Chapter 11: Dead Drop

A beeping noise roused Boyd, and he struggled to free himself from Lorza’s furry arms, climbing out of the sleeping bag and hurrying to the cockpit. He slid into one of the chairs, the rough fabric irritating his bare skin, seeing nothing through the canopy but the blackness of space dotted with a few cold stars. The incoming hail light was blinking, so he hastily put on a headset that was sitting on a nearby instrument panel, a hiss of static coming through as he hit the accept button.

“ ... repeat, this is the civilian cargo freighter Nelleblad responding to distress beacon, come in please, over.”

Boyd leaned back into his seat, unable to believe his luck. It had only been three days – had someone picked up their distress call so soon?

“Come in, Nelleblad,” Boyd said as he angled the flexible microphone on the headset towards his mouth. “We hear you loud and clear. Thank you for responding, over.”

“What’s your situation?” the voice on the other end asked, distorted by distance and interference.

“We’re a short-range cargo shuttle in need of rescue,” Boyd explained. “We have two souls aboard, and we’re looking to hitch a ride out of the system. Any chance you could pick us up?”

“Negative on that, shuttle,” the voice replied after hesitating for a moment. “I’m going to need some kind of proof of identity – there have been reports of recent pirate attacks in this system, over.”

“Damn it,” Boyd hissed, keeping his finger off the transmission key. He was talking about the attack on the UNN jump freighter. The shipping companies that operated out this far must have alerted their assets of the threat and warned them to keep an eye out for exactly this kind of situation. A lone shuttle drifting at the edge of the system could be a honey trap for passing ships, as UN law required any vessel that detected a distress beacon to investigate it or face serious sanctions. Boyd would have been suspicious too, had their situations been reversed. How was he supposed to prove that he legitimately needed help? A million lies and schemes flashed through his mind, but for once, maybe the truth was the simplest solution?

All registered vessels – be they privately or commercially owned – had to update their systems regularly with UNN identification codes. Any legitimate vessel that was remotely up to date would carry a list of encrypted codes that would allow anyone with the appropriate authority to identify themselves and commandeer the ship, even in the absence of any long-range communication that could be used to verify their identity. If someone who carried a code checked out, the crew were supposed to cooperate to the extent that the law required. At the spaceport, he would have outed himself as a spy, but it didn’t matter out here.

“Hold for a moment, Nelleblad,” he began as he plugged his suit cable into a nearby console. “I’m sending you over some access codes.”

“Access codes?” the man replied, sounding concerned. Boyd was about to ruin their day, but he didn’t have much of a choice. There was also the possibility that the crew would just ignore him and purge the logs, as the codes didn’t actually give him control of the ship’s systems, at least not remotely. He just had to hope that they were upstanding citizens and not, well ... he’d met his fair share of outlaws and criminals on this assignment.

The seconds ticked by, and he began to get nervous, hearing muffled conversations bleed through the audio feed. Finally, the man returned, Boyd hearing his mic crackle as he presumably put a headset on or returned to a chair.

“Alright, the codes check out. Didn’t know you were Navy. What the hell are you doing all the way out here in a shuttle? Over.”

“It’s a long story, and one that I’d prefer to tell in person,” Boyd replied with a sigh of relief. “Do we have permission to board? Over.”

“If we said no, all of our licenses would be revoked and we wouldn’t even be qualified to push shopping carts anymore,” the man grumbled. “I’m transmitting my coordinates to your flight computer. I’d rather you came to us, unless you’re low on fuel?”

“We can make it,” Boyd replied, examining the readout that was scrolling across one of his displays. “Much obliged, Nelleblad. We’re on our way. Over and out.”

Lorza poked her massive head into the cockpit, exposing her sharp teeth in a wide yawn, her claws sinking into the padded headrest of the pilot’s chair.

“Did someone find us already?”

“Yeah, a civilian freighter,” he replied as he pulled off the headset. “Looks like we might be out of here sooner than I thought.”

“Oh well,” she sighed. “I guess it can’t be helped.” She leaned in close behind him and pressed her teeth into his neck, making him lurch in his seat. “I wanted you all to myself a little while longer.”

