by Chris Turner
His sharp eyes took in the situation in a glance. His heart only sank. How to navigate this alien vessel? The controls and script were gobbledegook. He knew far less about piloting than combat and weaponry. Where was Frue when he needed him?
The tall panels rose over him in mockery.
Yul’s reconnaissance of the enemy craft’s bridge left him sullen and frustrated. Why bring Mentera technology to the bridge?
The Zikri’s eyes, what he thought were eyes, glinted with sinister life in the alien fluid and Yul’s flesh crawled. It seemed animated. A flicker of tentacle caught his eye; no, it was merely settling to a stationary position in the water. Some stimulus reflex after death? The locust creature hovered a few inches above the bottom of the tank, a foot from the tentacled monster. Its unblinking eyes stared on in calm detachment, as if those crimson orbs were in never-ending observation of the bridge’s affairs.
Two antennae sprouted from its plated crown. Pincers hung motionless out in front, zombie-like, with its heavy hind legs bent like a grasshopper’s. A wire hose, attached from the crystalline cap on the tank’s top, trailed down with a circular clamp on its end, the size of his fist. It appeared to have circuitry. Obviously not of Zikri make; the symbology inscribed on the outer edges and base of the tank were different than that written on the bridge’s consoles. The Zikri must have added Mentera technology to their ship... The Zikri—whose infamous piracy was notorious around the galaxy, terrorizing it for generations.
Yul was about to start touching dials randomly when his headset crackled.
“Yul, you alive?”
Yul paused, stunned. “Frue, I thought you were a dead man! Am I dreaming?”
“Open this cock-eyed door.”
Yul blinked. Frue apparently had managed to make his way to the bridge.
“I’m outside the door. There’s a heap of bodies lying about. I’m sure it’s your handiwork.”
Yul grinned. “Thought I’d never hear your whiny voice again.”
“My com blew out. I just managed to get it up and running now. Hurry! These squids’re lurking everywhere. I killed some but—”
“Nevermind. Knock three times. I want to be sure it’s you.”
“What the—? Are you serious?”
Yul heard a series of clinking thuds against the metal, probably Frue’s blaster banging the plates.
Yul pulled the circular ring inward. The Zikri, he guessed, could wrap their squidlike appendages around such a ring and pull it open with ease. Small wonder it took his full force to open the thing. Combined only with his arm’s mechanical strength.
Frue tumbled in, panting. Yul quickly resealed the door.
The pilot looked a mess, his suit blooded and grimed, sweat pouring down his cheeks. His eyes darted everywhere. But he appeared otherwise unwounded, his blaster quivering in a bloody hand.
“Where’s Regers?” Yul queried.
“I tried to motivate him out of his lethargy but the stupid sod came at me with his blaster, as if he was going to pistol whip me.”
“Sounds like him. What then?”
“Zikri all came in a blur. Squids everywhere. I blasted them, he blasted them. Regers managed to kill a horde and get away down some corridor. We got separated. Can’t remember much else.”
“Forget it. In Regers’ state, he’s probably lost. We’ve got to get this ship somewhere safe. I’ve a bad feeling that the Zikri have some nasty surprise planned for us.”
“No kidding. But—”
“There’s at least three of them out there, I saw. Gliding down the hall.”
Frue winced, shaking his head. “You should have killed them when you had the chance.”
“Hindsight, Frue. I found Hurd. He was immersed in a tank of water in some chamber a few halls down.”
Frue blinked, his teeth bared. “And you didn’t free him? What kind of a friend are you—?
“Quiet, relax—He’s dead or drowned. Though he seems kind of alive. Like this freak with the antennae here.”
Frue turned and grimaced at the hateful, glaring eyes of the Zikri and its tentacles. “You threw it in there?”
“It was starting to stink.”
Frue’s cheek quivered. “I’ve heard the Mentera feed off whatever’s in these tanks. Never seen technology like this before. See those hoses at the top? They stick them in their bellies and suck the life out of the victim in the tanks. So I’ve heard.”
