Infinity's End: Books 4-6, page 25
The ship had taken a lot of damage by those mines the species they called Andromeda set for them, and in the end it had nearly cost them everything. Had it not been for Zenfor stabilizing the undercurrent drive and Evie’s intuition in getting them out of that system they never would have made it. But now they were adrift again, after the engines had failed for the third time in less than two weeks. Thanks to Lieutenant Tyler and his team, Engineering had once again been repressurized. Sesster had taken his post again; they could only hope he’d be able to get them up and running.
If everyone would stop attacking them for five minutes.
Cas was determined to find out this guy’s agenda. He suspected he belonged to the same race of beings who had been strafing Tempest with their tiny craft for the past ten days. They would come in quick and take a few shots, getting close to the ship before taking off again, in their own undercurrents. At first it had been more annoying than anything, but now the ship was starting to take substantial damage and they couldn’t ignore the advantage of interrogating one of their would-be assailants.
Cas entered the brig with Rafnkell by his side and took stock of the creature before him. His skin was a mottled gray, but it resembled scales more than skin, with small plates overlapping each other all over his body. His eyes were large and dark, and he had small holes for ears on either side of his head. Only four fingers protruded on each hand with sharp claws at the ends and his heels were locked high, like his legs were built for running. He resembled one of the dominant species on Sissk, though he had no tail and his mouth was larger and full of sharp teeth.
The being regarded Cas with what he assumed was a genuine curiosity, but he was hunched on the bench inside the brig, unmoving. His clothes were old and patchwork, much like the ship they’d pulled into Bay Two, which was Cas’s next stop. But first, answers.
“What do they call you?” he asked, facing the creature.
“Vrij. Always Vrij,” he responded, his face animated as he spoke. “Y-you?”
Cas’s eyes narrowed. “Robeaux. What is your business with us?”
“No business. Only b-borrowing. I borrow to s-survive.” He shifted on the bench like he wanted to stand but couldn’t.
“It’s not borrowing. It’s stealing. You’re stealing vital components of our ship. Why?”
“No, only borrow. It will come back. Always c-comes back. I-in the end. I needed—my ship—running on low power. Jewel in s-space.” Vrij seemed more agitated, he was almost shaking on the bench.
Cas leaned over to Rafnkell. “Is the translator working properly?”
She took out a diagnostic device. “As far as I can tell.”
“Look, Vrij,” Cas said. “Stand up, you’re making me nervous jumping around like that.” Vrij shot up and approached the barrier separating them. He studied Cas, his movements jerky and uncontrolled before moving on to Rafnkell and performing a similar examination. Cas turned back to Rafnkell. “Was he in a suit out there?”
She shook her head. “Just what he’s got on now. I wish we were that tough.”
“No s-suit.” Vrij reached down to his belt. He removed a small orange canister not more than a few centimeters in diameter. “Skin curtain.”
“Skin curtain?” Cas bared his teeth. “What—?”
“H-hugs skin tight,” Vrij said. “Air supply. K-keeps the cold out, warm. Good for space.”
Now he understood. “We have something similar,” he replied, thinking of their repelfields. “But it’s only to keep out disease and protect against low-energy attacks. If we want to leave the ship we need full suits to protect us from the cold and vacuum.”
“Bulaq spend a lot of time in space,” Vrij said, replacing the canister. “Needed a b-better solution.”
Was Bulaq the name of his race? “You attacked us to get parts for your ship, yes?” Cas needed to get this back on track. He couldn’t be sidetracked by what was clearly advanced technology.
“Yes. Many thanks for your g-generosity. Repair Makumba. Keeps me alive.”
“No, you don’t understand. You can’t keep the parts. We need them for our ship.” Vrij’s face fell. “Your friends out there have been damaging our ship for ten days now. Why?”
Vrij growled a low frustration. “Other Bulaq are stupid. I a-am the only one s-smart enough to g-get close. Others waste energy. They are not Vrij’s friends.”
“Are you saying others of your kind want our supplies?” Cas asked. It was what he’d suspected. The attacks hadn’t been critical enough to do any real damage, more like test runs to see what they could get away with and see how much they could damage in a strafe. He’d surmised their plan was to wear Tempest down to the point where she couldn’t fend for herself anymore. Then they’d take her. And it wouldn’t be too far from the truth. What reserves they did have were dwindling.
“All Bulaq need supplies. But the others—stupid. Vrij clever. Get in close.”
“Not clever enough, you little bastard,” Rafnkell said. “Caught your ass, didn’t we?”
Vrij only eyed her. Cas couldn’t tell if it was with contempt or interest. But the alien brought his hands up so the ends of the claws on his fingers clicked together. “Did he have anything else other than those canisters on him?”
“Not that we saw.”
Vrij grinned in response. Cas decided he didn’t like that grin. “I’m going to look at his ship. See if we can figure out how to detect these guys before they appear out of nowhere. Then maybe we can get a weapons lock on them.”
“Good. Good for m-me. Takes care of c-competition,” the alien replied. “Let me go. No harm done.”
