After days spent going through the motions of making Osu repeat his story endlessly, her hooded eyes were suddenly bright with intensity. Beside her, the Kurlei’s head fronds swelled. “Tell me again what this Arunsen said to you in the Littorane hostelry. This Terra Infirma.”
Osu tried not to curse inwardly. It had been boredom that had broken him down in the end. He didn’t trust the officer whose uniform declared her name to be Captain Cartier. Maybe it was paranoia after the drentfest of Rho-Torkis, but something about this setup didn’t smell right.
Consequently, Osu hadn’t mentioned Lord Khallini.
And of the Militia troopers who had been his comrades, he’d volunteered little and the captain had shown no interest in wanting more.
Until the instant he mentioned sorcery.
“Arunsen told me not to discount the possibility of unexplained powers in the vastness of the galaxy. He talked of magicians and sorcery.”
Cartier scoffed. “What do you expect of the Militia? I’ve seen an image of Vetch Arunsen. He typifies his kind. A credulous fool. Ignorant, ill-educated and probably deeply superstitious.”
She glanced at Osu, inviting him to join her mockery of Arunsen. She was right that the big man was an ignorant oaf, but Osu didn’t feel like laughing at him today. Not in this company.
The captain raised an eyebrow. “Did Arunsen give you a specific instance where he witnessed sorcery?”
Osu didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” They would have spotted a lie immediately.
“Describe it.”
“It was at Lose-Viborg. There was an incident there. Some debacle for which Arunsen felt his company was unfairly blamed. He claimed that he had aimed a swing with his military hammer at a man, but his opponent froze him in place using an unexplained force that Arunsen called sorcery.”
“Tell me everything you know about this man with allegedly fantastical powers.”
“I don’t know much. Arunsen said he appeared old and frail. Small too. As tiny as the ancient race of Spacers.”
An awkward silence fell across the table. Cartier and the Kurlei stared expectantly at Osu who volunteered nothing. The harder they stared at Osu, the more his mouth filled with saliva.
What do you already know? he wondered.
“Why do you withhold the name of this wizard?” pressed Cartier angrily.
Osu had to swallow awkwardly. “I thought it unreliable information,” he said. “Arunsen named him Lord Khallini. It wasn’t a name I’d heard before, but half the patrons of the tavern had been offering their own contradictory tales about Khallini earlier that evening. He seems to be a mythical figure.”
“That is for us to decide. You must not filter your account, Sybutu. You tell us everything from this point forward. No filtering.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“You have disappointed me. Now I discover I need to interview Arunsen. If you hadn’t withheld vital information, that would have been easy, but now…”
She regarded Osu for a long while, making him sweat and swallow under her scrutiny. Then she took the Kurlei outside, leaving Osu with the two guards.
Several minutes’ later, she returned without the empathetic alien.
“Arunsen has been convicted of desertion,” she told him. “Despite your efforts to hide it – from yourself too, I suspect – I can tell you feel affection for the man. I can use that, and you can redeem your failure at the same time. You are to retrieve Arunsen and bring him back to me. And you will hurry, because Arunsen is no use to me dead.”
IZZA ZAN FEY
The Dyson ring glowed with a power beyond comprehension. Fire danced from its surface as it was pierced by the twin flux tubes that grew out of Tej Prime like psychedelic high-energy aerials.
Who were you?
Izza switched the holo-display from energy view to infrastructure view. The ring structure went dark and the flux tubes extinguished, leaving an ethereal hint of their presence. The holo display began outlining the power stations and distribution conduits, lighting up the ring with myriad pinpricks, an astral belt jeweled with starfire.
The ring was the biggest power generator in the known universe.
It both created the flux tubes and used them to mine the gas giant’s magnetosphere. Not only that, but as the ring was kneaded by the gravitational interplay between the planet and its larger moons, it generated even more power.
