“Hello,” he said, offering her a painful wave.
“I would say I’m jealous,” said the Adeona, “but to be honest, this is just a little embarrassing.”
“Adi?” Jack tried – and failed – to rearrange himself when he heard her voice over the comm unit in his helmet. Adi was yet to come into visible range for human eyeballs. “Thank God. Get us out of here, please.”
“What’s the rush?” she replied, coming to a relative stop outside their cockpit windows. “The life support systems appear to be operational. Klik’s helmet is off and she isn’t dead yet. It doesn’t look like you need me at all.”
“Come on,” Klik groaned, kicking against the back of Jack’s seat with her other foot. “You know how I get in confined spaces. This is even worse than the crate Charon put me in.”
Rogan bowed her head and contracted her eye lenses.
“We’re very sorry, Adi. We shouldn’t have left Monzeich without you. It was my fault. I got too wrapped up in chasing answers and forgot myself. It won’t happen again, okay?”
The Adeona savoured Rogan’s rare moment of contriteness. But for all the joy seeing them stuffed into a flying commode brought her, she wouldn’t truly feel like herself again until everyone was back on board. She used her air thrusters to gently bring her left flank within a few feet of the cockpit window.
“The airlock’s open,” she said, returning to her usual, cheerful self. “Hurry up and climb over before I change my mind.”
Jack freshened up and swapped his spacesuit for a t-shirt and a pair of cargo trousers. He grabbed a coffee from the galley and sauntered down to the Adeona’s cockpit.
Everyone else was already inside. For people who’d just been rescued, they didn’t look half as happy as he expected.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, cradling his hot mug with both hands. “Please tell me you’re not thinking of chasing after that Archimandrite guy again.”
Rogan shook her head. Jack exhaled with relief, sending gentle ripples across his steaming drink. Thank God for that.
“I opened a comm channel with Kansas and Kay-13 while you were showering,” she replied, pressing her hands hard against the hologram table. “I made the error of telling them that those First Diakonos lunatics had abandoned the asteroid base. Now the Ministry has called off the executor squad tasked with investigating the whole matter. Chasing after them isn’t worth the resources, apparently.”
“Bloody cheapskates.” Jack savoured the weighty aroma wafting up from his coffee. It wasn’t the real stuff from Earth, but it was close enough. “What about the LX-14s, though? Even with everything else going on right now, the Ministry must be bothered by a bunch of combat automata going missing.”
“That’s just it,” said Tuner, who was sitting despondently in one of the nearby chairs. “They’re missing automata. It’s not like a fleshy research station has gone dark, or anything. And until the Negoti Corporation declares them stolen – which they won’t, at least not publicly – there’s not a lot the Ministry can do about it.”
“For all they know,” Klik mumbled, her arms crossed, “the cult could have bought all of the LX-14s legitimately.”
“So everyone’s hands are tied until the cult uses them to attack something,” said Jack, shaking his head. “Typical. We’ll just have to hope they target a raider clan, I suppose.”
“Unlikely,” Tuner said, kicking his legs back and forth over the edge of his chair. “You heard them back on the Archimandrite’s ship. It’s not some silly pirate power-struggle they want the LX-14s for. They’ll target civilians, I reckon.”
“And it’s not just the civilians they’ll hurt,” said Rogan. “Those LX-14s might be as dumb as the metal from which they’re built, but they’re still automata. How’s that going to play out in the media when a bunch of rogue robots go on the attack? As if any member species of the Ministry will vote for full automata rights after that.”
“Huh.” Jack took a long sip of his drink. “Now I can see why you were so determined to chase down those lunatics. Well, it’s out of our hands. If the Ministry chooses to do nothing, whatever bloodshed follows is on them. Nothing more we can do.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right.” Rogan took her hands off the table and stood upright, collecting herself. “It’s just a shame we went through all that for nothing. It would have been nice to have something to show for it, at least.”
