Cain's Crusaders (11 page)

“I know the timing for the return of the Speaker is now your most critical concern, and I might be able to help with the delivery of the ransom. My ship is capable of velocities faster than any you have. If your ship will take six days, I can do it in three. Three there, three back, and we’ll still have plenty of time before the deadline expires.”

Besides, I don’t think I trust these kidnappers. Something seems out of place.
And if the kidnappers reneged on the return of Arieel, then there could still be war. He would feel better being in control of the situation.

“You would volunteer to do that?” Convor said, visibly excited. “This would be above and beyond your charter, Mr. Cain. And if what you say is possible, then the sooner we recover the Speaker, the sooner we can all put this tragic event behind us.”

“When will the credits be ready?”

“They already are. As you have intimated, thirty-million credits is a very small amount to accumulate.” At that point, Convor reached into a pocket of his mustard-colored gown and pulled out a stack of deep purple Expansion credit chips and placed them on a small table in front of the sofa.

Adam leaned in closer to look at the credits; he’d never seen purple ones before.

“Is that all of them?” he blurted out.

“They are five-million-credit chips. That is the largest denomination made.” Trimen said, speaking for the first time since entering the room.

“That’s why I didn’t recognize them!” Adam said with a wide grin. He reached over and picked up the small stack of six chips. When he thought about it, thirty-million credits
was
a lot of money. Each one of these purple chips could purchase a Class-5 starship, capable of traversing the galaxy. When put into perspective like that, maybe the ransom demand
wasn’t
as low as Adam thought. However, the Formilians did just admit they would have paid a billion. Hell, with that much Adam could almost buy an entire planet. Of course, it wouldn’t be in the best neighborhood, or with the best schools….

Adam was quickly briefed as to the location of the ransom drop and the procedures they had been instructed to follow, then he and Trimen headed back to Adam’s ship.

The more he thought about his upcoming trip, the more excited Adam became. A little six-day jaunt – three there, three back – and with the last leg of the journey in the company of a 16-year-old anime-artist’s vision of the ultimate wet-dream.
Humm, what would he and the stunningly beautiful Arieel talk about during the trip back, for three whole days, and with no one else around?

His fantasy was brought down to reality when Trimen began to brief him about the Speaker.

“We know that Arieel Bol was drugged and unconscious when she was taken,” he said. “The only way she could have remained contained from that moment until now is if she
has been kept constantly sedated.”

“Or they’ve killed her. Sorry, I had to say it. Have you had any proof of life – did you verify that she’s still alive?”

“We did not request it, but a time-stamped vid accompanied the credits demand, along with a verification of her genetic markers. As of four hours ago, she was still alive.” Trimen became very serious then. “If she no longer lives, then of course do not pay the credits.”

The Formilian hesitated before continuing. He looked Adam in the eyes, a sadness deep within them. “I have read your history, Adam Cain; you are a remarkable creature with a very unique set of deadly skills. I would hope that if the Speaker no longer lives that you would see fit to begin the process of seeking retribution for this act. It may not be much, but it will be a start.”

“I understand,” Adam said. “I’ll do what I can.” He knew what Trimen meant – more head-bashing and a high body count.

“As you have suspected, if the Speaker perishes, then a conflict will undoubtedly begin,” Trimen continued. “Even though the Coalition is much smaller than the Federation, we do possess superior technology, if not the weapons of war. However, we do have considerable wealth with which to purchase the weapons we will need. We may not wait to be attacked, Adam Cain. To do so would not be prudent.”

“That has been the thinking of the Administrator as well. Even though I now believe that it wasn’t the Omphly who kidnapped your Speaker, I do think they’ll use her death to gather the courage to attack.”

“What is
kidnapped
?”

“It means to be taken, abducted.”

“And yet the translator reveals
kid
to mean
youngling
. Does it happen so often on your world that a youngling is taken that you have a separate word for the event?”

“Unfortunately, it does,” Adam answered solemnly. “But
kidnapping
also refers to the taking of adults.”

Trimen seemed to be very troubled with the revelation; Adam felt embarrassed for his race. Here he was describing something so horrendous, so obscene, and to an alien who had no understanding of even the basic concept.

“I must warn you now about the Speaker – about Arieel Bol – as a person,” Trimen said, changing the subject … much to Adam’s relief.

“Go on. What’s she like, I mean when she’s not all drugged up?”

