The Counterfeit Captain

by Henry Vogel

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One - Sko

  Chapter Two - Mootners

  Chapter Three - The Village Admin

  Chapter Four - The Cull

  Chapter Five - What Lies Below

  Chapter Six - Into the Belly of the Beast

  Chapter Seven - Captured

  Chapter Eight - Arktu

  Chapter Nine - Lilla

  Chapter Ten - Promotion Ceremony

  Chapter Eleven - Arktu's New Allies

  Chapter Twelve - Escape

  Chapter Thirteen - Nomads

  Chapter Fourteen - Lilla Is a Very Smart Girl

  Chapter Fifteen - A New Ally

  Chapter Sixteen - Officer Territory

  Chapter Seventeen - The Captain's Cabin

  Chapter Eighteen - On the Bridge

  Chapter Nineteen - Captain of the Ark 2

  Chapter Twenty - Home

  Copyright © 2016 by Henry Vogel

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photographic, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher.

  Published in the United States of America by Rampant Loon Press, an imprint of Rampant Loon Media LLC, P.O. Box 111, Lake Elmo, Minnesota 55042. “Rampant Loon Press” and the Rampant Loon colophon are trademarks of Rampant Loon Media LLC.

  www.rampantloonmedia.com

  Cover design by Logotecture.

  ISBN: 978-1-938834-81-3 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-938834-82-0 (print)

  First publication: May 2016

  For David, who started me writing.

  For DAK, who kept me writing.

  For Bruce, who got me back to writing.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sko

  “What a stupid place to die.”

  I hadn’t meant to say that out loud—not that it matters. It’s not like anyone was around to hear me. I’ve been told that talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity. Looking around the remains of my dying starfighter, I decided insanity was the least of my worries.

  Just enough light seeped through the debris from the space battle for me to see the Fringer gunship that got me. Watching oxygen venting from all of the holes I’d blown in it, I smiled. A ship that size carries a crew of ten to fifteen and they were all going to die, too. If there really is such a place as Valhalla, they’re going to make one hell of an honor guard escorting me into the great hall of warriors.

  So, yeah, dying sucks. But if you’ve got to die—which we all do eventually—and if some Fringer bastards are responsible for your death, I say do your best to take them out, too. With that cheerful thought in mind, I got in one last laugh before passing out from lack of oxygen.

  In an unexpected turn of events, I woke up again. My head pounded, but otherwise I was in surprisingly good shape. My starfighter lay on the deck of a huge docking bay. And I do mean huge. The entire bulk of the Phoenix, the carrier I’d launched from, would fit neatly in a corner. Hell, the entire Federation naval task force would fit inside the docking bay and still have space for a dozen more task forces. At least the place had air to breathe and gravity that felt Earth-normal.

  I disconnected the control cables from my implant, blew the canopy, and climbed carefully out of my ship. Looking at the thing from the outside, I was amazed the starfighter still held together at all. The Fringers really did a number on it. When I get home, I’m going to owe the GenCo engineers who designed the fighter a beer or six. And the first step to getting home was finding out who had saved me. If I owed the engineers some beers, I owed the person running the tractor beam a whole brewery.

  “Hello?”

  I listened to my voice echo off the closest wall—at least a hundred meters away—and get lost in the vast docking bay.

  “Anybody home?”

  That brought the same answer as before. Weird.

  Just as my latest shout died away, I finally heard something. But it wasn’t an answering voice. A metallic grinding came from the wall nearly a quarter of a kilometer away and directly opposite the wall closest to me. I stared in shock as a humongous door slowly cranked open. Who uses doors like that anymore when you’ve got atmosphere force fields which ships can fly through?

  Then the door opened far enough for me to see what was on the other side and I forgot all about existential engineering questions. Whoever ran this docking bay was tractoring in the Fringer gunship. If I survived, it’s a safe bet at least some of the gunship’s crew survived, too. Somehow, I doubted they were going to be very happy to see me.

  I scrambled back into the cockpit and pulled out the Navy’s standard issue survival backpack and the standard issue blaster pistol stored next to it. Jumping down, I set off running for the closer wall, hoping I could find a door, or at least a place to hide.

  I heard muffled shouts when the Fringers spotted me, followed shortly by the crack of a blaster. The bolt flew well wide of the mark, splashing harmlessly against the wall. More blaster shots followed, none of them any more accurate than the first, but I couldn’t run forever. Unless I found a hiding place soon, the Fringers had me dead to rights.

  A different mechanical sound came from ahead and to my right, followed by movement. A crew of robots trundled toward my ship. Behind them was a door! Kicking into a fast sprint, I pounded toward the robots.

  “Hey, robots! Call the crew and get some help before those guys back there kill me!”

  A couple of the robot heads swiveled my way for a second before turning back toward my fighter. What a helpful bunch of machines. Meanwhile, the door behind them slid shut.

  I zipped past the robots, running my eyes over the wall around the door. Where were the controls? The wall was just flat.

  More blaster bolts flashed around me. I heard one of the robots give a mechanical shriek as a shot struck it. I wracked my brain for a way to make the door open.

  “Open sesame!”

