Bleak - The first mission Read online

  The story of a shapeshifter

  Bleak

  The first mission

  Ian Martyn

  www.martynfiction.com

  Bleak – The first mission

  Ian Martyn

  Copyright © 2015 by Ian Martyn.

  Published at Smashwords

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Ian Martyn

  www.martynfiction.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Cover design ©2015 Jonathan Bates

  Bleak – The First Mission/ Ian Martyn. -- 1st ed.

  Introduction

  This 10,000 word novellette is the prequel to my book:

  Bleak

  The story of a shapeshifter

  Now available on Kindle through Amazon. Also on Smashwords and other major reading platforms.

  You can find out more about ‘Bleak’, my other books and my blog at www.martynfiction.com

  My thanks to all those who take the time to enjoy my stories, it’s what keeps me writing.

  Bleak

  The first mission

  Bleak studied the man in the cell. He was well within his abilities, he knew that, yet he was apprehensive. This was the first time. It was one thing knowing what you are capable of, the reality of it another. He had completed all the simulations, the training, but this was no drill. This was a living, breathing, human being.

  ‘You’re sure, Professor?’

  Professor Moran put a hand on Bleak’s shoulder. ‘Of course, Bleak, as you are. But your reserve is understandable. Trust me, it’s as natural to you as growing hair.’

  Bleak knew that. He was delaying, fear of the unknown. He knew that as well.

  General Niias coughed. ‘I take it he is ready?’

  The professor frowned. ‘He’s in the room, General. Why don’t you ask him?’

  General Niias raised an eyebrow. ‘Well?’

  Bleak picked up the cube. Almost everything the man was, had been, knew, were contained within it. He placed the finger and thumb of his left hand in the correct positions exposing his adapted nerve endings and opened the gate. As in the simulations he shunted the data into the adapted part of his brain. He could call upon it at any time, use it in exactly the same way as the man himself. When he was ready he would be Major Oldroyd.

  ‘So?’ General Niias said.

  Bleak smiled. ‘It will not be a problem, general,’ he said. It wasn’t an imitation of the Major’s voice, it was the major’s voice.

  Bleak entered his quarters and lay on the bed. His chest hurt every time he breathed, his jaw ached and his stomach churned. He forced down as much high protein food as he could without making himself sick, he needed to bulk out. The major was a few centimetres taller and fifteen kilos heavier than his standard form. Having eaten, he slept. Deep, dreamless unconsciousness while his body reconfigured. He woke at two hourly intervals to consume more food. Ten hours later he hauled himself up, wincing as he did so and sat on the bed. There was a ring of bruising around his middle. He opened his mouth, testing. It was uncomfortable but not painful. He tried to stand, but his balance betrayed him and he flopped back down. He tried again. This time he remained upright. He took a deep breath and managed the three steps to the wall which he leaned against. Next five steps, these steadier as his brain adjusted. In the bathroom the mirror panned around his body. Some of the purple bruising was already turning yellow at the edges, testament to his powers of healing.

  He focused on the face, now Major Oldroyd’s face, or very nearly. Bleak studied it. The eyes were brown with green flecks, the nose was wider, the lips thinner. It was a mean face, he thought. As he stood there he delved into the Major’s thoughts and personality. Oldroyd had been a career officer before the rebellion. But he’d been turned to the rebel cause early, after his home planet was attacked and his parents killed. Not that he’d seen a lot of them, or bore them much affection. He’d been only too glad to escape from that stinking backwater as he thought of it. However, a brief moment of righteous indignation against the lack of protection the Confederation had given his home world, and other more tangible inducements, had been enough to sway him for that first indiscretion. And once hooked there was no going back. Also, in his own mind, once he was committed to the rebels, why shouldn’t he take advantage of the situation to enrich himself along the way. After all he was taking the risks.

  Oldroyd was intelligent and emotionally cold, which meant he was careful and good. He’d spent five months in the general’s staff undetected. To sustain that situation also required some sophisticated hardware wired into his brain. Hardware the Confederation didn’t think the rebels had access to. Hence why they hadn’t looked for it. In the end it was personal greed that had given Major Oldroyd away. Stealing secrets is still stealing and once he was in that mind-set appropriating other objects of potential value had become hard to resist.

  Two days later Bleak stood in front of the general and Professor Moran. The general walked round him nodding. ‘Remarkable.’ He turned to the professor. ‘The best yet and faster too. And the DNA markers?’

  ‘Of course,’ the professor said. ‘There would be little point in achieving this,’ he indicated to Bleak, ‘if we didn’t take care of the details. And what about your end, General?’

  The general frowned at the implied rebuke in the professor’s voice. ‘Everyone’s been told Oldroyd was on a specific personal errand for me. Only I and my most trusted officers know the truth. So no one has any reason to suspect. If anything it might imply my increased trust in Oldroyd.’

  ‘It might,’ the professor repeated.

