by Kieran Shea
Oh hell, what did it matter? He was trying to get rid of the gold anyway. Maybe he should just hand over his rucksack and let the killer swing for the capital one corporate offense. But if Jimmy did that, she’d probably kill him right then and there to cover her tracks. Cripes, he didn’t want to die. Jimmy needed to push for time.
“Listen, about the gold,” he said. “Did Jock tell you he was conning me out of my share?”
Piper searched his eyes. “Maybe.”
“No maybes. I know all about it. That rat switched armadillo bays on me. I discovered he’d made arrangements to ship it in another tender altogether.”
“And let me guess, you know where this tender is parked.”
“Yeah.”
“So where?”
Jimmy squeezed his eyes shut. Lord, if he followed this gnarly invention of his any further, who knew where it would lead. What he definitely knew he damn well couldn’t do was tell this crazed, less than temperate sociopath that the only gold found was secreted in his rucksack right between their feet. If he could lead her out to the tender loading bays, maybe he could call for help or get away. With the party there would be plenty witnesses for sure. Of course, he would end up getting arrested and going to prison, but right now he didn’t want to die…
“Look,” he said, “the gold, it’s almost, like—”
“Yeah, yeah… fifty kilos, so I heard.”
“Um, right, so you might be able to move it, but it’s going to be a real pain in the ass. And the case it’s in, it’s in a damn quarantine hold. There are extra security measures. You don’t have clearance.”
“I’m an engineer, hot stuff. Security measures can be bypassed.”
“Okay, sure, so you say, but quarantine holds have other dangerous materials too. You’ll need a hazmat suit.”
Piper resumed crushing Jimmy’s neck. “The standard exposure window for quarantine holds is sixty seconds, tops, and that’s if there’s a significant issue. Besides, I don’t need to remove the gold. If I can confirm its location, all I need to do is adjust the final destination coordinates.”
“I can take you to it.”
“Oh, really? You? Take me?”
“Yeah. If you allow me to take you, you can check and know I’m not just shining you on, right?”
Piper let go of Jimmy and snatched up her CPU. “Grab your pack and let’s move out,” she said.
44. RED LIGHT
Leela descended the bypass ladder and jumped down to the deck.
Think, Leela. Think.
Where was Jimmy headed?
He might be going to his quarters, she thought. But wait a second, Jimmy was all dressed to go home and had told her he’d already cleared out his unit, so why would he be running back there? Leela then remembered the transfer module dispatched from the Adamant—it was parked on one of the landing pads outside ASOCC.
Goddamn, are Jimmy and Jock that dumb?
Were they planning on smuggling gold out on the transfer module?
Leela racked her brain. Maybe it wasn’t all that dumb of an idea. While it was a brazen plan, if they were choosing to use the transfer module, it was because they knew no one would thoroughly inspect the module interiors until the Adamant returned to the Neptune Pact Orbital. Within a few short hours the Adamant would take on the loaded tenders and then the freighter would immediately commence preparations for the skip back to home. Things would be chaotic aboard getting everything set for the skip, and knowing Jock he probably was counting on a lapse of attentiveness and had come up with a way for him and Jimmy to transfer the gold out of the module before the six-month trip. There might even be coconspirators on the Adamant or back at the Neptune Pact Orbital who were in on the whole plan, come to think of it.
But Jimmy now knew Leela was on to him. He took off running as soon as she had mentioned Jock back in the shipping hangar.
Was Jimmy trying to abort the scheme? Was he attempting to offload the gold from the module and get rid of it to cover his and Jock’s tracks?
Leela hoped it was true. The possibility of Jimmy taking the long road around and finally wising up gave her a renewed sense of optimism. But if this circuitous scenario was, in fact, the case—how the hell would Jimmy get rid of the evidence?
Leela snapped her fingers.
The fragmite incinerators.
