He crouched, looking up to where the scout ship lay waiting. Taking a deep breath, he released his boots from the hull and pushed off.
It was a much slower trip this time, encumbered by the added mass of his captive – the resulting acceleration was roughly two thirds that of his earlier trip. He drifted safely through the nav-shield and continued on toward the Brisbane.
He realized this was going to be tricky. He was heavier now and he had to give some serious thought to how he was going to arrest his forward motion. They couldn’t use the boarding net – it was too large and bound to draw attention.
He couldn’t just use the grapplers in his boots – they weren’t designed to stand up to that kind of force and he’d likely end up with a suit breach.
Then he saw someone standing out on the hull and he let himself breathe again. The suited figure threw a small net up into Rick’s path and he managed to tangle an arm in it. He quickly pulled himself around to get both arms firmly into the weave and held on for dear life. The net-line began to retract, pulling him into an ever-tighter arc until he thumped into the port side of the hull.
The line stopped retracting and Rick pulled his carabiner out and clipped it to a rail. He touched a hand to the hull. “I’m hooked up,” he announced. “Making my way back to the ventral escape trunk.” He pulled his way down to the hatch and unhooked the bag from his arms, grabbing the prisoner and stuffing him in the hatch. He unhooked and followed him in and activated the entry sequence.
Thorstein helped haul the Dactari prisoner out of the trunk, much to Rick’s relief. After just a few moments of heavy exertion in zero gravity, he felt very heavy now that he was back in the ship.
“How’d you get back in so fast?” he asked the engineer.
Thorstein shook his head. “Captain wouldn’t allow both engineers to risk themselves at the same time.”
“So who went out with the net?”
“Captain went out,” he grinned at him. “That’s our Freya – always ready to roll up her sleeves and save an idiot crewman.”
“Hey,” Rick protested, waving at the unconscious prisoner. “I had a good reason to…”
“We’ll see about that,” Freya cut him off.
They turned to see her standing by the forward hatch, hair slightly askew from her helmet. She’d obviously come in from one of the forward trunks. “The difference between dashing and stupid, in a case like this,” she explained as she approached the prone form on the deck, “is whether or not you brought back any useful intel.”
She deactivated the Dactari’s helmet and slapped him hard. “What did you do to him?”
“I hit him,” Rick shrugged. “I had to make sure he didn’t call for help, didn’t I?”
“Hit him with what, an ox?” She gave the limp form a shake. “Ahhh, he’s starting to come around.” She hauled him over to the forward bulkhead and leaned him up against it, crouching in front of him.
The prisoner moaned, head rolling from side to side. “Wakey wakey,” Freya crooned in Dheema. “You were amazing, last night…”
The prisoner smiled happily until he heard Rick and Thorstein laughing. His eyes suddenly opened and, instead of seeing his Dactari sweetie, he was looking at the wolfish smile of a Midgaard shieldmaiden. He tried to back away but he was already against the bulkhead.
To his credit, he appeared to master his fear, settling into a pose that could almost be described as nonchalant, though mildly agitated might have been more apt. “If you animals think I’m going to talk…” He paused as his eyes focused on the knife Freya held up in front of his face. “Then who am I to argue?” He offered them a wry smile.
“A little fast, isn’t it?” Thorstein shook his head in reproof. “You should at least let her slice something off before you spill the honey – for honor’s sake…”
“Fornicate that,” the captive looked up at him with obvious disapproval. “They say everybody talks and I believe it. Why get sliced up if I’m going to tell you everything you want to know anyway?”
“For honor,” Thorstein repeated. “What part of that are you not getting?
Freya stood, looking over to Rick and winking.
“See,” Thorstein continued, “you start by insulting my mum and I give you a good thumping, friendly like, and then you say you’d rather die than bring dishonor to your house.” He waved a hand at his captain’s knife. “The when she slices your nose off, you relent and tell us a little bit. Then she takes an ear or an eyelid – she’s good at lidding a man – and you sing like a little bird.”
The Dactari pursed his lips for a moment. “I’m not seeing the advantage.”
“The advantage is we give you a quick death and shove you out the airlock,” Thorstein explained patiently. “Now, we’ll probably just dump you off at some trading outpost like so much used goods.”
“Look,” the Dactari began in a patient voice, “I don’t want to meddle in how you do your job but I’m not sure your plan offers a suitable incentive. If it comes down to being used goods or frozen space debris, I’ll take the first option every time.” He tilted his head, putting on his best reasonable advice tone. “You’re not going to get many takers on that whole mutilated frozen space junk offer.”
The engineer laughed. “I like this guy; can we keep him?”
Freya ignored the question. “Where are all those ships headed?”
“Chaco Benthic,” the Dactari replied. “The Qötsvi Conglomerate is losing control of the city and some high-speed, low-drag company officer thought a legion of mercs would calm things down.”
“Are they joining forces with anyone else when they get there?” Definitely an important question, since this force might not get there.
“Not that I know of, but then the senior staff forgot to consult with me this time.” He shook his head in mock wonder. “How you can plan an operation without the advice of a secondary adjunct maintenance technician is beyond me.”
