Descent Read online

  Lord Erama didn’t reply.

  “These are dangerous people,” the senator told him. “We must take whatever precautions against them that are in our power to take. The more we know about them before we attempt to liberate Katara, the more we can cripple their capacity to wage war.”

  “I see,” Lord Erama said at last.

  “And this is why I am dealing with someone who, under better circumstances, I would more likely avoid.”

  Lord Erama leaned back in his seat, folding his four arms across his chest. “Very well. I did ask. So then what’s the information that you wished to show me?”

  “I now know what species the Imraehi are,” Senator Ereis said. “I thought it only fair to inform you, as well as the Younger Lady Erama, before anyone else learns about this.”

  Twenty minutes later, Zak took a call from Lord Erama in his ready room. He listened as his father-in-law relayed the information that Senator Ereis had provided.

  “This shouldn’t change any of our current intentions regarding Imraec Tarc,” he said after taking a moment to reflect on it.

  “No,” Lord Erama replied. “I’d agree with that. It’s a matter of curiosity. That’s all. Although it may shed some light on Deramar Ardeis.”

  Zak raised his eyebrows. “It may? I’d say it would. In fact, I have a new theory regarding the man.”

  “I thought you might. I have one of my own.”

  “However, Mr. Ardeis can wait,” Zak said. “We’ve got the liberation of a world to organize.”

  “True. How’s that going, by the way? Are you and Maia going to be ready for that presentation on Hie’shi or would you like me to play for more time?”

  Zak frowned. “Can you play for more time? From what you told us, it doesn’t sound as though the hot heads you referred to are going to wait once the week is up.”

  Lord Erama sighed. “You’re right.”

  “However, it shouldn’t matter. We’ll be ready.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “I’m glad you asked,” Zak said. “I wonder if you could contact the curator of the Kerali Naval Museum for me.”

  “Um... sure,” Lord Erama replied. “What do you want me to tell him?”

  “Tell him that I’d like to avail myself of his services, in the capacity of a consultant for a short-term assignment.”

  “Involving Imraec Tarc?”

  “Just so.”

  9. Jiang Arrives

  The faintest vibrations, imperceptible throughout most of the ship and almost imperceptible in the cargo hold, were Jiang’s first warnings that the Drifter’s Folly had penetrated an atmospheric layer. Presumably, the ship was about to land on Imraec Tarc but she’d know soon enough. The vibrations were followed by a loud click as the landing gear locked in place, then a humming as the ship slowed its descent and before she knew it, they had landed.

  Her heart began to beat faster. In any moment, the pirates who ran the Drifter’s Folly were going to start unloading the cargo and if she didn’t move fast, she’d be discovered. She looked at the mines that filled the cargo hold. She’d never be able to move any of them - they were too heavy - but it struck her that they were stacked well over head height and an idea was hatched. Hauling herself up the side of one stack, gaining purchase wherever she could, she scrambled onto the top and wedged herself between the mines in the middle of the stack.

  A moment later, the external doors to the cargo hold opened. Light flooded in, along with the noise of conversation and machinery being operated.

  Jiang listened as one crate of mines was taken out of the hold on a powered trolley. Then another and another. She calmed herself, keeping absolutely still, and then her crate began to move as well.

  The bright glare of the sun outside forced her to narrow her eyes - but she saw glimpses of the landing platform and modern buildings on hillsides above her. Leafy trees crept around the edges of these hills, seemingly ready to reclaim them for themselves, and the air was thick and humid.

  Her crate was soon brought into a large storage compartment built into a wall of sandstone that surrounded the landing platform. Inside it, all the crates that had already been unloaded from the ship were neatly arranged. On the far side of the room was an old-fashioned rolling door, presumably with some type of mechanisms on the other side to load the crates onto air speeders or some type of ground transport. However, whatever was there was immaterial for Jiang right then as the open entrance to the landing platform remained the only possible exit for her. She just needed to wait where she was until the pirates had finished unloading the mines. Then presumably, they’d clear the landing platform and she’d be free to move. A little patience was all she needed.

  Then after five or ten minutes - it was hard for her to tell - the last of the crates was brought into the room, followed moments later by the sound of retreating footsteps.

  Jiang pushed herself up off the stack of mines she was on and climbed to the ground, oblivious to the initial anxiety she’d felt when she’d first seen them. After all, they hadn’t exploded en route to the planet and they’d had plenty of opportunity to do so. Once on the ground, she crept towards the landing platform... and stopped.

  Two men were approaching.

  “You checked these?” one of them asked the other.

  “Of course I did.”

  “We can always rely on you, can’t we? We can always rely on you to be unreliable.”

  “Yeah, that’s funny,” the other man said, unimpressed. “What’s your problem?”

  “You weighed all the crates as you moved them in?”

  “Yeah. Look at the pad.”

  “I am looking,” the first man said. “And it says here that the total weight of all this is seventy tons, six hundred and eighty-nine kilograms. That’s a fifty-six kilo discrepancy.”

  “Yeah, about half a mine’s worth. So what?”

