Interesting. Enthree began to wonder whether this implied a strong emotional attachment between the two.
“I’m all right. Seriously, Green. It’s this damned armor. Thinks I’m human. A badly wounded human who… Shit! It’s injected me again! Gree… I shle shlll….”
Zavage staggered drunkenly, but Sward had come back to help, and an array of Chimera Company rifles was covering their retreat, as was Captain Fitzwilliam with his mysterious handgun. Even the little service droid came bobbing back over the jetty, though why it had decided to abandon its combat frame was unclear.
Enthree sheathed her swords and kept her blasters covering the water, but she could finally relax. Fittingly, she would be the last one back.
Or so she thought. Dripping with water, a pair of human hands grabbed onto the side of the jetty, just hanging there for a moment. Most likely this was a Corrupted human who’d swam out with the amphibious Littoranes and only now made it to the target area. There was an audible sigh and then the human hauled himself onto the jetty.
Meatbolt!
An exhausted Meatbolt – or, at least, the obscenity of Corruption that wore his form – drew his blaster pistol. Water dripped from the end of the barrel, a barrel aimed at Zavage.
Would the weapon work after its soaking? Possibly. Such weapons were designed to be robust.
“Meatbolt,” she called to the creature wearing the form of her friend. “Please.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Sward.
“He would,” Enthree insisted, feeling a twinge in her arm. “He shot me only a few hours ago.”
Meatbolt took a half step forward but his face was a storm of confusion. He didn’t appear to know why he was here.
Enthree strapped her blasters over her back and drew two short swords.
Green Fish interposed her body in front of Zavage. “Meat, it’s me. Greenie.”
Meatbolt’s open mouth trembled. “Gr… Green?”
“Yeah.” Green Fish smiled. “’Course it’s me. Remember when we broke into that restaurant and made love in the kitchen on that steel worktable?”
Meatbolt halted. He blinked. “Green Fish?”
“Yes, Green Fish. I know you’re still in there, Meat. I love you. Always will. Whatever you’ve done – whatever you ever do – I will always forgive you. I don’t have the room in my heart to hate you.”
The Corrupted man looked in astonishment at the blaster pistol he was holding. He dropped it, snapping his hand open as if the weapon were white hot. It clattered to the ground harmlessly.
Green Fish took a tentative step toward Meatbolt.
“Stay back!” Enthree warned. “You cannot cure him.” Swords aloft, she was ready to step forward and decapitate the perversion of her best friend. She had been ready for some time. For many days now, she could have and should have ended this atrocity.
That’s how the Corruption wins. It makes us weak.
But even now, doubts stayed her hands. Green Fish opened her arms and took another step toward their friend who, amazingly, smiled sheepishly beneath a dripping moustache of feathers that had grown in only the last few hours.
The Expansion archivists had recorded the Corruption that preceded the last Andromedan attack. In those far-off years, humans had not yet been brought here. They were a race of many surprising abilities. Could some of them have resistance to the Corruption? If so, then that information could be vital to the survival of all their races.
Enthree stayed back and said nothing as Green Fish closed the last couple of steps and embraced Meatbolt.
Sward must have been too intent on the drama playing out to keep a proper hold of Zavage. The Kurlei slid from his grip and fell lifelessly onto the jetty.
The noise spooked Meatbolt.
He pushed Green Fish away and reached behind to pull at the back of his neck.
Enthree jumped at Meatbolt.
“Meat?”
Green Fish’s plea found no purchase in Meatbolt’s Corrupted mind as he drew the death needle he’d strapped beneath the back of his shirt. It was a traditional Littorane underwater weapon: a barbed spike he’d probably picked up from a temple.
He slashed at Green Fish. She blocked him, but his move was a feint. His real attack came in beneath her arms, piercing her flesh beneath her sternum and driving the barbed metal through the cavity within and out the other side.
Green Fish gasped and slumped into Sward’s arms.
Enthree’s sword sliced through Meatbolt’s weapon arm, and her momentum carried him away from his victim. She grabbed him tightly and spun them both around to topple off the jetty.
