by Dan Oakley
Small children darted around me, playing with miniature, toy zappers.
I only hoped they didn’t hurt as much as the real thing. I moved around them, and then skidded to a stop as I almost toppled into an old woman holding a straw basket full of bread. “Hooligan!” she yelled, scathingly looking me up and down.
“Sorry,” I called and took off at a run again.
In the distance, I caught sight of the thief’s leather jacket and dug deep for another spurt of speed. I was pleasantly surprised to realise my muscles weren’t yet starting to tire and I could only hope the thief was feeling worse than me.
He took a right turn into a narrow alleyway. Washing lines hung between the buildings on either side of the street. I ducked low but some got in my way, tangling around my head and shoulders. I freed myself from a billowing white sheet and saw the thief at the end of the alleyway, scurrying past dustbins.
He hit one on the way past, sending it tumbling into the street with a tremendous crash.
A stray cat that had been scavenging behind the bins let out an indignant meow as the thief met with a dead end.
I muttered a prayer of thanks until I realised I was wrong.
It wasn’t a dead end after all. But a thin slither of a passage, only just wide enough for somebody to squeeze through.
I cursed under my breath. Behind me the woman’s voice was getting louder.
How had she managed to catch us up? When I turned, I saw she was at the other end of the alley in some kind of motorised cart, and she was accelerating fast.
“He’s gone down here!” I shouted and then followed the thief into the thin dark alley.
Away from the hustle and bustle, I suddenly understood I could I be in danger. The dark, narrow confines of the alley now seemed sinister. There were no witnesses here.
I pushed my way along the gap between two buildings. My uniform caught and snagged on the rough brick wall.
As I reached the end of the alley the light got better, and stepping out into the light, I realised I’d walked to the end of the ring.
In front of me was the entrance which led to the docks.
I stood there for a moment, wondering which way the thief had gone.
There were only two options. Either he had remained in the atrium, a brightly lit area where he could be spotted easily, or he’d taken the path to the docks.
Then just ahead I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. That was him. He was running.
I followed.
The woman had dumped her motorised vehicle and was chasing on foot again. I have to admit, I admired her bravery, or maybe we were both just stupid.
I was gaining on the thief now. I guessed he was a city boy, and not used to exercise.
Plus I found myself able to run without getting too breathless. The lower oxygen on the planet Tor had caused my body to adapt, and in the richer oxygen atmosphere of the Marrachi space station, running felt like a gentle stroll uphill. A task that once would have been strenuous, now barely had me breaking a sweat.
The thief shot down yet another alleyway, and I raced after him.
I was starting to realise chasing a thief in a location I didn’t know well was not a particularly smart move.
This time, the alley really did lead to a dead-end.
The thief spun around and backed up against the wall, breathing fast. He threw the purse at me. “Take it,”
As a warning, he flicked up a switchblade and then activated the laser so that the blade glowed blue.
I didn’t have a weapon. I didn’t know the laws of Marrachi, but Finn had advised us not to carry weapons in case we were stopped and searched by the security forces.
But I had no need of weapons when I had my magic. I flung my hand towards him, directing a power surge towards the hand holding the knife.
He screeched with pain and dropped the knife. But then unexpectedly he lunged at me, and I was left with no choice but to defend myself. I used another forceful blow. This time delivering an uppercut to his jaw.
He fell heavily, like a sack of corn and lay on the floor groaning.
I grabbed the purse from the ground. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned around, preparing to return the purse to its rightful owner.
The woman wasn’t far behind us and I watched her approach. She wore a long black skirt and her red hair was carefully curled.
Her cheeks were flushed, and her forehead was coated in a layer of sweat.
Her blue eyes narrowed as she looked at me with an expression of disgust.
“Here is your bag,” I croaked. Though I wasn’t out of breath, I was really thirsty.
She snatched the bag and gave me an imperious look. “You are a disgrace. Magic should never be used in violence. I can tell you are foreign-born. You are no true Marrachi.”
Frustrated, I pointed at the thief on the floor. His dark red hair and darkly tanned skin marked him as a native born Marrachi, yet that hadn’t stopped him stealing her purse.
“Magic is forbidden, but stealing isn’t?”
The woman sneered, turned her back on me and trotted off down the alley.
The thief on the floor was now groaning. “Get away from me!” He squirmed.
I looked up at the fake sky and the fake clouds and wondered why I’d bothered.
Giving the thief a last look of disgust, I stalked away, taking the same route as the Marrachi woman.
When I got to the end of the alleyway, I saw her climbing back onto her motorised cart.
“Hey! Wait a minute. Could I get a lift back to the main street? I’m not sure where we are.”
She narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “Certainly not.”
And then with a high pitched whirring noise she sped off in her transport vehicle.
I stood in the empty street and wondered what to do next. Raking a hand through my hair, I looked around. There didn’t seem to be any transport vehicles for hire. It would be a long walk back to Main Street. I clutched my book to my chest, grateful it hadn’t been lost in the chase, and started walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I thought I recognised the streets, but I’d been running pretty fast and my attention had been fixed on the thief.
