Encounter on Starbase Kappa Read online

  He said to Tren, "I know they can see through our cloak. I want them to. Because, if they are monitoring the Ivoire, and it disappears when the transport disappears, they'll think the mechanism is the same. They're not close enough to the Ivoire for their equipment to show any difference."

  "Got it," Tren said.

  Beside him, Rossetti chuckled. "I like the way you think, Captain."

  He permitted himself one small smile before answering the woman in front of him. She had said she didn't believe he was interested in a place of myth. He made sure he was using his easy going voice again.

  "You don't believe that we were interested in a place called on all maps The Room of Lost Souls? Who could avoid such a place?"

  "Anyone with an instinct for self-preservation," the woman said. As she spoke, the soldiers behind her shifted. Her words seemed to mean more to them than to Coop.

  "You keep threatening that something bad will happen," Coop said. "Are you going to kill us for visiting here?"

  "No," the civilian said. He turned toward the woman. "For god's sake, Commander, we need to talk to these people. There are at least thirty of them and they all have the gene."

  The woman stepped toward the civilian. "You are here on my sufferance. One more word, and I'll send your people back to the ship."

  "Actually," the civilian said, "you're here because of me, and you have no right to order me around."

  "Fun as this all is," Coop said, "it has nothing to do with me or my people. We had no idea we were trespassing, so we'll leave. Just give us thirty minutes and we'll be out of your way."

  He hoped thirty minutes was enough time to get Dix out of that room. In fact, he hoped Yash had already gotten him out of there, even though no one had notified Coop that they had been successful.

  Then the starbase slipped again. Coop held back a curse. Two of the empire's soldiers scurried through the door they'd entered from. The others shifted nervously.

  "What the hell?" the civilian said. "That's new. You're doing something, aren't you?"

  "Now, Anita," Coop said to Tren on the private channel. "Have the Ivoire and the transport disappear right now."

  She acknowledged him.

  Then he looked at the woman and the civilian before him, and said through his speaker, "What am I doing? I'm talking to you. This place has been moving like that ever since we arrived. We thought it was normal."

  "It's not normal," the civilian said. This time, he successfully shook off the soldier holding him. "Commander, they're clearly doing something in that room. Something important. You know this place has been changing size. I'll wager that what we're feeling is something they did. Maybe they've been manipulating the Room all along."

  The woman's head moved back slightly. Anyone else would have thought that the civilian's words bothered her, but Coop knew better. She had just gotten word that the transport had vanished.

  "I think we're done talking," she said to Coop. "You'll all come with us now."

  "Weapons," he said on the private channel to his soldiers. They responded quickly, pointing their laser rifles at the entire group before him.

  Her people responded with their weapons out. Coop knew that his people would make it out of a shoot-out. Hers wouldn't.

  "I don't think we're going anywhere," Coop said to the woman. "I've told you our plans. I was very clear. We need thirty minutes to leave this place."

  "Your transport is cloaked," she said.

  "Standard procedure," he said. "We do that as we power up and prepare to leave. That way no one tracks us because they don't know our origin point. Don't you people do the same thing?"

  He hoped it sounded plausible. To him, it sounded like the bold-faced lie it was.

  "I don't like what's happening here," the woman said. "You're coming with us and we will remove the rest of your people from here."

  Coop let the contempt he felt into his voice. "I don't think so. We've offered to cooperate. You should take us up on that."

  Her eyebrows went up, and she tilted her head just a little. "Is that a threat?"

  He shrugged. He wanted her to see that. "You can take it however you want. I think of it as friendly advice. Two of your soldiers have already left the area. It's clear that your crew lacks discipline. I watched you for a long time before you even noticed me, and my people have been watching you longer than I have. You can't get most of your crew out of the entry place. Apparently they're afraid of this Room of Lost Souls, as you call it, and that fear trumps whatever discipline you have."

  Her expression didn't change, but she moved her head just a little, enough so that he caught it. The civilian behind her looked at all of the soldiers around him as though they had betrayed him. Only the four other civilians looked calm.

  Had they been inside the starbase before? Was that why they weren't afraid?

  "Now," Coop said as reasonably as he could. "You could let us leave of our own accord, or you could try to force us to go with you. I don't recommend the second."

  Even though it would probably please Boss. It would be an excuse to get rid of these people, to make certain that any knowledge of the anacapa ceased to exist.

  "Let me go with them," the civilian said. "I want to see how they got into that room.

  It'll be cooperation, and I can make sure they leave." Coop felt a moment of irritation. He wanted to leave here with no loss of life, and he had almost been there. They hadn't seen the Ivoire, and they didn't know where the anacapa drive actually was. If this civilian came with them, then the shooting would start. But he didn't dare say anything, because if he voted either way, he would influence their decisions.

  "Leave the room open," the woman said. "Which room?"

  Coop asked, continuing to play his game with her. He theoretically didn't know, so he wouldn't be able to leave the proper door ajar.

  "All of them," she said.

  "Fine," he said.

  "No!" the civilian said at the same time.

  Coop's irritation grew. This idiot wanted to die.

  "I have to know how they got in," the civilian said. "If that door closes and we get trapped..."

