by Jason LaPier
Bright-blue lights penetrated him.
“Sources tell us that it was the TEOB that came to the FSC to request assistance,” the reporter continued. “As was revealed in a Terroneous-based documentary earlier this year, the man known as Jack Fugere was pivotal in preventing the mass evacuation of the moon due to malfunctioning magnetic field sensor equipment.”
“Jack Fugere,” Phonson said with a crooked smile. “I like it, Jackson. It’s almost creative.”
Jax ignored him, his attention locked on the reporter. “ModPol has yet to respond to the demands of the FSC or anyone else, at least officially, and their public relations offices declined to comment. It’s difficult to say what will come of this development, as the FSC has no military forces other than the individual defenses of each settlement in the committee. Our analysts say the next course of action will be trade embargos – regulations that would be extremely difficult to enforce on the sparsely populated moon.”
“We all know that won’t work,” Phonson said, apparently compelled to provide color commentary. “Terroneous can’t survive without trade. They need imports much more than everyone else needs their exports.”
Jax barely followed galactic politics, but he knew there was more than a trade embargo threat in the statement. The governments of Terroneous were testing the relationships they had with the rest of the Alliance. They were asking the Alliance to choose between one of its own members and a multi-stellar corporation like ModPol. As much as the domers loved ModPol, it might set a bad precedent if they sided with a corporation over a colony of citizens. To do so could amplify the thought in the back of many people’s minds: that dome republics were basically corporations themselves.
“No word yet on whether this will affect the latest Earth Kin Rescue mission,” the reporter said. Phonson made a move to switch off the holovid, but paused, apparently interested in hearing the last bit of the story. “Commonly referred to as the ‘doomed to domed’ program, the next Rescue ark is the first immigration ship destined for Terroneous. Although no single colony on the moon is a voting member of the Earth Colony Alliance, various ‘partner members’ there have long lobbied to be the new home of Rescued Kin. The frequency of arks leaving Earth has dropped considerably in recent decades, and for reasons that are unclear, the ECA voted to allow what is possibly one of the final batch of Earthlings to emigrate to Terroneous rather than one of the domed colonies.”
Jax had heard something about the next ark being destined for Terroneous; it was a popular topic of conversation when he was living there. Most people were excited to welcome some Earthlings, feeling good that the immigrants weren’t destined for domes. Those conversations had always made Jax uncomfortable, putting him on a bit of a defensive edge, which was weird – he didn’t want to defend dome life, especially not to the hard, resilient residents of Terroneous, but the domes were where he came from. To their eyes, the domes were a place of weakness, of soft lives and consumerism, massive shopping malls masquerading as civilization. And maybe they were to some degree, but that didn’t make their residents bad people.
She always understood how he’d felt. She’d lived on Barnard-4 for two years. Gone to the same college he had. They could have passed each other on an avenue – who knows if they had. Their destiny to meet wasn’t until many years later, when he went to Terroneous to live out his fugitivity.
Phonson scrubbed the holovid back. In Jax’s frozen silence, he begged the universe not to let the video stop on her face.
But the universe wasn’t listening.
Phonson looked at Jax long and hard. Then he looked at the holovid. The frozen frame showed Wainrite and the handful of supporters that stood behind him. He waggled a finger at them. “One of these people really cares about you, Jackson.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jax said weakly.
Phonson looked at him and grinned his crooked grin. He stepped close to the holovid, close enough so that when he began jabbing at it, his pointing finger merged into the three-dimensional image. “Could be this guy. Or this woman. Or this old bag. Or this – I don’t even know what this guy is supposed to be.” He looked back at Jax. “Doesn’t matter. Because I can get to them all. You know my style. When in doubt, slaughter the whole block.”
“I thought that was Jenna Zarconi’s style,” Jax said, unable to resist slinging the barb that was so well set up.
