Rebel Tribe (Osprey Chronicles Book 1)

by Ramy Vance

  “Still a bit sore,” she admitted, rubbing the tattered patch of her flight suit. She eyed the pile of raw ore and whistled. “That’s a lot of mass to get into orbit.”

  “Sphynx doesn’t seem worried,” Toner grunted. “He’s in the cab starting liftoff sequence. Come on. It’s time to go.”

  “Hang on.” Jaeger leaned out of the back of the hold, sucking in a deep breath of warm, moist air. The nearby Locari shifted over the rocks, humming languidly. Art took a step closer.

  Jaeger held out a stopping hand and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I wish we could visit longer, but time is running out.”

  The creatures did not understand her words, obviously, but Art froze, mandibles opening and closing and not quite clicking. She waved, helpless and wishing for a better goodbye.

  The shuttle rumbled to life beneath Jaeger. She was about to close the cargo door when a flutter of nearby shadows caught her eye. She froze with her palm above the access panel as two Locari scampered down the slope, coming from the direction of the monolith crater. They were hauling something between them and clicked a rapid, staccato beat. The other Locari stirred from their nighttime funk and clustered around the returning pair. Art sprang toward them.

  “Captain,” Toner called from the cab threshold as the activating shuttle engines kicked up a fresh dust storm. “You know the load is going to shift in transit, right? Come on. It’s gonna crush you.”

  “Hang on,” Jaeger shouted over the growing hum of the engines. She leaned out of the back of the shuttle, coughing and squinting. She couldn’t hear the Locari over the engines, but they had drawn into a tight cluster, their pseudo wings fluttering and flashing in the moonlight. Something had them excited.

  The shuttle lurched beneath Jaeger’s feet as the landing gear retracted. She caught herself on the threshold, about to shut the door, when Art broke away from the gathering and bounded toward her, his small frame battered and buffeted by the growing wind. Art carried something between his dainty front legs.

  “No!” Jaeger waved and shouted, terrified he’d get caught in the exhaust of the activating engines. Of course, the creature couldn’t understand her—perhaps it couldn’t even hear her. Art hopped again, beating his pseudo wings furiously to make one final leap that nearly brought him to the base of the rising shuttle.

  “Captain!” Toner shouted.

  Jaeger reached out of the shuttle, and when her hand closed around Art’s offering, the Locari finally relaxed and let himself fall gracefully back to the ground.

  Jaeger retreated into the hold, slapping her hand against the access panel as Toner reached her. The door slid shut, and the deafening roar of wind and engines became a muffled hum. Jaeger let Toner lead her past the loose piles of rubble and into the quiet comfort of the cab. The muffled hum faded to near silence as the cab door slid shut. She slipped into her harness with her eyes fixed on the thing in her hands.

  It was a segment of a pseudo wing, about the size of a book cover, delicate and brittle and catching the light oddly. It was ripped and tattered at the edges.

  The Locari have a carapace, she thought. Do they shed their skin like insects, too?

  “You’re late,” Sphynx murmured, eyes fixed on the instrument panels.

  That brought Jaeger’s attention back to the here-and-now. She slipped the segment of wing into a storage compartment for safekeeping and busied herself at the panels. “No,” she said flatly. “You’re early.”

  The shuttle lifted its nose into a liftoff trajectory, ready to activate primary thrusters and punch through the sky. Jaeger caught Toner eying the storage compartment where she’d stowed Art’s gift. She caught his curious stare and shrugged her confusion. Parsing out the meaning of that strange parting gift would have to wait.

  Right now, they had ten tons of rock to fling into outer space.

  Chapter Thirty

  The cargo had indeed shifted in flight. Ten tons of raw ore will do that when you shove it into a tin can and blast it into space at Mach 7.

  “Great,” Jaeger breathed when the shuttle slid past the Osprey’s cargo bay doors and finally nestled to a stop in one of the docking cradles. Having returned to a zero-G environment, the three of them drifted against their harnesses, waiting as the shuttle completed a rapid cool-down sequence.

