“What if I say ‘no’?”
“Then we’ll return you home,” said the president.
“With those bug things you sent down? I’d be killed.”
“You’d already be dead,” Jjin said. “We couldn’t send you back alive. You know too much.”
Cal nodded. “Makes sense,” he said. “Well, I guess, in that case… count me in!”
“Me too,” Miz added.
“Excellent! Excellent!” Sinclair beamed. “Gunso Loren will be accompanying you on the mission.”
Across the table, Loren choked on her lunch. “Sorry, sir?” she coughed.
“Undercover, of course,” said Sinclair. “You’ll act as pilot and oversee the operation in the field.”
Loren wiped her chin on a napkin. “But… why me, sir?”
“Legate Jjin and I both felt you were the most qualified for this mission. You’re not known in the Remnants, and I can think of no-one more capable to lead.”
“Oh,” said Loren. “Right. Uh… I mean, thank you, sir.”
“Of course, the warlords won’t deal with a woman, so Cal will officially be captain.”
Cal thrust both arms in the air. “Yes!”
“What?” Mech snapped. “How come he gets to be captain? What about me?”
“I’m afraid the warlords are also unlikely to trust a cyborg,” Sinclair explained. “Besides, they place tremendous value on violence, and Kornack in particular has a real soft spot for cannibals. Hence why we hand-picked Mr Adwin here.”
Cal lowered his arms. “Well yay cannibalism,” he said, glancing briefly at the roasted buttocks of the real Mr Adwin, which still rested in the center of the table, undulating ever so slightly.
“Now, eat up,” said the president, cranking his smile up several notches. “There’s something I want you all to see.”
CHAPTER TEN
Cal stood on an enormously long moving walkway, gazing through the mile-high sheet of glass beside him at what was very clearly a spaceship. It the size of a small ocean liner, and impossibly sleek. It seemed to absorb the light, turning it into a shade of black that somehow managed to be both glossy and matte at the same time.
“Whoa,” Cal whispered. “Is that our spaceship?”
Mech turned on him. “That does it, man, I’ve warned you about putting ‘space’ in front of…” He hesitated. “Well, I mean, I guess it does actually make sense this time,” he admitted, gruffly.
“Actually, no, that’s mine,” said President Sinclair. “I’m heading off to Zertex Command One shortly. This is yours coming up now.”
The walkway carried them past Sinclair’s ship, and another ship behind it edged into view. Cal was no expert on spaceships, having never seen one in person until just a few moments ago, but he could immediately tell that the president’s craft was better in every conceivable way.
The other ship was a gun-metal gray, but pitted with more scorch marks than Mech’s armor. Parts of it were colored very slightly differently to the rest, giving the impression it had been welded together from bits and pieces of other ships.
Its neck was long and comparatively thin next to its bulky back end, which looked a bit like three different ships bolted loosely together. It was hard to judge the scale of it from so far away, but it was far smaller than the president’s ship. Half the size, maybe less.
“What a pile of junk,” said Miz.
“Outside, maybe,” said Sinclair. “We had to disguise it so you’d look like pirates.”
“Space pirates?” asked Cal, side-stepping out of Mech’s reach. “So it’s nicer inside?”
“Not nicer, as such,” said Sinclair. “But she’s got it where it counts. She’ll comfortably pull a one-eighty in a level six warp.”
“Is that good?” asked Cal. “That’s good, isn’t it? I can tell from his face,” he said, pointing at Mech.
“Not bad,” Mech admitted. “That is not bad at all. Weapons?”
“Enough to finish off what’s left of the Remnants for good,” said Jjin.
“Although we’re hoping that won’t be necessary,” added Sinclair. He gestured up to the ship. A few spider-like mechanoids scurried across its pitted surface, making final adjustments. “All that remains is to name it.”
“Shippy McShipface,” Cal suggested.
“A-ha-ha. Yes. Interesting, but no,” said Sinclair. “Pirate ships are always named after a legendary space-faring warrior from the captain’s native planet.”
