by PP Corcoran
It was going to be a long enough 170 hours to Elo without worrying about something he had no control over. And if he was thinking about home, then you could bet his troopers were doing the same thing. Accessing his comms, he scheduled a meeting with his officers and senior noncoms for an hour’s time. Some routine training would break the monotony of a week in hyper.
* * * * *
Chapter Nine
Easy Money
The tingling of his pinplants woke Alastair Sinclair before the beeping of the slate which lay on its shelf beside his cot. Without opening his eyes, he accepted the message, which appeared as if projected onto his inner eyelids. The message was a request from Captain Kothoo to contact him urgently. Alastair accessed the Glambring’s internal sensor system, which located the elSha captain in an instant. The captain was on the bridge, and a side bar indicated the ship was being brought to full readiness. Something was up. With a command, Alastair pinged Captain Kothoo to let him know he was online. Kothoo activated the camera in front of his command chair and the sleek image of the elSha replaced his message in Alastair’s simulated vision.
“Colonel Sinclair. A pair of HecSha cruisers have completed translation and are assuming parking orbits. They have requested permission to allow their crews shore-leave and are preparing shuttles for this purpose. We have matched the cruisers’ signatures with recordings the Bucephalus intercepted as it departed Earth. It’s a safe bet these ships are loyal to General Peepo.”
“Shit,” Alastair cursed under his breath. His meeting with Deeral was not due to happen for another two hours, yet it looked like the HecSha were going to force his hand. If they recognized the Glambring for what she really was, a Winged Hussars’ ship, then they would not hesitate to open fire on her, and no matter how good a captain Kothoo was, the Glambring was only a frigate, and up against a single cruiser, never mind two, it would be a short, sharp fight which could only end up with the Glambring becoming expanding gases in short order.
“Very well, Captain. Please have a dropship prepared for immediate departure and warn off Captain Buchanan that we will be departing for the station as soon as possible.”
Kothoo gave a single nod of compliance. “Consider it done, Colonel. I shall contact the stargate and see if we can bring forward our departure time. Hopefully we can retrieve the information from Deeral and his pet Tortantula without alerting the HecSha to our presence.”
Fat chance, thought Alastair. He terminated the link with Kothoo while swinging himself upright. The purple ship suit hung by the door to the small cabin, next to a set of lightweight body armor and a shoulder holster containing a rapid-fire flechette pistol. With a magazine capacity of one hundred rounds of two-inch-long tungsten carbide flechettes, the magnetically charged rails of the pistol could accelerate the metal dart up to a speed of 2,500 feet per second. Any opponent would need reaction speeds of twice that of an Olympic sprinter and be five hundred feet away to dodge a dart. And best of all, there was no recoil to disturb Alastair’s aim. If you saw your target, you hit your target. And if you were unlucky enough to be the target, the flechette was almost guaranteed to penetrate any light-weight armor or thick alien hide. Alastair slipped on the ship suit, left his cabin, and headed for the starboard airlock securing his dropship.
On reaching it, the two pilots were already running their pre-flight checks as part of the Glambring’s heightened alert status. Time dragged, though it was probably only another couple of minutes before a slightly-out-of-breath Tim Buchanan, closely followed by Corporal Kofi Okoro, joined him and a single elSha dressed in the same purple jumpsuit they had used as cover before. This elSha, however, did not look as enthusiastic as the last group which had accompanied Alastair and Tim to the station.
“He was unlucky enough to be passing me in the corridor, so I scooped him up and hung the jumpsuit on him. At least we can pretend to be coming back for more spares,” said Tim with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Let’s get moving, Tim,” Alastair said, reaching for the handle above the airlock.
“One minute, sir,” said Tim, looking back the way he and Okoro had come. Alastair gave him a quizzical look, which transformed into one of annoyance when his second-in-command continued to look back down the corridor. Alastair was about to berate him when First Sergeant Croll and two Scorpion troopers, Jackson and Terhune, came bouncing around the bend. The three of them wore tan Scorpions uniform and tactical gear making no attempt to hide the fact they were mercs. Each carried a full combat loadout, their Gal 12 assault rifles were locked and loaded, and the laser pistols attached to their chest plates blinked the green of a full charge.
