Planet of the Dominated Mind

This wasn't really how Lukas envisioned his retirement.

His eyes glazed over the dump of coordinates from the ship's console. He and his assigned teammates—Officers Jordan and Pat—followed the trail to a system in the outer quadrant of Lambda.

"What do we know of this system?" Lukas asked as they made their way to an unmarked transport craft in the hangar.

Jordan, a tall and well built human with deep, dark skin and braids tied back, and Pat, a short, thin poltron rookie who's infectious grin and flickering cat-like ears distract from his uncharacteristically diminutive size for an officer, glanced at each other.

Pat blurted, "Well, I mean... exactly what everyone else knows."

Jordan raised an eyebrow. "That's like asking what we know about a desert. It's got sand in it, Captain."

Lukas led the two to a patrol transport craft. It was far too tall, however, to climb into without the assistance of stairs or the banishment of gravity.

Jordan continued, "It's a little less expansive than most. We know there's no indigenous life in the system, so this isn't really the kind of place you travel to unless you know where you're going."

Light sliced through the hull of the transport craft, revealing a door. Three helipads slid out from underneath the entrance way and flew down to the officers, halting with pinpoint accuracy in front of the three. Each officer stepped upon the steel, and continued talking as they floated up towards the door.

"Do we know why the suspect would go there?" Pat scratched at his disarray blonde curls. His left ear folded back.

Jordan shrugged. "He's wanted for selling unregulated starbark. It's too cold for agriculture on the only planets that exist there. Those satellites don't even have names."

"Exactly," Lukas said. "Agriculture is close to impossible there naturally, and there's nobody to sell his wares to out there. He's either just hoping to disappear for a while, or maybe he's not as small-time as we thought. Either we corner him, or, I guess we find a drug ring no one knew about."

Lukas hated either possibility.

The officers' helipads lined up in front of the doorway single file, allowing them to hop into the ship one at a time.

۝

The transport was a medium sized spacecraft made primarily of metal. There were a handful of rooms in the vehicle. The cockpit was to the right side as soon as one entered the vessel, with a large table in the center and numerous holo-screens around the room. To the immediate left were four individual quarters—three pre-packed with the belongings of the officers, and one prepared as a holding cell for their on-the-run starbark dealer.

The engines hummed and the ship left the hangar.

The reason they had a lead on the starbark dealer's flight to the Lambda System was because the dealer—though he successfully made his escape from a poltron sting—did not do so without Pat managing to slap a small tracker to the hull of the dealer's getaway pod. The tracker followed the pod until it lost signal in the ion storm ring that buffers Lambda from the surrounding systems. It was this quick thinking, in fact, that was the reason why Pat was added to the mission. Normally rookies like him would not be included, but in the eyes of the Chief who assembled Lukas's team, he thought this—plus the fact Pat saw the dealer's face clearly—made him an obvious fit for the mission.

Besides, with someone as experienced as Lukas on board, these rookies had the perfect leader for their first real mission.

After a few hours of flying, the transport finally reached the outskirts of the Lambda System. There wasn't a lot to see besides the star field and occasional gas giant in the distance.

They sat in silence for a minute while Jordan prepared a report of the planets in the system, and which one was most likely to serve as the dealer's hide-away. Lukas scanned the files on his own holographic display. By Jordan's estimation, the system had three satellites that were likely candidates for a hiding place: the most likely of the three, Satellite Lambda ER-14, had Earth-like gravity and a similar nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, perfect for the manufacture of starbark... provided this petty dealer had time to set up a lab, or had done so already.

ER-14 was a steel world, but not in the "industrialized" sense. It was naturally steel, and devoid of what we classically would call life. On Earth, steel is a man-made alloy, but on ER-14, where iron and carbon collide underneath the crust of the planet, it coats the terrains and, once beaten down by occasional heat storms, forms land masses of jagged, mountainous steel. It's beautiful, and extreme, and completely inhospitable. If the dealer had fled there, he'd have to have some sort of base set up in advance, and he probably would not have been able to set up such a thing on his own. That's an argument for preparing for a much larger force of men than just the dealer himself, Lukas thought.

