“Status on aftermarket AI?”
“T-minus four minutes.”
The dust devil and whatever was hiding in it would reach us first.
I toggled the comm button.
“We’ve got incoming,” I told Zy. “Local TAs have backed off. So, my guess is they’ve called in some bigger guns.”
“There were a couple of troop transporters still operational in the north of the city. Near the Governor’s home.”
“His private security maybe?”
“Could be. If it is and he’s still alive, then expect some demands to ensue.”
“I need you up here.” I sucked at politics.
“Any time you want to unlock the door, Captain.”
“ETA of decontamination process completion?” I asked the Basic.
“T-minus eight minutes, Captain.”
Cass would be back online before then. It was all down to timing.
I watched the viewscreens without blinking. About two minutes into my staring match, a troop transporter rolled into the intersection. One of the TAs rushed over to it, no doubt to tattle on the Harpy. Twelve grunts climbed out of the back, all in state-of-the-art tactical armour with full HUD capabilities. They had mini-railguns mounted on their shoulders and rocket launchers strapped to their backs.
Flux me.
I shook my head, my headache now a distant memory. I was scared out of my pants, and the hangover no longer held any threat for me. I kinda wished I was still drunk.
The lights flickered and went out, and then Cassiopeia said, “What have I missed, boss?”
“EMP strike. Decon in Cargo Bay Beta nearing completion. Security at max and hull electrified.”
“Party. Party. Party.”
“We’ve got threats all around us. Can you get the threat board up and running? Oh, and weapons would be good.”
“On it.”
I watched as a Zenith dressed in what they considered high fashion stepped out of the front compartment of the troop transporter. He was tall. They all were. Long and lean and exactly what our ancestors considered aliens should look like. Humanoid. Pale, almost crystalline complexion, shiny dark hair tied back from an angular face. Large eyes blinking. No irises. All black.
It had taken me a long time to get used to Zyla’s. Now I considered the iris-less pits of my navigator’s gaze to be almost normal. Of course, they thought our weirdly coloured irises to be unusual. Xenophobia was strong on the Zenith home planet.
That’s why I respected Zyla. She’d signed on with an all-human crew. That and she could break a man in half if needed.
The Zenith out by the transporter was wearing a tactical vest but no lower or head armour. A body shot would be stopped, but nothing indicated a head or leg shot wouldn’t go through. Of course, he’d have a personal AI protector no doubt, which could easily erect a forcefield for him.
Thoughts of shooting the guy in the feet were trashed for now.
“Let’s hear what he’s got to say, shall we?” I said, checking the external mics out. Cass had been busy. We had complete coverage from all the cameras, even the ones the Basic hadn’t been able to fix. And external audio was running.
Weapons, though, was still a long shot.
I huffed out a laugh at that, which threatened to become hysterical. Not that I ever got hysterical or anything.
“Decon complete yet?”
“T-minus two, boss.”
“Sound a proximity horn.”
Cass chuckled. “I like how you think.”
The horn blasted three loud and low tones, each one making the fine debris on the ground tremble.
“Nice,” I murmured in appreciation.
“I aim to please. T-minus ninety seconds to decon completion.”
The figures outside all stopped in their tracks. The Zenith, who I could only assume was the man in charge, looked directly at the camera on the Harpy.
Then he started to walk forward.
“Again?” Cassi asked.
“One blast. Short and sharp.”
The AI obliged, and the debris rattled where it lay again for all too brief a moment.
The Zenith kept walking. They had balls; I had to admit. Never play poker with a Zenith.
“T-minus twenty seconds for decon completion.”
I checked on Zy and the others in the Cargo Bay. Doc was still unconscious, but Odo was up and testing his plasma rifle. Cass must have connected it to the mains to recharge it, ‘cause it looked to have a full row of lights.
The Zenith stopped about ten metres away. Close enough that I could see the purple sheen in his inky black hair. He was of good Zenith blood. Like Zyla.
