The Tin Soldiers (Final Dawn, Book 5)

by T W M Ashford

  He hurriedly deposited a few credits into the machine to pay the docking toll. The Krolak grunted either in warning or welcome – Jack wasn’t altogether sure there was much difference in Krolak culture – and stepped aside as the security door to the station hissed open.

  Jack wandered through, taken aback.

  “Huh. Not quite how I expected.”

  “And there I was, thinking you’d been on plenty of stations before,” said Rogan, affectionately patting him on the shoulder as she passed.

  A multi-tier court dominated the central strut of the outpost, rising as far up – and indeed, if Jack cautiously leaned over the balcony, below – as the eye could see. A dirty, viscous liquid dripped freely from one level to another in slow, cascading waterfalls. None of the visitors and residents frequenting the stores, eateries and galleries on each tier seemed to mind. Most were Krolaks, though Jack spotted various Alpha Rhoden, a Drygg, and even a few humanoid Kerulians amongst their number. There were no internal elevators between floors – at least, none that Jack could see. In their stead, rubbery creatures as big as pickup trucks slowly climbed up and down the sticky, vine-laden walls using their long, sloth-like claws, munching nosebags of moss while carrying baskets of shoppers on their shelled backs. The same heavy, intoxicating heat permeated every inch of the outpost, as did the smell of mud and damp, mouldy grass. Critters scampered around people’s feet and small, chirping bugs fluttered between the tiers on twin pairs of wide, transparent wings.

  Rogan had been right – this wasn’t like any structure Jack had ever visited before. The Krolaks hadn’t pandered to any other species’ expectation of what a space station ought to be. This was their homeworld, off-world.

  A globule of gunk landed square on top of Jack’s head and trickled down to his ear like turgid treacle. He groaned and tried to wipe it off with limited success.

  “Maybe I should go back and get my helmet after all,” he sighed, gazing longingly at the hangar’s security doors.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Rogan marched him further into the station, trying to hide a smile. “You had your chance. There’s no time for changing outfits – not with a battalion of LX-14s on the way.”

  “You could have said something, you know. What about Tuner?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Won’t he get all… I’m sorry. What the hell is that?”

  Tuner was holding a circular tray above his head.

  “So I don’t get gunk in my joints,” he replied innocently. “I’m quite gunk-proof, otherwise I’d never be able to go outside. Ka’heet would have been a nightmare. But, you know. Just in case.”

  A blob hit the tray with a dull, metallic splat. Jack groaned.

  “Come on, then. Let’s get this over with so I can have yet another shower.”

  They left the bustle of the dock entrance and followed their tier around towards the far side, searching for any clue as to where in the station they should be headed. A map, an information kiosk, a friendly all-knowing janitor. Jack checked his data pad for a local network in the hope Kagna One might offer its guests a digital floor plan, unfortunately to no avail.

  A small family of Krolaks barged past them without malice or an apology. Jack waggled his arms about, struggling to maintain his balance with all the slime beneath his boots.

  “Perhaps we should have come via the trade entrance,” Tuner mused. “Everybody else here seems to know their way around already.”

  Jack watched as the impatient Krolaks sped towards a cluster of artificial pools nearby. Each was shaped like a squat pot and filled to the brim with brown, steaming mud. One of them was vacant. The family stripped off their leather rags and waded in via a short set of steps built into its side. Smiles quickly spread across their scaly snouts.

  Some sort of public baths, Jack guessed. A regular sight back on the Krolak homeworld, most likely. Perhaps those relaxing in its heated waters would be more amenable to the questions he had. Then again, perhaps they wouldn’t – across all of the pools, he couldn’t see a single non-Krolak taking advantage of the amenities.

  Besides, he hadn’t brought his bathing suit.

  “Don’t stand there watching,” Rogan whispered, hurrying him along. “It’s rude. And a bit weird.”

