Outermost

by Blaze Ward

  And he had admitted to Vee the truth about his architectural fascination and background. A Dominator had years, bubbled up inside the cocoon of the Household. Combat training was a daily thing, but it still only filled half the day. Meetings and politics were the other half, but Dave Hall had always been able to survive on four to five hours sleep, so he had several more hours in the dead of night to read.

  “What do you see?” Valentinian asked without taking his eyes off the plaza below them.

  “Without shifting all the sand and uncovering the rest of the design, I see an orbital map, but I can’t tell if it is this system or the Urlan Homeworld,” Dave replied. “Those would be my two guesses blind, but we must presume that the natives will notice someone desecrating their Holy Ground.”

  “Thought you’d say that,” Vee noted. “Been looking at my treasure map. Those last two sets of coordinates didn’t make any sense, because it looks like they suddenly want me to travel to another solar system and visit a different planet.”

  “Or one whose map is here, Captain?” Glaxu looked up from his studies. “I can confirm that the thing displayed beneath us is not Kryuome’s system, at least as it exists today. Perhaps how it was before the orbits were altered, but I would have to uncover more and study ancient stellar records in that case.”

  Vee grunted a profanity under his breath.

  Dave watched him hold out a hand and look down it like the barrel of a rifle, pointed at the distant stage, and then the buildings at the round end of the space.

  “Got an idea,” he said, turning and heading back to the stairwell that they had climbed.

  Dave followed the other two down into the building to the ground floor, where the desert truck had been parked indoors, nose out, in what might have been a loading dock in ancient times.

  Vee went out the front into the sun again as Dave glanced at his cardreader. The perimeter sensors still showed green, and no irritated or sarcastic messages from the women. All was well.

  Outside, Vee and Glaxu had entered the clearing, so Dave followed, wondering if he had a cloth that could obscure all these tracks they were leaving. Of course, the truck would be just fine for that, so maybe Valentinian was planning to use the repulsors somehow. Maybe with a light blanket on the back. Something.

  Again, Vee held up his arm and sighted down it. Turned in place and sighted the other way.

  Dave regretted that Bayjy’s gear didn’t include a surveyor’s transom, so he made a mental note to buy her one, next time they were someplace where it could be ordered. Nobody would carry one on hand, except maybe a pawn shop. He should look.

  Vee moved a few steps.

  “Farther,” Vee turned to Glaxu. “Can you walk an orbital circle cleanly.”

  “A what?” Glaxu’s head feathers popped up in confusion.

  Valentinian held out his other hand and pointed to the cleared spot.

  “I need to be on the centerline connecting the two longest points of the clearing,” he said. “At the point where the second orbital ring intersects. Without clearing a lot of sand, I need one of you to walk a circle for me.”

  “Silly human,” Glaxu suddenly laughed. “There are tools. Dave, join me please.”

  Dave looked at Vee, shrugged, and followed the Mondi across the sand.

  Glaxu reached into a pouch and pulled out a length of what Dave took to be silk rope. He moved Dave with one hand to stand at the center of the design and paid out rope until he got to the correct ring.

  “Hold there, Dave,” Glaxu called.

  They were about fifty meters apart when Glaxu started walking, holding the other end of the line firmly.

  Huh. Orbital distance measured by rope. Damned smart trick.

  Quickly, Glaxu described a quarter-arc of the circle and met Vee at a spot that the Mondi scratched into the packed sand with his toes.

  “Thank you, Dave.”

  Dave laughed and let go of the line as he walked back to the others.

  By the time he was there, Vee had started shoveling sand out of the way with his hands, and Glaxu with one foot, like a giant chicken scratching for bugs.

  Not that Dave would ever say that out loud. He suspected comparisons to a chicken would be even more insulting that calling him a roadrunner, as Glaxu had warned them all earlier.

  But he could help, setting his cardreader to one side open so he could see the screen. He stripped off his outer robe and used it to protect his rifle against grit, before getting down on his knees and digging.

  The sand was only about forty centimeters deep here, and not packed that hard. About the consistency of that first good snow, where it was wet enough to stick and make good balls, but not later when it froze into hardened concrete layers.

  “Found it,” Dave said, leaning back so the others could turn.

  The ring, if he was spaced right, with a large, green circle that probably represented a planet, given the symbolism present.

  Glaxu reached a toe and scratched delicately around the green stone, revealing that it appeared to be a sphere, inset beneath a metal ring, rather than a disk.

  “Yup, that’s the penultimate set of coordinates,” Valentinian said with a level of awe in his voice Dave wasn’t sure he’d ever heard before. “The planet rotates clockwise as the sun rises.”

  Glaxu gripped at the stone with a foot, but was unable to move it.

  “Perhaps your strength is sufficient, Dave?” the Mondi looked up after a few moments.

  Dave leaned down and braced a hand so he could get his nose right down tight and study the engineering involved.

  “Going to need a chisel-tipped screwdriver,” he said, mostly to himself, cursing at having to go back and get one from the truck.

  Except Glaxu pulled one out of a pouch, telescoped it much like Dave’s sword, and handed it to him.

  “Like this?” he grinned.

