The Midnight Sun (The Omega War Book 2)

by Tim C. Taylor

  “Truly?” he asked, slowly unbending into a more respectable shape. At least the captain’s two human escorts had the decency to look away.

  “I am,” she replied. “Have you made contact with Senior Rating Shalzak’s elSha team yet?”

  “No. Shalzak? That old charlatan? Is Hyuuo dead?”

  Blue laughed. “I think he wanted to be at one point. He was suddenly indisposed.”

  “I see. Trooper Keiko’s doing, I suppose. Yes, if the elSha are loose on Arashi Nova, that would explain a lot.”

  “I have better lines of communication with Shalzak than to you. Just remember when he does establish contact that you’re both on the same side. I know that, once stimulated, he can be…difficult.”

  “We’ve got company,” announced one of the escorts.

  “You’re my hero,” said Blue. “And little Zarbi too. Tell her I said hi.”

  Then the three humans walked on, warily passing a party of SleSha coming the other way, but paying Jenkins no attention whatsoever. Just like any other random group of humans.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 13

  “‘Rammy?’ What is ‘rammy?’” asked K’llk’Hc’kk, the Jeha rating from mining ship Smegtapcut. “My translator pendant cannot cope with this obscure human dialect.”

  “Just as well,” replied Jenkins. “Any human word it can’t translate will undoubtedly refer to copulation, intoxication, or violence.”

  They took a moment to lie across the drinking mounds in companionable silence. Nearby, a mob of human mercs was egging itself on toward a confrontation with a crowd from a rival company.

  “You know what ‘rammy’ means,” accused K’llk’Hc’kk. “I can tell you’re holding something back. You know them, don’t you?”

  “Know them?” Jenkins clicked. “Why would I work with human mercs?”

  “I don’t mean you work with them,” laughed Smegtapcut’s rating. “Anyone can tell you’re not cut out to work with such violent beasts. But I think you do have experience with humans.”

  “A little,” Jenkins admitted, relaxing his segments and imagining himself stepping inside the carapace of the persona he was currently using. “I’ve been assistant quartermaster on the Exuberance for nearly thirty years. We’ve had our share of troublesome humans.”

  Relax, Jenkins told himself, trying not to think of his captain. My disguise is impenetrable.

  Humans recognized each other by sight and sound, Veetanho largely by scent, and SleSha through the vibration of their antennae. But it was by the unique way they twisted and slithered the multiple segments of their carapaces that Jeha recognized one another.

  When he’d joined the Detritus teams, Captain Blue had ordered one of Jenkins’ segments to be surgically altered to make it detachable. All Jenkins had to do was insert a prosthetic segment, and the shape his body formed changed instantly. It was the perfect disguise.

  “I used to feel well disposed to the young race,” said K’llk’Hc’kk, “but they bring such disorder.” The rating clicked his mandibles in distaste, and Jenkins couldn’t disagree with that point. “The attempt by the Mercenary Guild to whip them into shape is regrettable, but I fear it’s the best for all concerned. Here…” He dialed another round of drinks. “Tell me scandalous tales of humans.”

  Two plastic cups bearing sweet fermented nectar emerged from the serving tubes.

  Jenkins took a sip of the moreish drink, made a silent apology to Captain Blue for what he was about to say, and began his explanation. “A ‘rammy’ means a brawl. The humans in the nearest group are elevating their levels of aggression and courage through intoxication and exaggerated tales of violent exploits. See that one bending over and wriggling its naked hindquarters at the other group?”

  “I do. Is it an invitation to sexual congress?”

  “No, more an invitation to personal combat. See how the other group have spotted the baring of buttocks and grown quiet? All except the insane Flatar? They’re starting to turn their attention away from the exotic dancers in the pit. This rammy is now inevitable.”

  “I shall enjoy the spectacle,” said K’llk’Hc’kk. “But before our peace is disturbed by the humans, let’s talk of other matters. You didn’t invite me here for social reasons, did you?”

