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CHAPTER 1
“They’re retreating, Captain.”
“On screen”
Captain Margaret Burkhouse was livid as she watched the two ships pull away and jump to warp speed.
“Follow them.” The bridge was quiet as everyone threw a glance over their shoulders at her. “Did I stutter?”
“No, Captain. Increasing speed to warp 5.”
“Make it warp 7, Lieutenant,” she directed the pilot before she turned to her First Officer. “Arrange for an away team to meet me in the Landing Bay in twenty minutes.”
The man nodded, even as his eyes conveyed his displeasure with the order. She ignored him as she walked to the lift. He was a third-generation soldier like her and knew not to question orders unless it was disadvantageous to the well-being of the ship and crew. The lift doors slid open and she entered. When she turned to face the doors, caught the eye of her First Officer. It would seem he was going to break protocol after all and question her order.
She held his gaze until the doors closed and only then, did she lean back against the wall and take a shuddering breath.
A routine courtesy call by Admiral Michael Pearce, Earth’s Interplanetary Liaison, to the Vimt sector had quickly turned ugly. The attack came out of nowhere. They had left the Ingot territory and were about to jump to warp when their ship was rocked by a series of powerful blasts. The Venetian was the flagship of earth’s Spacefleet, ferrying admirals and other high-ranking officials between the various planets and sectors that made up the Galactic Alliance. It was also the fastest and most secure ship in the fleet. For it to have been thrown about like that, Margaret knew could only mean one thing.
Whoever had fired at them had obtained dithorium from somewhere, the only substance that could penetrate the Venetian’s hull. The mineral was scarce and thus dreadfully expensive. To have built a massive ship with the stuff had cost them a lot of money, but now it would seem their enemies were turning their strength into a weakness.
The lift doors opened and she walked briskly down the corridor, past rushing crew members, to the medical center. As expected, it was busy. The hull breaches had quickly been fortified with force field nets, but not before claiming some casualties. She nodded at the Chief Medical Officer as she made her way over to the more secluded medical cubicles in the back. A gray-haired man lay on a cot, unmoving. Margaret pursed her lips as she stared down at him. This, was perhaps the worst thing, second to losing your ship and crew, that could happen to a captain.
The death of an Admiral on board.
“Have you informed headquarters to prepare to receive his body?” she asked softly, knowing the doctor to be there.
“Yes. I should mention that the accident only exacerbated an already bad situation. Admiral Pearce was suffering from a failing heart and was scheduled for a transplant later this month.
“That is of no consequence, Doctor.” She pierced the doctor with a sharp look. “I want that to be omitted from the death report.”
“Aye, Captain,” the doctor said.
Margaret touched the deceased man’s hand and sighed softly. He was not only a superior, but a friend, too. Just the previous evening they had been playing cards in his quarters and he had mentioned his plans to retire and spend more time with his wife and grandchildren. It hurt to think that he would not be doing that anymore. She closed her eyes.
“Go well, old friend,” she murmured before she left the booth, more determined than ever to find the ones responsible and make them pay.
There were four crew members, including the First Officer, waiting in the Landing Bay for her. She clenched her jaw when she saw her First Officer was dressed for an away-mission.
“I’ll be leading the mission, Commander Light,” she said firmly, in a tone that brooked no argument. “The Nautilus will be here in a few hours and will escort you to Earth.” He opened his mouth, but after a scathing look from her, he nodded reluctantly.
“Aye, Captain.”
“Thank you, Commander.” She waved at the medium, but powerful space charger. The Windstar was perfect for this mission. It was fitted with two sleeping quarters with bunk beds, a medical center, a lounge that doubled as a kitchen and a spacious bridge. “Let’s not dawdle, ladies and gentlemen.” The crew quickly made their way over to the spacecraft and she followed at a brisk pace.
***
The screen flickered off and showed black, but still, the woman stared somberly at it. This was bad, really bad. The attack on the Venetian could spell trouble for the galaxy and its alliance. Since the cautious union of the twenty-seven largest planets and sectors in the galaxy a decade ago, there had been relative peace and prosperity as a result of interplanetary trade and the leisure industry. This act of violence was set to sabotage the gains that have been made up to now. Norma wiped over her eyes. It’s made worse by the death of a high-ranking military official. This was an act of war and Earth would be expected to retaliate.
The chime to her office sounded and she looked up. “Come!”
A slender Itom alien entered with a stack of palmreaders in her arms. “This came for you, Lieutenant Elkers.”
She waved at her messy desk. “Dump it anywhere you can find a space.”
The alien’s blue skin turned lighter, a sign of amusement. Klor had offered numerous times to help set up a filing system that would not only make her job easier, but also make her desk and office look neater.
“Don’t say anything,” she muttered under her breath and a soft melodic sound filled the room as Klor chuckled.
