Terminus (Fringe Worlds #1) (16 page)

Chapter 20

Approximately a day-and-a-half after Erlen had first awakened him to warn of the impending attack on their camp, Maker found himself riding in a hovercart, pulling up to the loading dock at the rear of the Gaian Consulate in the Diplomat District. The cart was a little on the small side, but could hold four people. At the moment, Wayne sat in the front passenger seat next to Maker, while Erlen lay in the back. Behind them, attached to the cart, was a large cargo trailer – a metal container about twenty feet in length, five feet in width, and eight feet in height – that floated just a few feet above the ground.

The loading dock itself was nigh deserted. There were no deliveries at the moment, so all of the bay doors were closed. Next to the dock was a large set of double doors, and beside them was a small guardhouse, inside of which Maker saw a couple of people moving around.

He drove the cart towards the double doors, slowing to a halt when two armed men stepped out of the guardhouse. As they approached, one asked to see their credentials while the other held his weapon at the ready.

Maker had sent word ahead that they were coming, and apparently the knowledge had trickled down to the appropriate parties. A few moments after identifying themselves, the two guards waved them through as the doors next to the loading dock began to open.

As he maneuvered the cart inside, Maker thought for the umpteenth time how he’d have preferred to make this trip alone. There was about to be a confrontation, and it wasn’t the type of thing he really wanted people under his command to see. However, once Wayne found out where he was going, the young engineer had insisted on coming along. (Wayne’s excuse was that he needed to visit some shops in the District to obtain parts to upgrade their drones, but Maker suspected that was simply a pretext for finding items to enhance Jerry the Robot.)

The area beyond the doors angled downward, revealing an enormous, well-lit substructure beneath the consulate. It had the appearance of a parking garage, although – from what Maker could see – there were only a handful of vehicles in the place, and they were all parked against a far wall. (All of them, however, appeared to be expensive, high-end hovercars.) Most of the space seemed to be used for storage, as there were boxes and bins stacked all over the place.

Standing near the center of the room, directly ahead of them, was Browing. With him, as Maker could have guessed, was Dr. Chantrey. She gave Maker a faint, involuntary smile as she saw him, but quickly suppressed it.

Browing stepped slightly to the side as the cart got closer, and Maker pulled it abreast of the man, aggressively jumping out almost before the vehicle came to a halt. Erlen jumped out as well, and then ran his supple tongue along the flooring of the garage.

Dr. Chantrey winced. “Does he have to do that? It’s disgusting.”

“Sorry, but Erlen tastes everything,” Maker said.

“Nice cart,” said Browing sarcastically, drawing Maker’s attention away from the doctor. “And trailer. I knew the dropship had a decent amount of space, but I didn’t realize all of this could fit in there.”

“Oh, it didn’t,” Maker replied. “The cart and the trailer fell into our possession courtesy of some bandits.”

“Bandits?” Browing said, as if he couldn’t quite understand what he was hearing. He turned to Dr. Chantrey, who also looked confused.

“Yes, bandits,” Maker repeated. “You know, the ones you sent to kill us.”

The statement seemed to catch Browing off-guard. “What?! I don’t…I never…What are you talking about? I didn’t send anyone to kill you.”

“Well, you might as well have,” Maker declared angrily. “Wasn’t it you who filed a scientific scope of study identifying the region of the desert we’d be in?”

“Yes, because that’s what a
real
scientific expedition would do!” Browing snapped back. “They don’t just set up shop on any parcel of land they want and do whatever they please. They file paperwork, outline their plans, get a permit, and more. In case you forgot, there’s a score of races all trying to get their grubby little paws on this rock – including us. Each one of them is doing whatever it takes to legitimize their claim, from bringing in settlers to establishing trading posts to performing scientific studies.”

Maker shrugged. “So what?”

“The last thing we need is for someone else to make a claim on or attempt to use the region we’d designated for your base camp,” Dr. Chantrey said. “It would cause all kinds of problems.”

“And you don’t think it’s problematic for other people to know our location?”

“Not in and of itself,” Browing said. “And it was easier to just do everything officially.”

“He’s right,” Dr. Chantrey agreed before Maker could voice his dissent. “Plus, every lie needs to have a grain or two of truth or it’s too easy to see through.”

