Escape

by Blaze Ward

  Just the console across the front, with everything duplicated for either pilot to control things if you happened to have two. Things had melted from the heat of the rocket exhaust. Everything had a scorch of some sort, including the carpeting.

  “Salvage looks like possibly food, the mechanicals of the refrigerator, and that spare cabin, Addison,” Aileen said, turning back an entering the hallway again. “Priorities?”

  “How does your unit run?” The Director turned back to Lazarus.

  “Alternating electrical current,” Lazarus said. “We would need to build a converter from yours, or perhaps an inverter to step it correctly, I would presume. I can advise whoever needs to do that work. There might be instructions written on the back when we remove it.”

  “Instructions?”

  “My mission was military,” Lazarus conceded. “And so most of the equipment involved was military as well, so there is a surprising level of bureaucracy involved. Bureaucrats love paperwork.”

  Wolcott made a sound that reminded Lazarus of a harrumph. Or a suppressed growl.

  Nobody ever loves the bureaucrats, until their unbending dedication to paperwork and organization saves the day somehow. Like writing wiring instructions across the back of a refrigeration unit. Lazarus had seen others that way.

  “Is there anything of value in that forward cabin, besides aesthetics?” Wolcott continued.

  “Negative,” Lazarus replied. “Standard issue everything for a junior-ranking officer of no personal importance. All the computer systems were located aft, close to the generators and engines. I suspect at this point the hull has metal value, and that’s about it.”

  “And a semi-galactic civilization has so much metal content available that there’s nothing worth considering,” the Director completed the thought. “Aileen, see what food you can get from the cupboards first. Then the refrigerator, either to empty, or to remove if you think it might be worth having. Your call.”

  “Stand by,” she said simply.

  Lazarus watched her open the first cupboard slowly. They weren’t airtight, so everything had bled out, and probably flash frozen, but he could defrost anything that was intact. Most things on a ship were designed for accidental vacuum exposure.

  He would just need to make do with what he could get.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Addison

  Addison had never served in a formal navy. The Innruld didn’t have such a thing, at least as Lazarus had described his experience, mostly because there were no other independent powers capable of challenging Innruld control of space. Certainly no pitched battles for superiority in a system or trade route.

  At least here. This thing called the Rio Alliance, and it’s enemy Westphalia, seemed to be rising powers that might threaten the Innruld’s grip on this part of the galaxy someday. Especially if all humans were as physically strong as Lazarus appeared to be.

  What would a human ship of war be like?

  The Innruld had security vessels, but those were just oversized gunboats with the authority to board any vessel and destroy anyone that refused to recognize their authority.

  At the other end of the spectrum were smugglers that kept as low a profile as possible while making cargo runs to less-served systems.

  Right now, he and several others were starboard aft in the secondary cargo hold, having dragged Aileen’s netted catch and Lazarus’s bureaucratic refrigerator in through the main airlock and then stashed them here.

  The room covered roughly ninety degrees of the curved arc that was the main hull, but only the outer one third of a radius from the edge, with most of the inner portion of that pie slice being the main hold. This was where Addison’s crew stored things that were for ship’s use, with the occasional overflow when the main hold had too many boxes and tanks of liquid.

  Aileen had snagged meals sealed in metal foil containers for stable, long term storage. Spices in a variety of sizes, colors, and apparently flavors, which would make it easier to cook for the human. And maybe expand Khyaa'sha’s repertoire. Even a complete set of human silverware that had been sealed up tight in a drawer.

  Humans had strange table equipment.

  Knives, forks, and spoons in various denominations and scales made sense. He was looking forward to an explanation of the blunt wooden posts that were squared off.

  And one refrigerator.

  Lazarus had met Ereshkiki Nisab and Thadrakho at dinner. And nerded out with them over Systems Mechanic sorts of things, as only those sort did. Right now, they had the device resting in the middle of several towels and a cargo net in case it did explode upon opening. Aileen had just taped it shut, over the latches already holding it, and shipped it back, on the off-chance that it was insulated enough to hold air and keep the food inside at a reasonable temperature.

  The threesome were having a conversation about compressors and regulators, but Addison felt that he should be here, supervising at least in spirit. Ereshkiki Nisab was as close to a second-in-command as this crew needed, but he was frequently keeping engines running and life support pumping oxygen into the ship, so he was a quiet kind of leader.

  Thadrakho could fix anything you told him to, but did not go looking for jobs. He wasn’t lazy, but Necherle civilization was almost as regulated as Ilount, so his natural default was to expect orders from a superior and act on them immediately and independently.

  Still, they made a good team. Lazarus seemed to have enough scientific grounding to explain to the other two what he needed, and Thadrakho was adapting components as he listened.

  “So what will we expect inside?” Addison interrupted when the conversation lulled.

  “Juice in a frozen concentrate state,” Lazarus stood and stretched, reminding Addison how tall the human was. “Dinners prefrozen for heating later in a microwave oven that did not survive. Leftovers in the refrigerator, plus bottles of sauce as condiments, and one container of orange juice that may have exploded from freezing.”

