by Joe Zieja
And Rogers would absolutely get to that in like, two minutes. He just really needed a snack.
“Hey, check this out,” Rogers said.
He pointed to a vending machine that was located in the hallway directly adjacent to the recreation center, if they’d been following their map properly. Through the window of the machine, Rogers could see several delicious-looking sandwiches. Not the plastic-wrapped abominations of a mass-production kitchen, mind you. These looked like they’d been delicately and lovingly prepared by a large old grandmotherly woman who was just trying to make sure that you ate enough.
He remembered there being something called Sandwich Hour on the Limiter, but he’d never gotten to participate. And this was way better. This was like Infinite Sandwich Hour. Unless you ate all the sandwiches and there were none left. Then it was just gluttony.
“I’m not sure that’s such a bright idea,” Tunger said. “The meal chit system will log your presence in here, and I’m not sure how it’ll go over with the IDs. I’d prefer to leave as few traces as possible.”
“Ah come on. Can’t save the galaxy on an empty stomach. Besides, other than nearly getting us all killed for not knowing how to fix a particle accelerator, these IDs have worked perfectly. I trust your skills, Tunger. And I don’t really want to eat lunch with Mack.”
Rogers was pretty sure that no matter what happened today, he wasn’t going to be eating lunch with Mack.
“Well, if you must,” Tunger said. He gestured ambiguously at the machine, and then proceeded to lean against the wall, looking up and down the hallway for anyone who might be catching on to them. In truth, they’d passed dozens, if not hundreds of people on the way to the recreation center without so much as a second glance. A couple of guys with guns—station security by the looks of their uniforms—even gave them friendly waves as they ambled on by. For a group of people ready to kill everyone, they seemed pretty chummy. And maybe a little too trusting.
“It might be my last sandwich,” Rogers said. “And this is a pretty amazing vending machine. Hell, if they had a Scotch vending machine, I might switch sides.”
“I suppose telling you that there is, in fact, such a machine in the executive section is not a very good idea, then?”
“Let’s pretend I never heard you say that. For the galaxy’s sake.”
Rogers chose an unassuming but perpetually undervalued sandwich—the ham and cheese—and slid his ID through the slot. It worked like a charm.
• • •
Meanwhile, in Snaggardir Security Office Number Sixty-Five, Bob looked at his display. It was blinking. There was a picture on it.
“Huh, that’s funny. Looks like there’s someone with a fake ID stealing sandwiches by the rec center.”
Sally, his supervisor and not a very nice person, leaned over. She looked at the blinking display, and then the picture.
“Yeah. That is funny. Send an armed squad over there to kill them.”
• • •
“See?” Rogers said. “No big deal at all.” He took a bite out of the sandwich, which was exceedingly delicious. “Now I’m ready to fight an army. Let’s head inside.”
Tunger, leading the way, turned the corner, scanned his ID to unlock the door to the recreation center, and waited while the system authenticated him. A moment later, the red light on the lock turned green, and the large sliding door moved out of the way.
Rogers was not at all prepared for what he saw. Though the map showed a huge complex, it didn’t necessarily detail what was inside it. His experience with the military had ingrained in him a fun-is-bad mentality, so he was expecting a sparsely decorated, empty area, mostly dominated by tables and chairs and a dearth of people actually having a good time.
The Snaggardir’s recreation center was not this place. The Snaggardir’s recreation center was a paradise of, well, recreation, and Rogers could have sworn that there was a beer light hanging in the corner of the entrance way. There was nothing to indicate whether or not it was an actual beer light, but there was just something about the way it was hanging there that told him that when it was turned on, work was turned off.
And that was only the entryway; beyond the small corridor in which one could leave one’s belongings in lockers if one wished, Rogers could see a multiroom complex of entertainment nirvana. Multiple arcades. A movie theater. No, two movie theaters. At least three bars, each manned by a competent-looking bartender with a very official vest. A mechanical bull, onto which one could land via zip line from a tower on the opposite end of the room.
“This place is amazing,” Rogers said, his eyes wide.
“I’ll remind you that this place is also going to kill us all,” Tunger said as he passed him by. “Perhaps we should sally forth and do what needs doing, yes?”
Rogers made a sour face at Tunger’s back. They wandered into what seemed to be a sort of central hub, where points won at the arcade machines could be exchanged for prizes. The buzz of electronic games was all around them, accompanied by soft, indistinct music in the background.
“Are you sure this is as far as your information goes?” Rogers said to Tunger out of the side of his mouth.
“That’s all I’ve got. We’ll have to do some good old-fashioned spy work here if we’re going to find the control console. We can expect it to be well hidden, so why don’t we split up and stick our noses into different places?”
Rogers agreed. He hoped the other half of the team was doing a good job lying, because it was going to take them a long damn time to find something that looked like the outline from the intelligence report.
• • •
On the exterior, Alandra was cool, calm, composed. Ready for anything. A kernel of popcorn, ready to explode into action at the first sign of a little thermal energy. Internally, she couldn’t remember a time when she was more nervous about the outcome of a mission. Many of the things she had done were important. Some of them had even been critical. This was different.
