by C. Gockel
“I’m here to see Doctor Soren,” she told him. “Could you ask her if she’s available, please?”
“I will. Please wait here.”
Nova paced around a bit and then stopped to run her hand through a scanner provided for self-assessment. “Ah, I’m Human. Good to know. And indeed a healthy specimen.” She slapped the top of the display. “Shots? I’m not due for my shots, you snoop.”
“Lieutenant?”
Nova turned.
“Doctor Soren said she can see you for a moment.”
Nova smiled politely and followed his direction to the doctor’s workspace. Soren came to her feet when Nova entered, a concerned look on her face. “Hello, Lieutenant. I hadn’t expected to see you back here so soon. Is… is everything all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Nova assured her, realizing that the doctor worried about some lingering effect from her encounter with Captain Beryl. “Everything working as it should. I need to talk to you about something else.”
“Oh?” Soren’s expression was guarded.
Nova sat down and gestured for the doctor to do the same. “I want to ask you something about the previous crew here. I think you know who I mean.”
“I guess I do.” Soren let the door slide shut before taking her chair again.
Nova wondered how to approach this. Now that she was here, the whole thing suddenly seemed a lot more delicate. “I’ve got reason to suspect that Beryl and his gang are involved in some smuggling at the elevator,” she said finally, as so often choosing the most direct route to get to the point. She made a mental note to look up the talented gossip at the ranch to find out how to start conversations with non-coms.
Soren said nothing for a moment. She looked out of the window, thoughtfully tugging on the purple tips of her white hair. “What do you want me to add to that?” she said finally.
“What you know about it.”
“I can’t.”
“You won’t?”
“Maybe.”
Nova sighed, having half expected this. “I think they’re smuggling mince . I’m pretty sure they’re using it, too.”
Soren frowned. “What else would you smuggle out of this place? Half of his thugs are chewing that garbage. Makes things hurt less and it obscures the rest of the dope they use when I test them. The sort that I have to report or the system will do it for me.”
“What else are they using?”
She shrugged. “You don’t get to be that size without some help. Certainly not the Centauri. They’re not built for carrying around all that muscle. They didn’t get it from me, if you’re wondering.”
“I’m here to ask about the mince . I’m guessing they’re smuggling the stuff up to the station and from there onto commercial ships heading elsewhere.”
“It’s much bigger than that. They’re just paid off to look the other way when the shipments arrive. To make sure they’re not searched for contraband. Believe me, the best present Major Trakkas ever got was when General Ausan moved the whole outfit to the elevator. Before that they only had the supply ships that came by here.”
“Could they be gun running as well?”
Soren shook her head. “I can’t picture it. I can’t think of a life form lower than those men but they look down upon rebels as the scourge of the galaxy. They live to destroy them and take pleasure in finding interesting ways to do that. Beryl’s squad doesn’t take prisoners. The only reason to smuggle guns is to get them to the rebels. They’d never consider that.”
Nova nodded. “And Major Trakkas is steering this whole thing?”
“He takes a cut but he lets Beryl do the work. It’s why he let them hound you off the base.”
“Because of who I am. Because of my father,” Nova said, mostly to herself. “They didn’t think I’d bend.”
“Probably. Not like some of us.”
Nova looked into Soren’s face, seeing little more than shame there. She leaned forward and placed her hand on the woman’s arm. “You can help to stop this,” she said urgently. “I have some proof, but not enough. I can’t just point a finger and hope Beryl doesn’t break my leg for in retaliation. You can come forward and tell what you know. What you’ve seen.”
“Including what he did to you?”
“Yes. Including that. This isn’t just about smuggling. It’s about people getting hurt if they get in the way. We can’t let this happen. Not in the Air Command that I want to work for.” Djari’s angry face passed briefly through her mind. “This is the sort of thing that makes people distrust the Union. Hate Air Command presence.”
“What proof do you have?”
