Star Crossed

by C. Gockel

  Allysha recoiled, hand pressed to her heart. She’d met that man, the one who was shot. Passingael, that was his name. Latif Passingael. Nice man, obliging and inoffensive. And a trooper had killed him. She bit her lip. The man had shown courage, to broadcast that message instead of hiding somewhere. He must have known he wouldn’t survive.

  "… could have been contrived," one of the analysts said.

  "True," said another person on the panel. Her name appeared below her image, Meranda Sutchcock, associate professor in politics from Alexander Moreton University. "But the question must be why? Who stands to gain from this?"

  "Not the Ptorix," said a heavy-faced man sitting further down. Chas Marais, journalist from the Galaxy Times.

  "Well, you say that, Chas, and it’s certainly true of the Ptorix who were on Brjyl, but what about Anxhou?" Sutchcock asked. She wore a lot of jewelry and waved her hands about when she talked.

  Allysha lost interest. Typical. They were going to blame the old enemy. She shook her head. It seemed pretty conclusive to her. Murdering a few thousand innocent miners would be child’s play for Saahren.

  10

  Allysha checked the security systems one more time. In the evening the mine was down to just a few personnel. No one was about, just one fellow in the control room. She altered the security system to register her as being in her quarters and set off to the store room.

  The door slid open at her touch. Just an ordinary store room, a long counter and a delivery system in front of racks of shelving. To get to the shelves themselves, you had to go around the counter. The pathway seemed to be empty, but an infrared energy grid, invisible to a normal human eye, blocked the passage, red lines zigzagging up and down between the walls and the counter. She turned the system off for as long as it took her to get past and hoped the man in the control room wouldn’t notice. Now to check their secret store.

  Standing at the end of the middle row, she activated a control. A faint rumble set her heart thumping again. A block of stone as tall as a man slid back and aside on runners. Lights blinked on but she turned them off, relying on the barely-discernible gleam from her torch. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

  Row after row of shelves loomed ghost-like, fading into the distance. The place was much larger than the public stores. She walked slowly along the aisles reading labels, once again checking for unexpected additions. Machine parts, engines, cutting blades, lathes, metal presses, tubes of various types of alloy, building materials, lengths of cloth, sheets of metal arranged according to size. All these items were innocent. But if this was all legitimate, why was a military InfoDroid sitting in the control room?

  She pulled a box of machine parts down and looked inside. Yes. She knew it. Hand guns. She pushed the box back and pulled out another. The contents looked harmless enough but the instructions and the warnings didn’t. Some sort of malleable explosive. And this one over here, labeled pipes, actually contained rocket launchers. So that was it. They’d devised a code; legitimate names for illegal items. Now at least she knew the truth. What she would do about it was another thing altogether. What could she do?

  Deep in thought she activated the secret door and stepped back into the store room.

  "And what would you be doing here at this time of night?" The voice was soft and baritone.

  A tall figure faced her. Fear galloped up her backbone and grabbed her throat. Brad Stone. "Um… I forgot something. I came back to look for it."

  Damn and blast. So busy stewing she forgot to check the security system before she came out. Idiot.

  He had a half smile on his face, as though he didn’t believe her. "Did you find it?"

  "Uh… no. No, I didn’t." She tried a laugh. "Knowing me I’ll find it in my room when I get back. I’ll… I’ll get on." She made to step past him but he blocked her.

  "Your ID doesn’t appear on this tablet," he said lifting the device. "Why is that?"

  Her heart thudded painfully. "Must be a malfunction."

  "Ah. Is that how you got through the infrared grid at the door without triggering it?"

  Oh, shit. She gaped up at him.

  "Stone? Stone! Are you in there?"

  She swallowed a gasp. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. The voice came from beyond the counter, harsh and loud.

  Stone grabbed her arm and shoved her back amongst the shelves while he strode toward the advancing footsteps. She cowered, her heart pounding.

  "What’s wrong?" Stone said.

  "What the fuck are you doing down here?" That was Ludovic, she was sure.

  "Just doing a non-routine check, boss. We used to do that in Fleet. That way, criminals couldn’t be sure when we’d be around. But if it bothers you…"

  "No. No, not a bad idea. Fine. Get on with it then."

  Ludovic’s footfalls faded away.

  "Miss Marten?"

  She edged out of the shadows. "Thanks."

  He smiled and his shoulders relaxed. "I get the idea you are as interested to know what’s really going on here as I am."

  Her fear ebbed away. Just a little. Maybe she’d have an ally. "Why are you interested?"

  "That military InfoDroid in the control room. Where did they get it and what else do they have? People like these arm and support terrorists. I don’t like that; the Confederacy doesn’t like that."

  "You’re from the Confederacy?"

  "Yes. What’s your interest?"

  "What they’re doing is obviously illegal if they want a system that can fool a military grade InfoDroid. They’re using me to commit a crime. So I went and checked. They have cartons in there labeled as innocuous things like pipes or machine parts. But they are actually weapons. If they’re supporting terrorism, I don’t want to be a part of that."

  "Weapons, eh? You’re sure?"

