Salvage Conquest

by Chris Kennedy

  “Elma!” Sinan half-heartedly wheeled her arms and legs on the workout contraption the Smilps had made for her a few years back. She’d repeatedly said her only problem with space was how weak her limbs got without anything to dig into, and once the machine was gifted to her, made a point to use it at least a few times per system.

  “We didn’t think you’d be back out of your info-hole for hours.” Jillian, lying on her back with weights on either side of the bench, craned her neck to better examine Elma.

  “Still gathering information,” the Pikith confirmed, crossing the room to take her preferred seat on top of the card table. The common room, as the largest space on the ship, had long become the resting place for many of their hobbies. Anything that could be strapped down when not in use became fair game, so they had a folding table that contained countless pieces of numerous games, exercise equipment, a thick mat for sparring and handheld weapons training, and an entire wall of cabinets stocked with various materials for hobbies.

  “Ohhh, are we next on your list? I don’t know anything about the Hethans or the Girros.” Sinan shrugged and cycled harder with her arms even as her legs slowed.

  “So, here’s the thing. Jillian does.”

  “I do?” Jillian didn’t sit up, dropping her arms from her midsection to hang off the sides of the bench, hands brushing the tops of the weights.

  “Yes. In the first few days you were on board, you mentioned the Githan system.” Elma leaned forward, waiting for the critical information sure to spill out of the human’s face.

  “My first few days.” The skin between Jillian’s eyes wrinkled.

  “Yes.”

  “On board the Venatrix?”

  “Yes.”

  Jillian turned to look at Sinan, then sat up to fully face Elma. The entirety of her face seemed to have scrunched together.

  “Five years ago?”

  “Yes.” Elma focused every bit of her attention on the human, eager for insight.

  “El, you Pikith genius, you…I don’t remember. My brain isn’t like yours. I can’t…just…spin my thoughts back to a certain moment and see it again.” Jillian’s face began to smooth back to normal, and Sinan made a small noise that might have been humor.

  “The information is still in your head, though.” Patience, Elma counseled herself. Human and Caldivar minds had their strengths, though they were quite different from those of the Pikith.

  “I wish I could, bu—”

  “‘The further out you go, the bumpier it is. Even the Bith don’t man some of those gates far out. Well past Githan, you know, the outerlands, different numbers of coordinates and all.’” Elma couldn’t perfect Jillian’s voice in the way Dekko could do nearly all of them, but she remembered the words and the pitch with which Jillian had delivered them, waiting for that to trigger something in the other female’s memories.

  Jillian kept staring at her, frowning again, and Elma stared back with near-perfect patience.

  “They had had me on so many drugs to keep me quiet…” Jillian’s eyes went far away, but Elma knew to wait. Each member of the crew was allowed that time to withdraw when touching on early memories.

  “I remember.” Sinan slowed in her cycling again, ears twitching. “I remember asking you how you knew about the outerlands, where you’d gone, but you just said—”

  “‘Isn’t Githan far enough?’” Jillian nodded sharply, coming back into focus. “I didn’t spend much time there.” The words clumped together and spaced apart unexpectedly, but Elma couldn’t identify what human emotion would cause that. “This was the ship before the one you found me on. I was still on a merchant ship. We docked at a midpoint in Githan space—one of the species, I don’t remember which, they’d set up a quarantine protocol for all out-of-system travelers, saying someone had brought some kind of super-bug through, and they were still recovering. It was a huge ship, not a station. I remember being disappointed there weren’t good facilities. Not sure how much help that is, El.”

  “There’s no public record of a plague or rampant contagious illness for either the Girros or the Hethans, but that would be what, seven or so years ago?” Elma paused long enough for Jillian’s nod. “The Hethans became much more prevalent out of their system about four years ago. It could be related.” She considered again, adding, “The Bith have no record of travel advisories to the system either. Could someone have lied to keep you on board or out of particular areas?”

