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An alarm was going off in the cockpit. Techno rolled out of his bunk and pulled his way along the ceiling to the front of the ship. A little red light was beeping from next to the pilot’s chair. The proximity alert he’d set earlier was informing him he was approaching the asteroid field he’d been burning towards for the last sixteen hours.
Techno strapped himself into the chair and touched a few controls, silencing the alarm and starting the approach. There was the faintest lurch in his stomach as the ship rotated in space. A meal bar he’d been eating yesterday floated over his shoulder, heading for the viewport. Techno snagged it and started munching as the ship slowed towards the spray of stones and ice chunks spinning through the void. Apple flavour, he thought. He checked the wrapper. No, this was supposed to be cinnamon roll. “Amazin’,” he muttered aloud between bites. There were twenty four different flavours of meal bar on this ship and they all still managed to taste the same.
A speaker next to his head crackled to life. “How’s it goin’ out there, mate?”
Techno leaned back in the chair, bracing his feet under the control panel so he could stretch out his back. The ship hummed and beeped around him, descending on its destination with all the grace of a thrown brick. “Oh, just rivetin’ times out here, Phil. I’m havin’ a laugh a minute.”
“Oh really? Me too.” Phil’s voice was slightly tinny over the long-distance ansible.
Techo eyed the speaker. Phil sounded way too pleased. “Have you been fightin’?”
“Oh, no,” Phil said hurriedly. Another light started to flash on the console. “I just had to evade a few pursuers a couple times—shit. Fuck. Nope.”
There was something moving to the edge of the long-distance radar, moving far faster than Techno’s sorry little boat could. Techno and Phil’d had a limited assortment of ships to pick from when they’d liberated some transportation, and they’d decided that Phil was the better pilot and should get the mail ship that could actually manoeuvre. That left Techno with a long distance supply hauler that turned in space like a rock through water. He flipped a few switches to move faster towards the asteroids, and was pushed back into his chair by the pivot and accelleration. “Phil, are you runnin’ from someone right now ?”
“No,” Phil said unconvincingly. There was a pause where he muttered something under his breath. “Maybe. Hah !”
Another light started flashing on the cockpit. Techno eyed it. Another call coming in. “One sec.” He hovered his hand over the switch. “I got another call.”
“Oh yeah, sure,” Phil said. There was the audible sound of a ship boosting into acceleration over the line. On Techno’s radar, vague blobs solidified into a definite ship. One of the big Admin cruisers. “Call me whenever,” Phil said, voice slightly strained.
“Mmm, yep,” Techno agreed. He hit the switch to open the other communication line. His ship was still racing towards the asteroid field. The vehicle was starting to shake around him. “Hullo,” he said down the line.
“You can’t do this,” a voice said by way of opening. The person on the other end sounded mad.
“Do what?” Techno said. He could hear a rattle from the cargo hold, deactivated subspace beacons jostling against each other. He scanned the asteroid field ahead. There was an empty spot right there . “What’re you talkin’ about?”
There was an audible frustrated intake of breath. “Don’t act stupid, Technoblade. You and that friend of yours are misusing the land claim agreement! You’re not supposed to be out here!”
“Out where? Nice to hear from you, Chip, by the way.” The ship’s acceleration was starting to make it difficult to breathe, ribs straining against increased Gs. The Admin cruiser was moving faster across long-range radar. He had to get to the asteroids before the cruiser came within short-range scan distance.
“Out here!” Chip was spluttering. “Out on the fucking edge of the solar system.”
The whole ship was shaking at this point. Techno’s mug, full of yesterday’s cold coffee, vibrated out of the holder and then crashed towards the back of the ship. Whoops, better clean that up later. A shower of ice crystals went by the viewport as he was amid the asteroid belt at last. Now for the more painful step—stopping. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Techno said, hitting a series of switches. “I’m in high Mars orbit right now.” The ship swung on its axis and the engines roared as they burned fuel to stop. The deceleration yanked Techno forward in his chair, squeezing his organs inside his chest. He gritted his teeth, fighting back unconsciousness until it finally ended with him flopped limp in his pilot’s chair, muscles burning like he’d just run a race. Techno flicked the switch for emergency shutdown and felt the underlying hum of the ship go quiet underneath him as the engines snuffed out.
“No, no you’re not,” the Admin was saying on the other side of the line. But he sounded uncertain. Techno grinned at the hunks of stone pivoting past the ship windows, as he got his breath back. “You’re out here, you were just here. By the asteroids.”
Long-range ansibles worked by tunnelling through spacetime, sending the call to a specific machine ID with no pauses no matter where it was in the universe. You could be right next to a person and they’d sound exactly the same as if they were a galaxy over. And very useful for Techno’s purposes right now, you couldn’t use an ansible link to triangulate location. The ship was quiet underneath him, slowly chilling in the void. He worked his jaw and his ears popped. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Techno said again. “You might be seein’ things. I haven’t even got an asteroid on my long-range radar. I guess there’s Deimos, are you seein’ a moon?”
