MARAUDERS OF BANDALA

A STAR RIM EMPIRE STORY

R.A. NARGI
AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Marauders of Bandala will make the most sense to you

if you read it after reading Quantum Dark, the rst novel in
the STAR RIM EMPIRE series.

Enjoy!
 ONTENTS

Marauders of Bandala
The Orbital Fortress Bandala, 2351

Sean Beck took one last look at his rst mate, Ana-Zhi. Her
leg had been torn up pretty badly by the arthrodes and she
was now being tended to by the MedBed. He had barely
been able to ght the security bots o and escape with Ana-
Zhi on the sled.
“She’ll live,” Nanuvei said. The Urunth pilot looked
away, an unspoken implication ashing brie y in her amber
slitted eyes.
Three other crew members were in critical condition,
and there was a good chance they wouldn’t pull through.
“I need to go back in,” Beck said.
“What? Captain, no.”
Beck rose and stalked to the door. “This all cannot have
been in vain.”
“There’s no time,” Nanuvei said. “The Fountain closes
in three hours.”
“That means I can take an hour to retrieve the Crystal.”
“Are you insane?”
“I know where it is, Nanuvei. We were close.”
“Yes, close to full extermination.”
“I’ll take Yates this time. Just the two of us. And the
borral gun. We’ll travel light. No sled. In and out.”
“The Rhya will force us to leave. Even without you. You
know that, don’t you?”
“It won’t come to that. I’ll be back.”

Beck found Yates in the launch bay, already suited up.

“You sure I can’t bring the slicer?” Yates asked.

“We’re not taking the sled. Just what we can carry. And
 “We’re not taking the sled. Just what we can carry. And
you’re carrying the borral.”
“You know I’m not really trained on it.”
“Not much to it,” Beck said. “Point and shoot.”
“Yeah, right.”
The B-0-RL/9 “borral” gun was a heavy multi-array
blaster with a backpack energy module that had its own
mini z- eld. But even with the reduced mass, it was clunky
to handle. On the plus side, however, the borral gun could
cut any foe in half from a distance of a hundred meters.
Yates indicated the exosuit laid out on an equipment
bench. “I got your suit working again. The gyriform
controller was fried, but I swapped out the unit from Ana-
Zhi’s.”
Beck nodded. “Good work.”
With Yates’ help he quickly donned the suit and ran the
start-up diagnostics. “Controller’s ne, but it looks like the
comm unit is stuck rebooting.”
“Yes, it’s been on the fritz. We’re going to have to use
these.” Yates handed over an old near-band wrist comm. “I
already paired them.”
“Where’d you dig this up?” Beck said as he fastened the
comm unit to his forearm.
“You’d be surprised what Eerin keeps around.”
Beck helped Yates with the borral gun’s energy module,
and they synched a timer on their Auras.
“You ready?” Beck asked.
“Hell yes!”
And then they entered Bandala.
They hurried through the cavernous landing deck lled
with cranes, energy stations, and mech depots—all unused
for 500 years, at least.
“Airlock hasn’t reset,” Yates said as they approached the
plated archway. He worked the controls, and the door
opened with a faint whoosh.
“We’re almost in,” Beck said over the comm. But there
was no response.
“She can’t hear you,” Yates said.
“What?”
“Near-band. Remember? I’ll open a relay from my suit.
Hang on a sec.”
Beck wasn’t crazy about not having a direct open line
back to the ship, and it certainly was counter to company
protocol. But, then again, it was his company, and he basi‐
cally set the protocol.
A moment later, Nanuvei’s voice sounded over the
comm. “Captain?”
That was better. “Yes, we’re almost in.”
“We are in,” Yates said, motioning to the now-open
inner doors to the entry hall proper.
“You have 56 minutes left,” Nanuvei said. “I suggest
you don’t spend it chatting with me. Sir.”
“Duly noted,” Beck said. “We’ll check in again once
we’ve reached the vault.”
“I’d wish you good luck,” Nanuvei said. “But you know
we don’t believe in that.”
Beck smiled to himself. Urunths.
They raced through the entrance hall, with its odd wall
of murals, through to the cargo depot, and then entered a
human-sized tunnel—or Yueldian-sized, to be exact. There
Beck paused for a moment to get his bearings.

