Hauk held out his hand towards the girl. “Need some support?”
Maeve grabbed his hand and gripped it tightly.
It was the first time Hauk had ever held hands with a girl. Even though they both wore thick gloves, it gave him a strange feeling, like a combination of pride and affection, followed by a warmth he had not been expecting.
Within a few seconds the entire compartment seemed to tilt sideways, the force of gravity increasing tenfold. Hauk could tell the ship was now doing an aerobraking maneuver to try and slow herself down.
Maeve yelped. It felt like they were falling through the air, about to be crushed like a fragile eggshell the moment the ground came up to meet them. She gripped the boy’s hand tighter as the fear intensified.
They soon felt the counterforce as the Eon Shrike’s landing thrusters were activated. The vehicle’s interior was once again the right way up, and the two women sighed with instinctive relief. The worst seemed to be over.
The intense vibrations made Maeve’s teeth rattle until she lifted up her upper molars to make it stop. There was a short drop when the ship’s landing struts suddenly hit the ground. They had made it.
“Releasing clamps from ATV,” Strand said over the intercom.
Xander’s voice also came in through the audio link. “Lowering ramp. Have fun, boys and girls. See you in a few days’ time.”
As the ATV sped off down the cargo ramp and into the mist-filled atmosphere of Horizon, Maeve suddenly realized she was still gripping the boy’s hand. She quickly let go and blushed. “Sorry.”
Hauk couldn’t help but smile. “No problem.”
20 The Impostors
After docking the ATV alongside the mining consortium dome located a few hundred klicks north of Horizon’s equatorial region, the five members of the team squeezed through the airlock tunnel and ventured inside the complex. Garrett Strand and Dhara Hayer led the way, followed closely by Duncan Hauk and Maeve Lindros. Ripoll Keo silently brought up the rear, his right hand hidden beneath a duffel bag. Their ship coveralls had been replaced with generic mining jumpsuits, their utility vest pockets bulging with assorted tools.
Strand glanced back to make sure everyone was right behind him as he weaved his way through the throngs of mining crews standing and sitting around in the main hall. “Stay close.”
Dhara continued to walk alongside him. “Are you sure the passes we’ve got will work?”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Strand said. “Zeno’s pretty good at forging documents, and anyway, there’s lots of outfits here with even more bogus credentials than what we’ve got.”
“Famous last words.”
“O ye of little faith,” Strand said as he strode up to the registration desk.
Sitting behind the table was a portly, grizzled human male. His entire right arm had been replaced by a crude cybernetic limb, and the thick glasses he wore meant he didn’t have the cash for better alternatives. A holographic display on top of the counter continuously flashed updates on the latest mineral prices on the galactic options market.
The man’s voice betrayed a mix of weariness and boredom. “Landing pass with consortium permits and registration, please.”
Strand put on his best smile and uploaded the documents using the input port on the table with his smartcom. “Sure thing. Here you go.”
The man on the desk had a holotag on the upper left of his utility vest with the name of Nelson on it. Since his computer lacked an advanced AI network, he had to manually type in commands in order to process the documents.
After a few minutes, Nelson looked up at the five people standing in front of him. “Your application for prospecting is denied.”
Strand raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean it’s denied?”
Nelson shrugged. “My computer says your documents are incomplete. Sorry, it looks like you’ll have to reapply.”
Strand crossed his arms and frowned. “What do you mean I have to reapply? The Union’s own orbital station cleared us, for crying out loud. You know how many months it took us to get here?”
“Look, your landing permissions are fine, but your mining passes are incomplete. You can stay on planet but you can’t work as a miner.”
“What do you mean they’re incomplete?”
Nelson sighed and pointed at the glowing red indicators on the floating holographic display in front of him. “In case you didn’t know, this is a joint administrative world—this means you must get clearances from both the Union and the Concordance. Now, your Union passes seem okay, but you’re missing the approval documents given out by the Concordance.”
Strand spread his arms out in the air. “You’re saying that every two-bit outfit here has gotten approval from the Concordance just like that? Come on.”
Nelson adjusted his thick glasses. “I don’t make the rules, pal. Head over to one of the Concordance access networks and file an application. Once you’ve got an approval then you can come back to me.”
Strand exhaled slowly. “That’s gonna take days!”
“Maybe even weeks,” Nelson said. “Or perhaps they might just deny it. One of the big mining conglomerates even had their license canceled just a few days ago. Who knows what those parasites are thinking. Now move along.”
“Alright, I get it,” Strand said as he keyed in an offer of cash on his smartcom and directed it to Nelson’s display. “I’m sure you can provide a temporary pass, and that’s all I need.”
Nelson stared into his sky-blue eyes for a long minute before glancing at Strand’s companions. “You’re not with UBI, are you? By law you people have to reveal yourselves when asked.”
Strand rolled his eyes while gesturing at the others in his team. “Do we look like Union Bureau of Intelligence agents to you? We’re a mining family, for antecessor’s sakes,” he said, gesturing at Dhara with his thumb. “This is my wife and these are my kids. We own a small prospecting firm from the Coal Sack Region.”
