Space Patrol!

by Sarah Nicole Nadler

  A despondency hung over the beleaguered market, its stalls mostly empty, the streets deserted. Even the wind seemed to hesitate at the corner where four cloaked figures paused to survey the ancient walled square. They each wore matching muted-gray hoods that blended into the stark shadows, under cover from the desert sun.

  The first cloaked figure watched at the other end of the street as two people emerged from a side alley. Both human, the first was a young woman scantily clad in gold sparkles and red tassels that hid very little of her small curves. She sashayed forward, despite the deserted street, swinging her hips as though almost daring any Dragg’k patrol to find her. Her companion was not so bold, although he was dressed almost as flamboyantly with a large fur coat about his shoulders and an embroidered red silk cap on his head. The two were Asian, and the girl’s costume matched that of the dancer-acrobats of Beijing on Earth.

  The cloaked figure stepped forward out of the gloom, and sunlight from Vega flashed off of something hidden beneath the sweeping fabric before a quick gesture screened it from sight. The four walked hesitantly toward the two humans, and they met in the middle of the empty street. Not a single awning stirred, as though even the desert hushed its voice to hear their conversation.

  “No sign of her.” Will’s voice was low and muffled slightly by the hood of his cloak.

  “We should spread out, search for her,” Ash said.

  “Not alone,” Lissa bade. “We’ll go in twos.”

  “Don’t go far,” Will warned the others.

  “Staying within shouting distance would be wisest,” Shiro added.

  As the most experienced trackers, he and Ash split up, each taking one of the girls. Lissa went with Ash, and that left Will with Shika.

  They made it roughly ten feet away from one another when a shot echoed across the square and something dug a furrow in the sand by Lissa’s foot. Stephanie cried out. Lissa leaped back, ducked her head, and quickly scanned the street. It was empty of anyone but the six of them.

  “There!” Shika pointed to the top of the nearest wall, and Lissa looked just in time to see a head drop out of sight.

  Instinctively, the six of them drew closer together. Lissa realized too late that this only made them easier targets.

  A mismatched group of aliens emerged down every street that led to Jildask-ka. There were at least a dozen of them, two or three blocking each entrance, or exit, and very quickly the group found they were surrounded. It looked like a mixed bag, no two aliens alike, and Lissa thought they had the air of thugs. Certainly the fattest one, who stepped forward as though to speak, swaggered and grinned with such a wicked glint in his pale-gray eyes that she got the idea this was not a tourist greeting party.

  Lissa decided a show of bravado would not be amiss here. She flung off her cloak with a careless sweep and stalked forward with a catwalk strut she and Stephanie used to practice in their dorm after watching the Emmys. Beneath the discarded cloak, her costume was a shimmering black long-sleeved blouse and black leather pants dotted with silver applique stars. Dramatic black eyeliner and nude lipstick completed her persona as Starlight, an Earth rock musician come to Jeropul to perform and raise interest in Earth genres of music.

  “What do you want?” she demanded. She stopped mere feet away from the ringleader and struck a haughty pose, staring him down with her hands on her hips.

  “A tithe,” the ruffian said. His translator made the voice deeper than his actual clacks and natural tone seemed, and Lissa laughed mockingly at him.

  “A tithe?” she scoffed. “Ha! What is this, church day on Jeropul?”

  “What do you do here?” the alien demanded. His cheap translator confused the grammar and Lissa opened her mouth to hotly deride him further. She was sick of space! Sick of the dishonesty, the cowardice, the corruption. So far it seemed no better than the worst Earth had to offer. She was ready to give this alien a piece of her mind, knowing as she did that he would likely take it out in her flesh later. At that moment she didn’t care.

  “Wait,” said a voice, softer, more melodious and female.

  Lissa turned her head.

  “They are here for me,” said the Corian woman who stepped from under an awning.

  There were whispers from among the gangsters, several shuffling their feet in the sands and looking uneasy.

  “It’s Kiera of Coria,” one translator interpreted when its owner spoke. The leader hushed him with a glare.