I’d been walking for about ten minutes when I spotted a sign to the docks. I knew there was a transport hub there, so I decided to head in that direction.
Although the streets were deserted, it didn’t seem to be a bad, crime-ridden area.
As I approached the docks, I found there were more people around. I spotted a group of Marrachi women sitting beside a large table in front of a coffee stall. I was considering getting something to quench my thirst, when I noticed a group of burly men heading to the atrium.
I wouldn’t have paid them much attention but for the fact I recognised one of their faces.
I stopped motionless beside the coffee stall and stared in disbelief.
Chapter 20
First I stood still and waited, unsure if my eyes were deceiving me.
The familiar figure of Bayliss trudged toward the atrium.
He was with a group of men, all dressed similarly, in light brown trousers and beige baggy shirts.
Why wasn’t he wearing his uniform?
The top of his bald head looked fuzzier than I remembered, and as he got closer to me, I could see his chin sported a couple of days beard growth. He hadn’t been shaving regularly, and that sort of scruffiness wasn’t allowed aboard the Kingdoms ships.
The place I’d chosen to stop and stare was a bustling, busy shopping area, and I was in the way, which earned me a sharp reprimand from an impatient red-haired woman, followed by a hard shove in the back from her male companion.
I stumbled before righting myself but didn’t spare the couple more than a glance. I was too focused on Bayliss.
I was sure it was him, but what was he doing here?
When he was a few feet away, Bayliss looked up. He was heading straight for me and must have seen me
, but he didn’t react. Maybe he didn’t recognise me.
He trudged slowly onwards, then his head rose sharply.
He stared at me, slack-jawed.
One of his companions slapped him on the back and said goodbye, but Bayliss didn’t answer.
He walked towards me slowly.
“Tomas, the mage… Is that really you, or am I seeing things?”
I broke out into a grin. “It’s really me, Bayliss. I didn’t expect to see you again.”
“You didn’t expect to see me?” Bayliss shook his head in disbelief. “I thought you were dead. What happened?”
He was still staring at me, as though he thought I might disappear at any moment.
“Do you have time to get a drink and something to eat?” I asked him, placing a hand on my rumbling stomach. Despite the excitement of being on the space station, my stomach was making it known it wouldn’t wait much longer for sustenance.
“Absolutely,” Bayliss said. “There’s a stall over there that does excellent meat and potato pies if that will do?”
My mouth watered at the prospect. “Perfect.”
As we walked across to the food stall, Bayliss kept muttering how he couldn’t believe it and wasn’t this a strange turn of events.
I had to agree. I knew Bayliss wanted to hear my story, but I was also eager to hear his. Something had happened to Bayliss. I doubted these were the normal clothes he wore when he wasn’t aboard the KSS Morellic. He’d let himself go a bit.
I knew I didn’t look much better in my dirty uniform, though.
Bayliss insisted he buy me dinner, and so I sat at a sleek, thin table made out of a material I didn’t recognise and waited. He returned with a jug of ale, two glasses and two hot pies wrapped in paper balanced on a tray.
He placed the tray on the table and then shook his head and smiled at me.
“How the blazes did you survive, Tomas?”
“It certainly wasn’t easy,” I admitted. “We managed to secure the complex and keep the lizards out for a while. We survived as best we could while we waited for a passing ship.” I shrugged. “Then a pirate vessel turned up. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but it resulted in a free ride to the space station.”
Bayliss frowned, his face full of questions, but I couldn’t wait to tuck into the pie. I unwrapped the paper, and the warm, steamy scent of the stewed meat hit me as I broke open the buttery pastry. I took a bite, the hot gravy almost burning the tip of my tongue.
As Bayliss unwrapped his own pie, he continued to talk. “Zarak told us he’d seen you. Your body, I mean. He swore you were dead.”
I swallowed a mouthful of pie. “He stabbed me,” I said sharply. “I’m sure he probably thought I was dead.”
Bayliss’s eyes grew wide. “He tried to kill you?”
I nodded, feeling the bitterness well up inside me. “Yes, he pretended he was going to help me go back and look for Kira, the girl we found, but instead, as soon as we were alone, he stabbed me. He wanted to get off the planet and wasn’t prepared to wait.” I shook my head and popped another piece of pastry in my mouth.
Bayliss watched me, astonishment playing over his features.
“I think he did something similar with Trella,” I said, with a shake of my head. “She wasn’t dead either. Together we made the best of things on planet Tor. Then all three of us were captured and brought here by the pirates.”
Bayliss sat back in his seat, his mouth hanging open.
For a moment he didn’t say anything, and I took the opportunity to demolish the rest of my pie.
Then I looked up. “So, what happened to you?”
Bayliss scowled. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
He rubbed a weary, greasy hand over his face. A small crumb of pastry stuck to his whiskers. “We got back to the KSS Morellic and immediately made our report. The commander had us bundled off to sickbay. He said we were hallucinating and suffering from exposure. The recordings we took back were corrupt, so we had no evidence.” He shook his head bitterly. “We tried to report what the commander had done, and we got laughed at. Draylan was smarter than me. When they threatened to ship us off to the head doctor and put us in solitary, he swallowed the accusations. Bobby and Zarak kept quiet, not wanting to risk their careers over it. They were transferred to another ship. I didn’t keep quiet. So as soon as we docked here in Marrachi, the commander handed me my dishonourable discharge.”
