by Gary Jonas
Sai sat in the copilot’s chair. “Thanks.”
She watched as he deftly checked status lights and ran through pre-launch checklists. He moved efficiently, with military precision. It was obvious that the man was in his element. Perhaps there was more to Hank Jensen than his drunken buffoon act.
“Clearance codes coming through. You’d better strap in,” Hank said, fastening his G-harness.
He hit a bank of switches, and the engine’s dull throb cranked into a high-pitched whine that set Sai’s teeth chattering. Hank pushed the nav-control, and fusion fire erupted from the exhaust ports. The ship shot skyward as the G-forces slammed her back in her seat.
Out the front viewport, Sai watched the ground retreat and rush by in a blur as the ship shot up and forward, apparently on automatic. She scanned the control console, reaching out with her mind to sense the control circuits. The finer points of the navigational controls eluded her, but the computer interface was remarkably sophisticated. She scanned deeper. Complex patterns flashed across the control net. Her mind reached out to the circuitry and began to sort through the pathways of impulses.
“Stop it!” Elsa said, her voice emanating from the com.
“Oh my God,” Sai said.
“What’s wrong?” Hank asked.
Lurking beneath the navigational controls, the life support monitors, the hydraulics and cables, Sai detected a sentient entity. “What kind of hardware do you have controlling this thing?”
Hank stared at her. “It’s some surplus military gear, why do you ask?”
“It’s more than that.”
“Why do you say that?” Hank shifted uneasily in his pilot’s seat.
“I just know. This isn’t a normal ship.”
“I don’t like her,” Elsa said.
“Elsa, you aren’t helping. Go back to plotting our course.”
“She’s a cyber-psi, and she has no respect for privacy!”
Sai had dealt with this all her life. When people discovered she was a computer telepath, they were uncomfortable and guarded. But usually it involved privacy of their bank accounts, or personal writings and images; this was the first time that she had actually entered another entity’s mind. She had never experienced anything like it. Part of her felt ashamed because she truly had invaded Elsa in a way that was inexcusable.
“We all have our secrets it seems,” Sai said, speaking toward the ship’s console. “I am truly sorry. I had no idea that you were … you. Tell you what. You keep quiet about my secret, and I’ll respect yours. I don’t want to cause you any problems.”
“I suppose in light of the circumstances, I should go ahead and formally introduce you to Elsa,” Hank said. “She can’t hide from you. Elsa, meet Sai.”
“I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but I’m still mulling over that shit-bucket comment, and I don’t take kindly to uninvited guests snooping around in my thoughts.”
“Again, Elsa, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I won’t do it again.”
“See that you don’t. I’m not as easily distracted by a pretty face as Hank.”
Hank smiled and shrugged. “Elsa’s program is based on an actual scout, a woman who patrolled the Outyonder during the Psi Wars. I knew her then. She was a friend. And now, she’s a hell of a lot more than just a ship: she’s my partner.”
“Unfortunately, it seems like I’m mostly a silent partner. I must say that I would occasionally like to have a bit more say-so when Hank tries to make the occasional boneheaded move—such as taking on this run. You, little miss, are trouble.”
“Now, now,” Hank said. “Don’t get catty. You two are going to have to get along.”
He didn’t speak again until they were free of Nebula Prime’s polluted atmosphere. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll have you on Raken in no time. If you want to catch a few hours’ sleep, there’s an extra bunk.”
“Clean sheets?” Sai asked.
Elsa piped in. “Don’t count on it.”
“Hey,” Hank said. “I changed those sheets last year.”
Sai reclined the copilot's chair. “I think I’ll just stay here, thanks.”
“Wise decision,” Elsa said.
Sai closed her eyes and spent the rest of the uneventful flight napping.
Chandler arrived at Tyree’s Emporium on the planet Raken for his rendezvous with the courier early enough to take a walk around the block, searching out of habit for anything that raised a warning flag: a conspicuous stranger hanging around a street corner, an occupied parked floater, a pedestrian who did a lot of walking but never seemed to get anywhere.
