Mercury Blade Read online

  “Did you not hear me, human!” the Duergar roared again. El could clearly see the row of large, grinding fangs in the big mouth. “You gamble with all of our lives! You clearly want to die!”

  “Uh… I think the whole bar heard you?” Eliard managed.

  “Fool. Typical human.” The Duergar released him with a shove, causing Eliard to crash into the nearest table, much to the annoyance of the patrons there. When Eliard had finished apologizing and wiping spilled drinks from himself, he had to run after the Duergar making his way through the bar and out into the Charylla Markets beyond.

  “Hey, Val, wait up!”

  The markets were a dazzle of light and noise. Instantly, the captain was surrounded by the bustle of traders and smugglers, and even worse types, pushing and shoving as they fought their way to their preferred shop. There were neon-lit stalls selling every manner of street food imaginable, as well as booths that specialized in rare nuts and bolts and wire-mesh storefronts who specialized in guns and ammunition.

  There was a flash of light as a drone passed by overheard, blaring its advertising messages for some particular trader or another. Higher balconies of the market displayed more shops, and more consumers laughing, shouting, or haggling.

  “Val!” Eliard shouted again, struggling through the crowd to him. “I can explain!”

  The Duergar were not known for their forgiving nature, it had to be said. As one of the many up-lifted races, they had entered the arena of universal politics much earlier than the self-made humans had—only to find that they were the lowest of the heap, and expected to work as slaves for the ‘higher’ ancient life forms once known as the Valyien. Some claimed that this made them (rightly) distrustful of everyone.

  “You can explain, can you?” Val Pathok, one of the largest blue-skinned Duergar you might ever see, stopped and turned in the river of bustling traffic, which parted around him like a rock. He never had to worry about being offered space in a transport. The smaller humans just naturally moved away from him at the nearest opportunity.

  “Yes!” Eliard caught up with him, enjoying the momentary eddy in the street that the large blue-skin made for a moment. “You see, it was a water-tight plan…”

  “I do see, El,” Val thundered. “I see only too well. You were stupid, and greedy—just like always—and you thought that you could gamble the lives of your crew for profit. So, you must have a death wish.”

  “I was doing it for us, Val! For the Mercury!” the captain pleaded with his gunner. Which was basically true, he thought. It was supposed to be their chance to start afresh. To stop being the heel on everyone else’s boot and start wearing the shoes for once!

  “Don’t be mad, Val. We need a good gunner like you,” Eliard said. “The best damn gunner in the galaxy.”

  “Flattery will not help you, Captain,” the blue-skinned monolith stated heavily, furrowing his heavy brows. For a dizzying moment, Eliard thought that the Duergar was going to hit him—it would be like getting hit by a building, he was sure, but then the heavy brows slowly unknit, and the gunner just sighed. “But you are my captain, and I took an oath.”

  Oh, thank the stars that the Duergar have that weird hang-up about honor, Eliard thought.

  “And besides which, where will Mister Nosbert live?” the giant creature grumbled.

  “Your cat?” Eliard thought of the white fluffy thing that seemed to do nothing but hiss and spit at him. You would rather risk your neck for your cat than me? he thought in alarm, before he said, “Of course, your cat. Precisely. Where is that beautiful animal going to live if you leave the Mercury? You know that Charylla is no place for a cat!”

  “Hmm,” Val agreed, fixing his austere glare on the tides of people around him. “Yes, you are right. This is no place for Mister Nosbert.”

  “Excuse me, gentleman? But it seems to me that you may be in a spot of bother?” It was just at that very moment that a third person joined their negotiation—a woman, with rich and luxuriant silks wrapped around her form, but around whose head stretched the many radials of a data-halo, and on her arms were the many nodules and nodes of not-so-discrete implants, some glowing faintly.

  Oh great, a Data Smith. Eliard rolled his eyes. In official Coalition space, they were a well-respected and commonplace member of society—able to mine the floating data sphere for information at request, and to offer their research, translation, and advice for a small fee.

