Descent Page 3

  A grim smile formed on the other mechanic’s lips. “He said it would be like a kitchen appliance blowing up from a power surge. Just scaled up.”

  “Pretty much,” Carla said. “However, if it was going to blow up in the next five minutes, I’m sure he would have said something. But since he hasn’t, I’m going to assume we’re good to go. That said though, if any of you don’t want to come, I won’t hold it against you.”

  The mechanic who had voiced the concerns that were on everyone’s mind shook his head. “No. We’re all with you.”

  Carla nodded. “Well, let’s get going then.”

  Kailis operated the elevator this time. Just like the first elevator, this one was painfully slow but this time, they were going a lot further down below the planet’s surface than they had before.

  As they were lowered into the gloom, they eyed the horizontal shafts that veered off the main one where, as Reece had explained, promising seams had been found. Lower and lower they went, bathed in the eerie glow of temporary lighting reflecting off the ochre rock. Every member of the group at some point eyed the vertical metal guides and the chains within them that were all that supported the crude platform they were standing on. Considering their life depended on these things remaining firmly in place, they didn’t look very sturdy. And the occasional crumbling section of rock, invariably near the anchors that held the guides against the side of the shaft, didn’t make them feel any better.

  About fifteen minutes after Kailis had started the descent of the elevator, the group arrived at their destination, one of the lower horizontal shafts. Carla eyed the rubble blocking their way with uncertainty. This was not her area of expertise.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Kailis said to her, “but this rubble might be holding up the rock above and if we try to move it out of the way, the ceiling might collapse on us.”

  “It certainly looks like it,” Carla said. “However, Reece said it wouldn’t. As he put it, this rock isn’t like dry cheese. It’s more like a loaf of bread that’s been left in the oven a week. You can knock a bit out but the rest will stay in place.”

  “Maybe,” Kailis said, her tone doubtful. “But it was crumbling well enough around the elevator guides.”

  “That wasn’t the same rock,” Carla replied. “That rock’s more like the stuff that fills in the gaps. Hardened sand. Trust me. Reece explained everything before I put him on the ship.”

  “So can we blast this stuff?” one of the mechanics asked.

  “We’ve got to try,” Carla said, keeping her voice firm. While she trusted Reece’s judgment on the matter well enough, she still felt as though the slightest provocation here would collapse the immeasurable weight of the rocks above on top of them all, crushing them.

  She took a breath. “Let’s get to work. Short controlled bursts.”

  Carla did her best to keep the group’s spirit up, to maintain a semblance of hope, but she couldn’t put aside the feeling that it was a grim task they were undertaking, a prediction that was realized just over an hour later.

  She sighed at the sight of the eleven victims who had been left down there to die under the pitiless gaze of dim orange lights. It was a bitter blow to have come to this forsaken rock, adrift in the middle of nowhere, to find out that even if they had arrived a whole day earlier, they still would have been too late.

  “Hang on,” one of the mechanics said. “These people couldn’t have died from hunger or thirst in just a day or so.”

  Carla nodded. “Right. Get some new atmospheric readings.”

  The mechanic took a small device off his belt and flicked it on. Everyone watched in silence. Then, with a shrug, he put the device back. “Well,” he said, sighing, “whatever it was that killed these people, it’s dissipated.”

  Kailis shook her head. “I can’t believe someone would do something like this.”

  “Well, someone has,” Carla said. “And I intend to find them.”

  “Bring them in?”

  “Bring them in, yes,” Carla agreed. “But I also want to find out what they were up to. Abandoning these people here is bad enough but they deliberately murdered them to prevent them from talking to us. These people are hiding something.”

  The mechanic who had spoken earlier stirred. “All right. Shall we go then?”

  “In a moment,” Carla said. “But I want to make identifications to forward to the authorities when we get back.”

  “All right.”

  “And there’s one other thing,” Carla said.

  When they had all returned to the surface after their grisly work in the dark depths below, Carla met with Eroim.

