STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS (39 page)

S
he had never felt so defeated.

As they flew her back to her XT 9, hidden in the jungle by the native village of the M’towi, Laura Shemzak could still feel the effects of the Federation torture. She was weak and compliant in the backseat between the two muscular, grim guards. The green of the jungle whooshed by underneath the flitter, a sea of vegetation outside the Block compound of Pax Industries, heart of Federation control over this world called Walthor.

They had neutralized the effect of the drug being fed into her system by an interior dispenser, the drug called Zernin, which heightened her senses, sharpening and expanding the nerve endings in her body to allow for the complex feats necessary for piloting a blip-ship. Instantly she had gone into withdrawal, the intense pain of which she could not tolerate. It had been horrible, as though every sinew of her body were being separated, strand by strand. The terror, the despair—she shuddered again at the very thought of it.

The man called Friend, a key leader of the Federation, sat in the front seat of the flitter. This was the man who had allowed her to attempt to rescue her brother Cal, after his capture by the alien Jaxdron, with whom the Federation warred. This was the man who had ordered the override implant inside her, forcing her to shoot Cal upon sight. But she had not shot Cal. She’d shot a replica of Cal, one of several that later attempted to control the secret of the
Starbow
. This plump, pleasant-faced man, this wretched Arnal Zarpfrin, was the man who had captured her here on Walthor. He had also ordered a new operation on her cybernetic implants that allowed her to be a blip-ship pilot.

Implants that would force her to betray the
Starbow
crew—people she had come to love.

The sun beat down hard now, and despite the breeze through the open-canopied aircar riding swiftly on gravity suspensors, Laura sweated. A planet like hell, she thought. And she’d rather be in hell now than on her way back to the
Starbow
, an intelligence agent for the Federation against her will.

Zarpfrin turned around and looked at her from his place to the right of the driver. “Why so glum, Laura Shemzak? After all, if all goes well, you’ll get what you want: your brother. And we’ll get what we want. The
Starbow
and its crew. Only a short time more of service, and we’ll let you two settle on some pleasant, out-of-the-way planet … a threat to no one.”

“You’ll excuse me, Zarpfrin, but I find that very hard to believe. A government as vicious as your Federation, headed by men as conniving as yourself, will always find uses for individuals as talented as my brother and myself.”

“Ah, yes, but the difficulties of getting you to cooperate would be substantial. And lack of cooperation might be harmful, to us and to you.”

“You’re getting my cooperation now, aren’t you?”

Zarpfrin thoughtfully pursed his lips as he looked down at a river snaking off into the distance. “You are not a being of unlimited resilience, Laura Shemzak. Already our present modifications of the past months have taxed your physical endurance. That showed in your examination test results. Alas, your lifespan is being cut considerably by the device monitoring your voice and actions and the dispensation of both your Zernin and its neutralizer. If we had to use you for anything else, it would surely be the death of you, perhaps in the middle of a delicate operation. Oh, you’ll be fine for the weeks ahead. Just make sure you keep your Zernin flowing.”

“We’re nearing the coordinates indicated by our passenger,” the driver said, tapping a grid map on a screen.

Laura craned her neck and peered down over the edge of the car. Down in a clearing ahead was the sparkle of metal: her XT 9, partially buried in vegetation. It was here that she and Tars Northern had landed and walked to the M’towi village where they enlisted the aid of the native Xersi, whom Laura had befriended on her previous trip to Walthor. Xersi had helped smuggle them into the compound, where they were to search for Jaxdron activity.

What a mistake, Laura thought grimly. “There!” she called, pointing down.

The flitter landed smoothly.

Curiously, Zarpfrin did not seem to care how they had gotten from the blip-ship to the compound and then past Security. She did not bring the subject up. Apparently, these Feddies were not even aware of the existence of the M’towi village nearby.

Which gave her a thought as they disembarked from the aircar and headed toward the blip-ship. Xersi and the M’towi were masters of drugs. If she could escape and lose these Feddies in the jungle trails, she could find haven there, and then take refuge in native drugs ….

The question was, could she take the pain of withdrawal the neutralizer introduced? Or would even the simple act of running trigger the device?

