Call of Courage: 7 Novels of the Galactic Frontier

by C. Gockel

  She hesitated to use the Defensor’s name. It would be like conjuring a demon. There was power in her name. It could stir the thing awake in her head.

  /Go on. Tell him./

  “Defensor Tristic.”

  “Who is that?”

  /Your salvation from this torture, Erelah./

  Stop it. Go away!

  “She wants to wear me…to become me.”

  Jon sat back. He cradled her face in his hands. The torment in his face twisted her heart. “You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m scared too,” she whispered, pulling away from his touch.

  /You will know fear far worse than this./

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was a time as a booter when Sela had dreamed of being a stryker pilot. But she grew too tall. It was apparent that she had been designed for something different. Now she considered it a childish fantasy, but she still possessed the indelible memories about basic stryker design schematics and flight control layouts. If there were something out of place, she would notice.

  Carefully, she studied the metal belly beneath the wing. The body of the stryker was noticeably wider at the back than a typical model seven. The propulsion access casing was definitely an odd shape. It had no visible release, which meant that the access latch was probably activated from the cockpit.

  With a sigh, she straightened, walked to the front of the vessel and climbed onto the wing. Thus far, her approach to examine each of the systems of the stryker had been beyond frustrating. She did not relish another fight with the stryker’s compsys. It was not possible for a piece of tech to convey emotion, but this one was plainly arrogant.

  She sank into the charred plastic stink of the open cockpit and focused furiously at the panel, looking for the propulsion casing release activation. This was likely to be another stalemate.

  “Voice interface,” she said with very little faith.

  “Verified ,” responded the clipped synthetic voice in Regimental. So far so good.

  “Standby for new instructional parameters.”

  A long pause this time. “Active. ”

  “Display instructions for propulsion casing release.”

  “Propulsion access restricted. Primary access clearance is required.”

  She sighed. “What is required for primary access?”

  There was an even longer pause, plainly meant to lull her into a false sense of hope, before the stryker’s computer replied.

  “Information restricted. Primary access clearance required. Security lockout engaged.”

  Sela fought the urge to hit something. “I really hate you.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “Why didn’t you wait for me?” Veradin called, descending the stairs that led to the bay.

  At the sound of his voice, her back straightened. Feeling her face grow hot, Sela did not turn to look at him. An awkward mix of embarrassment and anger from the encounter in the command loft still clung to her.

  “There is a twenty-three percent variation on the energy demand reads, even when the stryker is in cold mode,” she answered. “I felt it necessary to investigate promptly.”

  That meant an as-yet undiscovered system was still active, despite the vessel’s sleeping appearance. Sela feared it was a transmitter beacon or something similar that could bring an Enforcement squad straight to them. To be sure, she needed access to each of the systems. The vessel’s navsys thought differently, of course.

  “Erelah said we would find no trackers or surveillance devices,” he said.

  Sela prodded blindly beneath the center console. Perhaps there was a manual override latch she had missed.

  The silence pulled into a tense current.

  Behind her, Veradin slipped into the jumpseat.

  He leaned over her shoulder. “You don’t trust her.”

  Sela swallowed her reply. She trusted instinct. Right now, it told her there was a threat housed in the otherwise weak-looking body of his sister. How to explain it without sounding mad herself was another issue.

  “Ty, it’s obvious she’s suffered some sort of trauma. Just look at her. Miri knows what she’s been through.”

  That didn’t begin to cover it.

  She heard him shift in the space behind her, experimentally tapping at powered-down console controls. His actions were useless. None of the instrumentation could be coaxed into operating until she found a way to access the non-cooperative compsys.

  “Your intimacy with her is a liability.” Sela granted him her profile. “It colors your perception.”

  The sounds of his activity stopped. He grabbed the sides of her seat and swiveled it around so that she faced him.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you preaching Decca to me, Ty?” he asked, frowning. “Now…of all times?”

  “No, sir. Just…I believe that she may represent a threat.” She gave a half-shrug. “One you’re not prepared to acknowledge.”

  “What are you talking about?” He frowned. But there was something else there, just beneath the surface. Was it fear? “What did she say to you?”

  Your sister brought something with her. Something insidious, darkly intelligent.

  That did sound mad. There was no real proof. Was there? Only instinct.

  “How did she know to find us at Newet?” Sela countered, instead.

  With that, Jon flinched. He looked down, swallowing. In a quiet, hurt voice, he answered: “She told me that she went there to die.”

  Sela watched him in silence, tempted to reach out and caress that dark head of hair and utter useless words of comfort, as she had watched him do for Erelah.

  “Fates, Ty. The answers she gives make no sense. The madness that she speaks when she is awake…” He sat back, raking hands down his face. “She’s not…right. That person you saw in the command loft, that’s not her. We weren’t raised to think that way. Words like ‘breeder’ were forbidden in our house.”

  “I’ve been called worse, sir.”

  “She acts as if she is…possessed.” He sighed.

  Sela bit her lip, guilty with vindication.

  “It’s my fault. Uncle made it plain that it was my duty to look after her. I left her behind when the Regime came to Argos, looking for recruits. I think I did it just because Uncle forbade me to go.”

