A New Threat

by Aaron DeMott

  “From the ground troops, yes.” Tomed pushed himself to his feet and squeezed past Bast into the cockpit. “Now they’ll have fighters after us. Not only is this shuttle completely unarmed, but it wasn’t really designed to travel in hyperspace either.”

  Chapter 18

  The bridge was almost as quiet as the med bay. Ara frowned and slouched against the bulkhead. She’d come to the bridge because she was bored to death of sitting in the med bay with nothing to do.

  She sat up suddenly at Nilre’s mental contact and frowned as she tried to make out what her friend tried to tell her. Normally her weak telepathy didn’t bother her.

  “Captain, Nilre and the others are on their way back,” she said as soon as she figured out the message.

  “Thank you, Ara. Strouse, alert the shuttle bay to prep for receiving.”

  Lieutenant Roshen looked up from his console. “Sir, I have them on sensors now. Looks like they’re coming in hot. Four fighters in pursuit.”

  Ara rushed from the bridge. Someone might be injured, and she needed to assist Doctor Zoet in the shuttle bay. It was always difficult to see friends come back injured. Still, it was better than not having them come back at all.

  As Ara skidded to a stop next to the doctor at the blast doors to the shuttle bay, her foot slid out from under her, and she smacked her head into the corner of the doorframe.

  “Are you all right?” Doctor Zoet asked and helped her to her feet. “Looks like a bad gash.”

  “I’m fine, or I will be, anyway.”

  Ara held her hand to the wound on her forehead for a second. When she dropped her hand back to the side, the cut was gone. “Looks like it was mostly superficial damage with only slight muscular laceration.”

  “To be able to heal like that must be such a blessing.” Doctor Zoet bent down to look at her forehead.

  “Yes, it is. Took me a while to realize my talent though. I spent most of my youth wishing I was like the rest of the Psygens.”

  Zoet chuckled. “It seems we who are called to the more scientific pursuits are often teased as children.”

  “Yeah, I—”

  A loud klaxon announced the arrival of the shuttle. Ara and Zoet rushed in just as the shuttle settled to the deck. She waited impatiently for the door to open and rushed over to examine everyone as they exited. Tomed and Hrrarr were the only ones injured.

  Tomed was the first one out. He had the audacity to grin at her as she stared at his arm. Ara frowned at it before she stood on tiptoe to reach up and slap the back of his head.

  “Hey!” he yelled.

  “Oh, can it, you big baby.” Ara glared up at him. “I warned you about that arm! You’re going with Zoet to the med bay and have it looked at just to be sure. After that, you’re ordered to sleep for at least four hours.”

  Tomed opened his mouth to reply, and then shut it again. Ara glared at him. He sighed and ruffled her hair before he followed Zoet out of the shuttle bay.

  The big Meskka ranger limped and kept most of his weight off his front right leg. Ara stopped him at the bottom of the ramp.

  “I’d better take a look at that right here.”

  “I will be fine.” Hrrarr tried to push his way past her.

  Ara reached out, tapped his nose with one finger, and temporarily overrode the signals his brain sent to his legs.

  “We can do this the hard way or the easy way. The hard way being to argue about it. The easy way is for me to render you unconscious and have the med bay send down a gurney for you. Given those options, are you still sure you don’t want me to look at it now?”

  Hrrarr let out what Ara thought was the Meskka equivalent to a sigh, and lifted his paw for Ara to examine. She wasn’t good with Meskka expressions, but she would bet the look on his face was a scowl.

  After a quick examination, she determined his leg was broken a few centimeters above his paw and had a number of hairline fractures, as well as several torn ligaments and some major bruises. It would be a challenge for her to heal it instantly on her own, but not with the NTO to amplify her abilities.

  She sent a thought out to the NTO, and it projected a hologram of the wound into her visual cortex. She thought of the ligaments mending themselves, and felt an answering surge of power from the NTO. The hologram updated as Ara guided and sped the healing process.

  “There. Good as new,” she said as she finished.

