Bringing Stella Home (31 page)

By all the stars of
Earth,
James wondered to himself,
what am I becoming?

* * * * *

Through a window in the
narrow observation chamber, Danica watched the dock operators move
the last of the heavy crates into the freight airlock with their
low gravity forklifts. The docking claw for the main cargo train
dangled silently above the growing pile of supplies, ready to
transfer the cargo to the hold of the
Tajji Flame
once the inner doors were
shut. The crates themselves were old and worn, battered with long
use and protracted exposure to cosmic radiation—perfectly ordinary,
in other words. The docking manifest declared their contents to be
generic manufactured goods, such as electronics and component
parts. A passing authority wouldn’t suspect a thing.

That was exactly the way Danica wanted
it.

She stepped away from the window,
hands clasped behind her back. When she came to the door at the end
of the room, she stepped through into a drab, industrial corridor.
Roman stood waiting for her, along with a short, stout man dressed
in civilian workclothes. He had a dark Fu Manchu mustache and a
largely receded hairline. Other than the three of them, the
corridor was empty.

“
Hello, Balthazar,” she
said, walking up to the short man. He smiled and offered his
hand.

“
Everything is progressing
according to your satisfaction, I trust?”

She nodded. “Is the software upgrade
complete?”

“
Yes.”

“
And we can expect full
payment when we return?”

“
Of course,” said
Balthazar. “All fifteen million Gaian credits worth.”

“
We won’t take payment in
credits,” said Danica. At the rate the war was going, those credits
wouldn’t be worth an honest man’s wages in six months.

“
Of course, of course,”
said Balthazar. “In that case, we can pay in your choice of basic
commodity—at pre-invasion price levels, no less.”

“
Good.” She turned to
Roman, who stood by her side. “Roman, get back to the ship and
prepare for departure. I want everyone on board and ready to leave
within the hour.”

“
Acknowledged, Captain.” He
gave her a brisk salute and walked off.

“
When can we expect you to
deliver the
Catriona
?” the man asked in a hushed voice once Roman was
gone.

“
Before the end of next
month,” said Danica. “We can’t guarantee anything before
then.”

“
Understandable,” said
Balthazar. He smiled a little, more to himself than anything. “But
tell me, captain,” he said, “why request such an unusual advance?
Software and weapons upgrades for your fighter drones, that I can
understand, but half-meter ball bearings?”

He glanced up at her, waiting for some
kind of answer.

“
Simply business,” she
said.

“
Yes, yes, of course. I
understand completely. I am only a simple businessman, after all—I
mean no offense by asking. However, if I had the opportunity to
expand my reach, perhaps with your illustrious
employers…”

Danica said nothing.

“
Times are hard, captain,”
Balthazar said, “even for the underground market. My niche of
expertise has fallen out of demand; the Hameji repair and upgrade
their own ships. Forgive me for my impertinence, but I’m sure you
understand.”

“
Very well. We’re working
for an out-of-system smuggling operation,” she lied. “They’re a bit
skittish about contacting new clients directly, though—that’s why
they hired us to make their supply runs.”

“
Indeed,” said Balthazar,
smiling again. “Well then, I hope we can look forward to doing
business in the future.”

“
So do I, Balthazar,” said
Danica.

They shook hands and
parted.

* * * * *

James was one of the first
to return to the
Tajji Flame.
When he stepped onto the bridge, Danica and Ilya
were the only ones present. Out the forward window, the featureless
gray clouds of Kardunash IV stared ominously up at him.

“
Welcome back, Ensign,”
said Danica, nodding at him from behind her chair. “It’s good to
see you again.”

“
Have you found anything on
Ben or Stella?”

“
As a matter of fact, we
have.”

James’s heart surged. “You
have?”

“
Yes,” said Danica, her
voice perfectly calm. “Please, have a seat.”

James hardly heard her. “How are they?
Where did you find them?”

“
Ensign,” Danica said,
gesturing for him to calm down. Behind her, Ilya chuckled. James
lowered himself to his post, sitting on the edge of his
seat.

“
I’ll give you the full
briefing once we’ve left,” Danica said, still standing. “However, I
think Ayvazyan can fill you in on the pertinent details.” She
nodded to Ilya.

“
Right,” said Ilya,
swiveling to face him. “While you and the others were out enjoying
your furlough, I autotranslated almost six hundred gigs of data to
find this match with your sister’s medical records.”

He pressed a few keys on one of his
keyboards and brought up a file on James’s terminal. The writing
was horribly jumbled—the autotranslators must have encountered an
obscure dialect that wasn’t in their immediate database. James
skimmed the document and brought up the images attached with the
file.

He gasped. On the screen, Stella’s
face stared at him.

His vision blurred, and his body began
to shake. The ambient sounds of the ship faded as he stared at the
image of his sister. She looked frightened and lost—and horribly,
terribly vulnerable.

“
Where is she?”

“
As I was saying,” Ilya
continued, “after meticulously combing the data some five times, I
found this file in the medical records of some ship called
the
Tenguri Lion
.
It seems to be the flagship of the
Hameji fleet maintaining this system.”

“
The flagship?” James said,
tearing his eyes from the screen. “Why would they keep her on their
flagship?”

“
Same reason they’d keep
her alive at all,” said Ilya. “As a sex slave to the Hameji
overlord, General Qasar.”

A sex slave?