  Dave grinned back and set it into one of the grooves he could see once he brushed away some sand and gave it a good blow to clean it. He leaned into the notch, but was unable to get a grip on the ring, although he could see what it needed.

  After several tries, he gave up and grabbed his cardreader. Security still intact everywhere. Women still asleep.

  He snapped a picture of the stone from several directions, including directly overhead.

  “I’m going to have to build the right tool,” Dave looked up at the others. “I can see it in my head, but this thing is on tight.”

  “Okay, back to the ship,” Vee nodded. “We’ll bring the others and maybe do this in the middle of the night where it’s cool enough to annoy Bayjy.”

  Dave chuckled. She would demand to be here, anyway, since this was salvager work of the best kind. Buried treasure. Literally.

  “Tracks?” Dave said as he rose.

  Vee looked around and grimaced.

  “Yeah, we need to half-bury this hole and then make it look like nobody has been here.”

  “I’ve got it,” Dave laughed. “You go ahead and I’ll be along.”

  They moved and Dave shoveled some sand into the hole with his boot. Then he dumped a double handful of sand on the hem of the robe when he picked up his rifle and hauled it behind him. Not ideal for wiping out tracks, but it did at least obscure them some. Hopefully, there would be wind later to finish the job.

  Because they might actually be sitting on top of the treasure that had carried them clear across Wildspace.

  He just wondered what could have been important enough to bury out here.

  28

  Kyriaki

  She had slept, recovered, and woken to the sound of Valentinian and Dave tromping through the hallways, after Glaxu apparently made some earth-shattering discovery. Kyriaki didn’t feel like heading aft to watch Dave and Bayjy bash metal in the shop, so she went forward to where Valentinian was keeping the sensors company in the cockpit.

  He looked ragged. Worn. Like the man from the proverbs pulled though a knothole in a fence.

 
; Kyriaki had a mug of strong coffee in her hand as she slid into Dave’s usual seat on the right.

  “Gods, that smells good,” Valentinian sniffed.

  “Want me to make you one?” she offered carefully.

  Everything they did was careful. Dancing eternally around the topic without ever actually touching. She wondered if they ever would, or just lie awake at night thinking about it.

  “No, but thank you,” he said with an exhausted nod. “I need to sleep later. Or at least nap. Caffeine right now and I’ll end up too wired to sleep.”

  “So what did you find?” she asked. “I only got part of it from the boys as they grabbed Bayjy and her sandwich and went to work.”

  “The map gets us to this system,” Valentinian ran a hand down his face like a wet rag. At least some of the exhaustion went with it, because his eyes were brighter when he looked up at her. “Then there was a stack of coordinates down the side that walked you through a set of waypoints.”

  “But?” she asked.

  She’d heard him talk about those last two rows. How they made no sense in any context he could identify. Apparently Glaxu had found the key?

  “The end of it sounded like I was supposed to leave and visit some other planet, circling that world clockwise to find the treasure,” he sighed. “I hate riddles, but damned if every person who makes a treasure map doesn’t want to show off some level of literary snobbery.”

  “So what happened while I was asleep?” She took another sip and watched him. It was excellent coffee that Bayjy had found for them at a previous stop. Might as well enjoy it.

  “Glaxu found a piece of art in town,” Valentinian replied. “A system map about two hundred meters across, half buried under the sand, but slightly uncovered by winds and age.”

  “Seriously?” Kyriaki felt her eyebrows climb. No wonder he hated riddles.

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “We traced it, dug in the right place, and found a planet represented as a sphere set in the stone. Dave and Glaxu think that they can build a key that will pull the casing open. What happens at that point is anyone’s guess.”

  “Boobytrap?” she asked grimly.

  Bayjy had talked about some of the things people did when they wanted to hide stuff, and maybe kill the person coming for it later. Some people were just assholes.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But it’s supposedly been two thousand years since the map was laid down. I’m pretty safe assuming anything electronic that was on has probably burned out by now. Systems might have been turned off and survived, but that just means we listen to Bayjy and approach everything with sufficient paranoia.”

  “This was an Urlan world, right?” she asked “The so-called Overlords of the Galaxy when they were in charge of this sector?”

  “Correct,” he nodded. “Possibly one of their more important planets, given that someone actually went to the effort to knock it out of orbit, however little, during the late stages.”

  “What do you hope to find?”

  “Treasure,” Valentinian shrugged. “Anything that old will be worth money. I don’t really care if we have to deal with the Urlan, wherever we can find any. The only real issue will be the need to steer clear of Hard Bargain and Captain Vidy-Wooders. I’m guessing he might be angry for a while.”

  Kyriaki couldn’t help but grin. It has been an awesome practical joke she and Bayjy had played on the man.

  “Long term?” she pressed.

  They had all sort of fallen into the current situation as the best of a set of bad choices. Valentinian had been secretly maneuvered into hiring Dave, but the former Dominator had originally been intending to quietly quit at the end of six months or so and disappear.

  That would have worked, too, except for one of the Dominion Security Bureau’s Inspectors looking too closely at the various stories and deciding they didn’t add up. Which had led Kyriaki to chase the two men to Tartarus, and then let them go when she could have arrested them and been a hero.

