“Yeah…”
He grinned. “Where can I find it?”
#
Inside the array control room, Milliner checked the charge in the ammo cell for his energy pistol. He and the two other remaining mobsters were holed up in the control room. They knew as well as Lex now did that if he was going to solve this problem, he was going to have to come through this room. That meant he would have to come through them. And from the looks of things, that wasn’t going to happen.
He heard a few metallic claps in the distance.
“Yeah, yeah,” Milliner said. “Keep shooting. If you could get through doors like that with small arms, you think we’d’ve waited until we could sneak in?”
Engineer Ecks sat at the massive bank of controls, watching the levels. In addition to the various energy and temperature readings, which needed periodic adjustment, she had an entire section of screens dedicated to weather data. Most of them were blacked out—probably due to the lack of direct contact with the silenced station—but the local data was creeping into worrisome levels.
“The dust storm is growing,” she said. “You don’t realize how bad this thing could get. The Colonial Era Disaster of 2225 cost us an entire—”
“Save me the history lesson. This thing lasts until someone gives us the code or we break through. You want to avoid another disaster, you better hope someone up there or down here wises up.” He shook his head. “All of you techies think telling me about this number or that event will change things. Like facts mean anything about reality.”
“Facts are reality,” she countered.
“Uh-huh. And right now the reality you need to get comfortable with is that we’re in charge.”
“Boss,” called one of Milliner’s underlings. “You hear something?”
He paced over and glanced up. After a moment or two, they heard a tapping sound.
“Probably just one of those lizards I’ve seen running around. Probably got into the air vent.” He sniffed. “Better make sure, though. Plenty of men I know that’re dead because of ‘probably.’ Grab that chair.”
The underling grabbed a flimsy folding chair. They followed the tapping sound along the wall to where the metal air-conditioning duct emerged. The metal wobbled and sagged with the weight of what was passing through.
“That looks bigger than a lizard, boss,” the lackey observed.
“But smaller than a guy. Even so, no sense letting it run around.”
He flipped a switch on his pistol. The device produced a high-pitched whine. The scrabbling and thumping suddenly became a good deal more urgent, scampering down along the vent. He fired four quick shots, punching neat holes into the vent system. When he was through shooting, there was silence.
“Did you get it?” asked the lackey.
“One of the nice things about an energy weapon, buddy. You can smell if you got something.”
He took a whiff, savoring the mixture of smells like a chef judging his latest masterpiece.
“I’m getting some molten aluminum. Oof. Some kind of unholy stank. … And a little bit of burnt hair. I’d say whatever it is, we got it. Get in there and clear it out. I don’t want to be breathing that every time the AC kicks on.”
The lackey unfolded the chair and stood on it to access the nearest vent. He unhooked it, grabbed his flashlight, and shined it inside.
A black-and-white ball of teeth and claws launched out of the vent and knocked the man to the ground. Buzzing growls and angry yips combined with startled cries and stumbling thumps. Both the lackey and the enraged Squee struck the ground. The funk pulled herself to her feet, pausing just long enough to flick her massive, fluffy tail. It had a large tuft of fur missing, the ends still smoldering from the near miss. When she spotted a way out of the room, she sprinted for it, barely a half stride ahead of the string of energy blasts following behind.
“Guess I didn’t get it,” he said.
“Where is that thing? I’ll kill that thing.”
“Relax. It’s a critter. We’ll find it and roast it. But we’ll do it after we’re done here.”
“But that thing is in here now! What if it does something?”
Milliner helped him to his feet. “What can it do?”
The lackey dabbed blood from his cheek. “Look what it did to my face! I’m going to tear that thing apart.”
“If it turns up, we shoot it. Listen. You get distracted, you get killed. We stay right here and you focus.”
Behind them, the control panel chimed. Milliner’s head snapped toward the panel.
“What’d I just hear?” he barked.
“The north door just opened,” the engineer said.
He jabbed his still-smoldering pistol into her side. It hissed against her clothes. “Did you open that door?” he demanded.
“I can’t! You entered the exit and entrance codes in yourself!” she said quickly, hands in the air.
“So what are you saying? That thing opened the door?”
“Take it from me,” echoed Lex’s voice from around a corner. “Keeping her behind a locked door is more trouble than it’s worth.”
Milliner clutched his pistol tight and directed his two lackeys to new positions with a gesture of his head. “You know you can’t just shoot in here, right?” he called. “You might hit the system, and then you’re screwed.”
“Seems like you were doing plenty of shooting yourself,” Lex said, adding darkly, “you singed my funk…”
“There’s only two ways into this room. There’s three of us in here. You stick so much as a finger in the room, and we’ll blast it off.”
Milliner pointed to the other door. The lackey guarding it slipped through to flank Lex.
“Hey, any of you folks ever heard of a guy named Karter Dee?” Lex asked.
“No, no. But keep talking,” Milliner said, double-checking his weapon. “I’d love to hear about your stupid friends.”
