by John Lane
“You’re ex-military,” Tommy stated not as a question but as a fact. “None of this was about raiding this outpost. It was all about the MOM. You and the mechanical lady were looking for something specific.” Tommy stated this as fact. He had studied what little security footage remained of the initial attack. Gorilla and the mechanical lady pirate were very specific in their search of the ER. “We both know you won’t talk.” Tommy gauged his reaction and his non-reaction. “You haven’t found it. Whatever it is, you place great value on it.” There was still no reaction from the Gorilla. “You are not the leader, either. Your cut will be much less than the true value of the loot.”
Here Tommy noticed an amused smirk cross the Gorilla’s mouth for a fraction of a second. He responded, “So, your true objective is not for personal gain. You have a higher cause.” Now the Gorilla was looking uncomfortable. He’d given away much without a word. The Gorilla wasn’t sure what kind of sorcery Tommy was using. Tommy played the waiting game again even as his time was running out. The pirate ships would return, but he needed to know when. “A raiding party this size, five maybe six ships in support. Can’t be large ships, too expensive, too flashy. They’ll be back…” Tommy let it hang there, not to allow the Gorilla time to answer, but to show he already knew. This time he played a bad guess, “Seventy-two hours.”
“Hah! Forty-two from drop-off. Just needed to chase off the station rats so there were no witnesses.” Gorilla was caught. He needed to show Tommy up so much that he gave away the whole game. The moment he said it, he realized his mistake. But instead of attacking, he forced himself to sit back and relax, taking deep calming breaths. This confirmed to Tommy that he was dealing with a trained commando, not an ordinary pirate. And Gorilla was a low ranking member of this unnamed enemy.
The Gorilla stared through Tommy. He passed his left hand over his bald head and folded his fingers together in his lap. A red dot appeared just over Tommy’s right ear. “False hand!” Alfred warned Tommy. Tommy ducked and the single dart wobbled in the wall where his head had just been. The Gorilla was fast, but Tommy anticipated a direct attack. It did not come. The pirate closed the finger that ejected the dart. He twisted the whole hand, removing it, and tossed it on the bed toward Larry.
“I don’t need to remind you to be careful with the rest of your pirates. They don’t know there was never any profit in this raid. They were just the distraction. They don’t know what went on here, but they will guess you gave us just what we needed.” Tommy finished. Standing, he cleared the partition and the mute function of the medical unit. He smiled and left the entire ward whistling. Larry had watched this performance, amazed that it worked. Shaking himself, Larry picked up the hand and followed Tommy out of the ward.
Outside the ward Tommy leaned against the wall as Larry joined him. “Hate playing that part,” Tommy confessed.
Larry nodded. “Now what?” he added.
“Still need to know what they are after or they won’t stop coming.” Tommy pushed off the wall, heading for a round with the lady machine pirate. “Need to know the enemy. Who are they? How do they think?” he mentioned as much to himself and Alfred as to Larry.
Larry asked as they paused in front of the padded hold, “How did you do that?”
“Deductive reasoning. Physical tells.” Tommy shared as if that said it all. He punched the entry code and opened the hatch. They entered the observation side of the medical unit. It was dark here. This hold was outfitted to restrain a patient from harming him or herself. The mechanical lady was suspended behind the permaglass in zero gravity. Her real arm secured to her side with straps, the rest of her mechanical body deactivated. There were respiration tubes, blood transfusion, and IV drips. Once her mechanical body was deactivated, the MOM staff provided her the life support that her suit gave her.
His approach to questioning this woman was still a puzzle. She represented the next level of the pirate food chain and was likely better trained. This meant that she had what Tommy needed. He needed answers to his questions.
Tommy activated the intercom to her cell and turned the lighting up bright on her side of the wall. “You didn’t find it. Maybe I can help.” With her body deactivated she showed her contempt for Tommy with a glare. “Not biting? To bad.” Changing tactics, Tommy began again, “Those must have been some nasty wounds you got. I was at the battle of the Sol System, worst one of all the Wars. A lot of good people were lost there. Me? You can see that I’ve hardly been touched.” Tommy stripped off the top of his jumpsuit and moved into the light to show that there were no scars on his body. Tommy wasn’t branded with the tattoos that a lot of veterans used to mark their battles.
