Starship Grifters (A Rex Nihilo Adventure)

by Robert Kroese

  Fingers visibly paled at the thought.

  “I’m afraid the exciting part of Phase Two requires someone who has elbows,” said Rex.

  Fingers brightened. General Issimo frowned. “Phase Two seems to have some pretty specific requirements,” he said.

  “Crawling six kilometers through ventilation shafts,” said Rex. “I’d like to see you do that without elbows.”

  Blowing a reactor core and crawling through ventilation shafts. Rex was really pulling out all the old standards for this mission.

  “Six kilometers!” the general exclaimed. “That could take . . .”

  “A day and a half,” said Rex. “Is that about right, Sasha?”

  “The galactic record for the six-kilometer ventilation shaft crawl is thirty-two hours, eight minutes, and three seconds.”

  “Is that encumbered or unencumbered?” asked Rex.

  “Unencumbered, sir.”

  “The general is going to be dragging ten kilos of explosives.”

  “Hang on,” said the general. “I didn’t agree to this.”

  “My mistake,” said Rex. “I thought you said you wanted to be part of the exciting phase of the mission. If you’re frightened, I can send Sasha.”

  “I didn’t say I was frightened!” snapped the general.

  “Good,” said Rex. “Sasha, what’s the record for the ten-kilo encumbered ventilation shaft crawl?”

  “There is no ten-kilo encumbered ventilation shaft crawl,” I replied. “The lowest level of encumbrance is twenty kilos. The record is just over thirty-four hours.”

  “Well, if I know General Issimo,” said Rex, “he’s going to want to keep everything aboveboard. That means a full twenty-kilo encumbrance.”

  “I only have twelve kilos of explosives left,” said Fingers apologetically. “I didn’t know we were going to be doing a ventilation shaft crawl.”

  “Not a problem, Fingers,” said Rex. “Rig up a pack of explosives and add eight kilos of sand to get it up to standard weight.”

  “Look,” growled the general. “Even if I agree to this, I don’t see the point of dragging an extra eight kilos of sand with me.”

  “I don’t make the rules,” said Rex. “Take it up with SCHAVDR.”

  “Who the hell is Shafter?”

  “Society of Competitive Heating and Ventilation Duct Racers,” Rex explained impatiently. “S-C-H-A-V-D-R. Now I personally don’t have a problem with you shorting your encumbrance by eight kilos, but as a matter of principle I won’t be able to vouch for you to SCHAVDR if you intend on going for the record.”

  “Why in Space would I want to go for a record?” snarled the general. “All I care about is blowing the reactor core and getting Wick out of prison.”

  “Well,” said Rex. “Other than the chance to win the coveted Golden Shaft, the fact is that if you’re going to blow the reactor core by the time we bore through the floor of Wick’s cell, you’re going to have to come pretty close to galactic record pace at this point. So you might as well go for it, you know?”

  “If we’re pressed for time, why didn’t you tell me about this three hours ago?” demanded General Issimo.

  “You’re the one who wanted to keep things exciting,” Rex said. “And what’s more exciting than racing against time to blow up a reactor core and possibly winning a Golden Shaft in the process? Anyway, we’re cutting it pretty close now, so I’d recommend stripping to your skivvies so Sasha can butter you up.”

  “Butter me up?” said the general, aghast.

  “You’re not planning on doing a dry six-kilometer ventilation shaft crawl, are you? Sasha, help the general out of his uniform, would you? Fingers, get those explosives ready. And don’t forget the sand.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Once General Issimo was buttered up and appropriately encumbered, I hoisted him into a ventilation shaft from one of the unused supply rooms. I had provided him with a hand-drawn map supposedly based on a blueprint I had downloaded from the reactor’s main computer. In fact the “map” was a printout of page 267 from 1,001 Mazes, Puzzles, and Word Scrambles, which Rex found on the Flagrante Delicto’s server. The page was conveniently labeled “Help Samson the Space Dog Find the Reactor Core!” but had been rendered nearly unreadable by Rex’s attempts to do just that. Having done my best to erase Rex’s martini-inspired scribbles and trace the correct route in red ink, I avoided any direct questions from the general about the nature of the map, simply telling him that if he followed the marked route, he’d have no trouble getting where we needed him to be for Phase Two—which was anywhere but here. Once he reached the reactor core, he was to radio us with his status. When Rex gave him the all clear, the general was to exit the shaft, plant the charge, and make his way back to the Flagrante Delicto.

