House of the Silent Moons

by Tom Shepherd

  “J.B. has a half-brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “How old?”

  “Twenty-three. Almost your age.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Flávio smiled. “João.”

  “You named him after the beloved disciple.”

  “After my father, actually.”

  “Is he well?”

  “Healthy and strong, although not happy as a prisoner. I have seen him every day.”

  At the back of the courtroom Julieta stood by her empty table as Dorla signed up the last civilian needing a ride off world.

  Tyler called, “Prima! I have a job for you, if you’re not too tired.”

  Tavares tried to object but Tyler overruled him. “An evacuating city after dark is not a safe place. Not everybody has signed up to fight for us, and I don’t trust most of those who did.”

  Flávio thanked him. “We will meet you aboard the Howling Tadpole, God willing.”

  * * * *

  It was after dark, but the broken-down spaceport bustled with lights from rapid departures by the time Julieta and Flávio showed up at the access ramp to the borrowed Dengathi ship. A black haired young man with dark mustache followed close behind them. João Tavares looked like a twenty-something replica of his Capitão Father. He even had the same melancholy smile and smooth-flowing gait as Flávio. And he carried a guitar case slung over his shoulder.

  “Welcome aboard, Mr. Tavares,” Tyler said at the airlock. “Move through the decon scrubbers slowly. We don’t know what you might have picked up in that detention cell.”

  “Thank you, Captain Matthews. My father brought me small doses of UBK several times a week. Where may I put this?” He held up his guitar case.

  “Paco will show you the quarters we’ve arranged. Small but unlocked.”

  “If I can help you on this voyage, I’m glad to be of assistance.”

  “What’s your specialty?” Tyler said.

  “Navigation and helm.”

  Flávio smiled proudly. “João can find the second Drifter Gate.”

  “You told me you knew where it was,” Tyler said.

  “I told you I knew how to find it. The Gate key stands before you,” Flávio said.

  “I will need my father’s pendalux,” João said.

  Tyler turned to Chief Léon. “Paco?”

  “We have it in storage, Boss.”

  “João brings another asset to our search,” Flávio said. “Tell him, Son.”

  “Tell me what?”

  João Tavares eyed Tyler cautiously, just the way J.B. did. “I have been aboard the Imperial derelict.”

  Tyler took his guitar. “You’re hired. Paco! Let’s go.”

  “Yeah, Boss. Liftoff at your command. I’ll fetch the pendalux.”

  The seating in the Tadpole’s bridge was cramped with Tyler and Suzie in the command chairs, Arrupt Kilub Riff at the unified nav-helm, Lovey Frost on weapons, and Prince Zenna monitoring the sensor panels. Flávio and João Tavares perched on jump seats aft of the action stations.

  Tyler ordered yellow alert. “Pirates have been launching for hours, and we can’t be sure they’re all M-double-I privateers. So watch out for bad guys in the traffic pattern. Indigo, long range scanning for the Sakura House frigate. It’s not like Kaito to run home empty-handed.”

  “Friend Tyler, what shall we do if we encounter the Parvian fleet?”

  “Play their national anthem and surrender. Hope to God that Sunny is aboard and has briefed them.”

  Suzie said, “Paco calls sublight engines hot, good to orbit.”

  “Mr. Arrupt, take us up,” Tyler said.

  The Dengathi chirped and clucked and the Howling Tadpole rose from its revetment parking space. Kilub Riff didn’t bother with taxiways or takeoff spots but lifted straight up a thousand meters into the dark sky, selected an escape vector clear of traffic, and soared away from oxygen-poor Libertalia-3. Within minutes the murky surface dropped away and clean, black space blossomed with jewels of light.

  “Mr. Tavares, the younger,” Tyler said. “Do you have a course heading to Drifter Two?”

  “No, sir. I’ll need to take readings with the pendalux. Away from this system is better.”

  “Take the empty navigator’s seat, João.”

  Flávio’s son moved forward and slid into place beside the Dengathi helmsman. The face of his older brother drifted across Tyler’s mind. What would J.B. say if he knew his other half-brother now flew for Star Lawyers?

  Tyler said, “Mr. Arrupt, make for deep space while our travel guide gets his bearings.”

  “Sensor contact,” Mr. Blue said.

