by J. S. Fields
Yorden nodded. “I agree. We need answers. Why don’t you take the kid down to Section D and talk to Chen. You and I haven’t been to Oorin in a while, but you should be able to find your way back there.” He gestured back towards the Pledge’s berth. “I’m going to find parts. Be sure to pick up some weapons if you can. Legal ones, old enough to be grandfathered in.”
This time, Neek’s smile was genuine. She took a few steps to the right, gave a mock salute, and smacked her hand onto Nicholas’s back, leaving a small, wet spot from each of her fingertips. Nicholas hunched his shoulders and sighed.
“Onward,” Neek said, mind already dancing with thoughts of the guns she might find in Chen’s haphazard piles of goods. “To the shopping!”
* * *
It wasn’t as hard to find Chen’s shop as Neek had feared. He still had the bright-orange SPACE STUFF!! sign above the doorway, which she could see from halfway across the plaza.
The shop itself had not changed. Goods were stacked in piles on the floor, loosely separated by type. Several shoppers milled about inside, and the area still had the same musty smell Neek remembered from years before. As she entered the shop, Nicholas trailing behind, a tiny human male emerged from behind a pile of clothes. His white hair was long, thin, and dyed purple at the tips, and he had just as many wrinkles as she remembered. Unlike the typical drab clothes of the spaceport, Chen was brightly dressed in blaring rainbow print. He looked shorter than the last time Neek had seen him, or possibly he had only ever come up to her hip. It was hard to remember. She left her hands out from her pockets just in case.
Chen recognized her immediately, a wide smile crossing his face when they made eye contact. “Ah, the exiled Neek. With a Journey youth this time, I see. Trade Yorden in for a younger model?”
Neek smiled sweetly. “Come now, Chen. You know I’d only upgrade to someone older.” She nodded her head towards a pile of weapons in the center of the store. “Mind if we look around? We ran into some trouble outside the Callis Wormhole. Beach balls and all that. Can never be too careful, even in peacetime.”
Chen’s expression darkened at the mention of beach balls, but instead of speaking, he disappeared back behind the clothing pile. His disembodied voice called, “By all means, take your time. I’ll be around if you need me.”
Without looking to see if Nicholas was following, Neek brushed past a pile of thick canvases and headed to the weapons. Her boot caught on a loose thread and caused the entire pile to collapse as she walked by.
“You know, they make shelving for this sort of thing,” Nicholas commented as the canvases spread out in front of him. “Besides, wasn’t that guy supposed to give us information? He has got to be, like, ninety years old. Maybe he forgot.”
Neek stepped around another messy pile and worked her way to the weapons stack. “Judging people on how they appear can get you killed, Nicholas,” Neek said as she wedged her hand between two sticky handles to grab what looked like an antique dueling knife. She grasped its hilt and carefully extracted the delicate object. Upon closer inspection, however, she realized she had been mistaken. The blade of this knife bent upwards and back towards itself. It had a decorative hilt made from finely carved wood, which made it all the more confusing.
“Huh,” she said as she held the knife out to Nicholas. “Take a look at this. Why do you think someone would put such a nice handle on a vegetable peeler?”
Nicholas blinked several times in confusion and then batted the knife away. “Could we focus on our task?” he asked loudly, startling a nearby shopper. The Minoran quadruped perked her ears towards them and then, upon seeing Neek’s fingers, cantered to the back of the store. “We didn’t come here to shop—we came to get information.”
Neek put the knife on a nearby countertop. It was worth purchasing just for the hilt, which looked suspiciously like andal wood—a species native to her homeworld and the organic basis of most of Cell-Tal’s biometals. “Chen is clearly not yet ready to give us that information. Have some patience.” Neek smirked, slapped Nicholas on the back again, casually strolled over to the case where the owner had reappeared, and began browsing the pistols under the crystal-paneled surface.
After several minutes of deliberation, Neek pointed at the most expensive-looking pistol, a piece with an exceptionally long barrel. “Let me see that one,” she said to Chen.
