It turned out to be a lucky thing that Stacy was controlling the Droid via an ansible connection, as whatever the alloy that was used to construct the superstructure of this place was, it seemed to be the reason our sensors had so much difficulty picking up life signs. It was also making it so conventional communications signals were not making it back to Elegance.

  I was becoming determined that if there were any way to get a sample of the stuff on our way out, I would be watching for it.

  Our first action once we realized we were in some sort of ship or base was to try to access one of the terminal screens along the bulkhead to see if we could pull up some kind of a map. The last thing we wanted was to spend unnecessary hours navigating a labyrinthine deck layout if we could simply pull up a deck layout that would lead us right to the reactor core. Hell, we could get lucky and be able to set the core to overload remotely.

  Unfortunately, the terminals were completely nonfunctional, the screens were simply reacting to surges along their signal inputs, causing them to flicker with random noise. They were completely useless. And neither of us could detect any kind of wireless access signals that would allow Stacy to patch in directly. It looked like we were stuck playing mice in a maze after all.

  At least there's no sign of entries. I said to Stacy, I can't imagine they'd leave the entrance unguarded if there were any of them left down here.

  Don't jinx it honeybun, they could just have decided monitoring the colonists was higher priority.

  So once again I found myself wandering through alien corridors with little clue where I was going. At least I wasn't alone like I had been for the first part of exploring the station, nor was I hungry or marooned. Hell, I wasn't technically even there, just a ghost in Frankie's machine. If things got tense, I could unplug with a thought, and be in the comfort of my quarters within moments.

  Tell that to my subconscious though.

  With every meter we traversed, every corner we turned, I could feel the muscles in my neck back in engineering tighten in anxiety. At any moment, a ktonshi could leap on us from out of a darkened alcove, and regardless of not being there in person, my memory of the one I barely escaped from while rescuing Giselle kept jumping into my thoughts.

  You know I can do this by myself, right babycakes? Stacy put in after we passed a particularly ominous looking breech in the bulkhead that seemed to lead into a deep cave system. You don’t need to be here unless I run into tech I can’t figure out, and you can plug in at that point. You don’t have to put yourself through this.

  Maybe. I answered her after a slight pause, but I spent ten years hiding away before Barstol blackmailed me back into living again, the backstabbing bastard, I can’t keep letting this shit stop me.

  She didn’t respond in words, just a mental image of her ambassadorial persona giving me a comforting hug.

  Just as we were about to move on, I noticed an alert come from the sensor array indicating it was picking up lifesigns beyond the breech in the bulkhead. Hey Stacy…

  I saw it, Sugar-cakes. Not picking up any movement though.

  I’ll report it to the commander and see if she wants us to divert to check it out, or keep priority on finding the reactor.

  It wasn’t at all surprising that when I got on the comm with Jophixa, her orders were to continue towards the reactor. If any of the other colonists had the same genetic anomaly as Miles, logic said they’d be trying for the exit by now. Anything that was down here was infected, and might as well be ktonshi. We needed to deal with the threat as quickly as we could.

  To be safe though, we planted an automated sensor unit just outside the breech. It would sit there quietly, watching the breech, giving off no signals until it detected something, then notify us via burst transmission.

  And so we continued our search.

  “Admiral, you have a priority flagged communique. It's carrying diplomatic encryption.”

  She sighed and put her tablet down. She had only just settled in to indulge in one of her guilty pleasures, thinking she had some time to kill while the Titan’s Whisper was in the hyperspace tunnel. She had been looking forward to reading this book ever since her niece had recommended it -an epic about a world War two nurse getting thrown back in time to Scotland during the time of prince Charlie.

  So far, she couldn't get more than a page read before something interrupted her, however.

  “I'll take it in here lieutenant, thank you.”

  Swinging her legs off her bunk, Thea LeBeau got to her feet and moved over to her desk, stubbornly ignoring the creaks in her knees. She might just need to make the time to go see old Doc Tanner about those injections he'd told her about. Even the carefully climate controlled air in her battle cruiser didn't keep the old bones from aching these days.

  Sitting down, she brought up the communique on her holoterminal, frowning when she saw who it was from.

  “Hello Admiral,” the wizened green face greeted her, “I'm sure you remember me.

  “I'm contacting you on behalf of Commander Throhx, who is just a bit busy right now handling a ktonshi infestation at your colony, Eves Blessing. Yes, unfortunately they have proof of ktonshi involvement in the colony going dark. It is also my unfortunate duty to report that the entire colony has been exposed to the contagion.

  “The only bright side is that they were able to pull young Miles West off the planet, and during medical quarantine, discovered that the boy seems to have some sort of immunity to the contagion. I don't have any deep details beyond that yet, they are keeping him quarantined just in case.

