Unlikely Allies

‘When it suits them to do so, even your enemies can cover your back.’ – General Gold

Whatever core the council had hollowed out to create their haven would forever remain an enigma, known only to those who lounged comfortably in their climate-controlled, plush-seated dominion. One thing anyone could say with certainty: the domed scenery made for a stunning backdrop, pristine air and all.

Gold and Arker had slipped from the vessel without alerting any of the officials of their exit. A few of the menial, low-ranking deckhands may have caught sight of them, but if they preferred keeping their tongues in their mouths, and not scraped across the grated floors, they’d know better than wagging them. Gold could sometimes sympathize with the council in their lust for unchecked power. If nothing else, it made for an easier time getting agendas advanced.

Following directly behind Arker, who insisted on changing their uniforms to those of low-level officers, Gold could only think of how uncomfortable the material made him feel. The uniform itched his pride more than anything else. It was likely made of the same material as his standard dress, but just the mere thought of demotion, fumbling through the ranks once again, churned his stomach. If there was anything he loathed more than insubordination, it was the idea of suffering through years of the training academy and officer camps again. If it came to that, Gold would gladly throw himself through the void, no questions asked.

“I thought you said Soder’s ship was only three hangars down?” Gold asked, his tone clipped. He’d been counting, and they’d passed that third hangar two hangars ago.

“He didn’t leave,” Arker answered with a less than assuring irritation. 

“Well, maybe he took it to the ship wash,” Gold said, his own irritation seeping through. “I hear they do a bang-up job detailing the interior here.” 

Sarcasm wasn’t normally his strong suit, but Arker had a way of dredging up every horrid trait within him. Everything about her twisted his insides, boiled his thoughts, and clenched his muscles. If the pelican ever wanted this to work, not that Gold had decided to throw in with the plan, then it would need to come up with a better solution than this forced partnership, because keeping Arker around would send Gold to an early grave. Whether it was stress, or spontaneous homicide, one of them wouldn’t survive this alliance.

“I have the interior of his ship down, I can see it burned into my retinas. I am a little less clear on the location of the ship. I remember it being three down,” Arker said, her tone clipped. “He didn’t leave though. Maybe they shifted his hangar assignment. That happens sometimes.”

Gold could see the tension in her shoulders, the most common sign of panic. He didn’t press. Prodding her now wouldn’t make her any sharper, it may be the pebble that caused the avalanche. He had no desire to carry her anxiety ridden body back to his own ship.

“We will try a few more hangars,” he said, lowering his voice. “If we pass up five more with no signs of Soder then I think it best we regroup.” 

Arker nodded, but Gold wondered how much of a fight she would put up if the time came to withdraw.

“Do you two have any inkling of where you are going?” 

A voice sounding as if it had smoked a full pack a day, yelled at a rock concert the night before, then poured a vat of hot acid down their throats called after them. Gold instinctively straightened, prepared to verbally crush whoever dared confront him. But Arker spun around first, her eyes wide, not at the voice, but at Gold himself. A silent reminder: they weren’t generals right now. They were ghosts in borrowed uniforms. 

“We are on our way back to General Soder’s ship,” Arker said, doing her best impression of a nervous cadet. To her advantage, it may have not been too hard to pretend the nervous part. Should they be found out in stolen uniforms there would be a lot of questions. Gold, at least currently, failed to come up with any good answers for them.

Scrutiny painting his face, the old toad of a man, used the tip of his cigarette to point toward a hangar just two slots forward. Gold was happy to find Arker hadn’t been pulling him along on a lie about Soder being here. It made him feel more confident about the rest of this hair-brained adventure they were on.

“Funny thing though,” the toad rasped. “I don’t recall taking any names down from General Soder’s logs requesting leisure time.” 

He theatrically flipped open a digital pad from under his arm, making a dramatic display of checking information Gold knew without a doubt he had memorized already. 

“Yeap, as I suspected, there is a big fat zero here under crew member disembarking.” 

