Voyage

by E M Gale

  “Shit, another one!” I said, turning and pointing my gun that way. Petey gestured us to keep moving towards the first one. He waved Grom to the front and waved me to the back of the group and told me to keep my eyes on the second one. This was all done with gestures. Not a word was spoken.

  We kept moving forward. The first person arced diagonally across us towards the second one. Petey and Grom seemed to know where the first guy was now as they moved to intercept him, moving us closer to the second one I was supposed to be watching. I could smell him, but not see him.

  Suddenly, Grom fired at the first guy and the second target broke cover and ran towards us. I fired at him, but missed. As he closed in, I drew my sword and sprang forward, slashing across me. The guy facing me was one of the people we had a contract on. He dodged my attack, feinted to the left and then attacked from the right on the outside of my sword arm. I swung wildly, dodging. He stared at me with narrowed eyes then sprang at me. That was the first point in the fight that I noticed he had a long, curved knife in both hands.

  ‘Oh!’

  I dodged his next attack and swung the sword down inside his defence, cutting his neck. Blood spurted and he fell to the ground. The smell was strange. I looked up. The other one was dead as well, by gunshot wounds, and the mercenaries were aiming their guns out at the surrounding trees. I looked down. I had survived, but I’d killed the guy on the floor: I felt sick to my stomach.

  “Nice one,” said Stonewall. I eyed him, surprised.

  ‘Thanks.’

  “Can you smell any more?” asked Petey. I shook my head, then sniffed just in case, but there was no one else nearby. Just the strong smell of strange blood. The corpses looked like normal humans though.

  “How many were supposed to be here?” asked Cliff.

  “Four,” said Grom, whilst Petey radioed in that we’d found two.

  We proceeded cautiously through the jungle to look for any others for a few hours. The other two had been taken out by the other s s on landing, but we still needed to look for more anyway. I started off rather tense, then found myself rather tired instead. I had been too busy stealing weapons to sleep the previous evening. After some time the major had had enough of us wandering around the planet so we headed back to the transport.

  * * *

  “Nice one, Clarke, I heard you took out one of them by yourself,” said Connor, smacking me on the back. The mercenaries had been doing their best to clean the vending machine out of beer, so they were relaxed.

  “Yeah, she did it with her sword,” said Cliff. He sounded impressed.

  ‘Oh, God, I have a fan.’

  I finished off that mini-bottle of wine. My hand shook slightly as I got another one.

  “You ought not to have been looking,” I said to Cliff. “Weren’t you under attack?”

  “Well, yeah.” He sniffed and wiped the end of his nose on his sleeve.

  ‘Why am I telling him off? What the hell do I know about combat anyway?’

  “So vampires have a good sense of smell then?” asked Petey.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Yeah, and we can see in the dark real good, too.” He laughed. I was starting to feel a bit better. It struck me how strange it was to have to pretend that this wasn’t my first time. I tried to affect a world-weariness, but I think I just managed weariness. Still, as I was actually weary, I didn’t have to rely on my stellar acting skills. Then the scent-memory of the guy I’d killed came back to me.

  ‘I can’t deal with this now.’

  I downed my mini-bottle of wine and got another.

  “See, it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be,” said Grom, thumping me on the back in what I assumed was a friendly manner. He had hit me hard enough to spill my wine, not that anyone minded another stain on the lino.

  ‘So he did notice how scared I was.’

  I smiled at him, but I had nothing to say. Everyone said I liked orcs, but I really didn’t know very much about them. They had seemed apprehensive of me when I first joined, probably something to do with that orc-vampire war I kept hearing about.

  “You were rather nervous, though,” he remarked.

  ‘Hah, scared shitless, Grom, not nervous.’

  I changed the subject. “It was a bit of an overkill though. They didn’t even have guns.”

  He raised his eyebrows at that. “Oh? Is that why you missed with your gun? To give them a sporting chance?” He grinned. I smiled tightly.