The freighter loomed in the distance, illuminated against the velvet black backdrop of deep space by its flashing running lights. Its long, skeletal frame was filled out here and there by massive cargo containers, the comparatively small cockpit and living quarters of the ship affixed to the prow of the vessel. The massive engine cones and the module that housed the reactors were mounted on the stern like a counterweight, giving the vessel the appearance of a four-hundred-meter cotton swab.

Boyd angled the shuttle towards the hangar bay, just behind the hab module. It was open to space, protected by a shimmering barrier of blue light – a molecular force field that would keep the atmosphere from venting into space while allowing solid objects to pass unhindered. It was certainly a more recent design than the Zemchug. They closed quickly, spurts of blue flame shooting from the nose of the shuttle to slow their approach, its computer projecting a grid-shaped flight path on the canopy window to help guide him in. The landing area was barely large enough for two shuttles, and there was already one occupying the space, Boyd nudging the controls carefully as he set down beside it. There was a shudder as they transitioned to the freighter’s AG field, the thrusters beneath the craft’s belly flaring to compensate, the landing gear extending.

“Here we are,” Boyd said, hitting the button that would lower the ramp. “Do me a favor and wait here,” he added, Lorza moving out of his way as he stepped into the troop bay. “They’re probably not expecting an eight-foot alien, and we don’t want to startle them.”

He stepped down onto the Nelleblad’s deck, glancing at the force field briefly before turning left, in the direction of the hab module. Three men dressed in civilian clothes were waiting for him, one of them sporting a conspicuous pump-action shotgun that was currently pointed at the floor. It wasn’t the most modern weapon, but it would still shred him like a game hen at this range.

“I’d like to see some kind of ID,” the man said, Boyd recognizing his voice from their radio conversation.

“No problem,” Boyd said, slowly raising his wrist display. He tapped at it, then turned the screen towards the crew, showing them a copy of his UNNI credentials. They had no way to verify it without an FTL comms link, but the man with the gun gestured for him to take a few steps closer all the same, squinting at it for a moment. It seemed to satisfy him, and he relaxed a little.

“UNNI?” he asked incredulously. “You’re a Ninnie?”

“That explains how he ended up with those access codes,” another added.

“Sorry about the welcome,” the man with the gun continued. “It was a necessary precaution, you understand. Corporate sent out a pirate alert for this system, so we’ve been a little on edge.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Boyd replied. For a moment there, he’d been worried that these guys might be on the payroll, but they were just a little jumpy. “I have a friend with me – a Borealan. Please don’t be alarmed. She’s completely harmless.”

He called for Lorza, and she strode down the ramp, pausing for a moment when she saw the shotgun. There were some wide eyes and surprised mutters from the crew, but their weapon remained safely pointed at the deck.

“Saw a Borealan once when I was in the Navy,” the man with the gun said. “Never one that ... large. My name is Connors, by the way,” he added. “This is Iversen, and this is Kruse.”

“So, what’s the deal?” Kruse asked. “What are you doing out here, and where are you headed?”

“I need you to take me to the nearest UNN outpost,” he replied. “I realize that I’m interrupting your delivery, but I can promise you compensation for fuel and lost time. I can probably swing some kind of reward for you, too, assuming the brass doesn’t hold out on me. I’m on an urgent mission for Naval Intelligence, and I have to get the information that I’ve recovered into official channels as soon as possible. Lives are depending on it.”

“You guys are spies, right?” Iversen asked. “You been investigating these pirate attacks?”

“You could say that,” Boyd replied cryptically. He didn’t want to pull rank or try to commandeer the ship, even if he was completely within his rights to do so. Better to have the crew cooperate of their own volition, because there wasn’t much standing between him and that shotgun other than a sense of duty and the fear of consequences. It was lucky that one of the men was ex-Navy.

“Well,” the shotgun-toting Connors began. “If you’re gonna compensate us, then we’ll be glad to make a detour. Lord knows I’ll be happy to have an excuse to avoid Hades for a few extra days. I’m gonna need some kind of document explaining the delay, though – something official I can show to my supervisor.”

