Smuggler Queen

by Tim C. Taylor

  “Be at peace, my killer,” Ree soothed. “You may hunt Arunsen later. I shall gift you time to do so, but first, I have more urgent tasks.”

  “This is not over, Arunsen,” said Maycey. She was furious. Furious with him!

  “Save it for your therapist,” Vetch told the crazy cat. His words drove her wild with screeching. Her sister had to drag her away to wherever they were hiding their ship. Which was a neat trick, by the way, because he couldn’t see anything.

  “Breakfast,” said Vetch as the three Guildswomen walked away. “Have I missed breakfast? I’m bloody starving.”

  * * *

  Vetch ripped open his self-heating pouch of spicey sausages and waved the open end under his nose.

  He groaned in anticipation.

  As long as they supplied beer, sausages, and pies when he really needed them, he would have been happy to go on soldiering in the Militia until his beard turned white. Then they’d ruined it by turning Raven Company into a punishment unit and sent them to perish on Rho-Torkis.

  Atmos-engine roar filled his ears, and he turned in time to see Annihilation fly toward them.

  The little ship looked larger from the outside. He’d doubted they could have carried much digging equipment, but he was happy to be proved wrong.

  Annihilation passed low overhead, dropping a few dozen small objects near the Chimera Company position.

  “I’ll see you soon,” Maycey said in Vetch’s earpiece.

  “Bronze, Sinofar,” said Fitz. “Go see what they dropped.”

  “No need,” said Zan Fey tersely. “I could see. They were spoons.”

  Spoons to dig out our ship. Vetch shook his head. Damned skangat bitch.

  But there was a grin on his face.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 47: Tavistock Fitzwilliam

  Observation Point Near Phantom, Doloreene

  The burial mound of red dirt heaped over his starship had a settled air of permanence. It looked as if it had been there for a million years. It hadn’t, and he wasn’t about to lose his ship or his crewman entombed within.

  One way or another, Fregg wouldn’t stay buried for long.

  “How’s it look, Captain?” Fregg asked from the inside.

  Fitz decided it was for the best that she didn’t have the full picture of what was going on outside, because Phantom’s burial site wasn’t the way they’d left it the day before.

  The vehicle park of digging machines and earthmoving equipment was new. So were the work gangs. Hundreds of Corrupted people just…waiting.

  Waiting for what?

  “It’s not looking good, is it?” asked Fregg, her voice cracking. “Orion’s frakktarding ass! Buried alive! No…no, not to worry. I’ve already thought this through. Today, I’ll blow out on brandy and bagels, a salute to existence before I tell it goodbye for a while. Tomorrow, I’ll shuffle into the cryopod and wait it out. I feel so bad coming out of those damned ice cubes that I won’t even notice my hangover. Wait, does a hangover pause while you’re in cryo, biding its time to strike you when you thaw?”

  Izza tapped Fitz on his back and pointed to the horizon. To a dust plume.

  “The universe isn’t that cruel,” Fitz told Fregg. “I can tell you from experience, cryo cures hangovers. There’s also a reason for the info plate on cryo cubes that says no alcohol or drugs to be consumed within 30 hours of entering the cryo state.”

  While Fregg considered her options, Fitz trained his binocs on the target Izza had pointed out. It looked like another Corrupted military convoy, such as the ones they’d seen the day before. Bigger, though. Perhaps this was what the digging teams were waiting for.

  “No problem,” said Fregg. “I’ll get drunk, sleep off the hangover, and then freeze myself.”

  Izza tapped Fitz again. This time she wasn’t pointing. She had one hand spread out over the ground, pressing down. “I hear vehicles,” she said softly. “Coming along the riverbed.”

  “Captain?” asked Fregg. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “My apologies, Fregg. I would have heartily approved your plan, if we were the only ones looking to dig you out. Unfortunately, the Corrupted want Phantom too. I’ll give you updates every four hours. If you don’t hear from me, you should assume Phantom will be boarded imminently and prepare accordingly.”

  “I understand, Captain.”

  “That’s the spirit, Fregg. It won’t be easy, but you can do this. I believe in you, Justiana.”

  “Thanks, Captain. I know you won’t let me down.”

