by Dan Schiro
Orion winced, and Kangor stifled laughter with a pained expression. “Absolutely,” Orion said. “Hardly left a footprint. Anyway, I thought I should give you a call. I just met this s’zone woman, and… well, I think she might be your type.”
Chapter 3
Orion killed the manacite drive, and his Prodigal Star came out of the ether route a few hundred thousand miles from the galaxy’s single greatest construction, the Maker Rings. No one could say how the ancient Engineers had built the four vast habitat bands that orbited the artificial star, and no one knew what had happened to the original populace. Nonetheless, the Maker Rings had been the center of galactic government, commerce and culture since their discovery by the Great Apes Empire some 20,000 years ago. Though the outermost ring was still and lifeless despite many attempts to restart it, over 27 billion sentient creatures from scores of races called the three functioning habitat bands home, including Orion.
“Kangor,” Orion said, clearing his throat. “Clear our flight path with Hub air traffic control.”
“Yes, very well.” The big vycart hunched over the operations station control console and poked at it hesitantly. After a few “wrong” buzzers from the console, Kangor managed to send the message. “And… we’re clear.”
“Well done,” Orion said, gripping the navigation wheel with a wince. Kangor was a better choice to man the Prodigal Star’s sophisticated ops station than Aurelia, but to say he didn’t take to it naturally would be an understatement.
“Who do you think she is?” Aurelia asked from the crash couch.
“Sleeping beauty?” Orion keyed in a few coordinates on the control dash in front of him, and an approved flight path appeared superimposed on the main viewscreen. “I don’t know. I ran her image through my datacube’s facial rec program and got a big old doughnut.”
“I don’t know what human pastries have to do with it,” grumbled Kangor. “Perhaps she is part of the assassins’ cabal that came after Zovaco last year? That would explain his interest, and the need for secrecy.”
“I don’t think so.” Orion fired the ion engine and steered his Prodigal Star into a line of space traffic headed for the Hub, the Maker Rings’ capital city. “Zovaco and I have both been looking for the Guild since my showdown with LaVal LaVoy,” he said, talking freely about the shadowy organization with two of the few people he could. “But it’s like they don’t even exist. Zovaco says it’s their style to lay low when they get too close to exposure. Sometimes for centuries.”
“He would know,” Aurelia said.
“That he would,” said Orion, reminding himself that Zovaco had once walked the assassin’s path. “Anyway,” he said as the innermost band of the Maker Rings grew larger on the viewscreen, “we’ll find out soon. I pinged Zo’s cube as we left the route, so he’s probably on the way to our office now.”
A sly smile curled Aurelia’s lips. “He didn’t want us to bring the popsicle straight into the Grand Chambers?”
Orion shrugged. “I can tell there’s a lot he’s not saying.”
“As is his way,” Kangor added.
Up on the main viewscreen, a red destination dot appeared superimposed on the distant Hub. From Orion’s perspective, the dot appeared to be on the topside of the ring, so for a while they flew up toward it. Yet as the great habitat band filled the viewscreen with its mountains, forests, lakes and deserts, Orion felt as if they were suddenly plunging toward the shining metropolis. They had arrived during the middle of the day cycle, hours before one of the huge solar panels that floated above each ring created an artificial night. He leveled the ship out over the sprawling arcology, and they joined the steady lines of aircars, skysleds and dropships cruising above the Engineers’ ancient skyline.
“Alright, home stretch,” Orion said as he saw Echohax Tower. Its glittering form stood tall above all else in the distance, its spire reaching for the edge of the vast band’s atmosphere. “You two get the pod on some hover pads, and we’ll take it straight up on the executive tube, real quiet, real quick.”
Aurelia and Kangor grunted their approval and went to work on the hibernation pod secured behind the crew couch. Orion followed the superimposed guides on the viewscreen and piloted his silver ship toward the inverted-Y shape of Echohax Tower. At some 15,000 feet and 200 floors tall, the brushed-steel structure was really a city unto itself. The tower had been built by the Engineers like most of the backbone of the city, weathering countless centuries of artificial sun, wind and rain without so much as a blemish of rust. Today, it held businesses of all kinds, from all worlds, including the office of AlphaOmega Security. It might have been some of the most expensive real estate in the galaxy, but basing his business there had immediately put Orion in elite company. After soaring over a few dozen miles of metropolis, Orion steered the ship around the superstructure in a slow spiral to reach his rented hangar.
