The Kenval Incident

by Philippe Mercurio

  At that, she made for the cockpit, followed by the red and black giant. Her voice trailed off as she moved away. “Jazz, send the undocking request. We’re leaving for Kenval. I’ll take care of replacing the regulator.”

  Sitting at the Sirgan’s controls, Mallory made a few minor course corrections. Sounding like the heart of an oversized animal, the muffled rumble of the reactor gave rhythm to the passengers’ days. The vessel's slender hull slid like a bullet through the void between the stars, leaving the solar system behind. In contrast to heavy cargo vessels only designed for spatial navigation, a transport benefited from excellent aerodynamics. It had to be able to fly in atmosphere, load goods from the ground, and carry it light years away in one go.

  The prospect of a long trip in a small ship didn’t bother Mallory, especially since she was traveling in her own home. She had expected Laorcq to pace like a lion in a cage. On the contrary, he remained unflappable and only left his cabin to exercise barehanded with the combat android.

  Guessing that the scarred man occupied his captain’s thoughts, the Natural Intelligence spoke up. “Our guest surprises me. Since our departure from Pluto, he’s been studying the on-board library assiduously. I find that strange for a person who thinks with his weapon.”

  “Rather, yes!” acquiesced Mallory. “I would have thought him limited to beer-can labels.” Her curiosity piqued by these contradictions, she decided to play her passenger’s game. Before he began a new training sequence, she joined him in the hold, standing between him and the metallic instructor. “It’s easy to beat a robot,” she said. “But faced with a living opponent, things can get complicated…”

  “Don’t worry about me. In my job, I’ve had the opportunity to hit some very aggressive adversaries.”

  “Exactly—I’m concerned it’s been too much for you. You’re no spring chicken.”

  A loud laugh shook Laorcq. “Okay, enough acting. Are you gonna show me how old I am?” He moved two steps back and held out his hand to indicate that she should face him. “Please, let’s go.”

  Despite his obvious amusement, he faced her seriously. They sized each other up carefully at first; then, with increasing confidence, they began to incorporate moves from multiple disciplines. Facing a powerful hand-to-hand fighter, Mallory used a mix of boxing and martial arts.

  Drenched with sweat, each was determined to win, with flexibility compensating for size on one hand, experience for less energy on the other. Admiring the spectacle, Torg applauded good combinations with a grunt and grew restless when his captain had to give ground.

  After exploiting an overly optimistic attack, Laorcq stepped behind Mallory and grabbed her just under her shoulders. In despair, she bit down on her adversary’s left arm. She took advantage of his surprise to deliver a blow to his throat. With his breath briefly cut off, he loosened his grip, which allowed her to break his hold. Laorcq was attacking again when they were interrupted by the sound of an alarm.

  “Captain,” Jazz said over the on-board loudspeakers, “we’re being followed. A frigate without an ID signal is slowly gaining on us.”

  The combatants and Torg turned and ran to the pilot’s console. On one of the screens, a shadow concealed part of the starry background. Numbers streamed along the perimeter of the display, varying according to the pursuer’s course corrections.

  After having examined them, Mallory spoke to the Natural Intelligence. “Jazz, calculate how long it will take for him to catch us. And check to see if we can give ourselves a little boost.”

  Several seconds passed while Jazz ran his simulations. Finally, the response came. “At this rate, twelve hours maximum. The margin of acceleration is weak, if not nonexistent.”

  “The Sirgan can’t shake him?” Laorcq asked, disappointed.

  Without looking at him, fingers tapping at the controls, Mallory retorted in an acid tone, “Is my ship’s performance not suitable for monsieur? What a shame! Monsieur should have chosen a better taxi service!”

  She continued more calmly. “We’re not going to speed up, because we have to reach Kenval. Unlike our friends outside, who seem ready to burn all of their fuel to catch us. And given that we leave mayhem behind wherever we go, turning back is not an option.”

  “We can’t make it to our destination by relying on the synergetic system?”