James’s stomach dropped. Blood rushed
to his cheeks, and his fingers clenched into fists almost of their
own accord.

“
What are they doing to
her?” he hissed.

“
Keeping her alive,” Danica
said, “and taking care of her health, whatever else. Be happy she
isn’t dead.”

James’s vision clouded again, this
time with rage. He turned to Danica, the knuckles in his fists
turning white.

“
We need to save her,” he
said. “Now!”

“
Control yourself, Ensign,”
said Danica. “We won’t do anything until we have a clear, workable
plan.”

“
But—but they’re raping
her!”

“
And they’ll rape us too if
we aren’t careful. How will you help your sister then? Bide your
time, Ensign—you’re no good to her dead.”

James forced himself to calm down. It
took every ounce of his willpower.

“
All right,” he said. “But
as soon as—”

“
I’ll thank you to take
orders rather than give them, Ensign. Is that clear?”

James glowered. “Yes, Captain,” he
said.

“
Good.”

He turned to the window and stared
down at the dead world. The enormous Hameji warships orbited the
slagged planet like a dragon guarding its spoils.

Whoever this Qasar
is,
James told himself,
I’m going to kill him.

Chapter 15

“
Borta is dead?”

“
That’s right,
dear.”

Stella lurched and collapsed onto the
pile of pillows on the couch. A wave of dizziness passed through
her, giving her a headache. Tamu slipped off the bed and sat down
next to her.

“
What’s the matter?” Tamu
asked, reaching out to rub her back. “You look awful, honey. Here,
take a deep breath—that’s right. Relax.”

Stella closed her eyes and focused on
her breathing. Her muscles unknotted and went limp under Tamu’s
touch, releasing the tension in her body that Stella had started to
take for granted.

Borta is dead,
Stella reflected.
That
means I’m safe. She isn’t going to kill me.

But who killed
her?

Stella sat up and turned to face her
roommate. “Tamu—what’s going on?”

“
No one knows, dear,” said
Tamu. “Borta was found dead in her quarters sometime last night. A
little after, the soldiers came and sent us all to our rooms.
That’s all I know—all any of us know, really.”

“
How long ago did this
happen?”

Tamu hesitated for a second—only a
second, but long enough for Stella to notice.

“
At least a couple hours
ago, dear. Didn’t Qasar tell you?”

“
No,” Stella said
carefully. “When I woke up, he was gone. He must have left while I
was asleep.”

“
Slept in late, didn’t you?
You must have had a busy night.”

Stella sighed and shook her head. “I
didn’t sleep with him, if that’s what you’re talking
about.”

“
Are you sure, dear? Maybe
you just don’t remember it. The pill—”

“
I didn’t take the
pill.”

Tamu frowned. “You didn’t?”

“
No.”

Stella fell back against the pillows,
her mind spinning in circles. “Borta’s dead,” she wondered aloud.
“What happens now?”

“
Well, honey, I expect
Qasar will find the traitor and execute him. That’s what they
usually do to criminals.”

“
Execute him? Why? Don’t
the Hameji have—”

“
Prisons?” Tamu said,
completing her thought. “No, dear, Hameji ships have no prisons.
Capital punishment is so much more efficient.”

Stella shuddered and frowned. “But how
are they going to find the murderer?” she asked. “Who would want
Borta—”

The answer came to her like an
explosion. She bolted upright on the couch, her blood running
cold.

“
Oh my stars,” she cried.
“No!”

“
What is it, Sholpan?
What’s the matter?”

“
Narju,” said Stella,
leaping to her feet. “Where is he?”

* * * * *

“
Ah, hello Ensign. Please
come in.”

James stepped into Danica’s richly
decorated private quarters. Steam rose from a micropercolator on a
side table, filling the air with the smell of fresh coffee. Danica
had set out two ceramic mugs on arabesque coasters.

“
Have a seat,” Danica said,
showing him to the couch. “Care for some coffee?”

“
Sure.” James didn’t care
one way or the other.

Danica poured them both a mug and took
her seat. She sipped her coffee for a moment, closing her eyes to
savor it before turning to him.

“
Now that we’ve got solid
intel on your sister,” she said, “we can start to plan the
extraction.”

You mean how to save
her,
James thought to himself.
She’s not a target to be extracted—she’s my
sister.

“
The way I’m thinking,”
Danica continued, “we’ll have to capture a Hameji shuttle—one
that’s been cleared on their network—and use that to fly into
the
Tenguri Lion.
I’m not going to risk the
Tajji
Flame,
especially when we’ll only need about four people at most in
the extraction team.”

“
I’m coming along,” James
blurted. “She’s my sister. I want to be there when you go
in.”

“
Duly noted. That’s step
fifteen or twenty-five, though. We’re still stuck on step
one.”

“
How to capture a Hameji
shuttle?”

“
Yes.”

James thought for a moment.
“Why don’t we just use the
Catriona?
” he asked. “Ilya could hack
into their network and get the clearance codes, and we could fly in
on that.”

Danica paused to take a sip
of her coffee. “Two reasons, Ensign. First, I doubt we could
disguise the
Catriona
as a Hameji vessel. The Hameji customize their ships to the
point that no two of them are alike—each is a unique blend of art
and engineering.”

“
But we can still do
it—it’s not impossible.”

“
That’s not the only
reason, Ensign. You’re forgetting that the
Catriona
is our collateral for this
mission—our deposit. If we were to lose her, how would you pay
us?”