"Once we get close enough to the planet," Jordan said, "scanning for him should be easy. We'll be able to get close enough that interference from the ion ring won't impact the tracker's signal. Even if he found a way to destroy the tracker, he shouldn't be able to hide his life sign on a lifeless planet."

Lukas was impressed with the thoroughness of Jordan's report and thought process. It was good to have a detail-oriented person on the team—lord knew Lukas, a man driven largely by instincts, wasn't one.

"Alright. Sounds like we have a plan," the captain said. "Let's make it happen and get the hell home."

۝

When the officers landed their ship a few hours later, they were greeted by ER-14's cold wind blowing off the surface of the steel. With no life to keep warm, the only real heat from the planet came from that which the ground absorbed from the overhung blue sun.

The metal had soaked up so much of the blue light that it became an insulating layer, keeping the temperature on the metal planet fairly stable. It was a strange planet indeed, but it was a lucrative source of raw materials for large companies to occasionally mine. Those designated mining zones were on the other side of the planet, however, and heavily regulated. Part of Jordan's report had uncovered that no corporations had accessed ER-14 for nearly 4 years—largely because the cost of sending the equipment to such a far away system made it a difficult expenditure to justify.

Pat ran a scan on the planet before they touched down: first for the tracker he had placed on the ship, then for starbark, and then for the life signs of the dealer himself. The scans proved futile; no organic life signs roamed the surface. Perhaps he didn't bring starbark with him, or there clearly wasn't a secret starbark lab on the surface. He scratched behind his flickering, furry ears and turned to give Jordan a questioning look, but the other shook his head and mouthed "I don't know." Pat looked up and back down again, trying to puzzle things out.

There was something about being on the planet that got Jordan's mind into overdrive, though. "Wait. His ship will be made of a completely different metal than the steel that naturally grows here, right?"

Pat's ears stood, electric conduits to thought. "The dealer was pan-taran. They often use a mixture of copper and nickel on the hulls for decorative purposes. That's why you can always tell a pan-taran transport out from a crowded road. Great thinking, Jordan!"

Pat adjusted his inputs for various ratios of copper-nickel, and resumed the scans on the mobile scanner linked to their ship.

"Pan-Taran, huh?" Lukas muttered, and pulled his jacket closed against the biting wind.

Even in the era of intergalactic peace, as this era liked to consider itself to have obtained, humans and pan-taran did not often see eye-to-eye, if they ever saw each other at all. "The War of The Strand," and the embarrassment of misunderstanding it instilled in both species, hung over their shared histories. Neither wanted to look at each other and see what they had done. Luckily, with poltrons serving as mediators between them in most situations in the chambers of the Alliance of Independent Systems, they didn't have to.

But Lukas had seen them up close. He remembered the rocky skin and the bright green eyes, and the way that shining chartreuse oiled over when life left them.

He pushed the thought away and focused on the task at hand.

Pat read through a report on the small holo-pad projected from his badge. His eyes lit up as data spilled from the top of the screen.

"Got it!" He scampered to a steel-cliff ledge and pointed east. "2.1 klicks that way, there's a large amount of copper-nickel concentrate. When I say large, I mean, oh, you know... about the size of a transport vehicle."

۝

The trio of officers followed the trail on foot, their laser pistols in hands, and their senses engaged. Heavy boots sunk into the metal sands beneath them.

Eventually, they happened upon the pan-taran cruiser.

It was a beautiful sight, with a shining copper-nickel hull, and intricate swirls of iridescence dancing across its surface. It was clear the owner had spent a significant amount of time and resources to have the vessel painted in such a way.

The officers quickly realized that the transport ship had not only landed safely, but was still fully functional—there was only minor wear and tear from damage it took in the Ion storm, the likes of which the vessel was not designed to handle.

They searched the ship and discovered residue of starbark, such trace quantities that Pat's scans would not be able to pick them up were they not in immediate proximity as they now were. No secret stashes, weapons, or identifiable information on the pan-taran dealer were present.

"He must've gathered everything and fled in there," Lukas pointed out. "He knew he was being trailed."

Before them was a cave entrance of unnatural craftsmanship—it was carved by tools, and the edges were smooth. The geometric shapes of the gradient carved rock almost mirrored early brutalist architecture from Earth. It was likely that this entrance was carved by a company far too full of themselves when they first landed, before they realize the full cost of staying on such a world.

