by Scott Warren
He noticed something before the lash of white arcs sent him back behind the box. Only about a dozen of the Graylings were actively engaging them. Others were in the bay, either milling about or trying to crack open the Condor. Where was Bargult’s attention if not the bay? That was obvious. Looking for the captain. Bargult knew she wasn’t on the Condor yet.
“Alright, this is going to sound weird guys, but start taking shots at the ones not shooting back.”
“You serious, Cohen? We’re surrounded and you want us to potshot the ones that aren’t already trying to cook us?”
Vega. Bit of an ass, and not just because Brazil had cleaned out the Israeli Olympic football team. “Yep,” said Aesop, “And I want you to do a little samba to get their bug blood pumping for us.”
“Fuck you,” said Vega as he started lining up shots on the passive Graylings.
Aesop angled his gun out from behind cover, using the camera to send a round into the back of an inactive Grayling. It squealed, and stumbled towards the bay doors, adding its EPD to the mix. Well, he supposed that could be considered a success. The other marines followed his example. Not so easy controlling a half-dozen ships, and a handful of fighters in the station, was it? More and more of the Graylings became active and brought weapons to bear.
Down to his last two magazines, Aesop hoped the captain and the major knew what they were doing.
“There, it’s stopped patrolling. Let’s go.”
Red lifted the hatch again, carefully settling it on the deck, lest the noise alert the Grayling. It had stopped walking, or skittering or whatnot, and now stood still but for its breathing and twitching. Edwards followed closely behind as he maneuvered around the hulking xeno. He fingered a text message to Aesop on his implant’s virtual keyboard, afraid the xeno might hear if he used voice comms. Whatever it is you’re doing, it’s working. He still wasn’t sure it wouldn’t smell them, if Graylings smelled at all.
“Can’t keep it up for long, Major,” came the response in his ear, “we’re about dry on ammo down here.”
Red kept his rifle trained on the inactive Grayling as Edwards went to the door console and released the magnetic seals for the service hatch airlock. It was too small for Graylings, so he must have left one here to make sure Victoria didn’t double back. The marine muscled the door open enough to slip through, motioning him to follow. He left the Grayling and slid through the gap, pushing the door closed behind him. As Edwards shouldered open the inner door the shrill screech of the electro-plasmic weapons became almost overpowering.
Victoria stood against the wall, looking through the window in the catwalk door. He pushed past the two marines escorting her, stopping to examine a bad burn one of them had taken. When he reached her, he looked past her at the bay where most of the Graylings were saturating the open bay doors with arcs of blue-white plasmic lightning.
Together, they slid the heavy door open enough to slip through. Red crouch-walked as quietly as a man could in hard-shelled boots on metal grating, but none of the Grayling spotters had noticed them slink onto the catwalk. Bargult always held a few back with their sensory bands exposed, the rest he kept protected by the hardened interlocking plates of carapace. Almost like how the privateer marines were trained to shoot by gun cameras. Every Grayling in the bay was focused on Aesop and his marines. Red stalked to the Taru computer console above the Condor. It was disabled, locked for all but the Taru overseers. That wasn’t much of a deterrent to the Vultures.
The staggering mental facilities of advanced spacefaring xenos was a double edged sword when it came to computers. Most were capable of mentally performing the long-form calculations required for interstellar jumps and tactical navigation unaided. Human brains simply couldn’t compete, and needed computers to parse and store the data for them. The reliance on computer science had driven the advancement of processors, AI logic, network integration, and digital resolution to a level that even at first contact, was light years ahead of the neighborhood. The Union Earth didn’t brag about this oversight, and so the Vultures were able to enjoy digital superiority.
The Salvesei had three main computer languages, and the Union Earth Government cracked them decades ago. They’d changed little in the interim time, being used mainly to open doors, control lighting, and manage the artificial gravity. Two of those functions Red was particularly interested in. Following the prompts from his ocular implants Red quickly gained root access to the console, setting a few choice commands and executing a countdown script. He sent another quick message to Aesop before attaching his personal tether to the rail of the catwalk with a magnetic carabiner.
