Planet Broker 3

by Eric Vall

  The Elphad’s eyes widened as I spoke, and I saw the realization dawn upon his face. Up until now, he probably hadn’t thought of how the people would view him once they knew he’d been willing to risk their lives to keep his title.

  I gave him a wide smile as he stared at me with anger and shock on his face.

  “So,” I said, “do we have a deal?”

  Shaso sighed heavily, then looked up at me with a set jaw.

  “I will agree to your terms,” he grunted.

  “Wise move,” I said as I reached my hand out and shook his. “It’s been nice doing business with you.”

  I stood up, walked out of his office, and slammed the door behind me. Then I quickly went through the wall once more and made my way down toward the king and my girls. It seemed only fitting I should disappear as strangely as I had appeared in his office, and I hoped that would only add to the Elphad’s discomfort.

  I smiled the whole way down the stairs. I’d done it.

  Not only had I bargained my way into being able to openly help the Gelm people and earn some mior in the process, but the look on Shaso’s face when he realized how easily I could ruin his life …

  Well, that was a treat all on its own.

  Chapter 14

  A week went by after Shaso agreed to my plan, and things were running smoothly in the capital city. The Gelm of Iilmea were cured, and there had been no more deaths from The Gray Cough.

  Shaso had rescinded his condemnation against me and my crew, and he instead told the people, through gritted teeth of course, that I was sent from the gods, a sign of mercy bestowed upon them to reward the Elphad for how hard they’d prayed for their people.

  It was a complete load of bullshit, but the Gelm seemed to buy it. Really, I suspected they didn’t care what Shaso had to say about it. They were getting better and that was all that mattered to them.

  King Grenn had also sent the cure to the other smaller cities and villages, but since Shaso took credit for the cure, we marketed it as a blessed and holy elixir from the gods the Elphad were to share with their people. Omni had kept scans going on in the villages, and the citizens were definitely improving.

  Sef’sla and Neka ran tests and went out into the city of Iilmea and the surrounding villages to check on the people and make sure the cure was properly taking effect. I didn’t like to have them out without me, but the king had sent his most trusted guards with them, and my girls brought their blasters with them, so I figured they’d be fine.

  The mior mining operation was underway as well, with Akela and Omni on the job of setting up the mining routes, of course. The Elphad had also been required to hand over the mior they’d been stockpiling for years by order of the king. He said it was not a sacred stone as they’d treated it, but one that would bring their people into a new age, so they all must make sacrifices. He’d given that speech in front of the entire city, and Shaso was begrudgingly hailed as a hero when he delivered his mior to the hands of the king. As much as he hated all the things he’d lost with this bargain, I could tell the Elphad leader still basked in the approval of the people and his ability to spout off whatever bullshit came to him and have them believe it.

  Even if that bullshit went in a different direction now.

  The entire operation was running smoothly, and I strolled the streets of Iilmea this morning and chatted with the locals. All the ones I met were polite and kind to me, and nobody seemed to hide from me like before. I was now a welcomed sight within their community, which gave me even more of a sense of purpose to help these people.

  I found the Gelm to be a humble race. Once the tirade of Shaso had ended, the citizens of the capital all appeared more like the Gelm we’d met in the villages. None of them seemed to view myself or my crew as demons, even the shop owners offered us bits of their food or wares to show their appreciation, and they weren’t even aware that it was us who’d cured them.

  After I’d walked through the city for a while, I returned to the castle to find the king. We had a meeting with Akela and Omni to discuss the mining shafts and when they were to be put up.

  The guards at the castle knew me by now, and they let me in easily. Then I found the king in the garden with Sef’sla, Neka, and Akela.

  “Hey,” I chuckled as I walked up. “Are you ready for our meeting?”

  “We have been ready,” King Grenn said. “We were waiting for you.”

  “My apologies,” I laughed.

  “Come,” he beckoned, “sit and have some tea while we discuss the mines.”

  I did as requested and took a seat next to the king but across from Neka. Then I watched as the cat-girl shoved her face full of fish. The king had realized early on just how much she liked the stuff, so he always tried to accommodate her at tea and mealtimes.

  King Grenn had been the best part of the trip to Zalia actually. He was a sweet old man, and he was interested in what we had to say. He wanted to do whatever he could to further advance his people, and he knew he needed our help to do it. I’d also found him to be quite a funny character, who often liked to tease my crew and me.

  “So,” I said after I’d drank a cup of tea, “Akela, O, where are we with the mining plans?”

  “Yes,” the king said with a smile. “I am eager to hear how they are coming along.”

  “If you would pull out your screen, I will show you,” Omni replied over his speaker. When we were with the king, I liked to have the AI set up so he was easily heard by everyone.

  I pulled the small screen from my pocket and set it in front of the king. Blueprints appeared on the small device that showed the mountains beyond the city and several places where entry points would be installed.