“You, on the cargo ship,” he said in accented English. He hadn’t raised his voice, but his words boomed — artificial enhancement. His personal AI was state-of-the-art too. Just like his troopers’ armour. “Open up and prepare for inspection.”
“Ha!” I said. “Inspection my arse.”
“Do you have a reply, boss?”
I shook my head.
“Another proximity tone?”
“Nah. Decon progress?”
“T-minus 10, 9, 8…”
A trooper fired a fluxing rocket. It missed us by about one metre and slammed into debris off to the side. If there had been any survivors hiding in that pile of shit, they were dust now.
“I cannot believe he just did that,” I whispered.
“That is the only warning you’ll get,” the Zenith said calmly. His ears must have been ringing.
No. Scratch that. Personal AI that cost more than the value of the cargo I was hauling.
“Decon complete,” Cass said. “Zyla is on her way up.”
“Thank flux for that.”
“I’m moving the Doc to the med bay and clearing the cargo area. If they enter anywhere, it’ll be through one of the bays.”
“Odo?” I checked the screen. Odo was leaning against a wall, halfway between the cargo bay hatches, waiting. I flicked the comm on in that section of the ship. “Man your station, Odo,” I commanded.
“I’m on guard, Cap’n,” he said in his deep drawl.
“They’re not getting on board. We’ve battened down the hatches. Not even fancy-arsed rockets can peel this tin can open.”
He snorted and stormed off to engineering.
“Keep him busy down there.” I didn’t want him acting like a bloody hero and getting himself shot, the second the Zeniths boarded.
Zyla stepped onto the bridge.
“Was that a rocket I heard?” she asked, swinging her long limbs into the nav chair.
“Yep. Sleek piece of ordinance. Shoulda grabbed some on Gilese B.”
She glowered at me. That’s one thing Zeniths don’t do well. Their eyes are too big for glowering.
“Who is he?” I asked.
Zyla checked out the viewscreen. “Zandor Zane, Governor of Ceres Alpha.”
“The nukes missed him, eh?”
“Seems unlikely, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe he was playing golf.”
“Or fluxing his way through the local society girls.”
“Meow!”
She hissed at me.
I stared out at the Governor of Ceres A.
“The next rocket will be aimed at the bridge, Captain,” the Governor advised.
“Then how will you get off-planet?” I muttered.
I looked across to Zyla. She slowly turned to face me. I saw worry there. I saw determination. Despite this guy being one of her kind, she’d stand by the humans on their little space machine. Gotta admire that. I sure as hell did.
“How do you want to play this, Nav?” I asked.
“Are we flightworthy, Cass?” she inquired, not taking her eyes off me.
“Negative, Zyla. There was some damage on impact that will require external maintenance. We’re grounded until Odo can get outside and fix things.”
“Can’t slap a bit of tape on it?” I asked.
“I cou
ld if you’d like to test our compression viability while dodging surface-to-air missiles.”
“If they’d had surface-to-air they would have used them on the orbital attackers.”
“Well,” Zyla said. “About that…” She didn’t get to finish.
One of the TAs went to one knee, aimed his rocket at the forward bulkhead, and waited for the Governor to lower his hand.
“Calling his bluff, Captain?” Cassi asked. She didn’t sound worried. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t. AIs were integrated into their ships. They felt every jolt and scratch as if the injury was against their own skins.
Not that AIs have skins unless you’re on Rhodia.
“Outside comms,” I said.
“External audio is activated.”
“This is Captain Kael Jameson of the CS Harpy. State your reason for firing on us.”
I could hardly say “firing on an unarmed vessel” now, could I?
“‘State your reason?’ That’s the best you’ve got?” Cass said dryly.
“Stalling,” I muttered.
“For what? I can’t fix the damage, Captain. I need Odo to patch me back up. We’re grounded.”
“Which means they are too,” I muttered.
My eyes connected with Zy’s. The Zenith shrugged.
