by Sean Allen
“I’ll tell you,” Dezmara said, “I would’ve said the same thing about him up until yesterday, when he attacked me for no good goddam reason!”
“Not for no good reason!” Otto implored, sinking to one knee beside her in the sand and putting a hand on her shoulder. “The Mewlatai we’re after flies a black Zebulon just like yours, and they are renowned for their battle skills. You have to admit, your flying and fighting is rather impressive.”
“What the hell’s a Mewlatai, and what’d he do that was so bad that you justified blasting anyone in a black Zebulon out of the sky? Hell, all you had was the description of a fucking ship!”
A large sailor—who had trundled onto the scene with one arm in a sling and the other wielding his pistol—Rilek, Otto, and all ten of the identical men looked at her with astonishment.
“You don’t know who the Mewlatai are?” Otto asked. “How can that be?”
“I’ve been out of it for a while,” Dezmara offered.
“They’ve been defenders of the universe for hundreds of thousands of years—sworn enemies of the Durax, the only beings naturally immune to their mind powers, and creators of the Serum.”
“Defenders of the universe, eh? Not doin’ a very good job lately, are they? What’s this Serum about, then?” Again, it was time for everyone present to consider Dezmara with some peculiarity, but her genuine look was impossible to ignore, so Otto answered.
“The Serum is a potion of sorts, based on the genetic code of the Mewlatai themselves. It gives anyone injected with it immunity to the Durax. It’s the mortar that holds the Dissension together. Without the Serum, we can’t hope to rally others to the cause—hope will be lost. So, you can see, Ghost, if faith in the Serum is undermined by the very creatures that create it, no one will take it—regardless of whether it works or not. They’ll be too scared.”
“Okay, okay—so is that what your Mewlatai did, undermined the Serum?” Dezmara pressed for the answer to her original question.
“He murdered one of my best men by injecting him with poison disguised as the Serum,” Otto said gravely.
“That’d do it,” Dezmara said with some sympathy. “Wouldn’t take much for the rumor mill to grind that one out to every free soul in the universe. But you still didn’t answer my question. All you had was a ship—a black Zebulon. Why’d you reckless sonsofbitches open fire on me?!”
“With all due respect, Ghost,” Rilek said, “we didn’t just have a ship. You broke course and ran.”
Dezmara looked at him like a caged animal that had been poked with a stick one too many times. “Are you outta your goddam mind?!” she seethed. “I didn’t break course, I headed straight for Chuudagar just like the goddam run instructions told me!”
“Ghost, the run instructions were to take the shipment to Thulabane on Enor,” Rilek said.
“That’s fuckin’ ridiculous! How do I know this isn’t some elaborate bullshit story, huh?!”
“It’s not a story, you see, because I set up the run on behalf of the major here so we could draw out the Mewlatai. It was all done anonymously, of course, but I provided the cargo and picked the destination.”
Dezmara was absolutely beside herself with anger. If her guns had still been at her sides, she would’ve been a hair’s breadth away from pulling them and shooting as many of these lying bastards as possible; then reason broke in once again, and this time it had something quite relevant to say. “The run instructions were early,” she thought to herself. “Ringers are never early.” Dezmara looked up at Rilek. She knew the answer to the question before it crossed her dry, cracked lips, but she asked anyway. “The run instructions…when did Fellini start the run instructions?”
“They were on time, as usual,” Rilek said with a knowing tone. He, too, had figured it out.
“That sonofabitch knew I never dialed into the shared frequency—so much for the safety of anonymity. He just called me up before anyone else and gave me my own set of instructions. It’s so goddam simple—I should’ve seen it comin’!”
“There’s something else,” Rilek said. “Your cargo. How much did you load in Luxon?”
“Eight containers. Forty wileks,” Dezmara said. “Why?”
“The load was one hundred wileks for five ships—twenty wileks apiece. You had twice the weight of anyone else, but we only found four containers aboard your ship—the same four that we supplied for the run. We knew they were full of scrap, so we took them to patch our hull, but the other four were gone when we found the Ghost abandoned.”