  She activated the open comms channel. “Virgil? Occy? We have a delivery, but if anybody knows the best way to get a whole bunch of loose gravel down to the synthesizers in zero-G, I’m listening.”

  “There’s a cargo chute at the far end of the docking bay.” Occy sounded cheerful, more animated than he had on first decanting. “It leads directly to the synthesizer sector. The designers knew that the Tribe would occasionally need to make deliveries of new raw material.

  “You should be able to control the adapter remotely from your cab. Dock the chute to the shuttle cargo door and activate the delivery sequence. It should take care of itself from there.”

  “Why, thank you.” Toner sounded surprised as he searched the consoles for exactly those controls. “That’s very helpful.”

  “I am a master-class engineer.” Occy was matter-of-fact. “Fully certified for Raptor-class operations and management.”

  Jaeger grinned. That attitude was grating, coming from Virgil, but the kid made it sound downright cute.

  It took another few minutes for the chute to dock, then the sound of depressurization ripped through the shuttle as it sucked the cargo bay clear of raw materials.

  “We did strap in the droids, right?” Toner asked, listening to the distant racket of several tons of rocks getting sucked into a vacuum.

  “I stored them in the side compartment,” Sphynx said. “The transit would have destroyed them if we’d left them in the hold with all the loose ore.” His ears flicked, punctuating the sentence with a silent duh.

  Jaeger unclipped her harness and towed herself to the back of the cab. She patted Sphynx approvingly on the shoulder because it was important for a captain to encourage good work. “Good call.”

  She activated her mag soles and settled to the floor with a whirring thunk as the clattering racket of the strewn gravel faded into the distance. She waited for the sucking sound of the cargo chute to decouple from the back of the shuttle. Then she frowned when the softer thud of something knocking against the inside of the cargo hold replaced the mechanical clanging.

  “Ah.” Toner gestured at the viewer screen displaying the docking bay and rolled his eyes. “We have company.”

  Baby had shoved her way onto the shuttle and was in the cargo hold, knocking to come into the cab like a dog eager to welcome Mama home.

  Sphynx hissed faintly. Jaeger couldn’t tell if it was contempt or a quirk of the catman’s speech. “Tardigrade.”

  Jaeger opened the cab door. Baby drifted into the hold, legs spread to grab Jaeger and pull her into a hug.

  “What a welcoming committee!” Jaeger laughed and patted the water bear as it began purring loudly. “Come on, babydoll. We’re blocking the exit.”

  Understanding, Baby grabbed Jaeger by the belt with one careful claw. She towed Jaeger out of the shuttle.

  The open cavern of the docking bay echoed like a warehouse. Rows and rows of empty escape pod cradles stretched into the distance. Nothing left in here but two shuttles and the fading racket of a whole bunch of gravel getting sucked through the ducts and into the guts of the Osprey.

  Toner activated his antigrav, zipped out of the back of the shuttle, and flew to the center of the massive, empty bay with a whoop. He executed a masterful series of groundless cartwheels. “Fuck gravity!”

  Sphynx stepped onto the docking bay platform beside Jaeger, watching Toner’s antics with a flat stare.

  “He’s…having fun,” Jaeger suggested.

  Sphynx’s ears twitched. His gaze flicked to her. “I understand.”

  She flushed with embarrassment. Of course, Sphynx understood. He wasn’t a child or an animal.


  “You’re hard to read,” she offered in defense.

  Sphynx said nothing. He studied Toner for another few seconds before turning his flat stare back to Jaeger. “What is my assignment?”

  Jaeger sighed. “Lighten up?”

  Sphynx regarded her impassively until she relented and lifted her voice to the nearest speaker. “Virgil, what’s the status of the asteroid belt droids?”

  The AI answered promptly, its voice clear now that they were free of atmospheric interference. “Their collection effort seems to be going smoothly, but it will take another few hours for them to complete the harvest.”

  “That’s fine. Take us back to the asteroid belt and hide us in the rubble. I don’t think the saucer is around, but I don’t want to linger out in the open any more than necessary.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Once we’re there, send the shuttle droids down to help wrap up the operation. Might as well; we’ve finished with them.”

