CHAPTER FIVE

The Red Fox matched the orbit of Pelican’s facility over Forge V. The gas giant consumed most of their view, huge and orange, with titanic storms raging across its face–storms bigger than most planets. The facility dipped into the upper atmosphere, right at the edge of huge pink and white clouds of frozen methane and trace minerals.

“Ahoy Crown Facility Ninety-five-oh-seven,” Agent Pierre announced over the official communications channel. “This is your escort. Sending creds now.” He looked at Ensign LeRoy, who merely gave a curt nod and pressed a button on his console, sending the encrypted data over a different channel.

“That’s huge,” Henderson said quietly, as he stared at the facility and planet below them. The shutters had been rolled back to give the bridge a good view of the station and its host.

“Which? The planet or destination?” Bedford asked.

“Both.”

Bedford turned to the holotank. They were still twenty-one kilometers away from the station. At that distance, it shouldn’t have been more than a speck, but the station loomed large in front of them. Frowning, he tapped out a command on the armrest, and the tank gave estimated dimensions. The captain gave a low whistle. The station was roughly 1.2 kilometers on each side, and 600 meters tall. Oddly-shaped blocks stuck out here and there, giving the impression of a dense city block that was plucked from its home and set into orbit. Flickers of lightning created a strobe-like effect against the darker materials of the station. Bedford found the whole thing to be unsettling in a way he couldn’t quite express.

“Ahead steady,” Bedford ordered. “Half-speed. And keep our grav gens on.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Half-speed!” Henderson called out.

“Half-speed, aye,” Ensign LeRoy responded as he adjusted the ship’s controls.

As they drew nearer, storm clouds moved in, trading flashes of kilometers-long forks of lightning between them–tridents hurled by gods for their own amusement. As the Red Fox approached the destination, the station grew in size, revealing a bewildering tangle of structures, pipes, and machinery. Forests of antennae covered the station, jutting out in all directions.

“Cap, that thing is heavily armed,” Gunny said. “See those pipes to our starboard? Standard military cooling equipment to run defensive guns. Those plates over there?” He pointed at the holotank and zoomed in on them. Round plates, bigger than the Red Fox herself, were set into the station’s outer walls. “Cannon emplacements. I count at least three banks of them on this side alone. This station could fend off a capital ship.”

“Are you sure this is a research station?” Bedford asked Pierre.

The agent’s jaw was set in a hard line as he stared through the windows. “That’s what I was told.”

“Captain, I’m increasing our shielding output by thirty percent,” Chief Davis said from his station. “I don’t like the look of the energy readings around here.”

Just then, as if to accentuate his concerns, a bolt of lightning stabbed from the clouds and struck the station. The windows automatically adjusted the polarization, yet everyone still winced. Sparks and small arcs of energy raced along the station’s surface and between structures before fading.

“Forty percent,” the chief amended.

“Captain, I have the course from the station’s control. Executing it now,” Navigator Thompson reported.

The ship dipped to the port side, yawing by a few degrees, and aimed toward a large rectangle highlighted in orange on the side of the station. It was clearly a docking bay with its doors closed. Thompson adjusted course and slowed down to quarter impulse power. The Fox’s gravity generators kept them from feeling the motion.

“Pardon me, Captain, we need to finish preparing,” Agent Pierre said and left without waiting for a response.

Bedford couldn’t tear his gaze away from the strange station before them as a shiver ran down his spine.

Silently, the metal doors split open for them as they drew closer. It took a mere forty minutes, but it felt like an eternity. The strange station filled their view, eating away everything outside it, until it blotted out the gas giant behind it.

“Into the maw of the beast,” Bedford said quietly.

The Red Fox entered the hangar bay and Thompson expertly settled her down on the landing gear. The bay was large and bright, with enough room for four more ships of their size, but empty of anything else. The bay’s walls were a smooth, off-white-painted metal with no breaks or seams, not even machinery. The bay doors slid shut behind them, locking into place with vibrations felt on the bridge. Air rushed in from unseen vents to refill the bay.

“Cut our grav gens,” the captain ordered.

“Aye, sir, cutting gravity generators,” XO responded.

A subtle shift was the only indication of a change.

The main holotank chimed and a mask appeared. Bedford shifted in his seat. The mask was white porcelain, the eye slits narrowed to something bordering on a scowl, the mouth open in an endless silent scream.

“Welcome, agents of the Crown.” The voice was flat, emotionless. “You may disembark with two others. An escort will be ready to show you the way.”

The mask disappeared.

“What’s up with the French and their masks?” Henderson muttered to himself.

