for the lift to his private quarters.
“Like I haven’t seen it all before.”
“What was that?” Chim called over his shoulder.
“Nothing. Order received, execution proceeds.”
“That’s what I thought you said.” Chim entered the lift tube. The floor plate dropped, lowering him to the deck his quarters were on. In space, the lift plates were secured. Localized graviton emitters maintained artificial gravity everywhere else. The shafts were kept at zero gee so an experienced spacer could literally fly between decks, keeping null-grav skills sharp. Chim stepped off the lifting disc and went back to his quarters.
The lights were low. The walls were a soft series of blue shades. The floor consisted of heated tiles. The furniture was functional and low, an oriental style. One entire wall was filled in with digital monitors, forming one vast screen. There were racks along another wall lined with antique Japanese anime videos. Sometimes, Chim felt as if he, too, were an anime hero who followed a script conceived by madmen.
He returned to his shower, letting the hot water sluice over him. It was nearly scalding. He closed his eyes, lifting his head, breathing in the steam; somehow, becoming a little more real. He lathered, rinsed, and stepped out onto a pressure sensitive vent that dried him with warm jets of air.
Returning to his sleeping chamber, Chim found a servo-unit standing on spidery legs, laying out a fresh body-sheath. He dressed quickly, then called for Elissa. Just cause she’s not watching doesn’t mean she’s not listening. The Elissa personality can be a bit obsessive, definitely high-maintenance.
She answered, “Yeah, Boss?”
“How long ‘til we get to the trade port?”
“I’m making sub-orbital approach now, with one eye on the orbital platform—ten minutes.”
“Call ahead,” Chim directed. “Have the base commander and the trade envoy at my disposal. I’ll want to talk to them. Also, as of now, no ships are to leave port. It’s closed until I say otherwise.”
“Affirmative. Placing calls. Anything else?”
“Deliver two well-nuked eggs, wheat toast smeared with some butter-like substance, half a syntha-steak, a cup of coffee, and half a carafe of reconstituted orange juice—California style.”
“Order received, execution proceeds.”
“Oh, put some music on, twenty-first century prog-rock. It helps me think.”
“Any particular artist or song?”
Chim paused for a moment. “Something by Marshmallow Pigeons.”
He entered his living room and settled onto floor cushions. Hidden speaker vibrated, unleashing a storm of koto notes in a wrapping of chimy ambivalence. A synth attack slashed through the confusion. Drums fell in, and sizzling guitar riffs followed. Wispy female vocals completed the sound. Chim let the lyrics trip across his brain while his sub-conscious mind worked on the problems at hand.
Grasping every chance,
hearts of ice splinter and dance.
Lunar silver, midnight blue,
It’s time to dream something new
A promise we can never keep
Calls to us from our gentle sleep.
One song blended into another until an alert pulled Chim out of his abstraction.
“We’re beginning our landing approach,” Elissa reported. “The tower report a formal reception has been hastily prepared. I’m tapping into the base’s vid system. Two of the men waiting on us match files for the commander and the envoy you wanted to see.”
“Anything in those files I should know about?”
“The envoy is Marcus Wyngate. His family owns half the mining in this sector. He has a joint major in political science and xeno-geology.”
“The commander was promoted backwards--advanced in rank and assigned here, a nowhere post, no official reason given. He probably said the wrong thing to someone’s wife at a dinner party.”
“Hmmm. I’ll go pile into an exo-suit at the air lock. Go in fast, open our weapon ports as we descend, and keep an eye on the grounded ships. The guilty know who they are. I want to rattle them if I can. We have a reputation for knowing what can’t be known and doing what can’t be done. Let’s see if we can spook a guilty reaction out of someone who’d rather grab space than sit next to us, waiting for arrest.”
“Sure thing, Boss. This is my kind of game. No one is scheduled to lift for days, so anyone getting clear will be doing so in defiance of port regulations. That will be reason enough to burn ‘em from the sky.”
