The Kenval Incident

by Philippe Mercurio

  Absorbed in her work, Mallory let an hour elapse before informing their passenger of the upcoming stop. She found him in the galley. Despite the few quality ingredients on board, he had just cooked up an appetizing meal. She envied his ability.

  After sitting down across from him, she reached out to open a drawer and took out cutlery. Shamelessly, she began to pick through his plate.

  “You’re going to have the opportunity to make yourself useful,” she said to him between mouthfuls. “In its current condition, my ship can’t make the run to Kenval. We need supplies. Pluto is the only place where we can prepare for our trip. And we have a second problem: thanks to you and that piece of shit Lebrane, half the solar system is after us. I hope you know how we can land incognito.”

  Completely unfazed by Mallory’s behavior, Laorcq looked at her, smiling. He removed an object from his pocket and showed it to her: the component he had taken from his victim on Io. It looked like a black plastic cigarette case, one end of which contained a row of tiny connectors. She immediately realized it was a transponder, which served as both beacon and registration for spaceships.

  “By the most incredible chance, Lebrane recently acquired a ship exactly like yours, the Volvaix. Unfortunately, it was destroyed in an accident between Mercury and Venus. Our friend was so busy he forgot to inform the authorities.”

  Laorcq handed her the electronic ID. “Here’s what’s left. I’m sure you’ll make good use of it.”

  The Sirgan, or, heretofore, the Volvaix, completed its entry into orbit around Pluto. In the center of the navigation screens, the dwarf planet glowed with artificial light. The incessant ballet of arriving and departing ships was etched onto its luminous halo, proof of the intense activity prevailing there. Squeezed tightly together, the protective domes hid the surface of the little planetoid.

  With regret, Mallory made do with the co-pilot’s chair. She had given hers to Laorcq. Torg stood behind him, ready to wring his neck if the welcome was not what they were expecting. An indicator light on the control panel turned red, alerting them that the transponder had been queried. Jazz pointed out the incoming call from the inspectors.

  “Open a channel and make sure only Laorcq is in frame,” ordered Mallory. She turned to her passenger. “You know what’s waiting for you if this goes south, so put on a nice little performance for us.”

  A man appeared on the screen, bundled up in a uniform that looked like a straitjacket. “Pluto customs to approaching ship, confirm your identity, freight, and reason for your visit.”

  “Transport ship Volvaix, hauling type 1 cargo, destination Kenval. Stopping for maintenance and supplies,” said Laorcq.

  The bureaucrat ostentatiously checked the incoming data feed, then looked back at Laorcq’s image. “Received. You may dock in bay E315.” Imbued with his authority, the pencil pusher cut the connection without another word.

  Despite the circumstances, Mallory chuckled. “Type 1 cargo? You think anyone’s going to believe we’re transporting paintings and sculptures?” she said mockingly.

  Laorcq shrugged. “In my experience, big lies establish credibility.”

  Once the ship had docked and linked to the recycling network, Jazz launched all of the available inspection programs. As expected, a number of parts needed to be replaced or refurbished, but they could all be acquired easily—with one exception.

  “Shit!” swore Mallory, morale in free-fall. “The propulsion regulator is practically dead. I could have held out for two or three months on short trips, but we can’t fly to Kenval like this. That part costs a fortune, and it’s going to be really hard to find just the right model.”

  For once, it was Laorcq who looked at her suspiciously. “Are you kidding? The Sirgan is a mass-produced transport ship. On Pluto, you can get this kind of equipment more easily than drinkable cognac.”

  “Oh yeah? That’s true. Except that our original synergetic system has been removed and replaced by a better one.”

  “I see. Can you tell me which one we’re running?”

  “Well… it’s a Witchead 156.”

  “A 156? You’re flying with an antique? What were you thinking when you installed such an old part on your ship?”

  “My ship had already been modified when I inherited it. And the reactor in question dates from before the power restrictions for atmospheric and intra-solar travel. That completely justifies its installation from my point of view.”

  “Fantastic,” lamented Laorcq. “So we just have to find a rare part in a place filled with paper-pushing obsessives and dishonest traders.”

