Chapter Two
Nassi Foke
The massive hangar bay of the Independence swarmed with scurrying, wheeled service bots and maintenance personnel wearing gray coveralls. Holo generators displayed three-dimensional graphs above wooden work benches, and the place smelled of rocket fuel. The facility also bustled with red-shirted plane captains steering electric vehicles over a gritty tarmac. It had the feel of a full blown airport inside the belly of the star cruiser.
Three gigantic oval portals filled the walls twenty feet above the tall bay doors. Beyond the glass, thousands of stars shone bright in the black of space. Thad and Morse found the Gethite particle rider under a tarp near the third automated bay door.
Thad flipped the covering aside, and his eyes widened. “Hello, beautiful.”
Morse’s lips twisted. “Looks like something someone made in their backyard—kind of rickety.”
“Looks are deceiving,” Thad said. “It’s edgy. The latest in particle techno. It’s just this techno is still somewhat experimental.”
The machine resembled a fifteen foot-long pontoon ship with the two pontoons situated on the outer edge of a diamond-shaped fuselage. A clear cockpit, also diamond in appearance, connected the two pontoons near the bow. The cockpit’s opening was set in the aft. Each rocket-like pontoon also had double rear fins the height of a man, and on the forward ends they had the front of a missile. The vehicle stood two feet above the deck on six wheels—three under each pontoon. A thin titanium rod, three feet tall, extended vertically from the bow of the diamond fuselage.
Thad pointed at the rod. “It collects cosmic particles and uses a transfer reactor to distribute raw energy to the rear engines. The thing takes about a cup of petrol once a month under regular use. The petrol sparks the transfer.”
Morse sidled beside him and frowned. “Can you fly this thing, Commander?”
Thad arched a brow. “I can fly anything, Lieutenant. And it just so happens I used to race these babies on Beta Prime when I was still a wet behind the ears cub like you. That was before I came over to the Guild, during my enlistment with the Confederation.” He nudged the silver hull with his shoe. “It will hit a thousand miles per, in a gravity environment…inside four seconds. Can’t change directions too fast though.”
“Why not?” The lieutenant squatted and ran his hand over the smooth hull.
“These particle reactors are unstable. They can blow.”
“You mean the motor dies?”
“They go boom, Lieutenant. Like a small nuclear explosion when one of these things goes off.”
He fingered the transparent dome hesitantly. “How about we just paint the shuttle to look like a Gethite ship?” Morse glanced at Thad, the color draining from his round face.
“We’ve got our orders,” Thad said. “Anyway, we’ll be fine. These things are a hoot to fly. Be a good boy, and I might let you drive it back.”
Morse looked at it again and seemed to weigh the possibilities.
Thad pressed a flashing square on the hull behind the clear canopy and the dome opened. He flipped the satchel inside onto a cloth seat. “Let’s get changed, Lieutenant.”
They stripped down to their skivvies, left their uniforms in a metal cubby, and then donned the Gethite attire.
Morse winced at he slipped on the jacket. “This stuff itches.” He sniffed the sleeve. “And it stinks like something died.” He climbed into the co-pilot’s seat, causing the small machine to lean for a moment.
Thad frowned. “Are you gaining weight, Lieutenant?”
Morse strapped in and lowered his voice as he said, “I’ve been playing poker with Chief Ridge on the mess deck. He keeps asking me to taste his newest dessert. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
Thad jumped inside. The cockpit dome closed over them, latching with a hissing sound. He slipped on his helmet. “Bay personnel, we’re ready for launch at door three.” He thumped another switch and a hologram swallowed the inside of the cockpit.
Morse closed his visor. “Wow. Command functions on this craft look like a virtual game.”
A plane captain, wearing padded ear protectors, drove up on an electric cart. He unlatched the rider from the deck, cast a chain aside, and then trotted to a panel next to the massive steel bay door and keyed in a digital command. The hangar door opened, beginning with a hole in the center the size of an egg, then it spiraled outward until it vanished into the bulkheads.
Thad turned the engines, which whined and made a suctioning sound. The vertical rod on the nose of the craft glowed white.
Morse peered at the rod. “I wouldn’t mind trying it on the way back.”
Two handles with grips arose smoothly from the floorboard then clicked into place next to his knees. Thad grabbed the grips and thumbed the throttle on the end of one handle. The craft lifted and wobbled forward slowly through the airlock toward the sealed outer bay door. A worker in a silver suit saluted as they passed. Thad returned the gesture.
