Terminus Shift (Targon Tales - Sethran Book 2)

by Chris Reher

  “Don’t sound so disappointed. We’re at Pelion Gate.” He snatched one of his shirts from the tangled pile on the upper bunk and handed it to her. Although she was barely distinguishable from the males of her species, custom aboard most Union stations decreed some sort of attire. “Put this on.”

  “It smells of Centauri.”

  “Yeah, but we smell good. Are you going to behave or are you planning to slice my other leg open?”

  She lifted a thin upper lip to snarl at him with sharpened teeth.

  “This was your choice,” he reminded her. “Take one step out of line and I’ll hand you to Air Command instead. I don’t care who takes over from here. Are we clear on that?”

  “Your bounty is greater if you don’t.”

  He shrugged. “Let’s go. Keep your mouth shut and stay close.”

  She shuffled ahead of him through the cargo bay and then outside for the mandatory decon process. A scan of his violet iris confirmed the access code he sent earlier. The burly guards at the entrance to the concourse didn’t seem to care when the Caspian in Seth’s care ignored the scanner altogether.

  This ring contained docks and flight services crowded with workers and travelers and echoing with a noise level to match the bustle. The ring above this one offered just about any amenity a weary traveler could want and Seth resolved to head up that way in search of a long, hot bath, even as he nudged his passenger into a lift leading to the lower tier. He wondered if the friend he had made last time he passed through here still worked at the transfer station. He smiled at the memory of a few nights they had shared. But first he’d get rid of the rebel.

  The brilliant sunshine flooding the bottom ring caused both Seth and the Caspian to squint and hesitate before stepping out of the elevator. He gripped her arm as they accustomed themselves, not having seen daylight for a while. Even Aikhor’s sun rarely made it through the dense shroud of fog that forever obscured the skies there.

  The gravity spinners resided in the central spool of the station and so they walked with their feet pointed that way. The high ceiling bowed outward, almost entirely transparent and now facing Pelion’s sun, allowing natural light to turn this segment of the station into a verdant space of multi-level gardens and pleasant little parks.

  Seth admired the pretty sights created here even as he scanned the area for signs that not all was as charmingly bucolic as it appeared. No one seemed to be in a hurry here, vendors were not allowed, neither were vehicles nor, apparently, anything above a whisper. They passed a small pool of liquid home to a swarm of round, spinning sea creatures. He felt oddly out of place here, armed and decidedly scruffier-looking than the other visitors.

  The Caspian stopped. She tilted her head in puzzlement as she gazed out of the panoramic ceiling to see a dozen or so individuals drifting about in pressure suits out there. Thin scaffolding held nearly invisible carbon fiber netting in place, offering the illusion of floating in space. “What are they doing?”

  Seth watched some of the figures bounce a large ring around in some contest. “Playing,” he said. She just stared at him until he shrugged. “Good exercise, too.”

  He felt the tension in her arm when they finally approached a group of Caspians waiting by the numbered column designated as their meeting spot. They stood silently, their yellow eyes on the woman. The hides on all of them bore the same pattern as hers. He tightened his grip when she looked around, perhaps for one more chance to escape.

  A tall female raised a hand in greeting but her face remained immobile. Within moments, the others with her had surrounded his captive, quick to remove the wrinkled shirt from her to replace it with an elaborately embroidered kilt. Someone handed the shirt back to him with a slight nod of dismissal.

  The tight knot of Caspians moved away. No one had spoken. “What will happen to her?” Seth asked the elder male who remained behind, using their language. It was probably far too late to ask this now. Although fiercely loyal to their complex clans, the coastal tribes of Caspia were not known for their empathy toward anyone. Perhaps it would have been kinder to turn her over to Air Command after all.

  “She’ll live,” the Caspian replied, using Union mainvoice. The rippling tones that accompanied their language were not easily mastered by other species and Seth was glad for the switch. “We cannot continue to allow our people to join the Shri-Lan. She is fortunate that her clan wants to see her returned. Others have paid a heavier price for their treason.”