Gold could think of a dozen options for disposing of a disgruntled hangar worker. However, any decision that was too loud, or too risky would collapse the entire mission before it began.

“We wanted to surprise a few of our crew members who are celebrating their enlistment anniversaries,” Gold said. It was something he stamped out on his own vessel, celebrations led to a lack of awareness and ultimately, mistakes, but it was something familiar enough to pass inspection.

“Despite your good intentions, we have protocol for a reason.” 

Gold didn’t disagree. Had it been his own crew doing such a thing, he would have stripped them of their rank and patted the old toad on his back for his discipline. But here, now, it was an inconvenience too sharp to tolerate.

Before Gold could consider another route, Arker moved. 

She must have missed the training week dedicated to subterfuge, but her ability to move without so much as a rustle was impressive. At least it would have been, had it not been for the fact that she ruined any chance of them pulling off this heist without a hitch. 

As the toad’s body crumpled, neck contorted as if he had suddenly decided to look at something behind him without regard for the limits of his flexibility, Arker took great care to catch it and lower it without noise. 

Gold’s first intuition had been to shout at her for her inconceivably ludicrous notion. However, his sense kicked in, preventing him from sending them belly up to their demise.

 Instead of berating her, like he wanted to do, he instead busied himself scouting the immediate area for any witnesses. Miraculously, it appeared no one else had taken their duty all too seriously this shift. Why would they? Who would dare commit a crime on the doorstep of the council? Anyone looking forward to living another day should have enough braincells to stay in their lane while in the shadow of the council hall.

“What are we going to do now?” he hissed, moving in close to Arker and the now very dead toad. “Are we looking to find the quickest route to the void? Have you lost the baggage between your ears?”

“I saved the mission,” Arker said, her eyes hard.

Gold nudged the corpse with the tip of his boot, just to ensure the weathered, leather-like sack of bones had no life left. 

“Were you planning on talking him into reason?” Arker did less to cover their presence and spoke with a flare of anger crackling in her words. “Do you think anyone is obligated to listen to your drivel without the badges on your chest? If you believe anyone cares about you outside your uniform, you are a fool, even more so than I had ever imagined.”

Gold kept his retort to himself, choosing self-preservation. Arker had always been a ticking bomb. One almost as likely to explode in the ship’s hull as it was to make it to its target. 

“What are we doing with him?” Gold asked, knowing any option involving someone stumbling upon this and not raising an alarm was unlikely. Lax as the hangar guards may have been, they weren’t incompetent enough to trip over a corpse and continue with their day.

“Our options are limited,” Arker said, flatly. 

Arker’s expression darkened, her eyes scrunching, as if a lightbulb had suddenly flickered on inside her head. 

“Well, I for one am ecstatic to see you thought this one through and ironed out any potential hazards.” Gold said, voice soaked in more sarcasm than he’d ever used before. He took a deep breath, bending to get closer to the toad. 

While their options were limited, and none of them were particularly pleasant, Gold would never have reached his position if something so simple as this could bring about his end.

“What are you doing?” Arker asked, watching him with suspicion.

Gold kept his plan to himself. Let her stew a bit. A little panic would do her well for the future. Might even make her think two steps ahead next time.

“I want you to switch uniforms with him,” Gold said, when he finally broke the silence. 

The oversized toad’s uniform would’ve easily fit either of them without issue. But Gold had already lowered himself enough by agreeing to this plan. It was time for Arker to remember, agreement or not, he still had the upper rank.

“I am sure you would like that,” Arker sneered. 

Gold snapped the fingers of his mechanical hand. The sharp crack cut through her protest like a whip.

“The uniform or the void. I know which I prefer, but you do what pleases your sensibilities best.” 

Arker stared at him for a moment longer, then, jaw tight, she moved to the toad, unfastening the uniform buttons.