  His gaze turned to some tormented interior horizon. “I thought I was going to restore the Veradin Kindred honor. Become some great leader. I didn’t understand a damned thing.

  “Uncle disowned me, told me never to return. Told me that I would only bring Erelah grief if I tried to contact her. So I stayed away…for years. Then Uncle died. Next thing I know, I’m getting a trans from her. She’s standing there looking so proud of herself in that damned Fleet uniform. Only a consultant but still. I yelled at her, told her how stupid she was. That was the last time I’d talked to her before…all of this.”

  “You didn’t know this was going to happen, sir,” Sela said, then winced. It sounded so useless.

  “I’m sorry. For everything.”

  “You keep saying that, sir. Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”

  “It’s my fault that you’re here. I got you wrapped up in something I don’t even understand.” He touched her face. “But you have to understand, no matter what happens…what comes next: I meant what I said to you in the command loft.”

  It’s always been you.

  He was waiting for her to say something in response. But what? Words clotted in her throat. How could he not read her mind as he always seemed to?

  “I don’t know what you want me to say.” Inwardly she flinched at the tremble in her voice. That was not the way a soldier sounded. This was an alien realm for her. Frightening in an unnameable way. “What do you want from me, sir?”

  “No. Stop that. No more ‘sir’ or ‘captain,’” he said with sudden forcefulness. “We trust each other, Sela. Right now. Or we’re all dead.”

  “I trust you with my life.”


  “I’ve never doubted that, Ty.” The sternness in his expression evaporated. “I pray to Miri that I truly deserve that from you.”

  “You do. Why wouldn’t you?” She frowned, placing her hand over his.

  He drew in a breath as if to speak, but halted. Something like fear surfaced in his eyes.

  “What is it?” she urged.

  “Jon!” The screech crawled down from the crew quarters and into the bay.

  Erelah. Of course.

  Cursed with the same poor sense of timing as her sibling, it seemed.

  “I should check on her.” His hand dropped away. The moment folded back onto itself. “Continue your search of the stryker. Let me know what you find.”

  Sela watched him climb from the cockpit and head back up the stairs.

  When Sela found him in the galley, Veradin—Jon—was sitting, shoulders hunched in one of the torturously hard plastic benches bolted to the floor. Steam curled from an ignored cup of hot insta-cal at his elbow. He wore an odd mix of a black, close-fitting shirt and utilities. Sela could not recall ever seeing him in casual attire. Judging from the expression on his face, he looked far from relaxed.

  Although his gaze was directed at the portal, she doubted he was watching the drift of stars in the blackness beyond. The Cass had been placed in a semi-dormant mode to conserve resources. A-grav remained the only system at full, chiefly because only Sela had the training to function in low or zero grav.

  Neither of them was capable of coming up with a safe destination. Without reliable nav charts, Jon had used his best guess on his knowledge of Fleet battlegroups in this sector. They were now on a course that presently drew them farther out into less populated regions, problematically farther from reliable flex points.

  “The stryker is a dead end,” Sela announced. “Other than the fact that the stryker’s chrono is six hours behind core standard, I got nowhere. The compsys locked me out after I triggered some sort of failsafe. Encrypted.”

  “And good morning to you too, Ty.” The shadows beneath his eyes had worsened. “You didn’t sleep. Did you?”

  “I’ve slept enough, I think,” Sela replied, taking the bench across the table from him.

  “The only person that can make sense of the stryker is your sister.” She gestured in the direction of Erelah’s room.

  Jon looked down at the counter top. “I don’t know if that’s going to happen.” He shook his head. “I think she’s getting worse.”

  She slid a hand over the counter, her fingertips brushing his knuckles. His hand enfolded hers, flexing once, then retreated.

  He glanced down at the tablet before her. “So what’s this, then?”

  “This can wait,” she said, drawing the device back toward her. With the stryker search a dead end, she had elected to inventory their resources. The news was no more uplifting than her engagement with the mysterious vessel in their hold.

  “No. Fates, no.” He straightened. “I need to focus on something else. If just for a little while.”

  She sighed. “Not that this news is much better.”

  He shrugged. “Let’s hear it, then.”

  “Sitrep.” With that, she keyed open the manifest screen on the tablet. The basic pictographs of Regimental in tidy columns defined looming ruin. “Food for three days for consumption by two.”

  “Consumption by three,” he corrected flatly. “You’re not going without food.”

  “I don’t need food the way—”

  “Non-negotiable,” he replied, sliding the mug of insta-cal toward her. “Just as bad as field rations. Enough to make you homesick for the Storm King .”

  She took a sip and slid the mug back to him, making a face. He had lied. This stuff was definitely worse.

  “Next?”

  “Water is better, but only if the filtration system holds.”

  “Fuel?”

  “Have you thought of a destination?” She looked up eagerly.

  He gave a grim shake of his head.

  “One tank is dry, the other has three-quarters.”

