by Bruce Adams
“I’m not too worried about that, we’ll have enough supplies to last a week on our own,” replied Eris. Whether staying a day or a week, the heavy gravity will be a pain in the ass. Eris and Captain Shaw were the only two people in the room, the rest of the crew were busy performing their duties. She didn’t know if the Commander had any extra orders that he was keeping just to himself. She decided to test the waters and gauge his reactions.
“Captain, what exactly are your orders concerning me and my team?” She tried to sound nonchalant and thought she succeeded. Eris was watching Shaw intently and noticed that the lines of his mouth narrowed slightly. In her experience this was at least a hint of obfuscation and concealment. Shaw turned away from her, paused, and then looked her in the eye.
“Captain Monroe, my orders are to see that you and your team make it to Domovik in one piece with all of your equipment intact. Furthermore, you are to embark from the Majestic once we have established orbit and land at the designated target area for more conclusive scanning to determine whether or not an Ancient Valdren installation exists.” Captain Shaw exhaled rather loudly, as if he had practiced saying this exact phrase before.
Shaw continued, “If your team does indeed find the installation and it’s safe to proceed you will, ah, signal us and we shall make preparations to land. Reese Langdon and his science team will prep all of their landing gear, equipment and the full contingent will land by shuttle and then proceed via ground vehicles to rendezvous with your team. I expect that everything will progress according to plan, of course.” Shaw cocked his head to one side, waiting for Eris to reply.
“I see. I’m glad that you have our backs.” Her sarcasm was lost on the captain. She didn’t fully trust the corporation or anyone that worked for them ever since the battle with the Valdren Entity and the disappearance of Eli Bowman. She wasn’t convinced that the TEC had had something to do with that but she had no proof. At any rate she was under direct orders from Admiral Hargrove to cooperate with the TEC and find intact and functioning Valdren installations.
Eris continued, “We’ll scope out the installation and clear any hostiles. If there’s another Entity like the one we fought under Dawson Slope, we’ll have EMP grenades to take care of it.” They’d better work or we’ll be dead, we don’t have Bowman…
Captain Shaw smiled at her and beamed, his ruddy face lit by overhead panels.
“Yes, yes of course, that is, uh, why you and your team are part of the vanguard. You know, to deal with any contingencies that might, ah, come up.” Shaw nodded and Eris knew the conversation was over at that point. She hadn’t really learned anything new, but he had requested her presence to ‘be on the same page with him’ and keep her updated on the ship’s progress. Eris had always prided herself on her ability to gather all necessary information before the start of any mission. Here she had decided that Captain Shaw was lacking in leadership qualities. She wondered if he would take the ship and flee at the first sign of hostile activity. The mixed command structure of her missions troubled her. She was a military woman, a Special Forces operative working for Earth’s Republic Fleet as a commissioned officer. She was not used to having to deal with civilians in command roles. She wished that this had been purely a military operation. Of course, with the resources of Earth’s fleet stretched to the breaking point it had made perfect sense for Admiral Hargrove to approve a joint Fleet-TEC operation when it came to uncovering and exploiting Valdren technology.
She left the ready room and headed to the quarters she and her team had been assigned. They were twelve rooms off the main corridor on ‘C’ deck, which primarily consisted of the officer’s staterooms. Each person on her team had their own stateroom, a relative luxury that she hadn’t ever seen on any of the military transport ships in the Fleet. She stopped outside of Moak’s room and knocked. If she had had any of the communication implants that were so popular now, her appearance would have been instantly recognized by anyone present in the room, either living or computerized. Her lack of implants was one of the things that constantly surprised people…and even unsettled quite a few of them. They couldn’t conceive that someone…anyone…in this day and age would want to live without the convenience and power of modern cognitive and neural implants. Her knock was promptly answered.
