Balance of Terror

by K S Augustin

  The exoskeleton, graphite grey and gleaming, may have struck a note of ostentation, but only Quinten knew how necessary it was to his wellbeing. Out of the soft armoured suit, he was a limping and crippled man but, once inside, the finely tuned groups of micro-servos ensured that he could lift incredible weights, crush steel in his fist and run faster than a human. It was almost like being a cyborg, without the attendant risks.

  Reaching down, he touched a small indented point on his right thigh, and the suit’s memory got to work, tightening against his skin and forming a profile of the man he used to be…before the disaster at Gilgan. The suit recreated the bulges of a chest that his body no longer remembered, the ripples of a taut torso, and the strong muscles of proud arms and two evenly-matched legs. He hadn’t chosen the full body cover, so the armour reached only up to the top of his neck, fully encasing him in a suit of darkness and forcing his head erect. It looked constricting and uncomfortable. It wasn’t.

  Fortified, he walked to the cargo bay, unable to stop his mind from contrasting the hobble from the exercise room to his current distance-eating stride.

  Why am I doing this? Why not just give in and get a cyborg body, 80% failure rate be damned? Kiel wouldn’t care. Kiel’s past caring.

  But he knew he couldn’t, coward that he was.

  He reached the bay just in time. With a practiced flick, he activated the filtering sensors and lumbered up a concealed ladder to the modified gantry situated near the ceiling. The catwalk’s reinforced railing glinted, its edge bristling with rows of lethal firepower. The weaponry would mask a clear view of him, accentuated by a distinct lack of lighting near his position. His suit was programmed to capture his voice and amplify it through different points of the bay, also confusing his exact location. Of course, he could have transacted the entire visit remotely, from the comfort of his own cabin, but Quinten liked the personal touch. He felt it added a note of courtesy, even when dealing with pirates.

  “Coming out of hyperspace in ten minutes,” his ship told him in masculine tones. He’d had the original, more soothing female voice replaced, almost the minute after he’d gain possession.

  “Destination confirmed?” There had been unsettling rumours recently, of ships ending up at different places to their originally logged destinations. Whether commercial, private, or Republic craft seemed to make no difference. There had even been cases – ones he’d been able to confirm – of ships disappearing completely, lost in that chaotic trans-universal plane commonly known as hyperspace. Although he wasn’t sure there was anything he could do about it, it still paid to stay alert.

  “Port Tertiary trajectory confirmed. Crease operating normally.”

  With half his primary sensors out of action, Quinten knew he needed a way to ensure that the Neon Reds hadn’t brought along any unwelcome companions to the rendezvous point. He rubbed his check, careful to do it softly so he didn’t accidentally break his cheekbone.

  “Initiate scanning upon insertion,” he finally told the ship. “Set up a tumble algorithm, using front and back primary sensors, full coverage attainment, artificial gravity axes calibrated to this position.”

  “Gravitational continuity cannot be guaranteed. Periodic disorientation probable.”

  “Acceptable. Scan for all ship signatures while approaching the rendezvous point. Plot and execute an escape route in case of confirmed Republic signatures.”

  “Destination?”

  It didn’t bother Quinten to have the ship execute a plan autonomously. His reflexes couldn’t match the Perdition’s, and he knew it.

  “Make it Tor Prime.”

  That was the very heart of the Republic. With any luck, any ambushers lying in wait would be expecting him to jump away from the heart of evil rather than towards it.

  “Orders confirmed.”

  He eased himself into the chair at the far end of the gantry. It ran on a rail so he could choose where, along the length of the metal platform, he wished to greet his guests. This time, he decided to stay in the corner. He strapped himself into the harness and tried to relax, while waiting for the insertion and tumble to begin.

  No matter how much stability the Perdition attempted to maintain, Quinten knew the short jaunt to the rendezvous point would be uncomfortable and disorienting. But it was either that or be shot into scrap through his carelessness.

