A Hope For Tomorrow, page 21
“I’ve definitely seen him before somewhere,” Tim replied, returning his gaze to the man he recognised. “I’m sure I know someone that’s tried to catch him. Someone in one of the other warden departments.” He screwed his face up in thought, “I just can’t remember which one.”
“I could capture and interrogate him for you,” Tetriana suggested. Tim glanced around.
“That.” he paused, “Would be a bad idea,”
While Tim and Tetriana were engrossed in their discussion, Susan was busy buying drinks and Jack was distracted looking at someone else over the other side of the large, bustling room. Tongues and Elios, it seemed, had used this opportunity to rekindle their argument. As a result of something Tongues had said, Elios finally had enough and grabbed Tongues by the collar, lifting him off the floor with surprising ease. Tongues shrieked, attracting the attention of several people seated nearby. A Terineti couple, who just happened to be passing at the time, dropped the tray they were holding causing both Jack and Susan to drag the squabbling pair apart.
“You know if you weren’t able to resort to violence, I’d win!” Tongues spat tearfully.
“Yeah, well, welcome to real life, ya know-it-all,” he retaliated. “There always is more to it than words.”
“Elios,” Jack hissed.
At the same time Susan barked, “Tongues!” Elios and Tongues glowered at each other with almost identical hurt expressions.
“Sorry, Captain,” Elios said, slowly and just a little sarcastically.
“Sorry, Doctor,” Tongues begrudgingly mimicked.
“Good boys,” Susan nodded, softening slightly. “Now, since neither of you have been on a service station before, I realised that you would probably never have encountered Synthia’s.”
“What?” said Tongues.
“Huh?” said Elios.
“Exactly. They’re one of the largest drinks companies in the galaxy, and there’s a branch in pretty-much every service station in the Republic. They pride themselves on being able to synthesise hot drinks that taste as good as they would if they were made from natural ingredients. They don’t quite manage it, of course, but, well, you should try some. See what food and drink tends to be like outside of spaceships or slums.” She handed them each a disposable cup filled with frothy, strong-smelling liquid.
Elios judged it suspiciously. It smelled a little like coffee, but not like any coffee he’d ever smelled before. He took a sip.
“No bad,” he nodded. “A bit too sweet, maybe, but I’ve drank a lot worse.”
“Drunk,” Tongues corrected, before downing most of his own and almost immediately half-spitting, half-regurgitating it back into the cup. Elios made sure not to let his joy of what he only assumed was karma show.
“OK,” Susan nodded sympathetically as she took the cup from Tongues and patted him on the shoulder. “It looks like Tongues’s body reacts badly to synthesised lattés. Good to know for the future.”
Jack sighed and glanced back to the part of the room he’d been monitoring earlier, but he couldn’t see the people he’d been looking at any more. He frowned, and turned back to the group.
“I don’t suppose you recognise that guy over there?” Tim asked him, pointing out the handsome man in the dark suit. Jack shook his head.
“Doesn’t fire a neuron,” he replied. “Friend of yours?”
“No,” Tim answered. “But I think he may be the enemy of a friend of mine.”
“Hmm,” Jack grunted, catching sight of a tall, limber man moving through the crowd not far from the man Tim had pointed out. He was headed vaguely towards them. Jack thought quickly. “OK,” he whispered quietly enough that only Tim and Tetriana could hear him. “There’s a man, white shirt, brown trousers, tan coat, headed roughly towards us at about your one o’clock. Make anything of him?”
Tim and Tetriana turned trying to appear like tourists looking around and spotted the man.
“Not really,” Tim admitted. “Looks a little out-of-place though. Why?”
“Not long ago, he was across the other end of the room, talking to another man and a woman. I think I saw the woman glance deliberately in our direction. We made eye contact, briefly.” He paused, gesticulating in a juxtaposed way to the conversation, clearly trying to hide the true nature to any onlooker. “You ever get the impression someone was sizing you up?”
“All the time,” Tim replied quietly. “It happens as a warden. You think he’s security? Or government? He’s got no uniform.”
