Rift Breaker (5 page)

Among his rank, however, the story was entirely different. No one much respected his judgement anymore. He sensed their politeness but not their respect. Procedures were different now and apparently command had no room for veterans. He would be the first to admit his reflexes had slowed over the years. He was
scoring below average on tests and age made him an apparent liability. Now he was assigned primarily to reconnaissance missions and training new recruits.

New officers felt at ease with Raegar's relaxed demeanour, which was why his ship had the most number-one preferences among new candidates. The low-risk missions and the opportunity to serve under a legend made ideal learning conditions. Although, after a term aboard the
Inquisitor
, most candidates, thinking they had learned everything they needed to know, would request a transfer to a more eventful post — usually to one of the younger captains — ones that shared their passion for glory and recognition.

Although Raegar was qualified to lead a fleet, the
Inquisitor
was the sole vessel at his disposal. She was a sizeable patrol ship with dark grey plating and a decent array of firepower. The bridge was housed in a section that looked like a spearhead that sat on a ‘neck' connected to a large wingless body that ended with colossal circular thrusters.

The bridge lights beamed to life and the
Inquisitor
slowed. Raegar's eyelids peeled back. The shattered debris of the
Orisurrection
colony spread across his view.

Gasps and whispers piped among the rookies. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw three of them lean back in their seats to see the disaster for themselves.

‘Scan for life,' the commander ordered in his low gravelly voice. He stood up and slowly stepped forward as if in a trance.
He walked up the polished path, to the
Inquisitor
's front pane, not taking his eyes from
Orisurrection
's hull.

‘Zero life readings sir,' a nervous voice spoke.

Raegar raised a four-fingered hand to the shield for balance, looking closely at the wreck. He examined the shape of the hull and the direction in which its surface was torn. With narrowed and alert eyes, he searched for telltale signs of weapon residue, observed the arrangement of the pieces and tried to determine how long ago the event took place and the direction of attack. His hands clenched. Swollen veins of anger grew down each of his arms. From his nostrils came a loud, aggressive snort that fogged the shield.

He marched back to his chair, pondering possible suspects. Initially, the Tyde came to mind. Motivated by greed, they would be more than capable of merciless slaughter.

‘Deploy investigation and salvage teams,' Raegar snapped.

He sat back in his chair and unlocked the controls on his armrests. A keypad for each flipped out and slid to within reach of his fingers. Four holographic screens appeared in the air before him. Each displayed different readings while the scanners continued their search cycles. He studied them carefully.

His thoughts, hopes and fears instantly disappeared; his mind was clear for the task ahead. He felt a cunning he thought had left him with his youth. He missed the thrill of battle, the great satisfaction in overseeing the lockdown of pirate ships.

His crew chattered around him. Higher ranking officers gave
orders to the rookies, a usual occurrence when Raegar was taken into his own little world. When this happened, and it often did, his first mate had the task of keeping everyone on track.

A chirp came from the indicator for the bottom left display. Raegar's head twitched towards it and he ran his fingers over the controls. The display highlighted a line of code. He expanded the image and the results of the short-range scan blinked into focus.

‘Short range on screen,' he ordered.

He looked up as the crew responded. Across the forward pane display the image of a small class vessel rotated. The mid-weight craft had wings pointed back like an arrowhead.

His operations specialist briefed him on the details. ‘The scan detected an unidentified craft. It was only in range for two hundredths of a spuckon but its line of trajectory was clear, a quantum jump from this site,' she said.

‘Can we tell where it was headed?' asked Raegar.

‘No, Commander, it was in a hurry. It could have gone anywhere.'

Raegar sighed. ‘Send the vessel's description to every colony and surrounding planet.'

Five

The night side of the planet Lubric materialised in the
Inhibitan
's forward pane. A thick layer of cloud shrouded the planet's surface, the breaks in the layers revealed mere patches of city lights. Set against this grim complexion, a space-docking platform stretched across the view. Small patrols and maintenance craft skimmed about, fastening cables and attaching hoses to the colossal vessels docked at the cargo and refuelling stations.

