by Steve Rzasa
Nil scooped up the dropped striker. Then he turned to Carpenter. “Surrender. You have been defeated.”
Carpenter was behind the hovering console, glaring at both of us.
I was on my feet with the second stunner. “Get away from the console, Carpenter.”
“So you can take the sculpture and I have nothing to transmit to my partners?” Carpenter chuckled, sounding way too relaxed. “You have no idea what power awaits when I—”
I fired.
The stun blast struck Carpenter in the gut, slamming him back against the big screen. He slumped to the floor, like he was taking a nap.
“No more monologues,” I muttered.
More shouts came from behind us. We spun around. Two more qwaddo crew ran down the corridor, threatening us with strikers. Nil didn’t give them time to do more than that. He threw flashes of white and bolts of blue-green their way, while scurrying behind the captain’s chair for cover. I went for Sozh Uqasod. The screeches competed with the far-off blasts from Fisk’s laser rifle. There was chaos and noise out there, but I blocked it out.
The Sozh Uqasod was right there. I grabbed the white container and yanked it free of the receptacle.
That’s when Carpenter hit me.
Yeah. He was up off the floor, looking way too awake for a guy who got smacked in the chest with a qwaddo stunner. But his punch was real enough, and it tossed me back so hard my shoes left the deck. Didn’t drop the container, thankfully.
“Interference. Always interference.” Carpenter’s voice buzzed with the anger of the rogue Jinn. He jerked twin pistols from holsters concealed under his suit jacket. Okay, so apparently I’d forgotten about the Nighthawk T4s he carried. Plus he wasn’t nearly as sluggish as me, with greater gravity yanking at my heels. How had he shaken off the stun and still been able to hop around like a rabbit in heavy G?
“Caz!” Nil switched aim and shot at Carpenter with his striker.
The bolt ripped open Carpenter’s right pants leg and reduced the skin underneath to burnt toast. He shouted in pain, the muscles in his neck taut as those qwaddo restraining cables. But he didn’t go down. He fired with both pistols, the shots ear-splitting.
Bullets struck Nil in the chest and legs. He went down in splatters of blood. Deep red blood, darker than mine, but still blood.
The adrenaline surged through my body like a striker blast. I tackled Carpenter, throwing him against the communications console. It spun out of the way, crashing against the bulkhead. Carpenter lashed out with his right, slapping the pistol against my shoulder.
It hurt like a brick, but I kicked back. My shoe planted firmly in Carpenter’s gut.
He staggered with it. Again, didn’t go down like he should have. Instead he smirked and raised his other gun.
I lunged at him. Grabbed his wrist with both hands and twisted. Bones didn’t break, but he did drop the gun, so the odds were closer to being in my favor.
The Sozh Uqasod? Tucked in my pocket. Somehow Carpenter knew it. He grabbed for the pocket. My arm was already there, blocking his reach. Threw a punch at him, which he easily dodged. Carpenter punched at me, hitting me in the chest, the gut, and the neck in rapid succession. Before I knew what to do in response, I was on my knees, gasping for air.
The other qwaddos came tromping through the hatch. Metal clanged on metal, and even with my throat constricted and sharp with stabbing pains, I knew Tahomjr robots were joining them. Nil writhed on the floor. He grasped at bleeding wounds with two of his hands and dragged himself toward his guns with the others.
Carpenter stood over me. He didn’t bother to pick up his guns. He didn’t bargain or threaten. He just grabbed me by the collar and jerked me to my feet. I was going to die. That’s what the look in his eyes promised.
In that instant I thought, Nil’s going to die too. Followed by: his blood’s like mine, on the surface, at least. Another thought raced by: good thing he was baptized and believed. That’s when it hit me harder than Carpenter’s punches: Nil was just like me. Sure, we were aliens to each other, by virtue of birthplace and biology. But we’d latched on to the same hope. We’d both wind up in the same place.
I was okay with that.
Shouts of alarm interrupted our little interlude. Fisk’s laser rifle cut apart the Tahomjr robot nearest the door. He marched down the corridor toward our fight. His expression was stony, focused, and I was sure glad it wasn’t directed at me.
