by M. D. Cooper
She suspected they weren’t that deep, otherwise she would be surrounded by the ring’s diamond, not plas and steel. Either that, or this shaft led to one of the structural accelerators nestled within the carbon body of the ring.
As Mary mused about her location, a soft scuffling sound caught her attention, and she held her breath, listening with every fiber of her being.
It came again, a clicking now, and the sound of breathing, fast, heavy…it sounded like….
A shaggy snout came around the column she was hiding behind, followed by a pair of soulful eyes.
“Ohhh,” Mary whispered, as the dog came into view.
She held out her hand, and the dog came forward to sniff her fingers. A moment later, she was scratching the shaggy mutt behind his ears.
Dammit, she thought, realizing that she was being profoundly stupid. The dog would be impossible to keep still or quiet, yet shooing it off would make just as much noise—and may not be possible. Still, she was torn between how bad she felt for the abandoned dog, and the need for him to leave.
“Good boy, now go. I’m trying to hide, here.”
The dog cocked its head to the side as though he understood her. He turned and backed in beside her, his teeth bared in a silent growl.
Is this dog uplifted? Did someone abandon an intelligent dog down here?
To her surprise, the dog stayed perfectly quiet and still after moving behind cover. Mary placed a hand on his head and stroked it gently, glad for the companionship—while growing increasingly worried about her father. At this point, he’d been gone for over five minutes.
Suddenly the dog ducked his head down and over, moving it out of reach.
He seemed to be casting her a look that said, ‘I’m concentrating’, then turned one of his large ears, listening intently.
Mary took the hint and listened as well, not hearing a thing.
A minute passed, and then she did hear something—a scraping sound that was getting closer. It wasn’t loud, just a light, metallic scuff that came regularly.
She closed her eyes, concentrating on the sound.
It’s growing louder!
Mary’s eyes snapped open, and she looked to the dog, only to find that it was gone.
Oh, shit, I’m screwed!
With excruciatingly slow and exacting movements, Mary stood and readied herself for whatever would come, holding her pistol high across her chest, prepared to pivot her wrist and use the center-axis firing method her father had taught her.
The sound was close, almost at the column she was hidden behind. Just a few seconds more…
Nothing came. The scuffing had stopped.
Stars…this is worse, is it just waiting for me? What is it? A human? A machine? Some long-forgotten creature that’s been living in this warren for years?
A minute passed, and Mary mustered up the courage to look around the column, surprised when her eyes took in the empty passageway. She wondered if her mind had been playing tricks on her. Maybe it was just another dog, and hers had gone off with it.
Then something grabbed her from behind and lifted her into the air.
“Faaaak!” Mary couldn’t help the scream that tore itself out of her throat as she was pulled up by the collar of her jacket.
She twisted to see a six-legged drone hanging from the overhead, two of its long arms grasping her collar.
Mary swapped her pistol into the other hand and fired on the drone, hitting it right in its main optics, then again in the limbs that were holding her.
The drone twitched from the force of the pulse waves, and Mary dropped her pistol before raising her arms and sliding out of her jacket.
She landed on the deck and reached for her pistol, grabbing it a second before the drone skittered down the wall, reaching for her again.
Two shots from the pulse pistol barely slowed it down, and then the drone was atop her, pinning her arms beside her head as it sank its rear legs into her thighs.
The pistol slipped from her grasp, and Mary screamed again, trying to push the drone off—but it was impossibly heavy, and had begun to wiggle around.
Wait…that shape…
The reason why the drone felt so heavy was because the dog was on its back, snapping his jaws at the drone’s legs.
The dog barked and clamped its teeth around one of the robotic limbs, pulling it up and then twisting. Mary was shocked to see the machine’s leg break off. The dog repeated the process on another limb, this time freeing Mary’s right arm.
She felt for the pulse pistol and breathed a long sigh of relief when her fingers wrapped around its grip.
The drone was twisting to avoid the dog, and then it finally reared back to knock the beast off.
Mary took advantage of the distance it created between them and fired a half-dozen pulse blasts into the thing’s underside.
The drone shook and convulsed, as smoke rose from one side. Mary pushed it off herself to see the dog standing by her feet, glaring at the machine and looking immensely proud of itself at the same time.
After a few steadying breaths, Mary struggled to her feet, wincing at the pain in her thighs. She looked at her pants and didn’t see too much blood.
Maybe the holes it made aren’t that deep…felt like they went right through me.
Certain she wasn’t going to bleed to death, she bent over to scratch the dog behind its ears.
“C’mon, let’s go find my dad. I’m not going to stay here and let more of those things try to skewer me.”
Right, left, second right, she thought, setting off with the dog at her side.
