by Yunker, Todd
Alec squeezed the staff; it returned to its original shape, and he put it back on his forearm. He rubbed his banged-up hands. Electra watched intently, and Alec couldn’t help but notice. He said, “A ring staff. Most so-called intelligent races don’t even give it a second look when they check for weapons. I like that.”
Electra walked with Alec and Dancer as they left the alley behind. The bazaar’s merchant stalls contained everything imaginable — fabric, clothes, foods, trinkets, and much, much more. Alec turned to Electra. Her hazel eyes were cast a little downward, but he brushed her bangs back from her face and coaxed her into looking directly into his eyes. His world could be found in her eyes. He realized he had paused a little too long. “You have had combat training. Not as helpless as you would like others to think. Subterfuge — I like it.” He smiled broadly. “Remind me not to startle you, for my own safety, of course.”
Electra remained silent, but she seemed to communicate much in doing so. She reached out, tentatively, taking one of his hands; her fingertips stroked the hand as she examined his injuries.
“I am certain you can speak Standard, but I am willing to wait as long as it takes for you to feel safe enough to talk.”
The voice of an adolescent drew their attention. “Captain Shackleton.”
Alec responded. “Uhrbar — good to see you, kid.” They turned to a medium-height humanoid youth with fair skin, a scarecrow’s build down to the large head on his shoulders, and straw-like hair.
“Captain Shackleton, the Koty have landed at the spaceport. They are already on the streets looking for someone.”
The news put Alec and Dancer on heightened alertness. Uhrbar became aware of Electra as being with the group.
He smiled at Electra. “Has he freed you, too?”
Electra said nothing but faced Uhrbar.
“There are many of us who owe Captain Shackleton a life-long debt. He will free you, too — you’ll see,” said Uhrbar. He gave Alec and Dancer a once-over. “The Captain freed us from our masters. He’s a stubborn human, in my book.” He looked down the street as if looking for something in the crowd. “We want to pay him for our liberty, but he says to get ourselves an education and make a good life. That will repay him.”
Alec responded, “Having you and your friends providing timely information is more than enough repayment.”
Dancer scanned the crowds of the bazaar and caught sight of the Koty Union soldiers in the distance. “We need to get moving,” he stated flatly. “The Quest has been silent too long, and I am unable to establish a link.”
Alec took Uhrbar’s hand and shook it warmly. “Thanks for the tip — now, scram. I don’t need you scooped up in any Koty dragnet. We’ll get out of here.”
“Be safe, Captain Shackleton.” Uhrbar slipped away down a street leading away from the Koty soldiers.
The Koty troops moved through the crowd with impunity. A bipedal street vendor nervously organized alienware sunglasses on his three-wheeled cart when a group of soldiers came up to him and started asking questions. The vendor made a break for the safety of the crowds, catching the soldiers off guard briefly, but then their weapon fire struck a few bystanders and the street vendor alike.
The motionless form of a street vendor, amongst the other bodies, was prodded with the muzzle of the rifle and checked for signs of life. The platoon regrouped around the fallen and started interrogating those bystanders who had only been injured and those who were not fortunate enough to get away from the scene. The fallen were checked for weapons and arrested.
In a low voice, Alec said, “Let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Worrell and Gino observed the rhythmic style as the Koty Union troops drove a wedge into the street traffic. The skimmer traffic had been stopped while the Koty troops instituted random searches, with the occasional local blasted for not answering the questions to the satisfaction of the interrogator or because they simply tried to run. Gino pointed to a flash of cobalt blue vanishing into the foot traffic heading toward the spaceport.
Gino brought up his communicator. “Us. Shackleton is on his way to the spaceport.” The link cut off quickly.
“Good for us,” said Gino.
“Good for us, too,” said Worrell.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Alec, Electra, and Dancer moved quickly across the busy tarmac, but, even from a distance, Alec knew there was something wrong. “Dancer, what do you see?”
