Corruption_Age Of Expansion_A Kurtherian Gambit Series

by Sarah Noffke

  Lewis gripped the arm of his seat, the pressure of acceleration mixed with anxiety doing something strange to his pulse. He had to admit that Bailey appeared relaxed; her shoulders were down, and her breathing steady.

  “You’re watching me,” she said with a laugh in her voice.

  “You’ve kind of got my life in your hands,” he quipped back, relaxing but only slightly.

  “There’s no ‘kind of’ about it.” Bailey pushed forward, checking a few gauges before flipping a single switch. The craft steadied, having found its course. She leaned back, pinning her hands behind the back of her head, with a satisfied smile on her face.

  “Well, how does it feel to fly for the first time?” Lewis asked.

  Bailey thought for a moment. “It’s a dream come true.”

  “Don’t go frolicking through rainbows yet,” Pip said overhead.

  Lewis’s eyes screwed up with confusion. “Uhhh…did you say—”

  “Yes, frolicking,” Pip interrupted. “And rainbows.”

  “Hatch did warn me that Pip has a colorful sense of humor,” Bailey laughed.

  “Not your typical AI, then,” Lewis stated.

  “Yes I’m special, and no I won’t share a place inside your head,” Pip said. “I’m a one-human kind of guy. Well, that is, until I start dating. I heard there’s a rule of five with online dating.”

  “Rule of five?” Bailey asked, giving Lewis a questioning look.

  Pip sighed indignantly. “Yes, you have one person you’re serious about, three you could be serious about, and one that you’re just—”

  “Whoa, now,” Bailey cut him off. “I think we better scale back the rules of disclosure a bit.”

  “I’m an open book,” Pip said.

  Lewis chuckled. “We’re learning that.”

  “With pages ripped out,” Pip continued.

  “Right,” Bailey said, taking back over the controls.

  “Pressed and dried between the folds of time,” the AI went on.

  “Are you seriously reciting poetry right now?” Bailey asked. Multiple objects had come onto the radar.

  “Right, right. Poetry later,” Pip said flatly. “As I was saying, launching and flying the ship is one thing. Landing it is the tricky part.”

  “Landing, right,” Bailey said, sounding like she was trying to silently encourage herself. “I can totally land this thing.”

  “But what about those large rocks spiraling at us?” Lewis asked, his voice cautious.

  “Asteroids,” Bailey corrected.

  “Right, you know what to do with those, right?” he asked.

  “In the simulations, I usually blow them up, depending on their size,” Bailey said with a hint of humor.

  “And how does that usually work out?” Lewis asked.

  Bailey yanked back on the controls, rolling the ship out of the trajectory of three giant asteroids. “Results have varied. I can’t always account for the trajectory of the debris when the obstacle has been broken apart. I won’t lie, I’ve had more ‘game overs’ with asteroids than anything else in flight training.”

  Lewis edged down in his seat. “No kidding. That’s a fun fact I wish I knew an hour ago.”

  “Asteroid headed for port side,” Pip informed them.

  “What’s the size?” Bailey asked, darting between two asteroids rotating toward the bow.

  “Diameter is roughly three meters,” Pip stated.

  “That doesn’t sound so big.” Lewis straightened in his seat, smoothing out his harness.

  “The smaller the asteroid, the faster they rotate.” Bailey pulled the ship into a dive, sending it through a storm of dust and debris.

  “Asteroid just passed the stern of the ship,” Pip informed them.

  “Maybe we should hightail it out of this asteroid belt,” Lewis suggested.

  Bailey’s eyes fell on the radar screen, and she changed direction. “I’d love to, but Phoenix Tech is located at the heart of it.”

  “Why does that not surprise me?” Lewis asked with a laugh.

  “They are a mining colony; it makes sense for them to be located on a dwarf planet,” Bailey said.

  “Right,” Lewis said, having to talk louder now to be heard over the pelting of the small bits of rock that flung off the nearby asteroids.

  “Soooo…” Pip chimed in, a hint of trouble in his voice.

