by Zach Winderl
Lilly stopped beside Atom and looked out to the crates, sitting like an island in a sea of void.
“Think that’s what we’re looking for?” she asked.
“Only one way to find out.” Atom left the pram idling in the hatch and stepped into the murk. With slow, measured strides he waded towards the pyramid. As he moved forward, he surveyed the room, both the golden island of light and the darkened veil beyond, as if expecting shades of ancient guardians to step through to contest his advance.
In his footsteps, Lilly drifted in ghostly silence.
“What sort of room is this?” Lilly asked, stopping just inside the ring of light and straining to see through the darkness. “The walls don’t look smooth like the other holds.”
Atom set a hand on one of the chests and looked around, waiting for something to happen. “It’s too narrow to be a normal storage hold. Kozue, can you pull up any sort of schematics on this rig? I can’t see what sort of room we are in. Experience says this should all be storage hold territory. I wouldn’t imagine we would find anything small for at least another level.”
“Just a moment,” Kozue replied. “Hither is tapping into the schematics as we speak. The ship is both archaic and military hardwired, which means I cannot access anything remotely.
“Ah,” the AI sounded perplexed. “According to Hither, it is a reserve stasis chamber.”
Atom squinted into the darkness. “Why down here? On a warship, these decks are only visited to pull up supplies. They’re a cushion to protect the heart of the ship. There’s absolutely no reason for something like that on this level.”
“What’s she saying?” Lilly asked.
“This is a stasis chamber.”
“Really?” she asked in surprise and walked into the darkness. “Yeah, there are pods out here. That’s why the walls don’t look smooth. I can’t see if any of them are active without a light, but they are stacked as high as I can reach.”
“Stasis pods,” Atom said in thought. “Think they might be important?”
“More important than these?” Lilly asked with a grin as she strode back into the light and over to the storage chests. “These have to be what we’re looking for.”
“But it seems too easy.”
“We’ve come halfway across the galaxy, dug up scattered clues, fought our way through ambushes, and even broken out of prison. If that’s your definition of easy, I don’t want to be around when you actually decide to tackle something hard.
“Regardless, let’s crack these open and see what we’re dealing with.” She flipped the latches on the top chest and threw back the lid.
“Nothing?” she said in disbelief.
“Say again?” Atom stepped closer and looked down into the depths of the empty crate. He glanced up to Lilly and then back down in puzzlement. “This has to be the right place. There’s nothing here except empty holds. This stasis chamber is the only anomaly on any of the lower levels.
“It just doesn’t fit. Hither, Kozue, is there anything you can tell me about the layout of the ship that might shed some light?”
“Neg on my end,” Hither replied. “I’m running through schematics and other than that stasis chamber, I’m not finding a single thing that would trip a query on any search. I’ve got nothing deeper in, but the guts of the ship.”
“I find myself looping the same information,” Kozue said.
“Think they could have taken it with them when they cleaned everything else out?” Lilly asked. “I mean, this was over a hundred years ago, if these people were sitting on a cache of any worth, wouldn’t they have used it by now?”
Atom stepped back from the pile of crates. He looked back to where Margo sat in the pram, his mind turning.
“Is there a way to scan this room? Maybe there’s another clue here we aren’t seeing.” He took a step towards Margo and froze. “Do you hear that?” he whispered without moving his mouth. “I don’t think we’re alone here anymore.”
Lilly lifted her head just in time to find a blaster bolt winging past her cheek.
Dripping wet, Toks Marshall stepped through the door, past Margo and into the room. Margo drifted forward, but froze as Atom shook his head. She settled back to her idle position and Toks shifted the gun from the girl to her father.
“Good girl,” Toks chided. “We don’t want you or daddy to get hurt. Have you found it?”
Lilly tipped the crate forward to reveal the empty interior.
Toks studied her opponents, her face impassive, cold, threatening. “Where is it?” she demanded. “If I don’t see treasure, I sure as hell don’t see any reason to let the three of you keep on wasting air.”
