Jim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 2

by Jim Baen's Universe! staff

  The title-transfer survey said these units were empty. When the Trade Guild abandoned the station after moving its operations to a more modern facility, it was supposed to have cleaned everything out, but they might have left something behind--radioactive waste, depleted plasma cores. When Covenant Control bought the station and the charter to start an independent trading colony, it might not have been the wiser. Now that she'd seen how Control handled the maintenance schedules, she could believe that it might miss something this significant in the preliminary surveys.

  "I think I've got a heading. The radiation is coming from the storage units. There's something in there."

  "It's not your concern. Come inside, Hart."

  "Sir, if that much radiation is getting through to the station, there might be a danger--"

  "I said don't worry about it."

  Did he think the radiation would go away if they ignored it? Okay, so it would go away, given a few thousand years or so. She didn't want to wait that long. Time to show a little initiative. She'd get Drexler's job one day, at this rate. Between working out crew schedules and submitting supply invoices, she already seemed to be doing most of it.

  Two hundred settlers had already come aboard, people who'd put their trust in Control's assurances that the station was operational and safe. Maybe that trust had been misplaced. Maybe that bug that had been going around wasn't the flu.

  The optical scanners on the first two compartments weren't working. The third, after she rerouted enough power to charge the device's battery, came to life and the optic began a sweep of the unit.

  At first, she thought the device wasn't focusing. After a moment of staring she realized what she was seeing on the monitor: a dozen cylindrical plasma canisters, about six feet across; beryllium-nickel casings and mountings; piping and high-energy nozzles. While she hadn't had any direct experience with weapons-grade plasma generators, she knew the specs. Those nozzles would fire the plasma in a wide, destructive dispersal pattern, not in the focused, controlled beam used for mining and construction. The storage compartment was filled with large generators for converted plasma drills designed for military use. These weren't personal units, but ship-mounted models.

  The diagnostics monitor went black.

  * * *

  Drexler lifted his finger from the keypad. He'd switched off power to the storage unit monitors. The management tech on duty watched him with an expression of concern and confusion.

  He had to stay calm. He couldn't punch the screen like he wanted, couldn't scream at Technician Hart's inability to follow orders. He was in charge here, and he had to act like it.

  The plan was still good. Hart's diligence wasn't going to ruin anything.

  "Why don't you take a meal break," he said to the tech.

  "I'm not scheduled for another--"

  "Take a break," Drexler said, wondering if maybe he was the problem. Had something happened to his voice, that no one could follow his orders? "I'll cover for you."

  "Yes, sir." The young man swiveled out of his chair and scurried away.

  When the door slipped shut behind him, Drexler took his seat and settled in for the duration.

  Hart was complaining over the audio feed. "Control? Control? Drexler, are you there? The monitor just went dark. Did you see what was in there?"

  "Technician Hart, return to the sector airlock, please." He could talk to her better in person. In person, he could confine her to quarters.

  "Drexler, do you have any idea what's in that compartment? I wasn't even able to look inside them all--"

  "Never mind. Return to the sector airlock. Now."

  She knew. She'd figured it out. Covenant was sitting on enough weaponry to turn the station into a fortress. Illegally sitting on the weaponry, if he wanted to get technical. He didn't.

  Telemetry readings on her suit indicated she hadn't moved. She wasn't going toward the airlock. She was thinking. She was going to try to be a hero.

  Her beacon showed when she started to move. Drexler traced her--moving toward the station hub. Away from the airlock.

  He'd try this one more time. "Technician Hart, you are to report to the sector airlock."

  Nothing. Damn her, what did she think she could accomplish?

  "Technician Hart, please respond. What is the problem?"

  "No problem, sir."

  Then the comm cut off, as well as her telemetry reading. She'd manually cut off power to her suit's communications systems. He couldn't contact her, he couldn't trace her.

  He'd simply find her using the external visual monitors. He had other systems at his beck and call as well. Maintenance bots on the hull exterior, for example.

  Working in space was a dangerous business. Even with the most stringent precautions, accidents happened. Accidents happened all the time.

  He clicked a few commands into the computer and called up the manual control sequences for the maintenance bots.

  * * *

  Never mind the legality of having weapons aboard a station licensed for commercial and residential use, those storage units weren't shielded for large plasma cells. The radiation was leaking into the station. Two hundred settlers.

  If Drexler knew about the plasma generators, if Control itself was trying to keep it secret, then Covenant Station wasn't about building an independent trading colony. Drexler had other plans, and the techs and settlers were pawns. A cheap labor force.

  Clicking a set of buttons on the panel on the arm of her suit, she did a quick diagnostic. The suit data recorder was still working. She had the whole exchange on a chip. If Trade Guild saw what was in those storage units. . . .

