The Smuggler's Ascension

by Christopher Ingersoll

  “I have long felt the need to have a contingency plan in place in the event the need ever arose to move you about in utter secrecy,” Subat said quietly. “I had hoped to never have need of such a plan. The present circumstances would seem to show that we need this plan, though, Sabine.” He used her name freely, as she had commanded all of them to do long ago, though the others had chosen not to listen to her for reasons of propriety. Subat was not one to sit on formality any more than she was, however, a fact that endeared him to Sabine all the more.

  “In preparation of carrying out this contingency plan,” Subat continued, “I have worked over the years to make connections within law enforcement elements and the criminal underworld of the Protectorate and surrounding territories so that I may keep tabs on a certain asset to use in just such a situation.”

  “Criminals? You would entrust Her Majesty’s safety to some sort of criminals?” Stephan demanded. His dismay and anger were readily apparent as he stared at Subat in disbelief. General Mannis also appeared shocked and on the verge of open anger at Subat’s suggestion, which flew in the face of all of his sensibilities.

  “Not just any criminal, Stephan, just one particular criminal. One that I have spent considerable time over the past few years getting to know and trust, though it was difficult at first. You will find that he is not your typical criminal, however” Subat added, unbothered by the seneschal’s anger.

  “So is this what you did on all of those long vacations you told me you were taking? Consorting with criminals?” Sabine accused him with a short laugh. Subat laughed in return and nodded.

  “Who is this trusted criminal of yours, and why do you trust him so much?” General Mannis asked before Stephan could break out in protest again. The General seemed intrigued, at least, and willing to hear Subat out. The need to return the Queen home was desperate, and desperate measures may well be needed to accomplish that task.

  Subat rose and went to the computer terminal along the wall of the study opposite the bar. Its large screen came alive as Subat typed in a series of commands, and moments later the screen displayed a mugshot from a prison on one of the Clovani’s former colonies. The mugshot showed a man in his late twenties or early thirties, dark haired and with a trimmed beard. His pale green eyes were filled with pain and rage, a pain and rage Sabine felt she could identify with at the moment. Little else could be told from the photo, and yet Sabine felt a stirring inside of herself that she couldn’t readily identify, almost as if she recognized him somehow.

  Stephan, however, seemed to find much to be at fault with the man in the picture as he read through the dossier Subat had included. “Murder, gun running, sabotage, theft, smuggling….there doesn’t seem to be much this man, Kristof Anders, hasn’t been implicated in, even if smuggling is the only thing he’s actually been convicted of,” Stephan spat. “You would trust Queen Sabine’s life to a man such as this?”

  “I would,” Subat replied simply, resuming his seat.

  “Why?” Stephan demanded, not willing to accept Subat’s endorsement so easily.

  “Let’s just say things aren’t always what they seem,” Subat answered firmly. “As I said, I have kept tabs on this man for a number of years, and know his history very intimately. Most of the charges you read about come from the Clovani Empire, so that should be enough for you to know that most of them are probably bogus or misleading.”

  Stephan turned to General Mannis, obviously outraged by Subat’s suggested plan. “What say you, General?” he asked, obviously hoping for an ally against what he thought of as an absurd idea. “Would you trust Her Majesty to a lowlife criminal such as this?”

  “The Queen must return home, and soon,” General Mannis said after long thought as he read through the dossier. “We lack the firepower at this time to force our way through the blockade, so we must find another way. I must admit that I do not have a plan to do this at this time, so I am forced to at least consider Subat’s plan. I see here that this man was married to one Anasha Undani. A relative of yours, Subat?”

  “My daughter,” Subat said quietly and slightly pained, and would say no more.

  Stephan spat in disgust before turning to Sabine. Before he could even speak, however, Sabine waved for him to be silent. She still looked at the man on the screen, this smuggler named Kristof Anders, and struggled to understand the stirring she had felt within. Lacking any answers, she turned to her councilors and said finally…

  “I will meet him.”

