by J. S. Morin
“As for the method of our retribution,” Archie cut in smoothly. Watching him mope around the ship made it easy to forget that the robotic wizard had once taught at Harvard. But stand him in front of a captive audience, and he positively oozed professorial confidence. “We have yet to determine an optimal course of action. What we have at our disposal is a small wealth of information regarding the agents of most of their illicit activities: the ship Bradbury and her crew.”
Archie gestured and the holo-projector snapped to life. “Here you see Omicron Festis III, a place that no one officially lives, but it is the operational base of a small-time information broker named Parvin Smails.”
“That doesn’t sound human,” Roddy muttered into his beer.
At his side, Shoni snorted. “Wandering Latin derivatives. My guess would be a pretentious Earth export.”
“And you would both, of course, be wrong,” Archie continued. “Mr. Smails is human, but of the most humble and self-effacing sort. He is a lowlife. His only claim to fame of any sort is an astute understanding of the value of information both bought and sold within his sphere of influence. His relation to our cause: he is known to the Harmony Bay corporation in this capacity, whereby he makes a substantial fraction of his income.”
“So,” Carl said. “We show up and buy the info we need off him? Or have you got something more complicated planned?”
“I’ve got one,” Mort grumbled. “How about we show up on his doorstep and sell him some information on the cheap?”
“What information do we possess that would draw Mr. Smails’s attention?” Archie asked, moderating a conversation that seemed to be wandering away from his lectern.
Mort harrumphed. “Some information that he doesn’t want: there’s an impatient wizard in his office who wants answers and isn’t afraid to roll back his sleeves to get ‘em.”
“I’m not sure that’s really the direction we’re looking to go,” Carl said. “And I’m not ready to sell out the location of the Odysseus yet. My father’s a bastard, but I still want that ship back.”
Esper cleared her throat. “We know where the Bradbury is going to be on something like eighteen separate occasions, all of which are in the Disputed Zone. Why not just quietly mention that to ARGO?”
“Or the Eyndar,” Shoni added. “They might be less inclined to turn a blind eye.”
Rai Kub shook his head. “No good ever comes from dealing with the warring governments. You’ll—we’ll be trampled underfoot.”
“How about your people?” Roddy asked. “Tuu Nau had himself a pretty smooth ride out there. Maybe they could teach Harmony Bay a little lesson about sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“No,” Rai Kub said. “No, I don’t think that would work well at all. The Rampage Across the Great Plains is a scavenger ship. They keep the Eyndar away but not a massive vessel like the one we pursue.”
Carl winked and aimed a finger at Rai Kub. “See? There’s some tactical advice. Anyway, I think it’s up to us to figure out our own problems. And we can start by squeezing the juice out of a few ripe lemons. Amy, set us a course for Omicron Festis III.”
# # #
Omicron Festis III was the last place Carl might have picked if he were going to live out in the middle of nowhere. The surface was uninhabitable, thanks to a toxic atmosphere. Even if it wasn’t, it was one of the ugliest worlds he’d ever laid eyes on. While it was deadly to humans, a wide variety of muck, ooze, and gunk lived there, making common ship-borne mold and grime seem pleasant by comparison.
“We’re heading for a world with an ammonia atmosphere after this,” Amy muttered as she brought them in low over the landscape. “Then a world with liquid water deep enough to submerge us, repeating as necessary.”
“How about you just don’t scrape the hull against anything gooey on our way in?” Carl countered. Their destination was an underground cavern complex, cordoned off by an atmospheric force barrier. Inside—reportedly—there was breathable oxygen. Again, not Carl’s idea of a comforting, welcoming home.
“How about you go check on our strike team and leave the flying to me?”
Pushing off against the pilot’s chair, Carl headed through the common room and down to the cargo bay. He nodded a passing acknowledgment of Esper and Mort, who were arguing over holovid selection. It would have been nice to have at least one of them along for his meeting with Parvin Smails. Given the tenuous relationship between science, atmosphere, and dying a quick, painful death choking on alien spores, they were grounded for this mission.