  “If you look at the designs, you will see we have chosen the safest points to enter the mountains,” O said.

  “Thank you, Omni,” the king intoned with a nod. He’d become quite taken with the AI over the last week after he saw what O was able to do.

  “Akela?” I asked. “How’s everything?”

  “O and I finished the designs for the tunnels, as you can see,” the mechanic said as she gulped down a bite of cake, “and we’ve figured out that using a small laser gun will allow us to cut through the mior down below.”

  “Will we need living beings to do this work?” Grenn asked with concern furrowing his brow.

  “We have machines that can do the brunt of it,” Akela assured him. “And once we get to the core supply, then the retrieval will be easy. Your people will have to take over eventually, but we could always leave you with some machines to help, I’m sure.”

  “I would appreciate that very much,” the king sighed. “I don’t want my people hurt under the mountain. It seems so dangerous. All the mior we had before we found when digging wells or near ponds and such things. Our people didn’t have to work for it, per se.”

  “I understand,” I told him. “We’ll do our best to make the process one that your people don’t need to be involved in at all. That will only make your profits better as well if you don’t have your citizens doing the work. Then you can use all of the credits you get from travelers to make upgrades to help your people.”

  “This is what excites me most,” the older Gelm said, and his milky eyes crinkled when he smiled.

  “So, how long until it’s all up and running?” I asked as I turned back to my mechanic.

  “We can have it going in a matter of hours, really.” Akela shrugged. “We just need to get the holes blown in the mountain. We figured you might want to warn your people when the explosions were coming so they weren’t surprised by the sound.”

  “Ah, yes,” the king laughed, “it seems blowing holes in a mountain would be quite noisy.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Akela snickered.

  “Soon enough,” King Grenn said. “But yes, I will hold a meeting today and inform the people of Iilmea, then you may begin construction tomorrow. Does this sound feasible?”

  “Perfectly,” the mechanic
agreed with a grin.

  “Your Majesty!” one of the guards called as he ran toward our small table, out of breath.

  “What is it?” the king asked quickly, and he stood up and moved toward the male.

  “The temple,” the man breathed, and his eyes were wide with panic. “It’s on fire!”

  “Oh, no!” Neka yowled.

  “What can we do?” Sef’sla asked immediately, but the king was one step behind us.

  “On fire?” Grenn asked the guard, and his head pulled back in shock. “That can’t be. Was it an accident? Is it being put out?”

  “We are working to haul water,” the guard panted, “but it is not moving quick enough. What should we do?”

  I looked out to the city around us toward the temple, which was at the far edge, and sure enough, there was a cloud of black smoke rising from that direction.

  “We need to get there, and fast,” I said.

  “If you can help save our temple, please do so,” the king entreated, and his voice was filled with worry and sadness.

  I’d learned over the last week that while most of the Gelm were not the religious fanatics Shaso was, they were still a religious people. They believed in their gods, made offerings to them, and often went to pray at the temple in the city. The temple itself was set away, almost into the woods so the city life would not interrupt the prayers, since it was thought quiet and nature brought you closer to the gods. I’d visited the temple when Shaso had delivered his speech where he dismissed his previous hatred of myself and my crew, and I found the place to be absolutely stunning.

  It was an open, circular building made of a deep red stone, with a large statue that depicted a baby Gelm, a young Gelm, an adult Gelm, a middle aged Gelm, and an old Gelm. The king had explained to me that each of the gods was basically in charge of one of the periods of life. The citizens would often leave offerings of flowers or fruit in front of whichever god they’d prayed to that day. You prayed to the god of the young when you were pregnant or had a new child, and once you were an adult, you prayed to that god, and so on and so forth. I thought they were beautiful statues, and it was an even more beautiful philosophy.

  I later found out this was the reason Shaso attempted to kill a child during the ritual. Each year aligned with a different god, so one year would be good for babies, the next for young children, and so on, and it turned out the plague had occurred during a year of the young child god, so the natural thing to do was to sacrifice a child to the god in order to make up for whatever atrocity the Gelm people had committed that brought on the plague.

  That part, I didn’t dig too much, but overall their gods and practices seemed quite kind and harmless to me, and now somebody had attacked the temple.

  A million questions raced through my mind. Was this an accident? And if not, who would do such a thing? Surely, Shaso wouldn’t be dumb enough or evil enough to attack his own temple? Was he trying to make it appear as if the gods were angry?

  I had no idea, all I knew was we needed to get over to the temple and put out that fire.

  “O,” I said quickly into my earpiece.

  “I’m on it, Colby,” the AI responded, and I could almost hear the urgency in his mechanical voice. “I’ll be at your location in T-minus ninety seconds.”

  “Thanks,” I told him, then I turned back to the king. “The pond that gives water to the city is on the other side, is there a water source closer to the temple?”

  “I’m afraid not.” King Grenn wrung his dark gray hands together. “There are several wells, but there is no large source such as the pond.”

