Every picker around him had their piece of fruit. It was a reward for meeting the quota that day, something that got harder as they moved deeper into the jungle surrounding the city. They were encountering more territorial wild life. Giant cats, predator birds that would pluck you off a tree and carry you off if you were unlucky, and snakes that were so thick that they could be mistaken for fallen logs. He listened to his uncle's advice about being a picker; never go first. They weren't allowed to have weapons or more protective clothing than their flimsy jumpsuits, so the only way to make sure you didn't get killed was to be in the middle of the pack and make sure someone else got it first. He forgot sometimes and ended up climbing above the pack in a tree, or wandering, but he'd been lucky every time so far. He was saving his orange for Samantha.
How could he know why she joined him to cuddle several nights ago when he was falling asleep on his bedroll? She did. He made her laugh, made her comfortable, listened to her even if he didn't completely understand some of the science at times, and that seemed to be more than enough to keep her coming back so far. He enjoyed her visits because it always felt like her attention was a gift, like she was taking time out of being smart, independent and well liked so she could be vulnerable with him.
That orange, worth a hundred-forty-seven credits, would go to her. Seeing her smile would be the height of his day. Most of the people there would sell their fruit to someone else, often a guard. The rest would share it with their kids, but it was the best offering he could give. After moving through the jungle, climbing trees, picking fruit for sixteen hours and walking for one, he wanted to hand it to her and fall down on his bed.
The broad doors to the Everin Building awaited, and Nigel stooped low as he passed through. They were twice his height, there was no problem there, but the line of soldiers and guards who watched the scanning stations were looking for people who stood out, and he didn't want to get picked out of the line again. He passed through, and when the crowd thinned out he had an easier time getting to the first-floor dwelling that he, his uncle and Samantha called home. All four of the others, including Tammy, had been taken. She was in isolation, but no one knew where the rest were.
Nigel stepped through the door. "I'm home, you lucky, lucky people!" he exclaimed as the door closed behind him. Samantha, Frost and David looked up from the table, their expressions stony.
"Come in quietly," Frost said. "We have a visitor."
"Yeah, hey Dave," Nigel said, extending his hand.
"Good to see you," he replied, smiling warmly. He looked more like Frost's nephew than Nigel did. They were almost equally stocky and broad shouldered.
"No, not him," Frost said with a smirk.
"I don't see anyone else," he said.
A shimmer in the air preceded the appearance of Stephanie, who was standing at the opposite end of the table. "Surprise."
He went around and hugged her. "Aunt Steph!" he said with a squeeze. "How are you doing? I didn't think we'd see you until the occupation ended."
"I have to make some deliveries. It's good to see you," she said, tapping a finger to his earlobe lightly. "There, now we can always hear each other."
"What?"
"I just planted a communication device on you that's indistinguishable from skin. It uses a mesh network I made so we can communicate. You turn it on and off with a thought, it's new tech from the Fleet."
"Cool, wouldn't they detect a mesh network, though?"
"It works by disguising our communications so well that you can't tell the difference between them and ambient static. Their equipment can't even tell we're transmitting," Stephanie said.
"Cool, cool," Nigel said. "Thank you, but, how are you?"
"Good," Stephanie said, offering a rare and brief smile. "It was hard, hiding out in isolation for a while, but I've been keeping myself in a safe place. I'm hoping that the occupation will be over soon, but we still have a long way ahead of us."
"The Order probably knows I'm here," Frost said. "This disguising tech isn't as good as we thought. That leaves you and Sam there to carry out an important part of our plan."
"We're finally doing something?" Nigel asked, excited and afraid at the same time.
"It's time," David said. "You're in the wrong place, we were hoping they'd put you somewhere other than on a picking crew, but Stephanie has found a way to make the plan work."
"Good, I need to be a part of this. I've seen enough of these power tripping assholes. So, what's the plan?"
"Well, a lot of this is going to sound like bad news," Stephanie said. "Frost is leaving."
"I'm getting in a cloak suit, doing some damage, then I'll be getting out. I wish I could stay, but it's only a matter of time before they pick me up and I go the way of the rest of our friends. If they haven't scanned me and seen that I'm wearing a mask yet, then it's going to happen soon."
"He'll join me, where I'm in communication with Phase Seven, the nearest battlegroup," Stephanie said.
"What happens to Sam, Dave and me after this plan?" Nigel asked.
"I'd love to say that you get snatched up so you can hide out with us, but that's not certain," Stephanie replied. Her expression was darkening by the second.
The feeling in the room was grim, it was like everyone expected to lose and it made Nigel uneasy. "So, we're not supposed to get caught. That's part of the plan."
"If everything goes well, then you won't have to worry about that for long. The Phase Seven fleet has doubled in size and most of the command structure is in Haven Shore right now. Wheeler has moved Order Knights and several of his commanders down here because things haven't gone well since he released that footage of Ayan's apartment," Stephanie said.
