by Mike Doom
Announcement: Race of the Ancients
To all fans of the Tusk League! The Race of the Ancients has a startling announcement! The end of the race has been announced. Speculation has been rampant, as visitors to the top-secret race track in the Crimson Area of Torch have leaked to the World several strange buildings in the track. Speculation was that the track was to be built to move the racers over the spectators in the stands, a truly bold move.
However, the actual nature of the track has been revealed by the race organizers on Selba Prime. The race track is to have a traditional jump-gate installed in the next few days, which will change the end of the race to the Crystal Plaza on Selba Station. Tickets for the final ten laps and finish line are expected to go fast. Sale is to start in World, see T-Net for more information about local time and virtual line conditions.
Epic Death, Peppermint White Ninja, and Cannata Celosa all arrive to Hess’ LaGrange without any problems, or contact by suspicious persons. Barring Pepper’s short call with Cirrhosis, which was only suspiciously informative.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Cannata shrieks as Epic attempts to keep them from getting killed by a forklift that floats directly at them as they emerge into actual space.
“Stardust can be such a colossal waste of complex proteins sometimes.” Pepper says, exasperated.
“How do you know it’s her?” Cannata says, breathless.
“Oh you just kind of learn a person’s signature after a while.” Epic laughs.
“So her signature is exploding mining vessels dangerously close to LaGrange points?”
“More just definitive destruction. You do have to keep in mind that we are both aware that Stardust, the two of us, and Toro Abobo are all en route to this exact location. That does limit the possible choices.” Pepper mutters, he is diving through the Federali chatter. They don’t seem to know where Stardust is going. She sent the ship into a spiral and exploded a bunch of random stuff, but they seem to think that she is still aboard the ship. Which is completely fucking retarded as nobody would still be aboard a ship that is venting oxygen like that. If it makes it to Hess in that condition it is by shear luck.
“Also it’s all over the ansible, you know, if you pay attention to that sort of thing.” Epic laughs, throwing hails out to the nearest Federali vessel, asking for clearance through to Hess.
“Clearance granted. Be sure to avoid this area, as there is a situation under surveillance here.” The AI steward mentions.
“You don’t say. Well, don’t let me keep you.”
“So they are just going to let us through?”
“Epic and I have certain allowances as hunters, and they assume that you are one of our yellows, so they will let us take you to GovNet as long as we stay out of their hair.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Pretty much. Should be about ten minutes before… holy shit. Holy motherfucking shit. Pepper are you seeing this?”
“Fucking hell.”
“What?”
Hess is a space station that is about two thirds a Torch, sitting in geosynchronous orbit around a small ice planet that is a couple AUs out from a rather dense asteroid belt. The asteroids are the real draw, filled with lots of exotic metals left over from a mean fight between a planet and an asteroid. As such Hess is pretty much just a mining colony, which lucked into being a major moon shot for the outer arm. The place is dirty and small, and doesn’t have nearly the population it was originally designed for. People just don’t want to spend their lives hanging out in a big field of rocks.
Hess is one big station, a flattened ellipse with long thin spokes coming from its flattened edges. Ships and equipment dock at these poles, taking people and rocks from here to everywhere else. Hess does not have a sister station. However, it seems to have one now. A very familiar station.
“What the hell is that?” Cannata mutters, her eButler pulling up a picture of Hess. That other station is new and orbiting very close to Hess. Some sort of colony ship perhaps?
“That is beyond a shadow of a doubt where we are going.” Epic says to himself.
“How… how could you even… I’m checking recent records.” Pepper mutters, attempting to find some possible clue how a destroyed space station could possibly be here and how he could have no record of something this big being built. Video in the docking spindles show that the new station appeared less than ten minutes ago. So right after they came through the LaGrange. They do not show how it got there.
“Anything?”
“Ten minutes ago, that thing just is there. No record of how it got there, Hess doesn’t have spectrum running in the spindles, so I can’t tell if there was any exotic energy here, but I am running through the readings on our ship, and I didn’t get any sort of burst when this thing appeared here.”
“This thing had authorization for an approach vector?”
“Apparently, and it has most likely been in system for a while. Whoever is doing all this hacked the AI, there is no reason two stations would be this close together. I mean if you can hack memories, you can confuse a few cameras while you drive that shit in there.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t there be GovNet chatter?”
“He hacked the whole thing. Everyone in the colony.” Sunshine says in awe. Epic and Pepper look at Sunshine, then back at the monitor.
