The Catalyst (Targon Tales) (4 page)

Drackon agreed absolutely but did not say so aloud. "Observe the next few minutes." He slowed the tape which now showed the incident from a different angle. The image brightened where their technicians had attempted to pick up additional details and zoom in on the subject. The creature slid from the broken tank and had crawled onto the woman. Its limbs seemed too slippery for her to free herself quickly. The recording slowed to a frame-by-frame display as one of the being’s limbs wrapped around her neck. Whatever happened next was clearly painful and they watched her body convulse and stiffen. One of the pirates jabbed the creature to push it away from the Human. The video froze and zoomed in further. They were now able to make out some sort of stinger or proboscis inserted into her neck, if only for a brief moment.

"This is not behavior previously observed among that species,” Drackon explained. "They are called Myrids but little is known of them. Sentient and presumably intelligent but they do not inhabit the sort of environment that would make interaction with any of our species easy or even necessary."

"You wouldn’t be showing this to me if she was among the dead," the Factor said. He returned to the table and took his seat again.

"No, Sire." The video skipped to another segment. A hallway again. This time they watched a tall man wearing a respirator, one of his hands around the woman's arm, the other holding a weapon. The woman was now also wearing a mask. The video froze and zoomed again.

"Who's that?"

"We have not been able to identify him in any of the video segments on which he appears. He took the woman off the ship. Private cruiser."

"Centauri, obviously." Taller and longer-limbed than the Humans standing nearby, the Centauri was most easily identified by the mild glow of his eyes which
Dyona
's cameras also faithfully recorded. But his black hair hung over his forehead as he kept his face tipped toward the floor to obscure his other features.

"Yes. He's avoiding the cameras on purpose. And he knew or suspected that the air was bad even before coming aboard, or at least shortly after. Other passengers were removed from the ship but this Centauri left with just with that one woman. These pirates are not above selling captives."

"Who is she?" The woman appeared to be Human, possibly Feydan. Her long hair was deeply red, her skin very pale - an unusual combination on sun-baked Feyd. Without the long skirt from the earlier scene, he saw a fit, long-muscled body that set her apart from the rest of the rabble aboard the ship.

"One of ours, actually. Nova Whiteside. Air Command, First Lieutenant. Decent record. Decorated. She did a hard tour on Bellac Tau and so she is cooling off on a six month skycop stint over Zera, monitoring rebel activity coming though the jumpsite from Pelion." Drackon let the video resume to show Nova and Seth rush toward the locks. "Both of them were able to leave the ship. From some of the segments, it appears that she did not go willingly."

"Where is the freighter now?" the Factor asked.

Drackon shrugged. "Unfortunately, when the rebels tried to take her to Magra they overloaded the intakes and caused a fatal chain reaction in the crossdrive. It happens. Some of those boats out there are decidedly unstable and in poor repair."

"Good thinking. And the box?"

"There was nothing useful to be salvaged from the tank. The sample was tainted and mostly oxidized by the time our techs arrived."

The Factor nodded. He tented his fingers and tapped them thoughtfully against his chin. "Those Delphian lab rats are becoming troublesome with their meddling. It’s pure luck that we were even made aware of the shipment. If they hadn’t asked for a secure transport, the damn box would be halfway to Naiya by now!"

"At least now we know for certain that they’re somewhere on Pelion. But we have other fail-safes in place before they get anywhere near Naiya," the Colonel assured him. "The breach to Naiya is heavily guarded by Tharron’s Shri-Lan rebels. No one can get through that sub-sector undetected."

Rellius looked like something disagreeable had left a terrible taste in his mouth. Tharron, the leader of an especially aggressive cadre of rebels with a considerable following, was becoming a force to be reckoned with. In most parts of Trans-Targon, so-called rebels were little more than freedom fighters who simply chafed under the growing influence of the Commonwealth. They had dealt with these conflicts ever since the first fleet arrived from Centauri over three hundred years ago. A little sabotage, some angry speeches, or sporadic violent confrontation often required little more than negotiations, compensation and the occasional military intervention to settle.

