Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins

by Randolph Lalonde

  * * *

  “I can't finish this, it's like they gave me enough for a family of four.” Ayan said as she put her fork down. She had eaten almost half of what must have been the better part of a kilo of cheesy, saucy, thick lasagne. I had fared a little better with my spaghetti and was wrapping some more of the noodles around my fork when my arm unit tingled slightly. It was a silent alert instead of a beep or a chime that would usually indicate an incoming message. I put my fork down and looked at the two dimensional display. “It's from Oz, emergency priority.”

  Ayan wiped her mouth with her napkin and patched her own command unit into the channel so she would hear everything in her ear implant. “I'll be pissed if we have to miss cheesecake.”

  I opened the channel and made sure that Ayan's silver command unit showed she was receiving as well. “About time you picked up. What were you doing anyway? Never mind, don't tell me,” Oz complained in a whisper.

  “There are two more coming around from the other way. Looks like they're from the same group,” I heard Minh whisper. He was patched into the communication as well but was obviously talking to Oz.

  “What's going on?” Ayan asked.

  “Looks like there's a bunch looking to cash in on the bounty. So far Minh and I have spotted four pairs. Looks like they have a bit of training.”

  “Did the freighter crew tip them off?” I asked.

  “Nope. One of the first things the mercs did was shoot one of them when we tried to shake them. The rest of the freighter crew are with us, trying to get back to their ship.”

  Ayan brought up a map of the station and zeroed in on Oz and Minh. They were in the warehouse district near the port, but were slowly headed away from the First Light. “Did they manage to cut off your route back to the ship?”

  “First thing they did. If these guys weren't after us I'd say we should hire them onto our security team. Hey, look around, is there anyone paying a little too much attention to you?” Oz asked.

  Ayan and I looked at each other, we were so distracted that a family of thirty could have sat down right beside us and we wouldn't have noticed. She forced herself to look relaxed and I did the same, sitting back in my seat to get a better view past her and outside of the booth without drawing attention. I immediately spotted two men at a table three meters away; they were trying to be inconspicuous, but one was wearing a collapsed long rifle across his back and the other had a well used pulse pistol strapped to his leg. They were wearing different colours, one green and the other dark brown, but the outfits they wore were ready for space, had lots of pockets and reminded me of something an infantry unit would wear out in the field.

  I looked to Ayan, who was stretching very convincingly, and she whispered, “Lovely couple about three metres behind you blocking the door,” without moving her lips.

  “So you've got company?” Minh confirmed over the communicator.

  “Yup. Two behind Ayan eating materialized food, probably can't afford anything from the Italian menu.”

  “You're eating at an Italian restaurant? Damn! I knew we should have stuck together.”

  I ignored him and looked to Ayan. “How are you feeling?” I whispered.

  “Oh, better, much better. Just too much lasagne, feel a bit full.”

  “She had lasagne?”

  “It sounds like they were on a date,” Oz concluded.

  “Are you sure?” I asked Ayan.

  “Don't worry, I won't go passing out again,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

  “Passing out? Are you all right Ayan?” Oz asked, alarmed but still whispering.

  “Really, I'm fine, now can we all stop worrying about me and figure a way away from these bounty hunters?” she said, irritated.

  The two inconspicuous gentlemen behind her looked straight at me. I shouted the first thing that came to mind in a doomed effort to cover. “Check please!”

  Ayan chuckled in reflex and her eyes widened at something that was happening over my shoulder a moment later. I didn't think, I just turned the table onto its side and dropped down behind it. Ayan followed my lead. The air was pierced by the sound of an energy pulse pistol and I could smell wood burning.

  “I am not having a gunfight on our first date!” Ayan shouted in irritation, drawing her sidearm. “This is a nice restaurant, and I'm coming back for the cheesecake!”

  A second shot hit the table and I could see a burn mark appear on our side, our cover wouldn't last long. I nodded at her. “I agree, no gunfights on the first date.”

  “Everything okay?” Oz asked.

  “Nope, under fire,” Ayan replied, peeking up from behind the table and firing towards the rear of the restaurant.

  “Time to go, follow me,” I said as I picked up the table and held it in front of us. I drew my sidearm as I rushed the door. Ayan was already right behind me, firing a few shots well above the table the pair at the rear of the restaurant were taking cover behind to ensure that she wouldn't catch anyone in the crossfire.

  As we got to the door, I threw the table at a pair of bounty hunters who were firing from the entrance. In a couple steps we were out and running through the crowd. “You all right?” I asked her.

  “I’m good. You're fun under pressure.”

  “Thanks. Can't let a few thugs blow our evening.”

  “Whenever you're done flirting,” Jason interjected through the communicator, “I thought you might like to know that Laura and I made it back to the ship. We were just relaxing in observation when I got an alert from the bridge about emergency communications. Did you guys think maybe you could get a security team out there to help you back to the ship? Oz? Minh?”

  “Nice of your people to check in on us,” Oz replied. “You really have to spend some quality time with your communications crew, and yes, I did think that a security team would be nice. One sec. Grenade,” There was an explosion and a moment later he was back on. “Like I was saying, we're completely cut off and any security team would be caught in an ambush on the way here. We're taking cover in a warehouse on the way to the freighter. We'll get away on that.”