  There was virtually no chance of the general reaching the reactor core, of course; the best-case scenario would be for him to waste the next day and a half smearing the insides of the facility’s ventilation shafts with butter. Eventually we’d call him on his personal communicator and tell him the mission had been aborted. With any luck he’d make it back to the ship without leading a dozen security guards to us and we’d all head back to the forest moon safe and sound. Well, except for Wick. There was unfortunately no room in the rescue plan for any actual rescue.

  The promise of a day and a half of peace and quiet was shattered about ten minutes after the general’s cloven hooves disappeared into the ventilation shaft. “Hey, guys,” squawked the general’s voice over Rex’s personal communicator. “Are you sure this map is correct? It seems like it’s missing some—”

  “Maintain radio silence,” snapped Rex into his communicator as he accepted a martini from Fingers.

  “It’s a little hard to read in here,” panted the general, “but it looks like I should have reached Abby the Space Tabby by now. Do you read me?”

  “Proceed according to plan,” instructed Rex.

  “I’m trying to,” said the general. “That’s what I’m saying. The map says I’m supposed to go left at Abby the Space Tabby and proceed straight until I get to the planet Saturn, but I don’t see any—”

  “We’re activating Zeta Protocol on this end,” said Rex. “Going dark until further notice. Good luck, General.” He switched off the communicator.

  “Is that a good idea, sir?” I asked. “What if the general panics?”

  “Then I won’t have to hear about it,” said Rex.

  He had a point.

  The next twenty-four hours were peaceful and relatively pleasant, despite the heat of the lazecannons and ever-present odor of atomized rock. If the general was panicking, at least he was doing it out of earshot. But a few hours into the second day of boring, the near silence of the abandoned landing bay was punctuated by a distant scream. For a moment, I thought the general must have somehow found a duct leading back to us, but then I realized the sound was coming from the other side of the shaft we had been boring.

  “Shut it down!” I cried. “Fingers, shut down the lazecannons!”

  After a few seconds the lazecannons shut off, and Fingers came stumbling bleary-eyed out of the Flagrante Delicto. He had evidently been asleep. Rex was still inside.

  “What is it?” asked Fingers. “Did we hit Wick’s cell?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t see how we could possibly have hit anything. There’s nothing up there to hit.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Fingers, confused. “I thought Rex said we were boring right into Wick’s cell.”

  “Er, he did say that,” I said, thinking quickly. “But we shouldn’t have hit it yet.”

  “Oh,” said Fingers, leaning toward his right hand to scratch his chin thoughtfully.

  “I said, is someone down there?” called a voice from above. It didn’t sound like Wick.

  “What do we do?” wh
ispered Fingers. “This is supposed to be a secret mission. Should we wake up Rex?”

  I made an executive decision. “Who’s up there?” I yelled.

  “You first,” yelled the voice.

  “Tell him we’re with a utility crew,” I whispered to Fingers.

  “Why don’t you tell him?” Fingers whispered back.

  “I can’t lie,” I said. “Tell him we’re checking the floors for radiation leaks.”

  Fingers frowned but did as he was told. “We’re a utility crew checking the floors for radiation leaks!” he yelled.

  “You’re checking what?” called the voice.

  “The floors!” repeated Fingers.

  “There’s something wrong with the floors?”

  “Tell him there’s nothing to worry about,” I whispered. “Someone reported a disturbance in this area and we’re just checking it out.”

  “We’re just checking out a disturbance!” yelled Fingers.

  “A disturbance?” the voice called back. “What kind of disturbance?”

  “With the floors!” hollered Fingers.

  “Did you say there’s been some kind of disturbance in the floors?” called the voice.

