“Say again—did you say a tank?!”
Long-range plasma launcher with anti-aircraft capabilities, but outdated by nearly a decade. Definitely military surplus. “Yes. A really nasty one, too.”
“Why didn’t you see them before now?”
“My guess is that they were already here, probably just out of scanning range. Impossible to tell, really. Of course, we could discuss it further, or you could get the hell out of there.”
“I’m moving now. There’s a light up ahead. I should be out in five minutes.”
That’s probably a minute longer than he needed. Thad continued to scan the area when he heard the unmistakable sound of a weapon bolt being charged behind him.
“You there! Get up!”
Thad slowly released the rifle, letting the weapon fall to the ground. He stood slowly, keeping his back to the assailant. He looked down, seeing the shadows of two individuals close to his own. There’s two of them. Three meters away, two meters apart. Each has a rifle, or they don’t know how to hold a pistol. Neither is noticeably bulky: no spacesuits, minimal armor.
“Turn around!”
And he did, faster than most humanoids could react. With his left hand, he withdrew a long dagger, which he threw and made contact with the intruder on the right. His right hand was dedicated to his sword, which he slashed across the other’s chest. Before the first victim fell, Thad landed a quick into the second, knocking him flat onto his back. Pivoting, he stabbed in a downward motion, scoring another kill in a long list he knew he’d never forget. The first victim, with Thad’s dagger protruding from his abdomen, writhed in agony.
Thad reacted quickly, gagging the green-skinned interloper with his hand before he could call for help. “Shut up.” Thad searched for and found the short-range transmitter he sought. “Now, don’t move, or I’ll finish what I started.” Turning back to the wreckage below, he caught sight of Alasdair appearing from an overhead hatch and into the waiting arms of three armed thugs. The heavy artillery tank was scanning the area, and Thad knew it was only a matter of time before he was discovered. Damn.
Turning back to the injured man, Thad quickly pulled out the dagger, eliciting a muffled scream from the victim. “Quit your complaining.” He pulled out a healing kit, injecting the man and causing a temporary repair to the wound. Within moments the man’s cries of pain lessened. “That should make you well enough to walk. And you will walk because I will not carry or drag you. Understood?”
The terrified man nodded his acknowledgment.
“Attempt to flee or cry out in any way, and you’ll meet whatever maker you call your own.”
This elicited another round of jittery nods.
Thad reached down, grabbed a handful of his tunic, and hefted the man to his feet. This produced a further round of whelping. “Move. Quietly.”
Chapter 19
Back at the Cobalt Rose, Kristin was pacing the cockpit nervously. Alasdair's transmission was overdue, and even Thad had failed to respond to her last request. Quinn and Mia had busied themselves making some minor modifications to the ship's computers, something Quinn said would give them a little more boost when the time came. Kristin had asked them to look into the original distress call Quinn had noted, but there was nothing more to find.
When an alarm bell signaled that someone was accessing the rear cargo ramp, Kristin ran down to check it out, weapon in hand. She was relieved to see that both Mia and Quinn were already there, likewise armed and ready for the intruders to show themselves.
Heavy footsteps signaled their approach, and all at once, a body was thrown forward and rolled across the cargo deck, with Thad close behind.
"Thad!" Kristin sprang forward, holstering her weapon as she overturned the body. Expecting to find a wounded Alasdair, she was greeted by yellow eyes and scaly flesh. She reeled back from the shock. "What—where is Alasdair?"
"Captured." Thad lumbered over, sitting down on a nearby crate.
"By who?"
Thad shook his head. "I do not know yet. I've been maintaining radio silence since I left the area of the wreckage."
"Which is why you didn't respond to my calls. There was nothing you could have done?”
“I could have killed them all,” he replied as he gazed into the distance. “But that course of action would have doomed Alasdair, not to mention that the three of you back here might have been compromised if whoever they are had been able to contact their base. I made the only decision I could at the time. But, now that I'm here, I'll take great pleasure in getting some information from our friend here."
Mia moved beside him. "How many of them were there?"
