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“Calling that thing the Adari refueling station is a joke, right?” Asten said to anyone who was listening. “Sure if you turn a few clicks starboard and head along that vector for a day, you’ll hit the Adari system... but honestly.”
Carla shook her head. “You do talk rubbish sometimes.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” She looked at the radar scopes. “Well, I can’t see Zak and the rest of Sigma squadron so I guess they’re already on the station. And there’s nothing out here.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Asten said.
They were in the middle of nowhere. There were no planets of any kind, no nearby stars or even asteroids.
The station however was quite the hotspot. Large and surprisingly lively. During the three weeks that had passed since their arrival at the Therah asteroid base, Asten and the others had made two trips to the place to familiarize themselves with it at Lieutenant Janson’s suggestion and there were enough hangars in the station to rival an average spaceport, large enough to accommodate anything up to a mid-sized bulk freighter and pylons underneath for larger vessels to dock with.
The whole thing was constructed in an open ring shape with one large shaft spanning its diameter that braced the structure and also allowed people to travel between both ends of the station without having to walk around the outer rim. Although if they wanted to, there was a generous walkway for that as well, with large viewing windows where people could look at the stars or watch ships coming and going. And along the walkway were a number of shops, bars and cafes too. Asten remembered one of the latter quite fondly, although he doubted he’d have a chance to get a hot drink there this time.
“Now,” he said, “our friends from the Harskan sector... Hangar forty-three?”
Drackson nodded. “Forty-three.”
“All right then. Let’s wait a few minutes and head in.”
––––––––
On board the station, Vendon gazed about the central control room. He had several plain clothed commandos outside and a handful of technicians with him, while in another part of the station, a large division of shock troopers were waiting on standby alert. He wasn’t taking any chance of a repeat of the Palanami debacle.
Across the room, the station chief supervisor eyed him warily. Having been expecting another uneventful shift, he hadn’t been happy when Vendon and his men had come in and requisitioned his control room.
“Well,” Vendon said, “our Harskan friends are no doubt here already and whoever this resistance group is sending can’t be far off. I think it’s time we got started.”
The technician nearest him nodded. “All right.” He started keying in some sequences that would seal off various sections of the station, preventing anybody but authorized security staff from moving between them.
“I hope your men are up to scratch,” Vendon told the chief supervisor but there wasn’t any warning in his voice. He’d already taken the liberty of assuming they weren’t and with the commandos and the shock troopers, he was confident they had enough men to handle the job.
“We’re ready for the lock-down,” the technician beside him said.
Vendon nodded to the chief supervisor. “You can make the announcement. Say we believe there are ship thieves operating in the area. I’m sure you know the drill.”
“I’ll do my best,” the man replied, stepping over to the communicator but keeping Vendon in sight the whole time.
“Attention,” he said into the speaker. “Attention. All pilots, crews and passengers are requested to return to their vessels. Ship thieves are operating on the station. Please return to your vessels and remain there until the all clear is given. Repeat. Ship thieves are operating on the station. Please return to your vessels and remain there until the all clear is given.”
Satisfied, Vendon headed for the door. “Good. Repeat the message a few more times.”
The man considered telling him that he knew how to do his job but decided against it.
Outside, Vendon saw red lights flashing while, every five seconds, an automated message broadcast the fact that a lock-down was in progress. Groups of people were running about the place, hopefully heading back to their ships, although there were of course a number of people who seemed to think they were above running for some reason. He wondered if they might get a move on if he fired a few shots at their feet.
Curbing the impulse, he went back inside the control room to look at the surveillance cameras.
––––––––
Moments later, the communicator aboard the Lady Hawk came to life with a short series of beeps and a blinking light.
“Someone’s hailing us,” Asten said. He checked the display. “It’s not Zak’s signal. It might be our Harskan friends.”
“I think you’re right,” Drackson agreed, fiddling with the controls. “Let’s see if we can get a clearer signal...”
He broke off as a clear Harskan voice came through. “...sa ch'aj, hesj'on. Elas'maie-ensa ch'aj, hesj'on.”
“Cha laej’ast saes,” Drackson replied and waited. Something wasn’t right.
“Laie’fron elstae tralaesta,” came the voice of the other Harskan. “Sevaerai haledaesol est basaec neravast-ach laherst. Jera hesta aleia jea chaj braecol anestalensa est mei del a'estra jea ilae taleshem si jea tae'laes.”
“Karai'esach,” Drackson told him and flicked the communicator off.