The three of them came down the ramp of Orion’s Prodigal Star with the hibernation pod gliding along between them on a quartet of hover pads. Orion took off his smartcloak and draped it over the pod’s window to hide its sleeping occupant. Luckily, the insect-humanoid hiver technicians who rushed out to service Orion’s ship didn’t look twice at them. As they led the obscured ovoid to the executive-only gravity tubes, they passed a few of the tripods, but the Engineers’ busy biosynthetic handymen paid them no attention, as usual.
The doors to a vacant tube opened at an automatic signal from Orion’s datacube, and they boarded a spacious, empty sphere. Orion barely felt the sense of acceleration before the lift’s inertial dampeners engaged, and they ascended at hundreds of miles an hour to the 98th floor. Orion and his team slipped out, again hustling the shrouded pod along between them, and started down clean, steely hallways. They passed the advertising agency, cosmetic surgery office and agri-stimulant firm, lucky not to encounter any foot traffic. Soon they reached frosted-glass doors emblazoned with a red A-within-O logo.
Orion stepped onto the Martian-marble floor inside with a smile, happy to be home. The stone waterfall fixture bubbled in one corner, its soft song bouncing off the vaulted ceiling, and familiar faces filled the sunken lounge to his right. His durok secretary Koreen sat at a low table with Zovaco Ralli and the three-eyed politician’s closest advisor, gray great ape Mervyn of Claddaghsplough. The men wore decidedly neutral suits, Koreen a dark-patterned dress, and the three of them looked up with anticipation. Yet before Orion could greet them, a mound of black wrinkles in the corner shook to life and bounded toward him.
“Bully boy,” Orion said, opening his arms as the 200-pound Cane Corso collided with him and lapped at his pale face. Now that the genetically engineered canine’s digestive issues had cleared up, he would be a valuable part of the team again when it came to tracking, intimidating and taking down targets. “That’s a good boy, that’s a good boy,” Orion said, staggering as he slapped the dog’s flank.
The others rose from the sunken lounge and climbed the three stairs to meet them. Zovaco took the stairs spryly, his frame thin and his inky-blue skin dry and tired. Mervyn sauntered up with his cane in hand, a piece of style Koreen insisted on despite the fact that consulin treatments had healed his leg long ago. The durok secretary walked beside Mervyn —her boyfriend? lover? companion? — and hectored his suit, straightening wrinkles and dusting off specks of lint.
“Well?” Zovaco said.
“Well,” Orion shrugged, “we took out the slavers and scuttled their ship. Unfortunately, most of the ship’s logs had been wiped clean, as had the body-runners’ datacubes. But we did bring home something you might—”
Orion glanced over his shoulder to watch Bully spoil his reveal by tugging the blue-gray smartcloak off the hibernation pod. The s’zone woman lay as still as ever beneath the glass window, submerged in the fluid of the pod and frozen in artificial sleep. Lights flashed in slow rhythms on the side of the pod, indicating her subdued, stable autonom
ic functions.
“No,” Zovaco murmured as he peered into the glass. “It can’t be her.” All three of his dark-blue eyes went wide at once. “And yet it is.”
“It is as we feared,” Mervyn said, stamping his cane. “But perhaps we’re getting close to some answers, at last.”
“What’s going on here?” Orion said, rapping a knuckle on the top of the pod. “Why is she so important?”
Zovaco straightened up, shaking his bulbous head. “When I looked into this, it seemed that those slavers might be involved, but I… I never imagined they’d still have her on board.”
“For the love of the Goddess,” said Aurelia, sounding irritated. “Who is she?”
“She,” said Zovaco with a wide-eyed glance at the pod, “is Dr. Dalaxa Croy. And she’s the preeminent weapon designer in all of the known galaxy.”
Orion tipped his mind into Memory’s Prism and searched his vast catch-all. “I don’t recognize the name. Zanthic Munitions?”
