The Brutus Code

by John Lane

  “Send the drone again,” Tommy said soon after Alfred sent their email data dump. “Let’s see how safe it really is.” Alfred prepped and launched the drone as Tommy set the Swift a course and speed to follow their signals, but not too close. Standard procedure when entering a system, announce yourself and then follow the signal. Tommy did not follow close today. As the signal sped ahead of the Swift, the ship cruised behind, dropping speed as it went. This would give them plenty of time and distance to make a quick escape.

  Still thirty light minutes out from the outpost they received a signal. “Swift, this is Outpost Landis control. Received and acknowledge ID. Please proceed to Main Dock, Bay Fifteen.”

  Tommy logged the instructions for docking. “Odd. They have a Postal Service Dock. Why not send us there?”

  “There is a signal from our drone piggybacked on their signal. Internal com systems show that the sheriff and deputies are moving to dock fifteen with orders to detain you and impound the Swift. It appears that we have been branded rogue and orders have spread to approach with caution using any force necessary. At least they’re not trying to shoot at us.”

  “Improvement?” Tommy smirked as he replied. “Recall the drone. As soon as we know where the MOM went, we go, too.”

  “Right, boss,” Alfred replied, noting from Tommy’s light tone he enjoyed the challenge.

  In the Med Bay again, Agnes got really tired of these walls. She had stopped vomiting. Even though this was the first time she could clearly remember vomiting, she remembered that feeling of nausea and she didn’t like it now either. Her head hurt, her throat was raw, her nose was running, and her eyes were gummy. She was dog-tired but her body wouldn’t let her rest. Alfred promised he would give her a sedative when she stopped barfing.

  “Alfred,” she moaned into the air.

  “Yes, Agnes,” Alfred spoke in soothing tones near her ear. “Are you feeling any better?”

  “No, worse, but no more puke,” she said. “Can I go to sleep now?” She hated the way she sounded so needy. Agnes wanted to think that she had always been an independent person who took care of herself, but she couldn’t remember. She feared that she might have been this whiny, needy child.

  “Yes, you get your rest. Let your body heal and fight off the virus. I will monitor you. Do not worry, I am always here for you.” That comforted her as her lids got heavier. Her last thought as she drifted off was how nice it was to have daddy taking care of her. And she slept.

  *****

  Aboard the Landis Way-station, Sheriff Roberta Cooper grumbled. Morning station time, and she’d just gotten to her office when the call came in from the System Control office about the rogue PS ship. So, before she enjoyed her morning coffee and doughnut, she rounded up her deputies and made her way to Dock Fifteen. The power in that section of the station was still set for night operations and the corridors were dimly lit. She met Roger Eagle and Richard Doolittle at the hatch and waited. Roger had the sense to grab a thermos of coffee from the diner, or was lucky enough to have stopped before he got his call to duty this morning.

  “Sheriff, they have acknowledged their instructions and are on approach. Fifteen minutes to dock,” squawked the sheriff’s com.

  “Alright, Alice. Keep me posted.” Eyeing Roger’s thermos with envy, she nodded at him and asked, “Got enough to share?” Roger passed her a cup. She sipped the coffee with relief, inhaling the aroma of the steam as it rose off the surface of her cup.

  “Five minutes,” came the next warning. She handed the cup back to her deputy and cautioned. “Okay boys. The report says this is a rogue ship. Our job is to apprehend the crew and impound the ship. They are reported to be dangerous, so take no chances. Shoot first and we’ll figure it all out later. And for gosh sakes watch the fuel tanks in there, we don’t need any more repairs to the slip this year.”

  The three law enforcement officers, having already put on their military grade environment suits, waited with weapons drawn.

  *****

  The MOM had not arrived on schedule. Not a concern yet, the MOMs often met with delays because of the nature of the medical service that each system on their routes required. It was time to retrace that route. As soon as the drone docked, Tommy plotted a course and the Swift left the system.