  “How do we tell?” Addison asked, concerned about liquid leaks on his deck.

  “I will run a small video probe into through the door seal,” Ereshkiki Nisab rotated on his axis to focus an eye this way. “That will measure pressure and temperature. The machinery itself appears to be intact, and is of a fairly primitive state that relies on mechanical principles instead of electronics we might not have been able to replicate.”

  Lazarus nodded as he turned to include the Qooph in the conversation. Addison found it amusing that the human reacted to the wheelman with the least surprise, even though he had never encountered the species before. Except he had called it an angel, whatever that was, and laughed at his own joke without explaining it.

  Addison stepped back as Ereshkiki Nisab approached the machine. The Systems Mechanic had added another layer of tape around the unit to keep it from opening, over the tape that Aileen had strapped to it and the handle latch on the front. Instead of a screen, the probe beeped in a code sequence that Addison had a hard time following, but Qooph were primarily an aural-based species.

  Lazarus moved to stand next to Addison, lurking over him by nearly a foot, but Addison didn’t feel like leaning back and stretching up to look the human in the eyes. It wasn’t a dominance stance, as the human had spread his legs to the width of those incredibly-broad shoulders and crossed his wrists behind his back.

  It appeared to be an unconscious thing, a trained habit, as he was perfectly parallel to Addison’s torso when he stood like this.

  Military thing?

  “We should be able to salvage things,” Ereshkiki Nisab announced after a short symphony played. “The ambient temperature in the large chamber is only a few tens of degrees below freezing, and the pressure is comparable to the ship, although a bit denser. Lazarus, how is our air for you to breathe?”

  “Thin,” the human said after a beat. “As if I was at a mountainous elevation of perhaps ten thousand feet above sea level on Brasilia. I will acclimate in a few days, but that is why
I have been drinking so much water, to keep myself hydrated.”

  Ten thousand feet? Gods below, his native planet must be a lethal, terrible place, if the gravity was fifteen percent heavier and the atmosphere so thick. No wonder humans were so big and strong. You would need to be to survive such a planet.

  Ereshkiki Nisab reached to the door seal with one hand and slid a finger into the seal. He pried it open to create a gap and the air inside whooshed out loudly for a few seconds, chilling the area around it and causing the briefest fog before it warmed and evaporated.

  Claw-tipped fingers slit the tape holding the door shut and Ereshkiki Nisab pivoted to bring an eye onto Lazarus.

  “It should be safe to open now,” the Systems Mechanic said in a five-voice harmony that Addison rarely heard from the man. Only the mouth on the deck had not spoken.

  Lazarus moved to the door carefully and grabbed that heavy-looking chromed latch in one meaty hand. He jerked it with his whole upper body and the door opened with a hard pop.

  Addison wasn’t sure he wouldn’t need to coil against something else to achieve that level of lateral torque.

  Inside, the containers should have gone every which way, but there appeared to be magnets holding them to the shelves. A useful innovation he might need to discuss with Khyaa'sha at some point.

  Nothing had exploded. The orange juice was obvious from the color through the clear container, as was the fact that it had frozen solid and expanded to fill the entire container.

  But Lazarus nodded, poked around a little, and closed the door.

  “Once you wire it up, Thadrakho, everything will warm to the appropriate temperatures and you should have another space to store things,” Lazarus said to the Necherle mechanic.

  Thadrakho stood with the power device in his hands and manipulated all four face antennae outwards from those two multifaceted eyes.

  “It will be working by morning,” it said simply. “Director, where should I place it once it is running adequately?”

  Addison leaned back on his coil. The unit was light enough that anyone could move it on the wheels underneath, once they untelescoped the stands that held it in place. The kitchen upstairs was as filled as geometry would allow. Did he need a refrigerator with cold drinks on the bridge? Or in the engine room?

  A plethora of choices.

  “Stash it here and out of the way for now,” Addison said. “We will address that tomorrow.”

  He turned to the human. Noted how drawn the face was, with black bags under the bloodshot eyes.

  A trying day, but he had not complained more than anyone expected, and less than Addison had been prepared to let slide.

  “Let us get you a cabin so you can rest,” he said, waiting for Lazarus to nod wearily before setting off.

  All the cabins on the main deck were claimed, as well as two of the ones on the upper deck. It would be rude to ask Wybert or Thadrakho to move to an upper bunk to vacate one down here. In the end, Addison had made the decision to put Lazarus in number five upper, inward towards the dead end over the bridge where main sensors were accessed. Remahle would be next to him and Khyaa’sha guarding the end.

  Addison led Lazarus to the head and waited while the human did his business. At least the human had some experience with non-humans, and the organic waste systems were intuitively designed.

  “You do understand,” Addison asked as Lazarus emerged, “that you’ll be locked in tonight, and probably for several more as we figure things out?”

  It was a measure of tiredness, Addison presumed, that he actually saw the quick flash of anger come across that emotionally-reactive face, for however brief it was. Lazarus’s face resumed his normal set, drawn and haggard right now, and kept pace.