“So Fellini used me to hijack a shipment and he kidnapped my friends.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Otto said, shaking his head.
“No, it makes perfect sense,” Dezmara countered, grimacing as she gingerly lowered her aching torso down to the sand. “When Fellini offered me the run, he said the odds in Trillis favored the Lodestar to win.”
“No, they didn’t!” Otto said a little too quickly and then lowered his eyes in embarrassment at revealing his gambling habit to a complete stranger; not to mention Rilek and the rest of the crew.
“Exactly!” Dezmara said. Otto looked up again in confusion. “I was favored to win, but Fellini had planned for the Triton to take me out, plans only he knew about. Rilek, being a legendary pilot, was a sure bet to come in first with me out of the picture.”
“So Fellini bet it all on Rilek to win!” Otto said. “Well, at least he didn’t make out there!” Otto smiled optimistically.
“No,” Dezmara gave a pained laugh, “but he did get the four million tolocs I bet on myself and whatever cargo I was smuggling from Luxon, and my friends.”
“Four million,” Otto said as if the wind had been knocked out of him.
“Well, Major, if you were a runner with two hundred and thirty straight wins, instead of a Dissension soldier, I’m almost positive you’d have a few more tolocs to go around. I suppose that’s all over now too. Everyone in the universe will know The Ghost didn’t make it to port with his cargo. That sonofabitch took everything from me in the blink of an eye.”
“Ghost, why’d he take your friends?” Otto asked.
“I’m trying to figure that one out myself. Whatever was in those four containers must have something to do with it. Maybe it’s tech and he needs Simon to put it together or he thinks Simon’s me. I’m not sure.”
“What will you do now?” Rilek asked.
“Salvage my ship,” Dezmara said through clenched teeth as she pushed herself into a sitting position. “Get to Trillis, kill Fellini, and rescue my friends.”
“With all due respect,” Rilek said, “you’re not going anywhere in your condition.
“Ensign Nori, please inform Dr. Weiloonyu that she has incoming with severe bruising of the upper torso and several broken ribs. I will be in the galley preparing dinner—after I’m properly attired, of course. Major, Booktu, please help The Ghost inside.”
The men gripped Dezmara carefully and hoisted her to her feet. She grunted as her boots hissed through the sand and stopped unsteadily beneath her. She stood for a moment, catching her breath with one arm craned high on the shoulder of the big sailor, Booktu, and the other slanting down to find support on Otto’s significantly smaller frame. “I suppose,” she said with some effort, “since we’re not gonna kill each other after all, you can call me Dezmara.” Rilek bowed slightly and then Otto and Booktu half dragged, half carried her inside the Lodestar with the admiral and the nine men she assumed were all named Nori in tow.
***
Her accommodations were plush and Dezmara slept like the dead. She had refused the admiral’s offer to stay as his guest, but after nodding off and almost falling face first into her dinner, she reconsidered. By morning, the Haleonex bandage wrapped around her midsection had Dezmara feeling as good as new, and she watched Admiral Rilek with fascination as he served a gourmet breakfast of his own creation to herself and the crew. He was dressed with more style than most sailors she was used to seei
ng in ports and pubs around the universe. His boots had a glossy shine, his pants and shirt were perfectly pressed, and he wore his hat with a slight cocksure tilt over one brow. Rilek had the look of a brazen young sailor, but he spoke in the intelligent, soft-spoken melody of a duster who had seen more sky, space, and sea under the heavens and lived more life than most. His stories were proof enough that it was true.
The messroom was more like a cozy pub than the sterile dining hall one would expect on a ship the size of the Lodestar. Chairs and tables of dark wood matched perfectly the richly decorated walls whose canvas gems shone with bursts of brilliant, glossy colors, revealing themselves just so in the dim glow of carefully placed lights overhead. A bar that looked like it was hewn from the remnants of an ancient ship arched from the wall and the soft, burgundy-hide couch Dezmara was sitting on threatened to keep her a hostage of its comforts forever. The air was light and the talk bordered on boisterous as they ate and shared recollections of amazing feats in battles gone by. Once the plates were empty, however, the mood changed.
