The Jupiter-Three Dilemma

By Len Cooke

Former star ship commander, Captain Benjamin David Grayling, is in trouble. His outspoken views on the criminally despotic leadership of the United Coalition of Planets have resulted in his life-exile to Draxos-III, the planetary home of an infamous penal colony where a prisoner’s life is no longer his or her own and where life or death can depend on the whim or fancy of the completely unaccountable and seriously dysfunctional colony guards, some of whom are not even human.

Enter the Forlorn Hope, once the very last hope of freedom for the former native inhabitants of Draxos-III and which has now been rescued from its century-long abandonment in deep space and refurbished by military engineers and archaeologists to its original, awesomely powerful, specification. Now, with the rebuild complete, can the highly-skilled and brilliantly capable former star ship commander steal the ancient vessel and use it to turn the tables on his universally feared and loathed captors? Further, if he can, could it then be possible for him to assist the return of a more decent and humane system of government to the long-since subjugated peoples of the many planets of the, hitherto, much-feared Coalition?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Panda Press
• Release date: Jun 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781540181664

Len Cooke

As with many writers, Len regards the art as being very much part of his DNA. After taking early retirement from his work on nuclear submarines, his passion for justice and decency led him to work as a volunteer in one of Her Majesty's Prisons and that collective experience, together with his travels to many parts of the world, has given him an unrivalled maturity, and at times, wicked sense of humour that can often be seen in his work.  

Book preview

The Jupiter-Three

Dilemma

Len Cooke

This Edition Published by Red Panda Press 2017

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any events, persons alive or dead, is purely coincidental. The characters are fictitious products of the writer’s imagination.

Copyright: Len Cooke 2015

Cover Copyright: Len Cooke

Revised Edition 2 – 19:06:2017

Also by Len Cooke

The Mind Hunter

The McEndrick Option

The Illusionists

September

The Extraordinary Adventures of Charlie Frank

The Time Traveller’s Guide to Total Chaos

The Jupiter-Three

Dilemma

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Chapter One

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Former ISSC Captain, Benjamin David Grayling, checked, instinctively, that he was in one, correctly assembled piece, and walked slowly away from the mass transportation device and towards the somewhat menacing looking guards busily watching the arrival of the latest cohort of blue, jumpsuit-clad prisoners, through bored, uninterested eyes.

‘Over here!’ shouted one of the guards. ‘Line up in two ranks over here, now, move!’

Ben decided that the guard’s demand for speed was merely wishful thinking; the arrival hall of Draxos-III, Working Penal Colony, was just a slowly moving sea of bright, royal blue, as batch after batch of prisoners materialised in the mass transmigration terminal at the end of the massive prisoner reception chamber. However, not wishing to invite trouble, he made the best speed he could manage in order to comply with his captor’s wishes but it was still some twenty-five minutes later before, apparently everyone, was lined up in two ranks ready for roll-call and to receive the mandatory induction address from the hated, sadistic and much-feared colony governor – Sergei Abamukov.

Two hours later Ben had just walked out of the shower and was in the process of drying himself when there was a knock on the door of his cell. Surprised but intrigued that he should have a visitor already, he shouted ‘come’ and continued with his towelling. ‘Bloody hell!’ he said as a long unseen but nevertheless familiar and smiling face peered around the heavy door.

‘Welcome to Draxos-Three, captain,’ said his visitor, grinning broadly.

Also grinning, almost literally from ear to ear, Ben forgot that he was still wet and naked and threw his arms around his old friend and former space college buddy of eighteen years previously. ‘Davros Nikoloudis! Of all the penal colonies, in all of the galaxy, you just happen to...’ He could say no more, for his eyes had already welled-up with tears of joy and he was literally choking with pleasure. For over six months, since his ignominious departure from Earth in enforced hibernation inside a Coalition prisoner carrier, he had not had the pleasure of the company of anyone he could call a friend but now...now within minutes of landing on Draxos-III!

‘I spotted your name on today’s transporter manifest,’ said Nikoloudis, ‘at first I didn’t think it could possibly be you but then I checked your date of birth and I remembered___’

‘My twenty-fifth birthday party in London, England!’ exclaimed Ben, happily.

