A transmission from the approaching patrol ship crackles through the console. “Zebulux, you are ordered to reduce speed and prepare to be boarded.”
I dig my fingers into the armrests of my seat. If I know Sarth, she won’t go down without a fight, but the Zebulux is ill-equipped to take on a Syndicate ship. This could be the end for us.
Sarth grips the controller tightly. “Game on!” she mutters. She flicks the transmitter switch and responds. “Zebulux reports an ailing thruster, request permission to make haste to the nearest port on Diretus. Will prepare to be boarded there.”
There’s a few minutes of silence and then another crackling sound. “Permission granted. We will follow you in.”
Sarth flicks off the communications system and narrows her eyes. “They don’t have an upgraded scanner on board. They would never let us continue on to Diretus if they knew what we were transporting.”
She fiddles with the auxiliary radio. “I’ll radio Crank for backup.”
“Won’t the Syndicate pick up the signal?” I ask.
“Crank has a secure dark market channel,” Velkan explains.
“Zebulux to Diretus, do you read me?” Sarth says.
A thick vibrato voice comes over the radio. “Go ahead.”
“Coming in hot. Syndicate patrol on tail to intercept at port.”
“Copy that.” The radio clicks off.
Sarth grips the controller. “Prepare for port flyby and rapid course correction.”
“On it,” Velkan replies.
“What’s the plan?” I ask.
Sarth turns to me and grins. “We’ll lead the patrol into the mouth of the dragon and then swing around to the other side of Diretus to dock.”
I furrow my brow. “That doesn’t explain anything.”
“Watch and learn, and quit yakking,” Sarth snaps back.
I sink back in my chair, keeping my eyes glued to the view screen. “Thrusters to full power,” Sarth says to Velkan. “I want us out of harm’s way when Crank comes rolling in.”
Minutes later, I spot the ominous shape of an approaching warship, a sleek row of missile launchers mounted on either side of the charcoal hull. I recognize it immediately as a Dreadnought XII, a ship built outside the jurisdiction of the Syndicate, and not subject to weaponry code which limits the size and number of weapons according to the class of ship. Alarm spikes through me. I hope Sarth is right—that Crank is coming to aid us and not destroy us.
Sarth swings the Zebulux around in a tight left turn, opening up a full view of the Syndicate patrol ship on our tail to the warship. The Dreadnought brings its laser guns to bear on the patrol and fires a volley of blasts that shakes the hull of the Zebulux. Another sizzling round follows. My eyes grow wide as I watch the impact on the screen. The patrol ship peels off to the left like crippled prey, desperately trying to evade a third round of fire. Seconds later, a massive explosion obliterates the ailing vessel. Chunks of its pulverized hull spiral out in all directions. I gasp at the billowing black smoke and field of debris that fills the screen where the patrol ship had been.
“Got the scum!” Sarth yells, shaking her fist.
Velkan wipes the back of his hand across his brow.
“Bring her in to dock!” Sarth says. “We’re celebrating tonight!” She thumps Velkan in the arm. “Even you get to party, far from prying Syndicate eyes.”
Not surprisingly, the dark market docking station where Crank conducts his business is a heavily guarded fortress. Buir, Meldus and I follow the oremongers’ lead and disembark under the scrutiny of a small army of guards dressed in black fatigues. They usher Sarth and Velkan through a scanner, presumably checking for weapons. The scanner beeps and flashes red when Ghil passes through. The guard monitoring the scanner signals to him to remove his knives, but instead, he whips them out in a threatening display of force.
“I wouldn’t mess with Crank’s brother if I were you,” Ghil growls.
The guard pales and looks around uncertainly at his colleagues.
“Ghil? Is that really you?” one of the other guards asks, stepping toward him.
Ghil sheathes both knives in one swift move and yanks off his beanie. “The one and only.”
“He’s new on the job,” the second guard says apologetically. “Welcome back. Been a while.”
Ghil gives him a curt nod and strides past him to join Sarth and Velkan.
The rest of us pass through the scanner without incident. The guard escorts us out of the docking station and over an iron drawbridge into the side of a craggy hill.
