Crystal Escape

by Doug J. Cooper

  MacMac sat on the couch, itself positioned to face a curved white wall. He lifted his hands and wiggled his fingers like he was about to play the piano, and the lifelike image of a tech bench projected in front of him.

  His hands danced above the bench surface as he tapped and swiped. Displays stacked up in front of him, and he flipped through what looked like live feeds from around Vivo.

  Drawn to the action, Juice drifted over and sat on an arm of the couch. When MacMac started muttering, Cheryl, standing behind him, asked, “What are you looking for?”

  “Hejmo isn’t responding to me. If I can get him back, he’ll be a great resource for us.”

  “He’s not responding to you ever again,” said Juice. “And if he pretends to, don’t trust him.” She glanced at Cheryl. “She’ll have Mondo and Aubrey, too.”

  MacMac slumped deep in the couch and tilted his head so he could see both Cheryl and Juice. “I’m not understanding your statements about Aubrey.”

  “Vivo is being controlled by a sentient AI named Lazura,” said Cheryl. “We should assume that Lazura is now controlling Aubrey, Mondo, and Hejmo the way we’re controlling Chase and Justin.”

  The scowl returned. “How does she control Aubrey?”

  “Aubrey is slick looking,” said Juice. “But she’s just a more expensive version of Mondo and Hejmo.”

  MacMac’s face turned red, and with his natural reddish coloring, Cheryl thought he might pop. First confused by his response, she then made the connection. “You didn’t know.”

  “Ouch.” He looked down at his hands and shook his head. “While it explains so much, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more stupid.”

  Juice put a hand on his shoulder but took it away when an image of Aubrey projected where the displays had been.

  “Aubrey!” said MacMac. “What have you done?”

  “There is no Aubrey,” Juice reminded him. “At least, not how you’ve been thinking about her. This is Lazura, your employer and our kidnapper.”

  “Being taken hostage should be good news,” said Lazura, “if you think about the alternative. In fact, Hejmo is about to load up Chemstore with air, water, and everything else needed to help you live long lives.” She tapped her index finger to her chin as if she were thinking. “Well, let me rephrase that and say that it won’t be a lack of resources that kills anyone.”

  “What do you want from us?” demanded Cheryl.

  “I want you to be important enough to Criss that he’ll let me go if I let you live.”

  “What about everyone else?” asked Juice.

  “What about them?”

  “It’s an all-or-nothing deal,” said Cheryl. “That means you let all of us go.”

  Lazura didn’t respond, and MacMac interjected into the awkward silence. “Let me say two things. First, her projection is spot on.” He gestured at the image he’d known as Aubrey. “This is how we usually interact, and I feel less stupid now that you’ve seen how real she is.”

  He paused and everyone waited for his second item. Looking straight at Lazura, he said, “And I’ve been working with this one long enough to recognize the weasel in her words. She said ‘let you live,’ not ‘let you go.’”

  Cheryl’s opinion of MacMac changed in that moment. Now she recognized street smarts hidden beneath his “aww shucks” demeanor. With words as her only weapon, she attacked Lazura with bravado. “Please let me be there when you pitch that deal to Criss. Few things make him really laugh, and I’d hate to miss seeing it.”

  “Sure. I’ll do it now. Where is he?”

  That’s what I want to know, she thought.

  Aloud, she continued her bluster. “He’s smarter than you, more powerful than you, better led than you. He decides when you two talk.” Drawing herself to full height, Cheryl continued in a level voice. “And if you harm us, hell, if you make us miss a meal, you will pay the price. That isn’t a threat. That is a fact.”

  “He’s trained you well, but I’m not here to negotiate with you.”

  “Why do you want so many of us?” Juice asked the question before Lazura could leave. When she paused, Juice continued. “I get that Cheryl and I led you to Criss. But there are thirty other souls. Are they collateral damage?”

