My Outcast State (The Maauro Chronicles Book 1)

by Edward McKeown

  “The what?” Maauro asked.

  I waved an impatient hand. “Old legends. Occasionally a spacer coming in over the Stonal abyss reports signs of high technology, a city far out in the southern jungles. But there’s never been any hard evidence.”

  “My daughter disappeared exploring that area. Government authority doesn’t extend beyond the Eliash plateau. I am too old to go myself. My war injuries pain me to where I can only walk short distances. So I hired private mercenaries to search for her. You may have known of some of them: Lostra, Veggs and Terrazzas.”

  “Yeah,” I replied. They were among the bad and the dangerous that I avoided zealously.

  “They didn’t come back,” Tekala added.

  I raised my cup to my lips. My mouth was suddenly rather dry. “Why tell me this? I’m a pilot, not a gunman.”

  “I am looking for someone else to go.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “You’ve wasted your time. I’m just a pilot.”

  “Is that all?” Tekala said dryly, his eyes drifting over to Maauro, who looked back innocently.

  “Yes,” I insisted, “that’s all.”

  “It has not escaped notice that you have survived the enmity of the crimelord Dusko, though how it is that a man and a girl child can do this, no one knows.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, pushing back the chair.

  “I can pay well,” Tekala said, raising a hand.

  “Not—” I began.

  “How well can you pay?” Maauro interrupted.

  “20,000 Confed credits per week, with a 10,000 credit bonus if you find my daughter’s remains, and 100,000 credits for her safe return.”

  That gave me pause but after a second I shook my head. “Maauro, those were some of the best gunners around. They’re dead, or they’d have come back.”

  “We need the money,” she said.

  God, I thought, I’m going to have to teach her something about commerce soon. “Dead people can’t spend credits.”

  I turned back to Tekala. “What kind of artifact made her head out to such a hellhole as that? It’s the other side of a big planet.”

  Tekala sank back into his seat and signaled to his assistant. “Bring it.”

  The female slipped out of the room to return with a large, flat panel covered in a sheer silk cloth that made a metallic thunk as she placed it on the table. Tekala pulled the fabric off to reveal a panel of a highly refined metal of an odd, reddish hue. On it was a series of crudely painted images. Though I didn’t recognize the shapes, they looked somehow familiar. They were images of some sort of creature, painted in dark greens and blues. It had four legs and two arm/legs and looked both saurian and insectoid.

  Maauro surprised me by standing and looking at the piece. She placed a hand on the metal. “We’ll take the job.”

  “Excuse me,” I snapped. “My cousin seems to have lost her mind.”

  “Could you leave us alone for a moment?” Maauro asked the Nekoans. The feline aliens withdrew.

  “Have you blown a circuit?” I hissed.

  She looked at me, unaffected by my anger. “That is a panel of hull metal from an Infestor ship. On it, someone has painted the image of an Infestor. I was able to carbon date the panel. It was painted several hundred years ago.”

  “Impossible,” I breathed. “They’ve been gone for almost 50,000 years.”

  “I must explore this,” she said. “My programming demands it and we might find some useful technology.”

  “This is a planet,” I countered, “not an asteroid. Even buried in an airless rock, you suffered degradation. Nothing useful could have survived so many ages.”

  “What of these will o’ wisps?” she said.

  “Legends, nothing more.”

  “Wrik, we are without resources here. My system failures are coming more frequently and I do not know how much longer I will operate. If I cease to function, you will not survive me long. Dusko still hunts you.”

  I looked at the ancient panel and wondered if it was my headstone. “I suppose I have little choice.”

  Chapter 6

  We took off two days later with Sinner loaded with food, munitions and what little information there was on the Stonal Abyss and the will o’ wisp sightings.

  Maauro watched me with a critical eye. “I can fly this with greater efficiency.”

  “Keep your hands off Sinner,” I said. “She’s already jealous that I’m seeing another machine.”

  “Very amusing,” she said. “I’m off to the top turret to watch the sunrise. The colors are so beautiful.”

  I shook my head.

  “Why does it continue to surprise you that I have an aesthetic and appreciate beauty?” she asked. “I am artificial in origin, but I am not one of your crude toys.”

  “No, our crude toys rarely sound miffed.”

  Maauro departed as I was reminding myself that she was not a cute girl I could tease, but an advanced killing machine. I needed to remember that. Most of her human characteristics came from a game program. God only knew what really went on inside her armored skull, if that was where her CPU lay.

  At Mach 4 even a big world like Kandalor rolled under us quickly. We were flying with the sun and reached Wayfarer in the late morning. I piloted Sinner in a descending spiral, heading for the gap in the endless forest canopy that surrounded the trading post on the edge of the Stonal.

  “There,” Maauro said, pointing at a bend in the river that held a collection of prefab and native buildings. Swamp boats lined the floating docks and a landing field of hard-packed earth contained a few light aircraft. An automatic beacon was the sole traffic control, so I kept a sharp eye out for other aircraft as I circled down and used the VTOL drive to drop Sinner onto the field.