  Although he didn’t have a professional’s eye, Laorcq had noticed the transport ship’s configuration. It was much wider than it was tall, and its profile was all length. Its hull, composed of multiple facets of uniform, matte-black armor, resembled the point of a lance. Wings emerged from the prow and ran along three-quarters of the vessel, widening toward the back before narrowing again to meet up with the stern. The synergetic system, formed from a large tube of nanocarbon, crossed it lengthwise.

  Thanks to this drive, the ship moved through the void astride the energy waves emitted by the stars. This virtually inexhaustible source of power served as both wind and sail. Steering was accomplished by simple reactors whose jets at either end of the Sirgan enabled takeoff and course correction.

  Mallory took a second to reply to her passenger. “No! The likelihood that a flight in a perfectly straight line would lead us to our destination is one in a thousand.”

  Being peppered with suggestions from a novice annoyed her to no end. He should know that distracting the captain of a transport ship in action was not a good idea. To her relief, he seemed to realize he was in unfamiliar terrain. He fell silent and let her work.

  Still a respectable distance apart, the two ships began a strange ballet. Each tried to alter its trajectory at the least predictable moment. The pursuer sought contact, while the Sirgan strove for distance. This little game went on for ten hours, putting Mallory’s and her passenger’s nerves to the test. They had to face facts: the attacker had evaluated its prey well. A collision was inevitable…

  The shock was terrible despite the negligible difference in the two vessels’ speed. The on-board alarms screamed in unison and the lighting turned red. In preparation for the collision, everyone was belted into their seats, but this precaution didn’t save them from being thrown about.

  Electromagnetic grappling hooks attached to the hull like leeches, their impacts reverberating with a sinister echo. Thanks to the transport ship’s exterior cameras, the Sirgan’s crew could see the frigate. Massive and bearing the scars of multiple repairs, it resembled an obese predator.

  An opening appeared on the hull, from which a trio of men wearing spacesuits emerged. The heavily equipped assailants advanced cautiously.

  Once the first of them became clearly visible on the screen, Laorcq drew Mallory’s attention with a tap on the shoulder. “Open the airlock! Hurry!”

  “Are you crazy?” she cried. “Should I also prepare a snack for them? And why…”

  “Calm down and look at this,” he interrupted, designating the intruders’ guns with a finger. “With that caliber weapon, if you don’t let them in and make them think we’ve surrendered, they’ll blow open the door. We won’t be able to maintain pressurization.”

  “As a result, even if we get rid of them, we’ll die before reaching our destination,” Mallory concluded while she activated the opening. “The only thing is, within three minutes, that big gun is going to be pointing straight at us.”

  “We can deal with that problem later. First of all, we’ll have to put Torg back into stasis.”

  “Don’t even think about it!” she exclaimed. “Putting him under at the exact moment when we need him the most?”

  In order to convince her, Laorcq quickly explained what he had in mind.

  “It’s a good idea,” Mallory conceded. “But that doesn’t mean I'm happy with it.”

  This response was taken as agreement, so Laorcq asked her to accompany him to his cabin. Once inside, he picked up the case hidden under the bunk and opened it. It contained four protective suit tubes, ready-to-use explosives, the pistol he had used on Pluto, and its twin.
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br />   VI

  MERCENARIES

  SODOYE, frigate captain and mercenary, was jubilant: the transport ship and its precious cargo were at his mercy. After the fiasco on Jupiter’s moon, his crew of ruffians needed a victory to raise morale. Their mission had been simple: go to Io and steal contraband merchandise before a transporter could load it.

  A piece of cake for former soldiers. That’s why the report from Clera, his right-hand man, had stuck in his throat. As their target was flying away, he had presented himself to Sodoye, tired, his face blackened with ash.

  “Boss, I don’t know what’s in that package, but we aren’t the only ones who want it. It feels like a job that’s been underestimated. We were out of our depth from the beginning. We were just about to corner the little cretin who’s responsible for the transfer, in a neighborhood in Mycenae. When we went to move on him, though, someone else nabbed him. A big guy with a scar on his temple. At that point, a chick and a cybrid showed up and talked to the intruder briefly before leaving. Two minutes later, the guy left too. Just in case, I sent Neix, Uzna, and La Rouze to follow him.”