He frowned and jabbed himself in the chest. “It’s my style. That woman was trying to flatter me by imitation.” He paced a slow circle around Jax. “Anyway, I will hunt them all down,” he said, waving broadly. The only person on the screen he hadn’t pointed at directly was Lealina Warpshire. He stopped, standing next to Jax, so that they were facing the holovid together. “That one on the end, she’s a pretty young thing,” he said. “Nice eyes.”
Jax managed to land a single weak punch before the anti-aggression safeguards leveled him.
Chapter 9
“I can’t believe I’m flying this beast,” Lucky Jerk said. “It’s ironic that I have to fly this thing. Right? Is that irony?”
“Fuck if I know,” Thompson-Gun said. “Just shut up and fly.”
Dava and her team were in a black maria. It was the same small, boxy prisoner transport ship that they had encountered at Terroneous, back when they rescued Psycho Jack from a bunch of Pollie chumps. The irony Lucky was on about was that he had taken a fighter and flown circles around the bulky black maria, finding its weak spot and disabling it with a few well-placed shots. Dava didn’t know if it was irony that Lucky was now behind the stick of the same ship he once disabled. She didn’t really know what irony meant. In any case, she felt a small tingle of happiness in using the ModPol ship in their devious plan. It seemed like something Moses might think of.
After they’d disabled the black maria just off Terroneous and rescued Jack, they’d left the Pollies adrift. The ship had managed to push itself into orbit around the moon, but otherwise it’d been stuck. Evidently, someone had come along and rescued the crew, leaving the ship to be dealt with later. Some scrapper who was either desperate or blessed with massive balls had come along and towed it off. After that, it’d shown up on the market. Naturally, Space Waste had been eager to add it to their collection.
Captain 2-Bit had come through. She had to hand it to the old bastard, he was true to the cause, even in the face of disheartening betrayal. He’d gotten her the location of the zero-G maxi, through a combination of pestering Jensen and creative scouting. It was deep in Barnard space, nestled among the rocks and dust of the outer cloud.
And he’d gotten her the black maria, as well as four of his most reckless pilots.
“Hey,” Dava said to no one in particular. “How come you call someone reckless, when you really mean they wreck stuff a lot?”
“Ooh,” Lucky said with genuine interest. “That’s a good one.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Half-Shot groaned from the back of the cabin. “The total collective education in this entire bloody vessel doesn’t surpass primary school.”
“Half-Shot, what did we tell you?” Thompson said. “Your brother might have been a smart one, but you only got half his brains, so piss off. You keep it up and I’m gonna stuff you into the hold with Polar Gary and the flyboys.”
Dava grinned. There was something about taking control of the situation that was putting her in a good mood. They were on a ModPol ship, a prisoner transport. It was perfect for getting them into the zero-G maxi. The cabin was packed full, between her, Thompson, Lucky, Seven-Pack, and Half-Shot. They had to stick Gary and the pilots in the prisoner hold. 2-Bit always called his pilots flyboys, but that was something to do with his past. Lost sons that he never talked about. In any case, the four flyboys were actually one guy and three women.
“Coming up,” Lucky said. “Prepare for deceleration. If you have to take a leak, you shoulda done it by now.”
*
Docking with the prison was as smooth as it c
ould be. The thing was top-of-the-line tech. From the outside, the structure was a big geodesic ball, although by appearances, there were no outer walls, just crossbars. Beyond those, a confusing mishmash of tubes and blocks, some of which rotated slowly while the rest did not. They’d all held their breath as the dozens of turrets mounted at the intersections of the supports trained on the black maria. Then the ship was locked in by the dock’s system and parked automatically.
“How many we got out there?” Dava said, hovering over Lucky’s shoulder as he poked at the controls.
“Looks like they trust the docking system,” he said, bringing up the views of the external cameras. “Got four guards walking out to greet you. Don’t be fooled though, they have grabber boots and gloves. No gravity in this whole place.”
“We get a layout?” Dava asked, nodding at the pilot’s screens.
Lucky looked back and frowned. “Nothing. The docking station only fed us the stats on the outer perimeter and the docks. Everything else is a big ball of who-the-fuck-knows.”