  “Oh…not good, Matt Junior.” Kilub Ruff said. “Bad Dirt Monkey come shoot-shoot, Arrupt think.”

  “The Sakura House vessel,” Mr. Blue said. “He flies a badly plotted interception course.”

  “Light-plus, now, Phibby!”

  Kilub Riff croaked and slammed the ship into light-plus. The Howling Tadpole shivered and shook but the stars did not move.

  “Not good. Somebody bad freezing FTL.”

  “Shit.” Tyler hammered the comm. “Paco!”

  “Working on it, sir.”

  “What’s going on?” Tavares the elder said.

  “It’s a Quirt-Thymean FTL dampener,” Mr. Blue said calmly. “Shall I disarm their device?”

  “Fuck, yes!” Tyler said.

  “I am sending a feedback pulse. The effect should be quite prompt.”

  With light-plus engines still in activate mode, the Tadpole broke free like a dog from a snapped leash. Smudged rainbows swirled in the viewscreens, notifying the crew they were safe in the Cumberland Tunnel.

  Mr. Blue tapped a key sequence on his scanners. “I detect no pursuit.”

  “How did Kaito get a Quirt FTL-dampener?” Tyler said.

  “Someone without scruples is stealing my people’s technology for Tsuchiya. Or selling it to the highest bidder. It is a criminal act, but logical since they are criminals.”

  “Keep scanning. The sonuvabitch wouldn’t quit that easily.”

  “Yes, Captain. Sandwiches and coffee would be nice while working, but I must stay at my post. So, perhaps the very kind Mrs. Léon will deliver a late Second Lunch?”

  Suzie said, “Nice to think of your fellow crewmembers, Zenna.”

  “Oh, yes. Let’s order for them, too.”

  “We’ll eat when the danger is past,” Tyler said. “Keep your blue nose on the sensor panels.”

  “How can I see the readouts with my nose—?”

  “Indigo!”

  “Oh. Terran metaphor.”

  Suzie smiled. “Colloquialism, actually.”

  “Where are we, Phibby?” Tyler said.

  “Three-quarter light year outa Port Royal,” the Dengathi said.

  “That should be far enough,” João said.

  “Go sublight,” Tyler ordered.

  Kilub Riff tapped a command and the Howling Tadpole dropped from a conduit of swirling star-smears to black, stable space and countless visible stars. João activated the navigation console and called up a complex set of course headings.

  “The last time I passed through Drifter 2, I served aboard a Dengathi ship as merchandise broker for the Ovoins. But the navigator—Ovoin herself—showed me how she computed its roving trajectory.”

  “Ovoins are an avian species, right?” Tyler said. “Flighted humanoids covered with light plumage.”

  “Very different from us,” João said. “Beautiful blue sheen on their feathering, and not an unfriendly race. Extremely peaceful. They have no combat ships.”

  “Why did the Dengathi trust an Ovoin with the secret?” Tyler said.

  João shook his head. “You have it backwards, Captain Matthews. The Dengathi Stellar Lagoon didn’t find the derelict; the Ovoin Tetrarchy did. The Dengathi are buying technology salvaged by Ovoins and selling it through the Dark Market and trade shows.”

  “If they’re such ruddy pacifist
s, why are the Ovoins peddling weapons and aggressive technologies?” Suzie said.

  João shrugged. “Long ago the Tetrarchy reached out and settled four planets in nearby systems. None very rich in minerals or especially hospitable to agriculture. They’ve struggled for centuries to survive as a space faring culture. Now they have discovered a lucrative artifact from the past, something which is pumping trillions of Galactic Credits into the economy. Yes, Ovoins are peaceful, but…”

  “Business is business,” Tyler said. “My father would understand.”

  “Do the Ovoins maintain a garrison aboard the derelict?” Suzie said.

  “No, ma’am. They come and go. They believe its remote location keeps their prize secure. The station went undetected for a thousand years until—yes! There it is!” João’s hands flicked a sequence of squares and the console colors shifted like a light show. “Mr. Arrupt, I have entered a true course to the second Drifter Gate.”

  “How far?” Tyler said.

  “Estimating 97.3 light years.”

  “Let’s go,” Tyler said.

  “Friend Tyler, I am afraid Sakura House has found us again. They have dropped to black, two hundred kilometers off starboard, 174 mark 087 degrees.”

  “Raising shields,” Suzie said.