  “Ah! Now, this a good prize is!” he crowed. He gave the newcomer a mocking bow. “Milady, we are honored to be in your legendary presence.”

  Kiera did not look as though she shared his excitement. Without so much as glancing at her son or the others, she stepped lightly forward, her hands wrapped gently around a small carry case in her arms.

  “I suggest you leave us peacefully,” she told him when she had neared them all. “And in order to support you in taking my advice, I am willing to pay you one million credits.”

  “You speak the Altairian language, beautiful musician!” His eyes gleamed. Digging into his pocket, he produced a small black device the size and shape of a quarter.

  “Come seal the deal,” he dared her.

  Lissa and the others watched as Kiera spat saliva onto the small device, and the ringleader did the same.

  The black object gave a red blink, beeped, and Will whispered to the others over Lissa’s shoulder, “It’s a DNA recorder. Presented at court, it is all the proof he needs that he and my mother made a binding contract.”

  The remainder of the legal contract took place before their eyes, as the gangster, whose name apparently was Der Klal, spoke slowly and clearly his intention to do everything within his power to aide Kiera of Coria and all of her companions to safely journey on Jeropul and get off-world without bodily harm. Kiera promised to transfer one million credits to his name at the bank on Sagittarius Prime, and each stepped away satisfied as the recorder gave a second beep and this time glowed green.

  Perhaps it was the use of an electronic device, which Krywith had warned them not to do—the Dragg’k being an electronics race—or perhaps it was the fact that they were gathered together in a group, but whatever the reason, the invaders chose this moment to show up in force.

  Lissa saw one of them, just before the square lit up in ray-gun fire. A dark spindly creature, like something out of an old “aliens” movie, peered out from around the corner to her left. She glimpsed shiny metal armor and oily-looking membrane with two black staring eyes. There was an impact on her right, and Will fell against her with a humph, and then he was sliding to the ground. She bent her knees automatically, gripping his torso to keep him erect.

  “Will!” Shika screamed and she lunged for him. Not until that moment did Lissa realize that he was shot.

  “We have to get out of here!” Ash hollered. He had grabbed Kiera and turned his back to the firefight breaking out between the gangsters and the Dragg’k, his armored body shielding her narrow frame. But his head was uncovered. Lissa knew he was right. The heat of passing ray blasts scorched her.

  “MTrans!” she shouted over the din. She fumbled with her necklace beacon, still struggling to keep ahold of Will. Shika reached them and helped prop up his other side. “All of you, MTrans now! Get out of here!”

  She watched the glow fill the air around Shiro, who had his arms wrapped protectively around Stephanie, and Ash, who disappeared before her eyes with Kiera tucked into his shoulder. Shika pressed her beacon simultaneously with Lissa, and with Will between them, they appeared aboard the Forty-Five.

  Aewn was beside them in an instant, helping to ease Will down. “What happened?” he demanded, eyes wide and alarmed at the smoking wound in Will’s shoulder.

  “Dragg’k patrol!” Lissa gasped. “Is everyone else alright?” She still held Will’s weight as he leaned against her side.

  Aewn did not answer, his eyes solely on his captain, but Lissa could see the others. Besides a much-shaken Stephanie, who was bein
g comforted by a solicitous Shiro, they seemed unhurt.

  “The game is up, Aewn,” Lissa told the second mate. “They’ll know we’re here. Where’s Octi?” They needed to start moving.

  “One step ahead of you, Captain,” came Krywith’s voice over the intercom.

  Lissa glanced aft to see him typing furiously at the helm on the shipboard computer. Two blue tentacles were just visible over his right shoulder.

  “Take Will below,” Lissa ordered Aewn.The Patrol captain had passed out.

  “Aye, Captain,” Aewn said, and lifted the unconscious man with ease. Shika followed him below. Ash and Stephanie were comforting Kiera.

  Lissa strode to the ladder that led above the sterncastle to the bridge and hauled herself up. As she did so, a droning noise filled the air and firelight danced into the fog surrounding the ship. The Dragg’k were coming, their warships sweeping ray blasts into the cloud cover to flush them out.

