by Sandra Bard
"Why didn't you just ask Marion to move?" Tyler asked.
"Because it'll take too long to move something this large, and the pirates would know of the plan by then. The Space Cannon Fleet takes time to get into position and—"
"You're not moving Marion," Tyler said softly. "You're going to shoot her out of the sky."
"It's a choice of priority and—"
"Fuck you!"
"Look," Hideki said. "You all have to leave. ISF will bring the Cannon Fleet and will shoot it—and it won't matter if Marion is empty or not. Marion will be a civilian station caught in the crossfire, and no one will even care."
There was a pause.
"Why are you telling me this?" Tyler asked.
"Because you need to get your people out. From what I see, the station isn't under run. No one looks like they want to leave."
"Florence has been running this place rather well. She started pulling most of the weight before Manning died. He just wasn't up to the job, and she was—is—so damn good at what she does."
"So," said Hideki, "now you know the situation, you need to—"
"That's not a call I can make." Tyler held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Give me some time with Florence. I'll talk to her, and we'll come up with a plan."
"I don't see how—"
"You owe me that much."
"For drugging me?"
"For saving your life out there."
Tyler had a point. Hideki nodded, mouth set in a grim line, and stepped back.
"You have two weeks." Hideki had no intention of holding back the evacuation, he was in fact going to bring the date forward. He had far too much to lose. He was, however, going to let Tyler think he had time and meanwhile call for the evacuation ships.
"Just one question," Tyler said, pausing at the doorway. "Why this small pirate base, why this out of the way corner, when you could have picked any other, bigger base?"
THEN
"I'm sorry about your mother," the ISF representative, a tall dark woman in a stiff ISF uniform, told him the moment he entered the room.
Kaishi looked at Mark, restrained, seated at the table, and walked over slowly to sit down beside him. Kaishi had been detained in security three times as they'd searched him. For what, he didn't even know. Mark, arrested by Earth security, had no need to worry about such things like surprise cavity searches. He'd been whisked away as soon as they'd been rescued from the cramped airlock on the Luna base. This was the first time Kaishi was seeing him since the incident. Mark looked his age, his pale skin even paler, eyes bloodshot, face drawn.
Kaishi knew how to act. His mother had taught him well. He turned to Mark and nodded. "How are you? Are they treating you well?"
The ISF woman's mouth tightened, but she allowed Mark to reply.
"The food's alright," Mark said, "but my bones just aren't used to all this gravity." He grimaced at Kaishi. "You'd better listen to them."
Kaishi looked at the woman and pulled out a chair. "Do you have any proof she's dead?"
"We came across the escape vessel the … er … Atlas procured from the Luna base—and before you ask, we tracked it easily enough, since it belonged to us." She looked at Kaishi with just the right amount of pity to make him want to hit her. "We didn't find your mother, but we did find enough blood inside to assert that no one who'd bled that much could have survived, not without a transfusion."
"She has the next-gen nanites—"
"It wouldn't have saved her."
"Are you sure the blood is Mayor Yamato's?" Mark asked, speaking for the first time to the ISF representative directly.
"Yes. We know what to test for when we find …" She stopped short and suddenly smiled at Kaishi, a small, apologetic smile that had him on edge more than anything else. "Human remains."
"Why am I here?" Kaishi asked. They could have sent him a message about his mother's death, not called him over in person.
"I know it's not a good time right now, but we have to let you know ISF and the Earth government are taking legal action against you."
"Me! What … Why …" Kaishi spluttered in disbelief.
"Given a choice, we would have liked to sue your mother, but since she's dead—"
"How very inconvenient for you," Mark mumbled under his breath.
"We have to take action against your family. These charges includes reckless endangerment of lives, the numerous deaths at the illegal arms exhibition, the unlawful confinement of human beings, the unethical experiments—"
"ISF was also present at the demo," Kaishi said. "So—"
"What do you need, Nadeeka?" Mark asked in weary voice.
