Starship Grifters (A Rex Nihilo Adventure)

by Robert Kroese

  It seemed that the Frente had received an anonymous transmission containing the plans of the Peace Fortress. It was basically an uncensored version of the schema I had downloaded from the battle station’s network when we were on board, and as such it included several features that had been conspicuously absent from the public version, like the big red section on which was scrawled:

  REACTOR CORE

  HIGHLY VULNERABLE TO ATTACK!

  A SINGLE KILO OF ZONTONIUM DETONATED AT THIS LOCATION WOULD CREATE A CHAIN REACTION THAT WOULD DESTROY THE ENTIRE BATTLE STATION!!!

  The Frente’s war council had met for a marathon eighteen-hour session, at the end of which it was decided to attempt to detonate a kilo of zontonium inside the reactor core.

  The council believed that destroying the Malarchy’s greatest weapon would tip the scales of the conflict in their favor. This may have been a bit excessively optimistic, but one thing was certain: blowing up the battle station would definitely put a crimp in Rex’s plan. The Frente had selected a team of their best agents to infiltrate the station in the guise of a diplomatic mission from a newly discovered planet in the Proboscean Cloud. The idea was to get aboard by pretending to offer allegiance to Heinous Vlaak and then somehow smuggle a grenade to the reactor level. Given the competence of the agent the Frente had selected to spy on Rex, I didn’t put the odds of success very high, but I had to admit it wasn’t the worst idea I had heard recently.

  “This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” Rex exclaimed. “You can’t just send a team of untrained rebels on a secret mission to a Malarchian battle station!”

  “These men are highly trained,” sniffed General Issimo. “I handpicked the team. They’re the best we have.”

  Having learned of the plan to sabotage the battle station, Rex had demanded a meeting with the general and Princess Willie. Although the general was clearly still suspicious of Rex (and presumably troubled by the fact that Wick hadn’t returned with us), Rex’s star had risen somewhat in light of intelligence indicating that the Peace Fortress had been spotted in orbit around Schufnaasik Six. The presence of the fortress was taken as proof that Rex had been telling the truth about the hidden cloaking facility on the planet.

  “I’m sure they’re well trained at running sump pumps and spearing irradigators and whatever else it is you do around here, but a mission like this requires special skills. Diplomacy, subterfuge, camouflage, improvisation, demolition, maybe a little origami. I could get your team up to speed, but it would take at least two weeks. Three if you want them to be able to make a pterodactyl.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time,” Princess Willie protested. “If these plans are correct, that battle station could wipe out Schufnaasik Six with one blast from its plasmatic entropy cannon. We’d lose your cloaking facility, which is the only advantage we have in this war. And what if they find out our base is on this moon? They could just as easily destroy us.”

  “How could they possibly find out where this base is?” asked Rex. “Don’t you monitor all off-planet communications? Someone would have to slip out of here right under your noses and personally deliver the coordinates to the Malarchy.”

  “I’ll admit it’s unlikely,” said the princess, “but we can’t take the risk. We need to strike as quickly as possible.”

  “OK, one week,” said Rex.

  “Three days,” said the princess.

  “Princess,” said Rex, “I can’t possibly mold a finely tuned team out of a batch of undisciplined rebels in that time. Perhaps you should just let my associate and me handle this.”

  “Absolutely not!” growled General Issimo. “I personally selected a team of three of our best men for this mission. I mean no offense, Princess, but I’d trust any of them over Mr. Nihilo.”

  The princess thought for a moment. “We’ll use General Issimo’s team, but you and Sasha may go along. And you must be ready to depart in three days.”

  “It’s a deal,” said Rex, “on one condition.”

  “What’s that?” asked Princess Willie.

  “I’d like to be able to pick one additional member of the team.”

  “Who?” the general demanded. “Some scoundrel friend of yours?”

  “No, sir,” said Rex. “The person I’m thinking of is a strapping young man who is highly dedicated to the cause. Someone in whom I believe you already place a great deal of confidence, General. His name is Wick Azores.”

  “Wick Azores?” asked the princess. “The corporal we sent to fetch Gavin Larviton? That seems reasonable to me. What do you say, General?”

  The general bit his lip. “Wick is off on another mission right now.”

  “Well, call him back from the field. This mission takes precedence over anything else.”

  “It’s just . . .” the general started. “He’s quite a ways from here, and the mission he’s on is extremely sensitive.”

  “I see,” said the princess coldly. “So you’re sending our best agents off on sensitive missions without informing me. Is that where all my money is going?”

  “No, Your Highness. I . . . I’ll get Wick back here as soon as I can.”

  “Good. Is there anything else, General?”

  “No, Your Highness.”

  The general accosted us on our way back to our quarters. “All right, you son of a bitch, where is he?”

  “Who?” asked Rex innocently.

  “You know damn well who. Wick Azores. He was aboard your ship when you left, but he didn’t come back with you. What did you do with him?”

  “Was he on board my ship again? That crazy kid. Sasha, remind me to fumigate before we take off next time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Space damn you, Nihilo! If you got that kid killed . . .”

