Salvage Conquest

by Chris Kennedy

  As she glanced around, she heard the whoosh of a door opening and closing, followed by the iridescent purple shell of a three-foot long beetle-shaped being walking into the room. The Smilp stood on two legs, its antennae waving wildly in the air. Crap, Bek’ah thought. The Smilp’s antennae were famously sensitive to scents, and after spending three days running from the Gritloth back home, then most of a day curled up in a space not much bigger than a cubic meter, she knew she was fragrant.

  Sure enough, the waving antennae stiffened, and the Smilp looked straight up at the catwalk. “Come down right now, and we will not immediately space you. Make us come up there after you, and we make no such promises.” The door whooshed open again, and three more Smilp in a rainbow of colors scurried in, two of them aiming laser rifles at her.

  Bek’ah was fairly certain they wouldn’t open fire in the engine room, but she didn’t feel like chancing it. Besides, if she went down to the floor, at least she could stand up. So she belly-crawled the length of the catwalk, spun herself around, and lowered her lithe body down to the engine room floor, placing her hands on the sides of the ladder and sliding the last twenty feet. She spun around to face the purple Smilp and gave him a grand bow.

  “Silvertooth Shortwhiskers, at your service. Please convey me to your captain so that I may thank them for the kindness of the accommodations.” The name was not only ridiculous, but also fake.

  Never having talked with a Smilp before, she had no idea if the being smiled at her attempt at humor. But she completely understood the flash of blue light from the muzzle of the nearest laser rifle, and she had just enough time to think Well, crap before the stun bolt slammed into her and knocked her, unconscious, to the deck.

  * * *

  She woke in a small room, with a pounding headache. Well, what did you expect, Bek’ah? A red carpet and a bowl of milk? The room was spartan, but furnished, obviously someone’s cabin. All personal effects were gone, but there were a few magnetic picture hangers mounted to the wall, and the small shelf beside the door had several clearer spots in the dust where objects usually sat. A quick look around revealed the bunk she was on, a narrow bed with a basic mattress, pillow, and linens, all designed to flip back up into the cabin wall when not in use. The desk had a chair, but the surface was bare and the drawers empty. There was a bookcase, but it was similarly empty. Either whoever lived here was a monk, or they’d cleared it out in a hurry.

  Well, maybe in a hurry. The more she moved around, the more stiffness she found in her arms and legs. She couldn’t tell how long she’d been out, but it certainly felt a lot longer than normal from a stunner. That reminded her…

  “Hey!” she called to the door. “You wanna let me hit the head? I was curled up in that storage compartment for hours, then you knocked me out. I could really use a lavatory!” There was a scuffing of feet from outside the door, and Bek’ah pricked up her ears, swiveling them around to catch any conversation. She could hear two voices arguing, but the words were indiscernible.

  After a few seconds and a louder “Fine!” the door whooshed open to reveal a slender human female standing there with a laser pistol in her hand.

  “You try to run, I shoot you. You piss on my floor, I shoot you. You show me claw or fang, I shoot you. You understand?”

  Even with her mind running a light year a second, Bek’ah couldn’t keep control of her tongue. “I think so. If I piss you off, you’re going to give me a cookie?”

  The human glowered, her dark eyes narrowing and the gun coming up. Bek’ah raised her hands, careful to keep a rein on her fear. Sometimes her claws popped when she was nervous, and she had no doubt this woman meant every word she said about shooting her.

  Her guard motioned at her with the pistol, and Bek’ah moved forward. She gave the woman a good once-over as she passed. Tall, nearly two meters, and lean, with cords of muscle standing out along her forearms. She looked much more fit than the humans Bek’ah remembered from Tideb, but most of them had been beggars or petty criminals. Her hair hung in a long, dark braid over one shoulder. She was pretty, for a being without any fur or other interesting features.

  Behind the woman stood a human male of similar height and hair color, but thicker muscles. He looked like he could hold his own in a fight, armed or not, although Bek’ah noted the laser pistol on one hip and the long knife on the other.

