Fire Storm

by Chris Ward

  It was impossible not to feel a little resentment. She was former GMP, so her treatment was likely far more pleasant. As a pilot-for-hire turned smuggler, he was owed no special care. So far, though, no one seemed to care what he had to say. They tortured him with casual, almost bored efficiency, as though they had nothing else to do but kill time.

  Eventually, though, he would be sentenced, and likely executed. Few captured smugglers went to prison planets unless they had a future as informants. Human and off-world life was so abundant that maintaining those clinging desperately to its underbelly had no great worth.

  It would be useful to escape.

  Even though Caladan trusted Lia with his life, he wasn’t quite so trusting with his death.

  It wasn’t easy to bind a one-armed man, and he had been in situations before where his captors hadn’t bothered. Here, too, the GMP had considered his disability to be punishment enough.

  Their first mistake.

  He turned away from the camera eye in the corner of the room—small enough that only seasoned prisoners would notice—then reached under his shirt to his stump, and felt around for the nodule of his scapula just below the scar tissue.

  Most synthetic weapons, even those hidden beneath the skin, would be removed by a thorough body search and scan. Chemical weapons—which some planets had made their sole industry—were far harder to detect.

  Digging a fingernail into his skin deep enough to make him wince, Caladan felt for the little dip in the protrusion of bone which was a hidden release lever.

  In a way, the torture had prepared him for the surge of electrical current that cut through his body. It didn’t hurt much, just left him feeling numb, but he could tell from the way his body shuddered that to an observer it would appear he were suffering a seizure.

  His legs had turned to jelly, and even his back was no longer solid enough to keep him from slipping off the bench. He slumped forward, hitting the ground hard, only his eyes able to move. Unable to do anything, he waited for the door to slide open and three guards to enter.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He dead?’

  ‘They went too far down in the chamber. Looks like he’s a goner.’

  ‘Let me take a look, see if we have vitals.’

  ‘Don’t touch him—’

  Too late, the nearest guard had come within the required arm span’s length, close enough for the electrically charged chemical to make the leap. Caladan felt a sudden release as the charge left his body, paralyzing first the nearest guard, then, as it followed a chain, the two others in turn.

  It was a momentary distraction, but highly paid assassins in a dark corner of a darker city had trained him in how to react; the guards had no idea.

  While the first was still shuddering with the current, unaware that it the paralysis had already passed as it moved along the chain of people, Caladan kicked the man’s blaster free, and within seconds, all three were dead.

  ‘Phew.’ Caladan looked around. There was only so much he could carry with one arm, but his belt would hold two photon blasters and his teeth a vital pass card.

  He broke through the door with the first guard’s blaster, feinting each way, looking for other guards. The corridor was deserted; perhaps the only three guards in this section now lay dead. Caladan ran to the door at the end, then keyed his way through into a security station.

  Complacency. He shook his head. All three duty guards had come to check on him. He keyed access to the mainframe computer, then activated a function to open all cell doors on the three lowest prison levels.

  Nothing like a good distraction.

  He had left the prison block and was creeping along a lower maintenance corridor before an alarm even began to sound.

  Guards came rushing out of a barracks room entrance, some still pulling up their uniforms. Caladan eased back against the wall to let them pass.

  They were almost out of sight when the last couple of men turned to take a look at him.

  Caladan dropped to one knee and lifted his blaster. The men scrambled for their own weapons as he blasted a hole in the ceiling above their heads, bringing down a heap of sparking cables and burst coolant pipes. With the men unable to follow, he ran for the nearest door, shooting the lock behind him to seal it shut.

  He found himself in a series of deserted corridors lined with remote-sealed lockers. He tried to shoot one open, but gave up when it deflected the blast, singeing his beard and nearly removing his chin. In one corner he found an elevator which took him down to where he hoped to find the landing bay, but he made a mistake, emerging instead into a corridor lined with wide doors opening into a series of cargo bays.

