Salvage Merc One: The Daedalus System

by Jake Bible

  “We need to keep moving,” I said to Mgurn. I didn’t budge.

  “Yes, that is true,” Mgurn agreed. He didn’t budge.

  “On three?” I said.

  He nodded.

  I counted to three. Neither of us got up.

  “We’re going to die here if we stay,” I said.

  “That is most likely,” Mgurn said. “Yet I do not possess the strength to move. Walking through sand, even sand made from ants, is exhausting, Joe.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said. “And I’m just a human being, not a big strong Leforian like you.”

  “Leforians become tired just as all races do,” Mgurn replied. “There is no need to bring my species into this.”

  “But, you know what I mean,” I said. “It’s why Leforians make such good assistants. No matter how down you get, how tired your body is, how defeated things seem, you always have enough strength to take care of your number. The SMC is lucky that so many of you volunteer to become Salvage Merc assistants. We’d be lost without you all.”

  Mgurn sighed. He looked at me like he was going to argue, blinked a few times, then started with surprise. He scrambled to his feet and pointed at my head.

  “Your horns are gone,” he said.

  “Say what?” I responded and patted my head all over. “Son of a gump, will you look at that! They are gone! That’s great!”

  I jumped to my feet and gave Mgurn a huge hug. We spun about, whooping and shouting, each of us reaching up now and again to smack the top of my head where the horns had been seated only a short while before.

  Or had they? Maybe they were gone when we arrived on the desert planet. Maybe they disappeared as we struggled up and over the dunes. Didn’t really matter. They were gone, and that was very good.

  “Well, we’re up,” I said and turned towards the direction we’d been walking all day long. “Keep going the same way?”

  “Perhaps,” Mgurn said. He looked up at the four suns. “Hmmm…”

  “And what does the hmmm mean?” I asked.

  “Four suns,” Mgurn stated. “But we know the Daedalus System only has one sun. A very large, bright red star in the center of everything.”

  I shielded my eyes with a gloved hand and looked where he was looking.

  “That one there?” I asked, pointing with my other hand at the brightest and reddest of the suns. “Right?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” Mgurn said.

  “Then what are the other three?” I asked.

  “That is a very good question,” Mgurn said. “There is no way to know.”

  “Not without my ship,” I said. “Speaking of…”

  “I had to leave it, Joe,” Mgurn said. “When I saw you get swallowed, I really had no other choice.”

  “You could have used the plasma cannons to slice the monster open and get me that way,” I said.

  “Then you would not have followed the proper path to this planet,” he countered. “I made the right choice.”

  “Yeah, you did,” I said.

  He looked startled by the admission.

  “What?” I snapped. “You’re right. It sucks we don’t have the ship, but if you hadn’t left it behind so you could get swallowed up too then you wouldn’t have been able to grab me and pull me through that second sphincter. I’d have stayed in the leviathan’s guts forever.”

  “Technically not forever,” Mgurn said. “Eventually your suit would have ruptured, and you would have been dissolved by its gastric juices.”

  “Yes, technically that would have happened,” I said. “So thanks for not letting it happen.”

  “You are most welcome, Joe,” Mgurn said.

  We kept walking, letting the momentous occasion of my acknowledging Mgurn’s worth fuel our journey.

  Okay, maybe it was still the fear of getting eaten alive by dead ants when the suns finally went down that fueled our journey, but I like to think my magnanimity helped somewhat.

  Yes, I was a total prick. I’d blame the horns, but those were gone by then. Something began to creep into my consciousness, a self-awareness that I should have had well before having to march across ant sand to Eight Million Gods knew where. That something was the fact that all the Bosses were kind of pricks too. Even Boss Seven, who was the mildest prick of them all. Maybe because he hadn’t fully grown into the role yet.

  “Are you alright, Joe?” Mgurn asked after an hour of total silence.

  “Hmmm, oh, yeah, fine, buddy,” I said. “Just realizing some things about myself. Walking in ant sand with no idea what your destination is can do that to a person.”

