Seeing a couple of leather seats on wheels in the gangway, Seb then looked at the pod at the end. Although he hadn’t seen one before, he didn’t need to be a genius to identify it. It had Medi-Port written along the side.
Two beings stood in the space with them; they were smaller than Seb by about six to eight inches. They looked like standing jellyfish. They had large eyes on each side of their domed heads, cerise skin, long spindly arms, skinny legs, and tiny bodies. They moved with a strange twitching motion as if permanently on edge.
And why wouldn’t they be? Sparks had come into their space like a hurricane, shoving them and their chairs aside to clear a path to the medi-port so Seb and SA could carry Reyes.
The port looked similar to the pods Seb had seen used for cryogenic freezing, except it had a whole host of functions, needles, and monitors. When Sparks got to it, she yanked the clear lid open and shouted, “Put her in here, now.”
His arms straining from the effort of trying to control Reyes, Seb put her bottom half into the port while SA did the top half. As always, SA presented an aura of serenity, delicately laying the thrashing body down while showing no apparent strain from the task.
Sparks made several quick taps on the keyboard, which triggered the lid to close with a hissing sound of hydraulics. Seb watched the small Thrystian chew on her bottom lip as if she might bite it clean off. One final tap against the keyboard, she then stepped back from the machine.
Near silence in the space, everyone watched as a small bar appeared on the side of the port. It had a reading of twenty percent on it. Seb pointed at it, his voice loud in the tense silence. “What’s that trying to tell us?”
After she’d let go of a heavy sigh, Sparks kept her attention on the pod and said, “She’ll be okay at one hundred percent. Twenty is about the lowest they can start at if they hope to make a full recovery. We got here just in time.” She turned to the two cerise creatures. “No thanks to them.” Both of them quivered and moved back a step.
When the door to the container clicked shut, Seb turned around to see Bruke had entered the space. One of the operators then spoke in a high-pitched voice. “We couldn’t let you in with so much attention on us.” It then nodded at Bruke. “Thank you for the distraction. We didn’t know how we could help you and not give away what this place is. Moses would kill us if the secret got out.”
The stocky Bruke breathed heavily as he regarded them with a dark stare. They had no reason to trust them just yet.
When Bruke came close, Seb patted his wide friend on the shoulder.
Maybe twenty screens in total, Seb then looked at them one at a time. They showed footage from different parts of Aloo. The spaceport, the square, the fighting pit. “So you watch everything that goes on on Aloo?”
The creature who’d spoken stood a few inches taller than the other one. A snap of its head, which looked like a nod, it said, “Of course. You can never be too careful. But we rarely have a reason to act upon what we see. After all, Moses believes in giving beings all the freedoms he can. As long as they pay their tariffs and don’t harm anyone, then he lets them go about their business.”
Thoughts of the caged children in the sewers came to Seb. “So what about the slavery I’ve witnessed here?”
“It’s small fry.”
Before the creature could say anything else, Seb stepped close to it and shouted, “Small fry? I’ve had to save children from being sold here.”
A moment to seemingly compose itself, the creature nodded with another sharp snap of its head. “Sorry, bad choice of words. We care, we really do, and Moses tells us to watch for that, but we’ve never seen anything that’s worth blowing our cover for. If we take down a slave ring, we need it to count.”
“You don’t think kids count?”
“They do. But sadly, what happens here isn’t enough to strike. When we do take them down, we want to end it permanently rather than force the business to another planet where we have no control. We can only blow our cover once.”
It made sense, but Seb didn’t have to like it. When he looked at Sparks and then the status power bar on the medi-port, he saw Reyes on fifty percent already. “How long will she need to recover when she comes out of that thing?”
A shake of her head, Sparks said, “She’ll come out feeling better than we do. She’ll be fighting fit and ready to go.”
Pain still streaked through Seb’s face from having fought Moses and then being dumped in the prison cell.
Sparks clearly read his intention and shook her head. “We don’t have the time to heal us all.” Then she turned to the two creatures running the hut. “Moses has told you what we need?”
Both creatures nodded once in perfect unison. The taller of the two threw a sideways glance at Seb, as if wary of him, then said, “There were two ships that docked this morning. They arrived together and left together. They left with one extra being on one of the ships and nothing else.”
“Why are you telling us about both of them?” Sparks said. “Why not just the one with the extra being?”
“Because they travelled together, both in and out. We thought it would be prudent to speculate that the extra being could have been on either ship. Who’s to say they didn’t have some awareness of us watching them and sent an extra crew member back on the other ship as a decoy?”
Other than the hum of computers around them, the small space fell into silence for a moment.
Sparks nodded. “It makes sense.” As she looked at Seb, SA, and Bruke, she said, “What do you want to do?”
It felt strange to look into SA’s bright stare after he’d spent the past few hours avoiding it. It robbed Seb of his ability to think straight. Maybe she’d been correct to want to put some distance between them.
Fortunately, Bruke spoke. “There’s nothing else we can do. We’ve got to split up, right?”
Sparks shrugged and waited for Seb and then SA to nod their agreement. Her attention back on the creatures, she said, “Can you give me the tracking codes for both of them?”