Asten raised his eyebrows. “Trouble?”
“He told me that Federation authorities have ordered a lock-down as there are ship thieves operating in the area.”
“How does he know Federation authorities are there?” Carla asked. “I’ve been in a lock-down before. These stations have their own security staff who handle these things.”
Drackson shrugged. “I don’t know. And it’s entirely possible he might have been wrong. But he also said he thinks the timing is too convenient to be a coincidence and I think he’s got a point.”
“I agree,” Asten said. He eyed the station and fidgeted. “Let’s hold position for a moment. I want to see what’s going on before we head in. And decide if we still want to go ahead with this.”
“But you promised—” Carla started.
“I know what I said.”
––––––––
“What was that?” Vendon demanded.
“Someone sent a transmission from the station,” the technician at the workstation beside him said, tapping some keys to bring it up. “And it looks like they got through to someone.”
He paused. “Well, that wasn’t long.”
“What?”
“The transmission’s finished already,” the technician told him. “Anyway, here it is.”
Vendon listened as it played out.
“That must have been the Harskans we’re looking for,” he said after it had finished.
“You recognize the language?” the technician asked him.
“No. But who else would risk sending a private transmission in the middle of a lock-down?” Vendon reasoned. “Where did it come from?”
The other man backtracked it, while glancing over the landing records. “Hangar forty-three. There’s one large freighter listed there that landed four hours ago.”
“That’s them.” Vendon faced everyone in the room. “All right, keep your eyes on the scopes for incoming ships. I don’t think we’ll have long to wait.”
For a few moments, the control room was silent. Then there was a short beep from one of the control panels and one of the technicians turned around. “Something’s just come in radar range now, sir.”
––––––––
Asten was still deciding what to do when he saw it: a mid-sized frigate that dropped out of lightspeed on their portside before heading towards the station. It didn’t look like a Galleon or anything from Novatech Systems or Aurora Prime and he was wondering what it might be when a worrying thought crossed his mind.
“Oh no,” he muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Carla asked, while Drackson looked at the disappearing frigate with concern as well.
“If there are Federation agents aboard the station and they’re expecting resistance fighters to turn up at any minute, then they’re going to swarm on that frigate the moment it lands,” Asten told her. “We’ve just placed some innocent people in a very dangerous situation.”
“But even if they swam that ship,” Carla replied, “they’ll realize the crew aren’t members of a resistance group, surely.” The suggestion was made more in hope than anything else.
“How?” Asten asked her.
Carla didn’t answer, and she could already picture the crew of the ship declaring their innocence to a cynical Federation officer as they were hauled away.
“We’ve got to go in, Asten,” Drackson said.
“All right,” Asten muttered. He hit the controls to fire up the weapons emplacements. “Get ready for some fancy flying.”
He kicked the engines into gear and they accelerated towards the frigate, which was already slowing down to land in the hangar it had been allocated... which Asten noticed was forty-one.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
Drackson saw it as well. “That’s too close to be a coincidence. They’re onto the Harskans as well.”
Asten decelerated. They were right in front of the hangar now and the frigate’s landing pads were locking in place. It had landed on the left side of the hangar, leaving a generous space around it. And that space was filling up as men in gray blast armor moved in to flank the frigate. Every one of them wore a protective face concealing helmet and even from a distance, their appearance was distinctive enough that neither Asten, Drackson nor Carla had any trouble recognizing them.
“Federation shock troopers,” Carla said.
Asten felt a sudden rush of bravado. He even smiled. “That’s all right. These guys are ground troops. They’ve got nothing on us.”
Carla let out a nervous laugh. “Um... I think firing on the Federation’s finest from the air might permanently tie us in with our resistance friends, don’t you think?”
Asten sighed. The moment they’d taken that job with Lieutenant Janson, they had settled that issue. “I think we’re past that now.”
“All right, ready when you are,” Drackson told him, gripping the firing controls.
“One moment,” Asten replied and punched in the encrypted frequency he had set up with Sigma squadron before they had left the base. “Zak? You there?”
“I read you, Asten,” the younger man replied.
“We’ve got trouble. Shock troopers all over a frigate in hangar forty-one. We’re heading in but we’ll keep you posted.”
“Understood.”
Asten switched off the communicator. “Somehow.”
“All right, here we go,” he said as they accelerated towards the hangar. There was a slight jerk as they cut through the atmospheric seal and Asten realized he had never come through one this quickly before. He hoped he hadn’t done any permanent damage to the ship but it seemed okay. And right now, there were more pressing things to think about.