  The woman’s laser pistol hadn’t moved from where it was aimed at Bek’ah’s midsection, and by the scowl on the woman’s face, she really wanted an excuse to learn what singed fur smelled like.

  “Move it, stowaway,” the woman said.

  “Which way to the head?” she asked. The man pointed down the corridor, and Bek’ah turned in that direction.

  Moments later, she stepped back out into the hall and turned to go back to her cell, only to find the human female blocking her path.

  “Not that way. You get to meet the boss.” Her male companion was gone, maybe to tell the “boss” they were coming? Bek’ah didn’t waste too much time thinking about it, she just headed down the hall in the direction the woman pointed, making sure to keep her hands in plain sight.

  She walked down the corridor, trying to take in as much of her surroundings as she could. The corridor she walked down now was pretty featureless, basic plasteel walls and titanium decking with low lighting that indicated more races in the crew than humans. Her eyes dilated with no problem, but she could certainly imagine the woman behind her having some trouble seeing details in the current level of illumination. Bek’ah wondered idly if there were Leethogs aboard; she vaguely remembered something about them being light-sensitive.

  “So what’s your crew like?” she asked, not turning around. “Are you traders? Salvagers? Bounty hunters?” She was pretty sure the last one wasn’t the case. Her cursory look over the ship before hiding inside showed a pair of laser cannons fore and aft, but nothing like the level of arms or missile tubes she’d expect from a hunter/killer. The big woman behind her let out a huff of air that might have passed for a laugh.

  “Ask the captain. It’s up to him what he wants to tell you. Or if he just sends you on a short spacewalk. Without a suit.”

  Bek’ah shivered. She knew that was a risk when she stowed away. If the captain wanted to send her out an airlock, he could do it, and no one would ever be the wiser. She was counting on most beings not being completely horrible, and most situations being better than working for that craptacular slug Corvan Dax. She didn’t mind the dancing. She didn’t even mind dancing in a cage suspended over the bar to entertain drunken beings losing their wages at his gaming tables. In fact, it was those very gaming tables that led to her downfall. A hot streak at Shunt, a popular card game at Dax’s, turned cold at the worst possible time, and she found herself in hock to her boss for more than she could dance off in a year. She thought she’d worked out a deal with the slimy bastard, but she overheard him talking to a Gritloth musclehead about shipping her off as a payment to a “business partner,” and she decided it was time for a change of scenery.

  So when she left work the night before, with two lanky orange-skinned Gritloth trying to follow her inconspicuously through the deserted streets, she took a little detour to the nearby spaceport. This was the first ship she’d come to that didn’t have guards stationed by the entryway, so she found herself a nice place to curl up and hoped she could stay out of sight at least until they passed through the first gate. Mission accomplished.

  Admittedly, being stun-blasted into oblivion by the first crew member she came across wasn’t in the original plan, but dying in space would still probably be better than whatever the Gritloth had in mind for her.

  She was shaken from her reverie by a poke in the back from her escort. “We’re here.” The woman reached past her and pressed a comm button by the door.

  “Yeah?” a languorous voice came through the speaker.

  “You asked to see the stowaway as soon as she came to. Here she is.”

  “Thanks,
Mare.” The door whooshed open, and Bek’ah stepped forward into what could generously be called an office. More like the living quarters of a particularly messy adolescent. There were three pairs of boots scattered around the floor, none anywhere near their mate. Jackets, shirts, and pants hung over every piece of furniture in view and draped across a heavily padded armchair was what she could only presume was the captain.

  He was a Yalteen. Humanoid in form, with skin of a rich blue and taller than any human she’d ever seen, a good two and a half meters in height. He was lean, almost to the point of skinny, but there was a lithe musculature to his arms that spoke to some steel about him. His deep green eyes studied her as she looked him over, and a sly smile twisted up one corner of his mouth. He wore a tight, white, long-sleeved undershirt tucked into black pants with a red stripe running down the side of his leg. A black leather vest completed his outfit, making him look vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t figure out from where.

