by Alex Kings
“You have the deck,” he told Lanik.
“Yes, sir.”
Hanson left the CIC and headed down to the bottom of the ship. The corridors were clean, chrome, polished to perfection. The sound was different, he'd realised. The faint thrum of the reactor was slightly deeper. Of course it was – as part of the repairs, the Tethyans had torn out and redesigned great chunks of the ship. A more efficient reactor, biotech lasers from their own ship, a monopole cannon – something no other ship outside the Tethyan fleet had access to.
The message was clear: They expected great things of him. Hanson hoped he could live up to that. Things weren't looking too good so far.
At the rear of the ship, he reached the final addition.
A pool. A metre deep, a two metres wide, six metres long. A narrow walkway surrounded it. Patterns of light reflected from the surface danced against the low chrome ceiling.
The pool itself was empty. The Tethyan representative to the Dauntless hadn't arrived yet. He'd been delayed, but the Tethyans weren't forthcoming about the nature of the holdup..
But Agatha sat on the walkway, looking out at the water. She looked up at him when he came in and waved. “Hey, Hanson.”
She'd defaulted back to her usual style, an oversized shirt over a black t-shirt. At the start of the mission, she'd endured her acting-sergeant's uniform for all of a day before turning up in her normal clothes. She still kept the rank pins on her collar, though. Her hair too – short, auburn, untidy – seemed to resist the surrounding military polish.
Hanson smiled. “Hello,” he said. Looking out at the little pool, he added, “Tethyan representative or not, this pool is doing wonders for morale.”
“Which we need, considering we've found sod-all, right?” said Agatha.
“No,” said Hanson. He leaned against the wall and watched the gently quivering pool. “We cant just go searching for them … 300 billion stars in the galaxy, and IL could be hiding behind any one of them.”
“Plan B, huh?” said Agatha. “You're good at those.”
“Well, nothing's coming to mind.”
“Is it the mortal danger your missing? I could remind you about how we're all at risk of being conquered by a bunch of mad bastards with their own loyal mutant army?”
For a moment, there was silence.
“I don't believe,” Hanson said at last, “that you can just pull up an entire multi-billion credit company by the roots and leave no trace. They're bloody smart, yes, but they're not perfect. There's got to be something they've overlooked. Besides, they must still have contacts in the Alliance. They wouldn't risk being completely isolated … ”
“Well,” said Agatha. “What shady stuff were they into before all of this?”
Hanson looked at her for a moment. His eyes widened. “That's it!” he said. “I know where to go.” He turned to a console by the door and called up the CIC. “This is the Captain. XO, apologise to our Tethyan friends and divert course to Atlantis. We have a lead.”
“Yes, sir,” came Lanik's voice through the intercom.
Agatha cocked her head. “Atlantis?”
Hanson nodded. “Time to look up some old friends.”
Chapter 3: Old Friends
On Hanson's command, the Dauntless jumped into the outer system, away from Atlantis' actual colony. Instead, they headed for the gas giant, Hybras.
“Hybras station located,” said Dunn.
On one of the command console's display screens, the station appeared as a giant structure against the gas giant's immense banded clouds.
“Why Hybras?” asked Lanik.
“Before I was transferred to the Dauntless, I was on a mission here,” Hanson explained. “Ancient technology in the atmosphere. IL was all over it.”
“Ah,” said Lanik.
As soon as they were close enough, they hailed the station. A reply came almost immediately, with directions to a dock.
“Take us in,” ordered Hanson.
Hybras Station's size only became apparent as they approached. A cylinder twenty kilometres long, turning slowly against the night. It dwarfed the Dauntless.
The docks were in a giant internal cavity near the front of the cylinder. Nearly all the docks were occupied by atmosphere miner ships – like bulbous fish with gaping mouths. Mining operations had, once again, been shut down. The inevitable result of economic collapse.
Fermi nudged the ship into the dock. There was a clang as they were connected, and a docking tube was extended.
