Star Thief Read online

  Meander relaxed as Flow guided her Nest through the cold empty spaces of the Harl system. While she enjoyed Flow’s genetic ability to weave a pathway through stellar magnetic and plasma wind flows, she yearned to again travel through the Gates. She had yet to find her birth star and home world of Dominion. Both had been lost to her when she’d been taken captive while repairing a graviton sensor platform at the edge of her system. She’d learned what slavery meant when she’d been sold to an amphibian of flexible limbs, sharp claws and an unforgiving mind. But her owner did not know her Dosune people possessed a defense against capture. Her breathing spiracles could emit a cloud of deadly gas that was a neurotoxin to anything that breathed. She’d been rendered senseless during her capture and while aboard the captor ship, only to awaken inside a stone amphitheater filled with aliens who bought beings brought to the sandy floor of the stone enclosure.

  She had waited until her owner took her to its seaside residence. She had done the water misting chores it demanded and had cleaned its habitation of the body refuse it ejected. When she learned the method by which it controlled a floater transport she waited for her owner to fall asleep in a tide pool enclosed within its residence. As an amphibian her owner needed to breath regularly. Every tenth of a light arc her owner extended its air tube and inhaled. That night it inhaled her gases. It died at the bottom of the tide pool. She had escaped in the transport, sold it at the local star port and escaped to a world where she worked and learned the science of Gates. She became an Astrogator of Gates.

  For the last four years Meander had worked for the Soft Skin biped who called himself Jake Vitades. He was a fair and generous Soft Skin. So she was loyal to him. The vessel Akantha was her new Nest. It was a place she would protect with all of her abilities. It was also the sole means she had of exploring the Gate system in the hope of finding her home star. No one knew the location of all Gates, though some suspected the council had a detailed inventory. But the empires that controlled parts of the galaxy always compiled a regional list of Gates and the stars they served. Hopefully in time she would find her yellow-orange home star. Until then she would navigate her Nest through the Gates, earn Galactic Credits and feel accepted by the other Soft Skins who served their captain. She had the time. Her people lived long. But she was lonely. Perhaps a future employer would be like her, composed of chitin skin plates, a thorax, an abdomen, with four legs and two griparms. She hoped so. Until then she would be loyal to Vitades.

  Lotan felt satisfaction. His empathic reading of the contractor being Podan had been accurate. The alien’s natural suspicion had been allayed by Lotan’s movements while his comment on the being’s use of the addictive liquid Nagen had put it on the defensive. Captain Vitades’ use of the hologram of his former teacher had been useful and made the process of securing compliance go faster. Lotan felt he could have obtained entry permission solely by himself, but the captain’s relationship with the vessel’s artificial mind was a valuable tool. While such minds existed on many empire vessels, Lotan had never met one with the independent personality of Akantha. And this Tessene vessel was a wonder he had spent the last four annual cycles observing. Lotan felt certain he could ‘bond’ with the artificial mind if his captain ever terminated. He looked back as the entry portal closed on the employer Laserta.

  The infrared glow of the captain’s body showed elevated temperature and hormonal arousal. It was an obvious reaction to a female who closely resembled Human females. While he had never met another Human, the captain was like most bipedal omnivores. Sexual responses came first while survival came second. All such bipeds would deny this fact. But it was true. And while Lotan currently identified as a male of his Torsen species, he was self-fertilizing. Which meant he would change into a female Torsen format when he wished to birth an offspring. Such dual sexuality was normal to all Torsens. Not so for most bioforms from other stars. Though he had the impression Draken the Engineer might also be dual-sexed.

  “Captain, should I visit with employer Laserta before you see her this evening?” he said in a mix of clicks and pheromones. “I might convince her to be . . . less physically familiar.”

  His captain’s short black hair atop his cranium shone in the white-yellow light of the chamber. The Human’s black-haired forearms tensed. His amber eyes squinted. Clearly he was exhibiting captain mode versus sexual pursuit.

  “No. No thank you, Lotan,” the Human said in a mix of acoustic verbiage. “While your work with the contractor being was well done, leave my personal issues to me. I can handle this employer. As I have handled other employers in the past.”

  “As you wish.” Lotan turned back and observed the yellow star of the Harl system.

  The alpha male being who called himself Jake Vitades could indeed manage this employer. Lotan had observed him do similar handling—a strange Human term—with prior employers. He could accept the captain’s decision. There were plenty of other bioforms who were subject to his Torsen ability to convince them to do whatever a Torsen requested. That memory brought to his mind the image of the prairie that surrounded his clan’s homestead on their world of Calitot. The large predators still roamed the grasslands, forests and mountains of Calitot. But none of them ever attacked a Torsen. The body shimmers, hand and leg gestures and seductive pheromones had evolved to protect every Torsen from such attack. Contact with other thinking beings had given his people welcome employment among alien stars and corporations. They were jobs meant to serve a purpose. The duty of every Torsen was to act in a way that protected Calitot. Which was why he had studied the Tessene vessel and its artificial mind. While he enjoyed working with the Human Vitades, he was prepared to claim the vessel and take it to his home world if Vitades ever passed into the afterlife. But he would be loyal to Vitades until some other bioform or natural disaster claimed the captain. Loyalty was the inbuilt nature of all Torsen. And he enjoyed the surprises that ancient ruins often displayed.

