Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales Read online

  The two passed the time with idle chatter as they waited for the specialized equipment and personnel Twingo needed to effect repairs to the gunship. Soon, another vehicle hummed to a stop next to the ship, this one about the size of a tractor trailer one would see on American highways. Two beings jumped out of the front dressed similarly to Twingo; one was obviously the same species, while the other was something different. All its exposed skin was covered with a sleek-looking grayish fur so it was difficult for Jason to make out any real detail. Both nodded respectfully to Jason and then went directly to Twingo for instructions. Out of habit Jason was resting his right hand on the grip of the weapon slung around his shoulder. He realized that this may be taken as a threatening posture so he removed his hand and adjusted the sling so the railgun now hung down and slightly behind him. His instincts proved correct as both of the newcomers visibly relaxed and went back to talking to Twingo and looking at technical schematics on the tablet.

  The work was well underway when Deetz finally made an appearance. Even with a metallic face and no clothes, the synth looked frazzled and worried. This in turn tightened Jason’s stomach up. “Problems?”

  “Huh? Oh, no … no problems,” Deetz seemed even more evasive than usual. He looked at the progress being made by the technical team. They currently had transmission lines of some sort running from the larger ground vehicle to each of the long slip-drive emitters that made up the trailing edge of the gunship’s wings. In turn, the emitters were glowing bright blue and a pulsating hum could be felt. Every so often the crew would run the power up a bit and loose debris on the tarmac would lift into the air and levitate until the power came back down. Twingo, for his part, had a few large access hatches open in the ship’s belly and was utilizing some sort of hovering lift to maneuver himself and his equipment around and up into the openings. The previously boisterous alien was grunting and cursing as he worked to get the reactor back in shape.

  “So did they say how long they’d be?”

  “How, exactly, would I ask them?” Jason had given Deetz a pass on many things, but leaving him standing alone on an alien planet with no means with which to communicate rubbed him the wrong way. Deetz looked over at him and his eyes traveled up to the earpiece Jason was wearing.

  “Oh, I suppose it slipped my mind that you would need a translator. So, if you’re quite done being peevish, did they say how long they’d be?” The synth was already watching the crews, as if silently willing them to hurry.

  “From what Twingo tells me, it’ll be another two or three hours. We in a hurry all of a sudden?” Something had changed, Jason could feel it, and whatever it was didn’t seem to be in their favor.

  “We’re always in a hurry, my friend,” Deetz boomed expansively, startling Jason. “After all, time is money in this business.” With that the synth walked over to talk to Twingo. … And I’m beginning to wonder just exactly what that business actually is …

  True to his word, the engineer had the ship buttoned up and ready for flight a few minutes under the two-hour mark. His pair of helpers had already left and Twingo was chatting with Jason as he packed away his equipment. The sun was beginning to go down and Deetz was seemingly in a hurry to get the talkative alien paid and on his way, but the engineer seemed more interested in conversing with Jason than making a hasty exit. The pair were still talking when an unmarked ground vehicle pulled up. This one was quite large.

  The vehicle pulled smoothly to a stop and backed up to the gunship. Jason watched with interest as the rear ramp of the ship raised slightly and then retracted completely into the fuselage, leaving a gaping hole that led into the cargo bay. The ground vehicle’s cargo section then lifted on a set of hydraulic rams and backed up further until it was butted up against the cargo bay floor. “Looks like whatever you guys are taking on isn’t meant to be seen,” Twingo observed as he leaned against his own vehicle.

  “It would appear so,” Jason agreed. He had begun to suspect that any legitimate enterprise the synth was involved in wouldn’t have necessarily needed him, which left only illegitimate ventures. Not for the first time, he fervently hoped he wasn’t crossing the line from boring law-abiding citizen of Earth to interstellar criminal. After a few short minutes, the vehicle that had delivered the cargo had pulled forward and the cargo ramp reappeared and lowered to the ground. Jason stood up straighter as Deetz motioned him forward while he walked towards the front of the large delivery vehicle.

