Mutiny on Outstation Zori (6 page)

"That's one of strangest parts of this whole assignment. I can't get a reading on Kleg Karr. He's shielded; his thoughts are hidden. It might be a talent he's acquired over the years to help him succeed as the pirate he is. Or it could be that parts of our mission are being withheld from you and I. Personally, I can't stand the man. But, as co-pilot, you're close to him. Let me know if you pick up on anything, will you?"

Jamie fought to keep his mind away from alarm. He had just been asked by this attractive terrorist to spy on the pilot, if not captain, of the ship. It didn't matter that Karr happened to be only as appealing and friendly as an armpit.

"I'll think…" Jamie said, "about it." He turned again to stare out at the distant stars. They looked back coldly, saying nothing.

"I'm sorry," Aura said, quickly. "I've compromised your position. Forget that I asked." She started to leave.

"No. I meant what I said. I'll think about it. You may be right, and we need to deal with this as best we can."

She nodded. "He's not necessarily a dangerous man; just a bent one."

Jamie chuckled at that and watched Aura move aft into the darkness. A bent pirate and a terrorist with an identity crisis. This had any HAVENset beat all to hell.

* * *

When he swung back into the ship's command center, assured now that Zaxt had not destroyed his baggage, Jamie found Kleg huddled on the deck down on his knees with three Qestan crew members. An odd rattling sound came from where the group had their heads together.

"Now, on the next roll," Karr said, "if you make your point; you win. Or if you get a seven or eleven. But any other number means you've crapped out."

One of the Qestans nodded and spoke in a deep, guttural voice. "Crapped out."

"That's right. You boys catch on quick. Now who wants to be the first to roll the bones?"

Jamie saw Aura step through the hatch and immediately grasp what was going on. The woman seemed to have a knack for coming into uncomfortable situations.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? The cords of her neck drew tight. "Get up!" she commanded.

Her followers jumped to their feet at the sound of her voice.

Kleg rose. His right hand was clinched, and his left held a fist full of deits.

The three Qestans bowed their turbans in shame.

"In a week, we arrive at FZ13," Kleg explained. "Got to pass the time."

"Get back to Engineering," Aura pointed aft, assuming a regal posture. Then she addressed Karr. "We'll have none of your Capitalistic thievery on this voyage. Not with my people!"

The three colorful Qestans slunk toward the hatch, as if were wired together.

"Hold on a minute!" Kleg raised an open hand. "Just who the hell's the Captain of this ship?"

Aura stepped toward him. "That's exactly the question running through my mind."

"Listen," Jamie said. "Do think that we might have just one hour of peace around here without..."

Devor used the interruption to affect an exit, throwing over her shoulder an acid comment about barbaric pirates and their relationship to the despised League of Merchants.

Kleg glared at Jamie. "Who asked you to butt in? I was just getting on her good side." He stuffed the deits into the breast pocket of his Imperial Admiral's dress tunic. The costume was open at the throat, exposing Karr's bare chest. The sleeves had been ripped off, but glittering epaulets, medals, and awards adorned its front.

It was an irrational uniform; one that begged an equally irrational comment from Jamie. "Where did you get that outfit, anyway?"

Kleg grinned broadly. "Won it in a dice game on Starhaven. The sucker wearing it claimed to be a cashiered Starmada Admiral. Although, I suspect that the closest he ever came to His Majesty, the Emperor, was as a Dental Officer."

Jamie felt his headache stronger again.

"I had the sleeves torn off," Karr went on, as a symbol of my honesty. Nothing up my sleeve. Get it?"

"What about behind your back?"

"That's pretty good, Clamber," Karr laughed. "After this is over, why don't you come see me about a job with my free-lancers?"

A graphic popped onto one of the command screens, but Jamie paid it no attention. Neither did Kleg.

"That's right." Karr did one of his growls. "Keeps the juices flowing. One for all and all for himself. Nothing at all like Aura's Neo-Communists."