“It looks like a pistol,” Nicholas said in an irritated tone. “A ridiculous pistol.”
“Hush,” Neek breathed as she ran her slick fingers over the weapon. There was elegance to its design that offset its inherent loss of functionality. Ancient, long-barreled guns simply did not shoot true, in her experience, but this one didn’t look old at all. Chen wasn’t legally allowed to carry new weapons, however, which made this particular one a mystery.
The owner frowned as Neek continued to inspect the weapon. “That one is a little tricky. I bought it from a Risalian who needed some fast cash. Xe said the gun was a specialty weapon—one of Cell-Tal’s noncommercial models. Xe showed me how to work it, but it doesn’t appear to be lethal. I gave the Risalian fifty diamond rounds simply because I’d never seen anything like it before.”
“It looks just like every other pistol here,” Nicholas commented. “What if it is just some prototype that never made it into mass production?”
“I’m inclined to agree with the boy,” Neek said. She handed the pistol back to Chen. “What is so great about it?” Neek leaned her elbow on the counter and rested her head in her hand. She raised an eyebrow. “Feel free to wow me.”
Chen flipped a switch Neek hadn’t noticed before on the side of the pistol. A soft hum began to build in frequency until she couldn’t hear it anymore. He then leveled the pistol directly at Nicholas’s head.
“Whoa!” Nicholas cried, jumping back and to the side. “What’d I do?”
“Relax, kid,” the proprietor said. “It doesn’t kill or stun. It’s a containment gun. Here, watch.” Chen pointed the pistol back at Nicholas’s head and fired. Neek watched in fascination as Nicholas froze in place. All around him pulsed some sort of sparkly mesh. Strange little strands of light shot across the mesh, launched towards his skin, and then immediately shot in the opposite direction. It was oddly beautiful, but she couldn’t figure a practical use for it.
“Now go try to move him,” Chen instructed. Confused, Neek went over to Nicholas and slowly put her palm up against the mesh net. To her surprise, her hand moved right through and contacted with his arm.
“Very interesting,” she commented, noting the buzzing feeling where the field touched her skin. She grabbed a bit of Nicholas’s sleeve and gave him a tug. Nicholas took a step forward to counterbalance.
“Hey!” he cried out. “I didn’t tell my legs to do that! I can’t even feel you grabbing me!”
“Yet you still appear to be able to talk,” Neek remarked. “Seems like a very specific targeting system. Highly advanced.” She reconsidered the usefulness of the weapon. Being able to freeze someone in place and move them could solve a lot of problems during some of their off-the-book runs. Since they did those off-book runs mostly for the Risalians themselves, having a piece of Risalian tech to help seemed fitting.
“Does it work on all species?” Neek asked.
Chen shrugged. “If it was made by Cell-Tal, then it’s likely cellulose-based—andal cellulose, specifically. You know they import that tree like crazy from your home planet, Neek, or at least as much as your government will sell it. You can see the microfibrils running across it in the right light. A lot of Risalian weapons I come across have this type of modified laser field. The cellulose changes the properties somehow, makes the fields more malleable.” He paused, flipped another switch on the pistol, and fired it again at Nicholas. The mesh net immediately vanished. “All the Risalian said was that it was developed for a specific species but would work on most of the Charted Systems inhabitants to varying degrees. That gives you a few trillion beings to shoot at.”
“Want to purchase it?”
Neek glanced at Nicholas and then back at the pistol. “Definitely.” She grabbed the strange knife and a two-handed riot rifle from the pile as well, and placed them in front of Chen. “These too.”
Chen bent below the counter and pulled up several pieces of cotton cloth. He wrapped the items deliberately, taking his time with the folding and tying of the material. As he began to pack the parcels in a canvas bag, he spoke slowly, in a barely audible whisper.
“Those Mmnnuggls you tangled with are from outside the Charted Systems. They’re not entirely organic, according to speculation, although those stupid ears are quite real. I’ve heard talk of their homeworld somewhere behind Risal, but I don’t have any real confirmation of that.” He added some extra padding around the stun gun before tossing in several brightly colored flyers, which advertised his next day’s sales. “They have excellent linguistic skills, but seldom use our wormholes as transport. Their weaponry looks more advanced too, from the pieces I’ve been able to acquire, and they’ve been at the Risalians for years.”
