The Aggressive (Book 1 of the Titanwar saga): A science fiction thriller

by Gem Jackson

  “Yeah,” he shook his head to clear the fuzz. “I’m fine.”

  There were two additional bodies slumped either side of the hatchway that Leon didn’t recognise, presumably unfortunate souls just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  The hatchway opened, and they bundled through as fast as possible. Sleet went fist followed by Hail, pulling Six along, then Leon and Torren bringing up the rear. Sleet shouted orders in quick succession, “Starflight, front and centre to the cockpit. Get the T-drive on-line and jump us the fuck out of here. Torren, go with him and boot the rest of the ship up. Hail, secure the prisoner.”

  “Where am I jumping?” asked Leon.

  “I don’t give a shit, Starflight, just not here. And Starflight,” she paused mid-step and looked straight at him. “That was quite something, what you did back there. I didn’t think you had it in you. Good job.”

  He nodded to acknowledge the compliment, and they both set about their work. He fell in behind Torren and made his way to the cockpit, settling into the navigator’s seat, situated just behind the pilot and co-pilot positions. As expected, the T-drive was operational, running at low power to maintain the ship's gravity and neural network, but without generating a jump field. Miraculously they had sufficient power to jump.

  “How did that happen?” he asked. Torren leaned over and looked at the panels.

  “Huh. Interesting. Looks like we’ve been drawing power from the ship we’re docked with. That’s lucky.”

  He started the jump sequence and began completing the calculations. He let out a little yelp as he saw the calculations for the Titan jump were still locked in. They would be well out if they used them now without any changes, but he knew some shortcuts that could get them prepared in minutes. Titan it was then

  “T-jump in a few minutes, everyone,” he shouted. A sharp pain stabbed through his throat. Shouting was not a good idea. It didn’t bear thinking about the damage done by the pen lid.

  “If you can get us out of here before anyone busts in,” said Torren, “the first beers are on me.”

  Leon snorted and refocused on the calculations. The work needed to be done fast, but it still needed to be done well. The first steps were the most important. The recursive, fractal nature of T-jump calculations meant that errors in the initial stages were magnified by the end. The later an error crept in, generally speaking, the safer it was. An early error by contrast could result in a jump far outside of the solar system, potentially even outside of the galaxy.

  Bangs and clunks emanated from the hull. They’d been found out. There wasn’t much he knew about forcibly boarding ships, but he did know it wasn’t straightforward. Since they had control of the Jackdaw’s Straw it meant they could keep the airlocks closed. There was no external override for internal systems that could compromise hull integrity, so there would be no way to hack in.

  Whoever it was trying to get in would have to cut their way through the hull—and that would take time.

  “Drones!” shouted Torren. But it didn’t matter.

  “Finished. Ready to jump.”

  “Docking clamps released. We’re floating free.”

  “Jump!” yelled Sleet.

  Leon grinned and threw himself into the co-pilots seat.

  “May I?” he asked Torren.

  “Be my guest.”

  “Here goes nothing.”

  He initiated the command. The power levels surged, and they jumped. He held his breath across the microseconds of travel and closed his eyes, waiting for the scream of twisted metal or the hurricane of explosive decompression. The catastrophe that he was waiting for never came.

  “Jump complete,” said Torren. “We’re away.”

  The sense of relief aboard the ship was palpable. Nobody said much, they didn’t need to. Everyone understood what they had escaped. Death. Pain. Suffering. Humiliation. In the blink of an eye, they were free. It was almost anticlimactic.

  Leon sank back into the seat and allowed his eyelids to become heavy. He needed sleep more than anything.

  “Starflight.” It was Sleet. Leon jerked upright and tried to focus. It was harder than it should have been. “Where have you jumped us?” she asked.

  “Titan. Well, somewhere around Titan anyway. The coordinates I had calculated before were still locked in. You wiped them from the computer, but didn’t erase the last locked state variable. Adjusting them was the quickest way to figure a safe jump.”

