Quantum

by K A Carter

  “War,” he said. “I mean to fight a war in the shadows.”

  Chapter 18: Jericho

  “What was that?” Jericho said. He rose from a crouched position on the floor of the galley, picking up fallen utensils. His head thumped and shoulder felt like something sharp had jabbed at it. The hard thud that had rumbled the Icarus came in a session of three and felt like the auxiliary thrusts blew. It couldn’t have been that. Not on this ship. The warp jump had gone smoothly and it was only the second time Freya had given it a go.

  “Freya, what was that?” Jericho said again. He spoke loud enough that the com link on the adjacent bulkhead could pick up his voice. It was silent on the other end. The others had been forcing themselves to get some hours of sleep, either that or lying in their quarters staring at the bulkheads until their eyes grew tired. That’s what Jericho could do; the only thing he could do. The lack of actual sleep, he wore it on his face in the form of a timid gaze. No one paid any mind to it during warp. It was as similar as their own appearance. Until the thump came things were jumbled. Jericho couldn’t remember which came first.

  Jericho roved toward the cockpit. A cluttered hull gave a clear path to Freya, unconscious in her pilot’s seat. He rushed over and placed a hand to her neck. She gave no response slouching over. She was breathing, thankfully. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time he had to check her vitals when she was unconscious. Still, those were simpler times. Back when salvaging was a living and he was navigating familiar ground. Jericho leaned her back in the seat and motioned to the com link.

  “Guys check in?” he said, hoping that the rest of the crew fared better than their pilot.

  “Shit Cap’n, the fuck was that?” Scud said, groaning in his response. Jericho knew his injuries had to have been considered; Scud had never been one to cry over bruises.

  “Turbulence? I don’t know but Freya is out cold. How are the others down there?”

  The com link fluttered with a static. “I haven’t checked on everyone but Luke is hurt pretty bad,” Scud said. It was bad. Scud’s voice gave it away. Assuming Morris was okay, Jericho couldn’t imagine what his reaction would be.

  Jericho hastened into the room. Luke was motionless on the medical bed, a hard gash streaking down his temple. Scud stood over him, focusing on the injury. It looked bad from where Jericho was standing. He nudged Scud. “Will he be okay?” he said.

  Scud shrugged his burly shoulders and shook his head. “It don’t look good. Found him by that puddle over there.” Scud pointed to a scattered blood splat. It connected to a sturdy piece of guidance rail in the hall. “He’s breathing though.”

  Mellor showed bruises of his own but stood bedside with a trinket in his hand. It made a beep as he hovered it over the wound. “I barely know what this means. I barely know what any of this means.”

  Jericho felt a brush of air passed him and noticed Morris moving to the bedside. Anda by his side. “Is he okay?” Morris said; a strain in his voice. His younger brother injured brought down the tough exterior that typically left Morris devoid of fear. Jericho was one of the few that heard the stories from the glassy eyed older brother. Seeing Morris whimper gave him a sour feeling just above his chess. The tale of a fledgling drug syndicate running out of Venus orbital stations damn there made sense. Take in consideration them being orphans sold to the highest bidder, years spent in a corporate mining facility, and the loss of a third brother; words wouldn’t be able to describe the emotions hidden under the brute exterior. All of it hidden away. It brought him to weep silently for his friend.

  Jericho joined him and rubbed him on the back, the gesture went unnoticed. Freya was on the med-bed next to them. She woke from a sleep, groaning. She had been out cold for the better part of the aftermath.

  Jericho had questions for her. “Are you alright Frey?” he said. He put a slender thumb gently next to a blackened bruise that extended into her hairline.

  She gritted as a result. “Yeah, aside from a throbbing headache I think I’ll be alright” She leaned forward and sat up.

  “Good, now tell me what the fuck just happened.”

  None of the other crew were gathered near them but all the same were directing their listening. Jericho took note of their inquisitive looks. It was what everyone wanted to know.

  “Well I can’t say for sure, but only a split second before the rumble, I thought I saw something really big out there. It flashed on the sensors then disappeared, then boom.” It was a shell of an explanation Jericho would’ve like. It did him no good. He rolled his eyes and looked over to Anda. She gave him his look right back.

