The Hundred Worlds

by J. F. Holmes

  “The septic tank.”

  “What?”

  The control tablet let them know the UNES ship was within gun range. “All the waste gets flash-frozen, just like the plants. Nobody’s going to look in there, because normally there’s no access. Newer ships just replace the tanks as pods, but older ones like this have to purge the biological material to burn up in an atmosphere. I’m going to stash you in there, then I’m going to pressurize the cargo pods until they blow their seals. They won’t go fishing for evidence in the garbage if they never find us.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Desperate, insane, it’s all semantics.” Dean punched the lock on the tank. It squeaked open and released a plume of powder that had to be bacteria-neutral feces and urine. Sure, it was technically dust, but the idea that they’d both just breathed in decades of human waste wasn’t lost on either of them. Dean helped Kelvin into the tank and went to the escape pods. There’d only been one when they bought her, and there was a reason they’d never bought a new one. Opening the outer hatch to the missing pod would make it look like the ship had been abandoned before it made the jump. The ploy wouldn’t fool a K-9 unit, but with any luck, this time there wouldn’t be one.

  Grabbing their sidearms from the bridge, Dean caught a fleeting, terrifying glance of their opponent. Painted white to contrast with the darkness of space, UNES ships had a classically sleek (and well-funded) look to them, no haphazardly-protruding equipment, everything meant to be stylish and retractable if it would disrupt the pretty lines. She was already stopped and beginning to rotate to match their speed and angle of drift, so docking would be in less than a minute.

  The control tablet bleeped that they were being hailed, but it wasn’t like anyone would answer. It did remind Dean to turn the volume off on the device, which would save their lives if anyone got close to their hiding spot. Returning to the septic tank, he handed over the guns and a med-kit full of some really groovy drugs to keep Kelvin as quiet as the tablet. Trying to go in feet-first, they felt the jarring of one ship making physical contact with another, and Dean abandoned the gentle way in favor of diving in face-first. Landing in a pile of poo-dust, he hit the release button on the tablet for the cargo-bay’s vent hatch. The entire ship rattled, which was fine, because it would give the UNES crew the strong impression this heap was not only not worth impounding, but give credence to why she might have been abandoned in the first place.

  “In the likely event we’re about to spend the rest of our lives in a black-site…” Kelvin winced, putting his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “I just wanted you to know…your wife is super-hot. I mean, I’m sorry I pretended all those years she wasn’t my type, even said I thought her curls were ugly…but I’d have totally destroyed dat ass if you hadn’t married her first.” This time he coughed blood.

  Dean nodded, blowing a puff of dust from his upper lip. “Thanks. I’ll…cherish this moment forever.” Taking a gauze roll from the med-pack, he dabbed the blood from Kelvin’s lips. “Maybe we should surrender. I think you’re a lot worse off than I originally thought.”

  The clanking of footsteps coming down the ladder from the dorsal hatch silenced them both. The enemy, or at least the law, was onboard and ready for anything. Checking the camera feeds, Dean was suddenly grateful and understanding of all the little things Kelvin had demanded be done to the ship, for possibly this very reason. The computers built into the walls might still give signals to passengers, but the security cameras themselves had the look of being completely offline. One even had a cracked lens, although it didn’t affect the function of the camera behind the double layers. All their indicator lights were broken, and random wires dangled from the mounts. Smugglers did this kind of thing all the time, which wouldn’t surprise the authorities if they searched her in an impound.

  “Do we have audio?” Kelvin whispered.

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to make noise.”

  “Just turn it on.”

  ***

  Checking the quality of the air, Lieutenant Dunsford decided there was no reason to take his helmet off. Stale was a good description; the chemical-flavored crap the air systems would pump into the living area if the original supply was purged might keep you alive, but you weren’t going to like it very much.

  “Dunsford to Charybdis.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “There’s no one on the main deck. Starting toward the bridge now.”

  “Copy.”