  The velo drives used for conduit travel did not have the same fuel demands as the Cesium-reliant engines the Cass utilized for sub-light propulsion in normal space. They would need to go sparingly on the hard burns if they were to make the existing supply last.

  “Weapons?” he asked.

  “There’s my plasma rifle and your sidearm. Single exchange charges for both. My combat knife.”

  He sank back and leaned against the bulkhead. “What good is knowing any of this, Ty, if we don’t even have a destination?”

  That was the question. Wasn’t it? It had followed them from chamber to chamber like a noisome ghost. Where to go? Where to hide when the Regime lived in every corner of the Known Worlds. Where was safe? And for how long?

  They could not wander aimlessly forever. That course of action was just as dangerous as seeking out Origin. Eventually, the remaining cesium tank would run dry. Sela needed some sort of directive. She craved orders, a mission to complete.

  Since Erelah’s arrival, there had been less speculation about the mysterious death warrant for Jon. Perhaps they had expected the girl to ramble out a suitable explanation. But as the days passed, it seemed less likely. Erelah was adrift as well, locked inside a hellish universe of her own. Even if Jon did not say it, his sister needed better medical attention than they could provide. The girl needed psych help. To Sela, it was the equivalent of seeking out a mystic.

  “The Reaches,” he said.

  Sela was about to laugh but stopped when she saw he was serious.

  “The Reaches are uncharted…lawless.”

  “That’s why they’re called the Reaches.”

  Well over a century ago, following the War of the Three Armies, the Sceeloid and First signed the Treaty of Ashes. It defined the Reaches as neutral territory. This was easily done as it was not desired by either party, considering the massive damage inflicted on the region by the wars. Although the science behind it was complex, Sela understood enough to know that the subspace weapons that First employed had destabilized conduit travel there, leaving very few functioning flex points. As a consequence, dozens of colonized Eugenes worlds were cut off by the vast distance from Origin. They were left to fend for themselves in the region.

  Stories persisted that some of those abandoned worlds thrived. Lawlessness prevailed. Non-reg species ran rampant. Even the more insane mercs refused to pursue bounties into the region. And now her captain wanted to go there.

  “You’re serious.” Sela sighed.

  “You have a better idea?”

  After a long, thoughtful pause, Sela shook her head. “There’s no primary nav on this boat to even get us there. Once we get there, how do we even get around? Most of the flex points were lost.”

  “There have to be charts,” he said. “How else do the bastards that live there get around? Question is: where do we go to find them?”

  She drew in breath to speak, reconsidered.

  He caught it. Jon canted his head, a smirk growing as he watched her. It was the same expression he wore when he was game for a plan of action that was particularly insane. It was the type of plan from which she could usually dissuade him. Usually.

  This time it was her turn at insanity.

  “You’ve an idea. Don’t you?” He leaned across the table.

  “I found a location called Merx on the ship’s navsys. Pretty sure it’s a ghost station since it has no match on newer Regime charts. Unregulated commerce outpost right off an old flexpoint. Looks like it used to be a fuel stop.”

  “And?”

  “And,” she continued, “We have a cargo hold full of non-reg pharms. We could trade that for everything we need… including charts.”

  “How do you know they’ll have what we want?”

  “During my duty rotation with Commerce Enforcement, I raided similar places. A great deal of black market goods move through there. People. Goods. Information. It’s our best chance. I
t’s another way to gain intel on the Regime.”

  Jon turned his attention to the hallway. He was listening for Erelah. Apparently satisfied, he turned back to Sela. “What about the ship’s ident transponder? Can you disable it?”

  “No. Not disable. That’s the first thing CE agents look for. Cass drive signatures have built in idents. Sector drones are programmed to auto detect non-tagged drive signatures. But the Cass’s previous occupants made a hack a long time ago.”

  Sela swapped the display on the handheld and slid it across the table to him. The ship was now broadcasting the ident of a plague colony transport. She could easily change it to a medical waste ship. The other signatures were even less attractive as potential targets to pirates or other marauders. But it was essential that they mimicked the speed and maneuvering of those fraudulent idents to be convincing.

  “This might work.” His smile broadened.

  “Of course it will work, sir. I thought of it.” Sela smirked.

  She felt that familiar warmth spread under the glow of his approval. At that moment, the strange tension from yesterday thinned and things felt normal. They were planning a mission. There was a clear objective. This was how the universe was meant to work.

  “I don’t anticipate a Regime presence on Merx. However, it would be best for you to remain onship with Erelah as I conduct the trade,” Sela said quickly. “I can be inconspicuous.”

  Veradin started chuckling.

  “What?” She frowned.

  “You. Inconspicuous?” he snorted. “They’ll see you coming. You might as well be wearing a sign.”

  She folded her arms, eyes narrowed.

  “Ty, you’re not going into a hostile location alone.” His shoulders made a stubborn line. “Besides…have you ever bought anything in your life?”

  As a soldier of the Regime, everything she had ever required was provided to her. Even during the rare occasions of shore leave, Citizens were required to provide resources gratis to any soldier as tribute. Negotiation was not part of a typical exchange.

  “No,” she finally confessed, then added defensively, “How difficult could it be?”