The Hunt for Reduk Topa Read online

  Space Team: The Hunt for Reduk Topa

  Barry J. Hutchison

  Copyright © 2019 by Barry J. Hutchison

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published worldwide by Zertex Media Ltd.

  www.barryjhutchison.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Have a Free Book on Me

  Further Reading

  One

  Mud. So much mud. Holding him back. Slowing him down. Plastering him from head to toe with its cold, sticky filth. Why did he have to turn right? Why did he have to come this way? Why hadn’t he stuck to the streets?

  Because of Juggacrush. That was why. There was no way he was tangling with Juggacrush. No fonking way. He’d seen what that guy was capable of. Everyone had.

  Sollon Romusk squinted through the darkness, then drew an arm across his face, wiping the rain from his eyes. It didn’t help. He careened half-blind down the muddy hillside, his other three arms flapping frantically as he fought to keep his balance.

  He had to stay upright. Had to keep moving. The Sloorgs were already closing behind him—he could hear their hisses and snarls. If he fell, it was over. If he fell, he was dead.

  He fell.

  In fact, to say he fell was to do what he actually did a disservice. He flew. His front foot hit the top of a half-buried boulder, his back foot hit his front foot, and a combination of gravity, momentum, and plain old bad luck did the rest.

  Sollon took off at a sixty-degree angle, sailed several feet into the midnight black, then his chest hit the mud with enough force to knock most of the air and almost all of the fight out of him.

  He would probably have lain there until the Sloorgs caught up, exhausted and helpless, had it not been for the kinetic energy gifted to him by his spectacular fall. It propelled him down the slope, mud fully blinding him and filling his various facial orifices as his chin carved a trench through the sludge.

  He swore, albeit internally. Despite the indignity of the situation, though, he knew that this was good. He was still moving. He was going faster than he had been before, in fact. And, if he was still moving, then he was still alive. If he was still moving, he could still make it.

  If he was still moving, he could still win.

  His face met another rock. He didn’t see it coming, not that he could have done anything about it, even if he had. There was no dramatic flight this time, just a sudden jarring stop that brought his legs up behind him until his body formed a C-shape and his spine creaked in complaint.

  His nose took the brunt of the impact, but the bone generously collapsed so that his cheeks, mouth, and forehead might get in on the action, too. Blood flowed backward into a throat already filled with dirt. He hacked and coughed, the ringing in his ears not quite loud enough to drown out the snarling of the approaching Sloorgs.

  They’d be on him at any moment. He had to get up. Had to go. Had to move.

  He tried to push himself up on all four arms, but his muscles were too weak, and the ground was too slippery, and he fell again almost immediately. His forehead met a sharp ridge on the rock. The last of his strength oozed out through the resulting gash.

  Sollon Romusk sobbed, just once. It was a low, primal sort of sound that rang with defeat, and heartache, and remorse for a life badly lived.

  He heard the barking of the Sloorgs grow louder as they crested the hill. Felt the movement of the mud around him as their brutish bodies slid down. Smelled the coppery scent of his own blood. Tasted mud, shattered teeth, and hot, salty tears.

  And then, just before the monsters could pounce, a whistle sounded, short and shrill. A spotlight snapped on, bright enough to somehow dazzle Sollon through the back of his head. The Sloorgs skidded to a halt just beyond the circle of light, huffing and grunting their disapproval.

  “Aaaand halt,” said an efficiently smooth-sounding male voice from somewhere close by. “Someone get him up.”

  Two dark-clad figures stepped from the darkness. Rough hands hoisted Sollon onto his feet.

  “Can we clean him up? But not too much. Let’s keep the authenticity,” said the voice.

  Sollon shuffled on the spot as one of the figures dabbed at his face, removing just enough dirt, blood, and other debris to make him recognizable.

  “Perfect, Chyenne. Just perfect,” said the voice. “Not terribly beautiful, but beautifully terrible. Just the way we like it!”

  There was a smattering of laughter from nowhere in particular. A piece of paper was thrust into Sollon’s hands. He accepted it in a sort of trance, the blow to the head having slowed his brain’s ability to process what the fonk was going on down to a grinding crawl.

  “OK, Sollon, you’re doing great. Just terrific!” said the voice. “We’re all loving you. Audience satisfaction is high on this. It’s really high.”

  “Buh?” said Sollon, not entirely on purpose.

  “Riiight,” said the voice, after a moment. “We’re going to need you to be a teensy bit less monosyllabic for this next part. We need you to read the statement for us, OK? Think you can do that? Hmm?”

  Sollon looked down at the paper, but it was blurred by tears. Without a word, one of the black-clad figures stepped forward and blasted his eyes with a burst of warm air, drying them.

