The Deadliest of Intentions

by Marc Stevens

  27

  We marched the Grawl out of the cell. There was a one-in-three chance we inadvertently shot ourselves in the foot. I would not say it, but it may have been a good idea for Tria to question the Murlak before she killed him. Sushi was evidently listening to everything said because the cells of the remaining Murlak opened. The Grawl pirate took a look in the first cell and gave us a negative shake of his head. He approached the second cell and pointed into it.

  “This is Illam Pove, and he knows the location of Shurmosk.”

  The Murlak howled in anger and attempted to dive on the traitor who had identified him. Coonts was standing next to the Grawl pirate and shouldered the Murlak aside. The Murlak tried to get to his feet but Coonts kneed him in the face, laying him out cold. If the Murlak knew where the fortress was located, then he had to be one of Eiger’s most trusted confidants. It was just a matter of extracting the information without killing him in the process.

  “Klutch, take this piece of scat to Eagle One and return to the Legacy. Put him in the brig and give him the isolation treatment. We will finish up here and be along shortly. Oh, and Klutch, before you leave the brig, I would like you to service the Hivemind’s biomass. It needs to know we made it back from our mission in better shape than it is in.”

  The Tibor gave me a croaking laugh. “It will be my pleasure, Commander!”

  Klutch grabbed the Murlak by the fur on his head and dragged him from the cell block. Tria, Coonts, and I stepped back to the first Murlak’s cell. He was still pushed back in the corner and had a wild-eyed look on his furry face. His stock value had taken a huge hit, and he knew it.

  “I had nothing to do with the deaths of the freighter crews. I was ordered to come here and to haul cargo under the command of Illam Pove.”

  “That does not change the fact that you are a pirate,” I said. “The blood of the victims is on your hands, no matter what you claim.”

  It was obvious to me we would not get any groundbreaking information from the Murlak. Sushi probably tossed him in as a sacrificial lamb to gain us leverage on the others. We turned our backs on the cell, and the door closed on the pleading Murlak. Moving on to the Rugerian’s cell, we crowded in around him. He stood face to face with my war mask. His pressure suit helmet hid his face but not his eyes. They suggested he was soiling his suit.

  “I have been searching a long time to find the link between the illegal artifact trade and the Galactic Council, and here you are,” I said menacingly. “You are the proof I need to show the other races on the council that corruption is prevalent everywhere. They need to look inward as well as out, and no one is beyond scrutiny.”

  “You would do well to free me. I was a prisoner here. The council will reward you handsomely for my safe return.”

  “You have an interesting take on reality. It seems to conflict with how the Sig discovered you here. I think finding you hiding in the hold of a pirate freighter gives the Sig’s story a great deal more credibility than yours.”

  “The Sig are known to be merciless killers. I feared for my life after I escaped my captors,” he pleaded. “When the Sig found me, I told them whatever they wanted to hear to ensure my safety.”

  I laughed at the Rugerian. He was so full of scat it was ridiculous. The fool thought we would somehow see things from his point of view. It was time to burst his bubble and yank him back to reality.

  “There is no scenario where we will take you from this place and free you. I find it insulting you think we will believe the lies you are spewing at us,” I said. “You are somewhat fortunate the Sig have some unknown use for you. If it were left up to me, I would kill you for your breach of trust. You obviously deceived a number of races into elevating you to your current rank as a council member. I find great satisfaction in knowing you will never return to the council to practice your treachery ever again.”

  The sniveling crook reached out and started pawing at my armor. He was blubbering and pleading to let him go. Coonts grabbed him by his pressure suit and threw him to the back of the cell. He slid down the wall, begging us to change our minds. We walked out of the cell, and the door closed behind us. I looked down the cell block to where the Ilor was held. The lunatic was down on all four, peeking out the doorway of his cell. To make the picture even more surreal, he began waving at us. I had thought I would be interested in what he could offer us. But it was clear to me the Ilor was raving mad. We would leave him for the Sig, and they could determine what to do with the crazy alien.

  We left the cell block and met Sushi outside the observation room. I let him know that he should let the Cralmo fiasco go. The information Illam Pove would give us was a lot more important. I told him what I thought about the Grawl leveling with us. I suggested pumping him dry of any useful information and then dumping him of some remote world to fend for himself. Sushi seemed to agree with my assessment.

  Before we headed back to the Legacy, I had to ask him about the Ilor and why he was even in the cell block instead of a thought reprocessing institute. Sushi gave me a frightening smile and explained that his years of contact with Tam Lin taught him that humans needed a certain amount of humor in their lives. He went on to explain that he doubted if the Ilor would knowingly hurt anybody. He also assured me he would have warned us off if it looked like we might want to hurt him. The strange antics of the alien brought laughter to his otherwise emotionless crewmates, and he thought we could use a little of the same. He said Tam Lin called such things a joke and that humans enjoyed the pastime. While I had to agree with a certain amount of his explanation, I would not have chosen the cell block as a place to pull the stunt. There was not a lot to joke about in there. Oh well, aliens do alien things, and humans are no different. It has a lot to do with whose eyes you are looking through. I put a fake smile on my face and waved at the Sig in the same manner the Ilor waved to us. He and several of his troopers laughed out loud. We said our farewells and made our way to the outer pressure lock. We stepped out onto the planet’s surface and then boosted straight up with our gravity drives. Justice swooped down out of orbit and snatched us up with the tow beam.

