01 Relic
Quadrant: Penumbra
System: Unnamed
Ship: Kimmi, Light Assault Craft
Three years after Reia's escape.
One year after Vindik's demise.
In the enormous emptiness of the Milky Way galaxy, this murky system lacked the twinkle of distant stars.
Darkness spread across the viewport of Turner Boone's tiny, customized assault craft. Feeling a bit jittery, he snaked his fingers through his chestnut brown hair, which was growing too long for his taste. He peered over the pilot's shoulder at the holospectric display above her console. It was also empty.
Jett shifted in her seat to give him a better view of the holo. The pilot suite was small for the three of them: Jett, Boone, and their flight engineer, Samon. With an estimated age of 19, Boone felt the two could be his parents, if he had ever had parents, but Jett's piercing blue eyes did not give rise to his golden brown, and Samon's stocky build contrasted Boone's athletic form. For all he knew, he was gestated in a vat, and he was all right with that.
“You're sure these are the coordinates?” he asked Commander Cotsern through an interfacer over his ear. The tiny device relayed data to the quantum network, and its interface connected directly to his auditory and visual cortices. Direct connection was more efficient than simple comms and consoles, but in this enclosed star system it was giving him trouble.
Several thousand light-years away in Boone's flagship, the Makellan, Cotsern's muddled image flickered. Rosewood skin and jav-colored hair stretched across the view in his mind's eye without enough contrast to make out her features. The Kimmi was in a remote system, and its star emitted little light, and the dense gas cloud surrounding the heliosphere blocked light from other stars in the galaxy. It also interfered with the relay transmission, at least partially. He wondered what he looked like to her: probably a beige blob darkened by the disruption.
“Your position is so precise,” replied Cotsern, “that I advise you to move out of the way before they arrive.”
The thought of having a ship materialize in the space he occupied was downright unnerving. Boone's stomach was already tight from the idea that this “job” came from an anonymous source. The stakes deposited were substantial, and he needed them to keep the fleet afloat. He leaned back and gripped the headrest of Jett's seat with one hand. “Take us a kilometer away.”
Jett tapped something on the panel in front of her. The momentary discomfort of the higgs jump passed through Boone's body. Although the console displayed a new location, the viewport showed the same inky blackness as before. “You could have used the grav thrusters,” he said, thinking about the waste of gurelium fuel.
“And leave a trail in our direction?” she asked. The Kimmi's hull was coated in a non-reflective black nanopaint to help keep them hidden. A grav-thrust contrail would reveal their presence.
Jett was right, of course, and for all his training and experience orchestrating battles in space, he should have known. But that was why he hired Jett—she filled in his lack of experience when it came to piloting.
“Right on time,” said Samon, as the contours of a ship appeared in the holo at their previous location. His beefy, weathered hands moved fluidly over his own console where all the ship's systems and status displayed. “One ship, signature obscured.”
In the distance, the ship's hull scarcely reflected the dwarf star's dim light. From the outline formed in the holo, he gauged it to be a corvette with a modified cargo hold at its bilge. Civilian corvettes weren't often employed for cargo transfers, and Boone wondered if he should have brought a larger ship. Whatever was inside the corvette might be too large for the Kimmi's cargo hold.
Grab and go, Boone reminded himself. "Let me know when they make the drop," he said, although he would see it in the holo for himself.
A moment later the corvette drifted backward, leaving a small, indiscernible object in its place. "That will fit in the hold," said Samon. With a brush of his fingers on the console, the object enlarged in the holo with dimensions floating around it like a schematic.
Relieved, Boone sat back in the jump seat behind Samon. The object floating in the holo was long and vaguely cylindrical, like several concentric tubes extending from one another.
Jett turned around to face Boone. "Are we going in?"
"Not yet," said Boone. "They are supposed to leave first. We don't want to be identified." The more he thought about it, this transfer of cargo was a bit disconcerting. The client bought the artifact but didn't want anyone to know who he (or she) was. Boone and the seller in the corvette couldn't know one another, either. Boone apparently had an excellent reputation for delivering rare artifacts discreetly, although he would rather be extracting these treasures, not transporting them.
Jett turned back to the holo, and they waited. The corvette continued to drift, opening the range between itself and the object. Boone wondered why it lingered. Perhaps they wanted to see who picked it up. Then the corvette accelerated away.
"Wait," said Boone. As long as the Kimmi was quiet and still, no eyes or sensors would detect them.
A frigate appeared near the object. "What—?" Samon was already tapping his console to adjust the holo. Unloading a volley of plasma, the frigate ignored the artifact and turned to pursue the corvette.
Boone swore. This was unexpected and he hadn't planned a contingency for this scenario. The client's instructions were clear and simple: someone will drop the cargo and he would pick it up. He should have known it was too easy.
Two standard attack craft appeared where the frigate had come in. They also pursued the corvette. With greater speed than the frigate, they were able to intercept and fired at the corvette's broadsides.
“Hit it!” Boone said. “Grab the cargo and go before they turn around.”
“Arms engaged,” said Samon. He controlled the means to grab the device using external arms on the Kimmi's aft, while Jett would maneuver their position.