  It took thirty-six hours to receive a proposal matching the request they posted on the network. At least the other maintenance operations had been taken care of during the delay.

  To complicate things further, the seller refused to come to them. Leaving Torg to watch over Lebrane’s cargo, Mallory and Laorcq took the underground transport. It was crawling with people since it was the middle of a shift change. Lacking decoration or even seats, the cars were merely functional. The goal was to move maximum people at a minimum expense.

  Near them, a group of soldiers were jeering noisily. Mallory observed them. Rank and file soldiers, young and arrogant. To her surprise, they fell quiet suddenly and became more restrained. One of them even started to stand to attention.

  Following their eyes, she turned toward Laorcq. He stared at the soldiers, standing straight as an I, his gray eyes full of contempt.

  Highly intrigued, she asked him, “You want to explain what just happened?”

  Taken by surprise, Laorcq mumbled, “Nothing. I was in the army… before.”

  She digested this information and wondered what it implied: given his age, if he had really been military, he might have heard something. After all, it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

  “Do you know anything about the Eridane-E affair? It was twenty years ago, but maybe you remember. Officially, a group of deserters destroyed a civilian station in that system.”

  Laorcq reacted as if her question had prompted an epiphany. “Of course, I should have figured it out sooner! You’re Lt. Kyle Sajean’s daughter!” he exclaimed. “You were too young at the time to remember, but that event caused a scandal.”

  “Why?” asked Mallory, suspecting the worst.

  “Rumors flew about the attack. Some accused corrupt politicians of having ordered it. The destruction of Dorval Station prolonged the conflict by several years: it was located in Orcant territory and sheltered several non-human embassies.”

  Pounding in the final nail, he added, “At the time, the war gave the government an excuse to do whatever they wanted. No one was surprised that some of the politicians were ready to do anything necessary to maintain the state of emergency.”

  Mallory looked at Laorcq as if he were speaking another language. “So my father was sacrificed so that a bunch of political nobodies could hold onto power?”

  “That sums up the situation well, I must admit.”

  Mallory led the way as they returned to the surface with relief and arrived at the address provided by the merchant. Dumbstruck, she and Laorcq discovered an abandoned building. All that remained was a skeletal structure. For unknown reasons, construction had been abruptly halted and forgotten. Enormous blocks of concrete and rusted steel beams sprang from the ground, frozen in a desperate attempt to reach the sky.

  At the heart of the cement skeleton, occupying the equivalent of three floors, lay the wreck of a small cargo ship. It was a simple and effective method for converting the stillborn building. A twisted sign, negligently laid against the carcass transformed into a hangar, read: Zepusch, spare parts.

  In a dangerous mood following Laorcq’s nonchalant comments, Mallory pounded on the entrance. The door had been grafted onto the old ship and sloppily welded into place. In response to the hammering, someone came to the door. He looked like a stereotypical tough guy, with exaggerated features, including a jutting lower jaw, a low forehead, the build of a piano m
over, and hands like boards. The kind of guy whose genetic heritage announced loud and clear: I don’t think much, but I can do a lot of damage.

  He asked dryly, “Whaddya want?”

  “You have parts for a Witchead, right?” replied Mallory, thoroughly unintimidated.

  “Ah… Okay. Come in.”

  Although she complied, she wondered what kind of hornets’ nest she had stumbled into this time.

  She and Laorcq entered and found an interior that fulfilled the promise of the exterior. Piled up in enormous steel crates, dusty machines waited for better days. Oil stains and other unidentifiable substances formed a viscous patchwork on the ground. A prefab structure lay in shadow in the back, serving as an office.

  In front of it sat a fat old man, bald on top but with long hair hanging down his back. In his hand he held a sheet of newspaper rolled into a cone, in which he was digging for small, greasy, pink donuts and subsequently eating them with gusto.

  “Zep, the clients with the dead Witchead are here,” bawled the tough guy with the thick jaw.

  “Perfect!” exclaimed the fat man in a thin voice. “Come take a look at what I’ve got; it’s practically new.”

