Star Brigade: Resurgent (Star Brigade Book 1) (22 page)

After a number of translifter rides down and up and diagonally through the spaceport, she found the shuttle bays, smaller than the starliner ones, all golden in color with a circular sliding door. A cylindrical golden bar positioned above the entrance flashed the shuttle bay number and its intended destination in light blue. The numbers increased into the 5000s.

“Aha, 5100,” she mused, reading the hangar bay’s status bar, flashing the shuttle bay number and the gas giant Zeid as the destination. The door swiveled open for her. She stepped in and found herself in a dreary sachet of a room, but big enough to fit the shuttle she would be taking. On the other side was a shuttle-launching hatch. But Liliana’s eyes were glued on the shuttle in between. Triangular, flat in design and a beaklike front, the
Valero-
Class skiff’s sable exterior made it look more sinister in her eyes. With an effort she turned her gaze to the lone figure in front of her, loading cargo boxes into the shuttle’s rear.

V’Korram’s ginger mane was longer than in the profile, but his physique was still lithe and packed with solid muscle, evident even under his body fur and flight vest. Like every Kintarian Liliana had observed, there was no waste in his movements. He was simply moving boxes, but did it with unforced grace and speed, fascinating to a xenobiologist’s eye. As the Kintarian continued to work, his green-flecked yellow eyes darted in Liliana’s direction, sizing her up in an instant. Liliana slowly approached the Kintarian, sucking in a gulp of air and shouldering her small suitcase, “2
nd
Lt. V’Korram Prydyri-Ravlek?” she said in her friendliest voice. “Dr. Liliana Cortes.” She held out her hand to shake his.

V’Korram straightened up and glared down at the doctor.  She could feel her insides go cold and quickly withdrew her hand. Liliana stood at five-foot-ten-inches herself, but V’Korram dwarfed her by almost a foot. The Kintarian just stood there, his unrelenting scowl trained on her.

“You’re
young
for a doctor,” he decided in a brusque growl of a voice.

“I graduated early,” Liliana shivered, glancing away from the scowl. “Thanks for the ride—.”

The Kintarian jerked a thumb to where she should go, then turned and continued to pack the shuttle’s cargo bay as if she wasn’t even there. Liliana stared blankly at V’Korram’s back, stunned by his rudeness. But she recovered and entered the passenger’s side. Maybe V’Korram didn’t want to go to this meeting either.
There’s something to talk about,
Liliana thought, grasping for anything to distract being trapped in this space-faring shuttle. A few macroms later, V’Korram elegantly coiled into his helm seat, looking surly, his hands expertly flying over the multi-colored flight console and prepping the transport for takeoff. He paid no attention to Liliana.

A soothing hum signaled the ignition of the S-Drive. Liliana instinctively flattened into her seat. The Kintarian didn’t bother saying, ‘Strap in’. He continued scowling into the viewport as the departure gate opened, when the skiff lifted off to fly over the breathtaking Oklorada Basin in the nation of Vesspuccia. He kept scowling as the skiff was about to break through Terra Sollus’ atmosphere. For Liliana, flattened to her seat in dread, the endless black of space was almost too much to handle.

“So are you looking forward to this meeting? I’m just going to go and get out of there as soon as I can.” V’Korram said nothing, his scowl fixed on the viewscreen. They had just broken atmosphere, an infinite mass of stars now filled up the viewscreen. Liliana tried not to look at them. “Sam D’Urso called me yesterday and had to force me to come to this meeting. Hopefully it will be short and sweet.”

From the viewscreen a tiny emerald sphere loomed even larger upon approach; the gas-giant Zeid. Still no response from the Kintarian, save his ears flattening conspicuously. Liliana still didn’t take the hint. She wrinkled her nose in irritation and tried a new topic. “Have you been to the quadronide mining colonies in Zeid’s lower hemisphere? I hear they—.”

“ENOUGH,” V’Korram roared. Liliana jumped. He twisted and stared directly at her for the first time since entering the shuttle, his green-flecked eyes stabbing into her brain. “I couldn’t care less why you’re on Star Brigade! Just do it silently so I can hear myself
think
!”

Luckily, Zeid’s swirling green gases pervaded the viewscreen or Liliana’s embarrassment would’ve been more visible. She suddenly felt small and irrelevant. Yet V’Korram continued piloting as if nothing happened. Liliana heatedly muttered something uncouth in Spanish under her breath.

