The Shattered Stars: Breach of Contract

by Vance Huxley

  “Then he earned it, the name.” She sighed, then looked down at her legs and grinned. “You didn’t show me this until I showed you my secret. Have you any more secrets?”

  Bobby relaxed because Fleur had gone back to her old self, teasing a bit. “Show me something else and find out.”

  She raised a leg, and inspected it. “Maybe, but this is enough for one day.”

  “Oh yes, those legs are definitely enough for one day.” As Bobby went to tell Siflis and Bells, and while sorting through the captured gear, those legs kept surprising him as they went by. They just looked so bledrin wrong, especially covered in some sort of coloured coating that looked a lot like skin, in skin tones that matched the women. When Pepee finally took off her leggings hers were the same chocolate brown as her skin, with white stockings. Shapely legs in stockings shouldn’t be wandering around a war zone, or topped by serious, professional Troopers even if they were also seriously sleek Troopers. Perhaps Bells being laid up wasn’t such a bad thing. He nearly had a heart attack when he woke up and called out and Baiser went in to check on him. Magpie kept scowling at the legs, not Les Putes. The Putes made no effort to cover up again, and practically speaking the metal legs were as warm and tougher than anything they could put over them.

  * * *

  Bobby blamed the legs for distracting him when he finally remembered what he’d been going to do today. He’d been eating a few more cheese sticks, wondering if he should open more bins, and how many more the lasers would open, when he remembered. Bobby smiled as he stood because this would be a new secret for both him and Fleur so he wouldn’t get a secret from her in return. “Fleur, do you want to see a secret?”

  “Another? Today? What you expect to see in return?” Her smile teased, suggesting she might not mind.

  “I don’t know. After all, I don’t know what this secret is.” On the way he explained. Standing outside the double doors, Fleur inspected the marks where they’d tried to force them apart. Serious hammering had only caused a few scratches in the plastic-like covering around the crack in the middle.

  “We tried this first, with the other doors and bins.”

  “We tried with bins as well. Stand back.” Bobby set his laser and warmed up the panel against the door. Periodically he tried the door, but when it worked there was no need as the doors slid apart without twisting the control. Fleur put a knife across the groove to stop them closing again, and they stood and looked. “Is that a kitchen or an operating table?”

  “Abattoir, for the meat in the bins?” The object in question looked like a steel table but with grooves and holes, probably to drain fluids. A dome hanging down just above it sported a frightening array of blades, drills, syringes, probes, tweezers and pincers. “Maybe Magpie should have put la bitte on here. Maybe he would have screamed a bit more.”

  “I asked. Magpie said she daren’t let him scream more in case Pepee came in, but she wanted Baiser to hear him die.” Magpie had been a little bit more graphic about what she’d wanted to do, but that covered it.

  “Baiser liked the screaming a lot. Any time Magpie needs a friend, Baiser will be there. She is sorry Magpie is a woman, and has a man, so she can’t say thank you now.” They’d been walking forward as they spoke, walking around the table, and now Fleur pointed. “In there would be a better place. He could scream a long time in there.”

  Bobby looked at the box with the heavy-looking raised lid. “If these are for injured crew they were wider and taller than us, humans.” He sniggered. “Who knows how he would have come out? Six eyes, three legs, tentacles?”

  Fleur shuddered and then punched his arm. “Non, stop.” She paused. “Maybe not. The ship took bodies so maybe it can repair humans. Maybe it would have put new legs on him.” She flinched. “Legs from a dead Chinois or Yankee?”

  “I prefer the metal ones to that, or yours anyway.” Bobby looked around the banks of dead machinery and the blank screens. Marks and painted symbols showed where either drawers or maybe hatches opened. Another four tables and seven boxes were arranged around the floor space, with one couch-type seat scaled for a creature over a metre wide and nearly three metres long or tall. “Unless we can persuade Bells or Ecarlate to try a box or table, we’d better go and look at the other room.”

  “Maybe the second secret will help us more?” Fleur glanced towards the room with the holes and ladders. “We can try up or down next.”

