Mission Pack 1: Missions 1-4 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  # # #

  The orbital space around Champlain VI teemed with starcraft, satellites, and sundry high-altitude habitats. It was nothing like the man-made clutter around Earth or Mars, but it prevented a pristine view of the pretty little blue-green world below. The Champlain system was pastoral by ARGO standards, but it was the sort of pastoral a great many people paid good terras to experience firsthand. Real soil under your feet, a domicile disconnected from the adjacent buildings (if that was what you liked), and the ability to look off into the untamed wilderness and see no sign of human habitation—provided you didn’t turn too far to either side. All that and the cozy knowledge tucked away that if anyone came to spoil that peace, ARGO warships would be on hand to stop them.

  Carl watched through the cockpit window as they descended leisurely into the atmosphere. Tanny had keyed in the pre-clearance code, and orbital security had spared them the drawn-out process of explaining where the Mobius had been and why they had come from outside ARGO’s suffocating swaddling of protection.

  “It’s not too late, you know,” Tanny said. “We can land, find some other job, and you use that forked tongue of yours to get us out of working for Bell.”

  “Yeah,” Carl said absently. “I bet we could.”

  “No job she’s given us has turned out like it was supposed to.”

  The corner of Carl’s mouth twitched. “Just like everyone else who hires us.”

  “You do realize that if they board the ship while we’re down there, and Mort isn’t around to hide things, they’re going to find those disintegrator rifles.”

  “Better argument for my plan than yours,” Carl replied. “Besides, she also pays better than anyone we’ve worked for. Maybe we’ll make enough to afford to just pitch those disintegrators out an airlock so we can all breathe easy in civilized space.”

  Tanny snorted. It was all the reply she needed.

  The comm blinked and Tanny keyed it open. “Vessel Mobius, this is station Charlie Foxtrot Eight Zero Niner. We have you on an approach vector to a reserved landing site with no clearance. Please transmit.”

  Tanny held down the transmit button. “Champlain ground control, this is Mobius. Stand by for landing permit code.” She punched several more buttons and waited. “Fucking bureaucrats. Getting to be as bad as Sol out this way.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Carl said softly. He reached over the pilot’s chair and kneaded the muscles of Tanny’s shoulders and neck. They were rock hard—even by her standards. “Far as anyone knows, we’re clean.”

  Tanny sighed and relaxed for just a moment. Then something clicked in her head and she shrugged him off. “Quit that. You’re not—”

  “Mobius, you are cleared to land. There is ground transport waiting for Captain Ramsey upon your arrival. Charlie Foxtrot Eight Zero Niner out.”

  Carl grinned. “See? We’re VIPs.”

  “Volunteering Ignorant Patsies?” Tanny muttered.

  “Something like that.”

  # # #

  The Champlain VI countryside rushed by in a blur. Scrub grasses poked up amid the broken landscape. Here and there a jut of red rock provided a landmark, making it feel like the hover-cruiser was actually getting somewhere. Carl turned in his seat to look back at the Jefferson Landing starport, receding over the horizon behind them.

  “Likes her privacy, huh?” he remarked.

  “Ms. Bell prefers the security of a vast stretch of land between her and unsavory elements,” Hobson replied. He sat across from Carl, the only other one along for the ride besides their driver. It hardly seemed fitting to call the operator of a ground-hugging vehicle a pilot.

  “Present company excluded?” Carl asked.

  “You are aware of Ms. Bell’s less public activities,” Hobson replied. “She casts no aspersions.”

  “Just wondering why now she’s all gung-ho to meet in person,” Carl said. “She was always big on intermediaries.”

  “Perhaps she merely thought that it was past time to meet one of her more promising agents,” said Hobson.

  “We’ve met before,” Carl said absently, watching out the window as they passed a lumbering herd of bison.

  “Of course, sir,” Hobson replied. It was the genteel way of telling Carl that he was full of shit. That was fine. Hobson didn’t matter.