As he clanged down the stairs, Roddy called out to him. “Nice of you to join us. Thought maybe I was getting my first taste of command.”
Carl didn’t suppress his shudder. The idea of the laaku in charge of planetside operations for anything more involved than a shopping trip to the parts depot was enough to make Carl give up crime. It wasn’t that Roddy lacked guile or organizational skills; it was that he’d probably get half the team killed and shrug it off over a can of Earth’s Preferred.
“This is a shakedown,” Carl announced. “But at his heart, this guy’s all tech. I need you two to work that angle.” He pointed to Roddy and Yomin.
The fourth member of their team paced the end of the cargo ramp, in position to be lowered with it when it opened. The deck plates creaked under his bulk.
“Rai Kub, you hangin’ in there?”
The stuunji lifted his head and stopped pacing. “I’ll do my best.”
Carl had heard that line more times than he cared to count. Aside from a few smartasses like Mort, most of the time someone said that, they didn’t think too highly of that ‘best’ of theirs. It was priming the fuel pump of failure. This wasn’t going to be an overnight fix. Rai Kub wanted to pitch in, but he was raw as sashimi and greener than emeralds.
“This should be easy enough. We offer a trade. We back it up with some stuunji muscle so no one gets any funny ideas. We head off on our way. Yomin, are our false IDs all seeded?”
Yomin gave a curt nod. “Anyone looking us up based on biometrics will find the fake personas I commed you all.”
Roddy rolled his eyes. “Kimbo of Garnuk… you should have let me design my own ID. No one’s going to believe that’s a real laaku name.”
Fumbling with a datapad that looked like a playing card in his hands, Rai Kub studied his alias. “Jow Benn. I can remember that. Jow Benn. I am from New Garrelon.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Carl said. “Great. We’re all set on who we’re supposed to be.”
“Lemme hear it,” Yomin said. Her datalens glare was aimed right at Carl.
“What?”
“Your alias. Spit it out. Last thing we need is you improvising when they can just look your fake ID up on the omni.”
Carl walked past her without looking back. “I’m Captain Stephen Stills of the freighter Zeppelin. You couldn’t even get that right.”
“I can’t have your ship cross-reference to your fake ID so directly. You’re lucky I played along at all.”
The Mobius—or the Zeppelin as it was currently known—touched down with a dull thud that echoed in the cargo bay. Carl surveyed his team. Roddy looked bored, which for him was as good a sign as any. Yomin was nervous but on the ball. Rai Kub was fighting back a full-blown panic attack, but he’d be fine once they got into the game. Carl had coached enough new recruits through their first missions to know that.
“We’re down,” Amy’s voice over the shipwide comm echoed throughout the cargo bay. “Good luck out there.”
Roddy ambled by and punched the cargo ramp release with the butt of a fist. Rai Kub flinched as the ramp began to descend with him on it.
“Well, watch where you’re standing, then,” Roddy snapped. The laaku tugged his blaster free of its holster, thumbed off the safety, and slid it back in. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
Yomin took point, guiding them through the smugglers’ den with the aid of her datalens. There were few permanent re
sidents of Omicron Festis III. Most of the cavern complex was taken up by renters setting up shop long enough to offload contraband before departing to find more. The entry chamber was a starship parking yard, with most of the entrepreneurs selling straight out of the backs of their ships. What Carl’s crew was looking for lay beyond, among the tunnels and side caverns that snaked through the mountainous region of the planet.
Though he took up the rear, it was impossible to forget that Rai Kub was with them. Carl made a mental note to avoid including him on stealth assignments. Tentative as he was, Rai Kub’s footsteps thudded with the force of minor tremors.
“Will we be staying long enough to eat?” Rai Kub whispered. Carl couldn’t imagine that anyone within fifty meters had failed to hear the question.
“Maybe.” He didn’t want to tell the stuunji “no,” because a definitive answer on the subject was dependent completely on how their meeting went. Nine scenarios out of ten, they’d be getting back to the Mobius by the quickest means at their disposal. That one-tenth chance that Parvin Smails was a reasonable guy who hated Harmony Bay as much as them was the one that came with time for a meal.
