Mission Pack 2: Missions 5-8 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  To her surprise, Mort let out a wistful sigh and answered. “We spent a lifetime together, one summer long ago.”

  # # #

  Tanny paced the common room while Roddy sat back and watched as if she were some sort of holovid. She needed to think, to bounce ideas off someone, and the laaku wasn’t helping. Everyone on the Mobius had gotten used to the fact that Roddy was almost constantly drunk—a little drunk. Right now his veins carried more beer than blood.

  Agheli and his techs had been gone for more than an hour. Despite it being the middle of the night, neither of them had been able to sleep. “This is going to be bad,” Tanny said. “We can’t comm Rhiannon because she doesn’t have a modern comm at home, and if we try the local wire-lines, I’m sure they’re bugged.”

  Roddy giggled. “Liar, liar, bugs in the wire.”

  “We’ve got no way to get a hold of Mort, Esper, or Mriy,” she continued, ignoring Roddy as much as she could. “And who the hell knows where Carl ran off with his toy Squall. I mean, turning off anything that broadcasts was great for sneaking away, but now we can’t find it either.”

  Roddy wagged a finger. “You. You, you, you. You… not beer enough.” He patted the couch cushion beside him.

  Tanny rubbed her eyes. “You’re not helping.”

  “I’m not… jail sobering,” he replied. “Getting all the drunk I am while I can.”

  “If you were sober, think you could fix the star-drive?” Tanny asked. “At least then we wouldn’t be sitting ducks if they come for us.”

  Roddy opened his mouth, aghast. “Don’t sit on ducks! Cute and little. You’d hurt ‘em.”

  “The star-drive, Roddy. The star-drive. Can you put it back together?”

  “Whadda I look like to you?” Roddy asked. “A wizard? Two wizards? Three? I’m zero wizards, big girl. You know… with more fur on you—”

  “Forget it,” Tanny said, cutting him off before she found out what Roddy was thinking about, picturing her with fur. “We can’t just disappear on this world, and we can’t run. We’re going to have to hang tight and hope everyone else’s stories cross-check. Or at least hope everyone has the sense to come back to the Mobius before they come to round us up.”

  Tanny paused, expecting Roddy to respond with some sloppy-drunk, unhelpful reply, but none was forthcoming. The laaku mechanic had slumped over onto his side, beer dripping onto the couch from a half-empty can held limp in one foot.

  “Roddy?” she asked. It was no time to be falling asleep. They had no plan, and they needed one. “Wake up!” She shook him by the shoulder, but he was unresponsive. A quick shot of panic quickened her heart. Had he finally drunk himself to death? She’d warned him of that possibility enough times for it to spring readily to mind. She checked his wrist for a pulse—nothing. She was no medic. Maybe she’d done it wrong. She checked his neck, but the fur made it too hard to tell if the heartbeat she felt was Roddy’s or her own. She unbuttoned the top of Roddy’s coveralls and put an ear to his chest.

  Before she was certain she’d heard a beating heart, a hand flopped down on her back. “Hey, baby,” Roddy slurred. “You like what… see?” He began to snore.

  Fuming, Tanny disentangled herself from the comatose laaku. Lifting him by the collar of his unbuttoned coveralls, she dragged him to the shower, hit the start sequence, and closed him inside.

  The sound of falling water came a split second before a groggy moan. “Wha—? Where? Why’s it raining in here?”

  “I’m putting on coffee,” Tanny called through the door. “If that doesn’t work, you’re trying one of my Adrenophiline pills. You give me the least bit of shit about it, I flush the ship’s beer reserves. Capisce?”

  Another moan emanated from the shower. “I’m in no shape for mixing languages.”

  “It means—”

  “I’m drunk, not stupid,” Roddy shouted feebly through the door. “Gimme a minute, two of those damn pills of yours, and find me something dry from my room.”

  “One pill,” Tanny replied. One was probably an unsafe dosage for a laaku half her size. “But you’ve got a deal.”

  She put a pot of coffee on anyway, as she headed to round up a change of clothes and an Adrenophiline pill. Even if Roddy didn’t want it, she needed all the help she could get. They were stranded on a self-imposed primitive world with the crew scattered. They couldn’t take the Mobius out of the system without Mort or at least someone to repair the star-drive. And worst of all, there was a laaku fact sifter who was doing a dogged job of digging into the crew’s recent history.

