Captain Niall Thorvald (Adventures of the League Space Patrol Book 6)

by Frank Carey

  "Shit. Scanning... No life signs on the scanner. Why do you think you have a visitor?"

  "I hear periodic metal on metal sounds. Is it possible that a mechanoid is trapped in here?"

  "Checking... No. There is a contingent of visiting mechs, but they're all accounted for and helping with rescue operations."

  "I was afraid you were going to say that. What about artifacts? Any ancient robots running around?"

  "Checking... Dammit!"

  "That doesn't sound good."

  "One of the labs in your vicinity was examining a crate from a town called Prosperity on Maeve. It's one of the new colonies on the far edge of the expansion zone. The crate contained some kind of robotic artifact. The file describes it as a multi-limbed, metal mechanism like a Martok-style service bot. No mention of it being active."

  "Let me guess, someone took it from an ancient alien ruin?"

  "No, it fell from the sky. Something about wreckage from a space battle that occurred near the planet millennia ago."

  "A space battle, wonderful. Anything else?"

  "Not that I can see. Be careful. We're not sure what we're dealing with."

  "Roger that. Moving on."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Of all the species that make up the peoples of the League of Planetary Systems, one of the most recent and the most interesting were the Basili. Once thought to be extinct, these miniature dragons from the Sokuhl home world looked formidable with their leathery wings, spade-tipped tail, and elf-like ears, these predecessors to the Sokuhl tended toward scholarly endeavors with soft-spoken voices and broad smiles, which on occasion, could emit gouts of flame.

  Today, one of these beings of myth was tearing open a steel bulkhead in an attempt at opening a portal into the damaged area of the station, one that could be used to evacuate the survivors of the explosion. He stood in front of the wall and breathed fire on it until it was read hot. Ignoring the heat--his kind were heat resistant--he pushed his claws into the hot metal, then spread them apart, ripping an eight-foot-tall by four-foot wide, roughly elliptical opening into the wall. Waiting on the other side were a group of refugees. "Coolant!" he yelled while stepping out of the way while the people on the other side did the same. Two maintenance techs ran up with tanks of coolant which they sprayed on the still hot walls. In moments, the evacuees were streaming through the hole, and when they finished, rescue teams poured through the hole into the damaged area.

  "Nice work, Mal," a human woman wearing a Space Patrol uniform emblazoned with General's stripes said as she handed him a towel. General Dorothy Little watched as the medical teams checked the survivors over before taking them to the Medical Facility.

  "Thanks, Dot." He wiped his face. "It's been a while since I got to use the old fire breath for something other than venting frustration." His name is Malcurio Dorcus, the new director of the Cube, and this is his first day on the Job. "What's up?"

  "Can't a wife check on her husband when he's tearing holes through steel bulkheads?"

  "Let me check... Why yes, they can," he replied before leaning down and giving her a kiss. Though tall for a human woman, the general was dwarfed by her mini-dragon husband. "Any word on what's happening in the other sectors?"

  "The Basili delegation is ripping holes, and we have two stryker teams doing the same. It seems to be quicker than fixing doors, then opening them."

  "Yeah, that's one of the problems with sliding doors. Half this station is torqued out of alignment. We'll probably have to jettison all the affected modules and replace them with new ones. What a mess."

  A young elf woman wearing a pants suit ran up and handed the Director a folder. "What's this, Giselle?"

  "The current tally of personnel."

  Mal opened it and carefully read through it. "Damn, fifty-eight dead, two hundred injured, and one unaccounted for. With over fifty thousand people present at any given time, it could have been far worse. Giselle, how many modules did we lose?"

  "One destroyed, and several adjoining ones are severely damaged."

  "Got it. We have one person unaccounted for?"

  "Dr. Leesta Merser, a member of the bioengineering team. Somehow, she got left behind. We've initiated an investigation," Giselle explained.

  "Director, She's Tanoh Ohnat's fiancé," the general explained. "He's about two hours away. No doubt we'll have to replace his ship's engines after he arrives."

  "Can't we get to her?"