  Two hundred lives. Trade Guild was the only organization with enough authority to find out what Drexler was doing with those weapons.

  Drexler expected her to reenter the station at the fourth sector arm airlock. Her target--where she had to end up if she was going to go through with this--was in the first sector ring living area. There, the Trade Guild liaison who supervised code compliance kept an office. That was a long way to go, across a two-kilometer-long station, outside. Time to see if her non-Trade Guild training was worth anything.

  She had two hours of air left. The easiest route would be to head toward the hub, then back out on the first sector arm. She'd have to walk, untethered, with mag boots, as the pounding of her heart filled her helmet.

  Taking steady breaths, she checked the boots' hold on the station's hull. She lifted each boot, re-placed it, bounced a little to test it. The magnetic grips stuck and released on cue. She unhooked the tether and let it recoil on its belt spool.

  Walking now, step by careful step, she kept her eye on Covenant's hub. The station spun on an axis, the ruddy surface of Mars arcing below, then away, as the rotation turned her view from the planet. She didn't look at the planet, didn't think of the station's movement. If she kept her eye on the hub, the station wasn't moving at all. Step by careful step. The airlock was behind her now.

  The hub would be the hardest part to cross. The massive cylinder bristled with docking tubes, antennae arrays, and maintenance portals. It would be like walking through a junk heap. On the other hand, the hub offered many means of access to the station's interior. She considered slipping into the station at the hub. It would be safer, getting inside as quickly as possible, then making her way to the ring. But inside, Drexler was much more likely to stop her. Just because she was no longer in communication with Control didn't mean he wasn't still tracking her. As soon as she entered the station, he'd know. The long trek it was, then.

  She paused at a flash of movement. A hull bot crossed her path, about twenty feet ahead. Hull bots, hemispherical machines about a foot in diameter, constantly swept the outside of the station, repairing micrometeor impact points. Other kinds of bots, programmed for basic external repairs, also traveled the station's surface. From another direction, a welder rolled toward her on its magnetic treads. It held its tool arm, bearing the nozzle of its torch, outstretched.

/>   The bots had optics, so their operators could visually monitor their work. Drexler had found her.

  She turned and walked away from the bot, one step at a time, letting her boots grip and release.

  Ahead, she spotted more movement, glinting as it flashed from shadow to sunlight, sliding from behind an array right in front of her. She gasped, startled, when its torch lit, jetting a finger of plasma.

  The two bots came toward her, forcing her back. When she tried to skirt around them, they tracked her, while a third, a cutter, surprised her from behind. Scuttling a slow two steps away, she dodged.

  Its laser cutter clipped her before she found shelter behind an antenna array. The dark line of a slice appeared in the leg of her suit. The cut was small, just through the two outer layers. The suit's material was tough, it would hold up until she got inside. Assuming she could, without taking more damage.

  Drexler wanted to kill her. She'd seen something she shouldn't have, of course he'd want to stop her. But kill her?

  Whenever she tried to move toward the first sector arm, a bot intercepted her. Drexler must have activated every one on the station.

  Rattled, she almost tripped on one of the automated hull bots.

  Taking hold of its edges, she lifted, struggling for a moment against the grip of its magnetic treads. Popping its control panel, she punched keys to shift power to the vacunamel spray nozzle.

  She pointed the underside of the hull bot at the nearest welder, and a spray of white hull enamel showered it. Keeping her arms rigid against the pressure, anchored by her mag boots, she aimed the bot until white paint covered the welder. The vacunamel completely masked the optics of the machine; it couldn't see her anymore. It stopped, its operator unable to guide it. She turned to the next bot and blinded it as well.

  More replaced them. She couldn't stop them all. Most of the hull bot's paint sprayed uselessly into empty space. Soon, it ran out. She released the bot, which tumbled away.

  The maintenance bots had cornered her and were herding her methodically toward the hub airlock. No doubt Drexler's security detail waited inside. As long as Drexler kept her on the hub, he knew exactly where she was, and it was only a matter of time before he caught her. She had to go someplace he wasn't expecting. She looked up.

  A great silver pathway, lined with running lights that flashed in the shadow while its sun side gleamed, lay above her.

  A thousand meters away, the ring arced overhead. The arms radiating to it were all blocked. She could get to the ring if she could launch herself. Calculate a trajectory to account for the station's spin, launch from a point that would send her to the mid-ring airlock between sectors one and two, shove off, and cruise through empty space. And if she overshot the ring? If her aim were a little off?

  She had a few moments before the bots surrounded her completely. Her mental calculations faltered--the physics of it were not that difficult, but she kept having to start over. Her speed--her speed in space, with nothing to hold onto. Insane. That was the conclusion of her calculations.

