Vanguard Rising: A Space Opera Adventure

by A. C. Hadfield

  Trippier ended his call and turned to face them. “Looks like you won’t be paying tribute today. Someone else has provided… an unexpected windfall. I don’t know who you have on board, but they’ve just given up one hell of a favor.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Inspector,” Bella said, trying not to smile. “Let me escort you off my ship so you may go about your business and take your damned tribute from other hardworking members of the public.”

  She stepped aside and gestured for him to leave, which he did with a sly self-satisfied grin. Once he’d disappeared from view, Bella closed the door and sighed with relief.

  Wilbur shook his head and wiped sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. “That was terrible. If that happens next time, I will let Greta shoot the bastard and let his body drift out into space. That was too stressful.”

  “You’re getting old, my friend. It’s all part of the game.”

  “It was a better game when we were writing the rules.”

  Although it was easy to say, she herself was also tiring of the risks involved in retrieving contraband from Earth. For the first time in many years, she considered whether this was the career choice for her. She would think more on that later. For now, she wanted to get Irena and the ERP scientists’ bodies off the ship and find a dealer for the hardware. The quicker she sold them, the quicker she could return her attentions to that strange emergency broadcast she had received from her brother, Gianni’s, shuttle. He’d still not returned her call, and the SFSA had not heard from him in some time either.

  9

  Harlan yawned after a broken night’s sleep and stumbled out of the elevator on level 5 of the station. After all the hours stuck on the transport ship, the recycled air of Atlas tasted fresh for once.

  At least until he descended into the lower levels, that is.

  Harlan wandered out into the throng of people and strode along the walkways, eager to get the blood pumping through his body since he overslept.

  It was approaching midday according to standard time. Simulated noon sunlight shone down on his shaven head from the overhead projectors to prove it. He squinted at the brightness until his contacts shaded themselves.

  Level five was a transient zone, a non-place, a place that had no real defined usage. Pedestrians walked across the walkways suspended over thousands of anonymous storage units, hurrying their way to one task or another.

  Harlan liked to come here just to watch the people go back and forth as he wondered what their roles were. It was a good exercise in observation. Kept his wits sharp and committed faces to his long-term memory.

  One never knew when they needed to recall a familiar face.

  He wanted to come up here for a little while, to think and relax and let the events of the previous day digest into his subconscious before he had to go about his business. He had a meeting with the informant later, and then there was the meeting with Hugo.

  Harlan expected an official tearing of one’s anus, especially as it seemed the governor of Asimovia wanted to make a point of standing up for the murdered abbot. He’d be out for blood and would be pleased to make Harlan the scapegoat.

  A few years back, Harlan had arrested his son for organizing a pedophile ring on Station Aristippus—home to the hedonists. Ever since then, the governor had been out for revenge.

  He would get it, in a sense. And that was fine as long as Harlan could just get on with his job. He’d deal with this new case, then figure out why Leanne had resurfaced after all these years, and who had hired her to kill him.

  On that front, Harlan counted at least half a dozen suspects.

  — Definitely more, Milo said, the voice sounding in Harlan’s head and making him jump with surprise. Sometimes Harlan forgot he had his peripheral in there, working away at whatever an AI did when it wasn’t assigned a specific task.

  Harlan just nodded in agreement.

  Milo was right. Who knew how many people would feel happier about Harlan being dead. Could be hundreds, given how many perps he had put behind bars over the years.

  He leaned against the barrier and looked over at the level below.

  Small shuttles like white doves hovered and darted from dock to dock, taking small items from one business to another, packages to citizens, and the occasional person to a medical facility.

  Harlan had only seen real birds on video footage, mostly from his contraband collection of documentaries by his favorite filmmaker, Richard Attenborough. Harlan often watched the clips of the birds and their formations, wondering how they did it, how they managed such beautiful orchestrations, but also why?

  There were concrete explanations out there, of course, but he liked to think they did it for the fun, for the thrill of flying and having a good time.

  As he watched the shuttles doing their thing, a familiar face from the dock caught his attention. Bella Mazzari, his contraband dealer, was stomping along the walkway with some eagerness.

  A younger woman, white as bone, accompanied her. She turned off at a junction and headed down a street following Bella’s outstretched pointing arm. That way led to the silicon runners’ office. Harlan wondered what had happened to her. He made a mental note to find out when he spoke with Hugo later.

  — Like you need another case, Milo said. You will be busy enough as it is.

  “Busy is good. I could do with something to take my mind off Leanne.”

  — She’ll never be off your mind. Admit it, she’s your weakness. Always was, always will be.

  “What part of peripheral does your programming not understand?” Harlan said. “When I get time, I’m going to de-frag you, see if I can strip some of that sass out of your code.”

  “Talking to yourself again, Harlan?” Bella asked, joining him at the barrier of the walkway. She leaned one elbow on the railing.

