Starblazer

by Spencer Maxwell

  “Thank you, ma’am.” The AI’s voice was a whisper now.

  Ryze didn’t argue, and nodded. What Jade said wasn’t the first time he had heard that sentiment. Wouldn’t be the last time, either. “Initiating landing sequence now,” he said.

  The ship, despite its lack of thrusters, glided smoothly through the air. Ryze steered it beneath a large hangar and set it down next to a DSX fighter with a missing wing. Two bugs hovered above the craft in full face masks. Blue streams of flame jetted from their welding guns. They didn’t look up when the Starblazer touched down.

  That’s good. Real good, Ryze thought. Maybe I can just deal with them. Hell, maybe Ty’s on vacation. He does like taking pleasure cruises around the system a little too often. Can’t I be lucky just one more time?

  He knew that was a lot to ask for. He’d been very lucky as of late. And a little unlucky, too…but hey, he was still breathing, and that was all that mattered. Maybe life was just a series of lucky and unlucky moments.

  “What’s your plan?” Jade asked. “Wait—never mind. You don’t have a plan, do you?”

  Ryze shook his head. “I’m gonna act natural and hope for the best.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t act natural,” Wylow added, and when Ryze looked at her, she quickly added “Sorry.”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t make an appearance at all, sir,” Spex said. Ryze strained his ears to hear him.

  “That’s a good idea!” Jade agreed. “I’ll do the negotiating. They won’t recognize me. Xovia is so far away, I doubt they’ve even heard of it.”

  “They would’ve if they’ve been following the news,” Wylow said. “The Dominion’s raid on our planet will be known across the galaxy by now.”

  “True.” Jade brought a hand up to her chin.

  “You don’t look too regal right now, though,” Wylow said. “I mean no offense, my queen.”

  “Still, there’s a chance,” Ryze interjected. “And we better figure out something quick.” He pointed at the viewscreen. Across the hangar bay, two Cryton bugs were flying in the ship’s direction. “Probably should just let me do it. They’ll recognize the ship. The Starblazer is also known across the galaxy.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Jade said, arching an eyebrow.

  “Me, either,” Wylow added.

  “Okay, whatever. But it’s probably more popular than Xovia. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “You really think this hunk of junk is more popular than an entire planet?” Jade asked, incredulous. “Starlo, you’re more insane than I initially thought.”

  “Here we go,” Ryze said. The bugs were right outside the hull. They wouldn’t be able to see through the viewscreen, but if no one was there to greet them, it would raise suspicions. Maybe enough to take it to the boss man, Ty. The guy who currently wanted Ryze’s head for some reason…

  He stood, ran a hand through his hair. He had to look presentable and not like an insane person who’d probably just stolen this ship.

  “No, I’ll do it,” Wylow said, putting a hand on Ryze’s arm.

  “But—” he protested, and she cut him off.

  “I will be fine. I am a strong woman.”

  “She is,” Jade added.

  Ryze grinned. “I know. All right, then. Good luck.” He turned to Jade. “Best you and I hide, for the time being.”

  “Hide? Where the hell at?”

  As weak as he’d ever sounded, Spex said, “There are three smuggling compartments below the main deck.”

  “How big?” Jade asked. “I don’t want to be stuck in a box for hours while they fix the ship.”

  “Big enough to hide three baby elanties in each one,” Ryze said.

  “How would you know— Oh Gods, did you smuggle baby elanties? Please don’t tell me you did that.”

  Ryze shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Not what you think, ma’am,” Spex said. “Ryze saved them from a group of poachers on Meda.”

  “The money was pretty good,” Ryze said. “And hey, baby elanties are cute, what can I say.”

  “Aww,” Jade and Wylow cooed almost simultaneously.

  “Yeah, it’s aww until we run into those poachers I poached the beasts from. Add them to the long list of people who want me dead—”

  A knock came from near the ship’s entrance. “Identify yourselves,” a gruff voice said. It could’ve been male or female; short of hopping into bed with one and hoping for the best, it was almost impossible to decipher a bug’s gender on appearance alone.

  “C’mon,” Ryze said. He looked at Wylow, nodded. She nodded back, offering him a slight smile. Get ahold of yourself, Ryze thought.

