by Troy Osgood
Yer’s head poked up above a crate and he fired back at me. I managed to twist and slam into the wall. Sliding against the wall, I slide to the ground where Yer didn’t have an angle to shoot me. I also didn’t have one to shoot him. Crouching low I moved as quick as I could towards the crate.
I paused when I heard the squawk. It was blood curdling. Like a bird of prey dive bombing from the sky. I looked up and saw Yer crouched low on top of the crate. He was bent in a position that no human could ever get, leaning down close to the top of the crate, one hand on the crate and the other raised over his head. His three fingers were spread out, nails like talons.
There was murder in his slitted eyes. My murder.
I don’t think he cared about keeping me alive anymore.
With a screech, Yer jumped off the crate.
I dove to the ground, spinning as I did. Landing on my back, I fired at where I saw the streaking form of Yer. I missed.
Yer landed with a skid, body still low, and with a shift of his weight he was turning to face me. It was one smooth motion. One quick and deadly looking smooth motion.
“Romer’s plan won’t work with me dead,” I said as Yer took a quick step towards me. It was more a slide, his body low and flowing. I could hear the talons on his hands clicking against the metal floor. It echoed through the empty hold.
I was only going to get one shot at this. I needed to guess right. Fifty/fifty chance.
My back was to the crate and I used it to hold myself steady. I raised my blaster and aimed at Yer’s head. He reacted how I knew he would. The Curdo darted to the side, moving incredibly fast.
But not fast enough.
My shot took him in the lowered shoulder, sending the Curdo sprawling and sliding across the deck. He squawked in pain.
I had guessed right. Sometimes the Lancer luck works in my favor.
Can’t believe I guessed right.
Standing up I walked over to the struggling Yer. He was watching me, hate still in his eyes along with pain and was trying to push himself up.
I pointed my blaster at him and clicked it off of stun. That little noise was infinitely loud in the hold.
The noise of the blaster bolt was even louder.
*****
Romer was right.
I had to take the job once he put my name on it. The Yortusk would not have been happy to be stiffed and pissing them off was not conductive to my continued career or health. So I had to go. He had hoped his goons would keep me in line and deliver his cargo.
That didn’t work.
And well I never told them how long it would take to get to Orso, or exactly how many jumps, I had purposely gone out of the way.
In reality Orso’s system is only two quick jumps away from Buhin. I went out wide and started to come back in. I never headed directly for it either.
I didn’t think he had, but Romer could have put a tracker in the cargo.
Tracking a ship through hops is extremely difficult, at least if you’re trying to follow the path. Turning one on, keeping it on while the ship hops in and out of wildspace, is a good way to screw up the data and reception. Like the Galactic Feed, signals get blocked and interrupted by wildspace. A tracking signal can get scrambled. It goes into wildspace in one system, the ship comes out in another and the signal shows it in yet another system. Then there’s ion storms, novas, and all that.
Wrecks havoc with a continuous signal.
So most tracking is done from point to point. Leave a fixed point and the ship hops out at the final destination and the tracker is turned on, connects to the Feed satellites and you have your location. You can turn the tracker on at each hop but it takes time for the device to connect, and most midhops aren’t that long. And you don’t need to know the path, just the end point.
I made sure none of the stops between hops were long enough for Valeri or one of the others to connect a tracker. The next part was where I was making some assumptions and hoping I was right. I was counting on Romer overthinking it and trying to compensate for my involvement.
If one of his people were carrying the tracker, they could switch it on as soon as we hopped into the system. But I was counting on him thinking that I’d have a jammer on board, which I do, or that the Yortusk would block outgoing signals from within the system. Maybe they do, I don’t know.
So the most accurate and surest way to get a tracker signal from Orso was on the moon itself and the safest way to get it there was as part of the cargo. Once on planet, activate the tracker and walk away.
That’s what I would have done anyways.
But this is where I think Romer got cute. Orso and the Yortusk operations are a huge unknown and that bothered Romer. He wanted to know more so instead of just finding out where Orso is, he wanted to bug it. That was my guess anyways. Knowing where the moon was wouldn’t do Romer any good. It’s not like he would forcibly take it. He could have tried to get a spy but there were easier ways to do that.
No, some kind of bug made the most sense.
Which was why I was tearing apart the three cargo containers.
Yer was dead a couple feet away from me. Darm was tied up and thrown in one of the bunks. Hors and Valeri were still locked in theirs and I’d locked in the last hop coordinates. Just a couple hours from the system. Plenty of time to find the bug.
There was nothing special about the crates. Standard polyplas. Four foot by four foot by four foot. And the bug wouldn’t be in them as they’d get reused or trashed. So whatever it was, would be inside one of the crates attached to the cargo. Right?
Was I starting to overthink this?
I took a couple steps back from the crates. I needed to think like Romer. Which was hard. The guy had decades of experience as a spook and I grudgingly had to admit he was one of the best. It was in his blood and every fiber of his being. He was smarter at it then I was, no question there.
This was giving me a headache.
