“Sensor resolution is still being impaired,” Gertrude reported over the comms, “Reporting as human, but no identifying information. Altering course to their coordinates.”

  The sensor telemetry flashed across my AR display, showing the fuzzy red dot slowly moving at a location on what was supposed to be the colony’s perimeter. I immediately fed it into the ship’s computer core and called out loud, “Stacy, can you see if you can suss any more detail out of the telemetry? I’m finding it odd that the one life sign we’re picking up is that far from the colony.”

  “Already working Tommy-kins.” she replied, “There is definitely some kind of interference blocking the Cutlass’s sensors. The first thing it strikes me as, is…”

  There was a long pause, and I was starting to get worried just as I noticed the channel switched over to include the command deck. “Commander, the interference impairing sensor resolution bears a remarkable resemblance to the shielding used back on the Station! There are some variances, and it isn’t as strong as ours, but I think that wherever that human is, it’s inside a structure intended to block sensors from penetrating, but also appear like nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “So there is some sort of subterranean structure?” Jophixa replied.

  “That is my guess, Commander.” Stacy confirmed, “And my analysis shows the interference is fading gradually. It appears the subject is on the move towards the surface.”

  “Lets get that information relayed to the Cutlass then, so they can be on the watch for our possible colonist appearing out of some sort of cave or hidden door.”

  “Sepaq, Commander.” Stacy replied, “Transmitting now.”

  “Elegance, this is Cutlass,” came Gertrude’s response, “analysis received. Tuning our sensors to keep track of the fading interference level. We are currently 34 minutes from the objective. Advise beginning prep on the droid.”

  “Cutlass, this is Frankie,” I put in, giving the codename we’d assigned the drone as I started sending commands to the drone to wake some of its systems out of low power mode. I was already anticipating we’d want to use the drone to snag that survivor on the run. It was the kind of thing we’d done on salvaging operations many times, when something went wrong. We’d never had to do it as a grab and go, however. “Beginning to run scenarios to use the chiphead for grab and go retrieval.”

  “Great idea Elegance,” Gertrude responded, and I thought I detected a tone of respect in her voice, “Will make sure we are ready to drop it from the auxiliary hatch.”

  I put my head together with Stacy and started crunching the numbers on what we were going to need for this. The drone was fast, but there was no way it was going to be able to deploy, retrieve the target and return to the Cutlass without some careful maneuvering. “Engineering to Bridge. Toftri, can I get your expertise on this? Not sure we’ll get more than one shot, and I want to make sure we do it right.”

  “Of course, link me into the simulation.”

  A few quick tweaks from Toftri, and we were fairly certain this would go off without a hitch, just as long as… No, nope, don’t tempt fate, I told myself, that’s the way to jinx it all.

  Really? Superstitious? Tommy-bear, how shocking!

  I wasn’t gonna rise to that one. Instead, I kept my attention on the sensor feeds as we approached the drop point. Sure enough, I heard Stacy curse through my implant moments before I caught the sensor ghost on the readouts myself. “Cutlass, this is Franky,” I growled out over the comms, “I’m reading a sensor ghost at our target’s six. Readings suspiciously match ktonshi stealth signatures! This rescue just became more complicated.”

  “Shattered Stars!” Gertrude swore, and I caught readings of a power spike through Frankie. “Going weapons hot, no sense having ‘em cold now. And we’re coming up on the drop mark in 5, 4, 3, 2…1… Drop away.”

  Stacy had decided ahead of time that she was going to mute the inertial feedback from the drone back to me. The velocity the Cutlass was going when we dropped out of it, and the firing of the drone’s retro thrusters was going to make for some pretty intense feedback, and she didn’t think I could handle it. Oh, she phrased it in couched terms of ‘it's not a time to risk it’, but I’m not fooling myself. I’m no adrenaline junkie anyway, so I was quite fine with being behind some inertial dampening.

  While Stacy handled the maneuvering, I kept one eye on the sensor ghosts to keep track of where they were, and with the other, I was keeping an eye out on that human lifesign. The closer we got to the surface, the more I was sure I could see where it would pop out onto the surface.

  I was also pretty certain I could get a lock on their suit’s comm signal now.

  With a few tweaks to the gain on the droid’s comm rig, the link indicator snapped to a steady green and stayed that way. “This is Rescue Operations to the colonist running like their ass is on fire. We’re here to help. Just keep running, you’re less than a minute from the exit. I’ll be there to grab you and get you to safety.”

  The radio crackled for a moment, then a breathless voice of a young man responded, “They’re coming!

  other colonists,

  did something to them. Please tell me

  you have weapons!”

  “Just keep running kid, we’ll get you out.” I assured him, “We’ve got teeth, don’t you worry!”

