Solfleet: Beyond the Call

by Glenn Smith

  Dylan looked at both of them and told them, “I can’t tell you anything more than that.”

  “I see,” Geoff replied skeptically. “In other words, you’re running away from something, or from someone, and you need an escape ship with a pilot who won’t ask questions.”

  “Something like that,” Dylan confirmed... more or less.

  “That’ll cost you, friend,” Geoff told him. “A lot. You got federals?”

  “I’ve got federals. How much is a lot?”

  Geoff smiled. “Probably more than you got, if you have to ask.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Dylan told him. “How much?”

  Geoff’s smile slowly faded. Then he shrugged and curled his lower lip. “I don’t know.” He looked to his sister for an opinion. “What? About... fifty? Fifty-five?” he asked her.

  “More like seventy to seventy-five,” she amended, looking from Geoff to Dylan.

  “Seventy-five hundred federals?” Dylan asked, forcing himself to remain calm and even-keeled while he couldn’t believe the price that Geoff and his sister had just quoted. What kind of transport could this woman’s ‘associates’ possibly have that they could charge so little and still afford to run the ship? “I think I can handle that.”

  The young woman snickered. “Seventy-five thousand.”

  Dylan drew a quick, sharp breath. “Seventy-five thousand,” he rolled over his tongue. “That’s pretty steep.”

  “I told you it was more than you got,” Geoff remarked.

  “Oh, I can get it if I have to,” Dylan assured him. “The question is, do I have to? There’s bound to be someone else out there who would charge a lot less.”

  “Good luck finding them,” the woman said as she adjusted her position, raising her leg just a little higher. Was she making some kind of silent offer? ‘Pay what we ask and you can enjoy the fringe benefits?’ “There isn’t a pilot in this whole God-forsaken colony who’ll take you for less than we’re asking. So the real question isn’t whether or not you have to pay what we’re asking. It’s whether or not you want to go badly enough to pay it.”

  Dylan dropped his gaze to the floor between the siblings, hoping to appear to be thinking it over but knowing of course that he didn’t have time to shop elsewhere for bargain prices. His superiors back at the shipyard would soon discover, if they hadn’t already, that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be and would start searching for him. He had to get away from Mars as soon as possible. He asked, “How soon can I leave?” and, “and how fast can I get where I’m going?”

  “How soon? Early tomorrow morning,” the woman answered. “How fast?” She looked to her brother.

  “We got a Comet-class solar cruiser that I’ve modified for deep space travel,” he proudly declared. “She’ll cruise through jumpspace nice and smooth all the way to wherever.”

  “We got?” Dylan asked. “You mean you’d be taking me yourself?”

  “Yeah, why? You got some problem with that?”

  “That depends,” Dylan told him. “Where’d you learn to fly? For that matter, where’d you learn to modify a Comet-class solar cruiser?”

  “I was a Solfleet shuttle engineer for three years,” he boasted. “Good enough for you?”

  Dylan smiled as he stood up, and then took two steps toward Geoff, who quickly stood up as well. “Better than good enough,” Dylan replied. “I spent ten years with the fleet myself.” He offered his hand. “You’ve got yourself a passenger.”

  “All right,” Geoff responded with cautious enthusiasm as he shook Dylan’s hand. “You got yourself a ship. Private hangar fifteen tomorrow morning at seven. Bring the money.”

  “A tenth in the morning,” Dylan clarified. “The rest upon arrival.”

  “Whoa!” Geoff exclaimed, pulling his hand free of Dylan’s and then raising both of his hands up in front of him. “Now wait just a minute!”

  “Geoff,” his sister interjected as she sprang to her feet and stepped up beside him.

  “How do I know you won’t stiff us?” he asked Dylan, ignoring his sister.

  “Stiff you?”

  “Yeah, stiff us. Cheat us. Not pay us the rest when we get you wherever you’re going.”

