Dark Horse (3 page)

“
N
othing happened to this ship
.” Borji stood to attention in front of Dav in the darkness, his biosuit visor lit only by the portable screen in his hand. He looked like heʼd taken a bite of something sour.

“Clearly, something did.” Dav told him.

“The system shut down, yes, but from within. Everything was done through the master system, and I canʼt find any malfunction, any virus.”

“Why didnʼt they switch it back on, then?”

Borji lifted the portable screen he was holding and tilted it for Dav to see. “This piece of code could be the reason, but again, the Tecran did it to themselves. They set a timer on the power and air shut down. Two hours. It should be coming back online in . . .” He flicked his left sleeve for the smart fabric time display. “Three, two, one . . .”

All around them, lights flickered on, and the gentle hum of the air filtration system vibrated through the wall Dav was resting his hand on.

Well, damn.

They now had a fully functional, undamaged Class 5 in their possession, something the Grih had tried and failed to get since theyʼd first had a sniff of their existence.

He could see good things in his future for being in the right place at the right time, because there was no question the
Barrist
would get the glory for this.

Trouble was, he hadnʼt done a thing to earn it.

Something a few of his fellow captains would no doubt be happy to point out to Battle Center. For whatever good it would do them.

It was time he and his crew staked their claim and became the experts in Class 5 tech before the back-up theyʼd originally requested arrived.

Dav wanted to sink his teeth into this one so deep, theyʼd have to pry his jaw open to make him let go. He pulled off the helmet of his biosuit and gave Borji a look he knew his systemʼs engineer would be blind not to interpret correctly. “Get your team and learn as much about the way this ship functions as you can.”

“Yes, sir.” Borji grinned, and went off, tapping his comm to call his team to him.

There was a polite buzz from his comm, and he linked to Kila.

“You wanted to know what was happening to those oranges, sir. Theyʼve just entered Harmonʼs atmosphere. Weʼre tracking them.”

Seven oranges. Six on one craft, one on the other.

It had looked to Dav as if the dead animal in the launch bay had been meant to join the rest of them, but something had gone wrong and it had been killed by the Tecran. Or at least, a Tecran death injection. Whether the hand that had wielded it was Tecran was something Dav wanted an answer to more and more urgently.

Were the other seven like that thing in the cage? He thought what it might look like, alive, standing, and pissed off.

If he were the Tecran, he might have decided to get them all the hell off his ship as well.

He tapped his comm again. There was only one way to find out. “Commander, I want to talk to the Tecran captain. Where are you holding him?”

“In the cells theyʼve got here, sir. Some kind of holding facility. Looks like they were keeping . . . things . . . prisoner.” The way she spoke, Dav guessed the Tecran had been violating the Sentient Beings Agreement. But then, that really was the only explanation for the orange heartbeats.

“Iʼll be there now.”

He took a tube down to the third level and walked past enough dead Tecran to make the sense of urgency driving him ratchet up so tight, it was a relief to finally see Appal leaning against the corridor wall.

She could have been waiting for him, but he sensed instead she was avoiding the place sheʼd left their prisoners. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps, her biosuit helmet under her arm now that Borji had given the all-clear, her heavy-duty shockgun held easily in her other hand.

“The smell in there.” She shook her head. “I sent the rest of my team to help with the bodies because they couldnʼt take it. The Tecran were keeping the area they held their prisoners relatively clean, but no one seems to have been on clean-up duty today. Whatever the things they captured are, they arenʼt in there anymore.” She pushed off against the wall. “Itʼs extremely secure in there. Iʼm sure the Tecran canʼt escape, which only makes me wonder where those things they kept in there are, and how they got out.”

“Just as the air and power went, two explorer-class craft left this ship, containing seven orange heartbeats between them.” Dav watched Appal process that.

“You think the Tecran evacuated them? But why would they save the beings they had so little respect for they held them captive, and not save themselves?”

Dav gave a nod toward the door. “Letʼs find out.”

Appal seemed to steel herself before she punched the button on the side of the door. It slid open soundlessly and Dav had to force himself not to reel back.

His commander was right. The stench was overwhelming. Probably made worse by the fact that for two hours, there had been no ventilation here at all.

About fifteen Tecran were split between three cells, all with transparent walls, and there were at least twelve other empty cells down a long stretch of corridor.

