Spinward Fringe Broadcast 6: Fragments

by Randolph Lalonde

  "Do you have a personal data device of some kind?"

  Ayan held up her wrist so the official could see her command and control unit. It announced that it had received a new file a moment later and when Ayan opened it she found her new privateering licence. A drawer came out from the wall and Ayan picked up the contents. The stack of cards had their identification on the top, Carthan registration for every ship, and a scrolling copy of the privateering licence. Each data card allowed her to scroll through all the information contained within. “Those are your secure slips. They can only be written once, and will make a record of how often they’re copied. Keep your originals. Thank you for appearing at the Office of the Governor. Good luck.”

  Ayan smiled back as she handed out the three identification cards at the top of the stack. "Thank you, now that that's-"

  The official's image began to retreat back into the wall.

  "Oi!" Ayan exclaimed, irritated.

  The image reappeared. "Is there something else?"

  "Yes. I need landing permits so my ships can make port in a proper facility.”

  “You have all the clearance you need in your hand. Each of those registry slips is also a permit, as well as your official Carthan identification. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Can I rent or lease hangar space for my ships here?”

  “I’m sorry, the Greydock Port Authority won’t be able to help you with that because you don’t have a visa.”

  “Right. Do you know where I can buy supplies and food?"

  "I'm afraid you can't buy them on Greydock without a war time purchaser's permit."

  "How do I get one?"

  "I can start the process for you, but you won’t be able to use the purchasers permit without a visa."

  Ayan tried not to look frustrated, but the tightness in her voice betrayed her. "Where else can I buy food?"

  "Port Rush is the nearest free port, a lot of pira-, I mean privateers operate from there. If you can get off world you can find better places, but my brother-in-law has often said things are only getting worse in the nearby systems, but I wouldn’t believe everything he says, he was telling me just the other day that there are cannibals on Aquil, and issyrians who walk around in their native form on Krouper," the officer cringed.

  "Where's the nearest transport leaving for Port Rush?"

  The official fixed her with a look of confusion and irritation. "How am I supposed to know?"

  Ayan exhaled slowly and nodded. "Thank you for your help," she said, keeping her composure as best as she could.

  "You’re welcome. Enjoy your stay in Greydock and good luck." The image of the official disappeared again and Ayan stepped out of the petitioner's divot.

  "If they ever start issuing hunting licences for beaurocrats, count me in," Victor muttered.

  Ayan nodded. "They have a talent for testing patience. At least we finally have a licence to go after Order and Regent ships and permission to move our ships. I think it was too easy though. It wouldn’t have been difficult for me to steal a ship from a small space station somewhere and just declare it my own once I got here."

  “I know I don’t have experience at your level of leadership, Commander, but I think it just shows how desperate they are. Maybe they just can’t afford to turn anyone down, even a potential ship thief,” Jenny offered.

  "You’re probably right. I think I’m going to watch for a catch in all this though, there’s got to be a downside.”

  "I call this a win," Laura encouraged.

  “Aye, one that could lead to something bigger later," Ayan agreed with a curt nod.

  "So, back to the wastes?" Victor asked.

  "No, we're going to Port Rush."

  Chapter 20

  Open Ground

  Shadows played across the widening central corridors of the Triton. The emergency lights in that section had been deactivated, and Major Cumberland wasn’t about to order any of his people to try to change it. Attempting to interface with the ship’s computer, or to activate systems aboard had proven fatal for many soldiers in different parts of the ship. Cumberland’s men had been fortunate and intelligent, learning from the example of other soldiers.

  His lamp illuminated the floor in front of him, where he could see lines indicating the proper direction for evacuees to take in order to get down to the hangar decks. He tried to shake the eerie feeling that there were no civilians left. They were facing dedicated volunteers, some of whom could disappear whenever they liked.

  “Movement!” Called a sensor officer behind him.

  Cumberland looked at the small display on his rifle and saw what he was referring to. With a quick hand signal, his remaining forty-two men and women dropped into a phalanx with the front row kneeling and the second row standing with rifles at the ready. He was right behind them with the sensor officer, and watched his own copy of the sensor feed. It was a small blip, and as he focused in he saw it was a small cleaning bot, buffing its way along the hallway ahead. “False alarm, move up.” Cumberland ordered quietly.

  Loman’ group split into a room to their left, while Mazurek’s went right. According to the sonic sensors, they would be long work rooms. Major Cumberland instructed everyone else to keep watch in the hallway, they were just about to reach one of the main express lift access points, according to the intelligence he’d received from Command.

  After several minutes both groups returned from the rooms. “Just a fine finishing, manufacturing and repair shop, sir. Looks like a lot of the ship’s bots come from this place,” Sergeant Loman reported.

  “Same on this side,” Sergeant Mazurek agreed.

  “All right, seal them up,” Cumberland ordered.

  Soldiers applied several centimetres of grey material to the edges of the doors and lit one end. With a flash the doors were welded shut.

  The group moved ahead quietly.

  “I’ve got motion again, same as last time only there were a few blips and then it stopped,” complained the scanning officer.

