by R. A. Nargi
The doors to the hold whooshed open, and Chiraine was standing there. But she wasn’t alone.
6
“Well, hello, hello, hello.” Agon Qualt stood beside Chiraine with a big grin on his face and a K-45 Shard Slinger jammed into her side.
Shit. How the hell did he get out of the brig?
“Good to see you, young master Beck. And A.Z., you look like you got into a bit of a scrape topside. Come on in, one and all. I see you brought some new friends.”
His eyes alighted on the Rhya in the containment field.
“Well, if that don’t beat all,” Qualt said. “You got a goddamn pet wrigglie. And just when I thought they had gone extinct.” He chortled to himself and then motioned to Narcissa with his pistol.
“And who do we have here? I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, ma’am. I’m Agon Qualt, captain of the Vostok. And who might you be?”
“What’s going on here?” Narcissa’s voice was hard and low.
“Well, that’s a bit of a long story. If you all will just slowly place your weapons at your feet and step inside, we can start trading tall tales.”
“Let Chiraine go,” I said.
“And what? Get thrown back in the brig? I don’t think so, kid. In fact, I think things will go a lot smoother if you all park yourselves in the brig instead.” He moved Chiraine in front of him like a human shield.
“That’s not going to happen, Qualt,” Ana-Zhi said.
“Why, sure it is, sweet cheeks. That’s exactly what’s going to happen. Ain’t no other way this can go down.”
“Whatever you’re thinking, Qualt,” she said, “it’s not going to work. This whole thing’s gone too far. The Mayir think you fucked up. They’re not happy with you.”
“I doubt that. And I would have cleared the whole thing up already if little ladybug here hadn’t trashed the Vostok’s comm unit. But into every life a little rain must fall. Am I right?”
I looked Chiraine in the eyes, grateful that she had been able to take care of the ship’s communication system. She matched my gaze, and didn’t look scared at all.
“But enough of this dick swinging. I’m all about second chances.” He turned to Narcissa. “Did they tell you what a sweetheart I am, new girl?”
“No,” Narcissa said. “But from where I’m standing there are three of us and one of you. Sweetheart.”
Qualt laughed loudly. “I like this chick.”
And then, without warning, he fired.
Right at Ana-Zhi.
He hit her point-blank in the chest and she went down, convulsing in pain. Thank Dynark it was just a trembler she was hit with. Tremble rounds were non-fatal, usually. Except when they triggered a heart attack.
Narcissa crouched down beside Ana-Zhi and held her shoulders, trying to calm her still-thrashing body.
“What the fuck, Qualt? You shot her!” I took a step towards him, my blood boiling.
“Easy there, sport. You folks have got to know that I mean business.” He took a step closer to me, trained his K-45 on my chest, and loudly flipped the round selector. “The next person I have to shoot won’t get off as easy. Now drop your blaster and whatever other goodies you’re armed with and move away from the hover-sled.”
From behind me I heard Narcissa begin to sob. “You fucking killed her!”
A shock of horror tore through me. No. It couldn’t be.
As I turned, a blaster bolt crackled in front of my face and Qualt cried out in pain.
I whipped around to see him stumble back and clutch his burned hand, cursing.
“Get him!” Narcissa yelled. She jumped to her feet with her RB in her hand.
Qualt’s eyes were wild as he searched for the pistol that Narcissa had shot out of his hand. I leapt forward and tackle him. Both of us landed in a heap on the ground.
The rigidity of my exosuit slowed me down a bit, but I pummeled the shit out of Qualt. It wasn’t a fair fight. I was fueled by rage and he was down a hand, but I didn’t care. I kept hitting him until Narcissa pulled me off.
I dragged Qualt’s ass back to the brig and dumped him unceremoniously in the cell, while Chiraine and Narcissa brought Ana-Zhi to the infirmary. Chiraine warned me that security circuits were affected by the wonky power weave, which was how Qualt managed to escape. So I bound his wrists with stun-cuffs and made sure that the locks on the cell and brig doors were engaged and switched to manual, with system override deactivated.
Back down in the infirmary I saw that Ana-Zhi had been placed in the MedBed and had been given oxygen, fluids, and CP stabilizers.
“She’s halfway through her exam,” Chiraine said. “So far, so good.”
“She’s a tough woman,” Narcissa said.
I turned to her. “She definitely is. And so are you. That was some amazing shooting.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve had nineteen years of practice.”
“A good use of time,” Chiraine said.
Then it dawned on me that the two women hadn’t officially met. I quickly remedied the situation.
“Unbelievable,” Chiraine said. “Two humans marooned here and we met both of them.”
She was referring to Wade Murroux, but she’d forgotten someone.
“Three, actually,” I said. “Although you haven’t really met my father.”
“Not your flesh and blood dad, but we’ll remedy that soon enough.”
“So you were serious about that?” Narcissa asked. “Sean Beck is here? On this ship?”
“Do you want to see him?”
“Of course.”
The three of us went down the hall to the crew quarters.
“Qualt doesn’t know about my dad, does he?” I asked Chiraine.