  “You say there's probably a welcoming committee between us and the ship?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. Probably a whole bunch. These people don't seem to care much about taking us alive, just getting a scrape of DNA to show that we've been wiped out,” Minh said. I could hear Oz's shotgun go off in the background.

  “Then we'll head towards you while Jason has a security team go check the hallways leading to the ship. If it gets too hot just have them fall back, I think that freighter might be the way out.”

  “What if they have ships waiting in the port? A freighter wouldn't be much--” Jason was asking before Minh cut him off.

  “Get my pilots into their fighters so they can cover us! Do I have to think of everything?” Minh asked.

  “Only when I'm not thinking of everything else,” Oz added. I could hear they were running.

  “Fastest route to Commander McPatrick and Commander Buu's location for you Captain,” A voice from the communications staff said.

  “Forward it to me. I'll navigate while the Captain finds us a ride,” Ayan said.

  Just as she said it a pair of very serious looking people came around the corner in front of us, pointing what I could only describe as hand cannons right at us. There was no space, maybe two meters between us and them, and there was no time. I made a split second decision and fired at the one on the right. I hadn't actually seen what our new sidearms could do, but the force of the projectile it fired ripped a hole through his right thigh.

  His companion wasn't as fortunate. Ayan's bolt of white-hot matter and energy pulped one of his hands and went straight into his chest, opening a charred entry wound ten centimetres across. The crowd became a milling pandemonium for as far as we could see in every direction.

  We made our way through the crowd until we found a service hallway, and with the exception of the occasional worker or service robot, it was clear. Ayan
was interpreting Jason's directions, and the maps he used to guide us along the paths of least resistance were working. Before long we were almost at the port storage area that Oz, Minh and the Triad freighter crew were using for cover. The going was slow for them; every time they thought they found a clear path to the loading dock it was blocked by a container or well-armed thug.

  “This can't be a coincidence!” I heard Minh yell over the communicator. “It's like someone's using those lifters to move cargo containers in our way. Anyone on your team working on the station's network, Jason?”

  “I've been monitoring security, Minh, they haven't so much as noticed that there's a firefight in one of their loading facilities. It's like someone's turned the alarms in that section off,” replied one of the newer members of the communications team.

  “Can you see a hack?” Oz asked in a whisper.

  “No sir. Not yet.”

  “Well, sounds like we're on our own. How close are the happy couple?”

  “According to this we should be right on top of the storage area,” Ayan said from behind as she looked at the map on her command console. “There's an access panel just ahead. The crawlway under it should lead us to them.”

  I saw what she was pointing at, a panel that looked like it had been pried at and dented many, many times. “Doesn't exactly took secure. Shouldn't be a problem,” I skidded to a stop and started working at the edge of the panel to get a grip.

  Ayan stopped behind me, out of breath and leaning on her knees. “I should start running with you and Doc Anderson. You're barely winded and I'm just about falling down.”

  “Three months ago I'd be on the floor already,” I replied as I pulled the hatch open. There was a tangle of wires and cables running through the crawlspace between us and the storage area. “Anything about this on the map?”

  Ayan didn't have to look. “The crawlspace goes on for a couple of kilometres, but the hatchway leading to storage is just a couple meters through that access area.”

  We both heard running footsteps somewhere down the hallway. We sealed our suits just in case we needed insulation from bare live wires and slipped as gently as possible between the cables and wires into the service area.

  Ayan slid in without a hitch, dropping between the major cables and winding through the smaller strands of loose wiring. Her quick agility was surprising and impressive. “I should start practising yoga with you. Maybe the Doc could join in.”

  “Sure, but it'll be a lot more fun if the Doc isn't there. Hurry, they're coming.”

  When it was my turn to follow, I wasn't nearly as agile. I heard a terrible rip as my foot caught on a whole bundle of delicate wires and tore right through them. The hatch came down behind me and I ended up lying right on top of Ayan.

  “At least you bought me dinner first,” she whispered.

  I quietly cleared a space beside us, pushing some of the slack wiring aside. I rolled over, drawing my sidearm and pointing it at the hatch. We waited quietly, listening to the footsteps, at least four pair, getting closer and closer until they passed right over head and down the hallway.

  “Captain, I found the user controlling the loaders and lifters in the cargo bay. They also have control of the primary surveillance systems, as well as interior door control for that section,” Jason said in our earpieces. “Minh's right. They've been moving things around to box you in and keep you away from the ship.”

  I illuminated the palms of my suit, then Ayan and I crawled over to the panel that led into the cargo storage area. There was a secure seal on it with a small control panel. I tapped the tiny screen and it came to life, displaying spaces for eight numbers, letters or other types of characters to be entered. “Well, this could take a while. The hatch to the cargo area is locked down with an eight-digit pass code,” I got up on my knees and pointed my sidearm at the center of the hatch.

  “Normally I'd take this opportunity to tell you how bad an idea that is, but we're in a hurry,” Ayan said with a shrug.

  I took a shot and after the noise, light and smoke had cleared saw a tiny divot left behind by the blast.