Jack paused with his mug raised halfway to his lips. He’d suddenly had a thought. He hadn’t meant to, and rather wished he could put it back where it came from. It was the kind of dangerous thought that, twelve months ago, would have got them into all sorts of trouble. But despite that, he knew he couldn’t just sit on it. Not when it clearly meant so much to his friends. Not when automata rights were on the line.
He delicately rested his coffee on top of a nearby terminal.
“Hold on to that thought,” he said, marching out through the cockpit doors. He returned thirty seconds later with a folded-up square of crumpled paper clutched in his hand.
“I stole this from the comm station back in the Archimandrite’s compound,” he said, smoothing it out across the surface of the hologram table. “Couldn’t make much sense of it at the time. Still can’t, to be honest. But something clicked just now. Let’s see if you notice it, too.”
Tuner peered up over the table to look at the parchment. The handwriting was illegible, even with a translator chip. A pair of crude sketches occupied most of the page. One depicted a planet, the other some kind of spark plug. He shrugged, admitting defeat.
“I don’t get it.”
“Two stolen battalions of LX-14s, two stolen Negoti transport shuttles… two targets of attack?” Jack said, tapping the document hopefully.
“Bolts alive.” Rogan studied the two illustrations carefully. “I think Jack might actually be right. And even if he’s wrong, it’s certainly a start.”
“It’s the best lead we’ve got,” said Klik, her wide grin betraying her excitement to once again be headed someplace other than her bedroom.
“Adi?” Rogan looked up at the ship’s speakers. “What do you think?”
“My opinion matters now, does it?” the Adeona replied. “For what it’s worth, I agree. We’ve got to go somewhere, anyway.”
“Excuse me,” said a new voice over by the cockpit doorway. “Where did you say we’re going?”
Everybody spun around, fists and bone-claws raised. Silo, the sole surviving engineer from Cyclone Manufacturing, waited expectantly for their answer.
“Jesus Christ on a penny farthing,” said Jack, taking a breathless step backwards. “How bloody long have you been here?”
“Since you told me to go wait by your ship!” the grubby Ghuk replied. “You did say you would rescue me, yes?”
“Did we?” Rogan muttered. “I guess I tried to forget.”
Jack crossed his arms. “And you didn’t think to mention this to us, Adi?”
“I assumed you knew, given how confidently Silo here came marching up to the ship and all. Don’t worry. He’s actually been quite helpful.”
“Your ship had a loose power coupling in her engine room,” Silo declared proudly. “Fixed it. Would have cost you a couple thousand credits if left to deteriorate. You’re welcome. Now you take me to Negoti, yes?”
“It’s not the worst idea,” said Rogan, mulling it over. “If the Negoti Corporation found out that their merchandise was stolen, they might even try taking it back from the Order themselves.”
“Or they might ask us why we were sniffing about their factory without proper authorisation,” Jack replied. “They’ll take our statements a dozen times over, send a team out there to corroborate our story… and that’s if anyone at their headquarters even agrees to see us in the first place. A human, a Krettelian and two automata? Unlikely.”
“I was there,” Silo snapped. “I work there. They’ll listen to me.”
“Your faith in your employer is
commendable,” said Jack, who privately doubted Negoti even cared that Silo was still alive, “but we don’t have time to get bogged down in corporate red tape. That’s a job for Kay-13 and Kansas. While they’re busy doing that, we need to try and get ahead of the Archimandrite.”
“Or at least the LX-14s,” Tuner added.
“You can’t keep me prisoner in here!” The Ghuk puffed up his insect body so that he occupied most of the cockpit doorway. A frill fanned out from the back of his neck. “I demand you take me back at once!”
“Oh, calm down.” Rogan tutted and shook her head. “Nobody’s kidnapping you, you idiot. We’ll drop you off at the next port. You can find your way back to Negoti from there.”
Silo spat out something incomprehensible and shuffled off back in the direction of the engine room. Everyone waited for him to navigate the stairs to the floor below before continuing.