“Like you need a reason. Try to be merciful.” Chim left his quarters. “Disable if possible. He reached the lift tube. Its plate carried him to the engineering level. A brisk walk brought him to the main air lock. The room was a large vault with various weapon racks along the walls, and several exo-suits, hanging open in formation.
Chim dressed, then flowed cat-like through a brief but comprehensive series of stretches. The suit responded to his will as designed, ready to supply ultra-human strength and speed upon demand.
Elissa’s voice came to him almost immediately, “Chim!”
“Yes, Elissa.”
“We have a runner, the Silverwynd, a tramp freighter out of Tyco Colony, Luna registration. I’ve ordered them back to port. They’re ignoring my transmission. I’m firing a warning pulse. No good. Their shields are extra-hot. They turned my beam. That shouldn’t have happened. We have in-coming missiles, light stuff. Our shields will brush it off.”
“Burn the ship, Elissa. Don’t take chances.”
“Launching hell-bore missiles. The freighter’s shields are incandescent but still holding. I don’t know how a ship that size can put out that much power. I’m adding graviton and nova beams to the mix, Boss. That should—sacred bovine!”
“What is it?” Chim asked.
“The ship’s blown apart. Whatever strange power-source they were utilizing turned on them with a vengeance.”
“The Jinn’s burst its bottle.”
“Say huh?”
“Never mind. Take us on down. I feel like I’m close to wrapping this business up.”
The IMPERIAL DRAGON set down without further delay. The landing was smooth. Cradled in his exo-suit, Chim barely noticed. A green light glowed over the hatch door, indicating—a pressurized seal had been made against the hull.
“All right, Elissa. I’m going out.”
“Right, Boss. Give ‘em heck in a hand basket on hover-skates.”
The air lock’s outer door cycled open. Chim found himself at the rim of an accordion-style conduit that kept out wind and dust. Its glow indicated that an induction field was lending structural integrity. Chim stepped out onto the catwalk that threaded the conduit. Traveling its length, he entered the terminal.
Nervous smiling faces and panicked eyes greeted his arrival. It was his usual reception. Among the dignitaries, a lovely young woman smiled shyly, with genuine warmth. She offered him a riotous bouquet of hybrid flowers. He accepted them with a slight inclination of his visored helmet and moved on to the uniformed men.
The base commander saluted briskly. “Welcome to Hera, Sir. You will find our facilities at your disposal. If there’s anything I can do…”
“Here.” Chim handed him the flowers. “Do something with these.”
The commander stared at the bouquet as if he’d just been handed Medusa’s head. His face grew ashen and damp. The white mustachio he sported bristled with suppressed emotion. He launched a sidewise glare that prompted a junior officer into motion. “I’ll take those,” the aide said,
“and have them sent to your room.”
“I doubt I’ll be here long enough to need a room, but the gesture is appreciated.”
“If I might ask,” a tall man with dead black eyes, wearing civilian clothes, stepped forward, “What’s an Imperial Guardsman doing on Hera. We’ve reported no problems that require the attention of an x-class agent.”
“And you are?” Chim asked.
“Marcus Wyngate, Envoy to Her
a.”
“I thought so. To answer your question, there are irregularities in this system that require my presence.”
“What irregularities?” the commander asked.
“Like the ship I just blew apart at the seams. Surely, you noticed their recent destruction?” Chim wasn’t above taking credit for the victory. Such things enhanced his legend, making it a better tool.
“Yes, I certainly did. I’ll need a statement from you for my official report…”
“No. You will make no report. The matter is classified. Just go about your usual routine. I will enlist personnel as needed while here.” Chim pushed on. The crowd parted. He was soon alone since no one dared follow him.
He called Elissa, “You have a floor plan for the terminal?”
“Of course, it’s the standard design of all Imperium ports.”
“Okay, how do I get inside the tower? I need to check all filed flight plans for the last few hours—see where those sleds came from.”
“The bad guys have probably erased that data by now.”