“Well, let’s get this over with,” Bedford said, standing. “Ensign.”

“Ready, sir,” Ensign LeRoy responded as he stood.

“XO, you have command.” Bedford paused. “You know what to do if there’s trouble.”

Henderson nodded solemnly. “Aye, Captain. XO has command.”

The captain led the ensign down to the Fox’s cargo bay where the agents waited.

Both of them were dressed as protocol dictated.

Agent Pierre Corbusier wore a charcoal-gray suit with white gloves. A golden sunburst medallion adorned his right breast. He wore a flat, low-brimmed hat of the same color as his suit, with a single gold pin in the band. He carried a walking stick of polished wood topped with a silver knob.

Agent Aveline wore a simple gray dress that came down to mid-calf, slit up her right thigh. The dress stopped short enough to show off her white high heels. It was sleeveless, ending in pleats at her shoulders. She, too, wore a medallion pinned on her right side, this one depicting a planet with a small moon orbiting it. Her neckline plunged in such a manner that would be scandalous back in the Confederacy. White gloves reached her elbows. Her blonde hair was styled in ringlets.

Bedford mustered all his resolve not to stare at her. Instead, he adjusted his captain’s hat and straightened his dress blues. Thank goodness he had these. His flight uniform would have looked inadequate next to the two agents. He walked to the door and opened it with a palm-press.

Ensign LeRoy, the last of their group, came up behind the captain. He smoothed the lapels on his dress jacket. He removed his cap, gave it a good shake, then put it back on, making sure the button on the right side was directly over his ear.

“After you, Captain,” Agent Pierre said with a slight inclination of his head and an insufferable smile.

Bedford merely strode out into the hangar bay with Ensign LeRoy a step behind. He led them down the short ramp to the waiting escort, his right hand brushing his hip where his gun should have been.

The two escorts weren’t human. Bedford had no idea what they were. Taller than even Pierre and not as wide, their faces were covered in white masks with no features but eye-slits that revealed nothing. Long, loose white robes with high collars covered their bodies, obscuring everything.

“Welcome, esteemed guests of our master,” one said in perfectly crisp French. The voice seemed to come from its entire body, as the mask tilted slightly down toward the shorter humans.

“Follow us,” the other said, and they glided away, turning slowly as they moved, as if gravity affected them differently.

Bedford and Pierre followed behind, abreast of each other. Aveline and LeRoy hurried to catch up.

From behind, Bedford could see that the masks wrapped all the way around, leaving nothing shown.

They walked through the hangar bay to a door no one saw until they were in front of it. Faint lines appeared to mark the door’s outline, then sharpened into full view as the door pulled back and slid aside. A large room waited for them, cold and sterile. Their escorts glided into the center.

“Come,” said one of them. “This elevator will take us to the correct level.”

Bedford and Corbusier exchanged glances. The agent looked wary, but gave the captain a slight nod. They entered, Bedford splitting off to the right side, Pierre to the left. LeRoy and Aveline joined them. The door slid back into place and the wall became seamless again.

The two escorts stood there silently.

“I have a question–” Bedford began before one turned to him.

“All questions are to be answered by our master,” the escort said.

“That’s the thing, I was told that–”

“Irrelevant.”

That seemed to end all discussion.

Bedford kept his mouth shut.

“We have arrived.”

The four looked around and at each other. The room hadn’t appeared to have moved.

The escorts twirled around to face the back wall. New lines appeared as a different door slid open. On the other side was a much more spacious room and an open-top ground vehicle large enough for a dozen people, sitting on a road of darker material than the walls. The corridor was still a sterile white and featureless, but large enough to fit most of the Fox inside.

“Come,” said an escort as both escorts glided into the front seats. There were no visible controls. The escorts sat ramrod-straight, their robes covering their bodies.

“In for a penny–” muttered Bedford as they all entered the vehicle.

“You won’t feel any acceleration,” said the escort on the right, sounding as though it were facing them.

What followed felt like part of a dream. Without touching any controls, the vehicle started moving, picking up speed with every passing second. The walls slid past them faster and faster until they were a blur. Giant doors and gates flickered open just long enough to let the speeding vehicle pass through, then slammed shut, missing the vehicle’s tail by mere millimeters. Sometimes, the walls fell away as they traveled over a bridge spanning unseen depths. Vast machines toiled away in the distance, their purposes unknown to the human passengers, their sounds foreign and strange as drones climbed around the machines for unknowable purposes–then were whisked out of sight as the vehicle sped on. There were no junctions, no other paths, just one long, seemingly endless path before them.