  "We've tried. The only way to get to her is via an external airlock, and the only way to get to the airlock is by ship. There's too much debris for a surface excursion."

  Don't we have any ships?"

  "Sir, the explosion caused a massive power surge which scrammed the Cube's network and control systems along with those of any ship docked at the time."

  "But as luck would have it," Dot explained, "we've got a Space Patrol Pilot with search and rescue gear making his way to her location as we speak."

  "He's good?"

  "Captain Niall Thorvald. One of the best," Dot replied.

  "Sir, ma'am, we've detected a couple of issues," Giselle said.

  "And they are?" Mal asked.

  Issue one regards a module directly adjacent to the destroyed one. A mini-FTL drive was part-way through testing when the explosion occurred. The engineering team thinks it may be heading toward confinement failure."

  "Giselle, I'm a little rusty on my engineering..."

  "If the drive fails, that module and parts of the ones adjacent to it could catastrophically transition into other-space," the general explained.

  "That's not good. Giselle, is the team working on a fix?"

  "We have two teams on it. One is trying to scram the drive while the other is making repairs to the network, so we can send an eject command."

  "We can't eject it?" Mal asked.

  "Only from a control panel inside the module. It's located in the power distribution control room. Someone would have to go inside and eject the module, then escape before the field fails."

  "OK, keep me posted. What's the second issue?"

  "We've been monitoring the communications between Captain Thorvald and his copilot, Captain Maxine Wabash. They think there's a robot running around the level Captain Thorvald is on."

  "A robot?" Mal asked. "One of ours?"

  "No, sir. From one of the colony worlds at the edge of the League. It is supposed to be an inert artifact."

  "Dammit...." Mal started to say, but Dot stopped him with a hand on his large forearm.

  "Look, Darling, Niall has trained for this sort of thing. He'll be fine. He'll find Leesta and get her out of there, alien robots be damned. That's what Space Patrol does."

  Mal smiled at his wife while giving his wings a small flap. "Good. One less worry. Anything else, Giselle?"

  "Two League warships--Vigilant and Freedom--are on-station assisting with evacuees and injured. Representatives from the Office of Security, the League Council, and Space Command have docked. They're demanding an explanation."

  "Darling, can we talk to Captain Thorvald?" the director asked the general.

  "Yes, but only through his copilot," Dot explained. "The Loki, like all patrol ships, has an advanced comm system designed to maintain open comm links under extremely hairy conditions."

  "Contact him, please, and update him on the FTL problem. Captain Thorvald may have to find an unconventional way to escape with Dr. Merser." He sighed, then leaned down and kissed his wife. "Duty calls. Giselle, find Security Chief Traax and have him and the reps meet me in Conference Room Eight. Honey, who's senior pilot currently on-station?"

  "Captain Quinn Bracken."

  "Bracken? Didn't she dent a space station?"

  "We don't talk about that."

  "Oh. Giselle, have Captain Bracken join us with updates from the Space Patrol side of things."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Give them hell, Dragon," Dot said.

  He smiled, then followed Giselle out of the room.

>   CHAPTER FIVE

  Niall made his way down the corridor while listening for his new friend. He hadn't heard anything for the last five minutes, so he hoped the antique had moved on, of better yet, deactivated. He was about to stop worrying when he heard something ripping something apart.

  "Niall, I'm getting bizarre power reading from your location. Can you see anything?" Max said over the comm.

  "No. But all the lighting is dead. I though the mains were dead."

  "So, did I, but we're getting readings from just ahead of you. It looks like something in a lab is drawing power, lots of it."

  Niall squinted. "Yeah, there are flickering lights coming from a doorway ahead on the right." He drew his blaster and set it to rotisserie. "That's where the sound of tearing metal is coming from."

  "And you didn't think to tell me? Get the plark out of there, Niall."

  "One quick look, and I'll leave."

  "Niall Thorvald! Get your little, human ass out of there."

  Ignoring her, he quietly ran up to the side of the doorway and peered into the room.

