Predator (Old Ironsides Book 3)

by Dean Crawford

Sula took a breath and knocked once on the door.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Sula opened the door and pushed through to reveal a ready room that was adorned only with a single table and two rows of lockers. The walls were freshly painted, but she could see evidence of scrawlings beneath them of which at least one read: RIP. She figured they were probably relics from the Ayleean War days.

  Before her were three officers, two men and one woman, all of them pilots and all of them lounging idly around the table and looking bored, playing cards held loosely in their hands.

  ‘I’m looking for Tyrone Hackett,’ she said.

  A young man with a shock of black hair, maybe thirty years old, raised an eyebrow and looked her up and down.

  ‘And what would you want with a wonderful man like Hackett?’ he asked. ‘Don’t be shy now.’

  Sula saw the CSS wings on his flight suit and the name beneath them.

  ‘I’m Ensign Sula Reyon and I’ve been attached to you as a honorary Ensign for the duration of the voyage.’

  A gust of laughter burst from the three pilots and they leaned back in their chairs as Tyrone tossed his cards down onto the table.

  ‘Man, Captain O’Donnell has really got it in for you, Tornado,’ said the woman.

  ‘Tornado?’ Sula asked, confused.

  ‘His call sign,’ the woman replied, her flight suit name patch reading Lieutenant Ellen Goldberg. ‘He tends to leave a trail of destruction in his wake, women and all.’

  Sula narrowed her eyes as she looked at Tyrone. With jet black hair, a wide jaw and green eyes he certainly looked the part of the renegade fighter pilot, but he was clearly not pleased to see her.

  ‘I don’t want a chaperone,’ he muttered. ‘Take a hike, kid.’

  Sula bristled and took a pace closer to the table. ‘The hell I will.’

  That got their attention, and for a moment Sula thought that she’d crossed a line already. The three pilots stared at her in amazement, and then the woman pointed a finger at her.

  ‘Talking to a superior officer in that way’ll get you locked in the brig before we’re even underway.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean, I just…’

  ‘Fortunately for you, there’s nothing superior about Tornado Tyrone,’ the woman added, ‘so go for your life.’

  Tyrone smiled and shook his head. ‘And that’s the support I get from my own wingman.’

  ‘Wing lady,’ the woman snapped, ‘and don’t you forget it.’

  The woman stood up and moved across to Sula. ‘Lieutenant Ellen Goldberg of the fighting eighty fourth.’

  Sula shook her hand, but she was standing like a loose end in the room and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do next. Tyrone, apparently, was having the same thoughts.

  ‘So, what exactly are you supposed to do for me? Can you fly my Phantom? Plan combat air patrols? Fuel calculation?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Go easy on her Tyrone, she only just walked through the damned door,’ Ellen said and then turned back to Sula. ‘Your job is to follow him around and clear up the chaos he leaves behind him, which he will because Captain O’Donnell’s sending us over to Endeavour after they had an argument.’

  ‘It was a disagreement,’ Tyrone murmured. ‘You know how we feel about the Ayleens.’

  ‘How you feel about them,’ Ellen corrected.

  ‘It’s that damned accord they’re signing,’ Tyrone complained. ‘It’d be quicker if we all committed suicide.’

  ‘It might bring lasting peace,’ Sula pointed out.

  ‘It might bring lasting extinction,’ Tyrone snapped. ‘The Ayleeans can’t be trusted as far as they can be thrown. They’re murderous, cruel, self centered sons of bit…’

  ‘Bit of an attitude on him, this one,’ Ellen advised Sula. ‘Captain O’Donnell reckons he plays better when there’s a woman in command ‘cause he didn’t play up when he served on Defiance. It’s why they partnered him with me.’

  Sula got the impression that Tyrone Hackett didn’t play well with anybody. ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘How the hell did you become an officer with that attitude?’ she asked Tyrone.

  Again, raised eyebrows were directed at her and Ellen laughed out loud. ‘Well girl, you two are gonna get along just fine. Grab our stuff and let’s go, we’ll find you a slot on a shuttle across to Defiance, they’re short handed right now and you’ll fit in just fine there. We’ve got to get over to Endeavour. The ship’s leaving pronto for some reason and we need to be aboard.’

