110-X5I Security Chief Craig Tegarth sat in the security booth of station 110-X5I, or Political Plaza, as it was also known, waiting for his second in command, Brian Gerrand, to report in.  It was three days until the Inter-system Galactic Political Conference, with all of the political leaders of all sentient species of the Galactic Confederation of Worlds.

  It should have happened two days ago but the Querran delegate was unable to reach the station, situated in neutral territory between the Tienai Republic and the Kagaren Empire.  Surprisingly, a lot of spectators had come to the station; political debates were turning into a spectator sport with the introduction of the Conference tube, the separate delegate platforms and holo-displays.

 

  Fredric Derika, known as Freddy to his friends, was piloting a transport and cargo frigate on an inbound course to Political Plaza

  “This is ‘Firebird’ requesting clearance to land,” Freddy said into his com-unit

  “Rodger that ‘Firebird’, you have permission to land in bay delta four, station control, out”

Freddy turned off the com-unit and flicked the switch on the intercom

  “All passengers float your Asses down onto your seats and strap down, gravity will be returning in about two minutes, Pilot out”

  Freddy grasped the controls and flew around the rotating rim looking for docking bay delta four, he found it and locked the beacon into the target computer, he fired the thrusters to bring himself in line with the bay entrance, he fired the side thrusters to bring his ship up to the same speed as the rotating station.  Flying into the bay he opened the landing struts and locked them into the platform and began to shut down the engines, there was a whine as they powered down and began cooling.  Freddy hit the intercom

  “Thank you all for flying with me, have a wonderful stay and collect your baggage from the cargo area of the ship before disembarking”

  Security officer Charlie McNeran was scanning in the visitors and baggage when he got a call on his wrist-com

 “Hey Charlie, we need you in cargo right away, that’s ASAP, or NINS, in short n…(crrrrrk)”

Charlie called in a relief officer and headed down to the cargo deck to investigate what was the matter, and came face to face with a sight that horrified him, five security officers were lying on the floor, with gaping, bloodied holes in their bodies, plazma burns everywhere else. Charlie stood up and turned, and was blown backwards by a blue ball of super heated plazma that crashed into his body, blowing a hole in him and burning every other inch of his body.

  “Oh shit, did you have to do that?” a voice said from the direction the blue ball came from

 “Yeah, couldn’t ‘ave im blabin’ could I?” replied a figure with a military issue, Medium plazma cannon in his hand and over his shoulder

  “Come on chaps, we need to get this contraption in position” said a third figure, and a group of men picked up a strange device and carried it away from the carnage in the cargo hold.

 

  Three days later the conference was beginning and everyone was taking their places, the hackers tried to find a free socket to jack into and hack into the holo-projector, spectators were taking their places beside the wide windows on the three floors of the conference tube, and the politicians were gathering their ‘papers’, projector disks and controllers. The doors slid open and the politicians walked onto their platforms, the controllers ready to move the platforms up to speech level.

  Craig Tegarth sat in the security booth with a frown on his face; nine security officers had gone missing over the past three days, six had been found in cargo, as charred remains, by the Dockers. Two were found beside the conference tube and one had just been found at the base of the holo-projector, at the generator, all charred, besides the one at the generator, he had just been shot in the head by a lazer round from a Berretta M-1059 Lazer handgun. Something was happening, and he was going to find out what.

  He checked the cargo of every freighter, frigate and cruiser that had docked and unloaded in the last three days, and found that the frigate ‘Firebird’, that was still docked, had had some suspicious components in the cargo bay. He pulled up a diagram of the suspicious cargo; it looked like a large holo-projector component, but the technical specifications of all holo-projectors didn’t mach, not even the new ones, Craig could smell a rat, and it stank bad.

