by Dan Worth
Anna must have been running a small fleet out of this bay for such a large number of repairs. Isaacs knew a fair bit about ship maintenance – his life depended on it at times. Amongst the numerous requests for generic parts there were items specific to roughly half a dozen different ship types, from tiny shuttles to heavily armed corvettes and bulk freighters. Some of them appeared to have taken serious damage too. Whatever they were doing here, their journeys to and from the Labyrinth were taking them into risky territory.
Isaacs saw it all fitting together now. Shigs’ accounts of her being seen with large numbers of suspicious characters throwing money around, a private docking bay providing repairs to a fleet of ships, many of them armed, and several different names being used for the same registration numbers. It all pointed to organised piracy or smuggling of some kind. The Labyrinth was an ideal place for exchanging and distributing goods. Few people save the Nahabe asked too many questions out here, and the Nahabe only took much of an interest if you tried to interfere with their business. In a sense, he was hardly surprised. She always did have that danger-seeking streak in her. He could see how she could fall to the allure of a life on the edge of the law, or beyond it.
Stupid woman, he thought. Stupid, stupid woman. She was going to get herself killed. She never thought far enough ahead, always acting on impulse and never giving a shit about how much havoc she caused in the process. Did she think the Sirius Syndicate wouldn’t have come after her, just because she was part of some smuggling operation out here in the sticks? Not only that, but there were plenty of people out here who would kill you for the slightest insult, or for your ship, or your money, or just because they felt like it. If the authorities didn’t do for her, others in the shady world she’d chosen might.
He slammed the folder he was holding down on the hut’s small desk in frustration. Well fuck her, he thought. He was going to catch up with her, sort out this money business and then that would be the end of it.
Except that wouldn’t be the end of it. Because deep down he knew he still cared about her, and that was what made him so angry. A vision of Anita crossed his mind and he felt guilty for a moment, and then hated himself for feeling that way. Anna had left him. Well, she’d have to live with the consequences.
He started at the noise of the door being opened, jolting him from his angry contemplation. To his relief, he saw Shigs peering around its rusty frame.
‘I thought I might find you here,’ he said. ‘Anita said you’d headed off to the docks after you left her place, figured you’d be poking around this bay. I was kind of curious myself.’
‘You’ve never been down here?’
‘Not since Anna and her associates left, no. The truth is, I kind of wondered if anyone was watching the place. It seems not, though.’
‘Great… thanks. So I could have just walked in here and been busted.’
‘Nah, the Nahabe don’t give a shit. Some of Anna’s people might though. Find anything interesting?’
‘Only these repair records. She had a private navy coming and going from here huh?’
‘Yeah, all sorts of ships. She never did tell me where they were all coming and going to and from though, and I thought it best not to ask.’
‘Shigs,’ said Isaacs slowly. ‘I have to ask. Was it piracy she was into?’
‘Yeah, ‘fraid so.’
‘Shit.’
‘Hey, don’t worry too much. Anna can look after herself. You of all people ought to know that.’
‘Maybe. I dunno it’s just…’
‘I thought you were over her anyway. You seemed to be last night, eh?’ Shigs shot him a lascivious grin.
‘That was different. Anita’s a wonderful girl but, y’know.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
The two men were suddenly startled by the sound of a klaxon. Outside, revolving warning lights had activated around the perimeter of the ship lift. Above, a set of heavy pressure doors had begun to slide smoothly open.
‘Fucking hell, Shigs,’ Isaacs swore. ‘I thought you said that this bay wasn’t being used.’
‘It wasn’t,’ said Shigs over the sound of the klaxon and the noise of the hydraulics now raising the ship lift towards the gaping rectangular hole in the ceiling. The lift locked in place onto a set of rails inside the tunnel above with a series of metallic noises, before climbing out of sight behind the now closing pressure doors.
‘Shit, I take it we can’t leave?’ said Isaacs.
‘Yep, ‘fraid so,’ said Shigs sheepishly. ‘That airlock at the entrance can’t be opened until the lift comes back down, you oughta know that. Gotta preserve atmospheric integrity.’