Once the vessel cleared the inner door, it closed behind them. The outer bay door slid aside in the same outward spiraling motion. As the particle rider drifted free of the ship, Thad scanned the rear monitor until the bay door closed behind them.
“So, I can drive it on the way back?” Morse said.
Thad nodded, and switched off the cabin com. “Did you bring it?”
Morse opened his Gethite jacket. Paper bills were stuffed into his waistband. “I had it down my pants. All Gethite currency,” he said. “I have a friend at the monetary-exchange back on Daggon. He transferred it for us for nothing.”
“How much does ten thousand Guild bucks make in Gethite money?”
“Two million krachnards. Can I really fly this on the way back?”
Thad shrugged. “Sure.”
“How much to buy into the fight?” Morse grinned.
“It doesn’t matter. The Guild is paying our ante. That’s the genius of my plan.” He opened the satchel and stuffed the tech bombs and gadgets, and the hand laser, into his inner jacket pockets. He handed the sack to Morse. “The ante money is still in there. Keep this with you.”
“Captain Thorn knows what we’re doing?”
“Not exactly. She doesn’t know we’re gambling our money—mine mostly—on the individual fights I’m in. And she thinks I’ll quit once we get enough pictures and have the Gethite in our custody.”
Morse nodded. “She doesn’t know we’re going to win fifty thousand Guild dollars.”
“You got that right.” Thad gunned the throttle, and the vertical rod glowed red. Fire belched out of the stern, and the thing accelerated quickly. “Fast in space too,” he crooned. “Give us a map, computer.”
In a moment, a three-dimensional representation of the surface appeared in a green holographic fog inside the cabin. The image zoomed in over a crude, sprawling wood and stone city standing in the midst of a wilderness of dense, old growth forest.
“Show us our destination.”
The map further zoomed in to a neighborhood of flat-roofed buildings, some of rock and some of wood, all inset with wooden shuttered windows and plank doors. The streets were fashioned from dirt, and most buildings were no more than one story high. Many homes had crudely fashioned furniture on the roofs, like the inhabitants slept there in the warmer season.
“The eastern city,” the computer said. “Population eighty-three thousand.”
Thad grunted. “What’s this Gethite’s name again?”
“Nassi Foke,” the computer said. “Would you like to see his image to refresh your recollection?”
The ride got bumpy as they neared the upper atmosphere. “Go ahead,” Thad said, wrestling with the controls. He glanced at Morse. “Make sure to hold on tight when you get your turn. It takes a bit of strength to keep this thing under control.”
In the mossy-colored fog around them, a pale-skinned man with long, tangled brown hair appeared. He had a scar on his right cheek and a lazy eye. Thad
cast a glance at Morse. “We find him, drug him, disguise him with the liquid skin, and take him along to the Balo with us. When does it start, Lieutenant?”
“In less than an hour. If we were going to beat him with an ugly stick…someone beat us to it.”
Thad’s lip twisted. “Are you developing a sense of humor, Lieutenant?”
“I think you’re wearing off on me, Commander.”
Thad chuckled. They hit the upper atmosphere, and he nudged the nose downward. “Lock me onto his last known location, computer.”
A red X appeared in the moving holographic map. “This is actually Mister Foke’s place of employment, Commander,” the computer said. “Our intelligence says he is there now.”
Beneath the speeding rider, a thin, meandering river flowed from a nearby mountain range. Close to the banks, to the south, stood a primitive metropolis. They approached it quickly, and Thad lowered the wheels. It was midday in the eastern city when they got close enough to get a firsthand look at the place. White smoke wafted from stone chimneys and hung heavy in the still air. Gethite children played a stick ball game in the dirt streets—sometimes with parents looking on. Other than occasional particle riders, zipping along and belching orange fire, the place devoid of modern techno. There were no sidewalks, only an occasional stone path, and most Gethites walked or pulled wooden carts with tall wooden wheels.
Thad landed the craft in the woods along the river bank, near the edge of the city. Morse strapped the satchel over his shoulder, lifted his com, and snapped a few photos.
Thad smirked. “Pictures of people, Lieutenant—not of the scenery.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And keep that com out of sight. I doubt many are carrying one here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thad studied the holo map on his own com. After memorizing the path they’d need to take, he pocketed the device, stretched a tarp the color of the surrounding foliage over the craft, and trotted off with Morse on his heels. They crossed a stone drainage ditch, climbed a mud hill and stepped into a dirt alley. Garments hung on rawhide lines, drying in the midday sun. A few Gethite women chatted near one of the clotheslines, but they paid no attention to him and Morse as they ambled along the alley.