  “Relax, General,” said Rex. “Wick is fine. I mean, as fine as can be expected while being trapped on top of a giant stone pillar in an underground cavern on an alien planet a hundred light-years from here.”

  “What?” asked the general. “Wick is on Gulagatraz? What in Space is he doing there?”

  “There was a matter of some unsettled debts. We were planning on getting him back as soon as my cash flow problems are resolved.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Six months, with any luck,” said Rex.

  “You can’t leave Wick on Gulagatraz for six months!”

  “I don’t really have a lot of say in the matter. The Galactic Credit Bureau has claimed him as collateral. I can’t get him out until the debt is paid. And you can’t mount your super-secret sabotage mission against the Malarchy until we get him out. So we’re at something of an impasse. Unless you want to explain to Princess Willie why you ordered Wick to stow away on my ship, causing me to rethink my alliance with the Frente and deny them access to my sophisticated cloaking technology.”

  “Cloaking technology!” spat the general. “I still haven’t seen any hard evidence such a thing even exists.”

  “Whether you think it exists is immaterial,” said Rex. “The princess believes it does, and if I decide to renege on my promise to deliver it to the Frente because you offended my delicate sensibilities by placing a spy on my ship, the princess will blame you. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that’s not going to go well for you.”

  General Issimo simmered for a moment. Then he announced, “We’re going to get Wick out of that prison.”

  “Do you have 1.6 billion credits lying around?” Rex inquired.

  “No,” said the general. “We’re going to break him out.”

  Even Rex seemed a little taken aback by this idea.

  “General,” I interjected. “Gulagatraz is the most secure prison in the galaxy.”

  “Not anymore,” snarled the general. “I’ll be damned if I’ll miss my chance to blow up that battle station because one of my
men is stuck in prison.”

  “He has a name, General,” Rex chided. “It’s . . .”

  “Wick,” I offered.

  “It’s Wick,” Rex continued. “And he’s more than a tool to be retrieved so that you can hatch some harebrained scheme to blow up a Malarchian battle station.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” said the general. “Because you’re coming with me.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Because I’m not letting you out of my sight. Also, I can’t spare a ship right now, so we need to take yours.”

  “What if I don’t feel like going along?” asked Rex.

  “Then I tell Princess Wilhelmina where Wick is,” said General Issimo.

  “You’ll be in big trouble for losing track of him.”

  “You’ll be in bigger trouble for getting him sent to prison.”

  Rex sighed. “Fine,” he said at last. “We’ll go on your stupid rescue mission.”

  “Excellent,” said the general. “We leave at oh six hundred hours.”

  “OK,” said Rex. “But can we make it, oh, seven hundred hours? I’m not myself if I don’t get at least six hundred and fifty hours of sleep.”

  The general scowled, turned on his heels, and marched off.

  “Sir,” I said to Rex, “why are you agreeing to go along on this mission? I mean, I feel bad about Wick too, but—”

  “Who?”

  “Wick. The guy we’re rescuing.”

  “Oh, right, Wick. Nice kid. Could have amounted to something. Too bad he got mixed up with a bad element.”

  “Yes, sir. As I was saying, there’s virtually no chance General Issimo will succeed in breaking Wick out of prison, and he’ll probably get himself killed in the process. Our problems are on the verge of taking care of themselves without our help. Maybe if we just slip away . . .”

  “This is just like you, Sasha. Always wanting to leave things well enough alone. Haven’t you learned anything about that?”

  I thought for a moment. “That we never do it?”

  “Correct. We’re in too deep to skip out now. Besides, I don’t like the idea of General Issimo going off to rescue Wick without us. What if he succeeds?”

  “You seriously think that’s a possibility?” I asked.

  “One thing I’ve learned, Sasha,” said Rex, “is that no matter how poorly thought out a plan is, there’s always a chance it will succeed unless I’m directly involved.”

  “You make a compelling point, sir.”

  “All right, then. I’m going to hit the hay. Wake me up in six hundred and fifty hours.”

  We departed the forest moon early the next morning. Rex was surly, feeling that he’d been cheated out of six hundred and forty hours of sleep, but he was back to his old self after three martinis. He’d somehow found time while we were on the moon to raid the general’s liquor cabinet, so the Flagrante Delicto’s bar was once again fully stocked. I rationalized a course that would get us to Gulagatraz in just under a day and a half. If everything went as well as could possibly be expected, we’d be back in three days, just in time to leave for the next suicide mission. Of course, Rex was going to do his best to make sure that things didn’t go nearly as smoothly as General Issimo might expect.

  As we approached the planet, the general gathered the team together in the main cabin. The team was made up of Rex, me, and the three supposedly elite agents of the Frente the general had selected for the sabotage mission. All three of them looked younger than Wick and didn’t seem nearly as bright.

  “OK,” said the general as we approached the forbidding planet. “Let’s go over the plan of attack.”

  “You know,” replied Rex, swirling his martini absently, “I realize that’s a metaphor, but can we call it something else? Someone might get the idea we’re actually planning on attacking the prison.”