It paid to be cautious in his line of work. The job covered the rent, but it could also make a man dead.
On the job, some dicks liked to wear leathers and exo, which made them stand out like a corporate lord in a slum. Chandler favored the opposite strategy. For this job, he wore oil-stained tech-crew coveralls and a weathered jacket to blend in with the crowd and avoid attention.
He reached into his jacket pocket and repositioned his blaster, which weighed him down like a tombstone. He glanced at his watch. It was important to stick to the timetable.
Dusk, and the streets were busy, as usual. Day or night didn’t matter: the ships came in at all hours, and thirsty, horny spacers poured into the city like wild dogs. Raken enjoyed the bounty of being a crossroads world where several major trade routes intersected. Hemdale City had the planet’s largest starport, and the wildest Starman’s Quarter to go with it.
Whorehouses and gin joints appealing to human and alien tastes were boom industries. Tyree’s would be raking in the credits tonight.
The streets were still slick and reflective from the afternoon rainstorms. Floaters swooped overhead as the pedestrian traffic made its way across the pavement below. Colored lights danced from the street signs, and music blared from several bars. Savory and not-so-savory aromas from sidewalk food vendors teased and assaulted his senses with exotic meats and spices from across the galaxy. One stand offered a particularly exquisite-smelling snail the size of his fist, swimming in garlic sauce, which might have tempted Chandler except that he knew those critters lived on the droppings of something unspeakably vile.
As Chandler walked along a back alley, a hairy bisteen wearing drellskin pilot leathers staggered by arm-in-arm with a human female. The woman’s hair was dyed blue, with lipstick to match, and she wore expensive leathers. The bisteen stopped suddenly and doubled over, vomiting a green mush.
The woman stepped back and covered her mouth and nose.
The bisteen spoke between heaves. “What’s your problem?” He wiped his face with a hairy paw and reached for her.
She turned and walked away from the alien pilot.
“Your loss,” the bisteen snarled, stumbling away down the street.
Chandler avoided the pair and walked out of the alley.
He looked up as the sun threw the last of its light across the red clouds and struck the sign, featuring a glowing green caterpillar wrapped around the word “Tyree’s.” One of the caterpillar’s arms stuck out and raised and lowered a long, thin pipe to and from the bug’s smiling lips. Every third puff, the caterpillar blew smoke rings that floated above its head and formed the word “Emporium” magically in the air.
Tyree’s stood at the edge of Starman’s Quarter and attracted a wide range of interesting guests. Apparently the local execs loved to slum there.
Chandler crossed the street toward the entrance and stepped through the winged doors into the smoke-filled bar. As he entered the room, his eyes scanned the crowd. Typical collection of spacers, down-and-outers, whores of multiple sexes scattered around, with a few exec-types trying to look spiff and, even though Tyree’s didn’t specialize in non-human activities, a couple of aliens. He couldn’t make out an obvious courier anywhere, and the transponder key in his pocket was still.
The dimly lit club spread out in a circle. A catwalk lined with booth tables stretched around the circumference. Befo
re him, a short staircase dropped into a central pit that held more tables, most of which were occupied. In dead center stood the bar, with six bartenders mixing drinks and quite a crowd lined up before it.
Chandler took a seat off to one side, facing the door. He checked his watch. If everything went smoothly, it wouldn’t be long.
A slack-jawed waitress in a black dress sidled up to him. He told her his poison and in a few minutes she returned with a double Blackjack.
Chandler took a sip of his drink and considered his current situation. He’d already spent a portion of the retainer, making one more payment toward the Marlowe, his combination transportation, office, and home. In another three years, he’d own it outright, just in time to haul it to the junkyard.
He observed the patrons. Something nagged at him about the guy at the bar wearing the tattered trench coat. The man’s hair was messed up and he needed a shave. He held his drink with both hands, cuddling it like a baby. But something didn’t seem right.
