Renegades: Origins

by Kal Spriggs

  Still, it was not something to encourage, “But I hope that you understand that our team works on trust. We have to be able to trust everyone, so the way you work might not mesh with how we do business. We like everything out in the open.”

  “Right…” Elena gave her a cold smile. “I’ll keep that in mind. Well, thank you for your time, Mike. Good talking with you again… what’s your name again?”

  “Ariadne,” she gave the other woman a polite smile.

  “Yes, I’ll try to remember that,” Elena Ludmilla Lakar gave her a nod and then swept past her.

  Ariadne waited for the hatch to close before she flopped into the navigator’s seat. Then she winced as one of the supports jabbed her through the thin padding. Chxor need to learn how to pad a seat properly, she thought. “So, little miss bounty hunter wants to join the team?”

  “Something finally sinks through the cheerful shield, huh?” Mike asked.

  “Cheerful shield?”

  “Yeah, you’re almost always bubbly… it’s good to know someone can get under your skin,” Mike grinned. He snorted at her scowl. “Hey, don’t blame me, I just observed her in action. She might be good to have around just for that reason.”

  “Right,” Ariadne shook her head, “Did she mention her arrangement with Crowe? He’s the one who told her about our escape plan.”

  Mike frowned, “No. And that suddenly bothers me. She might have mentioned that she and Crowe talked at least. That she didn’t… well either she knows that Crowe and I don’t necessarily get along or…” He frowned, “Well there’s a few possibilities, some of them pretty trivial, some sinister. So what are the others up to?”

  “Rastar and Crowe haven’t moved from sleep,” Ariadne said. “Eric and Pixel might well blow up the galley, and Simon and Run are engaged in their inventory.”

  “Good, Rastar can’t get in trouble when he’s asleep, and we may need some explosives,” Mike grunted, “Simon may well have time to do his complete inventory. This ship’s lower velocity means we’ll hit orbit around the planet in three more days.”

  “Okay,” Ariadne did the math, “So we should be on scene for an hour or two before the cargo boat goes in on its run. Let’s just hope we don’t dock with that ring.”

  “From what I understand about the ship and the way they load and unload it, I doubt it,” Mike said. “You saw the containers strapped on outside?” She nodded. “Well that’s done to allow cargo shuttles to grab the containers. I’ve seen similar designs on ships that do frontier work. This way, it doesn’t require much in the way of a support structure from a spaceport. All they need is a cargo shuttle with the right attachments and someplace to set down.”

  “They seem to have pretty good industry here,” Ariadne said. “Why would they need a ship like this? The planet we’re headed towards looks very developed.”

  “The other planet, maybe not,” Mike said. “The little bit of the log that Run translated suggests that the other planet is mostly agriculture, lots of farms and such. So most of the cargo is food… of one sort or another.”

  “Too bad we can’t eat it,” Ariadne said.

  “I wouldn’t think some of it would be what we’d like,” Mike grimaced. “Among the load is a container labeled ‘agents of disorder’. When I asked Run for a clarification… he said they were Chxor who rebelled.”

  “Wait, in a container?”

  “Frozen. And already ‘processed’ Run said. For eating.”

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “That’s gross,” Ariadne said. “So the Chxor cannibalize their own dead?”

  “It appears so,” Mike grimaced. “The more I learn about them, the less and less I want anything to do with them. Except maybe to play pirate and steal their ships and equipment.”

  Ariadne smiled, “Mike Golemon, pirate of the space-ways?”

  He gave her a nod, but she saw his face turn serious, “Something I’d ask, by the way, Ariadne. I don’t give my full name to others for a variety of reasons. I’d appreciate it if you don’t spread it around.”

  “Oh?” Ariadne asked, suddenly interested.

  “I… well, I joined the Colonial Republic Liberation Fleet a long time back,” he grimaced again. “It ended badly. I don’t want to go into the details, but if someone looked up my records, there would be some questions raised, including how I survived. I’d rather not go into that, so I just travel under a name of convenience, and avoid areas of Colonial space where they do biometrics scans.”

  “Understandable,” Ariadne said. “I’d prefer to avoid official inquiry into my past for a similar reason.” She shrugged, “So what would you prefer I call you?”

