Take it where it finds you

Arcania : 3014 : 218

Arthur pushed away his empty plate, and frowned at the smeared remains of his breakfast. He’d found it hard to enjoy it while his head was still filled with hangover. Sure, they’d just outrun a Threnses Scupper class carrier, but they weren’t in the clear yet. Arthur wanted to know how those guys had found him for a start. The second issue was, boringly enough, the need for a job of some kind. They’d been steadily churning through their cash flow and he knew they needed to earn some credits soon. Despite his military background however, when it came to money, Arthur’s attitude suddenly became a bit more slap dash. He tended to have a ‘take it where it finds you’ attitude when it came to mercenary and smuggling, and much to Abigail’s annoyance they were often down to their last credits by the time the next job ‘found them’. She wished silently, and often loudly, that he would try advertising or actively seeking out work, but she also knew the knife edge he walked on. Having stolen his last command, the Recussia, and disappeared somewhere in the middle of yet another battle in yet another war, he was technically AWOL and most definitely on the run. It was the pointless, endless slaughter that had gotten to him in the end. Somewhere along the line his idealism had given way to cynicism and he’d just had to get out. Abigail knew Arthur could never go back, and while in some corners of the Universe his name was starting to take on a weird kind of hero status, the flip side was that just as many people would have gladly seen him suffer death by firing squad. Yes, it was a fine line between love and hate, and the Zenith Battalion.

‘We need a job,’ Abigail sighed, pushing her chair back from the table but without looking up. She still felt terrible.

‘Something will come up,’ Arthur said confidently, ‘we’ve got enough credits to last a couple more weeks.’

‘Days at the rate we’re going through them,’ Abigail countered with reality, ‘urgh, I gotta stop drinking!’ she added touching her forehead with careful fingers.

‘Heard it, seen it, wrote it, that ship has sailed,’ Arthur replied getting to his feet and heading for the door of the small dining room. 

‘Why do we eat in here when it’s just the two of us?’ Abigail asked suddenly, watching Arthur turning out of the door.

‘I like it, reminds me of home,’ Arthur said sadly, ‘I better check if we’ve got any messages, might have a job eh?’ he called to her as he walked away knowing it would grate on her.

‘Bloody cocky bastard,’ Abigail whispered under her breath as she got to her feet and followed him up to the bridge.

The Acrania was safely in orbit, hovering on the dark side of a tiny blue-green planet which was simply labelled as Red-2476B on the latest start chart. It made Abigail smile every time. The planet was clearly anything but red, so what the frank planetologists? she thought. The start charts were constantly being updated. They had to be. Even if a planet moved half an inch out of its usual position this could completely throw off the calculations of a ship’s hyperdrive, not to mention sending the autopilot to the brink of insanity. Even a hero’s gotta sleep sometime, and it’s nice to put your head down without having to worry if your ship is suddenly going to pull a Titanic and smash into the side of a small moon or space station.

‘What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever picked up for transport?’ asked Abigail, walking over to the large screen that showed her what was going on outside the ship, which was a big, fat load of nothing.

‘I once freighted a cargo hold full of personalities,’ said Arthur as he took a seat in the Command chair, ‘that was murder I can tell you. Every one of them had an opinion, and was ready to share it at a moment’s notice. It was only by the grace of Bentraxy that I didn’t just jettison the whole stinking bunch of ‘em out into the vacuum of space, but then I wouldn’t have gotten paid and frankly I needed the credits. Who know what destructive chaos that lot went on to cause? Sometimes I feel bad about it, like I should’ve done something to stop it, but it was early days on the run, and I was still building my reputation. You took what work you could get.’

Arthur smiled a sad smile and looked over at his first mate. She was a good egg that one. He’d found her orbiting a small star, in a tiny fighter vessel, besieged on all sides by a fleet of Minstraussian Battlehawks, but by some freak of luck she was holding them all off. He could see their laser fire fizzling nastily against the thin shields surrounding her ship, but the shields were holding up despite the laws of physics being dead set against them. For a moment Arthur had held his breath in admiration for whatever being happened to be flying that tiny ship, and then he’d decided that a pilot that good would be worth more alive than dead and so he’d locked on to the fighter and flown straight for it. When he got close enough, he’d opened the cargo bay doors and simply scooped up her ship shields and all, before flying off at a speed the Minstraussian just couldn’t match. It had all happened so quickly, and both Abigail and the Minstraussian were left feeling slightly flabbergasted and not a little annoyed. Things like this simply did not happen! Now at the time, in all fairness, Arthur hadn’t – if we’re being entirely honest – actually considered what picking up a ship with active shields would do to his ship, and luckily for him the answer was not very much at all. There was a slight singing of the interior walls, but nothing they’d not had to deal with before, so they were OK with it. After getting over the initial shock of having her small fighter craft ingested by the Arcania, she’d soon seen that here was an opportunity for some regular work alongside one of the Galaxies major mercenaries. At first it was all about the credits, but over time Abigail had found that she actually liked working with Arthur. They understood each other, and Abigail was not used to being understood in an infinite Universe where more often than not her mere presence was met with confusion.