  “So if you want to keep working on this ship, we need to double-check this.”

  “Fine. I’ll bring in the loader and weigh the crates.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the first man said. “You and I are just going to do a quick visual check to make sure there’s nothing here that should be back on the ship.”

  “Fine.”

  Jiang looked to her left and her right, thinking about how she could get past these men without them seeing her. However, the gaps between the crates were wide and the bright sunlight coming in from outside worked against her in more ways than one, making her more visible for anyone looking in from the landing platform while almost blinding her.

  Then, before she had time to think what to do, a silhouette appeared against the glare.

  “You!”

  The next few moments raced by Jiang. The silhouette raised a weapon, while another larger figure moved to his side. Then, from above the entrance to the landing platform, a much smaller figure appeared, dropping down to the ground.

  The man with his weapon trained on her whirled around, then collapsed as the newcomer kicked his legs out from under him and wrenched the weapon from his hands. As the man landed on the ground, his slightly built assailant kicked down, jabbing the heel of his boot into his neck with a sickening crack. Then, adjusting a setting on his newly acquired gun, the newcomer shot the second man with what appeared to be a stun blast, knocking him straight out and dropping him like a sack of sand on the ground. Then the mysterious figure pushed the barrel of the weapon against the now unconscious man’s temple and fired four more stun blasts in rapid succession. Clearly, he had only used the stun setting as an improvised silencer for a weapon that had none; that many stun blasts at that range would kill a man.

  Jiang squinted against the sunlight, trying to get a better look at the new arrival. Then, emerging from the white glare as though discarding a shroud of silk, the figure appeared with perfect clarity. A Hie’shi.

  “Vismach,” she said, drawing in a sharp breath once the name escaped her lips. “What are you doing here?”
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br />   Vismach regarded her for a second, cocking his head to one side. “I believe, Jiang Sarra, that I am saving your life.”

  He looked at the first man he had killed, the one he had killed by rupturing his thyroid artery with his boot. “You know, I’ve never killed someone with my bare hands, so to speak.” He turned back to Jiang. “It was surprisingly easy.”

  Jiang wanted to say something in reply but Vismach shook his head. “This isn’t the venue for catching up. Come on.”

  He indicated that she should follow him and, despite herself it seemed, she did so without hesitation. However, Vismach wasn’t planning on killing her - he could have done that already - and he appeared to be already familiar with the environs, which she was not. So she’d talk to him. And hopefully, she’d also find out what he was up to.

  Vismach led her outside the landing platform, where a small air speeder was waiting. He opened the passenger door for her and she climbed in.

  “I will be back in fifteen or twenty minutes,” he told her. “Stay here.”

  “All right,” Jiang said. “But -”

  “I will explain everything later,” Vismach said. “When we’re somewhere a little safer.”

  He closed the door and went back to the landing platform. Then, a little under fifteen minutes later, he returned and, without a word, climbed into the air speeder next to Jiang and started the vehicle.

  They didn’t speak on the journey either and Jiang spent the time looking out the windows and taking in her surroundings. Her initial impressions were that they were coming out from the shadows and under an oppressive sun. Inside the air speeder, she couldn’t feel its heat but she could see it in parched stone walkways, glare reflecting off metal surfaces and the almost liquid appearance of the air. Then, a road leading over a rise in the land gave her a more complete view of the city. Near the landing platforms they had now left behind, the buildings were spaced further and further apart until they were replaced entirely by a lush carpet of viridescent foliage. On the other side of the rise, the city descended and panned out across a broad plain that glistened in the merciless sun - and beyond it lay an ocean. The city was a vast port in more ways than one.

  Vismach drove the speeder down towards the water and then turning south, which put the coast on their left, he brought it to a small two level building near the city’s outskirts and parked inside a garage on the first of the levels.

  “We’re here,” he said, getting out.

  Jiang climbed out of the speeder as well.

  Vismach led her up a flight of stairs and into a small apartment. Jiang could just make out the ocean in the distance through the window in the main room.

  “Well,” she said, turning to her unlikely host. “I figure you’re not planning to kill me. What then do you want?”

  Vismach made a low click and looked at Jiang with what, for a Hie’shi, passed as a pained expression. “Why, I thought since we’re likely here on a common purpose, we could pool our resources so to speak. And there’s also the fact that it seems you’re new in town. I thought you might find it handy to have a guide who’s been here a little while already.”

  “You may have killed those pirates back at the landing platform, Vismach,” Jiang said. “But an enemy of my enemy isn’t automatically my friend. Especially one who tried to kill me and steal my ship once. And you’ve done far worse than that. You were an accessory to all the crimes of General Einhast and they were quite extensive. And don’t think for a second that I’ll forget that, Vismach. You should be spending the rest of your natural life in a high security prison on Eraecam.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Vismach said. “And I can’t expect you to forget any of that or forgive me for those crimes, nor will I ask you to. However, that was another time and another job. But you have no reason to fear me now. We’re allies, Jiang.”

  Jiang frowned. “How’s that?”

