by F. E. Arliss
Chapter Fifteen
The Enemy of Our Enemy is Our Friend
Daer woke to a banging on the maintenance room door. She’d fallen asleep after a good long cry and was sure that her face was swollen and her eyes bleary. Along with not really caring who it was or how she looked, came a wave of anger. Who were these freaks anyway? And how dare they drag her into this treasonous mess of alien weirdos!
Jerking open the door in a righteous fury, she came face to face with the giantess named Princess Arc Exousia Quirke. Daer’s mouth firmed into a hard line and with a slight narrowing of her eyes, she gritted out, “Don’t even begin to think that I’m afraid of you. I probably should be, but I’m too pissed off to care!”
That spirited statement caused the statuesque beauty to grin at her and say, “Awesome! You’ve got some spunk! That will come in handy!”
“Handy for who? You? Me? These other strangers who are breaking a million different Universal Database laws? What is going on here?! I’ve gotten cornered into this mess by accident and I want to know what the hell is going on and how the hell I can get out of it?” Daer ground out with a low growl that almost turned to a hiss at the end. She sounded like a feuding tomcat, she thought to herself with a snort of derision. What she really needed was to sound like a total badass, not an angry feline.
Before the Princess could get in a word edgewise, Daer continued, “And what the hell is up with this Quirke thing. You are clearly not the same species as the crew of the Clyde. So how the hell do you have the same last name and call Dermott and Moira your Aunt and Uncle?” Daer demanded, growing more enraged with each question. “And what the hell is another Clyde doing in the mix?”
Suddenly, she felt compelled to halt her tirade and listen to the giantess. Resisting that urge, which seemed almost planted into her subconscious, she shook off the feeling and continued, “Don’t try your havey-cavey mind-control bullshit on me. I’m not caving! Start explaining!” Daer practically shouted the foot and a half up into the Princess’ concerned face.
One minute the Princess was trying to placate her, the next she burst out laughing. “Oh well done!” she said to Daer, clapping her long slender hands. “You are the first to simply brush off my gift. I haven’t experienced that before. I’m not sure if I’m delighted, astounded or annoyed! Possibly, all of that,” she added after a brief pause.
Daer halted her wildly gesticulating hands. “What?!” she asked, slowly. “What do you mean? You were trying to compel me to stop my tirade and listen to you?”
“Yes. Yes I was. It’s my ‘gift’ if you will. Every Princess or Queen in the Idolum species has a gift. Mine is to ‘compel’ people to do or think certain things. You certainly overcame my gift with ease. Do you have some sort of gift yourself?” the Princess asked her, clearly fascinated by the idea.
“No! Of course not! Who has ‘gifts’ in the human race. No one outside of comic vids!” Daer exploded with impatience.
The Princess sighed loudly. “May I come in? Or perhaps you’d like to go to the mess and I can explain everything there while you have a cup of coffee or some breakfast?” Princess Quirke asked, with a placating smile.
Grudgingly, Daer accepted. Grabbing her jacket, she brushed her hair quickly and then followed the towering woman to the green oasis of Clyde’s mess. This had better be good, was all Daer could think while her glowering eyes drilled holes in the long back in front of her.
Princess Arc Exousia Quirke poured herself a cup of coffee, sighed with delight over its aroma, then slid her elongated body into one of the soft sofas. Letting her long legs stretch out along the rest of its length and over the other arm, she leaned back and pondered how she was to proceed. Meanwhile a grumpy Daer got a cup of tea and some toast, then returned to plop herself down on a chair facing the sofa and stated, “Spill it!”
The Princess smiled at her and then sighed. “Nothing about any of this is easy,” she said slowly, clearly thinking about her words as she formed them. “When I came out to space, I was running from a terrible family and from the destruction of Earth. I was sad and found a family aboard another cargo hauler also named Clyde.”
At Daer’s raised eyebrows, Arc Quirke laughed, and said, “Yes! There are actually four of them. All owned by different brothers. It’s a family business. You’ve found your way to Renegar aboard the Clyde.3, owned by Dermott Quirke and his wife Moira. I was hired, originally, as a deckhand aboard the plain old Clyde. That hauler is owned by Ewan Quirke, my father. After I’d worked for him for a couple of years we got very close and he adopted me and my sister, Birdie. Birdie is an undersized and very shy Vanguardian that we found in indentured service at a shipyard on Zabados 9. I understand you saw her last night. Birdie is extremely shy. So the fact that you’ve even seen her is huge!”
Daer raised her eyebrows at this, a questioning look coming over her face. The Princess continued, “I suppose it sounds very convoluted, but it’s really not. The Quirkes are an odd family. While family is the most important thing to them in the world, they don’t necessarily believe that family is all about blood relation. It’s more about who loves them. Who they trust. What matters is honor and loyalty.” She paused there, checking to see that Daer understood.
“You can see the Clyde, can’t you?” Daer asked her, thoughtfully.
“Yes, I can see him. I’m tied to the Quirke family and the Clydes spiritually as well. They’re part of who I am,” the Princess added.