Just then, he felt the transponder begin to vibrate in his pocket as a woman entered the bar. Her long blonde hair spilled over her shoulders and rained down the back of her black jacket. Under the jacket she wore a silver half shirt that exposed her taut belly. Her skin-tight mesh pants tucked into her boots at the knee. She didn’t look like a spacer so much as a girl who wanted to be with a spacer. He shook his head. Way to stay low-profile.
Spacers looked at her and smiled. Some of the down-and-outs looked, too, but knew they didn’t stand a chance with her.
Chandler watched as she stepped carefully down into the pit. He rose to intercept her. The man in the trench coat rose as well. Only then did Chandler realize what had bothered him about the man. His boots. They were polished to a military shine in contrast with his disheveled appearance.
Then Chandler noticed that two others like Mr. Shiny Boots, from different parts of the room, began moving in. Something was going down.
The girl noticed all of them moving toward her. She turned and bolted toward the exit.
“Stop!” Shiny Boots yelled, pulling his blaster and aiming it at her back.
Chandler didn’t have room to draw in the closeness of the crowd, so he tackled the man. The blaster discharged and struck the wall above the courier’s head. Chandler wrestled with the man as she continued to run.
A pair of dirtsiders entered the bar, laughing over some joke. She darted between them toward the door as the other men opened fire. Energy bolts cut down the two laughing men where they stood, sending blood and bones flying amidst the bright flashes and high-pitched belches of the weapons. The stench of smoldering flesh filled the bar.
Chandler twisted the blaster from Shiny Boots’ hand and hammered his jaw with a solid right cross. The man went limp.
Chandler rose to sprint for the door, turning to cover his escape with a few rounds of blaster fire. Before he could get off a shot, he was blindsided by a chair. The lights went out in a flash of pain.
Sai pushed through the doors and cut to the right just as they exploded into splinters. She ran. She felt the transponder still buzzing in her pocket. Since they might be able to track her with it, she pulled it out and dropped it on the pavement.
She had caught a glimpse of the man who must have been her contact and had seen him fight with one of her attackers. She doubted he had any chance of making it out of the bar.
Before Sai could reach a turnoff, she heard booted feet clacking on the street behind her. People panicked as the heavily armed team stormed out of the bar.
Behind her, she heard one of the men shouting into a comlink, “Green Leader to all units! We’re in foot pursuit northbound from Tyree’s.”
As she ran, pedestrian traffic grew thicker. Sai shouldered her way through the crowd. Energy bolts flashed and people cried out, tumbling to the ground to avoid death. Her pursuers fired recklessly.
Sai gained some ground, thankful that the team didn’t seem to have anyone ahead of her. The men had to stumble over the prone bystanders. Even so, she barely made the corner as the energy bolts slammed into the stone wall behind her.
A taxi hovered near the curb. The old cabby stared at the approaching chaos, cigar dropping from his lips.
“What in the name of—”
Sai raced to the taxi, pulled open a door and jumped inside. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
“What?”
She whipped her whisperblade from her jacket and flipped on the power. She held the deadly glow of its blade centimeters from the cabby’s right eye. “Go! Dammit, go!”
The cabby hit the engine and pulled up and away from the curb.
“Can’t you go any faster?”
“I’m going as fast as I—”
An energy bolt slammed into the back of the cab, cut through the back seat next to Sai and burst through the front seat.
The cabby fell face-first into the dash, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
“Damn!”
Sai rolled over the seat, kicked open the door, and pushed out the cabby’s corpse. It fell onto the road ten meters below. She took hold of the control lever and slammed it into high gear, turning onto the next street so fast that the anti-crash system took over and shot out an extra booster to send the cab up and over the oncoming traffic.
The cab bounced violently on a magnetic cushion over the vehicles. Sai jerked the lever to the side, overcompensating, and the cab dropped suddenly down onto the sidewalk so hard that the metal actually hit the concrete, sending off a shower of sparks.