Dav noticed that Appal had put them in the three worst cells. Some of the empty ones were actually pristine, as if nothing had been kept there, and one . . . He looked at it and frowned. It was different to the others.

And there was that one craft with just the one orange signature in it. He forced his attention back to their prisoners.

Most of them were sitting down, trying to find a clean place amongst the muck. Some still wore their personal breathers, others trusted the systems were up again, and had taken them off.

Dav remembered the Tecran didnʼt have the same acute sense of smell as the Grih, otherwise theyʼd probably all still be using their breathers.

One Tecran rose to his feet when Dav and Appal stepped into the holding area, and the look he gave them was cold and calculating.

Dav watched him back, taking in the thick-set, muscular build, the large eyes, the sleek brown and cream mottled feathers over his head. They were ruffled at the neck, a sign of extreme agitation. “Which of you was the captain of this ship?” he asked in broken Tecran.

He knew already.

If the Tecranʼs body language hadnʼt been clear enough, Dav had been taught to read Tecran military uniform insignia. But the Tecran didnʼt need to know that.

“I am Vai Gee, and I am
still
the captain of this ship. I donʼt know how you pulled us into your territory and disabled us, but if you return us now, perhaps the Tecran High Command will not launch an immediate attack on the Grih.”

Dav lifted his brows. Vai Gee knew the Tecran would have to pry this ship out of the Grihʼs cold, dead hands; although, what did he have to lose demanding they send them back home?

The Tecran captain was breathing hard. “This was mass murder. Most of my crew are dead.” There was a trace of a screech in his voice. “And you will release us immediately from these inappropriate quarters.”

Dav considered him as Appal went very still at his side. “We didnʼt pull you into our territory. Youʼre in the dead center of Grih airspace. The only way you could have gotten here is if you set a course before a light jump, and that light jump would have had to have originated in the outer edges of our territory to begin with. My systems engineer has confirmed you disabled your own ship and killed your own crew. Iʼd like to know why.”

The Tecran captain drew in a sharp breath. Shared a look with one of his officers. “Why would we do that? This
must
be your doing.”

Dav shrugged. “It wasnʼt. Perhaps youʼve annoyed someone else?”

Gee stood very stiff.

He was thinking, Dav could see it. Running through which of the many enemies the Tecran had made who could have done something like this. And why they would pull the Grih into the mess.

Heʼd really like the answer to that one, himself.

There could be no doubt the Tecran ship had been deliberately placed in Grih territory, but he was pretty sure the gift of a Class 5 meant that whoever was responsible understood the outcome would be . . . messy. And he was also pretty sure his superiors would more than forgive the diplomatic firestorm this would cause when the trade-off was a Class 5 in pristine condition to play with.

“Iʼd like to know, if these quarters are so inappropriate, why you were keeping anything in here?” Appalʼs Tecran was worse than his, but sheʼd obviously latched on to that particular part of Geeʼs tirade, and wasnʼt letting go. “It looks like a contravention of the Sentient Beings Agreement to me.”

“Do you see any alien sentient beings here?” Gee stared straight back, but there was a muscle jumping under the pale pink skin of his jaw.

“There is a dead one in your launch bay.” Dav thought back to that crumpled thing he had a feeling had been so much more when alive. “Iʼm sure my team will discover plenty of genetic material in here to confirm. By the looks of things theyʼll have quite a bit more to work with than they need. And of course, there is the lens feed.”

Gee flicked a look at the lenses spaced along the corridor above Davʼs head and then looked down.

Something vicious and angry rose up in Dav. There had been a strange tightening of the skin around Geeʼs eyes and his beak-like mouth, a real fear, and Dav knew there were things on that lens feed that would possibly get Gee the ultimate penalty for breaking the Sentient Beings Agreement.

He tried to keep his voice even. “Easiest of all is we saw the rest of them shipped out on two explorer craft to the surface of Harmon before your power went down.”

Gee sucked in a breath at that, and Dav would have sworn he didnʼt know the creatures heʼd been illegally keeping in his holding cells had been sent to Virmanaʼs moon. But if Gee hadnʼt given the order as the captain of the ship, who had?

Gee stretched himself impossibly straighter, his slightly rounded chest puffing up. “Iʼm finished talking to you.”

Dav stared at him until the Tecran turned away, then he walked over to the one cell that was different.

He could feel Geeʼs eyes on him, sense Appalʼs interest, as she also picked up what he was seeing.