  “How many are a few, Private?” asked Mazurek.

  “I don’t know, four? Five? Just up ahead.”

  Cumberland played the last few seconds back and spotted it. “Same size, reading above. All right, move forward, keep your eyes peeled.” The whole group moved ahead, everyone watching all sides.

  “Scanner’s getting low, sonic scanning is killing the cells,” reported the scanning officer.

  “Someone give him a reserve pack.”

  “This wouldn’t be a problem if these things still came with an AI to manage them. Can’t distinguish between a kitten and a Goddamn hungry edxi.”

  “Quit yer’ bitchin’ and mind the scanner,” Sergeant Mazurek ordered. “And keep forwarding scans.”

  “Manual forwarding, it’s like the first era all over again. Maybe I should strap some floodlights to my helmet and shout back whatever I’m seeing from point. I’d be faster, tell you that much.”

  “I said can it.”

  They arrived at the end of the corridor and fanned out. The walkway there widened so eight of them could walk abreast, but it looked even larger with the transparent wall and three meter high ceiling. Through the transparent wall they could see three heavy, thirty-five degree tracks for cargo and heavy machinery elevators. Two were angled up from aft to fore, the other one was angled opposite, and from what Cumberland could see in the dim, yellow emergency lighting that lined the tracks, there were several places where the heavy cars would be able to slip sideways. Above and below the heavy tracks were many others, for a network of smaller personnel lifts. If these were safe, we could get anywhere in the ship in seconds. He watched the space for a moment longer before he was satisfied that there was no activity to see. The hallway stretched to his right and left, and in the dim light he could just barely make out another hall on the other side of the tracks.

  “It’s like a space station,” someone behind him murmured.

  “Ah, not much different from on
e of the Enforcer Battlecruisers, only it’s not so cramped,” replied Loman.

  “It’s plenty different, stay alert,” Cumberland replied.

  They moved down the hallway towards where he knew there would be a lift access. When he saw the block of doors he opened a channel; “Command, I’m coming up on the deck eight access point now. What are your orders?”

  “Hold there, we’re getting a few lifts on line and need you to secure that area.”

  “Acknowledged.” A sound above caught his attention.

  “Motion! Everywhere!” Called the sensor officer.

  Cumberland batted an eight legged bot off his shoulder as he looked at the writhing ceiling above. There were buffer, sanitizer, repair and other bots he didn’t recognize covering the surface. Several of his men opened fire, reducing several at a time to a rain of metal and plastic shrapnel.

  Several functioning bots landed on him and he shook them off. None attempted to harm him, in fact, they scurried away as soon as they hit the deck. Without hesitation he whirled towards the scanning officer and was about to grab his hand scanner when it was whipped out of his grip by something else, someone in a cloak suit. “The bots are a distraction!”

  The hand scanner disappeared, and as Cumberland tried to get a clear shot, the tip of a nanonosaw blade came though the officer’s back. It was drawn through his side in the next instant as though the man was made of water, and his armour was air. Cumberland opened fire, hitting the scanning officer twice, but scoring several hits against his attacker.

  What followed was bedlam. An invisible hand pulled Faltia straight out of the group and used him as a shield as they fired their heavy pulse rifles and sidearms at the crowd of soldiers. One of the cloak suited attackers’ suits failed after he’d been shot several times and, instead of retreating, the nafalli seemed to go berserk. He grabbed one of Cumberland’s men by the helmet and hurled him over his shoulder while he slashed at several others with his nanosaw blade, nearly cutting one in half at the waist.

  The beastly alien didn’t last long, but he managed to distract half of Cumberland’s men so Sturges and Mazurek were both killed by the time they regained focus, the first was decapitated while the other was riddled with pulse rifle rounds.

  “Phalanx! Phalanx against the wall! Now! Now! Now!” Cumberland cried as he either found a new depth of desperation or regained his clarity for a moment. They group fell back against the wall, half dropping to one knee and firing in a fanning pattern, while the others remained standing, adding to the cover fire until they saw a real target, which they’d focus on until they were sure it was dead.

  A flash went off, not impeding their shielded sight for more than half a second, but he could hear his communicator reset. Alarmed, he pulled out his emergency hand scanner and saw the screen had frozen in the reset phase. The enemy had dropped an electromagnetic charge on them.

  When he looked up he was pleased to see five enemy soldiers, not including the nafalli, laying motionless on the deck. The cover fire caught another in the back, making him visible for a split second. It was enough time for Cumberland to get several more shots off on the target, striking her in the waist, up the back and finally several times in the back of the head.

  They managed to kill nine more before it was over, but had managed to take no prisoners. Cumberland took a quick, silent head count and realized that they had lost twenty-four people, including Sergeant Mazurek. “Command, we’ve defeated an enemy stealth squad. The eighth deck lifts are secure. Only our comms and rifle sights are working, they dropped an EMP and killed our scanning equipment.”

  “We see that, Major. Won’t be able to get you re-provisioned or reinforced at the moment. Please hold there and keep those lift doors secure. Will keep you appraised of progress on repairs.”

