The Sanctum of the Sphere: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 2

by Luther M. Siler

  “It’s a miracle they didn’t blow their life support,” Brazel said. “How the hell did they not lose pressurization?”

  “The engine must have blown directionally,” Grond said. “Lucky, lucky son of a bitch. Sabotage?”

  “Only if they wanted the target to starve to death instead of blowing up,” Brazel answered. “Which I guess could happen.”

  THE PILOT IS A MALE HUMAN. HE IS IN STASIS, Namey announced. LIFE SUPPORT SHOULD LAST ANOTHER THREE WEEKS PROVIDED NO FURTHER DAMAGE TO THE SHIP.

  “He’s suited up, though, right?” Brazel asked.

  HE IS NOT.

  “You’re kidding.”

  I WAS INSTRUCTED NOT TO KID ANY LONGER.

  “He took an intersystem trip on a one-person cruiser and he’s not suited? Even once his engines blew, he didn’t put one on? Meaning that he doesn’t even have one with him? Lucky and stupid.”

  “Amazing how often those go together,” Grond said. “Can we bring it in?”

  “It’ll be tricky,” Brazel said. The cruiser was far too small to dock with, since the Nameless sported a traditional airlock but the cruiser was too small for one. There was a hard canopy over the pilot’s head that would swing up on a hinge so that the pilot could climb into and out of the ship. The Nameless had a cargo manipulating arm, though…

  “Namey, can we grab the whole boat and put it in the cargo bay?”

  POSSIBLE. THE CARGO BAY WILL HAVE TO BE PREPPED FOR DEPRESSURIZATION. IT HAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE THAT WAS LAST DONE. IT WILL TAKE A WHILE.

  Grond groaned. Prepping the cargo bay for depressurization meant that every single object that was in the bay—most of which he had just moved—would have to be either moved out of the bay entirely or carefully secured against the loss of atmosphere when the cargo bay doors were opened. Namey was right that this hadn’t been done in a while. With both of them working as fast as they could, it would be most of a day’s work to do the job right. It would be hours of work just to do it sloppily.

  “Answer the distress call,” Brazel said. “See if the ship starts waking him up right away or if we’re going to have to do it. Grond, can you think of any way to get him aboard without spending the next few hours moving furniture?”

  “None that don’t involve hurting him,” Grond said. The other pilot would survive a few minutes of hard vacuum, especially if he was in stasis when Grond pulled him out of his ship, but he wasn’t going to come through unscathed. “This would be a lot easier if he’d bothered to bring a goddamn envirosuit with him. Who even does that?”

  “He’ll have some stories to tell us, that’s for sure,” Brazel agreed. “But we gotta get him out alive first. We can shake him down for a story and a reward afterwards.”

  “Lucky, lucky son of a bitch,” Grond repeated, heading for the cargo bay. Their day had just gotten much busier.

  They chose “quick and sloppy,” and with Asper’s help had the cargo bay more or less locked down in five or so hours of continuous work. Brazel and Grond worked together well in situations like this. Brazel was detail-oriented and there was very little in the bay that Grond couldn’t move by himself. Between the two of them, everything of value or portable was safely locked down. Asper split the difference between the two of them, sometimes helping Brazel with directing Grond’s lifting and sometimes providing muscle alongside the halfogre.

  “Here’s how this works,” Brazel said. “You go put on an envirosuit. Magnetize the boots. I’m gonna grab his ship and then open the doors. Problem is with something that big you’ll probably need to guide it into the bay, so I’m gonna have to cut gravity. You’re strong, but you’re not that strong.”

  “I’m tempted to say try me,” Grond said, heading for his envirosuit.

  “I’m tempted to do it,” Brazel said, “but I need you walking and not hobbling when we figure out where we’re going next. There’s already a good chunk of a day gone and we haven’t even woken this halfwit joyrider up yet.”

  “I’ll be good,” Grond said. “Let’s do this.”

  The operation went as smoothly as could be hoped, Grond carefully guiding the weightless cruiser into the center of the cargo bay and securing it in place before Brazel closed the bay doors and reestablished atmosphere and gravity. A few moments later, Grond felt the ship reenter tunnelspace and Brazel and Asper joined him.

