Star Watch (2 page)

Out of habit Jason brought two fingers to his ear. “Go for Captain,” he said, already knowing the incoming NanoCom call was, in fact, from his father.

“Enough is enough.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’ve been rambling around that place long enough. There’s only so many hours you can lay in the sun … or whatever the two of you are doing down there.”

“You’d be surprised how entertained we’ve been; able to keep our—”

“Fine … I’ll take your word for it. Put away the pool toys, pack a few things, and lock up the house. The paperwork’s come through.”

“I didn’t submit any paperwork, Dad.”

“None of that
Dad
shit … it’s Admiral. Your leave has officially been revoked and you, as well as Dira, are back on active duty, as of right now.”

Jason tried to keep the smile from his lips, knowing full well his father would be able to hear it in his voice. Sure, with
The Lilly
gone, things would now be different. Perhaps they’d give him one of the U.S. Craing heavy cruiser conversions … it really didn’t matter. “What exactly do you have in mind for me?”

“Just get up here and stop wasting time, Admiral Reynolds.” The connection ended.

“Admiral? What the hell’s he talking about?”

Jason looked up to see Dira standing in the family room, watching him. “Do I have time for a shower … Admiral Reynolds?”

“Sure, take as long as you want … a command decision … apparently I’ve been promoted.”

She rolled her eyes and headed toward the master bedroom. He thought about the whole admiral thing. He’d fought against receiving the promotion for over a year—but now, for some reason, it seemed to fit. He was forty now. Time to let other officers head into battle … and play the wild adventurer.

* * *

One thing for sure about military life, you can fit just about anything you need into a standard issue duffle. Together, Dira and Jason made their way through the maze of junk cars, piles of scrap metal, and stacks of rusted root beer-colored wheel rims. Like himself, Dira was back in a spacer’s jumpsuit. Inevitably, his eyes leveled on her walking several paces in front of him. For goodness’ sakes, she even made a jumpsuit look sexy.

As if reading his mind, she glanced back over her shoulder and gave him a scolding look. “Knock it off, Admiral … none of that.” She made an abrupt turn, passing between the old, faded caddy and the school bus. She found the hidden access button beneath the front right wheel well and gave it a definitive slap. The bus’s narrow double-doors opened and she disappeared up the metal stairs. Jason took one last look around the yard before following her inside.

The bus was basically a shell—no rows of bench seats, nor driver’s seat or steering wheel. Jason watched as Dira hit another access button and the floor began to descend. The elevator shaft was dark but if you looked hard, the walls were lined with a myriad of old hubcaps, automobile doors, and side panels. Twenty years earlier, Ricket and his grandfather had spent weeks … months … making the hideaway below safe. It was Ol’ Gus who’d first discovered what was hidden there. Buried beneath a hundred years of dirt and sediment,
The Lilly
rested, unobserved. Ricket, too, lay buried—somewhere outside the ship, his bionic brain core partially scrubbed.

The lift came to a jarring stop. They’d reached the bottom of the shaft. Jason pulled open the metal lift gate and the two headed off into the tunnel before them.

By the time they hiked the distance through the winding passage, eventually emerging into the wide expanse of the aquifer proper, both were breathing hard.

Jason’s heart missed a beat, so used to seeing his ship—
The Lilly—
sitting right there, in this hiding place so very few knew about. He pushed a recurring feeling of loss aside … just as he’d done a hundred times before. They headed toward the center of the aquifer where a small transport vessel sat, illuminated by high, overhead hanging lights; it was a Caldurian shuttle—the
Perilous
.

Off to the right were stacks of recently-constructed environmental compartments, containing complete living quarters for no less than a hundred crewmembers; also, a large mess hall and a laboratory-type facility, as well as other amenities. Everything one would need to survive down here—probably indefinitely, if necessary.

A solitary figure emerged from the rear of the shuttle and headed down the gangway. It was Lieutenant Commander Grimes. She, along with a group of other Navy Top Gun pilots, was assigned to
The Lilly
a year and a half earlier, then later transferred over to the
Minian,
the senior-most pilot of its fleet of advanced Caldurian fighters and shuttles.