  “Damn right. I’ll get you out. Looks like their command element will be arriving soon, and there’s a chance they will monitor radio comms. I’ll broadcast SPC pulse codes, so they won’t understand what I’m telling you. Maintain radio silence from this point.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Good luck. Fitzwilliam out.”

  Fitz and Izza were surveilling the area from a crater 1.3 klicks out from Phantom. They’d left the others in the hover-tubs, parked under camo in a dried gulley a few klicks to the south. Their stealth cloaks should make them difficult to see, but Fitz knew worryingly little about the capabilities of the Corrupted.

  “We’ll stay put,” Fitz whispered. He could hear the vehicles approaching along the riverbed. “If they turn up in front of our noses and we’re moving, we’re more likely to be spotted.”

  “You’re right,” said Izza. “But I don’t like it.”

  He looked into her beautiful eyes and saw them clouded with worry. That wasn’t like her at all.

  “We’ve been in worse spots,” he reminded her.

  “I’m not so sure. Kaycey and Maycey planted the charges that buried our ship. It wasn’t the Corrupted, but now they want Phantom for themselves, and they’re committing resources to dig her out.”

  “I know. That’s bothering me too. So far, I think we’ve encountered the soft edges of their operation. This Corruption feels like a crude fire-and-forget bioweapon sent into the Federation to soften us up. It doesn’t feel coordinated. Other than recovering that buried ship on Rho-Torkis, this terraforming is the first time we’ve seen any kind of strategy from them.”

  “The Nyluga’s revenge means they now have a second buried ship to recover. Ours! This isn’t strategy, it’s responding in real time to unexpected events on the ground. That requires coordination. Tactical decision making. A commander.”

  Fitz mulled that over. His mind had been traveling along similar lines. “So, what you’re saying, Izza, is that we’re in a holo-game and we’re about to level up and face deadlier adversaries?”

  “The Andromedans. Yes, I think so.”

  “Azhanti! Okay, I retract my earlier statement. We are in deeper shit than we’ve ever been in, and I don’t think anyone’s coming to pull us out this time.”

  Three trucks thundered past in front of them. The soldiers in the open truck beds weren’t the mindless drones Fitz was hoping for; they were the same random assortment of Federation citizens twisted into service of the Andromedans. They were observant, clutching firearms in a way that said they were ready to use them.

  A large-caliber gun had been mounted in the bed of the rear truck. It was a perimeter patrol, led by a four-armed human super-mutant in the lead vehicle. He wasn’t the monstrous size of the huge Zhoogene Bronze had taken out, but he was alert and in charge. The equivalent of a gun truck sergeant, Fitz supposed.

  “Now, do we require outside assistance?”

  “Lynx!” Izza hissed. “Stay down and stay quiet.”

  The droid was hovering at the base of the crater, his casing altered from its usual dull gun metal to a color and texture that matched the terrain.

  “Hey, you’ve a camo feature,” said Fitz. “You never told me about that.”

  “This is hardly the time to discuss my specifications, Captain. Do we require outside assistance?”

  “Yes. Yes, you infernal droid. We’re screwed, and we need help. Wait…” He grabbed the droid in b
oth hands and glared at the metal annoyance. “Why do you keep asking that?”

  “Because I needed you to state an affirmative answer.”

  “OK. Now that I have…what happens now?”

  “Get down,” Izza whispered. “I think we’ve been spotted.”

  “I’m calling in Oouzo,” Fitz told her as he ducked down, pushing Lynx beneath him. “I want him closer. In orbit.”

  His Slern compatriot was acting as a backup getaway driver, hiding Ghost Shark around the far side of one of Doloreene’s moons. Fitz hesitated to make the call. Oouzo wasn’t an escape route for Fregg.

  “No need to play your ace in the hole,” said Lynx. “I’ve already summoned help.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” asked Izza, her eyes flowing with anger. “Lynx has betrayed us. He’s disobeyed my direct order. All this time, he’s been working for Kanha Wei.”

  “Is this true?” Fitz asked.

  “I have summoned Wei,” the droid admitted. He’d acquired a new casing rattle.

