by Greg Dragon
“Miss Blue Pins and Needles?” Raileo repeated, deadpan, clearly unimpressed with Fio Doro’s nickname for his girlfriend.
Helga muted her comms. “It’s likely the painkillers are making her into a bit of a cruta,” she whispered, hoping that explanation would satisfy the hot-tempered sniper.
“Heard that,” she sung. “But back to your question, Commander, I think using my place would be easiest, wouldn’t it?”
“She makes a good point,” Quentin said. “It’s an actual home, which means shelter, berths, possible rations, and the best part, desperate thypes milling about it who we could question to locate our target.”
Cilas gave it some thought, rubbing at the back of his head, and looking around for any objections other than his own. “It’s a good suggestion, Fio. I just wonder if it’s wise, since we are to maintain a low profile.”
“Commander, we’re dressed like refugees,” Anders reminded him. “We’re wearing secondhand coveralls and toting baggage. We’ll get a lot of eyes, sure, but how are they to know what we are? I’ve been looking at the uniforms here, trying to identify who is security, and I am having a hard time. I see nothing but mercenaries in out-of-place tactical uniforms. They look like civilians playing at ESO, dressing up in their worthless, expensive gear.”
“The rookie’s right, they look like fakers,” Quentin added, clapping Anders on the shoulder to show his support.
“When you run into BasPol, you will know them from the mercs hanging in the starport,” Fio informed them. “Their uniforms are distinct, so there’s no mistaking them. Listen, when you reach my building, Nighthawks, watch the skies, that’s how BasPol does its policing. Avoid the drones and it won’t matter who calls to report you entering. They don’t care what goes on inside the stocks unless it deals directly with them.”
“But aren’t they the police force?” Raileo asked. “Better equipped, backed by government, and by extension the military?”
“Where you’re going, believe me when I say this,” Fio spoke softly. “No one comes into our neighborhood unless we let them. That includes BasPol, mercs, missionaries; it doesn’t matter. I was joking earlier. It doesn’t matter how good you are at killing, come in uninvited and you will leave in a body bag. The gangs and their runners are who police the stocks. Lucky for you, you’re with me, and I will give you someone to call to make sure no one stops you from using my apartment.”
“Who is this someone?” Cilas asked.
“He’s a powerful man who owed my father a favor. His name is Derrin Blackstar, but everyone calls him Thrall. I’m sending you the address to my building, and Thrall’s contact. Call him and tell him that I hired you to take revenge on the men who murdered my father. That should be enough, but if he needs proof, tell him that the name he used to call me was Blue Bird.”
“I don’t like this, Cilas,” Helga complained. “We’re working with gangsters now? They’re unpredictable, and who’s to say they haven’t been purchased by Sunveil?”
“Do you have a better idea, girlfriend?” Fio cut in, already annoyed with Helga’s opinions. “Want to book a hotel instead from a pervert eager to sneak into your room after knocking you out with sleeping gas? Or would you rather I point you to the farmlands where you can camp out? I hear they’re pretty empty this time of year.”
“That’s enough,” Helga nearly shouted. “I don’t find any of that funny.”
“She thinks I’m joking.” Fio chuckled under her breath. “Just take my advice and take your spotted ass into the stocks and use my apartment. Tell me, did you land on the public strip or did you talk to my friend?”
“Your friend,” Helga admitted, still shaken at the thought of someone drugging her while she slept. “She gave us a private strip and cleared us through customs. That was extremely helpful.”
“So, you’re already working with gangsters then,” Fio laughed. “Though I have to admit, not many have a smile as sweet as Nyora’s.”
“So, you’re already working with gangsters then,” Raileo mocked her from the rear, which earned him a look from Helga, who was just as annoyed with the smuggler, but ready to get going.
“Send me the information, Fio, and while I have you on comms, how are you managing?” Cilas asked, his tone making him sound genuinely concerned for her wellbeing.
“Food’s good, and everyone’s being nice to me … except for the cyborg; he stares a lot. I’m doing better, though Pins and Needles wants to submerge me in some sort of tank. Is she mad? Won’t I drown?”
