by T. R. Harris
“So he had first-hand experience with them, prior to his death?”
“Yes, he did,” Yan’wal confirmed. “But whatever knowledge he acquired that promoted his link with you must have come after this meeting. At this time, Lord Oplim was already aboard the Klin ship and had not come in contact with the Humans. However, when I play the recording, you will see that by this time, Deslor did have previous contact with the light-haired Human, but not the dark-haired one.”
He pressed a button on his desk and the recording began playing. Giodol was shocked by the crudeness and obstinance of the Humans, as they showed no respect for Counselor Deslor — nor any fear concerning their situation.
So these are Humans, he thought. An arrogant, disrespectful race of barbarians…
The recording ended when everyone in the room left to board the Counselor’s shuttle to the Klin ship. Yan’wal then pressed another button and an image of the Counselor’s shuttlecraft appeared.
“It’s been our belief up until now that everyone aboard the Klin ship perished in the explosion, including these two Humans.” The Overlord turned his attention from the monitor and faced Giodol. “Is this your belief as well, after your months of investigating the incident?”
“Yes, My Lord,” Giodol replied evenly. “The last shuttle to arrive was carrying the technicians who brought the computer core to the ship. However, there was the transmission from the Klin ship indicating that our forces were under attack, and that the Overlord had been taken hostage. I received this information well after the Overlord’s last transmission.”
Yan’wal nodded. “I have more information regarding that attack,” he stated bluntly. “From long-range sensors on the third moon of Melfora Lum, we have recently learned that at least one shuttle departed from the Klin ship just moments before the explosion.”
Giodol was shocked. He wanted to react more emphatically to the news, but held back out of deference to the Senior Overlord’s position. “Why have I not learned of this before, My Lord? Who was aboard the shuttle?”
“The shuttle was of a Silean configuration, and was reported as part of a pirate attack that occurred over four years ago in The Void. As to why you were not informed of this, shortly after the incident, the Authority had all information regarding the Klin ship diverted to Juir until an assessment could be made as to its significance.”
Giodol was not surprised. “So pirates attacked the Klin ship, and then departed just before it exploded? Why would they risk the attack?”
“That is why I wanted to speak with you in private,” Yan’wal said. “The Fringe Pirates attacked the ship initially, and now we learn they came to the Juirean stronghold of Melfora Lum and blatantly attacked a Klin starship.”
“They know!” Giodol declared. “They know it was Klin!”
“That was the Council’s conclusion as well,” said Yan’wal. “And if they knew they were attacking a Klin ship in the first place, then they must have some knowledge as to their movements within the Sector.”
Giodol shook his head. “My Lord, I personally interviewed two of the three pirate captains who attacked that ship. Oplim had tasked me with recovering the missing computer core, believing the pirates had it. I was convinced that they did not, nor did they know of the significance of the ship.”
“The captains may not have known, but their leader may have.”
“I know the name of the pirate leader,” Giodol said enthusiastically. “It’s Riyad Tarazi. His reputation is well-known within the criminal elements of The Fringe.”
Yan’wal was silent for a moment as he thought. Then he asked, “Do you know the race of this creature?”
“No, My Lord, only that his pirates fear him, as I’m sure any leader of a band of renegades must elicit.”
“Lord Giodol, I need you to find this pirate leader. I have reason to believe that he is one of the Humans who was aboard the Klin ship.”
“That would make sense,” Giodol agreed. “Why else would the pirates risk an attack on the Klin ship right off of Melfora Lum?”
“And there’s one more thing,” Yan’wal said, turning his attention to the image of the shuttlecraft on the large monitor. “This was Counselor Deslor’s shuttle. It was presumed to be destroyed in the explosion.” He paused again for effect before continuing. “The transponder for this particular shuttle was activated as little as two days ago.”
Again, Giodol was shocked into a momentary silence. Then recovering, he asked, “Where, My Lord?”
“A planet called Hildoria.”
