Free Trader Complete Omnibus

by Craig Martelle

She swung at the vine and chopped deeply into it. The leaves slapped the blade in a frenzy. She pulled it back. The Old Tech blade was unscratched. She hacked into the vine until it started spewing red juice that looked too much like blood. She backed up as it sprayed toward her.

  “That’s enough of that.” Braden pulled his blaster, changed the setting to wide and depressed the trigger. When the flame hit the vines, they jumped and flew about like a tree in a storm. The vines pummeled the catwalk, shaking the companions off their feet. They crawled backwards, trying to get away.

  They got to their feet and ran. Skirill flew like one possessed. Aadi struggled to move quickly. A vine slapped against him, leaving an ugly scratch down the armor over his shell. The metal leaves cut Skirill’s harness from the Tortoid, and it fell over the catwalk to the floor below. Braden and Micah dropped to a knee and dialed narrow beams. They fired into the vines in short bursts, cutting through the thick vine trunks. The beams reflected from the metallic leaves that whipped about, futilely attempting to protect the trunks.

  Their blaster beams cut one, then another and another of the vines. The top sections hung, the blood-like juice running freely. The bottom parts of the vine fell away from the catwalk, crashing into and through a number of the terminals in the engineering section. Sparks flew. The smell of ozone filled the air. Silence returned. They shined their flashlights on the carnage.

  Both their neural implants buzzed.

  ‘What?’ Braden asked angrily.

  ‘What just happened? A number of systems have gone critical.’

  ‘That vine acted like it was alive! When I hit it with blaster fire, it went nuts, tried to kill us. It needed to die.’

  ‘I understand,’ Holly said calmly. ‘Next time, please take care not to destroy the systems you need to keep you alive.’

  “I’m not sure how I feel about that,” Braden said to Micah. “We’ve been here no time at all and we’ve already tried to destroy the ship.”

  “More like the ship tried to destroy us. Then again, it didn’t bother us until we went after it. I can’t blame it,” Micah answered.

  “So, we take more care then?” Braden offered. She nodded. It was a prudent course of action. She was already certain that she didn’t want to spend one more heartbeat on the Traveler than she absolutely had to.

  Skirill flew past them to the lower deck. He stayed away from the vines as he looked for the harness he used to ride Aadi. It was underneath a dying vine, swamped in a growing puddle of the vine’s juices.

  This is going to be a long trip, the Hawkoid thought.

  12 – The Corridor

  They stood on the catwalk with the door before them. Micah readied her blaster as Braden waved his bracelet near the left-side pad. G-War crouched low as the door slid open.

  An emergency light flashed somewhere ahead. The wide corridor was filled with debris, but no vines. Nothing moved; nothing appeared alive. G-War nodded and stalked through the door, jumping to the side once in. He stayed in the shadows and watched.

  Aadi floated in the middle of the doorway, Skirill holding a rope tied hastily around the Tortoid’s shell. The new scratch in his armor provided a notch that kept the rope from slipping.

  The lights flashed and they saw the corridor in snippets, like watching during a thunderstorm.

  Braden walked forward, staying close to the side of the corridor. Micah followed him in, moving to the other side. Once Aadi and Skirill were through, the door closed. They had to watch out for Aadi and keep him close. He no longer had his access bracelet. The killer vines had seen to that.

  Micah leaned down as Braden carefully walked ahead, holding his blaster at the ready, G-War at his side, walking as a ‘cat does on a sunny day in the middle of nowhere. This helped Micah relax.

  She looked at a box, burst open on the floor. They looked like repair parts for a Bot or an Old Tech system. Holly had tried for the past moon to teach them what they needed for the ship, but she didn’t care what any of it was called. She only wanted to know what was dangerous and what wasn’t.

  She opened her neural implant window. ‘Holly? We’re in the corridor and the floor is littered with stuff. I’d say someone dropped what they were carrying and ran off.’

  ‘These look like repair parts for small motorized systems, like actuators. Over there I see electrical components. But these look like storage boxes. If a technician were going to repair something, they’d bring just the parts they needed, not the whole box. Maybe a group of people raided a storage room and then were stopped by the Security Unit at the end of the corridor.’

