Ivona let out a chuckle, her spoon raised halfway to her mouth after being fished out of the slop. “I’m sorry, Knower? Like, the Knower of Truths? You reckon you’re some kurgshit messiah?”
“I can assure you, colonel, that Michael is certainly the fabled Knower. I spent considerable years of my life searching the stars for relics and scripture to find him.” It was still hard for Michael to imagine Mellok plunging through lost tombs or seeking out hidden sects, travelling across the galaxy in his search. Michael had only been in space a few months and had bounced from one dangerous situation to the next, and he considered it a miracle Mellok had survived.
Ivona turned to face Michael directly. “Well, I’m sorry your gloriousness. Please excuse me if I don’t fawn myself at your feet.” She shoved the spoon into her mouth almost angrily. “How do you know he’s really the Knower. Couldn’t he be the Teller of Lies?”
“The what now?”
“Teller of Lies,” Aileena said. “Some sects maintain that there is a counterpart to the Knower who will bring discord and ruin. An anti-messiah kind of.”
“Right. That makes sense. I can see why Mellok hasn’t mentioned it. Throws his whole theory out the window. I don’t want to be the Knower, but I can’t say I fancy being the antichrist either.”
“The what?”
“Oh,” Michael said. “It’s a human religion thing. Same kind of anti-messiah idea.”
“Look,” Ivona said, chewing the slime noisily as she spoke. “I don’t care who you claim to be. I just need to use your ship to get off-world. You need to get off-world. Seems like a win-win to me. Aside from the possibly getting blown to bits thing, of course.”
“Well of course. That minor detail.” Michael rolled his eyes. “Look, we would love to help. We really would. I like to think we’re just that kind of people. Seems like everywhere we go we’re helping someone.”
“Even if they aren’t super appreciative at the time,” Aileena added.
“Right,” Michael said, nodding in agreement. “Look, a lot of people are relying on us. Throwing away the Seeker just isn’t an option.”
“What if we can get you what you needed?” Ivona said. “You came here for supplies, right? Shops aren’t exactly open at the moment. What if I told you I know where we can get all the supplies you need?”
“An in exchange you want a lift off-world,” Aileena said.
“Right on the money.”
Michael looked around the makeshift camp. There were children amongst the armed fighters, uncovered wounds, torn clothing. It looked like every war movie he had ever seen but all the worse for being real. There was no decision in his eyes,
“It’s a deal.” He turned towards Aileena. “We can’t leave these people like this,” Michael said pre-emptively.
“We were never going to. I might be a mercenary, but you know I’m not heartless.”
“I never said you were.”
“It was the insinuation.”
“Lovers quarrel over?” Ivona said. “All done? Good. Let me lay it out for you then.”
The Seeker hovered over the warehouse below, the light from its engines casting a blue glow across the roof of the structure. They had waited until the dead of night, Brekt landing the ship in the streets directly above the resistance base, the people inside clambering up the ladder and then onto the Seeker. Ivona had insisted her people be loaded onto the ship before they headed to the warehouse she had identified, though she had helped grease the wheels by offering the resistance fighters assistance gathering the supplies needed.
Light danced across the warehouse, cast from beneath the nose of the Seeker as it looked for a clear space to land. The warehouse was massive, and around it was a swath of asphalt, a field of grey surrounding the structure. The people inside were aware that the light would be a beacon in the dark, easily spotted by any enemies, but they had little choice. Crashing through the roof of the warehouse was unlikely to help their quest for supplies.
The Seeker descended, its landing struts hitting the ground with a crunch. There was no time for delicate landings. Ivona had been clear that whilst the collectors tended to stick to populated areas, that didn’t stop them from wandering on occasion. The ramp before the airlock extended outwards, and the door opened with a hiss.
“Right let’s go people. In and out quickly. You’ve got your lists, stick to them and get them back here as soon as.” Ivona was stood by the airlock, the resistance members running past her. Through the doorway, the warehouse was visible, a gaudy neon sign over the huge double doors.
“You know, my interactions with Council guys has been limited, but I’ve not seen many actually care about civilians,” Michael said. He had his own list tucked under his arm, written out by Mellok in English.
“I’m not stupid. I know how the Council can be. But, you know, if you want to protect people, what other choice do you have? I know I didn’t. Always wanted to watch over my friends, my family. Joining the Council military was the only route I had into that.” Ivona shrugged. “You’ve got to work with what you’ve got.”
“What is this place, how did you learn about it?”
“The warehouse? It’s for a big superstore in the city. Dealers loved to use it as a meet-up spot to sell their junk. Been out here a few times to break them up.”
Her words shocked Michael a little. He was used to seeing the odd drug dealer in London, lurking on a street corner or in a doorway. It was part of everyday life in the city. He realised that for some reason he had considered the Council above that, imagining gleaming spires and high-tech living. The Purnaxian city he had seen so far could have been mistaken for London on a foggy day. It felt comforting in a way. After all the crazy alien worlds and strange technology something more normal was soothing. Or it would be, were it not for the killer robots marauding through the streets.
“Right, well, I better get started,” Michael said, holding up his list. “Got a lot to collect.”
Mellok hadn’t thought it all the way through. It had made sense at the time, to use his psychic translation abilities to scrawl Michael’s list. No one had thought to consider that Mellok’s link to Michael’s mind only worked on the verbal.
Michael was stood before a row of boxes, trying to puzzle out exactly what was within. The top item on the list asked for ‘non-perishable tinned fruit’, and Michael had found tins. He wasn’t exactly sure if they were fruit though. The only hint to what was within was a large cartoon mascot on the label, a vaguely oblong purple blob with a tentacle and a winking set of eyes.
“Guess this will have to do,” he whispered to himself. Michael lifted one of the boxes, grunting under the weight as he did, and dropped it onto one of the flatbed hovering trolleys that were littered around the warehouse. It bobbed slightly under the weight. “Ok, what’s next?”
There was a rumble in reply, dust falling from the rafters of the warehouse. It was followed by shouting, then the sound of weapons fire. Loud cracks of violent energy. The source of the commotion became clear as a collector crashed its way through the warehouse, toppling the isles as it went. Energy blasts sizzled against its dark metal as it’s glowing eye searched. It turned, firing off a series of red pulses, exploding boxes and crates. The eye swung around as it spotted Michael, scrambling over the fallen shelves towards him.
Michael snapped at his pistol, firing a shot off. It landed clean, a first for him, digging into the thick wire covered body of the machine. The cabling looked like sinew, giving the collector an oddly organic look. It didn’t seem phased by the shot.
“Target identified,” the collector said. It had a voice like two cheese graters being rubbed together. A wave of red light washed over Michael, projected from the machine’s eye. “Target not catalogued. Preparing for collection. Error. Genetic profile impossible. Error.”