Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1) (15 page)

“Fifty
seconds?” I asked.

“Yup, do
it.”

I set the
timer to fifty, and clicked begin.

As
quickly and carefully as I could I grabbed the two cables and pulled the
warhead downward into the vat of nectar that Loid had opened. The smell
surprised me. It wasn’t the sickening stench of death that I had experienced in
the hold of the Draugari Carrack, it was much more floral. At first smell, it
was actually pleasant, but after the second or third breath, the sheer power of
the scent made me gag.

“Yeah,”
Loid said. “It’s bad. There are worse things than a simple stink. Quickly now,
dip it and spin, we have forty seconds.”

I turned
the warhead in the goop as best I could. After five seconds, most of it was
covered.

“I think
that’s good enough,” I answered.

“It will
have to be,” Loid said as he secured the lid onto the vat and let it float off
into the cargo hold. “Now, nice and easy, give me the other side of the cable.”

With Loid
holding the cable on the left, and me on the right, we slowly moved the warhead
into the meter-square waste disposal chute. Now I knew why he had told me to
disable the gravity. If the warhead touched any part of the disposal
compartment it would be stuck on the ship.

“Twenty
five seconds,” I said.

“Hang
on,” he said, as he worked to position the warhead directly in the middle of
the compartment. “Almost got it.”

He nodded
to me and we both let go, the warhead hung suspended in zero gravity. He tapped
the control console and the interior door to the compartment slid shut. I
peered through the small viewport, the warhead was still floating perfectly in
the middle of the compartment.

“Ju-lin,”
Loid clicked his wireless on. “Distance to the Starchaser?”

“Two
hundred and twenty meters and closing,” she answered.

“On my
mark, punch engines to full.” He reached out to the controls.

“Fifteen
seconds,” I said, reading off the display timer through the viewport.

“Mark!”
Loid tapped a code into the console, opening the exterior doors to the waste
chute. The sudden exposure to space created an instant vacuum that sent the
warhead flying out the back of the ship like a cannon ball.

The
Tons-o-Fun
lurched forward as Ju-lin activated the thrusters. Without artificial gravity,
the push of the thrusters slammed, and held us against the wall.

“Is it
away?” Loid grunted into his coms.

I watched
out the rear viewport, following the warhead as it sped away.

“It looks
like it’s going wide,” I said.

“Come
on,” Loid muttered.

“Wait,”
the warhead suddenly shifted directions as the timer hit zero and the boot’s
magclamp activated, pulling it directly toward the Starchaser. Seconds later
the warhead slapped against the Starchaser’s forward bulkhead and stuck. “It’s
on.”

“Ha!”
Loid reached for a nearby control panel. “Let’s get some gravity back on, there
we go.”

He and I
both fell to the deck as the artificial gravity re-initialized.

“What the
hell did you guys do?” Ju-lin called over the wireless. “I have a pressure
release warning.”

“See if
you can get them on video coms, we’re on our way,” Loid and I got to our feet
and ran back through the cargo areas into the flight deck. “And get out of my
chair!”

“The
Starchaser is hailing us,” Ju-lin was sliding back into her jumpseat as Loid
and I entered the cabin.

“Nice job
Twiggy,” he said as he slid back into the pilot’s seat and clicked on the video
coms.

A face
appeared floating on in the holographic heads-up display in front of him. He
was an older human with silver-black hair and a scar on his chin.

“Alonso,”
Loid said casually. “Sorry I missed you earlier there, I was napping.”

“Burns,”
the face squinted. “A pity, your girlfriend there said you were locked up on
weapons smuggling charges in Tau Ceti.”

“Yes,”
Loid responded. “You know how it is, I can’t take every call or I’d be spending
all day chatting away and never get anything done.”

“Enough
of the shit, Burns.” Alonso sneered. “You’re damaged, and my boys have you
locked down. Power down the engines and prepare to be boarded and I may let you
live.”

“Eh,”
Loid glanced back over at Ju-lin. “I think I’ll pass.”

“It’s
that or get ghosted,” Alonso retorted. “We may have made some money together
back when we were running stims for the syndicate, but that was a long time
ago, and I won’t forget how you cut me out. I really should just turn that
flying cigar of yours into dust here and now, but seeing as I’m feeling
charitable, I’ll settle for your cargo.”

“Cut you
out? Now that’s not quite how I remember it.” Loid answered. “I remember you
installing a trace on my ship and trying to hand me over to the authorities. “

“Who
knows who did what to whom,” Alonso answered. “What I do know, is that you left
me for dead with my credits in your pocket. You owe me cargo.”