  He temporarily abandoned his snack and pointed with a greasy finger at a small crate sitting next to the office. Hiding her disgust, Mallory stepped up to the part and leaned down to examine the contents.

  With exasperation, she realized that Tubby and his gorilla were taking the opportunity to inspect her anatomy.

  From the corner of her eye, she noticed that even Laorcq was distracted for a moment. She glanced at him coldly, hoping he would get himself under control. In the meantime, from her lower vantage point, she could now see that both scrap merchants wore weapons hidden under their clothes.

  This shopping trip could degenerate quickly. She felt a cold shiver run down her spine. If these two half-wits decided to screw them over, she had a very bad feeling about the way Laorcq would react.

  Tense, she took off her bracelet and connected it to the regulator. The strap contained a standard connector, which allowed Jazz to carry out a series of tests from the Sirgan. Once she received a positive report from the Natural Intelligence, she stood and faced Zepusch. “OK. I’m interested. What’s your price?”

  Swallowing the handful of pinkish fried crumbs in his mouth, he replied, “A hundred thousand.”

  “Are you joking?” cried Mallory, despite her uneasy feelings. “The list price is around forty or fifty thousand, tops! We’re not tourists!”

  “And yet, you don’t seem to know where you are… If, by some miracle, you found a second such part on Pluto, the price would be just as high. Take it or leave it, my dear.”

  The situation deteriorated at that precise moment. In a fit of greed, the fat scrap merchant nudged his jacket aside to show his weapon: he hoped in this way to force the sale. For Mallory’s part, comprehension mixed with a shot of adrenaline, and she froze.

  She decided he was old and fat, and therefore slow, but not slow enough for her to be able to tackle him before he drew.

  Taking advantage of her distraction, the other creep moved closer to her. He seemed certain that Laorcq wouldn’t dare to move as long as she was at the mercy of his partner in crime.

  As she feared, he was mistaken. Laorcq slid his hand quickly along his back and pulled out a small gun. He dropped the tough guy with a shot to the neck. The top of the thug’s head and his brains spilled out onto the floor.

  Mallory instinctively took cover. She dove behind a rusty reactor, barely avoiding a bullet. The fat man was firing blindly from the office where he had taken shelter. She saw that Laorcq was wearing his blue suit again and was ignoring the fact that he was a target. He pointed his revolver a second time, aimed consciously, and emptied the clip. When Zepusch died, he collapsed, making the cabin shake.

  V

  BOARDING

  STILL unnerved by the idea that she could have been shot, but with murderous anger in her eyes, Mallory left her shelter. Covered with long, sharp thorns, her tattoos seemed to spring out of her flesh. She zeroed in on Laorcq.

  As his combat skin retracted, he anticipated her protests. “You can have a nervous breakdown later. We have to leave immediately. With all of the gunfire, someone in the area will definitely call the police.”

  He took off his jacket and put it down on a crate. He handed the young woman a steel tube, about eight inches long and an inch around—an exact replica of the one attached to his thigh. Without waiting for Mallory’s agreement, he showed her how to use it. “Strap this to your thigh and squeeze it sharply with your hand. A suit like mine will cover you.”

  Accompanying his words with action, he reactivated his suit. As soon as it covered his body, he put the piece of clothing he had just removed back on, attenuating his monochrome appearance. “It’s better to sacrifice a bit of discretion in exchange for an advantage if the cops nab us,” he explained.

  Mallory complied silently. The game was now being played on Laorcq’s terms. She felt that the situation had gotten away from her completely.

  The protective suit adjusted perfectly to her morphology. The blue film covered her whole body, but she had to look at her fingers to see it.

  Following the example of the gray-eyed, scarred man, she put her wine-colored leather jacket on over the suit: it would fool a distant observer. In the street, police sirens were already wailing: the shootout had not gone unnoticed.

  They used an exit at the back of the old cargo ship to flee and moved away quickly, taking the darkest and least traveled alleys they could find. In order to fit through the narrow passages, they each carried the propulsion regulator with one hand. It being rather heavy, the continuous effort gave Mallory the impression that her right arm was on fire.

