Jupiter's Glory Book 3: The Obsidian Slavers Read online

  JUPITER’S GLORY

  BOOK 3:

  THE OBSIDIAN SLAVERS

  Adam Carter

  Copyright 2018, © Adam Carter. All rights reserved. No content may be reproduced without permission of the author.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Testing, testing, one, two, three. Testing, testing, can you hear me?”

  “Of course I can hear you: I’m sitting right next to you.”

  Wraith sighed. It was not even a small sigh but the sigh of a man who very much wanted his companion to know he was sighing. “Did you happen to hear the word testing? I said it four times so one of them should have sunk in.”

  “Sorry, should I have pretended I couldn’t hear or something?”

  “I wasn’t even speaking to you.”

  Hawthorn gazed out across the stars. If Wraith hadn’t been talking to him, there was a chance he had lost his mind.

  The two men were sitting in the somewhat cramped confines of a shuttle. The vehicle consisted of two seats – both presently occupied – a small space behind them which could be used to store maybe a couple of boxes a push, with a tiny room to the rear which contained a single toilet. There was always a toilet on these things, although no one ever seemed to mention them. By trade Hawthorn was an engineer, so in his time he had put together one or two speeches about shuttlecraft and never once had anyone said more than one word about the toilet.

  Staring out the forward window into the great blackness of space, his gaze travelled across the billions of tiny pinpricks, flecks of paint upon a canvas, and he wondered how he had managed to get stuck in a shuttle with Wraith.

  “I was the only logical choice,” Wraith said, apparently becoming psychic all of a sudden. “I wasn’t about to let you come out here with Iris – it’s not that kind of mission – and Iris wasn’t going to let you out here with Cassiel. Good luck getting Beth out of her workshop, so that left me.”

  “And Harman.”

  Wraith frowned. “I’d forgotten he was still hanging around. Why is he still hanging around?”

  “I’d rather talk about Beth,” Hawthorn said. “It would have done her good to get out here.”

  “You ever get her to do anything and I’ll scrounge up a medal for you from somewhere.”

  It was sad to think that Hawthorn would never receive that medal. Fixing up this shuttle had become an obsession for Beth, and with its completion Hawthorn had hoped to be able to bring her back into the real world with the rest of them. But instead she had simply moved onto the next project, leaving Hawthorn and Wraith to test drive the fruits of her labour. So far things were working out fine. The two men had taken the shuttle on an elliptical course which would bring them back to the others in just a couple of hours. The fuel lines, the sensors, the bulkheads – everything had tested one hundred per cent. The radio could have done with some work, but only because Wraith didn’t have anyone to talk to.

  Hawthorn and Wraith could not have been more different. A thin, wiry man in his forties, Wraith had spent a long time with only himself for company. Hawthorn could attest that only having Wraith for company could drive a man mad, and sometimes he was not convinced this was not precisely what happened to Wraith. Hawthorn himself was in his thirties. Being an engineer had hardened his physique, although his muscular frame was not something he had attained on purpose, or anything he gave much thought to.

  “Testing, testing, can you hear me?”

  Hawthorn leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It was going to be a long journey. In fact, if he was going to be spending any great amount of time in the shuttle, he should get Beth to make the seats more comfortable. Logic and precision may have been her strong points, but luxury was simple something she did not understand.

  “Yes, yes I can.”

  Hawthorn opened his eyes. He was reasonably certain he had not himself said that, although there was a good chance Wraith had taken to answering himself, even if the voice had been that of a young woman.

  “You can?” Wraith asked through the radio.

  “Yes, yes.”

  Wraith nodded to hawthorn. “Radio works.”

  Hawthorn took it off him. It was a small box-like contraption attached to the main console by means of a spiralled wire. “This is …” He covered the radio in panic. “Wraith, we don’t have a name.”

  Smiling, Wraith took the radio from him and said, “Hello. This is Bunnyhop Express. Could you please identify yourself?”

  “Bunny …” Hawthorn stared, dumbfounded. “We are not calling this the Bunnyhop Express.”

  “Too late, I just did.”

  “Bunnyhop Express,” the voice came back, “this is Carla Rayne of the Obsidian. Boy, are we glad to see you.”

  “Only because you don’t know me too well.”

  “Give me that,” Hawthorn said, seizing it back. Wraith put up a bit of a fight and the radio went back and forth several times before Hawthorn’s strength won out. He could only imagine what the woman on the other end was thinking about them. “Sorry about that, Obsidian,” he said. “Twice a child, and all that. Are you in any form of distress?”

  “Affirmative, Bunnyhop. We experienced an emergency shutdown of three of our engines and were forced to a halt.”

  “Three?” Hawthorn asked, all levity fleeing him by this point. “One, I can understand. They’re like light bulbs, they blow occasionally. Two can happen if you’re trying to channel too much power into them, like if you wake up in the pilot’s seat and realise you’re plunging into the sun or something. I’ve never heard of three going out at once.”

  “Unfortunately we missed our last rendezvous for our check-up and pushed ahead anyway. Cargo to deliver and all that. Besides, as you say, three engines going into emergency shutdown is unheard of so we figured we were safe.”