“We don’t want to go straight,” Yates said. “That would

 “We don’t want to go straight,” Yates said. “That would
lead right into the hot zone.”
“I know.” Beck’s eyes roamed along the walls and
ceiling of the access tunnel. He was looking for a particular
hatch—one that the drone had located right before its
untimely demise. But the walls and ceiling seemed
unmarked by any penetrations. They were plated with large
panels—which seemed like some sort of shielding—and had
ribbed vaulting every four meters. But it all looked solid.
“I don’t see anything,” Yates said.
“That’s the idea.” Beck powered up his suit’s magtouch
system. “I know it’s here.” But where?
“Maybe we should just backtrack around to A523? It
might connect, you know.”
“It doesn’t. Stay put and keep your eyes open.” With
that, Beck jumped up onto the wall with a clang, his
magtouch gloves and boots locking to the plating. He scram‐
bled up to the ceiling and hung there like a lizard. A heavily
armored lizard.
Then he reached into his equipment bag for his mubi-
scope. His suit had a decent sensory grid array, but he
needed the mubi’s range nder for this. He ipped through
the controls and activated the laser sight.
“You taking measurements up there?” Yates asked.
“Something like that.” Beck sighted along the ceiling
line, pinging the range nder along each section. At the
same time, he monitored the IR visual band with AI-assist,
running di erential comparisons. It was a somewhat
manual process, and they didn’t really have the time for a
thorough scan, but Beck didn’t have much of a choice. Yates
was right. There was no way they were going back in that
hot zone.
The drone had identi ed a passage in the bulkhead
somewhere in this area during a quick yby, but was
destroyed before they could access the actual topo data.
Based on the drone’s path, Beck had narrowed the area of
interest to this tunnel, but couldn’t get more granular than
that.
“47 minutes,” Yates announced.
“That’s not helping.”
“Sorry, Captain.”
Suddenly, the scope’s AI-assist chirped and ashed. It
had found something. A void behind the panel.
“The ninth section down,” Beck said. “I think that’s it.”
He skittered along the ceiling and met Yates at where
he judged the hatch might be.
“I don’t see anything,” Yates said.
Beck didn’t respond. He just worked his hands around
the edges of the panel, probing and pulling.
There.
The micro-h actuators in his gloves augmented his
natural strength enough for Beck to be able to pull the panel
loose. It popped free and clanged to the oor.
“Holy shit,” Yates stared up at the newly revealed
passage. “So she was right.”
“It looks that way.” A twinge of sadness hit Beck at the
thought of Anca Barr. She had made considerable progress
in deciphering a section of the Ambit which referenced this
part of Bandala and had begged him for the opportunity to
see Bandala for herself. He allowed her to join the incur‐
sion team. Now she was in a coma—as good as dead.
Carved up by arthrodes. It had been a brutal attack, and
Beck was still unable to process what had gone wrong last
night.
But there was nothing he could do to change the past.
So he put it out of his head.
“Stay close and watch our rear,” Beck told Yates, as they
 “Stay close and watch our rear,” Beck told Yates, as they
climbed up into the passage.
Anca Barr had identi ed a duct that led directly to node
A548, the location of the two galleries which held the
Tabarroh Crystal and the Aanthangan clone bot. If Denn
Jerue was right about the clone bot.
But this duct wasn’t simply a shortcut to A548. It was a
way to circumvent the hot zone where they had lured this
zone’s security bots.
If all went well, and the locking mechanisms held, the
bots wouldn’t even know he and Yates were there. He’d grab
the Crystal and hightail it back to the Freya.
But rst they needed to make it to the node, a spoke-
and-hub hallway complex that connected 24 galleries.
The duct they were climbing through was barely wider
than Beck’s armored shoulders. Their helmet lamps illumi‐
nated a grime-encrusted utility shaft. Cables and conduits
stretched along every surface. It was evident that the duct
was not intended to be a passage for lifeforms. Which was
why it was a safe way to access the node.
At least, that’s what Beck believed until he glanced back
and saw the micro drone buzzing towards Yates like an
angry hornet.
“Freeze!” he yelled—at the same time drawing his Pace
from its leg holster in a single uid motion.
Blam! Blam!
Two shots. Two direct hits. Not bad for shooting at a
ten centimeter target a half dozen meters away. In cramped
quarters.
Yates had cried out in alarm and lunged away, as the
drone exploded in back of him.
A few moments later he lifted his head back up. “What
the fuck was that?”
 “Hopefully nothing more than a repair drone,” Beck
said. “But I wasn’t about to take any chances.”
“How about a little warning next time you blast at my
head!”
“That would have defeated the purpose,” Beck said.
“Let’s keep moving.”
The truth was that drone could have been a scout just
as easily as it could have been a repair unit. And there was a
chance that the security bots now knew where they were.