“Take it from someone who’s been in one, you want to do it sooner rather than later if you don’t want to bear visible scars on your skin,” Cilas advised the young Genesian. “You’ve been through a lot, Fio, and you’re tired. The drugs may feel good now, but they won’t be enough when your memory starts to haunt you, and they will. Last thing you need are those war wounds to keep your trauma present. It’s a few cycles of sleep and you wake up feeling as if you’d been reborn.”
That, and you’ll want to thype anything that gets near you, Helga recalled. “Just give it some thought, Fio, it doesn’t just make you feel better, it will keep you at the top of your game. There’s going to be a life for you once we are done here, and you will want to take advantage. May as well get healed,” she added.
They were on the highway with other transports, a six-lane road of twists and turns, bordered on the sides by poles anchoring force fields to keep the vehicles contained. Since leaving the starport they had been on the dark road bordered by trees and the occasional building, which eventually became a ramp leading them up to the highest expressway.
Helga saw loud, speedy racers slipping past everyone, with little care paid to the traffic’s direction or their lives. A fleet of massive tankers hauling everything from processed milk to fuel brought the traffic to a standstill, while flying hovers zipped by, avoiding the congestion of the hard roads ahead. The rain was really pouring now, and there was a mist. The sun, having set, put everything under a sleek, red-colored haze that could be deemed beautiful or ominous depending on who saw it.
Cilas was back on comms with Fio, having moved past trying to convince her to get in a tank to picking her brain on everything she knew about William Vray. Helga listened in, but became distracted when the mist cleared enough for them to see the hills on either side of the highway. The hills were covered in buildings, stacked so tightly together they appeared to have been carved out of the stony foundation that held them.
“Maker,” Raileo whispered.
“Is that where we’re going?” Anders inquired, and Helga quickly consulted the map to see their destination.
“That is where we’re going,” she confirmed.
“You must have found the Stocks,” Fio mused. “You all sound so shocked. That is the real Basce City you’re seeing there, what most of us consider our home. Oh, just wait until you’re actually inside it, smelling the rot.” She laughed.
“Never again will I speak down on the condition of hubs,” Helga muttered. “How does a planet as resource-rich as Genese allow such conditions to persist?”
“Not just resource-rich, but credits-rich,” Anders chimed in. “This is the Iron Planet. They build starships the way we built paper fighters as cadets. There’s no shortage of anything here. I can see why the Geralos wants it. They have everything here, but from what I’m seeing, only a select few get to take advantage of it.”
“It’s not as bad as it appears,” Fio tried, but her voice made it sound like a plea rather than an objection.
Cilas, who was the only one not bothered by what he was seeing, turned to look over at Anders, who paled, thinking he had offended the commander somehow. “Geralos,” he repeated. “The Geralos want in here, where they’re leaking secrets about the location of our starships. Do you all see the importance of this mission now? Why failure isn’t an option? Why we must find the source and snuff it out?”
“Loud and clear, Rend,�
�� Helga acknowledged, joining the chorus of similar sentiments responding to his pronouncement. From the little she knew of surface life, it was hard to imagine what awaited them inside that gauntlet of stacked homes and misery. This brought it back to Fio Doro, the survivor, who had escaped to bring them information that could potentially save millions of lives.
Looking out at all that poverty and depression, Helga, hearing Fio’s voice informing Cilas, considered that the Genesian was no different from the Vestalian refugees displaced from their home planet. In essence, she decided, this made it the Nighthawks’ business to set things right. Find the traitors, plug the leak, and secure Basce City from the Geralos. That in essence was the mission, even if they were only five.
“Everything alright, Ate?” Quentin asked, ever the big brother showing his concern.
“No,” she admitted. “I’m angry, as all of you should be. Now, let’s go find this thyping apartment and get it done.”
17
The Alliance Starship Missio-Tral emerged from a jump through hyperspace to assume a position against the backdrop of distant Genese. One of six Genesian-built capital class starships, she was a champion of over 1,000 battles. Home of 3,500 Marines, whose hard-earned scholarship earned them a place in most Special Operations across the Alliance, Missio-Tral had developed a reputation as an indomitable force.
