The Kenval Incident

by Philippe Mercurio

  She was still wearing her training outfit: pants and a tank top. The sadist examined her barely covered chest with such intensity that she shivered with disgust. Fueled by adrenaline, the thorns on her sensitive tattoos quivered.

  She expected to be touched again, but Sodoye abandoned her and moved toward the second prisoner. Reduced to powerlessness, she watched the mercenary out of the corner of her eye. Using the strange tool, he forced Laorcq’s suit to retract and woke him with a slap.

  Worried, she wondered how these pirates could have procured a tool to deactivate their combat suits. According to Laorcq, they had just been put on the market!

  With one hand on the ground, Sodoye dug his tool into the scarred man’s cheek. He tore away flesh and blood with a twist of his wrist. Mallory saw Laorcq grit his teeth and endure the pain without a word. She had the disturbing impression that this wasn’t the first time he had been treated this way.

  “That’s for killing one of my guys!” the mercenary snarled. Holding up the bloody object, he turned toward the pilot. “If you don’t want me to do the same to you, tell me how to control this boat without using your shitty Natural Intelligence.”

  Stubbornly, she remained silent.

  Sodoye’s smile grew. “Perfect. I almost thought you would spit it out before I had a chance to amuse myself.”

  With a giggle of joy, he rose and pulled a cloth bag from one of the crates stored in the hold. He moved back to Laorcq and put it over his head like a hood. To complete his work, he permitted himself a violent punch to Laorcq’s temple. “A touch of privacy is much better, no?” he whispered in Mallory’s ear. He moved her like a doll to position her conveniently and got ready to take her clothes off.

  The sudden uproar of an explosion interrupted him, shaking the entire vessel.

  His libido abruptly extinguished, the mercenary stood up. Mallory could see the panic in his eyes. He dropped the metallic tool and ran out of the hold.

  Torg, hanging from the hull and wide-awake, was using Laorcq’s explosive charges to breach the frigate’s armor. The tube connecting the two ships now floated in the void like an insect’s tattered cocoon.

  The cybrid wasn’t the slightest bit affected by the lack of atmosphere. And for good reason: he could survive in space for several minutes. Attacking the hull, he spoke a few words of reassurance to Mallory.

  A navcom located in his cortex interpreted his nerve pulses before transmitting them. “Don’t worry. I’ll be with you soon.”

  Laorcq’s entire plan relied on two elements: Torg’s extraordinary capabilities and a place to give them free rein. Allowing themselves to be captured with apparent ease shifted the impending confrontation to the enemy vessel, where Torg could release his Herculean strength at full capacity. On the Sirgan, the risk of damaging vital equipment was too high.

  Unleashed, he spread open the edges of the breach he had just created with his enormous metal claws. When the opening was large enough, he jumped inside. He cleared a path through the frigate by destroying everything in his path, twisting sealed doors and breaking control panels.

  His developed sense of smell identified the humans’ scent. In particular, he could sense the fear Sodoye was giving off. He followed the trail to him and cornered him in the galley. Deforming the walls as easily as a mere piece of cardboard as he went, Torg reached the kitchen.

  He could barely stand up straight in the little room. Sodoye crouched in the small remaining space. Cornered, he emptied the clip from his revolver into his pursuer’s chest. The salvo did not have the least effect. Torg’s skin left him no reason to envy Mallory’s bulletproof suit.

  While Sodoye kept squeezing the trigger in vain, Torg crushed his nose with a single blow. With the mercenary now on the ground and unconscious, the cybrid went hunting for the other pirates.

  He found the infirmary by following the scent of blood and disinfectant. Since he didn’t know how to deactivate the automed, he ripped it from the ceiling in a shower of sparks and electrical cables. He also blocked the door by twisting the handle, in case one of the injured men woke up.

  Air escaped from the gaping hull with a high-pitched howl. Having recovered his calm, Torg went to the compartment where Mallory and Laorcq were being held. In his hands, the prisoner’s bonds gave way like marshmallows.

  The pilot adjusted her clothes while the man and the cybrid looked elsewhere.

