Ilox Saga 1: Eris Monroe: More Than Human (4 page)

“Lane!”
Eli smiled broadly moved over to him and gave his old friend a fierce hug. Lane seemed genuinely surprised to see him but returned the hug just as strong.

“What are you doing here
?” blurted Lane, contorting his eyebrows in the mock-serious way he had always done. Lane Medina was a handsome man with straight brown hair, close-cropped to his skull. Lane was a few years older than Eli but was still a young man in his early twenties.

“I…wanted to talk to you…in private.”
Eli had wanted help and he didn’t want to involve Lane’s girlfriend in any way. It was safer for her if she didn’t know what he was about to tell his old friend.

Lane looked to Mia and frowned. “
Eli…old buddy…old pal. If you got something to say, you can say it in front of Mia, she’s the love of my life. No secrets from her - ever.” His lip curled slightly with the last sentence. Eli knew his friend wasn’t going to back down over this. He concentrated slightly and scanned the apartment one more time, looking for any hidden surveillance devices. The place was clean.

“I didn’t have anyone else to come
to; you’re the only one I could trust to help me out. I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t have any choice…”

Lane furrowed his brow as he answered. “Whoa! Slow down bud! You’re not making any sense.
” Lane gesticulated expansively with his hands. “What do you mean? Are you in trouble with the Republic? Did you do something stupid?”

Eli
swallowed hard as he replied, “I think someone is trying to kill me.”

“I have been deceived before,” Project Director Sahin screamed in frustration, pacing back and forth in a small conference room. “I have been cast out by my own family, abused, lied to, and made to suffer for the errors of others. But I shall not be made a fool of by Eli Bowman!” She was dressed formally, with the bright double gold helix of the TEC Science Division patch prominently displayed on her right arm. Her brown hair was meticulously coifed into a French twist. Sapphires and rubies were woven into her hair and glittered as she moved, pacing the room. The assembled figures in front of her numbered a dozen. There were all heavily armed and armored personnel. They said nothing in reply. They were wearing heavy durasteel combat armor. No insignia adorned the combat suits, but each had their helmets retracted so each face was clearly visible. Each one carried enough firepower to flatten a platoon of Fleet Marines.

“
Bowman had been implanted with a tracking implant. It should have been child’s play to follow him wherever he went to. You people have had weeks to find him and…nothing. Why can’t you find one person on this god forsaken planet? With the technology we have deployed here you should be able to locate a microbe from orbit! What the hell happened?” Tess had calmed herself somewhat while talking and her voice was its normal soprano high.

“Ma’am, it’s not our fault…
As far as we can tell, he is no longer on planet. We read no signal on the tracking implant. If he was anywhere on this world, our satellites would have pin-pointed his location. We’ve looked everywhere.” The leader of the group, Devon Rakesh, had a controlled blank look on his face. A scar was clearly visible running from his right upper forehead down to his left jaw-line. Something had clawed him in the face. He had heard these tirades before and was unmoved. His armor was slightly different, showing an insignia of two planets in eclipse, black on amber, indicating he was a senior member of the feared Vortex mercenary group.

“What do you mean? You had an easy task. Make sure that you watched
the entry team and make sure they stayed within TEC controlled areas. How hard is that? There were only five people worth watching, and Bowman was only the tech specialist. He’s just a damn kid!” She screamed again, losing her composure. Some of her meticulously groomed strands of hair had fallen out of place on her head.

“The fight with that…whatever it was…killed dozens of men, including my
own team. Bowman was up front near the entrance to the Valdren base surrounded by energy fields. We’ve looked over every square meter of this facility as well as the Valdren base. He’s nowhere, he just...vanished... If he had died, we would have found his remains by now.” Rakesh kept his emotions in check, his voice had no inflection. This was purely business to him, but he was damned if he was going to show that unstable bitch any type of reaction. He wouldn’t give her that satisfaction.

Tess Sahin was furious. She had heard
all of these excuses, weeks before, when she had assessed the damage that the Valdren automated defense system had inflicted on her security and technical teams. Scores dead, many more seriously injured. They didn’t matter. The machine her techs maintained had been the seat of the
Entity
was a melted mass of burnt alien circuitry and twisted metal. She needed to vent, and yelling at these hired mercenaries was an outlet she could afford. They were not officially part of the TEC and were directly controlled by her and her unlimited purse strings to pursue this project to its fullest conclusion. When the Valdren base had first been uncovered and she had been slated to oversee the extraction of valuable technology, she had been thrilled. There had not been a significant find of ancient technology in over twenty-five years. The first find, at Ceres in Sol system had been a tremendous boost to Earth’s young Republic, guaranteeing scientific advances in starship travel and materials sciences for decades. Any new find of Valdren tech was worth hundreds of trillions of credits and would advance humanity even further. The find would make her incredibly wealthy…and powerful.

