Mutiny on Outstation Zori

by John Hegenberger

  Jamie breathed and un-clinched his jaw.

  * * *

  Admiral Sam "Slag" Sawyer of the Imperial Marines Special Forces was not happy. Even though he controlled the operations of the Starship Ironfist and its compliment of three hundred and fifty highly-trained tactical techs, Sawyer felt that he could always do a better job if the higher command would just leave him alone.

  This latest communique was a perfect example of how disruptive the Imperium's demands were to an organized shock troop.

  ^**You are instructed to leave Outstation Runde immediately this date and proceed to Outstation Zori to investigate situation in FZ13.**^

  Sawyer wondered what the hell was going on. Had Zori been attacked? It wasn't responding to his ship's hailing on the tachyon beam. Had that insufferable bore, Admiral Long, finally screwed things up so badly that the Imperium had to send a Starship over to ensure discipline?

  Shaking his head, Sawyer reflected that it would take him approximately two days to follow these orders, plus another two days to return to normal procedures at Runde. He was not happy about this sudden change in operations, but he knew enough not to complain until after following orders.

  Sawyer functioned by the book, keeping his men at the ready. Some said he enjoyed trouble, others that he a petty tyrant. None of this mattered, of course. The fact was that Admiral Sam "Slag" Sawyer was a damn good officer. And after all this nonsense was over, he would see that someone would pay dearly for disrupting his command.

  "Lay in a direct course for Outstation Zori," he told his helmsman. "And be prepared to go to red alert when we exit hyperdrive."

  CHAPTER 6

  Jamie felt strangely exhilarated as he skulked through the hallways of Outstation Zori.

  The various screens inset in the walls cast back his reflection that seemed poised for sudden intrigue. The situation was a lot more exhilarating than any HAVENset he'd ever played, but it was also exceedingly more dangerous. If he were caught, he'd be killed. It was this ever-present prospect of jeopardy that thrilled him as he moved carefully from room to room, corridor to corridor with an extra stealth suit carried over one arm to be used by Aura if—no, when—he found her.

  No sound came to him as he moved toward a bank of drop tubes. He eased himself to the floor and belly-crawled the last ten meters. When the corridor flared ahead, Jamie noticed the slight brightening of the light long before the opening yawned into view. Despite his intense suspicion, he found he was alone in the passageway.

  Riding one of the tubes down to the reactor core, Jamie mentally reviewed a map of the station's layout. There were three levels to the core. First, the monitor sector where a few service techs and bots kept control over the ion accelerators, matter annihilator, and fusion backup systems. Then, the ion accelerators themselves, humming their lonely, deadly tunes to no one. And, finally, the huge field coils of the matter/antimatter reactor where constant bombardment and flux took place.

  It was at this lowest level that Outstation Zori maintained its brig; two small cells, three by three by six meters, each cubicle set solidly behind thick bars of duralloy. He had expected to find Aura occupying one of these chambers, but both cells were vacant.

  Okay. So where are you?

  He caught a lift and rode back up through the barracks, noticing that hardly any of the people there were doing anything except eating and sleeping. The large recreation center and pub, called the "Space Rock Cafe," was completely empty. No music, no dancing, no drinking.

  People stationed on Zori seemed intent on something very important. The individuals who were awake seemed to be concentrating inwardly on serious calculations or weighty issues. Jamie got the impression that, if he were to turn off his stealth suit, the single-minded crowd around him would still fail to take notice.

  He followed three somber marines into a lift and came into the drydock module, slipping silently past a security guard station. Most of the inner walls of this chamber, the station's largest, had been raised to allow personnel and equipment to flow between a dozen large knots of intense activity. People were scaling ladders and gantries, crossing catwalks, lowering null-gray cranes around what Jamie suddenly recognized as the twelve missing Esper Shadow ships.

  The sleek little vessels were being dismantled—no, modified—at a furious pace by the company of no-nonsense technical personnel.

  Jamie's curiosity kicked into hyperdrive. This was a major military operation, one certain to be rated as top security. What had he stumbled into? And where the hell was Aura?

