Humans Wanted

by Vivian Caethe (ed. )

  The ambassador paused, and bowed again. “And you as well, Overcommander.”

  And then, as proof that all Ro’s light sometimes shone with mercy as well as justice, they left.

  Rani closed her three-fingered hand and the hologram list which projected up from her wrist com diffused into nothingness. She made a small sound deep in her long purple throat, the tentacles that crowned her forehead bristling in distaste.

  “Something the matter?” Sib Buja asked, settling his portly, green-scaled self back into his chair.

  “This is the team?” He nodded as much as his toad-like neck would allow. She fixed him with her violet gaze. “There are humans on this list, Sib.” He nodded again. “Why are there humans on my team, Sib?” Rani’s question was low and dangerous.

  He sighed, the flesh-pouch under his neck ballooning under his chin. “They come very highly recommended. Roc Mussad himself did a run with them over Io last week. They earned their pay, same as everyone else.”

  “Humans,” Rani spat, “are squishy, and dull-witted. Look what they did to their own damn planet. Ruined it, sucked its resources dry, and blasted it to bits fighting over the scraps.”

  “Plenty of them fled off-world before any of that happened,” Sib reminded her, picking up the slender rib bone from the plate in front of him which had, before lunch, contained a lovely little roasted chastee. He put the bone in his mouth and used it to scrape his two front fangs.

  Rani crossed all four arms across her chest and fixed him with a glare. The glare and the body language were unnecessary, however, as her emotions were betrayed by the iridescent colors rippling over the surface of her purple skin. Korkani were terrible liars.

  “When I brought you this mission you said you’d do it if I could find you seven of the best mercs in this quadrant,” Sib said. “Here they are. Take it or leave it. But the child doesn’t have long, and you know it.”

  She sighed, the agitated puff of her tentacles slowly draining away until they lay flat against her scalp again. “You found me some icarians at least?”

  “Two of them,” Sib said. “And a grundel.”

  “A grundel?” She nodded, impressed. “Nice.” Uncrossing two sets of arms, she set the bottom pair of hands on her knees. “Well, I suppose it will have to do. What intel do we have?”

  Sib pressed the touch screen on the desk next to his plate. A holo projection popped up between them, glowing with information: star maps, blueprints, and other images. In the bottom corner was a picture of the kidnapped child, the daughter of Mael, one of the members of the Galactic Synod. She felt a pang in her chest looking at the little Arturian’s wide pink eyes, noting her slender, elongated head and graceful, wispy limbs.

  “Are they asking for a ransom?” Rani asked.

  “No,” Sib said. “They want the Synod to disavow the Universal Alliance.”

  “And turn the galaxy back into a lawless hole full of pirates and slavers?” Rani scoffed. “Fools.”

  “Something about how they don’t care for the taxation, or the limits on colonization.” Sib waved a webbed hand. “They’re terrorists, obviously. I seriously doubt the Synod would dissolve the UA in exchange for one little creature’s life. So, if they’re not willing to negotiate …”

  “The baby Arturian dies,” Rani finished for him.

  “That’s where the famous Rani Okalivi and her fearless band of mercenaries come in.” Sib smiled with his wide, reptilian mouth.

  “Did the father agree to our terms?”

  “Absolutely. No negotiation. He’ll pay anything to get the little one home safe.” Sib fingered the rib bone, and removed it from the corner of his mouth. “We can’t confirm who’s responsible for the kidnapping, but there’s chatter on the ShadowWeb about a suraryan extremist group.”

  “Those furry criminals,” she swore, “hiding behind a child.”

  “Based on what we’ve been able to dig up, she’s being held on Demitrios in the ruins of a colony abandoned about a 600 rotations ago. 100 Earth years, if you need to explain anything to your humans.” He smirked. Rani rolled her eyes.

  “I’ll download everything to your PA.” Sib’s mouth slid open a few more inches and his beady eyes crinkled with mirth. “Try to smile, Rani. I know you love killing cowards, my friend.”

  Rani swiped her finger over her wrist com and allowed the download. “That I do, Sib. That I do.”