No wind blew against them as they traveled, no sensation of movement; it felt as if the whole station moved around them while they sat perfectly still.

“We have arrived.”

The vehicle stopped so suddenly Bedford was sure their necks would have snapped if inertia hadn’t been told to look the other way.

“Thank God,” murmured Pierre, and, for the first time since they’d met, Bedford actually agreed with the man.

The escorts led them down a short hallway, sized more appropriately for humans, to closed double doors. The area around them had changed from the previous sterility to a more lived-in look and feel. A richly colored carpet set off the gray ash side tables, each holding some object of interest on its surfaces. Bedford had only a moment to see the ones nearest him. One was a vase from a planet and culture he had never heard of, but the pale-blue ceramic vase was pleasant to look at. The other two he spotted were minerals of some sort put in crystal displays. Artwork from across the Kingdom’s domain was hung on the walls around the doorway.

“Everyone remember the proper protocol,” Pierre said in a low voice to the others. It was more of a command than a question.

Everyone nodded.

Taking a deep breath, Pierre slowly rapped his stick against the door three times, each strike resonating deep.

The door split open. The escorts flowed inside to flank the doorway.

Pierre strode in confidently, the others waiting for a three count before following him.

The room was more of the same style of the hallway. Glass cases held artifacts from around the Kingdom, this time accompanied by small plaques on each case. The room was tall, but not too tall, long, but not very long, narrow, but not claustrophobically so. Soft lighting kept things easy on the eyes. It was almost cozy while it still kept the newcomers at arm’s length. It wasn’t a room for relaxing but one for contemplation.

“Agent of the Crown,” Pierre announced loudly, “Pierre Corbusier. My colleague, Agent Aveline du Champs.” He pointed at Aveline with his walking stick. “Captain Lucas Bedford and Ensign Eric LeRoy, of the Confederation, as our guests and transport.” He finished by taking off his hat and giving a wide-open bow, right leg extended with courtly flair, stick tucked under his arm. “It is our utmost pleasure to be of any service to you, sir.”

As Aveline curtsied, the Confederate men bowed deeply from their waists.

“Enter,” rasped a voice.

Bedford straightened and had his first good look at Auguste Champollion, aka “The Pelican.”

The old man was enthroned in a life-support chair, his head held high despite the rest of him being attached to the machinery that kept his body functioning. His body was wrapped up in machines, leaving only his mid-torso and head exposed. He wore a simple black covering, fastened at his neck with a shard of black crystal.

Champollion’s face was wrinkled and deeply lined, pale to the point of almost being translucent. His eyes were piercing, taking in everything before him.

“So, this is what the Crown has sent me.” The assessment was cold and dismissive.

Bedford swallowed, keeping his expression neutral. The intellect behind those eyes was driven and towering. Bedford felt as though he were a specimen under examination, measured and weighed with clinical precision.

Champollion’s mouth opened and closed, but it wasn’t by natural movement. Instead, Bedford felt as if something was aping human behavior through a wondrous puppet.

“Yes,” Pierre said, coming out of his bow and placing his hat back on. “Feel free to arrange other means if you find ours to be lacking.”

“Hmm.” The voice was calculating.

Pierre stood calmly, his right hand resting on his walking stick.

“You there, what say you?” Champollion’s right hand rose smoothly to point at Aveline, a knobby finger extended from his wizened claw, his arm steady as a rock.

“I see no reason to question the Crown’s decision, sir.”

“And you?” The hand swung over to Captain Bedford.

“I’m afraid you can’t ask that question of him,” Pierre interrupted smoothly.

“Oh? Can’t he speak French?”

“I can, sir. I am not, however, a subject of the Crown,” Bedford responded carefully.

“Hmm.” The old hand lowered to rest on the life-support chair. “Given that, asking your subordinate would garner the same sort of response.”

“I would,” Ensign LeRoy responded. “My allegiance lies with my captain. To him I swore fealty.”

“Hmm. Very well. We board in ten minutes.”

Pierre and Aveline started.

“Sir, I’m not sure I follow–” Pierre began.

Champollion’s chair turned and headed toward a wall.

“Well? Don’t dawdle.” The voice carried the weight of a man used to being obeyed at all times for longer than the rest had been alive.

The life-support chair picked up speed to a brisk walk.

Pierre moved first, jogging lightly to catch up, with the other three close behind him.

Before the chair could strike the wall, the surface rippled in hundreds of concentric circles, before turning into mist. The chair rolled forward and out of sight.

