The Dana Cartwright Series:
Mission Three
KAL-KING-CORRECTED 8-7-13
by
Joyz W. Riter
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictionally. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 Joyz W. Riter
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1490360713
ISBN-10: 1490360719
FOR:
Kellie, Guppy, Corwin and Aliera
Lady Pamela
&
Dame Marilyn
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
“Tonnertown Control to Ambassadorial shuttle, Seraph, you are clear for landing…VFR.” The feminine, android voice came over the communications earpiece.
Captain Dana Cartwright acknowledged curtly into her COM unit, “Seraph, aye,” as her fingers moved over the piloting console on the bridge of the Blade Class Alphan shuttle. “I have visual.”
The spaceport filled the forward view screen, spreading out before her like a giant spider web with a labyrinthian, modern city of towers and spires just beyond. Travel texts called Tonnertown an “oasis” amid rust-colored sand dunes. Well, that certainly summed it up, except for the warnings to avoid high levels of ultraviolet light exposure on the sizzling, arid planet — third from a hot, main-sequence star.
A random thought crossed Cartwright’s mind. Why would Ambassador Taurian want to spend seven days here? And without a security detail? It’s not exactly a sightseeing paradise.
A private pilot was rarely privy to the reasoning of paying passengers; and this passenger in particular was atypical. Since she’d become the captain of the Ambassador’s personal shuttle, Seraph, Dana had only once landed at one of the big, orbital space docks — his preference, not hers.
The Tritian Elder always mapped out the route; her job was to get him there safely, all expenses paid.
Dana made a mental note to have the ship refueled and serviced here, since their next port-of-call was the Republic Station at The Crossroads. Tonnertown could do the job far more quickly, and they could avoid the invasive crush during the Great Conference, twelve days hence.
Ambassador Taurian puttered about aft, tearing open luggage and crates, apparently searching for something elusive.
Cartwright called, “We’re on approach, Mister Ambassador. You should strap in for landing.”
“Oh, yes…in a moment,” he muttered, bent over a case, “just retrieving my solar cloak. Can’t take exposure to the sun here at Tonnertown. You’ll be needing one, as well. Be sure to purchase it here at the spaceport. In the marketplaces, they overcharge for everything, especially imported goods. Please remember to wear no insignia when out and about. Better not to attract attention, if at all possible.” He chuckled, adding an afterthought, “Although, with your beautiful hair and youthful figure, you certainly will, my dear, but for other reasons.”
Dana blushed, though she joined him, laughing and promising, “I can handle that sort of attention, sir.” Her thick, waist-length braid of cinnamon hair undulated like a snake along her shoulders as she nodded her head and sighed.
He went on, still seeking, “I’ve booked a suite at the big resort, and have reserved a ground vehicle and, also, engaged a local driver. You have full privileges; don’t be ashamed to indulge a bit. I have some meetings scheduled with the spaceport commissioner and a few of the other ambassadors when they arrive. T-town frowns upon point-to-point MAT transfers, except for emergencies, however, the public vehicles and transportation are efficient.”
A lot of worlds had the same restrictions, although visiting ambassadors usually received preferential treatment, and their staff enjoyed the same options.
Cartwright shrugged. “You’ve been here before then?”
“Oh, yes, lots of times, for lots of reasons. T-town collects an eclectic variety of visitors. It’s a good place to hear the rumblings of the underworld, so to speak. You’ll meet all sorts after dark. Be careful. They don’t take kindly to concealed weapons; however, you are covered as a member of my staff.”
Dana patted her thigh-high, left boot where a sheath secured an exclusive, Sterillian dagger.
He apparently noticed the gesture and counseled, like a protective father, “Don’t use it but in self-defense.”
“Aye, sir.”
“T-III uses a credit system. Charge everything to my suite at the resort. Should you need currency, they will handle the exchange for you at the front desk, up to a limit of one thousand credits. Anything more than that needs to go on a card, or they become suspicious.”
He kept digging.
Dana, having given the required warning, like a good flight steward, fasten seat-belts and stow all gear and all that — the standard warning that the Ambassador always ignored — focused on the approach.
In over two hundred take-offs and landings, he’d never once obeyed the caution warning. Dana guessed he wasn’t about to start now.
“Seraph, you are clear to Bay 17, inboard. Slow to impulse.”
“Roger, slowing to impulse for Bay 17,” Cartwright echoed, spotting the outer marker for Bay 95, routinely decreasing speed as the odd numbered bays sprawled out below.
A few big ships, mostly freighters and the like, dotted the higher numbered, open-air bays. Smaller ships, like Seraph, being very nimble, maneuvered easily in the tighter, inboard ones.
Dana switched to manual controls, disengaged impulse and engaged stationkeeping thrusters, coaxing the Alphan Blade Class shuttle to a very soft landing with little drift and little fanfare, barely kicking up a whirl of red dust on the landing pad.