When the last item was in the bag, Chen held it out to Neek, who took it reverently. Her fingers closed on the handle, but Chen did not let go and instead yanked it forward so that the pilot spilled over the countertop, her ear right up against his mouth. “Encrypted Risalian communications refer to them as pirates, Neek. Minor irritants, but irritants nonetheless. Today, I heard a report of more-than-minor theft. They took something off that cutter—something the Risalians care enough about that they are launching a full squadron to hunt down this group. Best stay away.”
He released her and then, with a final nod, picked up a cloth and a glass object and began to polish it, whistling as he did so. Neek grabbed the bag and Nicholas by the cuff of his flight suit, and headed back to the Pledge to prepare for dinner with the pirates of the Charted Systems.
* * *
The crew of Mercy’s Pledge sat together in a soft, round depression in the floor of the Mmnnuggl pod. The room was bathed in bright green lighting that felt considerably disquieting. Neek tried to move to her knees to block the reflection coming off of the round walls, but the ceiling was so low that she cracked her head against it. Grumbling, she sat back on her bottom and tried to distract herself with Nugels instead.
She counted roughly thirty in attendance, their spherical bodies ornately painted in vivid shades of yellow and gold. Captain Llgg sat to the left of Yorden, issuing orders to the serving spheres in the strange monotone beeping of their native tongue.
“We would like to thank you for attending the ceremony,” Llgg said in Common, turning her wide vocal opening towards Yorden and his crew. Her earlobes rippled. “My crew is now going to perform an interpretation of ‘The Battle of Ggunllrnn’ for your entertainment. Eat the provided refreshments.”
Several trays of food, all round and firm to the touch, were placed in front of the three guests. Neek blinked and looked up at Llgg. “Sorry…battle of what now?”
Another set of ripples cascaded through Llgg’s ears. “Ggunllrnn. The battle in which the tramp, Mercy’s Pledge, provided a brilliant attack on a Risalian skiff, coming to the aid of the Mmnnuggl people. You honor our Gods and those that serve them. None of us would have known which ship contained the Ardulan interface. We would have surely perished without your help.”
Neek choked on the sphere she had been trying to swallow. Yorden delivered two quick whacks to her back, and the round food came up and out, rolling across the metal floor. Ardulan? As in, beings from Ardulum that her people worshiped as gods? Surely she had misheard. In fact, she was certain she had misheard. Neek pushed the entire conversation to the back of her mind, determined to not let it spoil her evening.
“Right. Well, you’re welcome,” Neek said, forcing a smile. “Let’s get this play or whatever it is under way.”
Llgg bobbed three times, and several spheres started darting around just above the middle of the sitting area. The beeping noises imitated the sounds of laser fire as they recreated the battle in front of their audience. First came a large sphere, painted silver like a Risalian cutter. Then, a group of smaller Mmnnuggls—children maybe?—also painted silver, clustered around the “cutter.” A group of unpainted Mmnnuggls entered then, a large one in the lead. Finally, a small, haphazardly painted Mmnnuggl spun into the scene and began a slow list to one side.
More imitation laser fire. Finally, the Pledge sphere emitted its own beeping, and a Risalian sphere dropped quickly to the floor.
“Hey, here’s the part where I hit the Risalian ship!” Nicholas whispered somewhat loudly to his companions when a number of spheres began to spin drunkenly away from the center of the stage.
Neek felt a sharp elbow in the ribs. “This is your fault,” Yorden hissed. “You picked his application. He’s the one who managed to hit the lead ship.”
Neek wiggled her fingertips at Yorden. “Don’t doubt the stuk. He saved our lives in the process.”
“I still don’t buy in to your finger voodoo.”