Tharron’s rapidly growing rebel faction, however, had turned into a militia force of worrying proportions over the past dozen years or so. The Shri-Lan had weaponry, planes, bases on the ground and even battleships captured from Air Command forays, financed through theft, drugs, smuggling, slavery and extortion. Their sabotage ranged to murder, kidnap and the destruction of entire towns on Union-friendly planets. Because of them, the Union’s Air Command was expanding at a phenomenal pace, taking up vast resources better used on civilian and commercial ventures. Rellius found the entire situation tedious. Expensive and tedious.

"The sooner we get out of that deal, the better," he said. "But I don’t suppose we have a better option at the moment. I want that place kept invisible until we can get a jumpsite charted and our claim to Naiya secured. Who better to keep everyone out of that sub-sector than a horde of murdering thugs, eh?"

"Sire, I still believe it would be better if we could train up our own people to take on these covert operations. If we increased our resource of agents by just a hundred, even, we would not have to rely on rebels and pirates."

"Out of the question. I’ll not have Union agents aware of our special projects. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take. Use the rebels, dispose of them when we no longer need them."

Colonel Drackon sighed. It was an old argument.

Rellius nodded as if Drackon had agreed with him. "How much longer will it take to stabilize the way to Naiya?"

"I’m afraid we’re weeks away from properly charting that jumpsite. The breach is little more than a common keyhole at this point. We’ve got several spanners working on the charts but I can’t spare any more without someone noticing that they’ve been reassigned. And until the jumpsite is stable we can’t start work on Naiya at all."

Rellius nodded. Invisible until mind and machine combined to delve into specific coordinates, a keyhole was little more than an unstable breach in normal space. It took a tremendous amount of energy and mental prowess to expand this breach and span the nothing within to reach the other side of the entangled equation. It had taken the mind of a Delphian to stumble upon this particular breach, just one among thousands, but the only one that led to Naiya. A planet covered almost entirely in water ash.

"And meanwhile those meddling beakers on Pelion are no doubt cooking up another batch of the catalyst at this moment."

“It may well be the last lab equipped to do so,” Drackon said. “We’ve eliminated a few others. I think we can assume it’ll take the Delphians a while before they can try again. We’ll find them before then."

"Good. Even the thought that such a catalyst exists is giving me nightmares. I want it gone. And I certainly don’t want any remainder of it in the wrong hands." He tapped the display controls to move back to a still frame of Nova in the creature's desperate embrace. "This is the part that worries me, Colonel. We might be looking at the wrong hands."

The officer nodded. "We have considered it. Is it possible? Could the Myrid have transferred the catalyst to that woman?"

"It could simply have been reacting to the situation. A sting or bite out of fear for its life. However, at this point we can’t assume anything. I cannot stress enough how much the water ash resources on Naiya mean to all of us here. We will not lose control of it, we will not hand that planet to our competitors, and we will not let that catalyst reach its destination. Nothing else matters at this point."

"Understood, sir. We have started our investigation. If she’s simply held by pirates she’ll find a way to come in. She’s proven her resourcefulness in the past. If she’s in rebel hands we may have a more difficult time locating her if she's still alive."

The Factor shook his head. "I don’t want her located. I don’t want her to come in. For now we will report her lost with her team on the freighter. You will make sure the story turns out to be true. Then you will finally find the Delphians that started this whole nonsense and eliminate them, too. It’s time we cleaned house. I want that catalyst wiped out of existence."

"Sire, the Lieutenant is the daughter of Colonel Tegan Whiteside. There will be questions, perhaps additional investigations. She is not a common soldier."

The Factor turned. "
That
Whiteside?" He took a deep breath and released it slowly. "All right, let’s leave your people out of this. I’ll assign one of my own staff to her. Let Pe Khoja know what you need once you locate her."

