My Other Car is a Spaceship (20 page)

He took a deep breath. “Okay.
We don’t know exactly what time it is in this place, or how soon morning shift starts and everyone’s up and about, so let’s keep this initial foray brief. We’ll meet back here in two hours. Right?”

The other nodded.

“Good. Gather as much intel as you can, to give us the best chance of succeeding. Good luck.”

The others responded in kind and they went their separate ways.
At the first intersection, two armed security guards approached from the other direction. Kalen froze for an instant, and then forced himself to keep moving as if he had every right in the world to be there. He turned right and walked with a bounce in his step. The guards hardly glanced at him as they passed by.

Kalen let out a shaky breath. Three minutes later he arrived at the med center.
He peered around the corner of the open door. There seemed to be only one person inside.

Kalen breezed in as if he owned the place. “Ah, good evening. How are you?”

The Thorian turned in surprise. “I am well. How may I help you? You do not appear ill or injured.”

“Oh, I’m not. I just dropped by to see if Dr. Chalmis’Noud’Ourien was working
now.”

“I am afraid not. He has been off-duty for several hours.”

“Ah. Too bad. I guess I can talk to him later.”

“The doctor will be back here tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps you can see him then.”

Kalen shrugged. “I suppose. We haven’t talked for a while and I just thought I’d stop by for a chat. But if he’s not here, I guess I could drop by in the morning and see if he wants to join me for breakfast. Do you know where his quarters are?”

“
Level C, Green sector somewhere. Are you
sure
there is nothing I can help you with?” The Thorian’s voice was now tinged with suspicion.

“No, no. I’m fine. Just let the doctor know I stopped by if you see him before I do.” Kalen turned toward the door.

“Certainly. Who shall I say—?”

But Kalen was already out the door and putting distance between himself and the med center.

Level C, Green sector. That narrows it down somewhat, wherever the heck Level C, Green sector is. Still, it’s progress. But I can’t exactly go around knocking on all Green sector doors in the middle of the night. So how do we find Nude’s quarters?

He hurried to catch up with Hal and Sue.

“This is Q
warille Control to approaching vessel. Please identify yourself and state your business.”

“Q
warille Control, this is
Queen Anne’s Revenge.
As for our business, it is with Director Tanthocar. I suggest you put me through immediately. He will want to hear what I have to say. If you do
not
put me through, you will suffer the consequences.”

“
Consequences?
Now see here! You cannot jump into our system and simply make demands. Who do you think you
are
?”

“So, you are refusing to connect me to Director
Tanthocar?”

“
Yes
—unless you change your attitude and give me a good reason why I should. The director is very busy. He does not have time for idle threats or chitchat.”

“Oh, the threat is not idle, as you might point out to the director when you contact him. Say goodbye to Mestarses.”

“Say goodbye? What do you—?”

Captain
Feshen Tro turned to his Thorian pilot. “Fire!”

The missile
, visible on the bridge holoscreen, streaked from the forward starboard tube and headed for the tiny fourth moon of the Foren mining planet Qwarille. Within seconds, the missile disappeared from sight, reappearing on sensors. The missile arrowed straight at a large fissure bisecting the moon, an asteroid captured by the planet’s gravity eons earlier. Forty-three seconds later there was a blinding flash, quickly compensated for by the holoscreen.

When the image cleared, there was an expanding sphere of dust, ash, rock and
three large, tumbling chunks of moon where Mestarses used to be.

The shaken voice of the Foren
airspace controller came over the comm. “Are-are you
insane?
There was a research station there, with more than forty scientists. You-you killed them all!”

“And I have more n
uclear warheads where that one came from. Unless you would like me to launch one at your headquarters, I suggest you connect me to Director Tanthocar immediately; put him through with a holo feed. That is, right after you tell him what just happened, and how it is all your fault because you refused to connect me to him.”

“
I?
But you—!”

“You have one minute to connect me, before you have n
o director left to connect me to.”

