A prolonged pause followed, while Nichols and Kent glared at me. Kade and Vosh waited patiently, their expressions neutral. “How do we know you aren’t just going to shoot us, the instant we agree to negotiate?” the Culrad asked.
Now, that was sounding more promising. The man had reasonable doubts, but he wasn’t giving me a flat no. “How about I give you a gesture of good faith,” I replied. Then, without waiting for any particular reply, I holstered my pistol and very, very slow, I stood up. I held my hands to the side, more a symbolic gesture than anything, since there were still four guns aimed at the Culrads. “Would you allow me to approach the ship?”
A pale head peeked into the doorway. The Culrads were an ugly species, by human standards; chalky white skin, completely hairless, and their hands were about twice the size of a human’s, making them seem gangly and disproportionate. They only had four fingers on each hand, rather than five.
“Hold your fire,” I instructed Kade, just to make sure he was on board with what was going on. I was pretty sure he was smart enough to understand the nuances of the situation, but given how little time I’d had to get to know him, I didn’t want to make any reckless assumptions.
“You may approach,” the Culrad replied, stepping partially into the doorway. “We can discuss this like civilised people.”
I carefully stepped around our makeshift barrier, then had to fight for patience as I spent a good three or four minutes climbing over tangled vines and fallen trees to get up to the ship. “My name is Lieutenant Aiden Hill of the Alliance Military,” I introduced myself, looking up the steps at the man.
“I am Khelesh Ve Tishraga, owner of the cargo freighter Valholon.”
“And why do you believe you have a claim to this cargo?” I asked. “Your ship made an unauthorised jump through the Rendol wormhole, which lies within established Alliance space.”
“Our ship was attacked by this Eumadian cruiser when we were in the Xillo system. They disabled our engines and then stole a significant part of our cargo. By the time we caught up to them, they were preparing to jump into the Rendol system. We followed them purely to retrieve what was rightfully ours.”
“And can you prove that this cargo is yours?” I asked. Based on what I’d already seen out in the jungle, I had a pretty good idea that I knew the answer.
“We can,” Khelesh replied. Then he turned to stare down at where the rest of my team was waiting. “If we are to reach a civilised agreement, then the rest of your team should participate in the negotiation. We would not like anyone to change their minds after the fact.”
It was at once a reasonable request, and the potential set up for them to kill us all.
But they hadn’t shot me when I’d stood up, nor made any attempt to harm me while I’d been standing here, and if, as they said, the cargo had originally been theirs, then their attempt to get it back from the Eumadians made sense. The Eumadians, after all, were well known for taking whatever they thought they could get away with, purely in the interests of making a profit.
I could refuse, but then the negotiations would probably go south. But then again, putting my entire team in harm’s way was a fool’s move. “How about two of them come up,” I said. “The two who’ll remain behind are subordinates who have no authority over this decision anyway.”
Khelesh considered the compromise. “That would be acceptable,” he decided finally.
I activated the radio on my comm, not wanting to yell a whole bunch of instructions across the clearing. “Kade and Kent, could you two come up here, please? Vosh and Nichols, you stay where you are. Kent, I need you to verify the legitimate ownership of the cargo. Over.” Perhaps it was dictatorial of me to be calling Kade up as well, but his presence was part of a calculated bet. Yes, it was putting him at risk, but if the Culrads did decide to screw us over, he was the one most likely to be able to defend us.
And he was a slave who had no choice in the matter, my conscience reminded me. Despite all of my supposed morals about abhorring the slavetrade, it seemed I wasn’t above using him as cannon fodder the instant a mission went sideways.
No, that wasn’t true, I argued with myself. If I genuinely thought he would be in danger, I wouldn’t be doing any of this. Kent was coming up as well, and since he and I were both lieutenants, we were the two ranking officers on this mission. Yes, there was a risk involved. But it was a calculated risk, with a realistic chance for a positive outcome. At least, that’s what I told myself.
Kade moved first, stepping cautiously out of cover only moments after he’d heard my request. The rifle was still in his hands, and he seemed uninclined to put it away. He moved slowly but gracefully towards us, while Kent hung back, gesturing frantically about something, and presumably attempting to call Kade back. Then, when he saw that Kade was ignoring him, he slumped in defeat, then began the slow climb up to the ship, his big body not managing the journey anywhere near as gracefully as Kade had.
When Kent finally joined us, I explained the situation. “The Culrads claim that the Eumadians stole their cargo before they came through the wormhole and they are simply attempting to reclaim what is theirs. Khelesh, this is Lieutenant Zom Kent, and this is Kade.”
Khelesh nodded to Kent, but his gaze lingered on Kade; specifically on his ears and the pattern of his hair. “You are Vangravian,” he said, after a long moment.
“He is,” I confirmed, assuming that Kade himself wouldn’t respond to the statement.
Khelesh made a humming sound. “We saw the crate on our way up here. But he was not what we came for. Culrads do not trade with Eumadians.” Was that due to a general dislike of the Eumadians, or because of objections to their slave trade? As much as the statement piqued my curiosity, now was not the time for in-depth political discussions.
“Shall we take a look at this cargo?” I prompted him. The sooner we could get this resolved, the sooner we could get the fuck out of here and I could stop looking over my shoulder, wondering if someone was about to shoot me.
“Please, come this way,” Khelesh said, leading us into the patchy interior of the ship. We clambered over bent struts and skirted a section of the wall that looked about ready to collapse, until we came to a room that was still mostly intact. A hole in the roof allowed plenty of daylight inside, and I could see that there were eight sturdy crates strewn about the floor, each of them about one cubic metre in size.
Khelesh rubbed the dirt off the corner of the nearest one. “As you can see, these clearly bear the Culrad trade insignia. They were our legal property, until the Eumadians stole them.”
I bent closer, taking a good look at the insignia. But the amount of dirt that had been rubbed into the design meant that a definitive answer eluded us. To solve that problem, I shrugged off my pack and pulled a water canteen out of it, then grabbed a sock I’d worn a couple of days ago. I wet the sock, then used it to scrub away at the dirt. Khelesh seemed to know what I was looking for, so he made no objections to my scrutiny.
Once the insignia was clean, I stepped back… and there was no longer any doubt in my mind that these were, indeed, Culradish crates. The metal plate that contained the insignia was made of interwoven platinum and copper, the two metals creating a chequered pattern that was the signature design of the Culrad Trade Association. The insignia itself was engraved into the metal with the precision of a computerised laser. It wasn’t unknown for certain unscrupulous species to go around changing the insignia on cargo crates, particularly at some of the less reputable trade stations that hovered in between claimed galactic territories. But that was the exact reason that the Culrads had defaulted to a design as expensive and complex as this one. It would have been impossible to replicate the insignia without a large amount of metalworking equipment and a laser engraver, neither of which were available in a backwater jungle like Rendol 4.
“Fair enough,” I conceded, once Kent had also taken a look at the insignia. “They were rightfully your crates. Now, may I ask what they contain that’s important enough to kill two of my team for them?” There was a clear reprimand in the words; a reminder to the Culrads that we, too, had reason to be pissed off about this endeavour, and that we had agreed to split the cargo, regardless of whose it had originally been.
Khelesh stepped forward, activating the release on the nearest crate. The lid popped up, and he opened the crate to reveal a solid block of glowing red stone, nearly as large as the crate itself. “Resenia stone,” he said, staring reverently at the crate. “Our colony on Pen 2 was hit by a meteor. It took out half a city. Two million people dead, plus millions more injured. They’ve been without power for weeks. This shipment was intended to be a lifeline to restore essential heating and medical systems, until they manage to get their solar generators back online.”
