by GARY DARBY
Bianca nodded. “Looks like that’s settled. For now, we’ll call the small XTs Kerebs, and the larger aliens, Jakuta. Everyone good with that?”
The scouts nodded in response as Bianca turned back to Alena. “Couple more questions. While in hyper transit, we received a distress call from a private vessel in this vicinity. Know anything about that?”
Alena instantly nodded her head. “Heard it myself and brought my ship out of null space to get a better fix, that’s when those yahoos hijacked me and took my ship.”
“Uh, huh,” Bianca replied, running a hand through her short hair. “Your ship. We got a look at it from above and I would swear it was a modified scouter.”
Dason jerked his head up at Bianca’s comment. So he hadn’t been imagining things when he studied the familiar looking vessel. He too had thought it closely resembled a scouter.
Alena smiled slightly. “You got me there. It actually is a knock off of your basic scouter craft but modified somewhat for deep space usage.”
Her smiled dipped into a frown. “And before you ask me what the changes are, don’t waste your time as I won’t answer.”
“More ‘proprietary’ information?” Bianca dryly asked.
“That’s right,” Alena replied.
Bianca let out a breath that was a low rumble, almost a growl in answer to Alena’s snide reply.
“Fine,” she answered and turned to the scouts. “Work out two-hour guard shifts. Someone wake me an hour before sunrise.” She then folded her arms and closed her eyes for some well-earned rest.
As Nase began the first watch and the others settled in, Dason stared at where the alien’s pointed appendage had left a tiny red puncture mark in his hand.
Shanon nudged him, and he turned to her. With a puzzled look, she mouthed the word “What?” but he shook his head and didn’t reply.
He wanted to share with her the flashing images he’d experienced from his contact with the XT, but decided that she didn’t need to be burdened with anything more than what they already shouldered.
Dason clearly remembered hitting the little alien, the sharp pain in his hand. However, he didn’t understand what had happened afterward. Moreover, before he shared it with anyone he needed to think.
The images had been sharp and clear, and not similar to the fuzzy quality of a dream. Nevertheless, Dason knew that he had never seen any of the fantastic sights before in his life.
Were they real or something that his imagination had conjured up while he was semi-conscious? Dason didn’t know and had no way of finding out, at least not for now.
But he was desperate to know if the images were real because one image had seared itself into his mind—a tall Star Scout, a jagged moon over one shoulder. On one side, the moon looked ripped and torn, splintered into large pieces.
The scout’s appearance was tired, drawn, but his eyes held a certain grim determination.
Dason knew those light-brown eyes, the same color as his, the narrow nose, the firm chin—he had looked upon that countenance a thousand times in the one digi-photoplat his mother kept among her few personal possessions.
It was the face of his missing father.
Chapter Eight
Star Date: 2443.061
Unnamed planet in the Helix Nebula
Star Scout Jadar Marrel slid an extra L-gun charge pac into a side pocket of his torso vest. His deliberate speed, a keen eye, and double-checking of everything were testimony to the fact that he had done this hundreds of times on other alien and dangerous worlds.
The difference was that before, he’d had a well-stocked storehouse of supplies to choose from. Here, he would have to make do with what he could salvage from the torn and ripped ship.
He made a final check of the vest’s contents. He set his jaw and sighed. The water, rations, MedPAC, spare comms set, and a few other items would just have to do, as there wasn’t a resupply site on this unexplored planet.
It had been pure luck that he had found his form-fitting camo jacket among the scattered contents of their wrecked ship. Unfortunately, the sensor pack that would keep the jacket at a comfortable temperature and hence, him at a comfortable temperature was ruined.
Still, it would keep off the elements to some degree so in that, he felt fortunate.
With hard eyes, he glanced over at the huge mound of earth that covered their ship’s shattered fuselage; under the dirt and boulders was the body of young Star Scout Lieutenant Lengly.
The lieutenant hadn’t been so fortunate.
Jadar understood death better than most, having seen it too often in his career. Nevertheless, to lose someone under his command, even if he had been responsible for him or her for only a brief time, always hit him the hardest.
He glanced upward. The Helix Nebula’s glowing greenish-gray cloud wall covered the sky. They had come through that wall on an errand of mercy, seeking to help those who had sent out an emergency distress call.
Only that hail had been a facade, a trick, to lure them into a trap; a ruthless attack, showing no mercy. That angered him almost as much as Lengley’s death, using a distress call to cover their murderous actions.
Even his superior piloting skills hadn’t been enough to save their ship and they had crash-landed. Somehow, someway, he and Shar Tuul had survived but their young companion had not.
Jadar’s one consolation was that they had managed to damage their attacker’s Zephyr craft enough that it too had crash-landed on this unexplored and new world.
With their ship’s communications destroyed, Jadar readied himself to trek through the forest to the distant hills where he believed the Zephyr had ditched.
He had two wishes: to meet up with those who had carried out the brutal attack, and to capture their ship and use their communicator to call for aid.
Checking his L-gun one more time to make sure it had a full charge, he vowed that this time he would meet their attackers on his terms and dictate the outcome.
At a slight rustling, he turned to see Shar Tuul clamber, stiff and sore, from the pilot pod’s mangled remains.