  The ship could have been hit by anything or anyone. An uncharted space was the ultimate unknown, and not to mention the lack of explorative prowess on the crew’s part. Jericho didn’t want to leave anything to the imagination. Anda and he took to the cockpit.

  A combination of readouts and diagnostics remained on the screen. It was the hardest of languages Jericho had to encounter. Anda looked at it, squinting almond eyes as they danced around the screen. She was a pilot once; in another life. She cycled through the screens, her eyes widening as the light flickered against her complexion. “This is bad,” she said, her pure hazel eyes gleaming through at Jericho.

  “What?”

  “Well, scanners are only reading thirty meters out right now.”

  “What does that mean?” Jericho asked, flailing his hands.

  “Means either there broken or we’re sitting in a hangar bay,” said Anda sullenly.

  The thought seemed unconvincing. The crew had already seen enough that proved this new area of space and the navigation that brought them there was filled with things they couldn’t imagine. That sat in the back of Jericho’s mind, and seeing as Anda and he thought similarly, it had to have sat in her mind as well.

  “Pull up the view of the outside,” Jericho said. Anda did so, keying in a command that sent the screens they had been looking at to a vanishing point in the upper ceiling. As the hard hull glimmered into the form of a window, outside shadows fluttered under refulgent lights. It was a hangar bay.

  The bodies were thin and sleek. The heads no thicker than their limbs. All of them tending to militaristic tasks. Patrol, Guards at the doors, and loaders. The armed beings held staffs with sharp points they glistened a cerulean color.

  “Oh no…” Anda said. She concealed a gasp behind her hands.

  Jericho rushed to the com link, simultaneously unsheathing his blaster. “Shit, we got company. Everyone get armed. Right Now!” Jericho knew he didn’t need any more explanation. He tossed Anda his secondary blaster he kept tucked aside his boot; small with short snub barrel the two of them continued down to meet with the rest of the crew.

  Aside from the two rifles and blasters that Morris had distributed, the crew were otherwise defenseless. Not to mention the fact that Keon and Mellor had never held a gun let alone fired one. Speaking of Mellor, Jericho dug for answers in his head for what he’d do with Luke and came up with nothing. Before he could, the portside airlock opened; each crew member raising a weapon. They were greeted by armed beings, but none of them pulled a trigger. A unique alien dialect bounced between the armed slender beings as if a conversation was being held. One thing was certain, the outcome of a firefight then and there wouldn’t be favorable for either parties.

  “What do we do Cap’n?” Scud asked.

  Jericho could feel his fingers tingling through the hi-fiber mesh grip that wrapped around the handle of his trusty blaster. He relaxed his arm, lowering his weapon. “Put ‘em down guys,” Jericho said. “If they wanted to kill us they would’ve started shooting already.” In some way those words were true. Jericho could hardly trust his own words.

  The crew were escorted out of the Icarus. The slender figures surrounded them uniformly, pushing Anda out of the group. The hangar seemed larger than it did from the cockpit. Jericho shoved through the guards but was quickly shielded. He worried about what it meant, watching her walk t
hrough the wide hanger doors. Who knew where they went to or what they meant for the crew. He kept his worry to himself.

  The crew was forced to sit in a part of the hangar clearly reserved for prisoners. Jericho began to take note of his surroundings. First, the high-tech hangar was filled with fighter ships and a holding cell. It had to be a warship of some kind. Although, this was certainly his first encounter with aliens on such a scale. Secondly, Araime was nowhere to be seen. She was the shadowy type but it was a shocking thought that she managed to go uncaptured; the youngling had managed to keep away from the troops.

  Time had passed. A lot of time that Jericho couldn’t bring himself to keep track of. There was sight of Anda and it made Jericho fear the worst. The hangar doors to the rest of the massive ship had remained closed aside from the in and out that workers that strolled through. She could be dead for all he knew. He started to force his panting down. Jericho could tell he wasn’t hiding anything well. The look on Scud’s face mirrored the same worry he was feeling.

