A Subtle War Page 2

  “Is something wrong?” Taj asked, finding her presence a bit disconcerting.

  Eliarar offered up a gentle smile and shook her head. “Certainly not,” she answered, but before Taj could be relieved by her reply, the woman continued. “However, I’ve been sent to retrieve you, most expeditiously.”

  She glanced around as if suspicious, saying nothing for a moment as she waited for the custodial bots to finish up and leave the room, sealing the door behind them. When they were alone, at last, she looked back to the crew.

  “General Reynolds wishes to speak with you,” she told them, hunkering down and drawing in close as if someone might hear them. “He says it’s quite important, so you should hurry.”

  Chapter Two

  “Good to see you all again,” General Lance Reynolds told the crew, greeting them as the door closed, leaving them alone in the room, Eliarar having left after saying her goodbyes.

  Once more, the General’s image hovered on a view screen on the far wall of the room. Unlike the last time they’d seen the human leader, where he’d been excited and happy to see them, the man looked tired, worn out a bit, as if he hadn’t had much sleep of late.

  “Is everything okay?” Taj asked, moving to the table and taking a seat. The rest of the crew followed her example, slumping into chairs where they could best see the screen.

  “Been a hectic few days around here, that’s all,” he answered, offering up a polite smile that did little to hide his fatigue. “Nothing for you to be concerned about, but thank you.”

  Taj returned his smile, nodding. She was sure the General wasn’t being completely honest with her, but she knew well enough not to ask any more questions regarding his wellbeing. His business was his business, and she didn’t want to pry.

  “What can we do for you, General?” she asked instead, being sure to remind him that they’d offered their services to the Etheric Federation when they’d first come seeking asylum.

  The General nodded his appreciation for her getting to the point.

  “Well, it looks as if we need your help,” he told the crew.

  Taj bit back her excitement at hearing those words, and she glanced around the table. Her crew had clearly restrained themselves similarly, but there was nothing to be done about the sly smiles that brightened all their faces.

  They were happy to do something besides train day in and day out.

  Anything.

  “Of course,” Taj replied, nodding to the General. “Whatever you need us to do, sir.”

  “Glad to hear that.” General Reynolds grinned. “We’ve a bit of a situation. Normally, we’d send a ship and crew out to handle it right away, but the location and timing of certain other issues has put us in a bit of a bind. The soonest we can get a ship out there would be a month or more, which might well be too long. We need someone nearby who can do the job for us right away.”

  Taj straightened in her seat, meeting the General’s eyes. Though still a bit sore from being blasted in the ribs, the flush of adrenaline got the best of her. “We’re your crew,” she answered, thumping a fist on the table.

  “You haven’t even heard the mission yet,” the General said, laughing. “You getting a bit bored out there?”

  “And then some,” Torbon answered, nodding. “Who do we need to shoot? I’m on it.” He went to stand, reaching for his gun, but Taj set a hand on his arm and kept him in his seat.

  The General broke into a broad grin at Torbon’s enthusiasm. “Well, we’re kind of hoping you won’t have to shoot anyone. It’s not really that kind of mission.”

  Torbon sighed and slumped deeper into his seat.

  “What kind of mission is it then?” Taj asked.

  “More of a stealth mission actually,” the General answered. “Sneak in, locate the target, and sneak him out. We don’t want anyone knowing you were there if we can help it. No fuss, no muss.”

  “I can do stealthy,” Torbon offered.

  The rest of the crew turned to stare at him, eyes narrow.

  “What?” he asked, raising his hands. “I was born stealthy.”

  “Says the guy who stabbed himself trying to walk,” Cabe retorted.

  “Just once,” he answered.

  “How do you even do that?” Cabe wondered aloud, turning his wrist in an attempt to determine exactly how Torbon had impaled himself on his energy sword.

  Taj sighed and glanced back to the General, meeting his wide-eyed stare. “He means in practice, sir,” she clarified, knowing they weren’t making themselves look good. “Definitely won’t happen again. Total fluke.”

  “He is that,” Lina mumbled.