  "A hand gun’s a weapon, isn’t it? And even I know what a rocket launcher looks like. There’s some sort of squishy explosive stuff, too."

  "Is there indeed? Can you show me?"

  "Sure." She opened the door. He made to follow but she held him back. "Wait here. If you go in there, you’ll activate the alarms."

  She pulled out a block of the explosive and came back with it.

  "Shardite," he said, holding the packet in his hand. "It’s pretty well undetectable, the sort of thing terrorists use to blow up restaurants." He handed it back to her. "Thank you."

  She returned the explosive to its carton and closed the door behind her.

  "Have you done something so you’re not tracked?" he asked. "The system says you’re in your room."

  She squirmed. "I have."

  He stared down at her for a long moment. "I’d love to know how you did that."

  "Just a bit of software engineering. That’s what I do."

  "Tell me, what exactly have they asked you to do?"

  "Hide subsets of the system so an InfoDroid won’t find the data."

  He nodded, frowning thoughtfully. "I can’t stay here too long. Can I meet you later? To talk? I’m off duty in an hour."

  "Okay. Come to my room. It’s private there." As soon as she’d said it, she regretted the words. Maybe he’d see it as a come-on? "Or… or somewhere else."

  "An hour, your room."

  He walked away, tall and confident. Her heart thudded dully in her chest. She hoped she hadn’t done something stupid.

  11

  Saahren checked his chrono again. Another ten minutes and he could go and meet her. He couldn’t get her out of his head. He felt like a love-struck kid. But it wasn’t just her slim body, her creamy skin and those incredible eyes. What a find; what a remarkable find. She’d altered the security system in the mine, she could speak Ptorix, she could work on Ptorix systems and she could fool a military-grade InfoDroid. He wanted her for himself, and her abilities for his fleets. Assuming he was reinstated, of course.

  How she felt about all of that might be a different issue. She certainly didn’t like Admiral Saahren. Perhaps Brad Stone could change her pe
rception.

  Duval, his replacement, came into the control room still yawning. "Everything quiet?"

  "Of course. Nothing much happens here. Have a good time."

  Saahren vacated the chair and strode down the main drive to the side tunnel. His heart pounding, he almost ran up the stairs and knocked. The door slid aside and she stepped away to let him in. He gazed around the room, all curved walls and arches covered in whitewash. A sofa and two single chairs stood around a low table and a holovid cube occupied a corner.

  "Ptorix," he said.

  "Yes. If you look carefully, you can see hints of the design under the paint." She huffed a sigh. "Vandals. But at least you can get whitewash off. They scraped the walls of the main tunnel. Priceless artifacts, destroyed." She shook her head.

  "Typical GPR. They don’t like us, but they like the Ptorix even less. As you say, vandalism."

  "Where are my manners?" She waved a hand at a chair. "Sit down. Can I make you some tea?"

  He sank down onto a chair and shook his head. "No, thank you." He rummaged for words, staring at her. The top button of her shirt had come undone and he caught a tantalizing glimpse of breast.

  She tilted her head to one side. "What did you want to know?"

  When you’ll marry me. He hadn’t even realized he’d thought the words. Pull yourself together. "What do you know about this place?"

  "Not much. I’ve only been here a few weeks. You know about the warehouse."

  "I do now."

  She gave a little shrug. "I guess that’s the idea. It’s hidden, the exit to the hangar is hidden. You can only see that place on the graphic if you’re authorized. And they wanted me to make sure not even a military InfoDroid could penetrate the security."

  "And you’ve done that." He felt faint at the thought. But he’d seen the demonstration.

  "Yes."

  "How?"

  She flapped her hands in a circular motion. "It’s what I do. Engineer software."

  Good God. She said it as though it was nothing. You could count the number of people in Fleet who could do that on one hand and have fingers left over. The InfoDroids maintained themselves. They were virtually impenetrable.

  "Do you know what they’re using that medical research center for?"

  She stared at him with those wonderful green eyes. "Just testing toxins, aren’t they? That’s what I was told, to develop drugs."

  "What security is there?"

  "Only to get in there. You need a special pass which has only been issued to the researchers. That’s six people." She shrugged. "If they have sensors or a computer system in there, it’s kept separate from the main system. Shielded, I guess."

  "That’s a bit odd in itself, isn’t it?’

  "Is it? I wouldn’t know."

  Weapons smuggling and a laboratory to research drugs? Not comfortable bed fellows in his opinion. What were they really doing in there?

  "Who are these researchers?" he said.

  "I can show you the personnel files."

  She unclipped the oblong device from her belt and pressed a button to project a keyboard. She frowned, concentrating. A few key presses and a list of names appeared above the device with a face next to each.

  He moved to stand behind her, reading the list. Most of them meant nothing to him. Except Rostich. Where had he heard that name? He wished he had access to his good friend, Admiral Vlad Leonov, head of Fleet intelligence. "Can you do me a search on Rostich?"

  "Sure. Come and sit next to me." She moved to the sofa, rotated the device and bent over the table, dark hair hanging around her face.

  He swallowed. What he’d give to put his arm around her, kiss her. But he sat down beside her, the subtle scent of her filling his nostrils, the very thought of her stimulating his groin. She ignored him, pressing keys, filtering data.