While she did her part, Gold slipped around a stack of cargo containers, containing unknown contents. Pausing at one, he used one of his metallic fingertips to wedge under the lip of the lid. The seal was industrial grade, normally, a single person’s strength wouldn’t be enough crate, but Gold’s modifications made short work of it with only a slight hiss emitting from the sealed packaging. 

Gold leaned over and peered inside.

Neatly stacked rows of munitions five across and at least four deep, at least a hundred boxes, maybe more. Enough firepower to start a respectable uprising. 

With no time for contemplation, he reached in and began unloading the contents, methodically lining them on the floor beside the container. Someone would eventually question the shoddy repackaging job, but it would likely not be until the morning when the shipment workers arrived. By then, Gold intended to be long gone.

When Arker rejoined him, Gold had already cleared three rows of munitions.

“We are putting him in there?” she asked.

Gold didn’t bother with an answer. The question answered itself. 

Without asking for her assistance, he fetched the toad’s body and deposited it in the now vacant space. The corpse settled in nicely among the lingering scent of explosive and sealed metal like it had always belonged there.

“That is going to buy us until morning,” Gold said, rising to full height, his voice deepening with command. “By then, I plan to be long gone from this hangar, preferably without Soder on my tail.” 

Arker composed no reply, obviously not finding it worth the effort to defy him. “Good. You lead the way. If we run into another worker, you are guiding me back to my ship after I wandered out on my own.”

Gold hoped there would be no more intrusions, but if fate had a cruel sense of humor, he would take advantage of Arker’s impulsivity as a decoy. It would hopefully make the next meeting less messy.

2.

The remaining distance to Soder’s hangar passed, mercifully, without another incident. Gold felt the killing and disposing of the toad had been enough excitement to last him one night. Which meant, he had to believe disabling Soder’s ship would go off without a hitch.

Gold would never admit it to anyone but the thought of General Soder absconding with his life, legacy, and title left a sour pit of self-pity festering within his chest. A pang of something old brushed the caverns where a younger, ambitious heart once beat. All those years of clawing his way to power…about to be erased in a blink by a bird and a bureaucrat with better press support.

“My ship is still bigger,” Gold muttered, eyeing the looming hull of Soder’s massive airship. 

“Really?” Arker asked, one scaled brow arching in mock amusement. 

Gold wouldn’t be remembered for his jokes, or light-hearted banter, but standing in the shadow of the ship belonging to the man propped up to replace him, he almost felt like it was justified that he flexed a little bravado.

“How do we get in and blow Soder’s dreams into tiny bits?”

For the last decade, Gold had been much more commander than soldier. He issued orders from the polished steel of his bridge, surrounded by loyal, or at least obliging, subordinates and layers of protocol designed to shield him from physical risks. The life of a General was worth more than an entire battalion of cadets. Should his missions have ever failed, they never did, he would have been expected to regroup and strike once again. 

Tonight was obviously different. He wasn’t just at risk; he was fully exposed. Worse than that, he was tasked with keeping Arker alive too. If her dead body appeared out of nowhere, it would lead whoever found her right back to Gold, landing him a permanent spot in the afterlife.

“Up the loading dock, through the maintenance hatch, and then right into the reactors,” Arker said, reciting like a soldier briefing their team. “We don’t have to disable the entire ship, that would be too suspicious, all we need to do is clip one of those reactors and the rest will overheat should Soder decide it is worth pushing through the maintenance alert.” 

Arker opened her eyes, continuing to nod to herself.

Gold didn’t doubt the plan. At least not the technical parts. He knew enough about ships to dissemble, construct, and design them if the itch came upon him. He also knew GLAD had specifically sent designers over five thousand potential set-ups for each ship in their fleet. If no one knew the location of the reactors, munitions, and bombs, it would theoretically be much harder to disrupt any ship bearing their flag.

If Arker’s vision was wrong, or if her mysterious benefactor had fed her the wrong floor plan, they were walking straight into a blazing furnace.

