Mission Critical

by T. R. Harris

  Kaylor entered the building and went through security, telling the guards he was to meet with an associate of Angar’s. He had to explain that the pirate and his crew would be landing soon, and that he preferred to wait inside the building than out. The guards understood and pointed him to a thin-cushioned, threadbare seat. There was a small food and beverage processor along one wall. It wasn’t safe for the people who worked in the buildings to go out for food during the day, so most everything was self-contained within the structures, including a small hotel for visiting dignitaries. Of course, true dignitaries stayed in other parts of the city and only traveled here for brief business meetings, and often under heavy guard. They didn’t remain any longer than was necessary.

  Adam, Riyad and Sherri took up positions at the west side of the roof where they could survey the landing field across the street. When the Nimorian’s distinctive spaceship arrived they would know. Until then, they hunkered down against a cold wind and light drizzle, drinking hot coffee from insulated containers and munching on snacks to keep their energy up. The pirate captain should be along within the next couple of hours.

  Six hours later they were still waiting.

  15

  The Maris-Kliss ship was huge, shiny and new. It also dwarfed Angar’s ship by a factor of ten. His pirate crew was nervously watching it move to within a mile of the Marauder. Angar did his best to reassure them that they had nothing to fear. The coming meeting was only to confirm to the MK reps that he indeed had the dark matter collector. He had revealed the incredible bounty for the device and what each pirate would receive. That had steeled their nerves at first. But seeing the incredible firepower of the MK ship now aimed at them, most were having second thoughts.

  The MK officials transferred over in one of the fanciest shuttlecraft any of the pirates had ever seen. It was sleek, all white and with almost sensual lines. When the hatch slid open, it did so with absolute silence. The two company dignitaries stepped through the opened and wrinkled their noses at the obnoxious smell of the pirate vessel. Being an interstellar conglomerate, the aliens were of two different species, a Tennean and a Hax, and each dressed in matching white suits. They came without guards or other entourage, confidence in their safety while aboard the pirate ship.

  Angar met the reps in a small storage cabin off the landing bay that had been cleaned out and made into a conference room. He greeted the aliens, who did not offer their names; Angar wasn’t important enough to know.

  “You have insisted upon this meeting, which is acceptable and wise,” Angar began.

  “Of course, but no pleasantries. Do you have the dark matter device?”

  “Yes I do, yet as you suspect, it is not aboard this ship. That would be unwise.”

  “So you do not have it?”

  “I do, and for proof, I present you with this.” Angar removed one of the small grey containment cubes from a box and placed it on the table. The MK beings knew what it was. One took a datapad from the pocket of this immaculately-tailored garment.

  “We have a way of testing the validity of your claim,” the unnamed two-armed alien said.

  “Permission,” Angar said as he leaned back, confident in the results.

  The alien worked the pad, sweeping it over the cube several times and then working the tabs on the computer.

  “That cube is for you to keep, as good faith for our future transaction.”

  “We have others, but will accept your offer. And what of the Humans? We understand Adam Cain was involved in the rescue of the others from the Cartel. What is their status?”

  “As I said in the CW link, all are dead.”

  “Verified?”

  “Yes. I placed an explosive aboard one of a vessels that destroyed both ships involved. I witnessed the explosion. Adam Cain is dead.”

  The aliens appeared skeptical. “That is good news, if true. For the moment we will operate on that assumption yet remain cautious.”

  “Is the cube to your satisfaction?” Angar asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have the credits?”

  “Yes. They will be delivered to Woken as you requested.”

  “Then we shall proceed to the planet and the exchange. Please leave the area by deep well. We will meet you on Woken in nine standard hours.”

  Stern faced, the Maris-Kliss reps took the cube and left Angar’s ship. Once the larger vessel was gone, Angar sent a shuttle out to recover the small cargo pod floating a quarter-light out from his ship that contained the dark matter collector and the rest of the cubes.

  He set off for Woken after the brief delay.

  16

  Adam was getting worried, and he was taking it out on Riyad.

  “He’s not coming. He must have made other plans.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” Riyad said in his defense. “We don’t have any other contacts in the Frontier; we haven’t been here long enough. He has to come here.”

  “Maybe he did make the exchange in space after all,” Sherri said, the cold and wet helping to place her squarely on Adam’s side of the debate. The sooner they called off the mission, the sooner she could return to the Orion and dry clothes.

  Riyad shook his head. “I know him. He’s cautious to a fault.”

  “However, you didn’t see him stabbing you in the back,” Sherri pointed out. “Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think.”

  Kaylor had already left the building a couple of times, as he began to draw too much attention just sitting in the lobby waiting for someone who never showed up. He went to the other buildings to mix things up, but after nine hours he’d exhausted all his options. He apologized to the guards, saying his meeting partner was late, but that he had to remain. He would show up eventually. The guards were beginning think Kaylor was one of the homeless, and simply pulling a scam on them as a way to stay out of the cold and rain. He had to show them a decent stack of Juirean credits to prove he was otherwise. He eventually had to tip them to let him stay.