Nova reached into her pocket for the parcel she was to deliver. “I’m guessing that’s payment in here. Maybe instructions, messages they can’t broadcast. Trakkas told me to take this up to the station. The woman who gave it to me let a few things slip about where it’s going.”
“So?” Soren smiled sadly. “Trakkas will have a million reasons for whatever he’s doing. They’ve been in this for a long time.” She took the box and stood up to run it through an analyzer without opening its seal. “No organics. No dope in there.”
“Trakkas has no reason to send money up to the orbiter unless it’s pretty damn personal. We don’t deal in hard currency, if that’s what’s in there.”
“Maybe it’s a pretty bauble for his girlfriend. Even if it isn’t, he’d find a way to make sure that’s your dope. Or your money. You have nothing.” She looked over the results of the scan again. “The only DNA on that thing is yours. I don’t even see a Caspian on that.”
“She wore gloves.” Nova recalled taking a curious glance at the woman’s six-fingered hands. “Can we tag the box somehow? That way we can trace it to Beryl after I deliver it to supply.”
Soren laughed. It was a brittle, cold sound. “This is a clinic, not a Prime Staff lair full of gadgetry and dark schemes. Leave the spying to the agents, Lieutenant. Go to your CO. If you need to expose this, tell him what you suspect and walk away.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” Nova said softly. “Walking away?”
“Yes,” Soren said, equally subdued. “Because the things that’ll happen to you if Beryl is even just questioned are not something I want visited upon me.”
It was not the best of moods that accompanied Nova as she left Rim Station and headed back into the flats. She flew manually, mulling over Soren’s words and very clear warning. The only thing accomplished here was to update her immunization shots, leaving her with a throbbing arm and another reason to have visited the base. She doubted that anyone had even noticed her absence.
She watched the rocky ground pass silently beneath her skimmer as she raced over a landscape too lacking in interest to distract her from her thoughts. Was Soren right? Was staying out of the fray it once again the best option? Avoid getting hurt again? Certainly, the doctor was right in that Nova had little evidence for her accusations. Vague mumblings from a stranger, her assertion that Beryl was impaired while on duty, some orders from a superior officer that weren’t entirely protocol. So what?
And what if more people were involved? What about Dakad? What about the station master in charge of the shipping traffic? There was no way to know. Perhaps Djari was right, all along.
Nova’s eyes shifted to the horizon when she thought about Djari. His work took him down into the shipping level as new supplies for the grow rings arrived daily. Was he aware of something going on? Perhaps he had seen something, heard something that would offer more evidence.
She brought the skimmer to a halt so abruptly that it nearly crashed the short distance to the ground instead of settling gently according to its design. She opened the canopy and leaped out of the plane, pacing away only to turn around to pace back again.
Djari! She recalled his unheard conversation with Beryl in the corridor. What about that trip to the surface he had not bothered to mention and that his supervisor knew nothing about? Those boxes in his room? With all the equipment available in the gr
ow rings, why would he clutter up his quarters with those analysis tools? Nova leaned against the skimmer, feeling her stomach churn. Could it be? Djari a smuggler? Djari as part of that miserable gang of louts?
So stupid! Nova glared into the direction of the distant elevator, invisible in the haze above the flats. She wanted to storm up there right this very minute to confront him with what she had found. She wanted to shout and rail at him for disparaging the Union’s ethics while all along playing his own games. She swore loudly and in several languages, her voice unheard in the empty afternoon desert.
Most of all, she wanted him to deny all of it and show her that none of this was true. Maybe all of this was just a series of coincidences, a chain of small events that really didn’t fit together.
But what did she really know about him? Nothing at all. They had shared a few difficult days together and she had been swept away by good looks and a concerned face like some little greenie fresh out of the academy.
A buzzing sound from the skimmer’s console interrupted her furious rumination to alert her to the perimeter alarm. She leaned into the vehicle to see what approached, likely a caravan or perhaps an Air Command patrol. Instead, she saw two skimmer sleds closing in from the direction of the base, their destination unmistakably this very spot.
