Apex

by Aer-ki Jyr

  Then a flicker of thought caused her to glance to her right, catching the fleeing glimpse of that grey cloak disappearing down a side street. Suppressing a smile, Jalia merged back into the meandering pedestrian traffic and rejoined the hunt.

  Three more times she lost contact with the Cres, and three more times she reacquired her trail, which led her into the residential district. More specifically, the temporary quarters for passengers where her crew were probably now billeted. She hadn’t inquired, their time away was their own, so long as they were back at the ship when their shifts came up.

  The streets had narrowed and the crowds thinned, which made tracking the Cres easier, but also made it harder to disguise her pursuit so Jalia laid back further, meandering to and fro, trying to blend in as much as possible. When she paused near an information board the Cres quietly ducked into a stairwell and proceeded to walk down to the next level.

  Jalia followed a few seconds later, but lost track of her quarry yet again. She sighed and glanced around, hoping to pick up the trail again. Intuition led her to head off to the right, and she quickly found herself in a small courtyard outside an apartment complex.

  The Cres was nowhere to be seen.

  Cursing her luck, Jalia walked over and sat down on a public bench and waited a spell. No use in chasing down empty roads. She wondered how far off the Cres’s quarters were, or if she was meeting someone. No way to tell, now that she’d lost her.

  Oh well, she thought. It had been an adventure while it lasted.

  She stood up and walked over to a different exit to the courtyard, wondering where she should go next. Maybe catch one of the Elos in the entertainment district or, now returning her attention to her growling stomach, finally get some food.

  Suddenly Jalia felt her pistol slip from her holster. She reflexively grabbed for it, but found herself knocked to the side and her back smashed up against the stone wall, then forcefully held there, staring into the hooded face of the Cres she’d been following.

  The enigmatic alien didn’t say anything, but her eyes locked with Jalia’s. The Junta felt paralyzed and entranced at the same time, unable to look away. The intensity behind the eyes was hard with warning, but they softened after a moment and the arm across her chest relaxed as her pistol was returned to her hip holster with a subtle grace.

  “You track well, Junta,” the Cres said with smooth, eloquent resonance before walking away and quietly disappearing around a corner.

  Jalia didn’t move, still stunned by being jumped . . . and then let off that easy. Not to mention being spoken to, and complimented by the Cres.

  And how did she get behind her anyway?

  Knowing better than to continue to follow, Jalia walked away in the opposite direction, pondering what had just happened.

  A long while later, she ended up back on the observation promenade, seated along one of the long windows in a cushy chair, staring out at the docked ships, lost in thought.

  Then one of the ships in the back row, partially obscured by a Uria military frigate, exploded.

  Chapter 2

  JALIA FROZE. For a moment she didn’t know how to interpret what she was seeing, then her mind went directly to the status of her ship, mentally plotting the debris trajectory.

  No, her ship should be fine. Plenty of other ships in the way.

  Then her thoughts raced to the outer hull, and the egress doors. Had they been punctured?

  The debris cloud had lost its fire, but it was too thick to see through. Behind her the noise level began to rise and her neck stiffened against the building tension in the air. She stayed in her seat, watching, wondering what her next move should be.

  Not a lot of options. Stay here, head into the city, or back to her ship which was stuck inside the jumpship, unable to go anywhere or do anything. More importantly, what had caused that ship to explode? And was it any danger to her ship?

  Jalia’s magnification eyelids slid into place and she took a closer look at the spreading debris and smoke cloud. The docking area was unpressurized and had no artificial gravity, so the unchecked matter was spreading rapidly in all directions, thinning out as it progressed. Not too long after a hazy image of the damaged ship’s hull appeared, listing down . . . and up, severed into two large pieces along the midsection.

  Internal explosion, Jalia guessed. Her stomach clenched with anxiety. Somebody’s ship had just broken in half. No idea how many crew had been aboard. Thoughts of the same thing happening to the Resolute came to mind and a surge of helplessness rushed through her.

  Which was quickly forgotten as the glass in front of her cracked from an unseen debris impact.

  The Junta leapt out of her seat on reflex, literally jumping up and over the back of it, landing deftly on her feet. Her acute hearing detected no atmospheric hiss, but she was still thoroughly rattled.

  Suddenly a large, heavy panel dropped down from the ceiling, quickly covering the glass and cutting off all view of the docking area. Fear of decompression gone, Jalia glanced around as the promenade quickly emptied, with streams of panicking ­people rushing for the exits.

  “Kitja,” she swore. She needed to get back to her ship.

  The nearest stairway to the bay ring was backlogged with ­people, mostly crewers by the look of them, but a lot of others too that looked like they had no idea where they were going. Jalia held back, let it thin out a bit, then rushed through a gap and ran down the stairs, hopping over the railing on a switchback and bypassing four more ­people.

  She moved down the five levels as quickly as she could, passing through an emergency atmospheric containment field that glowed blue in one of the archway junctions. Since the ­people on the other side weren’t exploding from decompression, Jalia figured it was only precautionary and continued to nudge and wiggle her way through the crowd. She hit a bottleneck half a level from her exit, slamming her into a wall of ­people and getting wedged into them by the panicky aliens squeezing down behind her.