  On the roof, Sherri stood up, catching a blast of bitter wind on her cheek. She pulled the hood closer to her face. “I’m calling it quits. Thanks, Riyad, looks like we’ve just lost the biggest score of the century.”

  “And not to mention the most-deadly weapon in the galaxy,” Adam added.

  “Hey, if I hadn’t shown up, you’d both be dead by—”

  The sound of a spacecraft dropping though the thick cloud cover above caught their attention. Sherri ducked back down and took out a pair of computerized binoculars. Both Adam and Riyad already had theirs aimed into the sky.

  It was a black-hulled Marauder—Angar’s ship.

  “I told you,” Riyad said. There wasn’t much boast in his voice, but a whole lot of relief.

  Kaylor, Adam called out through his ATD. Angar is landing. We’ll let you know when he reaches the building. Be careful that he doesn’t see you.

  Understood.

  It took Angar fifteen minutes after landing to leave his ship. A small caravan of four transports pulled up to the cargo bay. Adam couldn’t get a good view of the ship; it was only visible through openings between other ships parked on the field. But after a few minutes, the transports pulled away. Through the windows, the Humans could see several pirates filling three of the transports, with Angar alone in the back of the fourth. It was a lot of security if he didn’t have the collector with him.

  The drive from the spaceport to the cluster of buildings only took five minutes. Adam checked his weapon for the tenth time. Everything was ready. Once Kaylor found where Angar was in the building, they would move.

  Then there came another loud roar and vibration from above, strong enough to rattle the building and everything around it. Something big was coming down through the black clouds, made even darker now by the approach of nightfall. Adam and his team watched in wonder as a large starship broke the cloud cover; a beautiful ship, shiny and new. It was so rare to see anything that even looked new this far out in the galaxy. M
ost vessels were twenty years old or more. Starships were expensive, so they were kept in service as long as possible.

  “It’s MK,” Sherri reported. “I’ve seen that ship before, or one just like it.”

  The ship landed in the south section of the field, barely fitting between the wall parallel to the outside road and the end of the landing port. Angar’s pirate vessel—as well as all the others on the field—looked tiny by comparison.

  As soon as the landing smoke cleared, a back panel on the ship rolled away revealing a large cargo bay. An alien truck pulled up and was quickly surrounded by upwards of fifty armed guards from the starship. Others from inside began to move identical crates from the ship to the truck.

  “You don’t think that’s what I think it is?” Sherri asked.

  “The money,” Riyad said with awe.

  “Over a hundred million credits….” Sherri’s voice trailed off.

  Adam watched mesmerized as the boxes were moved from the MK ship. They seemed to just keep coming. He had to admit, he had no idea how many crates it would take to hold over one hundred million Juireans credits; he laughed, thinking it would take a lot if Angar wanted them all in small, unmarked bills—plastic chips, in this case.

  As he looked down at the rapidly loading truck, he let out a sigh. “Only if….”

  Then the plan formed in his mind, almost instantly and with detail.

  “Let’s get it,” he said to the others. The excitement on their wet faces matched that of his own. They were thinking the same thing.

  “Listen up. We still need the collector, but I think there’s a way we can get both the DMC and the money and make it look like Angar double-crossed MK.”

  Riyad was ahead of him. “You’ll need to make it look like Angar’s crew took the money.” He smiled. “You’ll need uniforms from his ship.”

  “You guys have uniforms?” Sherri asked. “But you’re pirates.”

  “Angar and I didn’t wear them, but the crew does. It comes in handy during boarding parties so friendlies don’t get shot. You’ll have to get in the ship first.”

  “You’re not coming with us?” Adam asked.

  “No, you and Sherri go. I’ll get Kaylor and go after the collector. Besides, I owe Angar a personal visit. Can’t wait to see the look on his face when he sees my handsome mug.”

  “Sounds good,” Adam said. “Stay in touch through your ATD…and be careful.

  “Careful is my middle name.”

  “I thought it was dickhead?” Adam said.

  “That’s my other middle name. Now…let’s go make a fortune.”

  “Roger that, dickhead.”

  17

  Sherri and Adam slipped down the outside of the building while Riyad gained entry through a once-locked door on the roof. Alien doors seldom stayed locked with Humans around.

  The rain had let up, but it was getting darker. From the thick cloud cover, night came early on this part of Woken. Adam and Sherri ran across the nearly deserted street to the wall of the spaceport and followed it to an opening south of the buildings. There was a guard on duty but he paid them no attention, entranced by the bluish glow of a monitor inside his warm and dry security shack. Angar’s ship was to the west, near the edge of the landing field. The spaceport wasn’t normally this crowded, but with the pirate ship and the MK vessel, there was little room left for anything else. Adam was sure neither party would be hanging around long after their business was concluded.

