by Chris Ward
‘Your publicly available course records show an about-turn,’ the officer said, and Caladan winced, having forgotten to either turn the log off or scramble it. ‘Did you forget something?’
Jake shook his head. ‘We were presented with a hostile situation. Bandits, I believe. We decided it was better to return our valuable cargo to its owner rather than risk its acquisition by undesirables.’
‘Noble,’ the officer said. ‘And what is your cargo?’
‘Starship parts.’
‘Which can be easily inspected?’
‘Of course.’
‘Let’s go.’
Jake fell in beside the patrol officer with the two guards still flanking him. Caladan hobbled along behind as best he could until they reached a robot cart which sped them across the hangar and through a series of corridors to the main cargo bays.
Neither he nor Jake had any clue what was inside the bays, but at the entrance to the nearest, the cart pulled up. Jake used a stolen ID code to open the doors, and he waved the group inside.
The small room contained a pallet in the center, fixed to the floor with a series of braces.
‘Ah,’ Jake said, feigning surprise. ‘I’m afraid I made a mistake. This is the wrong hold. Allow me to show you to the correct one.’
‘Wait,’ the patrol officer said. ‘What do you have here?’
Jake eased himself between the officer and the pallet. ‘Ah, nothing,’ he said, giving a nervous laugh. ‘Just something unimportant. Nothing to see here.’
The officer pushed him aside and advanced. The box’s upper surface had been broken open, and three bottles of the precious liquid already removed and drunk. Caladan felt a terrible weight on his chest at the thought of giving up so much whiskey.
‘This is contraband alcohol,’ the officer said, turning around.
‘We have all the papers.’ Jake pulled a tablet out of his pocket and peered at the screen. ‘Oh… it looks like I’ve made another mistake. The documentation appears to have been deleted during a systems upgrade. Oh, what a fool I am.’ He shook his head. ‘Without the relevant documentation, we can’t possibly continue to carry this whiskey. Captain, could I ask a terrible favor? Would I be able to transfer this cargo to your ship, so it could be placed in quarantine? I trust your authority to ensure this happens without fail.’
The patrol officer stared at Jake for a long time. Caladan started to sweat, worried they’d encountered the only incorruptible patrol officer in the known galaxy. At last the patrol officer gave a slow nod.
‘It would be my duty to ensure that happens,’ he said, eyes still hovering slightly above Jake’s face. ‘After all, I couldn’t allow a free trader to receive punishment for a simple mistake.’
‘Your kindness is exemplary,’ Jake said.
A pair of maintenance droids loaded the shipment on to the cart and they sped back to the hangar and the waiting patrol ship.
Caladan glared at the whiskey, his anger rising as he watched several Earth-days of blissful escape being handed over. Jake was a student of the seemingly mythical Stillwater; he didn’t care about a crate of liver-shredding Earth-style booze.
At the ramp leading up into the patrol ship’s hold, however, the officer and his guards paused. One of the guards leaned close, whispering something into the patrol officer’s ear.
The man looked up. His brow furrowed, muscles in his forehead standing out. ‘My sergeant here has made an interesting request,’ the patrol officer said. ‘He would like me to order an inspection of the crew.’
Jake shook his head. ‘I’m afraid they’re busy at their posts,’ he said. ‘Disturbing them would set us back much time.’
‘Oh, but I insist,’ the patrol officer said.
Caladan looked from Jake to the patrol officer. Jake had carried out his charade with commendable effectiveness, but the guard had smelled something … or not.
Karpali were known for their strong sense of smell. Tolgier were known for their body odor, something Jake couldn’t mimic.
‘I can’t order that,’ Jake was saying. ‘I can pass you a log of our registered crewmen—’
‘No, I’m afraid that won’t be satisfactory.’
The patrol officer clicked his fingers. Caladan pulled his blaster at the same time as the Karpali’s rifles came up, but as he tried to aim, his shaky legs folded beneath him. He went down hard, cannon fire lacing through where he had been standing. As he hit the ground, his elbow jarred, and he fired into the group.
