The Belt: The Complete Trilogy

by Gerald M. Kilby

  He moved with surprising grace and speed, and Miranda had to work hard to keep up. She reckoned he was doing it just to show what the exoskeleton was capable of, and that he wouldn’t be a pushover like the guy she took out in the docking tunnel. After a minute or two of navigating their way through the maze of clutter that this group of ragtag bandits had stashed in every available space, they arrived at an area with a grubby sign reading Accommodation Sector D. Tiber stopped and signaled to one of the two crew members to open the door. They unshouldered plasma weapons, and one palmed the access panel. The door clicked and they entered, weapons held out in front. Tiber gestured her to follow.

  Miranda moved in front of the door, but didn’t enter. Her heart was beating fast, and she was finding it difficult to keep her composure. Therefore, she kept her distance, remaining outside in the corridor as she looked into the room.

  It was dim and dank, and smelled of sweat. She saw Goodchild lying on a bunk, as well as several others she couldn’t quite make out. A figure moved out from the gloom. It was Dr. Stephanie Rayman. She recognized Miranda, and her mouth opened in shock for a second before she spoke. “Miranda, what…?”

  Miranda gently shook her head from side to side in an effort to signal to Steph not to make a big deal out of it. She got the message and said nothing more.

  “Happy?” said Tiber.

  Miranda stepped back from the door and moved away. It took her a moment to pull herself together. “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” He signaled to his crew and they withdrew from the room, locking the door again. Miranda began to move back along the way they came, more as a way of keeping herself under control—a form of action, something to distract her from her desire to lash out and take these scumbags down. But that would be the stupid move. Take it easy, she thought. Remember: you’ve still got a job to do. Don’t blow it.

  By the time they arrived back to operations, Miranda had regained a little more control over her emotions. She reckoned that Scott and Cyrus had probably disabled the shuttles by now, so all she had to do was play it cool and the mission would be accomplished.

  “You’ve got what you wanted, so now it’s time to stop playing games and do the transfer,” said Tiber.

  “As soon as I’m back on the Perception I’ll give them the okay.”

  “You do that, and you can also tell them the price has just doubled. It’s now two billion.”

  Miranda wasn’t sure how to react to that. Too casual and they might smell a rat. Too ballsy and… Well, who knew what? “They’re not going to like that, Tiber. Care to give a reason?”

  “Because I don’t like you. I don’t like your attitude, and Murt is pretty pissed at you for breaking his nose. Two billion. Then you get your people back.”

  Miranda shrugged. “I’ll let them know.”

  She was about to go when Tiber stopped her. “Wait a minute.”

  “What now?” Miranda was struggling to keep it together.

  He pressed a hand to a comms unit fitted in one ear. Someone was talking to him, and Miranda sensed it might be trouble, as he kept looking at her as he listened. She felt her pulse race, and she was sure he could smell her fear.

  Finally, he removed his hand and moved closer to her, his face almost touching hers.

  “So, are we done?” she managed.

  He remained silent for a beat as his eyes drilled holes in hers. “I think you’re playing games, Miranda Lee.”

  “Think what you like. I couldn’t give a crap.” She turned to leave, but Tiber grabbed her by the throat, his enhanced strength squeezing her thorax. She couldn’t breathe. His grip tightened on her neck as he turned his head and shouted over to his crew. “Bring ’em in.”

  Miranda grabbed his arm and tried to twist herself free, but his strength was demonic. She swung a kick to the side of his knee, but only succeeded in hurting herself more. She couldn’t breathe, and was losing strength. She began to squirm. Her lungs burned and felt like they would explode inside her chest. Tiber was choking the life out of her, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

  He released his grip.

  She collapsed on the floor, gasping, sucking in lungfuls of air. Her throat felt like splintered wood; it hurt to breathe. Around her, she could hear the crew hollering and cheering—they were baying for blood. Tiber grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up off the floor so she was sitting upright. He twisted her face around so she could see the bloodied and battered forms of Scott and Cyrus kneeling in front of her, hands bound behind their backs.

