Drifter

Impractical Desire was a yacht. Its hull was long, sleek. Any and all sense of practicality had been belligerently and wantonly rejected. The paintjob was a tribute to brazen acts of racing and the violent results that often come from it.

Eli was able to access a navigation beacon that had recorded the ship passing. From there, he searched a cluster of heavily populated star systems. The trail was still warm. Kolache was looking for fresh hunting grounds. He would find them soon enough in that sector of space.

Cavalier’s com system picked up the half-dissipated remains of a transmission. Impractical Desire requested and was given permission to board a massive space station, Aus 4.

Eli contacted the station, warning the local authorities. They gave him a canned response.

The station was a hulking lump of metal. The thing bordered on being an artificial planetoid. The hangar bay was cavernous. Craft were parked on a warren of landing facilities. Despite this, the hunter found the ship quickly; the thing stuck out like a sore thumb.

Eli watched the garish vessel for half an hour, took note of the lack of movement. Was everyone on shore leave or out running errands? He began to wonder if the yacht even had a crew.

A call to one of his smuggling contacts got him the information he needed on how to bypass the ship’s lock. The manufacturer had added a backdoor, which had been discovered by certain crafty beings.

Eli entered the vessel, a sawed-off double barrel shotgun in one hand, a scanner in the other. The boarding ramp led into a small foyer. The area was finely furnished, decorated with sculptures made of precious metals.

The intruder saw no cameras, a fact that confounded and worried him. He came to a halt and closely examined the room.

There, a motion sensor mounted on the wall. The thing blended in well, could have been mistaken for just another piece of hardware. It was located right where someone moving beyond the boarding ramp would set it off.

Eli examined the sensor, being careful not to get into its range. There was a little bud on the side, a receiver. The device likely switched off when Kolache got near, or rather, the transmitter that he kept in one of his pockets.

How to get around it? Eli had no clue how the device worked, so tampering with it wasn’t an option. He thought about ways to cover it but figured that this would only end up setting it off. Popping it off of the wall would more than likely lead to the same result.

Eli grabbed a multi-tool off of his belt and started unscrewing a nearby panel. Just as he had hoped, this led to a gap through which he could squeeze. He shimmied along, in total darkness, keeping as quiet as possible. The walls pressed in on him. He was forced to duck or step over protruding pieces of equipment. After unscrewing another panel, he found that he was past the motion detector.

The bounty hunter pushed deeper into the ship. More signs of money greeted him. The chair that sat at the end of the table in the galley caught his eye. The design screamed Talgar. They’d been wiped out thousands of years ago, consumed by the rest of the universe when the weight of their sins became unbearable. Kolache must have truly been wealthy to be able to afford such a thing.

Still no sign of a crew. Perhaps the killer liked his privacy.

Eli found the killer’s quarters. It was well furnished, sporting a king-sized bed and a walk in closet. A computer sat atop a desk made of darkly stained wood.

Eli checked it for booby traps, then he checked to see if the target had taken some step to make sure that any tampering could be discovered. When he was satisfied, he started searching.

A folder on the desktop, right out there in the open. It teemed with photographs. The smiling faces of victims in throbbing nightclubs or seedy bars, on neon blessed streets or dreamy beaches. On a walkway that cut through the heart of a spectacular carcass of a city, Asimon.

There he was, Kolache, smiling along with his prey. He was handsome indeed, razor cheeked and bright eyed. If certain minor features could be ignored, he could be mistaken for a human. There it was, the face that smiled as he sat on that thrown in the ship’s galley, as a young lady settled down onto his lap.

They never stood a chance, never saw him coming. Now Eli had a face to go with the reputation. Who else’s face could it have been?

Eli plunged deep into the system. Hidden in a folder within a folder within a folder he discovered a journal.

The first entry: “I could no longer resist. The urge has become a need. I had to do it,” a picture of a young woman’s face had been attached to the entry.

Eli skimmed through the entries, bearing witness to several more acts of pure evil, before coming upon this entry: “I’ve been found out! They found shoe prints and fibers from my jacket. I have managed to make it off world. Now I need to keep a low profile and gain distance. I fear that I will never be able to return to my home planet.”

The next few pages spoke of odd jobs onboard starships. Then he found another interesting entry: “I think that the captain suspects me. This is the third passenger that has gone missing since I was hired. I’ll change over to another vessel when we reach Berghov Station.”

This continued for several more pages, months passing. Then Eli reached this entry: “We discovered a shipwreck. The captain says that it’s old, very old,” the proclamation was capped by a video.

Eli took a look around, listening closely, nothing. He played the video.

Someone was filming through the porthole of a spacecraft. In deep space, a dead ship lay in the grave that was infinity. And again, the design screamed Talgar.

The video cut to the interior of the vessel. Members of a scraggly looking starship crew picked their way through ruined corridors. The only sources of light were the glow of lanterns and the beams of flashlights. This light illuminated strange machines, their purposes unclear, if not unfathomable.

A beam swept across humanoid forms. The beam stopped, hovering on the unmistakable skeletal frames of those things that had once terrorized the known universe, Talgar war drones. The video came to an end.

Eli read the final entry: “We brought the salvage aboard. It’s more than enough to make us all rich. But only I will live to sell it. They were doomed the moment they volunteered me to do tonight’s cooking. I won’t sell all of it. There are a few things I will hold onto, one above all else. With the device I’m able to do whatever I want. My need can at last be fulfilled. The setbacks of the past are behind me. I will never have to run or hide again. They cannot touch me.”

Suspicions began to form. All he needed was one or two more pieces and the puzzle would be solved. Eli did another sweep of the ship but found no one.

The target was out and about. No doubt on the hunt for his next victim. And now the terrible question: how to proceed? He could wait on the ship and ambush Kolache when he returned. This gave him the greatest chance of success. But it could very well come at the cost of someone’s life.

He decided to place a few tracking devices on the yacht, just in case. Then he headed out to try to pick up the killer’s trail.