Planet broker book 2, p.18
Planet Broker Book 2, page 18
The princess nodded and chittered her own laugh. “He does. I did not wish to wake your machine-healer or your other woman, so I thought I would come to find you if you are not too busy.”
I shook my head. “Not at all,” I said as I gestured to one of the co-pilot chairs. “Pull up a seat. I was only going over some data with Omni.”
Sef’sla strode over to the seat on my left and perched uncertainly on the armrest. The Almort weren’t big on chairs, it seemed. The princess then leaned over to look at my screen even though she couldn’t understand what was written on it.
“What were you discussing?” she asked curiously as her dark eyes turned to me.
I sighed and rubbed at the back of my neck. “Honestly? I was looking for any information I had on Warrick that could help me screw him ov… I mean, defeat him,” I corrected with a slight wince.
Sef’sla looked intrigued. “This is the starman that attacked us, correct?” she asked. A shadow passed over her face, and the low burning fire of anger I saw in her eyes made me glad I was not Warrick.
“Yes,” I told her, “he is a high ranking starman in Terra-Nebula. He’s the one calling the shots right now, and he wants to defeat us before the rest of the Corporation gets here so he can get all the credit.”
Sef’sla cocked her head again at the sharp edge in my words. “Have you had dealings with him before?” she questioned intuitively.
A muscle in my jaw fluttered. “A few times,” I admitted. “We joined the Corporation around the same time. He was ambitious and sometimes clever, so I thought we would have a common ground, but he quickly proved himself to be a greedy asshole.”
The Almort princess looked thoughtful and opened her mouth to respond, but then she seemed to think differently, and her jaw closed with an audible click.
“What?” I asked curiously.
Sef’sla shook her head. “It is nothing. It is not my place,” she replied.
I frowned. “You don’t have to check your words with me,” I said, “I promise I won’t be offended by anything you say.”
The princess didn’t immediately respond. She turned and looked out the viewport for a moment, watching her world fly by, while she seemed to consider her words.
Finally, she looked back at me. “I am curious,” she began, “why you stayed with this tribe of starmen. You said you were with them for some time.”
I cringed but nodded. “Nearly ten years,” I admitted with a sigh. I collapsed back in my chair and rubbed my hands over my face. I didn’t even know how to begin to explain my complicated relationship with Terra-Nebula.
“I apologize,” Sef’sla said quickly, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
I waved off her concern as I lifted my head. “I’m not upset… well, I am, but not at you,” I replied. I took a deep breath and exhaled harshly. “My story with the starmen is a long and complicated one.”
“How long until we reach Oe’huk?” she asked.
Before I could respond, Omni’s voice echoed across the bridge. “We will arrive at our destination in approximately one hour,” he informed us.
Still surprised by the AI’s voice, Sef’sla blinked and looked around the room before she directed her face to the ceiling. “Thank you, speaking-machine,” she replied and then turned back to me with an expectant expression.
“I guess we have time then,” I chuckled dryly. I clapped my hands together and tilted my head back. “Okay, so where to begin? I guess I have to start by saying I didn’t have a lot growing up.” I gestured out the viewport with a wave of my hand. “I didn’t have a homeworld like you do. I was born and grew up on a great sky-ship called Proto Station that floated through the stars.”
Sef’sla’s eyes went wide. “That sounds very beautiful,” she said, and I gave her a weak smile.
“It should have been,” I responded, “and maybe it was when it first began, but by the time I was born, Proto was overcrowded and under-resourced. I don’t remember much from my childhood, but I know it must have been hard, and it only became harder after my parents died.”
Sef’sla gasped softly, a soft, hissed inhalation of air. “Both of them?” she asked. By the anguish on her face, I knew the princess was thinking of her departed mother.
I nodded. “Yes,” I replied, but then I pressed forward, not wanting to linger on the subject of dead parents. “After they were gone, I had to fend for myself. It was a hard life. I had to fight tooth and nail to be able to eat most days and still there were long stretches where I went hungry. So, when a man from Terra-Nebula approached me and said he could get me off Proto and make me rich beyond my wildest dreams, I jumped at the chance.”
