Hybrid Saga 01 - Hybrid

by S M Briscoe

  “That’s right,” Jarred was saying, encouragingly. “You’re getting it.”

  Elora jerked her head back over to Jarred and Ethan and saw her brother smile faintly at his own progress, a look of determined concentration on his face.

  “You’re a natural,” Jarred proclaimed, glancing back to see that Elora was awake and watching them both. “Hey, look who’s up. Just in time.”

  Ethan looked over at his sister and Jarred gave him a tap on the shoulder. “Hey, eyes on the sky, captain.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ethan answered, turning back around.

  Elora sat up in her seat, looking from Ethan to Jarred. Her brother seemed to be doing alright. After all, they weren’t plummeting to their deaths, but still, the thought of Ethan navigating them through the sky in a space worthy vessel didn’t quite sit well with her.

  “Should he be doing that?” she asked Jarred, quietly.

  He looked nonchalantly towards Ethan and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Sure, he’s fine,” he answered, waving a dismissive hand in the air before leaning back in his seat and folding both hands behind his head. “There’s nothing to it.”

  The comm suddenly crackled to life, a human voice coming over the channel. “Trycon Airspace Control to incoming vessel, Fancy Girl, please respond.”

  Elora noticed Jarred cock his head in an expression that seemed to be a cross between confusion and embarrassment as he mouthed the vessel name that had just been transmitted over the comm.

  Ethan, at the helm, automatically reached for the comm controls, responding enthusiastically to the voice on the other end. “Hello, Airspace Control.”

  Jarred, looking surprised and amused, turned back to the controls quickly and silenced the comm. “I’ll handle the talking,” he suggested to Ethan. “You just keep your eyes on the sky.” He gave him a wink and then flicked the comm back on.

  “Airspace Control, this is the . . . Fancy Girl, requesting landing clearance.” He clicked off the comm and shot Elora a look. “Remind me to replace the transponder with a better name when we land.”

  “Why?” Elora asked, trying not to smile. “What’s wrong with this one?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Jarred answered her. “It’s just great.” He shook his head. “I feel like I’m flying around in someone’s sweet sixteen present.”

  Elora shrugged her shoulders at him. “Well, maybe you should be more careful when purchasing transponders in the future?”

  He gave her a mock laugh in return. “You think?”

  “Fancy Girl,” the controller came back, “Please stand by for docking instructions.”

  Jarred looked over to Ethan. “Mind if I take it from here?”

  Ethan glanced back at Jarred only slightly, still quite focused on his task, then nodded.

  Jarred quickly routed control of the ship over to his own flight terminal and took hold of the control stick, Elora breathing a quiet sigh of relief as he did. The idea of her little brother navigating something of this magnitude left her feeling more than a little uneasy.

  As they began to descend, the clouds thinned and the faint outlines of towers and tall buildings began to come into view.

  “Here we are,” Jarred announced. “Trycon City.”

  Elora sat up in her seat to look out through the viewport and was instantly taken aback, her breath swelling in her chest. The rising sun cast its light onto the reflective surfaces of the thousands of tall buildings and structures that covered the city, bouncing between them and painting everything in shimmering shades of orange, yellow and gold. The towers seemed to stretch on forever into distance, hundreds, if not thousands, of ships and shuttles traveling back and forth across the numerous sky lanes below, like flocks of metallic birds.

  “It’s beautiful,” Elora murmured. “I never imagined . . .” She let her words trail off, unable to vocalize all that she was feeling. She had of course heard of Trycon and other great cities like it, but as a nomad refugee, had never traveled to any of them.

  “Sure, from up here,” Jarred informed her. “Down there, dirty, corrupt and overcrowded.”

  “It’s still better than any place we’ve ever been,” she countered. And it was. She’d traveled to so many slimy holes over the years, they all made this place seem like paradise.

  “Vessel, Fancy Girl,” the comm crackled to life again. “You are granted landing clearance at docking port two-one-seven.”