“Sorry
mate I’m empty.”

“Don’t
even try,” Alonso answered. “I picked up energy signature fluxes a few minutes
ago. You have something on board. And if nothing else, we may just take your
girlfriend, she seemed like—”

“I seem
like what, you greasy bastard?” Ju-lin leapt from her seat and pulled in over
Loid’s shoulder into the video chat’s field of view. “What do I seem like?”

“Now,
now,” Loid put his hand on her shoulder and gently pushed Ju-lin back.

“His
girlfriend my ass,” she muttered as she slipped back.

“She
seemed like a spirited young thing,” Alonso said with a smile. “She’s right,
though, she’s not your type Burns.”

“Yes, and
she managed to keep your Drakes dancing around for the last four minutes,” Loid
added.

“She can
fly that hunk of junk better than you can,” Alonso replied to Loid. “I’ll give
her that, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re now in range and that I
have my fighters primed on your wings.”

“No,”
Loid continued with a placid calm. “But, there is something missing. You said
you picked up an energy signature flux? What happened to it?”

Alonso
glanced over, making a gesture to someone out of view.

“It
dissipated,” Alonso said after a pause. “Power signature looked Draugari, some
kind of trick? Whatever you tried to do, it didn’t work.”

“All
those sensors on that great big ship and that’s all you got?” Loid countered.
“Sometime you will have to tell me how you managed to get it, or who you’re
flying for. But for now, you have more important concerns.”

“Like
sifting through the debris of your ship?” Alonso answered. “I’m getting tired
of this shit, cut engines or I’ll open fire.”

“No,
actually, why don’t you try a more localized scan. For grins, focus it on your
port bulkhead just before your main thrusters. See if anything unusual comes
up.”

Alonso
looked down at his console, after a few seconds, his brow furrowed.

“
That
,
my friend,” Loid broke in with a smile. “Is a primed class four Draugari
dissipation warhead stuck to my magclamp boots and coated with Jantar Nectar.
By now the nectar has probably solidified, it will take a few hours with a
laser chisel to scrape it off your hull. You’ll have to be careful though, I
wired up the trigger in a hurry so it may be temperamental.”

“You
sonuvabitch,” Alonso sneered.

“Ah, but
I can save you the trouble,” Loid lifted up a small device. “This is a remote
detonator that I have wired into the explosive.”

Alonso’s
face was white.

“See, now
we can negotiate,” Loid’s voice turned serious. “Have your Drakes disengage.
Now. And power down all weapons.”

Alonso
made a few gestures off screen. A few seconds later the Drakes pulled off to a
safe distance from us. I noticed they were keeping their distance from the
Starchaser as well.

“There
now,” Loid continued. “I think this qualifies as your surrender doesn’t it? How
nice. It’s time to talk demands.”

“Demands?”
Alonso sneered. “I swear if you so much as touch this ship I will track you
down cut you limb from limb.”

“Whoa,”
Loid held up his hand. “Easy there. I’m not a pirate, well, not today at least.
Today I’m a man in need of information. Did you guys pick up any Celestrial
ships flying through this system in the last few days?”

“Skins?”
Alonso retorted. “Yeah, there were a few fighters passing through a few days
ago, nothing special. Well-armed, not worth our time.”

“Where
did they come from?”

“They
came in through the Megaera gav point,” Alonso answered. “Why are you hunting
Skins? I thought you were all sweet on their kind.”

“Who
knows, maybe they’re family friends. Let’s just say that’s our business,” Loid
answered.

“What
about communications drones?” I asked.

Loid
glanced sidelong at me. I couldn’t tell if he was more annoyed that I
interrupted him or that we hadn’t told him about the communications drone.

“You have
two
crew?” Alonso’s eyebrow raised. “What, Loid, you flying with a
girlfriend and boyfriend? So much for the old lone wolf, looks like you’re
turning into an old dog! Or maybe den mother?”

“Answer
the question,” Loid said coldly as he shifted the detonator in his hand.
“Intercepted any communications drones?”

“Communications
drones?” Alonso shrugged. “Could be, we intercept pretty much everything that
flies through this system.”

“It would
have been about a week back, corporate markings from MineWorks,” Ju-lin
pressed.

“MineWorks?”
Alonso scratched his head. “Yeah, we plucked up one about eight days ago. We
couldn’t break the encryption, so we sold it to some dealer on Shindar II who
was willing to take a chance that it may have some maps or mineral scans they
could steal and sell. Made some easy money, which you can’t have.”