Dancer confirmed Alec’s fears. “The Quest has been opened.” They ran to the ship, looking at its scorched outer hull. The metallic surface was awash with a carbonized residue from energy weapons.
“Electra, stay out here.” Alec ran headlong into the Quest. Dancer scanned the area for Koty Union troops and then dashed into the ship.
Dancer was able to re-establish a communications link with the Quest now that he was at such close range. He wanted to ascertain the extent of the ship’s systems damage as he walked through the debris of the galley. Alec entered from the command deck, carrying a burnt piece of bulkhead. Electra appeared, making an assessment of her own while picking up the items strewn about the room.
Alec shook with fury. “They burnt through the bulkhead to Dad and the rest. They did the same in your alcove.” Alec gripped a small, glassified cylinder in his hand that said “Jack Shackleton b. July 4th, 2246 — d. April 1st, 2299.” The end of the cylinder was broken off at an angle just past the date. Alec went white with rage, his face sagging with the intense emotion. Electra moved closer to Dancer as the communication screens flickered and a smiling Wolfgang Gray appeared on them all.
Gray smacked his lips before saying, “Shackleton, I’ve always liked you. How about a partnership?”
Alec rushed the screen. “You will pay for this desecration, Wolfgang, maybe not now or not as soon as I want it, but you will stand in judgment for your actions.”
“Why, Shackleton, I’m here to do business. Just like you, I now have a piece of the inscription. Let’s make a deal for the other piece you have.” Gray leapt to his feet when he caught sight of Electra. “My intelligence people told me you bought yourself a slave. She even looks human.”
“Let’s finish this, here and now,” Alec demanded.
“Whatever she cost you, I’ll double it. I had to get rid of my last slave girl. You know, she tried to kill me.” Wolfgang Gray looked wolfish. “I need a new playmate. We’ll have so much fun.”
Electra gave no response, but Alec replied, “She’s not a slave — she is a free woman.”
Gray sat back in his chair. “Shackleton, if you do not give up the inscription, the Koty will just kill you and your new friend; they will crush Dancer for recycling and just take the inscription.” And, with that, the screen went blank.
Electra helped pick up the mix of broken pieces and whole glassified cylinders strewn about the floor during the search of the sealed bulkhead. Alec pulled those still in the bulkhead and had started stacking them on a small desk to one side. Electra looked at him questioningly.
Alec held just the etched section of one in his hand; the rest of it was mixed in somewhere with the broken shards on the floor. “Ke Huy Quan, 2278-2302. He was a great guy; you’d have liked him. He got caught up in some refugee smuggling about a few years back. Didn’t survive the last run.” Alec’s eyes glistened with excess moisture. “I promised him that, if anything happened, I’d make sure he got home.” The number of cylinders had grown to several hundred. Electra and Alec held a moment of silence; she understood the significance. He placed the first cylinder in the bulkhead and then continued the process to place the rest of the remains back in place.
The damaged exterior hull of the Quest was peppered with repairs in progress; Alec was using a plasma torch to make the repairs. He cut out a patch and held it up to a hole in the sensor array access panel, putting clamps on it so he could weld it in place. The orbital buffer mini-bots had spread themselves across Quest’s hull grinding, sanding, pol
ishing, and buffing the completed repairs to match the rest of the hull. When they were done, the repair was invisible to the naked eye.
When Dancer came into his eye line, Alec pulled off his safety visor. “We’ll make it.”
Dancer stroked the ship’s landing gear. “I’ve gotten most of what we need.” Electra exited the Quest and stood with Dancer.
“How’s Electra doing? Has she shown any out-of-the-ordinary interest in systems or equipment?”
Dancer shifted side to side. “No, she’s been what you would expect from someone who’d been shackled and enslaved. I think she’s just biding her time and studying us.”
Alec chuckled, “Well, whoever she is, she has been through a lot, and I can understand her not trusting us. She is a very special woman.”
“You will be careful, Alec? I have been watching you around her. I clearly need to watch out for the both of us.”