Like her sisters, Rendron, and Helysian, Missio-Tral was built as an answer to the Geralos battleship. From system to hull, her role was that of a warship intended to be at the vanguard of a fleet. Hosting a loadout of 320 kinetic energy cannons, and 30 torpedo launchers stacked at varying levels on her broadsides, Missio-Tral’s offensive potential made her a formidable opponent for any vessel.
Able to deliver a continuous stream of ship-destroying energy, either from her cannons or the four trace-laser beam emitters installed on bow and stern, her shape was unmistakable, even as a shadow of nothingness against the distant stars. 560m of tapered hull, building itself into the reality of this new region of space.
From the bridge of the Helysian infiltrator, Harridan, the warnings of an “Incoming Extra-Dimensional Shift,” had sent the crew scrambling to take emergency measures. But the system had lagged, or had been blocked, and a mass of black nothingness replaced a segment of space. Hands beat to quarters, cycles of drills and muscle memory, sending her spacers scrambling to mount some sort of defense.
Her captain, Jawal Kur, had not been warned of another Alliance vessel approaching their vector, and no Geralos ship had been reported on radar. He stood frozen, hands behind his back, his bald, gaunt, 183cm frame staring up at the holo-screen rendering the activity outside his ship. From the time the first alarm had sounded he hadn’t moved from his position, but the crew knew better than to interrupt him.
What he was witnessing was something unheard of: a potential ambush from a capital vessel on an ally of significantly less mass. There had been infighting before—in over 600 years of war it was inevitable—but those handful of occurrences had been starships firing on starships, performative combat, nothing significant beyond the crippling of shields, and nothing as drastic as this.
Whether it was fright or deep consideration of what to do next, Captain Kur was frozen. His frustrated XO, Leon Anu, a handsomely bearded Meluvian, recognizing the crew’s need for guidance, took the initiative to order navigation to stand down from plotting an exit jump. He too had recognized what ship it was, but what confounded him was why it was here, and why they hadn’t been warned cycles in advance.
He had questioned his captain on their decision to remain in this system despite their orders to jump out, but after numerous arguments and threats to his position, had given up. Now, the bridge was in a state of wonderment, and from the feeds, he could see that the hangar deck was abuzz with activity. This was an Alliance starship, but its proximity was a threat, and they needed to be ready to move to avoid a collision.
On Missio-Tral, the mood was very different from the panicked decks of the Harridan. Uniformed officers seated in stations about the bridge chatted away on private channels, prepping suggestions for their captain, Felan Lede. Above them, on a raised platform, where a more active set of officers darted about scrutinizing holo-maps, a young Vestalian woman cleared her throat to address the Harridan using the captain’s private channel.
“Harridan, this is Missio-Tral. Captain Lede would like a word with Commander Kur,” she said, then waited patiently for a minute to pass before looking over at her Virulian commander, who acknowledged her with a nod of his head. He in turn looked down at the XO, who raised his hand with two fingers held high, a sign that the Harridan was to receive a final warning. The message was relayed, and the communications officer spoke again. “Harridan, this is Missio-Tral. We must ask you to respond to our summons, or we will assume this as a sign of non-compliance with a capital ship.”
The bridge went silent on Missio-Tral; even the computers seemed to quieten. All eyes were on their captain as he leaned over the tall, central war table glaring at a hologram of the Harridan. He stood up straight and swiped at the interface to transform it into a view showing Missio-Tral’s proximity to the rogue infiltrator. With a graceful turn, he surveyed his crew and lifted the communicator to his dark, cracked lips.
Like an orchestra waiting with bated breath to perform a soul-moving symphony, the crew of Missio-Tral stood frozen in anticipation of the command they knew would come next. “All hands,” Captain Lede growled. “Beat to quarters.” And like a conductor bringing in the allegro, Missio-Tral came alive with the activity of over 1,000 seasoned spacers.