  Out here in the Traders’ Belt, however, the Data Smiths took on a different role. As information smugglers, they could be asked for leads on profitable sales or the movements of Armcore patrols. People used them as a way of finding out about their rivals, or as means to impress their lovers, but as the quantum network out there was erratic to say the least, their information was often unreliable and sometimes several Sol months, if not years, out of date.

  “We don’t need your help, ma’am,” Eliard said.

  “You do, Captain El,” the woman said smoothly, inclining her gold and steel halo at him. “You’re not such a nobody as you think, Captain. Half of Charylla has already heard that you messed up with Trader Hogan.” The woman fluttered her hand over the forearm nodes of her other hand. Her eyes started to look far away, but she kept talking. “And desperate men need desperate opportunities, Captain El. Cross my palm with a hundred credits and I may have some data that you need to hear right now.”

  “Or you could be about to tell me what the weather was like on Jupiter last Tuesday.” Eliard rolled his eyes at Val beside him. “C’mon, big guy. We don’t need to listen to mumbling soothsayers…”

  “No. I want to hear.” Val’s clawed hand moved to his belt, where he produced a roll of gold-shining coins. “One hundred, madam.”

  “Thank you,” the Data Smith said graciously, her hands interrogating her controls and her eyes starting to glow an eerie blue. “You are in desperate times, with many men after you…” she began in her sing-song voice.

  “Tell me something I don’t know, right?” Eliard muttered.

  “…but there is great profit ahead of you, just around the corner,” she said dreamily. “A little piece of data came to my attention just recently, gentlemen. Of an archaeological survey very recently completed in the Tritho System, Epsilon Sector. On the moon of Tritho Prime, there has been discovered ruins. Vast ruins of an unknown origin, although all the evidence points to it being some sort of outpost of the Valyien, before their fall.”

  Valyien tech? Eliard’s ears pricked up. And it hasn’t been claimed by the Noble Houses of the Coalition yet? That could be worth a lot of money. That could worth a whole heck of a lot more than twenty thousand credits.

  “Okay… I’m listening,” the captain said. “What else?”

  “That’s it, I’m afraid, gentlemen. The survey filed their report just this last week, and they have been filtering through the approval and verification process of the academic journals.” The Data Smith shrugged, her eyes slowly losing their shine and returning to normal. “Of course, by the time this data goes public…”

  Every noble, military, smuggler, and mercenary will be on their way there… Eliard nodded. It was lucky that he had the fastest ship in the sector, and a crew of two (and a cat) who were no strangers to perilous situations.

  “Get your shopping done, Val, because it looks like we got a new job!” The captain suddenly felt a whole lot better.

  2

  Interlude: The Data Smith

  The Data Smith watched the captain of the Mercury Blade speed through the Charylla Markets, followed by the massive walking monolith that was the Duergar, before they were quickly swallowed by the lights and throngs of people. The captain was handsome enough, the woman thought with a slight leer. For one of those pretty-boy types.

  The woman sighed, brushing non-existent lint from her robes as she gathered them about her and turned in the crowd. With a flutter of her fingers on her opposing forearm, she sent a message that turned off the glowing beads of light that ran up a
nd down her halo, indicating that she was now off-duty. Anyone approaching her for information would be rewarded with a snarl and possibly a sharp prod.

  Not that she was off-duty, of course. The Data Smith never truly had ‘time off,’ as running along her internal vision, via an implant plugged straight into her optic nerve, was a steady relay of data headlines, private messages, and leads on questions that she was constantly ferreting out. One of which was blinking in an alert-green.

  Tritho Mission, it blinked, and with a swerve of her eyes, she opened the message to scroll holographically over the swaying and bustling crowds, visible only to herself.

  Is it done? Did you contact the Mercury Blade? Meet me at the usual place.