  ~*~

  ~3~

  High above an unnamed blue and green world surrounded by the blueish gases of a nebula, a sleek dark ship dropped out of hyperspace in a brief flash of light and glided silently past the planet’s lone moon. The ship bore no markings and ran with no running lights, and its dark grey hull plating showed signs of rough use and not a few scorch marks from laser fire. Though she ran with no running lights, her four engines burned brightly with blue fire through shielded vents that could be adjusted to hide the light when needed.

  The command deck aboard the ship was dark, the lights from the controls muted so as not to reflect off the view ports around them. The pilot surveyed the world before him, while streams of data scrolled down the control screen in front of him. He didn’t need to see the data to know there were no other ships or satellites in orbit around this lonely world in the middle of nowhere, a fact that did not sit well with him. He was much more comfortable in crowded space where he could blend in when he found himself someplace he wasn’t familiar with. Being up here alone made his ship extremely conspicuous.

  Kristof had not truly expected to ever hear from Subat again after their last meeting years ago. The man had made no effort to conceal his dislike of Kristof, especially after the death of his daughter, Anasha. Kristof had been Anasha’s husband and had been partly responsible for her death, and Subat had not seemed the forgiving type even before Anasha’s death. That dislike made all that Subat had done for him later on after Anasha’s death a mystery. Kristof had expected the man to kill him, not to save his life.

  Kristof was very uneasy about seeing Subat again after all these years, and he considered turning the ship around and jumping back to the spaceport at Uthantar where he’d begun this trip. Whatever reason Subat had for summoning him to this backwater world could wait, or Subat could find someone else for whatever it was that he needed. Yet for all of Kristof’s faults, he still considered himself to be an honorable man, and he owed Subat a debt for saving his life years ago. Not to mention the debt he felt he owed the man because of the death of Anasha, a debt that Subat had now chosen to call in as he’d said he would one day.

  “The planet shows no signs of civilization,” came a sterile metallic voice from behind.

  “No shit,” Kristof responded as his android copilot and friend, Max, took the seat next to him.

  The android was a heavily modified Du-series combat android, built to look humanoid in order to better interact with its human counterparts. The normal dark grey and white paint job common to the Du series was gone though. Kristof had long ago swapped out the grey and white paint for black and red to better suit their occupation and its hazards. The android had a black painted body with red V-shaped stripes from shoulders to waist, red stripes on the outside of his legs, and a red face and head. It made the android more menacing in appearance, as well as making it easier for Max to hide in the dark.

  Unfortunately, the new paint job did nothing for Max’s personality, or lack thereof. The combat android programming in Max’s matrix was crude, yet very deadly, and Kristof could do little to change it since his coding skills were limited. Max tended to frequently state the obvious and to speak out whenever and whatever he pleased, and had somewhere along the line picked up a tendency towards profanity and sarcasm. Perhaps Kristof was to blame for the latter, since much of the android’s software was adaptive, and Kristof also had a tendency to speak his mind in a profane and sarcastic manner.

  “Scan the coordinate
s Subat sent us,” Kristof commanded after a few moments. The android immediately complied and waited for the ship’s sensors to scan the target area. He hoped the scans would come back negative, but seeing as it had been Subat who had called for him, he doubted he would be that lucky.

  “Correction,” Max stated after a few moments. “The planet shows one sign of civilization. There is a well shielded compound at the coordinates provided. Scans suggest the compound is hidden from passive scans by an energy dispersing field, and is only visible when scanned directly. The compound consists of a landing pad capable of accommodating a corvette-class ship or lower, a main building three stories in height, and two single story outer buildings. There is also evidence of a shield generator and retracted anti-aircraft turrets.”

  “What are you up to out here, Subat?” Kristof whispered to himself as he tried to reconcile this world with what little he knew of Subat.

  “Insufficient data is available to provide an answer at this time,” Max replied, oblivious to the fact that the question had been rhetorical and not meant for him.

