Chimera Company Season 2 - Deep Cover

by Tim C. Taylor

  “Nyluga-Ree’s man?” The alien spat against the bulkhead. “I am no man, but you have been around that human of yours so long you’re becoming one.” He considered her. “Nyluga-Ree is both generous and merciful. Despite the numerous disappointments you have inflicted upon her, she remains fond of her favorite pilot-navigator and she offers you one last chance.”

  “We’re going to pay the boss back,” Izza insisted. “That’s why we’re here at JSHC. But since I have a little time to kill, why not tell me this offer?”

  “Return to the clan. You, Fitzwilliam, your crew and this ship. After a decade of indenture to pay off your many debts, you will be free of obligation to Nyluga-Ree, and the Phantom will be released to you.”

  “I don’t believe it. The boss will never give this ship up again once she has her hot, pink hands on it.”

  “You are in no position to bargain. You know that Nyluga-Ree holds you in high esteem. This is why you are still alive and why this is your best course of action. It is also why she will release the Phantom back to you. She feels you have a special affinity to the vessel, and it amuses her to think of her former ship becoming the stuff of legends once you have served your indenture.”

  “What if we refuse?”

  “Zan Fey, you know how this works. It is through your human mate that Nyluga-Ree would deliver your greatest torments. Fitzwilliam is flamboyant. Hiding is not in his nature, and so you know that if you run, we will find and take him. He shall be tortured before you. First a fingertip, then an eyelid. A lip will be removed and then an ankle crushed. Fitzwilliam will be demolished body part by painful body part. As the man you love reaches each new plateau of agony, you will regret rejecting today’s final offer.”

  “Today? Nyluga-Ree is impatient if you expect my answer so quickly.”

  “I misspoke, Zan Fey, when I said today. I fly out of here at the end of this maintenance shift. The offer expires with my departure.”

  “Impossible. I won’t leave without Fitz.”

  The dog of a Pryxian licked his thin, gray lips at her predicament. “You don’t know where he is, do you? I’m disappointed. I had heard you two were inseparable. He’s in Beta Hub. In fact,” – he unstrapped a wrist slate and handed it to Izza – “he’s right there.”

  The filthy device showed a yellow dot slowly moving through a detailed map of the station. If this was Fitz, he appeared to be walking through a commercial zone in an area called District Metz.

  Nyluga-Ree’s man gave a low whistle. “Metz is a bad place. The kind where bad people go to meet worse ones.”

  “How is it that you know of his location?”

  “He’s been flashing his token all day, asking to put a message out to you.” The Pryxian grinned, showing sharpened metal teeth. “You’re speaking to Fitzwilliam’s paid messenger. It amused me to take your human’s credits while being paid by the boss to pass on her own message.”

  “Well? What did Fitz say?”

  “To give you that slate with the tracker, mostly. He also said to stay cool and don’t let anyone aboard Phantom.”

  Stay cool? That was easy for Fitz to say. She was the one he would be expecting to rescue him when the wheels fell off whatever foolhardy plan was inside his human head.

  As her thoughts moved to the weapons she would need, the Pryxian sat himself down on Catkins’ seat and fished a drinks flask out of a small rucksack.

  “What are you doing?” she snapped.

  “Coffee break. What does it look like? Why, are you thirsty?”

  “Yes.” She advanced on him. He recoiled. “For blood.”

  “Woah! I’m just a messenger, Zan Fey.”

  “And the power of any message I send would be amplified greatly if I wrote it in your blood.”

  She took another step toward him and enjoyed the sight of his skin drain of blood, transforming into a translucent blue sapphire. “You are a Pryxian male. Properly treated, your skin can be fashioned into works of art once drained of blood. It would amuse me to make a profit from your corpse while using you to send a message to your mistress.”

  The Pryxian’s skin lost more blood, beginning to gleam like an uncut stone. “And… and you too, greenie,” he squeaked. “I’ve seen your kind flayed alive and your photosynthesizing skin used as power sources and sugar generators.”

  Izza pushed a finger against the messenger’s brow fold. “Are you going to flay me, bad boy?”

  “No!” he yelped.