Behind these servicing lines, heavy walls extended from the rear of the platform, one above and one below. Evenly spaced on the walls were long vertical fins. From the front of the fins, bulbous tubes pointed outward. The heavy defence arsenal was a quick reminder they were still on the outer rim.

The
Inhibitan
was hailed via the transmitter. The captain pulled down a mouthpiece and pressed the button to answer. Her tone transformed into something of cheerfulness, but she spoke
in a language Milton couldn't recognise.

The voice on the other side responded in the same speak and ended with a whistle. When she hung up the captain instantly reverted to her emotionless stare.

‘Did he say something about a storm?' Tazman asked.

Milton looked to her for the answer.

‘Yes,' she said with an air of irritation. ‘Fortunately, it hasn't yet moved over the city.'

The
Inhibitan
passed beneath the platform. Light blazed from directly overhead, illuminating every crevice of the flight console. Milton leaned forward and twisted in his seat, fixing his gaze up through the top of the forward pane. The captain furrowed her brow at the sight of his manoeuvre. Let her think him strange, he thought. He had sights to see.

The intense lights blasted down from the bulging shape of a large vessel. Milton screened the light with his hand to see more detail. Various smaller craft scooted along its body, stopping now and then for their routine inspection of the hull. The ship was an enormous pleasure cruiser. A line of vehicles filed out of a side compartment. A connection point on the side of the vessel unfolded and another small ship, which was also the front end of a giant hose, slotted itself into the opening.

‘You act like you've never seen a docking platform before,' said Tazman, folding his arms across the back of Milton's seat.

‘I haven't,' Milton replied, with relentless attention to the sight. A line of short tubes connected the cruiser to the platform.
Through the windows on the tube sides, Milton saw movement of disembarking figures. Once the
Inhibitan
was clear of the platform, the captain accelerated.

Milton sat back, bewildered. ‘Wow,' he said. Tazman laughed. ‘What?'

‘If you liked that …' replied Tazman. He finished the statement by nodding to the planet.

Lubric inflated before them and swallowed the view. The murky clouds remained at a great distance for a moment, but suddenly slammed into the forward pane. Turbulence rose dramatically. Milton swayed in his seat. He felt himself falling forward before the ship's gravity system adjusted and pulled him back into place.

‘I love that part,' said Tazman with his palms pressed against the back of the two seats.

The ship's nose glowed orange with heat. The fog began to thin and a spark of light momentarily revealed itself behind the sheet, then nothing. Milton shifted in a fruitless effort to see past the blanket. Then suddenly the cloud vanished and an ocean of lights spread before him.

‘Welcome to Lubric,' said Tazman. ‘One of the top tourist getaways in the galaxy — where booze is cheap and many things are legal.' He punched Milton in the arm. ‘We are gunna have so much fun.'

The captain curled her nostrils in disgust.

The city was arranged in diamond-shaped blocks, which were
again separated by crosses, creating a labyrinth of triangles. In the crevices tiny dots of light snaked in orderly patterns.

The navi computer chirped and displayed the location of a docking hangar on the windshield overlay. The captain pulled back on the flight controls and the ground swept away as the
Inhibitan
levelled with the horizon. The cityscape was dense with enormous triangular prism skyscrapers that occupied entire city blocks.

An air traffic control bubble emerged on screen and displayed the requested airspeed and angle of approach. The captain selected an automatic sequence and the
Inhibitan
's flight computer adjusted to the directions. The controls eased to the left and the ship sank into a smooth turn. The
Inhibitan
veered into a wide path between the buildings.

The moving dots of light came closer and were revealed to be a busy and seemingly chaotic arrangement of hover traffic. The vehicles travelled at various levels of altitude, blinking with turning signals while swerving and sliding to change lanes and turn.