"What makes you think she needs anything?" Kaishi asked Mark.
"You're here, speaking to her on a one on one basis, not being taken away in chains. So ISF is going to give us a deal … I wonder what?"
"We do have the location of Atlas," Nadeeka told Kaishi. "We have the means to destroy his base and his followers in one blow using the Space Cannon Fleet, if it weren't for one small obstruction."
Kaishi kept his mouth shut.
"Why do you want Atlas dead?" Mark asked. "Why now?"
"Since his upgrade, he's almost unbeatable," Nadeeka said. "I know, Dr. Stevenson, that you believe your process to be unreplicable, but we want to make sure not even a part of it will be reproduced. Tell me you don't see the danger of that much tech in the hands of one person."
Mark remained silent and Kaishi realized perhaps there was validity in that claim. Super powered space pirates were every person's nightmare.
"So where do I come in?" Kaishi asked. "Do you want funds? I have to tell you Luna base is not—"
"The only problem between us and a successful mission is a pirate-run space station called Grand Adventure. We need someone to go and shut down that base of operation. At the moment, it's posing as a civilian space station, with a few civilians—"
"Prisoners?"
"That we don't know. Maybe they don't know they're on a pirate-run base, either." "We want you to go there. Evacuate the station so there will be no collateral damage when the base is shot down."
"Why me?"
"We would have thought you'd be eager to take down the person who killed your mother."
"Petty revenge," Mark sniffed from his chair. "This isn't a space saga."
"Because the Space Cannon Fleet is already on its way," Nadeeka said. "Very soon, it will be too big to hide and the window of opportunity we have to fire the cannons once they're in range is very small. Space cannons take time to charge. If it were to fire once and miss, there wouldn't be another chance."
"So you need to evacuate the station fast," Kaishi said. "Why haven't you done so before?"
"Because we only found out where Atlas was hiding very recently. We need someone to get there before the Space Cannon Fleet does and evacuate the space station." She shrugged and looked slightly miffed. "We have sent three messages and one representative, the last before the Space Cannon set off—we even had an inside man in the space station who was ready to evacuate, but he's being silent, and our agent returned a failure. Turnbull was forcefully removed from the space station. We're lucky he wasn't killed."
"How much time is left?" Kaishi asked.
"Three weeks to get there."
"Where is it?"
"SA 148, Spiral Archway Three."
"Impossible," Mark said while Kaishi reached for his info-disk.
He studied the reading for a little while and shook his head. "I don't think it's going to work," he said. "There's no way I can reach there in time."
"Actually …" Nadeeka sounded extremely smug as she spoke. "There is a way. While Dr. Stevenson has been interested in biotech upgrading human bodies, ISF has been doing some upgrades to our engines."
"You have something that'll travel that distance in that amount of time?" Mark sounded awed. "But surely it's just a prototype. If you'd fitted a space liner with it, then we'd have heard of it, even on the Luna base."
"We
have outfitted the engines to small fighters." Nadeeka looked like she was personally responsible for the failure to outfit large spaceships with this new engine. "They are still in the testing stage, and in our initial tests, the pilots involved suffered some … setbacks."
"That's why you need Kaishi," Mark said. "You think he can withstand the force of travelling in such a ship."
"Until we find better ways to shield pilots, yes." Nadeeka looked like she'd rather shoot herself than admit it. "Plus, we know Kaishi Yamato is a licensed space pilot. He's just what we want."
"And if I say no?" Kaishi said. "My mother's dead, I have no interest in Luna base and no money. Revenge isn't exactly my cup of tea."
"If you say no," Nadeeka said softly, "we will take you in so we can study what Dr. Stevenson has done for you. However, if you say yes, we will throw in a little gesture of goodwill. We will let Dr. Stevenson walk free. Otherwise, we'll lock him up for illegal human experiments, and believe me, he's not going to survive a prison colony—"
"You shouldn't bother," Mark said softly. "I'm an old man—"
"We will also confiscate all of your data, Dr. Stevenson, and we will expose every inhuman experiment you've done, and we will make it publicly known Mayor Yamato was also involved."