This was the cell of an advanced sentient. He could see a chair and table, a handheld tablet and a bed made up with sheets and blankets. He looked up and down the row, but this was the only cell set up like this. He looked over at Gee, but the captain was still turned away, his shoulders stiff.

Dav shrugged. Heʼd be wasting his time trying to get anything out of the Tecran. Borji could give him the lens feed. Give them an idea what they would find on Harmon.

He walked out of the holding area, taking a deep breath of clean air when he and Appal were on the other side of the closed door, although now that the air filtration was working again, the smell was not as bad as it had been.

That, or heʼd gotten used to it.

“He didnʼt know the explorer craft had left the ship.” Appal almost whispered the words.

“No. We might have to consider this was a rescue and revenge mission.”

“Someone rescued the prisoners, punished their captors?” Appal looked at the dead Tecran littering the passageway. Whistled. “Some punishment. What were they holding in there? If Borji is right, whoever they are they hijacked a Class 5ʼs internal systems and used it against itself.”

“Whoever or whatever they are, I donʼt think the Tecran realized they were quite so powerful. Or perhaps they simply have powerful friends.” Dav frowned. While the animal in the launch bay looked fierce, in fact sent a primal chill down his spine, he had the sense it wasnʼt an advanced sentient. But one of the prisoners definitely had been.

“Weʼre going to Harmon?” Appal asked, and there was a keen edge to her words.

“Weʼre going to Harmon.”

H
armon was superficially like Earth
, although with more blue than green. Rose couldnʼt tell whether it was the same size, she had no idea how to gauge the size of an object in space, and with the massive gas planet looming beside it, throwing out her sense of perspective, she had no chance. But sheʼd watched her share of science documentaries, and she guessed it must be pretty close to Earth-size, or it wouldnʼt have water and an atmosphere.

A Goldilocks planet. Not too big, not too small, not too hot, not too cold. Or, in this case, a Goldilocks moon.

She could see a vast sea below, with the green of land dotted through it, like paint flicked onto a blue canvas.

“Tiny islands? Is that all this place has?”

There was a sound behind her, and she turned from the view port to see a screen rising out of the console.

“There is one large land mass, the rest of the moon is made up of small islands. Although obviously theyʼre bigger than they appear from our current elevation.”

“How big?” Sheʼd told Sazo what her height was in meters and centimeters, so he could work out distances that were meaningful to her, and it seemed the Grihʼs standard measurement was very close to the metric system.

Heʼd promised her heʼd chosen the Grih to be part of this elaborate plan because of their physical resemblance to her, their similarity of culture and their good record with dealing with alien life.

They were strong advocates of the Sentient Beings Agreement.

Sheʼd learned all about the SBA. Had read the whole agreement, thanks to Sazo, before sheʼd agreed to steal him from the lock-safe where the Tecran had kept him and start this whole ball rolling.

“The smallest island is around four kilometers long, the largest is sixty kilometers. The animals will have more variety of vegetation if we land on the main continent.”

He brought up a map of their destination, and she stepped closer to look at it. Sazo planned to put them down in a valley beside a large river, with a low hill behind them.

It looked pristine. There was no advanced species on this moon. And the Grih had obviously not colonized it.

“I hope my animals donʼt destroy the local environment. Although they wonʼt be here long, with the Grih coming down after us.”

“The local environment would be in trouble if any of the animals had parasites or diseases, but the Tecran got rid of those, and there are no mated pairs, so they will simply live out their lives and then die. Or be eaten.”

“Whatʼs out there that can eat them? And me?” Funny, sheʼd been so keen to get away from the Tecran, she hadnʼt thought what might be waiting for her down on Harmon. And couldnʼt find it in her to care all that much now.

She was free. There was a deep sense of satisfaction in that. Bring it on, whatever was waiting for her down there. Anyway, Sazo needed her too much to send her to her death.

For the moment, anyway.

“There are a few species similar to the lion, but smaller than him. Very fierce, though.”

“How much smaller?”

“Up to your knees. Theyʼre nocturnal. Some of the smaller mammals and the birds are probably in danger from them. The largest life-form is the gryak. It is perhaps a little bigger than a lion, and can go up on its hind legs for short periods. It lives underground. There wasnʼt much information on them in the Tecran systems. Itʼs omnivorous, so it is a danger to you.”

