by Chris Ward
The hungry young moved toward it, looking to feast, but the whole ground began to move. Confused by the illusion, Davar took a couple of steps back before realizing it was only the net, withdrawing into the ship. Shadowmen guards came forward, guns raised, waving away the last few Evattlans until only eggs remained.
Davar tried to get closer, but there was no cover beyond the stand of rocks, and the Evattlans were retreating in his direction. If Paul were still alive, he was trapped in the net. As it withdrew into the ship, Davar was sure he caught a faint cry of anger and wondered if, in a roundabout way, Paul had achieved his goal.
As the hatch closed and the ship lifted off, its roaring lower thrusters creating a dust cloud that obscured everything, Davar turned back to the tunnel that had swallowed Beth. Three Evattlans, emitting a shrieking howl which sounded like a cry of fear, jumped down, scrabbling at the earth as they pushed and shoved to get inside.
He felt cut in half. Paul had gone one way, Beth the other. Harlan5 was back at the ship, which felt impossibly far away. Potentially hostile off-worlders were everywhere around him and could turn on him at any moment.
The choices were all bad.
‘Beth… hang in there,’ he said through gritted teeth, then lowered himself down into the hole.
26
Lia
‘Well, it worked. Praise the Stillwater.’
‘What is it?’
‘A trader from Bryant in Quaxar System heading for Ergogate. According to the shuttle’s systems, they came through a wormhole off the main shipping routes. Suggests they’re avoiding something or hiding something else.’
‘What are the details of their transmission?’
‘That they can offer us safe passage to a port in exchange for a partial trade on our valuable cargo.’
Lia nodded. ‘That’ll do. How’s Caladan doing?’
‘Still a few days shy of waking up.’
‘I guess he’ll miss the fun of being bought and sold.’
‘Trivial I guess compared to what he’s been through.’
Lia nodded again. ‘Set us a course.’
The trading vessel appeared on their screens a couple of hours later. Flying under an Areola System flag, the shuttle’s database identified it as a Class 3 Inter-System Stock Transporter, an ugly, cumbersome thing most often associated with the transportation of genesis seed stocks or highly valued foodstuffs kept in long-term stasis.
They docked in a rear hanger at the end of the two-mile long ship. Lia left Jake in the shuttle’s cockpit and headed down to the hatch alone.
Three Tolgier guards awaited her, blasters held across their broad chests. The Tolgiers—who appeared like overlarge, more muscular and hairier humans—ran their eyes over her with interest, appreciating the intentionally tight-fitting costume Lia had worn.
As she stepped down into the light, two of the three took a step back, while the third raised a surprised eyebrow.
‘Welcome on board the, um, Star Spear,’ the nearest said. ‘My name is Rulo-An. I captain this vessel. I’m afraid we weren’t expecting a visit from the Galactic Military Police. You’ll find all our paperwork is in order.’
Lia smiled. She had fashioned a decent mock up of an old GMP uniform from old uniforms found on the shuttle, and it was close enough to fool them. If they didn’t ask for and check her identification number, her ruse was safe.
‘This isn’t a random check,’ Lia said. ‘You have no fear. My small delegation party ran into trouble. My name is Officer Lianetta Jansen. We ask only for safe passage to the nearest land port or the loan of enough fuel to make our own way.’
Rulo-An shifted from foot to foot. Like most deep-space traders, he was no doubt uncomfortable about having someone from the GMP aboard. If he was running goods under the radar—the only way for many independent traders to turn a profit—he didn’t want Lia snooping around. And GMP were often thought of like ants: where there was one, there were many.
‘We have passenger quarters your party is welcome to use. We are four Earth-days out from Ergogate at full power.’
Lia noticed the captain glance up at the shuttle. It was likely they had already run its identification. While Jake had switched its codes for those of an old diplomatic mission, visually it was still a stolen shuttle from an Ergogate-registered prison transport.
‘Your help is much appreciated.’