  “I keep it simple,” He grinned, “Mike Smith, or Mike Johnson.”

  “I have to ask…” Ariadne said. “You’re, well, you’re clearly of Asian ancestry, why the Caucasian name?”

  “You think I don’t blend in with you ‘round eyes’?” Mike grinned. “It’s complicated. I’ll leave it like that. Not real interesting. My family came from North America before they went out to the colonies. Their name got Americanized, that’s mostly it.

  “Oh,” Ariadne said. “Well, I guess that works. I seem to be the only one on the team with a non-interesting family past. Even Rastar’s family fought in the Ghornath war with Nova Roma.”

  “You’re a war orphan, right?” Mike said. “I’m sure there’s a story there. Maybe your parents had a role there.”

  Ariadne shrugged, “Military orphans got special treatment in the Separatist orphanages. My brother and I just got the impression that our parents were normal people.” she looked around, eager to change the subject to a less depressing topic. “So, I guess Anubus has claimed the gold?”

  “For the moment,” Mike grimaced. “We may have a fight on our hands later over that.”

  “I’m sure we can work it out,” Ariadne said calmly. “I mean, the whole team worked to capture the ship, it’s only fair that we share it out evenly.”

  “I doubt he’ll see it that way,” Mike said. “But I’ll let you give it a try, maybe you can… you know,” Mike wiggled his fingers.

  “I’m not going to mess with someone’s head over some money,” Ariadne said with a smile. “Besides, like I said, I bet we can talk him around. He seems pretty reasonable.”

  “Sure…” Mike shook his head. “You do know how unreasonable humans get about gold right? Can you imagine how nasty a Wrethe might get if he thinks we’re out to rob him?”

  Adrian frowned. “Well, it’s not much of an issue right now. Besides, how unreasonable can he be?”

  * * *

  “Human, if you touch that crate, they’ll hear your screams back at the station,” Anubus growled.

  Ariadne saw Pixel look up from his work in the corner, “Sound doesn’t propagate through vacuum. Also, the Chxor blew the station up. So they can’t hear anything.”

  “That won’t matter,” Anubus growled. Ariadne saw him flex his sheathed claws.

  “Look, not that you don’t terrify me and all,” Pixel said. “But I have to finish this up. We might need to vent this compartment if the Chxor send a boarding party to inspect the ship. If we can kill them with something simple like this, it will save people like you from taking a couple of bullets.”

  “I have my eye on you… and the rest of them. I know you want my gold.”

  Pixel gave another sigh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Ariadne walked up, “How’s it going, Pixel? Mike said we’re almost done braking. He’s received a message for the orbit they want, as well.”

  “I should finish up soon,” Pixel said.

  “Anubus, are you ready?” Ariadne asked. “We may have some fighting.”

  “I am very ready to kill something,” Anubus growled, “Especially if they threaten my gold.”

  “Right,” Ariadne smiled politely. “I’ll let Mike know.”

  Ariadne walked out of the small cargo bay that attached to the airlock. She made her way to the b
ridge quickly enough, but then found her way blocked by a crowd in the corridor outside.

  “Excuse me,” Ariadne said politely.

  The man nearest her glanced back and then returned his attention to the front, “Anyone got any news? I promise a thousand Republic Drachma to any man who can tell me if there’s a freighter headed for Colonial space.”

  “I need to get by,” Ariadne said. Her normal smile faded slightly. The man in front of her shifted slightly to block her progress.

  No one in the crowd looked back at her.

  “Everybody MOVE!” shouted someone in a deep bellow behind her.

  The crowd flattened to the sides of the corridor. Ariadne glanced back and saw Rastar stood above her, his four arms crossed over his chest and a flush of red anger on his hide.

  “Thank you, Rastar,” Ariadne said sweetly.

  “Not a problem,” Rastar said. “I hate rude people.” He glanced down at the human who had ignored her and then blocked her. “They really make me angry. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

  “You don’t want to hurt me,” the man blustered. Ariadne saw that he had somehow found some oil or something for his dark hair, he wore it slicked back. “I’m a lawyer, and I’m worth a lot of money.”