  “Maybe we should go visit some more homeworlds when this is over,” Jack said to Klik. “Make a tour of it. I guess I only see most species in the context of community planets like Kapamentis. There must be so many cultures and customs out there I know nothing about.”

  “Presuming they’ll let you in,” Rogan replied. “The way things are going in the Ministry, everyone will be closing their borders soon enough.”

  “Except Detri,” said Tuner, still holding the tray above his head.

  “Detri’s borders are already closed,” said Jack.

  “Yeah, but not to you two. You guys are always welcome.”

  “Great. Can’t wait.”

  They tried to catch the attention of a resident Krolak coming their way. It didn’t even pretend not to see them; it simply grunted and lumbered right through the middle of their group, pushing the automata aside as if they shouldn’t be there.

  “Charming,” Rogan sighed.

  Another Krolak stood outside a dark, damp storefront. Grubs and worms wriggled across its muddy facade. She brightened upon their approach. Clearly she had more experience dealing with people beyond her own species.

  “Greetings, outsiders.” Even when trying to be friendly, a Krolak’s voice was as menacing as a crocodile lurking by a river’s edge. “What can I get for you? Scents for the lady? Oil for your assistants? I’ve got a selection of stims inside, if you’re interested.”

  Rogan and Tuner stiffened at the assistant remark, though if the Krolak noticed, her optimistic expression didn’t change. Klik simply looked flabbergasted to be referred to as a lady.

  “Maybe later,” said Jack, feigning interest in the weird bric-a-brac he could spot through her shop’s moss-and-metal doorway. “I was actually wondering if you could point us in the direction of whoever is in charge of this place. Kagna One, I mean, not your store. Is there a mayor or something? A manager?”

  The Krolak’s smile faded, her thin, reptilian lips pulling back to reveal two jagged rows of sharp, yellow teeth. Jack’s legs went limp.

  “You want the Administrator.” She absently pointed to the roof of the court and went back to scouting for her next customer. “She’s up on the top floor with the rest of the representatives.”

  “Thank you.”

  They turned from the storefront and spotted a small queue forming over by the wall of vines and sludge. They were waiting for one of the large, tortoise-like creatures to stop and pick them up. Their ride was still half a floor down, and had stopped to munch on a thick patch of moss with half a dozen Krolaks gossiping in its basket. This didn’t appear to be an unusual diversion.

  At that pace, it would take them more than half an hour to reach the upmost tier of the space station. That wasn’t time they could afford to waste.

  The Krolak outside the store saw them fretting and sighed with a rasp like sand pouring through an hourglass.

  “For when you need to get somewhere fast,” she grunted, pointing to a set of doors beside the climbing wall, “you can always take the stairs.”

  14

  Crunchy Pancrustaceans

  Krag had quite an easy job. She piloted one of the three Krolak attack ships tasked with patrolling Kagna One, and nobody had targeted the civilian outpost in years. Most of her time was spent on comms with the boys in Port Authority and consuming her own weight in grilled pancrustaceans.

  She reached down and wrestled another pouch of shelled snacks free from the compartment beside her pilot seat. One or two of the small critters still wriggled about inside. Lucky her. She popped the whole pouch into her mouth and crunched away in delight.

  Krag wasn’t a madwoman. The pouch was digestible, too. When your species evolved in lakes and rivers, you soon learned not to
go about dropping litter.

  A familiar voice crackled over the attack ship’s comm system, startling her.

  “Krag? You there?” It was Shak from the Docking Clearance team down on the space station. “Pick up if you read me.”

  She hurriedly licked her claws clean before pressing the button to reply.

  “Of course I read you,” she growled. “You know I never leave comm range. There’s nowhere out here to frakkin’ go.”

  “Good. You’re closest. Got something for you.”

  Krag would have furrowed her brow if her flat, scaly forehead allowed it. She often went days without being asked to do anything. That’s why she’d taken this gig instead of enlisting in the Krolak fleet. Quiet and boring was her thing.