  “Copy that, Airspace Control,” Jarred answered. “Docking Port two-one-seven.”

  As Jarred switched off the comm, Elora couldn’t help but smile. “Fancy Girl,” she repeated, mulling the name over. “It’s really a very nice name for a ship. I think you should keep it.” Unable to keep a straight face she then broke out in laughter, Ethan quickly joining her as he repeated the name aloud himself.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jarred piped in. “It’s hysterical.”

  Jarred turned away while shaking his head at them both, but Elora caught the slight grin that had also come to his face and she smiled broadly.

  Jarred piloted the ship deeper into the city’s core, the now visible lower levels buzzing with activity, and merged them into one of the busy sky lanes. Transports whizzed by them in blurs of color, weaving in and out of lanes, blaring honks of annoyance coming from some of the other slower pilots.

  Elora watched out her side viewport as they descended towards and into their designated docking port, numerous vessels arriving and departing through its large open bay door. As they passed through the opening themselves, it felt to her as if they were passing into a new life. A better life.

  Her mind whirled with the possibilities that awaited them just outside their ship’s hull, and she was suddenly filled with a feeling she hadn’t known in a very, very long time.

  Hope.

  * * *

  It only took a few minutes for Jarred to jack into Trycon’s public databank on the ship’s computer and locate the place detailed on the passcard given to him by the dying man at Wasteland.

  It was a block residential unit, located in the bowels of the city, according to the schematic being displayed by the computer’s holographic imager. Apparently, Sierra Lore would be waiting there to take Orna off his hands.

  Though he was more than ready to hand the mysterious being over to whoever might be willing to have her, he didn’t like the idea of walking into anything blindly. He didn’t know anything about this person he was supposed to be meeting with, except for the fact that she wouldn’t be expecting him to be the one delivering Orna. Not liking surprises himself, he wasn’t sure of how she would react.

  All the more reason to be prepared. Switching off the holo imager, he loaded a freshly charged power pack into each of his small forearm pistols, fastening them to their holsters and retracting them both up into his sleeves. Turning to leave the flight deck, he snatched up his sheathed sword from one of the copilot seats before moving through the open hatch and into the main hold. He strapped the sword to his back and spared a glance over to the hold’s only other occupant, being struck again by the same, strange feeling of familiarity he always felt in her presence.

  As Orna watched him intently, her alien expression unreadable as always, Jarred pondered over how he could possibly know her. He had no memory of ever having met her, and yet somehow she was familiar to him. The way that she always watched him only reinforced the feeling, telling him that she either felt the same way, or knew a lot more than she was saying, which always seemed to be nothing anyway. It was as if she was waiting for him to do something. What that thing was he didn’t know, but the look in her eyes told him that she knew him and was expecting whatever that something was from him.

  “I found the place where we’re supposed to meet your friend,” he told her, matter-of-factly. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed our time together or anything, but I think it would be best to get you there as soon as possible.

  “I agree,” Orna concurred, with a simple nod.

  Something
in the being’s voice gave Jarred pause, and for a long moment he held her gaze, unsure of what thoughts were stirring behind those large dark eyes, but convinced, as always, that they were trying to tell him something. If only he could determine what that something was.

  Frustrated more with his inability to block out his own curiosity than with Orna, he turned away and tried again to dispel the questions that constantly lingered in his mind. As he headed down the ship’s ramp, he assured himself that this would all be over soon enough. She would be someone else’s problem, and he would be far away from this place. Which was all the more reason to get moving.

  The docking bay was full of different ships of all makes and sizes, from small personal transports to large cargo freighters. Pilots, mechanics and other dock personnel of varying races moved around the bay busily, while numerous mechanicals walked or rolled from vessel to vessel, aiding mostly in ship repairs and refueling.

