Icarus (10 page)

   She laughed quietly. “You know, this suits you.”

   He gave her a quizzical look. “Meaning what?”

   “The service, Sector Command.”

   “Oh, really?” he replied dryly. 

   “It’s just that sometimes you sound more like an officer and less like
a—”

   “Space hauler?” he snapped.

   The inflection of his words caught Melissa by surprise. She thought
back to their initial meeting with Captain Krif, and had a recollection of
something for which she’d never actually apologized to Shawn. “I’m sorry. I
didn’t mean to—”

   “Don’t worry about it,” he dismissed, examining a spot of dust on the
top of the lift’s control panel. “I’ve heard worse.”

   Something in her wanted to reach out to him, but Melissa found herself
glued firmly in place. Unable to gather the courage to move toward him, she
relegated herself to pondering anything she could say to make amends for the
things that had hurt him in the past. “This will all be over soon. I’m sure of
it. We’ll find my father and—” Shawn turned to her, and she stammered briefly
before continuing. “Then you can go back to living a quiet and peaceful life on
Minos.” She turned from his scrutiny and looked at the closed lift doors. “No
more Sector Command, no more secrets, and no more Agent Graves.” She cast her
eyes sideways to see if she could discern Shawn’s thoughts on the matter.
Instead, she noticed that his gaze fell to the floor.

   “Yeah,” Shawn replied slowly.

   She breathed a short sigh of frustration. “Well, let’s not throw a
party about it, okay? We have some work to do here before we head out of the
system.”

   “What kind of work, exactly?” he asked. “You never really did tell me
what we’re doing here.”

   “I have some questions for one of the proprietors. His…
shop
is
on one of the lower decks.”

   Shawn grunted. “You mean he’s an informant?”

   “His name came up in the OSI database as a less than credible source.
However, Toyotomi thinks some of the information this person has will lead us
in the right direction.”

   Shawn was puzzled. “I never heard him say anything about this while we
were on Persephone.”

   She smirked, still not looking at him. “You weren’t with me the entire
time we were in Toyo’s house.”

   He gave her a distrustful hum. “Anything else you want to tell me
about what you and Katashi did when I wasn’t looking?”

   She shook her head slowly. “At this point, it’s none of your business,
Lieutenant Commander.”

   “So we’re back to titles, I take it?”

   Melissa said nothing as the lift slowly came to a halt. As Shawn
pondered what on Third Earth he’d done to upset her this time, the doors
silently parted and Melissa strode confidently out into the passageway. She
turned first to the left, then to the right before heading off in her chosen
direction.

   “You do know where you’re going, don’t you?”

   “Of course I do,” she replied matter-of-factly. “It’s right over
here.” They turned a sharp, dimly lit corner and came to a screeching halt at a
dead end in the passageway.

   “Well, if you were looking to get nowhere fast, then I’d say you were
spot-on,” Shawn joked.

   Melissa turned to him and scowled, not at all amused with his humor.
She walked to the offending wall and ran a hand over its smooth, unblemished
surface. “I don’t understand,” she said under her breath. “It was supposed to
be here.” Reaching into the bag she’d slung over her shoulder before leaving
Sylvia’s
Delight
, she began to riffle through its contents. 

   “What was supposed to be here?”

   “Honestly, I don’t really know,” she said, continuing to hunt through
her bag until she’d found what she was looking for. She pulled out a small,
silver tablet, slightly larger than her palm, and held it out toward the wall.

   “What is that, a compass or a map?”

   Melissa shrugged as she waved the device at the door. “It’s a little
of both, actually. It’s a scanner, set to a specific frequency.”

   “What does it look for?”

   She dismissed his inquiry as if it were a minor annoyance. “It looks
for what I tell it to look for, and what I was led to believe would be here.”

   Shawn folded his arms and leaned against the corridor wall. “And that
is what, exactly?”

   Melissa waved her arm high above her head, trying to reach the topmost
portion of the wall. “A very specific type of radia—”

   “Don’t move,” a bass voice rang out from behind them.

   Shawn watched as Melissa, a few paces in front of him, abruptly
stopped her scan of the wall.

   “Turn around slowly,” another equally commanding voice said, distinct
enough in pitch to indicate that it was certainly a second interloper.