“Heard and understood that.” V’Korram growled so unflappably that Liliana did a double take. It took her a nanoclic to register what she should have already known as a xenobiologist. Kintarians have hearing so acute they can distinguish an individual’s breathing in a crowd of hundreds. How he understood Spanish was a mystery. But Liliana had no interest in prying at this point.

On the viewport she saw Zeid floating alone in the vast darkness, growing neither bigger nor any smaller. They had stopped.

Lily frowned. “Why’d we—?” The ship lurched forward in a burst of speed. She was violently slammed back into her seat. Zeid warped and zoomed into a canvas of green before her, jet-black space instantly replaced by the gas giant’s greenish below-atmospheric clouds. Liliana, forgetting to strap in, would have slumped forward from her seat if not for V’Korram catching her with a swift arm.

“Slingshot jump,” V’Korram growled, shoving Liliana back into her seat. “Stay put.”

Liliana nodded, fearing she might vomit if she tried to talk. The tight knot of nausea in her stomach told the doctor her space sickness had kicked in with a vengeance. Liliana groaned, turning her attention to the military starbase in the blue-green clouds.

The thin communication spires of Hollus Maddrone jutted upward from a colossal silvery disc, the top section of the base. A wide cylinder ran out of the disc’s underside, impaling through a pair of spherical structures like a giant pipe. Two broad rings circled the starbase, one around the center of the cylinder and another around the larger sphere. The smaller sphere, at the lowest point of the cylindrical pole, had a second series of communication spires jutting lower into the deeper regions of Zeid. From far away with all the lights arrayed on the floating station, Hollus looked like a chandelier of sorts. Adding to the majesty was Rhyne’s sundown, splashing fiery orange streaks across the green Zeid sky. They were close enough to the starbase where one could actually see the linings separating individual viewports. Hollus served as Star Brigade’s headquarters and a waystation for UComm Support Services, meaning it saw heavy traffic from various UComm divisions and military contractors.

Most Star Brigadiers were always in awe when they broke through Zeid’s atmosphere and saw the outside of Hollus. But Liliana’s roiling stomach made it difficult to appreciate anything right now.

The rest of the trip, including the docking, continued in silence. Upon entering the docking bay in Hollus’ smaller sphere, some turbulence from Zeid’s winds shook the skiff. Liliana squeaked in fright, digging her nails into the seat’s armrests. The docking bay around the transport was barrel-shaped, loaded with convoys and Starlancers; clearly one of the smaller hangars in Hollus. There were two big enough to hold Victory-Class ships. Several aerospace engineers were working diligently on the Starlancers. V’Korram swept out of the helm’s seat and began to unload the crates in the cargo bay.

Liliana hugged the transport’s door for support upon exiting, thankful to be back on solid ground.

“You’re a long way from Navarre!” The mechanically pitched voice startled her so much, Liliana nearly slipped and fell. Seeing the voice’s source, all her nausea vanished.

Several feet away stood a short, burly Thulican covered in silver and golden metal. His indigo blue face housed two yellow circles serving as his optical units, no nose plus a lipless mouth curved into a welcoming smile. The flattened top of his head shimmered under the cargo bay halolights.

“
Khrome!
” Liliana shrieked. She sprinted for the Thulican, who lifted her up in his waiting arms like she weighed nothing. Liliana felt Khrome’s laughter vibrate from his chest.

“Hi to you too, Lily. Never thought I’d see you here again.” He eased her gently back to the ground. Despite his brawny physique, Khrome stood at only five-foot-seven, a few inches shorter than the doctor.

Liliana gazed at the Thulican happily. “Wow, I didn’t think I would be so happy to see anyone.”

“Of course you’re happy,” the Thulican pointed at himself smugly. “I’m Khrome-tastic; intergalactically known, world renown, locally accepted.” He said all that with a completely straight face.

Liliana burst out into more laughter, realizing how much she missed Khrome’s smug self-compliments. Khrome was one of the recruits she had befriended during her fellowship…and also one of the few Star Brigadiers who still talked to her now. She stopped smiling when she caught an oily smudge of brown on Khrome’s shoulder. He followed her concerned gaze and shrugged.

“Eh. Just what’s left of a kyrilach trying to leech a Shadowlancer’s power conduits. You?” he motioned her toward the docking bay exit. “I take it you’re here for this meeting, as well?”