"My mother's dead," Kaishi said. "You really aren't helping yourself here."
"We could give you back your mother," Nadeeka said.
Kaishi jerked. "But you said she was dead—"
"But so were you. Until Dr. Stevenson grew a new body for you."
"Cloning her won't bring her back," Kaishi snapped in anger, hope warring with disbelief in his mind.
"I do have a copy of her brain waves," Mark said. "She requested it once and I … I made it. The thing about such copies is they won't last long, but it's there."
"We could let Dr. Stevenson bring your mother back to life, with all her memories and personality quirks restored." Nadeeka didn't even need to look smug. "We will even reappoint her as mayor of Luna base if you help us get Atlas."
"I'll do it," Kaishi said.
"Even if I bring her back, she won't be the same her," Mark said softly.
"The same way I'm not me?"
"Memories cannot be stored. The experiments for transferring human minds to machines failed. Even in storage, they fade. Your mother's memories are probably disintegrating at his very moment, so even if I do it right now, she'd not be the same, and the longer it take to transfer it to an organic brain, the less—"
"Well then, you'd better finish this mission quickly," Nadeeka snapped.
"I want to do this," Kaishi said to Mark. "I do want to get back at Atlas for what he did to my mother. We might not get back my mother, but … but I don't want you to rot in prison, either. There's no way out. I have to agree to this." He wanted to have a second chance with his mother, to apologize for his hateful words though he knew it was impossible. Hope was a dangerous thing.
"Lovely," said Nadeeka. "You'll set out in a week. You have a lot to be briefed on. We'll get you a new identify, proper credentials as an ISF agent. And we're outfitting a few of our fighters with the new engine, so you have a choice. We have a Wasp, a Mustang, a Palomino, two Sandstormers …"
NOW
Hideki got to his feet carefully and walked to the door. The drug had left his system and he was hungry. The battle, the sex and the sudden attack had left him running low on energy. Before opening the doorway, he picked up his emergency helmet ring and snapped it around his neck. He would rather be safe than dead anyway. Then he sighed, turned around, stripped off his clothes, and put on his emergency decompression suit and then re-dressed. He needed to attend to Assumption's repairs and take her for a test spin outside.
He stepped to the corridor and looked around, wondering just how long he'd been in the room processing what had happened. The lights were dimmed and there were no personnel to be seen. The station was on one of its night cycles.
Hideki walked towards where his map indicated Floating Food was, thinking of everything he'd learned so far. His information had been wrong; Marion was not pirate-run and probably had never been. There were pirates around it, but the main force was not on the station.
The ISF would be very angry if the pirates, especially Atlas, were to get away.
He didn't want to think of the consequences of letting Atlas escape to hide in another base. The Space Cannon Fleet would come and destroy the base and kill or capture Atlas.
Floating Food was dark, dingy and dirty. There had to be a leaking engineering exhaust somewhere since the atmosphere was smokier than the docking bay. The people, mostly planetsiders, had the tough, sun burnt look of people who spent a lot of time outdoors. There was no background music, for which Hideki was grateful. The conversation was hushed, muted, taking place in dark corners. This was where station crew hooked up with the dirtsiders for anonymous conveniences.
He ordered something high in sugar and caffeine, since he needed the boost. He also ordered a protein dish, with some side vegetables for fiber, and the required supplementary vitamin drink in lime flavor since he needed to keep his body running. It was strange just how disassociated he had become with his body since he'd gotten a new one, almost as if he were a pilot inside a ship, something he controlled but didn't really—
He looked around slowly when he realized he wasn't alone. He'd been too distracted getting his food to notice that several of the station crew had crowded around him. He slowly turned around, hands at his side, ready for trouble.
"I'm an officer of the International Space Federation," Hideki told the group. "If you wish to—"
"You going to shut down the station?" a guy in a tech uniform, 'Charlie' sewn on the lapel, asked.