  Chapter 21

  Port Rush

  Ayan wasn't the only one disappointed that there was a heavy locked gate made of hundreds of interlocking metal circles in front of what the signs said was the City Central Transit Hub. Six armed guards stood in front of the ornate barrier, with a temporary sign at their feet that said; ‘Carthan Citizens or Visa Carriers ONLY.’ A pair of men in clothing typical of planet bound people, cloth pants and loosely fit, front sealing shirts, approached the barrier and the metal circles slid to the side so they could pass.

  Everyone in Ayan’s group wanted to take a look at the great city they glimpsed at the top of the Greydock tower, or at least get a chance to see some of the cities built inside the place's massive girth. The journey for the foursome was boring in comparison to what Greydock promised; down in one lift that looked over used and under washed, through a checkpoint that barely paid attention to them at all after they provided their identification and then into a causeway where non-descript, tubular, twenty eight man planetary people carriers waited. They found one with peeling grey and violet paint waiting with PORT RUSH scrolling down its length in bright green letters.

  The seats were set in pairs facing forward for the most part, with a few lined up against the sides. Laura fixed Ayan with a wary look as she strapped herself in with a provided seat belt. They only had to wait a few minutes before the vehicle detached from its moorings, rocking to the right, and with a low grind the nose tipped downward slightly as it rushed forward through an opening in the side of the upper city wall. From the tops of the seat up, the hull became transparent, including the roof, which provided a view of the dull grey sky. The only bulkhead they couldn’t see through was the front, where Ayan assumed the cockpit would be.

  The four passengers sharing the rear of the people mover with them were all dressed in long, high collared scroll worked jackets. Their casual demeanour suggested that they had taken the trip often. Their heads were down, looking at an interactive screen only they could see somewhere above their laps.

  She couldn't blame them. The hard, worn seats and the travel stained shuttle certainly weren’t worth attention, neither was the view. Ayan caught sight of a ruined city built against the bottom edge of Greydock’s wall. There were only a few buildings over twenty stories, and a few structures left around them. As they continued to turn around the city the shapes of two ancient ships imbedded in the ground became visible. Their gutted hulls looked skeletal, and they had been eaten by decades, perhaps centuries of corrosion. "I wonder how long ago that happened?"

  "Long ago, end of the Expansion Age,” said a female traveller who was focusing on an image that was invisible to everyone but her. She had an accent Ayan couldn’t place.

  “Was there a war here?”

  "No. They say the crew was infected by the Omni virus, and died. With no one to pilot, they fell out of orbit. Ships were so well made that they survived the atmosphere," an older woman said as though she enjoyed telling the tale. “Others say those are old colony ships. Sank over time.”

  “What do you think?”

  “This moon eats a lot of things, why not a ship or two?”

  "Thank you..."

  "Emshi," the traveller answered, finally looking up. Her eyes were both old style bionic implants and looked more like bright green lenses than human eyeballs.

  Ayan shook her hand and smiled. "We just got here, looking for food and supplies for some refugees."

  "You'll find it in Port Rush if you have the GC or Carthan credit, never know what form it'll come in though. I've never seen your type of armour before. Are you some kind of soldier?"

  "Independents."

  "Ah, hope there are a lot of you, otherwise you’re going to want to get in with a crowd. No one lives long here without someone behind them, helps if it’s someone everyone knows. Be careful."

  "Thank you. Do you know where I should enquire about food?"

  " Port Rush Authority used to facilitate trade, but the Carthan Government didn't bother rebuilding the office after it was bombed, so everything comes through Mackey Exchange now.”

  “What about docking fees and landing assignments?”

  “Well,
navnet still directs, but if you want some space on the ground you'll have to trade for it like everything else. New Government doesn't have the people to regulate Port Rush operations on the ground, so you'll have to be ready to trade high for every meter.”

  “How does that not lead to chaos?” Asked Laura.

  “It's a different kind of order. Instead of one Port Master, there are several competing ones. Everyone who works in Port Rush has gotten used to it. You'll see once you read the Mackey Exchange. They're the only thing that helps people like you make sense of the place. There are data sheets posted everywhere."

  "Posted?" Ayan probed further.

  "You'll know them when you see them."

  "If you don't mind me asking, what brings you to Port Rush?"

  "I'm a kind of..." Emshi thought a moment then smiled. "...social worker."

  "Ayan, look," Laura said quietly as she looked over her shoulder.

  She turned in her seat as they cleared the top of a mountain and saw Port Rush stretch out ahead. It was a teeming metropolis huddled against the concave curve of a tall mountain range. Several of the buildings themselves were built like slanted fins fanning out from the tallest mountain, their sloped edges were broad enough for the jungle to grow as high, long parks, with darkened reflective transparesteel windows beneath. Several other buildings closer to the sandy shore were shaped like waves with gently sloped roofs that were just as well forested. Other buildings, most of which were slanted in the same directions, weren’t as well designed, but many had transplanted jungle atop. Whole blocks of older buildings seemed to be coated with brown and green, giving some of the older parts of the city the look of being assailed by moss or thick, intrusive vines.