“Who do I have in the main control center?” Hatch said.
“Here, sir.”
“Are there any ships in the area?”
“Not according to the screens, sir.”
“Then what did she—” He shut his eyes and composed himself. “Back to the old plan. I want every critical thing with at least one guard. The rest of you, keep searching. Everyone keep your eyes sharp.”
He holstered the radio and fiddled with the knuckles, muttering to himself. “It’s a good plan. She hasn’t screwed it up yet. We just have to make sure she doesn’t get another message out, and figure out what that first message was all about.”
He shoved off the wall, forcing himself down the corridor. “I can’t afford to be blind right now. I need an update.” He stopped himself. “But what if that’s what they want? What if this is all about them getting me to power up the transceiver myself? … Yeah… This is a nonstation thing.”
#
Michella huddled in the corner of the most spacious bit of service conduit she could find. She had the stolen pistol in hand, finger off the trigger but ready and willing to aim and fire at a moment’s notice.
She shakily angled it a bit closer to the turn in the corridor ahead as she heard effort and motion, but lowered it as Preethy’s dark hair and disheveled glasses pulled into the dim glow of the drifting slidepad that was illuminating the chamber.
“Well?” Michella said.
“I got to the transmitter. I powered it up and connected it, but they were onto me too quickly.”
Michella tightened her fist and barely kept herself from punching the wall. “That’s not nothing. It’s not nothing,” she said.
“I can tell you that it’s got them off balance. From what I could hear as I was pulling myself back into the hatch and clicking it in place, they don’t know what to make of what we’ve done. They are likely to make mistakes.”
“Too bad we’re not in a good position to capitalize anymore,” Michella said. “I don’t know… My gut tells me just sitting and waiting for help is the wrong decision. We don’t know for sure that any is coming yet.”
“No, but we do know a few things now. We know they have everything they need to make this mission work. If they have the skill up here to patch into the control modules physically, they’ll have the same level of skill on the surface. It’s just a matter of time. Having me will make it work more quickly and more certainly. So waiting could be a terrible decision. And we also know that that ship of yours is still in range. I think that is our way out.”
“But how? It’s not like we can dock it.”
Preethy thought for a moment. “I have an idea. But I’ll need the slidepad.”
#
Hatch slipped into the seat of the jalopy of a crew vessel that had ferried him and half of his men to the station. Since it had its own long-range transmitter and was passcode locked, it was as near to a “safe” way to get a message off station as he had available. Any of the station’s transmitters could end up sending some piggybacked alarm.
“Hey!” he barked over the radio. “Get this docking bay open!”
The guard he had on the door of this secondary bay fumbled with some controls and activated the automated undocking procedure. Hatch didn’t even bother waiting until his ship was fully outside before he tapped one of the contacts, requested a direct peer-to-peer connection, and impatiently awaited the answer.
“You’ve got Milliner,” came the voice on the other end.
“Milliner, what does it look like down there?” Hatch said.
“Lots of sand and rocks. Way too hot in the day. Kind of nice at night.”
“I’m not looking for tourism notes, jackass. We’ve got some trouble up here, and they might have gotten word out. Is there any buzz?”
“Nothing. Though you guys have still got the communications down, so I guess I wouldn’t have any way of knowing unless it was on the emergency mesh network, and I’m not in on that. All I’ve got is one-way blasts to my crew now and then. People are starting to get angry about the service disruption, by the way. I don’t know if you’ve got much more time before this starts to look like something besides the run-of-the-mill system problems.”
“Yeah, we’re working on it. Preethy hasn’t been cooperative.” Hatch rubbed the shiny patch of the brass knuckles thoughtfully. “You know anything about some guy called Lex?”
“That racer guy?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Yeah, he’s all over their commercials. Without the network, there’s been the same fifteen-minute loop of cached stuff, so we’re basically hearing about his race record and stuff every few minutes.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to find him?”
“I’ve got guys out and about. I’ll message them to talk to some of the paparazzi. They’ll know where to find him.”
“There’s a chance, if anyone finds out about us, it’ll be him. We need to keep an eye on him.”
“Keep an eye on him, or kill him?”
“Keep an eye on him.”
“Hatch, you got me lurking around some big satellite dish stuff, punching in codes and watching screens. I’ve got two things I’m good at. Beating people to a pulp and killing them. You’re working me way outside my expertise here.”
“I can’t have you killing the guy, idiot. We’re trying to avoid tipping people off that something’s up.”
“Heh. No one’ll think something’s up. Half of the other racers and a ton of other people want him dead.”
“You serious? Not just trying to persuade me to let you drop the hammer?”
“Totally serious. They’ve got this ad package about him, talking about how he’s ‘the rebel that started it all.’ Turns out terrorists have been after this guy.”
