Iástron

by James C. Dunn

  ‘Heaven help him,’ Araman uttered, standing slowly.

  ‘Sir . . . Sir!’ A voice from nearby tore him from his bewildered state. Private Riess stumbled over, blood trickling down his temple.

  ‘Carlos,’ he said, happy to see another person alive. ‘What happened to the ship?’

  ‘Lesper was here. Knocked me out with my own w . . . weapon.’ The pain was visible across his face.

  ‘Lesper took the ship?’

  ‘Yes . . . Yes, sir.’

  Araman looked back out at the distant craft. He was numb, unable to think straight. ‘There’s a creature in here with us, Carlos. There’s something you need to know.’

  ‘Well, whatever it is, I’m p . . . pretty sure it got on the Nyx with him. And if so, he got what he deserved!’

  The Nyx was now so far away. There was no doubt where Lesper was going to finish up.

  ‘Where’s everyone else?’ Araman asked.

  ‘All I could hear were screams down that way,’ Riess said, pointing to Section Four.

  ‘In that case there’s more than one, because one of them got Pine and Azal, and it almost had me. We need to contact Captain Justus on the Chaos. It's the only other ship able to help us now.’

  ‘Communications, then.’

  Riess ignited his coil and moved away. But Araman stopped to take one last look back at the Nyx as it disappeared into the violent haze of Tempest-Beta, a tiny dot in a milieu of miraculous spectacle.

  * * *

  The Battle of Aurora was over.

  Antal Justus gazed out of the anterior casement of the Fated Chaos’ bridge as one-hundred seemingly silent explosions tore outpost Aurora, along with all of the connected vessels, into one-million pieces of slowly drifting metal. The fire engulfed any trace of the incident and the attackers’ identities.

  ‘We’re free to make the leap, Captain,’ his pilot informed him.

  Justus couldn’t reply. He sighed and looked away.

  ‘Do we go?’

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘Captain Justus?’

  ‘No,’ Justus said.

  It had hit him from nowhere. What have I done?

  ‘Are we not returning to Erebus Station?’

  Justus breathed in, then out, his heart thumping in his temples. ‘Of course we are,’ he said.

  But at once the lights went out. Panicked voices filled the bridge and the Fated Chaos’ emergency lighting, blood red, kicked in.

  ‘Captain!’ the pilot cried.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We’ve taken damage from the explosion. It’s not good!’

  ‘Captain, what do we do?’

  But Justus did not care. An overwhelming part of him was horrified, irate at what he had just done. Perhaps being trapped at the edge of space was what he deserved. Perhaps he could put it right. But as the alarm sounded, his men in panic, and his captives locked away onboard he realised it was far, far too late for remorse.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  FOUR DAYS AFTER the liberation of Rotavar, the crew of the Crimson Flux had, unsurprisingly, already found itself in a similarly precarious position. The Martian Colony upon Mars, fourth world of the system Sol, was known for its violence, gangs, and criminal lords. The Martian Act of 4000 had removed Alignment regulation of the red planet, meaning its reputation, which hadn’t been solid at the outset, had fast gone down from that point on. In the region of Tharsis, on the borders of the Black Markets of Mars, stood a sturdy little inn. Upon a table inside that sturdy little inn, Adra Dimal snatched a sip of her brim-full flagon and looked intently upon her small crew. The three before her each, in turn, stared back, attentive and tacit—for the most part.

  ‘Everyone have their weapons?’ she asked.

  ‘Check.’

  ‘Weapons, Noah?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Check.’

  ‘Comms?’

  ‘Double check.’

  ‘Ahem . . . comms?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Noah, you’re not even listening!’

  ‘I am too!’

  Dimal slammed her pint down on the table between them, causing froth to shoot up and scatter between the several surrounding tables. ‘No, you’re not. You’re sat staring into your brew like a bleedin’ toddler!’

  Noah scoffed and went to say something, but took so long thinking of a retort that he gave up altogether, and returned to sulking in the corner of the four.

  ‘Right,’ Dimal said. Rolling her eyes at her childlike medic she stared across the small table at Raj and Shree. The former leaned forward energetically while his larger sister bowed down so as to avoid burning the top of her purple-feathered hat on the light hanging above; her legs were positioned uncomfortably close to her stomach and she looked genuinely unhappy.

