Spoils of War

by Terry Mixon

Keeper stared at her for several seconds before rising to her feet and walking over to One Twenty-Four’s work area. There, she entered a code into the lock, and the cabinet opened.

  “You’ll need to reset the code,” Keeper said before returning to her desk and settling back into her seat, acting as if this sort of thing happened every day.

  One Twenty-Four changed the code and took a few minutes to go through all of the equipment and chemicals stored in her new cabinet before starting the experiments that she’d been assigned for the day.

  She stared at Thirty-One often, reveling in the other’s impotent fury by smiling sweetly at her. Discovering this plot wasn’t going to stop Thirty-One from trying to kill her, but it showed Keeper that One Twenty-Four wasn’t a patsy. That she wasn’t going to just roll over and take whatever her enemy dealt out.

  She had no doubt that Keeper would go through her old cabinet. If Thirty-One had been too sloppy, that might still be the end of her. After all, wasn’t that really the best outcome? To let Thirty-One sabotage herself to the point she was censured?

  Hopefully, this would cause her enemy to become even sloppier when she made her next attempt. An attempt that One Twenty-Four would be watching for with every bit of her intellect.

  Grace felt calm as they approached the asteroid, and that kind of surprised her. She’d expected her heart rate to be up, anticipating the fight that was to come. Yet she was calm, cool, and collected. All of her training was paying off on the biggest mission of her career.

  Based on the intelligence they’d gotten from Kayden, she had a reasonably decent idea of where the engineering section of the center would be and had dispatched Na in that direction. She had First and Third squads to help her.

  He’d been a little less clear about where the cargo control area would be, but it had to be somewhere close to where the loading and unloading took place. They just had to find an airlock that would be close enough to get them to where they needed to go.

  Her preference would be to find a disused airlock. The longer they avoided being seen by any of the locals, the more they could accomplish. Their mercenary combat armor was going to stand out like a priest in a strip club, so the moment they revealed themselves, the alarm would be out.

  It turned out that gaining access to the transshipment center wasn’t nearly as difficult as she’d feared. Her squad didn’t have to use an out-of-the-way airlock because there was an open cargo bay that wasn’t currently in use. Someone must’ve decided that it made more sense to leave it open to space than to spend the time repressurizing it.

  That might mean that a ship was going to be docking to the attached umbilical and transferring cargo soon. She made note of its location, because it might become useful when it came time to leave, particularly if they had to move in a hurry.

  While Bright Passage was going to be in position to load cargo shortly, she wouldn’t know which bay their ride was going to use until Anders sent them a message. When that came, it was going to be an encrypted burst that their gear was designed to pick up. To the locals, it would be a random bit of static.

  Once they had that information, they’d have to find a map to get them to where they needed to exit the transshipment center. Her preference was to directly board the ship rather than having to use the thruster packs again. Faster would be better, and she had no qualms about abandoning unneeded equipment.

  Her people stashed their thruster packs in a disused locker as soon as they were inside the bay. The last thing that they needed was for an overly observant cargo handler to wonder where the new stuff had come from.

  Once they’d done that, everyone loaded themselves into the personnel airlock, which took them inside the transshipment center. The corridor outside the bay was made for moving cargo containers and had an overhead rail system that was more than capable of moving the massive boxes without human intervention.

  That was actually a lucky break. So long as they could move around the station without garnering any attention, that would ultimately improve their chances of success.

  While it might seem backward, she was leading the secondary team. Na and her people would see to the destruction of the asteroid via overloading the fusion plant. That task—though critical—was also significantly more straightforward.

  That was why Grace had Second Squad. Her group only numbered fifteen people, including herself and Kayden Harmon. So stumbling into an automated system like this was a godsend.

  A noise from farther up the corridor attracted their attention, and they crouched, weapons ready. Ahead of them, an automated rail car hoisting a container came around the gentle curve. It almost filled the corridor.

  “Everyone to the sides,” she ordered. “It looks like there’s enough room for it to pass by without touching us, but let’s not get anything snagged.”

  The extra space made sense. Maintenance work couldn’t interfere with the job of loading and unloading cargo, after all.

  Her group split in two, and Grace was pleased to see that the container cleared her with maybe a third of a meter to spare. It passed by and continued on its unknowable journey.

  “Is this the kind of automated system you were talking about?” Grace asked Kayden as they resumed their advance.

  He half turned toward her and nodded clumsily in the armor. “Everything that can be done without human intervention is. If we can find the system controlling the rails, we can order it to take whatever we like and put it on board Bright Passage once we have the docking bay number that she’s going to use.

  “Sadly, none of the computer interfaces in these corridors is likely going to be of use to us. They don’t have the command-and-control software on them. All they’re responsible for is interpreting the orders sent from elsewhere or perhaps local control of a specific container.

  “Still, if we can find a terminal, we can locate the nearest command-and-control interface. We’ll probably be able to get a map of the rail system, too. That’ll make our lives a little easier.”

  “Excellent. Do you think the terminal is going to be protected from intrusion?”