  “Have I ever told you about my Uncle Glapt?” Mgurn asked.

  “Uh, nope,” I replied. “Haven’t heard that one. But maybe this isn’t exactly the—”

  “Well, Uncle Glapt was known as a womanizer in certain Leforian circles,” Mgurn continued, either ignoring my attempted protest or just not hearing since he was winding up to tell a story. “Now, don’t get me wrong, Leforians are known for copulating with as many females as possible, so having six or seven dozen partners before marriage is not uncommon.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” I asked. “Six or seven dozen? Six or seven dozen partners? Sexual partners?”

  “Yes. Why? Is that a lot?” Mgurn asked. “How many do humans have before settling down with their life mate? Three or four dozen?”

  “I’ve had like eight partners total,” I said. “Not counting prostitutes during the War. A Fleet Marine has gotta do what a Fleet Marine has gotta do.”

  “That was Uncle Glapt’s philosophy as well,” Mgurn said. “He always said it was in his nature to be promiscuous. But, after he reached his eight-hundredth partner, something changed inside him.”

  “Yeah, I bet it did,” I said. “Number eight hundred will do that to a guy.”

  “He wondered what his purpose was,” Mgurn said. “He wondered why he hadn’t found his life mate amongst all those females. He used to get roaring drunk and shout out of his bedroom window at anyone passing by to help him, help him find the answer to love. Then the female in his bed would shout at him to shut his mouth and get back to her. He did, of course, but he didn’t feel good about it.”

  “There’s a point to this, right?” I asked. “I hope so because this story is getting depressing. Mainly because I’m feeling a little behind in the numbers department.”

  “There is a point, Joe,” Mgurn sighed. “Uncle Glapt finally found that female. It took him most of his life, but he found her. Do you know when or how?”

  “There is no foing way I could possibly know that,” I responded. “Just tell me, Mgurn.”

  “When he finally gave up looking,” Mgurn said. “He said to himself one day that he did not care whether or not he’d find a life mate. He did not care to have six or seven broods of hatchlings. He was happy the way he was.”

  “Good for him,” I said. “You realize this story is nothing new? Let go, and you will find the answer and all that crud. Been told a billion times.”

  “Yes, but with Uncle Glapt, he literally let go after saying that,” Mgurn said. “Threw himself from a bridge and expected to die. It was the female that fished him out of the acid lake that he fell madly in love with. She loved him too, even with all the acid scars on his carapace.”

  “I am totally lost,” I said. “Your story makes no sense.”

  “Sometimes you have to die to find your life,” Mgurn said. “That is what this quest is. It is the death of old Joe and the beginning of new Joe.”

  I stopped walking, and it took Mgurn a few steps to realize. He turned to look at me, and I shook my head.

  “That is the most useless story you have ever told me,” I said. “We were doing so good, Mgurn. I was even feeling bad for how I’ve treated you lately.”

  “Lately?” he asked. “Only lately?”

  “All the other times too,” I said. “But then you go and tell me a story like that, and I have no idea what to think anymore. I’m not killing m
yself in order to live. That’s foing crazy.”

  Mgurn shrugged. “I didn’t say it was a good story.”

  I started to speak, but stopped. He was right. He never did say it was going to be a good story. Or even a helpful one. But that’s not why I stopped before speaking. The reason was I heard something. Close by.

  It was a whistling and slight clanging.

  “Do you hear that?” I asked.

  Mgurn cocked his head and his eyes opened wide.

  “How did I miss that?” he asked himself. “My hearing should be considerably better than yours.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, you don’t know that. Maybe one of the previous Salvage Merc Ones had really good ears,” I said. I started walking again. “Come on. Let’s find out what it is.”

  We moved at a fast clip, our heads turning back and forth constantly in order to keep track of the sounds. The wind had picked up a lot which seemed to help us in our search. The clanging got louder, the whistling more pronounced. Half an hour later, and we were standing on the edge of a dune, looking down at something we did not expect to see.