  “ ‘Soooo’, what?” Lewis asked.

  “A large debris field appears to be blocking the path to Tangki-124-24/A,” Pip stated.

  “If that’s the dwarf planet we’re headed toward, how can it be blocked?” Lewis asked. “Phoenix Tech would have regular transport ships headed to this location.”

  “The activity appears to be recent, when I compare long range radar shots to the current view,” Pip said.

  Lewis drummed three fingers against his lips, an absentminded habit he often did when thinking. He thought back to what Bailey had said about blowing up asteroids, and how it changed trajectory.

  “Pip, do you have aerial footage of the area around this dwarf planet?”

  “I do, in fact,” Pip answered.

  “Can you scan for heat sources?” Lewis asked.

  Bailey chanced him a curious look as she steered the ship through the obstacle course of asteroids. “Are you thinking that a nearby explosion caused the blockage?”

  “Perhaps.” Lewis lowered his hand, entranced by the increased number of asteroids swimming past them.

  “It could have caused an excess of asteroids to build up in the area,” Bailey agreed, sliding the Q-Ship around an oblong-shaped asteroid.

  “I’ve found that planetoid Tangki-124-24/B appears to have been destroyed,” Pip explained.

  Lewis leaned forward, tapping the screen in front of him to bring up the report on Phoenix Tech. A moment later, he said, “That was one of the mining sites.”

  “It might have been an accident,” Bailey mused.

  “Perhaps…” he said again, unconvinced.

  “What?” Bailey questioned.

  “That’s an optimistic possibility.” Lewis continued to scroll through the information they had on Phoenix Tech.

  “Well then, tell me what your cynical instinct says,” Bailey said with a laugh.

  He stared at the screen, not really seeing it. “Not cynical instinct—'evidence based data approach’,” he corrected.

  “Right, your EBD approach,” Bailey joked. She seemed to be more comfortable with the controls than moments before.

  “I don’t know yet,” Lewis answered, “but something tells me it wasn’t an accident. Phoenix Tech asked for help, but a Starboards Corp ship arrives in its place at Ghost Squadron, and then the upload occurs. If a mining facility has been blown to bits, I’m thinking it’s a part of whatever is going on here.”

  “But Phoenix Tech did report that they were under threat,” Bailey pondered. “What if they were attacked by Starboards Corp, and then they took over and sent the ship?”

  “Perhaps…” Lewis mused for the third time before trailing away.

  “You use that word a lot,” Bailey observed.

  “It’s one of my favorites. It’s the opposite of ‘definite’, which would undoubtedly close all doors for inspection.” Lewis gave her a small smile and realized he’d slipped right back into his old ways of thinking.

  “Right now, what I need is an open door that leads to the dwarf planet, around these asteroid leftovers,” Bailey said, chewing on her lip.

  “The course you’re on is the one with the least density,” Pip informed her.

  Ahead of the ship was a thick band of asteroids rotating around a larger rock. It was sort of round and cratered; it resembled a planet, although a very small one.

  Bailey hovered her finger over the button for the thruster, and let out a slow breath.

  “Does it make you nervous that on your first flight, you have to steer your way through an asteroid belt?” Lewis asked.

  Bailey cut her eyes at h
im, a light expression in her gaze. “I think the more interesting question is, does it make you nervous?”

  Lewis gripped the arms of his seat and nodded. “Yeah, I’m man enough to admit that I’m incredibly terrified.”

  “Then close your eyes, because this is going to be a bumpy-ass ride,” Bailey said, igniting the thrusters. Although inexperienced, she knew that she was going to need speed and precision to maneuver around the fast moving asteroids. Well, mostly precision.

  “I can take over if you prefer,” Pip offered. “However, I think you should do this one on your own.”

  “And you’re there if I need you, right?” Bailey said, taking in a deep breath.

  “I’m not too distracted by my mahjong game,” Pip joked.

  The Q-Ship lurched forward, streaking by the asteroids, turning them to blurs. Several assaults attempted to take them off course, but Bailey kept the controls steady, swerving around the larger obstacles. They slipped between two rotating asteroids, the ship grazing the side of one, and making a horrible screeching noise.