  Another weary sigh from the Data Smith. Her latest employer and the sender of this message was nothing if not persistent. He was an outsider, not a resident of Charylla, and clearly not a trader either. He had none of those rough edges that the traders did, that flexibility of mind that meant they were always open to haggling and negotiation. The old woman thought that he stuck out like a sore thumb in this station filled to the brim with ragged, scruffy, last-year’s fashion people bartering for a better deal.

  But he paid well, she thought, turning with another flourish of her robes and meandering through the crowds in the main concourse and down one of the connecting corridors. This one was a little less busy than the main thoroughfare, but still boasted a variety of shops and boutiques with their strip-neon lights. Here, however, they sold slightly more refined and less popular entertainments and items. An entire shop devoted to Arkadian Slugs, a parlor from which synth electro music swept out, and even a fine art emporium, to name a few.

  Her employer was standing at one of the doorway cafes that were so popular. Merely a window with a long strip of a bar and a few stools outside.

  “Sir.” She nodded demurely as she approached, figuring that it was always best to keep on the right side of the person paying your bills.

  The man’s face was almost completely shaded by a heavy grey hood, the cloak hanging to just below the man’s knees. His chin was pale and hairless, and his lips thin and faintly bluish.

  He does like to be mysterious, the Data Smith thought, but knew that she did not get paid to be nosy.

  “You did what I asked?” the man murmured before taking a sip from his glass. The Data Smith noticed that he didn’t offer her a drink from the bar.

  “Certainly. I told Captain Martin about the Tritho expedition, and he seemed very interested,” the woman said. “Now…” Money? The deal had been a half upfront payment and the other half on completion. Normally, the woman would never work like this, but the payment was so good.

  “Of course.” The man inside the hood nodded, and from under the confines of his large cloak there buzzed a tiny white and blue drone, hovering and moving quickly as it darted to her hand.

  That is some expensive tech! the Data Smith thought. Maybe she should have doubled her price. Within moments, the drone had landed on her forearm and engaged with one of her in-ports, delivering a viral code that unlocked a transaction in data space. Running along her inner vision, she saw the blue words flaring into life: Money Received into your Account! 2000 Coalition Credits!

  “Thank you very much, a pleasure doing business with you.” The woman sighed in satisfaction as the drone buzzed back to the confines of its master. “Is there anything else that I can do for you? Would you like me to get some data about your future?” She tried to tease the man into spending more of that money.

  “No. Your use to me is finished, and I have already seen the future,” the man said flatly, pushing the glass back into the window bar, standing up, and turning to go. For some reason, the cold intractability of his last words made the Data Smith shiver. It didn’t sound as though it was a very hopeful future that the man had seen, whatever it had been.

  “Pfagh.” Shaking her head, she looked back to the main thoroughfare, and went back to work.

  3

  Arrival

  “Any chance for a bit more power, Engineer?” El shouted into the small radio system on the flight deck. Even though the Mercury Blade wasn’t a very large boat, and his engineer, mechanic, and all-round technical specialist might even be able to distantly hear him holler, he wanted to at least try to do things properly since leaving the Traders’ Belt.

  And thank my lucky stars we did leave that place in one piece, the captain thought again from his place in front of the ship’s wheel. He could have been sitting in the large and well-cushioned flight chair that was swung out to one side of him, but once again, Eliard didn’t want to give either of his crew any impression that he was doing anything other than by the books right now.

  Irie and Val are already mightily annoyed with me, he thought sourly. Best not give them another reason to mutiny.

  The Traders’ Belt was a semi-stationary asteroid belt held between the gravitational effects of a massive gas giant and a smaller one. It was spread out across many thousands of star-leagues of space, with small settlements of asteroid-habitats and stations dotted along its curve. It was notoriously difficult to fly for those who weren’t ‘recognized’ by the Trader’s Council—which El and his crew were, if barely—and thus had become a perfect home for the non-aligned factions of the thirty-first millennium.

