Galactic Blues - Box Set Episodes 1-3: A Newton's Gate Space Opera Adventure (Galactic Blues Box Set)

by C. J. Clemens

  Shaw could see the pirate king signaling one of his people off camera.

  “If you’re trying to communicate with the Mearle, we’ve blocked her comms. She’ll not be firing on us anytime soon. In fact, she won’t be firing on anyone, ever again.”

  Larker’s elongated face turned even darker. It seemed as though it was about to pop.

  “Boys, target the Mearle. Blow her to space dust.”

  Zain and Jibs did as they were told. A moment later, after a quick flash of light, she could see the Mearle floating in bits.

  “You bitch,” Larker spat. “You’re gonna pay for this.”

  She cut the comms and turned toward her two crew members, hoping they’d continue to follow her lead. She raised her right hand and pointed her metallic forefinger at the portal.

  In response, the ship powered up, and the giant green portal, the size of a huge building, grew closer. It also started to flicker.

  “Hit it!” she commanded.

  The blade flew into the portal just as it was collapsing into itself.

  Then, darkness engulfed the ship—and the three people on board.

  Chapter 6

  REMY

  Remy awoke to flashing emergency lights.

  OK, still alive.

  The backup batteries had kicked in, but they appeared to be the only things with power. He waited for pain to kick in, too, but other than a neck strain, he was uninjured.

  He searched through the semidarkness for Dreyla. Her chair was empty. Instead, she lay sprawled out against a rear electrical panel.

  “Drey!” He wrenched himself free from his chair and rushed to her side in an instant. He knelt onto the floor and propped up her head and shoulders, cradling her in his arms, shaking her gently. “Drey.”

  She’s breathing.

  “Drey,” Remy urged.

  An agonizing moment later, she stirred and her eyelids slowly lifted. A serene smile lit her face when she saw him. “Captain? We’re OK? W-what happened?”

  She sat up, frowning, and impatiently swiped long, curly strands of hair off her face as she scanned the bridge in rapid sweeps. Blood dripped down her forehead into the outer crease of her right eye, but she didn’t seem aware of it.

  “You’ve got a gash.” With his finger, Remy indicated the spot on his own face.

  It would leave a nasty scar for sure. Well, she was a pirate. Scars came with the job description.

  She flapped her hands at his concern, grasped the edge of the nearby panel, and hoisted herself up to standing, wobbling ominously.

  Remy rose and put a steadying arm around her. “You need to take it easy, girl. Wait here.”

  He stepped quickly across the floor, flipped open a small compartment at the back of the bridge, and removed a first aid kit.

  Dreyla was already by his side. She jostled his elbow. “We should let Tosh handle it. You’ve got other things—”

  “Tosh, crap…” Remy groaned. “I better make sure the old man is intact.”

  Just then, there came the sound of shoes clunking on the main corridor to the bridge. Tosh appeared in the doorway, a small portable light illuminating his craggy features from below, which made him seem even more ancient, almost wizard-like.

  Remy sank back against the wall, glad to see the old stoner.

  “Captain, Dreyla, are you both alright?” Tosh asked.

  He was in doctor mode, all traces of the dazed Tosh gone. Remy had witnessed him in this uber-serious mode before, even in moments when he was amazed that Tosh could stand up. This being one of those moments.

  “Glad you could join us.” Remy indicated Dreyla’s face. “Can you patch her up nice and pretty?”

  “I’ll do my darned best.” Tosh moved to her, ignoring the first aid kit in Remy’s hands. “No pun intended.”

  Wincing at the corny joke, Remy watched as Tosh administered a pen-shaped medi-device to Drey’s injury.

  “I still don’t know what happened,” Remy admitted. “We hit the portal, and everything went black.”

  “Ouch,” Dreyla protested, shrinking back from Tosh.

  “Sorry, kiddo,” Tosh said. “Gotta disinfect. No time for local anesthesia. How about you tell us what you remember.”

  “When it happened,” she said, her face crinkling in concentration, “it felt like we were falling...”

