by Ryk Brown
“How did you end up here?” Neli asked.
“I grew up surrounded by brothers. I’ve been competing with them my entire life. The military seemed like a natural fit.”
“And now you’re a Ghatazhak. The first female Ghatazhak, no less. I guess we have a little bit in common then. Being the only woman around a bunch of men.”
“Until now,” Jessica said, raising her cup.
Neli smiled, mimicking the gesture. “Until now.”
* * *
“Wake up!”
It was like a dream, only with pain…lots of it.
“Wake up!”
The voice was unfamiliar, and distant. Or was it muffled.
Cold water suddenly hit his face, snapping him out of his dream state. Tiny prickles crawled over his skin, like little pins driving into it. His head was swimming, throbbing. He wanted to throw up.
He tried opening his eyes, but a bright light made it impossible.
“Finally,” the unfamiliar voice said.
He opened his eyes again, more slowly this time. Two lights, not one. He could hear other voices as well.
“What is your name?”
“Uh… Birk.”
“Birk what?”
“Gorry. Birk Gorry.” Oh, God. I’ve been turned over to the Dusahn.
“Why were you asking for Anji?”
“Where is Cuddy?” Birk wondered, confused.
“We are asking the questions. Why were you asking for Anji?”
“We wanted to sell him something.”
“What did you want to sell him?”
“Brandy. Palean brandy. We stole it.”
“You told the meat man that what you had to sell ‘fell from the sky’. Did your brandy fall from the sky?”
“We stole it…from a cargo shuttle… At the spaceport.”
“You do not lie well. You were trying to sell weapons. Weapons dropped by the Karuzari, along with claims that the savior Na-Tan was coming to liberate the people of Corinair.”
“No, no, no. It was brandy, I swear,” Birk insisted. If the Dusahn knew he had weapons, he would be publicly executed, just like those poor people whose family members commanded jump ships who had not reported in as ordered.
“Do you know what the penalty is for possessing weapons, let alone trying to sell them to others?” the voice threatened.
“Please,” Birk begged, “we were just trying to make some money. We are no threat to the Dusahn, I swear it!” Birk was on the verge of tears, fearing that at any moment, he would be executed in some cell, and his parents would never know what had happened to him.
“Admit that you have the weapons, and tell us where they are hidden, and we will spare your life,” the voice promised.
“There are no weapons!” Birk cried, hoping to convince them. Surely the penalty for stealing brandy is something less than death.
“TELL US!”
“Where is Cuddy?”
“HE IS DEAD! HE WOULD NOT ADMIT HIS CRIMES!”
“Oh my God!”
“TELL US! WHERE ARE THE WEAPONS?”
“They’re buried in my yard, in the back!” Birk finally confessed.
“DESCRIBE THEM!”
“Eight of them, in a big, heavy case. Big barrels, about as big around as my fist. Half a meter long, with two handles.”
“Do they work?”
“I don’t know! We never fired them! We were afraid!”
“How is it that we have not detected these weapons? How did you shield them?”
“We didn’t shield them,” Birk insisted. “We just buried them. Maybe the case shielded them. I don’t know. I’m just a student. I work part-time as a cashier.”
“Why did you ask for Anji?”
Birk was now sweating profusely. His head was pounding worse than ever, and he was afraid that he would piss himself. “Someone told me he used to be in the Corinari. I thought… I thought maybe he would want them… Or he would know someone who wanted them.” Birk started to sob. “We just wanted some money, that’s all. I swear it.”
The voice from behind the bright lights said nothing as Birk continued to sob, convinced that his death was imminent.
Finally, the voice behind the lights spoke. “We have your identification. We will verify your claims. If you have told us the truth, we will spare your life.”
Birk heard the sound of footsteps, a door closing and locking. The lights went out, and he was in darkness again.
But he was alive… for now.
* * *
“The Aurora’s sensors would work much better in this,” Vladimir grumbled, as he punched instructions into the auxiliary console in the Seiiki’s cockpit.
“Just do what you can,” Nathan said. “We’ll find her.”
“We’re back-flying her course,” Josh pointed out. “Even if we don’t see her, we’re bound to bump into her eventually.”
“Let’s avoid the bumping into part, shall we?” Loki suggested.
“It’s possible that she already finished her trip through the cloud,” Nathan reminded them. “We’re only guessing about her departure date. For all we know, she could have departed two days earlier than we thought.”
“Or the Dusahn could have already tracked her down and captured her,” Vladimir offered.
“Let’s try to keep a positive attitude, shall we?” Nathan scolded him. “Besides, I don’t see the Dusahn sending ships three hundred light years out, just to capture a luxury liner. Especially when they know she’s going to come back to them. And they wouldn’t consider her a high-value vessel.”
“Unless, of course, Lord Dusahn wants to make the Mystic his own private yacht,” Josh mused.
“I suspect the Dusahn are a bit more practical than that,” Nathan insisted. “That would be more a Takaran thing to do.”
“If the Mystic departed out of Takaran space, then the Dusahn would have her flight plan,” Loki pointed out. “They’d know exactly where to find her at any time.”
