by Chris Turner
We both laughed, feeling good on the Myscol.
We carted out half the product over to the Lander. Less than what I had thought. I guessed about 200 g’s by the time we paid expenses and dropped the price down for a quick sale. Split four ways, that wasn’t bad.
I hesitated with the other half of the shipment. Changed my mind. Left it aboard Alastar. Blest looked at me as if I had a few screws loose.
“Never put all your eggs in one basket, Blest—ever hear of that maxim?”
He shrugged and gave a muffled snort.
With Fol that made five in our merry band.
* * *
Wren met us in the landing bay, passed her eyes over the stash as Blest and I unloaded it into the utility bins. She gave Follee only a cursory inspection. He stared at her with nothing less than awe.
“Hi, Miss, my name is—”
She ignored his outstretched hand and shouldered her way over to me, all business-like. “We’ve had about 28 hours, Jet, and counting since the homing beacon was up. We should get the hell out of here.”
Blest and I kept unpacking the rest of the bags of product as if we hadn’t heard. I took Follee up to the bridge. Noss gave him a guarded greeting. Wren trailed, wearing a peeved look. “I’m talking to you, Rusco.”
“Heard you, Wren. All in a day’s work. You see how much stuff there is? You should be dancing for joy.”
“I am, but this place gives me the creeps. Heard horror stories about The Dim Zone.”
“Worse than your own shithole on Talyon?”
“Well, yes, worse.”
I shrugged. “Could be all true, or maybe just wives’ tales.”
“Right, like mutants carving out brains and using victims’ skulls as wine gourds.”
I laughed. “That’s a good one. Right up Mong’s alley.”
Follee looked and stared bug-eyed. “Dim Zone?” His eyes flicked back and forth. Thick glasses, clamped at the bridge of his nose, fat, meaty fingers, short, stocky frame coming up to about Noss’s shoulders. At least he was keeping his mouth shut, unlike Blest.
“So?” Noss inquired.
“Noss, it’s looking good, my man. You may be able to retire yet,” I said with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm lit by Myscol.
“That’s good.” Noss grinned and beamed. His smile faded. “What about Alastar? Can’t just leave the ship there to get picked clean by scavengers. You know the law of the jungle, Rusco, finders keepers.”
“It’s a problem, I know.” I looked over at Wren, who seemed torn between ditching the craft and flying the hell out of here. Any moment our own warp could cut out even with the recent band aid.
Blest grunted. “Still say we lose her. Too much risk.”
My lips curled in a grimace. “Still could get some appreciable salvage for her. I hate leaving a starship behind.”
“Who doesn’t, Rusco, but—”
“Look, we have to act fast,” interrupted Wren. “Raiders could be out there sniffing down our trail right now.”
“She’s right,” said Blest.
“Any other place we can hide her at?” asked Noss out loud.
Blest snorted. “What, at the edge of The Dim Zone?”
“Wren, check it out,” I urged.
She pulled up the holo register and began zooming in on nearby worlds. “What am I looking for?”
“Asteroids, space stations, moons, planets, mining operations, any space junk that could create a smoke screen for us until I figure out a better plan.”
She shook her head. “Nada, Rusco. Wait! There’s an abandoned station.”
“What? Where?” I leaned over her shoulder.
“Dunno. Some decommissioned space station. No… Too big for that. Look. Holy, Christ, it’s a fortress.”
“How far?”
“A couple hours away on impulse thrust.”
I chewed my lip. “We could warp in, check it out. If it looks promising…” I saw the overload warning gauge flicker. “What the—” I whuffled out a breath. “Those bastards. Mechanics promised me it—”
“He warned you it could go at any time,” grumbled Noss.
“Said we’d get a month,” I groused. “Hairline crack must be getting wider.”
Blest waved a restless hand. “That station could be a magnet for trouble.”
“Few other options are knocking on our door. The long and short of it, our light drive’s buggered again.”
Blest threw up his hands. “That’s just fucking great.”
I shrugged. “Well, not much we can do about it. We’ll have to risk it.”
We headed out on max impulse to the station. I tossed the spider remote over to Noss, who used it as a guide to get Alastar trailing on our heels.