  “Closest? Closest to what?”

  “Shuttle. Won’t respond to identification requests. Go check. Sending coordinates now.”

  A tiny blip appeared on Krag’s scanner. She unleashed a deep rumble in her throat.

  “Understood. Checking now.”

  Krag switched off comms and hurriedly input the commands to bring her interceptor out of standby mode. It had been a while since she last had to engage a threat – even a hypothetical one. She hoped she remembered how to do it.

  Her thrusters quaked online. The missiles and rotary cannons beneath her wings cycled into attack position. She strapped herself into her seat with both sets of belts.

  Keeping one eye on the flashing dot on her dashboard, Krag launched her ship towards the unresponsive vessel’s last registered location. Her twin stomaches heaved with the acceleration. She immediately regretted helping herself to that last pouch.

  She spotted the ship out her cockpit window less than thirty seconds later. Krag relaxed. False alarm, nothing to worry about. It was just a delivery shuttle, and a Negoti one at that. It had no weapons she could identify, only a large cargo bay behind a small cabin fit for two. Their unresponsiveness was almost certainly a comms error as opposed to anything nefarious. Typical, stupid Ghuk. They probably never even got the station’s message.

  Still, you couldn’t be too careful. And it wasn’t every day she got to fly about with her arsenal at the ready. She didn’t retract her missiles quite yet.

  “Negoti vessel, identify yourself.” She coasted to a stop in front of its projected course. “You are not cleared to dock.”

  The shuttle continued along its original trajectory. Krag’s claws tightened around the triggers on her flight sticks. It was dawning on her that she wasn’t entirely sure what to do in the event of non-compliance. Blowing up a Negoti ship probably wouldn’t spell good things for her cushy career. It might even get her promoted into a position with actual authority.

  She tried again.

  “You have entered Kagna One territory without clearance,” she growled into her microphone. “Identify yourself, now.”

  This time the shuttle did slow down. She growled to herself. So they were receiving messages, after all.

  She let her attack ship drift close to the shuttle’s cockpit. Something felt off. There were two occupants inside, which fell well within regulation. Nothing wrong with that. But they looked nothing like the usual Ghuk delivery drivers. To start with, these ones were mammalian. And they were wearing weird, hooded cloaks. Not that it was any of her business who Negoti hired, she supposed.

  “Identification,” she repeated. Even for a Krolak, her voice was getting croaky. “Purpose for visit. Respond or I shoot.”

  The two hooded figures inside the shuttle glanced at one another. The pilot on the right held up a finger as if requesting a moment to comply. The other appeared to be fiddling around with the array of buttons lining the cabin’s ceiling.

  There was a whine as they brought their comm system online.

  “Our greatest apologies,” one of the two pilots said. “We must have accidentally cut our outgoing signal somehow. How may we help?”

  “How may we…” Krag grunted and shook her head. “Brains as soft as their bodies. Identify yourselves, turn your ship around, or get blown up,” she finally added, switching her comm unit back on. “Choose.”

  Krag waited and watched as the two pilots frantically fumbled about inside their cabin. She was fast losing her patience. Eventually, one of them produced a card and started reading out a long registration number from it.

  She relayed it to Shak.

  “Got nothing,” he said, having searched the system on his end. “No deliveries in the ledger – not with this shuttle number. Not expecting anything from Negoti for weeks.”

  Krag glanced over at the pilots and huffed. This was turning into a lot of work.

  “What about private shipments? Could one of the residents have ordered direct?”

  Shak grunted and consulted his records again. Krag picked a piece of shell out from between her teeth. The shuttle was a little on the big side for shipping personal packages, but it was worth a shot. Maybe they were making stops all over the quadrant.

  “Nah,” Shak replied. “Nothing cleared with imports. Everything goes through imports.”

