>
Jessica stared into the darkened, hexagonally-shaped main corridor and stopped abruptly. A ragged beige shipping container sat three meters to her right. It would provide adequate cover and concealment. Moving silently, she reached the container and pressed against the corner about a half-meter from the edge. Taking a fight away from the ship was prudent, but she’d have to rely on Lucille to be her ears and eyes.
“Lucille?”
<
Jessica frowned and whispered, “Alert the crew and tell them to defend themselves accordingly.”
<
Jessica looked at the far end of the container which was thirty meters long and three high. A ladder built for MinSha ran up the side of the container about a meter from her left shoulder. Inspiration struck. She moved quickly to the ladder and climbed it slowly. At the top, she slunk onto the container’s roof and pressed her abdomen hard into the elSha manufactured steel. “Can they see me?”
<
Jessica smirked. Lucille was damned good. “Tell me when to move.”
<
“When can I move?” Jessica whispered.
<
<
<
So, do I. Jessica counted down from ten to one and was already on her knees and moving toward the far end when Lucille chimed. <
Jessica stood and crept forward, her toes lightly pressing on the container. As she moved, laser fire from the yacht’s open troop door crackled through the hangar. Echoes of the sound covered the last of her movement. Jessica drew her pistol and leaned over the edge. The MinSha had moved from the end of the container to the side where she’d been standing a moment before. She raised her pistol, centered the sight on the closest MinSha’s head and squeezed the trigger. As the beam cut through the insectoid’s brain and eyes, Jessica quickly re-centered the pistol on the second MinSha. The large female brought up her own laser rifle, but the stock never touched her carapace as Jessica fired two quick shots. Chest casing smoking, the second MinSha collapsed to the deck. Jessica spun back toward her original position expecting to see the third MinSha on the attack. When it didn’t come, Jessica knelt on the container’s roof and listened. A faint scraping noise to her left, below the edge of the container’s roof, set her in motion.
<
Jessica ran for the far end of the container and the ladder. A few meters away from the ladder’s top rung, Jessica slid just as she’d slid into third base as a little league baseball player. Her left hand caught the rung, and she pulled her body over the edge.
Shoulder straining against her momentum, Jessica held tightly and swung her legs in a vicious, blind arc. At the exact moment the charging MinSha came into view, her feet slammed into the alien’s chest and knocked the female alien to the floor. Jessica’s momentum stopped, and she quickly placed a foot on the ladder for leverage, then dropped the remaining two meters to the hanger deck. She landed lightly on the balls of her feet, took two steps toward the fallen MinSha, then stared down the length of her pistol’s barrel at the stunned soldier.
“Who sent you?”
The mantis-like alien’s head lolled loosely on its spindly neck. “Does it matter, Human?”
“It matters to my guild.” Jessica shuffled a step forward. “Drehnayl, right? She’s the one who left you here to clean up things?”
The MinSha chittered. “No, Peacemaker. It is my general who is cleaning up things. What we began here on that gods-forsaken planet will continue unstopped by you or your precious guild. We are removing the scourge of humanity from—”
Jessica squeezed the trigger and put the MinSha down. In the sudden silence, Jessica whirled to check the yacht, only to see the two Pendal pilots, each carrying two rifles in their four arms, securing it. Two dead MinSha lay near the yacht’s main engine cluster.
At least they’re as good as Dreel said.
Jessica shouted, “I’m going inside.”
The command pilot nodded but said nothing else. They would protect the ship, and that was fine with Jessica. Even the darkened bays and passages didn’t fill her with fear. She’d taken on three MinSha single-handedly and was barely breathing hard. Her left hand and shoulder hurt, but it wasn’t anything CASPer candy wouldn’t fix. Anything else in the station was going to have to deal with her. And, she had a secret weapon. “Lucille, get the lights on—every last one of them.”
<
Jessica’s brow furrowed. Secondary access procedure? That’s new. She attributed the change to Tara’s system upgrades and Lucille’s voracious ability to learn and adapt. No sooner had she done so, then the main hangar lights kicked on, followed by the passageway lights. As her eyes adjusted to the light, Jessica gasped and clenched her jaw in anger and revulsion. In the previously darkened corners of the immense hangar were bodies—mainly Human, but some other species were mixed in. Blood stains and claw marks from many types of aliens marked the walls of the main passage. Laser bolt holes and scorch marks told a tale of sheer panic and a ritualistic execution by the MinSha. They had spared nothing. Jessica jogged into the main passageway. “Lucille? Where is the gate master’s office?”
