Spectra Arise Trilogy

by Tammy Salyer

  Moving backward a step before he can get hold of my arm, I answer, “Maybe. Where can I hire a transport ship?”

  He coughs in a dry, wheezing crackle. “You’re almost there,” he answers, and points toward a building a few meters down the street. There’s a glowing sign in front, hanging on a slant from its one remaining wire: Van Dieman’s Land, and under that, Roomz & Drinkz. Perfect.

  “Any ideas on who I might need to talk to?”

  He shakes his head miserably. I doubt this walking shell has spoken to anyone besides rats, and maybe a dealer, in weeks. I pull out a single bill, hand it over, careful not to let his scaly fingers touch me, and walk on.

  The bar has no windows and it will be dark inside. I stand next to the door for a few seconds, glancing inside whenever anyone enters or leaves, getting an impression of the interior and letting my eyes get used to the gloom. It’s smoky, the shadows of men and women visible standing around a few tables, but I can’t make out many details. Even this early, the place has good business. A man walks in past me without a glance and I slip in behind him, quickly moving beside the wall nearest the door.

  Two more men and a woman sit at the bar near the back. The woman and one of the men don’t look like much, but the second one wears clean clothes made of good material, and his boots are barely scratched. He hasn’t been walking around on this rocky planet much. I’ll start with him.

  Crossing the room, I come to a standstill beside him—the bar has no seats—and catch the barkeep’s eye.

  Before I can say anything, I hear: “Erikson. I’ve been looking for you.”

  My jaw clenches involuntarily at the sound of that voice. Calmly, but not slowly, I turn around. Before he can speak again, I thrust out my hand and grip the man’s crotch in a relentless squeeze. He hisses in surprise and pain, but doesn’t try to move.

  “MacCready.” I have to wait a second for the dryness in my throat to give way before I can go on. “I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”

  Almost two years have passed since I abandoned Marcus MacCready, a one-time member of Rajcik’s smuggling crew, on a moon about to be overrun by Corps. I thought he was dead.

  “That goes for both of us, Erikson. But don’t worry, I’ve completely forgotten about that, uh, disagreement. Now would you let up a bit? You could be ruining my chances for future generations.”

  “You and I both know you’ll never be anyone’s father.” I eye his sweat-sheeted face for a second. Even if he does have plans for revenge, this place is far too public for him to settle any scores. Letting go, I ask, “What the fuck do you want?”

  He sucks in a full breath, reaches an exploratory hand toward his package, and pushes in next to me. The man who I’d originally intended to talk with side-steps as far toward the other end of the bar as he can, trying to conceal the wary way he glances at us from the corners of his eyes. “Our mutual friend sent me to pick you up.”

  It’s as if his words are cold water suddenly thrown in my face. Keeping my voice low, I say, “You’re here with János? Where is he?” The question I don’t ask is: What do you mean, our mutual friend?

  “Waiting. Let’s go.” Without sticking around to see if I’ll follow, he heads for the door.

  My nerves are on full alert. It seems impossible that Rajcik has somehow made it to Spectra 6. But then, in six years working together, I’ve learned not to be surprised by much of what he does. The only two ways he could be here so soon are pure luck, which I don’t put much faith in, or he somehow followed me here. Either way, this situation has just become more fluid. There may be a chance of getting to David in time after all.

  No longer hesitating, I go after him. We step back out into the hot sunlight and MacCready begins walking down the empty street. I want to grab him and force him to answer the thousand questions reeling in my mind, but his pace is too quick, as if time is short.

  The sun scorches us and sweat glazes my neck like lukewarm jet fuel. MacCready turns into a narrow alleyway, but I stop. Part of me is eager to follow him and meet back up with Rajcik; the rest of me knows better than to let myself be led into a dead end by this man. Planting myself at the corner of a building, I ask, “Where exactly is he, MacCready? I haven’t seen the Temptation anywhere.”

  There’s an extensive list of men in the universe that I don’t trust, and Marcus MacCready is on the top of it. For good reason. When I’d left him behind, I’d been in a hurry. Unfortunately for him, he’d been standing in the stream of deadly blowback from our escape craft’s jet engine. The last thing I’d seen through the craft’s image sensors before getting the fuck out of there was his twisting body engulfed in flames consuming his clothes like ravenous devils. A thing like that isn’t easily forgiven, and MacCready never impressed me as the understanding type.