“That is why I must warn you. If you are successful in recovering her, then eventually the drugs will wear off and you will have to contend with her as – well – as she
is
.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of that.” Adam flashed his most sincere smile.

Trimen’s expression remained dour. “You must understand that Arieel Bol is the 4,316th Speaker—”

Adam couldn’t hold back his shock. “Holy crap, that’s a lot of them!”

“That is true, and as such, she has been raised with a certain perspective as to her place in our society.”

“Are you trying to say she’s
spoiled
?”

Trimen waited a moment as the translator worked through the reference. “Yes, that is a way of saying it, in the context of a personality disorder. However, as she may indeed be mortal and made of flesh and blood, she does consider herself to be very near a god.”

“I thought that’s how all Formilians consider her?”

The corners of Trimen’s lips began to curl up. “I may be the Second Celebrant, Adam Cain, but I am also a scientist, as are all the Celebrants 12
^th
-degree or higher. I am one of three 17
^th
-degrees, with Convor being the only 18
^th
– the High Celebrant. We live to serve the Speaker and the Order, yet we know what is mortal and what is not, and we have spent more time around the Supreme Celebrant than all others on the planet.

“Young Arieel is the embodiment of our religion,” he continued, “a conduit to the power of our gods, Mislin and Sufor. They create the power, and we devise the various means in which their wonder can manifest itself. Even though the Speaker controls powers greater than any other
mortal
being, on any world, in any galaxy, she is still mortal.”

“And about that, how does she do it, this control she has? You just said she’s mortal.”

Trimen seemed offended by the question. “How she does this is of no concern, especially to an outsider,” he said, his eyes wide, his manner growing more agitated.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Trimen. I was just curious. Like you said, she has powers no one else has; of course I’d be curious about them.”

This seemed to calm the Formilian Celebrant. “Forgive me my temper, Adam Cain, but I thought you were going to question her abilities.”

“No, I have seen demonstrations of her powers. They appear to be very real.” However, Adam honestly believed they were some kind of elaborate magic trick, but he didn’t voice this to Trimen. Maybe three days in the
Phoenix
, alone with their living-god, would help reveal her secrets.

“Her powers are real, Mr. Cain, which is why you must be very careful once the drugs wear off. The Speaker will be traumatized over the event and very upset. She will also be in an advanced starship full of electronic devices, and if she were to lose her temper, it could be very dangerous.”

“Could she destroy the ship … but that would kill her, too?”

“Yes it would, but I do not believe she would go that far. She may be young and
spoiled
– to use your word – but she is highly intelligent and with a very-disciplined mind. It is only
you
who would be in danger.”

Adam shook his head, as if trying to clear out an unwanted thought. “Thanks for telling me this, Trimen. And here I thought this was going be a simple pick-up and delivery job. Now you say I could be trapped for three days with a pissed off honey badger with supernatural powers, and ready to tear my head off without warning!”

“If a
honey badger
is something that can create deadly balls of energy out of thin air, and who can control every electronic device on your ship simply with the power of her mind, then you are correct, Mr. Cain. My advice to you would be to keep your distance, treat her with the utmost respect … and never mention anything about her weight.”

“You’re not serious, are you?”

“I wish I were not, but this
is
Arieel Bol we are speaking of. She is a female, and as such, she can be very difficult at times to comprehend.”

Adam entered the
Phoenix
and pressed the button to retract the ramp and seal the outer hatch. He left Trimen standing on the ground of the landing field, not even thinking whether or not he would reach a safe distance before Adam activated the chemical drive.

Instead, all that was on his mind as he made his way to the pilothouse was:
Oh no, not another one!

Chapter 9

A
dam arrived in Nulor star system three days later and proceeded in-system to the planet Uniss-3. As he neared the brown-tinged globe, he instinctively had the feeling that this place was going to be another shithole. From his experience brown planets tended to be drier, dustier and with native populations who walked around with bad attitudes and chips on their shoulders – if they even had shoulders.

It was also on worlds like this that the criminal element seemed to flourish the most.

Uniss-3 was located just on the other side of the border from Formilian Coalition and was a member of the misogynistic Omphly Federation. Because it sat on the outskirts of the Coalition, it served as a vital buffer against the obscene contamination that was being constantly fomented by the Formilians and their Speakers.

