The Dancer's Summons

by M. Garnet

  How do you hide from something or someone you don't know even exists? First, you find the ghost.

  "Cook, who do you believe our helping soldier was in that metal hallway?"

  "A blessing whoever he was. I don't know. I heard some of the crew say he had to be Special Ops with OOW. I never heard of them, but who knows. Some say there is a Dark Guardian group out there somewhere, but who could afford them. BoseIn Lines can hardly cover the repairs on this ship, so they can't hire any extra help. I'm just glad the guy showed up."

  Not moving but listening to the Cook's words, he cut up large amounts of vegetables to go into two big pots that were self-heating on the back counter.

  Looking down at her knees so close to her chin, she couldn't find any answers in her friend's words. "Did the Captain or XO identify the guys who attacked us?"

  "Nope, and that scares me. Someone who can go after the OOW and blow up one of their ships had big balls and no brains. My guess is that right now, that small satellite we were on has also been blown out of the dark into smithereens. OOW won't let it stand, as they protect their own. The word goes that they even have some secret weapons that they can call up that could scare a badger cat."

  A badger cat was a storybook animal told all over many worlds in children's stories. It was the meanest cat that could not be killed, and sometimes little children could be warned that if they weren't good, a badger cat would get them. There was no real animal anywhere with that description or name.

  Even in her strange homeworld, there were silly stories about the animal that would come for bad boys and girls. Moxxi/Traci shook her head. But some things were more frightening than make-believe animals.

  "It was great how that big guy just walked out in the line of fire and yelled at us to run." Cook turned and dumped more veggies into the pots.

  Run, that was the word. The ghost had said it in a firm voice, and although his face was in deep shadows, she swore he was looking down at her. Run was in the note on Solitude. She sat up and put her feet on the floor. Now Moxxi/Traci had an idea of finding out who the man was that knew who she was; she needed to have him find her again. To do that, she needed to be in trouble so that he would help her. Yes, all she had to do was get into dire straits, which seemed to be easy for her. Damn.

  "How soon do we get to this safe port?" Traci asked as she got up to help clean up after Cook.

  Cook had a soft spot for this helpful young woman. Never before had he been blessed with an assigned second crew that did good work. Not only that, but this woman went ahead and did more than required, arranging and cleaning and coming up with ideas for the mess area. Things were easier with her around, and he intended to ask the Captain to give her a raise and hire her full time.

  "This will be the last meal we will serve before we lock up for port. There is a small mining moon that the OOW had told us to tie up at for repairs and to make a full report. It is only a few hours away."

  Things went as Cook predicted. The time went fast for Traci, with getting the meal together, serving, and then cleaning and locking down the mess area. This gave her only enough time to get to her bunk for the announcement that they would soon be in port.

  The Captain's announcement did warn that the next few minutes would be rough due to the ship's damage and landing on a miner's site. He suggested that everyone take precautions. Most of the crew that had the time—went to their bunks and used the sleeping nets to hold them in place.

  The landing was rough, but although the moon was airless, they could take the freighter into a large sector that closed up behind them. This then became a part of several covered atmospheres filling the living and mining regions. Since the mining equipment was large and vessels were often coming and going for shipments, the landing area was set up for almost any size space ships.

  It wasn't the atmosphere that made the landing turbulent; it was the moon's odd gravity. This rock was mostly metal, which is why the mining was so profitable. As ships got close, the gravity would sometimes pull heavier and then release, depending on the rock as they flew over the surface.

  On the site where the bubbles for landing and living settlements were located, the gravity was about half of what was called regular or full gravity onboard ships.

  First, as everyone sat up and got ready to make sure everything was tied down, an announcement was made by the XO.

  "Please hold positions and do not move around at this time. The Organization of Worlds has a ship coming in right behind us and has requested us to wait for them. We also have made contact with locals about repairs. That does seem possible."

  With that information, the people in Traci's bunkroom just sat back on their bunks. A couple got up to stretch, and one left to go to the cleansing room. The time seemed to drag, as there were guesses about what was holding up to let them off the ship.

  At last, the Captain came on over the speakers and gave instructions. "We are being asked to leave the ship in an orderly manner, and we are all going to be shown to a restricted location. We will all be questioned to help the OOW find the people that attacked their ship and ours. It will also help us receive restitution, so it is in our favor to cooperate. Proceed to the front airlock."

  It didn't take long for the freighter's small crew to file off and be met by several armed OOW soldiers and beyond them some civilians. The civilians led them to a couple of people movers that were just open trailers on large tires that moved over the uneven land. It took about fifteen minutes to get everyone over to buildings that looked temporary.

  With a lot of smiles, the local miner's families ushered the crew into a large room that looked like it might be a meeting or even sometimes for dance or plays; at one end was a long-raised platform. There were racks of folding chairs, and these were being handed out so that everyone could sit down wherever they wanted, by whoever they wanted to be close to in this room.