  “What Security Unit?” she asked out loud. Braden instantly crouched, darting glances into the shadows.

  ‘Behind you, beside the door. See that red dot? That’s the unit embedded in the bulkhead, the wall holding the door. You have bracelets. You’re safe.’ Braden continued to huddle behind a pile of metal plates. G-War sat in the middle of the corridor and looked at him.

  “We’re safe because of our bracelets and Aadi’s safe because he’s with us,” Micah said, pointing at the wall behind her. Braden squinted, then turned on his flashlight. The beam showed the Security Unit. It was labeled “Engineering Security.”

  ‘We need another access bracelet for Aadi. The vines destroyed his last one.’

  ‘With your bracelet, Master President, you will be able to fabricate one. At the end of this corridor, before you enter aft core Deck 10, you will find crew spaces. You can use a fabricator in there.’

  “Detour at the end of the corridor. Holly says we can use a fabricator to make another bracelet for Aadi.” Micah minimized her window and shoved it into the lower left corner of her vision.

  Braden expanded his neural implant window and accessed the ship’s map. He saw the way ahead clearly. Another one hundred and fifty meters along this corridor. Last door on the right. He minimized the window and moved forward.

  He’d never get used to the way Holly measured distance. He figured one stride was roughly one meter, and he gauged everything else from there. It was close enough for him, but Holly had an annoying tendency for precision.

  The corridor cleared further on, and that reinforced Holly’s impression of why the materials were strewn about.

  The red emergency lights continued to flash, but they adjusted and could see. Maybe those red lights should have been called flashlights? Braden thought.

  Once they passed the debris, they moved directly to the doors at the other end. There were two, one to the right and one straight ahead that gave them access to one of the great open levels of the ship. Braden turned his back to that door. They’d go through it soon enough. For now, they had to find the fabricator.

  13 – Crew Quarters

  Braden took one side of the door and Micah the other. G-War crouched low at the bottom. Aadi and Skirill waited behind Micah.

  With a wave of his arm, Braden opened the door. They were bathed in light as the door slid to the side.

  G-War hissed, his ears flat against his head. Braden could see nothing from his angle. Micah saw only walls and doors.

  ‘Humans, but different.’ G-War entered the door as if he were stalking prey. In front of them, three hallways led from a small common area. Doors stood at regular intervals along the hallways. According to Holly, each door led to a small room where one of the crew would have stayed during the ship’s voyage. The crew worked one year and then slept for one hundred. During their year, they stayed here. During the hundred years, they were frozen in individual cryo-chambers that made up the external hull of the ship. The cold of space minimized the power requirements as well as provided the honeycomb structure that enhanced the ship’s strength.

  In this section, there was eighty-four crew rooms, four common bathrooms, two dining rooms, and two recreation areas. The fabricator they wanted was in a recreation area.

  G-War froze five steps through the door. Braden stepped through, toe to heel, making no noise. Two humans rounded a corner and stopp
ed. The two groups stared at each other.

  “We’re no threat to you. I’m Free Trader Braden and we only want to use the fabricator. Can you show us where it is?” Braden used his most soothing voice, one hand raised to show calm and the other on the butt of his blaster.

  “Who you?” one gruff man shouted. “Jinner? How open?”

  The two appeared unarmed, but each had one foot back, fists in front of them. They stood ready to fight, although Braden had no intention of engaging them in hand to hand. Micah, though, had no such inhibitions.

  She stepped through the doorway and stood tall. She stared at them, chin raised. They were taller, but thin, almost sickly thin.

  “A wum. We take. You go.”

  ‘G, do you understand any of that?’ Braden asked.

  ‘They want Micah.’

  ‘Figures.’ Braden pulled out his blaster as Micah took one step closer to the two men. They stepped forward to grab her. She crouched, swinging a left hook into the first man’s jaw. She howled when she hit him as sparks flew from his face to her hand. He reached for her and she caught his hand. More sparks and pain.