  Grond was staring at the ship’s pilot through his viewport, a quizzical look on his face.

  “What?” Brazel asked. He looked through the canopy. The pilot was dressed all in black, wearing an opaque interface helmet common to this style of ship. There was little about him that looked notable.

  “Something has occurred to me,” the halfogre said.

  “And that would be?”

  “That your average one-person cruiser is not exactly designed to be opened from the outside once it’s sealed itself to hard vacuum,” he said. “Getting this guy out of the can he’s locked himself into might be a little bit more complicated than we thought it was going to be.”

  Brazel laughed.

  “We can’t just burn our way in?”

  “Could,” Grond said. “But that thing’s supposed to withstand reentry. I don’t know if I have a torch that’ll melt through it anytime soon. At least not without cooking the poor fellow that we just wasted several hours to save.”

  “So, what, we just leave him in there until his life support wakes him up?”

  “It won’t be the first time we’ve had a corpsicle in the cargo hold,” Grond said. “They’re just usually clients.” There was no real risk of the life support running out, since his ship would figure out he was in atmosphere again soon enough.

  Brazel shrugged. “Fine, whatever. Just, like, leave him a note on the dashboard or something, so he doesn’t try and rob us blind when he wakes up. Not like we don’t have a job to do.” He turned to leave.

  “Take a look at this engine,” Grond said. “How do you read the damage?”

  Brazel looked at the engine, which took up–or, at least, had taken up–about two-thirds of the cruiser’s length. Had the engine still been attached, fitting the ship into the cargo bay would have been impossible.

  “I think you were right,” Brazel said after a few moments. “Look at how the pieces that are still attached are bent. They’re curled outwards, toward the cockpit. There was something explosive wedged in right behind the pilot, it looks like, and it exploded away from him. So, a directed bomb, like a claymore or something like that. Designed to blow the engine to bits and leave the occupant alive. Sabotage.”

  “So either he was supposed to die slowly in space or somebody else was supposed to pick him up and we got there first,” Grond rumbled. “I do love it when we do a good deed and it mixes us up in somebody else’s bullshit.”

  “I think I can get him out,” Asper said.

  “How?” Brazel asked.

  “You won’t like the answer, I suspect,” xe answered.

  “Magic? How is magic going to help here?”

  “You say that as if you know anything about my capabilities,” Asper said, putting xir hands on the canopy. “Watch.”

  Asper closed xir eyes, lips forming words but no sound escaping from them. A yellow glow emanated from xir hands and encompassed the ship. Grond and Brazel covered their eyes as the glow increased in brightness. The entire ship shone like a small sun and Brazel and Grond both heard a distinct click.

  Grond opened his eyes. Asper waved a hand theatrically and the canopy swung upward. The pilot didn’t move.

  Grond stepped onto what was left of the wing of the ship and pulled the pilot out. He still didn’t react. He was completely dead weight.

  “Hey, look at this,” he said.

  The helmet the pilot was wearing had somehow attached itself to him. Four thick needles–two on each side–had extended from the sides of the helmet deep into his neck.

  “That’s … not normal, right?” Grond asked. “I’ve never worn one of these things befor
e, but they don’t stick themselves to you, do they?”

  “Not that I’ve ever seen,” Brazel said. “Let’s get him to the medbay.”

  Calling what the Nameless offered a “medbay” was overstating the case a bit. “Medical closet” was probably a bit more accurate. They had a bed that flipped down out of the wall to put him on, and even strap him to if necessary, a precaution they took. Brazel attached a few sensors to the man’s chest.

  “What’s going on here, Namey?”

  PROCESSING, the ship answered. The three of them waited while the diagnosis package did its work. CORRECTION. THIS MAN IS NOT IN STASIS AS IT IS TYPICALLY UNDERSTOOD. HE IS PARALYZED AND HALLUCINATING. THE HELMET HAS INJECTED HIM WITH A VARIETY OF PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS.

  “The fuck? Seriously?” Grond asked. “He did that on purpose?”