  “Read it into that,” the figure instructed, pointing to a sphere that hovered in the air just inside the circle of light. Behind it, just beyond where the light fell away, the Sloorgs paced and snuffled and pawed impatiently at the ground.

  “Nice and clear for us,” said the smooth-talking male voice. “If you have any personal experience, feel free to go off script and mention it. Provided it’s positive, of course. Now, clear the set.”

  The two figures in black melted into the shadows, leaving Sollon alone in the spotlight. He cleared his throat. It tasted of dirty metal.

  The paper shook and his voice quavered as he began to read.

  “Th-this episode is sponsored by Murp’s Insurance. S-sick of low-life pirates like me hijacking your ships, killing your families, and stealing your cargo?” he croaked. “Have no fear, Murp is here. W-with a Murp’s Insurance policy, you’re covered up to the full value of the stolen property. We’ll even throw in a…”

  A tear had fallen onto the page, blurring the ink and partially obscuring the next few words.

  “Complimentary funeral service,” whispered one of the black-clad figures.

  “A complimentary funeral service for any m-murdered loved-ones or employees,” Sollon continued. “Contact us now for a f
ull, no-obligation quote. Save ten percent on the price of the first premium by using the code…”

  Sollon’s voice cracked as he read the next line.

  “‘Mauled by Sloorgs.’”

  He began to lower the page, but the sound of a throat being cleared stopped him and he looked back down at the paper again.

  “Oh. Terms and conditions apply,” he said, blinking apologetically into the light. “Sorry.”

  “Perfect. Beautiful. Just beautiful,” oozed the smooth male voice. “Thanks, champ. I think we can get back to it.”

  The sphere retreated. The spotlight snapped off. The paper fell from Sollon’s hand.

  And then, in a chorus of triumphant roars and rumbling stomachs, the Sloorgs pounced.

  Two

  “Jesus, Mech, be careful with that thing.”

  The cyborg, Mech, scowled. This was not new. He had been scowling for a while now, but the expression had really hit its stride over the past twenty minutes or so. He raised his eyes to the man sitting directly across from him and fixed him with a cold glare.

  “I am being careful.”

  Cal Carver, the ship’s self-styled captain, returned Mech’s scowl with interest. “You call that careful? You’re like a bull in a china shop.”

  “What does that mean?” Mech asked.

  “You know, like…” Cal made a series of flailing movements with his arms. “Like that.”

  “I ain’t doing anything like that,” Mech argued. “I haven’t fonking moved.”

  “Well, be careful when you do is all I’m saying. Take your time. You don’t want to set that thing off.”

  “Yeah, well maybe you don’t want to set me off,” Mech warned.

  “I’m just trying to help,” Cal said. He leaned back from the table and crossed his arms. “But fine. Go right ahead. Set it off. Knock yourself out. See if I care.”

  Mech muttered something too quietly for Cal to hear, then flicked his eyes down to the contraption on the table between them.

  “See if I care,” said Cal, slightly quieter than before.

  Mech’s scowl deepened further. His metal fingers adjusted their grip on the tool he was holding.

  “Not my problem,” Cal whispered.

  “You’re trying to make me set this thing off. That’s what’s happening right now, ain’t it?” Mech snapped.

  Cal looked hurt. “What? No! Of course not. What do you take me for?”

  “A pain in the ass,” Mech replied. “Now, will you shut the fonk up and let me concentrate?”

  Cal mimed zipping his mouth shut, then gestured to the table in a manner that bordered on outright aggression.

  “Thank you.”

  Mech leaned in closer to the device, his fine-motor hydraulics buzzing softly as he brought the tool in close. Much as he hated to admit it, Cal was right. One mistake, one slip, one wrong move, and it was all over.

  He could do this. He just had to very carefully—

  “Easy now,” whispered Cal.

  Mech almost lost it at that point, but somehow resisted the urge to kill the man sitting across from him. Instead, he focused on his movements, steadied his nerves. He was a cyborg, so his hands shouldn’t be shaking, and yet he could detect just the faintest tremble as he initiated the delicate removal procedure.

  BZZZZT!

  The bright red nose of the cartoon human illuminated, and Cal thrust his hands in the air.

  “Operation!” Cal cheered, jumping to his feet and gesticulating victoriously at the board game on the table. “You killed him, Mech! You killed that poor little guy. Never go for the funny bone. What did I tell you? Never go for the funny bone!”

  Mech slammed the tweezers onto the table and shook his head in disgust. “I hate this fonking game,” he said. “And will you quit dancing?”

  Cal did not quit dancing. Quite the opposite. He jigged triumphantly on the spot, shimmying his hips and pumping the palms of both hands in the direction of the ceiling.

  “Victory dance, Mech. I’ve got to do it. It’s in the rules.”

  “I read the fonking rules and it don’t say anything about no motherfonking victory dance.”

  “House rules,” Cal said. “Not official, but important all the same.”

