The Hunt for Reduk Topa

by Barry J. Hutchison

  Throw in all the genocide, torture, and that time Cal had been forced to wash dishes for several hours, and they had come to the conclusion that their current sector of space was trying to tell them something, and that the time had probably come to move on.

  Specifically, Cal had come to this conclusion. The others hadn’t necessarily all agreed, but he’d kept going on about it for so long that they’d eventually relented just to shut him up.

  “It’s not a plan,” Cal corrected. “It’s the exact opposite of a plan. It’s a noplan. It’s an anti-plan. We picked the destination at random.”

  “That’s still a plan,” Mech insisted. “It’s a plan to go someplace else.”

  “A randomly selected someplace else,” Cal reminded him. “Therefore, not a plan.”

  Mech chose not to argue. They’d had this same debate every day since they’d set off, and it had always ended with frustration and, on one occasion, violence.

  “You know what I been wondering?” he said.

  “Can the Wizard really give you a heart?” Cal guessed.

  “Why didn’t we go to Earth?” Mech asked, ignoring the remark.

  “Uh, well, maybe because the Earth Defense Initiative wants to kill us?” said Cal.

  “No, I get that. I do. And believe me, Earth’s the last place I want to go, just in case there are more of them there like you,” Mech replied. “It’s just… We’ve killed presidents, overthrown governments, all that shizz. I don’t get why you didn’t even try to talk us into going to Earth and stopping the EDI.”

  Cal gave a vague wave of his hand. “Earth’s… complicated.”

  Loren raised an eyebrow. “Complicated how?”

  “It’s just complicated. It’s all a delicate balance,” said Cal. “It’s not like the planets you guys are used to. There’s more to it. I don’t want to say it’s better, but it’s better.”

  “The fonk’s that supposed to mean?” asked Mech.

  Cal angled his chair so he was facing between Loren and Mech. “Well, it’s got weather, for one thing.”

  “Weather?” said Loren.

  “Yeah. Weather,” said Cal, as if just saying the word again would make everything clear. Since it didn’t, he explained. “You know how every planet we visit is always one thing? It’s a desert planet. It’s a snow planet. It’s a planet filled with wasp mustard.”

  “That was a moon,” Loren corrected.

  “Whatever. The point is, they’re always one thing,” Cal continued. “Earth’s not like that. Earth’s lots of things. And you can’t just go charging in like you can on other planets. Overthrow an Earth government, and someone worse generally comes along to fill the void left behind. It’s best we just leave them to get on with it.”

  That wasn’t the full truth of it, of course. Part of Cal—most of him, in fact—wanted nothing more than to return to Earth, liberate its people from the oppressive regime of the EDI, and usher in a prosperous new dawn for his home world.

  The worry was that maybe they wouldn’t want to be liberated. Maybe the people of Earth were perfectly happy being represented in space by a bunch of genocidal maniacs and a mutant with a Darth Vader fetish. Maybe the people of Earth were not who he thought they were, and that was an ugly truth he’d rather not have to face up to.

  Besides, Earth was complicated. It had weather.

  “We don’t want to make it worse, is my point,” Cal concluded.

  “Worse than being led by someone called Manacle, Enslaver of Worlds?” asked Loren.

  “It could happen,” Cal reasoned. “It happens on Earth all the time. Overthrow some tyrant, and another one pops up with more guns and a bigger mustache. And anyway, we killed Manacle. He’s gone. We’ve done our part.”

  Cal gestured ahead to the streaking blur of stars on the screen. “So, for now, it’s off into the wild space frontier to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life, and new civilizations. To boldly go… Wait.”

  He looked around the bridge. “Has anyone seen Splurt lately?”

  “Yes,” said Loren.

  She slid her chair aside and gestured behind her with a thumb. The top of Splurt’s… Cal wanted to say ‘head’ although this wasn’t strictly accurate. The top of Splurt was just visible above Loren’s console, his eyes following her every move with their blank, featureless gaze.

  “He’s been doing that for hours,” Loren said. “Just sitting there and staring.”

  “Ah. That might be my fault,” said Cal. “I asked him to keep an eye on you.”