Victoria was paying more attention to the fight below when he grabbed her around the waist. She yelped in surprise, then looked at his arm around her.
“What, you want a goodbye kiss?”
He grinned, pulling the vacuum hood over his head.
“Exhale, Vick.”
Her eyes went wide, “You gotta be shitting me.”
Aesop was dropping his empty rifle to the sling and pulling his sidearm from the magnetic holster when he got the command to prep for vacuum and Low Gravity. That meant…
“Harah,” he swore, pulling on his hood, “Hold onto something!”
The marines began to clip into whatever was handy, including other marines. Aesop made a loop from his tether and tied it under a rail. None too soon, it turned out, as the major’s hack kicked in. First, the local gravity dissipated as the artificial gravity generators for the bay were shut off. The asteroid barely had enough mass to keep them floating off, and the Graylings noticed the change. Aesop felt himself sliding back against the metal crate as the natural vector took over. The hail of plasma cut off abruptly as the Graylings scrabbled for purchase inside the bay and began sliding towards the rear of the hangar. Then the exterior airlock opened, evacuating the entire bay to space. Something as massive as the Condor didn’t move much, but the rushing nitrogen atmosphere raced to meet the vacuum, carrying the Graylings with it. Aesop and the marines were pulled taught against their tethers. A massive form tumbled past him, shattering a stalactite and continuing on to the bay airlock.
Sirens sounded in the station as every connecting airlock in the vicinity slammed shut, but were silenced as the last of the air fled. The furious rushing pull on Aesop and the other marines lessened as the vacuum normalized and gravity returned. Warning lights still flashed, but the sirens were now a hollow vibration translating through the walls and the soles of his boots. Sparse fire returned from behind where a few remaining Graylings had found something to cling to, but the bay ahead was empty. Gravity returned, the entire episode had lasted maybe a few seconds.
“Move, marines!” he shouted. He stood, emptying the magazine in his sidearm at Bargult’s remaining Graylings as he dashed to the bay. The Graylings couldn’t pursue; they could last longer than humans in a vacuum but it was still lethal to them within minutes.
Captain Victoria had a vague sensation of dropping as Red lowered them with the tether. She hit the ground and almost collapsed. Her lungs were on fire. She was on fire all over, why was she so hot? Shouldn’t she be freezing? Even her tongue felt bubbly, but it was hard to tell with all the black crowding the edges of her vision. Her footsteps sounded odd, and she saw other dark shapes around her, and ahead, was that the Condor? Jesus why did everything hurt so bad, was she dead? Her ears felt like they’d exploded, her sinuses like something had crawled inside, and her eyes like they didn’t fit in her head. Warnings flashed on one of her retinal implants, but she couldn’t read them. Everything was blurry.
She saw a hand as she was shoved to the floor of the Condor’s airlock. Her hand. It was all blue under the nails, that wasn’t right. That … wasn’t … right.
A hiss, and suddenly she could inhale. She gasped, face against the metal deck of the Condor’s cargo bay. She was burning hot, but no sweat covered her. It had boiled off in the vacuum. If it was possible she hurt even more now, in her head, in eve
ry joint. She remembered… remembered…
Decompression
Hypoxia
Vacuum
“Bargult,” she stammered.
Her marine major leaned down beside her, “Take it easy, Vick, we’ve got it from here.”
“Bullshit, control, now. That’s a direct fucking order, Major,” she said. She was lucky to even be conscious. Red must have gotten her from the catwalk to the aft airlock in just a couple seconds, her legs working on autopilot. They didn’t seem to want to work now, that was for damn sure.
Red looked unhappy, she almost never used his title, never pulled rank on him. But he looped her arm around his shoulder and helped her up two decks to the conn, passing awed marines and crew. The First Prince was there, face placid and emotionless. How much had he seen?