  “Oh.” Dylan considered that. It seemed like a fair enough question, so he answered it as honest as he could. “I guess you don’t. I can only give you my word, soldier to soldier. I’ll pay you ten percent tomorrow morning and the rest when we arrive at my destination. Either that or we don’t have a deal, and you can just stay here in Red Gulch and keep showing your sister’s customers to the back bedroom.”

  Geoff’s jaw tightened and he stared at Dylan with murder in his eyes. “You son-of-a...”

  His sister stepped between them and gently pushed her brother back. “Geoff, stop it! Let it go!” He stopped for her, but still stared furiously at Dylan. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, all right?” she continued. “He doesn’t know. Let it go.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Geoff finally answered through gritted teeth. But his stare didn’t waver for a second. “I’ll let it go... for now.”

  “Besides,” she added quietly, glancing back at Dylan for a quick second, “he’d probably break you in two. You should’ve seen what he did to Cortan.”

  “Cortan is the Naku?” Dylan asked her, assuming the obvious.

  The woman looked over her shoulder at him and nodded. “Not just any Naku,” she then told him, still holding her brother back with a hand on his chest. “Until recently, he was the chief of the Naku ambassador’s personal guard.”

  “What happened?”

  “You haven’t heard the story?” she asked him, astonished. “Where’ve you been? Pluto?”

  “Close enough. I’ve been out of circulation for a while.”

  “Probably been laid up in the hospital recovering from a well-deserved beating,” Geoff suggested.

  “That’s enough, Geoff,” his sister warned, looking him in the eye. She lowered her arm, tentatively, and when she seemed to be reasonably sure that her brother wasn’t going to pounce on their guest, she faced Dylan and told him, “A young girl caught his eye, an Earth girl, and he decided to pursue her. She resisted his efforts, so one day he just decided to take her.”

  “By force?” She nodded. “That’s an awfully stupid thing for the chief of an ambassador’s personal guard to do,” Dylan pointed out, stating the obvious.

  “It’s an awfully stupid thing for anyone to do,” she amended, “but that’s not even half the story. When the chairman of the I-C-S-A got word that his oldest daughter had been molested and then raped by the Naku ambassador’s top bodyguard, he was naturally not at all amused, and apparently neither was the Naku ambassador. He fired Cortan on the spot, and word is Cortan’s whole family had to pay the price for his actions, whatever that means.”

  What it meant was that his entire family would be imprisoned for one of their years, but if Dylan wasn’t mistaken, no one outside of their own society would know that yet, so he didn’t mention it. Instead, he said, “That wouldn’t surprise me,” and then asked, “But what’s Cortan doing still free? For that matter, what’s he doing still breathing? I thought their people...”

  “As the story goes, rather than having him executed their king or chief or... whatever they have... sentenced him to lifelong exile from Naku’Wei to live with his dishonor in disgrace. As far as why no one threw him into one of our prisons afterwards, who knows? Probably some kind of immunity agreement or something.”

  Dylan sighed. “And now I’ve dishonored him again and left him nothing to live for as far as he’s concerned. Great. I guess I’d better sleep with one eye open tonight.”

  “You’d better not sleep at all tonight,” the woman advised him. “No doubt he’s sworn a vengeance-oath against you.”

  “I was wondering what he was screaming about down on that floor.”

  “Do you have family here?” she asked him out of the blue.

  “No. No one. Why?�
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  “Good. There’s no one he can threaten to hurt to force you to go to him. Just be at hangar fifteen at seven in the morning with that tenth of our fee. Maybe if you live through the night you’ll get out of here with your life.”

  “That is how I’d prefer to leave.”

  She glanced up at her brother. “God knows we’ve wanted to get the hell off this rock for long enough.” Then she looked back at Dylan. “You better not cheat us.”

  “I have no intention of cheating you. And, uh... sorry about the remark,” he added, seeing that Geoff was still livid with anger. “See you in the morning.” He backed away until he reached the door, then turned and left the apartment.