  Carl let the ride pass in silence. Hobson was exactly as much of a conversationalist as etiquette required, and had all the personality of a public relations kiosk. Carl wasn’t going to worm out anything about the job, Keesha Bell, or anything else of value from the starch-suited assistant. He watched the landscape instead, trying to imagine life sucked down by gravity to a single ball of rock. It was horrible.

  “What’s that?” Carl asked at length, pointing toward the oncoming horizon.

  “Ms. Bell has her own shield generator,” Hobson replied. “You are seeing the atmospheric distortion from the field.”

  “Um, we’re still a long ways off, aren’t we?” Carl asked. “How big’s this place?”

  “The dome of the shield covers an area one point two kilometers across.”

  Carl ran a hand through his hair. “What’s she need me for? She can afford to run a generator that size; she can hire whole mercenary fleets.”

  “Not every job calls for a show of force. She will explain how you and your ship fit her vision.”

  As they drew near, Carl made out the concrete wall that defined the lower edge of the shield. The perimeter was dotted with ground-to-space gun emplacements, tucked just inside the shield’s protection along with sensor towers and maintenance drones. Trees rose up, lush and green, protected within the confines of the shielded estate, their canopy reaching just higher than the concrete.

  The hover-cruiser sped on, the shield dome growing like a mountain at their approach. A packed strip of dirt led to a massive steel gate that opened as they drew near. By the time they arrived, it was just wide enough for the vehicle to zip past at full throttle without leaving paint scrapings on either side. As soon as they were past, it began to close.

  “Not the friendliest of places,” Carl remarked, watching the estate seal shut behind him. He lurched forward as the hover-cruiser decelerated. It had taken only a few seconds inside the shield dome to reach the main residence.

  “If you will follow me,” Hobson said, stepping down even before the door finished opening.

  “You folks don’t like to waste time,” said Carl. He hopped to the ground, expecting to find barren, dusty ground beneath his feet. But when he landed, his boots sank gently into a thick carpet of manicured grass. Hobson was already making his way toward the residence, which struck Carl as more castle than house.

  As he entered the foyer, Carl’s practiced eye appraised the architecture. He was no historian, but years of practice had taught him enough to spot the difference between the pretentious and those with actual taste. Keesha Bell lived in a structure that would not have felt out of place in sixteenth century Earth, but had dragged it spotless and new through space and time to modern day Champlain VI.

  “If you would wait in the study,” Hobson said, escorting Carl into a posh side room off the main foyer. All the furnishings were authentic; either real antiques or replicas of the sort that cost nearly as much. The fireplace was lit, the only other light in the room besides the sun streaming through the windows; no artificial illumination at all. The pleasant woodsmoke scent mixed with wood polish and floral perfume in a way that made everything seem ancient, like a museum exhibit brought to life.

  Carl considered sitting in an ancient-looking chair, and was running a finger along the velvet upholstery when a voice startled him.

  “I see you came alone,” Keesha Bell said, standing behind him with her hands clasped behind her back. She wore an eighteenth century gentleman’s suit, with long tails and gold embroidery at the cuffs and lapels, cut to hug a figure that had no business on a woman who was Mort’s age with room to spare. Her braided white hair stood in stark contrast to he
r dark skin, and was the only hint of her true age aside from a few wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

  “Ms. Bell, it’s been forever,” Carl replied, extending his hand.

  Ms. Bell looked Carl over, head to toe, before presenting a hand of her own and shaking Carl’s. “You have your mother’s looks, except for that nose.”

  “You sure know how to puff a guy up,” Carl replied. “Thanks for meeting me in person this time.”

  “I hadn’t expected you to come alone. I had thought that perhaps Mordecai might have wanted to come along.”

  Carl slumped into one of the ancient chairs, drawing a wince from Ms. Bell, but one which she suppressed instantly. “I’m sure you’ve heard about his situation. You’re just a bit too ‘Convocation’ for his tastes these days.”

  “A pity,” Ms. Bell replied. “I’m the last one he’d need to worry over. If they knew half what I did out here, they’d want more than just my eyes for it. But if Mordecai would rather cower inside a starship than enjoy my hospitality, it’s his loss. I trust that he and the rest of your crew can keep out of trouble while we discuss business?”