Nelson looked at the others incredulously. “They’re your children? They hardly even look like you.”
Strand gave him a nonchalant shrug. “They’re adopted. My wife’s barren.”
Dhara gritted her teeth while keeping a straight face, and remained silent.
Nelson frowned. “Look, the mining consortium is in a very tricky situation right now. The Concordance is hopping mad because one of the prospecting teams accidentally ventured into the quarantine zone a few months ago, and we’re all on thin ice at the moment. If the Concordance decided to revoke the permits, then we’d all have to leave. Right now, there are way too many rinky-dink outfits trying to strike it rich out here, and I can tell you most of them leave empty-handed and in debt.”
“Don’t worry, my family and I won’t make trouble for the consortium,” Strand said confidently. “We won’t even go near the quarantine zone.”
Nelson narrowed his eyes. “Do you even know how dangerous this world is? We have daily casualty logs just from the radiation exposure alone, and those stats don’t even count the fatalities from griglak attacks.”
Strand increased the credit offer. “We know the risks. I spent a year mining on Altair IV.”
Nelson bit his lip while staring at the money on offer. “I can offer you a prospecting pass for one week, and you better not get into any trouble while you’re out here. The mining rights will have to be applied for separately, and you can only make a claim on one of the plots in the registry.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Strand said. “I’m sure we’ll hit the jackpot out here.”
Nelson shook his head slowly while he inputted an approval on the console. “Everybody says that, but lemme tell you, every single prospector that’s been here either left with a big loss or had to sell their vehicles or whatever else they had just to get off planet. Some even had worse fates.”
Keo was standing alongside the others, and he raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like being so indebted they had to take menial w
ork just to get off planet,” Nelson said. “But right now, the Union colony is so flooded with cheap transient workers they had to turn quite a few of them away.”
Maeve’s eyebrows shot up. “Turn them away? You mean they got airlocked?”
“No, not airlocked,” Nelson said. “We don’t do such things in Union territory.”
“What then?”
“The ones who couldn’t find work ended up being shipped over to the Concordance borders,” Nelson said. “Quite a few became slaves for a time, while others were never heard from again.”
Maeve gasped. Becoming a slave with an attached symbiote was a fate worse than death in her view.
“I’m not worried,” Strand said. “My kids have a keen eye for prospecting; that’s why we always bring them along.”
Nelson gave him a contemptuous look as he accepted the e-cash and generated an approval pass for them. “Fine, you do what you want. Your prospecting license is provisional—this means you have to come back here within five days’ time.”
Strand smiled as he downloaded the documents onto his smartcom. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll find a good spot to claim long before that.”
“That’s what they all say,” Nelson said. “I can tell you right now you’re making a big mistake. Every meter of ground that’s been approved for prospecting has already been looked over by multiple teams over the years, and whatever ore was in them has been mined. It would be better if you just sell your brand-new ATV and hitch a ride out of here.”
Strand retained his confident demeanor. “I’ve never failed.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Nelson muttered under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Nelson said. “A few more things to note. Keep your transponder active at all times. The Concordance feel they are within their rights to fire upon any vehicle without the proper signals. If for some reason your transponder goes on the blink and the backup fails too, head for the nearest waypoint station and report in. You got it?”
Strand nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”
“Also, this planet has no mining insurance coverage, so the consortium is not responsible for any injuries or deaths while you’re out there,” Nelson said. “Even if you face a whole nest of griglaks, you’re on your own. The Union Territorial Guard contingent here is only responsible for protecting the colony habitats; their jurisdiction ends beyond the airlocks.”
“So we can’t signal for help?” Hauk asked.
“You can try, kid,” Nelson said, “but there’s no guarantee that help will come. Anything goes once you’re out there.”
“Okay, fair enough,” Strand said. “Can we go now?”
“One last thing,” Nelson said. “Do not under any circumstances even approach the quarantine zone. The orbital network will alert you if you stray too close, so heed their warnings and turn around if it happens. The parasites are pretty trigger happy, but even the Union security forces have been known to attack their own citizens who go there without permission.”
“Fine, we’ve been warned,” Strand said as he turned around and headed for the docking bay, followed quickly by the others. “Let’s go, kids. There’s gold in these parts!”
Nelson cursed softly while watching them disappear back into the crowd. Just another bunch of naive idiots with a one-way ticket to the afterlife. The old ex-miner figured he would never see them again.
Dhara joined Keo and the lieutenant in the front cabin of the ATV as they got underway. The sudden bumps and jarring across the uneven terrain were making it a rough journey, so everyone remained strapped in their chairs.
Hauk had unfastened his restraints and leaned closer to the four robots at the back of the rearward cabin as he began running diagnostics on them. Although they weren’t warbots, these simple AI machines would still serve a useful purpose in case of any conflict. The boy wondered why he was made part of this mission since he was a relatively new member of the crew, but he quickly sensed that someone had specifically asked for him to be included.
Glancing over towards Maeve, Hauk noticed she seemed to have a tired look while slumped in her chair near the hatch leading towards the vehicle’s forward cockpit.
“You okay?” the boy asked.