“A little old to be a SAM-tech, aren’t you?” Thorstein seemed faintly embarrassed for the captive. Most low-ranking maintenance technicians were children. There was no such thing as child labor laws in the Republic and schools hadn’t been heard of in thousands of years.
When a child was old enough to sit in a training pod, they learned a trade and started work. Poor children, more often than not, opted for the free military training and went to work in the fleet. Their smaller stature allowed the Republic to save space on ships. Maintenance access passages were tiny and some were only accessible by children.
It was a practice the Human/Midgaard Alliance chose not to emulate.
“I started with the fleet a little too early,” the Dactari answered with a fatalistic shrug.
His brain hadn’t been ready. The pod session that made him a SAM-tech had left his young brain unable to receive new imprints.
“Captain,” Erik’s voice filled the room. “Enemy fleet’s jumping away.”
Freya looked up at Thorstein, not really seeing him as she responded. “As soon as we’re alone again, take us to the fuel dump.” She looked back down at the prisoner. “Sounds like your ride’s leaving. What should we do with you?”
“Well,” he began cautiously, “I believe there was mention of leaving me somewhere where the locals have a liberal attitude…”
“I mean until then,” she cut him off. “A scout ship doesn’t have a brig.”
“Shove him into the escape trunk?” Rick suggested.
“So,” Thorstein interjected, “you want to put our prisoner in something that has the word escape as part of its name?”
Freya grinned. “He didn’t say we’d let him keep his suit.”
“Oh, come now,” the prisoner exclaimed, “where the hells would I get to? I’d be back to the floating space junk option.”
“Or you’d climb around outside the hull and sabotage us,” Thorstein growled.
“Oh, yes.” The captive nodded. “With me still aboard and an angry Midgaard crew lining
up to slice off mementos. I can see it now.” He adopted a friendly tone. “No, please – go right ahead and carve away. What does a male need nipples for anyway?”
Freya nodded. “Escape trunk. No suit. We’ll hand him off when we reach Thoeptir.” She turned and stepped into the forward airlock to reach the crew quarters. “And remember to feed and water him,” she called out as the door slid shut.
Insurgent by Proxy
Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic
The plaza was nearly empty. It was shift change at the local magister’s station. Few wanted to hang around in front of a station at the best of times but, when it had two shifts worth of company lawmen inside, only the very wealthy or the very reckless would spend any time in the medium-sized square.
That should have made it easier for the Stoners to find their target but the place really was empty. It was possible the Human had managed to get out of the area already but his signal had been no more than a few hundred feet away from Graadt.
It was almost too good to be true but he couldn’t afford to ignore the chance to apprehend his enemy. Everyone made mistakes and that was how the Human agent would eventually be found.
A few dozen magisters loitered around the front of the station, casting evil glances at Graadt and his two cronies. They looked as though they’d love any reason to draw their weapons.
Sooner or later, Graadt was sure, they’d overcome their reluctance. The sooner they could nab their target, the greater the chance they’d be gone before one of the company lawmen tried to kill them.
Their hostility had blinded the Stoner to his own instincts and his eyes grew wide. “Godsdammit,” he activated his comms. “Get out of here,” he yelled to his friends, “right now!”
He turned, face cold with rage. What had been bothering him weren’t the angry lawmen; it was the fact that a skilled operator had opened a shield-breaching comms link from right in front of the skulking idiots.
It was a trap.
He hadn’t gone three steps when the bomb went off.
Pupeteering
Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic
At a shrine of the dead on the far side of the plaza, the cowled priest staggered back to his feet, brushing debris from his dark red robes. He showed the requisite amount of alarm and fear in his manner, stumbling backwards into the recesses of the bizarrely cheerful shrine.
The Dactari were a fatalistic species in some respects, Cal thought as he ditched the robe and pushed his way out into the warren of alleyways behind the shrine.
They viewed life as a duty, especially those who served in the military, and death, for them, was seen as something of a release from the constant crushing burden of service to the greater good. Kind of like a permanent vacation.
Frankly, Cal would rather take what enjoyment he could while he was still alive and, from the sound of weapons fire behind him, he had accomplished one more bit of fun.
From the point of view of the loitering magisters, the three Stoners had shown up in front of their station and then the damned place had exploded. Using typical Dactari math, they’d put two and two together and got five.
He couldn’t help but smile. The enemy of his enemy might not quite be his friend but he was sure as hell too busy at the moment to chase Humans.
Paying Court
Thoeptir, Capital of Veithfar
Rick took his hand away from his forearm and inspected the results. The textiles used in his clothing were incredible. Where the heat of his hand had raised the local temperature, the fibres of the tunic had altered their charge, attracting one another rather than repelling.
There was a visible print showing where his hand had rested. The threads had become thinner – less insulating – where the higher skin temperature was detected.
Though Thorstein’s explanation of the theory behind the cloth was simple enough, Rick knew the engineering required to put it into practice must have been incredibly difficult. He looked up as the door opened and Freya led the rest of the crew into his room.
“Whoa!” She glanced down and chuckled. “You still need to calibrate that outfit.”