  “Thank you.” Hrrarr nodded to her in what she figured was the Meskka equivalent to a bow. Ara sat down on the shuttle gangway to rest while the orderlies loaded the SeQish ambassador onto a stretcher.

  Ara wheeled Ambassador Kclntc into the medbay as Doctor Zoet finished with Tomed’s arm.

  “How bad is the damage this time?” Ara asked.

  The doctor glanced up at her. “Merely a slight burn.”

  He taped down the end of the bandage and helped the orderlies move the SeQish ambassador from the gurney onto a bed.

  Tomed slid off the examination table and peered down at the ambassador.

  “More importantly, how’s he?” he asked.

  Ara ran a hand over the ambassador. His pulse echoed out to her, slow, but strong. Ara shrugged. “Depends on your definition. He’s been drugged, but he’s alive and will be fine in an hour or so. I could wake him now, but I’d prefer to let the drugs wear off.”

  Tomed frowned and drummed his fingers on the side of the bed. “Okay. I don’t think we need him awake right now. I’ll let you know if the captain needs to talk with him.”

  Tomed turned around and waved at Bast and the others before he left the med bay.

  Chapter 19

  Nilre had gone to the conference room as soon as Ara had confirmed the SeQish ambassador would be okay. For the next few hours she sorted through the memories of the pirates on the von Braun, looking for information they could use to force the pirates’ hand now that their main advantage was gone. She had recorded anything useful, and now she attempted to sort through it. There really wasn’t much data to look at. Most of the pirates’ thoughts were about what they wanted to do and weren’t very helpful. She also ignored any personal memories and thoughts and only recorded information from the last few months.

  “Ugh.” Nilre glanced at the tablet again and then set it down to stretch.

  The door swished open, and Bast walked in. “Hello. Is there anything I can help with?”

  “Sure.” Nilre waved to the stack of tablets on the table. “Look through those and see if you can spot anything useful.”

  Bast stretched up to rest her front paws on the table, leaving her rear legs on the floor. She reached over her shoulder and used her teeth to pull her noteblock from her pack. She held it in one paw, and used the other to grab a random tablet.

  Nilre rubbed her neck for another minute as she watched Bast scratch a few notes into the Noteblock, she she sat back down, and resumed looking over her own tablet.

  A moment later Bast let out a surprised-sounding mew. Nilre scooted her chair closer to Bast, and read over her shoulder.

  “Ceres is Jonathan Vincent’s alias, right?” Bast asked.

  “Yes, why?”

  “You put down here that Max Loker knows he’s doing something now but doesn’t know what or where.” Bast said. She pointed to the relevant section of text.

  “Yes.” Nilre bent over and re-read the section Bast pointed to. “But that doesn’t help us much. If I remember correctly, no one else aboard the von Braun knows the where or the what either.”

  “But—” Bast pointed to the Noteblock, “—if we look over everything else you have here for someone who knows something about any unusual happenings, but doesn’t know who’s behind them…”

  Nilre slapped her forehead. “They might tie together. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”

  “You were probably looking for concrete proof—”

  “—and this is just a ‘maybe,’ true. But a ‘maybe’ is better than nothing right now.”

  Bast turned
and winked at her. “Or you could have just missed it because you humans don’t get anywhere near enough sleep.”

  “Thank you all for coming.” Tomed nodded to everyone in the conference room and pressed a button on the desk. A holo-projection of a space station appeared and hovered over the desk.

  “Nilre has been trying to get some more information from our friends out there, and found something that could potentially turn things in our favor. Many of you probably remember this station. It’s an unregistered facility the Paradise Colonists have been using to store supplies.

  “Nilre has pieced together enough information to determine that Jonathan Vincent is probably on the station right now.”

  “Excuse me.” Major Hood raised a hand. “You’re not sure if he’s there or not?”

  Nilre glanced at Tomed and then stood. “The pirates are very careful to make sure that not one individual knows the whole of their plans. That makes obtaining intelligence on their activities difficult. A few people know bits and pieces about an operation. Another one or two know that it has something to do with a space station. Another knows a location where something is happening, but not what. The key, in this instance, is Loker knows that Ceres is doing something right now, but not the where or what.”