In isolation, it was an eerie testament to the costliness of underestimation. In its shadow, the officers found themselves hesitating.

Pat was the first to speak. "It's a little weird that we can't detect him, yeah?"

Jordan walked from pillar to pillar. "I think it's more weird that the cave entrance is so... sculpted, you know? Isn't this just a largely ignored mining planet? What company would spend time and money on an entrance like this? Is this... is this the first cave that we ever carved out?"

We, Lukas realized, meant us, a stand in word for all known species, all known pioneers set on discovery.

Lukas clicked his tongue. "Weapons out, set to stun."

۝

The officers cautiously ventured into the cave.

Lukas's eyes darted back and forth, looking for any sign of the pan-taran dealer. Jordan ran his hands across the sculpted walls, certain that there was an almost artistic rhythm to the slices in the metal. Pat's ears flicked as he walked, sensing vibrations that the others couldn't hear. He was certain there was some sort of machinery switched on deep within the cave—perhaps ventilation? Perhaps a machine running tracking interference to hide the pan-taran's life signs?

As they walked, the light faded, and they had to rely on the flashlights attached to their badges to see. The darkness pressed against their skin like a cold blanket.

"Wait," Jordan paused. "Look at that."

The three froze and looked down. Ahead of them, the cave floor gave way to a steep drop, and the light from their devices barely revealed the bottom. The three felt a strange presence as they stood at the edge of the precipice. There was no evidence of any pulley or transport system, and it was far too wide and deep to be an elevator shaft.

Pat saw the drop and thought, Wow. That pan-taran must be one hell of a man to make a jump like that and not break his legs. Could I do that? Am I less of a man than him? Wrestling with that thought, he considered leaping ahead without the Captain's permission. Surely he'd be impressed.

Jordan saw the drop and thought, I miss being an accountant. I'd rather cook books.

Lukas saw the drop and thought that if he died during the war, the decision between retirement and resignation wouldn't be nearly as difficult as it was at this moment. He also wondered how the hell the pan-taran made that leap—they are a sturdy species, but a fall like that onto solid steel seemed impossible for any species.

A quiet metal grind caught Pat's ears, like the opening of an ancient bank tube. He turned, and a mechanical arm, prehensile and wiry, grabbed him. It wrapped around his waist, pinning his arms to his sides, and dragged him into the darkness. It all happened so fast that, by the time Jordan and Lukas were even aware of the sounds that their much less sensitive human ears could pick up, Pat was already a dim blur whisked away into nothingness. His weapon clanked against the ground, and echoed.

Jordan and Lukas pressed into each other's backs, eyes wide and alert. Lukas could feel Jordan shaking—though he was by far the larger and stronger of the two, Lukas could tell how much of that fear was nerves. Jordan was still a rookie, after all.

"Pat!" Lukas called out.

"Shit, shit," Jordan's gun rattled in his hands. "What even got him?"

The sound of a whirring motor interrupted their panic.

"I have no idea," Lukas said. "But we're going to get him back."

Suddenly, the wall in front of Lukas opened. It was the same prehensile, metallic arm, but it had a claw-like appendage at the end, which snatched the Captain by his uniform and dragged him forward.

"Fuck, no!" Lukas yelled. He struggled against the arm, kicking and punching at the snaking tendril.

Jordan spun around, ready to shoot whatever it was that was attacking his captain. When he saw that it was the wall—no, the cave itself—that swarmed the man's body with more and more metal appendages, he froze. Terror and a complete lack of understanding arrested Jordan for a fraction of a second, which was long enough for the snake-like metal near his body to seize his wrists. The gun pulsed with light in the darkness, firing harmlessly into a corner of the cave. A tentacle bound itself across Jordan's face, forcing itself between his screaming lips and muffling him.

Lukas heard his comrade's screams, but as more and more metal arms secured around his limbs, he was helpless to aid him. He couldn't even aid himself—and being unable to control himself in the face of danger, he thought, had always been one of his greatest weaknesses. As soon as that thought entered his mind, a tentacle squeezed around his throat, choking him just enough to drain the resistance from his other limbs.

