by Ian Cannon
“And we’re dead in the void.”
“It’s risky.”
“Too risky,” she agreed. “After what we’ve been through? I think we should pick up a job we can depend on, get some guaranteed yield in our pockets. For now, it’s easier, it’s safer.”
He gave her a pragmatic gaze and said, “That means going to the Guild. That means going back to Sympto.”
She nodded looking glum. “Yeah.”
He scooted off the chair and got down on his knees leaning into the bed, taking her hand, looking into her, deep. “We’ll be right back where we started.”
She responded to his look with affection. “Look,” she said, “I’d love to go freelance as much as you, babe, but right now? I hate to say it, I think we give that goat-eared vac scum a call.”
Her words rang true. He gave her a sharp nod. “Then I agree. A hundred percent.”
“It’s our best choice.”
“Okay,” he said getting to his feet. “Then it looks like we’re back in the saddle, baby.”
She grinned sardonically, said, “Music to my ears.”
Ben entered the cockpit fastening his Golothan red long-sleeve shirt. It was his favorite, a tiny piece of home. Tawny came in behind him.
“REX,” he called, “bring up the space chart, local.”
“Okay, Cap,” the ship said. He was chipper, glad to have his captain back.
The holoscreen popped up a 3-D space chart, a cube of space showing interplanetary lanes. Sarcon was still the nearest planet, but only by a cosmic smidgen. They’d intended to get as far away from civilization as possible. Ben studied it, eyeing the distance between their current position and Speculus. The Guild.
“Bringing up the mail comm,” Tawny said. She looked over expectantly. “Anything for our friends?”
“Just a common greet on the Guilder’s channel. Let them know we’re out here. Keep it out of universal comm space.”
“Of course,” she said. “Anything special you want to say? They haven’t seen us in a while.”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Okay,” she said. “Sending the ping.”
Without a DPM signal, it’d take several minutes to get a return hail. They’d have to wait. She turned to Ben, said, “Game of Chenn?”
Chenn. The very word made Ben grin. They hadn’t played Chenn in … months. An eighteen-piece board game in which the players moved against each other deploying mindful tact and aggressive strategy. He was a bit surprised she suggested the play. She never won.
Half way through the game, Tawny found herself at a critical moment. One wrong move, and she’d lose. She reached for a game piece. Ben cleared his throat. She eyed him sharply. She thought, struggled, reached for another piece. He groaned. She shook her head, her hand frozen in air, switched and made her original move.
That’s game …
He hesitated to make his final move, something she obviously hadn’t seen. It would surprise her. Maybe shock her. In fact, he wasn’t too sure how she’d take it. He finally pulled back from the game looking toward the cockpit, thinking.
“What?” she said.
“You hear that?”
“No.”
“Silence,” he said.
“Just make your move,” she demanded.
He looked at her, slightly concerned. “We should have gotten a return hail by now, you think?”
Diverted, she said, “Huh, maybe.”
“We should check.”
She cringed at the board, eyeing it. She made an exasperated look. There it was. She left her cardinal piece wide open. She cleared her throat and said, “Uh, yeah, comm systems, let’s go check.”
Ben slid into the pilot’s seat, Tawny into the co. It took mere seconds for her to find no return hail, no ping resolve, no answer. “Hmm,” she said. “Nothing.”
“REX,” Ben said, “have we heard back at all?”
“No ears no beers, Cap. Sorry.”
He gave his ship a curious look. “You sure it didn’t get caught up in the onboard memory vat, maybe deposited as solar noise?”
“Positive, Cap.”
He looked at Tawny, said, “Nothing?”
She checked again. “I’m showing nothing. Our ping went out, nothing came back.” She looked at him.
“This is strange,” Ben said flicking his lips, thinking.
Tawny said, “Maybe we should plot a course, head for Speculus.”
He had to agree. He tempted a thought, but it wasn’t a good one. He shook his head, bewildered. “I don’t know.”
Tawny said, “What about an open hail?”
He looked at her. “That’s the data net. Anyone looking will know we’re out here.”