  “Didn’t I say we needed a pilot who knows what he’s doing?” she smiled, “So, Titan. That’s home, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, but you look fucking terrible. What you did for us back there was intense. You’re gonna be sore as hell before long and when the adrenaline wears off you’re gonna crash hard. Get yourself some rest. Take as long as you need. It’s gonna be a while until we can dock anywhere. Get yourself back in shape and then we’ll talk about stuff later.”

  He didn’t argue. Instead, he hit the bunk that he’d made his own when it had been just himself and Murray on-board and he slept. That first sleep after the escape was deep and empty. There were no dreams, just a blissful nothingness. In the following days it got harder and harder to get good quality rest. Again and again he would wake, soaked with sweat, heart pounding and a scream caught in his throat. By his fourth sleep, he was beginning to dread going to the bunk.

  At least his throat wasn’t so bad. It was sore as anything for a day or so, but before long it felt almost normal. Torren had scooped up the pen lid as a kind of gruesome trophy. He offered it to Leon as he brought some food.

  “Seems right that you should get to keep it,” he said.

  Leon took the lid and inspected it. It didn’t seem particularly special. It didn’t trigger anything inside him. It was a piece of plastic, nothing more.

  “It’s just a lid. Keep it if you want. I’ll only lose it if I have it.”

  “Fine. I’ll keep it then.” Torren said nothing else after that.

  Chapter 18 – September

  The diplomat landed the taxi in a quiet spot on the roof of the Hollow. They disembarked, and he led them through a labyrinthine sequence of passageways. Ramis had managed to get in touch with The Aggressive and had explained their situation. The Captain was less than sympathetic. There was no rescue team on the way, no extension to their departure time—either they made it back or they didn’t. The Aggressive had no transport that could be deployed to the surface of Ceres, and there was no willingness to charter a shuttle either. The diplomat didn’t seem upset or frustrated; he was confident he could get them back. Then again, he was confident about everything and Tem’s mental bullshit detector was ringing louder and louder since the shoot-up. Or maybe he was just getting paranoid?

  Tem picked up her pace to catch up to him at the head of the group. It hadn’t taken long to revive Tariq after they landed. He’d taken a good bit of shrapnel to the leg and whilst painful, it wasn’t life threatening. He insisted on walking with Ramis when they set off. They both knew it made more sense for her to be mobile within the group. If things got nasty again she would need a free hand. She matched her step with the diplomat’s.

  “Hey,” she said. “What the fuck did you do?”

  “What did I do?” The diplomat gave her one of his death stares. She was used to them by now. She met his gaze and returned fire with one of her own, which she hoped came across as withering. “Oh, fine,” he acknowledged. “I went to see a couple of people before we met up. It turns out that a few things have become heated whilst I’ve been away and I’ve ended up on the wrong side of some angry men.”

  “On the wrong side? You’re not kidding.”

  “Yeah well, the path of true love and all that, eh?”

  She eyed him up and down. He was flustered. His gait was awkward, showing weakness when he bore weight on his right leg. Every two or three steps she could see his jaw stiffen has he stifled a grimace.

  “
It’s my hip. Right side. I fell badly back there. I’ll be right again soon.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “What about you though? You’re in pretty good shape still.”

  “I guess so.”

  “And your pal? Abbas?”

  “Tariq? He’ll be fine. Bit of shrapnel in the leg, that’s all. He’ll live.”

  “You reckon?” he let out a snort. “None of us are safe just yet. They were after me, true, but it’s unusual for a hit like that to happen in public. Did you know that? No? Well, it is. It means that they were quite happy for you to get caught up as well. This gang, they know who you are. And they have decided to lump you in with me. Now why would that be?”

  “You seem very sure of yourself.”

  “Yeah, well I used to be anyway. Not so much in the last hour or so.”

  She let the conversation lapse and fell back a little. He was clearly intent on undermining her and she wasn’t sticking around for that. The best thing he could do right now was get them back to the Aggressive. The group wasn’t in good shape. If they got attacked again there would be a good chance that they could all die. Maybe the little rapist and his friend managed to get out quicker than they anticipated? Maybe they managed to call their friends? Either way, you’d end up with some pretty pissed of gangsters.

