Project Charon 1

by Patty Jansen

  Heavens, what if he had already been infected at the time? And if so, what did that mean for Rex?

  She helped Rex get ready for bed, washing him and giving him his injection and making sure that the attachment points were all clean.

  She had always assumed that his condition was due to the fact that she had spent too much time in space while pregnant, but what if his deformities came from having been born of a man infected with alien material? It was just too horrible to think about.

  She couldn’t help feeling inadequate because he had to walk around in this harness that people wanted him to sell to collectors. And she had far too many other things to worry about. Rex always came somewhere down the list of priorities.

  There was a knock on the door.

  She frowned at Rex, in his pyjama bag, ready for bed. “Did you order something?”

  “From that expensive room service? Of course not.”

  The knock came again.

  Tina went to the door and found one of the receptionists in the hallway.

  "Someone wants to speak to you," he said.

  "Someone?" Tina frowned. She didn't know anyone. Other than Dexter, who clearly did not want to speak to her. Other than Jake, and she didn’t want to speak to him, either.

  “Look, tell him I’m—”

  "It's someone from the planet below."

  That was even stranger. But she went with the receptionist, and he took her to a small and cluttered communication cubicle behind the reception area.

  She was well familiar with these sorts of things, and had often seen people use them, especially when she was out in space and they visited the stations. It wasn’t allowed for personnel to contact their families from the ship, because the ship’s location was secret.

  Inside the small cubicle, the operator told her how to use the equipment.

  When she touched accept, an image came on the screen before her.

  Out of all the possible people it could have been, the image showed Janusz. She could barely believe her eyes. Why in the world would he contact her? “Hello.”

  "I bet you're wondering what I’ve got to say," he said.

  "I would be lying if I said I wasn't."

  "It's not good news, I'm afraid. But I wanted to tell you, just so that you understand that I have nothing to do with this, because I am sure to get the blame if you find out from anyone else."

  Tina's heart was thudding. Something had obviously happened.

  "It was two days after you left," Janusz started. "I woke up one night and heard a racket next door, so I grabbed the gun and went out to check. Someone had broken into the shop again by cutting through the roller door. When they heard me, they ran out, throwing a firebomb over their shoulder. So I was caught between putting out the fire and chasing the miscreants. I chose the fire because I figured you’d want your shop when you come back.”

  “Thank you.” Although she had no warm and fuzzy notions about why he had done it: he’d wanted to limit risk to his own property.

  “So the miscreants disappeared into the desert, and no one has seen them since. I managed to put out the fire, but I’m afraid there’s some damage to the back of the shop.”

  "Have you reported this to the authorities?"

  “That, I have. People can't go around burning shops, much as we like to do our own thing in Dickson’s Creek.”

  "What did they say?"

  “They came out here and walked around for a whole day, collecting things and taking pictures. They said there had been earlier trouble."

  "That was probably about the earlier attack on my shop. Did the thieves take anything?"

  "That’s the strange thing. It looks like they left the stock untouched, but rummaged through all the records on the shelves next to the desk and the drawers on the counter. All that stuff was on the floor. Never knew how much all those trinkets are worth to be honest.”

  Tina cringed. He’d been looking at her books and stock purchases. “Any idea why they didn’t touch the stock?”

  “Nah. Looking for money’s my guess. I don't know what was there, and I don't know what you took and what you left here and what you put in storage. I didn't even know where you were gone, to be honest, which was why I didn't report it for so long. I thought there would be trouble, and I thought you were dead."

  Well, thanks so much for that. "Has anyone from the city been there to visit?"

  "There’ve been plenty of folk, but I'm not going out there to talk to them or ask their names, because I don't want to be involved. All I want to say was that I had nothing to do with the break-in and fire, I want you to understand that."

  "Well thanks for keeping an eye out,” Tina said.

  "Any word on when you’ll be back?"

  Tina was going to tell him that she would be back as soon as possible, but she had second thoughts about that. She had never trusted him, and she wasn't about to start, although she did believe that he didn't have anything to do with this fire. If he’d wanted to terrorise her out of Dickson’s Creek, he’d had fifteen years to do it. He wouldn’t have needed to wait until she was gone.

  "I am not sure when I’ll be back yet," Tina said. “Could be a few days.”

  After she had signed off and was on her way back to her room, a realisation hit her. There was no way in which he could have figured out where she was, unless someone had told him.

  That meant they were watching her, whoever “they” were. Simon Fosnet. The thieves. Jake Monterra.

  People who wanted to drive her into cooperating with them.

  They weren’t interested in her stock or money—of which there wasn’t terribly much anyway—but they wanted her records. Her cactuses that she had bred and written a research paper on. They wanted her data.

  But what was so special about these cactuses?