“Yes.”
When Sparks handed her computer over, the smaller of the two beings took it and plugged it into one of their dashboards.
As much as Seb wanted to take the lead on splitting them up, he couldn’t do it. Too much emotion riding on it. Another glance at SA, he then looked at Sparks, who seemed to read his silent request.
“Okay,” Sparks said. “Reyes will be brand new in the next few minutes, so she can fly one of the ships. I’ll fly the other.” The smaller of the two cerise beings handed Sparks her computer back, and she looked at it for a second before continuing. “One of the destinations is a mountainous planet,”—a swipe of her fingers on the screen—“and the other one is under water. I’m guessing with your fists, Seb, you want to go to the mountainous one?”
It went against every instinct he had, but Seb still shook his head and said, “No.”
Even SA gasped at his response.
“I have an idea,” Seb said. “Send Reyes, Bruke, and SA to the mountains. Sparks, I want you to come with me.”
Bruke this time: “Are you sure?”
“Certain.” The medi-port now at eighty percent, Seb turned to SA. I want to honour your wishes. I think if we’re apart, it will make it easier.
Other than a narrowing of her bright eyes, she didn’t respond to him.
“Sparks,” Seb said, “can you send the information to Reyes’ ship so she knows where to go?”
A look from Seb to SA, Sparks clearly sensed the tension and nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Good, we’ll communicate through SA to save speaking on the airwaves. Is that okay with you, SA?”
SA nodded.
“Good. Speak to you soon.”
When Seb got to the door of the shipping container, he turned to see Sparks still by Reyes’ medi-port. She had her hand on the glass and stared in at her for a second.
The door handle clicked when Seb opened it, which seemed to break Sparks’
focus. With a shake of her head, she turned to face him. “Thank you,” she then said to the two creatures. “It was close, but she’s going to be okay.” She touched SA’s arm and patted Bruke’s shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything. Good luck.”
Seb didn’t wait to see what their reactions would be. Instead, he stepped out of the container back into the square. It looked to be getting busier again now the infected Reyes had been removed.
CHAPTER 20
So, do you want to talk about it?” Sparks said as they walked through the square.
Seb kept his focus in front of him, swerving through the bodies travelling in every direction. The place had grown busier again already. Maybe hindsight had showed Bruke’s hoax for what it was. The hysteria had certainly gone. He could feel Sparks still staring at him. “Talk about what?”
“You and SA.”
A deep frown clouded Seb’s view, but he still didn’t look at his small friend. “What’s there to talk about?”
“Uh … I dunno, like what’s going on with you two, maybe?”
It took a great effort to get the words out. “She said she couldn’t be close to me.”
“Why not?”
No matter how many times Seb swallowed, he couldn’t force the sadness down. He turned to his small friend and blinked against the sting in his eyes. “Can we not talk about it, please? It’s too distracting when we’ve got so much shit ahead of us.”
Although Sparks didn’t answer immediately, she finally said, “Sure. So what are we going to do now? You said you have an idea.”
“Can you get me through to Moses?”
“Sure,” Sparks said again, pulled her computer from her pocket, and passed it to Seb. “If you want to be certain it’s encrypted, press the envelope and type him a message. Radio waves are far too easy to intercept.”
Seb pressed the envelope icon and moved to the side of the square, where he stopped. As he typed, he kept Sparks’ computer high enough so she couldn’t see the message. No need to talk about it yet, especially with so many listening ears around them. They had to assume Enigma heard everything. Sparks would find out soon enough.
A clear sign of her frustration at watching Seb type slowly, Sparks said, “You want me to do it?”
Seb shook his head and continued typing with the index finger on his right hand.
Although he felt the eyes of the passing creatures on him, Seb didn’t look up. News might only have lasted a few days on Aloo on account of the high turnover of beings, but it travelled fast and stuck for those few days. Most creatures probably understood that he operated with Moses’ backing now.
When Seb had finished, he handed Sparks her computer back.
The device in her hand, Sparks continued to look at Seb, a frustrated scowl pushing down on her purple glare. “What? That’s it?”
“Sorry,” Seb said. “Thank you for lending me your computer.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him.
Before she could say anything else, Seb said, “Now let’s go.”
As Seb walked off, he heard Sparks first sigh at him, tut, and then run a couple of paces to catch up.
Seb led the way through the narrow pass where the creatures had bottlenecked while escaping Bruke’s fictional virus. It led them out into the spaceport. As busy as the square, most of the beings in the dense crowd looked at him as if trying to understand what he’d done to get special privileges in the lawless port.
“So?” Sparks said as she walked beside him. “Where are we going?”
A ship in front of them had three mandulus at the cargo bay doors. As good as any other one, Seb walked straight for it, knocking shoulders with some of the creatures he passed.
After a few paces, their trajectory must have become clear to the mandulus, who grabbed their blasters with both hands. But they didn’t raise them. They’d clearly heard about Seb and his team.
Sparks said, “What are we doing, Seb?”
“Just trust me, yeah?”
“I’m finding that hard with you being so secretive. And with them clearly wanting an excuse to shoot us.”
