She suddenly looked up. Vent fans... She queried it.
“Taki, we have a way out!” she cried. Cliché, but some things are clichés for a reason…
“Good, ’cause they’re coming through! I can see the weld!”
Mattoso kicked with her feet, shooting up to the storage space’s overhead, and felt around until she found the ventilation grate. “Follow my voice, Taki!”
She kept talking while she fumbled with the grate. Cursing, she realized that the mini-cutter would work perfectly well here — and with a few swipes, the grate was free.
A light flashed to her side — the weld flame had cut through, cutting one of the double doors from top to bottom. “Hurry, Taki!” When the Second finally arrived, Mattoso sent her through the vent first. Thinking fast, she rushed over to the interior maintenance access and cut the broad alloy access cover clean off, then awkwardly carried it back to the overhead vent.
“Taki, hold my feet.”
“What?”
“Just do it! Just for a minute.”
With the access cover in hand, Mattoso allowed Taki to pull her up into the vents feet-first, then stopped her when she was even with the overhead of the storage space. As the shouts of her attackers, now numbering far more than two, became audible, she quickly welded the access cover where the grate used to be. It wouldn’t stop their pursuers, but it would put the vent out of sight, at least for a time.
Hopefully enough time.
In her childhood nightmares on Ceres, she would be trapped inside the most remote mining catacombs deep beneath the surface of the dwarf planet, all alone and in the dark. Waiting for the ghosts of long-dead ore miners...
In the pitch black ventilation shaft, she was facing the wrong way, with no room to turn around.
She wanted to cry. Instead, she whispered “Taki, you’ll have to lead the way. I’ll navigate from my wearable.”
And, backwards, she braced herself against the confined walls of the vent shaft, put one hand over the other, and pushed her way into the darkness.
CHAPTER 75
Konami paced, as much as one could pace in freefall. He disregarded the angry glares and sniffs of the others in the Fortress’s common room closest to the main exit. Aside from the coffin-like latrine rigs, any semblance of privacy was a distant memory.
“Anything?” he said.
“Nothing yet,” responded Loesser through his wearable.
They had returned hours ago, finding no sign of readiness or resistance near the Sausage Factory or the Ring, thus apparently clearing the mayor and Bigwig Maltin of suspicion. Unless they suspected my suspicions... But no, he’d stick with his plan, at least until he had reason to think otherwise. He recognized that if Mattoso never returned, that would probably be as much of a confirmation that Bigwig Paramis is feeding information to Ngayabo as if she returned with a report that they met resistance.
But confronting Paramis at this point seemed premature, somehow. Like there could be another explanation. Or was that just grasping at straws?
Goddamnit Bea... get back here! Frustrated, he crawled through the Fortress passageways to the makeshift Data Central. As usual, Wren was alone in the tiny workspace, headphones blasting away so loud Konami could hear them.
“Third, you awake?” He tapped the young Data tech on the shoulder.
“She back yet?”
Konami couldn’t stop word getting out when the three squads left the Fortress, but at least their mission and destination seemed to have been kept under wraps. “Not yet. Can you show it to me again?”
The screen was split up into quadrants, zoomed in on Wilson Paramis’s face and hands. From the point of view of Konami or whatever other crewman had been nearby and wearing a vidcam, it showed Paramis’ actions during and after the planning meetings for the earlier missions that had been compromised.
Just as before, nothing struck him as obviously suspicious. Wilson Paramis nodded thoughtfully and agreed to Konami’s and Mattoso’s proposed missions, and then, at some point minutes afterwards, went to his own workspace. The other two suspects, Hamad Maltin and Mayor Akunle, had behaved similarly. None of the feeds could tell what Wilson was working on, nor could Wren’s network skills pinpoint it as anything more than a mix of mundane local network activities and off-network tasks, that could be anything from games to vids to secret messages to Ngayabo, funneled through some digital trickery.
Be much easier if he’d just cackle and twirl his nonexistent mustache...
His wearable buzzed. It was Loesser. “Cy, she’s back.”
