Jason King: Agent to the Stars 1: The Enclaves of Sylox (19 page)

But then
another
alarm sounded. I looked to my board for the source but didn’t see it. The obnoxious sound continued.

“What’s that?” Miranda asked.

“I don’t know. It should be showing on my board—”

Just then I noticed a flashing yellow light below the dashboard, near the controls to the vent aperture. I brought up the appropriate display on my screen.

“Damn, the vent wasn’t designed to handle such an outpouring of gas, at least not through this one alone. There are eight vents, but I’m only using the one.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m going to have to reduce the airflow before it—”

The last word of my statement was punctuated by a loud bang, followed by an incredible surge of the ship to port. Miranda and I strained against our seatbelts as the vent blew and the entire contents of the ship’s atmosphere raced off into space in one gigantic fart.

The blast only lasted a moment before there was no more atmosphere to dump, and then weightlessness returned.

“What now? Do we still have a way of changing course?”

I looked at the nav screen again, but this time I couldn’t see the yellow line, just the red one with a pronounced curve to it from moments ago, but now running perfectly straight. I widened the screen view and found the yellow line again.

Well I’ll be damn; the sudden burst had changed our course all right. In fact it had jerked us about one hundred fourteen degrees to starboard, sending us almost backwards in an oblique kind of way. This was better than I could have imagined. Such a turn would place us in an area of space beyond even a full right turn. It would take a miracle now for our hunters to find us.

I unbuckled and drifted out of the seat. “Stay here,” I commanded. “We’ve managed a radical course change so we should be safe, at least for now. The problem is the hull was breached when the vent blew out. I need to repair it before we can start making atmosphere again. Just relax; this will take about an hour.”

True to Miranda’s nature, she didn’t obey. Instead, she unbuckled her safety harness, attached one of the spacesuit’s safety cords to the top of the copilot’s seat and began to float freely within a three foot radius above the seat. She closed her eyes and her slight smile told me she was feeling the joy of weightlessness. I didn’t protest. If she was like a lot of first-timers in zero-g, she’d be asleep in a matter of minutes and no longer a nuisance. What a relief that would be.

Chapter 27

By the graces of whatever gods there may be in the universe, Miranda slept for almost four hours before I saw her spacesuit begin to gyrate. I had fixed the hole in the hull and replenished the atmosphere, and was now sitting on the couch, dressed comfortably in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt while munching on an energy bar. An episode of
The Big Bang Theory
had just gone off on my laptop datapad, and I had just started another. After all, I had to do something to feed my addiction to Kaley Cuoco in short-shorts.

Unfortunately that was not to be, because Miranda suddenly threw off her helmet and began screaming – again.

“Damn you, King! My oxygen could have run out and I would have died. Of course, that’s what you want to happen anyway.”

I looked from Miranda to the frozen image of Penny now paused on my screen, and then back to Miranda. At the moment, she was right, but in the long run, I preferred her alive. I shut down the datapad.

“You were safe. The suits have about eight hours of oxygen; besides all sorts of alarms would have gone off beforehand.”

We were still in zero-g, drifting through space on minimal energy, so it was almost comical to watch Miranda wriggle out of her suit in midair. She was panting, with beads of sweat on her tanned brow by the time she finished, now dressed only in a sports bra and grannie panties. Still, she was an amazing figure to behold, and the whole episode reminded me of a parody of the movie
Barbarella,
with a young Jane Fonda stripping out of her spacesuit to the opening credits.

Miranda eventually pulled herself down to a nearby chair and strapped in. “What are you staring at, pervert?”

“Actually, a spoiled child who doesn’t appreciate the fact that someone just saved her life.”

“Bullshit, Jason, you only made things worse. If you hadn’t come along, I would have had the statue cut down by now and I’d be on my merry way, safe, sound … and fabulously wealthy.”

“See, that’s the child in you speaking. There are just too many parties out to either stop or silence you. In reality, your time left was numbered in days, if not hours. At least until I came alone. And if you had cut down the Stone, then that would have started a war that you would have been held responsible for. You may have had a sack full of diamonds by then, but with no one willing to pay you a cent for them and not a place in the galaxy for you to hide.”

I saw the anger welling up in her, even more than before. But I wasn’t finished. “Are you really that self-centered that you can’t see what’s going on here? You’ve been set up – we both have. We’re just a couple of insignificant pawns in a galactic game of chess. We’re expendable, and those ships out there are out to do just that. And that’s not all. How many others do you think are waiting for us from here to Sylox? They know our destination, and the deadline I’m working under. This little maneuver of mine was only a delaying tactic. It in no way has saved us.”

“So why not just call someone and turn the statue over to them – in exchange for our freedom?”

“Who would I call? Who do I trust?”

“What about your friend at the CIA?”

“He lost his job, thanks to me – or more correctly – thanks to you. Besides, the Humans are being blamed for the theft. For the CIA to suddenly show up with the statue would only confirm their beliefs.”

“What about Mark, Mark Wilson?”

“Again, you’re missing the point. The Humans
cannot
return the statue, period. We’ll be accused of having had it all along.”

“Then your goofy alien friend, Bob or Bill, or something dumb like that.”

“Bill,” I answered. Now that wasn’t such a bad idea. “I could try that, but we’d still have the problem of meeting somewhere. And as one of my closest friends, he may be under surveillance, too.”

“Okay, then,” Miranda said, her eyes growing wide and emphatic, “We could just give up and die, way out here in the middle of nowhere outer space.”

I brushed off her sarcasm, and then using the datapad on my lap, I accessed the ship’s comm system and sent a continuous wormhole link to Sylox and Bill’s private number. Even though we were still two hundred light-years from Sylox, I knew that if he answered we could talk with each other as if he was sitting at the other end of the sofa.