  JUDGING FROM WHAT I AM DETECTING IN HIS SYSTEM, I SUSPECT NOT. I HAVE DIFFICULTY BELIEVING HE IS ENJOYING WHAT IS HAPPENING TO HIM RIGHT NOW.

  “What should we do about it?”

  SIMPLY BREAKING THE NEEDLES WILL STOP THE DELIVERY OF THE DRUGS. I WOULD SUGGEST BREAKING ALL FOUR AT THE SAME TIME IN CASE THE HELMET HAS SOME SORT OF FAILSAFE.

  Brazel left for a moment and came back with two pairs of wire cutters.

  “These ought to be strong enough. You do one side, I do the other?”

  “Sounds good,” Grond said. He took two of the cutters from Brazel.

  “On three,” Brazel said. “One … two … three.”

  The pair snapped through the needles. Grond pulled the stubs out of the man’s skin and carefully pulled the helmet from his head.

  And then jumped back in surprise as Haakoro sat up and screamed.

  Nineteen

  Watching a battle from orbit was surprisingly satisfying. It was difficult to see from here which side was winning, but the mere fact that the battle was taking place was more than sufficient. This battle had been going on for more than a day, and the city, whatever it was, was slowly being reduced to rubble. Soon enough there would be nothing on Khkk worth defending at all.

  Unless the Benevolence interfered. Which, with luck, would be very soon, and certainly before too many more of their engineers were lost in battle. Both sides were using weapons that the Benevolence had paid to have developed. The simple fact that the war was progressing so quickly and efficiently was testament itself to the efficacy of the Khkks’ work.

  “Got some news for you.”

  He turned away from the viewscreen. It was all being recorded anyway. If anything especially impressive happened during the interruption he could watch it again as many times as he wished.

  “Go ahead.”

  “The Benevolence sent some mercs after Roashan. They musta just hired whoever was in the area. They did some damage, but not enough. Roashan jumped away.”

  He nodded. “Only the first battle. There will be more.”

  “The signal came from one other place before it showed up on Roashan, though. You’re never gonna believe where it was.”

  A smile. “Tell me.”

  “Arradon. It was on Arradon.”

  “Arradon.”

  “You heard me.”

  “That is … remarkable. Have you passed this information on to anyone yet?”

  “Nah. Just found out myself. I figured you’d wanna know first.”

  “Oh, I do. When was the last time you were on Arradon, old friend?”

  Deep, guttural laughter. “I think you know the answer to that as well as I do.”

  “Do you fancy a return trip, by any chance?”

  “I could use a vacation.”

  “As could I. Let us go see how Arradon has changed in our absence.”

  He turned away from the fighting. As exciting as it might be to watch a battle, participating in one was so much better.

  “Namey, do find my wife, please, would you?” Haakoro had lapsed back into unconsciousness after screaming his throat raw for a few seconds. Brazel and Grond had taken the opportunity to tighten the restraints on their makeshift hospital bed.

  The three of them heard the click as the Nameless established a comm channel to Arradon.

  “Don’t really have time, Brazel,” Rhundi said. “You would not believe the bullshit I am putting up with right now.”

  “I think I have an idea,” Brazel said. “I’m guessing Haakoro escaped?”

  “Please tell me how the hell you know that,” she said.

  “He’s here,” Brazel said. “He … stole a ship, I’m guessing? Which means you probably need to fire somebody? And then he lost his entire engine. And his helmet attacked him. I’m not really clear on the details, and he hasn’t woken up yet.”

  “How in the … where are you two again?” Rhundi tried to do the math in her head to figure out how long ago Haakoro had managed to escape and gave up.

  “That’s the amazing part. We’re nowhere, basically,” Brazel said. “Technically I think we’re still in dwarfspace, but not any part of dwarfspace that’s actually near anything. We’re looking for Remember.”

  “How do you look for Remember?”

  “You wait for her to find you, apparently. That’s what she told us last time. She’d find us if we needed her. She didn’t seem to want a lot of follow-up questions.”

  Rhundi opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. Worry about that later. “Listen, I was about to comm you anyway. You figure out what to do with Haakoro. We’ve got our own problems over here…”

  Talking quickly, she explained what she’d done with Irtuus-bon and the children.

