by Richard Fox
The screen cut out.
“My, this is…unexpected,” Hower said.
“What’s going to happen to them? To the Tyr?” Michael asked.
“There’s really only one thing that happens to an indigenous species when Corporate moves in,” Hower said.
“They’re wiped out,” Daniel said quietly.
“We’re being hailed again.” Sarah swallowed hard and gave Daniel a sideways glance. “Not from that Zike.”
A blank holo screen reappeared and Daniel looked down at his controls in confusion. “I didn’t answer…”
“The Leopold is overriding our systems.” Sarah reached into her cuff and drew out a bracelet with the small coins worked into it. Daniel shook his head ever so slightly.
A man with black hair and a darkness behind his eyes appeared on-screen. A wry smile tugged at one side of his mouth.
“Dan-o…small galaxy,” Badar Hulegu said. His left eye was a mid-tier cybernetic, a glowing red lens of an iris within the socket. Bare metal had replaced much of the skin on the left side of his face, the ear missing and replaced by a sensor divot. He smiled, but only the right side of his face could move and it turned into a sneer. “I heard you went the leaf-eater route. Funny, that. Corporate says you’ve got a rundown on the indigs’ military. I’m going to need that, as they must have nukes, given the radiation in the atmosphere. Can’t have that wrench in the works.”
Daniel’s face contorted with rage.
“Problem, Dan-o? Doesn’t look like you’ve gone native,” Hulegu said.
Sarah squeezed the coin and all power cut out from the shuttle.
“What the hell?” Hower fumbled with his restraints. “What just happened?”
The shuttle listed to one side, the prow swinging toward the dark moon.
“Mom?” Michael jumped into his seat and fumbled with his restraints.
“It’s fine. I had to use a scramble pulse to break the slave protocols to that ship.” Sarah tapped her deactivated panel. After a moment of the moon growing ever closer, she bashed a fist against the controls and they sprang back to life.
“Wait…where did you get that?” Hower asked.
“What’re we going to do?” Sarah asked Daniel.
“The torch ship is holding the nexus open.” He put a hand over his mouth for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth. “Longest they can do that is for…two months? The Tyr have time to fight back, find a way to close the wormhole and—”
“Are you out of your damn mind!” Hower roared. “To hell with the Tyr. Let Corporate scrub the whole damn planet for all I care. Get us home. Now!”
“Mom? Dad? What’s happening?” Michael asked.
“The Tyr have no idea what Corporate is about to do,” Daniel said. He looked at Sarah. “We can help them…but that means our life is over back home.”
“Then it’s over,” Sarah said. “I’ll set a new course.”
Michael’s mouth moved, but he couldn’t speak.
“This is not a democracy!” Hower struggled out of his restraints and lunged for Sarah’s controls.
Daniel caught him by the chest and shoved him back. Hower smacked into the bulkhead, shock writ across his face. Daniel squared off against him, his fists at his sides.
“You have no right.” Hower pointed at him. “You have no right to make this decision for me, Clay. I have a home. A career. You drag me off on whatever fool’s errand you’ve in mind and—”
“You’re right.” Daniel walked toward Hower. The older man threw a weak punch that Daniel stopped with his forearm. He twisted the limb behind Hower’s back and slammed him into the bulkhead.
“Dad, don’t hurt him!” Michael shouted.
Daniel slapped a control panel and a closet door opened a few feet away. He manhandled Hower into the life pod and a clear plasti-steel hull swung around, locking Hower inside.
Hower banged his fists against the shell, raving.
“I’m sorry, Aaron. When they pick you up…remember my wife and son.” Daniel pulled a red lever and the pod shot out the bottom of the shuttle, rocking the craft from side to side.
Going to his son’s seat, Daniel went to one knee in front of him so they could speak eye to eye. “He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about him. We’re going to go back and help the Tyr, understand?” he asked.
Michael nodded quickly.
“We—your mom and I—we know what they’re going to do and we’re the only people that can help the Tyr right now. If we don’t…this isn’t fair to you, son. I know this isn’t fair, but—”
“Buckle up before I hit the drives!” Sarah called out.