Even as the glowing orange halves of the body collapsed, the second Tahomjr fired on him with its rapid striker. Fisk was too fast; he ducked and scrambled. He let off a long blast from the rifle. A swath of sparks ripped across the corridor walls and up the front of the Tahomjr, right through its face.
Didn’t want to see what it did to qwaddos. Nasty.
The light show was enough to distract Carpenter. Just enough to make his murderous gaze twitch sideways off of me for a few seconds. Good deal.
I hit him with the sides of my hands at the base of his neck. His grip slackened, and I yanked free. Carpenter punched, but I blocked it, bent his right arm back, and bashed it against the bulkhead, twice, three times. Kept going as furiously as I could until I heard bones splinter. Then I gave him a shove that smashed him into the big screen, hard enough to crack it this time.
The guy still stayed up. Meanwhile my heart was pounding, my muscles burning, and my body generally ready to call it quits. But I wasn’t out of tactics.
I grabbed the free-floating comm console. Didn’t weigh much at all, with whatever anti-gravity thingie was making it hover. But trust me: it still had plenty of mass. I heaved it around and bashed Carpenter across the face.
He fell, his nose a bloody mess, his body finally down. I brought the console down, this time onto his chest. It kept him on the deck. The lunatic reached for his gun, the stainless one, fingers bloodied and bruised but grasping for the stock.
Every inch of my body aching, I slammed the console down one more time. My arms were on fire.
He yelped with pain. The console’s hover thing glitched, and it banged onto the deck. Dead weight.
I kicked Carpenter twice in the side.
He went for the gun again. Not enough. I shoved the gun from his reach, grabbed the sides of his head and battered it against the deck.
Finally. Done. Try getting out of that body now, rogue Jinn. No one here to suck you back.
My insides clenched. Someone forgive me for this.
Light flashed, unlike any of the weapons blasts from before. The other qwaddo crew stumbled, their guns clattered on the floor. Their lower hands flailed, while upper hands clasped against their faces. Fisk whacked at them both with the barrel of the laser rifle like a lumberjack chopping wood.
I staggered to Nil. “You’ll . . . be okay. Hold on.”
Nil’s eyes were unfocused, bleary. There was a soft hissing coming from his body. In his clothing? I saw a thick, whitish gray substance leaking out of rips, obscuring the blood.
“Self-sealing,” he gasped. “Clotting wounds.”
I chuckled. My butt hit the deck, hard. Every muscle gave out. “It stinks.”
“That is the . . . smell of success.”
“Carpenter. Those Jinn are still inside him.”
“They are trapped in there. We can take . . . them into custody, once we are free of this place.”
I glanced at Fisk. “We good?”
He nodded with the rifle tipped over his shoulder. He patted the gun like a puppy. “Locked the others in a hold. They’re cozy. Including Observer Premier Nasp. Remember him? Practically wet his drawers when I shoved him inside at gunpoint. These two just got blinded by the lowest setting for the Sidewinder here.”
“And our ship?”
“Dac seems to have the situation well in hand.” Nil pointed with one shaking hand at the screen.
Yeah, Dac did. The Nivax ship was burning out of our space fast, receding into the wisps of the nebula. Judging by the long, wide trail of debris it left—not
to mention the flashes coming from the dark hull—it was badly damaged.
So was Ghantaqa. But she was moving, and she was headed toward us. We must have drifted or changed course or something because I could see the Big Ring spinning ever so slowly behind the ship. Man. Never thought I’d be so happy to see it.
“Mission accomplished,” Fisk said.
I laughed. Harder this time, ignoring the growing pain. I slapped my pocket, feeling the Sozh Uqasod’s container safely there. “Yeah, it is.”
And that’s how it’s done.
I got robbed.
No other way to say it. Turns out Carpenter was just as good a liar as me, which I’d already figured out. What I hadn’t figured is that he’d lied about the million bucks.
The Ghiqasu gave me a dozen bars of platinum, a pound each. With the price of gold hovering around $900 per ounce, the math came out to $172,000. Not a bad chunk of change.
Not a million bucks either.
