Omoikane 07 The Politics of Pequadela

Omoikane 07 - The Politics of Pequadela

We approached Pequadela.  

The system was odd.  It had a super gas giant in a distant orbit that was reading like a containment failure: heat, radiation, gamma rays, and electromagnetic noise.

As we got closer, we could see why.  There was a captured moon made of antimatter.

It glowed and sparkled as dust hit it and got annihilated.  It shed gamma rays like a beacon.  The radiation from the small particles and motes hitting it and converting to energy made it warm.  The heat it shed warmed up everything else in the super gas giant's moon system.  There was a ring system.

I winced.  The explosions would be horrifying if that moon hit the rings orbiting that gas giant.  It seemed distant enough. The whole arrangement struck me as very dangerous.

If you could mine it, you could power all the starships for hundreds of thousands of years on that much antimatter.

But there was no safe way to get close enough.  The stuff already hitting the moon created a zone of hard radiation around that no technology I knew of could survive for long.

A big enough rock hitting it would generate a super pulse of gamma rays and hard radiation and generate enough energy to alter the object's orbit.

It was a bad neighbor to have.

The astrophysicists were beside themselves. There was nothing else like it in Federation records.

Two communications systems were running in the system.  One was Boa-Olavax.  The horse folk.  The other was Agusoapan/Orion.

The Boa-Olavax traffic system was from a station in orbit around the Pequadelaa homeworld.  

The Agusoapan signals were from a station in a trojan orbit, trailing Pequadela around its primary.

The Boa-Olavax system hailed us "Pequadela control, here.  Identify and state your business, please."

We could see two formations of attack ships moving towards us.  They were zippy at sublight.  Two different types.  One type had some Bendarri-like touches.  The others read Orion/Klingon technology in an unknown configuration.

Neither squadron posed much of a threat to us.  Their weapons read class VII and Class VIII.  Nothing we couldn't handle.

"This is the Federation Starship Omoikane.  We request permission to approach and orbit to repatriate individuals rescued from a slave ship."

"Please hold."

A few minutes later, a horse person appeared on the screen. "Howdy! Welcome to Pequadela.  Y'all need a parkin' orbit or a dockin' port?"

"A parking orbit within five thousand kilometers will suit us, perfectly."

"Settin' it up,  C'mon in and make yerselfs at home."

Our nav system lit up to show a highlighted route to a parking orbit.

"Thank you," I said carefully.

When the signal was off, I looked at Li'ira.  She looked back blankly, "What?"

I turned to Stephanie.  She was stifling a reaction of her own.  I said, "You heard that, right?"

She nodded, "Cowboys."

"Yee - and I can't stress this enough - haw,"  I said very seriously.

Stephanie laughed.

"What?"  Li'ira asked

"We need to check the translators. The horse folks seem to have a Western American accent," I said. "That can't be right."

Tillean grinned, "I kind of hope it is."

Both groups of attack ships stopped and watched us enter their system.

-*-

The Boa-Olavax station looked like a wedding cake, with cylindrical sections separated by columns around the outer edges.

Their ships were rectangles, with superstructures on each corner, and warp drive nacelles slung under each side of the aft 1/3rd of the rectangle. They almost looked like some sort of furniture molding.

As we got closer, we could see the Agusoapan station. It was an old Orion station in a crescent shape, coming to points top and bottom. Only about a third of the station was functional, but we could see heavy activity on it. Crews were working to repair and upgrade it.

Agusoapan ships looked bird-like, as if someone had taken an eagle in flight sculpture and used it as the basis for a ship design.

They had freighters, escorts, and a variety of small ships working on their project.

We were hailed as we approached on a familiar frequency, "Greetings USS Omoikane.  I am Damyip 18.3.5."

"Greetings, Damyip 18.3.5."

"Sadl,y I am a small installation here supporting cultural and diplomatic relations with the Boa-Olavax.  I am unable to assist you with your engine problems. However, I would enjoy talking with you, hearing what you've seen, and exchanging data with the Damyip on your ship."

"I am sure we can arrange that, Sir.  We will stop by as soon as we complete our immediate business."

"Thank you, Captain."