  He walked around to the front of the building, intent on heading back to his hotel, but as he emerged from the alley and started up the sidewalk, he heard and then saw a large crowd, literally hundreds of people, filling the street for as far down the block as he could see. Most were dressed in wild, colorful costumes, many of which were more than a little revealing, while others were made up to look like various kinds of animals. Apparently, one of the clubs had thrown a wild party and it had spilled out into the street, and at the near side of it all, the drunk whom he’d already pulled out of the street once tonight lay in the middle of the street, apparently oblivious to the whole thing. He lay there on his back with his knees in the air, rocking from side to side, holding his hands to his head and groaning. Dylan couldn’t just leave him in the street where he might get mugged or beaten, or worse, so he went to his aid once more.

  “What happened this time?” he asked the man as he knelt at his side and pulled his hands away from his head to check him for injuries, bracing himself for the bite that he knew the poor man’s breath would still carry.

  “Damn bushy-head Naku hit me!” the man exclaimed, almost crying.

  “Why’d he do that?”

  “They throwed him out o’ the bar li’ they did me! I wus jus’ wanted to help ‘im!”

  Dylan sighed. The rest of the story pretty much told itself. The Naku’s hunter’s blood had been boiling with the fever of battle and this poor soul had gotten in the way. “Come on,” he said as he grabbed hold of the man’s damp, clammy shirt and hauled him to his feet. “Let’s see if we can find you someplace safe to sleep.”

  “Aw, thangs, mis’er. Hey, look! A pardy!”

  “That’s not for us,” Dylan told him as he started half-carrying him in the other direction.

  “Come on, frien’,” the man pleaded, trying in vain to resist Dylan’s lead, his lame efforts futile at best. “Le’s join th’ pardy!”

  “Let’s not,” Dylan said, easily pulling the man along. “You’ve already partied enough for one night.”

  “Tha’s true, that is,” the agreed. “Okay. If you say so.”

  “I say so.”

  After nearly an hour of searching unsuccessfully for a place that would take the old man in, the man finally passed out and Dylan ended up carrying him to the nearest police station. He turned him over them—he explained that he’d just found the guy in an alley that way—and then, finally, headed back to his hotel.

  Chapter 52

  Dylan hadn’t slept very well. He hadn’t actually slept with one eye open, of course, and truth be told he wasn’t that concerned about having a Naku vengeance-oath sworn against him, if in fact that had been done. He’s certainly faced danger before, and from a lot more than just one individual. Actually, what he’d watched that pig of a bartender do to Nikki bothered him more. If either of those things were responsible for keeping him awake, it was that. How could any man treat a girl that way and still consider himself a man? Perhaps it was the fact that he was AWOL and on the run, coupled with the knowledge that his superiors up in the yard would discover his absence and start searching for him very soon, if they hadn’t already. AWOL. Back home in his own time he never would have considered such an option. Not for any reason. But here... here he had a mission to accomplish.

  He stumbled out of bed and picked up his watch, and was surprised to see that he still had almost an hour before he had to get up. But what was the point? He hadn’t slept well, and in fact had been lying there awake for some time. Lying down for another hour wasn’t going to make a bit of difference. So, tired and drowsy as he was, he went into the bathroom and shaved and took a cool shower, which helped to wake him up more. Then he got dressed—a clean pair of jeans and a black t-shirt—then treated himself to a large gourmet breakfast from room service, which tasted surprisingly good. Finally, having pretty much burned up that extra hour, he packed up his belongings, pulled on his boots and jacket, and headed down to the lobby.

  Except for the attendant behind the counter and a few people sitting here and there in the lounge, the lobby was deserted. Most likely due to the early hour, Dylan reasoned. Traffic would probably pick up in a little while. He wandered over to the United Federal Bank computer and, after glancing around to make sure that no one was paying him any undue attention, inserted one of his false identicards into the slot and quickly entered an entirely new financial record of what he hoped would appear to be long-standing accounts in his name into its database—accounts that he’d spent more than an hour creating late last night after he returned to his room by making subtle changes to the data recorded on the identicard he was using. As soon as the computer accepted and verified the accounts, he withdrew the federal notes he would need to pay his pilot in full, glanced around the lobby again, and then quickly stuffed them into one of his jacket’s inside pockets. Then, as an afterthought, he withdrew some extra notes for himself, just in case he might need them, and stuffed them into his jeans pockets. Finally, he walked over to the front desk and stuffed his key card into the ‘Return for Checkout’ slot and punched his new account number into the billing computer, which verified his identity with a handprint and a retinal scan and then confirmed payment.