On the deck, the shock troopers were thinking the same thing as they heard the roar of engines and looked up to see some type of private gunboat coming straight for them.
“Watch out!” one of them shouted, right before a volley of blasts blew chunks of metal all over the deck. Several troopers were thrown through the air by the explosions and rolled across the deck, dead or concussed.
The ship meanwhile looked as if it were about to crash into the hangar but at the last second, it veered away, disappearing out of sight.
“Nice shooting there, Drackson,” Asten commended his copilot. He swung out of his chair. “Carla, take over. Now’s your chance to fly this baby.”
“What?”
“If we still want to pull this job off, I’ve got to go down there. Come on.”
Carla climbed up and settled herself into the pilot’s seat. “I’m not sure about this.”
“Relax, you’ll be fine,” Asten told her. “Just head back into the hangar, but slowly this time, and get nice and close to the deck so I can jump out. Then the moment I’m gone, turn around and get the hell out. I’ll call you on the communicator as soon as I can.”
Drackson leaned back. “You be careful out there, Asten.”
“I’ll be fine,” Asten replied.
The Lady Hawk turned towards the station in a graceful arc and glided into the hangar. There were still a handful of shock troopers standing and a couple of them fired at the ship, one of them using some type of portable missile launcher instead of the more conventional blaster rifle. He hit the port stabilizer wing, blowing out a chunk of metal and exposing some scorched wiring underneath but, before he could celebrate, Drackson blew him halfway across the hangar.
Asten leapt out a moment later, rolling as he hit the deck from a little higher than he’d have liked but he picked himself up straightaway.
He watched the ship for a split second as it turned and shot away and he saw the damage to the port stabilizer. Most of it was cosmetic but it still ticked him off.
Just then, a shot sizzled past much too close for comfort and he dropped to the deck and shuffled behind some large boxes.
“How many did you see?”
Asten frowned. That wasn’t a shock trooper. They always sounded a little mechanical because of their helmet filters. He wondered whether the man was an officer type but that didn’t fit either. The voice was too harsh and not cultured enough.
“Just one.” That was a shock trooper. “Behind the boxes over there.”
“Leave him to me,” the other man replied. “Take your men over to hangar forty-three and wait for me there.”
“Right, sir. Let’s go, men.”
Asten listened as the surviving shock troopers left, trying to separate the sounds of their boots on the deck from anything that might give away the position of the other man. However, it was an exercise in futility and once the troopers had gone, he had no more clue to where the man was than he had before.
For a moment, he panicked. His common sense briefly deserting him, he put his head out and nearly had it blown off. The shot missed him by a hair’s breadth, scorching the wall behind him, and he ducked back after getting a split second glance at his assailant. It was the man from Palanami.
He pulled out his blaster and mentally counted to three. Then he leapt to the right side of the boxes, firing several shots as he did, and crouched back behind them. He hadn’t hit Vendon but he had forced him to retreat behind one of the frigate’s landing pads, giving him a little more room to breathe.
Asten then looked at the ship and wondered what the occupants were thinking right then. No doubt, this was a little more drama than they’d anticipated when they had approached the station. There was also a small part of him that hoped they might come down and help him and he wondered why they weren’t doing anything.
Then he saw something he’d missed earlier. A large ramp had been lowered to the ground and, above it, a few wisps of vapor lingered in the air, which meant the shock troopers must have lobbed something nasty up there. Asten hoped its effects weren’t fatal.
Above him, one of the boxes exploded. He winced as a smoldering chunk of metal bounced off his shoulder. Clearly, Vendon had a pretty serious blaster.
Asten leaned out and fired a couple of more shots and saw Vendon duck back behind the landing gear again. Then he ran to his own right, getting some distance between them and hiding behind some more crates. He hoped they were sturdier than the first lot.
Then a glimmer of hope emerged. A familiar face appeared at the far end of the hangar and unlike Vendon, it was someone he was happy to see.
“Zak, get down!” he shouted and not a moment too soon.
Vendon fired several blasts at his friend and Zak only just managed to dive out of the way, ducking behind the frigate’s forward landing pads. The shots hit the wall right where he’d been standing a split second before. Momentarily out of danger, he made a small hand gesture and Asten nodded. Now there were two of them, they could flank Vendon and converge on him.
Working in tandem, they made their way down the length of the frigate, firing as they went and forcing Vendon into the corner of the hangar. Then Asten got a lucky shot in. He didn’t hit Vendon but he got the next best thing and he smiled as Vendon’s blaster cartridge exploded in his face, throwing him back a few steps at the same time.