  “Let’s pay these guys quickly so we can leave,” he said quietly. “Just let me do the talking, all you’ll have to do is press your finger onto a tab display to confirm payment transfer and then we’ll be on our way.” As they approached the front of the vehicle, two short, squat beings hopped out and walked/waddled up to them. Deetz took the lead right away.

  “Gentlemen, let me introduce you to Commander Burke, he’s in charge of the ship at the moment. I assume everything is in order?”

  “It is as far as we’re concerned. Confirm here.” Skipping all pleasantries, one of the aliens shoved a thin tablet into Jason’s midsection. When he looked down he froze up. While the translator he wore allowed him to understand their spoken language, it did nothing to help him read the document he held. Deetz sensed his hesitation and jumped in.

  “Everything should be in order, Commander. No need to waste your valuable time rehashing over all the details; just press your thumb in the confirmation circle and these fine gentlemen can be on their way.” There was only one circle on the screen. With a look to Deetz to try and discern any deception on his part, Jason pressed his thumb into the circle and held it. The tablet beeped and some more scrolling text he couldn’t read flashed in the middle. “Ah, excellent!” Deetz grabbed the tablet and handed it back to the alien who had jabbed it into Jason’s stomach. “Pleasure doing business with you gentlemen.” Deetz was talking to their backs; the moment they had the tablet back in their possession they took off as fast as their little legs would carry them. As soon as the vehicle pulled away, all traces of good humor vanished from the synth’s face. “Let’s get out of here,” was all he said as he walked at a brisk pace back to the ship.

  Jason didn’t see the first blast, but he heard it. The second, however, exploded against the tail of the gunship, sending a cascade of sparks showering down around them. He dropped down and began scanning in the direction the energy blast had come from and saw a dark ground car speeding towards them from the far side of the complex. He watched as two more bolts shot out from the vehicle and splashed against the hull of the ship, creating a lot of noise and sparks but doing no damage other than a scorch mark.

  “They’re still out of range!” Jason heard and registered Deetz’s words, and was also aware of the bizarre, agitated screams coming from Twingo. The vehicle had closed to around three-hundred meters and was coming fast. Deetz took aim with a handheld weapon that seemed to appear in his hand from nowhere and let loose with a brilliant green beam of energy. The return fire hit the vehicle head on but diffused harmlessly against the front of it. Deetz sneered in disgust and fired three more shots in rapid succession with the same results. “It’s shielded!”

  Jason, having been in combat before, was charged with adrenaline and fear, but was completely in control. When Deetz fired first, he took that as a signal he was clear to engage. He brought his larger weapon up to his shoulder and flicked the switch to “FIRE.” He could hear a whining from the weapon as the optics fed him information on range and speed of his target. It was an easy shot since, although hauling ass, the vehicle was coming straight at him. Here goes nothing. He let out his breath and squeezed the trigger, not sure what to expect. The resulting roar and pressure from the hypersonic projectile leaving the barrel was tremendous. Ears ringing, Jason watched transfixed as the single round tore through the vehicle with devastating effect; the front seemed to fold in on itself and the rear lifted off the ground violently. The end result was a tumbling, flaming wreckage which screeched to a halt still a hundred
meters away. Even Deetz was momentarily stunned before yelling at Jason, “Let’s GO! We need to be in the air NOW!” As he followed the synth at a run towards the ramp, he looked over and saw a motionless heap near the maintenance vehicle: Twingo.

  “Leave him!” Deetz didn’t even slow down to see if Jason listened before charging up the ramp. Jason, however, would do no such thing. Since he had no idea how to check for vitals, he simply grabbed two handfuls of coverall and swung the little alien up over his shoulder and ran for the ship, charging up into the cargo bay. As the ramp came up he could hear and feel the main systems coming online. Jason secured Twingo to the same infirmary bed he had once occupied and instructed the ship’s computer to begin necessary emergency treatment since it seemed to know what species he was. He then dashed out towards the bridge as articulated arms began to descend from the ceiling.