“Then we got ourselves a problem,” said Mech. “Since Earth ain’t got none.”
“Shut up, yes it does!” Cal protested. He gazed up at the ship. “Legendary space-faring warrior, eh?” he muttered. A smile spread across his face and he rocked back on his heels. “OK,” he said. “I think I’ve got it.”
* * *
The inside of the Shatner was pretty much as unappealing as the outside. Wires and pipes hung from the walls and ran roughshod over the ceiling. Clouds of white vapor churned up through the floor panels at irregular intervals, like steam from the streets of New York. The whole thing had the air of something that was either midway through being built, or two-thirds of the way towards being decommissioned.
“Captain on the bridge,” Cal announced, ducking under a corrugated plastic pipe and stepping onto the flight deck. Four chairs were positioned at different terminals around the room. The one in the middle looked like the most important, with an assortment of joysticks, levers, switches and dials located in front, beside and above it. “Is that where I sit?” Cal asked.
“Can you fly a T6 interceptor class Hammerwing?” asked Loren.
“Is that what this is?” Cal asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I doubt it,” he admitted.
“Well, then I guess that isn’t your seat,” Loren told him. She looked round at Cal and the others. Mech was bending over a terminal, studying the screen. He had Splurt’s container tucked effortlessly under one arm. The little green blob pulsed inside it, looking quite happy, Cal thought.
Miz paced through the flight deck, sniffing the air. She stopped beside one of the chairs. “This is mine,” she said, quite forcefully.
“Fine by me,” said Cal. “You don’t have to, you know, pee on it or anything, do you?”
Mizette’s brown eyes narrowed. “What?”
“To mark it. Your territory, sort of thing?” said Cal. Miz just blinked again. “No? Good. That’s good. I was kidding. Of course you’re not going to pee on the chair, right? I was just joking.”
Loren sighed. “Is there anything you don’t joke about?”
Cal puffed out his cheeks. “Penis cancer, maybe?”
“Sorry I asked,” said Loren, shaking her head. She gestured back towards the door they’d just entered through. “Now come on, I’ll give you all the tour.”
* * *
One tour of the ship later, Cal was none the wiser as to how any of it worked. Mech seemed excited by lots of it, though, and Miz appeared to enjoy the smells she encountered along the way, but to Cal it just looked like room after room filled with pipes, wires and machines that went bleep. It was all a bit disappointing, really.
“I expected it to be more spacey,” he said, when they returned to the flight deck.
“We’re in space,” Mech pointed out. “It don’t get much more spacey than that.”
“No, I know, it’s just… where are the holographic computer screens floating in the air, you know?” Cal asked. “We had to push open all the doors ourselves – even Walmart has those swishy ones like they had in Star Trek.”
“We’re undercover,” Loren reminded him. “We’re supposed to be pirates. They’re not big on luxury.”
“Come on, are you seriously telling me they don’t have sliding doors?” said Cal. “All those hooked hands…? Who wants to wrestle with a door handle when you’ve got a hook for a hand? No-one, that’s who.”
Loren shook
her head. “I have literally no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “But I do know we’re leaving as soon as the ship’s fueled, so we’re going to want to get dressed.”
Cal looked down at his cargo pants and flappy shirt. “I am dressed.”
“You have no shoes,” Loren pointed out. “And no pirate captain would be seen dead dressed like that.”
She folded her hands crisply behind her back, trying very hard to look in charge. “Cal, Mizette, you’ll return to your quarters and get changed. Mech, I’ve booked you in for a respray on deck nine.”
“Respray? No-one said nothing about no respray,” Mech protested.
“It’s part of the deal. Take it or leave it,” Loren said.
“Fine,” said Mech. “Whatever.”
“We’ll reconvene back here in an hour,” Loren said. “Cal, I’ll arrange for you to be escorted so you aren’t late back.”
“Hey! I was late one time,” Cal protested. He looked Loren up and down. “What about you, officer? You losing the leather?”