The most magnificent and terrifying thing of all, was that it had been abandoned by another civilization, but left in a state where whoever discovered it could make use of this artifact that they had no further use for. The builders had even left a fleet of maintenance bots that had made continual repairs for a period of time that measured at least a few thousand years but could have been millions. And they had carefully destroyed all traces of their civilization, perhaps so that those who discovered the ring could not piece together who had built it, and where they might have gone.
Where are you now, builders?
The Tej system was devoid of humanoid-habitable planets. It was conceivable that the ring could have been constructed by native gas-giant dwellers, but she felt certain that humanoids like her had come here long ago and made this thing.
And then they had left.
Lynx joined her in the holo-compartment.
If he could hear her thoughts, the droid would chide her for humanoid chauvinism. He would be right to, but the idea that people like her had built this was so profound that she couldn’t believe any other possibility.
“Why did they abandon this wonder?” she asked Lynx. “I want you to speculate.”
“If you insist. Archeologists claim credible evidence of multiple invasions of this region originating from the outer rim of the Perseus Arm. Expecting further assaults, the builders withdrew coreward, leaving this asset to buttress whoever discovered it against future attacks.”
“Which would make the Federation a buffer state. Expendable outer defenses for civilizations toward the galactic core.”
“Correct.”
A buffer zone. Izza rolled the idea around her head. It sounded like a semi-lawless frontier region, and that felt good.
Maybe the Federation was a decent place to operate after all.
But first, she needed her ship back.
“Did you acquire what I asked for?”
“Yes, ma’am. Your emergency credit line speaks loudly in Beta Hub, as does – somewhat to my surprise – your association with your previous employer and my rightful… my previous owner. Equipment, overalls, and fake ID credentials are all there. I was advised that your species is uncommon amongst the maintenance crews, but not so rare that people would stop and stare. Nonetheless, I must advise against this course of action, ma’am. Your skin color is most unfortunate, and your eye pigmentation is positively disastrous.”
Izza laughed. If the little robot had been humanoid, he would have just committed several class III speech crimes, and she would be using pain to point out the error of his ways. But for once the droid was trying to be helpful. “Just tell me where you stashed the gear, Lynx.”
“A storage compartment between Piers 17/12 and 17/13. Your OTCG token will unlock the cabinet.”
She nodded her thanks and turned her attention back to the holo booth display, imagining she was floating in the void, seeing the Dyson ring for herself through her positively disastrous eyes. “You say we don’t appreciate how small we are in the universe, Lynx. You don’t understand. The beauty, the majesty, the implications of this construction that wraps around Tej Prime – I measure the trials in my own life against such immensity and find them trivial in comparison. People built this thing. Someone. Some-when. Nobody knows, but they were people with ambition and persistence, and they made this possible. If they could make that, I can free us from this trap Fitz has flown us into.”
“If you say so, ma’am. I presume your metaphysical commentary is a preamble to an enquiry about my surveillance mission.”
“Just tell me what’s going on
, robot.”
“Catkins is unable to fend for himself but is being protected by the other two. Fregg is attempting to ingratiate herself with local petty criminals. Sinofar is already performing well, providing one of the local Guild factions with expert medical care and no questions asked.”
“How extensive is the Guild’s presence in Beta Hub?”
“The Smugglers Guild owns Beta Hub, hull, comms, and air.”
Izza hissed. “Careful. The Guild is a legally protected group and use of that term is a class I speech crime. I could be jailed just for association with you. You will refer to them as the ‘Guild’, or the Outer Torellian Commerce Guild. Not the phrase you just uttered in public. When we get out of here, you’re getting a professional diagnostic scan and maintenance fix. You’re not your proper self, Lynx.”
She brought out the convex metal disc of her Guild token and held it in front of her face. The outer design of black stripes over a red background was common knowledge and easy for anyone to replicate. But the structure inside was unique and coded to her alone. She had no idea what information was held within.