“That’s what we were just talking about.” Atom remained motionless, his hand held wide in a placating manner as he measured distance and probability. He wondered how Toks had managed to track their path. “There is the real possibility that there isn’t a treasure. If people knew about it and it just sat here for all these years, why hasn’t anyone come after it already. If it’s been here under their noses, why didn’t the people who buried it dig it up and use it to build their new world?”
Toks fixed Atom with a hard glare.
“If that’s the case, there’s no reason for you two to be here.” She squared her blaster on Atom’s chest.
His mind raced.
“I might see it fitting to save your life, Lilly.” A predatory smile slipped over Toks’ face. “If you happen to spin me a different tale.”
Lilly gulped.
“Might be, you and I could even cut whatever it is we find,” Toks said as the grin widened.
Lilly glanced at Atom and then gave Toks a slow nod. “I have the rest of the clues. There was a riddle one of the survivors passed on to the sheriff on that ice moon. I’ll bet there’s something in there about where the treasure’s hid,” Lilly’s words fell from her mouth in a tumble, but her feet drifted her away from the empty chests and over to the far edge of the circle of light.
A seed sprouted in Atom’s mind.
“I think I’ve got it,” he said, his eyes wide as the information swirled.
“That a fact?” Toks’ smile faded and her blaster drooped.
“Maybe,” Atom said as he reached up and absently scratched his head. Toks brought her gun back to bear, but Atom failed to notice. “I just need to check something.”
“Stay where I can see you. I don’t want you trying to pull a fast one on me . . . either of you.” Toks stepped to the side, trying to keep Atom and Lilly lined up.
“Kozue, is there a manifest for berth assignments for the stasis pods?”
“Stasis pods?” Toks asked.
“We’re in an auxiliary stasis chamber,” Atom replied, pointing out into the darkness. “If I had to guess, this room was stasis for non-military personnel. This ship was evidently more transport than warship.” He turned his back to Toks and crossed his arms as he scowled into the darkness.
“And you’re telling me, you think you might have the key?” Toks stepped forward with an interest that mimicked a thief’s attention to an untended bag.
Atom cocked his head, listening to Kozue’s reply before turning to squint into the darkness. He glanced back at Toks and held up his hands to demonstrate his peaceful intentions. Once she nodded at him, he wandered back to the door.
“Away from the pram,” Toks growled. “I’ve seen a little of what it can do.”
“Lights.” Atom turned sideways and reached into the shadows beside the door. He fumbled in the dark and after a moment, tripped a switch.
Springing from the darkness, banks of stasis pods became more than just concepts in the darkness. The lights marched onward from what seemed to be the entire length of the ship, although Atom knew the room covered little more than half that distance.
Lilly gasped.
“There must be thousands of them,” Toks said in flustered amazement. “Are you saying the treasure is in one of those pods?”
“That’s m
y thinking.” Atom returned to his triangled point of the circle of light.
“And you know where it is?”
Atom narrowed his eyes and nodded.
“Then tell me, or I shoot your partner.” Toks flipped her blaster to cover Lilly, with casual grace.
Atom looked over to Lilly with a blank stare.
“Wait,” Lilly stammered, stepping back defensively. “Weren’t you just offering me a cut?”
“That was before he had all the information,” Toks said with an offhanded shrug.
“Doesn’t really matter either way. Lil was planning on shooting me anyway. I don’t think the partnership was slated to pull through the long haul. Shoot her, or don’t. It really doesn’t change how things will play out.”
“Well, then, give me the information, or I shoot your daughter.” Toks’ voice verged on hysteria as she half swung to cover Margo.
“And you die.” Atom’s eyes flashed with a new anger that gave Toks pause.
The imperial hesitated. Then with an uncanny grin, she holstered her blaster and tucked her thumbs in her gunbelt. “What’ll it take for you and me to strike a deal?” she asked, glancing to Lilly with a flick of her eyebrow.