  “Shut it, Max, I wasn’t asking you,” Kristof grunted irritably.

  “Well, fuck you, too,” the android muttered and went back to scanning the planet.

  Kristof’s mind ran through everything he knew about Subat again, but none of it made this scenario make any more sense. Two days ago he had received a cryptic message from Subat, saying he had an urgent job for him and to come to these coordinates. Subat had provided no other details, other than to say that he was calling in Kristof’s debt. If not for the debt, Kristof would have refused at that moment. Instead, he had been forced to cancel a lucrative job smuggling power cores to the rebels on Mallis IV in order to come here.

  It had taken three days to reach this backwater world, and the time had made Kristof more and more irritable. He’d spent that time in the empty cargo hold of the Wraith, his ship and home. The empty hold had made him even more irritable, and he took out that irritation on an old, battle worn combat training android he’d named Slag. As Kristof gazed at the planet below them, he knew Slag was down in the hold reassembling his knee after a rather brutal session ended badly due to Kristof’s irritation.

  “Fire up the comm and send the codes Subat sent us,” Kristof ordered finally, deciding he was more curious about what Subat was doing out here than he was annoyed at being called to this meeting.

  “As you command, boss,” Max responded, just a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Sometimes Kristof really wanted to shoot Max, he thought to himself. Were the android not so useful, and his best friend, it was quite possible that he would have shot the android long before now.

  After a few moments, the comm unit beeped after receiving a reply.

  “Message gives a specific set of flight plans and suggests that deviating from that flight plan would end badly for us,” Max stated after reviewing the response.

  “Shielded and defended compound in the middle of nowhere, with itchy trigger fingers no less,” Kristof muttered. “I don’t like this at all.”

  “Shall I set course to return to Uthantar then?” Max asked hopefully.

  “No,” Kristof said after a moment. “Put the coordinates up on my screen and disengage the auto pilot. I want you on the guns, just in case.”

  “Aye,” Max replied, this time all business.

  The ship jumped as they entered the outer atmosphere of the planet. Kristof activated the Wraith’s shields as the atmosphere began to burn brightly around them from the heat of entry. Moments later they were racing along the cloud tops as Kristof followed the course sent by the ground control. The sensor panel beeped to indicate that the anti-aircraft turrets from the compound had come alive and had locked onto the Wraith. Kristof gritted his teeth and continued along the flight path, silently cursing Subat.

  The sensor panel beeped again alarmingly as two stealthy drones appeared on either side of the Wraith. Kristof swore and promised himself that he would find a way to make Subat regret calling him here. The comm buzzed as Max requested permission to shoot the drones down, which Kristof denied the request somewhat regretfully. Moments later the comm buzzed again, this time with a voice from the compound.

  “Unidentified ship, continue your flight path and reduce speed to .20 sublight,” the voice commanded with a clear, military precision. “The auto-lander will assume control at the outer marker. Acknowledge.”

  “Control, my ship does not have an auto-lander,” Kristof lied casually, unwilling to give up control of his ship to these strangers. “It’s manual or I turn around and go home.”

  “Acknowledged. Reduce speed to .10 sublight, the landing beacon will activate on final approach,” the controller responded after a brief pause.

  Kristof grunted. Auto-landers were for amateurs, and he only used them when totally necessary. Plus, he decided he would only cooperate with Subat and his people just so much until he learned what was going on here. The clouds disappeared as he slowed the ship and began descending towards their destination. The drones remained beside the Wraith as the compound came into view. The compound was surrounded by dense jungle and would have remained unseen without coming from this particular route or from directly above, Kristof saw. He suspected even then that the compound could be cloaked by its inhabitants against those they didn’t want able to find them.

