Three Against the Stars (8 page)

“Not since she went off the grid, Captain,” said the lieutenant, a young man with butter-colored hair. “The
Wind
hasn’t picked up a signal, either.”

“Keep transmitting, Lieutenant.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Begging the Captain’s permission—just what are we looking for?” Stevens asked.

Tierney sighed and shook his head. “We really don’t know at this point, Lieutenant.”

At that moment the astrogation monitor lit up like a flare and emitted a series of beeps. Ensign Saunders checked her digital displays and cross-referenced her vector readings.

“Captain, an unregistered ship has just entered this sector,” she said. “They must have used the Anderson Wormhole to get here. It appears to be of Drakonian origin.”

“The Draks here? In this sector?” Tierney turned to Karkoszka. “Lieutenant, try hailing that ship on all frequencies.”

Karkoszka’s fingers danced over his communications console. “No dice, Captain. They’re either unable to respond—”

“Or they refuse to do so,” said Tierney.

“Sir, my readings show the vessel is closing in on us—plowing straight through the interval between us and the
Frequent Wind
,” Stevens said, beginning to worry.

“Karkoszka—contact the
Wind
,” said the captain. “Tell them—”

“Captain, my readings show the unknown starship is powering up her weapons,” Ensign Saunders said, her face tight with fear.

Tierney’s palm slammed down on the button of the ship’s alarm. “All hands, this is the Captain. Battle stations! Battle stations!”

“Sir, they’re gearing up to attack!” Saunders shouted over the noise of the tocsin.

“Evasive action now, Lieutenant Stevens!” Tierney ordered. “Prepare to return fire.”

“Aye, Captain!” Stevens said. He and Saunders exchanged worried looks.

444

When the patrol ships began evasive action, the sleek black dragon swung around and immediately launched a pair of atomizer torpedoes. The Terran vessels opened fire with their laser cannons on both the torpedoes and the enemy ship. But the atomizers sensed the bursts of hot energy shooting across space toward them, and then veered around and under the lasers, hitting their targets with deadly precision. As the torpedoes struck the vessels in a dead-on broadside, the patrol cruisers erupted in crimson light and ionized dust. No more than minor surface burns had damaged the outer hull of the black starship.

Chapter Eight

Raiders of Acheron

M
akki walked between Sheel and Akira as they strolled past the officers’ quarters on their way to the mess hall. Blondie and Monster jogged past them, wearing t-shirts and shorts. It was a hot morning, and the sun was already a blazing orb of yellow fire in a clear sky the color of an azure sea. Off-duty Marines were lounging around the base, soaking up the sun, exercising, and tossing footballs and baseballs back and forth. Other Marines just stood around, griping and arguing.

"What do you think of Makki wanting to become a Marine, Akira?" Sheel asked. She was holding Makki’s paw tightly in her own.

Akira didn’t want to remind Makki that his enlistment papers would first have to go before General Ford, Admiral Curtiz, and other members of the board of review.

“I think he should stay on Rhajnara and attend medical school,” she replied.

“That’s what I keep telling him,” Sheel said. “But he’s as stubborn as a mulegoat!”

“So very glad that neither of you is this one’s wife,” said Makki.

The women punched him in the arms.

Turning a corner, they saw Colonel Dakota and Major Helm standing outside the colonel’s quarters. The officers seemed to be waiting for visitors. Akira, Makki and Sheel snapped to attention and exchanged salutes with the officers.

“Morning, Colonel,” Akira said. “Major Helm.”

“Good morning,” Dakota said.

“As you were,” Helm told them.

A Rhajni staff car rolled to a stop at the curb. Akira admired the car’s sleek lines and fine craftsmanship. It reminded her of the limousines of the 20
th
century that were housed at the Smithsonian Institute. She understood and felt an affinity with the Americans of that era who had a great love and passion for gasoline-guzzling, pollution-producing automobiles.

Corporal Flix, the Rhajni attaché with the face of a lynx, hopped out of the groundcar, saluted Dakota and Helm, and then opened the vehicle’s rear passenger door.

A tall Rhajni catman emerged from the back seat of the groundcar. He wore an elegant black business suit and had the face of a white tiger. His fur was streaked with gray, and his whiskers were neatly trimmed. He looked to be well into his 60s, yet he carried himself like a proud, young warrior—the very image of the perfect proto-feline. It was quite evident that he was of the Grimalkin breed of Rhajni.

“Good morning, Lord Chanori,” Colonel Dakota greeted him in the Rhajni language.

Chanori bowed to her and Major Helm, but his violet eyes were fixed on Akira. “May the light of Azra the Maker smile upon you,” he replied in perfect English. “Are you not going to introduce me to this vision of loveliness, Colonel?”

