by R. A. Nargi
An explosion rattled the ship as I threw myself into the turret’s swing seat and flipped on the ion lance’s activator. The targeting controls flickered to life and I went to punch the AI-assist, but then I realized that the model III didn’t have one. This would be up to my own reflexes.
“You there, kid?” Ana-Zhi Agrada’s voice sounded from the comm unit. “We’re swinging around.”
“Yes,” I said. “Let’s do this!” I tried to sound confident, but I knew I hadn’t trained enough on this old equipment.
The Freya zoomed through space, turning to face its attacker. There in front of me was the polished, sleek form of a Faiurae cutter.
I had done hundreds of ship-to-ship combat simulations, with all sorts of craft, but I had never fired upon an actual ship before—with real live beings on it.
So I choked.
And while I froze like an idiot, the Faiurae fired on us again. Their hyper-Vs flashed and a bolt arced into our proximity plates, jarring the Freya. The lights flickered off and then on again as the aux power kicked in.
“Shoot, damn you!” Ana-Zhi yelled.
I squeezed the trigger of the Lektor and missed, of course. Its twin bolts of ion missiles discharging into empty space as the Faiurae craft roared past.
Ana-Zhi or Galish—or whoever was flying this thing—turned us around again as my swing seat ratcheted noisily into position. The controls briefly locked on the target and chimed loudly. I shot again, and this time scored a grazing hit on their starboard side. It wasn’t enough to slow them down, though.
The Faiurae switched to a burst tracer which locked on our thermal dispersers. Multiple concussions rocked the Freya. Too late, I realized what they were trying to do.
“Get us away!” I screamed into the comm unit. “They’re trying to—”
I never got the chance to finish my sentence. Millions of jagged little snakes of energy suddenly emerged from every nook and crack in the ship. For a fraction of a second, the energy bolts danced in front of my eyes. Then everything went black.
I wasn’t dead.
Although I wished I was. My head felt like it had been trampled by a herd of banthoris, and every bone in my body ached. What the hell had happened?
“Get up!” a synthesized voice commanded.
As I opened my eyes—which had swollen shut—I saw a tall gaunt figure in an environmental suit. It was a Faiurae commando, and even in its suit, it looked like a desiccated gray scarecrow. Holding a stunpike.
That explained why I felt the way I did.
We were still on the Freya, but I had been moved from the gun turret to the main hold. All around me were bodies—Ana-Zhi Agrada, Obarral, Yates, and Hap Galish. I couldn’t tell if they were dead or just unconscious.
A harsh translated voice said, “You are the captain of this vessel?” It was less of a question than a statement.
“I am.”
I tried to get up because I didn’t want to show the Faiurae any weakness, but before I could fully stand, my knees buckled and my legs gave out. As I started to collapse back on the ground, the Faiurae shot out one bony claw-like hand and dragged me to my feet with surprising strength.
“Go!” It shoved me forward.
This time I managed to keep my balance. I gritted my teeth against the pain, as the creature half-shoved, half-dragged me down the corridor towards the engineering bay.
Chiraine was there, slumped against the bulkhead. She looked battered and bruised, but not seriously injured. “Beck!” she mumbled, but could barely get my name out. It sounded like they had busted up her jaw.
Anger surged through me and I turned to confront the Faiurae, but it just slammed me up against the wall beside Chiraine.
Sitting at her workstation was another Faiurae. It could barely fit in her seat and was manically flipping through screens of data with its insect-like limbs.
The Faiurae commander glowered at me. “Where are your findings?”
“I don’t understand.”
“This stra’cor discovered the location of the Kryrk.” The Faiurae gestured contemptuously at Chiraine.
I shook my head. “No, she failed,” I lied. “There was nothing on Taullae.”
The two Faiurae commandos chattered back and forth in their own harsh tongue. They didn’t sound especially happy.
“This aggression is against the Rhya’s rules,” I protested. “You can’t—”
“Silence!”
