by Troy Osgood
That left just the bridge.
With my back to the wall, I edged my wall to the open door. I peeked around the corner and could see stars and distant planets outside the view window. Three of the four stations were empty and someone was sitting in my chair.
Or more accurately they were standing in it.
The Xertin had to stand and lean to reach the controls. It didn’t seem to bother her, probably use to it, as her small hands darted across my control board. She was calm as she corrected the tilt of the Wind. I couldn’t tell what tune she was whistling. Really, it didn’t matter.
I stepped into the bridge and pointed my borrowed blaster at her.
“Hi,” I said.
She jumped, almost falling out of the chair. Sitting down hard, she looked over at me, staring at the end of the blaster. To her credit, as scared as she was, she didn’t say anything.
I stepped into the bridge, behind the co-pilot's chair, the end of my blaster always pointing at her. I used it to motion her into the corridor. Hopping off my chair she headed out of the bridge.
“Left.”
Turning she paused at the door into the small storage room off the corridor. This one was smart, she hadn’t even bothered trying to go down stairs. Stepping closer, I held the gun awkwardly pointed at her. She was two feet shorter. I’d fought a Xertin hand to hand before and it was a pain in the ass. The size difference was to their advantage but this one was too scared to do anything.
Unlocking the door and opening it, I motioned her inside. She went in quietly and gave a small squeal and jump when the door closed and locked behind her.
Back at my pilot’s station I was surprised that the Xertin really hadn’t messed with much. I got the Wind stabilized and started moving away from the pirate’s vessel. Scanners showed that it was no longer tilting but they picked up some damage. Nothing from the pirate’s ship indicated that it was getting ready to pursue. In fact, it was moving away from the Wind.
Kinn was cutting his losses. He got what he came for, my cargo, and had lost too many men and had a damaged ship. I’m sure he wanted to destroy my ship and torture me, but there were more important things to consider. He had to know I had sent a distress signal so forces from Rewe would be showing up soon. Revenge would have to wait.
Worked for me.
I accelerated the Wind as fast as I could, not wanting to take chances. The sooner I was out of weapons range the better.
It didn’t take long for the two ships to get far enough apart and I could breath a little easier. I was safe enough.
Twenty minutes later the two patrol ships from Rewe hailed me.
Better late than never.
One ship remained in the area, searching for Kinn’s ship on the chance that it had been unable to hop out. The other escorted me to the planet.
Rewe was a very green world. Small with one little moon. Fourth from it’s sun, the planet looked like a green sphere, lots of different shades with a bits of blue mixed in. I broke atmosphere and flew down over fields of endless grass. No mountains or large hills visible, the world was very flat. Lots and lots of grass.
The patrol ship veered off, returning to space, well I cruised over the surface. I could see metal shining in the distance and came upon the only piece of civilization on the planet. Rewe is a frontier world. It’s at the edge of known space and is held by Terrans, or earthlings as we like to be called. From here there are numerous excursions into the unknown regions. It’s not exactly lawless though, Territory Protectorate maintains a large presence with an Earth Expeditionary Forces base on the surface as well.
Clusters of metal buildings, most one story but some three, started to dot the grassy plains. Small, a few homes and businesses for colonists, they were spread out showing some growth across the planet. There was a lot of construction ongoing. The largest concentration of buildings, in size and completeness, was the space port. Three story square and blocky buildings in a u-shape around a cleared space. No grass grew there, just expanses of metal decking with painted stripes and lights.
The vast space was filled with ships, all earth designs. Port Control directed me to a bay near the center. It wasn’t a busy port as it was really just a staging area. The large exploration ships couldn’t land on the planet so only supply ships ever got down here.
Settling the Wind down where directed I shut the ship down.
As I headed for the staircase I paused at the storage room door.
“It’s almost over,” I said through the door, not sure if the Xertin could hear me.
She was a pirate but I felt kind of bad for her. She was out of her element, that much was obvious. I kind of doubted she enjoyed working for Kinn. Maybe she didn’t have a choice? Soon enough she wouldn’t be my problem or concern.
Calmly I walked through the ship, only drawing the blaster as I got into the hold and stopped to examine the stunned pirate. Still out for a couple hours. I gave him a kick to the head for good measure.
Stepping out of the ship I was surprised that the open plains weren’t brighter. There were clouds in the sky, but not many. Clear and blue, if this had been earth the sun would have been very bright. It was pleasant here. Warm, but not hot, a nice little breeze. I could see people moving about the ships, mostly human techs but a couple of native Rewens.
There were forests on the planet, but spaced far apart and not large. Which was odd since the natives of the planet resembled trees. Tall and skinny, the smallest at seven foot, they had skin in various shades of brown and it was rough and cracked like tree bark. They had long arms that hung past their knees, long legs and narrow heads. Eyes and mouth deep set in the bark like features. The Rewens walked with a stiff gait. They were strong, even if they didn’t look it.
The six figures approaching the Wind had my attention. Four were uniformed members of the Territorial Protectorate, the Prots but jokingly called the TeePees, the police forces on terran controlled worlds. Where the EEF was the military arm, with jurisdiction in space and warzones, the TeePees had jurisdiction over any problems planetside. Black boots, blue pants and shirts. These four wore riot gear. Armored vests, helmets and carrying blaster rifles.