The nearest guard took a direct hit, opening a hole in his chest. The second took a glancing blow, blowing off two arms on his right side. He dropped two of his three guns, but the third swung toward Caladan.
The officer reached for a radio, but Jake leaped at him. In other circumstances Caladan might have laughed as Jake bounced off the flexing ball of muscle. The officer barely flinched, turning and kicking Jake in the stomach. He waved at the guard to blast what he thought was the senior officer, but Caladan was too quick, pulling his blaster around and shooting off the guard’s foot.
The officer might have got a shot off, but the howling guard fell against him, knocking his gun hand down. Caladan fired into the officer’s midriff then finished off the second guard.
As the hangar fell silent again, he crawled over to Jake and helped the journalist to sit up. ‘That was messy,’ Caladan said.
Cleaning droids were already appearing from compartments in the walls, alerted by the ship’s ultra-sensitive air systems. Caladan watched as they slid across the floor, collected the bodies and then cleared the blood and gore away. ‘I have an idea,’ he said. ‘Don’t get excited, though. It’s a simple one.’
They returned to the bridge, where Lump was waiting. The monstrosity lifted an eyebrow and cocked his head.
‘Your father has just been a hero,’ Jake said. ‘He saved my life yet again.’
Lump grinned, but Caladan waved a hand at them both. ‘Don’t set him off,’ he said to Jake. ‘Get our cannons trained on those two ships. Move them slowly. I don’t want them to know anything until they’re in pieces.’
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
‘Raise the power in the thrusters. My guess is that captain went off the grid. It’s not unusual, but we need to be ready to move in case there’s some goody-goody on one of those two ships waiting to score a few ass-kiss points.’
‘That made almost no sense.’
‘On three, incinerate them. Three.’
Jake fired. A volley of cannon fire blasted out of the trader’s side and slammed into the two waiting patrol ships. Caladan watched on the screen as they disintegrated.
‘Wow, that was spectacular,’ Lump said.
Caladan rolled his eyes. ‘Like a summer festival. Get the ship in the hangar put into the trash compactor,’ he said. ‘Jettison it with the rest of the trash, and let’s get out of here.’
‘Won’t someone in Galanth’s central command be watching us?’ Jake said.
Caladan shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. Galanth isn’t just some itty-bitty space station. It’s split into sectors leased by over a thousand different shipping and trading companies. Sure, there’s a high command that thinks they’re in control of all that, but I can assure you, they’re not even close.’
‘So, what do we do?’
‘We get in among the traffic, send out a few scrambled transmissions to confuse anyone who might be listening, then find somewhere quiet to dock until we can find what we’re looking for.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Someone as shamelessly criminal as us, willing to sell us something they really shouldn’t.’
Nine Earth-hours later, with the trader docked at an abandoned shipyard deep in a crevasse in Galanth’s metal surface, Caladan left Jake and Lump on the ship and took a shuttle into the central core. Emerging from hundreds of miles of haphazard metal, he found himself in a dazzling zone of color and technological sophistication, a hundred atmosphere domes
and spheres all linked by metal tubes. Some were simple pleasure domes, others were working factories or farms, yet more simulated environments for the many thousands of workers who inhabited the metal planet.
As soon as he had found his way into a dome with breathable air, he headed for the one place he knew he would find information: the gambling district.
No one ever trusted a one-armed man because there was usually a reason for the other arm to be missing, but with credits pilfered from the traders’ onboard accounts, he was able to play to lose for once.
Having gambled away enough to buy a couple of space shuttles, he found himself lamenting his table-rustiness at a bar between two filthy parts traders, one human, the other a tall Tolgier.
‘My friend, if you need work, I can find you something in my factory,’ one said. ‘We’re getting orders coming in from everywhere.’
‘Is that so?’ Caladan said. ‘I mean, I’d take payment in drink, surely. And I’d work hard. I’m happy for your increase in business. Is there any special reason?’
