Her Brother's Keeper

by Mike Kupari

  Getting through the sealed hatch would be a problem. Wade Bishop had volunteered to rig up another shaped charge for the purpose, but Corbin had provided for that. Uploaded to Catherine’s handheld was a set of Internal Security access codes that he said would get her through any door, grant her access to any system, everything. The trick was, the handheld would have to be plugged into the stations’ computer directly. The codes were designed to not work if broadcast via radio.

  Marcus and Mazer pretended to avail themselves to the gift shop while they searched for an access panel. Everything for sale was secured in a vending machine, and they browsed through the menu screens. T-shirts, trinkets, hard copy books, toys, and a variety of electronics were all available. Marcus purchased a t-shirt with the People’s Combined Collective governmental seal, an authoritarian logo consisting of a stylized gear, olive branches, a rocket, and stars printed on it. “Annie will love this,” he said to Mazer, holding it up for the security officer to examine.

  On another screen, Mazer pulled up an image of a ceramic dragon figure, twenty centimeters long. The dragon was perched on a rocky outcropping, holding a crystal orb in its claw. “Who comes all the way across inhabited space and buys a ceramic dragon from a Combine refueling station?” He asked. Meanwhile, on the Andromeda’s command deck, Luis Azevedo stood by, waiting for the word from his captain. When he received it, he would initiate the ship’s powerful electronic warfare suite. The jammers would prevent the platform for calling for help before they could shut down its communications, but turning them on would cause the Andromeda to light up like a nova on sensors.

  “Captain,” Mazer said. “Come look at this. I think it’s just what you’ve been looking for.”

  Catherine pushed herself off of a handhold and drifted across the compartment to her security officer. She grabbed another handhold to stop herself, and rotated forward to see what Mazer was talking about. It was a holocube, portraying a ship sitting on a launch pad on a wintry day. If you shook it, holographic snow gently fell on the ship and accumulated on the ground below it. It was an interesting trinket, but the holocube wasn’t really what Mazer was indicating. Next to the vending machine, on the wall, was a panel with the markings of computer maintenance access. “I see,” Catherine said, nodding. “It is lovely. Shall I get it?”

  Mazer and Marcus both nodded. This was it.

  “ECM active, Skipper,” Azevedo said into her earpiece.

  Moving quickly, Catherine drew her utility knife and snapped the blade out. She pried the panel open and found the small computer access port inside, underneath a screen displaying information on the station’s computer systems. She connected a data cable to her handheld and plugged it into the port. The screen lit up momentarily as the computer tried to identify the new device attached, but before it could finish Catherine tapped her own screen and ran Corbin’s program.

  “Got it,” she said. After a second, a menu appeared on her handheld, listing the measures available to an officer of Internal Security. The first thing she did was lock down the platform’s communications systems, preventing it from broadcasting or receiving. The system would only send out a looped message stating that the station was being commandeered by Internal Security. That would keep the curious away. “Luis, their comms are down,” she said into her earpiece. “Shut down ECM.”

  “Roger, Skipper.”

  She then disabled the omnipresent monitoring and recording systems. Even Internal Security didn’t have the option of deleting the recordings. Next, she unsealed all of the internal hatches and sealed the other docking ports. The other ship inbound wouldn’t be able to couple with the station if it didn’t have the sense to change course.

  “Done!” she said to her men, pocketing her handheld. “Let’s go.”

  The trio moved through the “authorized personnel only” hatch, into the station’s cramped living quarters. “Lana-Nine-Zero-Eight-Nine-Zero!” Marcus called. “Lana! We’re here to get you out! Where are you?” Bracing himself on a handhold, he cautiously peeked around a corner where two cylindrical sections were joined. He immediately recoiled, cursing, as the loud, crackling snap of a laser weapon discharge rang out. A streak of air just past his head shimmered, and the far bulkhead flashed and smoked where the beam struck. The air stunk of ozone as Marcus pulled his 10mm pistol.

  “Let me talk to her,” Catherine said, pulling herself forward. “Lana?” she called around the corner. “Lana, can you hear me?”