“Wouldn’t exactly be undercover if I turned up in a Zertex uniform, would it?”
“Shame,” said Cal. He winked at her, but this only seemed to get on her nerves.
“One hour,” she said. “Then we go.”
* * *
Cal stood in his unfamiliar underwear, searching through the assortment of outfits in the wardrobe, hoping to find one that didn’t conspire to make him look like the star of a gay porn version of High Noon. Never before had he seen so many long coats, studded leather pants and frilly, tasseled shirts in one place. Or, not since that Whitesnake concert his dad had taken him to when he was a kid, anyway.
He’d taken off the cargo pants, but had now decided they would be going back on, as he couldn’t bring himself to squeeze into the studded leathers. That just left the top half to worry about.
Tucked behind a shirt so frilly it would have made Liberace think twice, Cal found a much plainer burgundy one. He unhooked it and tossed it onto the bed next to the cargo pants. There was a waistcoat a little further along – leather, of course, but a rich, woody brown rather than the plastic-looking black, and with not a single stud to be found anywhere on it. It joined the rest of the clothes on the bed.
Cal was just looking for a jacket or coat to complete the outfit when his door slid open. “Hey, almost naked here,” he protested, as Legate Jjin strode into the room. The door swished closed behind him again.
Jjin rocked on his heels, making his boots squeak. Feeling exposed, Cal covered his nipples with his fingertips. “Can I help you, Jjin?”
The legate’s face was fixed in its usual expression of contempt, so his next few words came as no great surprise. “I don’t like you, Adwin.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, Jjin, I got that vibe,” Cal said. “You really didn’t need to come all this way to tell me.”
“I don’t like that you’re on this mission. I don’t like that we’ve got one of your kind involved.”
“I broadly agree on both those points,” Cal said. He gestured to the wardrobe. “Now, great talk, but I should probably get on. Loren has me on a pretty tight schedule.”
“You will address her as Gunso Loren,” Jjin instructed.
“I’ll address her however I like,” said Cal. “You know, within reason, and provided she doesn’t find it offensive or anything, because we men need to be feminists, too. Am I right?”
He held up a hand for a high-five. Jjin didn’t acknowledge it.
“Can’t believe you’re just leaving me hanging here, Jjin. I thought you were better than that.”
“The fate of millions of lives hang on your actions on this mission,” Jjin said. “We need to find and stop that virus, and we can’t do that if you don’t make the trade.”
He stepped in closer until Cal could hear the breath whistling in and out through his wide nostrils. “Those people you saw killed in the restaurant? They’re a blip. A hiccup. They’re nothing compared to the death and devastation the virus could bring. It will ravage worlds, consume star systems, murdering or enslaving everything it finds there, man and machine alike.”
“OK. I get it.”
“Oh, but you don’t. You couldn’t possibly,” Jjin spat. “Even if the virus hasn’t spread too far, even if it can still be contained, if the Symmorium find out, we will be thrust back into a never-ending war that will kill whole generations. This is the most important mission in the history of Zertex.”
He regarded Cal with disgust. “And Sinclair sends you.”
“Look, Jjin, I think we got off on the wrong foot,” Cal began, then he doubled over in pain as Jjin brought up a tiny pistol and fired something into his eye. “Ow! Jesus! What the fonk was that?” Cal yelped, covering his eye with the heel of his hand. “Did you just shoot my eye out? Is this part of the pirate thing? So I have to wear a patch?”
He bounced up and down, shaking his arms and keeping his eye tightly shut. “Ow, ow, ow. Man, that really hurt,” he said. “You can’t just go around shooting people in the eye, Jjin. That’s…”
Cal stopped bouncing. Something was happening to the logo on Jjin’s uniform. The squiggly symbol on the side of the cylinder-shape was squirming and thrashing around as if it were alive. Then, with a sudden snap the shapes formed the word: Zertex.
“Visual translation chip,” Jjin said. “Translates text and data into a format you can understand.”