  “Tell me you caught that pig,” she asked her bodyguard.

  “Don’t worry, I knocked the moron out. The air is getting thin; we should go quickly.”

  “In that case, we’re taking that pervert with us,” she continued, picking up the steel cables that had been restraining her and Laorcq. “He has a lot of stories to tell, I’m sure of it.”

  The shriek of the atmosphere being swallowed by the void was getting louder. A few moments more and there wouldn’t be any air left to breathe. To Torg’s great relief, Mallory and Laorcq found two spacesuits and put them on. Without forgetting to tie him up using the cords recovered by the pilot, he deposited Sodoye in an escape pod.

  The coffin-shaped cylinder was a last recourse that normally served as a lifeboat. Torg picked it up. They followed the path forged by the cybrid in reverse, then stepped out into the void to rejoin the Sirgan.

  They reactivated all of the on-board systems, including Jazz.

  “Finally!” was his first reaction. “Thank you. I hate being disconnected. I tend to dream about my old life.”

  As for the prisoner, they left him between two of the airlock’s doors, still inside the protective cylinder.

  Truly worn out, Torg didn’t complain when Mallory put him back into his stasis chamber. He stepped into the narrow compartment, ready for a well-deserved rest, when Laorcq interrupted their preparations.

  “I have to go back to the frigate,” he explained. “I want to make sure there’s nothing useful in their databank. And we have to get free of the magnetic clamps.”

  Intrigued, Torg saw his captain hesitate, then accept with a simple nod of the head. He understood that she needed to be alone for a moment. She was strong, but enduring Sodoye’s treatment must have pushed her to the limits of her endurance.

  Nevertheless, Laorcq’s sudden willingness to be helpful seemed to bother her. While she closed the chamber door, Torg heard her wonder out loud to herself.

  “I’d like to know what’s behind his goodwill…”

  VII

  GOOD RIDDANCE

  RETURNING to the frigate, Laorcq went directly to the control console. Barely inconvenienced by his spacesuit, he connected one of the gadgets that he seemed to have in inexhaustible supply to the main console. It was a pale gray globe that fit in the palm of his hand. The device replicated the pirates’ Artificial Intelligence and replaced it in short order. Words appeared on the spherical shell: “Awaiting instructions.”

  In order to convey sound in the atmospherically deprived ship, Laorcq brought the ball to his facemask. “Deactivate all of the safeties on the propulsion system and program it to melt down in twelve hours,” he said. “Make a copy of the on-board log and retract the clamps.”

  While leaving the frigate, he noticed that the medical cabin was not only still pressurized, but also occupied. The two pirates injured during the assault on the transport ship were there, still unconscious. He hesitated, and then decided to leave them to their fate.

  “Such a gentle death is almost too good for them,” he said to himself.

  Arriving at the condemned vessel’s airlock, he launched himself into the void and returned to the Sirgan.

  He was removing his spacesuit when Mallory arrived.

  She put a hand on his bloody cheek and, examined the wound Sodoye had inflicted. “You need a few stitches. Come with me,” she ordered, leading him to the infirmary.

  Laorcq had forced his way on-board, and yet she still didn’t want him to add another scar to his already well-stocked collection. Pleasantly surprised by this unexpected sid
e of the pilot’s personality, he obeyed without a word.

  Once in the narrow medical compartment, she activated the automed and ushered the tall man into the chair. While the mechanical devices examined him, his eyes lingered over Mallory’s arms. The roses, accompanied by several cherry blossoms, were replacing the thorns. The scarred man’s sudden attention hadn’t passed unnoticed. Surprising him again, she seemed suddenly embarrassed and left the cabin abruptly.

  “Don’t delude yourself,” she said. “You’re far from being a member of my crew.”

  Returning to the corridor, Mallory was annoyed by her overly blunt reaction. On the other hand, Laorcq wasn’t making things easier by leaving her in the dark.

  While passing by the airlock, she looked through the porthole in the interior door. The pod containing Sodoye hadn’t moved. Since Laorcq was undergoing treatment, she took the opportunity to get some answers.