“Green?” Meatbolt questioned pitifully just before they splashed beneath the water.
Enthree wrapped a limb around an underwater post and grabbed Meatbolt’s head, holding it before hers. “I’m sorry,” she told her friend through the water.
He was panicked. Fighting for air. He no longer recognized who she was or why he was here, but she explained anyway. “This is my fault. You were my best friend, and yet in my weakness I failed you. I shan’t be weak again.”
She ended him. With her sword.
TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM
“Haven’t you forgotten something?” asked Fitz without looking up from the monitor showing the awful scenes on the jetty.
“I have forgotten nothing, sir,” replied the hovering droid.
“I don’t see my combat frame. Have you any idea how much that thing cost?”
“1.34 million credits. I processed the transaction myself.”
“Less of your lip, droid.”
“The frame’s power always drained too fast,” whined the bot. “That’s why the military paperwork said the frame had been destroyed as faulty.”
“Now you’re nitpicking. It’s an annoying habit you’ve picked up from Izza.”
“Fitz!” warned Izza from the copilot station. “I know you can’t bear to watch people suffer, but distracting yourself by annoying Lynx isn’t helping. You have to hold it together. Whether we’re moving to a safer location on Rho-Torkis or flying these chumps off-world, we’re not safe yet.”
The passengers embarked, two of their number having to be carried: a bleeding woman and an unconscious legionary. A corpse and two severely wounded men were already aboard and strapped into the med-bay by the crew.
Fitz looked across. Izza was biting her lip, saying nothing but he knew exactly what was going through that green head of hers.
She wanted to stick it out and wait for Lord Khallini.
“I’ve made my decision,” he said.
“Just fly us out of here, Fitz.”
He flicked on the ship-wide PA. “Okay, people, listen up. I want one of you refugees in the dorsal turret. Preferably the pipe smoker from before.” The hatch secure indicator lit. “Everyone else, strap in tight.” He spooled the lifter motors. “The good news is that anyone up in the skies is trying to kill us, so you don’t have to mess with that friend-or-foe malarkey. The bad… well, you figure it out.”
“Shield deflectors angled for atmo-assist,” Izza announced. “Weapons hot.”
“I love it when you say that,” Fitz drawled.
The lifters roared, drowning out Izza’s reply and sending water spraying over the cockpit. The Phantom tottered in the air, rising slowly. Then the gravitics found purchase and the ship corkscrewed for the heavens in a near-vertical climb.
“Any signs of bandits?”
“A flight of four atmo-craft diverting to intercept. They’re too far away. We’ll outrun them.”
“Of course.” Fitz grinned. “This is the Phantom. The fastest free trader in the galaxy. And with the most charming crew.”
The missile lock alarm sounded.
“SAM launch. SAM launch,” Izza reported. “PS4s. Two launches. Fire pattern is… piecemeal. We have eleven missile locks, but most aren’t firing. It’s as if they forgot to.”
Fitz leveled out the Phantom and sowed a confetti corridor of false
targets over the path of the SAMs. The missiles exploded against the decoys, but the operation had robbed them of precious time and altitude.
“Bandits closing from east. Vertical stack. Sixteen thou.”
Damn!
“We need a diversion,” said a very annoying voice.
Double damn! It was Sybutu on the flight deck.
“Get aft, you dumb jack.”
“We released the docking clamps for every bay in the spaceport.”
“Except us?” said Izza.
“Except you.”
Fitz sucked in a breath while he patched through to the public comm frequency. Sybutu was making a dangerous enemy of Izza. “To all pilots trapped at Bresca-Brevae, this is Captain Tavistock Fitzwilliam of the Phantom. Your clamps are released. Your guards are dangerous but can be evaded. I repeat, your clamps are released. You are good to go. Be safe. Be fast. Be gone!”
“Why are we not experiencing extreme g-forces?”
“Azhanti!” Evidently it was now the Viking’s turn to enjoy an unauthorized tour of the flight deck. “I’m trying to fly a spaceship here!” Fitz ignored the passengers and tilted the nose down in readiness to punch out of the atmosphere and go for an orbital assist.