  She looked back at Ramachandran. She walked in silence, like the rest of them, but her head slunk forward and her eyes were unfocused. Fuck. Was it a mistake bringing her along? She hadn’t thought so at the time but now, the responsibility of their situation was weighing heavily.

  The noise level rose as the passages they walked brightened. In a matter of steps they went from being alone to part of a bustling crowd. They joined the flow of people along a wide, chaotic street. Multi-story shops and businesses lined each side, window displays shimmering and flashing their holograms at the bustle. She didn’t think it was possible but she had found somewhere worse than Calle Gran Via on a stifling, humid afternoon. It took her a moment to figure out what was missing—weather. The whole place was sterile. Under the high definition ceiling, projecting a rich blue sky, Tem had momentarily forgotten that they were still indoors, imagining instead that they had stepped out into a hot, summer day. Except there was no breeze, no real space overhead. In an instant the scene reframed itself, shifting from a street to a tunnel. They crowds weren’t flowing, they were hemming them in.

  “Keep up,” said the diplomat. “This isn’t safe.”

  They pushed on, following the tall diplomat as he weaved through the currents and eddies of the crowd. It was unreal that this many people all going about their business all of the time. Most of them barely noticed the group, weaving around them like spectres. But every so often there was a stare, a furrowed brow, a cocked head. They were vulnerable. Any one of them could be on the look out with a gun and a cavalier attitude to shooting into crowds.

  “Where are we going?” she asked the diplomat.

  He pointed to one side of the street at a set of industrial looking doors. If he hadn’t pointed them out she would have looked straight past them. They formed a part of the furniture of the street. A logistical essential like a fire exit or a service vent.

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll see,” he said.

  They slipped in one after another. It was another dimly lit corridor, only this time there was no maze, just a short, straight walk to a wide, battered elevator. The diplomat pulled out a set of keys and carefully selected one. It was longer and thinner than the others, without teeth or any other distinguishing features. Probably electromagnetic. He slipped it into an innocuous hole beside the doors and with a groan they jerked open.

  “Come on, inside,” he instructed. “If we stay out there bad shit will go down soon enough. This will take us up to the agriplatz and we can make our way back to the spaceport through there.”

  “You’re a smart boy,” said Ramachandran. “That could work.

  “What is the agriplatz?” asked Tem. Ramachandran explained that it was where the food was grown. Floor after floor of hydroponic growth tanks, protein slushlakes and meatplant crops.

  “The best thing is, so much of it is self-contained,” she said. “Growth, processing and packaging are all connected. It’s huge. There are hundreds of exits all across the city so the food can be delivered to where it is needed. There’s no way anyone could cover all of them.”

  The elevator wound it’s way further and further up. Tem looked from Ramachandran to the diplomat to Tariq. Shell-shocked, in pain and injured. Not exactly marine calibre. They weren’t home yet.

  The agriplatz went on forever, or so it seemed to Tem. They walked through row after row of densely packed hydroponic nurseries stacked six high from floor to ceiling, each layer hanging beneath blazing illumination strips. Walking between them, the heat on either side was oppressive. Bundles of thin, flexible tubing slithered and looped from trough to trough, dispersing nutrients and leeching away toxins and waste products. On either side of them the nurseries tapered off into the distance, a repeating pattern of agricultural growth. High-pitched wails and buzzing filled the air as thousands of tiny drones flitted from place to place tending to the crop. Nearby, a robot trundled along in parallel to them, spraying a mist of chemicals as it went.

  “This is insane,” said Ramis. Tem nodded mutely. She understood that large populations needed feeding, but the scale of the operation was still staggering.

  “Does this run all the time?” she asked.

  “Round the clock,” said the diplomat. “It’s been operating continuously for decades. There are a lot of hungry mouths to feed.”

  “I just assumed you’d buy all of your food in. Import it, like,” said Ramis.

  “It’s got to be made somewhere,” said Ramachandran. “And it’s expensive taking it off-world, if you want proper Earth grown stuff.”

  “So I gather,” said Tem. “How are you doing, Tariq?” she asked. He was pale and short of breath. A thin film of sweat covered his face.