  Seth’s eyes shifted to the elder. “She’s young, Ton Kedi. She’s lost.” He didn’t mention that he had found her in the bed of a Caspian Shri-Lan rebel. She had enough trouble.

  “She embarrassed her family by joining that rabble of thieves. She’ll not leave Caspia again. Perhaps she’ll come to see the wisdom of that.”

  “She won’t be hurt?”

  Ton Kedi began to stroll along the cobbled path and Seth fell into step. “I think not. Her clan’s pride is not irreparable and she is a minor, if treasured, daughter. But she has forfeit some freedoms, I’m sure of it.”

  “The Shri-Lan weren’t happy about her leaving. They’re worried about what she knows.” Seth had doubts, given the rebels’ vicious attack on him and the patrol, that the girl’s paramour was still among the living. Whatever secrets he had whispered to his young lover now rested with her. Seth’s own, non-invasive attempts to pry those secrets from her had netted him a claw in the shin.

  The elder Caspian nodded. “And in time she will reveal that to us, have no doubt. I will share if it matters.”

  “You mentioned you had something for me now?”

  “Indeed. The girl in exchange for information.” Ton Kedi lowered his ancient frame onto a curved bench and stretched his clawed feet out in front of him with a grateful sigh. “The body gets tired after all these years, even with gravity as light as it is here. I sometimes wish I could move my clan to a place such as this.”

  Seth nodded and waited politely. He didn’t really need the fee paid for the girl’s return, nor was her capture of much consequence to anyone but her family. But Ton Kedi had promised greater value in exchange for her. Seth hoped it was worth nearly getting an Air Command cruiser destroyed.

  The Caspian turned his raptor-like eyes to Seth. “Arawaj spanners,” he said. “Four of them, fleeing Tadonna before the Union takes over there. You’ll find them on Tayako.”

  “Did you say Arawaj?” Seth had expected some bit of news about a Shri-Lan base, perhaps, or yet another tedious plot against the Union’s governors, but what was this about spanners?

  “I did.”

  The Arawaj rebel faction, a smaller but far more ideological organization than the profit-driven Shri-Lan, infiltrated every segment of Commonwealth society. Their opposition to the Union’s expansion here in Trans-Targon often approached religious zeal. While Shri-Lan robbed, extorted and smuggled, the Arawaj assassinated, spread malcontent, and sabotaged. It was fortunate, Seth thought, that their ideals didn’t attract a greater following.

  A large number of Caspians, including this girl’s family, belonged to the faction, but Ton Kedi was not one of them. “What are they doing all the way out on Tayako?”

  “They’re working for a smuggler. A Centauri named Velen Phar. Tayako is as far as he can go without getting arrested. Or so he says. The Union is taking over his home planet so he’s decided to give up his gunrunning operation. He’s not the only Arawaj leaving the planet. They’re all being driven away by the locals before Air Command even lands there to do it for them. I told him you’d come and pick them up. You have a talent for slipping past Air Command eyes.”

  “It’s a gift,” Seth agreed, not quite comfortable under the Caspian’s unwavering stare.

  Ton Kedi glanced around the sun-dappled arbor before leaning closer to Seth. “Meet the captain of the Othani on Tayako. You know where. He’ll have the spanners with him and he will hand them over to you. He won’t want uniforms around. Not if he still wants to live among his own.
”

  “I’m starting to feel like a shuttle pilot,” Seth sighed, but inwardly rejoiced over the news. Four spanners! The single greatest advantage the Union had over any of the rebel factions was their team of spanners who travelled where chartjumpers like him could not, coming and going as needed. Most of them were Delphian, an aloof species whose mental abilities set them apart from other navigators. Their matchless talents and utter disinterest in wealth allowed them to choose assignments that fed their interest in space exploration, whether for civilian or military aims. Siding with the Commonwealth only out of loathing for the rebels, no Delphian stooped to working with either Shri-Lan or Arawaj. Without them, the rebels were left with inferior navigators who often needed pharmaceutical support to achieve the Delphians’ legendary abilities.

