by M. D. Cooper
REVISITING
STELLAR DATE: 03.16.8937 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: High Carthage Station
REGION: Carthage, New Canaan System
Erin handed Max a sheet of hyfilm that outlined the anomalous readings. He lounged in his chair as he scanned the sheet, one arm hanging over the chair back, one leg stretched out in front of him.
Before Erin had completed the return trip from Athens, Tanis had sent orders for Max, Pippa, and Anwen to come to Carthage from Irridia. They’d arrived at the ground spaceport—which had finally been given a name: Excelsior—just before Erin, and they’d met in the detainment area to avoid further delay.
Across from her, Max snorted, and Erin was tempted to tell the man that his general attitude was irritating, but she guessed he knew that. As he read, she watched him closely for any telling reaction, but he wasn’t giving anything away. After a moment’s further perusal, he tossed the hyfilm onto the desk that separated them. It slid across the surface to Erin, where she halted its progress with an outstretched hand.
“So?” Max asked.
“You can’t pretend you don’t see anything strange,” said Erin. “You’ve been in the business too long and you’re good at your job—when you aren’t busy being an obnoxious ass, that is.”
Max’s lip curled, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “The beta particle readings are too low. So what? What does that have to do with me? Why don’t you ask your pet twins? They’re the ones in charge, after all.”
“Too low? Check again, Max. In the initial explosion, they’re nonexistent. There weren’t beta rays until the uranium started to go up. These readings tell me that what happened on the moon wasn’t an accident.” Erin sat back and folded her arms. “There was no antimatter on site, and no one had requisitioned any, yet it was used. The only conclusion I can draw is that the disaster was due to deliberate sabotage.” She paused before looking him directly in the eyes. “A man died. I’m going to give you one chance, now, to own up to what you did. If you do, I’ll ask the governor to go easy on you. I can’t promise anything, but if you drag this out, you’ll only make things worse for yourself.”
Other than his attitude, Erin had no proof that Max was behind the sabotage, but if he bought her bluff, it would make things a lot simpler.
“What?” Max exclaimed, his eyes widening in surprise. “You’re saying I deliberately screwed up the operation? Why the hell would I do that?”
“You did it because you were angry at being passed over for a leading role on the project. You wanted to make Pippa and Anwen look incompetent. That’s clear enough. So are you going to admit it, or are we going to do this the hard way?”
“Huh!” Max sat up straight and rubbed his chin. “I was angry. I’m sick and tired of having to take orders from people who don’t have half my experience or knowledge. I suppose I can see why you might think I would do something stupid like that. But I didn’t. I knew Jacob Cimorelli. I’m not a monster.” He watched Erin’s reaction with hooded eyes.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I don’t think you intended for anyone to die. But that doesn’t change the fact that someone did die, and that’s not even counting all the excess damage and delay your escapade caused.”
“But I didn’t do it,” Max repeated through gritted teeth. “You can’t pin this on me. If anyone messed up, it was one of the twin-morons in charge.”
“Don’t be an idiot. No one ‘messed up’. You can see as well as I can that this wasn’t an error. It was deliberate.”
“Well then I don’t know,” Max yelled, throwing up his hands. “I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t have anything to do with it. I can’t believe this! As well as having to work under inexperienced fools, I get blamed whenever something goes wrong. You want to know what happened? Talk to them, not me.” He jabbed a finger toward the next room, where Pippa and Anwen were waiting to be interviewed.
“Last chance, Max,” said Erin.
He blew out a frustrated breath and stood up. “I’m not sticking around for any more of this.”
As he strode toward the door, Erin ordered, “Wait outside. I’m not done yet.”
Without answering, Max marched out.
Erin decided to give him time to cool down and asked Pippa to come in.
“Is something wrong?” she asked as she sat down. “Max is really mad.”
“Yes,” Erin said. “Something is wrong. Did Max leave?”
“No, he sat down in the waiting room. I guessed it had to be a serious matter, if we were summoned here to Carthage. Did you find out something more about the accident?”
“Yes, I found evidence,” said Erin. “But what surprises me is that you didn’t look over the same reports. They were sent to the Euphemia, as well.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I assume you went through all the readings from the debris field?”
“No I didn’t, actually. That was Pippa’s responsibility.”
“But…” Erin paused and then sighed. “I said I wanted to speak to Pippa, Anwen. What are you doing here?”
“She was just finishing her drink. We didn’t think it would make any difference if you saw me first.”
Moments later, a shout came from outside the room, quickly followed by a crash and the sound of something hitting the wall.
“What the hell?” Erin ran to the door.
She opened it to see Max and Pippa on the floor in a corner of the waiting room, locked in desperate combat. They grappled wildly, each trying to get control of the other, but neither could manage to get the upper hand.
“Enough!” Erin shouted, and she ran over to pull the two apart.
With a final heave, Max threw Pippa off and struggled to his feet.
“He attacked me,” Pippa exclaimed as she also stood up.
“Damn you all,” Max yelled. “You’ve all got it in for me. I’m not going down for something I didn’t do.”
He pushed Pippa aside. She made a grab for him, but he raced out of the room.
A guard was running down the corridor. “Should I shoot him?” he asked Erin as he reached the doorway.
“I’ll get him,” Pippa exclaimed. She pushed past Erin and the guard, and ran after Max.
“Pippa,” Erin called. “Don’t. Come back here.”
“Should I shoot her?” asked the guard.
Erin only gave a groan of exasperation. “Wait here,” she said to Anwen as she set off after Max and Pippa. “Come with me,” she called over her shoulder to the guard, who was glancing between Erin and Anwen.
Erin knew that and didn’t reply. She still wished the guard had shot his pulse pistol and not waited for her OK.