  Choosing the most likely path to the control center, as Michael had never been aboard this class of ship before, he remained wary of anyone lurking behind corners. Rolling a ball-shaped drone from his utility belt’s flank pocket, he watched the camera feed through a projection on his visor. This was the wrong path to the bridge, ending in a large living room that certainly hadn’t been decorated by a woman. Sending the drone in another direction, the search for evidence continued…

  ***

  “There’s only one of them.” Dean relaxed when he saw. “I think the decompression scared them into minimizing their potential losses.”

  “Yeah, but he has drones.”

  “We can confuse those.”

  “How?”

  “The cleaning-bots still work, right?” He handed the tablet to Kelvin. “Activate them in sections near the boarder. Send him in circles until I can get in the supply closet next to the hatch. I’m hoping there’s an older sink-coil I can replace the burned one with. It won’t be a perfect match, but it might get us going after they leave us for junk.”

  “You’re a madman.”

  “Well, you’re broken, so someone’s gotta be the hero this time.”

  “Hey,” Kelvin grabbed Dean’s arm as he slid the hatch open again, “don’t die.”

  “Right.” Dean climbed free of the dust and started slinking into another corridor, where the crew lockers were. He needed to change clothes, lest he track dusty crap into a path that could be followed. On the second deck of their three-deck ship, the cleaning-bots went to work. Immediately, the spotter drones heard their squeaky old wheels and went rolling off like hounds with their master in hot pursuit.

  Feeling not the least bit proud of himself, Dean slinked off to change. A light gray hoodie and khaki pants would have to do, but he at least had the advantage of total surprise. It might have been nice to have an alternative to shooting someone if he was confronted, like a taser or a tranq-gun, but if his plan worked, they’d never know he was there.

  ***

  “Control, this is Dunsford. There’s nobody on board. I’m going to start trying to download the computer’s logs, but I’m fairly certain the crew ejected before this tub made the jump.” Michael finally braved taking his helmet off. The helmsman of their patrol ship, SPS-8793 “Charybdis”, responded with disinterest.

  “Any cargo?”

  “I was just down there. Whatever might have been here either got sucked into space when the pressure seal blew, which is probably your fault for docking so roughly, by the way…” he said pointedly, “or more likely they abandoned ship with all the valuables and set her adrift.”

  “So how did it end up here? It’s IFF is registered out of the Vega system. That’s three, maybe four jumps from here.”

  Michael shrugged, even though John, the pilot, couldn’t see him. “Well, she’s a wreck, Johnny. I can already see a bunch of illegal mods to the controls, too. I’m sure she’d have no problem skipping one or more jump points. I’ll know more when I download the memory core.”

  “Copy. I’ll be helping the skipper in the engine room. Number six thruster relay needs to be pulled.” The pilot breathed heavily into his mic, fumbling for something Michael assumed was a bag of potato chips. “Just stay in contact in case anything changes,” he said, with his mouth full of something that crunched over the radio.

  “Right-on,” Michael said, recalling the drones. Like an obedient dog, each rolled right up to the magnetic strip on his right boot, allowing the user to retrieve them at
his leisure. Pretending the last one was a hacky sack, he flipped the ball into the air and caught it on the first try. “Boo ya,” Michael said, none too proud of himself.

  Taking a seat at the pilot’s station, Michael started trying to make sense of it all, as he prepped his interface module for a Zephyr-class transport. Older computer programs would have to be downloaded to Charybdis’ databanks from a nearby UNES hub, and that would take a couple hours, assuming there wasn’t already an updated program in this wreck’s memory core he could interface with. Looking at the old-style flip switches and nearly complete lack of touch-screen tech, Michael actually marveled at the simplicity of this setup. There was a diagram printed on actual paper, laminated to the windscreen with clear packing tape, that explained what the different toggles did, which, for an experienced pilot, would mean he wouldn’t have to look at the controls to manipulate them. Aboard Charybdis or any other United Nations Exploration Service ship, it was like living as a flea on the back of a great Macintosh computer. It could function with complete autonomy, and indifference to the status of the crew, if the AI thought them lost. This ship, though – whatever her name was – had to have a pilot. Someone had to care about this ship, and from the personalization, he’d guess someone had very much. So why leave her adrift? Something didn’t add up…

  ***

  Dean paused as he slinked toward the hatch where the ship was docked. From this angle, he could see through the open hatch to the cockpit, where the UNES officer was settling in for an uneventful investigation. His sensors were off, and he’d started to relax. It might have been morbid curiosity, but he watched the man for a little longer than he should have. Then it dawned on him – this guy had advanced medical training. His suit had an internal AI with diagnostic equipment and the ability to treat minor wounds…no…this is a terrible idea, Dean told himself over and over again, but in the end, found himself standing just inches behind the man with his pistol drawn. Was he really ready to kill a relatively innocent man just for his suit?

