The Atlantis Chronicles- The Kordam Party
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“That is all that was left of Black Claw,” Iron Claw replied grimly. “It is his claw toe, torn from his foot. He and the rest of the fighters that went with him were never found. Our only clue to his fate is that.”
“Didn't you investigate his death?” Glitter asked, incredulously.
“We are not detectives,” Iron Claw growled. “Black Claw's decision was not popular with the Blood Claws. His destination already had an evil reputation. That reputation was made all the worse by his death. It resulted in being called Black Claw's Folly. Why are you so very interested in Black Claw, anyhow?”
“I am working with the Galactic Fleet to explore and understand the Kordam Formation,” Dr. Bowen said completely without guile.
“I could kill you for bringing Galactic Fleet agents within my presence,” Iron Claw sneered, “but I have chosen to spare you, because I believe you. I have recently lost a salvage team. I learned from my associates that you are investigating the Kordam Formation. I sent a salvage team to determine if you had found anything...valuable.”
“Valuable?” Dr. Bowen pressed gently.
“Black Claw took with him a treasure of precious metals and gems. That treasure was never recovered.”
“Come on,” Glitter cried, “lost pirate treasure? That's one of the oldest clichés in known civilization.”
“What happened to that salvage team?” Whipple put his hat into the ring by asking a question finally.
“We lost contact with them,” Iron Claw growled at the three figures in his office.
“Well, their ship has been confiscated by the Atlantis,” Dr. Bowen said, “no one was found aboard.”
“The crew is dead,” Iron Claw nodded, “most die who go to the Kordam Formation.”
“I know the Fleet is going to query, so I'll ask you,” Ed got a thoughtful look on his face. “Where do we return your ship?”
“Dispose of it as your captain sees fit as salvage. None of my people will use it now. The crew was lost to the Kordam Formation. Seriously bad luck. I have already cleared its registry and declared it a total loss.”
“Very well,” Dr. Bowen said, “now what about Black Claw? Do you know anything about him?”
“I can provide you with his last known location, and the scanner data from the pirates sent to find him. That is all I am prepared to give you. I will give you nothing else.”
“We are only interested in his time at the Kordam Formation.”
“Then take the data and go.”
Iron Claw tossed a data crystal at Dr. Bowen. Ed caught it and slipped the crystal into his pocket.
“If you are indeed intelligent life forms,” Iron Claw hissed, “you will steer clear of that place. Black Claw's Folly has claimed many lives. There is a nameless evil that lives there and devours those who trespass into its domain.”
“Just what was that salvage team ordered to do?”
“They weren't ordered to do anything,” Iron Claw growled a little louder, his patience was running thin, “save inform me of anything they found. They went there on their own initiative, after they heard you talking about Black Claw. I already knew they would vanish. It is purely by the will of the Goddess of Fate that their ship is still intact. I urge you to dispose of it.”
“Why?” Whipple hooted.
“To fulfill the desires of the Goddess of Fate,” Iron Claw said, “you have found the ship of a doomed crew of fools that she has punished. Get rid of their ship lest their curse fall upon you.”
“Just how should we dispose of their ship?” Dr. Bowen kept up the pressure on the Shrive pirate hoping to glean as much as information as possible from this session with the historian.
“Sell it, destroy it, throw it into the sun,” Iron Claw‘s eyes took on a stark aspect of exasperation. “I don't care. Just get rid of it.”
“What if we gift it to someone who needs a ship?” Glitter decided to jump into the question ambush game. Maybe if all three of them spoke they could rattle a few more answers out of the pirate.
“What do you mean?” Iron Claw glared at the Elnore woman. It really was time for them to go. His temper was rising from being pestered by so many questions.
“We have a...guest...aboard our mother ship,” Glitter said carefully. “A Naziortol Revolutionary. She needs a means of getting to places where she can obtain ships and weapons to fight against the oppressors who rule her home world.”