  She let go and kneed him in the groin. No sparks and he dropped to the deck plate. The second man grabbed Micah’s upper arm, which was covered by her armor. No sparks. She swung at his face with her right fist and connected, but they both gasped in pain, the man from a broken nose and Micah from the electric shock. Braden jumped forward and kicked the second man in the chest. He flew backward and crashed into the wall. He crumpled into a heap. The first man whimpered on the floor, holding his man parts.

  “What the crap was that?” Micah asked, anger clouding her face. “Is nothing normal up here?”

  She rubbed her hands. There were surface scorch marks on each of them, but she wasn’t hurt. She had been in contact with the man for a fraction of a heartbeat. She wondered how these men generated personal lightning fields.

  One man got to his knees. She was in no mood to play. She pulled her blaster and pointed it at him. G-War moved close, his hair stood on end, more than normal that was. The scars on his sides kept his hair from ever lying down like it used to.

  “Stay down!” Braden shouted close to the man’s face. He stopped moving. The ‘cat moved away from the man and crouched by the wall. Aadi and Skirill finally entered and the door closed behind them. The man looked up, eyes going wide at the sight of the Tortoid. Skirill stretched his wings and leaned forward. The man bowed, tapping his head on the floor.

  “Great Eagle! No hurt me. No hurt me!” the man pleaded while his face remained pasted to the floor.

  “Well, Great Eagle, what do you think? Should we hurt him?” Braden asked. His dislike for this ship grew with each heartbeat. He needed the companions to keep him sane until they could go back to Vii, back home.

  ‘No. I don’t think we’ll need to hurt them,’ Skirill replied.

  “But what do we do with them?”

  ‘If I may, Master Braden.’ Aadi had an idea. ‘They don’t have bracelets. We simply put them in the hallway where they will be trapped until we return. If they go too close to the other end, the Security Unit will deal with them.’

  ‘It’ll keep them from collecting the others and attacking us in force,’ G-War added.

  “The others?” Micah asked.

  ‘Another twenty or so, but most of them are sleeping.’

  “Most… Out you go, into the corridor with you both.” Micah prodded the one man with her foot. He shook his head violently.

  “NO! No Jinners. Stay home! Home!” he cried. He curled into a sobbing ball, even putting his thumb in his mouth.

  Micah was angry. She grabbed his legs and dragged him to the door. He scratched at the floor, trying to stop himself. She waved her bracelet and the door opened. It also played a pleasant tone, and ended with a young woman’s voice. “Thank you for visiting, Mr. President.”

  Since the door was open, Micah dragged the man the rest of the way into the corridor, but he started fighting to get back into the crew quarters. She kicked him in the back, but he shook it off and continued fighting. She reached back for his legs, taking care not to touch any of his exposed skin, then pulled hard, lifting and twisting. The man came off the floor and swung until he smashed into the wall with a sickening thud. He collapsed on the floor. She went for the other man and bodily threw him into the corridor before coming back inside.

  The door shut behind her. Micah shrugged, then brushed herself off.

  “This way.” Braden headed smartly down a hallway lined with numbered doors. They reached an intersection. He turned right. More rooms. A door opened and a face appeared close to his. Without thinking he swung his fist, connecting hard on the man’s temple. The man went down in a shower of sparks. Braden gasped and pulled his hand back, looking at it. “That hurt!”

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t do that,” Micah advised. Braden kicked the unconscious man’s feet into the room and stepped back. The door closed. With one last look, he turned and headed down the hallway. The crew still lived here. He wondered if they still rotated.

  ‘No,’ Micah offered. ‘These are muties. Something’s happened to them since the settlers transferred to Vii. They’ve been trapped here for the past four hundred cycles, trapped in this small area.’ That wasn’t a fate she wished on anyone.

  Braden stopped and listened. He didn’t want to hurt any more of these people. They needed to get the bracelet and get out.

  He hurried ahead, stopping when he reached the opening to the recreational area. He poked his head out, looking quickly left and right. G-War stood tall at his side and peered in. The ‘cat strolled ahead, tail held high.