  “Are those ships?” Mgurn asked. “Spaceships?”

  “Yeah,” I replied as I stared down at the graveyard of interstellar travel.

  Hundreds of them for as far as the eye could see. Most were smaller ships, light skiffs for quick trips to the next system or two. But others were gargantuan. Cruisers, destroyers, entire carriers. Most of the ships were in various degrees of destruction, none of them looking like they’d ever fly again. But a few didn’t look too damaged, the suns’ light reflecting off their still somewhat shiny hulls.

  “Mgurn, old buddy,” I said and laughed. “I think we’ve found where we’re staying tonight.”

  “And possibly how we get off this planet,” Mgurn added.

  “Yes, possibly that too,” I said. “Come on.”

  We ran down the dune, both of us in such a hurry that we ended up falling most of the way.

  “First order of business,” I said as I pointed at an intact-looking ship. “We find shelter. Pick the ship that looks the most airtight because when those suns go down, we are going to have an ant problem.”

  “Uh, Joe?” Mgurn asked.

  “Don’t argue, Mgurn,” I said, eyes staring at the wondrous field of space vehicles.

  “Joe,” Mgurn snapped. “Look up.”

  I looked up.

  “Well fo me,” I said as I watched the four suns reach their zenith.

  They were directly overhead. On most planets, it would mean it was high noon, midday, halfway to night. But this planet?

  One by one the suns blinked out. Gone. Leaving only one in the sky. A bright red star. Then that son of a gump started to set faster than anything I’d ever seen. It just raced its ass to the far horizon.

  By the time either of us could close our shocked mouths, the sun was setting. It would be dark in minutes. Maybe seconds.

  “Run!” I yelled and pointed at the closest ship that looked like it still had outer doors that closed. “Sweet Mother of the Eight Million Gods, run!”

  Twelve

  The first ship we hit was locked tight. Even the emergency crank, hidden in a panel just under the airlock, was gone. Someone had had the same panic attack we were having right then.

  “This one!” I yelled and sprinted over to a recreational skiff that was designed for the nuclear family out for an intergalactic day of sightseeing and salty treats. “Come on!”

  The airlock was sealed tight, but the emergency crank underneath was still there. I pulled it out, found the insertion point, and put my back into cranking that puppy open. I had to bear down on it with all of my weight just to get it to move the first centimeter. But, when it finally did move, it was like cranking with grease. Round and round it went until the airlock in front of us hissed open.

  That’s when the smell hit us. Not a good smell. Very, very bad smell.

  “I believe this ship may still be occupied,” Mgurn said as he covered his nose slits.

  “Yeah, no crud,” I said as I wedged my shoulder between the airlock door and the ship’s hull. “We don’t really have time to be picky.”

  I managed to get it open wide enough that we could slip inside.

  It was a single cabin ship with bridge and sleeping quarters all rolled into one. The pilot’s and co-pilot’s seats were recessed into the dash, tucked away so there could be room for the four beds that flipped down from the walls. On those beds were long dead corpses. I didn’t recognize the species, but that didn’t matter. Dead was dead.

  “Help me get them out,” I said and grabbed onto the closest corpse. It was small, and its skeleton fingers clutched a rag doll of some type. “Mgurn, come on!”

  “It is disrespectful to move a body without saying a few words to the Eight Million Gods,” Mgurn said.

  I could have argued, but he would have dug in. So I said, “Rub a dub dub, let’s toss the dead out of this tub. Amen.”

  I pulled on the small corpse, and its legs snapped off in my hands. Bits of dried flesh and splintered bone exploded up into my face, and I started sneezing uncontrollably.

  “You deserved that,” Mgurn said as he carefully lifted one of the parental corpses up and walked it outside.

  I gathered the broken kid corpse into my arms and was about to follow when he burst back inside, grabbed the rest of the corpses from the beds, snatched the one from my arms, and threw them out the airlock before he furiously started cranking it closed.

  I raised an eyebrow when the airlock was sealed.

  “I figured out the ants,” Mgurn said, total fear on his face. “Come look.”