“Sure seems like it.” Pepper mumbles.
“Shit.” Epic laughs, and sets a course to dock with the ghost ship.
“Do we have a game plan?” Cannata asks, sounding slightly on edge.
“I can set my wires to block pretty much everything we could get thrown at us in there. That will cut-off any mind hack ability, and keep him from doing anything too drastic. This will also have the effect of shutting down all of our wetwiring, World access, and the like. So it’ll be a low-tech fight, but I think that is the only fight we can win.” Pepper says, getting out of his chair as Epic maneuvers into a docking bay. Sunshine is instantly lost, but nods to seem attentive.
“So by weapons you mean…” Cannata mutters, looking around the ship.
“I mean swords, projectile weapons, anything pre-realitivistic.”
“You have a haze-engine?” Cannata says with raised eyebrows.
“Something similar yeah. It’ll do us solid, in that we can actually trust what we see and hear.” Pepper opens a few cabinets, guns and swords are filling every hold that should have more sensible equipment in it. He hands Cannata a long falchion. He attempts to give a large knife to Sunshine, but she waves it off.
“Yeah, but what if he is using the thing?” Epic asks as he gets out of his chair. Pepper hands him two short swords, which Epic already has holsters in his belt for. Cannata feels like she was left out of a planning meeting at some point.
“We have to assume that he is. However, if the jewel is as unruly as Truckee says, that means that anything he uses it for will have equal consequence to himself.” Pepper says, putting on a loose fitting overcoat, and filling its inside pockets with smoke bombs, strobes, and a pistol. Explosive decompression is a possibility, but he has to have the option open should it need to be taken. Again.
“Or the station. He could end up taking the whole fucker down with us.”
“That might be the point. Cannata, I am having second thoughts about having you on this station with us. I do not think that we are really in a place where survival is expected. If you want to cash out now, I would recommend it. Not that I really expect that my opinion on the matter will have any effect on your decisions.” Pepper says, over his shoulder to Cannata. She grabs his shoulder and spins him around, careful on the inertia. Being this close to Hess makes the internal gravity on their ship a little wishy-washy.
"You are obviously misdirecting this feeling on to the wrong person here."
"I-" Pepper stammers, then everyone looks squarely at Sunshine as she puts on a bulletproof vest. Pepper looks to E
pic, but he is in full agreement with Cannata on this one. Pepper has only one person's safety on his mind, and unlike usual, it isn't his own.
"We'll go scout the airlock, you hash this out. This might be the last time you can have a serious conversation with each other." Epic says over his shoulder, pushing Cannata ahead.
"What?" Sunshine says, fumbling with the locking mechanism under her right arm. Pepper comes to her aid, fastening the vest tightly. Their eyes meet.
"I'm so fucking stupid."
"What? Why?" Sunshine brushes her hair out of her face, and looks at Pepper straight. She's seen this look before, pained, but for once she is actually welcome to it. At least to giving it a shot, but she knows men enough to know that she has to let him spit it out.
"You. It's a job, right? I'm here to protect and serve, but.."
"You have done enough for me, Pepper. I want to thank you for everything. Even the horrible parts."
"Really?"
"No. I am seriously never eating at Yo Mama's Lips again." Sunshine says exasperated, trying not to think of space ninjas. Pepper looks to the ground, crestfallen to a level Sunshine is surprised to see. Emotions high, particularly with the dramatic lack of sleep everyone is working under at this point.
"Yeah, sorry about that. I need to pay my informants more."
"And maybe get your girlfriend a better ride off planet?" Sunshine says quickly and without hesitation. Decided.
"Yes, ma'am. I mean, what?" Pepper looks at her again, Sunshine is smiling to him. Warm and inviting. He smiles back for a moment. Then he nods and turns away to grab a few more bits and bobs.
"So, what is the plan now?"
"I have no clue. Just stay with me." Pepper says over his shoulder as he jams a few things into various pockets.
"Sure."
“Char-els, I need meetings postponed. I have a race to manage.” Truckee says forcefully as he walks into the war-room for the Race on Selba. He has had about seventy people demanding various meetings, tribunals, official statements, and the like, since he got on system an hour ago. None of them have even the remotest chance of actually occurring. The Race is in under thirty hours, and Truckee has a lot of shit to get hammered out before then.
“The meetings are about your race, sir.”
“Oh and I thought they were about my brief stint on the Most Wanted list.”
