by Tim Marquitz
“There! All set, the program’s running.” She tapped the side of her head. “From now on, the comms will alternate frequencies, skipping across the spectrum in bursts to make it harder for anyone to identify or block them.”
“Won’t that make it harder to communicate, too?” Dent asked, perking up a bit at the mention of something technical.
Lina nodded. “A little, as each comm will need to sync with the system first before they can communicate, but it will only cause a miniscule delay on the receiver end. Might garble the transmission a little, too, depending on how long the conversation being conducted is.” The engineer shrugged. “Keep the relay to under ten seconds and it shouldn’t be an issue.”
“That means you need to stay off the radio, Torbon,” Cabe said, breaking out in laughter again. “It takes you forever to form a sentence, let alone a coherent thought.”
“You know what didn’t take me forever?” Torbon fired back. “My eating all your rations!”
Cabe spun in his seat and glared, no sign of his laughter now. “You better be lying.”
“Maybe,” Torbon answered. “Maybe not.” He licked the back of his hand and wiped his mouth with it, grinning all the while.
With a growl, Cabe jumped out of his seat. Only Lina’s announcement kept him from diving at Torbon, who stood there chuckling.
“We’re here,” the engineer said. “If you’re going, now’s the time.”
“Come on,” Taj shouted, bumping into Cabe’s shoulder and redirecting him before he could get into it with Torbon. Then she grabbed her pouch of grenades off the chair and slung it over her shoulder.
She wanted to be prepared.
Torbon circled around the bridge and clambered into the pilot’s seat after Cabe was safely away from it. Jadie plopped into Taj’s chair.
“We’ll keep things together while you’re gone,” Jadie told them, offering a goodbye wave. “Everyone’s waiting for you at the gangplank.”
“Thanks,” Taj replied, returning the wave and nudging Cabe out the door before he could start back up with Torbon.
The pair raced through the ship and met up with the couple dozen Furlorians they planned to take with them. Taj noted with a sneer that Grady wasn’t among the volunteers.
Typical, she thought, but there wasn’t time for petty concerns. She had a job to do.
“Let’s go,” she ordered, and Cabe, Dent, and the others followed her down the gangplank and out onto the frosty surface of the planet.
As soon as they reached solid ground, the gangplank retracted and slammed into place in the hull. Then the Discordant was up and away, shooting out over the icy fields until it disappeared from sight.
Taj watched it leave, running the plans over in her mind. Then the coldness hit her, and she shivered, chasing everything away but the bleak chill that had already set to work upon her bones.
There hadn’t been the time or the means to prepare themselves for the cold weather, so they had to make do with what little clothing they had. That, along with their coating of fur, helped hold the worst of it at bay, but there was no way they could stay out in it for long without consequences.
That in mind, Taj ushered her people on, letting Dent lead the way.
“Move it, Dent,” she ordered. “I want everyone to come home with all their fingers and toes.” He nodded and started off at a fast clip.
Unlike the metropolitan Ovrun, Wole was a sparse waystation at the top of the planet, a silver and white star shining under gray clouds. Where the former had great towering buildings of steel and glass, the latter was a cluster of small buildings with sharp slopes for roofs, designed to keep the snow and ice from collecting there and crushing the homes beneath their weight.
The streets were wide and nearly empty. Locals wandered about, furred giants with sparkles of frost shining across their coats, but they were few and far between. And they didn’t seem to have any concern with strangers wandering about. They stole quick glances and sniffed the air as the crew passed, but it seemed, once they were behind them, the locals lost what little interest they had.
Given that and the complete lack of security protocols when they brought the Discordant into orbit, it was clear Taj didn’t have to worry about any interference from local law enforcement. However, on the flip side, it also meant she couldn’t call on them for help once the pirates arrived and tried to claim their revenge and steal Dent away again. The locals clearly weren’t going to involve themselves in anything the Furlorians did.
Which was okay. No need to drag anyone else into their mess.
Taj marched after Dent, stomping her feet in an effort to keep the blood flowing and stay warm. The mechanoid led them along, taking what seemed like random turns here and there and drawing them deeper and deeper into town.
This time, however, he didn’t narrate the trip as he’d done in Ovrun.
Whether that was due to his disappointment as how that had worked out for him, or simply because he didn’t know anything of interest to point out in Wole, Taj wasn’t sure.
Whatever it was, the mechanoid’s silence only heightened her desire to get things over with.
Spread out as Wole was, the trip seemed to take forever, every new street looking like the last. Only one or two buildings stood on each block, if that’s what they were called, the distance between them growing farther apart at every turn, as if the city were being stretched.
“How much longer?” Taj asked.
“Not much,” Dent replied. “My contact resides on the western side of town, in the Hale District. It’s a bit more subdued than this one.”
Taj chuckled under her breath. If it got any more subdued, they’d be headed to the morgue.
Dent didn’t seem to notice her amusement and continued on. Taj kept up with him, surveying what little there was to see. While she had noticed a few signs planted here and there, weathered and barely visible in most places, she hadn’t been able to read the language. The writing appeared even harsher and more guttural in its spelling than the Wyyvan writing she’d gotten used to staring at lately.