“The Gate employs special operatives,” Tetriana supplied. “They are said to be hand-picked and privately contracted. They were often the alternative if the military option ever failed.”
“Have you ever known them to do so?” Tim asked.
“I have never known the military option to fail, if that is what you are asking.” Tetriana replied curtly, prompting a shocked eyebrow raise from Jack. “And it has never been my place to speculate about failure.”
“Hate to point out how we got here. But if you had to speculate about special operatives?” Tim prompted. Tetriana sighed towards him, a little irked.
“I have heard loose talk that they are significantly less professional. They clean up all their problems by killing and destroying everything linked to the problem in question. It is said that they are stationed all over the galaxy and perform missions of the most covert nature, answering directly to the highest most rungs of the Gate, not the government.”
“The assassin network,” Jack said, ominously. “I’ve heard similar tales myself. I think I’ve even seen some of their work. I think I’ve personally known some of their problems.”
“What’s the matter?” Susan asked, anxiously moving closer to the trio. Jack nodded sideways to the approaching man so as not to draw attention.
“Nothing yet. But things might be about to get much, much worse. Tetriana, do you think the Gate had assassins set up to follow us if you failed?”
“Captain Singer was fighting with our superiors in the Gate. She did not give any details, but it is possible her failings to find you were being highlighted further up the chain.” Tetriana pondered aloud. “But, if the Gate had assassins already assigned, they were planning for us to fail.” Her tone was now one of annoyance again, the idea the Gate would not have complete faith in Singer and her crew, was never something she had previously had to contemplate.
“Could they have found us already?” Tim asked, now growing more scared. “Could he be one of them?”
“It is possible,” Tetriana admitted. “If they had better resources with which to track you than Captain Singer had.”
“I think they probably do,” Jack said, exchanging a look with Susan.
“However,” Tetriana continued, “the fact that we have seen him means these men are unlikely to be Gate trained operatives. When the Gate wishes to be secretive, it succeeds. When it does not wish to be secretive, it does not send special contractors, it sends people like myself. For now, I think we can assume safety.”
Jack nodded, breathing heavily but with a sense of relief. Susan turned back to check on Tongues and Elios. Tim scratched his cheek and opened his mouth to say something to Tetriana.
A woman sitting alone at a table near the approaching man pushed her chair out, stood up and made to barge past the man. The man’s head did not waver from facing directly forwards, but his arm shot out straight to the side, catching the woman in the face so that her head was snapped to the side. There was a blur of movement as he placed a second hand on the side of her face, he appeared to guide her back to her seat. The woman’s head lolled oddly as she slumped limply into the chair.
Tim and Jack swore simultaneously. Tetriana blinked. The rest of the tables and servers either didn’t notice or didn’t want to get involved in whatever was happening.
“Susan, get these four back to the Elismere and arrange to have her leave immediately. I’ll contact the crew and get them back here. Everyone try to look natural,” Jack ordered immediately, and Susan, Tim and Tetriana lost no time in turning to walk back the way they had come, Susan urging Elios and Tongues along in front of her, urgently silencing their protests.
Although no one noticed him talking, the tan-coated man spoke carefully into a hidden communication device without even moving his lips enough to be picked up.
“They’ve seen me. They’re on their way. Expect the ship on the move within five. All of them in one shot, as expected.”
The Elismere, Republic Space
The Elismere ship herself seemed on edge as she undocked from the R3 and made her first jump. She could outrun and outmanoeuvre almost any ship out of almost any catalogue, but assassins of this calibre did not tend to use ships that could be found in any catalogue. They were colloquially known as Ninjas. Super-fast, highly advanced ships, with the kind of weapons even the best loophole lawyer could only get by illegal means. With cloaking technology so ingenious the only way to tell where they were was to look in the direction from which you were being shot. By which time it was almost always too late. Those who knew of their existence kept their mouths shut, and those who didn’t keep quiet were branded mad and often disappeared.
