What May Come

Please see chapter 1 for author's notes. As a side note, if anyone remembers for certain whether Suzee ever used her telepathy in front of the Spung would you let me know?

Chapter 6: What Are the Odds?

Harlan yawned, pushing away the hand that nudged his shoulder insistently. "Just a few more minutes." The hand refused to be pushed, nudging him again. Radu, his mind identified after a moment, and then the events of the last few days snapped into focus and he sat up quickly. "I'm up, I'm up. Commander, did you get any sleep?"

The man sat where they'd left him, in front of the room's access terminal. "I'll be fine, Mr. Band."

"Did you find out anything?" He moved to look over one of the commander's shoulders, Radu looking over the other. "Were they telling the truth?"

"As far as I can tell. This is a public net so I couldn't verify a lot, but there are work records for Aslinn and Jacie going back several years. Nothing too spectacular, they seem to like working on the crews. And apparently they do design power sources and sensors…they have their names on a patent from a year or so ago, with some ocean research team. There's obviously no record of their resistance involvement, but there I did find a few references to In'Tssai—mostly on the Spung equivalent of a most-wanted list—so it does exist."

"You don't look happy."

"There's something about the two of them that makes me nervous. It's nothing I can put my finger on, but…they're so young."

Harlan nodded at that. Even discounting the fact that Jacie—and Radu—weren't even technically teenagers yet, a fact he still was having trouble getting his mind around, their only potential allies in this place were barely into adulthood. Aslinn seemed friendly enough, but…Jacie had been dead serious when he'd said breaking their necks would mean nothing, when he'd warned them that he could easily get rid of them. 'Ashrach' or 'Ashrak' or whatever he wanted to call himself, he was still Andromedan, and he was finding that acceptance of Radu wasn't the same as acceptance of the entire race.

"Harlan?"

He cut off the thought immediately, glancing over at Radu. "Just thinking. Come on, let's get down to the concourse and grab a change of clothes before the shift starts."

"Commander?"

"Go ahead, I'm going to let this search finish and then I'll go down myself."

"So what do you think of them?" Harlan asked as they made their way through the halls.

Radu shrugged. "Aslinn seems nice. Jacie…" he shivered slightly. "I—I have nightmares sometimes about the Spung. I can't imagine what being hatched, being raised by them would be like."

"Yeah, that would be just about your worst nightmare," Harlan agreed quietly. "So you're really twelve, huh?"

"Yes." Radu grinned. "I never thought about you being that much older….When I first started at the StarAcademy they told me I would be one of the youngest students there. Then I got there and met Rosie and saw so many of the others that looked younger…I figured I'd just misunderstood. Do humans really take five years to get to the stage of a hatchling? What do you do for five years?"

Harlan matched his grin at that. "I don't know exactly what a hatchling can do, but we don't really start school or anything before then. We're just babies, I guess."

They reached the concourse before they could go any farther into comparative anthropology. It was easy enough to find replacements for their uniforms—the look on Radu's face when he suggested one of the glow-in-the-dark green and orange designs had been more than amusing—but neither forgot their main purpose was to avoid standing out, and before long they were back on the docks in the most nondescript clothing they could find.

Kyldarian was a bit nervous as he greeted them, and looked more so when Harlan mentioned that Jacie planned to join them at lunch. "You weren't supposed to give them my name!" he hissed.

"Yeah, well, you could have mentioned that they have a holding cell built into their quarters," Harlan snapped right back, more than a little annoyed that the man hadn't given them any idea what they'd be facing.

"They have a what!" He shook his head. "Never mind, I don't want to know. All right, I'll get you two started, and Jacie can take my spot when he gets here."

Goddard had just finished changing when the door chimed. He took a moment to confirm that his guest was indeed the redheaded human before opening the door. "Aslinn."

"Hello. Hm…the clothes are much better. A uniform would have scared off the people I want to talk to. Are you ready to go?"

"A few more questions, if you don't mind."

The wariness on the boy's face was hard to miss, but he nodded, leaning against the wall by the door. "Ask away."

"I didn't want to ask in front of Harlan and Radu, but how much experience do you actually have retrieving people from the Spung?"

"Six years, give or take."

"How often are you successful?"