Going to the storage closet in the hold I pulled out the crowbar. The crates were locked and closed but not keycoded. Placing the bar at the lip I pushed and started popping the top off one. Inside were stacked boxes of foodstuffs. Nothing sinister. The others contained more foodstuffs, clothing and other miscellaneous innocent items. I really didn’t want to go through each item but I would if I had to.
But before I did that, it was time to examine the crates again.
There was one other thing that Colonel Jessups liked saying about any mission planning. Keep it simple. Don’t overthink it.
Romer had been involved in a lot of those missions.
Think. What was Romer’s goal here?
Ultimately he probably wanted to overthrow or replace the Yortusk.
There was something here, had to be, otherwise why keep someone in the hold with the crates at all times? They didn’t want me looking at these things.
Running my fingers along the edge of the crate I found it on the second one.
A slim piece of circuitry. About an inch long and very thin, almost invisible under the lip of the crate.
I pulled it off. Just a circuit board with a push button switch. Some kind of transmitter. They would turn it on when we arrived and probably remove it from the crates once they were unloaded. Long enough to get a tracking connection.
Could it even be one of those new burst transmitters that I had heard about before I left the service? Devices that could send a signal to any wireless or satlinked network. Depending on the strength of it, they could bypass firewalls and send or receive data. Not a lot. Could Romer use this to install some kind of virus in the Yortusk system?
How would Romer have gotten such a device?
Coulson?
This just got a lot more interesting.
Using my finger nail I disconnected the switch so the device wouldn’t turn on.
To be safe I looked over the rest of this crate and the next. Nothing.
I walked back to the bridge and could hear pounding coming from my bunk. Valeri
was slamming something against the door. I’d probably have to redo my entire room when this was done, what was left of it anyways. She was shouting something but couldn’t make out the words. Nothing from Hors side of the hall.
Only a couple more hours and I’d be done with this.
*****
The white clouds of wildspace disappeared. Bright one second and then the black with white dots of space that was the field of stars. I could see the distant bright point that was the system’s sun and a couple of larger bodies that were the closest planet and its moons.
Taking manual control, I reorientated the Nomad’s Wind and pointed it at a spot beyond the planet. I engaged the insystem thrusters and settled in for the next part of the flight.
Insystem travel was a lot slower than starhopping, outersystem warping, but it was quick enough considering the distances traveled. Most of the larger ships couldn’t do insystem for various reasons, mostly because they were too big to land on planet and not equipped for space transfer, but the Wind was just small enough. Just one of the reasons why the busier systems built space stations near where ships hopped in. Planets didn’t like a lot of traffic in and out, so the stations helped regulate it.
Orso was not like that. Only the moon got any traffic and that was already tightly controlled.
It took an hour to get where I could see Orso. A small moon, the planet it orbited was barren. As I got closer I could see lines of red crisscrossing the planet’s surface. Not a hint of green or blue, just dark black and gray with the hints of red. Not a vacation spot.
The moon didn’t look much better. Circle of gray rock floating in space.
I hit some commands on the comm station, sending a coded signal, as the Wind adjusted and shook entering the moon’s gravity field. I had approached with the moon at the top of the viewwindow and now the surface swung around so it was at the bottom of the viewwindow as the Wind’s compensators orientated with the surface of the moon. The Wind was now flying over the surface of Orso, still a couple hundred feet up. The ship followed the curve of the moon and soon lights could be seen in the distance.
The lights turned into structures built onto the surface.
A large ring was cut into the surface of the moon, the edges covered in metal and built up. Lights flashed along the surface and a red glow around the inside circumference, the lights of the magbarrier. A structure was just off to the side, lights flashing along the metallic surface. Well it was one large building, there were different levels and structures. Some round, some with angled sides. I knew from experience that most of it was unused. The real buildings were under the moon’s surface.
The base had started out as a research facility that was abandoned. No idea who the previous owners were but the Yortusk found it and took it over for their needs.
I took the Wind over the opening ringed in metal and adjusted the thrusters. Slowly I lowered the ship down. There was a shaking and bright flash across the canopy as I passed through the barrier and into the artificial atmosphere of the base.
Looking out the view window I saw cut rock mixed with metal panels. Blinking lights of various colors and polycarbonite windows cut into the surface. I could see people moving in the rooms and halls beyond the windows, all of them carrying weapons. I knew there were blaster cannons hidden in the walls behind some of the metal plating.
Watching the readouts I adjusted the thrusters and set the Wind down nice and easy. There was a slight shaking as the ship settled on the landing skids. I hit the switches and powered the engines down.
I had kept the bridge door open so I could hear any noises from my prisoners. Valeri had stopped shouting once she realized the ship was done jumping. I think she realized at that point that they really had never been in control of me or the ship.
Walking by I had expected her to start yelling again, but there was just silence.
She knew where we were and what it probably meant for her.
*****
I stood at the end of the cargo hold watching the ramp lower. As it descended I could see the stars and void of space through the magbarrier, tinged in red, then the rock walls and metal plating and finally the Yortusk that came out to meet me.
