We’re back!
Finally.
(Apologies)
Today we kick this blog off again with the second chapter of “Last Flight from Tazab Station,” the first chapter of which I published back in July. Things are getting spooky aboard the merchant freighter Chixlu…
He took a step closer to the claw. “Situation?”
“Just a… what do you call it? A bug hunt.”
Adler raised an eyebrow. Quizop went on, “I must apologize, my Trade Common isn’t very good.” Her Trade Common was, in fact, fluent, and Adler knew she knew that. “Many of my clients trade in biologicals. Living things. It’s a high-dollar business, particularly given the mass restrictions of stellar transit. And it just so happens that at Tazab Station, I took on a cargo of live vostron larvae, encased in a maturation habitat for the trip.”
“Are vostron larvae dangerous?”
“Not at all. Even at their largest, they only grow about as large as one of those thin fingers of yours.” Quizop waved her own broad, fleshy paws. Then she commanded the claw which held her to move forward—by a thought, or a motion Adler couldn’t see—towards a bank of control panels, midway across the bridge. Adler followed. “Come look at this.”
The screens might once have looked pristine, but this was an old ship, and these were perhaps the oldest pieces of it. Clearly Quizop spared little of her budget for upgrades. Dents and splotches of grime marred the surface. The dents were worse around the middle, where fingers and claws would have pressed, and the grime was worst around the edges, where dust and other particles had settled out of the air over many years.
“My client was most concerned with the survival of the specimens during transit,” Quizop went on. “They require specific conditions of temperature and pressure. Even then, vostron are notoriously hard to grow in all but their native habitat. They installed a camera, among other sensors, for monitoring their cargo.”
She pressed into the screen. It came alive, red text on black, adding a little light to the gloom of the darkened bridge. Adler couldn’t read any of the symbols, but she quickly navigated to something he could make out. It was a video feed.
Back in college—before he’d run off to the military, hoping for “adventure”—Adler had studied to be a physician assistant. He’d spent plenty of time looking through tiny cameras that crawled on robots through the recesses of the human body. Throats, stomachs, colons, kidneys, lumps of fat. So many strange, fleshy caverns he hadn’t wanted to believe were inside him.
Whatever was on Quizop’s screen, it reminded him of those gruesome views. Something organic covered every inch in sight, a damp reddish mass with finger-like polyps clustering together here and there. Were those the larvae Quizop was so concerned about?
To one side, the fleshy covering had been ripped apart. Dripping shreds hung around the mouth of a gaping hole; Adler made out bits of metal—the casing of the habitat—and darkness beyond.
“That doesn’t look so good,” Adler said.
“No. It isn’t. The larvae are all dead, which means I’m short two million credits—and I’ll have an angry client. But look on the left there.” She panned the camera view. “Do you see that?”
Adler saw it: a great, festering boil, like a popped pimple, opposite the other hole. Fluid dribbled from a nasty-looking cavity.
“That’s disgusting. What is it?”
“An egg. Not a vostron egg. Something grew in there and hatched soon after we left Tazab Station. The first thing it did was claw its way out, killing my larvae in the process.”
Now it would be running freely around Quizop’s ship. A bug hunt, indeed. Adler unslung his laser rifle off his back, and noted, with some dissatisfaction, that there was dust on the lens. He’d have to blow that off before he fired the weapon. “Do you have any idea what it is? Surely the cameras would have caught something.”
“They weren’t recording until an hour ago. So there’s no footage.” Quizop switched off the screen, and backed her claw away, returning to her original place hanging near the center of the bridge. “Nor have any other sensors seen this thing, whatever it is. I’ve got crew searching, but…”
“You need me to take it out for you.”
“I might need you. My crew can hold their own in a fight, but they aren’t soldiers, and they certainly don’t have as much firepower as you’ve brought.” She turned her beady eyes towards Adler’s rifle. “I like to prepare for things. I don’t like to take risks with my ship. So my offer is: you help me track this creature down—and kill it. I give you some help on your way home. Say, 20,000 credits.”
Adler tilted his head. Quizop was a hard bargainer, but two could play that game. “It’s a long way back to Earth, captain.”
“You think I’m made of money? 20,000 is perfectly fair. Especially when there’s a good chance it’s a bug you could crush under your boot.”
“There’s also a chance it’ll eat everyone else but me, and I’ll be the only one left to save your ship. Think of it as an insurance policy. 40,000.”
Quizop laughed, just like she had when he’d first come aboard, asking for a cheap berth and a ride to Canberra Orbital. It was a surprisingly human laugh, coming from a fat yellow lizard. “In that case, if you were in danger of getting eaten, I don’t think you’d need money to motivate you. 20,000 credits.”
“Where’s your next stop after Canberra Orbital?”
“Depends on the cargo I take on. Usually Trizemius. Why?”
Adler thought for a moment. The galaxy was a big place, and he didn’t have as firm a grasp of it as he could have. But he did know that Trizemius was a prosperous spaceport, engaged in busy traffic with numerous other corners of space—and it was on the other side of Canberra Orbital, a little closer to Earth.
“20,000 credits, and you take me to Trizemius, with room and board free of charge.”
Quizop’s eyes narrowed. “I might not go to Trizemius.”
“Then you can pay me an extra 10,000 at Canberra. Your choice. How much would it cost you to replace your crew, if this thing turns out to be dangerous? To say nothing of your other passengers—deaths can’t be good for your reputation.”
“Very well. 30,000, or 20 and a ride. Just kill this bug—or whatever it is.” Quizop lowered herself onto the deck, six legs making a padded fall on bare metal. The claw let go and retreated into the murk overhead. She spun around with a wide swing of her tail, surprisingly swiftly, then started a vigorous trot by Adler’s feet. “Follow me. I’ll show you the way to the cargo hold.”
Happy Halloween, folks! I’m very glad to be writing this blog again.
“Last Flight from Tazab Station”: Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Note: The cover image for this post is AI-generated. The text was 100% written by a human.
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Looking forward to the next installment!
Thank you! It’s coming soon 😁