Dark Space (15 page)

   Once free of the carrier,
Shawn took control of the craft and headed outside the conglomeration of
Unified, Kafaran, and Rugorian warships. With everything behind him, he turned
the vessel toward the jump gate.

   “I assume we’re jumping
straight to Torval, then?” he asked.

   “Hardly,” Melissa smiled.
“There’s no gate adjacent to the planet. We’ll jump in just outside the system
and navigate to the planet from there.”

   “And you’re sure there’s no
more pirates?” Shawn asked uneasily.

   Melissa chuckled as she
stretched her arms above her head. “That’s usually my line.”

   “I’m just concerned, that’s
all. I was never dumb enough to head straight for the planet. The rumors were
enough to keep anyone smart enough well clear of it.”

   “Well, don’t be. We’ve got
more than enough firepower in this bucket to handle anything that might be
lingering.”

   “You see, even you’re
unconvinced the system is completely clear of danger.”

   She rolled her eyes.
“Aren’t you the one who’s always saying that no part of space, no matter how
benevolent it may seem on the surface, is not without its own inherent
dangers?”

   Shawn thought about it for
a second. “No. In fact, I don’t recall
ever
saying that.”

   “Well you should, because
it’s true.”

  
True enough, anyway.
“Thanks for coming out here with me, and for not thinking I’m a complete idiot
for going after Santorum.”

   She turned her eyes from
the expanse of space in front of the transport long enough to smile. “It was my
pleasure. Besides, I never said I didn’t think you were an idiot. Point of
fact, I think you’re an incredibly
large
one.”

   “But,” he stammered, “I
thought all that crying and screaming was part of an act.”

   She smiled, shaking her
head slowly. “Maybe someday you’ll figure it all out.”

   “Not likely,” he said,
rubbing his face with his hands. “So what’s in the cargo container?” he asked,
hooking a thumb toward the rear of the ship.

   “Oh, not much,” she said,
still smiling. “Just guns, explosives, anti-missile defensive systems … anything
we might need in case we run into
lots
of pirates.”

“Ever since I joined the
service, I’ve gone from one wasteland to another. Why can’t I get a break and
get a mission that takes me to a tropical paradise?”

-Shawn
Kestrel

   After passing through the
final jump gate, Shawn was greeted by the sight of twin suns burning brightly
directly in front of their transport. The ship’s computer, in a friendly male tone
that surprised him, informed Shawn that, at a moderate speed, they would arrive
at the outskirts of the Concordia system in just over a solar hour. With little
else to do, he turned to Melissa in the copilot’s chair and noted she seemed preoccupied
reading a small tablet.

   “Anything interesting?” he
asked.

   “What?” she asked in
surprise as her concentration was broken.

   Shawn’s eyes darted to the
palm-sized tablet. “Reading up on the latest in covert fashion accessories?”

   Melissa smiled and glanced
back to the computer. “Hardly. I was just reading up on our destination.”

   “Checking the universal
travel guide, I see.”

   “Not unless it has accesses
to classified OSI material,” she said, then offered Shawn the device. “It’s
mostly technical in nature.”

   He’d had his share of
technical reports, and held up a hand to stop her. “I’m good. Really. Maybe you
could just give me the synopsis.”

   “You sure?”

   Shawn smiled warmly. “Yeah.
Besides, I’ve missed the sound of your voice.”

   “Oh,” she said with a
single cocked eyebrow. She fumbled with the computer, looking at the display
for a moment before responding. “You know, there was a time when you’d just as
soon put a clamp over my mouth for talking while you were piloting.”

   “The day’s not over yet,”
he replied smartly. “You’ve still got plenty of time to correct that
oversight.”

   “Very funny,” she said with
a glare.

   Shawn sniggered, then
looked back out the wide view port. The auto-dimming system had engaged,
filtering the brilliance of the twin stars to a pleasant glow. “All things
considered, I’m glad we’re alone.”

   “Why?” she asked with
amusement. “So we can go over mission reports?”

   “Yes. That’s it
exactly
,”
he mocked. “It’s just that we haven’t had much time to ourselves in the last
few months. It’s nice to be able to get away from everything and just … converse.”

   “And while we’re ‘getting
away,’ there are thousands of people waiting back in the fleet for us to return
with some vital clue as to what’s going on.”

