AGU SCI 1: The Star Brotherhood (2 page)

For his part, the stranger was only able to see Makkod's body from his neck to where his lower torso disappeared below the table's edge. But it was enough to see the lattice pistol Makkod wore in a holster strapped to his side. Few workers in the city carried such weapons. There were tons of knives or tools that could be used for stabbing among the rough and tough city dwellers, and even objects that could be used as blunt-force weapons, but there were few expensive weapons that fired projectiles or energy beams. This Uthlaran either had a job where he provided significant security, or he wanted people to know he wasn't someone they should challenge if they valued their life. Perhaps it was both.

Trader Vyx was also someone not to be challenged by people who valued their life. If Makkod continued his belligerence, he would soon receive a painful lesson about picking fights with strangers. Vyx watched him carefully, and when Makkod placed his hand on the grip of the pistol, Vyx kicked the heavy wooden chair opposite him into Makkod with all the considerable power in his right leg.

The Uthlaran was caught completely by surprise and fell backward to the floor with a grunt. As he landed, Makkod tried to pull his lattice weapon from its holster.

Vyx never hesitated once battle was joined, and his glass of ale went flying as he flipped the heavy table onto the prostrate Uthlaran. Once unencumbered by the presence of a table blocking his movement, Vyx stood up and waited to see what Makkod would do, while using his peripheral vision to watch for any signs that other bar patrons intended to rush to the Uthlaran's defense. No one did, not even the friend with whom Makkod had been sitting. Perhaps they felt that Makkod needed no help against the smaller Terran, or perhaps they just didn't like him enough to risk their skin.

The Uthlaran's weapon was lying on the floor half a meter from its owner as Vyx straightened up. Only the head of the Uthlaran was visible from beneath the table until Makkod pushed it off and twisted to locate his lattice pistol.

Vyx pulled back the right side of his heavy cloak and flipped it over his shoulder so it wouldn't interfere with drawing his own, now exposed, pistol from its holster. "Try it and you lose a hand— or worse," Vyx said in a menacing voice as the Uthlaran reached for his pistol.

Makkod froze, only then realizing that Vyx was armed as well and appeared to be someone who would know how to use it. He looked again at his pistol while weighing the fact that Vyx's laser pistol was still holstered. The tavern patrons watched the tense situation in frightened silence. Then, in the blink of an eye, Makkod made his move.

Vyx had already concluded that the Uthlaran on the floor would never capitulate and so fully anticipated the movement when it came. He had already decided on a course of action. He knew his laser could slice through soft tissue in an instant, but bone was a different matter. It could take several seconds to fully cut through an Uthlaran's arm, so as he pulled his pistol, he didn't even try to sever the arm reaching for the gun. Instead he simply swept the narrow beam through the upper chest area where the Uthlaran's heart was located. It was possible to simply incapacitate the Uthlaran if he moved the laser quickly enough, but Vyx couldn't be sure the cut would be deep enough for that. He needed to prevent the Uthlaran from shooting him with the lattice pistol. He went for the kill.

Makkod couldn't believe the Terran had beaten him as the laser beam punctured his chest and destroyed his heart. His pistol had already been out on the floor. All he had to do was pick it up and fire, but he was dead before he managed to wrap his hand around the grip, and he never even touched the trigger. As his strength ebbed and everything grew black around him, he cursed his folly for bracing a stranger.

Vyx didn't holster his pistol immediately, fearing that someone might now try to avenge Makkod's death, so he stood there watching the tavern patrons as they avoided eye contact and resumed their peaceful drinking. When no one made a move to retaliate for Makkod's death— not even the Uthlaran that Makkod had been sitting with— Vyx relaxed his arm and replaced the pistol in the holster. He waited another thirty seconds before pulling the table upright and righting the chair. To punctuate the finality of the situation, he gestured to the bartender that he'd need another ale to replace the one that had been spilled when he'd knocked the table over. He picked up Makkod's lattice pistol and placed it on the table near his chair.