  He let the thought hang, but he didn't need to. From the woman's expression, she understood. And, from the half-second look of dislike that flashed across her face, she probably didn't care if the civilian got trapped in one of those rooms.

  For the first time, Coop wondered how many people she had lost to this starbase.

  He would wager it was quite a few.

  "He can tell you how he opened it," the woman said to the civilian.

  "No," the civilian said. "It's clearly not easy. If it were, we would have opened it already. We've been trying to open that door for years."

  Coop sighed silently.

  "The price of knowledge," Rossetti said softly through their private link.

  "Let's hope she says no," Coop said to Rossetti.

  "Fine," the woman said, even though she clearly thought this a bad idea. "Rigley, Lerner, go with Vilhauser."

  Two of the soldiers moved beside the civilian, who had to be Vilhauser. One of the other civilians turned toward the woman in charge, apparently asking on a private channel if they should go, too. She shook her head as she said no, almost as if she couldn't believe they were questioning her.

  He smiled again. Civilians. He had often felt a similar annoyance with Boss's people.

  "If your crew tries anything," the woman said to Coop. "We will blow up your ship."

  "It's cloaked," he said, with fake confidence, hoping that she did indeed mean the transport and not the Ivoire.

  "And our sensors see right through that cloak. Would you like me to tell you where it is at the moment?"

  The transport probably hadn't moved. He hadn't given the order for it to leave the starbase yet.

  "No need," he said. "I believe you."

  He also believed she thought she had superior firepower. She acted like someone who knew she had the upper hand.

&n
bsp; He would let her continue to believe that. He had a more pressing problem.

  Did he take her people hostage and fly them back to Lost Souls Corporation? Or did he kill them when his ship left?

  He didn't like either option, but he couldn't see another that he liked better.

  And that worried him.

  7

  Had he been the commander in charge of the Enterran Empire's mission here, he would have had his soldiers escort the interlopers off the starbase. The fact that she didn't do that spoke less to her command capabilities than to her uncertainty as to whether or not her people would survive a trip deep into the so-called Room of Lost Souls. Even though she probably knew that these two soldiers would survive a trip deeper into the base, they didn't. He could see it in their rigid posture, the set looks on their faces.

  They were good men, young, and probably on an early posting. One of his mentors had called soldiers like this fodder, and Coop didn't disagree. The difference was that a good commander knew that wars, battles, and situations like this one needed fodder. Any commander who took the loss of such people personally wouldn't last.

  That was why he had called that commander a mentor. Coop had learned a valuable lesson from him. It was another reason that Coop didn't get to know the junior members of his very large crew well. If he became attached, he didn't make good decisions.

  The woman clearly agreed. She'd sent her people in without a smidgeon of remorse. She had a job to do, and she was doing it as best she could.

  The civilian, on the other hand, was so excited that Coop thought he might burn through his oxygen. The civilian literally bounced up the stairs, moving with a rhythm that would normally have suggested that the gravity in his boots was failing. But Yash had turned on the base's gravity, so what the civilian's boots did or didn't do didn't matter. Still, he was moving quicker than he should—than anyone should with such limited oxygen reserves.

  Had the civilian been one of Coop's, Coop would have cautioned him. But honestly, if the guy died going up these stairs, one problem would be solved.

  The empire soldiers moved slower, almost as if they didn't want to protect this guy. They were doing a poor job of it. They soon found themselves in the middle of Coop's group, rather than at the front or the back of it. They clearly couldn't see anything, which he thought just fine. He didn't care what they could or couldn't see; he needed his people to keep an eye on them.

  "So," Rossetti asked him on the private channel as they made their way up the stairs. "Are we evacuating?"

  "I don't see any reason to stay," Coop said, then realized that wasn't an official answer. He was feeling less and less official as this so-called mission went on. He should have felt more efficient. He had originally designed this mission to return to Captain Jonathan Cooper, and instead, he was getting farther away from that man.

  Then he glanced at Rossetti. She flanked him, and gave him a look, too. Funny how it bothered him that she couldn't see him, but it didn't bother him when others couldn't see his expression.

  "Yes," he said in his captain's voice. "We're evacuating."

  He knew the others in his crew heard this, but he added something for Tren, just to be clear, "Anita, I want you to handle this. We need all non-essential personnel off this base as quickly as possible."

  "I'm not sure what's essential," she said.

  "Leave the team that's with me, and everyone else can go," Coop said. "Yash, did you hear that? Get Dix out of there."

  "Not possible, Captain," Yash said.

  Coop's stomach clenched. What had Dix done?

  "Take him out physically if you have to," Coop said.

  "We'll be taking the anacapa too, then," she said. "He won't let it go."

  "We can't leave it," Coop said, hoping that Dix was listening in.

  "Coop!" Dix had been listening. He sounded drunk, even though Coop knew he wasn't. "We can recreate the scenario now. Get those Enterran people to hit this thing with one of their weapons as we activate it. That should work."

  "It won't work, Dix," Coop said, feeling tired. "A combination of two anacapas and a shot from a weapon that no longer exists sent us here. There's no guarantee that any of that will work on the way back."

  "I think it will," Dix said.

