A New Threat

by Aaron DeMott

“That’s it?”

  “Some major systems have been removed to fit a larger reactor and the NTO. Would you like a readout for all minor systems?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Tomed waited for the NTO to come online before he reached out to it with his mind. The fighter lifted off the deck, and he nudged it through the force field and out of the Goddard’s shuttle bay. He set a course for the unauthorized space station they had discovered. It wouldn’t hurt to just swing past it on his way to the Paradise Colony. He leaned into the NTO and pushed the ship into hyperspace.

  The ship dropped out of hyperspace just outside the gravity well of the gas giant on the far side of the planet from the space station. A quick check of the sensor panel showed nothing unusual. He’d have to swing around the planet before he could get a good reading on the station. So far there weren’t any ships in the vicinity.

  Between the gas giant’s magnetic field and his own NTO amplified abilities, he should be able to go undetected as long as he kept his visit short. Tomed stopped the fighter at maximum sensor range from the station near the south pole.

  The basic mining equipment was there. A quick scan for hazardous materials showed about what he’d expect from mining waste. Something wasn’t quite right with the readout though. “Gail, what’s a rough estimate for the mass of a typical gas mining station?”

  “That depends on the type of structure. Most stations similar to the one in front of us are approximately two million tons.”

  “Isn’t the reading on this one a tad high?”

  “The mass reading for this station is at the extreme high end of the scale—in comparison to similar fully loaded station types.”

  “So, it’s a fair bet to say they’ve got more stuff over there than just a full shipment ready to be picked up?”

  “Insufficient data. However, the probability is high.”

  “Thims has done more work on you since the last time we talked, hasn’t he?”

  “I have had two major software upgrades since then that have been jointly worked on by Psygen Thims and Anaheim Q-tronics. Why do you ask?”

  Tomed chuckled. “No reason.”

  The sensors detected life signs aboard the station. Tomed stretched his mind out toward it. It wasn’t likely the people aboard knew what was really going on, but he might pick up something.

  He did wish Nilre was here for this part. For one, she was much better at this sort of thing. For another, about seven out of ten people had some sort of natural shielding against mental probes, and Tomed knew he wasn’t good enough to get past it.

  The first mind Tomed encountered was asleep and didn’t dream of anything particularly interesting. The next two minds were shielded. The surface thoughts of the fourth Tomed had no trouble reading.

  The man was a cargo handler who was busy loading supplies that had recently arrived onto an automated cargo shuttle to be shipped to the Paradise Colony. At the moment he was grumbling about how much cargo had been passing through the station lately.

  Most of the cargo was in large, unlabeled plastic crates. The man Tomed listened in on didn’t know or care about the contents. There had been a few items coming through the station that were too large for crates. The man didn’t know what they were, but Tomed was able to identify several of the machines from his memory.

  A few of the items looked like automated fabrication plants or raw ore processing factories. Tomed sifted through a few more of the inhabitant’s memories until he found something else recognizable. This one puzzled him. The memory image was of a regular shipping crate, but Tomed recognized it as a case of clothing stolen from the Epsilon Eridani colony. Further investigation of his source’s memory found everything from military grade weapons, several years’ worth of reactor fuel, farming implements, and almost any type of computer hardware one could imagine.

  What was in the unmarked crates? With those supplies the pirates could be planning anything. Tomed mentally scanned the rest of the station but didn’t find any further information. He slipped out of the gas giant’s gravity well and hopped into hyperspace long enough to be out of the station’s scanner range before he altered his course to Paradise Colony.

  The moment he dropped into the system he scanned for an encrypted frequency. A faint ping came back from a large asteroid in orbit of the fifth planet in the system. Tomed landed on the asteroid and used the NTO to levitate the broadcasting data chip into the ship through a torpedo tube. He switched off the transmitter and disarmed the explosive on the chip before he pulled a custom reader from his pocket and inserted the data chip.