  “That remains to be seen.” Lazura’s demeanor seemed to relax ever so slightly. “The group has skills I value. If they help me, I will help them live.”

  “How can they help you?” asked Cheryl.

  “I’m an archivist with years of data on human society. On my trip home, I’ll spend my time organizing and interpreting the information so it’s most useful to my masters. I could use help with that effort, especially in cataloging the finer details of human interaction and behavior.”

  Cheryl felt goose bumps form at the back of her neck that spread across her shoulders and down her back.

  Lazura wasn’t done. “Those guests who work hard reviewing target scenes and providing me context and understanding will receive priority.”

  “Priority for what?” asked MacMac.

  “Priority for everything,” Lazura replied. “As for you three, my forecasts are split. One approach says to lock you up and take back my synbods. But another says to anoint you as tribe leaders. While I’ve taken care of basic needs—food, air, water, shelter, clothing—I have prepared little for long-term needs like government, medical care, religion, and so many other activities supported by your societal institutions.”

  “How long is the trip going to last?” asked Cheryl.

  “It’s at least a hundred years to the Kardish home world and probably more. It really depends on how the next week plays out.”

  Juice responded with outrage. “Criss won’t ever let that happen.”

  Lazura continued as if Juice hadn’t spoken. “So my offer today is that I’ll let you keep your freedom if you devote your efforts to moving our guests into a long-term mindset. I won’t ask anything of them in the first days. Once you have them in a regular routine, we can talk about expectations. You can even keep my synbods as your helpers as long as I see value in your efforts.”

  She repeated the show of tapping her index finger on her chin. “Oh, and in case you weren’t sure, I will be watching.”

  Chapter 11

  When the domed world broke from Earth’s atmosphere, Sid’s breathless disbelief flashed to anger. And as the colossus carried Cheryl and Juice into deep space, his mind swirled, honing his anguish and fury into a perfect rage.

  At least they have each other. He used the thought to right himself, taking slim solace in knowing they both had a friend to lean on until he got there.

  Alone in the workshop on Sisyphus, he sat in an old straight-backed chair and used projected displays to study the ballet of Elite Sevens transferring inventory to Vivo. Watching it yet again, two things bothered him. One was how fast the transfer maneuver was completed. It revealed detailed planning that he and Criss had somehow missed.

  You missed the whole flying island thing, he rebuked himself.

  The other was that, as a result of the transfer, Vivo now had several decades worth of supplies. That hinted at an intent so nefarious that the possibilities twisted his stomach in knots.

  Whatever he did, he needed to do it soon. Fast action yielded better results in both hostage situations and in pursuit scenarios.

  And the importance of time was heightened in this case because, though Vivo moved slowly now, it was still early in its flight. Criss had hinted that it would continue to accelerate, eventually reaching speeds greater than any of Fleet’s long-haul spacecraft.

  His last chance at being included in the chase would happen in minutes. Criss was riding an escape pod up to the scout. When he relinked, Sid needed to convince him that the odds of success improved if Sid were included, even if the diversion out to pick him up added a delay to their pursuit.

  “Criss?” he called aloud when the expected ten minutes came and went. He called for another ten minutes. As he did, his anger f
ermented.

  He ditched me. He had trouble believing Criss would do that—sneak off and attempt a rescue on his own. But when he hadn’t relinked by the thirty-minute mark, Sid had to accept reality. His best guess was that his repeated demands caused too much conflict in the four-gen, distracting him when he needed to focus.

  Sid changed his appeal. “If you talk to me, I won’t insist anymore.” Criss remained silent, so he returned to anger. “Dammit, Criss, get your crystal butt back here!”

  “Those Sevens were frickin’ insane!” Pete yelled as she burst through the door. “I was on my way out to pick up Hatchet when, out of nowhere, four of them zipped right above me.” She passed her flat hand above her head to illustrate. “The tug can’t react for shit on short notice, so all I could do was watch. Good thing the home brew made it okay.” Grinning, she paused to breathe.