  Soon, he knew, the guards would lock down the station, discover his pass card was stolen, and remotely restrict its access. He might need somewhere to hide, so he went through the first unlocked door he reached.

  Inside, hundreds of metal crates were stacked in columns ten high. At a glance, he estimated there to be a couple of thousand, stretching back into the gloom of a chamber a couple of times the length of the Matilda. Unnaturally cold, he went to the nearest stack to investigate. Food supplies, maybe. But they would be vacuum-packed and freeze-dried, not needing the air to maintain a particular temperature.

  Computerised labels were fitted into the sides of each, the details of the contents accessible only through use of a code.

  Caladan smiled. He was a smuggler, and he could justify the bounties on his head without Lia’s help.

  With a few clicks, he overrode the system, giving him access.

  When the product details appeared on the screen, written in the common galactic language, Caladan felt a shiver run down his back that even the chilled air couldn’t cause.

  Trioxyglobin-3.

  Its root chemical, trioxyglobin, was a volatile substance harvested on the fire planets found in the Estron Quadrant—known by most traders with little affection as the Fire Quarter—and was the most efficient form of starship fuel, essential to any ship wishing to travel through stasis-ultraspace wormholes to systems otherwise too distant. The fire planets and fire moons on which trioxyglobin was mined and refined were hostile places, prone to sudden massive fire storms when the atmosphere spontaneously combusted, scorching the planets’ surfaces. Life on such planets was restricted to fire-resistant buildings or subterranean tunnels.

  Due to the chemical’s value, though, many fire planets were heavily populated.

  Trioxyglobin-3, however, was an extremely volatile compound found only on a handful of remote moons. Too unstable to be used for starship fuel, it had come to be used for something else:

  Bombs.

  There was enough chemical stored in this space to wipe clean an entire planet, perhaps even destabilize it enough to knock it off its orbit and send it spinning away into the depths of space, killing all sustained life.

  Why would a GMP outpost be storing such a deadly chemical?

  Caladan switched off the screen and took a few steps back. A metal hand closed over his armless shoulder, trying to spin him around.

  Where the hand might have found flesh on other humans, on Caladan it found an empty space. As he slipped out of its grasp, Caladan swung the blaster up and fired a shot into the droid’s face. Its head exploded, its hand dropped free, and it slumped to the ground.

  Caladan took a deep breath. The same kind of robot guard they had encountered on the freighter. Unable to use its weapons on him in such close proximity to the store of trioxyglobin-3, it had tried to capture him with stealth instead.

  Caladan patted his stump. Lacking an arm had its benefits sometimes.

  He looked around, wondering if there were more guards, but the fuel store was empty. Lia was still on the station, imprisoned somewhere, but he had no way to find her. He headed back to the elevator and tried a different floor. This time, he found himself in a docking bay, but there was no sign of the Matilda among a line of fighters. He tried to return to the elevator, but his pass card wo
uld no longer work.

  It would take just minutes to discover his location. With two blasters, he had no chance against a trained battalion of the GMP.

  He surveyed the line of fighter craft. The docking bay contained three types he knew how to pilot, but they had no stasis-ultraspace ability, and he would therefore be resigned to shooting at the GMP outpost until he was inevitably shot down or recaptured.

  A fourth was a Type-9 Interceptor, a slow, blocky shuttle designed for boarding hostile starships after the complement of defensive fighters had been cleared out. Its armour could withstand heavy ship-based cannon fire, but had little maneuverability against lighter craft. He had flown a Type-7, but figured the controls had to be more or less the same.

  He blasted through the guard lock on the lower hatch and ran inside. Ideally operated by two men working together, it was still possible to fly alone if you ignored certain essentials like manual weapons operation.

  He overrode the locking system with a cheat code he had won Earth-years ago in a gambling den, and set up the ship’s autopilot to engage the take-off sequence. The hangar doors were closed, so he shifted across to the gunner’s seat long enough to blast them open.

