by Mark Wandrey
“Yes,” he said and held up an empty hand to the Pushtal. “Colonel Alan Porter, Silent Night Mercenary Company.”
The Pushtal caught itself on a protruding handle, which bent almost double. When the alien had come to a stop, it grunted and bent the bar back to roughly the same place.
Shit, they’re strong. He’d never fought Pushtal, and he was glad. Despite not being a registered merc race, they still turned up individually within other merc companies, in small independent units, and of course as pirates. This particular one was probably not much taller than Alan, but it probably outmassed him by 50 kilos, easy.
“Merc,” the newly arrived Pushtal said, its huge, tiger-like face unreadable.
“Yes, of course,” Alan said.
“Don’t see many Humans out here. I am Akohn, chief of station.”
Chief? Alan wondered. He caught the way his kids were looking at the Pushtal. Raising the five Zuul had taught him a lot about their instinctive facial expressions. It looked like Sonya was trying not to throw up. Rex had a disgusted expression on his face, while Drake stared at Akohn with loathing. Ripley and Shadow were both carefully looking around the open space, as if they were searching for something they’d lost.
“As most Humans who venture off Earth are mercs, we don’t spend a lot of time at…trading stations.” He couldn’t avoid letting a sense of irony sneak into his voice at the word.
“Mercs?” Akohn cast his eyes around the troopers, with extra attention at the five Zuul. “The speaker from your ship was Zuul; I was expecting you all to be Zuul.”
“We’re on a cooperative mission,” Alan explained. Akohn cocked his head curiously. “That means we’re working together.”
“I hear that about you Humans a lot. Most races only work with their own. Some, like Tortantula, only with one other race, Flatar. Humans are not always as racist.”
“It’s something we’ve struggled with,” Alan admitted. “Still do on Earth.”
“The war against you,” Akohn said and nodded.
“You heard about it?”
“Who in the Tolo arm has not heard about it? Maybe you Humans will end up like us, eh? Fallen out of favor with the Guild?”
“I hope not,” Alan said. He caught Sergeant Bana’s head movement and tracked it to see A’kef’s squad float in from a different entrance. As was their plan, the two squads had come in separately. Never underestimate the effectiveness of a good old-fashioned crossfire.
“Would you like to see some of our trade?”
“Yes,” Alan said.
“Maybe hire some of my people?”
“Our ship’s pretty full.”
“Oh, I see.” For some reason, Alan didn’t think Akohn was disappointed in the least.
Akohn pushed off, leading Alan and the squad down past the area where a large group of Pushtal were working. Some were in spacesuits; others wore only ragged coveralls. They looked like they were taking something apart, just as Alan had thought when he’d seen them upon entering the area. He really wanted to ask Akohn what they were doing, but decided against it. They were here trying to find their missing people, both Human and Zuul. Better to investigate indirectly than turn it into a Q&A.
Akohn led them to another open area that reminded Alan of a warehouse. A warehouse that had been through a hurricane. All the angles were wrong, and stuff was stored randomly almost everywhere. Alan saw everything from salvaged MinSha laser rifles to what for all the world looked like a dolphin skull.
Alan caught his team’s eyes and glanced around the room, telling them with a gesture to spread out and search. Sergeant Bana nodded and made sure everyone understood. They knew what they were looking for, and they also were probably hoping they wouldn’t find it.
While the men searched, Alan chatted with Akohn, who was a lot gabbier than he’d expected from a Pushtal. Everything he knew about the aliens suggested they were violent and not prone to thinking things through. Akohn seemed almost pensive in his attitude, and this worried Alan. They’d only been a few minutes when Ripley let out a little yelp to get his attention.
* * *
Her nose couldn’t register much beyond the overwhelming smell of Pushtal, but Ripley tried to pull anything—anything—of use off the all-too-familiar shape she’d found in one of the salvage piles.
Drake was at her side in a bound, eyes unerringly fixing on her find. Of course he saw it as quickly as she had, given how long he’d spent studying their own newer models.