  “Friends of yours?”

  Miranda couldn’t speak; her throat was too traumatized. All she could do was look. Scott had a gash on the top of his head, and a long streak of blood caked the side of his face. Cyrus had a bloodied mouth. He spat on the floor in front of him, panting hard.

  “We found them outside, trying to screw with our shuttles. Now why would they be doing that?” He pulled her hair tighter. “Eh?”

  But she couldn’t speak, even if she wanted to.

  “You see, my friend Dogg here says these jokers fell out of the sky after the operation on the Hermes. Had a QI core with them, too. Thing is, he left them there to die a nice, slow death, then they show up here—with you. So, what we would all like to know is—what the fuck is going on?” He twisted harder, and Miranda felt like her scalp was detaching.

  Across from her, some guy with a bio-hacked arm unsheathed a plasma weapon and jammed it up against Scott’s skull. She presumed it was Dogg. “Someone better start talking, or I’ll start frying brains.”

  “They know you’re here,” said Scott, his voice labored. “They’re coming for you… You won’t get away with it.”

  “Bullshit,” said Dogg. “We would know. There’s nothing on the grid. You’re lying.” He whacked him across the skull with the butt of the weapon. Scott collapsed on the floor.

  Miranda coughed and tried to speak. “We were… disabling your shuttles… finding out if Hermes crew was here… before alerting Ceres.”

  Tiber let go of her hair, and Miranda fought the urge to puke.

  “Well now, what a team. Coming to rescue your buddies. Looks like you’ll be joining them instead. And you…” He spun around, whipping a weapon out as he did, and pointed at Dogg. “You led them right to us.”

  Dogg looked stunned. “We left them for dead. There was no way out.”

  “Except along comes little Miss Rich Kid.”

  “How were we supposed to know?”

  Tiber shook his head. “I should waste you right here, right now.”

  Several of the crew went for their weapons. Miranda got the sense that there were two distinct groups eyeing each other up, waiting for the first person to pull the trigger. She hoped to God they would start a fight; maybe they could get away in the confusion.

  But Tiber stuffed his weapon back inside its holster. “It doesn’t matter now.” This settled everyone down. Weapons were lowered, tempers calmed.

  Tiber turned to his crew. “Take those two guys and lock them up with the rest.”

  He crouched down in front of Miranda and looked her in the eye. “As for little Miss Rich Kid here, she’s Frederick VanHeilding’s stepdaughter. Apparently, the family didn’t want her getting caught up in the crossfire when the operation on the Hermes went down. So, they concocted a cock-and-bull story and sent a real fancy ship for her.” He looked back at his crew. “Seems the VanHeilding Corporation thinks more of her that they do about the rest of that crew we have locked up.” He stood up with lightning speed and turned to his crew. “They’re hanging us out to dry. They never had any intention of paying the rest of what they owe us for this operation.”

  He spun around, looking from one to the other. “They don’t give a shit if Goodchild and the others die. They made that our problem. Well, screw them. Now we got ourselves something they do care about.” He jerked a finger at Miranda. “They’ll pay us what they owe us, or she dies. It’s that simple. In the meantime
, we find out what she knows. We’ll take her to the medbay and stick some electrodes on her skull. She’ll talk.” He crouched down again, reached out, and caressed her cheek. “I do hope you’ve got something to talk about, because if you don’t, you’ll be drooling from the side of your mouth for the rest of your life by the time we finish frying your brain.”

  19

  Expendable

  Scott’s first tentative steps toward consciousness brought awareness of pain—a deep, throbbing ache emanating from inside his skull. He slowly shifted his head and tried to open his eyes. He heard voices. Familiar voices.

  “He’s coming around.”

  “Scott? Scott, can you sit up?”

  He blinked a few times, trying to clear his blurred vision. A mop of matted, frizzy hair came into focus and he recognized its owner as Dr. Stephanie Rayman.