Loid
muted the call.

“So are
you two going to tell me what the hell this is about?”

Ju-lin
and I exchanged glances.

“One of
the other colonies found something, and then sent a message off-world,” Ju-lin
answered. “We figured the Celestrials intercepted and decoded it, and that’s
why they attacked.”

“’Found
something?’” Loid repeated. “When were you going to tell me about that?”

“When you
needed to know,” Ju-lin countered.

“Fine,
we’ll talk about this later,” Loid turned and flipped the mute back off. “I
need a name. Who did your man sell the drone to?”

“How
should I know? These types don’t use business cards,” Alonso shrugged. “My man
was on Shindar II, there is a market off the main docking yard. My man says he
traded with a Noonan.”

“A Noonan
at the market on Shindar II,” Loid sighed. “Thin. That’s all you got?”

“That’s
all I got,” Alonso replied. “You know what I know, so disable your firing
mechanism and bugger off.”

Loid
flipped the firing device over in his hand, staring at Alonso’s face on the
display, considering.

“I will
disable it once we’re clear,” he answered after a pause. “The Starchaser, and
the Drakes stay powered down, or I blow it.”

“Yeah,
yeah, just get gone,” Alonso leaned forward. “But I won’t forget this.”

“Forget
what?” Ju-lin broke in. “That you and your mini-fleet of halfwits had to turn
tail?”

Loid
glanced over at Ju-lin and smiled, “I think she has a point. Stay dark until
I’m nothing but a speck, or I detonate.”

Loid
disconnected the video.

“Buckle
up, let’s get out of here,” Loid engaged the engines to full burn. “Looks like
we’re going to Shindar II.”

“Nice
work with the bomb,” Ju-lin said. “Honestly, I’m impressed.”

“Yeah,” I
agreed. “What about the detonator though? When did you rig that up?”

“I
didn’t,” he said, tossing the small box over his shoulder. “It’s a broken
medical scanner.”

Chapter 17.

A secondary explosion shook the ship and the power flickered
off. Once again, I waited. But this time it didn’t come back on. My gunnery
display was black. The ship’s coms were silent.

I watched out my viewport as the last of our Slires fought
against their remaining fighters. Two had regrouped and were coming toward the
last Slire. Without power, I could do nothing to help him. He knew his life was
lost, I was certain. But he fought on. I cursed my gunnery station. Out there,
in the cockpit of that Slire was where glory and honor lie. Not here floating
in the belly of a dead ship.

The Slire dove, evading the human ships, and then turned, I
saw his main engines fire to full thrust as he angled toward the last of the
cargo caravan. The humans saw what he was doing, they must have, but it was too
late to stop him. With the full force of his thrusters engaged, that pilot met
glory as he rammed the vessel.

The Slire melted into the larger ship and became nothing. But
then, as I watched, the cargo ship began to falter. Fires burst, hull plates
split, the glory was his as both myself and the human fighter pilots watched,
helpless.

Ju-lin
and I retired to the galley as we continued across the system. So far it looked
as if the pirates had held up their end and stayed powered down back by the gas
giant, waiting for their next victim. When we asked Loid to join us to eat, he
waved us off, his mind elsewhere.

“So,” I
leaned forward to ask Ju-lin as we began eating. “What should we tell him?”

“There
isn’t much more to tell,” she answered. It was true. Aside from the datacard in
my pocket with the scan of the writing in the cave, we
didn’t have any more secrets left.

“True,” I said, pausing. “But he is bound to ask what Growd
found, and what we found when we were sent to investigate.”

“We didn’t find anything,” she said, narrowing h
er eyes and glancing at my pocket where
I had the datacard hidden. “In reality, he knows as much as we do, which isn’t
much at all. Dad sent us to find out why the Skins attacked us, before we can
do that, we need to find out
who
did it. Once we find out who it is,
then we should be able to figure a lot more about the why, without bringing
Loid into it. Besides, Dad said not to trust him, and I don’t.”

“He
did
get us out of that mess,” I answered.

“
We
all got us out of that mess,” she countered. “In case you didn’t notice, I was
the one flying this tub.”

I nodded.

“And
you’d think that Loid would be more careful,” she continued. “Maybe done some
extra scans or something before going into refueling. Walking into a trap like
that seems like a rookie mistake.”

“Maybe
he’s saving that for rule nine,” I commented.