  “What’s happening, Octi?”

  “He is attempting to plot a direct course to Centauri Prime, Captain,” Krywith said quietly, not taking his eyes from the Tri-D keypad image where his long blue fingers still danced an alien code across the screen.

  “We have to get moving, now!” Lissa insisted.

  “Spatial calculations must be exactly precise,” Krywith admonished her. “Trying to jump to ultralight speeds from within the reach of a planetary center of gravity is extremely—”

  “Got it!” Octi shouted. He jabbed a tentacle at the screen before them, and the ship leaned to starboard, her crew crying out and clutching to rails or posts as her deck rapidly made a forty-five-degree angle, and then, as though loosed from a slingshot, the fog, Dragg’k warships, and even shining Jeropul turned to streaks of light that blended with the passing stars, and they were gone.

  Cle-zea ab Dul

  The tower that held the seat of the Galactic Trade Company stood like a jagged finger stabbing toward the sky. Its architect had built the structure out of steel and black stone with brooding windows that looked out over the stark landscape.

  In the uppermost peak stood a female Jerz, her hands clasped behind her back in a loose military stance as she gazed across the starscape. Her hair was pale for her species, her face stunningly beautiful by Earth or Jerz standards, and the slight smile that touched her lips lit also her piercing blue eyes. There was nothing in her appearance, expression, or manner to tell you that this was the most hated and feared female in the spiral galaxy. Even her voice seemed only pleasant and friendly as she addressed the alien in front of her.

  “Did you find them?”

  “Not yet, madam.” The obsequious creature that knelt before her was in fact not present at all. A hologram, projected from three discreet lenses in far corners of the room, made their conversation possible over the vast distance between the spy’s hidey-hole and where she stood in GTC Headquarters.

  “Keep looking.” Her voice was cheerfully optimistic. “I’m sure you will not let me down.”

  Her spy shivered and stammered, “Y-yes, madam.”

  “And when you do,” she added just as cheerily, “let me know immediately and I will crush them like the little bugs they are.”

  That her tone of voice did not alter once from her gaiety was more than unnerving to her poor subordinate, who stammered out an inaudible reply, bowed still lower, and faded from view.

  Cle-zea smiled a little and turned once more to take in the view of the desolate landscape over which the night sky hung blacker and deeper than any ever seen on Earth, for the atmosphere was thin here. She always felt a touch of hidden satisfaction in the knowledge that one step outside her fortified tower would mean a slow and icy death for any creature attempting it. GTC Headquarters was not placed here for nothing. The major galactic trade routes passed right by this large moon upon which her throne sat. That it was desolate did not mean it was out of the way. Rather, no one else had been permitted by GTC to build anything here—both to protect the Tower itself and to ensure the panorama seen from its windows was as stark and awful as the hearts of the CEOs that had ruled it.

  She stood at the window, gazing out for half an hour more, and then turned to take her tea which was sitting on a side table nearby. She chose a loose-leaf variety from the row of tins and dumped a small spoonful to brew in a clear glass pot over a small circular heating element. There were a number of worlds in the spiral galaxy that grew tea-like plants with varying flavors and medicinal or recreational properties. Of all those, Cle-zea preferred the actual tea plant on Earth, prepared in the English method—an attribute of her personality that would have been redeeming if all the others were not so horrible.

  She reached for a crumpet from the dish on the sideboard, removed the lid of a fruit preserve jar beside it, dipped in the small silver knife, and said to the room, “Earth president, please.”

  There came the sound of a chime and a bell, after which the window to her left blackened and was revealed to be a screen upon which alien lettering scrolled by. Whatever the message, it seemed to satisfy the CEO for she nodded, her mouth full at that moment with jellied fruit and crumbs. The nod must have sufficed, however, for the room brightened slightly with the projection of another hologram, this time displaying Anubis—GTC Representative to the Sol System.

  “Madam CEO.” He bowed deeply, his long canine ears flopping forward like a beagle.