‘Just so,’ agreed Nikoloudis, ‘the birthday party of the century, as I remember.’ The Greek’s expression suddenly turned serious. ‘What are you doing here, Ben, like this? I mean, how does one of the Coalition’s most gallant and highly decorated heroes end up a political prisoner on a truly God-forsaken rat-hole like Draxos-Three?’

Ben threw the towel on the bed and climbed into a clean jumpsuit, one of three he had found waiting for him in the room’s locker. ‘Can we talk safely?’ he asked.

Nikoloudis nodded. ‘No problem, the living conditions here are about the best available in any penal institution authorised by the Coas; they do that to try and limit unrest as much as they can. You were a star ship captain, you know the idea; a good ship is a happy ship and all that bollocks. For that reason they also feel confident that bugging prisoner conversations is unnecessary and could be counter-productive to morale.’ He smiled, cynically. ‘Also, of course, in their arrogant way they’re totally confident that escape from here is completely impossible.’

‘Totally confident?’ said Ben. ‘Now that sounds like a challenge in itself.’

‘The penalty for even thinking about escaping is death,’ said Nikoloudis. ‘There’s no fucking about with fair trials or anything boringly old-fashioned like due process here; if you’re caught trying it on or found to be conspiring to try it on, they just stick you in a TM machine and send you a straight thousand km beyond the edge of atmosphere into the quiet and far-from-friendly vacuum of space.’

‘Bloody hell!’ said Ben. ‘And where are you supposed to materialise?’

‘A thousand kilometres beyond the atmosphere.’

‘Where you will instantly___’

‘Explode, with a very large, silent bang,’ finished Nikoloudis, before his gallows humour made him laugh. ‘The thing is the penal colony is privately run for the Coalition, who effectively pick up the tab; as such, staffing is cut completely to the bone. With having very limited staff there’s no one to administer adjudications of prisoners caught breaking the rules or to oversee any punishments given to rule breakers so – anyone caught taking the piss is sent straight to the teleporters and – certain death. Result – for the most part, everyone generally behaves themselves.’

‘Everyone?’ said Ben.

‘Well, almost everyone, we do get the odd chancer.’

‘Bloody hell!’ said Ben, again. ‘Anyway, in answer to your question, I’m a victim of the political purges currently taking place all over the Coalition. The nearest analogy I can give you from Earth history are the nineteen thirties’ purges carried out by Joseph Stalin in the USSR. The man was so paranoid about his security that he culled tens of thousands of officers from the military, thus leaving his country almost defenceless against the ever-increasing threat from Nazi Germany. That is why when I protested very publicly and loudly to the Coalition dictatorship about the defence cuts they’re invoking, and that, amongst other reasons, is why I’m here. What they’re doing is bloody stupid, they’re inviting disaster and I told them so.’

‘What other reasons?’ asked Nikoloudis.

Ben bit his lip and sighed, pragmatically. ‘Well, for one thing my father persuaded me to join a protest group wanting to bring about constitutional change; you know they type of thing, a pro-democracy group.’

‘That was a bit stupid,’ said Nikoloudis.

‘Yes it was,’ agreed Ben who had suddenly noticed that his old friend was wearing a white overall and that he had two silver-coloured bars on his epaulettes. ‘Why are you dressed like that?’ he asked.

Nikoloudis suddenly looked embarrassed. ‘Because I work here,’ he replied, unhappily.

‘You work here? What the hell as?’

‘I’m on the staff as a Works’ technician; in fact I’m a senior member of staff, a CEEO or colony environment engineering officer to be precise.’

‘You’re a screw!’ gasped Ben, disbelievingly. ‘A highly trained space engineer who once won officer cadet of the year and you’re a bloody screw in a dump like this! I don’t believe it!’

‘With the armistice now signed with the Centaurans I was on half-pay, sitting at home with fuck all to do,’ objected Nikoloudis. ‘At least here I can earn a decent salary and not become totally bored out of my brain; also I am not a screw as you so quaintly put it, I have virtually nothing whatsoever to do with the inmates, at least not directly.’

