by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
The Zakonraptor stood in the hallway, staring inquisitively at Risqua and Lt. Diaz. If the Xolo-Lupinian had to guess, it was wondering about the wisdom of Risqua holstering her weapon, leaving herself vulnerable.
Apparently, the Zakonraptor was smarter than Risqua. Lt. Diaz would have to pay attention to that.
“You’ve come to an understanding with the mammal?” the Zakonraptor hissed in its own tongue, translated almost immediately by Lt. Diaz’s comm-pin.
“Yes,” Risqua squawked. “She sees the value of our arrangement here, and she’ll prove very valuable to us. She’s much more knowledgeable about this ship’s systems and technology than I am. She trained with the Tri-Galactic Union which built the vessel.”
The Zakonraptor nodded slowly, still eying Diaz skeptically. But now the skepticism held an air of appraisal — suddenly Diaz wasn’t just potentially dangerous; she was also potentially valuable. A double-edged sword.
Lt. Diaz planned to be the sword who took all these Zakonraptors and Risqua the traitor down.
“You know who’s even more of an expert on these technologies?” Lt. Diaz woofed, gambling that maybe she could improve her situation here by securing a place for an ally. She didn’t know what Risqua and the Zakonraptors had planned for Lt. Lee and Lys, but it couldn’t be good. If she had to bet, she’d bet on them teleporting the pair down to the planet… But that was only because she didn’t like how it would make her feel about herself to bet that the Zakonraptors would outright murder the Papillon and caterpillar. “That little dog who was sleeping in the barracks. He’s a technical genius, and he trained on this specific vessel for months before I ever laid eyes on it. His Tri-Galactic Union academy training is years more up-to-date than mine.” Lt. Diaz didn’t actually know if that was true, but she was already lying to the Zakonraptors about being on their side. A couple more lies couldn’t hurt.
Lt. Diaz expected to be buried under a mountain of lies before she’d be able to fashion the valuable ore she could mine out of them into an escape route.
The scaly wrinkles around Risqua’s beak shifted, turning her expression into a frown. “I don’t think that little captain’s dog will be interested in joining us,” she whistled skeptically.
Lt. Diaz shrugged as casually as she could manage, as if she really didn’t care at all whether the Papillon lived or died. “Maybe not, but he’s a genius, and have you seen how depressed he’s been? Give him something worth living for, and he might be your dog in a second. Bought and paid for.”
Risqua’s eyes narrowed, but the Zakonraptor looked intrigued. Lt. Diaz didn’t think Risqua was any savvier to the fact that she was trying to play them than the Zakonraptor was. Most likely, the reptile-bird simply didn’t want to share whatever spoils she’d been promised three ways instead of two. In fact, Lt. Diaz was surprised that Risqua wanted to include her in this deal. Maybe Risqua really thought they were still friends? Or perhaps more likely, Risqua knew she’d get a better deal from the Zakonraptors if the ship came with instructions and lessons on how to use all its systems. Information that the reptile-bird didn’t have, because she’d never been very good with physics, higher math, or engineering.
Lt. Diaz’s gambit shouldn’t work. If Risqua knew Lt. Lee at all, she’d know that he’d never turn on his principles. He was union through and through. Lt. Diaz knew that about him.
But then Risqua hadn’t realized that Lt. Diaz would never give up on getting back to her homeworld. So, the reptile-bird wasn’t very good at knowing people. Or at least, she hadn’t bothered with really getting to know anyone aboard the Wanderlust.
“Sounds reasonable to me,” the Zakonraptor snapped. “We’ll put off spacing the other mammal for now.”
Lt. Diaz’s heart clenched at those words. The Zakonraptors really had been planning on killing Lt. Lee. Had Risqua killed any of the rest of the crew before coming up here? Surely, Lt. Diaz would have heard from the others if something like that had happened… Someone would have contacted her by comm-pin by now.
Unless the Zakonraptors had already killed them all.