  “Hey, Brian? Get me captain Fredric Derika here, ASAP” Craig called over his wrist-com

  “Aye captain, it shall be as you command” came the reply

  “Just cut the crap Brian, this is serious”

  “Sorry, Brian out”

 Freddy was settling down to watch the conference, he had sold some hackers some disks he had filled with holo-projector hacks, he was waiting to see what would happen when they were used, the rude ones should be extremely entertaining. He saw a security officer flanked by security guards walking in his general direction, they consulted their wrist mounted PDA’s, then made a beeline strait towards him

  “You Fredric Derika?” one asked

  “Yeah, I’m Derika, what do you want? If it’s about those disks, they were completely legal, just a little tasteless” He told them

  “Security Chief Tegarth wishes to see you,” the officer said, his badge said Brian Gerrand

  “Fine, fine, lead on Brian, I mean Officer Gerrand” Freddy said as he followed them away

Craig motioned both for Freddy to sit and for Brian to leave. When the door closed he turned to Freddy and spoke

  “Good Morning Captain Derika, I need to talk to you about some cargo that arrived on your ship three days ago” he said

  “Sure, sure, fire away” Freddy replied

Craig opened a file on his computer and activated a holo-pad that displayed the strange piece of equipment that had arrived on ‘Firebird’.

  “Can you explain what this is?” Craig asked

  “Well to be honest I wondered about that myself, it had all the correct papers as replacement equipment but it just doesn’t look right” Freddy told Craig, staring at the hologram “Wait! Stop it turning…now zoom in on that bit…” Freddy pointed at an area on the diagram “…there. That aint Holo-technology…Holy Christ! That’s about 50lb of raw plazma! It’s a F*!’#^G bomb!”

  In the Conference tube a heated debate was raging about whether or not experimental wormhole folding technology was safe, efficient or even practical. Outside, plugged into a socket a shadowy figure manipulated machinery within the holo-projector, there was a click, a whine, and a confirmation screen, the figure chose ‘yes’ and an orange timer blinked into life. In the conference Tube, the holo-projection became big orange digits in the air…

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 A countdown!

 From the security booth Craig barked orders into the mike of the comm-channels to activate lockdown, evacuate civilians and politicians and for a bomb squad to get to the conference tube on the double

40

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Freddy ran back to his ship and prepped for take-off, evacuees were being loaded onto it, when it was full he sealed the entrance hatches and the docking platform lifted, rotated 180degrees and rose to the docking grid. Freddy fired up the thrusters and disengaged the docking clamps, he rose and retracted the clamps and legs into the hull of ‘Firebird’ and radioed station control

  “Hello? Station control? I could do with an open door here”

  “OK ‘Firebird’ I’ll get right on it”

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  Brian and five full security teams forced their way into the conference tube, to get the Politicians out

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Brian looked down at the bomb disposal crew, it was the last thing he ever saw, the raw plazma in the bomb was ignited by an electrical spark from the detonator, which in turn ignited the plazma in the power core of the holo-projector destroying the main central section, which caused the ring to slid from it’s orbit around the central pole of 110-X5I, Political Plaza. Craig Tegarth’s security control broke away from the station and drifted on an outbound vector.

 The doors had just opened when all hell broke loose in the docking ring, people who had stood on the platform that raised ‘Firebird’ from the docking bay to the launch tunnel were both roasted by the thrusters of the frigate and frozen by the vacuum of space as the door opened at the end of the tunnel.

 Freddy heard the explosions and hit the throttle and afterburners, not a moment too soon as the bay behind ‘Firebird’ exploded, the blue and red flames chasing the ship along the tunnel as ‘Firebird’ accelerated along it…and came shooting out of the station like a lazer shot from a gun, with the fire close on it’s heels. Freddy noticed something drifting away from the station, scans said there was someone alive in there, so Freddy grabbed the pod with the magnetic docking clamps and extended the docking tunnel to the doors of the pod. He climbed down and opened the doors to find Craig Tegarth floating about inside security control

 Grinning Impishly Freddy floated over to Craig

  “Need a lift?” he asked

  “That would help” replied Craig

  “Good, I could do with a co-pilot, well, float this way”

Freddy and Craig floated up to the cockpit and strapped down in the pilot and co-pilot seats, Freddy let the security pod go and opened the throttle to a quarter way

  “Where to?” asked Craig

  “Does the nearest earth base sound good to you” Freddy replied

  “That would do fine” Craig said then turned to his console, ”nearest base is 200,000KM away, shall I set a course there?”

  “Yes Mr Tegarth…”

  “Call me Craig”

  “…Yes Craig we’ll go there; set a course”

There was a bleep as the course was confirmed, then Freddy opened the throttle all the way and sped off, away into the distance.