Without hesitation, Pierre kept moving. Not to be outdone by the French agent, Bedford followed right behind. Their visibility diminished to no more than a hand in front of their faces. The floor remained solid. Ahead of them, the chair’s motors could be heard.

When they could see again, they were back in the hangar bay.

The strange escorts stood next to a pallet of equipment, as tall as they were and four times as long and wide.

“Get this loaded,” the old man commanded.

Bedford fished out his comms unit from his uniform pocket and toggled it. “Begin cargo intake.”

“Aye, sir,” responded Henderson. Bedford could hear the relief in his voice.

The Red Fox’s cargo doors slid open as the ramp extended to the hangar bay floor.

The two shuttles had been shifted to the side and locked down, leaving most of the cargo bay open. Henderson and Gunny trotted out with the moving equipment in tow.

“No need for your men to involve themselves, Captain,” the old man said with a slight sneer. “While I have no doubt they are experienced in crude manual labor, my servants can handle the load.”

Bedford stiffened slightly, then gave a shallow bow. “As you wish, sir. XO, no need.”

Henderson stopped in his tracks, gave the captain a quizzical glance, then nodded. “Aye, Captain.” He and Gunny turned and returned to the ship.

“Agent, you are to return to the ship with your hired help. Keep everyone out of sight.”

“Of course, sir,” Pierre responded smoothly and extended his leg.

“We’ll enter when we are done here,” Champollion stated. “Then we will leave.”

Pierre glanced at Bedford, who gave a small nod.

The party retreated to the ship.

“Why doesn’t he want us to see?” Aveline asked.

Pierre threw a glance back at the closed door as if his gaze could pierce through. “I suspect it has something to do with our escorts. He doesn’t want us to see them work.”

“Bridge, do you have eyes on our guests?” Bedford asked into his comm unit.

“Sir, not really, no,” Seaman George Peters responded.

“Explain.”

“Uh, sir, best if you see this yourself,” Peters said, sounding unsure of what to say.

“On my way. LeRoy, now I’m more than just curious. See what you can get,” Bedford said.

“Captain, I’m on it.”

Bedford took off on a quick walk. He didn’t like any of this.

The bridge door snapped open as he almost jogged inside.

“Show me,” Bedford ordered.

Peters pointed out the open window.

Bedford walked over and peered out and saw nothing.

He blinked a few times. It wasn’t as if he was seeing an empty bay, what he was looking at was nothing. His brain struggled to make sense before he looked away.

“Holotank?”

Peters tapped a few commands on his console.

The holotank sprang to life, showing the area around the ship. Where there should be activity, there was the same patch of nothing. At least this time, it didn’t hurt him to look at it.

“How is this possible?” Bedford demanded of his bridge crew.

Thompson spun his chair to face the captain. “I can tell what it isn’t.”

“Go on.”

“It isn’t anything we’ve seen anywhere.”

“Thanks,” Bedford responded dryly.

“You don’t understand, Captain,” Thompson shook his head. “This is something no one has ever seen. I can’t get any instruments or measurements on it except thermal and that shows completely ambient temperatures. Visual light, radiation, sonar, seismic readings, infrared, radio, even quantum field vibrations, all are returning values that shouldn’t be. The closest analogy I can come up with is the event horizon of a singularity, but that would have gravity readings through the roof, which we don’t have.”

Bedford groaned and ran his hand through his hair. “Great, just great. And what about anything you can, uh, ‘see’?”

Thompson shifted his gaze toward the outside, his eyes unfocused. “Just that there are living creatures down there.”

Bedford grimaced. His comm unit chimed. “Bedford here.”

“Captain, our guest would like to be shown to his quarters. Yours, specifically.” LeRoy sounded amused without crossing the line.

Bedford closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then stormed off the bridge. They had prepared one of the bunk rooms for these new guests, even creating a separate area for Auguste Champollion. That plan was now tossed out the airlock. Bedford swung past his quarters to secure his personal items into a safe, shoved his clothes into a duffel bag, and jogged back to the bay. Bedford stopped right before the last turn, dropped his bag into a locker, smoothed his uniform, then walked around the bend.

The Pelican had joined up with the other Frenchmen, his strange escorts flanking him. Bedford could swear he saw a ghost of a smile touch the old man’s withered lips before fading. Pierre looked on the verge of being apologetic.

“Ah, Agent, here is your hired captain now. Captain, I presume you enjoyed your voyeurism? Or attempt, I should say.” The old man’s voice dripped with a gleeful contempt.

Bedford almost tossed him out, the consequences be damned, but one look at Aveline quelled his reaction.