  “Of course you are,” Rastar said. He waved a hand forward for Ariadne, “After you.”

  She walked past the others, many of whom seemed to only see Rastar as she led the way onto the bridge. She found Eric stationed at the hatch, a grimace on his face. “Sorry about the crowd,” he scowled at one of the men who tried to edge after Rastar. “Mike had me kick them all off the bridge.”

  “Well, they just want some more information, I suppose,” Ariadne said. “I can’t blame them for that. Any news?”

  Eric shrugged, “I work with weapons, and this tub hasn’t got any. Crowe, Mike, and Simon are pouring over the sensor feed. Go ask them.” He looked up at Rastar, “Oh, and Mike said he wouldn’t mind your input either.”

  Ariadne stepped through the hatch. She saw that Crowe had sprawled out over the communications console and had his feet propped up on the navigator’s seat. Mike sat in the captain’s seat while Simon had tucked himself into the sensor area. “Pixel says he’s nearly done. Anubus is ready for a fight. What’s the news up here?”

  Mike looked up, “Well, good and bad.”

  “Mostly bad,” Crowe said.

  Mike ignored the interruption. “There’s lots of traffic, some of it definitely equipped with Shadow Space drives.”

  “But we don’t know which ships,” Crowe said. “And they’re all Chxor ships, so we’ll have to figure out how to work their tech.”

  “Isn’t Chxor drive technology based off of ours?” Ariadne asked. “I sort of remember something about that, from school.”

  “Yeah,” Mike grunted. “They developed pretty high tech back on their homeworld, but they never did space travel before we showed up and showed it to them.”

  Simon spoke from his console, “Big mistake there.”

  “So if it’s based off of what we gave them, then it can’t be too hard to figure out, right?” Ariadne asked.

  “Sure, if you can read Chxor and if we can even find where their bridge is,” Crowe said. “For that matter, if we can even identify a ship with a drive that’s not a military ship full of armed Chxor.”

  Mike sighed, “Yeah, there is that.”

  “With all the traffic here, you haven’t seen one ship we can board?” Rastar asked.

  “We’ve seen dozens, just most of them are too big for a handful to operate, or too small to have a drive. Or we spot something that looks promising and it pulls out of orbit or docks with that damned ring,” Crowe snapped. “Which I don’t think I need to mention why going aboard that thing would be a bad idea?”

  “You seem to be in a wonderful mood,” Ariadne said with a smile. “Relax, I’m sure something will present itself.”

  “Look, little miss sunshine, I hate to piss on your parade-”

  “Enough,” Mike snapped. “We get nothing from arguing with each other.”

  “I’ll show you what we’re working with,” Simon said. “Maybe we just need a fresh set of eyes.”

  The imagery showed up on the main screen a moment later. The sheer scale of the massive orbital ring took Ariadne’s breath away. Then she saw the thousands of ships that hung in orbit above the planet. The majority had movement to and from the ring, though others seemed stationary.

  “What kind of orbit did their traffic control stick us in?” Ariadne asked.

  “High orbit,” Mike said. “Well away from the ring. They also said the cargo shuttles will begin approach in three hours… and that a personnel shuttle will arrive to take the crew to the station sometime after that.”

  “Oh, good, so we’ll have transportation at least,” Ariadne said. “We can use that to go where we need.” She nodded, clearly things would work out for the best, at least once they figured out the whole ship thing.

  Crowe snapped, “You say that like-”

  “Freeze the frame,” Rastar said, his voice intent. “That ship there, in the shadow of the ring. Can you zoom on it?”

  Ariadne looked back up at the screen, she barely saw the tiny ship. Against the scale of the ring it seemed hardly a speck. Simon spoke, “This is from a recording, but I can get the video telescope to zoom in, as long as that area hasn’t rotated around the planet yet.” Simon glanced at his datapad, and then tapped commands on the sensor console in a precise order. The screen cleared, and then a moment later, showed a larger version of the ship, as well as a section of the vast ring above it.

  “That is not a Chxor ship,” Mike said, suddenly. “I’m not sure what it is, but it’s not Chxor.”

