by Tim Marquitz
“Now you have our attention,” Torbon told the mechanoid, earning him a threatening glare from Taj.
“If you would be so kind as to assist me in my quest to reach my contact on Kulora, I am authorized to be quite generous in return.”
Taj slumped back in her seat, staring at the mechanoid. After a moment, she glanced around the bridge, taking in the expressions of her crew, and even the blind S’thlor. All of them had a look that spoke of uncertainty, a hint of concern even, but buried beneath that, barely peeking out, was the appearance of hope. She imagined she had the exact same expression on her own face.
If the strange mechanoid was being truthful, and she didn’t see why he wouldn’t be given that he needed their assistance, he might well be the answer to their problems.
By agreeing to take him to Kulora, Taj could refuel the Discordant and supply her people with enough food for them to find a new home, a permanent place where they could settle in and be safe. Someplace they could take their time researching, learning about it without having to settle for wherever they ended up because they ran out of food or fuel, which was likely where they were headed currently.
She grunted, realizing her decision wasn’t really much of a decision after all despite the threat of the pirates.
“We could use some help resupplying and preparing for our own journey if we do this,” Taj told the android. “We also need some information regarding an organization called the Federation in exchange for our help.”
“The Federation?” the mechanoid asked. “Bethany Anne’s organization, from Earth?”
Taj stiffened in her seat, excited to stumble across someone who had some knowledge she could use. “Yes, that’s them. Do you know where we might find them, an outpost or base or anything, somehow we can contact them?”
He nodded. “My databases have several references to the queen. I can—”
“I thought she was an empress?” Torbon asked, shaking his head. “I’m confused. Are we talking about the same woman?”
“A common presumption,” the mechanoid replied. “She was once empress and is now queen, a voluntary re-titling I’m told, though I am not privy to the specifics of said adjustment. The ways of humans are quite…odd. They do what they will, it seems.”
“No argument here,” S’thlor muttered from his seat.
“We’ll have to take your word for it,” Taj said, but she started up again, not giving the android a chance to reply, preferring to pin their deal down before his…quirks distracted him. “So, to be clear, you’re willing to help us with supplies and fuel and finding the Federation if we agree to take you to Kulora?”
“Indeed,” he answered. “I am a mechanoid of my word.”
Taj grinned, glad to have found the means to her people’s safety. Thank Rowl, she thought.
“So, what do we call you besides mechanoid? You got a name?”
“My friends call me Dent.”
“Well, Dent—”
The mechanoid raised a finger and waggled it in the air like a school teacher scolding a child. “I said, my friends call me Dent,” he corrected. “If we’re completely honest, I’m not entirely certain we’re friends as of yet. Such distinctions are not so easily earned.” He placed his stubby little hands on his hips and lifted the dot of his purplish chin her direction. “I’m sure you understand.”
“Really?” Taj raised an eyebrow, her tail twitching with annoyance. She stared at the android, the tiniest flicker of regret rearing up at her idea to rescue the little mechanoid. She let his snark pass unchallenged, though, realizing it was in the best interest of her people to not anger the android and miss out on his timely offer. “I imagine taking you to Kulora is how we go about earning your friendship?”
Dent grinned. “It would most certainly be a wonderful start to one, don’t you think?”
Taj snorted. “That being the case then, Dent, we’re gonna be the best of friends real soon.”
The mechanoid grinned and offered an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Coconut!”
Chapter Ten
The Terant pirates had fallen back while the Furlorans questioned the android, and Taj ordered the crew to bring the Discordant onto a course for Kulora.
As a tourist planet, security was light and fairly casual, which was both good and bad as far as Taj was concerned. As easy as it was to gain access to the planet as an unknown ship with shaky credentials, she had to assume it would be almost as easy, if not easier, for the pirates to do the same.
That meant they’d be along soon after the Discordant set down, which wouldn’t be long given the lack of security delay. The crew would have to hurry.
Their stolen ship passed a cursory scan with S’thlor helping guide them in past the security protocols, telling Cabe how to respond and showing him how to interpret the parking beacons. Cabe, having never piloted a ship through metropolitan traffic, sat rigid in his seat the entire time.
Taj could see the nervousness playing over his features. His ears were pinned to the side of his head, his whiskers peeled back, little spastic wiggles making them dance across his cheeks. He meowed low under his breath, lips curled into an unconscious sneer, teeth bared.
She grinned the entire time while watching him. It reminded her of when they’d first started their training under Beaux.
Those had been happy times, and Taj was determined to get them back.
S’thlor stood beside Cabe, hand on his shoulder, repeating the procedures the entire time and doing his best to keep him calm.
Kal hovered in the background, weapon held casually in his hand, the barrel tapping against his leg as he kept watch on the mechanoid. Dent simply stood rigid, watching the landing play out, one side of his face smiling while the other drooped in a foreboding frown. It was an expression Taj couldn’t imagine fooled anyone into thinking he was a flesh and blood creature.
It was quite unnatural.