“You’re probably right, but even that needs confirmation. It will limit our search to those with tower access. Every piece of data we gather adds to the total picture.”
“If you say so, Boss. Take the next right … go straight for twenty meters … and look for a door that says: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Oh, by the way, you’ve picked up an electronic tag.”
Chim paused and checked himself out. Clinging to the bottom hem of his cape was a small transponder. “Got it. I think I’ll keep it active, let whoever’s keeping track of me think he’s getting away with it.”
“Not the safest way to play it,” Elissa commented.
“Sometimes, you have to take a calculated risk or two to win the prize.” He found the door. It was sealed, requiring a pass card. As Elissa override the lock, a musical series of tones played in his ear. As they died down, the red light on the door panel turned green. Chim tried the door, knowing it would open.
He entered an area with both stairwell and elevator available, and took the lift. It carried him up to a large octagonal chamber. The walls were lined with digital screens, showing views of all tower approaches except for the direction occupied by the terminal and the base itself. The tower was quiet, most of the work being done automatically. Only a few techs were present. He ordered them to leave.
They were redundant at the moment; the port received few visitors,
and now had even less to do with Chim’s ship taking up three of the landing aprons. An imposing spherical mass, the IMPERIAL DRAGON bullied the remaining civilian ship through sheer presence. Chim wasn’t concerned that his ship might suddenly be targeted for fire by one of the smaller vessels; no one was that stupid.
“Elissa?”
“Yes, Chim.”
“Tap the tower’s cyber-core. I need the OPS log and all communication records downloaded. Also look for signs that someone other than duty personnel have recently accessed this data or deleted key files.”
“It’s easier to just grab everything and sort it out later.”
“Fine. Just get me some answers.”
“Aye, aye, sir! Order received. Execution proceeds.”
The tower went mad. Monitors were flooded with flashing tiers of computer code, spewing data faster than any human eye could follow. Varicolored instrument panels flashed through complex sequences, in full cybernetic seizure.
“Chim, get out of there, quick!” Elissa’s magnified voice filled his head with urgency. He spun and threw himself toward the returning lift without delay or debate. He trusted Elissa to have a reason for this urgency. She was his partner; his life often depended on her covering his back. He tossed himself into the car. The doors closed behind him. Overriding the controls, Elissa dropped the lift much faster than it was designed to operate.
“Okay,” Chim said. “What’s going on?”
“Incoming missile…”
The sound of an explosion reached him, drowning out the rest of the message. The car shuddered and locked in place. “Don’t tell me,” Chim said, “the remaining ship fired on the tower. They were guilty as well, just had better nerves.”
“Right, Boss. Top of the tower’s gone, Boss. So is the power to the lift—no breaks either. If it weren’t for the weight of the cage being balanced against the suction of the windstorm, the cage would have crashed by now.”
“My own weight in this exo-suit is not negligible. If I leave, the balance will be broken. The cage will be drawn up the shaft and into the wind stream. I’d be next.”
“No other choice, Chim. You can’t stay there forever, and we really can’t waste the time it would take for rescuers to pull you out.”
“What happened to the automatic pressure seals above us that should have closed off the shaft?” he asked.
“Disabled. Sabotaged. I’m trying to bring them back on line but …
nothing yet.”
“Hmmm. Well, there should be time to drop out the bottom of the cage and reach a lower service hatch before the cage is pulled all the way up the shaft. The cage is a pretty good plug.”
“Timing will be critical,” Elissa said. “If the cage is pulled free while the lower service hatch is open, not only will you go, but a good section of the base will suffer explosive decompression. The saboteur was clumsy. He disabled the tower pressure seals by disabling all of the pressure seals everywhere.”
“I could leave my exo-suit and its weight behind, but that would blow the secret of x-class agents. As you said, Elissa, there’s really only one choice: I had better be fast.”
He crouched on the floor, his left hand extended, fingers splayed wide to clear the ruby crystal embedded in the suit’s palm. “Okay, Elissa, direct beam some power to my cutter. I need to take out a section of the floor quickly.”
