Triorion Omnibus

by L. J. Hachmeister

  “Jetta,” she muttered under her breath. “I could really use you right now.”

  Running her fingers along the smooth contours of the armrest refocused her attention. “What time did he want to meet?”

  “1900, Sir,” her first officer replied.

  Jaeia looked at the time on her uniform sleeve; it gave her a few hours to think things over. “Okay, I’m going. But I want two ground compliments, and one tail on me the entire time.”

  She sounded like her sister: paranoid, ready for assault. This isn’t like me at all.

  Or something had really gotten under her skin.

  Heading back to her quarters, Jaeia kept her eyes locked straight ahead, but did not register the soldiers and officers saluting as she passed by.

  She had to find out who or what Victor was.

  TIDAS RAZAR HAD BEEN monitoring the progress of Commander Kyron and the Contact Team at his desk when he received a priority message from the holding cells.

  “This had better be good, Jagger,” Razar muttered, electronically approving the request for a meeting in his office.

  Reht never messed around when he had a business proposition, but Tidas didn’t see what he had left to bargain with. Realistically, it didn’t matter if he did. The high council had deemed Reht and his crew “level 1 security risks,” allowing the Military Minister to dispose of the dog-soldiers by any means necessary.

  Soon, no more games with Captain Reht Jagger.

  Razar distanced himself from any emotion attached to the thought. Jagger was a pawn with a skewed measure of his own importance in the scheme of the Starways. Besides, in his day, Razar had committed much worse crimes than silencing a group of mercenary thugs.

  “Always a pleasure, boys,” the dog-soldier captain said, saluting the soldiers that escorted him into Razar’s office.

  “Leave us,” Tidas said, folding his arms across his desk.

  “We’re finally alone,” Reht winked, taking a seat across from the Minister.

  “You know I’m trying to find ways of making you disappear, Jagger.”

  Reht seem unconcerned. “Look, you’re an old military stiff, and I’m a dashing young privateer, but you can’t discount that our credos are similar: You take care of those who take care of you. I know my crew and I are more knowledgeable than you’d like, but I give you my word as a captain and a loyal compatriot of the Alliance that my crew and I will never speak a word of what we’ve seen or interfere with the government or military ever again.”

  Tidas guffawed. “And what good is your word, really? What kind of assurance do I have that you’ll keep your end of the deal?”

  The fear in his eyes was fleeting, but Razar caught the edge of it as the captain reached into his jacket pocket.

  “There’s a plasma shield surrounding my desk and about forty guards within the next hundred meters of here.”

  “Relax, Minister—it’s not a weapon,” Reht smiled as he laid down the item. It had a strong smell to it, like stomach acid.

  “It stinks,” Razar said, pushing the edge of the silver wand away from him with a pen.

  Reht shrugged his shoulders. “Hard to transport it around these parts.”

  “What is it, Jagger? I don’t have all day.”

  The greed, the arrogance in his eyes returned, and the dog-soldier captain leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head.

  “Flash transport device.”

  Razar blinked. “Come again?”

  “It’s Narki technology—the flash transport device. It’s why the Dominion knocked ‘em off.”

  Turning the monitor away from the dog-soldier, Razar called up the classified files on the flash transport device on his terminal. The details and descriptions of the device matched the silver wand on his desk.

  It could be a replica, he thought, still skeptical. Utilizing the sensory equipment linked to his terminal, he ran a quick local scan.

  Impossible. The preliminary data rated a 99.5 percent identity match.

  “How did you get this? Where’s the key?” Razar demanded.

  Reht pointed his index finger at him and made a clicking sound with his mouth. “No, no. That’s my insurance policy. I give you this, you let me and my crew go, and I’ll give you the key. Simple and easy.”

  “Simple and easy,” Razar repeated, letting the words roll of his tongue. “So are our interrogation techniques. You wouldn’t last an hour, Jagger.”

  Reht’s smile didn’t break. “I figured you’d be an assino. But that’s alright. I guess if you knew that your niece was floating around up there, you’d act a little different.”

