Grimshaw retrieved his weapons from the automated locker next tot he front desk and exited the waiting area into a corridor that terminated onto Sentinel Square. Stepping outside, he was glad for the fresh air on his face.
The area buzzed with engineers, builders, and organizers as they completed preparations for the Sentinel Celebration. The stage at the head of the square was almost, and people moved about the square proper erecting seats for the more influential spectators. Those with less influence would be forced to stand at the foot of the square. Thousands were expected to attend. Grimshaw couldn’t help but think about what a tactical nightmare it would be if Chimera were to attack.
Grimshaw wound his way through heavy machinery as he made for the shuttle dock on the primary walkway.
Having to meet Taza in the lower levels was a pain in the ass.
Whatever he has, it better be good.
THE FIST OF ORINMORE
Taza blew a stream of fumes out of his face as he finished soldering Clio’s control unit to the serial transfer device they had built together.
“You should wear a safety mask,” Zora chirped from behind him. “Those fumes will kill you.”
“I’ve inhaled worse.”
“I have to admit; I’m impressed by your work.”
“It wasn’t easy, but we’re almost there,” Taza said. “Just a few finishing touches.”
“You have to give the kid credit,” she said, gleefully. “She’s got brains. Seems like she gave you a run for your money on this one.”
“We came up with the idea together,” he reminded her. “But yeah. She’s damn smart for a kid. She packs a mighty punch too.” Taza rubbed the side of his chin where Clio had slipped past his guard during training. The girl had a lot of drive and had drastically improved in a few short months.
Zora chuckled. “Didn’t Clio complete work on her part weeks ago? You’re still working on yours.”
“The control unit was the easy part,” Taza said with a dismissive wave. His exogear pinged several times as he scanned the device. “Finding the materials we needed for the shell wasn’t easy. It’s not as if dead Sentinel maintenance bots are lying all over the place, waiting to be salvaged.”
“So you claim,” Zora chided.
“Few people have seen a maintenance bot let alone touched one. The brightest minds in the galaxy know little, if anything, about them. The bots mainly restrict themselves to the maintenance tubes, which doesn’t help. On the rare occasion they wander into the open, they do so during curfew. Even then, they stick to restricted service walkways.” He looked over his shoulder and caught Zora smiling. “But then you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“I do like to tease. But contrary to what you might think, I don’t know everything, Taza Arkona.” She laughed. “Only what my mission demands of me. For example, I haven’t a clue how one would obtain such illegal materials.”
Taza tapped his nose. “A man can get anything on the Sentinel so long as he knows the right questions to ask of the right people.”
“Could a woman also get anything she wants?” She winked at him.
He returned to his work, refusing to take the bait a second time. “Haven’t you somewhere to be or something to be doing on this top-secret mission of yours?”
“I’ll be out of your hair soon enough, Mr. Touchy. I’m just waiting for a call.” The chair scratched the ground as Zora rose to her feet. “Need I remind you, you’re in my workshop.”
“You needn’t, but that hasn’t stopped you before.”
Taza listened as her footsteps crossed the room and stopped behind him. She leaned against his back, her breath moist on his neck.
“We’ve got time for some fun,” she whispered into his right ear.
Taza tried to ignore her as he worked on finishing the device. She pinched his bottom, and he almost dropped his rotary tool.
“Are you crazy?” He spun to face her. “Have you any idea—”
She silenced him with an index finger to his lips. Her familiar scent was distracting, and he could taste her salty skin on his lips. She took her hand away gave him the look.
“Captain, Grimshaw will be here—”
He tried not to moan too loudly as she grabbed him between the legs. “Do you mind? Gerald will hear.” The shopkeeper stood behind his counter on the other side of the wall in the weapons store Zora used as a front for her hidden workshop.
“Gerald’s half deaf,” she whispered. “Besides, we can just tell him it was your tool making all the noise.”
He couldn’t help but crack a smile. Taza took in Zora’s face, her smooth skin, how the light reflected off her eye’s and gleamed on her pale lips. The tension in his shoulder eased a little. He closed the narrow space between them and shut his eyes as their mouths touched. Their arms and tongues intertwined and Taza’s heart raced.
“I can come back at a better time,” a familiar voice called from the hidden doorway.
Taza pulled away. “Shit.”
Zora giggled like a school girl and brushed a strand of black hair out of her eyes. “Not at all, Captain. Taza enjoys having an audience.”
As hard as he tried, Taza couldn’t stop his blood from suddenly diverting course and rushing to his face.
Captain Grimshaw didn’t seem impressed and stood stark still, watching them like some looming statue that had suddenly been dropped into the workshop.
Taza stammered, and Zora giggled again.
“I jest, of course, Captain. I‘ll leave you two alone,” she said, shooting Taza a playful smile as she pushed past the Captain. “I’ve got plenty of work to do.”
Before Taza could say anything, the secret door snapped behind her, joining seamlessly with the wall. He stared at the space and ran his hand through his beard.
#Damn dame keeps doing that.
“You had something you wanted to show me?” The Captain said, looking more frustrated than usual.