  “Alright,” I said and looked to my team. “Akela, what have you got?”

  “There’s hoses on the ship,” the mechanic replied, “but we would need something to hold the water so we could get it over there quickly.”

  “Wait,” I said as I flipped back to the king. “There are wells near the temple, right?”

  “Yes.” He nodded fervently.

  “Akela,” I said with a grin, “we don’t need a container, we just need a pump.”

  “A pump?” the mechanic echoed, and then realization dawned across her face. “Of course, a pump! I can put something together in five minutes.”

  Suddenly, the air grew loud and windy as the Lacuna Noctis approached and hovered above us.

  “You better work quickly!” I shouted over the noise. “We’ll be at the temple in less than two minutes!”

  “Challenge accepted!” Akela smirked.

  “Sef’sla, Neka,” I yelled. “Get your med kits ready in case anyone has been injured!”

  “Right!” the princess called back as the wind from the ship blew her hair in a whirl. Neka had her tail wrapped around the Almort’s wrist, and I knew they were both just as panicked as the rest of us.

  Omni parked the ship right outside of the castle garden, and we all made a run for it. I reached it before the ramp had gotten all the way down, but I hopped up the last foot and kept going. Everyone else followed suit, even the king and several of his guardsmen. King Grenn sat in Neka’s seat, and his guardsmen all gathered around Akela and Sef’sla’s and held on tight. The girls were in the back getting everything ready, but I knew they would find a way to stay on their feet as we made our way over there.

  “Hold on,” I told the king with a grin, and I saw his yellow eyes widen, and his hands gripped the arms of the chair.

  I lifted the Lacuna Noctis up into the air once more and turned toward the temple and the large pillar of smoke that now rose from it. Then we lurched forward as I put everything the ship had into getting us to the fire as quickly as possible.

  Where it was an hour walk or so to the temple, it was only a two-minute trip when I gave Ole’ Lac the gas. The guardsmen who had gathered around the chairs all fell to the floor the minute we accelerated, but a large smile was plastered across King Grenn’s face, and it looked like he might have enjoyed himself if he knew his people weren’t in any danger.

  “Almost there,” I said into my comm. “How’s the pump coming?”

  “Ten more seconds,” Akela shouted back.

  “And the medical supplies?” I asked.

  “All are ready!” Neka sang, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

  “We are prepared for whatever injuries they might have,” Sef’sla assured me.

  As we approached the temple, we could see it was an absolute disaster. I could barely make out the building with all the smoke that came through, and I watched as the guardsmen and several civilians hauled water as quickly as they could from a well at least one hundred meters away.

  “Going down!” I shouted to everyone around me as I dipped the ship and laid her on the ground in a not so graceful landing.

  I ran down to the ramp, with the king and his guards on my tail. Akela, Sef’sla, and Neka were already there waiting. The mechanic had a long hose wrapped around one shoulder, and attached to one end was a small device that I knew had to be the pump. Sef’sla and Neka carried their bags with them, and they looked completely ready to assist in any way possible.

  I gave the girls a quick smile before the ramp slid open, and we all darted out into the chaos.

  The Gelm citizens were in a panic as they watched their beloved temple burn. The smoke filled the air and created a sort of haze around us, and a group of guards, each with a water bucket, ran by me toward the huge blaze. It was much too hot to get anywhere close to it by now, and if we didn’t do something quick, then the flames were going to spread to the woods.

  “This way!” I yelled to Akela as we took off toward the water well.

  “Take this end,” the mechanic said as we reached the well, and she handed me the end of the hose. “Now, run!”

  I knew better than to question her at this point, so I did as she instructed. Once the end of the hose reached the bottom and she flipped on the pump, then I would have a blast of water. I just needed to get close enough that it reached the actual flames.

  I tore thr
ough the crowd of people with the hose trailing along behind me. On my way, I passed Neka and Sef’sla as they kneeled next to a group of people off to the side. It was obvious the Gelm were injured, but it didn’t look like anybody was worse off, so I kept running toward the flames.

  As I reached the last stretch of the final ten meters or so, I felt the hose jerk behind me. I paused and turned around to see if someone had pulled, but everyone watched from the sides in horror, and the hose jerked once more.

  “It’s on!” I heard Akela shout into my ear.

  “Shit,” I said, and I gripped the hose tightly and braced myself.

  Loric had really delivered on the pump. Not only was water coming through the hose, but it came with a vengeance. The rush of liquid that came out was extreme, and it nearly knocked me onto my ass. I fell forward onto one knee instead, then managed to make my way back up to standing.

  Several guards saw my struggle, and they ran over to help. Then we all pulled the hose the last few meters, and there was a sigh of relief from the crowd once the water made contact with the flames.

  It still took a good ten minutes before all the flames were out. The temple wasn’t large by any means, but the fire was huge, and though the stone still stood, it was tarnished and blacked from the flames and smoke.