Armageddon Theft: An Arek Lancer Novella

by Troy Osgood

  “I know the basics of space travel,” she started rotating the chair so she could examine all the instruments and controls. She just looked, not touched. “But I have never been out in the stars before.”

  “What do you know?”

  “A ship moves from space into the...,” she paused looking for the right word.

  “Wildspace,” I supplied. “And it’s called hopping.”

  She nodded and started over.

  “A ship hops into wildspace and then comes out in another system.”

  “That’s about all there is to it,” I said and leaned back in my chair. I put my feet up on the corner of my console, hands behind my head. The ship was basically on autopilot until the hop point. “It really doesn’t get more complicated. I mean the theory behind it all is complicated. The math is extremely hard to follow. I tried looking at the calculations once but it gave me a headache.”

  Dresla laughed. Like all of Storwoi, it had a melody to it.

  “But don’t need to understand the math to know it works,” I finished.

  We watched the stars through the view window. Noises carried up from other parts, people talking. I glanced down at the internal systems readout. I wasn’t concerned with the weight of all the people. The Nomad’s Wind was a freight hauler, it was made to transport weight. But it wasn’t made to handle this many bodies. The air handlers, refreshers and other systems were only built for a maximum of six. There was a lot more than that now.

  They’d overload long before we got to Hoin.

  I leaned forward and adjusted some of the settings, dialing back the climate control and the water settings. We’d be stinky and uncomfortable by the time we got to Hoin but it was better than anything breaking from overuse. Ships were fine tuned instruments. Problems in one area inevitably led to problems everywhere else.

  Wouldn’t take long for these many people to use up the oxygen reserves if life support went out.

  “How long have you had the ship,” Dresla asked, looking over to study me.

  “Five years,” I replied. I knew I was considered ruggedly handsome. Six foot, solid build, two hundred pounds, black hair and beard. But I was starting to wonder what her interest was. “Before that I was a soldier.”

  “I knew it,” she exclaimed with a smile. “I thought it was that. Solider or law enforcement.”

  “That obvious?”

  “If you know what to look for,” she replied. And she was right. Us vets did have a swagger that if you knew what to look for it was there. A way we walked and carried ourselves.

  “Your Tradelan is nearly flawless,” I told her with a chuckle. “Better than mine. Where did you learn?”

  “I was a coordinator at the Storw landing port,” she explained and looked out the window, quickly turning away from me. Hiding something maybe? Not the full truth, that was for sure.

  There was a tap on the door frame and we both turned to see a frazzled looking Kaylia. Her hands moved rapidly, too fast for me to follow. I was getting pretty good at her sign language, but times like this when she moved them this quickly, I got lost.

  “Slow down kiddo,” I said and she did.

  Help. I can’t understand them.

  “Looks like there’s a language barrier issue,” I translated for Dresla. “Can you help?”

  She stood up and headed towards Kaylia who was smiling, glad for the help.

  “Take your tablet so you can communicate with her,” I told the kid. It would have been interesting seeing Dresla try to translate for Kaylia when she didn’t know the sign language.

  I watched them walk down the hall, stopping at the door on the right. Kaylia went in as it opened. That was my cabin, Kaylia’s normal one was across the hall but we’d given it to a family so she was crashing in mine. She came out with her tablet in hand and led Dresla towards the stairs down to the lower half of the ship: the galley, lounge and hold.

  Dresla had said it was obvious that I had been a soldier or law enforcement.

  I wondered if she realized how obvious she made it as well.

  Which was she? Soldier or law? I was leaning towards law.

  *****

  The black background punctured by white dots of stars turned to the cloudy white of wildspace as the stars stretched into lines. The Wind hopped into that weird space between systems. Dark matter, wildspace. No one really knew what it was. No transmissions penetrated it, so a ship was flying blind. There were stories of some ghost ships being lost in this void and some beings freaked out while here but I found the fogginess of wildspace to be calming.

  I hadn’t seen Kaylia in awhile. She must have been wandering the ship getting Storwo’s situated. I should have done that as well, get an idea of just how many people there were. Between loading, chasing down that errant husband and the stormy take off, there hadn’t been a chance for me to really assess what the situation on board the Wind was. It wasn’t a large ship by any means. It was going to be tight.

  That thought only reminded me that there was someone on board that shouldn’t be here, that had knocked out a legitimate passenger and stolen that spot. I wondered how much trouble that would cost. I mean, the reason why was obvious. They wanted off a dying planet. There would be no reason to cause trouble unless someone went looking for them. So was it better to just leave it alone?

  Probably.

  Easier for me to just let go and keep the drama to a minimum. It was already going to be a rough trip. Did I really need to go adding to it?

  Nope.

  Leaning back in my chair I started to relax, watching the swirling clouds thinking I’d go grab an ale from the stores.

  The peace and calm didn’t last long.

  I could hear the argument before I heard the actual words. They were in Storwoi and one was raised voice, the other quieter and weaker. It came from the hallway outside the bridge, where the bunks were.

  Getting up I stood in the doorway. I could see a Storwo about midway down on the left side. He was standing in an open door, not going into the room, almost yelling at someone inside. I recognized him as Corti, the City Administrator.