‘Although we’d be fucked standing here if anything happened further up of course.’
‘Never happens, you know that. Besides, that ain’t what we got to worry about.’ Shigs indicated towards the closing pressure doors with a finger.
‘Well let’s hope they’re friendly.’
‘Fuck that, let’s hide in this shack. We can check ‘em out when their ship comes down. You got a gun?’
‘Nope.’
‘Ah… probably just as well. We might live longer if they see we’re unarmed.’
The two of them hunkered down behind the thin walls of the hut, and turned the lights off, allowing them to peer out through the windows without too much risk of being seen. They waited a few uncomfortable minutes for the lift to come back down with whoever had decided to use the bay at such an inopportune moment.
After a few minutes there was the sound of the pressure doors above opening and the hydraulics extending to grasp the descending lift platform. The platform now descended into view with a strange looking vessel upon it. The ship’s hull was composed of dark green-black plates. It lacked any visible external instruments, windows or markings. Its shape reminded Isaacs of a rather angular metal slug with its tail jutting into the air. It was a Nahabe ship.
‘Fuck,’ whispered Shigs. ‘Nahabe. What the fuck are they doing here?’
‘You tell me,’ Isaacs whispered back. ‘You’re the one who was here the whole time Anna was using this bay.’
‘Doesn’t look like a police ship…’
Isaacs shushed him. The boarding ramp of the Nahabe craft was sliding down from under its blunt prow. Shortly after, a number of the aliens floated out and across the floor of the bay inside their suits. Isaacs counted half a dozen of them inside various sizes and designs of suit. They left via the way that Isaacs had entered. He heard the airlock door clang shut behind them.
‘Now what?’ said Shigs.
‘How the hell should I know?’
‘Wanna go and take a look at that ship?’
‘Depends if anyone’s still on board. How many crew do those things have?’
‘Six at the most. Looks like they’ve shut it down too.’
‘Security systems?’
‘You’re not thinking of stealing it are you? They don’t take kindly to that sort of thing around here, you know. Could be very bad for your health, especially if they’ve tricked it out with auto-defences.’
‘No, I’m not thinking of stealing it. I’m more bothered about them seeing us snooping around in here.’
‘Probably too late for that. Anna had the whole placed wired I gather.’
‘Shit!’
‘I shouldn’t worry. You wanna take a look?’
Isaacs sighed. ‘Yeah why not,’ he said, picking himself off the floor and brushing his now dusty trousers.
The ship was slightly warm to the touch. It throbbed barely perceptibly beneath his palm, systems in stand-by mode. Other than that, there were no signs of life. It was apparently empty. Up close, Isaacs was again struck by how sophisticated the technology of the Nahabe was. The ship lacked any obvious signs of a Newtonian drive system such as exhaust nozzles. Presumably it moved via some sort of gravitic motor or via linear space-time distortion as Arkari vessels did. The surface of the hull appeared seamless, apart from the boarding ramp
which fitted into the rest of the ship’s skin so cleanly that it was barely distinguishable from the rest of the hull. The hull itself was covered with strange whorls and mandalas apparently engraved on layers deep within the slightly translucent material. They seemed to shift as his eye moved across it, giving the odd looking vessel a strangely alien beauty.
‘Some ship, huh?’ said Shigs, eyeing the vessel. ‘Makes you wonder why we’re the bigger power. I reckon one of these Nahabe ships could take on several of ours any day.’
‘Maybe they just see things differently from us,’ Isaacs replied. ‘Different species have different priorities. Look at the Arkari, or the Esacir. Maybe the Nahabe just aren’t naturally expansionist.’
‘Yeah, I guess they must have their reasons.’
Isaacs patted the ship.
‘Well, there’s no way into this thing. You want to stick around until the owners get back?’
‘Uh, no. Not really,’ Shigs replied.
‘Hmm me neither. Besides, I have to look at Anna’s apartment. You wanna come? I’d like a bit of back-up in case anything happens.’