  The general sniffed. ‘Fine, well, have him report to my office in the morning.’

  ‘You can tell him yourself, General,’ the professor said. ‘He’s still here.’

  The general turned on his heel and marched out of the professor’s laboratory.

  Bleak smiled. ‘I don’t think he likes me.’

  The professor smiled in return as he handed Bleak Oldroyd’s SIMPA, Semi Intelligent Personal Assistant, standard naval issue. ‘Oh, he doesn’t like me either and the feeling’s mutual. No, Bleak, he doesn’t like what we represent. But it doesn’t stop him using either of us when it suits him.’

  The SIMPA bleeped as it recognised Oldroyd. Bleak watched out of the corner of his eye as it went through its boot-up routine.

  ‘Everything functioning?’

  Bleak nodded. ‘Connected.’

  The next morning Bleak showed up at the general’s staff head-quarters. Oldroyd’s SIMPA held clearances allowing him into the generals’ inner sanctum. No one asked where he’d been or what he’d been doing, not even the major’s closest aides. He sat at his station and went through some of the routine communications that were waiting for Oldroyd. One personal one was from his sister, except it wasn’t. He did have a sister and any checks, which would have been done, would confirm every single detail. It wasn’t coded as such, that
would be too risky. Certain words in a specific order would indicate where he was to make a drop. There was no when, it was whenever he could legitimately be there. Oldroyd didn’t know how it worked. In all the time he had been spying he had only met one person, on two occasions. First when he’d been recruited and then when he’d threatened to stop. He’d been left in no doubt that stopping was not an option. He knew nothing about the man he considered to be his controller or the extended organisation. That was Bleak’s challenge.

  The following evening Bleak headed into Metrakis and down to the lower levels which provided the kinds of entertainment service men were looking for on a night out. Garish light leaked out of bars and clubs bathing the passers-by, giving the street and people an alien feel. Signs floated in the air promising a variety of distractions from the innocent to the less so. A potent mix of smells, some pleasant, some not, competed for attention as Bleaks walked. He watched groups of men, women, and men and women, smiling, laughing, holding onto each other with an unconscious familiarity, some already intoxicated. It was a world he had little experience of as did Oldroyd it seemed.

  In the correct street he purchased a noodle dish from the third vendor at the south end for a few credits. He sat at one of the battered seats and ate out of the disposable container as if he was in no hurry. When finished he wiped his mouth on the small towel provided and shoved that into the pot which he scrunched up, now with a small data cube inside and deposited it in the trash collector. What happened to it after that, how they retrieved it, he had no idea. And as for the cube itself it was useless to anyone except its intended recipient. He didn’t even know if that was the man he’d met. If anyone else tried to access the data or tamper with it in any way all they would find was a collection of personal holo’s and comms and one or two items that would be enough to get his knuckles wrapped by Niias, but not serious enough to land him in any real trouble.

  Bleak was certain he wasn’t being trailed, but just in case he followed Oldroyd’s usual pattern and headed down the street to a favourite haunt. Inside, light played on swirling vapours above his head making the scene dance before his eyes as he navigated his way across the room and around the mainly all male groups. He ordered a beer and then sat on a stool with his back to the bar looking up at two girls dancing in grav cages, trying to entice clientele up to join them. The undulating colours that fell across their bodies had an almost hypnotic quality, which Bleak presumed was the intention. Any that took up the offer would be charged three times the price of a drink at the bar for the privilege of the girl’s company. Bleak guessed similar scenes had been played out for many thousands of years in similar places throughout the human galaxy. He ordered a second beer.

  The next night Bleak went through the exact same routine, just five minutes later. It seemed Oldroyd was a bit of a loner and for anyone who might be watching this was what passed for relaxation. However, for his contact this was code that something was wrong. As he sat again facing away from the bar a man stood next to him ordering a drink.

  ‘In fifteen minutes go to the ‘Starscraper’ club. The bar.’

  The man took his beer and headed back into the gloom, Bleak didn’t see where. Twenty minutes later Bleak was sipping another beer in the ‘Starscraper.’ He didn’t see the man this time.

  ‘The six moons, thirty minutes.’ Then thirty five minutes later in the six moons, ‘Go to the toilets. On your way out the third booth on the left.’ This time Bleak looked around but he didn’t spot the man. He was good.

  From the outside of the booth the arrangement of the lighting and shadows hid the occupants. Bleak slid into a seat. ‘I wasn’t being followed.’

  ‘We know you weren’t, now,’ the man from the bar said. There were two of them. It seemed they were taking him seriously. The second man reached across and grabbed Bleaks hand placing it on a pad. He showed the results to the first man who nodded. Bleak’s SIMPA bleeped with annoyance at the forced intrusion.

  ‘Satisfied?’ Bleak said.

  The first man ignored the question. ‘So what makes you think they’re onto you? I thought you’d just come back from a special assignment for the old man himself.’

  ‘They’re not onto me, but they’re suspicious. The assignment was contrived, it didn’t feel real. I think it was a test.’