“You have the deck, XO,” said Hanson.
At the airlock, Yilva was waiting for him, idly tapping at her tablet. Her tail flicked back and forth idly. “Hi, Captain. I have all my decryption tools ready. Are you sure they will work?”
She spoke in English now, faintly accented. She'd been learning it since her employers had allowed her to work on the Dauntless.
“I hope so,” said Hanson. He walked with her a little way down the tube when a deep, rumbling voice stopped them.
“Hanson! I'm coming too.” It was Srak, walking up the tube behind them. His great reptilian body took up nearly the whole width of the tube. He had some light armour on, and his oversized pistol in a holster strapped to his chest.
“I'm not expecting a fight here, Srak,” said Hanson.
“Yeah,” said Srak. “And how much good is that gonna do if one comes along?” He patted his gun. “Just in case.”
Hanson looked at him for a moment. “Alright, come on.”
They walked out the docking tub onto the platform. Lounging against a wall opposite was a woman in an engineer's jumpsuit – Merrihew.
As soon as Hanson was close enough, she stepped forward and shook his hand. “Finally taking time out of your adventures as a grand galactic hero to come visit, are you?” she said. “It's about time …” She trailed off when she caught sight of Srak exiting the tube. Her eyes widened slightly.
“Don't worry,” said Hanson. “He's friendly. Well, mostly.”
Merrihew quickly regained her composure. “Right,” she said. “Yeah. It's just a bit of a surprise. Last time I saw you with a Varanid you were in a fight to the death.”
Srak looked from Merrihew to Hanson. “Is this true?” he said. “You won a fight with a Varanid?” He laughed loudly. “I knew it!”
“To be fair, she helped,” said Hanson, gesturing at Merrihew.
Srak offered her a giant hand, which she took, unafraid. Yilva introduced herself, then Merrihew led them towards the elevator.
“How have you been getting on?” Hanson asked as the elevator began to descend.
“Oh, you know.” Merrihew shrugged. “I was right about IL being an evil organisation willing to to manipulate, lie, and murder their way to the top of the galaxy. I feel vindicated.” She smiled faintly. “That almost makes up for the fact that they were our main contractor, so our livelihood has gone down the pan since they buggered off.”
“Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Hanson.
“Ah. So this is a business trip.”
“Yeah. We're looking for leads on IL. And it occurred to me that they were buying some Ancient nanotech from you. They must have had some sort of a relationship with the station, even if it just seemed to be picking up their cargo. Ships would come by, for example. And knowing you, I supposed … ”
“That I'm paranoid enough to keep an eye on them? Listen in on their communications and make recordings?”
“Not how I'd put it, but yeah. Did you you?”
Merrihew nodded. “Yes. You might be disappointed, though. Damn near everything I got was encrypted. I haven't been able to break it.”
Hanson stepped back raised his arm to include Yilva in the conversation. “As it happens, we have someone who worked IL and knows most of their old decryption keys.”
Yilva's ears perked up. “That should not be a problem!” she said.
They came to a halt, and the elevator's doors opened to the station's interior: A lan
dscape of parkland, housing, and industry, gently curving up and around it formed an upside-down ceiling a few kilometres away.
As she led them out, Merrihew warned Srak, “Like I said, we had a bad experience with a Varanid in the past. It's probably best we don't go waltzing through any crowded areas. No offense, obviously.”
“None taken,” said Srak.
Merrihew led them through some of the parklands. A couple of people passed, staring openly. Merrihew waved at them. “It's fine! Nothing to worry about!”
Yilva leaned her head in to Srak. “Still glad you came along?”
Srak laughed.
They arrived at a small, flat building, a single storey, painted white and lined with windows. “One of the backup computer stations,” she explained. “We'd monitor the atmosphere miners here, but since they're parked again …”
“How bad is it?” asked Hanson as they entered.