“It’s either that or plot a course,” she reasoned.
He scratched his head, rubbed his face. They’d been away long enough to flush out anyone who might be looking for them. It seemed unlikely an open hail would bring unwanted attention. He shrugged his shoulders, said, “Okay. Let’s do it.”
She initiated the proper commands quickly and looked at him. “Open.”
He cleared his throat, said, “This is the private cargo hauler REX, Benjar and Tawny Dash captains, hailing Guild operations, Speculus sector, requesting private hail on inner-system data-stream, sector four-one-oh-point-oh-one-oh, sub nine. Respond in kind. We have docket space to be filled. Not particular. We await a ping return. Greetings from afar.” He looked at her, said, “Okay.”
She punched a button. The comm system thumped, sending the signal off at the speed of one full warp—slower than a DPM, faster than standard. She said, “Now we wait.”
Ben sighed looking out at space beyond the viewport wondering how so much light could be ensconced eternally in such darkness. It was a beautiful sight, depthless yet immediate, leaving him to wonder if the view of such a cosmos would ever get old. He murmured, “I missed this.”
Tawny smiled at him. Their trials were over. They were home. Most importantly, they were together. It was perfect.
No return message. More than enough time had passed. They should have received an incoming hail by now. And yet, nothing. Was it time to get concerned?
He looked at Tawny. She was thinking the same. He could tell. “What do you think?” she said.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
“Maybe no one’s home.”
He looked at her ridiculously. It was the Guild. Someone was always home. “No,” Ben said, “They’re just not responding.”
Tawny said, “Our ping was marked with our unique sig. They would have known it was us.”
He nodded with his lips drawn tight, a show of irritation. “They know we’re out here.”
“Maybe there’s something wrong,” she said.
“Or maybe …”
Tawny looked at him dawning an angry look, realization striking her hard. “No way,” she said. “You think?”
They’d been blacklisted, fired, stripped from the Guild’s docket.
“Better not,” Ben said. “I’ll blaster dust that vacuum stinker myself.”
Tawny’s jaw clenched rippling the tight muscles under her skin, her lips drawing thin. “That little …” Her words trailed off.
“There’s one way to find out,” Ben said.
“We can’t go back there,” she insisted. “Not until we know.”
“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” he said in agreement. “But there’s someone who will know. REX, open a system hail.”
“Okay, Cap. Who we talking to?”
Ben pulled a big breath. It was a dangerous proposition he was conjuring up. He said, “Teridrone.”
Tawny jerked at the word. She reached over, put a hand on his arm. “That’s Radier’s Bay, Benji. You sure about that?”
He looked over. They met eyes. Ben’s were cutting and angry. “If we go back to the Guild and I find out Sympto de-commed us, I’ll kill him myself, Tawny, I swear to gods,” he said.
She pulled her
hand back slowly. This wasn’t her Benji talking. He’d never made such a declaration. She had to wonder what that prison had done to him? In how many ways had it hardened him? Nevertheless, his logic was sound. They couldn’t go back to the Guild. All the arse-hole fingers were currently pointing at Sympto. So, where else could they find answers? She gave him a compliant grin. “Fair enough, babe.” She cocked her head. “Raider’s Bay it is.”
When the beacon hail returned from Raider’s Bay they both knew the noose had tightened. They were blind in space. Low on resources. Nearly dead in the void. And now, they had contacted a network of pirates and scum. They gave up their position. Of the half a million souls at that nefarious network of villains, if one of them had a bone to pick, they now knew where Tawny and Ben were. They had their twin system xeno-cartographic location pinned down to the sub-zone and cubed klick. They’d just unzipped the proverbial old bio-suit.
But they still had friends there. At least they hoped.
Tawny read the look in Ben’s eyes. They hadn’t opened the return hail yet, just sat staring at it. Anything could be in that package. She sighed, “You think he’ll help?”
“All we need are a few answers.” He looked at her. She didn’t share his enthusiasm. He said defensively, “Look, it won’t be like last time.”
“You mean when he chased us off the planet with fighter escort?”