“But
— Our planetary defenses—”

“
Have no bearing on this matter,” Captain Tro interrupted. “You are a mining colony. Your defenses consist of two pitiful little ships. One is groundside for repairs and the other is returning from the Foren homeworld. It will not be here for nine days yet. By then, our transaction will be completed one way or another. By the way, you now have forty seconds left.” He turned to MosVeksal with open audio, so the airspace controller could hear. “Pilot, set the timer to launch in forty seconds unless I countermand.”

The pilot of
Queen Anne’s Revenge
grinned and waved her antennae at her Captain. She knew it would never come to that. She guessed it would take fewer than thirty seconds to hear the director’s voice.

It took precisely twenty-nine.

The ashen face of an elderly Foren appeared onscreen. “Now see here!” The director attempted to get the upper hand.

“
Silence!”
Captain Tro’s steel-hard voice brooked no argument. “You will do exactly what I say, or I will launch another nuke—this one centered on your headquarters location. If this call gets
disconnected
for any reason, I will launch. If anyone attempts to
attack
my ship, or interferes with this conversation
in
any way
, I will launch. Do you understand me?”

“I
—” The voice on the other end of the call, now tremulous and uncertain, replied, “Y-yes. Yes, I understand. What is it you want?”

“You will transfer fifty million Foren feldars into the bank account
for which I am sending you the particulars now. The bank is on Glaybor in the Mesfet system. It will take two days for your fastest courier ship to arrive there. If the ship is not back here in four days with proof the money is in the account, I will launch the missile. In the meantime, if anyone or anything approaches within sixty kilometers of this vessel, I will launch the missile. If your groundside patrol ship so much as lights its engines, I will launch the missile.”

“All right, all right!” the director wailed. “I get the point.
But
fifty million
—! I do not have access to that sort of money!”

Captain
Tro nodded. “That is why I specified Glaybor. You have a district office there. The district manager has the access and the authority to disburse sums that large.”

“Yes
, but he will not do so on my request alone!”

“I suggest you be very persuasive. I am sending you footage of the destruction of Mestarses. Send it along with your personal assistant.
Tell your district manager that I know where his other mining colonies are. Unless he wants to start mining
radioactive
ore on this and his other mining planets, he had better authorize the disbursement of the money.”

“This is too important for
me to entrust it to my assistant. I will take it personally.” Tanthocar’s eyes narrowed with calculation. Tro saw right through his attempt at cleverness.

“No, you will stay at your desk the entire time, with a live holo feed.
My ship is in synchronous orbit over your headquarters, so I will be in constant contact. That should encourage you to record a very
persuasive
message for your district manager. Remember, the next missile is aimed at your head. Also, make sure the district manager understands that if he refuses to pay, the following missile will be dropped on
his
head, wherever he might hide. I have plenty. I can keep working my way up the food chain, if necessary.”

“I-I will tell him.
But I cannot stay at my desk for
two days
. I will need to eat, sleep—use the facilities.”

“You can sleep at your desk. You can have someone bring you food and drink. As for the facilities, you may have five minutes every two hours. One second late and I launch the missile.”

“All right, all right! I understand.” Tanthocar’s bulbous tangerine eyes were wild with panic.

“Good.
Tell your district manager I will be back in three months for another fifty million.”

“
Another
—!”

“And three months after that, in perpetuity.”

“But-but, that will bankrupt the company.”

“Director
Tanthocar, really. We both know that is a falsehood. Your company could afford several times that much. But I am not greedy. Fifty million will do.”

The Foren’s face fell
. He nodded. “Very well. I will do as you ask.”

Captain
Tro flashed a cold smile. “Good. I will cut the holo feed from this end, but I will continue to watch you. Do not deviate from my terms or you and all your people will die.”

“I understand.”

The Melphim Captain made a slashing motion across his throat and his pilot cut the feed.

“What do you think, sir
?” MosVeksal asked. “Will we have to use the other nuke?”

“Does it matter? If we do not use it this time, we surely will
at our next stop. Either way, word will get out that we have nukes and are prepared to use them. His company will try to suppress the news that they have given in to extortion. They will doctor the books to hide the payout. But they
will
pay, and word
will
get out. We will have less convincing to do in the future.”

“I cannot wait to see our profit-sharing statements this time next year. I may retire early!”