Merrihew shrugged. “We're surviving for the moment. We're trying to find a new buyer, but the rest of the Alliance isn't working either. I think we can keep the station going for another couple of months without income, but no more than that.”
“Anyway, here we are.” She took them up to a computer terminal, activated it, then gestured at it a few times. Restricted files, said the screen. Please supply palm print. She put her palm against the screen. It blinked green once.
“There you go,” she told Yilva. “All yours.”
Yilva stepped up to the terminal, extended her tablet, and plugged it into the terminal. After a few lightning-fast gestures she grinned. “It is working!”
When the files were decrypted, Hanson shared the files between the four of them, and the team began to read.
For top-secret information shared inside a giant corporation bent on galactic domination, the files were spectacularly dull. Internal memos Stupid jokes among employees. Transfer requests. Orders from on high – “Reroute the freighters to VCN112,” “Our loading station on Robinson City is closed. Go to Los Angeles.”
Then there were a few bits of information Hanson already knew – references to the Afanc, the Blanks.
He paid attention to the names. Little was on offer there, either: Mr. Bell – IL executive in charge of the Blanks, now deceased. Mr. Schmidt – IL executive, vanished with the rest of them. Millicent Dawes – employee, known to have vanished.
“Here is something,” said Yilva. “Someone called Arka. He hasn't been on any list of missing employees.
Srak raised his head. “That's a Varanid name.”
Yilva handed him her tablet. “Do you know him?”
Srak peered at it. “Don't think so.”
Meanwhile, Hanson pulled up the search function on his own tablet and checked on all instances of Arka. Going by the messages, Arka – whoever he was – seemed to be some sort of independent contractor, doing a variety odd-jobs. One of which included killing the Glaber at the head of Hive Shrike, so a new leader – Sruthur – could takes his place. Other things Arka did were more ambiguous, referred to in vague terms.
But there was mention of a few places he'd been. On Earth, no less. That might be enough.
On the way back to the ship, Srak observed, “No occasion to use my gun.” He frowned at Hanson. “Is this how it's going to be now? We dock at a place and don't get immediately attacked?”
“That would be nice,” said Yilva.
“It'll take some getting used to,” said Srak.
Back in his ready room aboard the Dauntless, Hanson sent a message to Admiral Chang. He attached all the encrypted files, and underlined all the parts about Arka, with a request for information.
That sent, he returned to the CIC and called up Merrihew. “Thanks for the help,” he said.
“Any time,” said Merrihew. “I hope it's useful.”
The Dauntless undocked from among all the silent, gaping atmosphere-miners, and pulled back into open space. The great banded clouds of Hybras seemed to fill half the sky.
“Sir,” said Dunn. “We've got a call coming in. It's Admiral Chang.”
Already? That was quick, thought Hanson. “I'll take it in my ready room,” he said.
He extended his tablet, stood it vertically, and accepted the call. Chang's face appeared before him.
“We've done a search on this Arka you mention,” said the admiral.
“Any luck?” asked Hanson.
Chang shook his head. “I'm afraid not. I'm sending you what we do have, but it's very little. There are a records of Varanid ships docking on the dates mentioned, and we managed to find a couple of registry numbers that might be the ship you're looking for. But we have no record of either of those appearing in the past month.”
That was well before IL had vanished.
“We'll keep an eye out, I promise you that,” said Chang.
Hanson sat back and sighed. So much for that lead, he thought. “Thank you, sir,” he said.
“However,” said Chang. “We've found another clue that might cheer you up. A connection to a vanished IL employee.”
Hanson sat forward. “What is it?”
“Who,” Chang corrected him. “A relative. She's on Earth, under watch.”
Chapter 4: Earth
Less than a minute after they'd jumped into the Solar System, Miller said, “We're getting an incoming transmission. Audio only.”
“Put it through,” said Hanson.
The comms crackled into life. “This is the Solar Intelligence Service, calling the Dauntless,” said an anonymous voice.
“Dauntless Actual here,” said Hanson. “What can we do for you?”