They clambered through the shaft for another seven

minutes, traveling up between levels, passing various junc‐
tures, and dead ends until they emerged through a hatch
into a proper corridor—sized for the hover-cart trains the
Yueldians had used to service the 12,096 galleries of
Bandala.
Yates had his nose into his Aura, checking the topo. He
looked up in surprise. “Son of a bitch, you did it! We’re in
A548. How did you—?”
“No time for backslapping, Virg. We’ve got less than 40
minutes to get what we came for.” Beck didn’t want to get
into how he knew where A548 was. He checked his own
Aura. If the rest of his data held up, it would be fairly easy
to nd the proper gallery and vault which contained the
Tabarroh Crystal.
They moved through the wide corridor, hyper-alert for
any signs of security bots.
Yates was holding up well, Beck thought. He had never
gured the data scientist would be so enthusiastic for eld
work. Usually Virgil Yates was content to spend the entirety
of an expedition on the ship, tucked into a science station,
but during this mission he really showed some fortitude and
stepped up. Especially after what had happened to the rest
of the crew.
As he continued through the maze-like node, another
stab of remorse hit Beck. Four of his people lay on the ship
in a state of near death. Even if they pulled through, they
might su er permanent damage. All because of him. All
because of a horrible miscalculation.
“Uh, Captain.” Yates stood frozen, a few meters in front
of him. “You need to see this.”
Beck looked over to what Yates was pointing at.
It was a body.
A human body. Badly decomposed. Not much more
than a skeleton.
“This isn’t 500 years old,” Yates said.
No, it wasn’t. Beck stooped down to get a closer look. It
was hard to tell, and he was no expert, but the body looked
like it had been in place for a decade. Two at the most. The
corpse was wearing a ight suit and a blaster lay by its
skeletal hand.
“That’s an old Crown Blazer,” Yates said. “Maybe a
251. My dad had one.”
Beck nodded. “I think I know who this is.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Ever hear of Ra Ostler?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
Beck stood up. “Mission lead for Allegro. There was a
rumor that he didn’t come back from the expedition back
in ’39.”
“I hadn’t heard that.”
“Well, Allegro kept it hush-hush. Not good for business
if your key guy bites the dust during a mission. Let’s keep it
under our hats until I get a chance to speak with Allegro.”
 Yates quickly recorded some images of Ostler’s body as
documentation, and then they continued on their way.
At a T-junction, Beck checked his Aura once again. He
motioned to the left. “This way.”
They traveled down the corridor and then turned a
corner. The corridor ended in a serious-looking pressure
door.
“We in the right place?” Yates asked.
“Let’s open her up and nd out.”
Yates used a donokkal on the door, and the locking
mechanism disengaged with a satisfying clank.
On the other side of the door was a hexagonal chamber