  Fetid air greeted us as I cracked the hatch. Maauro clattered down the ladder behind me as I dropped to the orange soil. My knees, stiff from the long flight, protested. Maauro sailed past me in an easy leap. Whatever sclerosis intermittently affected her was in remission for now.

  “Showoff,” I grumbled.

  As we walked toward the shacks and bars along the riverfront, I pulled up short. Two aerospace craft sat at the field’s edge under the treeline, partially obscured with blue tarps. The tarps were frayed and dirty with branches lying on them.

  “You recognize these ships?” Maauro asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s Veggs’ old Wildcat fighter and Terrazza’s atmo-skimmer. Looks like they’ve been there for months.”

  “Curious that they have not been stolen or salvaged,” she said.

  “Nobody will touch those ships while there’s any chance their owners will return. Suicide would be as certain.”

  We spent the next two hours sitting in bars, drinking cheap liquor in my case and asking questions. Maauro drew attention from some of the men. I wasn’t worried about it, save that we didn’t need the grief caused if she yanked some creep’s privates off. We learned little. Jaelle Tekala had landed here eight months ago. She rented a skimmer and recruited a few locals before disappearing into the Stonal. Occasionally a local, piloting the skimmer, returned for supplies or to ship out crudely made crates, then, nothing. The next month Lostra came, followed by Veggs, then Terrazzas. They, too, disappeared in the direction of the great swamp and the Tar Sea that rumor said lay to the west.

  “So now we add our bodies to the count,” I concluded as I sat with Maauro under a roof of thatched fronds, picking at a meal of rice, veggies and some unfortunate local animal. Maauro, who processed all forms of matter into energy, ate as well.

  “Why do you express such trepidation?” she asked. “No enemy presently threatens us.”

  “Humans anticipate trouble,” I said.

  Maauro sighed, found a bit of fish on her plate and ate it. “Poor energy potential.”
>
  “Is that all you have to say?”

  She eyed me with what seemed disappointment. “The others did not have the services of a Mark VII combat android. Even in my depleted state, I am the most formidable fighting unit on this world.”

  If you’re working, I thought. Aloud I said, “We can’t even get a local to guide us out. With all the disappearances, no one will head westward into the swamp.”

  “We will rent a skimmer and proceed to the last place she was known to be,” Maauro said. “Then we will search.”

  We slept in the Sinner, or rather, I did. Maauro kept watch in the cockpit, so I had no concern about thieves or hijackers. Occasionally I heard her working in the engine compartment where I kept machine tools.

  I woke a little after dawn and used the fresher. When I walked up to the flight deck I stopped dead in surprise. Maauro sat on the deck examining a deadly box-like object with two projecting barrels, one of which was an easy 50mm in width.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “I have been unsatisfied with the armaments that we have been able to secure. This is inferior to my original armspac but greatly superior to what we have.”

  “Well, I guess it will be useful if we run into a thunderlizard.”

  “It would be,” she said, “but do not attempt to use it yourself. Firing the projectile weapon would fracture your arm bones.”

  I eyed the monster gun. “No problem.”

  Sinner was too large and heavy to land on swampy jungle ground, so we rented a large skimmer. The machine was little more than a skiff with a compression skid under it and a tail and fan assembly for propulsion. A framed canopy held the control panel. Clearplast curtains kept the a/c in. The dark-green machine was unlovely but practical. We set out after Maauro lashed down our supplies and finished raising the side panels to keep dinkagators from scrambling aboard.

  I popped up the GPS to input the last location known for Jaelle’s expedition. Automatics took us away from the dock as the engine purred up to speed and we pulled out into the river. I dropped the curtains as Maauro joined me inside. The a/c whisked sweat off me. I looked at Maauro. “I can see one advantage you have over a human girl.”

  She looked at me curiously. “What would that be?”

  “A real girl with that much hair would simply expire from the heat.”

  “Yet more evidence of my superiority over you bags of meat and fluids,” she said.

  “Smile when you say that.”

  Maauro gave me a brilliant grin.

  “That was irony, Maauro.”

  “No,” she said. “My smile was irony.”

  I did a double take. “You catch on quick.”

  ***

  We proceed into the jungle. The primitive GPS performs adequately, as does the skimmer. I sit with Wrik in the little cocoon of dried and cooled air. Biological life forms are so fragile; in space they must seal themselves in small containers of their environment. Even on a compatible world, they seek to hide in enclosures to moderate the environment. I could as easily sit outside, but my proximity to Wrik has a purpose. Since we landed here, our time together has been focused on survival: avoiding Dusko and trying to keep me operational.

  Yet I am developing concerns about Wrik. I am aware that his personal behavior prior to my arrival has been questionable, even criminal. This seems to have been more a matter of survival than preference. Yet this masks something deeper. Wrik has attempted to obliterate all records of his life prior to arriving on Kandalor. He rejects all my attempts to inquire into his past life. My investigation of his quarters and effects disclosed that he is ex-military but not of the Confederacy.

  Now that we are confined to the skimmer may be a good time to gather information. In addition, a transient failure has occurred in my suspensory drive. I cannot rise. While I recircuit around this latest failure, I might as well do something to pass the time. I will not tell Wrik. It will cause him undue concern. I am reasonably sure I can effect sufficient repairs to regain my mobility.

