The Spider and the Fly

by C.E. Stalbaum

  ***

  “It’s hard to get close with the local authorities swarming all over the place, but word is they found a heap of bodies in the house,” Tayla Grier’s image reported over the wide viewscreen. “Most of them were Dowd.”

  “Dowd…” Lord Soren Foln murmured as he leaned back in his chair on the bridge of the Golem. “That corroborates with what we’ve been hearing in the com chatter up here. It sounds like a small vessel skirmished with a Dowd frigate not five hours ago. It seems to have escaped.”

  “How did the Dowd even learn about this?” Henri Varm asked, leaning over from his terminal. “You think Pasek figured out how valuable the ship was and decided to have a little bidding war?”

  Foln nodded. “I don’t think that’s even a question. I wouldn’t be surprised if he told half the fringe what he’d found.”

  “Fool,” Grier growled. “He had no idea what he was dealing with.”

  “I suspect he’s already paid the price for it. The question is whether or not Markus got the information before the Dowd did. He still hasn’t signaled.”

  Grier tilted her head to the side as if she were looking at something off in the distance. “I spoke with a few of the locals about what they saw. They claim that several groups of hooded figures converged on the house and vanished, and then less than an hour later a single human man approached and went inside. There was a high-pitched explosion—I’m guessing some type of sonic detonator—followed by several seconds of pulsefire. The man emerged a minute later and went straight back to the spaceport.”

  “Just one man?” Henri asked, frowning. “No one else?”

  “A few of them were convinced he had a female associate, but I didn’t get much else as far as details.”

  “Let me guess, the ones who saw a woman with him were all Kali, right?” Foln asked.

  Her brow creased and she nodded. “Now that you mention it, yes. The others were particularly adamant about Markus being alone.”

  Henri turned to Foln, his features darkening. “I guess that confirms it, then. We know who captured him.”

  “Yes,” Foln agreed quietly. “Another Spider.”

  A grim silence settled over the bridge, and Foln almost regretted not having this conversation in private. But it didn’t matter—the men and women serving on the Golem were the best the Mire had to offer, and he trusted all of them implicitly. Still, battling rank-and-file Convectorate soldiers or even conventional intelligence operatives was an entirely different prospect than going up against a Spider. They’d all seen what Markus was capable of, and if this one had somehow bested him…

  “My lord, our techs report that they’ve been able to slice into the Tafrinar security grid,” the com officer reported.

  “Excellent,” Foln said, spinning his chair to face the command deck and suppressing a cough as he did so. His body still ached from the aftermath of the last shot of the doctor’s wonder serum. “Have they found anything useful?”

  “Not much, sir—the starport is primitive and doesn’t have many cameras. But they did find one image that might be useful.”

  “Then let us see it.”

  “Yes, my lord. Transferring it now.”

  The viewscreen projection split in half, and joining Grier’s face was an image still of two travelers walking through the spaceport. The blond man on the left was obviously Markus, and next to him was a tall, athletic, twenty-something human woman with jet black hair. The quality was poor, and it was a far cry from the fully three dimensional holographic feed they’d have been able to pick up from any urbanized world, but at least it was something. Foln was a little surprised his people had even been able to get their hands on this, given the circumstances.

  “Can we run that woman against our records?” he asked.

  “The resolution is so low I’m not sure we’ll get a match,” the com officer said apologetically. “But we’ll try.”

  “Either way, it’s more than we had,” Henri pointed out. “And we know that Markus isn’t seriously injured—or wasn’t, when this was taken.”

  “Yes,” Foln agreed. “Good work, Ensign. And commendations to your men.”

  The young man beamed. “Thank you, my lord. There was one additional thing as well. Evidently the local authorities managed to salvage an audio recording off one of the Dowd.”

  Foln leaned up in his chair. “Did the techs get ahold of it?”

  “No, but they did get the transcription. I’ll forward it to your terminal.”

  Foln glanced down and read through the few lines of translated text. It appeared to be a brief discussion between the Dowd and one of Pasek’s lieutenants about the location of the ship. Most of it amounted to useless posturing, but there at the end…

  “The Tartarus Expanse,” Foln whispered. “That’s where the Damadus is.”

  “I hope we have something more specific than a hundred light-year wide region of space,” Henri muttered. “We could spend a thousand lifetimes searching those systems and not find a damn thing.”

  “We could leave a few of our people here and see if they can slice into the actual police records,” Grier suggested. “Maybe there’s more to be found.”

  “We’ll do that, but for now at least we have a general direction. Assign three of your men to remain behind with a shuttle, Ensign. Everyone else should return to the ship, including you, Tayla.”

  “Yes, my lord,” she said with a half bow, and then the projection vanished.

  “You realize you’re assuming Markus actually acquired those coordinates,” Henri pointed out. “You’re also assuming he’s still alive.”

  “He’s alive, Henri,” Foln said. “I guarantee it. But if he is a prisoner, we just have to hope he’s able to signal us with more precise coordinates soon.”

  The doctor sighed and glanced out the forward viewport. “Well, he damn well better hurry. They have almost a full day’s lead on us, and the Dowd might have even more than that. The Damadus could already be destroyed as far as we know.”

  “It will take them at least five days to make the trip—we still have time. Besides, we can overtake them if we absolutely have to.”

  Henri glanced back to the small terminal at the rear of the bridge. On another ship, the odd piece of shimmering crystal would have stood out like a sore thumb, but on a patchwork vessel like the Golem, it looked like yet another cobbled together hunk of equipment. The ironic part was that it was worth more than the rest of the ship put together. Few remaining ships in the galaxy were equipped with a true astral drive, and even fewer had a supply of psionic capacitors to feed it.

  “I suppose so,” Henri conceded. “I just hope our reserves hold out. Without Markus here, we can’t exactly recharge it.”

  “They’ll last,” Foln assured him. “At least long enough for us to find the Damadus. After that…nothing else will matter.”

  His old friend grunted. “I hope you’re right.”

  “I usually am,” Foln said with a grin, swiveling his chair back around to the rest of the crew. “Helm, set a course for the closest edge of the Tartarus Expanse. We’re leaving the moment Tayla returns to the ship.”