Spaceside

by Michael Mammay

  “What led you to the decision?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “There are things going on that I don’t understand, and I’m hoping the Cappans can help shed some light on that. Another part of it is probably guilt.”

  Sasha smiled at me, though it seemed sad. “We don’t want your guilt. But we do want results, so if that’s what it takes, we’ll accept it.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “We’ll be in touch,” said Sasha. “Soon.”

  Sasha didn’t lie about it being soon. She fell in beside me as I got off of transportation to pick up a few things from the grocery store the next morning.

  “Slow down a bit,” I said. “Bad foot.”

  “The last time you and I were on the street together, somebody shot at us,” she reminded me.

  “So why didn’t you come back to my apartment?”

  “Somebody’s watching it.”

  Shit. “Who?”

  “We don’t know yet. Professionals.”

  “I didn’t pick them up with my drone.”

  “They’re likely prepared for a measure like that.”

  “You weren’t,” I said.

  “I wanted you to see me,” she said.

  Shit. I was out of my league on this sort of stuff. “Am I in danger?”

  “Omicron saw you talking to us. I think it’s safe to say that you’re never not in danger, anymore. But we’ll clear the watchers out before you get home.”

  It was good to have allies. “Thanks.”

  “We found something out regarding the police case, with the man who died. Our operatives cracked their system last night. You’re not in the file. You were, but your part of the case was closed several days ago. They have no other leads.”

  I frowned. “Why didn’t they tell me?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “Are we heading to the meeting?”

  She stopped, as if listening to something. “First we have to get rid of our tail.” She paused again, and I got the impression that she had some kind of invisible communication device speaking to her.

  “The same people who are watching my apartment?” I had to be more careful. I resisted the urge to look back. “What do we do?”

  “Follow my lead.” She watched the street as we walked, almost imperceptibly turning her head. A few seconds later a hover-car whipped out of traffic and came to a stop just ahead of us. She grabbed my arm and pulled me through the back door. The car started moving before the door closed behind me. We took a hard turn from the wrong lane at the next intersection, barely avoiding an oncoming truck, and sped through three intersections before turning again and slamming to a stop hard enough that I flew forward into the back of the seat in front of me.

  “We get out here,” she said, and the door popped open. I half fell out onto the sidewalk as Sasha deftly avoided me and took the lead, walking quickly. I hobbled after her. We turned another corner after a hundred meters or so, which I assume was to check if we still had a tail. Four doors down we entered a small antiques shop.

  “Morning,” said Sasha.

  “Morning,” said the one person in the small shop without looking up from his device. He stood behind a counter that doubled as a display case, dozens of small knickknacks inside, all in neat rows. We headed past the counter and into the back room. With the quick travel I hadn’t considered until that exact moment the emotional impact of who we were going to meet. To my credit, I only hesitated for a moment at the sight of the full-blooded Cappan seated in a hard-backed chair that fit his small frame on the far side of the windowless room. He had a blue-and-yellow-mottled face, which had a distinct yellow circle around one eye. A loose-fitting gray robe-like garment covered the rest of him. I say him without really knowing the gender of the Cappan. I hadn’t learned to distinguish.

  Sasha led me to a seat across from the Cappan, similar in construction to his, but larger, to accommodate human anatomy. She didn’t speak, and once I got situated, the Cappan and I looked at each other in silence long enough for it to get a bit awkward. Two other human-looking people besides Sasha stood against the far wall: Riku, and a woman I didn’t recognize. I had expected more than one Cappan but didn’t see any others.

  “I’m sorry,” said the Cappan. His voice didn’t match the motion on his lips since he spoke through a digital translator. It had a computer-generated, slightly stilted male voice, which furthered my impression that he was male, though it could have been the translation program. “I didn’t know what I’d feel, finally sitting here with you. It is a little more overwhelming than I expected.”

  I stifled a chuckle at that and kept my face impassive. I had to believe I was at least as overwhelmed as him. But I understood. For everything that humans thought about me, right and wrong, Cappans had to have a deeper set of opinions. “Take as long as you need,” I said.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me,” he said. It struck me as very formal, but that could have been the translation program too.

  “It’s the least I could do. I have to admit, I didn’t know you were here on planet until recently,” I said.

  “Yes. We have tried to keep that quiet, for obvious reasons. It is not legal, I am sure you know.”

  “Right. The embargo law.”

  He shifted in his chair and moved one of his hands in a circular motion. It looked like some sort of gesture, but the translation software didn’t extend to physical cues. “I will come to the point. We have considered our options, and we think you are the best person to help us.”

  “I gathered that, since you went through so much trouble to meet with me. What I don’t know is what I’m supposed to help you do.”

  “You have had some dealings with a company called Omicron. How much do you know about them?”

  “Quite a bit,” I said. “I’ve been studying them.”

  “Did you know that we were in business together? In secret, of course, since it is against the law.”