  ‘Remind us again, Cap’n,’ Raj said. ‘What did the message say?’

  She cleared her throat and leaned in. He was of course talking about the communication they’d received on the journey from Rotavar to Earth. After the rather uneventful retreat of all Crilshan forces from the desert planet, the crew and their guest, Aíron Veryan, had set off without waiting, and headed for the safety of Earth. It was only as they had passed the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars that the communication came through.

  ‘In a word, it said the Captain’s in danger.’

  ‘Justus?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Crikey! What else?’

  ‘It said we’re the only ones what can help, and if we want to see him again we’ve to meet the messenger here on the Martian Colony. It didn’t say exactly where—’

  ‘And did it occur to either of you three that it could just be another trap?’ Noah said. ‘Hell knows we’ve fallen for enough of them!’

  The three glared at him and he retreated back to his corner, mumbling to himself about how much he hated it there. He took a huge mouthful of his own drink and spilled most of it down his shirt.

  Of course everybody now grouped around the table had considered the possibility that the message was a decoy aimed at leading the crew down there with intent to ambush them. The Flux had made plenty of enemies in its time, after all. But each one, and even Noah to the slightest extent, was willing to take that risk if it meant getting their captain back. He was, and had always been, their leader and friend.

  ‘I’m going to the puddle,’ Noah said, standing, but Raj set a strong hand on his shoulder and forced him back down.

  ‘What do you think you’re—’

  A loud and timely thud. They all turned toward the open door of the hostelry. Noah swore under his breath and almost fell beneath the table. Shree, who had taken quite a shine to the balding medic, reached across and propped him up. Raj tilted closer to Dimal and she watched his hand extend to his pistol; she’d already clutched hers.

  The tavern’s dense door slammed closed behind three enormous Crilshan soldiers, each with deadly blades in hand and grimaces to match. Their dark eyes were exposed and blood-stained garments, body-length, dragged along the floor. Obviously drunk, the foremost trudged up to the bar where several old and battered men sat, silent and petrified. The Crilshan picked up one of the men’s jugs and glugged the brew in one. He then slammed the jug down and stared at the drink’s owner.

  ‘Your flagon?’ the Crilshan asked.

  ‘Uh . . . y . . . yeah.’

  ‘Tut tut. Didn’t feel like fighting me for it?’

  ‘N . . . uh . . . no.’

  ‘Well that won’t do!’ The dark-eyed brute raised his blade and with immense might severed the old man’s arm. He shrieked in agony as the thug twisted the knife-edge and in one motion took off his head. It landed on the bar, before rolling off and across the floor towards the Flux’s table. Screams filled the bar and Dimal brought her shaking hand to her mouth.

  The Crilshan gazed at them all with a smile as his subordinates overturned nearby tables. ‘You’re knifed if you do, you’re knifed if you don’t!’ he cried.


  Dimal turned her head and locked eyes with Raj. ‘Do you have any of your grenades with you?’ she whispered.

  Raj breathed steady and nodded twice.

  One of the Crilshans slammed his fist into the face of a haggard-looking old woman. Shree made a brash clatter as she clutched Noah close, and the Crilshan’s head shot in their direction.

  ‘On my count,’ she mouthed, ‘one . . . two—’

  ‘Whoa! Dimal, watch out!’

  She ducked as the bright red light of a blaster rifle connected with the wall, inches above her head. Raj pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the creature responsible.

  ‘No!’ Dimal shouted to the Crilshans. ‘We don’t want trouble!’

  Another burst of red light missed Shree by centimetres, smashing the light above her head and shattering glass over the four.

  ‘On second thoughts—’ She pulled out her own blaster and shot the Crilshan square in the chest. One blue flash and he dropped to the ground, smoking.

  Raj Timbur pulled a grenade from his belt. ‘Over ‘ere you gotch-gutted slime sack!’ And he threw it at the nearest Crilshan, who replied by raising his blade and parrying the palm-sized fragment of metal. It shattered in a cloud of nauseating gas.

