Crucible: Records of the Argos

by Michael J. Farlow

  I liked the plan since I didn’t have a better one, and I knew our drone friend could not go all the way through the lock and report from the other side. I did make one suggestion. “Why don’t we try opening the door without knocking and catch them both by surprise.”

  Sif started to give me a hard stare but stopped when he remembered the cell doors that had magically opened. He nodded, then held up three taloned fingers for just a second before he slowly started to lower one at a time. I got the meaning. Go on three. Funny how different species could have some of the same methods of communication.

  When the third finger disappeared, Sif pushed the door open hard, and we all heard a loud “Oof” to the right. As he planned, Sif jumped through the open door and grabbed the guard to the left. I quickly flowed in behind him to get the guard on the right. Except, there were more than two guards. There were six total, and four held rifles on us.

  Shit!

  As the two downed guards slowly picked themselves off the floor, I saw the four, armed guards part in the middle allowing a short little man to come forward. Toor!

  “Ah, Captain, we just coming to you. You save a walk. No time for me to ask how you here. A fast shuttle waiting in orbit to take you to better place.” The latter was said with a half-smile. “When you there, you tell how you out.”

  Pointing to our heads, the short man continued. “You put on helmets as we do, then we take you to your ride.”

  A small shuttle hurried us to a larger one and we transferred under guard to some uncomfortable seats in the new ship. Sif was chained to his seat out of respect, or fear, from our captors. When seated, I called out to Harry on my implant.

  “Harry. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, Captain. I have also observed you transferring to another craft. I tried contacting you earlier, but it appears the lower levels of the facility were heavily shielded by the high nickel and lead content of the asteroid.”

  “Can you get us out of here?”

  “Not on my own, Captain. My shuttle does not have the weaponry or the speed to deal with the ship you are in.”

  Well crap, that was a bummer. I had hoped that Harry could perform some magic and free us. I was sinking into a funk when he came back online.

  “However, Captain, the doctor is manning the Falcon and coming to help.”

  That was good news and maybe not so good news. The Falcon would be more than a match for the sleek, fast shuttle we were in, but I worried that Doc might not have the guts to use the ship’s weapons if he had to. He wasn’t an aggressive person, and at times, I wondered why he had come along on this mission. I guess we would find out.

  “Thanks, Harry. Tell him to move it. We’re starting to pull out now.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  In retrospect, I shouldn’t have worried. It took about thirty minutes for the Falcon to catch the fast shuttle and get in front of it. I’m guessing that the sight of a big (relative to the fast shuttle) gunship appearing on the forward viewscreens of our captors put the fear of their ancestors into the pilots and small crew. The sleek ship came to a breaking stop with the Falcon hovering menacingly next to them.

  “I’m here, Nick,” came the doctor’s voice over implant. “Got them stopped, but they don’t seem to want to talk much. I asked for the guy, Toor, but he doesn’t seem to be on board. What do you want me to do?”

  At least he was asking and not trying something foolish. “Fire a shot across their bow, I mean the shuttle’s nose, and then tell them if they don’t surrender… wait.”

  The little mantis drone had come along and was unlocking our chains. “I have another idea. Fire the shot and then tell them to get to their escape pod and wait. Tell them not to even think of coming for us. We have freed ourselves, and if they don’t want to be shredded by an Arkon Red, go straight to the pod.” Sif’s chains fell to the deck of the cabin, followed by Amini’s. I saw our friendly mantis fly off to some other place in the ship.

  “When you are convinced that we are OK, they can eject. Warn them if they try to eject before you hear from us, you will fire on them and destroy the pod.” I was holding the crew hostage until I knew we could safely get to the flight deck.

  “Ok, but I don’t know if I can fire on a helpless pod and kill everyone.”

  I took a deep breath before answering. “You won’t have to. They’ll be happy as hell to get off this ship in one piece. They’ll do as you say.” I was tempted to add “maybe” but didn’t.

  Doc made the demand I suggested, and the crew complied, slower than I would have liked, but they did it. We then went to the flight deck, where Amini examined the controls and announced she could fly the ship.

  “Ok Doc, let them go.”

  With a hint of relief, Doc responded, “Done. I can see the pod moving away.”

  “Great! We’ll follow you home. Amini says she can fly this thing.” We had been prisoners for about ten hours, but it seemed much longer.

  With the new shuttle stored away in the lower shuttle bay, excuse me, cargo bay of the Argos, we all converged on the ship’s galley. Doc was nervous. He had never seen an Arkon warrior, only heard scary stories. He kept his distance, glued against the farthest bulkhead away from the central dining table and the fierce-looking Arkon Red. I called for Harry and his holo image appeared. I expected Sif to be alarmed, but I guess holograms were not unfamiliar to him.

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Any idea where our new shuttle was headed?”

  “No, Captain.”

  To say I was surprised was an understatement. We had all come to conclude that Harry either knew most everything or could find out.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “The shuttle crew wiped clean the central computer core before they left. There was no navigation data or any other data for that matter, Captain.”

  “I don’t suppose we can just continue on the heading the shuttle was on… could we?”

