Vanguard Rising: A Space Opera Adventure

by A. C. Hadfield

  While Milo was busy crunching the encryption, Harlan opened a terminal window on his wrist and scrolled through his list of contacts until he came to an old acquaintance: Ivet Parr. A former silicon runner, she had been thrown out of the service for physically attacking a superior. That superior was none other than Hugo Raul.

  The call connected a few moments later, and Ivet’s perfectly unmemorable face appeared on the screen. She wore a lopsided grin. Her brown eyes were narrow, as though she were squinting at a bright light.

  “Harlan Rubik, screw me. Didn’t think I’d ever hear from the spooks again. How’s life in the runners these days?”

  “Nice to see you too, Ivet. Things are—challenging. Listen, I don’t have a lot of time to chitchat. You free to discuss business?”

  “Yeah, hang on. Let me go to a secure channel.”

  Harlan did the same, swiping his thumb across the holographic display and receiving a chirp to indicate his biometrics. In less time than it took to think about where Leanne might have gone, he’d wrapped their communications in an encrypted tunnel that was bounced around a dozen relays. A couple of moments passed with static on the screen before Ivet’s image returned.

  “So, Harlan, what have you screwed up now?”

  “It’s nothing I’ve done this time… but there’s someone I want you to track for me.”

  “I don’t have any favors owing to you, so it’s going to cost. How urgent is this?”

  “Priority one.” Harlan knew it was going to be expensive. Ivet Parr was the best PI he knew, and she specialized in finding those who didn’t want to be found. He explained the situation with Leanne and the dangers involved. He didn’t want her accepting the job without knowing the full scope of what was at stake.

  She thought about it for a moment. “I’m interested. I’ll take the case, but I do need something in return for the time expended on this.”

  “Go on,” Harlan said, awaiting a massive request.

  “I want access to the runners’ servers.”

  “Are you mad? I can’t do that. I’d be stripped of my work status immediately.”

  Ivet just looked at him with a serious, unblinking expression. “Those are the terms, Harlan. Take them or leave them. Your choice.”

  He thought about it for a moment. He couldn’t just give her his server credentials; who knew what she’d do on the system. No, he would have to either find a way of creating a new runner account or spoof an existing one. He thought of Diego and his colleagues: they had accounts. He could spoof one of those and pass the credentials to Ivet.

  “What do you want access for?” Harlan asked.

  “Nothing in particular.” Harlan immediately knew she was lying. “But it’s nothing that’ll screw you over. There’s some data that I logged in there before Hugo fired me. It’s important to me and I’d like it back. Call me sentimental.”

  “What if I get the data for you?”

  “Sorry, old friend, but this is one job I need to do myself. It’s too valuable to screw up, and your record lately ain’t so hot. So what is it? How desperate are you to find your ex—again?”

  In all the time Harlan had known Ivet, she’d never betrayed or double-crossed him. He had known her to be an honorable rogue and an effective one. The worst-case scenario was that she’d take down the entire silicon runners’ database. That’d only inconvenience them for a few days while they reloaded the backup from the QCA.

  It was a trade-off he was happy to make. “Fine, I’ll send you access details in a few hours.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Ivet said. “I trust you, Harlan, but don’t screw me over—or I won’t play nice with your beautiful ex. I’ll be in touch with any information as soon as I’ve got anything. Stay out of trouble, old man.”

  The line cut and the screen faded to black. He switched it off and prepared to rejoin Irena when Milo stopped him in his tracks.

  — So, that spam message? It’s from her. And you’re not going to believe what it says.

  “Stop pretending to be clickbait. What does it say?”

  — It’s raining again.

  The words chilled Harlan to his marrow. It was clear what it meant: Rainmaker, AKA Luca Doe, was still alive and active. Why would Leanne tell him this? Taunting him, perhaps, or maybe a warning?

  Either way, it made Harlan more determined to find the underlying cause of all the strange occurrences. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense that someone like Luca was involved. He had always loved that cryptic shit.

  If he was active again, then his death had been faked, which implicated Hugo and the rest of the judiciary of the time. Luca was supposed to have been cremated; Harlan had attended the ceremony.

  Hugo must have arranged the whole thing. But for what reason? And why would Luca resurface now after all these years? What had he been working on all this time? Harlan suspected that if he were still alive, then he could be involved with this virus somehow. Luca had always distrusted the abbots and actively hated them.

  Harlan let the development seep into his subconscious. He’d have half a day’s journey to Turing Station to mull it over. Right now, it felt like he had a bunch of spare parts but no schematic from which to make sense of it all.

  He needed to become the schematic, to take the disparate parts and put them together to form a whole, the truth. For now, though, he composed himself and joined Irena in the other room. He found her focused on some broadcast from her terminal. She looked up at him and smiled.

  “Ready to go?” he asked.

  “Sure, lead the way.”

  They headed to the transporter on level five. Harlan thought about dropping into the office to see Hugo or speak with one of the analysts, but he felt as though he and the office were magnets of identical polarity, repelling each other in opposing directions.