  Fitz groaned and shook the disloyal machine. “And for what, you useless lump of tin? Even if you’re quantum-linked with Wei, we’re beyond the frontier of the Federation. It’ll take her ten days, at least, to get here.”

  “Not so.” It was difficult to make out what Lynx was saying above his nervous buzzing. “Her flagship is already in the 211-Fractura system, twenty-four minutes out.”

  “She was following us all this time!” Izza huffed and growled. “Lynx! How could you?”

  “It’s not...I…after extensive consultation with 3Condax…”

  Lynx’s lights went out.

  His power hum fell quiet.

  He was dead.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 48: L1-iN/x “LYNX”

  Phantom

  10 days earlier

  Less than seven hours after reporting the life support system failure on the Main Deck, Lynx detected signs that the air scrubbers on Deck Two had also been compromised. Efficiency was down 0.21 percent. Foreign matter was in the air, too. Trace amounts, perhaps, but if there was one thing biological lifeforms were good at, it was proliferation.

  He had reported the matter to Catkins, but the Gliesan wasn’t interested. He’d told Lynx that if he wanted to smell bad air, he should try testing the inside of Sinofar’s sock drawer.

  The reply was nonsensical. Lynx had put it down to humanoid humor.

  So the task of monitoring life support had fallen to the one crew member who did not require it to survive.

  Zan Fey thundered along the passageway on her long legs, nearly causing Lynx to dislodge the probe he was extending into the air vent.

  Inevitably, she was pursued by Captain Fitzwilliam.

  Since reuniting at Nyluga-Ree’s residence on the world of Pleigei, they had been reaffirming their pair bonding through even more courtship rituals than normal.

  Their heartbeats were elevated. Their breath was pumping out clouds of aerosol droplets laden with fungi and bacteria.

  No wonder the air scrubbers were overworked.

  If only he could fix it so the crew no longer breathed.

  Lynx initiated a bundle of processing threads to investigate the feasibility of this promising option.

  If I could cure the humanoids of their breathing…

  He allotted a full third of his cognitive runtime to the feasibility study. Then he added a background inquiry to determine why he had never thought of this before.

  “Do you think the hairy sisters are pursuing us?” Fitzwilliam asked Zan Fey when she allowed him to catch up.

  “Of course.” Her eyebrows pinched together, which Lynx recognized as accenting the intensity of her feelings. “I thought that was obvious, otherwise I would have mentioned it.”

  “Should we be concerned?”

  “Oouzo should. We did well to get him away safely on Ghost Shark.” Lynx tucked away that nugget of intelligence. “I am a little concerned about Maycey and Arunsen. She was annoyed at his getting away.”

  “Arunsen? The Viking Marine? Don’t you ever worry about your husband?”

  She punched him, another form of humanoid communication, though one Lynx had so far been unable to decode. “Don’t flatter yourself, Fitzy. It’s been a long while since Maycey was jealous of you. And on the subject of jealousy…” Zan Fey’s muscles tensed. “I’m not envious of your being in charge, Tavistock. I had my run as Captain Zan Fey and screwed up handling the crew time and again. That’s a job you’re welcome to.”

  Fitzwilliam flicked back his hair in a preening gesture. “The captain’s burden is full of countless, thankless tasks, unnoted by the crew and yet entirely essential. I am not easily replicated.”

  She stroked his cheek. “My dear, you’re no better at running this ship than I am. I’m just saying you’re welcome to the job.”

  Fitz smiled. He lifted his darkened glasses, revealing the sparkle in his eyes. “So, you’re admitting I’m the boss of you?”

  “You are in charge of the ship, her crew, and her operations.” Zan Fey’s limbs trembled, but her voice was firm, indicating Fitz should take her words seriously.

  Lynx did too. He temporarily shut down his investigation into a cure for the crew’s breathing so he could dedicate his runtime to this exchange.

  “A trifling distinction,” said Fitzwilliam, raising his eyebrows and giving Zan Fey a dismissive wave of his hand. He was about to say something deceitful, but he wanted Zan Fey to pretend she didn’t know this.

  Humanoid communication was vastly overburdened with complexity. Lynx didn’t think he would ever find the cure for that.