The Faiurae at Chiraine’s workstation jabbered angrily and then rose from the seat.
“We seize the stra’cor. We will obtain the knowledge we seek by force!”
Chiraine’s eyes widened when she realized that the Faiurae was talking about her.
“No!” I yelled.
As the Faiurae commando advanced upon her, Chiraine leaned over to me and pressed her lips to mine in a passionate kiss. And not only that—she pushed something smooth and round from her mouth into my own.
“If this one is of use, we may let her live!” the Faiurae said, yanking Chiraine away from me. “If not, you may pick her corpse up floating near Ordilon!”
It almost looked like it had a mocking smile on its face. That was the last thing I saw before the Faiurae swung its stunpike into my gut and knocked me into oblivion.
“Wake up, asshole!” Hap Galish shook me conscious.
I gasped and spit out the item hidden in my mouth. It was Chiraine’s biklode.
“What the hell?” Galish stared down at the data orb in my hand. He was bruised and had a nasty gash on his forehead sealed with curant foam.
“Chiraine passed this to me—right before they took her. What happened?”
“The Faiurae boarded us, kicked our asses.”
“Casualties?”
“None,” he said, helping me to my feet. “Even the Faiurae aren’t that stupid.”
We returned to the main hold where the rest of the crew was recovering.
“Well, it doesn’t appear as if they trashed anything,” Obarral said, as he stared at his datapad. “I’m running diagnostics now, to make sure we don’t encounter any nasty surprises. Besides the lingering stink of Faiurae, of course.” He wrinkled his nose.
Ana-Zhi groaned and tried to prop herself up. “Arrogant fuckers!”
I showed them the biklode and told them what Chiraine had done.
“Smart thinking,” Ana-Zhi said. “I have to give her props. We might not be dead in the water after all.”
“What are you talking about?”
She took the data orb from me and inspected it. “Chiraine said she had accessed the data about Bandala’s security system.”
“She said that she was working on it,” I corrected.
Ana-Zhi handed the biklode to Yates. “See what you can get off of this. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Then she turned to Galish. “Let’s get going. We’re running out of time. We’ve got to get into Bandala and find that bloody Kryrk.”
I didn’t believe what I was hearing. “Hold up! What are you talking about?”
Ana-Zhi regarded me as if I had suffered brain damage. “Our mission, Jannigan. We need to find the Kryrk. Remember?”
“No, we need to get Chiraine back! She’s our first priority.”
“Doesn’t work that way. You know the mission protocols.”
“Screw the protocols! Those freaks have Chiraine! We need to find them and get her back.”
“Listen, Jannigan. The Faiurae aren’t going to hurt her. They’re already in deep shit with the Rhya. They’ve crossed a lot of lines here. What we need to do is contact the wardens down on Yueld and let them handle it.”
“That’s not right,” I said. “They threatened to throw her out an airlock.”
“Which is exactly what I’m going to do to you, if you don’t back down. I’m the goddamn captain here. And I make the rules.”
Technically that was true, but I just couldn’t accept it. We went round and round for fifteen minutes and then she threatened to lock me up i
n my cabin for the rest of the mission unless I shut up and followed orders.
I reluctantly agreed. But not really.
I would shut up. But I wouldn’t follow orders.
After leaving the main hold, I headed to the infirmary to get patched up by the MedBed. It treated my abrasions, pumped me full of healants, and checked me for serious damage. Luckily no bones were broken and I had no internal injuries.
I needed to figure out how to find Chiraine. And that meant finding the Faiurae ship.
Would they be able to make her talk? And, if so, what would she say?
I wandered to the launch bay to assess what resources I might have access to. The weapons locker was fully stocked with RBs, shard slingers, railguns, shakers, rascals, bonerattlers, and poppers. In the secondary mech hold I saw the sleds, escape pods, hornet probes, and variously-sized drones. Then something caught my eye. There in the corner of the hold was parked an old Vireo T-9 starhopper. It looked like it hadn’t flown in a couple of decades, but I knew the Vireos were built tough and were super reliable.