  Two hundred fifty thousand terras. If Carl had played that race straight, he’d have walked away with all of it. Instead, they had a Squall they couldn’t sell, a blackmailer who forced Carl to fake his death, and a branch of the Phabian government investigating the crash that supposedly killed him. The Phabian Investigative Service wasn’t known for rash judgments, mistakes, or corruption. The noose was closing, and they were running out of time to slip it. Tanny seemed to be the only one aware of that.

  # # #

  Mort had cooked.

  They sat at either end of a servants’ table in the kitchens, paddling at the watery broth, salty enough to pass for seawater. They had both given up eating the soup, having dredged forth the bits of chicken and carrot that had been edible. Esper’s bread rested beside her bowl, one bite gone from the stale half-loaf.

  “Just out with it,” Mort snapped, breaking a long silence.

  Esper flinched. “Sorry. Maybe we should have just gone down to the village for dinner.”

  Mort squinted one eye. Apparently she had puzzled him somehow. He spared a glance down at his own bowl, then tossed it over his shoulder. “Not that. The soup is rubbish and we both know it. No point kicking the carcass. No, that question you’ve been gnawing at since Keesha left. I’d been waiting to see how long you’d avoid asking, but I came to the decision that you were going to bury it in that little cloister you’ve got in your head. I’m not the easily offended sort, you know.”

  “If you know the question, then what’s the answer?” Esper asked, turning his assumptions back on him. If Mort wanted to play the I-know-what-you-know game, she’d play it right back. She wasn’t going to venture forth another errant opinion and prompt another bowl-throwing incident.

  Mort shook his head. “Ask.”

  Esper sighed. “Fine. What did you mean that you spent a lifetime together with Keesha Bell one summer?”

  The grin that lit Mort’s face told her before he said a word that she’d picked correctly. “Aha! I’ll show you.”

  Mort dragged his chair around Esper’s side of the table, then turned the two chairs to face each other. Despite Mort’s hands on the chair, she knew he’d used magic to accomplish the actual moving. She wasn’t that heavy, but she and the chair combined ought to have been more than a spindly old wizard could just slide around at ease.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Showing you.”

  “You rearranged kitchen furniture?” Esper asked. “You practiced magicking chairs around? You spent the summer avoiding a lifetime’s worth of inedible soup?”

  Her last guess prompted a chuckle from Mort. “Well, the showing part comes up in just a bit.” He sat down facing her and leaned close. Esper stiffened. She wasn’t sure what he was up to, but her personal space was shrinking rapidly. Mort slipped a hand behind her neck and pulled gently until their foreheads touched. “Now just relax…”

  # # #

  Esper jerked awake as if from a waking dream, the sort where your mind had wandered off in the middle of some boring task and returned with sudden alertness. She wasn’t in the kitchen of Thunderglade Keep any longer. The dank, un-lived-in smell was gone, replaced by the wafting scent of spring flowers carried on a warm breeze. She was standing on a stone balcony, looking out over a vast stretch of green meadows that ended in a forest kilometers away.

  She took a step toward the railing and stumbled, catching he
r balance before she fell. Her flat-soled slippers were gone, replaced by tall, heeled shoes. Glancing down at herself, her outfit had undergone a complete transformation. Her noblewoman’s dress had been replaced by a gown fit for a princess, pale pink and flowered in elaborate white embroidery and laced at the cuffs and around the neckline. It was more comfortable and lighter than the other dress, tailored to fit perfectly and less confining around the neck. Her fingers bore thin silver rings set with jewels, and a necklace of pearls hugged her throat. She could only imagine that the earrings matched, feeling them dangle as she looked around.

  A chuckle from behind made her twist around, nearly losing her balance once again. “What do you think?”

  Mort stood at the doorway to the balcony, dressed as he had been in the kitchen, though a bit cleaner. The gray was gone from his hair, and the wrinkles smoothed from his face. He looked twenty years younger.

  “What happened?” Esper asked. “Where are we?”

  Mort swept a hand toward the countryside. “I call it… Mortania.”