Rick followed her gaze and felt his ears getting hot. The fabric compressed itself in direct proportion to body temperature and the pants were semi-transparent in the groin region. He knew she’d seen him naked, using the shower cubicle on the Brisbane, but it didn’t count, not after a few days in distortion. It was almost as if gender ceased to exist when you were shifting space in a scout ship.
Here on the surface of Veithfar, he was a man again and she was definitely a woman.
The crew chuckled at his predicament, giving him a friendly ribbing as she walked over to stand beside him, reaching up to lightly grasp the side of his collar. She held it for a few seconds and Rick suddenly felt it growing snugger.
“There,” she said. “Take a look.” She turned her gaze away slightly. “Mirror.”
A life-sized projection appeared, partially obscured by Erik.
“No offense, Erik, but you’re not really my type, so – if you could get your hand off my butt…” Rick grinned at the weapons officer.
He couldn’t help but notice how the fabric handled light. The musculature of his upper body looked more defined than usual and the transparency problem was now history, but… “It’s a little snug – in places – don’t you think?”
“No more so than on those women you noticed during the ride to the Ancestress’ hall,” Freya pointed out with amusement. “Should a man be less honest about his body than a woman?”
“We’re a direct people,” Thorstein explained. “We say what we think and we don’t hide what we are.” He slapped his belly. Some women look at this and see a glutton,” he offered cheerfully, “and some see a love of good food and ale. I married one of the latter and she has similar credentials.”
“Remember that when you meet the Ancestress,” Freya advised. “Be direct with her. Show respect but don’t grovel. You’re one of us, after all, so I don’t want you bringing dishonor to the Brisbane.”
Rick was sure his clothes were reacting to the sudden, all-over flush of warmth he felt at her including him as a crewmember. For someone raised as an outsider, the completeness of their acceptance was overwhelming.
But he was still different. “One of you as much as a Human can be, I suppose,” he muttered.
She squinted at him in surprise. “D’you know how to tell a Human from a Midgaard?”
“No,” he admitted.
A smile. “Neither do we.” She moved to stand in front of him gesturing at herself. “I’m roughly five percent Human,” she said, “descended from one of the first Humans to take a Midgaard as her mate a century and a half ago.”
She grinned. “And you’re about to meet her.”
Rick felt a tingle at the back of his neck. He’d been paying no attention to the pre-cognitive part of his mind. In the same way that he used to hold it back with his old friend, Barry, he didn’t want to hold that advantage over his new friends.
As a result, he was far more surprised at the sudden shift in perspective. He’d grown up thinking of Midgaard and Humans as completely separate species. The few Midgaard on the Canal didn’t intermarry for the obvious reason. They lived for thousands of years, while Humans were lucky to live a century.
Evidently, the vaccine had changed all that. The plague had been caused by researchers trying to replicate Midgaard longevity in Humans and it had forced the use of an imperfect vaccine. Ninety-eight percent of recipients received immunity and long life. Two percent of the population, however, had physiology that mutated the bacterial phase of the vaccination, unleashing it as the plague.
The few million Humans of the fleet had been put through the wringer and the vast majority were now indistinguishable from their Midgaard allies. The rest were long dead, including the Canal’s original, mutinous crew, though her descendants lived aboard her still.
“The Ancestress is a Human?”
�
�Erin Shelby,” Freya said proudly. “An open-handed giver of treasure and the Lord of three worlds.”
Rick looked out the window to where a row of small black ships floated above an expanse of picturesque thatched roofs. “That’s the Pandora…”
Freya nodded. “She brought the vaccination here from an Earth that was nearly dead.” Her voice dropped to a reverent whisper. “She helped make our species equal – in more ways than one.”
“And she still travels in the same little cricket she brought from Earth,” Thorstein said warmly. “There’ve been a couple thousand of them sent out here since and not a single one has ever fallen into Dactari hands.”
“If you ship out on a Hussar class vessel,” Erik explained, “you win, run or explode. Giving the enemy a Hussar would mean the resumption of full-scale war.”
“It’s the tandem-lensed pitch-drive,” Thorstein added. “Some fifteen-year-old girl on Earth came up with it. She’d been given the vaccine in the early days of the plague when they were still taking folks back to Petit Tortue Island for safety. She showed an aptitude for science, so they put her in a pod and made her a theoretical physicist. She repaid the favor by coming up with pitch-lensing.”
“The Dactari haven’t been able to produce anything like it,” Erik said. “They’re scared dungless of the things ‘cause we can dance rings around them in combat.”
“Let’s get moving,” Freya cut in. “We’d best get this over with.”
She headed out the still-open door and led them down the stone-walled corridor. A small door on the right opened onto the side of the raised dais of the main hall and she led them across it, past a throne.
Rick couldn’t help but notice the years of dust covering the ornate seat, nor did he miss the fact that Freya had entered the hall by such a route. He wasn’t sure what the exact message of the empty throne was but he felt reassured by it.
The hall was cathedral-like. It was far less ornate, but its stone pillars stood at least fifteen meters high and supported a simple, vaulted ceiling. The design was of a style favored by the old Empire, looking like a mix of Romanesque and Art Deco.
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