Even before the Humans had surrendered control of the Expansion, the Federation had already renounced its affiliation to that organization, choosing to go it alone, and for over twenty years the Brotherhood of the Omphly had been carefully preparing a strike against the Coalition. Yet the only thing that prevented such action was fear of the demon-Speaker. Besides the obvious fact that it was a female leading the entire Coalition, the Speaker was also a conjurer of the dark forces, not a representative of the gods, but of the devil, of evil.

The Brotherhood had never bothered to delve deeper into the question
how
she was able to do the obscene things she did. Rather they fixated on the fact that she could. It was all they needed to declare her a living-demon, an abomination, and deserving of death.

In reality, the leadership of the Brotherhood did not hold as much fear for the Speaker as did the general populace of the fifty-two worlds that followed the beliefs of the Omphly. Yet until the masses could support a full-scale clash with the Coalition, the Brotherhood held back.

But now the Speaker had turned up missing; Omphly spies within the Formilian government had confirmed as much, even though no public proclamation had been made. The leaders of the Brotherhood knew they had nothing to do with her disappearance, and yet the Coalition was not so sure. But even then, neither party was ready for all-out war – not yet.

And something else the Omphly Brotherhood also knew: Arieel Bol, the current Speaker, had only nine more days to live.

The Omphly leadership knew that the body of the Speaker was sacred to the Coalition, and that the Formilians had made provisions guaranteeing that their precious living-god could not be abducted and used for propaganda or as leverage for a capitulation of the part of the Coalition. Even though she was allowed to leave Formil on diplomatic missions, as well as for various ceremonies and displays she conducted throughout the member planets, the spies on Formil also knew she could not remain away from the Temple for more than twenty-eight days at a time. On the twenty-ninth, the Speaker would simply explode.

The spies had become aware of Arieel Bol’s abduction almost the moment it happened. Advanced security monitors had captured the entire event on video. It had been a study in tactical precision, occurring within only a seven-minute timeframe. That was nineteen days ago, and to date the Speaker had not returned. Another nine, and she would
never
return – and the window of opportunity for an attack on the Coalition by the Brotherhood would be open.

As Adam dropped the
Phoenix
down onto the dusty expanse of an ancient landing field, he could see dozens of dilapidated and rusting spaceships dotting the field around him. The spaceport was not located near the planetary capital, but rather outside a small town on the opposite side of the planet from the seat of power. Even though there was the occasional newer merchant ship to be seen, it was obvious that this region of Uniss-3 did not get a lot of traffic.

Adam was apprehensive of the whole ransom affair. He knew the kidnapping was probably the work of some splinter group of radicals or that of a criminal organization, which meant neither would carry any official government sanction. These kinds of affairs tended to be more unpredictable. The perps could simply kill Adam, take the ransom and kill Arieel … and then vanish into the night.

He doubted any of the kidnappers knew of the self-destruct within Arieel’s body. If they had, the ransom demand would have come much sooner. As it was, they were cutting it close to the edge. If it hadn’t been for Adam and the
Phoenix
, the ransom money would still be three days away.

So Adam’s plan was not to try any heroics. He would simply pay the ransom and take Arieel back to Formil. The Order of Light officials on Formil had not seemed too concerned about the credits they had to spend for the ransom, so neither would he. In fact, Adam still believed it was an unbelievably low number for the return of the Formilian’s Supreme Living Being, the Giver of Light and Warmth. The Formilian Coalition was one of the wealthiest regions of the New Expansion, so they had the money. In fact, if it had been Adam doing the kidnapping, he would have asked for a whole lot more.
 

Adam strapped a traditional MK-17 holster around his waist and checked the power pack in the weapon. He didn’t want to draw any attention to himself by carrying a more Human-like projectile weapon. He just wanted to get in and out without too much fanfare.

The planet Uniss-3 was a Juirean-standard gravity world, putting it about three-quarters that of Earth. The atmosphere was breathable without assistance, even though the dusty, silica-laced sandstorms that were common could cause potential lung damage. But two hours or so here wouldn’t be long enough to cause any concern, so Adam moved to the rear airlock and fingered the controls.

A rush of hot air blasted his face the moment the hatch opened and he began to cough. After a moment, he had recovered, and moved down the ramp to the reddish-brown surface below.

The town where he was to meet the kidnappers was located about two miles outside the landing field. In the light gravity, the walk would be effortless, but he quickly noticed that even if he wanted one, no transports-for-hire were waiting near the field. He would
have
to walk.