  I knew what this was about.

  Was it too late to throw his ass off the ship?

  “What’s going on,” I asked stepping into the hallway.

  He jumped, startled, and fell back a step. At least he looked guilty.

  “Shouldn’t you be down in the hold?”

  I looked into the doorway and saw a family. Two kids sat on the bed, young. They looked scared, a boy and girl. Two other kids, both somewhat older boys, stood against the opposite wall. The mother was against the back wall. The father was a couple steps in. He looked relieved to see me.

  “Again, what is going on,” I asked Corti turning to him, putting on the full weight of my size advantage.

  He was an older Storwoi. Up close I could see the wrinkles in his pastel colored skin. His bright green hair had a few small streaks of duller color, the Storwo version of the gray in Terrans. Did Storwoi dye their hair? I would have bet that he did. He worked hard to maintain his appearance. I wondered how quickly it would fall apart on this trip, especially living down in the hold.

  Corti started to say something but it was in his language. I held up a hand to stop him.

  “Tradelan,” I told him.

  Standing up a little straighter, taking a deep breath, and smoothing his suit coat Corti composed himself. This one was pure politician and I hated politicians. They had been nothing but trouble during my time in the 2E Special Operations. Lots of friends had been killed because of a politician’s stupidity.

  “I was merely trying to negotiate with this family to gain possession of the room back.”

  I rolled my eyes. He looked annoyed.

  “One,” I started and pointed a finger at him. “It was never in your possession. I don’t care if someone said you could have it back on planet. The second you stepped onto my ship you lost whatever rights were given you. My ship, my rules. I decide who
gets what.”

  He started to speak but I didn’t give him a chance, pointing at him with two fingers now.

  “Two. That didn’t look like negotiation. That looked like intimidation.”

  Taking another step back, I saw a smirk crawl onto his face. He thought he had me now.

  “Intimidation,” he said now looking directly at me. Had I mentioned how much I hated politicians? “Similar to what you are doing to me now?”

  I laughed. That caught him off guard.

  “My ship, my rules.” I jabbed my finger at him with each word, aiming for the forehead, but not quite touching. It was rewarding to see him squirm back as it came close each time.

  Inside the room the mother had come closer and was standing next to her husband. The kids were quiet on the bed, the older ones almost laughing. The parents watched with interest and a little amusement.

  “But tell you what,” I continued taking a step back from Corti, lowering my arm, appearing at ease. “There is a room that you can have if you’d like.”

  He looked at me in surprise and a little concerned, not quite sure how to take it. Curiosity and his self-importance won over and he stood up straighter again, back to politician mode.

  “Why thank you Captain. That would be perfect.”

  “It’s the airlock.”

  This time I smirked at him.

  His self-satisfied expression dropped and he looked at me angrily, upset at looking foolish.

  “Back down stairs with you,” I said and pointed towards the stairs going down.

  Trying to muster as much dignity as he could, Corti walked down the hall. He didn’t bother looking in the room, or at me. I turned to watch him go. Dresla stood at the end, a smile on her face. Corti did his best to ignore her as he stalked by. She walked down the hall and looked into the room.

  She said some words in Storwoi, the father inside the room saying something in return. He looked up at me and nodded, thankful. I nodded back. Thanks and your welcome. Men can speak volumes with just a nod.

  They closed the door leaving me and Dresla alone in the hall.

  “He thanked you for the help,” she said. I knew that was what he said, didn’t really need a translation. It had been in the nod. “Even on Touryon, Corti used his power to intimidate others.”

  “What exactly is a City Administrator?”

  “Just what it sounds like,” she replied. “He was in charge of the city. Touryon may not have looked like much, but it was a vital city. The only island in that part of the world with the ability to dock large cargo ships and spaceships. Being the Administrator of the city gave Corti a lot of power.”

  I’d seen the spaceship landing pad and it wasn’t that big. What size ships were they used to on that planet?

  “What about Inhito? Isn’t he an Administrator as well?”

  She shook her head.

  “No. Inhito was not from Touryon. He was sent by the planetary government when the evacuations started, along with Hunio and the rest of his guard. It was Inhito’s job to organize the evacuees,” she paused at the word and grew silent. I let it linger, understanding where it was coming from. “It was his job to prepare us,” she finally said. “To decide who would leave first and who would wait.”

  “Tough job.”

  “There were riots at first,” she said continuing as we walked the short distance back to the bridge. “But those calmed soon and order was restored. The government instituted a lottery system to be fair and it worked well at first but then the moon cracked and...”

  She drifted off, lost in thought again. I could imagine what happened. The evacuation ships slowed as the storms started, tides rose and all sorts of other natural disasters that resulted from the moon cracking. At that point, people just gave up and accepted their fates. They’d get off or they wouldn’t.

  Same attitude that I’d seen in people in the middle of a war zone. Either they’d get bombed or they wouldn’t. Life goes on and you live it as long as you can and in the back of your mind you hope for the better result.