  Rani left the room she’d been renting on the Mikah-owned space station (Sib claimed his uncle was one of the co-founders of Prowess Station, but she had yet to discover if that whopper was true) and headed to the hangar, letting her eyes sweep lovingly over her ship. The speedy little craft didn’t look like much, but that was the idea—she could pass for a merchant-class ship or a pleasure vessel, while in reality packing some major heat. It was the third ship she’d owned, and each one she named the same. This one was Yemetoliani III. Kurkani for “The Third Sea Monster.”

  A group of mercs lounged among the cargo crates that had been delivered for the journey. As Sib had promised, two icarians stood near the nose of the craft, talking in their strange, whistling language, their huge wings folded against their backs. One was plastered with a smattering of brown and white feathers, puffed and fluffy. The other was a sleek, black female, her talons painted blood red.

  The grundel, a huge, thick-hided monstrosity, stood on its four massive legs, dwarfing the bipedal things around him. Three wicked horns curved from his forehead, beneath which glared three small black eyes that glittered with intelligence. Strapped to its body was a complicated outfit of armor and mechanized weapons, all controlled by small levers that ran through the creature’s mouth, like a bit between the teeth of a riding animal. Once the grudel had formed an alliance with some of the first humans to leave Earth, they’d advanced rapidly, using the expatriates’ deft hands and fingers to craft their initial prototypes and build the robots necessary to produce their computers and equipment.

  The three humans huddled together on the same crate, their weapons slung over their shoulders, helmets between their feet, two males and a female. The males’ appearance caught her off guard—one had pale skin and yellow fur coming from its head, clipped short, and the other had brown skin and fur. The female’s long black fur was drawn up into a braided bun, and her flesh was a rosy, golden color.

  “Rani!” cried Valeri, leaping up from his seat on a barrel of ammo and crushing her into a four-armed hug. She slapped him heartily on his back, making sure he could feel it through the armor of his dark gray environment suit. He reached up and switched off his translator, clicking at her in Kurkani. “If it isn’t the biggest badass this side of Orion! You look beautiful, as always.”

  “You look skinny and chapped, as usual,” she joked, releasing her old friend and former lover. “Don’t you ever oil yourself?”

  “I miss the days when you’d do that for me.” His indigo eyes twinkled.

  “Don’t make me shoot you,” she smirked, and then flipped her translator on again. “All right, listen up, space vagrants! I am Rani Okalivi, and you all work for me. Many of you come to me recommended by the legendary Roc Mussad, so I expect excellence, precision, and obedience to my every word. Line up for roll call.”

  She approached the icarians first. “Hail, Okalivi-Rani,” the female said, the translator against her throat turning the chirps and whistles coming from her beak into words and sentences. “We are honored. I am Larunda-Azia of Clan Sabella. This is Forn-Lore also of Clan Sabella.”

  Rani opened the list on her wrist com and nodded, scanning the icarians’ credentials. “All right. Azia and Forn. Welcome to the team.”

  “I assure you we are quite ruthless, No-Clan-But-Still-Honored,” Forn said. The last three words were important; if an icarian called you No-Clan, even if there was no way you could have been born into an icarian clan, a great insult had just been shoved in your face.

  Rani turned next to the grundel. “Mer’cer Twelve?” she asked.


  Three black eyes fixed on her. The thing hissed, low and breathy.

  “I’m going to take that as a yes. Welcome to the team,” she said, and moved on to the humans.

  “Regan Waldus?”

  The yellow-furred one stood up, extending his hand with the palm sideways, facing inward. “Yeah, that’s me. These are my friends Sam and Maria.”

  Rani looked at his hand and narrowed her eyes.

  Valeri elbowed her with his lower left arm, reaching up and briefly clicking off the translator. “Human greeting. Put your opposite palm over his, grasp hands, and pump up and down a few times.”

  “Ugh,” Rani complained, but did as Valeri suggested, forcing her face into what she hoped was a friendly smile. Smiles were universal. “I heard about your run over Io,” she said, releasing the human’s squishy hand after a few awkward movements.

