The Smuggler's Ascension

by Christopher Ingersoll

  Kristof angled the Wraith away from the black hole now so they could get clear enough to make the jump to hyperspace. On the sensor screen, the frigate was approaching rapidly while the fighters sped on ahead of it, too fast for his comfort. The sensors beeped to indicate that these fighters were equipped with missiles instead of just lasers, making them much more dangerous than first expected. He was about to order Max to send a few plasma torpedoes at the frigate when he felt the thumps through the hull that meant Max was a step ahead of him. Max also started sending a volley of laser fire at the pursuing fighters to keep them from focusing on getting a target lock on the Wraith.

  The frigate began firing at the torpedoes with its forwards lasers. The first torpedo exploded with a brilliant flash, but the frigate then had to maneuver wildly to avoid the second torpedo. The maneuver cost the frigate crucial speed and the Wraith gained considerable distance before the frigate returned to the pursuit. The fighters, now within the range to use their own lasers and missiles, began firing at the fleeing Wraith, but the Wraith’s shields easily absorbed the shots laser shots. Max succeeded in destroying the incoming missiles better than the pursuing frigate had.

  “Approaching minimum safe jump limit,” Max announced.

  Kristof reached over and flipped the safety off the hyperspace engine controls and prepared to engage the hyperdrive the second he disengaged the sublight engines, mentally promising himself to install a unified engine controller after this mission that would perform both tasks with one switch. When Max announced minimum safe limit achieved, Kristof switched off the sublight engines and flipped the switch for hyperspace simultaneously in a smooth, well-practiced motion. The Wraith shuddered momentarily from the pull of the black hole, and then jumped into the familiar rainbow tunnel of hyperspace.

  Sabine let out an explosive sigh of relief beside him as Kristof relaxed in his seat. He allowed himself a few moments to collect his thoughts before he turned to Sabine and the argument he expected would now erupt.

  “Slight change of plans,” Kristof told Sabine, watching her cautiously to gauge her response. She was already angry at the likely betrayal of Stephan, and Kristof did not want that anger to spread to him as well.

  “What do you mean, slight change of plans?” Sabine asked, her voice registering the suspicion and anger Kristof had expected.

  “Obviously, things aren’t quite what we expected on this side of the blockade,” Kristof told her reasonably. “We need up-to-date information on what is happening on this side of the blockade before we just blindly jump into orbit around Purannis.”

  “Then where are we going to go?” The edge was gone from Sabine’s voice now as she accepted his reasoning without argument.

  “Home,” Kristof answered cryptically.

  ~*~

  ~16~

  Growing up, Sabine had pictured herself in many places. Grand ballrooms, diplomatic conference rooms, fancy resorts, any number of places favored by the members of high society. Nowhere on that list, however, had she imagined finder herself in a dank, dingy warehouse that doubled as a hanger on the moon of Bonibus. Rain had been falling over a darkened city as they landed on the moon, with Kristof maneuvering the ship expertly through a narrow set of doors in the large, decrepit looking building.

  She now stood at the window of an office high up in the warehouse that overlooked the Wraith as it sat cooling down below. She could see Max down below attaching fuel lines to the ship and performing various maintenance tasks as she listened to the sound of water dripping somewhere nearby. The dimness of the warehouse and Max’s dark coloring made it hard to spot him at times, though. There was also a distinct scent of wet, rotting crates around the warehouse, a smell she found uniquely distasteful.

  Kristof had left the warehouse shortly after they had landed and disappeared into the dark and rainy city outside. As he had stated on the trip here, they needed information, but he’d risk no transmissions from the warehouse. He owned the warehouse under an assumed identity, so there was no direct link to it and him. After Stephan’s apparent betrayal he would take no risks with Sabine’s life, he had told her. If Sabine could find records on Kristof, both official and unofficial, then so could Stephan and he could then relay those records to his family. Just thinking of Stephan’s possible treachery made her livid.

  So Sabine paced and she waited, making lap after lap through the office. The room was sparsely populated and offered little in the way of distractions, she had quickly discovered. One in the line of work that Kristof was in was not fond of keeping records, so the office was filled instead with various personal items of Kristof’s, small crates of goods, a small cot in one corner, and a large desk. As she passed the desk for what seemed the hundredth time in less than an hour of her pacing, she noticed a picture frame lying face down on the desk, half buried by Kristof’s flight bag. She curiously fished out the frame from under the bag and a stack of blank shipping manifests and turned it over, and immediately felt a sharp gasp of shock escape her throat.

  The picture showed a younger Kristof and who she assumed was his deceased wife, Anasha. Anasha’s photo had not been in any of the records she’d seen concerning Kristof. What had shocked her about the picture, besides seeing a younger and happier Kristof, was that Anasha bore a striking resemblance to herself. The woman’s hair was blond, while hers was dark; and the woman’s eyes were blue instead of brown, but their features and statures were quite similar the Anasha looked to be taller. She wondered suddenly if that had been Kristof’s attraction to her all along, and just as suddenly regretted thinking it.