“Sounds a bit like a bear.” She still didnʼt feel any worry about it. Her capacity for stress and nerves had reached its limit.

Three months of thinking she was going to die any day had put a lot of things into perspective.

She peered out the view port again, but they were still too high up to see any details.

Sazo solved that for her by switching the map on the screen to an image of what was directly below them, and zooming in. There were trees. Nothing that looked familiar, but then, that would surely have been more surprising. At least they were identifiably trees.

She worried her lip. Maybe she should keep the animals and birds in the transport until the Grih arrived. That would keep them from harm, but she didnʼt have any food for them, and she could hardly stand to think about them in there. The sheep literally shaking at the proximity of the coyote, the birds fluttering behind the bars of their cages.

The Grih were super-advanced. They had the technology to jump through space at faster-than-light speed, just like the Tecran——light jumps, Sazo called them——they were able to almost put an end to death through disease or injury, they had harnessed their sun, and other star-light, for infinite power, and had responsibly colonized three planets other than their own, only taking those that had no advanced sentience present. They should be able to round up six unknown life-forms.

She would let them out of their cages.

“You need to buckle in.” Sazo sounded . . . excited, and she guessed he would be. His plan had gone off with only a lion-sized hitch.

They were free. They were on Harmon, where they could survive, if the worst came to the worst, and best of all, the Tecran were the Grihʼs problem now.

She slipped the harness over her head, and engaged the button, so it tightened to her body shape and held her safe while turbulence bounced them around and they shuddered and shimmied to a gentle, airy landing.

As soon as they came to rest, she hit the button again and shrugged the harness off, stepping toward the door, but it didnʼt open as she expected it to.

“Donʼt forget to take me with you.” Sazo spoke through the speakers on the craft, and Rose realized sheʼd forgotten he wasnʼt around her neck.

She grabbed him off the counter where sheʼd put him before her shower, and slipped him over her head, stuck the tiny earpiece in her ear. This time, when she approached the door, it opened soundlessly.

Another gentle reminder. Nothing happened without Sazoʼs say-so.

Her heart gave a hard thump at the thought.

The sound of a river tumbling over rocks a little way in the distance and the wind in the tree tops stopped her short on the gangplank.

Her eyes misted over and she blinked the tears away.

Sheʼd been in a windowless room for three months and sheʼd thought sheʼd never see something like this again. Thought the only things in her life were a cell or death, and she couldnʼt believe she was standing here, breathing in the air.

She drew in a deep gulp, and then started to cough.

“What——?”

“I believe your lungs arenʼt used to this much oxygen after your time with the Tecran,” Sazo told her, his unaffected tone helping calm her panic, although he would probably sound unaffected even if she were rolling on the ground, having a fit.

She blew out a breath, took another, more cautious one, and stood still, a little light-headed, until the feeling subsided. She started down the gang-plank, tripped and fell, and landed in a heap at the bottom.

“Your body is used to the slightly heavier gravity of Earth. Youʼll be able to jump a little higher, but it will seem as if youʼre moving a little slower.” At least Sazo wasnʼt laughing at her, but then, she didnʼt think he had much of a sense of humor.

She pulled herself to her feet and gave an experimental jump. She went high enough to have her grinning. And yes, it did feel like it took her a fraction longer to come down.

Next to them, the second transport had already landed, and Sazo opened the gang-plank. The animals were quiet, and she walked over, feeling a little like she was on a sailing ship or a sprung floor, the ground too bouncy to be normal.

She took the birds out first. She could actually carry their cages, and Sazo did whatever it was he did to disengage the magnetic locks on the doors.

She opened the falconʼs cage first, and it shrieked at her before flapping a little, testing its wings. It hadnʼt had a good fly in three months, and she wondered how it had survived.

It hopped a few times, and then lifted off, winging away faster than she thought normal. The weaker gravity, she realized. Just as she could jump higher, it probably took less effort for the falcon to fly.

She let the raven out next. It flew up clumsily onto its cage and looked around, but at last it flew away, wings fluttering.

“Ostrich next,” she said to Sazo, and waited outside for him to open the cage. She didnʼt want to be kicked by a terrified ostrich if she could help it.

It came out hesitantly, feathers ruffled, and picked its way through the bushes until it had disappeared. She released the deer and the sheep and waited until she could no longer see them. Only the coyote was left.

