Freelancers 01: Torianne's Awakening

Gelard looked briefly at the office corridor while his lips trembled.

Kal glanced at it. 'I'll give you one chance to talk, and an excuse for whoever is coming to not kill you.'

Gelard's mind ran amok at the stress of his predicament. He only ever wanted a nice job working with his hands and never have to worry about the dangers of city life. And now it had come to him and all he wanted was to escape from it. 'I received a radio call from that gangster business man Rikman, who told me to delay your departure from my shop. I don't know why but then I remembered he's a close friend to that Umtrus guy who was busted last night.' He swallowed. 'Did you have anything to do with that?'

Kal released Gelard's wrists, and the startled man stumbled back against his desk and onto the floor. Kal's mind went over the options for their next move, and he stepped towards the corridor.

Gelard propped himself up at the counter. 'Wait! What about me!? They'll kill me when you're not here and you said you'd help me!'

Kal stopped and turned around. 'That's correct.' he said, and put his hand in his pocket as he stepped back to the counter. 'I did say I'd give you an excuse on why you couldn't stop me.'

A little hope washed over Gelard's anxious expression, and Kal pulled his fist quickly from his pocket. He punched the man in his face once and watched him crash unconsciously against his chair and back onto the floor. 'There you go.' said Kal, and hurried to the Reliant.

He startled Saeru and Viri as he rushed into the cockpit. 'We have to leave fast.' he said as he strapped himself into the pilot's seat.

The girls knew better than to doubt his word and ask stupid questions first, and strapped themselves quickly into their own seats. 'What happened?' asked Saeru.

Kal took off and accelerated to full speed. 'Seems a good friend of our pal Jallek wants to have a word with us. Somehow they found out about us and where we are.'

Viri noticed the notification on the screen at her side and activated the passive sensor view. 'Multiple bogies at maximum sensor range, probably heading our way.' She looked back at Kal. 'What are you thinking?'

'Heading for the junk yard, hiding in one of the old hulls for now.'

She thought about it. 'We could wait it out long enough with our supplies, yes.'

'But what if they search the whole place?' asked Saeru.

Kal glanced back at her. 'That's the next thing to worry about. I hope hiding will provide us with enough time to think of a better escape plan.'

#

One of the smaller ships from Rikman's fleet docked at Gelard's shop, and a group of armed thugs went to the office. Trant, the leader of a small gang doing hands-on work for Rikman, grumbled when he saw Gelard lying on the floor at his desk. 'He's likely not here. Tell the boss we'll do a sweep of the place to make sure, but that he must be on that ship we barely spotted leaving this place.' One of his men quickly returned to their ship while a groan from Gelard turned his attention back to man.

Gelard touched his face and winced at the pain, then sat up on his knees while the fog of disorientation lifted. The sight of the gruff face at the counter and the armed men behind him startled him into remembering what had happened. 'He knocked me out before I could stop him.' he mumbled.

Trant gazed at the blood on the meek man's swollen lips. 'So, he fled the place?'

Gelard gave him a hopeful nod, and winced at the headache flash.

Trant shot him in the head and turned to his men. 'You know the drill, search the place and leave no witnesses. We can use the fuel tanker to make it look like an accident happened while they were repairing it.'

#

The junk yard in a secure orbit far enough from the two habitable planets in the system was a large collection of retired and broken space ships gathered around an old space station acting as the hub for any salvager and tinkerer to gather, sell, and buy what they could. One quadrant of the area held the oldest hulls, which were mostly stripped bare of their useful components and simply waited for whatever might eventually happen to them while they corroded at a snail's pace going uphill against a storm wind. Kal steered into the cluster of structures and slowed down. There was enough distance between most hulls to fly in between, but not at high speeds. He didn't mind though because a slow ship left less of an exhaust trail while flying up close to them.

He and the girls looked around at all the hulls until Viri pointed at her window. 'How about that one?'

Saeru and Kal followed her gaze to an old cargo ship which wasn't the biggest of the hulls around them, but still large enough to fit a small town in it and which aft looked like it had suffered an engine explosion. The cargo bays and visible holds looked intact. 'I think we can hide deeper inside that one to shield ourselves from detection. And if we are found, I believe we can escape from multiple exits.'

Kal looked at Saeru. 'I agree with her.'