“I thought we might need a bit of back up, and the First Sergeant was complaining he needed to stretch his legs,” Tim said with a thin smile.
Alastair spared a glance for the grim-faced Croll and his two troopers and gave a curt nod. “Better to have them than to be looking for them, I suppose.” With that he pushed off down the umbilical joining the dropship to the airlock, nimbly pivoting himself on a handhold and slipping into a seat, the restraints deploying to secure him in place. Looking across at Croll, Alastair hoped the trooper’s extra firepower would not be required. However, the experienced merc commander in him knew how the God Murphy enjoyed throwing spanners in the best laid plans. With a shudder, the dropship disengaged its locking clamps and maneuvered clear of the Glambring, before a burst from its engine sent it arrowing for Ralla Station. Alastair closed his eyes and brought up the exterior cameras. A few seconds to orientate himself, and he was able to locate the two HecSha cruisers. Magnifying the image, the empty locks where the cruiser’s own parasitic small craft should be hanging told its own story. Some of the cruiser’s crew were already aboard the station. Could this go any more wrong? wondered Alastair.
The short journey to the station was over in a matter of minutes, and Alastair was out of his seat before the dropship had come to a complete stop. As soon as the power and comms umbilical were attached, Corporal Okoro worked his magic; Alastair and Tim were invisible to the station’s security network once more. Croll flashed the colonel a thumbs-up which Alastair returned as he headed into the station.
* * *
“Easiest credits we have ever made,” said Deeral as he punched in the code which unlocked his store’s front door.
“If you say so,” agreed Zeorta. The Tortantula was grumpy. She didn’t like making the six-hour round trip to the small moonlet where Deeral had built a habitat just big enough to hold his ill-gotten gains and the secure servers where he stored the most sensitive of the information that was the basis of his business. Schematics for the latest tech from the biggest conglomerates in the Galactic Union. Industrial secrets that would fetch a pretty penny if the right buyer could be found. Information pertaining to upcoming Mercenary Guild contracts that would allow a smart competitor to undercut his opposition. If you needed it, Deeral was the Flatar who got it. It was an open secret, but one that those in power tolerated because the Flatar could be useful to them one day, too. Deeral never considered that, sooner or later, one of his clients, or perhaps one of his victims, would decide that his usefulness should come to an end.
The store’s computer registered the presence of Deeral and Zeorta and activated the lights, bringing the main room slowly up to full illumination. Deeral had been working out of this store for longer than he wanted to admit, so knew where every step and piece of junk was located, so he did not wait for the lights to come to full intensity before setting off across the room. When he tripped over some unseen item and fell flat on his snout, the curse that escaped him was one of surprise rather than fear. That all changed when a disembodied voice let out a playful, “Oops.”
Deeral tried to scramble to his feet, but something landed heavily between his shoulder blades, smashing his face once more into the hard floor. Deeral tasted blood and as the weight fell off his body, Deeral’s oversized laser pistol came out of its holster. His eyes scanned the room, searchi
ng for his assailant, but he saw only Zeorta standing by the open front door.
“What you doing on the floor, Deeral? You fall over those tiny feet of yours?” The Tortantula let out a rumbling laugh, which turned into a horrible gagging sound as a flash of excruciating pain exploded at the back of her head. The Tortantula’s mouth filled with blood which flowed freely from it. In slow motion, like some crappy Tri-V drama, Zeorta’s legs gave way and the giant spider slowly sank to the floor in an ever-expanding pool of her own blood.
“Noooo!” The anguished scream echoed in Deeral’s ears. The Flatar barely recognized the voice as his own, his mind struggling to comprehend what his eyes were showing him. A feeling. A pinprick at the base of his skull. Somebody was behind him. Deeral tried to turn to bring up his pistol and burn down whoever had murdered his best friend, but his body refused to move. What? Turn! Damn you, commanded Deeral, but his muscles refused his orders. What in entropy is happening here? Deeral went to scream but his mouth would not open. His vocal cords could not form words. He tried to shift his eyes from the sight of Zeorta, to blank out that terrible vision, but his eyes refused to move, and he continued to stare at his dead friend’s body.
