by F. E. Arliss
“I’m fine!” the tiny troll spat out. “Where’d you learn ta’ leap ya’ big galoot,” he grumped, rubbing one small, ore ingrained elbow gingerly.
“Um, didn’t really do much leaping as a kid,” Digger acknowledge. “It was more about crawling about. Miners...you know…”, he added.
“Well, we’re here. Where’s this girl of yours?” Voc grumbled, climbing unsteadily to his feet and toddling over to hide partially behind one of Digger’s legs. “I suppose she’ll be on us any second.”
“Hope so!” Digger said, touching the troll gently on his wrinkled head. “Don’t worry, I won’t let her maul you.”
A snort met this statement. “Naw, she’ll be too busy mauling you, more like,” Voc replied, a small gasping sound escaped him. Digger had learned this was Voc’s way of laughing, and touched him once more on the top of his now drooping head.
“May I lift you, Voc?” Digger asked him quietly. “We both need rest and sustenance. Let’s see to that first, shall we? Then we can worry about being mauled.”
“Yes,” came the frail reply.
When the door opened to show Daer about to leap on him, Digger forestalled her. “As much as I’m glad to see you. We need to get him someplace to lie down in privacy.”
One glance at the small shriveled creature in Digger’s arms had Daer swinging to look at the enormously tall woman behind her. Waving them forward, Daer followed the beautiful Amazon out of Clyde. Digger frowned and turned momentarily to take in the phenomenon of the ‘there, but not there’ ship, then hurried after them. Stranger and stranger, Digger thought, as he encountered the interior of the larger ship that the Clyde had docked in. His first Idolum ship. It had a sort of pale green atmosphere and the floor beneath his feet seemed slightly squishy and looked like moss. Entering a very lush chamber with a small shelf-like bed surrounded by walls hung with all types of plant life, Digger laid Voc’s crumpled form onto the small shelf.
When tiny green tendrils began wrapping themselves around the troll’s weary body, Digger stepped forward in alarm. “No, leave them,” Daer urged, laying a restraining hand on his arm. “They’re only healing him. They’re part of the ship and monitor and administer fluids and medications for the wounded or stressed. It’s ok,” she assured him gently.
Digger slowly turned back to the small troll. “You hear that old man? The vines are medicine. Just accept them. Ok?” he said softly. “You ok?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. The vines are nice. They have mineral food. I like them,” Voc whispered, then fell promptly into a deep coma, the vines gently rocking him in a motion that mimicked the asteroid home he’d left behind.
Digger watched as Daer let one of the vines from the shelf-bed wind around her hand. She appeared to be communicating with it somehow. “He’s fine,” she whispered quietly to Digger. “He’s in a light coma, which they assure me he will come out of once he’s rested and had sustenance. It’s ok,” she assured him, smiling.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she added, drawing him gently from the room and across the corridor into her own quarters. “We’ve made the jump from Gem 11 and are well away from the mining company. We’ve masked our signature to match the pirate vessel from last time. We’re in the clear. Now, let’s get caught up,” Daer added, drawing Digger towards the shower unit accompanying her room. As she did so, she was slowly divesting herself of armor, clothes, and weapons in a way that made Digger begin to mimic the action. Time to get mauled, he grinned to himself. Voc had been soooo right.
Chapter Twenty-One
Digging Deeper
After a passionate reunion with Daer, Digger had fallen into a deep sleep. He was exhausted, Daer could tell, from all the traumas of the past month. The stress of the first explosions on the mining colonies, then the apprehension of the traitor, the decimation of ‘the dump’ with her supposed death, then her ‘frame up’ as the culprit and his as an accomplice. It had been a hellish lot to take in for all of them.
Talking now with the Princess and General Monsav, they were laying out the beginning of a plan to uncover the real culprit. It would take quite a bit of digging to unveil the person or persons behind this whole cover-up. It had all been a very highly thought-out series, so someone very intelligent. It also went without saying that whoever it was, had a huge amount of resources to draw from. Pirates in the plural, as the many ships that had attacked did not come cheap.