He raced out. “Injured?”
“She’s fine, but it’s just her and Taki. The others are dead, she says. We’re in Medical.”
He shut his eyes for a moment. Poor Shofstahl and Lo… But then he was off, and if there were a freefall Olympic games, he would have just set the passageway dash time record. Madani frowned slightly when he bumped a MedTech bursting into the little exam room.
Mattoso didn’t wait for him to speak. “They were ready for us. Shofstahl and Lo are dead.”
Konami just nodded, teeth clenched. His hand moved to his gun without conscious thought.
“I’m fine, Cy,” said Mattoso. “Go ahead and get him, and tell me about it after.”
He waited until the captain, XO, and mayor had arrived in the conference room before messaging Paramis. Conference room, urgent, he sent. When briefed, Mayor Akunle, shocked that he had been suspected, cautioned that perhaps they should wait for more evidence before confronting the Bigwig, but he was overruled by the XO and captain. The chief inspector agreed — morale within the Fortress seemed lower every day, especially with failed expeditions and dead bodies piling up. This needed to be resolved as soon as it could. As far as a traditional interrogation, Konami hoped that the gravitas and seniority of the captain and mayor would make up for a lack of rock-solid evidence.
The heavyset demographer sauntered in, as much as one could saunter without gravity, his grin unaffected by the dark expressions of the others.
Captain Horovitz nodded to Konami.
“We’ve suspected someone for a while now, Paramis,” he started. The Bigwig’s smile gradually faded. “Too many scouts and squads being thwarted to be coincidence.
“So we narrowed down the suspects. You won’t be surprised, now, to find that you were one of them. Each one was told about an upcoming recon mission. Yours was for Forward Supply Storage 4. We sent out four, including two of my constables. Good men and women, good Aoteans. And now they’re dead. They’re dead!” He realized he was shouting, and calmed himself before continuing. “They met resistance, but the others didn’t. We were very careful — no one knew about these recon missions but myself, Lieutenant Mattoso, and the suspects. Did you tell anyone?”
Paramis just stared at him, his expression blank, but his eyes probing.
“Demographer!” shouted the XO. “The chief inspector asked you a question.”
“Test my blood,” responded the Bigwig, rolling up a sleeve. “Go ahead. Again, anyway — you tested me that first day, when Ngayabo revealed herself as a traitor. I swear, I didn’t tell anyone, and I swear that I’m not a traitor. You really think I’d take part in poisoning myself?”
Konami sensed no deception, but he might not with a practiced liar. “It’s not poison. At such low levels, the effect is very small, especially for someone as, well, large as you.” It felt funny using the same argument he had argued against in the past.
“Well then, would I really put myself into the lion’s den, if I was a traitor?”
“If you’re a fanatic, like Ngayabo, then, yes. You might even be willing to die for her murderous mission.”
Paramis reached to his belt, and Konami ordered him to slow down.
“Just my wearable. Here, take it. Give it to the Data techs. They’ll find that there’s nothing fishy on it — no secret transmissions, or the capability to do so.”
Konami declined to reach out and take it.
>
“Demographer,” snapped the captain. “In the corner. Don’t argue, do it. XO, if he moves, shoot him.”
She beckoned the chief inspector, and she, Konami, and the mayor huddled in the opposite corner while the XO watched Paramis.
“Thoughts?” asked the captain in a low voice.
“The evidence points to him,” said Konami.
“Mayor?”
“Locking him up isn’t going to help morale,” suggested Akunle. “In fact, considering how tightly we’re packed in, I don’t even know where the hell we’d put him.”
Captain Horovitz nodded. “Suggestions?”
“We keep him watched,” offered Akunle. “Around the clock. Cy, the XO, Mattoso, and a few other trusted officers. No network access, but he’ll keep silent — whether or not he’s the traitor, he won’t go blabbing. And if he tries, we shoot him.”