She
looked at me a moment, cocking her head to the side, “Wait, did you just make
another joke?”

I felt
the heat as much cheeks flushed red.

She smiled
again, not her typical mocking grin, but a genuine smile, kind, and soft. Our
eyes met for a moment, then she turned, slid into her bunk, and pulled the
curtain closed.

I sat
there, staring up at the empty space where her smile had been.

The rest
of our journey through Hyades was uneventful. Though Loid kept checking the
scanners, there was no sign of pursuit. By the time we made the flux to
Magaera, one of three Furies, he was relaxed and casual. We had been traveling
through the system for several hours before Loid buzzed the ships coms and
called us up to the cabin.

“Take a
seat,” he said quietly.

I looked
out the front viewport to see a massive hulk in front of us. He must have heard
my sharp intake of breath.

“It’s
from the Earthborn Protectorate patrolling the Furies,” he nodded. “A
Dreadnaught on patrol. Fearsome bitch. Hundreds of crew, a few flight groups of
fighters.”

“It’s the
Dante,” Ju-lin came in behind me. “I saw her in dry dock a few years back.”

A light
flashed on Loid’s control panel.

“They are
requesting our identification and authorization,” Loid said quietly. “Eli, I
showed you how to access the coms package the other day, do you remember?”

“Yup,” I
answered as I accessed the console.

“Good,
send our Earthborn credentials,” he said. “Make sure it’s the
Earthborn
credentials, sending my Celestrial ident tags would be awkward.”

I
laughed, though I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to. I pulled up the digital
credential package, checked four times to make sure it was the Earthborn Protectorate
Identification data package, and sent it.

“She’s
clean,” Ju-lin studied the hull as we passed beneath the Dante. “They haven’t
had action in a while.”

“Good
sign,” Loid nodded. “Clean ships means clear sailing.”

“Scotsman
designation
Tons-o-Fun
,” a voice crackled over the coms. “Package
received, and authorization accepted. Watch your back out there. Dante control
out.”

“Acknowledged,”
Loid said simply, flipping off the coms.

“I
thought you said Magaera was contested, what was it you called it, no man’s
land?” I asked.

“Officially,
yes,” Loid answered. “But that more or less turns it into every-man’s land.
Even with all the patrols, the Furies are the only viable path for sneaking
between the Celestrial Empire and the Earthborn Protectorate, it’s thick with
pirates, smugglers, traders, and even the occasional honest folk.”

“Which
are you?” Ju-lin asked.

“All of
the above,” Loid said wistfully.

“Even the
honest folk?” Ju-lin asked.

“Sometimes,”
Loid answered.

“Did they
scan us?” I asked.

“No,” Loid
said. “As long as your paperwork is in order, a small cash transaction to an
unnamed account floating around out here in space will encourage the operator
to look the other way.”

“Why
bother?” Ju-lin asked. “I mean, Kevarian Ale is illegal to transport, but they
wouldn’t be able to identify it on the scan, and you have cargo shielding
around the secondary bay, hiding the Draugari warheads.”

“Call it
caution,” Loid answered. “Or call it simple math. I give away a few credits to
secure that I’ll make a few thousand. The best profit is the one that you make
sure you can spend.”

“Still,”
she answered. “The more coin in your hand the better.”

“You
would be amazed how many good smugglers get caught by a lowly docking bay clerk
for sloppily forged manifests,” Loid answered. “That woman up there manning the
scanners, she’s bored. Badly paid. And is anxious to get off duty. Her job is
unimportant and monotonous. If you had to do that, what would you be doing? She
wants
to find something to make her life interesting. Better to toss her
a few credits and keep on moving than risk that she increases the power on her
scan or happens to detect any unusual radiation signatures. When you’re running
on the edge of the law, bored and low-ranking paper pushers are the most dangerous
people you can encounter.”

“I guess
I never thought about it like that before,” Ju-lin answered.

“It’s the
little mistakes that will hang you,” Loid said. “It always is.”

“Where
are we heading now?” I asked.

“Well,
right now we’re going to continue on our course to make it look like we’re
heading to Tisiphone which has connecting grav points back to the
Protectorate,” he answered. “But, once we’re clear of the Dante, we’ll adjust
our course for Alecto, the third Fury, and the border system. Alecto has four
flux points: two leading back to Earthborn space, and two leading into the
Celestrial Empire. From there we’ll flux over into Celestrial territory, the
Shindar system where Alonso said he sold the drone, and see what we can see.”