Yet she felt ready for it all, like a complicated equation that she was just about to find the answer to. As she walked through the bowels of the enemy fortress, she kept as focused as she could, taking in information in all of its available forms, making a mental map of the area in her head. Alandra was nearly certain that this would end in a fight of some sort, and understanding the terrain was crucial to them making it out alive.
The thing was, they didn’t have to make it out alive. All they had to do was support Rogers and Tunger, and make sure they had enough time to disable the Galaxy Eater before it could be activated.
Alandra had some experience with particle accelerators, at least in theory. She understood the general principles of them, what they provided society with, and how they operated. But she’d always thought they were supposed to be kilometers long to be the most effective at whatever it was they did. So when Mack stopped them outside a small room, not much bigger than an oversized public bathroom, Alandra was more than a little surprised.
“Anyone need to use the bathroom?” he asked, pointing at the restroom sign.
Nobody needed to use the bathroom. They moved on.
When they finally did arrive at the quantum engineering section, Alandra knew immediately how the particle accelerators were configured. Somehow, the Jupiterians had figured out how to divide an artificial gravity field so precisely that it was possible to step from the hallway into the particle accelerator room, which, Alandra realized, extended for the entire length of the station.
Mack hopped through the doorway and changed directions like he’d done it a million times, but Alandra, the Viking, and the marine sergeant called Mailn had a bit more trouble with it. The Viking actually tripped through the opening, which, Alandra had to admit, gave her a small bit of pleasure to watch. Of course, Rogers was fair game now, the poor man, but the roots of rivalry dug deep.
“Who the hell thought of this shit?” the Viking grumbled as she stood up.
Mack looked at her, frowning. “
This is the basic construction for all station particle accelerators. Gotta have the distance to do the work, and all that. I’m surprised you haven’t seen it before.”
“We have seen it very often before,” Alandra said quickly, before the big brute could say anything else stupid. “We are, ah, just used to the shift happening clockwise rather than counterclockwise.”
Mack laughed. “Ah, yeah, I went into one of those rooms once. I thought I fell into the ceiling. Really weird.”
The particle accelerator terminal into which they’d been led reminded Alandra of some of the public transportation tunnels on Schvink. The terrain there had been easy to dig through, so the engineers had built straight paths underground for hundreds of miles to keep traffic off the surface, and when you got a seat near the front of the car it felt like you were staring into infinity. This was much the same, though with a clear edge of technology added to it.
“Well, here’s PA One A,” he said. “This is the one with all the cockeyed klystrons.”
“Ah yes,” Alandra said. “Cockeyed klystrons. It’s a problem we’ve seen often.”
Mack nodded knowingly. He motioned for them to come over to some sort of console, which looked like a giant refrigerator with buttons on it. Alandra had absolutely no idea what any of it meant, but Mack opened a side panel and began extracting components that had been installed into racks that slid out. He started talking and immediately was in territory that Alandra couldn’t understand. Mack had also physically leaned into the cabinet to about his waist, so his voice was muffled, too. At a signal from Alandra, Sergeant Mailn walked over and began nodding and agreeing with whatever he said, feigning interest. Mailn seemed like a sharp troop.
“Hey.” The Viking elbowed her in the ribs. Alandra almost reflexively kicked her in the face, but Alandra had been trying to curb that tendency lately. She hadn’t kicked anyone in the face in almost three days.
“What?” Alandra hissed back. “We’re supposed to be buying time. I don’t have time to be grunted at by a gorilla.”
The Viking, to her credit, let the insult pass by her. She was clearly focused on something else. While Mack’s face was buried inside the cabinet, she pointed at a doorway on the left side of the control room that Alandra hadn’t noticed before. Outside, she could see a small group of maybe four or five soldiers—the doorway was blocking a significant portion of the room—being talked to in a very aggressive manner by a large man in a very official-looking uniform.
“You recognize that guy?”
Alandra did indeed. General Szinder, one of the top members of the little Jupiterian oligarchy that was toying with the fate of humanity.
“I do.”
The Viking looked at her, and then looked at Mailn. Despite their differences, Alandra could tell they were thinking the same thing. Disabling the Galaxy Eater was just one part of the problem; if they couldn’t round up the kingpins as well, there was a chance they might be facing a similar situation in the future.
Mailn motioned that she’d keep Mack busy, and the Viking and Alandra moved toward the door to see if they could hear what was being said. The room on the other side had a different gravity polarity than the one they were standing in for the particle accelerator, so it seemed as if all of them were standing on the wall, having a casual conversation. It was very disorienting.
“. . . matter of time before they’ll be here. Are all the necessary preparations made?”
“Yes, sir.”
General Szinder turned away from the group of soldiers, clasping his hands behind his back.
“Good. We will need to buy our people some time to escape before we activate the device, if we have to do so. Reports indicate that they are working on a plan right now, but we don’t know what it is. We need to be prepared for everything.”