  The ship jolted, then the spinning began, and Quinten felt bile rise in his throat. Grimly, he kept his mouth shut and swallowed hard. Eyes opened or closed, it didn’t matter. The cargo bay would settle into familiar lines for a second, then blur into nonsensical diagonals, and the vertigo played havoc with his sense of balance. It seemed to continue for an eternity, a brief reprieve followed by a dance of lines. If there was good news in the vertigo, it was that no ambushers appeared to be close to his position.

  “One ship within scanning range.” The Perdition’s voice was smooth and unconcerned, while Quinten’s own fingers clenched the alloyed armrests of his chair, the suit’s strength almost forming furrows beneath his hand. “Vessel identified as God’s Harness, belonging to the Neon Red cartel.”

  So they still had that hulk, he thought, while the world spun around him.

  It’s probably in better shape than mine.

  Then the physical spinning ceased, although the after-effects went on for far too long. Quinten knew he either had to fix the sensor problem soon or resign himself to a constant state of budding nausea.

  While he willed his stomach to some semblance of normalcy, the Perdition detected and reported on a small pod that had detached itself from the God’s Harness, traversing the distance between them carefully. This was the human equivalent of a six-person shuttle simulating a slow walk with bare hands reaching into the air, and Quinten grunted with satisfaction. The craft was obviously piloted by someone who knew the routine. Good. He hated breaking in new guests.

  As the pod docked at the assigned cargo pane, the clang of the connection echoed through the bay. After another half a minute, the unlocked hatch turned and gingerly opened inwards.

  Quinten’s finger was on a hair-trigger, waiting to blast into their component atoms whatever stranger appeared. His touch relaxed fractionally when he recognised the commander of the Harness, Setino Shaw. The man looked as he always did, as if he’d woken up to find himself robbed and dumped naked in some spacer alley. The sour look on his face didn’t change as his pale gaze scanned the bare bones of the cargo bay.

  There was a flash of white – Quinten’s finger spasmed – that resolved itself into a woman, stumbling then catching herself as her bare feet touched the cold floor. She was tall, with short white hair and pale skin that looked like it had never been exposed to a planetside sun. Despite her humanoid appearance, however, there was something strange about her, something out of place. Quinten kept quiet and observed her for a moment longer, taking in the jerky hesitation of her movements. Humanoid but not human. Her dark, fathomless eyes looked around, much as Shaw had done, then her gaze narrowed in on Quinten’s figure, unerringly finding him amid the high tangle of metal and weaponry.

  Only one other person emerged through the hatch after the albino – the cartel’s dealmaster, Ifola Breit. He must have pushed the woman through, causing her to trip. A real charmer. But what was Breit doing on the God’s Harness? It wasn’t like him to slum it with Shaw’s crew. Somehow, life had just got more interesting.

  “Tamlan, you here?” Shaw asked belligerently, but Quinten detected the note of anxiety beneath the bluff.

  “I’m here,” he answered quietly, and had the satisfaction of seeing both men spin around crazily. He thought they would be used to his amplification system by now. Something else must be making them jittery. “How can I help you gentlemen?”

  “We’re here to sell something.”

  Breit jangled a nerve-chain, a combination restraint and control method for delivering excruciating pain to a captive’s skin through their nerve-endings. Quinten’s eyes followed i
t, from the small control pad in Breit’s florid hand, down to where the chain’s slack curved gracefully, and up to the wide collar that fitted snugly around the woman’s neck, a grotesque form of jewellery.

  “What is it?” Quinten asked, although he was reasonably sure of the answer.

  “Not sure. Type B humanoid, we think.”

  Yes, that would explain the subtle differences in how she moved. Not fully human, not fully alien, but a hybrid. A Sub-Human.

  “So?” he drawled. “Why sell one to me?”

  “You’re probably the only person we know who can control it.” Shaw snickered. “It tried to commandeer the Redoubt when we first found it, then did the same again when we transferred it to the Harness. Took four of us to restrain it until Ifola grabbed the nerve-chain and latched it round its neck. It hasn’t been out of the collar since, and that was a week ago.”

  “Language?”