  She double-checked the sector markings. Between the first and second sector arms was the mid-ring airlock she wanted, the closest one to the Trade Guild office.

  Her suit gear included a pair of compressed air packs. One burst of air would give her the momentum she needed. Another to steer. As long as she paid attention, she wouldn't go off course. She wouldn't miss the ring and shoot into space, solving Drexler's problem for him. She took one of the packs off her belt, ready to use it.

  Crouching, she released the magnetic grips on her boots. Then she launched toward the ring, pushing against the hull as she stood.

  The hub fell away.

  * * *

  In retrospect, he marveled that it had never even been a question. Would he kill to protect himself, to protect the revenue represented by the contents of those storage units? He hadn't even stopped to consider. He'd just done it, and he felt a touch of pride that he'd acted with such certainty, with such single-minded purpose. Really, it hadn't been a choice at all. He was too far committed to not take such drastic action. To back down now would be to lose everything.

  Knowing that he would go so far to ensure the success of his plan made the next steps easier. He had no limits.

  The external monitors on the station hub had lost sight of Hart. She'd avoided the bots he'd sent after her, half of which were now flashing red warning lights indicating some kind of damage. More time and effort wasted. He'd have to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why that many bots would malfunction at once.

  Hart was the more immediate concern. Where had she gone? Where would she go? What did she think she was doing, running all over the hull exterior to avoid him? This was a closed station--where did she think she could hide? Did she think she could escape on a shuttle without him knowing? Impossible. If she'd guessed what he was doing and wanted to expose him, where would she go?

  Assuming her suit comm had recorded what she was able to see before he shut down the monitors, she'd try to get that information somewhere. Broadcast it maybe. That was easy enough to prevent. He keyed in an override on the station-wide comm system. Made some excuse about the system undergoing a diagnostic that required it being taken off line. That wasn't too much of a stretch, with all the maintenance issues Covenant had been having. No communications, intra-station or off station, were to be uploaded without his authorization.

  That wasn't Hart's only access to help, however. The Trade Guild kept an office on Covenant, to deal with bureaucratic nonsense. She might go there, to give the information to the Trade Guild. Then again, she was one of those independent spacer types. She might slit her own wrists before running to the Guild with a problem.

  Whether she did or didn't go to the Trade Guild office, Drexler couldn't afford to have the liaison find out about the secret cargo. That was the next step, then.

  He clicked on his comm and contacted the security detail. "I need someone to meet me at the Trade Guild office. Quietly, please."

  * * *

  She floated free, drifting, the station turning under her.

  She swallowed a lump of panic as all her instincts rebelled against her situation. All her training, all her experience told her she couldn't be safe in space unless she was anchored to something solid with a stable orbit or a decent propulsion system.

  She checked her target. So far, so good. As the hub grew smaller, so the surface of the ring grew larger, its running lights sliding past. The approaching airlock was just out of sight, around the curve of the ring, properly oriented with the artificial gravity. Its markings approached--too quickly. She was going to land far beyond the airlock.

  Battling inertia, she twisted her body, flailing like a landed eel, and turned so her back faced the ring. Her gut wrenched; she could no longer see the target. She wanted her whole body to take the force of the compressed air's propulsion and not have the pack rip out of her hand when she pushed the button. She held the air pack to her chest, double-checked that the air nozzle faced out, and pressed.

  She flew faster now.

  With luck, the monitors on the bots hadn't tracked her unexpected move--their optics were only designed to scan the hull--and Drexler wouldn't yet have found her on the station monitors. She should have just disappeared. Now, if only the risk she had taken wasn't too great.

  This was taking too long. She had too much time to think.

  She turned again, writhing. The ring, a hundred fifty feet across, slid past like a conveyor belt. This was going to be like jumping off a speeding car and hitting the ground.

  She gave another burst from the air pack, this time to change her direction, to parallel the ring. She had to match its velocity more closely, or she'd just ricochet off and fly into space. She used short bursts, and her path changed. She was still moving too slowly, the ring was moving too quickly. She'd hit hard. She had to be ready to hold on. In preparation, she reactivated her boots' grips. Making another adjustment to her position, sh
e put her feet in front of her and bent her knees.

  The ring hull filled her whole sky. She couldn't miss. She only had to keep from skipping off the surface.

  She held her breath, in preparation for getting it knocked out of her.

  Twenty feet. Ten feet. Five, four, three, two--

  Her boots hit and she rolled. She rolled fast. The grips didn't have time to catch hold, and her legs flailed above her, where the grips didn't do any good. She let go of the air pack.

  Bouncing around the curved surface of the ring, she scraped along the metal hull. Had to catch hold, or she'd keep going.

  Her shoulder snagged on something. A ladder railing. She reached out both hands. Her gloves brushed protrusions, but the force of her fall kept yanking them away.