  The Interceptor bumped up as the stabilized atmosphere in the hangar evaporated. Caladan was thrown to the ground but managed to grab the controls before the shuttle slammed into the hangar’s roof. Operating the side and rear thrusters, he assumed manual control and flew out of the ragged hole in the blasted doors.

  As the GMP outpost fell away behind him and the empty, star-dotted blanket of space encircled the viewing screens, Caladan let out a sigh, one tinged with both relief and regret. He was free, but Lia and the Matilda were still onboard somewhere. People told him he was reckless, but the reckless decision would be to go down in a hail of fire, attacking the outpost with no chance of survival. The sensible part of him knew he could do nothing for them now but get away and try to figure out a plan.

  He swung the ship around, getting a first good look at the GMP outpost from outside. Shaped like a corkscrew, it had a wide upper bowl designed as a living and working space, with all the mechanics, hangars and cargo bays located in the lower spiraling tube.

  The hangar he had blasted through was spewing debris out into space. Caladan estimated where the cargo bay with the illicit supply of trioxyglobin-3 was located, and his first instinct was to blast it, turning the GMP outpost—and likely himself—into a fireball. He had no love for the GMP, but Lia had always spoken highly of her former employers. Now, it was anyone’s guess whose side they were on.

  A line of fighters came streaming out of a lower docking bay. Caladan turned the Interceptor around, searching on the ship’s dashboard for the nearest stasis-ultraspace wormhole. One appeared on the screen, a couple of million Earth-miles distant, a mere hop for the Interceptor. Engaging the rear thrusters to full power, he set his course for it, hoping the fighters on his tail had less fuel than he did.

  ‘I’ll come back for you, Lia,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Somehow, I’ll come back.’

  6

  Lia

  The guards took Lia to Kyle’s private apartments. They let her inside, then attached her bonded hands to a metal ring fitted into a wall before leaving her. She stood there, feeling like a stupid wall ornament, alone in a clinically unimpressive living space. A porthole looked out into space, where a group of distant specks were circling. She watched them, making out small fighters, ten or fifteen, although it was difficult to count them against the background of stars.

  Kyle was nowhere to be seen. Open hatches led through into a chamber containing a single fold-down bed. Another opening led through to a washroom. Everything was so pristine, the sanitized chrome and plastic stinking of automated cleaning systems and dust filters, that she found herself pining for the Matilda, with its dirty living quarters and junk filling every available space. Caladan had a habit of leaving his washing for Harlan5, yet rarely noticing when the droid simply loaded it into a vacuum chamber for a couple of days to air out. And on the occasions when they found themselves smuggling people on the run from one government or another, there was always a scramble to clear out one of the guest chambers so they could even sit down.

  She was just wondering whether she should try to escape, when the door opened and Kyle burst in, his face flustered. He walked a few steps before realising she was there, then stopped and turned.

  ‘Ah, they brought you.’

  ‘What’s going on? I heard an alarm from my cell.’

  ‘Nothing my men can’t handle. Maintenance, that’s all.’

  She nodded at the porthole. ‘What about those ships?’

  ‘A routine drill.’

  ‘And the sweat dripping down the side of your face, in a temperature-controlled environment?’

  Kyle turned, and a hand lashed out, striking Lia across the cheek. Too stunned even to glare at him, she just frowned.

  ‘Stay quiet unless I tell you to speak. I’ll have you know, your pilot told us everything.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Everything.’

  Lia shrugged. ‘I don’t tell him much. If you want information, I’m the one you need to torture.’

  Kyle gritted his teeth and lifted a hand, then dropped it again.

  ‘Calm down, Kyle.’ Lia forced a smile. ‘Why don’t you let me relax you? That’s why I was brought here, wasn’t it?’

  He grimaced and took a few steps closer, leaning toward her. Their faces touched, and Lia forced herself to lightly kiss his ear. ‘You smell like him,’ she said. ‘I almost can’t tell the difference.’

  ‘You’re a liar.’

  Lia kissed him again. ‘You know, it could have been you, Kyle. There wasn’t much between you. Stephen was younger, sure, but you … I’ve always liked maturity in a man.’