Daer didn’t know how she knew, but when Princess Arc Exousia said that she believed the Evelson Corporation had been behind it all, she believed her. It was as though the Princess could read the signs and interpret them. What Daer didn’t know yet was that her father, Commander Ewan Quirke, had shanghaied a low level worker in the Evelson Corporation’s shipyard and brought him to Arc for a little ‘look-see’ into the workings of the Evelson fleet.
Through that low-level laborer, Commander Quirke’s knowledge of the coming and going of ships in the Evelson fleet, and being able to place the head of the Evelson Corporation in the shipyard just prior to some of the pirate incidents, helped set a timeline that implicated the giant conglomerate. At the top of that conglomerate was one last Evelson, Princess Arc Exousia Quirke’s ‘birth brother,’ Harold Evelson. As Daer had already learned, family is a choice - not a fact, especially in the Alliance.
As the Centurion floated gently in deep space, the extended family aboard the Clyde, snug now in the belly of the Centurion -- Princess Arc Exousia’s nest ship-- a plan was born. In order to include Commander Dermott Quirke and his son Tate, the planning meetings were held in the small mess aboard the Clyde. Crammed to overflowing with Moira and Tally Quirke, Daer and Digger, the huge Princess and her general, Monsav, several Idolum warriors, the tiny mine troll Voc, and the shimmery visages of the two male Quirkes, there was no room for false formality.
The Princess had to stoop a bit in order to run the proceedings and was using General Monsav’s left shoulder as an arm-rest. The other three Idolum simply clumped together frantically tapping away at small devices in order to supply the information Princess Arc Exousia needed.
They had new information today. A transmission from Queen Altum Juls informed them that General Apollo, her Osmirian son, had managed to halt and board an Evelson cruiser. No one mentioned how he’d managed that, but Daer surmised from what was said that the Evelson cruiser had no idea they’d been boarded. So, what… Daer wondered, General Apollo could halt time or cloak himself? Maybe. The Osmir seemed to be capable of many things. She was going to get the low-down on that as soon as possible. From Digger’s questioning glance, she could see he was curious too.
As Princess Arc Exousia reported on the findings from the Evelson cruiser, murmurs of dismay echoed around the room. A ‘second Uzi’ had been found in the Rayen System. It had been code-named Mirage. While the planet wasn’t as large or as agreeable in climate as UZ627, it sustained life. The Evelson Corporation had struck an agreement with a species called the Tatula to maintain a base there.
The Tatula were a humanoid species, but the similarities ended with their upright carriage. The males bore large tusks and though bigger than the females, they resembled nothing so much as they did the species known as walrus on Earth. Even their feet looked like flippers. They stayed mostly in the sea, as the salt water supported their tremendous weight.
Evelson Corporation had been granted the use of one of the larger land masses on the planet. On that land mass they’d set up a large facility.
It appeared that the base on Mirage was being run by the remains of the slaver camps that had been discovered and disbanded a year earlier by the Princess and Queen Altum Juls. The biggest installation appeared to be some type of lab. The information that had been hijacked from the Evelson cruiser did not say what the lab was experimenting with. From the silence in the room, Daer knew they were all thinking the same thing…’it couldn’t be good’.
The group agreed to decamp to Renegar and explore the options fully before making any f
urther decisions. Clearly, they’d have to infiltrate the lab. What to do after that? No one was certain yet. One thing at a time.
Several fold-space jumps had them within hailing distance of Renegar and another few hours had them harbored safely within the massive cavern on Renegar’s uppermost plateau. Seated around a small fire, music played and Voc was introduced to ‘rock god’. They seemed to get along well, as Voc was now perched atop the large boulder and was muttering away in a low rumble. Daer was fairly certain he wasn’t talking to himself, as occasionally the two would simply disappear into a crack in the rock wall of the hangar. No one had a clue what they were up to.