  Mgurn ratcheted open the shielding on one of the ship’s observation windows and pointed at the churning ant sand outside. The question about how the ants could be dead during the day then come back alive at night was answered quickly. The ants didn’t come back alive. The ant sand we’d walked kilometers over wasn’t the ants I’d faced in my vision.

  No, those ants, the living ones, had been deep underneath the dead husks of their dearly departed all the time, waiting for the suns to go away so they could stream out into the nightscape and devour whatever they found. In long, wriggling lines, they poured from the ground. They swept over the dead ships like a wave, covering everything in sight.

  The corpses we’d thrown outside the ship were picked clean of any fleshy remnants, leaving only dried bones. The ants didn’t leave those bones for long. In the blink of an eye, they turned them into dust. Mgurn and I watched as the wind caught some of that dust and sent it high into the air.

  That was about all we saw before the wave of ants covered our ship, blocking our view out the observation window. Mgurn ratcheted the shielding closed then turned to look at me. It was too dark for us to see each other’s faces, but neither of us had to guess too hard to figure out how we looked.

  “So many of them,” Mgurn whispered. “So, so many.”

  I slapped about my suit until I found a glow stick. I snapped it into life and set it on top of a cabinet, giving us some light to see by. It bathed everything in that sickly green that glow sticks do, but it was better than nothing. Almost.

  “All we have to do is wait them out,” I whispered. “Just hunker down in this ship and sit tight until morning. The buggers will be gone, and we can get back to work.”

  “Back to work doing what?” Mgurn asked.

  “Finding a ship that can get us off this freaky ass planet,” I said. “There’s no way we can stay here, buddy.”

  “Yes, I am fully aware that we cannot stay on this planet, Joe,” Mgurn said. His voice was shrill and rose to a pitch that made me wince. “But where do we go from here? The other planets had a clear way out.”

  “They did?” I snapped. “Are you foing kidding me?”

  “They were enigmatic, but not impossible to figure out,” Mgurn said. “But this part of your vision was the last part. It was the part where you were eaten alive by the ants. Nothing wa
s said to you, no hints or clues as to how to solve the riddle.”

  “So what?” I said. “I’m not giving up anytime—”

  I stopped talking and shook my head.

  “No, wait, you’re wrong,” I said and held up a hand before he could protest. “This wasn’t the last part of my vision. The waterfall was. The waterfall and the thing in the water. I left this place to get there.”

  “You did?” Mgurn asked, sounding relieved. “Oh, that is good. I don’t know how I forgot that part.” He smiled and plopped down on one of the beds, his arms crossed, his eyes expectant. “Okay, so how did you get away from this planet? What is the riddle that must be solved? What was the last thing to happen in this part of the vision?”

  I swallowed hard as I remembered what had happened.

  “Ants,” I said, my throat dry. “Ants crawled into my mouth, and I had to spit and spit and spit to get them out.”

  “Hmmm,” Mgurn mused, stroking his bottom two mandibles with one of his hands. “Ants in your mouth and you had to spit and spit to get them out. Did you actually get them out?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “After a whole lot of spitting, I was at the waterfall. I remember being super thirsty from all the spitting and then bam!, I was there. All the water I could possibly want.”

  “Were you dying of thirst or just thirsty?” Mgurn asked.

  “Just thirsty,” I said. “It was an inconvenience.”

  “Okay, okay, so not a mortal need,” Mgurn said. “This is good. This is good.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “What?” Mgurn replied.

  “How is it good?’ I asked.

  “Oh, I was just saying that to help me think,” Mgurn responded. “It may not be good. It may be bad. You might have to go out there and put some ants in your mouth.”

  “Yeah, that is not happening,” I said. “Not a chance in hell. The Seven Satans will be waiting a long time before I willingly put those ants in my mouth.”

  Before he could respond, there was a loud groaning from above. We looked up. Then the groaning started on each side of us followed by a distinct wrenching of metal. We locked eyes and started searching the ship frantically.