There was an ancient saying the humans had carried all the way from Earth: ‘There is no honor amongst thieves’. That was true enough about the Guild. What they possessed in place of honor was a practical working arrangement that minimized unnecessary misunderstandings and maximized opportunities for mutual profit.
Fitz knew that. She couldn’t understand why buried deep inside him he’d rediscovered a loyalty to the Federation. He knew it was corrupt and failing – hell, he’d experienced that first-hand. Over and over.
She laughed bitterly because she’d been genuinely horrified at Lynx’s use of a proscribed term, and yet “Smugglers Guild” was an accurate description used in private by Guild members themselves.
No one cared about mutants, though.
Devil eyes.
Mutie scum.
Kick ’em out!
Bring back the Cull!
You could say whatever you wanted to people born with purple eyes, because they weren’t a protected group. And if you didn’t hurl your abuse with enough enthusiasm, you risked your group losing its legal protections. That’s how messed up the Federation was. The federal government was simply the biggest and most ruthless racket of them all, dividing up its citizens into groups and playing them off against each other.
When she’d flown for Nyluga-Ree, Izza had piloted plenty of senior politicians and aristo-hats that the Guild queen had needed to keep sweet. But they hadn’t been the only source of federal influence. In the shadows of the galaxy, the Federation’s highly paid killers stalked its enemies.
People like Kanha Wei.
“What of her, Lynx?”
He buzzed his casing, though with Lynx acting so strangely of late, she was no longer sure what that meant.
“Kanha Wei sends her compliments to you and says she looks forward to meeting you face-to-face in due course.”
“Good. I have a reply I should like you to convey back to her. My compliments, and if the pus-filled bitch crosses my path, then I will cut her. You got that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Those precise words?”
“I shall replay a recording of your abusive outburst.”
“Excellent.” She patted Lynx on his smooth dome. “I hope I meet her soon.”
IZZA ZAN FEY
Dressed in the greasy overalls and wide-brimmed cap supplied by Lynx, Izza had slipped into Bay 17/12B without comment from the bay’s automatic security portal, but with her bands tight around her chest, unsure what state Phantom was in.
Or whether her ship was still there at all.
But there she was. Majestic and gleaming in her docking clamps, Phantom looked sleeker than she had for years.
Izza relaxed her bands and breathed again. Acting uptight wasn’t going to do her cover any good.
Against the bulkhead near the bay door, she noticed worn parts heaped in a large, wheeled hopper awaiting the recycling plant. Packaging for their replacements was in another.
She resisted the urge to whistle as she passed the evidence of an extensive refit.
Fitz had flown them in under the guns of the corvettes and fighters that had escorted them here directly from the base two jumps away at Regina-Ventu. The Legion had allowed him to fly his own ship, but the journey here hadn’t exactly been optional.
After they’d docked, he’d told them to stay cool and be ready for anything. He’d hugged her and marched away with the passengers they’d picked up on Rho-Torkis to meet the soldiers waiting by the ship’s ramp. Fitz’s group hadn’t even left the bay before a Legion Naval team entered Phantom and began ushering its crew away while it underwent mandatory refitting.
That had been three days ago.
As Izza had grown closer to her human husband over the years, she’d developed an inexplicable sense for his level of imminent catastrophe. Despite the lack of information from Fitz – and from their former Legion and Militia passengers – she didn’t sense he was in immediate danger. The Phantom worried her more.
Mandatory refitting… that could mean anything! Installing hidden bombs and trackers, secreting stealthed micro-assassin droids in the hidden compartments, or maybe someone simply wanted the Phantom reliably shipshape so Fitz could fly missions for them.
A proper overhaul had been long overdue, she admitted, walking past an uninstalled Leeson gravity actuator box with carbonized patches on its casing. She’d had no idea it had been so worn.
She figured the refitting work must be largely complete, because there was hardly a component of her ship that hadn’t been removed.