  The research paper that hadn’t yet come out contained a summary of her knowledge. The cactuses were limited to a small area of the planet, the desert outside Gandama. They seemed to have developed coping strategies against attacks by local wildlife, mainly armadillos. They exhibited properties normally reserved for introduced species. They were unaffected by local pests and diseases.

  She had a lot more data generated by her work. Experiments that hadn’t yet led anywhere worth reporting on. Projects that weren’t yet completed. Hey, she was doing this for fun, and nobody told her what she needed to cover in her research.

  No matter how often they turned over the shop in Gandama, thieves and spies wouldn’t find this data. She had brought it with her.

  She couldn’t believe Rex’s joke that the pirates were breeding a prickly army, but obviously they wanted the cactuses for some reason.

  It was also clear that if she went back to the shop, pretending to do business as usual, these people would continue to put pressure on her, and her safety would be compromised.

  Not just her safety, but Rex’s. And he didn’t deserve this.

  Besides, she had already done that once, when she resigned from the Force and disappeared from public life, and see where that had led. No, she couldn’t live with herself if she did that. She would forever look at Rex and know that his life was going to be in danger if she did nothing.

  She would stop these criminals or die trying. She had spent too much time already assuming that Dexter and Evelle were safely getting on with their lives. It was time to start doing something.

  So…

  She had a ship, and information the pirates wanted. What else could she do with it other than going to Olympus and presenting it to the Federacy Assembly?

  If they were still honourable enough to do the right thing. And she had to hope for that, because otherwise what was the point of anything?

  Well, crap. That changed her plans somewhat.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Tina sneaked back into the room. The light in the corner was still on, but Rex had fallen asleep in her absence, so she grabbed her notepad and left the room again.

  In t
he bar behind the reception desk, she ordered a drink before finding herself a spot in the corner.

  When the going got tough, the tough… made a budget.

  While sitting at the table waiting for her drink to turn up, she made a table of all the necessary expenses. Some she could avoid. She felt happy to hoodwink the local authorities, but she would not defraud businesses. Deferring payments might be a necessary evil.

  She had six thousand in savings. How much was it going to cost to get to Olympus?

  She might be able to get ninety thousand for the ship.

  If she sold it, she had the money to buy tickets, or she could use the ship to get around independently. Selling it would take too much time, but keeping the ship left her with the issue that she wouldn’t have any money to buy the things she needed to get it out of dock. Important stuff like fuel, provisions and the remaining fees for the ship to be released from the station. Maybe even a pilot to navigate the ship out of the tight position where it had become stuck.

  That was presuming she didn’t find any technical issues that needed to be fixed first.

  She didn’t know how much those things would cost, except for the station fees, and they were two and a half thousand. But maybe she could use Louise Metvier to get the fees waived.

  Or, if worse came to worst, she could get Rex to disconnect the ship from the station without paying. That backdoor into the dockside computer system he had discovered might be handy.

  How much was a refuel worth these days?

  She looked it up: twelve hundred. But there was an eight hundred extra charge for “fast service” to cut fuelling time from two days to half an hour.

  What about food supplies for the journey to Olympus? Likely to be two thousand.

  What about docking fees at Olympus? Another two thousand.

  What about her outstanding bill for accommodation? Fifteen hundred.

  The air recyclers needed to be recharged, too, and she couldn’t leave without the latest updates in navigation, and meanwhile Benny had been running up a bill while updating himself.

  Crap, she already needed more than she had.

  She could probably wrangle five thousand in credit.

  And she hadn’t even thought about the need to have crew on board. She remembered all too well how stressful it had been to fly the ship alone, and that was without a son who needed her for his daily functioning.

  Come to think of it, how was Rex going to sleep in the ship when he couldn’t access any of the cabins? Or get into the luggage compartment to get tools or other items if she needed them?

  Finn. He was from Olympus. He might not be too keen on a ride home, but in her experience, certain types of well-off people rarely turned down an offer for a free ride. Because if they liked spending money, they wouldn’t be well-off.

  He seemed OK, apart from the fact that his family owned a pharmaceutical company which may or may not have been involved in receiving illegal material from Dexter. But even if that was so, she didn’t think Finn had anything to do with it. And an engineer would be an asset to have on board.

  Finn was coming, even if he didn’t know it yet.

  But taking in an extra person would mean a bigger food supply, and an increased cost. It was time to get creative.

  She would ask the ship suppliers to deliver a resupply and refuel package to the ship on credit. The five thousand would probably cover the accommodation bill as well. It would rack up big amounts in interest while she wasn’t paying it off, but that was a problem for later.

  Fuel. She needed some ingenuity for that. A fast refuel would take only half an hour. She’d have to make up some excuse why it was necessary to charge the ship.

  That left two vitally important items. The first one would be relatively easy, but required some preparation. The second, she would have to pay for.

  Both needed to be done tonight.