"More than we aren't?" Aslinn shrugged. "We're one stop in a chain…if you're asking if we, personally, have ever lost anyone, the answer is no. But sometimes the Spung close up patrols…if the people we're supposed to be shuttling out never make it to the rendezvous, there isn't a lot we can do. We can't go charging into Spung space with guns blazing. Well, we could I guess, but my life isn't so bad I'd consider suicide and I know Jacie feels the same."

Goddard hated to ask the next question, but the Spung had never put much emphasis on taking prisoners during the war and as far as he knew, none of those who had been taken had ever returned. There were certainly no prisoner-of-war stories afterwards, at least not among the UPP. The Andromedans might have known more, but he'd been a young lieutenant on one of the surviving cruisers, certainly not one of the ones involved in negotiations. "Honestly, what do you think our chances are of finding the others?"

"Finding them…call it a 95 chance. Assuming they're all still alive, there aren't many places we don't have eyes."

"And getting them out?"

Aslinn met his eyes squarely. "All four of them? Call it a 10 chance. At best. The one good thing I can tell you is that Spung are focused in the Kalrabi sector now…minor turf war. They might be willing to leave the ship and crew alone until that situation is handled, especially since your ship has no weapons and won't be able to hyperjump away without them knowing in advance. But if they're interested enough in the technology to send out scientists immediately—or if this Warlord Shank finds out about the capture—you can pretty much forget it. My best guess…the woman who can't control the ship—Davenport?—will either be sold off as a slave or executed offhand as a means of controlling the others. Like Jacie said, if the telepath doesn't let them know about her powers, she might be all right. In fact…" He trailed off for a moment, considering. "If they don't decide to dismantle the ship, she and the younger two who can control it will probably be kept onboard as slaves."

As much as he hated the idea of leaving TJ behind, Goddard knew his first responsibility was to the students, and that she would be the first to agree. "What about saving Suzee, Rosie, and Bova."

"Provided the ship isn't taken into the heart of the empire…50, maybe. Two of the three, anyway…I can pretty much guarantee that at least one will be kept on your command post at all times."

So half a chance of getting half of his missing crew back. "How sure are you?"

Aslinn shrugged. "We don't normally go in ourselves; we're transport like I told you. But I know how the empire works. I'm sorry, but the odds aren't good." He glanced at the chronometer on the wall. "We should get moving."

He seemed to know where he was headed, Goddard noted, but the part of the station they were entering wasn't one that he'd willingly have entered on his own. It was where people went when they had no other choice…when there was nowhere else to go. And the way they'd been winding, he wasn't sure that he would be able to find his way out again. "Who are we meeting?"

"A friend of mine." He turned abruptly into one of the smaller corridors, and suddenly they were in what looked to be a medical bay. "Free clinic," Aslinn said absently, answering the unspoken question, pushing through the crush of bodies. "And yeah, it's always like this. Never enough medics to go around, but…" He stopped at the desk of a harried looking receptionist. "I'm looking for Tamsin?"

"He's already picked up his medication."

"Damn. Any idea where he's staying now?" It looked at him in disbelief, and he sighed. "I had to try."

The two of them made their way out of the clinic. "Medication?"

"Antidepressants, mostly. One of the few things this place is well supplied with. Tamsin's a good guy…and paranoid enough that he'd know exactly who took your crew, when, and what shape exactly the escort ship was in. He's not a fan of the Spung."

The idea that their current allies were getting intelligence information from a medicated homeless man was enough to make Goddard pause, but…as Aslinn had said before, what other options did they have? "Who else are we visiting?"

Some of the hesitation must have shown in his voice, because Aslinn grinned. "Relax, I was down here visiting the others last night. Don't look so surprised, this is the place to come for information…it can't be patrolled. Anyway, we're headed for a couple of the traders who do go into Spung territory. I wasn't kidding when I said the Rockhopper is in bad condition…if we need to get much past the outer rim, we'll need transport."

Much to Goddard's relief, they made their way fairly quickly out of the lower portions of the station and into a section much like the quarters he and his crew were currently occupying. "You think they'll be willing to help us?"

"In most cases it depends on what you've got to offer…if they ask, you're looking for family who were taken. Don't get specific, and let me do the talking as much as possible."

