by Jake Elwood
"Jocelyn Cartwright," she said, sounding bored. "Solar Patrol. We're here about the Riverson kidnapping. And you're getting in my way." The look she gave him was one of irritated impatience, and Hank almost stepped aside. At the last moment he stopped himself.
"If you're a cop," he growled, "show me some kind of badge."
Joss rolled her eyes. "I'm undercover. We don't carry badges undercover. But if you really want to see a badge, I can bring the corporal in here. He'll take you to a holding cell and you can look at all the badges you like." She lifted her wrist toward her mouth.
"Hang on," the blonde interrupted. "There's no need for that." She shot Hank a venomous look. "We don't care about this stupid bint. You can have her." She looked around at the others. "Right?"
"Like hell," Hank growled, recovering some of his nerve. "I'm not so sure I—"
Liz looked around the little room. Every eye was fixed on Joss. The man who stood over her seemed to have forgotten all about her, which was downright insulting. The rail gun hung from slack fingers as he stared at Joss. Liz decided that it was time to teach him some manners.
Hank was just reaching for the lump of a gun in the back of his waistband when Liz squirmed onto her side, brought her knees sweeping around, and knocked the legs out from under the man beside her. She rose to her knees as he fell, and leaned back, groping blindly for the gun. She caught the barrel, and he hung on, so she rolled herself across his body, squeezing the air out of his lungs. The top of her head touched the floor, her legs swung up, and she ripped the gun out of his hand as the momentum of her body brought her backward in a roll.
She landed on her knees again, twisting her body sideways, and fired with the gun behind her back. The second young man from the hallway was lining up a shot with a capacitor pistol when her round punched into his hip. She squeezed off three more shots in rapid succession. Two of them clanged on the wall behind him, and one hit his forearm as he clutched the wound in his hip.
Hank's gun came clear of his waistband and Joss threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him, pinning his arms to his side. Her momentum brought him crashing to the floor with Joss on top of him, both of them rolling perilously close to the open hatch. The slob stared at them with wide eyes, then bolted from the room. The blonde followed a moment later.
Liz rose to her feet. The man she'd disarmed was rising too, and she booted him in the ribs. He grunted, but made it to his feet, so she aimed her next kick at the back of his knee. His leg buckled, which put his stomach nicely in line for her follow-up kick. He doubled over, and she stepped past him, reaching the man she'd shot and slamming him backward with a stomping kick to the center of his body. Then she stepped on Hank's gun hand and waited while Joss squirmed out of his grasp and disarmed him.
For a long moment the two of them stood there, panting, looking down at the three criminals. The pistol shook in Joss's hands.
"Put that away," Liz murmured. "Untie me."
Joss nodded. It took her several tries to get the pistol into her front pocket. She fumbled with the knots, then held Liz's wrists for a moment while she took several long, deep, noisy breaths. Her hands were steadier when she resumed.
Liz felt much more comfortable when her hands were free. She stalked around the room, jabbing the three prisoners with the barrel of the rail gun while she collected weapons. The man she'd shot was moaning as he clutched his wounds, blood welling through his fingers.
"Quit your whining," she told him. "It beats going through the hatch." She took back the laser pistol, pocketed the rail gun, and tossed a capacitor pistol and a butterfly knife into the hatch. A collection of pills littered the counter at the back of the room, and she tossed those out the hatch too.
"Come after us any time you like," she told the three men. "I look forward to it." She palmed the door open and checked the hall outside. "Come on, Joss."
They didn't stop until they were in the thick of the crowds in Dome Nine. Liz pushed a credit stick into a vending machine and got a cup of coffee, piping hot. She turned back to Joss, who was starting to shake again. Liz pushed the coffee into Joss's hands. "Here. This will help."
Joss took a sip, moving like an automaton, barely wincing when the coffee burned her. Her eyes were wide, her face pale. In the aftermath of the crisis all her self-assurance was gone, and Liz grinned, sure that she was finally seeing the genuine Joss.