  “All right, this could be serious. How many engines do you have exactly?”

  “Five. On the north side.”

  Hawthorn and Wraith exchanged glances. “The north side?” Hawthorn asked.

  “We have fourteen engines in total, Bunnyhop.”

  “Fourteen? But that would make you as big as a …” He stopped talking, for he could see the Obsidian now. Space is like a three-hundred-and-sixty degree ocean where most of the boats and fish are painted the exact same colour as the water and resonate with the exact same wave pattern. As such Hawthorn had known it was not unheard of to simply float by a large vessel without seeing it. The Obsidian was just such a craft, and as he turned their small shuttle to face it even he, with his engineer’s training, had trouble making it all out.

  The Obsidian was larger than some moons Hawthorn could name and could easily be home to upwards of a hundred crew. It had a massive aft section in which its cargo would be stored, and to Hawthorn’s mind it resembled a spider, with its small head filled with activity, while its massive bloated body was where it stored … where it stored whatever it was a spider had inside its body. There were no legs on the Obsidian, so Hawthorn’s spider analogy was falling apart, but at least he had not spoken it aloud.

  The metal bulkheads had been painted jet black, and without any engines currently active it was only by the sheer amount of stars blocked out that there was an initial indication there was anything out there at all.

  Painting spacecraft black was always a matter for debate. On the one hand it helped the crew hide from pirates, but on the other it did not draw aid when needed. If the Obsidian’s radio had been dead, or if Hawthorn’s had, things would have ended very differently indeed for them.

  “Bunnyhop?” the woman’s voice came back, a little fear to her tone now. “Are you still with me?”
r />   Hawthorn nodded. It took him a few moments to realise that response did not do her much good. “Just show us where to dock and I’ll fix your engines for you.”

  The young woman guided him in – Wraith had a joke about that, but Hawthorn didn’t understand it so he gave up. Space seemed to yawn wide as activity appeared amongst its stark blackness. Hawthorn had landed spacecraft inside black vessels before and it always made him feel nauseous, especially knowing that once he was inside, the doors would close and for all intents and purposes it would look as though space had swallowed him whole.

  He shared those thoughts with Wraith, who replied that his joke had been the better analogy of the two.

  The shuttle came to a gentle stop and Hawthorn shut down all the systems. It was a true beauty of a craft and he looked forward to telling Beth she had outdone herself. Through the window he could see a relatively small hangar, with no other craft in sight. There were a few people hanging around, probably thinking they had to guide Hawthorn in or something, or to make sure he didn’t steal anything.

  “Right,” Hawthorn said, unstrapping himself from the pilot’s chair, “let’s go pay these guys a visit.”

  “Gordon,” Wraith said in a strange moment of seriousness, “just remember to be careful out there, yeah?”

  “Careful? Why wouldn’t I be careful? We’re on the run from some seriously bad people, Wraith. What, you think I’m just going to go announce my name and stand around for a photoshoot?”

  “I’m just saying we don’t want to stay around here longer than we have to.”

  “Which is coincidentally also what I just said.”

  “Then we agree.”

  Hawthorn waited for more, but whatever concerns Wraith had he wasn’t sharing them. Heading over to the door, Hawthorn took a firm grip on the heavy circular handle and twisted. It was like the door to a submarine, which was fine with him considering the door was the only thing keeping the vacuum at bay and he didn’t want the thing opening by accident. Stepping down, he was just debating upon which crewmember to approach when a door opened and two people hurried through.

  The first was a young woman dressed in light blue attire which reminded Hawthorn of some flight school uniforms he had seen. She wore her blonde hair in a ponytail – which would have been against regulation if she knew anything about flight school – but it was her frown which drew Hawthorn’s attention the most. It ruined an otherwise happy disposition, for Hawthorn had learned long ago to read people at a glance. The man she was with was probably more towards his fifties but also wore the same light blue attire. His grey hair was streaked here and there with a muddy brown, and his expression strangely enough matched that of the young woman. It seemed they were both deathly afraid of what their engines had done and insanely hopeful Hawthorn would be able to fix them.

  “Hi,” Hawthorn said, starting towards them. “Someone call a repairman?”

  “Thank heavens you were in the area,” the man said, grabbing his hand and pumping so hard he almost yanked the arm from its socket. “We’re pretty much dead in the water here.”

  “You don’t have any shuttles yourself?”

  “Unfortunately not. Besides, the nearest habitable moon is about a week away, so even if we could get someone over there and find an engineer immediately on landing it would mean at least two weeks before we could get back up and running.”

  “And your cargo would spoil?” Hawthorn guessed, remembering the massive rear compartment.

  “Indeed, indeed. You know how contracts work. If we break schedule we’ll have to lower the price, and we potentially lose the contract for next time. Or maybe you don’t know, sorry: I’m assuming a lot.”

  Hawthorn tried not to smile, for he had taken an instant liking to the man. “I know one or two things about contracts. It just so happens that I’m a mechanic by trade, so I know one or two things about engines, too.”

  The young woman veritably yelped with glee at this, although even biting her lower lip to stop herself did nothing to deaden the shine to her eyes.