“Done,” Boyd replied with a nod. “I’d stay away from Hades for a while if I were you, by the way,” he added. “Maybe come up with an excuse for some extended maintenance. Things there are going to get... turbulent over the next few weeks.”

“I’m glad I ran into you in that case,” he replied, gesturing for them to follow him out of the hangar. “Is it all top secret, or can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Need to know basis,” Lorza replied, mimicking Boyd’s accent. “It is highly classified.”

“In that case, I’d better not pry,” Connors said as Boyd gave the smirking Polar a stern glance.

She ducked under a human-sized door as the stranger led them into a short hallway that was lined with cabins. It wasn’t unlike what he had seen on the Zemchug, but everything here was more spacious and upscale. With a ship of this size, there wasn’t as much incentive to save space. At the end of the hallway was the bridge, which was far larger than the shuttle’s cockpit or the bridge of the survey ship, almost rivaling that of a capital ship. Bridge windows lined the craft’s boxy nose, looking out into the void of space, little frost crystals clinging to their extremities. The deck was mostly occupied by rows of consoles with glowing, holographic displays where the crew would sit during operations, but the ship could pretty much run itself during the majority of the voyage.

Connors passed his shotgun to Iversen, then sank into a rotating chair at the main console, punching in coordinates. A computer monitor flared to life, displaying trajectory, fuel consumption, and other miscellaneous data as he programmed a new flight path.

“Gotta wait for the jump drive to charge, but there’s a UNN fueling station a system over,” he explained as he examined the readout. “It’s only about three LY – shouldn’t take more than a few days to get there. You guys got food with you?” he asked, Boyd nodding his head in reply. “Good, we weren’t planning on having our crew double in size.”

“Do you guys have room for us?” Boyd added. “We can bunk our shuttle – it’s no problem.”

“We have some free cabins,” he replied, looking Lorza up and down. “Your friend might have to sleep on the floor, though. We’re not really set up for Borealans. There are harnesses on the beds, and there should be some bits in one of the drawers, but this one might have to bite down on a belt or something. You done many superlight jumps?” he asked, directing his question at the Polar.

“Many,” she replied. “It will not be a problem.”

“Just saying, biting your tongue is a lot worse with chompers like those,” he added with a nod to her sharp teeth. “We’re all keyed in, so go fetch whatever gear you need from your shuttle and get settled in. We only exited superlight a couple of days ago, so it’ll take a little longer for our drive to charge again – you got some time.”

“Thanks again,” Boyd said, leading Lorza out of the bridge and into the short corridor outside. “What are you doing?” he hissed once they were out of earshot. “You’re not a spy!”

“I am just having some fun,” she replied with a shrug that made her ample chest bounce in her coveralls. “They totally bought it, too.”

Boyd shook his head in exasperation, leading her back into the hangar bay. The shimmering barrier was to their left, and the two shuttles took up most of the space, along with some large stacks of supply crates and equipment. He headed inside the troop compartment and lifted one of the crates of food that Darrel had given them, grunting with the effort. Lorza appeared, plucking it out of his hands with all the effort of lifting a beer cooler, grinning down at him.

“Alright, you move the crates,” he said. “I’ll go find out where they have us sleeping.”

The layout of the freighter reminded Boyd of an apartment, albeit with more bedrooms. Several personal cabins branched off the main hallway, and there was a living area with a kitchen and a kind of common room, along with a bathroom area that actually had a shower. The prospect of finally being clean again was enough to lighten Boyd’s mood, and it was large enough that even Lorza might stand a chance of cramming herself inside it.

The freighter’s crew had given them one of the cabins for the duration of their stay, which was of suitable size for a human, but would barely fit a Polar lying down. There was just enough room for her sleeping bag, but she wisely elected to leave it in the shuttle and use some spare bedding instead, turning the entire room into a kind of giant nest. It seemed that the vessel could accommodate as many as six people but could be operated by far fewer, so there wasn’t a shortage of cabins to pillage for blankets and pillows. If the crew thought it was strange that they were sharing a room, they didn’t mention anything about it to him. There wasn’t much of a reason to keep up appearances when they would likely never see these men again after their short stay aboard.