  She grabbed an emergency first aid kit from a cabinet in the passageway, then returned to the airlock and unlocked the heavy metal door.

  Once inside, she opened the cylindrical vessel. Deprived of support, the mercenary fell over. From the box marked with the ever-present red cross, she removed a pneumatic syringe full of stimulant. She stabbed Sodoye in the neck with it and pressed the plunger. With a hiss, the clear liquid emptied into the man’s veins. His eyes fluttered, and he struggled a bit, but was restrained by the steel bonds around his wrists and ankles.

  “Why did you attack us?” asked Mallory. “For Lebrane’s cargo?”

  Giving her a hateful look, the mercenary replied, “You’re just a poor kid playing space pilot. Go fuck yourself!”

  A voice rose from behind Mallory.

  “She’s not a child,” countered Laorcq. “She’s simply too civilized.”

  He reached out an arm and put his navcom a few inches from the prisoner’s ruddy face. “Read carefully, and you’ll understand.”

  A hologram appeared above the steel display, showing a series of numbers. Mallory couldn’t quite make them out, but she guessed they had something to do with the scarred man’s trip to the frigate. She saw Sodoye go white, as if he had just realized that his life was hanging by a thread.

  “Kaumann!” he spit out. “Kaumann Labs hired us, and this is our first job for them. They gave us weapons and the name of the guy you killed on Io. We’ve been following you since then. Kaumann wants your cargo, but that’s all I know. I have no clue what it is!”

  “It’s not our… Oh, for fuck’s sake! Why am I explaining myself to a rapist?” raged Mallory.

  Suspecting the worst, she grabbed Laorcq’s wrist so she could see the image on his navcom.

  “What’s going on, exactly?”

  After reviewing the numbers, she couldn’t contain her anger.

  “What the shit!” she cried. “Are you nuts? Am I next on your list? I told you that if you kept killing people, I would tell Torg to throw you out into space!”

  “Yes, yes, I remember…” He rubbed his chin, scratching his darkening stubble thoughtfully while remaining indifferent to Mallory’s mood. “Kaumann’s involvement is going to complicate things.”

  He thought for a few seconds and made a decision. “On the other hand, that’s not a good enough reason to abandon the mission. We’ll continue on to Kenval.”

  Beside herself, Mallory screamed in his face. “Are you listening to me? Stop bumping off every other guy we run into! I’m a transporter, not a serial killer!”

  “Technically, they’re not dead yet,” he insisted. “And frankly, do you have that much pity for pirates who are also rapists?”

  Without giving her a chance to respond, he went back to finish his medical treatment.

  After letting out a string of potent swearwords, Mallory looked at Sodoye the way she would at filth she had just found on the bottom of her shoe. “You, waste of space, you don’t have anything to look forward to. Next stop: the police!”

  She returned to the bridge, her boots slamming angrily against the metallic grills. While passing in front of the infirmary, she barked at Laorcq. “Once you’re up and about, lock our pervert in one of the free cabins. That fat pig is taking up too much room in the airlock and he’s much too heavy for me!”

  After being thrown on the floor of a tiny compartment by Laorcq, Sodoye decided to act instead of allowing himself to be delivered to the Kenval police in shackles.

  “Ending up in jail there is out of the question,” he muttered between his teeth.

  The first extra-solar colony founded by humans and the cause of the war with the Orcants, this world had been the site of a number of bloody confrontations. The signing of the armistice had been followed by a period during which the two sides maintained a hostile peace that was always on the verge of degenerating. The situation changed with the arrival of the Vohrns.

  Far superior technologically to the Orcants or the humans, their very presence imposed a stable equilibrium. By trading indiscriminately with all of the known races, they made Kenval into an economic and political hub.

  The Vohrns spread their domination tirelessly to the rest of Procyon and went as far as asserting exclusive rights over Stranda, the system’s second planet.

  Since these aliens were as relentless in their pursuit of justice as they were in business, Sodoye was sure to get a life sentence. He had nothing to lose by trying his luck now.