Mervyn cleared his throat. “Too brilliant to ever end up in the private sector.” The burly great ape stepped up next to Zovaco and gazed at the s’zone behind the glass with cold, calculating eyes. “Dalaxa Croy was a child prodigy, even by her race’s hyper-intelligent standards. She swept through Galactic Core University in the time it takes most people to have a cup of coffee, and then the Union defense program snapped her up. She’s been living her life in the classified file ever since.” Mervyn shook his head. “In the last decade, her ideas have completely reshaped the SpaceCorps armada.”
Zovaco gazed intensely at Orion. “And she’s been missing for almost a year.”
Orion nodded and rested a hand on Bully’s head as the dog nuzzled his hip. If she had been giving information to Dawnstar terrorists, the Independent Kingdoms or the growing separatist movement, the Union could find itself in a vulnerable position. “I think I see the problem,” Orion said. “But why all the secrecy?”
“Yes, it’s a bit deeper,” Zovaco muttered, touching his lifelike cybernetic hand to his chin. “Dr. Croy had been working on black book projects.” He hesitated for a moment. “Weapons of planetary destruction that went far beyond the conventions of Union law. She didn’t exist, her projects didn’t exist, certain orbital platforms didn’t exist,” he sighed, “and so forth. So when she disappeared, we couldn’t exactly plaster her face all over the datasphere.”
“It’s far worse than that,” Mervyn said pointedly. “Her disappearance was covered up from inside the Union government. That means someone high-up sold a mind carrying the blueprints for planet killers.”
Zovaco nodded. “And so I don’t know who I can trust in Parliament…”
Orion finished for him. “And that’s why you needed us to bring her here.”
Zovaco wrung his four-fingered hands. “A fine example of the distressing state of affairs I’ve discovered since winning a seat.” He took a deep breath and straightened his suit. “In any case, I looked into it. The slavers you took down were sighted in-system while she was vacationing on a resort planet…” He shook his head. “But I won’t bore you with the details.”
Orion wrinkled his nose at this. “And she’s been in a hibernation pod, on that piece-of-junk ship, for the last year?” If someone had bought her, he had a feeling they had a use for her. “With her profile, that doesn’t add up.”
“That’s the best case scenario,” said Zovaco after considering it for a moment. “As for the worst…”
“She may have been forced to build planet killers for the Independent Kingdoms,” Mervyn said with a tap of his cane.
Again the lot of them stood silently around the pod, Bully panting softly at Orion’s side. “Well?” Aurelia said, raising her hands. “Are any of you going to step up and open this pod, or are you just going to stand there with those constipated expressions on your faces?”
Orion shrugged, and Zovaco gave him the nod to go ahead. He knelt by the hovering hibernation pod and inspected the control panel. The pod looked like it ran an almost completely automated system, so he tapped a small touchscreen to key in the awakening process, and they waited. After a few minutes, vents popped open in the bottom of the pod, splashing the viscous blue fluid onto the lobby floor. The lid clicked, and Orion eased it open as the s’zone woman inside took her first breath in quite some time.
Orion looked down at her as she blinked open her large, wet eyes. “Hello,” he said gently.
For a moment, she stared up at him with bright pink irises that matched the s’zone speckling on her fair scalp. Then her arm snapped to life like a startled snake, and she slammed the base of her palm into Orion’s nose.
Orion staggered back, blood gushing from his nose, and Dalaxa Croy swung her long legs out of the pod. Zovaco and Mervyn tried to grab her, but her gray bodysuit was slick with the hibernation fluid, and she squirted between them like a fish. Before anyone could react, the s’zone dashed to a nearby pedestal and snatched up a crystalline triangle awarded to Orion by a royal family he had once rescued. Then with a smooth, judo-style move, Dalaxa Croy grabbed Koreen. She locked an arm over the secretary’s neck and stopped the sharp point of the glittering award inches from the weathered red skin of Koreen’s throat.
“Who are you?” Dalaxa rasped at them, her makeshift weapon trembling. “What did you do to me?”
“Dr. Croy, just relax,” Orion said, squinting through the pain of his broken nose and flashing a wait signal to his dog.