  “Justice, if the matrix is charged, jump us within scanner range of the transponder thread termination points.” I said.

  “Yes, Commander, I have the coordinates of a location that will give us coverage of both sites. I am ready to jump on your order.”

  “I have to know before we jump: did the Hivemind survive Klutch’s goodwill gesture?”

  “I can assure you goodwill had nothing to do with the Troop Master’s contribution to the Hivemind’s survival. The unusually large quantity of his so-called goodwill gesture indicates he was purposely holding his normal waste relieving routine. I suspect his intentions were to inflict fatal damage to the Hivemind.”

  “I take it he failed.”

  “Yes, I am unsure how the Hivemind survived, but it hung on to its remaining self by the thinnest of margins. The biomass has since overcome the extreme dilution and the intake of questionable nutrients. It appears to be back to normal functions. The entity will endure for at least the next forty-eight hours before it will become necessary to assist it further.”

  “Now that it seems to be on the mend, have the Overseer transfer the data from our mission. If it should suffer a relapse, I will see if the Troop Master has it in him to aid it once more.”

  I guess Justice thought my sarcasm was uncalled for because he jumped the Legacy ahead of my order to do so.

  “Commander! I am detecting a large number of Scrun warships in the orbit of one of our destination targets,” Justice warned as we returned to normal space-time. “I now have a count of one hundred and thirty-three known Scrun spacecraft and three very large unidentified vessels. The Legacy is cloaked, and all stealth systems are engaged. Depending on the capabilities of the unknown spacecraft, there is a twenty-five percent possibility that our DEHD core jump was detected.”

  “Are you picking up any comms traffic from the unidentifie
d bogeys?”

  “I am detecting a data stream but cannot determine if it is communications or sensor feeds.”

  “Get us clear of our transition point and move us toward the other target planet.”

  “Already moving, Commander.”

  I went to the ready room and shed my armor for smart cloth. The crew and I headed for the bridge to get a god’s-eye view of what was happening around the second target planet. We were almost to the up tube when Justice called out again.

  “Commander, the three largest targets have brought their shields online, and I am detecting large energy spikes within their hulls.”

  The usual tone of Justice’s voice changed slightly. It had an edge to it that indicated he might be experiencing the human emotion of anxiety. His next words sounded almost like dread.

  “The unknown targets have transitioned!”

  We were stepping out of the lift tube when it felt like something grabbed the Legacy and gave it a toss. Neither the artificial gravity nor the inertial dampeners could nullify the effects of the sudden forces exerted on the Legacy. We were thrown into the overhead and then two of the bulkheads; for all I knew, it could have been the deck. I rolled over groaning and wondering what the hell just happened. The feeling of pain throughout most of my body was a good indication I was still among the living. My vision finally made the necessary corrections, and I saw Coonts facedown next to me and Klutch crawling toward us. Tria was attempting to regain her footing; blood was running down her face. The ringing in my ears subsided enough that I could hear her yelling.

  “Justice, give me a damage report!” Tria yelled to Justice.

  “We have minor damage to the portside shield emitters. I was able to bring our shields up before the unknown vessel collided with us. I made an inner-system jump to clear our datum. We were swept by sensors that may have given the unknown vessel targeting information on the Legacy. I am attempting to defeat their tracking systems by hiding among the large number of Scrun warships in orbit above the second planet.”

  That tidbit of information was the antidote for my punch-drunk state. I got to my feet and pulled Coonts up with me. Tria and Klutch gathered their wits, and we ran to the bridge. I took Tria’s hand and pulled her close to me. I wiped the blood from the small cut on her scalp.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I am fine. It is just a scratch. We have bigger problems to worry about. I think it would be advisable to strap ourselves in.”

  I knew for a fact Tria was lying. We both had the nano weave lamination treatment when we underwent the Oolaran weaponization process. It took a hell of an impact to penetrate our skin. I looked at the bulkhead she collided with and saw the assortment of sharp protrusions sticking out on the ship’s plumbing. She was hurt, but there was little I could do about it. She would refuse medical attention no matter what I said, so I had to let it go. I gave her a nod then turned to Coonts and Klutch. They both flashed a thumbs up, so I went to my chair and strapped in.