She laughed at him. “Well, hello pretty boy,” she mocked, leering at Tommy from her side of the wall. “Dinner and a show, what a great joint.” She struggled in her limited way to pull on her restraints.
“We survivors, we carry our scars mostly on the inside,” Tommy continued, ignoring her crude reply. “Of course that doesn’t mean anything. We’re both soldiers.”
At this, she barked out, “A pretty boy from the Postal Service thinks just because he has a uniform he’s a soldier! Not in the eleventh ring of hell. You never were and never will be any kind of a real soldier.” Tommy realized he was looking at a fanatic, the worst kind of enemy. She was a true believer in whatever cause she had taken up. She may have been a cast off after the war. A broken soldier trained to kill and now couldn’t find her place with those she protected. All she had were the skills to make war. She found a new cause to spend those skills on. For just a moment, Tommy wondered why he wasn’t on that side of the padded cell instead of her.
“Well, here it is then.” He pulled on his jumpsuit and sealed the front. “I’m really good at figuring out who my enemy is and right now it’s you.” Tommy’s tone was quiet and flat. “You’ve failed your mission. You are a prisoner. You can give me your name, your rank, and your serial number.”
“Pretty boy, you’ve lost it way more than me. I don’t belong to any army. You got nothing.” She spat at the permaglass barrier. She was a good shot. Her mucus splattered the partition where Tommy’s face was.
“You have serial numbers all over your mech body we can trace with the medical database on this ship. You just gave us a nice sample of your DNA to use in a military database. Everything else I can get through my sources once we have those. Your ink,” referring to her tattooed reaper with angel wings, “Well, we’ll find that, too.” Tommy turned on his heel and walked out.
Larry walked up to the clear wall into the light. He pulled at his lower lip, exposing it to the mechanical lady pirate, the Angel Reaper. Her eyes went wide and then she relaxed into what must have been a smile on her scarred face. Larry mused that she must have been beautiful once. A chill ran down his spine. He turned off the lighting and left to join Tommy in the corridor.
Three more of the pirates had a tattoo of a grim reaper. Each one varied in design. Two of the young pirates were gangers who aspired to be part of the bigger pirate organization. Their tattoos did not have the scythe. The last was older. She could have seen action in the Wars, but she lacked that controlled edge of violence that the vets who had seen action carried. When Tommy and Larry questioned her, she turned out to be tech support for the operation and the Wars. She was one of the two pirates that Alfred zapped in the computer core. Her tattoo matched the Angel Reaper and Gorilla pirate’s tattoos. The reaper may have been different, but the scythe still showed that same direction and pattern. This marked her as a person of interest.
As Tommy neared the end of the interrogation, he asked, “I’ve noticed there aren’t a lot of tats in your group. You’ve got one though. What gives?” She’d been just as closed mouth as the other two leaders who had tattoos. Tommy again had to use deductive reasoning and research by Alfred.
“I like it,” she replied, trying to put on a tough exterior. Earlier in her interrogation, she had loosened up. Tommy had gotten her to talk ab
out her skills and background. In her mid twenties now, this pirate had been in IT support during the Wars. After discharge, she couldn’t find work. Competition for jobs was fierce. So, like many others, she had pushed out further into the Frontier and finally the Fringe. Here, the pirates had found her. That part of her story sounded flimsy. Tommy pressed on knowing that Alfred could analyze her responses and find details even in her lack of response. But those tattoos had stood out.
“Perhaps they identify themselves as bringers of death as the reaper symbolizes?” Alfred shared with Tommy through his earbud. “She doesn’t look homicidal, like the other two.”