It was impossible to miss what she was talking about. When Wheeler aired the footage of soldiers finding a freakish shrine to Ayan Rice, which included her corpse, and no one believed it. Even when they let independent members of the press analyse the video and visit the site for themselves, people didn't believe it was what it seemed to be. They hated Wheeler for orchestrating the whole thing. No one liked it when someone tried to trick them, but it was even worse that he went after their queen with such grisly evidence. It was ghoulish, and residents were insulted. Nigel found himself wondering if things would have been different if Wheeler revealed the queen as some secret glutton, or as an embezzler with hidden riches, but it didn't matter. The damage was done and the citizens were starting to notice signs of Wheeler's paranoia. The shimmer of a shield around him when he appeared in public and his unwillingness to open his containment suit when he was in the open air were just a start. He'd started travelling with a crowd of soldiers and his public appearance had been rescheduled twice. "Are we finally going to kill him?" Nigel asked, everyone knew who he meant.
"No," Stephanie replied. "We'd rather deal with a known incompetent than the commander they have in the wings. Someone new is taking control of the Cluster, and we expect the Order of Eden to start attacking the Mergillian and other free worlds within the month. If we remove Wheeler, she may come here first, and I know what I'd do if I were facing a rebellion in Haven Shore."
"Burn it all down," Samantha said under her breath. She was still in her work uniform: dark trousers and a jacket with the markings of a Supervising Engineer. Her knowledge of manufacturing materials put her near the top of the command chain in the fabrication plant.
"That's right. Most of the people the Haven Government and the Rangers saved then resettled have been moved here. They're all seen as sympathizers to Haven, so Wheeler has been trying to convert as many as possible to the Order way, get them climbing the ladder. It's a good way for them to keep an eye on us, too," David said.
"And if we make too much trouble, you know, kill our mentally unbalanced overlord, we'll be easy to wipe out," Frost added. "No, we're going to make him shake a little, give him another reason to keep one eye open, but he'll be whole by the end. The real plan will use the ships we have waiting. It's something they won't expect, and it starts
with these." He put a thick stack of reprogrammable communication strips on the table. There must have been a hundred of them. Soldiers gave them out to people with their ident codes on them so people could call them to borrow money or rack up charges by using them to call other people. Everyone had a couple on them, some people even used them as intended. The Order confiscated anything that could be used to reprogram them, but Stephanie had a pair of command and control bracers with her, among other things, and she scanned them. "There are three bad ones in that stack, leaving us with ninety-eight we can use. I'll reprogram these while you fill Nigel and Samantha in on what comes next."
Nigel listened closely as a plan that eventually had him grinning was laid out in whispers by David and Frost. It would be dangerous, but it would be worth it, especially since the Merciless had returned to the Haven System, and they would not be sitting idle.
Three
The Tour
* * *
It didn't take long for the crew of the Clever Dream to find asteroids with leftover heavy metals for the Corsair to harvest so it could finish manufacturing security androids for the station and start working on Captain Majan Lor's order. It was a strange thing, not worrying about being detected. The small group of asteroids were slowly drifting away from the Doxan System, plenty of ships were passing within scanning range, and they had two military class artificial intelligences on watch using the best scanners in the solar system to see danger coming. Elise and Lewis were their first line guardians, and it didn't take much effort on their part.
The Corsair used an advanced version of the maxjack system Frost built for the Samson to cut some of the best parts of the asteroid away, grab it, then break it down while it was stored in an expandable compartment along the bottom of the ship. The manufacturing systems picked the material up from there, breaking it down further, refining the better substances it found then converting the remainder to bulk that would be converted into useful but lighter metals and other construction materials. Alice knew how it worked, she'd done the reading, qualified on an earlier version of the system, but it still boggled her sometimes, how rough stone and raw metals could come out minutes later as something useful. It was technological alchemy.
It was good to have a quiet time when people could rest and hang out. Yawen was in charge on the Clever Dream, and the crew were on alert just in case an Order ship or over ambitious pirates showed up, but they could relax, socialize and watch a few local holographic live shows, which were rare finds in any great quantity. Doxan had hundreds of live channels, even a pirate one that celebrated a more base and brutal type of programming that Noro, Knud, Yawen and Krooke were glued to as the pirates replayed recordings of them playing vicious pranks on each other, like affixing a thruster to one of their friends that went off as soon as he stood up from his chair at an outdoor café. They changed the channel when the pirates started executing ransom victims who weren't paid for in time.
Spending time out of armour and heavy boots felt good to Alice and most of the human crew, especially since she knew there would be long days in full armour ahead. She kept the powder blue suit as it was when it was time to join Noah on the Corsair so they could get to work then spend some time. The brief rise of attraction she felt from Noah when he saw her in it was verification that he liked it.
They had the most work to get through, and it was slow going for Noah and Alice. There were several appeals from people who wanted to meet him, but none had known ties to Mary Reed or claimed to be members of the Underground. A few claimed to know people in resistance groups, but there was no one who could actually say they fought or preyed on the Order of Eden in any way so far.
The number of contacts approaching them through the local network was cut down by Elise and Lewis, even more so by Theodore, but the two captains still had to go through the remainder. There was also syncing up to do between the ships, which required access code swapping and more system checks than either of them cared to do, especially since Alice was feeling distracted. Their reunion was slowed by discipline and duty. There was a lot to do, none of it the kind of thing they wanted to do before taking time for each other, but that was exactly why they decided to get through the least exciting stuff first.
