“It is, ma’am,” confirmed Chris. “That’s why I left as soon as I was able. Eighteen months ago I came here looking for a better life. Even though the mining here is much safer, I chose to join Salvage Fleet as a Marine.”
Harmon spoke, and his voice carried across the room, gathering everyone’s undivided attention. “You grew up in a group home. You are an orphan.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yes, sir,” Chris said. She tilted her head slightly. “How do you know that? It’s not something that went into any of my records in the fleet.”
“You said the home,” Harmon explained, “not your home. But it’s more than that, now that I know what to look for. The first thing you did when you walked into this room was check for exits. You made a mental note of where everyone was, you sized them up, and you carry yourself as if you’re guarding your thoughts. It’s hard to explain what I see; I just know I see it.”
“He’s right,” Clip agreed, tilting his head slightly, looking at her. “We just know.”
“Every good Marine does that,” Nate said, confused. “My Bolts are trained the same way, as well.”
“No, Nate,” Evelyn said. “They’re right. It’s more than the training we received. It’s that confidence and strength she emanates, even though she may not always feel it. From what I have learned, there are those coming from that situation who rise above their past and refuse to let it define them. It’s as if there are different levels to it. I see it now. Most of those in our line of business show confidence, but it’s a little something extra on beings like her.” She glanced over at Harmon.
The room was silent. Finally Chris spoke. “I was…am an orphan. My parents were killed in a mine collapse when I was six years old. I grew up in a group home, but it was good home, run by a Bangolda who actually cared about us. I tend to stay a little reserved, but it’s only because as I grew up, there would be a few that pushed the boundaries, those who tried to take what little I had. Usually they didn’t stay long in the home. Shamayet would not tolerate that type of behavior. Still, I learned to remain guarded. The early school years were not pleasant, away from the safety of the home.”
“Is there a reason you feel you need to go back, as expensive as the trip may be?” Harmon asked. “All of that is behind you now.”
“It is behind me,” agreed Chris. “I…” She paused a moment, looking at Harmon, realization coming to her. “Sir, you are an orphan. You were raised in a group home, too. You know what it’s like. What it’s like to watch your back and maybe watch someone else’s back. Someone easily taken advantage of.”
“I do,” Harmon said, glancing at Clip. A small man, Clip Kolget was raised in the same home Harmon was. Though they were not related, they were brothers. Harmon could not count the times he’d stepped in to protect Clip when they were young.
“Spill it,” Clip said. “You have my interest, too. What you went through is not easy, we know. Our parents worked mines before we lost them.”
“I received a message from someone I consider my little brother; he is an orphan, like myself. He is not even of my race, but he is still my brother,” Chris explained. She continued, “It was kind of cryptic, almost as if he was in a rush to send it.”
“Talk to me, Chris,” Harmon said, motioning her to continue. “Is that your full name? Chris?”
“It is what I go by,” Chris admitted. “Like Pikith, we tend to have only one name. My race has been speaking Earth Common for over two thousand years, so I do not have a name in my native language. To be honest, I only know a few words in it. My full name is Christalcondaynar. I am named after my mother’s favorite flower on Darloog.”
“Yesss, we will definitely stick to calling you Chrisss,” Zerith confirmed.
“Tell me what you read in the message, then tell me what you feel, Chris,” Harmon prodded.
“The message said, ‘Come back. Shamayet got sick. Narlong makes us work, and we can’t leave. He hurt…’.”
“That’s it?” Harmon asked.
“Yes, sir,” Chris confirmed. “That’s all there was. I have a bad feeling about it.”
“And you want to go back to see what’s happening,” Harmon said, almost to himself. He turned to Zerith. “Do we still have that travel account opened? The one Gunny used when he went to Sol System for treatment?”
“Yesss,” Zerith confirmed, “it iss sstill an open account.”
Harmon picked up his personal comp and looked for something, his fingers moving screens and files. He entered a few lines and pressed his thumb to the screen.