  “You did what?” asked Loren, her forehead creasing into a frown. “You told him to spy on me?”

  “What? No! Not like that. I meant to look out for you. You know, to make sure you’re OK when I’m not around.”

  Loren snorted. “I’m OK when you’re not around. Honest. You don’t have to worry.”

  “I wasn’t worried, exactly, I just thought it’d be nice,” said Cal. His eyes went to Splurt, who was still attached to the console, his eyes boring remorselessly into Loren. “He’s taken it a little more literally than I intended. Splurt, buddy? You can knock it—”

  The ship stopped. One second, the stars were a series of mildly nauseating smears, the next they were almost completely stationary.

  The same could not be said for the occupants of the Currently Untitled.

  Cal and Loren were both launched from their chairs and sent hurtling toward the screen. Fortunately, Splurt was able to grab a leg as it sailed past him. Unfortunately for Cal, it was one of Loren’s.

  As Loren jerked to a stop, Cal continued past her. The top of his head met the solid screen, rattling his teeth and compacting his spine a full two inches. His inertia kept him in place for a moment, his body sticking out at 90 degrees from the screen like a nail, then gravity took over and he hit the floor with his face.

  Mech, meanwhile, staggered a single step.

  “Thanks,” said Loren, as Splurt gently deposited her back in her chair, then patted her on the head with a gloopy green tentacle.

  “Brace!” warned Kevin.

  Everyone braced. Loren grabbed for her seatbelt, Mech ramped up the power to his magnetic feet, and Cal hugged the floor as firmly as he could.

  “Sorry, I meant brace for the emergency stop,” Kevin said. “I confess I may have been a little late with the warning.”

  “Maybe just a smidge,” groaned Cal, picking himself up. He placed the palms of both hands under his chin and pushed his head up until something clicked. “Aaand, I can feel my toes again,” he announced.

  “Like, what just happened?” demanded Mizette, stomping onto the bridge with Tyrra behind her. Cal kept his distance from the Symmorium girl and eyed her warily for weapons. “We just totally got thrown against the wall.”

  “Ha!” said Cal, pointing to Tyrra. “Bested!”

  Tyrra bared her teeth and made a move to lunge at him, but Miz blocked her. “Both of you cut it out, already. How come we stopped like that? What’s going on?”

  “I’m afraid there is an issue with our warp disk,” said Kevin.

  “What kind of issue?” asked Mech.

  “It broke in half, sir,” said Kevin.

  “Is that bad?” asked Cal. “I’m assuming that’s bad.”

  “Well, it’s not good, sir,” said Kevin. “It appears the strain of traveling at such speeds for so long rather took its toll on the poor thing.”

  “Great. Well, can we stick it back together?” Cal asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, OK!”

  “It won’t work, of course, but we can stick it back together if you like,” Kevin said. “It’ll help take all our minds off… You know.”

  Cal raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Help take our minds off what?”

  “The inevitable… You know.”

  “I don’t know, Kevin,” said Cal. “What will it take our minds off?”

  “Your prolonged agonizing deaths, sir,” said Kevin.

  Cal wai
ted for the inevitable ‘just my little joke,’ comment, which he was sure would follow any moment now.

  Any second.

  Here it came.

  …

  Shizz.

  “The warp disk is what recharges life support,” explained Mech. “We can run on back-ups for a while, but when they run out…”

  “We run out,” said Loren.

  An oppressive sort of silence fell over the bridge as everyone looked at everyone else. Except Splurt, who looked exclusively at Loren.

  “Still, on the bright side, not all of you will die,” said Kevin. “Masters Mech and Splurt will survive. And me, of course. So, it’s not all doom and gloom!”

  “Nice work on the silver lining, Kevin, but let’s not give up quite yet,” said Cal. “Can we call for help?”

  “We can, sir.”

  Cal knew better than to get excited quite yet.

  “And is anyone likely to hear us?”

  “No, sir,” said Kevin. “Anywhere habitable is beyond the reaches of our current transmission range. Without the warp disk’s power, we’re unable to send or receive communications beyond a few hundred thousand miles in any direction. We’re stranded and alone. I’m afraid that there is no one out here but us.”