“The reaper is death. You must have killed quite a few to have earned that tat,” Tommy insinuated. At this, she squirmed where she sat on the lone chair in her medical unit. “How many does it take to get one of those?” She was silent. Tommy pressed, “As a pilot, I can count the number of enemy craft I’ve blown away. But my number must be in the thousands if you count the stations and ground bases that I smeared. I don’t think I’d want to brag about those. Most were innocents.” Tommy talked very little, and never about what he did in the Wars. His approach now was softening her.
“I haven’t killed anyone, not directly anyway. It’s nothing really. Kind of like a logo for us. They made me get this. It shows my rank and keeps me safe from some of the young upshots who’d try to….” Her explanation trailed off. She was different than the other pirates. Tommy could tell that she’d been the victim. That tat may be protection to her. There was more, but she kept those secrets.
“Thanks,” Tommy rose to leave.
“Wait. What’s going to happen to us?” She didn’t fit the pirate profile. This woman was scared. She brushed back a lock of her hair behind her ear, exposing a data port.
Tommy didn’t stare, but he wanted a closer look. He crossed to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. He had to be honest, “I don’t know.” He left with Larry close behind. The pirates troubled him. Tommy needed time to puzzle through what little he’d learned and discuss it with Alfred.
Larry stopped him. “What do we do with them?”
“First we’ve got to survive the return of their ships,” Tommy answered.
“Yeah, right. I guess the best thing is to focus on what we can do now. Just like in the Wars. Too much like in the Wars.” With that, Larry turned to finish his exams of the other pirates.
Tommy found an empty recovery bed on the OR deck and darkened the permaglass partition for privacy. “Alfred, we need intel, now.”
“Agreed,” Alfred stood in front of Tommy.
“Whoa!” Tommy jumped off the bed. “What the...”
Alfred interrupted, “I am sorry to have startled you, Tommy. I am taking advantage of the MOMs holographic projectors to become more interactive. I noticed that it helps the staff and patients react more freely around Dr. Judson. If you don’t want to see me, I can discontinue the projection.” Alfred’s visage slumped visibly looking disappointed.
Tommy laughed. Now Alfred looked confused. “Oh, no don’t misunderstand,” explained Tommy as his laughter died down. “First, big surprise. Wasn’t ready. I do like it. And thanks, needed the laugh, too.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. Down to work?”
“Yes, Alfred. Give me your update, please.”
“The pirate ships will return in less than six hours now. Chatter from the other pirates confirms there are nine ships in the pirate attack force. Two are troop carriers. There is only one attack ship among them used for command and control. It has never fired on an occupied station. They use it mostly for the threat and to disable the occasional ship. The rest are cargo ships. One of these carries boarding and landing equipment for their raids,” Alfred reported.
“Our resources?” Tommy quizzed.
“Not much. Our best defensive weapons are the Swift’s drones. I do hate to lose them. We’ve needed them thus far. The MOM has nothing to offer in a skirmish. It is a liability: large, slow, and no weapons. Her main engine is inoperable and cannot be repaired. It is the same with two of her smaller engines. My avatars completed repairs to three of the remaining engines, but they are not at peak efficiency. The last engine was untouched. However, the configuration of the functioning engines is unbalanced.”
“Can the Swift handle towing the MOM?”
“Not well, but we can do it. We may run short of fuel for impulse out of the system. I can transfer fuel containers from the MOM’s storage to ours. She has more than her current engines will need. That process will not be complete by the pirates ETA. Our main engine can tow the MOM once we’ve gotten clear. I assume we’ll decide where later.”
“Yes,” Tommy replied. “I need more answers first. We need to find answers about Agnes. We’re also combatants and rogue, remember? We’re unwelcome.”
Alfred pressed on, “The good news is that Agnes is responding well to treatment. With sufficient time to rest she should recover again. I’m not sure what effect her gene treatment will have on her memory. You’ll have to ask MOMA.”
“See her next. Anything else?” Tommy asked.
“I have started a search on that tattoo. Nothing yet. I will have to connect to a Core Systems database to do a complete query.”