Saeru gave him a nod. 'Let's go.'

Kal set course for the hull, carefully navigated through one of the cargo bays and the dark internal passages between smaller and larger holds, and chose one near the centre of the ship. He landed and Viri shut down all non-essential systems to play dead. She unstrapped herself and looked out of the other window. 'They didn't lift the gravity spells from the decks. There's junk only on the floor.'

Saeru stood up from her seat. 'I don't think they usually bother with that since it's expensive to hire someone who has the gravity ability for such floor sizes.'

Kal stepped to the locker with environmental equipment and took out his oxygen mask. 'I'm taking a look around while we still have time. Maybe there's still something left that's useful to us, and I want to check the possible exits.'

'Being in here feels even more silent than out in open space.' said Saeru, who joined Kal along with Viri on the exploration and pointed the light of her torch into the darkness of the central passage spanning the length of the ship.

'I'll still bet that if you hit a wall hard on one side, you'll hear the echo on the far side.' said Viri. 'Imagine how it sounds when temperatures rise or fall and the hull creaks and snaps all over.'

Kal shone his light across the closed double doors of a large hold, then pulled on the handle of the nearby access door. 'Closed.' he said, and knocked on the door. 'This one's also thicker or made from a different steel than usual.'

Viri shone her light across the registration numbers. 'Maybe it's for higher value cargo. Or something volatile.'

'You'd think they would have opened it by now.' said Saeru. 'Or there's another way to access it.'

Kal shone his light along the passage. 'If we don't come across another door or entry by the time we finished our exploration, I'll grab a blowtorch and cut through it. I don't want to make it look other than someone entered it by normal means.'

#

After their tour of the otherwise empty ship, Kal fetched a cutting torch but it couldn't cut through the material of the door. Viri examined the scorch marks on the surface. 'Nothing. This isn't normal steel.' she said and looked back at Kal. 'I think you need to do this yourself.'

He turned off the torch, shut the gas tanks, and moved it aside. 'I suppose I have to, even when I don't want to leave mysterious clean cuts behind.' he said, knelt in front of the door, and held his hand close to it. He concentrated on the image of cutting with a microscopic beam, and a tiny flash appeared on the surface of the door. He moved his hand slowly along the inner edge of the door frame, and stepped away when he came full circle. He took a deep breath, tensed his body, and kicked the inner part of the door away. It landed noisily on the floor inside the hold and Saeru shone her torch inside. It vaguely illuminated the edge of a large, dark grey and blue coloured saucer shaped object when she aimed it upwards. 'There is a hidden treasure after all.'

They circled what they assumed had to be sections of another large space ship. The by far largest piece was the saucer estimated at around hundred and fifty metres in diameter and fifty in height, resting partially upon the floor and an oblong hull with a length of about two-thirds the diameter of the saucer, a quarter of the width and half the height with one slanted end, and two hollow, cigar shaped hulls with a length of about half the diameter of the saucer and a diameter of about half the height of the saucer.

'What do you think it is?' asked Saeru as they looked up at it.

'Sections of different space ships, although I can't remember any which were shaped like this.' said Viri. 'The strange thing is that I don't see any construction where they would be attached to other parts.'

'I'm wondering why it's here when all the other holds are empty.' said Kal.

'It was locked up tight enough that no one else was able to enter this hold, and they figured it wasn't worth the trouble to check the contents?' suggested Viri. 'Maybe it was listed as worthless junk.'

'My guess is it had been stored here after this hull had already been stripped clean.' said Saeru.

'I concur.' said Kal. 'It seems the only logical explanation. The next question is, why?'

'Someone wanted to keep it secret.' said Viri.

'Yeah, just what I was thinking.' said Kal and looked up at the saucer. 'We have to be careful while we try to find out what makes it a secret. Let's search for some kind of access.'

Saeru's light shone upon a hatch at the bottom of the saucer close enough to the floor to reach it when she search that area. 'Over here! Found something!' she called out to the others. She shone her light through a small window when they arrived. 'Could be an airlock.'

Kal grabbed the embedded lever in the hatch, and pulled. 'It's not rusted tight or anything.' he said as it moved without much effort, and slid the hatch to the side.

The light grey interior was empty with a couple of lockers in one wall and a door on the far side. 'Airlock?' said Viri.