That was an option. Even though it wasn’t armed, the Vireo was a fast-moving craft. It was nearly all engine, with a 350 twin ion drive mounted behind a tiny two-man cockpit.
When I was in my early twenties, I had flown a later model Vireo, the T-11, during a visit to my dad’s friend’s star ranch off of Lekkadabra. I bet I could figure out the controls of this T-9. If anything, it would be simpler than the T-11. I peered into the cockpit and saw something that made my heart jump. It was an aftermarket cloaking device, small and primitive enough that the Rhya hadn’t confiscated it. Someone had pimped out this T-9 pretty good.
What I really needed, though, was a way to track the Faiurae ship. The Vireo had an extremely rudimentary nav system. You basically flew it by the seat of your pants—just eyeballing off general coordinates. I’d need to figure out a destination first, and then I could punch it in and I’d be on my way.
I decided to head over to the engine room. There was a chance that Obarral might be some help. When I got there, I saw we were coming up on Bandala. And we weren’t alone.
“Do you see what I see, dear boy?” Obarral asked.
I nodded. It was the Faiurae ship. And I knew Chiraine was on it.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“Without a doubt the same as us. Plotting how to get into Bandala without getting turned into so much Faiurae mush.”
That meant that it was even more likely that they had coerced Chiraine into talking. I needed to move quickly.
11
Back at the engineering bay I found Yates immersed in Chiraine’s data constructs. The biklode had been returned to its resonator and pulsed with light as it interfaced with the system.
“The good news is that, thanks to that little doodad, we have access to everything, including the schematics of Bandala and the control system for its defense grid.”
“So Chiraine came through for us?”
“Yes, she did. One hundred percent. The only thing we don’t have is the exact location of the Kryrk. Her decryption slicers got about halfway through before she yanked out the biklode. I’ve re-initialized everything, and thankfully the slicers save their state every millisecond.”
I wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad. Since Chiraine didn’t know where the Kryrk was located, she couldn’t tell the Faiurae. Would they torture her? Or would they just accept the truth that she hadn’t yet found the Kryrk’s location?
The display showed a visual representation of a data scan mapped to Bandala’s geo-projection schematics. Different colors indicated the slicer progress. Yates was right. We were only halfway there.
“So it could be anywhere in this area?” I pointed to the gray area on the schematic.
“Exactly. We could find it in the next second—or have to wait until it reaches the end of the scan.”
“And how long would that take?”
Yates checked a progress readout. “A few hours maybe.”
I nodded. It looked like we might be heading for a standoff with the Faiurae. Even if they couldn’t get the location of the Kryrk from Chiraine, they’d know enough to follow us into Bandala. Then it would be a free-for-all, and who knows what would happen to Chiraine.
I decided to confide in Yates and tell him my plan. Out of everyone on board, I felt I could trust him the most. Unlike the rest of the crew, he was a long-time Beck Salvage guy and he worked with my dad a lot.
So I took him through what I was thinking. I’d fly the cloaked starhopper and sneak up on the Faiurae ship. Then once I was docked at an airlock, I’d use explosives to force my way in. From there, I’d just have to play it by ear. Their ship wasn’t so big that I couldn’t find Chiraine. And hopefully, I’d get the drop on the Faiurae commandos and hit them before they knew what was happening.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I can’t go with you.”
“I’m not asking you to. The starhopper only has room for two.”
Yates scratched at his beard, deep in thought. “It might work, but there are a lot of ifs.”
“Such as?”
“There’s seven of them—and one of you.”
That was true, but I had a fair amount of training. Hand-to-hand combat. Evasion. Gymnastics. Mostly it was to keep up appearances. But some of the skills stuck. At least I hoped they had. Plus, with the cloaking device, I’d have the element of surprise on my side.
“You won’t be able to blow your way in,” Yates said.
“Even with a magna-charge?”