  “Undoubtedly. Leaders inside the Singularity worry about sabotage all the time. A disgruntled worker could use automated systems to cause a lot of havoc. I suspect that management here is more worried about that sort of thing. Theft seems less likely than sabotage in the grand scheme of things.”

  They continued on, passing branching corridors that were just as large as the one they were in, obviously meant to take cargo containers to and from different areas.

  She was beginning to fear that they weren’t going to find any terminals when they came across a recess that had one in it.

  “Overwatch positions,” she ordered.

  The squad deployed with half aiming their weapons the way they’d come while the rest took up positions watching the forward part of the corridor.

  The terminal looked unremarkable, but she knew that wasn’t the case. Singularity computer systems differed in many ways from the ones used in the Empire. When these people had left the Empire behind, their technology had diverged significantly when it came to computers.

  That wasn’t to say that her people couldn’t manage. Ships with Singularity computer systems were captured on a fairly regular basis. Some systems had even been purchased by Imperial Intelligence for study. Through cutouts, of course.

  Needless to say, the necessary people inside the Imperial Marines were trained on how to utilize Singularity systems. In this case, her specialist was Riggio Gomez, and he was damn good at what he did.

  After a few minutes of work, Gomez turned his head toward her and grinned. “I’m in, Lieutenant.”

  “No ranks,” she gently admonished him. “Kayden, can you find the nearest command-and-control terminal?”

  The man stepped up to the terminal and typed in a command.

  Grace read past his shoulder. She was both curious about what he was doing and making sure that he didn’t give them away. Since Gomez didn’
t seem concerned about what he was seeing, she relaxed a little.

  “I’ve got a listing of the authorized terminals, and I even have a rough idea of how we can get to one without exposing ourselves,” Kayden said after the terminal display changed to show a list in text.

  She and her people had training in the Singularity’s language—called the tongue—both written and spoken. Her accent was atrocious—as Kayden had gleefully pointed out—so she was glad that the man was fluent in Standard.

  “Great,” she said. “How far is it? Can we tell if we’re going to cross any areas with personnel traffic?”

  “Six levels up. I’ve got access to a map of the rail system as well as the cargo management control area. Nothing else, though. If you pass me your slate, I’ll transfer it.”

  Grace handed him her slate, which had all the modifications needed to link up with Singularity systems and also to read the files from them. “How long is it going to take us to get there?”

  “Not long. We can go a little farther up this tunnel, and there’ll be a ladder built into the wall. It’ll lead us up to a maintenance corridor directly adjacent to the control area. There’s always the possibility that we’ll run into somebody doing maintenance, but I think your people can handle anything like that.”

  “You’re damned right they can,” she said with a nod. “Get me that map, and let’s be about our business. We’ve got a cargo to steal, and then we can get the hell out of here.”

  14

  One Twenty-Four’s inevitable confrontation with Thirty-One came that evening. The girl and her clique of followers barely waited until all the girls had filed into the dorm before they confronted her. With Thirty-One in the lead, the group surrounded her, leaving no avenue of escape.

  Even though she knew that Thirty-One probably wasn’t stupid enough to attack her so blatantly, One Twenty-Four was still afraid. There was something wrong with the girl. Her rage made her do things that weren’t wise.

  “You’ve embarrassed me for the last time,” Thirty-One hissed as she stepped into One Twenty-Four’s personal space, jabbing her in the chest with a finger and forcing her back a step.

  One Twenty-Four chose to smile in spite of her fear. “Your attack on me was uninspired. Even an idiot would recognize that some of the chemicals had been altered.

  “Was that really the best you could do? Based on your attack in the gym, I thought you at least had some cunning. Is there nothing but brutishness hiding behind that bent nose of yours?”

  Her insult had the desired effect and more. Thirty-One actually growled as she grabbed One Twenty-Four by the blouse and yanked her close.

  “You think you’re so smart. Let me tell you the hard truth. Keeper hates you, and so does everyone else in the crèche. You don’t belong here. You deserve expulsion and death, because you aren’t worthy of the Line.”

  “And you’re an idiot for touching me,” One Twenty-Four responded just before she drove her fist into the other girl’s stomach.

  Thirty-One staggered back, taken completely off guard by the physical strike. The girl gasped for air even as her supporters gathered around her.

  Things were about to get ugly. While One Twenty-Four felt justified in responding with violence since the girl had touched her, that wouldn’t protect her from their retaliation.

  Even as Thirty-One and her supporters advanced on her with bloodlust in their eyes, the atmosphere in the dorm changed. Where before, the rest of her line sibs had been watching curiously, they were now closing in on the confrontation from all sides.

  One Twenty-Four was suddenly and deeply afraid. Was this the end? Had the crèche decided that she should be eliminated? She could posture against Thirty-One and her cronies, but she couldn’t fight the crèche.

  Instead of attacking her, the other girls placed themselves around One Twenty-Four in support. That stopped Thirty-One and her friends from advancing, their expressions now changed to shock.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Thirty-One demanded. “Stand aside.”

  “Your behavior is unacceptable,” Twelve said firmly. “Your attack on One Twenty-Four in the dorm is too blatant. It stops now.”