‘Your, ah, transmission stated—’
‘We carry a prisoner of sensitive origin. It wasn’t a falsehood. Your assistance will be rewarded.’ She inhaled a long breath, preparing the old Lia, the one who, in the aftermath of the death of her husband and son, did whatever was necessary to survive. ‘You’ll be rewarded in more ways than one, captain.’
The Tolgier’s cheeks reddened. He gave a slow nod. ‘I will see to it you dine in my private chambers at the coming meal time. It is the least hospitality I can offer for a prestigious guest.’ He turned to the guards. ‘Take Ms. Jansen’s party to the passenger quarters and arrange for whatever comfort they deem necessary.’
Lia nodded. ‘Thank you kindly, Captain. There are just two of us onboard, plus one prisoner. He remains in stasis and cannot be moved. I would appreciate a guard placed on our ship during our time disembarked.’
‘Of course. One will be provided.’
Satisfied that her ruse had worked, Lia went back on to the shuttle to tell Jake. When they emerged together a few minutes later, Rulo-An looked visibly frustrated at the sight of Jake, but recovered himself enough to snap a salute.
‘Commander, it is a pleasure to have you on board.’
Lia glanced at Jake but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Her companion wore a smug smile as he saluted back. ‘Commander Jake O’Flagon of the GMP High Command, at your service, Captain,’ he said, and Lia understood. She watched the Tolgier’s eyes as they stared at the area of Jake’s chest where a GMP rank badge would be worn.
‘Welcome to the Star Spear,’ Rulo-An said, sounding somewhat pained. ‘Make yourselves at, um, home.’
The passenger quarters smelled of disinfectant, but the residue of whatever debauchery an all-male Tolgier crew got up to during deep-space missions had been removed by droids prior to Lia’s arrival. The cluster of small rooms were impressively clean, and a few small comforts such as towels and some expensive Phevius System coffee had been provided.
‘How did you know how to fake that rank?’ Lia asked Jake, as he lay on a fold-down bed and crossed his boots over at the end.
‘I had a look through the system database and pulled up a few images,’ he said. ‘Creating a vision from scratch isn’t easy, but they were already fooled by your uniform. All I had to do was influence a few embellishments.’
‘It’s remarkable,’ Lia said. ‘I’m amazed your people aren’t hunted for placement in prestigious underground zoos. You could become all the animals at once. Imagine that. A thousand off-worlder species in a single cage.’
Jake looked at her, but the smile she’d expected didn’t come. ‘There are reasons Cask cut itself off,’ he said. ‘Whatever prejudices and exploitations a single nation or world can undertake are amplified a thousand-fold across the galaxy.’
Lia nodded. ‘I’ll do my best to keep you safe.’
Jake suddenly grinned, and Lia was left unsure whether his previous words had been part of an elaborate joke or a serious subject he now wanted to brush off. ‘You and the Stillwater both. I’m blessed, I’ll tell you.’
Lia went into a bathroom to refresh herself, leaving Jake to take a nap. She thought of Caladan, locked inside the recuperation tank, still only halfway through his recovery, then of her mother’s transmission, her cry for help. So many people needed her, and she had so little time.
Four more days until they docked in Ergogate. There, she hoped they might find the impounded Matilda, having picked up no transmissions from Harlan5. With the Matilda’s speed, she could rescue her mother then plan revenge on Raylan Climlee. Without her ship, Lia felt tr
apped in quicksand, at the galaxy’s whims and mercies.
Jake was still sleeping when she went out, heading for Rulo-An’s quarters.
Tolgier were easily manipulated by a taste of female flesh. For a few grim minutes of thinking about something else, Lia could secure the safety of her party, perhaps even the loan of a small freighter to take them to Phevius System if Rulo-An had a high enough standing in his company.
Rather surprisingly, the door to the captain’s quarters stood open. Lia called inside, but received no answer, so she stepped over the threshold, wishing she had brought her blaster along for safety.