‘Jesus, you are getting paranoid.’ Shigs snorted. ‘You think that bunch who arrived on this crate could be waiting for you?’
‘I dunno, maybe. I get the impression I’m being watched or followed around this place.’
‘Alright, sure. Come on, let’s get out of here,’ said Shigs and headed for the exit.
It took a short while for the two of them to make their way across the Labyrinth to the apartment complex. Isaacs kept an eye out for any suspicious looking Nahabe, but failed to spot any. They finally arrived at Anna’s door inside the dingy, creaking habitation module. Shigs cast a critical eye around him.
‘Hmph,’ he snorted. ‘I kind of expected Anna to live in somewhere a bit more up market than this, given the amount of cash she was throwing around. What the hell is that smell?’
‘Don’t ask. I guess she wanted to keep a low profile.’
‘Yeah well, it doesn’t get much lower.’
Isaacs produced the key card from his wallet and ran it through the door’s reader. There was beep and the sound of a mechanical bolt sliding back. Isaacs pushed the door open and stepped cautiously inside. Shigs brought up the rear and closed the door as soon as Isaacs had located the light switch.
The pale illumination provided by the room’s sparse lights revealed a small, tidy and unremarkable apartment suite, devoid of any possessions save for the faded furniture it no doubt came with as standard. There was a right angle of a sofa and two chairs facing an outdated screen in one corner, and a small kitchen, bathroom and bedroom leading off from the main lounge area.
‘Looks like it’s empty, man,’ said Shigs from the kitchen, where he was busy investigating the insides of the cupboards. ‘The place has been stripped bare.’
Isaacs grunted a response and activated the screen, flicking through a few entertainment channels of both human and alien origin. He caught a news snippet about the ongoing political scandal over bribes paid to ministers for reconstruction contracts in the liberated systems before turning it off.
‘Fucking Rheinhold,’ said Shigs. ‘I never voted for that son of a bitch once and the bastard’s still in office. Lot of people are pissed off with him now though, what with the war and all of these corruption rumours flying around. I think he could be out come the next election.’
Isaacs wasn’t really listening to him. What the hell did Anna mean by leaving him the key to an empty apartment? She didn’t expect he’d want to live here did she? He wandered through into the bedroom. It too had been stripped bare. The sagging mattress lay naked, devoid of any covers. The wardrobes too were empty. Isaacs went to the bed-side table and opened the drawer, and found an envelope inside. His name was written on the back in Anna’s handwriting.
He shook it. There was a slim object inside. He tore open the envelope and found a standard data wafer within. Holding it between thumb and forefinger he walked back into the lounge.
‘Found something,’ he said.
‘Mmm…’ Shigs replied, engrossed in the pornography he had managed to find on the room’s screen.
‘Jesus, Shigs. Bit early for that isn’t it? Hey! I said I found something.’
‘What?’ Shigs asked, finally registering his presence.
‘Data wafer of some kind. Must be a message I guess. Hey, turn that off I need to use the screen,’ he said and grabbed the control wand from Shigs who made a mock show of protest when Isaacs turned off the images of writhing female flesh. Isaacs switched the screen to terminal mode then inserted the slim wafer into the appropriate slot at the base of the device. The face of his wife appeared on the screen. She was in this room, talking to the camera mounted in the screen’s frame. Seeing her face after all this time stirred up quite a few feelings he had thought buried.
She looked a little different than the last time he had seen her. Her hair was shorter and she seemed to have lost some weight from how he remembered her. Damn it, she looked good, he had to admit. Those large dark eyes of hers still had a certain effect on him.
‘Cal, if you’re watching this, then you’re obviously trying to track me down.’
‘Well fucking hell, are you surprised?!’ Isaacs shouted at the screen.