  Gripping the edge of his desk, Razar couldn’t control the anger spilling into his voice. “She was killed a long time ago, Jagger.”

  “No, she wasn’t. She survived on Tralora and Jaeia saved her. She’s flashed into the wave network.”

  Razar pinched his brows with his fingers. “The sisters never spoke of this.”

  “They know more about loyalty than you do, you ratchakker.”

  “I will tear you apart from inside out, Jagger,” Razar said, just above a whisper. He leaned forward, “I will personally break you.”

  “Then you’ll never get that key. You forget who I am, where I come from; I’m not one to break. Neither is my crew. It’s in your best interest to play along. Besides, the only person that knows how to work that thing is Jaeia, and if you even touch a single hair on any of our heads, you’ll have her and her sister to deal with. And you and I both know you’re on shaky grounds with them already.”

  “Where is the key, Jagger?” the Minister said through steeled teeth.

  “I want my old ship back, ready and prepped in the dock by 2100 hours. I want a nice dinner—a nice, clean one—with meats and desserts for my starving boys before we ship off. Only when we’ve jumped will I give you the location of the key.”

  Razar steadied himself. Jagger is an idiot. Why am I concerned? After calming himself, the Minister pretended to take the bait by sporting a defeated expression. “Get out of my office”

  The guards came in and tried to grab Jagger by the arms, but he shoved them away. “Think about it is all I’m sayin’.”

  One of the guards cracked Jagger in the thigh with his shockwand. After giving the guards the finger, the dog-soldier captain limped away, laughing as he went.

  Tidas Razar picked up the wand and turned it over in his hands. My niece...is it possible?

  Squaring back to his terminal, he typed an urgent message to Msiasto Mo and DeAnders and sent for a covert guard squad.

  As he waited in his office, the background noise of the Contact Team’s reel replaying from the last stop, he tentatively set down the wand. He didn’t think he could feel pain again. Not like this.

  “Senka...”

  GETTING ANY KIND OF news of the outside world was a rarity on Old Earth, but the Alliance made sure over the last several months to force-feed it’s propaganda to every planet’s populace, no matter how remote or disassociated with its reign. Many good drinking nights and days had been ruined by the military gorsh-shit recycling over and over again on the lone televisions or half-functional holographic displays in Agracia Waychild’s favorite bars. Still, she had built up the idea of Jetta Kyron in her head to the point of myth. The vids of the Final Front and Homeworld Perimeter had told it all: The warchild once wielded by the Dominion Core took the helm of the Alliance Fleet in time to save us from the Deadwalkers!

  Jetta Kyron, Agracia laughed to herself, nudging the unconscious woman with the toe of her boot. The genius leech who could take down the entire galaxy with a handful of soldiers. What a sucker.

  Lying there, her body ragged and beaten, Jetta looked just like any other chump she knew. She ain’t anything special.

  Agracia decided she wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t exactly a looker. Jetta looked much more feminine on the newsreels; in person she appeared a lot rougher, like one of the spitfires from the fighting rings, but her look
s weren’t what was going to make Agracia money anyway.

  “She ain’t gon’ make it. No way,” Bossy said, sucking noisily on her lollipop underneath her helmet. “And that chakking tribe of Jocks are right on our assinos. We can’t stay here much longer, Grace.”

  Agracia sighed and twirled her gun around her finger. The crumbling remains of a building provided adequate refuge from the storm tearing through their area, but they couldn’t stay their much longer. Surface storms were notoriously fierce, sometimes lasting weeks, even months, and the energy reserves in their suits would, at best, last them another five hours.

  “Ah, sycha,” Agracia said, slumping down against the wall. The wind howled against the building, support beams creaking and groaning against the pressure. We would have been fine if we’d stayed on course to the next Pit.

  “Where did that tribe hole up?” Agracia asked as Bossy flipped on the tracking device.

  “Dunno, actually; storm is screwin’ with the readings. I saw them dive about a half mile back, but that don’t mean nothin’.”