"At least a half dozen in the party I saw. Well-armed with military-grade hardware, but a decided lack of training on how to use them."
"That could be an advantage,” Quinn contemplated.
"Or not," he corrected. "It makes whoever they are highly unpredictable."
Kristin looked down at the alien. She had no idea what species it was but could tell right away it'd been injured. "You did this?" she asked Thad.
"I had little choice in the matter." He reached into his coat and withdrew his dagger, then leaned down toward their prisoner. Thad held the gleaming blade inches from the man's neck, the yellow eyes going wide with fear. "Oh yes, you remember this, don't you?"
"We need him alive."
Thad turned the blade over, running it down the man's cheek. "I've no intention of killing him, yet. I'm interested in talking. How about it, comrade? Care for a little chat about you and your friends out there?"
The unblinking eyes didn't turn, but the man nervously nodded.
Thad smiled. "Good. That's good. Now, let's start with who you are, who you work for, and where your friends have taken our man."
* * *
When Alasdair came to, he was in what looked like a small storage compartment. The room was hot and highly humid. Pools of moisture collected under a maze of pipes that were dripping in a staccato rhythm. There was a single, solid door, with a latch that didn't budge under even the hardest pressure he could apply. A diffused light was filtering down through the grate overhead. Beyond it was a green indicator, probably attached to a video monitoring systems.
His head was spinning, and when Alasdair touched the back of his skull, he felt a large lump before wincing in pain. Dammit.
"I'd offer an apology, but I'm afraid it would be most insincere," a disembodied voice said.
It had come from the overhead, and when Alasdair looked back up, he saw a dark figure, indistinguishable from the backlight. "Who are you? Where am I?"
"So many questions that I'm afraid I've little intention of answering. In fact, if you care to live much longer, you're going to have to answer my questions."
In an effort to stop the room from spinning, Alasdair sat down on a nearby pipe and tried to look up. "Since you're probably going to kill me anyway, what's the point?" Though still clouded in shadows, when the figure kneeled down, Alasdair noted that man had a red-tipped beard.
The figure laughed menacingly. "There are things far worse than death, Mr. Pryce. Things I will show you. In time. Then you'll regret not being more cooperative."
He knows me? But Kristin? Does he know about her, too? The door flung open, and two heavily garbed figures rushed in. One held Alasdair while another injected something into his arm. Alasdair frantically reached into his pocket, hoping to finds the object he hoped was still there. He thought he'd grasped something hard, but the room spun again, faster and faster until the blur faded into black. And in that darkness, before everything went silent, there was laughter.
* * *
"Talk, or I will kill you." Thad was trying his hardest not to give in to his desires, a fact not lost on Kristin.
Though she admired the restraint, the mercenary was right: they needed answers and needed them now. That’s when Kristin got an idea. "Mia, I need you to get something for me."
"Now?"
Kristin looke
d from Mia to the storage cylinders and then back to her. "Yes. Right now."
Mia retrieved a small cylinder and filled it. As she neared Thad, the pink goo began to bubble violently.
Thad clued in on the plan, using his knife to encourage the scaly alien to look at it as well. "Do you know what that is?"
The alien shook his head.
"Neither do I, really. I do know it that doesn't like me, and it's not going to like you any better. But, it does like her. It'll do whatever she asks it to do. I'm inclined to see if she can make it eat you. What say you, Captain?"
Kristin looked at Mia, who was as confounded as she was. "I think… maybe the hands first?" She tried to sound convincing as her nausea returned.
Mia uncapped the canister and slowly poured the frothing goo onto the man's right hand. It bubbled as made contact, becoming more agitated with each passing second.
"You feel that?" Thad asked with a menacing grin. "That's the material slowly eating your flesh. But you don't feel any pain, do you? That's because it numbs the nervous systems as it does it work. That makes it easier to feed… on live prey." He turned and looked in the direction of the man's hand. "Oh, I think I see a little bone popping out now," then turned back to face the alien. "It won't be long now."
"I'll talk, I'll talk!" the man cried and half-gurgled. "Just make it stop!"
