by Mark Wandrey
With the thin atmosphere, Pale Rider would have had an easy entry, except Jim picked the highest angle of approach he could get away with. The ship plummeted into the thickening air surrounded by a nimbus of star-hot plasma. She bucked like an angry animal as the thin atmosphere made itself known. Splunk hung on like she always did while Jim pulled his straps tighter and watched the controls nervously.
The computer was sophisticated and well programmed. He knew it was capable of flying the ship better than he was. Regardless, his hands hovered over the controls, while he hoped he wouldn’t need to try and actually fly the ship.
In a few minutes they’d slowed enough that the plasma discharge cleared, their speed dropped to just under the planet’s speed of sound, and Jim watched the autopilot use the ship’s thrusters to bank them around and drop above their coordinates. In another minute, he got his first look at their destination.
He couldn’t call it a city; it was more of an ancient industrial site. He had no doubt it dated back to the Great Galactic War, only there was little to indicate what it might have once been. Countless long buildings were arrayed along wide avenues with pylons in the center of intersections. Most appeared broken or toppled, but a scattered few gave hints as to what they once might have looked like.
“More like a park or monument than a Raknar depot,” Jim said and shook his head. Splunk had no comment.
As Pale Rider descended, her cameras provided more detailed views, which revealed that many of the long buildings had crumbled in upon themselves, while others were only outlines or foundations. It was indeed a ruin.
They reached the point of no return, where Jim had to make the call whether to land or return to orbit. As they dropped below ten kilometers, there was no sign of anything aimed at them from the vicinity of their landing site. He sighed and keyed the autopilot to proceed with the landing.
The coordinates provided by Klay were at the eastern edge of the ruins, next to a small, frozen, inland sea. Pale Rider’s landing rockets roared, slowing the ship and leveling it above the coordinates. It looked less like a starport than anything he’d ever visited.
A dozen areas had been cleared with earth-moving equipment. Each was roughly circular and 20 meters across—only half the length of Pale Rider. Not optimal, but her landing gear were all situated amidships, so he could avoid putting her down in the non-cleared areas. However, there was a lot of junk lying around, and he began to regret his decision to land.
“Gonna be tight,” he said, mostly to himself but also so Splunk would hear. He activated the ship’s tight-beam terrain-mapping radar, which gave him a perfect computer-generated layout of all the parking spaces. Five of the twelve already had vessels parked on them. One appeared like a modern working shuttle; not fancy, but good sized. Of the other seven parking spots, five were overlapped by tall debris and unusable by Pale Rider. Two of them looked okay. He picked one and fed the data to the autopilot. “Landing,” he announced.
“Ready,
Pale Rider came around the landing area, quickly oriented on the location Jim indicated, and dropped rapidly toward the ground. He heard a clank, followed by the whining of hydraulics as the landing gear emerged. A second later, he felt a jolt as the legs absorbed Pale Rider’s mass, and the rockets cut out, settling her to a stop. After the roar of descent and landing, the silence was astounding.
“All systems good,
Jim checked his status boards, verifying green across the systems. He heaved an audible sigh of relief and initiated the reactor-safing control while putting the ship into standby. It was the first time he’d been responsible for landing Pale Rider. He wasn’t looking forward to doing it again.
“Set the safeties,” he said and saw movement outside through the thick glass. Wind swirled the dust in the dim landscape. It looked as bleak from the ground as it had from the sky. A trio of ground vehicles that reminded him of oversized skid steers churned up dust as they rolled toward them. “Let’s meet our Vaga hosts.”
Moving through Pale Rider when she was grounded wasn’t as easy as it was in space, especially since many of her services were in the gravity decks, two of which would be at poor angles for use. The ship’s manual said you needed to rotate when the ship landed to use those decks, which was a pain.
He stopped in his cabin and grabbed some gear—a breathing mask, a heavier uniform jacket to stay warm in the thin atmosphere, and a utility pack with damage control gear. He finished it off with his gun belt. Jim used his pinplants to unlock his safe and reached in to retrieve his GP-90 handgun. He expertly checked the weapon’s condition, verified the magazine was loaded, and holstered the it. The gun belt already held two extra magazines. Resealing the safe, he went to meet Splunk at the lock.
Getting out of the ship wasn’t much easier than moving through it. A somewhat rickety ladder unfolded from the ship’s underside. He donned his breathing mask and heavy uniform jacket before nodding to Splunk.
She triggered the sequence, and the lock cycled, letting in frigid air which tasted of dust and decay, even through the mask. He tightened the straps as the pressure equalized and the heavy steel door swung inwards. Jim looked down at the metal ladder and shook his head. Wasn’t meant for plus-sized Humans. Splunk hurried out and seemed to run down the ladder. Jim made a face and tried to look graceful as he followed her.
By the time he completed his white-knuckled descent, Splunk was waiting along with a small crowd of Vaga. Being Human, Jim was disconcerted to find himself surrounded by large, armored bugs. The description of the Vaga didn’t mention their bright reflective carapaces were over a meter tall, or that they had six spine-covered legs and huge mandibles which also served as grasping and carrying limbs.