A thin beam of energy, a few centimeters wide, leaped from the crystal lens in his palm. It bit into the steel plate underfoot with a fan of sparks, raising a small haze of bluish smoke. The beam cut out a rough square. The plate fell away, and Chim went down the shaft after it.
The drop wasn’t serious. Chim’s exo-suit took it in stride. Besides, falling was the fastest way to reach the service hatch at the bottom. His feet hit the concrete floor which webbed with cracks on impact. Chim’s suit absorbed the impact energy so he barely felt it. He left the transponder planted on him earlier. When the shaft cleared, the wind would whisk it away, and his enemies would believe him dead.
“That last ship?” Chim asked, reaching the hatch.
“Climbing for orbit. I’m on their ass. Missiles ready. Shall I—?”
“By all means. While you kill the body, I’ll locate its head.” Chim opened the hatch, sprang through it and pulled the door back in place. As he attempted to dog the hatch, the pressure on the other side changed. Reaching the top, the cage was sucked away by a maelstrom of winds. He braced a foot against the bulkhead for extra leverage, hearing a soft metal scream as his suit’s joints protested the strain.
“It’s no good, Chim. You can’t hold it, not against that kind of pressure.”
“I must … I … will…or lives will be lost. Only need … to move lever … another … centimeter. Ahhhhhgh!”
“Chim? Chim!”
“Did it,” he gasped, “but … damaged the suit. Controls have gone sloppy as Hell on a … Saturday night. Still,” he focused a universe of pain as the neural interfaces fluctuated polarity, washing him in feedback, “I can hold things together long enough to tie up … loose ends.” He gritted his teeth, feeling sweat gather as the temperature regulators failed completely.
“You sure?” Elissa asked.
“Yeah. Where’s the commander and Wyngate.”
“Just a minute. With the tower gone, I have to access public areas through a remote patch into the security network. I’m also scanning personal monitor systems, keeping the deactivated screens dark so no one will know I’ve been peeking. “Ah! Wyngate’s on the mess deck—bei
ng very public, very calm, sipping coffee while alarms shriek. Base personnel are running frantically about. The commander is in his office. He’s alone, having a shot of synthahol.”
“Check Wyngate’s private office. A scion of privilege should have his own coffee mess.”
There was a pause, then, “You’re right Chim. He’s either meeting someone, or setting up an alibi.”
“Or he’s doing both. Keep an eye on him. I’m going to see who is surprised I’m still alive.”
Chim moved down the corridor. His gait was a broken thing. He moved slower and found he could disguise the damage a little. Long as I’m not running any race soon, I can manage. The suits self-repair systems are very basic, but they should be able to reconfigure circuit paths past the worst of the damage.
Moving carefully, he reached the end of the corridor. It opened into a machinery space. A flight of stairs there led to a locked door on the higher landing. He had Elissa override the electronic lock, and stepped out into a main corridor of the base. Repairmen in coveralls ran by, sparing him only startled glances, not knowing where he’d come from.
“Which way, Elissa?”
“To the commander’s office? Next right, third door to the left.”
“Fine.” Chim reached the commander’s door. There was a desk just outside it but no one was there to bar his way. “The lock, Elissa.”
There was a small clicking sound. “Got it, Boss.”
He went in, took a few steps, and lurched to a stop. The commander turned from a digital window to face him. “Oh, so it’s you. Come to preside over my execution? I thought I was doing a good job here. I thought hard work would eventually be rewarded, and I’d be recalled from limbo.”
The commander pulled out his chair and collapsed in it. He poured himself another drink. He drained it slowly, savoring the flavor. “Native brew,” he said. “Makes this job barely tolerable. Have some?” He extended a blue-green hand-blown bottle with some dark liquid splashing around inside. “What’s it take to be forgiven one small indiscretion?” he asked.
Chim sub-vocalized a comment to Elissa. “There’s nothing so ugly as a man without hope.”
Agent X Page 5