“Don’t struggle, Deeral,” came a soft whispering voice in his ear. “I’ve injected you with medical nanites. And, as you can see, I am now fully in control of your bodily functions.”
No this can’t be happening, thought Deeral. With more will than he thought himself capable of, he gathered his strength. Commanding his hand holding the pistol to raise up and smite the voice in his ear. For all his exertion, he only managed a weak shake of the arm.
“Ah! A fighter. Good, good I like that. Some beings can be so pathetic. Not you, though, eh Deeral?” The voice sounded like it was enjoying Deeral’s struggle. “Now Deeral, you have been a naughty little Flatar, haven’t you? You stole something from my client, and she is rather annoyed with you, because she has big plans and the last thing she needs is you sticking your scrawny little snout where it’s not wanted.”
Deeral’s mind raced within his unresponsive body as he tried to figure out what the voice was talking about. He had so many secrets, proprietary data, weapons specs, images of powerful people in compromising situations—how was he meant to identify a single item when the voice was being so vague?
“Of course, an industrious little information thief like you, Deeral, most likely has gigabytes of data hidden away somewhere. It’s certainly not stored anywhere in here, or I would have found it. That means you have a little hidey hole somewhere and you are going to tell me where that is, aren’t you? Because if you don’t—”
Before Deeral’s unblinking eyes a shape, slightly larger than he was, appeared out of thin air. If Deeral would have been capable of it he would have gasped and quivered in fear, for before him stood a Depik. Her large, round Depik eyes blinked once, and, as if by magic, a thin stiletto blade was in her hand. With the skill of a surgeon, the Depik ran the blade diagonally from Deeral’s left shoulder to his right hip, splitting the fur and skin and leaving a bright red line of blood in its wake. Deeral tried to scream at the pain, but nothing came out.
“The nanites allow you to feel pain, Flatar. In fact, they enhance it. They also clot your blood faster, so I could do this—” the Depik ran the blade from right shoulder to left hip. The pain was intolerable, and under normal circumstances Deeral’s brain would have simply shut down; however, the nanites were interacting with the opiate receptors in the Flatar’s brain, keeping him conscious and aware of every touch of the blade.
“All day long,” the Depik finished. “Unfortunately, I am on a tight schedule. My client has already dispatched another group of—shall we say, her employees—to secure the data you stole from her.” The Depik twisted the thin blade in Deeral’s line of sight. The light glinted off the blood on the fine blade. “The way I see it, Deeral, you tell me where the data is stored, I kill you quickly or—” the Depik tapped Deeral on the snout with the knife, “—I get the information anyway, and you endure a great deal of suffering while I do it. Your choice.”
Deeral’s eyes screamed his hatred for the alien, who looked back at him with not a care in the world. “Oh, that’s right you can’t speak can you. Hold on, we can remedy that.” The Depik tapped on a slate with one clawed finger before looking back at Deeral. The Flatar tried and succeeded in licking the blood that was congealing in his mouth. The face of the Depik filled his vision.
“Entropy take you, Depik, I shall never speak!”
If Deeral had expected the assassin to become enraged, he was sorely disappointed, for the Depik merely blinked a long, slow blink before gesturing around her with the stiletto. “I take it this whole place is sound-proofed and electronically screened? Of course it is. How else could you ensure nobody snooped on your nefarious deals, eh? You just tell me when you want me to stop. OK?” And with that Kitta plunged the blade deep into the muscle group below Deeral’s upper arm. The Flatar’s scream filled the room, but outside in the bustling corridor, not a sound was heard.
* * * * *
Chapter Ten
Rumbled
The elevator doors opened with a squeaking protest, and Alastair and Tim stepped out onto Level 3. The same overhead lights flickered, and unfamiliar scents assaulted their nostrils as various aliens plied their trade from stores up and down the corridor.