"You'll feel bad for a few minutes. Then exhausted. There might be some minor mood swings in there too. But the caffeine will help with all of it. Go ahead. Drink. It's not that hot."
Joss sipped mechanically, and some of the color returned to her cheeks. A man in coveralls went past behind her, heading for the bank of vending machines. He brushed her shoulder in passing, and she flinched, spinning around, slopping coffee over her hand.
"Easy," said Liz. "Easy. We're safe now. Joss. Joss, look at me."
Joss stared up at her with wide, unblinking eyes.
"We made it, Joss. We're safe. We're okay. Do you understand?"
Joss nodded.
"You're on a wicked adrenaline high." Liz smirked. "Try not to enjoy it too much. It's addictive."
The look Joss gave her said that Joss wasn't liking it at all.
"It'll wear off. You'll be fine soon."
Joss nodded and sipped the coffee.
"That's right. Just keep drinking that. I'm going to see what Chan's up to." She took out her phone, read Chan's message, and frowned. She called him, got no answer, and put the phone away.
"Okay, drink up. We have to go."
Joss lowered the cup. "What's wrong?"
"It's Chan. How much do you want to bet he's in trouble again?"
Dome Eight was designated "mixed use", with residential areas and some light industry. Chan explored the lowest floor and found a food court with an airlock in the outer wall. Rhett stood unmoving near the lock while Chan pretended to browse menus. His hands were sweating in the gloves of the vac suit, and he had to fight the urge to fidget. The food court was nearly empty, with a few people loitering over cups of coffee. Quite a diverse mix of people wandered through from time to time, from laborers in reflective overalls to spaceship crews to businessmen with neckties. No one looked at all suspicious, with the possible exception of Chan.
At last he decided that waiting was only making things worse. He stepped into the lock, fixed his helmet in place, and started the lock cycling. The hum of fans drawing air from the lock came dimly through his helmet. At last the outer door slid open and the atmosphere of Titan came rushing in. He was surprised to find that there was no visible red mist. Apparently Titan's clouds only took their color over a distance. He thought back to the ocean on Earth, something he remembered only dimly from childhood. The water, so blue from a distance, was perfectly transparent up close. Maybe Titan was like that.
The extreme drop in temperature made him shiver, and he felt lines of heat across his body as the filaments in his vac suit compensated. He stepped out of the lock. His weight, he was relieved to see, still held. The last thing he needed was an incautious step in the microgravity of Titan sending him flying over the railing.
A narrow catwalk followed the perimeter of the dome, enclosed by a waist-high railing. Chan took a tight grip on the railing, then leaned out and looked straight down.
He saw nothing but swirling orange cloud. Dome Eight was mounted on a brace that ran between Perses and Pallas domes, with a third of the dome jutting out past the edge of the city. He could have been on the prow of some ghost ship, sailing through endless oceans of fog.
He pushed the fanciful thought away and started walking, examining the dome to his right as he walked. He had very little idea what he was looking for. The rumors he had picked up were frustratingly vague. There was something going on outside of Dome Eight. That was pretty much all he knew.
The dome seemed small and cramped from the inside, but Chan was able to walk and walk and walk. The catwalk barely seemed to curve. He trudged al
ong, feeling the chill fade away, wondering if he would be able to see anything at all.
Eventually he came to another airlock. He looked at it for a time, wondering where it led. It was hard to imagine shady characters walking through the food court on their way to do mysterious things outside the dome. Maybe they used this airlock? He looked at the button that opened the lock and wondered if he should press it. He remembered the kidnapping, the sinister figure in a vac suit trying to shoot him, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He would go back to the data terminals, find a floor plan of the dome, and use that to learn where the lock led. He turned.
Something on the railing caught his eye. The catwalk and railing were painted dark red, with yellow showing through on the catwalk floor where feet had worn the paint away. On the railing outside the air lock, several patches of yellow paint gleamed in the pale sunlight.