   “That’s assuming we
can
find something. It’s a pretty big universe out there,” he said, waving his hand
toward the forward windows. “Essentially, all we have is a heading. Who knows
how long this is going to take.”

   At that moment, neither of
them said what came to their minds: the thought of Shawn being drummed out of
the service in less than a week. Deciding to change the subject before Melissa
had a chance to read his mind, he looked back to the data pad in her lap. “I’m
sorry. You were saying something about the history of the planet?”

   She hesitated for a moment,
enough time to turn her thoughts back to the mission. “During the Great War,
there was a covert operation on Torval.”

   Shawn nodded favorably.
“Exciting. For what purpose?”

   “To apprehend a former
Sector Command admiral, one Maros Krador.”

   Shawn knew the name well.
The admiral had been instrumental in assassinating the then-president of the
Unified Council, as well as a score of civilian and military personnel. While
he knew very few of the official details, the word on the street was that
Krador had been “dealt with” at some point while Shawn himself was fighting the
war against the Kafarans. Of course, as a junior lieutenant at the time, he
wasn’t privy to everything that went on in the dark rooms of the upper chain of
command.

   “The covert mission here on
Torval was an unqualified success,” Melissa finished. “It directly influenced
Krador’s defeat on the planet Jido.”

   “What was so special about
Torval?” Shawn asked.

   “Its distance from Jido,
for one. Secondly would be its anonymity. As a neutral world, it was often
overlooked by Sector Command. Both of those factors were taken into account as
Krador set up a mining operation on the planet.”

   Shawn nodded as he
processed the information. “For?”

   “L-K-C.”

   Lithiumhydroxide Kilostoic
Cesium. Shawn knew its most widely used application was jump core shielding
.
“That stuff’s practically worthless now,” Shawn replied in confusion. “Why have
a mining station so distant from Jido?”

   “Because during the war,
LKC was extremely rare. In fact, the deposits Krador discovered on Torval
eventually found their way into the hands of the Royal Mercantile Electorate.
After a while, the RME got greedy, and after a series of unfortunate events,
the market was flooded—leading to the current depreciated value.” 

  Somehow that news didn’t
surprise Shawn. While it was rare, it wasn’t without precedent that someone in
the RME would get wide-eyed at the prospects of giving themselves deeper
pockets. Shawn had had more than a handful of dealings with members of the
Electorate—most of whom were honest businessmen looking out for the overall
economic well-being of Beta sector. But, as with a bushel of fruit, a bad apple
always seemed to turn up. Shawn’s particular bad apple had turned up in a
spaceport on the far side of Persephone. He shuddered as he recalled the
encounter, then turned back to Melissa. “So, after Krador was taken out of the
picture, the mine fell under the control of the RME?”

   “Not directly,” she said as
she scanned the computer pad once more. “It seems that a … mutual friend of
ours … decided to set up a little operation of his own on Torval.”

   “Mutual friend?” Shawn
asked curiously.

   “Katashi,” she replied with
a smirk.

   “Toyo?” Shawn stuttered at
the mention of his old friend. “Really? All the way out here.”

   Melissa shrugged. “How do
you think he became so wealthy?”

   “Well, I always just
assumed he was an exceptional businessman. I had no idea his interests went
beyond the boardroom.”

   “After Admiral Krador’s deposition,
someone needed to take charge of the operations on Torval, if only temporarily.
It seems that Toyo invested a particularly large sum of his own money in
financing the continued operations for several months.”  Melissa looked back to
her computer. “He made his investment back, and then some. In fact, more than
tripled his initial outlay. His official report stated that, after a few months
of continuous operations, he wasted little time in selling off his rights to
the RME.”

   “So he didn’t stay very
long,” Shawn nodded, hoping to talk to his old friend about the mission
someday. “What can you tell me about the installation itself?”

   Melissa scanned through the
report looking for the pertinent information. “There really isn’t much to say.
It’s what I would classify as a typical mining station. There’s an ore
processing center, several magnetic conveyors that bring ore into it, and a
main tower structure used for refining … which also doubles as the
administrative and communication centers.”

   Shawn nodded in agreement.
“So, that’s likely where the communication from Santorum was received.”

   “That’s our best bet, for
sure,” Melissa granted. 

   “What about the surrounding
landscape?”

   “Desert for hundreds of
miles in every direction, save for a ridge of mountains outlining the complex.”