After Lorza had moved their supplies to the hangar for easier access and they were settled in, they were ready for the jump. They returned to their cabin, and Boyd opened a drawer in the bedside table, rummaging inside it. He found what he was looking for – a plastic bit, wiping it on his sleeve before placing it in his mouth. It would prevent him from biting off his own tongue during the jump. When the superlight engine discharged all of the energy it had stored up, it would tear a hole in reality, propelling the ship and everything in its immediate vicinity into a parallel dimension where the laws of physics worked very differently. It was much easier to exceed light speed if time flowed faster or if you no longer had any mass. The downside of this alternate universe was that it played merry hell with living nervous systems, impairing their function, which could cause everything from nausea to convulsions. It got a little easier with each jump, almost like your brain was growing callouses, but it was always a good idea to take precautions.

He lay down on the bunk, securing the harness across his chest, then placing his wrists and ankles in padded cuffs that would close automatically to prevent the occupant from hurting themselves. Lorza stood beside the bed, looking down at him with a sultry expression, and he suddenly felt oddly vulnerable.

“What’s with that look?” he grumbled. “You need to strap in – we’ll be jumping in a few minutes.”

“I was just thinking,” she replied with a purr. “We are going to be here for a few days, and I can come up with some ... interesting uses for these harnesses.”

“Will you just get ready for the jump?” he complained, Lorza smirking at him as his cheeks began to flush. “Go on – shoo.”

She lowered herself down into the nest of blankets and pillows that they had laid out beside the bed, shuffling to bury herself a little deeper. The cabin was small enough that she barely had enough room to stretch out, her round ears and her clawed toes brushing adjacent walls.

“Don’t you need something to bite down on?” Boyd asked.

“I have done more jumps than you have eaten hot meals, malish,” she replied.

Boyd stared at the featureless ceiling for a couple more minutes as they waited for the signal, a warning siren soon ringing out over the intercom, alerting them that the drive had finished charging. Superlight jumps didn’t worry him – he had completed hundreds – but the sound was intended to be jarring. If someone got caught with their pants down when the ship jumped, they could be in serious trouble. The familiar sensation of static electricity dancing across his skin greeted him as the drive began to work its magic, the hairs on his arms standing on end, as though the very air in the cabin was being charged with arcane energies. The drive was preparing to dump all of the accumulated energy that it had siphoned from the ship’s nuclear reactors over the last few days, using it to rend the fabric of space and send the vessel careening out of reality. The freighter’s superstructure began to groan and shake, the immense forces that were at play wrenching and twisting the metal, then everything went black.

Boyd took in a sharp breath, his muscles quivering as he strained against his bonds. Where was he? Had he been captured? Was he being tortured? He fought ardently, his restraints digging into his wrists and ankles, eventually exhausting himself. Wherever he was, he was trapped. When he opened his eyes, he saw nothing, leading him to assume that he was blindfolded. Little by little, his memories returned to him, and he remembered what was happening. The delirium that had come over him gradually faded, his senses sharpening, his vision fading in like a camera lens coming into focus to reveal the featureless ceiling of his cabin.

The harnesses that held him securely to the bed popped open automatically, and he sat upright, reaching back to rub his cramping neck with a grimace. His head was throbbing – he felt like he had just awakened from the mother of all benders, his heartbeat pulsing in his temples. Reminding himself that it would fade in time, he leaned over the edge of the bed in search of Lorza.

His companion was lying in the nest of sheets beside him, reaching up to cradle her head with a furry hand, her resonating groan of displeasure filling the little room.

“Cat still got your tongue?” Boyd croaked, Lorza lifting a hand to give him an uneasy thumbs-up.

“Do me a favor and stop talking for a while,” she grumbled, her ears flattening against her head protectively. “Feels like someone hit me in the head with a hammer.”

She had thrashed around a little, judging by how she was partially buried in the sheets, but she hadn’t been lying when she had told him that she was accustomed to superlight jumps. Some more experienced captains could even remain standing during a jump – so he was told.