They were accompanied by two plain clothes officers. One was male, older and my height. His hair and beard were gray with streaks of silver. Pants, a vest and tie; he wore his badge attached to his belt along with a holstered blaster. He walked a couple steps behind the other officer.
She was short, eyes even with my shoulder, with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. A couple strands fell down on either side of her face. Very striking, she had dark eyes and tannish skin. Even though she was short, she carried herself in a way that warned people not to mess with her.
I knew from personal experience that she was tough.
Black pants and boots, holstered blaster, dark blue shirt and black jacket. Her badge hung from a chain around her neck.
Back on Earth, he would have been classified as Arabic and she would have been Latina, but up here in space they were just human. Every race on every planet had different ethnicities but out in the wilds we all ended up belonging to just the one race.
It was an old earth concept. Even though I was in my early thirties, I had been born on earth itself. The first time I’d seen space was when deployed on my first tour with the 2Es. There were a lot of humans that had never stepped foot on Earth itself.
“Lieutenant Higareda,” I said, smiling at the woman.
She smiled back but it was one that warned me not to give her any crap. Behind her, the older man just shook his head. Lieutenant Waleed Abboud knew how this was going to go.
“Captain Lancer,” Lieutenant Kristin Higareda answered, stopping in front of me. “Arek,” she added less formally. She looked past me at the ship and the large burn and scratch marks on the hull. “Any problems?”
“Not really,” I said with a shrug. “It went how we figured it would. Did you find your snitch?”
“We did,” Higared
a said with a genuine smile. I’d known her for a couple of years and the only time I saw her truly happy was when some criminal got busted.
About a week ago, I had been approached by Higareda. It seemed that a pirate had been making life hard for the colonists on Rewe. Most of their shipments got hit coming into the system. It was discovered through her investigation that it was the ones coming out of Touy. So they organized a sting but decided to go out of the Protectorate for help. She had guessed, rightly, that there was a mole leaking shipping schedules.
The operation wasn’t well received by the higher-ups. But Higareda only cared about results, not kissing ass or making anyone happy. One of the reasons I liked her.
“He’s under surveillance,” Abboud added. “He’ll lead us to this pirate’s home base.”
“Kinn,” I told him. “Captain Kinn. A Curon. Crew is mostly human with some Yurigs and Guykiks. A ship called the Uinh Geriyu.”
“Excellent,” Abboud said, making notes on his wristcomm.
“And,” Higareda prompted. She knew me well.
“His ship will need repairs, a gravity generator and transfer tube,” I said. Those were specialized systems and should be somewhat easily trackable where repairs would be made. “He’s also down a couple crewmembers.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t gift wrap Kinn for us,” She said.
I shrugged.
“There are a couple presents on board,” I added pointing behind me.
Abboud signaled to the four uniformed Protectorate officers. They ran off past me towards the Wind.
“The Wind looks a little damaged,” Higareda mentioned, pointing at the large scorch mark and scratches along the hull.
I looked over my shoulder at the damage. It wasn’t that bad and wouldn’t prevent operation of the ship. The Wind itself never looked in that great of shape, this just added to it’s charm. But Rewe seemed a nice planet and I had nothing pressing going on.
There was no cargo to deliver right now. Kinn and his pirates had it all. Of course it was all fake cargo planted by Higareda and her people.
“Since the Protectorate will be paying for the repairs, I suppose I’ll be here for a couple of days,” I said turning to Higareda. She was smiling. Abboud was rolling his eyes. “So when are you off duty?”
THE EUROPAN SWITCH
Originally Published:
Never before published
“What is that,” Hert said looking up from the hologame board between us. “Never seen a species like that.”
I ignored him and the kind of insensitive comment. But that was Hert, I was used to such things from him. An Engyn, they were a very blunt species with no filter. They didn’t try to offend, they just didn’t think before speaking. To an Engyn, that was a waste of time. They resembled humanoids carved from stone. Blacks and grays, same height and size as humans, Engyn’s bodies were faceted, like stones. Hard lines and angles, similar to a diamond but dull like stone.
Of course, when dealing with so many different beings and cultures, everyone learned to not take offense right away. Most just accepted the Engyn’s bluntness as part of their culture, which it was.
I concentrated on the hologame. I was losing and it was pissing me off.
Savik was a Thesan game, a cross between checkers and chess but with some other rules thrown in. I was usually good at it and could beat Hert nine times out of ten, but today he was crushing me. I was down three games to one and was losing the fifth. That didn’t make me happy.
Hert was an independent freight hauler like me, the competition really, but that hadn’t stopped us from forming a friendship over the last couple years. I’d first met him during my soldiering days and it was Hert that helped set me up as a hauler when I left the Earth Expeditionary Forces. Didn’t run into each other that often, so when we did it was time for a game or twenty and a drink or thirty.
Ten or fifteen years older than me, maybe even twenty. It was hard to tell an Engyn’s age. He’d seen and done almost all of it. The good and the bad. Legal and illegal.