“You’ve been through an ordeal, Dalaxa,” Zovaco said in his most diplomatic voice. “But you’re safe now. We want to help you, and I promise no harm will come to you.”
“Unless you hurt Koreen,” Mervyn said, a calm statement of fact.
“Yes,” agreed Kangor with a snarl, “unhand the durok or I will tear your soft body to pieces.”
“Kangor,” Aurelia hissed at him.
All the while, Koreen muttered in soft tones to her attacker. “You don’t want to do this honey. These are the good guys. The good guys, you hear me?”
“Dr. Croy,” said Orion, searching for an angle to take control of the situation. “Can I call you Dalaxa? Is that okay?” Eyes stinging, he held a corner of his smartcloak to his nose to staunch the flow of blood. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Dr… Croy?” she muttered. Her menacing mask slipped, and for a moment Orion read terror and confusion on the s’zone’s sculpted face. “Dalaxa?” Her voice rose to a shriek as panic overwhelmed her. “What’s happened to me?”
Orion took a few slow steps toward her. “Just put down the crystal thingy…”
“I’ll stick her,” Dalaxa shouted, freezing Orion in place. “And I know just where to pierce the durok jugular, I promise you I do!”
Orion raised an eyebrow. “And do you remember where you learned that?”
Dalaxa’s gaze drifted for a moment. “I… I… What did you do to me?!” she screamed at him.
“I’ve seen this before,” Mervyn said, his voice tight.
“A neural crown brain-blur?” asked Zovaco.
“Exactly.” Mervyn’s cane laid a sharp rap on the marble floor. “Scrambles identity, memory, a person’s whole life. But leaves the knowledge intact.”
Koreen tipped her head and swiveled a yellow eye toward her captor. “You remember anything at all, dear? C’mon, put down that piece of junk.”
Dalaxa’s breath came in ragged heaves. Then a wild look twisted her face, and she levered the long trophy back to plunge it into Koreen’s neck.
Orion didn’t think, he simply reacted. He summoned his spellblade gauntlet to his right hand and drew on the fresh-flowing crimson life force streaming from his nose. Using his own blood would cost him weeks, months or years off the end of his life according to his old mentor, but Koreen was… Koreen. She was family.
“Remember,” Orion said in a clear, booming vo
ice that stopped Dalaxa’s motion. The veins in the manacite gauntlet surged with red light, and a mist of white fog appeared around the s’zone woman’s head. The award smashed to the floor, and Koreen struggled free as Dalaxa staggered back against a wall.
Orion fell to his knees, pale with the effort, and Kangor and Bully rushed up to corner the stunned, gasping doctor. Koreen ran into Mervyn’s hirsute embrace, and Aurelia slipped through the chaos to put a hand under Orion’s arm and hoist him up, supporting him while he caught his breath.
As for Dr. Dalaxa Croy, she wasn’t going anywhere. She gasped and clawed at her face as the mist clung to her hairless head. The only reason she stayed on her feet was because her legs had locked as she seized against the wall. After a few seconds, the mist faded and Dalaxa Croy fell forward. Zovaco moved as quickly as the trained assassin he was, catching her lithe body with gentle care.
Limp in his grip, Dalaxa’s eyes moved furiously across their faces. “I… I remember…” Her almond-shaped eyes scrunched shut. “I remember… so many sharp pieces, twisting… cutting my brain.”
“Dr. Croy,” said Zovaco urgently. “Can you tell us who took you? Can you tell us what you gave them?”
The s’zone gasped for air, her lips trembling with fear. “Typhus… Typhus the Mad Thinker. He took me.”
“That’s not possible,” growled Kangor, his muscles twitching.
“Typhus the…?” said Mervyn, still clutching Koreen. “But he perished during the great vycart plague.”
“That’s right,” snorted Kangor, “the Grand Warlord has been dead for centuries. Centuries!”
Dalaxa shook her head, a jarring spasm. “Alive. Alive!”
Zovaco gazed at her, his three inky eyes wide. “What did you give him?”
“Everything.” Her breath caught for a moment. “I gave him everything — all the death I dreamed up. Everything.” Her eyes filled with pure horror, and Dr. Dalaxa Croy passed out.