“Morning,” Shar muttered. “I think.”
Jadar glanced up to see faint streaks of lime-tinted light that seemed to stab into the darkness overhead.
Over one horizon, the nebula’s glowing coils were fading, signaling that sunrise was not far off. Tiny embers from the campfire shot up like fireflies to dance in the air before they faded away in the semi darkness.
“That it is,” he returned. He gestured toward Shar while saying, “You’re moving pretty gingerly on that leg.”
“Stiffened up on me during the night,” Shar replied. “Of course, our luxurious accommodations didn’t help matters, either.”
Jadar smiled with a knowing air. “Oh, I don’t know, I’ve had to sleep in worse places.”
“Me too,” Shar grunted, “but I was a lot younger, and didn’t have a broken arm and dislocated ankle to deal with.”
He hobbled to where he could lean against the pod’s fuselage. “You ‘bout ready to go?” he asked.
“Just waiting for it to get a little lighter,” Jadar answered. “Don’t relish doing a solo night march on a planet that I know nothing about.”
Shar jutted his chin toward the distant hills and asked, “How far do you think that crash site is?”
Jadar bent down to reseal his field boots. “Best guess? More than thirty, less than a hundred kilometers.”
Shar whistled. “That’s a pretty good hike.”
Jadar gave a last tug to tighten his boots and straightened. “Yep, a decent jaunt, at that. And I have to admit I wish I were doing it in the company of about twenty or thirty other scouts.”
He paused before saying, “Sorry to have to leave you behind, Shar. But that Zephyr is our one hope of a working n-space transmitter and getting off this planet.”
Shar waved a hand. “No, no. It’s the right thing to do, and I would only slow you down.”
Gazing over at Lengley’
s gravesite, his eyes turned hard. “Besides, we owe it to Lieutenant Lengley to find out who did this and bring them to justice. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned.”
He changed his position to find a more comfortable spot for his injured leg. “You know, I was thinking last night about what happened. That Zephyr was waiting for us, or rather, waiting for someone to show up.”
Jadar turned to Shar with a puzzled expression. Shar held up a hand. “I think I may know who, but let me lay it out for you first.
“We’re aware the Zephyr was dispatched at Luna Station to a Star Scout Captain Simur, a fictitious name, at the chief of staff’s order.
‘Captain Simur’ couldn’t have been after us because she boosted off Luna way before we did, and we filed an open flight plan. She couldn’t have known our destination.
“That distress signal we received was sent on a very, very tight beam. It wasn’t meant for us, we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was bait, pure and simple.
“The question is who? Who would be Out Here at those stellar coordinates at that approximate time to pick up that signal and follow it back just like we did?”
Jadar stared at Shar, rubbing a hand over his firm chin before his head snapped up. “The no-notice teams,” he stated.
“That’s right,” Shar replied in a grim tone. “The no-notice teams. The Special Operations Group warned us that the Gadion Faction was going to try something against our novices, or rather against certain ones. I think they may have been right.”
Jadar rubbed the back of his neck, considering Shar’s statement. “Are you saying that she was Gadion Faction and sent that message to lure a no-notice team to her location?”
Seeing the hard look of affirmation in Shar’s eyes, Jadar let out a long breath while saying, “I still can’t believe that the Faction infiltrated Star Scout Command, it’s so—”
“Inconceivable?” Shar returned. “I know. But that’s what it’s looking more and more like.”
He shook his head, his normally wide lips compressed in a tight line. “SOG was wrong. We don’t have just one mole among us; it now looks like we have more than one.”
Jadar stared off into the distance, his mind wrestling with the far-reaching implications of Shar’s bleak statement.
Gadions inside Star Scout Command. How many scouts had been injured or even died as the Faction wormed their evil way into the corps?
Shar stirred from his position to say, “And with our compu smashed, we have no way to access those no-notice flight plans, so we don’t know which novices she was targeting.
“But, the good news is that because of your ingenuity we brought the Zephyr down with us, which means I don’t think she picked off the target she was after.”
He frowned while saying, “I guess if there’s a bright side to this, it’s that we can take some comfort from the thought that those novice scouts are safe, at least from her.”
“So,” Jadar mused aloud, “we walked into a trap set for one or more of those teams. Let’s hope that was the only one because we have no way of warning Star Scout Command.”
“Don’t remind me,” Shar replied with a sigh. “I’m still trying to shake off the gloomy thought that we may have multiple traitors within the headquarters staff.”
He paused before saying in a low voice, “But speaking of, I’m not convinced that ‘Captain Simur’ is our primary mole, the one who’s feeding the Faction the information dealing with Kolomite ore finds and operations.”
He locked eyes with Jadar. “In fact, the more I’ve gone over this in my head, I’m certain she isn’t.”
Jadar returned Shar’s stare. The frankness of his statement could only lead Jadar to the obvious conclusion. “You’re not saying it, but you’re thinking that . . .”
“Star Scout’s chief of staff, the number two ranking officer in the whole organization, may well be our conspirator,” Shar stated emphatically.
Jadar took a long, thin stick and stoked the fire. He stood for several minutes watching the flames leap and flicker while he stirred the burning embers.