  “Because with my new employment arrangements, I think you’ll find we’re both working on the same side.”

  “What side is that? Because I can’t believe any legitimate employer would hire you.”

  Vismach sat down on a couch and waved for Jiang to sit across from him. “Well, what you choose to believe is of course entirely up to you, as I said, but I am in fact working on the behalf of the Hie’shi government.”

  “But you’re not even from Hie’shi.”

  “No, I’m from the Federation, just like you.” Vismach made another click in the back of his throat and exhaled. “But that’s beside the point. You see, someone in your old department discovered the bulk of my funds from my last few jobs and froze them.”

  “So you took this job and turned over a new leaf,” Jiang said, not sounding as though she believed the second part. “Well, I’d say you were pretty lucky landing whatever contract you’ve got with the Hie’shi because I doubt they’d hire you if they knew about your sordid little history.”

  “Oh, but they do know the colorful details of my life,” Vismach said. “I don’t understand why you look so surprised. There are far worse people than me out there. I may be less discriminating than some in how I make ends meet but I am not, by nature, a person of malice or cruelty.”

  “High words for a killer.”

  “Look. There are people out there who take pleasure in the suffering of others, who steal the bread off starving families or torture their enemies for the sake of it. I’m not one of them.”

  Jiang did not appear impressed. “Have you been working long on this spiel?”

  Vismach shrugged. “A little. Do you like it?”

  “No. Still, even if there are worse people than you out there, that doesn’t explain why the Hie’shi government would hire you. Surely, there are people out there with no criminal records who could do the job just as well.”

  “Well, you’ve just hit the point there, Jiang,” Vismach said. “The devious mind is oddly enough more suited to the kind of job I’m presently working on. Because say what you like about the criminal underworld, we’re a resourceful group. We get things done and people know this. Where do you think former Frontier resistance general Dainard Emerson came from before Garam found him, for instance? Do you think he was able to acquire all those ships he supplied through legitimate channels? Of course not.”

  “No,” Jiang conceded. “I remember the department’s file on him. It was rather large.”

  “And I’d imagine half the people in the resistance were the same kind of characters too,” Vismach added. “So you can see the governments of the Frontier have no compunctions about working with the criminal fraternity when it suits its purposes. Actually, the Federation doesn’t either if we’re being honest. So, you may as well accept it, Jiang. We’re allies.”

  “Not yet, we’re not,” Jiang said. “I can accept your story that you’re working for the Hie’shi government, even if I personally think that’s a big mistake on their part. But, since you obviously brought me here to talk, then I want to know what exactly you’re up to here.”

  There was another cheerful click. “The Hie’shi government were quite clear. They want me to frustrate the capacity of these people to prevent the United Frontier from bringing them into line.”

  “How?”

  “Any way I can. And, as I’ve said, and as I’m sure you can attest, I’m quite resourceful.”

  “I can attest to that,” Jiang said. “But don’t ask me for a character reference.”

  “We need to put the past in its place, Jiang,” Vismach said. “We’re here now and maybe we can help each other or maybe we can go our separate ways. But somehow... I have the feeling that you don’t have anywhere to go just yet.”

  Jiang didn’t reply.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything,” Vismach said. “I can understand that you don’t feel particularly close to me. But I don’t think you deliberately trapped yourself on the landing platform back there. So I’m going to extrapolate on my theory and you can feel free to cut me off if I�
��m wrong. You boarded that ship back there, inspecting their cargo hold, I imagine, and you got stuck on it quite against your will and carted out to this charming little backwater. Is that about the sum of it?”

  “You’re astute, Vismach. I’ll give you that too.”

  “What a pity I can’t use you for that character reference then. Astute and resourceful. Qualities many employers look for in the people they hire. However, I take it your reply affirms my theory, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And so now you are here without means of escape.”

  “Not entirely,” Jiang said. “But you’ll forgive me if I don’t divulge anything on that point.”

  “Of course. Still, while you’re here on Imraec Tarc, would you be interested in assisting in my schemes? After all, I take it that our long-term goals are aligned? Your investigation of this weapons smuggling is related to the problem of dealing with this world, yes?”

  “How do you know my goals aren’t entirely apolitical?” Jiang asked. “That I wasn’t just interested in bringing in those pirates back there?”

  “Because when I suggested we were here on a common purpose, you didn’t deny it. And because your question now doesn’t seem like a denial either. You’re being evasive. Deliberately non-committal. You’re intrigued but you don’t like the idea of working with me.”

  “I’ve hardly been evasive on that point at least,” Jiang said. “And of course I’m feeling non-committal. I’ve been thinking of your skill set the entire time we’ve been talking and I can only imagine the types of things you’re doing here. I take it that back at the landing pad you didn’t just kill the two pirates I saw. You killed the whole lot of them, didn’t you?”

  “Of course. The government here’s recruiting pirates to swell its navy. That’s one less group of them that’ll be signing up. And the corrosive agent I poured all over that ship’s engine compartment will prevent it from being used in the war effort any time soon as well.”