  Like the girl she had escorted, she looked exhausted. She didn’t have her usual pep and charm about her. She was still wearing her work overalls and combat boots, mud smeared across her cheek.

  “What can I say? I’m good company,” Harlan said.

  “Or just nuts.”

  “Who’s saying I can’t be both? Anyway, I hate to tell you this, but you look terrible. Bad day?”

  “Yeah, something like that. Listen, I need help. I found something… how should I say this… Hot.”

  Two abbots walked by, their presence silencing Bella. They seemed to take a particular interest in Harlan and Bella as they walked in synchronized steps. Harlan didn’t take it to heart; it was just the way they were. Always observing. It was nothing personal, even if it was a little creepy. When they had passed, he leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “I can give you a contact, if it helps.”

  “And in return?”

  “A drink with me. Consider it a favor, something for me to call in at my discretion.”

  Bella thought about this for a moment, then agreed.

  Harlan scrolled through the list of contacts on his wrist terminal, found a particular shady dealer, and swiped his details across to her. “His name is Gabriel Salazar. Fancies himself a spy. We’ve done business together for years. He’s as trustworthy a rogue as you will find—present company excepted.”

  A beep confirmed the transfer.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome. Has there been any more news about your brother?” Harlan asked.

  “No, not yet. I still think Gianni is alive though. Surely something would have come up, right? People and shuttles don’t just go missing anymore.”

  “You still think someone took him on his way to that new facility on Europa?”

  Bella cast a glance around them as though checking for listeners.

  Nobody would be that obvious, he thought. But he guessed with rogues like Bella, it was a natural reaction. As natural as birds flying together. As natural as Leanne hurting him.

  “I’m certain,” Bella said. “I even have confirmation from the AstroLab initiative that he left St
ation Zeno two weeks ago en route to Europa. The last transmission they received from his ship was only a few hours away from his rendezvous point. And then after that, nothing.”

  “No sign of debris from his ship?”

  “None that the Sol-Fed Space Agency will admit to. But I believe them. There are enough amateur astronomers around that someone would have noticed such a thing. I suspect something much worse has happened, or he’s got himself involved in something he shouldn’t. I decoded his shuttle’s emergency broadcast, but it makes little sense—it’s as if something altered the signal.”

  Harlan thought about this for a moment, tried to figure out what he could say that would help, but without more data or information it could mean anything.

  “That contact I gave you, speak with him. He knows a lot of talented people. I’ve used them a bunch of times myself for analyzing data. They’re often faster, cheaper, and more skilled than so-called professional analysts we have access to at the office. Let me know how it goes.”

  Bella gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and thanked him. “Take care of yourself, Harlan. I’m getting bad vibes from the system these days. Lots of weird stuff going on. That girl you saw me with? She had a horrendous experience on Earth. I would tell you more, but I’m not sure what I should say, and you’ll no doubt hear about it when you get into the office. Don’t wait too long to call in that favor regarding the drink.”

  “I won’t. Keep out of trouble, and if you can’t, at least make it fun and profitable.”

  Bella smiled and waved as she headed off back toward the dock.

  Harlan checked his terminal and headed back to the elevator. It was time to go down to level two for his regular check-in with one of his informants.

  Level two was a filth-hole and there was no getting away from that. Much like Dante’s Inferno, the lower one travelled down the various circles of Atlas Station, the worse things got.

  Still, it was better than level one.

  Which was like suggesting a knife to the gut was better than a bullet to the brain.

  Even the light here was darker, creating shadows in corners and giving plenty of opportunity for people to skulk and stalk. Few silicon runners would come down this far, preferring to stay up on the safe levels and use their automated systems to do their job.

  There was something honest about it, though, Harlan thought. Real humanity in all its dirty, grubby, desperate glory.

  Nothing glossy or fake.

  Few abbots would come down here either, as there was no real purpose for them. Humans did the vast majority of the jobs, working for criminal organizations. Those who didn’t like their status level assigned to them in other parts of the station would opt out of that system and descend here to the guts of the Sol-Fed.

  Civilization back on Earth before the Great Migration was a lot like this, Harlan thought.

  People in dirty clothes huddled together and shifted around the narrow dark avenues.

  Various contraband stood out from wooden stalls, the vendors calling out their custom, trying to shift their wares before they got too hot.

  Harlan negotiated his way through the maze-like corridors until he came to the only legitimate area of the level: an Atlas computer RDC — resource distribution center.

  He waved his hand over the security panel, waited for the blue light to display, and entered inside. The door swung closed and locked behind him.

  Harlan’s informant stood behind the counter, smoking a homemade cigarette, brushing the ash from his dirty white coat. The eighty-year-old ex-silicon runner, Gylfie Larson, looked up at Harlan and placed the cigarette into a brown ashtray on the glass countertop.

  “Good to see you, Harlan,” Gylfie said. “Let me close up and we can go through to the back.”