“Refusing to open when instructed to for a formal inspection, Captain,” the Governor said. “We are well within our rights, and you know it. Now, open up before we do any more damage to your vessel.”
I swore and stood up. He was right. This nuked to shit planet was still officially Zenthian. Leaning over the command console, I pressed a single finger to the external comm button and said through gritted teeth, “Stand by. We’re prepped for radiation protection. It’ll take ten minutes to deactivate the safeties.”
“You have five,” the arsehole Zenith replied.
“Radiation medication for you, Captain,” Cass said quietly, making the gel wall beside me form into a shelf; on it was a waiting tablet.
I shucked the pill down dry.
“What are we hauling?” Zyla asked as she too stood, stretching out kinks that had to be hurting considering what she’d survived.
“Some high-end alcohol for the beach resorts. A few chit bandit machines for the casinos down south. Maybe a dune buggy or two.”
She arched her brow. “Any contraband?”
“Nothing they’ll find,” I said sharply and exited the bridge.
Zyla slipped out behind me. I could practically feel her big inky eyes boring into my back. She understood what was required to break even in this gig. The Black was not cheap. She didn’t like it. But she understood it — a practical Zenith as always.
“Will he recognise you?” I asked, keeping my voice lowered so Odo or the Doc couldn’t hear what we were saying.
“I should think not,” she replied primly. “It has been years since my face graced the vid-screens.”
No one else on board knew Zyla’s history. Just Cass and me. Cass had registered Zyla’s emergency beacon not long after the Zenith had boarded the Harpy. Not much got past a third-gen AI. And a Zenith intragalactic emergency beacon was definitely not something Cass could miss. Especially one that was programmed to transmit to the homeworld and the Zenith High Council when needed.
I’d confronted our new crew member, and Zyla had reluctantly spilt the beans.
I swore an oath I wouldn’t tell a soul her secrets. She’d been keeping mine without judgement for three years as payment for that secrecy.
We stepped into Cargo Bay Beta to find Odo waiting.
“Not much to do in Engineering?” I asked.
“Cass has got it.” He smiled, showing a row of straight white teeth in an ebony face. “You need me.”
“No heroics,” I told him.
He grinned evilly.
I stared at the cargo bay door.
“He wants the ship for himself,” I said.
“Guaranteed,” Odo agreed.
“He can’t have it,” I announced.
“There is the moral dilemma, Captain,” Cassi said quietly.
I sighed. “Yeah, well, we can send help once we leave the system safely.”
“You’re all heart,” Zyla said. There was no heat in it. She wanted off this radiation infested planet too, despite her cousins.
Who I was pretty sure weren’t related to her at all.
She had more secrets that I’d gladly keep if she’d let me.
“Alright,” I said, slapping my hands together. “Let’s do this. Cass, initiate Boarding Protocol, Jameson, K, beta-charlie-foxtrot-9-9-3.”
“You got it, bossman. We are officially running under boarding protocol. Holster your pistols, put your hands up, and prepare to be fluxed up the butthole, ‘cause we’re letting in the riffraff!”
Odo sniggered, which on him, looked entirely out of place. Zyla just blinked big pools of ink at the cargo bay doors. I felt sick to my stomach. My head no longer hurt, but I could have gone a round or two with an antiemetic.
The gel wall morphed in front of us, and the cargo bay doors opened.
The Governor stood at the base of the ramp, arms casually placed behind his back, surrounded by his precious high tech and overly muscled troopers carrying too many guns. We stared at each other; the Governor’s security detail bristling for a battle. We made sure to show our empty hands.
Not that our thigh holsters were empty, but still.
“Unarm yourselves,” a trooper ordered through a synthesised voice box on his helmet.
I pulled my weapon from its holster, aware the troopers all vibrated with the need to fire. Cass was ready. Nothing would reach us, and they all knew it. Or they suspected it. Why else use an EMP on a simple cargo ship? They knew we were more than we appeared.
Or they simply knew us.