  “I vote for plan B,” Ayan concluded, getting back down on her stomach and taking a closer look at the security panel.

  “I second that. Is there a security port anywhere on that thing?”

  “Nope, but that's never stopped me before,” she replied, pulling a tool out of her thigh pocket. “Us engineers with infantry skill sets get plenty of training on gently cracking into locked hatches. Really useful in rescue operations, especially when we're rescuing ourselves.”

  “I know,” I replied as I got in position, putting myself between her and the hatch we entered through.

  “I keep forgetting you were an engineer with Minh's infantry unit. Do you think you could get this opened faster?” She asked, but not as a challenge. It was an honest question.

  “Probably not. I got to crack a lot of secure compartments during the All-Con Conflict, but it's been years,” I turned my infrared sight and motion sensors on then looked towards the hallway above us. “Jason, how are our security teams doing? Any luck getting from the First Light to Oz and Minh?”

  “Someday I'll have to find out where you got your talent for good timing. I was just about to tell you that the lead team just came under fire about two sections away from the storage area.”

  “About a quarter of the way here. Recall them. How is the refit on the ship going? Would it be possible to get underway if you had to?”

  Ayan, her suit still sealed so her face wasn't visible, looked up to me and shook her head. “Probably not for a couple more hours at least.”

  “Main propulsion is still off line and we have a lot of exposed sections. Repairs are ahead of schedule but we'll be down for at least two more hours,” Laura chimed in from engineering.

  “Well, get the fighters ready. They're going to have to cover us when we escape on this freighter,” Minh said in a more official than usual tone. “I want every bird we have off the deck and in the port five minutes before we're ready. Hide behind bigger ships. I don't want whoever is after us to see where they're coming from until it's too late.”

  “As soon as we're aboard the freighter, inform port security that we're being pursued by bounty hunters,” I added.

  “From what I'm seeing, whoever has control of the surveillance systems has permission to be in the system. They're using legitimate codes, so they're either doing this with the blessing of the station, bribed the officials here, or stole them.”

  “Well, then we won't be telling them anything they don't already know,” Oz replied. “That's one more bounty hunter down by the way, I estimate three left on my end of the storage center.”

  “I estimate five from where I'm sitting. Hard to tell since they keep shooting every time I try to get a peek,” Minh replied.

  “Don't worry boys, help is on the way,” Ayan said as she wired a port on her command unit to the open security access panel. “Jason, I'm connected directly to the security panel. Can you run a cracking program on it using the main computer?”

  “Right away Commander,” one of Jason's communications team replied.

  I looked down briefly and saw Ayan's left forearm light up as her command unit started hacking the security panel. Looking back up I could see from the motion detector that the five hunters who had bypassed us were returning. “They're coming back.”

  She handed me her sidearm and went back to work on the security panel. “Try not to hit anything that'll blow us up or roast us alive.”

  “Right. I'll try to avoid hitting the big cables or the red, blue, or yellow pipelines,” I said, aiming both barrels at the far side of the hatch where the infra red shapes of the bounty hunters were gathering.

  “Hey Captain, there's a button on the stock of those hand cannons that increases concussive force, mass and impact spread,” Oz said.

  I looked quickly and found it. The multi position slider didn't have any markings. “Do I adjust t
hem forward? Backward?”

  “Forward.”

  “Is that towards the barrel or--” I gave up as I saw two of the shapes overhead bending down towards the hatch. “Screw it. One slider goes forward, one backward.” I adjusted both handguns quickly with my thumbs and took aim.

  The pair began lifting the panel and I fired. One of the guns didn't kick at all, the other kicked so hard that the impact dampening mechanisms built into the skin of my vacsuit reacted, keeping my shoulder from getting dislocated. The hatch above was blown violently upward into the bounty hunters. A moment later my suit's warning system marked two huge cables as live and exposed. “Is your suit completely sealed?”

  “Yup, what are you planning?” Ayan asked.

  “If these guys are as surprised and off guard as I think they are, we won't have to worry about them for long,” I said as I grabbed one of the live lines, stepped into the void my sidearm had left in the cables, and whipped the end up into the hall. I thought I was quick enough -- I didn't think any of them had a line of sight on me -- but I was wrong.

  Before the cable touched the metal deck plating in the hallway above to electrocute the bounty hunters, one of them shot me full on with a pulse rifle. It missed my head, my shoulder, and somehow caught me in the side. It was just a wave of heat at first, like a really bad burn, then massive throbs of pain wracked me from the ribcage down. I inhaled sharply and fell back down. As the air filled my lungs there was more pressure, more pain. I knew my suit was still sealed -- I would have been fried by the free running current otherwise -- but I knew that at best I had suffered organ damage. At worst that shot had fried me from one side to the other, and the pain I was feeling was my insides cooking within the confines of my vacsuit. I tried not to think about it.

  “Got it!” Ayan shouted as she moved the lower hatch leading into the storage area aside.

  I tried to look and was interrupted by a new wave of pain from my middle. I ground my teeth and dropped both guns, punched up the emergency screen on my command unit and set my suit to administer pain killers.

  “Jason, can you get control of the gravity in this section?” Ayan asked.