“Captain Kol,” Ashla said, not letting him get a word in. She had to maintain her momentum, or she would back out, give up on what she knew she had to do, even if she didn’t know how she would do it. “I want to hire you to take me back to the Antarii System.”
Then Ashla noticed Ganyasu sitting in the chair on her side of the table. Her anger and fear for Cel and Lita overrode her aversion for him.
“Fascinating,” Captain Kol said. His face was a smear of a grin. “Naboris here just made the same request.”
Chapter Forty-One:
Blood Crying Out
Salazar stood in the Jessamine’s bridge, looking over Tally’s shoulder. She tapped at her workstation, her lithe fingers dancing over the screens, summoning data flows and spooling charts. She had been tracking hiccups in the N-space drive since they jumped away from Antarus, and alerted Sal about them when the first one hit. Now they seemed to be over.
“Whatever it was,” Tally said, “it’s gone, at least for now.”
“We’re back up to full speed?”
“Yes, and making good time. The beam between Antarus and Gazi is in prime position for travel between the two systems.”
Sal had never understood N-space. He was pretty sure he could execute an N-space jump with decent accuracy but anything else was beyond his comprehension. This is why his first hire on the Jessamine was a navigator, which had been Sabella, who started out in Tally’s seat before working her way to first mate.
“Do you know what caused the…whatever it was?”
Tally shrugged. “Maybe some of the repairs they’re doing in engineering had an effect. I’m not sure. I won’t know for sure unless we can pop out of N-space for half an hour and do a full diagnostic.”
“Are we still in Alliance space?”
Tally nodded. “Will be for some hours still.”
“Then no,” Sal said. “And I don’t much like the idea of noodling with the drive in the middle of nowhere so unless it comes back or gets worse we’re waiting until we get to Gazi.”
“As you wish, Captain.”
Sal patted her on her head. “Let me know if anything changes.”
“Of course, Captain.”
Sal stepped out of the bridge into the bright corridor of the ship. Flying in N-space felt different than flying in real-space or sitting at dock. It seemed to have a sensation to it, like a swaying you only feel in your ears. It made Sal want to keep his hands touching the grip bars as he walked down the corridors.
He took the stairs down a level and then walked the hall to the medical bay. Dr. Jens was sitting at her desk when he popped his head in.
“Hello, Captain,” she said without looking at him.
“Aylie,” he said, “how’s my favorite doctor.”
“How ‘favorite’ can I be if you call me by my first name?”
Sal smiled. “The best doctors always go by their first names.”
“Are you feeling sick or have you come to bother me?”
Sal walked into the bay, pulled one of the fold-out gurneys flat and then lay down on it.
“Neither,” he said. “I’ve come to check on your patients.”
“Aha,” she said. She swiped a few times on her desk screen. “Well, Mr. Besser is about fully recovered. I’ve asked him to come see me again in a few days so I can clear him. Mr. Yuki has a minor infection but it’s nothing I can’t handle. And Mr. Lanjer is recovered.”
“Good,” Sal said. “What about our guests?”
“Both are fine. Mr. Naboris is due in to see me in a few hours, so I can make a final check to see his bone is growing back correctly. Other than that, nothing to report.”
Sal sighed. “Well let’s both hope you’re going to be bored for a few more days, then.”
“I’m never bored,” Aylie said.
Sal stood up, folded the gurney back into the wall.
“Good day, doctor,” he said, and left.
He lifted his wrist and checked off his visit with the doctor on his link, sending himself a reminder to check with her again tomorrow. Aylie would alert him if someone got sick or one of her current patients took a turn for the worst, but Sal felt it was part of his job to check in on his own time. It made him feel plugged in to the pulse of the ship.
His list was empty for now, so he headed back to his quarters for some rack time. Overseeing repairs of both ship and men had devoured most of the past day and a half. His men hadn’t done much sleeping in that time, which meant he didn’t either.