  “And them,” said Tyrra, pointing to the viewscreen.

  Everyone, with the exception of Splurt, turned to follow Tyrra’s finger. There, on screen, hung a fat, slightly clumsy-looking ship.

  “Oh yes,” said Kevin. “And them.”

  Four

  “Try again,” said Cal.

  Mech tutted, shook his head, then tried opening a communications channel with the other ship for the fifth time in three minutes.

  “Nothing,” he said, when the ship failed to respond.

  “You’re not giving them time to pick up,” said Cal, rocking impatiently in his chair. “Let it ring for longer.”

  “What the fonk are you talking about?” Mech asked. “It don’t ring. Their ship’s computer ain’t acknowledging the handshake. They ain’t receiving us.”

  Cal leaned back in his chair and regarded the ship on screen. It was almost completely stationary, aside from a very slow spinning motion that he hadn’t noticed until he realized he was now looking at the bottom of the ship, rather than the side.

  “And you’re definitely getting life signs?” asked Cal, looking up to the ceiling.

  “Just one life sign, sir,” said Kevin. “But yes. Running diagnostics on it now, although there is quite a lot of subspace interference, so it’s taking a little longer than usual.”

  “OK, good. Let us know when you have something,” Cal said.

  “It looks dead,” said Loren. She studied the spinning craft, doing her best to ignore Splurt who sat pulsating gently on the floor beside her chair, gazing up at her. “I mean, there are lights on, but… I don’t know. There’s something about it.”

  “What kind of ship even is that?” asked Miz, slouching in her seat. “It’s so…”

  “Lame,” said Tyrra from the guest chairs along the rear bulkhead.

  “Totally lame,” Miz confirmed. “It’s so fat and ugly.”

  “Hey now, it’s what’s inside that counts,” Cal told her. “Kevin, any luck finding out what’s inside that thing?”

  “Still running analysis on the signal, sir. No immediate species matches found.”

  Mech tapped some controls on his console and a lot of symbols, numbers, and other information appeared overlaid on the display. “I found something interesting,” he said. A series of wavy green lines materialized behind the ship and led off-screen. “I’m picking up warp emissions.”

  Cal nodded encouragingly. “Right…” he said, but Mech didn’t add anything more. “Oh. Was that the interesting part? You should’ve made that clearer. Next time, maybe wink and point.”

  “It means they suddenly came out of warp at the exact same place as we did,” said Loren. She looked at Mech. “That can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

  “I doubt it. Must’ve been some kind of…” He shot Cal a sideways glance and stiffened slightly. “Space disruption.”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Cal couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Now you’re getting the hang of it,” he said. “So, it’s like a disruption… but in space. A space disruption.”

  Mech shook his head. “That’s a term. It’s a known term. I ain’t just putting the word ‘space’ in front of anything. It’s a fonking space disruption.”

  “Oh. Oh, gotcha,” said Cal. “You mean a ‘space disruption’ is an actual term? It’s an actual thing?”

  “Exactly,” Mech confirmed.

  “So, it’s like a space space disruption?”

  From the back of the room, Tyrra voiced a thought that wasn’t a million miles away from the one in Mech’s head. “Can I stab him again?”

  “Maybe later,” said Miz, not looking up from where she was fiddling with her claws.

  “The point is, could be that they’re as fonked as we are,” Mech said.

  Loren gestured to the screen. “Looking at those warp emissions, I’d say they’re a few weeks old at least,” she said. “See the fragmentation?”

  Cal saw only wavy green lines, but nodded anyway. “Yep. Definitely old. That’s not even a question at this point. But we know there’s someone aboard. Kevin, any—”

  “Yes, sir. I think I may have found a match for the life-sign I’m tracking aboard the other ship,” said Kevin. “Would you like me to put it on screen?”

  “Go for it,” said Cal. “Let’s see who we’re dealing with.”

  The right-hand third of the screen changed to show a stock image of a spindly green thing with eight evenly spaced limbs.

  Cal looked to the ceiling.