  
Great. More desert.
Shawn thought back to
Sylvia’s Delight
, resting in pieces on a desolate
world parsecs from their current position, her back broken, the stern separated
from the main body by a few dozen feet. “Anything special about the mountains?
Caves or any kind of shelter?”

   Melissa shook her head.
“It’s possible. The mountains are actually the rim of a large crater from an
asteroid impact in the distant past. Toyotomi’s report says it’s likely that
this impact is what shifted the overall climate of the planet.”

   “What about population
centers? Towns? Cities?”

   She accessed the
information on her computer. “The port city of Salias is a number of miles to
the east of the mining center. As for the overall population, the number of
inhabitants in the city has dwindled significantly over the past decade.
There’s likely going to be a large number of abandoned structures.”

   “Is there a police force of
any kind?”

   Melissa shook her head.
“There was a security outpost in the city, but it’s long since dissolved.”

   Shawn nodded. With no
official lawmen around, it was going to be a dangerous place to poke around for
clues. “Food?”

   Melissa again shook her
head. “Torval has no native vegetation of any kind, and thus is completely
incapable of supporting livestock as we know it.”

   Shawn laughed. “That’s not
really what I meant. I was referring to you and me getting something to eat
before we make planet-fall.”

   “Oh,” she said, blushing in
embarrassment. “Sorry.”

   He reached out and placed a
hand on her thigh. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

   “You obviously haven’t seen
the provisions we’ve got on board.”

   Shawn gave her a grave
look. “Emergency rations?”

   Melissa nodded. “And lots
of them.”

%%%

   Three hours later, Shawn
effortlessly glided the transport into standard high orbit above the
dust-covered planet Torval. To his right, Melissa attempted to open a
communications channel to the surface. He watched her work at the control
diligently for a few moments before she began cursing at the machine in
disgust.

   “Problem?”

   She sighed, then put her
hands in her lap in defeat. “I can’t seem to get a lock on the Special Services
team Admiral Hansen told us was down on the surface.”

   “Are you sure you’re using
the correct frequency?”

   She looked at the
transmitter and nodded. “It’s like they’re not even there.”

   Shawn didn’t like the sound
of that. They’d had too many similar situations in the past, and the thought of
finding everyone on the surface missing—or worse, dead—was something he didn’t
want to contemplate. “Can you feed the coordinates for the mining installation
into the ship’s computer?” he asked her.

   Pivoting in her chair to
face the ship’s library computer, she keyed in the latitude and longitude.
“Done.”

   Accessing the short-range
sensors, Shawn aligned them squarely at the coordinates on the surface.

   Noticing what he was doing,
Melisa leaned closer to the readout display between them. “That’s something of
a gamble, isn’t it?”

   “What do you mean?”

   “Well, a sensor scan of
that intensity would certainly alert anyone down there that we’re looking at
them.”

   Shawn nodded. “If the SS
team is down there, whoever received Jerry’s encrypted message likely already
knows it.” A moment later, the sensors returned the information he was after.
“Well, that explains why they aren’t receiving,” he said as he perused the
readings on the screen.

   The screen was all a jumble
of numbers and letters to Melissa. “Why?”

   “There’s a sandstorm raging
down there. It’s kicked up a lot of particles and they’re scattering the
sensors. It’s no wonder you can’t get a lock on their signal.”

   “But that still doesn’t
tell us if they’re all right … or that they’re down there at all,” Melissa
replied.

   “True, but it also doesn’t
mean something is wrong.”

   She looked from him to the
screen, the numbers still not making any sense to her. Knowing that staring at
it wouldn’t make it any clearer, she looked out the view port to the dusty
world below. “So now what do we do?”

   “We could wait out the
storm, but that could take hours.”

   “Or days,” she said under
her breath, the thought of Shawn not being able to return to active duty
weighing her down once again.

   “Possibly. Our best bet is
to set the ship down in the city for the night.” He reached down and turned the
sensors to the settlement to the east of the sand storm. “Everything looks
pretty clear down there. See if you can hail the port authority.”

   Melissa pressed a series of
commands and was greeted with a green indicator. “I think we’ve got … someone.”

   “Don’t keep them on hold
too long. There’s no telling if that storm will suddenly change course. We
could find ourselves stuck up here for a long time if that happens.”