  Clamber glided carefully along an outer bulkhead and approached one of the translight vessels. Cool blue lasers chewed through duralloy steel, sculpting away portions of the small crafts' fuselage. Fatigue-clad marines labored quietly to re-distribute engine components.

  The lack of conversation lent an eerie quality to the work. These people seemed hollow of any emotion, intent on their task and purpose, which was...what? The full power of such a dedicated military force combined with advanced vessels like the Esper Sha—

  Someone plowed into him from behind. He kept control of his wits enough not to make or utter a sound, but it was clear as he toppled to one knee that he'd forgotten about the downside of his invisibility.

  The confused technician rubbed his left shoulder and looked around as if he'd awakened from a dream.

  Jamie held his breath.

  The tech's brow knotted, his eyes darted. Slowly, he stepped back, turned, and dashed away down the passage.

  Jamie knew this meant trouble. He, too, rushed back down the passageway. Edging past the security station as slowly as possible to avoid creating even a faint draft, he listened while the alarmed technician urged the guards to issue an alert. The man gestured and pointed to where he had bumped into the soft, invisible object. The security officers looked at one another skeptically, at last deciding to investigate, just as Jamie eased past their station.

  He rushed to one of the lifttubes that had brought him to the drydock. Clamber stepped inside once certain that he had a tube to himself. But he caught the sound of a general alarm just as the door slid shut and his mind raced. Which way was it to the laundry where he'd hidden his vac suit? Up or down? Before his fingers could touch the controls, the tube began to move. Up it was then, but he'd better get off this public transport system before it was shut down for security reasons.

  The tube door opened and Jamie started to exit, but stopped dead when Cast Janssen stepped aboard.

  The short, thin man appeared distracted, much like most of Zori's residents. His yellow, smooth skin glistened in the tube's dim light. The door shut, and Janssen pressed the indicator for the upper deck.

  Jamie couldn't get over the sight of the Paethorn, after months of speculating that Cast might be dead. He recognized immediately that this was indeed his old friend; Cast had a habit of nervously rattling his fingers against the loose items carried ln his thigh pockets. The familiar jangling sound now came from the hands of the short, golden-hued man before him. Clamber also recognized the stolen pendant hanging from a chain around Cast's neck.

  Jamie didn't know whether to hug the Paethorn or hit him. He'd wanted to believe that Cast would be found, but never imagined that it would happen like this. The circumstance was too complex for a casual reunion.

  There was a station-wide alert out for Jamie; Aura needed locating and rescued; the twelve Esper Shadows were being rebuilt on the station; and here stood Cast Janssen rattling the items in his pocket with one hand and about to pick his nose with the other.

  The lifttube door opened and Cast stepped off. Without conscious thought, Jamie followed.

  They stood in the darkened control room of the telescope array at the very top of the station. A bank of lambent oval screens filled one wall of the room, while the others were cluttered with an ensemble of loosely connected control devices and data recording units. Each screen was lit with dim, blue images of star clusters. Cast moved from one to another, inspecting each as
if he expected to see a message written in the cosmos.

  Jamie watched the Paethorn rub the back of his neck in concentration and move to the data recording system on the opposite wall of this small, dimly-lit control chamber.

  Cast seemed frustrated by the results of his inspection. "Nothing," he said aloud to what he must have thought was an empty room. "Just a vacant blankness."

  "Yeah," Jamie said, "I'd say that pretty well describes you, too."

  Cast turned slowly with a look of disgust on his face, as if he'd been expecting such a derisive comment. His expression shifted from resigned disgust to confusion when he confirmed that there no one behind him.

  "Empty-headed and empty-hearted," Jamie went on.

  Cast's face began to twist. His eyes filled with fear.

  Jamie thought, This is kind of neat. Then he said, "You can fake your death, but you can never escape your conscience… to coin a phrase."

  Cast's voice sounded ragged. "Where are you? Who are you?"

  Jamie laughed deep in his throat. "Men call me the Psyche...I know many strange things, for I have looked into your mind, Cast Janssen, and read your past."