  *****

  While on the station Roberta and her men still waited. Ten more minutes passed. No vibration in the deck plates of a ship docking. No hiss as environments equalized pressure. And no word came from the System Control office. Her coffee began to work on her. She was awake, but she had to relieve herself. As sheriff, she rarely wore one of the awful suits and never for long periods of time. She hated the catheter and hadn’t attached it. Why bother when the perps were docking so politely for her to nab anyway? Another five minutes of suffering bladder passed before she called the System Control.

  “System Control, what are you boys playing at? We’ve got no contact down here.”

  “Sorry Sheriff, we’re just now getting the signal back. They’ve bugged out. But they delivered the mail.”

  If her bloodshot eyes didn’t feel like they had sand in them and her bladder didn’t scream for relief, she might have shot someone. Instead she turned on her heels back to the suit lockers and stripped along the way. Neither deputy said a word.

  *****

  Agnes heard no voices, but someone was there. A hand pulled away from her forehead and a light came on. She was in her bedroom. Plush animals lined the shelves on her walls. Favorite books sat next to her and her school tablet lay on the floor next to her slippers. She was eight.

  The hand belonged to her father. He pulled a thermometer out of a pouch and slid it into her ear. Five seconds later, she heard it beep. He examined the readout and pulled out a syringe, took off the cap and injected her arm. It stung, but soon she felt better. With relief from her pain, she found sleep and slipped into another dream.

  Now she received her award. She was part of a team and her parents sat front and center of the auditorium. Her mother held a bundle in her arms and comforted it with a rocking motion. Disappointed that her brother wasn’t there to see her honors, his absence couldn’t trump her feelings of pride and accomplishment. As she shook the hand of her department advisor, she smiled and looked right into the eyes of her father.

  When Agnes took her gaze away from those eyes, the pain in them shamed her. She worked hard with the doctors to ease that pain. Their drugs and her technology failed to save her mother. And yet her father was proud of her. Tears filled her mother’s eyes. Agnes’ mother lay in the bed dying. Agnes reached out to hold her mother’s hand.

  Her father let go of her hand so Agnes could comfort her sister. The funeral service had been short as most were on the Frontier. A few words and her mother’s body was launched into space. Now his staff surrounded her father. Not a wake of friends and coworkers, this was a postmortem on a patient. She turned to the view port full of stars.

  The stars faded into the lights in the operating theatre as blurry masked figures moved in and out of her field of vision. On the table lay a wounded soldier. Most of her body was gone. She saw the mark on her shoulder, a tattoo. She felt cold. And now Agnes lay on the table. Was she dying like her mother? One figure leaned close and she saw a mark on her neck. It was the soldier she had seen on the table. Her biomechanical interface showed. Agnes didn’t like the scars that formed that mark. She saw next to the wall of the room the container. It was hers. She had built it. It was hers. She would lie in it. She would die in it. It was her casket. And she faded again.

  *****

  The last system on the MOM’s route, HD 1461, was slightly larger than the Sol System. Two gas giants in the outer system, a wide asteroid belt and the inner system and three burned out cinder planets that had never been kissed by an atmosphere, orbited leisurely around a yellow dwarf star that wasn’t much use for solar energy to the outpost. The outpost orbited the inner most gas giant. An orbiting refinery provided services where
the systems mining ships docked and cashed in their loads of minerals and syphoned gasses. With a population of thirty thousand souls, the outpost was home to around ten thousand at a time. The rest mined the system in ships and on smaller claims in the belt or on the inner worlds eking out what existence they could.

  En route, Agnes’ condition worsened. Alfred could control the fever to an extent, but Agnes moved in and out of consciousness as she battled the virus that threatened her body. While Alfred nursed her physical body, Tommy sat vigil at her side. As a Postal Service courier Tommy was not immune to the vast grandeur of the galaxy in which he journeyed. Like most of humanity he had an ingrained spirituality deep in his space faring bones. He gave a silent prayer for healing and an end to the suffering that Agnes endured. Alfred feared her time was short. She had not fully recovered from her hibernation when the virus hit.

