“We’re clear?” asked Amelia, watching the fighters move in curving zips, lines of fire cutting here and there between them.
“We’re out of fighter range, yeah,” said Sam, swiping her fingers on her readout screens, “but if either of those cruisers wants to take a potshot at us, nothing’s gonna stop ‘em.”
The viewscreen to Amelia’s left lit up, Benkei’s stern face filling the display.
“Better be good,” said Amelia, her eyes on the boxy shape of the cruiser to their right, now visible in the viewscreen.
“I ran a couple of scans and thought you might like to know who’s shooting at us. That’s an Imperial to port, and to starboard, we have a dispatch from the Scythian fleet.”
Amelia looked at the ships, both now visible. The one on the right, the boxy one, with crude war paint drawings on its side, certainly looked Scythian to Amelia’s eyes. One of the strongman factions that claimed part of Venus, the Scythians were known to guard their territory with ferocity. The Imperial ship was the real surprise.
“You’re sure that’s Imperial?”
“Without a doubt,” said Benkei, “Curved body, white and silver, coil gun armament, red-slash insignia- Imperial all the way.”
The Imperial Protectorate was one of the nations that formed on Earth in the wake of the Federation’s collapse. Comprised of several nations in Eastern Asia, with Tokyo as its capital, the Imperials used their manufacturing power to turn out one of the largest fleets up and running. But, as far as Amelia knew, they didn’t venture much out of Earth space.
The ships exchanged fire as the fighters engaged in their melee, a small orange burst popping every few seconds. Amelia felt a tingle of relie,f knowing that one of the ships was Imperial- Imperials didn’t open fire unless they had to. But the Scythians…
“We got a torpedo incoming!” yelled Sam, as if reading Amelia’s mind.
Sure enough, a small mass with a shimmering blue trail curved from the Scythian ship on an approaching course.
“Shitshitshit,” said Sam, pulling back on the flight stick to her left and hitting the boosters once again.
“What’s the situation?” asked Amelia, leaning forward in her seat, watching the flickering shape of the torpedo grow larger and larger in the view screen.
“Here, I’m gonna…” said Sam.
She reached up and over, flicking another row of silver switches.
“Warning, impact imminent,” said the impassive female voice of the onboard computer.
“No fuckin’ shit, lady!” yelled Sam, swiping frantically on the small screen to her bottom left, a screen filled with a diagram of the ship’s fuel reserves.
“Sam, whatever you’re gonna do, do it now!” yelled Amelia.
“Hitting flak now!” Sam said, slamming her fist on the monitor to her upper right.
A burst of glittering metal exploded from the front of the ship, filling the viewscreen with bits of material intended to confuse the guidance system of the torpedo, the metal glinting and twinkling with light as it caught the glare of the sun.
“I hope you’re strapped in,” saidSam, her hand over a candy-apple red button on the wall near her leg.
Amelia saw what Sam was about to do.
“Hit it!” she said.
Sam did, the ship rocketing instantly as the burners tapped into the last reserves of fuel. The Meridian hit maximum speed within seconds, whizzing past the fighter squadrons, away from the cruisers, and closer to the planet in front of them.
“Fuel reserves at point-zero-five percent, and dropping,” said the ship.
“Did it!” said Sam, the ship flying out of the torpedo’s range at a speed that it couldn’t hope to catch.
However, the space station grew larger and larger by the second, and Amelia watched in horror as she realized that they’d just jumped from one deadly situation to another.
Chapter 6
“Collision in…sixty seconds,” said the halting, calm voice of the onboard computer.
“Sam!” shouted Amelia, her eyes on the form of the space station, its massive curved shape filling the viewscreen.
“I know, I know!” responded Sam, her voice raised, her tone sharp.
“Collision in…forty-five seconds.”
They were close enough now that they could see the shapes of cargo ships in front of the station, docking and disembarking.
“I hope you have a plan!”
“Uh, kinda-sorta!”
