by E. A. James
Over the next 150 years, humanity prospered and the Terran Federation was formed, casting out the "Old Earth" organization known historically as the United Nations. Through further investigation and exploration, they came into contact with the other races living and prospering in the Galaxy.
Alliances were formed with the Telani, the diplomatic humanoid race from Maelor. In addition, trade agreements were signed with the Arkadians, a humanoid race from Arkadia identifiable by their green skin, hairless bodies, and immense size.
To Kira's knowledge, the only race Earth had any real hostility with, besides the Zel'Dar, was the Vorion. The Vorion formed a militant, aggressive empire that was known to instigate conflicts with anyone and everyone else sharing the galaxy with them. The reptilian humanoids have long been targeting Terran and Telani economic interests, intent on gaining control of resource-rich star systems for themselves.
A shiver ran down her spine as she continued to consider the possibilities for who the prisoner could be. Whoever he was, one thing was certain, it was someone dangerous.
Her thoughts continued to hover around the question of her “cargo’s” identity as she made her way to the dock. She would be taking her private ship to the rendezvous spot. It was a small vessel, but it got the job done. She spent her life flying the top-of-the-line spacecraft at work. She didn’t need anything fancy on her down time.
She strapped herself into the pilot’s seat, waiting for clearance to take off. The cockpit was slightly cramped, and Kira often wondered how the manufacturer had the audacity to call this model a two-seater.
As she waited for the go-ahead, she began to input the coordinates for her destination into the console. Just as she finished, a chirp rang out from her ship’s message board. Someone had left her a personal message – the alert stating “D. Marner”.
“Marner?” Kira thought out loud.
She reached down to the control panel to initialize the message.
“Captain Winter,” an unfamiliar voice said through the audio system, “this is Dr. Dario Marner. I was hoping that I would be able to reach you before…” his voice trailed off for a second as though he was concealing his conversation. “It is important that we speak, things are not as they seem and you may be in danger…” again his voice trailed off.
“Dario Marner?” Kira muttered to herself as she reached for her bag in the seat sitting next to her. She pulled out a small tablet and opened up the military’s civilian database. “Marner,” she said again as she typed in his name.
Her query was met with a result of “No Record.” “Interesting,” Kira thought, “if he wasn’t in the database it must be an alias.” Kira racked her brain again, but to no avail, she had no idea who Dr. Marner was.
“Captain Winter,” a voice came over the comm installed in her console, “this is control center. You’re clear for departure, safe travels.”
“Understood control,” she said, quickly returning her tablet to her bag and focusing her attention back on the task at hand.
Whoever Dario Marner was, he was going to have to wait. She had other things on her mind, and despite the desperate tone in Dr. Marner’s voice, he did not out-rank the potentially dangerous situation she was about to thrust herself into. She needed to focus.
The journey to the rendezvous point was just over four hours. Kira felt uneasy about the entire situation and wanted more time to process everything; the call from Marner only served to heighten her sense of anxiety.
She found herself unable to think of much other than the prisoner, wondering who it would be and what they had done. She also found herself questioning Grimm’s motives for recruiting her for this mission. She had never known her former Commander to do things off the books. “Maybe I should be humbled that he chose me for this highly illegal mission,” Kira pondered sarcastically.
She wasn’t, though, no matter how hard she tried. “Damn Kira…what have we gotten involved with here,” she thought.
Nearing the rendezvous point her sensors lit up, identifying the ship. “Well, at least there really is a ship,” Kira mused. As she approached the vessel its outline appeared on her view screen – she hoped that she might find better answers once on board.
As the ship came into view, Kira recognized it as an unmarked Terran Freighter, probably thirty years old given the design. It was bigger than Kira expected and probably had regular crew component of twenty or so.
“Good,” Kira muttered to herself as she piloted her small vessel to dock with the air-locked hatch, “that’s more space I can put between me and the meat-heads on this tin can.”
Once inside, she waited for the hatch door behind her to close, and the air to be oxygenated – a green light signified all clear to proceed. Collecting up her personal items, she emerged from her vessel. To her surprise, no one was there to greet her. She paused for a moment and let her hand fall to her hip to graze her Phantom, reassuring herself it was still with her. The only door was to her right; Kira took a deep breath and started through it.
As the door opened, she immediately recognized the two men glaring in her direction. They were Grimm’s personal guard that accompanied him to the meeting with Kira.
They stared blankly in her direction, emotionless eyes fixated on her. Kira had never felt more like prey than at that very moment.
They were nearly identical in size and appearance, with their hair cropped short and their interchangeable dark, brown eyes. They were both massive in size, with arms the size of her thighs. The only unique identifier Kira could see were their tattoos. One had a large snake tattoo curling up his left arm. The other had a lizard sprawled across the right side of his neck all the way onto the side of his head.