  “More like a flake,” Cabe asserted.

  Taj impatiently waved them to silence. “We’re ready, General,” she said. “We can do this. I give you my word.”

  “Glad to hear it, Taj,” General Reynolds replied, offering her a confident smile. “Your target is similar to yourselves, someone seeking asylum with the Federation. His name is Grom Hadar. He reached out to us with information regarding his government, but then he disappeared as we were arranging his exodus. The last coded message we received from him makes us think he’s in danger and that he is in hiding. We’re worried about him. We want to get him out of there before something untoward happens to him.”

  “Understood, sir,” Taj told the General. “We’ll bring him back safe.”

  “Excellent. I’ll send the details to your AI right now and let you get on your way,” he said. “We’re counting on you, Taj.” He said the last, waved, and shut the connection, the view screen going black.

  Taj heard the combined breaths of the crew being let out at once.

  “They need us,” Torbon crowed, his grin so wide Taj was afraid he’d accidentally swallow his tongue.

  “Don’t get carried away,” Lina warned. “There’s no one else close enough to do the job, that’s why they want us to do it. We weren’t exactly the first names on the list.”

  “But that’s okay,” Cabe shot back. “We do this, do it right, get the target home safe and sound, and then next time, next time, our name is on the top of the list.”

  “Let’s not pat ourselves on the back just yet,” Taj told them. “We don’t have any idea where we’re going or what we’re facing. Save the congratulations until after the mission, yeah?”

  Torbon huffed. “You take the fun out of everything,” he complained. He turned to Cabe. “I bet she does that even when you two are alone in your quarters, doesn’t she?” he asked. “Don’t kiss me yet, you have to meet my gaze romantically first. And don’t wrinkle the sheets, I’ll just have to make the bed in the morning,” he said, mimicking Taj’s voice, the words spilling out in a squeak.

  Cabe’s eyes lit up, and he went to laugh, but a steely glare from Taj silenced him before a sound managed to escape. He laid a hand across his mouth to hide the smile he couldn’t hold back.

  “Don’t you dare laugh at that,” she threatened, raising a fist and wagging it in his direction. She spun on Torbon, jabbing a finger his way. “And you, the next time you trip over me, you won’t have to worry about stabbing yourself…”

  “Because she’s gonna shoot you,” Lina said, cutting in.

  “…because I’m gonna shoot you,” Taj finished, speaking as if the engineer hadn’t said anything.

  “If you are finished threatening Torbon’s life,” Dent interrupted, his mechanical voice coming across the comms, “you might want to make your way to the Discordant with all due haste.”

  “You received the mission details already?” Taj asked.

  “I have indeed,” he answered, and Taj could almost hear the nod of his non-existent head.

  “Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Torbon whined.

  “Best we do this in private aboard the ship rather than across the comm,” Dent told him, brooking no argument. “The mission, it seems, is quite secretive. We should follow security protocols.”

  Taj agreed and motioned to the crew to get u
p and start moving, hearing the determination in the AI’s voice. “All right then, everyone, on your feet. No point arguing with Dent.”

  “Again,” Torbon said, shaking his head, “all the fun out of everything.”

  Taj pulled her pistol from its holster and held it up. “That’s not true. It’d be all sorts of fun shooting you in the back with stun bolts until we make it back to the ship.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” he growled, standing and puffing his chest out.

  Taj made a show out of adjusting the weapon’s settings to it lowest and grinned. “Wouldn’t I?”

  Torbon stood his ground for about three seconds before raising his hands in surrender. “Always so hostile,” he muttered, marching from the room.

  Taj waited until he was through the door before pulling the trigger. Torbon yipped out in the hallway as a blast caught him in the butt.

  “See?” Taj shouted after him. “I’m fun,” she said as she pulled the trigger again. “All sorts of fun, huh?”

  The only answer was a high-pitched howl from Torbon and the chuckles of Cabe and Lina.

  Back aboard the Discordant, the small leech craft they’d stolen from the Wyyvan, the crew walked onto the bridge.