  “Yeah, the dampeners must’ve fired, but how?” Remy asked. “Without the main power, they shouldn’t have.”

  “Oh, I managed to manually switch them to battery.” She caught his gaze and beamed with pride.

  Aha. That was why she’d gotten out of her seat. The move had nearly cost her her life. It had also saved all of theirs.

  “Well, of all the crazy-ass ideas…” he said. “That one takes the prize.”

  Her grin widened.

  He couldn’t help grinning back. The girl was insane but also a genius. While the ship’s dampeners usually required more power, the battery banks must’ve had just enough to stop the Jay from going splat on the planet… whichever planet they’d landed on.

  His gaze shifted toward the front windows, at the arid landscape outside.

  “Where do you s’pose we are?” Dreyla asked, as if reading Remy’s mind. Again.

  “Not sure,” Remy replied.

  “Beats me.” Tosh finished sealing the gash on her forehead.

  Free again, she immediately darted to the front to look out the ship’s windows.

  “The portal changed,” Remy mused. “From the blue one that would’ve taken us to the dark side of the moon.”

  “Changed to what?” Dreyla asked.

  “Green... that’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge,” Remy said matter-of-factly. “I’ve never seen that portal before, and quite frankly, I have no freakin’ clue where it dumped us out.”

  Remy joined her at the transparent steel windows. He remained standing and said nothing, just absorbing the vista outside.

  “Is this Earth?” Dreyla asked.

  There were portals that lead from Earth to various locations in outer space, and vice versa. The terrain before them resembled a desert of some kind, not unlike the ones in Arizona that Remy had hiked through in his youth.

  “Maybe we landed somewhere in the Southwest,” he ventured.

  “Southwest?” Dreyla asked.

  “Of the United States.”

  “I don’t think so,” Tosh said, the glazed look once again overcoming him. “Never seen the moon that close.”

  Indeed, a large looming object hung in the space above. An enormous and much too close moon. If Earth’s moon had ever gotten that close, it would’ve wreaked havoc on the planet.

  “We definitely aren’t in Kansas anymore,” Remy quipped.

  Dreyla rolled her eyes.

  Remy had never been to Kansas, but he still found the saying strangely comforting. As with all obscure cultural references, Dreyla hated it, mainly because it made no sense to her. Which made it even more amusing.

  “Right. I think we can safely rule out Earth,” he said. “On account of the giant moon and all. But we know they’ve discovered portals that lead to other planets.”

  “Never beyond the solar system,” Dreyla pointed out.

  That wasn’t exactly true; while the blue portal he’d used before was based in their solar system, there were in fact portals all over the planet and some on the moon. Hell, he’d heard reports of portals being discovered on Mars, on other moons, and even a few based on some of the larger asteroids. Supposedly, many of the portals led to other planets in other galaxies or universes.

  It was clear the portal they’d flown through had taken them somewhere alien to them. With any luck, somewhere in their galaxy, or at least somewhere in their universe. He wasn’t confident his monkey brain could handle anything more foreign than that.

  Remy turned his attention to the task of bringing the power back up. But tweaking, rebooting, and, in a temper, finally kicking the control unit all produced nothing
.

  He avoided eye contact with his two shipmates. Not knowing which universe they were stuck in made him feel off-kilter and far less captain-like than he cared to admit. He just had to trust that answers would present themselves eventually. Because for now, there were more pressing issues… like why they had no power.

  “Right, we need to assess,” he said, straightening. “Drey, head down to the engine room. See if you can figure out what’s up with the power. If the Jay’s just broken, let’s get her fixed.”

  “On it,” Dreyla said and trotted off the bridge, clearly relieved to be doing something.

  He turned to Tosh. “In case we don’t get the good old hospitality of Earth out there, we’ll need enviro suits and a couple of scanners.”

  Tosh nodded.

  “And Tosh,” Remy said before the doctor could get far, “I don’t think we need the heavy suits. The lightweight ones should do.”