  He contorted himself forcefully despite his bonds and managed to bring his right hand up to his left forearm. Regaining his breath, he listened and waited. After several hours, only the background sound of the reactor could be heard. Certain to have been momentarily forgotten, he tore at his skin viciously. The epidermis gave way to reveal a ceramic stiletto.

  This ruse had saved his bacon several times. In case of emergency, he had four more, implanted at various locations on his anatomy.

  Once he had the bodkin hidden in his sleeve, he brutally bit his tongue. With blood flowing abundantly down his chin, he murmured, “Let’s see which of us is more cunning, you dirty snot-nose…”

  The Sirgan was carefully maintained and equipped with the latest safety gear. When the mercenary’s pulse and respiration reached a disturbing rate, the devices sounded the alarm: someone on-board needed help.

  Mallory slept lying on her bunk, too tired to remove her clothes. An alarm emitted by her navcom woke her. She gave the object a smack to silence it, but the blow instead had the effect of opening the communications line to Jazz.

  “Captain, someone in the compartment where Laorcq threw our prisoner is hemorrhaging.”

  “Leave me alone, I’m sleeping,” she murmured.

  A few seconds later, the sentence made the trip from her auditory canal to her slumbering brain, and she woke completely. “That’s it, that sick dude is at it again! And on my ship!”

  Forgetting to reply to the Natural Intelligence, she put on her bracelet. Icons appeared in front of her eyes. She watched them stream by and activated a symbol shaped like a teddy bear. Torg would be awake in five minutes.

  Certain that she would find Laorcq in the process of slitting Sodoye’s throat, she ran out of her cabin. She found the prisoner alone, mouth and chest covered with blood. His face was a waxy shade of white, and he looked like he was about to faint. She rushed to him and shook him, ignoring the sticky red liquid on her hands. “If you think you’re going to go quietly, you’ve got another thing coming!”

  She had almost dragged him to the door when she made a mistake.

  Believing him to be at death’s door, she unlocked his shackles. As soon as he was free, he stretched suddenly and punched her in the stomach. Breathless, she felt her legs give way and a black veil obscure her sight. She found herself with the point of a stiletto against her throat. Sodoye had taken advantage of her moment of hesitation with surprising quickness.

  “Now, you’re going to go quietly to the cockpit,” he told her, continuing to spit out blood.

  The ship’s alarms went off. Mallory und
erstood that Jazz was trying to warn Laorcq. With a little luck, he would also accelerate Torg’s reawakening cycle.

  The mercenary dragged her to the cockpit just before Laorcq appeared, pointing his revolver.

  “That’s it! Fire!” screamed Sodoye, his words muffled by blood and the missing piece of his tongue. “Even if you blow my head off, I have a fifty-fifty chance of killing your whore!”

  Tightening his grip on Mallory, Sodoye used her as a shield. She was about to try something desperate when she finally saw Torg’s gigantic silhouette appear through the cockpit door.

  The fire suppression system activated suddenly. Mallory wondered what was wrong with Jazz, and then she realized that he had hatched a genius idea: surprised by the spray of carbon dioxide at minus fifty degrees, Sodoye dropped his gun involuntarily.

  This simple movement signed his death warrant. Laorcq opened fire. The pilot felt the mercenary’s corpse collapse behind her. She turned her head to see the results and regretted it immediately: the bullet had lodged between Sodoye’s eyes, and his skull had exploded, spraying the ship’s console with brain tissue.

  Mallory moved away from the body, skirting the scarlet puddle spreading at her feet. “Torg, please…” she asked. “Toss this scumbag out into space, he’s making me want to throw up!”

  The cybrid didn’t have to be asked twice. However, he did allow himself to make a comment to his captain as he left the cockpit. “If you had let me do my job, I’d have thrown this garbage into the void in the first place. I struggle to comprehend human reasoning.”

  In the end, Mallory cleaned up the rest herself: Laorcq had disappeared before she could ask for his help.

  After completing the grisly chore, she assumed the ship’s controls. Their destination was a day’s travel away, she noted. “Jazz, continue to handle navigation for me for a bit longer. It’s time for Laorcq to explain what we’ve gotten into. The few pieces of information I have are useless.”