  The Paethorn's eyes narrowed. "I know that voice," he charged, still somewhat in awe. "It's not possible ...but it sounds like ...Jamie Clamber, the third-rate circuit jockey."

  The time for nonsense had passed. Jamie shut down the stealth suit. "And you remind me of a useless, dead-head thief."

  Cast took a step back as Jamie appeared before him. His mouth hung open momentarily and then he smiled, his eyes gleaming with genuine delight. "By my pledge, it is you! What are you doing here?"

  "Looking for you," Jamie responded, firmly clasping the Paethorn's hand.

  With a suppressed grunt, Cast pretended to try and throw him over his shoulder. Jamie laughed, twisting, and bringing up a knee which stopped only a centimeter from the short, yellow man's nose.

  "I came to rescue you," Clamber said. "But you're obviously hale and hearty."

  Cast threw back his head in the somber light and barked a laugh. "I should have known." He spoke in a reedy voice, his arms folded across his lean frame. "You always had a thing about rescuing people. I'm fine, as you can see. But how did you manage to locate me? I'm supposed to be dead."

  "Yes, and I felt terrible when I got word of the destruction of your freighter. How did you get out?" His tone became sober. "How did you get here?"

  The image on one of the pale blue screens began to roll horizontally. Cast reached over to adjust a control, stabilizing the image. He inspected the screen for a second and then leaned back against a cluttered counter top. "We were attacked," he responded casually. "Raiders came out of nowhere and without warning used high-intensity lasers to rip into The Dancer's hull, splitting the ship apart. I would have gladly given them the cargo, but they were more interested in doing damage than in making a profit. I got away in a lifepod and was later picked up by a passing icespector team. They took me nonstop all the way out to Heaven 7. I stayed with them, because...well, because I'd suffered some neural injuries." He touched his forehead.

  "What?" Jamie said with sudden concern. "Are you all right?"

  Cast shrugged. "Yeah, I'm fine, I guess. The injuries affected my retinal readings and the way I talk, which has pretty much barred me from any ARVAN transactions."

  "I thought you sounded different. But without access to ARVAN, you..."

  "That's right," Cast said. "I couldn't get to my credit. I was broke and as good as dead. I still had my Eldeit Card, but the transactor machines wouldn't recognize me. I was a nobody as far as the market knew. That's when I started getting the idea that I could start life over."

  "Why the hell didn't you contact me? I'd've—"

  "Rescued me? Yeah, I know. But I was feeling constantly confused then. I worked with the icespectors and lucked into a medium-sized claim. That got me enough credit to get off Heaven. Then I realized I could go anywhere I wanted." He turned, again staring at the images on the monitor screens.

  "So you came here. I remembered you being interested in this place, but I never understood the attraction. I still don't."

  Cast's hand went up to the crystal pendant dangling from a thin cord around his neck. "You're not going to understand all of this," he said slowly, "but when a person gets a chance to start over, he goes back to his dreams and tries to use the things he's learned about life to take him where he feels he ought to be."

  "You're right." Jamie rested his weight against a smooth bulkhead. "I don't understand."

  Cast shrugged, gazing at the twelve bluish screens connected to the telescope array. Very carefully, he said, "Do you have any idea who the government has kept in stasis on this station for over four hundred years?"

  Jamie shook his head. Cast answered his own question. "The Messiah of Izar."

  Jamie began to suspect the rationality of his friend's statements. Perhaps Cast's injuries were more serious than either of them knew. "But the Messiah is legend; she's supposed to be dead."

  "If you'll remember," Cast smiled mysteriously, "so was I."

  "Ah, I get it. You're saying that she, like you, was attacked by a raider, picked up by icespectors, and carried away to Heaven—"

  "No, no, no, no. Her story is not nearly as mundane as mine. The point is, she's here, and I need to be here, too. I was called, and they accepted me. That's all that's important."

  "Called?" Jamie didn't like the sound of that. "Who…?