  But any spanners working for the rebels, even the lesser talents, were of the highest priority to Air Command. Much effort was expended to locate and appropriate, by force if necessary, these navigators. They were known to Air Command intelligence and their moves carefully tracked until they could be seized.

  “Air Command doesn’t know about them?” Seth asked.

  “Not only that, but from what I learned, these spanners are of a special breed.”

  “How so?”

  “Big talents. Maybe even greater talents than Delphians. Velen Phar has a way of crossing subspace that others haven’t even begun to figure out. Always works two spanners at once but that still doesn’t account for how fast he gets around.”

  “Better than Delphians? You’re talking GenMods.”

  Ton Kedi shrugged. “Possible. You don’t do that kind of work without some sort of brain adjustment. But what do I know about such things.”

  What, indeed, Seth thought. He suspected that the old spy knew a whole lot more about a great many things.

  “He’s been keeping his team busy and his flight plans to himself,” the Caspian continued. “Stays out of everyone’s sight. But it won’t be long before the Shri-Lan take notice. See if you can get there before they do and you stand to make a large sum upon delivery.”

  Seth nodded. If these four were not yet identified and if they were even remotely as talented as Ton Kedi believed, their value to any interstellar operation, military or civilian, was incalculable. It was definitely worth taking a closer look. Bringing them in for some decompression and attitude adjustment would gloss over the little incident with the patrol at the gate. And even if they could not be rehabilitated, keeping them out of rebel hands was paramount.

  “Give him this.” Ton Kedi removed a broad leather band from his wrist. “It’ll let him know who you are. He’ll hand his crew over to you.”

  Seth peered at the thin datasheet on the inside of the bracelet. “How do the spanners feel about that?”

  The Caspian tilted his head as if not understanding the question; his expression looked quite like the Caspian girl’s had when seeing people at play outside. “They are Arawaj. Who cares?”

  Chapter Two

  She woke when her head bumped softly against the edge of the upper bunk. This time she only sighed in resignation and made sure that she still floated above her mattress. In some nether region of the ship, Dom’s mood usually dictated whether or not they received warning before gravity was shifted. She turned and reached for the blanket that had floated free. The cabin was chilly, as always.

  Ciela listened for sounds in the corridor. The ancient Othani’s unstable gravity generators really only balked like this when the shields came down. Given that there was just about nothing worth dropping shields for several centuries in any direction, this could only mean that another ship had requested docking. Another ship out here sounded interesting.

  She slid out of her bunk and bounced upward to catch Miko’s arm to pull him back to his bed. It would take more than this to wake him. He mumbled something when she fastened the wide restraint over his chest to keep him in place on the upper bunk. Luanie, in the opposite bed, was already tied down. She had made the last jump and it would be hours yet before she’d have any reason or energy to crawl out of her blankets. Deely’s bed was empty; likely he was already on the bridge, preparing for the next jump.

  Ciela drifted to the door and out into the hallway, bouncing lightly on her toes as she pulled herself along a handrail. She amused herself by spinning around a bit, deftly hooking her feet under the pipes running along the wall and ceiling.

  “What’s going on?” she said when Zev Erron, a portly and habitually irritable Human crew member, rounded a corner. She turned over again to wait for him upside down.

  He frowned up at her as she walked across the ceiling. “Those are air lines,” he informed her. “Don’t be kicking those.”

  She flipped back again, making a point of poking him with her bare foot. “If my toes can break one of those we’re in a whole lot of trouble. Who docked?”

  “Scout ship. Vichal and his dogs.”

  Ciela wrinkled her nose. So much for interesting. A scout ship in this remote sub-sector usually meant a crew of ruffians looking for Union patrols to harass and traders to loot. The Arawaj faction made up only a small segment of the rebels fighting against Union dominance but that didn’t keep their troopers from acting like thugs when given the chance. “How did they get out here?”

  “Why don’t you ask them? The big Caspian looks particularly friendly.”