With a surge of adrenaline, Asten rushed forward to finish him off but he’d underestimated his opponent. Vendon jumped him as he was still bringing his blaster to bear, gripping his wrist and flinging his weapon six meters across the deck. Vendon then brought him between himself and Zak, using him as a human shield.
Zak ran to help his friend but Vendon was already ahead of him. Grabbing Asten by the scruff of the neck, he slammed his head into the deck, dazing him, and dragged him over to where his blaster lay. But as he reached down to grab the weapon, his head was in front of Asten’s body for just a moment and with an amount of precision that would leave most gunslingers to shame, Zak shot him through the temple.
Asten shook Vendon’s lifeless arm off him and stretched his shoulders before bending back down to retrieve his blaster. Then Zak walked over, inspecting his work. “I actually got him?”
“You got him all right,” Asten said. “And you saved my life. You know that?”
“Well, you can buy me a drink sometime.” Zak leaned over the body at his feet. “I wonder who he was.”
“I have no idea what his real name was,” Asten said, “but his field name was Vendon. Head of Corinthe’s special operations.”
“Hm.”
“Yeah,” Asten said, turning away. “Now...”
He trailed off as the sounds of footsteps echoed through the hangar. “It sounds like the shock troopers are coming back.”
Zak heard them too and the two of them tried to keep out of sight. A moment later, five gray armored figures appeared. Trying to be as quiet as he could, Asten pulled out his communicator, thumbed it on and whispered into it. “Drackson. Our friends are back.”
“Right,” one of the shock troopers announced, his filtered voice filling the hangar. “The game’s up. Come out with your hands above your heads.”
“Give me a good reason,” Asten muttered.
“You have ten seconds,” the shock trooper warned and began counting them down. As he did, he and his men moved under the frigate. They weren’t going to get caught out in the open again.
When they were too close for comfort, Asten leaned out and gunned one of them down. Then the rest of them trained their weapons on him and he set about testing the limits of a landing pad’s capability as a shield barrier. It stopped the blasts quite well but didn’t provide much cover and as he huddled to keep himself behind it, he really missed the crates he’d been hiding behind earlier.
Zak then jumped out and, with the advantage of surprise, got two of them. Clearly the shock troopers had thought there was only one person hiding under the frigate. The remaining two whirled about to aim at Zak, which was a fatal mistake because it provided Asten with the perfect chance to get another shot in and Zak put the last one out of his misery a moment later.
“Nice shooting,” Asten complimented him.
“You too,” Zak said, stepping out into the open again.
“Drackson, you there?” Asten asked, holding his communicator up again. There was a short static reply. “Good. You can stay back for the time being. We’ve got everything under control.” He thumbed the communicator off and gave Zak a smile. “He says that’s good.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” the younger man replied. “Come on. Let’s check on the crew of this thing.”
They headed up the ramp where they saw several dazed figures climbing to their feet. All of them had black hair that they wore in long braided tails and had bluish skin with large eyes that were reminiscent of glazed black marble. However, their most distinguishing feature had to be the additional pair of arms they all had.
“Phalamkians,” Zak murmured. “That explains the ship design.”
“Yeah,” Asten agreed. He offered a hand to one of them. “Here. You okay?”
The man accepted the assistance and pulled himself up to an impressive seven-foot height. It was only then that he seemed to register what was going on and he looked at both Asten and Zak quizzically. “You’re not shock troopers.”
“No, we took care of the shock troopers,” Asten told him.
“They threw up some kind of stun grenade or something...” the man said. “I thought we were dead. Why... What were they doing? I don’t understand why they surrounded our ship like that.”
“It’s a good point,” came a new voice.
Asten looked up to see two women appear. Neither of them looked like the rest of the crew. The first had eyes like the Phalamkians but while her skin had a bluish hue, it looked more human. She also had golden red hair like Carla’s and only had the one pair of arms.
Her companion, who only had two arms as well, looked entirely different again with dark blue hair and skin that was somewhere between light blue and green. Her eyes were red, featureless, without even pupils, and while it may have been a trick of the light, they rather gave the impression that they glowed.
The first woman looked at Zak for a moment before turning to Asten. “You seemed to be expecting these soldiers.”
“Expecting, no,” Asten told her with a shake of his head. “Perhaps ‘anticipating’ is a better word.”