  I sat back down in my pilot’s chair. Dresla stood in the open door looking out at the cloudy emptiness, lost in thought.

  After a time Dresla wandered off.

  There wasn’t much to do now. We were in wildspace, our course set. We couldn’t receive transmissions from the Galactic Feed, we couldn’t communicate with anyone not on the ship. Nothing ever really happened in wildspace because you never encountered another ship. If you were traveling with a fleet, which happened sometimes, you had to sync your coordinates for each to appear the same distance apart in the other system when you arrived. There were stories of ships hopping on top of each other.

  Can imagine how that ended.

  But during the trip, it was as safe as space travel could be. If something went wrong with the ship, we’d hop back into normal space. It would be jarring and a little scary, but we’d survive. As long as it was nothing catastrophic. There were stories of ships being lost in wildspace, breaking down and not being able to leave, just drifting aimlessly forever.

  I tried not to think about that aspect and just enjoyed the flight.

  Footsteps, light and nimble, told me that Kaylia had returned. I looked over my shoulder as she stepped onto the bridge, yawning.

  “They all settled in?”

  Yes

  “No problems?”

  Not yet

  Only thirteen, she was a very smart kid. Had seen a lot in her short life. A lot of the bad things in the galaxy and even in her own people. During her first week with me, I’d caught her checking the Feed for all she could find on the Thesan Wilders, her parents and where her DNA came from. There wasn’t much but what she found was pretty bad. She knew what was lurking in her genes and she didn’t like it.

  But a strong kid, Kaylia didn’t let that bring her down. I was proud of her. In the few short months we’d been together, the kid continued to impress me.

  So she knew what having all these people on a small ship like the Wind could mean. We’d just have to hope nothing bad happened. There wasn’t much we could do about it.

  *****

  I left Kaylia on the bridge. I’d make her go get some sleep soon.

  We’d decided, or more accurately I had, that one of us would try to be up at all times. There would come a time in the trip that it wasn’t possible, but we’d try. I was thinking of teaching Dresla how to operate the various systems and check the controls. It would be nice to have a third set of eyes so we could rest and I had a feeling I could trust her.

  I’m a decent judge of character.

  For the most part.

  We’d see how the first couple nights went.

  I kept the Wind on a standard Earth cycle. Twenty-four hours, a ‘day’ of twelve and a ‘night’ of twelve. Didn’t mean I slept on that cycle, but it helped maintain some sense of time. Every planet, space station, moon and inhabited asteroid kept it’s own local time. It made landing confusing as sometimes it was the middle of the local night or it was what you thought of as the middle of the night but a bright day on planet. Glancing at my wristcomm I saw that it was only early evening on the Wind’s day.

  It would mess up Kaylia’s sleep cycle. I didn’t keep normal hours but I tried to get her to maintain some. But it couldn’t be helped.

  Stepping out of the bridge I turned left and took the side corridor that ended in the spiral staircase leading down. On the hop to Storw, Kaylia and I had taken all the important stuff and locked it in the two storage rooms on either side of the bridge, behind a code lock. Someone could always try to hack it, but I wasn’t worried. Well it wasn’t a strong code, it would still take some time and on a small ship like this time alone was not something anyone would have a lot of.

  My weapons stash was hidden at all times. I’d only kept my trusty Sig blaster and that was now locked in the safe in my bunk. So for the most part, there wasn’t much of anything valuable or important that was out where anyone could get at it.
>
  The stairs were a tight spiral, the deck between floors only a couple feet. I could hear noise in the galley, the stairs opening right into that space. Cabinets along one wall, more cabinets and the cooking appliances along the other, a table and chairs in the middle, door to the lounge on the opposite wall. Nothing fancy but functional.

  Only made to sit eight, the table was covered in containers of various sizes and shapes. There were maybe a half dozen Storwo moving about the galley preparing food. Some were organizing containers along the table, setting up a buffet line well the others were cooking. I only recognized Dresla and she smiled at me as I passed through the room.

  The lounge was full. The viewscreen mounted on the far wall was off, the door to the side that led to the airlock and the escape pod was closed. Kids were scattered around the room, a couple Storwo adults standing against the wall watching them. The kids played with some games or other toys they had brought.

  I weaved my way around the kids, nodded to the adults and stepped through the open door into the hold.

  And didn’t even recognize it.

  The Storwo had been busy.

  There were some polyplas crates of various sizes maglocked to the deck and the Storwo had worked around them. They had hung up rope, sheets suspended from it to form little living spaces. It was chaos but an organized chaos. People sat in small groups talking quietly, sitting near sleeping friends and family. They had even managed to form thin walking paths.

  Impressive.

  I looked across the faces, none standing out, wondering which was the stowaway.

  I had decided that as long as he or she didn’t cause trouble, I didn’t really care.

  The old Lancer luck helped that out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The alarm sounded about two hours after I’d fallen asleep.

  We had just completed the first hop when I had awaken Kaylia for her turn in the bridge and I had gone into the bunk to try to sleep. I doubted I would be able to. Too much to worry about, part of it about Kaylia being alone with all those refugees. Only a couple months into this guardianship and I was already the worried parent.