He shuddered slightly as he moved next to Splunk. She quickly jumped onto his shoulder, her favorite place to be when they went about. “I am Jim Cartwright,” he said to the aliens.
“Welcome,” the biggest bug said. Jim’s translator rendered what sounded like chiton scraping together and clicking leg joints. “I am Klay, leader here. We thank you for removing the Jakota pirates from our system.”
“It looked like a Merchants Guild thing,” Jim said.
“This operation is aligned with the Wathayat Syndicate,” Klay explained. “The guild has sanctioned the operation.” He spread his big, armored mandibles wide and clacked them together loud enough to make Jim jump slightly. “But many things are strange these days. The Mercenary Guild is doing unusual things.”
“Like what?” Jim asked.
The Vaga shuddered, wing cases clattering. “It is no one thing; it is many little things. If we have time, I will talk about them. For now, I believe you asked to see some of the ruins? I have a vehicle, and it is at your disposal.”
“That is very kind,” Jim said. “I’m sure we could get by without.”
“Do not think anything of it,” Klay said, his armor clicking in a pleasing tone. “These areas are vast; your kind does not move as quickly as we do. Besides, if I understand, you cannot breathe the air without artificial aid?”
Jim put a hand to his breathing mask and glanced up at Splunk on his shoulder. She wore a breathing mask perfectly suited to her physique, made by her in Pale Rider’s shop in only a few minutes. “True, the atmosphere is a little thin for us.”
“Then it is settled,” Klay said and indicated a vehicle with a clawed arm. “The driver inside has a translator and will take you wherever you want. He also has a computer chip with details on what each structure was used for…as best as we can ascertain, anyway.”
“Most generous,” Jim said and bowed his head. The Vaga all clicked happily at the show of respect.
They didn’t have much self-esteem. Maybe that could be useful.
They exchanged pleasantries for a bit, then Klay, along with his retinue, trundled off toward one of the other vehicles, leaving Jim and Splunk alone. Jim glanced over at the ship next to where he’d landed. It looked functional and des
igned to carry heavy loads in all kinds of environments. It was in good shape, though not perfect; clearly it had seen years of hard work but had been well maintained. His friend didn’t give it a second look as they walked to the vehicle they’d been provided.
* * *
“Nothing but ruins,” Jim said as he carefully picked his way from the 20th building he’d visited. Crumbled ceilings, crumbled walls, and crumbled floors. He was careful now, because he’d not been as careful a few buildings ago and had nearly caused a cave-in. Splunk spotted the wall, ready to collapse, and saved his life for what was probably the hundredth time.
“Klay did warn you,” the driver chittered from outside the ruined building.
Jim nodded as he made his way to the avenue where the vehicle waited. The Vaga had cleared the streets enough to allow them to drive, but just barely. “Once, many thousands of years ago, there was much filling these buildings. Sadly, it has all long since been plundered.”
Jim shrugged as he climbed into the vehicle and reached for the bulbous canopy handle, but he noticed Splunk wasn’t there. He released the handle and tried to find her. After a second, he saw his little friend running in his direction, intermittently on all fours. He was afraid she was running from something, but was able to tell by her body language she was just hurrying.
“All good?” he asked, just to be sure.
“Good,
He glanced at Splunk, who was also examining the list displayed on the slate. He stared at the Fae’s big blue-on-blue eyes intently observing, taking in the data. Just how much intelligence is behind those eyes? She’d done so much since they’d moved to Karma Upsilon 4. One surprise after another. Nothing seemed beyond her intellect.
“What do you think?” he asked her.
Splunk turned her blue eyes to him and blinked, her ears angled back and up slightly, a sign she was thinking. “I think we go off list,
Jim pursed his lips and looked back at the slate’s display. They were nearly a kilometer from any of the indicated locations. A building was sliding past on their left, taller than many, with long, evenly spaced windows. There was something was familiar about it.
“Stop here,” he said.
“But there’s nothing here,” the driver complained.
“I’ll figure it out for myself,” Jim replied. “Now stop.” The driver still hesitated. “Klay said this vehicle was at my disposal. Is it, or isn’t it?” The driver stopped.
“I think you’re wasting your time,” the Vaga yelled at him as Jim opened the door, and they got out.
“Maybe,” he said. “But I intend to find out for myself.” The Vaga watched Jim and Splunk walk through the rubble and use a shattered window to enter the building. They both had small, powerful flashlights and they turned them on. Splunk had modified hers to fit on the small harness she wore around her waist.
Jim immediately decided their impromptu move was the correct one. The interior of this building, while just as ruined as everything else they’d seen, lacked the scraped-clean look of the others they’d been conveniently directed to.
“Sneaky bug,
“Not the words I’d use,” Jim mumbled as they started poking through the ruins.
The building was long, at least a half kilometer in length. They’d entered on the end that looked to have been a storage facility—metal shelving looks the same in every epoch of history. There were also crushed or degraded remains of packing and crates, but nothing to indicate what had once been stored there.
Jim turned to ask Splunk a question and was startled to see her holding something and looking at it intently. “What do you have?” he asked. She started, and her ears went back.
“Some writing,
“Can I see?”