  “Well?” she asked.

  Eroim forced a smile but it didn’t get as far as his eyes. “We don’t have to worry about the installation exploding in the next few minutes. We’ve probably still got about five or six hours.”

  Carla nodded. “Good to know we’ve got a window.”

  “Yeah.”

  “By the way,” Carla asked, “can you fly that shifter out there?”

  Eroim frowned. “What about you? You’ve got a ticket for just about everything that flies now.”

  “For recently manufactured ships at any rate,” Carla said. “But I’ve just had a quick look at the bridge and the flight controls are something else. I mean I could manage it but -”

  “All right,” Eroim said. “I’ll take a look at it. An old man and an old ship. We should get on fine.”

  “You don’t have to fly it far,” Carla said. “Just get it up in orbit so we can look it over at our own leisure without having to worry about being blown to pieces.”

  Eroim nodded. “Ah. Got it.” He turned to go and stopped. “By the way, how’s our patient?”

  “I checked with our stand-in medics on the Lantern,” Carla replied. “He’s sedated at the moment.”

  Eroim’s gaze drifted down. “That’s probably for the best.” He then tried another smile, this one even less successful than the first one. “All right. I’ll see what I can do about that shifter.”

  3. The Back-Up Plan

  Asten leaned forward in his seat and, with a tender hand, pulled the lever that brought the Lady Hawk back to sublight speed. It had been quite a while since he had last flown the girl but when he sat in the pilot’s chair, everything had come back to him with the intimate familiarity that was better known as second nature. He knew the Lady Hawk and she knew him.

  He turned to see how Selina was doing. She was quite accustomed to the ship now as well, although she didn’t take to the navigation controls as easily as Carla had way back when.

  It was a little strange, Asten thought. He enjoyed these quiet moments when he was alone with his wife but, here in the cockpit of his first ship, he couldn’t help feeling some sadness that the days when he had been flying about the place with Drackson and Carla were long behind him. It seemed that sometimes when the next stage of life brought something new and wonderful, something from the stage before was irrevocably lost. Perhaps, he thought, it was a price one had to pay.

  “Are you all right?” Selina asked.

  Asten nodded. “Yeah, I’m all right. I was just thinking about something.” He smiled. “So any sign of Drackson?”

  “Yeah, he’s straight ahead,” she replied, smiling back.

  Asten turned to look at the viewscreen. Sure enough, there was a small ship out there. A Tanemi Clearstream.

  “Ah ha,” he said. “He’s on the Albatross. It’s hard keeping up with Drackson and his ships.”

  Drackson had acquired the Albatross when the now-retired Admiral Roth had talked him into forming a Federation intelligence team to investigate renegade Harskan activity. But given recent changes in that arrangement, Asten wasn’t sure why Drackson still had the ship.

  He switched on the communicator. “Hey, Drackson. Sorry about interrupting your trip back there.”

  “No problem,” his friend replied. “Bring your ship alongside ours and we’ll set up a do
cking tube.”

  “Okay. See you soon.”

  The hatch opened and, with Selina beside him, Asten stepped onto the Albatross.

  Drackson, standing tall, was waiting for them, smiling in welcome and extending a hand.

  “Hey, Drackson,” Asten said, accepting the proffered handshake. “Good to see you again.”

  “You too,” Drackson replied. “You’re looking well. Both of you.”

  Asten turned to the woman beside Drackson, a Harskan was well.

  “And it’s good to see you too, Naima,” he said.

  Naima inclined her head with a little smile of her own. “Likewise.”

  Asten was becoming more accustomed to Naima these days. The familiarity he had with Drackson wasn’t there with her yet, of course, since she was new. And her background was somewhat shady with her involvement in the now disbanded privateer organization, the Kunlayn Elite. However, she had one very important virtue and Asten would call her a friend for that alone. Drackson liked her and he seemed happy around her.