Tess pulled on a strand of her hair
; a childhood habit that she resorted to in times of stress. The Vortex Mercenary Group was a large corporation. She would have to add more resources to hunt for Bowman.

“Rakesh, I want you and your men to continue looking but be ready to leave the planet at a moment
’s notice. That is all…dismissed.” Her jaw-line was set in a grimace.

Devon Rakesh said nothing and his face betrayed no
inner feelings. He motioned for his men to follow him as he left the conference room. When the mercenaries were gone, Tess activated her communication implant and
thought
about reaching out to Chol Cuxa, the leader of the Vortex group. After ten seconds, an alien face appeared in her mind’s eye. On the outside, nothing was apparent. Tess had paid a small fortune to make sure the communication implant was completely secure and untraceable. Chol Cuxa was a male of the Orvod race. Orvod were tall, immensely strong, and had innate cell regeneration. They were feared fighters throughout the known galaxy.

“This had best be an emergency, human. I am extremely busy.” Tess heard soft feminine whispers and giggles
in the background.

“If by emergency, you mean millions of credits being deposited into your accounts,
then yes, this is an emergency.” Tess knew Chol Cuxa was greedy. She counted on that fact to get her the outcome she desired.

The Orvod was humanoid, but the right side of his face was clearly artificial. The brows of
Chol Cuxa were thick fur-like mats lying above his eyes. If Orvod could be compared to any animals of old Earth, they most favored gorillas – heavily muscled, covered in fur. Chol Cuxa’s left eyebrow arched in amusement.

“I have enough credits
for now…but I can always use more. Tell me what you need.”

“A simple enough thing
…I need to find a human. A human named Eli Bowman.” Tess paused for a second. Using a mental implant required concentration.

Chol Cuxa had a look of disgust on his bestial face. “Why is this human worth so much? What is the real reason?
”

Tess Sahin had
practiced and condoned many unsavory things in her life for her ambitions of power. She relished having control. However, she had learned never to give anyone total information. Holding back one or two items had proved useful throughout her long life.

“Let’s just say that this human is extremely valuable. He may be the key to
unraveling Valdren technology.”

Chol Cuxa’s face lit up with a smile.
His mouth seemed to have too many teeth, all very sharp and pointed. “Ah, the real reason; humans are greedy for power and the Valdren were the most powerful of the ancient races. I appreciate your interest. So, how can we help you find this human?” The Orvod had become serious.

“I need teams on as many worlds and stations as you can manage. Wherever he is, he will show himself again.
” Tess allowed herself a small smile. The Orvod did not notice, as all human mannerisms were strange to him.

“This
will cost.” Chol Cuxa chuckled, a low bass rumbling that came somewhere deep inside the Orvod’s chest cavity. “But you knew that before you contacted me.”

“Get as many of your mercenaries out there looking as possible. Use Kanpur as the center of your search, radiating outward to all possible destinations. I will transfer a down payment of one million credits
now and a bonus of five million credits when he is found, shackled and locked up, and transported to me alive. Cuxa, I do not want him seriously hurt. I need to have him…interrogated. Let me repeat that…I do not want him harmed, just restrained.”

If Tess Sahin could read Orvod emotions, she would detect bemusement on the face of the
Vortex leader.

“
There are hundreds of possible systems he could be hiding in…but I will instruct my men to take precautions – they will use stun guns and grenades only. If this Eli Bowman is found, we will gag, bind and cage him…like an animal. Trust this one.”

Tess Sahin instructed her communication implant to terminate the conversation. Moments later, she had given commands to transfer the credits from her hidden account
on Vannt to Chol Cuxa’s Vortex mercenary group. Satisfied that she had done everything she could do to locate Bowman, she turned down a hallway leading to the executive suite.