Ben could only shake his head. ‘Sorry Dav, but you, of all people, working in a shit-hole like this, a place where people are transported light years away from their homes and loved ones for life, just for daring to criticise the bullying idiotic thugs of the ruling Coalition junta and its even more idiotic and thuggish president.’

‘Alex Dyston’s here,’ said Nikoloudis, changing the subject, ‘like you he’s a political prisoner.’

‘Alex Dyston is here?’ said Ben, thinking about the fun-loving radio and communications officer he had worked with on his first star ship. ‘He’s here, on Draxos-Three?’

‘Yes,’ confirmed Nikoloudis, ‘he arrived about six months ago. I’ll have him come and see you if you like.’

‘Yes, yes, I’d like that very much, thanks. By the bye, what’s the work routine here?’

‘You’re aware that the planet is rich in lithium?’ said Nikoloudis.

‘Yes,’ said Ben, ‘that’s why the Coalition fought a long and bloody war with the Draxonians over a hundred years ago, so they could get their hands on the stuff for free after the original owners put the price up by five hundred percent.’

‘Well, lithium is extracted from the clay and processed before shipping to well – wherever; that’s where you come in.’

‘As a processor?’ said Ben.

‘As whatever job they give you,’ corrected Nikoloudis. ‘Don’t forget, there are over five hundred prisoners here; they all need feeding and supplying with water, clean overalls, medicare and everything else that sustains life. The place is a complete village or town and in order to be economically viable for the privately owned Draxos Corporation to run it, it has to be completely self-sustaining. In other words, the prisoners do everything for themselves; everything that is except – guard themselves.’

‘So I could find myself doing virtually anything,’ observed Ben, ‘even washing pots.’

‘Correct,’ confirmed Nikoloudis, ‘anyway, most prisoners are required to work a twelve-hour day with a half-hour for lunch. I’ll look after you if you like, I can put your name down on my staff allocation; if you don’t mind working with shit.’

Ben look at him, quizzingly.

‘I’m an environment engineer, Ben, think about it, the cost of shipping food from the nearest Coalition planet is prohibitively high, therefore all the many tons of evil smelling crap that are generated in this place are processed back into edible food, and believe me, recycling is still better than working in the lithium mines.’

‘Fucking hell! How the mighty have fallen,’ said Ben, thinking of himself. ‘What about women?’ he asked. ‘Are there any available?’

Nikoloudis shook his head. ‘There are women prisoners but by default they’re all the property of the guards. Put it this way, touch one out of turn and you’ll be breathing space dust within the hour.’

‘The property of the guards you say; the property?’

‘Property,’ he confirmed, ‘female prisoners and female staff are absolutely out-of-bounds to male inmates and are the sole perks of the guardians, so be warned.’

‘Bloody hell! Anyway, what happens now?’ asked Ben.

Nikoloudis took what Ben knew to be a small communicator out of one of his pockets, switched it on, looked at the screen and nodded. ‘You’ll be called for your induction in a few minutes; that takes about an hour. After that it’s food and association for half an hour in the main concourse, where you arrived, earlier.’

‘And then?’

‘Lock down,’ said Nikoloudis, flatly, ‘at eight o’clock it’s always lockdown, followed by lights out at eight-fifteen.’

‘And not a woman to be had for light years!’

Nikoloudis looked on with interest as his former colleague scratched his left breast. ‘Got an itch?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ confirmed Ben, had it since I woke up on the prisoner transport.

Ben nodded. ‘It’s a barely visible healing scar; you had a sub-miniature transponder implanted there when you were in hibernation, it enables Security to track your whereabouts anywhere in the colony.’

‘Clever,’ said Ben, ‘do the buggers think of everything?’

‘More or less, they’ve been dealing with prisoners here for years, there’s very little they don’t know about how they think and behave. There are a number of areas on the estate that are out-of-bounds to inmates,’ Nikoloudis smiled, ‘including the women’s quarters. If you’re tracked entering an OOB area then___’

‘I know, I know, I’m space dust,’ said Ben, shaking his head in disbelief.

‘Seriously though, try and keep your nose clean, many of the human guards are sadists, they enjoy nothing more than beating the shit out of a prisoner then teleporting him into space on the grounds of his supposed non-compliance.’