Chapter 11
The last leg was the longest and glummest ride I could remember. We were trucking along on impulse with both Noss and I trying unsuccessfully to get the warp drive up again when we came across a blip on the sensors.
“Visual,” I hissed.
“There.” Noss pointed.
The station loomed out of the darkness. An obtrusive cube with circular pods at either end. But much more than that, a complex wonder of science and technological engineering. Lights glowed on the superstructure. It wasn’t completely dark there and that worried me. Automatic lights? Still operating under some weak solar power from Daerzoo’s sun? It seemed a stretch.
“Wren, give me more info on this place.” The monstrous station had a look of promise—and menace. It looked too new for the age that Wren had quoted earlier.
“It’s four hundred years old. “
“No way!”
“Yes way. Name changed from Cyber Corp to Cygon, somewhere in the last few years of its life.”
“What else does the omniscient computer have to say?”
“Supposed to be haunted. A ghost station, actually.”
“Yeah, haunted my ass,” I scoffed.
“Why out here?”
“Some space laboratory. Experiments, controversial research, close to their base of operations, somewhere in The Dim Zone. It is said the firm’s senior scientist, Dezmin Yadley, assumed control of the company after the CEO, someone named Mathias, went mysteriously missing. The company dissolved, after repeated disasters rained on its labs.”
“Give me the visual on the schematics.”
Wren pulled up a complicated diagram on the holo display showing several bays, a series of side wings and work areas across four levels, fanning out radially from a massive warehouse several stories high and breasting out on the hangar.
“Last known to have been searching for alien life out on the remote planets, mostly The Dim Zone.”
“Makes no sense. Why The Dim Zone? Why would a cybernetics company be messing around with alien life?”
“Who the fuck knows, Rusco, or cares,” said Blest, “we’ve got ourselves a serious problem here—”
“Yeah, I know, and we’re trying to solve it without you naysaying my every word.”
Wren squinted and read on. “The firm is shrouded in mystery and scandal. Known for employing unconventional means—escaping government jurisdictions and facing multiple infractions in both ethics and tax evasion.”
“Sounds just like our kind of guys.” I laughed. “Dead guys I bet now, unless they built some longevity serum.”
“No, afraid not. Afraid the company hasn’t been active for centuries.”
At one time, it had been formidable, now its defensive cannons had been blown to bits or ripped off by scavengers. A gaping hole loomed in its side, allowing a shadowy glimpse into the docking hangar. I motioned Noss to steer us in closer, my eyes peeled for anything untoward.
I guessed Cyber Corp maintained an extensive empire at one time, perched at the edge of The Dim Zone. Maybe their fingers had dug too deep in the pie? Found something they wished they hadn’t? What had they been fucking with?
Once inside the hangar hole, I trained Bantam’s floodlamps down to see what we
were dealing with. Noss guided the ship through the darkness. Alastar followed behind. We saw a brood of lurking spaceships. Ancient models—Phasons, KV-Levlars with odd, sleek, tapered outerbodies like the V-Ugons of old. Odd that nobody’s taken them, I thought. Vintage. Fly on, Rusco. Maybe the station’s unsavory reputation would detract any avid raiders from taking a crack at us. But why go after small fry when you could have a whole squad of ships? There were lots here. Though some had drifted from their landing berths, chipped and battered, looking not so lucky in their fight against the ravages of time.
“Those ships aren’t chained down,” said Noss. “Artificial grav generators still functioning. A miracle after all this time.”
“Yeah, fancy that.”
The hangar loomed in all its glory. I was impressed by the sheer size of it. Could fit a mountain in here. We traveled through the warehouse of the station and landed at the end of a line of ancient craft that looked like antediluvian freighters. Carrying what?
Wren punched some keys and a green, wireframe grid appeared. It rotated on the holo display to show more bays and hidden alcoves.
“Turns out this station has been a hazard for salvagers and scavengers for centuries.”
“Great, a motherload of bad karma.” I chewed on my lip. “But maybe it’s just the type of place we need—”
Two Skgurian vessels came streaking in from the entrance. The first ship’s fire hit us broadside.
“Motherfuckers,” rasped Blest. His fist clenched his rifle.
They’d been hiding on the outside of the station’s superstructure, stuck there like leeches, blending in like grey-green lichen on a tree’s trunk. If we’d been able to warp in here earlier, we could at least have saved Alastar and maybe our own skins.