“So, if they felt she was important enough to go after, then we’re wasting our time,” Nathan speculated. “Well, let’s just hope they do not think she’s important enough to go after.”
“I have a weak reading at our ten o’clock, twenty-three up,” Vladimir reported. “Approximately twenty thousand kilometers.”
“How weak?” Nathan wondered.
“Very. It could be another sensor echo.”
“Josh, steer ten left to split the difference, and give us ten up as well. But don’t let us stray more than ten thousand kilometers off our primary course track,” Nathan directed them.
“You got it.”
“Dalen, keep your eyes eleven high,” Nathan said over his comm-set.
“Checking eleven high,” Dalen replied.
“Marcus, keep your focus to starboard. We’re going to veer left of course for a bit to check out a weak reading.”
“Keepin’ my peepers to starboard,” Marcus replied over Nathan’s comm-set.
Josh put the Seiiki into a slight turn to the left, pitching her nose up fractionally in the process.
Nathan waited a full minute. At their current speed, they would close half the distance between them and the sensor target in only four minutes. This area of the cloud was fairly bright, due to the proximity of the blue-giant star that marked the Mystic’s exit point for her journey. The Mystic had to be at least half the size of the Aurora, and would not be difficult to spot, even from several kilometers away.
Dalen sat in the port gun turret, staring out through the transparent bubble that protruded from the top of the Seiiki’s hull above her upper deck. His gun was pointed directly to port, which meant he had to twist his body slightly to his right
to scan for the Mystic.
As he had been for the last few hours, he alternated between using a handheld visual scanner set to its maximum zoom, and his vision. Marcus had taught him the technique, scanning the bigger picture with his eyes, and then using the handheld to zoom in on anything that looked like it might be a ship in the distance.
So far, that technique had turned up nothing. But it was less tiring than constantly looking through the visual scanner, now that he had a possible target location.
Using the visual scanner, Dalen swept the area to the Seiiki’s left, and above, occasionally zooming out to take in a bigger area, just in case he was off the mark.
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this shit up,” Dalen complained, lowering the handheld visual scanner to rub his tired eyes.
“We’ll rotate the both of you out of there after the next jump,” Nathan promised. “We’ve got plenty of fresh eyes aboard.”
“How’s that contact looking?” Nathan asked Vladimir.
“Still weak, but firming up a bit,” Vladimir replied. “Size seems correct, based on the description her captain’s wife gave us. And the contact does have an apparent motion indicating a course track in the expected direction.”
“If it’s got motion opposite ours, then it can’t be an echo, right?” Nathan surmised.
“Yes, and no,” Vladimir replied. “But more yes than no…I think. Sensors are not really my specialty.”
Nathan sighed, staring out the port windows. “If that is the Mystic, she’s a bit off course.”
“Her captain would probably adjust his distance from the blue-giant, depending on the prevailing radiation levels coming from the star,” Loki said.
“Good point,” Nathan agreed. “But twenty thousand kilometers wouldn’t make that much of a difference, would it?”
“Doubtful,” Vladimir agreed.
“We also don’t know her filed course,” Loki pointed out.
“Another good point,” Nathan agreed with a smile. He was beginning to appreciate having Loki aboard, as it removed the responsibility of thoughtful navigation and operations—something that Josh was not very good at—off of Nathan’s shoulders.
“I could go active and ping them,” Vladimir suggested.
“And if the target is a Dusahn gunship, also searching for the Mystic?” Nathan asked.
“We are armed, Cap’n,” Josh reminded.
“Doesn’t mean we need to go looking for a fight,” Nathan insisted. “We’ll stay passive.”
“We’re coming up on ten thousand kilometers left of course, Captain,” Loki warned.
“Vlad?”
Vladimir’s face scrunched up. “The quality of the contact continues to improve, but I still cannot be sure of its reliability.”
Nathan sighed. “If we continue drifting left of course, and the Mystic is on the course we expected, we could miss her entirely while we’re chasing a ghost.”
“I am watching for contacts along our original course as well,” Vladimir reminded Nathan.
“Yes, but the Mystic could also be right of our original course, which would put her out of range of our sensors.” Nathan sighed again. “This damned cloud.”
“I think I may have something,” Dalen reported over their comm-sets. “A flash of light, like a reflection.”
“Where?” Nathan asked immediately.
“Uh… Twenty-four degrees off our bow, seven degrees high… There it is again… Maybe eight thousand kilometers?”
“That is precisely where my sensor contact is,” Vladimir agreed.
“Josh,” Nathan called.
“Turning toward the contact,” Josh replied, anticipating his captain’s next command.
“Pick up the pace a little, too,” Nathan ordered.
“You got it,” Josh replied. He glanced at Loki. “Ten percent for five seconds?”
“That should be enough,” Loki agreed.
“Ten for five,” Josh confirmed, reaching for the main propulsion controls.
There was a low, distant rumble, an audible vibration, as Josh fired the Seiiki’s main engines for five seconds.
“Another flash,” Dalen reported calmly. “Dead ahead this time.”