He took a few more steps towards his own cabin, toward sleep, then stopped. There was one more thing on his list. Not on his written list, per se, but necessary nonetheless.
Salazar took the stairs down to the cargo level and stepped into the big, empty loading bay. The stain Olo left after falling on Yuki’s grenade was gone. Sal couldn’t see it. Even if he shined a blacklight on it or had Aylie do a chemical analysis on that spot of decking the blood wouldn’t show up. But Sal could feel it. It wasn’t far from the stain Lekem had left when the local defense force shot him down.
Sal was a smuggler. Shed blood and dead friends came with the job. But he was good enough at what he did that it didn’t happen often. Olo was the first crewmate that had died under his command in five years. It all went back to the man who had set him up.
“You okay, Cap?” Yuki asked. Sal shook his head. He hadn’t known he wasn’t alone.
“Yeah,” Sal said. “Yeah, how about you, Yuki?”
Yuki shrugged and lifted his wounded arm. It wasn’t bandaged. The only sign that something happened to it was the small circle of synthetic skin on his wrist.
“Doing fine,” Yuki said.
Sal nodded. “Good. Where’s Olo? I haven’t had the chance to pay my respects.”
Yuki nodded at the door to cargo bay four.
“Thanks,” Sal said turning towards the door. He tapped the button on the console and the door slid open with a whisper. He didn’t need the console to tell him the bay was being refrigerated. Cold air rushed into his face and picked up his hair. Sal stepped in and shut the door behind him. The bay was lit by a single light strip, and that was dim, appropriate for the room’s somber purpose.
Olo’s corpse lay in a bag on a shelf against the wall. It was strapped down so he wouldn’t go flying if the ship had to make a sudden maneuver. Sal stepped up to the bag. Olo’s face looked serene, almost like he was asleep and enjoying a good dream. The expression might have eased Sal’s mind a bit if half his face wasn’t blackened from the star-hot plasma of the grenade that killed Olo.
Sal had been terrified at seeing the body of his first crewmate alone. He had gone into a small cargo bay not unlike this one to pay his respects to the deck chief on his first ship, back when he was only a deckhand with two much hair on his head and none at all on his face. It wasn’t that he’d seen too many horror vids as a kid. He was scared to see himself in his crewmate’s corpse. Death was the one thing people still couldn’t get away from.
The medical researchers said they were getting closer, and the very rich could pay for a very long life. He remembered news stories of one Azer Melanis who was something like two hundred and fifty years old. But despite the promises and the commercials no one was immortal yet.
Every time he encountered a body, it was a reminder that his own death was coming. The Scions talked about the afterlife, the great journey to immortality of the soul but Sal was more of a see-it-to-believe-it kind of guy.
“I’m sorry, Olo,” Sal said. “In a perfect world, bravery like yours would extend a person’s life, not end it.”
He pulled his link and thumbed through the directory of files until he found the one he was looking for. “Last Requests.”
He opened to Olo’s and read. Taking last requests was Salazar’s way of ensuring that people were honored the way they wanted to be, in case death wasn’t the end Salazar knew it was.
Olo wanted to be tied to the end of the ship and released in N-space. Sal
chuckled at that. Olo loved to live fast. It only made sense he died that way.
Salazar left the refrigerated cargo bay behind and headed for his cabin. Olo’s life, and the injuries to his men could also be ascribed to the man who had set he and his team up. Tanno Anatheret was a defense minister. He was working in the Antarii System, which meant he was in charge of the naval forces that locked Lodebar Station down. Had the station not been locked down, Olo would be alive today.
He stopped on the stairs, pulled his link out again, and called Kahula’s station on the bridge. Tally answered instead.
“Yes Captain?” she asked.
“Tally,” Sal said, “get me a comm channel back to Lodebar Station.”
Her eyes somehow got bigger, but she didn’t question. “Of course, Captain.” She tapped at Kahula’s screen. “Got it.”