  MOM ALPHA-ONE docked with the Make-Haste outpost near the habitat rings. The outpost consisted of a series of long strands or passageways. Rotating rings of various sizes and in random locations throughout the maze of connecting strands housed the residents. In the industrial section the rings were smaller and served as offices for the various corporations that processed, stored and shipped the mined ore. Each ring spun. It was cheap artificial gravity, relying on centrifugal force rather than gravity generators. Both older and cheaper than converting to newer construction with gravity panels in the floors the community of Make Haste made do. Tommy identified many sections as salvaged parts from cargo containers and older ships. The strands were corridors for travel and served as storage and processing space for the station. The strands of passageways connected the center of each ring through which the inhabitants passed in 0g to the next ring. These created a grid with no pattern. The outpost grew, as it needed space.

  The Swift approached with the same learned caution. The eerie silence of the station added to Tommy’s alert and cautious approach. Tommy had sent their standard ID code with no response. “Please stand by,” repeated on all channels. The MOM docked at what should have been a busy and bustling center of commerce. The outpost hung silently in space.

  “It appears that there are power outages at key points in the outpost,” Alfred reported. “Most of the habitat rings are slowing their rotation due to friction with the connecting corridor strands and there are stress fractures and breakages at points near each ring. The refinery appears untouched.”

  “What about MOM?” Tommy asked.

  “There is no communication from the ship. Exterior sections are showing reduced power. It looks like four of the Impulse A/W engines are gone and the main drive is damaged.”

  “Your conclusion is pirates.”

  “Yes, Tommy. I fear so.”

  “Other ships evacuated. MOM couldn’t,” Tommy feared.

  This MOM was a larger version of the Swift. With no friction from atmosphere in space and the common engine design, most ships looked similar. Their size changed to define their function. MOMs were converted cargo and troop haulers during the war. The MOM program began late in the Wars as a solution to losing so many casualties during transit to more centralized medical units. The idea was if the injured couldn’t make it to the hospital, then the hospital came to them. After the war populations grew. Soldiers looked for opportunities to put combat behind them. Homesteading exploded across the outer Frontier systems and gave birth to the Fringe. The need for medical treatment in the growing number of small outposts expanded the MOM program, and it became very profitable. Except with the small settlements that refused to join the central government. These groups refused the medical help offered them and soon piracy reared its ugly head.

  “Tommy, Agnes is unconscious again. We need to get her to the MOM.” Alfred’s tone was grave.

  “Yes, launch the drone for surveillance. Pirates may return.”

  “Tommy, I’ve constructed three more drones. I think we should launch all but one.”

  “Do it.”

  The Swift maneuvered to a point behind the MOM. Each ship’s large rear cargo hatch were designed to dock and exchange cargo despite their size. The heavy-duty nature of the docking link allowed Postal Service ships to haul multiple containers on their routes like a train. The couriers, although smaller, still had the hauling capacity of the larger ships with their A/W drives.

  By the time they docked, Tommy sealed Agnes back in a suit and lowered the gravity to zero. Tommy slipped his personal media player into a pocket of his suit. He also carried a personal side arm designed for use inside space ships. It shot gelatinous goo balls or needle darts, powered by compressed air cartage. Neither the dart nor the goo ball would damage a ship’s hull. Weapons that blew holes through walls exposed the interior to the vacuum of space. The ball stopped a person or electronics with an electrical charge. The dart could inflict minor damage or kill if necessary. It looked much like a paintball gun still popular with teens to play capture the flag.

  Tommy signaled, “Alfred, bring three spider avatars.”

  “I was thinking five with additional in reserve. We don’t know if there are still pirates aboard.” Alfred responded. “I’m opening the hatch now. There is no contact with the internal systems. Use the manual controls to open their side of the air lock.”