“Collision in…thirty seconds.”
Now Amelia could make out the windows on the station, rows of white rectangles that seemed to glow with light.
“Hold on!” shouted Sam.
“Collision in…fifteen seconds.”
“Do it, Sam!”
With that, Sam slammed her fist onto a control panel on her armrest. The ship jolted with a heavy lurch, as the viewscreen was instantly filled with a brilliant blue glow that blazed through the cockpit. Amelia raised her arm, covering her eyes against the glare.
She felt a push, and in seconds the light diminished, the intensity lessening until it was gone. In its place, the viewscreen was completely filled with the space station ahead. They were now close enough to see into the windows of the station, able to make out the expressions of shock and surprise on the people inside it as they looked out their windows, pointing at the Meridian.
But they’d stopped.
Amelia exhaled and collapsed against the back of her chair.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” she said, shaking her head as she watched the figures of station-dwellers gathering at the windows, watching and pointing at the Meridian, their faces expressioning shock.
Amelia and Sam sat for several moments in silence. Amelia could feel her heart racing, though slowing down by the second now that they were out of danger.
“Goddamn!” said Sam, spinning in her chair to face Amelia, her expression wild. “How about those moves?”
“You mean the moves that nearly plastered us into the side of the Venus station?” asked Benkei, unstrapping himself from his seat.
Sam narrowed her eyes and glared at Benkei in an expression of mock-offense.
“And saved our asses,” she said, pointing at Benkei.
He shrugged his massive shoulders, conceding the point.
“Uh, you guys?” asked Sasha, his voice piping in through the ceiling speakers. “Is the fact that we’re at a complete stop a good thing or a bad thing, I am wondering?”
“Good, for now,” said Amelia, her finger on the communication button.
“Great, then I will clean up the unbelievable mess my lab has been made into.”
“Actually, not so good,” said Sam, sitting up and leaning over one of her piloting readouts.
“What now?” asked Amelia.
“That last bit of afterburning we did -the one that saved our lives from that last torpedo, I’d like to make sure we all remember- ran through just about all of our fuel reserves. We’re running on fumes, basically.”
“Then it is good we’re at the buyer’s planet,” said Benkei, rolling the sleeves of his button-up shirt up along his beefy forearms.
“Assuming he pays us enough to fill the tank of this thing,” said Amelia.
But before they could discuss the issue further, a trio of ships, all sleek and triangle-shaped, all painted in silver and green, all bristling with projectile weapon barrels that would take the Meridian apart at this range.
On the large communication monitor that hung from the ceiling, the placid face of a handsome, middle-aged woman with short, prematurely white hair with a sharp part appeared on the screen.
“This is Sergeant Tomlinson with the Aphrodite Initiative, please state your name, ship name, and purpose.”
“Andromeda Initiative? That’s who we’re meeting with, right?” asked Sam, her voice chipper and eager.
Amelia shot her a silencing glare before turning her attention back to the screen.
“This is Amelia Dura
nd with the Meridian. We’re meeting with Mr. Aliadney with the Aphrodite Initiative in Ora.”
Sergeant Tomlinson’s face hardened.
“Then that means you’re not involved with the battle that you just arrived from?”
“That was my bad, um, Sergeant,” said Sam, sticking her head in front of Amelia, her red hair obscuring the view of the screen. “Just an unfortunate jumping coincidence.”
Amelia reached forward and, with a light shove, moved Sam out of the way.
“We barely got out of it in one piece, and’re running on fumes,” said Amelia.
Sergeant Tomlinson looked at Amelia with a brief stare of skepticism.
“Fine. Go ahead and land at Ora Station. But we’ll be checking with Mr. Aliadney in the meantime; if your story doesn’t check out, expect to be taken into custody by the time you land.”
And with that, the call ended, the viewscreen now a ghostly black.
“Sam, we got enough juice to get down to the surface?”
“Barely,” she said.