  “Steph?” His voice was weak, and his throat felt like it had been freeze-dried.

  “Here, sit up and have some water.”

  It tasted like it had just been drained straight from a reactor core, but it was still a balm to his parched throat; he felt himself starting to revive. “Steph, we’ve done this before,” he said with a half-smile.

  “Yeah, back in Neo City. It’s getting to be a habit.” She wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Good to have you and Cyrus back. I thought both of you had been blown to bits with the Hermes.”

  “How you doing, buddy?” Cyrus sat down on the edge of the bunk where Scott was recuperating.

  “Not great, if you really want to know.” He sat up and rested his back against the side wall of the accommodation pod. Across from him sat Regina Goodchild—she didn’t look so good either—and several others, some of whom he remembered from the Hermes. He nodded. “How are you holding up?”

  “Better, now that we know you’re all still alive.” Goodchild’s voice was weak, and a faint smile cracked her lips.

  Scott sat up a little further and reached up to his aching head, where he felt a bandage.

  “I did a quick patch up job on that for you. Under normal circumstances I would scan for a concussion, but—” Steph just shrugged.

  “Thanks.” He looked around again. “Where’s Miranda?”

  “They’ve taken her for interrogation,” said Cyrus.

  “Shit. Is she okay?”

  Cyrus shrugged. “I doubt it.”

  Scott moved himself off the bunk and stood up. He felt a little unbalanced, and reached out a hand to steady himself against the wall. “We have to get out of here and get Miranda before it’s too late.”

  “Easier said than done. There are at least twenty well-armed mercenaries out there. Dr. Rayman has been digging up some intel on them.” It was Olaf, one of Goodchild’s bodyguards, doing the talking now. Scott recognized him from the Hermes.

  “Yeah, they’ve been dragging me out every so often to treat Tiber. He had septicemia from that exoskeleton he had grafted onto him. It was pretty bad. Anyway, I’ve been looking after a few of them. Minor wounds, that sort of stuff. I reckon there’s around twenty, but only a few of them have military training. The rest are just scratchers. Then there’s also Dogg and his crew of smugglers. Cyrus has been filling us in on all that happened to you.”

  “Are they the same group?” Scott asked.

  “No, but Tiber and Dogg know each other. They go way back.” Steph looked around, lowered her voice, and leaned in a little. “From what I’ve picked up talking to these guys and from snatches of overheard conversation, they messed up the operation on the Hermes. They weren’t supposed to destroy it. Now the Seven won’t pay up, so they’re screwed.”

  “The Seven have already won,” Goodchild chimed in. “The vote on Mars is over—we’ve lost it. They’ve got what they wanted, so now we’re expendable.”

  “They’ve also got Aria’s core,” said Cyrus.

  Goodchild nodded at Cyrus. “So we heard. Unfortunate.”

  “I can’t see how that’s a big deal. Okay, it’s a QI, but so what?” said Olaf.

  Scott looked over at Goodchild. “You know why, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “Yes. You see, Aria’s core is… experimental. Anyway, the Seven must have found out, and that’s what they wanted from the Hermes before it blew up.”

  “We need to stop them somehow. My guess is they’ll be leaving here soon. They’ll take the core, and probably Miranda as well. They’ll try to use her as leverage. They think she’s important to VanHeilding.”

  “What about us?”

  “We’ve become an inconvenience now—meaning we’re expendable.” He glanced over at Goodchild. “That’s why we need to get out of here while we have a chance.”

  “How?” said Olaf.

  Scott looked around the room. “If we can get out of here, then we could try to reach Miranda’s shuttle. But we would need to do it soon, before they commandeer it.”

  “I see a small problem with that,” said Olaf. “There’s at least two well-armed guards outside that door, and we have nothing—only our bare hands.”

  “I might have a solution to that,” said Steph. She reached into a pocket and pulled out several micro syringes. “I’ve been stealing these from their supplies when I got the chance. They each contain 5cc of cyclophromazine. That’s enough to put an average man to sleep for around three hours. The only issue is it takes around thirty seconds to take effect.”

