Relic Worlds - Lancaster James & the Salient Seed of the Galaxy, Part 2 Read online

  Relic Worlds:

  Lancaster James

  And The Salient Seed

  of the Galaxy

  Part 2

  Jeff McArthur

  Bandwagon Books

  Burbank, CA

  Published by

  BANDWAGON BOOKS

  1331 N. Cordova St, #E

  Burbank, CA 91505

  www.bandwagononline.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Jeff McArthur

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information stored and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Contents

  Chapter 6: The Target

  Chapter 7: Ruins of the Milak Shivar

  Chapter 8: Hot Lava

  Chapter 9: Escalation

  Chapter 10: Heritage

  Chapter

  Six

  The Target

  Arania and Ilona stuck out among the crowd, cheering for their successes and raging at their failures. Though their eyes were hidden behind matching oversized, cat-eye sunglasses, their expressions were nevertheless obvious. It was a girls’ night out, though it seemed that no matter the time or the place, it was always these girls’ time; and whatever world they were on, it revolved around them.

  It was by this standing out that the two mercenary spies were actually blending in. Privileged young people out to party were regulars in these sorts of places. They were annoying enough to drive away anyone who might question or even look at them. This provided them with an anonymity to keep their eyes on their targets while in plain sight.

  They had spotted their three targets when they arrived, and watched them meet up with the woman with the purple-blue hair on the third floor. They were familiar with this one. Jude was well-known within the underground independent contractor scene. She added a whole new level of difficulty to the job.

  Luckily, however, this was where lacking infamy was an advantage. The two women could monitor Jude and her friends through the various settings in their sunglasses, gathering all the intel they needed, while never being regarded themselves.

  The foursome was taking their time, and to keep their cover the two ladies were losing large amounts of money at the machine they were using to look busy. It was okay, however, as they were sure to get compensated. Their usual bosses, the Laui syndicate, would probably let them suck up the cost. But they were being subleted out to someone more reliable. Nikos Kazakis may have a shady reputation with the upper echelons of corporate baronies, but he was always known for paying his goons.

  Arania had reported in when the group had arrived and when they had met up with Jude. She had not said anything since then as there was nothing to report, and each time she spoke she risked detection; either by someone in the room or by her signal being intercepted. The Laui bosses were not fully aware of her side hustle, and if there were any conflicting interests, she didn’t want them to know too much about their activities.

  Nikos would not be able to respond soon anyway. He would just now would he be receiving the first message since it took several minutes to travel to him. They were speaking into tiny transceivers in their glasses, so the transmissions went through small wormhole streams.

  “The group is still lingering about on the balcony. Two are scrying out the ruins while the…”

  “I can vis that myself, Arania,” Ilona said quietly. “No needs risk everything by telling me.”

  Arania turned off her transmission and said sharply, “I’m sending an update to our employer.”

  “Oh. Figures a touch early for that.”

  “We need…” Arania was going to explain the necessity of reporting in even when nothing is happening, but the machine they were feeding rewarded them with a loud jackpot, attracting the attention of everyone around them.

  The two assassins shrank beneath the machine to hide themselves from the eyes of those on the balcony. But they couldn’t be hidden from the others around them, so they smiled at the congratulations, and began re-feeding the machine. At least there would be less for Nikos to pay them back.

  * * *

  Nikos put his Wormcomm back in its form fitting spot within his inner jacket pocket. He stepped up the rocky hillside to where his partner Dillon was stationed, kneeling behind a boulder with his head peeked just over the top and his eyes peering through goggles whose lenses were extended three inches outward.

  Dillon swapped the lenses which provided various types of aid. One provided night vision. Another measured amounts of heat. Yet another revealed illumination to show where he might best be able to approach in the dark. And still another showed electrical sources so he knew where he could cut the power if need be. It was the same sort of filters one could get with bionics, like a fellow independent tradeswoman Dillon had known named Jude. The biggest difference was that these gadgets were controlled by the user rather than the other way around. Bionics were known to drive their users crazy, and even cause them to turn against their best interest or their allies.

  Dillon intended on dealing with those he had once worked with, including Jude. She had stabbed him in the back twice too many times. He should have known the last time not to trust her, but he had played the fool, and would not do so again. Few were left of the rag tag gang from which he had sprouted: Jude, Little Jack, a couple known as the Insanity Twins, and that seemed to be it. He would have his revenge on all of them; but first he needed to do bounties and other jobs that paid.

  The refinery here in the rocky hills of Vinessent of the Simoona System was made up of administration buildings at the front, and giant vats and tubes framed in crisscrossed catwalks beyond. Their target was inside the administration buildings. Dillon had seen the man go inside along with his personal entourage. There were other guards and workers scattered throughout the compound. Though the employees had no definitive stake in the company, many would likely be armed. This was a syndicate operation, not some corporate serfdom.

