Renegades: Origins

by Kal Spriggs

  “So our only way to take the ship is the inner door. We need to get it open,” Mike said. “Does anyone have any ideas?”

  “I can make an explosive,” Eric said.

  “What?” Mike froze in surprise. “Are you crazy? You could kill us all.”

  “Just a small one,” Eric said, his Germanic accent thick. “Just a big enough bang to blast the lock off the door.”

  “The concussion could still kill us all,” Mike said. Despite himself, he glanced over at the Chxor. “Run, what do you think?”

  “Small bomb, we not die, I think,” Run said. “But I stand behind the Ghornath.”

  “Thanks little guy, I appreciate the concern,” Rastar said and to Mike he sounded totally sincere.

  “I think he means he’ll use you for cover,” Ariadne informed him helpfully.

  “Oh, well, he’s small, I can understand that,” Rastar said.

  “Where will you get the materials for a bomb, anyway?” Mike asked.

  “The chemicals in the air scrubber might work, and we can use the electric lantern as the casing, maybe even make a directional or shaped charge,” Pixel said.

  “Will that damage the air scrubber?” Mike asked. He had enough experience with suffocation to want to avoid it in the future.

  “Well, we’ll shut it off when we take it apart,” Pixel said. “But I should be able to put it back together alright afterward.”

  “Do you even have any tools?” Mike asked. Pixel pulled a multi-tool out of his coveralls. “How did you smuggle that in… or do I even want to know?”

  “Um, I had it in my inner pocket. I think they just didn’t notice it,” Pixel said. “It’s my lucky multi-tool, too.”

  “Anyone else smuggle in anything useful?” Mike asked. He wondered why he had not thought of bribing the guards for something. Oh yeah, I had nothing to offer, that’s why, he thought.

  Ariadne produced a lighter. Mike raised an eyebrow, and he spoke in a low voice to her, “You can create fire with your mind, why do you need a lighter?”

  “I like fire,” Ariadne said.

  “Anything else?” Mike asked of the others.

  Crowe produced a shank, “I have a sheath on the inside of my thigh.”

  “You know how to use that?” Mike asked.

  Crowe gave him an innocent expression, “You point it at someone and say bang, right? Oh wait, that’s a gun, huh? I think I’m supposed to poke people with the pointy bit.” Mike added that to the list of signs that suggested he needed to keep an eye on Crowe.

  Mike looked over at the Wrethe. Anubus flexed his hands, and three inch claws emerged from inner sheaths. “I thought the Chxor would clip your claws or something.”

  “They did. They regrew. Another reason I’m hungry. Did I mention I get a bit irritable when I’m hungry?” Anubus asked.

  “I offered you food,” Rastar said helpfully.

  “You are food,” Anubus growled.

  “Anyone else?” Mike interrupted.

  “I have this!” Run said, triumphantly. He held up what looked like a small plastic pistol.

  “What is that?” Rastar said.

  “It makes people sleep,” Run said.

  “Nice,” Eric said. “A tranquilizer pistol. Where’d you hide that?”

  Run looked over at him. “I had it up my-”

  “Alright,” Mike interrupted, certain that the little Chxor would provide far too much information on the hiding spot for his pistol, “so we’ve got some weapons and tools, and something of a plan. Pixel, do you need any help with the air scrubber?”

  “If Eric and Run will assist me, I think I can manage,” he said. Mike wished he could read the engineer better. The man seemed confident enough, but if that was just a mask, he might well kill them all.

  “We’ll use less air if we don’t move around. I suggest everyone rest up while they work, at least until Pixel gets the scrubber back online,” Mike said. Even as he said it, he felt his stomach twist with anxiety. He hated having to be dependent upon other people’s work, especially when he knew virtually nothing about the process. He fought down an urge to walk over and look over their shoulders. Instead he sat and leaned back against the cool metal bulkhead. He reviewed their resources, even as he pondered contingencies. If the air scrubber went out, they would have too many people breathing too little air. Which of my fellow prisoners could I afford to do without? he wondered. Even as he pondered that, he considered which ones might think of him as expendable. Best not to get too comfortable with any of them.