  That ought to cast further doubt on my sanity. It also didn’t open the door. Then, over the shooting and shouting of the Fringers, I heard the sound of the robots coming back my way. Looking back at them, I saw the pieces of one robot scattered on the deck. The rest of the metal gang powered my way as fast as their legs or wheels or treads could carry them—which was pretty damned fast.

  “Yeah, come on back robots.” I shouted. “Open the door and Captain Nancy will protect you from the mean old Fringers.”

  The robots didn’t respond to my offer, but the door behind me slid open. I hurried through and searched in vain for controls to shut the door again. I shouldn’t have worried. The robots piled through and the door shut behind them.

  “Good job, little buddies!” Even to me, my voice sounded a bit manic. “The next bottle of lube is on me.”

  Safely behind the door, the robots finally took notice of me. They whirred and squeaked, but only looked at me. I looked back at them and realized the six robots were real antiques, so ancient that I couldn’t even guess at their function or manufacturer. Where had the owner of this huge ship gotten his hands on these things?

  I tried speaking to them again. “So, if you could just direct me to the nearest member of the crew, I can get out of your way.”

  I was completely unsurprised when my words had no effect. Again. The robots and I stared at each other for another thirty seconds or so before I got tired of the staring contest. I pushed off from the wall and picked my way through the robots. That’s when they finally reached some decision.

  With a whir of servos, robotic hands grabbed hold of me and dragged me across the little room to a far wall. A door opened, revealing a tiny room barely large eno
ugh for five people. The robots shoved me into the room and the door slammed shut.

  With a jerk, the room ascended.

  Creaking and groaning but still moving quickly, the elevator rose for what felt like an eternity. I searched without success for a recognizable control panel or some way to call the crew of this massive ship. I did find a contact plate, but I didn’t have whatever you were supposed to hold against the plate. I had no guess what would happen if I did press the right object against the plate.

  I carefully counted time, trying to get an idea how far I’d traveled. By the time the elevator slowed, the count was so high I was long past wondering where it was going and simply wondered if it would let me out when it stopped. I guessed the elevator rose at least seven hundred meters, probably more. No ship in the Federation Navy came anywhere close to that diameter.

  Who on earth built such a big ship and for what purpose?

  The elevator stopped moving and, after a worrisome pause of a couple of seconds, the door cranked open. As soon as the opening was wide enough for me, I slipped sideways through it. After the dim light in the docking bay and the elevator, the bright light beyond the door blinded me for a second or two. Then my eyes cleared and I got the shock of my life.

  I wasn’t standing on the deck of some spaceship. My feet sank into the green grass of a forest glade. All around me, trees climbed into a bright sky. In the sky above the trees, white clouds hung like balls of cotton. And above the clouds…

  I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Then I pinched myself, just like I did as a child when I was faced with something beyond belief. The view did not change.

  Far above the clouds, maybe forty or fifty kilometers away, was another forest. It had a little lake and a winding river. And next to the lake sat a small village. Just hanging up in the sky. Upside down. And inside some kind of spaceship.

  By instinct, I tried to step back from this strange vision and ran into a cool, solid wall behind me. Dragging my eyes from the impossible sight above me, I spun around. I’d backed into a large rock, perhaps half a meter taller than the elevator I’d been in for so long.

  “What the hell? Where’s the elevator?” I’m still getting used to talking to myself—it’s a new thing for me. As long as I don’t start answering myself, I think I’ll be okay.

  I ran my hands over the rock and it felt just like a rock should feel. Leaning closer, I examined the place where I thought the door should be and was rewarded. A tiny, almost invisible crack ran in a straight, vertical line to a height of about two and a half meters. I sighed with relief, having solved at least one mystery. The elevator door was camouflaged, but at least it was there.

  I took my time searching the rock, giving myself time to come to grips with what hung above me. I discovered the dimensions of the door and found what I thought was a carefully disguised contact plate. But I still didn’t have whatever was supposed to touch the contact plate, so I couldn’t do anything more with the door.

  Summoning all of my courage, I turned away from the rock and looked up once again. Damn. The clouds and the village on the lake still hung there, far above me. I shuddered as a feeling of vertigo swept over me.

  A hurried rustling came from the forest around me, as if someone was running through the dried leaves and branches carpeting the forest floor. I dropped my gaze to the forest and looked around me.

  A man, human by all outward appearances, burst into the clearing. He was dressed in some kind of coarse woven cloth, wore his hair long and gathered in a ponytail, had a full beard, and he carried a crude spear in one hand. He also directed all of his attention behind him, so he didn’t notice me at all.

  The man ran a few meters into the clearing, spun around to face back the way he came, and drove the butt of his spear into the ground next to him. I suddenly realized the rustling from the forest hadn’t stopped. If anything, it grew louder and more frenetic. Whatever was making the noise sounded big and it was coming our way.

  Not wanting to disturb the man’s concentration, I quietly drew my blaster and peered into the trees. Soon, I caught the flicker of movement as the noisy whatever drew closer. All of a sudden, a creature burst from the forest. All I could see was tusks and churning legs and a couple of hundred kilograms of beady-eyed fury—all of it directed at the man with the crude spear.

