Tonal Gray

A David Sands Competition story by Harry L. James

An entry in The Sands of Time Writing Competition

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Tonal Gray

Dejam Threl,

The documents I am sending you via courier were found in the personal effects of a dead Lenarian dealer in Terran artifacts. The Lenarian had come to an untimely end and through a friend of mine in Station Management, I was able to purchase his room’s content.

As soon as I found these documents in amongst his personal papers, and being aware of your interest in the Terran listed in them, I decided to send them to you in hope that they may be used to find a less violent solution to our current, mutual financial disagreement.

You’re Humble Servant

Axilon Drac, Purveyor of Fine Antiques

MSG 109738490Q

TO: Dejam Threl

SUBJECT: Axilon Drac

Axilon Drac and ship reported lost soon after departure from Parker’s Drift.

END MSG

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A Dark and Stormy Night in Space

A Dark Matter storm was growing throughout the Terran Ophary Sector. For those who maintain the old Goltaran designations, this would be Shostan’s Willful Spacehold of Truth.

Ships on the edge of the disturbance jumped away, while those closer to the event switched to sub-light engines and made for the nearest space or planetary harbor to wait out the storm.

Down in the cargo hold, I and the rest of the crew of the Foundation’s Fuel found out our destination when the Captain announced our new heading and port. Parker’s Drift. That was where we would wait out the storm and then continue on our way to Laxis and eventually unload our cargo of farming equipment.

Parker’s Drift, at the mention of that name Old Shaik pulled his cap off and hung his face downward. Old Shaik had crewed for years with Captain Thill across the Collusion, through the Namaran Protrusion and claimed to have gone so far as to actually see the Terran Maelstrom that surrounds Terra herself where the Last Emperor sleeps until called to war once more when comes the end of the Universe.

Most took his stories with a grain of salt, but all deferred to his word when shipboard disputes came about. A young tech, Wistas, asked what was so wrong about the Station. Old Shaik settled onto the tread of a farming traction engine and began.

To start with, Parker’s Drift was located near one of the old D’If jump gates. The D’If were the original race that expanded through this part of the galaxy before the arrival of the Terrans. The D’If established a series of matter transmitter gates that could send a ship of any size from one part of the galaxy to another within seconds. The only problem with the D’If gates was that they were installed approximately 500,000 years ago and based on the D’If view of the galaxy.

So by the time the Gates were discovered by other races they tended to send you to what were now considered rather obscure places. The Ophary Gate was a perfect example, when working it sends you to a dead world orbiting an artificial star. If nothing, the D’If and their technology were always interesting, in a scary sort of way.

Regardless, the Terrans eventually occupied the area around the Gate, established a space station to study it and to provide services to ships moving through the Ophary Sector.

During the War the station changed hands multiple times. It was expanded and or updated as each side occupied it. The last tenants were the Terrans. It was here that the AI’s supposedly conspired to implement their revolt that ended the war in the spectacular destruction of both capital planets of the Terran Empire and the Goltaran Reach.

Of course no station in space existed without its Ghost Story. Shaik shook his head and started with an admonishment to foolish star sailors and their superstitious ways, but he had heard a story related to Parker’s Drift concerning a ghostly suit of battle armor that wanders the hallways looking for lost crewmen to consume their souls.

The story is that the battle suit was inhabited by the remnant of a Terran Battle AI who had hidden there to avoid the final battles of the war. Shaik shook his head and opined that he himself put little stock in such rubbish and figured someone had seen an old abandoned suit of armor and let their imagination go wild.

Ghostly suits of armor notwithstanding, the station was abandoned by both sides right after the war ended and lay empty until about 20 years ago when a Terran technology prospector ran across it, decided it was worth more as a functioning space station than salvage and opened it back up as Parker’s Drift.