  “Unlikely, Captain. To hide their destination, they would have stopped several times along the way and changed course. As it is, we only know one leg of their track, which isn’t enough.”

  Crap, Crap, Crap. Considering all we had gone through these past hours, was it too much to ask for a break? I guess so. I made a fist and tapped my knuckles on the table several times in frustration, then recovered. Before I could ask even myself “What next?”, Sif grunted. We all turned to look at him. Doc pressed himself even harder into the bulkhead behind him.

  “What was that, Sif?” I asked.

  “Who are you? Why do you want to know the shuttle destination?”

  As hard as it might seem with all that had just happened, I had almost forgotten about the big Red warrior. What could I tell him? Not everything… I knew that. At least not now. We knew little about him and had insufficient experience with him to offer an unlimited welcome. He is an Arkon Red, after all, I heard my inner voice saying. I had to be careful.

  “We may not be exactly traders, but we are interested in free trade. We know there have been a dozen or more cargo ships and their crews that have gone missing lately. That almost happened to us twice. The term we use for the criminals responsible is pirates. You might say, in a way, we are pirates ourselves to the extent we prey on pirates. Understand?”

  “No.”

  I looked at Amini with help written all over my face. She smiled and got me out of the mess.

  “Think of us as a space patrol funded by people who want to see trade grow, and the pirates disappear.”

  Sif nodded in at least partial understanding.

  “But who pays for this?”

  Sif not being a member of the crew, we couldn’t tell him the truth unless he joined us. So, I painted a pretty but ambiguous picture.

  “The most we can say at the moment is that our source of revenue desires to be private for now. This s
hip and all it entails has been provided by this source.”

  “But you are so few. What can three humans and an AI do against a large force of pirates, as you call them?”

  I was asking myself the same question as each day went by. Then an idea hit me.

  “Good question, Sif. We have a good ship, a capable ship, but as you point out, only the three of us — and Harry. I’ve been worried about that. We came out here understaffed for what we’ve found. Any ideas where we might find another member of the crew? Say, one with advanced combat skills, knowledge of the area, and the people — one who might be angry at these pirates?”

  Doc realized where I was going and looked like he wanted to object but was frozen at the prospect. Amini just smiled and softly nodded.

  It’s hard to imagine a pointed snout with long protruding teeth slowly turning into a smile, but it happened.

  “Are you asking for Sif to join you?”

  “Only if you want to and on a trial basis until we know you better.”

  Amini nodded and said, suppressing a smile, “Yes, only if you want to.”

  Doc was holding out a hand now, shaking side to side as fast as he could in sync with his head as a signal for NO!

  “I think you do this for honor. The Arkon respect honor. I respect honor. I will join. Where do you keep the food?”

  Assuming Sif worked out, we would be four. Five including Harry, but Sif could make a powerful difference, if you know what I mean, and we could begin to be more open with him. We would also have to stock up on more and different supplies. Sif was big. And, in addition to finding things that he could or liked to eat, we would have to get a lot of it, judging by his size.

  Chapter 6

  We had been underway for two days after our escape. We could use some supplies, especially for our new crew member. Sif suggested we visit Kiber city on the opposite side of Tye and as far away from the port city of Viron as we could get. Too many people knew our faces there, Toor in particular. So that’s where we headed, but not as the Argos. I mentioned earlier that the surface of the ship’s hull has some advanced capabilities. The builders decided to employ an old concept to change the ship’s appearance but updated with some new technology. Basically, the hull surface is covered in a layer of electrochromic film, made tough by advances in chemistry. In our case, and as Harry explained it to me, our film is made of oxides of certain metals in the middle of the periodic table. As he said, these oxide films can be reversibly, electrochemically switched between near-colorless and highly colored states. In words I can understand, when you apply electricity, the film changes color — any color you want, depending on the voltage applied. At least, that’s how I understand it, and I’m sticking to it.

  I asked Harry to change our appearance with no particular guidance. He changed the ship’s color and took advantage of another Argos ship feature, which allowed us to extend or retract the nose of the ship a little. We became a blunt-nosed, mottled blue cargo ship from the sister planet of Zarminia, Baylon. We still called her Argos, but to others, we referred to her as Planar.

  The plan was less to seek information as we did in Viron and more to get the supplies we needed for our new crew member. Neither Amini nor I thought it was a good idea for us to go to the surface, just in case somebody flew in from Viron that we had either spoken to or that might have seen us there. That left Doc and Sif, and Doc wasn’t happy about the idea. He wasn’t quite as afraid of the Arkon Red as he was when he first saw the warrior, but they were far from friends. Sending Sif was mostly as a guard for Doc and a little to give the Red the opportunity to gather any information he might, based on his knowledge of the city and its citizens.

  “Why can’t Sif go on his own. You don’t need me.” Doc said, whining like a child.

  I gave him the stare my mother gave me when I told her I didn’t want to do something. I was pleased to see it worked on other people like it did on me. You know the look: folded arms, one eyebrow arched, and that eye opened more than the other. Lips pursed and one foot tapping.