Unable to counter her point he sighed, “Yeah, like that.” He said, “Okay, REX, open it.”
The hail unzipped over the holo-screen forming a 3-D block of data stream noise, an audio wave that fluxed in rhythm with the sender’s voice: “Tawny and Benjar Dash. This is Rullum Det, Aegis Prime of Raider’s Bay. You have been received transmitting an unwarranted plea for data stream information on an open hail. As members of the Guild and reprobates of the black market, you have been flagged as enemies of Knave’s Blade and are therefore banned from approach, order six-oh-six-one. Any attempt to oppose this sanction will be met with dire and deadly force. Therefore, it is incumbent upon—”
Another voice cut in. It was gruff and heavy, full of a pirate’s baccy-throated malcontent. Tanwy and Ben both flinched with recognition. It boomed, “That the comm package to them Dashes?”
“Yeah.”
“Give it here.” A pause. Some shuffling. Then, “Benjar, that you, you bump on a scally-wagger’s honey-pot, you jelly-bellied flyboy, you bloodless vac-leach?” Yep—that was the man they’d hoped to talk to alright. That was Axum. And nope—he hadn’t forgotten their past. He continued, “You owe me yield, remember? Yeah—you’re lucky I ain’t come snuff it up from your bobbing goody sack already … you and that ore-melter Raylon redhead you run with. And now you come poking for data info? What’re you, testing your damn dumb luck, boy? Ought to feed you out myself—you and all your Guilder wormdogs. Now I want you to listen. And believe me, you’re gonna want to listen, too, cause if I so much as space sniff on a inner-warp sig that even so much as gets my head stone to thinking it be you, boy, I’m gonna put you in a world make you wish was a deep and dark moggot pit. So please, Benjar, I beg you … come around Raider’s Bay, get within a bi-sol eye poop of Teridrone, so much as tickle on my comms again … and you’ll see. Fact is, now I know you’re still out there scrounging off rust rocks in the void, shoot son, I might just send me a couple cold-blooded henchies to come and …”
“End!” Tawny yelled, and the holo-comm fizzled away.
Silence fell. Ben frowned in dark thought, arms crossed. Nothing was said for several seconds before he groaned in deflated understatement, “Well, that didn’t work.”
Tawny said, “Did he say eye poop?”
Ben nodded with humility. “I think that’s what he said.”
Tawny said, “We can forget Raider’s Bay.”
“Or Teridrone for that matter. The whole planet’s off the table.” They shared a daunted look. “We’re out of options,” he said.
She nodded miserably and concluded, “We go back to the Guild, then. No choice.”
Ben said, “Looks that way. It won’t be friendly.”
Tawny sighed, “It’s starting to feel like we’ve run out of friends.”
Ben said, “Then let’s just be ready.” She nodded in agreement. Ben called, “REX?”
“Uh-huh. I heard, Cap. This’ll be fun.”
They banked around angling toward Speculus and—BOOM—gone.
Eight
Outer Commerce Routes
The Planet Speculus
Non-partisan space region
The mirror planet hung below through the viewport, just a round black blank spot in space with starlight glinting off its curving edges. Toward the far horizon, they could see Oficium languishing in orbit like a long, silvery object. Lights from incoming and outgoing traffic shimmered distantly. Even at that, commerce seemed lower than usual. There were no columns of approaching ships. Even the comm lanes were sporadic at best, just a bunch of idol chatter zinging dock instructions back and forth from the station to the traffic.
Ben groaned. Didn’t like the looks of this. Oficium was not only a major point of commerce in this sector; when it came to Speculus and its surrounding planets tucked way out here on the fringes of non-partisan space, it was the only hub of operation. Now, it wasn’t much more than a ghost town. Whatever had happened while they were away was big.
Tawny pointed through the viewport, said, “Look at that, Benji.”
The station had scooted into view, growing closer. Its individual hubs became clearer, each one comprising a segment of the station. There was something wrong. Its long frame had a section missing. A big one. Space crews worked to literally recompress the entire superstructure back together, closing an entire section that had gone missing like reassembling the entire spine of the operation.