  “It wasn’t the worst time of my life, but hardly the best.” Jillian shrugged. “We’re lucky I remember even that much, and I don’t see how it can help.”

  “I find a use for most information,” Elma replied cheerfully, kicking her legs over the side of the table. “About those different kinds of coordinates?”

  “I wish I could remember.” The soft sound in her throat could have been a laugh or a noise of dismissal. Hard to tell with Jillian. “Probably something I overheard or hallucinated in that box. Maybe they were gossiping about the new system the Bith reopened.”

  “Timing for that Salvage System doesn’t add up.” Elma shook her head, ignoring the mild disappointment. What could be behind new gates, or ways to find them, made for a fascinating thought experiment, but it wasn’t her matter at hand. Besides, what would some slaving pirates on the far hind-end of the universe know about such things?

  “You spending some time with us, or back to your—oh, there you go.”

  Elma, who’d leapt from the table and made it back to the door during Sinan’s sentence, turned around and gave them her best smile.

  “More work before we hit the gate. You know the captain.”

  “We know you.” Jillian’s words followed her out the door and left a warm feeling in Elma’s chest as she headed back to her cubby.

  * * *

  “Captain, we’re less than an hour out from the gate.” Dek slouched in the pilot’s chair, the uncrowded path to the gate posing no actual challenge or real interest for him.

  “What’re they charging us?”

  Elma leaned back enough to see the number flash onto the captain’s console, and an involuntary noise jumped from her throat.

  “The Bith really love the road to Githan,” Selithra murmured, ears pressing back.

  “Maybe traffic’s picked up in and out of there with all that unrest we’re aiming for,” Dek suggested.

  “We might need to spend extra time with the Githans, if the fee out is anywhere near the fee in.” Selithra tapped her fist on the edge of her console twice before clearing the transaction and sending their well-earned credit off to the shells of the Bith.

  The space inside the gate changed, swirling white and near opalescent. The minutes always passed quickly before they entered a gate, especially as Elma inevitably remembered hundreds of things to download before they crossed into alter reality.

  She clicked off from her console as the Venatrix crossed the plane, the world breaking apart around her and putting itself back together so quickly, she could have imagined it. Her crewmates experienced the transition as a moment of disorientation, but her mind raced quite a bit faster than theirs.

  “How long, Nav?”

  Dekko sighed his most long-suffering sigh and gestured at the countdown that had appeared over his console. As it always did. Elma, also as always, enjoyed poking at him—not her fault those wheezy sighs were so delightful.

  “Five days! Whew. Captain, do you need anything else?”

  “Tell Sinan I want to see her firing solution proposals after dinner.” Selithra cleared something off her screen and turned so one eye fully regarded Elma. “And when she tells you she knows, I already told her twice, remind her I said proposals, plural. If the Githan System is in upheaval, we could emerge into near about anything. Just because something worked before, doesn’t mean she can rest on her ass.”

  “Agreed, Captain. No ass-rest. On it!” Elma flipped a two-handed salute and restrained herself from making a face at Dekko. Provoking him in small dos
es is what kept it fun, and the Cyrrid studiously ignored her while running his usual systems checks.

  She cast a glance over the empty seats, wondering what the ship felt like with a full complement—as weapons officer, Sinan could work from anywhere with a screen, and cargo-master Jillian avoided the bridge more often than not, and even with all six of the Smilps, they didn’t come close to approaching the crew capacity of their cutter.

  Dismissing the thought with a shrug—she hadn’t done well with crowds even before her time at Korobous Station—she left the bridge and headed for their one large cargo hold. Given the impossibility of sudden maneuvering or a rough ride, Jillian nearly always took advantage of long transferences to reorder the space. That meant not only room for Elma to truly stretch her legs, but also fun obstacles and the occasional bellow from Jillian to keep things interesting.

  There were far worse ways to spend five days.

  * * *

  Sinan flexed her long fingers, claws retracted, as the countdown neared zero.