“That would mean someone else escaped in the shuttle before the explosion.” The implications were streaming through Giodol’s head. The voice of the Overlord broke through his thoughts.
“I also want you, through your most trusted agents, to track this shuttle and find out who is operating it. Obviously, no Juireans are in possession of the shuttle. My suspicions are that both of these Humans somehow escaped from the Klin ship, and that they may have even been responsible for its destruction.”
“With a nuclear device?”
“That is what I want you to find out. The pirates and this missing shuttle are our two most-direct leads to the Klin at this time.” Yan’wal then looked hard into Giodol’s eyes. “Only you, my Counselor, the Council and I know all the details of the last transmission by Overlord Oplim. Only we know of the Humans. Until we assess this new threat, it will remain so.”
There was no doubt in Giodol’s mind that the Overlord was serious.
Giodol was provided a luxurious stateroom aboard the UN-444; it was actually more opulent than his Sector Overlord quarters on Melfora Lum. Once he was settled in, he set about devising a game plan for assisting the Senior Overlord to find the Klin. This could be an incredible opportunity for him to prove himself worthy of the trust the Senior Overlord had expressed in him.
One of the trails he had only superficially followed during his initial investigation was the connection between the mystery Klin ship and the planet Nimor. He knew the ship had been brought to Melfora Lum from Nimor, and backtracking from there, he had been able to piece together a rough history of the ship over the six days or so from its initial discovery until its destruction.
When Giodol had invaded the pirate base on K’ly, he had learned that the ship had been originally attacked by the Fringe Pirates. After that, the picture became rather murky. For some unknown reason, the pirates abandoned the kill before having a chance to fully strip it of its valuables. Then the ship had been brought to Nimor as a salvage. And it was from here that the records had been erased from the Library.
Overlord Oplim had sent him on a mission to find the missing computer core from the ship, which Giodol now knew contained the location of the Klin’s ultimate destination. But how did the Overlord know the core was missing in the first place? Giodol was so frustrated with the actions of Oplim and his Senior Counselor. They had erased vital information that would have made his job so much easier.
Once the ship was at Nimor, the initial salvage survey would have noted the missing computer core. That was probably when Oplim had sent Giodol after the pirates to recover it.
But the pirates never had it. That left only the salvagers as the likely thieves. Could they have activated the core and learned of the Klin’s location?
Giodol suddenly became very excited. Oplim had eventually recovered the core — and he didn’t get it from the pirates. It had to have come from the salvagers.
So who were these scavengers, these beings who could not only scare away a contingent of Fringe Pirates, but also manage to get their hands on the most valuable computer core in the galaxy?
Giodol was determined to find out.
With already having an agent in mind to track down the Counselor’s shuttle, Giodol checked his list for another agent he could trust to follow up on the Nimor lead.
One stood out from the rest. But he hesitated. This agent was undercover, a Nimorian himself, who had been feeding intelligence to the Juireans for many y
ears. By giving him this assignment, Giodol would be instructing the being to reveal himself as an agent for the Juireans. It would destroy his value to him, not to mention his continued existence on Nimor.
Giodol would probably have to offer the agent a severance package of some sort to gain his cooperation, and something far away from his home planet. That could be arranged. If these scavengers did indeed have information regarding the location of the Klin, then the price would be well worth it.
Giodol wrote out the orders, and then sent the secure transmission to Nimor. All he had to do now was wait to see what his agent discovered…
Chapter Five
Adam sat askew in the pilot’s seat of the Cassie-1 and watched as the planet Castor grew in size until it nearly filled the entire viewport. He’d seen some glorious planets before, many looking as if they’d come straight out of the CGI computers at Industrial Light and Magic — George Lucas’ company — and destined for an IMAX screen somewhere. These were magical worlds, full of vibrant, vivid colors and inviting blue oceans.
Castor wasn’t one of them.