An escape route? Did that mean that the Jupiterians had a way to avoid being crushed by the Galaxy Eater? If they’d come upon a new Un-Space network . . . that was tremendously valuable information. How had no one discovered it before? It was easy to hide gateways in the Milky Way galaxy when nobody knew what to look for, but now humanity was so familiar with the intergalactic tunneling system that it would be easy to spot. Or had the Jupiterians discovered a new way to move through space entirely?
Whatever it was, this was vital intelligence that needed to be delivered to the responsible authorities.
General Szinder reached into his pocket and pulled out a large, silver object. It looked like a mix between a standard keycard and an old-fashioned pin-and-tumbler key. It also had a label on it that said EATER #2.
The Viking looked at Alandra, her massive brow furrowed.
Key, the Viking mouthed.
Alandra nodded.
Kill, the Viking mouthed.
Alandra shrugged noncommittally. That option was certainly on the table.
General Szinder, however, didn’t seem to be done grandstanding. Why were they having a briefing near the particle accelerators in the first place?
“They will regret every note of the War of Musical Chairs,” he said. “If they dare to come close . . .”
He turned around to face the soldiers, a wild grin on his face.
“We can burn them all to Szinders.”
The small group of soldiers—who Alandra guessed were field-grade commanders, erupted into sighs and gestures of total exasperation.
“Sir, Mr. Snaggardir told you not to say that anymore,” warned one of the troops.
“Really, sir, is this the time for that kind of joking?” said another troop.
“It is literally never the time for that kind of joking,” said a third.
Szinder was too busy reveling in his own sense of humor and touching his key to the destruction of the galaxy to pay attention to their mumblings. He waved them away, and the briefing was over. Alandra tensed; any moment now Szinder would vanish, and with him one of the keys to the Galaxy Eater. If they were going to move, they had to do it now.
Alandra turned back to look at Mailn.
“. . . it’s got all these resonant cavities . . . ,” Mack was saying.
“Oh, well, that sounds like a problem,” Mailn responded, her eyes darting between Mack and the door. “We’ve gotta get those cavities filled, or they’ll turn into abscesses and then we’ll really be in trouble.”
Mack pulled his head out of the cabinet and frowned.
“Klystrons are supposed to have cavities. They don’t work if they don’t have cavities.” He frowned again and moved to pick up his datapad. “Are you guys sure you—”
Taking one large step, the Viking grabbed the back of Mack’s head and threw it into the side of the console, knocking him unconscious with a loud crunch of bone and metal.
“Yeah, we’re done with particle whatevers,” she said. “Let’s go get that asshole.”
Alandra grinned at her. “Perhaps we have use for a gorilla after all.”
“I’m about to throw my shit at you if you say that again, noodle arms,” the Viking said. She turned on her datapad. “Rogers. It’s me. Szinder is here. He has one of the keys, and we’re going after him. Hurry your ass up.”
Arcade Fire
Rogers thought that there was some message coming through to him on his datapad, but he was having trouble hearing over all the shooting that was going on.
“Where the hell did these guys come from?” Rogers yelled from behind a toppled pinball machine. “What is happening out there?”
“I warned you not to get the bloody sandwich!” Tunger yelled back, lying prone behind a fallen poker table.
“Well I either had a one hundred percent chance of dying of hunger, or a seventy percent chance of dying by Jupiterian gunfire. It was the rational choice!”
They had barely made it through two of the rooms, poking, prodding, and looking for anything at all that matched the description on the schematic they’d stolen from the Jupiterians. Nothing had even come close. It was difficult to match the outline of a machine with
a physical one; it felt like Rogers was playing an old puzzle game made for three-year-olds.
“We need to get out of this room,” Rogers yelled. “We know the damn thing isn’t in here, and we’re not going to make any headway unless we can keep searching.”
“Well then I suppose we’d better move on then, yes?”
Tunger stood up and started shooting.
“What the hell?” Rogers shouted. “Why do you have a rifle?”
“Stole it. Come on, mate!” Tunger started firing with an easy, practiced precision that unnerved Rogers even in the middle of combat. How had this man, who had only recently been carrying baboons on his back, transformed into this supersoldier? He’d give both Keffoule and the Viking a run for their money.
But right now, he was giving the small security team a run for their money. They’d only sent three people, none of them looking much like hardened soldiers. This was good for Rogers and Tunger, as they also didn’t seem to be that proficient at hitting anyone. The furniture, however, was much the worse for wear.
A shot rang out over Rogers’ head, and just as he was reevaluating the poor quality of the Jupiterian security team, the shots stopped. Peeking out over the top of the arcade cabinet that provided him cover, Rogers could see the crumpled forms of the Jupiterians near the entrance of the room. Tunger had already slung his weapon over his shoulder and had a posture that suggested he’d been waiting for Rogers to get up all day.
“You could have done that five minutes ago,” Rogers said.
“Didn’t have the rifle five minutes ago.”
“Oh, right,” Rogers said.
“No worries, mate. But they’ll be sending another squadron in just a few minutes once they see what happened. We should make haste.”