  ‘If everyone is going to believe I’m brilliant when I’m not, someone is going to get killed. Probably me. Probably when my s  is next under attack by two guys and I get one to myself while the rest take on the other one. They don’t know how good I am, why did they trust me with one enemy all by myself?’

  “I wouldn’t be that stupid,” I said. He grinned. Orcs had wide teeth, probably because they were generally larger than humans and their jaws were no exception. I eyeballed the wide, blunt fangs on his jaw in place of lower canines.

  ‘How come their fangs don’t cut their lips? Mine are small most of the time, but they’re still sharp enough to cut my tongue. It’s easy to cut my lips if I’m careless when they’re full size. Are orcian fangs as sharp as vampires’? They don’t look it. Would his fangs cut my lips? Hmm…’

  “I would never say you were stupid, Kotargralok,” said Grom quietly.

  ‘Eh?’

  I raised an eyebrow in a quizzical way. He looked pleased with himself. “But of course you’re undercover as a normal vampire, right?”

  I still smiled, wondering if he could tell I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. “Grom, I like you very much, but I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”

  He laughed, loudly enough that some of the mercenaries looked over.

  ‘What the hell does that mean? Did he laugh ’cos I’m telling the truth or ’cos he thinks I’m dicking around with him?’

  I sighed and shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘So, let’s try to find out, are these guys really mercenaries or UESF soldiers in disguise?’

  “Well then,” I said, “what’s your story, why are you here?”

  He shook his head, presumably accepting that he’d guessed my story. “Money. A favour. That sort of thing.”

  I nodded.

  ‘These guys can’t be UESF, why would there be orcs on the crew if they were?’

  ‘Hmm, I wonder if it was really a good idea to pinch those weapons? They might well notice that they’ve gone missing when we land tomorrow. Especially if they are planning to sell them. Then again, I just want some nice shiny weapons in my quarters, just in case.’

  “Anyway,” Grom said, distracting me from considering what I might need the weapons for. “You want to continue with the small talk, or get straight to the sex?”

  ‘What? But you’re an alien! Then again…’

  I smiled. “Ah, the direct approach.”

  * * *

  He Sounds Like Someone I Might Know

  There was a loud, repetitive, thudding noise.

  ‘Has the ship crashed? Ah, it can’t be that important.’

  There was the thudding noise again. I opened an eye.

  ‘Well, what do you know, I’m still alive. Just.’

  I moved my head and black dots swarmed across my vision.

  ‘Ouch. Did I drink something bad? Like, I dunno, lots of red wine? I have vague memories of red wine.’

  I hadn’t known vampires could get hangovers. I had a headache, nausea and the thought of red wine made me want to curl up into a ball and never move again.

  ‘It certainly seems like a hangover to me.’

  There was the thudding noise again.

  ‘Ooo, it hurts. So loud! It hurts my brain!’

  “Clarke?” called a muffled voice.

  ‘Ah, it’s someone banging on my door. Dammit.’

  I pulled some clothes on, opened it and saw Anna.

  “Yes?”

  “Hi, Clarke.” She was beami
ng at me.

  “Do I know you?” She was way too smiley to be one of my friends.

  “Are you hungover?” she asked in an exaggerated whisper.

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  “No, I think I’m dead,” I whispered back. She laughed loudly. I winced. She walked into my room.

  “God, Clarke, this place is a mess.”

  I looked round.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Clothes on the floor, furniture in disarray, ashtray and cigarette butts knocked onto the floor.’

  ‘What the hell? Did I get into a fight with my bedroom last night? Hold on a second, let me think here. I don’t smoke anymore, do I? So why–’

  Anna inconsiderately interrupted my laboured thought processes. “You do look dead, Clarke. Did I get you out of bed?”

  ‘Is that not obvious? My top isn’t even done up.’

  I tried to raise an eyebrow in a sarcastic manner, but just succeeded in dislodging the headache demon that was tap-dancing on a precarious table.

  “Gargh,” I groaned, holding my head, not that it helped. “I need coffee.” I staggered off to the mini-kitchen and found a half jug of coffee left out on the side; it was orcian coffee.