  Nikos watched with Dillon for a while, then reminded him that time was of the essence.

  “Catching a target cleanly takes proper planning and setup,” Dillon said.

  “That may all be great for the fortune cookies,” Nikos said, “but procrastination planning is the excuse of all people who never accomplish anything.”

  The beast grunted over the Talki. “Futsi agrees,” Nikos said.

  “You named the beast?”

  The beast grunted again. “See? He likes the name,” Nikos said, and then he spoke to the beast. “We'll be on our way soon serving your master. We just need to capture this one bounty.” The beast grunted impatiently again. “Your master still needs to put together our platoon, and in the meantime we can pull together enough Electros to ensure we have sufficient resources.” The beast grunted one last time.

  Dillon laid out the plan. “You'll go cause a distraction in the refinery while I move in on the target. The be... Futsi will be our safety.”

  The beast grunted again. Nikos took it as an agreement of himself. “Futsi's right rip. I should go after the target.”

  “Nice try, but that's my line of work,” Dillon said. “You don't needs be seen, but get them looking away from the admin buildings.”

  Nikos waited for more sounds from Futsi, but heard none. It had figured out that Nikos was using it as an excuse so it stopped making sounds. Nikos tried a different tactic. “Look, I'm better at the covert. You're better with larger nu
mbers, so...”

  “Capturing a bounty is literally my job,” Dillon said definitively. “I'm the one doing the capturing.”

  “You know I could pull out and move on without y...” Nikos tried to say, but Dillon interrupted.

  “You wouldn't have come on this side hustle if you weren't desperate for the money I can get you with this. So stop with the haggling and start with the distracting.”

  Nikos said no more. He slid away into the darkness, avoiding the humiliation of having lost a verbal sparring. Part of gambling was knowing when to fold, and that time had come.

  It was only a small loss anyway. Nikos had not wanted to go after the main target because of any desire for the credit. He had wanted to give the target a chance to tell him how much Dillon was worth. If it was more, he was planning to capture him, take the money, and continue on his original mission with his new partner, Futsi. However, Nikos was pretty certain that Dillon did not favor a larger bounty. He had successfully kept himself hidden from most postings, so his plan had only been a shot in the dark; not something worth fighting over.

  So Nikos instead took stock in what he had. Pulling out his vest he checked his hidden pockets. Some of what he had hidden was the mundane; standard issue like smoke and gas grenades. But he also kept alien relics that were useful in situations like this. Unlike his rival Lancaster James, Nikos did not waste his finds on study and museums. They went toward something more practical; generating larger profits.

  The beast grunted once again into Nikos' ear. “We'll be out of here soon,” he assured it. “Just keep your eyes peeled in case they go running to you.” The beast grunted again. “Or whatever you have instead of eyes. I don't know, just be ready.”

  Nikos' finger stopped on a Sigueran device. This would work with little risk to himself. He weaved around the boulders cautiously, careful not to slip and cause enough noise to make his location the distraction. He also took care to not exert himself too much. The air on this planet was thin, and it wouldn't take a lot to exhaust him. So he stopped occasionally to catch his breath and peer at the ground to see what he could. This became easier the closer he came to the light from the refinery.

  “What's taking so long?” came Dillon's whispered voice.

  “Professionalism, my dear boy,” Nikos said. Dillon began to tell him to hurry up, but Nikos interrupted decidedly, “The distraction will be in place when I deem so.” Nikos expected Dillon to say more, but he didn't. He waited a couple moments, pretending it was to see if his partner had anything more to say, but it was really as a punishment for making him be the distraction, then telling him how to do it.

  At last Nikos moved on and got a little closer. The light was beginning to wash over him a little strong, so he stopped. He raised his head as little as possible to be able to spot the catwalks and girders of the structure. There he could see the silhouettes of several figures strolling. His eyes dropped to the top of the boulder he was hiding behind to find a flat enough surface for him to place the device he was holding.

  It was a foot long, metallic stick that resembled a pair of helicopter blades. This balanced on a triangular body with an octagonal base. Along two sides of the base was an embossed line. Nikos touched the line and pushed up. The point in the line he was touching moved with him. He then touched another point and moved up half as much. Then he touched another point and moved down, and that part of the line went with him. This continued until the straight line had turned into a squiggle that resembled a sound wave. The two halves of the line then snapped, the left side retaining its design, and the right side redrawing itself into a symbol with two vertical lines on each side. Nikos measured the approximate distance with his eyes, then placed his finger on a lower portion of one line, then placed his finger near the top of the other line, and then sat back and waited.

  The workers on the catwalks were taken by surprise by a raucous noise that thundered out of the middle of the air within the refinery. It sounded like an alarm, but it was at the tip of human hearing, and felt like it was going to burst their eardrums. Falling to their knees, they felt the catwalks themselves vibrating, and they feared a structural failure.