  It all clicked then. Ganos discovered that Omicron was working on ortho-robotic advancements. I’d thought they had Elliot’s old research, but they didn’t need it. They had the Cappans. “Project Phoenix,” I said.

  If the Cappan was impressed with my deduction, it didn’t come across through the translator. “That was their name for it, yes.”

  “You were working with them on it,” I said. “I assume you’re not any longer. Why?”

  “Our objectives became incompatible.” He paused for several seconds, as if thinking. “We have been working together for a long time. Since before the annihilation.”

  The annihilation. That’s what they called it. “You were working with Omicron while the human soldiers still had Cappa occupied?”

  “Initially we were working with the military, but that relationship changed when the military’s objectives changed.”

  “But I saw Cappans working with Dr. Elliot.”

  “Soldiers, yes. Scientists? No. Dr. Elliot paid for Cappan volunteers for her experiments. We had stopped working with that project well before that, and that was her solution.”

  “How does Omicron factor into it?” I asked.

  “They had operatives on the planet, trading technology and sharing ideas. They were not initially involved with the genetic program. That came later.”

  I sat, stunned for a moment. Omicron had worked with the Cappans from the start. I’d assumed Elliot had given them fusion technology. Perhaps they had had another avenue. “I saw four ships leave the planet. Was that them?”

  “Four initially,” he said. “More later. Yes. To compound the damage from the annihilation, our planet devolved into civil war. Omicron helped some of us escape that.”

  “And in return, you helped them with Project Phoenix.”

  “In part. But we also had other objectives. We learned the economic value of the genetic technology, and we wanted to use it to negotiate our position in the galaxy. To reestablish our working relationship with humans from a new,
non-violent, position.”

  “After what we . . . after what I did to you? Why?”

  “Why does anybody want to interact with anybody? Trade, technology, resources. The planet you call Cappa is in very poor shape, and we have many needs.”

  It was a lot to process. But he had no reason to lie to me, so I tried to take it at face value and go from there. After all, he’d set the meeting with me. If he meant me harm, he could have done it in much simpler ways. No, we were here, and he needed something. After a few seconds I made the connection. “Something changed in your relationship with Omicron.”

  “Indeed. Much like our previous relationship with the military on the project, their objectives changed. Someone at Omicron decided that they could make money without us and that our political needs were too expensive or impractical to pursue.”

  “So they stole the technology?” I asked.

  “They did much more than that. They attacked our operatives. They threatened to expose the new planet to which we relocated. They demanded Cappan test subjects. They have hostages and attempted to force our scientists to labor to continue refining the process.”

  “If they had the technology, why do they need your scientists?” I asked.

  “They have it, but their methods are not as advanced as ours are. They would likely work it out in a couple of years. We have it now. We held some things back. We were trusting, but not stupid.”

  I nodded, but realized that wouldn’t translate. “I understand. So you want me to do what? Help you steal back the technology?”

  “We have already done that,” he said.

  I paused a second before it hit me. “Holy shit. It was you who hacked Omicron.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You did. Wait . . . if you penetrated Omicron, that means . . . you killed Gylika.”

  “We did no such thing,” he said.

  “Then your allies did.” I gestured to where the hybrids stood, leaning against the wall.

  The Cappan made another gesture I didn’t understand. Agitation? “Neither us nor anyone involved with us had anything to do with that human’s death.”

  “So who did?” I asked.

  “That we do not know. But if you agree to help us, we will do our best to discover that information for you. Logic dictates that it was probably Omicron themselves.”

  I took a deep breath and blew it out. I don’t know why, but I believed him. “Help you do what, then? You already stole the information back. Wait . . . how can you do that? They must have copies.”

  “We were very thorough,” he said. I might have imagined it, but I’d swear that a hint of pride came through the translation.

  “So if you have it back, what is the problem? The hostages?” I asked.

  “As I said, they know where our new home is. They have threatened to turn that information over to the military.”

  It hit me like a punch in the gut. They’d inform the military, and the military would send someone like me to deal with it. “They want to profit off of the medical technology, and they’re willing to destroy the Cappan race to do it.”

  “Yes, that is what we believe.”

  “What is it that you think I can do?”

  “We need to negotiate a solution with Omicron that allows us to reach our previous objectives,” he said.

  “Wait . . . you’d still work with Omicron after this?”

  He paused. “What option do we have? We can put the past behind us if it helps us reach our goals. You being here is evidence of that.”

  He had a point. “Why me?”

  His face shifted in what might have been a Cappan version of a smile. “You are uniquely positioned. You have access to the company we need to influence, and you have the cachet to implement it. Were you to speak about Cappans, it would stand to reason that other humans would listen. We need a solution that is bigger than one company. Something that will stick.”

  “All that makes sense.” I paused, thinking about how to phrase the next part. I had an idea about the answer, but I wanted to hear him say it. “But you should hate me.”