They were all Dyer, three men and a woman. Green skinned humanoids, all different shades, with blue or purple shades of hair and purple eyes. All were dressed in various styles of clothing, all in good condition, and looked like they could fit in almost anywhere in the galaxy. Four of them here but I knew there were more near. All armed with weapons held loose but ready.
Leadership of the Yortusk, which meant everyone on this rock, was all Dyer. They were a race from the Manis system, one of the few with three livable planets. The Dyer had colonized all three without much expansion beyond that system. They were a strict society, very rigid in their codes. Which made the criminal gang very odd indeed. I’d always suspected that the Yortusk was tied tightly to the Dyer government.
The ramp settled against the metal floor of the Orso hangar with a slight bang. I started down the ramp, hands held far off to the side, away from my holstered blaster.
“Captain Lancer,” the Dyer in front said, nodding his head.
“Shirrit Yurn,” I said, returning the nod.
A smile came across his face and he laughed, the others lowering their weapons. I reached out a hand and Yurn took it, pulling me in for a hug. Most Dyer are more reserved. Yurn is an oddity. Probably why he was in charge of the Yortusk.
“It’s good to see you again my friend,” he said stepping back. “I was glad to see that it was you that had taken our order.”
“Yeah,” I started and paused, glancing up into the ship. “About that.”
*****
Yurn had sent for more Dyer, people to take away the Curdo’s body. They had also scanned the contents of the crates and were scanning the rest of the ship to be safe. I had no problem with that. Darm had still been out when they took him away. Yurn didn’t say what his fate would be and I didn’t ask but I could assume.
Didn’t really care.
The kid was fated for a short life so why not now?
With Yurn, I led a group of six up to the bunk corridor. We were not quiet, I wanted the occupants to know there were multiple people out here.
We stopped in front of the room that Hors was in. I banged my fist loudly on the metal and hit the button that activated the intercom into the room.
“Hors,” I started. “I’m out here with six armed men. We’re going to open the door and you’re going to come peacefully right?”
There was a grunted acknowledgement from the other side.
I hit the command to unlock the door and stepped back. It slid open to show Hors standing on the other side, hands out to his side. He was slumped and looked tired. The Dyer had weapons raised and pointed at him.
“Are you going to give us trouble?” Yurn asked.
Hors just shook his head. He didn’t bother to look at me as two of the Dyer led him off the ship. He moved quick enough, surprisingly for one going to an unknown fate.
“He seems decent enough,” I said to Yurn leaning in and speaking quietly so Hors wouldn’t catch it. “Might be able to turn him.”
Yurn watched the Kern disappear around the corridor, listening to his heavy steps on the metal circular stair.
“I’ve always liked Kern,” he said as quietly. “Dependable people.” He turned and pointed at my bunk and the last prisoner. “What about that one?”
I thought about it for a bit. Would Valeri turn on Romer? If she didn’t, there was no illusions about her fate. The Yortusk would try to get as much information out of her as they could and then they would just end her. Even if she didn’t stay loyal to Romer, I couldn’t see her talking to the Yortusk out of stubborness. They’d have to torture her.
“No,” I finally said, knowing I had sealed her fate.
I’m not a nice guy. I have no problem with killing. I just don’t like when it’s a waste like this.
&
nbsp; “Valeri,” I said into the intercom. “I have armed guards with me. I’m going to open the door now. Come quietly.”
There was no answer.
I looked at Yurn who positioned his men to cover the door and I unlocked it on his nod. It slid open and there was Valeri inside sitting on my bunk. Surprisingly there was no damage. Nothing broken, nothing turned over. Just as I had left. She had shut off the shower though.
She looked up at me as I followed two Dyer in. Their weapons were pointed at her, two plasma rifles, but she didn’t give them the time of day. Just studied me. There was some respect there.
“We were never in control were we,” she asked.
“No, not really.”
“Romer underestimated you,” she said standing up.
“He always did,” I replied.
One Dyer stayed in the room, weapon following Valeri as she followed us out. I stepped aside, hanging back with Yurn as another Dyer proceeded her and the rest followed. It was a quiet procession as we went down the spiral stairs and into the galley. From there, into the lounge and into the hold.
Valeri stared ahead, the only time she paused and looked was at the scorch mark on the floor of the cargo hold. Dark black, sooty, against the shining metal. She glanced back at me with a question.
“Yer,” I replied and she nodded.
She didn’t even glance at the crates or the scattered contents. The Yortusk had been a little rough in searching them. Understandably but it had made a mess. They didn’t even end up keeping any of the contents, not trusting them now. Which was a bonus for me, I could turn around and sell what I could for a nice extra profit. Not like I was going to get paid for delivering them.
We walked down the ramp and Valeri looked around at the entrance to the base. The walls of rock and metal got a cursory glance but it was the stars that got the most attention. They led her towards the nearest door into the structure built inside the moon’s rock and she paused a last time looking up into the stars. She closed her eyes.
I stopped, wondering what she was doing. Yurn looked annoyed. The guards never took their weapons off her. She didn’t move, just stood there with eyes closed. She knew she was dead, just a matter of time, so was she making peace with it?