  * * *

  Mike’s internal clock told him that four hours had passed by the time that Pixel and Eric went to stand in front of the inner hatch. Despite his own paranoia, he had slipped into a doze for much of the time. Even so, he awoke quickly. He rose and went to look over their shoulders. A reassuring hum emanated from the air scrubber in the corner.

  “If we place it here,” Pixel said. “We could cut through the power lock.”

  “I’m not sure how powerful this charge will be,” Eric said. “I mean, the perchlorate purity is questionable at best…”

  Mike consciously droned out the ‘geek’ talk. He looked at what remained of the lantern. They had rigged up the bulb from the lantern to a wire that led out of the air scrubber, he saw. The case looked no different, though a gray powder filled the clear plastic.

  “The wall might be better,” Pixel said after a moment of consideration. “If we cut the control lines for the door, the electronic lock may unlock as a safety measure.”

  “May?” Mike asked. “What do you know about this ship’s systems, anyway?”

  Pixel shrugged, “Well, most of the Chxor cargo ships are based off of copied human designs. We did so much more exploration before we found them. I imagine the safety protocols are similar.”

  “But can you find a control conduit from the far side of the wall?” Eric asked.

  Pixel opened his mouth to answer but then he paused. After a moment he raised one hand as if he had an answer… and then shook his head. Finally he gave a shrug, “Maybe?”

  “We only get one chance at this,” Eric said. “Let the demolition expert handle this, alright?”

  “Expert?” Mike asked. “I thought you were a sniper of some sort.”

  Eric twitched, “Well, yeah… but I know a lot about explosives too. I built this after all.” He waved the improvised explosive device around. His too-quick motions made Mike uncomfortable, especially with a scratch-built bomb in his twitchy hands.

  “Okay, fine,” Pixel said. “Where do you want to put it?”

  “Right here,” Eric said, and pointed at the center of the door. “It should cut any mechanical lock, and then we can reach out to unlatch the hatch from the other side.”

  “Will it make that big a hole?” Mike asked.

  “I’m almost entirely certain it will work,” Eric said. Mike would have felt more confident but for the ‘almost.’

  “Go for it,” Mike said. Mike backed to the far corner, grateful that at least he made a smaller target than the others. Well, except for Run, crouched down behind the big Ghornath.

  Pixel and Eric came over a moment later. “I’ve run out these wires so that we can trigger it from a safe distance,” Eric said. Pixel cleared his throat. “Alright, it was his idea,” Eric rolled his eyes as he said it, as if to suggest he would have thought of that detail on his own.

  “Will there be any fire?” Ariadne asked. If anything, she seemed unnaturally excited by the idea, Mike noted. Great… a pyromaniac psychic, Mike thought.

  “There shouldn’t be,” Eric said. “Not if the charge works right.”

  “Oh,” Ariadne sighed.

  “Everyone get down, there may be some shrapnel and the concussion will be bad in this space,” Eric said.

  Mike knelt down. He grimaced as he covered his ears. He really hated this.

  He saw Eric touch the wires in his hands. They waited a long moment. Mike withdrew his hands from his e
ars, “Well that was-”

  The sharp detonation knocked Mike back on his ass. He felt the concussion drive through his body and shake his insides. His head rung and his vision seemed blurred.

  A dense wave of smoke washed over the room, and a moment later, Mike saw a red glow of fire. He stumbled to his feet and headed towards the flame.

  At the inner hatch he saw a large divot blown through the door, but only a couple inches wide. Blue-white sparks emanated from the hole, and the paint on the hatch had ignited. Mike saw Crowe run forward with the water bucket. “No, wait!”

  Crowe skidded to a halt with the bucket ready to throw. “We have to put out the fire!”

  Mike coughed against the dense black smoke. Probably doing some terrible stuff to my lungs, he thought. “It’s an electrical fire. You could electrocute yourself or the rest of us. We need some other way to put it out.”