‘Presumably if you’ve been talking to Shigs you’ve heard a little about what I’m involved in. It’s true that I’ve become a pirate, but there’s more to it than that…’ she averted her eyes from the camera, looking sideways and down at the floor, the angle highlighting her long nose and sharp cheekbones. ‘The reason I left you… I know you think I just ran away, but I’m sorry I just couldn’t take it anymore. I hated seeing you destroy yourself because of what happened to you. You wouldn’t let me help you, and I couldn’t just stick around and watch you put yourself in harm’s way again and again.’ She looked back at the screen again, her eyes blazing. ‘Cal, I think I can help you. I’ve found an answer to what you’ve been seeking all these years. I’m afraid to say it out loud, in case others find this recording, but you must come and meet me and my associates. Come to the Hadar system. My people at the Barstow station around the moon of Rhyolite have been briefed to keep an eye out for your ship. Please Cal, please let me help you this once. You know I still care about you.’ She looked away from the screen again; lip trembling, then the recording ended.
Isaacs looked at Shigs, who looked back at him in puzzlement.
‘Where the fuck is Hadar?’ he said.
‘Out in the fucking sticks is where,’ Isaacs replied. ‘It’s even further out than this place. Must be a good hundred and fifty light years or so away from here.’
‘What do you think she’s doing all the way down there?’
‘Beats me, I’m gonna go find out though.’
‘I thought you might. Man, Hadar, eh? Well I’d love to come with you, but you know, I have a bar to run and…’
‘Hey, it’s alright. Look I need someone who knows where I’ve gone. In case…’
‘In case anything should happen to you.’
‘Something like that. Look Shigs, if Anna’s right about finding those answers for me. I don’t know what might happen.’
Later that day, the Profit Margin slipped quietly out of its berth in the Labyrinth, moved smoothly through the complex lines of traffic surrounding the esoteric collection of rocks and modules and jumped in a direction that would take it to the far south west along the plane of the galaxy. It was not followed. Only one person watched it leave, but Laurence’s cold dead eyes did not register what they saw any more. The gangster’s frozen body, riven in a dozen places by laser burns and stab wounds tumbled slowly in the microgravity of the Labyrinth. Until it was seen from a viewport by an unfortunate resident or found frozen rock hard by maintenance crews it would remain here in the silent vacuum, by which time his attackers would be long gone.
Isaacs, unaware of the violent acts committed by his unknown guardians, stretched in his comman
d couch, unbuckled himself from the safety harness and checked that the ship’s systems were in order, before making his way aft to fix himself a coffee.
He had bade Shigs a fond farewell and had a last drink at the Watering Hole, before making his way back to his ship via an even more circuitous route than was necessary, all the while checking to make sure he was not being followed, then he had launched the Profit Margin during a busy period of the day when it was most likely to go unnoticed amidst the swarms of other vessels.
What the hell had Anna meant by saying that she’d found an answer to the questions that had preyed on his mind for so long? The nightmares, the depression and the survivor’s guilt had grown over the years until they had almost consumed him, but not before they had destroyed his relationship with her. She knew him all too well. He had been pushing himself ever harder, accepting ever more dangerous assignments, picking fights he knew he couldn’t win. Perhaps a part of him wanted to die out here, alone in the cold empty blackness and put an end to it all once and for all.
He swirled the murky dregs of his coffee and wondered.
‘Hey,’ said a cheerful female voice.
Isaacs almost dropped his mug with shock and whirled to face the figure standing in the doorway behind him. His first instinct was that he was about to be hijacked. He’d heard plenty of stories about careless captains who’d jumped, only to have their ship taken over by gangs of stowaways.
It was not to be. Anita stood before him, arms folded under her t-shirted bosom, regarding him with a casual smile.
‘Thought I’d hitch a ride, hope you don’t mind Cal.’
‘The fuck…? How the fuck did you get on my ship!?’
‘It was unlocked, well okay it wasn’t locked properly,’ she replied. ‘I checked the dock logs and found your ship. I figured I wanted out of the system and you were as good as any.’
‘Anita…’ he began. ‘Do you even know where I’m headed?’
‘No,’ she responded. ‘But I reckoned that one system was as good as another. Where are you going?’