  Then it was her turn to flee justice, one step ahead of Dave’s ex-wife, who was probably still chasing them.

  Bayjy was the only innocent one here, but she had nowhere to go, same as Glaxu. With the added element of guilt by association and knowledge other people would kill her for.

  So they had something like a semi-dysfunctional family, at least for a while.

  “I have no idea what tomorrow will be, Kyriaki,” Valentinian’s eyes turned serious. “Let alone a year from now, or a decade. Back when I was just a cargo transport, I would have said that I’d have enough money in a decade to either retire completely, or start a shipping company and live like a magnate for the rest of my life. Now I’m an outlaw, and I can’t offer even that much possibility.”

  “What happens if you do strike it rich here?” she leaned forward a little. “If we do? If there is enough money that all of us could retire?”

  “Hopefully Dave could find a place to run to and relax,” he sighed. “Bayjy could afford to buy her own ship and go into business, rather than working for me or someone else. Glaxu can get home, or wherever Farther ends up being.”

  She noted that he left it there. Maybe he had run out of words. Maybe he just didn’t want to say anything to drive her one way or the other, unsure what she wanted.

  What did she want?

  Once upon a time, to be the best agent the White Hats had. An Ambassador of the Dominion Security Bureau. A cop stopping bad guys and saving the Dominion itself.

  She had sacrificed all that when Valentinian Tarasicodissa turned her head and then her mind. It no longer made her as angry, but she had at least made peace with herself over the attraction she could no longer deny.

  And he didn’t seem to deny it, either. It was like electricity in the air, from time to time. They would look at each other and a magnetic pull would start.

  “What about us?” she finally asked when she realized he was waiting for her to say something.

  He paused. She could see the wheels turn in his head, but it wasn’t so he could find the right lie to tell her. Trying to find the right words.

  It dawned on her as she studied his face that Valentinian was younger than she. Three years, but they felt like an eternity.

  But he was also far older in other ways. She had gone straight from school to duty. He had intended to do the same, but had then been kicked out of Gymnasia Dominia before he had the chance to become an officer of the Dominion Armada. For the last several years, Valentinian had been forced to survive on his wits and his charm, while she could rely on duty.

  Kyriaki Apokapes could not think of someone less likely to draw her eye than a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

  And yet…

  He had stopped breathing. She registered that because she had as well.

  Poised.

  She wanted to tell him to forget that question, but it had been asked. It would hang between them until there was an answer, gnawing at both of them.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  That was the bullseye question. The one that always struck her like a punch to the stomach.

  The reason she would lie awake at night, unable to sleep.

  What did she want? She had no idea.

  No, that wasn’t true, as soon as she thought it.

  “Honesty,” she said aloud, echoing the word.

  Valentinian nodded.

  Considered.

  Spoke.

  “You drive me crazy,” he said in a quiet voice. “With desire. With fear. Hot and cold. Some days I want to kiss you. Other days I want to run as fast away from you as this ship can fly, never once looking back.”

  Kyriaki nodded. She felt the same way. Almost word for word.

  “Promise me you’ll tell me before you run?” she asked.

  Kyriaki hadn’t asked much of the man before this, other than a berth on his ship as they all ran ahead of the storm known as The Widow.

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  That was a better pro
mise than grave assurances, because it was an honest one.

  She wondered how he would react if she leaned in to kiss him right now. The atmosphere seemed to press her closer to him. He seemed to feel it as well.

  A sudden, strident beeping on the console distracted them both like an electric shock.

  He cursed and she watched the moment evaporate before she could grasp it back.

  The man turned back into the hard-as-nails captain she had met that first day. The rogue with the lucky streak and the hard eyes.

  He pushed several buttons on the console, cursing under his breath as she leaned back and drank some more of her coffee. Hopefully, they would circle this conversation again.

  Valentinian looked up and his eyes came back from a great distance to focus on her.

  “You’re coming with me,” he said starkly. “But it’s time to run.”

  “What just happened?” she felt a surge of adrenaline spike her stomach.

  “Dominion-427 just came out of warp overhead and pinged the planet for landing instructions.”

  29

  Glaxu

  “Let me repeat this back, so you can correct me and I can understand,” Glaxu intoned gravely.

  Captain Valentinian nodded.

  Glaxu paused to draw a breath as the words seemed to jumble in his mouth.

  “Dave Hall is not Dave Hall,” he said, watching the two human men nod. “He is being pursued by a relentless, human female, ex-mate who we expect is aboard the ship overhead. Said warship is at least as well armed as Outermost, and contains ground combat troops in addition? That the best course of action suggested is to flee as soon as the sun sets and we can evade ground observation, with the expectation that the ship will have landed someplace like Soulrake or Meeredge and we can make the edge of the atmosphere safely. From there, flight. Am I generally correct?”

  “You are,” the Dave Hall impersonator answered. “Dominion-427 is an assault courier, so it will be armored and armed.”

  “Why do we have an expectation that they will be able to find us here?” Glaxu tried to wrap his beak around that phase, silly as it was. “Have we not told the natives to seek us in the South Polar regions?”