Jadie had escorted Gran Verren back to the infirmary as the Discordant followed the prescribed flight lines over the massive planet of Kulora, headed toward its parking designation outside the sprawling city on the horizon.
The whole time, Taj stared at the view screen, amazed at what she saw.
Raised on Krawlas, and having never traveled anywhere beyond the planet’s orbit, Kulora was a marvel. Once through the atmosphere, a great ocean splayed out beneath them, meeting the hazy horizon as far as she could see. It glowed crystalline, and Taj was both fascinated and terrified by it.
Not that Krawlas was without its bodies of water, but none of them remotely compared to the vastness that loomed below. Taj had never held any fear of water, unlike most Furlorians, having swum in ponds and even a small lake once, reveling in the experience.
And even though she knew creatures lurked beneath the surface, flitting back and forth around her, she’d never once given it a serious thought. Nothing in those bodies were a threat to her.
Now, staring at the cerulean majesty that colored the view screen, she couldn’t help but feel an ominous twinge creeping up on her. There was simply so much water that she couldn’t comfortably imagine herself submerged in it. Too much room for something monstrous to lurk under the surface…until it was too late.
“Keep us in the air, Cabe,” she called out. “There’s no gacking way I’m up for swimming in that.”
“Majestic, is it not?” Dent asked from behind her. He’d crept up so close that Taj started, biting back a hiss. She hadn’t even noticed him.
She spun in her chair, heart rumbling like thunder, but Kal’s steady presence a pace behind the mechanoid eased the tension of his unexpected approach.
She met Dent’s gaze and grumbled. “Best not to sneak up on a girl like that, Dent,” she told him. “I’ve an itchy trigger finger. You might just get some part of you blown off.”
“As long as you don’t shoot me in the head, you’d likely be doing me a favor,” he answered with a smirk. “No one should be a Sperit this long, not even an actual Sperit.”
Taj grinned. Short as the mechanoid was, she had a hard time picturing him as a physical threat, despite knowing he was an android, not flesh and blood.
He moved so gracelessly it was impossible to see him as anything but an awkward alien out of his element. Even in her seat, she had to hunker down to look him in the face. His huge eyes were animal-like, soft and vulnerable. There’d be no missing them in combat.
Still, there was a coldness that lurked behind them, a sense of what he truly was deep down: a robot with a mental capacity that dwarfed them all.
In theory, at least, she thought, grinning as she watched the little quirks and tics that defined the mechanoid. Though, she wondered if it was all an act.
“It is quite amazing,” she admitted finally, turning back around and trusting Kal to warn of anything untoward. “I’m just not interested in diving in, thank you very much.”
Dent leaned over the back of her seat and pointed at the view screen. His finger wobbled, hand shaking, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Fear not, for that is not where we are headed,” he told her. “There, a bit beyond the ocean, do you see that growing splash of green?”
Taj had to narrow her eyes and stare hard, the mechanoid’s vision clearly better than hers, but after a moment, a splotch of foliage became clear on the horizon. Its very presence sent a ray of warmth through her bones, chasing away the chill the view of the ocean had left behind.
A great, glimmering mass of silver shone beyond the welcome foliage, and the sight of its brilliant sheen froze Taj’s breath in her lungs. Hulking buildings rose high into the air, reaching for the clouds. Sunlight reflected off their steel frames. Taj stared in awe as they flew closer, seeing the city spread out before their eyes.
It was even more beautiful than the landscape had been.
“Oh…wow,” Lina muttered from her station. “That’s incredible.”
“That is where we are headed,” Dent told them, waving toward the city growing quickly in the distance. “Kulora’s capital city, Ovrun. My contact will be found there, in the Waring District.”
“We’re coming in fast,” Cabe announced, the beacon drawing them in. “Looks like the port is on the far side of the city and we’re being directed to circle around rather than fly directly over it.”
“Flight lanes,” Dent replied without being asked. “All traffic will be routed in that direction to avoid collisions with smaller craft allowed to fly within Ovrun’s borders.”
“Allows us to keep an eye on the arrivals,” Lina said. “Means we’ll be able to see the pirates coming in before they land as they’ll have to follow the same route.”
“Good. That’ll give us some time to prepare a welcome, if we need to. I’m hoping we can find Dent’s contact and be done and gone before the pirates even reach orbit,” Taj told them before turning her attention on Cabe. “Can you land us somewhere out of sight, somewhere far from the main berths, a place we can defend better?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, but our spot is already assigned, J-17 according to the system broadcast. If we deviate from our course, we risk drawing attention or being considered a threat, which they’ve reminded me about a thousand times since we started our approach.” He tapped the console, asking S’thlor to bring up the scanner readings. The alien did, and Cabe pointed to the two tiny blips appearing a short distance behind them. “See those?” he asked. “Those are security fighters tailing us. If they get nervous about anything we do, we get shot down.”
“Yeah, that’d be bad,” Torbon replied. “Let’s not do that.”
“I agree,” Taj said with a sigh. It wasn’t the ideal situation, but it would have to do. “Get us on the ground then, and we’ll figure things out from there.”