  “It’s a reasonable assumption.” Captain Trenton leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. After a moment’s thought, he straightened up. “We know that Vincent is Ceres from the data Tomed’s operative brought back. And the information his wife provided is enough to put him in prison for years. Capturing him would go a long way toward foiling the pirates’ plans. We’ll have to leave it up to UGAL, but if we have the ambassador and Vincent, we’d have some leverage to demand at least the release of any colonists who don’t agree with the new government. I assume you have a suggested course of action?”

  “Yes, we do,” Tomed replied. “Nilre and I will go get him. If we’re wrong, UGAL can deny involvement and responsibility. If we’re successful, we’ll have Vincent. Combined with the rescue of the SeQish ambassador, the pirates will have lost most of their advantage. We just need to borrow a shuttle.”

  Hrrarr stood and cleared his throat. “If I may?” He looked at Tomed, who nodded at him to continue. “We would like to offer our assistance in capturing this traitor, who, if I understand correctly, is the one most responsible for the attack on our world.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Tomed glanced at the captain and raised an eyebrow.

  The captain frowned for a moment and then sighed. “If this is an unofficial mission, it’s up to our guests whether they want to come along or not.”

  “We’ll leave in ten minutes then. I’ll see everyone in the shuttle bay.” Tomed turned off the holo-projector and left the conference room.

  Tomed glanced over to the co-pilot’s seat. Nilre gave him one of her warm, reassuring smiles. He needed it. The station’s sensors had certainly detected their approach, but they had not been shot at yet. It was possible that Vincent didn’t have enough people with him to man the station’s weapons, but it still felt like a trap. The moment the shuttle settled onto the landing pad, Tomed jumped up and grabbed a blaster rifle.

  Nilre raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

  Tomed shrugged. “Hey, I don’t want to lose an arm this time, okay? Keep the shuttle ready for launch please.”

  A thought struck Tomed as he turned to leave. He ducked back into the cockpit, gave Nilre a quick kiss on the forehead, and darted back out. Rrrark and Hrrarr waited patiently. Bast stood in front of the door, shifting her weight from one side to the other. He smiled to himself and cleared his throat.

  “Remember, everyone—stay together and keep an eye out. Supposedly Vincent doesn’t know we’re coming, but I have a bad feeling about this whole setup.”

  Tomed waited for the door to open fully before he darted from the shuttle and crossed to the opposite side. He pressed his back up against the wall and inched over to the shuttle bay’s exit door. Bast was right beside him and Hrrarr and Rrrark were pressed up against the wall on the opposite doorpost. He stretched his mind outward and didn’t detect anything.

  What are we waiting for? Bast asked.

  I can’t sense Vincent, he replied.

  So?

  Anywhere.

  Oh. Bast paused. “Can Nilre?

  Of course I can. Nilre’s mental voice sounded confident, with just a twinge of puzzlement. The odd thing is I’m only getting a vague sense of him. I’ve been working on it for a while now, and I had to power up my NTO to get a full reading. He’s at the far end of the station, and he’s set some traps, but he doesn’t know what kind. It looks like he used some kind of mind-wipe on himself.

  “Great,” Tomed mumbled. Looks like someone’s done his homework. How many troops are with him?

  After a brief pause, Nilre responded. Only six.

  Tomed slapped the button next to the door frame. The door slid open without triggering any hidden traps. He stuck the barrel of the blaster out into the open doorway and wiggled it up and down. A blaster bolt shot out and impacted on the far wall of the shuttle bay. Tomed jerked his blaster out of the doorway and waved Hrrarr and Rrrark back a few paces. He ducked and rolled past the door, firing mid-roll.

  Got it. Didn’t see any more, but we should be extra careful.

  What was it? Bast asked. I don’t see any soldiers.

  AST—short for Automated Sentry Tripod. It’s basically a gun with a computer that shoots at anything warm or moving. Tomed waved the blaster in the doorway again.