  “He’s weapons-hot, locking on,” Lovey said. “Permission to fire.”

  “I’m not going toe-to-toe with that gunboat in this piece of junk. Let’s get out of here, Phibby.”

  “He’s firing,” Lovey warned. “Missiles away. Guns locking on.”

  “Go, go!”

  Tyler felt the impact through the deck, like a pissed off Norse god had slammed the hull with his hammer. Next a lone finger of Kaito’s main guns touched the Howling Tadpole just as the Dengathi ship went FTL

  The blast knocked the ship sideways, and for the first time in his life Tyler Matthews cartwheeled down the Cumberland Tunnel without control of pitch, yaw, or roll. Internal gravity held at first, but inertial stabilizers went offline, so the wild spinning translated into centrifugal forces that wrenched equipment free and slammed it against the bulkheads and played havoc with the sentient organisms moored to their posts by seat restraints.

  Artificial gravity went offline just as Lovey vomited, and the spray scattered across the bridge like chunky oatmeal on its way to the bulkheads. Everyone held onto their harnesses and work stations until the gyrations spun down and stabilized at normal flight. Air scrubbers kicked in and the ship’s gravity returned.

  “Got it, thank God!” João said from the nav bench. He had re-routed ship’s helm to his station and fought the offline stabilizers to a draw.

  “Good job.” Tyler took a breath and punched the comm. “Chief Léon, damage report.”

  “Too soon to tell, Boss. I’m recovering from the first case of space sickness in my life. Give me five minutes.”

  “Are we venting atmosphere?”

  “No, sir. And we seem to be right-wised in the hyperspace conduit, traveling as normal. I suspect that right good thump we felt, before FTL, made the Tadpole’s autopilot overcompensate.”

  “Need any help down there?”

  “Wish we had a team of Groxbitz aboard to pick up all the scattered junk, but no thanks.”

  “And I wish I knew how Kaito keeps finding us,” Tyler said. “Full report ASAP.”

  “Will do, Boss.”

  “Primo, this is Julieta at sickbay. No casualties, but I barfed a little, too. Yumiko held her rice and fish dinner down by superhuman effort. Maybe I’ll become a Buddhist.”

  “How about our new guys?” Tyler said.

  “Counselor Mercier’s a hologram, so he’s okay. Félix is up-chucking at the head, but he’ll survive. Dorla didn’t feel a thing.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Let me know in advance next time you turn this Dengathi slow-boat into a carnival ride. I’ll pre-medicate the troops.”

  Tyler chuckled and shut off the comm. “Are we on course, Mr. Tavares?”

  “Yes, sir,” João said.

  “Good,” Tyler said. “Drop to black and recompute the course. Zig-zag pattern. We drop every twenty minutes and proceed on a different vector.”

  João rubbed his chin. “The Gate is a moving target, sir. That will be difficult.”

  Suzie leaned forward. “That’s all we do, João. But usually it’s abso-bloody-extremely difficult.”

  “Let’s see if Kaito shows up at first drop.” Tyler said.

  Half an hour later, the Howling Tadpole left the swirling Cumberland Tunnel and emerged in normal starry space. The spot was 14 light years from the Libertalia System, far enough to give them a cushion of safety before anyone spotting the ship’s EM configuration could close on their location. While waiting for João to plot a new course leg, Mr. Arrupt activated a set of clean-up droids to sanitize the bridge and lower decks after the outbreak of space sickness.

  Paco reported a possible missile strike in the aft starboard section near the antimatter-dark matter containment pods. He couldn’t get internal surveillance cameras to show a good image of the damage, so he checked on foot and reported a sealed hull breach around the tip of an unexploded projectile.

  Chief Léon reported his findings to Tyler. “Looks like a dud missile or faulty probe. My diagnostic scanner says dead metal. No electronic activity.”

  Tyler shifted in his command seat. “Indigo, expand your scanning for bogies. Go to one hundred light years.”

  “Friend Tyler, the farther out we scan, the more resolution we lose.”

  “Can’t be helped.” He turned to Mr. Arrupt at the helm. “Phibby, does this piece of Dengathi shit have external optics to view damages?”

  “We got.”

  Arrupt tapped commands and the viewscreens surrounding the bridge toggled through a montage of external views of the Howling Tadpole. Pale green hull bristled with clumps of instrument packages, gun ports, grappling cables, and an assortment of modules whose function was not readily apparent. Aft of the starboard nacelle, a white metal post protruded from the surface.