with similar pressure doors on every wall. Rows of utility
lights winked on as they entered the room.
“Here’s where it gets interesting,” Yates said.
“Not really,” Beck said. He walked over to one of the
blast doors. “This leads to the gallery with the Crystal.”
“You’re sure about that, Captain?” Yates pointed to
another door on an opposite wall. “Because according to my
topo, this one leads to the hot zone.”
Beck double-checked his own topo. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“We don’t want to be opening the wrong door.”
“We won’t be.” For all his bravado, Beck knew this was
the most perilous section of their journey. But it wouldn’t
serve any purpose to make a big deal of it. Yates knew what
he was getting into. Just like they all did.
Beck stepped aside and motioned to the door he was
standing near. “Have at it.”
Yates didn’t question him further; he just used the
donokkal on the locked door.
Beck went rst through the door, blaster up. He really
should have had Yates and the borral gun lead the way, but,
hell, he was the captain.
 Thankfully, the space beyond the door was just an
empty corridor. No prowlers. No arthrodes.
“Ok, should be a straight shot now,” Beck said. “Still,
keep your eyes open.”
“Always, Captain.”
The short corridor led into a cavernous circular chamber
with a center column that rose thirty meters or more. Both
the inner and outer walls had rows and rows of two-meter
square doors inset into them—several hundred in all. Every‐
thing was bathed in the soft glow of illuminated beacons.
This was it. The rst gallery on his list.
Beck immediately raised his blaster and looked up
towards the ceiling, checking for guardian bots. He didn’t
expect to see any, since they had been lured into the hot
zone, but you never knew. And he didn’t like surprises.
“All clear,” Yates said. He had made a loop around the
center column to check the other side of the gallery. “Is this
where the Crystal is?”
“Not quite.” Beck got to work on one of the square
doors, using his zephyr, a custom-built controller that
provided access to low-level systems, and was optimized for
smaller, more secure locking mechanisms like the one on
this Yueldian vault. Less than fteen seconds later, the vault
door slid open to reveal what looked to be a standing gure.
It was a two-meter-tall humanoid.
But it wasn’t human.
“I don’t believe it!” Yates took a step backwards, clearly
spooked by the sight.
“Denn Jerue was right,” Beck grinned as he entered the
vault to get a better look. “A goddamn Aanthangan clone
bot. I just wish we had more time to run a DTA on it. But
the Tabarroh Crystal is the priority.”
 “You go get the Crystal,” Yates said. “I’ll do the audit.”
“That’s not a good idea.” It was against protocol to split
up under these conditions.
“I’ll be ne. Old Man Jerue would never let us live this
down if we came face-to-face with a clone bot and came
away with nothing.”
Beck considered for a moment. “Fine. Get what you can
out of it, but don’t move from this area.”
“Aye aye, sir.”