  “As one might expect,” Lazarus replied after a moment. “We are all strangers.”

  “It will probably be worse when we get to our next destination,” Addison kept his face and scales calm as he palmed open the hatch to number five and slithered back out of the way.

  “How’s that?” Lazarus asked, confusion now layered atop everything else.

  “You have no papers from any recognized authority,” Addison pointed out. “And I presume, from what you have told me, that simply declaring who you are openly might be something you wished to avoid.”

  “Absolutely, if possible,” the human said. “But Lazarus is not the name I was known by at home. He was a legendary figure who died, and returned to life later. I should be dead at least twice over now, just in the last few days, so I took that name when I decided to survive.”

  “Then hopefully you have chosen well,” Addison imparted as the human stepped into the chamber. “There is an intercom just inside the door if you have needs or problems. Khyaa’sha will monitor it tonight.”

  “Thank you,” Lazarus turned back and said.

  Addison could see more words lurking there, but they remained unsaid and the marooned human stepped back into the dimly-lit chamber.

  Addison closed the hatch from the outside, locked it, and wondered what he had gotten himself into.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lazarus

  As cabins went, it wasn’t much different that the koch, other than being scaled for someone normally only five feet tall. Lazarus sat down on a bed against the rear wall that was just long enough to pivot and stretch himself out. He would be kicking the bottom in his sleep until he got used to it.

  He rose and made his way to what his brain kept wanting to interpret as a makeup mirror, as there was no sink in here, nor a chair. But he supposed everyone would need to bring their own hardware to sit upon.

  He would burn that bridge tomorrow.

  The crew had made him welcome. More or less.

  Wybert had apologized four times for killing the escape pod. Director Wolcott had added two more, and several others had made mention of Wybert’s occasionally-comic aggressiveness.

  Hopefully, truly an accident.

  They had fed him. Treated him like a junior midshipman on his first voyage. Listened to his complaints without crossness.

  Smiled. At least as well as their musculature and anatomy allowed.

  He stared at the face in the mirror, jumping unconsciously as he recognized something in there.

  Lazarus had always stood out among the darker faces and hair of Brasilia, with strawberry-blond hair, green eyes, and what his mother had called Irish freckles covering much of his upper body.

  All his friends had been Brasilians going back many generations, while his maternal grandparents had been immigrants. He had been teased mercilessly as a child, and beaten a few times, as such an outsider.

  You don’t belong here, gringo.

  Lazarus hadn’t been able to refute them, so he’d grown strong. Learned to run when he could and fight when he couldn’t. Understood from Papa Michael that it took all kinds and all colors to make the universe work.

  In school, he had found his escape with books and science, although looking around at these close walls and seeing the bizarre ship beyond them he shook his head.

  His studies had taken him out beyond anything the Rio Alliance had ever told him about. He wondered if they had heard of the Innruld and perhaps never mentioned it to the troops.

  Lazarus suspected that the Innruld weren’t all that different from Westphalia, at least in politics and specism. From what Aileen and others had said, the cultures shared a similar militant disdain for the different. Had the Moah, the Gnashiiley, and the Atomarsk sought out human allies to eventually help them break the Innruld in a future generation when Westphalia was contained?

  Conspiracies within conspiracies?

  Certainly Ajax represented the best of the science of the four species, distilled down into the elegant, lethal functionality of a sword. Just the thing to take apart the previously-overwhelming superiority of the GunWall with a little work and training.

  The face that stared back from the mirror now looked a decade older than the one in his cabin aboard Ajax
, just a week ago. Honed down by stress and exhaustion like one forges a sword by heating and quenching cycles, mixed with the hammer and the anvil.

  Lazarus wiped his face with one hand and considered his options.

  He was a marooned sailor so far from home he wasn’t sure when or even if he could get back to Brasilia. Ajax would patiently wait for him, if he could give her the time she needed to repair all the damage Westphalia had inflicted in that terrible ambush.

  At the same time, he had gotten the impression from a few words accidentally dropped that this ship was engaged in some sort of criminal enterprise. If so, and they weren’t slavers, would they hide him from the Innruld? Or turn him in to them?

  Could he be just another anonymous sailor until he figured out where he was and made it back here? Who in their right mind would choose this system to rendezvous with another ship? The planet that had been close by had not given off any radio signals, and there had been no lights visible on the night side.

  That smelled an awful lot like two smugglers exchanging illegal cargo in the night, because legitimate sailors would have probably done it dockside, where a customs inspector would have added her stamp to the outside of the box before sending it on its way.

  So, criminal underworlds perhaps existed in the realm of the Innruld? Were they universal?

  Too much unknown.

  Lazarus took off his jacket and laid it flat on the countertop beneath the mirror. He had handled the cool metal of the deck all afternoon in bare feet, but his shoes would have finished hardening by morning so he would be warm enough to just live in the shirt with the brewery logo on the back.

  He pulled down the thin blanket from the top of the bed and studied the pillow. Rooting around in the closet, he found two other pillows and added them to the pile so he might sleep.