Nothing conventional could outrun a Ninja, and no ship had ever been known to survive a fight with one. It was simply suicide. The only hope was to confuse them and even that would only hold them off for a while. The ship came out of FTL, executed a dangerously imprecise 320° turn and jumped again. Everybody on-board at least flinched. Jenny shook her head for a moment to clear it before launching herself back into a series of rapid navigational calculations. Elios staggered comically into a wall, and Tongues simply yielded to the unfamiliar sensation and collapsed sprawling on the floor. Tim didn’t seem to notice much. He was busy running something on a hand-held warden-issue computer.
“I don’t believe it!” he yelled, frustrated, when the thing in his hand bleeped. Those not otherwise occupied turned to him. “That guy on the rest station,” he hissed. “The one I recognised. It’s Jarett Pastornak. Possibly the only person ever to anger the Galactic Police’s Illegal Trading Department more than the Federation!”
“You obviously don’t have our full record,” one of the crew muttered half chuckling. Tetriana, however, was clearly more interested.
“What does he trade in?” she asked.
“People,” Tim paused, his face growing queasy, “Girls, mostly,” he said with distaste handing Tetriana the full report. A sudden heavy chill fell over the room as several of the surrounding crewmembers went very quiet. There was the slight judder of another FTL jump sequence.
“I say we go back,” insisted Tetriana. “He is a sitting duck. We have someone with the authority to arrest him. For all we know, no one will have a chance like this again for years.” Nobody answered.
“Why,” Tongues stuttered, “why girls?” he finally asked, his brow furrowing as he tried to keep up. Again, nobody answered, this time for a different reason.
It was Elios who eventually replied, shaking slightly with the visible effort of containing his own anger. “How could you not know,” he spat the words with a kind of knowing disgust, staring down at Tongues, “you aren’t possibly so much a know-it-all and not know the basics!” He hissed, appearing to try and coax Tongues on.
Tongues stared, blankly, then frowned. Behind him, a couple of crewmembers winced. Even Tetriana’s face twitched a little as the boy’s expression changed, his mind drawing connections that he’d never had reason to draw before. His mouth opened, but nothing was said. He gestured slightly, as if to protest or object, but found no words. Disgust, horror, rage and despair battled on his face for control of his expression. Finally, he threw his head back and screamed a volley of obscenities into the sky.
“We must go back,” he spat, and purposefully fled the room.
“Thank God,” Jenny muttered once the door had closed behind him. Tetriana shot a look at the back of her head and left, Tim following. There was silence, broken only by occasional grunts of discomfort as the manoeuvres continued.
“Tom Childe’s aunt was taken by slavers,” Adrian noted eventually, his hands almost blurring across controls as he constantly adjusted the Elismere’s ECM in an attempt to keep her invisible to even her own sensors, and hopefully those of the Ninja’s in pursuit.
“Who’s Tom Childe?” Elios asked.
“Someone whose aunt did not deserve to be taken by slavers,” Adrian replied.
Tetriana and Tim found Tongues sat in a corner, rocking slowly back and forth, clutching Moncello, who for his part at least looked slightly more sympathetic than usual. They exchanged glances and approached him slowly. He sniffed.
“Val sometimes had trouble walking,” he said, just on the verge of audibility. “I mean, she was bruised all over, so I never thought anything of it, but,” he sniffed again, tears now slowly wandering down his face. “They were trying to make her less happy. They tried everything. Everything.” Tetriana and Tim exchanged a pained look. Tongues looked up at them. “What did they do to her?” he whispered. Neither could answer, not through lack of knowledge. “What did they do to her?” he wailed. Tetriana’s hair slowly faded into a deep orange colour. Tim stepped forwards and gently embraced him. Moncello gratefully slipped free and scampered off to find Elios.
Eventually, Elios walked in. There were occasional grunts of concentration from behind him as the crew tried to stay one step ahead of an enemy that had already apparently prepared for the next three steps.
“The cap says the crew would like to go back, but they’re all needed to keep us alive right now,” he said, with a half-shrug.