“Our four wounded are stable,” said Arunsen. “But gee-stresses could kill them. That’s what I came forward to warn you about.”
“Diversion is working,” said Izza, ignoring the big human. If Phantom’s inertial bubble failed, it wouldn’t just be the wounded passengers who would die. “Multiple ship launches. Not all are making it. Explosions on the ground. SAM launches. Another ship gone. They’re fighting back. We’re losing missile locks.”
“And the bandits?”
“Too slow,” Izza replied with relish.
“Oh, yeah! Nothing outruns the Phantom.”
“Ship launch,” she said. Fitz didn’t like the tension in her voice. “It’s the ship the zombies were after. Bylzak! It has a tail… I think it’s alive!”
“Relax, my lady. Whatever it might be, it can’t hope to catch us now.”
“Why does he keep calling you my lady?” asked the Viking.
“Fitz! It’s fast,” cried Izza. “Real fast. Forget your flight plan. Just get us far enough away from this gravity well and I’ll make an emergency jump.”
Lights started flashing all over the flight deck. Notification alerts chimed.
“What’s happening?” asked Fitz.
“Comm blanket has lifted,” Lynx explained. “The Phantom’s reconnecting with the rest of the galaxy.”
“Energy spike forming on that living ship,” warned Izza.
Fitz threw the Phantom sideways, barely missing the discharge of a beam weapon like nothing he’d ever seen: an energy tunnel eight feet in diameter and edged in coruscating green light. “What the hell was that?”
“Death,” Izza answered. “But there’s a reply. Legion fighters launching from orbital defense array. Spikeballs. Lots of them.”
“Legion?” said Sybutu. “I thought they were all dead.”
“So did I,” said Fitz. “Sorry, Sybutu. Turns out you’re not the only legionaries on the planet anymore.”
Lynx made a sound like a humanoid clearing its throat. “Sergeant Arunsen, with my owners otherwise engaged, it falls to me to answer your question. Captain Fitz uses the my lady honorific because he likes to put about that he is of noble birth.”
“Is he?” Arunsen asked.
“I regret to inform you that after some research, I can attest that he is indeed,” replied the disloyal trash can.
“Yeah,” said Fitz, “the dark side of the family. Now quit yapping or I’ll have you flogged and force you to call me Lord Fitz.”
As they pushed through into the safety of the black, one squadron of Spikeballs tunneled down into the atmosphere, racing to engage the alien craft. A second squadron flew an interdiction pattern at the interface between atmosphere and the void. They sure didn’t want that fancy ship getting away.
He’d heard rumors. Of course he had – Fitz was plugged into more secret networks than he cared to remember – he’d just never believed the stories.
Until now.
They could get away today, but what that ship meant to the Federation was not something that could be dodged.
He glanced across at his beautiful wife, hunched over an array of screens, fascinated by this new and dangerous thing in her universe. They’d been good together. Oh, more than good. The lord and lady of illicit trading in this sector, they had made the perfect team. And they would again one day.
But the galaxy had just called time on their adventures for now. He would once again have to consider motives other than fun and profit. For a little while, at least.
The question was: would Izza join him?
“No. It can’t be.” Sybutu’s denial was awful to hear. “Someone in the Legion let the rebels through the orbital defenses to bomb my home into ash. Where were these Spikeballs when the rebels landed unopposed on the planet?”
The holo-comm activated itself and a ghostly miniature figure appeared, projected in the air between Fitz and Izza. It was an elderly gentleman holding a fancy walking cane.
“Good question,” said the holo figure. “I locked up the Legion orbital defenses. Now I have released them.”
Fitz cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, Lord Khallini, sir. We were just talking about you, wondering where and when you might need pickup.”
“I have heard every word spoken on your flight deck.”
Rewinding the memories of the past hour or so did nothing for Fitz’s peace of mind.
“Yeah, well, about stranding you on Rho-Torkis, Lord Khallini. We were about to die.”