  “Good. Then you can answer some questions instead.”

  His eyes swiveled up to stare at the finger pushing into his head. There was a knife hidden flush against the bulkhead behind him. Of course, he hadn’t noticed that particular weapon, but he knew the dangers of confronting a Guild member on their home territory. He knew that finger could easily be replaced by something more lethal.

  “What is the state of the Phantom, and what has been added to the ship that I should be aware of?”

  “Nothing’s been added. Not by me or anyone I’ve talked to. Doesn’t mean military intelligence hasn’t run their hands through this place and left a few surprises. I’d be disappointed if they hadn’t. But she just needs to finish flushing the scrubbers and disconnecting the hoses. I’ve even screwed with the bay security portal so everyone passing through is registered as maintenance personnel. As humans. Because, Zan Fey, you acquiring fake ID for a Zhoogene female made it very easy for me to track you down. You can load up with your crew and fly out of here unmolested.”

  “We still have to make an unauthorized flight away from the most heavily fortified base in the sector, and then evade the 4th Fleet.”

  “Yeah, well, greenie. I can’t solve all your problems.”

  She withdrew her finger. “One last thing. When does your shift end?”

  The Pryxian grinned. The blood returned to his outer body. The process looked like antifreeze pumping into an ice sculpture. “Just over two hours.” He unscrewed the cap of his flask, unleashing rich coffee aromas. “Better hurry if you know what’s good for your darling human hubbie.”

  Stabbing daggers, slashing knives, knuckle disruptors, and her man’s awesome F-Cannon: weapons and the effect each would have on this disrespectful Guildsman flashed through her mind.

  Civilians were not permitted to carry weapons anywhere on the station.

  Fitz’s instructions to stay cool made her hesitate. But only for a moment. Then she marched off to the armory to gear up. Her instincts said Fitz wasn’t in imminent danger, but he would be very soon.

  VERLYS SINOFAR

  “The Lieutenant orders that you remain contactable and ready to return to the Phantom at short notice.”

  “Are we leaving?”

  Sinofar frowned at her Gliesan crewmate. In their own individual ways, all the Phantom’s crew were outcasts from society, and in most cases that shared experience bound them together. Not so the chief mechanic who had no notion of how a spacer should behave, and often appeared bewildered by his crewmates.

  “I do not know,” Sinofar explained with a patience she didn’t feel. It had been so much easier relaying Zan Fey’s message to Fregg. “You are ordered to be ready and that is what I expect you to do. Anything more is speculation.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, then. Only, I have found employment and would not wish to disappoint my new employers.”

  “Look around.” Sinofar gestured over the extent of Catkins’ new dwelling. He had rented a five-foot segment of a large air duct that run along the bulkhead marking the edge of this zone. It smelled as if its many residents were living, dying, and conceiving new generations along its length, and had been doing so for many years now.

  Catkins looked over his pipe section too, but he didn’t seem to understand what Sinofar was driving at.

  “Your natural environment is to be buried inside a starship’s systems,” she explained. “This is a pipe, not a starship.”

  “That is true. However, it is a very fine pipe. I am pleased with
my new quarters.”

  “Your temporary quarters. From which you have secured temporary employment. You have done well, Catkins, but do not forget where you belong.”

  “On the Phantom with my friends. There’s no need to treat me like a child, Verlys.”

  Sinofar’s retort was interrupted by her vibrating pocket slate. “Go for Sinofar.”

  “It’s Kantosh.”

  “How may I assist, Mr. Kantosh?”

  “Other way around, my friend. I wanted to give you a heads up. You’re close to Captain Fitzwilliam of the Phantom, aren’t you?”

  Sinofar pictured the human Guildsman and tried to decide from his voice alone whether Raylat Kantosh’s mood was benign or murderous. It wouldn’t be the first time that apparently friendly humans had led her into a trap. On the other hand, she had saved the man’s life two days ago when Kantosh’s team had been ambushed during a raid on the Zone-31 fuel depot. In Sinofar’s experience, humans were prone to bouts of gratitude that lasted for weeks. In her mental image, Kantosh was smiling.