  My abrupt questioning stops him. As he turns around, pale features fixed in exasperation and impatience, I see his face clearly for the first time. Reddened and pocked skin scours the left side of his head, peeking through in patches beneath his white-blond hair and continuing down his jaw and throat until the scarring is hidden beneath the collar of his distressed jacket. He hadn’t been facing me directly inside the dark bar and I had not seen the damage. The burn scars draw the skin of his cheek together the way plastic curls up when it’s melting, giving him a permanent sneer.

  But it’s the look in his anemic blue eyes, corneas the same yellow as a jaundice patient, that triggers the neurons in my brain to fire a high alert. Pure hate, the kind that burns a person up from inside out, threatens to ignite the air between us. He doesn’t say anything for several seconds, regarding me, trying to smolder me on the spot. With slow but menacing care, I draw my Sinbad as a warning, but I keep the muzzle pointed toward the dirt. In response, he raises his hand to his jacket, where I assume he carries his own pistol. Rays of sun find their way between the building roofs and pour their spotlights on the scene, illuminating everything with perfect clarity. Before he reaches into his jacket, which would guarantee him a bullet between the eyes, his hand stops and he blinks.

  Instead of doing anything stupid, he extends a finger and points up the alleyway. “Our ride is parked just outside town. We’re supposed to take it to the ship. Rajcik’s gone to a lot of trouble to find you.”

  He’s not telling me something. “Then why did he send you? When did you start working for him again? Show me some proof, MacCready, or our little reunion will end right here.”

  His sneer deepens, but he reaches into the jacket’s cargo pocket, slowly, and retrieves a handheld comsat channeler. Pressing the telecast operator, he says, “Mac for Rajcik.”

  Holding up the video display so that we can both see it, we wait for a response. In a few seconds, the black screen shifts and I’m looking at the face of János Rajcik in crisp detail. “Go for…” My boss’s wide, thin lips part to reveal the edges of perfectly even teeth in what represents, for Rajcik, a smile. “Erikson. You aren’t dead. I only half expected Mac to find you. Get back to the Temptation ASAP.”

  Uncertainty and anxiety bubble up from my guts in an acidic burp. I should be glad to have found my employer and crew again, but the presence of MacCready and unusual twist of events leaves me cold, worried. Still, I lower the Sinbad. “Rajcik, what’s going on? How did you find—?”

  “We’ll have plenty of time for Q&A, Aly. MacCready, how quickly can you get back to the ship?”

  “Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”

  “Good. Don’t use the comsat again.” Without another word, Rajcik severs our connection.

  MacCready looks at me and doesn’t try to hide his impatience. “You ready to go, Erikson? Or do you want to discuss anything else?”

  Stifling the urge to buy myself more time, I holster my pistol. My questions will be answered as soon as I get back to the Temptation, and right now reconnecting with Rajcik is the only option that offers me much hope. MacCready takes the cue and begins walking down the alley again. Before following, I take a
final glance back toward the town to see what else could be in store. No one on the roofline, no one coming toward us. I look back toward the bar and see—

  “Oh, shit.” Strahan stands just outside. His back is pressed against the wall of the building and he’s trying to wedge himself out of sight inside the doorway. Clever bastard. Why are you following me? I can’t tell if he knows I’ve spotted him, but I’m not going to give him any more opportunities. Stepping past MacCready, I start double-timing down the alley. “Let’s go.”

  It branches out into a T-intersection at the end and I turn to get directions. He’s standing flat-footed, his jaw set and eyes stabbing me again with hatred. I realize he’s about to attack, but too late. His fist smashes into my jaw with tooth-rattling force. I feel an explosion of pain, taste blood, and then my arms are yanked backward, my wrists quickly clamped tightly together with handcuffs. I try to pull free, but whoever has my arms keeps his hold, forcing me to stop before ripping my shoulders from their sockets.

  “MacCready, what the fuck?!”

