Forbidden World

by Jeremy Michelson

  I stuffed another plastic burger in my pie-hole to avoid answering her. She was right, of course.

  Bad things seemed to always be right around the corner.

  Thirteen

  Titus

  The two idiots thought they were having a private conversation in the galley without him. Ha.

  Being an excellent covert ops agent, in his esteemed opinion, Titus had taken the precaution of bugging every single room in the little ship.

  Okay, well, maybe he hadn't personally done it. Hadn't even thought of it, if perfect honesty was being required. Uncle Mattany had ordered the bugs installed. They all routed to the secret control panel in T&T's room. He suspected that they blasted out to Earth in an encrypted feed every so often.

  But at least he had the option of monitoring them. He could hear everything those two lowly civilians were doing at every moment they were in the ship.

  Well, not every, moment. For some reason, the bugs in Liz and Chris’ cabin stopped working the first day. He couldn’t figure out why, either. He’d even snuck in to verify the bugs were still there and functional. He’d recorded himself rummaging around their room. But nothing else.

  They had to have some kind of signal jammer. But then why could he hear them everywhere else?

  Maybe it was just crappy equipment.

  Still, it was disappointing. He really wanted to hear what was going on in their bedroom. For surveillance purposes. Totally.

  But, laying on his bunk, bare feet up on the wall, listening in on the conversation in the galley, he’d gotten an acidy pit in his stomach. He’d stripped out of the rank, sweaty environmental suit and immediately got hit with the rotting meat stench of the ship. God, this ship was awful.

  And, apparently, not in any shape to leave the planet. Something he’d already suspected. But it was still unnerving to hear.

  But it wasn’t the end of the world.

  Well, it might be the end of his world, if they couldn’t find some way off this freaking dump.

  But, there had to be some goodies left behind. Somewhere there had to be a ship. Or parts of one. That loser Chris knew stuff. There was no way that thing inside him wasn’t passing on information.

  All that talk about only the King being privy to the good stuff was just crap. Maybe they suspected he was reporting back to Mattany and were keeping him in the dark.

  That wasn’t going to work. He was a freaking awesome covert-ops guy. Mom had told him so.

  Okay, then, what was the next step?

  He’d already shown those two civilians how much better than them he was. They would have walked empty handed right out of that tower today if he hadn’t found that map thing. Probably that map could show the location of all kinds of goodies.

  Maybe he didn’t need the Chris and Liz show after all.

  Solo was the way covert-ops agents like him worked anyways. Could be it was time to ditch them and do a little reconnoitering on his own.

  He put his feet down and sat up on the narrow bunk. He chewed on the nutrient bar he took from his personal stash. He pulled the ration box out from under the bunk and dug under the foil wrapped bars until he found the narrow, slim case. He set the case on his knee and popped it open.

  Lined up, in padded rows, were three kinds of stimulant pills. He ran his fingers over them. They came in three classes: green Wide-awakes, yellow Battle-readies, and bright red Berserkers.

  A Wide-awake would do for what he planned tonight.

  He took one of the green Wide-awakes and put the case back under the ration bars.

  When those losers went to sleep, he’d pop his little green buddy and go for a walk.

  See what he could find.

  Fourteen

  Kawl Tejoh

  The Blinky ship had seen better days.

  The ravaged hulk rotated slowly, tumbling end over end in its long fall toward the Dendon sun. Kawl Tejoh leaned his pointed chin on one hand, elbow propped on the arm of the command chair. His yellow-orange eyes studied the wreck on the view screen.

  He took a sip of meybit. Found the stimulating beverage already cold and bitter. The cook should be killed for serving such things.

  Except the Hojan's Murder didn't have any live cooks. All it had were autoration stations. And low-end ones at that. If he had realized that before the ship left on its mission, he would have had a proper autocook installed in his cabin.

  It was an oversight he regretted at every meal.

  The food the autoration abominations produced was of such low quality that he’d actually lost weight on this mission. His uniform, once form-fitting on his (admittedly well-fed) frame was actually getting loose. He needed a tailor to take it in.

  Which, of course, there were none on this wretched ship.

  When he was emperor, his personal ship would have decks for his personal chefs and tailors.

  It was going to be a very large ship, what with all those decks and all. Maybe it would be easier to hollow out a moon and slap some engines on it. Though it would have to be a very well shaped and aesthetically pleasing moon. The emperor of the galaxy couldn’t be seen in some lumpy, misshapen vehicle.

  Maybe he could have it sculpted into a giant likeness of his head. With a stern look on its face. So his subjects and the lower races would know this was serious business when the emperor’s ship showed up.

  Even better, he could have his engineers design it so mighty death rays could shoot out of the moon’s eyes.

  Wouldn’t that be something?

  “Sir?”

  Kawl’s attention snapped back to bitter reality. He turned on his first officer, Commander Zek.

  Zek stood a respectful distance from the command chair. He bowed his head, again respectfully. Much more respectfully than that stupid sensor technician over at the sensor station. What was his name again? Tak? Probably. Close enough, even if it wasn’t.