While reaching for the switchboard to power down, Dana heard a deafening explosion. The percussive force slammed her hard from behind. The safety bar on the pilot’s chair failed to protect her from being hurled upward, onto the console, and with it, out the shattered forward view screen.
Cartwright writhed in agony, trapped, left leg severely fractured, every muscle screaming, before descending into unconsciousness under a blanket of hot sand and bent metal.
Debris and smoke quickly engulfed Bay 17. Fire extinguishing systems hissed, spraying foam to snuff out the flames.
CHAPTER TWO
Janz Macao stared at the nearest of his captors, approximating the man’s size under the body armor, but mostly staring at the humanoid’s mismatched — left blue and right brown — eyes. Though battered and bloody, the former Star Service Captain couldn’t help the smirk crossing his lips. What were the odds of meeting this man among the first group of mercenaries encountered? Impossible odds…truly… He whispered when the dozen or so others in the ca
rgo bay moved away from them, asking, “Are you December?”
The man looked very much like Novem, enough to be the brother of the human/Enturian/Galaxean tribrid, suffering from DNA mutations that crippled his hands and deformed his face, but his eyes…
“You have your father’s eyes.”
“I am Dec,” the man returned, squinting, full of suspicion.
“I know Novem,” Macao stated quietly, gaining only a minimal response.
“Know?”
“And I know January.”
That hooked him. Macao deliberated his next move.
Dec stared intently. “How does sokem know the January?”
Sokem was the Enturian word for prisoner. It made Macao’s back stiffen. He admitted, thinking fondly of the petite, young woman with her cinnamon hair and quick mind, “She is my friend.”
“The January is perfect.”
Janz nodded, assuring, “Oh, yes.” He waited.
Dec drifted closer; laser weapon pointed, but not threateningly.
“Novem is free. January took him with her to safety.”
Dec frowned. “Free? Novem is free?”
Janz Macao smiled and whispered, “Would Dec like to be free?”
“Dec is a slave. Novem is a slave.”
“Not anymore,” Macao said, shutting his eyes, feigning sleep. He desperately needed the real thing, but didn’t dare relax just yet. The Crazorians terrorized and interrogated him regularly, wondering how he’d managed to single-handedly steal one of their ships. In between beatings, they’d moved him from ship to ship, bound his wrists with a strange, braided rope that seemed to breathe, tightening and relaxing of its own accord. Becoming a prisoner of the mercenaries wasn’t exactly part of the plan; Macao hoped it would get him closer to the real sokem — the imprisoned ones — four Enturians that Novem hinted were prisoners for a very long time.
The Star Service Intelligence Division — SSID — needed intel on them and, if possible, he was to free them. Macao resisted the mission at first, but finally agreed to try. What more could a disgraced starship captain do to restore honor?
Just remembering the whole affair troubled him. Recriminations, self-doubt, self-immolation often followed. He’d been stupid to trust certain members of the Lancer crew. Someday he’d get over it; someday he’d resolve it all.
For now…
Dec poked him with the barrel of the laser rifle, and leaned in closer. “What is January?”
Macao opened his eyes. “Her given name is Dana. She was adopted by a medical doctor on Earth; she became a doctor, as well.”
“A doctor?”
“Aye…and a very good one…her specialty is…well, was…eyes.”
“Eyes?”
Janz winked, hoping it didn’t mean something lewd and unseemly in the slaver culture.
Dec mimicked the gesture and seemed to understand.
“She’s small and shapely,” Janz admitted, “with long, cinnamon hair down to here.” He indicated his middle. “She wears it braided mostly, but it’s very beautiful.”
Dec frowned. “What is January?”
“Well…she’s brilliant, and has an incredible memory, and…”
Dec poked him again. “What is January?”
Macao struggled to understand and then he picked up a telepathic sensation. “She’s free; she’s a Star Service lieutenant commander.”
Dec’s mismatched eyes widened. “Republic?”
Macao nodded.
“You, too?”
To admit it could prove very dangerous, so Janz Macao hedged his bets. “I was, but not anymore. Got into some trouble, so I quit.” That about summed it up.
Dec clearly did not believe him; he wasn’t sure what more could be said.
“Novem knows January?”
“Yes.”
“He is her slave?”
“No…no, nothing like that.” Janz detected jealousy, the first strong emotion the tribrid emitted since taking off the body armor helmet. Dec seemed intelligent, but had obviously been abused and browbeaten all his life. He clearly had no self-esteem beyond what holding a laser rifle generated.
Dec shut down when another slave brought him a plate of food and a jug. When the slave turned tail and moved farther away, he set the weapon aside, though within easy reach.
Since being taken prisoner, Macao received one bowl of mush a day, and a cup of an awful tasting liquid that made his insides spasm when he drank it. He guessed the liquid had a chemical added; perhaps containing a drug to keep him docile, but it didn’t make him sleepy.