  “You’re too perceptive, my friend. As a quartermaster, an unfortunate truth I’ve come to accept is that stores will always go missing. It’s the Universal Law of Equipment Entropy.” He leaned over to click his next words quietly. “Sometimes stores go missing to order. Your mining ship will be subject to this universal law. Specifically, the ample supplies you must have of drill hood filters.”

  “We may have a few, but they’re difficult to come by, and all inventory is meticulously tracked.”

  The eager S-curve to the Jeha miner’s body gave the lie to his words. Drill filters would be plentiful, which was just as well. Jenkins would need an ample supply during the next transition through hyperspace, when he and Zarbi would work again on their infiltration of the Scorpion ship.

  But he was learning to enjoy this.

  Jenkins straightened his body and dropped his antennae. “Such a pity. I’d hoped we could come to an arrangement.”

  “I misspoke,” said K’llk’Hc’kk hurriedly. “I’d be taking on enormous personal risk if I allowed drill filters to go missing. But for you, my friend, I might take that risk, should compensating items appear in my own inventory.”

  “That won’t be a problem. Let’s agree to specifics before the entropy-cursed humans unleash their devilry.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 14

  “I worry about you,” said Venix.

  Branco took a swig of his beer. “I didn’t know you cared, you sweet, sweet alien.”

  “I mean I don’t trust you. You give me concerns.”

  Branco suddenly realized that he was alone with the XO on the same side of the bar’s giant drinking mound. Alone with a score of Tri-V screens showing the pit dancing to empty perches.

  “You’re a Zuparti – the most paranoid species in the galaxy. Everyone gives you concerns.”

  “So the more naive species assume. What you mistake as paranoia is really the value we place on hard-earned trust. You’re far from earning my trust, human.”

  “OK, I’ll buy it. Tell me what’s bugging you, Commander. How can I earn your trust?”

  “The major. You two are more than friends.”

  Branco shrugged. “So?”

  “You slither your bodies together when you can, and rub your gazes over each other when you cannot, yet you do not act like a human mating pair.”

  Branco glared at the officer. “You’re describing two adults blowing off steam together. That’s all.”

  “Liar!” Venix hissed like a snake. “You love her.”

  “You’re out of bounds, Commander. Back off!”

  “And you are emotional. Defensive! Protective! Trooper Branco, you just proved my point. This is why I worry about you.”

  “Hey!” shouted a woman’s voice.

  Branco looked up, but he and Venix were still alone on this side of the mound. On the other side, it seemed Vengeance and Shock Squads were arguing.

  “Say that to my face, you disgusting chipmunk,” roared the voice of Juliana Keiko. “I’ll wring your flea-bitten stinking neck.”

  Screeching with glee, Tatterjee appeared, zigzagging on skittering claws down Branco’s side of the drinking mound.

  The Leaky Vent Bar on Deck 12, Frame 61, Zone 4 of the Exuberance was spinning at one-quarter G – a tricky environment even for Tatterjee, who by now would be fleemered in his Flatar cups. The little alien overcooked a sharp turn and sailed into the air, passing ten feet over Branco’s head.

  Lieutenant Flkk’Sss – on the neighboring mound that had been temporarily claimed as Midnight Sun officer country – shot to her hind feet. She caught Tatterjee and, ignoring his attempts to nip her foot-hands, flung him back to the top of Branco’s drinki
ng mound.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” shouted Keiko from the other side of the mound. “Now—” Tatterjee yelped. “—what did you call me again, you entropy-cursed rodent?”

  Commander Venix blinked repeatedly – the Zuparti equivalent of rolling his eyes – but then turned his attention to Branco.

  Branco gritted his teeth and headed off the Zuparti. “I promise you, sir, that if I had a hypothetical liaison with the major, it would be kept strictly to off-contract periods, and have no impact on my operational efficiency.”

  “Trust, Branco. For me to believe your assurance, you’ll need to earn my trust, and I’m a Zuparti.”

  “Fine! And since we’re on a trust-building kick here, may I ask who’s stationed on Deck 11 of the Sun?”

  “Officially, no one.”

  Venix’s reply was a stunning slap to the face. Was the XO encouraging Branco to spy on their own ship?

  “And unofficially?” Branco asked hesitantly.