  ‘I wanted to serve with a pilot, not a lay about, and I wanted Victory,’ Sula said, and then decided not to mention her late father. ‘It’s what I requested.’

  Tyrone chuckled bitterly.

  ‘It’s called taking orders. You joined the fleet expecting to get what you want? Man, how did you get a scholarship with that attitude?’

  Sula frowned. ‘We’re not supposed to be attached to combat frigates.’

  ‘Because there’s a danger you’ll have to actually fight?’ Tyrone smirked at her. ‘Oh me, oh my, whatever will we do? Take a hike Ensign, only big boys get to play with big toys.’

  Sula bristled as the other pilot chuckled to himself but said nothing. Ellen picked up a heavy looking kit bag and gestured to the door.

  ‘Take no notice of them. Victory’s on milk run duty but Defiance is heading out beyond the Rim, so you can add that to your C.V. You wanna stay here on Victory with the other lightweights in your Ensign group, or do you wanna see a real frigate at work?’

  Sula glared at Hackett but then smiled at Ellen. ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Atta girl,’ Ellen grinned back. ‘You mind helping out here?’

  Sula turned and opened the door for her as Tyrone hefted his own bag onto his shoulder and then thought twice about it. As he walked up to her, he held the bag out for her.

  ‘Welcome to the fleet, Sula. Hope this isn’t too heavy.’

  Sula took the bag, which weighed almost as much as she did, and heaved it onto her shoulder as she saw Ellen give her wingman a dirty look.

  ‘Hey, the kid wants to help, so let her help!’ Tyrone chortled as he walked out of the ready room.

  Sula sighed, and with an effort she followed the two pilots back toward the launch bays and wondered whether her father’s career in the fleet had begun by dragging around the belongings of an opinionated, sexist jet jockey like Tyrone Hackett.

  ***

  VIII

  New Washington

  ‘I hate these places.’

  A fine drizzle of rain fell in thin veils as Nathan followed Kaylin Foxx across a street toward a secure complex near the precinct building that housed the coroner’s office. The gigantic eye of the earth glowed far above them, filling the sky with its slowly rotating blue and white ocean and distant cloud formations as New Washington rotated about its axis. He could see the east coast of America bathed in sunlight and the advancing darkness crossing the immense Atlantic Ocean as the sun began to set far below them.

  Despite having been here for a year now Nathan still could not take his eyes off the vast spectacle that dominated the station’s “sky”. A bizarre fusion of nature’s watercolor grace, mankind’s metallic fecundity and humanity’s ever condensing breath falling from the city’s heights, he couldn’t quite decide if it was strikingly beautiful or architecturally grotesque. He had once seen a painting hanging in a gallery on the south side called “Rainbows over metal spires”, a digitally crafted work by an artist dead now for over a hundred years. It had perfectly captured the mood of the city and others like it, the falling veils of rain producing rainbows and sometimes mysterious sun sprites and halos as sunlight beamed through the station’s towering arms to strike them.

  Nathan almost walked into Foxx as she slowed, the coroner’s office doors automatically interrogating her detective’s shield before opening up before them.

  ‘You need to look where you’re going,’ F
oxx said as she glanced briefly up at the complex vista Nathan had been watching. ‘Yearning for home again?’

  Nathan shook his head as he followed her inside. ‘Not so much, just enjoying the view.’

  ‘I’ll never get used to the idea of you admiring people’s breath falling from a metal sky,’ she said as they walked past the reception area where a humanoid machine waved them past with a digitized smile of greeting. ‘It’s gross.’

  Nathan didn’t bridle.

  ‘Everybody alive today has at least one molecule of Julius Caesar’s last breath inside of them,’ he pointed out as they walked. ‘We’re all a mixture of people who have lived before us.’

  ‘Lovely thought,’ Foxx said. ‘I don’t want to think about having somebody’s bad breath from yesterday running down my neck.’

  ‘You spoil every moment.’

  ‘This is New Washington, wherein dwell the dregs of orbital life,’ Foxx murmured. ‘You can’t polish a turd, Nathan.’

  ‘No, but you can sprinkle glitter on it.’

  Foxx stifled a grin as she walked through a pair of hard light doors that shimmered out of existence before them. As they passed through into the coroner’s office a wall of sparkling green light washed over their bodies, ridding them of contaminants before they entered the laboratory proper.

  ‘Ah, Detective Foxx!’

  Doctor Schmidt’s glowing holographic form was standing over a mortuary slab, his hands behind his back and the familiar ingratiating smile on his face as he saw them approach. Beside him was a machine, humanoid in nature but equipped with six robotic arms wielding various surgical instruments.

  ‘Schmidt,’ Foxx greeted him with a genuine smile. ‘What do you have for us?’

  ‘Apart from smug self satisfaction,’ Nathan added.

  ‘I have that in abundance Detective Ironhead and it’s all for you,’ Schmidt replied jovially, but then his humorous façade slipped as he turned to the body on the slab. ‘Unfortunately, our victim is a little short on mirth right now considering her manner of death.’

  ‘You got a proximal cause?’ Foxx pressed.

  Schmidt tilted his head this way and that as he winced and folded his arms. ‘I’ve got several, but the chief cause of death for the time being appears to be extreme dehydration.’

  Foxx blinked. Neither of them had seen that coming. Nathan could see that the skeletal remains of Erin Sander’s body were lying on the slab, but that none of the limbs had been moved from when they had first seen the body atop the apartment block on the south side. The skin was still taut across the rigid bones, sparkling like frost in the bright laboratory lights.

  ‘She died of thirst?’ Nathan asked as he looked down at the corpse.

  ‘No,’ Schmidt replied, ‘and that’s what is most disturbing about this case. Judging by the evidence of trauma to the throat and stomach, all of the fluid inside her body was extracted forcefully.’

  Foxx winced. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘It’s quite common in the animal kingdom, actually,’ Schmidt said in a conversational tone. ‘Most spiders use a toxin in their venom that is designed specifically to decompose the living flesh of their victim, after which the spider sucks the fluid out of the body.’

  ‘Lush,’ Nathan said, ‘but unless we have a gigantic spider roaming New Washington then we’re gonna have to hold off evacuating every arachnophobe on the station.’

  ‘Some parasitic wasps perform a similar process,’ Schmidt went on as though he hadn’t even heard Nathan. ‘They lay their eggs inside the bodies of victims that they have paralyzed with their sting. The eggs hatch inside the still living victim and proceed to eat it from the inside out. It’s quite fascinating to watch if you’re interested in that sort…’

  ‘We’re not,’ Foxx assured him, ‘and I’m pretty sure we don’t have wasps the size of police cruisers wandering around New Washington either, so what’s the lowdown here doc’? You figured out what kind of machine could do this?’

  Schmidt sighed as he looked down at the victim, even though he had no lungs with which to do so.

  ‘I’ve researched the literature and I’ve been able to identify several mechanical devices that could plausibly achieve what this poor young lady endured. The problem is that I have encountered absolutely no trace of cutting implements, forcible entry of foreign objects or any other evidence that would suggest she suffered these injuries as a result of a surgical procedure of any kind.’

  Nathan leaned over the victim’s body as though doing so might reveal some hitherto unseen evidence.

  ‘So, you called us here, what do you think was responsible for this?’

  ‘If I were to hazard a guess I would have to say that this is indeed some kind of parasitic animal that feeds on biological tissue, on flesh,’ Schmidt replied.

  Foxx stared at the doctor blankly for a moment. ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘I’m not. I can only imagine how such a creature might have got on board New Washington, or where it may have come from in the first place.’

  ‘All inbound cruisers and shuttles are subjected to intense scans before they’re allowed to land,’ Foxx pointed out. ‘The protocols preventing biological contamination of the orbital stations are strict and complex, but they work. Nothing could have sneaked aboard without being detected in one way or another.’

  ‘Was there any residue?’ Nathan asked. ‘If something preyed upon her, then maybe it left something behind?’

  Schmidt nodded. ‘That was my first thought but I was able to extract nothing from the remains except this lady’s own remaining body tissue, all of which was desiccated. There has been no evidence left behind or genetic material that belonged to the creature that did this.’

