by Robert Roth
Robert Roth
Steal the Demon
A Science-Fiction Novella
First published by Jetspace Studio 2021
Copyright © 2021 by Robert Roth
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Robert Roth has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
First edition
If you don’t enter the tiger’s cave, you won’t catch its cub.
-Japanese Proverb
Contents
Acknowledgement
1. A Hacker Walks Into A Bar
2. Practical Utility
3. Duck When All The Shooting Starts
4. You Are Advised To Hurry
5. That’s Quite The Welcoming Committee
Illustrations
About the Author
Also by Robert Roth
Acknowledgement
I couldn’t have produced this work without the gracious and generous assistance of several fine people, including my partner José, who helped me refine, tighten, and polish my prose–especially the action scenes, and my friend Eric, whose continuing willingness to dive into my unfinished work is always appreciated. Thanks as well to Galahad for such a thoughtful critique, and to Henry for not only providing excellent feedback and editing skills, but also helping with one of the hardest parts of believable worldbuilding: future slang.
1
A Hacker Walks Into A Bar
Kimiko sat at a tiny table tucked into a corner far from the massive viewport, trying not to fidget while she ignored the breathtaking, panoramic view of 511 Davida, the giant rock that Davida Station orbited. Of course, she’d seen it when she walked in. It was impossible to miss. A sea of twinkling lights shimmered on the dark surface of Davida like the nighttime windows of far-off highrises, a distant city just over the curve of an impossible horizon. But the only civilization to be found there was in orbit. The lights on the surface were merely the glowing marks of heavy industry. Like so many others in the Belt, the rock was a rich source of Ceresium, along with numerous other valuable elements and metals, and the pinpricks of light in the viewport were mining facilities.
But she hadn’t seen city lights, or mining facilities, when she caught a glimpse of the station’s craggy neighbor. Instead, they reminded Kimiko of racing beacons, much like the ones she’d seen during her years in the Belt racing circuit. Back then, she’d flung her young body and dangerously overpowered ship into improbably high-g turns around rock after rock in what would seem like careless abandon to a casual observer, but was instead the result of precise calculations and intense training. She sometimes pined for those days from her carefree youth, but not as much as she missed being in the pilot’s seat at all.
An unexpected news report about her father showing on the viewscreens above the bar had made short work of any reminiscing about racing out in the cold and black. Kimiko was surprised to see it, since it was already old news. At least she wasn’t in it. Something like that could’ve easily blown her cover, if any of the joes sitting at the bar happened to spot her after seeing her face shining down on them. She’d otherwise made peace with the annoyance of being the daughter of someone notoriously newsworthy.
Kimiko considered it to be part of her giri, an ancient concept, culturally unique to the Downwell Earth islands her ancestors had once called home. She had a vague understanding of it–enough to have an idea of what it meant, but not enough to accurately describe it out loud.
In one sense, giri alluded to responsibility or duty. Her father, Ichiko Hitomi, the (former) head of Hitomi Shipping, (formerly) one of the largest indie shipping and supply companies in the Belt, had once been duty-bound to ensure the well-being of the employees under his care. That was his giri. While it could be argued that he still had that duty, it also could’ve fallen on her, as his daughter, after he’d been picked up by the Confederation Security Group. But her father’s absence left him unable to fulfill his duties to his former staff and left her affairs in a perilously unstable orbit. After his arrest by the CSG on smuggling charges, Confederation Compliance convicted him and sent him off to the Jovian system’s Callisto mines. They’d also seized all of his and his company’s assets, leaving Kimiko with no resources and barely enough possessions to fill the tiny compartment in Motherlode that she could hardly even afford.
Giri also suggested owing favors or being in someone’s debt. For instance, Kimiko had earned her reputation as one of the System’s best pilots, thanks to her father’s resources and her Uncle Shinzo’s tutelage. The giri she owed from that pushed her to put those skills to use for Hitomi Shipping, where she’d also made a reasonably lucrative living as a pilot and smuggler. But, following her father’s downfall, the Hitomi name had suddenly and irreparably redshifted from an asset into a liability. Kimiko submitted employment inquiries under that name for all of the pilot listings she’d seen on the Motherlode job boards. That was how she discovered that the weight of her father’s disgrace overshadowed her own reputation to such a degree that she received only a polite no from the few companies that even bothered to respond. Mostly, her inquiries were met with silence.
What she was left with was her personal giri, or her duty to herself. With her father’s absence and everything that meant, Kimiko needed to make a new name for herself. Not literally, of course. She’d already done that when she jettisoned her identity as Kimiko Hitomi and transformed herself into Kimiko Yanaka, taking the name of her mother’s family and giving up the well-deserved reputation that she’d always traded on before. Kimiko knew she could earn it back. She was still a kick-ass pilot. But to do that, she just needed the one thing she no longer had access to–a ship. Given her dire financial straits, she realized that there was only one way to get one. She would have to steal it.
