The Sculpted Ship

by K. M. O'Brien

  “That sounds good to me.”

  Diamond had one more idea. “You know, if they're looking for a grey-haired, grey-skinned woman, maybe we can change that up a little.”

  Anailu didn't understand. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, let's go in your cabin and set the painter to work to make you look like a plain old boring human.”

  “Why does it seem like you're always trying to get me to wear more makeup?”

  “Don't think of this as makeup, think of it as a disguise.”

  Anailu rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Fine. I guess I don't have to like it.”

  Velvet, listening in, laughed. “I think we must have it about covered, because now nobody is enjoying this plan.”

  When they turned on the painter, Anailu noticed that Diamond didn't have to custom-design anything; she chose a program which had already been created – by her.

  “You already had a program set up to do this? Why?”

  “I was playing around with it one day. I thought it might be nice for you to have some other options.”

  “Fine, just – ugh. Fine. Go ahead.” Anailu gave in, put her face in place, and let Diamond apply her makeup program.

  When it was done, Diamond didn't want her to look immediately. “Before you see your face, I want to change your hair, too.”

  “I guess we have to try and color it. I tried that once, and it came out...weird.”

  “Yeah, you've got unusual hair, and I haven't had time to experiment with enough chemicals. Instead, I came up with another option.” She held out a long blonde wig and a long black wig.

  “Where did those come from?”

  “Remember when you gave me money for a supply run last week? These are part of the supplies. The best part is, I just bought the raw materials and loaded them into the laundry. It has wig recipes all ready to go!”

  “Di, that's not what I gave you the money for!”

  “Don't worry, it wasn't expensive. Besides, I got everything that was on the list; I just found better deals. And it turns out, you really did need them – you just didn't know it at the time!”

  “Augh! I just...fine! Let's get on with it!”

  Diamond smiled and proceeded to prepare Anailu's hair for the wig. Then she held up the wigs beside Anailu's face to compare them. “OK, with that makeup, I think the black wig will make you look the most different, so...” Diamond put the wig on Anailu and adjusted it. “...and now you can look.”

  In the mirror, Anailu could see she was wearing a lot of makeup, even on top of the coloration. The wig was longer than her real hair, long enough to go half-way down her back.

  “Wow, I really do look like a different person.”

  “Yeah, it's not a Pirate Queen, but it'll do.”

  As Diamond applied more of the makeup to cover Anailu's hands, Anailu started wondering about Diamond. “What about you? You're too expensive looking for a place like this.”

  “We'll both be wearing shipsuits and a robe over that. I'll wear gloves and a scarf over my face. It's not perfect, but then I shouldn't need to talk to anyone. I'll leave that part to you.”

  Over the intercom, Velvet reported in. “Hey, guys. I've got us about as close as I can. We're still underwater. Oh, and so far, the ship hasn't detected any active scanning.”

  “Thanks, V!” Anailu turned to Diamond. “Am I done?”

  “I'm done, but don't touch anything with your hands for the next minute. I'll get dressed and be with you in a moment.”

  “Just meet me down in Cargo 3. I'll get the bike ready.”

  Anailu was able to make it down to Cargo Bay 3 without touching anything but the floor. She really needed her hands to do anything with the airbike, though. She waved her arms for a few seconds to hopefully finish the drying, then touched the airbike's door handle as a test. Nothing rubbed off, so she unplugged the bike, opened it up, and got in.

  The airbike was a simple enclosed cargo model. It had a cramped cockpit with only space for the pilot. As Anailu finished her preflight checks, Diamond entered the cargo bay in her disguise.

  “You gotta get in the back.” Anailu gestured toward the back of the airbike. She shifted in her seat to reach behind the cockpit, into the cargo area. As Diamond opened the rear hatch, Anailu lifted up part of the bed of the cargo area. One part of the floor, running down the middle of the bed from front to rear, could be lifted up to make a simple bench with no restraints. Aside from the hard surface, the only nod to safety was a handhold on the back of the pilot's seat, and another at the rear of the bench.