Lt. Diaz’s breath caught in her throat, and her brain worked overtime to figure out if there was any way she could safely ask about the rest of the crew without giving away where her sympathies truly lay.
She couldn’t figure out anything, and so her voice stayed caught in her throat. She wanted to howl to the moons, but she couldn’t even voice a simple question.
Maybe Lt. Diaz couldn’t ask about the others on the planet, but she could ask about Lys. She had a plan for that. “What about the caterpillar?” she woofed hoarsely. “Are you planning on spacing her? Because she seems to have some sort of innate racial ability to sense hyperspatial slipstreams–” An exaggeration, but given the circumstances, it would just add to the pile of lies she’d have to mine her way out of. “–and that could be incredibly valuable. You know, like, if we dissected her brain.”
Lt. Diaz shuddered at her own lie, but she couldn’t risk giving away her sympathies for the others. She needed to seem hard and uncaring. And besides, this lie could buy her time. Better for the Zakonraptors to lock Lys up and plan to dissect her brain later than to throw her out of an airlock right now.
“Oh, no, of course we wouldn’t throw away such a valuable creature,” the Zakonraptor hissed cruelly. “The Ollallan will be invaluable to the research we’ve been performing here.”
Well, that was a truly ominous response. Risqua seemed to have teamed up with some real villains here.
“Research?” Lt. Diaz woofed softly, unable to stop herself. Fortunately, she seemed to be so deeply hidden under her mountain of lies that neither Risqua nor the Zakonraptor seemed to suspect her of being a double-agent anymore. At least, not enough to be carefully searching her every word for signs of weakness.
That’s the thing about villains. They’re not usually the smartest. If they were smarter, they’d know to be better people, because being kind is almost always a better answer in this universe or any other one.
Fortunately, for an angry half-Lupinian with her blood boiling, sometimes kindness looks like taking the bastards down. If she could just work the strategy out right, she was going to have some very deserving targets to pour all of her anger and frustration into soon. Hopefully, very, very soon.
The innocent prey animals on the planet below had deserved all the kindness Lt. Diaz could grant them as she hunted them. There would be no call for such reserve with these monsters who wanted to space a good dog like Lt. Lee and perform research on an innocent caterpillar like Lys.
And Risqua? She was a traitor. A liar. Had she ever been a part of the Anti-Ra? Lt. Diaz had heard about Reptassan spies infiltrating the Anti-Ra. She’d never have suspected that one of them could have been among the small, tight-knit crew aboard the Last Chance, but she also could never have predicted that Risqua would lie about something as profoundly, deeply sacred as preserving Wilder’s memory by writing a Lupinian opera he’d told her about.
Had he even ever told her about an opera?
Lt. Diaz had been such a fool.
Of course there had never been an opera. Wilder would have told her about it. She’d simply been so desperate for a thread to hold onto that she’d swallowed Risqua’s lie hook, line, and sinker without even needing a glass of water to help it go down. No wonder Risqua was so ready to believe that Diaz had been in on the subterfuge. If she hadn’t been so blinded by missing Wilder, she would have seen right through the lie about the opera from the very beginning. It was such an obvious lie that it had never even been meant for her. It had been aimed at the others, and when she’d fallen for it, Risqua had thought she’d known better and assumed she was playing along, meaning they were working together to undermine the rest of the crew and sell out the Wanderlust.
Grief for an imaginary opera stabbed Lt. Diaz like an icicle to the heart. She’d so been looking forward to hearing it. And now — now that she never would — she realized she’d been relying on it. The opera was supposed to feel like seeing Wilder again, one last time. It was supposed to be how she said goodbye.
Now, she’d have to find a different way to say goodbye. Maybe by avenging herself on the reptile-bird who would use Wilder’s memory so callously, so calculatedly.