  ‘Hold on a second, I remember now. Shouldn’t there be a seven-foot-tall green alien here somewhere?’

  I peered back into the room.

  ‘No orc. Hmm, he left.’

  “What’s up?” asked Anna.

  “Nothing.” I gulped a cup of the cold orcian coffee. It still tasted awful, but it seemed to help.

  ‘Ah, there’s an unwashed coffee cup here too. So he found my coffee stash and made himself coffee without waking me? How?’

  I walked back into the bedroom part of my room and tried to make my bed, taking the opportunity to look under it.

  ‘No hiding orc, and the weapons are still there. I wonder if he saw them? That could be bad.’

  “We’ve landed on Ostmark,” Anna informed me.

  “Ah… what’s that then?”

  “It’s a planet! Come on, let’s go and explore!”

  I nodded. The coffee had helped. I now felt like I was on a coffee high, rather than a hangover.

  “OK, but let me finish my coffee and grab a quick shower.”

  “Fine,” she said with a sigh. “Hurry up, though! I can’t believe you got yourself hungover when we’re about to land on an alien planet. Think about it, Clarke, a whole new planet we’ve never seen before, that people from Earth have never even been to before!”

  ‘God, it is too early for this enthusiasm.’

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s cool. Just wait, yeah, Anna? And don’t touch anything.”

  She looked around at the mess. “I’ll, er… stand then.”

  * * *

  About ten minutes later, I was clean, dressed, had gulped two cups of orcian coffee and looked almost human. I glanced round the docking bay as I followed Anna off the ship. I had intended to get up early and hang around there to see if anyone unloaded the weapons or smuggled anything interesting aboard. But it was too late, I’d overslept instead. Still, no one rushed me or demanded the return of the stolen weapons, so I guessed I was OK for now. It was wonderful to get off the ship, feel a breeze carrying something other than recycled scents. Even the sunlight was pleasant, from behind my sunglasses, of course.

  Our IDs got us through the checkpoint. I breathed an internal sigh of relief. This planet had been colonised by some middle Europeans. They spoke English as well as some form of modified German that Anna seemed to enjoy wrapping her tongue around. I could technically speak a little German, but as I was no linguist I left most of the communicating to Anna. We picked up another guidebook and strolled round the touristy bits of the city so Anna could waste her pay on souvenirs.

  “Is there anywhere you want to go, Clarke? Do you need to buy anything?” she asked.

  ‘Hmm…’

  “Yep, I need an arms dealer. Is there one in the guidebook?”

  “Very funny.”

  I frowned at her.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. And a library, but I bet we haven’t got time for that.”

  She was flicking through the guidebook. “An arms dealer,” she muttered to herself. “Why can’t you be normal, Clarke?”

  I grinned at that.

  “OK, let’s head to this shopping area.” She pointed at a page in the guidebook. “It says it’s not a good place for tourists–”

  “Sounds good,” I interrupted.

  “–but has everything a modern space traveller would need.”

  “Ah, sounds better.”

  She sighed. “OK, to the horrid part of the city then. You do know they are the same in every city, right?”

  She was right, the less-salubrious areas of cities had a similar air to them: the slight stench of desperation, people calculating what you were worth as you walked past. The actual appearance did seem to vary from city to city though. For example, the streets in this city where the dive bars and small arms shops were located were on water-stained concrete dirt-track by the port. On Ragnarok IV they had been sun-bleached tarmac: completely different.

  I parted from my hard-earned cash for two wrist and two ankle knife holsters and some black leather straps for securing long, thin objects across my back–objects like swords.

  ‘Heh.’

  “I’ve only got another hour here,” Anna said after this. “I’ve got to be back on the ship an hour before takeoff to run the diagnostics.”

  “Well, let’s check out the spaceport dive bar then.”

  She looked at me askance. “We don’t have any time for you to pick up any local bartenders.”

  I grinned at her. “Two hours can be enough if it’s all I have–”

  She frowned.