  “You okay?” Jade asked.

  He jolted and looked up. “Yeah, I’m good. Let’s go.” He led the way to the main hold. Hidden in the wall by the couch was a fingerprint scanner. Ryze pressed his index against it and the couch pivoted, revealing the compartments beneath.

  “Ew!” Jade said a little too loud. “What the hell is that?” She was pointing at the gray gunk caked on the walls and the floor.

  “Oops,” Ryze said.

  “Oh Gods, it stinks!”

  “Yeah…an elanty will do that sometimes…especially newborns. They didn’t exactly take kindly to the whole flying through space faster than the speed of light thing. I mean, can you really blame them?”

  “No, but I can blame you for not cleaning this literal crap up! I wondered what that underlying stink in here was.”

  “Keep your voice down, Jade,” Ryze hissed. He could hear the bugs talking to Wylow around the bend, catching snippets of conversation. He motioned downward. “After you, my queen.”

  “I don’t suppose you have a different place to hide,” she said, hopeful.

  “Nope. Just plug your nose. A little elanty crap is nothing compared to what Ty wants to do to me.”

  “To you, not Wylow and I.”

  “We’re a packaged deal. He’ll kill me, and then sell you guys to the planet’s slave trade. How does that sound?”

  “Almost better than hiding for Gods know how long in a confined space caked with…well, you know.”

  “Don’t count on it. C’mon.”

  With a grimace, Jade stepped down, refusing Ryze’s hand for help. She settled in the compartment next to his. Ryze covered the compartments with the couch by way of another scanner below. Complete darkness blocked everything out. Ryze found it easier to hear without his senses focused on the dim light of the Starblazer’s main hold.

  Footsteps. Three sets. Wylow talking. More snippets of conversation.

  “…reactor drive…”

  “…looking at…”

  Wylow’s voice: “That’s a lot of frags.”

  They were getting closer.

  How many frags, damn it? Ryze wondered.

  The footsteps retreated. He caught one of the bugs saying, “Let me get my boss to take a look. Then we’ll write you up.”

  “Thank you,” Wylow said, her voice retreating and her footsteps sounding like she was heading for the cockpit.

  “Doesn’t this ship look familiar?” one of the bugs said, the gruff voice closer than it was before.

  Ryze glanced at Jade. His eyes had somewhat adjusted to the dark, but on top of that, Jade’s crystal glowed softly around her neck, illuminating the compartment like embers of a fire will light a dark night. In this luminescence, Jade’s face was a mask of calmness. He didn’t know how the young woman did it, but he certainly respected that about her—maybe above all else.

  She mouthed, Don’t worry.

  He definitely worried. His finger twitched, and the safety on his blaster moved. He was ready for a fight; he was always ready for a fight, though no fight came—at least not yet, and he was almost a hundred percent sure it would come. It usually did.

  Seconds later, the bugs left, their taloned feet clanking on the ramp, their wings buzzing; then another few seconds later, once the bugs were out of hearing distance, Wylow came into the main h
old. She called their names softly.

  “Here,” Jade answered.

  Ryze hissed at her. “What if that was a trap?”

  “It’s not,” she answered calmly. “We’re down here, Wylow.”

  Fast footsteps lightly trod over the floor above.

  “You’re gonna get us killed,” Ryze seethed.

  “You keep flying the way you have been, Starlo, you’re gonna be the one who gets us killed,” she argued.

  Spex should’ve chimed in at that point but didn’t. Without the ship’s power he was gone. Had he been there, the AI would’ve said: She has a point, sir. Ryze could almost hear that smart-ass voice in his head as clear as day. Spex had been with him constantly for years, on the ship’s interface and in his helmet’s commlink. He missed that voice more than he cared to admit.

  Regardless, Jade did have a point, so he kept his mouth shut. Not many people could make Ryze Starlo do that.

  “They’re coming back,” Wylow said. “Three of them this time.”

  “Is one a little thicker?” Ryze asked.

  “Yep.”

  “With a mohawk?”

  “Yep,” Wylow answered again.