  It was also way too near the main shipping routes for El’s liking, and approximately the other side of the sector map to the system of Tritho. El had left the Belt gratefully, but he felt like every satellite and drone was looking at them angrily before they got the chance to warp out of there.

  The Mercury Blade couldn’t do deep warp flights, unfortunately. It just wasn’t big enough to hold that big a generator and stabilize that much of an energy field, but she was excellent at short warp ‘hops.’ And no boat was faster than she was, El was sure—both in short-warp and in the skies.

  Designed by none other than the Marcionne Ship Builders, the Mercury Blade was unique—even though other traders called her a pleasure boat behind El’s back. She looked like a leaping dart, a fine triangular nose with an edge of gleaming gold, before a wedge-shaped body with the bulkier rocket cannisters and rounded module compartments that made up the bulk of her. She gleamed a silver, green, and gold—and could flash through an atmosphere like a lightning bolt.

  But she is also going a bit slow. El frowned at the console readouts. They had just fallen out of their seventh warp jump, which should have been enough to plant them securely in the Tritho System.

  I need to get there faster! El ground his teeth in frustration. If what the Data Smith had said was true, then any shift now, half of the Coalition’s top science people and military Armcore were going to descend on this backwater little nothing-moon, and then he would have precisely zero chance to make off with some ancient alien tech.

  “Say, Val?” he called back down the stairs behind the flight deck and into the main compartment behind him, where the Duergar was busy stripping and cleaning the impressive array of armaments that he had at his disposal. El could see the gleaming, oiled bodies of two photon rail-guns, as well as a host of assorted assault weapons and rifles.

  “You, uh, you got enough down there, champ?” he said, throwing an eye back to the window into space and returning to find the troll-like Duergar grinning—which was more than a little unnerving, if El was honest.

  “My mother once said,” the alien said in a thick and heavy tone, “that it is better to have your sword at your side than to have it in the kitchen.”

  “Whose mother keeps a sword in her kitchen!?” El muttered, before shaking his head. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. Can you take over here for a moment? We’re heading to that little orange dot over there.”

  “I can read the scanners, El.” Val scowled at him, before carefully placing the weapon he was cleaning on the floor along with the others as if it were a cherished baby.

  Who knows with these Duergar. Maybe it is? the captain thought as he thanked his g
unner, jumped down the stairs, and ran through the main compartment and to the engineering ladder.

  “Irie? Irie!” he shouted as he slid down the ladder and along the corridor to the guts of the Mercury. On either side of him extended small cargo spaces and crawl spaces into various generators and strange critical systems—which he still didn’t understand everything about—before he skidded into the larger engine room, where Irie’s legs could be seen sticking out from the warp engine.

  The warp engine looked like a set of crystalline tubes encrusted with wires and encasing flowing particles of energy like floating lights. These tubes were mounted together to form a barrel, and around this barrel were the braces housing gears and spinning, screeching parts. The warp engine, El knew, also gave the ship their power as well as fired their rockets. And Irie Hanson currently had her canvas-clad legs sticking out from underneath it.

  “Uh, you alright in there, Irie?” he said.

  “Mbh-hn-ub-hunhr!” came back the angry-sounding reply.

  “Nope, sorry, I didn’t catch that.” El crouched next to her. “I said, are you alright in there, Irie?” He tried a little louder.

  “I said…” There was a clang and a sudden hiss of steam before the engineer wiggled out from under the engine, brandishing a large spanner. “I said I would be alright if I didn’t have you blocking my light!”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.” El moved back.

  “What do you want? Because if it’s another warp jump then I can tell you now, buddy, that is out. You’ve already pushed the poor girl hard enough with the last quick-fire seven.”

  “No, no more jumps. We’re in the Tritho System. We just need a bit more power to the rockets, that’s all,” El said hesitantly. “I want us to be the first ones in, see.”

  “More power. Right.” Irie shook her head with a groan. “Lean over there, will ya, and grab that big blue handle?”