“Come on in, Captain.” It was Moak…Sergeant Delantus…who called out the invitation. He must have known it was me because his implants didn’t inform him that anyone was at his door. The logic was impeccable. The door slid sideways into the recesses of the wall bulkhead with a metallic whisper and she stepped through into a smoke filled interior. Moak sat at a small square table smoking a cigar. Seated with him were specialist Promise Okoro, her demolitions expert, and Kyle Arneson. The three men were talking and smoking while playing cards. Some of the guys in her unit liked the old-fashioned habit even though none of the cigars or cigarettes was made with real tobacco, only synthetic substitutes that lacked many of the harmful ingredients of those manufactured centuries ago.
Eris waved some of the smoke away from her face as Moak chuckled at the sight and Kyle leaned back in his chair, rubbing his elbows.
“What do we owe for this special visit from our commander?” As Moak spoke, he glanced at his cards, keeping them angled away from Okoro and Arneson’s vision.
“We’re two days out from our target, I’m just checking in on you boys to see how you’re doing.” Eris didn’t smile or betray any emotion in her voice. The three men looked at each other, then at their CO with bemusement on their faces.
“Why, Captain, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were flirting with us!” Moak had a delighted grin on his face. He always liked to joke around with her. She usually played along.
“Okoro, how do you know he’s not using those eyes of his to see what kind of hand you’ve got?”
Eris teased the big man.
Promise Okoro was a tall and well muscled man, measuring one hundred and ninety centimeters, with broad shoulders, huge thighs and large hands. His face was unshaven, with a tightly trimmed beard.
“Captain, Ron Delantus is a good man, a good warrior. He jokes, but he means well. He does not cheat.” Specialist Okoro threw a sidelong glance at Moak. “Besides, this is just money. It means nothing and the card playing is very relaxing. None of the others like it when we smoke.” He was serious. Eris didn’t like it either, but she didn’t tell them that.
Eris was not yet satisfied, “Well, you three could have picked an archaic past-time a bit more conducive to your health and those around you – do you men need anything?”
The three seated men looked at one another, then looked at the commander, then back amongst themselves – then broke out laughing, saying nothing. Eris assumed it was a sexual joke they had shared amongst themselves, probably at my expense. She had gotten those same types of looks from men and even a few aliens most of her adult life. These men were just blowing off steam and it didn’t bother her.
Moak Delantus took a long drag on his smoldering cigar, chomped on it with his teeth, and said, “Ma’am, I think I can speak for all of us. We’re ready to go. We have everything we need – guns, armor, ammo.” His green artificial eyes flashed. “All we need now is to land on that planet and get on with our mission. I’m ready to kick some ancient alien ass!” He settled back in his chair and laid his cards on the table, “Read ‘em and weep, gentlemen - a full house!”
Eris turned away shaking her head. She would let them enjoy the last few days of the voyage. The first leg of the voyage had been easy - the hard part was just about to begin. As she left the room, Kyle Arneson watched silently as Eris walked out of the small quarters - her figure, her lustrous black hair, her sinuous muscles and the way she walked. He tried soaking in everything about her. He thought he was falling in love with her.
CHAPTER 9
He had been crammed inside the damned crate for what seemed like days even though it had been less than six hours. Sweat had pooled on his eyebr
ows and continued to drip into his eyes. His shirt was so sweat-soaked he couldn’t use it anymore to wipe away the excess fluids that continually flowed down his face in a steady stream. He was thirsty and hot in the small container. He had not used up all of the water he had with him, there were still three liters left, but he had another problem – he needed to go to the bathroom.