  "Shit," he whispered. At the far end of the room, the love child of a toaster and a tarantula had torn open a power access panel and plunged two of its arms into its guts. From the number of lightning bolts coming off its metal body and arcing to the metal walls, Niall surmised it was feeding off the gigawatts of power available from the cube's main power feeds. "Max, are you getting this?" he asked, referring to the video feed from the cameras built into his equipment harness.

  "Yeah. It seems to be hungry."

  "No, it seems to be dead." He aimed his blaster at it.

  "Niall, maybe you should think about this?"

  "Yep." He pulled the trigger. The weapon poured one GeV of energy into the bot, which should have vaporized it. Instead, it turned and roared at Niall as it ripped its arms out of the energy stream. Not panicking, Niall targeted the panel and fired, vaporizing it. He slammed the button next to the door causing it to slam shut. He turned down his gun and used it to weld the door shut as the bot pounded on it from the inside.

  "Good job, Boss. You pissed it off."

  "I'll send it flowers and candy when the op is over. For now, it can just stew in there."

  "Copy that."

  "I'm continuing on. Any word from the Cube?"

  "Only that a mini-FTL in the next module over from Dr. Merser’s is unstable and might send a good part of the Cube into other-space."

  Niall picked up speed. "Oh, well, nothing to worry about." He brought up a command screen for the pedes. "I'm rerouting one of the bugs to keep an eye on our friend. It looks like they found Leesta. I'm going set up a comm link with her through one of the bugs. Hold on..."

  "Hello?" a woman's voice said.

  "Max, are you getting this?"

  "Yep. Maybe you should answer the lady?"

  "That would be nice," the voice said.

  "Oh, sorry," Niall replied. "This is Captain Niall Thorvald of Space Patrol and my companion is Captain Maxine Wabash. Is this Dr. Leesta Merser."

  "Yes, this is Dr. Merser. I could use some help here."

  "I'm almost to your location, Doctor. The pedes will keep you company until then. I hope they don't creep you out too much."

  "Why would they creep me out. They're wonderful. What happened?"

  "You got left behind during a mandatory evacuation after an artifact exploded in a nearby module. We're here to rescue you."

  "I need to let my fiancé know I'm alright."

  "Max will call him and let him know we've contacted you. He's very worried about you."

  "Niall... Niall! Yes, Tan mentioned you. He was going to introduce us when he gets back from patrol."

  "I'm looking forward to meeting you in person." Niall came to a stop at an intersection. In front of him was a doorway marked "Emergency Stairwell. Nothing happened when he pulled on the door, so he tried inputting his security code into the door's lock pad, but it was dead. "Max, the door to the stairwell is jammed, so I'm going to try convincing it to open. Leesta?"

  "Yes, I'm still here."

  "Don't panic, but you should hear a small, muffled explosion in a few moments."

  "O...OK."

  He reached into his pack and pulled out a small, gray sphere. He pressed the sphere against the door above the location of its latch then pushed a remote detonator into the gray putty. Satisfied, he armed the detonator before ducking around a corner. "Fire in the hole!" he yelled as he pressed a button on his gauntlet. There was a small boom which echoed down the corridors. Running back, he found the door open and the stairway waiting for him. "Leesta, are you all right?"

  "Yes. Did you get the door open?"

  "Yep. I should be on your level in a jiffy."

  He ran up the stairs to Leesta's level and found the door unlocked. Swinging it open, he found himself face-to-face with the alien robot. The two of them stood there for a moment before the thing let loose with a blood curdling screen as it leapt at him with all six arms--he could now see all of them--splayed outward like a threat-displaying Alturan. Instead of pulling out his weapon and firing, Niall stepped aside to allow the bot to fly past, then down the stairs to the bottom of the stairwell. Not stopping to see if it was destroyed, he ran out of the well and sealed the door closed behind him with his blaster. "Max! I thought that alien bot was sealed in the lab downstairs!"

  "It is. The pede you left behind is looking at a closed and sealed door. I don't understand this at all. You really shouldn't have pissed it off."

  "Then that thing either has a twin or it found another way out!"