He shook his head. “We’re talking about a class-c atmos hull. Even the hatch is rated against meteoroids up to four meters.”
“Then I’m screwed. I can’t just knock politely.”
“I might have another idea for you.”
He led me back to the mech hold and the incursion team’s sled. It hadn’t been unloaded since the incident on Taullae.
Yates rifled through the supplies on the sled until he found what he was looking for.
“This might work.” He handed me a device that looked like someone had made it in their home workshop. It was a metallic cylinder the length of my hand with a fluted end—almost like an old musical instrument.
“What is this thing?”
“It belonged to Xooth.”
Then I remembered. “His donokkal?”
“Yeah.”
“How does it work?”
“No one knows. It’s Plargondian tech. But you don’t have to know how it works in order to operate it.” Yates went on to explain that you pressed the fluted end against a locking mechanism and the donokkal just did its thing.
“You think this will work on the Faiurae’s airlock?”
“One time I saw Xooth use it on a Wreechie god-vault through a meter of superheated mud. It’ll work.”
“Is that what the Faiurae used to get on board the Freya?”
“I’m not sure. They have their own tech, but, yeah, probably something similar.”
Yates followed me to the weapons locker, where I availed myself of some explosives, a pair of shard slingers, a Winton snub railgun, and some suppressor strand shells. The latter weren’t fatal, which might make what I was going to do slightly less egregious.
“I know that the Rhya won’t like this,” I said, as I gathered all the gear together and loaded it on the starhopper. “But I’m prepared to argue my case that the Faiurae initiated the aggression by attacking us first and capturing Chiraine.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the Rhya,” Yates said.
“What do you mean?”
“You need to talk to Hap and Ana-Zhi, but they’ve been unable to raise any wardens. And the long-range scans are coming up empty. Apparently they’ve left the system.”
“That’s ridiculous. We just saw them all swarming around Roan Andessa.”
Yates couldn’t tell me any more details. I would have to track down Ana-Zhi Agrada.
/> “If you’re going to do this thing, you should do it now while folks are distracted,” Yates said. “Both on our side and theirs. Ana-Zhi is not going to be happy when she finds out you’ve gone rogue on her.”
“Let me deal with Ana-Zhi.”
I found her alone in the bridge, sitting with her legs up on the console. She might have been napping when I burst in.
“Hey, junior,” she said lazily. “You decide to put your big boy pants on and help us with this job?”
“What happened to the Rhya?” I demanded.
“Oh,” she said. “You heard.”
“Yates said you couldn’t hail them.”
She swung her legs down and sat upright. “Yeah, well, it might be some kind of solar activity—messing with the comm.”
“What about the long-range scans? Yates said we can’t find even a single Rhya ship.”
“I don’t know what to say. Something is going on.”
“You’re acting pretty flippant about this,” I said.
“I’m not flippant. I’m focused.”
“You don’t even give a shit,” I muttered under my breath.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just came here to tell you that I’m going to go along with your call. It’s what my dad would have wanted.”
She looked at me curiously. “You got that right.”
“Yates said it might be a few hours yet until the slicer pinpoints the location of the Kryrk. I’ll be in my cabin resting up. You just tell me what you need me to do.”
She nodded. “It’ll probably be just me, Hap, and Yates going in, but we’ll need some tactical support. I’ll come get you when we’re ready for the briefing.”
Obviously I didn’t return to my cabin. I took a roundabout route through the engineering bay to let Yates know I was making my move.
“Good luck, Jannigan.” As he clasped my hand, I saw a genuine look of concern in his eyes.
“Try to cover for me.”
After I left him, I scouted the area around the launch bay. Thankfully it was empty. I slipped into an exosuit, ran through its start-up diagnostics, and activated the ‘combat’ preset. That would configure the high-power magtouch repulsors and haptic pulse capability. I also grabbed a lightweight survival suit for Chiraine since she would have to gear up quickly for our escape—if she was still alive when I found her.