At the Helm: A Sci-Fi Bridge Anthology (Volume 1)

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Ethan left the comms open and static hissed while he guided the Atton down. Land came swirling out of the yellow-orange clouds. The vegetation that was a deep, dusty purple, mingled with electric blues and fiery reds. At 500 meters he fired the grav lifts to slow the transport’s descent.

  The green diamond on the HUD led him to a clearing in the middle of a stalky forest of red-leafed, black-trunked trees. The clearing looked brown and muddy, like it might be a bog that would swallow his ship whole, but that was the landing site, so Ethan had to trust that these people wanted their stasis tubes in one piece. Ethan guided his ship down to the clearing, lowering it very slowly. Broad red leaves at the ends of glossy black branches seemed to wave at him as the Atton disturbed the nearest trees with the repulsive force of its grav lifts.

  The freighter settled down, but absent was the subtle jolt of landing struts meeting hard ground. Instead, the Atton came to a cushioned stop that Ethan didn’t feel at all. An uneasy feeling wormed through his gut. He revved the grav lifts to lift off again, but the Atton wouldn’t budge.

  Frek me, he thought, now noticing the subtle sheen of moisture on the top of the muddy brown flats where he’d settled down. So much for mission planning. He jacked up the grav lifts to full power. A loud whine filled the cockpit, and the Atton rose a few feet into the air, but that was where it stopped.

  “Come on girl, you can do it...” Ethan gritted out. The grav lifts were redlining and the Atton still refused to break free of the muck that had snared it. It’s going to take a detlor mine to blast me away from this Immortals-forsaken world.

  “Warning, heat levels critical,” came an automated voice from the ship’s computer.

  “All right!” Ethan shut down the grav lifts and the Atton sank bank into the mire.

  He sat back with a sigh and shook his head. His eyes dipped to the comm board. Still blank. Not a peep from the scientists who had ordered the stasis tubes in his hold. He was beginning to get suspicious.

  Why would a bunch of supposedly smart scientists hire him to bring a cargo of expensive medical equipment here, to the middle of a festering swamp, if they had no intention of even pitching up to greet their cargo when it arrived?

  He keyed the comm once more. “This is Ethan Ortane of the Atton. I’ve set down at Alpha Seven, does anyone copy?”

  Finally, a reply: “We’re on our way, Captain Ortane.”

  “Great. Maybe you could bring a grav crane while you’re at it. You ordered me to set down in a quagmire.”

  “Our apologies. We’ll be there soon.”

  Ethan’s cheeks bulged. “That’s it? I’m stuck here! Some help would be nice.”

  Once again static answered, and Ethan’s eyes narrowed on the comms. By now his instincts were all screaming at him. Something about this mission wasn’t adding up. Why order a freelancer to bring in a cargo of stasis tubes when one of the registered trading companies could do the same thing for less money? The mission rep had told him it was because of the high risk of piracy around Losk. That had made sense at the time—Losk was, after all, home to more criminals than law-abiding citizens.

  Which is exactly why it’s an unlikely location for a medical research lab. Why put your lab in the middle of a smugglers’ den?

  Ethan unbuckled his flight restraints and stood up. It was time to go check on his cargo.

  TWO

  Ethan stalked through the narrow aisle in the cargo bay, looking over the neatly stacked walls of blue plastiform crates. Each of them was marked in neon red with the words FRAGILE and THIS SIDE UP with arrows pointing. More text read: DO NOT OPEN. CONTENTS THE PROPERTY OF MEDI-CELL TECHNOLOGIES.

  Medi-cell. Ethan had never heard of it until he’d accepted this mission. Not that he spent his time cataloging the names of start-up companies. He reached the end of the rows of cargo crates and stared at the one sitting in front of him. The top of the crate was at eye level with him, and there were three more sitting below it. The entire cargo was one hundred and eleven crates, each of them numbered with the same neon red print. The crate he was staring at had the number 23 stamped on it.

  “All right twenty-three, let’s see what you’re hiding.” He stepped up to the crate’s control panel and keyed it to open. The keypad beeped out an error and the word locked appeared on the display. Ethan frowned. Why lock crates full of empty stasis tubes?