She decided it was a risk she had to take.

Her opportunity came as they approached the gleaming ovoid of the blip-ship. She knew that to do anything amiss within the blip itself would be simple suicide. She couldn’t run the thing with the Zernin neutralized. She had to run now—her instincts told her that. I f somehow she could override the pain long enough to make it to the village.

Her opportunity arose. She snatched it almost before she was aware of what she was doing. For a moment the guards both stared at this ellipsoid vessel, this new model with almost magical properties. All Laura’s training focused upon swift action. With a whirlwind of precise cybernetically placed blows, she smashed the men in just the right places to send them sprawling to the ground. Their weapons never left their holsters.

Friend Arnal Zarpfrin was several more paces away, a more difficult target. He shook his head and smiled, shading his eyes from the glare of sun as he threw his own handgun away into the vegetation.

“I know how well you fight, dear Laura, so I shan’t contest. Adios!”

She swiveled and began to run.

There was hope then, she thought as she whipped past branches and vines, feeling strength pouring back through her body. Automatically her feet found the path they needed and she looked back. Zarpfrin hadn’t run after her or tried to board the skimmer to give chase. He was bent over the two men on the ground.

She swept along the path, gaining speed and strength and self-confidence.

Had they been bluffing about the device planted in her? It was a possibility. She prayed it was so. Xersi could hide her until she could somehow get her blip-ship back. It didn’t matter how long, just as long as the
Starbow
and its crew got away safely. She would catch up with them somewhere down the line.

Hope bloomed like a desert flower and she ran as fast as she could, her mind seething with possible plans.

The next thing she knew, she was face first in the dirt. Writhing. Screaming. Her head seemed to have blown into scattered pieces, seemed to be lying now, bleeding in the jungle. Her inhalations were like breaths of raw fire. She seemed to feel every nerve ending in her body. Each was like a lit fuse.

All shreds of her consciousness were torn from anything like hope or promise or light. She was solely obsessed now with one thing: her drug. Zernin. She NEEDED it. More than air or water or food, she NEEDED the crystalline calm and sharpness of it. Her life, her spirit flowed as the drug coursed along her bloodstream and through her mind; without it she was mere death and agony. In that exquisite moment, spasming and gasping in the perfumed soil of an alien planet, Laura Shemzak knew that she would do anything, ANYTHING to make this agony stop, to feel her drug again cruising calmly between axon and dendrite, easy and confident and brilliantly tuned …. Anything! Even betray those she loved.

Because there was nothing like love in her now. There was only pain, fierce sharp pain, and despair. Suddenly, amidst her eternity of suffering, she was vaguely aware of someone standing over her.

“Laura, Laura, Laura,” said a muffled voice from miles above. “Though I must say I am not surprised. Perhaps I even suspected it, anticipated it. Still, better now than later.”

She felt a pinprick on her arm; saw from the corner of her eye the glint of a metal needle: a syringe.

Almost instantly a wave of relaxation passed over her, and her pain joined the ghosts of memory. Weakly she lay there, breathing in the humid air slowly.

“You see, the implant does work, Laura, very well. Only I suspect that no one on board the
Starbow
has just the right solution to counteract the neutralizer,” said Zarpfrin, almost casually and sympathetically. “And by the time they figure out what is wrong with you, your mind will just be a quivering mass of burned-out jelly. But, oh, that will take a very long time, and I suspect that the longer you lack the effects of our wonderful drug, the worse your agony will become.”

He patted her gently on the forearm. “How are you feeling, then? We really don’t have much time to waste. Your friends will be wondering where you are.”

Somehow she managed to get up.

Zarpfrin helped her walk back to the blip-ship.

“I really think that we are coming to understand one another, Laura. And after all this is over, perhaps we might work together again.”

Laura was suddenly sick all over an alien plant.

“Well, perhaps we needn’t take it that far,” said Zarpfrin when she was finished.

Zarpfrin’s men were groggily awake when they returned to the blip-ship. They eyed Laura warily as she approached. But they needn’t have worried. Laura was in no shape to beat on anyone.

Limply, she coded in her access code on the metal membrane on the hull of her ship. The panel opened, revealing the bank of her controls, her chair, her plug-ins and jacks.