  “Who are you people?” Lana replied, obviously afraid. “You’re not InSec. What do you want?”

  “We just want to talk to you,” Catherine said.

  “You can talk to the patrol when they get here!” Lana cried. “I sent out a distress call. You’d better leave now!”

  “No, you didn’t, Lana. We have control of your communications. Nothing went out, and no one is coming for you. It’s just you and us. I just want to talk to you. My name is Catherine.”

  “How do you know my name?” Lana sounded terrified. “Who . . . who are you? Who sent you?”

  “Your father sent us, Lana.”

  “My father . . . ? Are you Internal Security? I told you people I don’t know anything! I’m not a traitor! Please!” she cried. “Please . . .”

  Instead of trying to talk her down, or rounding the corner and risking getting blasted, Catherine set her handheld to project. She pointed the lens at the far bulkhead, where Lana’s laser had struck, and tapped the screen.

  The image of Corbin was distorted on the curved bulkhead, but it was clear enough to see. “Lana,” he began, looking far less detached than he had in person. “It’s me, your father. I need you to listen to me very carefully. Internal Security suspects you’re part of a human trafficking ring, smuggling defectors out of the system. I’ve been keeping them off your trail as best I could. I tried to keep you safe. That’s why I had you assigned here, but I can’t protect you anymore. I’ve done all I can do, and sooner or later they’re going to come for you. They’re coming for you and they’re going to make you disappear, just like they did with your mother.

  “I know you hate me for what happened to her. Lana, your mother was the only woman I ever loved. If I had known that she was suspected, if there was anything I could’ve done, I would’ve stopped it. When they kicked in the door to our flat, I knew immediately what was happening, and it was already too late. That’s why I didn’t try to stop them: not because I didn’t love your mother, but because of what would happen if I had. That’s also the reason I had to publicly denounce her after the arrest. If I didn’t, they’d have come for me, and also for you. I’ve worked for InSec for years. I know how they operate.

  “I’m sorry, angel. I’m sorry it took me so many years to make it up to you. I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to say this to you before. I just couldn’t bear to face you, and I still can’t. You look just like your mother. Every time I see you, I see her.

  “I want you to go with this woman, Captain Blackwood. She’s going to take you to a safe place. You’ve never trusted me in your entire life, but I’m begging you to trust me this once. I have been planning for this day for a long time. Arrangements have been made, and debts have to be paid. I wish I could tell you this in person, because you very likely won’t hear from me again.

  “Go with the captain, Lana. Please, go with her. There isn’t much time. I love you.”

  The message ended, and suddenly it was very quiet in the weightless compartment. Catherine could hear quiet sobbing coming from around the corner. Risking a look, she peeked around the bulkhead. Lana was huddled up at the end of the short corridor, floating in a fetal position, face buried in her hands. Droplets of tears, sparkling in the artificial light, drifted away from her face as she wept. The laser pistol rotated lazily away from her.

  Motioning for her men to stay out of sight, Catherine pulled herself around the corner and down the corridor, stopping a few meters from Lana. “Hey there,” she said softly. “My name is C
atherine.”

  Lana looked up, tears drifting off of her red eyes. She was so young, barely into her adult years. “What’s going to happen to me now?”

  “Please come with us, Lana. Your father has arranged for us to get through the transit point without being stopped, but we don’t have a lot of time. He asked me to take you away, to someplace where you’ll be safe.”

  “Where?”

  “Sanctuary,” Catherine said, hoping to God that it was actually a real place. “On Zanzibar.”

  * * *

  Back on the Andromeda’s command deck, Catherine moved quickly to strap into her command chair as she scanned all of her displays. The docking umbilical was being retracted, the manipulator arm was being stowed, and the ship was preparing to back away from the station.

  “Skipper!” Azevedo said excitedly. “That unknown contact just fired its engine up. It’s headed straight for us, must be pulling four Gs! Two thousand klicks and closing!”

  “Weapons online, Kapitänin,” Wolfram said. “I’ve got a lock.”