Yul felt a chill as he thought back to corpse-like Hurd. “That’s disturbing. Later, Frue. We’ve got to get this Orb out of here, or scramble its frequency so they can’t track us.” He motioned to the array of incomprehensible control consoles. “Start working on these. Get this thing out to the free colonies.”
Frue gaped at the daunting panels and the rows of dials on them. “I’m good at this, Yul, but not a magician.”
“Start trying. There’s always a first time.”
Frue uttered a curse. Cold steam fogged behind his helmet as the air outtake valve wheezed. Lightly he touched some dials on the console and the panel zapped to life. His eyes blazed with triumph and he fluttered his fingers over the knobs with a scientist’s curiosity. “It’s meant for their cursed squidly tentacles.”
“No doubt. Work with it.”
Frue worked the dials while Yul stalked more confidently about, examining everything in sight. He swept his eyes over the crypt-like surroundings, avoided the eerie tank, remembering the other vessels in the last chilling room. Much he saw he didn’t understand—like the heavy chains on the wall, or the seats behind the command controls that contained what looked like manacles on the armrests, multiple rings for tentacles. He had no idea the depth of Zikri sadism that ran deep in their psyche, but he assumed it was profound. Things of suggestive savagery, torture and bondage may have easily been but simple entertainment to them.
A strange node, some black globe rested on a sleek stalk at waist height in the centre of the room that disturbed him as much as the grisly tanks. The globe was like some freakish signpost, radiating invisible waves of weird energy.
Yul suspected it emitted a harmful vibration, but of what he could not guess. He pressed an ear closer to it but could detect no hum or warble; the unit appeared to be ‘off’. Good. A cryptic panel of buttons, like everything on this bridge, stood at its base. He did not want to touch the thing.
“What the hell is it?” Yul whispered aloud.
Frue cast it a frowning glance and cringed back. “Looks like a mind disrupter of some kind.”
“On the bridge?”
“To torture victims? Maybe to keep their own in check. Who knows what these freaks do?”
“Nice species, these Zikri. Christ, Frue, concentrate! How long’s it going to take you—?”
“Relax. I’ve almost figured it out. The navigation system they’ve outsourced to Rangenkro. I know Rangenkro hardware fortunately. I can recognize other aliens’ technology in their systems. Makes sense, the scavengers the squids are. See the motifs?” He pointed to the glyphs that came up on the console when he pressed squid-like controls. “The weapons systems and tracking beacon, forget it. They’re in-house, protected. Under some crypto cipher. Likely fingerprint activated, or in the case of these squids, tentacle-driven.”
Yul shrugged. “How long?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“How about Vraigon then? There’s a NOA base somewhere in the outer peripheries, so I’ve heard. Winterule, I think it’s called.”
Hope surged in Yul’s chest. Could there be a happy ending to this? He heaved a sigh. New Order Alliance. It was a sound for sore ears.”
Frue set a course for the sector and looked about at the weapons systems as Yul leaned in. “What now?”
“Can you get a secure channel to Mathias?”
“Are you serious? He’d rip off our heads.”
Yul resignedly drew back. With the Albatross toast, that was not a stretch.
&nbs
p; Frue perked his ears. “Where are you going?”
“I feel guilty about Hurd. There are no Zikri tapping at the door. I think I’m going to venture out. Maybe free him, or put him out of his misery, one or the other, something I didn’t do earlier.”
Frue swallowed, his eyes kindling. “Are you sure? Wait.” He motioned to a small screen showing several red dots on a grid map of the Orb’s layout. “See those moving blips? My guess is they’re marks. Five Zikri left in that sector.”
“You be my eyes and ears then. Warn me of anything untoward.”
“It’s your life.” Frue shrugged. “We have a shipful of captured vessels. I think we should take this Orb to the end of the galaxy and sell it for parts and the ships too and walk away from Mathias forever.”
“It may come to that, Frue.” Yul considered. Two V-Zon cruisers in good condition. Tempting. He shook his head. Deep down he knew he could never do it. He’d made a promise to deliver the goods, as few of them as there were, and by God, he’d keep it. A matter of personal pride. His own prosthetic limb, ironically, had been manufactured by none other than Cybernetics Corp.