  “Shut up!” And he slaps tape over my mouth so I’ll do exactly that.

  Craning my head backward in an effort to avoid the tape, I get a look at the person holding my arms. Liev Fedchenko, another of the regular crew. His dark, greasy hair covers his bushy eyebrows and he’s grinning at me sinisterly, scarecrow teeth protruding from his thick lips. I may be in more trouble than I realized.

  “Quit struggling, Erikson, or I’ll break your jaw,” MacCready warns. “We’re taking you to the Temptation, but Rajcik didn’t specify what condition you’d have to be in. I’ve had enough fucking trouble from you.”

  “Forget it, Mac. Let’s just get her back. Rajcik wants to talk to her.”

  He snarls at Fedchenko like a dog but leans away from me. Pulling a rag from his pocket, he unfurls it and pulls it over my head as a hood. I can’t see anything, but dust and rankness fill my nose, making me gag. The tape over my mouth forces me to control the reflex in order to keep from choking, and I consciously slow my breathing down, making myself ignore the stench.

  “You’re either going to walk on your own, or we’re going to drag you. What’ll it be?”

  Because I can’t speak, I nod and my shoulders are yanked sideways, spinning me around. Pressure that can’t be anything but a gun barrel jabs into my spine, and we walk.

  * * *

  The door opens. Someone approaches, lifts the hood still covering my head partway, and presses something cold against my cheek, making me suck air sharply through my nostrils in a nasal gasp. Then the hood is pulled off.

  “Welcome back.” Rajcik stands in front of me, holding an icepack to my cheek.

  I’m groggy and off kilter after the shot to the jaw and lack of clean air. They’d brought me back to the Temptation—a decommissioned assault craft, stolen and retrofitted for use as a long-range smuggling ship—and locked me up. I’ve been waiting for at least an hour, but, somehow, I’m not as relieved to be back as I expected to be. We’d traveled by hovercraft to get here, but even without the benefit of being able to feel solid ground beneath us, the extensive rises and dips we’d glided over tell me we’re in canyon country. Rajcik has hidden the Temptation amid the walls of the ragged landscape, and I have no idea where I am.

  I focus on him, letting my fury at being punched, handcuffed, nearly asphyxiated, and brought at gunpoint back to the ship burn from my eyes in a toxic-waste glare. He stares back with a glint of mania and rage in his own.

  If people were dogs, I wouldn’t be surprised to see many submissively piss themselves when meeting Rajcik. His hulking frame, grinning-skull face, and the measured threat always looming in his voice never fail to induce a lizard-brain reaction of fear and intimidation, even from the reckless and insane. His muscles fit his frame the way perfectly calibrated elements fit a war machine, both graceful and menacing. On the rare occasions that our jobs had ended up in a hand-to-hand fracas, I’d seen Rajcik move like a vengeful ghost, swift and certain, killing men before they’d even realized they were in a fight.

  He examines my expression for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to eat his dinner with a knife and fork or just shove his whole face into the plate, and unceremoniously yanks the tape from my mouth.

  I’m furious and confused, but I let the fury talk for me. “What THE FUCK is going on, János?” My jaw feels swollen, a hot lump that pulses with my heartbeat. I can only imagine what my face looks like now, between the damage caused by Strahan’s rifle and MacCready’s fist. “Let me out of these fucking handcuffs.”

  He swallows and a large-caliber machine gun round tattooed in black ink bobs up and down with his Adam’s apple. With his flight jacket on, only the top of the vast network of tattoos that adorn his skin, winding up and down his arms, neck, and back, is visible. He is covered in savagely inked illustrations, the kind that mean something. It’s not about vanity or having a jailhouse record of how many people he’s killed or how many women he’s fucked. A darker impulse drives his epidermal tableau. A maelstrom of guns, warships, and all the other devices for war and destruction that he buys and sells covers his body in a macabre representation of death in machine form. These are the tools he peddles in defiance of the Admin, always with the intent that they’ll be used against it. It’s all about money and revenge, which to him equate to the same thing.

  Finally unlocking my wrists, he steps back, waiting patiently for me to either calm down or do something stupid like jump him. “I was very surprised to pick up a transmission from you, Aly. I thought you were dead. There were two squads after you on Obal 3.” He scans my face, trying to read my thoughts. “Looks like I underestimated you.”