Maeve sighed wearily. “I don’t feel well.”
Hauk leaned back and edged closer towards her. “Could be motion sickness. Do you need to puke?”
Maeve closed her eyes while shaking her head. “No, it’s not that. My head hurts and I feel like there’s an elephant sitting on my shoulders and chest. It’s hard to breathe.”
“What’s an elephant?”
“It’s an extinct terrestrial animal,” Maeve said. “Very big, like the size of this ATV.”
Hauk understood. “Oh, it must be because of this planet’s gravity. Did you take your pills?”
“No,” Maeve said softly. “I-I don’t want to put drugs into my body. Back when I was growing up in the outpost, they used to make me swallow all sorts of pills. Most of the time I wouldn’t feel anything, but other times they made me feel really sick.”
“I get it,” Hauk said softly. “You don’t trust anything scientific anymore.”
Maeve nodded. Tears began to well in her eyes. “All those people I trusted. They let me down. If only my parents were still alive. If only they never worked on that artifact. I feel so alone.”
Hauk remembered Puteri Sin’s words to him. He placed a reassuring hand on Maeve’s forearm. “You’re not alone. The Nepenthe and everybody with her is your family now.”
Despite her discomfort, Maeve gave a faint smile. “Thanks, Duncan.”
Hauk used the handholds along the roof in order not to fall over due to the bumpy ride. He half stumbled towards the medkits near the airlock. “I can vouch for these pills. Trust me on this, okay?”
Maeve didn’t say anything as the boy reached into one of the packs, took out a small container full of tiny red capsules and carefully made his way back to her. Anti-gravity pills contained an assorted dose of painkillers, anti-coagulants to thin the blood, muscle relaxers, blood pressure inhibitors, and agents to widen the body’s blood vessels.
Hauk opened the stopper and placed two pills into the girl’s palm. “Here, swallow this.”
Maeve tilted her head up and downed the medicine. Within a few minutes the pain in her chest had begun to ease, and her breathing became more relaxed. She turned and smiled at the boy. “Thanks, I feel better now.”
Hauk smiled back. “I told you so.”
“I guess I can trust you,” Maeve said. She added his name right beside Strand’s on her mental list of people she had faith in.
21 Travelers
Horizon’s mist-filled atmosphere made driving hazardous due to the low visibility and uneven terrain. Garrett Strand stayed at the controls while keeping a watchful eye on the scanner by the dashboard. The other two people in the front cabin closely observed the area using their own consoles, ever vigilant for potholes and boulders that could disable the ATV. Once they got past the consortium’s transport hub, encounters with other mining vehicles had thinned out considerably.
A loud beep indicated they had now ventured past the designated Union territories and into the neutral areas of the planet. The ATV’s powerful shock absorbers and independent suspension made most of the bumps negligible, but the occasional large rock they drove over would have driven their heads into the ceiling if it were not for the seat restraints.
Strand activated the audio for the rear compartment. “Everyone okay back there?”
Duncan Hauk’s voice answered. “Yes, sir. We’re fine.”
“I wanted to tell you, good job on the build of this ATV, kid,” Strand said. “She’s a damned fine car. From now on, if my teams ever need ground vehicles, I know who to turn to.”
“Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”
After turning off the speakers, Strand glanced over at Ripoll Keo, who was sitting in the fro
nt seat while closely observing the nearby vehicle transponders on his virtual map. “Hey, Keo, I think I found my successor. You won’t be too mad if I promote the kid over you, right?”
The youthful sergeant angrily turned in his direction. “You’re going to promote that little duckling into a strike team commander? He’s never even been in combat.”
“Yes, he has,” Strand said. “He saved my life—and yours—when he picked us up after we got out of the Amerigo, remember?”
Keo sneered. “He was doing nothing, LT! All that little twerp did was hitch a ride on one of the mass drivers. I would have done the same thing if I were in his shoes. Come on.”
Strand chuckled. “If you were the one on the mass driver you probably would have gone for a kamikaze run at one of the destroyers, knowing you.”
Keo clenched his teeth. “This isn’t fair, LT! I’m the most senior non-commissioned officer in the entire crew.”
Strand knew he was winding the lad up, and he kept at it. “Seniority always takes second place behind merit. Even our captain says so.”
Dhara Hayer sat just behind the two of them. She glanced in the lieutenant’s direction and shook her head before turning her attention back towards the console in front of her.
Keo slammed the lower part of his right fist on the dashboard. “Goddamn that little turd! I’m going to twist his little neck till it breaks in half.”
“Alright, calm down,” Strand said. “I was only messing with you.”
Keo didn’t answer. He kept staring at his console while breathing heavily. A small bead of sweat dripped down his brow.
“You’re the leading candidate as second-in-command of the strike teams,” Strand said. “But this temper of yours is what keeps getting in the way. Your impulse to use force in situations when a more subtle approach would get a better outcome is a prime example.”
Keo let out a sigh. “I’m trying to get better, LT. You know this.”
“Yeah, you’ve improved a lot since last year, which is why I promoted you to spacer sergeant,” Strand said. “Though you’ve still got a long way to go.”
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