  “What are you going to do, Captain?” Tosh’s voice was heavy with trepidation. Not even the drugs could mask that.

  Remy’s main job now was to appear to be on top of things so that neither Tosh nor Drey went into a total panic. Intergalactic culture shock tended to have that effect even when you knew where you’d landed. This interstellar mystery tour wasn’t for the faint of heart.

  He flashed the old man a confident smile. “I’m going to see if I can link my personal tablet to the batteries and then MacGyver ’em both to the array on top of the Jay… see if I can’t get a fix on where we are.”

  It all seemed too much for the old man, even though he likely got Remy’s ancient television reference. Nodding vaguely, he turned and shuffled off.

  Remy rummaged through all the cabinets on the bridge, amassing a stash of wires and tools. He then proceeded to link his eight-inch, electronic tablet to an emergency light line below his console. The tablet had its own power source but would gobble through that in seconds with the applications he needed to run.

  He then had to link the navigational array to the battery lines, which required busting open a panel under Drey’s console. He wasn’t even sure if the array could run off batteries. It was definitely a huge power suck, so his location search would have to be quick or they’d all be wandering through the ship in the dark. This mystery tour was bad enough without that happening.

  He secured the connection, returned to his station, and started the scan app, a slimmed-down version of the ship’s native navigation software. It flickered to life.

  Bingo.

  A small, barely decipherable star map appeared on his tablet. The app was running pattern-recognition algorithms on the data the array was picking up. So far, it recognized nothing. Then, the line under Drey’s console sparked and caught fire.

  “Shit,” he snarled at the flames.

  He leapt from his chair, bounded across the bridge, yanked an extinguisher from an alcove, and blasted the fire out in a few seconds, leaving a puffy ball of foam beneath Drey’s station.

  Well, that worked great.

  Small mercies, it hadn’t blown his tablet. Since it contained all of his music, that would’ve been a major bummer, even if Drey might beg to disagree. What was he supposed to annoy her with if he didn’t have his music? Half the joy of living would be gone.

  A little flashing message drew his focus back to the app. The scan had finished. He pulled the screen closer to discover the name of the mystery solar system.

  But the screen had only a brief message for him in faint, almost apologetic, letters:

  0 recognition results

  Remy sank his forehead into his hands.

  Chapter 7

  LILLY

  Lilly sat at her desk, flicking through various listings of local disturbances on her tablet. Which scum of the universe would she tackle first? And would it be before she took her dinner break, or after?

  Brad Raymar was complaining—again—that kids were breaking into his food stores down at his mining camp. Hmm.

  Emiline Ler had filed an assault charge against two new miners, a James Teman and an Alan Fiennes. Both men had been questioned and released, but they had since decided to file charges of their own. Emiline had a history of shakedown cons, offering her services as a prostitute, refusing to service the clients, and then finally claiming assault if the men didn’t pay her what she wanted. Was it time for the scam artist to taste her own poison?

  Lilly flicked to the next complaint. Before she’d even read the summary, the comms in her office buzzed.

  “Sheriff, Mayor Cansen is here to see you,” came Pierce’s soft-spoken voice.

  Without waiting for a response, Mayor Jett Cansen crashed through her door, clearly frazzled, wiping his brow with a square cloth. His brown suit was bursting at the seams, and his round face was red from either exertion or alarm—Lilly wasn’t sure which.

  The guy had a serious blood pressure issue that no number of local meds seemed able to fix. Being the mayor of Naillik was certainly stressful, but the sheer volume of fried sand-oysters the man ate could not be helping his situation.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Cansen announced.

  “We got many problems, Mayor Cansen.” Lilly waved at her tablet and rose from her desk.

  Cansen never sat down, ever, and she didn’t want to be looking up at him from her chair.

  “We just got word that Med Ship Vox 2 landed an hour ago,” Cansen continued.

  “But... they weren’t due for another two days.”

  Lilly consulted her display for the date on her calendar. She was pretty sure about this. Yes, correct. She enlarged the calendar for Cansen’s benefit.