Gold stayed low, moving in a crouch across the narrow gap between the hangar and the central loading platform of the hangar. Six teams, at least, each with a dozen personnel, busied themselves hauling crates up the very ramp Arker ensured him was their preferred way in. The only other suitable entryway involved them barging through the soldier’s entrance, resulting in likely death, after public embarrassment.

“I think we should wait here until the workers finish loading,” Arker whispered. “After, we can pull the hatch for the ramp down ourselves.”

Gold turned to her, giving her what he hoped was a look that conveyed how dumb that sounded. “And if we get caught? What’s the plan, Uh…sorry, we forgot our communicator, was just going to slip in and snatch it really quick.” 

He shook his head, wondering if Arker’s time on planet paradise had ruined her analytical thinking skills. How soft had she gone playing monk while he hardened against the sharp edge of the council’s cause?

Maybe he was being unreasonable though. How long had it been since anyone tried to go toe-to-toe with him? The crew on his ship, even the puppets, had dull fangs in true contest of wills. Their resolve ended once Gold clipped their strings, becoming nothing more than limp carcasses; useless until they could receive council orders again.

“Do you have another idea?” Arker asked, voice edged with doubt, more about his answer than the question.

Gold ignored the urge to get pulled into another round of back-and-forth. Instead, he focused on the patterns of the worker teams. How much did one team know about the other? In any stretch of the imagination, Gold assumed they had all been vetted by the council’s employment committee. Allowing anyone to work near the heart of power would obviously require an exhaustive background check. Their ideologies, loyalty, social mapping would have been gone through with a fine-tooth comb. Even these workers, who obviously passed the vetting, would still probably be separated from one another to some degree. Any rebellion, uprising, or revolution would be easily thwarted if it could never begin. 

As he watched, Gold grew more confident in his estimation. None of the teams ever intermingled. There were no familiar nods, or wasteful chatter, not even subtle glances as they passed by one another. Each stuck to their own loops out past the bend, approximately ten feet from the next team.

“Got anything there,” Arker said, smirking, “or did your head fill up with so much hot air it broke your brain?” 

Again, Gold opted to ignore her bait.

“Two of the teams follow a route taking them out past that little curve near where the walkway plank would unfold,” Gold guided Arker’s attention with the tip of his gloved metallic finger, “if we can make it past there, it takes them exactly seven minutes to walk from the loop. After that, they will take time to load the next set of containers. As far as I can tell, there are no supervisors watching them and only six guards surround the ship. The presence of the council has given everyone a false sense of security.”

Gold continued scanning, making certain he missed nothing as he outlined the plan. “All we need to do is wait for a team to vanish out of sight, then grab a hand-loader. There are two already filled with small crates along the back wall. We can walk right past the guards, up the ramp, and there we can slip through the containers into the hatch, if it is where you say it is.” 

“It is there,” Arker spat, frustrated at his skepticism.

She refused to remark on it out loud, but Gold could tell she saw the merit in the plan. It was more airtight than her own, faster too, with just enough probability of working to make it not worth arguing against. 

Another hidden benefit was that it also allowed them some room for error. Not even the posted guards seemed to have full awareness of who was and wasn’t supposed to be there. Gold just had to hope no one took enough time inspecting their current uniforms. 

3.

 Sneaking as quickly as they could while avoiding unwanted attention, Gold and Arker made their way to the far side of the hangar, up toward the curve Gold had pointed out.

Covered by the bustle of moving materials, no one batted an eye at them. At the curve, Gold paused to allow Arker to catch her breath. He might have been out of practice with espionage expeditions, but Arker made him feel like an elite operative by comparison.

While she recovered, Gold edged around the bend that had been blocked from their previous vantage point. As expected, hundreds of crates were stacked from floor to ceiling, everything Soder’s team would need to stay content and productive. From toilet wipes all the way to ice cream, the fragile balance of life aboard a ship this size rested on the small comforts. Even a stick of deodorant could be the difference between order and chaos.

“Quit daydreaming and let’s get a move on it, General,” Arker said. 

Gold snapped out of it and turned his focus back to the task. 