  After a few more seconds of gyrating, Cal sat on the bench and began replacing the plastic pieces back into the Operation board. “Best out of… what are we on? Thirteen?”

  Mech shook his head. “No. I am done. I don’t ever want to play this game again. I hate it. I hate the game, I hate whoever the fonk invented the game, and I hate you for making me play it.”

  Cal gave him a pointed look. “Well, maybe if someone hadn’t broken Hungry, Hungry Hippos way back when…”

  “Not this again,” Mech groaned. “You told me to hit the tail. I hit the tail.”

  “You sledgehammered the tail, Mech. There’s a difference.”

  “Ain’t my fault I’m stronger than you,” Mech said.

  “No, but it’s your fault you didn’t think about that fact before you pulverized a hippo’s ass cheeks into a billion little pieces,” Cal said. He shook his head reproachfully. “And as for Buckaroo…”

  “That wasn’t my fault.”

  “You shot the donkey, Mech,” Cal reminded him. Not that Mech really needed reminding. It had not been one of his finer moments. “You shot the little donkey in its little face.”

  “It surprised me,” said Mech. “How was I supposed to know it was going to kick like that?”

  “Uh, maybe from the box art? Or from the rules you insisted on reading aloud before we started?”

  Mech grunted. It wasn’t a grunt about any one thing in particular, but rather an indication of his feelings on the conversation in general.

  Cal finished replacing all the pieces. “So, are we playing again?”

  Mech stared back at him across the table. On the wall behind Cal’s head, a piece of cardboard covered the porthole window, hiding the streaking star effects that came with traveling at warp speed. Cal had become accustomed enough to faster than light travel that he could mostly deal with looking at it straight on, but not sideways. Watching the stars rushing toward him when he sat on the bridge? Fine. Not pleasant, but fine.

  Watching them smear past the side windows like runny paint? No. Therein lay a one-way ticket to Vomitsville.

  “Do you really want to play again?” asked Mech. “Seriously?”

  “Yes!” said Cal. His eyes flicked down to the pained expression on the Operation man’s face. He had to admit, he was starting to appreciate how the guy felt. “I mean, no. Obviously, I don’t want to play this game ever again. I don’t want to play any more games. We’ve been doing this for weeks.”

  “Days, sir,” intoned the droll voice of the ship’s artificial intelligence.

  Cal flicked his eyes up to the ceiling in the direction the voice had come from. “I meant space weeks, Kevin,” Cal said. He pressed on before anyone could question the logic of this statement. “Anyway, the point stands. We’ve been flying for a long time.”

  “This was your idea,” Mech pointed out. “You’re the one who wanted us to get out of the sector and go somewhere new.”

  “I didn’t know it’d take this long!” said Cal.

  “We told you,” said Mech. “We said, ‘That will take a very long time.’ We literally said those words.”

  “You know I don’t listen to things, Mech,” Cal said, as if this was somehow the cyborg’s fault. “You know that.”

  He stood up and sighed theatrically. “I’m going to go find Splurt.” Cal gestured to the board game. “Can you deal with that stuff?”

  Mech regarded the Operation board for a moment, then smashed it with his fist.

  “Well, I meant, you know, tidy it away, but I guess that works,” Cal said, tapping the button to open the door.

  His eyes fell on the replicator. It had been a while since he’d last eaten. Not a long while—not even a while of medium length, in fact—b
ut a while all the same.

  “Loren, honey, you want me to bring you anything from the replicator?” Call called.

  There was a moment of hesitation before the reply came. “I’m fine.”

  “I can get you a Twix,” Cal suggested. He looked back over his shoulder and dropped his voice. “She likes Twixes.”

  Mech contemplated this nugget of information for approximately a second and a half, then shrugged to indicate he didn’t care.

  “No, thanks. I’m fine,” came Loren’s reply.

  “Frosted Flakes? Banoffee Pie?”

  “I’m OK.”

  “Spit Nibbles? We could share.”

  No answer.

  Cal waited.

  “You want me to stop asking you now, honey?” he called.

  “Yes, please!”

  Cal nodded and flashed Mech a grin. “We know each other so well,” he said. “It’s like we’re twins.”

  He caught the expression on Mech’s face. “But not like actual twins. Not blood relatives. Because that would be wrong. You know, since me and her are—”

  “I am well aware of what you’re doing,” said Mech. He visibly shuddered. “For a state-of-the-art experimental spaceship, this thing has some thin-ass walls.”

  “Also, I beamed a live video feed of proceedings to the main viewscreen, sir,” said Kevin.

  Cal’s eyes widened in horror. “You did what?”

  Kevin chuckled benignly. “Just my little joke, sir. I’m well aware that Mistress Loren would uninstall me with her bare hands were I to have done anything of the sort.”