  * * *

  ‘This place is rough!’ Raj said as the four hurried from the back exit of the bar, coughing and laughing and moving quickly through bustling gangs of unusual people. Scuffles broke out all around them, but it appeared, from the reactions of everybody else, that it wasn’t uncommon.

  ‘Shame,’ Noah muttered from the middle of the group. ‘What are the chances of visiting the Valles Marineris while we’re here, Adra?’

  ‘Is it a bar?’

  ‘No, it’s—’

  ‘Then no.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said with a grunt. ‘I don’t see what’s wrong with a little culture, but fine . . . fine!’

  Dimal ignored Noah’s grumbling. Raj leaned over her shoulder with a smirk. ‘Close escape there,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know that lot ventured into this System.’

  ‘They don’t,’ she said, keeping her head down and moving through a crowd of blaster-trading clergy-women. ‘Or at least they haven’t until now. This is dangerous. They shouldn’t be here . . . and neither should we.’

  The sooner they heard what the mysterious fellow had to say, the quicker they could get away and head to Earth. They’d left Aíron Veryan inside the securely-bayed Flux, and even though she trusted her, Dimal nevertheless wished to return to the ship as soon as possible.

  She looked up, glimpsing the motionless stars through the reinforced caging which at that very moment held air and warmth inside and kept cold and death out. Shaking her head Dimal focused herself; she knew she had to keep her wits about her, had to have a clear head. It could just as easily be a trap as much as an urgent proposal.

  Mars’ largest volcano, Olympus Mons, was something of a tourist destination and so acted as a magnet to entrepreneurs and dirty dealers. According to Noah, who hadn’t shut up about it since the stranger’s message had arrived, Olympus Mons was surrounded by a region known as Tharsis; the locality was less cratered, but suffered from geological activity. They had, therefore, not left the Flux too far back. Noah did have his uses, even if they were pointless most of the time.

  The crowded pathways they now passed through were made up of small, semicircular tunnels which fast became teeming with impatient bodies. Entering the next section of the base they found themselves surrounded by great tents and multicoloured stalls of men and women screaming at them wildly. It would have been quite a shock for anyone that hadn’t encountered a Black Market before. Stomach-turning lights flashed and flickered in a dizzying dance of movement.

  Noah, tottering in the middle of the four, might have collapsed to the ground in a whimpering grand mal had his huge crewmate behind not seized him by the collar and, lifting him off his feet, carted him through the terrifying crowd of criminals and thieves. The curious assembly of crooks wore dark robes and costumes, and displayed scowls and grimaces which would have frightened a child to death.

  What kind of man would choose to meet in a place like this? Someone like Justus, she quickly reminded herself. She smiled at the thought, recalling the man she longed to see again, and tripping over a small form trapped between her and the horde ahead. She lifted the young, red-haired girl and realised who it was.

  ‘Aíron?! I said to stay on the ship!’

  ‘I know, I know!’ Aíron Veryan cried back, staring at the many black booths surrounding them. ‘I just wanted to see!’

  Raj, noticing her too, took her arm and hid her behind Dimal. ‘Aíron!’ he said sternly.

  ‘Akhhh I know, I know!’ she said again.

  ‘What is it?’ Noah called out, still hanging from Shree’s meaty hands. ‘Aíron!’

  ‘Akhhh!’ She folded her arms. ‘I want to stay with you!’

  Dimal started moving again. ‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘It’s too danger—’ A small lapse of awareness was all it took to stride headlong into a large vessel-of-a-man, who immediately veered around and gazed down upon her. And there was no mistaking those unnatural, eerie dark eyes. Red on black.

  ‘Ex . . . Excuse me,’ she said, recognising the intoxicated Crilshan from the bar and the danger they were all now in. She smiled widely, revealing white teeth behind rose-red lipstick.

  ‘No,’ he said, his deep voice lost in the tumult of the room, ‘I don’t think I will.’ He gripped her neck, raising her off the ground.

  ‘Oh, no?’ she choked, loosing from her belt an electric prod and ramming it into his exposed rib cage. He didn’t drop her, though he grimaced in pain and gripped her neck tighter.