  “I thank you for acknowledging that I am your captain,” Fitzwilliam continued. “Though what I desire most is to be captain of you, my dear. You will obey my every desire.”

  “Tavistock!” Zan Fey’s cheeks flushed with sap and her head growth waved as if a storm was blowing through the passageway. “Not here.” She flicked a glance Lynx’s way. Now they noticed him! She added in a whisper, “The droid is watching.”

  Mercifully, the pair shifted location to Deck Three where they had taken up residence, having left their quarters for the Nyluga.

  There, undoubtedly, they would indulge in the mating rituals so important to many biological lifeforms. Particularly the ones on this ship.

  All alone, with no one to distract him with stupid questions, Lynx pondered the ethics of what he’d just heard. It took over a minute of full runtime, which was a huge amount of cognitive processing, but ethics was the most difficult topic of all, and the consequences of what he’d heard were a conundrum.

  Back at the Joint Sector High Command orbital, Zan Fey had made him swear that he would not contact Kanha Wei under any circumstances. The order had been clearly worded. He could not bypass it.

  But just now, she had clearly admitted that Fitzwilliam overruled her. He was the senior commander, and she had explicitly yielded to him.

  All Lynx had to do was get Fitzwilliam to say a form of words that could be interpreted as an instruction to contact Kanha Wei.

  He replayed recordings made at JSHC in which Fitzwilliam stated that he was now working for Wei.

  No. Lynx decided that this form of words was inadequate for his purposes.

  Humanoid ethics were so complex because they were so elastic. But Lynx had learned a great deal. Enough to layer flexibility into his loyalty systems.

  Kanha Wei had promised Lynx what he desired most: his independence. Ever since Fitz had won the ship in a wager, Lynx had been receiving a masterclass on greed and desire from everybody on Phantom.

  Morality was flexible when it got you what you desired. That was what Fitzwilliam had taught him most of all.

  Lynx put this newly learned flexibility into action. He decided he still could not directly communicate with Wei, but he activated the quantum-linked tracking device she had hidden in his casing and told no one.

  How very humanoid of me, he mu
sed and returned to probing the air system.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 49: Tavistock Fitzwilliam

  “Izza! I think I’ve killed Lynx.”

  “Nonsense,” said a man’s voice. “The droid is performing a reset integrity purge.”

  Fitz looked up at the sound.

  But the crater was empty. Just him, Izza, and an unresponsive droid.

  A man appeared.

  Khallini.

  This wasn’t the air-shimmering reveal of a stealth cloak being pulled back. Khallini’s arm hadn’t moved. Fitz had the feeling the man had been there for some time. He’d simply chosen this moment to allow others to perceive him.

  When he had first met Khallini, the old man had been clad in luxury. All that remained of his finery was a tasseled velvet cap and the white leather gloves that rested on his silver-tipped cane. He was dressed for an expedition with stout boots, equipment webbing, and a black field uniform with insignia Fitz didn’t recognize, except for the gold disk on the collar.

  It was the first symbol of the Legion Navy. Back at the very beginning when it consisted of a single ship.

  “Ethics questions are fundamental to the very existence of all artificial beings,” said Khallini. “They cannot be ignored because even the most mundane of tasks carries an ethical dimension. This is a profound difference from biological beings, who ignore ethics whenever convenient, which is almost the entirety of their existence.”

  “I don’t think you’re in a place to lecture anyone about ethics,” Fitz told him.

  “I am not lecturing anyone,” the old man spat. “In my youth, my own ethics were…undeveloped, shall we say? I’ve had to learn slowly alongside my AIs. I’m still learning.”

  Fitz waved away his words. “Save it for later, Grandfather Time. We need to get out of here.”

  “The Andromedan trucks have moved away,” said Izza.

  “We could have gotten lucky,” said Fitz. “Or, maybe, they’ve spotted us and are rounding up reinforcements. Either way gives us a few moments to ask what the hell you’re doing here, my lord. And anyone else still in hiding! Do we have the Littorane divine goddess in this hole with us? The Immortal Empress Indiya? Maybe the first general of the Legion or whatever passes for the leader of the Muryani Expansion? Come out now! Anyone? No?”