Rift Breaker

by Tristan Michael Savage

  A chirp came from the indicator for the bottom left display. Raegar’s head twitched towards it and he ran his fingers over the controls. The display highlighted a line of code. He expanded the image and the results of the short-range scan blinked into focus.

  ‘Short range on screen,’ he ordered.

  He looked up as the crew responded. Across the forward pane display the image of a small class vessel rotated. The mid-weight craft had wings pointed back like an arrowhead.

  His operations specialist briefed him on the details. ‘The scan detected an unidentified craft. It was only in range for two hundredths of a spuckon but its line of trajectory was clear, a quantum jump from this site,’ she said.

  ‘Can we tell where it was headed?’ asked Raegar.

  ‘No, Commander, it was in a hurry. It could have gone anywhere.’

  Raegar sighed. ‘Send the vessel’s description to every colony and surrounding planet.’

  Five

  The night side of the planet Lubric materialised in the Inhibitan’s forward pane. A thick layer of cloud shrouded the planet’s surface, the breaks in the layers revealed mere patches of city lights. Set against this grim complexion, a space-docking platform stretched across the view. Small patrols and maintenance craft skimmed about, fastening cables and attaching hoses to the colossal vessels docked at the cargo and refuelling stations.

  Behind these servicing lines, heavy walls extended from the rear of the platform, one above and one below. Evenly spaced on the walls were long vertical fins. From the front of the fins, bulbous tubes pointed outward. The heavy defence arsenal was a quick reminder they were still on the outer rim.

  The Inhibitan was hailed via the transmitter. The captain pulled down a mouthpiece and pressed the button to answer. Her tone transformed into something of cheerfulness, but she spoke in a language Milton couldn’t recognise.

  The voice on the other side responded in the same speak and ended with a whistle. When she hung up the captain instantly reverted to her emotionless stare.

  ‘Did he say something about a storm?’ Tazman asked.

  Milton looked to her for the answer.

  ‘Yes,’ she said with an air of irritation. ‘Fortunately, it hasn’t yet moved over the city.’

  The Inhibitan passed beneath the platform. Light blazed from directly overhead, illuminating every crevice of the flight console. Milton leaned forward and twisted in his seat, fixing his gaze up through the top of the forward pane. The captain furrowed her brow at the sight of his manoeuvre. Let her think him strange, he thought. He had sights to see.

  The intense lights blasted down from the bulging shape of a large vessel. Milton screened the light with his hand to see more detail. Various smaller craft scooted along its body, stopping now and then for their routine inspection of the hull. The ship was an enormous pleasure cruiser. A line of vehicles filed out of a side compartment. A connection point on the side of the vessel unfolded and another small ship, which was also the front end of a giant hose, slotted itself into the opening.

  ‘You act like you’ve never seen a docking platform before,’ said Tazman, folding his arms across the back of Milton’s seat.

  ‘I haven’t,’ Milton replied, with relentless attention to the sight. A line of short tubes connected the cruiser to the platform. Through the windows on the tube sides, Milton saw movement of disembarking figures. Once the Inhibitan was clear of the platform, the captain accelerated.

  Milton sat back, bewildered. ‘Wow,’ he said. Tazman laughed. ‘What?’

  ‘If you liked that …’ replied Tazman. He finished the statement by nodding to the planet.

  Lubric inflated before them and swallowed the view. The murky clouds remained at a great distance for a moment, but suddenly slammed into the forward pane. Turbulence rose dramatically. Milton swayed in his seat. He felt himself falling forward before the ship’s gravity system adjusted and pulled him back into place.

  ‘I love that part,’ said Tazman with his palms pressed against the back of the two seats.

  The ship’s nose glowed orange with heat. The fog began to thin and a spark of light momentarily revealed itself behind the sheet, then nothing. Milton shifted in a fruitless effort to see past the blanket. Then suddenly the cloud vanished and an ocean of lights spread before him.

  ‘Welcome to Lubric,’ said Tazman. ‘One of the top tourist getaways in the galaxy — where booze is cheap and many things are legal.’ He punched Milton in the arm. ‘We are gunna have so much fun.’