Roars and jeers mixed with the sound of raucous laughter drift down a dark, damp tunnel carved into the rock and lit with burning torches. A lizard slithers into a crack a few feet in front of me. I wrinkle my nose at the oppressive odor of stagnant water that fills my nostrils as we go deeper into the mountain.
At the end of the tunnel, the guard leads us inside a cavernous room with a dirt floor, filled with an ugly array of scarred and tattooed faces, glistening with sweat in the flickering light. Most are turned toward a metal cage in the center of the room where two bloodied men with unidentifiable animal paws over their hands are locked in what can only be described as a dance of death.
Buir gasps and turns her face away.
Silently, Meldus steps to my side, his eyes scanning the room for possible threats.
“Cage fight,” Sarth offers when I throw her a baffled look. She clicks her fingers at the guard and he quickly escorts us out of the fray and up a stairway that leads to a dark, paneled room outfitted with a rough-hewn wooden table and a miscellaneous assortment of seating. The room must be soundproofed, because as soon as the door closes behind us, the cacophony of sound from below cuts out.
“Now what?” I ask, looking around at the others.
“Now we wait on the commissioner,” Ghil says.
Buir’s perfectly arched silver brows raise a fraction of an inch, but she sets her face in a resolute expression. I’m proud of her for keeping it together in this frightening situation. This isn’t the kind of adventure I had in mind for either of us, but we need to unload those wretched vats before we head for Aristozonex.
We don’t wait for long. The heavy thump of multiple pairs of steel-toed boots alerts us to Crank’s arrival. Sarth gets to her feet and, after exchanging dubious glances, the rest of us do the same. A moment later, a tall, imposing figure in black enters the room flanked by two flint-faced guards.
I stare, fascinated and repulsed all at once, at the Syndicate’s most feared commissioner. The whites of his eyes glisten as he surveys us, his pupils dark and dead. Purple veins pulse in his temple just below the horns attached to his forehead. A disconcerting, jagged scar runs like a trickle of blood from his top lip down the side of his mouth, under his chin, and halfway down his neck. His lips split in a grin of sorts when he spots Ghil. I cringe at his teeth—metal and meticulously shaped into points. “Brother!” Crank says, throwing his arms wide. Ghil embraces him and slaps him on the back.
“Please!” Crank gestures to the chairs and we hurriedly seat ourselves around the table. He fastens a steely gaze on Sarth. “You have a shipment.”
She leans toward him in conspiratorial fashion. “Double the usual.”
Crank grunts in satisfaction. “Glad to hear it was worth deploying the warship.” He rubs calloused fingers over his stubble. His eyes pass briefly over Buir, then lock on me for a long moment before he turns and motions to one of his men. “Take them downstairs and feed them while I hash out terms with Sarth. Wait for us in the dining room.”
A shiver crosses my shoulders as I get to my feet. If I’m not mistaken, it’s not just cryogenic cargo he’s interested in. Maybe we should have stayed on the ship.
15
We follow the guard back downstairs and into the cavernous hall. The cage fight is over, and judging by the amount of blood on the dirt floor, it ended in death for one, if not both, of the opponents. The jostling crowd egging them on e
arlier has dispersed, but a few stragglers are gathered around a trestle table jeering and hollering at an arm wrestling match that is underway. Ghil, Meldus, and Velkan wander over. A man dressed in a sleeveless black shirt stands to one side, burly arms folded across his chest, gripping a leash in one fist. A hairy, wolf-like creature with feral eyes paws impatiently at the ground, growing more agitated as the hollering grows louder.
“I don’t like the look of that thing,” Buir whispers to me without taking her eyes off the wolf-like creature. “What if it gets off its leash?”
I throw a closer glance at its owner. He’s wearing studded, leather shields on both wrists, confirmation to me that the creature is far from tame. If the look in its eyes is anything to go by, it could devour anyone unlucky enough to be in its path if it breaks free. Time for us to move on.
“We’re hungry,” I say to the guard. “Can we eat now?”
“Dining hall’s this way,” he says. “Call your friends.”