After several days of rest and planning, it was agreed that Daer, Digger, Moira, Tally, a young man by the name of Alfie Woodard, and an Idolum Lieutenant called Kor, would be assigned to the Clyde. Commander Quirke would be in charge aboard the Clyde. Digger would lead the team that investigated the lab on Mirage.
The Centurion would ferry the Clyde to within one fold-space jump of the small planet and await their return there.
Alfie Woodard had been a hover-cab driver on the planet Uzi. He had a knack for blending in with the rum rabble of workers and slaves that they might find at the lab. Hopefully, he’d be able to infiltrate the lab as a maintenance worker and find them a vulnerability. It was very much a plan of chance. Daer was fine with that.
In the small mess, Daer sat and chatted quietly with Tate, then went to the bridge to see the Commander. He was deep in animated conversation with Lieutenant Kor and seemed to have struck up a rapport with the equally grizzled warrior. Daer wondered how Moira and Tally felt about the corporeal loss of the men in their family. Time would help them all deal with it she supposed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mirage
The Centurion sat behind the far moon of the small planet Mirage, cloaked and quiet, it awaited word from the Clyde. Even now the Clyde was on the surface, sitting brazenly among a group of rocky promentories to one side of the lab they’d come to investigate. Camera’s scanned the area, but detected nothing. Daer almost giggled with glee every four hours as the guard rotation walked blithely past them. The Commander couldn’t help himself and harrumphed happily each time.
Voc, the mine troll, now fully nourished but still destined to be far smaller than the average mine troll due to his prolonged exposure to a severely limited diet, had slipped out of a narrow crack in the Clyde’s cargo ramp and disappeared into the surrounding rocks. His mission had been to find a way to infiltrate the compound surrounding the lab. It hadn’t taken him long. Voc had come back within a few hours with an almost digital image of the camp. He’d preened with pleasure, rubbing his small, pebble like hands over his bald pate in excitement when Digger had hoisted him high and the crew had given him a hardy round of applause.
Under cover of darkness, Alfie then crept out of the Clyde and made his way to the edges of the compound. He’d been out of contact for almost eighteen hours now and everyone was getting edgy. Finally, a small crackle over the comms had Tate peering over Kor’s shoulder as he began tapping quickly over their console. “He’s back on comms,” Kor stated, his characteristic Idolum whir more pronounced than usual in his excitement.
“Alfie!” Commander Quirke demanded over the comms. Daer wasn’t sure if that was a command of relief or for information. Both, she suspected.
“I’m here, sir!” came Alfie’s hushed voice. “I’m on my way to you. Wait till you get a load of all this. Alfie out,” came the whispered voice, ending abruptly as Alfie got on with getting back to the Clyde.
Crawling through the barely-open crack in the Clyde’s cargo ramp, Alfie slapped the pad to close the door, propped himself onto two boney knees with even bonier arms and panted out, “You are not gonna believe this!”
Forty-five minutes later they were all sitting in the cargo bay staring at Alfie. Silence hovered. “Well, Holy deluxe shit!” exclaimed Dermott Quirke’s vaguely hovering shadow. As he said this, his form morphed a bit into a more solid mass. “These dipshits don’t know what they’re messin’ with,” he added with a sad shake of his head. “Though most likely, don’t care one way or t’other.”
“I’m sure it’s the latter, Commander,” Princess Arc Exousia said dryly. “The Evelson’s have never worried about anything but profit and, of course, we know first hand that what they are aiming for is feasible.”
“They’re trying to reproduce the Clyde’s accident after the crates ruptured. They don’t know that it actually happened in the explosion, but the Idolum algae they were hauling and the new minerals from the Gem belt have some properties that might work for cloaking. They’re just messing with compounds they don’t understand in order to make a profit,” Lieutenant Kor added, the low whir of his voice made the hair on the back of Daer’s neck stand up. Clearly, he was worried.
“Where did they get the algae?” Digger asked quietly. “I thought those products were part of the Alliance supply chain. Does this mean there’s a leak in the Alliance?”