Huian already maneuvered the ship out of the bay door when Victoria slid into her captain’s chair. The view screen was bright with the Graylings Red had shoved into space. They were out there, dying. Not fast enough for her. She wiped blood from underneath her nose. Burst capillaries most likely, but she was returning to herself. Her cyanosis was fading, too.
“Captain Marin has the deck and the conn. Carillo, light those fuckers up.”
Now outside the Taru Station hangar, the prohibition of shipboard weapons was lifted. The first prince hissed audibly as the ship’s two forward point-defense cannons individually targeted and shredded every free-floating Grayling in less than the span of a breath with a storm of metal shards. The smaller hostile carrots on the tactical screen fell away, replaced by a single contact. The Grayling ship accelerating on the other side of the station.
“Huian, ahead three-point-five, roll us belly out and take us along towards the planet.”
“Three-point-five aye, ma’am.”
“Steady as she bears. Avery, what have you got?”
“He’s lit up Skipper, active sweep on multiple frequencies, over the horizon of Taru but we’re getting their bounce off the local moon. Attenuator?”
“Negative, I want him to see us. Increase speed and flash our pipes, just enough to let him feel clever. Make him work for it.”
“Aye Skipper”
The Condor accelerated past the horizon of Taru Station, the jagged red silhouette of the Grayling cutter emerging against the local star. Warning klaxons sounded as the privateer ship was directly exposed to Bargult’s active sensors, showing her entire dorsal profile. He immediately began to accelerate towards the Condor.
“Con sensors, his weapons are heating up.”
“Huian, cut acceleration, pull him away from Taru. Tactical, deploy electric chaff.”
“Con tactics aye,” said her XO from the fire control center.
A small missile separated from the Condor, intercepting the blue-white fire that lanced out from the Grayling cutter. It burst in a hail of conductive material, creating a screen that matched the momentum of the Condor. The Grayling weapon, fired from only a few kilometers away, began to chew through the screen at an alarming rate.
“Skipper he’s maneuvering.”
“I see him. Huian, keep the screen between us. We need him further from Taru.”
“Aye ma’am.”
The First Prince examined the tactical display, “This creature, this … Bargult, he is using the station to prevent you firing upon him?”
“Captain he’s cutting through the screen, it’ll only last a few more seconds.”
“Aye, Prince, but it won’t help him. He was dead the second he decided to chase the Condor. Carillo, that’s all we need. Blow it on my mark, steady, steady … mark!”
The plasmic lightning halted as fire erupted out of the Grayling ship. It spun, rocked by the explosion and venting the hellish atmosphere within the ship. Radiation levels spiked on the sensors enough to trigger a proximity alert, the core of the cutter had compromised and begun venting a wake of burning blue vapor. What was left of the hulk continued on a ballistic course towards the open arms of the uninhabited first planet.
“How…? Captain Marin?” murmured the First Prince.
Victoria winked at him, trying to ignore the searing pain in her eye as she did. She also noticed why her retinal implants were so damn blurry, one of them had cracked in the vacuum. “Space walkers,” was the only reply she offered.
“Helm, bear for a swing around the planet. Let’s get the First Prince and his crew home before Bargult decides he needs more of a beating.”
On the black rocky surface of Taru Station, Tessa Baum and her partner-in-crime Aimes Webb watched the light of the Condor disappear over the horizon of the planet. The Grayling cutter they tagged with a handheld exotic-matter bomb as it emerged from hangar 192 burned brilliantly between the station and the dark side of the planet. Two other Grayling ships were launching but the Condor was long gone, having used the planet’s gravity to slingshot themselves toward the local star for a horizon jump. Bargult made no move to retrieve the burning derelict. The same ruptured plasmic core that made for such a bright display made it too dangerous to approach. It didn’t matter, Bargult would make another. Grayling ships were formed from a natural resin derived from the trees they cultivated on their home planet. Go figure, the only xenos sailing around the stars in wooden ships.