  The pirate spokesman shrugged. “Don’t know. She may be deaf. Stupid. Playing stupid. She’s cunning though, like a Republic strike fighter. You know what these Subs are like.”

  Quinten started assembling the little facts together in his mind.

  Perceptive. Female. Strong. Hated.

  “Where did you catch her?” He wasn’t going to play along with Shaw’s petty xenophobic digs.

  Shaw shifted his feet, his posture relaxing with each sentence he spoke. He even lifted his hands onto his hips and slouched a bit. It was obvious he thought he had this deal sewn up. In the darkness, Quinten’s eyes gleamed.

  “She was in a small passenger craft near the inner edge of the Chimpect sector. Must’ve killed the crew – some gentry family joy-riding around the galaxy – before taking control. We didn’t find any bodies, but there was enough blood still around to supply a hospital.”

  Breit chuckled and jiggled the chain again, as if proud of some favoured pet’s antics.

  Ruthless. Determined.

  The Chimpect sector was solidly in Neon Red territory. No surprise that they had caught her. No surprise, too, that they couldn’t keep something like her. And something else Shaw said was also true. Quinten was probably the only one, even among the cartel’s semi-regular customers, who wouldn’t turf them out on their ear the moment they caught sight of the cargo.

  “Why would I want a Sub?” Quinten asked, idly. “Don’t you think I have enough to worry about without adding one of them to my problems?”

  In the back of his mind, however, there was something strangely compelling about the deal he was being offered. If there was any person, or group, more reviled than him in Republic space, with the exception of shapeshifters, it was the damned and unlikely offspring of human and alien.

  Shaw put a wheedling tone in his voice. The discussion obviously wasn’t going the way he’d imagined.

  “Yeah sure, she’s a Sub but, after we captured her, me and Breit got together. We thought of you and how useful she could be to you.”

  “Useful?” Quinten queried. “How?”

  Type B humanoids. They had all the features of humans but were not bound by human culture. Their diverse physiologies meant that some of them were better than humans, stronger, faster. The Republic didn’t recognise them as citizens and most full-blooded aliens mistrusted them. They were, in a word, trouble. Whenever a Sub community or even a lone individual was found, the Republic saved itself some angst and either killed them or shipped them to Bliss. There was no love lost between any of the three groups – humans, aliens and Subs. Only shapeshifters were treated with equal ruthlessness.

  “Oh you know,” Shaw replied, “you could set her to do some work.”

  It occurred to Quinten that the solution to his nagging problems was staring him straight in the face. Literally. The female hadn’t shifted her gaze from the moment she pinpointed him high up in one corner of the bay.

  How does she know where I am?

  “After all, Tamlan,” Breit added, “this ship is pretty big for just one person to handle.”

  So, it was obvious to them as well. That wasn’t welcome news.

  “As long as you keep her on the nerve-chain,” Shaw said, “she’ll be as passive as a lump of putty, and not likely to betray you. And if you get lonely,” he shrugged, “well, with that chain around her neck, she’s not going to be too—”

  Quinten unlocked his harness in one movement, and vaulted over the gantry’s railing, landing hard on the floor. The thick metal vibrated as his boots hit the deck. He had towered over Shaw by a head when he was whole, and he looked down on the pirate now from that height.

  “Too what, Shaw?” he growled.

  Shaw’s eyes tightened and he looked away, but whether it was from the expression in Quinten’s eyes, or the remnants of jagged scars that radiated from his right cheek across his entire face, didn’t matter. Breit remained as still as a rodent, not drawing attention to himself. Only the Sub dared look him in the face and he was surprised to see that she was taller than he thought, the tip of her head just brushing his bottom lip. Her expression was impassive, detached, as if the men were discussing something other than her life.

  “Noisy. I was going to say, she’s not going to be too noisy,” Shaw muttered.

  It was a lie and they both knew it.