  Cast swallowed, reaching for the jewel that hung around his neck. "This pendant—"

  "My pendant."

  "Your pendant," he amended. "I—I took it because I'd heard that there were thousands of these things made before the Messiah disappeared. They're low-grade scanner crystals designed to pick up and faintly share her aura radiations."

  "But it's just a decoration," Jamie said. "My mother gave it to me; her family gave it to her when she was young. It never radiated any energy or picked up any signals."

  Cast hung his head, resignedly. "I know, I know. That's because the Messiah was in coldsleep here on Zori. When she woke up, the pendant began to emit faint amber light."

  Again, Jamie began to suspect that his friend might be suffering from psychological trauma. Cast seemed in earnest about having been "called," to use his term, to Zori station. This last revelation about the resurrection of the Messiah of Izar was more than Jamie could accept. Yet the ex-circuit-jockey stood before him, eyes wide, face filled with earnest; the very picture of solid conviction.

  Exactly like a zealot, Jamie thought. I've got to see that he gets the medical attention he obviously needs. He wanted to puzzle out this strange situation a bit longer, but a part of his mind couldn't forget that there was an alert out for him throughout the station. And he still hadn't located Aura Devor.

  "Listen," Jamie said, "as you've probably guessed, I'm not supposed to be here. I need your help. A friend of mine is being held somewhere on the station. We must get away without being caught."

  "Get away? To where?"

  "Never mind. Just tell me you'll help."

  Cast's eyebrows rose. "How?"

  "Here." Jamie handed over the second stealth suit that he'd been carrying for Aura's use. "Put this on. It'll let us move freely about the station."

  "I don't know," Cast drew out his answer.

  Jamie began to think he'd have to do more than just talk to his old friend. "I don't know where your friend is being held."

  "She's not in the brig," Clamber said. "She could be in any of the staterooms or offices."

  "She?"

  "Uh—I thought I told you. Her name's..." Then Jamie realized that the less said, the better. "Will you help me, Cast?"

  The Paethorn paused. What was he thinking?

  "There might be a way to scan the system," he considered, and then turned to a computer console. This was a moment of truth. Cast could signal the rest of the troops on Zori, tipping them to Jamie's location, or he could lend a hand to his old
comrade.

  Jamie stood unmoving; afraid to think what might happen if the security guards were alerted.

  Cast entered a query for any double-locked doors in the station's living space.

  * * *

  Aura Devor stared at the exotic scene on the stateroom's wall-length holo-unit. The blues and greens of a manicured, seaside golf course were soothing to her jangled nerves. She had been cooling her heels in the officer's suite for hours now, waiting, wondering, and touring the unit's visual index, searching for any information that might help her deal with the confrontation that was sure to come. When she'd hit upon the golden sand traps and smartly colored pennants of the Spindrift Country Club, she'd let the unit run on automatically. The images were restful and helped to clear her mind.

  She knew little of the conditions on Zori, and was likely to learn nothing as long as she stayed in this infernal luxury prison.

  Toying her telepathic abilities, she reached through the bulkhead to touch the mind of Admiral Long, who stood guard outside the hatch. Aura couldn't get a clear reading of the Admiral's thoughts, but she could subtly affect the other woman's feelings. She concentrated on transmitting intense paranoia and suspicion, while working at the empty holster in the small of her back. She extracted a small but effective weapon and slipped it onto the middle finger of her right hand.

  Aura now held the means to incapacitate her guard, but she would need an element of surprise in order to get near enough to effectively employ it. Soon, she'd get the Admiral to come into the room, drawn by the itch of suspicion Aura was planting in the woman's mind. The problem was that she still had to find a way of approaching her intended victim without being seen, in order to use the weapon in her palm.

  She thought on this for a moment, and came to what seemed like a unique solution. A careful inspection of the wall that contained the cabin's three dimensional holo-unit confirmed her inspiration. She spent the next few minutes humming to herself while entering a step-and-repeat mode into the unit's controls, and then dropped down behind a wide couch, concentrating on intensifying her mental waves of paranoia.