Neek shrugged. “It’s not like either of us have any skill with large laser guns. The crossfire would have destroyed us anyway in another few minutes. Just ignore that it was a Risalian ship. They’ll never ID the Pledge. We scraped off the perma-ID with Baltec acid, remember? Besides, we do enough hauls for the Markin Council that I doubt they’d consent to our destruction.”
“Risalians are more resourceful than you think.” Yorden folded his arms across his chest. Nicholas continued to watch as the reenactment of the battle drew to a close, with one Mmnnuggl “docking” with a larger one.
The two paused their whispered arguing as the mock battle ended, and Nicholas began to clap loudly. Belatedly, Yorden and Neek joined him.
“Honored guests,” Llgg said, rising up from the rim of the seating area and floating towards its center. “While Mmnnuggls are mostly unfamiliar with the cultures of your ‘Charted Systems,’ we do understand the importance of gratitude. Today you saved many lives. Our government has sent instructions that you are to be granted our cargo as a token of goodwill and gratitude between your ship and our homeworld.” Llgg quickly turned her spherical body counterclockwise several times and gave a loud chirp. A few other Mmnnuggls exited the main chamber and returned with a heavy-looking cylinder the height of from the floor to Yorden’s waist.
“A bomb?” Neek asked hopefully. “We don’t have any of those onboard. They always take up too much cargo room.”
The cylinder was brought to a halt just in front of Yorden. The Mmnnuggls paused and were silent.
“It’s…lovely,” Yorden managed. “We know just what to do with it.”
“You have the facilities, I assume, to care for this?” Llgg asked.
“Yes, of course,” he responded. “My ship is fully equipped for…” He peered more closely at the cylinder. “Fully equipped for stasis capsules.”
“Then our debt is paid, and our gratitude fully expressed.” Llgg whirred loudly, and several Mmnnuggls began to move the cylinder forward again, towards the boarding ramp of the ship. “My people will accompany you back to your ship with the capsule. You may instruct them on where it is to be placed.”
“We thank you for the gift,” Yorden responded, recovering from his confusion. “Should you ever require any sort of goods transportation, we hope you’ll consider the Mercy’s Pledge in the future.”
“Indeed.” Llgg responded. “Safe journeys to you, Captain, and to your crew.” With that, Captain Llgg and the rest of the crew retreated.
“Stasis chamber,” Neek mused as they headed back towards their ship. “Great. They could at least have given us so
me form of explosive. What are we going to do with the whatever-it-is inside?”
Chapter 4: Callis Spaceport
I refuse to follow a man who places tradition over progress. I refuse to bow down to a man who preaches morality yet practices infidelity. There is nothing in those books that you cannot teach yourself! Impeach the president and elect a new head of Neek who will not cauterize this planet’s growth with two hundred years of myths and fables!
—Excerpt from a political rally in N’lln, Neek; Third Lunar Cycle, 220 AA
“Are we going to open it?” Nicholas asked. He nudged the cylinder with a toe, and a string of white and green circles lit up on the side panel. “It’s pretty small. I guess it could hold a monkey…or maybe one of those giant space slugs that are native to this system.”
“If it’s space slugs, we’re tossing it out the bay doors. I don’t do slimy.” Neek shuddered.
Nicholas wrinkled his nose. “But you’re slimy.”
Neek tipped the cylinder onto its side and tapped experimentally on the metal. “Mucus and slime are completely different things.” She looked up at the Journey youth. “I thought they made Terrans take advanced biology classes before they shipped them off-world.”
“Enough, please.” Yorden ran his hands over the outside casing. “It’s smooth the whole way around. No levers or buttons of any kind. Not even sure where a seam would be on one of these.”
Neek studied the cylinder and then produced a fine-tipped laser scalpel from her flight-suit pocket. “Fuck it. Sucker is ours now, and I never could wait to open a surprise present.” She squatted down and began making an incision near the top. The laser cut through the first layer of metal with ease, but sparks started to fly as the beam encountered the second layer.
“Probably some sort of security system,” Yorden commented as he shielded his eyes. Neek increased the settings on the scalpel and continued to go over and over the same line. The sparks grew in intensity, although they curiously did not burn when they hit her arm.