  He cast about the cargo hold, looking for something he could use to force the crate open. Beside the rear loading ramp was a utility locker where he kept useful things like cutting beams. Walking up to it, he opened the locker with a swish of his wrist over the keypad. Reaching inside, he grabbed a long-barreled cutting beam and slung it over his shoulder. He armed the rifle and checked its charge on his way back. The charge was low, but enough to cut open a plastiform crate.

  As soon as he reached the crate he pulled himself up on top of it and scrutinized the seals. A quick swipe with the beam across the hinges and the locking mechanism and it should pop open. Here’s hoping these crates aren’t stuffed with explosives, he thought as he raised the butt of the cutting beam to his shoulder and took aim down the sights to the first hinge. His finger tightened on the trigger and a brilliant gold beam erupted from the barrel with a hiss. The first hinge disappeared in a greasy puff of smoke. He repeated the process for the other hinge and then the locking mechanism.

  Ethan dropped to his haunches and slung the cutting beam over his back. “Time to see what we have here,” he said to himself. Stepping back off the crate onto the one behind it, he slowly lifted the freshly-liberated cover of crate number twenty-three.

  Inside, he saw the familiar blue-tinted transpiranium of a stasis tube. The tube was dark inside, and from the light in the cargo hold he could tell that it was empty.

  “I guess Medi-cell is above board after all.”

  Ethan’s calves began to burn, and he shifted his weight for a more comfortable position. The heavy cutting beam chose that moment to swing off his back and drop precipitously toward the transpiranium cover of the stasis tube. Ethan cursed and dropped the crate lid so he could steady the beam weapon. The lid fell inside the crate with a thunk of plastiform hitting transpiranium.

  Ethan reached inside the crate to lift the lid out again. As he did so, he noticed that the corner of the crate cover had seemingly disappeared, passing through the transpiranium cover of the stasis tube as if it were some sort of ghostly apparition.

  What?

  That was when he realized the trick. The crates were holo-shielded. Whatever was inside of them wasn’t what he was seeing at all—that was just a clever holo projection to mask the real contents.

  Ethan reached through the projection with a sick feeling of trepidation. What he felt on the other side was exactly what it looked like, but several centimeters recessed from the holo projection. There was the cold, smooth, cylindrical transpiranium of the stasis tube cover, the slightly warmer, angular surface of the duranium frame... and the beveled buttons of the control panel. Ethan’s fingers stopped questing there. Why would anyone hide a stasis tube with a projection of another one? It seemed like the stupidest ploy imaginable.

  Unless the real one isn’t empty.

  Dread seized him with that thought. What could be hiding inside a stasis tube? Ethan fumbled blindly with the control panel, trying to remember the position of the buttons. There were a few stasis tubes on board for long journeys and the occasional medical emergency. Ethan tried visualizing the control panel. Then he entered the standard wake sequence.

  There came a beep-beep-beep of warning, followed by the telltale hiss of escaping air. He felt the rush of icy air on his face as the real stasis tube opened behind the fake one. The transpiranium cover rose wraith-like from the holo projection, and Ethan reached inside the crate with a trembling hand…

  His fingers seized soft, icy flesh, provoking a girlish gasp. Then a young woman sat up. He saw that he was clutching her naked breast, and he promptly recoiled from her. She turned to l
ook up at him with wide, frightened eyes that were a rare, startling violet color.

  “Wh-where am I?” she asked, her teeth chattering.

  Her eyes had a glazed, faraway look, and her pouting lips were blue from the cold of stasis. She hadn’t realized that she was naked yet.

  Ethan gaped at her, staring for more reasons than one. He’d unwittingly transported live cargo! Who was this woman? What was she doing here? And more importantly, what were the so-called scientists who had ordered her to be delivered to Losk going to do with her now that she’d arrived? A dozen lurid possibilities rushed in to fill those blanks. She was a slave. Probably a playgirl.