  Zek raised his head and gestured to the stupid, wrecked Blinky ship on the screen.

  “The ship is registered to the Blinky Combine, out of their homeworld,” Zek said.

  "Well, of course it is," Kawl said, "All their ships are. And it's obviously a Blinky ship. No one makes ships as ugly and poorly built as that."

  Though the contractor who built the Hojan’s Murder had obviously been the low bidder. When he returned to civilization, he might just track that contractor down. Make them do a long patrol in their own ship.

  See how they liked it.

  Zek nodded, respectfully, again.

  “Of course, Captain,” he said, “Your observations are keen as always. And your observations have, of course, led you to see the Blinky ship was attacked by some unusual weaponry.”

  Kawl squinted at the image on the screen. The Blinky ship, an ugly, lumpy monstrosity without any trace of elegance, slowly tumbled end over end. The gray hull had been pierced in many places. A haze of debris hung around the ship. Bits of hull and interior matter–including a few frozen Blinky corpses.

  The strange thing was…there didn’t seem to be any burn marks around the jagged holes in the ship’s skin.

  It was almost like something had…punched through.

  “Sensor Technician! Analysis!” Kawl barked.

  Sensor Technician Tak jumped to his feet.

  "Sir, the Blinky hull was breached with some sort of nonexplosive projectile," Tak said, "My sensors indicate significant damage inside the hull. But there are no traces of known explosives."

  “What kind of projectile could do that?” Kawl said.

  "Unknown, sir," Tak said, "It almost appears someone in armor ripped into the hull and then spent some time inside the ship tearing things apart."

  Kawl sat back in the command chair. Despite its rankness, he took another sip of meybit. Its stimulant properties made it the drink of choice for soldiers on duty.

  Plus it would be a bad example to the crew if he were to guzzle down a bottle of blood wine on the command deck.

  “Can our armor do that?”
He said.

  “No sir,” Tak said, “Even Class One armor doesn’t have the power to puncture ship hulls without using a plasma blaster.”

  “Even poorly manufactured Blinky hulls?” Kawl said.

  "Even those," Tak said, "An armored soldier might be able to eventually peel up some hull plates, but he might overload the suit's systems. And the environmental seals on the suits only allow for very short space excursions."

  Kawl drummed his fingers on the arm of the command chair. He was well familiar with the limitations of Don manufactured armor. He idly touched the stunted triangle under his tunic below his throat.

  If he were to activate the armor, it would quickly spread a wave of black over his entire body. In moments he would be covered in powered armor. It would make him a hundred times stronger. Would protect him from plasmablasts and projectiles.

  For a short time anyway.

  It was his misfortune that he hadn’t been able to afford a better class of armor. Class Seventeen armor was a long, long way from Class One armor.

  But when he became emperor, he would swap out his lowly Class Seventeen for Emperor Class armor.

  Not that he ever had any intention of wearing it into battle. That’s what soldiers were for. He’d stay in his giant moon spaceship and direct the battle. While his personal masseuse worked the tension from his shoulders.

  And staring at the dead Blinky ship on the viewscreen was giving him more than a little tension.

  “How long has this wreck been out here?” He said.

  Sensor Technician Take turned to his sensors controls. After a few moments, he straightened up.

  “The ship was registered approximately fifty-seven years ago,” he said, “It was listed as missing forty-one years ago.”

  Kawl drummed his fingers on the control chair.

  “What were they doing out here?”

  “Likely the same as the vessel we didn’t investigate earlier,” Zek said, “Looking for Dendon treasure.”

  Kawl gave his first officer a harsh look. When Zek found out they hadn’t checked out that ancient Don ship that had bleated its distress call in the darkness, he had pressed Kawl to go back and investigate it. The man had come close to insubordination.

  Though now, looking at this dead Blinky ship…maybe they should have taken a look at that other ship.

  It seemed something was out there. At least as early as forty years ago.

  Was this…thing uselessly trying to protect the dead Dendon homeworld?

  Or was did it have a different purpose?

  Fifteen

  Chris

  Something got Titus.

  We’re not alone on this dead planet.

  And my inner Dendon buddy won’t tell me a damned thing.

  Sixteen

  Chris

  T&T had tried to get into the ministry of defense tower.

  Tried.

  It had taken us a while to notice he was missing. Liz and I had gotten up and had a leisurely breakfast of plastic tasting rations. The package claimed to be sausage and egg and biscuit sandwich. The package had clearly lied, but that was a different matter for a different day.

  We’d checked ships systems, swapped out some filters in the air system, then got ready to go out.

  It was only then that we realized the idiot was missing. I’d gone to his cabin. Knocked, then opened the door. The guy was a slob. There were dirty coveralls on the floor, along with his questionable underwear. Empty ration packs were tossed in a corner. There was a pile of porno magazines by the bed. Classic literature is how he had listed them on the manifest.

  Which might have been slightly true. Paper pornography had gone out of style decades ago. Most of those naked women in those pages were either old enough to be T&T's great-grandmothers, or had left their mortal coils behind. Hopefully for someplace less skanky than the pages of ancient porno mags.

  But despite all of T&T’s stuff being there, T&T himself wasn’t.