  “Just to look, because there aren’t enough of us to hold a bigger area. I’m hoping the Rangers have enough food now and will call it quits.” Bobby shrugged. “They will think your Super is still alive so we could have ten to their seven, instead of eight.”

  “Bells will fight one handed so we have nine. He is like Ecarlate and Baiser, he will fight any way he can because he likes it.” Fleur gestured at the door. “Do you want me to use my laser?”

  “No, this one was Mickey’s. We’ve used it for everything else so it’s nearly done, but the rest have nearly full charges.” Bobby played the beam gently on the control bulge. He began to think this lock wouldn’t react, but the doors finally slid apart. This time Bobby put a knife in the groove, and as he did so movement caught his eye. A laser in the gloom tracked his movement, one like those by the two big doors. “Careful. Lasers.”

  Fleur peered into the room, which seemed much smaller than the last one with bars all around the walls. She leaned a bit further. Even as Bobby reached out a hand to stop her, because the laser twitched, the room lights came on. They both gasped and stood very still. “L’armurerie. We have found the weapons.”

  “We also found a lot of lasers, live ones.” The bars surrounded a small entrance space, with doors leading off on three sides, but beyond that stretched a room every bit as big as the last one. Each of the doors had a dimpled bulge, but Bobby didn’t think those big lasers would like him using his hand laser on one. “That looks like body armour, better than Trooper gear.”

  Fleur giggled. “Better than le blinde, a tank, maybe.” She pointed, then froze but although three lasers now aimed at her outstretched arm, none fired. The suit, scaled for the same size creature as the couch, must have provided complete protection. “Maybe that is a spacesuit?”

  “Maybe pull your arm back? Slowly?”

  “Probably as dangerous to move back as forward.” Fleur moved forward a little and stopped again. Lasers tracked her hand, but only two of them. “See?” She moved further and slid a foot over the threshold. “We are no threat. No flashing yellow lights so if I do not point a weapon, I will be safe.”

  “How about not carrying a weapon, none at all, and moving slow?”

  Fleur smiled nervously. “Oui. Very slow.” She passed her weapons back to Bobby before easing forward a bit at a time until she stood inside. The French Trooper released her pent-up breath. “Come and look.”

  “Why not?” Because a laser might turn him into a grease spot, Bobby thought, but put his weapons on the floor with hers and moved slowly to come alongside Fleur. The lasers followed every movement but didn’t fire. “They are guards to stop someone who tries to break in, not to stop someone trying the door controls.”

  “Unless we get the controls wrong, give the wrong command.” Fleur sighed. “Just one of those carbins might be enough to kill all the Rangers and Shiva’s.” Bobby thought she might be right. The rifle or laser just looked the part, gleaming, lethal, Alien perfection. Somehow he just knew even a Super’s jacket wouldn’t slow it up.

  Bobby sighed as well. “Perhaps we’ll pull back slowly before I stick my arm through the bars and try to grab something, even a pistol?”

  “Ha, yes. I really want to try.” They both retreated, reluctantly.

  Once outside they looked into the room until the light went out, then Bobby retrieved his knife. He played his laser on the control until the doors slid together. “I daren’t leave it open. Somebody would have to try.”

  “What about the hospital?” Fleur scowled. “Or abattoir.”

>   “We’ll let them all look at that. Maybe someone will work out what it does or how to start it up if that’s a hospital because we need help. Perhaps Siflis can help because he seems to understand this stuff a bit better than the rest of us. Bells needs more than first aid for his arm, and I doubt the reinforcements will bring a surgeon.” Bobby’s face twisted in disgust. “They probably expect us all to be dead.” He looked around the central area and the corridor leading away in both directions. “I doubt they’ll bring engineers and electricians or code breakers either.”

  “At least Bells will have a nurse soon.” Fleur sniggered. “Ecarlate volunteered to sit with him after she sleeps and before she goes on guard duty.”

  “Has she taken off her leggings as well?”

  “Yes. Though Bells only gets to look just now, not check if her stockings are real. Do you think he will feel better?” Since Fleur had started giggling she already knew.