I round the others up, and we follow the guard to the other side of the room and out into a dimly lit corridor, narrower and even darker than the main tunnel we came in by. We must be going deeper into the mountain.
We haven’t gone more than twenty feet when an eerie howl fills our ears.
“What on Cwelt is that?” Buir gasps, digging her fingernails into my arm.
The guard smirks. “Want to see Crank’s pets?”
Buir frowns. “That howl didn’t sound too friendly. Are they safe?”
“They’re caged up,” the guard replies.
“Just don’t stick your fingers in the cage,” Ghil interjects. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Let’s have a look,” I say, curiosity getting the better of me.
Buir throws me an anguished glance.
Meldus frowns disapprovingly, but falls in behind me, along with Velkan.
The guard turns down a side corridor and we walk for several hundred feet before coming to a steel doorway. He keys something into the control panel on the wall and the riveted doors rumble apart. We step through to a high-ceilinged, windowless room with cages running the length of the walls. A foul stench of something unidentifiable fills my nostrils. I wrinkle up my nose, feeling like I could gag at any minute.
“The monkeys are the worst offenders,” the guard says, when he sees the look on my face. He gestures at the nearest steel cage, at least twenty feet high and twice that across. Inside, five or six gray and white mottled monkeys with pointed ears fly across the cage at alarming speeds, screeching relentlessly.
Ghil sniffs. “Face eaters. They’ll gnaw the nose and lips right off you if you get too close to the cage. In the wild, they fly right at their victim’s faces, shred them in seconds.”
A shiver runs across my shoulders. “I didn’t really believe these creatures existed until now.” I glance at Buir. Her eyes are wide as moons and she clutches nervously at her throat.
We observe the monkeys from a safe distance for several minutes before moving on to another cage twice the length of the first one. A canopy of trees stretches all the way to the ceiling, and at first, I can’t spot anything other than vegetation inside the cage. “Is there anything in there?” I ask.
Velkan points to the far end of the cage. “Look up to the right.”
I peer upward and catch a glimpse of a large mud-colored bird with a scrawny neck adjusting its wings at the top of one of the trees.
“Predator gulls,” the guard offers when I pin him with a questioning look.
“They’re not as picky as the monkeys— they’ll eat almost any part of you, although they do seem to enjoy picking out the organs first.”
Buir makes a soft bleating sound into the sleeve of her shamskin.
“Crank doesn’t like his pets soft and cuddly.” Ghil says in an apologetic tone.
“These are some nasty specimens,” Meldus says. “Doesn’t he keep anything less menacing?”
The guard gives a twisted smile. “Tank full of sand snipers.”
“I’ve had my fill of those,” I say.
“Why does Crank have a private zoo anyway?” Velkan asks. “Keeping all these animals fed must be a nightmare.”
The smile vanishes from the guard’s face. He throws a furtive glance at Ghil as though seeking permission before saying too much.
“It’s not strictly a zoo,” Ghil says, after a long moment. “Crank keeps it stocked for other reasons.”
“What kind of reasons?” Meldus asks.
Ghil shrugs. “His enemies, anyone who crosses him in a deal.”
My jaw drops. “You mean he feeds people to these creatures?”
The guard shuffles his feet, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I shouldn’t have brought you in here. Time I got you down to the dining hall.”
We fall silent, mulling over what Ghil said as the guard leads us back down the tunnel to a low-ceilinged room with several rows of long wooden tables. We take a seat at the only occupied one and greet the group of men eating out of a shared pot. They eye us warily, chewing methodically all the while.
“How’s the food?” I ask, with a disarming smile.
Wordlessly, one of the men pushes the pot down the table toward me. He gestures with his fingers that I should eat something. Buir throws me an imploring look as if to warn me away from the germ fest most certainly happening inside the pot, but I grin back at her and stick my fingers in it. I pull out an unidentifiable hunk of meat and pop it into my mouth. All eyes are riveted on me as I chew. The meat has a strange taste and strong odor, but the texture’s not unpleasant. I swallow it and tilt my head to one side contemplatively. “Not bad.”