  “What happened to Thunderglade?”

  Mort scoffed. “What? That old hovel? Nothing. We’re still there.”

  Esper glanced over the balcony railing, scanning left and right. “I don’t see any sign of the village. You weren’t exactly located on the edge of town.”

  “Oh, this isn’t a regular old place,” Mort said.

  The wizard raised his arms and a thunderhead rallied to his call. Within seconds, the sun had been obscured behind black storm clouds. Lightning leapt from the heavens, striking the tower high over their heads. Esper ducked behind Mort as the thunder hammered through her.

  “Mort?” she shouted. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it!”

  A bestial shriek from the tower above drove aside all worries over the thunderstorm. It was unlike anything Esper had ever heard—or was it? It did bear an uncanny resemblance to a holovid she and Mort had watched recently, except this was real. That meant it couldn’t be a… dragon?

  The flapping of leathery wings forced her eyes to turn skyward. Above was a creature of myth and nightmare. Black scales. Eyes like a snake. Claws and fangs fit to tear human flesh to ribbons.

  “Mort, do something!”

  “Kythrast, heel!” Mort shouted. The dragon descended, its flapping wings raising a storm that whipped Esper’s hair and the fabric of her dress. Kythrast stopped with his nose level with the balcony. Mort put a foot onto the stone railing and extended a hand to Esper. “Welcome aboard.”

  “Are you crazy? That’s a dragon.”

  “Of course it’s a dragon,” Mort said. “This is my imagination. I created it.”

  # # #

  The phone rang. Rhiannon set down her morning coffee and picked up the receiver. “Ramsey residence. Rhiannon speaking.”

  The voice on the other end of the line came in clarion clear, which should have been her first clue that this was an unusual call. Transit distance always made period-authentic calls scratchy and audibly distorted. “Miss Ramsey, this is Fact Sifter Agheli of the Phabian Investigative Service. Do you have a moment to answer a few questions?”

  It was a loaded question. There was no “no” option. Trying would only get her the “afraid I have to insist” line. So predictable. But this was PIS, the opening act for Laaku Bureaucrat and the Predictables. “Sure. Just coffeeing up for the day. What can I do you for?” She cradled the receiver against her shoulder as she topped off her cup and added sugars. This could be a long call.

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” Agheli replied. With a click, the line went dead. Seconds later, there was a knock at the door.

  “Shit,” Rhiannon muttered. The bastard had called from just outside the house. Probably an induction tap into the phone grid, modern tech slipping into the archaic system like a wolf among terriers.

  Rhiannon paused a moment to listen. The sound of running water from upstairs let her know that Lloyd was still in the shower. There was no time to get stories straight, or to prepare him for their unexpected guests. She hurried to the door before Agheli became suspicious.

  A laaku in a snappy PIS uniform smiled up at her from her doorstep. “Thank you for your accommodation. I hope to keep this brief.” Agheli stepped into the house without asking for an explicit invitation. He was alone. It was always tempting to look down at a 1.3-meter tall fuzzball and think she could just knock his head in. He was the size of a six-year-old. But even if it wasn’t for the fact that he was probably quite a bit stronger than her, Rhiannon couldn’t imagine getting away with it. She’d be on the run, and unlike her brother, no one would think she was dead.

  Her purse sat on a side table. Rummaging through it, she found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Mind if I smoke?” she asked belatedly, taking her first puff.

  Agheli turned his head slightly aside and blocked his nose and mouth with the back of one hand. “I do recall local ordinances allowing tobacco exhaust discharge. Proceed.”

  “You got questions,” Rhiannon said, and let out a long, smoky breath in Agheli’s direction. “Shoot. You already know I visited Tanny and Roddy last night, so you know I know what this is about.”

  “Your citizen file lists your occupation as entertainer,” Agheli said.

  “You got it, daddy-O,” Rhiannon said, half leaning, half sitting on the arm of a chair. “I don’t dance. I don’t play. I just sing it.” The cigarette was already starting to relax her, and this Agheli square didn’t have the scanners with him to know it wasn’t tobacco.

  “Can you account for your whereabouts during the months of December of last year, specifically the time from December 6 through the present?” Agheli asked, glancing to his datapad for reference.