  Braden stayed at the corner and aimed his blaster back down the hallway. If anyone followed, he was ready. He waved Micah forward. She carried the power of the President and they needed that to order the right bracelet. The room had been rearranged from what Holly told him to expect, but the fabricator, built in the wall, was where it was supposed to be.

  She waved her bracelet in front of it and the industrial fabricator came to life. She’d been holding her breath, and finally breathed a sigh of relief. She expanded her neural implant window. Holly sent her a stream of numbers to punch into the keypad. She blinked one eye, then the other as she tried to reconcile the numbers floating in front of her with the numbers on a keypad before the other. She managed to get the sequence correct on the second try and the fabricator started humming.

  ‘It’ll be a minute,’ Holly offered. Micah took the time to look around. What would these people do in this area? Holly started to answer, but she stopped him and minimized the window. She didn’t need the explanation. She shook her head, wondering how people could survive so long in such a small area.

  She heard the ding, signaling the fabricator was complete. It was far louder than expected. She opened the door and took out the command level bracelet. She waved Braden to go. Aadi and Skirill fell in behind him. Maybe with Skirill’s help they could scare away any others should they appear.

  They walked quickly and silently. Braden looked down his blaster’s sights as he moved. Holly suggested this technique to reduce his reaction time. Braden was afraid that he’d shoot first if something appeared in front of him. He needed the time to think. On Vii, nothing ever happened so quickly that you couldn’t think.

  He reminded himself that he wasn’t on Vii. Up here, blasters made a difference. If an enemy had one, then he’d need to react faster. No wonder the ancients killed themselves. They made weapons that didn’t give them time to think, time to talk themselves out of danger.

  He looked down at G-War. The ‘cat gave no sign of imminent danger, so Braden lowered the blaster as he kept moving forward. One turn, then straight ahead. They reached the door to the corridor without seeing more of the mutant humans. They stood aside while Braden opened the door. Aadi floated next to him with Skirill standing clearly in view.

  The door opened and the red flashing lights showed the two men, curled u
p in the corridor right outside the door.

  “Get in here,” Braden said in a forceful voice, not as loud as he wanted to use, but there was no sense in attracting any more of the natives. “Come!”

  They scrabbled forward weakly, throwing themselves across the threshold. Braden nudged them out of the way with the toe of his boot. G-War darted past, then Micah. Aadi swam out the door before Braden backed out, keeping his blaster trained on the men until the door closed.

  The flashing emergency lights showed an empty corridor.

  Micah pulled the bracelet from her pouch and wrapped it around Aadi’s neck. “Don’t lose this one, A-Dog. I really don’t want to go back in there.”

  ‘I agree, Master Micah. Thank you both for helping me. If I was only quicker, I could have avoided those vines.’ The Tortoid blinked slowly.

  The humans looked at each other and started to laugh. The tension of their situation melted away. A fast Tortoid. Wouldn’t that be something?

  14 – Deck 10: Livestock Level

  When they had first decided to go to the RV Traveler, Holly explained the philosophy behind its construction. It was built in two huge main sections called cores. Each of those was cylindrical, with five decks that rotated around a central axis. This rotating five-deck unit was contained within an external shell. The shell, made up of the cryo-storage units and other equipment necessary for interstellar travel, protected the internal sections of the ship. When in deep freeze, the humans survived best in zero gravity. When awake, life happened in the rotating sections.

  The rotation was necessary to keep both humans and animals from losing the ability to survive in a planet’s gravity.

  Both fore and aft five-deck sections were over ten kilometers long. Each deck, floor to ceiling, was nine hundred meters. With the last deck being open, five kilometers side to side, without a ceiling.

  The aft section’s decks were designated 6 through 10. The deck they were about to enter was the outermost cylinder of the aft core, Deck 10. It was the Livestock Level. This deck provided some of the meat and meat products for the crew. The animals were then transplanted to the surface after the ship arrived at Cygnus VII. For the resettlement, they used surface landing ships, which were then dismantled to build Sanctuary, which was subsequently destroyed during the war. Any animal that was too large to fit in the matter transfer chamber would now never leave the ship.