The plan had been the brainchild of his friend Lane Medina. He remembered what he had said clearly. Lane’s voice came to him as if he could hear it - Look, you want to get off Earth and you don’t want to be seen or caught. I think we can ship you in a cargo container off-world. He had only agreed to the crazy plan because of his psionic ability to interface and control machines. The crate was a clever idea in theory, though incredibly unpleasant and painful in reality. When his container passed through the expected scanners he reached out and altered their alert status to normal so that no alarms were raised. He had passed through the process with no distress. The supplies he carried with him were sparse: a few bottles of water, a little food, and a re-breather in case he was deprived of oxygen for any reason. The journey by automated cranes was jarring and filled with boredom. Finally, he had arrived at the large cargo starship Restov Kal, bound for the nearby systems of Algol, Saiph, and Leonis. The transport ship was owned by TransCorp Systems and was a huge monster of a cargo carrier, capable of carrying at least eighteen million kilograms of freight. Eli had interfaced with the Restov’s onboard computer systems once he had gotten close enough to sense a terminal and had happily been entertaining himself in the last hour and a half looking through star charts, reading the cargo manifest, and reading crew diaries. He was surprised to find that more than half the total crew of five were female – three women and two men. MEKS took care of all the menial duties onboard, but living humans were required to handle other tasks deemed too critical to leave to a robot. The ship had passed beyond the orbit of Luna within twenty minutes using the antigravity thrusters, engineering marvels that fascinated Eli. Once reaching the null gravity location of the designated jump point, the ship had engaged its jump-drive, leaving N space and entering the Lindstrom tunnel that would take them to the relatively nearby binary system of Algol. The red-yellow spectral class K2 and blue spectral class B8 binary star system of Algol was ninety-three light years from Earth. Eli had just learned that in ancient times on Earth, the star had been called the Winking Demon Star because of its light variation and that it was in the constellation of Perseus. Mythology stated that Algol the star was Perseus holding the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. The lessons he learned under Dawson Slope with his fight against the primordial Valdren entity, an Artificial Intelligence he had utterly destroyed, had convinced him that ancient monsters among the stars were real. Shuddering at the thought he decided he had to get out of the crate and take a piss before he soaked himself in his own urine.
Reaching out with his mind, he felt the familiar sensation of fingers tickling the back of his neck as he threaded his way through the simple logic of a standard lock. Opening the crate with his machine control ability, he heard a snick as the electronic locking mechanism disengaged the deadbolt. Eli pushed the crate door open and crawled out with his legs hurting from cramping. He could barely stand and his legs felt almost useless. There was barely enough space to stand on the narrow edge of the cargo pod. He looked around the dimly lit cargo area and saw no movement. Eli took a sharp breath; alarmed he saw that his cargo pod had been stacked on top of three other pods, at least ten meters above the floor of the deck, and gravity seemed to be at a normal one gee. A fall could be deadly from this height. A lump formed in his throat as he realized he would have to climb down the stacked cargo pods if he had to reach the deck. Making his way slowly and carefully along the edge he moved to the rear of his container, his bladder urging him to release as quickly as possible. With one hand holding securely to the edge of the cargo pod, he unzipped and aimed his piss stream at the pod opposite. Eli sighed contentedly. There was nothing quite as uniquely satisfying as a good long piss. Eli was so intent on taking care of his business that when a tiny robotic drone came whizzing from above and behind him to fly ten centimeters from his face - he was so startled he jumped, losing his precarious balance and fell hard on the cargo deck with a sickening crunch of impact. Pain blossomed from his back and right leg as he lay gasping in shock. His leg was broken, with white bone jutting out at an obscene angle. The last sight he saw before losing consciousness was the drone hovering over him as he lay in a heap on the cold metallic grid of the cargo deck floor.