  “Shields have been damaged and are momentarily down,” Pip reported.

  Bailey nodded. “Yeah, I felt that.”

  The path to the dwarf planet cleared as they quickly approached, and Bailey sped the ship toward the asteroid’s surface, coming in too fast.

  Lewis pushed back in his seat, gritting his teeth. He pressed his weight against the ground, realizing that his tense position was doing him no good as they rocketed toward the dusty surface of the planet.

  Bailey leveled out the ship upon approach, but the bow still hit the ground hard, nearly tipping the craft forward. She slammed her hand on a button, and the Q-Ship halted, making the stern fall back hard. A cloud of gray dust exploded from the ground and covered the ship, which rocked back and forth several times before coming to a stop with a creaking groan.

  Bailey looked at Lewis, an expression of tethered excitement on her face. “I did it. I landed my first ship.”

  He nearly coughed on his breath of relief. “Yeah, we’re alive.” He looked out, trying to decipher the area around them as the dust settled. “But I don’t think anything else on this planet can say the same thing.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Q-Ship, Dwarf Planet Tangki-124-24/A, Tangki System

  Bailey waited until Pip had confirmed that the air quality was acceptable before lowering the hatch. The dwarf planet was best described as…gray. A factory of six buildings sat under the giant dome where they’d docked the ship. It was clouded in the same gray ash that coated everything; the sky was also gray and matched the ground that stretched out in all directions.

  Bailey covered her mouth and nose from the spiraling swarms of dust as she took a step forward, peering up at the dome overhead.

  “So…Hatch is going to have your ass,” Pip said overhead.

  She halted, giving Lewis a questioning look as he sidled up next to her pulling his jacket collar up to block the dust storm they were about to enter.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “There are several dents and scratches on the ship, not to mention that one of the internal systems needs repair,” Pip stated matter-of-factly.

  “By ‘internal systems’, do you mean engines?” Lewis asked.

  “The engines are fine,” Pip said. “I was referring to a cooling unit that serves as a backup to the emergency systems.”

  Bailey pursed her lips and shook her head at Lewis. “It’s nothing big. A backup to the backup.”

  “He’s going to be mad, though,” Pip said, a quality of teasing to his voice.

  “Why?” Bailey asked, doubling back and pulling a case out of the hull, then searching its contents.

  “Because you damaged his ship,” Pip explained.

  “He’s the one who told me to fly it knowing I had no practical experience,” Bailey said, pulling a high explosive clip from the case.

  “Which, can we take a moment to be grateful we all survived your debut flight?” Lewis asked with a chuckle.

  “You’re not off this planet yet,” Pip reminded them.

  Bailey shook her head. “Hatch has bigger problems than getting upset that I scratched up his ship a little bit.”

  “You’d think so, but he thrives off his emotional outbursts,” Pip said.

  “Somehow I think you’re exaggerating.” Bailey pulled a pistol from the case and handed it to Lewis.

  “You think this is necessary?” he asked, pulling a rapid-fire clip from the box and inspecting it.

  She plucked the clip from his hands. “I think the pistol could be necessary, but that clip probably isn’t.”

  He shrugged, sliding the gun into place behind his coat.

  “Do you know how to use that thing?” Bailey asked, winking at him.

  “Aim and shoot, right?”

  “Something like that,” she said, pulling the device Hatch had given her from her back pocket.

  Lewis pointed. “Explain how that thing works.”

  “It is calibrated with the chemical properties of the monster—”

  “Properties that we’ve yet to classify,” Pip interrupted Bailey.

  She nodded, offering the device to Lewis. “If we encounter anything similar, the device will the chemical composition. It’s our best bet for finding a correlation between the monster and Phoenix Tech.”

  A wide grin spread on the detective’s face as he plucked the device from her hands. “Technology. My job just got ten percent easier.”

  Phoenix Tech Mining Facility, Dwarf Planet Tangki-124-24/A, Tangki System

  Bailey slammed her boot into the door beside the roll up, knocking it back. They’d strode across the gray wasteland, listening to the constant beeping of the device.