  In the back of the RDC, conveyor belts ran down both the east and the west walls, carrying on them bins of various computer parts supplied by the Sol-Fed computer and robotics division. All of which were made by abbots and sent down here.

  The bins of parts left over slid off the conveyor belts and onto staging tables, where small drones lifted and carried the parts through hatches in the walls and into warehousing space behind the RDC.

  Behind the staging tables, Gylfie had set aside a place for him to take his breaks and to do his work. This job, however, was just for cover. Working here meant that he could mix with the criminals of Atlas Station and exchange information, which he would then provide, at a cost, to the elite families of the Sol-Fed.

  “Take a seat,” Gylfie said, indicating a chair opposite him.

  Both Harlan and Gylfie sat at the table, and the older man opened two bottles of local home-brew beer.

  “So, Gylfie, what have you got for me today?”

  “It’s getting more difficult. I think some of the families know I’ve been supplying information back to the silicon runners. They’re a lot more guarded now.”

  “But I can see the twinkle in your eye. You have something, right?”

  “It’s not so much a twinkle, rather a nervous tick. Things are changing around here.”

  “Aren’t they always?”

  “Aye, they are. But this, however, is something else. Two of my suppliers have gone underground. Disappeared as if they were ghosts.”

  “What do you attribute that to?” Harlan asked, rubbing a thumb over the cool glass of the bottle.

  Gylfie took a breath and leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I’m not sure, but one thing I do know is that the corporations are changing, pushing against the Sol-Fed regulations imposed upon them by Companies House.”

  “How is that different from before?” Harlan said. “The corporations always want more. They seem to forget we don’t live in a capitalist society now. But I guess that ideal never died in the hearts and minds of some.”

  Gylfie took a deep drag of beer and swallowed it with an exhalation. “It’s not that,” he said. “Yesterday, I found out something that could change everything. The Ceres Mining Company is merging with the Jovian Group.”

  Harlan sat back and considered this.

  — That would give the head of the merged company the biggest representation of Messengers in the House, Milo said.

  “Well, that will upset the establishment. With the Jovian system resources and the Ceres mining facility, those old bastards at the top could enforce an election against the current president if they instruct their workers to register their disapproval.”

  Gylfie nodded. “And who knows who they would put up for election in their place.”

  Harlan checked his watch and stood up, draining the last of the beer in his bottle and placing it back on the table. “Maybe it won’t get to that,” Harlan said. “I better get going, but I appreciate the information. Here’s your payment as agreed.”

  From inside his leather jacket, Harlan pulled out an old vinyl Bruce Springsteen EP and handed it to Gylfie.

  “Ah, The Boss. I shall enjoy this while we still have the freedoms to do so.”

  “Enjoy,” Harlan said, as the informant turned the record over in his hand as if it were the most precious thing he’d ever seen.

  Gylfie stood up and shook Harlan’s hand before seeing him out of the RDC.

  Harlan stepped out into the busy street and pulled the collar up around his neck, finding himself shivering despite the heat of the lower level. It appeared the keyword for the last three days was change, and Harlan couldn’t prevent an ominous feeling from creeping up his spine.

  10

  Irena finished her coffee and placed the cardboard cup into the recycling chute. A white plastic drone about the size of her fist buzzed around after her, tidying things up and vacuuming any crumbs from her late breakfast.

  She checked her watch. It was a little after 1300. She would have liked to have slept longer, give the pain medication a chance to really work and stop the throbbing in her hand, but she had an appointment in five minutes’ time with the new head of the Earth Restoration Project.

&nbs
p; Although she had told the silicon runners everything she knew about the attack on the relay station, the authority with the ERP wanted to hear it from her directly, which made sense given everything and everyone they had lost.

  And she hoped that by explaining it to them, it would somehow exorcise the horror. Talking it out had helped to put the whole experience into a logical stream of events. She could still think of no reason why an abbot would go rogue in such a fashion. But that question was for the authorities to figure out. She exhaled and forced herself to relax and get back to the present.

  The light in her apartment was soft and diffused through the diaphanous curtains. The lights were always stronger on level seven of Atlas Station. She often found the midday glare to be too much.

  Having now spent a short time on Earth, she realized the full extent of Atlas’ artificiality compared to real sunlight and atmosphere. She wished she could have those memories without them being tainted by the image of the dead bodies of her friends and colleagues.

  Although she had only known her teammates for a couple of weeks, they had quickly become important people in her life. And to lose them so quickly and in such a fashion would leave an indelible mark on her memories of humanity’s home planet.

  Still feeling tired from the return journey and the exertions back on Earth, she let her body sink into her synthetic leather couch and rested her feet on the glass coffee table. A beep from her notification terminal indicated the incoming call.

  The video screen, embedded into the plastic wall, flickered on at her request.

  The ERP logo rotated on the screen and was accompanied by a small spinning icon in the corner, counting down to the video-conference connection.