  As we were having this exchange, Rex emerged from the Flagrante Delicto. “Holy Space,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “What’s all the caterwauling about?”

  “We’ve hit something, sir,” I said. “Or someone, actually.”

  “Who is that up there?” Rex yelled.

  “None of your business!” yelled the voice. “There’s nothing wrong with our floors. Now plug up this hole before someone . . . gaaahhh!” There was a sound of scuffling and cursing, followed by a man falling from the ceiling and landing on the rock pile, which was only a couple of meters from the ceiling now. He screamed again as he tumbled down the blisteringly hot slag to the floor. Thinking quickly, Fingers crouched down to grab a nearby seltzer bottle and gave the man a good long spray. Rex helped the man to his feet.

  The man was shriveled and decrepit; he had thin gray hair that was matted and dirty, and he wore a filthy, torn cotton smock. He looked uncertainly around the landing bay, his eyes gradually widening. “I did it!” he exclaimed. “I escaped! Ha-ha! So long, suckers!” With that, he took off running, disappearing into the darkness. After a few moments, the sound of his bare feet padding on the concrete floor faded into silence. I turned to Rex. He shrugged.

  Once the slag pile had cooled a bit, I climbed to the top and managed to pull myself up into the shaft. I crawled up the steep incline until I found myself in a sloping tunnel. Shining my headlight into the darkness, I saw that it extended a good ten meters in front of me before angling sharply upward. Behind me, the tunnel dead-ended a few meters beyond the shaft. Something silvery glinted in the dim light at the end of the tunnel. I climbed over the shaft opening and inspected the object. It was a very well-worn spoon. I picked it up and climbed back down the shaft.

  “So?” demanded Rex.

  “Looks like an escape tunnel,” I said, landing on top of the slag pile. “He must have been digging for years.” I held up the spoon.

  The old man reappeared in the dim light of the Flagrante Delicto. “Excuse me,” he said, trudging toward us. “How do I get out of this place? Hey, give me back my spoon!”

  I handed him the spoon, which he clutched tightly to his chest with both hands. “Where are you trying to go?” I asked.

  He scratched his head. “Hadn’t really thought about it. Never really expected to get out. I think at one point I might have been seriously trying to escape, but for the past twelve years or so I’ve been digging recreationally. You know, just digging for the sake of digging. It’s the only way to stay sane.”

  “Holy Space, man,” exclaimed Rex. “How long have you been digging?”

  “Eighteen years, three months, two days,” said the man.

  I made my impressed whistling sound.

  “Where does that tunnel lead?” asked Rex.

  “To my cell. Number 21482.”

  “Is anybody going to notice you’re missing?”

  “Not for a while. They already did tonight’s inspection.”

  “Do you need something for your injuries?” I asked. His arms and legs were scraped and burned in several places from tumbling down the slag pile.

  “A Knight of the Chaotic Equilibrium feels no pain,” announced the man proudly.

  “Ah, OK,” I replied. Rex looked questioningly at me but I had no explanation.

  “Would you care for a drink?” asked Rex.

  “A Knight of the Chaotic Equilibrium partakes of no strong spirits,” said the man. “But I could use a glass of apple juice if you have it.”

  Rex nodded. “Fingers can help you out with that. What’s your name, friend?”

  “Gleem Nads-Tardo, Knight of the Chaotic Equilibrium at your service,” said the man. “You can call me Ted.”

  “All right, Ted. I’m Rex and this is my assistant, Sasha. Fingers here will get you something to eat.”

  When Fingers and Ted had disappeared into the ship, Rex whispered to me, “What’s this Knight of the Chaotic Equilibrium business?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Possibly a delusion. I have no information on any Knights of the Chaotic Equilibrium in my memory. Nor is there any ‘Gleem Nads-Tardo’ on record.”

  “Poor bastard’s probably been driven crazy by eighteen years of digging with a spoon. See where that tunnel leads, would you?”