  “I feel like shit, Tem, I’m not going to lie.”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, you look like shit too.”

  He laughed. “Thanks.”

  “How are the kids?”

  “How are the kids?” he repeated, scrunching his face up. “When have you ever asked about my kids?”

  “I take an interest,” she said. “Sometimes.”

  “Damn, I must be bad if we’ve got to that stage.”

  “So,” she persisted, “How are they?”

  “The kids are fine.”

  “Fine? That’s it?”

  “What do you want me to say? You’re not interested.”

  “Whatever. What about Fatima? You know I get along with Fatima.”

  Tariq nodded. “She’s doing all right. Still working, y’know.”

  “Is she at the same place?” Fatima was a doctor. She was the brains of the relationship. She had a nice job doing occupational health work for a large industrial corporation. Lots of routine stuff, low risk, low stress. Big pay.

  “Oh yeah, you won’t shift her out of that gig anytime soon. She’s way too comfortable there. She’ll be pissed about this though,” he looked down at his leg. “Or delighted. Probably a mix of both.”

  “Delighted?”

  “Yeah,” Tariq let out a gasp as he stepped awkwardly. “Things were on a knife edge before I came out. She hates me doing operations. Too risky. Too much worry.”

  “But that’s the job. Plus, we don’t do half as many operations as most.”

  “True, but we do enough. Anyway, it kicked off before I left this time. She didn’t want me to go—wants me to go full time at the desk. Nine to five and just pull in the cash.”

  Tem smiled as she remembered. “That promotion? She wanted you to take it.”

  “Course she did. And she’s probably right. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. I knew when I came out it was probably going to be my last time out on ops. But a s
hrapnel wound? That’s the last nail in the coffin, if you’ll forgive the expression.”

  “That’s why you were so hyped to get off-world. One last trip.”

  “One last trip.”

  So that was it. The end of another partnership. She hadn’t seen that one coming. Tariq was the stable one. The dependable one which, as she thought about it, was exactly why he was retiring from ops. That’s what being stable and dependable meant.

  “You going to take the promotion then?”

  “Looks like it. I’ll see Mo when we get back, but we left things open last time. I can’t see them turning me down now.”

  “Shit dude, that’s tough.”

  “I’m not dying, Tem. I’m taking a promotion, a pay rise and getting more time with my kids. You make it sound like I’m on my way out.”

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself. I know you love the ops. Fuck, you even love me.” She shoved him playfully, knocking him into a hydroponics stack. He gasped in pain, leaning on Ramis heavily. The diplomat swooped over to them.

  “What the fuck are you two supposed to be? A pair of horny teenagers? Pull it together.”

  They resumed walking in silence after that. It didn’t seem like a running conversation was making it any easier for Tariq, anyway. After a while they reached the end of the hydroponics area. They passed through another series of secured double doors, which the diplomat was able to access with ease, and entered into what could only be described as a grotesque nightmare of a room.

  She stood stock still to process what her senses were telling her. In one sense it was a room like any other, large with a high ceiling, just like the one before. Except the space was uniformly white. Bright, fluorescent lights filled the air with a piercing glare that forced her to squint to avoid going temporarily blind. Ahead of them a central walkway was laid out to take them from one end of the room to the other, a hundred or so metres away. Between where they stood, and the exit were the things.

  “What the fuck are they?” It was Ramis. He looked as disturbed as she felt. On either side of the walkway were troughs, filled with dark, claggy soil. Out of the troughs rose thick plant stems, spaced at regular intervals. They were about three feet high at their peak. Sturdy branches jutted outward from the stems; only instead of fruit or flowers, from each branch hung three or four bald, pale animal legs. They looked like chicken legs, plucked and raw. Between the rows of plants ran a mechanism running a chain along one row before turning around a wheel and going back the other side. From the chain a set of regularly spaced, thin wires brushed against the chicken legs. Variations in wire length ensured that all the legs were touched as the chain slowly rotated. As the wires came into contact with each leg, the appendage would twitch and spasm, the clawed feet at end of each leg kicking out and grasping desperately at empty space.