  The captain curled her nostrils in disgust.

  The city was arranged in diamond-shaped blocks, which were again separated by crosses, creating a labyrinth of triangles. In the crevices tiny dots of light snaked in orderly patterns.

  The navi computer chirped and displayed the location of a docking hangar on the windshield overlay. The captain pulled back on the flight controls and the ground swept away as the Inhibitan levelled with the horizon. The cityscape was dense with enormous triangular prism skyscrapers that occupied entire city blocks.

  An air traffic control bubble emerged on screen and displayed the requested airspeed and angle of approach. The captain selected an automatic sequence and the Inhibitan’s flight computer adjusted to the directions. The controls eased to the left and the ship sank into a smooth turn. The Inhibitan veered into a wide path between the buildings.

  The moving dots of light came closer and were revealed to be a busy and seemingly chaotic arrangement of hover traffic. The vehicles travelled at various levels of altitude, blinking with turning signals while swerving and sliding to change lanes and turn.

  Once the bubble granted her clearance, the captain grabbed the flight controls again and pushed forward. The bubble disappeared. The Inhibitan dipped under a line of advertising screens over the top lane that showed armoured creatures wearing jetpacks and diving in zero gravity for an air-propelled ball. More screens were mounted on the sides of surrounding buildings and others hovered beside the lanes, sometimes travelling with the grain of traffic.

  Aggressive drivers swerved and swooped apart, reluctantly letting the Inhibitan through. The captain continued to drop lanes and slowed, lowering her spacecraft into the city. The Inhibitan sank between brightly lit pedestrian bridges suspended between buildings. Numerous creatures packed the pathways.

  A dome on a building below bloomed outwards in quarters. The Inhibitan lowered into the hole, narrowly missing the edges, and gracefully landed on an unoccupied pad inside a crowded spaceport hangar. The captain shut down all systems and the engine dropped pitch and extinguished.

  ‘I will be expecting payment now,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ said Tazman. ‘I’m sure the owner here has a card reader. We’ll transfer the balance to you.’

  With a wiggling tail, Tazman walked ahead out of the cockpit and through the downward sloping passage to the cargo hold. From here Milton could see that the layout of the Inhibitan was fairly basic. The spacious cargo area was the main hub from which connecting passages led to different parts of the ship. Milton followed Tazman as he weaved through strapped-down cargo crates, and the captain trailed behind. He glanced back; her holster was open and her hand hovered closely.

  Tazman halted at the far end of the hold and looked over the controls in front of him. The lady stepped ahead, pulled the release levers and hit a button. The cargo door hissed and folded out. A grated ramp extended to the hangar floor.

  Spacecraft of all different types were parked in rows along the wide hangar. The main paths between the ships were crowded with people, animals, cargo carriers and loading walkers. Beside the Inhibitan towered a vertical-standing ship that looked like an insect hive. A horizontal wheel in the ship’s body rotated and lowered one of its many robotic arms to a pile of crates. The claw on the end snatched one of the containers, raising the cargo as the wheel continued to turn. Other claws did the same and deposited the containers into a chute on the side of the ship.

  A sho
rt, snail-like creature hobbled to the base of the ramp and waited expectantly. Its torso was encased in a swirly brown shell with a large bulge on the backside. Two flexible stems that rose from the top of its green, pliable head housed its eyes. To protect its limbs, it wore rubbery metallic tubes that attached to gloves and boots.

  The captain began to descend the ramp. A hovering machine, a quarter her size, floated in from the right and blocked her path. It had a flat rectangular face with side edges that curved forward. The captain stopped and waited patiently. The thing settled in front of her head.

  ‘Holography bot,’ Tazman informed, nudging Milton. ‘Make sure you let it do what it does.’

  It charged and a flash of electric-white light blasted forth. When it was done blinding the captain it floated aside and allowed her to pass.

  The snail-like creature gurgled with delight and the captain politely extended her greeting.

  ‘I think they know each other,’ Tazman whispered. ‘Now is our chance.’ He tiptoed halfway down the ramp and the holography bot took his image. The Freegu turned, gave a cheeky smile and bounded off the right side, ducking beneath the ship.