Before they had lost contact with the Condor’s computers they knew that the dead Grayling ship would continue to burn along its present course until it sheared itself apart in the planet’s atmosphere in several hours.
“So what now? There are still Graylings on the station,” Aimes asked over his radio.
Tessa looked at her fellow marine, completely matte black in his vacuum suit and hard-shell helmet. The black silhouette of a man with a rifle. Nothing rattles, nothing shines, was what her grandfather used to say.
“Red said to get in contact with Jenursa Hibbevox. He’ll hide us until another privateer shows up that we can hitch on with. Maybe the Sagan or the Huxley.”
“So I suppose we’re done with the Vulture?”
“For now, babe, we’re on vacation. And I can only think of about a half-dozen people I’d rather spend it with.”
“Yeah but how many of them love you like I do?”
“None,” she said, playfully pushing him. He lost his balance in the miniscule gravity offered by the station beyond the generators, tumbling briefly until he could latch his magnetic boots onto an iron plate. He laughed over the radio.
“Hey Tessa, how’s your O2 culture?” he asked.
“Good, why?”
“Well,” Aimes gestured to the disabled cutter, “That’s got to be the biggest confirmed kill of our privateer careers, why not stay out a while and milk it? Hibbevox isn’t going anywhere and the Graylings are probably still riled up.”
Tessa snorted, “Oh yeah, a vacuum suit climbing up my colon and a burning Grayling cutter. The pinnacle of romance,” she said. Despite her tone she slowly walked to Aimes and sat down next to him. “It is kind of pretty in a morbid sort of way.”
Silence passed between the two marines for a time before the local sun grew dark.
“Nighttime on Taru already?” asked Tessa. She felt a tug on his shoulder, pulling her to her feet.
“Tess, we need to get to Hibbevox. Right now.”
“What about the Graylings?”
“Fuck the Graylings. Look.”
Tessa followed the pointing finger of Aimes to the false sunset created by the massive ship blocking the light of the star. Where before had been empty space, now floated the Springdawn.
Chapter 5: The Lesser Empires
Beyond the asteroid station, an alien ship burned. Best Wishes didn’t know her name or what race had crewed her as she plummeted towards the shadow of the planet. There was no archival data on this system, or the independent space station that had surely been the destination of their mystery vessel. Was that his unknown quarry burning up in the atmosphere? It was still uncertain, as was their relationship with the Dreadstar before his arrival. They had been d
rawn by the distress call, most likely. Picked the bones of the dead ship and hastened away before his science team could extrapolate the interstellar coordinates. But one had to be certain. Best Wishes’ claws clicked on his bone spurs as he considered. He was tempted to put the lesser empire ship out of its misery, the scans had indicated levels of radiation lethal to nearly all known species.
His first officer, Modest Bearing, approached as he watched the ship begin to burn up in the atmosphere.
“Commander, we are in contact with the administrator of the colony. He calls himself a Salvesei, and evidently we are in their empire, though he makes no claim that we violated their sovereign territory. He was very particular about this. I believe he wanted to ensure that we were not offended. He informed us that this is a neutral station, and asks how we might be served.”
Fear bred humility, as was proper from the lesser empires. No one would dare suggest that the Dirregaunt should not go where they pleased. Best Wishes would show respect and amnesty to those who knew their place.
“Tell the Taru administrator that we require a bay for our shuttles and to make ready to receive the commander of the Springdawn. No ships are to leave the station save ours. Any violators of this condition will be fired upon and we will not look kindly toward the station should they facilitate this.”
“Commander, you intend to go aboard yourself? This lesser empire outpost is dangerous, filled with delinquents and savages. It’s not safe, let me go in your stead.”
Best Wishes laid his ears flat in respect to his friend and first officer, “No, you will have the Springdawn until my return. This is something I must do myself. I am lacking … perspective, shall we say. I have hunted the Malagath Empire and Kossovoldt for all my life but I am ignorant in the ways of our new quarry. To hunt something you must know its ways. I would learn of them firsthand.”