  "You're evacuating the starbase, Dix," Coop said. "Whether you want to or not."

  "Fine," Dix said. "Just make sure someone hits this weapon at the right time."

  Coop put his gloved hand against the wall for a brief moment, and then closed his eyes.

  "You all right, Coop?" Rossetti asked.

  No, he wasn't all right. He had made the wrong choice to come here, it had had the wrong effect on him, and now he was going to have to do things he didn't want to do. "I'm just fine," he lied, and climbed the rest of the way up the stairs.

  8

  The civilian ran to the open door leading into the anacapa control room as if he had found a holy shrine.

  "Oh, my God," he said. "Oh, my God."

  His exclamations got louder as he stepped inside.

  Coop followed him, along with the twelve other people. They joined Yash and Lalliki and half a dozen other people who still hadn't evacuated. Those eight formed a half-circle around Dix, who was still arm-deep into the anacapa drive.

  He grinned when he saw Coop.

  "We can do this," Dix said on the private channel. "I know we can."

  Coop wasn't sure how to answer him.

  "I think the only way we can remove Dix is to hurt him," Yash said on a different channel, "and I'm not sure exactly how to do that. I'm afraid there will be an effect with the anacapa."

  "What is this place?" the civilian asked. He was going around in circles, looking up, like a man who had never seen the sky before. Apparently he hadn't expected the room to have such high ceilings. "There's equipment in here."

  "Layla," Coop said on the private channel, "would you show our visitor the equipment. Don't explain it. Pretend like we just found it, too. I also want them to think that Dix is trapped in that drive."

  "I'm not trapped," Dix said. "I'm just not going to let go."

  "I know that," Coop said.

  Lalliki approached the civilian and touched him on the shoulder. The Enterran soldiers who were supposed to guard him hung back. They watched everything warily.

  Coop's soldiers spread out along the wall, preparing for anything.

  Coop went over to Dix and crouched in front of him, like he had done before. The interior light from the anacapa was still on, and Coop could see Dix's face. He looked exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.

  "These people are from the Empire that Boss doesn't like, Dix," Coop said softly.

  "They're not going to cooperate with us."

  "Not willingly," Dix said, "but I know how to make this work."

  Coop sighed. He was tired of the disjointed thrum of the anacapa, tired of the people around him, tired of the failed attempt at regaining that sense of himself that he'd had before entering this sector seven months and five thousand years ago.

  He was also tired of crazy.

  Dix's eyes were too bright. "We'll give the anacapa to these empire people. They won't know how to shut it off. We get the Ivoire here, we rig the transport to hit the Ivoire’s anacapa with just the right shot, and then we're home."

  Coop opened his mouth to tell Dix all the reasons this wouldn't work, and paused. It would get Dix away from the anacapa, and that was step one.

  "Great idea, Dix," Coop said.

  "Captain," Rossetti said, "the Ivoire—"

  "Let the Ivoire know what we need," he said to Rossetti, with emphasis. He hoped she understood what he was talking about. Because Dix had either not heard or forgotten the order to take the Ivoire out of the system. "We're going to follow First Officer Pompiano's plan."

  Rossetti froze for just a moment, then moved her head as if she were shaking off a comment. Then she said in a voice Coop had never heard before, "Yes, sir."

&nbs
p; "Get that anacapa out of the casing," Coop said to Dix. "Yash, help him with that."

  "Captain?" Yash said. He could hear the unasked question in her voice. Should I wrestle it away from him?

  "One step at a time, Yash," Coop said, hoping that Dix wouldn't understand.

  Then Coop stood. He said through his headphone speaker, "Um, Mister Vilhauser, is it?"

  The civilian stopped the moment Coop spoke his name. He came toward Coop, still too eager. Coop resisted the urge to look at the man's oxygen tank.

  Coop continued, "We have no interest in this equipment here. If you want your people to take care of it, we can help you with that. It seems that the equipment my first officer is dealing with is still operational. He can shut it off, and give it to you."

  The civilian looked stunned. He glanced at the soldiers who had accompanied him, and then back at Coop.

  "You would do that?'

  Coop gave what he now thought of as his signature shrug. "We have no use for this stuff."

  "Coop," Dix said on the private channel. "I'm not going to shut this off."

  "He knows that," Rossetti said so Coop didn't have to. "He's gambling this idiot won't know the difference."

  "How do you know how these things work?" the civilian asked.

  "It seems pretty straightforward," Coop said. "We've shut others off all over the sector."

  "There are others?" The civilian was practically drooling.

  "Not any more. We have some, we destroyed some. You seem so interested that we figured we can just give this to you." Coop felt very calm about lying to this man. He wasn't sure why. "Consider it a goodwill gesture."

  "Vilhauser," one of the soldiers said, "You need to check this with the commander."

  "No, I don't," Vilhauser said. "This is a scientific mission under my direction. You people aren't in charge. And this is a boon to the Empire."

  Then he whirled, apparently realizing he had spoken through the public channels, not the private.

  "And, uh, we—ah—we're grateful," he said to Coop. The civilian nodded at the anacapa. "Can we just carry that?"

  "Yeah," Dix said. "Let me give it to you."