  “Unofficially…someone. I honestly don’t know, Trooper. I can speculate, but I can see you already have.”

  An uneasy silence stretched between human and Zuparti.

  “Perhaps this conversation hasn’t been a complete waste of time,” said Venix. “Let’s end it here for now and turn our attention to higher matters.”

  Branco frowned in confusion, but when he followed Venix’s gaze to the Tri-V, he understood. A Zuparti dance troupe was entering the pits.

  Venix ran his long tongue over his whiskers and growled at the screen.

  The Leaky Vent was one of the largest bars in Frame 61. Since the venue was closed whenever the Exuberance was thrusting hard, ‘down’ for the bar’s patrons was not through the deck, but through Frame 61 itself, the bulkhead that faced outward to the hull of the spinning heavy hauler. The drinking mounds were dropped seemingly at random onto the raised viewing areas that surrounded two dancing pits sunk into the floor in a figure-eight configuration.

  Since the Midnighters had been clamped to the freighter, those pits had housed gladiatorial contests, armed poetry competitions, safety training demonstrations, and reenactments of famous space battles using replica models. Currently they offered the default entertainment: exotic dancers, protected by force cylinders, who performed short sets so that the ship’s entertainment division could cycle through them quickly. They had to if they were to reflect the multiple species and cultural preferences of its diverse patrons.

  A blast of hoots and jeers assailed the Midnighter mound. The catcalls had a distinctly Scottish flavor.

  “Boss says to ignore them,” said Venix loudly. “Let them come to us, if they’ve got the guts.”

  Branco assumed the Zuparti meant Captain Blue, but she wasn’t the real boss. The captain used to refer to Gloriana as her silent partner, but that didn’t wash anymore. Not after the big boss had ordered the company off Midnight Sun while she loaded something secret aboard. Branco used to discover dangerous secrets for a living. He’d get to the truth behind Gloriana.

  If Venix felt the same way, he was too wrapped up in his Tri-V screen to show it.

  For a price, you could tap the image of a particularly interesting dancer and zoom in, hear a recording of them talk, screech, or howl, or smell their scent. If you were prepared to outbid everyone else in the room, when they finished their set they’d come over to your spot on the drinking mound and…Well, what they did was up for negotiation; the entertainment division took its cut for the introduction and left the rest up to consenting sentients. There were no laws to be broken here, and they were currently traveling through hyperspace, which made many species feel especially wild. Branco had already seen dancers paid to do everything from conduct shy conversation to scenes he’d need therapy to wipe from his mind.

  His screen was showing humans dancing in one pit, buff men and women in scraps of cloth gyrating to the steady electro-thump beat. But the XO had set his own screen to show four Zuparti chasing each other in a circle, sniffing at each other’s butts. From time to time the performers would stop, stand up to clean their whiskers, and then return to their circling.

  To Branco, they didn’t look like exotic dancers so much as mangy inmates at an asylum for insane weasels, but Venix was beginning to drool.

  The XO tapped the image of one Zuparti dancer on his screen and entered a generous bid. His lips curled away from his long mouth, which only released more drool. He shuddered, seemed to collect himself for a moment, then tapped repeatedly at the images of the other three Zuparti until he was highest bidder for them all.

  “Seriously?” said Branco. “All of them?”

  Venix curled his whiskers at him. “I’m a senior company officer. What’s the point of all the extra pay if you don’t enjoy it? A little private space, please, Trooper?”

  Branco took the hint and jumped down to floor level, where the music beat through his feet. Down here, away from the clear air current Venix had set for their drinking perch, the atmosphere was a ripe mix of cigars, incense, alien aphrodisiac pheromones, relaxing essential oils, and hallucinogenic narcotics. The air was so thick, it felt like breathing on a heavy gravity world. In fact, it was worse than that, Branco decided. It smelled like a CASPer armory room at the end of a long mission.

  He joined his Vengeance and Shock friends on the other side of the mound just in time to watch the human dancers finish their set. Most raced backstage, but two came out to the floor. A woman strode confidently over to a distant mound occupied by a group of humans Branco didn’t recognize. But he was more interested in the man, clad in loincloth and not much else, who was walking with considerably more trepidation toward the mound to Branco’s left. There a small party of MinSha rubbed their front limbs together in anticipation.