A block along, the single story buildings were packed closer together, and one wide wooden structure had a set of double iron doors propped open with wooden chairs. Thad caught a strong whiff of booze. This is the place. What a dump…and a bar to boot.
The location they sought was a dilapidated tavern. He pulled Morse aside and whispered, “Take some pictures…discreetly.”
The lieutenant nodded.
Along with a couple of short brass torches burning with a flickering yellow flame, a single window illuminated the place inside. The bar—a rectangular counter constructed out of uneven black logs and covered with a plank top sat in front of the torches. The ceiling was hoisted above thick, greenwood rafters. The place smelled like a backed up commode. An antique long rifle hung on nails on the back wall, a few steps from the reach of the Gethite bartender—a homely man wearing striped merchants garments. Several old Gethites sat at the bar on tall, uneven stools, and a handful more slouched on crooked benches at rectangular wooden tables scattered about the cave-like interior.
Staring, Morse pushed in close. “It’s hard to tell the women from the men.”
Thad shushed him as they sidled up to the bar beside a drunken Gethite, asleep and snoring, with his head on the counter and his wide backside hanging off the stool. Tin mugs hung above wooden kegs behind the bar. One keg had a metal tap and a spout. It seemed Gethite beer was all to be had in this place.
“Give us two,” Thad said. Glancing at Morse, he motioned with his chin. “Pay the man.”
The lieutenant reached a hairy hand inside his coat and handed him a bill. The man wandered off then brought back a couple of frothing mugs. After slamming them down, the Gethite cast a few coins onto the bar—the money didn’t bounce, it just kind of stuck to the mucky surface.
The barkeep stepped back and eyed them. “I don’t recall seeing you two before.” His teeth were brown and eroded, and he had a ragged, yellow and oily mustache.
“We’re from the western city,” Thad said. He sniffed the mug. A red crust had calcified on the rim. He set it down without having any, and Morse, nose wrinkled, did the same.
“What’s your business here? We don’t get many strangers.”
“My friend and I are here for the Balo.”
The suspicious expression eased, and the barkeep smiled. “Here to gamble on the fights? That’s why things are so slow. Everybody’s in the barn.”
“The barn? How do we get there from here?”
“It’s about a block out back. It’s the tallest place in the neighborhood, so you can’t miss it.” He slouched on the bar close to him, and Thad decided he knew where the foul odor in the place originated. “Big money riding on this one. There’s a champion no one can beat.”
“We hadn’t heard that,” Morse said, backing off, his gaze drifting to the snoring drunk.
“Who’s the champion?” Thad said.
“Numbot, of course.”
“Of course,” Thad said. “By the way, I’m looking for an old friend. Thought I’d look him up and surprise him before the fights. His name is Nassi Foke.”
The bartender straightened. “Nassi works for me. I don’t recall him saying anything about friends from the western city.”
Thad shrugged. “Probably because he’s ashamed of us. Morse here’s been cursed by two different witches, and bad luck just seems to follow him.”
As the words rolled off his lips, the snoring drunk fell over onto the floor, shooting a cloud of dust upward. The barkeep backed up a step. “He’s fixing a stool for me.” He pointed to a doorway. “Through there. Take your cursed friend with you. We don’t need no trouble. And Nassi’s a bit depressed, mind you. So walk soft around him.”
Nassi Foke looked just like his holo image—kind of dirty and sickly, with a scar on his cheek and one eye cocked at a forty-five degree tilt. He sat cross-legged on the floor, working on a broken chair leg, as if he might be considering slinging the thing against the wall. There was one window, no glass in it, and the shutters were broken, rotted, and dangling. A narrow shaft of daylight hit the plank floor at the Gethite’s feet. He wore leather sandals revealing black toenails. The walls were so thin, daylight flickered between the boards. A stack of wooden kegs sat in one corner, and a small bed, made of thin boards and a sagging mattress, sloped near the window.
It seemed to be a storage locker doubling as a bedroom.
This makes me appreciate my crappy quarters on the ship.
The Gethite wore a gray woolen vest and stiff denim trousers. He looked up from his work on the chair and pushed the hair out of his eyes irritably. “The bar’s that way.” He motioned with his chin to the door they just passed through. “I’m going to start locking that door. A guy slipped in here and peed a puddle the other day.” He scowled and the wandering eye drifted. “This ain’t no toilet. I’m a trained tech, and here I am fixing chairs for people who don’t know a bedroom from a commode.”