Maker shook his head vehemently. “How the hell are we supposed to complete a secret mission when everyone knows where we are?”

“It’s only your
mission
that’s secret,” Dr. Chantrey replied. “Your
presence
is not.”

“That’s actually a flawed hypothesis, because it assumes that there would be no interest in us outside the parameters of our mission,” Wayne noted, finally speaking up. “The fact that someone sold – and found a buyer for – information about our expedition proves that there is some other interest in us. From what we can tell, it’s our equipment and supplies.”

“But that makes no sense,” Browing said. “The filing on behalf of your ‘expedition’ is still working its way through the system, but will be public information in a few days. Why bother buying it?”

“To get a leg up on the competition,” Maker said. “To get there first, easily take out a bunch of nerdy scientists, then walk off into the sunset with a bunch of expensive tech and gear.”

“Even if all that’s true, isn’t this a moot point?” Dr. Chantrey asked. “You say some men tried to raid your camp, Lieutenant, but since you’re standing here somewhat calmly discussing the matter instead of screaming for reinforcements, it’s probably safe to assume that they failed, correct?”

Maker seemed to reflect for a moment, then stated, “That’s correct.”

“Do you think they’re going to try it again?” she asked.

Maker shook his head. “That’s highly unlikely.”

“Well, if the group that attacked isn’t likely to come back, then I’m not sure that there’s a problem,” the doctor said.

“The problem is that, over an eighteen-hour period, we were actually attacked by
three
groups,” Maker said.

There was a moment of silence while Dr. Chantrey and Browing digested this.

“So what are you saying?” Browing finally asked.

“What I’m saying is that the person who sold our information didn’t just pass it along to one set of criminals,” Maker said. “He sold it to several of them.”

“Are you trying to tell us that you’ve actually been attacked three times in the past few days?” Dr. Chantrey asked.

“The last two days actually,” Maker said. “Apparently there’s an entire cottage industry that’s sprung up around the concept of raiding our camp. But we’re fine, thanks for asking. And, as I mentioned, we got a few nice housewarming gifts out of it.” He patted the hood of the hovercart almost lovingly.

“Which reminds me,” he added, “we brought a little present for you.” He walked towards the rear of the cargo trailer, motioning for Browing and the doctor to follow him. Erlen followed in their wake, while Wayne began disconnecting the cargo trailer from the vehicle.

Just before he reached the back of the container, Maker stopped and turned his attention to a small keypad located at about chest height on the side panel. Browing and Dr. Chantrey, recognizing that Maker was about to enter a code of some sort (presumably to open the cargo unit), stepped around him and then stood facing the rear of the trailer, positioning themselves so that it was impossible for them to see the digits Maker pressed.

“No worries about the code.” Maker chuckled as he pushed buttons on the keypad “As I said, this is an item we liberated from our attackers.”

“If it belonged to the bandits, how do you know the entry code?” Dr. Chantrey asked.

“E-4 Wayne, who’s with me, cracked their encryption,” Maker replied. “He’s a genius with all things tech.”

Maker entered the last digit; there was a short beep followed by an audible click. Maker stepped around to the rear of the trailer just as the door began to open.

Like most cargo units, the back wall of the container was also the door (not to mention the only point of ingress and egress). Mounted on rollers in a sturdy track, the door automatically cycled up towards the ceiling with barely a whisper of sound, revealing the trailer’s contents.

An unnatural silence took root as Browing and Dr. Chantrey got a gander at what Maker had been dragging around in the container. In fact, Browing’s mouth fell open slightly, while the doctor went bug-eyed and drew in a sharp breath.

The cargo trailer was full of bodies. Some obviously human, others clearly not – but bodies all the same (and at least a dozen of them, at that). They apparently had not enjoyed a smooth ride, as they appeared to have been tossed around haphazardly.

“What…what is this?” Dr. Chantrey asked. “Who are these people?”

“These are the bandits that attacked us,” Maker said. As if in confirmation, Erlen growled.

“So, why bring them here?” Browing asked. “What are we supposed to do with a bunch of dead bodies?”

“Oh, they’re not dead,” Maker countered. “Not all of them, anyway. They’re on ice – in stasis.”