  “The commander also has not attempted to contact his parents yet. With the status of the colony, she assumed there may be security issues your people would need to address. She would appreciate you getting in touch with her as soon as you can to discuss the situation.

  “To enable that, we have decided to extend a measure of trust to you. Attached to this communication are a list of coordinates for several communications relays the Commander’s ship has deployed. Their purpose was to enable our own communications equipment to link up with your StellarNet and HyperComm systems. If you divert to one of the locations and retrieve one of the relays,you and the commander will be able to communicate in real time.

  “As I said, we are extending this trust to you, we hope you will not abuse it.

  Sincerely,

  Stasti Airfrix

  Giobhioni Ambassador assigned to Orion Spur region”

  When the recorded message stopped, the attachment loaded up, listing the coordinates the ambassador mentioned. The Admiral just stared at them for a moment before paging her astrogator.

  “Admiral?”

  “Lieutenant, I've just sent you a set of coordinates, I need you to calculate how much of a delay it would add for us to divert to that location.”

  “Yes ma'am, I'll get right on it”

  “This would have been so much easier if that degenerate Barstol had just followed instructions.”

  Not for the first time during his exile amongst the stars, Benson Fisch found himself pacing in his office on board The Gordian Knot. They were still another two days out from the last known position of The Journeyman, and the waiting was starting to weigh heavy on his nerves.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Luckily, Bathurst drew a large part of its funding from charities run by Enigma Osiris, and that meant he had contacts within the crew, even with his current status as persona nongratta. This had allowed Charles to get in contact with them and not only secure the coordinates, but put a bug in the captain’s ear about towing the ship to an isolated location instead of back to the nearest station. The captain had not been immediately open to the suggestion, but the promise of a substantial “bonus” had convinced him.

  “Forgive me for saying so sir,” Charles said from a chair in the corner, where he had his eyes glued to a holomonitor. “But Mr. Barstol was a calculated risk right from the beginning. You said it yourself, he just happened to be the option available to you with the most acceptable level of risk. Sometimes calculated risks just don’t pay off.”

  He ground his teeth, wanting to bark at the man for reminding him. But Charles was right, the whole thing had been a gamble. The salvaging crews that were licensed by the guild were notorious for following regulations, especially after Barstol’s inquiry and expulsion. He’d had people put out very quiet feelers to see if there were any crews still playing fast and loose with the regulations, but came up empty.

  And of the rogue crews out there, Barstol was actually the most reliable to be found.

  “You’re right of course, Charles,” he sighed, “Doesn’t stop me from wanting to skin the man. My only consolation is the thought that maybe we’ll get a chance to subdue the ship the ktonshi that was once him is on, and we can turn him over to the lab for vivosection.”

  Charles nodded absently as his hands suddenly burst into furious activity on the virtual keyboard in front of him. Benson stopped and looked over with a raised eyebrow, “Please tell me that was of some import and not just another random advisory communique.”

  At first, Charles did not respond, his fingers still a blur of action, but after about a minute, he looked up. “Sorry sir,” he explained, “I just received an update from our agent onboard Titan’s Whisper. The encryption protocols are some of our most complex in order to protect their cover.”

  “Quite alright Charles, not like I’m in a rush. What was the update?”

  A small smile crept onto his assistant’s face. “You’ll appreciate this sir. Titan’s Whisper dropped out of her hyperspace tunnel and has diverted to a seemingly random set of coordinates.” he flicked a finger and sent a set of coordinates onto the office’s main holoscreen. “They were unfortunately unable to discern the reason for them diverting course, though it happened soon after LeBeau received a priority diplomatic communique. I’m willing to wager it has something to do with the giobhioni, sir.”

  “Bah, damned goblins.” Benson spat, “I wonder what they’ve pulled the admiral away for.”

  Another flurry of keystrokes before Charles spoke again, but when he did, his smile was slightly wider. “I have no idea, but if you check the screen sir, you’ll see that this little diversion of theirs will cost them approximately 10 hours delay in reaching Bathurst’s reported location of The Journeyman.”

  He felt an echoing of his assistant’s smile bloom across his own face; They’d have an even larger window of operation once they reached their destination. If his people operated as efficiently as they were trained to, and the ktonshi hadn’t started converting the ship yet…

  He strode over to his desk and sat down, reaching for the decanter of centaurian cognac. “That calls for a drink, Charles.” he said, forgetting about the untenable wait for the first time that week. “Care to join me?”

  Wait, I said suddenly into my implant as something that had been nagging at the back of my head for a while started crystalizing, I think we’re going the wrong way.

  Tommy-cakes, I’ve been analyzing everything as we’ve been moving. Stacy replied, All the power conduits and relays we’ve been picking up behind the bulkheads point to engineering being down this passage. I love every part of your fleshy biological self, including your brain… but honey-bunches-of-oats, you cannot argue with the data.