She looked back down at it as if she didn’t know if she wanted him to see it. “Can’t read,
The material felt like a cloth/plastic hybrid; it was flexible and about a millimeter thick. Maybe it had once been part of a shipping container, he couldn’t tell. Roughly rectangular in shape, it was disintegrating along its edges. He wondered why this bit had survived when the rest had surrendered to the ages, then he saw a clear spot of floor and an overturned bit of rubble. Splunk must have kicked aside the detritus and found it.
The entire thing was a dirty tan color. One side was rougher than the other, and there was writing on the smooth side. At least, he thought it must be writing. Jim narrowed his eyes as he activated his pinplants and mapped the symbols. First Republic Script was the correlation from his GalNet data records. Bingo. He ran a translation and got an error.
It appeared he didn’t have a complete library of the aforementioned First Republic script. Only it didn’t make any sense. When he’d left on his quest for Raknar information, he’d loaded over a petabyte of First Republic lore and records. One of the peculiarities about the old era was languages were simpler, even though there were many times more races active in the galaxy. The official language of the First Republic was roughly translated as “Common.” If you were a citizen, or wanted to be one, you had to know Common. Tricky if you were a bug talking about chemicals.
To be precise, Common was a derivative of five or more different languages. Human researchers had been studying it going all the way back to first contact. Jim fell into a research hole in high school once and had spent a weekend reading a paper by Dr. Adelaide Black about the First Republic and its languages. Or rather, as she said, for a galaxy-spanning civilization, its lack of languages. The modern Galactic Union had tens of thousands of languages, which was considered “normal.”
“How the hell is my data incomplete?” he wondered aloud. He puzzled over the bit of material for a minute. Because the translation data was incomplete, he couldn’t understand as much as a word of the writing. Seriously frustrating.
He glanced down and saw Splunk wandering around the end of the building, glancing back at him occasionally. He thought she was acting a little shifty. He looked at the material one more time and stuffed it into one of the cargo pockets on his uniform pants. He had a lot of his pinplant files duplicated in Pale Rider’s computer; maybe the language file was one of them.
The passage into the next section of building was tough. The wall was canted at a slight angle, as if the roof had been hit by a huge weight, shifting the load bearing points and causing structural failure. Two huge doors were situated at equidistant points. Both showed signs of obvious stress buckling. However, there was also a much smaller door obviously meant for individuals. It was closed and buckled as well.
“Good thing I planned for this,” he said as he took off his small backpack and dug through his gear. Searching for clues about Raknar meant searching lots of ruins, which meant getting into places like this. He took out a folded crowbar and snapped it open before setting it aside. Next, he removed a handy little device merc marines often used, composed of an ultra-thin piece of flexible carbon fiber and nanotube-reinforced material the size of a slate, which helped get into locked doors.
Jim carefully worked the device into the door seam at what he guessed was its weakest point. Once it was in place, he connected a tube from his backpack’s integral power system to the device and activated the tool. Hydraulic fluid was introduced to the bag and it began to expand. In seconds the door groaned, and dust fell from the frame.
Jim took a step back as the entire wall shuddered, not sure if his plan was the best course of action after all. He backed up as far as the hose would let him and put a hand on the pump control. Splunk jumped onto his shoulder and watched the bag inflate with interest.
The bag was rated for several thousand kilograms per square centimeter before failing. The pump could power it well past the breaking
point if he let it. The tool kit was designed for spaceship damage control, hence the reason it was hydraulic, not pneumatic. It wouldn’t rupture, just spring a leak. The hydraulic fluid was self-sealing, and if it leaked you’d have a visual clue of the problem.
There was a bang! and the door popped out of the frame. Jim had been expecting it, but he still gave a little start when it happened. The bladder reached maximum extension, and he set the pump to evacuate. It drained a lot faster than it filled. He pulled it free of the frame and investigated his handiwork. Not bad. He pulled the door, and it moved a centimeter before it jammed again, but now he had an opening.
“Hand me the crowbar,” he said. Splunk hefted the bar and held it up for him. Jim took it and jammed the smaller of the two angled ends into the popped frame, giving it an experimental pull. The door creaked and opened another centimeter. He made a face and pulled harder, producing even less of a result and tearing his right palm.
“Damn it,” he said and looked at his hand in Splunk’s flashlight. A little blood dripped. He glared at the crowbar before reaching into his backpack and finding his gloves. “Better late than never,” he said pulling them on. Jim took the crowbar again, set a foot against the jam, and pulled for all he was worth.
“Grrrraaah!” he exclaimed as he pulled. His knee hurt, his hip hurt, and his back threatened to snap, but he refused to stop pulling. When the door gave a little, he redoubled his efforts. Hundreds of hours in hyperspace, running, rowing, and doing low-gravity pushups—not to mention fighting in CASPers—had changed his body in ways he didn’t fully understand.
The door broke free of its hinges, and Jim cried out as he flew backward. Splunk squeaked in alarm and dodged out of the way as her friend thudded to the floor and skidded a meter through the dust and detritus. He shook his head and sat up. The door was at least halfway open.
“Whoa,” he said. “I did it!”
“Good job, Jim,