“Would you allow someone to load unknown cargo into your ship without making an effort to see what it was?” Bedford asked calmly.

“Hmm, I suppose not,” Champollion mused. “Very well, take me to my quarters.”

Bedford gave a shallow bow, spun on his heel, and led the way with the chair humming behind him and the strange escorts gliding silently along.

Bedford dropped into the lower bunk with a heavy sigh. It had taken the rest of the day to settle Champollion. The man demanded more and more of his personal items to be brought into his new quarters until it was almost impossible to move around the equipment. Only then was the old man satisfied.

“This will be nearly sufficient for the duration of the trip. Leave me be until we arrive. My servants will fetch anything we need.”

And with that, Bedford found himself outside of his own quarters, now off limits to him. He was close to grinding his teeth. Instead, he went to the bunk that would be his until they could dump off the old man.

“Long day, Captain? Or can I call you ‘roommate’?”

“Don’t push it, Pierre.”

The French agent sighed and sat up in his own bunk across from Bedford. “There is certainly a difference between reading about our esteemed Auguste Champollion and seeing the man in person. I swear on mother’s grave I didn’t expect this.”

“Huh, I didn’t know you had a mother. I assumed French agents were spawned in swamps.”

“Oh, we are. My use of the word ‘mother’ is more allegorical in nature.”

“In that case, I accept your apology.”

“That you would have to bunk here with me on your own ship is an insult beyond the pale,” Pierre said sincerely.

Bedford waved it off. “I thought about forcing my XO to trade, but he’s a sensitive sort. Besides, it could be worse.”

“Oh, how?”

“I could be bunking with Champollion!”

“Ha! Touche, Captain.”

“While we are both feeling talkative, how do you think Champollion blocked us from seeing what he and his servants were doing?” Bedford asked.

Pierre shrugged. “I can’t say. I do mean that in the literal sense. Even if I had information, I would be bound by my oath not to divulge a word.”

Bedford nodded slowly. “Fair enough.”

Pierre cocked his head as he considered Bedford. “Equitable and magnanimous. If all you Confederates are like you, yours must be a land of peace.”

Bedford shook his head. “We have standards. I fail, but I still strive for them. And peace was broken by our neighbors.”

“Ah, yes, Aveline did fill me in about some of that. It’s a tragedy whenever war breaks out.”

Bedford gave the other the same scrutiny he received. “Is that why you are an Agent of the Crown? To help prevent war?”

The Frenchman nodded. “In part. But enough of these serious subjects! We have days to wallow in morose musings.”

“Good point. A game of cards?”

“Only if we can bet ludicrous sums of money with no expectations of honoring the losses!”

Bedford laughed in spite of himself. “Acceptable!”

That evening, Bedford and Bergeron reviewed all the recorded surveillance footage from the Fox’s external security cameras. The two men were hunched around a terminal in the Armory, the most secured place Bedford wanted to use without drawing attention.

After rewatching the same feeds for the umpteenth time, Bedford leaned back in his chair farther than normal. Gravity was set to a few points less than standard for the Pelican while they were in jump space.

“Okay, let’s review. While we were gone, all of our guest’s equipment had been dropped off into the bay by your standard flat trucks and cargo bots. Truck comes out of a new opening, bots unload, rinse and repeat a few times, then done. A total of thirty minutes to unload and stack.”

Bergeron nodded. “And it was all automated.”

“Right,” Bedford said, sitting back up. “All machines. Then, the mist pours in and we pop out like a stage magician’s trick.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We all go inside,” Bedford leaned forward to cue up the next segment, “and this happens.” The screen suddenly switches from showing Champollion and his servants to showing snowy static. “Doesn’t matter which camera, we get the same thing. Cycling through the settings–visible, infrared, UV, thermal, etc–gives us nothing.”

“Where does that leave us?” Bergeron asked.

“With a mystery we can’t solve,” Bedford said with a sigh.

“And we can’t just ask the Pelican?”

“What do you think, Bergeron?”

Bergeron shook his head. “No, the old man would just mock us.”

“While sneering.”

“Yeah, can’t forget the sneering.”

“That’s that, then. Until we get more information, we’re stuck.” Bedford cracked a yawn. “I’m calling it a night. See you tomorrow, Bergeron.”

“You mean in a few hours, sir.”

Bedford checked the ship’s time. “Looks like you’re right, Officer. I’ll berate your commanding officer about keeping you up this late.” He paused. “Consider him berated.”

Bergeron cracked a smile. “Much obliged, Captain!”