The rumor was that it tended to be a temperamental place to run, with odd happenings, decks that supposedly disappeared and appeared and that parts of it were still closed due to both old Terran and Goltaran bobby traps. Shaik shook his head again and warned Wistas to avoid the rhetorical traps of old sailors and their stories and gave her the advice that she should do her work, keep her head down and limit her tasting of the more sinful delights of the station. Everyone laughed at the last and moved to their stations as the docking signal sounded. Few heard his final judgement on Parker’s Drift.

“Any port in a storm, but why did it have to be this port.”

We docked the ship and then assembled in formation before the Captain. He called out names, mine among them, and we stood in place as the rest of the crew were released to shore leave on the Station.

I looked around and noticed that my special group shared one common trait. Everyone was either partial or mostly of Terran extraction. The Captain was a Cylosian - Cylosia being an old treaty planet of the Goltaran Reach, and sort of held a grudge, as did many, against us, even if we were only part Terran. At least this part of the Galaxy had dropped the death sentence on Terrans a hundred years ago, but there was still some resentment left over.

Regardless, the Captain gave us all our walking papers and said that he wasn’t planning on taking the entire crew back out to finish up the run to Laxis. So there we were, on the loading dock with a few Credits worth of severance pay in our pockets, no berthing and nothing to do but wait for the storm to end and hope that some other ships would be hiring again. Not an uncommon occurrence when a Captain has to choose between crew and profits, profits always win. So off we stepped on to the main deck of Parker’s Drift.

Parker’s Drift was a standard Imperial Terran station. Essentially fifty main decks in the middle, with twenty upper decks for administration and management and twenty decks below the center fifty for storage and power. The center decks contained all that was necessary for the station to function. Deck zero being a great center equatorial promenade of shops, hotels and homes for those who lived and worked here. Deck one, going up, was the entertainment deck and that’s where I was headed.

The Goltar’s Grip was rated as one of the top ten places on the Station bar listing. The owner was listed as Ru’th Lis D’au, a Goltaran. This could turn out to be an interesting night.

As I arrived at the Grip and walked in I stopped and looked it over. The room was shaped like a great slice of pie, where you walked in from the narrow end with a wide aisle straight down the middle which pinnacled at a bar at the wide end. The right half of the room held a fair number of gaming tables and left was laid out in round tables for drink and food.

An old Lympath over at the far left end of the bar played soft Qu’Nor ballads in the background. Talk was low and kept between those being spoken to. The gambling looked like cards, dice and a few tables set up for Tychoan Wheel for those with extra credits and the ability to guess the odds on five balls falling at once over a spinning wheel with 100 numbers, 10 colors and one hole. No, I never understood it either. The feeling was relaxed, no apparent impending fights and everyone seemed to be focused on ignoring everyone else except those at their table.

I took a seat at the bar and ordered what passed for beer in this part of the Galaxy and prepared to settle in. I had used a fair amount of my credits to rent a room up on Deck 15 through the station AI, but the room wouldn’t be ready for a few hours, so in the meantime it was me, a beer and the gentle murmur of the Grip to keep me company.

I was well into my second beer and had just ordered what the Goltaran owner, claimed was real honest to goodness vat grown meat from an independent agrarian planet in the Toklin Shadow Trust when They came in.

A Myl Pair proceeded before a hulking Kyber, who had to hunch his shoulders to fit under the standard Terran entryway, a diminutive Thylor no more than one standard meter tall followed close behind, shadowed by a muscled Shaijn Initiate who’s pale green skin denoted her youth.

Just behind and the last to enter the room was a slightly built Terran who was almost lost in the company of his pan-galactic crew. Emblazoned on the shoulder of his and every member of his crews’ standard gray crew jumpsuits was the sunburst and crown of the most famous ship ever to salvage the astral oceans - the Dawn of Expectant Glory.