  ***

  We traveled up the river for several hours in silence, Maauro watching the riverbanks with their collections of colorful birds and flowers as the skimmer flew over the surface of the water.

  “It occurs to me,” Maauro said, “that we know very little of each other.”

  “That might be because every time I ask you about your past, you insist it’s all classified, even though your creators are extinct.”

  “My past consists exclusively of combat missions. My Creators are missing from this area of space. I do not know that they are extinct.”

  “And the rest of your life?” I asked, leaning back in my chair, which creaked under my weight.

  “I was operational for seven years before I attacked the Infestor base on that asteroid. In that respect, I am far younger and less experienced than you.”

  I stared at her. “And for the 50,000 years in between?”

  “I sat in the dark and decayed, only marginally aware through one subroutine of the passage of time.”

  She turned her child-like, perfect face to me. “But you, Wrik, had a life before we met. Tell me about it.”

  I sat silent, thinking on my life. “My past is gone. I don’t want to talk about it. My life on Kandalor began after I bought Sinner at a Confed base in the Morokat systems. I came here in suspended animation by slow freighter. I’d hoped to start over but Kandalor isn’t as welcoming to strangers as I’d heard. So I struggled until I met Dusko…the rest you know.”

  “Why do you not wish to recall your past?”

  “Mind your own business, Killbot.”

  I stood and brushed through the clearplast curtain, leaving Maauro and her questions behind. The heat slapped my face.

  ***

  Some shame lies in his past. I have noted recently that while biologicals tend to live in a network of lifeforms related to them genetically, or through other associations, Wrik lacks such a network. This may lie at the heart of his anodyne use.

  I must evaluate how this affects his usefulness to me. Meanwhile, I have finished repairs and rerouting. I am down to my last set of backups in my right leg.

  ***

  I stayed out for several miserable hours while the killbot enjoyed my air-conditioning. Only probing into my past could have gotten such a reaction from me. Now I couldn’t believe I had spoken in such a manner to my deadly companion.

  Eventually the heat broke down my resistance and I returned to the cabin. Maauro took no notice of me. We drove on in blessed silence. Night fell and the skimmer drove on. GPS and an unsleeping Maauro allowed us to continue. I spent an uncomfortable night on the floor of the boat on a too-thin pad.

  In the morning, the river changed character. Its surface became oilier, with occasional dark patches of tar floating free or fetched up against the shore. The swamp gave off an overpowering petroleum smell until it deadened my nose.

  “Look,” Maauro said.

  “I see it.” Half sunk in the river was the burned remains of a skimmer like our own. We pulled up and Maauro leaped ashore, unlimbering the deadly boxy weapon she’d slung across her shoulder.

  I secured the boat and picked up a submachine gun, hanging the strap around my neck and followed her ashore, staring at the burned skimmer. Maauro was already yards ahead, pushing through the tall grass. Then I saw what she had clearly spotted, the remnants of a camp, tents in bright, artificial colors, broken, slashed and burned. Other evidence of disaster lay underfoot: bleached bones.

  “What do you see?” I asked of my killbot.

  She looked around the clearing with a practiced eye. “I see broken spears and fragments of arrows. The bones are those of Kandalorians; there is no Nekoan among them. I deduce that primitives attacked the campsite, probably at night. I note some of the trees bear old scorch marks from a simple energy weapon, pro
bably something as crude as a laser. The primitives were victorious.”

  I looked at the tangles of bones. “How can you tell?”

  “The camp has been looted of valuables. The only spears and arrows that remain are broken. The primitives recovered any usable weapons.”

  “That means either Jaelle escaped or was captured,” I said

  We went back to the skimmer. Maauro disappeared under it and simply lifted the boat out of the water to deposit it ashore. No one would take it while we were inland. We got our equipment out and headed back to the ruined campsite, hoping to find some trail leading away.

  As we neared the camp, Maauro’s head snapped around. She rapidly signaled with her left hand while yanking her monster gun from its carrying case. I dropped behind a tree hummock, unslinging my SMG.

  I looked around for Maauro, who seemed to have disappeared. Then I spotted an odd bit of color, the yellow ribbon in her hair. Maauro stood still at the edge of the glade. Her body had turned camouflage, blending in with the forest. Her weapon was hidden behind her.

  Someone was moving through the forest, coming with confidence, not stealth.

  A woman walked into the clearing. Tall, lean and tan, she had a shock of rich blue hair cut at her jawline. She wore fatigue greens with a tactical vest and pack. A long-barreled laser rode on her hip. Her face was sharp and angular. I couldn’t see her eyes from here but knew they’d be black and as lifeless as a shark’s.

  Lostra.

  She paused halfway through the clearing and scanned the area; somehow she seemed to sense where I was. Her eyes narrowed and her hand flicked to the butt of her weapon.

  “Come out,” she called. “I know you’re there. I heard your motor earlier. Hands empty or you’re a dead man.”

  “Don’t shoot, Lostra,” I called, letting my SMG hang by its sling.

  Lostra came toward me, her hand over the weapon. “I know you. Trigardt, the pilot. Here all by your little self? You’re either reckless or an idiot.”