  Elora and Ethan were close by, the latter carrying out a very thorough inspection of the ship’s hull features. Jarred grinned and breathed out a sigh of relief at having something else to think about for the moment. He caught Elora’s eyes on him and walked over to stand alongside her.

  “How’s the inspection going?” he asked her, nodding off towards Ethan.

  “I think he’s found a new best friend,” she answered with a smile. “They’ll be inseparable now.”

  Jarred grinned as he watched Ethan standing up on his toes to examine the ship’s rear thruster port. He couldn’t seem to recall ever having been so young, or being filled with so much enthusiasm about something. Though the earliest memories he had were of that age, he had not had the opportunity for such childhood fascinations. His childhood been taken from him, replaced by the harsher realities of this world. It was refreshing to see someone with the youthful passion he had missed out on.

  The moment passed quickly though and his smile faded. He was almost free of all his stowaways, but for some reason, he didn’t feel quite as eager to get rid of these two. He wasn’t entirely sure why and he really didn’t want to know. The fact that he was feeling conflicted about them at all was more than enough reason to part ways and move on.

  Jarred folded his arms across his chest and forced himself to become cold. “I guess you two will be moving on now, then?”

  Elora’s mood changed so suddenly, it almost stunned him, the smile vanishing from her face. “I guess so.”

  “Well, I should really be going too, if you two are all right on your own.”

  Elora turned to glare at him. “We’re fine. If you need to go, don’t let us hold you up.”

  “You’re not holding me up,” he began, immediately regretting saying anything.

  “Oh, I think we are,” she snapped. “Since we first met you, you’ve made it very clear that you wanted rid of us.”

  “When have I had a chance to make anything clear?” he blurted. “You’ve never stopped talking long enough for me to say anything!”

  “You didn’t have to say anything. It’s all over your face. You’ve been counting the seconds until you could dump us off somewhere.”

  “I could have dumped you any time.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

  Jarred had been asking himself that same question repeatedly for the past two days, and was nowhere nearer to having an answer. He felt himself soften under Elora’s waiting gaze and looked to the floor.

  “I don’t know why,” he answered her, honestly. “But since meeting you, I’ve nearly been shot, blown up, eaten, I lost a bounty, my ship was destroyed . . . and for some reason I’m still here with you.”

  Looking up, he saw that Elora’s expression had softened as well and the tension between them seemed to fade as quickly as it had risen.

  “I’m sorry about everything I’ve gotten you into,” she apologized.

  Jarred waved a dismissive hand at her. “It all would have probably happened anyway. I seem to be getting into trouble a lot these days.”

  Elora laughed lightly and after a moment of awkward silence Jarred decided to change the subject.

  “Do you have any idea where you’ll be going from here?”

  “Not really,” she shrugged. “This place is so big, I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Well, I’m taking Orna to the place where her friends should be waiting. You can come along if you want. Afterwards, I’ll take the two of you to one of the refugee placement facilities. They can set you up with a temporary residence, help you find work. Get you started.”

  “That would be great,” she said with a smile. “You’ve done so much already just by bringing us this far.”

  “Well, it’s the least I can do, you know, to pay you back for all the trouble you’ve gotten me into.”

  Elora laughed and the sound instantly penetrated Jarred, again tearing down his well maintained defenses. How could something as simple as her laughter disarm him like this? He supposed it was no different from any of the other times since meeting her that she had so easily been able to turn his will to her liking.

  That thought was a bit disturbing and with some effort, he forced it from his mind, looking up to see Orna standing at the top of the ship’s ramp, watching them both. She was always watching and he had grown more than tired of the constant observation. It was time to finally rid himself of the nuisance and go meet this so called friend of hers.

  Hopefully, this Sierra Lore turned out to be just that, but if she didn’t, he would be ready.

  * * *

  Kern Wayard scowled at the glass of Ferusian ale that was placed in front of him by one of the Silver Talon’s server-mechs. He raised the glass up to the light, staring into the murky beverage, which should have been clear. He thought to ask the mech when the glass itself had last been cleaned, but decided against it, turning away from the bar instead.