  Thirty-One put her hands on her hips and glared at Twelve. “How dare you? I will see you exterminated along with this trash.”

  Twelve raised an eyebrow. “Will you? You have the support of half a dozen girls. I have the support of the crèche. We outnumber you twenty to one. Are we the enemies that you wish to make today?

  “I understand that in the future, we may be required to maneuver against our enemies. That time has not yet come. Here in the crèche, we are expected to learn, and you have failed to comprehend the offered lesson.”

  Twelve turned toward One Twenty-Four. “That isn’t to say that One Twenty-Four won’t find herself expelled from the crèche. In fact, I believe the odds of her surviving to adulthood are slim, and that saddens me.

  “The Singularity needs each and every one of us. The Empire will have no mercy, and we cannot waste time exterminating ourselves. Both of you are behaving in a manner that is not befitting of the Andrea Line.”

  “And what shall we do?” One Twenty-Four asked. “How shall Thirty-One and I resolve our differences?”

  Twelve turned back toward Thirty-One. “You are the aggressor. I speak on behalf of the crèche when I demand that you cease such direct action inside the dorm. If you don’t, I will speak with Keeper, and she will learn of all the things you’ve done. If that happens, Keeper will not be pleased.”

  “I don’t bow to the likes of you,” Thirty-One sneered. “Do not insert yourself into this conflict, or you will find yourself next on my list of enemies. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Once again, you fail to understand,” Twelve said with a sad shake of her head. “I don’t speak for myself. I speak for the crèche.”

  All of the girls that were not part of Thirty-One’s coven of friends stepped forward and surrounded the smaller group. They didn’t behave aggressively, but they didn’t act like they were afraid either.

  “You are at a turning point, Thirty-One,” Twelve said into the sudden silence. “If you act in such a direct manner again, we will deal with you. If you attack me, someone else will step forward and see that the crèche’s will is done. Defy us at your peril.”

  One Twenty-Four could barely see Thirty-One through the other girls, but she could see that her enemy was intimidated. She tried to put on a good face, but who wouldn’t be daunted at this kind of confrontation?

  Without any response whatsoever, Thirty-One turned on her heel and headed back toward her bunk with her supporters streaming behind her. As soon as they’d backed down, everyone else dispersed.

  Everyone except Twelve.

  “Do not think that this absolves you of your failures,” Twelve said softly. “I was being honest when I said that I don’t think you’re going to survive. Your behavior is too far outside the norms expected in the crèche.

  “Perhaps you can reform yourself, but this is less about protecting you and more about making certain that Thirty-One does not believe that she rules here. If you strike her in the dorm again, rest assured that you’ll receive all the negative attention that I promised her.

  “This conflict between the two of you needs to be subtle. This kind of overt confrontation will not be tolerated. Is that clear, One Twenty-Four?”

  “I struck her because she touched me. If she does so again, I will hit her again. The crèche doesn’t forbid self-defense.”

  Twelve considered that for a moment and nodded. “So long as you don’t initiate a physical confrontation, you can defend yourself. See that you don’t make the mistake of abusing that allowance.

  “I’d warn Thirty-One about that as well, but she won’t listen to me. She has a cruel streak inside her that the rest of us do not. She won’t wait long before she finds a way to strike at you, so be wary. The gymnasium and the chemistry lab were just the beginning.

  “For
whatever reason, she’s decided that she must personally end you. Never take your eyes off of her or her lackeys.”

  Without waiting for a response, Twelve turned and walked back to her bunk, resuming her life as if nothing had happened.

  The girl was right, One Twenty-Four decided. Thirty-One wasn’t going to be deterred. In fact, after being told that she couldn’t do this, she suspected that Thirty-One would act sooner than she otherwise would have, and perhaps even more violently.

  The war between them wasn’t going to last long. If One Twenty-Four were to guess, one of them would be dead within the next month. Perhaps they’d both be dead.

  She needed to watch everything around her. When the viper struck, she would only have moments to react. Inattention could and would get her killed.

  One Twenty-Four felt her resolve harden. Whatever it took for her to survive, she’d do it. No matter the consequences.

  Once they’d secured the terminal again, Grace and her team made their way farther down the corridor. Several more cargo containers passed them as they advanced into the transshipment center, but they saw no one else.

  After about ten minutes of walking, they came to the ladder that Kayden had found on the map. Seeing how far they’d walked, Grace had to reassess the scale of the asteroid.

  On the map, the distance hadn’t seemed significant, emphasizing just how large the transshipment center truly was. Its loss would be a tremendous blow to the economy in this sector of the Singularity.

  Ascending the ladder was straightforward until they reached the level they wished to exit on. It was blocked by a locked hatch. Management obviously wanted to make certain that no one accessed the cargo delivery corridors without the proper authorizations.

  Thankfully, just like the computer system, they had a way of bypassing such locks. In this case, the lock itself was electronic, and Gomez had it overridden in less than a minute. She suspected that overriding it from the other side would’ve been more difficult. After all, saboteurs wanted into the tunnels, not out.