“Gift it to her,” Iron Claw growled, “that should appease the Goddess of Fate.”
“Thank you, Iron Claw;” Glitter nodded respectfully, “may your enemies fall, bloodied and broken at your feet.”
“And may your enemies flee in fear of you,” Iron Claw said, clearly impressed that Glitter knew the traditional blessing of the Shrive Fighters.
Without a further word, Dr. Bowen, Glitter and Whipple turned and left the angered pirate behind. The Blood Claw door guard said nothing as they retrieved their weapons and were released. They made a show of sitting down at a table and ordering drinks. This was so they could surreptitiously check the other patrons of the bar to ensure that no one was paying undue attention to them. When they were sure they were not being watched, they left, returning to Red Kite Forty.
Bowen stood on the shuttle deck, watching as the Kalvan transport was moved by tractor beams from the lift platform to an empty landing space. Because the ship was without power, the ground crew had to lower the lift platform and then lower the Kalvan transport itself. As the ship neared the area that had been designated for it, ground repair robots moved in. They manually extended the ship's landing struts as the tractor beams set her down on the deck. Once in place, more bots zipped in to scan the ship, while one bot moved in to lower the ship's boarding ramp. It came open with a sharp hiss as air rushed inside. After the boarding ramp was cranked to its full open position, the Recovery Deck's Landing Signal Officer, or LSO, walked up. Her name was Lieutenant Commander Runic Gale, and she was a petite Elnore woman with flowing black hair intricately braided, and decorated with beads and precious gems. The length of her ebony mane was draped over her right shoulder. Her work uniform seemed cut to accentuate her shapely figure. Bowen gazed at her with considerable attraction.
“It'll be some time before it's safe to go aboard her, Captain,” Gale reported. “Her systems are completely drained. Until the ground crew can connect an external power umbilicus and get her life support systems going again, it's robots only.”
“Do you have Zetabots on your ground crew?” Bowen asked politely.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Then send them aboard till its safe for organic crew members.”
“Aye, Sir,” Gale nodded.
“How long before the computers can be powered up and the logs accessed?” Bowen was growing a touch impatient.
“At least six hours. We'll have to assess their hardware before we can risk powering them up.”
“Keep me posted.”
Bowen turned and walked away from the salvaged vessel. After he left the shuttle deck, he made his way to the Number Seven Entry Bay. There he arrived in time to see Glitter and Dr. Bowen disembark from Red Kite Forty.
“What's the word, Dad?”
“All I got was a data packet and a superstitious warning,” Ed sniffed, “and I was told to advise you to gift that Kalvan transport to that Naziortol resistance leader.”
“Whatever for? We could always use a decoy vessel.”
“Bottom line, Sir,” Glitter explained quietly. “Iron Claw said it would be bad luck for him to take it, and bad luck for us to keep it.”
“I guess it's not a problem,” Bowen shrugged, “as soon as we check her out, and make any repairs she needs, clean her out of the crew's personal effects, I suppose we can hand her over to Nivia.”
“Probably wouldn't hurt to modify her, Sir,” Glitter spoke her mind plainly. Nivia was going to need all the help she could get.
“May I ask how come?” Bowen raised an eyebrow at her request.
“Understandable,” Bowen nodded in agreement. “We do have the schematics for the Ageron Combine's concealment array.”
“Do her a favor, Captain,” Glitter begged. “Make sure it's properly installed, so she doesn't suffer the same kind of fluctuation failure I did.”
“I'll take your suggestion under advisement, Lieutenant. Now if you're quite finished, I'm sure your squadron leader would like your aid in beating Screaming Eagle Squadron in a little poker tournament they're playing.”
“And they didn't tell me,” Glitter cried, sounding distressed, and then she stalked away muttering, “I'm going to skin that big ape alive!”
“Does she kiss her children with that mouth?” Dr. Bowen asked.
“She doesn't have children,” Bowen growled, “but if the scuttlebutt I hear about her is true, it's only a matter of time before she'll be temporarily removed from fighter duty.”