At least Dent seemed to know where he was going. But he did on Kulora, too.
She wondered if he could read the signs or if he was operating off some kind of internal locational device, a preprogrammed set of directions he was following. That thought only made her wonder if the cold was making things worse or better for the mechanoid’s function. She couldn’t tell given that he wasn’t speaking.
He walked with a bit of a limp and twitched now and again, but that was almost normal for him of late.
In the last few days aboard the Discordant, he’d started to malfunction worse than he had before. Gran Verren tried to reboot him again, but it didn’t accomplish much more than easing a few of the more blatant spasms. Even Lina sat down and worked on him, but he wouldn’t let her get deep into his AI system, fearing damage to his already unstable circuitry.
He was clinging to the last of his self with ferocity.
Without being able to examine him properly, the engineer had given up the job as impossible. So, Dent went on deteriorating during the trip, suffering the effects of whatever the pirates had done to him to advance his system failure.
From the looks of him, it wouldn’t be long until he went completely dark and shut down. And even with as harsh as it sounded inside her head, she hoped she could get what she needed before he crashed and became useless to everyone.
She’d be happy to carry on his quest, finding a new home for the rebirth of his people, but she needed to do the same for her own first.
“This is the place,” Dent finally said, intruding upon her thoughts.
The location looked much the same as all the others they’d passed. A high, angled roof jutted over what looked like a tiny shack. There were no windows visible—and Taj realized that she hadn’t seen any on the buildings in the city—and only one door was apparent.
Plas-encased tubes ran lengthwise down the door and coils ran the
length of each. The coils glowed red hot, and the area around the door was cleared of snow and ice. Moisture glistened on the walk.
Lina muttered something under her breath and moved closer to the door. She let out a happy sigh. “They’re heaters,” she muttered, inching so close Taj was afraid she’d catch her fur on fire. Her tail floated lazily behind her.
Cabe ran over and raised his hands in front to the door. Taj could hear him purring from where she stood about a meter away. The rest of the Furlorians drew as close as they could manage to savor the heat.
Dent pushed his way through the cluster of cats and pressed a button on a control panel beside the door. A muffled chime sounded inside the residence.
“Eyes open, people,” Taj warned. The way her crew gathered about the door, it wouldn’t take much to open fire and kill or wound almost all of them in a quick burst of weapon’s fire.
Her people grumbled but did as expected, spreading out and moving away from the heat of the door. As they did, the portal swung open and a tall, powerfully-built furred creature peeked its head out. It glared at everyone present, its dark expression only smoothing out a bit when it saw Dent among the mass of Furlorians.
“Why are you here?” it asked, not bothering with any of the coded talk Pandu had opened with.
Dent, perhaps caught off guard by the creature’s forthrightness, glanced around like a guilty child about to do something stupid. Finally, he turned back to the creature and said, “Forgive the intrusion, Krawg, but I have come for it.”
“Have you now?” Krawg replied with a grunt, though, everything he said was in the form of a grunt. Taj was glad to have the translator embedded in her head.
Dent nodded. “I have.”
Krawg stood in the doorway without a response, simply staring at Dent until Taj began to believe they’d wandered into another bad situation. The creature didn’t seem to have any interest in dealing with Dent.
Then, as Taj inched her hand toward her weapon and made ready to say something, to warn Dent, Krawg nodded and waved him inside.
“Come then, but there is no room for all your cats. Bring a few and leave the rest of the strays outside.” He turned and strode back inside without so much as a glance backward.
“You sure about this?” Taj asked Dent, feeling a twinge of annoyance that she’d asked him the question she so hated.
She felt Cabe’s amused stare on her back, making it clear he’d caught what she’d asked, and she bit back a smile.
“I’ve no choice,” he answered. “This is the last of the devices my masters secreted away. If I cannot obtain it, I will never be free of this squat, alien husk.” He gestured to his body, and Taj once again was surprised by his sense of self.
He hated what he’d been forced to become, and even among his determination to give his creators new life, his willingness to do what was necessary, there was clearly a part of him that wanted a rebirth for himself, freedom from the prison that was the Sperit body.
“Couldn’t they have uploaded the schematics into your head and allowed you to build it on your own when you needed it?” Cabe asked.
Dent shook his head. “No, for those instructions would need to be available to me at all times for them to be useful, unable to be hidden appropriately. As such, it means they could be plucked from my databases by those looking to obtain the rest of the information I hold, such as the Terants.”
Cabe nodded, letting it go at that, for which Taj was grateful. Dent already looked as defeated as he possibly could. She didn’t need him falling apart. Not yet while there was still hope.
For his part, Dent glanced down at his short alien body again and sighed. Then he straightened, perhaps seeing an end to his quest, and followed the creature into its home.
Cabe started in after him, and Taj hesitated only long enough to issue an order. “Stay watchful. The pirates could show up any minute,” she told the crew. “Also, if you hear something weird inside, you come get us. Understood?”
The crew nodded, and Taj entered Krawg’s home.