Taking a good, hard look at the bodies, the doctor saw that Maker’s statement was true. Each person in the trailer seemed to be covered by some thin, transparent material, which she assumed was cryo-film.

As Dr. Chantrey understood it, cryo-film was a product capable of putting various objects – including people – into a state of suspended animation. On the battlefield, it had garnered a stellar reputation for its ability to put wounded soldiers in temporary stasis until they could receive medical treatment. As a result, it was almost standard issue on any mission.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Browing said to Maker, snapping the doctor out of her reverie. “What are we supposed to do with them?”

“I don’t care,” Maker said. “I just know that they can’t stay with us.”

“I don’t see why not,” Browing countered.

“Because we’re not a jail,” Maker responded. “Even with them in stasis, we don’t have room to hold all these creeps. We’d be stacking them up like cordwood. Plus, we have a finite amount of cryo-film – which has to be reapplied every few days to keep a body in stasis – and I wasn’t going to waste it all on these dregs. So our options were to either kill them, let them go, or this.”

Browing seemed on the verge of saying something, but Dr. Chantrey cut him off. “That’s fine, Lieutenant,” she said. “We’ll take care of it, and we’ll find a way to resolve the issue of everyone knowing where you are.”

“No worries on that one,” Maker replied. “We took care of it. We moved.”

“Moved?” Browing asked, brow furrowed. “Moved where?”

Maker gave him a cocksure look. “I’m not sure I want to tell you that. You may have to broadcast a holo-image of the area.”

For a moment, Browing turned red with anger, clearly on the cusp of saying or doing something they’d all regret. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.

“Alright, if you don’t want to simply tell me,” he said with a chuckle, “maybe you’d be interested in a little horse trading.”

Given the sudden swing in Browing’s disposition, Maker was immediately suspicious. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“The message that you were coming in today just happened to arrive at a very fortuitous time,” Browing said, “because I was just getting ready to reach out to you. Care to guess why?”

The answer came to Maker almost immediately. “Our allies have been in touch,” he said. “They’ve had contact with the Vacra.”

Chapter 21

The town was called Shady Falls, but there were no falls (which was quite likely a result of being located in close proximity to the desert). However, per Browing, the rabble that constituted the local residents gave ample reason for the place to be considered shady.

Browing had, of course, provided Maker with the name of a contact, as well as a time and place to meet; in turn, Maker had supplied him with the current location of their camp, and then set out immediately for the rendezvous with their allies.

It was just getting dark when Maker, Wayne, and Erlen arrived. At present, they were driving through the town’s entertainment district, which basically consisted of bars, strip clubs, gambling houses, or some combination thereof. Their destination was a gaming venue known as the Pit, where they were to meet their so-called allies who would help them locate the Vacra.

Looking at Wayne, Maker couldn’t help but notice the young soldier’s nervousness. He had obviously never been in combat, and his greenness showed in the way he kept glancing around, as if expecting danger to leap from every shadowy corner. It certainly didn’t help that, since entering the town, they’d heard random gunfire coming from several buildings that they passed – in addition to witnessing two deadly knife fights.

In retrospect, Maker felt he probably should have seen if another meeting time could be arranged. Then maybe he would have had an opportunity to go back to camp and swap out Wayne for someone more experienced, like Adames. However, his eagerness regarding the Vacra overrode his common sense, and he’d felt the need to strike while the iron was hot. Thus, he now found himself paired with an untested Marine. Maker prayed that this meeting would be uneventful.

A short time later, they arrived at their destination – an enormous, dome-shaped edifice with the words “The Pit” emblazoned above the entrance in bright colors. Maker parked their vehicle in a nearby lot earmarked for patrons. As they got out, an odd creature that seemed to be nothing more than a six-foot tall pile of slime offered to ensure that their vehicle remained unmolested while they were inside for the paltry sum of twenty credits. Maker haggled his way down to ten, and then paid, heading for the entrance of the Pit with the odd certainty that – had he not paid – he probably would have returned to find the cart full of goo of some sort.

No one stopped them as they tried to enter, which was a new experience for Maker; typically, someone – a bouncer, owner, patron, etc. – made an issue of Erlen’s presence, but not tonight. That fact turned out to be the only bright spot as they got a good look at the interior.