  While the data chip decrypted, Tomed lifted off the asteroid and took a long loop above Paradise’s orbital plane to hide behind the third planet in the system. He checked the data chip and removed it when it finished decrypting.

  Even after he mentally ran the message through the private code that he and Jake used, the message was still garbled. He stared at it for a moment and then took the first letter of each line in the original message from Jake and placed it in every third letter of this message. The message now read: “Andrea Vincent”.

  “Gail, do we have a secure SatNet connection here?”

  “We have a secure connection, but interested third parties could still determine our physical location by triangulating our signal.”

  “All right. Don’t send a message. I’ll have to look that up when we’re done.”

  Tomed waited for nightfall before he landed on Paradise. He parked the fighter in the woods outside the city and sprinted to a welcome center. A quick check of the public directory got him the location of the Vincent’s house. He ran back to the fighter, flew low over to the house, and landed in the forest beyond the back yard.

  One window upstairs was lit. Tomed stretched out with his mind. Only two people were in the house. One of them was asleep; the other’s mental state was highly agitated. He wasn’t sure, but the presence felt female.

  Tomed got a running start and jumped to the roof. He crouched down and crept around to a position above the occupied room. He sank onto his stomach and crawled to the edge before he ducked to peer through the window.

  Andrea Vincent sat on a bed in the center of the room crying. She held a picture of a young boy. Tomed would have liked to give her a moment of privacy, but the faster he got her off-planet the better.

  Andrea? He called out mentally.

  She stood and whipped her head back and forth as she glanced around the room. “Who’s there?”

  Tomed Nor. I’ve come at the request of Jake Fisher to bring you to Earth.

  “Nor? He has contacts with the Psygens?”

  Yes. You need to be quiet and hurry. We’re leaving immediately if you’re ready. I had to use a public directory to find you. Someone might see the inquiry and stop by to make sure you’re all right.

  “I’m already packed, just let me get Fred.”

  I wasn’t informed about your son. I came in a fighter. There’s only room for one passenger.

  “I’m not leaving without him.”

  Tomed could see Andrea’s eyes flash in anger as she looked around the room for him.

  I’m not suggesting that we do. I’m just warning you, it’s gonna be a crowded ride.

  “Okay. Meet me at the back door in five minutes.”

  Tomed jerked his head up at the sound of a car in the driveway.

  We’ve got company. Go out the back and run to the forest. The fighter is parked in a small clearing a few meters in. Get aboard and start it up if you know how. I’ll delay whoever is here and be there as fast as I can.

  Tomed jumped up and ran as quietly as he could to the front of the house. Four large men with plasma rifles got out of the car. Tomed leaped from the roof and landed in front of them.

  “Hello, gentlemen. Anything I can help you with?”

  “Yup.” The tallest thug leveled his plasma rifle at Tomed. “We ain’t seen you around here before, and the boss told us to kill anyone we didn’t recognize
.”

  The thug pulled the trigger. Tomed touched the NTO with his mind and the blast splashed against a shield. Tomed ran forward before his assailant could fire again and ripped the rifle from his grasp.

  Tomed ducked into a roll and deflected the blasts fired by the other three. The NTO generated a mental holograph that showed him the current capacitor charge and reactor status. The reactor started to overheat after Tomed blocked just a few shots. Whatever they were firing, it wasn’t standard issue.

  Tomed ran around to the opposite side of the car to avoid more plasma bolts and give the NTO time to recharge the capacitor.

  “Come on, hurry,” he muttered.

  Two of the thugs circled around either side of the car.

  “They can’t be that stupid—” Tomed jumped two meters up as the two fired simultaneously. “Or yes, they can.”

  The NTO was recharged now. Tomed tapped it and reached out with an invisible fist to crush the last thug’s weapon. Tires screeched as another car rounded the corner. Tomed jumped over the car and smashed his right fist into the thug’s head. He ran for the forest as fast as he could.