"If I could, yes. You have pirate attacks. It's not safe here for civilians and …"
"We've managed fine with Manager Tan," a woman, 'Bill', said. "We had some trouble with Manning—"
A small blonde, 'Trixie', elbowed her and spoke. "But we're picking ourselves up."
"I know," Hideki said softly. "But I'm sorry …"
"So you haven't given the final word yet?" Charlie asked. "For the station shut down?"
"No, but I will. Don't even think about physical violence against me. More ISF agents will come, and anyway, I can handle myself."
Trixie giggled. "Come on, big guy, why in the world would we try to fight you? We saw you in action in your ship. You must be plenty strong."
Hideki could detect a vein of sarcasm in her tone but was far too distracted by the sight of his food arriving to concentrate on it. "If you'll excuse me," he said as he picked up his tray. "I need to eat."
He ate quickly, mostly because he was hungry but also because he was aware of the number of people who were looking at him. He wished Tyler were there, shielding him from the mob. Tyler was all words and attitude, but at the same time, he was up front about it. Here, he was afraid he'd end up with a knife in his back. As he finished his drink, he wished he'd taken the food to his room. He'd have felt safer.
Hideki stood up, drinking the dregs of the can, and picked up his tray to return it to the pickup point. Bill and Charlie also got up.
"You want to walk around with us," Bill told Hideki pleasantly. It definitely wasn't a question.
"I'm not sure I should—"
"Nonsense. You're so eager to shut us down when you haven't even seen what we've done to get to our feet."
Hideki wondered if there were any way to tell her it didn't matter. "I don't think—"
"The first time," Charlie said, "I wasn't here, but the pirates came out of nowhere, fired a couple of warning shots and asked to be given all the perishable food items we had aboard. Then, of course, Marion called for help and was ignored."
They were out of the engineering corridor, walking down a lesser used one. Hideki was already lost.
"You—"
"Now you want to shut us down, but really, we've managed for so long without help. Let us show you our hydroponics
labs." Charlie opened an airlock on the side and sighed. "We keep the inside pressurized or the plants tend to grow funny."
"You know," Bill said. "The last guy from ISF, we forced him back into his ship and ejected him and threatened to shoot him with our guns, so …"
"Still you guys keep coming back," Charlie said, gesturing for Hideki to step in. "It's like you're cockroaches or something." Then he stepped back and closed the airlock, leaving Hideki inside alone.
It took Hideki all of two seconds to realize he'd fallen into a trap when the door to the outside snapped open and he was sucked into space. Even as the emergency helmet energy field came over his head, he knew he was in big trouble.
Had he managed to grab the side of the airlock, he might have been able to haul himself up, break the airlock open, hotwire it and make his way inside. He shivered as the vacuum sucked at his body, his emergency depressurization suit offering little protection against the sudden drop in temperature. His only hope was to stop himself from drifting away from the station and propel himself up so he could reach the hull.
Once there, he wasn't sure if he could break through the outer hull, punch his way back in; he needed to find an airlock or an access hatch and … he really didn't think he had time left. He hadn't charged his emergency helmet after the battle and the display informed him he had five minutes of air left. He could try to breathe slower and perhaps make the supply last twice as long, but even his modified body would not withstand the full-on slaughter of space.
He was cold, his teeth were chattering and as he tried to work his belt off, he wondered what exactly he was trying to do. He was drifting slowly. Maybe he could throw his belt, use it as a rope to hook onto some protrusion on the station and pull himself towards it.
He aimed towards a small handhold outside the airlock. He kept his eyes fixed on it. He wasn't going to look around, see the stars, feel the cold—that way lead to panic and then death. He leaned forward slowly and threw the belt, which missed the handhold by a hand's width. Hideki threw again—and the belt fell short by a good meter. His initial move had made him drift faster.
He threw the belt again. The chances of any sensor picking up something as small as his body outside the space station were small. He had to get back or die