  Once safe, Laorcq led her between two buildings and stopped. They couldn’t be seen from above because the space was filled with metallic fire escapes. Massaging her aching arms, she welcomed the break with relief. He showed her how to remove the indigo-blue suit.

  Picking up their spoils again, he added, “We’re far enough away. It’s best now to lose ourselves in the crowd.”

  She used her navcom to find the shortest way back to the Sirgan’s dock. Sooner or later, the police would discover the record of her communications with Zepusch. They had to leave Pluto right away.

  The return trip to the docks was not easy. They crossed through teeming neighborhoods. Itinerant merchants occupied the sidewalks, using up every square inch of space. Mallory and Laorcq changed their route frequently to avoid the crowds on the main streets. With each detour, she worried: would someone think of looking through the scrap merchants’ e-mail? And if so, how much time would it take to trace it back to her ship’s network connection?

  She finally relaxed when she discerned the familiar shape of her transport ship.

  Imperturbable, Laorcq looked as serene as if he were returning from a short walk. “I wonder… Is it possible to replace the regulator during flight?”

  Her turbulent expression speaking for her, Mallory remained silent. Once inside the Sirgan, she was relieved to find Torg on the other side of the airtight doors. Indulging his protective instinct, he hugged her to him and cuddled her like an infant.

  Reassured, but a bit embarrassed by all the affection, she found an excuse to gently push the cybrid away. “Grab him!” she ordered, pointing at the large scarred man while he was emerging from the airlock.

  As if Laorcq’s more than two hundred pounds of muscle did not exist, the furred giant seized his wrists and lifted him off the ground.

  “You idiot!” spit Mallory. “I won’t work with anyone with an itchy trigger finger! I’ve been subjected to forced sale attempts more than once! I’ve never massacred the salesman to get out of it. We’ll take this trip to Kenval without you!” Addressing her bodyguard next, she suggested, “Torg, could you pull on his arms a bit?”

  He followed the order with pleasure, but threats and demonstr
ations of force had no noticeable effect. Laorcq seemed to be in some pain, but he maintained his composure.

  “I’m not going to let two little crooks get in my way when I have a job to do. And if, in the process, I have to dispose of a whole squad of cheats cut from the same cloth as Zepusch, that’s a bonus.”

  “Crooks? Cheats? Coming from a blackmailer’s lackey, that sounds pretty phony,” Mallory remarked.

  She could see Laorcq wasn’t the slightest bit intimidated by her or even by Torg. She was about to threaten him again, but he suddenly let out a long sigh.

  “Okay, I’m getting tired of this game now. Let’s clear things up, Mallory. Don’t you get it? I don’t work for Lebrane! I got rid of his flunky on Io and took his place.”

  “What? You’re not with him?” she exclaimed, exasperated to be dealing with yet another liar. “Because of you, I could lose my ship and go to prison! Why did you get mixed up in my business?”

  “You’ll never know if your cybrid rips my arms off. I’m asking you to make sure I arrive at Kenval safe and sound, and, if all goes well, that I return in the same condition. In exchange, I’ll take care of Lebrane for you.”

  The two of them stared at each other.

  Mallory worried. How could she know if he would keep his word? At least, given his method for resolving problems and his general demeanor, she was sure he hadn’t lied when he said he used to be a soldier. Well, shit! she swore to herself. In any case, alone, she’d never get anywhere.

  Once she had weighed the pros and cons, she gave in. “Fine, but I don’t believe you’re going to help me. It’s more likely that you’ll make my situation worse.” Then, to Torg, “It’s okay, you can let him go.”

  He released his hold all at once, letting Laorcq fall to the ground. Instead of being offended by this mistreatment, he just stood and wiggled his bruised shoulders.

  When he rose, Mallory pointed her index finger straight at his nose. “One last thing,” she added. “The next time you do something suspicious, I’ll drop you where you stand. I’ll take my chances explaining myself to the police. I’ll give them the on-board videos of you! They will certainly appreciate your one-man-show on Io, I’m sure…”