by Scott Warren
She stumbled back to the path, grabbing the sedated messenger and hauling ass through the outboard foliage. If she could reach the secondary stores, she could be reasonably sure that no one could interrupt her. She stopped briefly, smearing dirt over the blood that had splashed her suit. Any kind of foreign biological scent the Dirregaunt could track, and the shot had brought company. Tessa could make out the backs of the Graylings as they pushed through foliage, heedless of noise or trail. She laughed inside her suit. They were making more than enough noise to cover her escape. Damn that hip wound hurt.
By the time the sedative wore off several hours later, Tessa had started developing the early signs of a fever. Whatever alien microbes the Dirregaunt’s claws carried took hold in her body, storming the walls of her immune system with an infection it had no idea how to fight. The response was to raise her temperature, try to cook out the intruder. It would be the correct biological response for an Earth infection, but Dirregaunt basal body temperatures were significantly higher, especially when those big brains of theirs were working.
Tessa slapped the courier as he started to come out of his fugue.
“Wake up,” she demanded, “I don’t have all day.”
The Dirregaunt shook himself, blinking away the effects of the tranquilizer, then panicking as he realized his wrists had been bound to a storage rack by the vines that snaked around the locker. She slapped him again. He finally took in his full situation. She must look a sight, all slathered in leaves and dirt and Dirregaunt blood.
“Please,” he stammered, shying away from her open palm. It was good that he cowed easy, she was starting to get dizzy. Might have missed the third swing.
“Tell me your name.”
“I-I am Earthen Musk, space walker. I am a runner only; I have nothing of value to you.”
“You carried a message, from who to where? Out with it.”
“F-From the Commander to secondary security. He is ordering them to allow the Grah’lhin to hunt for you unescorted.”
“You came from the bridge?”
“Yes, but I am just a runner. I don’t want to hunt your people, none of us do, none except Best Wishes.”
Tessa paused. “There is dissent among the crew?”
“The Commander is a low-born mad dog, his obsession is getting us killed, we are within a space tear of the Malagath Empire.”
Disloyal little chickenshit. Tessa wasn’t precisely fond of thinking that put some folks inherently above others. It certainly colored her opinion of her captive.
“There are others feel the same way?”
The captured courier fluttered his ears, the Dirregaunt affirmative. A broken ship is a dead ship. Something the major always said. A conflict like that could throw the Springdawn into chaos. It just needed the right catalyst.
“What would happen if your commander was … out of the picture?”
Earthen musk snarled. “The first officer would take us home. Our mission is over, we destroyed the Dreadstar. There is nothing to be gained by chasing lesser empire rats through the airlocks.” He became more animate as the sedative continued to wear off. He paused. “You don’t know where the bridge is, do you?”
Tessa leaned against her rifle to keep from falling over. “No,” she admitted.
The Dirregaunt courier considered for a moment. “If I tell you how to find it, will you let me go? You will know the commander, there are red stripes in his mane, and the left side of his face is scarred.”
She couldn’t let him live, not a chance. Not when he might wriggle out and warn someone. She had killed the courier as soon as he trod the path where she’d waited for him.
“Of course,” she said.
“I cannot hear your heartbeat through that armor, if even you have one. I cannot smell your fear. I cannot tell if you are lying to me, space walker.”
She leaned in close. His feet scrabbled against the decking trying to squeeze every inch he could away from her black composite helmet. “Where is the bridge?”
After he told her she killed him quickly. Tessa stood, leaning for a moment against the rack of what might have been antibiotics, for all she knew. Didn’t matter if they were, she figured. They’d be as like to kill her as cure her, if her body could metabolize them at all. She shouldered her rifle and started making her way towards the bridge of the vast star ship.
For the third time, Best Wishes found himself clicking his claws against his chest bones. He stilled his hands, and attempted to still his mind. He could not, his heart quickened whenever he thought of this minor captain, this Victoria. The Condor was on its way, the superluminal sensor signature matched that obtained at Pilum. The imprecise lesser empire engines had forced them out of interstellar travel outside the orbit of the first two planets in this system. She would have to pass him to draw close enough to the star’s gravity to pierce space again.
Though his ship held a mere half-million kilometers from the first planet, he could not see it through the cloud of thick, ionized gasses that swirled along this star’s orbital plane. Despite the effect the gas had displayed among his crew it was proper to hunt here, unseen in the brilliant miasmic disc that stretched across the inner three planets. The light filtering through the cloud had caused hallucinations to several of his starfarers who had viewed it through the infrared spectrum granted by their top eye, and most had closed it out of recourse. His remained open, he would brook no such handicap on this hunt. The stunning infrareds played within the cloud, shifting and swirling hypnotically on the view screen. He could almost see patterns in the haze.
Behind him, another of the Grah’lhin haunted the observation ring, precisely as his predecessor had. No, that was a poor way to call it. He was beginning to understand that each creature was not an individual in the truest sense, but he couldn’t yet determine the full extent of their connection.
The creature noticed his regard, and leaned over the rail, lowering its sensory band to receive his address.
“How fares the search for the additional humans?”