  “Of course,” Carl replied. “We’re professionals.”

  # # #

  A sweat-slicked body crashed against the plastic mesh just in front of Mriy’s face. She slammed her paws against the cage, along with a dozen other spectators, jostling the dazed fighter as he staggered to escape his opponent’s onslaught. Both fighters were human, as were the majority of the spectators around her. The crowd was raucous, most of them drunk. Mriy had never understood the appeal of dulling the senses to watch combat, if such a display could be called combat. These humans fought like children with their claws tucked away.

  “Fall upon him,” she snarled, not caring what her shouted advice sounded like to human ears. Hardly any of their kind spoke azrin. “Take his throat!” Fighter Lyang had shown such ferocity when the two met at the center of the cage, but now he reeled from the punishment that fighter Drahos was inflicting. When Lyang lumbered into a clumsy blow by Drahos, Mriy pounded her fists against the cage and hissed. “You steal my money, you weakling coward!”

  “Hey, who let the zoo out?” a human to Mriy’s side asked. While she spoke little English, the charm earring she wore translated it with perfect clarity. The insult followed a common theme among xeno-hating humans, equating sentients with their non-sentient cousin races of Earth. Little did they realize that cute little proto-hominids were kept as pets on her home planet.

  Mriy hissed out a breath, and focused her attention on the fighting. Carl had made it clear that they were to keep out of trouble while planetside. It was Carl’s pack, Carl’s ship, Carl’s rules. Mort and Tanny had claws in him, but cross him too often and Mriy might find herself marooned on a human world. She glanced at the insulting human, and slaked her anger on imagined acts of violence against his person.

  “Maybe we should toss him in the cage, see if he can do better than Lyang,” the insulting human said. He was intentionally loud enough for her to overhear him, even if her ears had been weak as a human’s.

  “I … female,” Mriy grumbled in English.

  “Hah! It speaks. How about that,” the insulting man said.

  “Dumb as a sack of hotdogs though,” one of his companions added.

  Mriy cursed them in her own language, then punched the cage as she watched Lyang take a brutal kick to the abdomen. Her own blow lacked conviction; her bet on Lyang was as good as lost, and she had could muster no more enthusiasm to chide him.

  “What’s that, kitty?” the companion asked. “I don’t speak meow.”

  It was a more philosophical question than he realized, no doubt. Azrin languages contained concepts foreign to humans. Her limited understanding of English made a proper translation all the more difficult, but in this case, it seemed worth the effort.

  “You … prey … taste bad. Piss … fear … no good eat.” She snarled in frustration. She was failing to properly convey the disdain she held for them, and the unworthiness of their fear and urine-soaked flesh as spoils of her inevitable victory over them. To help overcome the language barrier, she flattened her ears and showed them her teeth. Wracking her brain, Mriy struggled to recall an insult that would have teeth the humans would feel. “Your mate … seeks … kthizz-ka.” The English word wouldn’t come, and it was the only human language she had any familiarity with. The azrin word she had used was the term for a male who fathered children for impotent relatives. It was a quiet arrangement, and cause for great embarrassment if it became public.

  “Ooh, tough kitty,” the insulting man said in a sarcastic tone, one of the subtle human mannerisms she had picked up from studying Carl. “Ain’t no weapons got past security, and you’re outnumbered. So how about you just pack up and get lost, before you get hurt.”

  Mriy scanned the crowd, looking into the eyes of the bystanders, gauging each according to their will to fight, their build, their health. Her hunter’s instincts sized each up at a glance. Taking the insulting man by the collar, she drew herself up to her full height, towering over the human. As his friends and other drunken rowdies closed in around her, Mriy leaned in close. “Hunter fears no prey.”

  They fell upon her, and the lopsided bout in the cage became a sideshow.

