Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Space port

Galileo IV

The ship blinked into existence a few thousand kilometers from the planet. Jeremiah settled in to a low orbit around Galileo IV with relative ease. The deorbit burn began gently lowering them in to the atmosphere. Jeremiah began popping the forward thrusters to aid in the natural air braking of the atmosphere, guiding it in to an appropriate approach arc, slowing to an optimal 120 meters per second. He swiped a button and the blast shields began closing over the cockpit windows. Outside, a cocoon of plasma over 2000 degrees Celsius was consuming the ship.

At about 10.5 kilometers above the surface they had managed to slow from 28000 km to about 800km At that point, Jeremiah fired the the afterburners. The forced hurled them through the atmosphere, leveling out the ship, causing nearly 10 Gs. He wondered how Alec was handling it. He had never been planet side before, and had never experienced the forces of a reentry. The noise of the wind began growing as they rushed through the air. The smoothness of space flight slowly gave way to the turbulence of atmosphere and weather.

It could have been much worse, but Jeremiah didn’t feel the need to mention that.

“We’ll be at the port in about thirty minutes!” he shouted over the coms.

Unlike landing on Sedna, the port at Galileo IV had no wait. In fact, there was no interaction with traffic control at all. Jeremiah landed the ship quietly near the center of the port, not a soul in site. He shut down the engines and headed towards the back to Alec and Ariella.

Jeremiah stepped through the hatchway to the cargo hold. Alec was already there with a hover palette jack and a backpack.

“You need to get some parts right?”

“Yep. According to the database there should be a shop near the city center. Shouldn’t take me too long.” Alec said.

“Great, take care of it. I’m going to track down this contact of Thomas’.”

“How are we going to do that?” Ariella chimed.

Jeremiah gave her a confused look. “We. Are not going to do anything. I. Am going to find him. You are staying here.”

“Like hell I am,” she fought back.

“If you think for one second I am going to let a 500 million credit payload that could probably kill me, off this ship and wander around this place you are out of your mind. No. You are staying right here.”

“Oh come on! I thought we were working on that whole trust thing.”

“IREN, lock down the ship once Alec and I are off. She doesn’t leave”

“Yes, Captain.”

The air was thick and sticky, the sun just beginning to set. Even still drops of sweat began forming on his brow.

“Alright, we’ll meet back here at zero four hundred. IS that enough time?” he asked Alec.

“Should be plenty. Are you really just going to leave her on the ship?”

“What do you expect me to do, Alec? We need to know who this woman is before we drop our guard. She’s probably been plotting to kill us and take the ship since we first thawed her out.”

Alec just shook his head and headed toward the shops.

He pulled out his terminal and checked the coordinates Thomas has sent. He set the auto nav and began following the terminals route. As he worked his way through the twists and turns of the city, he began to notice the organic influences of the planets overly tropical environment. Buildings were a combination of local wood laid on top of and interwoven into repurposed ship parts and old habitat modules from centuries before when the terraforming had begun. It was almost as if the city itself were birthed from the jungle surrounding it. Finally his terminal began to chirp. He was here. At least, it said he was. He looked around just to make sure he wasn’t missing something. Before him stood a run down shack of an inn shoved in to the base of a massive tree. It’s metal facade was rusted and overgrown with vegetation. Two of the five windows were boarded up and the remains seemed to be hanging in their frames by splinters.

He stepped inside, surprised to find the interior was actually quite cozy looking. The fading sunlight spilled in through the windows and colored the walls and floor with vibrant hues of orange, reds, and deep indigoes. A set of chairs circled a small table to his right. To his left, a reception desk with a man sitting behind it, fully immersed in a show playing on a small screen up in the corner. Jeremiah wondered if it was meant to be a security camera.

“Excuse me,” Jeremiah said

“What do you want?” the man said with out taking his eyes off the screen.

“I’m looking for someone. Someone named Philip.”

The man just pointed a gnarled over Jeremiah’s shoulder.

He spun to find a curved staircase leading up to another section of the hotel.

He climbed upward and entered a large expanse full of beautifully carved carved wooden decorations and plant life seamlessly woven in to the fabric of the rooms design. The bar, as he quickly realized it was, was filled with tables and booths, and patrons scattered amongst them. A server walked up to him.

“Welcome. Are you here to wait out the storm? Can I get you anything?”

“Storm?  Uh, no. I’m here looking for someone. Philip?”

The servers eyes lit with delight.

“Oh, Philip! Yes, he just over there at the bar.”

“Thanks,” he said, again concerned with the ease.

The bar was empty save a couple at the far end and the man presumably named Philip. Jeremiah walked up and sat down beside him.

“You’re Philip?” he asked.

“Usually. You Jeremiah?”

“Yeah, Thomas told me to track you down. I didn’t expect it to be so easy.”

“Ah, well, I’m a pretty popular guy here. So Thomas tells me you need some information. How is the guy, anyways?”

“Thomas? He’s doing well, last I saw. How do you two know each other?” Jeremiah asked.

“Oh, we grew up together. Not far from here actually. District 9, just beyond the market.” He pointed with his hand as if Jeremiah knew the city well enough to understand.

“Thomas was born here? I had no idea.”

“Yeah, Tommy doesn’t like to talk about his past much. Heh, where do you think he got all of his connections, eh? Anyways, you came here fro something.” Philip said, bringing focus back to Jeremiah’s visit.