  Back on board Elegance, I shook my meat-body’s head. Part of me agreed with her; Every bit of sensor data we’d managed to gather so far pointed towards the reactor chamber being somewhere down the corridor to the right. But there was something in my head nagging at me like a five year old wanting a McClown Giggle-Meal that there was data missing. And that inner five year old was starting to throw a complete tantrum.

  I took a deep breath and tried a trick Boudya taught me back in school. I attempted to unfocus my mind’s eye and stop looking and this whole thing in isolation. “It’s kind of like you’re overlaying the problem you are trying to solve now, over top of a map of every other problem you’ve ever solved.” Boudya had explained all those years ago. “Like if you unfocus your eyes, you bring in so much more information from the periphery. If you are having trouble with something not obeying your expectations, sometimes you’re just not seeing forest for the trees, doing this can help give a new perspective.”

  It had been a long time since I’d used the technique, but surprisingly, it didn’t take long before a new kind of clarity snapped into place in my mind, and with that clarity, a faint, sharp spike of pain behind my eyes.

  Whoa! Stacy cried, suddenly concerned, What was that? Your neural activity just spiked. You okay baby?

  Just a sudden headache, I’ll get Tratsa to check me when we’re done. I told her, but look Digi-bits, I know this doesn’t make sense, but I have been aboard and helped dismantle or salvage countless ships and stations, quite a few were from unknown species we still know almost nothing about! Some of those people did not do things by normal logic, okay? Just…You keep acting like you can read my mind so much…here. And I thought real hard about the pattern that I was seeing, and how it matched up with a couple of the derelict vessels I’d been aboard in my early years.

  She was quiet for a whole two seconds before saying, All right hot cross buns, I still think it’s to the right, but you’re the one with the hands-on experience. I spent the last thirty five centuries baby-sitting a bunch of sleepyheads. I get to say I told you so if you’re wrong though, okay? And watch next time you have a night with Boudya and Tratsa together?

  No promises. I said, You have to put that past them first.

  Half an hour later, we were deep into the structure, and I was wondering if maybe I had made a mistake with my intuition. I was also wondering if it might have been easier to just do our best to convince Gertrude into firing one of those missiles right into the cave entrance and hoping it’d be enough to take care of the whole place. If we got much farther into this deathtrap, overloading the reactor was going to mean sacrificing Frankie. There’d be no way we’d be able to navigate the corridors fast enough to pull the droid out in time.

  Sure, it was just a hunk of tech, but I’d grown attached to it.

  But just as I was about to admit I was wrong and tell Stacy we should turn back and check the other direction, we came to a set of heavy blast doors. Alright Stacy, if we don’t get any evidence we’re close to the reactor when we open these doors, I admit defeat. We’ll head back and go the other way.

  Yay! Showtime! Your Quarters! Tomorrow night!

  You still gotta get clearance from the ladies Stacy.

  How do you know I haven’t already? She laughed in my head, just ‘cause they don’t have implants, doesn’t mean I can’t talk to them without you knowing.

  With me feeling some heat in my cheeks back in my body, I rolled my eyes and attempted to grab control of Frankie’s manipulators to hack the door open. Before I got very far, however, Stacy seized control back with a slap to my mental hands.

  Hey now! She scolded me, who’s being Mr. Grabby Hands? What happened to getting consent before playing with a lady's bits, hmm?

  Stop being such a chatty kathy and open the star-shattered door then!

  Okay, okay. Grabby Hands and grumpy pants. Should tell Boudya to spank you.

  I could ‘hear’ the laughter in her virtual voice. It could sometimes be jarring how much that virtual voice sometimes felt like a text message dumped directly into my head, but at the same time carry all the tonal queues of verbalized speech.

  Responding to her comment, however, was something I knew would just lead to more sauciness from her, and right that moment, I didn’t want to engage; So i decided to just tap my mental foot impatiently for the roughly one point four six seconds it took for her to bypass the door lockouts.

  Damn Stacy, you losing your touch? That was three times longer than…

  I stopped dead as the heavy blast door slid open and revealed what was unmistakably a reactor control room. Only, the monstrous device in the center of the room was unlike any reactor I’d seen before. “What the hell is that?” I asked out loud back on Elegance.

  At first glance, Stacy replied, I’m guessing we’re looking at some sort of proto-tesseract.

  Void’s tits! Can something like this even be overloaded?

  I…don’t know.

  And at that moment, as if fate had decided it was time to try ramming a glass encrusted baseball bat up my unlubed sphincter…the terrifying sound of an all too familiar chittering started to echo down the corridors.

  Ah fuck-knuckles! I swore, and tried to clamp down on the icy claws of terror that were trying to climb up my spine.

  The Salvager’s Plague

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