  “That is correct,” she told Kantosh. “Is Fitzwilliam in trouble?”

  “Sounds that way. I’ve got ears in Alpha Hub, see, and they heard something very unusual. Jacks and troopers plotting together, safe from prying eyes and ears. Or so they thought. Whatever they’re up to, it’s as legit as Nyluga-Ree’s tax statements. Now, that’s not unheard of for the Militia, but the hammers teaming up with the jacks. That’s definitely something new, which is why I was informed about it. Lucky for your captain that I was, because I also hear they were plotting a hit on Fitzwilliam. It’s going down in the Cordovan Room this evening. We think that’s part of a place called Howell’s in District Metz. That’s all I know. My debt to you is paid off. Tell anyone what I just said, and I’ll kill you.”

  “Cordovan Room. Howell’s. You’ll kill me. Understood, Mr. Kantosh. Thank you for your advice.”

  “Just don’t use it to get yourself killed, all right? You’ve become a valuable part of the organization.”

  “I won’t. Sinofar out.”

  Catkins was practically dancing with excitement. “Howell’s in District Metz?” he repeated.

  “Correct. Do you know the place?”

  “I do indeed. It’s one of my clients.”

  Sinofar raised her brow ridge. “Tell me again what your new job is.”

  “Gaming consultant.”

  “Hmm. I do not understand why one would pay to consult an expert on a frivolous waste of time. However… maybe your employment is not utterly worthless. Would a gaming consultant mingle with the patrons of this establishment?”

  “Oh, better than that, sister. I get paid to wear a disguise.”

  “A disguise? That sounds highly unlikely.”

  “You’re so ignorant, Verlys. You should get out more. Yes, of course there’s a gaming disguise. It’s called cosplay.”

  “Very well. Catkins, you will observe events from inside Howell’s while I update the lieutenant.”

  She hesitated, watching the Gliesan engineer bounce around his section of pipe, propelled by a surfeit of glee. Better, she supposed, than his periods of deep depression, but Catkins simply did not fit in with the rest of the crew. One day that would become a problem.

  Hopefully not today. Sinofar contacted the lieutenant to tell her that they were back to business as normal: someone was planning to kill her husband. She smiled while she waited for the link to establish. The situation felt like putting on a pair of comfortable old boots. A pair booby trapped with a poison spike in the heel that had so far failed to go off. Danger was a familiar and welcome spice, but she had no doubt it would one day kill them all the same.

  TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM

  The admiral’s meeting point was an entertainment venue located in District Metz: a noisy neon madhouse of bare-skin fighting theaters, whore droid tube farms, zealot baiting pits, and street kitchens specializing in frying the flesh of Federation citizenry.

  Fitz didn’t need to be told that the exotic local cuisine would be connected with a sky-high level of missing persons in this area of Beta Hub. Every major space station and ground city had their equivalent of Metz, each with their own specialty vice. He’d seen far worse than this. Lived there too.

  He hadn’t time to judge these people. It was enough to be grateful that Izza wasn’t with him. As a human, Fitz was too commonplace to be a target, but a Zhoogene… Chunks of something green had been sizzling away in some of the higher-priced sidewalk frying pans, and Izza wasn’t as tough as she liked to think.

  “Green beans,” he explained to a couple of passing Gliesans as he stood on the threshold to the location Nuysp had given him. “They were only green beans.”

  The Gliesans hurried through the doorway, triggering the venue’s holo-sign to project itself out of the simulated night.

  Welcome to Howell’s: Gourmet Gaming for Every Taste.

  The establishment’s avatar was a dark-bearded human man in primitive robes and spectacles rolling a gaming icosahedron. As the die rolled, it grew in size until it was as large as Fitz’s head. Each face bore an arcane sigil carved in hellfire, which writhed as if in agony. Then the sigils transmuted into tasty cooked treats loaded with spices and sauce, and labeled with apparently unbeatable prices.

  Holo-Howell watched the gaming die transform through eyes glazed with sheer mischief.

  What kind of degenerate would be attracted to a joint like Howell’s? Fitz asked himself. Then he laughed because the answer was obvious. Degenerates like me.