**********

To my relief, Bill answered almost immediately.

“My Captain, where are you?” Bill said once our images synced. “It seems as though the whole of the galaxy is looking for you.”

“For now, my friend, I think it best if you don’t know where I am. But I want you to know that I’ve recovered the statue from the person who actually took it, and I even have her here with me.”

“So it was your friend Miranda?”

“She’s not my friend?”

“Well, it appears on every broadcast and alert bulletin in the Union that the two of you are a pair. I’m afraid even the government of your own planet has also joined the effort to find you and bring you both to justice.”

“I didn’t take the damn statue!”

“It appears to mean very little what you claim. At the most, your proclamation is only worthy of a few words near the end of the occasional broadcast. I’m afraid that if you are not found – and your planet is not absolved of responsibility – that there will be a catastrophic event with regards to Earth. There will be war, and the way it is trending, the only path to prevention may involve the destruction of your homeworld as a concession.”

I turned and glared at Miranda, who had suddenly turned sheepish.

“That’s why I need to get the statue to you, Bill.”

“Me?”

“That’s right. You’re a disinterested third party who can help broker a deal that will put an end to all this. In a way, I’m handing you the opportunity to become the most famous Zorphin alive.”

I saw Bill smile. I knew him well enough to know that the civil servant had ambitions far beyond his current position as a Transit Minister. If this actually worked, then the name Billork Kly Gon-Mok would indeed become known throughout the galaxy, and more than just a mouthful of letters.

“Then I will accept this responsibility; when can you bring the statue to me?”

“Well, it’s not that easy. We’re not on the planet, and there are presently five starships – probably a lot more – out here trying to stop us from making it back.”

I saw a cloud pass over Bill’s green face. “And if I acquire the statue, then they would be after me, too?”

“If they know you have it,” I answered honestly. “And that’s why we need to make sure no one knows you have it until after you’ve cut the deal.”

Bill hesitated a long time before replying. “How do propose you deliver the statue to me?”

“It will have to be off-planet. Everyone’s expecting us to return directly to Sylox. That can’t happen. Can you get a ship, a fast one?”

“I am a
transit
minister, Jason. That should not be a problem.”

I unbuckled from the sofa and drifted into the back bedroom for a little more privacy. I winked at Miranda just before sliding the pocket door closed behind me. I turned my attention back to Bill. “Good, then this is what I’d like you to do….”

**********

After speaking with Bill I drifted out of the bedroom and over to the pilotseat. Since we were now well out of the search grid, I activated the gravity drive and the internals. Even then I steered the
Enterprise
completely away from Sylox.

Ten minutes later Miranda slipped into the seat next to me. We sat in silence for another two before she finally couldn’t take it any longer.

“So what’s your plan, hotshot?”

I smiled. “I could tell you … but then I’d have to kill you.”

She grimaced. “I bet you’ve been waiting all day to say that. So really, what are you up to?”

“I asked Bill to meet us outside the Sylox system, at a place where I can give him the statue.”

“What’s so secret about that that? That was my idea to begin with. Where’s this special place?”

“It’s near an accretion disk created by a black hole feeding on a white dwarf. It’s near an area of restricted space surrounding a secret military installation of some kind.”

“You’re taking us close to a military base, why?”

“Look at it this way, if you’re going to meet someone for a handoff – and you’re expecting a lot of bad guys to be around causing trouble – what better place to meet than outside a police station? In our case, if a lot of ships show up to stop us, the military will notice and send out units to investigate. They were on our asses in nothing flat. If that happens, then we might be able to escape in all the confusion.”

“And what if the military decides to join those trying to stop us?”

“If that’s the case, then I’ll turn the statue over to them and let the bad guys try to do something about that. Shooting on a military vessel might not be the best course of action for them to take.”

“Now all we have to do is get to this secret location without getting ourselves killed.”

“Correct-a-mundo, sweet-cheeks. But with the speed of the
Enterprise
, I’ll take the scenic route. We should still get there with a day to spare.”

“The
Enterprise
… really? You named your starship
Enterprise
? You haven’t grown up much, have you?”

“At least I don’t go around stealing other people’s property.”

There was an awkward silence for a few moments after that exchange. And then Miranda snorted. “In the meantime we have to share this tiny motorhome-in-space.”

“Relax, sweetheart. You’re just going to have to control your animal lust for me, no matter how hard it will be.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, dork.”

“So, Miranda, when did you first decide to ruin my life? What did I ever do to you? And the poor Wilson family; it takes a really sick mind to pretend to be a relative just so you could hitch a ride to Sylox.”

“What do you mean
pretend
? I
am
a relative.”

“Cut the crap, Miranda. None of them even knew you existed until four months before the trip.”

“And I didn’t know them either, not until I was told.”

“Told what?”

“That I had an unknown cousin.”

“Who told you?”

“Mark did.”

“Wilson?”

“That’s right. He contacted me and said he’d found out through his diplomatic sources that Jennifer and I were related. He invited me over to their house for dinner, and then a week later asked if I wanted to come to Sylox.”

“Bullshit. Why would he do that?”

“He said he knew of my degree and thought it might be a good opportunity. He’d use his connections to get me an internship and then Jennifer and I could get to know each other better. He also thought it would be good for her and the kids to have someone else to spend time with on a strange planet.”

I looked at Miranda for several seconds, studying her face for any signs of deception. If there were any, then I missed them.

“So you really do have a degree in Galactic Affairs? I thought you were a jewel thief?”

“Not a very successful jewel thief, and the last time I was in jail I started taking some college courses figuring I needed something to fall back on. I always liked to travel, and with all the aliens running around, GA sounded like a natural fit.”