“It still has plenty in it, man,” Clip agreed. “I used it when I went to Third Moon in the Auburn System to work with Van Allen Plexico.”
Chris was surprised when Harmon looked up from his small slate, having confirmed what he was looking for, and finished what he was doing, turned to her, and said, “Chris, I am not authorizing leave for you at this time.”
She was even more surprised when he said, “As of right now, you are on special assignment. You are to go to the planet Darloog and determine what happened to your foster parent and your brother. You will take one of the Fleet’s shuttles and lead a crew of four. You are authorized to use Fleet funds to accomplish your mission. If there is an issue with this Narlong character, I expect you to handle it as a sergeant in Salvage Fleet would. Am I clear?”
“Yes…yes sir,” Chris stammered. “Wait…did you say sergeant?”
“That’s what I heard,” Evelyn confirmed. “Congratulations. You should know, Harmon tends to do that sort of thing. He once promoted a specialist to the rank of lieutenant. Colonel Audell will have to arrange a ceremony when you get back.”
Harmon turned to Captain Brink. “Nate, three of your Bolts will make up her team, since she is here and ready to depart. They will take my shuttle. Light battle armor and full kits. Make sure Corporal Zarmlon is among them.”
“Roger, sir,” Nate answered. “I’ll send Specialist Pailoth, she’s a medic, and Private First Class Jacobs, a combat engineer. Not that they’ll need anything blown up, but hey, you never know. Besides, PFC Jacobs is one of our better pilots. She can drive or fly almost anything. She’s the Engineer Platoon’s Stomper pilot.”
Chris grinned at the thought of an all-female team. “Sir, this is great,” she said. “I don’t know if you realized it, but Narlong is an Aarnib. That race uses their females for breeding only, because they are barely sentient and kept that way. Showing up with an all-female team to determine what is happening will be a slap in his long face.”
“Who is he, anyway? Harmon asked.
“He’s bad news. Part of one of the local syndicates. He’s small time, but he owns the property leased to the group home. He won it in some kind of gambling game. He has been fighting the terms of the lease contract for four years. It has gone to court several times. There is an abandoned mine in the hills on the property, and he is greedy. He has been trying to re-open it. It’s one of the reasons I am anxious to get there as soon as possible. It was abandoned for safety reasons.”
“I don’t like him,” declared Clip. “I don’t know him, and I already don’t like the dude. If you find you have need of computer support, make a direct call. I don’t care what it costs, call me, and I’ll be on it. I’ll have a little help from my boy, too. His mom is busy coordinating things in the Fleet right now, but he and I will make time.”
“There iss a weaponsss locker on the sshutle,” Zerith said. “I have modified sseveral of the itemss sstored there. I will ssend you the information on them and the combination to open it. What isss your perssonal messsage code?”
Chris showed him her personal comp with the information pulled up on the screen. Zerith entered it into his. He sent her a message with his name so she would have his personal contact information. That was slick, she thought. Not that I mind.
“You have your orders, Sergeant Chris,” Captain Ellotta said, “but you can wait until after lunch to gather your team
. Besides, you just got promoted, and a round of drinks are on you.”
“Yes, sir,” Chris answered. Slowly a smile formed on her face. “Drinks are on me. Zerith, could you send me the travel account information? I am on official business, so drinks are actually on the fleet, not me.”
Nate looked at Harmon and said, “She’s a keeper.”
* * * * *
Chapter Three
SF 6 Personal Shuttle
Salvage System
Chris looked around and still couldn’t quite believe she was in Commodore Tomeral’s personal shuttle. It was much faster than the typical transport shuttles she had been in since she joined Salvage Fleet.
Chris looked at the dark-haired human piloting the craft and asked, “Yvonne, how is it that a smaller shuttle like this one is faster than the larger transport shuttles used to move beings around the fleet and down to the planet?” She had insisted on not using rank when they spoke among themselves, in case they needed to conceal the fact they were military trained and were affiliated with her.