It was difficult. Alice could sense how he felt, on the verge of excitement about her being there even after they calmed down and focused on the task at hand. Noah did get serious, he was good at staying on task, but when he took moments to glimpse at her the excitement resurged, and Alice wondered if it was all him or if she was adding her own elation to the mix. Either way, it made it hard for her to concentrate.
While they were looking through people trying to set a meeting to buy arms, Alice closed her eyes and tried to meditate for a moment. Life was simpler when she didn't feel everyone else's emotions more than her own, and she tried to raise the wall around her mind. Noah had that quiet mind set she felt from people when they were idling a little while they were working or watching something. He was feeling impatient as he watched a pre-recorded message from a polite petitioner she could overhear; "…I ask that you ignore my criminal record, I am not the thief the authorities think I am. I transport goods that most materializers can't produce without breaking down regularly, like so many others, and I'd like to expand my business but I require the means to better defend my concerns," the fellow went on, going into details about his operations and why he needed military grade ship weaponry. Even though there was plenty of boredom and a little impatience, there was an underlying hum of happiness, and she smiled, her eyes still closed as she felt it was inspired by her.
Wait, I'm supposed to be closing the outside off, I want to be uncontaminated by what other people are feeling. Alice thought to herself, trying to pull away from the sense that made her more open than she thought anyone could be. The hum coming from Noah changed, like there was a hiccup, then she felt his concern. "You okay? I mean, we're almost finished, I could watch the last few messages."
With a shake of her head, Alice opened her eyes. He was taking her hand, and she knit her fingers between his. "I'm fine, I just couldn't look at this guy much longer." A nod directed his gaze at the petitioner she was supposed to pay attention to, a man with a thin third nostril in the middle of his nose between the normal pair and an extra set of cybernetic eyes above the human ones. "…need a retailer on the ground, on Doxan Four. The atmosphere is toxic to most humans, but I have the mods, I can breathe the air. I could sell to the races who land here for you if you advance me the first gun shipment. I could sell shields too, you know, and other stuff."
"I see what you mean. He's a little hard to look at. Which eyes do you focus on? The ones he got installed or the factory originals? How much input can you wire into one brain?" Noah asked, cringing at the question as soon as he finished talking. "I'm sorry, I mean cybernetics, not, uh."
Alice put a finger across his lips and paused the playback. "It's fine, I'm not offended. I think we found something though," she reversed the recording for a moment then played it back. "…and other stuff," the cyborg said. "I shouldn't say this on this transmission, but I know there are people who take on the Order here, I see their ships every once in a while from my bunker. Those things are repainted, but I know Order fighters and corvettes when I see them. I know they stole 'em, and I can get to that market for you." Alice paused the recording. "Maybe he's actually got contacts," she said.
"That's why Lewis and I agreed to forward it to you. He attached several recordings of Order of Eden combat shuttles, a gunship and two corvettes. We have his location on Doxan Four as well, but he advises that he will be communication dark for another forty-one hours from now. If he sends outgoing signals his bunker will be discovered by the authorities," Elise said. "Which authorities he's talking about, and why they would care about his bunker are things we couldn't determine. Theodore suggests that he's paranoid, perhaps a little delusional."
"All right, then we follow up on his terms. We should have time to check Do
xan Three out in the meantime," Alice said.
"Sounds good," Noah agreed. "Let's get through the last three messages." He was eager, and a little anxious.
They watched them together, fingers still intertwined as they held hands in the pilot and co-pilot seats on the small bridge. They were all just thugs looking to buy guns, one of them spat a few times during her recording, repeating; "I hate the Order, hate them!" but there was no proof that she had done anything to fight them in the past. Alice was stretching in her seat as the last one played, and she noticed a spike in his excitement as he stole a glance. "Can I get a tour?" she asked, sending him a little knowing smile.
"Oh, yeah, sure," Noah said, getting out of his seat. She wasn't far behind, still trying to close her empathic ability off as she followed him through the crew quarters. They were the same as the ones in the Clever Dream, except the first mate's quarters were a storage area instead, and the furniture was collapsed down into its smallest configuration so they could be used for storage too. He was proud of his ship, it was fun to watch him get excited about it, even though most of the features he showed her were already aboard the Clever Dream.
A few of the crew quarters already had security androids standing idle in them, ready for delivery to Angel's Landing. "I'm going to hold off on final delivery until I get a few answers from the administration there," Noah explained. "They paid me, I've got the platinum in the hold, but I want to put the screws to them a little, find out how much they had to do with the trouble we had there before I deliver."
"Makes sense," Alice agreed. "How good are these bots?"
"They're great for civilian security, but not great against the military." He closed the hatch and they moved on.
The round seat she enjoyed so much was absent from the Captain's quarters, but everything else was the same. It had its own food production fabricator, drink mixing machine, hidden refrigeration, roll-out work table, and a great big, luxurious sleeping area with a huge bed.
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 13 Page 39