<
Jessica ran for the first time in more than a week. Her legs warmed to the exercise quickly, and, given the benefits of the minimal gravity of the gate control station, she bounced down the passageway in seconds without feeling taxed. She bounded up the ramp, holding onto the middle of three handrails installed for the differing species of gate clientele to use. The spiraling ramp rose from the more industrial levels to the crew lodging facilities and work spaces and finally to the upper concourse. From the simple, utilitarian design of everything on the levels below, the gilded fixtures and richly-appointed furnishings on the top level almost stopped Jessica in her tracks. Gate masters were known to be greedy, and many profited heavily from the emergencies—whether real or feigned—created by life in the galaxy. A simple transit cost a few thousand credits but moving to the front of the departure queue came with a fee, as did a myriad of other services including the Cartography Guild’s greatest secret—that hyperspace travel didn’t have to be limited to 170 hours. That particular news, in the lone classified briefing she’d attended at Peacemaker U, shocked no one in her class except Jessica. There were, as Captain Dreel once said, “many things ordinary Humans weren’t ready to know.” Jessica knew it was the truth.
<
“Break it, Lucille.”
<
The gate master’s outer office door, a heavy three-meter rectangle of glass, steel, and gold, swung open. The inner office was easily larger than a small domicile and contained a waiting area filled with mangled furniture and the detritus of a major riot. There wer
e three inner doors.
“Which door, Lucille?”
<
Jessica walked through the ruined waiting area, dodging overturned sofas, chairs, and the body of the deputy gate master, and stopped at the heavy door. She put her right hand on the holstered pistol but did not draw the weapon. With her left hand, she reached up and thumped her fist against the door as hard as she could. The resounding sound was loud enough, she believed, to be heard on the far side, but there was no response.
She took a breath and pressed her face close to the door without touching it. “This is Peacemaker Jessica Francis. Open this door immediately on the grounds of official investigation. You have my flight plan, designated sensitive, in your gate’s log. I’m asking you to comply with my orders.”
A tiny loudspeaker she hadn’t noticed along the door’s jamb clicked to life. “I...I gave you all the information I had. Please...you agreed to spare me.”
“Gate Master Ree’chella? This is Peacemaker Jessica Francis.” She enunciated each word carefully but did not raise her voice. It was easy to spook the timid pachyderm-like aliens who tended the gates, and when rattled, they required extra time and care to return to their duties.
There was no response, so Jessica repeated herself, a little slower and softer. “Gate Master Ree’chella, this is Peacemaker Jessica Francis. I am not here to harm you. I am here to gather information about who did this to you and your station. They sterilized the Human-settled planet of New Persia, and they jumped through your gate. I need to know who they were and where they are headed.”
“Please...leave me alone.”
Jessica thumped her fist against the door. “Gate Master Ree’chella, this is Peacemaker Jessica Francis! Open this door, under the provisions of Galactic Code, Section 112, Paragraph 6, Sub-paragraph B, which states, ‘A gate master is required to follow the orders of a Peacemaker in the performance of their duties,’ or I will find a way through this door and report you to your guild for obstruction of a Peacemaker investigation. You have thirty seconds to comply with my request.”
<>
Jessica lowered her voice. “Burn it down in thirty seconds, Lucille. I’ve had about enough of this shit.”“
<
Jessica withdrew her pistol, ensured it was properly charged, and kept the weapon on safe. She tapped her wrist slate and connected to the gate’s master information display. The hyperspace gate was charged and ready. There was a chance it was programmed to the destination for the five MinSha who’d tried to attack them in the hangar bay.
“Lucille, hold the gate and don’t let anything through.”
<
Jessica counted down the seconds in her head. At two, the inner office door clicked. Tiny lights in the jamb shifted from red to green. She put her weight against the heavy door, and it swung open on perfectly-balanced hinges. The gate master’s office was dark, but enough starlight and reflection from the nearest gas giant filled the room for her to see the gate master cowering on his knees behind his desk. Jessica flexed her fingers on the pistol and silently disengaged the safety, making the weapon ready to fire.
“Gate Master Ree’chella?”
The dark, hulking figure behind the desk shifted slightly. “There is no one with you?”
“You mean the five MinSha warriors who ambushed me and my ship?” Jessica replied. “We put them down. Why don’t you come out from behind your desk and level with me?”
“The MinSha are dead? You killed them?”
Jessica nodded. “You are safe, Gate Master. I need to know where their friends are headed.”
“I cannot tell you,” Ree’chella whispered. “They will kill me if I tell.”
“There’s no one on this station but you and me, Gate Master.”
Ree’chella winced. “I have the finest security systems on this gate control station, Peacemaker. There is another being here, a Depik, and it will ensure I die here.”