Reaching forward, Arthur tapped a small screen in the arm of the chair, and immediately a clear, flat interface appeared to float just in front of him, presenting a number of options. Selecting his voicemail first, he opened the folder. 3 messages awaited him. The first one, he knew without looking, was from his ex-girlfriend. It’s been sitting in his messages for 6 weeks, and he’d still not gotten up the balls to listen to it yet. He had no idea what it might say. Their break-up had been troublesome and was still weighing on his mind. Well when he thought of her it did, otherwise Arthur did his best to forget about it. The second message was from himself, reminding him not to drink too much, which he vaguely remembered recording for himself in the vague hope that he would check it before he went on-world. No credits to be made with either of those. Third times a charm eh, thought Arthur as he scrolled onto the last message. It was from his business manager, and as he opened the message, a vision of Vantra Kraten filled the screen.

Originally from the planet Zeylone, his skin had the typical high shine and copper colour generally associated with people who have grown up in an Argon heavy atmosphere. While not the best looking or tallest among his species, his eyes were a brilliant and unusual blue that drew people to him. It was one of the things that made him so successful. That and his smile, which made you just want to like him. This was an especially useful trait to have in his line of business. His typical clients weren’t generally known for being reasonable and understanding, and often reacted with brutal violence when disappointed, but on the upside, they were only too willing to pay bucketloads of credits for the types of services that Vantra Kraten could provide. Insanity can often be quite lucrative he would often say.

‘Arthur, I’ve got something for you. A group from Altraxian 4 are looking for someone to pick up an artefact for them, the details are in the attached packet, but I should point out that they don’t actually own this artefact per say, and so this job is not so much of a smuggling job as it is a spot of light stealing. I know this isn’t really your regular gig, but it’s big money so I thought I’d sling it your way and see if you’d bite,’ at this point the image of the shiny little man on the screen took a chomp put of the air in front of him, and followed that with an odd laugh, ‘anyway man, call me back, offer stands until midday Zeylone time and then I offer it to someone else.’

As the message ended, Arthur wondered if perhaps Vantra was having a laugh at his expense. He knew Zeylone’s time zones were based on Luna not Sol time, but then maybe he’d been off-world for too long and fallen into the generic anachronisms of the business world? Arthur wasn’t sure, and not having any idea of what the time was on Zeylone now anyway, he wasn’t sure if he should even bother to open the packet. And besides stealing wasn’t really his style. 

‘What do you think Deadly?’ he called out across the bridge.

‘Why don’t you open the packet at least?’

‘I don’t know, thieving?’

‘What other offers have we had this week?’ asked Abigail, the tone of her voice implying better the devil they knew than running out of cash.

‘Urgh! All right,’ Arthur sighed, before reaching out to tough the icon that would open the attached packet.

It opened instantly, and as Abigail wandered over to see what they were looking at, Arthur was already opening the files inside and stacking them on the screen, so they were all visible at once. The first thing that hit them was the fee, which was ridiculous bordering on astronomical. It was the sort of money you could retire on, well if you were prepared to live frugally. Next was the artefact itself, which was quite strange. As the 3D image of it span slowly on the screen it seemed to change shape depending on the angle you were looking at it from, so it was hard to tell what it actually was. To Arthur it looked almost like an art deco wall lamp, if you could imagine such a thing. He remembered seeing something like it in a film once. Finally, there were the details of the job itself. Where to find this thing, what he’d need to get the job done, the consequences if her was caught. That sort of thing. When he’d finished reading, Arthur leaned back in his chair while Abigail put a hand to her head and

brushed her wild hair away from her forehead.  For a moment no one said anything. They were just too stunned by what they had seen.

‘What was that thing?’ Abigail asked, taking a deep breath.

‘No idea, but someone wants it bad enough – did you see the credits up for grabs?’

‘Yeah, I don’t like it, I mean … it’s too much right? I smell a rat,’ offered Abigail.

‘On the other hand, he who smells the rat knows where the bodies are buried,’ countered Arthur. 

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Something’s not right here, I know that artefact, I’ve seen it, it’s not just some rich guys paper weight, but on its own it may as well be just that as it has no purpose, but when you know what you’re doing and you have the right power source, that thing can be turned into one hell of a weapon,’ Arthur explained.

‘Holy shit! No kidding?’ Abigail exclaimed, ‘then who would want it? Who would know that? You’re ex-military right so I get it, weapons are your thing, so does that mean there’s some military grade nut job out there trying to get their hands on this?’

‘Worse, this is business … corporation style business.’

‘But how do you know?’ asked Abigail. 

‘Altraxian 4 right? There’s nothing there, it’s not habitated, no one lives there, and there’s no infrastructure, it has no military significance. It’s just a small floating rock orbiting the dual Sol system of Borous. Altraxian 3, now that is a planet with a population,’ Arthur smiled as he recalled fond memories of the planet, ‘between the pleasure centres and the corporate espionage that’s going on you can have one hell of a time there.’

‘So Altraxian 4 … tax haven?’ suggested Abigail. 

‘Not needed, these days taxes are a free flowing production that somehow manages to sort itself out if you don’t poke it with a stick… businesses want to pay taxes now, they finally realised that if they pay up their share then that leaves the rest of the population with more credits to spend, and they make even more money. No, it’s got to be something else.’

‘So, what do you want to do? Take the job and see where this thing goes?’

‘Down the rabbit hole, all the way,’ answered Arthur as he hastily replied to Vantra, and hoped they’d gotten back to him in time.

Stay tuned to find out what happens next time ...