“Excuse me, my lord,” Dakota said. She quickly introduced Akira and Chanori to each other. “Lord Taluro Chanori is the Rhajni Minister of Defense, Sergeant,” she added hastily.

Akira felt uneasy being the object of Chanori’s obvious interest. Nevertheless, she bowed and offered her hand to him. “
Konnichi wa,
Lord Chanori. It’s an honor to meet you.”

The Rhajni lord smiled, revealing sharp and glistening teeth. He stroked his short whiskers with paws that resembled human hands with well-manicured claws. “Your beauty and grace are like exquisite music, Sergeant Akira.”

Chanori’s eyes crawled all over Akira. In spite of herself, she blushed under a nuclear meltdown of embarrassment. She couldn’t help but feel as if she were some exotic species the Rhajni nobleman was thinking of keeping as a pet.

When Chanori grabbed and kissed Akira’s hand, Makki shook his head, and Sheel rolled her tangerine eyes; the Minister of Defense was a notorious flirt. He ignored the Felisian couple as if refusing to acknowledge their existence, much less their presence.

“Well then, Sergeant Akira, don’t let us keep you three from breakfast,” Dakota said.

“Yes, Ma’am!” Akira said, snapping a salute and relieved to be dismissed.

“I’m certain we shall meet again, Claudia Akira,” Chanori told her.

He bowed and then followed Dakota and Helm into the colonel’s office.

Flix closed the door of the staff car and tagged after them. The vehicle pulled away from the curb, made an easy U-turn, and rolled quietly toward the main gates of the camp.

“That Chanori’s a real charmer, isn’t he?” Akira remarked.

“Yes, a charmer of snakes,” Sheel said with a soft laugh.

“Bah! His whiskers are very much too short,” Makki said.

“I do prefer longer ones, like yours,” Sheel told him, tickling his whiskers.

Makki blinked rapidly with embarrassment, his ears standing erect.

444

Late morning found O’Hara taking a bubble bath in an empty oil drum behind the barracks, and dictating a letter to his palmtop computer. An electronic cuff on his upper left arm fused the prosthetic limb to the stump of his real arm.

Beeps and clicks from the palmtop echoed O’Hara’s words as he thoughtfully composed his sentences. As much as he hated composing letters, there was a big smile on his face.

“I was sorry to hear that you got busted down to private again,” he dictated. “When will
you
be learning to keep that nose of yours out of barroom brawls?”

As serendipity would have it, at that particular moment Makki and Cortez walked past O’Hara. They stopped and turned back.

“A bath? Does this mean that you have a very hot date tonight, O’Hara?” Cortez asked.

“Blast off! I’m busy,” the big Irishman replied.

“You cannot bathe in public, Sergeant,” Makki told him.

“By Hades—I’ll be doin’ whatever it is that I wish to be doin’ around here!” O’Hara said.

“What is it that you are writing?” Makki asked.

“Your obituary!”

Cortez snatched the palmtop from O’Hara’s hand and tried to read the images on its tiny display screen. He turned the palmtop upside-down and several ways around.

“There is something wrong with your software,” he told O’Hara. “I cannot read this.”

O’Hara ripped the palmtop from Cortez’s hand. “It’s Gaelic. Celtic.
Uncial
, you moron!”

Makki and Cortez shrugged and shook their heads.

“Don’t you two have anything better to do than watch me take a bath?” O’Hara asked.

“This mewling wants to be one tough Marine star trooper,” Makki replied. “Sergeant Cortez is being a very good friend to help this one train.”

“Not that again?” O’Hara scowled and spat in his bath water. “The day the Corps lets a mangy, encopretic flea bag like you join up is the day I’ll be handin’ in me stripes!”

Makki’s ears fell flat against his skull. He turned on his heels and quickly marched away.

“Makki—wait!” Cortez yelled. He watched the corpsman leave, and then spun around to face O’Hara. “Seamus—you are a man without heart!”

“You telling me you think that hairy little geek can be a Marine?”

“You know as well as I do that such a thing is not possible,” Cortez said. “The Corps does not allow non-humans into its ranks. But the least we can do is humor our friend.”

“You mother that kitten too much, Cortez. He’ll never learn to stand on his own.”

“Do not start that again, Irish.”

“Or what?”

“Or Makki and I will not share the black diamonds with you—when we find them.”

O’Hara stood up, his body covered in bubbles. “Bah! I hope you find a black hole,” he said. “Now space out, Ferdinand!”

“Do not call me Ferdinand!” Cortez wheeled around and stomped away, mumbling and cursing in Spanish.

O’Hara scowled, plopped back down into his bath, and resumed his letter. “I hope you get out of the brig real soon, Mom. Write when you can and tell me all about that brawl. I remain your most loving son, Seamus Aloysius O’Hara, Sergeant, U.S.M.C.”