  “Hold your fire! Azevedo, sound general quarters!” the lighting of the command deck dimmed and changed to red, making it easier to see the multitude of displays. “Colin, get us the hell away from this station, full afterburn!”

  “Yes ma’am!”

  “Astrogation,” Catherine grunted, straining to speak under the g-forces as Colin flipped the ship away from the space platform, “send the flight deck a minimum time, maximum thrust trajectory for the transit point!”

  “Sending now,” Kel Morrow replied. “ETA, eighty-nine minutes.”

  “Engineering, spin up the transit motivator and keep it hot. I want us through the transit point as soon as we get close enough. Run the reactor hot, full power to all systems and weapons, all the way to the transit point!”

  “Roger that, Captain,” Indira Nair said. “That is more than our radiators can handle. We will have to dip into the heat sinks for as long as we can.”

  “Very good, Indira,” Catherine said.

  Colin’s voice echoed throughout the ship, “Attention all personnel! Stand by for emergency thrust!” Seconds later, the crew of the Andromeda was crushed into their acceleration couches under the weight of eight gravities. The ship rattled and vibrated on top of an exhaust plume that lit up the night like a newborn star.

  After a few minutes, the pilot backed the thrust off to six gravities, and Catherine was able to think clearly again. Her displays lit up as multiple Combine patrol ships fired up their engines and began thrusting in her direction. Targeting sensors swept the Andromeda’s hull, but the hostile ships were still too far out to engage; too far out, and too confused. They still weren’t sure what was happening.

  Driving the point home, a looped transmission was being broadcast from the unknown contact on virtually every standard frequency. “We are the Vox Populi,” it said, the speech an electronic amalgamation of dozens of voices. “We are the true voice of the enslaved, the oppressed, the sovereign citizens of Orlov’s Star. The Combine believes they are watching us, but we have been watching them. Join us, fellow citizens! Tear down the cameras, smash the recorders, break your chains! Live, love, struggle, and die on your own terms, as human beings, not as cogs in the great, soulless machine! For years we have struggled in darkness, but now we are revealed! Rise up! The revolution begins today!”

  Azevedo’s voice was strained as the weight of six gravities pressed upon his lungs. “Skipper, that contact is headed straight for the station! There’s no way it’s going to be able to . . . holy shit! Impact!” One of Catherine’s displays showed a silent flash of light, far behind the Andromeda, as the ship smashed into the massive space station at a relative velocity of thousands of kilometers per hour. The ship, the station, the reaction mass tanks, all of it, blazed momentarily before fading to dust and bits of hot metal.

  It hit Catherine then: Corbin-17741 had arranged this, somehow. This was their cover to get out of the system. Suddenly, every non-military ship in the Orlov’s Star system was suspect. Communications chatter went wild as the massive, unwieldy Combine security apparatus tried to figure out what happened and stop more attacks from being carried out. Ships that were underway were ordered to power down their thrusters and stand by, but those orders hadn’t come from their respective chains of command. Many of the messages seemed dumbfounded, waiting for orders from central authority, asking what had happened, or insisting that one set of orders superseded another. Instead of focusing on the Andromeda, fleeing from the destroyed station, military ships were being diverted to protect critical infrastructure. According to long-range sensors, some were actually firing at other ships too slow to comply with their demands. It was chaos, beautifully orchestrated chaos.

  There was still the matter of getting out of the system alive. The transit point was guarded by a constellation of defense platforms, and as the alert went out across the system, their sensors lit up and began scanning all nearby ships. “We are being targeted,” Wolfram said calmly. He paused for a moment, grunting under the strain of acceleration. “Fifteen individual defense platforms have locked onto us. At this acceleration we won’t be able to maneuver. We have the momentum advantage, and the platforms cannot maneuver at all. If we fire now, we can destroy some of them before they can effectively engage us, but . . . the odds are not in our favor.”

  Azevedo chimed in. “Skipper, that Combine patrol ship is pursuing us now. I just received a message ordering us to find a stable orbit, cut our engine, and stand by to be boarded. At the rate they’re accelerating we’ll be through before they can engage us. Barely.”