Studying Toks, Atom remained silent. He measured the ten paces to Toks. He slowed his breath and listened to the heartbeat, two parts, that would call time of death. He knew the half a beat to drop his hand and the second half to pull and fire.
Toks’ hands hitched on her gunbelt, closer to her blaster.
He looked to Lilly. Her hands hung at her side. Her gun at the small of her back. She would turn to draw and fire.
Atom smiled like a lazy, sun-warmed dog.
Back to Toks. He ran possibilities.
Three guns.
Three triggers.
Three minds.
Atom took another breath.
He stood the highest chance of being Toks’ primary target, but an outside chance hung in the balance that Toks would dodge and aim to remove the lesser target first.
And Lilly might have been swayed by Toks’ offer.
“I have an idea,” he said, his words causing Lilly to flinch. “I have something you both want. I want it too, but I also want my daughter’s life. I’m sure some boke would work the math on this situation and run a proper threat analysis, but we don’t have time for that.”
“We all want the treasure, Atom,” Toks snapped.
Lilly looked back and forth between the other two.
“I’m going to slowly pull a marker from my pocket.” He pointed to his jacket with his left hand, making sure to keep his gun hand well away from the rail-pistol. “I’ll put the location on the marker. Winner takes all.”
“And your daughter?” Toks gestured with her head, without taking her eyes from the circle of battle. “I ain’t planning on adopting a kit. I could either drop her at a home-planet or if you like, I could put her down merciful-like.”
“I would prefer, whoever takes the pot sets her up. I have a friend who would take her on, but set aside a small percent to make sure she’s comfortable.”
Toks glared.
Lilly’s eyes drifted to Margo.
The girl sat in her pram, her back rigid, and knuckles white on the edge as she looked on.
“What’s your answer?” Atom asked.
“I’m game,” Toks said, pushing her glasses up on her nose.
“Agreed,” Lilly sounded nervous.
Atom nodded and reached into the pocket of his coat with exaggerated slowness as he kept his eyes drifting between the two women. He pulled the digital marker and entered some information, then tucked it in his left palm.
With flair, he flipped back his coat to free up his pistol. He studied the two women as he unsnapped his holster.
Toks angled herself to aid her pull.
Lilly’s fingers tapped at her own belt. Atom knew the gun tucked in the small of her back would slow her down, but her augments remained a wild-card. He measured her.
The tension ratcheted.
Atom’s breath slowed as he focused.
Lilly swallowed and he watched her throat pulse.
Standing square to the others, Atom noted a slight tremble to Toks’ hand. She blinked.
He pulled and fired in one fluid motion.
The shot exploded in the confined space.
Almost before the eye could register that he had shot, Atom slipped his rail-pistol back into its holster.
Across the circle, Toks stood still, her eyes wide with shock. She tried to pull her own gun, but between shock and the catastrophic hole punched in her chest, her fingers could only fumble at the weapon.
A choking gasp escaped her lips.
On the far apex, Lilly had pulled her own gun. She had pulled on Toks, but nothing happened when she tried to fire. With an automaton’s regularity, she continued to pull the trigger. It took a moment to register that her weapon made no sound. Then she turned on Atom, trying to fire at him with desperate urgency.
Her nostrils flared and her eyes fluttered.
Atom smiled, a sad smile, and nodded to Margo.
The girl triggered the pram and a long, blue electrical bolt flew out and struck Lilly square in the chest, driving the woman back into the open space between the stasis pods. The baug lay in a twitching heap, unconscious and incapacitated.
Atom turned his attention back to Toks. The woman had staggered back towards the door, as if trying to escape. Stalking behind her with his pistol held at his side, Atom watched her jerky movements with hawk-like intensity. She managed to make it to the door where she spun in a drunken circle and slipped down to sit between the door and the pram. Her glasses slipped sideways.
