Chapter Three
“Where are they?”
“They’ll be here.”
“When?”
“When they get here.”
“Don’t be smart.”
“They have a mid-flight rendezvous and then a long set of jumps to get here.”
“Yeah, but-”
“And when they get here, they have a three day approach, followed by who knows how long to get through the traffic and then nobody knows how the hell long after that to get through customs and immigration. And that always takes the longest, even when everything on you is legal. How long did it take us to get through?”
“Yeah, but-”
“And it was just us two. They’ve got a full ship to be scanned and searched, so they’ll be jumping through every hoop and dotting every i exactly, in order to not attract attention.
“Yeah, but when are they going to get here?”
“When they get here. Technically, they got here a week ago.”
“Don’t give me that relativity BS - you know I can’t get my head around faster than light travel.”
“Then think about how much of a headache the clerks at the trading floors have keeping the time consistent across a dozen systems.”
“What?”
“Never mind, just enjoy the view.”
Elli was a lush, green and tropical world. Yes, it was. Now it is a polluted, ugly rock with scars across the landscape and very little of the original plants and animals left alive. The majority of the inhabitants were now just the three great survivors: rats, cockroaches and humans.
Most of the planet had once been lush and green, which was what had attracted the humans to begin with. It would have made a glorious and spectacular holiday destination with pristine beaches, unspoilt countryside and a variety of different climates to cater for the different tastes. From the freezing poles to the baking deserts and the temperate zones in-between, vast oceans of water made it an ideal planet for vacationing. Or even as a habitat. With ample space and plenty of investment opportunities, Elli was prime for the picking.
And picked it was. Due to some fabulous ore or mineral or some other such trinket, Elli caught the attention of the mining conglomerates and the planet was strip mined to the bedrock and below. Millions of tones of rock flew away into space, to be processed into whatever the ore or mineral had been needed for at the time. Entire mountains were moved in order to get at the precious stuff that lay below.
Now, all of the ore or mineral was gone, and the need for it had waned as science moved on to other new and shiny ores and minerals and crystals and whatever else could be plundered from the undefended planets.
Then Elli had a chance to rest, forgotten and ignored. But not for long. Despite the damage done to the ecosystem, the planet still supported life. The green slowly came back, the skies started to clear and once more it started looking like it might be a worthwhile place to live. Since it was good, but not quite good enough, some nearby bored bureaucrat or planetary governor looking to win an election decided that Elli would make a most excellent penal planet – a place to send the unwanted criminals on a one-way trip and effectively remove them from the home planet.
And thus it would stay for many years, with generations of prisoners sent to their new home. But time passed, governments changed and budgets needed adjusting. So the fleets that guarded the planet and ensured that nobody came or went were sent elsewhere. Pirates and buccaneers, malcontents and other nefarious ne’er-do-wells found that Elli was a perfect place to recruit new members and later that it would make an excellent base of operations.
Thousands came and went, coffers were emptied and all manner of wealth was injected into Elli. It became quite the planet, with all manner of vice and sin able to be performed. Huge cities started to be built up, with millions of permanent settlers and even more regular visitors coming and going.
Business flowed, trade and tourists flourished and it’s reputation spread far and wide. Of course, by this stage it was way too late to shut down such a successful, independent entity. But when House Vigneaux learned of this corruption, they felt it their duty to cleanse it from the galaxy.
A brief war erupted between House Vigneaux and the settlers of Elli. It was brief in the way that dropping planet-buster anti-matter bombs on an unprepared population always is. Maybe even the term ‘War’ is a bit of a misnomer, since it was more of an ‘Extermination’. But the proper papers were filed, the forms filled out and a War was indeed declared. Of course, family and friends who were not on Elli at the time launched all manner of legal actions against House Vigneaux, but since anyone who submitted such things was basically admitting that they were involved in illegal activities, they were automatically deported, ironically, to a penal planet.
The great thing about antimatter is that since there were none of the pesky side effects of nuclear explosions, it wasn’t long before Elli was deemed habitable again. Of course, who wanted to live on a planet with millions of angry ghosts? Well, obviously people who don’t believe in ghosts. And so a new population moved in. Not as high a quality of citizen as once might have been possible but not as low as the recently evicted occupants.
That was four hundred and thirty years earlier. Now, Elli was once again returning to its green roots, though there were still large smears of black and gray to be seen from orbit. And, as things turned out, orbit was were most of the action now occurred. Because Elli was at a crossroads, so to speak. There were several large systems nearby and Elli happened to lie in the middle, making it an excellent place to stop and refuel and give the crews a chance to stretch their legs.
One of the larger (and newest) stations in orbit around Elli was Kuparinen, named after the son of the owner. Here, on one of the many observation decks, Higuel and Tyrell enjoyed the view.
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