That meant the Myl Pair were the infamous Voldas and Voldes - Adepts of The Mystery and essentially living weapons for hire. The Kyber was none other than Kital. Rumored to be the only sentient being to ever enter a Lenarian Hive and come out with both his body and mind intact. The Thylor was Imlas of Zhen, former advisor to the last ruler of the Thylorian Emergence. Taken prisoner by the Goltarans and held as hostage for one hundred years - finally released and said to have disappeared inside the Forlin Maelstrom as penance for his failure to save his ruler and the Emergence from the Goltarans. He reappeared soon after the mutual collapse of the Goltaran Reach and the Terran Empire. He’s said to be the oldest living being in this part of the galaxy.

The green one was no less than Lasis of Shaijn, faithful First Officer/Navigator and confidant of her Captain. The rumor was she was bound to him by means of a blood oath extracted under duress in the most horrifying of conditions.

Finally, walking slowly down towards the bar while his crew dispersed to game, drink and eat the storm away, was their Captain, Tonal Gray himself.

His story allegedly begins when he was found inside a stasis box over three thousand years old during the demolition of a Trathen Pirate moon by an Iltur mining consortium. The Iltur sold the box to a collector of Terran memorabilia who then kept it on digital display for several years until it was bought by followers of the Atlantean League. The League worshiped the old Terrans and paid dearly to get one of their “gods” for veneration.

The story goes he spent another decade receiving their prayers and offerings before being stolen by a salvage crew who planned to use their very own Terran to take down and salvage a Terran Battleship.

Honestly though, I had heard that same story, with different actors, stranger locations and even more unbelievable happenings in most of the spacebars across this sector of the galaxy. I’m not sure anyone knew who or what Tonal Gray really was - in the long run it didn’t matter. Life moves on, you gotta make a living. Which gets a bit harder when people judge you as Terran first.

I’m sort of a Terran. My mom was 90% and my dad was around 50%. I guess by the time you get to me through both the Illurian and Denarian mixed in from their families - both essentially bipedal, multi-colored and genetically compatible races - the look that remains is mostly Terran.

As usual, my only problem with all of the different genes that went into making me who I was, was the Terran. That is what everyone saw when they looked at me, Terran. In the room that night were probably a good twenty or thirty of us in various forms, colors and styles of hair/fur grooming.

But Tonal Gray, Tonal Gray was “The” Terran.

So what was the Galaxy’s most successful salvage crew doing on Parker’s Drift - pretty much the ass end of nowhere - on a dark and stormy night in space?

“What the hell are they doing here?” A thin reedy voice broke my concentration.

I looked over my shoulder and the empty chair next to me had suddenly become occupied with a pile of multicolored cloths that seemed to pass for clothing and from which a hairless, green head protruded.

“It’s a free station, anyone can dock, anyone can buy or sell, remember, the war’s over.”

I turned back to my drink and hoped for the notice that my room was ready. Instead there was a light tap, tap, tap on my shoulder.

“But him, I mean, him!” My new best “friend” pointed towards Gray as he walked to the far end of the bar and set down.

“What about him?” Pile of Cloths shifted and leaned in, suddenly a three fingered hand stretched out and gently pressured my shoulder again.

“Well, i’d heard They was after him. Wherever he goes, death and destruction follows as They rip things apart looking for him. They want him, as the story goes that i’ve heard, They follow him.”

With a shift back and a knowing flutter of one eye, well, his only eye, Pile of Clothes leaned back and took a long pull on his drink.

“And who are They?” I knew I shouldn’t have, but sometimes these stories just can’t be ignored, and it wasn’t like I was going anywhere soon.

“Them! Them! the “A-Eyes”.” Once again the flutter of the eye.

“You mean the Terran Undead Lords want him? Now i’ve hear many stories about Captain Gray, this being the first time I’ve actually seen him, and I have heard the odd discussion or two about who or “what” he is, and that maybe the old Terran AI’s are looking for him - but that’s just part of the old salvage mystery business, isn’t it. He and his crew get top credits for their contracts because they look for the long lost, or at least tell a good tale about what they find. Either way - a little mystery goes a long way in the Technical Scrap Trade.”