  A moment later, the air around him seemed to drop thirty degrees and the flames flickered and died. Mike stared with shock as the red edges of the hole cooled in seconds. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Ariadne with her eyes closed and a look of concentration on her face. He felt his jaw drop open, “How did you…”

  She opened her eyes. For a moment, Mike could swear he saw the flames behind her eyes. “That was interesting.” Her face had a look of intensity that made Mike shudder. Something just felt wrong about what she had done… even though she had saved their lives in the doing.

  Mike looked back at the hole. A trail of sparks still sputtered from the severed power line. “Is the door safe to touch?” Mike asked.

  Rastar the Ghornath walked up and reached out a hand. “It’s cold… that’s a pretty neat trick. I don’t feel any shock or anything, I think the short is mostly grounded.”

  “If that was high voltage, you would be crispy right now,” Pixel said.

  Rastar shrugged, “It seemed safe enough. Besides, I’m pretty tough.”

  “Electricity doesn’t care how tough you are,” Pixel said. “Enough amps and your heart stops.” The engineer stared at Rastar for a long moment as if uncertain that the big alien really understood.

  “I’ve got a very healthy constitution,” Rastar said with a broad smile. He patted Pixel on the shoulder in a manner meant to reassure him.

  “Back to the main issue,” Mike said. “The short is in the area of the hole. And unless I’m mistaken, none of us could reach through such a small a hole safely anyway.” He looked over his shoulder at Eric. “I thought you said this would work.”

  “It’s not my fault,” Eric said. “The stuff I had to work with… It’s a measure of my skill that it worked at all.” The mercenary gave a shrug, “It was a long shot anyway.”

  “What do we do if the crew heard that?” Crowe asked. “Maybe they’ll come and investigate? Perhaps we can get one to open the door?”

  “Other than the foul smell and the smoke, and the noise, I think this was a wonderful idea,” Anubus said from his corner. “What will your next trick be?”

  “Listen up you dog, I don’t have to take that kind of thing from you,” Eric snapped. “I don’t see you doing anything besides standing there.” The mercenary scowled at Anubus. His action seemed stupid to Mike, posturing that would merely provoke the Wrethe.

  “Standing here, very calmly, not killing and eating you,” Anubus said. He flexed his claws in a manner that suggested such restraint would not long continue.

  Mike sighed. So much for his fellow prisoners’ unity. His head hurt from the explosion and his ears still rung. “Look, it didn’t work, whatever the reason. We need to focus on plan B.”

  “Plan B?” Ariadne asked.

  “Yeah, we plan an escape from the camp,” Mike said. “Which may well work better. We will have more people and more resources to work with.”

  “More chances for someone to rat us out,” Crowe said with a grimace. “I suggest we stick together. The Chxor send all kinds to their work camps, and I’m sure there will be some who will try to alleviate their sentence through playing the informant.”

  “You seem to be a bit bitter about that,” Mike said. He wondered at the source, if Crowe just had a thing against the Chxor and those humans who worked for them… or if he had more experience with prisons than he had let on.

  Crowe shrugged, “I’ve reason.” The dour scowl on his face made Mike smile. Perhaps it was just that something had removed the damned smirk off the other man’s face. Or maybe it’s the thought that Crowe’s fallen afoul of the law… it couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow, I’m sure.

  “In any case,” Mike said. “We need to hit the ground running once we get in. We need tools, allies and resources. Whatever we can get our hands on.” He looked over at Pixel, “You take the lead on tools, anything you think we’ll need, anything we can get access to, you tell us.”

  Pixel nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

  “I could use a data slate,” Crowe said. “I know a bit about hacking.”

  “You do?” Mike asked. He filed the information along with the other things he’d noticed about the ‘communications specialist.’ Crowe seemed to have more secrets than Mike and that made Mike very, very suspicious.

  “Enough that I can cut through a Chxor system, I bet,” Crowe said. “And I’ve got an implant to help out, if I can get access to their system with hard wire.”