  ‘Hey, get back here,’ Milton whispered. He stepped from the doorway and the holography bot blocked his way. The charge rang in both ears and the flash exploded into his vision.

  Milton blinked hard as the bot floated away. Purple blobs floated in his vision. He ducked and scanned under the ship’s body in the direction Tazman had gone. He caught sight of Tazman’s tail slipping into a crowd.

  Milton hesitated. The captain stood nodding at the snail creature as it squeaked and squealed with erratic flailing limbs. She politely signalled it to wait and slid her boot out to the side. Milton’s heart jabbed his chest as she started to turn. The snail, however, strived for attention and pulled her back, flicking something wet with every twitch of its translucent eye stems. The captain sighed and ran her finger casually along the length of her holstered gun.

  Milton hopped off the ramp and started in Tazman’s direction, passing beneath the wing and into the busy hangar. Tazman had gained distance. He jumped atop a load of boxes ahead and signalled Milton to get a move on.

  Milton hurried through, taking a path between a loading walker and its cargo; the driver stopped and yelled something. Milton stepped over a crate and hung left to avoid a low-hanging crane, then stopped. A small loader towed two towering wryhaidon cages across his path. The first beast whipped its long neck and snorted, clicking on the cage base with hairy, fork-toed feet.

  Milton had worked with wryhaidon back home. They were built tough and their only natural predators were subterranean. Once the wryhaidon were riled, it was difficult to calm them. Tantrums were one of their favourite pleasures. Milton waited the extra spuckons for the second caged beast to pass.

  He sighted Tazman disappearing through a vehicle entrance. Milton pressed through the rest of the crowd and stepped outside into the cool air. A whistle pulled his attention. He scanned to find Tazman further up the path. Milton jogged to catch up.

  ‘This is crazy! Not a good idea,’ said Milton.

  Tazman’s eyes, the size of planets, darted about the surroundings, avoiding Milton. ‘We didn’t have a choice,’ he replied.

  Overhead lanterns shone down onto the glistening wet pavement. Buildings towered over the path on either side, connected by distant foot bridges. Hover vehicles, all with their own individual sounds, shot overhead, sending an updraft through the street crevice with every pass.

  A grounded hover vehicle started nearby. Music of some kind blared from its interior. Its rounded metal surfaces were vibrant chrome and purple and its rear and lower sides were mounted with enormous platinum turbines. The creatures inside hung their limbs out the windows and looked out onto the walkpath. The one in the front peeled back his lips, revealing a set of sharp teeth. He revved the engine to a deafening roar and his passengers chattered excitedly. The vehicle lifted off and shot into the sky, cutting aggressively into the traffic line above.

  ‘Probably trying to make up for something,’ Tazman smiled. ‘What do you say we engage in a little recreation?’ He pointed to a sign and set off briskly.

  ‘With what?’ asked Milton, starting after him. ‘We have no money remember?’

  Tazman produced a full-looking pouch and shook it, forcing the jangling sound of coinage.

  ‘We could have paid that pilot who rescued us,’ Milton said.

  Tazman pocketed the pouch and followed in the direction of a thumping beat.

  ‘We don’t owe her a thing, Milton. What kind of person charges someone for being rescued from a life-threatening situation? Scum like her deserve nothing.’ His tail curled up and wagged in Milton’s face. ‘You see? Tail agrees.’

  They stopped at the source of the music, an extravagant building with transparent sections revealing crowds of drunken partygoers. Two cat-like creatures, twice the size of Tazman, stood tall at the entrance. They had matching sharp-edged suits and black stripes down the back of their orange and white furry heads. Tazman took a step in their direction and the one on the right let out a deep threatening purr, exposing the tip of its fang.

  Tazman smiled and flashed a handful of gold tokens. The cats exchanged a quick glance and Tazman flipped one to each. They caught them with swiping claws and the one on the left motioned the ecstatic simian in with a flick of its whisker.

  Milton stood frozen. He peered into the entrance. Inside, a crowd danced under colourful lights and laser beams. Tazman popped out again and gripped Milton’s upper arm.