“Well isn’t this a lovely surprise,” she said as she pushed past them. “It’s always great to see familiar faces.”
They continued to stare at her with those empty eyes.
“I have to say, I really appreciate the warm welcome,” she continued. Still, they remained silent and the pause was excruciating. “Well, since we’re clearly becoming fast friends, why don’t you tell me your names,” she added.
“No names,” the one with the snake tattoo replied.
“Alright, what if I find myself in need of room service? What do I do? Call out for Thing 1 and Thing 2?”
They were clearly not amused by her comment.
“If you need us, we will be there,” the man with the snake tattoo said. As he spoke, the other shoved his way past Kira and into the airlock.
“Where is he going?” Kira asked, moving over to the airlock window to look back at her private ship.
As she expected, the man with the snake tattoo didn’t answer her. He simply stood behind her with arms crossed and looked on over her shoulder. His partner pulled a small case from the storage shelf in the airlock and assembled a suit of jet black combat armor.
“Oh look, a costume party, see I knew you guys had something special planned for me,” Kira quipped. The other guard didn’t even acknowledge her. Kira turned back feeling more awkward, and again she found her hand gliding down to graze her Phantom to calm her nerves.
In seconds, the guard in the airlock had himself ensconced in the armor and was locking the slim helmet down onto the neck collar of the suit. He then reached down and entered some information into the wrist-mounted control panel. The headlamp on the suit beamed to life and a small audible hiss was emitted around the collar. Kira recognized the hiss as the suit pressurizing.
“Whoa, he’s going out?” Kira said. The other guard continued to ignore her.
The guard in the airlock reached back into the case and pulled out three small metallic disks that he attached to the hull of her ship magnetically. He then hit the emergency release on the door which caused the airlock to depressurize rapidly – pulling her vessel, the guard and the remnants of his case out into space with some force.
The man with the lizard tattoo emerged quickly from behind her ship.
He
entered more information into the control panel on his wrist and the three metallic disks affixed to her ship began to glow bright red.
“Wait,” she said, as she watched the man guide her vessel away from the ship. “What’s he doing to my…”
She wasn't able to finish her sentence. A loud explosion rang out almost simultaneously and she instinctively took cover behind the bulkhead adjacent to the airlock window. Returning quickly to the window after the shockwave passed, she stared, her eyes widening.
In the space where her ship once was, there was only sparkling debris.
“What the hell?” she exclaimed, turning around to face the man with the snake tattoo. “Seriously, what the hell?”
“Grimm’s orders. He doesn’t want evidence of our rendezvous.”
“You could have left it in the dock!” Kira objected.
“Too risky,” the man with the snake tattoo replied as he moved to continue down the ships main corridor.
The second guard came back through the airlock after removing his combat armor, and without a word, he joined his partner. Together they began walking down the dimly lit corridor in silence. Kira looked out the window one more time. “Really,” she exclaimed again, “what the hell?”
She slowly started after the two guards, still in disbelief and with an ever increasing sense of dread washing over her.
CHAPTER FIVE
When Kira caught up to the guards they had stopped in what appeared to be the ship's lounge, which was nothing more than a seating area with some old and dilapidated furniture strewn about.
“Give me your things,” the man with the snake tattoo ordered her.
“I hope you don’t intend to blow those up too,” Kira retorted.
“I will take them to your quarters. My colleague will show you to the flight deck.”
She could tell by his tone that he was not in the mood for an argument, so she reluctantly handed over her bag. She paused for a second, debating the handover of her Phantom.
The guard with the snake tattoo seemed to key in on the subject of her hesitation. “Trust me, that would do you no good if we decide you’re expendable,” he said with a menacing grin.
They eyed her suspiciously as she made the silent decision to keep it on her person. “Well, maybe it will make it a little more sporting if it comes to that,” Kira replied.
The man with the snake tattoo let out a quick grunt as he retrieved her bag from the ground and took off down one of the main halls leading off the lounge. The other turned on his heel and quickly began heading in the opposite direction.
Kira nearly had to skip to keep up; his long strides almost doubled hers. It wasn’t long before they reached the flight deck. It was a common configuration —captain’s chair, control panels, a holo display for navigation and communications and a large view screen. Scanning over the flight deck, she gave a quick nod before plopping herself down into the captain’s chair.
“This will work,” she said, spinning the chair around to face the man.
He took a step in her direction, leaning over her and flipping on the holo display. A three-dimensional map flickered to life, showing the intended route of the mission.