'Seems like it.' said Kal, and put his hands together for her to step on.

She climbed up, shone her light once more around, and peeked through the window of the inner door while Saeru climbed aboard and helped Kal inside. She tried the handle, and the door slid aside just as easy as the outer hatch. Her light revealed another compartment with benches and lockers, some with the purpose of storing full body space suits. A ladder at the back went up through another hatchway. 'We can enter through here.'

After a short climb, they ended up at a corridor wide enough for four people standing side by side and painted in light greys and blues. They shone their torches along the length. 'Whereto now?' asked Viri when there were no indications of directions on the walls or pipes and wiring running along the walls and ceiling.

'Let's head to the centre of this thing.' said Kal. 'Most likely we'll find more there.'

Viri shone her torch in another of the many empty spaces they passed. 'I wonder what it was used for, or supposed to be used for.'

'It's not a regular cargo transport ship for sure.' said Saeru. 'My guess it's for transporting loads of people, like on a cruise, and all of these spaces are suites.'

They ended up at a steel staircase leading up, and a few decks higher at an intersection and a split door with bridge casually written across it. Kal gazed at the crude capital letters. 'I think we can rule out that this ship has been in any real active service.' They slid one half of the door aside and peeked inside. 'At least this isn't empty.'

The mostly circular bridge didn't look familiar to any of them, but they recognised a pilot and copilot chair forward of the centre from the control sticks on the armrests and the consoles in front, engineering seats from the labelled controls around them among the four seats to the side and rear, and two slightly elevated chairs behind the centre with control panels and screens.

Viri sat down in a pilot's seat and slid her fingers along the controls and gripped the sticks. 'I am very curious as to how this thing flies.'

Saeru stood at one of the seats at the wall, examining the several screens, keyboard, and control switches and knobs around it. 'This looks like a navigation station. Maybe we can punch up the history of this thing if we can power it up.' she said, and removed the panel below the controls. She let out a intrigued hum. 'This is weird.'

Viri and Kal joined her and examined the components and wiring inside the cabinet. A row of complex circuit boards were stacked with electric components connected to crystals and intricately shaped stones. 'Did they intertwine regular technology with mana components?' asked Kal.

Saeru let out a dry chuckle. 'Looks like they did, but I don't understand how even though I have expertise in engineering.'

Viri looked at her. 'But then maybe it means Kal can power this console.'

They looked at him as he examined the power circuit. 'I can give it a shot.' he said, and put his hands on two crystals embedded in it. He concentrated the flow of his mana through his hands and poured it into the crystals, and diagnostic lights lit up one by one after a moment and the screens at the console flashed.

Saeru watched boot up text scroll upwards. 'Keep going, it's working.'

After a short while, the navigation console showed green on most functions in a list, and Viri grumbled softly in disappointment after navigating the system menu. 'The history must have been wiped, there's not even the usual first calibration log and I doubt this ship was built here.'

Kal looked up at her. 'Nothing that says anything about this ship?'

Viri shook her head.

Saeru gazed around the bridge again. 'Doesn't look like this thing is of any use, not even for parts because nothing looks compatible. We'd better leave it and return to Reliant.'

'Please don't.'

The three drew their guns and shone their lights around the bridge. 'Who's there?' asked Kal.

'Me.' came a pleasant female voice from nowhere.

Viri and Saeru pointed their ears in every direction. 'Who is me?' said Saeru.

'Me is me, of course. You came for me, didn't you?'

Kal frowned. 'We came here by accident.'

The voice was silent for a while, the spoke with a tone of disappointment. 'You didn't come for me? Or by request of master Maher?'

Kal glanced at the girls, who told him with their eyes and ears that they sensed no other presence on the bridge. 'We have no knowledge of anyone named Maher. We came here to hide from people trying to kill us.'

'Kill!?' said the voice with a shocked tone. 'That's a bad thing!'

Viri sniggered. 'For us, yes.'

A possibility occurred to Kal. 'Tell me, are you this ship?'

'Yes, I am. You didn't know?'

Kal lowered his gun. 'No, we didn't know.' he said, and stood up straight. 'As we said, we came here by accident because we're chased by some very bad people.'

Another short while of silence. 'Oh.'