   “I thought you said not to move,” Shawn replied jovially, still
looking at Melissa’s back. “I can either stand still or turn around, but I
can’t do both at the same time.”

   He felt the distinct jab of a rifle muzzle in his lower back, a
feeling he’d become exceedingly tired of over the last several days.

   “Don’t get smart,
human
. Do as I say. Now!”

   Shawn watched as Melissa slowly turned to face him. She then nodded in
the direction over his shoulder, and only then did he start to turn to face the
originators of the commands.

   Before Shawn stood two lumbering Erkelians, each fully armed with
enough firepower to easily dispatch both him and Melissa quite efficiently.
Vaguely humanoid in appearance, save for their piggish nose and three-inch-long
tusklike teeth extending up from their lower jaws, each stood about eight feet
tall, with every square inch of visible skin bristling with needle-fine hair.
The wider of the two, the one on Shawn’s immediate left, held a low-yield
exodisintegrator, a fairly nasty weapon that would cause a great deal of tissue
damage with even a glancing blow. The other Erkelian held two standard
blasters, one in each of his clawed hands. Shawn didn’t recognize the model of
weapons, but assumed they weren’t simple pellet guns.

   “State your business here,” the one with the disintegrator asked
slowly.

   “We’re lost,” Melissa said with a nervous smile. “My husband and I
must have made a wrong turn down that last passageway. He’s always doing that,
you know? Human men, right? I swear, they’d get lost in a wet paper bag. If you
could just tell us how—”

   “Silence!” the creature yelled.

   After a tense moment, the Erkelian with the two blasters grunted a
laugh. “You were right,” he began, not averting his flame-red eyes from
Melissa. “Human women
do
have a tendency to talk too much.”

   “Of course I was right, you moron,” the fatter one bellowed as he
poked his thumb toward his own chest. “That’s why I’m in charge.”

   “Listen,” Shawn said, raising his arms and stepping a foot closer to
the lead Erkelian. “If you could just tell us—”

   “I said shut up and don’t move!” The creature plunged the barrels of
his rifle into Shawn’s stomach, temporarily knocking the wind from the
commander’s lungs.

   Shawn doubled over, and Melissa was instantly on her knees and at his
side.

   “I’m not screwing around with you, human. I said shut your mouth!”

   Shawn looked up to the large creature from his position on the floor.
“No problem,” he offered through ragged breaths.

   “What should we do with them, Ja-Dawn?” the pistol-packing one asked
of his comrade.

   “The only thing we can do, Ra-Lore: we take ‘em to the Master.”

   The smaller one, called Ra-Lore, sneered at Melissa. “Oh, good. I
can’t wait to see what he’ll do to them.”

   “Yeah,” Ja-Dawn said, his exodisintegrator rifle still pointed
dangerously at Shawn. “These humans might have had a quicker death with us.”

   The smaller one stepped closer to Melissa, who involuntarily stood up
and shuffled closer to Shawn. The creature stuck out a purple tongue that
slithered between his two tusks as he licked his lips luridly. “Oh, I hope it’s
very, very slow. I do hate quick torture.”

   “Mind your place, Ra,” Ja-Dawn said sternly, grabbing the smaller
man’s shoulder and tugging him away from Melissa.

   Shawn recognized the distinction immediately. ‘Ja’ was the Erkelian
equivalent to supervisor, where ‘Ra’ was understood to be a lower-ranking
subordinate. Shawn had little experience with Erkelians, and he hoped it would
be a long time until he had to deal with them again. They were known as fierce
tacticians, shrewd business creatures, and skilled traders who had plied the
commercial trade lanes while humans were still learning how to navigate the
oceans of Old Earth.

   The last time Shawn had been in the company of Erkelians, he’d been
forced to watch as they stole the cargo he was transporting to Jacques De
Lorme. It had been either that or become the main course at their next feast.

   “Bind them,” Ja-Dawn snickered as he cocked his rifle. “Just stand as
clear as you can. If they get out of line, I want an excuse to blast them.”

   Ra-Lore twirled the blasters around his clawed fingers before expertly
slipping the weapons into their respective holsters at his side. “With
pleasure, Ja.”