  Bobby gave up and let the laughter come. “He’ll be reporting for duty and offering to go on patrol with her.”

  * * *

  Unfortunately for Bells, doubling up on a shift with anyone else wasn’t an option. Mickey had divided time into six periods of four hours, because the light never altered and they all needed downtime and sleep. Now everyone spent two periods on guard, with each shift needing three Troopers. One had to guard the ladders with another guard at each barricade, which meant Bells had to stand his shift but on his own, though he did get to sleep the same time as Ecarlate. They all worked for at least part of their other eight hours’ downtime, simply because there wasn’t much else to do and food and defences had to be organised as soon as possible. A low barricade at the end of the cross passageway ensured that a grenade thrown up the corridor would have little effect. All edible food stocks they’d found so far were transferred to the sleeping quarters on the lower balcony in case they had to retreat that far, and the remaining bins were relocked.

  This first evening without a Super, Fleur put her spacesuit back on and Bobby took her to make contact with Aggie and the rocket. He could now make the trip in relative safety because storage bins had been used to build a high barricade two bins thick right across the corridor, with a guard behind it. Borrowing the idea from the Rangers a second, lower barricade went across four metres feet behind the first. The airlock entrance now lay safely behind the second barricade. “Do you want to come in while I report?”

  Fleur didn’t answer straight away. “Yes, but not because I do not trust you. I want you to hear when I report, so you can be sure of what I said. Are you sure your capsule will report what I say?” Bobby noticed again how good her Anglic became when Fleur really thought about it.

  “I don’t know but if we tell them about the bridge they’ll want us to hold it any way possible. Providing we really are allowed to negotiate contracts, then when Aggie reports what we agreed the UKs will have a legal contract with FAC. That’s what we call you, Franco-African Combine.” Bobby had never thought about the next part. “What do you call your bloc?”

  “Francais-Africaine Combinez, so still FAC.” Mischief showed in her smile. “You are UR, Unis Royaumes, or Rosbif which means roast beef. I don’t know why. Why are we, les Francais, called Frogs?”

  “I don’t know. Everyone says that even on the news viewers and vids.” Bobby gestured at the outer airlock door. “Once we’ve put our helmets on we can only talk by touching them, because my coms won’t talk to Fr... Francais. My command link for contacting Mickey also lets me talk to Aggie.”

  “I know. You already told me three times. I have Pepee’s coms but we have no capsule to contact.” Fleur sighed. “For luck, ami.”

  Bobby smiled when she gave him another of those ammee kisses on the lips before he clipped his helmet on. Once locked in he pushed the handle to open the outside door but, as Mickey had reported, the door didn’t move at first. The purple lights changed one by one to yellow, danger, and his suit inflated as the ship sucked air from the airlock. Once the fifth light glowed yellow Bobby pushed on the handle and the door opened.

  Bobby flinched for a moment as two sections of his faceplate lit up with the radar and camera views from Aggie. He’d forgotten about those. He put his helmet to Fleur’s as she followed him into the bubble created in the ice when the door opened. “Are you receiving radar and camera pictures from your capsule?”

  “Non. There is nothing from our radio. Les Allemandes laser destroyed the radio or computer on our capsule. Will Aggie hear me?”

  “One moment. Keep your helmet in contact so you can hear.” Bobby tongued the com. “Trooper Sergeant Three Bobby B reporting to Aggie. Supervisor McKay has been killed in action, report follows.” Bobby gave a short account of the fight. “The FAC Supervisor has also been killed, and as the senior remaining UKs member in the spaceship, I have negotiated a treaty with the senior FAC member. We have agreed to defend access to the bridge of the Alien spaceship and an entry point for UKs and FAC reinforcements. We have sufficient food and water to last for a while. End report and send.”

  “Report received and stored for transmission. Two messages for Supervisor McKay. Please record.”

  “Recording.”