“If we take this Orb anywhere near the free worlds, they’ll blow us to bits.”
Yul chewed his lip.
“How about Phebis then?” offered Frue.
“Where the hell’s that?”
“A small moon in the Delta sector, an impulse hop from Winterule.”
“What’s down there?”
“Nothing, as far as I know. Some abandoned ore projects.”
“Do it then.”
“You still going out there?”
Yul hitched himself forward with a grunt, blaster in hand. “I can’t just sit here.”
Frue stabbed out at the console. “Think twice. There are hostiles in the room, if that’s where I’m guessing Hurd is. Unless you want to tango with them?”
Yul hissed out a curse. “Then we wait.” He crouched, elbows on his thighs, in sullen silence. He glared about, while the crimson-eyed locust watched him with imperturbable patience through the glass of its watery prison. He’d conserve his energy for now.
* * *
Some time passed and as they came out of light drive, a small featureless moon, cold, grey-gold, moved in its eccentric orbit. The planet Iom and its sun Mra shone dimly on the left of the viewscreen.
The indicator blips had moved off to a lower level of the ship and Yul was about to open the hatch and go out, when a spiked shape sheared across the starboard viewport.
Yul looked to the glass and groaned at the ominous sight of a silver-black war Orb come glowing out of hyperthrust. “You’ve got to be joking!”
Frue cried, “Fucking squids. They’ve shut down our light-drive systems! Remotely. System’s locked.”
“Now we’re screwed. No way to outman or outrun that. Can you hail Mathias?”
Frue hesitated. “If these squids’ technology can carry radio signals along the hyperthrust highways, maybe. I hope they haven’t disabled that too.”
“Then do it!”
Frue fiddled with the controls, sweat greasing his face, his cheeks flushed. He punched in some coordinates which looked like numbers, but Yul could not be sure. A strange series of garbled electronic sounds came over the com, Rangenkro make, fortunately for him and Frue, then some crackly voices.
Frue barked out a command. “Put me through to Mathias. This is important! Code DZ56A.”
A pause. Then a woman’s voice sounded over the com. “I can relay the message to Mr. Mathias. What’s your emergency, lieutenant Friscas?”
“Call me Frue. This is for Mathias’s ears only. Repeat, for Mathias only!”
Another pause. Then the static frequency discharges dissipated and the high and low of Mathias’s voice came over the com, calm, measured. “This is most awkward. An insecure channel at the very least, Frue, not to mention the timing. Very inconvenient.”
Yul dashed over to the panel and snarled into the console. “Listen to me, Mathias. This is important. Don’t talk, we need backup.”
“Is this Yul or Regers speaking? Where are you?”
“It’s Yul. We’re on Phebis, Phobos some fool place. Get the hell over here.”
“Where the hell is Phebis?”
Yul flapped his hand. Frue brought up the data on the info set. “Moon of Iom, sector 6.1. Local coordinates: 300-100.A61 Orion sector. No, Delta sector.”
“Well, fly the Albatross in. What am I, your bloody valet?”
“Can’t, it’s complicated. Look, do you want the stuff or not?”
“Do you have the samples?”
Yul paused. “Sitting on them. You’ll need backup to secure it. Lots of it. You may need artillery.”
“Where’s my ship?”
“In bad shape, I’m afraid. Best to forget about it.”
There was a long pause and an angry curse on the other end. “Yul, you have the balls to call me up demanding backup with the Albatross incapacitated? This will be deducted from our contract! I’m guessing there’ll be little left of that when this is all over.”
“Not a chance, Mathias, we had a deal.”
“Listen, soldier, buddy, if you have the merchandise, I’ll maybe make some concessions, but otherwise...” The threat hung like a wet rag.
Yul didn’t trust what he was hearing. “What’s to stop me from running to the competition?”
Mathias’s icy snuffle burst over the com, a cold forewarning of what was to come. “You do that and you’ll be pissing iron stars by the end of the day. I thought you needed backup. Where are you going to run to?”
