Forbidden sanctuary, p.25
Forbidden Sanctuary, page 25
part #2 of Star Lawyers Series
“Very good, counselor. They were well paid for their service to me, before Father had them killed by Julieta Solorio. Karma, neh?”
“What do you want from me, Kichi-san? This ship is unarmed. Do your worst.”
“Waste precious missiles on your weekend toy? I want the map only.”
“What map?” Tyler said.
“The star map with annotated locations of all known civilizations in Andromeda.”
“What makes you think I have it?”
“You don’t. I want your robo-bitch.”
Suzie muted the commo. “He’s right. I have the frigging map.”
“No way he gets it.” Tyler’s eyes blazed, but not at Suzie, who listened from inside the network. He flicked open the link. “Suzie is my MLC, but she doesn’t have any map.”
“You always were a bad liar, Tyler. The Andromeda probe had the map, but it was barricaded behind an alien algorithm we could not hack. My technicians tell me they’re reading traces of the same algorithm in your MLC’s Yoruba 397-T operating system. Suzie has it.”
“Here’s the deal, Kichi-san. Suzie is integral to this ship. She’s also my fiancé. So, go fuck yourself.” He shut down communications.
“Well, not a terribly productive exchange, but thanks for defending my honor.” He couldn’t see Suzie, but he knew she was grinning. “Fiancé—I like the juicy French sound of the word.”
“Hyperbole. The jury is still out.” He jumped up from his pilot’s station. “We gotta stop Kichirou. I have an idea, but it means you’ll have to become a real, live girl.”
“Woman,” she corrected. “I’m ready. Do you have Yajik’s device?”
He reached into the pocket behind his seat and pulled out the coin-shaped gadget. “We might only live a few hours longer. No promises. Are you okay with that?”
“Scared, a little. But, yes. Let’s do this.”
He closed his eyes. “Hare Krishna by the dozens, Forty-Six gods and their ugly cousins—please let this thing work!”
Tyler rotated the outer ring and squeezed the coin. Nothing happened. He cursed silently. Maybe it only worked if she had a holographic outlet. Without holographic capabilities, the Sioux City restricted their intercourse to voice contact, and his grand scheme might not be possible with Suzie locked aboard as the MLC. Dammit, I wanted to hold her one more time. He thumped his fist against the armrest of the command chair.
A human finger tapped his shoulder. “Hey, mate, don’t attack the bloody ship.”
“Suzie!” She wore the same yellow Matthews Corp jumpsuit, and the slightly rolled back sleeve cuff revealed a small, red-and-blue tattoo snaking up her forearm, the DNA double helix.
Tyler scooped her into a clumsy hug that ended with a dozen kisses—across her forehead, down both cheeks, along slender, supple arms, finally back to the lips. He didn’t give a shit about galaxies. He wanted to kiss his blonde angel-with-an-attitude until the galaxies burned out and the cold rocks that once were stars drifted in eternal night.
She kissed back fiercely, then shoved him away and whacked his face. “Report for duty, Captain! What do we do next?”
He grabbed his cheek. Even her slap excited him. He fought to focus. “Uhhhh—down to the cargo hold, into EVA suits!”
“Lead on, O King Eternal.” She grinned, adding, “Don’t take that literally, luv.”
They slipped into pressure suits and went to the starboard airlock. Tyler found the four remaining nukes where Paco had stored them. He set the timer for ten minutes, did the math again, and reset it for fifteen.
“Can you still access the ship’s systems now?” Tyler said, his EVA helmet in hand.
Suzie closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“Scuttle the circuitry that lowers the rear hatch platform. I don’t want Kichirou boarding this ship.”
Suzie nodded. “Got it. My rear door is tight.”
A smile crept over his face. “I’m from Missouri—show me.”
“Ooooh… bloody kinky at the verge of death, aren’t we?”
He slipped on his helmet and locked it in place. “Ready?”
She mimicked his action. “Please tell me this play doesn’t end like Romeo and Juliet.”
“Shakespeare didn’t have a nuclear option. We have to put two hundred kilometers between us and the Sioux City.” Tyler keyed the master timer, crossed the cargo bay for the portside airlock, and the countdown began.