  Jalia growled, then grabbed the railing to her left and stepped up on top of it. She deftly ran down it four steps then jumped a good two meters into the air, landing in a small open area next to the bay ring entrance. She melded with the flow of crewers, most of whom gave her a measure of space, if for no other reason than the pistol she wore. Soon she was into the wider commons area next to the docked ships and the crowds thinned out, allowing her a modest jog as she wove her way back to the Resolute.

  She was relieved to find the airlock still intact and entered her ship through the short umbilical, unlocking the access door with an 18-­digit color access code. She darted inside just as the sound of weaponsfire echoed down the bay ring behind her.

  Jalia stopped three steps inside and turned around, listening intently, then ran back through the umbilical and looked outside towards the sounds that were getting increasingly louder.

  If she had to she could detach her ship from the umbilical. It still couldn’t move with the docking clamps attached, but it would prevent anyone from getting on her ship short of taking a walk through vacuum . . . but she needed to know what was going on first.

  Slipping her pistol from its holster, Jalia tentatively poked her head out the umbilical, seeing that the weaponsfire had cleared out the crowds rather quickly. She began skulking down the bay ring, keeping to shadows and cover as much as she could. The area was sparse, but there were enough archways and support struts dotting the area in between kiosks to keep her out of sight.

  Jalia dashed about in little spurts, gradually making her way forward without spending more than a ­couple of seconds in view each time. A small explosion prompted her to hunker down behind a low shelf jutting out into the walk area. The interior of the shop had been sealed shut, and the shelf had a sturdy metal panel locked over its contents. Either it had been closed down before the explosion, or someone knew trouble was coming and decided to take cover inside
.

  All the better. Jalia preferred keeping to herself right now, and a panicked shopkeep could have gotten in the way.

  Her top two headtails peeked up over the edge of the shelf, followed by a dark red forehead and two keen green eyes, mag lids clicking into place as another grenade exploded far ahead. No one was in view yet, but the slight curve in the bay ring didn’t afford a good line of sight. She could make out the black smear mark on the wall where the grenade had just exploded on impact, with several lachar blasts following it, making small pockmarks of their own.

  Finally one of the fighters appeared, running backwards and ducking for cover. Another Presca followed, then a third. A fourth came into view and was shot in the head before he could make cover. All of the scaly aliens wore Gorovan security uniforms and were obviously retreating from something.

  In her direction.

  OK, I’ve seen enough, she thought, glancing back over her shoulder before beginning her own hasty retreat. She zigzagged a bit to gain distance, then sprinted her thin legs off all the way back to the umbilical. She darted into her ship, sealed the hatches, then disconnected.

  The umbilical retracted away from her ship, giving her a good four meters of vacuum between the Resolute and the firefight. Jalia waited a while, steadying her breath and hoping everything would just pass her by . . . but if this wasn’t some isolated incident, and was part of some larger takeover, then her docking port may have just been added to enemy territory.

  She chewed on her lower lip for a moment. There were a few windows on her ship, but none on the bay ring, so she had no way of knowing what was going on outside her front door. The only option she had was to get on the ship’s comm net.

  Jalia went back to her cabin and logged into her personal terminal, quickly linking up with the Gorovan news feed. The explosion of what was tagged as a Morrin Corporate transport was already being replayed on holo, but nothing on the security forces had come up yet. The reporters kept downplaying the seriousness of the explosion and repeating pointless safety advisories.

  If there’d been a hull breach the decompression would have been over by now.

  There . . . an advisory that the bay ring was being closed down just popped up on the info strip, ostensibly for safety regulators to check for structural breaches. That meant the firefight was out of control and they didn’t want anyone knowing about it. Jalia was glad that she’d gotten down here when she did, else she would have been cut off from her ship. Her crew, however . . .

  She pulled up the personal message channel and checked to see if any of her crew were online, with no luck. They were who knows where within the city. They might not even know there was a problem yet.

  Jalia hoped that meant they were safe from harm, but anything that involved a ship blowing up and had security in full retreat was serious. The Vernera was still hours away from arrival in the Hellis System, with no way to receive reinforcements or even call for help until they got there.

  Then again, maybe that was the point. Getting there. This attack was happening now, why not earlier? Was it coincidence that this fight was happening right before arrival? Maybe there was help waiting for the attackers insystem.

  Punching the comm panel in frustration, Jalia leaned back in her seat and fought the helpless feeling creeping over her. She had no idea what was really going on, but organized fighting onboard a jumpship was rarer than rare. If it was happening, then something big was going on . . . and Jalia knew she needed to get her ship as far away from the fireworks as possible. Whether it be pirates, slavers, or military engagements, private shippers were always getting caught in the middle.

  And when that happened, they usually didn’t make it out alive.

  Jalia had kept clear of trouble for eight cycles, which made her one of the more experienced captains in private ser­vice. Start-­up shippers usually didn’t make it two cycles, being considered easy prey. The one big advantage that shippers had was the vastness of space and losing themselves in it. Getting stuck inside a jumpship with nowhere to go was just plain maddening.