“Remember, up the ramp just as the next team rounds this corner, we have to make certain we are not going to run right into the next oncoming group.” 

Arker shrugged, then peeked out, signaling ready. Thirty seconds later, the last stragglers passed by without so much as a precursory glance. Arker darted ahead, leaving Gold to catch up. She was just petty enough to ruin this whole thing, void or not, just to watch him sweat. Once this was over, he would have his say, but for now, he kept his head down.

A few guards shifted, lingering on Arker as she grabbed the handle of the containers Gold had marked. If they were going to protest, they showed no signs of it. Two minutes later, they arrived at the bottom of the loading ramp without a hitch.

“Almost too easy,” Arker said.

Gold felt the pressure of the void constricting him as it squeezed the last vestiges of air from his every cell. Nothing about this would be too easy. Still, for a ship tied to someone as high-ranking as General Soder, it should have been harder. Gold made a mental note to drill his own guards when he arrived back.

Arker proved too small to move the load up the ramp alone. Gold could’ve managed with his mechanical advantages, but instead of pushing her aside, he grabbed the handle, placing his hand right next to hers. The funny thing about his suit, while the limbs may not have been biologically his own, they still felt like it. Neural impulses flowed as if he’d been born with them.

Ignoring the heat of her proximity, he pushed the cart up the ramp. Another crew passed by on their way down, silent but watching too long for his comfort. Gold inhaled slowly through his nose.

 No time for paranoia. This was a simple in-and-out mission. Then he had to get back to planning a way forward. Getting stuck in this crazy loop was way outside of the plan.

Once inside, Arker dropped the handle and made a beeline (without any actual bees) for a stacked set of containers along the left side of the storage area. Gold followed closely behind. Arker wasted no time, not even checking for wandering eyes, as she began climbing the nearest crate. At the top, she turned and waved to him. Swallowing the lump forming in his throat, Gold swallowed the knot rising in his throat and started after her, wishing there’d been any other way out of this mess he found himself in.

“Right through this panel and we will be in the reactor room, hopefully,” Arker said. 

Before Gold could question her about the way her statement ended, she ripped the grate from the wall and disappeared into the duct behind it. 

Gold muttered a curse to himself, checked once more to make sure no one had seen them, then chased after.

4.

Pristine reactor cylinders stretched over twenty feet high, lining the chamber with enough explosive potential to vaporize the council’s precious space station. Just a few malfunctioning cores could realistically spark a chain reaction that would leave everything within thousands of miles reduced to soot and ash. 

But, of course, the council would never allow that kind of risk anywhere near their doorstep. 

Every reactor on a GLAD-sanctioned vessel came standard with failsafe shielding-plasma barriers engineered to absorb the simultaneous detonation of up to twenty cores. No matter the design, each layout included redundant containment layers. At worst, a disaster here would incinerate the reactor room alone. The rest of the ship, and everything beyond it, would remain unscathed. 

Gold glanced around, barely resisting a sneer.

Unlike Gold’s reactor room, which was bland yet efficient, Soder’s was plated in gaudy gold décor. Gold’s reactors wrapped around his ship in a circle, all along the inner walls, impossible to wander in on, and preventative of anyone having access to more than a single reactor at a time. Soder’s, on the other hand, left all the reactors clumped, and everyone knew it was best not to put all their eggs into one basket.

Easy to breach. Easy to sabotage. And in Gold’s opinion, proof of Soder’s prioritization of aesthetics over tactical integrity. 

“Compare ships later. Right now, we need to get past one of these reactor’s protocols,” Arker said, stepping up to the nearest core and running her hand across its metallic surface.

 The reactor’s low hum pulsed in a rhythmic pattern-simplistic, consistent, like an orchestra. 

“Ever shut one down before?” Gold asked, assuming the answer.

Arker shook her head. “Never got the opportunity to have my own command.” Her eyes narrowed, leaving her accusation against him unspoken, but extremely obvious.

Her resentment had always been misplaced. 