  Krag growled. As if she didn’t know that already. The Krolaks couldn’t have strangers bringing whatever they felt like onto their space station. It wasn’t just explosives or firearms the authorities worried about – even an unlicensed blowtorch could spell disaster in the wrong hands. Which, in Krag’s opinion, were attached to anyone not covered in scales.

  She reopened a comm channel with the shuttle.

  “Purpose of your delivery?” she asked.

  “No delivery,” the second pilot quickly rasped. “Rest. Long flight carrying construction polymers. Want to stop. Eat.”

  Krag relaxed.

  “You catch that, Shak?” she said, switching channel.

  “Yeah, yeah. S’pose that’s okay. But no space for that ship in the regular ports. Too big. They still have to dock in Trade.”

  “I’m sure they won’t mind.” Krag relaxed. “Can you take it from here?”

  “Ugh,” Shak confirmed. “Patch them through.”

  Krag did so, then used her air thrusters to coast out of the shuttle’s way. One of the pilots gave her a short, grateful nod as they continued on their slow descent towards Kagna One’s lower levels.

  Odd to find an unscheduled supply ship this far out from the inner system, she thought to herself. But crews made detours for all sorts of reasons. It wasn’t the Krolaks’ fault their food tasted so damn good.

  She put her ship back into standby mode, reclined in her chair with a raspy sigh, and snatched up another pouch of pancrustaceans.

  Like she said, it was an easy job.

  15

  The Very Foreign Diplomat

  The stairs were designed for legs far bigger and more muscular than Jack’s own. Twenty flights up, he was starting to wonder if it might have been quicker to take one of the climbing tortoises.

  He cursed the Krolaks for not installing a modern elevator system. But he supposed he was making the mistake of applying human expectations to an alien culture again. The average Krolak’s life expectancy was about one hundred and sixty years. The cold-blooded dinosaurs could afford to move a little slower.

  By the time they emerged from the stairwell into the top floor of the station, Jack was close to passing out. Sweat poured off him in a sticky sheen and his lungs felt as if they’d gone five hours in a slow-cooker. There were summers in New Orleans less uncomfortable than this.

  When the doors hissed open, he was relieved to discover that the lobby occupying the top floor was actually somewhat air-conditioned. There weren’t any sludge waterfalls running down the walls, either. A janitorial automata stood by to quickly mop up any gunk walked in by those riding the basket-saddled reptiles – besides Rogan and Tuner, the only artificial life form Jack had seen on the station so far. Otherwise, the lobby was full with visitors from all manner of different species. If anything, here Krolaks were in the minority.

  Hunched over with his hands on his
thighs, Jack studied the various doors lining the wide, circular wall. There were dozens of them, each leading to dozens more. He could see shapes working behind their frosted glass windows. What he couldn’t see, however, were any signs. None big enough for him to read, at least.

  “Where now?” he wheezed.

  “Excuse me?” Tuner waved at the janitor. “My friends and I are lost. Can you help?”

  The janitor looked up in alarm as their group approached. It was clear that the automata had been designed with cleaning duties in mind. Though its head sported rudimentary facial features and it had a pair of thin arms for wielding tools and scrubbing hard-to-get spots, its lower half consisted solely of an industrial floor steamer. It fidgeted with a dust cloth and swept the room with its glossy eyes, not sure what to do with itself.

  “Me? No. Me? I only clean.”

  Jack felt sorry for the poor automata. He got the impression nobody had spoken to it for years except to bark instructions.

  “Then I’m sure you know your way around here better than anyone,” Tuner replied brightly. “You’re certainly the hardest worker we’ve seen so far.”

  “Thank you,” the janitor said nervously. “I try my best.”

  “Do you think you could point us in the direction of the Station Administrator?” asked Rogan. “There’s something really important we need to discuss with her.”

  “The Administrator?” The janitor raised one of its slender arms and pointed at the large, opaque door opposite the platform where people disembarked the living elevators. “Her office is through there. I’ve never been in. She won’t let me. Too messy.”