Kyle put them in orbit around the dwarf star just above the ring plain. He stood to look out the cockpit windows. He wanted to see the beauty of the rings with his own eyes. Pictures did not reflect their true beauty. The rings shimmered with life of the constantly moving particles. The deep golden glow of the dwarf sun enhanced their splendor.
Never has there been found such a concentration of precious metals in the entire known galaxy. This amount could cause all kinds of economic problems if ever made public, not to mention the personal problems it would cause them. Kyle doubted his partner has thought it through that far. He would have to change that.
“Well, we now have a couple of new problems.” Kyle said.
“What problem could we possibly have?” The old man said joyously.
Kyle sat back down and decided to start with the easy question first. “Which do we collect?”
“Is that all?”
“No, but we can’t collect everything from these rings.” Kyle pointed to his screen. “Some of the material is too large, we’d tear our sails if we tried.”
The old man grunted. “Of course we would, we collect only the dust.”
Kyle smiled, knowing Hobbs would have that reaction. “What I’m asking is do we collect platinum, gold or a mixture of all the rare earths?”
“The one that gives us the biggest payoff!”
“Maybe, but keep in mind what happened to Pike.” Kyle said.
His eyes widened. “You think the same will happen to us?”
Kyle nodded. “That’s the real question.” He said, though he had others. “Once the fleet hears about it, they will stop short of nothing to find out where we got it.” Kyle refused to trust them and thought again how the fleet had barraged a planet’s surface just to kill one traitor. He wondered again how quickly his mother had died. Did she die out right or did she suffer through injuries and radiation burns? He shook his head to rid him of these thoughts. He would have been there too if he hadn’t just shipped off to the academy. His father never seemed to care. “We’ll have to be very careful.” He added.
The old man nodded. “I’ll think of something.” The beard did not hide the concern in his eyes. “Let’s fill seventy percent of our hold with gold and platinum.” Hobbs said. “The rest with the other rare earths, just to prove we can.”
Kyle shrugged his shoulders, good enough reasoning. “We better encrypt these coordinates, erase all sensor readings and remove our flight plans.”
“I’ll do that and add a few fake ones.” Hobbs said. “You start collecting.”
Kyle opened the sails, polarized them and went to work collecting the ore. The best technique was to fly just above the rings and allowed the polarized sails to pull the dust from the rings. It filled the hold far quicker than he expected.
Once Kyle had the sails closed he turned to his partner. “Well, where are we headed?”
Hobbs rubbed is white haired chin. “Not a core world.”
“Obviously.” Kyle smirked. He had an idea, but selling it to the old man would be difficult.
“Thomasdale?”
Kyle shook his head. “Too industrial, large government involvement.”
“How about Polaski’s Point?” Hobbs suggested. “It’s a remote mining colony.”
“The problem is, no matter where we go in Czarian space, our buyers will be required to report the purchase to local authorities.” Kyle explained. “While we may be able to get out of there before the authorities show up, we would still be wanted. We wouldn’t be able to show our faces in any port after that.”
“They mine gold and other rare earths.” Hobbs replied. “They easily could launder it into their production.”
“Are they willing to take the risk?” Kyle asked. “Do you know someone there that you can trust?” When Hobbs didn’t answer he added, “Is there anyone you can trust with something like this?” He pointed to the picture of the cargo hold on his screen.
The old man studied Kyle’s face for a minute then shook his head with a frown. “Where then? I’m thinking you already have an idea.”
Kyle nodded slowly. “I think we should consider somewhere outside the Czarian Empire.”
“Who?” Hobbs responded. “There aren’t any known civilizations beyond the empire.”
“What about the pirates.”
Hobbs’ eyes widened. “They’ll kill us just like our Czarian friends.”
“I think there’s a better chance they won’t.” Kyle raised a hand to stop any protest. “As you know, I’m from a well-connected family to the Czar.” He explained. “After my mother’s death, I did some snooping and found how the government has lied to us on many things.” He wasn’t going to go into his mother’s story. The old man already knew enough of it. “Among other things, I’ve learned most of the pirates actually belong to an organization called the Free Worlds Alliance.”
“So the pirates are organized.” Hobbs grumbled. “No surprise there.”
“They’re not pirates, but another stellar nation.” Kyle replied. “In this case, I have more trust in the unknown then the known. Besides, I think the name is a hint to their true nature. Also, I have never found any documentation where they have ever raided or plundered a single Czarian planet.”
“What about the raid that killed your mother.” Hobbs said carefully.
“That was right after a major battle with the pirates.” Kyle agreed. “A fleet to fleet action, but that was lightyears away from the planet. Only Czarian ships were in orbit during the planet bombardment. Any reference to pirates in that case was pure propaganda. Believe me, I’ve thoroughly check that out. I suspect the captain they were after had been involved in that engagement. In fact, there were references that he had retreated rather than engage the enemy as ordered. He may have even been a spy.” He paused for a moment. “I still have those records on a data chip if you care to see them.” He paused for a moment, but Hobbs remained silent. “The Free Worlds Alliance is our best hope.” He added.
Hobbs knew Kyle to be a factual person not prone to exaggeration, but that didn’t help hearing the disturbing information. “It’s a fool’s hope!” Hobbs commented anyway.
Kyle gave him another handsome smirk. “You’re the fool who wanted to find this stuff.” He pointed out the cockpit windows to the beautifully gleaming rings. “Now we have the fortunate problem of getting rid of it.”
“At least I wasn’t following a fool.” Hobbs countered with a smile, enjoying the bantering.
“Do you have a better idea?” Kyle said seriously.
The old man frowned and didn’t speak for over a minute. “Not really.” He finally admitted. “Where do we find this Free Worlds Alliance?”
“It shouldn’t be that hard. Look for a lack of information and a lack of trade routes on the star charts.” Kyle speculated. “Perhaps correlate that to known military actions.”
“And preferably where the Czar has lost,” Hobbs grumble.
“They would never admit to that.” Kyle stated. “We’ll just have to infer from the public reports like the battle near my home planet.”
The old man turned to his console. “Let’s see what I have on file.” Thirty minutes later he said, “You’re right, I’ve never really studied the charts this way before. There are large areas lacking info. Most of the military actions I have on file, happened a while back, but they do correlate to some of those areas. They are pretty far away, but I think the old girl will have enough juice to get us to one of them.” He was referring to their H3 fuel for their fusion reactor.
Suddenly an idea hit Kyle. Why hadn’t he thought of it before! It had been staring him in the face all along. Kyle’s smile grew ear to ear. He would do more than just trade with the Alliance. He would join them if they turned out to be what he suspected. He felt more fanatical about it than Hobbs had been in finding the gold. He realized it had taken all this stupid gold to bring it to light. He would find the Free World Alliance and do everything in his power (short of kill
ing innocent people) to free the worlds under Czarian control.
Kyle smiled in amusement. He was now the one on a quest. And just as Hobbs knew they would find the gold, he knew they would find the Free Worlds Alliance. How ironic, his father had freed him from bondage so that he could return to free the Czarian citizens. His father would be furious!
“Our new quest is about to begin!” Kyle proclaimed as he punched in the commands to leave the dwarf star’s orbit.
If you enjoyed this short story consider checking out my other stories and novels.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends