by Mel Keegan
“Ten minutes out,” Ingersol said into the loop. “Mister Belczak, are you tracking us?”
And like an echo, Belczak’s voice was there at once. “Tracking you. I have a crew standing by to unload you. I’m not seeing any sign of the cargo sled launching from the Wastrel.”
“Give ’em a chance, man,” Ingersol said reasonably. “They have to dig the containers out of the back of a hangar we don’t often use. They’ve been there so long, Jazinsky had forgotten about ’em. Twenty minutes or so, minimum, to bust ’em out of storage and get em on the sled. What’s your rush? You got the gelemeralds, you got over a hundred drones comin’ in with me, and I’ll have that thing out of your house before it can tear the face off half this crappy little planet.”
Belczak seemed to hesitate. “It could do that?”
“Oh yeah,” Ingersol said levelly. “You know what happened on Ulrand a while ago? The highlands, El Khouri? Same thing. They found one of these pieces of crud there, they messed with it, and – it’s happening all over the frontier these days.”
“And lately, more often than ever,” Belczak observed, “even in Freespace. There’s been speculation that something’s happening out here, something odd – alien.”
“It is,” Marin said into the open loop. “We’re in what used to be Resalq space. We’re proliferating, pushing, spreading outwards faster than we ever have before, and when we find their abandoned tech, we don’t know when to stop tinkering. Standby, Belczak, and relax. Let Captain Vaurien’s people do their job.”
The tractor was a blaze of engine flares in the orange-brown haze, and as it dropped in toward the mines Rodman turned the Hong Lung to follow. It was an ugly vessel, with its massive engine sled and the great beetle-back shapes of two cargo pods, and the cab riding the starboard side on a thick, armored bridge. It was two small ships, Travers knew, both wrecked, torched apart and combined into one, and the result was a tough, ugly mongrel which got its job done fast.
The mines shimmered under hundreds of arc-lamps, a shallow open pit where battered, failing drones, corroded vehicles and a small army of humans worked in conditions that would have made anything in the Intrepid’s simulation tanks seem pleasant. The air was thin, the gravity much too heavy, and a fast wind scoured the surface into a dust storm which seemed never to pause. Through the pall, the arc-lights cast ominous haloes and the red and green running lights of the landing pad blinked up at the tractor.
Ingersol spun the asymmetrical ship to fit the space and dropped it in on repulsion fields which howled through the perpetual brown twilight and worsened the dust storms over several square kilometers. Three trucks wallowed closer as the Aragos shut down, and the big cargo doors growled open in the port sides of both pods.
On the Lung’s long-range vid, Travers saw the containers inside. The shipping crates for the 120 drones were waiting for the freight handlers, and as Travers watched, a bevy of pallet lifters jockeyed into position. They were old, scarred, far from accurate, and at least three of them were remote operated, since their drone brains had corroded away. On the trucks, eight human figures that Travers could see were waiting to load the crates, and the moment the last one was out of the pods, Ingersol closed up the tractor’s pods.
“Done and done, Mister Belczak,” he said into the loop. “You got your first consignment, all we could pack aboard. Your people are loading right now, and I’m coming to you. Have your guys clear a way through, doors open – and get them out of there, slaves and all. We’re coming in armored.”
“Armored?” Belczak demanded. “In my house?”
“Standard procedure,” Ingersol told him, “in case of accident. The device is going right into cryogen. If it wakes up when it’s moved – it could defend itself. They’ve been known to do it. People get fried.”
“It didn’t do one damned thing when it was hit with a plasma torch,” Belczak rasped.
“You showed it the business end of a torch?” Ingersol whistled. “You’ve got balls, I’ll say that for you. That, or a death wish.”
As he spoke, the tractor was lifting and Travers heard Vaurien over the loop, a soft whisper from the Wastrel. “How long till we launch the sled, Tully?”
Ingersol switched up to the secure channel. “Five or ten, max. I’ll yell. You there, van Donne?”
“No, we thought we’d go for pizza,” van Donne said acidly. “The Mako’s powered up, weapons armed. Still in the hangar. We don’t launch till the bastards find the sled empty. Rodman?”
“Here,” Hubler responded. “You got the hard boys marked?”
“Covered. No problem,” van Donne assured him.
The tractor had left the mine in a storm of repulsion and a blaze of sternflares. Ingersol took it up in shallow arc, and down again into the clearer air, brighter light, where the mansion sat in the lee of a range of low hills. The Lung kept pace, two thousand meters off its port bow, and then fell up to a safe altitude as the tractor set down once more.
And into the loop Ingersol said, “Launch it, Richard.”
“Cargo sled away. It should set down in forty minutes.” Vaurien’s voice was level, cynical. “Etienne will update you on its position while you get the device. It’ll be close. Don’t stop to chat.”
The move had to be close. The sled had to be on the ground before Belczak’s goons at the loading zone would release the prisoners, and the prisoners had to be on the tractor before the freight handlers discovered the cargo sled empty. If the timing was right, and if they were lucky, the deception would last just long enough to prevent a bloodbath.
Being delayed by Belczak wanting to talk was the last thing likely to happen. Three figures in industrial armor rode the open-cage lift down the outside of the tractor as Travers and Marin watched, on the very edge of the Lung’s ability to image the scene. Visual quality was poor, but they saw Belczak’ gates standing open, and the courtyards were deserted.
“We’re in, Mister Belczak,” Ingersol was saying. “Long passage ahead of us, neat artwork on the right, bunch of lamps bobbing along on the left.”
“Follow the lamps,” Belczak said, furious but out of bargaining space. “The house AI will guide you.”
“And make it fast,” Vaurien added on the secure channel. “Rodman!”
“We’re holding up out of the way, Vaurien,” Hubler told him. “Worst thing we can do is be seen too close. Belczak’s a bastard, not a fool. Tip him off, and there’ll be blood.”
“There’s going to be blood anyway,” Marin said quietly. “The only question is, whose?” He was intent on the navdeck, which was bright with the icons marking the Wastrel, the tractor, the Lung itself, the cargo sled and the fourteen Freespacer ships which comprised the squadron Belczak could mobilize.
Of them all, three ships were big enough to risk taking a crack at the Wastrel itself, and two were van Donne’s to play with. The rest might swarm around the tractor, harassing it, but Travers was unconcerned about the threat they posed either to Ingersol or Rodman.
It was the prisoners that worried him. If they were still on the ground and in the open when the balloon went up, Belczak could order them targeted, either out of spite at being short-changed or in a last-ditch attempt to isolate them and win back the leverage they gave him.
Time was critical, and Marin was intent on both the navdeck and the comm loop, over which Etienne was calmly reading off positions and time markers. Ingersol’s team had been in the mansion for four minutes when he said quietly,
“Richard, I think the sled’s too fast. Etienne, swing it around, let it drift wide to the south. We’ll feed them some rubbish about atmospherics interfering with the guidance.”
“I’ll talk to Belczak,” Vaurien offered. “Maybe I can keep him distracted a while longer. Tully?”
The engineer’s voice was breathy, rasping over the helmet mic. “Just getting it in the cold box right now, boss. Don’t want to rush this.”
“It might be taking too long,” Travers warned.
“Can’t go any faster.” Ingersol paused. “We scanned it before we laid a glove on it … you know it’s only dormant? There’s enough power in the cells to run something like this for another thousand years. But I think … yeah, I think the brain pan took some damage. Standby.”
Less than a second after they had it in the cold box, the device would be stabilized at the temperature of cryogen, and three armored figures could pick up and run. Travers listened to the thud of his heart as he watched the screens, counted seconds, until Ingersol said,
“All secure. Move it!”
Under Etienne’s orders, the cargo sled had looped far into the south around a range of saddle-backed hills, and as Travers watched the containment crew hustle back through the courtyard, it was dropping in on a long final approach to the mine.
The tractor’s engines were idling. Its own rudimentary AI had every flight system on standby, and the location of the loading zone, with its ant farm of human heat signatures, was already loaded into the navdeck. Ingersol’s crew jogged with the bulk of the containment chamber between them – three meters long and two wide, riding its own repulsion which almost zeroed its weight. Travers watched them hurry through the courtyard, and Marin swore quietly as they stepped into the lift for the ride back up to the cab.
Those were the longest seconds, while Etienne jockeyed the sled in over the mines, using any delaying tactic Vaurien could think of. Belczak’s tone was hardening, his voice growing sharp, and at last Richard said, “Land it, Etienne, but don’t unlock till I tell you.”
He was still speaking as the tractor kicked off in a repulsion storm which doused the mansion in a rain of fine brown talc. The interlaced fields over the grounds shimmered and fluoresced in it, while the window glass shook under the hammering of the big lift engines.
Now Ingersol threw the odd, ugly ship up in a backbreaker which took it south-east over the low, barren hills, and down fast over a plane that would once have been an ocean bottom. Celeste might once have been earthlike, or like Darwin’s World, teeming with life, rich with potential. It had been dying for a long time, and the human presence here only hastened the end.
Floodlights glared up from the loading zone. The Hong Lung had closed swiftly with the tractor, and as the range shortened the image quality improved. Travers made out pens, very like stock corrals, and four square sheds or warehouses ranked beside an area of engine-scorched ground which looked vitrified.
Riding howling Aragos, the tractor dropped in faster than was wise, and bottomed out hard in what had all the appearance of a bad landing by a half-trained pilot. Travers knew better. Ingersol knew to the last erg what the tractor could take, and every second was critical. Before the repulsion shut off, the doors were rumbling open on the cargo pods, and the ramps extended down.
The public address bellowed with his voice. “Okay, kids, here’s your ride. All aboard – make it quick, and you’ll be in time for dinner.”
Hundreds of faces looked up out of the pens, some wearing masks, many not. Most of the Shanghai survivors were clad in the rags and tatters of service fatigues; a few were buff naked, as they had worked in the dens, and as they had been shipped out. All were pressed against the rails, waiting for the gates to slide open, while a handful of Belczak’s goons patrolled between them and the tractor, which had set down not fifty meters away.
The lift was going down. Travers saw two armored figures in it, and said, “That you in the cage, Tully?”
“Nope. That’s Bill Grant and my drone tech, Sammy Chen. I’m waiting to get us the hell out,” Ingersol said softly. “The gates are still locked. Richard! They’re not releasing the kids.”
It was six minutes since the cargo sled had set down at the mines, and Vaurien’s voice said levelly, “Etienne, unlock the sled.” And then, “We solved the problem, Mister Belczak. It was just the failsafes on the cargo baffles. Told you it was nothing to get fussed about. Have your loaders go grab their gear. And while you’re at it, you might open the gates on the hostages.”
In fact, if Belczak did not give the order, Grant and Chen would just open the gates, by force if the goons tried to stand in their way. The sidearms and assault rifles Travers was seeing would barely dent industrial armor, and the suits were powered, so strong, a Lushi like Grant could take the rails of that gate and bend then like bamboo.
They were halfway to the gates when Belczak’s order whispered over the comm, and one of the goons aimed a remote at the gate. It opened grudgingly, and before it was a meter wide the first of the prisoners were bolting through. The rest followed in a headlong rush, uncoordinated, panicked.
And now Travers was only waiting for the howl to go up. How long would it take Belczak’s loading crew to realize they had been fooled? Not long enough.
The stampede covered the fifty yards so fast, the first of the Shanghai survivors were aboard before Belczak’s voice exploded over the air. “Vaurien! You bastard, you think you’re going to screw me? It’s a trick – guards, secure the prisoners, get them back, get them locked up, goddamn it, and stop that tractor!”
A dozen goons burst out of the warehouses, but they were too far off to get between the stampede and the tractor, and while Belczak roared over the comm, Travers had watched Grant and Chen deliberately come around to smother the four guards who had been walking patrol on the pens. Sure enough, the assault rifles opened up, but industrial armor soaked up the light caliber hail while Grant and Chen picked them off with a pair of Chiyoda machine pistols.
Sergei van Donne was on the air now, and Travers’s eyes went back to the navtank. “We’re out,” van Donne was saying, “tracking three ships headed this way – looks like they’re marking the Wastrel. One of them’s a big mother. You got it, Vaurien?”
The voice answering belonged to the tug pilot, Cassals. “We’re coming around, van Donne. Watch yourself. Don’t get between us.”
Space had lit up with marks converging on the Wastrel, and between the mansion and the mines five more ships were airborne. Marin said quietly, “Roark, you’ve got a bunch coming in fast.”
“We see ’em,” Hubler affirmed. “They read like sportplanes and trash haulers. We can handle ’em.”
The Chiyodas did not have the range to reach Belczak’s gang of shooters until they got closer, but heavier caliber rounds had begun to pelt the stampede, and the slowest of the Shanghai stragglers were starting to go down. Travers leaned forward and dropped one hand on Hubler’s left shoulder. “Roark, drop us in, get in between them.”
“Doing it,” Rodman said tersely. “You got guns, babe,” she said aside to Hubler. “Get useful.”
He had just flicked the covers off the triggers, and while the Hong Lung was still high above the tractor, the low whine of rotary cannons carried as a droning vibration through the hull. Belczak’s people dove in every direction. Three of them were dead before they slammed into the plascrete, and the Shanghai veterans doubled back to pick up their wounded.
Three were dead, five more were badly injured, if Travers was any judge, and the last of the stragglers – all crippled, slow, struggling – were at the feet of the ramps as the Freespacer ships bolted in. They had launched either from the parking pasture at the mansion or from the mines, and none among them was a serious threat, though Travers was not quick to dismiss them. One pilot at least was thinking on his feet.
A blistering stream of heavy rounds was even then targeting the armorglass of the tractor’s cab, and the spines of the sensor arrays right below it. Someone knew exactly where to hit it to hurt it. If the tractor could be blinded, it might be slowed up, forced to land, where Belczak’s squadron could overpower it.
Rodman was watching the same images, and with a curse she jinked the Lung up and over, using her own hull to protect the tractor’s cab while Hubler jockeyed the guns. The rotary cannons were heavy enough to send a small ship staggering away, streaming coolant and hydraulic fluids, but as the spaceplane drifted south, out of Hubler’s guns
, two more replaced it.
“Ingersol!” Rodman bellowed. “Tully, are you locked up?”
“Buttoning up now,” Ingersol’s voice rasped. “We had to get Grant into the pod – we’ve got casualties.”
“We saw,” Travers told him. “The tractor?”
“Dents,” Ingersol judged. “We’re good to go, and …” He swore softly. “And we’re away. Wastrel?”
In the navdeck, the blue icon marking the tug’s position was mobbed by red bogeys. The Mako was a green blip, scudding around the outside of the flock of hostiles, and the chaos was difficult to read. “We see you,” Vaurien said tersely. “Come on up, both of you. We’ll clear the way ahead of you.”
The tractor was falling upward on thrashing lift engines, and the Hong Lung easily kept pace, with Rodman holding the bigger ship’s armor and engine storm between her and the light spaceplanes which still swarmed around them. Hubler sat hunched over the fire controls, waiting till he had a clear shot, and then would pounce like a hunting cat. Travers watched the threedee, saw four of Belczak’s squadron lumber away, damaged, before the rest angled off into the northeast.
“They’ve got the brains to know when they’ve had enough,” Marin mused. “Belczak is going to be mad as hell.”
“You mean, if we show our faces around here again, we better be armed and ready to shoot?” Travers made a soft, humorless chuckle. “They’ll be chewing this over right back to Halfway, wondering what Richard’s up to – but Freespacers routinely assault each other, and Belczak has had a bad reputation for a long time.”
“Another enemy,” Marin observed. “A bad one.”