"Yes, sir," Drackon said gratefully. Unwritten in the more shadowed policies guiding the Union, only the Factors’ private agents, proxies by any other name, could carry out the order that Rellius had just given. Only the Ten Elected Factors, the absolute governors of the Commonwealth of United Planets, wielded the sort of power that would give them the authority to remove an Air Command officer without tribunal. These proxies, who did not officially exist on any Union roster, were the means to cut quickly and cleanly through the mire of politics, red tape and public opinion that would otherwise grind their government to a halt. It was a good system, he thought, as long as you weren’t on the wrong end of the gun sight.

Chapter Four

"I don't suppose you have some clothes I could borrow?"

Seth looked up from his reader when Nova entered the main cabin after having slept for so long that he, beginning to worry about the effects of the water ash, had checked more than once to assure himself that she was still breathing. "Ah, it's awake. I was beginning to think I'd have to make breakfast myself."

"Well, don't expect me to." She perched bleary-eyed on the edge of the lounger. "I don't think I slept at all. Why is your ship so noisy?"

He looked around the silent cabin. The only sounds were the ventilation system, little more than a soft whirring noise from the overhead vents, and the usual blips and squawks from the cockpit as he monitored nearby transmissions. The crossdrives had been powered down since he had set the Dutchman into a high orbit above Aikhor. Not even the music that usually accompanied his days aboard the ship was playing today.

"Take whatever you want in the cabin," he said. "Something there should fit you."

She nodded and rose again. "Neatness was never your greatest virtue," she mumbled, surveying the interior of the ship. "How do you find anything?"

"Did you want to express gratitude for my hospitality or just comment on my housekeeping?"

She waved a hand tiredly and returned to the sleeping cabin.

When she emerged again she seemed a little more alert. Seth handed her a strong cup of tea laced with a mild stimulant made of some sort of bean. "I see you found my favorite shirt."

She sipped the drink, sighing when she felt a soothing warmth move through her limbs. She had topped the loose black shirt with a long vest made of intricately knotted leather strings that she suspected was made on Shaddallam and worth a small fortune. A leather belt was casually roped around her waist a few times to gather the shirt, somehow imbuing the outfit with femininity and style.

"It looks better on you, I think," he added.

"Thank you. When are we landing?"

He raised an eyebrow. "In a hurry? We can go down any time. You should eat something first. The food there isn't any better than what I have on board, believe me."

"What is that place?"

"Aikhor?  It's a dump. Frontier no-man's land but it's right in the middle of a few crucial jumpsites. We'll head to Magra in the morning. I have to tell you that the only female things that aren't native here are rebels or hookers." He inspected her with exaggerated appreciation. "Given your choice of attire, I see you’re not a working girl."

She sneered at him. "I want a gun."

"Of course you do." He went into the ship's galley and rooted around a few bins. He found a tray that looked like it hadn't been in there for too long and inserted it into the heater. There was a ledge by the galley with two tall stools and she came to perch on one of them. "I'm afraid we'll have to stay overnight,” he said. “By the time we get down there we won't find a mechanic. I ripped two pogs when we left the freighter. That’s going to take some time to replace."

"I want to send a message," she said.

"Oh?"

"My father will have heard about the attack on the
Dyona
. He'll be worried. So would be my CO I want to let them know I'm on my way back."

"You can send a packet from Aikhor. Not from this ship. I don't want it tagged. Besides, last time your father caught us holding hands he promised to transfer me to Chitta Moor to shuttle miners for the next three years. I remember that well. You might not want to tell him that you're aboard my ship."

"I think the report Archer sent was about more than just holding hands." She watched him pull the tray back out and peel the lid back. "So are you really a rebel?"

He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cough. "I thought I was a pirate."

"You're no pirate."

"If you thought I was a rebel you would have shot me yesterday. It's how you Air Command types deal with them. You don't ask questions and you don't have tea, first." He handed her the tray.

She inspected, with trepidation, the stringy bits of something floating in a gray mash. Nutritious, wholesome and not likely to offer anything remotely resembling flavor. "Let's just say I'm not sure you're
not
a rebel."