I sighed and scratched at my neck again, awkward with my own story. I had never told it fully to anyone but Neka, and that was over the course of years. I had never sat down like this and laid my life out bare.
Sef’sla must have noticed my discomfort because she leaned forward and placed her hand on my knee in support. I smiled at her in gratitude, took a deep breath, and went on.
“At first, it seemed pretty straightforward,” I explained. “My job was to talk to the native populations of different planets and convince them to sell ownership and rights to Terra-Nebula. I started out on hard-off worlds, places that truly suffered. When I came to them with technology and medicine, they couldn’t sign the paperwork fast enough. Those first few years, I thought I was really doing some good.”
“What changed?” Sef’sla asked quietly.
“Nothing,” I said, “and that was the problem. As I continued to work my up the Corporation ladder, I began to notice some differences in the way I treated indigenous peoples and how Terra-Nebula and the other brokers did. When I went to a planet, I liked to get to know the people. I’d walk their cities, shop in their marketplaces, get down in my hands and knees in the dirt if they were a farming civilization.”
“As you have done here,” Sef’sla said with a smile.
I nodded. “Yes, that is simply how I do things. This way, I knew exactly what the people lacked, what they needed, and what Terra-Nebula could offer them. I had viewed the contracts as an agreement of aid between the planets and the Corporations, an exchange of goods and services. I came to learn that Terra-Nebula didn’t prescribe to the same beliefs that I did.”
“What did they believe?” Sef’sla prompted when I lapsed into silence, lost in my own thoughts and memories.
“They believed that the planets and their peoples were only… property.” I sighed. “All Terra-Nebula saw was the bottom line. The only language they spoke revolved around profit margins. All they cared about was increasing their own wealth, regardless of how many people got hurt along the way.”
“Then why stay?” Sef’sla asked again, her brow furrowed. “If they are so terrible, why remain with them?”
I laughed dryly and without humor. “Because I thought I could change things,” I admitted with a shake of my head. “It seems stupid now, but I truly thought that if I showed them that there was a different way, they would listen.”
I sighed. “So, I worked even harder. I became the best at my job in any Corporation in the known universe. I thought I could demonstrate that it was more profitable in the long run to treat people fairly. It reduced feelings of anger and animosity within the indigenous populations, it drastically reduced the chance of insurrection and rebellion, and it increased resource production since the natives viewed their relationship with the Corporation as an alliance, not a dictatorship. I brought this up to my superiors multiple times, but they always dismissed me, always said they’d take my advice under consideration during the next board meeting. The last time I brought this notion up was only a few months ago, and I believe Warrick leveraged it to bring about my termination.”
Shame and guilt simmered at the base of my throat as my next words formed in my mind. “I guess, when you think about it, I really didn’t change anything. I was only helping Terra-Nebula grow more powerful. Maybe I am no better than them,” I reluctantly confessed as I dropped my eyes.
Sef’sla slid off her chair and came to kneel before me on the cold, metal floor of the bridge. She dipped her head slightly so I would meet her eyes and, when I did, she reached out and firmly took me by the hand.
“You are nothing like these other starmen,” she told me resolutely. “If you were, you would not feel this way. Your feelings of guilt are a reflection of your innocence, CccT. You tried to help people exactly as you are trying to help my people and me now. You are not governed by greed or malice.”
She let go of my hand, reached out, and pressed her own against my chest, right over where my heart thumped loudly. “You follow your heart,” she went on, “and because you are an honorable man, your heart tells you what is right and what is wrong. Tell me, do you truly believe you are similar to this starman, Warrick?”
I thought about it for a moment and then shook my head. “No,” I said hesitantly, but the more I thought about it, the more confident I became. “No, I am nothing like him.”
“And that is why I follow you,” Sef’sla admitted with a soft smile. “Why my father trusts you and why the other chieftains have agreed to join us. You are a good man, CT. If you were not, you would not have two women who love you so.”