  After punching a wall to relieve his anger, Clera had continued. “I didn’t even get to nose around in the apartment. Before I got to the building, smoke started pouring out. The work of a pro, I said to myself. It looked like trouble, so I decided to meet up with the others right quick. We tailed the tall guy with the messed-up face to the astroport. Then everything went to shit because of Uzna: he started firing at everything that moved. That moron must have been high again. He left me no choice: I put a bullet in his head and made it look like a suicide. You know the rest.”

  Helplessly, Sodoye had watched the Sirgan fly away, chafing the whole time it took to regroup with his men. Without the commotion generated by the fire, they would never have gotten off the volcanic world fast enough to catch the transport ship.

  Sighing, Sodoye turned his attention to the events in progress. In the end, he would get a ship in addition to the cargo, so he wasn’t going to complain.

  He examined the monitor to his right with bloodshot eyes. It showed a photo of Mallory Sajean. “Why not have some fun?” he asked himself, looking at the woman’s face.

  With cheeks eaten by rosacea and a prominent stomach, he didn’t look like a Don Juan. If the circumstances permitted, though, he would not hesitate to proceed without his partner’s consent when it came to sexual matters.

  With a flick at the display controls, he made the image of his future victim disappear and toggled Clera’s navcom line. Via the cameras and microphones worn by his men, he participated in the boarding from a safe distance. “How’s it look?” he asked.

  “Piece of cake so far,” replied Clera. “Luck is on our side: the cybrid is in stasis! The awakening procedure was running, but I stopped it.”

  Hiding in the cockpit, Mallory felt her heart pounding and a ball of fear congealing in her stomach. A series of images floated in front of her, showing different sections of the Sirgan. Guns in their hands, the pirates stalked cautiously down the transport’s main corridor.

  At the pilot’s request, Jazz had cut the lights to slow their progression. Separated by zones of shadow, the emergency lighting still provided a faint glow: The Natural Intelligence hadn’t had time to deactivate them before the intruders boarded.

  Mallory observed the three heavily armed and sinister-looking men who were moving down the main corridor. They advanced in formation, keeping a lookout in every direction through their wide-open spacesuit visors.

  On the video stream, Mallory saw a blue silhouette appear: Laorcq. He opened fire, taking the assailants by surprise.

  His first shot perforated one of the pirate’s temples, blowing away half his face. The next bullet caught one of the other men in the stomach. He folded in half, out of commission.

  As quick as a snake, the survivor turned and fired his own large gun. The result was incontrovertible: thrown back against a wall, Laorcq collapsed.

  Seeing this sad sight, Mallory let herself fall back into her seat. “I never should have listened to Laorcq!”

  Wearing a bulletproof suit, as effective as it was, felt like cold comfort to her at the moment. In her hand, the gun the scarred man had given her seemed unfamiliar.

  Don’t worry, he had said to her. If you’re hit, the impact will be cushioned and distributed across your entire body. At worst, you’ll lose consciousness. If you don’t, pretend you have. We absolutely have to get them to bring us onto their ship.

  The image of the corridor brought her back to the present: indifferent to his companions’ fate, the last pirate was hurrying toward the cockpit.

  Mallory sprang out of her seat and prepared to welcome him.

  Bursting into the cabin, he found himself facing her. She fired, hoping to hit him in the head. The bullet lodged instead in her target’s shoulder. By reflex, the assailant fired off a barrage that knocked her down immediately.

  Not too bad for a first try, she had the time to think to herself before the multiple impacts that hit her combat suit knocked the wind out of her.

  On the frigate’s bridge, Sodoye took stock. Having two wounded and one dead crew member annoyed him; however, the cargo was in his hands and the contract was almost fulfilled.