He awoke with a start. Eli felt absolutely no pain which confused him for a moment because his brain was telling him he had just fallen and broken his leg. He groggily tried to flex his arm. It didn’t budge – something was preventing him from moving his arms and his legs. The lack of any pain was reassuring to him and he found he could move his head freely but not his torso or his limbs. He was lying on a bed in what looked like a small med-bay. Reaching out with his gift he confirmed that assumption…he was strapped to a solitary bed in the medical section of the Restov Kal. He struggled in vain to loosen his bonds but the straps which tied him to the bed were made of silk-steel binders. He would never be able to free himself. As he pondered what he would do next he saw two people enter the small cramped medical bay – one was tall woman of dark complexion wearing a one piece jumpsuit brandishing the TransCorp Systems logo above her left breast. Her mouth was set in a grim line and he noticed she wore a laser pistol on her left hip, holstered. Her companion was a blonde haired man with a ruddy complexion. These people were very hostile to his presence. He recognized both of them immediately from the hours he had spent perusing the ship’s computer data systems. The woman was Taliya Amar, the captain of the Restov Kal and the man was her second in command and co-pilot Cody Walker. Eli had been bored while stuck in the crate and had perused all of the personnel files to help ease the excruciating passage of time. Taliya curled her lip in a sneer as she spoke, “Our stowaway is finally awake. Cody, make sure the straps are still secure; we don’t want him going anywhere.” Walker said nothing as he moved to the bed and repeatedly tugged on the straps – Eli felt tightness across his chest and arms. They must have given him a medi-kit patch because he felt absolutely nothing. The bone that had been sticking out of his leg seemed to have been put back into its natural condition – at least he hoped it had been. Modern medicine was something of a miracle so that even laymen could heal traumatic injuries given halfway decent medical emergency kits. Eli decided to let them talk to him and said nothing.
“Your passport indicates your name is Thomas Martin – is that really it?” Taliya was in no mood for games. “I’ll have you know that we’ve contacted the spaceport authorities on Algol Prime. It’s a certainty that you’ll be taken into custody when we dock.” She continued, with her hands on her hips glaring at him as if expecting he would confess all of his sins to her at the moment.
Eli wanted to throw his hands up in the air but all he could do was verbally protest. “I didn’t steal anything or damage anything! All I needed was a way off of Earth.” He wasn’t going to reveal his real name. The passport he had forged easily enough by interfacing with government computers.
The co-pilot snorted in disbelief. “Yeah…right…you stole from TransCorp by hitching a ride on a ship you had no business being on! That’s theft of services. You’re lucky to be alive at all!”
Luck had nothing to do with it. Eli was already sick of this moralizing jerk and wished he would just shut up.
The co-pilot continued on his diatribe, “People that try to stowaway on our ships end up dead from vacuum exposure or freezing to death. Our run has perishable cargo so we have air and gravity; normally we jump space with the decks depressurized and no deck-force!” The man had worked himself up and looked like he wanted to punch Eli in the face.
If the gravity pumps had been deactivated, I wouldn’t have fallen and broken my leg. Eli had an itch on his leg that was drivi
ng him nuts. He couldn’t move his arms and he couldn’t scratch the source of irritation – he had to lay back and take it, just as he had to endure this loudmouth and his screeching. The medi-kit gel worked fast as the nano particles knitted his broken bone back together and repaired torn muscles, but damn it sure caused a lot of itching. Eli ignored Cody Walker and turned to the woman, Taliya Amar.
“I’m glad to be alive…Captain…thanks for patching me up. I really am grateful.” Eli thought his voice conveyed the right amount of appreciation but one could never be certain. He was grateful, the fall, the broken leg, he easily could have died from shock and blood loss. Eli meant every word even if the pair of cargo haulers didn’t believe a word he said.
The woman had just been watching Eli in silence for over a minute with a look of disgust on her face. She had moved her hands from her hips to cross just below her breasts. Her body language showed her contempt. Eli noticed with his talent that she had several neural implants that were actively interfacing with the ships computer. She was attempting to piece together any data on him she had in her computer. She wouldn’t be able to get anything meaningful because he had made sure to leave no trace of himself in any significant database. She’d have to wait until they were light minutes away from Algol Prime to get any kind of hard data, but he’d make sure that didn’t happen.
“Just so you know, Mr. Martin, or whoever you really are, the port authorities will take you into custody once we reach dock in little over two hours.” Captain Amar turned to walk away, paused and whispered something to Cody Walker. The co-pilot grimaced, scowled at Eli and sat down in a chair. “I’ve got to watch you until we dock, wow isn’t that fun?” Walker sat down with his back turned to Eli as he logged into the ship’s computer and began to play a game.