  She shrugged. It didn’t matter to her. More important to their smuggling operation than any other crew member, she and her team had little to worry about, no matter how foul-mannered these new passengers were. Spanners like her made it possible to avoid the very public, Air Command-riddled jumpsites and instead slip through uncharted breaches from one sector to another. It allowed them privileges not granted lesser talents.

  “We’re at the keyhole,” Zev said. “Deely’s ready to jump. Boss is going to want another one of you on the bridge.”

  “Guess that’s me,” she said. “The others are sleeping. Never a good idea to wake a sleeping spanner.”

  A shudder went through the ship, lights flickered, and both of them grasped the handrail while the generators labored to restore first the shields and then the missing gravity. Ciela waggled her fingers at Zev and returned to her cabin.

  There she slipped out of the loose pants and shirt in which she had slept and stepped into their little bathing chamber for a quick decon. It took only a few seconds but she finished with a blast of cold air, feeling her skin prickle with a delicious shiver. She completed the task by frosting the tips of her thick black hair with a glorious shade of pink.

  Miko was awake when she returned to the cabin. He had freed himself of his restraints and propped his head on his hand, apparently not inclined to get out of bed just yet. “Are we there?” he asked, watching her dig through a cabinet. Usually, she and Miko had the cabin to themselves and sometimes she worked alone, but the captain wanted to pick up two leased ships at Tayako Station before heading out again. It was nice to have them all together again for a while, but it made for cramped quarters.

  “Apparently,” she said as she dressed in a snug body shirt covered by a looser blouse, a comfortable pair of tights and soft boots. Their life aboard this interstellar transport rarely required anything sturdier than that. If Deely had been here in place of Miko she would have dressed out of sight but the slender youth lounging on the upper bunk had little interest in females. “Took on some scouts,” she said.

  “Out here?” He yawned and stretched. “I’ll come up with some food, if you want. Unless you’re stopping in the galley.”

  “I want to see what’s up with our guests. I’ll just have some biscuits, thanks.”

  “Are you jumping?”

  “No. It’s Deely’s turn. You better not be keeping him up when he gets in.”

  “The old grouch,” Miko agreed. Even a relatively short jump through an uncharted site took a tremendous toll on spanners as well as the machines supporting them. Most of them required a long period
of rest and silence to recuperate from the mental strain, making multiple jumps nearly impossible for one person. Few ships were lucky enough to work more than one spanner. The Othani often carried two, allowing them to move rapidly through available breaches in space without needing to rest a lone navigator between jumps. Only the time needed to travel through real-space between keyholes slowed them during their frequent runs between the habitable worlds of Trans-Targon.

  Angry voices met her before she had even reached the door to the bridge. People were always shouting and arguing aboard the Othani but this did not sound like the frequent but short-lived brawls between crew members. Ciela hesitated before placing her hand over the door’s sensors and then quickly slipped to the back, near the com station, to observe the mood on the bridge.

  Velen Phar, their Centauri captain and employer, stood at the center, facing four armed rebels. Two were Caspian, one Centauri and the woman with them appeared to be Human. Typical of rebel ‘scouts’, they were brawny and dressed for combat as if to display their readiness to engage at any moment. Their expressions were equally threatening. She remembered their leader, Vichal, as particularly unpleasant.

  “You’re not changing course, are you?” Vichal asked. He gestured toward Deely reclining in the navigator’s couch.

  “What, of course not,” Velen Phar replied. “We’re going to Tayako Station to take on two more ships. As planned.”

  The rebel drew a long-barreled pistol from his belt. The technician beside Ciela covered a startled cry with her hand. “Someone told me your plans changed,” Vichal said. “Told me that maybe you heard Sebasta was coming to meet you at Tayako. So you decided you’d rather be elsewhere.” He tilted his head toward his Caspian cohort who was busy at the helm. When the rebel looked up and nodded, Vichal grinned, showing teeth blackened by too much voril gum. “I think you lied to me, Captain. That’s not charted to Tayako, is it? Or maybe you’ve got your maps upside down.”