The Process Server

by L.H. Thomson

  ***

  Cardale had offered us one useful piece of advice: the easiest way to find Vega was to find his ship, the Mixed Blessing. It was a gigantic vessel in almost every sense, almost as big as a battle cruiser, with twin Jofari Psychic Core engines. But it was so large, it was a constant topic of Sat Com chatter across the galaxy.

  Jayde had been sitting in the coms chair, just behind our cabin seats and serviced by a series of touch panels on the wall. She had a pair of headphones on, trying to isolate sound. After about 20 minutes, she put both hands up to the earphones for a moment, holding them tight to her head. Then she pulled them off, looking more than a little triumphant. “There’s some drift chatter from freighters about Vega’s personnel crew doing some worth in the Deneleth System.”

  Damn. I hated going to Deneleth on business. It was one thing to get into it with one guy in a bar while that far from home. But our ship only had twin 50mm cannons, and Deneleth was like Earth’s wild west when it came to the SP policing space lanes.

  They just didn’t have the resources to spend so much credit protecting so relatively few people, they argued.

  In a scrap with a big ship out there, we’d get torn apart, assuming Jayde couldn’t bail us out with some slick flying.

  Of course, she’d done it enough times in the past.

  Ah hell, I thought. Like we have a choice.

  Deneleth space is … different. The lack of regulation makes it a great place to do business; all sorts of planets lie unexplored, unmined, essentially unclaimed.

  And those with small pockets of local resistance? Well, it depended on the cost of that resistance, usually. Bullets are cheap, and corporations are like any other community: they protect their own first, from CEO down to stockholder, in order of power.

  Local residents don’t really fit into that equation.

  By the time we were halfway to Avicus Prime – easily the System’s largest inhabited world – it occurred to me that I didn’t really have a plan. Occurred to Jayde, too.

  “Boss, Vega’s ship is so big I can find it quickly enough by tapping the Sat Com transmissions again. Almost everything reflects through Avicus Prime, so it shouldn’t take long.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “Then what?”

  “Dunno. We could just hail him and ask him about it.”

  She turned and fixed me with a stare. “Boss…”

  “Yeah, I know. Nuts.” I sat and pondered it for a few seconds. “But why was he trying to kill the ambassador? I still don’t get that. A few days ago he was trying to cut a deal with him.”

  Jayde said, “Although when you think about it, Resko did plan to betray Vega, so maybe be was just cleaning up loose ends, figuring he couldn’t trust the ambassador anyway, so he didn’t need him talking about the drive.”

  “Lots of guessing,” I said. “Maybe the only thing to do is ask him straight.”

  “But what if he knows who we are? Descriptions from the fight have probably made their way back to him by now.

  “So we stay off visual, hail them from audio on a distance. We tell Vega we’re a delegation from the ambassador, coming under a truce flag to discuss the incident on NTC North Form. We ask if he’s still willing to make the deal.”

  She thought about it. “Ok, let’s say that gets us onboard. He’ll have briefed his crew on who they’re expecting. How do we get around that?

  I shrugged. “I’m banking that he won’t be expecting a frontal assault. We find Vega, we grab the drive, we book out.”

  She stared at me intently for a moment. “I’m trying to figure out if you got brain damage last time we were logged on or something.”

  “Seriously,” I said. “Think about it: you’re a pilot, so you’re armed. But Vega uses a mostly robotic staff. He only has a handful of other Earthers on board.”

  Jayde shook her head slowly. “You’re nuts.”

  “Gotta pay the bills somehow.”

  She inhaled deeply, then let it out. “Well, 251 years minus two days. I had a good run.”

  It took us most of the rest of the day to finally track down the Mixed Blessing, anchored at a refueling station just off Avicus Minor.

  We kept well out of easy visual – Sat Com relays are sparse in the Deneleth system – and hailed his bridge.

  “Well howdy!” came back the response, in a high-pitched, slightly cartoonish voice. “You’ve got K-GIFF. Talk to me.”

  We looked at each other perplexed. “Uh, we’re looking for Mr. Vance Vega,” Jayde said. “We’re here on behalf of the ambassador for the KTC, to talk about a truce.”

  Silence. Then, a second later, a skeptical “…really? You’re kidding, right.”

  “Sorry? Come back, Mixed Blessing, I didn’t catch that.

  “I said you’re kidding, right? I mean, you’re flying a ‘072 Star Master. No way anyone working for the K’Laar gets caught dead in that thing.”

  I looked at Jayde. I didn’t have many options but to keep up the ruse.

  “I’ll have you know, sir, that Ambassador G’Deevar considers us among his most trusted people. Why, he was saying to us just yesterday…”

  The voice sighed audibly. “Yeah, yeah. You’re very important and blah blah blah, you have lots of money and blah blah, you know so and so. Hang on. I’ll get the boss.”