  “What the holy hell was that?!” Jason wanted answers as he jumped into his seat and allowed the restraints to snake out and around him, pulling him gently but firmly back.

  “No time for that now,” Deetz replied, hands flying over the controls and barking commands to the ship. “The reactor is at full power, but the emitters aren’t charged yet. We can’t initialize the grav-drive until they are, and we’ve got more company on the way.” Jason could see on the display in front of him that they had inbound targets, and from the looks of it, they were dealing with aircraft this time.

  “So we’re sitting ducks?”

  “Oh no, we’ve got plenty of surprises for our new friends. But … shooting our way out of here won’t endear us to the locals.” Deetz grabbed the helm controls and fired up the mains. “We’ll be using brute force to get out of here, so it’s good that you have your restraints on.” The gunship began to vibrate forcefully as the ventral repulsors began to lift the big craft off the ground. “Cycle landing gear,” Deetz said to the computer before pushing the controls forward. He was rewarded with a resounding boom as the four powerful main engines lit off and shoved them forward violently. The internal grav-plating was active, but Jason could still feel the acceleration as the gunship raced along the ground, gaining speed and allowing the airfoils to get some bite into the thick lower atmosphere. The com system lit up with multiple requests/demands that they land and surrender themselves, all of which were promptly ignored as Deetz pulled the nose up and the powerful ship clawed for altitude.

  Jason kept his eyes riveted to the tactical display that made up most of his center console. They had three supersonic bogeys bearing down on them, but they were quickly losing the initiative as the gunship roared into the darkening sky, the thundering of the main engines probably terrifying any unfortunate soul they overflew. He touched one of the bogeys in the holographic projection and instantly the sensor data the tactical computer had collected appeared on a screen to his left. Although the name the computer gave was unpronounceable to Jason, there was no mistaking the shape; they were being pursued by a trio of sleek, ferocious-looking aero-fighters. He glanced over at Deetz and took some small comfort that the synth looked completely unworried, and after a few moments it became clear why. The aircraft giving chase had stopped accelerating once they had reached Mach 3.2, but the much more powerful gunship was already reaching hypersonic velocities and was nearly out of the planet’s atmosphere.

  “A few more minutes and we’ll be able to switch over to the grav-drive and kill the mains, and with the reactor at full power we can enter slip-space within the star system. It doesn’t appear that we’re being pursued at the moment.” The smug expression on the synth’s face irritated Jason greatly for some reason.

  CHAPTER 9

  “So who was that shooting at us?”

  “Apparently not anyone very competent,” Deetz replied glibly. After looking at the expression on Jason’s face he continued more seriously, “Just some people who failed to understand the finer points of property ownership. Our cargo is a hot commodity. Some must have figured it would be easier to steal it from us on the ramp than to try and break it out of the secure storage it had been in.”

  “Do I even want to know what we’re carrying?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Whatever,” Jason said, letting it drop … for now. He was coming down off his adrenaline high and needed to walk around a bit. “I better go check on Twingo anyway.” Deetz’s head snapped around at that.

  “Please tell me you’re joking,” he said with genuine rancor, startling Jason.

  “No, I’m not joking. He was injured by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. More to the point, he was injured because of his proximity to us. I was NOT going to let him lie out there and die.” Jason pushed back just as hard. Deetz stared at him for a long moment before continuing in a soft voice that unsettled Jason more than the initial outburst.

  “Fine. It’s not like we can do anything about it now anyway. He can catch a ride back to Breaker’s World once we reach Pinnacle Station. Now go check and make sure he’s not getting into anything, and please return that weapon to the armory; your own rifle did enough damage, but that thing will penetrate the hull from the inside.” Deetz rose and walked over to another station on the bridge, indicating an end to the conversation.

  Twingo was still unconscious when Jason entered the infirmary, but the computer assured him that the damage to his body had been repaired and there was no sign of brain injury. Apparently one of the energy bolts fired by the ground car had hit the engineer’s vehicle and sent shrapnel into his side; luckily, none had penetrated too deeply. Jason sat with him for a bit in case he woke up, but his restlessness got the best of him so he left instructions with the computer on what to tell the alien if he awoke while he was gone and then headed down to the armory to secure his weapon.