  “That means it’s picking up on something,” Bailey assured Lewis, pointing to the small black box he held.

  Once they entered the deserted mining facility, the device beeped with urgent consistency. Bailey held her gun at the ready as they edged down the long corridor. “Is there a way to quiet that thing?”

  Lewis knocked it against his palm. “I think Hatch forgot to install a volume control button.”

  Bailey noticed the various tools strewn across the ground. They were covered in the soot-like dirt that was everywhere on the asteroid. “What do you suppose happened here?”

  Lewis’s eyes ran up the wall, eyeing the ceiling overhead. “I don’t want you to be alarmed by this, but I have absolutely no clue.”

  Bailey stopped and looked back at him with a measured glare. “Why would that alarm me?”

  He tapped the front of the device and continued past her, speaking over his shoulder. “Because I’m absolutely appalled.”

  She almost laughed. “We still have a lot of area to explore.”

  “What we have to do is figure out what they were mining here,” Lewis stated. He held up the device. “Whatever it was, the remnants are showing a strong correlation to the monster.”

  Bailey edged down the path, noticing a darkened cave ahead. “I think that’s one of the mining shafts.”

  The beeping on the device increased, making a seemingly continuous tone. Lewis lifted an eyebrow and sighed. “Let’s hope the monster’s identical twin brother isn’t in there.”

  Bailey started forward and cast a skeptical look back at him. “How do you know that the monster isn’t a girl?”

  He acquiesced with a shrug. “You’re right. Let’s have Ricky Bobby sex the monster upon returning.”

  “Keywords there are ‘upon returning’,” Bailey said, sliding up against the wall.

  She halted at the bend, giving Lewis a cautious glance. He gave her a confident nod, and she spun around, holding her gun at the ready, unprepared for the darkness before her. The long tunnel was so black that she felt like she’d lost her vision for a moment.

  The device hummed a low, continuous tone. Lewis pocketed the box and pulled a flashlight from his coat; the light that filtered through the warehouse ha
rdly reached into the black of the tunnel. When he switched on the light, the sight made them both pause.

  The tunnel walls and ceiling were a shiny black, like it had been covered in oil. Lewis took a step forward and ran his hands over the wall.

  “It’s a stone of some sort,” Lewis stated.

  Bailey tensed. “I’ve seen a similar type of rock.”

  Lewis gave her a curious expression that said, ‘do tell’.

  “I was on Onyx Station when Hatch teleported me. The Trids I was in the process of apprehending were trying to throw a rock like this into the incinerator.”

  “I hope I don’t have to remind you that it’s probably not a coincidence?” Lewis asked, stooping down and running his fingers over the black dust on the ground.

  “Perhaps,” Bailey teased.

  Lewis continued walking until he was almost swallowed by the blackness of the tunnel. Bailey kept her gun trained on the other side of the cave, listening for noise.

  When Lewis returned, he was shaking his head. “No monster. I think we should start with what we know.”

  Bailey liked this approach. It focused on the facts. “Well, we know that whatever was here has a similar makeup as the monster.”

  He agreed with a curt nod. “And we know whatever mineral Phoenix Tech mined here is absolutely depleted.”

  “So what we need to determine now is what happened to Phoenix Tech.”

  Lewis extended a hand toward the cave’s exit. “Looks like we need to find the Human Resources department.”

  They cleared three warehouses, not finding anything except for abandoned drill bits and the black dust. They stood in the only remaining large building they had not searched, staring at a dusty floor and a cavernous blackness.

  “What happened to everyone?” Bailey asked, mostly to herself. She took a step and was surprised to find Lewis throwing out a hand to stop her.

  He turned with a startling look. “The exact same thing that happened to the crew of Ghost Squadron.”

  Bailey lowered her gun, her brow wrinkling. “How do you know that?”

  He pointed his flashlight at the stone ground, which was covered in a thick layer of gray dirt and black bits from the stone they’d been excavating.