  A voice came to him as fluid as his own thoughts. “Alfred, do not be alarmed. I am in the cargo bay. Right by the air-suits.” The voice was familiar. It was Araime, her youth sprouted in her voice that had given her identity away. “Our captors have killed Luke,” Araime said, her voice lofty. “I am sorry to have to tell you that.”

  Jericho couldn’t believe that, it was as unforeseeable as Araime being telepathically capable of knowing such a horror.

  Jericho jolted in his seat next to the rest of the crew, it caught the attention of Morris and Freya sitting across from him. “What is it?” Freya said. She was holding back lush tears, some of which had trickled down her cheeks and dried.

  “Don’t say anything,” Araime’s voice said. It was softer now. “They can’t know yet.”

  Jericho looked down at his cuffed wrists. The scars had eroded like scabs on a newly healed burn. Years of salvage work, even with the gloves of an environment suit, made them leathery and thick. He focused on them. It made lying to them, or what he would prefer to think of it as, waiting to tell them the truth- a bit more bearable.

  “Nothing, just worried about Luke and Anda,” Jericho said, he felt the guilt slither its way into his voice.

  “Yeah no shit,” Morris said. “They never brought him off the ship.”

  Jericho couldn’t imagine where Morris was mentally. He was never known to keep it together well. Now, with his brother at stake as far as he was concern, Jericho felt he proved more of a liability than an asset if they were to try and escape. One thing was certain, he wasn’t going anywhere without Anda.

  “I closed his eyes,” Araime’s voice wandered back into his head.

  He juggled on whether to speak through thought, he paused.

  “You can speak to me,” Araime interrupted. She can read my mind too, he thought. “Yes, I can.”

  “I won’t be able to leave the ship but I can help you escape.”

  “How is it that you will get us back aboard?” Jericho asked. He added the thought of including Anda in her plan.

  “I haven’t thought too far ahead. I don’t think there will be time to save her.”

  Jericho unintendedly shook his head at the response. None of the crew paid attention to it. “We have to save her!” shouted Jericho in his head.

  “I believe they are torturing her Alfred.”

  The idea pained him. Before Araime could get a telepathic word in, Jericho shot up. “Hey! Assholes! Fuck all of you! Come here! Lanky sonsabitches.” He continued shouting vulgar phrases, no indication that the beings could understand him.

  One of the guards walked into the prisoner section holding a staff with a flickering bolt at the end of it.

  “No! Idiot!” Araime said.

  Jericho felt volts’ flow through his entire body, he fell shivering in an electric wave coursing through him. He blacked out. Not just before he heard Araime one last time. Her parting words stuck with him. A warning possibly.

  “Don’t let them break you.”

  ∆∆∆

  Jericho’s vision blurred as he opened his eyes. A blinding light hung above him. He looked up at it and glimpsed at his hands, they hung above him as well; wrists locked within a cuff like contraption that appeared sturdy, so he didn’t bother trying to force out of them. He tried to take a look around the room. It was dark in most of the corners. A glance to his right side presented a body hanging next to him, at that time he realized he was hanging by the contraption, his feet at a few inches off of the metallic surface. His vision was too clouded to see who was hanging next to him. He feared it to be Anda, knowing that it was most likely to be her.

  It slowly came back, the blurriness thinned to a crispier picture. He blinked his eyes as hard as he could. The sight of one of the beings appeared in front of him. He was in a different attire. Jericho looked over to the body next to him, Anda hung, appearing lifeless, he hoped that it was just his fears warping his judgement on that matter.

  A voice rose into his head, like it was already there just waiting to be heard. It was a gritty voice. “Ahh, you fear for your friend. None the matter,” the voice said. “You and she will not be harmed if you give me what I need.”

  The being’s telepathic voice didn’t match any humans; rightfully so. Jericho hung, an anger brewing as he looked at the tall figure. “What might that be?”

  “I have seen this ship before. It possesses valuable bit of information in its navigation array.”