The ancient political term was unfamiliar to Jamie. But another thought came to mind. "Have you and your boys ever been out in FZ5? Maybe doing a bit of raiding. Of freighters?"

The graphic on the comscreen began to flash.

Kleg drew himself up. "Maybe." Apparently he sensed some importance in Jamie's question. "I get around."

The comscreen began to beep faintly, at last drawing the captain's attention.

Jamie stored his suspicion away for the time being, as he peered over Karr's shoulder and read the incoming message from Turner Werch.

^**Outstation Zori reported having been taken over by an Outside Force. Suggest you proceed immediately with all caution. T.W.**^

"Only a guy as rich as Werch," Kleg said, "can afford to put periods behind his initials."

CHAPTER 5

As it developed, Jamie's headache was not the result of stress or tension, but the first signs of a terrible cold.

Since everyone else in the confined space of the
Dagger
was susceptible to the infection, Jamie had to wear one of those damn face masks that completely covered the lower portion of his face and supposedly prevented the spread of microbes. This only made him feel more miserable with aching sinuses, watery eyes, and sneezing that threatened to blast his mask across the compartment, if it hadn't been strapped to his head by an elastic band.

At first, he thought perhaps he was allergic to something on the ship, but the medcomp analyzed his blood and announced that he suffered from a strain of Terrian flu. Passing through hyperspace had been particularly painful, a kettle drum pounding in his head for days during the jump.

He spent the time studying the design of Outstation Zori and wondering about the "outside forces" that had taken over the installation. Zori was constructed in the child's toy, spinning top configuration similar to other Outstations throughout known space. The Imperium had built dozens of such research and transfer sites, in order to complete its communications web of Tachyon Beam Dictors in areas of space that were relatively empty. FTL communications was available through the use of tachyons, but the unique particle waves required boosting over long distances, and occasionally there was no convenient planetary mass in the wave's path. Thus, the need for an Outstation.

Zori measured 900 meters in diameter at its six-bay drydock area, located just below the sensor wells and control module. Its main shaft was slightly more than twice as long as the drydock disk, consisting of ten stacked levels, assembled one after the other along the central shaft, like random items on a shish-kabob skewer.

The widest element of Zori's design was the triple-armed extensions of its gravitic landing platforms. These flat up-facing pads functioned as parking lots for small craft of varying sizes. If a vessel needed extensive repairs, it could be taken into the docking bay, where standard pressure and atmosphere could be added around it to facilitate ease of access to exterior parts.

Zori's defenses, Jamie learned between sneezes, consisted of six laser cannons, two ion cannons, three matter-antimatter torpedo tubes and a huge plasma gun set in the lowest level of the central shaft, just below the storage silos.

Like all other Outstations, Zori orbited the galactic core and was fixed in relation to other stellar systems. Unlike other Outstations, Zori was not so much a traveler's waystation and vacation resort, as it was a research facility. Where other stations supported a complex TBD array at their tip, and bounced signals along to the next station in the chain, Zori hosted a bank of CCDscopes that peered deep into the Great Unknown, gathering micro-bits of information about the location of objects at the end of the universe.

Zori was different from most outstations ln one other significant way. Instead of guest modules branching out from its central shaft just below the gravitic landing pads, Zori contained a medium-sized military barracks. The station was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so the Imperium had decided it would make a good site for special training exercises and the cold storage of undesirable and dangerous materials.

The chances of dealing with the station's unusual condition—let alone of locating Cast or the missing Esper Shadow ships—dropped dramatically in Jamie's mind, when he learned of the high military contingent on Outstation Zori. Dealing with circumstances on the station would not be an easy task, especially in his current weakened condition. He would just have to tough it out, aches and pains and all.

Gradually the effects of his cold began to fade, leaving him with a mild muscular stiffness in his neck and shoulders.