  “As you command,” Virgil said tiredly. “No rest for the robots.”

  Jaeger frowned but was distracted by Sphynx’s unblinking stare. “Get some rest,” she decided. “Then meet us for debriefing in…two hours.”

  Sphynx glanced in the direction of the port corridor with his head cocked to one side as if he were listening for something. Then his ear flicked, and he nodded, pushing himself silently out of the docking bay and manipulating the antigrav boots with almost as much skill as Toner. Jaeger watched him go, then lifted her eyes to the capering vampire. She was more than a little jealous.

  Baby nudged her side.

  “Sorry, babydoll, but I’m out of raisins.”

  Baby nudged her again, a little harder. When Jaeger didn’t immediately respond to Baby’s satisfaction, the water bear let out a huff and released her grasp on the platform grates.

  Jaeger watched, alarmed, as the water bear began a slow, drifting ascent into the open air of the docking bay. “Hey! Don’t go drifting off, Baby, you don’t have boots to pull you back—” She reached out to grab Baby by the claw, but the water bear had already slipped out of reach. Lazily, Baby rotated until she was facing Toner where he tumbled at the center of the chamber.

  Then, silently and at quite a respectable pace, the water bear zipped straight toward Toner.

  Toner didn’t notice until Baby was within five meters of him. Then he let out an amazingly high-pitched shriek and shot toward the port corridor. “She flies?”

  Jaeger cupped her hands over her mouth. “Apparently! Pretty fast, too. Watch your six!”

  Toner glanced over his shoulder to see the two-ton water bear chasing him through the air, rumbling happily. He yelped and banked hard to the right. “How the fuck does she fly?”

  Jaeger folded her arms and watched Baby chase Toner through the open air of the docking bay. Baby could pick up quite a bit of speed on a straightaway, but Toner had fine motor control over his antigrav that gave him a near-zero turning radius.

  “I, um…” Jaeger bit back a tired grin as Toner flew past her, followed shortly by Baby’s massive, rippling bulk. Jaeger waved away the damp, earthy smell that followed behind the water bear. “Looks like she’s got some, uh, compressed air reserves.”

  Toner considered this in silence as he snagged an empty docking cradle in one hand and banked hard to the left. Baby, still rumbling happily with her game, overshot him and bounced her way between the two parked shuttles before angling upward and building up another head of steam.

  Then Toner shrieked as the horror of the implication settled in. “She’s farting up the docking bay?”

  Jaeger thunked toward the main corridor, laughing. “It’s not that bad.”

  Toner doubled over in the air and coughed dramatically, waving his hands in front of his face. “Says you with your puny human sense of smell.”

  Baby, tiring of her game, slowed and nuzzled Toner’s side gently, pushing him to the floor. Toner waved her away, but Jaeger half-suspected it was only for show.

  “Come on,” she said, stepping out of the docking bay. “It’s time for a coffee break.”

  Toner wanted to have the staff meeting in the command crew quarters. Since Baby refused to enter the Osprey’s central column, Jaeger vetoed the idea.

  “She’s one-sixth of the crew. Bad enough that they have her trained not to come into the crew quarters like she’s some kind of dog you don’t want in the house.”

  Toner eyed the water bear digging into her makeshift nest in the No-A lounge. She had found more insulation foam somewhere and was making quite a mess of it. “Right,” he said. “How dare they not want a two-ton fart machine on the furniture?”

  “Hush. Eat your meal.” Jaeger scooped a raw joint of pork out of the fabricator and passed it to Toner before punching in the pizza recipe. Chicago-style deep-dish. She had her doubts about the quality, but it was worth a try, and she wanted to have some proper snacks ready for the crew when they arrived.

  Why not? There were enough food stores to feed a crew of three hundred for a year. It had been a rough few days, and it wasn’t likely to get easier any time soon. Besides, the new crewmen looked like they could stand to gain a few extra kilos.