  Others came out of the buildings, and many ran back inside. Guards rushed toward the noise, but stalled before reaching a point where the sound was overwhelming. The fire patrol was the first to be able to get closer. With sound dampeners designed into their helmets, they could get inside and at least start evacuating some of the employees while their inspectors tried to figure out what was happening.

  Nikos moved through the device's acoustic shadow. It had been set to drop its noise at a specific point and spread out from there. He kept track of how long it was howling so he could arrive at the fence about the time it turned off. When it did, the employees and guards of the refinery moved in toward where the source of the sound had been while Nikos remained hidden and snapped together the pieces of another alien device; this time from the Chiotho.

  On one end was a crescent-shaped plate coated in gold. This attached to a short rod, which then attached to a tiny handle. Laying a thumb on the correct place of the metal, the air in front of the golden wedge began to swirl. Peeking up over the rock, he saw where the air swirled a couple hundred yards away. It was too low. So he pulled his thumb away and readjusted himself so he could remain behind the rock while looking upward. He pointed the device in the direction he wanted the anomaly to appear, then he readied a smoke grenade with his other hand.

  A trail of smoke appeared seemingly out of thin air; again, near the middle of the refinery. It fell toward the ground, covering various levels of the catwalks. Just after the guards lifted their guns and the employees cleared the area, another cloud of smoke billowed out from one of the platforms. The commander of the guards shouted for everyone to get their goggles and switch to heat vision. The fire brigade, again, was more prepared and were cautiously making their way through the smoke, which was popping up in seemingly random areas now.

  Then came a loud popping noise, then another from near the location of the first. Everyone braced for an explosion that may shake the structure, but no such blast occurred. The first of the guards arrived to identify them as flash bangs. The next one sounded strangely distant, like an echo.

  Nikos cursed with annoyance. His portable wormhole was highly useful, but unreliable. Occasional objects disappeared along the way, though one might hear their final whimper within the extradimensional tunnel that swallowed them.

  He continued to drop distractions into the tiny tempest, listening with amusement to the chaos it wrought. However, time was limited, so he hoped Dillon would take advantage of it.

  Brodin emerged from the small office building where he had been meeting with the refinery branch manager. His bodyguards filed out behind and surrounded him. To the right, the refinery appeared on fire with smoke enveloping it and occasional quick explosions bursting within. All the guards of the location were running toward it. Brodin would be going the opposite direction, getting as far away as possible.

  He directed his guards toward their vehicles and began running, so immediately he was ahead of most of them. A couple seconds into the run they were halfway there, and he heard several thuds behind him. One of the guards shouted something incoherent. Her gun went off, then she shouted in pain and fell. Brodin turned his head to see all but three of his guards were down. A stranger in a long jacket was in pursuit, a pistol in one hand and a round energy shield emerging from the fist of his other. This hand lifted quickly to soak up the blasts of two guards that shot at him while the third stayed with Brodin, running behind him to take the hit should it come. “Bounty hunter,” Brodin spat, hurrying a little faster.

  The man jumped at one of the guards who had shot, narrowing in on his arm, which he grabbed and pointed at the other guard. The gun shot, taking down the second guard. The one who had been grabbed tangled with the stranger, who clearly had the advantage. The best the guard could do was delay him.

  B
rodin was near the car. His guard would drive. That guard was distracted, though, seeing the stranger get the other guard down with his foot on his neck. The driver raised his pistol and switched it to auto-fire, sending a flurry of shots. The stranger did not dive for cover, instead balling himself up behind his fist shield, which expanded a few more inches. He switched the setting of his own pistol and fired back, hitting the car with an explosive round. The guard at its rear flew forward while Brodin tumbled away to its side.

  The roll was fortuitous. Brodin found himself at the head of a maze of supply crates. He staggered into them and bumped against the corners to make his way through the twisting corridors of equipment.

  Behind him, Dillon was heavily sucking in air. Nikos had warned him that oxygen levels were low on the planet, but Dillon had forgotten; not that it would have mattered anyway. He had needed to exert himself as much as he had to get through the guards. But now he needed to pause before continuing. Brodin had run in among some equipment. Dillon could go past it and cut him off.

  Once he was breathing normally, the bounty hunter rose again and took chase. More stacked chests and large containers blocked the way. Dillon weaved through them swiftly, but in the darkness and the light air affecting his brain, he lost his sense of direction. As he paused to figure out where he was, his target managed to slip away.

  Brodin kept expecting to run into the hunter around every corner. But when he emerged out the other end, a spark of hope leaped into his chest. The gate was only ten yards away, and beyond it, the rocky wilderness where he could branch off into the darkness in any direction. He used up every ounce of energy he had to sprint across the clearing. Halfway was five yards, four yards, three, two... and he was past the gate! He dared not look back, opting only to weave as he ran now, running toward the boulders, heading toward an odd-shaped tree that could serve for cover.