Due to Jamie's illness, Kleg had begrudgingly taken to training a few of the Qestans in the rudiments of piloting a scout ship. Aura's followers seemed adapt at the finer points of spacemanship and navigation, and they showed an even stronger interest in the
Dagger
's programming.

One morning, a loud and nearly violent altercation occurred when Kleg discovered two of the colorfully clad Qestans busy stripping down the nav comp in an attempt to modify its motherbrain.

Zaxt had helped a sneezing Jamie re-install the programs and loose components. The Qestans were ordered to stay away from the command center without full supervision. Aura defended them by saying that they were only trying to improve what was obviously an archaic piece of equipment. The situation resolved itself, after Kleg with his clever dice games, won nearly every deit the Qestans had to their names.

As the ship neared FZ13, Karr prepared to activate the cloaking device and they all met in the lounge, gathered around a gametable to discuss strategy.

"I say we go on in and take advantage of the situation," Kleg announced.

"How?" Jamie asked. "We don't know what's going on over there."

"Exactly. There's never been an outstation taken over by 'outside forces,' whatever that means. It's possible they might be easy victims, under the circumstances."

"The problem is," Aura offered, "we have no idea what those forces might be. All communications have ceased, even though a localized scan of life-signs indicates that everyone is still on board."

Jamie wadded up his face mask. "How did word reach Turner that the station had been taken?"

"There was a transmission sent a little after we left Hyperion." Aura pointed at a data screen. "The message said that it contained the final communication from the residents of the Outstation. No reason was given for why this was considered final, and there has been no response to replies made since."

"So it's a terrorist attack or a rebel uprising from within," Karr suggested. "In that case, they'll need an outside contact to appeal their position and demands."

"I'm not so sure about that." Aura continued to study the screen. "They seem content to remain free of any outside contact."

"Well, they can't be self-supporting," Jamie said. "Are they?"

Zaxt displayed a series of graphs on his chestscreen indicating the relative ratio of reprocessed protein versus un-recyclable materials.

"That doesn't look good to me." Kleg stroked his hair with his staticomb.

"On the contrary," Zaxt commented. "I think Aura may be correct. If they're cautious and frugal, these individuals have a chance of remaining on their own for perhaps as long as a decade."

"That's absurd," Kleg sneered. "The Imperium will be out here pounding at their doors inside of a month."

"Why would these people chose to be secluded?" Aura mused.

"Why, indeed?" Jamie agreed.

"Maybe it's the Edorrians," Kleg suggested. Then he shook his spiked head. "Nah, those Edorrians are so gung-ho, they would have just nuked the place."

"Agreed," Aura reluctantly replied. "But it's possible that some other culture might have taken charge of the station. A culture we either are familiar with, or never encountered before. If it's one we're familiar with, it'll only be a matter of time before a ransom demand is made of the Imperium."

"Right," Kleg nodded. "And it'll only be another short time after that, before the Imperium responds with an attack fleet to take back their possessed or renegade outstation."

Jamie wandered over to the lounge view port and stared into the endless night as if he could see the Outstation hanging in the field of stars. "We shouldn't be here," he said, uneasily.

Aura looked up, frowning. "I hate to admit it, but I think Kleg may have a point. What if it's
not
a familiar alien culture that's in charge over there? What if it's something new…?"

"Then we shouldn't be here," Jamie answered.

"So," she said, turning to face him, "your suggestion would be to run. Cancel the mission, even after Turner Werch told us to proceed with all due haste."

Zaxt suggested, "He didn't clearly specify in which direction we were to proceed."

Kleg rose from the gametable and gave a mild growl. "He told us to proceed with caution. And, by the Imperial Exchange Rate, that's exactly what we'll do. Now who's for going over there and who's for staying behind?"

Jamie's only hope of finding Cast seemed tied to the decision. "Go."

"Go," the bot echoed.

Aura gestured a thumb at Zaxt. "He doesn't get a vote. And I'm still uneasy about all of this."

Kleg muttered in exasperation and sat back down.