Private First Class Yvonne Jacobs grinned. “It’s the inertial dampeners. You know the old man is going to have combat-capable dampeners on his shuttle. It’s like the ones on the combat transport ships. I wouldn’t doubt they are for fighters, or even gunships. We’re pulling some serious Gs, and we don’t even feel it. This thing could go faster, but I don’t want to take it all the way to the limit. It’s rough on a body. The next day we’d be so sore you’d think we been beaten with a stick.”
Chris laughed. Yvonne was from the Louisiana System, a human system on the far side of the galaxy. New Bayou was a planet proud of the region of North America on Earth they came from. It was a hot, humid planet made up of islands. A couple of the larger ones could be argued to be small continents. She spoke Earth Common with a slight accent.
“Well, if we have to push it, Pail has some good stuff in her pack,” Zarmlon volunteered from the first row of seats behind the cockpit area. “I can’t tell you how many times she hooked me up after a night of good times in Bank Town. An hour of dry heaves will make you sore, too.”
“That is because you take it too far every time.” The medic laughed. “You know you cannot drink as much as me, yet you try every time.”
“You drink a shot, I’m drinking a shot. You drink a beer, I’m drinking a beer,” Zarmlon explained. “That’s what you’re supposed do.”
“Not when I am nearly seven-foot-tall and weigh close to three hundred and fifty pounds,” Pailoth replied. “You are what? Five and a half feet tall and weigh one-forty? You may have a faster metabolism, but you can’t process the alcohol quick enough to compensate, my little lilac friend.”
“Even I know better than to try that,” added Yvonne, looking back over her shoulder, “and I can drink with the best of them.”
“I weigh one-fifty, and it’s all muscle, thank you very much,” Zarmlon argued. She ran her hand across her white mohawk. “Besides, I may wake up hungover, but I don’t have to sleep until noon the next day. You big lazy minotaur.”
“I do love to sleep,” agreed Pailoth. “No argument there. Speaking of which, wake me before we transition out through the gate.” The big Withaloo lowered the back of her seat and closed her eyes. She opened one back up and looked at her friend. “And for your information, if you are going to refer to me as anything from your human half’s home world, it would be more like a bipedal bison, not a cow.” She closed her eye, flicked an ear a couple of times against a horn, and was lightly snoring shortly after.
Chris shook her head. A couple of days with her temporary team, and she was already enjoying the banter between the three friends. She could feel herself opening up a little to them, much like she did the squad she was part of on her assigned ship, The Reckoning.
These were good troops. Confident professionals who knew what they were each capable of, yet did not portray an arrogant attitude about their capabilities. Most beings would not notice, but professional soldiers across the galaxy would see it and take note; as carefree and cheerful as they may be interacting with one another, these were not three to take lightly.
There had been some shared missions between the Marines and the Bolts during the battle to rid the planet Nazrooth of Bleeve occupiers, but this was the first time she had truly spent time with some of the tattooed troops. The tattoos every qualified member of the unit wore on their faces was a unit identifier like no other; one side of their face had blue lightning, striking and moving on its own, powered by the body’s own electrical current.
The tattoos could be turned off should the mission dictate it. This kept the glow from reflecting back from the inside of a helmet’s face shield or screens inside a mech. Maybe the specialty unit might be something to consider, Chris thought. She knew only the best candidates were selected.
* * *
76 Hours Later
Darloog System
The small shuttle exited through the gate into the Darloog System, moving at the same speed it entered into the one in Salvage System. There was a slight feeling of disorientation, like always. The Bith Gates linked systems all over the galaxy, allowing travel through Alter Reality, and the differences between the two took a moment or two to get used to. It didn’t matter if the systems were close—if any star could be considered close to another—or halfway across the galaxy. It felt the same after a few minutes, or a week.
“We are one day from the planet at current speed,” Yvonne said. “There is some traffic, mostly ore haulers and freighters, but it’s easily maneuverable. Do you want me to push it, Chris?”