“I understand,” Tim said, obviously dejected, but hiding it well.
“Good,” replied Elios, producing his transporter.
“What are you doing?” Tetriana asked.
“I told you. The crew want to go back, but they’re all busy. So we’re going instea—” The entire ship shuddered, cutting Elios off. Alarms were howling as she dropped out of FTL well before she should have.
Jenny’s voice came over the intercom. “All hands, brace for evasive action!” Sudden motion threw the four across the small hold they were standing in as the Elismere spun faster than her gravitics could handle, and she jerked as her shields took a glancing hit and died.
Jenny peeked at her sensor boards and swore vilely as she threw the Elismere into another series of wild manoeuvres, crackling beams of light lancing through her flight path as she spun through multiple axes to avoid them. “Adrian, find out how they pulled us out of FTL. I know it’s possible, but I want a defence against it,” she reeled off, eyes never leaving her console as the Ninja came into view in their forward display. It was a hazy, inconsistent shape visible at all only because it had just expended so much energy in hauling another vessel out of FTL. “Glen! Weapons!”
“Still offline due to that uncontrolled downsync. And even if we had them, they have a defensive field that makes our energy weapons useless.”
“The next one we run into, I want them in pieces,” Jen growled. “Salvage rights bypass technological restrictions.” A waterfall diagram built on her display, showing the estimated charging cycle of the Ninja’s weaponry as analysed by EVI. She tapped her comm again. “Brace for jump, this might be bumpy.”
“Jen,” Adrian said worriedly, “what are you doi—” Adrian started before being ruthlessly cut off by his sister.
“Dealing with this problem. Just pray our calculations are correct.” A warning flashed up on one of her screens and her hands danced over the keys below it, sending another message to every screen on the bridge:
FTL SAFETY PROTOCOLS DISABLED
Jen’s eyes narrowed on the scrolling meter showing the distance between the Elismere and the rapidly approaching Ninja as the waterfall diagram at the side of her display peaked. They were only alive now because these assassins could generally afford to wait for a guaranteed kill shot. That and the fact the earlier attack hadn’t killed anyone. Which was likely just to tire her out. With a bit of luck, the Ninja’s tactical complacency would last long enough for Jenny to take advantage of it. It wasn’t much, but it was the only chance the Elismere and her entire crew had.
Jenny flung the Elismere up onto a wingtip, spinning up out of the line of fire as particle beams and mass drivers spat death, a distraction while the Ninja’s main weapon recharged. The fire hissed at the edge of her frantically rebuilding shields for a heart-stopping moment, but then she was out of arc and on top of her foe. The Ninja fired. Jenny hit the jump drive.
The Elismere vanished in an indescribable surge of colour unrecognisable to the human eye as she flashed into FTL. Unfortunately for the Ninja, she was just a little too close.
The prow section of the Ninja’s hull warped, metal seeming to flow inwards like a fluid. A fluid that was rapidly leaking, crumpling into nothingness as the edge of the Elismere’s drive field pulled it out of synch with the rest of the universe. It crumpled further, solid metal screaming a silent protest through the emptiness of space. Armour and personnel suddenly pulled into hyper as alarms screamed throughout the vessel. Blast doors coming apart even as they slammed desperately shut against the encroaching vacuum. Atmosphere poured in torrents from the front of the Ninja vessel, the outward deluge of gases sending bodies bouncing down the corridors into open space. For a second, everything seemed suspended in this tortured vision of Hell.
And then the hyper field’s effect vanished, and the ship’s overpowered structural integrity field pulled the section of hyper that had been its hull back into normal space. The resulting eruption of energy was so violent that it scarcely could have been called an explosion.
“OK, what the hell was that?!” Elios shouted at the first crewmember through the door.
“Not entirely sure myself,” the crewmember replied, brusquely. “At a guess, the assassins can somehow disrupt hyper, gravity manipulation maybe, or some sort of quantum flux, long enough to pull us out of FTL for a bit. We’ve corrected the issue and returned to our evasive pattern.”