The discussion went on for almost another twenty minutes, during which time it dawned on Jamie that, oddly enough, they were starting to function as a team. He would not have believed it possible before, but now Aura, Kleg and himself had begun to share goals and separate problems and work into manageable loads. They still argued more than necessary, but they kept at it, agreeing to set goals and, slowly but surely, accomplishing them...without anyone getting hurt.

Working together, they finally determined that Aura was best suited to take the ship's flitter over to the station, to investigate Zori's non-committal status. Her cover story would be that she'd been part of an archeological dig in the nearby Alpha Circini system, some eleven light-years away, and had spent the last week making the transit in the smaller vessel.

Jamie felt a twinge of concern that Aura might be fired upon, but Kleg agreed they could move the
Dagger
into a position to rescue her if need be. At first, it seemed like it would be a good idea to take Zaxt along, since his diplomatic abilities might help Aura. But Jamie pointed out that it would be difficult to believe that Aura just happened to have had such a bot with her on an archeological expedition.

In the end, the team's decision was the result of instinct and simple logic. Being a telepath, Aura could advise them of her impressions without resorting to the use of detectable radio waves. She also had years of experience dealing with intrigue and power-struggling factions. If there
was
an insurrection, or even an unknown alien culture working to exclude Outstation Zori from the rest of the Imperium, Aura would be the best person to have on point.

As they exited hyperspace and drew within ten thousand klicks of Zori, Kleg fully switched on the ship's cloaking device. Soon they were maneuvering toward their target.

* * *

Aura steered the flitter out from behind the
Dagger
's cloak and sent it on a direct course toward Zori. She knew that her tiny ship's image was massive enough to appear on the station's screens.

The team had positioned
Dagger
in such a way that it would help create the illusion that she had not originated from a cloaked space in the middle of nowhere. Instead, it would appear to approach from a direct path in line with a nearby small planetary system.

Aura guided her little ship manually, so as to eliminate the flitter's true source from the ship's black box. Then, she carefully programmed the com unit to initiate a hailing message and sat back to wait for a response.

The small vessel seemed eerie, empty and enormous. Before departing, she had considered bringing along a few of her loyal followers, but rejected the idea, not wanting to be perceived as a threat to whatever force had taken over the station. "If nothing else," she'd said, "a single person approaching from seemingly nowhere is bound to raise curiosity."

The station turned in her view, only a hundred-thousand meters away. She stepped up the gain on her com unit, as the flitter "knocked" on the huge construct's "door." The only response was a faint hiss. Her teeth were tightly clenched. "Come on. Give me an answer."

The lights in her small ship suddenly dimmed. She couldn't help but utter a slight gasp. The command control blanked. Fear rushed down Aura's spine. If they'd fired a particle beam at her, she'd be dead in the next few seconds.

The flitter abruptly changed course, slipping off to starboard without any input from her engines. A weak form of tractor beam repositioned her vessel relative to the rotating station.
They're taking me aboard
, she thought with relief.
They've decided to find out who I am rather than blow me away.

She mentally transmitted the sensation to the
Dagger
and got back a quiet encouragement from Kleg. Jamie offered another note of concerned warning to keep on her toes. Good idea.

The flitter rounded the lower edge of the Outstation's drydock, just below the bank of torpedo tubes. She was out of line with the weapon's trajectory now and knew for certain at long last that she would not be fired upon.

The small ship moved slowly into dry dock number three. A gravitic grapple locked on and held the flitter fast to the deck with a magnetic embrace. The outside hatch slid back into place and she was fully inside the belly of the whale now.

Aura again tried to use her com unit to signal the station, but received no reply. Perhaps everything was operating on automatics. But she remembered the life signs that had shown on the sensors, indicating that
someone
was inside; they just didn't like talking.

She popped the hatch on her ship, after the recycle signal on her control board turned green, and cautiously stepped out of the flitter. She expected, at any moment, someone would come through the station's inner hatch and take her into custody.