While Lt. Diaz was silently seething, Risqua and the Zakonraptor were discussing which systems aboard the Wanderlust would be most valuable to deconstruct and begin copying for Zakonraptor vessels first. The Zakonraptor was very excited about the zephyr drive which had apparently contributed to keeping the Wanderlust out of the Zakonraptor’s reach until now. It seemed that Zakonraptor vessels didn’t move as fast as a Tri-Galactic Union ship and would never have succeeded in catching them without Risqua’s help. The Zakonraptor was also very excited about the Wanderlust’s weapons. Thank goodness there was no longer a vacuum bomb aboard for them to pick apart and analyze. They did not need that technology. Ever. Though, Lt. Diaz supposed that if this ship stayed in their greedy talons, they would eventually figure out how to pull information like specs for a vacuum bomb from the computers.
With even more coldness grabbing onto her heart and squeezing it, Lt. Diaz realized that if she couldn’t manage to wrest control of the Wanderlust back from the Zakonraptors, her final act would have to be disabling or wiping the computer systems so that advanced weapons technology didn’t fall into these Zakonraptors’ claws. She didn’t want to be responsible for a violent society in a faraway galaxy beginning to amass a real armada before even encountering the Tri-Galactic Union.
Lt. Diaz wanted to get home. She didn’t want to sacrifice her life to protect the Milky Way against arming the Tetra Galaxy to the teeth. But if that was to be her legacy, so be it. That’s where she differed from Risqua. Lt. Diaz wouldn’t sell out her home.
“How can I help?” Lt. Diaz woofed, breaking into the conversation between Risqua and the Zakonraptor. She couldn’t stand here idly listen to them discuss their heinous plans anymore. She wanted to do something. And if she played along, maybe she could find a chance to do something useful. The first thing she needed to do was get Lt. Lee on her side. She might not respect his demeanor or behavior of late, but that dog was smart. Maybe he could figure out how to get them out of this situation.
Lt. Diaz would need to arrange a chance to be alone with him, without raising the Zakonraptors’ or Risqua’s suspicion.
Unsurprisingly, the Zakonraptors didn’t make that easy. Or, in fact, possible. They ran Lt. Diaz around the ship, pointing at things with their talons and making her explain them. All the while, the Xolo-Lupinian worried that she was missing her chance to get Lt. Lee on her side. He wouldn’t know to play along when the Zakonraptors tried to recruit him, and he’d ruin what vestiges of a plan she’d managed to put together on her own — namely, keeping him around as an ally.
When Lt. Lee finally did emerge from the barracks with a Zakonraptor at his side, the Papillon didn’t seem to be bound in any sort of handcuffs or have a weapon aimed at him. Lt. Diaz was immediately confused. Was he playing along with the Zakonraptors of his own volition? He really was a smart dog then. He hadn’t needed her to explain the plan at all. He’d simply taken the rope she’d thrown him — by suggesting he might be susceptible to flipping sides — and climbed out of the hole with the Zakonraptors that Risqua had tried to put him in.
The Wanderlust was a small ship and even smaller still when dealing only with the regions of the vessel that would interest plundering dino-aliens. So, Lt. Diaz found herself frequently near Lt. Lee as they both instructed the Zakonraptors in how to use different aspects of the engine room and then bridge.
The Xolo-Lupinian felt horrible about all the technological secrets she was revealing to these conquerors, but she couldn’t risk telling them lies. Not with Risqua checking in on her. And of course, that had to be why Lt. Lee was telling the Zakonraptors the truth about the various processes and controls on the ship as well. He was playing along. But… And this was just eating away at her inside… There was no way for him to know that she was only playing along too.
Lt. Diaz kept glancing at Lt. Lee, hoping to catch the Papillon’s eye, hoping she could communicate her secret insurrection to him with some kind of defiant sparkle in her own eye… probably a ridiculous hope. But she couldn’t even try, because the Papillon never looked at her. At first, it seemed like coincidence or bad luck, but after a while, Lt. Diaz was sure: Lt. Lee was avoiding looking at her.
He couldn’t look at her.
He couldn’t stand to look at a traitor.