Then off in the distance, he noticed a cloud of dust moving his way. He waited near the side of the still-creaking and popping hull of the
Phoenix
once it became apparent that the vehicle was heading his way. As the transport drew near, he could see that it was a beat up, four-wheeled truck of some alien design.
 
The rear compartment hood had been cut off, and rising up from where the backseat would have been was a large flash rifle mounted on a rotating pedestal. There were five natives all piled on the transport, each carrying their own MK-17.

They did not look like an official welcoming party, and Adam was pretty sure they weren’t with the kidnappers. The Formilians had received very precise instructions as to where Adam was to go once in the town. There was no mention of him being met at the landing field.

The transport slid to stop about twenty feet from the
Phoenix
, causing a dense cloud of dust to swirl up to the ship and engulf Adam. He began to cough again.

When the dust settled, four of the natives had already jumped from the transport and approached him. They did not draw their weapons – there was no need, not with the fifth member of the team manning the mounted flash rifle.

The Unisslings were taller than Adam – nearly all lighter-gravity world aliens were – and they were covered in a light yellow skin of various degrees of coarseness, like that of sandpaper. The large eyes were yellow as well, with a double membrane that helped rid them of the omnipresent dust and sand, while serving to keep the interiors moist. Their faces were very humanoid – or
Prime
it was called within the Expansion – with tiny noses and wide mouths. One of the natives was grinning at Adam, with double rows of filthy, misaligned and decaying teeth now fully exposed.

Adam reserved judgment as to whether this was a combat challenge or not, at least until he learned the instinctive tendencies of the natives.

The Unissling leader stepped up to Adam. “Welcome to Uniss-3, Traveler,” he said pleasantly enough. “What is your business here?”

Adam didn’t want any trouble. It was obvious this group did not operate in any official capacity, but all he wanted was to pay the ransom and get off the planet with the Speaker.

“I’m just a courier, here to pick up a package,” Adam replied, trying to sound as non-threatening as possible.

“Ah, and what is this package you must pick up? Is it valuable?”

“I have no idea. I was just told to come here and pick it up.”

“From where are you to pick up this package?”

“I have coordinates, nothing more. I will be guided there.”

The Unissling leader nodded emphatically, while looking past Adam at the sleek, new hull of the
Phoenix
. “This is a very impressive ship you have here, for a simple courier. You must know there is an arrival tax that is owed? Have you been informed?”

“No, I have not.”
So here it comes
.

“But of course there is. How else could we afford to keep our beautiful spaceport up to the high standards expected by Travelers such as you? I’m sure you and your crew must visit the finest spaceports throughout the galaxy in such an impressive vessel as you have. So how many are in your crew?”

“Only me.”

“So your ship is not only beautiful to behold, but also very advanced – my compliments.”

“Thanks,” Adam said dryly. “So how much is this tax?” He just wanted to pay it and get on his way. He was sure the Formilians would reimburse him for any out-of-pocket expenses.

The alien leader turned to one of his cohorts and took a small datapad that was handed him. The corners of Adam’s mouth began to curl up slightly. They were at least trying to make it look official.

“Well, I see here that your situation is very unique,” the gravelly-voiced alien began. “Normally, the tax for an arriving ship would only be eight-thousand credits. Yet I see here that a recent amendment to the tax schedule has also added a surcharge for the age of the vessel. Seeing that this vessel is new – or newer – the tax has now been increased to fifty-thousand credits.”

“Fifty-thousand, that’s ridiculous! I don’t have many credits with me—”

“But I’m not done,” the alien interrupted. “I also see here that the fee is also based on the number of crew the vessel carries.”

“I said it’s only one, so that should get me a discount, right?” Adam said sternly. Even as he spoke he began to study the location and special alignment of the aliens. He saw where this was heading.

“On the contrary, Traveler, it appears that certain union organizations have assessed a penalty to those ships not carrying a full complement of union crewmembers. I take it you are not a member of the Starfarer’s Union?”

Adam pursed his lips before spitting out: “Nope.”

The bombastic alien turned to his fellow natives. “Our Traveler here appears to have maxed out his arrival tax.” He turned back to Adam, the smile now slowly vanishing from his face. Without looking down at the datapad, he said, “It is my duty to inform you that the tax has now increased to an amount equal the total value of your ship, Traveler, yet before you protest, there is a bonus being offered today – and for today only.”