  “Message one: Area Manager Gunnar Eriksson for Supervisor McKay. Maintain defence of an access point at all costs. Negotiate contract with other blocs to achieve objective if necessary. Attempt contract for access to engines or any controls. We are six or seven sleep periods from contact, depending on deceleration timing. Each bloc has sent a rocket with nine capsules. Our capsules contain all the Basteds, auxiliaries and heavy weapons. We are assured that this rocket holds manoeuvring fuel, and supplies for two months, and a re-supply rocket is following. Out.”

  “Message received.” Bobby’s mind whirled. Guns would be here in another six or seven days? Why hadn’t the basteds in Control said so? Because there wasn’t enough air, food or water to last even that long. If the Basteds hadn’t found extra, they’d be dying or dead by now and never get the message because that sodin mothership rocket hadn’t even given up food now, after finding the sodin bridge. Unless it waited for Control to send a message, but Bobby didn’t have much faith in that.

  “Message two: UKs Control. Vital maintain control of airlock by any means. Out. End of messages.”

  “Message received.” Bobby paused. “Can you relay a message from the FAC representative to Area Manager Eriksson, UKs Control and the FAC Control?”

  “All transmissions from any bloc are recorded and forwarded to UKs Control. Messages for Area Supervisor Gunnar Eriksson will also be transmitted to Control.”

  “What have the Shivas and Rangers been saying?” Bobby spoke in pure reflex, then tried to remember the proper letters for the two blocs.

  “This software cannot read the content of messages from other blocs.” Bobby cursed softly. He’d tried Mickey’s coms but there must be some biometrics in the contacts, since he detected a short burst of transmission but didn’t get the words.

  Fleur disturbed his thoughts. “I will transmit, and your Aggie will forward it to your Control. The message will record that we have a contract. Your Control should honour that, as they have told you to negotiate. Then we decide what to tell them about how we survived.” Bobby wasn’t so sure that would work, but kept quiet. “I will transmit now, but in Anglic and will tell them it is so that you know I am honouring that contract.” Fleur paused and then began to speak formally in Anglic.

  She gave details of the death of Aigu and the wounds to herself and Ecarlate, and blamed the death of her Supervisor on enemy action. That meant adapting everyone’s recollection of what had really happened at the Putes end of the corridor, and would mean using up some captured ammo to shred the knife wounds. At the end she paused, and presumably stopped the transmission. “All done. Merde, I hope your Control agree.”

  “All finished?”

  “Oui, but I would like to stay here for a little while. To see the stars.” The blue ship lights still suffused
the ice and tinted the sharp points of interstellar light, but the stars were visible. With a shock Bobby realised the brightest must be the sun, his sun! A much brighter star, but not bright enough to activate the darkening in his faceplate. Until then Bobby hadn’t really processed how far he’d come from home. His arm tightened around Fleur. Hers returned the pressure through the thick suit.

  They crouched there for a while, arms around each other, until Bobby sighed. “We should save the air in the suits.” He waved a hand up at the view. “We should let everyone see this. Though maybe we should not tell them just how close help is, since they will all work out it isn’t close enough.”

  “We should let them come and see, and talk about the rest later. All of us should realise we are on our own even when reinforcements get here, that nobody will come quickly if we need help.” Fleur broke the helmet contract and turned away to re-enter the ship. When the lights inside glowed yellow and she removed her helmet, she rubbed at her eyes before turning to face Bobby. “We need each other now.” A few moments later Bobby wondered if that ammee kiss might be reassurance for Fleur as well as him, and reminded himself that Les Putes were trained to fool men. Though a part of him stayed fooled.

  As each trio came back from the airlock they walked closer together, and in deep thought. Bobby and Fleur explained the new version of the fight. Pepee looked unhappy but agreed to it after Fleur reminded her that otherwise Control would blame the Sergeant-chef for not protecting her Super. Fleur and Bobby fired half a clip of Ranger flechettes into the Frog Super at point blank range, split between the knife wounds. Magpie had more or less gelded him which explained the high pitch of his scream, then opened his belly, then finished him by cutting his throat. The body went into an emptied storage bin, as had the others, sealed away where it wouldn’t smell when Fleur closed the lid properly.