  “So you’re our stowaway, huh?” he asked, not getting up. He slouched almost sideways in the overstuffed chair, with one long leg thrown over an armrest in a pose that looked almost more uncomfortable than relaxed.

  “And you’re the captain, I presume?” He’s working awfully hard to make me think he’s calm and relaxed. So why isn’t he?

  “Zailés Tinbrak, at your service. Welcome to the Sniper, the fastest hunk of junk in the sector. Only ship to ever make the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs. Have a seat.” He waved toward a mound of unfolded laundry that roughly resembled the shape of a chair. “Just push that onto the floor. It’s the maid’s day off. Century off, really.”

  This is a very odd being. What in known space is a Kessel Run? Bek’ah thought, but did as he said. She took the chair by the back and tilted it to one side, dumping a small mountain of clothes onto the floor. “Sorry. I think your clothes may have gotten wrinkled.” She sat and leaned forward in the chair. “I’m sorry for stowing away, but if you’ll let me explain—”

  “Are you Bek’ah Greylin?” the captain asked. His eyes locked onto her face, searching for any sign of deception.

  She stiffened. “I am. How did you know my name?”

  He reached over to a nearby table and picked up a tablet. He tapped the screen and tossed it to her. There was a picture of her face, along with full-body photos of her dressed in street clothes as well as her dancing attire. Underneath her face were the words WANTED FOR THEFT – REWARD. Below that was a number. A very large number. A confusingly large number, given how little revenue she generated for Covan.

  “Seventy-five thousand credit? That’s more than I’d make in ten years working at Dax’s club. Who the Hells is offering seventy-five thousand credit for me?” she asked. Gods, for that kind of money, I’m tempted to turn myself in!

  “The Gritloth Trade and Salvage Company,” the captain replied, his eyes never leaving her face. “Seems they don’t like it when their property decides it no longer wants to be property.”

  “Well they can go slag themselves,” Bek’ah growled, anger rising in her throat. “They’re no more salvagers than I am a calico. You know the biggest business the Gritloth engage in is the slave trade, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I am very well aware what the Gritloth are,” Tinbrak said, and Bek’ah thought she heard something more in his voice than ordinary disdain for the slave trade. This captain had personal experience with slavers, and that could either be very good for her, or very bad, depending on how well or poorly his last encounter with them went. “And no, I have not sent a message back through the gate to Tideb telling your old friend, Corvan Dax, that we found you taking a little cat nap on our catwalk.” He grinned at his own cleverness, and Bek’ah just shook her head.

  “Yes, yes, get it all out of your system. But let me warn you, the first racist mention of a litter box, and I show you what your entrails look like.” She held up her right hand and extended a half-inch curved claw from each fingertip. “I hate digging skin out from under my nails, so let’s not go there.”

  The captain’s smile widened a little, and he nodded. “Fair enough, Greylin. Now, aside from the obvious reasons, why were you running from the Gritloth?”

  “Why does anyone?” she replied. “I don’t want to be a slave. I don’t want to be sold to some pervert as an exotic sex toy, or some rich doting kitslag as a cat nanny for his children. I don’t want to be somebody’s interesting bodyguard, and if I dance in a cage for Dax, it’s because he pays me, and I want to, not because somebody thinks he owns me.”

  “I can understand that,” the trim man said with a nod. “It doesn’t change the fact that you snuck on board my ship without permission, and it doesn’t change the fact that you’re worth seventy-five thousand credit. That’s a lot of incentive to turn you over, my moral objections to the contrary. But I still have to ask, why so much? That’s a lot more than the going rate for a pleasure slave, and even a highly-trained bodyguard would cost less than half that. What is it about you that makes you worth that much money?”

  Bek’ah looked him in his emerald eyes. “Honestly, Captain, I have no idea. I wasn’t even the prettiest girl dancing at Corvan’s place. I’d been there the longest, but I don’t bring in crowds. I don’t sell more drinks. I just dance in a suspended cage for four hours, three out of every five nights.”