She shuddered as she looked at all the shiny plastisteel and metal. Before she had always loved this sight. Now, it made her shiver with dread.

“Well, Laura, are you ready?”

She nodded.

“You may not believe it, but there is good reason for all this. I’m doing all of it for the greater good, the welfare of humanity. You’ll see, once it’s all through.”

“All I see right now,” said Laura, glassy-eyed and dead-voiced, “is that I’m beaten, Zarpfrin. No less and no more. Now let me go before I vomit again because of your stink.”

Zarpfrin laughed as he stepped back to allow her to leave. “Foul-mouthed to the bitter end. Please don’t give my best to your friends, Laura. Oh, and Laura—you’ll have a token chase by a couple of Federation ships. We want to make your escape look believable to Captain Northern. Please see if you can resist the urge to blow them up—I’ve ordered them not to harm you. Ta-ta.”

Laura got in her blip-ship, plugged herself in, and blasted off from Walthor to betray the people she loved.

“C
ripes,” said Captain Tars Northern, staring into the screen. “We’ve got a Feddy ship on our tail already!”

Chivon Lasster swung her chair around from the controls and keyed the rearview image on her own screen. “Better than a fleet,” she said, her fingers already playing amongst the fields of controls to ready defensive measures. “Which is what we would have gotten if I hadn’t placed those holes in the ships ready to take off down there at the spaceport.”

Tars Northern felt impotent: his were merely flight controls. His fate still hung in Chivon Lasster’s hands. And she was a Federation Friend sworn to capture him. Worse, she was a betrayed ex-lover.

How did a competent hero get into these kind of messes? he wondered. Behind the Federation Tetra-Fighter on their tail was the purple and green orb that was Walthor, hung like a color picture against the black and white wall of space. Laura Shemzak was still down there, in the Federation compound, hours away from planned departure.

They had gone down there, lured by the notion of finding a Jaxdron spy operation webbing from Pax Industries throughout Federation-controlled space. Laura had gone off to tap into their computer core. Northern had gone to obtain photographic proof of the awful composite operations conducted by the Federation, horrific biological chimeras, surgically grafted from both alien and human prisoners. Instead, he had run straight into his two prime enemies: Friend Arnal Zarpfrin and Friend Chivon Lasster.

And now the latter was helping him escape back to his crew of pirate/mercenaries and his starship, the
Starbow …
if they could get past the Feddy fighters.

“I just hope we’ve got enough firepower,” Northern said fretfully.

“This is a Friend Personal Starship, Tars,” Lasster muttered in a short monotone. “Tops in everything.”

“Look, Chivon, I’ve a hell of a lot more experience in these kinds of scrapes than you do. Why don’t you let me at those battle controls and I’ll let them have what-for.”

“You just take care of getting us out to the
Starbow
, Tars. I’ll take care of this. You seem to forget that I’m a fully trained starship captain, and that training extends to space battling. Now please, stop griping and allow me to concentrate!”

Northern focused his attention on his piloting. The tricky thing was to both escape these Feddy jerks behind them and make a quick jump out to where the
Starbow
was hiding—behind the moon of another planet in this system—without giving the Federation a clue as to where they were.

After all, they still had to give Laura some time to get out there in her blip-ship. They either had to wait for her or come back for her. They owed her that much—and a lot more, come to think of it.

“I hope you’ve got the screens—”

The entire starship shuddered just short of destruction. Loose objects hurtled about, freed from their artificial gravity moorings.

“Up!” finished Northern, alarmed as flares of fire poured over the screen like agitated lava. Feeling helpless, he gripped the sides of his chair. Then he noticed the dials and digits on the console before him whirling crazily. He swallowed back his panic, fighting through the familiar deep terror he sometimes knew in space, and mentally forced his frozen fingers into action, readjusting the controls toward some sort of equilibrium, aligning the
Nightingale’s
course.

“What’s wrong with you, Northern?” Lasster said, coldly monitoring screen flux flow and the position of the pursuer, waiting for an opening for return fire. There! She slapped her palm down on the fire control button, which pulsed neon red at her touch. An ultraviolet beam of energy, automatically aimed, shot out through space, covering the four kilometers distance in a blink of an eye. It tore a hole in the fighter’s screens and gave it a good fry. Not enough to put it out of commission, though. Next time.