Once the bubble granted her clearance, the captain grabbed the flight controls again and pushed forward. The bubble disappeared. The
Inhibitan
dipped under a line of advertising screens over the top lane that showed armoured creatures wearing jetpacks and diving in zero gravity for an air-propelled ball. More screens were mounted on the sides of surrounding buildings and others hovered beside the lanes, sometimes travelling with the grain of traffic.

Aggressive drivers swerved and swooped apart, reluctantly letting the
Inhibitan
through. The captain continued to drop lanes and slowed, lowering her spacecraft into the city. The
Inhibitan
sank between brightly lit pedestrian bridges suspended between buildings. Numerous creatures packed the pathways.

A dome on a building below bloomed outwards in quarters. The
Inhibitan
lowered into the hole, narrowly missing the edges, and gracefully landed on an unoccupied pad inside a crowded spaceport hangar. The captain shut down all systems and the engine dropped pitch and extinguished.

‘I will be expecting payment now,' she said.

‘Of course,' said Tazman. ‘I'm sure the owner here has a card reader. We'll transfer the balance to you.'

With a wiggling tail, Tazman walked ahead out of the cockpit and through the downward sloping passage to the cargo hold. From here Milton could see that the layout of the
Inhibitan
was fairly basic. The spacious cargo area was the main hub from which connecting passages led to different parts of the ship. Milton followed Tazman as he weaved through strapped-down cargo crates, and the captain trailed behind. He glanced back; her holster was open and her hand hovered closely.

Tazman halted at the far end of the hold and looked over the controls in front of him. The lady stepped ahead, pulled the release levers and hit a button. The cargo door hissed and folded out. A grated ramp extended to the hangar floor.

Spacecraft of all different types were parked in rows along the
wide hangar. The main paths between the ships were crowded with people, animals, cargo carriers and loading walkers. Beside the
Inhibitan
towered a vertical-standing ship that looked like an insect hive. A horizontal wheel in the ship's body rotated and lowered one of its many robotic arms to a pile of crates. The claw on the end snatched one of the containers, raising the cargo as the wheel continued to turn. Other claws did the same and deposited the containers into a chute on the side of the ship.

A short, snail-like creature hobbled to the base of the ramp and waited expectantly. Its torso was encased in a swirly brown shell with a large bulge on the backside. Two flexible stems that rose from the top of its green, pliable head housed its eyes. To protect its limbs, it wore rubbery metallic tubes that attached to gloves and boots.

The captain began to descend the ramp. A hovering machine, a quarter her size, floated in from the right and blocked her path. It had a flat rectangular face with side edges that curved forward. The captain stopped and waited patiently. The thing settled in front of her head.

‘Holography bot,' Tazman informed, nudging Milton. ‘Make sure you let it do what it does.'

It charged and a flash of electric-white light blasted forth. When it was done blinding the captain it floated aside and allowed her to pass.

The snail-like creature gurgled with delight and the captain politely extended her greeting.

‘I think they know each other,' Tazman whispered. ‘Now is our chance.' He tiptoed halfway down the ramp and the holography bot took his image. The Freegu turned, gave a cheeky smile and bounded off the right side, ducking beneath the ship.

‘Hey, get back here,' Milton whispered. He stepped from the doorway and the holography bot blocked his way. The charge rang in both ears and the flash exploded into his vision.

Milton blinked hard as the bot floated away. Purple blobs floated in his vision. He ducked and scanned under the ship's body in the direction Tazman had gone. He caught sight of Tazman's tail slipping into a crowd.

Milton hesitated. The captain stood nodding at the snail creature as it squeaked and squealed with erratic flailing limbs. She politely signalled it to wait and slid her boot out to the side. Milton's heart jabbed his chest as she started to turn. The snail, however, strived for attention and pulled her back, flicking something wet with every twitch of its translucent eye stems. The captain sighed and ran her finger casually along the length of her holstered gun.

Milton hopped off the ramp and started in Tazman's direction, passing beneath the wing and into the busy hangar. Tazman had gained distance. He jumped atop a load of boxes ahead and signalled Milton to get a move on.