Meters from the relic, which looked like nothing more than a hunk of wreckage, Jett spun them 180 degrees, slowed, and backed the aft into the cargo. Samon's external arms secured it outside the cargo hatch.
“Cargo secure,” said Samon, his voice calm. In the distance, the corvette blinked out of existence. A moment later, the frigate also disappeared. The two assault craft made broad turns to come at the Kimmi.
“Shields, and let's go.” Boone didn't need to say it, but it made him feel better.
With the disconcerting sensation of a higgs jump, the inky black sky was replaced with a stretch of illuminated gases and billions of pinprick stars. Boone breathed a sigh of relief, although he felt a small twinge of sadness for the crew on the corvette. “We have it?”
“It's secure,” said Samon. “Do you want to bring it in?”
“Sure,” said Boone. Samon, thick and muscular for his age, joined Boone in the cargo hold. Boone activated his field harness, should the air pressure suddenly change and plunge him into the vacuum. The field would automatically surround him in an environmental bubble to protect him from the trauma. Whether Samon used one or not, Boone didn't ask.
Samon hit a panel with his palm, and the aft cargo doors slid to either side, revealing a...a hunk of wreckage exactly as Boone had seen from the viewport. The way it was attached to the arms, its length outspanned the height of the hatch. The relic was long and thin, something made of metal encased in some kind of accreted material.
With his hands in a webbed pouch, Samon activated the arms. He twisted one way and then another, and the two giant clamps outside the cargo hold wrested the long object into a position that would fit through the hatch. A third arm at the top of the hold swung down and grabbed the relic from the center. The outer arms released their grip and retracted to their idle positions outside the hatch, where they could no longer be seen. The third, interior arm held the relic aloft while Samon guided it to the center of the cargo hold.
As the cargo doors closed, Boone moved in to inspect this strange cargo. A mist emanated from its surface, sublimation from the corvette's atmospheric moisture that had frozen in the vacuum. Boone's heat was drawn toward the relic, giving him a chill.
He deactivated the field harness and reached out to touch the accretion. Many colors speckled the gray stone around a marbled, white crystal. His finger was millimeters from the rock, and Samon, who had come up behind him, pulled his hand away. “It's zero degrees,” he said. “Let it warm up before you give it your skin.”
Walking around the object, Boone noted the distinctive difference between the rock and an exposed, dull metallic surface where the rock had broken off. Engraved in the metal were symbols he had never seen before. Boone retrieved a metal rod with a flat end and chipped gently at the rock, exposing more of the metal and the symbols. The rock crumbled in small flakes, revealing layers in the fresh surface. Maybe it wasn't rock at all. Geology was not his strength.
Boone burned the symbols into his memory. It might come in useful at some future point, perhaps on another excavation.
“Commander!” Jett called urgently from the pilot suite. Carrying the rod like a baton, Boone ran, followed by Samon. In the viewport, the frigate had appeared and was already sending plasma toward them. Jett maneuvered to dodge it. Boone had to look away from the viewport to avoid becoming queasy.
They were in an assault ship, well designed for hit-and-run attacks on larger ships. A battle with the frigate wasn't the problem. He had been in worse situations and was confident he could win this skirmish. The problem was that it had followed them through higgspace, and that meant they had special tracking capabilities that were unique to Coalition interceptors. And that meant the frigate could follow them anywhere if it had a few minutes to track the quantum signature they left behind with each jump.
A memory stirred, and he quickly devised a plan based on that memory. “Samon, get coordinates to a well-guarded Coalition outpost in the Transition Zone.”
“Have 'em,” said Samon. “Tralucki Station, currently pretty active.”
“Jett—” He didn't need to finish as the disequilibrium set him off balance.
Before them loomed a three-ringed space station heavy with Coalition Navy traffic. A mild fear gripped Boone's gut. As a defector from the Coalition, if he were captured here, it would be the end of all his efforts and all the sacrifices to get himself to this point. It was a calculated risk that he was confident would work. “Take us as close as you can until someone fires at us,” he said. He knew an interceptor would attempt to follow them beyond the station, but at least the frigate wouldn't have time to track their signature. “Samon, prep a jump to Enceladus.”
Samon hesitated as the Kimmi rolled under a battleship. “That's across the core,” he said.
Boone gripped the back of both seats and closed his eyes. “Then take us around, no more than two jumps. The C.N. is going to follow us—” The trans-d sensation hit him again and he opened his eyes. Nothing but stars.
“Hold on,” said Jett. Boone was already holding on, even though the helm was steady and the stars outside weren't moving. One more disquieting sensation, and they appeared in the upper plane of Saturn's rings. The Kimmi rose above it, dodging clusters of dust and debris on the way. Turning toward the planet, she slammed the grav thruster and accelerated toward a distant white spec: Enceladus, firmly in League space.
“We're going to look like we're sneaking up on them,” said Samon.
“If the frigate comes up behind us and starts firing—” said Jett.
“Ah yes,” said Samon. “They're the aggressor.”
The frigate did not appear, and they were rapidly approaching the patrol ships around the Enceladus bases and mining stations. The nearest patrol ship, a battle cruiser with a long cross-sectional gun port at its midships, turned toward them.
“We'd better go,” said Boone. “We don't need another ship to outrun.”