“No harm? Do you realize we have to go back out there and repair the damage you did from removing those power conduits?” Rafnkell accused, stepping closer to the barrier. Vrij took a step back, cowering.
“Easy fix. No problems. I can go. Won’t t-try to b-borrow again.”
Cas sighed.
Rafnkell turned to him, her eyes boring into him. “You can’t be thinking about doing it.”
He shook his head. “I’ll have to talk to the captain. See what she thinks. We can’t hold him forever.”
“Ugh.” Rafnkell turned and stormed off in a huff. Just as well. She needed to cool off and had other responsibilities. Like how they were supposed to execute such a delicate repair on the outside of the ship. Not to mention the sections where the mines had struck were still open to space.
“You n-need parts, yes? I can help,” Vrij said. “In exchange for f-freedom.” He made a strange motion with his hands, as if he were shooing away a small creature. “All the p-parts you could need. Good p-prices.”
“If they’re so good why don’t you just borrow from them instead of us?” This guy wasn’t going to be much help. He’d have better luck searching through the shuttle. Maybe if Tyler could spare someone they could get through it quicker.
“Vrij has no m-money. N-nothing to trade. Parts are good, but expensive. High security.”
Cas almost laughed. He was more than familiar with the problem. He’d talk to Evie, see how she wanted to handle their newest passenger. More than likely they’d let him go under the threat of disintegration if he ever came back. That was, if Uuma could get the weapons back up and working again. “Anything I should know about your ship before I go searching?”
That grin was back, the one that told Cas he wouldn’t like the answer. “N-no. G-go ahead. S-shuttle clear.”
Yeah, right. He should grab his old boomcannon before boarding shuttle. Maybe these Bulaq had no concept of subterfuge as it had to be the poorest lie he’d ever heard. Cas would need to do a few sweeps before boarding that ship. “I’ll be back later,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“No,” Vrij replied. “I’ll s-stay right here.”
Chapter Three
Exhausted from scanning the unending report, Evelyn Diazal ran her hands down her face, massaging the deep sockets that had become the receptacles for what was left of her eyes. Ever since their escape at Omicron Terminus it had been one thing after another in what could only amount to a slow cascade failure of every system on the ship. If it wasn’t the life support systems it was the propulsion. If it wasn’t propulsion it was the weapons. On and on. Those mines had done some major damage and she wasn’t sure Tempest could recover. At least not without a couple weeks or even a season in spacedock. They didn’t have the supplies out here to complete all the repairs on their own. The engineering section alone was a mess, with the adjacent sections on deck eleven still open to space from where one of the mines had nearly crippled them. They’d only managed to get Commander Sesster—their resident Claxian—back inside yesterday and the news hadn’t been good. They’d had to stop again because some of the raw fuel was leaking into an adjacent system. Which was both a curse and a blessing. A curse because they had to find a way to re-coagulate the material for use again and a blessing that it hadn’t just vented into space and been lost forever.
And then there were the attacks. They’d began just after they’d left what she and Cas had dubbed “Option C”, a possible planetoid that might have provided raw materials for the ship to use. But on the first trip down it had been clear the planet was too volatile to mine and they’d given up, returning to open space in hopes of finding a new source of materials. That’s when the first of the tiny ships appeared.
At first, they were nothing more than small points of light in the distance, studying perhaps. But after repeated communication attempts had gone unanswered (not that the comm towers were in the best of shape anyway) Evie had chosen to ignore them, in hopes they were nothing more than curious. Which, in hindsight hadn’t been the best decision. Every twelve hours since they’d send another one of their tiny ships to make runs against Tempest. And despite Lieutenant Uuma’s best efforts, the things were damn hard to hit. They had a scattering field which confused the sensors and made manual targeting the only option. When she finally would get a lock, they were back on their way out of the system, out of range. So far there had been fourteen attacks, not counting whatever Rafnkell found this morning. She checked the comm, Cas should have been back with the report by now.
Just as she moved to get up, the door to the command room chimed. “Enter,” she said, readjusting herself in the seat.
“Sorry,” Cas replied, walking in, data bar in his hand. His face was covered in sweat and his brown hair—which had grown shaggy since the attacks—was plastered against his skull. “That shuttle of his is damn hot. Took longer than I would have liked.”
“You talked to him?” Evie asked. Cas handed her the data bar which she tapped, bringing up a short report. It was brief but gave the basic information. So far Cas was turning out to be a competent first officer when he wasn’t worried about the chain of command. It had turned out to be a better situation than when he’d temporarily taken his commission back without a role. Then again no one’d had much rest in almost two weeks, and she didn’t expect anyone to care too much about decorum.
Cas brushed his shoulder, checking behind him. “You okay?” she prompted.
“Yeah. Fine. Just…really big spiders in that ship.” He shuddered.
She had to work to keep a smile off her face. “Arachnophobic are we?”
“No, I just… look, the shuttle’s got a level six barrier around it now. So they can’t get out. It could be a health issue. You never know what kind of diseases a creature like that might be carrying.”
“You mean in its fuzzy little abdomen?” She stifled a laugh. It was the best she’d felt all week.