“This is Lieutenant Whiteside to approaching traffic,” she said, sounding even to herself like someone not in a mood for company. “Identify yourselves immediately.”
There was no reply.
She set her skimmer in motion and veered toward the rolling hills to the east, not surprised when the two other vehicles changed their course as well. Bandits, likely, roaming the flats in search of anyone stupid enough to be out here on their own instead of joining a caravan. But was it possible that Trakkas had sent someone to waylay her? She coaxed more speed out of her machine but a glance at her sensors showed that the skimmers behind her were faster.
She was now heading directly toward the edge of the flats. Hiding herself and the skimmer was not possible with both the vehicle and her com band quite clearly broadcasting her location. Her pursuers were still lost to the distant haze but they drew nearer with each second that passed. “Son of a leprous Rhuwac,” Nova cursed. “And you, too, Dakad. Could have sent Sulean. But, no, you had to send Whiteside. And Whiteside had to get nosy. Stupid, stupid—”
Something landed just off her skimmer’s port side and exploded in a cloud of dust and sand. Whatever they were lobbing at her from the distance, although not terribly accurate, was sure to stop her skimmer, if not flatten it entirely.
Another burr from her sensors showed more life forms ahead. “Enough already!” she shouted. But these were scattered and there were no power signatures among them. Likely, a caravan bedded down for the night at the edge of the desert.
Without thinking much about the likely outcome of her unformed plan, she entered a new course into the vehicle’s systems, working with little more than the view of the hills in front of her. Quickly, she unclipped a gun from beneath the console and then dropped her data sleeve to the floor of the skimmer. Slowing only enough to avoid a broken neck, she retracted the canopy and vaulted to the ground where she tumbled wildly, endlessly until she fetched up against a rock.
Nova lay still, ignoring the pain from whatever damage she had sustained, her attention only on the skimmer. It followed her program to veer south and accelerate toward the rock formations ahead. It was soon out of sight and then Nova heard the distant roar as it crashed into the rocks.
She scrambled to her feet, daring to test her limbs for breaks and sprains, finding nothing more serious than a twisted ankle. “Where is the damn gun!” she shouted, looking around. It had spun from her hand when she leaped from the car and was now nowhere in sight. She decided to ignore the blood on her arms and knee and limped toward where she thought the caravan had stopped. Her pursuers would soon realize that she was not in the crashed skimmer, depending on how much fuel had to burn out before they could check the wreckage.
She fumbled her way through the boulders and scrub, painfully aware that her career choice had made her reliant on sensors and guidance systems. Her standard training in more primitive navigation was ridiculously inadequate for wandering around the plains of Bellac. Trying to remember if Bellac’s tusked, meat-eating and much-dreaded owgs roamed as far west as this desert didn’t make her feel much better about being out here. She stopped to calm her breathing and to listen for the approaching sounds of the sleds.
Fortunately, the nomads weren’t concerned about concealment out here. The mournful bellows and bleats of their animals revealed the way to their camp. Nova pushed forward and reached the edge of a herd ambling around the meager scrubland. She sprinted toward one of the churries lolling in the sand. A startled herder moved aside when she lifted the beast’s front paw and slipped into the sandy wallow below.
She lay quietly, hoping that the animal, unaccustomed to her, would not decide to evict her. Breathing through the fabric of her sleeve to filter the dust and the churry’s aroma, she waited, listening for nearby voices. Soon, she made out the muffled vibration of a skimmer’s thrusters through the ground. It stopped.
She flinched at the sound of projectile weapons. It was followed by a clamor of panicked animal grunts and bellows and then the ground shook with the thunder of hooves. Only her sheltering churry remained, apparently trained to stay on the ground when someone lay beneath it. Surely a convenience but now it served only to point out her hiding spot. She felt it tremble.
A long moment later the animal finally rose and shuffled aside. Nova turned onto her back and then slowly came to her feet to face the two Centauri looming over her, both dressed as civilians. She did not recognize either of them. Their guns, however, were of military issue as were the two nearby skimmers.