“Let’s hope Aliadney pays us a decent price for this data, otherwise we’re gonna be on Venus for a long while,” said Amelia, leaning back in her seat.
“Worse places to be stranded,” said Benkei, looking out the window at Venus, which was now large enough in the cockpit window that the green continents, azure oceans, and sharp wisps of clouds could be seen with near-perfect clarity. “I still can’t believe the Federation managed to turn a planet where acid once fell from the sky into something as beautiful as Earth.”
“The Federation can do quite a bit once they put their minds to it,” said Amelia. “And hundreds of thousands of slave laborers.”
Sam pulled the Meridian into a gentle, swooping bank, pointing them towards the planet and bringing them in. As they approached, Venus grew larger and larger until it was the only thing visible in the viewscreen.
“Atmosphere heat shields going up now,” said Sam, flicking a few switches.
With that, a coal black, opaque shield extended from the top of the viewscreen, covering it completely. They continued towards the planet, the ship shaking steadily as they passed through the planet’s atmosphere. Soon, the shaking stopped.
“Pulling back the shields now,” said Sam, flipping the same switches.
The shields retracted, and before them was the city of Ora, capital of the Aphrodite Initiative. It was a massive, seemingly endless sprawl of pointed spires of glass that stretched thousands of feet into the sky, their tops shrouded in the thick white of the clouds above. It was an almost incomprehensibly large city of over fifty million, one of the largest settlements in the solar system, and a rival in size to even the densest sprawls on Earth. A coastal city, one of the oceans of Venus was to the right, an expanse of glittering blue that reached the horizon.
The Meridian flew in closer to Ora, and they could see the crisscrossing of walkways that connected the skyscrapers of the city, as well as the air traffic of thousands of cars on their commute. Massive advertisements were plastered on the sides of the buildings, animated ads for consumer electronics, alcohol, and various other vices.
“Where we headed?” asked Sam, leaning forward with attention as the Meridian approached the air traffic of the city.
“That one there,” said Amelia, pointing to a skyscraper of blue glass and sharp angles, one face of the building covered in Korean characters that were each easily fifty feet tall.
The ship pulled into one of the docking platforms of the building, flying in gently before coming in for a careful landing.
“Aaand we’re out of fuel,” said Sam, the ship coming to a stop.
“Alright,” said Amelia, unbuckling and getting up from her seat. “Let’s see what we’ve gotten ourselves into now.”
Chapter 7
With a swipe of her finger across her slate, Amelia activated the bay hatch to the Meridian, which lowered like a great steel drawbridge.
“I suppose we’ll find out now if Mr. Aliadney is someone to be trusted,” said Benkei, his finger running over the angled implant divots on his neck.
“He better be,” said Amelia, “one near-death experience is about all I feel like dealing with today.”
The bay door finished its hissing opening, the smooth silver plexsteel catching the glint of the bright hanger lights overhead. And when it opened, their client, Mr. Aliadney, stood before them with arms crossed, one leg crossed over the other, and an overly-warm expression on his artificially-youthful face. He was flanked by six private guards, men stuffed and wrapped with so many cybernetic implants that there was more black and silver than flesh visible. Their faces were obscured by helmets, and all were armed in the same way, with a cord rifle in their hands, a pistol at their hip, and a junction blade slung over their backs.
“Amelia, A-melia,” said Mr. Aliadney, walking towards the crew with a swivel-hip stroll, “I’m so glad to see you.”
Closing the distance between him and the crew, Aliadney took Amelia’s hand and topped it with a gentle kiss of his full lips.
“And I’m so glad to hear that you and your lovely crew weren’t harmed by the little spat in orbit. We’re all just so tired of those Scythian barbarians, always taking offense to one thing or another.” He shook his head. “So indecent.”
“I see you’ve brought the whole gang to greet us,” said Amelia, looking over the pointed shoulders of Aliadney’s immaculately-tailored suit at the line of silent, armed men.