Max had turned a corner in the corridor, and Pippa was also disappearing around it. Erin called out again for her to stop, but the woman ignored her. By the time Erin reached the corner, neither Max nor Pippa were in sight.
Beyond, a double door that led outside stood partially open.
Walter laid a map of the airport over her HUD, and Erin saw that the doors led out to a series of warehouses where cargo drones sorted outbound shipments.
By the time Erin reached the doors and stepped through, Max was weaving between cargo carts, almost at the closest warehouse, and Pippa was close on his heels, just a few meters behind the man as he ducked inside.
She glanced back at the guard, seeing over the Link that his na
me was Fetzner.
Erin stopped at the entrance to the warehouse, and Fetzner came to a halt beside her.
The warehouse’s main doors were wide open, and within, they could see long aisles of floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with boxes of goods and equipment, waiting for transport off-world. A drone buzzed past, a small container swinging from its grapple. Then an autolift crossed the end of an aisle in the distance.
There was no sign of Max and Pippa, the general din of the place masking any sounds they might be making.
Neither replied, and the general EM interference in the warehouse didn’t allow for high fidelity triangulation of their Link signals.
For a moment, Erin thought she heard footsteps, but before she could pinpoint them, they faded away.
She turned to Fetzner. “Walter, my AI, has called for backup and has the exits covered, but the man who ran away is dangerous. We have to comb through this place. Watch this exit till your team shows up.”
Leaving the guard to organize the search, Erin walked into the warehouse and ventured down an aisle, wondering what was going on. She knew that it was on the risky side of things, but if Max was in there hurting Pippa and she didn’t at least try to find them, she’d feel guilty forever.
She could understand why Max had made a break for it. He’d been found out and could expect the full weight of the governor’s wrath to fall on him. She could also kind of comprehend why he’d attacked Pippa; he probably felt as if she and Anwen were somehow responsible for his own appalling actions.
But why had Pippa run after him? There was no need for her to do that. If she hadn’t interfered, the guard might have had a chance to bring Max down before he got away. And why wasn’t she answering?
Whatever was the reason for Pippa’s odd behavior, Max had to be found. Given the use of antimatter, and the devastation it had wrought, Tanis may take over the interrogation herself.
Erin began to jog along the rows, realizing that the warehouse was far deeper than she originally thought, possibly as deep as half a kilometer. As she ran, she listened for any sound other than the whirring of the drones or the soft trundle of autolifts. She also repeated her command to Max and Pippa to return to the entrance, or at least to answer her, but she met no response.
Erin slowed her jog to a walk as she turned down an aisle.
She was far enough into the warehouse that the guards weren’t yet close to her position, so she continued the search, focusing on the area that their pattern would hit last, growing more frustrated as the minutes passed.
Then she got an idea and reached out to Anwen.
Erin had forgotten that she’d asked Anwen to wait where she was, but she was a little surprised that the woman had listened. It was easy to see which of the twins had the less confrontational personality.
Suddenly, a figure walked across the far end of the aisle ahead of Erin.
“Pippa,” she shouted.
The woman turned and saw her. She waved and began to stride toward Erin.
As soon as she drew near, Erin said, “Where have you been? And what the hell do you think you were doing, running after Max when I clearly told you not to?”
Pippa hung her head. “I know. I’m sorry. I was just so angry at him. Anwen and I have put up with his constant complaining and sulking for months. Then while we were waiting to see you, he just lunged at me. I had to fight him off. You saw, right? I think he was trying to kill me.”
“Have you seen him in here?” Erin glanced around, frustrated at Max’s evasion, but glad Pippa was OK.
“No, I lost sight of him. But when I saw the guards were in here, I realized I might get shot if I was skulking around.”
“Smart move.” Erin gave a long sigh. “I guess Max must have figured that the game is over; he’s been found out, so he took his final opportunity to get his revenge.”
“What game?” Pippa asked. “What do you mean?”
“The accident on Irridia was no accident. It was sabotage, set up by Max to discredit you and Anwen. He’s been angling for a position as chief engineer for so long, he got desperate. Only his plan backfired when he became a murderer.”
“Stars,” Pippa exclaimed, her eyes round as saucers. “I had no idea.”
“Really? That was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. Anwen said you took responsibility for reviewing the data coming in from remote stations that caught the initial blast. How come you didn’t pick up on the missing beta particles?”
“Shoot, they were missing? I’m sorry. I don’t know how I missed that. I guess I was too focussed on getting the ore moved out so I could take samples from the blast site.”
“I guess that’s reasonable,” Erin replied, knowing she wouldn’t have made the same mistake, but not wanting to push the issue. “Well, I guess it’s all moot now anyway. Max all but proved his guilt when he attacked you and ran. He wouldn’t have done that if he had anything left to lose. Now all I have to do is find him.”
“Maybe we could join in the search for Max,” Pippa suggested.
“Absolutely not, you’re in enough trouble. I want you to stay with your sister. Excelsior’s security is searching for Max; they’ll find him. I want you both to wait for me until this is over. I still have questions to ask you.”
“Okay.” Pippa turned as if unsure what direction to take.
“It’s that way,” said Erin, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder. “Turn left at the end.” She took a breath.
Erin hadn’t given up attempting to reach Max on the Link, but she’d had no luck.
A drone turned down Erin’s aisle and flew toward her. Its path was erratic, and it collided with the edge of a shelf before rebounding, only to collide with the shelves on the opposite side before righting itself and wobbling toward Erin.
Walter said.
Erin turned and began to run from the warehouse, following the route she’d indicated to Pippa. She contacted the guards, who were already aware of the situation and trying to combat it. Next, she reached out to Pippa and Anwen.