“I’ll be okay, Chiv,” he said, gaining control once more, the destruction visited upon the enemy doing his soul good. “I guess all that stuff with Zarpfrin rattled me. We’re back on course. If we can ditch that fighter and get a little farther away from the sun’s gravity, we might try a jump. I like these tiny starships for that reason alone.”

Chivon, still poker-faced, was already lining up for the next shot. She knew as well as he did that Zarpfrin had probably put out a kill order on them. The bastard was probably furious past the point of reasoning with Lasster’s betrayal. But that wasn’t all that was bothering Captain Tars Northern.

God, he could do with a drink, he thought as he concentrated on the chore of piloting. Panic wasn’t something he was used to—and Mish had told him it wouldn’t happen to him again. But it had, only this time it had been worse than ever.

He must never show that kind of fear again. Too many people and too much of importance depended upon him. He was a different man than the one Chivon Lasster had known when they were copilots and lovers. He hadn’t known Mish then. And he hadn’t known the real meaning of fear.

And he thought he had control of it! Maybe it was seeing Chivon again that triggered it. Maybe he was just losing his guts and he should let Arkm Thur, his first mate, assume captaincy.

But then, Thur would have to have those mind-link glimpses into the being that was Mish. He’d have to through everything that Tars Northern had gone through. And who knew if he’d fare any better?

“We’ve got another visitor,” said Lasster. “Time to finish off the first. Stop evasive maneuvers and give me a straight-ahead run for about twelve seconds.”

Her commands were a relief to him. He just followed orders now, doing as she said, detaching himself. He always had little surges of panic in combat, but never one like this one, never one that opened him up to the pit of anxiety at the core of his soul. Always before, his cool exterior and his rock-hard training and self-confidence had been his protection. He would have to discuss this with Dr. Mish.

Evasive maneuvers halted, Chivon Lasster poured full energies into the blaster. Fortunately, the Tetra-Fighters were flimsy things compared to other Federation battle vehicles: the first took the fire full in the nose, shattering brilliantly in such a way as to flare before the other, confusing its sensors.

Chivon was able to pick the second ship off like a clay pigeon. There was a momentary second bloom of light against the edge of the retreating form of Walthor and the star-speckled backdrop of space, then all was virgin again, a visual hush of beauty.

“No telling when the next ones will be here,” said Chivon. “And they’ll be here without a doubt, and maybe they’ll be bigger. What’s the chance for a quick Underspace hop now before they can track us with sensors?”

“Give it about two minutes,” returned Northern.

“We don’t have two minutes. I can vouch for the structure of the
Nightingale
. Do it.”

Northern grinned, relaxing somewhat. At least he didn’t feel like throwing up. That would have been damned embarrassing. “Chivon, you’re so forceful now that you’re a Friend.”

“Ex-Friend, Northern. Now shut up and give me that jump to the
Starbow
or I’ll smack you unconscious and do it myself!”

He did it.

And it was rough.

The dwindling form of Walthor shivered, faded from view in a violent swirl of bright crimson and cyan. The seconds skirting the belly of Underspace, here near the clutches of this system’s gravity well, were like bumping down a mountain bare-assed. The screens flashed multi-textured glimpses of the weird terrain of Underspace—skewed forms and variations on a theme of black and white.

For only a few brief instants did this last. Then they popped out into normal space, the stars shivering into reality like an abrupt and welcome night to a nightmarish day.

They came out almost exactly at the coordinates Northern had pumped into ship’s computer, which was good, since too much closer to the fifth planet out from the sun and the
Nightingale
would have been hard-pressed to keep itself together. But Lasster had been right: this boat was strong. Even though he felt he’d just been put through a blender, he and Lasster and her personal starship were still in one piece.

It was a matter of only a minute to contact the
Starbow
.

“We’ve got you, Captain, but what are you doing on a Federation frequency?” The voice of Tether Mayz, the
Starbow’s
communication’s officer, pulsed softly through the cabin of the
Nightingale
. “And you’re early as well,” he added suspiciously.