Chan looked up and down the catwalk. If he looked closely he could find the occasional tiny chip in the paint but for the most part the railing was pristine. Only in front of the lock was a significant amount of paint worn away.
"Huh." He knelt and examined the railing, trying to imagine what people could be doing to create such a wear pattern. There were no chips or scratches, just smoothly worn paint over a stretch of railing perhaps a metre long. He peered over the railing, mystified. There was nothing below but blank orange mist.
The catwalk vibrated slightly under his knees. It was the only warning he got. There was a burst of static in his ears, and then something slammed against the back of his helmet. His head rock forward, his helmet banged against the railing in front of him, and he saw pinwheels of light as his head ricocheted against the inside of the helmet.
He was still kneeling as they grabbed him. There was a figure on either side, anonymous shapes in brown vac suits, their gloved hands grabbing at his shoulders and thighs. He couldn't figure out what they were doing until he started to rise.
Panic was a white-hot knife in his brain. They were going to throw him over the railing! His dazed disorientation left him in a flash, and he fought madly, flailing with his elbows against the figures who held him. He thrashed, kicked his feet, and his knee hit the railing, sending agony through his leg. He landed a solid blow with his right elbow against one attacker's helmet, but the man didn't let go. A moment later Chan felt himself toppling forward. He screamed, clawing with his left hand at the man beside him, hooking his right arm over the railing. He fell, his body swinging, and his legs slammed against the outside of the catwalk. He grabbed the railing with his left hand, scrabbling with his toes against the bottom of the catwalk. He could see into the helmets of his attackers. They were grim-faced men with no trace of pity or remorse in their eyes.
Chan saw nothing there but determination.
The man on the left pried at Chan's gripping fingers while the one on the right pulled up on Chan's forearm. At the last possible instant Chan found the lip of the catwalk with his toes. He stood up, just as he lost his grip on the railing. For a frozen second he stood there trembling with the outside of the railing against his stomach. He was centimetres away from the men who had come to murder him, and the one on the right put a hand against Chan's chest and shoved.
Chan fell screaming into the void.
Chapter 8
Liz walked into Dome Eight with Joss at her side. A plant-filled atrium stood just inside the entrance, with signs pointing to residential sections and something called "Factory A-5." A teenage girl came slouching through, and Liz stepped into the girl's path.
"Hey. Is there a way to get outside the dome?"
The girl stared at her, blank-faced. "Why would you want to—"
Liz scowled, and the girl went pale.
"Sure, lady, sure. There's an airlock just past the food court." She glanced down at Liz's clothes but didn't comment on her lack of a vac suit.
"Is there any other airlock?"
The girl shrugged and shuffled away.
They found the food court easily enough, but there was no sign of Chan. A couple of men sat at a table playing cards, and a few bored staff members stood behind the counters at the restaurants that lined the walls. Most of the restaurants were automated, though. There weren't half a dozen people in sight besides Liz and Joss.
"Maybe he's fine," Joss said. "He's just too busy to answer his phone."
"Maybe," said Liz. She had a bad feeling, though. "I'm going to ask some questions." She walked toward the nearest manned restaurant.
A bored youth in a blue smock straightened up as she approached. "Welcome to Barbecue Village," he said. "Can I tell you about our specials?"
"No. Did a man in a vac suit come through here, maybe half an hour ago?"
"Uh…"
Liz shook her head, wondering what the next generation was coming to. Maybe a few good slaps would help clear the boy's mind. Probably not, she decided. It would make her feel better, though.
"I think so," the boy said. "I guess he went out the airlock. I wasn't really paying attention."
"Well, did he come back in?"
The boy shrugged. "Maybe? No, I don't think so."
Liz looked around the food court. The two men with the cards were staring at her. They quickly looked away, and she scowled. "Nosy bastards," she muttered. Actually, they were probably looking at Joss, she supposed. "Nosy bastards with no taste," she amended. "Let's go see if they've been paying attention."