So to hear there was a species he hadn’t seen, that was a surprise.
I was curious but dammit, I wanted to win this game.
There had to be a way to salvage this and win. If I could just win this one game I could get a streak going. Ending the day tied in win/loss would be good enough. No way did I want to leave with a losing record. Hert wouldn’t let me forget it. Ever.
“Grak, whatever that thing is, he’s fresh,” Hert continued, looking past me at something over my shoulder.
Interesting, some unknown species that was new to port. Still not enough to take me from the game. When he was annoyed, Hert switched back and forth from Tradelan to his native language. He was also always annoyed to some degree.
“Grakking Pierd. I hate those hireks.”
Pierd were notorious swindlers. Great businessmen, almost as good as the Kry, but they always looked to get the best part of any deal especially if it meant taking advantage of the other party. Newbies to port were a Pierd’s favorite target.
I finally turned, there was no way I was winning this game, and immediately could see what had caught Hert’s attention.
This area of Corric Station was busy. Just off the connecting corridor to the docking bays, it was lined with bars and shops. And beings. Lots of beings of all kinds. But it was easy to see the one that stood out and had caught Hert’s attention. Directly across from the bar’s open to the corridor seating were a couple of shop stalls, both run by Pierds. The shopkeeper was loudly berating a specific customer. Pointing, shouting. The poor customer didn’t know what to do. It was drawing a large crowd.
I knew what species it was, one of the rarest in the wider galaxy.
Easily seven feet tall, it was twice as big as the Pierd but was cowering before the smaller being. It was covered in a dusky gray, of various shades, long fur. The body was shapeless, with no neck, just a head at the end of the body that bent forward and was blunt and rounded. Long arms and small legs ended in webbed digits, with a thick and small tail that dragged along the ground. Tiny black eyes on either side of the head, whiskers around a small nose and a wide mouth with sharp teeth.
It wore crisscrossing bandoliers and pouches, no other clothing except a biosuit. Tubes ran up it’s arms, crisscrossing down it’s front and back, along the legs and connected to a tank it wore on it’s back. The suit was to keep the being cool.
Biosuits were somewhat unique, each created to fit the individual beings requirements. Most times, you had no idea what specifics a biosuit was for. Some carried breathable air for the species, others had gases that kept the species wet or dry or oily. Lots of different species, lots of different uses for biosuits.
I only knew what this one did because I recognized the being. It was amphibious species from an ice moon in the Sol system. My home system.
It was a Europan.
*****
The galaxy is huge. Billions of stars, each of those stars housing a system of planets, moons, asteroids and all sorts of things. Rarely the conditions in that solar system are perfect so that life evolves. Even with as many types of life and beings in the galaxy it’s still rare because there are more empty and lifeless systems then those with natural life, that which evolved in the system. Colonists don’t count. Out of the billions of star systems, maybe only a couple thousand or hundred thousand have natural life. That’s rare. Even more rare are those systems that have multiple planets or moons capable of creating and sustaining life. Even more rare are those systems that have multiple species within. Not multiple species on one planet, that’s everywhere that creates life. I mean multiple species on different planets within the same solar system.
My home system, Sol, is one of those.
Us humans, or Terrans as we are called in the greater galaxy as we come from the planet officially called Terra, are expansionist. We’re never satisfied with just what we have so we try to get more. This led to us wanting to explore our own so
lar system, and eventually the galaxy. We first had to come up with a way to travel the great distances within the solar system. That happened and we established the colony on Mars.
Because of that we came to the attention of the Thesa who were looking for allies in their expansion battles with another race, the Tiat. The Thesa helped us develop the hopdrive, which allowed us to finally leave our system and explore other systems, to expand beyond Sol.
That turned us into a starfaring race, or hoppers.
Even though we got help, we would have done it eventually. And this way the Thesans insured that when the aggressive human, Terran, species expanded beyond their system they did it allied with the Thesan. It was a good call on their part.
There are two kinds of developed life on a planet. Starfaring, or hoppers, and planetlocked, or grounders if you’re being polite. Hoppers are those that have developed star travel, the ability to leave their own system. They create and build their own ships, developing the level of technology necessary for that. Grounders do not. They may leave their planet, but only because others allow them to. They hitch rides on the ships of others. Which is where the not nice term for them, stowaways, comes from. Or just stows for short. To some, that’s a major insult.
Europans are grounders. Europa is the largest moon around Jupiter and the only other planetoid in the Sol system that could create life and that life lived in the cold waters and in caves within the layers of thick ice that surrounded the moon. We had encountered them early on, after the Mars colony and before the Titan colony. Primitive by our standards, they very rarely leave their planet. As a species, they’re not well adapted for living outside their homes on Europa.
Some could be found sometimes at the Sol Station, the large space station at the edge of the system, but up until now I had never seen one outside of the system itself.
*****
The Europan looked scared. Terrified. It’s eyes darted everywhere, trying to avoid looking at the Pierd. A crowd had started to form, beings of all kinds stopping to watch the entertainment. Some were pointing at the Europan, wondering what it was. It knew it was the center of attention and was shrinking as much as a seven foot pile of fur could.