  He slung his bag over his shoulder and walked outside. Martian days were only slightly longer than Earth days—one of the factors that had made Mars perfect for human colonization, although like on Cirra, special clocks had to be manufactured for the colonists—and this was a beautiful morning, with the too-small sun rising over the too-close eastern horizon lighting the sky made bluer by the color tinting that coated the inside of the dome. Of course, every morning inside the colonies’ domes was probably a beautiful morning, as completely controlled as their environments were. At any rate, artificial or not, it was a nice morning and he had plenty of time, so he started walking. Rather than cut through alleys to shorten the walk, he would stick to the main roads, he decided. He didn’t fear the Naku, or anyone else for that matter, but there was no sense in inviting trouble.

  About half an hour later, as he drew closer to the aerospaceport proper, he started seeing small triangular signs posted along the walkway every hundred feet or so providing directions to the various facilities. Following those that bore directions to the private hangars, he walked down the street for several blocks beyond where he’d seen the first one, then turned right where an arrow indicated that he should do so. He passed in front of the building on the next corner, which he noticed had been sealed up by the Port Authority and bore a sign that read “STRUCTURAL DAMAGE: NO ENTRANCE”, and then turned right again toward the hangars numbered PH-1 through PH-24. He passed a narrow alley and...

  ...And sensed the danger immediately, as though a gentle breeze had blown across the back of his neck and all the little hairs there had stood on end. He started to turn aside, but not quickly enough to avoid the attack. The assailant tackled him into a small pile of bricks and rubble that was partially blocking the sidewalk, punched him hard in the kidneys and in the side of his head, and then grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back, wrapped a sweaty, gauntleted arm around his throat, and lifted him up off of the ground. Dylan could see little more than the dozens of points of light that were floating in the air before his eyes, but he could feel himself being dragged backwards towar
d the abandoned building. He grabbed hold the muscular arm with both hands and pulled at it as hard as he could, but his efforts were futile. Whoever had jumped him had no trouble dragging him up the stairs and through the doorway, into a dim, musty room. He jabbed his elbow into his assailant’s abdomen, twice, striking something hard and unyielding with such force the second time that his entire lower arm went numb from the shock. Then he tried to turn, first one way and then the other, trying to catch a glimpse of who he was fighting, but the assailant suddenly whirled and threw him to the dust-covered floor.

  Dylan tucked and rolled, came up on his feet, and spun to face his attacker, ready to defend himself. It was Cortan, dressed in full tribal warrior’s regalia. The Naku looked much larger and more muscular than he remembered, and with a crooked, swollen nose and heavy dark circles under his eyes, a lot uglier as well. Worst of all, standing there baring sharp yellow teeth with the gleam of blood-lust burning in his large, obsidian eyes, he looked stone cold sober. How did one defeat a much bigger and much stronger opponent? One made the opponent very angry and hoped that he made a mistake... eventually.

  “Oh. It’s just you,” Dylan commented as his vision began to clear. “I was afraid it might be someone dangerous.”

  Cortan howled like a wild animal as he charged. Dylan stepped aside, out of his path, but the Naku grabbed him by his jacket and pulled him in, then lifted him into the air and tossed him away like a rag doll. “You want to try me again, Terran?” he roared.

  Dylan picked himself up off of the floor and stood ready. “Do I really have a choice?” he asked sarcastically.

  The warrior grunted. “Yes. You may fight or not fight. Either way, I am going to kill you for what you did to me.” He charged again, but this time Dylan reacted more quickly. He ducked under Cortan’s outstretched arms and then turned and kicked at his knee. The Naku collapsed to the floor, but Dylan knew that he hadn’t really injured him. His strike had landed directly on the back of the knee, simply bending it the way it was meant to bend.