“Keep an eye on him, Adi,” said Jack. “The last thing we need is him throwing a tantrum and shutting off your skip drive. Now, I don’t mean to quote our latest stowaway, but…”
“But where are we going?” Rogan nodded. “No, it is a good question. I think I have an answer, though.”
She tapped the drawing of a planet with a metal finger.
“This one is going to take some work to identify,” she said. “Looks rocky rather than gaseous, presumably populated in some capacity, but the sketch work is too amateur to go on alone. It could be any number of inner worlds in any number of star systems.”
She dragged her finger across the document to the other illustration, the one that reminded Jack of an elongated Tesla coil, and tapped it twice.
“This, however, is obvious. I’d recognise its design anywhere. It’s an old Krolak outpost named Kagna One.”
“That’s only a few hours flight from our present location,” said the Adeona. “Shall I set a course?”
Everybody in the cockpit turned to Jack as if waiting for his permission. Old habits die hard, he supposed. Or maybe, when it came to approving stupid plans that ought never be rubber-stamped, there was nobody better in the galaxy to ask.
He plonked himself down in the captain’s chair, folded his arms behind his head and got comfortable. The clock was ticking, but it wasn’t as if there was much he could do to slow its hands.
“Step on it, Adi. Let’s hope we get there before it’s too late.”
13
Kagna One, Krolak Outpost
Jack opened a tin of protein, sipped some beer, even had a little nap. He wasn’t too nervous about what they might find at this Kagna One space station once they got there. Rogan may have been certain that it was the same outpost as sketched on the stolen document, but that didn’t mean it was actually one of the Archimandrite’s targets. For all they knew, it could have just as easily been where his Order did its recruiting. Or where they bulk-bought all their robes.
And if Kagna One was the target, and they arrived too late to warn everyone? Well, there’d be nothing they could do except turn around and peg it back in the opposite direction. They sure as hell weren’t equipped to do battle with a battalion of clockwork killing machines.
No, he wasn’t worried. The way Jack saw it, the worst of the danger was already behind them.
Klik wandered back up into the cockpit having spent the last half-hour down in the cargo bay scrubbing the vomit from her helmet. She collapsed into Brackitt’s old co-pilot chair and fixed Jack with a crotchety glare.
“I don’t see why it couldn’t wait,” she mumbled, sticking her bare feet up on the Adeona’s dashboard. “Rogan says this station we’re going to has its own atmospheric generators. I won’t even need a helmet.”
“She’s right,” Jack smirked. “I won’t be taking mine, either. But you know what would happen if you didn’t put aside the time to clean it now.”
“What?”
“There’d be an airlock breach or something, we’d scramble for our spacesuits, and you’d be forced to squeeze a bucket of dried sick over your head. Always keep your suit in good condition, Klik. It’s already saved your life once, remember?”
“You’re welcome,” said Tuner, waving sarcastically from his seat up near the hologram table.
“Whatever.” Klik crossed her arms and slumped even further into her chair. “Can’t wear the stupid thing, anyway. Whole helmet smells of soap now.”
“We’re coming up on the station,” said Rogan, interrupting Klik’s moping. “Adi, prepare your secondary thrusters for an emergency retreat once we leave subspace. If the LX-14s were sent straight here, we might be too late.”
Jack hoped not. As much as he wished to avoid getting wrapped up in anything violent himself, he hardly wanted to see anyone else get killed, either. The few Krolaks he’d encountered since arriving in the galaxy were hard, scaly bastards, more often employed as mercenaries than nursery school teachers… but that didn’t mean any of their law-abiding citizens deserved to get hurt.
The Adeona dropped out of subspace with all the grace of a salmon leaping upstream. Jack sat bolt upright in his seat, his heart firmly in his mouth.
Even after the stars took their rightful place in the cosmic sky, he saw absolutely nothing.
“Erm, where is it?” He stood up and searched all of the windows, but he couldn’t spot the space station anywhere. “Did we miss them? Did they blow up the whole thing?”
“Calm down, Jack.” Rogan smiled and shook her head. “We’re still a fair distance out. Port authorities require any visiting ship to register its arrival prior to docking. I’m sending a clearance request now.”