Thad gripped the man's jacket. "Who are you?"
The man was sobbing, so his speech was labored. "My name… name is Wenjit… Wenjit Seevo."
Quinn started typing at his computer. "Is there a 'j' in there somewhere?"
Seevo was trying to flick the goo from his hand. "It's mostly silent."
Thad put a knee over Seevo's forearm, stopping the movement. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Seevo. Now, who do you work for?"
"By the Great Slugs of Jongle, make it stop!"
"In a minute, I will." He looked at the hand, then back to Seevo. "Better talk fast, it's already got one whole finger down to the bone."
"Fine. Fine! I work for… Cin! Cin Trahl!"
The name made Kristin step back in shock. It can't be. There's no way.
Thad tightened his grip. "Don't lie to me. Cin Trahl is dead. Who do you really work for? Talk fast, or learn to write left-handed."
"I work for Cin Trahl! I do! He's alive. Here. On this planet."
"And what is he doing here? Collecting retirement? He must be over a hundred."
Mia poured more liquid onto Seevo's wrist, which began to bubble immediately.
Though he felt no pain, the man screamed regardless. "It's a weapon! He's got a weapon. An old pirate one."
"What kind of weapon?"
"I don't really know. I'm just… a deckhand."
"This weapon, is that how all those ships crashed on the surface?"
He shook his head rapidly. "Not sure. Maybe. Trahl only tested it a few times."
"A few? There's more than a dozen ships here on the surface, man. Don't try to play us."
"We haven't been here that long. Some of these ships were here before we got here. They'd been here… a long time. Some of our crew thinks Trahl knows all about them, but he won't say nothin' to nobody. Keeps telling us to work hard, to get the ship ready."
"Ready for what?" Mia asked.
"Ready to take off. To leave."
Kristin knelt beside the man. "You mounted this weapon to a ship."
The man shook his head and sobbed. "The ship is the weapon. The weapon is the ship. But the ship's broken. In the cave. We needed parts to make it go. More than we had. More than we could get."
Kristin nodded. "That's why they crashed the ships into the surface."
“Lured them in with faulty distress calls,” Seevo babbled. “Fake life sign readings.”
"And their crews?” Kristin asked, trying not to look at the ooze.
“Killed the ones that resisted, imprisoned the rest. On the ship. In the brig.”
Thad held his knife to Seevo's throat. "And this ship of yours, what name does it go by?"
In a moment of clarity, Seevo stopped shaking and stared directly into Thad's eyes. "The Calton…the Lady Calton."
Thad released his hold of Seevo's jacket, causing the man to fall flat on his back. "That's not possible."
Wenjit Seevo rolled slowly to the side, then looked at his hand. Other than being covered in pink, bubbling goo, it was otherwise wholly undamaged. "You lied to me! You son of a—"
But a right-hook from Kristin silenced the remained of the curse. "That's enough of that, I think." She turned to Thad while rubbing her bruised knuckles. "The Lady Calton… do you think… I mean, could it really be—?"
Thad leaned back on his haunches. "I don't see how, unless it's a ghost."
Mia scooped up the goo from Seevo's hand and the deck. "What do you mean 'ghost'?"
"And who's this Cin Trahl character?" Quinn asked.
"The Lady Calton is a pirate ship… was a pirate ship," Kristin reflected. "One of the most dangerous in known space."
"And one of the most profitable," Thad corrected.
Mia's eyes lit up. "Profitable?"
"Fifty years ago," Thad added. "Just after one of the biggest pirate raids in Beta Sector history, she was reported lost… somewhere near the Lukidian Sargasso with all hands, if I remember correctly."
Kristin retrieved some rope and secured Seevo's webbed hands behind his back. "Or the Helvia Pulsar, or Averna, or the Epsilon Tiranan nebula… depending on what legend you believe." Once Seevo was secured, she sat on a nearby crate. "And to answer your question, Quinn, Cin Trahl was the Lady Calton's first officer. If the stories are true."