  “Seriously!” Torbon complained, cradling his tail to his chest with one arm and holding his butt with his other hand. He winced at every step. “How many times did you need to shoot me?”

  “Need?” Taj asked. “It was more a want than anything, and I think the ten times more or less satisfied the urge.”

  “More or less?” Lina asked.

  Taj cast a sharpened glare Torbon’s direction. “I think that all depends on him. I could squeeze off a few more shots.”

  “I’ve learned my lesson, I swear,” he muttered, his expression one of utter defeat. “My poor tail,” he whined as it twitched in his hand, wisps of smoke curling from its tip.

  The door to the bridge hissed shut at their backs once they were inside. Krawg grinned at their arrival, the hulking Ursite hunched over a console near the back. He waved a furry paw arm in their direction.

  “Do I need to give you both time-outs?” Dent asked, his voice filtering down from the hidden speakers on the bridge.

  “I think we’re good now,” Taj replied, wandering over and dropping into the captain’s chair as the rest of the crew came to stand before her, Krawg joining them a moment later. “How about you clue us in to our mission.”

  “Straight to the point?” Dent sighed. “Not even a hint of romance, huh?”

  “You’d have to ask Cabe about that,” Torbon joked, slipping around to hide behind Lina as Taj glared at him.

  “Do I need to shoot you again?” Taj asked, drawing her weapon and adjusting the settings higher.

  “You might need to shoot someone,” Dent said, interrupting her tirade.

  She put her gun away and looked to the speaker above her head. “Why’s that?”

  “Well, turns out that General Reynolds is sending you to the planet Zoranthan.”

  Krawg grunted. “Oooh.”

  Cabe glanced at the Ursite. “Oooh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Krawg shrugged his furred shoulders. “It means not good.”

  “Yeah, I got that.” Cabe sighed. “I kinda meant why is it a bad thing? Care to elaborate?”

  “Zoranthan is a feudal world,” Dent explained before Krawg could. “Ruled by kings and queens and dukes…”

  “Oh my,” Lina muttered under her breath.

  “While it’s not overtly hostile to visitors,” Dent continued, “its power structure is in constant flux, the different factions always at war with one another in an effort to claim the biggest piece of the planet. The place can be rather chaotic.”

  “How’s that a bad thing?” Torbon asked. “If everyone’s busy trying to steal each other’s thrones, they won’t even know we’re there. We can get in and out before they notice we’ve even been there. Thanks and good-bye.”

  “Possibly,” Dent answered, but Taj heard a but coming. Sure enough. “But…it’s not the easiest planet to traverse without becoming embroiled in the local struggles, which are everywhere unfortunately. The Federation, according to the data the General supplied, doesn’t have more than the barest of footholds there politically.”

  “Which means?” Taj asked.

  “Which means we have a way in, a cover story to get us onto the planet without overt examination, but that’s about it,” Dent said. “Once we’re there, we’re on our own.”

  “Of course we are,” Taj muttered, having expected that seeing how General Reynolds was sending them in to begin with. If there was a real rescue team to be had, he would have sent them instead of the untested Furlorians.

  Still, Taj knew this was their chance to prove themselves to the General and the rest of the Federation. No matter what happened, she’d make it work.

  “Okay then, when do we leave?”

  “There’s a ship tasked to take everyone to Zoranthan first thing in the morning,” Dent replied.

  “A ship?” Lina asked, one eyebrow rising questioningly. “Won’t we be taking you…the Discordant, I mean?”

  “I’ll be going,” Dent answered, “but the leech ship won’t be, unless you feel the urge to explain why a bunch of Furlorians are piloting a stolen Wyyvan spaceship, which just so happens to belong to a mortal enemy of the Zoranthians. Nothing stealthy about arriving like that.”

  “Good point,” Torbon agreed, nodding. “Lizard leech ship bad. Gotcha.”

  “So then, where will you be?” Lina asked.

  The door to the bridge hissed open right then, and the crew spun around as a tall, lithe alien strode into the room.