  He hasn’t answered my question. “David and I were trapped. He held them off, while I tried to escape. I think he’s been arrested and—”

  He cuts me off with unmasked suspicion in his tone. “How did you end up here?”

  “That’s why I contacted you.”

  “You contacted me to tell me how you got here?” Sarcasm is frightening coming from him. “I don’t think so. You’re trying my patience. Now, how did you escape from Obal 3 and whose uplink did you use to transmit?”

  This is his favorite dance. Not a waltz, more like the circling of a hungry wolf, the tango of a tiger. He’s only interested in discovering why I’m still alive and how he can use this information to his advantage. It hasn’t played into his plans that I could possibly have survived the odds we faced on Obal 3, and he probably believes that I’ve betrayed him in exchange for my life. He’ll feint and jab until I admit it, not relenting or allowing anything from me except the answers to his questions, which he thinks he already has. My only chance is to take the lead. I have to be strategic if I’m going to convince him of anything different.

  “First, why don’t you tell me why you’re here? You got my transmission. Why didn’t you just respond? You want the story, János, you’re going to have to tell me one too.”

  He tosses the icepack next to me on the table. “MacCready tells me you were being followed. What assurance do I have that you aren’t working with someone else?”

  So MacCready had seen Strahan too. “Look at my face! You think I’m working for people who did this to me? Besides, is there another gig in the galaxy with a better payday?”

  My outburst has the right effect. A vicious smile curls up both edges of his mouth, making him look sharklike, all teeth. I can almost imagine flecks of meat from his last victim stuck between them. The thought makes me shudder. “Hmm.” He makes a smacking sound with his lips. “You are consistently reliable when it comes to getting paid, Aly. You would think I’d know by now not to doubt that.” Reaching out to lightly brush my throbbing jaw, the gesture more intimate than necessary, he says, “As for this, Mac must have taken the opportunity to recover an old debt.”

  It takes an effort not to brush away his fingers. “So what’s going on? How did you find me and how did you get here so fast? We were supposed to r
endezvous on Obal 10. That’s at least a week and a half away. Why didn’t you stick to the plan?”

  “Plans changed.”

  It’s clear that he’s not going to give me any straight answers, but I try anyway. “Then why are you on Spectra 6?”

  “No, Aly. The question is, why are you on Spectra 6”—his eyes turn feral and dangerous—“with another group of arms smugglers?”

  I can almost feel the ground sinking beneath me like quicksand, and I’m suddenly not sure I’ll be able to talk my way out of this. There’s a shrill edge to my voice as I try. “Cut the shit. I was kidnapped! Get it? T’Kai was sloppy and someone else found out about the holodisc. Or he changed his mind about the gig and outed us. Either way, the people who grabbed me want a copy of their own.” Now that I hear the story coming from my own mouth, I realize how unbelievable it is. It doesn’t matter that I’ve spent the last six years working for Rajcik. If I don’t convince him of the truth, MacCready’s blow is going to seem kind. “You know I wouldn’t blue falcon you.”

  He regards me for a long second with a sly look I can’t interpret. “No, you wouldn’t. You’re not stupid, are you? That’s something I’ve always found curious about you—your loyalty.” Then, to my relief, he says, “Tell me what’s going on.”

  It takes me fifteen minutes to explain everything. He listens closely, without interrupting. A grim scowl darkens his features when I tell him about Vilbrandt and Director T’Kai. T’Kai had obviously told him nothing about Vilbrandt or bothered to warn him about Vilbrandt’s potential to jeopardize our mission. Rajcik’s jaw clenches when I tell him about the Admin’s newscast of the robbery, probably promoted by T’Kai in an attempt to cover for himself. He says nothing about Vilbrandt’s interest in trading his insider knowledge of the Fortress for a cut, and stays equally mute when I share Vilbrandt’s theory that David’s captors would have taken him to the Fortress for questioning—and use as a lab rat. His looming silence throughout my explanation has the effect he wants; I grow more nervous and agitated by the second, struggling to keep it under wraps.