  “O-

  -kay”

  We’re just about in position Tommykins. Stacy announced, The manipulators are deployed and ready to grab the target. I’ve passed on the situation to the Commander as well.

  Thanks, I responded, then caught sight of the slight, EVA suited form barreling out of a cave opening right ahead of us. “I see you kid. Keep running, we’re gonna grab you on the fly. Don’t panic, okay? This ride is gonna be rough as a synaxian’s ass, but we’ll get you safe. We’ll have you in no time at all. Just keep running!”

  Stacy’d brought us around to be coming at them directly from behind, and we were only moments away from contact now. Checking behind us, I could just make out the nightmarish forms of ktonshi closing in just as fast. This is gonna be close! I shouted in my mind.

  But then, a blinding blast of energy struck the ground right where that first ktonshi was. “Eat that you eight legged freak!” explained Giselle as I caught the shadow of the Cutlass blow by overhead. “Snag the kid and let's get out of here Spanner!”

  But the shockwave of the weapons fire had ended up throwing ass over teakettle. He was tumbling through the air or the planet’s lesser gravity like a ragdoll. That didn’t stop Stacy from doing her part of the operation, however. She maneuvered Frankie into a similar cartwheeling spin just as we reached them, and through the droids manipulators around his waist. Gotcha! She exclaimed as she pulled us out of the spin and poured on thrust to gain altitude.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “We gotcha kid,” I relayed, “Now we just have to catch our ride. Hold on tight now, alright?”

  He didn’t answer, just clamped his arms around the droid’s manipulators with a death grip. I could ‘see’ through the sensors that he had his eyes pressed shut as tight as he could go, and I couldn’t blame him, especially since we were about to pull some pretty high Gs.

  Let’s get this kid to safety Stacy! I thought to my AI co-pilot, He’s got an appointment with Tratsa.

  Hold on to him, baby-cakes, she replied, I think this is about to be a bumpier ride than we planned for.

  What do you -

  The answer to my unfinished question came as sickly green pulses of weapons fire burned through the space we’d occupied just a fraction of a second earlier. Stacy had sent us into a dizzying roll and strafe maneuver at just the right time, and kept us out of the path of the followup weapons fire. I was really glad the inertia feedback from the droid was dialed down, cause this didn’t feel at all like my kind of amusement park ride.

  I spared a moment to check on our passenger, and wasn’t surprised to see he seemed to have fainted. Better than throwing up in his helmet from all the rapid, high G maneuvers.

  “Cutlass, this is Frankie,” I shouted over the comms, “we got a lot of heat on us! We either need back aboard quickly, or we need covering fire while we try to get out of range! I don’t care which we do, but we’re roughing this kid up with these evasives, the Doc’s gonna give me hell if he’s badly hurt from this.”

  “We’re on our way to you, Frankie.” came the reply, “we’ll give them something to think about and then scoop you up. Get ready for Operation Knight Rider.”

  There was no time to consider what the hell ‘knight rider’ was, as one of the ktonshi blasts sizzled through the droid’s right side manipulator, narrowly missing our passenger. “Fuck!” I screamed out, as I felt him start to slip free from my grasp, and grabbed onto him tighter with the remaining manipulator. “How is their aim that good at this distance?”

  “Must be all those Void’s damned eyes!” I heard Giselle quip back and then saw the flash of red plasma lance out from the Cutlass and send a ktonshi down on the surface flying in the low gravity. “Fuck, the buggers are tough. That blew off two of its legs, and it’s still getting back up. Switching to the heavy stuff.”

  Heavy stuff? I thought in a sudden panic, they don’t mean…

  Moments later there was a blinding flash, and a concussive wave burst through the thin atmosphere of the planet. It collided with us moments later, and we were sent tumbling. It’s a damned good thing that Stacy was the one actually flying the damned droid, or we’d have been totally fucked, I had no idea what was was up for at least two solid minutes. Stacy on the other hand, pulled us out of the tumble quickly, and moments later I heard Gertrude announce over the comm, “Gotcha! Elegance, this is Cutlass. The package is loaded up and ready for delivery.”

  I spend the entire time reorienting from the tumble cursing.

  “You dropped a fucking NUKE on them?”

  I was still fuming. I was well aware of the deadly power of fission based weapons. There was a reason why they were banned by every sophont species known to the Commonwealth. They just did too much lasting damage to an ecosystem, and the cruel fate of any survivors was simply deemed a war crime. The only time they were ever used anymore, was in cracking through asteroids, any then only under high security, and with incredibly burdensome licensing.

  The use of nukes as weapons were right up there with antimatter weapons on the prohibited list.

  “It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a nuke.” Giselle explained.