  “A nanocomputer?” Pixel asked. “That’s fascinating. How could you afford that, they’re very expensive.” The engineer frowned, “They’re illegal in some places too, even the procedure to implant one.”

  “Oh, implants? Excellent, I must examine it!” Run said. The little alien rushed forward.

  “You’d have to cut my head open to do that, you little twerp,” Crowe said.

  “Yes, when can I?”

  “Over my dead body,” Crowe snapped. He drew his shank again. “And if you get too close to me I’ll make sure to open you up a bit.”

  “I find your behavior illogical and overly emotional,” Run said his voice flat. “Examining your implant would be of great benefit to me in learning more about human anatomy and how cybernetics are implanted-”

  “Later, alright?” Mike said. “Maybe when you have some equipment and a lab, huh?”

  Run stared at Mike, “Promise?”

  “I promise we can discuss it later,” Mike said. He rolled his eyes. Why couldn’t they have put him in a container with a criminal gang. He felt more like a babysitter than anything else. What he wouldn’t do for a group of coldblooded killers who didn’t like small talk.

  * * *

  Mike stepped out of the cargo bay, and into a large chamber. On the opposite side he saw another airlock. A conveyor belt ran right to the hatch and a pair of Chxor guards stood over a half dozen men who transferred heavy bars of steel from the belt to the cargo ship beyond the hatch. To his left and right he saw two other doors. One had a cluster of other prisoners around it as well as another pair of guards. The other had a conveyor belt that fed steel bars from elsewhere in the station.

  A Chxor guard stepped in front of Mike, his weapon at the low ready. “Move along.” He wore a drab set of body armor and Mike noticed patches of wire mesh over his vital areas. Armor designed to protect against improvised weapons like knives, he thought.

  Mike headed towards the other prisoners. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the others follow him. Lets see how long this partnership of ours lasts, Mike wondered.

  The prisoners formed into a line. He saw immediately what had caused the holdup. The corridor beyond lay in microgravity, and the first prisoners to enter it had tumbled out of control. Mike would have found the scene comical, if not for the Chxor’s weapons and their total lack of humor. It almost frightened a hysterical giggle out of him anyway when one of them began to push the most helpless prisoners down the hall.

  When Mike reached the edge of the artificial gravity he made a smooth leap and drifted straight down the tube. At the far end he dropped lightly to his feet.
To his disappointment the Chxor guard there did not seem impressed.

  Mike gave a sigh. He joined the end of the line, and waited for his companions to arrive. Anubus and Ariadne managed the passage without difficulty. Eric tumbled through to the compartment and fell out of the air with a shout of dismay.

  The others fell somewhere in between, though Pixel surprised Mike through his cautious movements. He obviously did not have microgravity experience, but he performed well enough despite that.

  Ariadne moved up next to Mike, “That woman ahead of us is sick, she looks like she can barely stand.”

  Mike looked over at the woman. He saw the sick woman lean heavily on her companion. “Leave them be,” Mike cautioned. “We don’t want any attention. If we help them, we attract attention to them and to ourselves.”

  Ariadne frowned, “I can understand that, but I’m not sure that she’ll make it to the front of the line, much less survive here without some medical attention.”

  “She’ll have to,” Mike said, and he nodded at where a line of Chxor guards waited to the side. “I don’t think the Chxor care much about us, they’ll care less about someone too weak to work.”

  Ariadne nodded. Even so, he saw her shift back in the line and speak with Run the Chxor. Mike guessed she hoped the self-proclaimed doctor would be able to help. Anubus moved up to stand behind Mike. For his size, he moved with abnormal quiet. He almost seemed like a living shadow more than a real person at times.

  The line moved slowly. Mike took the time to glance around the room. At the front of the line he saw a cage, where a Chxor clerk took down information from the prisoners. Behind the Chxor clerk he saw an open door and some desks and other Chxor at work. To his left he saw processed prisoners cycled through an airlock with a green light above it. That boded ill for any escape attempt, he figured. If the compartment had an airlock, that meant the guards could vent it to space without any risk to themselves.