“A little matter I’ll explain later. Laura should be along in a couple hours in her XT Nine, as scheduled. Meantime, we’ve a new recruit. My former copilot of the
Starbow
, Chivon Lasster. Get Mish. He’ll be able to verify who she is. Tell him—”

“You may tell me yourself, Tars,” came Dr. Mish’s voice.

“There’s no problem. I just got rescued from a terrible situation,” said Northern. “I got caught. By Zarpfrin again. Don’t ask me how. I think Laura will be okay, though. If it weren’t for Chivon Lasster, I’d be getting my brain picked right now.”

“How do you know that she can be trusted, Tars?” said Mish.

“You’ll have to take my instincts—”

Lasster interrupted. “I can prove it right now, Dr. Mish. Your comrades, your fellows are still alive. They told me to give you a message.” She then spoke slowly in an alien language: “
Etolu satyx myzetin refyxamchrdlu.
”

There was dead silence from the
Starbow
.

Then Mish’s usually calm voice erupted excitedly. “Yes! I knew it was a possibility, but it seemed too—This changes everything!”

“I trust this means you’re going to let us into the hangar then,” Tars said drolly. “And have a brandy ready, okay? I think I’m going to need it.”

I
t took them only another twenty minutes to navigate their way behind the moon where the
Starbow
had secreted itself. The hangar doors were a welcome sight to Northern. He easily slipped into the tractor fields and allowed the
Nightingale
to be tugged up into the docking bay of the
Starbow
.

“How does it feel to be back?” he asked Chivon Lasster.

Chivon’s expression had not changed, damn her. She had been one cool number back in their days together. If anything, she seemed even more glacial now. Not even relief showed in her eyes, which assayed the shuttles neatly slotted in their individual berths. Different people had different ways of coping, and he knew that deep down Chivon was just as human as anyone—but what extra defenses and barriers had the past years layered over her heart?

He’d find out soon enough, he thought.

Chivon sighed. “It certainly doesn’t feel like home, if that’s what you mean.”

“Home? Oh, no, though it’s More like a home now than it used to be. It’s my home, and you’re certainly welcome here.”

She turned away, face still expressionless, and they waited for the cabin to depressurize.

He didn’t know what to say to her. “Thank you” seemed lame and inappropriate, so he just kept quiet, allowing the uncomfortable silence to linger between them.

The airlock cycled, and they were bathed in green light. Then safety monitors beeped the all’s clear, and they stepped onto metal. The doors opened and Dr. Mish and Arkm Thur stepped out to meet them.

Thur, young-looking with dark hair, watched as the older man took her hand. Mish had longish white hair and a white lab smock. The only significant color to him was the purple of his floppy bow tie. “It has been a longtime,” he said.

Chivon looked down at his smooth hands, which held hers as though they were the sensors of a lie detector. Dr. Mish seemed to wilt under her icy gaze.

“It might not have been so long,” she replied. “You could have told me the truth, like you told Northern. Didn’t you trust me?”

“I was lost and confused then, Chivon. I truly did not know if I was coming or going. I learned of Zarpfrin’s plans only soon enough to save myself. Which is why I am most pleased and astonished that you come with news that my fellows have somehow survived the purging.” He pulled his hands away and clapped them lightly together. “But come. You are flesh and need refreshments. I know for certain that the captain does. We can talk then, as we await the arrival of Laura Shemzak.”

“Sounds great to me, Doc.” In the vicinity of Mish, Northern was feeling enormously better. It was true that Mish regularly purged him of his tendency to alcoholism; but could it be possible that he was growing addicted to Mish? The notion was absurd on the face of it, but troubling nonetheless.

“Yes,” said Arkm Thur, more subdued as he recoiled from the chill of Lasster’s personality. “I have heard much about you, Friend Lasster. It is a privilege to meet you. I am sure that the others of the crew would like to meet you as well. Captain, would it be possible, since we need to keep an eye out for Laura, to have our meeting session on the bridge? We don’t want to leave the others out.”

Northern assumed a mock-serious tone. “It’s not in
The Manual of Proper Starship Protocol
, Mr. Thur … but what the hell!”