  He laid the railgun on the bench and set about removing his body armor and then stripped his uniform off. Any sense of modesty that may have remained after his time in the military seemed irrelevant on a ship with only a sex-neutral machine and an alien of unknown species for companions. Now nude, he moved back to the work bench and popped the ammo magazine out of the railgun. Simple enough; it worked the same as any M4, but the lack of a charging handle gave him pause. How would he remove the round in the chamber? And did he even need to? After asking the computer for help he was told that with the magazine removed, the capacitors couldn’t charge and the weapon couldn’t fire. Good enough for me. He laid it in the holding fixture it had been in when he had first walked into the armory and was about to turn to leave when something caught his eye. In a plastic bin was a pile of parts that had, without a doubt, once been his trusty AR-15 carbine. Sifting through the parts, he saw that it was torn down completely; even the lower receiver had been stripped down to its individual little springs, pins, and levers.

  “That son of a bitch…” Jason was fuming. He assumed Deetz had torn the carbine down in order to copy it for his new railgun. A fair trade to be sure, but having the AR ripped apart without permission felt like an affront. He rolled his eyes in disgust and resignation, walking out of the armory and back towards his quarters to shower and dress as he smelled of sweat and whatever chemicals had inundated the equipment Twingo and his associates had been using.

  After another misty steam jet shower and a fresh set of clothes, Jason felt quite a bit better. They’d made the transition to slip-space while he had been cleaning up so he went to the galley and grabbed a quick meal before checking on Twingo again.

  Still asleep.

  He walked from the infirmary out into the cargo bay to see what it was they had picked up on Breaker’s World. There were pallets of sealed cylinders, not unlike oil drums, covering much of the cargo bay floor. There were no labels on the containers or inventories posted on the pallets, and so far as he knew, they’d never received a manifest. His contemplation of the cargo was interrupted by the computer: “Commander Burke, Passenger Twingo has awoken and is requesting your presence. He is also demanding that the restraints be removed.”

 
; “Tell him I’m on my way,” Jason said as he jogged up the stairs leading out of the cargo bay. “Remove the restraints on the bed but keep the infirmary door locked until I arrive.”

  “Acknowledged,” the computer confirmed his orders as he rushed back up to the medical bay. When he came up to the transparent sliding door of the infirmary, he could see that Twingo was sitting up on the bed, obviously still in significant pain and appearing quite agitated.

  “Jason! Why was I strapped down to this bed?” He was holding his side where the shrapnel had penetrated. “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember? We were attacked on the ramp. From what I could tell, your vehicle was hit and it sent metal shards into you. I couldn’t tell how bad you were injured, so I grabbed you and brought you on board to be treated.”

  “So I take it we’re not on Breaker’s World anymore?” When Jason shook his head in the negative, Twingo continued, “This isn’t good. I assume you and that synth are into a less than legal endeavor … and now I’ve gotten pulled into it. Do you know who you were attacked by?”

  “No, I have no idea,” Jason admitted. “Honestly, I’m new to this whole thing. A few days ago I was completely unaware there was even life in the universe outside my home planet.” Twingo looked dubious at that claim as he eyed Jason up and down.

  “I’ll admit, I’ve never seen your species around before, but that isn’t saying much. For the sake of argument, let’s assume I believe you’re telling me the truth, which I don’t. You should know that there are more than a few criminal organizations that call Breaker’s World home, and anyone that would so brazenly attack this ship at a public spaceport is almost certainly of that ilk. But I’ll explain all that later … first I’d like something to eat, and then you can explain to me how, after only a few days in space, you’ve found yourself in possession of such an expensive warship and in running gunfights with criminal cartels.” Wincing with pain as he slipped to the floor, he padded out of the infirmary and towards the galley, obviously familiar with the Jepsen’s layout.