Pilot and Captain shared satisfied smiles.

Hal put a finger to his lips. Sue nodded in acknowledgment before turning the final dial on the calibrator. The door hissed open. The trio slipped inside and Sue closed the door behind the trio. The room was small, just big enough for a bunk, a sanitation unit, and an oversized chair.

Hal tiptoed to the
bunk and put his hand over the mouth of the Chan’Yi sleeping there. Two eyes popped open in alarm.

“Dr. Chalmis’Noud’Ourien, I presume?” Hal muttered with a grin. He removed his hand.

“Hal, Kalen! How did you find me?” The doctor wore the lip-quirk smile unique to Chan’Yi.

“It wasn’t very high-tech, I confess
,” Hal answered with a smile. “We were passing your cell and I, well, recognized your scent. You have sort of a cinnamon-sandalwood smell. Sue here—my apologies; Dr. Pestas’Souk’Glouf here—opened the door. She’s been very helpful.”

Nude sat up.
“My thanks, Souk’Glouf of Clan Pestas, for bringing Hal to me. Welcome to my abode.”

“
Thank you, Noud’Ourien of Clan Chalmis. It was my distinct pleasure.”

The air
took on an electric feel.

“If you two children are done making goo-goo eyes at one another,”
Kalen joked, “we have a lot to talk about.”

Kalen awoke from a deep sleep the next morning. Two guards had entered the cell and the tension level jumped among the prisoners.

Do they know? Did someone spot us on a security camera and recognize us? Are they here to take us?

One of the guards raised his weapon and pointed it at Kalen. “You—and you.”

Kalen looked over at Hal in the next
bunk.
Uh-oh. The jig’s up.

Hal and Kalen stood as the guard approached.
The Melphim shoved the men aside and reached out to grab the two Foren in the bunks
behind
them. He yanked them toward the door by their tentacles and shackled them together as the guards by the door waited with weapons leveled.

A moment later, the guards left with the two Foren, leaving only Sue, Hal and Kalen behind.

Hal let out an explosive breath and whispered. “I thought they had us.”

Kalen nodded. “You and me both.”

“We cannot wait any longer,” Sue said. “They could come back for any of us next. We must leave.”

“I agree,” Kalen said.
“I wish we knew more about this place, but it doesn’t look like we have a choice. We go tonight.”

“Ah, there you are.” Jern Ishtawahl had found his boss alone in a corner of the commissary.

Penrod sighed. “Couldn’t this wait until I finished my lunch?”

The morning had been hectic,
what with the quarterly stockholder’s report to review and approve, various meetings with department heads, and the other headaches a CEO had to put up with. This was the first chance Penrod had had to relax since early morning.
I guess it’s true what they say: a pirate’s work is never done.

T
he Alberian shrugged. “It could, but you said you wanted to be notified the minute Captain Tro returned.”

This caught Penrod’s attention. He
put his fork down and forgot all about the pie. “Well? What’d he say?”

“He says the first phase of Operation Midas Touch was a
complete success. The money was transferred to the dummy account we set up and then through six others all over the sector before arriving in our corporate account.”

“Really. That
is
good news.” Penrod sat back with a satisfied smile. “So how soon before Tro goes out again?”

Ishtawahl shrugged. “It all depends on how soon Dr. Felmendar has the next nuke ready to go.
He says it should be less than a week. Tro used only one, so he still has the other one at his disposal. As agreed, Tro will always go out with two, in case one is not enough to convince the next ‘customer’.”

“Good. This should only get easier with time
, as word spreads. Tell Tro to meet me in my office in twenty minutes. I want to hear all the details and see the recordings of the conversations. Please ask my assistant to clear my schedule for the next hour.”

“Yes sir.”

Penrod picked up his fork again and sliced off another piece of besselberry pie. He slid it in his mouth and chewed slowly, savoring the sweet tartness of the berries.

Some days I really love my job.

“What do you
mean
you can’t leave?”

Hal stood in Nude’s quarters openmouthed.

“I told you already. I gave Penrod my word that I would not attempt to escape.”

“But he’s a
pirate.
He can’t be trusted. You can’t be held to a promise made to a scoundrel.”