  She wanted to treat her people to a feast. Pizza, Caesar salad with big, crunchy croutons, cheeseburgers, strawberry Popsicles, piping hot French fries, the works. She even found a recipe for tuna sous vide at the bottom of the file and added that to the queue, hoping Sphynx would appreciate it.

  With the fabricator humming away, Jaeger filled her bottle with lemon seltzer from the drink machine and deactivated her mag soles.

  She drifted in the center of the lounge, letting out a long sigh. Toner idled nearby, nibbling the ends of his pork and playing Solitaire on his computer. In her nest, Baby purred.

  Finally, Jaeger reached into a pouch on her flight suit and withdrew the scrap of insect wing Art had thrust into her hands as the shuttle was taking off.

  She turned it over in her fingers, marveling at the delicate lattice of the tattered wing. Even under the harsh fluorescent light of No-A, the millions of tiny photo-receptors glinted and shimmered in a thousand subtly different shades of green.

  The sudden silence in the lounge made Jaeger look up to see Toner staring at her, his pork halfway to his mouth.

  “Art shoved this in my hands right as we were taking off,” she said, turning to show him the tattered scrap of wing. “Something had them all excited right there at the end.”

  “The noise and thunder of a spaceship taking off?” Toner suggested. “I’m guessing that it’s not something they see every day.”

  Jaeger shrugged. “Maybe. Still… What do you think this means?”

  Toner frowned at the wing. “Bugs shed their skin sometimes, right?”

  “Yeah, that was my thought, too. Maybe they gave us part of somebody’s old shell for a souvenir. But…we don’t know if they shed their skin.”

  “What’s the alternative?” Toner looked confused. “They gave you part of somebody’s corpse?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Did you see where Art pulled it from?”

  “Not really. It was dark. A few of the Locari had just come down from farther up the hill. They were all excited, but I couldn’t see or hear much, with all the noise.”

  Toner took a thoughtful bite of his meat, and when he swallowed, his voice turned pensive. “They came down from up near the monolith crater?”

  “Yeah, it was in that direction. How did you know?”

  When Toner didn’t immediately answer, Jaeger turned to see him staring at his pork but not seeing it. His computer drifted beside him, forgotten.

  “‘As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods,’” he mumbled. “‘They kill us for their sport.’”

  Jaeger frowned. She didn’t like the sound of that. “Explain.”

  Toner shook his head and took another bite. “It’s nothing,” he said around a mouthful. “I caught Sphynx lurking around the crater after I told him to sta
y in the shuttle.”

  Jaeger felt a little prickle of unease touch the back of her neck. “What was he doing there?”

  “Shitting, according to him.” He shrugged. “Not that I went looking for cat turds to make sure. Still. Have you ever met a cat? They’re kind of all bug-killing psychos.”

  “That’s a severe accusation to level against a crewmate,” Jaeger said sharply. “And…kind of racist?” She added that second part with a touch of uncertainty.

  Toner met her gaze. He said nothing else. He didn’t have to. She saw all of his meaning on his face.

  They were none of them innocent of quirks. Untouched by the genetic, emotional, and mental trauma of the last few days, or perhaps longer. Toner had a hunter’s stare. There was no denying it. Left to his own devices, without the right support, he might punch a dinosaur to death or eat his captain.

  It would be naïve to assume he was the only crewmate struggling against some very basic urges.

  “You activated Occy and Sphynx.” Jaeger’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Did either of their files say anything about…” She touched the back of her neck, almost afraid to say it.

  Toner shook his head.

  On the one hand, Jaeger wanted to take it as a sign that the genetic artists and leaders of this Tribe organization trusted their crew. Or, at least, most of their crew. Vampires were apparently too dangerous to be left entirely unsupervised.

  On the other hand, she was ashamed to admit, the idea of having no control over Sphynx frightened her.

  “We’ll…have to stay alert,” Jaeger said softly. “You keep an eye on Sphynx.”

  Toner nodded again as the leading edge of Occy’s tentacles crept around the corner and into the lounge. The mutant entered, followed by a very bored-looking Sphynx.

  The crew meeting had begun.