Dec used a spoon, but ate only half of the portion on the plate before setting it aside. He nodded towards it, beckoning. Macao gladly crawled over to eat the rest.
Janz forced himself to go slowly, savoring every spoonful of the meat and gravy stew, licking the spoon, scraping the plate for every last morsel. “January is a vegan,” he commented quietly.
“What is vegan?”
“She eats no meat…nothing like this,” he indicated the plate.
“Why?” Dec motioned him to drink from the jug.
“Enturians are vegan. So are Galaxeans,” he said, taking a swig of pure, fresh water that tasted divine.
Dec frowned, “I am neither.”
“You are both, plus human. You and all of the twelve are tribrids.”
Dec stared, “Dec is imperfect. Only January is perfect.”
Macao had heard that mantra before from Novem. “Who told you that?”
“The King.”
“Crazor has a king?”
Dec shook his head, no. “The King…Kal-King.”
Macao blinked. He had no clue what Dec was talking about.
CHAPTER THREE
Unlike the meticulously conducted recoveries that Star Service Flight Investigation Teams conducted, the recovery on Tonner III was a horror movie. Dana drifted in and out of consciousness, catching glimpses that would haunt her for the rest of her days.
Two bulky, spider-armed aliens — she had no clue what race they were — dropped her on the deck of a hovercraft next to the stretcher with Ambassador Taurian’s badly burned and mangled body, for a horrendous flight to a medical center, with no decontamination or sanitization. An android-doctor took over; it hovered over her head, beeped, and tagged her for transfer to an emergency room.
There, an android-nurse and another android-doctor lifted her up onto a diagnostic bed, destroyed her clothing by cutting it all off, and confiscated the N-link she wore on a leather thong about her neck and the valuable Sterillian sheathed dagger from inside her boot.
Using archaic, pressure devices, they sutured her leg wound, and tended the fractured bones, while Dana watched in horror, fully awake and with only a local anesthesia. They strapped a splint-board onto her left leg to immobilize it, draped a sheet over her, and retreated from the cubicle for an undeterminably long time.
A spaceport investigator peered in from a viewport and began demanding answers to barely coherent questions.
Cartwright protested emphatically, “Didn’t crash on landing,” but it fell on deaf ears apparently.
The interrogator left when Dana refused to respond to further misrepresentations.
More time passed. The android-doctor returned to take scans of the leg. The pain levels increased as the local wore off. She suffered.
And then, the AD suggested amputation.
Cartwright snarled, “Barbarians! Nobody amputates anymore!”
The moment the AD vacated, she struggled to sit up, removed the splint, and wrapped the blanket round about her waist. Dana then slid off the diagnostic bed, easing her weight down onto her good, right leg. She nabbed the medical injector, searched for the Sterillian blade, gave up without finding it, and hopped, barefooted, quietly along the wall to the corridor to escape.
A humanoid male in the corridor pushed a maintenance cart overflowing with supplies. She flagged him down, begging for some clothing. He pointed to a storage closet.
Inside she found an array of orange, one-piece jumpsuits, the kind worn by the staff. She struggled into the smallest one she could find, secreted the injector in a pocket, grabbed a second jumpsuit as a spare, and then peeked back out into the corridor.
The same humanoid was there, this time pushing a very archaic, patient transfer chair, motioning her into it. It hovered a comfortable distance off the deck as he pushed to a lift and accompanied her down several corridors to the exit doors.
“Thank you,” Dana said in universal.
He shrugged. “I found this backpack in the trash. You can stuff things in it.”
Dana took the plain, black canvas bag, slid the spare jumpsuit in and with his help got shakily to her feet, hopping the few feet to a waiting robo-cab.
“Wait,” her savior called. He offered a plastic card and slid it into her hand. “Good for two trips. It can also be recharged.”
She thanked him again, as the clear, solar shield closed down over her.
The robo-cab controls activated once she plugged the card into the appropriate slot. A map appeared on the screen, listing landmarks. Though still on overwhelm, she had the presence of mind to remember that the Ambassador had prepaid for their stay at the big resort. Only one appeared among the landmarks, Wind-o-mar. She touched the map and set it as the destination.
The glaring sun was setting in the west as the robo-cab skirted the city towers and headed for a gleaming, copper building in the shimmering distance.
On the navigation screen, a list of other landmarks trickled by, mostly bars, restaurants, shops, and marketplaces. The robo-cab smoothly came to a stop at her destination, under an overhang that cast some welcomed shade. The solar shield opened, essentially ejecting her and her card at the same time. She thankfully pocketed the card, grabbed the backpack, and took a look around.
Ambassador Taurian’s taste tended to the most lavish accommodations his travel budget allowed. Wind-o-mar fit the six-stars category.
Dana Cartwright Mission 3: Kal-King Page 1