“Still not a great idea, but I guess if it looks like he’s liable to make trouble for us, then yeah. Drop the hammer. Make it look like someone else did it. Maybe keep it covered up. We only need a few hours before it won’t matter. I’m pretty sure we’ve got his girlfriend up here. Knowing she’s got the blood of her boy toy on her hands should make her more compliant. But only do it if you have to. The cleaner this goes down, the better.”
“How will I get word to you the deed is done?”
“With any luck, we’ll be getting word to you to move ahead with the next stage before we’d need to know.”
“Sounds good. We’re just about ready for that, by the way.”
“Are you? Even without the code?”
“Yeah. We’ve got a real go-getter down here, gunning for a promotion. Seems like we can do a full-power test. It’s not perfect, but it’ll be good for something like six hours.”
“That’ll be plenty. We’re still working on the full control, but we might be able to move on the final phase soon.”
“Good, since if I didn’t hear from you, I was just going to go ahead and put the gun to the engineer’s head to get it started in about an hour anyway. I’ll let the boys know what to do.”
Hatch ended the call and requested docking. “Feels good to finally get down to some proper business. This industrial espionage nonsense,” he punched his fist, “it just lacks impact.”
Chapter 10
Lex rattled through a drawer of sockets, looking for the right size. “Someone’s been using my tools again,” he muttered.
He’d known sleep was a long shot. Rather than even try it, he’d decided to head down to the big garage and tinker with his hoversled. “Garage” was a bit of an understatement. Every one of the current league racers shared it. The place was the size of an aircraft hangar or a passenger starcraft’s dry dock, with room enough for the full fleet of hoversleds and plenty of space for expansion.
He’d never been the most technically savvy guy, but he knew his way around the systems of a racing rig well enough to iron out the kinks and tune things up. This being a brand-new sled to replace the one he had �
��tested” into an early grave, it lacked his usual performance adjustments. Since all the sleds had to have complete parity, wringing every drop of performance out of the machine was more important than ever. Thus, he spent quite a bit of time here in his section of the garage. It was a fenced-off cubicle of sorts, about the size of a two-car garage. That was room enough for his hoversled and his tools. There was usually a backup sled, but they’d yet to deliver the replacement for the one he’d busted, so he had a little more room to stretch his legs at the moment.
Squee napped atop the tool chest, her abundantly fluffy tail flicking this way and that as she dreamed. He checked his slidepad for the zillionth time. Still no network.
“Okay. Let’s check the plasma mix. It’s always a little rich straight from the factory.”
He found a socket that could do the job and started working on the proper panel. As he worked, he tried to ignore the eerie silence of the track. There was no native wildlife here. What few insects there were had stowed away on the first few ships to arrive in Operlo and subsisted entirely on the garbage that humanity left behind. Every other creature on the planet was either currently or formerly a pet. That meant outside of the odd escaped iguana or gecko living off the bugs, there was nothing to make any noise when humans weren’t around.
The low moan of the wind droned in the distance, but there was nothing else. No mosquitoes. No howling coyotes. As a result, when he heard a sliding thump and a yelp, he nearly leaped out of his skin.
“What the hell!?” he cried.
Squee scrabbled to her feet. The sound had been her sliding off the tool chest and plopping to the ground.
“Jeez, Squee, be careful, would you?” he said.
She trotted over with a bit of a hammy limp.
“Oh, what, did you get a boo-boo? Come here, you big drama queen.”
He flipped her over and rubbed her belly. She nibbled his fingers and wriggled in delight. Then, all at once, her giddy expression snapped to one of suspicion. Both ears pivoted.
“You hear something?” he said.
She flipped to her feet and stalked toward the door of the cubicle. Whatever she was suspicious of was somewhere else in the garage. Both of them held still. Then came the click of a door. Squee tried to spring over the cubicle wall, but Lex caught her on the way up.
“How about we tackle this like a team, huh? I still haven’t heard the end of it from the last time you sprayed in here.”
He pushed open the door. The lights in most of the place were off, but at the far end, three guys with flashlights were checking the nameplates on the different cubicles.
“Can I help you fellas?” he called.
The flashlights turned his direction.
“Mind your own business,” barked one of them.
“This is the league garage, and I’m in the league, so I’d say minding my business is exactly what I’m doing.”
He subtly reached aside and grabbed a cheater bar, a hefty metal pipe for dealing with stubborn nuts and bolts. In the past few weeks, he’d found it had a motivating influence on all sorts of stubborn things.
The three whispered among themselves a bit as Lex stepped out and locked the door behind him.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Lex Alexander, would you?”
“As a matter of fact, I would happen to be Lex.” He and Squee paced toward them. “And who are you?”
The head of the group nodded to one of the others. He trotted off, disappearing through one of the exit doors. The boss turned the flashlight to his face. He wasn’t familiar, but that didn’t mean much. There’d been a lot of new faces around there. As the preliminaries started to heat up and the first official race approached, all sorts of pit crews and new racers had been flooding in.
He tugged his collar. “League staff. Contractors. We’re going to be running some signal amps so a nonemergency services mesh network can stay up even when the regional network is down.”