  “That’s Ty. He’s pretty vile, so keep an eye out for suspicious—”

  “Ryze,” she cut him off, “I’m a queensguard warrior of Xovia. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Right, sorry.”

  With that, Wylow left the main hold.

  She didn’t get nervous. Ever. Many years in battle had taught her to be calm and keep a clear mind.

  Meeting with the Cryton bugs wasn’t exactly battle, but it was close enough. Besides, a normal person would tell Wylow she had seen enough battle in the past two Common days—enough for a normal person’s lifetime, at the very least.

  But she was not a normal person; she relished the fight. All the years spent as a royalguard, and then a queensguard, were not the most action-packed. She could count on one hand how many times she’d drawn her weapon while on duty. Once, when a religious zealot attempted an assassination of her king during one of his speeches in the Xovian Square, and another time when two people had slipped past castle security while on a tour and broke into the throne room. Out of those two times, Wylow had only fired her blaster once, and it was at the would-be assassin. She aimed for the man’s heart nearly fifty feet away, and she hit it dead-on. The man died on the marble steps, a sizzling hole in his chest as wide as his yawning mouth.

  Now Wylow traveled down the Starblazer’s ramp. She wore the jumpsuit given to her by Starlo, thankful for its bagginess, because she was able to conceal a blasgun in a holster strapped to her thigh. She cut a hole in the pocket for easy access, sure that Starlo wouldn’t mind. The jumpsuit wasn’t exactly high-end fashion. Her draw was always quick, so if the bugs showed any hostility, she would be ready at a moment’s notice.

  They sauntered over, their normally wide, yellow eyes slitted. For some reason, their wings still buzzed despite them not being off the floor.

  Put on a nice face, she reminded herself. Be a diplomat, not a soldier.

  “Greetings,” the new bug with the mohawk said, raising two of his four arms. He wore a baggy suit and an open-collared shirt where a jungle of wiry hair poked out. His voice was gruffer than the others, and he smelled like cigar smoke. A gold chain was lost in the folds of his neck. Where the other two bugs were thin and toned, albeit sweaty and covered in grease, this one wasn’t. He definitely ate well.

  “Hello,” Wylow replied, sticking out a hand. The bug clamped it and shook. A little too hard, in Wylow’s opinion.

  “I hear you need a repair. Regulator circuit, huh?” Ty stepped around Wylow and examined the hull with curious eyes. “Haven’t seen a ship like this in a long time. SG-Rogue class, huh?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” Wylow answered. “I don’t know much about ships. I kind of stumbled upon this one.”

  “Huh, isn’t that something.” The bug looked at her, thick brows arching over his large eyes. Behind him, the two mechanics smirked. Wylow caught it all; there wasn’t much she missed. She was trained in the art of observation almost as well as she was trained in combat. She noticed this smirking the way she had noticed Ryze’s flustering whenever she got close to him earlier. Though the bugs’ reactions were a lot less subtle than Starlo’s. She could also sense this conversation turning sour before it even had a chance to get on the right track. Her right hand fell to her pocket and slowly slipped inside, her fingers brushing the pistol’s cool casing.

  If I have to, I have to, she thought. Sure, she was outnumbered, but she’d been outnumbered before. Many times before. A few dozen bugs wouldn’t be a problem for Wylow.

  “I think I may have seen this ship before,” Ty said. His talons trailed along the scorched hull. “Looks mighty familiar, doesn’t it?”

  The two other bugs nodded, that smirk changing to a full-on grin.

  “May have,” Wylow said. She leaned in closer, instantly wishing she hadn’t. The bug smelled as bad as he looked. Her face remained business-like as she continued: “I stole this bad boy off an asshole bounty hunter. Name was Starlo, or something equally lame.”

  Three sets of bug eyes looked at her warily. “Is that so?” Ty said. He crossed his top two arms and rested them over his belly. One of the buttons on his shirt looked close to bursting. Getting hit with said button when it inevitably did burst would probably hurt more than a beamblast wound.

  “Yeah,” she said, feeling smug. In retrospect, maybe she should’ve toned it down a bit, but the idea of being someone else, of being this rough-and-tough pilot or smuggler who’d killed a man for his ship, gave her a great feeling, and she would ride that feeling for as long as she could.