  “Well, they didn’t get the memo,” he said gruffly, “cuz it’s already here.”

  “OK, OK, let me think.” Lilly fingered her temple and strode to the window. With her back to the mayor, she stared out at nothing in particular. “We get a team over there pronto to pick up Naillik’s share of the meds.”

  When she turned to him again, Mayor Cansen’s face had screwed up, causing droplets of sweat to trickle over his cheeks.

  “We can’t raise them on comms. There’s been no communication beyond the notification they sent out when they broke through the atmo.”

  Lilly absorbed the situation in silence, then said, “This is… not good.”

  He patted his forehead again. “If we don’t get that shipment of nano-biotics, thousands of…”

  He didn’t need to finish the thought. She nodded gloomily.

  “Those with the Rot won’t make it long enough for the next shipment,” he added, pacing in a circle, wringing his hands. “And we’re talking about more than a few citizens.”

  That was her immediate concern. One of her main duties, after all, was making sure the citizens of Naillik received their necessary meds on time. She couldn’t fulfill that responsibility if the shipment had been hijacked, and she wouldn’t let herself ruminate on the fact that the shipment was intended for the entire planet.

  She hit her comms and switched to global so that every deputy would hear. “We have a code one emergency. I repeat, code one. Everyone needs to gather in the staff room in ten minutes.”

  She switched over to a different channel. “Skully?”

  Nothing.

  Lilly avoided eye contact with the mayor as she repeated the call, “Skul-ly!”

  Another excruciatingly long moment passed.

  Not the best time for Naillik’s number one mechanic and owner of the shipyard to be on break.

  “Sheriff?” Skully replied at last.

  “I need the department’s drop ship on top of the building in fifteen,” she barked.

  “But, Sheriff, I still need a couple more days with her. You see, the rear intake valves are—”

  “Fifteen minutes, Skully, or people die. Lots of them.”

  “On my way,” he replied hurriedly.

  Chapter 8

  REMY

  Going through the strange portal had warped Remy’s sense of time, but it seemed s
omething like an hour later when Tosh reported back to the bridge. He bore three lightweight enviro suits, as ordered. Remy wouldn’t even bother asking the stoned doc what had taken him so long.

  Tosh fumbled with the safety clasps on the suit’s torso. When he finally got it open and stepped into the legs, he wavered on one foot as if about to topple over, but righted himself at the last second.

  This seemed like a man who’d never donned such a suit before. Was that even possible? Come to think of it, maybe it was.

  Even though they’d spent years together on the R.L. Johnson, in all that time, the doc had never stepped foot off the ship if they weren’t safely docked. He’d never been part of a boarding party when they’d taken other ships by force, nor had he ever ventured outside on any of the asteroids where the crew had pulled any number of jobs.

  Tosh now looked as though he was fighting with an octopus.

  “Haven’t you ever worn one of these?” Drey asked, stepping onto the bridge.

  Tosh stalled his battle. “Nope, and for darn good reason.”

  “Not even on Mars?” Dreyla approached Tosh, eyeing him curiously.

  “Never been outside any of the bases there. I leave hostile environments to the masochists.”

  “Here.” She smiled and helped him shove his arm into one of the sleeves.

  “When you’re finished playing maid, Drey, can you fix our power, please?” Remy rose from his chair. “We only got battery juice and it’s kinda cramping my style.”

  Drey looked at him darkly. “Something’s not right. The power converters aren’t getting any energy. I don’t know, Captain… it’s like the Teez isn’t reacting with the dark matter.”

  “Well, why the hell not?” he demanded.

  “I-I can’t explain it.”

  Remy rubbed his jaw then sprang into action, grabbing one of the enviro suits and suiting up.

  Dreyla copied him. They clicked their belts shut at the same time.

  Tosh was staring at them. “How’d you..?” he asked in an awed voice, as if he’d never seen them suit up before. “Oh, never mind.” He continued to fumble with his own fasteners.