The apartments had the usual body odor smell of a Tolgier with no pressure to wash or maintain order, too lazy even to assign a droid to the job.
All the internal doors stood open, something that many deep-space travelers were slack about, even when all protocol and preparations for potential loss of systems or air pressure demanded otherwise.
A little kitchen unit stood to one side, a bowl of alien cereal left uneaten, a custard-like coating collecting droplets of moisture most likely caused by a leaking coolant pipe somewhere nearby.
The next room was a bedroom area, all shiny chrome with a retractable bed in the center.
The first thing Lia saw was a blaster half visible beneath a pillow that looked brand new, most likely removed from vacuum packaging for what Rulo-An hoped would be an evening of enjoyment.
The second was the Tolgier captain’s savaged body, bloody bite marks on his neck and legs, chunks of flesh strewn around the floor as though whatever had savaged him had disliked the taste, spitting it out as soon as the bite was taken.
Lia took a step back, instinctively reaching for her blaster, but finding it absent. Instead, she took the captain’s, flipping off the safety on the commonly available model and spinning around, looking for a hidden assailant.
Nothing. The room was still and silent besides the gentle rustle of an air-con unit and her own breathing.
Her sixth sense told her whatever had killed the captain had gone.
Back out in the corridor, the signs of an attacker were obvious now she was searching for them. Spots of blood flecked the walls low to the ground, suggesting the attacker had also received an injury. They became fewer the farther Lia went from Rulo-An’s quarters, as though the attacker had either bled out or covered the injury in some way.
By the time she reached the elevator by which she had arrived, there was no sign of the blood. Lia, trusting her instincts, headed for the hangar.
No one stood guard at the bottom of the hatchway. Lia held her blaster ahead of her and crept up into the shuttle. She smelled blood as soon as she was inside.
The guards lay across the entrance to the medical bay.
One had been savaged, the other shot by his companion’s blaster. A bloody handprint soiled the surface of the recuperation tank, just above the door release, but the machine itself still worked. The controls showed no one had tampered with it, and to her relief Caladan still lay inside.
Lia used her personal transmitter to call Jake. ‘Looks like we have a problem,’ she said. ‘Although I’m not quite sure what it is. Meet me on the trader’s bridge and I’ll fill you in.’
The cavernous trader was eighty percent cargo holds, storage hangars, and engines. The bridge was situated in a tower at the rear end, with a three-sixty-degree view of the galaxy outside.
As soon as Lia stepped out of the elevator, she knew that the crew—workmen and trading officials—hadn’t known they were under attack until it was too late. Four systems crewmen lay dead at their terminals, killed by blaster fire. Three others had tried to make it to a weapons case but had been gunned down with savage efficiency.
Lia pulled up a ship’s inventory on the captain’s terminal. The massive vessel was mostly automated, its skeleton crew needed only for general maintenance and systems tracking.
‘Got a little flustered, did you?’ came a voice from behind her. Lia spun, her blaster coming up, but it was only Jake, stepping over the body of a Tolgier technician. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ she said. ‘I had arranged a meeting with the captain, but someone had already got to him. I’d have blamed you, but I know you were asleep.’
Jake shrugged. ‘Dreaming sweet dreams of Stillwater. What do you think happened? One of the crew turned rogue?
‘I’m not sure.’
Lia returned to the captain’s terminal and checked the autopilot systems. ‘We’re on course to dock at Tube Town Four on Ergogate four days from now,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure that works in our best interests.’
Jake nodded. ‘I’m sensing a little changing of the plan, and another couple of notches on your criminal record.’
‘You’d be correct. However, we have other things to worry about. The main one being a mass murderer onboard the same ship.’
On the main computer terminal, Lia brought up the internal surveillance system on a screen above their heads, a series of cameras placed throughout the ship activated by motion sensors. On such a huge ship with such a tiny crew, most of them were dark, while others had broken over time and never been repaired. Activating the recorded footage from the last few hours, she found a couple of videos of herself, but there were none of the captain’s quarters or the area nearby.