  “Yes, sir.” I climbed back up into the tunnel. After sloping steeply upward for several meters, it took several seemingly random jogs that sloped more gently and then angled sharply upward again. My head hit something soft that smelled vaguely of rat droppings and stale sweat; it turned out to be a beat-up old mattress. Pushing it aside, I found myself in a small cubical cell with concrete walls and a single door made of iron bars. The cell was unoccupied.

  I peered out of the bars into a corridor that was dimly lit by fluorescent panels. Ted’s cell was at the end of the corridor; there was another cell across from it and several more to my left, but that’s all I could see from the narrow opening. I thought I heard breathing a few cells down, but it was hard to tell. I didn’t dare make any noise for fear of attracting a guard. My reconnaissance complete, I headed back down to the ship. Rex saw me coming and stepped outside. I informed him what I’d found.

  “It’s the bottom level of the prison,” said Rex. “I’ve been talking to Ted. He’s a little nutty, but from what I can gather, half of the level is made up by the torture chambers that provide the misery for the misery reactor. The other half is reserved for political prisoners and psychopaths. Hard to say which category Ted’s in. He claims to be the last of something called the Order of the Knights of the Chaotic Equilibrium. He’s pretty insistent about it. Says they were the protectors of the Galactic Republic before the Malarchy had them all executed.”

  “As I mentioned, sir,” I replied, “I have no record of such an organization.”

  “Ted said the Malarchy wiped all the official records of the order’s existence.”

  “Of course he did,” I replied. “Typical conspiracy theory stuff, sir. I wouldn’t put too much stock in it. Did you ask him about Wick?”

  “He says Collateral is three levels up. Should be a simple matter to blow the cell door, head up to the Collateral level, find Wick, and bust him out. Damn it.”

  “What’s the problem, sir? It seems like things are working out pretty well for a change.”

  “We weren’t supposed to actually rescue Wick, you nickel-plated knucklehead,” Rex snapped. “If we return to the forest moon now, we’ll be back before the pulmonary embolism cannon is ready. We need to stall for at least another day.”

  “Sorry, sir,” I replied. “I got carried away with the excitement of the moment. But remember, sir, we can’t l
eave until the general returns anyway.”

  “Who?”

  “General Issimo, sir. He’s still crawling through the air ducts, as far as we know.”

  “Oh, yeah!” Rex exclaimed. “Big, buttery fellow, right? What in Space is he doing in the air ducts?”

  “Trying to blow up the reactor core,” I replied.

  “Good grief,” muttered Rex. “Just once I’d like to be involved in a secret mission that doesn’t involve crawling through air ducts or blowing up a reactor core.”

  “It was your idea, sir,” I reminded him.

  “I know that!” growled Rex. “It doesn’t make the whole business less tiresome. I suppose we should check in with the general.” He flipped on his communicator.

  “ . . . how I know I’m your favorite,” General Issimo’s voice rasped. “You don’t let just anybody carry vital nutrients to your brain. Nobody else knows these arteries the way I do. I’ve passed that same rat six times now. I know it’s the same one because its head is missing. I put its head in my bag with the nutrients. Some of your veins smell like butter.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Rex. “How long has he been in there?”

  “Just over a day,” I said.

  “Have you ever heard of a case of duct madness proceeding this quickly?”

  “No, sir.”

  We listened to the general rant for a while longer. He’d definitely lost it.

  “If we wait for the general, we’re never getting out of here,” Rex said.

  “We may have to send someone in after him,” I said.

  “Or just leave him.”

  “Then we’ll be in the awkward position of explaining to Princess Willie that we sent the leader of the rebellion on a wild goose chase,” I noted. “Or duct chase, I should say.”

  “Ugh,” said Rex. “All right, one rescue at a time. Let’s go get Wick, and then we’ll worry about the general. These guys are just lucky I’m here to look after them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Rex determined that the rescue team was to be made up of me, Fingers, and Ted—which is to say, everyone but Rex himself. I was to be on point, Ted would help us navigate the prison, and Fingers would be in charge of demolitions. Rex would remain on board the Flagrante Delicto to “coordinate” the mission.