“Actually we’re here to see you, Nassi,” Thad said.
He stood and leaned against the stool. “What for?” He cocked his head, and then both eyes rounded out. “Wait a minute, I know you. You’re that Guild pilot everybody’s always going on about. What’s-your-face? Best pilot in the galaxy, blah, blah, blah.”
Thad glanced at Morse.
Nassi opened his mouth, like he was about to add a holler, but Morse pitched a small, silver dart-like object at him. The thing hit Nassi in the neck, made a hissing sound, and the Gethite’s eyes rolled into his head.
Thad caught him before he hit the floor, and then steadied him on his feet. “It’s not supposed to knock him out.” He slapped the Gethite on the cheeks a few times, and Nassi eventually opened his glassy eyes and blinked. “Pay attention, Nassi. We’
re good friends, from the western city. You’re going with us to the Balo.”
“I don’t like Balo,” Nassi said, his eyelids fluttering.
“You love Balo.”
“I do?”
“Absolutely.”
Morse puckered his lips. “How about we tie him and leave him in the rider?”
Thad shook his head. “We can’t chance leaving him that long. Anyway, Captain Thorn said anyone with this stuff in their blood is real suggestable. He won’t be a problem. If someone asks, we’ll say he’s drunk…and we have the liquid mask. Besides, we’ll miss the first fight if we go back.”
“I don’t drink,” Nassi mumbled. “It makes my stomach queasy.”
“Sure you drink,” Thad said. “You love to drink.”
“I do?”
“Sure. You’re at the stuff all the time. You might even have a problem.”
Still glassy-eyed, Nassi licked his lips. “I think I want a mug of ale.”
“Not now…later. First tell me who you were giving Guild secrets to on Daggon.”
“I hate the Guild. I’m not from a member world, so I can’t buy citizenship.”
“Who was your contact?”
Nassi smacked his lips like he had a bad taste. “We always met at a bar a few blocks from the Weller palace. I never got a good look at him, because he sat at the same table…out of the light. I saw enough to know he was a Daggonite though. They’re freaks, born without a nose.”
“What was this Daggonite’s name?”
He shook his head, and his lazy eye studied Thad. “Never got a name, but I guessed he was connected to the royal family somehow. He wore a ring with the Weller crest.”
“Is there a back door?”
Nassi bobbed his chin and stumbled. “Behind the empty barrels. How would you like to sleep in this dump? I had a nice little apartment on Daggon.”
Thad kept him steady. “You lead the way. We’ve got to get to the Balo before it starts.”
“I never liked prize fights. It’s too noisy, and the place stinks like body odor. Besides, I’ve got to fix the chair. No fix, no eat. That’s what his highness says.”
“That’s not true. Next to drinking, gambling on the fights is your favorite thing. And his highness says you’re free to go.”
“I love Balo,” Nassi said, blinking as he hung onto Thad’s arm. “I think it must be the sweat and the blood. Sometimes guys get hit so hard they puke. It’s kind of exciting.”
“Don’t forget the sound of ribs breaking from a big punch,” Morse added, grinning.
“Yes, the breaking bones might be my favorite thing of all. If someone gets kicked in the gonads, I figure it’s been a good day. ”
Morse giggled.
Behind the stacked kegs was an old plank door with a heavy metal latch securing it to the wall. The door had several knotholes. Shafts of light streamed through the holes. Thad slipped in behind the kegs, reached to unlock the door, then he glanced at Morse. “How much is the grand prize?”
“Ten million krachnards.”
“In real money.”
“Fifty thousand Guild dollars. Wagering our money we might even double it.”
Thad twisted his lips. “I hope there’s no three-for-all. I always get ganged up on.”
“What does it matter? No one can beat you in full contact Balo, Commander. Even if you are getting old.”
“Who says I’m getting old?”
“Captain Thorn does. She says you need to get into shape and learn more Luch Chi before somebody ties your ankles behind your neck.”
Thad harrumphed. “She’s got Luch Chi on the brain.”
“Yeah, but she beats you all the time.”
“All the time,” Nassi agreed. “She beats you like a Daggonite drum.”
Thad glared at the Gethite. “Your tongue hurts too much to talk.”
Nassi grabbed his mouth and mumbled.
Thad leaned close to the round lieutenant. “Make sure to get plenty of pictures at the Balo. We’ll want to match images with identities when we get back to the ship.”