“I’ve learned to hold my tongue, Lieutenant.”
“Good.” She stood and shrugged into her jacket. “I’ll have to leave Earth for a few days. New orders just came through.”
“About the Venetian? Everyone’s talking about it.” She shrugged when she caught Norma’s eyeroll. “It’s true. Everyone is talking about it and I couldn’t help but overhear.”
“Fine. I’ll need you to arrange for a Halcon stealth charger and make up a story about my whereabouts.”
“I take it your mission is off book then?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going alone?”
Norma nodded. As an agent with a highly-secretive, newly-established agency, operating in the sliver of room between Earth’s military forces and the Galactic Alliance’s individual planetary police teams, she always worked alone. That gave the Alliance plausible deniability when a mission failed. Thankfully, it hasn’t come to that yet.
She buttoned up her jacket and smiled at Klor. “I’ll be at the shipyard in an hour.”
“Everything will be arranged and ready.”
“Thank you, Klor.”
It was drizzling outside and she regretted not thinking about bringing an umbrella. She pulled up the collar of her jacket as she walked, with hunched shoulders over to the nearest transport center. The Venetian attack and subsequent death of Admiral Pearce was terrible and she felt for his family. She had met him a few times when she was attending the Spacefleet Academy where he was a frequent speaker at events. He was funny and goofy, but he always managed to get his point across and many of them, especially her, had adored his silly jokes. The Admiral’s death was a great loss to the Spacefleet fraternity as well the new generations that would miss out on his inspiring talks.
And then there was the captain of the Venetian.
Norma admitted that when she was informed of the attack, her heart had skipped a beat. Her first thought had been of the very formidable Captain Burkhouse. The woman was a legend. Before she was assigned to command the Venetian at the very young age of twenty-six, she had been the only student to have graduated from the Spacefleet Academy with a full score. She had aced all her subjects and on top of that, had been awarded a Medal of Excellence, the first in the academy’s history, for her end-year thesis on where and how to track the elusive headhunter, Jolf. The criminal was in breach of almost all of the galaxy’s trafficking laws as he operated as a glorified abductor for influential people who could afford his services.
Her reputation grew even further when she, as the captain of the Venetian, had thwarted numerous coups on the Galaxy Alliance’s member planets. She almost singlehandedly strengthened the once tentative union between the member planets into a more cohesive, inter-reliant one.
But her admiration for the woman extended a little further than that. Since that first moment she had seen Captain Margaret Burkhouse, Norma had known that she had just set eyes on her future mate. That was four years ago, when she and a group of classmates had decided to go out to celebrate her nineteenth birthday. They happened upon the captain and lady friend at one of the drinking haunts and as soon as her awe at seeing the woman had dissipated, a deep jealousy towards the captain’s companion had settled in her chest. She had promised herself to bide her time and once the opportunity arrived for her to officially meet her crush, she would make sure that the woman didn’t forget her again.
That day was today.
***
“Evasive maneuvers, Lieutenant. Our fight is not with them.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Their chase had taken them beyond the Vimt territory and into an area of the galaxy which was, to this moment, still relatively unexplored, and crawled with pirates. Margaret kept her eyes fixed on the screen that showed the distinctive ion traces of the ships they were pursuing. All the Alliance planets, as a prerequisite of the Joint Accord, had adapted their ship’s energy outputs to conform to set safety and environmental standards, each with a specific signature to distinguish them from each other. The ones they were chasing discharged pure ion traces. She had suspected that the attack might have been an attempt to destabilize the peace accord that had led to the formation of the Galaxy Alliance, so finding herself in this desolate part of space only confirmed her suspicions.
“Captain, we’re approaching a planet.”
“Forward the coordinates to the helm, Lieutenant Pyre.”
“I can’t, Captain,” the man said, his voice sounding strained. She glanced over at him. He looked genuinely flummoxed. “The planet seems to have disappeared. The long-range scanners had picked it up just now, but…”
She checked her board and frowned. The ships were gone, too. There must be some sort of a protective shield surrounding the planet that interfered with their telemetry readings.
“Everyone, get rid of anything that might identify you as a Spacefleet officer. If this is the home world of our attackers, they will know how to identify us.”
An hour later, they were hailed.
“On screen.”
The speckled face of an alien with a bulbous nose and bulging eyes appeared on the screen. “Your ship’s energy signature shows that you’re from Earth. Who are you and what do you want?”
So much for hiding their origins, she thought.
“You simply won’t believe it if I tell you, …uh….”
The alien’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What do you want?”
“We are looking for someone. A pirate by the name of Lukman. He took our money and failed to produce the dithorium he had promised us.”
A thin smile formed on the alien’s lips. He was obviously relishing in their misfortune.
“We don’t have someone here with that name. Nor do we harbor pirates. Now, leave our space before we have you removed by force.”