Realization dawned on Ben like a shot to the gut. He murmured in shock, “There’s no Guilder’s Mix. It’s …”
“Gone,” Tawny said.
They looked at each other through deep, weary eyes. Tawny said, “Fexx Pol?”
Ben nodded and said, “Yeah.” He brought up a local comm channel watching its spherical 3-D audio representation flower across the holo-pad. “This is Captains Tawny and Ben Dash of the privateer cargo vessel REX on Oficium approach vector zero, hailing Fexx Pol’s garage, over.”
They waited. A voice came through sounding a bit mystified. “Benjar, this is Fexx on response. Is that you?” The Pendulosi’s head formed into view like a bust, Fexx’s perma-mutton chops and wild-eyed face gleaming forward, an expression of surprise.
Their Pendulosi friend was responding. It shot a sensation of relief through the cockpit. Ben said, “Yeah, Fexx. We’re within visual range of—”
“No!” he cut in. “You can’t be here, my friend.” Fexx’s head swiveled back and forth as if looking for anyone within earshot.
“What’s happened? Where’s Guilder’s Mix?” Ben said.
“There was …” a pause filtered over the channel as if Fexx was putting his words together. “There was an incident. The Guild is … I’m afraid the Guild is no more. I thought, well, I thought you guys were dead.”
“Fexx,” Ben said wrestling back his nerves. “What happened?”
“That’s unclear, my friend. An attack, perhaps an infiltration. Not sure. Oficium quarantined the entire hub. It’s been removed for dismantling … what’s left of it.”
“Oh Gods,” Tawny gasped.
“An attack?”
“Don’t know,” Fexx said barely above a whisper. “No one’s saying anything and I ain’t asking.”
“Was anyone killed?” Ben said.
Tawny cut in, “What about survivers? Did anyone survive?”
Fexx could be seen forcing a swallow as a pause filtered across the channel, the silence thick and loud inside their flight deck. Fexx Pol finally murmured, “No one.”
Ben felt himself wilt back into his pilot chair, everything flushing numb. He shook his head and asked, “Wh
o did this?”
“I don’t know, Benjar. No one knows. Listen, I’m very sorry, my friend, but I can’t … uh …”
Ben cut him off, “I understand.” If someone had gunned for the Guild, and if they’d left none alive, then his and Tawny’s mere presence could be interpreted as a threat to Oficium. Ben leaned toward the comm transmitter and asked, “Where’d they take the hub?”
“Far side,” Fexx said quickly, secretively.
Far side of the planet. Demolition crews were probably in the process of dismantling it, scrapping its useable parts, preparing the rest for smelt down. Ben looked at Tawny with the first incling of rage rising up in him. He said, “There’s got to be someone still alive.”
She nodded in agreement. There was only one way to find out. They’d have to investigate the wreckage on their own. Ben said back into the comm channel, “Fexx, thank you for everything, pal.”
“Good luck, my friends,” Fexx said, and the transmission ended.
They boosted in reverse orbit around the tiny black planet watching its curvature reveal an expanding vista of space as they came around. In minutes, they spotted the demolition. The hub that housed Guilder’s Mix was still intact, huge, thousand-foot spires of the Oficium main frame jutting from either end of it like big, steel tentacles. They could easily see where demo crews had severed it from the main body of the space station. Little auto-bot crews hovered around it like bees.
“REX,” Ben said, “what do you see?”
“The exterior’s still intact, mostly. It doesn’t look like there was any primary breaching, unless they’ve evacuated the atmosphere internally.”
Tawny said, “It’s still breathable.”
REX confirmed, “That’s most likely, but I got to say, it looks like any primary systems are offline.”
“That means no arti-grav,” Ben said.
“Yep.”
They watched the entire operation rotate gently as they moved around it in a slow lateral sweep. “We need an entry point.”
“There,” Tawny said pointing to the hub’s most polar point, a small tower jutting up from the hub like an open elevator shaft. It had been marked with some sort of explosive scoring. “That’s where Guild leadership obviously escaped in their pod.”