  The thought saddened and angered her at the same time, though Sabine couldn’t say why, since she knew their tryst was almost at an end and she couldn’t keep Kristof anyway. Still, what had happened between them was something very special to her, and she didn’t like to think that it had simply been a way for him to relive the past for a few moments. She replaced the picture back on the desk the way she had found it and returned to watching Max refuel the ship below, her thoughts melancholy.

  It was a several hours before Kristof returned, dripping wet and carrying a large steaming case. Sabine could tell he had brought food back with him by the magical smells that drove away the wet smells of the warehouse. He also carried a data pad with him, she saw, but she ignored the possible information it contained in favor of the food, suddenly finding herself ravenous.

  “I thought you might appreciate something other than ships rations,” Kristoff told her lightly.

  Kristof cleared the desk of his flight bag and the down turned photograph in one swoop and laid out the meal as Sabine took a chair from along the wall and sat opposite him. The thought of mentioning the photo came to her mind, but she pushed it away. She was still unsure what, if anything, to say about the whole thing or what it meant to her.

  As Sabine began eating the hot pasta meal he had brought for her, Kristof turned on the data pad and waited for it to boot up before he also took a bite of the food. His hair dripped onto the data pad, and Sabine watching him ring his hair out with his hands in a distracted manner, leaving it a mess. She smiled to herself at how absurd he looked at the moment, but then her thoughts returned to their melancholy track.

  “It seems things on Purannis are in even more of an uproar since your mother’s death was finally announced,” Kristof began. “The news outlets, once they broke the story, report that a power struggle ensued to determine who would take control of the government in your absence, since it appears that Prime Minister Rossada was off world at the time of the assassination.”

  “Do I even dare ask who took control, then?” Sabine asked, though in the pit of her stomach she had already guessed. The Duranis ships waiting at the Devil’s Eyes for them left only one possibility, but she wanted to hear Kristof say it.

  “Grand Duke Michal Duranis assumed control in the Prime Minister’s absence,” Kristof told her, confirming her suspicion, “though I can tell from your face you already guessed
that. His control did not last long, since the Prime Minister returned two days ago. The Prime Minister exerted the authority of his office to wrest control from the Grand Duke by citing the Emergency War Powers Act, whatever that entails. But apparently many in the military, primarily of House Duranis of course, were dissatisfied with the Prime Minister’s invoking the Act and have been refusing to follow his orders. A full third of the military has openly declared that they will only follow the Grand Duke until such time as the Queen, which is you my dear, returns.”

  “Only the Grand Duke does not mean for me to return,” Sabine spat angrily.

  “So it would seem. Purannis currently has elements of the fleet from both sides of the political fight in orbit in a tense standoff, though I am sure the true objective of the Duranis ships is to be able to intercept you should you make it that far,” Kristof continued. “I’m sure they know by now that you made it past the blockade and what make of ship you are coming aboard. Since nobody on Purannis probably knows about Subat’s plan, they won’t question it if the Grand Duke’s ships happen to detain an obvious smuggling vessel.”

  Sabine rose and began pacing once more, the food and her appetite forgotten. Her thoughts swirled as she considered the political climate at home and the brewing potential for a civil war. Puranni history was replete with examples of bloody dynastic wars, and a repeat had to be avoided now at all cost.

  “I will not have my people going to war with each other,” Sabine said quietly. “If a civil war erupts, the Clovani Empire will most likely come in on the side of House Duranis and devour us all.”

  “I agree,” Kristof replied. “I imagine that may be unavoidable at this point, since it seems to have been the plan all along if they failed in seizing the throne legally. The initial invasion by the Clovani seems to have been a play for the Grand Duke to justify moving his warships to Purannis prior to the assassination, to defend the capital so he claims. Now that his ships are there, he’s in perfect position to keep you away. If we show up now, a shooting war could easily erupt above your home world.”

  “There is also the matter of the Forcun assassins,” Kristof went on. “Everyone has agreed that they would have needed inside assistance to get close enough to the Queen to kill her, especially since not many of your people trust the snake men of Forca Prime. One zealous photographer from the media apparently managed to capture a picture of the Forcun ambassador in the company of one Salas Arctura days before the assassination, and has since released it to the public. That same media source has found that Salas Arctura has also been found to be in the employ of the Duranis commercial interests on Purannis. These findings, along with using the War Powers Act, aided the Prime Minister in retaking control from the Grand Duke as accusations of the Salas Arctura’s and the Grand Duke’s involvement in the assassination plot began to swirl in the press.”

  Sabine stopped in her tracks as fingers of ice crept up her spine at the sound of the name of Salas Arctura. Uncle Salas was her mother’s uncle, in truth, and had always made her feel uncomfortable, even as a young child. The man’s eyes had always been upon her whenever he was around. She’d never been able to explain the vague feelings of unease she’d felt to her mother, so she had remained silent. It had been a great relief when she was sent off to the Sanctuary, knowing she would not see Uncle Salas for a long time. She had half hoped he would have died by the time she returned, since he was now in his late seventies.