A pair of doughy humans stuffed into undersized uniforms guarded one of the tunnels that Yomin guided them to. Both held blaster rifles at the ready. “This area is off limits,” one of them said, his voice harsh through the speaker in his helmet. “Move along.”
“We’re here to see Smails,” Yomin said.
“He expecting you?” the guard asked.
The other guard was busy tapping something at a TeleJack that had been concealed under his sleeve. “Nothing on the schedule.”
Carl knew the math going on inside one or both of the guards’ heads. If Carl had brought a party of two, they’d likely both have been dusted by now. But four against two, these guards were toeing the line between gruff and polite.
Carl stepped forward. “My name is Stephen Stills, captain of the Zeppelin. I’ve got data for your boss. Closed-door Earth Parliament transcripts for covert ops authorization in the Disputed Zone. Systems, planets, contacts, budget… it’s all in here. His eyes only, and only if he’s willing to pay. You can scan us for hidden weapons, explosives, bio-agents, whatever. But none of you is taking a data-swipe off this.” He held up a datapad before slipping it back into a pocket. No data-swipe was getting past Yomin’s security protocols, but it was nice to let them know he wasn’t a complete vapor-brain.
“Call it in,” one guard said to the other, who retreated back into the tunnel for a moment.
There was a tense minute of waiting with everyone keeping weapons at the ready. When the other guard returned, he said, “Let ‘em in.”
The tunnels to Parvin Smails’s office were lined with cameras and security scanners. Carl could only hope that Smails kept a constant link to the omni and wasn’t caching old data. The IDs Yomin created were only hours old.
When they finally met Parvin Smails, it was in an office that looked like the concierge desk of a brothel. Smails was a round-bodied man with a perpetual squint and sheen of sweat on his reddish face that made it look like he’d been under a heat lamp. Two azrin bodyguards rose from couches in the corners of the room to flank Carl’s entourage as they entered. Both were armed with blades and blasters, though neither had any weapon drawn. Years of working with Mriy had taught Carl how deceptive that could be.
“Captain Stills,” Smails said with a phony smile. “I hear you have some interesting data on Disputed Zone surveillance for me. I’d like to have a look before this discussion carries any further.”
Carl was careful to keep his movements slow as he withdrew the datapad and handed it to Smails. “It’s on a rotating encryption code. TK-421 will get you two minutes’ access before it locks up again.”
Smails raised an eyebrow before accepting the datapad. “One of your people has ARGO military training. Time-lock encryption keys are a hallmark of Data Warfare. Paranoid bunch of shits.” He tapped the code into the datapad and was silent for the two minutes the code allowed him. Smails flinched at a buzzer that signaled the end of his time. “Fucking pranksters. Fine. How do you expect me to verify any of this? Your IDs are all fishy. Clean. Maybe too clean. And I couldn’t find ancillary corroboration. Either your data specialist dusts away your trail like a Cherokee tracker, or you’re not who you say you are.”
“My name is Jow Benn. I am from New Garrelon.”
Everyone in the room turned to stare at the stuunji. Carl tried to keep his grimace as subtle as possible, but even Carl Who is Actually Stephen Stills couldn’t manage to hide his frustration completely.
“You don’t say…” Smails said, tenting his fingers. A quick jerk of his head brought one of the azrin bodyguards to Rai Kub’s side.
“So,” the azrin cooed. “The herbivore is Jow Benn, is he? Perhaps I know the real Jow Benn, and you don’t even look like him.”
Carl clenched his jaw. Please, let Rai Kub roll with this. The azrin was baiting him. Any amateur could see that.
“Um, the regular Jow Benn is sick, and I’m taking his place.”
“Impostor,” the azrin said with a chuckle. “Such big prey. Herbivores are all so stupid.” With a casual swipe, the azrin extended his claws and tore out Rai Kub’s throat.
At least, that’s what Carl expected. Mriy had done the same thing countless times. But this azrin’s claws stuck in the folds of rough skin at Rai Kub’s neck. With his arm extended up at an awkward angle already, the azrin was dragged back as the stuunji startled backward.