  Despite, or perhaps because Howell’s felt like his kind of place, Fitz’s hand instinctively sought comfort from his F-Cannon. But, of course, his holster was empty.

  “This station is home to Joint Sector High Command,” he told himself as he walked past a brace of security droids on door duty. “And the 4th Fleet is stationed just outside the hull, which makes this place as safe as a deep space stealth convoy.”

  He ascended the scuffed metal of the low-grav helical staircase. Walkways speared out from the central stairwell, leading to blast doors marked with names written in sorcerous runes that pulsed with energy: Salon Slayed, Panopticon, The Ibson Arena, but no Cordovan Room where he was supposed to meet Nuysp.

  The door to Salon Slayed opened, releasing a raucous cacophony of fun and mouthwatering odors of roast spices. Fitz had to peer down through the staircase railings to the Salon’s level, but he could see a shaggy six-limbed creature emerge with a head like a tiger. If it wasn’t so small, he would have identified it as a Jotun: an ancient predator race with a complicated history with humanity in which the aliens played the parts of both saviors and genocidal murderers. In practical terms, Jotuns were difficult to swindle and therefore rarely of interest. Anyway, the figure was far too small. Could it be a Jotun infant?

  “Hey!” hollered the figure in a delicately crystalline voice. “Captain Fitz. Wait up!”

  “Catkins?” It sounded like his erratic chief mechanic, but it looked nothing like him. “Is that you?”

  TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM

  While Catkins passed on the warning that someone had ordered a hit, the eyes in the fake Jotun’s head swiveled to regard Fitz, and its lips rose to reveal powerful fangs. The costume would have been convincing, even intimidating, if not for the fact that by raising its lips, the dummy head revealed the Gliesan inside looking out through a fringe of fake fangs.

  “Where are the others?” Fitz asked.

  “They’ve gone to find Lynx and prep Phantom for takeoff. The lieutenant is on her way here. Are you going to wait for her?”

  “Now, let’s see. That would be the prudent course of action.”

  “But you’re not going to do it.”

  He grinned. “No, my friend. After careful consideration, I think it’s best if I scout out the area myself first… if I could just find the Cordovan Room…”

  “It’s up top. In the roof. The Cordovan’s gravity plating is in the ceiling. Come, I’ll show
you.”

  With his Jotun head jiggling from side to side, Catkins started to race up the stairs, but Fitz was too busy thinking to laugh.

  Who was trying to kill him? If it was Nuysp, then maybe he should swallow his eagerness and wait for Izza’s backup. But that made no sense. Nuysp had never been in the Firm, but even Fitz had been aware of his reputation of making his kills fast and certain, and that kind of attitude rarely changed. No, if Nuysp wanted Fitz dead, he would already have struck. Maybe it was a faction connected to the mess on Rho-Torkis. The admiral could be a powerful ally if Fitz could win him over, but that might prove tricky if he brought the cosplaying Jotun along.

  Catkins halted. “What’s the matter?”

  “You keep watch from here, Chief Mechanic. I’m going in alone.”

  TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM

  “Very amusing, Obinquin.”

  Fitz poked his head through the sliding ceiling hatch into the upside-down Cordovan Room.

  Set against the tops of the walls, banks of comfortable sofas were glued to the room’s ceiling. Gaming tables were folded away, but a dozen play booths flashed invitations to gaming nirvana inside. The neon smear of District Metz’s simulated night streamed through the colored glass set in the sloping outer wall, spreading dazzle patterns over a slate lying on the work table by the window. Admiral Nuysp was sitting by his slate – slouching to be exact – in a dark wingback chair. And all of this was on the ceiling above Fitz’s head.

  Fitz was a spacer; he was used to non-contiguous gravity fields. After reaching the top step, he jumped up as high as he could.

  “Obinquin,” he called a little louder when the admiral didn’t immediately acknowledge his entrance.

  At first, the gravity plating from the main stairwell pulled him down, but then the plating set into the ceiling started fighting for his mass. Making a half-somersault in the null-grav zone where the two gravity fields cancelled, his sense of up and down flipped, and he landed lightly on a ceiling that had become a floor.