Kal stepped towards the middle of the bridge. 'You sound disappointed.'

'I was hoping master Maher came back for me.'

'It sounds like you miss him. Maybe we can help locate him, but we'd need to know how to return you to operational status again and also take out the ones aiming for our lives.'

The voice was silent for a while again. 'I don't know if I can trust you.'

Kal laughed.

'Was I funny?'

He shook his head. 'It's just that I liked that reaction.' he said, and gestured at one of the elevated seats. 'Mind if I sit here?'

'Go ahead.'

He holstered his gun and sat down. 'It wasn't funny, as much as that I'm glad for your reaction. Don't take anything for granted.' He leaned back. 'Do you have a designation, or name?'

'I was named Torianne by master Maher.'

He smiled. 'A pleasure to meet you, Torianne. You have a beautiful name.' he said, and gestured at the girls. 'They are the lovely sisters and my partners in everything, Saeru and Viri.' The girls gave a nod each, although unsure whether Torianne could detect it. 'And I am Kal. We are freelancers doing various jobs as long as it doesn't hurt anyone innocent. To explain our troubles in a few words, we stopped someone from exploiting and hurting other people, and now his friend is trying to kill us. The chances of escaping alive aren't great, so we can use all the help we may get.'

The girls and Kal waited with a little curiosity for the reply.

'Master Maher taught me hurting others is bad.'

Kal nodded slowly. 'That is very true, but unfortunately reality is not so rosy and harsh measures are needed to prevent worse sometimes. I will never claim I'm innocent because I have blood on my own hands.'

Kal looked at the girls, and they showed as much doubt in their eyes as he did on how Torianne would react to that statement.

'I believe you.' she said eventually.

They looked up with some relief. 'You do?' asked Kal.

'Master Maher has taught me enough about his life to know that life isn't perfect. You are honest about yourself, and honesty is a rare trait.'

Kal chuckled. 'You know, I think you're terrific and I'd love to talk a lot more with you.' he said and leaned forward in his seat. 'I won't demand you to help us in exchange for what I offer, but how can we restore you to a functional status?'

Torianne gave her answer a moment later.

#

'I'm picking up signals at the edge of my currently limited sensor range.' said Torianne half a standard day later. 'Objects heading this way. My sensors pick up vibrations at a distance.'

Viri checked the engineering screen and the vibration graph with blinking numbers and symbols on it. 'They must have picked up our trail somehow.' she said, and hit the internal communication button. 'The bad guys are homing in on us.'

Kal looked up from charging the buffer for one of the two redundant power cores used to initialise the main power cores of Torianne with his very low but very fast and seemingly infinite stream of mana. 'How much time?'

Viri made a quick calculation in her head. 'Not enough for you to power up that core to start the main cores.'

'If you hold them off, my first core can be activated and then the rest would follow after, including my repair and defence systems.' said Torianne.

Kal directed as much mana as he could into the control circuits. 'Girls, go to the Reliant and gear up and bring mine. We'll defend Torianne until she's fully operational. I don't want her to end up in the wrong hands.'

Saeru and Viri dropped the maintenance they were doing and hurried to the Reliant.

#

The first drop ships from Rikman's fleet touched down on the cargo bays, and several heavily armed units rushed out and took up positions at the cargo ship's corridors. Rone, the commander of the mercenaries followed. 'The fresh exhaust trail led us here and this hull is large enough to hide their ship in as well as themselves. Stay sharp while you check every corner.'

They proceeded cautiously farther inside and systematically checked every cargo space they encountered. By the time the first pair of mercenaries reached the doors to Torianne's hold, the one named Birt noticed the clean way the inside of the inner access door was cut out and stroked the edge. 'This is not done with a regular cutting tool.' he said, and took a quick look inside with his night vision goggles. He didn't recognise the large objects through the greyscale view. 'There's something big inside here.'

Keller, his partner, took a look as well. 'That's not the ship we were looking for. They couldn't even fly it inside here anyway.'

'We still have to check.' said Birt, and moved inside while Keller covered him.

Birt took up position at a corner of Torianne's oblong section and gestured for Keller to follow. He pointed at the open hatch underneath the saucer. 'We'll take a look inside.' he said, and moved alongside the section towards the hatch. Another quick peek revealed nothing inside, and he beckoned Keller to come.