  We were all once again in the ship's mess, debriefing after the operation while Tratsa was doing a full medical workup of our guest, who still hadn’t woken up yet. Not entirely surprising considering what they’d been through, and we were all really hoping that Tratsa would find no evidence of the contagion in his system. Nobody wanted to even speculate what we’d need to do if she did find evidence.

  “Then what in Nova’s Flash was it? Cause it sure looked like a damned fucking nuke!”

  Jesse and Toftri were staring at my outburst in shock, neither one of them having seen me this angry. Boudya and Tindron were just glaring at the twins, waiting for an explanation. Jophixa on the other hand, raised her eyebrow at me before saying, “Let’s give them a chance to explain Mr. Aacen. We need to know the specifics before we decide if we should be turning them over to your government for committing a war crime. That is what using a fission weapon is for your people, is it not Ms Kintzels?”

  “Yes Ma’am.” Gertrude said smartly. “Which is why that weapon is not a fission weapon. It is an experimental weapon developed on the old twentieth century concept of a neutron bomb.”

  “Neutron bombs were still at their core, fission weapons.” Boudya cut in.

  “Not all of them. Some were fusion based.” Gertrude explained, “Trust me, I had the same reaction when the Admiral read me in on the weapons systems integrated into the Cutlass. I was all ready to walk out the door and head straight for the Interstellar Justice Offices.”

  “So what exactly is the difference?” Jophixa demanded. “We giobhioni aren’t too fond of those kinds of weapons either, so this better be good.”

  “Look, I’m not a physicist, nor a weapons engineer.” She explained after a moment, “All I know is that the weapons themselves don’t contain any fissionable material. No uranium, no plutonium, or anything of the like. From what the admiral said, the warhead uses some sort of spatial anomaly. When the warhead detonates, the resulting reaction causes a reaction much like a neutron bomb, but is extremely localized, and any leftover radioactivity can be cleaned up relatively quickly, or so they assured me.”

  “A spatial anomaly? Sounds rather science fiction.” I snorted. “Without seeing the actual specs of the weapon, and inspecting it, it’s just too far-fetched to believe.”

  “I told the Admiral that anyone with a brain would question the explanation if we ever ended up having to use the damned thing.” She glared at her sister. “Which is why he signed authorization of Thomas here to inspect the Sagittarius missiles, but only if she was willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding what he learns-”

  I opened my mouth to object to a gag order that would prevent me from reporting a war crime to the Interstellar authorities, but she cut me off before I could speak.

  “-as long as it is nothing that can be considered an illegal weapons violation. She asks only that if you do decide it violates such laws, you have a conversation with her about it before reporting it. She has provided a special secure channel for such an event.”

  I closed my mouth and contemplated this information, though I did not stop glaring. After dealing with that crooked bastard Barstol, I really disliked the idea of working with anyone playing fast and loose with those kinds of rules. They were in place for the betterment of all life in the galaxy, just like the safety protocols surrounding salvaging operations were in place to protect everyone involved in the operation. Anyone skirting those rules was someone nobody in their right mind should want to be around.

  Jophixa looked back and forth between the twins and I for a few moments before saying, “Thomas, inspect those missiles with an extreme eye to detail. Even if you have to take one apart down to component parts to confirm no fissionable material exists inside them - or can be added in some way to elude your inspection.”

  She gave the twins a hard look, and they Giselle actually looked somewhat shocked at the idea of such a clandestine way of hiding the true nature of the weapons. Gertrude simply nodded to her. “Unfortunately, with ktonshi being down there, it doesn’t speak well for the fate of the rest of the colonists, especially given the situation in which we found our new passenger.” She continued, “I’m sure you’ll want to report that to your Admiral as soon as possible. The situation isn’t completely hopeless, but it’s pretty close. In our experience, there are rarely survivors from a colony that size once ktonshi get their claws into it.”

  “There might still be colonists hiding somewhere.” Jesse suggested in a hopeful voice.

  “There could be, and we’ll be doing our best to find them if there are. But especially with the contagion added into the scenario, even if they weren’t caught by the ktonshi like that young man was, there isn’t a lot of hope for them. We’ll have to see what he says when he wakes up. Did we manage to get his identity at all?”

  “That’s about the only information we were able to get from his suit.” I put in, having set my anger aside for the moment. “Oddly enough, we have managed to rescue one Miles West, only child of the two colony directors that were off planet during all of this.”

  “Ouch.” Toftri mumbled, “Lets hope the kid isn’t infected then. Void knows the pain it’ll cause if he is…”

  I saw the twins both grimace in unison at the thought, and silently agreed with Toftri. That would not be a fun scenario to deal with.

  The Salvager’s Plague

  https://ko-fi.com/theacornscribe