“It’s not funny.” He checked his back again and took the seat across from her. It was so strange being on this side of the table. Usually she’d be on the other side, giving her reports to Greene.
“Anyway. He says he needed parts for his ship and considering the shape it’s in I’m not surprised,” Cas said. “I’ve seen better Sargan garbage scows. If it had made it another five light years I’d be surprised.”
“Does he know anything about any of the other attacks?” She turned the data bar off and setting it to the side.
“Claims not to. Called them a waste of energy. He might just be a scavenger, looking for a way to survive.”
“By poaching off us.” Evie shook her head. The worst part about this was being so cut off from the Coalition. The closest Coalition ship was at best almost two-hundred days away across an unexplored expanse of space. And that was if they could even call for help which, because of the damage to their long-range communication grid, they couldn’t. They barely had internal comms. So that meant they were all alone out here—something Evie wasn’t keen to advertise. Not to mention there was still the possibility the entire reason they’d come out here—the Andromeda aliens as the Coalition had called them—could still be close. Or they could be on their way to Earth already. It was impossible to know because they had some method of disguising themselves inside pockets of time. That’s how Cas had encountered them when he and some of the others had gone looking. And even though they had some limited information, Evie wasn’t sure it was enough to report back. They hadn’t discovered any weaknesses, only more strengths.
She sighed and stood, facing the large window behind the desk that looked out onto the obsidian tapestry of space. How had Captain Greene done it? And when would she be able to hand the job back over to him? She’d been happy to take over when he was injured, but this was nothing more than a temporary assignment. Just as Cas’s position was. When Greene was better, she’d retake her position as first officer and he could go back to doing whatever it was he did in his off time. She’d always wanted her own command. But not stranded and with the ship falling apart around her. Even further back in her mind were the twenty-two members of the crew they’d lost in the attack. For whom they still hadn’t managed to have funeral services for.
“Tough day?” Cas asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Smartass. I just don’t know how much longer we can keep this up. I’ve been thinking about emergency preparations. We already have people on rations and have diverted all the energy from non-essential parts of the ship to support our primary functions. But what else can we do?”
He shrugged. “We could cut power to the lower three decks and have people double up on their bunks. Save some energy there. Any maintenance could be done in an enviro-suit.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. It would conserve some energy at least. But they couldn’t limp along forever. At some point they’d need to find some source of raw materials and energy otherwise they’d have no choice but abandon the ship. And that wasn’t an option under her watch. She wasn’t about to have her first command ending in the loss of her ship. “I also want to lower our general power output as soon as we’re ready for another jump. I’m afraid we’re lit up like a bunch of fireworks out here and that’s how those ships keep finding us. If we can’t find a way to defend ourselves they’ll eventually wear us down.”
“That’s a good idea. I tried to find a way to use Vrij’s ship—”
“Vrij?” She arched an eyebrow.
“That’s what he called himself. I’m not sure the auto-vox is working correctly. But I couldn’t find anything on his ship that resembled the scattering field they’re using. Whatever it is, he doesn’t have one.”
“Great,” she said, her sarcasm seeping through. “The one ship we could have actually taken out and he’s dumb enough to try and peel parts off the ship. Did he give you anything else?”
Cas huffed, like he was holding something back. “I don’t know how reliable it is. He says he knows where to get the parts we need.”
She arched an eyebrow. “But?”
“But they’re expensive. If they exist at all. If it’s not a trap.”
She locked eyes with him. “What’s your feeling about it?”
He leaned back, taking longer to formulate his thoughts than she would like. Was this how she had been with Greene? She always gave him her honest opinion, even if it was hard to hear. She hoped Cas would do the same.
“I know you’re not going to want to hear this, but we need an ally out here. This is obviously an inhabited part of space. I think we find someone, bargain some kind of trade and get these assholes off our backs.”
He was right. She didn’t want to hear it. “That’s ironic, coming from you.” It was his turn to look intrigued. “You want to start your own little Coalition out here,” she added.
“I don’t have a problem with the Coalition when it’s founded on trust,” he replied. “Plus, it doesn’t need to be permanent.”
“And you think we could really trust someone out here? Someone we know little or nothing about? For all we know our guest in the brig could be a spy, sent by whoever has been taking these shots at us.”
“I said you wouldn’t like it.”
She walked around the desk, keeping her eyes on him. “Say we do find someone to ally ourselves with. What do we have to offer? We can barely stay afloat as it is.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have a clue. And we probably won’t know unless we try and find out.”
“And what if we end up attracting the wrong kind of attention? Say we seek out one of these species and they see us as nothing but an easy target to be captured. It seems to be the modus operandi out here.” She sat back on the edge of the table, crossing her arms. No matter how she looked at it, she didn’t like the outcome. There were too many variables and too many unknowns. Searching for an ally close to Coalition space was difficult enough, this far out and there was no telling what they were in for. There was a reason exploration ships didn’t come out here anymore: none had ever returned. She wasn’t sure how much this alliance idea appealed to Cas or if he was just making the suggestion to give her options.