“
He
may be unscrupulous. However,
my
word has value. I can no more break a promise to him than I could to you.”

For a moment Hal was speechless. He turned to Kalen and Sue. “Will one of you talk some sense into him?

Kalen shrugged. “I know better than to try to talk him out of anything he’s dead set on. Nude has a stubborn streak you wouldn’t believe.”

Hal’s jaw dropped again. “I can’t believe you’d just leave him behind.”

Kalen squirmed a bit but shrugged again. “I won’t force him to leave.”

Hal turned to Sue. “What about you? Do you have any words of wisdom for us?”

She nodded. “As I told you earlier, those of clan Chalmis are honorable people. Would you have that cease to be the case?”

Hal
inhaled deeply and opened his mouth to argue further. Instead he let out his breath in a sigh. “Okay, fine. We can come back for him later. Let’s go get your people and find a way out of here.”

“Before you go,” Nude interjected, “you should know something.” He paused for a moment to decide how to break the news.

“Two security guards passed by the medical center as they chatted. I overheard one of them comment that Penrod had used one of the nukes they recovered from the Unity ships. I failed to hear how it was used, only that there were casualties. The same ship apparently will be leaving soon on another mission, with
more
nukes—plural.”

Hal looked to Kalen and both men spoke
in perfect synchrony.

“Shit.”

“We can’t leave now,” Kalen declared. “Not with nukes in the hands of the pirates.”

“I agree,” said Hal. He turned to Nude. “But why didn’t you tell us this earlier, instead of letting us go on and on about escaping?”

The doctor’s eyebrows rose. “I learned of this only today. Now is the first opportunity I have had to tell you and you scarcely gave me an opportunity to speak, and then only to defend my decision.”

Hal snorted in exasperation. “
Yes, but if you had just said, ‘I can’t leave because the pirates have nukes,’ we could have bypassed the whole argument. We— Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter now. We’re not leaving as long as the pirates have working nukes in their possession.

“What about my friends?” Sue asked. “They are still locked in their cells.”

“We can get them out,” Kalen replied. “After that, you and they are free to try to escape on your own, or to join us. But we’re staying.”

“We cannot tarry. Someone will discover that we are
missing within a few hours, when it is time for the morning meal.”

Kalen nodded. “Right. We have to figure out where we can hide when they come looking for us.”

“Do not tell me where,” Nude suggested. “When Penrod asks me if I know your whereabouts—and he will—I would rather be truthful.”

“That
would
be the honorable thing to do,” Hal agreed with a smirk.

“Indeed.”

“Fine,” Kalen said. “You stay put. We’ll get Sue’s friends and figure out where to go from there.”

“Two of my colleagues are in this cell,” Sue said, pointing. “The other three are in the next one.”

“What do we do about the other prisoners?” Hal asked
Kalen. “I doubt we can get Sue’s friends out without waking anyone else.”

Kalen shrugged. “
We take them with us. We can’t afford the delay or the ruckus an argument would create.”

“I guess we don’t have a choice.” Hal turned to Sue and proffered the calibrator. “Would you like to do the honors?”

“Thank you. I would.” She politely ignored the minor point that she was the only one of the trio who could hear the proper frequencies anyway.

Kalen put a finger to his lips to remind the others to be as quiet as possible. A moment later the lock clicked and the door hissed open. The two humans and the Chan’Yi ducked inside and Sue closed the door behind them. Despite the dim lighting in the room, it was
quickly apparent that it was empty.

“But
— Where are they?” Sue whispered.

“Are you sure they were in
this
cell,” Kalen prompted.

“Quite sure,” Sue replied.
“The guards dropped off twelve prisoners, including three of my colleagues, in the first cell. Then twelve, including two more of us, in the next cell. They put the final eight, including me, in your cell.”

“Maybe
they were moved to another cell for some reason,” Hal suggested.

“Perhaps.” She sounded doubtful.

“Let’s check the other cell. Maybe the pirates combined the two groups,” Kalen said.

“There wouldn’t be enough room
, unless—” Hal began.

“Unless some of the prisoners were
already shipped out,” Kalen finished with a nod.