  Bossy dropped the tracking device on the dirt-blown ground and threw up her hands. “I can’t sit here any longer. We gotta get going. I say we shed the baech and the extra gear and make a run for the next Pit.”

  “Don’t be a dumb-assino, kid. Not only would we lose our paycheck, we’d be blind, and we don’t want to end up on sour turf.”

  That shut her up. Bad turf meant the possibility of running into one of the millions of undead Necros that roamed through the forgotten cities. Pissed off Scabbers and tribes of banded Jocks were bad enough, but flesh-hungry, mutated monsters were worse.

  Through bloodied lips, the Slaythe rasped: “Where... how did I...?”

  “Gorsh-shit,” Agracia muttered. I didn’t think the bastard would regain consciousness, at least not this quickly.

  “Well, what now?” Agracia said, readjusting the oxygen mask over Jetta’s face, testing the kid.

  Bossy shrugged and turned her back to them, playing with her lollipop. “She’s your pet. You decide.”

  Agracia got up and stood over the woman’s body. “This is Earth. Your ship crashed about two miles back. There’s a bad storm outside, and we’ve taken shelter for the time being. How badly you hurt?”

  Jetta rolled her head to the side, towards Agracia. Two brilliant green eyes peered through swollen lids. “Who are you?”

  “How bad are you hurt?” Agracia repeated impatiently.

  It started like an itch in the back of her mind, rapidly growing into a peculiar uncertainty that branched out to her hands and her toes, making her feel weak.

  “What the chak—are you messing with me, leech?” Agracia said, aiming her gun at Jetta’s head.

  Coughing violently, Jetta curled up into a ball, bringing her knees to her chest. The bad feelings in Agracia’s mind faded.

  “She ain’t worth the trouble,” Bossy remarked, getting up and checking the storm through the crack in the wall. “I don’t care who the hell she is.”

  “Yeah, well, we can’t afford to have the Alliance hunting us down, now can we?” Agracia said, kneeling besides the injured woman and tapping her cheek with the nozzle of her gun. “Let’s get one thing straight between you and me. We saved your assino back there and would appreciate a show of courtesy. Stay out of my head and my gun will stay out of your face, yeah?”

  “I need a medkit and a wave network transmitter. I promise that if you can get me back to Alliance territory you will be compensated beyond whatever you think you’ll get paid,” Jetta said, her neck taut as she strained against the pain of her injuries.

  “Make a decision, Gracie. We’ve got trouble,” Bossy said, removing several 20-20 grenades from her belts.

  Agracia hurried over to her companion and looked through the crack in the wall. Shadows moved toward their shelter as the wind whipped debris and dirt across the landscape.

  “We ain’t leavin’ her,” Agracia said, keeping her voice low. “She’s too valuable. We could sell her out or we could give her back—either way, we’ll probably score a ticket off this rock, and that’s all that really matters, yeah?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Bossy said, only wanting a decision.

  Agracia turned around and took a step back in shock. Bloodied and burnt, Jetta took to her feet, her left arm clutching her side while holding the oxygen mask over her mouth with her right. Green eyes locked intently with hers.

  “Who are you?” Jetta asked, voice barely rising above the winds.

  “Holy sycha,” Bossy said, cocking her grenade back. “Stay where you are!”

  “We didn’t think you’d ever walk again,” Agracia chuckled. “I don’t know how you’re holding up in this environment.”

  “I’ve been through worse,” Jetta said.

  “Alright, let’s try for the next Pit. There’s one expired anti-radiation booster I found in the bottom of that repair kit,” Agracia said, pointing to their stash of gear. “You’d better take it.”

  “Expired?”

  “Quit complaining—it’s better than nothin’.”

  Agracia watched Jetta stumble over the gear, remove the kit and rifle through the tools with shaky hands until she found the booster. Severe burns kept her from using her left hand, forcing her to uncap the syringe with her mouth and jab the medication into her thigh with her right.

  “Whoa...” Bossy murmured. She was impressed, too.

  “Grab the gear, let’s move. We can stay on this block another half-mile, then we’ll head north. The cover will be sycha, but it’s better than full exposure,” Agracia said, grabbing what she needed.