“Er, yes. Just give me a minute to wrap this up first,” Taza turned back to the workbench and finished fixing a panel into place. “I take it the meeting with the council went well?” He made no effort to the hide the sarcasm. The Captain didn’t speak much, but Taza was fully aware of how the man felt about the Council. Hatred for their devious ways was one of the few things they shared.
Captain Grimshaw sighed. “Same as always.“
“Can‘t say I envy you. It‘s why I joined the agency. As a rookie, you do as you're told, let the big wigs sweat the small stuff. No one tells you the politics start to creep in the further up the ladder you climb. By the time you realize you’ve been sucked in, you’re already knee deep, and there’s no way out. That is unless you fake your own death.” Taza turned and smiled at the Captain, but it did nothing to soften the man’s stony expression. Taza lifted the device off the workbench and presented to him.
The Captain held up a palm. “Things like that tend to break when I touch them. Best you hold onto it. Does it work.”
“Unfortunately, the only way to test STD is to try it.” Taza pulled a small lever on the device, and it pinged to life, sustaining a low hum.
The Captain raised an eyebrow. “STD?”
“Serial Transfer Device. STD for short.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” Taza said. “Ensign Evans came up with the name. Let's fuck these Chimera bitches and give them an STD was how she put it. This is her baby, remember. I’m just a lowly third-party contractor.” He flashed the Captain another friendly smile and thought he saw the beginnings of a smirk at the corner of the man’s mouth, even if it only lasted for a second.
“Ensign Evans does have a way with words,” the Captain admitted.
“That’s one way of putting it.” Taza ran a quick scan of the device. “Primary systems are working for sure, but getting it in place is another matter. I’ll need Clio to help me with that. Have you seen her?”
“I thought she’d be here with you. Check in with t
he base. They’ll know.” Grimshaw rubbed his chin. “Clio’s been distracted lately. The team needs to be focused, especially with Minister Foster and that SenSec lapdog of his, Sergeant Chin, breathing down our necks. I’ll need to have a word with her.”
Taza rubbed his chin. “Probably best I get Zora to speak with her. Clio and Swigger had something going on, but I think it has since come to an end.”
Grimshaw’s eyes widened as it registered. “Ah, yes, I see. Probably for the best. We can’t have feelings getting in the way. As you say, Zora would be best placed to speak about that.”
Taza nodded. “Clio will be fine, Captain. Sometime’s her head’s all over the place, but she can take care of herself.”
“I appreciate the assurances about Ensign Evans, Taza.” Grimshaw cleared his throat. “But we need to make sure our team does what it’s been commissioned to do. The Council is threatening to shut us down if we don’t provide progress on the Chimera project.”
“We’ll nail those slippery Chimera bastards down soon.” Taza gestured to the buzzing device. “Now that this thing’s up and running, all we have to do is fix it to one of the communication relays in the maintenance tunnels.”
Captain Grimshaw stifled a yawn. “I appreciate the update, Taza, but you didn’t have to drag me all the way out here for it. A simple message would have sufficed.”
“Ah, but this isn’t what I called you for,” Taza flicked a switch, and the STD powered down. “I’ll be installing this soon, but I’ve got something else.”
Grimshaw raised an eyebrow again. “Then what is it?”
“Zora got her hand on a file for me,” Taza wiped his hands on his jacket while trying to contain his excitement. “It has revealed something I thought you’d like to see for yourself.”
“You’re supposed to be focused on the mission.”
“I know, and that’s the thing. Something tells me this all ties together.”
“What do you mean?”
The Captain was beginning to grow irritable. Taza couldn’t blame him after being put through the ringer by the Council. He knew how that felt.
“See for yourself.” Taza swept a pile of spare parts on the workbench out of the way and revealed the small wall safe. “Zora thought it best to keep it in here in case other parties got wind of it.” He punched in the password, and the safe door hissed open. He pulled out a bundle of cloth as long as his forearm and unwrapped the artifact.
“It’s the same artifact you showed me before.”
“Yes, but watch this.” Taza set the obsidian black prism on the edge of the workbench. He leaned in close to the item and whispered the ancient incantation he’d learned and stood back with his arms folded.
Nothing happened.
“What’s going on, Taza? I don’t have time for games.”
Taza pointed at the artifact. “Just give it a second, Captain.”
Captain Grimshaw was about object again when the artifact pinged and got his attention. The top of the prism melted as though it were liquid and spread out to form an opened claw. A flaming red flower appeared above the claw and danced in the air. An orange symbol appeared on the black stone, and a fiery text appeared beneath it. A hum emanated from the relic, and the ground vibrated in unison with the flower’s erratic movements.
“What the hell?” the Captain said, looking down at his boots.
“Zora said its how the artifact talks.”
“Talks?”
“It communicates by sending vibrations through the ground. Don’t worry, though, you need to be within a few feet to feel it.”
“Incredible,” Captain Grimshaw said, mesmerized. He took a step closer, reaching out for the stone.
Taza put a hand on the Captain’s shoulder. “Don’t touch. Trust me.”
Grimshaw retreated, never taking his eyes of the artifact. “What’s it saying?”
“We don’t know, but Zora suspects it has something to do with how one of the ancient races used to communicate. Maybe they spoke through touch or something.”