He threw the branch into the fire and turned to Shar. “Incredible, but I guess there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
Settling his torso vest so that it fit squarely across his shoulders, Jadar snugged his L-gun into its holster. He reached out and solemnly shook hands with Shar. “Go easy on that foot. I’ll try and get back as soon as I can.”
Shar returned Jadar’s grasp with his own hard grip. “You take care of yourself, Jadar, and don’t worry about me; I’ll be just fine. By the time you get back I’ll turn this mess into a palatial palace.”
“You do that,” Jadar smiled.
Spinning on his heel, he had only gone a few paces when Shar called out, “Hey, Jadar, do me a favor.”
Jadar stopped, turned, and asked, “What’s that?”
“When you meet up with those slime slugs,” Shar said in a hard voice, “don’t take any chances. Make sure your L-gun is on max.”
“Not to worry,” Jadar returned in the same firm tone, “it already is.”
Chapter Nine
Star Date: 2443.061
Geneva, Switzerland, Earth
Adiak Peller, First Minister in the Imperium’s Secretariat, paced swiftly through the Grand Hallway. The bright sunlight shone through crystalline windows, casting spears of light onto a black marble floor. So perfect was the surface burnish that Peller could see his own reflection.
And right now, though that mirror image showed an outwardly calm expression, inside he seethed. The meeting with the Zairians, who were petitioning Imperium assistance to evacuate their planet before a neutron star shattered it, had lasted far longer than it should.
Then, he had been called into another conference to straighten out the proposed Combine-Sadoc Peace Treaty’s diplomatic language.
The Combine and the Sadocs had been at war for over ten years now; both had lost almost a million lives, and still they fought over three small planetoids whose orbits intersected both their planetary systems.
None of the orbs had any minerals or chemical composites to be of any worth; their one value was that they would make excellent strategic platforms from which to launch devastating attacks against the Combine’s or Sadoc’s homeworlds.
Moreover, neither government was willing to cede a single moonlet without Imperium guarantees that the orbs would stay demilitarized.
The Imperium had managed a truce between the two combatants and the border sectors had become demilitarized.
The great danger lay in trying to complete the terms of the final peace treaty. Diplomatically, the situation was so fluid that if the negotiations broke down, war would start instantly and more innocents would die.
Peller could care less if more people were killed and fumed because he should have been back to his mansion hours ago to take care of vastly more important matters such as dealing with Deklon and Jadar Marrel.
If his present posting with the Imperium did not allow him firsthand access to the Imperium’s High Council and Grand Assembly, and more significantly, their secrets, he would resign.
Walk out and take up his true calling and only real ambition: To rule as the Gadion Faction’s powerful master and plot the Imperium’s eventual overthrow which would pave the way for him to become much, much more than the leader of the Faction.
Yes, greater and loftier things were ahead for Peller. He could feel it with each passing day which made the matter with the Marrels even more irritating.
They were in many ways of no consequence to his grand ambitions but no one, no one bested Peller and lived to tell about the deed.
He turned into a side hallway and with rapid steps made his way to the underground ZipCar platform.
He stepped into his personal vehicle, entered the destination commands, and within a minute, the teardrop-looking car glided to a stop at his mansion. Moments later, Peller was inside his secret and hidden hideaw
ay.
With rapid strokes, he powered up his sophisticated compu console. A holographic image of a binary star system floated in midair and like a boxer jabbing at his opponent, Peller punched a fist into the icon.
Such a motion should have opened a comms channel to Double Star, his secret agent within Star Scout Command. However, once again, there was no response to his hail and there hadn’t been for way too long to suit Peller.
Where was the man? Why wasn’t he answering Peller’s repeated hails?
Peller’s patience with Double Star had evaporated, and the only thing that would now dissipate his boiling anger was for his agent to answer his call.
He adjusted his shimmering cerise-colored robes and ran his fingers along the plum trim. He had chosen the trim color for a purpose—after all, purple was the color of royalty, was it not?
To the Faction he was their emperor and in the organization he had no equals so it suited him to wear the appropriately colored attire though none of his colleagues in the Secretariat would ever guess the implication.
Where was the fool? Peller stormed, and what has he done? Had he reined in his daughter, stopped her from going after the Marrels? Or was she still Out There and ruining his own designs on the Marrels?
However, his loss of communications with Double Star was only the iceberg’s tip. Like some Rapier Worm that knifed into his skull, he couldn’t ignore the painful thought that he had lost his Gadion assassin team.
Sent to stop Double Star’s daughter and to carry out his own scheme against Jadar Marrel and his nephew, they too failed to answer his repeated transmissions.
Peller breathed through flared nostrils. He could only assume that disaster had struck his team in galactic space, and they had missed the golden opportunity that Peller had looked forward to for all these years.
He had waited so long for just this chance, and now it appeared his plan had failed. What could have gone wrong with such a straightforward operation?
The plan had been simple. First, abduct Jadar Marrel and his novice Star Scout nephew, Dason Thorne. Second, use them to flush out Deklon Marrel, Jadar’s disgraced Star Scout twin brother, whom Peller hated with an unabated cold fury.