Suzie scurried after him. “Can we fly that fast in EVA suits?” Her voice told Tyler she had done the math and come up short.
“Hand-in-hand, multiplies our thrust ratio. We’ll be okay.” It was a wish on a trillion stars, but what else did they have?
They entered the air lock, visors down and air flowing. The hatch snapped open and the airlock depressurized, quickly but not explosively. When clear of the lock, Tyler closed the hatch behind them, ripped out the aging access handle, and flung it into space. They worked their way around the spacecraft and ducked under the tail section of the Sioux City. Holding hands, Tyler and Suzie activated thrusters for a full push-off that took them behind the Gate, out of visual contact with the other ship. They cut thrusters briefly to avoid optical detection, but as soon as inertia carried Suzie and Tyler well beyond the Gate approach zone, they hit full thrust and sailed Coreward into the starfield.
“Call him,” Tyler said. “I’ll keep my mouth shut and pray the alien technology in this Jump Gate dampens his sensors.”
Lest there be any doubt to her identity, Suzie addressed Kichirou Tsuchiya in Japanese. Tyler read an instant translation across the heads-up display at the top of his visor.
“Kichirou-san, this is Suzie. Please do not harm Tyler.”
“Would I hurt my oldest friend? I already offered him half the galaxy and eternal life. Send your data to my MLC.”
“The star charts are loaded in my resident memory,” Suzie said. “Come aboard and access them. We will not resist.”
“Domo arigato. However, I prefer to receive a data transmission.”
“I can’t download to your system. My data exchange modules were damaged by the battle and the jump. Please come aboard and download everything you need.”
“Regrettably, I must decline. You may come aboard my vessel.”
After a few precious minutes, they were only twenty kilometers distant. Not remotely close to a safety margin. Tyler’s heart sank. EVA suits were not designed for space travel. Even multiplied thrusters couldn’t take them two hundred kilometers away in time. If Kichirou failed to swallow Tyler’s baited hook and run with it, the upcoming blast would end Suzie’s brief life as a bio-energetic human, not to mention their brief, unofficial engagement.
Kichirou moved the Yamato within tractor beam range. A hazy pillar of energy stretched its sticky finger from the bigger ship, and Tyler’s beloved Sioux City slid from its parking space at the Spinward edge of the Gate. The little scout boat ascended into the light and disappeared inside the heavy cruiser.
For a few seconds, Tyler worried that Kichi-san’s thugs would search his tiny ship and quickly discover he was not aboard and Suzie no longer indwelled as MLC. To make matters worse, by his count less than ninety seconds remained before the timer keyed its lethal summons to ignite high explosives surrounding the fissile material, triggering an unstoppable nuclear reaction, detonating four devices with the equivalent yield of ten megatons each.
Suzie’s eyes filled with human tears for the first time. “Tyler—”
“I love you, babe.” They embraced as well as possible in pressurized suits. Tyler closed his eyes…but Suzie jerked his bulky sleeve. His heart pounded as the Tsuchiya Galactic flagship pivoted, glided clear of the Gate zone, and went to FTL.
Tag, you’re it, Kichi-san.
The ship streaked away, but almost immediately a white, mini-nova blossomed in the starfield. The nukes must have detonated right after the Yamato entered FTL, and the delayed bust hinted at how many light seconds they covered before exploding.
Tyler swallowed hard. A tear seeped from his eye and bobbed like a glass bead in zero-G inside his helmet. That once was my friend…
“What do we do now?” Suzie said. “Ring up the fire department?”
“My ancestors would have called 911.” He turned his head, looking at the Jump Gate between galaxies. “My plan was to stick the bombs against the Gate, blow it, and fly the Sioux City to some vacation world here in Andromeda.”
“Without me?” she pouted.
“How could I ask you to abandon everything to run away with me?”
She laughed. “Someplace without giant crabs and killer wasps?”
“Definitely.”
“I would have gone with you. Is that why you didn’t ask?”
“I don’t know, babe. Everything is a blur. Besides, Kichirou rewrote my plans. Damn. I can’t shake the image of a grinning little Japanese kid kicking a soccer ball.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Ty.”