  Our stealth systems worked well against the Scrun, but we knew nothing about the unidentified ships. They detected our transition and jumped near that location to investigate. Justice was making several course changes to avoid further detection when we were plowed into by one of the two-mile-long spacecraft. I had my doubts it was an intentional collision. The three ships were huge, and they were spread out to avoid each other when they reemerged from hyperspace. The chance meeting was dumb luck on their part and bad luck on ours. It didn’t matter now because they knew we were here. Both the Scrun and the unknowns would have detected our escape jump and brief use of our shields. They also knew we exited hyperspace somewhere close to the planet they were orbiting. The Scrun’s response was immediate. They launched thousands of missiles making the chances for a probable strike greater by the minute. Justice put the Legacy as close to the planet’s atmosphere as he could without giving us a reentry plume. The Scrun were making wild maneuvers and continued to launch missiles. Things were tight and got even tighter when the big starships jumped almost into orbit above the Scrun. The unknowns had yet to take us under fire, so I would not start anything by ordering Justice to give them a dose of what we had to offer. My crew was looking at me, wondering if I was going to light them up. I chose diplomacy, or possibly, survival.

  “Justice! Get us out of here!” I ordered.

  “I am working on an exit vector, Commander!”

  Justice was weaving the Legacy in and out of countless missile salvos. The view dome was a blur from the constant maneuvering. My eyes widened as we made several very close passes near Scrun warships. Justice must have finally found the out he was looking for, because we snap jumped to a location just outside of the star system. He again turned away from our transition point and put some distance between it and us. I personally would have liked him to jump the hell back to a safer piece of the space, but I think he was trying to collect data on the unidentified spacecraft. The view dome had red triangles highlighted all around the planet. But I didn’t see the three big ones. I was starting to deliberate on their whereabouts when they exited hyperspace at our transition point. They were as determined as bloodhounds to track us down. Justice made another hard turn that had us going back toward the Scrun-infested planet. I didn’t want to bust the AI’s virtual balls, but I really wanted to be somewhere other than back in that hornet’s nest.

  “Justice, is there a reason we are still playing cat and mouse with these guys? If you were trying to piss them off, it is more than obvious you succeeded.”

  “I have concluded the sensors on the unidentified vessels are unable to track our Guardian-designed stealth systems. They are able to detect our transition distortion waves but quickly lose tracking data when we exit the area. The highly aggressive nature of the AIs that are operating the ships suggest the vessels belong to an advanced predatory race. I am gathering valuable information on their capabilities. They have already revealed the measurable power levels of their defensive shields. They are beyond those of the Scrun warships. It would take concentrated fire from all our weapons to bring them down to a point the Legacy could inflict significant damage to their hulls. It would be extremely useful if we could measure the destructive output and nature of their offensive weapons.”

  I would have found it extremely un-useful if the measurements he was referring to were being made on the Legacy’s hull. We watched as the three ships split up and moved away from each other. They bracketed our transition exit point and started searching in patterns that gradually moved them outward from our last known coordinates. It was going to suck if we end up finding out their weapons were better than ours. Justice made another hard turn, and to my relief, we were moving away from both the unidentified bogeys and the planet the Scrun had so much interest in.

  “Justice, did you get any useful intel on the planet’s surface?”

  “Yes, the areas I was able to map were abundant with primitive animal life, but no advanced life forms were detected. I did, however, identify a large construction site on the coast of the single continent I was able to scan. I recorded thousands of Scrun communications. They reveal the new complex will be a permanent Scrun outpost. None of the comms traffic disclosed information pertaining to the unknown vessels.”

  “What about the other planet the Guardian transponder was pointing us to?”

  “The second planet in the system is within the life zone of the star, but my scans detected a massive seven-hundred-mile-wide crater on its surface. That information, coupled with the huge amount of planetary debris in its atmosphere, indicates the planet suffered an extinction-level collision with an asteroid or other very large object in its recent past. I surmise it may take hundreds if not thousands of years for the planet to restore life-supporting conditions.”

  “Were you able to get a fix on the termination point of the transponder thread?”

  “Yes, it is fortunately on the opposite hemisphere of the impact crater. I am currently moving away from our pursuers
and will make course corrections that will take us closer to that location. With your permission, I would like to perform one last test of the unknown starships’ detection thresholds.”

  “What kind of test?”

  “I would like to launch one of our Chaalt-designed stealth missiles on a course that would take it toward the unknown ships. I will then have it jump into hyperspace and reemerge just beyond the vessel’s location. At no time will the missile target any of the ships. It is my plan to degrade the stealth field of the missile to determine at what point the unknowns detect its presence.”

  That got me looks from my crew. They knew as well as I did that this could easily be interpreted as an escalation to an already tense situation. I had mixed feeling on the subject and was sure my crew did as well. We were probably all unanimous in thinking it would be wise to just slip away. It was a tactic that we had seldom ever used, but it seemed like the proper time to revisit that thinking. Before I could put words to my thoughts, Justice interrupted my doubtful inclinations.