  “There it is.” Tyler looped a marking circle around the image. “What the hell is that?”

  “Not know. Not Dengathi. Look like missile impact, not go boom. Maybe dead, like Paco-Paco say.”

  “Captain, I recognize the device,” Flávio said. “It’s a telemetry probe.”

  “Locator beacon? So, why hasn’t it activated?” He hit the comm. “Paco, are you seeing this?”

  “Yeah, Boss. Must be right outside my location by the containment pods. Oops.”

  “I don’t like that sound, Chief.”

  “Doggone thing just went live. No explosives aboard, but it’s transmitting like a pulsar.”

  “João, how long until we can resume course?” Tyler said.

  “I’m working on it, Captain. The Gate has shifted—”

  “Fuck the traveling Gate,” Tyler said. “I’m not leading Kaito to that portal. Lay in a course out of here, any direction.”

  “Yes, sir,” João said.

  “Friend Tyler, I have sensor contact with a light cruiser,” Mr. Blue reported. “Closing rapidly.”

  “João?”

  “Course laid in. Ready at your mark.”

  “Go light plus.”

  A space-time distortion formed around the Tadpole. Like a ground vehicle moving aboard a ferryboat to cross a body of water, the Dengathi spacecraft rested while, freed from the constraints of normal space, the warped pocket lurched forward at faster-than-light velocities into the Cumberland Tunnel and carried the stationary starship along for the ride.

  “Paco, can you clean that thing off the hull?”

  “Not without an EVA, and nobody’s ever survived going external in the Tunnel.”

  “How about blowing it free from inside the ship, like popping a cork?”

  “Shoot through the hull. Gutsy call, Boss. And I guess it’s my guts you’re calling on.”

  “Nope. Only get one shot. I wan
t my cousin gripping the blaster. You both need to suit up for explosive decompression.”

  “Boss, come to think of it, nobody’s ever done this at FTL, either. We don’t know what will happen in a hull breach in the Tunnel.”

  “We’re about to find out,” Tyler said. “Get two sets of EVA gear and strong deck tethers. The doctor will see you in a moment.”

  “Friend Tyler, the Sakura House vessel has pursued us into hyperspace. They are a few minutes behind and closing.”

  “Anybody know if weapons work in the Tunnel?” Tyler said.

  “They do,” Flávio said. “All distances are relative, even as the time-space continuum bends before us. When their warp pocket is within weapons range of ours, the enemy can strike with blaster fire.”

  “How rude,” Tyler said. “You got any space mines, Phibby?”

  “Got trash,” Kilub Riff said. “Lotsa trash.”

  “Brilliant,” Suzie said. “Junk up their flight path.”

  “We don’t know what that will do,” Flávio protested.

  “Neither do they,” Suzie said. “Let’s throw a spanner in the works, see if the rotters can fly through it.”

  “Bloody hell, yes,” Tyler laughed. “Mr. Arrupt, do you mind taking out the garbage?”

  “I glad go, Matt Junior. Also glad help Paco-Paco,” he croaked. “Kilub Riff real job fix holes, patch battle ding-ups. I good at my job.”

  “Suzie, transfer nav controls to your console,” Tyler said.

  “Got it, luv,” she replied as Mr. Arrupt left his station.

  “Phibby, grab an EVA suit. Report to Chief Léon.”

  The Frog grinned toothlessly. “Aye, aye, Cap’n Good Dirt Monkey.”

  “Lovey, release weapons to Capitão Tavares,” Tyler said. “Kilub Ruff may need a hand.”

  Frost grumbled but rose from her post. “Legal education, lieutenant in the Commonwealth Navy, and I’m still working the fucking trash truck.”

  “Let’s go, people,” Tyler said. “The Japanese-sand man is coming.”

  Twenty-Six

  Helmets locket and gray-green Dengathi spacesuits pressurized, Paco Léon and Arrupt Kilub Riff waited by the javelin-shaped probe which had spiked the bulkhead. Behind them Doctor Julieta Solorio, also in full EVA, steadied herself and leaned forward until the restraining strap holding her to the deck went taut. Paco had depressurized the section to minimize the dangers of creating a rift in the bulkhead.