The Bounty

After two years of travel, planning, and construction, our rendezvous with the Bounty is minutes away.  I am in the Avenging Angel.  The Marx generator is in the cargo bay.  The original name of the ship, The Randleboat, is still painted on the hull.  If it doesn’t get destroyed in the upcoming confrontation, we will officially rename the ship.

Eve and Michael are in the Starscraper.  They have taken a slightly different route to our target.  As they travelled, they made sure either Saturn or Titan was between them and the sensor array on the Bounty.  As far as the colonists were concerned, it was just Randleman and his clone on their way to join up.

I had kept up the ruse that the communication module had malfunctioned and could only send text.  That made it easy to pretend I was Randleman.  More than once before I murdered him, he had sent me to conduct his business in some port while he slept off a hangover.  Afterward, I continued using that story, no one had ever questioned it.

The moment of truth was approaching.  I docked the Avenging Angel to the port on the Bounty.  The ship’s engine had been steadily charging the Marx generator, it neared full capacity.  The telescoping arm would deploy and attach to the station’s scaffolding just before the device was ready to discharge.  Everything was on autopilot.  I opened the cargo bay and rode the coal car into the cold of space.  It was packed with weapons, supplies, and a bomb I would soon attach to the shielding on the station’s nuclear generator.

My helmet display showed that the arm had deployed.  Then, the station went dark, as well as some of the docked ships.  The device had discharged as planned.  There was no sound or explosion.  No blood, no gore, no guts.  Just an electrical pulse powerful enough to destroy the electronics that made the station and the ships habitable.  I imagined the chaos inside the station as I welded the bomb to the generator shielding.  They would be feeling their way around, using flashlights and emergency flares. 

At the same time the arm extended, the Avenging Angel opened its port.  My expectation was that the Bounty crew would immediately suspect me of the sabotage and come to investigate.  They would find the heavily shielded box marked “Communication device inside.”  That was how I would inform them of their terms of surrender.

As I finished attaching the bomb my pock lit up with an incoming call. “Randleman, we are going to f*****g kill you!  Are you crazy?  What the f**k did you do?”

I turned on visual so they could see my face inside the helmet. “Randleman is dead.  My name is Saffron.  There is no need for you to refer to me as F94476487A49 anymore.  I have destroyed the electronics on your station and in your ships.  I have attached a bomb to your nuclear generator that will detonate in 30 minutes, or immediately if an attempt is made to remove it.  You will do as I say, or you will be stranded 400 million miles from anyone who can help you.”

“My demands are simple.  You will release all of the clones to me and my partners.  We will take our pick of your ships.  In exchange, we will repair the Bounty and the ships we let you keep.  Eve and Michael are approaching in the Starscraper.  The cargo bay is filled with electronic equipment and tools.  Obey our demands and we will leave you alive and in peace.  Otherwise, you will die, cold and gasping for breath, when your air supply is exhausted.”

“Note the clock counting down on the pock.  You’ve got 29 minutes to decide.  If the bomb detonates, your primary source of electricity will be gone and the Bounty will be doomed.  In that event I will assume your answer is ‘No’.”   I ended the transmission.

The Starscraper had begun heading toward the Bounty when I signaled that the attack was underway.  As I piloted the coal car into the cargo bay, my pock vibrated.  It was a two word text message from the Bounty.  “We agree.”  I suspended the countdown on the bomb.

The naturals were not nearly as excited to have the collars placed on their necks as the clones were to take them off.  I assured them I would send the unlock codes after we departed.

We turned three of the Bounty’s storage modules into prisons and kept the naturals there while we made the repairs.  It was one of the compromises I had made to get my co-conspirators to go along with my plan.  I would have killed every natural as soon as I boarded the station, if I had my way.  Eve and Michael would have none of that. 

The next few months were chaotic.  Educating and organizing the clones was a huge task.  They had spent their lives doing what they were told.  We had to teach them how to be free men and women.  They could do as they wish, within the rules.  But we made one thing clear.  The three of us, Michael, Eve and myself, were in command.  At all times, we expected them to choose to do the right thing.  With freedom comes responsibility.

It was not a successful transition for some.  Freedom is a heavy burden even for those who have experienced it their entire lives.  There were fights and acts of disobedience.  We let them know that anyone who didn’t fit in would be left behind.  I demonstrated that I could eject a clone into outer space as easily as I had done with naturals.  It was a painful process, but we began to identify and weed out those who were not team players.

All births are difficult, ours was no exception.  It was a beginning.  We were building an army.  We were determined to learn from our mistakes and survive our growing pains.  After much discussion, we named ourselves the Nation of the Sun.  A tribute to the famous military strategist, Sun Tzu.  His book, The Art of War, had inspired and guided me.  And, the name was a bit of a pun.  We were a billion miles from the Sun. At that distance, it is nothing more than the brightest star in the sky.  The concepts of day and night have little meaning when you are in orbit around Saturn. 

Someday we will have children. They will be born and will live on a warm, fertile planet.  They will know the ancient patterns of day and night.  The smell of flowers and trees.  The feel of a sandy beach under their feet.  For now, there are plans to make, battles to fight, and enemies to defeat.

Before we departed, we painted our new logo on each of the vessels in our fledgling Navy.  An image of the sun, rising over the horizon of the planet we would one day call home.  And we finally renamed my ship.  The Randleboat was gone.  Long live the Avenging Angel.

We had taken down the Bounty without firing a shot.  We did not kill or injure a single human in the attack.  Then, we repaired the damage we had inflicted.  When we left, the station was functional and capable of sustaining life. 

We freed almost two hundred clones.  We assembled a fleet of three decommissioned military ships and ten modern commercial vessels, as well as the Starscraper and the Avenging Angel.  Compared to our enemy, we were a ragtag group of refugees.  But we had the makings of a military force that could outsmart and overwhelm the Europan trading center.  They were our next target. 

This time it would be a direct attack.  We knew as soon as we left, the Bounty crew would warn the Federation of our existence and our hostile intent.  We could no longer rely on surprise and guerilla tactics.  But the distances of space played to our advantage. 

The military vessels in orbit around Earth, the Moon, and Mars would not have time to reach Europa before us, even though the distances were similar.  Large ships take longer to reach maximum velocity than the smaller ships in our fleet.  And, we had gravity on our side.  The same force the Sun exerts on all of the planets, keeping them forever in orbit, also applies to ships.  Every moment on the way from Earth to Europa, a ship must fly against the pull of the Sun.  Like walking uphill.  We will be travelling toward the Sun as we go from Titan to Europa.  The same force our enemies have to fly against will be accellerating us toward our target.  Our enemy possessed more powerful ships than we did.  But our journey was downhill all the way.  The advantage was ours. 

The Europan colony itself is lightly guarded.  It is a commercial station and its best ships are no better than ours.  We had scouted their defensive capabilities on previous visits.  If we succeeded in taking Europa, we would have an army of thousands of clones, and hundreds of ships.

The most serious military threat will come from Callisto.  Another of Jupiter’s moons, and the location of the Federation’s jump ship facility.  They had invested a lot of time and money in their new antiproton annihilation engine, capable of achieving 30% of the speed of light.  The site is guarded by a state of the art military vessel.  We expect it will be sent to Europa to intercept us. 

We are counting on that.  We know we will be going up against a superior ship, with highly trained soldiers and advanced weaponry.  It does not matter.  We have come this far.  We have no home to retreat to.  We will fight for what we want.  We will succeed, or we will die in battle.