  “It was a hell of a mission,” Sam said, standing up and putting his hands on his narrow hips. “Intercepted a shipment from some forlak gun runners.” He whistled. “A close shave, to say the least.”

  “I hope one of you has some medical knowledge,” Rani said, “because none of us know much about human physiology, so if you get hurt …”

  “We’ve got it covered,” the female human said, standing up as well. “Regan’s patched us all up more than once.”

  “And you all … work together,” Rani said, doubt coating her words through the translator.

  “Yeah, we’ve been sellswords for almost ten years now,” Maria said. “I think we’ve lasted so long because we work together. Gotta have someone to watch your back.”

  “But you’re all different … colors,” Rani pointed out. Valeri sighed. “I don’t understand. I thought the Earth became uninhabitable after a war between your races.”

  “People fought each other for a lot of different reasons in the last days. And yeah, race was one of them. But that was a long time ago,” Sam told her as Regan put a hand on Maria’s arm. The female’s cheeks colored and anger glittered in her brown eyes. Human eyes, Rani thought, were just as indicative of emotion as her own skin. “We all grew up on the same ship. Space vagrants, like you said. Brothers and sisters for life.”

  Rani shrugged. “Very well. Let’s load the gear. I’ll brief you once we’re space-side.” With a wave of one of her arms, the mercs sprang to do her bidding (well, no grundel in the history of time ever really sprang anywhere, but Mer’cer Twelve’s movements implied a smidge of hustle). She and Valeri climbed through the cargo hatch and up into the bowels of the ship, eventually emerging in the cockpit.

  She caught Valeri eyeing her as she strapped into the copilot’s chair. “What?” she snapped. “You’re giving me a look, now what is it?”

  “What’s with the interrogation?”

  “What interrogation?” she demanded, running her fingers over the instrument panel.

  “Of the humans. Asking them about their ancestral races,” Valeri said. “What business is it of ours? Roc Mussad recommended them. They took out a ship full of angry forlaks for Creator’s sake. We’re lucky to get talent like that for the price.”

  “I don’t work with humans,” Rani complained, curling her upper hands over the controls. “Any species that doesn’t have the sense to preserve its homeworld isn’t trustworthy. I have a bad feeling about this mission.” The tentacles on her head bristled.

  “I think you’re being unfair,” Valeri said, shrugging, “if you want the truth.”

  “I hired you to fly the ship, not give me a lecture. Engines on. Take her out,” Rani snapped.

  Later, with Yemetoliani III on autopilot and cruising for the last Universal Alliance supported space station they’d pass before Demetrius, Rani held a meeting in the cramped mess hall, attaching her portable holo projector to the table and presenting them with the intel Sib had provided.

  When she’d finished, Sam stood up and reached into the holo, swiping back to the picture of the suraryans’ hostage, pinching his fingers to enlarge. “Poor little baby,” he murmured. “She must be so scared. We have to save her.”

  Rani blinked, and an undulating shade of emerald shimmered across her flesh. An itchy tightness came to her throat as the human expressed the same thing she felt every time she saw the little thing’s eyes. Valeri glanced her way and raised an eyebrow.

  “Of course we will,” she said briskly. “I deliver to my clients. 100% success rate. If you work for me, you don’t make mistakes, got it?”

  Sam nodded, and sat back down. Maria reached over and squeezed his hand, a brief gesture of comfort. Rani pretended to ignore it as she packed up the holo projector.

  Mer’cer Twelve grunted and hissed. A mechanical arm with thousands of tiny parts snaked up from his broad back, opened a pocket that lay over his massive flank, and withdrew a large bottle of blood red liquid.

  Valeri cackled, his tentacles swaying. A yellow glow rippled over his flesh. “Grundel grog? Oh no, no, I can’t, I have to take a watch tonight. But some of these other fools might take you up on a drink!”

  “I’ll split one with someone!” Maria said, as the mechanical arm set the bottle in the center of the table where Rani’s holo projector had been. The appearance of the liquor saturated the atmosphere with sudden cheer. “I can’t drink a whole one!”