Judging from appearances, the Pit looked to be an all-in-one establishment. Its huge, circular interior – currently packed with customers – seemed to be divided into odd sectors. Near the wall in one area, Maker saw numerous games of chance, where most of those participating were likely to gamble away whatever money they came in with. In another section, he saw a small stage where a dancer was performing an intimate striptease that elicited a number of whistles and catcalls. There were several other areas set up where the patrons were primarily non-human, and with respect to a couple of those, Maker admittedly had no clue what was going on. (For example, the action near one group seemed to consist of equal parts bird-calling, sword-swallowing, and finger painting.)

There were also tables and booths set up throughout the place, but there were nowhere near enough seats to accommodate all those present. The patrons themselves – loud, rowdy, and uncouth (and, if Maker’s nose were any judge, unwashed) – all seemed to be of the same predatory ilk as the groups that had tried to raid their camp.

Silently, as they moved through the room, Maker came to the conclusion that the place was accurately named. It was an
arm
pit, a
snake
pit, a
cess
pit…just about any other kind of pit you could think of.

A scantily-clad woman with orange skin and feathers for hair turned and stroked Maker’s face seductively as he walked by.

“How about some fun?” she said. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“And at what price?” Maker asked, feigning interest.

“I’m sure we can work something out,” she said, running her fingers through his hair.

“Another time, perhaps,” Maker replied, pulling himself away.

He was propositioned two more times as he moved through the place – by an eerily beautiful woman with all-white eyes in one instance, and then by something that looked like a hairless, winged gorilla in a dress (and quite possibly could have been male). He turned to see how Wayne was faring and saw his companion with his head bent towards a woman with horns on her temples. The woman whispered feverishly in his ear before extending a forked tongue that lovingly caressed the young man’s cheek. Wayne turned beet red, and then began shaking his head fiercely before moving on, much to Maker’s amusement.

Despite everything else taking place around them, Maker noticed that most of the action seemed to be fixed on an area in the middle of the room, where patrons – shouting and gesticulating wildly – appeared to be gathered in a humongous circle.

As he began walking towards that area, Maker felt Wayne tap him on the shoulder. He turned around to see what the young Marine wanted, but just as Wayne started to speak, a thunderous roar went up from the crowd encircling the middle of the room.

Wayne leaned in close and Maker inclined his head to hear him better. It probably would have been easier to use their comms, but they weren’t working properly; the Pit utilized some kind of dampening field that hindered certain types of electronics – primarily communications, but also things such as cloaking and stealth technology – plausibly to prevent cheating with respect to various games of chance.

“Look!” Wayne shouted, and pointed towards the stage where the stripper was performing. Maker looked in that direction, but didn’t see anything particularly out of the ordinary. He turned back to Wayne and made a
so-what?
gesture, shrugging his shoulders.

“Look!” Wayne screamed. “The stripper!”

Maker chuckled, thinking that Wayne must have had a severely sheltered upbringing if the sight of a half-naked woman got him this riled up.

“Yes, it’s a stripper!” Maker shouted back. “When we finish this mission we’ll find a nice club and you can hang out with girls like that all night long!”

Maker started to turn back when Wayne, clearly frustrated at this point, put a hand on his shoulder and spun him around again with surprising strength.

Maker felt himself getting angry now, as Wayne shouted once again, “
Look!
”

Although tired of this game, Maker glanced at the stripper once again…and then did a double-take.

The stripper was Diviana.

Maker was so taken by surprise that for a few moments he just stood there, watching her dance. (Somewhere in the back of his mind he also noted that she was
very
good.) Clearly she’d had no trouble fitting in, and Maker made a mental note that her background in intel might be extremely valuable to them in the future. She didn’t seem to have noticed them, and for a second he debated approaching her, then jettisoned the idea.

A clap on his shoulder brought Maker back to himself.

“Come on! It’s just a stripper!” Wayne said, laughing. “When we finish this mission…”

Maker waved off the rest of what his companion was saying, turning his attention back towards the throng of bodies clustered around the middle of the room. Rather than push his way through the crowd, Maker decided to let Erlen go first. It proved to be a wise choice.