“I get it, Dad. Let’s go home,” Michael said.
“You’re too young for this—” Daniel lurched into Hower’s empty seat as the shuttle banked to one side. He pulled himself into his original place as they cleared Kleegar and saw Tyr in the distance, where twilight grew over King’s Rest and most of the inhabited parts of the planet.
Daniel strapped in and gave his wife a worried glance. She nodded and answered with a weak smile.
****
“What do you mean they haven’t sent anything?” Zike asked from the captain’s chair aboard the Leopold’s bridge. The command dais was slightly elevated, with dozens of different data holos adjusting as more sensor readings came in. Every screen flickering before his eyes was of the nearby planet and the local system.
The bridge was covered by a lattice dome made up of thin rods and with ample viewing platforms around the crew pits. Torch ships had dual functions: they were the engine of colony efforts and showrooms for clients. Looking down on a world in the midst of the grand vista of the surrounding void was a proven sales tactic as perspective clients imagined all the possibilities available to them…and not the ground truth of where they’d actually live.
“The shuttle seems to have malfunctioned,” a technician said from a workstation below Zike’s left foot. She wore the standard blue company jumpsuit with years of employment pips and a badge for her crew specialty, which was as close as Bahadur-Getty Incorporated came to a uniform for their merchantmen. A bank of screens surrounded her, and the reflection from augmented reality glasses shined off her eyes.
“And now there’s a life pod beacon,” she said. “It’ll land on the outer satellite in a few more minutes.”
“How many pods?” Hulegu walked up to the captain’s chair, the steel-shod heel and toe of his boots clinking against the deck. He wore simple black fatigues with no other markings. A hook-faced woman with a pixie haircut followed a few steps behind him.
“Just the one,” the tech said meekly.
Hulegu looked flush, his shoulders slightly hunched, like he was about to attack.
“There were four on the shuttle,” said Karen Solanus, the woman with him. “Should’ve been five in there from the survey mission logs.”
“We may have a problem,” Hulegu said.
“Just tractor-beam the shuttle into the docking bay and rip the data.” Zike leaned forward and frowned at a screen. “These iridium particles concern me. The ship’s core says they fit with nuclear warhead use, but the concentration is years old…”
“The shuttle’s back online.” The tech tossed a screen up and the three on the upper platform watched as the Clays swung around the moon.
“I should’ve known.” Hulegu crossed his arms. “Daniel Clay’s going off assignment.”
“It’s just one thing after another. Argent!” Zike shouted up at the ceiling. A holo of a young woman with disheveled hair and a modest skirt and silk blouse appeared.
“Yes, Mr. Zike? My apologies, as nexus travel doesn’t agree with my stomach and I—”
“Have the Clays terminated for theft of Corporate property, failure to release proprietary information, etc., etc. Also the zoologist that’s with them. Whatever his name is,” Zike said.
“Hower.” Hulegu swiped across the screen showing the shuttle’s plot back to Tyr. “And, judging by the life signs, he’s the
one in the pod. Don’t fire him just yet. Looks like we’ll need him.”
“Wait, just why is this Clay going to be such a problem?” Zike asked. “He’s an anthropologist. So is his wife.”
“Daniel Clay used to be in the Compliance Force,” Hulegu said. “Used to be my battle buddy on a couple cleanse missions before he got married and opted into a different program. He knows our playbook.”
“Kill them,” Solanus said. “Three interdiction missiles will get the job done.”
Argent gasped and covered her mouth.
“They’re expensive and they become a sunk cost once fired,” Zike said. “We have the company’s balance sheet to consider.”
“Clay was down there masquerading as some sort of liaison caste, right?” Hulegu asked. “If he has enough contacts with the indigs’ ruling caste, then it might be a problem. We’re holding the wormhole stable, but enough isotope decay in the quantum fabric will collapse the nexus. Then not only are we stuck here until the next cycle, but the client is left out to dry.”