“We can’t warp out,” said Noss. “Trapped in this goddamn creepy hangar.”
“How to evade these asslicking fuckwads?” I mused.
“Fight our way out. What else?” Blest howled.
“No, too many of them. They’ll blow us to shit.” I saw two more come in to join their pals as more fire splatter licked out at us. “We’ve got two ships running on impulse power. Useless. We take them out there, they’ll pepper us with bombs. We have to do the unexpected.”
“Like what?”
“Dump Bantam and take our guns and go in on foot. We can hole up and ambush them in some cubbyhole in the station.”
Blest stared at me as if I were loony. “What? Take on a small army of Skugs?”
“They’ll never find us in this maze. At least easily. Even if they do, we’ll gun them down—and it’ll be better odds for us.”
“Great,” said Noss. “We go in there, get blown up and charcoaled by laser trip beams.”
Blest gave his head a laughing shake. “It’s just crazy enough to work.”
I got them rushing down to the cargo bay while I stayed behind to reach in the utility bulkhead and grab the silver phaso I stashed there. That slim little silver disc had saved my ass before, the same device ‘friend’ Mong and his goats had been after since the beginning. Why the freak wanted it, I wasn’t so sure. A powerful artifact of ancient alien technology: it could transport an unwary being to hell and back, or if one was lucky, to some other alien dimension. No easy way of getting back from there unless the disc was clutched with fierce force in one’s hand, not so easy. I’d been there once and did not care to return. I was damned if I’d leave it for the Skugs to find.
I caught up with them in the hall leading to the hold. Follee tugged at my arm. “But won’t they take the ship?” he stammered.
“They might, Fol, but there’s a chance they won’t. I’ll rig some explosives on the hatch, that or give them a mother of an electric shock if they touch it plus something extra for Sunday brunch.”
“What if they blow the hatch—?”
“For Christ sakes, Blest, get your ass moving and shut the fuck up for once. These scavengers don’t seem to be after ships. Didn’t you see the row of them all sitting here?”
“That’s because they’re dead.”
“Could’ve scavenged them for parts though. Why didn’t they?”
“It’s a bad idea, Rusco.” Blest shook his head.
“You got a better idea?”
Wren waved a hand. “Let’s just hurry up for fuck’s sake! We’re wasting time.”
Blest grunted in resignation.
“Suit up!” I growled.
We grabbed the reserve pressure suits off the wall, snugged in and checked each other’s helms and air supplies. Follee’s face was green with apprehension in the dim lights, reluctant to move toward the cargo hatch. “I don’t want to go, Rusco,” he pleaded through his mask.
“You want to stay back here, Fol, and get mauled by mutants? Or blown to shit?”
Fire hit our port stern but our shields held. Follee cringed at the idea, shrinking like a bug. “Since you put it that way—”
“Get going.” Blest pushed him along. I stuck an R3 in Follee’s gloved hands. “Use this. Here, safety on. Safety off. Get it? You point it at bad guys and shoot if some come trying to blow your head off.”
Follee gave a vigorous nod.
Wren looked at me, a flushed look of uncertainty there—Are you sure you want this guy along?
No, I wasn’t sure, Wren, I answered her voiceless expression but I didn’t see too many options here other than signing the poor guy’s death warrant leaving him behind.
Noss powered down the ship, save for shields. We rushed to the cargo exit pad, so it left no easily traceable signature. I booby trapped the hatch with my regular batch of tricks—explosives and high voltage. If Skugs managed to penetrate it, we’d be stranded here—an unwholesome thought. Alastar, I could do nothing for now. I’d spidered her to a safe landing place a few hundred yards away, couched in thick, gummy shadows.
My breath hissed out a ragged whisper through my mask. We hurried out onto the docking pavilion, keeping to the wall. Blest and Noss gave covering fire while Wren sprinted ahead in a crouching trot to get the air lock to the station open, even as the Skug vessels, beetle-like shapes, swarmed closer. I could tell they were Skug by the lady-bug shape of their hulls, and the crude symbology writ on their sides: a long spiked anvil with a red slash through it. What significance it had, I’d never known. Something to do with some industrial accident that had maimed them.