The freighter would have traveled a dozen or so light-years in the blink of an eye, and it would now have to coast in realspace for a few days while the drive charged up again.

After a couple more minutes, he felt well enough to stand, carefully stepping over Lorza as he made his way to the door. It slid open, and he stepped into the hallway outside, heading for the bridge. There, he found Connors sitting in one of the chairs, nursing a headache as he examined the readout on one of the displays. Beyond the bridge windows, a colorful cloud of gas was spreading out around the ship, creating a rainbow smear against the dark backdrop. It was made up of remnants of the interstellar medium that had been trapped inside the superlight manifold when they had jumped, its properties altered by exposure to the strange qualities of extra-dimensional space.

“Another successful jump,” Connors announced, still rubbing his eyes groggily. He reached for the harness that was securing him to his seat, popping the clasp open. “It’ll take the drive a couple of days to charge again, then it should only be one more jump before we arrive at the outpost. Make yourselves comfortable – it’s gonna be a bit of a wait.”

Two uneventful days passed by with little to do other than eat and socialize. The crew were naturally curious, both about Boyd’s mission and his Polar companion. Hailing from a very social species, Lorza seemed glad of the opportunity to indulge them, chatting incessantly with her hosts and regaling them with embellished stories about her adventure. She also worked her Polar magic in the kitchen, transforming the freighter’s meager rations and supplies into hearty meals, her penchant for cooking and her resourceful use of the limited ingredients never ceasing to surprise. As well as wowing the crew, it seemed to relax her, and it made Boyd better appreciate what she had lost during the Zemchug’s crash. Having people to talk to and hungry mouths to feed was important to her. Boyd was less extroverted, but while he was unable to reveal some of the more sensitive information about his assignment, that didn’t stop him from adding his own commentary to Lorza’s tales.

While the fires of their passion still raged, the cramped environment and lack of privacy forced them to get creative. They could make love in their cabin if they were quiet about it, and more than once, they took an impromptu trip to their shuttle with the excuse that they had to review sensitive data pertaining to their mission.

After a couple of days and six meals that would have shamed even a cruise liner chef, they prepared for their second jump. Boyd once again strapped himself into his bunk, and Lorza lay down on the mattresses on the floor beside him, the ravages of superlight travel leaving them sore and dazed when they awakened.

The pair made their way to the bridge once they had recovered their faculties, finding the three crew members already at their posts, sitting behind their respective consoles. Boyd looked out past the frosty bridge windows and the drifting gas cloud that surrounded them, seeing a bright ball shining in the darkness. It was a gas giant, larger than Luna when seen from Earth from their perspective, bands of dull browns and reds swirling around its equator. Even a close jump usually landed hundreds of thousands of klicks from the target, and a UNN outpost wouldn’t be visible from such a distance without magnification.

“We have the station on our scopes,” Kruse said, swiping at his holographic display. “I’m sending them a tight-beam. We’re about four hundred thousand kilometers out, so it won’t take long to get a reply.”

“Looks like the system is uninhabited,” Connors added as he examined his feed. “No terrestrial planets – just a fueling station in orbit around a gas giant.”

“That outpost will still have FTL comms,” Boyd replied as he leaned on the console beside Connors. “These stations basically act as early warning systems. They keep an eye out for Betelgeusian fleets passing through the area on their way to inhabited systems, and they serve as rest stops for UNN vessels. If any Bugs were on their way to Hades, all of that ice and hydrogen would make a mighty attractive pit stop.”

They received a reply from the station a few minutes later, Kruse swiveling his chair around to face them as he relayed the message.

“Flight control has given us permission to start our approach, and they’d like us to transmit Mister Boyd’s clearance codes,” he announced as he glanced between Boyd and Connors.

“Start the burn,” Connors replied with a nod. “We should get there in under a day. Mister Boyd – if you’d like to do whatever it is they want you to do?”

Boyd moved over to Kruse’s console and extended the cable from his suit, plugging it into a socket that the man pointed out to him. He loaded some encrypted data packets that were included with the next transmission, sending over the requested identifying credentials and access codes.