* * *

   With the cold steel of the magnetic handcuffs wrapped firmly around
Shawn’s wrists, Ra-Lore inspected the manacles to make sure the prisoners had
no chance of escape. Once he was satisfied, he reached under his jacket lapel
and tapped a hidden transmitter. A grinding noise could be heard beyond the
walls of the dead-end corridor in which they were standing. Suddenly, the
nondescript wall Melissa had been scanning opened up lengthwise to reveal a
dark chamber beyond.

   Ra-Lore prodded Shawn in the back once more as Ja-Dawn withdrew a
single blaster from his side. “In there, you two. Move.”

   “It’s dark,” Melissa offered. “I can’t see where I’m going.”

   “Too bad for you, human,” Ja-Dawn said as he prodded Melissa into
moving farther inside the compartment. “The master prefers it dark, although I
admit I’d much rather see what he’s going to do to in full, vivid color.”

   After about twenty paces into the space, the door closed behind them,
leaving the four cloaked in total darkness.

   “Can I help you?” a voice called calmly from the void.

   In a vain effort to continue playing the last card Melissa had drawn,
Shawn attempted to feign ignorance. “We’re lost.”

   The incorporeal voice laughed slowly, almost maniacally. “Surely you
don’t expect me to believe that, do you Captain Kestrel?”

   In the blackness, Shawn hoped the look of surprise that crossed his
face was well-concealed. “You know me?”

   Again, the voice laughed slowly before it spoke. “I would say that
I’ve…
heard
of you.”

   Melissa let out an exasperated sigh. “Is there anyone in this galaxy
you haven’t offended,
Captain
?”

   Irritated at the remark, Shawn turned to where he thought Melissa was
standing. “Who said I offended him? I don’t even know who is speaking.”

   “And you,” the voice now seemed directed at Melissa. “I’m afraid your
name escapes me.”

   “As does yours,” she remarked sardonically.

   “Does it? It seems to me that you knew right where to find me, so I
can only assume you knew who it was that you were looking for.”

   “You know what they say about assumptions?” she asked smartly.

   “I do, but as you can see, I’m not on the receiving end of the
punishment for discovering this… sanctuary.”

   “Sanctuary,” Shawn scoffed. “I can’t see a damn thing in here. Do you
think you could turn on a few lights?”

   “Oh, I’m afraid not, Captain. It might alert someone to this location.
You see, I keep the power consumption in this space to a bare minimum to avoid
arousing suspicion. It just wouldn’t do to alert the station security that we
were down here under less than
legal
circumstances.”

   “Hey, I didn’t see anything,” Shawn replied honestly. “Believe me. I’m
in here and I can’t see a damn thing. Do you think we can just let bygones be
bygones? I’ll say I didn’t see you, you can say you didn’t see me, and we’ll
call it even. Okay?”

   The voiced laughed slowly once more. “You surprise me, Captain. You
are far less witty than De Lorme mentioned.”

   “Oh, you know Jack?” Shawn asked with the thickest amount of sarcasm
he could muster.

   “You can say that.”

   Shawn allowed for a slight silence to enter the compartment, waiting
to see if Melissa had any remarks on the subject. When she remained still, he
decided to continue. “Jack and I aren’t exactly on the friendliest of terms. So
if you two are, then let’s just get right to the point. What do you want?”

   “I had everything I wanted,” the voice said. “Except now, it seems the
privacy I worked so hard to obtain has been compromised. So you see...you’ve
actually taken something from me.”

   “I have, huh?” Shawn replied flatly.

   “Yes, Captain. You have,” the voice said, and there was no mistaking
the menace it conveyed. “And I intend to get it back.”

   Suddenly there was a flurry of movement at Shawn’s side as a rush of
air passed his face; he felt himself falling forward, but couldn’t tell if he
were being pushed or pulled. He instinctively tried to throw his arms out in
front of him, not knowing what he would land on, but they were still securely
fastened behind his back. In a maneuver that, had the lights been on, would
have looked quite comical, he slammed his shoulder into the cold metal of the
deck with a resounding thud. Shawn managed to lift his head up in time for the
compartment to be bathed in a flash of light, probably from Ra’s blaster. He
staggered to his feet, but was kicked in the shin, then punched in the face
before he went down once more.