  ‘Uh-oh, it looks like I’m about to get another lecture on self-respect.’

  “–but I was just going to sample the local beer,” I finished with an innocent look.

  “OK,” she said with a sigh, letting me pass unlectured for that day.

  We entered the bar near the spaceport. It was dark, damp and dank.

  ‘Lovely.’

  I grinned encouragingly at Anna, who wrinkled up her nose, so I took her to sit down on one of the tables on the second level. It was less damp up there and there was even a window with a view of the spaceport’s concrete fields. I thought she’d appreciate it.

  I headed down to the bar to get her a white wine and me whatever the local drink was. This being a vaguely Germanic colony, it was black beer.

  ‘Great, I love black beer.’

  I stood next to a subtle-looking gentleman in a long coat. He opened with: “Got cheap cigarettes, or whatever you’re after.”

  “Good for you. Got any orcian coffee?” I asked, not looking at him or my reflection behind the bar. I knew he had some, I could smell it, and smelling it I really wanted another cup.

  He blew air out of his mouth in a long, low whistle.

  “That stuff’ll fuck you right up.”

  I smiled at the barmaid and paid for the drinks. “How much?” I asked out of the corner of my mouth.

  “Well… I can let you have it for five thousand pelfre a kilo.”

  ‘Ouch. That really isn’t going to help my coffee habit.’

  “Or… I can let you have ten kilos for a favour.”

  ‘Hmm…’

  “Uh-huh?” I asked noncommittally.

  “You came in on the Silvered Cloud, didn’t you?”

  I smiled tightly and eyed him sidelong.

  ‘Well, I guess I didn’t try to hide my movements.’

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “According to your ship’s manifest your next stop is Antigua Nuevo.”

  “That’s interesting.” I took a sip of my beer and tried to observe him in the mirror behind the bar.

  “I’ll give you the coffee gratis if you deliver a message to Antigua Nuevo for me.”

  “A letter? Just a letter?” I asked, forgetting myself a
nd looking at him in surprise. He grinned. I turned back to my drink.

  ‘Hmm, well… free coffee, and I am on a smuggling ship, it would be rude not to join in and smuggle something.’

  “Yup, for ten kilos of orcian coffee.”

  I eyed the smuggler out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t look, smell or act like he was trying to get one over on me.

  “OK, sounds easy,” I said cautiously.

  “When you arrive go to the Blue Flamenco bar. It’s not far from the port. Ask the barman for a pink flamingo margarita.”

  ‘Is he serious?’

  I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘This is stupid.’

  “Riiight,” I said, sounding unimpressed.

  “You want the coffee, right?”

  ‘Is he really a smuggler or have the mercs decided to play ‘Frame the Newbie’? Then again, if he is a genuine smuggler and I can get him to trust me, I can approach the problem of whether or not I’m on a smuggling ship by asking the smugglers. After all, they’ll know.’

  “OK, ask for a stupid-named drink, got it.”

  “Hand this to the guy they take you to meet.” The smuggler palmed a letter into my hand. I pocketed it without looking at it.

  ‘The drink is a password then?’

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “If you don’t, I’ll track you down and kill you,” he said.

  I was a little perturbed at this. “Look, you can trust me,” I said, my mouth dry.

  ‘This is a really dumb idea. Why did I agree to this?’

  He handed me a package from under his coat. It smelt pungent, so I slipped it into my bag with the weapons holsters. Then I picked up the drinks and, without another look at him, I headed up to Anna. I settled myself into my seat.

  ‘Why am I doing this again? It is only a letter, right? Obviously an important and secret letter. Something so important that he saw fit to trust a complete stranger with it. Unless he thinks I’m a smuggler too. Since he knows I’m on a smuggling ship, it would make sense to assume that.’

  “You all right, Clarke?” asked Anna.

  “Just contemplating the next hangover.” I smiled at her and drank some of the beer.

  “Was there a reason why you got so drunk?”

  ‘Ah.’