Calculating the quickest way down to the bottommost level of the residential spider, Leela started moving. If Jimmy went to the transfer module and doubled back, surely he’d almost be down to the incinerators by now. That son of a bitch, showing her that piece of gold and playing all dumb so she’d fire him. She was steamed at being used, but desperately she still wanted to believe that Jimmy was doing the right thing. Suddenly she realized if somehow it came to light that she knew about the gold and allowed it to be destroyed, she too would likely be implicated. God—was this the right thing for her? Willfully allowing the destruction of Azoick property? And she’d already destroyed that portion Jimmy had shown her. If she wanted to build an eventual case for her defense, that would probably come out under cross-examination, and how would that look?
Despite all of Jimmy’s atrocious actions and her trampled emotions, Leela still didn’t want to see him get hurt.
Just then a flashing red glow from an adjacent corridor drew her attention.
Making a turn and entering the corridor, she saw a station map display lit up with a red advisory light. A red advisory light always meant bad news for those in station management, anything from a breached structure lining to a generator problem to an emergency medical issue. The map display indicated the source of the problem, and the location wasn’t far from where she stood.
ASOCC.
Everyone, except maybe for Jimmy, was in the hangar for the pre-liftoff party. No one of the station management team was aware of what was happening or minding operations.
Leela ran.
45. COLLISION COURSE, PART UN—THE FIRE SHIPS
Meanwhile, the remaining contiguous sections of the De Silento fanned out and tracked over Kardashev 7-A. As they gradually decreased their altitude the sections adjusted their forward velocities, navigational systems on each skimming the SPO’s desolate geographies. In a matter of seconds, targets were acquired and confirmed.
Azoick Surface Operational Command Center.
Processing.
Life support and gravity production systems.
Residential.
Shipping.
The spiders.
The remaining sections of the De Silento were a squadron of annihilation.
Fifteen minutes out.
46. FOLLOWING THE PIPER
To his left, Jimmy noticed a station map display winking a red advisory light as he and Piper entered the shipping hangar. Knowing that Leela was somewhere behind them, Jimmy assumed she’d probably seen the advisory light and was on the case. Well, he thought gloomily, at least Leela was out of his hair for now.
Although it hardly seemed conceivable, the unpleasant Kryp-Bop music in the hangar was louder and more grotesque than before—a sonorous, frenzied rumble of thick bass and distorted repetitive feedback. In a deft effort to further jack the party’s Dionysian ambiance, someone had actually gone to the trouble to set up a compact lighting system on the temporary stage used for the assembly presentation. Polychromatic lasers combed the hangar like eerie fingers and the convex ceiling looked like the inner shell of a psychedelic Easter egg. One of the skirts on the temporary stage had been torn off and someone managed to cover the imaging drone, which bobbed above the party like an addlepated ghost. Working senseless cinquain and ottava rima rhymes, the Kryp-Bop artist Lady Dragoonfly bawled.
M-skip springin’ bad-truth backatchayallza
Starshot a-dreaminz
Grade prime-dead meat
Hot wine an’ slickities
Alls dis cool MC’s meanin’
Drop ya vaccine’d mindz
No future fo’ya cardia-o rehabilitat-ums (a
llitwuzz, allitwuzz)
I needz m’baby hot bee-hind
Stellar liez lowback un-newy mutilationzzz
Body an’ soul total ease
Pluto-Jupit-a tradin’ corporationzzz
MIA Croatia keyzz
D’causez makeya beaker bleedzzz…
None of the congregants paid any attention to Jimmy and Piper as they scored the perimeter of the party, and together they made their way to the packed-up parasol equipment. Setting her CPU down, Piper opened the largest of the cases and checked its contents. After she closed the case, she picked up a strapped handle on its side and wheeled the case behind her like a buckboard wagon.
Jimmy asked, “What’s that for?”
Piper answered, “Insurance. Keep moving and keep an eye out.”
Threading the shelving stores, they reached the far side of the hangar and the long sweep of lettered armadillo bays in no time. Jimmy fingered his swollen nose and motioned with his chin. “There are twenty-six armadillo bays and the one we’re looking for is way down on the far end.”
“Yeah, I know my alphabet.”
