by Eliza Green
‘All personnel are required to report for duty. Report to the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta docking station by five pm. Deighton’s orders,’ said the female voice at the other end.
She checked the time. That was three hours from now. ‘But you don’t understand, it’s my day off—’
The line clicked dead. Jenny popped the device out of her ear and tossed it on the table. If she didn’t show up, it would be her third and final strike.
‘I warned you not to answer it,’ said Eleanor.
Jenny agreed as she stood up. ‘I’m sorry, rain check?’
☼
She rushed home to change into her uniform before taking the high speed Maglev train to the Sydney docking station. An hour and a half after leaving Eleanor, she was trussed up in her space craft and ascending into the space just above the Earth. Twenty minutes later, she hurtled back to the ground amid the calmest weather she’d experienced over the last few weeks.
At least one thing was going right for her.
Her arrival at HJA’s docking station was met with a strong military presence. Not for her, but they were definitely expecting someone. She released the door and exited from the craft. The thin docking station attendant was waiting for her, looking worried as ITF military swarmed the area behind him. She pictured an equally worried Stuart pacing the length of his observation deck.
Barely looking at her, the attendant stuck the DPad out for her to register her arrival. She pressed her thumb to it and walked away from him. Behind her, he yelled to someone, ‘Don’t touch that!’
Jenny walked fast to the double doors at the back of the hold, her heart slamming against her ribcage. During her freelance piloting days she’d carried her fair share of dodgy cargo. But transferring prisoners between prisons had not stressed her out as much as being here did. The sight of so many ITF military kept her body coiled tight.
The ESC only ever interfered in the running of the docking stations if there was a security breach, or if cuts were on the way. But Deighton had ordered her here. That meant something big was happening. Or about to.
She entered the observation deck to see four people—pilots in uniform—crammed into Stuart’s tiny office. Stuart and a few of the senior staff were standing in one corner of the main room while a man with a tight crew cut, and dripping in military accolades, walked around. He stopped randomly at a few desks and observed the work over several shoulders. He wasn’t alone. More military bodies serving at a lesser grade than him interrupted the operations that she knew Stuart had under tight controls. Jenny caught the glare Stuart directed at the man. But his eyes softened when he spotted Jenny.
‘Captain Waterson,’ he declared loudly, as if to divert the senior man’s attention away from the communications operative. He strode over to Jenny and mouthed, ‘Help me,’ just before the senior military man arrived.
‘Captain Waterson. Sergeant Briggs. We’ve been waiting for you.’
‘We?’
He gestured to Stuart’s office. ‘Yes, shall we talk?’ The sergeant placed his hand on her back. She walked out of his reach.
Stuart marched on ahead and opened the door to his office. Jenny shuffled in beside four others. The sergeant made it seven.
He sat down on Stuart’s chair. ‘We’re expecting a passenger ship from Exilon 5 in the next hour. I’ve been informed by the ESC that there’s a possible stowaway on board.’
Jenny frowned. ‘Who is this mystery stowaway?’
‘A man travelling under the alias of Bob Harris,’ said Stuart.
The sergeant flashed him a look that told him to shut up.
‘Yes, someone will be arriving that the ESC and World Government want taken into custody. We’re here to facilitate that.’
One person, five pilots. Jenny didn’t understand why she was here. ‘What do you need us to do?’ Her eyes flicked over the group of pilots who looked as unsure as she felt.
The sergeant said, ‘All of you will be taking your quota of passengers from the ship and returning them to here. But we are covering our bases. We don’t know which space craft the person will use to leave the ship. By briefing all of you, we are covering all our angles.’
Okay, that made sense. ‘How dangerous is this individual?’
‘He shouldn’t make trouble for you on the way down,’ said the sergeant. ‘In fact, I’d be surprised if he does anything to alert us to his arrival. But under no circumstances must you engage with him. We expect this to be a simple process. Once we have our man, we’ll be out of here.’
Stuart visibly relaxed. This intrusion must be killing him. He’d always hated people telling him what to do.
Jenny relaxed too. What the sergeant was asking sounded straightforward enough and unlikely to attract a penalty.
‘When does the ship get here?’ she asked.
‘In the next two hours.’ That meant the five pilots and their crafts would head up to space from HJA three minutes apart. Fifteen minutes to complete the lift off and another fifteen minutes for all of them to reach space and get settled.
‘Any questions?’ asked the sergeant.
Jenny had none. The other pilots shook their heads. This was a simple run up to the passenger ship and back down. Not much could go wrong.
The sergeant stood and left the office. Stuart ran after him, his worry evident.
Jenny left the office and stood outside with the other four pilots. While they’d met, an extra dozen military personnel had slipped in. Nervous personnel tried to do their job while the extra military made a nuisance of themselves.
All this muscle for just one stowaway? A bit much.
One pilot said, ‘We’re heading to the cafeteria. You wanna join us?’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘I need to speak to the overseer about my last schedule. I’ll see you soon.’
The pilots left the observation deck.