I lowered my weapon slowly to the deck and watched as Cass sucked it down, out of sight, through the gel floor. Zyla followed suit. Eventually, Odo did too, but not without a fair amount of grumbling.
All nice and harmless, we stared at the boarding party.
“I’m not going to say ‘welcome aboard,’” I told them. “This inspection is a farce, and we all know it.”
“On the contrary,” the Zenith Governor replied, stepping onto the ramp and entering the cargo hold. “We’ve just been attacked, by sources unknown, and out of the blue you appear; unharmed.”
“Just arrived in system,” I said. “Picking up my crew from their R & R.”
“Is that so? And how convenient that they were dirtside when the bombs landed.”
I frowned at the guy. I was missing something.
He looked directly at Zyla.
“Scan her,” he ordered the nearest guard.
Zyla stood her ground, but it was damn near impossible for me to stay put. I took a step closer to my nav and got a rifle muzzle in the face for my efforts. I slowly raised my hands to show the trigger happy moron I was unarmed.
“There’s something there,” the guard scanning Zyla announced. “Shielded and nonoperational, but clearly capable of a signal if activated.”
“Any way to tell whether it’s been activated recently?” the Governor asked.
“We’ll need to take her back to the compound.”
Oh, hell no.
“We’ve done nothing wrong,” I said. “You can’t detain us. We have legitimate manifests for the cargo we’re hauling and customers waiting on delivery.”
“Really? You think they still want your cheap liquor and cheaper contraptions?” The Governor waved a hand out the cargo bay door. “Look around you, Captain. We’re at war. There’s no one left alive to buy your merchandise.”
I begged to differ. In times of war, a stiff drink was always welcomed.
I shrugged instead of voicing that.
“Still, we’re not the enemy here,” I said.
The Governor looked at Zyla again.
“I’m not so sure,” he said and turned on his heel, throwing a hand up
in the air and circling his pointed finger.
The troopers stormed the ship. I struggled. How could I not? Odo threw a punch that connected and a kick that sent a trooper to the deck, moaning loudly. Zyla remained stationary and allowed the cuffs to be placed around her wrists and ankles. Her calm was the type of calm before a freak storm.
We were bundled into a transporter too quickly; I didn’t even get a good last look at the Harpy. And before you could say ‘Upsilon Andromedae’ three times fast, we were driven away from the ship without another word.
Doc was still on board. Hidden for now, but unconscious.
And Cassiopeia, our third-gen, modified AI was watching every little thing those bastards did.
It was a poor consolation for being arrested and dragged off our own fluxing vessel. But we had options.
What did our ancestors used to say?
It ain’t over until the fat lady sings. The Harpy kinda looked like a fat lady sliding off a barstool, and the Harpy was all Cass. It worked.
I sat back and smiled at the trooper sitting opposite me.
He shifted in his seat and fingered the trigger on his rifle.
Zyla sighed at my side.
“Please do not antagonise the Governor’s security detail, Captain.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” I replied and winked at the guard opposite me.
Chapter Three
The cell I’d been placed in was three metres by three metres squared. There was a thin foam mattress on a composite polymer bed frame bolted to the floor, and a composite polymer sink and toilet with no privacy screen. The door had a thirty centimetre squared window which was left clear for whomever walked past to glance inside and see you doing your business.
The lights never got switched off. There was also no window to the outside, so all in all, a pretty shitty prison setup which for the technologically superior Zeniths was quite primitive.
But then, their resort planet had just been bombed by orbital nukes, so maybe this was a hastily constructed affair.
Either way, I was pissed off.
I hadn’t seen any of the crew since they’d thrown me in here. I couldn’t hear a thing outside the cell except for those brief times each day that they opened the door to feed me or take my empty food tray away. It was a lonely existence, sitting on the foam mattress twiddling my thumbs. I don’t do well without company. Even when I let the crew have R & R, I have Cassi to keep me sane.
Absolute Zero (The Sector Wars, Book 1) Page 3