Seb didn’t try to reassure her. Instead, he stepped out of the busy walkway and approached the three armed brutes. It looked like it took all of their strength to keep their weapons lowered. He laughed at their clear struggle, produced the black card Owsk had given him, and said, “Take me to your leader.”
CHAPTER 21
When are you going to tell me what’s going on, Seb?” Sparks said as she walked beside him along the busy spaceport’s main street.
“Soon.”
“You’ve been saying that for the past hour and a half now. I even let you leave me behind while you boarded a strange ship to talk to their captain.”
“We’re nearly there.”
Seb watched Sparks peer through the narrow walkway leading to the square as they passed it again. She shook her head. “We’ve walked past this place six times now.”
Although strange, it felt good to be able to stroll around Aloo without having to worry about trouble. Looking down at his small friend, he nodded at her computer. “How long have we been walking for?”
The screen lit up at Sparks’ touch. “An hour and forty-five minutes.”
“That’ll do.” A sharp left turn, Seb led Sparks towards a large ship.
Even the cargo bay guards left him alone. Hard not to smile at them when Seb saw all seven tense at his approach. A wink as he passed them, their frowns deepened in unison.
An open expanse of concrete on the other side of the ship led all the way to the choppy sea. Just looking at the churning mess raised Seb’s heart rate, but he drew a breath to pull it down. They were going to an underwater planet. If they wanted to get to Buster, they couldn’t avoid it. Besides, whether he sank like a rock or not, when they went in search of their target, they’d probably be too far underwater for it to make any difference. Even if he could swim to freedom if they crashed, he wouldn’t be able to make it to the surface before his lungs burst, metal fists or not.
But Seb hadn’t come here to get comfortable staring at the choppy sea. He’d only noticed it for a short moment before his attention fell on him, waiting there, as he said he would be.
The being stood with his back to them. When Sparks tensed next to Seb at the sight of the creature, he put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s fine. He’s supposed to be here.”
“He doesn’t look very friendly.”
“Trust me, Sparks, this will all work out.” Seb’s words did little for her taut frame.
It took for Seb to clear his throat before the wide rock troll turned to face him. Seeing the craggy scowl on his granite face, Sparks tensed up again.
“I said it’s fine,” Seb said from the side of his mouth, then to the rock troll, “Owsk! How goes it?”
But the creature didn’t reply, his entire rocky frame emanating hostility.
“Another one of the many friends you’ve made in the galaxy?” Sparks asked.
“Something like that.” Just a few metres between them, Seb tried again, “How’s tricks? Are you busy?”
“I’ve not come here for small talk. But since you ask, yes, I am busy. Very. I had to stop a delivery for this. It’d best be important.”
Seb couldn’t help but smile at the cantankerous beast. “I’ve missed you, man.”
“I’ve about run out of patience with you, Seb. Also, don’t call me man. If you don’t start saying something useful soon, I’m out of here. What do you want?”
Owsk then looked down at Sparks, who put her hand on her blaster.
“It’s fine, Sparks,” Seb said. “No one’s going to lose their head here.”
She might only have been small, but Sparks posed enough of a threat when she stepped forward and spoke at Owsk through clenched teeth. “Looks to me like someone’s already lost it.”
The wind battered Seb as he shrugged away Sparks’ comment. No point in trying to mediate between them. “You’ve heard about
what happened to Buster?”
It hadn’t looked possible until that moment, but Owsk’s scowl deepened. “What is it about you? It seems to me that every time a being gets involved with you, they end up worse off.”
“Tell me about it,” Sparks said, lowering her gun.
Seb nudged her and she stumbled to the side.
The comment seemed to break through Owsk’s aggression too. He shrugged. “Of course I’ve heard about Buster. I have no idea what’s happened to him, but I swear, if he ends up hurt because of you, I’ll make you pay.”
At that moment, something moved in Seb’s peripheral vision. An open expanse of concrete and water, he’d assumed the place to be clear. But when three submarines burst from the sea, the tops of them breaking through the surface at the same time with a loud splash, he snapped tense.
Sparks raised her blaster again.
As Seb looked at the small subs, he said, “What’s all this about?”
“I don’t trust you. I don’t know what your game is.”
“No game. I just wanted to—” But before he could finish, the sound of a ship heading their way rode the wind. All of them looked in the direction of the noise. It started as a dot on the horizon and took just seconds before it loomed over them.
The beings in the subs all stared up at the ship above them. Owsk looked from it to Seb. “It appears I’m not the only one with backup.”
“You started it!”
Three clicks sounded. When Seb looked at the subs, he saw their glass roofs pull back and the creatures inside aim their weapons up at Moses’ ship. For what good it would do.
Seb stepped closer to Owsk, and the creatures in the subs turned their blasters on him. He moved himself so he blocked Sparks’ sight of the rock troll. It would stop her from pulling the trigger first.
His hands raised so they could see he didn’t have a weapon, Seb said, “Look, I get that you’re pissed off with me. But we think we know where Buster is, and we need your help rescuing him. You said you’d do what was needed for the prophecy.”
Enigma: A Space Opera: Book Six of The Shadow Order Page 8