  Quinten made a show of walking around her. Probably to safeguard their own security, they had dressed her in little more than what was strictly necessary. The tight, short-sleeved suit hugged slight curves, the leggings ending just below her knees. Her toes, like her fingers, were long and lean, tipped with short, colourless cuticles. Everything about her was bland and pale, except for those huge angled, dark eyes that regarded him as if he were nothing more than an interesting biological specimen.

  “We’ll throw the nerve-chain in,” Shaw added. “No charge. We reckon you’ll need it.”

  “And what are you asking for in return?” Quinten took a step back and cocked his head, watching her intently.

  “Captain Mestoo wants some shield technology,” Breit said, easily stepping into his role as the cartel’s head negotiator.

  “You can buy your own shield technology,” Quinten countered easily.

  “Not like what you got.”

  “Try one of the Drifts.”

  “They only have commercial-grade gear.”

  “You have to pay more for the black-ray stuff, Breit,” Quinten told him dryly. “Even you know that. Tell Mestoo to pry open those purse-strings.”

  “You custom-built your screens.”

  “No I didn’t. I bought commercial screens and fine-tuned them.”

  Sweat began beading on Breit’s upper lip. Shaw, silent and watching both of them avidly, shifted from foot to foot. The Sub remained as if frozen.

  “Finetuned, customised,” Breit flicked a wrist, “they still outperform the stuff we can get our hands on. We don’t have anything that can evade the military’s sensors.”

  “I can’t evade all their sensors.”

  “But you can evade more than most,” Breit insisted, his voice rising.

  Quinten considered the deal. Even if he traded an older version of his hand-crafted technology for the Sub, there was a slight chance that somebody could reverse-engineer what he’d done and find a vulnerability they could use against him. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  He shook his head. “Forget it.” And turned to walk away.

  “Wait!”

  Shaw’s frantic voice stopped him in his tracks. He slowly spun around and lifted a dark eyebrow.

  “We don’t know what to do with her,” Shaw admitted with a hunched shrug. “We don’t want the entire fucking government after us just because we have her with us. It’s dangerous enough as it is for the cartel. Once word gets out that we have a Sub, one that murdered some fucking gentry family with more money than sense, everybody’ll be wanting a piece of us.”

  “But you obviously don’t mind if they have a piece of me?”

  “Anyone with intelligence already knows to stay away from you.”


  Quinten saw the signs of strain on both pirates’ faces. If he’d been them, he would have shoved the Sub back into the passenger craft the moment he’d discovered her, and given her three minutes to either take off or be blown into oblivion. Human-alien hybrids were more trouble than they were worth.

  “And it’s much harder to just go after the Perdition than the five ships that make up the Neon Reds. None of our ships are as fast as yours.” Shaw was almost begging by now. “Give us something, Tamlan, and we’ll be happy with that.”

  “You shouldn’t have caught her.”

  “We didn’t know there was a fucking Sub in that ship! We thought it was easy pickings. Looting, ransom, then a quick escape.”

  Silence filled the chill of the cargo bay.

  “I have two military-grade shield units in storage,” Quentin finally told them. “Republic-sourced, version five kernels. They’re still working, but I upgraded my systems three years ago, and they’re now obsolete.

  “If you’re prepared to pay for some additional custom work on top of that,” he added, holding up a hand to forestall their objections, “you’ll get something that’ll give you a good chance of escaping a Space Fleet sweep. That’s my offer. The two units for the Sub.”

  Shaw and Breit looked at each other.

  “The Harness is one of the fastest ships your cartel has,” Quinten pointed out, “and it can’t outrun a Republic striker. Help yourselves. Take the screens. Increase your chances of survival.”

  “There are five ships in the Neon Reds,” Breit said.

  “I only have two shield units.” He waited for three heartbeats. “If that isn’t enough for you, then take the Sub back to your ship.” The alien shifted at the words, and Quinten wondered how much of the conversation she understood. “Try selling her to someone else.”

  “We did,” Shaw remarked, before Breit could stop him. “Nobody wanted her.”

  A cruel smile lifted the edges of Quinten’s mouth, made even crueller by the pull of scar tissue on the right side of his face.

  “Two shield units, Breit,” he repeated. “That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”