Garek shrugged. “Won’t be the first time I’ve flown an alien ship. They’re all the same. Controls for thrust, pitch, and yaw. It’s not like I’m planning to take it into combat.”
“You might not have a choice. You think Astralis is going to be mysteriously abandoned with your daughter there waiting for you? Besides, you don’t even know where Astralis is! The only one who knew the coordinates of the rendezvous was Pandora, and Brak left her in pieces on the Inquisitor’s bridge.”
Garek felt a muscle jerk in his cheek. “Why don’t you mind your own damn business and let me worry about rescuing my daughter?”
Lucien placed a hand on his shoulder once more. Garek glared at that hand.
“I’m sorry, Garek.”
“So that’s it, we’re just giving up?”
“I never said that. Just because we can’t go running back to Astralis doesn’t mean we can’t find and rescue our people. We know that the Faros are slavers, and three hundred million slaves aren’t going to disappear without a trace. There’ll be slave markets to sell them. We find those markets, and we find our people.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“We join a Marauder crew as Oorgurak suggested, learn about the universe from them, and get our bearings. Hopefully by the time we figure out where to look for our people, we’ll have enough money to pay one of these Marauder captains to take us there.”
Garek scowled. Lucien’s plan wasn’t as immediately satisfying as his, but it was far more realistic. “Fine,” he said, gesturing to the dark corridor he’d come down just a few minutes ago. “Lead the way.”
***
Freedom Station
They followed Lucien through Freedom Station, walking down dirty, discolored corridors with flickering glow panels. Lucien was looking for the alien who had brought them here—Oorgurak. It made sense to offer their services to him first, if for no better reason than because he was the only Marauder captain they knew. It also didn’t hurt that Oorgurak was some kind of Faro super soldier, one of the so-called Elementals.
“What are you looking for?” Addy asked.
Lucien shook his head. “Our green-skinned Faro friend. He might be willing to let us sign-on with his ship.”
“He was a prisoner until recently. What makes you think he even has a ship?” Addy asked.
“When we were in the mess hall together he mentioned he has a crew, so he must have a ship.”
Garek snorted. “So you’re just going to wander the station aimlessly until you bump into him?”
Lucien stopped walking and turned to face the scarred veteran. “You have a better idea?”
“Matter of fact I do.” Garek turned to the nearest alien passerby and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, do you know—”
The alien rounded on him with a shrill, echoing scream. White tentacles writhed around the being’s head like snakes, each of them with a mouth and fangs. The being’s face was a wrinkly, sunken horror of red quills with dozens of glinting silver eyes nestled between them. The tentacles lunged and snapped their jaws bare inches from Garek’s nose, each of them screaming in his face before retreating.
After a few seconds, the tentacles retreated and relaxed to dangle around the alien’s shoulders like hair, but two fat tentacles remained erect. They gave an echoing scream that Lucien’s translator band interpreted as: “Do not touch us.”
With that, the alien turned and stalked off on two bony white legs.
“Maybe don’t try that again...” Addy whispered.
Even Brak looked shocked.
“What in the netherworld...” Garek muttered.
“Netherworld is right,” Lucien added. A flicker of movement caught his eye, and he turned to see an alien melting out of the shadows of an alcove beside them. It was a gray-skinned humanoid. He was short with huge slanting, lidless black eyes, and an over-sized head.
It spoke in a warbling stutter: “You are lucky. Scarpathians have been known to kill for less.”
Lucien frowned. “Who are you?”
“I am Ka’ta’wa.”
“Katawa?” Lucien asked.
The alien inclined its over-sized head to them. “Yes.”
A bulky black shape moved into Lucien’s peripheral vision and he turned to see a lumbering black monster approaching them, walking on four legs as thick as tree trunks. It had a mouth full of protruding teeth, and a single, giant orange eye, striated with red veins in the center of its horned forehead.
A small hairless red creature rode on its back.
“Get out the way!” the little red being chirped at them in an amplified voice. “It is hungry!”
Katawa glanced at the approaching aliens, and then back to Lucien. “Follow me.”
“Why?” Garek demanded while keeping half an eye on the lumbering monster headed their way.
“To talk about rescuing your people,” Katawa replied, and then turned to walk down a narrow corridor that branched off from the one where they were standing.
Lucien watched the alien go. The corridor Katawa had chosen was lit by a solitary glow panel that flickered on and off, periodically casting both the little alien and its surroundings into utter darkness.
“I don’t like the look of this,” Addy said.
“Neither do I,” Lucien said, shaking his head.
Garek wordlessly followed the gray alien.
“Garek, wait! It could be a trap,” Addy said.
Brak hissed. “If it is a trap, the gray one will be sorry for springing it,” the Gor said before starting down the corridor after Katawa and Garek.
Lucien cast one more glance at the lumbering one-eyed beast heading toward him. It licked its lips with a fat purple tongue, and splattered the deck with shiny gobs of drool.
“You crazy, you!” the little red alien screamed from atop its mount. “It will swallow you whole!”
Lucien grabbed Addy’s hand and pulled her into the narrow corridor after Garek. “Trap or not, we’ll stand a better chance against the one small gray alien than that monster.”
