The Corsair Uprising #1: The Azure Key

by Trevor Schmidt

  22

  With Ju-Long’s help, Liam raised the hover bike upright and powered it on. The bike sputtered before raising itself up half a meter. The two of them mounted it, Ju-Long grasping Liam’s cloak, and the hand he’d used to punch the soldier hanging uselessly at his side. The hologram of the Garuda Colony map flickered in and out, the red dot that marked the hangar jumped around to several locations, trying to get its bearings. Liam swung his hand through the image and hit the dash with a closed fist. The transparent lines of the map turned solid, clearly visible once again in the bright morning sun.

  “Hold on,” Liam said before pressing down his toes and accelerating down the dirt road.

  Liam veered the hover bike right along a bend and the street was once again full of Dinari. They were headed through the middle of a street market with countless carts and booths blocking their way. Liam slowed the bike and maneuvered around the stands. As he approached, the Dinari wisely moved out of his way. They were going slow enough that several of the Dinari stopped and stared at Liam’s face under his hood. A few of them pointed and spoke amongst themselves. Liam imagined seeing an alien roaming the streets of Toronto during the New Year’s Festival. The news would have traveled far faster on Earth, where the technology was primarily concerned with sharing information fast rather than more useful pursuits like feeding its people.

  Liam broke through the far edge of the street market and accelerated once more, making a few turns through alleys out of caution. In five minutes they were approaching the red dot on their map. Liam came to a halt at the edge of an alley looking out onto one of the main streets. The red dot was flashing straight ahead. He looked across the street and saw a massive structure that was five stories tall and stretched for a few city blocks. The structure was metal with tendrils of clay creeping up from the bottom, as though it was being eaten by the sand. In front of them there was a large hangar door that was open several meters. Enough room for a hover bike.

  “What are you waiting for?” Ju-Long asked.

  Liam turned his head over his shoulder and replied, “I’m making sure we weren’t followed.”

  They waited a couple of minutes without hearing any Ansaran ships in their vicinity. Liam nodded and pressed his foot down, jetting across the street and through the open hangar door. When they made it through the corrugated metal door dropped behind them, slamming on the ground with a thud that reverberated throughout the building. The sound caught Liam off guard and he broke hard.

  The hangar was lit mostly by two rows of skylights several stories above them. Liam looked down the row of ships, unable to see the end. In front of them was a large craft with sharp wings that folded back over its frame like a bug. The body was rounded on the bottom and terminated at a sharp point where the cockpit would be. It was easily seventy-five meters long and twenty-five wide when the wings were back. The ship was a copper color, but made from an alloy unknown to Liam. Instead of being smooth like the Ansaran vessels, this ship was asymmetrical, with bits and pieces thrown together on the outside hodgepodge as though repairs had been frequent over the years. Sand was caked in the crevices making it appear even older.

  A voice greeted them from behind.

  “What took you so long?”

  Nix stood with arms crossed, Saturn to his right and their bikes pushed into a corner behind them. His hood was down and the light from the skylights bore down on his tan scales. Liam and Ju-Long got off the hover bike and faced him.

  “We got held up, but we took care of it,” Liam replied.

  Nix’s expression turned grave and he dropped his hands to his side.

  “You took care of it? Were you seen?”

  “We’re here and we weren’t followed, so can we get on with this?”

  Nix’s gaze moved to Ju-Long’s broken hand and he seemed to understand. He walked toward the craft and started pushing buttons on a control panel off its starboard side. The computer terminal came out of the ground and appeared to control the hangar doors and the clamps that held the landing gear in place. When Nix pressed a button on the console a hologram appeared over it. Nix swiped his hand and the clamps were released. With another swipe, the doors opposite them began to open.

  “Get inside,” Nix said. “We haven’t got much time.”

  When Liam approached the ship a ramp came down from its underbelly and clanked against the concrete floors. Liam made his way up the ramp and was quickly joined by the others. At the top of the ramp, Nix pressed a red button on the wall and it retracted, the air compressing around it as they were sealed inside.

  They were in a cargo area with several metal boxes strapped to the floor along the wall. The room was rectangular but rounded at the edges to conform to the ship. The walls curved up like the abdomen of a beetle. On either side of the cargo area were circular doorways. Nix immediately went to the right corridor and walked toward the front of the ship. Liam and the crew followed along the curved dimly lit path, looking to the left through several doorways as they passed. They passed a kitchen and some sort of meeting area on their way forward. The path curved in toward the center before a circular entryway marked the cockpit.

  Inside there were four seats upholstered with cracked leather made from an unfamiliar animal. It was harder than cow leather and dried out from the desert planet. What would have been high quality at one time was now broken and uncomfortable. The cockpit was a good size with two chairs facing the front and two behind them facing each other, each with a console of their own. A center aisle a meter wide separated the pilot’s chairs.

  Nix sat down in the pilot’s seat and powered on the craft. Above his console was a holographic image of the vessel in a soft orange color which grew brighter as the ship came to life. Liam could hear the whir of the engines and wondered how they were powered. Were they made with the same technology that powered the lifts in the spire? The alien technology was so foreign at times that it hardly seemed possible.

  Through the glass window of the cockpit Liam could see the hangar doors open wide, the busy street bustling on the other side. Nix put his hand through a circular metal rung and grabbed a handle on the other side. It was like no controls he’d ever seen, but it somehow felt familiar.

  The handle came up off the console and the circular piece of metal clamped down lightly on his arm. When he tilted his hand up the engine groaned and the vessel was lifted up into the air a few meters. Nix pushed his arm forward and the ship moved through the hangar doors and out into the bright yellow sun.

  Nix used his free hand to make a gesture over the holographic image of the ship. Liam heard a loud sound from behind them and the wings of the ship spread out. Their wingspan was now almost as long as the ship itself.

  Liam looked up through the cockpit window at the sun. The window was wide at the front and tapered off into a half meter sliver which ran most of the length of the cockpit above them. Liam looked at Saturn and Ju-Long who were bathed in yellow-orange light. They stood behind Nix watching him maneuver the vessel up above the spires.

  “You might want to take your seats,” Nix suggested.

  Liam sat down in the seat beside him while Saturn and Ju-Long strapped themselves into the seats behind them. Liam turned to Nix and asked, “Are the Ansarans going to try to block our path?”

  “It’s taken care of, though I may owe a favor to a friend at the shipping authority after this.”

  As if on cue, two Ansaran vessels came up on either side of them. A channel opened and a voice came through. “Dinari vessel. Transmit your port codes now or be shot from the sky.”