With an exchanged glance, they cleared some of the lighter junk away, revealing a nearly intact CASPer.
One of the visible arms had been wrenched into uselessness, and the cockpit door…Cold twisted down Ripley’s spine, a low growl building in her chest. Any scent it might have had was long faded, but she wasn’t blind. It was one of theirs, and it had been through hell.
Drake muttered a curse in flawless Zuul, and she didn’t even twitch an ear.
Their father joined them, and belatedly Ripley realized the Pushtal chief had been protesting the entire time, a caterwauling of noise she’d reflexively tuned out.
“If you have interest in an item, we will move it, you do not interfere—do not ruin our order—”
The idea that the Pushtal had order in this disaster of a station would have been laughable in other circumstances, but even with her father next to her, Sonya couldn’t tear her eyes from the CASPer. The Silent Night CASPer. Who had been in it? Had the Pushtal…Her growl intensified, audible even to Human ears, and Drake matched her pitch for pitch.
A’kef didn’t have the angle to see what they’d found, but Ripley could tell the moment their growls registered—the older Zuul snapped his weapon into place, followed a breath later by his squad.
The Humans shifted, eyes locked on Bana or their colonel. Ripley preferred the Zuul’s reaction.
“Where did you acquire this?” her father asked, his tone so level Ripley knew they were about two moves from bloodshed.
It eased some tension in her, knowing her father was prepared to bring the station down around their striped ears, and her growl dropped into a lower register with readiness.
“You wish to trade for it?” The Pushtal’s eyes brightened, but Ripley had no illusion it was the thrill of a sale. This reeking being had claws and perhaps longed to use them.
That she could understand. Her jaw tightened in anticipation of ripping his throat out, which wouldn’t have been her usual reaction. Ripley usually left the violence to Rex and Drake, preferring flight and rapid aerial maneuvers, but in this place, surrounded by uncertainty and the oppressive smell of this so-called station, with a damaged CASPer that belonged to her people, her pack, her clan—
“Easy,” Shadow said, too quietly for any but Zuul ears. She hadn’t noticed his approach, and the combination of his presence and her surprise brought her back to herself. Her growl lessened, but didn’t disappear, and after a moment, Drake matched her again.
“I don’t want to trade for it,” Alan said, as level as before. “It belongs to me. I want to know why you have it.”
A’kef had moved closer, and other Pushtal noticed. Ripley felt her lip lifting and forced it down with effort. She glanced down the aisle to her left, reassuring herself of Rex and Sonya’s positions. She knew her father would shoot the chief first, and she would likely have to get one of the two crowding closer—Drake would go for the bigger one, so she’d aim for the smaller.
“It belongs to me,” the Pushtal corrected, exposing long, curving teeth. “You just got here. I’ve had this for much longer than ‘just got here.’”
“How long, then, Akohn?” Her father didn’t twitch his hand toward his pistol, but something in his demeanor snapped Bana into subtle action.
The Pushtal let the moment hold, his muzzle wrinkling in something like regret the moment before he spoke.
“A ship came through some rotations back. Damaged, needing trade.” Akohn drawled the last word, cutting his eyes to Ripley and
Drake. “We traded.”
“They traded you a CASPer?” Alan’s neutrality slipped, only for a moment, doubt shading his voice.
“Their ship was damaged. We have parts.” He made a wide-armed gesture, his face somewhere between a smile and a snarl. For all Ripley knew, that was how they smiled. Or how they snarled.
With the scent of Pushtal thick against the roof of her mouth, she could hardly be expected to decipher the intricacies of some pirate’s face. It took effort to focus on anything other than the urge to attack until they produced the Starbright or gave some actual answers.
Alan held up a hand, and A’kef paused in his approach. He did nothing more than stare steadily at the Pushtal chief, until the tiger-like being flattened his ears and shook his head.
“They needed repairs to continue their flight. We were here, and they were lucky to find us as they didn’t have much left. Despite what you and your Zuul think, we do appreciate trade. This,” Akohn regarded the CASPer with evident pride, “made for a decent return.”