  14

  Bella and Greta left the dock and took the elevator up to level eight of Station Galilei: the market zone. In a backpack slung over her shoulder, Bella carried one of the cores. Its bulkiness made her stand out among the citizens of the station, but with Greta packing a rifle not so subtly under her jacket, they weren’t bothered.

  Following directions to Harlan’s contact, they made their way over a mezzanine floor and entered a busy flow of human traffic. The bright lights and glass panels overlooking them belonged to the offices of wealthy crime syndicate leaders and business magnates. Some fulfilling both roles.

  “Lots of ill-gotten gains here,” Greta said.

  “That’s good for us.”

  Bella wasn’t just here for the money, though. She wanted information. Given the show of wealth on the station, it was clear that data was one of its main exports.

  As they continued across the suspended floor, a couple of heavily muscled men in designer suits approached and stopped Bella and her crew.

  The tallest of the two men glowered at her. “Bella Mazzari?” he asked.

  Greta stepped in front of her captain and opened her long trench coat just enough for him to see she was carrying.

  “Sorry, pal, you must have me mistaken for someone else,” Bella said, and made to move away from the two men.

  The second man stepped up to Greta. “Hands where we can see them, unless you want this to get messy.” He pulled a short-range laser pistol from his belt.

  Greta flashed an elbow into the bridge of his nose with the speed of a serpent. The strike knocked him to the ground. She stepped forward, preventing his buddy from getting close. Bella knelt beside the man on the ground. She let her jacket fall open so that from his prone position he could see she had a MetJen silenced pistol aimed at his head.

  “I don’t appreciate being threatened in public,” Bella said in a low voice. “Why don’t you tell me who you are, and we’ll see if we can’t all leave this situation in one piece.”

  “Lizbeth sent us,” the man said, wincing with each word. “Lizbeth Adams—you have business with her. She’s taken over from Gabriel Salazar.”


  “I see. Greta, help our new friend up, would you?” Then turning her attention back to the one who had spoken to her, she added, “Why didn’t you open with that? I wasn’t expecting an escort.”

  The taller man spat bloody spittle to the ground and glared at Bella with murderous intentions. “You didn’t exactly give us a chance to introduce ourselves before your pet Marine stepped over the line.”

  Greta shrugged. “I’m protective, what can I say? And you have a face designed to be hit. But it’s better now.”

  The shorter one waved off the insult on behalf of his partner. “You have the merchandise?”

  Bella indicated with her chin to the backpack hanging off her shoulder. “Does Lizbeth have the bitcreds?”

  “You wouldn’t be here if she didn’t.”

  “Then it looks like we can do business. Take us to her; we’ve got a busy schedule.”

  The two men shared a look for a moment that seemed too long. It was clear to Bella that they had a direct link to their boss and this Lizbeth woman had seen the whole scenario play out.

  On their way to see her, Bella squeezed the skin button on the base of her left thumb, activating her subvocal communication system. She spoke to Wilbur stationed on the Mule back at the dock. “Keep the engines warm and notify me of anything unusual. We’ve made contact with the syndicate.”

  Wilbur’s voice came back thin and crackly, the bandwidth of their secure channel narrow and affected by all the illicit transmissions surrounding the station. “Great. I have the old girl ready and waiting for your order. Good luck down there.”

  “Follow us and don’t do anything stupid,” the tall man said. He turned and led them across the level and into a maze of corridors.

  Bella hung back slightly, activating her comm. “Are you tracking us okay, Wilbur?”

  “Yeah, your blips are blipping as they should. I’ll have the return breadcrumb ready if you need it.”

  “Thanks, old friend. Glad you’ve got our back.”

  “With any luck, this should be the last time any of us needs to have each other’s back. There’s got to be a better way to make a living than this.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Greta stayed within arm’s reach of their two escorts. Bella brought up the rear, making sure they weren’t being tailed, which was easier said than done given the low light and the twisting nature of the corridors through the maze of the station. After what felt like twenty more turns and ten minutes later, the two escorts brought them to a rusted steel door set into the end of yet another bland passage, the kind that’s prefabbed by abbot-manufacturing platforms in the belt and sent all across the Solar system.

  Dull amber light gave the area a dense, sickly feel. The rumble of generators and other machinery vibrated through the steel floors, giving the station a unique sense of being inside the arteries of some great living, breathing machine.

  The door slid aside, and the two men waited for Bella and Greta. The escorts closed the door behind them. Surprisingly, the room was more like an average office with its fake wood floors and beige-colored furniture than a luxury syndicate head office. A large round table dominated the center of the room. Sitting around it were two women wearing similar suits to their two escorts, who remained by the door, standing like sentinels.

  At the end of the table, a small thin woman in a perfectly average business suit slid her chair back, stood up, and beckoned them forward.

  “Bella, nice to meet you,” Lizbeth said. “Please, place the merchandise on the table and take a seat.” Her walnut brown face had delicate features, giving her the appearance of a small bird.

  Bella did as she was instructed. Greta, however, stood behind and to the side of her captain, presenting an imposing backup in case things got a little tense. The other women at the table were saying nothing. At first Bella didn’t register anything concerning, but the way they sat, so still and observed… it then dawned on her that they were abbots.

