The Vershek Deception: Business Below the Fold

By Niall Bucannon

Confederacy food security problems set up expansion talks with the leaders of Eden Sector. Sector plutocrats drool over the potential wealth a particlespace vortex will bring them and say Yes. The Pirate Brotherhood attacks on Confederacy scientists who gather vortex placement data argues otherwise. All is not as it seems as Amphalaar Waald's business below the fold sets in motion an apparent invasion by the hungry sauroids of the Domination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Niall Bucannon
• Release date: Nov 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005150860

Book preview

Stories by Niall Bucannon

The Confederacy Universe

Vortex Wars

Scheherazade

Business Below the Fold

Storm Surge

The Vershek Deception (omnibus)

Vortex Wars: The Autocrax Rising

(coming soon)

Lucky Strike Coalition Universe

We Stand Before (coming soon)

We Stand Between (coming soon)

THE VERSHEK DECEPTION

ACT 2

BUSINESS BELOW THE FOLD

By

Niall Bucannon

THE VERSHEK DECEPTION: BUSINESS BELOW THE FOLD

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or events is coincidental.

Copyright 2020 by Niall Bucannon

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Author’s Foreword

Thanks for reading my books. I hope you enjoy them. My original concept for the Confederacy Universe came out of this book and its storyline from Ansili to Dremivor.

Please pardon any grammatical errors. I write without a computer or dictionary. I am eternally grateful to those folks who digitized my writing, then marketed the ebook.

GE 15:6

Chapter 1 GAUNTLETS

GalDate 3124AA 03.21 10:19

Preserve 5-F, Far Fields of the High Valley, GCN-941860-A

All species compete for resources. Political disagreements take many forms.

Milani Jasco

Bingstra Academy

3138AA

The brayed massivore challenge silenced the triple canopy jungle of the Beryl Brook Hunting Preserve. The irritated two-ton predator gulped another gobbet from the unfortunate herbivore it ran down moments before. The massivore had spent the previous day penned up under the hot green sun and deprived of food while ShiHaas supervised slaves prodded it with high-voltage staves. The slaves prepared it for today’s Toosh’La-Roo. The massivore’s volcanic aggression would erupt on any creature who came upon it.

Its triangular head rose as nostril vents sampled a fresh scent. It brayed again, then shifted to guard its kill as the Rich-Land-of-the-People’s In-fa-loo stepped into the clearing. They formed a crescent with the Shi-sha-loo Kuffcaw at her customary apex. The In-fa-loo’s seven Carnati hurtled forward and drew the massivore’s attention as they worried its flanks.

The genetically optimized massivore, perfected for this role over the last 9,000 years, would eviscerate an individual Carnati, but not within a coordinated In-fa-loo. When Kuffcaw’s hammerhead jaws death-clamped its throat two minutes later, three of her ShiHaas bore deep flank gouges courtesy of the massivore’s talons. Another lay on the ground with blood bubbling from its nostrils. The massivore shuddered as the March Lord pack that controlled this world fed from its still living body. Carnati maturation depended on enzymes harvested from living prey.

Echak!Cha stepped from the undergrowth. ShiHaas hissed. Subdued crests elevated and rattled as the pack oriented on a new threat.

You DARE, Sha-loo! the pack alpha bellowed. I declared the time before your Toosh’La-Roo hallowed, within our tradition. Kuffcaw’s strawberry-tinted tongue rasped over her face; it harvested the blood rich in the molecular compounds that the pack collected from this world.

Echak!Cha rattled her crest. We will move beyond your affectations when I rend your throat, soft-finger!

The ShiHaas hissed at the insult they directed at the pampered Confederacy residents, but remained still. Their challenged leader leapt forward.

Kuffcaw hurtled her 400-kilo raptor body with a hammerhead skull towards her 250-kilo challenger who lacked the nutrition granting Kuffcaw her size and strength. The young challenger’s agility kept her elder from pinning her with her bulk and strength. Then her well-timed bite severed a tendon in Kuffcaw’s left leg. Echak!Cha darted away with a bitten shoulder and gouged flank. Her future scars testified to her victory. The pack parodied the previous hunt’s conclusion as Echak!Cha’s deathbite silenced them.

Echak!Cha raised her forest green snout, peacocked her cobalt headcrest, then approached her new pack as its leader. They lowered headcrests in obeisance. All bore the scars Kuffcaw commanded they retain when she defeated them. Together they backed away from the massivore corpse. Echak!Cha finished the liver before speaking. Blood flow ceased from her wounds as they stabilized. The Carnati tinkered with their genome outside the pack structure; gene-sculpting improved the race.

Echak!Cha addressed Mrr!Caw, her second. Take word of Kuffcaw's demise to Rampant Peaks. I claim her position there as mine. I expect all to make their obedience to my will within a double claw of weeks or they will experience my tooth and talon, to their hearts’ blood spills.

Your will, Shi-sha-loo. Mrr!Caw glanced at Kuffcaw, then left. The Carnati Choo-Na, their supreme pack leader, organized her Confederacy frontier systems into sectors containing valuable resources her Domination desired. The Rampant Peaks sector buffered that frontier. Echak!Cha’s core world trade would face a raider gauntlet without its submission to her will.

Echak!Cha cast her cat’s eyes over her new pack. You have relaxed from taking yours from the soft-fingers. That changes now.

YoCha chuffed, You wish war, Shi-sha-loo? The rest watched. They remained silent.

Does the pack confront the massivore head-on?

Chapter 2 CONVOCATION

GalDate 3124AA 04.17 11:41

Alexicoff Compound, Clearview, Essikar, Essikar System

The Alexicoff vortex creation process relies on entangling the gravatic potential within the z-field of distant points. Currents within the vortex propel starships forward beyond the possibility of normal particlespace transit speeds.

Elmira Finn

Physics Consultant

Chergen Academy

3125AA

The intimate setting Sergei Alexicoff and Joella Van Smoot engineered for Eden Sector’s plutocrats occurred within the Alexicoff compound adjoining the Confederacy legislative arcologies in Clearview. An elegant dining room that contained relics and art from the Confederacy's 3,000 years of history hosted the three ministers that the settled Eden sector systems selected to represent them. A herd of interstellar industrialists and commercial titans accompanied them. They sniffed around for profitable tidbits dropped from the main table. The multi-course meal featured foods unavailable without the vortexes. Sergei adroitly pointed out their homeworlds. The service sophonts unobtrusively and competently served everyone before they withdrew.

Doctors Shuveen and Finn finished their technical briefing on vortex creation for Ministers Oxlan, Tan’iDil, and S’Donna. The trio shared looks before their chosen head began negotiations. Haliran Oxlan, Chairman of the Board for Eden’s largest pharmaceutical conglomerate, wheedled for a concession.

Doctor Shuveen, the Eden ministers prefer a vortex placed near ESN459.384 to the galactic southwest, rather than the trinary ESN458.781 you discussed. Left unsaid by Oxlan was that the former system resided equidistantly between Vandil mining assets and two planets that Eden and Drox were currently terraforming. The trio’s personal portfolios would tremendously benefit from the Eden suggested placement.

Shuveen skewered that idea. Minister, vortex placement requires a peculiar set of circumstances that ESN459.384 is unlikely to possess, but we will survey every potential spot within thirty light years of Eden.

Make it work! Minister Milia Tan’iDil of Drox snapped