“Calling him a friend is a stretch,” Lex said. “But he’s a useful guy. He designed that sled I used to smash the wall. I took out six of your guys with the cockpit eject, which is a safety feature. The guy’s safety features are a menace to society.”
The other of Milliner’s men moved into position.
“Sounds like a real peach,” Milliner said.
“Yeah. Which is why I can’t wait to see what this thing does.”
A sharp click echoed from the corridor where Lex was hiding, then a heavy metallic clunk.
“Grenade!” piped one of Milliner’s men, diving aside as a canister of some sort rolled into the room.
Both lackeys huddled behind cover. Milliner did not.
“You idiots,” he said, weapon held ready and trying to cover both entrances at once. “He’s not stupid enough to toss a grenade in here. He needs the controls in one piece.”
The canister released an escalating electronic whine, then erupted in a punishing burst of trilling siren and a dazzling strobe of light. As bad as the league-default safety locator had been, Karter had found a way to make it even worse. The siren was unrelenting and maddening. The flashing light swallowed Milliner’s vision in purple spots. Both of his lackies recoiled in pain and confusion. Out of the corner of his impaired vision, Milliner saw Lex rush in. The racer was the only one prepared for the audio-visual assault and made quick work of pummeling and disarming one of Milliner’s two men. Before the heavily armed thug could even point his weapon at Lex, the racer had dragged the disabled heavy from the room.
“Cover the door!” Milliner said, moving into position to replace his fallen ally.
The order fell on deaf ears, perhaps literally. The other member of his crew was busy firing shots at the locator. One of them connected, but the device simply ricocheted around the room. A direct hit did little more than cause the light to stutter irregularly and warble instead of trill. With almost manic determination, the underling tracked down the blaring device, trapped it in a cor
ner, and unloaded shot after shot into it. After five direct hits, Karter’s overengineered safety beacon finally went quiet.
“Ha! Ha ha ha haaaa!” crowed the thug. “I got it! I got—”
The sharp slap of flesh on flesh cut his celebration short, as Lex charged into the room and shouldered the man heavily into the wall. He crumbled into a heap, and Lex caught him by the leg to drag him out of the control room.
Milliner tried to blink the shifting purple blobs from his vision and listen through the ringing.
“You just try to come in here. You just try it!” Milliner said. “I’ve still got a gun, and you’re not going to get the drop on me.”
“If I were you, I’d give up,” Lex said.
“Yeah, and if I were you, I’d have about thirty seconds left to live.”
“Heh. Nope,” Lex said. “I happen to know I live for at least one more ridiculous mission.”
“Oh yeah? Well what about this engineer here?” Milliner said. He turned aside and grabbed Ecks, pointing the gun at her head. “Or did you forget I had one of yours in here?” the thug growled.
His vision was very slowly clearing, and what he saw wasn’t what he expected. Lex stepped into the control room. He didn’t have a weapon. His hands were out, and he didn’t seem in the least bit concerned.
“What are you going to do?” Lex said. “Do you know how to work this thing? Are you going to be able to shut it down or take over and make adjustments if the time comes?”
“The storm’s already raging. The damage is already being done. Who cares what happens next? That was the goal.”
“Did the goal include getting out of here alive? Because I’m not the only one on the way. There’s a pile of Nick’s troops coming, and I can’t imagine they’ll be stepping out to calmly talk over the logic of the situation.”
“I knew what I was getting into. And I know how to get out of it.”
“You knew what you were getting into,” Lex said. “I see. Well I guess it was stupid of me to come out here and try reasoning with you then. Because for reasoning to work, a functional brain is required.”
“You think you’re going to throw me off by insulting me? What kind of a fool do you take me for?”
“A pretty big one. But also you’re sort of a pathetic weakling. You put everyone else on the frontline. And you’ve been reduced to taking a hostage to ward off the terrifying menace of a hoversled racer and his pet. I guess you were the best disposable nobody they could spare.”
Milliner’s grip tightened around the gun. “I’ll kill her.”
“Face it, meat head,” Lex said. “She’s the only one in this room you’d be able to kill. And I’m including Squee.”
Lex motioned to the corner of the room. Milliner flicked his nearly recovered eyes to the corner of the room. The singed and very agitated beast who had begun this ridiculous assault had used the distraction to stalk within pouncing distance.
Milliner snapped his weapon toward the funk. A split second later, Lex collided with him. The pair tumbled over a chair and sprawled to the ground. Milliner lost grip of the weapon. He scrambled for it, but the critter snatched it and dashed away.
Lex wasn’t much of a fighter, but what he lacked in training he made up for with enthusiasm. Punches, kicks, bites, and head-butts came fast and furious. Soon the engineer joined in, delivering punishing blows to the back and ribs of her former captor. Squee returned and eagerly sank her teeth into the fray. Eventually, with a roar of anger, Milliner decided discretion was the greater part of valor. He threw the attackers off him and dashed for the door.