  “Which do you think it will be?” Elma asked Dekko, leaning across the small space between their consoles to pretend secrecy.

  “You know I don’t pick favorites,” the captain murmured, her attention locked on the screen in front of them. For the moment, it showed only a swirl of changing colors, but before long, they would dump out of the gate into Githan space, and then at least three things could happen: nothing, someone shooting at them, or some promise of violence happening close enough to the gate that they’d have action to take.

  Their captain would assess and order once they had sensors on the situation—Elma’s mind worked much faster, but tactical decisions weren’t even in the top twenty of her strengths. Mid-forties, perhaps.

  “No bets then, but what do you think we’re about to roll into?” Sinan didn’t look away from her screen, ready to adapt and enact any number of firing solutions based on what waited for them.

  Dekko muttered several untranslatable words, and Elma cocked her head, considering both what they might translate as, and what had come of the Githan system in the delay since the news she’d collected had originated.

  “Automatic welcome message directing us to a heading, which will be interrupted by a faction force trying to get us somewhere else,” Elma pronounced, earning an ear flick from the captain.

  “Guess I better be ready,” Dekko grumbled, as though he’d ever not been.

  “That’s 5, 4, 3…” Selithra sounded the alert for end of transference, though Jillian and the Smilps should already have been in position. The captain liked her routines.

  “Sensors say…” Both Sinan and Dekko scrolled through what information the Venatrix’s varied sensors could report, but the urgency went out of their frames as the seconds went on.

  “Nothing within three hours’ reach, Captain.” Sinan sounded vaguely disappointed. “Weapons stations are visible but not armed, barely any fleet traffic at all. A bunch of ships clustered around the planets, and I can’t tell what’s flying closer in—looks like an asteroid field between the big one—that’s the Girros planet, yeah, Elma?” The Caldivar waited for Elma’s nod before continuing. “Between Churang and the primary sun, but no records of such a thing.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter, because no one’s ever trying to get close to the primary. Anyone even home?” Dek asked, poking at the information on his console as though that would change anything. He made a noise of disgust, but then sat up straight. “Incoming message, Captain. From…oh, interesting. They have a station tucked up by the gate.”

  Elma’s attention caught on the potential asteroid debris, but that didn’t seem the issue of the moment. The captain nodded, and Dekko accepted the transmission.

  “Venatrix, be advised you have arrived in…a situation.” The voice paused, taking such a deep breath it couldn’t be automated, and likely not recorded. Elma sighed to herself and took a moment to celebrate that there hadn’t been actual credit wagered.

  “Gate Station, this is Captain Selithra of the Venatrix. Care to elaborate?”

  “You don’t have the right encryption codes for me to try. Venatrix, you are requested to dock at the Yrba, that’s the gate station, where we will give you a better picture of the system. Otherwise you are more than welcome to make your own way, but be advised that Churang is under quarantine, and Hilmers is shooting at anything within moon-range.” The ambient sound shifted subtly, indicating they’d perhaps muted the microphone, then returned to normal as the voice returned. “Frag that, Venatrix, please reverse. Hilmers has placed themselves under quarantine, and the Hethan Presider has threatened to shoot down anything closer than their moons without proper codes. Churang is surrounded by ships that will shoot anything coming up from the planet or down to it. Apologies, it’s a bit different day to day.”

  Selithra tapped her fist, studying the panel in front of her, and flicked her ears rhythmically. Before Elma could get antsy, the captain straightened.

  “We will dock at Yrba Station, Control. Send any codes or instructions we will require. Who should we speak with when we arrive?”

  “We’ll have a delegation waiting for you. Yrba out.”

  Dekko swung his chair and glared at no one in particular, though he clearly intended to speak with the captain. Sinan interrupted without even looking up from her console, tapping extended claws in irritation.

  “We’re definitely getting shot when we dock, aren’t we?” she asked, causing Dekko to aim his glare at her. Elma saw that as a likely outcome.