Rilek fished his pipe from his pocket, stuffed the curving bowl with sweet-smelling leaf, and struck a match, sucking down the flame until the pile of shavings glowed. He exhaled an aromatic puff of gray, looked Dezmara in the eyes, and then his head rolled on his neck and he stared unblinkingly at Otto.
“My apologies are owed to you both,” Rilek said, looking from one to the other. “First, to The Ghost—Dezmara—who I have long considered an honorable competitor. I am sorry for firing on your ship and for the loss of your companions. And as far as that business in the sand, I apologize for my ill treatment of you, Dezmara, and for not listening to you, Major. When I am…that way…I’m not completely myself. The animal takes control.” Rilek raised his brow at Dezmara as if to say he knew that she understood the feeling, and then his eyes drifted over his pipe and he puffed in silence.
After breakfast, Rilek led the march down the lush main deck toward the docking bay. Otto strolled beside Dezmara in the large hall and watched her curiously as she examined the artwork that passed by.
“Are you sure you won’t take the admiral up on his offer to fix your ship? I’m sure Kriegel would have it done sooner than you think,” Otto said.
“It’s a very nice gesture,” Dezmara said, smiling down at him, “but every second I stay here is one Simon and Diodojo might not have. I have to find them, Major. They’re the only friends I’ve got.” She looked away as they hung a right into the bay.
“I understand,” Otto said with noticeable disappointment. A pilot and warrior on the side of the Dissension as skilled as Dezmara would be an invaluable asset.
“And you? What will you do next?”
“Well, unfortunately, our hunt for the Mewlatai was a dead end. I really meant it when I said I understand about your friends. Two of my comrades surrendered to the Berzerkers to try and find out about the Serum. Rilek thinks he knows where to find them. I guess we’re going on a rescue mission of our own.”
“Really?” she said. Dezmara’s face became intense at the mention of the beasts that had slayed her runner family and the closest person to a father she’d ever known—Felix Grinnik. “Berzerkers? I owe those sonsofbitches a little payback myself.” Her voice had become laced with pain and steeled with anger. Otto pulled his head back on his shoulders as if Dezmara’s eyes were going to drill right through him.
“Well, Rilek thinks their base of operations is on Pelota del Fuego, if you want to catch up with us. Heaven knows we sure could use someone like you around.” A slight tinge of hope had returned to Otto’s voice.
“I might just take you up on that.
“Well, Otto,” she said with a heavy exhale, “it’s been interesting meeting you. I hope there are no hard feelin’s about the…” Dezmara motioned over the top of his ears like a slicing blade and made a swishing sound.
“No hard feelings!” he said. Otto took her hand and shook it as he smiled up at her. “It has been a pleasure to meet you, and just so you know, you have a few more friends now.” He let go and Dezmara bowed her head slightly and smiled at his warm offer of friendship before turning slightly to face Rilek.
“Admiral,” she said with a nod. Rilek bowed and then took her hand in his and clasped his other hand over the top.
“May the stars guide you to what it is you seek,” he said as he patted her hand.
“Thank you, Admiral—good luck to you too,” Dezmara said, then she turned and walked up the gangplank of a little ship behind her. The walkway retracted as the engines coughed a few times and then thrummed with continuous jets of green flame. She looked one last time at Otto and Rilek as she hovered above the deck before turning the ship and bolting through the bay door on her way to space, Trillis, and hopefully, her friends.
Chapter 41: Puzzling
The longboat Rilek loaned Dezmara was an impressive craft. It was on the smaller side, with room for eight or ten passengers, depending on their size. It had a distinct keel, and the large tiller Dezmara was standing behind moved the nimble little ship at the slightest touch. Two engines burned at each side of the stern and kept the pointed bow darting through space as Dezmara sat in the wheelhouse and wondered how she was going to get into Trillis once she found it. Like all so-called free places left in the universe, Trillis had qualities that kept it out of reach of Duraxian control.