She took a single step toward them, then stopped when her phone pinged. She took it out, hoping for a message from Chan.
The message came from an anonymous sender, and it was blank. A moment later, the phone pinged again and another message appeared. It was from the anonymous sender again, and it said, "Meet me in the atrium immediately."
Liz frowned and scanned the room. She had the sense that the first message was to identify her. The second message was to lure her into a trap. No one seemed to be watching, but that just meant they were hurrying to the atrium to prepare their ambush. She turned to Joss.
"Come on. We have an appointment with the bad guys."
The atrium was disappointingly empty when they arrived. Joss looked around, then cocked an eyebrow at Liz. "What are we doing here?"
"We're waiting for some men with guns," Liz told her. "We're going to take their guns away and ask them some questions."
Joss stared at her, then stiffened at the sound of footsteps in the corridor from the food court. Liz turned, feeling the delicious rush that always came with impending violence.
A grubby-looking butler robot walked in, and she let her shoulders slump, disappointed. She was leaning to the side, trying to peer past the machine, when the robot said, "Are you Liz?"
"What?" She refocused on the robot. "What did you say?"
"Are you Liz? Are you a shipmate of Captain Chan?"
"Yes. Who sent you? What's this about?"
"Captain Chan sent me, more or less," the robot said, the smooth urbanity of his voice spoiled by a crackle of static. "I was to send you a message if he failed to return in forty-five minutes."
"I didn't know he had a robot," Joss interrupted.
"He doesn't," the robot said. Liz was sure she had to be imagining a hint of tartness in the voice. Robots didn't do inflection.
"Has it been forty-five minutes?" Liz asked.
"No. But I thought it prudent to interrupt your questioning in the food court. I am not sure the two men playing cards are to be trusted."
Liz replayed the scene in her memory. Had the robot been standing in the food court the whole time? She thought he might have been. She hadn't noticed him, any more than she would have noticed an extra vending machine.
She pictured the two card players. She'd barely glanced at them, but she thought she remembered two men, one burly and long-limbed, the other much shorter. They'd been wearing almost the same shirts, she remembered. In fact, the little man wore a shirt so loose-fitting it might have belonged to his friend.
"They
were staring at you," the robot continued. "I am not always correct in my interpretation of human expressions, but I believe I detected animosity."
Something clicked into place in Liz's brain. She turned to Joss. "It's him."
Joss blinked. "It's who?"
"The card player, of course. The little one." Liz made a fist and punched the palm of her other hand. "The little bastard tried to shoot me, and now it's my turn."
"Shoot you? When?"
Liz grinned. "During the Riverson kidnapping. Right before I broke his wrist."
"How do you know it's him?"
"That stupid shirt, of course. It's to hide the cast on his wrist." Liz turned to the robot. "Will you do me a favor? Go outside the lock and see if you can see the captain, or anything else. Call me when you're outside."
"Very well." Rhett turned and strode back into the food court. Liz waited, breathing deeply, rolling her shoulders to loosen her muscles. "We'll have to call the cops," she said. "As soon as we're done asking questions."
"Are you going to start trusting me now?" Joss asked softly.
"What? Of course not." Liz stared at her. "I don't even know your last name."
"I told you my last name."
"You told me five or six last names," Liz said indignantly. "Which one am I supposed to believe?" Joss opened her mouth, but Liz interrupted. "Never mind. It's just words. There's no point in talking more when I already don't believe a thing you say."
"Fine." Joss crossed her arms. "Never mind what I say. Look at what I do."
Liz flapped her arms in the air in a gesture of outraged frustration. "What do you do? You skulk around telling lies." There was a sinking feeling her stomach, though, as she realized where Joss was going.
"I saved you from those terrible men," Joss said. "I walked in on five armed gangsters, and I did it because you were in trouble."
"You just did it because…" Liz's voice trailed off. She had dismissed what Joss had done on Enceladus as self-preservation that only helped Chan by chance. This time, though? There was no getting around it.