  “It’s always possible. Rig the airlock to blow everyone up if it comes to it, but Control sounded tired more than treacherous to me. The latest news we had before the in-between was at least a few weeks out of date, and we’ve been out another five days since then. Elma, see if anything’s in the out-of-system news, and if there’s anything you can pick up in the Githan chatter. Sinan, airlock. Dek, stay on the controls, and roll us back to the gate if anything gets persnickety.”

  Dekko opened his mouth to say something, narrowed his eyes, closed his mouth, then shook the entirety of his body like he’d gotten doused in liquid.

  “Can go to Samos if we have to run for it. Close enough to not take too much credit, and it’s rare they shoot at anyone,” Elma offered, fingers blurring as she started pulling up various channels and recordings to pick through.

  “Samos is fine. I’m going to record a few updates, for the off chance we and the gate station have to get exploded today.” The captain stood, only the slight extension of her neck giving any indication of tension.

  Elma gave a sliver of attention to Dekko’s muttering after Sinan and the captain left. Her usual checkpoints in the Galactic Net didn’t turn up much—Githan was a remote system, and while they had plenty of profitable mining, they also had labyrinthine tax laws and business visas. Most rule-abiding traders went elsewhere. The combination of all that left few avenues of information, other than those from the system itself, or from rabid fans of the Girros stories that had popped up in the last few years.

  Local news…harder to pick through, as she trusted the sources less, and countless threads to decipher besides. This Hethan who hated the Girros and had quite a bit to say about the conspiracy of an engineered virus. That out-system trader who’d lived on Churang for decades reported solely on trade deals. A retired Githan Security Force pilot with theories about…

  She scanned through story after story—news and opinions and protest letters and videos and a horde of conflicting information. Patterns emerged, none clear enough for surety, but enough to begin making sense of the cacophony.

  About seven years ago, around the time Jillian had passed through, a plague had leisurely made its way through the system, hitting first the stations, then the moon settlements, then winding through both Hilmers and Churang. Given the biological drift between the two species, it took Hethans and Girros differently—few deaths, but a percentage of both populations had what must have been a change in brain chemis
try or metabolism, at the least. In Hethan population centers across Hilmer, activity ramped up across sectors, leading eventually to more out-system trade. In the most densely populated parts of Churang, Girros slowed. Unemployment soared, businesses shuttered.

  Not everyone, not everywhere, but populations are a system like any other. Change the balance and ultimately spillover effects spiral out.

  Hethans hurried, Girros stagnated. Politics and influence spread more obviously through the Security Force ranks—promotions, retirements, and discharges, both honorable and not, fell out of rhythm, slowly at first, still not quite at a tipping point.

  Three years ago, the Githan Trade Council’s policies began to change, but from what Elma could pick through, the system trade laws didn’t quite match, and in some cases conflicted with those of Churang and Hilmer. No wonder traders—less and less legitimate—had gated through to Githan.

  It seemed that the Trade Council had officially moved to Yrba within the last few weeks, so likely their invitation wasn’t a trap. Elma removed one hand from her console to send that message to the captain, continuing to read until the double tone of the docking alert interrupted.

  “Crew, gear up and report to the airlock. Dekko has the ship.”

  Elma pushed away from her small desk, ran through a rapid series of limbering stretches, and jogged to the armory. She blew past Sinan before skidding to a slower pace, turning to face the Caldivar as she held a half-run about even with the other being’s near-top speed.

  “Gearing up for war, or just potential combat?” she asked, grin stretching across her face.

  “Problem with Pikith, you think there’s a difference.” The low laugh in Sinan’s throat brought an answering one from Elma.

  “I can’t carry as much as you. Important to differentiate.” She spun around again as they approached the armory.

  Previously, two small barracks of bunks had lined the end of the hall, but with such a small crew, everyone got their own small cabin, and the barracks got converted into their armory. Sometimes, Elma did her work in there; being surrounded by so many lovingly maintained weapons soothed her.