She looked to her right and left to see the nomads silently approaching from the direction of their camp to investigate the cause of the stampede. They looked like thin, ghostly figures of dun-colored cloth in a dun-colored landscape. Most covered their dyed hair with a burnoose worn against the drifting sands and she did not see their faces. They moved warily, as if waiting to see what would happen here today.
“What do you want,” Nova said to her pursuers, doing her best to sound belligerent.
One of the Centauri grasped her arm to pull her toward their vehicles. She moved defensively, drawing on years of close combat training to escape the man’s grip. She got free but he simply raised a fist and slammed it into the side of her head. She stumbled and dropped to her knees.
The response to that was immediate. The nomads surged forward like a silent drift of dusty rags and pointy weapons to force the Centauri away from Nova. Her assailants staggered back, arms and weapons raised in surprise as much as surrender. They were forced to the ground and Nova waited for the sound of fists and the screams of pain. None of that happened. Instead, the nomads withdrew after a while, having stripped the men nearly bare of anything even remotely valuable or useful. For one of them that meant a pair of expensive leather trousers.
The Bellacs waited, weapons poised, while the Centauri scrambled to their feet and returned to their skimmers, cursing and glowering but not inclined to linger. One of them shoved aside a young nomad who was busy raiding the skimmer’s storage compartment. They departed in the direction of Shon Gat.
Hands reached out to pull Nova from the sand. She let them, crying out when someone gripped her abraded elbow. A searing pain in her foot told her that something wasn’t quite right on that end of her body, either.
She was made to sit on a rough-spun blanket and someone gave her a drink so strongly fermented that she nearly gagged. After a moment she took another sip, grateful for the soothing heat that spread through her limbs. A young man with long braids dyed an earthy red took her arm and smeared her wounds with a thick, gritty paste. Nova shook her head in disbelief when she realized that both the drink and the salve were made from the cactus also used to mak
e mince .
Others sat nearby, watching silently while the herders strolled off to retrieve the scattered animals. Nova returned their curious gaze, never having been among a tribe of nomads. Union soldiers were not the most popular visitors to Bellac but the plains people were not known to be hostile toward them. Living in this harsh desert had taught them to make the best of both rebel and colonist presence.
An older woman, this one with green tufts of short hair and wearing a gown that had probably been fashionable in Siolet many years ago, reached out and poked a gnarled finger at Nova’s insignia. Her long nails were yellowed and thick and resembled claws. “You’re an officer,” she decided.
“Yes.”
“They, too?” The nomad showed Nova one of their new prizes, an Air Command data sleeve. It was a basic com unit without security access or identification.
“Looks that way.” Nova watched two nomads admire each other’s newly acquired duster and leather pants. “You’re well-armed.”
“As it must be. Now we’re armed even better.” The woman laughed, her voice rough with age and desert grit, and pulled the Centauri’s rail gun from beneath her once-stately dress.
Nova joined the laughter. By the deep wrinkles around some of the other nomads’ eyes visible above their wraps, it was clear that the others were also amused. It seemed that, instead of a caravan of traders and herdsmen, she had stumbled upon a pack of desert bandits. She was untroubled by the distinction. “I need to get to Shon Gat.”
“Your skimmer is broken.”
“I’m afraid so.” Nova looked around the camp and saw a dilapidated hover among the wagons. “Does that thing work?”
“Well enough.”
Nova reached into her pocket and withdrew Trakkas’ package. Having those men sent after her had added a whole new dimension to things today. Perhaps this thing held some answers. “Do you have something sharp? A blade?”
The matriarch beckoned one of the other nomads who produced a ferocious-looking dagger.
Nova took it gingerly, not without first admiring its design. The handle was a traditional carving although the blade itself was bartered from an off-world supplier. Carefully, she sliced into the seal on the box, aware that those around her were as curious as she was about its contents.