  Flow loved the feel of the star’s magnetic field. This far out it was a soft caress. Further inward it would strengthen into a gale. At least the plasma wind and charged particles it brought were weak this far out. Sensing ahead to detect the cluster of plasma that came with a coronal mass ejection was a talent she had developed over the years of piloting in her home star system of Evangellia and its life world of Windy Air. Working with Captain Vitades over the last four years had sharpened her abilities. Her ability to sense gravitational sinks and use them to gain both speed and shelter from the stellar winds was something she enjoyed. Almost as much as the vision of the colorful striped worlds that were gas giants. It was sad that the other crew of Akantha had never experienced the joy of flying through the winds of their home world. They only knew of flying by non-sentient birds who were part of the biome of most every oxy-nitro world that hosted life more complex than single cells.

  The sound of the entry portal closing on the red-furred female who was their employer allowed her inner self to relax fully. She did not like the bipedal female. She carried the scent of a hunter. And her efforts to control the captain disturbed Flow and the other crew beings, based on what she could tell of their body language. While not an expert at body language like Lotan, her people had evolved the ability to read the intentions of groundside beings. In particular the clawed hunters. The vegetation eaters did not worry her or any member of the Lunteen. They had been a steady source of meat protein over the millennia as the Lunteen learned how to grow seed crops, build cities atop high aeries and eventually to ply the cold dark winds of space. The ground predators were few now, confined to lands empty of Lunteen. But such was ancient history, brought forth by the feel of the stellar winds and magnetic fields.

  What mattered most to her were finding lifeforms who might become allies to her people. There were very few avians flying the black depths of the galaxy. The Lunteen were the only ones in this portion of the galaxy. Based on her observations of the captain she felt his Human people might become the allies her people needed.
While the Humans were new to galactic society, like the Lunteen, they were energetic and willing to take risks. The captain had taken many risks in prior visits to planetary ruins. He did so now as they flew toward the Harl ruins on the fourth world. She would do her best to make this visit less risky and very rewarding. With the galactic credits she was paid she could hire researchers to gather wind songs about how Humans now behaved in the areas overseen by the Galactic Council. While she had learned much from talking to the captain, she needed more knowledge for her people. Their world Nest was at risk from an empire expanding in their part of space. She must discover if Humans could make and deploy vessels able to fight in the cold depths of space.

  Draken joyed in the feel of neutrino particles passing into his body. Lying next to the fusion reactor and fusion thrusters of his vessel’s Power Chamber was a constant reward for his efforts to track and analyze the neutrino flows and gamma ray leakages from the ancient devices of this Tessene craft. He again felt surprise at the consistent flows coming from this ancient vessel. It was older than any vessel now plying the dark depths of the galaxy. Yet it was regular in its function, reliable in its provision of hard-wired and broadcast power to all parts of the vessel, and the chamber’s ability to feed energy to the weapons mounts of the vessel was unsurpassed in his memory of service on other vessels. He was always ready to alert the Human Vitades if any malfunction occurred within the two power sources. But in the four annual cycles he had served on Akantha there had been no malfunction. Not even a momentary burp in the consistent transitions of neutrinos among their three basic forms. That consistency was a pleasure to feel.

  This vessel’s power sources were less than the blasting curtain of radiation and particles which bathed his home world of Kaken. The white-blue star that provided light, warm and radiation to the lifeforms of Kaken was a stable source, despite frequent flares. Those flares had taught his Woomba people the necessity of hiding in the lava tubes that lay just below the surface of Kaken. Being in the tubes had led to the discovery of malleable metals. Melting and refining of those metals had led to congregations of Woomba and the knowledge of science and technology. Their first flight to another star, by way of the Gate at the outer edge of their system had taught them the ways of co-existing with beings used to much lesser gravity. It was a lesson Draken observed on the Akantha as Captain Vitades set the ship’s Control Chamber gravity to the level he called ‘seven-tenths gee’. That was half the gravity he and every Woomba was used to. But it was higher than the ‘one-half gee’ gravity that ruled on the world of the avian Flow. While she could fly through the air of some worlds, she treated him as he were a Lunteen like herself.

  Draken valued such acceptance. It would be vital when he changed into a female and had eggs within that needed exposure to unfiltered stellar radiation. Then he would need the help of Flow, his fellow crew beings and especially the captain to find a world close to a suitable star on which he could deposit those eggs. They would eventually become white-skinned sextupeds who would have their first meal of stellar radiation. While dense metals were the normal Woomba food, unfiltered radiation could sustain Draken and any Woomba for a long time. And his inner self told him the Change was coming closer.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Laserta looked up as the Human Vitades entered with a tray of hot food. Steam rose from the bowls on the tray. No doubt they held lokas noodles, woosh soup and trill small burrower bodies. It was the closest the vessel’s food Synthesizer could come to creating a traditional Mogelian meal. She sniffed as Vitades came closer. While the scent of the foods was authentic the trill bodies were not alive. Eating living trill was a normal part of any Mogel meal. Spearing them with the nails of her thumbs was a fact of life from times before her people became numerous on her world of Nastura. From her observation of Vitades it seemed Humans were fine with eating dead food. She wrinkled her nose at the thought. Still, such peculiar habits would not deter her from her efforts to control this mostly furless male.