Pile of Clothes leaned in close while organizing a series of eye flutters and getting a grip on my arm.

“Mark my words, Gray and his crew walk with the spirit of the Last Lost Dead Lord Emperor by their side. I plan to hide in my room until he and this storm are gone.”

With that Pile Of Clothes slipped off the stool and mumbled his way to the exit. Down the bar a hulking Goltaran carried two large foaming mugs over to Gray.

Tonal Gray - A Story

We had been waiting for weeks on the edge of the Ituri Expanse when an increasingly challenging game of Emperors and Idiots began to wear on our Myl Pair.

In our business, the Technical Scrap Trade, we spend a lot of time sitting and waiting, and this was one of those times. In fact, most stories in space bars should start with, “…we had been waiting for weeks when…”, rather than the oft quoted, “….and then I pulled my blaster.” Patience is the primary virtue of a good Scrapper.

I could tell the collective crew sense of patience was starting to wear a little thin when Voldas moved his Queen and Hierophant in the rarely used and often maligned move known as The Prime Minister’s Retreat.

A crap move this early in a game that was only about three ship-weeks old. Voldes, his twin, upped the ante of stupid moves with the Chamberlain’s Carousel. A somewhat questionable deception move, though claimed by Lomad of Tharsis as the only move to make when presented with the Retreat.

Voldas stood, grabbed his blaster and went to sweep his had across the board, when the mass detectors went off and the alarms sounded throughout the ship. Something big had just jumped into the system and was plowing its way through the debris of a battle fought over a thousand years ago.

There She was, the Jovian Fury, the object of our scavenging obsession. Acting as imperious and dismissive as her long dead masters. Terrans, they just seemed to be at war with existence itself.

The madness that claimed some of their sentient ships in their old age seemed to draw them over and over again to places of their greatest glory or defeat. For the Jovian Fury it was here on the edge of the Ituri Expanse at the Battle of Cylosia IV (Terran designation) or the Battle of Shamtrak’s Rusty Sword Breaks (Goltaran designation).

The Fury and her assault ships had been victorious and pounded the Goltaran Fleet and the colonies it protected into total submission. Every single living Goltaran, in space or on planets, along with their ships were blasted into so much scrap.

The Terran AI’s were known for executing their Battle Masters’ orders at an exceptionally high level of violence while displaying a pathological willingness to destroy every thing Goltaran, no matter what it took.

I myself, have seen the terrifying multi-dimensional temporal/fusion vortex that used to be the Goltaran twin colonies of Thaxis and Tharxis. Twenty billion souls eliminated from standard space over the matter of a few minutes.

The Torlish, who had come to provide neutral observers and medical assistance to the battle, estimated that the Terrans used ten or more multi-dimensional string cutter bombs to create the Vortex - and in the end what made it worse was that Thaxis and Tharxis was just a diversion to draw space defenses away from here, Cylosia IV. The Goltarans and the Terrans really, really hated each other.

Of course, our ship was no match for a Terran Battle AI encased in miles of ceramsteel armor, gravenergy shields and loaded with weapons we didn’t even know the function of.

Europa Class Battleships like the Fury were sentient killing machines built to destroy entire planetary systems while going toe to toe with the big Goltaran “Ophidian” class battle cruisers in open space combat. But we had two equalizers, a Thallen Restriction Field and our very own Terran.

Nobody can tell you what exactly the Thallen intended the Restriction Field for. Their culture was found dead with their technology splayed around them in some kind of strange religious mass cultural suicide. But, if there was a need to immobilize a large chunk of matter - like a small moon, asteroid or say a psychopathic Terran starship, it could do it. Once the Jovian Fury was immobilized we would do something that no other salvage crew had done, simply tell the ship to stand down. That’s where our second equalizer came in.

A real live ancient Terran. That’s right, a real live ancient Terran. When you seen them, you wonder how the hell did these strange bipedal monstrosities come storming out of the ass end of the galaxy and come to engage the Goltaran Reach in a multi-galactic war that wrecked most of known and unknown space. Crazy.