“Here’s how we’re gonna run this,” Dava said, meeting each of their eyes. “I want us to stick together this time. We get caught, we all go down together. I’m going to have to leave you here, Half-Shot, to stay with Lucky and the other pilots.”
“Stay here?” Lucky blurted. “But you just said we need to stick together this time.”
“Someone has to stay with the goddamn ship, numbnuts!” Thompson said, raising an open hand and causing Lucky to flinch.
“Our most valuable things right now are this ship and our five pilots,” Dava said, pointing at Lucky. “And we’re going to need to find more ships if we hope to get everyone out. So in the meantime, you and the other pilots are going to be safest waiting here.” She turned and looked at her gunman. “You got it, Half-Shot?”
His lips twitched a little, then he nodded. “Lots of ammo and a wide-open docking platform. It’ll be a cinch.” He gave a little shrug. “I’m not great in enclosed spaces anyway.”
Dava already guessed that, looking at the length of the tall man’s favorite rifle. He would be better at guarding the ship than joining the boarding party. “Okay, good. So going in, it will be me, Tommy, Seven-Pack, and Polar Gary. We’re running blind, so we’re going to have to take this place apart piece by piece. We’ll have Gary strap the weapons crate we brought to his back. Any Wasters we find get their pick outta the crate.”
“We should find Johnny Eyeball first,” Seven-Pack said. She didn’t need to follow up with why. Dava was thinking the same thing: Johnny would tear the place apart with a big fat gun in his hands.
“We probably won’t have the luxury of choosing who we find first,” Dava said. “But if we get any info at all, Moses is a priority. Johnny would be next, and Freezer too. We might need his hacking skills.”
“If he’s still alive,” Thompson-Gun muttered.
Dava frowned in agreement. She hoped the prison experience had humbled the cocky hacker. It would be better for him if he’d been laying low.
In the silence that followed, everyone instinctively checked their weapons – even Lucky. Dava had made sure everyone left the base with the best armor they could find. Which wasn’t necessarily the strongest; she knew in the complete lack of gravity, they needed to be flexible. However, mass was no concern. That meant they all wore dense nanomesh that was completely impractical on the surface of a planet, but perfect for the weightless prison.
They watched the guards take position around the black maria. They were attentive, but only just so. Dava guessed that in a place like this, getting dock duty was the closest thing to vacation. It would be downright banal compared to working the yards or the cells. Usually.
Half-Shot leaned into the screen and studied it for a moment. “I’m going right, aiming left.”
Dava nodded. “Good. Tommy, you’re on the left side. Me and Seven will follow. Lucky: you’re on lights.”
It was a good team. Without hesitation they moved. Lucky rigged the inner lights to go completely black. The side hatch peeled open, bending down toward the floor, though without gravity it might as well bend in any direction. Half-Shot nestled into the dark recess of the airlock. The barrel of his rifle was a cold, black lump in the darkness, pointed at the opening. It sought out its aim, to the left of opening, the aft of the ship.
It let out a sharp crack that sounded more like the snap of bone than a gunshot.
“Two down,” Half-Shot whispered.
“Go!” Dava shouted.
Lucky hit the outer lights, cranked to full lumens. The docks glared into white brightness. The guard who’d been standing near the fore of the ship had already been stunned by the unexpected shot; now he raised a gloved hand to shield his eyes from the sudden explosion of white.
Tommy plugged him with a short burst. She was braced against the side of the hatch, and after her shot, pulled herself all the way out. Dava knew that damn submachinegun of hers was too much recoil in zero-G. “Wait here,” she said.
She slipped up along the side of the ship using the handholds. She felt light. One with her blade. She scrabbled across the flat top of the boxy ship silently. The fourth guard clicked loudly in his grippers, stamping his way around the rear of the ship to investigate the eruption of light and sound coming from the port side. Effortlessly, she yanked against the top of the hull and propelled herself to him. Her blade sank into the side of his neck. She allowed him to slowly turn his head, to screw his eyes back and see her face before she twisted the blade and ended it.