“Coming in now.” Cabe turned his focus to his instruments and guided the ship around the city’s perimeter, following the beacon’s signal until it became a steady buzz.
“Would be nice if they had an automated system, but I guess they can’t be bothered. Gonna have to do this manually.” He maneuvered the Discordant into the open space between a pair of pleasure ships moored in massive, raised berths and started to ease the ship toward the ground.
Taj stared at the opulence of the hulking ships, grateful when they disappeared from the view screen as Cabe landed and the bridge fell into silence, the screen going black. “We’re here.”
“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Torbon shouted behind them. “I wonder what kind of food they have here.”
“We finish the mission first, then maybe we eat,” Taj said, waving a finger in his direction before triggering her comm. “Jadie, round some folks up to guard the ship, then meet with Kal on the bridge to coordinate while we get Dent to his contact.” She glanced at the mechanoid, who nodded in her direction. A crooked smile wiggled on his lips. It was disconcerting to watch, so she looked away. “If the pirates come looking for us, reach out to us on the comm and give us a heads up, but don’t engage them unless you absolutely have to. I don’t want anyone getting hurt, understood?”
Both Jadie and Kal replied affirmatively, though they didn’t look happy about it, and Taj had to hope the warning was enough because it was all she had to offer. She needed to get Dent to his contact as quickly as possible and get back to the ship before the pirates found them and caused a kind of trouble they couldn’t get out of.
It wasn’t likely to work out that easily, but she could always hope.
“Oh, and keep an eye on Vort and Dard,” she followed up. “The last thing we need is for those two to get out of their hole and let their people know we’re here.”
“I’ll watch them personally,” Jadie replied, and that satisfied Taj. She knew that, unlike Kal of the loose prison morals, the queen would shoot first and worry about what the captain and commander were doing later. She grinned at the thought, but it was short-lived. They had to get moving.
“Come on,” she told the others. “We need to hurry.” She patted S’thlor on the shoulders as she started off the bridge. “We’ll be back soon. Try not to miss us.”
The alien nodded. “I will endeavor not to.”
Taj grinned and the crew headed off, Dent in tow, random twitches making him look as if he might break into a dance routine at any moment even though there wasn’t any music to be heard.
Outside the ship, Taj let Dent come up front and lead the way. Cabe, Torbon, and Lina stuck close to Taj’s side, each one with a hand rested on their pistol grips, doing their best to be subtle.
They weren’t doing a good job of it.
There was no doubt they looked like scared children or nervous criminals, but Taj was okay with that.
She would rather they be mistaken for idiots than be caught off guard in a foreign city on an unknown planet. At least most of the traffic utilized the automated cab systems Dent had told them about. That kept the visitors in the air and above the notice of such things as Furlorians stomping across the tarmac.
She watched them glide overhead, clusters shooting back and forth across the landing area, but she soon found herself staring ahead, getting caught up in the wonder that was Ovrun.
In opposition to the relative quiet of where they set down, people of all sorts appeared as soon as the crew left the landing area behind and entered the city prime. The auto-cabs dropped off group after group of people, then jetted back into the sky for more.
It was immediate culture shock.
Taj had planned to keep her head down and march her way to Dent’s contact in a hurry, but not more than a few minutes after starting down the walk, she found herself examining everyone who passed, blatantly gawking.
From aliens with tentacles for hair to sentient blobs that oozed down the street, to creatures made from pure energy, their physical manifestations held together by barely visible containment suits, to walking, talking trees whose branches rustled as they spoke, the richness and diversity of the planet caused Taj’s breath to hitch in her lungs. There was simply too much to
take in all at once.
They even passed a pair of creatures with fur and sharpened teeth, somewhat similar in build to the Furlorians. The first sneered and growled at them, the second breaking into a ragged bark, posturing, her chest puffed out, before the crew crossed the street to avoid a confrontation. Torbon hissed back, and the crew hurried on until the creatures were out of sight. Taj watched as Torbon’s tail slowly receded to normal poof.
“What kind of animals are those?”
“Caninites,” Dent answered in a serious tone. “I’d be careful around them. They can be such dogs, I’m afraid.”
After their encounter, the journey was largely uneventful. Jadie checked in twice, saying everything was okay, and that pacified Taj’s nerves a little. Dent telling them they were close to their destination helped even more.
Dent led them down the street a little farther, then slipped into a narrow alley between two smaller buildings. Unlike the main part of Ovrun, the area they’d landed in and traveled through was more subdued, less glamorous than what they’d viewed flying in.
That shining wonder towered in the distance, looming over everything.
It hadn’t been so obvious that the city had a darker side when they’d first arrived, but it didn’t take long for the seedier aspects of Ovrun to appear.
All the silvery beauty she had glimpsed faded into a murky gray that seemed to choke the excitement out of the crew. The farther they went, the more apparent it became that they were not traveling in a nice part of town.
That set the hair on Taj’s nape to standing on end.
The sidewalks were cracked and scuffed, and the buildings looked worn and weathered, a sharp counterpoint to the gleaming brilliance that first greeted their entry into the atmosphere.
No wonder security was so lax.