When Daer nodded, the Princess gathered her thoughts and added, “We have been through a lot together. We’ve found out the extent of human duplicity and greed, even in this new Universe that we’ve found. All species are similar. Many have these same faults.”
Daer nodded emphatically this time, agreeing completely. “I get that,” she added out loud.
Arc Quirke nodded also, sadly, her long face covered in a shadow of grief. “Our family has struck an alliance with other families that have a like-minded belief system. No matter the species, the Alliance is about honor and loyalty. But not in a rigid way,” she added. “Vanguardians throw away their own people if they don’t meet a certain pre-set criterion. The people of the Alliance, while accepting the Vanguardians as an honorable race, do not accept that practice as a valid one. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I think so. You’re saying that while you regard the Vanguardians as an honorable species, you don’t necessarily like the way they judge shortcomings in their own kind,” Daer framed this thought carefully, trying to get the nuances the Princess had conveyed exactly right.
“Precisely,” Arc said with an adamant nod of her large head. “We don’t believe in slave labor of any kind,” she continued. “You may have heard of the Idolum, and you met General Monsav yesterday. What is your understanding of that culture?” the Princess asked curiously.
“Just that they’re a threat to human kind and basically any mammalian species. They feed on them, correct?” Daer asked, raising her eyes to the Princess in order to confirm this information.
“Ummmm, yes. And no. Not really. That’s mostly hysteria and propaganda talking. Though some Idolum nests do, indeed, kill their food source. For the most part, they do not. Killing a food source is counter-productive. It finishes what could be a long and beneficial relationship. It’s like killing the ‘golden goose’,” she added with a grin. “Know what I mean?” she asked, wrinkling her elegant nose.
“Yeah. Ok, so I get that,” Daer said simply. “And?”
Arc continued, “Idolum nests that belong to the Alliance honor life. Their food sources actually live longer and healthier lives because they bond with them and give health and caring to these sources. Usually, they bond with a mammal called a ‘hippolyte’. A type of animal that looks very similar to a hippo from Earth, but lighter and a land grazing animal instead of a water animal.”
“Ok…,” Daer said, with a waggle of her eyebrows. “Get to the point.”
“The point is,” the Princess said with a g
rin, “that out here in deep space what really matters is the mindset of the crews you meet. If you meet a crew that uses others to further their own gains, you’re screwed. If you meet a crew that plays honorably, you live to see another day. Capish?”
“Yeah, I get that,” Daer said. “Again, and?”
“The Alliance is made up of many species. Those species may have been split off from the rest of their kind by a disagreement over mindset, rules or practices they can’t support. The main core of the Alliance is the Idolum Queen Altum Juls. She broke with the Idolum who believe it is ok to kill their prey. She revers life,” Arc Exousia stated matter-of-factly. “Others came to the Alliance because they distrusted their own species or had bad experiences with them. Many were disenfranchised for actions that followed an honor code, not an arbitrary law,” the Princess continued.
Daer interrupted, “What you’re really saying is that a bunch of outlaws have banded together to form a separate government, so that they don’t have to follow the rules of their own societies,” her face was grim as she stated this.
“More or less, yes.” Princess Arc Exousia Quirke said clearly and unapologetically. “I knew you were a smart girl,” she added with a grin. “Do you believe in every rule your Government has laid down?”
“No, of course not!” Daer said with a long sigh. “But not agreeing with every rule is not the same as chucking it all in to belong to a renegade faction.”
Princess Arc sighed. “No. But hear me out and then you can ponder on what you think about it all. Ok?”
“Ok,” Daer agreed reluctantly.
“Sasha Kelty does have gifts and she is, indeed, one hundred percent human,” the Princess began. “Sasha is from a long line of Celtic witches. Yes, seriously,” she said with an affirmative nod, when Daer rolled her eyes. “She managed to blow the top off a Dreasing slave camp when Intergalactic law said that her crew could do nothing to help them unless the camp was open to ‘Intergalactic space’. This inability of her government to do the right thing so infuriated Sasha that she sat down and pulled every ounce of magic she had, blowing the rock top of the cavern into smithereens. You can check Intergalactic Guard records. It’s in the data-stream. See for yourself,” the Princess added, shoving a small tablet across the space between them.
Daer sat for a few minutes scrolling through the information she’d accessed about Sasha Kelty. The story was out there. Not in quite the way the Princess had explained it. But close enough, and there was no mention in the data as to how the cavern roof had been blown. It did say that Sashe Kelty was marooned for treason in a small sloop ship in deep space. “Wow! Harsh!” was all Daer could think. What would she have done if she’d been put off the Clyde in some little shuttle?
Sitting back, Daer gazed thoughtfully at the Princess. “So, what’s your story?” she asked.
“As I said, I was adopted by Ewan Quirke. I became an Idolum Princess in order to save humans in over 30 colonies who had been interred into slave camps and were being sold to non-Alliance Idolum nests, or to Arachnians as a food supply, or Dreasing as slave labor,” she said solemnly. “I had a choice. I could have chosen to stay 100% human, but it would have cost the lives of thousands of humans who were being incarcerated and farmed as food and labor against their will.”