  “Who are you?” she asked next. She shivered, and with that she finally noticed her nakedness. She crossed her arms over her chest and fixed him with a defiant stare. The fake hologram of the empty stasis tube still preserved the bottom half of her modesty. Her eyes found the sidearm in the holster at his waist and then her gaze passed over him quickly, taking in his disheveled, salt and pepper hair, his patched and worn flight suit, and the overgrown stubble darkening his cheeks. At that, she set her jaw, and her eyes hardened. “Where’s your boss, grub?”

  Ethan felt a hot flush of rage at the insult, but he clamped down on it to deal with the more immediate problem. The woman’s refined accent and the condescension that bled so easily into her voice gave him the immediate impression that she came from money. She’d likely been abducted.

  The comm piece in Ethan’s ear trilled, and he answered it. “Captain Ortane, this is Director Kross from Medi-cell technologies. We are at the rendezvous point and ready to receive transfer your cargo. Please open your hold to begin unloading.”

  Ethan took a moment to snap out of it.

  “Well?” the woman sitting up in front of him demanded.

  He put a finger to his lips, and she frowned. “Ortane here. I’ll be right out.”

  “Don’t keep us waiting.”

  “Sure thing,” he replied, and promptly shut down the connection.

  “Was that him?” the woman asked.

  “Who?”

  “Your boss,” she said slowly, enunciating each word carefully.

  “I’m my own boss, thanks.”

  She quirked a dark eyebrow. “Must be nice.”

  “Yeah, sometimes. Look, I was chartered to deliver over a hundred empty stasis tubes to Losk. You want to tell me what the frek you’re doing here?”

  “So you’re the help.”

  Ethan took umbrage at that. “The help? Well, aren’t you a princess.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be going outside to meet someone, Mr. I’m-my-own-boss?”

  “Name’s Ethan Ortane.”

  “Alara.”

  “All right, Alara, you really want me to hand you over to them?”

  “Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

  “You don’t listen very well. They told me these stasis tubes were empty. I’m guessing they didn’t lie about that and then lock and shield the contents with holograms just for fun. Whatever they’re planning to do with you, you don’t want to be around for it.”

  Despite her defiance, the woman’s already pale face turned paler still. “Then what are we waiting for? Get me out of here.”

  Ethan reached for her hands and stood up, pulling her to her feet. Now she was standing fully naked before him—skinny waist, wide hips, ample bosom and derriere. His pulse began to race and his thoughts ran away with him.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Never seen a naked girl before?”

  He looked away and shook his head. “Get out of there,” he said. She stepped out of the crate and up onto the one where he was. With that, he shut her stasis tube and lifted the lid of the crate back into place. That done, he jumped down off the stack of crates to the deck. After just a moment’s hesitation, Alara jumped down beside him. He saw her wince as her feet hit the deck, and he regretted not offering to help her down.

  “Come on, we have to hide you somewhere,” Ethan said, starting down the aisle. As they walked he heard a little whimper from her, and that provoked another stab of guilt.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, not turning around to look at her again, despite the temptation to do exactly that.

  “No.”

  “Then?”

  “There’s so many of them…”

  “Yeah…” Ethan started down the aisle again. He was trying hard not to think about the rest of the cargo crates. It was a gamble that whoever had hired him wouldn’t notice one of them had been opened, but if he opened them all and rescued everyone, he had a good idea about what would happen next.

  “How are you going to sleep at night knowing you delivered over a hundred innocent people to whatever netherworld is waiting for them here?”

  Ethan whirled around and stabbed a finger between her naked breasts. “Look, kiddie, saving you is better than nothing. Where would I hide a hundred naked girls?”

  Her eyes narrowed sharply, and Ethan’s comm trilled again, interrupting them. He reached up to his ear to answer it.

  “What’s taking so long, Captain Ortane?”

  “In case you didn’t notice, you landed me in the middle of a swamp. Now the loading ramp is full of krak and the mechanism is jammed. I’m busy diagnosing the problem.”

  “Make it quick or we’ll open it manually.”

  “Give me five minutes,” Ethan said.

  “You’ve got four, Kross out.”

  “Come on,” Ethan said, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her up to the internal doors of the cargo bay. He swiped his wrist across the door scanner and the doors opened with a swish. As soon as they were through, Ethan took a sharp right turn and they walked down a short corridor before fetching up against a sealed door.

