by Troy Osgood
Still without a word he hit a button and opened the closet door. He motioned us to enter.
It wasn’t that large, barely enough room for me and the girl. It was dark and I wasn’t sure about letting someone else control the door but I was already throwing a lot of faith into this, trusting in the Dyer’s hatred of the Tiat.
The Thesan looked up at me and I smiled at her, trying to be reassuring. Hoping I faked it because I sure didn’t feel it. Taking a breath, I nudged her into the closet. I pulled her closer, arms wrapped around her and felt hers tighten around me as the Dyer closed the door and we were lost in the darkness.
*****
The girl wouldn’t stop shaking and I couldn’t blame her. I lost track of the time and the air was getting stuffy in the small space. There were no vents to let new air in. We got some from the ship’s ventilation system, but it still wasn’t comfortable. I patted her shoulder, trying to comfort her.
I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t have kids, barely knew anyone that did. I had been a soldier, a frontliner, Special Operations, never had time for that kind of thing. My sister, who I had not seen in a long time had a couple. I forgot how many.
Some uncle I was.
What was I doing? I still had no idea what was going on. I didn’t even know the girl’s name. I was running on instinct.
Which had never really run me wrong before.
So we waited in the dark.
We heard footsteps, boots on metal decking, coming our way and I tensed. The girl felt it and she grabbed me tighter. I wanted to loosen up but I needed to be ready for anything. There was no space in the closet to draw my blaster. The footsteps stopped and I heard the sound of buttons being depressed.
The door opened with a soft release of pressure and I breathed deep of the cooler air in the ship’s hold. I looked out, ready to see almost anything and was relieved that it was just the Dyer that had led us here.
“This way,” he said, turning and leading us to the ramp.
I followed cautiously.
I could see the hanger through the still open ramp. No maglifters were moving up, the hold was now filled with the crates I had seen outside. I couldn’t see anyone or anything in the hanger from this angle. Another of the Dyer was standing at the top of the ramp looking out into the open space of the docking bay. He was dressed in the same uniform as the others, but there were some additional bars on his collar. He turned as we approached.
An older Dyer, streaks of darker blue in his hair, he had a scar along his right cheek from jaw to scalp. Old and puckered, a battle wound most likely. He stood military straight, his hands clasped behind his back. He studied me, looking up and down. I still walk like a military man and he could tell. He studied the Thesan girl, who held my left hand with both of her smaller ones.
The moment creeped on. I let it. This was the Dyer’s play. He had helped us.
“I don’t think I want to know what this is about,” he finally said.
“I wish I did,” I answered and the Dyer gave me a weird look.
“The Tiat left the hanger,” he said and I took that as my cue.
“Thank you,” I told him and held out my hand. “Arek Lancer.”
The Dyer shook and smiled.
“Garrin Delt,” he said. “Earth Expeditionary Forces?”
“Captain,” I replied. The Dyer nodded, satisfied. “I owe you one.”
“It was my pleasure. Anything to annoy the Tiat.”
I laughed and led the Thesan down the ramp. Even though the Dyer had said the Tiat were gone, I still looked both ways and kept my head on a swivel as we walked to my ship.
CHAPTER THREE
Making our way from the Dyer ship to mine, only six ships down, was painful.
We moved slow, trying not to look out of place. I gave the girl, who still had not talked, my dark green military jacket to help hide her shape. She pulled the collar up to hide her features and hunched a little. I was very aware of the security cameras mounted on the walls.
This was a Pierd owned asteroid and there was no reason to suspect that they’d work with the Tiat, letting them review the security footage, but better to be careful. The Tiat had gotten a good look at me in The Oval and I really did not want them to figure out which ship was mine. My face was attached to my ship’s identifiers, which would now be in the asteroids system. So I kept my head turned away from the cameras.
I had the urge to run but that would draw attention from the Pierd security forces, who were probably already combing the Oval for me and the girl. They might not have responded to the fight yet. Fights were very common in places like this asteroid so security rarely reacted unless there was a death.
But this was the Tiat I was dealing with and they wanted this girl for some reason. They could put a lot of pressure on the Culkin Union if they really wanted to.
It’s funny how quickly old instincts and training come back.
I can’t remember how long it had been since I’d run an infiltration mission but this was starting to feel like that. Keep moving, don’t draw notice and pay attention to everything. My eyes darted all over the place, checking everyone and everything. I watched all the different beings in the hanger, their movements, which ones looked towards us. I noted when one started walking towards us, studying its hands and movements. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding when the alien, a species I didn’t recognize, continued past us.
I really wanted to question the girl but this was not the time or place. That could wait.
The last ship before mine was a giant cruiser that blocked our view. Not good. I lightly touched the girl and slowed her down. If the Tiat had already figured out who I was, they’d be there waiting.
Or I was being overly paranoid.
Deciding to be cautious but not paranoid, I stepped around the cruiser and looked on my home.
