Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (best color ebook reader .txt) 📗

a hundred meters before them and thirty to each side, stood rows and rows of five- to nine-foot tubes, all with umbilicals of wiring descending from the ceiling and power humming merrily along. Each tube, at least the half dozen Bek’ah could see from where she stood, had a display on the front with a readout for temperature, atmospheric makeup, and temperature. She quickly glanced across the few displays she could see without stepping forward into the technological maze and saw that each display read a different temperature, all well below freezing, along with readouts for nutrition, hydration, neuromuscular stimulation, and waste removal. Her mind swam as she realized what she was looking at—a cryogenic stasis farm.

“They’ve…stored beings here in cryo-sleep like they’re…frozen food!” she exclaimed, looking in horror at Dr. Skarper, who now stood in front of a nearby pod.

“Yes,” the doctor replied. “This is a state-of-the-art cryo pod, designed for lengthy space travel where even using Gates will take years. I’ve never seen so many of them in one place and can’t imagine why the Gritloth have so many in one place.”

“Isn’t it obvious, Doc?” Captain Tinbrak asked, disgust heavy in his voice. “They’re storing slaves until there’s an order for them. They buy, steal, or kidnap these beings, bring them here, and keep them on ice until someone wants to buy them. If there isn’t a market for Rincah this year, they just store the excess beings until demand exceeds supply and they can maximize their profit. That’s what they meant when they called this their Vault. It’s where they keep excess inventory to maximize profits at a later time. It’s a genius move, if you’re soulless scum like most slavers.”

Bek’ah felt nauseated. She knew her old boss Corvan Dax was mixed up with some terrible enterprises, but freezing beings for slavers was beyond even her wildest imaginings. Something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she walked over to a tube two rows over and one back. “I know this female!” she cried, her claws coming out unbidden as rage flowed over her.

“Who is she?” Harmbo asked, putting a solid, comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Her name was Cin’drah. She danced at the club with me until…”

“Until she didn’t show up for work one night?” Captain Tinbrak asked, stepping up to her other side.

“Yeah,” Bek’ah replied. “I didn’t think much of it. Girls come and go. It’s not like dancing in a cage is what we dreamed about when we were kits, you know? But I never dreamed Dax would do something like this…”

“He did,” Tinbrak said. “And now we have a chance to undo it.” His voice was hard, and every hint of the cocky, swaggering space cowboy image he’d portrayed even in their firefight with the Gritloth was gone. This was the captain these beings signed on to fly and fight with, and now Bek’ah understood why. There was a fire in his eyes and a set to his jaw that told her she could follow this lithe Yalteen to the ends of known space.

“Harmbo, call back to the ship and get the Smilps assigned to clearing out every space inch of the cargo hold. Call your contact on Bith and get him to notify you the second the Gritloth come through the Gate into this system. We need as much warning as we can get. How much of a lead do you think we have on them?”

“Perhaps three days, Captain. Less if they push their engines and jettison any unnecessary ballast.”

“Okay, let’s count on two days. Doc, get started waking these beings and telling them where they are and what’s going on.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

“Excuse me, Captain,” Bek’ah said. Everyone froze and turned to her. “But what exactly is going on?”

The captain looked her in the eye, and a hint of his cocky grin returned. “What does it look like, stowaway? We’re rescuing everyone on this rock and planning a nasty surprise for the Gritloth when they get here.”

Two days and four hours later, Bek’ah was aboard the Sniper when all the lighting in the cargo hold went red and Harmbo’s voice came across the ship-wide comm system. “Alert. Battle Stations. All hands to battle stations. Gritloth have cleared the Gate and will be within missile range in twelve hours. I repeat, twelve hours until contact.”

The next twelve hours were a blur of activity in the cargo hold, engine room, dining room, sleeping compartments, and everywhere else beings could turn into temporary berths. It had taken every hour since they first set foot on the asteroid, but the crew of the Sniper had set to with a vigor Bek’ah had never seen, and as more of the Gritloth’s victims awoke, they all lent a hand, claw, or tentacle toward the rescue efforts as well. Finally, as the lights all through the ship flashed red again and Harmbo announced the Gritloth were in missile range, she dashed to the bridge to see exactly what Captain Tinbrak had up his sleeve.

“Oh good, you made it. I wouldn’t want you to miss the show, Stowaway.” Apparently her name was just “Stowaway” now. She didn’t mind. It felt like she was part of the crew, in her own small way.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Captain. But would you like to tell me exactly what the show is going to be?” she asked.

“And spoil the surprise? Not a chance. Just watch the radar,” the captain replied, that cockeyed grin twisting up one side of his mouth again.

She did as he said, turning her attention to the Gritloth ship, a red triangle on the radar. Timsif, her hands dancing across her control panel, kept the asteroid between the Gritloth ship and their own, hugging the surface to keep their presence hidden from the slavers. Bek’ah didn’t understand why they hadn’t hauled tail for the nearest Gate the second they had the last victim aboard, but all Tinbrak would tell her was that he had it all