He stood up while the Teladi watched with half-opened snout. "Captain Loanises, I thank you for your hospitality. You are somewhat right with your assumptions, but I am not prepared to pay an exorbitant price for the repair of my ship, as by doing so at best I would only gain a few extra hours on the Argon rescue team heading our way.
The Teladi jumped up from the bench. "A few stazuras, which could mean life or death for you!" he hissed angrily.
"Are you threatening me?" asked Kyle, worried now that the situation was suddenly getting out of hand. He checked, there were nothing more than just a few tables and benches between him and the exit.
"Oh no, revered Captain Kyliam Brennan, far be it from me! But your spacecraft has announced its arrival in this part of space with a strong gravity wave and a firework of all different kinds of radiation. It is only matter of time until the Split or the Xenon arrive to investigate."
Kyle's thoughts raced. If he sat down again now, he'd implicitly confess his previous bluffing, thereby surrendering completely to the saurian's arbitrariness. But if he insisted on leaving the Phoenix he'd be done for in any case, no matter if he was found by the "Split" or the "Xenon" (whoever they were), or if he drifted in space alone until the last cubic metre of air and the last drop of water was consumed. He decided to put all his eggs in one basket. "Well, even if my comrades don't arrive in time – which I don't believe – the Split or Xenon would be as interested in my ship as you are, Captain."
"Tshh!!!"
Kyle could not interpret facial expression and gesture of the Teladi – but he would bet ten to one that they signified indecision. The Teladi flexed his right claw to reveal the webbing. "This is precisely the reason, oh Captain, why the Teladi Trading Corporation – the greatest financial power in the universe, mind you – has such a hard time outplaying the Argon federation! It's your stubbornness! Pure, illogical, Argon stubbornness!"
Kyle took a step towards the door. The Teladi snorted – this time helpless rather than aggressive – and said "Please Captain, we will find a way, to profit together from our situation." He pointed to the bench. "Would you like to sit down again? I have a proposal for you."
The small oblong plastic card in Kyle's palm was the same approximate size as the credit cards used on Earth for day-to-day money transfers. It was just a little thicker and almost square and it was much more beautiful than the plastic money he knew. There were shades of red pulsating irregularly through the dark green marble patterned background, making the ochre and black hieroglyphs dance a little. An optical illusion of course but an extremely effective one.
He was satisfied. For the 212.004 Credits, which the Teladi had transferred to Kyle's new credit card, he had allowed them to deep scan the X's every nanometre. There was nothing on the Earth prototype that could be a military secret – the only secret device was the jump-drive and that had been emergency separated. Naturally the Teladi did not know this – and Kyle hoped they would not find out before he'd put a few hundred thousand kilometres between them. Cautiously he put the credit card in his pants' leg pocket. What was more, right now, a Teladi construction troop was busy repairing the hole in the X's hull, mending the cabling, fixing laser and shields and providing Valerie with extensive local star charts. It was only the Argon's reputation that had made the Teladi Captain give in. The Teladi on one hand seemed desperate for any bit of information about the supposed new technology, but on the other hand didn't want to get into diplomatic trouble over it with those Argon, whom they seemed to be in a sort of love-hate relationship with.
Probably those Argons were descendants of the old Earth colonies that Valerie had predicted; matters looked much like it.
Kyle blinked and looked around. They had offered him a small cabin aboard the Phoenix, temporarily, and it was the strangest living room he'd ever encountered. There were no bunks, just several tables and benches of different heights. Either the saurians did not need any sleep or the hard benches were sufficient. Well, he had seen them crouching on them (it wasn't really "sitting" in any sense) – perhaps they also slept on them. Except for the white, clinical-seeming tables and benches, there was a flat video screen set diagonally into the panelling of the cabin wall, covered by a plate scored by the claws of the saurians. Surprisingly its control elements were inscribed with Latin letters that seemed to be either abbreviations or gibberish: "Wjasl", "Lunst", "Grulid". Kyle suspected the Teladi had adopted the human script as sorts of phonetic spelling for their own language.