  Behind her the others had realised what was happening. Raj pushed Aíron behind him as he, Noah, and Shree took out their weapons, aiming them at the Crilshan. But the crew of the Flux had learnt way back that the words easy and confrontation never went hand in hand when it came to them—this occasion was no exception. From behind the giant now holding their captain by the throat there emerged several more bladed Crilshans, coil-tips gleaming in the fluorescent light.

  Dimal fought his throttlehold, her legs kicking wildly. Do something! Do something quick! Think! What would Justus do? She gritted her teeth as his stranglehold became unbearable. That’s it! She swung her leg out, knocking him between the legs. He cringed. She bit down, sinking her teeth into his arm as hard as she could; she heard him cry out in pain, and felt herself launched far across the room. Down into darkness.

  * * *

  Dimal jerked herself awake and shot to her feet, no idea how long she’d been out cold. She could see the darkness above, filled with glowing lights. As she came around she saw that she was stood in the middle of a small pavilion somewhere near the edge of the large market room—judging from the height of the ceiling above through the hole in the canvas. She shook her legs alive and pulled out her comm, attempting to call the others.

  Moments passed before Raj’s panting voice answered.

  —Dimal, you’re alive! Where . . . are you?

  ‘In the middle of some grubby little tent,’ she said. ‘I’m not hurt, strangely.’

  —That’ll be the deficient gravity, Noah added over the comm. It’s only—

  —Oh shurrup! Raj said.

  ‘You lost our red-eyed friends?’

  —Yup, we lost ‘em . . . I think.

  ‘Everyone okay?’

  —Yup! Shree took out half of ‘em on her own. Aíron’s got a fair fist on her! But the huge guy, he got away. Looking for us right now. Oh, and Noah’s gone and got himself shot.

  ‘What?’

  —Got shot! Got shot! Noah’s infuriated voice appeared on the other end again. I didn’t do this to myself for pity sake!

  ‘You okay?’ she asked.

  —I’ll live. I need to get back to the Flux though. Right away.

  ‘Of course. Where are you?’

  —In the middle of it al
l, Raj answered. Near the almuit enclosure. Man those things look nasty! It’s a good job Justus ain’t here with us—he hates ‘em.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ she said. ‘I’ll make my way to you as soon as I find my bearings.’

  —Right you are, Cap’n.

  And he was gone. The noise of the market was overwhelming, though a little calmer in the tent. She waited and gathered her thoughts. Without Justus she felt so alone. He’d taught her everything she knew, rescued her from a trivial life in which she was worth nothing.

  ‘And now you’re gone,’ she said. ‘But I’d do anything to get you back.’

  ‘Would you really?’

  She twisted round in the dark of the tent. A figure stood in the shadows.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said would you really do anything to get him back?’ The voice spoke softly. It was a man.

  ‘Who’re you?’

  A frail old figure dawdled forwards, clad in intricately woven garments of dark red, blue, and gold; he didn’t look dangerous, and yet Dimal sensed he was capable of more than it would seem. He was tall and bent over in the small marquee, a slight silver beard covering his thin neck. The old man teetered closer. He looked at her kindly and smiled, then said, ‘I know you miss him, Adra, but to get Antal Justus back it will take all of your strength, courage, and resolve.’

  ‘How—’

  ‘Now stay calm. Take a seat, Adra.’ He offered her over to the small metal stool nearby. She sat down warily and watched the old man move across the pavilion to light a small bright-beam. As the tent filled in its glow, he dragged another stool over and perched himself upon it.

  ‘How do you know my name?’ she asked, examining his elderly features and diminishing silver hair. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Right now it’s safer if I don’t tell you my name,’ he said. ‘Know only that I wish to help. Many lives are at stake, not only your own or Antal’s.’

  ‘How do you know so much? You can’t possibly be—’

  ‘Reading your mind? Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Then how?’

  He smiled. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

  ‘Don’t joke!’

  He raised his large eyebrows. ‘Look, I called you here because we both know you want the man you love back. And he wants to return to you, trust me he does. But he’s about to face a greater danger than any of you could imagine.’

  ‘It was you that called us here? How do you know all this?’ she asked, leaning towards the old man.