  “If you did, you’d probably die.” Sam laughed, rising to get the glasses.

  After few minutes Rani left them and went to her quarters, not liking the easy way the humans befriended the icarians as well.

  “Good start-cycle to all of you lovely space-vagrants,” Valeri purred into the ship’s coms. “We are now beginning our descent into Demitrius’s atmosphere. If you haven’t strapped in or used the toilet, now would be the time. We’ll be landing shortly. Please enjoy the ride.” In the cockpit and the passenger section, seatbelts threaded themselves around their chests and the ship jolted and jerked as it plunged through the atmosphere.

  Within minutes, they had landed in a dusty, desolate place, full of rocks and strange plant matter which blew in the wind, rolling endlessly across the horizon. “Another prefect landing,” Valeri said, and the seatbelts retreated, allowing them to rise.

  When Rani exited the craft, the others were waiting, helmets on and suits sealed, guns ready. All but Mer’cer Twelve, who sported a filtration mask but little else. The environment on the grundelian homeworld was savage in its extremes. This oxygen rich atmo posed him no harm.

  Sam, one of the humans, and Valeri carried handled corderbots, the screens flashing a never-ending cycle of readings as they swept the area in an invisible dragnet.

  “The atmo’s breathable,” Sam told his teammates, “but it’s so dry and dusty I think we should leave our helmets on.”

  “Let’s get moving,” Rani ordered. “We have a long walk ahead of us. As for the two of you,” she nodded to Azia and Forn. “I need you grounded in case they have sentries posted.”

  The icarians stretched their wings and gave a few flaps, sending dust everywhere, before folding them down against their backs for the time being.

  “No significant life forms within range,” Sam reported.

  The team trudged for two human hours through the desert, dodging outcroppings of rock, strange, spiny plants, and a few nests of angry insectoids that were best left alone. Valeri was on point with Rani right behind him, sweeping the area with her sharp eyes as he did with his equipment, her trigger fingers caressing the comforting metal in her hands.

  Valeri’s tentacles froze and went rigid against his neck. Everyone skidded to a halt. When he dropped down to his knees, they did the same, except for Mer’cer Twelve, who hunched behind a rock as best he could. “I have two bipedal life forms on that bluff up ahead,” he said.

  Rani raised her magnetic-propelled rifle to her shoulder, balancing it on a rock, and peered through the scope, adjusting it several times to get the right magnification. There they were, two dirty, scraggly hairballs in envirosuits perched on the cliffside, armed wit
h rifles and a long metal tube. “We’ve got two suraryan sentries,” she reported. “Rifles with nano enhancements and a KM-241.”

  Valeri groaned in dismay. Nano enhancements turned the smallest bullet into a piece of death jammed with microscopic bots that expanded themselves on impact for maximum damage. And a combustion grenade launcher was just bad news, even if it was practically an antique. “Nobody said they’d be well-armed,” he complained with a half-smile, though icy blue shimmers of worry pricked just at the corners of his eyes.

  Rani was glad only she knew what his colors meant. “They have a great position,” she admitted, running her purple tongue over her bottom lip, “but we have the icarians.”

  Azia tapped her claws against her rifle and ruffled her ebony feathers.

  “I need the two of you to run interference,” she said to the winged ones. “Draw their fire. The rest of us will come around here.” She took the corderbot from Valeri’s dancing fingers and drew up a topographical map. At the push of a button, it lifted from the device into holo mode, showing a 3D rendering of the terrain. There was a small path leading up the back of the rock formation to the sentries’ position. If they could make it across the dry creek bed—a veritable killzone—without being noticed, it would be easy to surprise them.

  “Hacking their coms,” Sam said, his fingers flying across his wristcom’s holo, deconstructing lines of code faster than she could read them. It was one of the cleanest hack jobs she’d ever seen, and she almost told him so before stopping herself with a frown. “Comms jammed,” Sam said and Maria clapped his shoulder in victory.

  “Everyone clear on the plan?” Rani demanded, flipping the switch on the side of her weapon to activate the tiny magnetic field generator inside. It hummed to life with a beautiful purr.