That was why she sat alone in the bland, corporate, Confederation-run lounge on the edge of Davida Station. It was nothing like the dirty, friendly, hole-in-the-wall, dive bars that she frequented back on Ceres, but it was the only option that an uptight, straitlaced place like Davida Station had to offer. The lounge was crowded, at least, which helped her to blend in. And it was noisy enough to confuse most listening devices, which enabled her to maintain her operational security. Unfortunately, it was also prohibitively costly, which was why she’d been carefully nursing the Pavonis Mons Genuine Martian Whiskey sitting in front of her while she waited to meet with a notorious hacker called Paradox.
She knew very little about Paradox, besides what she’d heard about and read on the Net. She felt a strange kinship with them, since they also had a reputation for being one of the best, or rather one of the most notorious, due to their prodigious and high-profile hacking activities. Everyone had heard about the Confederation Data Bureau’s firewall breach, after all, not to mention the infamous Erebus Station hack. But the rest of Paradox’s identity, including their appearance and their real name, was mostly a collection of wild guesses and complete unknowns.
To say that she’d been mil
dly surprised when Paradox agreed to meet with her would’ve been an understatement. Being on the CSG’s Most Wanted List understandably led them to become something of a recluse. But, when Kimiko left Paradox a message at the secret Net address her cousin Kenji had dug up for her, she’d actually gotten a reply the very next day, and eventually, an invitation to meet with them in person. She was even more surprised when they’d agreed to meet with her at Davida Station.
It could’ve been a set up by the CSG or some former rival of her father’s, meant to entrap her so she could be sent off to join him on Callisto. But it was worth the risk. She had very little left to lose, at that point, and was honor-bound to act, anyway. So, when Paradox sent her a private, encrypted message link, she accessed it. That first message from them had really set the tone for their relationship.
Which ship would you like my help to steal?
So much for operational security. Had she been setting up a smuggling run, Kimiko would’ve spaced the whole mess then and there. But her smuggling runs had been done with parties that were carefully vetted by her father’s organization, and they were little different than regular cargo shipments–mostly just quieter and more out of the way. And she’d never before directly engaged the services of an elite hacker. The closest she’d come was with one of Kenji’s ex-boyfriends, and he hardly counted. She still didn’t trust Paradox, but wasn’t ready to jettison the whole exchange after the first message, so she sent them a cagey denial in reply.
But it’s obvious, Paradox had responded. Then they sent a detailed log of all the Net searches Kimiko had done regarding the Al-Zamani Shipyards that shared Davida Station’s orbit, digging for whatever scraps of information she could find to build her plan, a little bit at a time. I’m a hacker, not a shipbroker, they added. If you’re looking to buy a ship, you’ve got the wrong individual.
She shouldn’t have been surprised by that. Any hacker who could waltz through the AI-powered security of a firewalled CDB server would obviously have no trouble looking at her Net data. But it still stung, especially after the effort she’d made to hide her tracks. Kimiko tried imagining how her father would’ve dealt with it, burdened with all of his complex rules about honor and propriety. He probably would’ve felt just as spun out as she had at having her motivations laid bare so early in the negotiating process. She was nothing if not her father’s daughter, after all. Deep down, she knew she was just embarrassed. Perhaps he would’ve been, too. But she had no reason to be, and she certainly didn’t need to be concerned with saving face. Why would someone like the infamous Paradox trade messages with her only to insult her?
So Kimiko told him which ship she had in mind. Then Paradox asked her what her plan was, and she told him that, too. It terrified her a little, committing her plan to some kind of record, no matter how private and secure it was. But it also felt good having a co-conspirator. She hadn’t realized how much she missed having a team of some kind to work with, especially her old crew before her father’s arrest. And for whatever reason, Paradox seemed interested in being on her team. She asked them if they would help and, if so, how much they wanted to be paid.
I definitely want to help you, Paradox replied, then suggested an oddly specific figure. After looking it up, she confirmed that it was precisely a third of the creds stashed away in her account on Ceres. Apparently, her bank’s security was no match for the hacker, either. While it would be a big chunk of money to part with, it was obviously something she could afford, and she couldn’t help feeling like they were letting her off easy–maybe even giving her the bait and switch.
She didn’t want to be on the hook for any favors to be named later, she told Paradox flat out, even if that meant spinning the upfront price a little higher. But they only responded with an anonymous account number and instructions for transferring the creds. A few minutes after she’d done as instructed, Kimiko received a confirmation at her public message address for a one-way, transfer-class, shuttle trip from Ceres to Davida Station, leaving in two days.
A polite cough interrupted her introspection. She looked up to see a masc-presenting individual dressed in nondescript, gray coveralls, taking the seat opposite her. Everything about them was unremarkable, from their short, clippered, dark hair with hints of silver, to their olive-brown skin with the slightly gray undertones of someone who’d never been exposed to direct sunlight. Their coveralls had the Davida Station logo printed on the right-side chest pocket. If that was Paradox, they were either the most cliché, undercover CSG agent she’d ever seen, or a brilliantly disguised hacker.
“Hitomi Kimiko?” they asked.
That was an unexpected opening line. Not only had they called Kimiko by her original last name, but they also used the archaic, Downwell custom of putting her family name first. Kimiko raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “Sorry, Joe, there ain’t nobody here by that name.”