  Asten knew that Drackson had in the past drifted in and out of the lives of people he would ultimately outlive and there was something inherently lonely in that. However, in Naima, he had found a companion he could be with until the day he died. And although Harskan and human ideals of beauty were naturally different, Asten could nevertheless see something of the physical attractiveness that Drackson saw in her as well.

  Drackson then gestured for him and his wife to follow him. “Why don’t we all head into the mess? We can talk there.”

  The group, which was just the four of them, entered the room where they fetched themselves some drinks and sat down.

  “So,” Drackson said, “what are you two up to?”

  “We’re preparing to do a little reconnaissance for the United Frontier,” Asten said, “and possibly an extraction.”

  “And you want us to handle it?”

  “Uh, no, we’re going to handle it,” Asten said, gesturing to Selina and himself. “But we want to get your input on how best to go about it. And I wonder whether you and Naima might be able to give us some back-up.”

  Drackson smiled. “With all the official resources of the United Frontier at your disposal?”

  “Well, we’re trying to keep things as quiet as possible,” Asten said. “We don’t want our quarry to know we’re onto him. And a lot of people out there seem to think this is a Phalamkian problem, not a United Frontier one.”

  “Fair enough. So what’s going on exactly?”

  Asten leaned forward in his seat. “Are you two familiar with the Imraec Tarc situation?”

  At this, Drackson and Naima exchanged glances. Drackson then turned back to his friend. “Actually, we have something of an interest in the place already.”

  Naima chuckled. “Yes, Drackson’s human harem is on the case.”

  “The girls are following a weapons smuggling trail,” Drackson explained, giving Naima a sideways look. “A trail that seems to end at Imraec Tarc.”

  “I wonder if our interests in the place are connected,” Selina said.

  Drackson shrugged. “It’s not outside the realms of possibility.”

  “Were you two going to Imraec Tarc when we called you?” Asten asked him.

  Drackson shook his head. “No. Well, at least not yet. Naima and I would be a bit visible there and from everything we’ve heard about the place, they tend to keep a close eye on visitors.”

  Asten frowned. “Are they hostile towards visitors?”

  “No,” Drackson said. “No, I’d say they’re more... paranoid than hostile. Defensive, not aggressive. If that makes sense.”

  “Yeah,” Asten said. “I see what you mean.”

  Drackson smiled. “Anyway, do you think I’d deliberately throw Alia in harm’s way when I’d have her mother to answer to?”

  This got a laugh from all the others.

  “No,” Asten conceded. “I suppose not. All right. Now, let’s talk back-up.”

  “What do you need?” Drackson asked.

  “Nothing fancy, I think,” Asten told him. “But if it’s all right, we were kind of hoping you two might be able to provide us with a quick extraction if things go south down there.”

  Drackson frowned. “I guess it depends on when you need a quick extraction. If you can hold off getting into trouble for a couple of weeks or so, Naima and I will be in a better position to get you out of there in a hurry.”

  Asten nodded. “Well, we’re not planning to get into trouble straightaway. We’ll take some time to get a feel for the place when we get there before we plan our next move.”

  Drackson thought about it. “In that case, I think Naima and I could be of assistance if needed.”

  “Maybe we could have personal tracking beacons of some description to make that a little easier,” Selina suggested.

  Drackson leaned back in his seat, thinking it over. “You know, Jiang’s got a few things that could help you with that. She and the girls are using personal tracking beacons at the moment so we can keep an eye on them.”

  Selina smiled. “That’s exactly what we need.”

  “Jiang showed me an almost miniscule tracking beacon once with a transmitting range that crossed several systems,” Drackson explained. “From an old case of hers, I think. Anyway, I had some of my contacts back in the Harskan Sector reverse-engineer it and make a few for us.”

  “Have you got any spares right now?” Asten asked.

  “I’ve got a couple,” Drackson told him, “but I could give you the design from our databanks here and then you could get someone on Phalamki to manufacture some extras in case you want any more.”

  “Sounds good,” Selina said. “And does Jiang have any tricks for hiding them?”