But they threw in a bonus that surprised me: a transit visa. It entitled me to legal passage through the Big Ring network of the Consociation, with one caveat. I had to be chaperoned by a Ghiqasu.
Nil thought that was pretty funny.
Oh yeah, he was fine. That suit of his did a bang-up job of staunching the blood flow. He had surgery for a couple hours to dig out the slugs Carpenter had riddled him with. And by surgery, I mean a team of squirmy Rycole aliens used a horde of nanites to dissolve the bullets in Nil’s body. Leached the metals right out.
Let me back up.
Ghantaqa got herself repaired enough to limp back to Earth through the Big Ring. This time through, I was on the bridge of the USS Enterprise with a crew of dinosaurs in Star Trek uniforms. They chastised me for wearing pants.
Sorry, no revelation that time around.
When we got back, there were six Ghiqasu warships loitering. Waiting for us. Turns out Nil was right—Carpenter and Nasp had made sure the end Ring at the Helix Nebula was unguarded for his arrival. We got lots of assurances that would never happen again. Apparently Earth was still a big enough deal—or at least, its location was—to warrant its protection. Warm and fuzzy thoughts, right?
Bottom line: After a full day in custody and getting relentlessly questioned by aliens and humans, we got shipped back down to that good old blue sphere of Earth.
Carpenter’s Jinn buddies got sucked out of his body and put in their equivalent of jail—that is, a little black box with red warning labels on it. No idea what happened to it then. Nil said something about trial on the homeworld. That sounded like not fun.
Carpenter himself got sent off to a Supermax prison under the watchful eyes of the FBI, DEXA, and the Ghiqasu Hounders. Needed a bunch of hospital time too. Those injuries I inflicted were a lot worse on his body without the Jinn inside. From what the docs said, there was no enhanced treatment or aging and healing like Carpenter had claimed; just the Jinn giving him extra strength. Memory alteration? Illegal.
So they lied to everyone about the rewards. Those Jinn don’t make good bosses.
DEXA Agent Loya flew out to Boston with coffee in hand and an apology spilling from his lips. Poor guy was under federal indictment, though he claimed he didn’t know anything about Carpenter’s master plan. I believed him.
Helped that he brought Ally with him.
We kissed for so long it set Nil grumbling. Which made me kiss longer.
She had tears in her eyes. “You look like a mess.”
“Yeah. That’s what happens when you save the galaxy.” I grinned. And that hurt too.
She squeezed me tighter and whispered, “I prayed for you the whole time.”
“It helped.”
The debriefing that followed was intense. Hmm, poor choice of words. When I say debriefing I mean the official muckety-mucks meeting with us about the case, not debriefing as in literally briefs coming off of—never mind. Anyway, same meeting room, only this time Ally was there with Nil, Dac, Fisk, and Loya.
The guy at the head of the table? Special Agent Isaac Manzano there got himself temporarily promoted to special agent-in-charge. At least until someone higher up could figure out how many of Carpenter’s flunkies were in on his plan.
“The Consociation appreciates the classified nature of this information,” Dac said. “The Sozh Uqasod has been returned to safekeeping. It is on its way back to the Jinn.”
“What about the museum exhibit?” I asked. “The one at UW.”
“That was set to finish at the end of this week,” Nil said. “The Jinn decided to let the false imagery stay in place for the duration. People will still see the sculpture, even if it is merely the prerecorded data.”
“The greater difficulty is Mr. Fisk here.” Loya gestured with his cup and took a long noisy slurp. It was actually the second cup I’d seen him guzzle since he arrived at Logan with Ally.
Fisk stared straight ahead. “I assumed I’d be back in the stockade, sir.”
“Forget that. Your actions helped recover the Sozh Uqasod, not to mention save Mr. Fortel and Prime Nil. DEXA has conferred with the FBI and local law enforcement back in Wyoming. The theft charges are being dropped, as is the homicide investigation into Mr. Santoro’s death.”
Fisk opened his mouth.
“The theft and desecration of art is a terrible offense,” Dac said. “But we questioned you on both, and I smelled the truth of your words. The scent of your regret is strong. You more than repented of your wrongdoing, and we Ghiqasu—as well as the Jinn we serve—are grateful for your efforts.”