“Oh, them?” said Aliadney, his eyebrows raised, his tone one of mock innocence, “standard protocol. And besides, when you’re paying these goons as much as I do, you may as well get your money’s worth.”
He looked over the rest of her crew, his palms open.
“But my manners,” he said, sweeping his hand across his platinum-blonde hair, a gesture that struck Amelia as strange, as his hair was already about as smooth and lacquered as it could’ve been. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the rest of your little crew.”
He strolled over to Benkei, his polished black boots hitting the ground with a clack with each step. Once Aliadney stood in front of Benkei, he looked up, noting with raised eyebrows the massive height difference between the two.
“May I ask the name of this…mountain of a man?” asked Aliadney, his eyes scanning Benkei.
“Kaito Benkei,” Benkei replied, extending his hand with caution, as though he were not yet sure what to make of this client. “This is a lovely, ah, spaceport you have here.”
“Oh, this old thing?” asked Aliadney, looking backwards across the pristine white expanse of the dock. “I wish I could say I built it, but I just happen to be the one lucky enough to own it.”
Aliadney continued to Sasha, who he looked over with the hungry eyes of a jungle cat staring down his next meal.
“And who is this lovely specimen?” he said, placing one hand on his chin in a demure manner while he extended the other towards Sasha.
“Sasha Vasiliev,” he said, oblivious as ever, “I run the lab on the ship.”
“I bet you do,” Aliadney said, letting Sasha’s hand slip out of his as he moved on to Sam.
“Sam O’Leary, pilot,” she said, squaring her shoulders and straightening her slim frame.
“Ah, then you’re the one who nearly splattered the ship on the station?” Aliadney said, his voice skeptical, almost accusatory.
“Well, maybe if you guys could manage to keep the peace right outside your atmosphere, you wouldn’t have to deal with ships making quick escapes.”
Sensing an unnecessary conflict in the works, Amelia stepped in.
“Anyway, that’s everyone. All friends now? Great.”
Aliadney kept a narrowed eye on Sam as Amelia led him away from the open bay and the ship.
“As great as it is to see you, Aliadney, and, don’t get me wrong, it’s always a blast, we are here to talk about that data you had us pick up.”
The rest of the crew followed the pair as t
hey walked, the guards spreading out until they were at the entire group’s flanks. Not one of them said a word, or even made the slightest glimmer of an expression on what little bit of their faces was visible.
“Ah yes, the data,” said Aliadney, drawing out the ‘a’ of the word, “I take it your little rendezvous with Arlen didn’t go according to plan?”
“Sure didn’t,” said Amelia. “Believe it or not, the piece-of-shit smuggler ended up being a piece of shit.”
“Sorry to hear. But it was nothing that I didn’t trust you could handle.”
Amelia stopped and turned to Aliadney with an angry expression on her face.
“You mean you knew he was going to try to pull that over on us?”
“Please, calm down, dear,” said Aliadney, holding up two hands, his fingers tipped with perfectly-manicured and curated nails. “I wouldn’t have sent you off to him if I knew he was going to doublecross you. But he’s a smuggler; when working with someone like him, it’s only a matter of him deciding that he’d make more money by working against you than working with you, you see.”
“Fine. But now we’re stuck here without fuel until we can sell this data.”
“Well, this is a city of ruthless capitalists, my dear. I’m sure I can take it off your hands if you’re looking to get rid of it.”
Amelia felt a small wave of relief wash over her- being stuck in Ora doing guard duty to save up money to get off the planet didn’t exactly appeal to her. They soon left the dock, Amelia taking one last look at the sleek, silver shape of the Meridian before they stepped into a large, glass-walled elevator that would take them further up the height of the supertower. From their vantage point, Amelia could see the endless glass expanse of the city of Ora, her vision only obscured by the closest nearby towers.
With a gentle lurch, the elevator began its upward ascent.
“But in the meantime, let me be your gracious host. I’m sure your trip here has been…less than ideal.”
Unknown Cargo (The Meridian Crew Book 1) Page 3