She looked at my lips as she finished speaking, and her cheeks began to flush. I realized she had feelings for me, and then I realized I also had feelings for her. There wasn't time to dive into it now, but I was looking forward to exploring it once we finished defending this planet.
While I was contemplating all of this, Sef’sla rose to her feet. “Thank you for telling me your story, CT,” she hissed with a kind smile.
She said it with such sincerity that I couldn’t help but look up into her strangely beautiful face. “No, thank you for listening. Saying all that out loud… it really helped,” I told her gratefully.
Before the princess could respond, Omni came back on the PA system.
“Colby,” the AI intoned, “we are nearing the city of Oe’huk. Should I wake Neka, Akela, and Chief U’eh?”
“I will go wake my father,” Sef’sla offered, and I nodded at her in thanks. I doubted U’eh would appreciate Omni turning on all the lights to wake him and speaking from nowhere and everywhere at once.
“Go ahead and wake Neka and Akela, O,” I instructed the AI. “Tell them we’ll meet in the cargo bay.”
“Yes, Colby,” the AI responded, and then the static cut off as he went to rouse the two sleeping beauties.
I turned back to Sef’sla to find her halfway out the door already. I didn’t know what prompted me exactly, but before she could slip totally away, I called out, “I’m glad we had this talk.”
Sef’sla paused and looked at me over her shoulder. “I am as well,” she agreed cryptically and then vanished from view to wake her snoring father.
I smiled after her, my face still warm and my heart stuttering over itself in the cage of my ribs.
Fifteen minutes later, we were all standing in the cargo bay one last time. Neka yawned and rubbed at her eyes with closed fists. Beside her, Akela seemed to be drinking a pot’s worth of coffee out of an old, beat-up thermos. The mechanic extended the thermos out to me, but I declined with a shake of my head. The silver-haired woman shrugged and went back to chugging.
U’eh looked the same as always, stern and frowning, and next to him Sef’sla flashed me a brief smile, but it quickly withered as we felt the ship shudder and land.
Outside, the desert and its tribe waited for us. We all knew this was going to be our hardest stop yet, ignoring Warrick’s interruption. I had been warned how difficult Za’ec, the leader of the Desert Tribe, could be. I only hoped I could get through to him quickly. Warrick might have shown his hand with the drone attack, but I knew the slimy bastard was already lining up his next shot.
I took a deep, fortifying breath. This was the final stretch of the first leg of this race. Time to bring it home.
“Open the bay door, O,” I instructed my AI, and a moment later, the ramp began to lower.
Warm air and sand immediately flooded into the cargo hold. The sand eddied around our feet, but I could feel Omni slightly increase the ship’s artificial gravity to make sure the sand didn’t rise any higher and blind us.
“Ready?” I asked everyone as we stood, perched and poised, at the top of the loading ramp. Everyone nodded back in return, and we fell into our processional positions: U’eh and Sef’sla in front, followed by me, Neka, and Akela, and our hover-lift full of gifts.
As we exited the ship, I let my eyes adjust to the gloom and then took in the scene before me.
Oe’huk was situated between an outcropping of jagged rocks that stretched at least a hundred meters into the purple sky. The rock walls seemed to provide the city shelter and relief from the constantly blowing winds. The buildings themselves were squat and simple things, some square and made of the same orange stone as the surrounding walls, and some resembling tents more than actual buildings, canvas and fabric flapping in the warm wind.
About half a kilometer of flat and open desert lay between where we now stood and the city itself, and just beyond that, at the edge of the horizon, I could see a strip of blue, the sea that reflected the pale and fragile light this planet received. There was no plant life that I could see, save the dead and spindly remains of scrub brush poking up through the sand. It was an austere sight but beautiful in its severity.
Unlike the last three times, no one from the Desert Tribe rode out to meet us, though I was certain they must know of our presence, seeing as the sky was wide and empty and dark, and the Lacuna Noctis, despite her name, was brightly painted and brightly lit. Still, nothing moved along the perimeter of the Oe’huk, and nothing disturbed the no-man's-land between us and the city, so, after sparing each other a brief glance, we set out across the sand.