The bartender gave Vyx a wary look as he brought a fresh mug of ale and set it on the table in front of him. With the cook assisting, the bartender then carried Makkod's body outside and unceremoniously dropped it into the gutter just beyond the curb. Never one to pass up the opportunity to collect for services rendered, the bartender went through his pockets, taking anything of interest or value, before returning inside and calling the disposal truck. He looked at the lattice pistol on the table twice, but didn't have the nerve to ask Vyx for it. The cook got to keep Makkod's boots, belt, and cloak. If the body disposal truck didn't arrive quickly, all they'd find when they did arrive would be a naked corpse. As on the Gollasko Colony in Region One, on Scruscotto, and on many other planets, there was no real law. There was a central government, and they even issued currency, but both the government and the currency were a joke. And even if there had been law enforcement, a dozen witnesses had seen Makkod taunt a stranger who was minding his own business and trying to peacefully enjoy an ale as far away from everyone in the tavern as possible. Makkod simply provoked the wrong stranger and paid the supreme price often associated with supreme stupidity.

* * *

It was nearing dinnertime when Vyx returned to the spaceport where the
Scorpion
occupied one of the larger pads. If the cargo ship had been any bigger, the team would have had to leave the ship in orbit and take a shuttle down, but it's ability to land on a planet had been one of the main selling points when Vyx acquired it at Stewart Space Command Base from then Commanding Officer Captain Jenetta Carver. And it was there, just before the team was assigned to work in Region Three, that the FTL drive was upgraded to the same model used on Space Command's Scout-Destroyers. It was a shame they couldn't sheath the craft in Dakinium— not that Space Command would have allowed it— but it would be wonderful if they could attain Light-9790 instead of just Light-487.

The other members of his team weren't in the
Scorpion
when he entered, so he cleaned up, then began to work with the day's recorded information.

Removing enough clothing to bare his upper torso, Vyx delicately removed the tiny recording wafer from a subcutaneous pouch in his chest located over the ribs beneath his left arm.

A chip attached to the optic nerve of his left eye allowed him to record everything he observed, and chips embedded in the audio canals of his ears added stereo audio tracks. As the information was picked up, it traveled through his lymphatic system to be delivered to a tiny wireless recording device. Limiting the transmission to biological functions meant that no transmission signal could ever be picked up by detection scanners. The device itself contained almost no metal, so it was never sensed by weapons or electronics scanners.

Vyx dressed again before heading to the ship's bridge where he carefully slid the silicon wafer, only slightly thicker than an ordinary piece of writing paper, into a computer interface device and depressed the 'play' button. When he reached the images of the two Uthlarans from the tavern, he instructed the computer to identify the two men. It could take a considerable amount of time to accomplish the task, and they might not even be in the ship's identification database, so Vyx walked to the lounge adjoining the galley.

The other four agents had now returned from their day's activity of eavesdropping in taverns. All had cleaned up and were relaxing in the lounge while Byers prepared dinner.

Albert Byers, whose cover at one time had been as a short-order cook, had assumed responsibility for preparing all meals since joining the team. He didn't think of it as a chore— he loved to cook— and even more, he loved to eat. Whenever anyone tried to assist him, he immediately shooed them out of
his
galley. As the senior officer and team leader, it was Vyx's ship, but no one ever disagreed with Byers' assertion that it was his galley. Cleanup was handled by the bots, so the only time anyone else ever entered was when they were seeking a snack.

On this evening, the main course would be chicken parmesan, mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, and broccoli, with a green and yellow salad as the appetizer. Byers wasn't much for fancy gourmet dishes but prepared stupendous home-style meals.

As Terrans had moved out among the stars, their favorite foods had followed them, courtesy of merchants eager to cash in by supplying the desired foodstuffs. On Uthlarigasset, where the indigenous population didn't openly resent the presence of Terrans, chicken and beef were now almost as easy to acquire as Tarlovo, a large Uthlarigasset snake-lizard that resembled the Komodo Dragon of Earth. Considered a delicacy by Uthlarans, Tarlovo was raised by most meat farmers on the planet, but it was usually avoided by Terrans. The team had purposely overstocked the larder with Terran food before proceeding to Ogsnara on the planet Bleadalto, where it was significantly more difficult and expensive to find Terran food items.