The bay was apparently absent of maintenance engineers, but there were hoses and umbilicals aplenty, draped over the KM-R horns and connecting the aft engineering section and the main engine to valves mounted in the bay’s bulkhead. The horns looked new, and indeed had been coated with an ivory finish that resembled organic horn. That was doubly impressive considering the technological principles behind KM-R emitters had supposedly been forgotten centuries ago. Fitz was always telling her there were plenty of ‘lost’ technologies that the Legion was hoarding for itself.
She stopped halfway to the ship and listened.
The hoses sounded dormant. All except one: a thin flexible tube gurgling fluid into the life support section.
Izza marched up the ramp and along the familiar passageways, with their unfamiliar scent of freshness, and into the chief mechanic’s domain.
Bylzak! She drew in a sharp breath at the sight. Catkins would not be pleased. The entire compartment had been rearranged. The Gliesan’s paintings of force keels interacting with higher dimensions, for one, were no longer taped to the bulkheads.
And one of the panels in the overhead was open.
“You should have seen the state of the transposition fluid in the air scrubbers,” suggested a gruff voice as a pair of legs, wearing similar overalls to Izza, dangled themselves out of the overhead crawlspace. “What were they doing? Smoking the fucking stuff?”
A Pryxian dropped down onto the deck: male, given the rolling ridges of leathery skin over his eyes, and the high pitch to his voice. He sounded vaguely familiar.
“When will they finish flushing?” she asked him.
“End of the shift.”
“Good.” Izza considered the bulky blue maintenance worker. There was a challenge in his eyes that she itched to snuff out. “I have come to assess how close the refit is to completion.”
The Pryxian laughed. “Now, that, I can believe, Izza Zan Fey.” He reached inside his overalls.
Izza lunged at him.
Pryxians were powerfully built, but short. Izza had him up against the bulkhead, with his head against the spot that normally boasted a tiny display cabinet containing Catkins’ favorite bone gaming dice. The Pryxian’s legs kicked against the interior wall, a foot above the deck, but he didn’t break her grip pinning him under his arms.
“Easy, green cheeks.”
“As you observe, I am Zhoogene,” she responded, adjusting her hold to rub her thumbs over his throat. “You have powerful muscles, but my body is powered by muscles and hydraulics. I can tighten my grip until the life is crushed from you.”
“There’s no need to threaten me,” he said. “I already know your reputation, and I respect your many kills, Del-Saisha. I was reaching for my token. It’s in an inner pocket over my right breast. Take it.”
He had addressed her using a secret Guild honorific. Del-Saisha was the correct usage for one of her gender and race, but that alone did not convince her of his Guild status.
And a genuine connection to the Guild would only make her even more wary.
Izza released her hold and he thudded to the deck.
“No,” she said. “You remove your token. Do it glacially.”
He cautiously removed the supposed proof of his Guild membership. She snatched it from his blue hand and paired it with her own.
Outer Torellian Commerce Guild tokens resembled enameled circular pin badges. Three vertical black slabs descended from the top of a backdrop of blazing red; two shorter lines rose from the bottom. Some said the token was a view through a tunnel that led to the underworld, a mythical place filled with danger and invaluable information. Others, Fitz among them, perpetuated the myth that Outer Torellia was a real place, an asteroid hollowed out and its interior filled with vertical habitation modules. All Izza could be sure of was that when she had both in the palm of her hand, they took on new life. The pair hummed to each other while flashing sequences of red and green lights inside the lower vertical slats. Every time her token did this, the sequence was subtly different, but she recognized her token’s vocabulary. Each person’s token was unique.
Were the tokens exchanging information? Izza had seen the inner workings of the Guild hierarchy in the Tej Sector, but she had never been privy to such secrets. The Pryxian’s token was real. That much she could trust. No more.
He had known her name too.
“What does Nyluga-Ree’s man want with me?” she asked, guessing that the sector boss was the only senior member of the Guild who would or could reach out to her here.
Chimera Company Season 2 - Deep Cover Page 8