But she wasn’t a traitor.
And she couldn’t work with him to fix this situation and get them both home if he wouldn’t even look at her.
Lt. Diaz had thought she’d been lonely for the last six months since Wilder died, her captain betrayed his memory by joining up with the Tri-Galactic Union enemies who’d killed Wilder, and she’d been stranded on the far side of the universe from her home. But what she’d felt during those months was nothing compared to the intense, sharp, agonizing loneliness of pretending to still be friends with Risqua while desperately hoping for Lt. Lee to simply glance in her direction even once, just once.
But why would he look at her? When in the last six months had she ever given him the slightest reason to believe she wouldn’t betray this crew? She hadn’t opened up to him, so he didn’t know that beneath the crusty, angry, sulking exterior was a heart filled with loyalty — maybe not to Captain Carroway or to the Tri-Galactic Union but to the cause everyone aboard the Wanderlust shared. (Except, apparently, Risqua.)
Lt. Lee didn’t know Lt. Diaz, and that was her own fault.
“Excellent!” the lead Zakonraptor finally declared. “It is very convenient that you came to us here. I was worried at first when The Risqua–”
“It’s just Risqua,” the reptile-bird muttered, but the Zakonraptor paid her no mind.
“–told us you were coming to this star-system. I had heard of the damage your ship had wrought during the Battle of the Wandering World, and we have only a small defense force here to protect the research station. But the three of you have been so cooperative! Now it seems most fortuitous that you flew straight to our research station where we can deconstruct your vessel most efficiently and begin using your useful technologies right away for our research. And for you to bring us an Ollallan! Most remarkable luck.”
The Zakonraptor’s brightly colored feather plumes fanned out in the same way as Risqua’s did when she was happy and preening. She looked so much like the Zakonraptors, except for her beak and smaller stature. No wonder she liked the idea of staying here with them. Back in the Milky Way, she would always be torn between her Reptassan and Avioran halves since those two societies had been at war for years and had only recently reached a very unhappy, unstable, fraught sort of ceasefire.
Lupinia had very nearly been a casualty of Reptassan conquest. It had to be hard bearing the mark of her Reptassan heritage around people who’d been harmed and oppressed by them. And given the nature of Reptassan society, Risqua’s feathers and beak would have always marked her as lesser among them. Not fully Reptassan, but inescapably linked to them. Maybe among the Zakonraptors, Risqua would finally find a place to belong. But Lt. Diaz didn’t think so. The reptile-bird would always be an outsider here too.
Maybe it was wrong to take a savage pleasure in the idea of Risqua never belonging anywhere ever again. But the thought did make Lt. Diaz feel a little better. Even if she failed to exact the kind of revenge she wanted — a revenge that involved claws and teeth digging into her former friend’s scaly ass — the reptile-bird would never, ever be happy.
Or maybe that was just a lie Lt. Diaz was telling herself to make this moment pass by a little more easily. The lies were coming so easily now that she was buried beneath them. Soon enough, they’d be all that was left. Lies, lies, and lies.
“Now for the real work to begin!” the Zakonraptor leader declared brightly. Gesturing toward one of the other Zakonraptors who had taken Ensign Melbourne’s usual post on the bridge, the leader ordered, “Pilot our new vessel into the Holding Bay.”
The Wanderlust’s engine thrummed to life, and the vessel turned sharply, bringing the dark, craggy, asteroid-like moon that Lt. Diaz remembered seeing from the surface of the planet below into view. To her surprise, the Zakonraptor pilot aimed straight for it, and as they approached, wide sliding doors in the side of the moon yawned open. The Zakonraptors had carved their hidden research station into the hollow center of an asteroid and placed it in orbit of the planet below. The thick, metal-rich composition of the asteroid’s outer layer must have hidden any signs of the research station from the Wanderlust when they’d entered and scanned the system.
Except, of course, for the flickering hyperspatial slipstream. Somehow, it must have come from here.
Continue on to Chapter 8…