“Besides, the death of Mr. Santoro was perpetrated by those rogue Jinn,” Loya said firmly. “They will answer for their crimes. Mr. Santoro’s family has been made aware of the truth.”
Fisk exhaled. He didn’t look happy, but hey, microscopic aliens killed his pal and made him steal a priceless artifact. I’d be depressed too. “Thank you, sirs. But Jordan’s death will always be on my hands, his blood my responsibility.”
“It is a grave weight to carry,” Dac said. “The same I feel for the Ghiqasu who were killed aboard my ship, even though the Nivax pulled the trigger. That is why I say you have suffered enough. I will not let further punishment be dumped upon a human—a man—who has shown valor as you did.”
He and Dac rose from the table. They gave each other the Ghiqasu greeting. Dac even fumbled a handshake with Fisk, which brought a smile to the latter’s face.
“We would gladly offer you the opportunity to take up arms with our Groundpounders again, Staff Sergeant Fisk, should the desire to serve your people and the Consociation arise,” Dac said.
Fisk chuckled softly, either happy at the idea, amused that they’d make such a crazy request, or finding a joke in Dac saying “take up arms” as he gestured with all four of his. “Thanks, Captain. I’ll keep that in mind. Right now, I just want to go home.”
“We will make sure you arrive safely there.”
On the way out the door, Fisk slapped my shoulder. “Good luck, Caz. See you around sometime.”
“Thanks again for saving our collective butts, Tyler.” We shook hands.
“Any time. Thank you for giving me the chance.”
With them gone, Loya downed the last of his coffee. “Well. Surprisingly this whole thing has become a great deal less of a mess.”
“Besides your indictment,” I reminded him.
“Yes, there is that.”
“Do not forget the damage to the cruiser Ghantaqa,” Nil did a much-exaggerated impression of a human wink.
I grinned. He’d definitely been hanging around me too long.
“Ah, yes, I understand that—”
“And the head of FBI Boston under arrest,” Isaac said cheerily. “Plus we can’t leave out the cruiser that fired on Ghantaqa.”
“Well, I—”
“And the agents Carpenter had arrest us.” I ticked off items on my fingers. “Observer Premier Nasp in custody. The soldiers he used. The—”
“All right, fine!” Loya cr
umpled his cup. “Yes, it is a tremendous mess! But we’re keeping it quiet. The theft has been mitigated.”
“Thanks to me,” I said.
“Your team,” Loya said.
“Which includes me.”
He sighed. “Yes, it surely does. Thank you, Mr. Fortel.”
See, was that so hard? “You’re welcome.”
“The fact is, the Consociation’s pretty happy with the whole thing,” Isaac said. “Got a whole bunch of messages on my desk from them, especially Retrieval and Justice. They think you got skills, Caz.”
“Because I do.”
“Yeah, I told them they were exaggerating.”
“Nice.”
“Of course, the president was advised of the whole situation and spoke with his counterparts among the Jinn, Ghiqasu, Rycole, and other species on the Consociation’s ruling body,” Loya said. “A great deal worse was averted. Now at least they know what the Nivax are looking for.”
“Can they wipe the old data on the Sozh without wrecking the art?” It’d been bothering me, quietly, ever since Dac and Nil considered destroying it to prevent the plans from getting to the Nivax.
“Yes,” Nil said. “Do not worry. It will take time, but it will be accomplished with the greatest care.”
Relief flooded me. “Good. Nothing worse than the destruction of art. It’s as bad as—well, losing a soul.”
“And where’s the profit in that?” Isaac asked.
“Bingo.”
Loya cleared his throat. “Well, then, I think this meeting is at its useful end. Thank you all for your time.” He started up from his chair.
“One minute.” It must be the tone Ally used with school kids when they tried to get up to use the bathroom without her permission because Loya froze hunched over the table. “There’s one more request we had.”
Loya looked from her to me and back again. “We?”
“It was my suggestion, and Caz agreed the time was right.” She smiled. “Besides, I had a hand in the recovery, didn’t I?”