  “How’d you go about doing that? I’ve heard of this Starlo fella,” Ty said. “The Starblazer was his prized possession. He wouldn’t—”

  “He said over his dead body,” Wylow cut in, “and I made that happen.” She offered them a grin.

  Ty clapped his bottom hands together. As he did this, Wylow scanned him up and down. Holster on his hip. Probably for personal protection and not because the Starblazer docked in his hangar. Her experience told her that most civilians didn’t carry weapons; but logic told her to never underestimate anyone.

  “Well, congrats to you.” Ty walked around Wylow, her mirroring his movement. Never put your back to the enemy unless they’re dead, she thought. “Let’s take a look at it. I’ve always loved this ship. Do you mind?” He was motioning to the ramp inside.

  “No,” Wylow said, slightly uncomfortable. She hoped it didn’t show on her face, but she stepped aside. A regulator circuit doesn’t have to be looked at from the inside. Though her expertise lay in smaller tech like comms, beacons, and radar, any dummy knew where a regulator circuit was located.

  “Let’s see, let’s see,” Ty mused once inside, his two mechanics following him, Wylow behind them. He barked orders in a crude form of the Cryton language, one Wylow couldn't pick up on. The bugs nodded, turned, and walked past her.

  She remained as collected as she could. “What are they doing?” she asked.

  “Checking the main thrusters and fuel injectors,” he answered. “And I need to go to the damage control station, so I can see just how bad of a condition the ship’s really in.”

  “Can’t you see it’s in pretty bad shape?”

  “I can, but I need to be sure.”

  “Allow me to guide you,” Wylow said.

  “Ma’am, when you work as long as I do around these types of craft, you know exactly where everything is.” He flashed her his grin again.

  She followed him regardless, catching him looking over his shoulder every few seconds. They were closing in on the main hold, where Ryze and Jade were currently hiding. Her blood pressure spiked, and her finger found the cold steel of her weapon in her pocket once more. But what could she do short of pulling it free and pressing it against the bug’s head?

  Nothing. They needed the ship
repaired no matter what, and given that the Starblazer wasn’t going anywhere without being fixed, this place would have to repair it.

  Ty stopped in the main hold, his head on a swivel, wings buzzing rapidly. He focused on the shattered remains of the plates and glasses, the food splayed out on the floor near the cabinets. The place looked like a tornado had come through.

  “Looks like the ship took quite a beating. This had to be you, I presume? Ryze Starlo would never let this happen,” he said.

  Wylow nodded. “Ran into a Dominion blockade in the Xovian System. Wasn’t fun.”

  “Hmm, where were you heading?” A nod. “What could possibly bring you all the way out here near the Brink?”

  “That’s my business,” Wylow answered gruffly, “and my business alone.”

  Both pairs of hands clasped in front of him, Ty nodded. “Very well.” He walked by the couch and toward the opposite door, which Wylow presumed led to the damage control station.

  Have you ever heard of a damage control station? she wondered. No, but I don’t exactly know all of the vernacular. What they call a damage control station here could be known as something else on Xovia.

  Suddenly, the bug spun around much quicker than his size should’ve allowed.

  Wylow reached for her gun, pulling it out, but the bug was quicker. Using both sets of arms and the power in his springy legs, he ripped a panel from the wall and the couch flipped toward Wylow’s direction. It hurtled toward her like an asteroid. She barely dodged it.

  “Ryze Starlo!” Ty shouted, looking down into the hold.

  Wylow scrambled for her weapon as fast as she could. “Stand down!” she shouted. “Get away from the compartments!”

  The bug didn’t pay her any attention. He was too busy looking through the slats in the floor.

  Ryze’s voice drifted up. “How the hell did you do that, Ty? That was fingerprint protected.”

  “A couple of my tech whizzes are hacking your ship’s mainframe as we speak.” The bug smiled. It was a terrible sight.

  “Damn it, Ty, I’m gonna have to shoot you.”

  The bug laughed. “You and I both know you can’t shoot me. That metal would need an atomic cannon to even scratch its surface. No beamblast is gonna squeeze through those slats, either.”