They turned to watch as the beast reached the spot where they had been standing. It pawed the deck angrily, its claws shrieking against the scuffed metal. Then it lifted its giant head and sniffed the air in great snorts. After just a second, it turned to face them. The monster’s orange eye flicked up and down, then side to side, as if measuring the adjoining corridor to see if it would fit.
“Let’s go...” Lucien urged, tugging on Addy’s hand to pull her deeper into the corridor.
She nodded absently.
The monster lunged at them. Its jaws snapped right in front of Addy’s face, blasting them with its fetid breath. Lucien reflectively yanked Addy away from the beast.
The red little humanoid laughed and slapped his mount. “I told you! Crazy, you!”
Lucien pulled Addy along, hurrying to catch up with Garek and Brak. They were with the gray alien, standing outside a door. The corridor plunged into darkness, and Lucien slowed his pace. He groped the walls for support. The light snapped back on just as Lucien’s eyes were beginning to adjust. He squinted through the glare to see that Garek and Brak were gone, as was the gray alien.
Chapter 2
Freedom Station
Lucien and Addy ran to the door where they’d last seen Garek and Brak. The light in the corridor flickered off just as they reached the door, plunging everything into darkness once more. Lucien activated the headlamps on his helmet just in time to see the door slide open and Katawa appear. The alien’s big black eyes squinted up into the light radiating from Lucien’s headlamps. After a moment’s hesitation, Katawa pulled him into the room with surprising strength, and Addy followed.
The room was small, with low ceilings and appropriately small furniture—a low bed/sofa, and equally low table and chairs with a tiny kitchen along the adjacent wall. Brak stood in one corner by the bed, his chin almost touching his chest because of the low ceiling. Garek stood beside him with arms crossed
, his helmet brushing the ceiling.
The door slid shut behind them and the gray alien went to sit at his table. He gestured to the chairs around him.
“Please, sit.”
Seeing that there was nowhere to hide an ambush, Lucien relaxed somewhat and pulled out a small chair to sit awkwardly beside the alien. His knees were forced up to his chest by the chair’s stubby legs. It was like attending a child’s tea party. Addy sat down beside him, while Brak sat on the other side of Katawa and turned his chair so he could stretch his legs out behind the table. He rolled his giant shoulders, working the kinks out of his neck from standing under such a low ceiling. Garek came and stood beside the table, his arms still crossed.
“What’s this about?” Lucien asked, nodding to Katawa.
“You said you wanted to talk about rescuing our people,” Garek added. “How do you even know they need rescuing?”
Katawa blinked his huge eyes at them. “I overheard you talking in the mess hall.”
Lucien began nodding slowly. Not long ago they’d been talking with Oorgurak about rescuing their people over a meal in the station’s mess hall. They’d asked Oorgurak for help, and Oorgurak had asked them what they had to offer in exchange. When it became apparent that they had nothing to offer, Oorgurak had lost all interest in the topic.
The Marauders were pirates and mercenaries, all ex-slaves of the Farosien Empire with no greater ambition than their own survival and continued freedom. Asking them to pick a fight with their old masters for free was offensive to them. But for some reason, this particular Marauder was offering to help. Lucien had a feeling it wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart.
“What do you want in exchange for helping us rescue our people?” he asked.
“You help me go home.”
“Where’s home?” Lucien asked.
“Etheria.”
Lucien blinked and shook his head. “You’re from Etheria?”
Katawa nodded.
That didn’t fit for a number of reasons. Lucien had been to Etheria, and he’d only ever met Etherians living there. If these gray aliens inhabited the same galaxy as the Etherians, why hadn’t he seen them before? Furthermore, what was someone from Etheria doing this far outside the Red Line? Etherus had forbidden travel beyond that line for as long as anyone could remember. Astralis had only been allowed to cross it at their own risk, and soon after they’d done so, they’d found out why: it was a political boundary between the Etherian and Farosien Empires, and anyone who crossed it was fair game for Abaddon.
“Let’s say I believe you,” Lucien said. “How are we supposed to help you get home? We don’t even have a ship. And since you need our help, I suspect you don’t have one, either.”
“I do have a ship.”
Lucien felt his eyes narrowing. “Then we’re back to why.”
“I need your help to find the lost fleet.”
Addy leaned forward with sudden interest, her brow furrowed and green eyes sharp. “What lost fleet?”
“The one the Etherians sent to negotiate with Abaddon.”
Lucien slowly shook his head. “You’re saying the Etherians took a whole fleet past the Red Line? When was that? I’ve never heard about it.”
“More than ten thousand years ago.”
Lucien sat back with a frown. “Then they must have returned home by now.”
Katawa shook his head. “The crew was executed by Abaddon. Before they died they sent their fleet away to keep Abaddon from finding it.”
“And it’s been lost ever since?” Addy asked.
Again, the alien inclined his head. “Yes.”
“How do you know all of this?” Lucien asked.
“Because I was one of the crew.”
Lucien blinked. “So you’re over ten thousand years old?”
The alien shook his head. “I am over five hundred thousand years old.”
“And you came from Etheria ten thousand years ago,” Lucien said, still not buying the story.
