“We are,” Kestok said. He was projected by a cloud of nanobots, the render a little better than last time. “All set. The Sword is at her full jump range.”
“Well ok then.” Michael turned to face Mellok, who had given up on the chairs and was sitting on the floor. “Time to go home, Mellok.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Greddog seethed at the impropriety of it. The sheer gall of asking him for money. Him! He had sent the messengers on another task, a short hop over to the Substrate dreadnought that escorted his pirate fleet. They had given an important message only to be opened by the commander of the Substrate ship, a creature known as Paranax. It offered him two brand new thralls, curtesy of Greddog. Having the stony vessel hanging menacingly at the centre of his formation rankled at him. It had all the feel of a heel on the back of his neck, a leash to keep their new pet in check. It had been useful, the massive ships overpowered jump generator giving him the range to require only two jumps to his target, but Greddog loathed to use it for any more than that.
No, the glory would be his. Had to be his, there would be no other acceptable outcome. The insult had been personal, the actions of this, knower, had undermined Greddog’s power. His men had been breaking up secret meetings on Ossiark for weeks, trying to nip nascent cults in the bud as they formed. They had recovered more than one idol or homemade puzzle cube.
Greddog slammed his hands on the arms of his chair. “Bah! This is taking too long. Can we not route more power to the engines?”
“No, lord,” said a pirate who cowered next to Greddog. He was thin, his face dominated by a large beak, his body covered in orange feathers. “We are bound to the jump field of the dreadnought. Its range is far, but it is slower. As are all larger ships.”
“I know that idiot!” Greddog said, his rolls of fat rippling as he shouted. “I was speaking out loud.” Greddog’s bulk slumped back in his chair. “How long until we reach our destination?”
“Uh, still two weeks, my lord,” the cowering pirate said. “We have another three-day jump after that. I will say, would it not have been faster,” the pirate’s voice dropped low, its volume dipping, “to go to the world they are at now?”
Greddog swung out his meaty fist, the back of it slamming into the feathered pirate who tumbled to the ground, skidding across the metal grate of the pirate ship’s bridge.
“I know that! Idiot! Do you take me for a fool? Think it through. If they were capable of escaping me, Greddog, then some backwater salvager can’t hold them. We are much better off heading to where they will be going.”
The feathered pirate clambered to his feet. Thick dark red blood stained his feathers, running down the side of his beak. “Of course, my lord.”
Greddog let out a low chuckle. “I never imagined I would be this deep into Council space. The Substrate has them running scared it seems.”
“Word is there has been several battles, though the war is yet undecided.” The pirate was rubbing his beak, the pain throbbing down the side of his face. “Do you think we are on the right side of this war?” The pirate covered his head, crouching to his knees, ready to take another blow.
“We are pirates. We do not take sides. We work with the stones, for now, maybe tomorrow we work for the Council. Either way, war is prime opportunity for our kind. Maybe it’s time to take the fleet out from Ossiark, strike some fear across space again.” Greddog rubbed one of his chins and smiled, reminiscing about his younger days, before the lure of easy money had made him, in his eyes, soft. “But first, I want to clamp my hands around that scrawny human’s neck and squeeze until his eyes burst. No-one makes a fool of me.”
“What of the gladiators, lord, will you return them to the arena?”
“No, I’ll think of something more… interesting to do with them.”
Michael was bored. It had been weeks since Arkessa, and they had spent the entire time since in jump space. It had seemed drastic at the time, getting Clive to set the reactors on the station to overload, but Michael was coming around on the idea. He wondered what would happen, years down the line. Would the people thank him, for saving them, or would they curse him, longing for what was?
“What are we going to do? Once we get to Cortica I mean.” Michael was laying back in the command chair, tipping the seat as far reclined as it would go. In his hands was one of the Merydian tablets. The crew had gotten quite competitive at high scores on the games they contained.
“Meet up with my order. After that, well it depends on what you want to do, knower,” Mellok said. “We’ll follow your lead.”
“And If my lead, well uh, leads us back to Earth?”
“Then that’s where we’ll go.”
Michael slid the tablet down between the seat gel and his leg. “Super. Awesome. I get to go home then?”
“If you want. Can’t say the Council would be pleased to see you though. They might have some opinions on your existence. Some very negative ones, if you understand what I am saying.” Mellok was sat in a pile of cushions he had found somewhere within the ship, building a nest of a sort.
“More marines shooting at me? Sounds fun. Like old times. I wonder how those marines would have reacted if they knew what the council was really about. I have to hope people would stand against them.”
“Many races have tried. Many races have failed.”
Michael sat up, the chair tilting forward with him. “Have any succeeded?”
“The Substrate, The Unmind Index, The Ghoul Lords. All of them are as bad, maybe even worse.” Mellok adjusted himself in his nest, his feathers ruffling as he did.
“Yeah, none of those sound fun.”
There was a series of loud chimes, like the preannouncement tones in a supermarket. A cloud of nanobots coalesced into Clive.
“Meggok says that lunch is ready in the galley. There are carts outside to take you down. Aileena and Brekt will join shortly. They are currently examining connections to one of the energy projectors on the outer hull.”
Michael stood up out of his chair. “How long are they going to be?”
“Ten minutes if they take the carts I have provided.”
Michael nodded. “It’s kind of handy actually, to know where everyone is. I can imagine some jobs being really creepy with internal sensors like this.”
Clive shook his glowing head. “There are no internal sensors. All this information is detected by the nanobots. Ninety-seven per cent of the ships internal space contains them.”
“Uh, right,” Michael said. “Does that mean we’re like, breathing in the bots?”
“Oh, more than that, they’re in your blood by now. The easiest way to track you really.”
“That is a horrible image,” Mellok said, vocalising Michael’s thoughts for him. “I’m not entirely sure I want to eat now.”
“You wanted to eat more mushrooms anyway? Not sick of them yet?” Michael said.
“A fair statement. When we get to Cortica, I’ll treat you to some of our cuisines. Some delicious paradek beetles, or arcturian worms. Oh, or a snellek, it’s a kind of large maggot.”
“You know,” Michael said. “On second thought, mouthfuls of mushroom and invisible robots sounds fine.”
Greddog’s fleet floated slowly, their position concealed by a dwarf planet at the far end of the system. There were two hundred ships total, including the imposing Substrate dreadnought. It dwarfed even Greddog’s personal battleship, a single fearsome weapon surrounded by a cloud of flies.
He was growing impatient. His prey had not arrived yet, and it had been nearly three days. The wait was excruciating. Greddog had considered that perhaps they had missed them, that their ship had arrived and already departed. He had cast that thought aside. The scans the messengers had brought him showed that his quarry had upgraded their ship significantly. A prize like they had acquired was distinctive. Reports of it would still be bouncing around the systems datanet.