According to his data, Beck expected to nd the Tabarroh

Crystal in the second gallery over, but he needed to pass
through another connecting corridor to reach it.
He moved quickly but cautiously through the corridor
into the gallery. It was a twin of the gallery with the
Aanthangan clone bot. Same central column. Same myriad
of vault doors.
Beck checked his Aura and got his bearing. The vault
with the Tabarroh Crystal was on the central column, but
up about fteen meters—if he counted correctly.
He activated his suit’s magtouch and while it powered
up, he opened the comm back to the ship.
“Nanuvei, it’s Beck. I’m at the vault.”
He started to climb. “Looks like I have 27 minutes to get
this thing and get back to the ship.”
No response.
“Nanuvei, come in.”
Shit. The jury-rigged comm relay was probably out of
range. “Yates, you there?”
Nothing.

That was odd, Beck thought. He tried one more time,

 That was odd, Beck thought. He tried one more time,
but Yates didn’t answer.
Maybe there was something in this gallery blocking the
near-band. He didn’t have time to worry about it now. He
had reached his target.
Still clinging to the wall like a y, Beck pressed his
zephyr to the vault’s locking mechanism and set it to work.
This time it unlocked the vault door even faster—probably
because of its learning algos.
Unlike the vault which held the Aanthangan clone bot,
this space was smaller and shallower. In fact, Beck could
barely t inside.
Carved into the vault’s back wall was a niche, and
resting inside the niche was a gem the size of Beck’s st.
The Tabarroh Crystal!
As he approached it, the gem began to glow.
He froze, heart thudding. Did it have some kind of
defense mechanism? The Tabarroh Crystal wasn’t
supposed to be dangerous, but it was old. Ancient, really. At
least 3000 years old. Who knew what mysteries it held
within its glittery depths?
Beams of light danced from deep within the Crystal,
then, suddenly, they lanced out upon the walls of the vault.
Beck dropped to the ground, trying to evade the beams.
But he wasn’t quick enough.
A blueish shaft of light caught his shoulder.
Thank Dynark, it didn’t do anything.
The prismatic beams appeared to simply be low-
powered light beams.
Beck took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. He
reached out one gloved hand to take the Crystal, but found
himself hesitating.
Unbidden, the memory of a certain conversation came
into his mind. It was a conversation he had with Johan
Walton many years ago. The older archaeologist shared the
tale of a particularly gruesome expedition in the badlands of
Ganagara. Walton had been excavating the Ciborium of
Malajar, but his entire team—28 people—lost their lives and
Walton barely survived after wandering lost through the
canyon lands for nearly two weeks.
Walton had blamed all of his misfortunes on the Cibo‐
rium itself.
When Beck asked him to explain what he meant, the
old man just said, “Some things in the universe aren’t meant
to be found.”
Beck shook his head, unconsciously trying to clear his
thoughts. He was here to do a job and, damn it, a job is what
he would do.
Squatting down so that he was at eye level to the Crys‐
tal, Beck peered again into its coruscant interior.
Here goes nothing, he thought.
Then in a single swift motion, he snatched the gem
from its niche.
He froze, expecting something horrible to happen. But
the Crystal just dimmed as if unplugged from its power
source.
After a few moments, Beck shrugged to himself, tucked
the Crystal into his bag, and began to climb down the
central column. He needed to get back to Yates. They had
less than 24 minutes to return to the ship.
He departed the gallery and retraced his steps through
the connecting corridor. As he walked, he tried to hail
Nanuvei and Yates again, but no one answered.
Not good.
As he entered the gallery with the Aanthangan clone
bot, Beck raised his blaster and called out for Yates.
 No answer.
De nitely not good.
Beck felt his muscles tense and his pulse pound. The
rst tickle of panic bloomed deep within him.
He cautiously made his way around the central column
to the vault where he had left Yates. The bot was still there,
but there was no sign of Yates.
Had the security bots taken Yates out? There was no
sign of a struggle. No blood. No blaster scorches.
Beck tried the comm again, but it was still dead. This
was unbelievable.
19 minutes left. He needed to get back to the ship. Get
Nanuvei going on a scan. They had to nd Yates.
“Captain?”
Beck spun to see Yates coming from the doorway to the
hexagonal chamber. Relief mixed with anger.
“What the fuck, Yates? I told you to stay here. The
comm—”
“Did you nd it? The Crystal?”
“Of course I found it. What I want to know is why
you—”
“Hand it over.” Yates swung the borral gun up and
trained it on Beck’s center mass.
“Very funny.”
“I’m completely serious, Captain. Toss me the Crystal.
Or I’ll cut you the fuck in half and take it.”
Beck couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“What do you think you’re doing, Yates?”
But Yates didn’t answer. He just red a quick burst
from the borral gun. The blast intentionally missed Beck,
but not by much. And Beck had to dive to one side to avoid
being scorched.