“She pregnant?”
“No,” Bowen frowned at his father not believing he was talking about this, “but she could get pregnant at any time.”
“Oh yeah,” Ed scowled, as if remembering something, “Elnore don't believe in using contraceptives. They are very free-spirited that way.”
“Yes,” Bowen grumped, “and I've heard Glitter spreads her legs more often than a gymnast at the Olympics.”
“There's at least one on every ship,” Ed chuckled lightly, “your mother was one.”
“Mom was,” Bowen sighed.
“Yup,” Dr. Bowen said, “till she met me. Then she was the first woman in her squadron to be taken off fighter duty three times to have a baby.”
“Okay, wow. More than I wanted to know. So what's in this data packet Iron Claw gave you?”
“He said it's everything the Blood Claws had on Black Claw,” Dr. Bowen complained, “and he said they didn't have much at that. Seems the Blood Claws are superstitious.”
“The Shrive Fighters are polytheistic. If I understand what happened to Black Claw, they would blame his untimely end on S'stregar the Goddess of Fate.”
“He mentioned a goddess of fate,” Dr. Bowen said.
“That explains why he doesn't want his salvage ship back, and why he told us to get rid of it. According to Shrive mythology, S'stregar is notorious for punishing people who venture into places that are cursed or are of ill omen. Then she curses their belongings. Those who find their belongings must dispose of them somehow or have the curse passed to them.”
“Wouldn't the curse pass to this Nivia person?” Dr. Bowen asked. “Once she took possession of the Kalvan Transport?”
“That's what's funny,” Bowen chuckled dryly. “If you find something that belongs to someone S'stregar has cursed, she is easily angered if you keep it for yourself. However, if you gift it to someone else, she is happy because it no longer belongs to the cursedly departed.”
“How odd.”
“The Shrive Fighters think we’re strange because we only pray to one god.”
“Not to mention, they think our liquor is about as bland as water,” Dr. Bowen said, “they can drink stuff that has more in common with battery acid than beer.”
“How well I know,” Bowen rolled his eyes at his father.
“Well,” Ed could tell his son was losing his patience with the conversation considering they were had just switched to talking about Shrive drinking habits. “I should get to work on this data. Any word on Dr. Parker?”
“He got a crate of stuff from the Galactic Institute of Science,” Bowen grumbled considering Dr. Parker was almost his least favorite person of all time. “He's dropping most of it off with our battle group research vessel, the Manuel Sanchez. For analysis. He should be back in about an hour.”
“Okay, son. Want to meet for dinner tonight?”
“Wish I could, Dad,” Bowen said, “but we just got our new chief of the media department, and she made me promise to have dinner with her if she went with Ranger-Seven to document the boarding of that Kalvan transport.”
“Who is this oh so forward media chief?” Ed so enjoyed ribbing his son. He was so like his mother at times.
“It's Carmen,” Bowen groaned.
“Your old high school flame? The one who dumped you when she had that pregnancy scare?”
“The very same.”
“She still...how did you put it,” Dr. Bowen asked, “excessively feminine?”
“The minute she came aboard,” Bowen nodded, “she started trying to seduce me.”
“I bet she made you promise to have sex with her, didn't she?”
“You know her well, Dad.”
“Well,” Ed chuckled as he walked away, “don't make her scream too loudly when you bang her. I'd had to hear scuttlebutt about how this ship's captain is so good in bed that he makes a girl holler.”
“I already have that reputation, Dad,” Bowen called after his father, “thanks to Perky in the O-Club.” With that, Bowen left the Number Seven Entry Bay. He had an easy way with women, but Carmen, she definitely rubbed him the wrong way.