  “Tell me I’m not seeing that,” pleaded Soren Gjalp.

  “That’s one brave dude,” said Keiko.

  She sounded utterly horrified at the prospect of what was about to unfold mere feet away. Branco drew alongside and whispered into her ear. “Don’t tell Gjalp, but it’s not what you think.”

  “You mean, they’re not about to make little MinSha eggs?”

  “Nope.”

  “Promise?”

  A ball of fur leaped onto Branco’s head. “Don’t listen to this jerk,” Tatterjee told her. “We’re in hyperspace. Anything goes. Tell me you’ve never wondered what it would feel like to wake up naked in bed with a couple of Besquith?”

  She narrowed her eyes at the Flatar. “You’re revolting.”

  “I apologize,” he said, “you’re far too classy to rut with Besquith.” Tatterjee pounced on the table space set into the mound, scattering drinks. He sprawled onto his side, wriggling his whiskers and eyebrows at her. “But I bet you’ve dreamt about me.”

  Keiko lunged for the annoying chipmunk, but he was too fast for her, scurrying just out of reach. “May I take this opportunity,” he said from behind a screen, “to remind you all of my best friend? You’ve met her. Big. Ten legs. Eats humans whenever the boss isn’t looking.”

  Keiko sighed and sat back to take a long sip of her drink. “I’ll admit it’s a big galaxy. And sure, there are those who want a taste of every dish laid out on the buffet. But the reason no one from any species could ever be interested in you, Tatterjee, is because beneath your fluffy fur and cute whiskers beats a heart of purest evil.”

  “You say such charming things,” said the Flatar, and Branco thought he meant that without irony. “That’s why you’re my favorite human, Juliana Keiko.”

  Gjalp released a long moan of horror, unable to look away from the MinSha mound where the aliens had surrounded the man and were stroking forelimbs over his body. The other humans of Shock Squad were staring too. Even the Scorpions had stopped taunting and were staring slack-jawed at the MinSha enjoying the human.

  Branco laughed. “Wise up, people! Look around at the aliens here. Go on, look! Venix and Tatterjee are covered in fur. Those MinSha have chitin carapaces. Others have scales, feath
ers, shells, slimy mucous, life-support units, warty hide, or layers of surface symbionts. The only species with naked skin is our own.”

  “Are you telling me that dude’s a one-man petting zoo?” said Keiko.

  “For a human,” said Kenngarr, one of the Vengeance Zuuls, “Branco is surprisingly knowledgeable. He’s right, of course. Human skin…It’s disgusting to look at – especially when it pulses and you can actually see the blood vessels. Dis-gusting. But for those who touch it, it’s neither as slimy nor as pulsating as you’d think.”

  “I’m not sure that’s any better,” groaned Gjalp. “Those giant praying mantises are touching that guy because he’s the freak?”

  “Yes,” said the Zuul. “Undoubtedly they’re doing it for a dare, probably to demonstrate their courage before challenging for promotions.”

  “Trouble,” said Sergeant Albali, who was sitting higher up the mound with Sergeant Hrrn, his Vengeance Squad counterpart.

  A tall man with a shaggy black beard and tattooed eyebrows left the hooting group of Scorpions and walked over to the Midnighters.

  He stopped a few feet from Keiko. “A wee birdie told me you’re here to retrieve something you lost. Am I right, hen?”

  Albali dropped to the floor and confronted the Scorpion. “No, they were stolen. But that’s all right; we’ve got the thieves right where we need them.”

  The man held up his hands in a gesture of injured innocence. “Wheesht, man. Will you no listen to some honest advice?”

  “Fuck off!”

  “No need for that! I only wondered whether you’d thought to ask at the lost property office? I was talking only this morning to the wee missy with the feathers and pointy hat who runs the place. She says she gets hundred-foot-high walking tin cans handed in almost every day.”

  Albali threw the first punch, but the laughing Scot dodged, raising jeers from the Scorpion spectators.

  A projectile of fur, claws, and teeth launched through the air at the man’s face.