“You were about to die when I offered you the contract!” spat the old man indignantly. “I know of your troubles with Nyluga-Ree.” He calmed and smoothed his thinning hair. “I am magnanimous, Fitzwilliam. I shall forgive you your disloyalty and pay you our originally agreed fee, plus an additional fifty percent bonus, on condition that you track that ship and report its location back to me. Are we agreed?”
“We are in agreement,” said Fitz in his most trustworthy voice.
“Our agreement is to get off-planet to a Legion system,” Sybutu insisted.
“And my team’s post is down there in the Great Ice Plain,” said the bearded Militia NCO.
Khallini raised an eyebrow at Arunsen for a reason that escaped Fitz.
“Be quiet,” Izza snapped to the backseat drivers. “Both of you.”
Fitz almost retorted that after Khallini’s change of heart, Rho-Torkis still was a Legion system. But the Spikeballs were being blown apart by the alien ship that looked as if it were swimming out of the atmosphere and then diving back from space, eager to swipe a foe from the sky with its tail, but settling for forward-facing fire.
When Izza announced that a rebel flotilla was jumping in system, it was obvious that Rho-Torkis was lost.
The alien ship reached orbit with a flick of its tail that looked joyful. No longer pursued by the Legion fighters, it held a steady bearing. It no longer appeared interested in the Phantom.
“Space is distorting in front of it,” said Izza. “Massive energy spike.”
Fitz glanced out the cockpit, but he could see nothing in the visible spectrum except a very valuable ship that was even more dangerous than it was precious. But when had anything of genuine interest not also been perilous?
“Is it jumping?” he suggested.
“I think so.”
The Phantom angled her force keels like a high-dimensional rudder and came about. Aiming for the mystery ship.
“You can’t be serious!” Izza stared in horror.
“It’s the find of a lifetime. Nothing in the galaxy more valuable than that ship.”
“You’re gonna steal it?”
“Maybe. I’ll learn about it and report what I choose back to Khallini.”
He hesitated, remembering the weird old man was l
istening in. To hell with him! Fitz held his tongue for no man. “Come on, my lady. Have you never taken a chance? You can trust me – I take risks for a living.”
“I know you do, Tavistock. That’s what bothers me.”
Fitz bit his tongue. No one seemed to appreciate superior flying skills anymore. For his own amusement, Fitz put in fishtail waggles while spinning the old girl like a coin on a bar top as the Phantom intercepted the alien ship’s path.
“Incoming fire,” announced Izza, an instant before the front shields flashed.
“Kinetic darts,” she said. “Tungsten.”
“I thought that ship was supposed to be special,” said Sybutu. “Tungsten darts? That’s pre-Contact Earth weapon tech.”
“It is,” said Fitz in awe, and maybe a little in love with this magnificent vessel. This… this space dragon. “I think the length of the entire ship from tail tip to nose is used to power its main weapon. If we’d faced that, we’d be atoms.”
“Energy spiking further,” said Izza.
Fitz seized his chance, putting everything the Phantom had into an intercept course with a point just ahead of the alien ship.
“We’re going to crash,” screamed Arunsen.
“Not with Fitz at the helm,” said Izza, the pride in her voice warming his soul. “He’s a fool, but he’s a fool who knows how to fly like no other.”
The stars stretched away to infinity. The familiar sight of the moment before a jump was enough to convince him that the alien ship was using a crazy form of hyperjump. If Phantom jumped at the same moment, they should be able to follow. But there was only one person in the galaxy who could produce jump calcs on the fly like that.
“Can you do it?” he asked Izza.
“Yes.”
“And will you?”
Her voice went husky. “You know I will.”
The distortion tunnel before the alien ship shifted. The vanishing point of infinity suddenly got farther away, which made no sense, but it was the only way Fitz’s brain could encompass the impossible sight.
In the same way that he wasn’t entirely human, Izza was more than mostly Zhoogene topped up with an old dash of Homo sapiens. Patterns designed by ancient biowarfare engineers flowed through both their veins. Hers allowed Izza to understand hyper-dimensional trajectories.
Chimera Company - Rho-Torkis Box Set Page 35