  Jericho swung a little to test the cuffs. It did nothing for figuring it out. “I don’t know who…the fuck you are, or what navigation info you’re talking about.” He didn’t actually know what it was talking about.

  “I am Colonel Zael of the Ixorian Singularity,” the slithering being said as it stepped forward from the darker side of the room. “I am in search of the way to get to the other side. The secrets which you hold… you’re going to give it to me.”

  Chapter 19: Nario

  There was a brief window between the communications with the rebels. It had stopped a few hours ago. Rhion swung his seat in a boredom that carried itself along the cadets that sat at a few consoles. The silence had brought a gloomy reel of flashbacks for some reason. Nario sat sluggish in his seat. A flashback of a similar situation. It had also dealt with rebels. Those on fringe planets in the belt just past Mars. Those that opposed joining the Cooperative Planets. Back then he was on the ground. It was the annexing of Ceres, and all the mining operations that scattered themselves through the asteroid belt. It was long ago. In his young flight days. He didn’t miss them.

  The ensign by the hailing system had been trying to get a hold of Swarran. No responses posed an issue. Nario could guess that he was scheming in some sort of way. From what he figured now, Lanx was a glorified corporation of species that banded together to control the facets. Nario had merely brought the federation to the party. That didn’t mean that he had any say in what happened. He didn’t like the thought of being a lackey. He wasn’t going to be one. He hoped to hear back from the rebels with terms of surrender before Swarran. At least that way he could play a few cards to keep from a battle; and unfortunately, that was on the table.

  The hail signal rang to life and Swarran’s mug shot on the screen. He looked as unnerved as he ever did. Like Nario’s existence made his blood curdle. “Brokering peace?” Swarran asked.

  Nario quickly cleaned up his sluggish demeanor. “That’s the idea, yeah.” Nario didn’t like speaking to the ornery Voathi anymore than Swarran did. “Or is there something too valuable for peace?”

  “As a matter of fact, there is. I had a feeling you would do such a thing. So, I planned for it.” Swarran turned around while still on the feed. He spoke the words in his tribal alien dialect that slowly translated to Nario’s HUD. “Fire Now!” The Swarran’s ships and those that were a part of his convoy began a harsh bombardment. The warships were more equipped for it than the visual from the window of them lead on. “Thank you for lower
ing their defenses Ambassador.”

  “Swarran don’t!” Nario yelled. He jumped up from his seat but it was too late to speak. Swarran had cut the feed and his ships continued to attack. It didn’t take long for another hail to come in.

  “Captain, incoming hail,” ensign Kelly said.

  The screen formed into a visual of T’luk; behind him his intricate web of terminals had been turned to rubble. Rumbles could be heard through the feed. “We trusted you,” T’luk said. “I’ve condemned my people.”

  “This is not me. I will fix this.” He motioned to automated weapons operator, gesturing to raise to red alert.

  “You will have no control as long as you work for the Lanx.”

  Before Nario could respond the visual cut out by way of static. He could only assume the last of the bombardment had destroyed what was left.

  T’luk’s parting words didn’t come as too much of a surprise. Nario couldn’t think much about it through his fury. He had given his word in a sense. Breaking that for him was worse than if he had been okay with the bombardment from the get go.

  “Swarran!” Nario darted over to ensign by the hail controls. “Get him on the screen, now!” The cadet tried to raise the ship. No answers. He was stuck, he had just let civilians get slaughtered.

  “Weapons ready?” he said, addressing the AWO.

  “Weapons ready and armed.”

  “D.L” Rhion said calmly. “Don’t do it.”

  Nario paused. He looked at the targeting system. An array of weapon suites that he could cycle through with the tap of a finger. He stared at the screen for a moment, contemplating the consequences of shooting down any one of the three ships. He backed away aversely from the AWO, waiving him down. It wasn’t the best move. He needed to remind himself that he was playing with fire if he did attack. Although, Thoram had been a proponent of the conjoining between to respective powers, he was pulling strings that even Nario didn’t want to know too much about. If there was a way he was going to combat them, it would be at the hands of policy. After all, he was the official representative within the Lanx Republic now. That had to count for something.