“I thought you didn’t know how to use that thing.” Beck

 “I thought you didn’t know how to use that thing.” Beck
clambered back to his feet.
“I lied. Now hand over the Crystal. The next shot’s
going to be at your balls.”
Beck hesitated, still having a tough time accepting what
was going on. But he reached into his bag and withdrew the
Tabarroh Crystal. It looked dull and lifeless.
“It’s bigger than I thought,” Yates said. “Slide it over to
me. Carefully.”
“And then what?” Beck asked. “How’s your little
mutiny going to play out, Virg?” But Beck didn’t need to ask
the question. He knew how it would play out.
Beck stooped low, tensed his legs, and surveyed the area
using his peripheral vision. Although Yates couldn’t see his
eyes behind his visor, Beck didn’t want to signal his moves.
And then he slid the Crystal along the oor. With all
his might. The artifact ew past Yates like a hockey puck,
and Yates did exactly what Beck expected him to do.
He took his eyes o Beck. His head turned to follow the
Crystal.
Just for a second.
But it was enough time for Beck to dive towards the
central column.
A blast from the borral gun exploded against the wall
near him, showering the area with sparks. Instinctively, Beck
read the field of battle, calculating angles of fire and
pinpointing where exactly he needed to be in order to escape.
He knew it was a long shot, but he had to try. He
sprinted around the column, legs pumping with e ort.
Then, as he cleared the curved of the central column, Beck
threw himself into a slide—right towards the gallery’s exit.
A blaster bolt loudly crackled over his head, close
enough to momentarily notch down his audio sensors. Deaf‐
ened, Beck scrambled to his feet. He wondered if he’d feel
the blast that would kill him before he heard it.
Amid another volley of blaster re, Beck raced into the
corridor that led to the second gallery—where he had found
the Crystal. As far as he knew, it was a dead end. He had
nowhere to run.
But he did have a strategic advantage. Once he cleared
the entrance to the gallery, he could atten himself against
the gallery’s outer wall. That would mean he’d be directly
perpendicular to the corridor that Yates needed to come
through in order to nish him o .
As Beck got into position, he realized his brain was still
fogged by the unreality of it all. What had happened to
Yates that he turned traitor? Who was he working for?
SPRD? The Emoralians?
And what was he planning to do?
Was he going to murder Nanuvei and steal the ship? Or
was she in on it?
Or maybe Yates thought he could dupe her. Convince
her that her captain was dead, and that he was the only
survivor.
Every possibility made him feel sick.
He waited, tensed and ready to attack, for what seemed
like forever. But there was no sign of Yates.
What had happened?
Beck checked his Aura.
14 minutes remained on the countdown timer.
A plan formed in his mind. It was going to be close, but
if he could get to the landing deck, he might be able to warn
Nanuvei—even without a working comm unit. He could
use his blaster on the ship’s fore sensor array. That would
certainly get her attention. If she wasn’t in on the mutiny, of
course.
But he had to hurry.

Beck knew that there was still a chance—probably a good

chance—that Yates was waiting for him in the corridor,
ready to blast him into oblivion once he showed himself. So
he moved slowly and cautiously, keeping close to the wall,
minding his angles.
But he didn’t see any sign of Yates. Other than the
borral gun, discarded in the hexagonal room.
Damn it.
That could mean only one thing. Yates dumped the
weapon because he needed to move quickly.
As he debated taking the borral gun for himself, Beck
noticed something about the hexagonal room.
The doors were wrong.
Speci cally, the door that was open 20 minutes ago was
now locked shut. And another—which had been shut—was
now open.
It took him a few seconds, but then he realized what
had happened.
No!
He slammed his sts against the now-locked door. It
was the door back to the way they came.
And the other door? The one that was now open?
That led to the hot zone.
Beck slumped to the oor, panic and despair washing over
him. He had tried all possible exits. He had tried his zephyr.
He had even tried blasting through the door with the
borral gun.
Nothing.
He was trapped.
So he pulled his knees to his chest and closed his eyes.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that. But,
nally, he was awakened from his reverie by a sound. It was
a metallic clacking sound. Far o , but getting closer. As he
listened closer, he realized it wasn’t a single thing making
the clacking sound. It was dozens. Or even hundreds.
Getting closer.
Marauders of Bandala is a work of ction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
ctitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or
locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 by Randall Nargi. All rights reserved.

Published by Bogwood Press, a division of Bogwood, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION

DATA Nargi, R.A., Marauders of Bandala / R.A. Nargi. pages cm.