Chapter Seven
Glitter rushed into the Wizards' Recreation Room to find her squadron deeply engrossed in a poker tournament with the Screaming Eagles. Argathreft saw her enter and waved her over. She rushed over to the table where he was in the middle of a game with two human men. Commander Chad ‘Raptor’ Brent, the squadron leader of the Screaming Eagles, was a tall, slender man with close cropped patch of dusty brown hair. Lieutenant Hans ‘Hawk’ Nold was a stout, German man with a compact, muscular frame that made some wonder how he was able to fit in a fighter cockpit. His face was stony calm, and his blond hair was buzzed short. The three men looked at Glitter.
“Deal her in,” Argathreft grunted.
“Don't think you'll distract us by adding a girl, Archmage,” Raptor glared at the Simma commander.
“Ja,” Hawk added, in a thick German accent, “she is very beautiful, but she will not help you win.”
“Care to put your credit where your mouth is, boys?” Glitter gave them a confident smirk. She sat down and was immediately handed the deck.
“Okay, suckers,” Glitter sneered, “the game's five card draw. Duke of Aurelius rules, Suicide Kings are wild, and heaven's the limit.”
“She lives dangerously, ja,” Hawk mused.
“Try beating her at Fizzbin,” Argathreft said.
Glitter shuffled the cards, and then began dealing them out.
Doctor Parker entered the Atlantis' main computer center. It was a large room with row upon row of computer terminals. Doctor Bowen sat at the far end of the room, engrossed in his work on his chosen computer terminal. Parker walked over to visit Ed.
“What are you working on, Doctor Bowen?”
“I'm reviewing a data packet that the Blood Claws gave me,” Dr. Bowen said, “it contains all they have on Black Claw.”
“Interesting,” Parker glanced at Ed’s screen, “find anything useful?”
“So far, all I've found is a lot of superstitious ramblings about how foolish Black Claw was to attempt to conquer and claim the Kordam Formation for the purposes of turning it into a pirate stronghold. However, they did provide the precise location of his first and only landing site on the Kordam Formation.”
“Excellent,” Parker smiled. “Perhaps we could convince the captain to let us go down there to have a look.”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Bowen shook his head sadly, “did the Galactic Institute of Science warn you that the Kordam Formation is evil and that you should not go there?”
“Of course, I assume you got the same?”
“In spades,” Dr. Bowen nodded. “The only people I've met that are more superstitious than the Shrive Fighters are the Nagas.”
“Gracious, the Nagas believe in more ways to bring you bad luck than there are stars in the galaxy.”
“True,” Ed said.
“Well,” Parker took the unoccupied terminal next to Dr. Bowen, “while you are reviewing pirate data, I shall be reading Dr. Otmar Kordam's journal.”
“Happy reading.”
After a few minutes of reading, Parker came across an entry that interested him.
“This is interesting,” Parker said, “In this entry, Doctor Kordam gives the precise location he planned to land for his initial survey of the formation.”
“Is it near Black Claw's last known location?” Dr. Bowen asked.
“No, it's on the opposite side of the formation. Curious how both locations are on the outside of the formation.”
“In all my research, I've never found a single instance where someone actually penetrated into the interior of the Kordam Formation.”
“Perhaps we should look into penetrating the interior,” Parker suggested bluntly.
“Maybe,” Dr. Bowen shrugged.
“We should ask the Captain for permission to land at these two sites.”
“I agree. It's essential that we examine both landing sites. Let's go talk to my son.”
A short time later, the two science researchers sat in Bowen's ready room. Bowen looked at them, pleasantly.
“Well, gentlemen,” Bowen said, “what can I do for you?”
“Captain,” Parker began to speak for the two of them. “Our preliminary review of the data we have on the landings of Black Claw and the Kordam Party both point to the inescapable conclusion that we must examine the landing sites ourselves.”
“Are you sure of this?” Bowen furled his brow; security concerns gave him a headache. Parker was a pain, but valuable. He was the one who had asked his father to be here, yet having craft out exploring would make it difficult to keep everyone safe.
“Yes, absolutely,” Ed nodded in solidarity with Parker.