Kyle wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead. As much as the lizards cared about clean, fresh air, the labouring air humidifier was not designed for the comfort of humans and the room was beginning to feel like a sauna and he had no idea how to switch it off.
Suddenly a shrill tone blared, which Kyle took to be a warning signal. At the same time white lights blazed and the cabin door hissed open to show Teladi scurrying along the passageway in a hectic but organized manner. Alarmed, he jumped up and stepped outside.
"What is going on?" he called to a Teladi running past.
"Wosshmak gshashh Shhenon!" called the saurian without stopping. It was not Japanese, it was Teladian. Kyle didn't understand a single word.
The X – he had to get to his craft, immediately!
Worried, he ran down the corridor trying to remember the route back to his ship. He ran into no more saurians, confirming his suspicions. They were all at their posts, battle stations – and he was on his own. He stopped in a large oval room from which half a dozen corridors led. He looked around for markings that might be directions. "Ssolmak", said one inscription in Terran letters, "Huspil" was another. He decided to follow one corridor with the inscription "Fulmar"; its grey blue colour coding vaguely looked familiar. If he remembered rightly it was here Captain Loanises escorted him away from the hangar.
After less then a minute a light green door on the end of the corridor blocked his way. Bingo! He now remembered the colour clearly. This had to be the entrance to the hangar. He searched the frame for controls but he could not see any buttons, sensors or anything resembling them. He squatted down to inspect a little rise in the frame just a few centimetres up from the floor. A foot-level sensor or control? Kyle pressed the button. It resisted firmly but in the end started to move and the door opened slowly upwards.
Kyle didn't bother to get back on his feet again; instead he simply rolled trough the widening gap and finally found himself in the hangar where the Earth Experimental Shuttle still stood. The big hole in its bow underneath the cockpit had gone but he did not have the time to examine the repairs more closely because the airlock of the Shuttle started to open. Valerie must have seen him coming he guessed and Kyle jumped the metre up into the lock.
"Valerie, status. Brief!" he shouted while both air lock doors closed behind him. He almost tripped over something on the way to the cockpit.
"Repairs of all systems finished. Operational readiness: 116%. No other information is available."
As Kyle slumped into his pilot seat, the little video monitor on the console lit up and Ussandroos Melomilas Loanises, Captain of the Teladi Phoenix appeared. "A squadron of Xenon approaching. Hangar doors will open. Good luck."
The picture darkened and the same moment Kyle's instruments indicated gravity in the hangar was diminishing. The hangar doors, on which Kyle's ship had been parked, swung slowly out and open, revealing the blackness of space. They hadn't bothered to decompress the hangar properly; the air froze into white snowflakes that wafted around the X as it fell into the vacuum.
Not too far away Kyle observed three points of light approaching in formation, on swords of blue flamed exhaust. The Teladi must really fear the Xenon to throw him to the wolves just to save their own hides! And most likely they were absolutely right in doing so…
"My heroes!" mocked Kyle, strangely enough more amused than angry. A short glance above told him that the hangar doors about him were already closing again.
The shuttle shuddered as a blue ene
rgy pulse hit the shields. Fortunately the extreme range of the shot meant most of the energy dissipated before impact. He did not wait for a second blast. He wouldn't let Valerie take control over the ship – never would he place his life in the "hands" of a machine, if he had a choice! Ignoring the warning lights flashing all over the cockpit, he targeted what appeared to be a jump-gate on the radar and hit the accelerator. Just for an instant the inertia dampeners could not cope and the full force of the acceleration hit Kyle like a punch in the face, the chest, his whole body. As he screamed the Podkletnov Aggregates cut in and the powerful M/AM engines began accelerating the ship.