“Captain Reynolds, it’s so good to see you again. Hey, Dira … you’re certainly looking well-rested.”

“Lieutenant, good to see you too,” Jason said.

Dira gave Grimes a hug. They were friends and it had been quite a while since Dira had served with the fleet in any official capacity. Not since she’d returned home to Jhardon—a planet ravaged earlier by the Craing. Her father, the king of Jhardon, was recently killed and her mother, the queen, seemed at death’s door from illness. It looked as if Dira, actually a princess by birthright, would be required to step in as ruler. But all that changed when Ricket was able to procure a MediPod and had it delivered to the royal palace. It still took several days of wrangling on Dira’s part to convince those at her mother’s bedside to allow such alien technology to come anywhere close to the dying queen’s frail body. In the end, reason, and the all too imminent death of their beloved queen, made them grant Dira permission. Her mother soon recovered and immediately went to work changing the monarchy to a more democratic form of government. Not interested in politics in the least, Dira was then free to return to the Alliance—to Jason—and resume her work as a medical doctor … a job she truly loved doing.

They wasted no time getting aboard the shuttle. Grimes took her seat in the cockpit while Dira and Jason sat in the front seats, directly behind her, in the cabin. With the cabin open to the cockpit, Jason watched Grimes at the controls. She entered in the coordinates—to an area directly above the scrapyard on the surface—and activated a phase-shift. Everything flashed white. Jason looked out the observation window to his left and now saw the scrapyard a hundred feet below them, and his house nestled on the east side of the vast property. Grimes pulled back on the controls and the
Perilous
rapidly headed away from the surface. Within seconds, they’d reached Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Chapter 2

Alchieves System

Pharlom Command Warship
_________________

The Pharloms, as a race, were distinctive in looks and mannerisms. Even the Craing, who had come across thousands of different species and races over the centuries, had placed the Pharloms at the very top of the list—as one of the most bizarre.

Leon Pike, a human, was born to two Earth parents who’d joined a younger Commander Perry Reynolds, some twenty-seven years earlier, to crew aboard an amazing Caldurian vessel named
The Lilly
. Leon’s parents were now long dead … and his home had always been open space. At only twenty-six, he went by the title of Merchant Trader, but in truth he was up for hire for any number of trades: intergalactic guide; bounty hunter; even a trader of black-market goods … on a rare occasion—if the terms were acceptable. But that didn’t mean Leon lacked a strong moral compass. Yes, he was a man with few personal allegiances, but the ones he did possess were quite strong. Leon didn’t steal from or cheat his friends, and he did his best not to sleep with their wives. He may have broken the latter rule several times lately, but he had made a conscious vow—a decree—to never, ever, let that happen again. That was four days ago.

Leon held no allegiance to the Pharloms—none whatsoever. Being here now, on the command vessel’s bridge, sitting next to Mangga, the fleet’s Grand Overseer (equivalent to the rank of admiral), had been one big error in judgment.

Leon wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought Mangga was looking at him. The Pharloms did not have faces, per se, in terms of the typical two eyes, nose, and mouth. They did have a head, but it looked more like a piece of granite than something organic. Composed of hundreds of sharp ridges, and just as many valley-like indentations, there simply was no way to know where, exactly, a Pharlom was looking. Although, of late, Leon thought he saw an eye, of sorts, located in the mid-section of Mangga’s head. So, nodding in that general direction, he gave back a tight-lipped smile and a curt nod.

Leon tried to remember the course of the events that had put him here. That hiccup had come about using Dirinian middleman Jericho Goll, another human, but obviously one lacking any semblance of a moral compass of his own. Jericho had set the whole thing up—had come to Leon with what he’d described as a quick, in-and-out, two- or three-day planetary guide gig. An unnamed third party needed to traverse the ten-world Alchieves solar system. Not a simple process. Leon, though, had done it several times—mostly smuggling bendalli weed to the locals. The Tromians, who’d been raided many times over years past, had constructed close to one hundred space cannons that were now located throughout their solar system. Most were perched on satellite moons, but some also free-floated in space. Just one of the gigantic weapons could annihilate a trespasser ship. Leon knew the access codes, which allowed any given ship a free pass without harassment. And that’s how he’d gotten himself into this present fix.