Kira watched as the holo display traced their path through Terran space, skirting Rengar territory and finally edging through Bandurian space to make the rendezvous with Nico Rax – the bounty hunter tasked with the last leg of the mission.
“Simple enough,” Kira said, but in her mind, she questioned the route. It seemed odd to fly through Bandurian space, and so close to the Galactic Bazaar, in order to make the rendezvous. The Bazaar was a hotbed for pirates and raiders, and without question, an unmarked freighter would be too good to pass up if they ran into one of those groups.
Kira drew in a deep breath, steeling herself. “Alright, consider me briefed - what’s our estimated time of departure?”
She was beginning to think that this man didn’t speak. He hadn’t said a word to her yet.
To her surprise, he did respond. "Now," he said gruffly.
“What about our guest?”
“Secure, and none of your concern. You will not be interacting with him.”
“Good,” Kira said, mentally noting for the first time the distinct gender pronoun in reference to the prisoner– him.
Without another word the man left the room, leaving her alone to work. She familiarized herself with the control panel one more time before initiating the engine system. The anti-matter reactor hummed to life, and within seconds, Kira had thrust. She ran through her pre-warp diagnostics check and found everything in surprisingly good working order. Kira suspected that a lot of engineering hours went into preparing this ship for the mission.
In reality, it seemed as if their mission would be a simple one, as long as the prisoner remained controlled and they avoided any pirates.
Kira confirmed the coordinates one last time and the ship’s automated assistant replied in an eerily mechanical voice “Coordinates accepted.” She took a deep breath and engaged the warp system.
As the ship accelerated to warp, Kira leaned back in the captain’s chair and tried to figure out what she would do for the next two weeks. The autopilot system should take them about three hours outside of the rendezvous point and these two meatheads didn’t seem very eager to chat.
Kira reviewed the ship’s database and logs, looking back over its service as a freighter. She noticed that a great deal had been manually deleted from the logs, probably in an effort to conceal illegal shipments. Kira guessed that this was how the Terran Alliance had come to be in possession of the freighter.
For the first time since her whirlwind meeting with Grimm, Kira felt fatigue wash over her. She leaned back in the captain’s chair and let herself drift to sleep as the ship hurtled through space heading for Jaantu 7.
As the first few days passed, she began to relax. The ship was functioning well and the guards mostly kept to themselves, periodically checking in on their flight progress. She still had her questions about the nature of their mission, but the simplicity of it eased her mind, at least slightly. Her faith in Grimm was partially restored, and the two men he assigned to work as her guards seemed capable enough.
Kira had ventured some walks through the freighter to stretch her legs, but she could tell the guards were not fond of her roaming too far and tended to keep a close eye on her. She did what she could for exercise on the flight deck, but the confinement was starting to eat away at her.
Nearing the last leg of their journey Kira had to drop the ship out of warp to manually navigate an asteroid field that wasn’t in the ship's database. Kira didn’t mind the work, and at the very least, it was giving her something to do.
Just as she was finally beginning to feel at ease, the man with the snake tattoo’s voice came over the ship’s communicator.
“Captain, we’ve got company,” he informed her.
She had been watching the small dots on her sensor array as well, hoping they were nothing more than trading vessels going about their business. Unfortunately, though, it appeared that those dots were following them. She glanced at the display and counted.
Four. There were four large dots on the sensor array.
“What are they?” she asked into the intercom.
“It looks like Zel’Dar, Captain,”
“Well, that’s just wonderful,” Kira muttered, grabbing the controls with purpose. The dots on her screen were not ships; they were the dense spots of a swarm.
A swarm of Zel’Dar could contain anything from a few dozen of the insect-like creatures to hundreds of them. Due to their hard exoskeletons and unique biology, the creatures often flew through space unprotected with no need of ships or equipment. Still, they posed a threat to any vessel with the misfortune of stumbling into their path. In this case, the asteroid field had concealed the swarm until they were nearly on top of them.
As she squinted at the screen, she could see that each of the four large dots consisted of at lea
st a dozen smaller ones.
“Are the shields up?”
“They were never down,” Snakeman replied, as she had decided to call him.
She knew the Zel’Dar were unable to reach faster than light speed, but they still weren’t clear of the asteroid field and making a jump could destroy the ship. It wouldn’t take long, but it might be just enough time for their visitors to catch up with them.
Her mind began to race in the quick, analytical way it so often did when she found herself in high-pressure situations. The options buzzed in her head as she debated between trying to find a way to escape, and formulating a plan of attack.
Glancing down at the warp generator and back out at the asteroid field, she saw that her best choice was the latter of the two options—attack. Judging by the sensor array’s report, she knew they wouldn’t have enough time to elude them.