  “We need some supplies, Doc, and you’re the only one available that knows what we need and what we can and can’t eat. Besides, it’ll be fun. You haven’t been off the ship since we left home. Go. Enjoy the city for a while.” I suspected it was like pushing your young son or daughter up the steps of school for the first time while they kept looking back, pleading with their eyes to let them go home. I calmed him down by having Harry attach a firefly to each of them so we could look over their shoulders, so to speak.

  So it was that Mr. Grumpy and Sif made their way in a ship’s shuttle to the Kiber spaceport. Doc wouldn’t know it, but the entrance to the city was a duplicate of the one on Viron, complete with all the fees and annoyances. Doc was briefed on what to expect and supplied with script saved from the last visit to Tye. Because he was familiar with the city, Sif led the way through the bureaucratic morass into the busy trading sector.

  “Where would you like to go first, Doctor?”

  Doc may have heard the Arkon warrior but appeared so engulfed watching the kaleidoscope of life forms and everything that was going on, he failed to answer.

  “Doctor?”

  “What? Oh, yes. The first place I’d like to see is the medical businesses.”

  “You won’t see much there, but we can get there quickly by going this way.”

  I suspect that from Sif’s point of view, he must have felt more like a shepherd than a guide. He constantly had to grab the doctor to either prevent him from being run over by a delivery cart or running headlong into other shoppers; he was so distracted by what he saw. Eventually, they found Arkon medical supplies and managed to buy both human and Arkon food and other essentials. For a few more handfuls of script, the sellers agreed to deliver the goods to their shuttle immediately and pay the associated fees.

  Sif stopped and looked around and focused on a tavern close by.

  “It is time for a beverage to celebrate your first trip here. There is a…” Sif stopped in his tracks and mid-speech, grabbed Doc by the back of his coat, lifted him from the ground, and turned to go in the opposite direction.

  “What are you doing?” Doc sang out in protest.

  “We return to the ship, now.”

  “But we still have time to look around. What’s the rush?”

  “We may have been seen. We need to leave.”

  “Who may have seen us?”

  “Another Arkon. A Brown I know from Viron. I did not think he would be here.”

  Red, Brown, or Blue, the color of an Arkon made no difference. I knew Doc feared them all. In this case, however, he seemed to put away his fear of Sif and readily let himself be whisked away to safety. The two of us on the ship could only watch from our distant position as our friends fled for their lives. Concern tugged at our throats.

  In and out of vendors stalls and through narrow passageways, Sif towed the doctor toward the spaceport as fast as he could go. Amini and I could see him look back several times but didn’t see anything. The quicker they could get off the planet and back to the ship, the better off they would both be. However, very near the spaceport, and before we could warn them, they turned down an alley that ended abruptly with no way out except the way they came. We could see Doc was in a panic.

  “What now?” the shaking doctor asked Sif.

  Sif looked fleetingly around him for a door or an alternative way out. He didn’t see any. Then his gaze stopped on a large pile of trash against a near wall. As I watched, he grabbed the doctor and pushed him toward the pile.

  “Get in and cover yourself. I will follow.”

  “In that? You have to be kidding,” Doc said in disbelief.

  “You don’t have a choice. By now, the Brown has called friends, and we cannot fight them all, not here anyway, with you.”

  “No, I can’t do it.” As Amini and I watched, we sus
pected Doc was about to complain that they didn’t know what kind of germs or maladies the pile contained. Sif didn’t give his charge time to say it, lifted him up by his collar, threw him into the stinking pile, and followed.

  To keep Doc down, Sif covered him with his body and put a scaled hand around the doctor’s mouth while whipping trash over their hiding place and them. None too soon, it turned out.

  The Arkon Brown and three non-Arkon friends waving sidearms ran into the alley and stopped when they saw it was blocked. Each of the four looked sharply around for a way their victims could have escaped. But, like Sif, they didn’t see one.

  “You sure they came this way?” asked one of the pursuers. “You didn’t lose sight of them even for a met?” Met is the Arkon standard term for a minute.

  The Brown looked around but didn’t answer.

  “Hey, brownie, I’m talking to you!”

  “I may have lost them for a moment, but I am sure they came this way.”

  Disgusted, the leader of the three non-Arkons holstered his weapon and turned to leave the alley. “Come on. I think they were headed for the spaceport. Let’s look there.” The others followed. Several minutes later, Sif broke from the pile of trash, dropping Doc on his feet in the process.

  “You saved us!” Doc said, gulping for breaths. “You saved me. Thank you.”

  Sif just grunted as he kept an eye on the alley entrance. “Time for nice things when we get back to the ship. They will be watching the spaceport for us. We are not safe yet.”

  “What will we do?”

  “We look for a way to get past them to the shuttle.”

  “How?”

  “I think I have a way.”

  I was certain Doc would have been happier if Sif had stolen a different kind of vehicle. Through the fireflies, it was not hard to read the side of the tank truck. Kiber City Spaceport Waste Removal. You guessed it, a shit remover. The truck was used to clean the waste tanks of visiting shuttles, for a fee, of course. Sif posed as the driver with a city hat from the cab pulled down over his scaly head. Initially, Doc seated himself on the passenger’s seat, but Sif pushed him off.