I looked
up, studying the Dante. She was a hive of activity. Small fighters whirled
around her hulk, making regular patrols. There were other ships flying point
defense on all sides, cruisers, destroyers, corvettes.

I watched
the Dante and her fleet slip off beyond us and out of view.

The rest
of our trip through Magaera and then to Alecto was uneventful. Though there was
traffic, the travelers all seemed to want to keep their quiet distance. That
was just as well for us. Though it was a fair distance, the trip through Alecto
went quickly. I spent most of my time in the flight deck talking with Loid. He
seemed to have a story for everything, and answered my questions readily and
fully. Unlike Ju-lin, Lee or the other colonists, he didn’t so much as raise
his eyebrows when I asked him questions about common things. I enjoyed that.

Ju-lin
came and left, sitting with us in the flight deck for as long as her shifting
feet would allow.

“Preparing
to flux to Shindar,” Loid called over the ship’s loudspeaker some hours later. “You
two may want to be up here for this.”

Once we
were both in our jump seats he spun around in his pilot’s chair.

“I’m
going to assume neither of you have had direct dealings with the Celestrials
before?” He glanced at both of our faces. “Yeah, I thought not. Okay, the first
thing you will realize when we get to Shindar II, is that the Celestrials love
order and organization. There are processes and procedures for
everything
.
So follow my lead, do what I do, and try not to say anything.”

“How will
we find out about those ships?” Ju-lin asked.

“We’ll
start by tracking down the Noonan trader that Alonso mentioned,” he answered.
“Odds are the trader didn’t have the tech he would need to decode the message.
They probably just sold it whole to the first person to come along with a few
coins.”

“How do
we track them down?” I asked.

“I
imagine that there aren’t too many foreigners on Shindar who would deal in
corporate secrets. There is too much risk there. The Noonan look for an easy
profit. If there is anyone desperate enough to buy Alonso’s stolen drone, it’s
a good bet they will also be willing to
help
find a buyer for stolen Draugari warheads.”

“Which you need to sell anyway,” Ju-lin added. “Efficient.”

“Or laziness, whatever you want to call it,” Loid said with a
laugh. “Which reminds me, the most important
thing to remember about the Celestrial: they love
efficiency, but they are also steeped in ritual and culture. They’ve been
fluxing through grave points for five hundred years, and their sciences are
well beyond anything that anyone in the Collective of the Protectorate have
developed. The story goes that the environment on their home planet was so
harsh that they actually developed terraforming technologies and mastered their
control over the planetary environment before they even launched a satellite
into orbit.”

“What do
you mean how the story goes?” I asked

“That’s
what they tell us, we’ve never seen the Celestrial homeworld,” Loid answered.
“Hell, few have survived past the first few seconds of a flux into Celestrial
territory. They are patient, and have a long memory. Each Celestrial can live
to be 130 years old. Most don’t start out on their own until after they turn
70s. Now, if I make it to 100 I will just be a toothless old rogue plugged into
a dozen life support systems on some resort station with half of my marbles
left. Not a Celestrial. We are children to them. Every one of them are required
to spend fifteen years in military service, and twenty years in post-secondary
education.”

“Required
military service?” Ju-lin looked disgusted.

“Yes. So,
you
, keep your sass tied up,” he turned from Ju-lin to me, “And
you,
just
don’t ask so many stupid questions. Eli, load up the credentials for
Celestrial space and have them ready. They aren’t quite as patient as the Dante
was.”

“No
bribes this time?” Ju-lin asked.

“Bribe
one of
them
?” Loid laughed. “That would be a damned fool thing to do,
and I’m serious, tie up that damned sass.”

The
engines whirled as he powered up the drive, and we fluxed.

Where the
hulking shape of the Dante had been intimidating in its bulk and power, the
Celestrial defense fleet monitoring the grav point inside of the Shindar system
was equally intimidating through sheer numbers. As soon as we fluxed in, four
sleek Celestrial fighter craft, similar to the ones we had seen back on the
colony, pulled in tightly, boxing us in. As I looked out the viewscreen, I saw
dozens of ships, some were floating still, while others ran patrols and
practiced maneuvers in tightly packed formations. Although none of the ships
were nearly as large as the Dante had been, between their numbers and the level
of coordination, I was reasonably certain that the Celestrial fleet would be
just as formidable.

An alien
voice speaking a smooth, foreign language came on the coms. The flow of the
language was so fluid and lyrical that it was difficult for me to discern one
word from another.