“Well,” she shot a spiteful look at V’Korram, still unloading the transport, before filling Khrome on the awful trip she endured. By the time she finished, they had left the docking bay and were in a high ceiling corridor. Khrome waited for Liliana to finish before responding.

“V’Korram’s like a Ferronos Fizzle,” he said with a knowing smile. “An acquired taste.”

“Does he have a specialty, besides being a puto
g
ad
huā
?
”
Liliana grumbled.

Khrome snorted with laughter at her choice earthborn expletives. “
Gadh
uā
or not,” he managed between chuckles, “V’Korram’s the best recon in the Brigade.” They rounded the hallway corner toward what looked like a large auditorium. “You should see what happens when Furball tries giving me lip,” the Thulican added casually. “He makes it too easy to ridicule him, I almost feel bad.”

“I wouldn’t have problems if I could bench four tons either!” Liliana stated dryly, preferring to hear one of Khrome’s ridiculous misadventures. “Let’s talk about you!” she exclaimed as they entered the hall. The auditorium was well lit, square and could probably seat a few hundred. From Liliana’s guestimation, she counted over sixty occupants of varying species. Near the front they spied Captain Honaa Ishiliba. V’Korram silently entered the auditorium and sat in the rear by himself, scowling the whole time. Liliana and Khrome walked slowly as Khrome was getting to the meat of his story, which involved a shuttle escape from a betelydra litter in the Merrivel Nebula.

“Khrome!” Liliana scolded. “Betelydra are already endangered. Stop
endangering
them!”

“We were just spectators, LC. She attacked us!” The Thulican looked as if he saw someone he knew and steered Liliana in that direction. “Those ‘cute’ little babies tasted the ions floating around and all of a sudden, they think we're dinner! It's all I can do to switch back the shields before we make like a supernova and blow!” Khrome gestured with his hand to illustrate the escape.

Liliana was in a fit of giggles, her shoulders shaking. “How do you get yourself into these messes?”

“Ty’s idea, I swear! Speaking of the icicle.” They arrived at a row with only two occupants. One was Surjilliad’Kuuthree or Surje, his tri-crest gleaming like a halolight. The red-skinned Voton, spare and compact in build, had a proclivity for stammering and sprinkling his speech with pious mentions to the Voton religion known as the Living Light. Seated beside him was ‘Ty’, as in Tyris Iecen, a Tanoeen whose lanky figure looked to be sculpted out of ice. Icy spikes protruded out of his head, in contrast to Khrome’s flattened dome. Tyris had no visible features on his almost triangular face save his slit cobalt eyes. Unlike most beings in the UComm, he was a legal alien from the Kedri Imperial Dependency of Titanoa. Liliana hadn’t seen him, Surje or Khrome in almost a year.  The Tanoeen regarded Khrome with a twinkle of gladness in his dark beady eyes. For Liliana, his stare was pure ice.

“Surje, Tyris. How are you two?” Liliana managed. Nothing but awkward silence followed. Even though she had been part of their circle of friends, reserve members who refused active service, like Lily, were frowned upon. Khrome had no interest in taking sides, but wisely between her and the others.

“Don’t worry about them,” he whispered, his mechanical tone sounding like metal scraping together.

“I’m not.” Liliana glanced over at the pair. She turned her attention to the audience. By the attire most appeared to be data analysts, station services workers, medics, aerospace engineers, hangar bays workers and a few AeroFleet pilots. Liliana wondered at first where the other Brigadiers were. After scanning the crowd more thoroughly, she spotted an alarmingly sparse number of them sprinkled throughout. The indicators were either their physical fitness or how mindful they seemed of their surroundings, bodies coiled with attack-ready power. Or it was the more distinct confidence? Her gaze fell on one such Brigadier she didn’t recognize; a lean, dark human male that was clearly earthborn. His clean-shaven face and mop of curly black hair made a stupefyingly beautiful combination. The Brigadier held court, surrounded by a diverse gaggle of female analysts and service workers who hung on his every word and joke. His eyes met Liliana’s and he smirked. The look he gave the doctor seemed to lewdly strip her naked. Heat flooded her round cheeks and she turned away. Also troubling was the absence of two Brigadiers she’d expected to see. “Where are Jan’Hax and Addison?” Liliana asked Khrome.