  Jayde said, “That was … odd.”

  We waited a few more moments before another voice came though, firm and authoritative – and a little annoyed. “This is Vance Vega. We’re on sleep cycle on board my ship, so this better be important.”

  “Ahhh, Mr. Vega, the ambassador is aware that there’s obviously some bad blood between the two of you, and he sent us to discuss the matter with you, see if we can’t come to some sort of satisfactory accommodation.”

  “Uh huh.”

  The line went silent for a minute. I said, “What do you think he’s doing?”

  “Well, his crew could tell what type of ship we’re on without a visual, which means it has pretty good long-range scanners,” said Jayde. “So they’re probably trying to check us out.” She looked at me. “Why doesn’t that worry you more?”

  I shrugged. “I have confidence that I’ve managed to keep a pretty low profile. I mean, I’m just a Smith and Process Server. How much information out there can there…

  The weapons detection system started beeping rapidly.

  A red blip appeared on the sector radar scope. “Shit,” said Jayde. “That looks like a warhead!” She slammed the throttle down and pulled us away from the blip. “I didn’t think they’d have that kind of range on any of their weapons.”

  I gave her a dry stare. “Really? Are you sure, Jayde? Because they seem to think they do.”

  The red blip was heading rapidly for the scope’s center, our relative position. “Deploying countermeasures and taking evasive,” Jayde said, firing off a series of heat-soaked flares to try and confuse the missile’s sensors.

  She throttled down and pulled back hard on the yolk, turning us at 90 degrees to the countermeasures, then hit the burners. But a split second before it reached the countermeasures, the missile veered away and resumed course to hit us.

  “Screw it, Jayde, just hold down the burner. Maybe we can outrun it,” I said.

  We didn’t have a lot of other options in open space. Jayde hit the burner and we shot ahead, gaining speed and covering more distance from the ship, 30,000 kilometers, 30,500, 31,000, … the missile closed on the center of the scope and we braced for impact…

  Instead, it blew about 10 kilometers off the starboard bow, a small nuke that shook the ship but didn’t do any damage.

  “I think we’ve been made, boss,” said Jayde.

  She had that right. On the edge of the scope, the Mixed Blessing had come around and was pursuing.

  “We’ve got a hail coming in,” said Jayde. “Putting it on speaker.”

  The speaker crackled for a second. “Process Server Smith? Hey buddy, how ya been?
Vance Vega. Look, that was a warning shot. Believe me, if I wanted the two of you dead, it would already be happening.”

  I whispered to Jayde, “Just ignore him. Start getting us read for a Quantum jump.”

  Vega’s voice came back loud and clear. “My crew tells me you’re preparing to jump into Short Space, Process Server Smith. You have to realize, we have a dual-drive ship and it’s armed to the teeth. You can’t evade us and you can’t outfly us. And I want my property.”

  Huh? I looked at Jayde, and she was just as puzzled.

  I hailed him back. “Say again, Mixed Blessing. Sorry, Mr. Vega, you’ve got us stumped. You’re not talking about a certain holo drive are you?”

  A second later, his static-laden chortle came back. “You got some balls, kid. But I hear Robert Cardale’s offered you a fat contract to bring it to him. Not sure why you’d be stupid enough to come out here to talk to me, but it was the last stupid thing you’re gonna do.”

  Jayde said, “Boss, his ship has 16 60mm spent-uranium shell cannons. If he gets within 5,000 kilometers, we’ll be perforated...”

  “How long until we can jump?”

  “About a minute.”

  “How long until psychoboy gets here?”

  “About a minute.”

  I shook my head. Geez. There had to be an easier way to make a few creds.

  “I just figured something, Jayde. He wasn’t trying to hit the ambassador. He was trying to hit us. Vega’s lost the drive somehow.”

  “You just figured that? He just told you that.”

  I tilted my head and sighed. “Fine, he just told me that. Either way, we’re in deep trouble.”

  The minute seemed to pass excruciatingly slowly. “Jump’s almost ready.”

  On the stern camera monitor, I could see Vega’s behemoth drifting into view. “We’re outta time again.” A second later, there was a small flash of light from its bow, and twin trails of green fire erupted outwards.

  Jayde’s face was lit by the glow of the radar scope. “Two more missiles, closing fast. Better hang on, boss.”

  I looked at her. “Why? If those things hit us, we’re done. Just get the drive going, already.”

  The scope began to beep, indicating imminent contact, slowly at first, but as the missiles chewed up the space between us, it got steadier, louder, faster, till the rapid beep was clear and ever-present, the two green dots closing on the centre of the scope...

  “Hang on, boss” Jayde said.

  “Ah, fuck it,” I said. “You only live once.”

  And with that, I hit the Quantum Jump switch, and decided to take our chances.