“Does the inscription tell us anything?”
“Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to translate that yet, but Zora says the big symbol is the Fist of Orinmore.”
Captain Grimshaw’s eyes glazed over as he thought on that. “Isn’t Orinmore the shanti all-mother?”
“That’s what I said. The file mentioned something about the shanti and an entrance to the Shroud. However, most of the file was corrupted over the ages. We were lucky to get what we did before it corrupted completely.”
“You said it has something to do with the North Star?”
“That’s the scary part. It took us a while to put two and two together, but remember you had us track down one of the scientists from Xerocorp labs?”
Grimshaw nodded.
“We looked through the copy of the schematics we got from him.” Taza keyed a command on his exogear, and a holoform depicting the schematic appeared on the wall. “We’ve been looking around the schematic for any interference from Chimera. We didn’t find anything. However, we did find this.” Taza flicked through the holoform files and stopped at the engine drawings. He zoomed in on the first reactor control panel. “Do you see it?”
Grimshaw leaned in for a better look, eyes squinting. Suddenly he stepped back and looked down at the artifact. “That recess is the same shape as the artifact, as though it was designed to accept it. It has to be a coincidence.”
“I thought so too,” Taza said. “But watch this.” He zoomed in closer on the prism-shaped recess, and the outline of a symbol appeared.”
“The Fist of Orinmore,” The Captain whispered like it was a curse. “How is that even possible?”
“The person who gave me the data file that ended up becoming the North Star also gifted me this. He said it was something to remember me by.”
“Have you managed to find him?”
“I tried to track him down as you asked,” Taza sighed. “Let’s say, even if he’s still alive, he’s the kind of person who wouldn’t want to be found. But Zora thinks the artifact is a key for the North Star. What it does, though, is a mystery. Her guess is it allows passage into the Shroud, but it’s just a theory.”
“When we escaped on the North Star, one of the engineers said something about a missing part. We need to speak to this scientist again, see what else he knows.”
We already tried that,” Taza sighed. “He vanished. Completely. There isn’t a record of him anywhere. Almost like he never existed.”
“Someone else must have gotten to him.”
“It looks that way,” Taza said. “I get the feeling Chimera’s influence runs deeper than we all feared.”
“All the more reason to crack this code. I’ll request more resources again, but no doubt my motion will be blocked,” the Captain spat. “I’ll be damned if we don’t work this out and get that ship back. Whoever gave the Confederation the plans to build the North Star did it for a reason.” Captain Grimshaw pointed at the artifact. “This thing confirms how important it is. It proves that it’s bigger than all of us. Possibly even bigger than the North Star.”
Taza was happy to hear that. “We’ll work it out soon enough.” He tapped the STD. “Then you can get me off this godforsaken place.”
“Find out what’s going on, and I’ll hold up my side of the bargain.” The Captain scratched his cheek the way he always did while thinking. “Have either of you told anyone else about this?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. Keep it that way. For now.”
Taza leaned forward and whispered the string of sounds Zora had taught him again. The spinning flower stopped suddenly. It folded in on itself and melted into the black the stone. The fist shaped emblem and inscription flashed out of existence.
Taza lifted it gingerly and placed it back inside the wall-safe. “Now I know why the White Dragons were so interested in it.”
Grimshaw’s exotool buzzed, and he checked the alert. “I co
mpletely forgot about I had an appointment this afternoon. Good luck installing the device. Keep me posted.”
“Of course, Captain.”
Grimshaw bade him farewell before slipping out of the workshop.
Taza fumbled with the STD and connected it to the shop’s primary scanning system. He wanted to run a more thorough sweep. Then he just had to get it into place without being discovered by SenSec…or worse still, without being killed by the maintenance bots. And for that, he’d need Clio, wherever she was.
THE OFFER
Clio’s fingers dug into the chair’s armrest Minister Straiya’s office door opened and closed behind her.
“It’s kind of you to wait for me, Ensign Evans,” the Minister said in her usual sultry tones. “You’ll have to forgive my tardiness, but your Captain has proven himself a pain yet again.”
The shanti minister emerged from the corner of Clio's vision as she moved to her desk chair, tail swaying as she walked.
She got herself comfortable and looked at Clio with a fanged smile.
“It’s nice to see you again. And to hear that you passed the test with flying colors,” Straiya said, as though trying to contain her excitement. “I knew Talori was wrong. She’s a good judge of character, but she can be a little cynical at times.”
Clio fought down a wave of anger. The last thing she needed was to kill one of the most influential people in the galaxy in a blind rage.
“Is everything okay? You seem troubled.”
“You had no right to do that.”
“As Talori already explained, we had to test your loyalty. If anything, the whole thing was mild and went much better than we could have hoped. You should be full of pride, not fury. You exceeded expectations.”
Clio drew a deep breath and steadied her nerves. “You could have asked.”
“Pah, humans can be so sensitive sometimes,” Straiya hissed. “You must understand. Our intentions were not to harm you. The plan was to contain and question you, but you slipped out of Commander Brikkon’s control and…complicated things.”
Enter The Shroud: Galactic Sentinel Book Two Page 3