The Phoenix banked to port, her main engines blazing as the shuttle came up to full speed. The X seemed to be faster than the Xenon ships that appeared smaller again as they fell behind. Kyle began to think of his next steps. He had never flown through a jump-gate – naturally not since Earth didn't have one for centuries now – but he assumed it would function just like his jump-drive. Only perhaps a little more reliably.
The big question was what would be waiting for him on the other side?
He took in the fuel gauge. Another forty, perhaps forty two hours at full power – then the engines would cut. He'd be drifting in space helplessly, easy pray for anyone. His pursuers would catch him, no matter how great a distance he was able to put between them until then.
One thing was for sure, he had to think of something, and fast.
CHAPTER 15
Therefore the Xenon are better than the Boron: they fight grim and hard. And they are not so unduly friendly, when one opens fire on them!
Thi t'Ggt
First Warrior of the Honh Family
"Inanias", insisted the computer, "My name is Inanias, not Inanisas!"
"I'm sorry, Inanisas, I don't think I'm totally with it today. What's your full name?"
"Inanias VVVMMCCCLXXVI. No predecessor, no previous model or series - but a whole many egg-brothers identical in construction. And my name is Inanias, not Inanisas."
"I beg your pardon."
"Really no problem at all, oh Captain Nipoleos", the on-board computer snapped.
Nopileos blew his nostrils and snorted loudly. Wasn't it enough, that he himself was a know-it-all? A tiny box of a computer that counted keystrokes was the last thing he needed now!
The young Teladi let his eyes wander to the gigantic transparent dome that covered the bridge of the ship he had named Nyana's Fortune. For two Tazuras now, the unending void of space had stretched out over his head. Myriads of stars glittered coldly, like tiny splinters of diamond on black velvet, softly veiled in the colourful, elegant swirls of the opulent nebulae, for which this sector of space was justifiably famed. It seemed like he was freefalling in space.
Nopileos felt terribly alone.
He had never been so far away from his egg-brother yet, his teachers – yes, even his detestable classmates for so long. What wouldn't he give at this moment for a stazura of profit science class with lecturer Wohalimis! Or see the indignant expression on Sissandras' face, when once again, despite his lack of attention, Nopileos could answer the teacher's questions without any apparent effort. And finally, what wouldn't he give for the beautiful, sunny stazuras spent on the roof of the egg hatchery, with a reading slate in one claw, and a sense of yearning in his hearts. The dark sand up there would now simply flatten out again and hide all trace that a Teladi had ever been so daring as to have climbed up out there. Except if his egg-brother carried on the tradition of course, but he wasn't placing any bets.
Nopileos sighed. The Nyana's Fortune was a marvellous and discreetly efficient ship. It came equipped with all imaginable creature comforts, housed within a pleasingly calm and elegant, rather than a crass and decadent design. The middle three decks were equipped for a variety of functions. There was even a medium-sized swimming pool amongst the other recreational facilities and the on-board computer was quite capable of holding its end of a conversation if Nopileos took it seriously. Nevertheless – homesickness gnawed at his innards, a feeling he had never known before and would probably not have even been able to name until now.
But shortly the Nyana's Fortune would dock with the main trade station in sector Teladi Profit and he would fill up her storage bays before he followed the invitation sent by the Queen of Boron – or rather, before he followed the Ceos' order. The old warhorse Ceo Isemados and Director Sibasomos would have taken precautions, Nopileos was sure of that. They would be constantly apprised of his whereabouts and activities. His freedom was merely borrowed, and whether he would ever be able to buy, steal or scam it back, it was written unbeknownst to him in the stars.
And yet, a spark of hope still burned in the back of his mind. Although he wasn't practiced in the arts of intrigue, deception and lies, he should be able to find a way of getting out of this involuntary stint as a secret agent, but he'd have to rack his scales about it later because outside in space he could see a silhouette, an object of some sort coming slowly, perceptibly closer.