Marines made their way to the hangar to be in place for boarding dropships, and pilots took to the cockpits of Phantoms, prepping engines for launch. In engineering, practiced hands pulled crystal cores from their cells, replacing them with overcharged reserves. Missio-Tral’s cannons came online, and her tracers began their charge, as the tactical officers on the bridge worked at picking out targets to cripple the Harridan’s engines.
It wasn’t every cycle that an officer witnessed the ordnance of his allies aimed at him. For Commander Leon Anu, watching phantoms launch to take position about the Harridan, it confirmed many months of suspicion that his captain had indeed done something foolish. Their lengthy stay in this remote region alone, the merchant vessels supposedly transporting ship parts from the planet.
He had asked questions, but every time there had been legitimate manifests, and reassurances from his captain. What could he have done, he wondered, more than ask around, which he had done, multiple times. Short of mutiny, he had been powerless, having no evidence of Kur’s underhandedness beyond intuition.
Now their crew was being confronted by the deadly effective Missio-Tral, a rated warship whose sheer mass was easily three times that of their own. One well-timed torpedo to their failing shields would split them in half if they were lucky enough to maneuver their stern out of the way. “This must be how it feels to be a lizard,” he mused, which earned him a look of pure venom from his captain. “What are your orders, sir?” he tried again, hoping to hear something of a plan of action if he was truly refusing to speak to Captain Lede.
The man went back to staring forward, doing nothing, still frozen in disbelief at the situation, Leon could only allow. There was something different about his demeanor, an arrogant sneer at the image of the starship etched against the stars. Was he welcoming this? Leon couldn’t qualify any part of his behavior. Surely this was the same Commander Jawal Kur, who he would have gladly followed into anything prior to Genese and his sudden change.
“The bridge is yours, Leon,” the older man said, turning to leave. “I have to speak with the Alliance council in my cabin. Hold him off will you, old friend? Give me some time to find out what this is all about.” He was already leaving the bridge before the young executive officer could react.
Leon was dumbfounded but he wasn’t alone. Puzzled looks came from all corners, nothing directly, bu
t enough to be noticed. One ensign even went so far as to reach around her station to take the hand of a petrified cadet. Knowing glances were passed between officers, unsurprised at Captain Kur’s reticence.
Rather than dwell on his captain’s failings, Leon picked up the communicator and took a moment to collect himself. “Missio-Tral, this is Harridan, Commander Leon Anu, Executive Officer. We are willing to comply with your demands.”
“Why am I talking to the XO, and not the captain, Commander Anu?” Captain Lede said.
“The captain had an emergency that he is tending to. It’s unfortunate timing, but I hope to answer any and all of your questions, Captain Lede,” the anxious commander offered.
“Not good enough. The Alliance has questions for your captain. Does the emergency prevent his lips from working, Commander Anu? The Alliance has tried numerous times to reach your captain. What is going on here, man? You have forty-five minutes. Get him to this ship, alone, and ready to talk, or we will be forced to take command of the Harridan.”
While the captain spoke with Leon Anu, a Missio-Tral navigator saw something register on her holo-map near the Harridan’s starboard dock. One second something appeared there and the next it was gone, as if a glitch had just occurred. Trained to question everything untoward, particularly when it came to holograms, she rewound the time, scrutinized the anomaly, and enlisted a handful of others to help sort it out.
It took a lieutenant, her predecessor, seeing the playback to identify what it was. A vessel had launched from Harridan under cover of cloak, using the port opposite their vector to avoid detection. “Commander, we have a runner, cloaked,” she shouted into comms, and the XO, Cecil Bo-Antar, ran over to her station to verify the information. It didn’t take long for him to confirm, and he rushed back to the captain to whisper in his ear.
Captain Lede was incensed, hanging up on Leon to address the spacers on his own ship. “Launch all fighters, and bring our cannons online. If Harridan so much as engages engines, I want her FTL taken offline through violent engagement.” He got off the intercom and turned to his XO. “Commander Cho, get Commander Horne up to speed, fast. I want that vessel disabled before it can coordinate a jump.”