Harlan and Radu stopped for lunch, but before they could make their way off the docks, Jacie met them. "Our quarters. We can talk while we eat."

Harlan glanced at Radu, who shook his head slightly. Neither of them was too interested in going back to the place where they'd spent several hours locked in a cell. "Ours are closers," he suggested.

"As you please." Jacie gestured for them to precede him. "Did you tell Kyldarian that I'd be working after lunch."

"We told him," Radu answered after a moment. "Did you finish what you needed to?"

"As much as I could." He shrugged, following them into their quarters and declining Harlan's lunch offer.

"So I guess you still don't know where the Christa is?" Harlan asked.

Jacie shook his head. "Sorry. I know of a few places it definitely isn't, but it will be at least another day, and probably more like two or three, before I can tell you where it is."

"What happens when we find out?" Radu asked.

"Depends." Jacie shrugged. "Aslinn and I evac mostly…commando raids are a little outside our area of expertise. I know a few people who can help, but they have their own problems to handle."

Harlan frowned. "So we plan for the worst, right?"

"What, that they're already dead? How does that help?" He shook his head. "Considering even the next-worst cases…a toss up between being locked separately in cells in the heart of the empire and being shipped to the deepest darkest mines you can find in four separate corners of the empire…is pointless. There's nothing we'll be able to do, except maybe offer them a quick death if they're in the cells."

"So what do you suggest?"

That was Radu, and Harlan couldn't help but be relieved. The navigator had been nervous as anything when this mess had started, but he seemed to have calmed down some. And when he needed to be, he was very good at staying levelheaded and not running off without thinking, which as Miss Davenport and the commander had pointed out was not one of Harlan's own strong points.

"Honestly? Hope. Hope they leave most of your crew together and that I get word before they're too far into the empire to do anything. Az was talking about getting transport with one of the traders going into Spung space. If they can get us close to your crew, we can get the Rockhopper to them. It's a piece of junk…but it's a fast piece of junk, and there are plenty of asteroid fields out there."

"If we can get the Christa free, we can hyperjump out of Spung space," Harlan pointed out. Without a ship they'd be stuck out here with no way of getting home. And abandoning Thelma and the Christa to the Spung didn't sit right with him, although he'd be the first to agree that Suzee, Bova, Rosie, and Miss Davenport had to be the priority.

"I suspect they aren't going to just let you start up the engines. But it's an option." He pulled out a ration bar and began to eat slowly. "So what's it like?"

That was directed at Radu, who frowned. "What's what it like?"

"Living on the Space Arks. Around other Andromedans."

"Huh?"

Jacie frowned. "I've lived with the Spung, and then with Aslinn for the last eight years. I know other Ashrach, but…what's it like, living with people like u—" His wristcomm chimed, and he broke off. "Jace."

"'s me, brother. Can you find the others and be ready to move out within the hour?"

"They're here. You found the crew?"

"Not exactly…there's a Centauri deckship heading from Jungia to Dartholm. If we can get the Rockhopper to them, they'll take us onboard."

"Centauri are helping us? Which body parts are we supposed to be giving up?"

"It's our old friend Shavic. His cousin passed on the information. We're supposed to meet them beyond Marduk if we want the trip, but it will take us the better part of a day to get there…"

Harlan and Radu exchanged glances. The Centauri were primarily merchants, concerned with making money. And holding power. If something gave Aslinn and Jacie some kind of hold over them… "What does Commander Goddard think?" Harlan asked.

"It's the best chance we've got," the Commander's voice sounded over the commlink. "Pack up what we've got and follow Jacie. Aslinn and I are working on their ship, we'll meet you there."

"What we've got?" Radu looked around the room in confusion. There was a little food and their uniforms, nothing else. "All right."

They finished packing quickly. Jacie left to inform Kyldarian about the change in plans and pick up his and Aslinn's things, promising to return shortly to take them to the ship. Unfortunately, when Radu opened the door opened at the next chime, instead of the Ashrach boy several heavily armed figures stood in the doorway. "We are with the Triiad Peacekeepers. You are under arrest."

Harlan put down the pack he'd been lifting and raised his arms at the apparently leader's sharp gesture. "Ah, hell. Captured twice by two different groups in two days…that has to be a record."