  The general’s brow furrowed. “What’s a metaphor?”

  Rex set down his martini. Never a good sign. “Seriously, General. You’re scaring the kids. What’s the plan, really?”

  The general pulled a folded-up chart from his pocket and unfolded it on the table in front of us. “This,” he announced, jabbing a shot-glass-sized circle with his index finger, “is the planet Gulagatraz.”

  “Do we have a better map?” I asked. It consisted almost entirely of a large shaded area labeled “SPACE.”

  “Six men died getting this map to us,” said the general.

  “So,” said Rex, frowning, “there’s no chance of getting your money back?”

  The general leaned back from the table, folding his arms angrily. “It’s the best I could do.”

  “Is the prison even on this map?” I asked.

  “Of course!” said the general. “It’s right . . .”

  The general’s finger had left a smudge on the map, obliterating part of the circle. A label pointing to the smudge read “PRISON.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said the general. “There isn’t going to be anything left of the prison by the time we’re done with it.”

  The three greenhorns cheered and thrust their fists in the air.

  “How could six men have died getting you this map?” I asked. “You just found out Wick was there yesterday.”

  “Printer malfunction,” said the general.

  “Ah,” I replied.

  “Sasha,” said Rex. “Would you care to explain to the general why his plan is the worst plan ever?”

  “Certainly, sir,” I replied. “General, this isn’t a military ship. We have no weapons except some low-powered lazecannons that might be able to cut through the three hundred meters of solid rock to get to the subterranean prison, assuming we had about eight months. Also, even if we did possess the capability of doing significant damage to the prison, we’d risk killing Wick, thus defeating the purpose of this mission.”

  “Excellent summary,” said Rex, downing the rest of his martini.

  “What do you suggest, then?” demanded General Issimo.

  “This isn’t my mission, General,” said Rex. “You’re the tactical genius here. How many of these rescue missions have you conducted anyway?”

  “More than I can count,” sniffed the general.

  “I see,” said Rex. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “I’m not going to be insulted by a two-bit con artist,” snarled the general. “Just land us near that smudge and I’ll take care of the rest. This sort of mission is better handled with improvisation anyway.”

  “You’re the boss,” said Rex. “My robot navigator and I should have the landing details worked out shortly. Sasha?”

  Rex and I retreated to the cockpit.

  “Sir,” I said. “That man is going to get us killed. If we get anywhere near the prison, they’ll shoot us down with lazecannons. And if by some miracle we make it to the ground in one piece, we’ll be met by heavily armed security forces. We don’t have a chance.”

  “Sasha, you’re an unimaginative coward with no sense of adventure,” said Rex, “but damned if you’re not right this time. I’ve had bunions with more tactical sense than that idiot. How did he get to be a general anyway?”

  “You’ve seen what passes for a team of crack commandos among the rebels, sir. And although I realize that you had your own motives for wanting Wick for the sabotage mission, I’m starting to think he may actually be the brightest one of the lot. Frankly, I get the feeling that the Frente is made up mostly of people who couldn’t find any other form of employment.”

  Rex nodded. “OK, so here’s what we do,” he said. “Land the Flagrante Delicto on the other side of the planet. Hopefully we can slip through their ground-to-space defenses that way. We’ll tell the general we’re right in the middle of the smudge; he’ll never know the difference. Let his men spend five or six days wandering around looking for the
prison. When they don’t find it, we return to the forest moon and let General Issimo explain to Princess Willie what happened to Wick. You and I hightail it out of there and head back to the battle station to get captured by Heinous Vlaak. He blasts my planet as originally planned and we’re back in business.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Flagrante Delicto plummeted toward the foreboding surface of Gulagatraz.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The uninhabited side of Gulagatraz was surprisingly well protected by surface-to-air lazecannons. I did my best to avoid them, but within minutes of entering the atmosphere we had taken so many indirect hits that our shields were nearly depleted.

  “This isn’t going to work,” I said. “If I get any closer to the surface, we’re going to get vaporized.”

  “That’s not going to fly with the general,” said Rex. “Is there another planet around here we can land on and tell Issimo it’s Gulagatraz?”

  “How dumb do you think General Issimo is, sir?”

  “How dumb is there?”

  Another lazecannon blast rocked the ship. Red warning lights flashed. Our shields were at twelve percent.

  “At this point we’ll be lucky to get out of here at all,” I said.

  “All right, pull up. I’ll figure out what to tell Issimo and the team.”

  Suddenly a blinding crimson glare flashed across the top of the ship. The shields were now down to three percent.

  “What the hell was that?” Rex yelled.

  “We’re taking fire from above, sir,” I said. “Just a glancing blow. Probably meant to be a warning.”

  “Another warning like that and we’ll be ash,” said Rex.

  A voice crackled over the comm system. “Follow me if you want to live, idiots.”

  “Hey,” said Rex, “that sounded like . . .”

  A sleek black craft soared overhead and then dove sharply toward the planet’s surface.