We found our Terran about five years ago. Stuffed in an advanced stasis container in the lowest vault of a Trathen Pirate Moon. The key to Its usefulness - the dynastic rank glyphs etched on the front of Its box. Its DNA tagged It with authority over any construct, natural or unnatural that came from the cursed forges of the Terran Master Builders.

It took us two years to figure out how to wake It. Using translating technology lifted from a Terran light cruiser we’d salvaged a few years before we were able to establish communications with It.

It didn’t seem to take it too bad that the war was over, that It had been asleep for uncounted years, and that Its mere existence was a death sentence on most worlds of the Great Collusion, though Terrans were not hunted as much as they used to be - pretty much left to themselves in their far flung colonies and remnant worlds. Just like the Goltarans - hated, hidden and rarely cared about anymore.

We convinced It that helping us was to Its advantage and that we’d cut It in for a partial share and send It on Its way after the job - otherwise we’d stuff It back in that box and re-deposit It in the vault. It agreed, as long as we called It “him” for now - no problem, most of us couldn’t have told a “him” Terran from a “her” Terran - they are just too damn strange looking.

Now their technology was another thing. The Terrans and the Goltarans had been just a half a step away from pure magic. They developed sciences that bent and broke most of the fundamental rules of the universe, which made them the most dangerous and powerful cultures ever to rise up out of the primal mud.

In their mutual desire to destroy each other they tore most of the universe up as both sides went down swinging dark matter fusion bombs and multi-dimensional string cutters across their last battle fields. The Great Revolt of AI’s on both sides finally put an end to the violence but that very inconclusive and extremely chaotic end left the known worlds and the space between them littered with their deadly toys.

This is where we come in.

Finders and purveyors of technical oddities left over from the good old days. Our current target contained quad cubed multi-dimensional computing cores worth a fortune - not much else would sell. Even the poorest of planets had their own left over pet Defense AI (Terran or Goltaran - didn’t really matter, pretty much the same level of potential for violence). The local system AI’s had been set to accept commands from loyal allied cultures, so when the Terran Empire and the Goltaran Reach came apart, their client worlds retained much of their defensive and somewhat limited offensive powers.

It was one of the core principals that kept the Great Collusion going in this part of the galaxy - make the wrong move and a planet gets to see how the Terrans and Goltarans earned their reputations.

Though not willing to carry out their ancient masters’ orders of self destruction at the end of the War, their AI’s, when given the opportunity, were still willing to engage in a planetary cleansing or two just to keep their skills up.

So, quad cubed multi-dimensional computing cores it was. We just had to stop the Fury and have our friendly Terran do his trick. We did, he did and then….

….howling alarms bounced off the pulsated strobe slashed walls.

What the hell?

Alarms were sounding all over the ship and the AI was shouting in that horrid, stuttering cacophony the Terrans called speech. I couldn’t understand most of it, but knowing the Terrans it was probably an endless string of threats invoking unbelievable levels of personal violence that would be visited upon every single one of us.

Suddenly the alarms stopped and the AI ceased its intemperate verbal gibberish. Down the corridor I saw the Terran slowly walking towards me.

From behind him came a strange guttural sobbing scream.

That’s when I pulled out my blaster.

The Terran waved his hand and I was suddenly held in a security field. He walked up and held his finger in front of his lips.

“Stay very quiet, don’t struggle, and I’ll try to get us all out of here alive.”

He turned to the command deck doors which opened as he moved forward towards them. For the next hour or so he cajoled, chided, commanded and discussed with the AI all the reasons why She should just let him and his crew go.

He proposed that there wasn’t really any reason to kill us all, and then go on a vengeful rampage on every living thing within a hundred light years. The AI just needed to calm down, accept Her fate and head off into the empty parts of space and think about all the things She wanted to do that didn’t involve the total destruction of planets, systems and or entire races.