“Okay, but do you really know what you’re doing? Because this is, like, a major deal. Stealing company property is a capital one corporate offense.”
“Not for me it isn’t.”
“Oh, sure, right.”
Piper stopped. “I detect a whiff of sarcasm. Tell me, do you have any idea how connected The Chimeric Circle actually is?”
“Not really, no.”
“Think of nearly everyone who’s ever had a shred of power at home or on any outpost or off-world colony—be it business, showbiz, politics, science, the military, or backward creed—and then times them by the power of twelve.”
“Guess it pays to have friends in all the low places, huh?”
Piper sneered and gave him a push forward. “Oh, sure, like you’re one to talk, conspiring with the likes of Jock Roscoe.”
Passing the sealed armadillo bays with their docked tenders, less than two minutes later they were all the way down at the farthest, darkest end of the hangar near Armadillo Bays X, Y, and Z. Jimmy slid his eyes to Piper. If this ex-PAL legionnaire was going to dismantle his ass or get rid of him altogether, now would be the perfect time for her to do so. This far from the arrant jollity of the party, no one would find his body for hours. If Piper chose to murder him, she might even elect to stuff his corpse into a regular tender cargo hold and his body would rot for months before being found. Either way, death or ass-kicking, he wondered how much it was going to hurt.
“This is it,” he said at last, pointing. “Bay X.”
“Let’s get cracking.”
47. SELF-PROMOTION
Reaching ASOCC, Leela sped across the room and dropped into her assigned seat. All around her console her screens were streaked with pulsing red bars and beeping. She raked her eyes over the chirruping displays. The data showed that the Adamant freighter was no longer in operative orbit around K7-A.
Leela croaked aloud, “What? That can’t possibly be.” Inserting her bone mic into her ear, she immediately tried hailing the freighter. “Azoick vessel six-seven-two-three-zero Adamant, this is JSC Pendergast, ASOCC. Override alert indicates your orbital status negative, I repeat, negative. Do you copy?”
A rough, vacuous stream of static.
“Azoick vessel six-seven-two-three-zero Adamant, this is a priority transmission from K7-A ASOCC. We have an alert indicating your orbital status is negative, please respond, over.”
Still not receiving any answer, Leela typed in a request for comprehensive perigee/apogee scans of all possible orbital tracks around Kardashev 7-A. At once a catastrophic smear of disjointed debris appeared on several of the screens in front of her. Leela bumped up the diagnostic magnification.
Oh God…
The Adamant was totally obliterated.
But how? How could this have happened?
With the vagaries of space, Leela understood that terrible things occurred all the time. Yet given the magnitude and outward dissipation of the wreckage, whatever happened to the Adamant looked positively cataclysmic. Analyzing the specific size and nature of the debris, she began to theorize. Had the orbiting freighter been hit by a rogue asteroid? Prior in-depth survey teams had methodically searched the outer reaches of the sector for such deadly anomalies, and the fragments and twisted pieces didn’t bear the signature of an object hit. So no, Leela had to assume the destruction was caused by something else, possibly a devastating fusion reactor failure or worse.
Her thoughts shifted to everyone getting their ya-yas out in the shipping hangar. Oh hell, if the Adamant had an onboard emergency and the station lent no assistance because they were too busy getting hammered, every single soul on station would be held accountable to the company, top down, including herself. Immediately Leela called up all comm records and diagnostic readings and backtracked them from the time of the Adamant’s orbital lock. Scanning the analytics on accelerated playback, when she saw the De Silento closing in at five hundred meters per second and then divide into seven sections her mouth dropped open and she couldn’t tear her eyes away. The largest section of the De Silento collided with the Adamant dead on as six smaller portions broke off and swooped away.
She was thunderstruck.
But the De Silento, its course heading was—
Leela found the scrap of paper from before on her desk and re-read her handwriting.
alardo-9
Her whole body locked up with dread. Oh no. There was that Priority B message from the Azoick envoy aboard the Adamant, all that talk about the so-called unpleasant Enlai and Azoick tensions, the failed proxy fight, and the nearly shadowed skip trajectory. The nearest spheroid claim in the sector was nothing but an EU lie. The De Silento’s booster problem hadn’t been a problem at all.