  Sabine turned back to Kristof and found him watching her, the questions barely restrained behind his lips. She sighed and returned to the desk and the meal he had brought her, searching for a way to give voice to what she was feeling. Just the thought of the man made her feel like she was being molested with his eyes, as she finally found a way to describe how he made her feel.

  “Uncle Salas has a reputation for shady business dealings and taking advantage of chaotic situations,” Sabine began, not wishing to talk about the rest of her feelings about him. “He’s also been known to create some of that chaos, but never enough to where my mother would outright banish him. I also suspect, now, that he may have had some other unsavory habits as well. I do not find it difficult at all to believe that he is involved, though he may come to regret his choices once I am in power.”

  Kristof left the rest of his questions unasked, for which Sabine was grateful. The man was too smart by half, and she assumed he had already guessed much of what she had left unsaid. Salas had a reputation on Purannis for sexual misconduct with prostitutes, among other things, and that information was sure to have been in Kristof’s notes. Her skin already crawled knowing Uncle Salas was involved and was the one who had most likely betrayed her mother, she did not want to talk about him further.

  “So what is the plan now?” Sabine asked after a long silence. “It seems it is even more urgent that I get home than we knew. I need to be there like yesterday to head off a civil war.”

  “Well, I am fresh out of time machines,” Kristof joked lamely, then coughed into the silence that followed. “Who can you trust in the Protectorate Navy without reservation?”

  “My grandfather is Admiral Geoff Arctura,” Sabine answered immediately. “He commands the orbital space station that rings the planet, as well as all other orbital defenses. There’s probably no one on Purannis right now that I trust more than him. Why?”

  Kristof took the data pad and punched in a series of commands that brought up a picture of Purannis’s orbital spaceport. The main station above Purannis was made up of a single massive mechanical ring that surrounded the entire planet above the equator, with spherical pods at regular intervals that housed spaceports, living quarters, and various other facilities. The ring itself was the defensive portion of the station and bristled with laser cannons, missile and torpedo launchers, and rapid launch tubes for the station’s fighter and bomber squadrons.

  Sabine watched Kristof as he punched in another series of commands, obviously trying to figure something out, though she couldn’t tell what. Finally he tossed the pad down and went to the window and yelled for Max to join them. The android appeared moments later and he had a short whispered conversation with Kristof before heading back down to the warehouse floor.

  “Care to fill me in?” Sabine asked archly, not caring to be left in the dark.

  “The plan is simple enough,” Kristof replied after a moment. “The House of Duranis clearly doesn’t want you to return home. Stephan tried to put that locator beacon on the Wraith. Having failed that, he must have somehow guessed the route I planned to take home and gotten a message back to the family. The only reason military ships would have been sitting there is if someone told them we were coming.” Kristof pulled up a map of the quadrant before continuing.

  “Those ships from the Eyes will have contacted their counterparts back around Purannis by now and told them we got through,” Kristof continued. “They will be expecting us to approach Purannis from this sector here,” he went on, indicating a particular hyperspace route on the map.

  “But we’re on Bonibus, which is nowhere near that sector,” Sabine pointed out.

  “Exactly. I plan to circle around and approach Purannis from almost the complete opposite vector,” Kristof continued, showing his intended route on the data pad. “I also plan to time it so that when we jump out of hyperspace, the spaceport’s primary landing bay will be directly ahead of us. Max is working out the flight times and planetary rotation there to give us a set of possible jump times. The trick is we have to somehow let your grandfather know we are coming so we don’t get shot down by the station or ships loyal to you.”

  “Can’t we just radio the station once we drop out of hyperspace?” Sabine asked.

  “Well, that’s where things get dicey. I also plan to exit hyperspace no more than twenty thousand feet from the station,” Kristof informed her.

  “You’re insane!” Sabine yelled angrily. “At that range and speed you’ll be right on top of the defense perimeter in seconds and upon the st
ation seconds after that! We’ll be lucky not to revert into real space inside of another ship, or else we risk coming in so fast that we smash through the station!”

  “Max is calculating for those possibilities as best he can, too, based off of available telemetry. The Wraith isn’t built to withstand a sustained conflict, and once we drop out of hyperspace all hell will break loose, so we’ll have to move fast,” Kristof answered, obviously thrown by her anger.

  Her anger surprised her too. Sabine knew Kristof was taking every eventuality into consideration, or Max would at least, so it wasn’t like he was being deliberately reckless with her life. She suddenly found herself thinking of the photo again, irrationally as it seemed, and the room suddenly felt too small. Thoughts of politics and romance were too overwhelming all of a sudden, and she needed a break.

  “I need some air,” Sabine said suddenly, rising to her feet and looking around quickly.

  “Sure,” Kristof said, obviously baffled by her sudden outburst. “There’s a stairway to the roof down the hall.” He rose as if to show her, but she stopped him short.

  “I need some space as well,” Sabine said and left him staring awkwardly at her back as she left the room. The door slammed behind her as she stormed down the hallway and found the stairway up to the roof, tears beginning to sting her eyes. She climbed out into the lightly falling rain and prayed for it to wash away the confusion and anger within her. Things in life were never so easy, though, and she didn’t expect it to be now, either.

  ~*~