Daer just gaped at her. “Seriously?” That was really, really bad, was all she could think. If it was true.
The Princess leaned back once again with sigh and said, “Look it up,” and motioned to the tablet once again.
Another few minutes passed. “Ok, ok,” Daer admitted, “it checks out. Anything else you want to tell me?” she added sarcastically, a defense against the feeling that she was completely out of her depth.
“Read about Jullian Arban and Queen Altum Juls. Then come find me,” was all the Princess said. Then got up and left a deflated and stunned Daer sitting with a cold cup of tea in one hand and a small tablet that kept breaking bombshells on her head, in the other.
The next several hours flew by as an engrossed Daer scrolled through page after page of Intergalactic Guard and Universal Data Stream information. Taken as separate reports, none of it made a whole lot of sense. Taken as part of the Alliance creation that the Princess had outlined, it did. Daer was shocked. Stumbling back to her maintenance closet, she threw herself on the bed and tried not to think about things for a few minutes. Maybe it would all make sense if she didn’t concentrate on the questions too hard.
She spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the canyons around Renegar and enjoying a soak in one of the narrow hot springs that Jeffrey had shown her during her ‘tour’ of his agriculture projects. He’d lolled next to her in one of the other small slot baths and chatted happily about everyone and everything. His easy banter and innocent outlook on the wonders of Renegar and its people put Daer into a far more accepting state of mind. Sticking one foot in a flimsy-looking vine auto-lift that Jeffrey indicated would take them the last thousand feet up to the plateau, Daer hugged his softly plump little body to her and allowed herself to take in the stunning views they were enjoying as they swayed upwards on a string and a prayer.
Renegar was beautiful. The people did seem kind. How she was going to explain all of this to headquarters was the kicker. Would they believe her? Landing at the tiny platform at the lip of the plateau, Daer carried Jeffrey into the huge cavern and deposited him on the rim of the fountain. “I need to go contact Gem 8 and see what the status is for my pickup and return,” she told the little frogman.
Jeffrey frowned, and one gummy hand closed gently around her wrist, holding her in place. “Please promise me that you’ll get Blue to access the many data streams for you, and get Sasha and Moira to accompany you,” he demanded, rather more adamantly than she was used to from the little alien.
“Ok, I promise,” Daer said, bending to place a tiny kiss on his upturned pale-green head. “I promise.”
Chapter Sixteen
Course Correction
Having found Moira and Tally aboard the Clyde engaged in a conversation with the shadows of Dermott and Tate Quirke in the mess, Daer only shook her head at what she now took as fact. Even she could see the beginnings of the form of Tate Quirke. Sighing, Daer acknowledged the entire family, then asked Moira for assistance getting Blue to access the data feeds in the cavern. Daer didn’t miss the concerned look that Dermott Quirke gave his wife before they walked across the plateau towards the cavern.
“So what’s up?” Daer asked Moira. “I saw that look, like the other shoe is about to drop.”
“Let’s wait until we’re with Sasha and Blue. It will be easier to explain,” Moira said gently.
A few minutes later the four of them were seated in the common room at the rear of the cavern. Settled into comfortable chairs and drinking a cup of tea, Daer acknowledged that this was definitely the right setting for news to ‘be broken’. Something was definitely wrong.
“Ok, so what’s up?” Daer asked sharply. “If this isn’t the ‘setting to cushion a ‘bombshell’, I’m the Mad Hatter.”
Sasha Kelty sighed, let out a little laugh, and said sadly, “You are a very sharp girl, Daer. I hope you’re as resilient as you appear.” With that she nodded to Blue, who began a series of eye flickers that translated into a large vid-screen popping up before them. On it, a series of news feeds about the attack on Gem 8 ran side by side. After about ten minutes, Daer made a sharp motion with her hand to Blue and he cut the feed. Silence ensued.
“So,” Daer said, “The Clyde has been reported lost in the attack. Which is just as well, as he’s invisible now! I’ve been reported dead. Now, that I’m dead, they’ve made me the scapegoat for this thing, and dragged Digger into it as my accomplice. Is that it in a nutshell?” she asked wearily. “It all sounds so weird and kooky that I half think I’ve lost my marbles.”
“You haven’t lost your marbles and your previous summary, I’m afraid, is just so, my dear,” Moira Quirke said, rising and coming to her side. So
ft hands framed her face and turned her to look into the older woman’s eyes. “You are always safe here with us. You are not alone,” Moira assured her softly, firmly. “You are our family now. As we are yours.”
“These are the type of events where the Alliance offers safe harbor,” Sasha Kelty said gently. “You are another victim of ‘the easy way out’ mindset. Someone wanted to appease the brass, and you were an easy target as you’d been reported dead. I’m sorry,” she added simply. “So very sorry.”
“What about Digger?” Daer snapped. “He isn’t guilty and he did everything he could, I’m sure! Why is he being targeted?”
“Blue, play the vid about the prisoner transport to UZ627,” Sasha murmured to the android. More eye flickers and then the screen rolled another couple of simultaneous vids.