They both disappeared into separate openings, and the walls slammed shut.

۝

In his new room, Pat woke up on a small bed frame.

His uniform was tattered and dirty from soot and grease—the dark splotches here and there likely came from maneuvering around in the metal-dominated environment, some of it residue from the metal tentacles. There were some light scrapes where the tentacles had gripped him, but otherwise no blood or wounds.

The bed itself was surprisingly comfortable. It was even circular, like the ones back on his home planet of Poltron. So soft you could melt into the center, and with velvety pillows normally only found in the bedrooms of the frilliest women of Poltron. After what had just happened to him, there was a not-insignificant part of himself that told him he should just lay back down.

No! He had to figure out a way out. This was a mission! He's been captured by the pan-taran's security system, he thought. If he can figure a way out of here and still capture the criminal, man, what a story that would be! What an incredibly masculine hero he would be regarded as!

He had no tools, and his badge and gun were gone. After a moment of searching the near-empty room, he pressed his cat-like poltron ears to the wall and noticed a faint whirring coming from hollow points in the structure. Pat looked up and saw a panel in the ceiling, a small one that broke the design of the horizontal cuts of metal in the ceiling. Ventilation, perhaps. Getting up there was a different problem to solve, but solved it must become, for it was likely the only way out.

"The bed's not tall enough," a deep voice rasped behind him. It was rich and static, like a wizened storyteller through a blown out radio. "Even if you turn it on its side and mount it up against the wall, there's not really an angle you can jump from to get up there. You'd just hurt yourself."

Pat turned around and saw a massive old android was sitting on the bed. He was a hulking beast of a machine, humanoid in design, with a thick, plushy rubber belly and a bushy, synthetic beard that sat between the shimmering rubber fat-deposits of the front of his body. He had large, mechanical hands and feet, and a rectangular head that was slightly too small for his body. His eyes were bright and simple, small nightlights of comfort.

"And the last thing I'd want is for you to be hurt."

The unit was clearly designed by a poltron, what with the triangular ears and faux-tail twitching behind his large body. The droid was a design of odd extremes: certain parts of his form, like his eyes and head shape, were almost crude in their simplicity. The fat, rolled rubber body was rendered in such realistic detail, however, that it bordered the lewd. His hands and feet were prosthetic, a mixture of functional and aesthetic. Pat could not, for the life of him, figure out what such a droid's design could be for.

Pat's eyes darted back and forth, scanning the walls, the bed, the ceiling, the floor. It was clear there was no obvious exit. How did this huge thing just suddenly get in the room?

"Who are you?" Pat asked.

The droid's voice was a deep rumble, and his words came out slowly. "My name is Granddaddy. I am an old model, the last of my kind. But, you may call me 'Daddy' if you want. Some like that more."

Pat's tail flicked, and his posture straightened. "...What?"

Granddaddy chuckled and gently stroked his beard, his laugh like a synthetic pipe organ. "Granddaddy it is, then. You should really get out of that little uniform and take a nice, relaxing bath, Pat. It's all dirty, and you're so tense."

How did Granddaddy know his name? Pat wondered. How did he suddenly get here, in a room that didn't have a door?

"I'm not taking a bath," Pat snapped. "I need to find my friends and stop the starbark dealer. Are you the AI of the security system? A hologram? I'm part of the Milky Way Precinct, and if you've got any access to the AIS records, you should know that by the authority vested in me of the Alliance of Independent Systems, cooperation with us will guarantee you freedom from shut-down—"

"But you don't really want authority," Granddaddy's night-light eyes pulsed, "do you, Pat?"

Pat stammered, and his jaw shut tight.

۝

Jordan woke up face down on the cold steel floor. His head was pounding, and he was naked except for his underwear and a thin tank top he wears under his uniform. His muscles ached—his flailing against the tentacles had caught up with him.

It took him a minute to regain his bearings, but eventually, he started to piece together his situation. He was a captive of the starbark dealer's strange security system, he assumed, and the trail to ER-14 was a trap. He was taken, stripped, and restrained by mechanical arms in an unknown room. He wasn't sure how a petty thief had amassed such a complex security system, but dwelling on such things didn't really help him much.