“Just letting you know I have options. Hurry up, or you won’t have any merchandise left. Bring as much firepower as you can.” Yul cut the channel, not wanting to hear another one of Mathias’s facetious remarks. “Stupid cretin. Frue, work for me, tell me some good news.”
“The Orb is a class D midfighter. I’m guessing more a Recon or scout craft than a war vessel, with a minimal crew.”
Yul scoffed. “That’s what you said last time—minimal crew.”
“Yeah, well, we may be able to con them into believing we’re disabled, sidetracked on some spurious mission, technical failure or malfunction, some shit like that.”
“Sounds desperate.”
“It is. Recall we have no weapons.”
“You’re not giving me anything, Frue.”
“Me?” Frue exploded. “What the hell are you giving me?”
“Land this piece of crap.”
“What do you mean, land it?” Frue stared aghast.
“You heard me. We can hide on the moon, fight on land if need be. Or better yet—”
“Mathias will hang us out to dry. You don’t just bilk billionaires.”
“Mathias wants his stuff badly enough. We’ll dodge these squids until he gets here.”
“How do you propose we get to him what we don’t have?”
“That’s his problem.”
“Why don’t we just fly this thing somewhere else?” Frue wailed. “The Orb’s a fortress.”
“What part of impossibly bad idea don’t you get? We can’t keep flying this craft. They can track it. It’s built into their systems.”
Frue rubbed his temples in acknowledged defeat.
“Can you get the tractor pad lowered?”
Frue closed his eyes in frustration. “Damn it, Yul. It’s part of their weapons systems. I’ve told you, I have no access! I can’t decipher the weapons systems. We’re sitting ducks.”
“Any chance of getting the Albatross online?”
“Are you kidding me? You saw it. It’s a write-off.”
“What about the lander?”
“Possible. The landing bay seemed intact when we stormed by it. Unless the Zikri have fouled it up.”
“Okay, work on getting the tractor port open. If you can’t, I’ll rig explosions from the Albatross. We can use Lander to get off this crate. It has minimal impulse boost and can put us into Vraigon in a
few weeks.”
Frue shook his head. “I still think we should fly this thing—”
Yul cut him off. “Shut up and listen. The Zikri’ll follow us to the end of the universe. We have to ditch this heap.”
He was about to open the hatch and go to the hold when Frue quavered. “We’re gonna die. I feel it in my bones.”
Yul snarled at him. “Quit being a wussy and guide me. You died hours ago when the Zikri tracked us here. Better yet, you died when you stepped in the Albatross. We both did.”
Frue sucked in a gulp of air.
“Watch the readout. If they get close, let me know.”
“If I’d have only known... Okay, make your way down here—by this route, away from them.” Frue motioned a trembling hand to the readout. “Five more moving blips near the tanks. According to this layout there’s another way, longer, a better route. See those moving blips? Stay away from them.”
Yul committed the map to memory. “If they get anywhere near where I’m headed, scream bloody murder. I’ll come back and get you and free Hurd, if I can. In the meantime, keep those vultures cruising out in space, not wandering these decks, or we’re all dead.”
“There’ll be more Zikri lurking down there than you think.”
“The hell with the Zikri! Dodge that war Orb with whatever impulse power we have, otherwise it won’t matter.”
Frue nodded vigorously.
Yul wrenched opened the door, his blaster aimed in quick sweeps left and right. No squids were in sight. “I’m closing the door now. Tighten the ring as much as you can.”
Yul exhaled, felt his rattled nerves prickling. Frue was losing it, bowing to the pressure. He needed him to be on track.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed failure out of his mind. Out in the hall, his senses tingled at a sense of eerie danger. Death and terror lurked in those shadows. He kicked at the coagulated body of the dead Zikri and pulled the door tight, hearing Frue struggling to tighten the door. Damn him, not tight enough.
Nothing to do. He couldn’t mess with it at this time. He’d have to stay focused if he were to accomplish his mission. He coughed out a raspy breath, clenched his fists. Every muscle in his body was knotted. God help Frue. If only the man could pull it off.