  If he added the Sirgan and the cybrid as loot, the balance sheet looked excellent.

  His mood darkened the moment he donned his spacesuit. He hated going out into open space: the void was an ideal environment for reminding him of his own insignificance.

  While he ran a docking line between the two vessels, he thought about what he was going to do to this kid, this so-called “pilot.” Once the pressure between the two ships had equilibrated, he floated over to the transport ship. His priority was to restrain Laorcq and Mallory using cables. He could then turn his attention to his damaged foot soldiers.

  Meanwhile, Jazz harangued him. “Hey, asshole! You don’t know who you’re dealing with! If you touch one hair on my captain’s head, I’ll find you! The last rat hole in the galaxy won’t be far enough to hide!”

  Indifferently, Sodoye went to the pilot’s console. He methodically disconnected several consoles and control panels, without causing any apparent change. Seized by a sudden thought, he hurried to the propulsion cell at the other end of the ship. Once there, he disconnected several more pieces of equipment. The Natural Intelligence’s voice stopped abruptly.

  A bit later, the emergency lights went out and the gravity disappeared. With its complex machinery stopped, the Sirgan slept. Except for one detail: the numbers were streaming by again on the stasis chamber display. Without the mercenary’s knowledge, deactivating the ship had relaunched Torg’s awakening…

  Illuminated by the front light on his spacesuit, Sodoye transferred everyone from one ship to the other. He dragged his captives forcibly through the mooring tube, and, once inside the frigate, threw them into the hold. With about as much care, he deposited his men in the on-board infirmary. He breathed for several seconds, during the time it took to remember how to use the automed, a medical robot installed in each ship.

  Once he had the correct command in mind, he switched it on. “Complete diagnostic and recovery to eighty percent.”

  The robot hung from the ceiling between the bunks where the injured people were lying. The glowing cylinder suddenly transformed into a twenty-armed insect. Each appendage had a precise use: cleaning, extracting, injecting, suturing… The automed moved more and more quickly, so fast that it became impossible to follow it visually. Finally, the two men were patched up, bandaged, sedated, and on the road to recovery.

  With this chore taken care of, Sodoye closed the door to the medical cabin and walked with light steps toward the hold. It was time to meet his new guests.

  Mallory awoke in the frigate’s hold. She realized she couldn’t move, tied up and laid out flat on the floor, her face pressed against the wall. Her field of vision consisted of a steel plate and a row of big rivets. With the tips of
her fingers, she could touch another person’s body: Laorcq. He lay beside her, unconscious.

  At least he had been right: the pirates had done what he expected. Now, she had to keep it together and wait for Torg’s awakening…

  With a creak of sheet metal, the door to the hold swung open, and someone came in. A male voice declared, “Well then… Here’s a pretty flower. Let’s take a closer look.”

  She felt the man kneel next to her. Hands touched her body, exploring her. Paradoxically, her protective suit, so effective against weapons, was too thin to shield her from this sort of outrage. His violent groping overcame Mallory’s stoicism. “Let go, you pervert! Get your dirty hands off of me!”

  A fist closed around her arm, and a violent jerk pulled her around to face her torturer. “Be good and let Captain Sodoye do his thing, otherwise…”

  Mallory wasn’t keen to let herself be abused, but it became obvious that the pirate was taking great delight in her cries and her desperate contortions. What’s worse, this asshole talks about himself in the third person! A very bad sign.

  She watched Sodoye’s ruddy face while he pulled a metal tab with two sharp points out of his pocket.

  When he planted it in Mallory’s abdomen, she felt her muscles tense reflexively. She anticipated the feeling of steel penetrating her flesh and closed her eyes involuntarily. Surprised when she only felt a slight shock, she opened them in time to see her blue suit retracting into its tube. Now completely vulnerable, she felt panic rising. She had faced aggressors before, but she had always had a way to defend herself.

  Sodoye grabbed her hair and shook her head violently. “Sorry, I like to see what I’m touching!” he said, before breaking out in a greasy laugh.