  “Put the tray down on that table,” she barked, gesturing to a glassine table that lay between her vibrator seat and the entry to her sleeping quarters.

  Vitades’ amber eyes squinted at this change in her behavior. Before she had demanded he deliver the tray directly to her.

  “As you wish, employer Laserta,” he said in the strange Human acoustic language of soft sounds, sharp tones and extended descriptors.

  For the hundredth time she gave thanks for the earbuds which conveyed the Human’s translated speech to her ears. He understood her in the same way. As did all the crew beings on this vessel. Fortunately there were no beings who relied on skin pattern changes to communicate. Though the Influencer named Lotan came close in his ability to convince any bioform to do his bidding. She had put down her luggage upon first boarding this Akantha vessel at his urging, contrary to her usual practice of always keeping close her vital tools, sensors and personal weapons. Due to his pheromones and his body language she had allowed Lotan to convey her luggage to this cabin. She tensed her shoulders as Vitades stood up from laying down the tray and faced her.

  “I am more than your employer, young Vitades.” She forced her face to imitate the ‘smile’ that she rarely saw on the Human’s face. Her primary left hand gestured to herself. “I am a woman with intimate needs.” She stood up from the vibrator seat. Undoing her waist belt with its tool and weapon holders she let it drop to the soft-padded deck floor. She kicked off her sandals. Then she unsnapped and dropped her shorts. Laserta pushed her breasts forward and took a stance that spread her legs wide, openly exposing her sex receptor. “Come. Come to me and embrace me the way you embrace a Human woman. I am ready for your entry. We could share much enjoyment.”

  Vitades looked her over. Then his lips moved. “Thank you for the invitation. But I have other duties to which I must attend.”

  Irritation filled her. This was the sixth time the Human male had refused her. He ought to be thankful. The black hair that covered his head, lay between nose and mouth and covered his jawline in what he called a beard, was a sad imitation of full-body fur like that worn by the Mogel and other hunter species. On Nastura she and other females had long trained their males to do the dangerous jobs, to work for the corporations run by females and to be quickly attentive when any female demanded intimate gratification. Her research on the newly arrived Humans had shown their young males to be hormonally responsive to unclothed female bodies. And she knew her body was a close analogue to Human female bodies. Could this Vitades prefer male intimacy? Such was rare on Nastura. And such males were avoided. She sniffed. Her hunting scent follicles told her this Vitades was aroused. His mating appendage was enlarged beneath the clothing he called a jumpsuit. And his broad shoulders were tensed as if ready to enter coitus with her. Yet he held back. Why?

  “Does my body displease you?”

  Vitades jaw muscles tensed. “You are very pleasing to my eyes. But intimate relations are not included in our contract for my archaeological services.” The brown-skinned male smiled. “We made it past the contractor guard ship. We are on our way to the Harl world. Would you share with me why you are so anxious to visit these particular ruins?”

  Laserta sighed. This was the fourth time her employee had pursued her reason for visiting these ruins. No Nastura male would have asked, or gone beyond a single inquiry. Still, working in such ruins was normal for him. His history of escaping from a Harl ruin complex in this very vessel was part of his marketing appeal. And he had been successful in taking other beings with rich resources to visits to dead alien ruins. She knew why she had chosen this world. One of her corporate agents had uncovered the secret this world’s ruin held something unique. Supposedly it was the preserved body of a Harl. A different agent had told her these ruins held a Harl starship stored away within the complex. Either object would make her famous and richer. And more respected on Nastura. But Vitades did not need to know her reasons. He just needed to convey her to the fourth world, provide e
ntry into the ruins and protect her during her search. More was not needed. And she had learned in her youth to keep valuable knowledge secret from all beings. The disposal of her two agents guaranteed no other being knew what she knew.

  “This world holds unique Harl ruins, according to my informants,” she barked. “You have contracted to bring me here and provide me entry to the ruins. My businesses obey me. Are you unwilling to fulfill your contract?”

  The Human male winced, as if in pain. “No! I will fulfill my contract with you, employer Laserta. When we arrive above the fourth world this vessel will bring us down to the central plaza that is present in all Harl ruins. Then you, I and some of my crew will lead you on your exploration.”

  It was good to hear Vitades confirm this Tessene vessel could land on the world’s surface. Such was implied by his marketing history on the Dark Services Listing. The listing gave access to services not approved by the Galactic Council. It had existed longer than the council. Millions of other beings consulted the listing, as she had done for other business services. Soon enough she would discover whether Vitades was as good a guide to looting as his listing had claimed.