  "I'm on it. I'll re-task the pede to find it and track it. Meanwhile, go find Leesta and get the plark out of there."

  "With the stairwell sealed, I'll need another route out of here," he said as he headed down a corridor.

  "Working on it..."

  He came to an abrupt stop when he hit a snag in his plan. The corridor came to an abrupt stop against a sealed pressure door. Niall looked at the control panel next to the door and saw the biohazard annunciator light was lit. A seal in one of the labs had probably broke and let something nasty out. Niall pressed a button labeled "DECON," but nothing happened. "Max, got a problem here."

  "I see. Pull up your map while I look for a new route. Is it ever easy?"

  "Not that I remember, girlfriend," he replied as the two of them searched for a solution.

  CHAPTER SIX

  As first officer of the smuggler ship Whisper, Niall's job was a simple one: Do whatever the captain, an Erdexi woman name Saam, told him to do. This included everything from baking pies to unloading cargo while keeping an eye out for the authorities.

  Niall loved his job.

  The delivery was supposed to be straight-forward: drop-off the cargo--they only knew it wasn't sapient--then pick-up cargo for the return trip. The exchange was being made at a dig site on an uninhabited planet at the current edge of League space. The xenoarchaeologist needed something which they couldn't obtain through normal--read: legitimate--channels, so they contacted Saam through an intermediary and made a deal. Saam was confabbing with the expedition head about payment when the ground around them shook. Dust and debris shot from a doorway in the nearby ruins followed by frantic calls over the comm. Niall got the outbound crate on the cart, then secured in the ship's hold before quietly joining Saam. "What's happening, Cap?"

  "Part of the dig caved in, and they've got people trapped. We need to go before Starguard and OffSec show up."

  "I can help, Cap. I used to work with the search and rescue team back on Tennosh. My specialty was caves."

  "What part of WE HAVE TO LEAVE don't you understand?"

  "The part about people dying. If their air is cut-off, then every minute we spend yakking, the more people are dying."

  "You do remember I'm the Captain?"

  "And you remember I was on Tennosh when it was destroyed. I spent three days saving people."

  "The elf told me there'd be days li
ke today. Fine. Do your thing, then get your human ass back here. I'm not running a STARGUARD op, you know."

  "Aye, Captain. Thank you." Niall ran into the ship, then returned with a helmet attached to a pack full of spelunking tools. He ran into the building and found the expedition leader staring at a pile of rubble blocking a large doorway. "Sir, with Captain Saam's compliments, my name is Niall Thorvald I'm here to help."

  "What? I've got people trapped down there," the leader exclaimed. "What can you do?"

  "I've been caving for most of my life, sir, and this is no different. How many are trapped?"

  "Two researchers and a guest. One of the researchers is injured, but their first aid kit was destroyed, and we can't get one down to them until a Starguard rescue team arrives. He might die."

  "Do we have a kit we can take them?"

  "Yes, but there's no way in."

  "Did you do ground survey scans before you began excavations?"

  "Of course. Kralse! I need the preliminary scans!"

  "Sir!"

  A moment later, a human brought in a portable holoprojector which he sat down on a work table. The leader pressed a button which brought up ground scans. "Where's your team geologist?"

  "He's down in the dig, dying."

  "Right. This is where the team is trapped?" Niall said as he pointed to a spot on the hologram.

  "Yes."

  "And we're here?"

  "Correct."

  "And what is this structure?"

  The leader pointed out the open door. Not too far away was a circular stone wall. "That's an old well. It still has water in it. Why?"

  "Because of this structure that's connecting the base of the well with the dig site. If I'm not mistaken, it's a water carrying fissure. Was there any sign of water at the dig itself?"

  "Y... Yes, we encountered water just yesterday. Are you an archaeologist or a geologist, young man?"

  "No, I'm the copilot and first officer of a two-person smuggling operation. Do you have any precision charges with remote detonators?"

  "Kralse! Bring me a crate of D90s!"

  "Yes, sir!"

  "What's your plan, son?"