Hal didn’t
like where that thought led.

“There’s only
one way to find out.”

The three slipped back out into the
corridor and then to the next cell.

“Cross your fingers,” Hal said as Sue opened the door.

Again they ducked inside and again it took a moment for their eyes to adjust. This time the cell wasn’t entirely empty. They heard a sound like muffled sobbing and a small form stirred on one of the bunks. “Who-who’s there?” The voice was high-pitched and tremulous.

“Don’t be afraid,” Kalen replied. “We’re here to help you.”

The other sat up and turned toward Kalen and the others. “Wi-will you take me to my mommy and daddy?”

“
Mommy and daddy?” Hal looked at Kalen.

“Th
-the pirates came yesterday and took them away. I’ve b-been alone ever since.” It was now apparent that the prisoner was a little girl, perhaps seven years old.

“You poor child,” Sue said. “Do not worry. We
will help you find your parents if they are here.”

“Uh,” Hal mu
rmured, “we may not be able to keep that promise. If her parents have been gone since yesterday, they’ve probably been shipped out already.”

“Perhaps, but we cannot leave her here alone.”

“We can’t take her
with
us. It’s too dangerous.”

“Do you think it any less dangerous for her to stay here and be sold into slavery? You know some of the uses for which young girls are
purchased. Is that really preferable to death?”

Hal had no response. Unlike Sue, who had only heard the stories,
he and Kalen had seen the aftermath, the broken and ruined bodies of underage slaves sold to sweatshops and brothels, the scarred and shattered psyches of those the Unity had helped rescue.

He looked over at Kalen who now cradl
ed the frightened child in his arms.

“She says h
er name’s Miranda Takahashi. Her parents call her Merry. Do you want to come with us, Merry?”

She responded with one of those endearing wide-eyed,
all-too-serious head-nods that seem to be universal among human children everywhere.

Hal sighed. “Okay, fine. We’ll take her with us. I don’t know what we’ll
do
with her, but….” He shrugged. “We’d better get going. We have to find a place to hole up before anyone discovers we’re gone.”

A moment later, “
This has to be one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard. What the…” glancing at Merry, “heck…are we going to do with a kid?”

It was a rhetorical question, but
Kalen answered anyway.

“
Whatever it takes.”

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

Kalen
hurried to change into the black coveralls of a maintenance worker as Hal did the same. Sue still wore the customary gown of a Chan’Yi. Whether prisoner, slave, or free, all Chan’Yi wore the same sort of flowing gown. Only the color differed by trade or profession. When the four escaped prisoners found the uniform dispensary, fortunately unoccupied at this hour, Sue had replaced the aqua gown of a scientist with the brown of an artisan. Now she kept Merry distracted as the men changed. Merry still wore the pink-and-white jumper she’d been captured in, a week earlier.

Kalen frowned as he changed.
Well, if this doesn’t complicate things. The adults can blend in with the pirates running this place, at least for a while. But there’s no way the kid won’t stick out like a sore thumb. Even if we split up into ones and twos, it’ll only take a glance to spot a human child among all the adults of various races. Any kids here are bound to be slaves. We’ll have to keep her out of sight, somehow.

Evidently
Hal had been thinking along the same lines.

“How about this?” He pointed to a cart piled with neatly folded uniforms that presumably
were waiting to be put away at the beginning of the next shift. It had a door on the left side. “There’s a compartment in here. She’d fit.”

Kalen
turned the cart so the door faced Merry. “Sweetheart, do you think you could hide in here and be very quiet until we find a safe place to hide from the bad pirates?”

He opened the door. The space was approximately
a meter high, a meter long and two-thirds of a meter wide.

Merry shook her head with
wide, fearful eyes. “It-it’s dark in there.”

“I know, Merry, but it’s only for a few minutes.”

She shook her head again, this time more forcefully.

Kalen looked to Hal, at a loss. Both men had been married, but neither had ever had to deal with children on a regular basis.
For Hal and Carol, it had been a conscious choice not to have children. For Kalen and Julie, the pirates had stolen their choice only three months after the wedding, before they’d really even had a chance to consider children.