He tossed the palmtop on the ground, leaned back in his bath and sighed.

444

Acheron was a small desert planet in the Kamali star system, which was located on the outer rim of the Shandru Galaxy. Sprawling mountains, soaring mesas and towering monuments of wind-sculptured granite cast long shadows across a vast landscape of arid wasteland that had never given rise to any form of sapient life. It had a thin, oxygen atmosphere and two suns that burned white holes in a cobalt sky.

The polarite mines of the Fontaine Mining Colony were situated at the base of a steep plateau inhabited by scorpion-like creatures and poisonous snakes. While polarite was a common ore on other planets in the galaxy, Acheron was the only one in the Kamali system where it could be found. Polarite was a mineral many space-faring species used as fuel for their starships.

The mining camp itself was a small village of rectangular dwellings, pyramid-shaped warehouses, and octagonal processing plants lining a main street. The buildings were made of concrete, glass, plexiwood, and genuine steel. Humans and NTLs from various species and planets drove loaders, cranes, and bulldozers.

At one end of a wide street stood the main complex—a squat and massive three-story, cube-shaped building with a flat roof. Shuttles, freighters, and all manner of ground and air transport vessels stood parked on the airfield beyond the complex. Inside the complex, Antarian apemen, Canisian dogmen, Rhajni catmen and proto-ursines from Kronos worked alongside a score of humans. They were all seated at computer stations facing a row of thick glass windows. 

Bob Fairbanks, the elderly mine coordinator with a thin mustache and a slight British accent, rushed into the room and hurried over to the main communications terminal. An Omegan Ornitori named Surat, who resembled a cockatiel, glanced up at him.

“Good morning, boss,” Surat said.

“Morning,” Fairbanks replied. “What’s going on?”

“A message from the
Volkana,
a Lavarian freighter,” Surat explained. “Her captain requests permission to send two shuttles down to purchase spare parts and a ton of polarite.”

“What’s their ETA?”

“Two hours. The
Volkana’s
captain said he is willing to pay any price you quote him.”

Fairbanks frowned thoughtfully. “Tell the captain he can land on the airfield. I’ll meet him there and personally see that he gets what he needs.”

“Very good, Mister Fairbanks.”

Surat transmitted permission for the Lavarian shuttles to land.

444

The blazing Rhajni sun pounded the Camp Corregidor Armory like a barrage from a battery of laser cannons. Makki thought the armory might explode from the heat, or at the very least, its steel roof and support beams would melt.

Five robot sentries stood guard at the armory. It was a huge, domed structure built of concrete and steel, with walls five-feet thick. Two of the mechmen were stationed at the massive steel doors, with three more stationed at intervals around the windowless sides of the building. They were heavily armed with M-16 laser rifles and Primo-2000 bazookas. There was a faint hum of power coming from the robots that only Makki’s sensitive ears could hear.

He leaned casually against the wall of a Quonset hut, watching the robots. Patiently waiting for Cortez to finish shutting off power to the sentries, he crossed his arms, kicked the ground, and thought about Sheel Pham. O’Hara’s words to him earlier had struck a nerve and hurt his feelings. But fantasizing about his Rhajni nurse helped take away the sting.

Cortez joined him a few moments later, holding a tiny remote control device.

“Que pasa?”
the Spaniard asked.

“Sergeant O’Hara has no liking for this mewling,” Makki replied.

“Sure he does! But you have to learn to give just as good as you get. That is how you earn his respect.
Comprende?
”

“Bite back at him?”

“
Si.
Very much hard.”

“Well, this one has no liking for sneaking into armory,” Makki said. “Big trouble can only be the result of this adventure.”

“Nonsense! I have bribed the tech-head on duty at the control center. No one shall know a thing. As far as they know back at HQ, these tin guards are on the job.”

“Are you sure we will not be caught?”

Cortez laughed. “Trust me. It is all set up. Watch.”

He pressed a hidden button on the remote control. The lights in the robots’ eyes suddenly went dim, and the faint hum of power went silent.

“This one is very impressed,” Makki said.

“You have not seen anything,
amigo
. Come—
adelante!
”

Makki quietly followed Cortez toward the steel doors of the armory.

444

Fairbanks and a crew of technicians, mechanics and miners gathered at the edge of the airfield as the two shuttles from the
Volkana
touched down on the tarmac. These vessels were square, bulky transports with four wings, a tailfin, and a single engine nacelle on top.

A hatch in the belly of each shuttle opened like the jaws of a boa constrictor preparing to swallow its prey; steel ramps slid out to settle on the tarmac. About twenty Rhajni tigermen, panthermen and cougarmen emerged from each vessel. They wore uniforms of black leather jackets, knee-high boots, and tight gray pants. Their jackets were emblazoned with a black claw set against a silver shield.