  The Marauder was a hundred yards long by half that wide and stood sixty feet into the air. It had very few exterior features except for the bridge viewport, a pair of additional portholes along each side, seams for hatches and landing bays and a short fin in the back holding various sensors. The focusing rings for the gravity drive were located in a compartment below the bridge and the dual engine rooms were just forward of the landing bay and cargo hold. Adam could see the round covers for several flash cannon dotting the surface, closed now when not in use.

  Through his ATD he was able to detect hundreds of flash weapons inside the ship. Most were in the aft section, in the armory. But there were twelve clustered amidships, with some changing position as the armed crew moved about the ship.

  Sherri and Adam took out there weapons, even though they had no intention of using them. One flash from an energy bolt, either at the airlock or seen through one of the viewports, would alert the MK crew. Already on guard with the transfer of the credits, they would take action. Adam would disable the pirate’s MKs, and then he and Sherri would use their Human super strength to take them out.

  The truck with the money was sitting a few rows of spaceships away, surrounded by a phalanx of guards with the loading complete. It wasn’t moving; waiting now for the word from the bosses that it was safe to proceed. A caravan of long, dark transports drove away from the ship toward the spaceport exit, ostensibly taking the negotiators and their escorts to meet Angar.

  “You ready?” Adam asked Sherri.

  She took a deep breath and smiled. “Let go kick some alien ass.”

  Adam winked, and then activated both the inner and outer airlock doors at the same time with his brain-interface device.

  They stepped inside quickly. Adam shut the outer door and locked out the controls. He didn’t want any of the pirates fleeing the ship and raising the alarm.

  They reached the spine corridor without seeing anyone and turned aft, toward the common area. The pirates were hanging out there, waiting for instructions from their captain. With twelve on the ship, that left eighteen—plus Angar—at the building. Adam had relayed this information to Riyad before he and Sherri entered the ship.

  Now they stood at an open portal, watching the pirates as they drank, ate or otherwise were engrossed in datapads resting in their laps. It took a moment before anyone noticed them.

  The reaction was swift. MKs were pulled out, targeting computers activated and weapons locked on. The only problem: none of the firing circuits were intact. The guns didn’t fire.

  Adam should have realized that these pirates would recognize Adam and Sherri. Although this crew was made up mostly of newbies, the veterans had worked with the Humans before, and they had been commanded by Riyad for the past year. They were familiar with Riyad and his friends, not only from firsthand knowledge but from stories which spread more rapidly and lasted longer with the quasi-relationship the pirates had with the Humans.

  This was a long way of saying the pirates didn’t waste time trying to figure out why their MKs weren’t working. Instead, half of them threw their inert handguns at the Humans while everyone charged. Four of them concentrated on the smaller female, while eight plowed into Adam.

  Even with his Human strength, quickness and coordination, eight aliens attacking at one time was too much, even for him. He was thrown to the deck, while a series of hits and kicks pummeled his body. He could take the blows, at least for a while, being more immune to the hits than Sherri. He was still enjoying the aftereffects of having a small amount of Panur’s mutant brain cells in his head. Although they were gone now, his body had learned from the experience, at least to a degree. He figured he’d had around a twenty-percent increase in most bodily functions, including strength, toughness and even intelligence, above his prior state. Now he struggled to use his added physical abilities to get the upper hand against eight vicious and desperate aliens, all of which knew they were fighting for their lives against the Human.

  Both his arms were pulled to his side and held down. He tried to roll over so he could free one of them, but the aliens held firm. Two were straddling him, raining fists down on his bloody face. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. These guys were better than he expected.

  One of his arms broke free, along with a leg, allowing Adam to ram a foot into the crotch of one of the aliens standing over him. With aliens, this was often a hit or miss proposition, depending on their anatomy, but this time it paid off. The pirate grunted, grabbed his privates and then threw up…all over
Adam.

  There was a slight break in the fighting as some of the pirates recoiled from the vomit. Another arm came free and Adam began wailing away with both fists and legs. He wasn’t looking for a target; there were so many of the enemy around him that he was making contact without even trying. Five of the eight aliens were either dead or writhing in pain on the deck. At that point, Adam got a chance to look over at Sherri to see how she was doing….

  The four aliens had been able to press her against a bulkhead before laying fists to her face and knees to her midsection. She slipped to one side, placing a pirate between her and the other three, using the alien body for cover. A well-placed kick had taken out one of her attackers, but then another picked up a long knife from the galley and lunged at her with it. Sherri was able to spin the closest pirate toward the blade, which sliced into his side, followed by a piercing scream. The cut didn’t kill the pirate, but when Sherri ripped the knife from the hand of the attacker and ran it across the throat of the wounded being, he was done.

  Sherri hoisted the dead alien off the floor and tossed his limp body at the alien that once held the knife. He raised his arms in defense…and a moment later found a twelve-inch blade embedded in his chest. That left only one pirate to contend with. He backed away and then tried rushing past the blood-covered Human to reach the air lock. Sherri crashed a shoulder into him, bouncing the frail body off the metal bulkhead. Stunned, the pirate was an easy target for a fist to the back of the neck, severing the creature’s spine.