“I’ll let you know when we’re about to arrive,” Connors said, rising from his seat and stretching his arms above his head. “You’ve got plenty of time to pack.”

About twenty hours later, Connors called them back to the bridge, and Boyd entered to see the gas giant’s bands of color occupying the entire field of view beyond the windows. At this distance, he could make out the swirling storms that raged around its equator, the immense clouds flowing together like streaks of watercolor paints on a canvas. The outpost was visible now – a ring-shaped structure that was scarcely wider than the freighter was long, silhouetted against the glow of the clouds behind it. A single UNN frigate was docked to it, the chisel-shaped, two-hundred-and-fifty-meter vessel anchored to the wheel-like habitat via a skeletal cradle that partially enclosed it.

“We’re too big to dock but they’ve granted your shuttle permission to board,” Kruse announced as he turned in his seat to greet the newcomers. “Connors – they’re sending a couple of Beewolves to guide us in.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Boyd added as he admired the view. “It’s standard procedure.”

Not soon after, a pair of dark shapes approached the freighter, breaking off to the left and right. They did a pretty close pass, their angular, stealth-coated hulls catching the light of the system’s star. The Beewolf was a space superiority fighter that was equally at home in both vacuum and atmosphere, taking on a more familiar aerodynamic shape, the vessels tilting their wings as they took up formation to either side of the freighter’s hab module. Lorza walked over to the rightmost window, pressing her feline nose up against the glass as she gawked at the aircraft – not quite close enough to make out the pilot in the cockpit.

Connors stood and walked over to join Boyd, who extended his hand.

“Looks like this is your stop,” Connors said as they shook.

“Thank you again,” Boyd replied. “Things could have gone very badly for us if you hadn’t shown up when you did. I’ll pull some strings – make sure you and your crew are properly compensated for your service. And, remember what I said,” he added with a more serious tone. “The situation on Hades is going to be heating up, no pun intended. Find an excuse to do some maintenance for a couple of weeks. A month would be better. The shit is about to hit the fan, and you won’t want to be standing nearby when that happens.”

“I appreciate the heads-up,” Connors replied. “Come on – I’ll see you to the shuttle bay.”

Boyd and Lorza bade farewell to Kruse and Iverson, then headed to their shuttle, Lorza engulfing Connors’ hand in her furry mitt as they said their goodbyes. Boyd mounted the cargo ramp and made his way to the cockpit, sliding into one of the padded chairs, the engines spooling as he started flipping switches. Once Lorza was inside, he sealed the ramp with a hermetic hiss, pressurizing the shuttle. With a few careful bursts from the forward thrusters, the craft slid out through the force field and into the darkness of space, Boyd feeling his stomach drop as they transitioned from the freighter’s AG field to the shuttle’s.

As he maneuvered away from the faint, blue glow of the freighter’s bay, a blinking light on his console alerted Boyd of an incoming hail. He slipped on his headset and opened a channel, hearing the characteristically calm voice of one of the Beewolf pilots come through with a crackle of static. He glanced out of the canopy window, seeing the dark, arrowhead-shaped craft drift into formation beside him.

“Shuttle, this is Beewolf Gamma-Six-Niner. Please follow me to the docking bay, over.”

“Roger that, Beewolf,” Boyd replied as he keyed in a trajectory. “Following you in.”

The two craft coasted towards the outpost, the docking ring of the station ballooning in front of them, covered in little windows and empty cradles. It was far smaller than the tether station that he had seen on Hades at maybe five or six hundred meters across, and a lot of that was empty space between the ring and the blocky structure at its center, but it was still an impressive sight. The support cables and walkways that joined the ring to the central hub made it look like a giant bicycle wheel that was floating through space. There were a few railgun turrets mounted at intervals along the ring, the nearest one turning its long barrel to track their shuttle, its optics glinting in the unfiltered sunlight. The Beewolf wasn’t just their escort – it was probably ready to chew them to pieces with its dorsal gun if they strayed off-course. Boyd was making an unannounced visit in a pretty dangerous region of space. If space stations had doors, they wouldn’t be leaving them unlocked in this stellar neighborhood.