  Scott picked one up from Steph’s outstretched hand and examined it. “Thirty seconds?”

  “That’s to be fully out, but they’ll start to get weaker after a few seconds.”

  “Steph, you may have just saved our lives.”

  “What if there’s more than the two guards out there?” Olaf was not convinced.

  “I’ve never seen more than two.” Steph shook her head.

  “Listen, that’s not the problem. The problem is if there are no guards outside. Then that means they’ve evacuated. It means we’re too late.”

  Cyrus was staring at the door and adjusting something on his visor. He raised a hand to signal to Scott.

  “See anything?” said Scott.

  “I’m getting an infrared heat signature. Just one.” He glanced around the wall. “No others.”

  “Okay, here’s the plan: Steph, Cyrus, you remember when we broke out of that place on Neo City?”

  They nodded.

  “Same plan. Except this time, you cause the ruckus, Steph. Cyrus and I will jump him.”

  The engineer was still staring a hole into the wall. “Shhh…” He raised a hand for them to keep quiet.

  “What is it?” Scott kept his voice at a whisper.

  “Someone’s coming.”

  “How many?”

  Cyrus waited a second before replying. “Two—no wait, three.”

  “Shit, that’s too many.” Scott could feel his plan of escape evaporating. Too many to take on, and too soon. They weren’t ready.

  The door clicked and swung open. Three men stood outside with their plasma weapons leveled. “Everyone back away from the door. Not you, Dr. Rayman. You’re coming with us.”

  Scott clenched his fists and looked over at Cyrus, who was gently shaking his head at him as though to say, “Don’t do it, don’t even think about it.”

  He stepped back just as Steph stood up and shoved the micro syringes back in her pocket—just in time. As she walked out the door, she looked back at Scott and gave him a look that said, “Sorry, nothing I can do.”

  Scott felt a burning rage welling up inside him. He wanted to rip and shred and smash and kill. So, when the door closed again, he punched the wall instead.

  “Easy, Scott. We’ll get our chance,” said Cyrus.

  Scott rubbed his knuckles. “What the hell do they need Steph for?” Then he remembered: Miranda.

  20

  Medbay

  Steph had only been gone a few minutes when Cyrus went into high alert again. “Someone’s coming.”

  “More guards?” Scott stood up, ready for
action.

  He paused. “Just one, I think. The image is confused.”

  “No matter. I say we jump him as soon as he opens that door, okay?”

  “And then what?” said Cyrus.

  “And then we beat the crap out of him,” said Olaf, as he stood up and moved over to the door.

  “Glad to see you’re in the fight at last,” said Scott.

  He smiled back. “Just waiting for the right opportunity.”

  Scott moved up beside him and waited.

  They could hear shuffling sounds from directly outside the door, followed by several short grunts. The door clicked and swung open. Scott was first to move, but to everyone’s surprise, it was Steph. She was holding up the arm of one of the guards, who lay unconscious on the floor. The grunting was her straining to get his palm up to the access panel.

  “Steph, what the...?” Scott stepped out and looked up and down the corridor. He could see two other bodies slumped on the floor several meters away. “You jabbed them. How the hell did you manage that?”

  “I told them it was a general flu shot I was giving to everyone.”

  “And they believed you?” said Cyrus as he moved out of the room.

  Steph shrugged. “They’ve grown to trust me.”

  “Stupid fools,” said Olaf.

  “Quick, let’s get them inside.” Scott bent down and started dragging a body.

  They worked with speed, moving the bodies into the room and removing any weapons they could find.

  Scott checked the charge on a stocky, handheld plasma pistol. Once he was satisfied he could cause some damage with it, he turned around to see Goodchild and the others moving out of the room like zoo animals who had found the cage door open. Steph was already marshaling them, since she had the most experience with the “outside world.”

  “We go this way.” She pointed down the long, curving corridor. “Around fifteen meters up, there’s a step elevator that will bring us to the central docking bay.”