As the Niotan began threading his way between numerous pairs of feet, those around him suddenly started yelping, leaping to the side as if burned with a hot poker. Maker had no idea whether Erlen was nipping ankles, secreting some irritant through his skin, or doing something else, but it was highly effective. Within just a few seconds, the crowd began parting of its own volition, with everyone giving Erlen (as well as Maker and Wayne, who were following close behind) a wide berth.

A few moments later they were near the interior of the crowd, and Maker saw the namesake of the building: a large, circular arena – easily seventy feet in diameter – in the middle of the room. At the floor level where Maker stood, there was a railing that enclosed the area. However, there were several openings in the railing, through which stairs descended down among numerous rows of bleachers, all of which were currently occupied.

The bleachers themselves ended at another, interior circle – this one about twenty feet in diameter and also encircled by a railing. However, where the external circle gently angled down into bleachers, the internal circle seemed to be a straight drop of about fifteen feet that ended at a dirt floor. It was this area that was the true arena, the actual pit.

In the arena were two creatures that Maker had never seen before. One looked like a furry, four-legged octopus with a wicked-looking claw at the end of each tentacle, while the other seemed like a ten-foot tall, bipedal warthog with knife-like tusks and the tail of a scorpion. Both combatants were bloody, and it was clearly evident that this was a fight to the death.

Maker frowned in distaste; he wasn’t particularly a fan of this kind of entertainment, which was really just an elevated cockfight between two larger and more vicious animals. The crowd in the bleachers, however, was enthusiastically following the action in the pit, cheering madly whenever one of the creatures scored a hit or seemed to get an advantage. Most of them probably had money wagered on this fight. In fact, Maker saw numerous bets being placed as the fight went on.

He scanned the horde of bodies around them, intensely looking for their contact. Browing had shown him an image of who they were looking for, and after a few moments Maker spotted him: an odd little creature who looked like a five-foot tall hummingbird, with wriggly worms all over its body instead of feathers, each of which ended in a bulbous eye. It was of a race known as the Panoptes, and it was sitting on the front row directly in front of the arena – a ringside seat.

Maker and his companions headed towards their contact. As they drew closer, approaching from the rear, Maker saw the Panoptes lean over and seemingly say something to a man sitting to the left of him. The man turned around, looked directly at Maker, and then motioned him over.

Of course; the Panoptes, with eyes all over its body, had seen them approaching – even from behind. Presumably, Browing had provided it with an image of Maker or some other means to identify him.

The man who had waved them over stood as Maker approached. He was a little taller than average, with a milky complexion and long, blond hair braided in cornrows that extended down his back. He looked over Maker and his fellows, subjecting them to heavy scrutiny, then eyed Maker in a way that suggested he might want to frisk him.

Not gonna happen
, Maker thought, returning the man’s stare. At that point, two other individuals came to their feet: a short but powerfully-built ursine alien who had been sitting to the right of the Panoptes, and a brawny giant (at least as tall as Fierce) who had been sitting to the left of the man with the blond braids. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that these last two were hired muscle.

“It’s fine, Croy,” the Panoptes said, defusing a situation that undoubtedly had the potential to turn very ugly.

The man with the blond braids, Croy, nodded, then gestured for Maker to take his place sitting next to the Panoptes. Wayne sat down on the other side of Croy, while Erlen took up a position near Maker’s knee. The bodyguards resumed their positions as bookends for the group.

“I’m Quinzen,” the Panoptes announced, still facing forward towards the action in the pit.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Maker said, deliberately sidestepping a reciprocal introduction of himself. “I thought you were a simple merchant.”

“I am,” Quinzen replied.

“So why the hired guns?”

“Croy’s essentially my aide. I rely on him for just about everything. As for Tranton and Graxel,” he said, indicating the giant and the ursine, respectively, “Terminus is a place where even the homeless get robbed. Thus, someone of modest means, like myself, is often viewed as a rich target.”

Several of Quinzen’s eyestalks poked Maker, apparently more by accident than design (although it was difficult to tell). Maker was tempted to slide slightly to his left, but didn’t know if it would be considered rude. He contemplated the matter for a second, then decided to stay put.

“You’re early,” Quinzen said after a moment, almost irritably. “I honestly wasn’t expecting you for another hour or two.”