The men at the table exchange approving looks. One of them pulls his chair closer. “I’m Furax.” His eyes drift almost immediately to my hair. “Are you traders?”
I glance at Ghil and he gives a subtle nod.
“Uh, yes,” I say. “Oremongers.”
“I’m Crank’s brother,” Ghil explains. “I’m contracted on their ship.”
Furax nods his head thoughtfully.
“What do you trade in?” I ask.
He runs the tip of his finger down the side of his nose. “Parts, mostly.”
I raise my brows. “Really? Our ship could use a new thruster.”
Furax’s eyes darken a fraction.
An uneasy silence hangs between us. Something I said rubbed him the wrong way.
“Not those kinds of parts, Trattora,” Ghil says in a low tone. “They’re body poachers. Their cargo gets shipped along with the cryogenic heads to the cryosurgeons at an undisclosed location.”
I stare at Furax, aghast, scarcely able to fathom that I’m looking into the eyes of a man who hunts human beings, knowing the bodies he sells will be reattached to another person’s head.
I push the bowl back toward the body poacher. “Actually, I’m not that hungry.” I stand and turn to the guard. “Can you show us around some more until Sarth and Crank are done?”
He eyes the pot and scowls. “Kitchen’s closed after this. And Crank said you were to wait here for him.”
“Go ahead and eat.” Ghil nods to him. “I’ll take it from here.”
The guard wastes no time pulling out a chair, and Furax passes the pot down to him.
“You can stay here and eat too,” I say to Meldus, who’s eying the bowl with the air of a starving man.
He throws me a grateful look and pulls up a chair.
Velkan, Buir, and I follow Ghil out of the dining hall, our tone markedly subdued. The horrific reality of everything that takes place on Diretus is almost too much to comprehend. How can Furax even keep his food down when he thinks about what he does for a living?
“I’ll show you around the rest of the place,” Ghil says. “And where you can bunk down for the night.”
We make our way farther along the tunnel until it opens into another large room with a raised stage at the front. To the side of the stage is a row of posts, each with an iron ring
driven into it. Some posts have a piece of paper or torn swatch of material attached to them.
“What is this room used for?” Buir asks.
“This is where the live auctions take place,” Ghil explains.
“Live auctions?” I wrinkle my brow, dreading asking the inevitable question. “Are you talking animals or people?”
“Serfs mostly, or prisoners who are of interest to the body poachers. It’s getting tougher all the time to find bodies for their business, between the Maulers cutting off trade routes and the increased Syndicate patrols to clamp down on the cryogenic trade.”
My heart races. I cast a quick glance at Velkan who has wandered over to the posts to examine the items attached to them. However bad his life as a serf is, at least the body poachers didn’t get ahold of him.
“Looks like there’s going to be an auction tonight,” Ghil says. “Come on, I’ll show you how it works.”
He leads us to the front of the room and walks up to the first post. “These are tagged to identify the serf or prisoner up for bid.” He jabs a finger at the description nailed to the top of the post we’re standing in front of. “This one already has three bids, pretty popular.” He looks around and points to a wooden board to the right of the stage. “That board up there is for specimens who will bring in the high bids—exceptionally strong prisoners and the like.”
Buir shivers. “I can’t believe humans are auctioned off in here.”
Ghil raises a brow at her. “We’ll see it in action in a bit.”
“I don’t want to see it,” she retorts.
“Fair enough.” Ghil smooths a hand over his head. “I’ll show you the bunk room so you can find your way there later when you’re ready to turn in.”
The bunk room turns out to be nothing more than wooden cots, stacked two high in a long dormitory of sorts. Ghil gestures to the back of the room. “Empty bunks are down at that end for visiting traders. First come, first served.”
“Why can’t we just sleep on the Zebulux?” Buir looks around with distaste.
“I wouldn’t snub Crank’s hospitality if I were you. He places a lot of weight on his reputation as a host,” Velkan says, quietly. “There’s a reason they call him Crank.”
Girl of Fire: The Expulsion Project Book One (A Science Fiction Dystopian Thriller) Page 12