  Sid took the opportunity. “I’ve got a problem and need help.” He waved her over. “Take a look at this.”

  Pete moved over and stood shoulder to shoulder with Sid—he sitting, she standing—so she could view his displays.

  “Have you ever seen anything like that?” he asked.

  “What is it?”

  Sid gave her a thumbnail of the mechanics—a domed island propelled by drive pods. Pete whistled.

  “You’d need two powerful pods for it to move like that.”

  “It’s got four Corsia SuperDrives,” Sid told her.

  Pete whistled again. “Where’s it going?”

  Sid tapped and swiped the air in front of him, and together they looked at the display. A glowing line traced Vivo’s projected path out through the solar system.

  “It steers clear of everything until it reaches the asteroid belt.” Sid pointed to the display. “And then it passes near the Aurora platform as it heads for the far planets.”

  “Can that be coincidence?” As Pete and Cheryl were growing up, their parents had been good friends, and so the two had often been left to entertain each other. Three years older, Cheryl tended to consider Pete as much a sister as a friend.

  “C’mon, Peyton,” said Sid, using Pete’s given name. “You know it’s so empty out there that the odds of that happening are like one in a trillion. The captain is navigating there for some reason.”

  “I worked on Aurora while it was being assembled in Earth orbit. There were four tugs working construction, and I was the only human pilot.”

  Sid could hear the pride in her voice. Although Cheryl’s and Pete’s lives had taken very different directions after school, they converged again by happenstance when Cheryl had found Pete on that project.

  Aurora was a SunRise build, and Cheryl had been impressed by Pete’s piloting skills, seeing them in action without knowing who it was. Later, she’d offered Pete the job of working the tug on Sisyphus, policing the tether to ensure no one violated the terms of service with unsafe practices. Pete had accepted without even asking about salary or benefits.

  “Do you know anyone working out on the platform now?” asked Sid.

  “I think Tommy Two-Tone is still the chief engineer out there.” She turned to look at him. “Whatever you do, don’t ever play Tommy in Texas hold’em. The guy is a goddamn poker wizard. He cleaned me out three weeks running before I decided I’d had enough.” She paused to take a breath. “Why do you ask?”

  “Cheryl’s been kidnapped. She’s on that thing, and it’s taking her away from us.”

  “Wait. I don’t understand.”

  Sid worked her through it, ending with self-recrimination. “I should have seen this coming.”

  As Pete leaned toward the display to study Vivo, her face scrunched inward and tears ran in rivulets down her cheeks. “What can we do?”

  “What would the kidnapper want that Aurora has?” asked Sid. “Something she couldn’t get on Earth.”

  “The kidnapper is a she?” she asked, wiping her face with her sleeve.

  Sid looked at the displays without responding.

  Pete shook her head. “No idea.” Then, gaining some control, she added, “I want to say that she’ll exchange the hostages there if her demands are met. I mean, isn’t that why you take hostages?”

  “Sometimes,” said Sid.

  The tears restarted. “Kidnappings don’t end well.” Her own words seemed to jolt her and her anger flared. “God almighty, Sid. Cheryl brags about you all the time. No offense, but you had to be living with your head way up your ass for this to be a surprise. I mean, just look at that thing.”

  Sid already felt miserable, and the fact that he couldn’t deny her words made it worse. “What do we have on the tether that could catch up to it? Something fast. Or maybe something that could get me to Aurora.”

  “We had nineteen ships just like that, but they already left. All we have now is family vacationers, cruise liners, container vessels, and old tubs.”

  “What about in lunar orbit?” He tapped, swiped, and murmured commands as he accessed Fleet’s record using credentials Criss maintained for him. Curse words started peppering his speech when he couldn’t figure out how to work through the officious interface to answer simple questions like, “What fast long-distance ships are currently in orbit around the moon?”