  “It is a Ghornath ship,” Rastar said. “Unless I am mistaken, it is a Berganyr class Corvette. I can’t quite make out the name on the hull. My mother served as a nurse aboard one of those in the defense of Ghornath Prime.”

  “It’s capable of making Shadow Space?” Mike asked.

  “Yes…” Rastar nodded. “It will also be fast, and well armed for its size. They were the newest ships my people created before the fall of my homeworld.”

  “How did it get here?” Simon asked. “I thought the Ghornath hated the Chxor?”

  “We do,” Rastar nodded. “But perhaps they captured the ship or someone else did and the Chxor purchased it. Either way, it may be easier to take than another ship.”

  “Yeah, but none of the rest of us read Ghornath,” Crowe said. “So that doesn’t make things easier.”

  “The bridge will be located near the rear, and probably the upper part of the ship.” Rastar said. “The engine room located near the center.”

  Mike frowned. “Yeah, I can see what looks like view-ports on that part near the rear, the projection up above the rest. And I can see what looks like a pair of turrets on the port side. So it’s got some weapons at least.”

  “If we have to fight our way out of here,” Simon spoke up, “We’re probably not going to make it.” He looked uneasy at the thought of shooting his way out. Ariadne wondered if Mike had mentioned his plan with the cargo boat.

  “No, but we’ve got a long way to go before we get back to any kind of civilized space,” Mike answered. “I would rather have the option than not. Besides, we’ve got the element of surprise; we might do some serious damage before they kill us.”

  “I think we can avoid the last part,” Ariadne said. “And with Rastar to translate, I bet we can get that ship up quickly enough.” She looked over at Rastar, “Plus, the Ghornath eat food that is mostly compatible with humans, so we have a food supply available.”

  Mike nodded, “Good point.” He looked around at the others, “Alright, so we make for that one?”

  No one argued. “Very well. Ariadne, I’d like you to work out a couple of courses from where our orbit will be. One as a rapid sprint and the other with as much dodging and jinking as you can manage.”

 
Ariadne nodded slowly, “Sure, but I’ll need some parameters of the shuttle. And I’ll be more accurate as we get closer to our orbit.”

  “I know, just start thinking about it,” Mike said. He looked up at Rastar, “Big guy, I’d like you and Eric and Anubus, I suppose, to set down and talk over everything you can think about as far as that ship and the layout.”

  Rastar gave him a thumbs up, “Not a problem, man. I just want to lead the way. The Chxor don’t deserve that piece of my people’s history. They stole it… and I’m going to take it back.” Ariadne saw the big alien’s skin turn a dark red. “And any of them that get in the way will be very, very sorry.”

  * * *

  Ariadne tapped her foot impatiently as she stood with the others near the airlock.

  “Stop that,” Anubus growled

  “I can’t,” Ariadne said. “I get fidgety when I’m nervous.”

  “Stop that or I’ll take your leg off,” Anubus growled.

  “That doesn’t help,” Ariadne noted. “And besides, I won’t be able to help out if I’m on the floor screaming in agony. And I imagine that would be a lot more annoying.” She gave him a smile.

  “Why is she here, anyway?” Crowe asked. “I know she can do that fire thing, but I thought we wanted the shuttle intact?”

  “We do,” Eric said. “But she can pilot it and she’ll navigate it as well. So it is best to have her in place quickly.” He looked over at Crowe, “You on the other hand, are here to catch any stray bullets that might hit her.”

  Crowe shot Ariadne a glance, “Good luck with that.”

  “Where’s Rastar?” Anubus glanced around. “He better not have chosen now to make a play for the gold. I don’t need that kind of distraction.”

  “Hey buddy, your gold is fine, I’m just, uh, a little stuck,” Rastar called from behind them.

  “Stuck?” Eric asked, and turned to face down the corridor. Just then, Ariadne saw the airlock hatch turn amber.

  “They’ve docked,” Mike’s voice crackled through the speaker near the airlock hatch.

  “Shit,” Eric turned back to face the airlock, just as the light turned green and the hatch swung open. A pair of Chxor guards stood in the airlock, and behind them Ariadne saw four or five more, their weapons slung. As per plan, the Chxor had opened both airlocks, the better to allow the entire ‘crew’ to embark quickly.