“There is but one, Dirregaunt Commander. But you are unfortunate, it is one of the warriors that infests your battleship. It is not easily found in your infernal jungles.”
“How can that be?” asked Best Wishes. The damned thing should be leaving a trail through the ship wherever it went.
“I am uncertain. We have never encountered them in such an environment. It appears … experienced in such, and is offered a multitude of ground in which to conceal itself. The Grah’lhin have no such places on our worlds.”
Best Wishes had no desire to imagine what hellscape spawned the Grah’lhin, so he spun instead to his first officer. Modest Bearing had been regarding him with a rarely seen look, which he scrubbed from his face as Best Wishes turned to him. He is beginning to doubt my orders. That was what the split-second of honesty told him. How many others offered similar judgments to his command? Modest Bearing was among his most loyal officers. From the shamed expression he could tell his first officer had tracked his line of thought. His own face must seem rather dark.
“What say you on this matter?” he demanded.
Modest Bearing shifted uncomfortably. “We hear the creature not often over the noise of the Springdawn. It has no odor and no heat. If it is true that this people still has a warrior caste, then it is a fearsome foe indeed. Two more of the Grah’lhin have fallen, though it seems content to ignore our security teams. Perhaps it knows the Grah’lhin have a better chance of finding it.”
“What would your course of action be?”
“It is not my place to say, Commander.”
Best Wishes chopped the protest with a wave of his hand. His first officer cleared his throat. “We lay in wait on the very cusp of Imperium space. How long until word reaches the Malagath of our presence? Their restitution will not be gentle, and every moment these humans delay us is greater danger in which we find ourselves. Dozens have been lost already.”
Best Wishes’ eyes flicke
d momentarily to the sensor station, where Dutiful Heiress maintained the watch. Modest Bearing followed his gaze.
“Fortunate, Commander, that she was not at the forward array during the breach. The creature cannot hide forever; you will have vengeance.”
“You overstep, Modest. My duty is to the Praetory and the hunt, not my flawed and fruitless lusts. The losses at the communication hub and the forward sensor array have reminded me where my focus need be.”
“Your mission was to destroy the Dreadstar, and you have done that. Is it even the First Prince that you chase still? Or this lesser empire captain who bested you?”
Best Wishes unfurled the claws he had been digging into the pads on his palms, examining the tiny pricks of blood. His first officer’s arguments had merit. A wise commander might heed the words of his crew and withdraw. But a bold commander would not, and how could Best Wishes face the Praetory having come this far only to give up? Modest Bearing could not understand the weight on his back.
“Commander,” called Dutiful Heiress, “the Condor is here, just outside the orbit of the third planet.”
“On the screen,” he barked in reply. The sensor data appeared on the forward view bank, a small spike in the quantum turbulence that indicated a primitive ship slipping back into the primary universe. It was a match to the one analyzed in Pilum Forel. Instants later the gravitic distortion vanished, as if it had never been there at all. A moment later it was back, but he wondered if it was really the Condor. The humans are as ghosts.
Only fitting that the Dirregaunt should hunt the ethereal.
“Tac, let ‘em fly, rails and relays,” said Victoria. The Condor shuddered and protested as no less than a dozen small missiles rushed away from the ship in as many vectors. A final ka-chunk signaled the mechanical linkage of the Huxley’s gravitic buoy detaching from the belly of the privateer ship, ready to impersonate the Condor’s gravitic signature. The newly improved Gravitic Stealth Device was powered up, a godsend even if Yuri couldn’t make heads or tails of what that Malagath engineer had done to it.
“Conn, tactical. The comm relays are away, standard spread. But you can bet he’ll track ‘em to the source quick. Dobermans show laser links holding steady, but this gas is cutting the range down. They’ll be ready to bite when you call.”
“Good. Huian, get some distance and then broadcast the invitation. Point-two towards the star. He’s out there somewhere.”
The Condor rattled as her engines accelerated the ship towards the interior of the star system.
“Avery, any sign of the Springdawn yet?”
“Negative Vick, this cloud is killing our passives. Let’s hope he’s as blind as we are.”
“We’ll see him soon enough. Huian, open the link.”
The Condor’s tight-beam communication synced with the gravitic buoy, which then broadcasted a similarly narrow swath of data through six remote communication relays that Victoria had launched upon entering the system. The relays were patterned to have the most distance possible between each device in the sequence, but the signal attenuation was worth the added security. The array was meant to buy time, as the Springdawn would have to detect, maneuver to, and intercept each relay to find the gravitic buoy, and eventually the Condor.
“Knock, knock,” said Victoria as the sixth and final relay picked up the signal and began to broadcast a wide message, an invitation for the Dirregaunt commander to open a video link between the ships. Victoria was using a Dirregaunt communication protocol. Most species became unsettled when you spoke to them in their own language with their own technology, but would it have the same effect on the Big Three?
“Conn sensors, superluminal contact. The Springdawn is at the first relay.”
“Piggyback the message for Baum, hopefully she’s still alive over there,” said Victoria.
A positive status appeared on her communications repeater, and a subset of the main view screen shifted to receive the video link.