  “It has been nearly a dozen cycles but still no sign of the Earth ambassador,” she scolded him gently, her eyes bright with humor. “Are you certain they meant to come here and petition for membership?”

  “Fairly thurtain, madam,” Anubis lisped. He shuffled his feet under his long white linen skirt in a nervous manner. “They went to great lengths to escape with the proposed contract in hand,” he told her. “I cannot imagine what other use they could have put it to if not to bring it to you.”

  “And their stop at Jeropul seems to have hardly delayed them,” Cle-zea pondered. “The only question is, where did they go from there, and why have they still not appeared to press their suit?”

  “You wanted to thpeak to the Earth president, madam?” Anubis asked, subtly changing the subject since he had no answer for her except his own wondering along a similar vein.

  “Yes.” She nodded, allowing him to pull her back to the purpose of her call. “Where is Bilderbus?”

  “I am not on Earth, currently.” He bowed in a slightly apologetic manner. “But I will initiate a call to him immediately.”

  As Cle-zea tapped her fingers idly on the blade of her marmalade knife, Anubis busied himself contacting Earth. Within moments, the portly figure of Mr. Bilderbus appeared. The two holograms stood side by side, although light years stood between the two men.

  “You know your species far better than I,” Cle-zea said without preamble. “Tell me, Earthling, where would this young pup have gone? She is not here with this contract, and I need her!”

  Bilderbus cleared his throat, prepared to dissemble.

  “Perhaps I can answer that better than my ostensible leader,” a voice said from behind the Earth president. The holographic program, not designed to project two persons at the same time, flicked for an instant between the two bodies standing in its target area, and Cle-zea spotted Timothy Rocksquatter as he stepped heavily into view.

  Bilderbus eagerly relinquished his position to the other man with a submissive bow of his head. The hologram immediately shifted and the High Priest of Jesters stood before her in all his massive grotesqueness.

  The light years that separated Rocksquatter and Cle-zea seemed to shrink to nothing as the two met eyes for the first time. Knowing there was an invisible government enthroned behind the Earth president, who controlled his movements and words like a fat spider manipulating the motions of a caught fly at the end of his string web had amused Cle-zea, but she had never yet had opportunity to meet any of the Rocksquatter family. Until now. Their gaze met and held—a twin pair of eyes and the genius twisted minds behind them
recognizing like for like, fed only by the black clinker each called a heart.

  “Where do you think our sweet Lissa has gone?” Cle-zea’s voice was kind and pitying for the small girl. She lowered her eyes demurely.

  Timothy’s thick mouth twisted in amusement at her convincing act. “I’m afraid the child is lost in space, and indeed, her mother seems to have disappeared with her.”

  “What an unfortunate circumstance. And Earth just on the cusp of becoming full members, too.” She appeared to think for a moment, chewing ponderingly on the end of a lock of hair. “I know! Since Earth’s representative cannot speak for herself, the GTC ambassador, as witness to the contract that was ratified in such a quaint manner by the peoples of Earth, Anubis will take over the final details of making Earth’s contract fully legal.” She smiled sweetly at Anubis, whose eyes gleamed in anticipation.

  “I would thertainly be glad to aid the newly discovered Earth to navigate the twists and turnth of the GTC legal arena.” Anubis bowed low to his CEO.

  “That settles it!” she cried. “And if dear Lissa does appear …”

  “You have agents who can deal with such an eventuality,” Rocksquatter finished.

  “They are already searching.”

  Kweeps

  The first thing that Lissa thought when she finally met eyes with Kiera of Coria was that the blue-skinned was one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen.

  Standing on the wooden deck, one hand still resting on the rail she had clutched to keep herself from flying across the deck after Octi’s maneuvers, Kiera’s long silvery hair flowed as though on its own personal breeze. Strands floated about her face as her large violet eyes stared out from beneath her flowing blue hair. She was tall and willowy, with delicate fingers that clutched an instrument held gently in her blue palms. Her skin was the deepest rich-blue pigment Lissa had yet seen, and she carried herself as though she were walking along a cloud when she turned and made her way toward Lissa.