  Foxx frowned as she looked down at the body. ‘Is there any chance at all that this was a mechanical event disguised as a natural death?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Schmidt confirmed as he rounded the mortuary slab. ‘I cannot rule out the possibility that somebody, for reasons unknown, murdered this woman in order to harvest her organs or some other ghoulish purpose.’

  Aboard the orbital stations there was a small but busy market in spare organs, usually for those damaged by equally illegal body enhancement surgeries. Getting people to throw good money after bad was something at which most criminal enterprises excelled, but Nathan wasn’t buying it that someone like Erin Sanders would have been targeted for her organs. There were many other, easier targets for such a gruesome slaying who lived in areas of the city where it would have been much easier to conceal the crime.

  ‘Criminal gangs don’t go to these lengths without a damned good reason. What about the crystals in her skin? Anything there that could be of use?’

  ‘Sodium chloride,’ Schmidt replied, ‘or common salt. Whatever did this to her had more of a taste for sweet than savory.’

  ‘That’s an analogy I could’ve done without,’ Foxx said. ‘What about the woman herself? Anything new on her background?’

  ‘Erin Sanders,’ Schmidt replied, accessing the woman’s data from CSS Central Storage in the blink of an eye. ‘Twenty six years old, graduate student from the University of New Chicago. Moved to New Washington six months ago to start a job as a drug counselor at New Hope Hospital on the north side. No criminal record, few known associates outside of work here in New Washington, a model citizen. She commuted every day via the Belt’s Mag Rail and was killed on her way home. Her ID went silent at about the time of death.’

  Nathan shook his head in disbelief. ‘Twenty six,’ he echoed. ‘She looks like she’s been dead for centuries.’

  ‘There’s not much more that I can tell you from her remains,’ Schmidt said, ‘other than that she was in perfect health and that there were no other mitigating factors involved in her death. In the absence of her internal organs, blood and other internal fluids I cannot establish a proximal cause of death and cannot confirm or deny whether she was intoxicated or under the influence of drugs of any kind at the time of her
death.’

  ‘Given what we do know about her, I doubt we’d have found anything of the sort,’ Foxx said. ‘If you’re right, it means we’re not looking for organ smugglers at all.’

  Nathan stared at Erin’s body for a moment longer and then Foxx’s communicator bleeped a warning. Foxx stood back and used her optical implant to activate the communications frequency, and immediately a life size hologram of a California State Trooper appeared before them in the laboratory.

  ‘Sergeant Dale Wilson, Cali’ State,’ he announced himself in a brisk tone. ‘Database says you guys are investigating some kind of homicide involving desiccated remains?’

  ‘Yeah, we’re with one now,’ Foxx replied. ‘What do you have for us?’

  The trooper looked to one side at something Nathan couldn’t see before he replied.

  ‘You need to get planet side as soon as you can,’ Wilson said. ‘You’ve got another one right here and two more in Nevada.’

  ***

  IX

  CSS Endeavour

  Ayleean System

  ‘Cap’n on the deck!’

  The bridge crew of the frigate Endeavour snapped to attention as Captain Travis Harper walked onto the command platform.

  ‘At ease,’ Harper said as he glanced at the Executive Officer. ‘Status report?’

  ‘We’re five minutes from sub luminal deceleration,’ the XO, Reeves, replied. ‘Tactical stations are on stand by and we have four fighters ready to launch on cats one through four.’

  Harper nodded as he stepped up onto the command platform and surveyed the bridge. Circular in design, with the command platform at the rear containing Harper’s command seat and stations for tactical, communications and engineering, the bridge was simpler than those of the big hitters like Titan and controlled directly by its officers. Harper, a senior commander with fifty two years of experience within the fleet, disliked and distrusted the way in which modern warship commanders were often “wired in” directly to their vessel’s central computer.

  Harper sat down in his command seat and surveyed four holographic screens that hovered before him, presenting tactical, strategic and status information without blocking his view of the main viewing screen before them all on the bridge. Endeavour was an older frigate but she was well tested in battle and unlike the modern bells and whistles fitted to the CSS capital ships, everything aboard her was known to work correctly.