“You ever get that déjà vu feeling?” Tim asked in a harsh whisper, which caused Alastair’s lips to twitch as he tried not to grin. Any jovial thoughts he may have been having disappeared as an urgent message from Okoro appeared in his vision. For those not used to pinplants, the sudden appearance of text or information hovering in the middle of your line of sight could be disorienting, but to someone as familiar with pinplants as Alastair they took it in their stride. Alastair continued walking along the corridor while aliens of all shapes and forms passed through the message text which read, ‘Heavily-armed Jivool are disembarking a dropship from the HecSha cruiser. They are headed for the elevators. First Sergeant Croll believes your source may be compromised and advises you to proceed with extreme caution.’
“Shit!” said Alastair, loud enough to bring Tim to a halt and for his hand to slip inside his jumpsuit, touching the reassuring shape of the laser pistol hanging in its shoulder holster.
“Problem?” Tim asked.
Alastair flicked Okoro’s message across to him, and he read it quickly.
“Yeah, that’s not good.”
Alastair glanced up and down the corridor and its occupants carrying on their business blissfully unaware that a bunch of ugly purple bears were about to descend on them. Alastair briefly considered aborting the meeting and heading back to the Glambring; however, he quickly dismissed that as an option. If the Jivool were indeed after Deeral and the information the Flatar possessed, that info would be lost to Alastair and the Four Horsemen forever if the Jivool got to Deeral first. And, if that happened, then the plan to use the Raknar to free the Earth would probably be down the proverbial toilet.
“OK, let’s make this quick. I’ll get the info from Deeral, and you keep an eye on the corridor. First sign of the Jivool, we bug out.”
Alastair had only taken a couple of steps when he received another message from Okoro. ‘Second dropship offloading Jivool who appear to be securing the landing bay. The first group, eight strong, have entered the lift and are descending to your level…Correction. A third dropship has now landed, and its load of Jivool are headed your way, too.’
This is going to hell in a hand basket, thought Alastair, as he pushed the second message across to Tim, whose grim expression said more than words. Eight armed Jivool were not a force to be sniffed at. When the large bears got angry, you didn’t want to be anywhere near them. Even when seemingly unarmed, they had a retractable half-meter-long wrist claw that could easily gut an unarmored Human with ease. Then there was a second wave following them.
Reaching the entrance to Deeral’s store, Alastair
decided to forgo ceremony and retrieved his compact slate from a pocket and held it up against the lock. The piece of smart tech overrode the lock and opened the door, which obediently began to slide aside. From the interior, a scream burst forth that was so full of pain it rocked Alastair to the core and caused every head in the corridor to immediately focus on him.
* * *
The pain was excruciating; blinding flashes left stars in Deeral’s vision as again and again the Depik slipped the thin blade into his body. The medical nanites kept him conscious while amplifying the pain. Deeral had never known such pain and fear. He knew as soon as the damned Depik extracted the location of the moonlet he stored his servers on, he was as good as dead. And tough as he was, he knew he could not bear much more of the torture. It was time to make peace with his ancestors.
Then…a movement…the outer door was opening and through his dimmed vision he made out the shape of a Human…it was Sinclair!
The Depik was already turning to face the door, ready to slay whoever dared interrupt her. Deeral seized his opportunity. His screaming had reduced his voice to a hoarse whisper, but the store’s vocal interface still recognized it. “Dump all to Sinclair and seal the room—“
The assassin spun, her rage boiling over, and the stiletto sliced through Deeral’s throat, vocal cords, and arteries in one stroke. The Depik danced to one side to avoid the spray of bright red blood, but even her fantastic reflexes were not quick enough to stop the computer from locking every door in the store. Locking her in, and whoever had attempted to gain entry out. No matter, Kitta thought to herself as she hacked into the store’s computer. The Flatar’s last command would leave an electronic footprint she could trace, and she would recover the data her employer, General Peepo, had contracted her for. Whoever or whatever this ‘Sinclair’ was did not interest her in the slightest.