“Send access to my--” his link chimed, and a little window dropped from the top of the screen to let him know he was invited to the new channel. “Thanks Tally. Oh, keep the channel open for me until I say otherwise, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
He cut his connection to the bridge and opened the new channel. He used the same address he had before to contact Sooro, the data broker, and started recording a message.
“I need your services again, if you’re still in the system,” he said. “Two questions, well, two and a half. First, is Anatheret still at the palace on Eltar? Second, do you know who is in charge of the insurgency there? And the half, if so, do you know how I can contact him or her? Let me know if you have good answers for my questions, I’ll make it well worth your time.”
Sal converted the message to text, let his link clean it up, and then encrypted it. He sent it off. He was only asking. It didn’t mean he would do something with the information, even if he got the right answers to his questions. He imagined himself having to answer to his crew for reestablishing contact with the data broker.
He took the stairs back up to the top level of the ship and headed for his cabin, surprised to see Naboris waiting for him there.
“Naboris,” Sal said.
“Captain Kol,” Naboris said. “I was wondering if you had a moment to speak.”
Sal shrugged. “Sure. Come in.”
He led Gan into his quarters. As the Captain, he had the biggest room, which was actually three rooms: office, bedroom and bathroom. His guests still had all three, but they had to fold up furniture to go from one to the other. Sal sat down at his desk and set his link on the connection pad.
“Have a seat,” Sal said, pointing to the spare chair across the desk.
Naboris sat. Even sitting he looked like a puma ready to pounce. Salazar was constantly trying to reconcile Naboris’s devastating combat ability back at the station with the mild-mannered man who sat before him now. Trying, and failing.
Naboris had the power and the stealth of a Shaumri, but in attitude he was nothing like the legends. He was honorable. And Sal was pretty sure he didn’t kill a single marine during their escape, even if killing one would have made his job easier.
“How’s the scan going,” Sal asked when Naboris seemed unwilling to start.
“Finished.” Naboris said.
Sal’s eyes widened. “Already?”
Naboris nodded. “I lent some processing power from my smartskin to the process. The machine works fast, it’s the computer that takes time processing the raw data.”
“Well,” Sal said. “Good. I bet it feels good to be detached from the stasis box.”
“To a degree, yes,” Naboris said. “But I still plan to keep it. It’s still valuable.”
“If it is what you say it is, you know, it is.”
Naboris chuckled. The ice was broken.
“I came to see you about hiring you to bring me back to the Antarii System.”
There it was.
Sal felt his eyes widen and tried to keep his expression under control.
“Why would you want to go back there?”
Naboris opened his mouth to answer when his desk chimed. Someone wanted in. Sal didn’t think about it. He just tapped the button to open the door.
Ashla Vares strode in the door.
“Captain Kol,” she said, “I want to hire you to take me back to the Antarii System.”
Salazar smiled in wide-eyed surprise. As he did, Ashla seemed to notice Naboris for the first time. She gave a shudder and gasped at the sight of him.
“Fascinating,” Sal said. “Naboris here just made the same request.”
The girl looked at Naboris again, her eyes narrow, suspicious.
“Why do you want to go back?” Sal asked, rubbing his temples.
“To rescue Remnant,” Naboris said at the same time Ashla said, “To rescue Cel and Lita.”
“Who?” Sal asked. When they both looked ready to answer at the same time again Sal lifted his hands. “Wait. I know who Remnant is. Who are...” he waved his hand for Ashla to finish his sentence.
“Cel and Lita,” Ashla said. On closer inspection, she’d been crying. Her face was red and her eyes bloodshot. “They were my bodyguards and they risked their lives to get me off Eltar when the MOD wanted to kill me. They’re on the news. They’re saying I was kidnapped and Cel and Lita were arrested in connection with my kidnapping and I have to go back and help them!” Her voice became shriller with every word.