Carl and Roddy had their blasters out in an instant, training them on the second azrin while Yomin pointed her toy gun at Smails. But the show was taking place in the entryway to Smails’s office.
Rai Kub regained a measure of composure and reached up for the azrin’s arm. Bones cracked as he twisted the wrist at a point where the azrin lacked a joint, extracting the stuck claws. He flung the creature against the wall with casual ease and brought a hand up to feel at the wound. “Ow.” He cringed as he checked the hand for blood, then sighed when there wasn’t any.
“You OK, Jow Benn?” Carl asked over his shoulder. He couldn’t afford to keep his attention away from the azrin, though the second azrin was far more worried about the stuunji just now than Carl’s blaster. “Jow Benn?”
The stuunji remembered himself. “Oh. Yes. I think so. I’m not used to little carnivores trying to eat me.”
“Carl,” Yomin snapped, breaking character. “We’re in trouble. He triggered some sort of alarm!”
Carl aimed his blaster at Smails. “You’ve got two choices. Deal or die. I’m still willing to trade the info on that datapad for whatever you’ve got on Harmony Bay’s operation.”
Smails kept his hands in front of him, fingertips resting against each other. But the man was sweating. “Put down the blasters, all of you. Surrender, and I’ll put you to work. Do anything rash, and you’ll never get out of here alive.”
“Why does everyone say that? Listen, buddy. You think I didn’t come in here without an exit plan? I’ve got two Convocation wizards back at my ship who’ll tear these caverns down if I don’t come back in one piece. Think fast, Smails,” Carl said. “Time’s running out.”
The man’s nostrils flared as his breath quickened. If he wanted to stall, Carl was going to have to put a hole in his chest and just run for it. Personal security forces were so hit or miss. You could never tell how they’d react to their boss’s death. Some might jump ship; others might thank you. There were enough that were loyal to a fault that it was risky killing Smails before he gave an answer.
“Deal,” he replied through gritted teeth. He pulled up a console and tapped away. Carl could only hope that Yomin was keeping him honest and watching for a double-cross. When Smails finished, he slid a data crystal across his desk. “Take it. It’s encrypted, but it has everything I know about Harmony Bay. You get the key when you’re off my planet.”
“Fine,” Carl replied. “You get the code for ful
l unlock the same time.”
“The alarm’s off,” Yomin reported.
Smails gave a slight nod. “You’ve got a fifteen-minute window to make orbit, or your ship is fair game.”
How good was Yomin’s encryption? Smails knew it was military grade, but would that stop him from blasting the only people who could give him the key to unlock it?
“The timer has already begun. You might want to move.”
The slimy information broker was right. “Come on. We gotta get out of this place.” Right then, he wished Amy had been along to pick up the rest of the line.
As Carl sprinted out the door, Rai Kub stopped to check on the fallen azrin. “I apologize, little carnivore. You startled me. I didn’t mean to—”
“Come on!”
“Right. Sorry, Savior Carl.”
The tunnels shook in rhythm with the stuunji’s running gait.
# # #
The Mobius shot out of the maw of the cavern with under a minute to spare. It wouldn’t have been quite so close a call if Rai Kub hadn’t fallen behind. It wasn’t a lack of effort on the stuunji’s part or even the minor delay when he wanted to see about the azrin he’d injured. He was just slower than the humans and laaku.
Rai Kub watched out the window of his new quarters as the glum scenery went past in a blur before the ship left atmosphere. It hadn’t been a pretty world, but it would have been nice to have stayed long enough for a meal. He had no one to blame but himself, of course.
The quarters Savior Carl provided were remarkably large. While the door still had him ducking and dipping one shoulder to fit through, once inside he was able to stretch out and lay across the pair of mattresses he’d been given. It had apparently been home to another large crewmember who no longer served aboard the Mobius. Rai Kub hoped whoever it was hadn’t met an untimely end. That was a worry he now had to consider, but it was all part of his personal quest to redeem himself.
“Redeem…” he muttered as he watched through the full-wall window. So many stars, and in all that vast expanse, he’d found the savior of the Gologlex Menagerie. “What kind of redemption is this?”