  Drawing the hammer back on his pistol, Dean cleared his throat. “Please don’t struggle. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Then don’t.” Michael turned around slowly, his hands clearly visible. “You scared the shit out of me…”

  “And yet you’re not surprised to see me?”

  “You get stationed in the deep long enough, you see some serious weirdness.” Michael swiveled the chair, still making no hostile moves. “So what do you want?”

  “Besides my ship back?” Dean was caught off guard by how calm the UNES officer was. “And for you and your buddies to get the hell off of it? Your cooperation, your medical kits, and that fancy suit’s diagnostic tools would be nice.”

  “Are you injured? I can overlook the gun if you need medical attention,” Michael tried sincerely. He wasn’t a bad guy; in a way, he sympathized with the people trying to make a living hauling cargo, even if sometimes it was illegal, and his duty was to arrest them.

  Dean took a deep breath, thinking of how little time Kelvin might have. He took the sidearm from the UNES officer’s holster and put them both down on another console. “My copilot is wounded. Our jump drive malfunctioned, and we displaced a large asteroid when we arrived; he was in the shower when it happened.”

  “You made a jump without everyone buckled in?” Michael was appalled, but not terrible surprised. “Tell me what your cargo was, and I’ll give you whatever aid you need.”

  “Stuff, okay? I don’t ask; the money’s too good. When we saw your ship, we blew the cargo like they told us to, so there’s nothing left.”

  “Who told you to?”

  “I seriously didn’t ask,” Dean lied.

  “What system did you jump from?”

  “Your mom’s house.” Dean wanted to pick the guns up again, but that might make this guy uncooperative. If he had to shoot him, that would waste a lot of time to take his suit off and stash the body. “Look, there’s a severely-injured man on board. It’s your duty to help him.”

  “You civvies wildly overestimate what we’re actually here for.”

  “Please!” Dean said in exasperation.

  Michael straightened the bunches in his suit. “That’s all you had to say.”

  “That way,” Dean said, insisting the UNES officer go first. “I’m Sam, by the way,” he lied.

  “That your real name?” Michael asked, suspecting it wasn’t.

  “Nope. That you don’t know it already tells me I’m doing a good job concealing it.”

  Waiting at the next junction for “Sam” to open the hatch, Michael continued trying to befriend his captor. True, he was hardly doing any of this under duress, but he also hadn’t given up hope that he might yet win. All he needed to do was alert John or Commander Reynolds, and they’d call in the cavalry. However, he also considered that calling in the Marines to deal with this guy and whoever he was hiding was a bit like swatting a mosquito with a cannon. If they were as non-threatening as they seemed thus far, there was no reason for this incident to become violent. Not every arrest had to be the shootout at the OK Corral.

  “My name’s Lieutenant Michael Dunsford, 2nd Fleet System Patrol, Huron System, United Nations Exploration Service,” he said, pulling the medical diagnostic kit off the thigh portion of his suit, exactly parallel from the holster for his main sidearm.

  “Yeah, I had a fancy title too, once.” Dean remained unimpressed. He swung the hatch open and was greeted by Kelvin aiming his pistol at them. “That’s him.”

  “I guessed.” Michael introduced himself again, switching from space-police mode to corpsman. “Have you lost consciousness since the accident?”

  “Yeah, for a few minutes after,” Kelvin said, still aiming the gun at Michael. “Where’s the rest of them?” he asked Dean. The light betrayed how pale he’d become, the foam no longer able to hold the blood back.

  “It’s a long story. Just keep your gun on him.”

  Michael looked up. “What? We had a deal.”