“You’re with one of the resistance groups, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Well, uh...” he stumbled, trying hard to think on his feet. All the running around with Vendon and the shock troopers had taken it out of him.
“A resistance group?” Zak asked in a puzzled manner, covering him.
The woman smiled. “You don’t need to pretend. Do you think after Federation troops tried to attack my crew that I would turn my rescuers over to them?”
Asten exchanged a glance with Zak. “Yeah, you’ve got a point there.”
“My name’s Selina,” the woman introduced herself before nodding to her glowing eyed companion and the Phalamkians. “This is Maia and this is my crew.”
Asten raised his eyebrows. “Your crew? You’re the captain of this ship?”
Selina gave him a curious look in return. “Why should that surprise you?”
“Well, you don’t really look like a Phalamkian.”
Selina chuckled. “I don’t really look like a human either though, wouldn’t you agree?”
Asten shrugged.
“I’m half Phalamkian, half human,” Selina explained. “And my father is rather highly ranked in the Phalamkian defense forces. Anyway, that’s enough about me. What about you? I didn’t get your names.”
“I’m Asten and my friend here is Zak.”
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Selina said. “And we are all in your debt.” She waved her arm in an expansive gesture to indicate herself and her crew. “And it is the custom of my people to reward those who help us.”
Zak waved his hand, feeling a little embarrassed. “There’s no need, really. Besides, if it hadn’t been for us, you wouldn’t have been in trouble in the first place.”
“That’s right,” Asten pointed out. “Those shock troopers only jumped you because they thought you were us.”
Selina didn’t budge on the subject. “Well, that’s all well and good but you still risked your lives to save ours and I’d be grateful if you’d give me the opportunity to show my appreciation. I can see you’re in a hurry now but if you come to the Phalamkian system, I will make it worth your while.” She paused again for emphasis. “Well worth your while. And I would urge you to ask the leaders of your resistance movement for leave to visit my system because what I have in mind is in their best interests too.”
“What do you mean?”
Selina smiled. “I think you follow me. Go and do whatever it is you’ve got to do. But don’t forget what I said. When you have the time, come to the Phalamkian system.”
“So we just turn up and ask for you?” Asten asked her.
Selina laughed, and the last traces of her earlier intensity vanished. “Well, tell them who you are as well. However, I’ll let the spaceport authorities know to expect you. Sooner or later.”
“All right,” Asten said. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”
“Wait a minute,” Zak interrupted, turning to Selina. “Are you guys going to be all right for fuel?”
“What do you mean?” Selina asked.
“I mean I seriously doubt they’ll let you refuel here now. That gunfight down there would have well and truly tied you in with us.”
“Don’t worry,” Selina assured him. “We have plenty of fuel. We were just picking up some food supplies. However, I’m sure we can manage a couple of more days with what we’ve got.”
“All right,” Zak told her, not entirely convinced but knowing better than to argue with this woman about how she managed her own ship. “Then you should get out of here as fast as you can. Maybe we’ll see you again but I’ll have to talk to my superior officers.” He gave Asten a nod and they said goodbye to their new friends.
“All right,” Zak said as they left the hangar. “I’m heading back to my ship to make sure everything’s all right outside. I’ll also disable the cameras until I’m back on my ship. The techs gave me something for that back at the base.”
“Right.”
“So wait at least three minutes before putting on your show. We wouldn’t want our friends upstairs to miss it now, would we?”
Asten grinned. “No, we wouldn’t want that.”
––––––––
It was quiet on the bridge of the Sentinel but there was no shortage of personnel about. Captain Merrick looked at his chronometer. Nineteen hundred hours standard time. He grimaced. They were supposed to have been in the Taeia system eight hours ago. Admiral Roth however wasn’t concerned and he already had his report on their fictional engine failure ready to file with Commodore Hallyd as soon as they got back.
Just then, the communications console next to the admiral’s chair came alive. “... Harrier. We need assistance.”
“So General Navaast is in on this,” Admiral Roth murmured, more to himself than to Captain Merrick. “Interesting.”
“We read you,” another voice replied. “What happened?”
“Vendon’s dead. Our shock trooper squad is not responding. Also, someone’s scrambled the internal surveillance systems and the cameras are down. Wait. They’re back again.”
There was a slight pause. “Amateurs,” the other scoffed. “Keep watching that hangar.”
Admiral Roth flicked off the communicator without waiting to hear the rest of the conversation and turned to Captain Merrick. “That’s that then. Take the Sentinel in, Captain, and have our fighters ready to launch in ten minutes.”