  # # #

  Mort kept his hands in the front pocket of his sweatshirt as he walked the streets of Nephrim. It wasn’t one of Champlain VI’s largest cities, but it had a quaint feel reminiscent of the Back Bay district of Boston Prime. Wrought iron lamps lined the streets, ready to spring to light when dusk settled in. Parks and strips of lawn broke up the monotony of stone, brick, and concrete that plagued more modern cities. Scientific vehicles buzzed among the pedestrians, but once he left the tram station, there were few other overt signs of science.

  Not everyone in Nephrim was magically inclined, but much of Champlain VI’s magical community congregated there. There were no holovid parlors, no gadget emporiums, no flashing advertisements using every psychological science in the book to soften minds until they bought what they were told. The residents liked it that way, wizard and retrovert alike.

  Painted signs at every corner gave the names of streets and boulevards, but Mort was a stranger in Nephrim. For his current business he was wary of asking directions, and only knew his destination by name, not location. Though it shamed him, he found himself wishing for a voice-interaction kiosk to help find Confabulous, the wizards-only shop that might have what he was looking for.

  After a footsore hour spent wandering, Mort stumbled across a civic map of Nephrim. It was wooden, hand-carved and painted, rendering the city in bas relief with tiny numbers referencing a legend on the side. Confabulous was listed, and it was only a few blocks from his present location. Mort memorized the turns and the compass direction, and looked to the sky. A pale white sun stared back down at him, reminding him that he was not on Earth, and solar navigation might not be the best idea. He checked the nearby street signs and oriented himself by those instead.

  When he reached Confabulous, he paused to read the warnings on the door. There were standard legal disclaimers in plain English, warning patrons of the dangers of interacting with unfamiliar magic; Mort glossed over those. In smaller lettering, carved into the stone above the door, were the words: “RARA MAGICAE POSTULATUM.” Just what he was looking for. It was considered poor form to dangle rare magics before the public, and foolish to display them where scientific sorts could lay their sterile, latex-covered hands on them. But a place with a reputation as oaken as Confabulous would have strange and wondrous things hidden away where only special patrons might peruse them.

  Mort pushed his way through the door, which caused the tinkling of a brass bell, announcing his arrival. Two other patrons browsed the shelves, and a tidy man in adept’s robes behind the counter glanced up at the sound of the bell. Mort wanted some privacy with the shopkeeper, so he bided his time among the mundane magics and wizardly accoutrements kept out f
or common shoppers. There were the usual candles and pungents, making the shop stink like an old lady’s sitting parlor. Bins of semi-precious and common stones lined one shelf, while the shelf opposite was stacked with branches and twigs fit for making staves and wands respectively—presuming the wizard was of limited means and no discerning taste. Mort grimaced his way through the aisle of pipes and hookahs, the crutch of a wizard whose mind could not let go the concrete world without imbibing.

  After the other patrons finished their shopping, the clerk left the counter and came to see about Mort. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked, his tone hinting that perhaps Mort was lost, or in need of a washroom, and not actually shopping with intent to purchase.

  “I’d like to see your back room,” Mort replied, setting down a sphere of glass the size of an orange.

  The clerk looked over Mort in his jeans and shabby sweatshirt, the gaze doing a great deal of talking without so much as a spoken word. “Sir, I’m afraid the back room of Confabulous is only for members of a certain rank in the Convocation. It isn’t for idle browsing. Now, if there isn’t anything further—”

  Mort clapped a hand down on the clerk’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I really am.” He guided the startled clerk around behind the counter. “I just need to look through, and see if there is one particular item in your collection. After that, you’re going to consent to a memory wipe, and forget I was ever here.”

  “Sir, I’m not sure who you think you are, but there’s no—”

  “I’m Mordecai The Brown,” Mort replied. “And I don’t mind telling you that, because in an hour you won’t remember it.”

  Mort stopped before a stone door with a complicated arrangement of moving panels, some straight, some semi-circular, others square but bearing glyphs. It was a puzzle lock, meant to keep out the rabble and riffraff. It had the unfortunate side effect of keeping out disgraced wizards of the Convocation—after a fashion.

  “You can’t threaten me,” the clerk replied, though a tremor in his voice suggested otherwise. “I won’t open it.”