The going was slow and arduous, at least for Neka, Akela, and I. U’eh and Sef’sla were light on their feet, a benefit of their Almort physiology, but no matter how my crew and I stepped, the sand gave way beneath us, sucking us down to the ankle. I had half a mind to turn around, get back in the ship, and fly us to the very edge of the city, but I knew Chief Za’ec and his tribe would probably view the action as threatening, so I dismissed the idea and kept slogging along.
We were nearly to the edge of the city, only a few hundred meters off, when I heard something. It was a soft sound, so soft that at first, I thought I’d imagined it. I looked around us but saw nothing except the empty desert with its shifting sands, which thought were the culprit to the noise I had heard.
However, as we kept walking, the sound grew steadily louder, to the point where U’eh and Sef’sla finally paused some fifty meters ahead of us and turned around with their heads cocked similarly. They seemed to hear the noise now, too.
“What is that?” Neka whispered, her voice hushed and tense. She looked around anxiously, and her tail flicked back and forth. I opened my mouth to respond, but suddenly a snarl pierced the air, and I whirled around to see a shadow slinking low across the ground behind us. The hissing noise seemed to be coming from it.
I glanced at the approaching shadow and then over my shoulder to the city’s edge. We were close enough now. The others could make it.
Without taking my eyes off of the shadow, I whispered instructions into the comm system.
“When I give the signal, I want you both to run as fast as you can to the city,” I relayed to Neka and Akela. “Take U’eh and Sef’sla. Don’t look back.”
“And leave you to be eaten by that thing? Are you crazy?” Akela’s voice hissed in my ear.
I gritted my teeth and spoke as softly as I could. The shadow was only thirty meters away now. “I’ll be fine,” I assured my crew, “I can handle whatever this is, but not if I’m too busy worrying about you two. Now, please, on the count of three, run. I’ll be right behind you.”
I knew my assistant and mechanic wanted to argue further, but we ran out of time. Just as I reached three in my head, the shadow exploded into movement, rocketing over the sand nearly ten times as fast as we had been limping along.
“Run!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, and in my peripheral, I saw Akela and Neka whirl around and sprint toward the city, and sand flew in their wake.
I charged in the opposite direction, toward the approaching shadow, a fierce cry clawing its way out of my throat. There was a laser pistol slung against my hip, but I ignored it. There was a dagger Sef’sla had gifted me after I won the trials that I had stuck in my boot, but I didn’t reach for it. I was no longer participating in the Akornath. I didn’t have to worry about breaking some kind of arbitrary rule. This was about survival, and survival I was good at.
When the shadow and I were within twenty meters of each other, I skidded to a stop in the sand, tried not to lose my balance, and waited for the beast to draw closer. I panted as I stood there, looking death in the face, but when the shadow was within ten meters, a wild grin took over my face. I could barely see the glint of the beast’s eyes when I lifted my hand, snapped my fingers together, and activated Terra-Nebula’s custom-made force generator that Akela had transferred from my old T-N flight suit to my new one.
Instantly, an explosive force rippled out from my suit, so powerful I could see it, a visual sonic boom. The shockwave raced across the sand until it barreled head-on into the lunging beast. There was a noise like a mixture between a yelp and a screech, and I watched in satisfaction as the shadow was lifted up in the air and tossed back at least fifteen meters. It landed with a dull thump against a nearby sand dune, where it slid to the ground, motionless.
I stood there and tracked the sand for any more movement. But nothing else came hurtling out of the dark, and the shadow beast had not moved, so I took a few tentative steps forward to view my felled adversary more clearly.
It was larger than I had initially thought, maybe three meters from nose to tail. It looked like some sort of huge lizard, with scales dark enough to slip between the shadows of the dunes. Its head was angular, full of sharp lines and even sharper, serrated, opalescent teeth, and spikes crested its spine and the back of its neck. Its tail was nearly half of its body length, and the long, scaled appendage ended in a group of white spikes, giving the tail the appearance of a mace.