  “Yes,” Tommy’s responded. Tommy had seen his share of ground missions even as a pilot during the war. Now, he too easily snapped back into that training and those reflexes. He said a soldier’s prayer as he floated through their hatch to the MOM’s cargo door. Part of that prayer asked for the miracle of turning his suit from a standard Postal Service environmental issue to a military grade combat suit. He guessed that the pirates at least wore surplus military grade suits. Instead, Tommy relied on his experience and his friend, Alfred.

  Tommy punched in a standard emergency access code used by the Postal Service. One of Alfred’s spiders brought up a drill to the manual crank in readiness to power the hatch. Before Alfred cracked it open, however, Tommy rotated and oriented himself so the floor was the ceiling and anchored himself against it. The use of gravity plates on ships defined up and down. This helped more of humanity adapt to the harsh environment of space. Tommy used this as a precaution and to add an element of surprise. Once Tommy was in place Alfred opened the hatch.

  An armed woman stood and shouted at them from within the darkened cargo hold, “Come on out. You’ve got no choice.” Gravity still worked in the MOM hold and there was atmosphere.

  Alfred had a few surprises of his own ready. One of his avatars carried a portable hologram generator. It passed through the hatch projecting the image of a walking Postal Service Courier, seemingly oblivious to the danger she faced. Instantly darts passed through the image, but Alfred prepared for this. His courier collapsed in a spray of blood. Three pirates came out from behind cargo containers to check their handy work.

  Tommy selected his ammo, took aim and opened fire. His projectiles hit their mark before any of the three knew what was happening. Despite two being in full armor, the “goo ball” Tommy fired, froze their systems, and they went down, trapped in dead suits. The third was in charge of the squad. She wore no armored suit. When hit the ball shocked her system with an electrical jolt. She collapsed unconscious. Alfred’s avatar spiders connected to their communications network and checked the internal security systems of the MOM. His hologram projector now projected the three pirates standing over the simulation of the dead Postal Service Courier.

  Alfred patched Tommy into their communications link and into what few connections he could make with the MOM’s internal system. Tommy listened as Alfred mimicked the woman’s voice reporting back to the rest of the pirates in the MOM. “We got her. These PS Courier ships only have one pilot. We’ll check the manifest to see what’s in there and let you know what we find.”

  “Nice,” Tommy grinned. On his helmet’s HUD, he now had access to security cameras in the MOM. “How many?” he asked.

  “Looks like a boarding crew of fifteen, includin
g these three. Two are on the bridge. They’re monitoring systems and security feeds. I can fool the monitors by sending a false image to them. Six are on the OR deck. It looks like they are trying to torch the hatch to access the interior. I’ve got no feed to the interior of the OR. The ER deck is in shambles. Two more are there packing up what meds they can find. Strange, none of the patient wards are occupied. They’ve been ransacked, but no patients. The last two are at the ship’s computer core. They’ve set explosives but are attempting a hack into the system. It appears to be shutting down but is caught in a logic loop.”

  “Crew?”

  “No bodies, and no sign of them. Tommy, the crew knew. Maybe they escaped with the other ships?”

  “No. If there were patients, they couldn’t leave the ship. They’re still here.” Tommy said. “Take the computer core. You make the ship ready for 0g. Grab Agnes. Make her ready to move ASAP. I’ve got the OR. Need four avatars and four projectors.”

  Alfred’s avatars moved off through the ship to the computer core. In the core, two pirates hunched over a terminal. Both wore coveralls. A micro spider used for maintenance in the crawlspaces of the Swift slipped into the hold unnoticed. Crawling across the ceiling above the pirates, it secured a safety line to the light and lowered itself to just above their necks. The two were so focused on hacking into the computer system that they did not notice the shadow of the spider cross the screen in front of their faces. Alfred waited for a moment when neither pirate was touching the computer interface. The spider then tapped both pirates on the back of the neck with an electrically charged leg sufficient to knock them out. His other avatars disarmed the two and bound them.