In fact, it was a hellish-looking place, nearly all brown and dusty, with only a thin band of green around the equator, along with three small patches of brackish ocean.
But people didn’t come to Castor for the scenery. They came for the treasures under the surface.
Castor was the mining capital of The Fringe, so rich in iron, bauxite, sulfur and other metals and minerals that for thousands of years, long before the Juireans arrived, the natives of Castor had literally scraped their planet clean to get at them. With the surface now so dry, dusty and light in oxygen, making breathing virtually impossible without a respirator and O2-assist, the natives had turned their obsession into their salvation. Their entire civilization had moved underground, now occupying the labyrinth of tunnels cut through solid rock over the centuries in search of their precious resources. Vast cities, with populations numbering in the hundreds of thousands, now thrived in these tunnels, and in the massive central chambers bore out to accommodate the every-growing population.
Indeed, Castor was growing — and prospering. There were not many commodities that The Fringe supplied to the Expansion. The mines of Castor provided about the only money-making export in the entire Sector.
And with a dense population and prosperous economy came the criminal element.
Seton Amick was one of a dozen high-level crime lords who catered to the vices of the Castorian population, and indeed, the entire Fringe. He dealt in anything illegal, from drugs to technology. And with the loose monopoly on the latter imposed by the Juireans, bootleg technology was one of Amick’s biggest profit centers.
So when an upstart from Hildoria — the late Kunnlar Bundnet — had infringed on some of Amick’s territory with the sale of wave transmitters and linking devices, Amick had sent Adam out to make a statement. That was what Adam was good at — making statements. Amick employed several other, more stealthy assassins. But when he wanted to punctuate the hit with a message, he sent Adam.
Adam hadn’t intended on leveling Bundnet’s compound; he just wanted to get in and out without much fanfare and collect his fee. But more often than not, Adam’s hits turned into massive firefights with high body counts. He had been trained as a Navy SEAL, and their entire motto called for deadly stealth, not flashy and excessive overkill. However, it always seemed to work out that way…
Maybe he was just getting lazy, Adam thought. Since being set loose in this new existence of his, Adam had yet to meet anything even approaching his equal in strength, coordination or cunning. So with such a lack of competition, he was growing complacent, and he had to admit, a little bored. Killing aliens for a living at first seemed like the perfect occupation for him. But now, he wasn’t so sure.
As always, though, he held out for the promise that his situation was only temporary, and that one day he would return to Earth and to whatever life he could salvage there. The fee for Bundnet’s killing would be sizeable, and help sustain him a little while longer, as he continued his quest for a way home.
The spaceport for the Castorian capital city of Krune was massive and exposed to the harsh elements of the surface. Even though the labyrinth system was extensive, the Castorians could not justify using up precious living space underground for the ships of the realm. So Adam placed the Cassie-1 in a clearing about two kilometers from the nearest access port and donned an uncomfortable full-face breathing respirator and oxygen supplement for the brief walk through the blowing dust.
Castor’s gravity was about standard for The Expansion, which made it about equivalent to three-quarters that of Earth’s. Adam could have jogged the distance in just a few minutes with little effort, but he decided to stretch his legs and actually enjoy the wide open spaces for a change.
Gravity was both his ally and his bane. In order to maintain his strength and muscle mass, he had to spend as little time on-planet as possible. That meant staying cooped up in his ship for the majority of the time. Any sane being would have gone stir-crazy after only a few days in such confinement, and Adam had endured this routine for going on nine months already.
Adam took an elevator down 23 levels and was deposited in the middle of a bustling metropolis with shoulder-to-shoulder beings, chaotic wheeled transports and a noisy train system that was actually the envy of The Fringe. Luckily for Adam, the respirator helped filter out most of the foul stench emanating from the crush of alien bodies. Over the months, he had grown somewhat expectant of the odor, although one could never completely ignore it. Recently, however, he had begun to wonder if the aliens felt the same about his own distinctive scent. If they did — or even felt the same about the scent of other aliens — they never let on.