  Even as the man lowered his spear to point at the creature’s breast, I raised my blaster and pulled the trigger. Crack! And again. Crack!

  My first shot caught the creature in the shoulder, tripping it up as a leg collapsed out from under it. The second shot blasted through an eye and into the brain. With a squeal, the thing fell to the ground and, with the exception of random twitches in its legs, lay still.

  Wide-eyed, the man turned to see who or what produced the sound. My mind raced to find an explanation for what the primitive man just witnessed. I need not have bothered. The man’s eyes alighted on the blaster and he grinned.

  “Zanku odmin,” the man said.

  At least, I think that’s what he said. Never let it be said my parents raised an impolite young woman. Holstering the blaster, I held out my empty hands, hoping to reassure him of my good intentions, and smiled at him. “You’re welcome.”

  Rising to his feet but leaving his spear on the ground, the man also held out his empty hands. “Msko.”

  Shaking my head in confusion, I repeated it. “Msko?”

  The man laughed, pointed to himself, and said, “Sko.”

  Oh, that was his name. But what the hell did ‘m’ mean? Then it dawned on me. The sound was a shortened colloquialism. He meant “I’m Sko.” I think. But enough introspection. The man looked at me expectantly, obviously waiting for me to introduce myself.

  My military training took over. Pointing to myself, I said, “Captain Nancy Martin.”

  A look of awe or terror, maybe both, crossed the man’s face. Without another word, he dropped to his knees and genuflected.

  I stared down at the prostrate man. Of all the strange things I’d experienced over the last hour, this was the strangest. What the hell did the guy think he was doing?

  I nudged him with my foot. “A simple salute would have been fine, Sko.”

  The man reacted to my foot nudge by backing half a meter away, but he held his bow. Did the guy understand me? He spoke something similar to galactic basic, though with an odd accent, and seemed to understand me earlier. Surely he could puzzle through this latest sentence. For whatever reason, he kept his forehead pressed to the dirt.

  “Rise. Stand and be counted. Cast off your shackles and walk free. Let’s kick ass and take names.” I got irritated when the man didn’t get to his feet and the irritation crept into my voice. “Get up, Sko.”

  Finally, he stood up. When he did, I stepped up into his face and channeled my drill sergeant from basic training. “Don’t you ever bow to me again. Do you understand?”

  Uncertainty and fear lit Sko’s eyes and his knees bent. I quickly caught his arm and pulled him up while shaking my head. Fortunately, he figured out what I meant and straightened. Smiling, I patted him on the shoulder. The guy beamed as if I’d done him a great favor.

  I met his eyes and said, “Salute!” Then I snapped to attention and gave a parade ground salute.

  Sko studied my posture for a few seconds then came to a semblance of attention and brought his right hand up in a sloppy salute. “Zalu!”

  A drill sergeant would start yelling right about now, but I’m not a drill sergeant. I lowered my hand, smiled at Sko, and nodded. His smile widening, Sko copied me.

  “No more bowing, okay Sko? You can salute if you want to.” He immediately did so, forcing me to return it. “Good. You’ve got the idea.”

  Sko looked over his shoulder at the beast I’d shot. “Canny butchabor?”

  He wanted to do something with the creature, but I’ll be damned if I could figure out what. Heck, I didn’t even know if Sko had hunted the animal, the animal had hunted Sko, or if they’d both hunted
each other. Whatever the situation, I saw no reason he couldn’t do whatever he wanted to do with it.

  I nodded, sweeping my arm in an arc that began with Sko and ended with the animal. “You may do what you wish with the…thing.”

  My heart leapt into my throat when Sko pulled out a crude knife, but he turned to the carcass and began sawing away at the belly of the beast. I’m a city girl so know nothing about the ins and outs of butchering animals. I’m not stupid, I know meat comes from animals, but packages of steak don’t look anything like the cow they came from.

  Within seconds, Sko had blood running all over his hands and down his arms. He was also having a very hard time hacking through the animal’s skin. He was doing okay, but that knife was old and obviously dull. I reached into the survival backpack and pulled out the knife included in the supplies.

  Offering it to Sko hilt first, I said, “Try this knife, Sko.”

  The man’s eyes lit up at the sight of the gleaming blade. With careful reverence, he took the knife from me and simply stared at it for a few seconds, twisting it this way and that, holding it up toward the light—wherever that came from—and watching the blade glint. Then he went back to butchering and the task moved a lot faster. Sko actually laughed in delight as the sharp blade sliced the animal open.

  In case it’s never occurred to you, there is definitely something disturbing about a guy cackling as he pulls organs out of a dead animal. Disturbing or not, the job moved a lot faster with my knife.

  Sko obviously had no expectation of help from me, which is a damned good thing. I simply observed, nodding my approval whenever Sko held up this bloody bit or that bloody bit. I did lend a hand when, after gathering wood from the forest, Sko prepared to start a fire. Reaching into the backpack, I pulled out the fire starter. Sko jabbered excitedly when, with the press of a button, I ignited the fire. He spoke far too fast for me to even consider puzzling out his exact meaning, but the gist was clear. Sko liked the fire starter almost as much as he liked the knife.