Konami shook his head. “We can’t afford to tie up senior officers with guard duty every day.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
He took a deep breath. “Medical. We say he had an allergic reaction to the pharma, and keep him sedated. He hogs a bed, but that’s it. We can trust Dr. Madani. She won’t like it, but she’ll do it and keep him alive and healthy.”
The captain leaned back her head and scratched her chin. Just before she spoke, a blaring alarm sounded.
“BATTLE STATIONS! ALL HANDS REPORT TO FORTRESS BATTLE STATIONS!”
Captain Horovitz looked to Konami and nodded, and without thinking he pulled out his dart gun and shot Paramis. Then, ignoring the dumbfounded XO, he drew his slugthrower and rushed to his station.
CHAPTER 76
“Surrender!” came the voice on the announcing circuits. “All of you can still live full lives back in Earth system!” It was Ngayabo on the guardstation’s screen, behind a transparent shield in the passageway outside the Fortress. At Konami’s suggestion, vidcams had been mounted at the two entrances. The attackers had not hidden their approach, armed with the same spiky carbines Mattoso had seen near the supply room. Their approach wasn’t hidden, but so far their numbers were. At least several dozen was all Mattoso could say for sure.
“Under what terms?” This was Loesser’s voice. Konami had told her to stall for as much time as they could while they prepared. They had barred and reinforced the “back” door, where Mattoso’s team was stationed, while Konami had a much larger force at the larger “front” door to the Fortress. Connected, the two entrances had been chosen strategically, while all others had been blocked and welded shut.
“No terms. Throw down your weapons and we will escort everyone to the return craft.”
“How do we know the ships have the capacity for everyone?”
While Loesser dithered, Mattoso turned back to the crowd of armed deputies taking cover behind makeshift barriers. Both entrances opened into large common spaces inside, the “front” larger than the “back”, and passageways underneath the surface of the Cans outside. In the last quarter-hour, both common spaces had been piled with whatever heavy, bulky objects might provide cover. For once the freefall was a boon — they never would have been able to move the various tables and beds and couches into the common spaces so quickly without it.
She scanned the faces peering above and around the temporary cover, well aware that her words were being transmitted to other Aoteans deeper inside the Fortress — some arranged as reserve forces, and some, like Pat and the children, hiding in silence. “When we first left Ceres orbit, none of us ever believed that we’d be holed up behind a door, guns in hand, waiting to shoot a band of killers.” Damn it, what would Cy say? “We had a dream of peace, and kindness — a New Humanity. Perhaps we were naïve. But naïve or not, we’re not the killers. They are.” She had to believe it. “We didn’t set a trap for a loyal Data tech, Muahe, because he was doing his job too well. They did. We didn’t make an artificial venom and use it to kill. They did. We didn’t shoot someone in front of the whole crew for doing the right thing. They did. We didn’t put chems into the water for every adult and child onboard to drink. They did! And now they’re coming to kill every one of us. They may have better weapons — weapons they had stockpiled since launch, it looks like — just another sign of the violence of their plan, but their numbers are few. Whatever their vision, it’s a vision built on death and destruction. It’s the opposite of the New Humanity. The opposite of us. When you fight here, when we fight here, we’re fighting for your families, and we’re fighting for the original vision to build a New Humanity.”
She paused, amazed at the rapt attention. Her wearable buzzed — it was Konami. Wow, read his message. Keep going and finish strong! At the same time, Pat sent I love you so much.
“We fight for Aotea. For Aotea!” she shouted, fist pumping.
“FOR AOTEA!” roared back the deputies. Voices echoed through the passageways of the Fortress.
A deputy by the hatch got her attention and she rushed over to the projection. A handful of traitors were setting something up twenty meters down the passageway from the entrance. She switched over to the feed from the other entrance.
“Cy, you seeing this?”
“Yeah. Pull back anyone close to the hatch.”
Oh shit! She gave the order, motioning back the deputies nearest to the front.
She glanced back at the screen — it was clearly a weapon, stout-barreled, and set up to brace against the passageway bulkhead.