‘Supposed?’ said Ben.

‘If the guards are feeling that way out they can pick on whoever they like. A prisoner can be a model of conformance but if you’re selected for a good kicking then that’s it. There’s no due process here, the guards themselves can sentence you to be teleported into space and there’s nothing written down about what sort of condition you have to be in when they do it.’

‘Good God!’ said Ben.

‘Is he?’ replied Nikoloudis, ‘I’m afraid you’ll find very little evidence to support that theory here. Oh yes, while I’m on the subject, watch out for a senior guardian called Barker. He’s a nasty bastard, enjoys nothing more than a good kicking party followed by a session with a couple of female inmates to round off the night’s entertainment.’

A buzzer sounded in the corridor outside Ben’s cell and Nikoloudis looked at his communicator. ‘That’s the summons to your induction; I’ll take you over there. Did they record your fingerprints when you were allocated accommodation?’

‘Yes,’ said Ben, ‘they said it was for the cell auxiliary door lock, amongst other things.’

‘It’s a biometric key system,’ said Nikoloudis, ‘it allows you to access areas you’re authorised to be in; also, whenever you leave your cell, or if you don’t want company once inside it, you can stick a finger on the wall-mounted reader and lock the door. It won’t keep the guardians out of course but I strongly suggest that you always have your door locked, there are some right weird fuckers wandering around this place, take my word for it.’

‘Does that include the Works’ technicians as well?’ asked Ben, surprising himself that for the first time in many, many months he had made a joke, despite his apparently massive and catastrophic downfall.

Chapter Two

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Ben found Nikoloudis true to his word, the former Coalition spacecraft engineer gave him a job in the waste recycling plant where raw effluent was converted into edible, semi-hard biscuits euphemistically called ‘rations’. With virtually no food imported by star freighter and little fresh food grown on Draxos, he soon learned that the vitamin supplemented and surprisingly appetising cookies were for consumption by all colony-based personnel, regardless of status. The job was also much less onerous than he had at first imagined, his work consisting of merely monitoring the fully automated operation and calling in less fortunate personnel to deal with any ‘coal-face’ breakdown problems on a requirement basis. He had also found himself fortunate in that he got along well with his workmates, all three of whom seemed to be from a similar social and educational background to his own.

As also promised, Nikoloudis had put him in contact with Alex Dyston, the former electronics engineering officer with whom he had served during the early part of his career. However, unlike himself, Dyston had been sentenced to 15 years transportation by a court martial, after being found guilty of a serious breach of military discipline.

‘I refused, point-blank, to have anything to do with what I considered to be nothing other than genocide,’ he had told Ben at their first meeting. ‘The way they treated the poor wretches of the Grenarco group of planets, so they could steal their silver and gold, was nothing short of murderous and I told them so,’ he laughed, bitterly. ‘When I told the ship’s captain that I was through with working for what I considered a bunch of gangsters and a very evil empire, I was put in the brig and eventually brought before a kangaroo court of yes men. Not for trial of course, oh no, they’d already been told I was guilty, no, they were just there to give legitimacy to my sentence.’ He had then smiled and slapped his old friend on the shoulder. ‘On the plus side, however, I can now sleep at night.’

Since being reacquainted, the two men had spent much of their free time together, especially lunch breaks and the fourteenth day of Ben’s incarceration on Draxos-III was no exception. ‘I’ve got a problem,’ said Dyston, as he toyed with his water beaker.

‘Oh,’ said Ben, before adding, ‘who is she?’ for a joke.

‘You know?’ whispered Dyston, sounding appalled and looking around the dining room to ensure no one had heard the question.

‘Know what?’ returned Ben, ‘it was a joke you soft...oh dear...you’re not joking, are you?’

‘I’ve seen the most fantastic woman,’ confirmed Dyston, ‘she’s African, tall, willowy, ebony-skinned, and the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.’

‘She’s also a death sentence in waiting,’ put in Ben, ‘you know she’s out-of-bounds to a transportee.’

‘She’s not a prisoner; her name’s Adia, a weapons and electronic warfare officer, you know, an EWO; she’s a lieutenant with our old firm –