"You do realize I know his name? Repeating it only make you look melodramatic."
Jon paced the small metal-clad room, only stopping to read the LCD clock on the wall. Finally the man stopped and took a seat.
"I simply can't place the nationality." Thought the man out loud.
"Well look it up in a Gallia name database. The new kids on the block probably have some weird names like that. Either that or he made it up, which probably means that he doesn't want people nosing into his past."
The door opened and in clanked Olath Slyannen, his loud metal leg-brace hitting the dingy floor, commanding the attention of the two bulky men in the room.
"I ... am Olath Slyannen."
A man stood up, "You know, we were just discussing your name, could you tell us.."
But at that moment, a trigger's connection was made with the expressed purpose of sending a burning bolt of molecular chaos screeching through the man's head, super heating his fragile organic make-up and causing his head to explode backward. The body fell uselessly to the ground.
"I don't take kindly to curiosity, Mr. Mendez." Said the hooded Olath Slyannen, twisting his head slightly to stare at the one he called Mendez.
"You ... you sent word of a job."
"Yes. I require you to run this message to the dockhands." As Slyannen approached Mendez, his facial features were obscured by a piece of fabric covering his face. What Mendez could make out was a small strip of hair running out of his hood: stark white and oily. He received the slip of plastic, most likely holding the message.
"Uh, sir..."
"Ah yes, the payment, in advance as promised." Olath transferred the sum of 500,000 credits to Mendez's neural net. Olath turned and started loudly motioning towards the door.
"All this, for a message?!" Olath stopped, pivoted off his metallic brace and drew a new weapon, this time a long, gleaming rapier from his belt and placed the business end right over Mendez's throat. As the two stood there, frozen for a second Mendez realized the hilt of the sword was shifting ... crawling.
"The saying that curiosity killed the cat is largely an under appreciated axiom. You will find that, with me, killing is a merciful release from the pain I would normally bestow upon those who dare make me remember were I come from and why I'm in this section of space in the first place."
Mendez was silent, obviously he would have already been dead if Olath didn't need him. Slyannen sheathed the rapier and headed quickly to the door.
"The name." Mendez croaked, half spasmodically.
Olath turned. "What?!"
"The name of the ship, I need to know which dockyard."
Olath smirked under his cloak.
"Dobluthen."
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."
"Starboard drive is down. We're leaking H-fuel all over the Omicrons..."
"But the pirates, are the pirates gone?"
The helmsman looked up and punched up another application, fiddling with the controls. The individual giving the orders and standing above the captain's chair was robed, everything was concealed except his hands, the color of dark jet. Wisps of hair shone through as well, stark white.
"Gone. The plutonium we ejected detonated at a safe distance." The captain slumped down into his seat, however he didn't have more than five seconds of comfort before the entire bridge jeered to one side. The captain's robe caught onto one side of the chair, ripping his exoskeleton off and revealing his lithe figure, much smaller than a normal human.
"What in the BURNING HELLS was that?!"
"Rock ... errr asteroid sir. Bering one mark thirteen..."
"I don't care WHERE it's berring, ... engineering, do we have stabilization?" Outside the port and starboard sides, one could see small asteroids and space debris hitting the hull of the Dobluthen. The sleek Borderworlds design being punctured with small black blotches.
"Engineering to bridge, we have point stabilization, everything else is out, including main engines."
"Well GET THEM UP. This ship is gonna look like Frankfurt cheese in a minute..."
"Sir, we're coming out of the field now..."
The rolling, tumbling metallic rod of a ship emerged from the thin concentration of purplish asteroids badly burnt and hurt. A grayish cloud was emanating from one side, crystallizing into a dust cloud.
The bridge was a mess. Half of the panels were out, and the other half were squawking danger and disaster at every turn. From the bridge the captain observed the point thrusters coming online, pointing the ship forward.
"Helmsman. Can we contact the Freeport in this area?"
"No sir. It's on the other side of the suns...." A flashing contact on his panel flashed angrily. "Sir, I'm picking something up..... a Jumphole, dead ahead!"
"Evasive maneuvers. Where the hell are my engines! Engineering, report!"
"Sir, the point thrusters are straining, we can't move the ship like this."
"The Plutonium. How much of the stuff do we still have in the cargo bay?"
The first mate, Roland Devers, who up till this point was quietly handling the crew organization and repair efforts, looked up from his work and called up the necessary information.
"One hundred tonnes suh. But I don't understand..."
The captain played with the controls and brought up the turret fire control. Aiming it at the side of his ship, he let fly several shots that tore into the hull. Cylinders flew by the dozens out into space and the crew watched breathlessly. Roughly calculating the angle and trajectory of his ship, the captain hit his last remaining shield batteries and brought the shields up one final time before the massive explosion rocked the, now spinning, out-of-control ship. Anyone on the bridge could now see helmsman station lighting up yellow for Jumphole entry.