  As Bossy headed out into the storm, Agracia turned back to Jetta.

  “Look,” Agracia said, emptying the gear bag of all non-essentials, “you’re gonna need this around your skin. Cover your head and close your eyes. You’ll have to let us guide you out there.”

  “Who are you?” Jetta asked again, covering herself as best she could.

  Agracia smiled, though Jetta wouldn’t be able to see it through the helmet. “Your saviors.”

  JAEIA REFUSED HER FIRST officer’s request to have recording devices implanted in her ears. She strongly disliked the idea of the tiny electronic squares imbedded into her eardrums, but more importantly, a cunning man like Victor would expect that kind of thing. Not knowing what kind of detection technology he had access to, she decided to go in unarmed and unequipped.

  Besides, she thought as she walked through the glass door entrance to the capital skyscraper of Jue Hexron. This doesn’t feel like a trap; a man with such influences wouldn’t do something so vulgar. This feels more like a preamble—but for what?

  “Welcome, Commander Kyron,” one of the soldiers said, saluting as she approached the security checkpoint.

  After a cursory pat-down, the guards let her through, waving her past the weapons scanner and bioscan.

  What? This can’t be right. Jaeia stepped onto the elevator unescorted and pressed the button to take her to the top floor. A loosely guarded, relaxed atmosphere doesn’t seem fitting for a man accustomed to brokering peace between warring factions.

  The elevator dinged. “131st floor,” the automated voice intoned. “Please watch your step.”

  Jaeia couldn’t contain her amazement as she stepped off the elevator. Tinted glass framed the top floor of the capital skyscraper, offering a complete view of the entire city and the red and gold sunset as the last hours of daylight came to a close. The decorations, sparse but sleek, created an ambience from a different time. An off-yellow lounge chair faced a long, slanted red couch with a silver-lacquered steel coffee table dividing them. Dull gray bookshelves held real books, faded and cracked but neatly arranged in rows and stacks. Old-fashioned bulb lamps, oddly curved, perched on wooden end tables. A wet bar, constructed from translucent glass and buffed metal, curved around the north end of the room, where a long and narrow dining table glowed with light from an asymmetric arrangement of candles. Everything was
old—very old, just like the man who sat in the yellow chair, his cane leaning against the armrest, holding up his martini glass in a salute as she approached.

  “Jaeia Kyron, welcome. Please, join me,” he said, motioning for her to sit on the couch.

  She sat on the very edge, crossing her legs and placing her hands on her knees, trying to appear relaxed. “I must ask, how did you manage to get the top floor of the capital building? I was under the impression that it was designated for top government officials only.”

  Victor tipped his glass to her, delighted to answer the question. “I was recently appointed to a Sentient relations position within the governing body of Jue Hexron. The council seemed very appreciative of my work to solidify a ceasefire agreement amongst the warring parties here in the Holy Cities.”

  “I see,” Jaeia said, skeptical of his claim. She took another look around. “I’ve never seen this kind of furniture before.”

  “It’s from Earth. Very rare, very valuable—to some,” Victor said, setting his drink down. “Can I offer you something from the bar?”

  “No, thank you,” Jaeia said. Instead of pointing out her true age, she answered, “I don’t drink.”

  “I rarely do. It wrecks the mind,” Victor said. “Only on special occasions, and I think this is one.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I celebrate the peace forged on Jue Hexron. And I toast to your coming. It is an honor.”

  Jaeia pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth, concentrating on keeping her emotions from her voice or expression. Unable to read his thoughts, she feared asking him any of the questions that burned in her mind and exposing some unknown vulnerability in herself.

  Why can’t I sense him? she wondered. Does he know Rai Shar?

  No, that wasn’t the answer. Rai Shar practitioners erected psionic barriers to protect their thoughts. There were no walls between her and Victor. Instead, she felt an infinite shadow, a pool of darkness that spanned well beyond Victor’s mind.

  “You speak as if you know me,” Jaeia said.