“No!” Kor burst out. He was instantly silenced by glares from his General and the Princess.
“Unfortunately, that may well be,” the Princess said, a heavy sigh passing over her perfectly formed lips. Glancing at General Monsav, she added, “I think we’d best contact General Apollo or Queen Altum Juls. We’re going to need their assistance to find the Idolum source of the algae.”
Another worried silence descended over the group. “I think we know where the minerals came from. Those were stolen during the attack on ‘the dump’,” Daer added.
“The Evelson Corp is back to using slave labor again, and worse yet, experimenting on sentient subjects,” the Princess heaved another sigh. “We have to kill those bastards,” she added, to accompanying nods of agreement from General Monsav and Lieutenant Kor.
“Fer now, ya’ all need to rest, while the Princess here talks to her dad, Sasha Kelty, and the Queen,” Commander Quirke stated firmly. “Good work all of you. Now, off ta bed,” he added. Swirling air pushed them towards the door. “It’ll look better in the mornin’. For now, Tate and I’ll take Clyde back up to the Centurion.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Hung Out to Dry
The following morning Daer was greeted by a morose Princess Arc Exousia as she entered the mess. “Daer,” the Princess acknowledged her with a curt nod. Her knees almost rested on her chin as she tried to fold her Amazonian height into the seating area at the end of the table. The Princess was sipping the precious cup of coffee she’d entered the Clyde to find.
Daer lifted an eyebrow at General Monsav in question. Grinning, he showed an entire mouthful of sharp, spiny teeth. “She’s in a bad mood because General Apollo is on his way. She hates it when he gets to tell her what to do. It irks her somethin’ fierce!”
“He is such a know-it-all!” Princess Arc burst out, glaring balefully at the General. Then, abruptly shoving back from the table, she stood suddenly, banging her head on the ceiling of the mess. “Shit, shit, shit,” she stormed as she banged out of the room.
General Monsav stifled his laughter for a good fifteen seconds, then lowered his head into his hands and laughed until the need for a deep breath finally ended his chortles. “What’s so funny?” Daer asked, intrigued.
“Ah, it’s just that General Apollo gets up the Princess’ nose ‘cause he’s hot! She’s got a thing for him, but hasn’t figured it out yet,” he added, starting to chuckle again. “Poor baby is all in a knot over it. Needs to talk to Sasha’s grandma Dolores about it. That ol’ gal would straighten her out in no time,” he added with a narrowing of his amber eyes. “I just might have to set that up,” he added thoughtfully. “If anyone can talk some sense into that girl, it’s either her Dad, Ewan Quirke, or Dolores. I need to get one of these coffee maker thingies on the Centurion,” he grumbled. “This ship is just too damn small for us Idolum to use.” He too pushed back his chair, his wild grey hair brushed the ceiling as he did so, and left the room.
Ah, love, Daer thought, it gets us into all sorts of trouble. Digger was probably here because he’d gotten involved with her. She needed to talk to him about that, but had been putting it off. Soon, she assured herself.
General Apollo’s ship dropped into space next to the Centurion with only the tiniest of disturbances. Still cloaked, it hovered just out of Daer’s vision and stymied her attempts to get a glimpse of it. Digger nudged her gently, “It’s got to uncloak first, Daer,” he added with a grin at her impatience.
Heaving a sigh, Daer leaned into his side and waited, keeping one eye cocked at the viewer. “How do you feel about all of this,” she asked quietly. “I can’t help thinking that you only got messed up in all of this because of me.”
Digger surprised her by snorting, “Don’t take so much on yourself!” Turning to embrace her fully, he hugged her against him and said, “I got into this because I caught Lance Godwin, and was off-dump when the whole thing went down. They needed scapegoats and they took the two that were easiest to railroad because of our absence. The two of us! You told me that you wanted to let go of the way you were in your old life. The way you were was being too responsible for other people’s opinions of you. Don’t take responsibility for this. It’s about corruption and white-washing, nothing more,” he added firmly, brushing a kiss across her cheek.