  She found an online listing of Federacy Force insignia, found a special agent badge and pasted the name L. Metvier over it. The 3D printing shop worked around the clock, and rather than risking her order being flagged, she went to the shop with her model on a data stick.

  It was for a party, she explained to the attendant who delivered her the fake badge.

  The thing was a bit crude, but since few people knew what these badges really looked like, it would have to do. She worked the uneven edges away with a screwdriver, stuck it in her pocket, and walked through the near-deserted commercial passage.

  The gym was still closed, although a light was on in the depth of the shop. The pawn shop, however, was open. The gun still lay in its case, an illegal weapon that belonged to the Federacy Forces.

  She went straight through the door and up to the counter.

  The shop owner lifted his eyebrows. He knew this was going to be trouble.

  "How can I help you?" he said. "Have you got something to sell, something you want to buy?"

  Tina pulled out her fake badge. She doubted the man could read, but she bet he knew how to recognise the symbols of the Federacy.

  "I'm agent Metvier, from the Perseus Agency. I am here to lay claim on that weapon you have in the case over there.”

  The man looked from the badge to her, his eyes widening. He opened his mouth several times and shut it again.

  Finally he said, "I thought there was something fishy about it."

  "Then why didn't you give it over to any of the soldiers who were just at the station?”

  His mouth opened further. He stammered, “I—I didn't think they had time."

  To be fair, the troops had been on leave, and would probably not have been interested, seeing that they probably found contraband material everywhere they went.

  "I'm here now, and that is an illegal weapon."

  "Yes, yes, sure."

  He reached under the desk, and pulled out a little device which he took over to the cabinet, and opened the back of it. He took out the weapon and brought it to the counter, where he laid it in front of Tina.

  “Here you go." There was sweat on his forehead and he seemed very nervous all of a sudden.

  With an equally trembling hand, Tina picked up the weapon, and coolly inserted it into a plain bag.

  "I hope this means there won't be any charges?" the man said.

  "I will look into that. You’ve been very cooperative." And Tina walked out the shop.

  She mentally crossed one expense off the list. Weapon. Tick.

  But now she had to hurry because his story would hit the gossip circuits pretty soon.

  Once she was a safe distance from the shop, she pulled out the weapon to familiarise herself with the make and type. The Fireseed312 was not significantly different from her old 301.

  She wondered how it had fetched up here, but she doubted she would ever know. For now, her disguise as a Federacy agent was as complete as it was going to get. Her fake identity would probably start to circulate soon, so time was of the essence. It was time for the next step.

  She went to a ship supply business and was happy to see that they did air, food and water supply of ships. She tacked on an order for Rex’s medicine. And a fast refuel.

  Her ship hadn’t been cleared for departure but, business being business, there was only a single question about that, which Tina quickly dismissed with, “That will all be fixed by mid-morning. I’ve got an urgent job.”

  They took her credit and said they’d deliver the food parcels within an hour. They’d start the refuel job once the ship was at the top of the queue, which would be another fifteen minutes.

  Done.

  Now the next thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Then it was on to the hard part: obtaining permission to leave the station. Without the necessary payment or resolution about outstanding fees, that was going to be hard. But Tina had proof of what she’d already paid, and hoped that her Federacy ID might do the job if she spoke convincingly about a secret project.

  It was still reasonably busy in the Port
Authority office, but obtaining a ticket for private craft departures allowed her to bypass most of the queues.

  The woman at the counter asked her some basic questions about her destination—Tina mentioned she was going to a nearby station in the system—and crew. Tina said it would be just her and one crew member.

  Then she asked about any cargo and wanted to see a thing called a shipping docket and Tina said she didn’t have any cargo.

  But the woman kept saying that she needed a shipping docket. Apparently it was something new, and one had to obtain a formal declaration of the commercial, or non-commercial, status of the items on board the ship.

  Eventually she agreed for Tina to see a supervisor. She let Tina into a small office behind the counter and told her to wait there. And then she left, letting the door fall closed with a click. Tina’s heart jumped.

  Was that…?

  She rose and tried the door handle. It was locked.

  Well, shit. What now?

  So she looked around the room. Apart from the desk, there was another chair, and on the desk was a computer screen, that displayed a picture of the Federacy logo.

  That was her best chance.

  Years ago, as part of the Perseus Agency staff training, she had done a course in the most basic tricks for getting into systems or out of locked doors by using the security system against itself. She had refined that knowledge with years of experience in best practices in smaller security systems, and knew the flaws.

  She bet that when she left fifteen years ago, they had erased all her data from the system. She knew this could sometimes take a long time and a lot of reminding. Since she hadn’t been there to remind them, the data was very likely to still be on the system. One would think that military operations were more diligent than to leave old personnel files, but with the closing of Project Charon, no one would have thought to close their access portals, letting them just fade into obscurity.

  She went up to the screen and gave it her best secret agent stare. The Federacy logo disappeared. The screen unlocked.