“Yeah. Well, I seem to have picked up a rather troublesome payload. Turns out the mystery crate was a cryo tank. There was a woman inside. A woman with some serious combat training,” he said, touching is still bruised lip.

“I see. And you have the info Tommy asked you to bring?”

Jeremiah nodded and raised his terminal to send the serial number and image of Ariella over to Philips terminal.

“Good. Based on what Tommy already told me, I think I may have some solid leads already, but this will help solidify the results. Let me run some searches, I’ll be back in a minute.” Philip stood from the bar and took off towards a door leading somewhere deeper in to the restaurant.

The bartender came over to Jeremiah.

“Can I get you anything?” she said with a genuine smile.

“Yeah, what do you have that passes for beer around here?”

“Oh, honey. We brew all of our own stuff right here with natural ingredients. None of that chemically grown filth you get in the central systems.”

“Yeah, there is quite the vegetation growth around here.” Jeremiah said, nodding to the gestalt design of nature and manmade.

“Well, that’s really just a byproduct of the terraforming going haywire a few hundred years ago. But we’ve learned to adapt and use it to our advantage.” The bartender stepped away for a moment and returned with a fresh glass of natural drink.

“Mmm, this is good,” jeremiah said taking a sip. “So how exactly does terraforming go, haywire?”

“Well, back when terraforming was still popular, the Founders had federal support. The HomeWorld was pumping untold amounts of cash in to terraforming projects. But once the Wan Ren opened up their trade lanes and gave us the gate network, people could travel to any system with existing habitable planets in a matter of days or faster. So the budgets were pulled. We lost access to much needed funds and resupply. Hard to keep the machines running properly with out sufficient support.”

“I see. Well, it seems you guys have certainly made a home for yourselves.” Jeremiah nodded to the barkeep.

“That we have. This city here is the only major center of commerce. Small settlements pepper the other hemispheres, but the extreme weather patterns make it dangerous to live outside a walled center like this.”

“Right, Philip mentioned a storm is coming? It looked pretty clear when I landed a little bit ago.”

“They come in fast. You probably saw a small system to the south?”

Jeremiah nodded. The bartender turned to a small monitor behind the bar and flipped the channel to something showing a massive weather systems moving quickly.

“That’s what it looks like now. You’ll probably be grounded here for the night. They tend to go as quickly as they come. Especially in this area.”

“Noted. Thanks for the info. What’s your name?” he asked.

“Shade,” she said with a smile, then nodded to philip who had just returned from wherever he had gone.

“Making friends already, are ya?” Philip said, slapping Jeremiah’s shoulder.

“Yeah, Shade was just telling me a bit about the storm coming in.”

“Oh yeah, like I said, I’m glad you came when you did. But I hear you’re a solid pilot. I bet you could handle it.”

“Alright so I’ve got some details for you. That serial number has a bit of a trail to it, but it dead ends when we get to the manufacturer. We’ve got it’s route to Sedna, though. Tommy told me about the guy he brokered the deal with, a cyborg named Korin Cedarius. Seem’s he’s a bit of a boogy man. He pops up on several terrorist and black op reports, but no specifics are given. Just his name.”

“Alright. So what?”

“Well, I’m guessing he deals in some pretty dark stuff. Wouldn’t at all surprise me that he’s in the slave trade as well. But what’s interesting is that all the info I found comes to a dead end with this corporation called Sokyate.”

“Sokyate,” Jeremiah whispered.

“You know it?” Philip asked.

“I’ve heard the name. Are you telling me this Ariella woman is related to Sokyate?”

“Hmm, not sure. I can tell yu what I do know about her.” Philip slipped through some menus on his terminal and opened up a holo display between them. “Ariella Darzi. Looks like she’s a member of the Shadow Cartel. Heard of them?”

“Yeah, a time or two. Terrorist and drug activity, right?”

“Yeah, you could say that. Real top dog stuff. These are the movers and shakers of the underworld, Jeremiah. I didn’t find too much on her, but her record shows combat and hacking skills,” he paused for a moment, looking up to Jeremiah. “And several warrants for murder. Including two guards on Sedna.”

Jeremiah sank in to his barstool and began wrapping his fingers against the countertop.

“Ariella, a black ops cyborg, and ties to Sokyate. What does it mean, Philip?”

“There’s something else.” Philip tapped the holo display changing the image from Ariella’s records to a map of the galaxy. “I put your coordinates in to the system. I found a match, an old expedition went out that way. A hundred or so years ago. Then it went dark.”

“Dark?” Jeremiah interrupted.

“Yeah, as in it just disappeared. No record of communications, no search and rescue attempt, just gone and forgotten. The name of the ship was the Sokyate. And it was registered to the parent corporation of InveraTech.”

“InveraTech?” Jeremiah nearly shouted the question.

“Tommy’s told me about your wife before, Jeremiah. I think there may be a link.”

This was certainly a lot for Jeremiah to wrap his brain around. It seemed that everything, the cry tank, the cyborg, Ariella, his wife, were all some how connected to this Sokyate. But how? If Philip was right, the Sokyate was a ship that disappeared over one hundred years ago. He snapped his head back to Philip.

“Maybe Ariella knows something.”

“Be careful. That woman is a trained killer,” Philip said.