He made it as far as the courtyard. The rest of his men were tied up. The prisoners were free. He’d lost. But a man his size could wrestle an awful lot of win out of a loss. He snatched a stray bar and swiped viciously. He tagged the nearest of the former prisoners, producing a splash of blood that sapped the nerve from the rest. He shouldered his way through them to one of the hovervans that had brought them here.
“It isn’t over yet,” he growled, accelerating out through the hole Lex had punched in the courtyard wall.
#
Lex struggled to his feet and tried to avoid retching.
“Boy… Having causal invincibility doesn’t do much to soften the impact of some kidney punches,” he groaned.
“I can’t believe I made it out of that alive,” Ecks said, helping to steady him.
“Get into messes like this as often as I do, and you’ll start getting used to it. What happens now? We need to stop the storm.”
“We can’t. I mean, I can control any of the fully functional aspects of the broadcast array from down here, but now that the storm is started, the only way it stops is if they attenuate it from the station, or it runs its course.”
“Is there any way you can get a message to the station?”
“They’re in control up there already?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. I’ve got reason to believe my girlfriend and your boss are both up there. I hesitate to think what’ll happen to anyone that gets in between those two.”
The engineer took a seat at the controls again and brushed some debris from the panel. “There’s an integrated communication uplink. I think I can manage something.”
#
Michella did her best to navigate the station. It was a good deal more difficult to find her way from place to place without the slidepad loaded with the map. On the other hand, she’d faced very little in the way of direct resistance. Her liberal dosage of pepper spray had severely reduced the effectiveness of nearly half the thugs. Meanwhile, Coal’s chaotic attempts to stay in touch and restock her supply of oxygen were causing constant microdisasters that needed to be addressed. That left the thugs with their hands full.
She’d found one of the survival rooms and, ignoring the alarm that she knew would sound when she opened it, secured a pair of emergency suits. At first she was worried they would be the typical, profoundly difficult-to-equip space gear she’d had to wear in the past. That would make taking the time to get into one a risky endeavor. As it turned out, it was the work of moments to slip one on. These particular pieces of equipment had different shortcomings.
Michella tugged uncomfortably at the suit. The helmet was large and rugged, currently disconnected and hanging from an integrated harness alongside the spare suit that, she hoped, would keep Preethy safe once she was found. The rest of the suit, on the other hand, was baggy and stiff. It crinkled when she moved. The material was translucent and thin. It looked like it would be better at keeping sandwiches fresh than protecting someone from space.
“One stray sharp edge and this thing is going to be about as much good to me as a lead balloon,” she murmured.
She turned a corner. A nearby clap of gunfire caused an explosion of debris from the wall behind her. She ducked back into cover.
“Miss Modane…” called Hatch. “My crew told me they saw you sucked out of an air lock. Tell me, are they idiots or liars?”
“They’re both,” she called.
“Ha! I can’t argue with that. But they’re not the only idiots around here. I imagine that ship bumping and scraping along the outside of the station is your doing?”
“More or less,” she said.
“You do realize if it causes enough damage, that will cause just as much havoc down there as if I’d remained in control, right?”
“I don’t really have much control over what she does. If I were you, I’d give up. That’s just about the only way I can guarantee we all survive.”
“You aren’t the one calling the shots, Modane. Say hello, Preethy.”
Michella heard some sounds of struggle.
“I said say hello!”
There was a dull thud. Preethy grunted in pain. Michella gripped her stolen pistol.
“She’s a tough cookie, this one. But then, I’ve only just started to tune her up. You’re her friend. Maybe you could talk some sense into her?
”
“I’m not her friend.”
“Really. And yet you came to her rescue. What possible reason could you have?”
“Common decency,” Michella said. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Oh, I know all about common decency. That’s the term that cowards use for things they’re too afraid to do to take themselves to that next level of achievement.”
Michella heard some more struggle.
“I’m heading your way, Modane. But if I were you, I’d think twice about taking any shots. I’m keeping Preethy nice and close.”
Michella drifted a bit farther back, to give herself some more space. Coal spoke up in her earpiece.
“I would advise that you keep moving. Several signals are closing in around you.”
“I don’t have any options, Coal.”
“That is unfortunate. Do you have any final messages for me to deliver to Lex, then?”
“I’m not giving up yet,” she hissed.
“I see. Then do you have any current messages to deliver to Lex? The power transmission from the surface has refocused, and it is now being used as a carrier signal with data and voice communication. I believe I can facilitate two-way communication.”
“Patch me through to him!”
“Connecting now. Say hello, Lex.”
“Mitch!” Lex said.
“Trev, I need help up here.”
“We’re working on it, but we can’t do anything from down here without a link to the station’s computer. You’ve got to get control yourself or get one of the network-connected transceivers up. And we’ll need the access code. There should be ships on their way up there, now that the array isn’t belching its power all which ways. But this storm they started is headed toward a town, and I don’t know how much longer they’ve got.”
“He’s got Preethy, and I’ve got them closing in on all sides.”
“Who’s up there?”
“Someone called Hatch.”
The people approaching from behind were close enough for her to hear them pulling themselves along the handrails.
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