  Rhiannon let her head loll back and blew a smoke ring—or at least made an attempt. “Well, right now I’m here. And before that, I got myself to some gigs. But I haven’t been off-world since last summer. So if you’re trying to pin Carl’s death on me… flake off.”

  Agheli furrowed his brow and referenced his datapad. It beeped and blooped. Rhiannon could only imagine the mental gymnastics he was doing to make sure he knew what she’d said. Laaku might grow up learning the language, but that didn’t mean they knew the lingo. At least not New Cali lingo.

  Agheli cleared his throat. “Well, no. We don’t suspect anything. Suspicion is not part of my job. I am a fact sifter. My findings will be passed on to other branches of Investigative Services. Now, can you please provide independent verification of your whereabouts for the time in question?”

  “Talk to my agent,” Rhiannon replied. “You wanna ask me a question, lay it on me. But don’t hassle me about paperwork. You dig?”

  Agheli’s frown deepened, but he didn’t resort to his datapad. “Had your brother contacted you prior to his demise?”

  “Fucker only ever commed if he needed scratch.” When this didn’t seem to satisfy the laaku flatfoot—could laaku even be flatfooted?—she added, “No.”

  “Did he ever exhibit self-destructive behavior before, during, or after his service in Earth Navy?”

  Laughter bubbled in Rhiannon until it burst forth, unable to remain bottled up. “Carl? Off himself? Noodle it out, man. My brother’s had people shooting at him, like, half his life. I mean, like his whole situation is self-destructive, but his whole bag is doing his own thing. Why’ve you gotta go making it a federal case?”

  “I’m not sure you’ve answered my question,” Agheli replied. “And this isn’t a federal case; this is being handled at the system level, under Central Phabian jurisdiction.”

  “Then you don’t have any authority here,” Lloyd said, stepping into the room in an undershirt and slacks, barefoot and with his hair still wet from the shower. “This is Peractorum. We’re under ARGO jurisdiction, or Earth’s. If you’re acting as an agent of Central Phabian authority, I’m going to have to advise Rhiannon to seek legal counsel before continuing this debriefing.”

  Rhiannon tugged Lloyd over and kissed hi
m. It was incredibly sexy when he acted all lawyerish at someone—besides her. “Thanks, Pumpkin. He was really starting to harsh my… tobacco.” She hid a giggle behind pursed lips.

  He pointed to the cigarette dangling from her fingers. “Why don’t you finish that in the back yard? I need to have a few words with the fact sifter here.”

  “Right on,” Rhiannon said. “You tell him, baby.”

  She waggled her fingers at Agheli in a parting wave and headed out back. It was morning, and the dewy grass tickled her feet. All those little droplets…

  By the time she’d finished smoking, she’d lost count of the tiny worlds of water, each possibly having its own little planets and suns of their very own. She was a starship, flying from one to the next. Lloyd’s voice snapped her out of her daydream.

  “All clear,” he said. “Come say goodbye to our guest.”

  Rhiannon stepped past Lloyd as he held the screen door for her. Hips swaying, she thought of all the things she could do to keep Lloyd at home to reward him for being her hero, getting rid of the little laaku narc—who was still there in the family room.

  Agheli stood as Rhiannon entered the room. “I believe I have all the information I need. I will be returning to my ship. I will have no further questions.”

  Rhiannon gave him a goofy smile. “Aw, shucks. Could’ve saved you the ride, man. Told ya that, like, yesterday.”

  Agheli stiffened, eyes wide. “I believe I have all the information I need. I will be returning to my ship. I will have no further questions.”

  Rhiannon looked to Lloyd. “This guy’s got a broken record.”

  Agheli didn’t resist as Lloyd ushered him first to the door, then through it. “It was nice meeting you,” he said. As soon as the door was closed, he scowled. “And you. What were you thinking giving an official deposition blitzed out of your skull?”

  Rhiannon closed her eyes and waved her hands. “Shh. I got it figured out. Carl always said he could beat the truth scanners, and I think he must be stoned all the time. It would, like, explain everything.”

  “That’s a myth,” Lloyd replied. “Certain drugs can defeat a majority of tests, as can wizards and people with certain cybernetic enhancements. But I think your brother is just full of shit.”