Compared to the cruiser behind us, the Nomad’s Wind was nothing, not even half the size of the Dyer’s ship. A Castellan Light Cruiser Model F497, built back on Earth, it wasn’t much to look at. I’d heavily modified it but the lines were unmistakable. The Castellan’s were not the most original ship designers, all their stuff had the same basic style.
Essentially two levels, cargo and some living on the bottom and the rest of the living plus engineering on the top, the mid part of the ship on all sides but the back had a gray metal “wing” that came off the blue metallic sides and went around to the front. It extended beyond the front of the ship and angled in. The wing ran to the back of the ship but didn’t extend beyond, also angling in towards the hull. Mounted on top of the wing at the back were two large engines. The rear of the ship was straight making the ship look boxy from that view, the cargo doors and ramp on the lower half. The front was different, the top and bottom halves were angled, sloping away from the wing.
Basically a blue wedge with a gray triangle attached to it.
Not the prettiest but it got the job done.
Designed to crew six but could be run by two or three, I’d modified mine so it only needed one crewer. Me.
There were three decent sized crates stacked outside the Wind’s closed ramp.
“Crap,” I said and the girl looked up at me, worried. I gave her shoulder a squeeze to let her know it was nothing to worry about.
I’d forgotten that I’d agreed to deliver some cargo for Tesk Un Lil.
This complicated things.
I led the girl to the side of the ship and keyed my code into the plate. The door slid up into the hull and I gave her a slight nudge to enter. There wasn’t much reluctance, for some reason the girl seemed to trust me.
First time for anything I guess.
I paused as I stepped up into the opening, giving the hanger one last look. Nothing caught my attention. No one paid any attention to us and I couldn’t feel any eyes on us.
Time to get some answers, I thought as the door closed behind me.
*****
The girl was starving. I le
d her to the galley which was on the lower level and handed her some food. She tore into it.
“Stay here,” I said and she nodded.
I had to do something about Lil’s cargo. If I took it onboard, I’d have to deliver it. A hauler that didn’t deliver wasn’t one that got jobs again. But if I left it out there and canceled my contract with Lil, I’d have the same issue. Chances of finding work, especially with the Kry, would be difficult. My options were already limited, I couldn’t afford to limit them more.
Moving into my ship’s small cargo hold, I grabbed the maglifter from where it was stowed against the wall and took it to the back. Hitting the controls the ramp lowered. I tensed, watching as more of the hanger was revealed, expecting to see Tiat or Pierd Security Forces standing there just waiting for me. But there was no one there.
Anyone watching would just see a hauler loading cargo but it was an act. I was wired, tense. It had been years since I had been in a situation like this. My life wasn’t much, but it was my life and it was relatively peaceful. I had left war behind and thought I had left this kind of thing as well.
Pushing the maglifter down the ramp, my eyes searched the hanger. Nothing had changed. It had only been a couple minutes but that could be a lifetime to a trained professional.
I paused once the crate was on the maglifter.
What was I doing?
I hadn’t stopped once the girl had bumped into me. Just running on instinct. The Tiat were chasing her, she was a young girl. Was that really all I needed to know?
No. I needed the story.
But would that change anything?
Without thinking I had agreed to help this girl. Why? There was no way I was leaving her alone now. I was taking a huge risk. This could put me on the Tiat’s list and I had worked long and hard to stay off that.
My record from my time in the Earth Expeditionary Forces was under lock and key. If the Tiat knew about some of my black ops missions, I would have been on their radar no matter what. That was part of the reason why I mostly operated out in Deep Space and not the Core where the Tiat’s influence was greater.
I didn’t regret anything I had done. It was war. Was it right? Not all of it.
Look through the history books, us humans really aren’t that much better than the Tiat. Even our recent history, the last thirty to forty years since we got out to space, has not been that good. Humans get space travel and find a galaxy filled with inhabited worlds. What do you think happened?
But I’m human and between us and the Tiat? I’ll take us.
It still didn’t explain why I had instantly chosen to help the girl. I had friends that were Thesan. They had been our first allies when we got into space. I’d fought alongside them. But that wasn’t enough.
What was I doing?
Sighing, knowing there probably wasn’t an answer, I pushed the maglifter up the ramp. The Wind’s hold was empty, so just stored the crate against the wall and maglocked it down. Didn’t take long to finish loading the other two.
The Wind was longer than it was wide, so the hold was shaped that way. Seeing the three crates lined up on one side and the rest of the space with nothing, that just made it seem emptier if that was possible.
I needed more jobs, bigger and better. I was just getting by. Thankfully I didn’t have a crew that I had to worry about paying.
One last look out the hanger and I closed the ramp, setting the security locks. Checking my chrono, I still had an hour before my scheduled launch time.
Hopefully the girl was full because it was question and answer time.
*****
She was right where I had left her, kind of.
She was no longer eating, the plates and stuff still on the table, but she was in the galley. The girl was curled up on the one chair in the room.