The Admin ship sailed onto short range scans. A beautiful piece of alien technology, exactly the type of thing they didn’t bother to offer to the poor humans. The ship pivoted on a dime in the darkness of space, scanning for a beat up human ship. But what Techno was inside right now was a lump of iron and other minerals amid a field of stone, minerals and ice. There was no burning engine to show up on a radar any more. “No, you, you—” Chip was spluttering down the line. “You were just here .”
“Sounds like scanner error to me,” Techno told him. “Was it just scanner problems you wanted to talk to me about, or was there somethin’ important?”
“Look, I know you’re trying to misuse the beacon system.” Chip started. “That was for the protection of humanity and shouldn’t be used this way. You’re going to ruin everything for everyone—“
“Oh, don’t be such a boomer.” Techno told him. “It’s fine. Anyways, nice talkin’ to you.” He cut the line and switched back over to Phil. “Sorry about that. How’s it goin’?”
“Hey.” Phil sounded very pleased. “Just left JoshA stuck in Pluto’s fuckin’ gravity well. You?”
“Playin’ hide and seek for a bit.” Techno unbuckled himself from his chair and pushed off the console, back into the cramped living quarters of the ship. He’d probably have another hour until the Admin ship gave up on finding him. In the meantime, he’d put on a suit and move one of the beacons out into a safe spot on an asteroid. He’d fire it up when they left. And then he’d move on to the next spot on the plan. “How far along’ are you?”
“About halfway through, I think.” Phil hummed a thoughtful note. “No, two-thirds.”
“You’re a little ahead of me.” Techno snagged another meal bar from the box and bit into it as he stepped into a spacesuit. This one was—apple? He checked the wrapper. No. Mexican Hot Chocolate. Incredible flavour spectrum on these things. “Admin’s gettin’ really pissed at this point.”
“L,” Phil said promptly. “If they made a big deal about not touching the beacons once we got them seated, guess they’re they shoulda tried harder to catch us before we get them down.”
“Yeah.” Techno grinned and shrugged into the arms of the suit. “I gotta go outside. Talk to you in a bit.”
“Sure sure.”
Techno finished putting on the suit and headed into the hold of the ship. Heaps of beacons in their nets greeted him, and one battered coffee mug floating at the back door. It hadn’t broken, but the cover had come off. He eyed the the bubble of coffee mournfully. He’d have to clean that up when he got back. But first, he had some “land” to claim.
[Subspace beacon A-2948-349-8]
[Launching…]
[Initialising…]
Humanity’s new overlords hovered a few feet off the stage they’d demanded be erected this morning. Most of the city population was crammed into the city square in front of them, too many to see all the way to the stage, but the aliens had thrown up massive holograms of themselves here and in other cities worldwide. “And that’s how the land claim system will work,” a hovering blue Admin with big bulging eyes said, amplified voice booming out across the crowd. “Humanity will retain control of the land that is contained within the area covered by these beacons.” He gestured to a series of racks of weird new equipment behind him, the shiny metal beacons blinking red and blue lights. “And we, the Admins, will administer the rest of this planet.”
“Question,” Techno said, stepping forward from where he had been standing to the side of the equipment racks.
“Wait, what — ” the blue Admin spluttered.
The other Admin, a pink creature with four arms, blinked his three eyes at him. “No no, we can take a question. You don’t have to worry about how the rest of the solar system will work,” he said kindly. “They’ll just automatically come under our administration.”
“Heh?” Techno looked down at his Mars Settlement jacket and then looked up. “Nah, thanks though. No I was just wonderin’—is that the precise wordin’ you’re goin’ with for the beacons? Land contained within the area covered by the beacons?”
“Why, is it unclear?” The pink Admin looked at the blue Admin. “We were assured that the translation was good.” He was starting to puff up in place.
“Nah, you’re good, it’s good,” Techno assured them. “I was just checkin’. We’re good.” He gave them a thumbs up and stepped back amid the aliens’ beacons.
“Well.” The admins fussed at each other for a moment, then turned to face the crowd. “Well, anyways. In administrated land, there will be mandatory participation in new competitions and challenges of many skills, and there will be leaderboards! Won’t that be fun?”
Hidden among the beacons, Techno grinned broadly.
“You wanted to get fuckin’ shot?” Phil said, raising his eyebrows. He had his arms folded over a similar jacket, except his was from when they were on the run to Venus. The aliens had insisted that citizens with the appropriate backgrounds attend their speech, and then they’d placed them around the stage at regular intervals. Two experienced spacers apparently made great set dressing.
“Phil, I have a really great idea,” Techno told him. “Hear me out. It’s probably gonna get a lot of people mad at us, but it’s gonna be really funny.”
His friend eyed him, and then grinned slightly. “What is it now.”
“Okay, so we’re gonna have to start with stealin’ all these beacons—just hear me out—and then we’re gonna have to get up the sky hook—it’ll work, trust me—and then we’ll get a couple ships—listen—and then we drop them in a really specific pattern.” He tilted his head to the side, grinning hopefully. “Probably take a month or so.”
Phil had his eyebrows raised. “Oh, is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s it.” Techno nodded. “It’ll be really funny.”