Sal sighed. He waved a hand at Naboris. “He could rescue the girl even if the whole navy was between him and her. He may not be a Shaumri anymore, but he has the skills and the equipment. How exactly do you plan to rescue your bodyguards? Your ship doesn’t even have seating for more than yourself and one other.”
Ashla looked from Sal to Naboris and back again. Her mouth hung open slightly, as if she wanted to answer but didn’t have the words.
“You didn’t think this through,” Sal said, “did you?”
“I...” Ashla said, stuttering. “I would offer an exclusive interview to one of the big news outfits. I would tell them I wasn’t kidnapped, and I would turn myself back in to the Alliance if they agreed to release my friends.”
“And in so doing you would betray what they risked their lives for,” Sal said. “And that’s only if the Alliance didn’t catch you before the interview got out, or refuse to take your deal, or didn’t double cross you. In the end you would accomplish next to nothing and you would be dead, if your friends were right.”
“I don’t care,” Ashla shouted. “I can’t let them suffer for me.”
“Perhaps,” Naboris said. “I can help you.”
“You?” Ashla said, her face contorting in disgust. Salazar narrowed his eyes. These two had a past he hadn’t figured out yet. She was always putting distance between him and herself, even if she didn’t notice it. There was a history there.
Naboris nodded. “I have performed innumerable stealth missions. I snuck onto Lodebar Station and I snuck into the station’s main communications hub, both without a single witness. But I would need a bigger ride,” he added, looking at Salazar, “if I were to free them all.”
Salazar smiled. Was this not what he had been considering? His link chimed, and he picked it up, lifting a finger to his guests.
An encrypted message came back from the channel to Lodebar. Sal decrypted it and then read the message.
Roolaii and greetings.
I know the answers to all three.
Fifteen thousand CAS credits.
Same account as last time.
Sal smiled. He hated to part with such a large sum, but the info was worth it. He made the transaction and set his link down.
“I,” Sal said, “might be able to do business with you both. Unfortunately, we’re bound for Gazi because there are some repairs that need doing and we need to be in a friendly harbor to do them in. Not to mention I need to contact a fixer so I can have the Jessamine’s vitals wiped from the Navy’s records. But, once that’s done we might be able to do business.”
“How much longer to Gazi?” A
shla and Naboris said at the same time. Sal couldn’t help but laugh.
Chapter Forty-Two:
In All Circumstances
Soma was dreaming when the sound of talking woke him again. In his dream he was sitting on his bunk on the Hamartiya and his parents stood over him. He couldn’t see their faces which was appropriate as they both had passed away when he was young. They were trying to talk him out of freeing the girl called Remnant. Their arguments were thorough and well developed and even though he had a lot of good counter arguments, he couldn’t put them into words.
“Again, minister, I must protest,” his mother said. But then, his mother’s voice wasn’t like that in the dream. The new voice was Lieutenant Garin’s.
“Your protestations will be noted, Lieutenant,” his father said. But again, it wasn’t his father’s voice. This one was less familiar but the sound of it put a tremor of fear down Soma’s spine.
The dream became fuzzy and he was blinking at the ceiling of his cell. It was dark outside through his barred window, but the lights were on in the cell block. He turned and saw Lieutenant Garin, standing with her back to his cell door. Behind her was defense minister Anatheret and a full squad of MPs.
“You will move, lieutenant,” Anatheret said, “or I will be forced to have you moved.”
Garin stepped aside. An MP stepped up to Soma’s cell and gave him a hard look. “Step up to the door please,” he said.
Soma stood up and walked to the door.
“Turn around.”
Soma turned. Had there been two MPs, or even four, he would have tried something. Maybe Anatheret knew that, which was why he brought twelve. Garin wasn’t a wildcard in Soma’s mind. She would drop him with less consideration than the MPs. The only difference was she could take Soma. One or two of them couldn’t.
The MP pulled Soma’s wrists together behind him and then bound his manacles together.
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