  Andrea shrieked when he landed on the nose of the fighter with a thud. The canopy lifted up and Tomed dropped into the pilot’s seat.

  “Sorry about that. Please fasten your seat belts and make sure your belongings are somewhere aboard the spacecraft as we need to get the heck out of here as fast as possible.”

  Tomed punched in the startup sequence and overrode all the preflight checks.

  “Gail, make sure the preflight stuff is safe as soon as you can. We need to leave now.”

  A plasma bolt cut through a tree a few meters to the right. Tomed slammed the engines on full and pulled the stick back. The fighter slowly rose above the trees. Plasma bolts flew all around them.

  “Gail, I need that NTO online and I needed it five minutes ago!”

  “Sorry, Tomed,” Gail’s voice came from the cabin speakers. “I’m powering it up as fast as I can.”

  Tomed pushed the fighter through a series of rolls in an attempt to avoid more plasma bolts. The fighter wasn’t fast enough to avoid all of them without the use of the NTO. Not to mention the lack of shields. The fighter shook when one of the plasma bolts hit it.

  “Surface damage to rear quarter,” announced Gail.

  “Hold on Andrea, this is going to be rough.”

  Tomed risked a glance back at his passengers. Andrea was strapped in, her son asleep on her lap and strapped in with her. Her face looked pale but determined. That was good. The last thing he needed was a panicky passenger.

  “NTO, online,” Gail said.

  “Finally!” Tomed smiled. “Hang on, everyone. Now the fun begins.”

  Tomed leaned into the NTO and the ship shot forward. He slowed when something beeped on the control panel. The ship’s inertial damper light blinked at him. He could probably take more stress than the fighter could, but he was concerned about Andrea and the boy.

  Tomed pulled straight up out of the planet’s atmosphere then flipped the ship into a stall maneuver and checked for any sign of pursuit as the craft slowly spun back towards the surface. Tomed squinted out the right window at a speck. It could be a fighter. He turned his fighter parallel to the planet and accelerated.

  Halfway around the planet he turned out into space and leaned into the NTO for more speed. As soon as he was clear of the gravity well, he dropped the ship into hyperspace.

  Chapter 14

  Nilre slumped down onto the desk and rubbed her temples. She’d gone to the conference room as soon as Tomed had left to get the informant. She had spent the next ten hours looking at space charts. If they could locate where the SeQish ambassador was being held, and rescue him, that would take a major advantage away from the pirates.

  After a while, she set her tablet down and stood to stretch. “Perhaps some tea will help.”

  When she reached the conference room cupboard, her shoulders slumped. There was only instant tea available. She selected a packet of Earl Grey and added it to a cup along with some hot water from the dispenser.

  Her mind wandered as she walked slowly back to the table while stirring her tea. There were a lot of places the pirates could have hidden him, and not much information to narrow down the list. She absently raised the cup of tea to her lips and sipped at it—and coughed. She frowned down at the cup, then shrugged and took another sip. Instant was better than no tea.

  After she looked over the charts for the tenth time, she still didn’t have any ideas. She set the tablet down, and reached out with her mind.

  Bast? She said.

  Yes?

  Hello, Bast. Could you please join me in the conference room?

  I’ll be right there! Bast said.

  Bast skidded in the door a few minutes later and plopped into the chair next to Nilre. She sat there and panted for a moment or so before she caught her breath enough to speak. “So, what did you need me for?”

  Nilre smiled, Bast was always so full of energy. She reminded her of Evelyn that way.

  “I was going over what little information we have in an attempt to locate where the pirates are holding the SeQish ambassador.” Nilre slid a tablet over to Bast. “I thought you might be bored of waiting, and wanted to know if you’d like to help me go over some of this stuff.”

  “Sure!” Bast picked up the tablet and started to read through it. She set it down a few minutes later. “What am I looking for?”

  “Anything useful.” Nilre took another sip of her tea.