“We had to stop him.”
Suzie pointed a gloved hand toward the Omega Gate, now forty-eight kilometers distant but still visible by the red blinkers installed on all Matthews portals. “Could we—you know—float home through the event horizon in our EVA suits?”
“I have no idea. There are powerful forces at play in a trans-dimensional jump. Besides, there may not be an Alpha Gate waiting for us. We’d go to oblivion, two signals never received.”
“Dying is new to me. I don’t like it,” Suzie said. “Maybe we could try the Gate when our air runs low?”
“And if it works, we get to die of asphyxiation in our home galaxy.”
She frowned. “You are so cheerful, mate.”
“Oh, yeah. Clowns and unicorns.” He checked his wrist instruments. A few hours of air.
Suzie snuggled closer. “So, that was your real plan? Get a girl alone under the stars and have your way with her?”
Tyler chuckled. “Not a girl, a woman.”
They floated in blackest blackness, an endless expanse of dark velvet sprinkled with billions of diamonds. Arms locked, visors touching, Tyler and Suzie harmonized old songs dreadfully while the oxygen dwindled. Omega Gate planners had chosen a point at the Rim of Andromeda where its pinwheel of stars and dust clouds dominated the heavens. He glanced at the twirling starfish of a galactic disk and remembered how much he loved sailing the ocean of stars alone, beyond civilization. And now he was far beyond human civilization, but no longer alone. It would have been perfect, if they weren’t counting down to a lonely death.
After about two hours, Suzie told him more about her encounter with the mysterious entity who called herself Abuela. Tyler was mildly amused to learn she’d appeared as his grandmother.
“Too bad I didn’t get to meet her,” Tyler said. “I don’t remember my grandmom.”
“She was actually quite the lady. Like a Royal.”
“I wish you’d met my mom. She’s a bitch, but you’d love her.”
Suzie laughed. “Like attracts like?”
“I never said that. Even facing death, I’m not suicidal.”
“Abuela was the closest thing to a parental figure I’ve ever had. She gave me a lovely pendant—” Her mouth dropped open. Suzie thumped her chest and screamed, “I’m wearing it! I can feel it through my suit. She gave me the bloody 911 phone!”
Twenty-Six
When their wrist displays dropped to less than four minutes of air, a starship unlike anything Tyler had ever encountered appeared just off Jump Gate Omega. It was long and graceful as a golden flamingo, but this bird didn’t emerge from the event horizon. The vessel glowed amber from a distance, and as it drew nearer Tyler watched the translucent hull pulse with colors of main sequence stars—blue, white, red, yellow, orange.
Then a gentle voice filled Tyler’s mind. “Do you require life support assistance?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, please. That would be very nice.”
Suzie waved her arms. “Abuela! I’ve brought Tyler for tea.”
“Would you like to come aboard?”
“We’d absolutely love it!” Suzie threw her arms around his neck.
“Sure, sure.” Tyler glanced down the length of the amber starcraft looking for airlocks. “Do you want to tractor us—”
Zap. They stood in the shade of a large tree on a fieldstone patio. Beyond them, a gravel path wandered past dark green bushes with outcroppings of Spanish bluebells, red carnations, and hydrangeas. Tyler’s eyes drifted over the stucco walls and down a hillside where orange trees marched to a muddy river. They were no longer clad in EVA gear but Matthews Corporation yellow jumpsuits. Suzie’s amber pendant hung from her neck.
“Welcome, Nietos. You may call me Abuela.”
A woman, who appeared to be in her early sixties, rested on a wrought iron chair at a blue metal table under the big tree’s canopy, close by an old Spanish colonial house. Abuela was an older version of Tyler’s mother, but she smiled at him broadly, something Bianca Matthews seldom did these days. Tyler had often wished he did have a grandmom. Grandparents step back and let you fail without charging it against their parenting skills.
Suzie leaned hugged her. “Incredible. Your bauble worked—in such a huge galaxy!”
“Yes, dear. When someone detonates a nuclear device in the neighborhood, it gets attention. And then you rang the fire alarm—isn’t that what you call it?”