A nervous looking Stuart shadowed the military around the room. She felt for her friend. This high level of attention could have ramifications for his position. Deighton was known for being whimsical. If he got an idea into his head, it was hard to know if he would act on it or forget about it.
Stuart broke off his shadowing and marched over to her. The sergeant, she saw, paid him no attention.
‘Jenny,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I need this to go well.’
Jenny frowned at him. ‘Of course it will.’
He grabbed her arm too tight. ‘I need this job. I...’
She worried for her friend’s behaviour. ‘What’s wrong, Stuart?’
He glanced behind him. ‘Remember that clean sheet I have? Well, I may have changed a few dates and numbers to keep it. Yeah, two people got fired over it, but the ESC never questioned the discrepancies at the time.’
‘Shit, Stuart.’
He let go of her and combed his fingers through his hair. ‘I know, and now Sergeant Dickhead and his friends are going through everything.’ His eyes flashed with worry. ‘Just don’t let anything happen.’
‘I wasn’t planning on it. Besides, it will be a reflection on me, not you.’
Stuart sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I just want this to go well.’
She touched his arm. ‘It will. You’ve got this. They’re not going to find anything because the discrepancies are buried.’
Stuart perked up. ‘You’re right, they are. They happened three months ago. If the ESC didn’t pick up on anything then, they won’t find it now.’
‘That’s the spirit.’ She saw the sergeant look their way. ‘Looks like someone wants you.’
Stuart glanced behind him again. ‘Ugh. When this is over, let’s get drunk.’
‘Deal.’
Stuart rejoined the sergeant, who was pointing at the comms operative. She heard Stuart say to him, ‘Because we don’t rely on technology for everything. Hearing a voice on the line calms the pilots.’
Military stood at the wall panels showing space debris, planets in the solar system, and the area immediately abo
ve Earth. Their presence rattled the controllers whose job it was to monitor space debris in the ship’s path. The sergeant stood over the communications operative while he tried to speak to someone. Stuart folded his arms and sighed heavily.
‘Ask the ship pilot if there were any disturbances on board,’ the sergeant said to the operative.
The operative checked and replied. ‘Nothing reported, sir.’
‘Doesn’t mean anything,’ mumbled the sergeant. He turned around, startled by Stuart’s proximity to him. He backed up a little. ‘We’ll need everybody’s full cooperation until the person we’re after has been safely apprehended.’
‘Of course,’ said Stuart. ‘If there’s anything at all we can do, please don’t hesitate—’
‘I want to speak to him myself,’ said the sergeant. He grabbed the operative’s shoulder and held out his other hand. The operative handed over the earpiece and the sergeant shoved it into his ear. ‘Pilot of the passenger ship, you have a dangerous stowaway on board. Do not engage with your passengers under any circumstances. Proceed as normal. The military will be handling this situation on the ground.’
The sergeant nodded at what Jenny assumed was the pilot’s response, then pulled the earpiece out and tossed it on the table, out of the operative’s reach. It appeared the sergeant had downplayed the threat during his talk in Stuart’s office.
Jenny backed out of the room. She didn’t need this stress right before a flight.
39
Laura tried to act like everything was normal. But sitting across from the woman who’d given her the files wasn't helping. On one of Sixteen’s bathroom breaks, Laura scheduled her own. Sixteen told her to leave her alone, her words masked by a flushing toilet sound.
Laura delayed her exit, making sure to leave enough time between her and Sixteen. She returned to the office, a tight space with a new and insufferable silence to it. How could she pretend her life had not been turned upside down by a set of files she hadn’t asked to see? She sat down in her chair, barely able to make out the file details on her screen. Taxes and filing failures seemed even more trivial now, given what she’d learned. Whatever issues Earth had, it paled in comparison to those of the Indigenes.
She glanced over at the dark-haired woman who had pushed Laura down a path of lies and experiments, exposing the truth about the real origin of the Indigenes. But looking at her now—head down and eyes on her screen—it was as if their conversation had never happened.
Except it had.
Then there was Isla Taggart. Laura had peeked inside the already-opened envelopes to find letters written in code. It had been the photo on the micro file of Isla talking to one of the Indigenes that had pushed her to open them. In one picture Isla Taggart was smiling at someone off camera. The picture had been stamped with the words: Destroy the evidence.
That wasn’t a bad idea.
She would pass the letters on to Bill Taggart, then burn the micro file. But could she destroy the file, knowing what damning evidence it contained? She wasn’t even sure why she still kept it. Maybe she’d hoped this was still some twisted joke to break in the new girl.
No, this transcended some silly initiation.
The easiest thing would be to forget she’d seen anything. But that would make her no better than the people she worked for.
☼
After an hour of trying to focus, and processing less files than she knew she could manage, another bathroom break called to her. Laura left her cubicle behind.
Chewing on her thumb, she entered the foyer and turned left for the bathroom. But her distraction missed someone who had her in her sights.
‘O’Halloran!’
Laura stiffened when she heard the sharp voice of the CEO. She popped her thumb out of her mouth.
‘Oh, hi,’ she said.
Gilchrist eyed her. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘What? Oh, it’s nothing.’