  “What’s this, your closet?”

  “No,” Ethan said, opening the door with another swipe of his wrist. The lights came on automatically, only to die and then come back flickering, “It’s my quarters,” he said as he walked inside the messy room. He didn’t usually mind the mess, but with a rare female visitor, suddenly he noticed everything as if looking through her eyes. Dirty laundry lay scattered across the deck; muddy boots sat in one corner; empty beer bottles lay wherever they had rolled to most recently; and his bed sheets were permanently wrinkled. Ethan headed straight for his actual closet, saying, “Don’t mind the mess.”

  “You actually live like this?” Alara asked.

  He opened his closet with a shrug and pulled out a jumpsuit several sizes too large for her. He bunched it up and tossed it at her. The jumpsuit landed at her feet. “Put this on and lie low in here. I’ll be back for you as soon as I deal with my employers.”

  She picked up the jumpsuit and immediately began putting it on. “Thank you,” she managed. “What are you going to do?”

  “Pretend like nothing’s wrong and find a way to blast free of this quagmire before anyone finds out you’re missing,” he said.

  “And if that doesn’t work?”

  He turned to her with a tight grin. “It’ll work.”

  THREE

  Ethan watched the scientists go traipsing through his ship, adding a fresh layer of mud to the deck. He wasn’t sure how they expected anyone to believe they were scientists. They were all unusually big, burly men, wearing a mishmash of camo-painted combat armor with guns and ammo strapped to their thighs and waists. They were showing off more glowing and pulsing tattoos than clean skin. One man stood leaning against the entrance, arms crossed, cloaked in shadows. He was the only one who wasn’t over-sized, but somehow he looked more dangerous than the others. He had briefly introduced himself as Director Kross before taking up a guard position at the top of the ship’s loading ramp. No tattoos glowed on his skin, but his eyes shone a bright blue, either from cosmetic contacts or some type of ocular enhancements.

  The men unloading the cargo used grav guns to avoid over-flexing their exaggerated brawn, effortlessly levitating the cargo crates out onto waiting grav sl
eds that would ferry the cargo safely across the muddy brown swamp where the Atton had sunk a few irrevocable feet into the muck. Ethan stood frowning out the back of his cargo hold into a maze of glossy black tree trunks. As the loading crew got down to the last few dozen crates, Ethan strode over to Mr. Kross.

  “Nice doing business with you, Director.”

  The man’s glowing blue eyes found Ethan’s face and he nodded slowly. He reached into his belt and produced a sol transfer cube. Ethan placed it against his wrist, and the cube blinked with a warm green light as sols were transferred to the account linked to the identichip implanted in his wrist. A second later the light vanished and the cube went dark. Ethan saw a transaction report flash up before his eyes.

  All 2,000 sols had been transferred to his account.

  “That concludes our business together,” Kross said in a silken voice as he took the cube back from Ethan.

  “Guess it does. You have any idea how I can get my ship out of here? This mud hole must have a spaceport with a working tug.”

  “Not a public port, no, but I can call our facility if you’d like. We do happen to have a working tug.”

  Ethan considered that for just a moment before smiling and shaking his head. “I don’t want to make you go to any trouble. I’ll try one more time on my own first.”

  Kross shrugged. “Suit yourself.” With that, he turned to walk down the loading ramp to the waiting grav sleds below.

  Ethan decided that a combination of grav lifts and his ship’s main thrusters would probably be enough to blast away from Losk. He’d have to be quick to avoid crashing through the trees at the edge of the clearing, but better to brave some tricky flying than to give Kross a reason to linger. Ethan wasn’t sure how long it would take him and his men to figure out that one of their slave girls was missing, but he didn’t want to be around when it happened.

  Halfway down the ramp Kross stopped and reached up to his ear as if to answer a comm call. Ethan hung back in the shadows and strained his ears to listen in. He couldn’t hear a word, but then Kross turned to look back up at the Atton, and Ethan began to read the man’s lips. That was something he’d learned to do to stay alive on Etaris. Knowing what the man fifty feet away from you was planning to do before he did it was a survival skill when you lived and worked with murderers and thieves.