  “Liz!” I shouted.

  She was there in an instant. It only took her another fraction of an instant to assess the situation. She shucked off her robe and tapped the gold disk below her neck. Golden armor flowed out over her body.

  She clanged her hands together. They rang like a finely made bell.

  “I’ll search around outside the ship,” she said, “You do your thing.”

  Then she sped off to the airlock.

  Me…I did my thing.

  I reached out and touched the nearest metal support and interfaced with the ship. My consciousness raced through the ship's nerves, connecting with all its audio and video feeds. At the same time, I did a systems check, seeing if anything new had happened to the ship.

  An instant later, I had my answers.

  The ship was the same. T&T wasn’t in the ship.

  Running the video feeds back a few hours, I watched the idiot suit up and go out the airlock. The crappy Blinky cameras didn’t give me an infrared view, so I lost sight of him as he walked away in the blowing dust and darkness.

  But he was heading for one of the towers behind us.

  I patched into the radio.

  “Liz,” I said, “He left the ship. Headed for one of the towers.”

  “On it,” she said.

  I kept an eye on the exterior video feeds. The winds had died down a bit, so there was less dust in the air. Liz flashed over toward the tall, central tower we’d been slowly going through. My chest tightened. Had that idiot tried to get into the secret hanger? Maybe steal the ship that might or might not be in there?

  Liz stopped before she got to the tower, her head whipping toward the blocky, dark ministry of defense tower.

  “What the…?” She said.

  She zipped over to the defense tower. Up the short, wide flight of steps in front of its towering doors. She stopped there. Put her armored hands on her golden hips.

  “Son of a bitch,” she said, “The moron tried to use a plasma blaster to cut his way in.”

  “Tried?”

  She bent down. Picked something off the ground. I zoomed in. Which only gave me a grainy, unhelpful blob of an image. Dang useless Blinky junk. How did those guys manage to survive using this crap?

  “Door’s only partially cut,” she said, “The plasma blaster’s still here. The charge’s been sucked out of it, though.”

  “What the heck?”

  She turned around, scanned the area. Dust drifted and swirled around here. For a moment I lost sight of her and my heart stuttered in my chest. Then it parted and I breathed again. She was still there. But my heart wouldn’t slow down. My palms got clammy.

  I told myself to calm down. Liz could take care of herself. With that armor, there wasn’t much that could harm her.

  I tried not to think about the fact that her golden armor had been manufactured here on Dendon. That the Dendons who created it might have also invented ways to defeat it.

  “Liz?” I said.

  “I’m not seeing any tracks,” she said, “Damned wind.”

  “You think he drained the blaster trying to get in the building?” I said, “Maybe gave up and wandered off to looked elsewhere?”

  “Nope,” Liz said, “Take a look.”

  She bent her head toward the blaster in her hand. A moment later an image appeared in the ship’s system. I pulled it up.

  Chills ran over me. Every muscle in my body clenched.

  It was an image of the plasma blaster.

  Across the barrel were three, deep, shiny cuts. Freshly made.

  We weren’t alone on Dendon.

  Seventeen

  Chris

  Liz wanted us to split up and search separately for that idiot T&T. I most emphatically said we should stick together.

  It was one of our rare arguments.

  Once I saw those claw-like cuts in the barrel of the plasma blaster, I told her to wait there on the steps of the blocky ministry of defense building. I ran for the airlock and a minute later I was standing there besi
de her.

  The winds were picking up again. Reddish gray dust swirled around us. The wind moaned around the corners of the buildings with a sound like all the murdered souls on this dead planet.

  Through my energy shield came the musty, slightly spicy scent of the dust. Mixed with the stink of ozone from the plasma blaster Liz still held. The ministry of defense stood behind her. A slab of darkness, rising into the dusty sky.

  “What’s the plan, my man?” She said.

  “I was thinking we go break into the hanger in the other building, find a spaceship in perfect working condition, then fly the heck off this planet,” I said, “After that, I’m thinking we go back to Earth, find a nice tropical island to live on for the rest of our days.”

  Liz cocked her armor covered head to one side. The smooth surface over her face gave me absolutely no clue to her expression.

  “Sounds good,” she said, “What do we do when the Don eventually decide to annihilate Earth? You know, so they can come suck that thing out of you and conquer the galaxy on their way to putting the universe’s neck under their hobnailed boots?”

  Sigh. There was always a catch.

  “Right,” I said, “Different plan. You and I look for that idiot, then we find a ship or fix our current crappy ship. And get off this creepy dead world.”

  She nodded. Then folded her arms over her shiny armored chest.

  “Better, better,” She said, “I’m liking this one more. However, there is the matter of whatever ran off with dear old asshat T&T. What are we going to do about that?”

  I thoughtfully stroked my chin. At one point I had tried growing a goatee, but Liz had nixed that, saying she didn’t like kissing a bristle brush.

  “I was still thinking of just grabbing him and running,” I admitted.

  “That doesn’t sound heroic, does it?”

  “Honestly, I was thinking more of not getting killed, and also getting us out of danger,” I said.