  The landing pad was indeed large enough to accommodate a small starship, as Max had indicated. There was nobody to be seen as Kristof began the landing procedures, and he finished the landing without incident. In the distance he could see one of the anti-aircraft turrets still trained on his ship. Apparently he hadn’t earned their trust just yet. Again, he mused about why Subat had called him here, and just exactly what ‘here’ was. The world was well off all of the established trade routes and wouldn’t be found easily within the nebula unless you knew it was here. Pirates tended to favor such worlds, though Kristof had never heard of a pirate den as nice as this compound was.

  Max was waiting for him when Kristof climbed down the ladder into the cargo hold. The android had armed himself, as usual, though this was a most unusual job so far. Given the tense nature of their landing, Kristof made the call to leave the android on the ship to avoid further tension. He knew Subat, and he trusted the man even though Subat had hated him for many years. He doubted Subat would have called him all the way here just to kill him now. A show of trust on his part would go a long way towards preventing a mishap.

  “You’re staying here, Max,” Kristof told the android, and waited for the outburst he knew would come.

  “But I am your bodyguard,” the android protested loudly, “I can’t exactly guard you if I am stuck here.”

  “Not this time, buddy. Whatever is going on here, I don’t think I am going to need a bodyguard. At least not while we’re still on the ground. Let’s start off as if we’re all friends here, ok?” Kristof knew Max wouldn’t see things the same way Kristof did, and he was not wrong in his assessment.

  Max let out a string of curses as he walked off back into the ship’s main cargo hold. Kristof reflected that for an artificial being, the android sure seemed to have genuine feelings at times. He knew androids often imprinted on their owners, especially if they only had a single owner and if they did not have their systems wipes periodically. He wished that Max could have chosen to imprint on some of his nicer attributes too, at least. It had been years since Max had received a memory wipe, Kristof thought to himself, maybe it was finally due.

  The loading ramp descended and Kristof was immediately assaulted by the planet’s hot and humid atmosphere. He was instantly uncomfortable in his leather jacket and pants, but it was too late now to change. Adjusting his holster and making sure his blaster was loose as he thumbed on the power, Kristof slowly descended the ramp. It was well and good to speak about trust to Max, but that trust did have some limits.

  Across the landing pad a door in the compound’s largest building opened and Subat appeared. The bald man
seemed comfortable in the oppressive atmosphere, making Kristof even more irritable with him. The bald man wore the same style of nondescript grey and black combat fatigues that he had worn ten years ago, the last time Kristof had seen him. At his side was a holstered blaster, while to his other side was a sheathed laser bladed knife; again the same as before. Kristof found himself smiling in spite of himself at the sight of this man who had saved his life a decade ago, even as painful memories returned at seeing him.

  “Well met, Kristof” Subat called in way of greeting.

  “Well met, Subat,” Kristof replied as he finished walking down the ramp. The two men clasped hands in greeting, while the ship vented steam behind them as its engines cooled.

  “Why’d you bring me to this humid hell hole?” Kristof asked, only half teasingly.

  “All in due time, my friend.” Subat looked behind Kristof curiously. “Where’s that foul mouthed partner of yours?”

  “Sulking in the engine compartment, I suspect,” Kristof answered, surprised at Subat’s knowledge since, as far as he know, Subat had never met Max before. “I told him he couldn’t come with me this time. How is it that you know about him?”

  “Probably just as well he stays,” Subat said with nod. “I’ve kept tabs on you, Kristof. It’s my job to know things, and you and I have…history. That’s how I know of Max. These are very tense times, however, and my compatriots wouldn’t appreciate his unique presence.”

  The two men laughed, but then Subat grew serious again.

  “Come, I know you have many questions,” Subat said. “And I know you hate this heat. It’s cooler inside. We have much to discuss.”

  Kristof followed Subat towards the compound, his eyes taking in all he could without being obvious. The grounds around the compound were immaculately kept, and the buildings themselves had an aristocratic flare to them. Obviously, this was no smuggler’s refuge or pirate’s nest, which was only more confusing given the remote and isolated location. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to build a small palace in the middle of nowhere.