Jessica nodded to avoid showing her surprise. The Depiks were the deadliest assassins in the galaxy. She’d never seen one in person, and a certain part of her didn’t want to. A Depik assassination attempt was another action she had no control over. If there really was a Depik on the station, though, Ree’chella should already be dead. That he wasn’t meant his mental state was deteriorating at a fierce pace or he’d seen something, real or imagined, and the stress drove him to the edge of madness. Either way, Jessica didn’t believe him. “Ree’chella, I need General Drehnayl’s flight plan, and you’re going to hand it over to me. If you do not, I am prepared to take it.”
The gate master’s shadow sagged. She saw the silhouette of a thick hand rise and gesture to a table to her right. “See there? That is a master key to the gate system—part of our codex. It contains data about all the filed transits from this gate in the last six months. You can review it if you choose, but General Drehnayl’s information will not be there. They forced me to expunge the records. I have no idea where they went. For all I know, they may not even have gone to where they filed. I’m sure you know I have no control over their destination; I just get them into hyperspace.” He sighed. “I should have reported them on arrival, Peacemaker, but I did not. When I did report them, they sent a frigate to the station and executed every Human they could find. The rest of my staff and technical crew abandoned the station. In my shame, I have not called for assistance. I am grateful you are here, but I am afraid there is nothing more I can do.”
Jessica shuffled to her right, keeping her eyes on the gate master, and picked up a small purple bag. The cloth was soft and supple and had a drawstring at the top. She recognized it as a bag for a Crown Royal whiskey bottle and nearly laughed out loud. Inside, she felt a data packet the size of a deck of playing cards. Pocketing the bag in her combat jacket, Jessica said softly, “I’ll be taking this as evidence.”
“My Guild will strenuously protest,” Ree’Chella said. His voice was soft and detached as if he no longer cared. “A master key is prohibited from falling into any other hands, Peacemaker. With it, you can go anywhere in the galaxy.”
“Then why didn’t Drehnayl’s team take it?”
“They were less observant than you,” Ree’Chella said. “I’m afraid there is nothing more I can do for you, Peacemaker.”
Jessica shook her head. “Actually, there is something you can do, Gate Master. In this region, there is a MinSha system with a MinSha queen who oversees all the activity of their species. You’re going to show me how to use the key and how to jump faster than 170 hours.” She paused and decided to take a chance. “We know you can do so.”
Ree’chella stiffened. “How do you know?”
The rumors are true!
“The Peacemaker Guild has learned a great deal about the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of the galaxy in the last few hundred years. We’ve known for some time. How fast can you get me to the MinSha world?”
Ree’chella nodded, then stood and clumped forward. His massive, grey-toned frame towered over Jessica, but his normally bright marking colors were muted. “The nearest MinSha world is Zeha in the Ares Minor system. I can get you there in five days, Peacemaker. As for the key, simply connect it to your navigation computer, and it will establish a connection with the gate. It will only work once for you, though.”
It would have to do. The faster Jessica could get off the station and back in pursuit, the better. “Prepare the gate. My thrust core will depart as soon as my yacht returns from the hangar bay.”
Ree’chella sighed. “It will be done. I am sorry, Peacemaker.”
Jessica nodded and said nothing. As she spun on her heel and walked out of the off
ice, she brought up the pistol in her right hand and blasted the door’s main control unit. Ree’chella yelped behind her. Jessica looked over her shoulder. “A report might not have saved New Persia, but the blood from every Human and alien killed in Drehnayl’s path soaks your trunk, Ree’chella. If a Depik has come for you, nothing will stop them now.”
“That’s murder!”
Jessica froze and turned around to face the massive gate master. “That’s justice, Gate Master. The same kind you should’ve applied the moment you saw who it was and what their intentions were, regardless of the credits they paid you. They left soldiers here to clean up anyone looking for answers, and you did nothing. You’ve broken no laws, but you’ve failed in your duty as a citizen and a gate master. You put profit over life—Human or not! Whatever happens next is between you and the universe.”
She walked away from the office, leaving the gate master blubbering into his massive hands. Inaction was the greatest regret of all. In the outer office, Jessica stepped around a table and froze. The table sat upright, but when she walked into the room it had rested on one side. On the closest corner of the table was a small, bright red paw print. An icy rivulet of fear raced down her spine. Jessica knew exactly what creature left it and that it had watched her walk from the hangar to the gate master’s office.
There really is a Depik here.
Wherever the hunter was, it could have already killed her a dozen times, but it had not. Eliminating Ree’chella’s security door hardly seemed to be a favor worthy of such a gift, but Jessica wasn’t about to ask questions. Especially not of a Depik. Ree’chella’s mistake was likely not a simple lapse of duty, but something worthy of a Depik’s time and skill. She’d cleared a path for an assassin, and while it should have given her pause, Jessica knew the universe moved in strange ways, and while it wasn’t Human to do what she’d done, it was precisely what a Peacemaker should do.
* * * * *
Chapter Eight
Stand or Fall (The Omega War Book 4) Page 8