“As we understand it, you're headed for Earth. If he's not critical for your mission, could we borrow Commander Lanik?”
Hanson paused, looked across the command console at Lanik, and raised his eyebrows. “Well?”
Lanik, as usual, looked unruffled. “I'm quite willing to go, sir. I can take a shuttle.”
Going back to the comm, Hanson said, “Very well. He's on his way now.”
“Thank you, Captain. We promise we'll have him back in one piece.” The operative on the other end cut the signal.
“With your permission, sir?” said Lanik.
“Granted. Come to Earth as soon as you're finished.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hanson watched Lanik stride off the CIC in the direction of the shuttle bay. Now, what was that about?
As soon as the shuttle had broke free, they headed on.
As they approached Earth, surface features sketched themselves in ever greater detail: A marbled surface of oceans and continents and clouds, ice caps and deserts, a pale halo of atmosphere glowing in the sunlight. Day was breaking across the Americas.
A trio of century-old space elevators, built before the invention of gravity control, rose like impossibly thin fishing lines from the equator. A few hundred ships and space stations lined up in geosync orbit beside them.
“We've got a message from Heathrow,” reported Miller. “They say they've got a berth for us.”
“Understood,” said Hanson. “Take us down.”
A little over a hundred craft, frigate-sized or smaller, lay in smart matter berths across Heathrow Spaceport. As the Dauntless descended into its own berth, an intercontinental liner rose silently from the tarmac, turned its nose towards the sky, and hurtled upwards on a thirty minute journey to Shanghai.
The Dauntless settled into its berth with a faint thump. A second later, the docking tube connected.
“You have the deck, Lieutenant Dunn,” said Hanson.
“Yes, sir.”
Hanson took his full team with him: Moore, Agatha, Srak, and Yilva. The last two, though, were there to play tourist: “Earth!” declared Yilva, bounding down the docking tube. “This is ideal for me to learn English!”
“Just remember we won't be here for too long,” said Hanson.
“Is Angkor Wat here?”
“Sorry, lass,” Moore said. “Wrong hemisphere.”
S
rak remained relatively subdued, but Hanson saw him with a tablet in one hand, flicking through a listing of bars that served Varanid drinks.
“Try not get into any fights,” Agatha advised him.
They headed down into a corridor away from the Alliance-Navy-only areas into the public concourse – and found a glowing globe of water hovering in their path.
It was about a metre and a half in width and height, and two metres long, held together by a green effector field. Its surface was perfectly smooth. In the centre of it floated a Tethyan.
Tethyans preferred using canals when they mingled with the non-aquatic races, but when the infrastructure wasn't there, they resorted to this method.
“Captain Hanson, good afternoon,” said the Tethyan in a perfectly smooth simulated voice. “And, I believe, Sergeant Lisa Moore, Ms Yilva Vissin Avanni, Ms Agatha Neruda, and Srak.” It had chosen a mid-thirties male voice, British accent. Whatever that said about about its actual age, gender, or place of birth, Hanson didn't know. The rich brown markings on its exoskeleton looked a little like leopard spots.
“Someone's done his homework,” said Srak drily.
“My name is Vyren,” continued the Tethyan. “I apologise for my lateness. I am your representative among the Tethyan people. I thought it best to meet you here.”
Hanson nodded to acknowledge this. “I'd say welcome aboard, but we're heading out.”
“Of course!” said Vyren. “I am happy to board the ship and await your return, or join you on your current mission.
“Well, then, you'd best come with us.” said Hanson.
He looked over at Yilva, who was staring at Vyren with wide eyes, her tail flicking with excitement. “We'll meet you on the ship in a couple of hours, alright?” he said.
For a moment, it seemed like she hadn't heard him. “A Tethyan on our ship!” she said. Then, even more quickly than usual: “Right. Yes. No, I mean. Yes. You need to talk to him first. I will talk to you when you get back, Vyren! Oh, but –”