  Bast’s throat rumbled as she looked through the information again.

  Nilre glanced over the Meskka’s shoulder. Bast stared at two holographic images. One was a map of UGAL space; the other was a list of the locations the pirates had raided and what they had stolen from each location. After swiping through the list several times, she bared her teeth and growled at the tablet.

  “Something wrong?” Nilre asked.

  “I don’t know. There’s something strange about this list but I don’t know what. Wait,” Bast squinted and read through the list of raided locations again. “Paradise Colony hasn’t been raided!”

  “I’m sure it has.” Nilre scooted her chair over next to Bast.

  “I didn’t find anything, so I played with the way the lists are sorted, and look!” Bast pointed a claw at the holo-window. The list of raided sites, sorted into two columns, was displayed. One listed the outgoing shipments that had been stolen, and the other listed stolen incoming shipments. Nilre quickly scanned each list.

  “Would you look at that! The Paradise Colony has only had outgoing shipments stolen. I wonder...”

  Nilre turned back to her holo window and brought up a variety of information on the Paradise Colony. She scanned quickly through several lists while Bast waited. After a few moments, Nilre narrowed her search to four different lists and opened them in separate windows.

  “Look, immigration and tourism to the Paradise Colony have been up lately, while the number of people leaving has also risen slightly. Next I had the computer search SatNet for anything the new residents had in common. See?”

  Bast leaned in. “What’s ‘xenophobic’ mean?”

  “They’re afraid of aliens. Everyone on the recent immigrant list has either been seeing a doctor for xenophobia, attended a protest rally against giving the von Braun to the SeQish, protested at the welcome banquet we had for you on Earth, or other things along those lines.”

  “Wait,” Bast stood and started to pace around the small room. “Does that mean that we’ve found the pirate’s base? Is the ambassador there?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s enough evidence to look into it more closely.”

  Bast stopped and gasped. “Oh no! Tomed’s there. We should warn him!”

  Nilre concentrated and sent a brief message. “Already done.” She grinned. “Looks like he’s already found out the hard way, but he got out safely and is on his way back.”

  “Oh good! We
don’t have much more to do here until he gets back, do we?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I’m going to go see what Rrrark and Hrrarr are up to.”

  Bast turned and left the room. She was careful not to get her tail stuck in the door, like she’d done once on her first trip to Earth. Her tail still hurt just thinking about it.

  She stopped a few meters down the hallway. Would Rrrark still be in their rooms? She tried to remember if he had mentioned his plans for the day. All she could remember was how close he had stood to her.

  Rrrark’s interest in her must be a figment of her imagination. Bast shook her head and continued down the hallway. After all, they were here as official representatives of Alkask to help stop a danger to their world. And that was all. Wasn’t it?

  Bast checked the galley first. She didn’t find Rrrark, but did find an exceptionally good piece of fish. She could just ask him where he was with mind-speak, but she didn’t want to disturb him if he was napping or busy. She checked the quarters they now shared with Hrrarr, and then finally the observation room on the Goddard’s top deck.

  The moment she stepped into the room, she stopped. Rrrark stood at the opposite side of the room and stared out at the stars. She slowly padded over to him. Rrrark glanced back over his shoulder when the door slid shut and gave a purr of welcome before he turned back to the window.

  When she reached him, she just stood beside him for a moment and enjoyed his company and the view before she turned toward him.

  “So what have you been up to today?” she asked.

  “Hrrarr and I went to the galley for breakfast when you went off with Nilre. We discussed our objectives for this mission, and I asked him how he felt about continued involvement with the humans.”

  “Oh, what’d he say?”

  “He’s been a Ranger for too long.” Rrrark chuckled. “He said he would present an unbiased observation to the Council and stand by their decision.”

  “Oh.”

  Bast frowned. She had hoped Hrrarr would be as excited and curious about the humans as she was. She asked, “What did you decide about our mission objectives?”