“You’re kidding me? He fired you?”
Bayliss nodded sadly. “Yes, without hesitation. He was glad to be shot of me. I think he was worried others might start to believe me. People were watching him, but he blocked all my communications with senior officers.” Bayliss gave a wry smile.
“But we had a visit from the Admiralty, and I decided to speak out in the welcoming ceremony. As you can guess, that didn’t exactly go down well. I was held in the brig until we arrived here at the space station.”
I looked at the big man with a renewed respect. It can’t have been easy to go up alone against the commander, not when he had the full weight of the Kingdoms behind him.
“I’m sorry, Bayliss. You deserved better. Does that mean Commander Taggert is still in charge of the KSS Morellic?”
Bayliss gave me a bitter smile. “Yes. He hasn’t been punished, and I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it.”
“What happened to Draylan? Did he keep his job?” I asked, scrunching up the paper that had been wrapped around my pie.
“He didn’t make a public fool of himself at the welcoming ceremony like I did, but he tried to speak to higher ranking officers about Commander Taggert. He was a bit more canny than me. So he still has his job. We talked about it often, trying to find a way forward, but he said he could do more from the inside. I’m just glad we didn’t both lose our jobs over it. I haven’t seen him for a few days, but he’s still on the space station.”
I frowned. “I thought you said he still had his job on the ship.”
Bayliss nodded. “Yes, but the Morellic is getting a refit at the moment. It’s not in active service, so the crew is on extended leave for a month. They still have one week left.”
I gripped the greasy pie wrapper in my hand. “Do you mean the KSS Morellic is docked, and the commander is on this space station?”
Bayliss looked at me and sighed. “I know what you’re thinking, Tomas. You want to make sure the commander is punished for what he did. But it’s just not worth the trouble. We will have to accept that he will never be punished for what he did. He’s going to get away with it.”
“I can’t accept that. He sent his sister to that planet knowing she and her crew would be annihilated. Then he sent us to suffer the same fate. He made sure we were assigned faulty weapons that couldn’t cope with the lizards.”
Bayliss groaned. “You sound just like me when I was ranting at Draylan… But there comes a time when you have to face reality. People as powerful as the commander don’t have to adhere to the same set of rules as the rest of us.”
Anger flooded through my veins as a flash of energy.
I took a couple of calming breaths and sipped the ale Bayliss had purchased for me.
“The dirty mudsucker,” I murmured.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Bayliss rested his arms on the table and leaned close. “What are you going to do about Zarak? You could report him, though he has a powerful family. I don’t know much about the legal system on Marrachi. But maybe we could hire a lawman or woman.”
I shook my head. “I’ll deal with Zarak in my own way. I’m not interested in getting my justice through the courts.”
I took a long swallow of ale and then said,
“What can we do, Bayliss? We can’t just give up on bringing the commander to justice.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Tomas. I’m out of a job. I’ve been working as a docker, unloading cargo. I was lucky to get that job after the smear the Kingdoms left
on my employment record. Maybe I was lucky to get away from him so easily. He threatened to have me thrown in jail for spreading slanderous lies.”
“I can add my story to yours now. And so can Kira. Surely they can’t ignore all of us.”
Bayliss gave me a sad smile. “I wish that would be enough.” Then he frowned. “You said you and Kira. What about Trella? Is she not here on Marrachi?”
I didn’t know how much to tell Bayliss. He’d always struck me as a strong, honest man, and I could see he tried to do the right thing in the case of the commander. But Trella’s sister had been accused of working with the Mage Rebellion. And that wasn’t my information to share. The Mage Rebellion was largely frowned upon in the Kingdoms, and I didn’t want to get Trella in trouble.
“She’s still here on the space station, but she’s dealing with family issues at the moment.”
“At least she has family,” Bayliss said wistfully. “I dedicated my life to the service of the Kingdoms.” He looked away bitterly and shoved the remainder of his pie to one side and then took a long drink.
Refreshed, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news about the commander, Tomas. But I’m really glad you made it off the planet. You’d be better off steering clear of the commander. He only tolerates Draylan because he believes Draylan has just as twisted morals as he has. Draylan is a clever man, somehow he’s convinced the commander he is on his side. Everyone else has been transferred or fired.”
“Trella discovered our names are on some kind of watchlist,” I said. “I can’t understand why the commander would do that if he assumed we were dead.”
Bayliss thought for a moment and then scratched the top of his head. “Maybe he was just covering every possibility.”
“Unless Zarak told him the truth?” I mused. “Perhaps he admitted to the commander he knew Trella and I were injured but hadn’t actually seen our dead bodies.”
“Maybe. I wouldn’t put it past the commander to weasel the truth out of Zarak.”
I took a look around the stalls. People were shopping and eating with friends, laughing and joking. Lovers whispered to one another. Children squealed with laughter, running between the tables and chairs, earning sharp glances from their mothers.