“I told those people to wait for after the Race.”
“You should have told them to suck a fat dick.” Truckee mutters to himself, stomping down a hallway to the main office. His office.
The office itself, the war-room, is a large room with seven rows of stadium-leveled tables, divided into individual stations by thin pieces of clear plastic. One main door, the one where Truckee is standing, leads into the highest level. Around the perimeter are three offices on each side, holding more traditional conference tables. The back wall has fifty crystal matrix televisions showing various graphs, video feeds of both Torch and Selba Station, and other necessary information for the forty people that are working and the various people milling around the office.
“Pleasure to see you in person.” Char-els says with a brief smile, looking up from a stack of paper the size of several rather thorough dictionaries. He also has two monitors open, showing stock prices, commodity prices, travel itineraries and demographics of the live feeds pumping from the more prominent racers. Even that discounts what Char-els has going on in his visual arrays.
“All mine. Status report.”
“Race is on-schedule. Cirrhosis is back on board, currently training with his team in Practice Arena 7, on Torch. Adverts are hitting the seven digit mark for viewership; P4V already has numbers in the low billions. Actual construction and modification of the Crystal Plaza is finishing up within the next three hours, which Truckee is to officially confirm after the 'leaked announcement' a few hours ago. Celebrity spokespersonalities are running full press spirals on all major and semi-major networks, vslogs and physical locations. We should have meme-status within the hour for both adverts you approved before your...” Char-els shrugs in embarrassment.
“My trip?” Truckee says, looking through some paperwork in the stack. Mostly number crunching for the seats, viewers, etc. Keeping track of demographic data as to correctly price advertisements and product placement on the podiums, in the training areas, and various other televised locations.
“Yes, sir. VIP guests should be arriving shortly, we have rented out the best hotels on the station.” VIP got invites before the leak. Secrecy to drive interest.
“Fantastic. Remind me to pay you more, Char.” Truckee mumurs over his shoulder as he turns to leave. Char has all of this under control. Truckee has to start shaking hands or the investors are going to park-out. That and he needs to walk the grounds, looking for a like a bomb or something. Whatever is on this end of the race that is so important to whomever is doing all this.
“Of course, sir.”
Truckee takes off down the hallway, first stop is wardrobe. Can’t look this disheveled with all these cameras around.
"Big?"
"Truckee."
"Status?" Truckee is getting irritable. The child has been off-radar since they got back. He knows he can trust the android, but he also isn't used to having workers that don't respond to constant direction. Big is only vaguely predictable, but hopefully that unusualness will lead to him finding whatever there is to find.
"I am not seeing anything unusual. I have alerted GovNet and the Federalis of possible terrorist activities, so the docks should be on lock."
"So that just leaves stadium security for the people already present at the station." Truckee says, trying not to think about the Torch end of the Race. Cirrhosis' problem.
"Right!"
"If you see anything weird, be sure to contact me and Cirrhosis immediately."
"Sure!"
Truckee enters makeup, still feeling uneasy. Whatever happens, at least it will be happening soon.
“Cirrhosis, focus!” A trainer yells from the sidelines. Cirrhosis is in the middle of training, a crash course really as he was supposed to be doing this for three weeks leading up to the race, not just the day before it. Cirrhosis knows his sport like the back of his hand, but there is the horse to manage, and simulations of the track and the placements of the targets. Besides, he has several low-level injuries that have nanopatches on them, which need a bit of time to work as well.
“You think I’m not trying to?” Cirrhosis yells back. Cirrhosis is on his horse, wearing a blue T-shirt with Toro’s logo on it, and a loose pair of cotton track pants. His boots aren’t polished like normal, and in general he looks like he has been rolling around in the dirt. Which is true, as his ribs keep using pain to throw him off balance. Something he will need to get in check for tomorrow, as he can’t have anything throwing his aim off.
“Well, if you didn’t go to Checktiza and get in a fucking gang war, maybe you wouldn’t be too injured to hold a fucking crossbow!”
“Oh yeah, because I totally chose that to happen!” Cirrhosis says as he gets his horse into a gallop around the track, aims his bow, and misses the target again. Motherfucker.
“How is it?” Someone says from the sidelines. Voice is familiar but, Cirrhosis can only barely hear, he is on a galloping horse. He makes the rest of the lap, hits three targets out of six, and stops in front of Noseta Stone. Noseta is about six-four, perhaps twenty pounds underweight, wearing a thin gray suit with his hair in some sort of foppish bang. Very classical, if you like the slit your own throat for your music sort of effek he is going for. Noseta isn’t pleased, you can always tell when he isn’t pleased because he leans backward from his legs and crosses his arms. Like a genie preparing to make a wish.