Jack dropped back into his seat.
“Are they likely to decline?”
“I shouldn’t think so. It’s a Krolak outpost, but they get plenty of traders passing through. Tourists and diplomats, too.”
A tiny, lonely speck slowly grew larger outside the cockpit windows. Jack watched as the space station took shape. Long and slender like an silver cigar, with various rings, discs and bulges of various widths and depths along its length – it really did resemble its crudely drawn counterpart. No wonder Rogan had recognised its design so quickly.
A few other ships, not to mention a small number of orbiting satellites, hovered just outside the station’s territory. The Adeona wasn’t the only one waiting for approval, it seemed.
“Clearance granted,” said Tuner, monitoring one of the terminals. “We’ve been assigned to bay 216, over in Port G.”
“I always get put with the cargo ships,” Adi complained. “I know that I need a bigger bay, but the speeders and interceptors are much better company. Don’t worry, Jack,” she added as he went to grab the flight stick, “I’ll guide us in.”
Jack thanked the ship and rose from his chair. It was about time he changed back into his spacesuit. He told Klik to go do the same.
“Are you sure you don’t want to bring your helmet?” Rogan asked as they passed by the NavMap. “You might find it more comfortable.”
“I think I’ll be all right, Rogan. I’ve been on my fair share of space stations before, you know. A bit of recycled air won’t kill me.”
Rogan scoffed loudly to herself as he rounded the corner.
“Oh, Jack. When will you ever learn?”
Jack stood at the bottom of the Adeona’s loading ramp, fanning his face with his hand.
“Crikey,” he said. “It is a bit hot, isn’t it?”
The human in him felt naturally compelled to follow this statement with, “but it’s a dry heat,” but that wouldn’t have been true at all. It was a thick, muggy and downright damp heat. It stuck to his skin and flowed into his lungs like tar, filling him up, turning him sluggish. Jack had visited swamps with lower humidity than this.
And they hadn’t even left the docking bay yet. There was air conditioning here, apparently. God only knew what the rest of the station was like.
“Reconsidering the helmet?” Rogan asked as she disembarked the ship. “I know you find it a bit constrictive,
but…”
“I’m fine,” Jack gasped. “A bit of heat never hurt anyone. I’ll get used to it. I’m bringing a water bottle with me.”
“It’s not the heat that’s the problem.” Klik peeled the lining of her suit off her shoulders. “It’s the moisture. I feel like I’m being marinated.”
“Hopefully we won’t be here too long,” said Tuner, waddling down the ramp behind them. “The station’s hosting a mudball game in a few hours. You know how Krolaks get when they lose. Or when they win, come to think of it.”
Silo emerged from the cargo bay and loitered near the top, peering around the port with transparent disdain.
“Krolak territory,” he sneered. “This won’t do. I won’t stay here. You’ll take me to Negoti this instant. Or back to Monzeich, if you must. It’s probably safer there than here now.”
“Leave and call your bosses, or stay here and wait for us to return,” said Rogan. “The choice is yours. But we’re not your rescue team, so stop treating us like one. We don’t have to do anything.”
Silo grumbled to himself and disappeared back into the cool shade of the cargo bay. Adi raised her ramp again. There was no sense in letting all the cold out.
“Right.” Rogan turned back to the rest of them and composed herself. “Let’s find out who’s in charge of this place, shall we?”
They crossed the small hangar to the station’s interior entrance, where a particularly heavy-built Krolak in leather uniform stood guarding a terminal drenched with condensation. He had a well-polished sidearm strapped to his thigh, but Jack was more scared of the creature’s arms. Resembling a bipedal crocodile or alligator on steroids (Jack could never remember how to tell one from the other, though of course the Krolak wasn’t remotely related to either), each of his four scaly forelimbs looked easily capable of tearing Jack in half. The gun was just a contingency for anyone who managed to get out of arm’s reach.
The Tin Soldiers (Final Dawn, Book 5) Page 11