  "There are quite a lot of entries here. Toxicologist, won a prize for research. But they’re all fairly old."

  He leant toward her, reading over her shoulder. What had it been? Unethical? Drummed out? "See if you can find anything about unethical research."

  She altered the search criteria. A list of articles appeared, all with variations on a theme. ‘Rostich exposed’, ‘Rostich to be charged’, ‘Rostich dubbed murderer’.

  "That’s it. Open the third one."

  Doctor Leon Rostich had been drummed out of the Confederacy Institute for Medical Research two years ago for unethical behavior to do with testing drugs. He’d paid impoverished people to act as guinea pigs without telling them the risks of the drug he was developing. Ten died and as many as fifty suffered disfiguring illnesses.

  "That’s awful," she said.

  She’d turned her body so she could look at his face. Her knee touched his, sending a shiver of heat through him. He hoped she couldn’t see the naked lust he was feeling right now.

  "He got away with it, too. He left the Confederacy just before he was charged. Looks like we know where he went."

  "What are you thinking?" Two lines had appeared between her eyebrows and her lips were parted, just a little.

  "You know the Ptorix abandoned this planet thirty years ago?"

  She nodded. "Yes. I was told silly stories about karteks getting everybody and some sort of jewel deep in the mine that irradiated everyone. I also heard the mine was just not economically viable. And that’s actually true. But it was a virus."

  "You know that? How?"

  His contact on Chollarc had mentioned in passing that the Confederacy believed that a disease wiped out the population on Tisyphor but no proof had ever been found.

  She sighed and her chest heaved in a too-interesting way. "When van Tongeren brought me to this apartment and I saw what they’d done, I thought I’d take a look around, see if there was anything in the Ptorix cupboards and things. They’d been emptied but I found a hidden compartment in the closet."

  She went into the bedroom and returned carrying a small, square book, its covers decorated in swirls of red and gold.

  "I found this in the closet, along with a couple of books and a ghabra; it’s a musical instrument. They must have been there since the day the place was abandoned." She licked her lips, eyes glistening. "Only the planet wasn’t abandoned. They all died. This is the last mine manager’s diary. It’s all there. When they first noticed the illness, what happened. Doctors came from the Khophirate but they died, too."

  Saahren felt cold. It made sense. An unstoppable virus that killed Ptorix. The Ptorix isolated the place and kept the disease secret, no doubt fearing that someone might come and seek the virus out. And now someone was possibly doing just that.

  A resurrected biological weapon that could devastate any Ptorix planet. He could say honestly that he wouldn’t use anything like that. Although he wasn’t so certain about a few of the other admirals. Indiscriminate, devastating, uncontrollable. The nutters of the GPR… oh, yes, he could see them using something like this in a heartbeat. If these people were to find that virus, the business on Brjyl would become a playground spat in comparison.

  Sure, maybe it would work for a time. Until the Ptorix realized what they were up against and used environmental suits, or found a way of killing the disease. The story of Tisyphor would be somewhere in the Khophirate’s archives. They’d soon realize. And even with the superior Confederacy Starfleet, what hope would they have? The Khophirate was just too vast, too many planets over too much distance and the survivors would come roaring back, hell-bent on vengeance, no doubt led by the human-hating Ptorix fundamentalists. The human race would be lucky to survive.

  "Does it say where the virus originated?"

  She shook her head. "Just that the first person to die was stung by a thranx. I showed this to Jarrad. This is how Fyysor describes the disease."

  She flicked through the pages, from the back, as he saw it, from bottom to top, and found a page covered in ornate Ptorix script.

  She read, slowly, translating as she went. ‘The first sign of the illness seems to be a
cough. About three days later, the soreness begins and with it, the pain. Breathing is difficult, the patient vomits ichor. It is as if they dissolve from within. From that time, death comes quickly.’

  "Jarrad said it made sense, that it could have been a cross-over from a thranx to the Ptorix."

  "Jarrad?" A boyfriend? He had competition?

  "Jarrad Korns. He was a researcher here. We got friendly but he left a little while ago."

  Good. The twinge of jealousy settled.

  "I was told in the orientation that thranxes kill with their sting, which injects a solvent into the victim’s body. They suck the dissolved liquid with a proboscis, leaving an empty husk."

  She shuddered. "It’s revolting, isn’t it? But I suppose that’s how the Tors eat. They sort of suck up mush through their eating mouths. Jarrad said they were experimenting, trying to find helpful drugs based on the venom. It’s hard to imagine, really."

  She was so naïve. It was almost a shame to destroy her illusion. "Allysha, I think these people are trying to find the virus."

  She stared up at him, worried, unhappy and so very vulnerable. He wanted to kiss her, comfort her. "But why? Why would you want to find something like that?"

  "To use it as a biological weapon."

  Her jaw dropped, lips parted, eyes widened. "Oh… no. That’s…"

  "Terrible. Yes."

  She was silent for a moment, unmoving. "Would they really, actually use something like that?"

  "Some people would. Extremists who hate the Ptorix."

  Her face clouded. "Like van Tongeren."