The galley was a long room on one side of the front half of the lower level, a spiral stair in the corner. Going up the stairs you came to a small hall that led to the bridge and turning down the bunk corridor that ended in engineering. On this level, the hold took up most of the space with the galley and next to it the lounge. Simple and straightforward design. Like I said, the Castellans are not the most original shipbuilders out there. What they are known for is efficiently operating ships that rarely break down and are tough as rock.
I’d had the Nomad’s Wind for almost five years and she had never let me down.
Cabinets and shelves lined one wall of the galley, with the door to the lounge in the middle, the appliances and more shelves on the other. A long table took up the middle of the space with one cushioned chair in the corner, opposite the stair, bolted to the floor. The chairs for the table were attached to sliders on the floor, so they could move but were essentially locked in. There wasn’t too much loose furniture anywhere on the ship. Things tended to slide while the ship was moving.
The Thesan was looking at me, legs pulled up to her chest with arms around them. She was still frightened, but more than that she looked tired. I pulled out one of the chairs at the table, hitting the button under the seat that would unlock the slider. I hit another button and swiveled the chair around. Taking the seat I studied her as she studied me.
“Hi,” I said. It sounded dumb but I didn’t know where else to start.
I never really liked kids. Never had much to do with them. I had been too busy being a soldier to think about kids and once I got out, this life was no place for a kid.
She didn’t reply back, just kept looking at me with those bright eyes.
“My name is Arek. What’s yours?”
Nothing.
It wasn’t a blank stare. She could understand me. She just didn’t want to talk. Or maybe she couldn’t?
I leaned forward in the chair.
“Look, you ran into me and needed help, so I helped. But now I need to know more,” I tried to keep my voice even, calm and soothing. This is something that I had no training for. “I can’t help you unless you talk to me.”
She lowered her legs and held her hands out in front. Her fingers started dancing, moving quickly in patterns and shapes. It wasn’t random. She was forming specific shapes. She was trying to speak.
Sign language. Great.
“Hold on,” I said leaning back. “I don’t know what all that means.”
So she couldn’t talk. That would make this much more difficult.
“We’ll start simple okay?”
The girl nodded.
“We can get into why the Tiat want you later, but for now you want to avoid them?”
A nod.
“Did they take you from your family?”
A nod and a sadness crept into her eyes. She was trying to be strong, to keep it out but it wasn’t happening, it was too painful. I gave her a minute to compose herself.
“Is your family here on the asteroid?”
A shake of the head. No. I had a follow up, asking about the fate of her family, but figured that one could wait.
“Is there anyone here that you could go to? Friends? Other Thesans?”
Another shake.
What to do with her? I sure as hell couldn’t leave her here. Not with the Tiat. Even without the Tiat, I couldn’t leave a young girl alone on a rock like this.
The chrono on my wristcomm beeped. Time to start the preflight as my designated departure was almost here.
I guess I was stuck with her for now.
“You can come with me,” I said. “For now. I have to go to Dynuit to drop off cargo and we’ll figure out what to do with you there. Okay?”
The girl moved quick. She was out of the chair and had her arms wrapped around me pretty damn fast. Quicker then I had thought she would move. I had to remember, she was a young girl, but she was still a Thesan with everything that meant.
I pushed her away and stood up. She was smiling as she sat back down.
“I need to go get the ship ready for the flight. It’s a long trip so we’ll have plenty of time to talk then.”
Her eye
s followed me as I moved to the stair. Metal steps, grated, with a tight radius. I looked at the girl looking at me as I walked up then, trying to give her a reassuring smile. She quickly disappeared from view as my head passed the room’s ceiling. I stepped out onto the upper level corridor wondering how I’d manage to communicate with her.
I needed answers.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Acknowledged control,” I said into the communications headset I now wore. “Have a good one.”
I clicked off the connection to CU145792 Dock Control and concentrated on flying the Wind. I lifted off the dock floor, using the thrusters mounted underneath. The ship shook a little and I heard the Thesan girl walk into the bridge. I had left the door open so if she came up from the galley she could find me easily. She took a seat in the co-pilots station and looked out the view window at the magbarrier and stars beyond.
I loved looking at the field of stars. Bright white dots on a black background. Each one with so much possibility and mystery. Some I had been to and some that no one had ever been to in the entire history of the galaxy. It’s crazy to think of. The galaxy is huge and it’s just one of an infinite number of galaxies. Only like a tenth of this one had been explored so far. So many inhabited and uninhabited worlds. So much to discover.
So much to be afraid of.
I adjusted the controls and flew the ship into the middle of the hanger, following the lights and lines painted on the metal floor. There really wasn’t much I needed to do, just some fine tuning, as the asteroids guidance system kept the ship on the right path. There was a time when landing in docks like this was all manual, but nowadays every place was automated; even backwater rocks like this one. It was rare to find a dock that wasn’t. Unless you were a fighter jock, flying a starship wasn’t that difficult.