  The crew just formed a close circle around the officers. At first, the talk was about getting help from the miners to repair their ship. But then a couple of the OOW men stepped into the room.

  "Okay, folks. We need to interview each of you. We have a room set up, and we will talk to you, and then the local folks have been kind enough to set up a meal in another room. We will make this as fast as possible. We will be back in a moment for the first person that we will have a short discussion with and then move on to the next crewman. Thank you."

  When the military men left the room, everyone looked at each other.

  "Why are they talking to us one at a time?" That came from one of the crewmen who worked in storage.

  "Interview is what he said, but he meant interrogation. This smells."

  There was silence for a couple of minutes, and then Bout smiled. "Hey, I don't remember very much. It is above my pay grade." That brought a group of chuckles.

  "Does anyone have any chewing squares?" Traci smiled as she asked the strange question.

  A couple of people reached into their pockets, and one close to her held out a hand full of the small, wrapped squares. Traci took one and put the small item in her palm, where she touched it with a finger. It immediately unwrapped, and she put the small square in her mouth and began to chew loudly with her mouth partly open in a rude manner.

  "Thanks." Speaking around the chew, she let her eyes get big and round. "I was just so scared I'm surprised I didn't pee my pants. When someone said run, I ran as fast as I could. I think I tripped twice, but someone helped me. You guys are great." She popped her chew and smiled.

  Now there were some more chuckles, but the XO looked over and raised his hand to get silence. "Didn't you have one of the weapons?"

  "Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. I don't know where it got to, but yep, I picked it up. I don't know how to fire one, but I thought it might make a good bat since it was long. I held it by the end with the barrel. Someone told me later I was lucky I didn't shoot myself. Damn." Again, she popped her gun.

  The nav officer smiled and nodded. "Sounds r
ight to me. It was all a strange blur, as we got everyone out with all the other people in different cells. It was a mess."

  "Thank goodness they began fighting among themselves, or we would never have gotten out of there." This came from the Captain, and everyone sat quietly for a moment, knowing that he was telling them what to say when they got in the interrogation.

  Now it was time to talk about the ship's repairs and their next destination when they left this moon. At that moment, an OOW man in uniform stepped out with a pad. It had the names of everyone on their ship, and he called for the Captain.

  That was how it went for hours. The man with the pad would step out after a long period and call for the next ranking person from the BoseIn freighter. Looking at each other as the time wore on and the chairs got empty, Cook was gone, and Bout was gone, and then they finally were to just the workers.

  When they called Traci, she had waited so long that her chew had no taste, and she needed to use a cleansing room.

  "I need to pee," Traci announced as she went over to the uniform with his pad. They had a female OOW uniform that accompanied and watched while Traci used the facilities. No privacy, and no chance to escape or perhaps take any drugs. Traci popped her tasteless chew and followed the woman over to another small room set up like an office.

  The man behind the desk looked more at his pad than he did at Traci as she rattled on telling her story and popping her chew. He made a few notes as she spoke and asked a couple of unimportant questions. Just when she thought the interview/interrogation was done, a tall officer who had been leaning against the back door of the office stepped forward. He leaned down and spoke into the interviewer's ear.

  This made the OOW officer look up from his pad, and both pair of eyes were on Traci.

  "You were with the team that started the escape, correct."

  "Yep." Traci looked around the room like it was an interesting place and not as if she were avoiding the officers' eyes.

  "You were able to get a weapon from one of the attackers in the black disguises, correct?"

  Now Traci looked at the men and smiled. "Yep. My team did a good job, and we helped get the rest of the men out, too. Cook took down the lead guy, and Bout, who is good at fighting, just slugged at everyone. Then we ran down the hall to the central whatchamacallit, and someone hit something that opened everything up. People were escaping everywhere."

  The standing officer rose to his full height and looked down at her. "Traci Cen. You had a weapon you took off a bigger male." He took the pad from the sitting man, hit a couple of taps, and then turned it around to show her a vid.

  They really should have known that the cell areas would have had hidden cameras. The dim picture showed the three men in the hall facing the cells and then moving down. Another camera picked up on them facing one cell as the door slid open. It was unfortunate that it was on the side where Traci came out with her special kicks.

  The standing guy took over with the questions. "What did you do with the weapon after you went down the final hallway to the docking area?"

  Taking the small piece of chew out, Traci looked around then just stuck it under the desk's lip. When both men frowned at her, she just shrugged. "I don't know. I don't like weapons. To tell the truth, I don't think I could shoot a person. I was lucky and didn't have to because I got a chance to run instead."

  Traci knew she was in trouble, but she kept her mouth shut except to answer a few more questions with just a few words. Could she talk her way out of this problem with only a couple of answers?

  Chapter Eight

  For the next five days and nights, the crew worked with the miners to repair the freighter. In between, there were still sporadic strange individual conversations with the OOW officers. They brought Traci back three times, once to have her go over her whole story again. The other two times were to answer specific questions about where the weapon she had taken from an attacker had disappeared.