‘It’s the war,’ the trader, a man named Rill said.
‘What war?’
Rill rolled his eyes then patted Caladan’s shoulder. ‘What war, he says,’ he joked at the Tolgier, whose name was Den-Ar. ‘I mean, is there any other war anyone’s talking about?’
‘You mean the civil war in Trill System?’
‘Would I mean any other?’
Caladan grinned. He slammed his glass down on the bar, then swallowed the remaining local piss in one go. Shaking it at the bartender, he shouted, ‘More for my friends here! Hurry man, there’s a war on!’ As the drinks arrived, he looked at the other two men in turn. ‘Come on, you can’t think a war all the way over in Trill System has anything to do with Galanth,’ he said. ‘I mean, if anything, trade will be down.’
‘You’re new round here, aren’t you?’
Caladan shrugged. ‘Flew out of the pigsty that is Quaxar a couple of Earth-days ago. Still stinking of that hole. All the damn caterpillars they let breed over there.’
His companions sniggered. ‘Assholes should give each ship a complimentary spray down,’ Rill said.
They clinked glasses.
‘Tell me what’s with this boost in trade?’
Rill shrugged. ‘It’s all over. I’m getting parts orders from dozens of companies I’ve never traded with before. Start-ups. Companies ordering engine parts or internal systems, and you know what? Every single order is for military grade. Someone’s building an army and they don’t want anyone to know about it just yet.’
‘But you said the orders are coming from everywhere?’
‘Same over my way,’ Den-Ar said. ‘I hired some people to track down the origins of a couple of these companies I’ve had weapons parts orders from, and you know something?’
‘What?’
‘A dead end. Nothing. No venture capital, not even links to known bandits. Like they appeared out of the air. Which means one thing.’
‘What?’
‘They come from the government,’ Rill said. ‘Nowhere else can just drop capital on a name without there being a trail. The government is building an army.’
‘Why would that be unusual?’ Caladan asked. ‘Surely they have a space navy to maintain?’
‘Yeah, and I get orders from them all the time,’ Rill said. ‘This is an unofficial line working alongside the official one. They’re expanding, but they don’t want anyone to know. If they were simply building the system’s defense, why the secrecy?’
‘Why indeed?’ Caladan gave a hearty laugh to break the growing tension. ‘But who cares? Let’s drink.’
It was fun going back to his slovenly, drunken roots. Caladan stumbled through a couple of bars, then used some more stolen credits to buy a massage in a seedy hotel, only to fall asleep before getting anything for his money and wake up with no boots and his blaster gone. Luckily, he’d hidden a credit chip in a tiny skin pouch on his shoulder stump which he used to buy replacements. Then, after briefly checking in with Jake on the trader, he continued his mission for information.
Everywhere he went he heard the same. Business was up, when it should be down. Companies were seeing a heightened military presence and incoming traders had noticed higher concentrations of navy ships around outlying space stations and planets. Something was amiss in Phevius System. It was giving the impression of building for an invasion without wishing to let its people know.
On the third day-cycle he finally chanced on what he had been looking for—a ships dealer with a container ship available for trade, one with a hold specifically designed for transporting highly radioactive material.
Through a contact met over a card game, he was given a time and a place to meet the dealer. Stumbling into what he at first thought was an off-worlder brothel, he found himself face to face with a ball of jelly in a hovering basket surrounded by a group of—he assumed—scantily clad off-worlders all stroking the ball with a fine-haired brush.
‘You’re the smuggler, are you?’ came a crackly voice through a line of speakers in the basket’s front. ‘What happened to your arm?’
Caladan suppressed a frown. He hated dealing with Gorms. It was impossible to hold a meaningful conversation with something that early human settlers had harvested for soap products before belatedly realizing they were collecting and processing highly intelligent beings.
‘I lost it in a card game. Nice frame. Business going well?’
‘Booming. Up fifty-percent. Feels like I have half of Galanth wanting something unregistered they can escape in. Why are you interested in the barge?’