  “Like you were ever going to honor it. You’re just waiting for a chance to alert the rest of your crew. I heard you talking to them, I know they’re distracted right now.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “We’re smugglers, remember? Sneaking about is what we do. I promise not to hurt anyone; we just need a few things, and you can go back to your patrol like you never saw us. Besides, if you cooperate, we’ll make it worth your while to say you saw nothing.” Dean smiled and shut the hatch behind him, locking it from the outside.

  “You’re not actually going to shoot me, are you?”

  “The night is young.” Kelvin pointed at his side, gesturing for Michael to get to work.

  Chapter 3

  Wearing socks so he made less noise, Dean climbed through the hatch to the UNES patrol ship. For a moment he was weightless and had to roll upside down, so when he boarded the next ship he’d be right side up. Because of the balance of air pressure, both ships were sealed from the hatchway, but the doors weren’t locked. Unlike the turn-style crank that opened the exterior hatch to the Roadrunner, Charybdis had a heat-activated latch. Luckily it wasn’t fingerprint-encoded, and it opened up with a smooth gust of antiseptic-scented air. The lights were on full brightness inside, and it had every possibility of being confused for a giant computer inside a rocket-shaped hull. Also, people lived in it.

  What Dean was there for, at minimum, was a new logic-solid, the super-computer that calculated jump trajectories. It was capable of a lot more, including directing what remained of the battalion of small robots aboard Roadrunner that could possibly fix or even bypass damaged components. If he knew his UNES ships the way he thought he did, the parts needed should be small enough to put in a backpack. They could jump to any space hub in the known galaxy, get medical attention that wouldn’t turn them over to the law, and hopefully steal or maybe even buy a new ship.

  Using a glove meant specifically for manipulating touch-screens without leaving fi
ngerprints, he opened the ship’s cargo manifest. Besides enough food for three men to eat for weeks, she carried the necessary replacement parts to completely rebuild every vital component. The ship was also meant to carry personnel besides the three-man crew, UN marines by the look of the numerical coding on the walls, but it didn’t seem there’d been anyone in that section for a while. Nothing useful would be found here, but it was on the way to the cargo holds. Coincidentally, Dean found this was also the direction of the engineering deck. He had no impulse to take more captives, but curiosity and no small amount of hubris overtook the mission at hand.

  He peeked through the hatch at the other two crewmen while they toiled with one of the few dirty, almost ugly parts on the ship. The thruster assembly, when pulled from the inside, was covered in carbon and engine oil. Expecting the men to be like the colonial preconception of Earthers, ultra-clean and almost too dainty to get their hands dirty, he was almost blown away that both the ship’s captain and the pilot were elbow-deep in the filth. Heavy wrenches and parts spilled out of a tool bin and were scattered all over the deck. Classic rock music from about forty years ago was playing on a small radio nearby, someone’s personal data-node plugged into it.

  “Shit,” one of them cursed. There was no telling yet who was who; they wore tan mechanic’s onesies with no patches or rank on them. Probably generic items that never left the ship, despite crew rotations. “I told you the gyros were fried.”

  “Well, that’s better than the servos being burned out, right?”

  The smaller one lifted his head out of the hatchway of the thruster assembly, which was about the size of a truck motor. “Well, neither one would be good.”

  “Define not good.”

  “Oh God, oh God, we’re all gonna die...?” The smaller one shrugged. “Both systems going down while we’re in-atmo would cause the thruster to fail. It’s kind of a touchy system.”

  Dean got the impression the smaller one was the pilot. They were all tight-knit enough to use first names, or speak casually to one another in a one-on-one setting, which Dean liked, strangely enough. It made these UNES drones seem, well, less like drones and more like people. Slinking ever closer, he surveyed the tools and parts laid out on the floor while staying hidden on the far side of a locker for various computer components. As expected, they were all really nice tools, the best tax payer’s money could buy, but none of them were worth getting caught over. However, Dean couldn’t really help himself, and soon he was within arm’s reach of the two men as they contorted their bodies in weird directions to fit in the service areas. What was he doing? Did he plan to trap them in there?