  Jalia stayed at her comm panel, monitoring the news feeds for the next two hours before the firefight finally made the broadcasts. The destruction of the ship had been reclassified as an act of terrorism by a group of Cres commandos that had surreptitiously boarded the Vernera. Security forces had pinned down the Cres to the docking area, securing the onboard population from harm, but they had not yet captured or killed the remaining Cres, whose numbers had been ‘significantly thinned’ by this time.

  All docking areas and support facilities were under lockdown until the situation was rectified, and the deceleration jump into the Hellis System would continue without incident. The jumpship engines were unaffected by the explosion, and the terrorists had no access to that part of the ship. Gorovan apologized for the disruption, but assured that debarkation would continue on schedule once they reached their destination.

  Jalia unconsciously shook her head. That wasn’t right. The Cres weren’t terrorists. If they wanted to blow up your ship they didn’t need to be subtle about it. They had the strongest navy of any known race, and what did they care about a Morrin transport ship? Even if the news feed was true, why hit the ship here and not wait until it left the jumpship. And what were they doing fighting security forces in the bay ring?

  None of this made sense. Jalia knew that Gorovan was putting their own spin on current events, they always did, but what was really going on? How many Cres were there on the ship? And how did they plan on getting off? There were no Cres ships onboard. Jalia had already run through the list of berthed ships the first day here, and had just gone back through it a second time. Where had they come from and what in this crazy galaxy was going on out there?

  A message prompt quietly lit up in the bottom left corner of her screen.

  “Finally,” Jalia said with relief. She’d left each of her crewmembers messages to get in contact with her as soon as they could and this was the first message she’d received back. She opened the message without thinking, belatedly realizing that the sender name was wrong.

  TRACKER, I NEED YOUR HELP.

  Jalia blinked as an icy chill ran down her spine. She checked the name of the sender. Killian Vertral. She pulled up the info sig on the name and saw the picture of a male, green-­scaled Presca, not a Cres female.

  Swallowing hard, Jalia typed a simple reply.

  I’M HERE.

  There was no immediate response. Seconds dragged into minutes, making Jalia even more nervous. Finally the message was returned.

  COME TO THE PLACE YOU FIRST SAW ME.

  Something inside her trusted the Cres, but she had a bad feeling about this. Her instincts said to lay low, avoid trouble, and ride this out. Then again, this was probably her only way of finding out what was going on and if she couldn’t run away and hide, then being proactive was her best bet. That, and she was just plain curious.

  I’M IN THE DOCKING AREA. IT’S BEEN LOCKED DOWN.

  Again, another long pause. This one twice as long as the first.

  Come out, Junta. This area is clear.

  Jalia bolted out of her seat, looking around for the sound of the voice. How did someone get inside here?

  She stopped, wondering. Had she really heard the voice?

  Do not be afraid. We are outside your ship. Come to us.

  “Telepathy,” she whispered to herself. Jalia had heard rumors, but never considered that such an ability was physically possible. She’d just put it down to hyperbole and mysticism.

  Jalia blew out a calming breath, steadying her nerves. This was so stupid.

  She walked back to the docking port and remote-­activated the umbilical bridge. It extended out from the bay ring and sealed against the Resolute’s primary airlock.

  Jalia slipped her pistol out of its holster and held it point up next to her left shoulder, read
y to use if necessary. She keyed open the airlock with her right hand and stepped back out of view.

  The circular airlock pin wheeled around and retracted into the wall in segments. Jalia waited four heartbeats then popped her head into view.

  No one was in sight.

  Taking small, measured steps, she quietly walked back onto the jumpship and surveyed the area. The shops were still locked up and there wasn’t so much as a whisper to be heard. She found the emptiness creepy rather than reassuring.

  Over here.

  Jalia kept from jumping, barely, and followed the directional urge within her mind down the bay ring to her right. Two shops down a figure stepped out from the shadows.

  It was a male Cres, dressed in some type of body armor and carrying a large rifle.

  “Relax, Junta,” a female voice said from behind her in the commerce language.

  Jalia spun about and stepped sideways out of reflex to find another armor-­clad Cres less than two meters behind her. This one was female, but not the same one she had encountered earlier.

  Jalia lowered her pistol, but didn’t holster it. “You said you needed help?”

  The Cres nodded ever so slightly. “Yes. You have a ship. We require transport for ourselves and minimal cargo. There is danger involved, but we will compensate you with 100,000 credits.”

  “One hundred thousand credits?” Jalia asked, not believing her headtails. Nearly all commerce was carried out in mics, short for ‘micro credit,’ meaning 1/1,000,000th of a full credit. The Resolute had cost clan Kella 212 credits. A new ship of similar size and make would run 800-­1,000 credits.

  But 100,000?

  “Yes,” the Cres confirmed. “Our cargo is of significant importance. It must be delivered to a Cres world. Intact.”

  “We’re a long way from Cres territory,” Jalia argued. “It would take at least three more jumpship transits.”

  “Right now time is irrelevant,” the Cres said smoothly, but there was no mistaking the seriousness in her voice. “Getting clear and avoiding attention is paramount, even if it takes more than a cycle to reach our destination.”