Nopileos' neck started to hurt from looking upwards all the time, so he let the twin-axis pilot seat swing around until the main body of the ship lay behind his back and the centre of the giant glass dome was right in front of him. The convex window was so immense that it filled his entire field of view and the illusion of running free in space was real enough to make him tremble. All of a sudden, however, the distracting thoughts were gone. It was the Trading Station.
"Yatta!" he cried with delight as it grew larger and larger, close enough for him to be able to make out the details. The station High Finance was a large, Teladi wheel design, solid, massive and confidence-inspiring as she rotated slowly and majestically about her hub. It was far more cost efficient to produce gravity by rotation, instead of artificially, and since a mild coriolis effect couldn't confuse the Teladi sense of equilibrium, the engineers of the company preferred this style of construction.
This sector of space was by no means empty, a multitude of spaceships of different kinds swarmed around the trade station like insects around a streetlight. A single, giant Boron transporter cast off and accelerated away with slow dignity, passing close enough for Nopileos to pick out hull markings. All the other ships were circling in holding patterns, docking or setting vectors at high speed towards a jump-gate. They were all, from Nopileos' vantage point, no more than small, featureless points, dimly lit by the tiny, distant sun.
As he entered the High Finance's traffic-control zone it transmitted an approach trajectory, a gentle curve etched on the gravidar screen. He should, he knew, reduce speed and contact the space traffic controller. Naturally Inanias was fully capable of carrying out these manoeuvres by himself, but Nopileos was, for his age, quite a good pilot, and he loved the feeling of the accelerator in his claws. It was a feeling only a few Teladi would understand, but that didn't bother him. With a quick movement of the hand, he set the automatic pilot to manual and shoved his right arm into the hydraulic steering shaft up to its elbow. The very moment his hand grasped the Teladi equivalent to a flight yoke placed within the hydraulic steering shaft, the gravidar's display flared in warning of an object visible as a clearly defined point of light, moving on an oblique intercept course. In the same instant a collision alarm blared and the defence shield came on to full power with a ghostly flash outside the cockpit window.
The approaching ship was moving at such speed it had escaped detection until it was in immediate range. Before Nopileos could recover from the instant shock, the gravidar identified the oncoming ship as a Split destroyer of the Python Class and the Split pilot's image loomed on the communications display. His eyes were just angry slits, his accent thick with scorn and heavy with displeasure.
"Creature be gone from our path of approach, now!"
"Battle alert!" cried the on-board computer and flashed the words in blinking grey on the status display for emphasis. The destroyer had activated its weapons and locked them on the Nyana's Fortune. Nopileos silenced the alarm and cleared
the screen. He wasn't blind or deaf!
Without being asked, Inanias opened a rear projection window in the middle of Nopileos' field of view. The sight of the sleek warship's glowing purple weapons towers drained the blood from the young Teladi's scale plate as it approached at breakneck speed. Then its engines blazed brightly as it decelerated, with just a few kilometres left between the two ships.
"Egg salad!"
He couldn't defend himself, should the Split fire on him, because the Ceos' yacht had no weapons at all, not even the tiniest of asteroid lasers. The "battle alert", as the computer called it, would be a bad joke, if only the situation wasn't so deadly serious! He had to rely totally and completely on the Argon energy shield, the one Alindreos in the wharf had said was all but impenetrable. He hoped the shipbuilder hadn't exaggerated in his enthusiasm. Would 125 MW be enough for the Nyana's Fortune to be safe from a Python destroyer's weaponry?
"Evasive manoeuvres!" Nopileos commanded as he withdrew his claws from the controls. While Inanias took care of that he would try to reason with the Split. The on-board computer acknowledged the instruction.
Exactly why the destroyer took the same approach trajectory to the station as the yacht at such an insane pace he wasn't sure. The Split weren't exactly known as the most logical members of the Commonwealth and to try and have a rational argument with them, when they had something stuck in their heads, was almost useless. Still he activated the communications system anyway.
Farnham's Legend: The beginning of the X-Universe saga (X Games Book 1) Page 10