“How did you get to the Gate so quickly?” Tyler said.
“Once properly infused with energy, distance is no factor. I was in this subsector, assigned to watch your Jump Gate. We knew it was ready to activate. Since your signal, Suzie, was intended for me, the group leader asked me to investigate.” She gestured to metal chairs at the round table. Thick blue cushions matched the tablecloth.
“Tyler, would you like some Patxaran?”
Susie flopped in her seat and patted the chair next to her. Tyler joined them. “How did we get aboard?” he said.
“Teleportation.”
He frowned. “That’s not scientifically possible.”
“Yet, here you are.” Abuela poured reddish liquor from a sparkling crystal decanter. “I promised to share my hospitality if Suzanne brought you to Andromeda.”
“We want to thank you for saving us.” Suzie shot Tyler an icy stare. “Don’t we?”
“Of course, thank you. Forgive my manners, Abuela.” He sipped the Patxaran. “Hey, that’s got a bite—but a nice, smooth bite. Cinnamon and anisette?”
“Very good.” She rubbed hands together, which Tyler found a disturbingly familiar gesture, something his mom often did. He fought to remember this wasn’t his grandmother but an alien of immense power.
“Now, young Mr. Matthews, you and I have business to transact.”
“We do?” Tyler sat up, wondering what she wanted, what he had to trade for it, and whether the old enchantress could read every thought. “Okay, let’s negotiate. What do you need?”
“You did us a great favor by destroying Jump Gate Alpha. We require two further services.”
“I’m not convinced my demolition plan succeeded.”
“It did.” Abuela finished the glass and poured a second. “We still have the presenting problem of Matthews-Solorio Corporation’s terminal facility in this galaxy.”
“I planned to blow up Jump Gate Omega, but it’s still hanging there, thanks to Kichirou.”
“We would like to trade with you. To obtain complete possession of your Omega Gate.”
“Will you blow it up?”
“We don’t blow things up. But we are pretty good at taking things apart. We’ll recycle the pieces in a solar furnace.”
“That’ll work,” Tyler said. “And what do we get?”
“How about a ride home?”
Suzie leapt up. “Done! Tell her, Tyler.”
He nodded. “Jump Gate Omega is yours.”
Abuela remained seated. “That completes the first service. There is another condition.”
“Oh?” Suzie returned to her iron chair.
Tyler felt his heart sink. He grasped Suzie’s hand. “I know you’re fond of Suzie, but you can’t have her program.”
Abuela laughed softly. “No, no, no—intending no offense, dear Tyler, but we don’t want any of your programs. The technology is charming but far too… primordial? In another hundred thousand years, we may be able to accept Terran programming. Now, we look upon your science the way humans look at cave paintings.”
Tyler grinned. “Well, Granny, don’t worry. If you send us home, I’ll take charge of this Neanderthal.” He patted Suzie’s head.
She swatted his hand. “Watch it, luv.”
Abuela inclined her head and studied Suzie. “I see you are a bio-energetic life form now.”
“Our friends among the Zyn-Vorkan made it possible,” Suzie said.
“A very ancient race. Their technology is familiar to my people.”
“So, the second condition?” Tyler said.
“Yes, and this is non-negotiable.” Abuela handed Tyler a clear glass cube about the size of a human palm. “Please take this home with you.”
“What is it, data storage?” He turned the crystalline cube in his palm. It felt warm and had a faint, golden hue. “I thought you couldn’t share information with us.”
“It is Kichirou and his crew.”
Tyler’s hand quivered, but he steadied himself. “Their remains in crystalized form?”
“No, no.” She closed eyes; her silver hair appeared to glow brighter. “I’m allowed to explain without sharing the technology. To give you the what, not the how.”
“I’m listening.” Tyler put the cube on the table and poured himself a stiff drink of Basque liqueur.
“We abhor violence, even against beings who act violently,” Abuela said. “One of our subsector monitors detected a nuclear explosion. We arrived at the site, rolled back time, and froze the moment before the blast occurred. This allowed us to extract all sentients from the danger zone by routine teleportation.”