‘He turned them off.’ She shook her head.
‘Not this one, though.’ Jake pointed at a camera placed at an awkward angle which showed a view of Lia’s assigned bedchamber. Sped up, the footage showed Lia getting undressed, taking a shower, then taking a short nap. ‘I guess he was concerned for your safety,’ he said, lifting an eyebrow. ‘Not so much for mine.’
‘Don’t look too closely,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t think there’s anything important to see.’
Together, they went through the other activated footage. Aside from a couple of shots of what appeared to be a shadow moving quickly through darkened areas of corridor, there was little to help them.
‘Whatever we’re looking for knew how to avoid the cameras,’ she said. ‘Obviously criminally minded, and…diminutive.’ She pointed at something flat in the corner of one screen which could have been part of a person’s head. ‘Come on. I have an idea where we might find who did this.’
They headed back down to the shuttle, Jake covering Lia, who went first, even though she felt there was little risk. Whatever had butchered the crew had spared them for a reason.
The shuttle stood dark and silent. Lia activated a device on her belt which would detect movement in the darkness, buzzing to alert her. They went inside, only the dim outlines of the shuttle’s confines showing themselves.
Nothing moved. The tiny cockpit was empty. Lia touched Jake’s arm, then pointed at the door to the medical bay. ‘In there,’ she whispered.
The door slid open. The recuperation tank containing Caladan illuminated the room with a pale green glow. Inside the tube, Caladan lay inert, arms across his chest.
Lia leaned down, putting her blaster on the floor, and indicated for Jake to do the same. At her belt came a little buzz, as she had expected. Something was behind the tank. In a calm voice, she said, ‘You can come out now. We’re unarmed. We won’t hurt you.’
The sound of shifting feet came from the other side of the tube. Lia squinted into the gloom but saw nothing.
Lia glanced at Jake, who shrugged. He lifted his flask and aimed it in the direction of the tube. ‘A little drink?’ he whispered.
Lia squatted down. ‘I promise we won’t hurt you. I wanted to say thank you for what you did. They came to steal him, didn’t they? And the captain planned to kill me. I noticed the blaster under the pillow. Whoever you are, you’re a hero.’
Movement came from the gloom again, a gnarled hand lifting over the recuperation tube, the fingers closing over the glass. Another hand followed, and slowly a face lifted into view.
A conical point on the creature’s head ended in a tuft of hair. Misshapen lips parte
d in a guilty smile. ‘Very sorry,’ the creature said. ‘Got a little carried away. Couldn’t let them hurt him, see. And if they hurt you, you won’t never get away.’
Lia nodded. ‘Do you have a name?’
‘Lump.’ The creature pointed at the bony cone on the top of his head. ‘Bit of a nickname. Not sure I ever had a real name.’
Lia smiled. ‘It’s a solid, heroic name, for a strong, heroic person. How did you get on the ship?’
‘Same way I got off. Through a hole. Don’t worry, fixed it up after. Boss had me unplug your stasis-ultraspace drive, so figured I’d get in there and patch it up again. Felt guilty, see. And didn’t want to let my old man go.’
‘That was kind of you—’ Lia frowned. ‘Wait a minute. Your what?’
Lump patted the recuperation tank, his twisted mouth making a wide smile. ‘My dad. Never thought I’d ever meet him face to face with things being what they are and all, but when I saw him… I just knew.’
27
Beth
Her head ached. She lifted her head and found herself in a tunnel. She wondered how she was able to see the walls worn glass-smooth, then realized light reflected down through porous holes in the roof, glinting off crystals embedded into the walls.
They looked like diamonds. She remembered hearing a story about how back on Old Earth they were coveted, the exclusive possession of the very rich. Upon the discovery during the First Expansion of a planet in a now long-forgotten galaxy where diamonds formed the primary crustal structure, their popularity had vanished overnight. In some systems there was still a worthwhile trade, but only for their hardness—still a close match for most synthetic substances—and use in machine parts.