  When Diamond was seated, with the hatches closed, Anailu tapped the radio. “OK, V, we're ready to go.”

  There was a pause, then she heard Velvet's voice over the Queen's intercom out in the bay, partly muffled by the airbike's shell. “Um, the ship says you probably shouldn't transmit while we're in stealth mode.”

  Anailu gasped. “Oh, poop!” Hurriedly, she opened the cockpit and jumped out, running over to the nearest control panel on the bulkhead. She opened the intercom screen to the bridge. “I didn't think about that. Thanks for catching that, V!”

  Velvet shrugged. “It wasn't me. As soon as you transmitted, the ship popped up a warning and showed where the transmission was coming from. All I did was remember to use the intercom to call you. By the way, how did you want to do this?”

  Anailu laughed. “I didn't actually say, did I? I want you to take us up to the surface. Ease up just enough to get the launch doors clear of the water, and then open 'em up. We'll lift out, and then you close up and go back down to hide. Don't transmit unless it's an emergency, and don't come get us unless we call for you.”

  “Screw that!” exclaimed Diamond. Anailu turned to see her leaning out of the airbike. She hopped out and came over. “If things go wrong and you have any chance of getting us out of there, you come in there. If you gotta, you ram anything you need to.” Diamond turned to Anailu. “No offense, but if you get caught, you'll most likely just get prison time. The best V or I can expect is permanent slavery.” She shuddered. “I don't want to think about what else they might do.”

  Anailu knew it was true.

  Shrugging, Diamond continued, “Anyway, we can probably find someone to smuggle all three of us off world if we really have to, right?”

  Anailu sighed. “Let's just make sure we don't reach that point. We're worrying too much about what to do in the worst-case scenario, and not enough about how to avoid it.”

  “Fair point. What do you suggest?”

  “As far as anyone knows, we haven't broken the law yet. So, we try to keep it that way. If I go into Grotehl's, I'll make sure to go through the crates thoroughly, and I won't accept anything that's not on my list.”

  “I guess that's as good a plan as we're going to get. I do have one suggestion to add. Set your comm so it won't ping on the public network. We don't need to give our locations away for free.”

  “Good catch, I'll do that. V, you can take us up as soon as we're in the bike, OK?”

  “Got it! Good luck!”

  Once she had adjusted her comm, Anailu got in, strapped in, and took off, holding the bike in a hover, just above the deck. She looked up expectantly. Since the water wasn't that deep near the shore, it shouldn't take long....

  Above them, the doors opened. Water sluiced down on the bike, but the flow quickly tapered off and a widening wedge of clear sky was visible above them. She lifted up, not waiting for the doors to open the rest of the way. The bike was small enough that they were able to slide through easily.

  The bright morning sun was a shock as they rose clear of the ship. Anailu looked around to get her bearings. To the east, the Quill Ocean spread to the horizon. To the north and south, the coastal cliffs stretched away, a few cliffharns – much smaller than sandharns – riding the sea breezes like kites. Anailu looked east to see the Purport tower and was surprised to see the big cliffside structure was very close – just meters away!

  She looked d
own at her ship just below her. The Queen lay mostly submerged, with just enough of her dorsal surface protruding to keep the waves from washing into the launch doors as Velvet began cycling them closed. The water was clear enough that Anailu could see the Queen's port chine was very close to the sold concrete dock.

  It's close enough to the dock that we could have just stepped ashore!

  She was angry at the prospect of the Queen getting scratched up, then she realized that this was just Velvet's usual idea of “close.”

  It'll probably be OK. It'd better be OK!

  She was, however, ready to break radio silence if Velvet let the ship get any closer to the dock.

  The launch doors finished closing and the Queen slipped quietly back underwater. Anailu only relaxed when she saw her ship was sliding away from the dock and back out to sea.

  Chapter 35: Reconnaissance

  Anailu lifted the bike up the outside of the tower, looking for a way inside the town.