It surprised her that the mutt had attached itself to her so quickly. Maybe it didn’t see many people, or maybe those it did see were cruel to it. Either way, it seemed content to travel with her for now.
She turned the last corner on her father’s prescribed route and almost ran straight into him.
“Mary!” he whispered. “Be more careful. What if I’d been an enemy?”
“I’d take you out like I did the last one—with my new friend’s help, of course.”
Flaherty looked down at the dog and smiled at the mutt. “Good work, Figgy.”
“Figgy?” Mary asked.
“The dog. His name is Figgy.”
“Is he yours?”
Flaherty turned and gestured for her to follow. “He is his. He lives down here. Figgy’s a friend.”
Mary glanced down at the dog who looked up at her and nodded.
“You’re uplifted, Figgy?”
The dog nodded again, its gaze still on her.
“But you’re not able to speak, I take it.”
Figgy shook his head, and Flaherty looked over his shoulder. “I think he can, he just really, really doesn’t want to. Goes against some sort of doggy-code.”
Figgy cast her father a dark look and shook his head again.
“Whatever.” Flaherty shrugged as they reached a door. He punched in a short code on the panel, and then pulled open the heavy steel portal.
Two more drones lay on the deck inside—in far worse shape than the one she’d left behind. Beyond them was a small docking bay containing the person she wanted to see more than anything.
“Drew!” she called out and rushed toward him. “Light, I’m so glad you’re OK.”
Her son, a lanky young man with long, red hair rushed toward her and wrapped her in a fierce embrace. “Me? You’re the one grandfather left back in those passageways.”
He released his grasp on her and stepped back. “Mom! You’re bleeding!”
Mary waved a hand. “It’s nothing. Is that our ship?”
Drew turned to look at the small, dingy shuttle sitting in the docking bay.
“ ‘Ship’ seems like a stretch,” Drew said as he gave the vessel an uncertain look. “I don’t even know if its spaceworthy.”
“I wouldn’t be aboard if it wasn’t,” Leeroy said, sticking his head out of the airlock. “You all going to stand out there hugging and kissing a
ll day, or are you going to get in? Those drones have Link, you know.”
Flaherty lifted a case off a nearby bench and nodded to Mary and Drew. “Get on—Mary, where’s your bag?”
“Aw, crap, I forgot it back in the passage.”
Her father shook his head and pointed at a cabinet next to the bench. “There’s a shipsuit in there. You’re filthy, you’ll want fresh clothes once we patch you up.”
Mary walked gingerly to the cabinet—her thighs were really starting to ache—and pulled it open.
A garment bag hung inside, next to a pulse rifle. She grabbed both and turned back to the shuttle. Her father had handed the case to Leeroy and now stood beside the airlock. He nodded in approval of the rifle in her right hand and gestured for her to board first.
Inside—which was far cleaner than the exterior would have led her to believe—was a small cabin, with room to seat ten people in fully reclining chairs. Forward lay a cockpit that had room for two.
Drew was up front with Leeroy, and she could hear him asking how they were going to get out of the bay.
Mary was wondering the same thing—the bulkheads didn’t appear to have any openings anywhere. She heard Leeroy say “Down,” at the same moment a concerned-sounding bark came from behind her.
She turned to see Figgy standing in front of her father, who shrugged.
“He says he likes you. Wants to come along.”
“How do you know that?” Mary asked.
“Link,” Flaherty replied.
Mary shook her head at her father. “You and Figgy can use the Link, but not me?”
“Well, we’re shielded in the shuttle. Have at it,” Flaherty said.
Mary connected to the shuttle’s network and found Figgy already talking to her.
Mary laughed and released her hold on the dog, sitting back on her heels as her father slipped past.
“Sorry about that, Figgy,” she said aloud.
“Strap in,” Flaherty said, then turned to Drew. “You’re in the back with your mom. Quickly now, we’re ready to drop.”
Mary pulled herself up into a seat and slid a harness over her head, and Figgy jumped into the seat beside her.
Drew sat across from her, then they both wrestled a harness into place around the dog—who was panting excitedly, but not speaking. For the time being at least.
Mary leant over and grabbed the pulse rifle and the garment bag from the aisle, settling both on her lap. At the front of the shuttle, she saw her father settle into the cockpit beside Leeroy, who shot her a quick smile before turning back to his console.
It occurred to her that Leeroy had just turned his entire life upside down to help her and her son escape. When things calmed down she owed him heartfelt thanks.
As she wondered what would possess Leeroy to do that for her, Flaherty glanced back and saw that everyone was ready.
“Let’s drop.”
SERENDIPITY
STELLAR DATE: 03.29.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Construction Inspection Bay 183.AA91
REGION: Airtha, Huygens System, Transcend Interstellar Alliance
Flaherty turned to face forward once more, looking over the shuttle’s readouts, triple-checking that everything was as it should be.