  Despite the disgust making her skin crawl, her words were having the right effect. Kyle had begun to purr like a cat, his face rubbing gently against hers.

  ‘When the Snake told me who he had captured, I didn’t believe him,’ Kyle said, as Lia forced herself to take seductive little nips of his ear. She felt nauseous already; she had felt less disgusted bedding off-worlders who barely resembled humans.

  ‘Do you believe him now?’

  ‘I had a DNA test done while you were unconscious. I believed that.’

  ‘You’re a wise man, Kyle. Stephen always said you were the intelligent brother. Why don’t you let me free from these bonds? Then I can show you what I’ve learned over the last few Earth-years. Do you have any idea how I’ve been keeping myself alive? When I couldn’t find smuggling jobs, I earned money in other ways.’

  ‘I told him not to marry you,’ Kyle said. ‘I told him you were a common whore.’

  Lia wanted to bite off his ear, but forced her jaw to relax. ‘I was just a young girl then,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a few more tricks now. How about you take off these cuffs at least? You can … put them back on when we get to the bed.’

  Kyle was practically salivating. His hands reached down and unclicked the cuffs. Lia noticed that he wore no blaster. It would have been easier if he’d had a weapon, but she could kill him without one if necessary.

  ‘Everything about you is perfect,’ Kyle said. ‘Your eyes, your skin, your body….’ One hand ran up her front to her neck. ‘Everything. My brother … he was so lucky to take you to bed every night.’

  Something pricked her neck. Lia winced. ‘What was that?’

  Kyle laughed as she slumped forward, the strength going out of her muscles in a sudden rush. He caught her in his arms, then deftly unclipped the cuffs on her legs. She was helpless as he lifted her over his shoulder and carried her over to the bed.

  ‘You think I’m stupid?’ he said, flopping her onto the mattress. ‘You’ve avoided the GMP for nearly ten years. Do you think I’m stupid enough to fall for your seduction technique? Of course I know how you’ve survived. On your back. And I’m sure plenty of those who shared
your bed never saw another sunrise.’

  Lia looked up at him. The lust glowed in his eyes. She knew what was coming and wanted to berate him, but her tongue was a useless lump in her mouth. She could do nothing as Kyle began to strip off her clothes.

  ‘I’ll take what I want from you, Lia,’ he said, pulling off his shirt. ‘I’ll take it more than once. And when I’ve had enough, I’ll toss you in the trash like the piece of human garbage you are.’

  He licked his lips. Lia closed her eyes, imagining what she could do to him with a blaster or an electric poker. Fingers stroked her ankles, the touch sending ripples of gooseflesh up her legs.

  ‘Oh, Lia … at long last … is it okay if I call you “sister”?’

  A beep sounded. Lia opened her eyes. Kyle had paused, and was looking back at the door. The beep sounded again, then once more.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Trash collection,’ came a muffled robotic voice.

  Kyle groaned. ‘Stupid machines.’ He looked at Lia. ‘They pick their moments, don’t they? I’ll just be a minute. Don’t go anywhere, will you?’

  He got up and returned to the door, stepping aside to let a short, blocky robot stump inside. It moved across the room to a trash bucket built into one wall, withdrew it with a thick, cumbersome arm and unloaded it into a chute behind the head unit on its upper surface. As it turned back toward the door, it swung the trash bin up in a wide arc, and the metal cracked hard against the back of Kyle’s skull. Kyle, who had been watching Lia while the machine worked, let out a hollow groan, a line of spittle running down the front of his uniform. Then his eyes rolled, and he slumped forward, crashing face first into the floor.

  The trash collector moved forward, pushing him out of the way, until it stood at the end of the bed, eyes flickering out of its square head unit.

  ‘What’s this all about then?’ Lia said. ‘I’m pretty sure I’m not of much use to you.’

  ‘My programming suggests you might need a little help,’ came a crackly, metallic voice. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’