Zike tapped his chin. “Fire the missiles,” he said.
“But, sir,” Argent said, raising a hand. She was young, just out of the company’s executive assistant program, and Furst’s replacement. “Sir, they have a child with them. Michael Clay.”
“Oh my,” Zike feigned concern, “let’s hope they get him into a life pod in time. Fire.”
Hulegu tapped the back of a bracelet against the holo screen, bringing up a menu with all the weapon systems integrated into the smaller vessel docked beneath the Leopold. He swiped a finger across four missiles then dragged them onto the shuttle en route to Tyr.
“Bit overkill,” Solanus said.
“Traitors deserve worse.” Hulegu smiled as the missiles tracked off the ship in the holo and sprinted after the Clay family.
Eyes wide, Argent covered her mouth with both hands.
“We need Hower,” Hulegu said. “He’s the only one that knows the Tyr. What they’re truly capable of.”
“Fine, fine. Pick him up but keep him in strict isolation,” Zike said. “Can’t have whatever alien viruses he’s carrying foul our current timeline any further. Are you well, Ms. Argent? You look a bit pale.”
Argent gestured at the holo, where the missiles were still closing on the shuttle. “Mr. Zike, there are…there are people in there,” she said.
“Indeed, but a little blood, sweat, and tears are vital to any successful project. Welcome to where Bahadur-Getty makes profit, Ms. Argent.” Zike watched the track for a few more moments, then swiped the holo away.
****
Acceleration mashed Daniel into his seat as the shuttle thundered toward the planet. He kept his abdomen and legs tight, fighting to keep blood flowing into his head as Sarah maneuvered wildly, trying to throw off the missiles tracking them.
The dampeners within the shuttle could offset the forces acting on them only so much. If Sarah drew on the engines any more, the g-forces would crush the life out of them. The missiles on their tail had no such restrictions.
“I’m scared!” Michael cried out. “Why are they—they’re trying to kill us!”
“Quiet or you’ll pass out,” Sarah grunted.
She was trained for this sort of thing, Daniel knew. He had to rely on old battlefield muscle memory to deal with the high g’s. That Michael was still conscious was a blessing.
“We’re not going to make it.” Sarah shook her head. “They’ll be on us before we can hit atmo.”
“Life pods?” Daniel asked.
“No time to decelerate,” she puffed, “and they’d just target the pods.”
Daniel struggled to lift a hand, but it felt like he was moving through just-poured cement. He swiped his thumb down a grid showing the planet, and several small icons appeared in orbit.
“Spoof ’em?” he asked.
“I don’t have…any other ideas.” Sarah eased off the acceleration and they could all breathe easier again.
“We’re slowing down?” Michael asked. “Why are we—”
“We’re going to borrow one of the Tyr’s geostationary satellites,” Sarah said. “This might work—if the company hasn’t upgraded their target acquisition systems in a while.”
Michael began hyperventilating, and Daniel hated himself as a father.
Ahead, the night side of Tyr was close enough that Daniel could trace the coastline by city lights.
“Hold on,” Sarah said as she banked the shuttle hard and sunlight reflected off the long solar panels of a boxy satellite close by.
“The military’s going to notice when this disappears,” Daniel said.
“Let’s not tell them it was us,” Sarah said as warning klaxons sounded in the shuttle. A timer appeared as the four missiles closed in on them in a holo.
Sarah crept the shuttle closer to the satellite, then flipped around and blasted it with the gravitic impellors on the bottom of the shuttle. The satellite shot toward the missiles.
Daniel gripped his armrests with white knuckles.
“Why are we sitting still?” Michael asked. “Why aren’t we—”
“Because the mass of the satellite and the mess of gravitons moving it are standing in for this shuttle.” Sarah kept a tight hold of the controls. “The missiles should target that and—”
A flash of white light burst across the windows and Sarah accelerated toward the planet.
Daniel watched the fuzzy mass of sensor data where the satellite was sacrificed, and his heart skipped a beat when one missile spat out of the noise.