* * *
Alan didn’t want to believe Akohn. However, as the Pushtal detailed the story, it all made sense. Captain Anderle, if she’d run into trouble, like it sounded, would probably have sold off wrecked hardware. What the cat didn’t know was the CASPer was now only hardware. Further evidence of the truth was, the CASPer’s computer and radio were missing.
“I need as much information about Starbright, the ship, as you can give me,” Alan told Akohn.
“What do you have to offer me?” the Pushtal asked, his eyes twinkling with sensed profit.
“How about your life?”
The Pushtal twitched in excitement, turning his head to regard A’kef only a scant few meters away. Akohn had failed to see the entire squad of Zuul drifting across the bay. Neither had Akohn’s cargo handlers, who’d obviously been willing to fight a group of Humans and five Zuul. But with the arrival of another full squad of Zuul, his demeanor instantly changed.
“You are in no place to threaten me,” Akohn blustered.
“Oh?” Alan asked. “Aren’t we? Information should be cheap, or even free, if you are expecting us to be customers.”
“You won’t fight,” Akohn snorted. “There are too many of us; you will never make it out.”
“Humans don’t care about winning so much as not losing,” A’kef said.
Alan lifted an eyebrow at the Zuul merc commander. He was surprised A’kef seemed to understand Humans as well as he did. That said a lot about his contemporary.
“Yeah, you’ll win,” Alan said. “Then our ship will blow this place to hell. Your call.”
* * *
Shadow slid away as guns returned to holsters, Sonya’s rippling growl ebbed, and the tension broke. The other Pushtal, their carefully performed chaos, their effort to draw attention away…it hadn’t ended with the discovery of the CASPer. The demeanor of the pirates hadn’t shifted until the Zuul tensed, so that wasn’t what they were hiding.
And he was sure, now, that they were hiding something, and whatever that something was, it wasn’t the Starbright.
He moved lightly, not carrying any of the incipient violence of the siblings he left behind, drawing no attention to himself.
For all the Pushtal were all over, welding or climbing or sorting garbage, in and out of haphazard corridors, there was an area they never crossed through.
It could be an old, disused part of the broken-down near-hulk of a station, but that didn’t feel right. The Pushtal seemed comfortable around junk, and there was plenty back in this corner, but they repeatedly avoided it. As he approached, he saw a door, half-hidden by a convenient fall of broken-down conduits. The smell of Pushtal lay equally heavy on the air in this corner, so, as he’d suspected, they hadn’t avoided the area so assiduously in the course of recent events. He could be fairly sure it wasn’t solid vacuum on the other side of the door, and anything else he would figure a way through.
Shadow glanced at the door, and kept drifting, in case any of the Pushtal were paying attention to him rather than the scene playing out over the CASPer. He looped around yet another pile of detritus and studied the hatch again.
No control panel, no handy color-coded light to reveal a locked or unlocked status. Despite the clutter partially blocking the door, it was unlikely he’d have long to break through if there were a lock. His peripheral vision showed the bulk of the Pushtal still focused on the two groups of mercenaries in their midst—his father in full colonel-mode speaking to their chief, Drake half-crouched and ready to take out a throat—which made this his best opportunity.
He took a slow breath, ensured his feet were clear of anything that might rattle and give him away, and pushed off at an angle that gave him a gentle spin. Nothing too direct, too urgent, nothing to pull any Pushtal notice.
His aim wasn’t perfect—he’d been practicing on board, with his tail free, and with that essential rudder tucked into his suit, his balance was skewed—but he hit close enough for the junk to mostly hide him. His ears twitched to catch any raising of alarm, but the ambient noise changed neither in pitch nor volume. All eyes were on his father and the chief, it seemed.
There was no obvious way to make the door work, and he crouched for a few minutes, running his hands over it in an attempt to trigger something.
Pushtal are tall, he thought, closing his eyes for a moment. He’d been so concerned with sneaking, he’d missed the obvious. Slow and deliberate, he stood, raised a hand, and waved it. The door opened obligingly, and he was still shaking his head at himself when he pulled himself through.
And froze.