  ‘Did you pass?’

  ‘What does it matter?’

  The second man leaned forward. ‘Perhaps you’re being paranoid?’

  Bleak shook his head. ‘I want out before they have chance to confirm any suspicions. And why would you take the risk?’

  The first man shrugged. ‘Perhaps we just leave you. It might be the safest thing to do. So they know they’ve had a spy. We’re no worse off and you can’t point the finger at anything.’

  ‘Except you two?’

  ‘And do you think we haven’t thought of that?’

  Bleak smiled. ‘I have something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The plans for Niias’s next big offensive’

  The first man laughed. ‘Yeah, right.’ But Bleak could see a flicker of doubt in his eyes as he glanced at the second man.

  The second man spoke. ‘So how did you get hold of them if they’re onto you?

  ‘I’ve had them for a while.’

  ‘And you haven’t passed them on?’

  It was Bleak’s turn to laugh. ‘Oh, just like that. Don’t take me for an idiot. You think I don’t know the potential value of something like that?’

  The first man sipped at his beer, then pursed his lips in thought. He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure I believe you.’

  ‘Well you’ll never know if you don’t get me out, will you? Are you prepared to take that risk?’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll just take them from you.’

  Bleak laughed again. ‘An empty threat. You know the hardware you put in here.’ Bleak tapped his head. ‘You try to tamper with it and it’s as if it was never there.’

  The first man looked across at the second man, then back at Bleak. ‘The Starscraper, tomorrow. And we’ll be watching you all the way.’

  ‘So, they bought it?’ Niias said

  ‘It would appear so,’ Bleak said.

  Niias smiled. ‘Well you go along with them. We’ll do the rest.’

  ‘Just don’t underestimate them, general,’ Bleak said as the general was walking out of the room.

  General Niias turned in the door way, his nose wrinkled as if he’d caught a whiff of something unpleasant. ‘And what would you know?’

  ‘Everything you’ve had put in my head,’ Bleak said as the door closed.

  The next night Bleak entered The Starscraper and as he made his way to the bar someone nudged him from behind, he didn’t see who. ‘Captain’s Folly’. Bleak didn’t break step. At the bar he found an empty stool and sat. He made a show of looking around as if searching for someone. When the barman caught his eye he waved him away, got up and left.

  The Captain’s Folly was quiet compared to the Starscraper, more the choice for established, or would be couples, not interested in Metrakis’s more basic delights. But for Bleak it was the same routine as the night before. He was told to go to the toilet and then which table to head for when he emerged. The same two men were sitting sipping beers. Bleak sat and one of them pushed a bottle in his direction.

  ‘Not interrupting something am I?’ Bleak said making a show of looking around. ‘Two’s company and all that.’

  ‘Very funny.’ the man Bleak thought of as “man 1” said.

  ‘So?’ Bleak said.

  ‘So, we sit and make like were having a quiet drink.’

  Bleak leaned back into the cushioned bench seating, stretching his legs out under the table. ‘And then what?’

  ‘We wait,’ man 2 said as a girl, one of the bar’s hostesses, approached the booth. She leaned down towards him and the man placed a familiar hand on her bottom. She covered his hand with hers and grinned at Bleak before whispering something into the
man’s ear. As she straightened the man laughed and waved her away. With a shrug she smoothed the sheer material of her shorts and moved off in search of other clients. ‘Come, on,’ the man said to Bleak as he rose from the seat.

  Outside they weaved their way through the crowds, the first man slightly ahead of the second man who stayed at Bleak’s side, with a hand under his elbow, as if guiding him. Their route seemed to be random, although Bleak guessed it was anything but.

  ‘Where’re we headed?’ Bleak asked. The only answer was the second man nudging him forward. At the next intersection of narrow alleys man 1 stopped and glanced down both side streets, the first sign of indecision Bleak had seen in them.

  He moved closer to Bleak. ‘They’re onto us.’

  Bleak felt the second man’s grip loosen on his elbow. He twisted away as the blade of a laser knife passed through the fabric of his jacket. Only his enhanced reactions ensured that it grazed his stomach rather than penetrating deep into his chest. The man’s eyes widened in surprise and confusion as Bleak’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. As Bleak tightened his grip a hole the size of his fist blossomed in the man’s chest, spraying Bleak in blood and gore. A woman nearest to them screamed until a man grabbed her arm and wrenched her off her feet and away. The arm Bleak was holding went limp and the body slumped to the ground. As Bleak turned, man 1 was also on the ground a similar hole decorating his chest and half his face missing. When Bleak looked up other men were already pushing people away, forming a cordon around the grizzly scene.

  Bleak and one of, what he presumed were the general’s men stood before General Niias who was sat at his ornate desk. Bleak brushed a hand at the dried blood on the front of his jacket, some of it flaked away and drifted to the floor. He was rewarded with a loud sniff of disgust from the general.