People leaped out of the way as she careened around the next corner. She whipped the cab into a dark alley and parked it for a moment to consider her options.
She suspected that, while the men chasing her were on foot, they probably had transportation nearby. She’d never learned to drive a floater on manual, and if she let traffic control take over she’d be a sitting duck. The cab wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.
Sai had to ditch it, create a diversion, and slip away unnoticed. She exited the vehicle and shut the door behind her. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the floater’s guidance system, creating within her mind an image of the programming pathways. The cyber-psi link began to form, merging her will with the data stream. She brushed past the limited security system and manipulated the guidance control. She executed a subroutine, then severed the link. The cab floated upward and entered the flow of traffic.
It didn’t get very far.
Three blocks away, a sleek black sedan intercepted the taxi as it raced along. The sedan slammed into the side of the cab just as the vehicles approached a sharp corner around a tall building. The cab careened into the steel-and-glass structure, then exploded. Wreckage and fire rained down upon the street. The sedan banked and came back for another look.
Did they see that the taxi was unoccupied? If so, the search and destroy mission would continue. If not, they would think she was dead.
Sai knew it was best to play it safe and assume the worst. She needed to get to Dirion. He would know what to do.
She began walking toward Dirion’s place, limping a little at first, but soon the pain was gone. Sai did her best to stick to the shadows or to mix in with groups where possible. Perhaps they hadn’t seen her escape. Something bothered her. Something at the edge of her senses, but she figured it had to be the adrenaline. After a few blocks, her breath came easier and she thought she was safe.
She was wrong.
CHAPTER FOUR
Angus Brock eased his floater back into the flow of traffic and checked the position of the girl again on his monitor. He had been waiting outside Tyree’s for her to show, and as soon as she had, he’d let his little friend loose on its mission.
The tiny nanite observer flew silently behind her. It had dogged her every move since she had stepped into the bar. Even now it buzzed, gnat-like, behind her as she took back alleys to her destination in the slums of Hemdale City. His monitor showed the view from just behind and over her shou
lder where the nanite floated.
He had to admire the woman. She was sharp and tough. The Nebulaco Security force had bungled the job, jumping the gun before they were in proper position to cut off her escape. Rank amateurs. They were soft from bullying the weak and passive. It was obvious that they didn’t have combat experience.
Brock had plenty, and he didn’t want any more if he could help it. He had transferred into the Confed Secret Service from the Marines three years ago. This latest assignment didn’t sit well with him.
He’d been working undercover for six months, starting with odd jobs and infiltrating the pirate Thorne’s network of informants, spies, and muscle. Brock was trying to find out how Thorne was getting so much detail on shipping routes and cargos, how he was avoiding armed escorts so easily.
By demonstrating his skills at surveillance, Brock had so far found it easy to move up in the ranks of Thorne’s organization. To date, this latest job was the most elaborate. Nebulaco Security had been chasing the girl he was tailing and they were tearing the hell out of the free zone to get her. Heads would roll over that one once the Confed heard about it. And Brock was going to make sure they heard plenty when he reported in to his handler.
Even though the girl was a thief, he was sorry that she would likely die. She’d been smart, and she played the game well. At least he didn’t have to do it; his job was merely to track and report. He couldn’t break cover. There was too much risk.
Where was she running?
Making a detour around a traffic accident, he keyed a query into the secure comlink to operations. He had to hand it to Thorne—the pirate had one hell of an information network. Brock was learning more about it every day. Each successful mission brought him closer to the secret of who and what Thorne actually was. Obviously he was more than just some hijacker preying on trade ships. The organization was too precise, too elaborate.
In moments he had his reply. A stream of data filled his monitor. The girl was ID’d as Sai Collins. Prior to accepting a job with Nebulaco, she had been a datalifter and courier who worked for a freelance oracle named Dirion.