The captain and his crew on the bridge did not move as they watched the incoming sphere of red and purple particles approach them. The captain finally took off his heavy breathe mask and hood to reveal his face, just as jet black as the rest of his body with stark white hair streaming down his back and chest. His pupil-less white eyes looked feverishly around his chair, finally he found what he was looking for and held it up to his mouth.
"This is Captain Olath Slyannen of the Borderworld's Transport 'Dobluthen,' all crew brace for impact."
The red and purple particles overtook the spiraling ship as the Dobluthen disappeared into the event horizon.
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."
"Omicron Iota." Said Jorn LaCarte, Olath's Information officer.
"A large planet named "GX-01" or something or other. This system is, unfortunately for us, unexplored for the most part."
"Jumphole locations?" Asked the surprisingly alert Captain Slyannen.
"None on the maps, sir. I might point out that whomever charted this systems was probably keeping that information a secret." Jorn looked up at his captain, a rarity in and of itself. Normally Captain Slyannen never came out of his conference room, always preferring Devers, the first mate, to handle the odd pirate contact or run-in with the law. Now he was conversing with his officers as though he had always done so. An indicator of how much trouble they were in, thought the young scientist.
Captain Olath Slyannen stood up and leaned against the wall next to the window. Outside, everyone could see the massive Aurora Borealis-like nebula that they had drifted into. The blue and purple hues were unimaginably beautiful to the common civilian, but to any ship that had so much as took an evening stroll through the Omicrons, this was Nomad territory; the thought of which added a not-so-beautiful twinge of fear in every occupant of the Dobluthen.
"Engineering, what is our status?" asked the captain, calmly.
"I've made my report already, but I'll repeat it anyway. The engines are dead in the water, and it'll take time to repair. That stream of leakage that everyone saw in Delta? That wasn't H-fuel, or most of it wasn't. That was coolant, and I'm quite frankly sir, at a loss as to how we're gonna get more. I've got the thrusters online, but they can't fire for more than 4 seconds at the least before they overheat."
"However..." Olath looked up, he could tell Delorian was thinking quickly, that's why he picked him as his new engineering officer. Brash, intelligent and ever on his toes. Other captains overlooked him for these qualities.
"I have been working with Jorn some time now on the fragments of asteroid we found on the hull of the ship. We can't isolate exactly what it is, but it's some sort of organic compound..."
"What?!" perked up Olath, the security officer also was about to call up an intruder alert, but Delorian settled them down.
"Now hold on, the both of you," said Jorn LeCarte "it's an organic compound. It's definately not currently living, but it's unlike anything I've ever seen. Remember the two concecutive nuclear detonations that we produced in Delta? I've been going over scanner data for the last two hours. Within minutes the radiation dropped to zero on the ship."
"Wonderful," cut in Olath "but how exactly does this help in our current situation? You don't suggest we blast our way out of the system, do you?"
"Oh word no." said Delorian excitedly "what I'm suggesting is to modify the material slighty so as to absorb heat radiation, thus giving us a potential source of coolant until we can get back to the Freeport."
The table thought a while and the captain nodded his approval. "Now, if anyone has any objections, lets get this into operation..."
"I have something to report, sir." said Maera Ingal, the communications and scanner officer. The captain nodded his approval.
"I've detected movement in most directions from the sides of the ship, as well as garbled transmissions and other oddities. It may be worth noting that we are not alone in this system, and if possible we should quickly leave."
Captain Slyannen leaned into his portion of the large rectangular desk. "Are you suggesting there may be Nomads out there Ms. Ingal?"
"I have no evidence of Nomadic ships, but I'll keep you informed, sir."
The Captain nodded and stood, the rest of his officers following suit and showed them all out to carry out their work, leaving himself and first mate Devers in the room alone.
"Turn up the AC Rolland, I'm parched." The captain relaxed in his seat and finally took off the heavy mask he was wearing throughout the meeting, revealing his alien features. The lights lowered, and a slight hissing noise sounded from the vents as Cardimine filtered into the room. It was considered rude to fill the room with Cardi if not all the participants were addicted.
"How is the crew?" Asked Olath, nonchalantly. His first mate was first mate for a reason, he could keep the crew in check and report back. He was, in a sense, the political officer, though no one would admit that.
"Shaken, but fine. Our casualties were minimal, amazingly. Apparently we took aboard many boarderworlds pilots and other seasoned extremists. We'll be well crewed to escape this blasted system."
"Good to hear, good to hear." Drawled Olath lazily. "You should get some sleep, your no good to me tired and drained."
"Aye sir. Thank you sir." Devers moved to leave, but Olath said "Want some?" and offered a cup of water.
"No thank you sir, I had some earlier.
Captain Slyannen watched his first mate leave the conference room. Olath brought up a comm panel and contacted Engineer Delorian.
"Continue, Mr. Delorian. I'm sure of it now."
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."