“She has combat training; we saw her take up my staff and use it well.” Alec considered, “I am sure she has been accessing the records, and the fact she has been able to hide it from you says something about her skills.” Alec’s mind flashed back to his encounter with Electra in the guest cabin. His ache for her companionship was ever present in his thoughts. “A complicated woman whom we have not yet convinced we are trustworthy.”
Dancer inconspicuously scanned Alec’s vital signs. He had a rapid heartbeat, and a flood of chemicals was coursing through him. “Yes, I see. You do not mind us getting back to the business at hand, I hope?”
“What’s up?”
“I’ve been studying Dolk’s star chart. It does correlate to a few star systems on the edge of known space.”
“A real star chart?” Alec pointed to the material on the ground near Dancer.
Dancer retrieved a piece of the hull-patching material near his feet and tossed it to Alec as he replied, “I’m doing a test import of the data into the nav computer.” Alec returned to work without responding, so Dancer turned to Electra. “Come with me, please.” He went to one of the landing gears and used his datapad. Electra stood ready to help in any way she could. He watched her with interest. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
Dancer had repaired the exposed landing-gear system. He put back the exterior panel that covered the internal components. Dancer maneuvered the panel back into place, lining up the edges. He looked for the seam sealer but realized that he put it down on the tool cart. Dancer knew he couldn’t quite reach it from where he was standing. Electra saw this from where she was, near the cart. She picked up the seam sealer and held it up for him to grab.
“Thank you,” said Dancer. As he took the sealer, his optics had another opportunity to scan Electra’s bracelet.
*
Alec came to the end of the seam he was working on, finishing up another patch on the hull. He put down his tools, pulled off the eye-shields, and climbed down, jumping the last bit. Tired and dirty, Alec found a wide shipping crate and sat, watching Dancer scan datapad readouts and communicate with the Quest regarding the ship’s damage and repairs. Electra, looking worn out as well, came from the ship with a tray of refreshments.
“I appreciate you pitching in and helping where you can.” Alec got up slowly; his body ached from being bent over. He took the tray and sat her down on the shipping crate. Electra kept her eyes lowered, as usual. Alec looked around, found a fairly clean rag, and wiped the dirt from his hands. He gently raised her chin with his index finger. “No worries — okay? We will be off planet as soon as we can.” He took the glass and offered it to her. “Go ahead.”
Electra reached for it, and, for a moment, they both held it; their eyes met. Then, Electra took the glass, breaking the connection.
“Freedom and hope — that’s what makes us human.” He looked around the port from their vantage point. “This isn’t what I thought I would be doing now.” He took a long, cool drink from the glass and sat down next to her. “I have studied most of my life and thought I would be passing it to a new generation. Teaching or something like that, but now…” His thoughts drifted. “I had a dream of finding my little private Shangri-La.” Alec looked out over the concrete and steel of the spaceport. “You would not know it. It’s from a book called Lost Horizon, by James Hilton. A mystical and earthly paradise for travelers like myself. A happy place.” The daydream left his face a little wearier than before. “I still hope it’s out there for me.”
Electra leaned against his shoulder. Alec turned to look at her and smiled.
*
Temple Coffee Shop was thick with locals. Alec, Dancer, and Electra made their way to a back table. On stage was a poet, sounding like fingernails on a chalkboard. The audience snapped in appreciation of the poet leaving the stage. A squid-like creature doing a mime act pulled itself onstage with its tentacles.
Electra sat closest to the wall, flanked by Alec and Dancer. She had moved the chair close to Alec.
“What about Wolfgang?” Dancer scanned the room for anyone taking more notice of them than usual.
Alec looked to the other two. “He can’t do anything without the piece you carry. It takes all three to complete the map.”
Dancer brought out the artifact they’d bought from Dolk. “What about the star chart? So far, it looks legitimate.”
“Any luck translating the glyphs?” Alec ran his hand through his hair.