  ‘It’s okay, he’s with me,’ he said, yanking him through the entrance.

  The scene was overwhelming for the Human from Stoneia. Right away, he wanted to leave. Thick smoke clouded the air. He found himself squashed in a tightly packed crowd. Tazman made his way forward, tossing his head to the beat. He got the attention of a passing waitress and exchanged a silver token for a beverage of neon-blue liquid, then drowned himself in it.

  Milton made his way towards the ridiculous Freegu. People moved all around him and he was touched from all sides. He brushed off a webbed hand that had wrapped itself around his shoulder and nervously walked faster. A high-pitched drunken scream whined beside him. He winced and covered his ear.

  He found the edge of the crowd and caught Tazman sitting at the bar. Milton slid in next to him. ‘I don’t like this place,’ he yelled.

  Tazman scanned the room for a moment then smiled and blew a kiss at someone on the dance floor. ‘Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?’ he yelled back.

  A barmaid with three big blue eyes approached. Tazman ordered something with a description so long and complicated Milton couldn’t repeat it even if he knew what it was. The barmaid turned to Milton and blinked with whipping eyelashes.

  ‘Nothing for me, thank you,’ he said politely.

  ‘Get two of those,’ said Tazman, who was already talking with the attractive lady sitting next to him. He whispered in her ear and she laughed, squeezing his shoulder. The barmaid came back with the order. Tazman took a swig and set it down.

  ‘How often do you go to places like this?’ Milton asked.

  ‘Whenever I can,’ Tazman replied. ‘Hey drink up,’ he added, sliding a glass of foamy liquid under Milton’s nose.

  ‘It’s hardly the time to celebrate. We have to figure out what we’re going to do.’

  ‘Don’t worry, things will work out. They always do. You don’t need to plan anything really.’

  ‘I wish I had your outlook,’ said Milton. But Tazman didn’t hear him. He had started flirting again.

  A serpent, the size of Milton’s arm, flexed its body against a pole on a bench behind the bar. Its head moved towards the barmaid almost every time she passed. When she stopped to pour another drink, she scratched the snake under its neck with a glossy fingernail. Several sets of frills waved down the critter’s skin. After she left, the snake lowered its gaze to Milton, locking its vertical irises in a stare. I
ts eyes faded from orange to red.

  Milton took a sip from the frosted glass and tasted an intense bitterness that stuck in his throat. He found swallowing difficult. In the time it took him to finish, Tazman had done three more blue shots with his new lady friend.

  After a while a shout thundered drunkenly over the music. ‘Hey Freegu! You’re in my seat.’ Milton spun to see a skinny pale yellow creature dressed in baggy pants, leaning forward as it swayed towards them.

  Tazman turned to Milton, gulping down his drink with a raised eyebrow. ‘Now, my good friend, I will give you a practical example on how to deal with conflict,’ he said.

  The yellow guy puffed up his chest. Bony red lumps, like sawn off spikes, protruded from his head and continued in a line down his back.

  ‘Get off,’ he screamed with a rolling unfocused gaze. The crowd backed away, forming a circle to view the floorshow. This, Milton thought, was more of the scene he was used to.

  Tazman stood and picked up his barstool. The drunk guy tensed but Tazman raised a hand to calm him. ‘Relax,’ the simian said. He held the stool up by its legs and pretended to examine it closely. ‘Hmmm, here’s where we have a problem,’ he announced. Turning the stool, he looked at the underside and scrunched up his face. ‘Your name’s not on it!’

  The guy widened his veiny eyes, twitching his head to the side. His lumps began to protrude. Tazman wasn’t one to notice.

  ‘Why haven’t you put your name on it?’ he yelled, waving his hands for emphasis. ‘You do know how to spell your own name … don’t you?’

  ‘Watch your mouth, Freegu,’ it yelled.

  ‘Well I’m sorry. I think it’s pretty stupid to put your seat in a crowded bar without expecting anyone to sit in it. If it had your name on it I wouldn’t have sat there unless …’ Tazman’s eyes opened wide. He covered his mouth with his hand. ‘Oh my goodness, I’m sorry I didn’t realise,’ he said.