As Vyx plopped down next to Brenda Cardiz, a fellow agent and the love of his life for some years now, he said to the group, "I overheard an interesting snippet of info today." As all looked in his direction, he added, "I overheard two Uthlarans talking. One said that the Star Brotherhood has him violating GA Charter laws."

"Which laws?" Brenda asked.

"He never said. His friend told him to shut up."

"He has a smart friend," Kathryn Earlich said.

"Not really. As that friend got up to leave, he spotted me sitting at the far side of the tavern and decided to see if he could cower me. Things escalated quickly and concluded with a shootout."

"You don't appear to be wounded," Nelligen said, "so I imagine the friend is a little worse for wear."

"That's one way to describe it."

"What's another way?" Brenda asked.

"The last time I saw him," Vyx said as he pulled the lattice pistol from his waistband at his back and dropped it onto the lounge table, "he was being carried out to await a free ride in a body disposal truck."

"Well, I guess we won't be getting any information from him," Kathryn said.

"Dinner's ready," Byers called from the galley.

As the team reassembled at the dinner table, Byers served a large platter filled with chicken. The other food was already on the table and everyone began to help themselves. Once their hunger pangs began to slacken, the conversation resumed.

"I got a good look at the two Uthlarans, so the computer's trying to ID them," Vyx said. "Hopefully we can learn a little more about them and what GA law they might be breaking. It could be illegal drugs, smuggling, counterfeiting, slavery, sedition, or whatever."

"Sedition is a bit of a stretch," Kathryn said.

"Not so much as you'd think when you remember that the Star Brotherhood is involved. Greed knows no bounds. There's a long history of politicians working with and for organized crime. The Brotherhood might be working with the planetary leaders of Uthlarigasset in their unannounced quest to force the GA out of Region Three."

Following dinner, Vyx checked on his computer search and then headed to the quarters he shared with Brenda.

"So who are they?" Cardiz asked as she examined her face in the sink mirror.

"Dunno— yet," he said as he came up behind her and kissed her neck gently. He pulled his head back slightly but didn't remove his arm from around her waist. "The computer is still looking for a match. It could take hours, or perhaps we'll never find a match at all."

"Weren't the images clear enough?"

"They're fine. But you can't find a match if we don't have them on file. With luck, they might have been aboard a freighter that was stopped for interdiction inspection and had their images downloaded with the rest of the crew when we verified passports and checked for wanted felons among the crew. But if the two Uthlarans have never worked in space, or at least never on a ship that was inspected, they won't be in the system."

"Or if our files are out of date."

"Every time we go off-planet, I request an update from Space Command. The files are usually current before we reach our destination. On our last trip where we followed that freighter to the border with open space, we were off-planet long enough to verify we'd downloaded
everything
collected by SCI and made available to agents since we entered Region Three. If our guys are in the files, we'll get their histories, or at least as much as the files contain."

"We might be able to get a name from the Body Disposal Unit."

"Yes, if the BDU even has a name. If nobody claims the body or identifies it, they'll just cremate him and mark the file with their equivalent of 'John Doe.'"

"But you said he was with a friend."

"Yes, and I know the friend called him Makkod, but that's a pretty common name on Uthlarigasset. We'll just have to see."

* * *

"Yussosi, where's Makkod?" the foreman yelled up to where Yussosi was working on a storage platform high above the main floor.

"Don't know for sure," Yussosi yelled back. "He might be dead."

"Dead? Since when?"

"Yesterday."

"Get your butt down here."

Yussosi walked to where a crane operator was lifting a load, then hitched a ride down after the load was placed.

"Tell me what happened," Nuccol said when Yussosi reached him.

"Makkod picked a fight with a stranger. He was always doing that. The stranger was faster. He shot him. That's all."

"And you decided not to tell us."

"I thought you'd know."

"How would I know, you imbecile?"

"I don't know. But
you
always tell me the Brotherhood knows everything. So I thought you'd know."