  “I am such a bad host,” the man said, taking a step back. “Captain Steve Gardener. This is Carla Rayne, she practically runs this ship, you know.”

  “Heathcliff,” Hawthorn said, picking the first name that came to mind. “And this is … Garfield.”

  Wraith stared hard at him, his expression telling Hawthorn he thought he was an idiot.

  “Military call-signs?” Captain Gardener asked.

  “Yeah,” Hawthorn said, thankful for the save. “Uh, the rest of our unit’s back at base. Jerry, Sylvester and Felix. I sometimes think we have the whole litter.”

  Silence descended upon the hangar.

  Wraith was the one to break it. “Our immediate superior is called Tigger,” he said, deadpan. “Then there’s Sergeant Top Cat. Above him is Admiral Hello Kitty and who can forget the immortal Baron Humbert von Gikkingen?”

  “Captain,” Miss Rayne whispered, “I get the feeling they don’t want us to know their names. They might be on the run or something.”

  “If they can fix our engines they can be whatever they want to be.”

  Hawthorn wished he and Wraith had discussed a simple thing like fake names before stepping on board the Obsidian, but this life of subterfuge was relatively new to them. It had not been too long ago that Hawthorn had a proper job, keeping his head down and staying away from people as much as he could while he worked. There were a lot of things he was going to have to get used to, but a slip-up like this in other circumstances could get them all killed.

  “Engines?” Hawthorn asked.

  “Carla will show you the way,” Captain Gardener said. “In the meantime, could I offer the two of you some refreshments?”

  “Refreshments,” Wraith laughed. “Why do people call it that? A stiff drink, sir, would do me fine.”

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” Hawthorn said. “I just need to get to work.”

  Rayne led him to the first engine. It was in a large room several corridors away from the hangar. Metal walkways moved over the engine, beneath and around it, yet the room had been designed to be just large enough to fit the thing without much room for anything else. Hawthorn had seen them before and the design made sense. On these large ships, the engines had to be equally big, else there would have to be scores of the things. The engine itself was contained in an oval metal casing and could be worked on through various ports accessible via the metal walkways.

  There was an odd smell to the air and Hawthorn immediately knew what was wrong.

  “Your water intake failed,” he said. “Water spray is automatic, but your spray failed. Basically your engine overheated and shut itself down for safety’s sake. If the other two engines have the same problem, I’ll have you up and running in no time since nothing’s actually broken aside from the water valve.”

  “You can know all that without even doing anything?” Rayne asked, shocked.

  Hawthorn tapped his nose. “A good mechanic trusts his nose.”

  “How long?” Wraith asked.

  Hawthorn jumped. He had not even realised the man was there. “I thought you were going off to get a drink?”

  “Gardener’s fetching it for me. I wanted to stay with you.”

  Hawthorn found that peculiar, but again got the impression there was something Wraith was not saying. “Ten minutes,” he said. “I just need to adjust the gauge and check the valve.”

  “You need a hand?” Rayne asked.

  “I should be good.”

  “Only, if I knew how to fix this I could do it myself next time. I like to make myself useful.”

  “I thought you practically ran the ship?”

  She turned away, her face turning slightly red. “Captain likes to say that to people. I just run the command deck.”

  “The whole command deck?”

  “No, no, not the whole command deck. The piloting, the sensors, external comms, internal comms, the …”

  “Sounds like th
e whole command deck.”

  Rayne shrugged. “I’d still like to learn about the engines.”

  “Well, let’s start with the most fascinating thing about them,” Hawthorn said. “Your problem with them is that they’re overheating, but what if they developed a dangerous problem?”

  “Like they were going to explode?”

  “Precisely. What would you do?”

  “Send out a distress call and hope you were in the area.”

  Hawthorn laughed. “Or you could just eject the engine.”

  “Eject it?”

  “Just a few buttons will launch this whole engine into space and hurl it far from the ship. The Obsidian is designed to continue operating if it lost a single engine. It’s an amazing part of the design structure.”

  “Wow,” Rayne said, looking over the massive thing. “I never thought coming down to an engine room could be so exciting. I usually leave these places feeling dirty, but if you have to eject our engine do you think I could watch?”

  “Those ten minutes it’s going to take to fix this thing?” Wraith asked. “Does that account for five minutes spent flirting?”

  Rayne’s face reddened further and Hawthorn glowered at Wraith before loudly storming off, his feet slamming onto the metal steps even more harshly than necessary. He and Wraith had not known one another for very long, and it seemed Wraith did not yet understand that Hawthorn did not flirt with women. In fact, he had spent most of his life avoiding them if he could. What Hawthorn valued was professionalism, and Carla Rayne exuded that in spades. It was respect, not attraction, but that was something Wraith could likely never understand.

  It did not take ten minutes to fix the problem. Hawthorn managed to find the fault on the first panel he opened, at the base of the engine. It was the likeliest place for the failure to have occurred, since this was where the water should have been pumped in. Lying on his back while he rebooted the water systems, Hawthorn was aware that Rayne had followed him down and was crouching while she watched him work. He remembered then he was supposed to be talking her through the procedure.