Like Dent, her quest was almost done, too.
Chapter Nineteen
It was more comfortable inside than she’d expected.
The cold receded a bit, and the room opened up quickly, the ceiling as high as the roof outside. Taj stretched and luxuriated in the sudden space, having been trapped aboard the crowded Discordant for far too long.
It was nice not to have to weave her way through kicking feet and squirming bodies.
Krawg led them into a second room where plush pillows littered the floor, a tiny table set at the center of them.
“Please, have a seat. Drinks?” Krawg asked, his demeanor adopting a more cultured edge now that he’d returned to the confines of his home.
Taj wanted to decline, but Dent warned her off with a furtive stare. She accepted gratefully, and Krawg shambled off into another room to collect what she hoped were only drinks.
“Appearances aside, the Ursites are a cultured race. Politeness is a key component to all of their transactions,” Dent whispered.
Taj raised an eyebrow. “You mean, like how he questioned your arrival and left you waiting at the door while he made up his mind?”
“Well, let me rephrase,” he started. “It is an expectation that you be polite to them, not so much the other way around.”
Taj chuckled. Wasn’t that true everywhere?
“Okay, I’ll play nice. Cabe will, too, right?” She glanced over at him, and Cabe nodded.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Please do,” Dent pushed. “If I am not able to collect the device, our journey will end in a most catastrophic way. For me, at least.”
Cabe raised his hands in mock surrender. “No trouble from me.”
“From me either,” Taj assured as Krawg emerged from the other room carrying a silver platter. There were four drinks on it, each in gorgeous glass cups.
He set the tray on the table and offered them to everyone.
“Thank you,” Taj replied, picking up the nearest glass. She took a small sip, letting her lips linger on the rim of the glass to make it look as if she drank more than she did, and smiled.
The swirling gold liquid inside was delicious, she had to admit, but she couldn’t shake Pandu’s betrayal from her mind. She wasn’t quite ready to trust the hulking Ursite yet, but she also didn’t want to offend him and ruin any chance they had of accomplishing their mission.
It was a fine line they were being made to walk.
“This is fantastic!” Cabe offered as he set the glass down, but Taj noticed he, too, barely sipped at the drink.
Dent had no such compunctions, draining half the glass in one gulp, much to the delight of Krawg. Of course, his mechanized systems would be unaffected by poisons, so he had nothing to worry about.
“You’re appreciative of the Quilix, as your masters were,” he said, clapping Dent on the back. “You honor me.”
Dent offered a conciliatory smile. “No, it is you who honor us by sharing the Quilix with us.”
If Krawg’s face hadn’t been completely covered in fur, Taj could have sworn she’d seen him blush. He grinned, showing off great, shining teeth, brilliantly white against his dark fur, and settled in across from Dent.
He sat with a grace that belied his size, and even seated, he towered over everyone in the room. His yellow eyes gleamed as he stared across at Dent.
“So, it is time for your masters to return, is it?”
Dent nodded. “It is, though the timetable has been advanced due to unforeseen Terant interference.” He sighed, his gaze drifting to the ceiling. “In fact, in all openness, there are three of their ships headed this way as we speak, Krawg. They will be here soon, and I fear for your peace and safety should they arrive before we have concluded our business.”
“Fear not, my mechanical friend,” Krawg told Dent, “I expected no less when I accepted your masters’ secrets. I knew this day would come.” He rose to his feet and shu
ffled off into a different room than the one where he’d collected the drinks.
Krawg returned a short moment later with a pouch. From within it, he pulled a small, dark box that seemed to be constructed out of the vastness of black space. It shimmered and appeared to undulate, tiny white stars bursting to life across its face only to fade away to be reborn again instants later.
Dent gasped, raising a hand to his mouth. His Sperit eyes grew even wider than Taj thought possible. She could see the flutter of his pretend heart in the veins at his neck.
“It’s beautiful,” Dent said, barely managing to get the words out.
“Can you connect it and restore your systems?” Cabe asked, leaning over the table to get a better look at the device.
“Sadly, it is not that simple, and I cannot. Not yet, at least,” Dent answered. “The process takes time, and I must be fully in stasis mode for it to work or it will struggle to properly assess and realign my systems. There is no time for that now.”
“Then you must return to your ship immediately,” Krawg told him. “Begin the process and restore your masters to their greatness before the Terants, or others, cast deeper shadows across their future.”
Right then, as if Krawg’s words had been prophetic, a burst of static strafed the comm. Taj bit back a curse as the sound set her skull to ringing. Then a voice came through, loud and clear. “The pirates are here,” the voice of one of the Furlorians outside shouted. “Contact. They’re coming at us fast, Taj.”
Taj leapt to her feet, snarling. “The pirates are here and our people are about to be attacked.”
“All three ships have landed in a nearby ice field,” Lina confirmed, having been monitoring the comm. “They’ll be on our people in seconds.”
The first Furlorian muttered something else Taj couldn’t understand, and then there was a scream that carried across the comm and her ears at the same time. It was the sound of someone dying, blaster fire drowning it out an instant after. “They’re all over us!”