“Not as far as I know. I don’t think he came down this way.”
I made my way to the cabin where Sean Beck rested, preserved in his exosuit and cradled in webbing. There was no sign that he had been disturbed, and the power indicator on his suit was still lit. Everything appeared to be functioning normally.
Narcissa gazed upon my father’s face, visible through the visor on his helmet.
“Oh my god. This is unreal. What happened to him?”
“He was betrayed by one of the guys on his ship,” I said. “And left for dead on Bandala.”
“This was back in ’51,” Chiraine said.
“He knew he wouldn’t survive the bots in Bandala, so he activated the suit’s hibernation mode.”
“That’s insane!”
“Well, it worked.”
“I can see that.”
“We just need to get him through the karokinesia process safely,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s the trick.” She looked down at my father again. “If it was me, I’d get him back home first. Much safer that way.”
“So I’ve heard.”
I didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, I didn’t want to risk accidentally killing my father by trying to revive him without all the safeguards in place. But on the other hand, I felt like the longer I waited, the more chance there would be of something going wrong. That suit had been keeping him alive for seven years—two years longer than its expected operating life. It could fail at any moment.
“I need to check on the Inspector,” Narcissa said.
“The what?” Chiraine asked.
“The Rhya,” I said.
“I can’t believe you actually found a survivor,” Chiraine said.
“It’s a long story.”
“Tell me you also found some mimonite.”
“Possibly,” I said.
“Possibly?” The color drained from Chiraine’s face.
Before she could say another word, I assured her that we had found something. We just weren’t able to test it. I filled her in on all the details as we walked back to the hold. The piece of statuary we had found was still on the sled.
On the way we looked in on Ana-Zhi again. She was sound asleep.
The MedBed’s report found no sign of phys
ical damage from the trembler effect, but Ana-Zhi was dehydrated and still suffering from multiple contusions and a fractured cheekbone. Her face had swollen up again, as well.
According to the MedBed, Ana-Zhi would probably need to sleep for at least twelve hours.
When we arrived back at the hold, we were greeted by an unwelcome sight. The Rhya was gone.
We searched the hold and the cargo bay area, but there was no sign of it.
“I guess the Rhya isn’t worried about the environment in here,” I said.
“Where could it have gone?” Chiraine asked.
“The ship’s pretty large,” I said. “A lot of places to hide.”
“I don’t think the Inspector is hiding,” Narcissa said. “I think it’s probably learning the ship. Which way to engineering?”
She was right. We found the Rhya in the engineering bay, hovering over a display. As we entered the room, it turned and floated towards us.
“Wow,” Chiraine gasped.
It was obvious that she had never encountered a Rhya before. She bowed formally and introduced herself.
“Once we get the power stabilized, we’re going to see if we can rig up a non-verbal comm module so we can talk to you,” I told it. I had no idea whether or not it understood me, though.
Narcissa seemed to relax now that we had found the Inspector. “You guys want to point me in the direction of your fabbers and we’ll see if we can get that discharge retainer rebuilt.”
“You know about that?” Chiraine asked.
“She was an engineer,” I said.
“Still am,” Narcissa said. “Now let’s get going.”
“What about the Rhya?” Chiraine asked.
“It knows what it’s doing,” Narcissa said.
We returned to the hold and I found Ana-Zhi’s satchel on the sled. I presented Chiraine with the hunk of statue. “Here’s what we found. What do you think?”
She ran her hands along the carved pinkish gray stone. “Amazing.”
“You don’t even know what it was from,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m actually holding something made by Yueldian hands over a thousand years ago.”
“Let’s just hope that it passes your test.” I fished out the testing kit from my belt pack and handed it over to Chiraine. Then I took a few steps away so I wasn’t crowding her as she worked.
A minute later she held up a bright blue testing rod. “Jackpot!”
It would take several hours for the fabber to extract the raw mimonite from the hunk of stone we loaded into it. While we were waiting, Narcissa decided to access the KB and familiarize herself with the isolator module schematics for the LV-900.
“Seems pretty straightforward,” she said. “I’m just surprised that the discharge retainer failed. Usually those things are rock-solid.”
“You don’t want to know,” Chiraine said.
While Narcissa worked, Chiraine and I returned below decks to check on the Inspector and maybe see what we could scrape up in terms of a communications module.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Did Qualt do anything to you?”
She turned to me. “Why? You worried about me or something?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Well, I was worried about you. You were gone a lot longer than eight hours.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t a straightforward mission by any means.” I filled her in about our encounter with the Mayir patrol. “If it wasn’t for Narcissa, we would have been toast.”
“Yeah, she’s something, isn’t she?”
I thought I detected some weirdness in her tone, but I didn’t make anything of it. I told her the bad news about the Rhya wardships.
“It was a long shot, anyway,” she said.
“In any case, the Mayir know something’s up in Roan Andessa,” I said.
“Did you see any of their ships?” Chiraine asked.
“No, but I’m positive the scout team reported in when they captured Ana-Zhi. On our way out we heard a lot of activity and saw a lot of drones.”
“How long before they come looking for us down here?”