  “Maybe I can shed some light on that, Captain,” said a bespectacled human woman who entered the captain’s quarters with a tablet in her hand. She wore a white lab coat and had long red hair pulled back into a bun with pencils holding it in place. Bek’ah always wondered at the strange stylings of species that only had hair on certain parts of their bodies. It was a little unnerving, all that exposed flesh with nothing but clothes to protect it.

  “What did you find, Doctor Skarper?” the captain asked, straightening up in his chair.

  The doctor didn’t slow down; she just made a straight line for the buried desk, shoved an armful of clothing and knickknacks to the floor, and perched on the edge, a look of excitement shining on her face.

  “We conducted several tests on your stowaway as she slept,” the doctor began.

  “Slept? I was stunned nearly into a coma!” Bek’ah protested.

  “Ah, yes, sorry about that,” the doctor replied. “Our stunsticks are calibrated to take down anything from a Rincah to a Withaloo. We’ve found that most species that are going to cause trouble are…made of denser musculature than you have.”

  Bek’ah nodded. What the woman said made sense. She was slightly built, even for a Tedibian, and a vessel that docked in many different places would probably expect trouble from larger species than her own.

  “You were saying, Alisha?” the captain prodded.

  “Oh! Yes, sorry. We conducted several tests, including a full body scan, and upon going over the scans a second time, we found something that may explain the interest our passenger is stirring up.” The doctor looked from Bek’ah to the captain, who motioned for the woman to proceed. “There is a microchip embedded under your skin,” she said, looking at Bek’ah. “If there is sensitive information on it, that could account for the bounty.”

  Bek’ah laughed, the sound surprising both the captain and the doctor. “There’s no microchip in me. I think I would know if there were.”

  “Not necessarily,” the doctor said. “The chip in question is very small, almost imperceptible to our scan. At first, my assistant mistook it for just a slightly denser chunk of bone, but when we looked more closely, we could see what it really is.”

  “Where is it?” Bek’ah asked. “It’s not like I just randomly let people cut into me and insert computer parts.”

  “It’s sitting right on top of your left patella, partially encased in scar tissue. The chip seems to have been implanted during a surgical repair of your knee. It would be very hard to find if we didn’t know there was something extraordinary about you.”

  “Thank you, it’s always nice to be recognized,” Bek’ah said, smiling at the compl
iment.

  “She meant the bounty, stowaway,” the captain said, his voice drier than the Gohara desert on Tedib.

  Bek’ah felt her face flush and was glad that her gray-and-black coloration made it almost indiscernible unless one was very familiar with Tedibian expressions. “I knew that.”

  The captain looked at her, and now his eyes were a piercing mint green that spoke of frigid mountaintops. “You knew nothing of this?”

  Bek’ah held up both hands. “I swear to Bast, Captain. I had no idea there was anything in my knee. I hurt it dancing two years ago at the club, and Dax…son of a litterless kit! That’s why he paid for the surgery and kept my pay coming while I rehabbed the injury. He buried something inside me. Damn him to all the Hells!”

  “Can we get it out?”

  Bek’ah froze in mid-tirade at the captain’s question.

  “Excuse me?” she and the doctor said in unison.

  “Look,” Captain Tinbrak said. “A dancer from a dive bar, even one that’s been sold to cover her gambling debt, shouldn’t be worth much more than three thousand credit, and that’s only if she’s extraordinary—”

  “Which I am,” Bek’ah said, licking the back of her hand and smoothing the fur atop her head where it had begun to rise.

  “Of course you are,” the captain continued. “But I don’t think even you believe you’re seventy-five thousand credit extraordinary.”

  Bek’ah shrugged her concession. He was right, but there was no system in which she was going to ever say that out loud.

  “So whatever is on that chip must be worth a lot of credit. Almost certainly more than the reward by a factor of four or five. So we need to know what that is. Now, can we get it out of her knee safely?”

  Bek’ah looked at the man and wondered just how concerned he was going to be about the “safely” when compared to the “rich” part of the equation. She breathed a sigh of relief when the doctor smiled and said, “We don’t have to. It has a wireless signal.”