Originally constructed as a geological research facility, Trillis was an immense, flying city built to travel through space in search of the richest ore and mineral deposits locked inside the rocky forms of asteroids. Because of its intended purpose, the outer hull—for it was, in fact, an enormous ship of sorts; oddly shaped, but a ship nonetheless—could withstand impacts born of asteroids or bullets to a degree that made it impossible to penetrate by force.
Through the years, Dezmara had found that one of the easiest ways to gain entry to a secured port was to sneak in through the docks. The movement of people and goods through the dockyard was a natural and regular occurrence for most ports, and the whole business opened up uncountable options for infiltration. Unfortunately, Trillis wasn’t most ports; actually, it wasn’t a port at all. The transfer of materials through the docks was strictly limited to load-bots only. Nothing with a pulse was allowed to step foot outside of its ship unless it wanted to die: no repairs, no medical attention, no exceptions, just a standing shoot-to-kill order known the universe over. If you wanted inside Trillis, you had to turn your life over to the Gamorotta.
Long ago, a secret league of ruthless racketeers, extortionists, and murderers had taken over management of Trillis. A string of businesses, mostly related to gambling, took root in the city center and spread to every corner of the metropolis like a plague. If there was something going on in the universe and that something had an uncertain outcome, Trillis was taking bets. Research labs were demolished and huge arenas erected in their stead to host the racing of imported alien animals; towering stadiums housed brutal death matches; and seas of colored lights flashed their enchantments to the masses from the fronts of casinos that had once been the unassuming living quarters for thousands of scientists.
The Gamorotta promised protection from the Durax within the city’s great walls and welcomed weary travelers with lavish comforts that had long disappeared elsewhere in the universe. All newcomers were given a generous credit with the house to use at their leisure as they searched the city for work and a new beginning. Word of the splendor of Trillis spread far and wide as immigrants found their credit graciously renewed again and again as the weeks turned to months and the months to years. But Trillis was a promised paradise that turned into a horrible nightmare for all who were foolish enough to walk through its gates.
What most greenhorns didn’t figure out until it was too late was that the Gamorotta owned Trillis and everything inside—including the businesses—and they weren’t hiring. It didn’t take long for most people to rack up a large debt, and they were abruptly put to work. The lucky few were e
mployed in the casinos or at the track, but a vast majority fared much worse. Many were sent to their deaths as gladiators, and some were forced to sell drugs, yet another racket designed by the Gamorotta to generate debt and dependence. But the biggest debtors were forced into hard labor.
Although Trillis made a fortune from its gambling enterprise and the myriad seedy undertakings it supported on the periphery, the city’s true value lay in its original design. It was a technological marvel never seen before or since. The city consisted of two halves that expanded and collapsed along a shaft that ran through its middle. At the center of the shaft was a squat, disk-like structure known as the hub, whose circumference was ringed with enormous, flexible tubes. When Trillis pulled within reach of a mineable asteroid field, the city halves separated and the arms surrounding the hub went to work collecting the choicest rocks and passing them inside to be broken down and refined. Trillis was the only space mining facility known to exist, and since the Durax didn’t have much use for currency, the Gamorotta had a monopoly on the most popular form of money left in the free universe—tolocnium. Tolocnium was a precious metal melted down and formed into toloc coins and plates, and it was in the refinery that most Trillisians were worked to death, breaking down and hauling huge chunks of rock or toiling in the giant smelting furnaces.
When Trillis wasn’t mining, the tubes were coiled around the hub like the arms of a mechanical, spiral galaxy and the two halves of the city slid along the shaft toward each other. The towering structures jutting from either side were negative space constructions of one another and the buildings were more artistically rendered than the average right-angled starscraper. Where there was a pyramidal structure on one side, a mammoth pronged building waited to cradle it on the other; intricate spirals curved around each other and interlocked like living, dancing, intimate things; domes seamed flawlessly with perfectly shaped nooks; and strange curves found their mates patiently awaiting their return across the chasm. When the city was sealed, Trillis meshed together to form an impregnable fortress, as if it were a puzzle-box crafted by a master who was equal parts toy maker and magician. Fortunately for Dezmara, the Gamorotta’s greed kept the refining business in Trillis going around the clock.