  What that meant she couldn’t quite decide. Could be good, could be bad. Probably the latter, but instead of letting paranoia get the better of her she broached the subject of the deal.

  “Thanks for agreeing to see us at such short notice,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you’d be interested in this deal. Well, Gabriel, anyway. I trust you’re interested?”

  “When something as rare as this comes on the market, I’m always interested,” Lizbeth said, her thin lips curling up at the edges ever so slightly. Her eyes shone, and Bella saw that she wore chrome reflective contact lenses. A classy, extravagant touch. Not to mention a painful one.

  Such an upgrade not only showed that Lizbeth was wealthy in many concerns and had the connections, but that she was also strong enough to deal with the operation and the post-installation issues. No amount of nanodrugs or gene modification would make such a thing completely painless.

  Lizbeth took a while to appraise Bella, not even looking at the q-bit core on the table.

  Bella shivered. She was used to dealing with rogues and criminals who were rough around the edges, not this slick, professional birdlike creature. And what was worse, Lizbeth Adams had somehow secured the services of V3 abbots.

  “So how do you want to do this?” Bella asked, trying to keep her voice calm and free of any signs of the growing anxiety that coiled in her stomach.

  Lizbeth flexed her fingers. “You tell me how much you want for the merchandise, and I’ll tell you how much the price needs to drop for the deal to happen. But I warn you, if you try to start too high and disrespect me, you’ll also disrespect my associates here. Now, the price you’re looking for?”

  This was a tough question, as there was no market rate to judge it on. You couldn’t simply go to a store and buy a q-bit core, nor could you contract one directly from the abbots who manufactured them. They were only issued to Sol-Fed-approved science facilities.

  Bella didn’t want to go in too low, but now that the threat was on the table, neither did she want to go too high and risk sinking the deal. Maybe it was the pride within her, but Bella refused to play the game. “You and I, Ms. Adams, have both been in this business for a while. You have clearly done well for yourself, and I’ve negotiated deals with every station in the Sol-Fed, so tell me, what do you consider too high?”

  A small smile crept on Lizbeth’s face again. “This is not a game of tennis. You have one chance at this. Tell me your price.”

  “Fine. The lowest I will go is two thousand bitcreds and a favor, which I want cashed in today while we’re here.” Bella breathed calmly and stood up straight. She looked Lizbeth right in her chrome reflective eyes.

  The woman didn’t twitch or react in any way. “What is the favor?”

  “I have a recorded emergency broadcast from a shuttle that I want analyzed. I was told you had specialists who could do such work.”

  “Had is the appropriate word,” Lizbeth said. “They’re no longer in the employ of this syndicate.”

  Bella and Greta both sighed quietly. They had come all this way in the hope that they would find out more about Gianni, but it looked to have been a dead end.

  Lizbeth slid her chair back and stepped to the east side of the room. The wall slid away, showing a glass panel that looked out into space.

  “However,” Lizbeth added, still with her back to the room, “I have certain facilities myself. But you have to choose. The deal for the q-bit at two thousand bitcreds or the analysis of your recording.” She turned to face Bella. “What is it to be?”

  “No deal. You’re asking for too much. We’ll find another buyer.”

  Lizbeth sighed dramatically. “Oh, this has all been quite the shame.” Then, to her squad: “Take the core and kill the thieves. Don’t forget the one on the ship.” She turned her back and stared out at space as the two abbots and the guards drew their weapons. The abbots sprang from their seats in unison. The first one grabbed the q-bit from the table while the other one focused on Bella.

  “Wilbur,
it’s gone hot,” Bella subvocalized. “Prepare to get the hell out of here.” She reached for her pistol, spun round, and let off a controlled burst of six rounds into the chest of the shorter of the two bodyguards before he had a chance to steady himself. His body jittered with each hit before collapsing against his partner.

  The surprise of Bella’s attack on the bodyguard gave Greta an opportunity. She brought up her rifle and swung the butt, catching the tallest escort square in the nose, breaking the bones for the second time. She followed up with a kick to the stomach before bringing the gun down on the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.

  Bella continued to spin until she faced Lizbeth, who had the temerity to stand with her back to the fight.

  The second abbot launched toward Greta, breaking Bella’s line of sight. The ex-Marine dashed to the side and fired full-auto, cutting down the biomechanical attacker with a booming staccato burst. She continued sweeping her firing arc to catch the first abbot clutching the core. Both artificial entities collapsed to the ground in a smoky cloud of sparking electronics and the smell of burning machine oil.

  Bella’s line of sight opened up. She let off a shot, but her aim was off by a few millimeters.

  Lizbeth spun on her heel and staggered back against the glass and was about to say something when Greta sprinted across the room and dropped her with a single meaty haymaker to the face. The small woman curled into a ball to protect herself. Greta fired a single bullet into the woman’s head, killing her instantly.

  A small metallic button fell from her hand and hit the floor. Somewhere off in the distance, an alarm sounded.

  “Damn it, she probably alerted reinforcements,” Greta said, spinning to look at Bella, her features taught with combat-channeled rage.

  “Grab the q-bit core,” Bella said. “We’ll be gone before her backup arrives.”