Leon actually liked the Tromian people. They didn’t deserve this … whatever
this
was. Probably a raid, one he’d be responsible for. He pushed feelings of guilt from his mind and tried to concentrate on the hovering hologram at the center of the bridge. They had just entered the Alchieves solar system and were approaching the first access point. Within seconds, the Pharlom destroyer would be hailed. If the access code relayed back wasn’t correct, this ship, and others in this fleet of eighteen, would be fired upon.

Leon debated if he should just go ahead and give them an incorrect code … let the pieces fall as they may. Hell, perhaps the Pharloms’ shields could fend off an inevitable, retaliatory bombardment. Not likely … Leon never heard of ships surviving Tromian cannon fire, once unleashed.

And now was the time—the communications officer was informing the Grand Overseer of the incoming hail. The timer had been initiated. He would have less than forty-five seconds to enter the proper nine-digit code.

“You will provide the code now, human,” the Grand Overseer ordered.

Leon stared back at the Pharlom leader. He, like other Pharloms, was big and imposing. Like brown-colored stone men, they all wore black and had armor plating secured over their chest, lower torso, and upper thighs. Their hands, their most human-looking aspect, held a cluster of eight fingers—digits—and like the rest of their physiology’s makeup, was more mineral-based than fleshy. Their every movement produced the sound of stone grating against stone. That sound, multiplied times ten as the bridge crew constantly moved about, was getting beyond irritating.

At twenty-six, Leon felt he had a good many years ahead. He certainly was not ready to die, either at the hands of these raiders, or by Tromian cannon fire. He stood and walked around the bridge perimeter to the communications officer. He leaned over and began entering the code onto a touchpad device. He had this, the first access point code, memorized. Actually, he had the code for every access point memorized—each of the ten different sets of geometric symbols. Once the last symbol was entered, a return Tromian transmission indicated they’d received clearance to proceed.

Leon knew the next challenge for the Pharloms would be staying hidden from Tromian sensors. He’d be surprised if they weren’t detected already.

“Eighteen ships won’t go undetected from this point on, Grand Overseer,” Leon said, as he returned to his oversized chair, back on Mangga’s left.

“Yes. We most definitely have been detected.”

“Then the rest of the codes won’t help you … they’ll lock us out,” Leon said, suddenly feeling uneasy.

“We only needed access into the solar system … this first set of codes. The only ones we did not possess. I thank you for your help in that regard. Now … no more of your services will be required.”

“But how will you—”

The Grand Overseer cut him off, sounding annoyed. “I suggest you not speak, nor bring further attention to yourself. Remember, you are our guest here … cause problems and you’ll be eliminated.”

Leon sat back and kept his mouth shut. The center hologram was active—showing various planets and moons and, strangely, the all too quiet floating cannon platforms—moving past them in the silence of space.

The only thing Leon could come up with was he’d given them an additional few moments for the element of surprise. It seemed a lot of trouble for all the effort. Truthfully, he didn’t know what these people thought … what they considered important, or not. They were raiders … pillagers of worlds. Everyone had heard of the Pharloms. They would ravage at will all the planets within this solar system. Leon only knew he needed to get off this ship, away from the Pharloms, as soon as humanly possible. Leon recognized the tiny, light-blue world at the center of the hologram. So that was their destination … Trom. As the planet grew larger, so too did the levels of excitement of the bridge crew. This was what they lived for.

“Um … I need to use the facilities.”

The Grand Overseer ignored him.

“I really need to go—”

“Quiet!” The Grand Overseer turned in Leon’s direction then back toward the hologram. He spoke to the crewmember on his side. Leon remembered his name, something like Garbon … or Carbon. Whatever his name was, he stood up and gestured for Leon to follow him. Before leaving the bridge, Leon gave a half-hearted wave to the Overseer. “I’ll be right back.”

“You’re fortunate the Grand Overseer likes you,” the bridge officer said.

Leon simply nodded at that, not sure being liked by the Overseer was such a good thing.