The space he’d left had been large—a bay-sized cavern, heaped with salvage and junk.
This area…From the outside, it looked like the Pushtal had lashed a few ships and station rings together and called it a day. From the inside…that must have been exactly what had happened, because the enormity of the area around him seemed like a hollowed out section of a scavenged station, tens of levels high and, compared to the area behind him, nearly empty.
Except.
Three repair cranes, several times bigger than what Silent Night kept for CASPers, stood at the points of a rough triangle. Towering between them, dwarfing even their height…
It took his mind a few moments to process it. He’d only ever seen one on broadcasts, or occasionally in his searches through the GalNet. Who on Earth would ever forget Sao Paulo? Jim Cartwright had landed with seven 30-meter tall war machines, laying waste to a huge part of the city while battling Peepo’s army, and the civilians of the city had been caught in a horrendous crossfire. Thousands had died. There was a never-ending stream of video recorded on everything from sat phones to Tri-V.
Raknar, he was certain of it. Nobody else in the galaxy had ever built anything on this scale. Damaged, but nearly whole, like the CASPer the Starbright had left behind. Standing, inscrutable, unmoving, frozen potential that could slam a hole in the side of this station…and Shadow wanted nothing more than to climb inside.
An elSha floated out of the Raknar with a part. The tiny reptilian examined the technology, removing a slate and running Tri-V comparisons.
The haze of Pushtal scents and the sheer size of the bay combined to keep him from scenting any other beings, and Shadow kicked himself for forgetting he might not be alone in here. Gawking was all well and good, but this wasn’t home, and he knew better.
“Oi, technician!” Shadow remembered not to gesture wildly to attract the elSha’s attention, but he put enough effort into the bellow that he had to course-correct again.
“More Zuul?” the elSha replied, Shadow registering the words despite the distance. The small being flipped easily midair and pushed off the Raknar, angling for the new arrival, and added, “A Zuul speaking Human?” The technician tapped her pinplant as though questioning it and flared to a stop halfway between Shadow and the immense ancient machine behind her.
“A Zuul in a Human mercenary unit,” Shadow replied, his ea
rs twitching before he stilled them. “In case that question was for me.”
The elSha tucked the part in her hands closer to her body and regarded him silently. Shadow tore his eyes from the Raknar looming behind her and focused on the smaller alien.
“You’ve seen Zuul recently? And Humans?”
“I mostly stay in here, Human-merc-Zuul.” Even the translator managed to pick up the wariness in the technician’s words.
“I’m Shadow,” he offered, trying to wrangle his thoughts off the machine and to the matter at hand.
“Freena.”
“You’ve been working in here long, Freena?” he asked, managing to keep most of the interest out of his voice.
“Ever since the Wrightcart Human started smashing around in one of these,” she said, the tip of her tail lashing toward the Raknar, “everyone thinks all the old death-carts can be made to move again.” Something very like a snort emerged from the small body. “It pays credits, until clients get impatient.”
“So no chance on this one?” Shadow cleared his throat, hearing the longing in his tone. He had a CASPer—one of only five Zuul in the galaxy who could say such a thing—panting after a Raknar was over the top greedy.
“Is that why you’re here, Human-Zuul-merc Shadow? To get your own Raknar?” The careful spacing in her words gave him pause, but he couldn’t imagine what she would be worried about.
“No. We’re looking for the rest of our company. That’s why I asked if you’ve seen Humans pass through recently. Sounds like you’ve met with some Zuul?”
“Yes.” The elSha let the word sit between them for several long moments, blinking with what felt like deliberate slowness. Shadow held himself still and stared back at her wide-set eyes.
“Yes,” Freena repeated, twitching her tail again. “I talked to a Human trooper, and then not long later, a Zuul trooper. I don’t think they knew each other.”
“The Zuul we’re traveling with are also in search of the rest of their company.”
“I had no idea so many mercenary companies had to go searching out parts of themselves across the galaxy.” Freena’s third eyelid paused mid-blink, and Shadow had the undeniable feeling that she was laughing at him.