  Drackson nodded. “Yeah. You can make a small compartment in the sole of a boot and hide a beacon in there.”

  “But we don’t have any ready-made spare boots with us right now,” Naima added. “And certainly not in your sizes.”

  “Fair enough,” Asten said. “We’ll make a quick trip back to Phalamki before we go.”

  “And get a beacon made for the Lady Hawk as well,” Drackson told him.

  Asten nodded, doing his best to keep up. “Sure. Makes sense.”

  “And then,” Drackson added, “call us when you’re done so we can set up unique frequencies for your various beacons and make sure we’ve got a solid lock on all of them before you go gallivanting off.”

  “Will do,” Asten replied.

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  “So, tell me,” Drackson said after the lull in the conversation, “is there anyone else from the old guard involved in this? Zak and Maia up to anything I don’t know about? What about Carla?”

  “Are Zak and Maia up to anything you don’t know about?” Asten asked, frowning. “They’re involved in something right now?”

  Drackson shrugged. “A little something, I believe, but I don’t know what else is occupying their time at the moment. But they’re not going along with you guys on your little errand then, I take it?”

  Asten shook his head. “No. They’re busy with all the new defense force personnel that are coming through. And as for Carla, we haven’t seen her for a while. She said she had an escort run coming up and that she was also breaking in a new ship with a new crew. She left the Promise Keeper on Phalamki.”

  Drackson pursed his lips. “Hard to keep up with that girl. She’s our navigator one moment. Then she’s flying a ship of her own and, next thing you know, she’s got several armed freighters.”

  Asten laughed. “Well, you gave them to her. Besides, she’s not the only one that’s hard to keep up with. You guys are a bit of a trick as well. And Selina and I were a bit surprised to find that you’ve still got the Albatross. I thought you would have had to give this ship back to the Federation when you decided you’d had enough of being Gamma-Twelve.”

  “Oh, we own it now,” Drackson said. “I bought it off the Federation.�
�

  “You bought it?”

  Drackson shrugged. “It’s a good ship. And I think keeping it around helped entice Jiang to stay here on the Frontier with us.”

  “Well, then the ship’s paid for itself,” Asten said, smiling. “I’m glad she’s staying. And I’m not just saying that because she’s cute.”

  “So are we,” Drackson said, pushing himself off his seat. “And I’m not just saying that because I think she’s cute either, despite Naima’s little jests about my ‘harem’. Now I believe we’ve got a few things to organize, don’t we?”

  Alia Casdan looked at the viewscreen. Being attached to this little station on the outskirts of Imraec Tarc’s territorial boundaries by a docking tube rather than being inside a hangar may not have been the coziest of arrangements but it gave Jiang and her a clear view of other ships as they came out of lightspeed, such as the one that had emerged right then.

  “Here’s another one,” she announced. “Big one. Shokhan Star Keeper. Perfect ship for a pirate. Can you tell if they’ve tinkered with it?”

  “Hang on,” Jiang said. She was wringing her long hair after a shower but she stopped to magnify the image on the screen. “Yeah. There you go. A custom made warship almost. Hopefully, they won’t show any interest in us.”

  Alia shrugged. “There’s no reason they should. Are they in range for an ID scan?”

  “Almost,” Jiang said, glancing at her instruments. “Yes. They’re in range now. Here we go. It’s called the Drifter’s Folly.” She pulled out a pad and had a look at it. “That’s one of the names on Drackson’s list.”

  “You know, I did some repairs on the Lady Hawk for Asten a while back,” Alia said, “and I think one of his old trick IDs was Drifter’s Folly.”

  Jiang turned to her. “Asten had trick IDs on that ship?”

  Alia looked slightly abashed. “Ah. Did I say Asten? I meant this guy...”

  Jiang chuckled, turning her attention back to the viewscreen. “Right.”

  “Ah, they were different days,” Alia said, waving it off. “And they were trying to run an escort ship business when Corinthe’s Shipping Guild was cracking down on all the independent operators.”