It is mandated that you fly in full gear when piloting spacecraft in hazard zones. The protocol is dictated to be prepared for anything that might happen... Kizzara didn't believe that you have to wear
all
of your gear, only the parts that would keep you alive in case of catastrophic hull failure. She didn’t have her Sathori gauss pistols strapped to a weapon harness. She wasn’t even
wearing
a weapon harness. She was however encased in her armored spacesuit and helmet at all times. Kizzara had been tasked with experimental pilot duties by Dynamic Space Development one year ago to the day, and this day was special as it was the last of a series of tests. Her specialty was test piloting first stage development combat spacecraft. She had been putting her baby, code-named Valkyrie, through its paces for a month now, and the ride had been pure adrenaline all the way through. She had never piloted a faster ship in her life, and Valkyrie was more than an agile prototype fighter, it had cutting-edge stealth technology installed that rendered it invisible to enemy detection from
deep radar
and
ladar
. As an Evene, Kizzara’s reflexes were far faster than any humans, and she was perfectly suited to the task of piloting an unproven design. The ship code-named Valkyrie was a duo seat fighter craft equipped with an experimental stealth generator. Sleek and smooth, Dynamic Space Development had been putting the technology and the ship through a series of trials to prove its reliability and that it would actually work. This last test had been severe – fly close to an Alliance military space port and see if the craft could be detected. Kizzara had actually physically tensed her muscles when she passed close enough for the deep radar installations of the Alliance to pick up her small fighter craft – but her nerves had calmed when nothing happened. No alarms. No dire communications from pissed off Alliance personnel warning her she would be blown out of space. No
Dragon
anti-ship missiles launched her way. Nothing had happened. She had remarked to the computer that the last test had been passed flawlessly. She was under direct orders from the CEO of Dynamic Space Development, the most powerful corporation in Republic space, to make sure the Valkyrie passed through all of its tests. This last trial run had been decisive and positive. The ship performed exactly as she’d been promised.

The trip through the jump-point from the
outlying Alliance system to the Castor system had been uneventful, even boring. The computer verified that Kizzara had indeed reached the Castor system with a metallic tone of confirmation.
The largest star in the solar system was an ‘A’ type star with its smaller companion classified as an ‘F’ type star. The smaller star - named Pollux - rotated around the much larger Castor roughly every thirty days. The stars were beautiful and terrible to look at in the black emptiness of space. The radiation and gravity of the twin suns would fry any ship that came too close. Kizzara wasn’t planning to travel anywhere near either of the two stars.
All of her instrument panels were green as she turned the fast ship towards the planet Harmony, the second in this system of seven planets. After making several jumps to distant star systems all starships needed to discharge their drive cores to prevent excessive heat buildup. She would dock at a Dynamic Space Development owned facility on the far-flung outpost.

“
Valkyrie Twelve-X to Harmony DSD Starship facility fifteen, I am on approach vector alpha two-five and request permission to land at a docking bay of your convenience.” Her thick Evene accent was clear over the transmission. The facility was waiting for her ship to arrive; they were part of the Dynamic Space Development Corporation and had special orders to take very good care of the craft and her pilot.

“Harmony Base here
…Valkyrie Twelve-X, you are cleared for docking at bay twelve. Transponder will guide you in - happy to have you here. Harmony Base out.” The voice ended and Kizzara glanced at her instrument panel. The base transponder signal was strong and she adjusted her crafts attitude and pitch to bring it in on the corrected flight path. As she turned the ship to a re-entry vector, the computer alarm sounded a soft klaxon alert. Startled, Kizzara stared at the readouts twice to make sense of them. A starship had just appeared one hundred kilometers distant from her current position. In space, such a distance is very close. Also, as far as she knew, there were no such jump points in close proximity to the planet she was descending to. In fact, according to the currently known laws of physics, no such jump point could possibly exist so close to a planetary mass.

Reacting instinctively, Kizzara
quickly engaged the ships experimental stealth generator and initiated the startup sequence for the
Hayles-Zinder
kinetic shields.
Can that be an Alliance ship? It can’t be…it’s the wrong configuration.
If it was the Alliance they must have detected her stealth spacecraft and followed her to the Castor System. Kizzara swore vociferously, invoking the ancestral deities of her race more out of custom than superstition. Her parent’s devotion to the
Old Gods
had rubbed off on her and familiar habits were a balm in times of severe stress.
Merel grant me victory and safe passage.
Ajura guide my steps swift and sure…
She murmured the prayers over and over as she scanned her instruments for any sign that the massive ship was launching weapons towards her. Her instruments were negative. The large ship of unknown origin was descending, much on the same flight path as herself. She quickly altered her trajectory to veer away, not wanting to chance that the behemoth wasn’t still after her.