“So… what? I can read alien now?” asked Cal. He opened the still-stinging eye and looked down at his hands, as if something might be written there. Nothing was.
“Do not mess this up, Adwin,” Jjin warned. He backed towards the door and it slid open behind him. “Or I will hunt you down, and I will remove your entrails with my bare hands. That is not a threat, it is a statement of fact. Is that understood?”
“Got it, Jjin, and thanks for the chat,” he said, as the legate backed out of the room and crisply about-turned. “Seriously, drop by any time.”
The door started to close, then opened again. Miz’s hairy head leaned into view, the rest of her tucked out of sight around the door frame. “Ready?” she asked.
Cal looked down at his almost entirely naked body. “I dunno, does this say ‘space pirate’ to you?”
“It makes my loins ache with anticipation,” said Miz. Quite matter-of-factly, Cal thought.
“Um… right. Fair enough,” he said. He looked down at himself again. “You know, I’ll probably pop something else on and meet you back on the ship.”
“OK,” said Miz. She let her gaze linger on Cal for a few moments, then let out a little yap of excitement. The door closed and Cal hurriedly scrambled into the cargo pants in case it should open again. Only when he’d pulled up the zipper did he let himself relax.
“Wow,” he muttered. “They do not make six-year-olds like they used to.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Captain on the bridge,” said Cal, ducking through the door and stepping onto the flight deck. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of saying that, and the fact it already appeared to be annoying Mech made him all the more determined to keep it up.
“Hey, Mech, what happened? Stand too long in the subway?” Cal asked. The cyborg’s metal parts hadn’t been resprayed so much as vandalized. A number of apparently random symbols had been daubed over his scorched and pitted chrome surfaces. None of them swam and turned into words, but they each gave off an air of menace that suggested they didn’t represent anything nice.
“What’s that one?” Cal asked, pointing towards a particularly threatening series of angled lines.
“Don’t touch me,” Mech warned, shuffling back. “Paint’s still wet. And how should I know what it means?”
“You’ve got it painted on your chest, next to your big dial thing,” Cal pointed out.
“Did I paint it on my chest?” Mech snapped. “Hmm? Did I paint it on there?”
“I d
on’t know, did you?” asked Cal.
“No! Some little dude with a spray can did.”
“Right,” said Cal. “And did you ask him what it meant?”
Mech’s metal jaw opened, but the rant that was about to emerge was derailed. “No,” he admitted. “No, I did not.”
“Well… maybe you should have,” Cal said. “That could mean anything.”
The sound of footsteps behind Cal made him turn. Loren stepped through the doorway, her arms wrapped self-consciously across her flat stomach. Her Zertex uniform was gone, replaced by a dark blue vest top, and a pair of tight-fitting pants with half a dozen buckles and straps on each leg.
Her blaster pistol hung from her waist on a low-slung holster, and she wore fingerless gloves on each hand with a series of short, stubby studs across the knuckles. Her hair, which had been scraped tightly back, now hung in a loose ponytail.
Cal swallowed.
“What?” Loren asked, hurrying past him. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” said Cal. “It’s just… you look good.”
“I look like a criminal,” Loren said. She started bending over to adjust the pilot’s chair, then remembered where she was standing in relation to Cal and crouched instead.
“Then you’ll fit right in,” said Cal. He gestured down to his own outfit. He’d added a long, tatty-looking blue coat to the cargo pants, shirt and waistcoat combo, and found a pair of hefty workman-like boots in another closet. “Is this better?”
Loren shot him a cursory glance. “It’ll do.”
“Ta-daa!” announced Miz, stepping onto the flight deck. “What do you think?”
Cal shot her a glance, half-expecting to find her standing naked before him. To his relief, she wore what looked like a single jumpsuit made of a dark, putty-like material. It was sleeveless, with a little diamond-shaped hole probably designed to show-off the wearer’s belly button, but which currently showed nothing but hair.
Miz twirled like a fashion model. There was a hole for her tail to poke through, but it was messy and clumsy-looking, as if it had been a bit of an afterthought.
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