“I’m coming, Moses.”
*
They unpacked Polar Gary and strapped him up with the weapon chest. It was bulky and awkward, but without gravity, its mass was no burden for the big Sirius-Fiver. When Dava asked him to check his straps, he yawned and ignored her. He just stared into unseen distance. She hoped he would prove useful and not turn into dead weight.
Moving around the dock was tricky, but they’d all been trained in zero-G. Dava relished it. Yes, it was a disadvantage, but being a disadvantage for everyone equally meant she could turn it into an advantage. The floors and walls were dotted with handholds and they pulled themselves across the open space toward the hatchway that led into the docking control room. As she gripped, tugged, released, and again gripped each handhold, she felt like she was dancing.
She reached the hatchway first. There was a pad next to it and she tapped at the interface. She hoped it would recognize the presence of the ModPol ship in the bay and simply open, but it wanted some kind of access code. Gary’s shadow eclipsed her and she glanced back at him, hopeful. He was the one of them who’d done time in ModPol lock-ups, and she needed his guidance.
There was a clink and a squeak and she whipped her head back around to see the hatchway open. A slender, pale-skinned man in a gray jumpsuit lined with bright-silver piping leaned against the door as it opened.
“Hey there,” he said. He looked young, and Dava would have mistaken him for a lanky teenager were it not for the odd patches of dark stubble scattered around his face. “What’s going on?”
She flicked her blade loose from its sheath on her chest and made a move toward him. Then, with a quickness she didn’t expect from the big man, Gary grabbed her forearm with a meaty paw and pulled her back. Her mouth opened to protest, but when she glared at him, his focused intent caused her to falter. His big right hand reached forward and grabbed the extended arm of the gray-suited man. Dava could see Gary hook one foot under a handhold on the floor for purchase before he yanked the man forward, whose face widened in shock.
“Hey! Who—”
Gary let go of Dava and slapped the man with the flat of his open palm. The wide shock twisted into terror, his mouth hanging open soundlessly.
Dava looked from one to the other and crooked an eyebrow. She raised her blade questioningly.
“No,” Gary said. “He’s an officer.”
“So?”
“You,” he said, shaking the man by th
e arm. This officer – Dava now understood the style of the outfit – was wearing magnetic boots and his feet stuck to the floor, but Gary rattled him like a wet noodle. “Who are you?”
His mouth went up and down a few times before he managed to spit it out. “Wa-wa-warden Perzynski,” he said.
“Warden,” Gary and Dava said simultaneously.
“Assistant Warden!”
She looked at Gary. “I didn’t know there was such a thing.”
He nodded shortly. “They take shifts in a place like this. No one is supposed to be head warden for too long or they go bad.”
She furrowed her brow at his choice of words. “You mean, like corrupt?”
He ignored her question. “Assistant Warden Perzynski will open doors for you,” he stated. He tugged on the man’s arm a few times, looking down at the boots stuck to the floor.
“Tommy, Seven,” Dava said. “Get his boots and gloves off and bind his hands.”
Her soldiers went to work quickly while Gary held the assistant warden in place. His protests were halfhearted, resigned to his fate and not compelled to resist. Dava pulled herself into the control room to find a pair of operators gawking at her from the chairs they were strapped to. They too were of B-fourean stock, skinny and pale, a young man and a middle-aged woman.
The look on their faces was all too familiar. “Never seen a black woman in person, have ya?” Dava said.
They glanced at each other and after a few moments of icy silence, the woman spoke up. “We have black people here,” she said cautiously, then tipped her head to one side. “Are you here to visit them?”
Dava’s eyes narrowed, unsure of where to start facing ignorance on so many different levels. Then she realized that though she didn’t know all Earth-borns just because they shared the same skin color, there was a good chance she knew all the ones in the prison. There were a few in Space Waste, especially one in particular, and that’s who she precisely came to visit.
“I am,” she said with a wicked smile. “I’m here to visit family. Some are black and some are not.”