“Relax,” Leeroy said with a wide smile. “She may be old, but I can fly her no problem. We’ll get there.”
Flaherty nodded solemnly. “Then let’s go.”
Lights flashed in the small bay outside the shuttle, and a grav emitter on the overhead lifted the craft off the pad. Once they were suspended in the air, the floor opened beneath the ship, and Leeroy glanced at Flaherty.
“Here goes nothing.”
He punched the release, and the shuttle dropped through the floor, falling at 1g through a long shaft that led outside the ring.
Nine seconds later, the dark shaft was replaced by the inverted diamond mountains on the bottom of the Airtha ring.
“What a view,” Leeroy said as he activated the shuttle’s grav systems, and rotated the vessel so the bottom of the ring was ‘down’ instead of ‘up’.
The shuttle raced through the valleys, staying close to the ring, great mounds of compressed carbon towering all around them and gleaming in Huygens’s light.
“It’s nice,” Flaherty replied to Leeroy, far more concerned about the turrets that rested on the mountaintops above the shuttle.
Leeroy followed his gaze and laughed. “Don’t worry about the guns, Flaherty. We’ll be at the High Airtha tether in five. Once we get there, I’ll tuck in with the elevators, and we’ll be home free before we know it.”
“I sure hope so,” Flaherty said in muted tones. There was no way the shuttle could make it past a concerted effort from the Airthan security forces to stop it. Their only hope was to sneak away.
The shuttle was registered to a freighter named the Hundred Dawns—at least that’s what the insystem STC thought. Once they passed High Airtha, he’d call in for a course to the freighter, passing its captain’s tokens for auth. With luck, it should work.
Problem was, Flaherty didn’t believe in luck.
Leeroy threaded though the valleys until they reached the tether, where he executed a rather artful maneuver, slotting in right behind a maglev car that was racing down the tether to High Airtha’s long arch, hanging below.
“See?” Leeroy said. “Airtha’s diamond crust sure looks nice, but it screws with scan something fierce. The thing is like a thousand echoes of the entire system.”
“Too much form, not enough function,” Flaherty grunted.
“Spot on, pal, spot on.”
Flaherty peered back to see Mary looking worried as she stroked Figgy’s head. She met his eyes, and he could see pain in them.
Her mental sigh was long, but didn’t seem to hold accusation.
Flaherty shook his head.
He saw Mary clench her jaw.
Mary didn’t respond, and Flaherty turned his attention back to the forward view where the maglev was slowing to pull onto one of the tracks that ran perpendicularly across High Airtha’s surface.
Leeroy, however, was going to ride the tether straight through the spur. The long shaft upon which High Airtha hung did not end at the platform, but continued through to a smaller station called ‘Watchtower 97’.
That station controlled all outbound traffic lanes off High Airtha, and the plan was for Leeroy to pull off the tether while occluded
by another craft’s departure. Then Flaherty would request a lane, like nothing was unusual at all about a shuttle suddenly appearing on Scan with no departure logged.
Hopefully.
“Sure hope no one’s coming up the tether,” Leeroy said as the maglev train ahead of them finally turned off, revealing a dark tunnel leading through High Airtha and out the other side.
“It’s clear.” Flaherty spoke with a calm assurance that he mostly felt. The track had been registered as clear this morning, when he’d lifted the schedules.
But schedules could change.
“Well, I’ve got an active EM field on the track!” Leeroy cried out.
“Speed up,” Flaherty said in even tones.
Leeroy shot Flaherty a questioning look but complied and poured on as much thrust as possible in the narrow tunnel.
“I see lights,” Leeroy said through clenched teeth, and Flaherty didn’t even have time to nod before the shuttle shot out of the tunnel and swerved wildly to avoid an oncoming maglev train.
There was a moment of shocked silence as Leeroy and Flaherty looked at one another, confirming that they were indeed still alive, before Leeroy screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Yaaaaaaaaahooooooooo!”
Flaherty allowed a small smile to form on his lips as he checked scan for a departing ship to hide behind.
“There.” He pointed at a cruise liner that had just slipped off the edge of High Airtha, dropping out into space near the tether.
“On it.” Leeroy nodded and altered vector to fall in behind the cruise liner, which was named the Ethereal Delight.
“Not too close,” Flaherty said. “We don’t want them to file a complaint about us with the STC.”
“Looks like a pleasure cruiser. Maybe we should ask if they have room for some late arrivals.” Leeroy was grinning as he took in the holomural on the side of the ship. “Would be a great way to pass the time while we put distance between us and Airtha.”
Flaherty snorted. “You’d end up in some dom’s cabin, all trussed up just when we needed to make a quick getaway. No thanks.”