Dancer handed it over to Alec, whose fingers flitted over the surface. “Not so far. There are some similarities to some dialects spinward but nothing certain.”
Alec hesitated touching the glyph; the symbol struck a chord in his memory. He thought about the civilizations the direction of the galaxy’s spin. Alec turned to Electra. “May I see your arm bracelet?” Electra remained still. “Please?”
She removed the bracelet cautiously from her bicep and pointed to herself and then to the center of the rings. At Alec’s raised eyebrow, she nodded and then pointed at Alec, herself, and then at the center of the rings.
“You want to go here?”
Electra handed Alec the bracelet with an expectant look. Volumes went unspoken. Alec felt that this was another breakthrough for them. Just exactly what it was he had to find out.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get this right back.” Alec held the arm bracelet next to the star chart. The symbols had a similarity but were not quite the same.
“Yes, I saw it, too. Makes you wonder about our meeting with Dolk. It was quite a coincidence we were sold a star chart with the key to the Eleven Wonders of the Universe.” Dancer calibrated a scanner on Alec. “At the same time, a beautiful human slave girl appears, the only true human female we’ve come across in two years this far out in space.” He scanned Electra.
“I will definitely agree with that part of your assessment.”
Dancer stopped scanning. “She’s the real thing. When I saw that arm bracelet the first time, I thought we’d been taken.”
Alec rocked back in his chair. “She’s real; your DNA scan proved that. Her people have been away from Earth a very long time.”
Dancer shook his head. “I have the results for you on the mitochondrial DNA. It shows that her ancestors split from the rest of humanity. I place it at 11,000 human years ago.”
Electra returned the arm bracelet to her bicep. Alec sensed she was ready to open up to them. Alec smiled warmly. “I was right. Whether it’s chance or destiny, Electra,” he said, putting out his hand, open, palm up, “you’re what I’ve been searching the galaxy for.”
Electra reached out slowly and clasped his. She squeezed him when a waitress came to the table with a tray of hot, spiced coffee drinks. A tall, thin mantis-like creature entered with two exotic females. The females were well-toned humanoids with flowing waist-length hair and large, sapphire-blue eyes. The mantis spotted Dancer and Alec, and headed to their table.
Alec leaned into Electra. “We don’t want any trouble, so forgive me if I have to… just play along for a few minutes. I’ll make it up to you.” Electra
nodded her understanding.
“See, Dancer? I told you she understands — every word we say,” Alec said pointedly.
Electra shot him a quick glance only to find he was already watching her for reactions.
The mantis creature worked hard to speak in a frequency audible to humans. “Be you Captain Shackleton?”
“Who wants to know?” Alec turned his attention to the newcomer.
“You be. I am Sokkeer and wish to make an offer for your small female,” Sokkeer spat out. “I have two females to trade for your one.” He presented his women, motioning to their ample curves.
Alec stared at him. “Now why would I want to do business with you? I have a woman of which dreams are made.” He took Electra’s hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. He held it as he put it back on the table. “A beauty none can surpass.”
The two females moved around the table to Alec and pulled his chair from the table and Electra. One interposed herself between Alec and Electra, and the other one moved to Shackleton’s right, each nuzzling his neck and tousling his hair; their hands stroked his upper body. They smiled broadly, with sharp, pointy teeth, and purred.
“Yes,” Sokkeer said, “but with two such as these, trained in pleasing males with such rapture you have not experienced, how can a lowly human male such as you refuse to accept such an offer?”
Electra caught the slightest wink from Alec as he shooed away the females. “I do not own slaves; this person is free and has obtained passage off-world. If I need to make it clearer to you, I will.” He started to push back his chair.
The humanoid females shrank back to Sokkeer’s side, horrified. Sokkeer said, confused but apologetically, “Fight you? I was sent here to conduct a business transaction. Nothing more.”
“Tell Doctor Gray,” Alec commanded, “that you failed.”
Sokkeer and his females left the table, and Alec smiled at his companions. “Now then, let’s find us a ticket off this rock.”
*