The air lock, about a hundred yards away, was intact, another thing that puzzled me.
Blest cursed as I hustled Follee along, a slow bastard by anyone’s standards. Barked into the com to get his ass down and lie flat on his stomach while fire ripped around us. Wren had the air lock mechanism figured out; tada, the doors suddenly jerked open to the square chamber beyond. We would have blasted it to shit if it were too stubborn to open. We dragged our hides in before the Skug blasters could rifle us with holes. They’d be landing and assembling their own teams. Whether they went after us on foot, or went for our ships, remained to be seen.
The chamber pressurized, then the inner lock opened automatically. We spilled out into a hall.
Surprisingly, the air lock wasn’t seized. Blasting it as a last resort would flood the whole station in vacuum, but I was guessing the station had backup systems for that.
“The air is breathable,” said Wren, “according to our suit sensors.”
I motioned them down the dusky corridor to the right, Follee making googly eyes at the state-of-the-art tech. The lumo shields draping the walls, the fibrofane shock and sound bafflers, the intricate myriads of sensors and scanners for contagion, contraband and weaponry, luckily manned by no one in these brave new times. There were even a dozen emergency suits hanging behind glass showcases.
Not far down the hall we peered through more massive glass windows into broken laboratories, shattered tables and lab equipment, benches askew. Bins of chemicals lay strewn on the metal-plated floor; sealants, robot parts, component boards scattered everywhere. It looked as if the place hadn’t been wal
ked through in an eon though. A weird, ambient violet, self-perpetuating glow permeated the surroundings, as if some ancient power still lived here and was still in operation. How, I couldn’t guess. Maybe solar power still up and running, as I’d speculated earlier? I eyed the grey crystal fibrofane panels on the wall. Dead camera eyes watched us like insects. Noss opened his mouth to speak, but I signaled him to silence.
We hustled down a wide stairwell, another corridor to a lower level that opened into what looked like a giant depot. The space was enormous. The domed ceiling rose unfathomably high. Monstrous shapes, mechanical things, loomed out of the artificial gloom, like ill-conceived ghosts. Wren’s jaw dropped, as did Blest’s who had curbed his wise-guy tongue for once. We all walked smitten to silence.
I listened for the expected flurry of enemy fire and feet. Nothing. Only a faint, faraway echo of boots on metal—wary and hesitant. Then another, louder, duller thud of metal—like a ship’s landing pads touching down. “If we’re lucky, we can lose those gooks,” I whispered. “They’ll go looking somewhere else.” Somehow my own words sounded comical and naive in this ancient murk. I didn’t believe my own vain hope for a second.
I recalled typical Skug physiology. A cross between a mutant warrior and a walking mummy. Once human, these mutants were victims of some plague or chemical spill disaster. Freaks, albino genetic rejects forced to wear headgear in the form of blue-grey fabric scarfs wrapped around their misshapen skulls. Reputed to have dull white horns peeking up on their oversized heads and tusks protruding from cheeks with black nozzles affixed to noses with wire mesh where mouths should be. If such mutations were accurate, I assumed the nozzles facilitated breathing. Maybe they siphoned drugged up gas there? I didn’t want to meet one of the mutants face to face, or for that matter, ever.
Even through the filtered ages of decades, I tasted the faint waft of death here. Ancient death. Old corpses lay strewn about the feet of the mechanical monsters on the steel paneled floor, victims struck down from the look of their eyeless sockets, by some mysterious, brutal force.
My mind traveled back to a distant memory, a time when my father took me to some natural caves outside our home town on Jaunus. Strange how memory is jogged by the weirdest of triggers. I was scared shitless of bats and snakes and anything fluttery and crawly, but my father took me down there anyway, where the drip-drip of water from stalactites and the cloying darkness had my knees knocking. Despite the dank air chilling my bones, he wanted me to get an appreciation for ‘nature’, its majesty and terror. “All is not as it seems, Jet. Nature comes in all shapes and sizes. Never all just sun and bright sky and fresh air. Mother Nature has secrets that no one will ever know. Observe and find out, if she wishes to show you. You may learn something.” And I lurched back as a snake slithered out of the shadows and lashed its wedge-shaped head at me.