Her failings weren’t his doing. Arker’s inability to lead with conviction always left her straggling behind others. She lacked purposeful intent, riding on the tide of her emotional whims. No matter the noose she tried to wrap around his neck, it was the council’s decisions, not his own.

“I suppose you know everything about reactors now,” she said, voice laced with venom. “Their components, their little secrets…Tell me it all, my shining knight, my brave hero.” 

“You came to me,” Gold said, “remember that. When tough times came, you knocked on my ship’s door. Or, actually, you barged right in without announcing yourself. Seems you and the pelican have that much in common.”

Gold avoided any comeback by stepping into the ring of reactor columns.

 The humming changed as he approached. What had been ambient sound now buzzed through his armor like electricity beneath his skin.  He could feel the power in them, dense, dangerous, alive. These reactors were something Gold could relate to. 

Growing up without arms, legs, or pride had been brutal. But, when life hurled him into the air, he didn’t fall, he grew wings. 

Still, no matter how far he soared, or how many accolades he earned, the whispers always lingered. The mockery, soft and venomous, echoed behind closed doors, cloaked by an illusion of secrecy.

But there was a reason they congregated in the shadows.

Because unlike these reactors, Gold’s fury didn’t come with containment barriers. And when he exploded, nothing would hold back the fire.

Gold slid his metallic finger along the outside casing of the pedestal. Inside were wires, panels, and a brain made of millions of transistors. Gold flicked open a small panel, no larger than his wrist communicator. A series of flashing lights in meticulously cultivated rows greeted him. 

“I will need just a minute,” he said.

Only GLAD’s highest-ranking officials had clearance to manually deactivate a reactor. Knowing the correct sequence of seven unique presses was a powerful secret. These simplistic controls would order the column to set into motion a series of events causing twin rods to vacuum out the neutrons from the fission cycle, hence the crude term among reactor workers: sucking it dry. Like most soldiers, especially when it came to crude jokes, reactor workers were infantile. After the neutrons vanished, boron would flood into the system ready to absorb residual particles. 

The final stage kept the water cool and cycling over the core, locking in a stabilized dormant state.

It was delicate work.

“What do you need?” Arker asked, her voice was far too loud, even with the reactor’s roaring.

Gold let his fingers do the talking. The interface would accept no corrections. If a user hesitated or fumbled, the system would trigger a full-scale alarm, sending every available soldier to the reactor floor. 

Fortunately, Gold had done this before. Many times.

Every tap of a button sent feedback to Gold. Each code differed from reactor to reactor, however, there was a special cipher set into every system. Gold only had to watch for the color pattern as he tapped with a rapid pace.

 The trick was to keep going despite any wrong key being struck. It was only if the user stopped, hesitated, or panicked, that the whole system would respond. 

A soft hiss emitted from somewhere deep in the column as the final button clacked into place, the sound of water hitting something unimaginably hot and vaporizing on contact. It was contained, at least in theory, cycling through high-pressure pipes designed to cool the core. The steam would condense, return as water, and run the loop again and again, until the systems were reactivated, or the reservoir finally ran dry. 

“That’s that,” Gold said.

“Can they just turn it back on?” Arker asked, eyeing the column.

“Well, yeah. It would take far too much time to deactivate a reactor for good,” Gold said. “The thing is, without running the risk of melting the core, Soder’s team will take at least a day, assuming they find it within the next twenty-four hours. If it fails to become an issue until after, say a day or two, then the inspections alone will mean a stop on an impromptu planet hangar. We are looking at getting a two, or three-day, head start. That will be plenty to get out ahead of this.” At least Gold hoped it would be enough. At this point, it was hard telling what would happen in the next moment, let alone the next few days.

“It’ll have to do,” Arker said. 

Gold’s reply was cut short as he caught a shadow moving along the columns.

From the dim passage between reactors, a lanky, yet muscular, rat emerged. 

“Hello, General Gold,” the rat said, voice slick and smooth. “How long has it been?”