“Why would you care?”
“Toro sent me. I am thereby forced to care, or at least pretend to. Your aim is off.”
“I just got back
from fighting a gang-lord for a fucking fake gemstone. I took a few heavy knocks, but I should survive.”
“We don’t need you to survive, we need you to win.”
“Well, I am not winning shit if I don’t get my ribs back in order.” Cirrhosis grunts, lifting his shirt to show Noseta his side. Two thick white bandages cover him from around his midsection, pulsing slightly with the engines and whatnot that are working on putting his internal organs back the way he found them.
“Will you be good in time?”
“Doctors say so.”
“If you are not?”
“I got things to make sure I act like it, if that is what you are getting at.”
“Exactly. That is exactly what Toro wants to hear.”
“Any word from him yet?”
“About what?”
“His little trip.”
“He's in Crimson, to cover for your fiasco. He looks fine on ansible right now.” Noseta says, getting that glazed look to his eyes as he checks the ansible news. Cirrhosis has his eButler check around, and there is live coverage of Toro on Torch, but Cirrhosis knows it’s a lie. Toro is really keeping this grudge close to his chest, especially if his assistant is completely unaware of his true location. He must have paid a lot to get an android duplicate through the level of security he would need to, as Toro is being shown in a press conference with the president of Torch. He wants whoever thinks he is biting the trap to think that he might not be doing just that, which is playing it safer than Toro is usually known for doing.
“Thanks? Honestly, I think I came back well from the whole ‘I quit’ thing.” Cirrhosis says mildly.
“Yes, being temporarily wanted, then a romantic relationship with a woman who is one false move from imprisonment for pedophilia.”
“She never touched that guy; she threatened to KILL that guy. Besides, it sounds different when you hear her tell the story. Less crying.”
“He was thirteen and at an awards ceremony.”
“I saw a clip of that, and he was totally axing for it.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Downs, I am in a seriously epic amount of pain. Riding a horse with four broken ribs, a fractured femur and six broken fingers will do that to a guy.” Cirrhosis says with a laugh. He is on so many different drugs right now. However, he is more lucid than he wants Noseta to have wind of. He needs to keep his cards close as well.
“Well, try not to die before the race is over.”
“I’m not making any promises this week for that.”
“I feel you on that one.” Noseta says as he walks away. Cirrhosis wakes his horse up a little with a brief snap of the reigns, and canters off. He immediately eSes Truckee.
“Truck, what is going down on your end?” Cirrhosis says, as he really gets going around the course.
“Nothing out of the ordinary. I had security run through the whole course, twice, and we have nothing to show for it. I personally had any VIP guest run through my eB just to see if we had any leaks that way too. I got nothing.”
“Noseta Stone, Toro’s right hand, came to visit me just now. He doesn’t know where Toro is.”
“I saw that bit on the news, so that’s an android dupe then?”
“Seems that way. Honestly, I don’t think this is a bomb threat sort of job.”
“Too many steps for that I would think.”
“Exactly. If it were me, I would have something really flashy. I mean, he is making a point of doing it at an extremely well televised event.”
“Right. So it isn’t going to be something stupid like a suicide bomb…”
“No. If it were me, I’d probably vent the whole station, or like detonate the entire Crystal Plaza.”
“Fucking hell. Well, I am going to call station security about the general security of the station. I’ll have some intern put on a wetsuit and dive around the base of this fucking place. Maybe we didn’t see something.”
"Any word from Big?"
"He's rounding up stray lances to cover the event, he says he'll have about forty agents on the scene, in addition to the Federalis that are actually stationed for the event. I fed him all the data from Pepper, hopefully he can at least warn us before the station explodes."
"One could hope."
"I will keep you posted if we find anything."
“I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. See if I can’t press some old friends for information. Assuming that anyone has any to give.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Cirrhosis grunts, shooting three targets in a row, but riding quickly is still murder on his left side. He needs to stop practicing and hit a clinic for more drastic healing measures. At this rate he has literally no fucking chance of winning anything tomorrow.
“Done for the day?” A trainer asks as Cirrhosis brings the horse back to the stables.
“I fucking wish.” Cirrhosis grunts as he hops off. Got a lot of calls to make.