She shrugged.
“We followed him to these coordinates. If you do see Lukman; tell him that we want our goods and that he won’t get away with this.”
The alien rudely disconnected the transmission. Margaret turned to her operations officer.
“Anything, Lieutenant Killian?”
“I managed to piggyback on their transmission and plant a bug. Once we’re able to determine the right channel, we’ll be able to listen in on their conversations.”
She smiled. “Get on with it then. Paul, take us somewhere private, but still in range of their transmissions.”
“Aye, Captain.”
In the meantime, she’ll consult their database to see what information they had on this part of the sector. It might not be much, but anything will do right now. Twenty minutes later, she sat back and rubbed over her eyes.
“It’s seven o’clock, Captain.” She looked up to find their engineer, Beverly, peering into the bridge. “I’ve prepared something for dinner. Would you like to join us?”
Her stomach growled at the mention of food and she realized that she had last eaten something at breakfast. She stood and stretched the kinks from her tall frame.
“How far are you, Killian?”
“Still scanning, Captain.”
“Keep it running while we eat. The same goes for you, Paul.”
She was sure they were in for a long wait, but she wasn’t returning to Earth without the head or heads of those who had ambushed them.
***
The sounds and smells were familiar, but after eight years, also strangely foreign. This place and in particular the lifestyle, had once been a large part of her existence. She caught the eyes of some patrons as she made her way through the tables to a door that had the word ‘restricted’ stamped on it. Just as she was about to step through it, a large body cut her off, effectively blocking her path. She was tall; taller than most human females, but the alien dwarfed her as he glared down at her.
“You’re not welcome here.”
Norma studied the blunt nose and hard glittering eyes. A Pumit. Their kind were unusually aggressive and made for great security. Yet, they lacked the smarts to know when to step aside.
“Why not?”
“Because I said so,” the alien growled back.
“Well, in that case, I’ll give you a few moments to come up with a more acceptable reason before I break both your arms and …”
“You will do no such thing. Amon, let her through.”
The behemoth reluctantly stepped out of the way and she smiled at him sweetly.
“Saved by your boss, big fella.”
“Don’t taunt my staff, Violet.”
Norma stiffened at the use of the name and looked away from the sulking alien to the blonde standing in the doorway. Just like her, she was young and human, but unlike her, a violent lifestyle and suppressed rage had left their marks.
“Marigold. You look…alive.” She grinned when the woman’s lip curled into a sneer. “To be honest, I thought you might be worm food by now.”
The blonde turned and Norma followed her into an unexpectedly airy and subtly decorated office. Plush sofas, live flowers and an aquarium stocked with exotic fish gave the place a 21st century Earth feel. She took in the rest of the room. A large desk, tasteful paintings and a fireplace. The place was nice, really nice.
“I like what you did with the place. It had been a dump eight years ago.”
“Sit,” came the curt order. Norma remained standing as she met the cold green eyes of her one-time lover and colleague.
“Say please.”
Marigold’s face pulled into a mask of utter disgust. “I’m not playing your games anymore, Violet.”
“Norma. I’m known as Norma.”
The blonde looked stunned for a moment; then she burst out laughing. The sound was harsh and ugly.
“And you think a new name would change who and what you are?” Marigold shook her head. “You’re a traitorous murderer, NORMA. I wonder if those people you are trying so hard to impress even know half the things your depraved mind had come up with?”
Norma didn’t breathe or bat an eye. It was important that she remained still and keep the distance between them. Marigold was angry and she had all the right to vent, but as long as she didn’t touch her, Norma wasn’t going to react. It took the blonde a few moments to realize that she wasn’t going to get a rise out of her, for she suddenly fell into the chair behind the desk, looking deflated.
“What do you want?”
“There has been an attack on an Earth ship in the Vimt sector. What do you know about that?”
“Your new masters, eh?” The green eyes flashed. “No, I know nothing and even if I did, you would be the last person I’d tell.”
Norma shrugged. “Okay. I get it. You’re looking for a scapegoat and you’ve set your sights on me. I’m fine with it. However, I would suggest you…uh…ring the bell for last round.” She turned and just as she was about to leave, she heard the faint whine of a charged phaser. She spoke without looking back. “Also, make sure your fish are safe. I don’t think they’ll fare well in an explosion. I learned that rather late in my life.”
“What are you planning, Violet?”
She walked to the door. “I don’t know who that is.”
“Fine,” Marigold hissed and the whining stopped abruptly as the phaser was charged down. “About a week ago, one of my girls overheard a conversation.”
Norma smiled as she turned. This place used to employ a bevy of beauties.
“Mary still working here?”
The blonde’s eyes shot daggers at her. “She’s my mate now.”
“Oh! I apologize. Anyway, you were saying?”