  He hated these places. In fact, he hated most places on the ground, preferring to be in the air whenever possible. The ground was limiting, restricting, too crowded. Soaring high above it, he could breath comfortably, move freely and see trouble coming. But, he hated these grounded places the most. These underbelly establishments in the filthiest, seediest corners of any city. They were magnets for the kind of scum he usually tried to steer clear of.

  Not Sierra. His partner and commander on this mission thrived in places like this. He didn’t know why, but she seemed to feel the most comfortable and at ease when surrounded by low lives. He thought maybe it had something to do with knowing what she was dealing with. The people in these places were what they seemed to be. Criminals. Alternately, in the more civilized world, people were usually not what they appeared. They wore masks and had private agendas and a lot of the time it was hard to distinguish friend from foe. Here it was simple. You knew the score, and the score was you couldn’t trust anyone.

  Kern was growing tired of all the politics himself. After all, they were part of a resistance. They weren’t supposed to be wasting their time squabbling over petty issues and differences, which was all they ever seemed to be doing lately. Their growing strength in numbers was starting to become one of their greatest weaknesses, the growth bringing with it an influx of swelled heads, all pulling in different directions. The result was a whole lot of bickering and very little action.

  But not this time. This time was different. They were here to do something significant and vital to their cause, which he figured was a fair trade for having to spend a day in a dive such as this. Scratch that. Two days. Their expected guest was late, and that had him worried.

  He looked off across the bar to where Sierra was busy taking part in a game of Domjot with some of the tavern’s more dangerous looking patrons. Personally, he had never quite taken to the game, preferring a simple sit down round of cards himself.

  Domjot was a game of chance that required exceptional hand eye coordination and a whole lot of luck. It consisted of a hexagonal scoreboard, which was the dom, and
a set of magnetic throwing darts, which were the jots. Each player took turns throwing their three jots at the dom board to score points, the objective being to reach a score of three hundred. The first player to do this was the winner. Before each round of throws, bets were cast by both players and spectators, the wagers ranging anywhere from high score, to a wide variety of different point spreads.

  The chance aspect of the game came into play with the dom board itself. The dom was composed of three rings, split into a pie grid of twenty point sections, ranging from five to fifty in five digit increment values, along with four fate spaces, all of which surrounded a small circular one hundred point space. The fate score pads were black and only revealed their consequences once landed on, which could be a bonus or penalty depending on the player’s luck. Their score could be increased slightly or even multiplied, as well as reduced anywhere back to zero, or there could be no impact on their score at all. All of the dom’s score pads were in a staggered state of flux, apart from the jackpot center pad which constantly bounced between active and inactive, the grid randomizing the layout of its two outer rings at unpredictable intervals, making it a challenge for even the best throwers to score their desired points.

  Kern had nothing against betting on one’s own luck. As a pilot who had found himself in some pretty hairy situations, it was something he needed on his side. He liked to tell himself and others that he preferred a thinker’s game, where strategy and bluffing were essential to winning, but in truth, he just wasn’t any good at Domjot. He could shoot the wings off a kombi bat from the flight seat of any vessel he was put in, but couldn’t hit the broad side of a cargo hauler with a jot to save his life.

  Five rounds into her second game with the same three patrons, numerous onlookers having gathered around to place their own wagers, Sierra was leading by fifty points with a score of one ninety, but in Domjot that could all change quickly. After having won the first game, and a good sum of her opponents’ credits, their displeasure and eagerness to win back their losses was becoming plainly obvious. Kern hadn’t thought it the best idea to strike up a challenge with such a morally ambiguous group of characters, especially considering the sensitive nature of their mission here, but Sierra wasn’t much for backing down. Neither was she one for losing, but there was a first time for everything. At the rate things were going, a loss might be the best outcome. Another win for Sierra would probably result in a fire fight, which was something they could definitely do without right now.