  This is going to be close. “Hold fire,” Catherine repeated. “Luis, broadcast the message that Corbin left us.”

  “Roger, Skipper. Stand by . . . broadcasting.” He was breathing heavily. “Now what?”

  “Kapitänin,” Wolfram said. “The platforms have broken their lock. They’re . . . they’re ignoring us!”

  The message the Andromeda was broadcasting was a high-level Internal Security emergency code. It stated in no uncertain terms that the transmitting vessel was on urgent InSec business and was not to be interfered with in any way, punishable by death. The robotic defense platforms responded automatically, but the lone patrol ship seemed undeterred. “Our bandit is speeding up, Skipper,” Azevedo observed. “Must be red-lining their reactor. They’re pulling eight Gs now. Sensors make that a Pagan-Hotel class,” he said, referring to the ship by its Concordiat Defense Force codename. “Max acceleration is supposedly seven gravities. He’ll be able to engage us before we reach the transit point.”

  “Can he follow us through?”

  “Negative, Skipper. Not transit-capable.” The Pagan-class was little more than a cylindrical can with an engine cluster on one end and massive radiators coming out of the sides. It was not atmospheric, nor was it particularly elegant, but the Combine military supposedly had hundreds of them in reserve.

  Minutes ticked by, agonizingly slowly, as Catherine ran the numbers on her console. The command deck grew noticeably hot, and streams of sweat ran down her head under the high gravity. Running at this acceleration for half an hour was burning through the reaction mass she’d just paid a king’s ransom for, and was straining the ship’s cooling systems. The radiators could only radiate heat away so quickly, and the internal heat sinks could only absorb so much. Once their capacities were exceeded, emergency cutoffs would engage. If those safeguards were overridden, the ship would overheat and systems would start to fail. The interior could become too hot for the crew to function in. The trajectory Kel Morrow had given her was the fastest route to the transit point, and if that Pagan-H kept up its relentless pursuit, she’d have no choice but to engage. Right on schedule, the Andromeda’s engines cut, plunging the crew back into the relief freefall. The pursuing Combine ship followed suit a moment later.

  The transit point grew nearer and nearer. Despite the Internal Security broadcast, the Pagan-H continued on its intercept
trajectory, constantly issuing demands that the Andromeda stand by to be boarded. On Catherine’s display, two circles represented the ships’ respective targeting envelopes, drawing inexorably closer like a nascent Venn diagram. As they drew near one another, she ordered Azevedo to engage the ship’s electronic countermeasures. The ECM couldn’t do anything to hide the Andromeda’s massive thermal signature, but it could play hell with incoming missiles’ terminal guidance. The crew was already at battle stations; Catherine and her officers on the command deck were still in their flight suits, but those crewmembers who had time to do so had already been ordered don their spacesuits in the event of a hull breach. All crew not on duty were secured in their individual berths, which all had emergency life-support systems of their own.

  After thirty minutes of coasting and cooling, the engines fired again, accelerating for the final dash to the transit point. The pursuing Pagan-H responded in kind. A long moment passed, then warning tones sounded as she fired off a volley of missiles.

  “Skipper!” Azevedo said excitedly. This was his first time in combat. “Incoming volley designated Salvo-Alpha, time to impact, six minutes!”

  Catherine nodded. “Wolfram, target the incoming missiles, fire at will. Luis, deploy countermeasures. Try using the radar to fry their guidance systems.”

  “Targeting missiles,” Wolfram confirmed. “I have a lock on the Pagan itself.”

  “Hold your fire,” the captain ordered. “This is bad enough without us starting a war with the Combine. Defensive fire only. We’ll engage the ship as a last resort. Luis, what’s the capability of their laser weapons?”

  “Database says they’re pretty light on lasers and have no railguns. They’re missile carriers, Skipper.”

  “Excellent. Colin, keep us on course for the transit point. Engineering?”

  “Standing by, Captain,” Indira Nair replied, sweat dripping down her face. “Transit motivator is spun up, stable, and running hot.”

  “Very good. It’s going to be close. As soon as your boards are green for translation, engage the motivator. Do not wait for my order.”