The AI slowly came to agree and the Terran negotiated for us to take, what the AI called a small courier assault ship, a ship three times the size of our current vessel and filled with a full suite of weapons, defensive systems and all manners of the aforementioned Terran general magical technology.

The terrible sounds I had heard had been poor Slort, our technical chief, he had been killed while trying to open up a weapons storage locker, fool, I had told him computing technology only, you never really knew what part of the AI was still awake and working when a ship was given a stand down command. Apparently the security systems for the weapons locker was one of those parts.

That left myself - Kital, the Myl Pair, and the Terran.

As we slowly departed the Ilturi Expanse in our very own Terran ship, It remained in normal space waiting for a course command and also to fully clear all of the debris of the Expanse.

Even a ship this size carried a Dark Matter space folder core. From here to wherever in a matter of seconds. Except everything dangerous on this ship was just waiting for our Terran friend to call out our names for whatever torture he wanted to visit upon us. We were all gathered in what had passed for the Terran Crew’s mess hall and waited for our new “Captain” to address our situation.

The Terran stepped into the room and asked us all to sit. We all attempted to set down, truthfully, I never liked Terran chairs so I stood and the Twins crushed two chairs before sitting on the floor, while Kital stood with me.

The Terran stood and spoke.

“My name is Tonal Gray. I am now Captain of this ship which is named the “Dawn of Expectant Glory”. This ship is now under my direct command, the AI is both capable as a Battle AI and as a Support AI. She will only follow my orders. No one is to go into the AI Core area under penalty of sudden death - Ship’s rules - which we all will follow. As you see the AI is providing us the ability to converse in our natural languages - as no-one here seems to be fluent in Terran. You may speak to the ship, request anything from Her for your personal survival, water, food, intoxicating drinks or anything else that in no way interferes with the Ship’s operation. If you request anything of the Ship you may address it as Dawn. I have requested that standard Terran crew discipline rules be suspended - meaning no one should be harmed if you inadvertently cause insult to myself as Captain, or the Ship. Your salvage ship is in the main hold and is being reviewed, repaired and upgraded as needed by the Dawn’s service systems. Your ship will be returned to you if you decide to leave. Do you all understand?”

Everyone made a sign of assent.

Tonal continued.

“ I am not sure who I was in the Empire, as my memory has been wiped from long ago. I am aware of my connection to a remote time in the Empire’s history under the reign of Emperor William the 63rd, but not sure what that means. I have been in and out of stasis for more years than most of your cultures have been in space. I am dedicated to finding my memories, my history and my purpose. In the mean time, given a willing crew, I plan to support my search of known and unknown space much as you yourselves have, finding and trading in the more interesting technologies left behind by my ancestors and their enemies. If you come along, I will provide you with riches and adventures beyond your wildest dreams. If you don’t, then I’ll gladly return you to your ship, with enough supplies to make it to the nearest habitable planet or moon, and I will continue on my own.”

He sat quietly and showed his teeth as he finished his short speech. I wasn’t sure if that last bit was a threat or a show of respect - Terrans are confusing.

Voldas and Voldes quickly gave their assent, being as riches and adventure were pretty much what drew them off their home world and out into the cold of space in the first place.

Kital waited and seemed lost in thought, though I’m not sure he just wasn’t a bit slow, but it gave the appearance that he was actually making a reasoned argument within himself for signing on, which he did.

As for myself, not wanting to end up on a lost world out in the middle of nowhere, I signed on and have never looked back.

And so, that is how myself - Lasis of Shaijn, Kital of Kyber, and Voldas and Voldes of Myl became the first new crew members of the Dawn of Expectant Glory under the command of The Terran, Captain Tonal Gray in over two thousand years.

Harry L James has been a farmer, soldier, civil servant and now lives as a writer and evolving artist sharing a wonderfully entangled workspace with his wife Michelle who designs and makes jewellery.

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