  “You sent the troll off to take care of our kids.”

  “I sent our kids off with a security team, and told them to take care of the troll,” she said. “And I’m losing who knows how much money trying to clear all of the short-termers at least out of the resort, since I don’t especially want them killed if the Benevolence come calling, and I don’t really want to tell them that, so most of my time over the last day or so has involved coming up with creative and easily-reversible ways to screw up our plumbing. You would not believe how angry the goblins are with me right now.”

  “Nobody noticed their missing ship?”

  That brought her up short. “No. Did it look expensive?”

  “Hard to say. The entire goddamn engine was missing.”

  File that away with the rest of the stuff we have to worry about later. “If he killed a client, you’re keeping him alive until I have a chance to kill him. Understood?”

  “Yep. Do the kids have a destination?”

  “Not especially, but I told Darsi to head for Taralon if and when they needed a resupply.” Taralon, a terrestrial moon orbiting a gas giant on the other side of gnomespace, was a notorious hideout for pirates and villains. Rhundi was good friends with half of the residents and the other half owed her favors or money. Ironically, it was probably one of the safest places in the galaxy for their kids.

  “Works for me. I think we’re gonna wake up your little escapee here soon. I’ll keep you posted. Stay safe, okay?”

  “Always,” she said, signing off.

  “This is all very unexpected,” Brazel said. “Namey, do we have some smelling salts around here? Or something we can inject him with?”

  PROBABLY, the ship said.

  Asper slapped Haakoro twice. He stirred, groaning again.

  “Or we could just do that,” Grond said. Haakoro’s eyes opened, slowly, fluttering closed a few times. Grond leaned in and waited, his face centimeters away from Haakoro’s, his eyes brightening to red.

  Haakoro’s eyes focused. A moment later, the man processed what he was looking at. He shrieked, swearing, pulling on the restraints and trying to get away.

  “Stuck, fucked, and out of luck,” Grond said. “Explain. And this time I get to decide if you’re lying.”

  “I thought you needed help,” he said. “So I followed you.”

  “And how did you get the ship?”

  “I had a hardlight chip in my s
uit. You guys didn’t notice it. I turned that on in my room then went to the dock. One of your guys just gave me the keys to that ship.”

  “You just walked out, without anyone noticing. Or the security guys we had watching your room. Or the cameras. I find my hitting hand is itchy again.”

  He shrunk back. “I … I might have had two. I used one of them to hide in.”

  Grond considered this. Hardlight generators were expensive as hell, and using one for invisibility was pretty much impossible.

  “Lying. You had a holo generator for the bedroom. I can buy that. Hardlight? Bullshit. That’s the second obvious lie you’ve told us in the last few days. You can’t even fit a fucking hardlight generator into the damn bodysuit you had on. Brazel, can I hit him?”

  “Sure,” Brazel said. Grond cracked his knuckles. Haakoro screamed again.

  “Wait,” Asper said.

  “What?” Grond asked. “This is the fun part.”

  “You’re right, he’s not telling the truth,” xe said. “But I don’t think he’s lying, either.”

  “You’ll have to explain that a bit more,” Brazel said.

  Asper put a hand out, moving Grond out of the way, then put xir other hand on Haakoro’s head.

  “Hold him down,” xe said. “He’s going to fight this. The restraints may not be enough.”

  Grond held Haakoro’s shoulders down, and Brazel moved around the two of them to hold down his legs. Asper put both hands on his face, using xir thumbs to pull his eyelids down. Xe stared into his eyes.

  “I was right,” xe said.

  Asper continued staring into Haakoro’s eyes, chanting to xirself. A white light shone from xir eyes, connecting them to Haakoro’s. The man began shaking and bucking his body, nearly escaping even Grond’s grasp.

  The glow extended from Haakoro’s eyes down his entire body. Asper’s chanting grew louder and more intense, speaking in a language neither Brazel nor Grond had ever heard. Haakoro took a deep, ragged breath, then exhaled sharply, coughing a black mist out of his lungs. Asper broke eye contact for the first time to stare at the mist, which briefly caught fire and then disappeared. Haakoro collapsed and stopped fighting.