‘Need to escape with something too hot to touch,’ Caladan said. ‘Literally.’
‘And what are you escaping from?’
‘The same as everyone else. All of it.’
A loud laugh came from the speakers. Caladan felt an urge to strike the Gorm with a rock.
‘You’re a liar. You’re not from Phevius System. I can see it in your eyes. Which system do you align with?’
‘Our ship flies under the banner of—’
‘I don’t care about that. You. What about you?’
‘What does it matter?’
‘I need to know we’re on the same page.’
‘I fly under no banner. I trade free.’
‘Then we can do business. My name is Boz. You?’
‘Caladan.’
‘You have money?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. You’ll need a lot of it.’
‘I want to see the ship first.’
‘As you like.’
Boz’s floating basket could fly far faster than Caladan could walk, so they shared a motorized air taxi to the Gorm’s shipyard. With so many traders and companies overlapping, it was impossible for Caladan to tell which ships hovering above them, attached to the surface by fuel lines like giant umbilical cords, belonged to Boz. As they moved beneath them though, the Gorm would say, ‘That’s mine… and that one… don’t know what that’s doing there … that bastard from next door needs to move that one…,’ providing a running commentary without ever indicating to which ship he referred. At the end of a mile-long platform lined with huge workroom doors large enough to have housed three or four Matilda’s stacked on top of one another, the Gorm called for the moto-taxi to stop.
‘Ah, there she is. The Raging Fire. She’s been on my books for twenty Earth-years. Not much interest in carrying specialist goods. Everyone wants multi-purpose traders like that thing you’re flogging off.’
Caladan gave an appreciative nod. Floating in gravity-less space a few hundred meters beyond the glass dome, the ship was a two-hundred-meter-long phallic rectangle with two massive thrusters at its rear. A few token defensive cannons lay scattered across its surface, but it was designed for a single purpose: to safely transport highly radioactive technology through the hazards of stasis-ultraspace.
‘Does it fly? I’ll need to see what paperwork you have.’
&n
bsp; ‘You’re welcome to inspect it. You’ll find everything in working order, which, for what you have to trade, is the best you can hope for.’
‘I have a bulkhead trader in perfect—’
‘Which flew out of Galanth nine Earth-months ago registered under a different captain and crew. So, fly-boy, you take what I’m offering, or you prepare to get busy.’
Caladan took a deep breath, steadying his anger. ‘You have a deal.’
31
Lia
Loam was a glowing ball surrounded by high-durability synthetic towers that rose into the lower atmosphere, like a giant pincushion made from fire. One of the most volatile known fire planets, its surface was uninhabitable and the only mining operations worked from space. Lia viewed a video history of the fire planet on the far outer reaches of Phevius System, a world which was lit only by its own internal volatility, but one that offered a quarter of the system’s naturally occurring trioxyglobin supply.
Steer, the third of its four moons, had the most agreeable atmosphere for settlement but was still nothing more than a dark ball of ice and rock. Tunnels bored beneath its surface and massive bio-domes housed its few ragtag cities, while a scaffolding mess of orbiting space stations housed most of the off-duty mine workers from the nearby fire planet.
Far from Phevius System’s center, Loam and its moons were uncomfortably close to a wormhole out of the stricken Trill System and therefore had become a hotspot for refugees. As Lia approached the moon’s airspace, she activated a blanketing transmitter sequence using codes she had learned in the GMP to mask her arrival. Still able to pick up incoming transmissions, she discovered that all spacecraft out of Trill System were required to register with the moon’s acting ministry. Failure to do so would result in immediate imprisonment or even the downing of their ship.
The transmission she’d received from her mother led her to the far side of the moon, into a black chasm which received only the faintest light from the distant Phevius star every two hundred and ten Earth-days. Lia steered the ship through massive stone stacks carved by ancient, vanished glaciers, following the transmission into a cave system deep inside the moon’s core. As she set the ship down on a gravel bed, she checked the outside air temperatures.