“Contact is definitely firming up now,” Vladimir reported. “Moving across our bow from right to left, approaching rapidly. One thousand kilometers.” Vladimir’s eyes suddenly widened. “They’re painting us! Oh Bozhe! We’re being targeted!”
“Hard to starboard! Down fifty and accelerate away!” Nathan ordered.
“Starboard, down and away,” Josh replied, firing the Seiiki’s engines and rolling into a diving turn to the right.
“Gunners, swing aft and be ready to engage,” Nathan instructed.
“What’s going on?” Jessica called over comm-sets.
“Swingin’ aft, and powering up!” Marcus replied.
“Negative! Don’t power up your guns just yet,” Nathan corrected.
“Copy, keep’em cold,” Marcus acknowledged.
“Nathan?” Jessica called again.
“The contact we were chasing just painted us, Jess,” Nathan replied over comms. “We’re taking evasive now.”
“Firm contact now,” Vladimir reported. “I was able to get a good read when she went active. Much smaller than I originally thought. About the same size as us, actually.”
“Do the Dusahn have gunships that small?” Nathan wondered.
“They do,” Jessica replied, coming up the ladder to the Seiiki’s cockpit. “They’re similar to the Aurora’s Reapers, except they can’t operate in the atmosphere.”
“Do you think that’s what just painted us?” Nathan asked Vladimir.
“I could not tell,” Vladimir replied. “I am sorry, but this cloud makes getting solid readings nearly impossible while on passive sensors.”
“Do you think they’re still tracking us?” Jessica asked.
“There was only the single sensor pulse,” Vladimir replied. “They may not have gotten a clean read on us. If they pulsed again, and we were quick enough, they would have seen nothing with the second pulse.”
“So they might conclude that we were a sensor ghost as well,” Nathan surmised.
“It is possible,” Vladimir agreed.
Nathan thought for a moment. “Josh, take us back to our original course track. Minimal thrust. Let’s not give them anything to pick up. Vlad, keep your eyes peeled for any pursuit.”
“What are you planning?” Jessica wondered.
“For now, we keep looking along our original course. If someone else is out here looking for the Mystic, that means there’s a good chance she’s still out here.”
* * *
Birk had been tied to the chair, sitting in the cold, pitch-black room for what had to be hours. His wrists and ankles hurt where he was bound with restraint bands. He was hungry and thirsty, and he had been forced to urinate all over himself when he could no longer wait for someone to take him to the bathroom.
At first, he thought his captors had abandoned him. He had even tried to free himself, thinking that he might escape. He tried standing, thinking that if he could knock the chair against the wall, it might break, but the chair was secured to the floor.
The room was so dark. He had never known such complete darkness. And it was terribly quiet. For the first few hours, he had not heard a single sound. Only his own breathing.
Occasionally, he could hear a distant rumbling sound, like a large truck driving down the road. When he first thought his captors had abandoned him, he felt a sense of relief. With them gone, he at least had time to try to escape. But over time, he wondered if they had sealed him up in an airtight chamber, leaving him to suffocate.
Birk had wept more
than once. He was positive that he was going to be tortured and then executed. And he had done nothing. Certainly nothing to warrant this. He had not asked for a crate of weapons to be dropped down on him. Yes, he had hidden the weapons, despite the Dusahn order for all weapons to be surrendered. And yes, he had tried to find someone to sell the weapons to, but he needed the money. The shop where he worked had closed its doors indefinitely, its owner having left Aitkenna, like so many others, to hide in the nearby mountains.
The Dusahn had told them that little would change. That life on Corinair would go on, that her people would continue to prosper, likely more so under Dusahn rule. But that was not turning out to be the case. Everyone in Aitkenna was terrified. Most hid in their homes, fearing arrest, should they be stopped on the street by Dusahn security forces. Word of random arrests and interrogations were rampant, and many of those arrested had never returned.
Birk and Cuddy had laughed at the fears of their neighbors, arguing that the Dusahn gained nothing from a paralyzed, non-functioning world. It was in the Dusahn’s best interest for the worlds they seized control of to continue to produce, to continue to thrive. The Dusahn needed their support, not their fear. They needed the people of Corinair to be thankful that they had been chosen for inclusion in the Dusahn Empire.
Their arguments could not have been more wrong. The Dusahn may have wanted the people of Corinair to be happy and productive under their rule, but first, they needed them to fear. For fear was a far more powerful weapon than any gun or bomb. Fear was always with you, everywhere you went. It even permeated your dreams.
Birk’s mind kept wandering back to his friend. Originally, Cuddy had wanted nothing to do with the guns. It had been Birk’s idea to bury them in the yard and wait. As with most of Birk’s crazy schemes, Cuddy had agreed to go along after Birk’s needling. When Birk had decided to try selling the weapons, Cuddy had wanted nothing to do with the idea. Burying them in the yard was one thing. At least they had plausible deniability, as anyone could have buried them, and they had been careful enough to wipe their fingerprints from the case. But selling them presented new risks. Immense risk, Cuddy had argued. But Birk had reminded Cuddy that they needed the money. Besides, it was their responsibility to help support any resistance to Dusahn occupation, even if it was indirect. And what was wrong with making a few bucks on the side?