“Pull back!” she repeated to the slowly reacting deputies, helping them back the temporary barriers away from the hatch. “Now!”
“Incoming!” shouted Konami into her earpiece, and she dove behind a table. “Brea—”
The explosion was deafening, and sent her hurtling back, along with the table. An impact with another deputy knocked the wind out of her. Mouths were moving, but all she heard was a high tone — the blast, of course.
She shouted more orders, unable to even hear her own voice. Coughing at the dust and debris, she motioned to those deputies nearby to get into position, slugthrowers aimed at the opening. The hatch itself, reinforcement and all, had disappeared — she glanced to her side and saw it laying askew against the back bulkhead. A moaning deputy was weakly trying to push it aside before she was dragged towards medical.
Her hearing was returning. “Bea, acknowledge!” It was Konami.
“I’m here, I’m okay. Couldn’t hear for a sec—”
“They’re on you in ten seconds!”
Shit! “They’re coming! Aim and fire as soon as you sight the enemy!”
I’m not ready — and they were there. Four shapes visible through the dusty haze, aiming carbines. “Fire!”
The sounds of the gunshots ricocheted around the bulkheads and obstructions, nearly deafening her once more. Two of the shapes reacted in obvious pain — the other two had taken cover behind something.
The haze was clearing, and several more shapes appeared, aiming carbines. Mattoso shouted wordlessly and kept firing, ducking behind the table twice to reload. When she peeked over her cover, she spied a handful of bodies drifting near the open hatch. Something shoved its way in and sent the bodies hurling to the side — a wedge shaped shield, just barely small enough to fit through the hatch. Carbine barrels poked through slits in the shield, bristling like some prickly-furred Earth creature whose name she couldn’t recall.
“Hold!” she shouted — there was no point to shooting the shield. “Cy, you there?”
There was gunfire in the background of his response, and his only response was a curse.
Mattoso almost dropped her gun as something flew into the common area and bounced off a bulkhead, almost into a deputy’s lap. It was cylindrical, about half a meter. The deputy held it up, asking what it was, and exploded.
Mattoso’s vision changed abruptly — she realized she had blacked out, thankfully still behind cover.
“Bea, report!”
She asked how long she was out. Thankfully, it was just a few seconds. Kon
ami told her to pull back to the first reserve point.
She had a thought as they retreated, under fire, into the passageway behind the common room, explaining it into her wearable. Through the back hatch, she motioned to a pair of deputies. “Cover me for a minute.” She still had the mini-cutter — switching it to weld mode, she bonded a piece of alloy debris across the hatchway, then tore off some pipe cladding to further secure it, finally shutting and locking the hatch after making sure every live deputy had gone through. Weak as it was, it might only buy them a minute against those bulky alloy shields, but that was better than nothing.
Mattoso met Konami at the reserve point, at the back of the adjoining passageway that connected the two entrances, opening up to a workroom. Though at an angle, they had a decent field of fire to the hatch that would lead to both entrances. She told him about welding the debris, and Konami dispatched a handful of deputies to do the same to the adjoining hatch that led to the reserve point. Maybe the minutes can add up.She counted casualties with Konami – together they’d lost about twenty, but reserves from further inside were filling the gaps.
Days before, while still setting up the Fortress, she had had a little time to discuss military tactics with the mayor. They had the numbers advantage, but in the cramped passageways and quarters of the Fortress, only so many Aoteans could fight at a time. At least we have plenty of reserves to fill the casualty spots… She didn’t want to think about the dead, biting her lip when a few names came to her. Time for that later.
An impact sounded — the traitors trying to get through locked hatches closer to the entrances. Konami ordered everyone to aim and get ready, and Mattoso rushed to help the deputies at the workroom hatch — hoping that the several jutting pieces of piping and alloy cladding would present far more of an obstacle than her rush job before.
A rumble down the passageway told them that the enemy was seconds away, so they jammed shut the hatch with an extra weld, and pulled back behind temporary obstacles.
“Wait for my order!” shouted Konami, holding up an arm.
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