  “I’ll be right here,” the man answered, the voice clearly Dent’s, though it sounded far more natural than it did coming through the speakers, none of the strange mechanical reverb in the sound.

  “Holy Rowl!” Cabe exclaimed, blinking as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “Ditto that!” Lina said, clasping onto the edge of Taj’s chair. “Is that…”

  “A Dandrinite?” the newcomer replied, a gleaming smile spreading across his face. “It most certainly is. The one and only currently in the universe.”

  “Is that really you, Dent?” Taj asked, kicking herself mentally for asking when the answer was obvious.

  “It’s me.” The newcomer nodded. “Well, sort of. Thanks to the same technology that allowed you to simulate Wyyvans in your training exercises, I was able to cobble together a near-perfect replica of the original form my masters gave me when I was created.”

  He spun in a tight circle, showing himself off.

  “It’s got a few rough edges still,” he admitted. “I’m not near as handsome as I was originally, but it’s otherwise quite similar.”

  Taj chuckled despite her amazement. Lean but powerful, dressed in a sleek black uniform that accentuated the android’s lithe build, she wasn’t sure if Dent was joking or not. To her, the body was quite handsome as it was. If there were flaws in it, she certainly couldn’t see them.

  “Uh,” Lina cut in, her eyes narrowing, whiskers pinned back against her cheeks, “aren’t you worried about running into the same problem you had before, with the other alien body? Running out of space for all your…uh, you?”

  The android Dent shook his head, a finger tapping his temple.

  “I’m not all in there,” his voice answered from the ship’s speakers above.

  The Dandrinite grinned and waved. Dent’s voice coming from the body once more. “What’s in here is kind of a shadow image, a copy, just enough to have complete function while my core essence, the real me, remains behind in the ship Eliarar and her people have provided. This will allow me to go with you while also remaining in orbit above the planet should we need assistance my android body can’t provide.”

  Lina circled Dent, examining him from every angle, grinning the entire time. “This is…awesome.”

  “I thought so,” D
ent answered, matching her grin with one of his own.

  “How’d you do this without me?” she asked, straightening and meeting his eyes, her suspicion lurking.

  “I recruited some of the training androids,” he admitted. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “It is that,” Taj answered, more than impressed by the AI’s new form as he came over to join the group gathered by her chair. “I also see you’ve suited up with one of your armored creations. It looks good on you.” She gestured to the slick black uniform he wore, appearing exactly like the ones she and the other crew members had on and had been training in.

  “Yes and no,” Dent answered.

  “Clear as mud as always,” Torbon remarked.

  “What do you mean?” Taj asked.

  “It’s different,” Lina commented, examining the suit again, running her hand along Dent’s back. “Subtly, but definitely different. I can feel it.”

  “It most certainly is,” Dent agreed. “While the suits you are currently wearing shift between powered armor and your day-to-day uniform nicely, this one goes steps beyond that.”

  “Baby steps or, like, real steps?” Cabe asked.

  Dent chuckled. “I guess they could be considered baby steps seeing how I wasn’t able to access the full breadth of the Federation’s technology—their nanocyte tech is beyond amazing, by the way, not that I managed more than a glance at it before I was locked out—but I’ve mashed together several concepts into one outfit. Not only will it work as armor as before, and a space suit when completely sealed, it will take on the form of whatever clothes you wish it to with nothing more than a thought.”

  As he spoke, the drab black, form-fitting uniform transformed before their eyes. Almost as quickly as they realized it was happening, the black shifted to a tuxedo, complete with top hat, white shirt, burgundy tie, and black shoes so shiny they reflected the faces staring at them with awe.

  The crew gasped, including Krawg, which sounded more like bellows exhaling.

  “Can you change your clothing into anything?” Cabe asked.

  Dent nodded. “Anything you can imagine,” he answered, and his tuxedo shifted once more, turning into a pair of drab overalls, then to a military uniform—though Taj had no clue what army it represented—and then, at last, to a short, frilly dress with high heels. He curtsied and said, “In case the ladies want a night out, you will be prepared.”