“Hard to say. I’m still hoping their EMR isn’t strong enough to penetrate this far down, but who knows?” I stifled a yawn. It was late and I was definitely feeling exhausted.
“What about Qualt?”
“What about him?”
“Could we use him as a bargaining chip?”
“No, Ana-Zhi was right. He’s damaged goods. The Mayir aren’t big on failure.”
“I hate to say this, but why are we keeping him around, then?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see what Ana-Zhi has to say about that once she wakes up.”
“Oh yeah.” Chiraine grinned. “That’ll be good.”
Back down in engineering, we checked in on the Inspector. It darted from control unit to display to KB station—definitely on a mission, but I wasn’t sure what it was up to.
“Excuse me,” I said.
At the sound of my voice, the Inspector stopped and turned towards us, floating in line with my head.
“I wanted you to know that the ship is damaged. It’s not major, but the power weave is blanking. We’re trying to fabricate a replacement part: a discharge retainer in the isolator module. Once that is repaired, we’re going to leave this area. Do you understand?”
I was kind of hoping for a head nod or some other gesture of acknowledgement, but the Inspector just stared.
“We’re going to go to the storeroom and see if we can find something that will allow us to communicate with you.”
Still no reaction.
“Will you come with us?”
Nothing.
Chiraine and I looked at each other. “I’m pretty sure it understands you,” she said.
“Remember, higher intelligence.” I smiled at her.
“Right.”
The main equipment storage room was right below the hold and it had its own inventory KB. I let Chiraine take the lead because my eyes were actually getting blurry from lack of sleep.
She ran a p-search and came up with several items which could be used as comm units, but none had the right interface.
“Not even the TL3?” I asked. That was the standard translation module used to power the ship’s main comms as well as remote comms and Auras. Supposedly its AI knew over six million forms of communication.
“Of course the TL3 can translate Rhya,” Chiraine said. “But we need a neuromodulation interface to get the data into it.”
She was right. Whenever we communicated with the Rhya, they used either their magnatae or some kind of ship-based broadcaster.
“We have to find something that will work with the Rhya’s physiology. Maybe some kind of bio-magnetic interface.”
As she continued to search, I asked, “So what exactly did you do to kill the external comm?”
“I didn’t kill it. I just told Qualt that I had. I put it into testing mode so it wasn’t actually broadcasting.”
“Smart.”
“Not really. If he had spent, like, fifteen more minutes digging into it, he would have discovered what I did.”
“Okay. Smart and lucky.”
“Yeah, lucky,” she said.
I was feeling incredibly wiped and couldn’t stop yawning. I think it was the aftereffects of twelve hours’ worth of adrenaline rush.
“You mind if I just close my eyes for a second?” I sat down on the floor with my back against the wall.
“No problem. I’ll keep looking. They’ve got to have something here we can use to—”
Chiraine continued to talk, but I drifted off.
7
Normally I take a lot of drugs to help me sleep. And these drugs inhibit dreaming. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had a vivid dream. At best, I remember brief flashes of dreams.
But now I was in a full-bore, heavy duty dream state. And the weirdest thing was that I was aware that I was in a dream. I was lucid dreaming.
I walked on a trail that wound its way along a ridge overlooking a bleak volcanic landscape. The air was unbearably hot, burning my mouth and throat with the smell of sulfur.
I made my way to the edge of the cliff. Below me rivers of lava flowed down cliffs into bubbling pools. A dark castle loomed over a vast plain of fissured stone. The castle was shrouded in a toxic-looking mist. It struck me as somehow familiar.
Before I could place it, my thoughts were interrupted by a deep rumbling sound that ran through my body. Then I saw loose rocks jump and move and the ground shook, as if something impossibly gigantic stepped close by.
I spun around, and saw a hill of boulders behind me tremble and collapse, sending an avalanche of stone towards me.
Somehow I managed to clamber up on a rocky outcropping and just barely avoided being swept over the cliff by a torrent of stones.
An ear-splitting cry sounded, chilling me to the bone and making my legs feel like rubber. I fought to remain standing as I watched a colossal creature dig its way out of the stone hill.
The monstrosity resembled a gigantic scorpion, easily twenty meters long. Its tail was as thick as a tree trunk but segmented like a worm’s, and ended in a single knife-like stinger longer than me. Spider-like arms emerged from a chitinous armored carapace and terminated in razor-sharp claws.
Bellowing again, the scorpion creature clawed its way from the hill and turned towards me. Each of its six eyes was cold and black and alien-looking.
And then, impossibly, I heard a voice in my head, low and menacing.
You do not belong here, boy.
I had no idea where I was, but I knew the creature spoke the truth. I did not belong in this hellish place.
Instinctively, I backed away, but found myself right up against the edge of the ridge. A hundred meters below, streams of lava coalesced into bubbling pools of molten rock.
The creature advanced, tail cracking through the thick air like a mighty whip.
I will crush you. Tear you limb from limb. Feast on your flesh and suck the marrow from your bones. Whatever is left shall burn.
It jumped forward, moving fast—incredibly fast. The creature’s tail flew towards me and smashed into my chest.