  “That’s a houseplant,” he said, after a pause.

  “What is, sir?” asked Kevin.

  “That. The picture on screen. It’s a houseplant.”

  There was a lengthy silence, during which Cal was almost certain he heard the sound of a page being turned over and then back again.

  “Is it?” asked Kevin. “How can you be so sure, sir?”

  “Because I’m looking at it. It’s in a pot. It has foliage. It’s a plant,” said Cal.

  There was another slightly shorter pause.

  “Perhaps we should send a rescue party anyway, sir,” Kevin suggested. “You know, just in case?”

  “It’s a plant, Kevin. Granted, it’s a nice plant, but we’re not launching a rescue mission to…” Cal said, then a thought struck him. “Although, it would mean we’d get to leave the ship for a while. It’d be good to get out and stretch the old space legs.”

  “And maybe their warp disk is in better condition than ours,” said Loren.

  “And that, yes,” Cal agreed. “We picked up new space suits before we set off, right?”

  “We did,” Loren confirmed. “We have a full complement. Try not to destroy them all this time.”

  “No promises, but I’ll do my best,” said Cal. He slapped his hands on his thighs, then jumped to his feet. “OK, then. We have a plan. Let’s do this.”

  He turned on his heels and pointed dramatically to the door. “Mech, suit up. We’re mounting a rescue mission!”

  A moment of confused silence followed.

  “I don’t need to suit up,” Mech said.

  Cal sighed and lowered his arm. “No, I know. I was using dramatic license. I just thought ‘Mech, suit up, we’re mounting a rescue mission,’ would make it sound more exciting than, ‘Let’s go and pick up a houseplant.’”

  “Oh,” said Mech. “Did it work?”

  “Not really,” Cal admitted, wrinkling his nose. He made a much less enthusiastic gesture in the direction of the door. “So, we going to do this thing, or not?”

  “Be careful,” said Loren, as Cal and Mech made for the door.

  Cal stopped, turned, and fired off both fingerguns in her direction. “Aren’t I always?”

&nbs
p; “No.”

  “No, you’re right. I guess that’s fair,” Cal conceded. “But that’s because I haven’t had you waiting for me until now.”

  There was a retching sound as Miz threw up in her mouth. She held Cal’s gaze as she swallowed it back down.

  “Thank you for that,” Cal told her. He rapped the back of his hand against Mech’s metal chest. “Come on, big guy, let’s go.”

  As Cal passed her, Tyrra jumped up from her chair, swung with her little hammer, and cracked him across the back of the head, sending him staggering into the corridor.

  “Ow! What the fonk?”

  “Ha!” Tyrra ejected. She grinned proudly, showing off all her teeth as she retook her seat. “Bested!”

  Cal’s voice echoed inside his helmet as he leaned through the inner airlock of the rotating ship and looked both ways along a wide, clinically bare corridor.

  “Yoo-hoo?” he called. “Anyone home?”

  “We already know there ain’t no one here,” Mech grunted, shoving him into the corridor. “Get out there.”

  Cal stumbled in his oversized space suit until he bumped into the wall opposite the airlock. He tried to turn and give Mech the finger, but both those movements proved difficult in the cumbersome suit, and by the time he’d successfully maneuvered himself around, Mech was already marching off along the corridor.

  “Wait for me,” Cal protested, shambling after him. “That’s an order.”

  “How about you just keep up?” Mech suggested, not slowing.

  Cal did his best, but it felt as if someone had cranked the ship’s gravity up a couple of notches too far, and he quickly started to sweat inside the suit.

  “Man, I feel heavy,” he wheezed.

  “Eight pounds in six days,” Mech reminded him.

  “Travel weight!” Cal countered. “It’ll fall right out of me. And anyway, I don’t mean like that. I mean the gravity feels stronger.”

  “It’s up maybe fifteen percent,” Mech confirmed.

  “Well, that’s just mean,” Cal muttered, as he fell into step behind Mech.

  “You know they didn’t turn it up just to annoy you, right?” Mech asked him. “You do understand that whoever’s ship this is must live on a planet whose gravity is fifteen percent higher than the one you’re used to?”