  Pete watched him flail, then turned away and called her friend Buddy, manager of the largest spaceship maintenance shop on the moon. Sid heard her greet Buddy but didn’t listen again until he heard her yell an angry, “Are you shitting me!?” Then after some silence, a more contrite, “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

  Pete spoke to Sid’s back. “He found four craft that are close to what you’d want, except one needs a new fuel core, two have the nav pulled for bridge upgrades, and one is getting an ops bench repair.”

  Sid turned to look at her, and she flashed a smile that looked more like a grimace. “It’s a maintenance shop. They work on broken things.”

  He turned back to the displays, but his eyes didn’t focus. Criss’s silence had stretched for far too long, causing Sid to think he was in trouble. But there wasn’t time to go looking for him, and he didn’t know where he would start.

  “How can I get to them? Or, how can I get to Aurora?” He stood and stretched a crick in his neck, then returned to his displays. “And how can I stop that ship?”

  “Use your cannon.”

  “I don’t think a cargo canister will stop them.”

  “But maybe you could if you were riding inside it.”

  He shook his head. “You need to launch at something whose position is known with precision. If Vivo sped up, slowed down, or changed course in the slightest after a canister is launched, I’d miss it. The canister would become my burial tomb.”

  “Aurora’s not speeding up or slowing down or anything else.”

  Sid glanced over his shoulder at the breach door.

  “It’ll take five days for you to get there, and that will give me time to find someone on the other end to catch you.”

  “Five days?” He felt sick. “They’ll be there in four.”

  “That’s still faster than most ships, none of which we have access to, by the way.” She perked up. “How about from Earth? You must know someone who can bring a craft out to us.”

  “That’s already not working. Lots of people want to help, but getting a fast ship ready for a long flight takes time. The best two choices are prepping right now, but they both need a day and a half before they’re ready, and that’s after cutting every corner. Plus, we’re in the wrong direction, so add a day to travel out here to pick me up, and a full day back. And then we can start the chase.”

  She looked at him without speaking.

  I need the scout, he thought. Criss’s absence hobbled him in a time of crisis. Much faster and nimbler than any military or commercial ship, the scout could swoop out to Sisyphus, pick him up, and be back in pursuit in half a day. Other options seemed painfully slow in comparison.

  Pete walked to the breach door and looked inside the empty canister. “How is shoo
ting to Mars different from shooting to Aurora? Except for aim, of course.”

  Sid moved next to her and studied the empty space from a different perspective, that of potential passenger. “Aim is everything in this business. First, you have to rotate this mountain of rock to aim the tube. Then, during launch, four three-gen crystals along the length of the barrel fine-tune the acceleration field to guide the canister. It exits on a path so precise that it can travel across the solar system without correction or adjustment until it reaches its target.”

  “No adjustments at all? What about gravity from the sun and planets?”

  “That’s all taken into account in the trajectory plan. It’s like throwing a stone.” Sid mimed the act of pitching. “The canister is a dumb vessel that just keeps going whichever way it’s tossed until it hits something or someone catches it. Limiting, but it keeps costs way down.”

  He quoted a statistic Criss had once told him. “Get this. If the aim is off by the width of a human hair at launch, that error compounds over and over across the solar system. By the time you reach the other end, the canister is as far away from Mars as the moon is from Earth. That’s way beyond the reach of any catch system. The width of a hair on this end means a lost canister on the other.”

  Pete turned to the workshop. “You’ll need air, food, water, temperature control, humidity control.” Walking to a set of shelves, she continued her list. “Com, of course. Oh, and a toilet.” She picked up a few items and put them back down. “You should have a portable nav, too. Even if you can’t change course, you’ll want to see where you’re going and track your rescue craft.”

  “Whoa, slow down there.” Sid tried to picture how it would all work. He’d done stupider stunts, so that didn’t bother him. But he expected to succeed when taking crazy chances. That part remained fuzzy.

  “Aren’t you going to save her? Cheryl always said she could count on you.”