Her tablemate offered a slight smile that didn’t quite reach their eyes. “My apologies. Of course, you’re Yanaka Kimiko, now. But you used to be Hitomi Kimiko. Born 2307 in Motherlode on Ceres, the only child of Hitomi Ichiko and Yanaka Misaki. You sent me a message from a rented, anonymous terminal in Motherlode using a Net address that you’d gotten from your cousin, Hiruma Kenji. I just needed to be sure it was really you.”
She scoffed lightly. “And you’re Paradox?”
They nodded.
“Well, it sounds like you’ve done your homework, Joe–except for the part that I’m not from Downwell Earth, and I don’t put my last name first.”
“My apologies,” they replied, with a small nod of their head. Then they took a sleek-looking hand terminal from a pocket in their coveralls and tapped a command into it. Her own handheld buzzed in response. “While I’m good with data, I’m not very good with people.”
Kimiko reached into a jacket pocket to pull out her hand terminal and opened the waiting message to reveal an ID file that simply said Paradox. He/him. Hacker. Clever. She smiled, then put her handheld away. “It’s fine. No need to get spun up about it.”
“Thank you,” he replied, then looked at her curiously.
“It’s good to finally meet you,” she said. “I honestly had no idea what to expect.”
He looked away, taking a moment to stare at the viewport. “That’s to be expected, and it’s not unwanted.” Then he looked back over at Kimiko. “Between those who would like to employ me, and those who would see me caged, I’m a highly sought-after individual. I prefer for most people to know nothing about me.”
She imagined that was why he went to such cosmic lengths to appear so ordinary. A lot of joes in his position–assuming that there were even a lot of joes who could be a hacker notorious enough to draw the attention of Confederation enforcers systemwide–might’ve tried much more elaborate disguises. But that sort of thing often backfired, in her experience. It was better to just hide in plain sight by making yourself unremarkable enough to blend into everything around you. It was how she’d always managed to avoid getting caught on her smuggling runs. If Kimiko had seen him anywhere else besides sitting at the table across from her, she would’ve simply ignored him like every other joe in the background. The guy was pretty greased up. She had to give him that.
Kimiko looked down at her own attempt at a disguise. She, too, had gone for the low-profile look. She ditched her standard flight jacket and jumpsuit in favor of a simple pair of tight, gray leggings, a black t-shirt, and an old pair of worn-out, black, work boots. She topped that off with a work jacket with the High Orbit Mechanical logo printed on the back that she’d thrifted in Motherlode. She kept her straight, black hair in the short, choppy, razor-cut style she favored since it was practical and easy to manage. There was nothing to be done with the ornate sleeve tattoo on her right arm–the one with the old-style chemical rocket weaving through a set of stylized rocks and planets–but the jacket hid it well enough. She’d added a little makeup, too, which she usually didn’t wear–but just what she needed to de-emphasize her sha
rp cheekbones and make her eyes seem a little larger. There really wasn’t much else she could’ve done, aside from springing for a quick facial sculpt, which was out of the question, and completely unaffordable for the time being, anyway.
“Your disguise is effective enough,” Paradox offered as if he’d read her thoughts. “And your false ID is still secure, even if your legend is terribly thin. There is no indication that the local authorities are aware of your former identity. I checked very thoroughly before coming to meet with you.”
“That’s good to know.”
He reached into another pocket in his coveralls and pulled out a data chip. Then he set it onto the table and slid it across toward her.
“What’s this?” she asked as she picked it up.
“There are two sets of information stored on that chip. One is an early copy of the plans and schematics for the Al-Zamani Shipyard. The final plans can’t be found anywhere outside of Al-Zamani’s internal Net, but I located these on a server owned by one of the few contractors they’d hired during the initial planning phase. Unfortunately for us, nearly everything else was done in-house, from planning to construction.”
“Still, this is a pretty cosmic find.” While she didn’t have a complete copy of the facility plans, she’d pieced together the likeliest route for her infiltration based on the pieces she could find, along with a few conversations she’d had with another ex-boyfriend of Kenji’s. His ex had actually worked for Al-Zamani for a short time on the General Maintenance crew–which was a polite term for janitor. But if anyone knew where everything was, it was always the joe who cleaned up after everyone. “What’s the other set?”
He smiled. “Something I dug up on a Confederation Defense Forces server, actually. It’s the full schematics for the Shaitan.”
One of Kimiko’s reasons for choosing the Al-Zamani Shipyard was because the ship she intended to steal was their new Shaitan class fast-courier spaceframe. Specifically, the original Shaitan–named from the old Arabic word for devil or demon. A proof-of-concept ship they were using as a demonstrator craft, it was packed to the baffles with all the available options that Al-Zamani offered for that class, including integral shield and grav generators, a generous complement of defensive weapons systems, and a well-appointed captain’s cabin. It was a ship most joes could never in a lifetime afford, even if Al-Zamani ever chose to offer it for sale. “No shit? That’s fucking frosty! I can’t wait to look them over.”