“Don’t make it uncomfortable,” Chris answered, “but, yeah, I’m anxious to get there. When we get in range, call ahead and get the clearances. This shuttle does not show its weaponry on normal scans, so to an observer, it is not necessarily a military craft. Use the ‘potential buyer of minerals’ cover. No sense in giving ourselves away yet. Who knows what kind of deal the syndicates have with the starport? You can bet untraceable credit changes hands, paws, claws, feet, or whatever.”
“It sounds like a place in the entertainment videos,” Pailoth commented.
“Yeah,” Zarmlon agreed, “a cross between the old shows from Earth and the latest syndicate series from the New Vegas System.”
“Speaking of which,” Yvonne warned, “I have the next two episodes of The Galtheek Consortium being recorded. So don’t look on the Galaxy Network and see what happens. I don’t want to know. Either of you ruin it for me, and it’s on like the Best Marine Competition Combatives Tournament.”
“What?” Pailoth laughed. “I should tell you what happens so we can spar a few rounds.”
“You don’t want none of this!” Yvonne said with a grin. “I’ll hit you so many times, you’ll be hollering y’all quit!”
“I’ll hit you so hard, when you have a child one day, the doctor won’t have to slap it, because it already happened,” countered Pailoth with her own grin.
“I’ll jump in and help whoever is losing,” Zarmlon added. “You’ll know what happened on the show, because I’ll knock you into next week.”
“If you three start fighting,” warned Chris, “I’ll jump in on all of you and hit you so hard, so fast, and so many times, you’ll all beg me to kick you just once.” She kept a straight face, looking at the three of them staring at her with their mouths open.
The three friends looked at each other and back to Sergeant Chris. They burst out laughing, and Chris laughed right along with them. It felt good to let go a little. She didn’t know why she’d interjected in their banter, but it felt right. For the next half hour, one of them would giggle and say, ‘just once.’ It started the laughter all over again.
* * * * *
Chapter Four
Starport
Karbot Town, Darloog
“Are you sure it will be alright?” Yvonne asked, looking back at the shuttle parked in a marked off slot on the edge of the tarmac. “You said this place was full of do
wn-on-their-luck beings, poor miners, and every other type of riff-raff in the galaxy.”
“It is,” agreed Chris, “but it is also full of honest, hardworking beings trying to do the right thing. That security guard I spoke to was alright. I grew up here; you can kind of tell which ones are on the take.”
“On the take,” Zarmlon said, “now that really does sound like something from one of the old, and I mean old, Earth shows on the Galaxy Net.”
Chris shrugged. “It’s what they call it around here. Paid for, dishonest, accepting bribes, crooked, you know…on the take.”
“If you say so,” Pailoth chimed in. “I don’t know how you could read anything on its face, with all those feelers moving around.”
“All Bangoldas have them,” Chris said. “I think they are whiskers. They are always in constant motion; my foster parent’s always used to tickle when she tucked me in.” Chris paused for a moment, remembering, the first year or so after losing her parents, how Shamayet would spend a little extra time tucking her in and letting her know she would be there in the morning when she woke up to make her something to eat and see her off to school. Now she understood how powerful that small act was, and how important that was to her every night. “Let’s go.”
The four of them caught an antique automated hovercraft and were delivered downtown with surprisingly no difficulties. It may have been an old vehicle, but its programming was sound. Chris explained that the syndicate involved in that line of business ensured they worked in order to maximize its cut of the profits made by the owners of the various companies.
They checked into a place on the edge of the brightly lit bars and gambling places clearly designed to separate miners from their hard-earned credit. It was a town like so many others across the galaxy, regardless of the star system. The few that owned the businesses did well, while those around them lived week-to-week on their earnings. There were several syndicates operating in the system. They took their cuts from profit made, but at the same time ensured the locals were not completely destitute. It was a strange sort of mutual symbiotic relationship.
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