For that, she moved up onto the gang-plank of her own ship, and made sure Sazo could close it in time if he needed to, then watched as it came out, sniffing the air, clumsy on its feet in the lighter atmosphere. It turned and looked at her when it got to the bottom of the gang-plank, a long look without any aggression, and then ran off into the bush.

She wondered what the lion would have done. Sheʼd have had to lock herself into the ship for that release. Or made Sazo drop the lion off in another location, before landing here.

She felt a shudder, a rumbling under her feet, and frowned. “What is that——?”

The ground beneath them collapsed. She fell backwards into the ship, and the gang-plank retracted and the door shut before she even hit the floor.

She came up painfully against one of the two seats, her shoulder and head hitting metal.

The ship slammed to a stop, more or less the right way up, and Rose waited another moment to make sure there werenʼt anymore surprises before she pulled herself to her feet.

Sazo was quiet, and she went to the console, read the Tecran symbols and pushed some buttons to bring up the display from the outside lenses.

They were in a kind of cave, which now had no ceiling. Both craft had fallen through, and Rose hoped all the animals had gotten far enough away before the ground gave way.

She could hear water, and remembered theyʼd been near a river. Suddenly alarmed, she swung the lenses around, and saw the water she heard was an underground river. The chamber wasnʼt about to be flooded from above.

“Is it safe to leave the craft?” she asked.

“Yes. Iʼm sorry. I feel . . . uncomfortable. I donʼt like it.”

“Probably embarrassment, although thereʼs no need.” Rose walked to the entrance and the door opened. “You couldnʼt know there were caves just under the surface. It looks like they were carved out by the underground river. The combined weight of the two craft was probably too much. It fell in.”

“I could have used the scanners, but I didnʼt think to.”

“Have you ever been on the surface of a moon or planet before?” She wondered, not for the first time, how long the Tecran had had him.

“No. Itʼs been deep space, since the moment the Tecran woke me.”

She shrugged. “Well, then. You donʼt know much about physical land masses. No harm done.”

“There could have been harm.” He sounded bemused.

“There could have been a lot of harm. There wasnʼt.” She stood on the top of the gang-plank again, her eyes trying to adjust between the bright light streaming in from above and the dark shadows where the roof hadnʼt caved in. “I do know something about actual planets, so Iʼll call for scans if I think we need them in future.”

“I can only use the scanners on the craft, and their reach is only three kilometers. If we move further away than that from the ship, Iʼm more or less useless.”

And he wasnʼt used to that. She could hear that, loud and clear.

“Sounds to me like it would be better to stick with the craft anyway, if weʼre hoping the Grih are going to pick us up.”

She reached the end of the gang-plank and crouched down. The cavern theyʼd fallen into was large, the rock beneath her hand smooth and cold, similar to granite. A river ran in front of her, the sound of it echoing in the chamber and drowning out any other noise.

She walked forward, stepping at last out of the strong light and into the shadows, right to the underground riverʼs edge. The roar of it was explained when she saw it dropped over a steep edge, falling into an even larger chamber below them, barely lit by the sunlight filtering in, and she realized if the craft had slid over the edge and plummeted down, she would most likely be dead.

“Rose.” There was something in his tone.

“What?”

“The scanners are picking up a life form in this cave system.”

Her heart rate kicked up. “What type?”

“A big type. Twice your height, at least.”

“How many and where?” She edged back toward the craft.

“Only one, and itʼs a kilometer away, in the tunnels on the other side of the river. But itʼs moving this way. It is almost certainly a gryak.”

“Heard the commotion, probably.” She was back on the gang-plank, now, and felt a little better. “Can we fly out of here?”

“No. There was some major damage to the craft when it fell. Iʼll need time to fix it.” He paused. “But that may not be necessary. The Grih just entered Harmonʼs atmosphere.”

“That was quick.” They were only a little over two hours behind her. She would have thought it would have taken them a lot longer than that to secure the Tecran ship. There were literally hundreds of Tecrans on board, and disabled or not, she couldnʼt imagine they would have simply given in without a fight.

“Remember our agreement,” Sazo said.

“Donʼt worry, my lips are zipped.” Rose tucked the slender crystal under her shirt and looked up at the sky, even though she knew she wouldnʼt see them yet.

She was about to meet the people Sazo assured her would take her in and give her a new life.

She hoped they liked each other.