Katawa inclined his head in another shallow nod.
“You’ve been out here all this time?” Addy asked. “Why didn’t you go home?”
“I do not know the way.”
“But this lost Etherian fleet has the location programmed into their nav computers,” Lucien suggested.
“Yes.”
“You’re from Etheria and you don’t know where it is?” Lucien asked. “How’s that possible?”
“We could not risk allowing the location to fall into enemy hands. We were made to forget the way before we left. Our ships were programmed to return there automatically.”
“This is a waste of time,” Garek said. “By now the Faros have found that fleet and re-purposed it for themselves.”
Katawa shook his head. “If they had found it, they would have developed the same technologies by now.”
“You’re saying that Farosien tech is inferior to Etherian tech?” Garek asked.
Katawa looked up at him, blinking his huge eyes. “You did not know this?”
“The Etherians are very secretive,” Lucien explained. “But it’s reassuring to hear that someone might be capable of defeating the Faros.”
“So the question is, if they can, why don’t they?” Addy said. “Why allow the Farosiens to exist? Why not just destroy them and set all of the slaves free?”
Lucien felt his brow tense into a knot. “That’s a good question.” He nodded to Katawa. “You lived in Etheria. Why don’t they attack the Faros?”
Katawa shook his oversized head. “I do not know. I have also wondered this.”
Addy frowned. “You said it’s been ten thousand years. In all of that time they never sent anyone to rescue you? You’re one of them!”
“Perhaps they do not wish to lose another fleet.”
Addy snorted and shook her head.
“Let’s say we agree to help you,” Lucien said. “How can we help you find this missing fleet, and how does finding the fleet help us?”
“You can be made to look like Faros. I cannot. You will be able to move freely through the empire.”
“So you want to paint us blue and shave off all our hair,” Garek said. “Then what? We go around randomly asking the Faros if they’ve seen a derelict fleet? If that’s your strategy, it’s no wonder you haven’t been able to find anything in ten thousand years.”
“You didn’t answer my second question,” Lucien pointed out. “How does finding this fleet help us?”
“You wish to fight a war against Abaddon. You will need ships for that. If you find the fleet, you can keep the vessels.”
Garek appeared to perk up with this suggestion. “How many ships were in the fleet?”
“More than a thousand, all heavily armed.”
Garek whistled. “When Etherus sends an envoy, he doesn’t mess around.”
“Where do we start looking?” Lucien asked.
“First you must be disguised. Then we will take my ship to follow the trail.”
“There’s a trail?” Addy asked.
“Yes. I have kept notes from my searching.”
Lucien nodded along with that and turned to Addy. “What do you think?”
“It’s a risky plan. What if someone discovers we’re not actually Faros? We won’t sound like them when we talk.”
“That’s a good point,” Lucien replied. The translator bands they wore didn’t replace their native language or their accents; the technology simply allowed them to understand what was said in other languages.
“Your minds can be programmed to speak their language. I have a device for this.”
Lucien’s brow furrowed. “Will it teach us their accents, too?”
The gray alien inclined his head. “Yes.”
“Sounds like you’ve been planning this for a long time,” Garek said.
“I had hoped to convince Oorgurak and the other green skins, but they do not believe the fleet can be found.”
Garek grunted. “Maybe because the Et
herians flew it into a black hole. Why leave it drifting somewhere for the Faros to find? And how could Abaddon kill the entire crew without destroying their ships? You expect me to believe they left more than a thousand warships unattended while they went to negotiate with a hostile alien race?”
“They were not unattended. My people were at the helm.”
“And they stole away with the fleet when negotiations broke down,” Addy said, nodding.
“Yes. We hid the fleet and erased our memories of its location.”
“Why?” Garek demanded. “Why not use it to go home?”
“We learned things about Etherus that made us want to stay here. The fleet was to be our insurance that our people would not become slaves. Only one of us knew its location. If we were enslaved, he was to keep the fleet’s location a secret. If, however, we were made citizens of the Farosien Empire, its location would be revealed.”
“Why not simply keep the ships and use them to defend yourselves?” Addy asked. “You could have formed your own empire out here.”
“A thousand ships would never have been enough to defend us.”
“And yet we’re supposed to risk our lives finding them so we can use them to fight a war against the Faros?” Garek asked.
“Defending a colony is different from hiding in the shadows and striking targets of opportunity.”
Lucien turned to Addy. “I’m willing to risk it if you are.”
Addy nodded. “What have we got to lose?”
“Just our lives,” Lucien said.
“It’s worth the risk. Can you imagine all the worlds we’re going to see? If we look and sound like Faros, they won’t even try to attack us! We’ll be able to come and go as we please.”
Lucien looked to Brak next. Enigmatic as ever, the Gor hadn’t said a thing in all this time. “What do you think, buddy?”
“I think they cannot make me look like a Faro.”
That was a good point. Humans and Faros looked very much alike, but Gors were completely different, from their skull-shaped faces to their giant feet and over-sized, muscular frames. “What about Brak?” Lucien asked.
Dark Space Universe (Books 1-3): The Third Dark Space Trilogy (Dark Space Trilogies) Page 26