  A few levels higher, she found it: a small platform at the beginning of an aircar passage into the building. Without hesitation, she flew in. It was short, straight, and took them into a large atrium which ran from a pool down at sea level all the way to the open dome over the top of the building. The cliffside itself was exposed within the building, mostly natural, but with a few walkways cut into it. She could see signs of habitation below them, but as she took the airbike up the atrium, it looked like these levels of the building hadn't been completed – only the concrete structure was there, with no doors or windows installed on the empty rooms they were passing.

  As they neared the top, she could see the upper floors of the building were also clearly inhabited. They passed both homes and shops, each with its own individual style. There were a few pedestrians and even an airbike or two. As they neared the top, the cliffside opened up into a large, well-lit chamber cut into the stone. A number of bikes, cars, and trucks were parked on the floor of the chamber, which was marked as public parking. Anailu found a decent spot, landed, and shut down. She brought up Motul's tracking software on her comm. It showed all six beacons in town, clustered at the place she remembered as Grotehl's shop. Anailu and Di climbed out of the bike. As Anailu looked around to get her bearings, something caught her eye. In the back corner of the parking area, behind a dumpster, she'd glimpsed something that felt out of place. She told Di to “Wait here.” Worried she was being watched, she walked to an edge of the parking area – not directly toward the dumpster, but to a spot that gave her a better angle to see behind it. Casually, she glanced over, trying not to look like she was looking. She immediately recognized it. Without further delay, she walked toward the tunnel leading inland, toward Grotehl's shop and the rest of the town. She looked at Diamond, still waiting. Di left the bike and joined her as they left the cavern and entered the tunnel.

  Now that she'd gotten a better look, she knew why she'd thought it was out of place – it was a heavy-duty umbilical of the type used for ships, common enough at a starport, but out of place here. The parking area also had the normal umbilicals used for small craft, such as cars, trucks or bikes, but those were all marked and accessible out in the parking area.

  How would something big enough to need that even get in here?

  There were only two ways into this man-made cavern. One was the tunnel they were in: maybe large enough for an airtruck, but certainly not a ship of any size. The other was the atrium, but that was enclosed by a dome at the top. Besides, there was a decent landing area up on the surface. Sure, it wasn't as nice as an enclosed landing bay, but it was serviceable.

  Maybe it's left over from when they built this place?

  She didn't believe that.

  The tunnel itself had been cut wide enough for two airtrucks easily side by side, but there were now shacks built along both sides of the tunnel, leaving only width for a single truck – and only if that truck had a careful driver, or didn't care what happened to the shacks. The open path also meandered from side to side, to accommodate wider shops in a few places.

  The tunnel ended in one of the big, circular recesses, open to the sky. This was where Grotehl's shop was located. As they came outside, the heat and the sun pressed down on them with almost physical force. This was definitely the desert. Anailu didn't mind the heat as much as most people seemed to, but she was glad that her makeup – disguise, rather – was sweat-proof. There wasn't a lot of traffic, but it was getting toward the hot part of the day.

  They walked past the shop, and even looked around the area, but they didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Grotehl's shop was located up against the stone wall around the recess. They went past the ramp up to the surface, which Anailu recognized from her previous trip to Purport.

  It was getting close to lunchtime, so Anailu decided to go to the cafe on the corner nearest to Grotehl's. They found seats, and Anailu chose one that let her see his front door. As she sat watching, she couldn't help but overhear the conversation of a couple guys sitting at a table behind her, further inside the cafe.

  “Wow, this town is boring. There's nothing going on, and everyone is wearing those damned robes, so there's not even something to see.”

  “What, you want us to find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy?”

  “Oh, don't even start with the Aether Wars quotes.”

  “What? That wasn't a quote, it was just an observation.”

  “Come on. Half the time when we're about to go into some crappy little smuggler haven, you say something like, 'Smugglertown; you will never find a –'”

  “Shhh! Here comes the Lieutenant!”