  “Hate is an emotion for someone who has the luxury of better options.”

  That seemed wiser than what I could process at the moment. “I want to be clear about why we’re here. Make sure we have the same expectations. You told me in general that you want things to go back to how they were, but that may be impossible. What are your specific objectives?”

  “Even now, they are working to force us to return what we took.”

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “We believe they are mounting a mission to our new planet to try to force us to their will via military means.”

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  “Our intelligence is good, yes.”

  “How many of you are on the planet?” If Omicron planned physical action, we had to deal with that possibility first.

  “Fewer than twenty thousand. We do not know the full intent of their mission,” he said. “But we can assume.”

  “So in the short term we need a solution that keeps them from taking armed action, or from threatening armed action.” I’d said we. I’d already started thinking about it that way. Theoretically, a corporation shouldn’t be able to mount a military mission, but when they made half the weapons and spaceships humans use, it wouldn’t be that surprising if they had kept a little something for themselves. Too, it was a big galaxy, and it wasn’t like the Cappans could appeal to the authorities for protection. Even if somebody official did notice, there were pirates everywhere, and it would be impossible to pin something on a specific organization. “Can we get everyone off the planet?”

  “Before we discuss plans, I think it is important to decide your role. Officially.”

  I glanced around the room at the hybrid people. They all watched intently, but none of them appeared poised to add to the conversation. “I’m in.”

  The Cappan clasped his hands together. I didn’t know if that held the same meaning for them as it did for humans, but it seemed like it might be universal. “This is good. I do not think it is possible to remove ourselves from the planet. First, they are watching, and second, where would we go? There are no humans on the planet, and planets that support life but have no humans are rare.”

  “How much of your population do you think shares your feelings about working with humans?”

  “Impossible to say,” he said, “though everyone who traveled with us to the new planet signed on willingly. Many do not know about the technology we are working with, but they support our general philosophy of working with humans. Our group is led by scientists. Intelligent, reasonable people. There are differences of opinion, but not an overabundance of politics involved. With that said, we are not one-hundred-percent a hegemony.”

  He hadn’t fully answered the question, and I couldn’t let it slide. I imagined getting volunteers would be easy when the other option was to stay on a war-torn planet. “Is it possible that there are other factions working with Omicron? Cappans who might help them for a chance at power? Either with you on the new planet, or maybe some of those left behind on Cappa?”

  “We think it unlikely,” said the Cappan. “Your attack did not endear humans to most of our population.”

  I could see how it wouldn’t. That made an impossible mission at least a small bit easier. If they had willing Cappans, we’d have no leverage at all. The fact that Omicron needed something from the Cappans left us at least a tiny window. “That’s good.”

  “You have a plan already?”

  “I have the start of one. What assets do we have? What you did to Omicron’s system was impressive. Can we rely on more things like that if we need them?”

  “Hacking back into Omicron is a risk. They are expecting us.”

  “How big a risk?” I asked.

  “Too big,” he said. “With their security team looking for us, our odds of success are very small. Too small to be worth it. We achieved what w
e did before because they were not prepared.”

  “Okay,” I said. My mind flashed back to Ganos’s incursion. We’d closed that window too, but the idea that Omicron had been watching for a breach at the time she broke in made me uncomfortable. “Can we attack their system to do damage?”

  “Possibly,” said the Cappan. “But probably not enough to sway them.”

  “Okay,” I said, catching myself about to nod again. It would have been nice to have a network attack as a threat. But I had another idea of how to threaten Omicron. “I’ll need a couple of days to think things through. How can I contact you when I’m ready to go?”

  “I am going to leave the planet tonight,” said the Cappan. “My operatives are here to help you as needed.”

  I couldn’t help but think he was putting a lot of trust in me. Too much. He certainly had contingency plans, but I had no hope that he’d reveal them to me. From my foxhole, it was me and a few hybrids against the most powerful corporation in the galaxy.

  My kind of fight.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After I left my meeting with the Cappan, I couldn’t stop coming back to the thought that he seemed to believe so firmly that I could get Omicron to make a deal. My second-biggest takeaway was that I was an idiot for taking it on, for assuming that much risk and responsibility. But since I fully intended to do it—and intended to succeed—maybe we were both onto something.

  Yes, I fully recognize the circular logic there.

  To compound the potential stupidity of my decision to help the Cappans, after a couple car switches to ensure nobody had picked us up, I headed to the police station. Even as I arrived, I knew I’d made a bad choice. But after talking to the Cappan, something had flipped. It felt good. I needed to force Omicron to react to me, so it was time to attack. In order to do that, I needed to know where I stood with Mallory. I had to determine whether I could count on her as an asset going forward or whether she’d work against me, and I had some vague notion about using the police to pressure Omicron and make them more susceptible to my overtures.

  “Can I help you, sir?” asked the officer at the front desk.