Phil sighed. “Yeah, sure. Let’s do it.”
“Amazin’.” Techno poked one of the beacons. It rolled slightly in place. “Do you think we can hack these things to show a custom message?”
[Subspace beacon C-5743-492-9]
[Launching…]
[Initialising…]
[Subspace beacon launched. Land Claimed for: Humanity .]
[Land Claim Message: Hippity Hoppity, Get Off My Property. ]
For some reason this beacon, after so many others, wasn’t cooperating. Techno poked the button on the side of the machine again. They were both hanging in space outside the ship. The beacon spun in zero gravity and friction, and he had to grab at it to keep it from getting away. “Come on, work with me here,” he muttered.
“You doin’ okay there?” A familiar voice said from his helmet rado.
Something bright flared nearby, and his visor automatically dimmed as a ship approached, engines burning hot. “Phil! You made it!” Techno waved. “Yeah, not havin’ any trouble, I’m great with beacons and weird alien technology. This is on purpose.”
Phil made the wings of his mail ship wiggle in a return wave, just because he was a show off. “Oh yeah, that’s definitely what I was hearin’.”
“Any complainin’ was just to hear my own voice,” Techno said with dignity. “I’m great with social skills and bein’ alone in deep space. I’m havin’ fun. I’m enjoyin’ this.” He poked at the button again. Once again, the beacon slid out from under his hands. “Hmmmmm.” He said to it.
“Not to hurry you,” Phil said, sounding significantly less amused. “But somethin’ just showed up on the scanner.”
“ You two ,” a voice crackled over the suit’s radio. Chip, as mad as he’d ever been. “ Stop this immediately, you’re going to ruin the land claim process for everyone .”
“Come on, come on,” Techno gripped the beacon between his knees and elbows. He and the bit of electronics started rotating end-over-end in space. He very carefully braced his hand and poked the button. “Work, please — ” the button clicked under his glove, and the beacon lit up. It stabbed through reality and sent up a flare through local spacetime.
“ Stop messing with the beacons, ” the Admin said over the radio. “ We’ll be lenient-- ahhhhh, MotherFucker . ”
The lights winked as it connected to another beacon, and then another, and then another, and then sweeping on and on in a huge ring around the solar system, faster than light could travel. It only took a moment for the claim to materialize.
“Too late,” Techno said down the radio. “Sorry. Good Game.” He was smiling inside his suit. “You’re too late though.”
Once the beacons were all connected, their impact swept inwards. Land contained within the ring of beacons was suddenly also covered by their claim, as the Admins discovered an aspect of the land claim system they had only realized might exist a few weeks ago, when a few rouge humans started placing beacons in space, instead of next to each other on a planet as intended. Navigation systems across the solar system lit up with the notification that they were within a humanity-controlled space. On the Admin ship, ‘Hippity Hoppity, Get Off My Property’, appeared on the control panel.
Chip made an inarticulate frustrated noise and slammed his hand down on the control panel.
Phil was laughing from his ship. Techno grinned. “We own the whole world. All the worlds. Try again next time, I guess.”
“It’s your fuckin’ rules!” Phil laughed down the line. “You’re the ones who said it! We followed your rules! It’s all our land now, we own the world!”
Techno was still revolving gently in space around a blinking beacon, somewhere off the orbit of Neptune. Phil’s ship went by in his field of view once, and again, and again. “I gotta get outa the void.” He started hand-walking his way back up the tether that tied him to the ship. “Haven’t seen another person for a while. Want to come over for a bit, Phil?”
“Oh, shit.” Phil perked up audibly. “It’s dinnertime — I’ve been eatin’ these fuckin’ noodles, do you have something that isn’t noodles? Anythin’ ?”
“ You broke the rules! ” Chip yelled over the radio. “ You-- we’ll charge you with something! It’s not fair! It’s not supposed to work like this! ”
“Alright,” Techno said down the line. “Phil, I do happen to have somethin’ that isn’t noodles for you to eat. How do you feel about apple-flavoured apples, apple-flavoured curry, and apple-flavoured chicken and waffles?”
There was a pause. Chip continued to rant about how he was going to take them to court somewhere and charge them with war crimes, however he was going to pull that off for basically a trick they’d played with a map. Techno muted that line of the radio.
“As long as it isn’t noodles,” Phil said fervently. “I ate so much fuckin’ shrimp flavoured noodles this month.”
“Alright.” Techno made it to the airlock and pulled himself inside. “I’ll pull out my best selection of meal bars. Could you bring the noodles? I’m kinda startin’ to tire of the apple-flavoured lasagna, myself.”
“Sure thing mate, I’ll bring every fuckin’ noodle I have, and you don’t even have to give them back.” There was a slight crash from Phil’s end of the line as he apparently walked into something and cursed at it. “See you in a sec.”
Techno grinned to himself as he started the pressurisation cycle in the airlock. Probably they’d have to deal with whatever the Admins had been yelling about at some point, but he was finally getting to eat a non-meal-bar meal, he was seeing his best friend again, and he’d successfully taken over the world. It was time for a little celebration.