths, and the rest follows easily. The crew key-holder surrenders himself, the cargo is unlocked.

We have our treasure. Wooden furniture, carved metal artworks, electronics, flyboards, and designer clothing. Worthless to us, but worth a small fortune when we sell it back to the manufacturers.

I exalt. I triumph.

And I feel the taste of blood in my nostrils and my pulse surges.

On my cabin cctv, I watch the progress of the battle. I stare with horror as I see Flanagan behead two people.

Who is this man?

I feel contempt and rage for him. After what they did to me, I shouldn’t be shocked, but I am. And I give myself a silent warning: I must never, ever, trust these evil bastards. Flanagan and his pirates are strangers to humanity; they have embraced a creed of total ruthlessness.