Black swan, her ass.
The destruction of the Adamant was corporate sabotage.
Stupefied, she couldn’t and didn’t want to believe it. Corporations turning aggressively on each other when all other arbitrations were exhausted wasn’t exactly unheard of back home, but normally those sorts of aggressions were tied to international and diplomatic power struggles. A rival mining outfit attacking a defenseless freighter? It was the worst possible situation, a lurid and terrifying nightmare, and Leela prayed that any second now she was going to wake up from it. Forcefully, she gave her face a hard slap.
Pull yourself together, Leela. Deal with the problem.
Okay, she thought, so the De Silento destroyed the Adamant—what happened to the De Silento’s other sections? Leela replayed the moments before the collision. Did the rest of the sections actually move off in formation, and if so, where were they headed? When she initiated sensor skims of the entire SPO, the worst part of the unfolding bad dream ripped through her like a buzzsaw.
The six remaining sections of the De Silento were on direct intercept course with the K7-A station.
Without a second thought, Leela hit the critical all-personnel “Code Zulu” klaxon. She feared, however, that with the moronic loud music and rowdiness in the shipping hangar nobody would hear it. No one had paid heed to the previous flashing red managerial advisory light that pulled her toward ASOCC. Hell, not a single member of the management team had even bothered to show up. The situation looked hopeless and time was running out. Even if somebody heard the Code Zulu klaxon there was absolutely no way for everyone in the shipping hangar to get to safety in time. Except for her and perhaps Jimmy, the entire station was at the party. Leela replayed the skim analytics once again just to be sure, and calculated the estimated time to intercept was less than ten minutes. Knowing that she was now effectively in charge, Leela had to make the call. A solution shot through her.
She sealed ASOCC’s doors and all critical exits and passageways on station.
For the first time in her life, Leela Pendergast truly hated her job.
48. BLACKOUT CODE ZULU—OMG
Jimmy had been knocked
unconscious plenty of times and coming to he wondered if Piper had somehow thrown a sucker punch. In an instant everything flashed dark and his feet slipped out from under him.
A split second later his body met the rigid certainty of the hangar deck and the sudden, tenebrous darkness subsided. Looking right, he saw that Piper had fallen too, and they both got to their feet.
Piper cried, “What the fuck was that?”
Jimmy looked up and all around. “I don’t know. A power glitch?”
Someone cut the party music and above a brash klaxon could be heard. Leela’s unmistakable voice echoed from the hangar’s PA system.
“ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL. INBOUND OBJECTS ON A DIRECT IMPACT INTERCEPT WITH THE AZOICK STATION! EMERGENCY EVAC-LIFTOFF CODE ZULU IN SEQUENCE! ALL UNITS ARE NOW ON LOCKDOWN PRIOR TO LAUNCH. IMPACT T MINUS NINE MINUTES! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! REPEAT! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”
Jimmy said, “Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me.”
Ominously and in turn, all of the shipping hangar exits immediately slammed shut. A loud roar of protest thundered from the area of the party as one by one across the hangar the armadillo bay systems came online. During the final loading process, the tenders inside the bays had been filled in reverse order, and thus A and B were the first to expel their tenders as they were the least full and were compensated with electric ballasts. Bays C and D were next with slightly more cargo, and so on. The discharging sequence moved at glacially slow pace down the line toward Piper and Jimmy’s position at Bay X.
“What’s Code Zulu?” Piper asked.
“All the spider’s critical areas are sealed off.”
“Yeah, okay. I got that, so?”
“So it’s Leela,” Jimmy said. “I think she’s going to try and launch the station on her own.”
There was a titanic rumble of hydraulics beneath them as the hangar’s giant bulwark assemblies began their slithering leg retractions. A muted heavy tremor followed as booster engines initiated launch preparations.