  Anailu pretended to be only paying attention to her comm and her food, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw a perfectly coiffured lieutenant in Imperial Customs Service uniform walking down the middle of the street, marching straight toward Grotehl's.

  Anailu hadn't realized the ICS even had a presence on Doran. On this world, the planetary government handled customs. That was true of most worlds in the Empire. Since the Imperial Navy had taken over the mission of hunting pirates, the ICS didn't actually do much any more. They usually only got called in when local corruption became so blatant that the Empire decided it couldn't trust the local customs service.

  These days, the ICS was mostly seen as a way for children of influential families to get a military commission when they couldn't make it in the Navy. The enlisted personnel were transferred from the Navy, so they were usually more capable. Most were ex-Navy personnel who wanted more stability, but lacked the influence to get a permanent posting at a naval base. It was also a convenient dumping ground for personnel who had embarrassed the Navy but weren't convicted of any crime.

  When the lieutenant reached the door, she knocked loudly, and Grotehl immediately opened it. As he looked around furtively, the lieutenant began speaking loudly. “What is taking so long? You promised me that your 'brazen smuggler' would show up post-haste, just as soon as you sent your 'coded message.' Yet here it is, lunchtime, and still no smuggler! This was your 'valuable' tip, but now I wonder if letting you stay free has any 'value' at all!”

  Grotehl, quietly asked, “Won't you step inside so we can continue our conversation, away from watching eyes?”

  “I will not sully my uniform by entering your criminal establishment. I don't hold with this idea of cutting deals with criminals to catch other criminals. It shouldn't be necessary! Now you call your smuggler friend and find out what's holding her up!”

  “That's a bad idea. If I bother her, she might start wondering why. Please, just wait a little longer. I'm sure she's coming soon.”

  “I'm going to find a decent lunch in this dustbin of a town. If your 'friend' hasn't arrived by the time I return, I'm calling off this farce.”

  Diamond caught Anailu's eye and stood up. Anailu followed and together, they left the shop. As she was leaving, she could swear she heard one of the men in the cafe saying, “I gotta get a transfer.”

  Chapter 36: The Polite Gentl
eman

  When they were well away from both the shop and the cafe, Diamond stepped into a quiet alleyway. She spoke in low tones. “Now we know. They really are out to get you. Are you still set on trying?”

  Anailu hesitated, then nodded. It wasn't as easy to be enthusiastic about it now, with the reality of the situation right in front of her. “I still want my parts, but if I walk in there, I'm pretty sure I won't walk back out again, no matter how innocent I am.”

  “Exactly. That officer cares more about her career than she does about justice. We need a new plan.”

  “The best I can come up with is wait until the ICS goons are gone and try to steal the parts back, but there might be some problems with that.”

  “There are so many problems with that plan.”

  “Well, then we've got to come up with something better.”

  “Hmm. Have you noticed anything...out of place around here?”

  “There was something back at the parking area...”

  “Yes?”

  “In the corner, behind some trash receptacles, I'm pretty sure there's an umbilical hidden there – not the small type for cars or trucks, but the big kind that's used for starships, or big airships.”

  “Why is that odd? Don't you find them at most landing pads?”

  “Did you see a way for a ship to even get in? I didn't. The tunnel's too small, and you saw there's no big openings in that tower. Besides, there are already those sort of umbilical connections up on the surface, on the landing pad.”

  “Hmm. Any chance it was left over from before they built the tower?”

  “It's possible, but I can't imagine why they'd leave it behind. That type of umbilical is designed to handle everything you'd want a standard connection for, like power, water, fuel, comms, you know. They're not cheap.”

  “OK, you'd already convinced me. Just checking. I was asking because I saw something out of place too. In a little tea shop in the tunnel, I saw a man wearing a shipsuit made of Kugol silk under his robe. Kugol silk doesn't look expensive; it doesn't even look like silk; but it is both rare and expensive, and it's totally out of place in this little town.