‘Actually I’m glad I ran into you.’
‘You are?’
Gilchrist folded her arms. ‘Yes. I’ve noticed the numbers of files you’ve processed has dropped off this week.’
Good one, Laura. In her efforts to pretend everything was normal, she had forgotten about her work, the one thing that might draw attention to her.
‘I’m sorry. I won’t let it happen again.’
‘Make sure you don’t. I didn’t promote you so you could slack off.’
‘Of course not. I’m grateful for the opportunity.’ The words came out weak and pathetic.
‘And stop grovelling at my feet.’ Laura looked up surprised. She didn’t realise she’d been doing that. ‘You can let people push you around all your life, or you can take control and stop being a doormat.’
‘Excuse me?’
Gilchrist arched a brow. ‘If you want any kind of future, you need to show you belong. When the transfer happens, not everyone will get the opportunity. If you want yours, prove you can be a team player.’ The CEO assessed her clinically. ‘Go home, please. You look like hell.’
Gilchrist walked on. Laura stared after the CEO until she disappeared down a corridor.
Team player? Is that what Gilchrist wanted?
She sucked in a breath on her way back to the office; it bolstered her energy that had been flagging all week. Collecting her coat and bag, she walked to the turbo lift that would take her up and out through the public entrance.
She could be a team player. Who she wanted on that team? She hadn’t decided that yet.
40
The ship arrived five minutes early and hovered in the outer perimeter surrounding Earth. Jenny watched and waited alongside fifteen other crafts as Cargo Hold 1 in the ship’s underside winched open like the jaws of a beast. First in from the HJA-bound crafts, she would be the last to leave with her passengers.
Inside the hold, Jenny tweaked the controls until the landing skids touched the floor. The craft bounced off-course and she quickly corrected the movement with a flick of her hand. When it settled on the floor, she disengaged the thrusters to keep it there. She kept the force field in place while decompression of the hold began.
Soon after, the ship passengers entered the hold. She observed the ones with a drunken-like stupor who hadn’t fully emerged from stasis. Others, like an attractive man in his forties, looked very much awake, but the dark circles under his eyes told her he hadn’t slept much. Jenny had never travelled on a passenger ship. She assumed it to be the same as the craft, but without the gut-wrenching turbulence.
From the on-board computer, she downloaded the manifest from the ship officer’s DPad using a unique identification code. Scanning it quickly, she found the name that had turned Stuart’s working life upside down. Bob Harris. With everyone on-board, she defied her instructions to not engage with her passengers. She ordered them to strap in, and gave a quick reminder of the turbulence ahead.
‘If you feel sick there are bags under your seat.’
Jenny guided her craft out of the hold and headed for Dock 10. Ahead of her, crafts heading to HJA descended to Earth. Behind her, other crafts branched off towards their own destinations. She waited fifteen minutes, then contacted the communications operator in HJA and received a clearance for landing. She began her descent, firing all thrusters until the craft had dropped below the outer perimeter shield. There, the final leg of the journey would be dictated by gravitational pull alone.
Her arrival at the docking station minutes later went smoothly, but the docking station had been transformed into a war zone. Crates had been stacked high. Roving cameras hovered around Dock 10. Dozens of military personnel peeked out from behind the crates, while nervous attendants waited to receive passengers off the ship.
She kept the craft door closed until passengers from the other crafts had been processed. Her passengers remained in their seats.
Jenny’s onboard communication pinged suddenly. She shoved an earpiece into her ear. ‘Yes?’ she whispered.
‘Cap
tain, is the person of interest on board?’ It was the sergeant.
‘Bob Harris? Yes he is. I’m looking at the manifest now. How do you want me to proceed?’
‘Do nothing, ma’am. This is our operation now.’
She hated it when people called her ma’am. ‘Understood,’ she said with a shudder.
Outside, the line of passengers outside was moving fast. The order for her to open her doors followed. In her rear-view mirror she spotted two odd-looking passengers wearing navy-blue suits and black Stetsons. Jenny’s skin prickled when both men stared at her.
41
They were so close, but a long line and an anxious pilot stood between Stephen and Anton’s freedom.
Stephen had caught the pilot’s conversation between her and someone in the docking station. The name Bob Harris had been mentioned—his alias.
The people ahead of them began their disembarkation, leaving him little time to come up with a plan.
Anton shot an anxious look at Stephen. They can’t catch both of us, he said. Why don’t we just make a run for it?
Because I think they’ve erected a force field around the building. We won’t get far.
Anton shrugged. So what’s left? We can’t come this far to give up now.
I’ve no intention of giving up. Let me think for a minute.
Stephen ran through the limited options available. The only certainty was they couldn’t stay here. He needed a way out of this station and to find the investigator. His gaze flicked to the pilot and the controls he was certain would not respond to his security chip. His idea started with threats and grew to include a control room, which must turn off the security barrier around the station.
I think I have a plan, but it’ll be risky.
Anton frowned. What is it?
How fast can you run these days?
Almost as fast as you, brother. You need me to go somewhere?