It was at that moment that the back-up communications terminal rang. Quinn moved over to the far side of the cargo bay and opened the message. A holographic image of a large ship docked in what looked like a cave rotated a few meters from the deck. "It's from Alasdair,” he confirmed. “Maybe he's still alive."
Mia dumped the small canister of goo back into the storage container. "Is that the Lady Calton?"
Kristin studied the image intently. It’s possible. What a find that would be! But that’s not what this mission about. This is about Bobby and, now, Alasdair. So, first things first. We’ll worry about the spoils later. "I think it's time we found out. But first, there's something I need to do. The rest of you get the Rose ready for takeoff."
Chapter 20
The beating of his heart was the first thing he became cognizant of. As Alasdair slowly came to, he noticed that he was again in unfamiliar surroundings. Gone were the pipes and the humidity, replaced by rows of lit controls and cool but stale air. The drugs that’d been forcibly administered were wearing off, but left him groggy and standing on unsteady legs. Beneath his feet, he felt the familiar hum of drive engines pushing power through veins of conduits and cables.
“Yes, you’re on a ship,” a voice said from behind a chair. When the seat pivoted, a middle-aged human with a striking red beard locked eyes with Alasdair. “My ship.”
Alasdair noted a thick scar on the man’s face, as well as numerous tattoos on his barely covered chest and arms. “Seems a little drafty up here to be dressed like that. Maybe think about something with sleeves. I hear stripes are in this year.” From behind him, someone easily kicked out his legs, causing Alasdair to fall to his knees.
“Yes. I like you better that way, Alasdair.” the man in the chair seethed.
“You got a name, pal, or do I just call you scumbag?”
The red-bearded man stepped toward Alasdair and leaned down. “It’s captain, actually.”
“Captain Scumbag?”
The man looked at someone behind Alasdair, and immediately Pryce’s cheek was feeling the hard, unforgiving surface of the deck plate.
“You don’t recognize my face?”
Alasdair’s nose was being pushed so hard into the floor he feared he’d soon be able to see the next deck below. “Not really in a position to look at the moment.”
“Let him g
o.”
When Alasdair scrambled back to his knees, he gave the man a proper visual inspection. He didn’t look any more familiar than he had a moment ago, but Alasdair resisted the urge to say ‘scumbag’ again. “Can’t say that I do, but you do have the distinct countenance of a typical tosser.”
“My name is Cin Trahl. I’m captain of the Lady Calton.”
He’d heard of the ship, but not the man. “Some of that rings a bell. But I thought the Lady Calton was a myth?” Alasdair soon found his face and the deck meeting once again. When he pushed himself up, he found his nose had been bloodied.
“Pretty substantial for a myth, wouldn’t you say?”
Wiping the blood away with his sleeve, he hoped the flow would soon stop. “Quite.” He looked around, trying to take in as much information as he could. Most of the monitors were on and, while antiquated by modern standards, gave every indication the ship was preparing to depart. “Mind telling me what you want? I doubt seriously it’s to get pissed and sing a few ballads.”
“Nothing serious,” Trahl said. “I’m just curious why you’re here and where the rest of your team is.”
“Team?”
“Come now, Mr. Pryce. Don’t be shy. I know all about you. At least, I know what I need to.”
“Then you’ve got me at a disadvantage, mate, because I don’t know a bloody thing about you.”
Trahl reached down and single-handedly pulled Alasdair up and off his feet. “You’re right. I do.” Then he threw the man across the compartment and into the arms of two waiting thugs. “You are Alasdair Pryce, former intelligence officer for Dasyt Subsector Internal Security, stationed on the planet Arbrer. Your parents are Sir Grell and Lady Sylvia Pryce, people of some repute and wealth in the subsector and minor dignitaries in their own right, though I would emphasize the word ‘minor.’ You were excommunicated from Internal Security due to an unfortunate gambling habit and, amongst other things, an overall disrespect of authority.” He turned and smiled coldly, “Something my men and I can well understand. Because of this, you have no job, no family, no credits, and no influence. Not even any friends.” He stopped, then sat down in his chair again. “Well, you did have one friend, am I right?”
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