  Nothing happened this time. He stepped into the corridor and looked around. He didn’t see any other traps, so he waved everyone forward.

  A few feet from the next doorway in the corridor, Hrrarr stopped.

  “I smell something in front of you,” he said.

  Tomed stopped and bent down to examine the floor. There was a faint outline in the carpet, as if someone had cut it out and carefully replaced it.

  Looks like a concealed mine. There might be more of them. He stood and took a large step over the section of the carpet.

  They found several more ASTs and land mines, in addition to a few locked doors as they progressed to the far end of the station.

  I don’t like this. We should’ve run into Vincent by now. Tomed said.

  Hrrarr snorted in reply, but no one else spoke.

  The traps they had found stood a fair chance to take out a mediocre attack force, but surely Vincent didn’t expect UGAL to send fresh recruits to retrieve him. And where were the other soldiers they knew were on the station?

  The next door they came to was unlocked and didn’t have an AST behind it. Tomed clenched his jaw and the hairs on his arms stood on end.

  Well, this is different, Bast remarked.

  Yeah. Do any of you smell anything unusual? Tomed asked.

  Rrrark stuck his nose through the doorway and sniffed cautiously. It is hard to say. There are many unusual scents on this station. However... Rrrark took another careful sniff. I think I smell something similar to the land mines. Also, I think there’s at least one human in that room.

  Tomed stretched his mind into the room beyond. Something was in there, but he couldn’t get a clear mental picture of who or what. He frowned. How had Vincent managed that?

  OK, we’ll be extra careful then. Everybody stand back, I’m going to duck in and take a quick look around. Wait for my signal before you enter. Tomed waited for the others to nod, then pressed his back to the wall and waved his blaster around inside the doorway.

  Nothing happened. Bast flicked her ear and stared at him. He shrugged and peered into the open doorway. Clusters of color-coded pipes rose from the floor, ran up to the ceiling, and disappeared through different walls. A few old-fashioned manual valves jutted from some of the pipe clusters. Steam leaked out of several of the pipes, and filled the room with a haze. They couldn’t see more than a few meters. The sound of dripping water echoed across the room.

  Tomed p
eered through the mist. There wasn’t an AST in sight, and as far as he could tell, no sign of troops, mines in the carpet, or other traps. There was no telling what might be hidden among the pipes.

  “Fun,” he said, half to himself. “Well since we know it’s a trap—”

  Tomed stepped into the doorway and looked around. He waved the Meskka back and yelled out: “Hello, Mr. Vincent, your ride’s here!”

  “Come and get me!” echoed back from somewhere deep in the maze of pipes.

  “Well, it was worth a shot,” Tomed said.

  He shrugged and took another look around before he stepped farther into the room. A few seconds later he waved everyone forward.

  The room seemed part of the engineering section, possibly a water treatment area. Tomed hesitated. Or the station could be using an extremely old fusion reactor. They had detected an abnormal level of radiation on the way in, but it could have been due to a malfunction. In any case, the radiation levels weren’t dangerous enough to worry about as long as they didn’t stay long.

  Tomed stepped around a column of blue pipes and glanced back to check on the others. Bast had veered off to the right, Hrrarr to the left, and Rrrark threaded his way through a maze of pipes between him and Bast.

  The steam seemed to grow thicker. Tomed sniffed at it. He didn’t have as good a nose as the Meskka, but it didn’t smell like anything other than hot, rusty water to him.

  Rrrark, do you smell anything dangerous in this steam?

  Not anything I recognize, but you humans use a lot of things we don’t. I’ll let you know if the scent changes, Rrrark said.

  Tomed ducked under a low-hanging pipe and crept forward. He still couldn’t see Vincent anywhere, but he could hear him moving around up ahead.

  Something moved off to the right in the corner of his eye. Tomed dropped to a crouch and swung his blaster in that direction. Rrrark threaded between a maze of smaller pipes. Tomed lowered the blaster and exhaled.

  You scared me for a moment there.