“Hot shit,” she said, more than slightly incredulous, “he’s picked up the call, time to see who we’ve been dealing with.”
The blinking blue screen was replaced with the distorted image of a coarsely furred face, reminiscent of a flat-faced wolf atop a bony, bipedal body. A thick red mane ringed his canine face and his mouth was a horror show of tiny, razor teeth where it wasn’t twisted by scars. Four eyes glared at her, the raw fervor evident in the maroon irises, or what passed for irises among the Dirregaunt. Beneath, his clawed hands rested upon two bone protuberances extruded from his chest. He waited, the time delay between the relays already several seconds. Beside the commander, presumably their XO, eyes split between the viewscreen and Best Wishes.
“Human Victoria. I must admit, you are not what I expected. So … soft … the color of last light. Could one such as you truly drag me across the stars as you have?”
Victoria stood from her command couch, knowing the camera followed her as she did. She stepped past Huian, closer to the view screen.
“Commander Best Wishes. I won’t waste your time. You know I have the First Prince.”
“Vick, he’s at the second relay,” hissed Avery over the open circuit. The display began to blink in her single functioning retinal implant. She had left out that she didn’t want to waste time because she needed a deal before the Springdawn found her.
The Dirregaunt on her screen shook his mane, their version of a shrug. “And you know that I will find your vessel and destroy it, as I did the Dreadstar. You are a credit to the lesser empires, but these games grow tiresome.”
“Third relay Vick,”
She swallowed. Best Wishes had betrayed no notion that he was aware his ship even followed the relay signals. She was running out of time fast.
“You also have one of my crew. A fighter, trapped in your ship.”
“Fourth relay”
Victoria continued, “My government has ordered the surrender of the First Prince. I would like to exchange her for Tavram.”
The Dirregaunt commander’s head cocked slightly. “Your spacewalker murderess has Dirregaunt blood on her teeth,” he said. His response came quicker than the last, the distance the signal had to travel greatly reduced.
“Fifth”
“Not as much as Prince Tavram. You can have him, alive, and at his volunteering on the condition we are allowed to ferry the rest of the Malagath to the frontier.”
That seemed to startle the commander of the Springdawn. “The First Prince has … surrendered … willingly? To protect his pack?”
“Not very Malagath, is it?” asked Victoria.
“Sixth”
“I accept his surrender under the discussed conditions,” said Best Wishes, reluctantly. His eyes had become vacant, his tone carried resignation, of all things. Victoria could understand it. She had taken the conclusion of a great hunt away from him. His duty warred with the primal need to slake the thirst for driving a hunt to completion. The commander’s duty had won out, but it was a close thing if his sagging face was any indication. To work at something so long, only to have it handed to you at the moment of your triumph, unearned. It was draining. Conversely, she could see the XO relax, as though a weight had been lifted.
The proximity alarm went off as the Springdawn’s tactical FTL drive brought the Dirregaunt within a few thousand meters of the gravitic buoy, all weapon batteries hot. Almost a half million kilometers away, the ion cloud blocked optical sensors, but her tactical display had superimposed a model of the Springdawn. Gods but the ship was huge. Alone it probably had more tonnage than half the privateer fleet.
“Conn sensors, two more contacts creeping up behind the buoy. Grayling cutters, from the looks.”
“Sneaky fuckers …” Victoria muttered under her breath. If giving up the moment of triumph was draining, more-so was having to hand over your accomplishment to another who didn’t deserve it. The Dirregaunt’s deal with the Graylings probably involved handing her over in some regard. The Dirregaunt may not go
so far as to protect her from the bugs, but she couldn’t conjure Bargult looking favorably on the Dirregaunt commander’s new resolution. She scanned the command repeaters. Carillo was already developing solutions for the new contacts. She looked back at the commander of the Springdawn.
“Human Victoria. I am not foolish enough to fall for this ploy. This is not your ship. I deal in good faith. Bring forth the Dirregaunt Prince. And where is your damnable space walker?”
Victoria watched through the bridge camera on the Springdawn as the hatch to the control room slid open, a dark silhouette filling the gap. She grinned, bearing her teeth at the supposed apex predator of the stars. “She’s closer than you might think.”
Chapter 11: The Crucible
“Conn, sensors, the Graylings are firing on the buoy.”
Victoria verified the report on her display. The Dirregaunt may have been wise to the ploy, but the Graylings’ sensor information would tell them they had caught the Vulture.
“Huian, take us past the Springdawn, increase acceleration and make for the system core.”
The Dirregaunt cruiser drifted without power, its command center likely riddled with bullet holes now, but the Grayling cutters were under no such compunction, and soon they would realize their mistake. Hopefully Tessa Baum knew what she was doing.
“You think he always intended to feed us to Bargult?” Victoria mused, scanning her command repeaters. Sirens went off in the conn, drawing her attention back to the view screen. One of the Grayling cutters shattered, cut to scrap and ignited by the Springdawn’s forward laser array. “I guess that’s the end of that alliance,” she said.
Victoria raised her voice to be heard over the open microphone. “Tac, hammer them both with the rail mines. And be ready, those aren’t the only two cutters out here, not on your life.”