Tommy did not seem deterred by the news. All together, it didn’t look good. Tommy looked directly into Alfred’s virtual eyes and smiled. “Okay here’s what we’re going to do. When the time comes, we’ll have these things ready….”
Chapter 7: Escapee
Controller: Status?
Sutton: No update. We’ve lost them.
Controller: Status?
Sutton: Still nothing. Search continues
Controller: Status?
Sutton: We have a lead. The last known location of his mother.
Controller: He’s asked for her help. Caution, this will be dangerous.
Sutton signed off the messaging app and called Tania Smith into her office. “Are there any further updates on that MOM?”
“None Admiral. The digital trail has run cold.” Tania stood waiting for the admiral’s next request.
“Organize a search and rescue mission to the system. They will need the help,” Sutton ordered. “And make it look routine.”
“Yes Admiral.” Tania turned crisply and left. She hoped that there would be someone left to rescue.
*****
Almost two hours later, Alfred was completing the preparations that Tommy outlined. Outnumbered again, this time guns would be aimed at them. Tommy had another problem to face. He stood just outside the MOMA, Mobile Orbiting Medicine Administrator cabin, his mother’s quarters. The structure hung suspended in the middle of the OR structure, the third and core level. The perma-glass had been darkened. Upon asking, Tommy found the staff of MOM H-One never saw it clear. In fact all the staff’s interactions had been though his mother’s halo-projection of her on the humanoid avatars. Their patients never suffered, so the staff never thought twice about it.
Tommy took a deep breath and punched in the code he used since boarding the MOM. An access code that his father had given him before he disappeared, Tommy found that it often opened doors for him where he should not have access but needed access. This time the code did not work immediately. Tommy stood there for a moment. Instructions appeared on the touch pad, Hold Still. A scan of Tommy’s face followed. His mother was being very careful. Two humanoid avatars strode up behind Tommy on the catwalk to this level. They did not wear his mother’s projection.
As Tommy waited, he heard the hatch begin to grind. A slight vibration came through the floor beneath his feet. This hatch had not been opened for ages. As the hatch finally lumbered slowly open, Tommy faced a darkened chamber.
He stepped through the dark portal and a single set of eyes watched through the perma-glass floors two levels below. The chamber is open; we can finally get access, screamed through the watcher’s mind. The Reaper’s Judgment will soon awaken. The real Annie Judson was accessible.
Inside the MOMA’s quarters, Tommy’s eyes adjusted to the low light. He was surprised by what he saw. This looked less like a personal quarters than a full medical laboratory. Tommy counted only one humanoid avatar, but no less than five surgical avatars, similar to Alfred’s maintenance spiders. As a sphere, any or all sides could be the floors. Annie adjusted this inner chamber to one half gravity and oriented the gravity so the wall beneath Tommy’s feet was the floor. At least for the moment there was only one up and one down.
The light in the chamber came from the various medical instruments. In this light, Tommy saw a sphere of zero gravity occupied the center of the chamber. Inside rested a casket, like the one in which Agnes had been found. It contained an oxygen and nutrient rich fluid. The casket was on a mechanical gimbal, which oriented it so the occupant appeared standing in relation to Tommy. That occupant was his mother.
Her eyes remained closed. On her shaved head she wore a cap to interface with her nervous system. Tommy couldn’t see her back, but fine strands of interface cabling floated there and connected to the panel above her head. The casket glowed a soft blue color. Annie’s body had other tubes attached to a harness that anchored them. These tubes fed her and maintained her body. She looked drained. Not like a raisin, but less than healthy. Her skin no longer radiated the warm olive tone that Tommy remembered. It had faded as if her beautiful color had drained out of her. The muscles could no longer have lifted her even under the half gravity of the rest of her chamber.
“Hello son,” her soft voice sounded very near to Tommy’s ear, but came from throughout the chamber. “Won’t you sit?” Her image, still looking healthy, faded in. The image sat in a lounge area populated with comfortable sofas and a low table. This one area of the chamber displayed personal touches. Tommy walked over and sat with the image of his mother to his left and her body floating several feet away on his other side.