  They threatened to use truth peps on her, and she asked for a higher officer. At that point, there were no more meetings for Traci and the OOW representatives. But she and the rest of the crew were aware of the military presence, with the eyes on them all the time.

  When the ship left the moon with a lot of thanks to the miners, there was a small escort from the OOW. They didn't know where it had come from, but it was a smaller ship than the one that carried the many soldiers that talked to them at the miner's site. The Captain's announcement said that it was for their safety and that the military vessel was escorting them to their next dock.

  Traci was not a pleasant person to talk to, as she wandered around the ship doing her duties but not smiling. She had one thought, and it was playing games in her mind. Who was the ghost who appeared when she was in trouble? Who else knew her background? Well, if the ghost with dark eyes only showed up when she was in trouble, maybe she should get into some trouble.

  For the next few days and then the next jump, everything on the BoseIn was normal. Except it was evident that everyone was nervous. There were constant reports on the small OOW ship that was moving along with the BoseIn.

  Their next stop was not the one they had been scheduled for, but it was in the right direction, and there was a good repair dock at that location. As Traci helped Cook lock down the mess and cooking area for docking, the Captain made an announcement.

  "Okay, crew, we have had a notification that we are all going to have to exit our ship for a special investigation. An additional OOW unit at this location will be leaving shortly to go out after what they are calling pirates. Please be careful and cooperate."

  "Fuck, I'm not going through another bunch of those so-called interviews." Traci slammed down a load of napkins and walked out of the small storage closet. When Cook looked up to say something back, the young woman was gone. He shrugged and finished the tie-down.

  Report: I received orders. I am on my way to VH1A Loc.-72872 immediately. I understand asset is missing. I will forward report.

  It was a normal docking, and soon everyone was off the freighter and held in a standard cheap crew and worker hotel. Then they were called down, one at a time, to have a dialogue with some special OOW officers.

  Several of the OOW ships, some of the large battleships, were in orbit over the docking area. They were going after the pirates in a big manner.

  The XO and others were in the Captain's room. Not that it was any larger or fancier than any of the other rooms, just that they all wanted to relax together and talk about getting home.

  There was a loud pound on the door, and then it was opened before any of them could walk across to answer the noise. Several armed military personnel entered.

  "Captain and your first officer, we need you immediately."

  They both stood up, but the Captain stopped. "Wait, is there a problem with my ship?"

  "We'll know when we are done with our final search. You have a person from your crew missing." With that, the military pointed weapons and hustled the two men out of the room. The rest were now standing and looking at each other.

  "Who is missing?" Someone asked.

  The rest began to look at each other, and it was apparent they were all trying to remember who had come off the ship together and where everybody was in the different rooms. While they were talking, Bout entered the room and looked around.

  "When was the last time anyone saw Traci Cen, Cook's assistant?" His voice was loud and shaky.

  Now there were some surprised looks. Everyone began to think back to before they gathered up some personal items in their bunkrooms and left through the exits. But the answers were all the same.

  "Not before we docked." One person answered.

  Another nodded. "She wasn't near her bunk; the curtain was open."

  The answers were all the same. No one remembered seeing the beautiful young woman. Slowly the crew was gathered, either in the room or the hall with the door open.

  Bout was standing in the door with everyone near him as they all t
alked quietly. He was the one who spoke what they were all thinking. "If she is hiding on the ship and they believe she didn't get off, they will not let us leave to return home. If she got off secretly and hasn't been seen since, that is her wish.

  For all of us to get the job done, we need to tell the truth to the OOW military."

  They all thought about those words. These people wanted to go home, and none of them were going to feel any guilt about how they helped or didn't help the OOW.

  Finally, from the back, someone spoke. "I think she came off right behind me."

  Another in the hall spoke up. "Oh, I think I saw her going down the hotel hall right after our rooms were assigned."

  "Yeah," Bout nodded. "I would recognize her shape anywhere, and I'm sure I saw it in the area when we went through that dark hall where we got off the ship. You know the one where all the OOW people were lined up."

  "Oh yes," one of the others laughed. "I could have been next to the Captain and not even known it, but I think everyone was in there because it was so tight it had to be the complete crew."

  "Hey, I need a drink."

  "I have some left in my room."

  With that, they broke up and separated, laughing as they went to a couple of different rooms. A pair of OOW military men came out of the elevator at that same time and frowned at all the laughter.

  There was no mention of a missing crewmember, but some did wonder where Traci was hiding.

  The Captain and the XO were down on the dock watching as their ship was being carefully unloaded. Anything large enough to hold a body was carefully scanned or opened. Inside the ship, the walls, closets, and every drawer was opened that might hide an object the size of a female who weighed one hundred and twenty pounds and was five foot eight inches tall.

  The OOW was using sensitive units looking for body heat, and they found rats and some small animals in the tubes or air ducts.