“Yeah? You’re doing that in the middle of the night?” Lex said, meeting the group in the middle.
“How long have you been here? Middle of the night’s the only time you can’t grill a steak on the roof of this place.” He pointed the flashlight at Lex. “What’s with the pipe?”
“How long have you been here? Things can get a little cutthroat. Gotta make sure no one’s poking their noses where they don’t belong.” He glanced back and forth between the men. “Kind of light on equipment, aren’t you?”
“We’re just scoping the place out.”
“It takes three of you for that?”
“Union rules.”
“Union rules keep you from turning the lights on, too?”
“Do you walk around telling everybody how to do their jobs, Mr. Alexander?”
“Only when they wander into where I do my job when I’m not expecting them.” Lex’s slidepad chirped. He reached for it. “If this is the network coming back, I might be wrong about you guys.” He looked at the screen. The call was from Ma. “It’s a notification. I’ve got to handle this.”
“Fine. We’re through here anyway,” the boss said.
He signaled the remaining tech, and they headed for the door as well. Lex watched them as he put the slidepad to his ear.
“Ma, what’s up?” he said quietly.
“I have a slight update for you.”
“Anything good?”
“The quantity and quality is insufficient to make a determination regarding its nature as fortunate or otherwise.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“A data connection was briefly established to the SOB. The access code associated was the temporary one assigned to Michella.”
“Was there any sort of message?”
“No. The connection contained only the preamble. After four seconds, the connection was broken at the source. The only additional information I can offer is that the connection was not between the ship and a slidepad. It was a connection between the ship and the station.”
“That’s it. A blank message from the station with Michella’s code on it.”
“Correct. The only other event worthy of note was a brief departure of a ship. It hung outside the docking bay, made a transmission, and returned.”
“No one came down to the surface?”
“No.”
Outside, the telltale sound of a hovercar departing echoed through the building.
“Why did I hear them leave, but not arrive…” Lex muttered.
“To what are you referring, Lex?”
“There’s a ton of fishy stuff going on around here. Can you stay on the line?”
“Certainly, Lex.”
He paced outside, Squee trotting along beside him. His personal hovercar was parked right near the door. He crouched down beside Squee and motioned with his head.
“What do you say, Squee? Give her a once-over?”
Squee sprang from the ground to the hood of the car and lowered her pointed snout, sniffing thoughtfully.
“What are you doing, Lex?” Ma asked.
“There were workers here. Near as I can tell, they were here just long enough to not do any work. Basically the only thing they learned while they were here was that I was here. Then they left.”
“This is irregular behavior for workers.”
“Tell me about it.”
Squee hopped down and wriggled under the hovering vehicle, continuing to sniff at anything remotely interesting.
“You sound less distracted, by the way,” Lex said, watching Squee closely. “All done with the secret scary thing?”
“I am awaiting the results of a recent gambit, which may or may not have downgraded the threat to something imaginable.”
“Well, keep me apprised of the situation. Once it gets down to ‘merely terrifying,’ let me know.”
“I shall take the suggestion under advisement.”
There was nothing visible of Squee but her sweeping ta
il as she investigated the underside of the car. She started yipping.
“Looks like we’ve hit pay dirt,” Lex said.
He dropped to his back and slid under the hovercar. Squee was scratching at an irregular-looking node affixed to the center of the undercarriage.
“Oh, no you don’t… Ma, I’m sending you a picture. Tell me what you make of this.” He snapped a shot of the node.
“Processing… Stand by, activating the SDR function of your slidepad. Monitoring frequencies… The device appears to be a tracking module, Lex.”
“Is that all it is? Because they popped it right on one of the main transfer lines between two repulsors.”
“Processing. Please provide additional views of the node.”
He gave her a video sweep.
“The device is composed of seven off-the-shelf subsystems. Custom made. The outer body is a canister with surplus volume for the components it likely contains.”
“So there’s something else in there.”
“Correct. The lack of electrical activity suggests it is passive, though not necessarily inert. I am also able to identify a low-cost, low-capacity receiver assembly that could potentially serve as a trigger.”
“… A trigger.”
“Correct. An alternate term for it, depending upon the contents of the surplus volume, is a detonator.”
Lex cleared his throat and carefully slid himself from beneath the hovercar. He got to his feet and guided Squee slowly away from the hovercar as though if he moved more quickly, he might spook it.
“A tracking device and a bomb?”
“Bomb is an overstatement. Its detonation would be more akin to a squib. Regardless, I would not recommend its removal. That is a frequent means to trigger such a device.”
“Which would disable the car. Unless I was driving at my usual speed. Then it would crash the car.”
“Are you suggesting that someone is intending to use this device to kill you?”
“No. Because I’ve got safety equipment. They sure as hell didn’t have time enough to disconnect that. You’d practically have to disassemble the whole car. But setting it off in the middle of nowhere, with no network, while they know where I am would probably lead to something pretty unpleasant.”
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