He boarded a west-bound train for the half-hour journey to the section of Krune where Amick lived. It was upscale, made up of very wide caverns with paved surfaces and lined with towering trees and bushes of vibrant green, yellow and red. The artificial lighting set high in the distant ceiling added warmth to the air, and they had even incorporated a gentle summer’s breeze circulating throughout the neighborhood. Wealth had its privileges.
The taxi dropped him off at the head of Amick’s street. As Adam made his way toward the gated entrance to the residence, he knew he was under surveillance; you didn’t survive in Amick’s game as long as he had by being careless.
As he approached the gate, four burly Castorian guards suddenly appeared out of nowhere holding flash rifles and serious attitudes. Adam had been to Amick’s house numerous times in the past, but still the guards frisked him, scanned for explosives and took his precious MK-47 from him for safe keeping, placing it in a safety box near the gate.
Entering the house itself was an awe-inspiring event. The foyer was massive, carved out of solid rock that had been polished to a brilliant luster and displaying striations of dozens of bright colors. And beyond the entry was the Great Room, a fifty-meter long chamber that ended at a vast glass dome overlooking the desolate exterior landscape of Castor. Only the wealthiest Castorians could afford homes that overlooked the outside world, and Amick was among the wealthiest.
Near the dome, and peering out at the late afternoon shadows as they crept slowly across the jagged mountains in the distance, stood Seton Amick, a communicator to his ear and speaking loudly to someone on the other end. Adam approached and stood silently as two husky Castorian guards moved closer to him, just in case.
Amick was about Adam’s height, stockier and bald except for a thick crop of hair that grew on his back. The outfits Castorian males wore accentuated this feature, and was equivalent to women back home displaying their cleavage. Besides his wealth and power, Adam understood that Amick was considered quite a catch to Castorian females. Good for him.
Amick acknowledged Adam’s presence and he held up a hand, signifying that he would be done with his conversation in a moment. Adam nodded and glanced at the two flanking guards. They looked tough, but Adam knew their bone dens
ity was about half that of his own and that the bulk of their stockiness came from their furry torsos. Hardly a challenge, Adam thought to himself. I could take out both of them in under five seconds.
Amick closed the communicator, placed it in a pocket and turned to greet his guest. He didn’t smile; most aliens didn’t smile. It was often considered a sign of a challenge to do so. But his eyes lit up as he walked up to Adam.
“My friend, you have returned,” he said graciously in a deep, bellowing voice. “Another successful adventure from what I’m told.” Then he narrowed his eyes some. “Twenty-three dead and Bundnet’s home in ruins; you never cease to amaze me with the subtlety of your skills.”
He placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder and led him over to the bar. After a few taps of the screen, two cold drinks rotated out of the wall; Amick scooped them up and handed one to Adam. Adam’s blood chemistry had long ago been programmed into Amick’s dietary computer, so he knew the drink was safe. The two of them clinked glasses and Amick took a deep gulp of the potent beverage.
Adam liked Amick, as much as he could like any alien. He was pragmatic, intelligent and actually fun to be around. He was at the top of the food chain in his world and with that position came a relaxed attitude and a joy at being alive. His spirit was contagious.
Adam removed the full-face mask but kept the respirator over his nose. Lifting the respirator briefly, he took a long swig of the drink then replaced it. The air underground was clean of any contaminants, but the oxygen level was still too low for Adam to keep the respirator off for more than a few minutes.
“Now I suppose you’ll want your fee?” Amick said cheerfully. “I can never get you to relax and stay for a while. I’ve been so curious as to your origins and how you are able to accomplish what you do so effortlessly. We never get the chance at a prolonged conversation.”
“Sorry about that, Seton,” Adam said after another sip of the drink. “If our oxygen levels were more compatible I’m sure I’d spend more time here. But wearing this damn mask irritates my delicate skin.”