“One’s on us!” he shouted.
“And I don’t have another satellite to chuck at them.” Sarah dove down and atmosphere began to ignite against the shuttle’s heat shields. She banked from side to side, watching the missile’s reaction.
“Looks like it’s damaged.” She slammed the control stick to one side, throwing Daniel against his restraints.
The missile overshot them, gouts of flame spurting in its wake.
“You did it!” Michael called out.
The missile flipped end over end, then shot back at the shuttle.
“Sorry, sorry!” Michael covered his face with his arms.
Sarah maneuvered the shuttle toward the planet and at distant thunderheads crackling with lighting.
“The slipstream—” Daniel pointed.
“Yes, the slipstream!” Sarah pushed the shuttle even faster. Fire covered the forward window and Daniel felt heat rising through the deck.
“Come on, come on…go faster,” she said to the missile.
In the holo, the missile closed on them and Daniel fought the urge to hold Sarah’s hand at that final moment.
The friction of burning through the atmosphere overcame the missile, and it exploded. There was a whack as debris struck the shuttle and it swung out of control.
“Hold on!” Sarah fought the controls as the shuttle fell into a dead spin. Daniel kept his eyes open as morning skies over Tyr swung around and around…then leveled out. Sunlight glinted off the ocean as the shuttle fell into a stable flight path.
“There…nothing to it.” Sarah smiled as Michael vomited between his knees.
“What now?” Daniel looked up through the roof glass at the sky as it faded from red to blue.
“That hit wrecked our stealth emitters,” she said. “Tyr can pick us up on radar, so we can’t lollygag. The company probably thinks we’re still alive, but they can’t trace our grav drives this close to the surface.”
“Get us back to the cabin,” Daniel said.
“That’s the first place they’ll look for us.” Sarah shook her head.
“That’s where our car is. Drop off Michael and me and then you stow this somewhere that Hower and the company don’t know about. Keep the option to use this in the future,” he said.
“There’s the property outside Vinica City. The one Baron Tal isn’t using while it’s for sale,” she said.
“That works.” Daniel nodded.
&
nbsp; “And then what?” Michael wiped a sleeve across his mouth. “And then what do we do?”
“We warn the Tyr. We get them to mount a defense and we do it without tipping our hand to who we really are, because they’ll burn an alien as quickly as they’ll burn a demon,” Daniel said.
Chapter 9
Aboard the Leopold, Molly Argent stood on her tiptoes to peer into the containment unit. Hower sat inside the chamber filled with a thick mist of antiseptics that looked like steam. A face mask with a single tube running into the wall was the only thing on his body.
Molly blushed then keyed a button beneath the view port.
“Mr. Hower? I’m Director Zike’s executive assistant and he asked me to—”
“My samples! Did you recover the DNA cultures from the shuttle or not? None of the Enforcement scum that stuffed me in this box have any answers.” Hower folded his arms over his crotch and leaned forward.
“It seems that the shuttle in question has gone…unaccounted for,” she said.
Hower was quiet for a moment then nodded slowly. “So they’re still alive,” he said.
“The Clay family have been terminated from the company. Be aware that any future contact with them will be annotated in your personnel folder, but I have done up a preliminary report for Director Zike to sign off on, and your loyalty to the company has been noted.” She gave him a shaky thumbs-up.
“Then what am I doing on this ship? I should be doing decontamination on the other side of the nexus, not here.”
“Yes…about that. I’ve reviewed your employment contract and there’s a bit of a grey area on voluntary extensions.” She held up a slate and turned the screen toward him. Hower looked down at his nakedness and then back at her.
“Director Zike wants to exercise the company’s option to—”
Hulegu came up behind her and jabbed a knuckle into the comms panel. Molly jumped aside, startled.
“Oh…hi?” She clutched the slate to her chest and took a half step back.
“We need to ash him,” Hulegu said. “He’s a threat to this entire ship. You ever heard of the Constance? The Franco? Both had a containment breach during assignment. Total loss of crews.”