“I wouldn’t have killed her,” Toks managed to choke out. She tried to fix her glasses, but instead smeared blood across the lens.
“The alternative is worse.” He stepped close to the warlord.
As he stood over her, his face smoothed and the look in his eyes drifted distant. He raised his pistol with measured smoothness and pointed it at her head.
Toks’ feet scrabbled as the floor in uncontrolled panic.
“A clean death is always preferable to slavery,” he intoned and pulled the trigger.
Turning away, he holstered his pistol and walked with a weary step back to the circle. He looked to Lilly. Her twitching had subsided, leaving her as still as a corpse. Only the sporadic gasp of breath kept the image of death at bay.
Atom knelt at her side and checked her thready pulse.
“She will survive,” Kozue said. “Despite the unknowns of her baug system, I can say with some certainty that she will be out for several hours.”
Lilly’s eyes twitched.
Atom pulled her pistol from her hand and looked it over. With a half-smile and a shake of his head, he pulled a small disc from the underside of the cartridge. “There are two kinds of people in this galaxy, Koze: those with charged ammo cartridges, and those who sleep.”
“Do you mean to tell me that whole embrace was a ruse to slip a null disc on her gun?” Kozue actually sounded put off.
“Not completely,” Atom rose and tucked Lilly’s blaster in his pocket.
He turned away and began pacing down the long room. “Hither, I need you to give me the number on a pod without a listed occupant,” he said through the coms. He scanned the identical pods as he walked past, searching for anything that might give him a clue as to where the treasure had been hidden.
“Berth 281.” Hither sounded uncertain.
Atom tracked numbers and made his way deeper into the chamber. Behind him ,the pram kicked into gear and drifted along in his wake.
Coming to a halt with hands on his hips, Atom grinned. “Found it,” he said and swung the pod out from its rack. With a hydraulic hiss, it dropped down. A chuff of decompressing air puffed in his face as the pod swung open, revealing five chests packed snuggly inside.
Flipping the latch on one of the chests, Atom revealed neatly packed rows of si
lver bullion that glowed with an inner blue light.
“We just found our payday,” Atom said, trying to hide the excitement in his voice. “I think we’re looking at five crates of alloyed iridium.”
“Too bad it’s not six,” Hither said with a laugh.
“Why six?”
“Easier to cut Lilly’s split,” Hither replied. “How did you know the treasure would be in one of the pods and not just stashed somewhere in one of the deeper holds?”
“Just a hunch. Everything else lined up with the poem perfectly. The last line talked about hiding her up on the shelf. These lines of pods are the closest things to shelves that I’ve come across.”
“But why call it she? I’ve never heard of treasure being referred to as a lady.”
Atom snapped the chest shut and glanced to Margo with a thoughtful look. “Maybe you’re right. What if this isn’t the treasure?”
Stepping to the side, he wiped off the dust covered controls of the pod to the right and then repeated the procedure to the left. As he wiped off a thick layer of dust, he found the display blinking with dim readouts.
“Kack all,” Atom said in amazement.
“Kack all,” Margo repeated in a perfect mockery of Atom’s expression. He shot her a disappointed look.
“Shi, how are we looking on those grav-sleds? I think we’re going to need three,” Atom said with a distracted air as he wiped off the stasis pod’s window and tried to peer inside. “I think we found the real treasure, now the question is who are we looking at?”
“Who?” Shi countered.
“Someone is in stasis down here.” Atom stepped back from the pod, his expression stuck somewhere between amazement and consternation. “We’re taking this pod with us. We can figure out who it is out in the Black, where we don’t have to worry about anyone dropping in on us.
“Everyone, on me, we need to load and burn yesterday. Daisy, you have fifteen minutes to find us.”
***
“It is interesting to see you,” Alderon Bronte said from the foot of the One Way Ticket’s main loading ramp. “I was under the impression that you would simply send us confirmation of a completed job and we would never actually have to cross paths again.