Tanis Richards: Shore Leave - A Hard, Military, Science Fiction Adventure (Aeon 14: Origins of Destiny)
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Tanis considered it, but nothing in the other suite was of particular value to her.
Looking around the large mainspace, which was mostly a bigger version of the one in Tanis’s suite above, she nodded in satisfaction. “This is great, Liz. Amazing, really. You should go, though. We’ll manage from here.”
An uncertain look passed over Liz’s face. “Will you be OK? Do you need anything?”
“No, I’ll be fine.” Tanis shook her head. “If anyone asks, tell them you took us to our room; I’ll alter the lift’s records to show that it stopped there, not on this floor.”
“You can do that?” Liz asked.
Tanis nodded, knowing that for her alone it might have been tricky, but with Darla’s hooks already in the hotel’s systems, it would be a breeze.
“Um…OK. Well, let me know if you need anything.”
“Of course,” Tanis said with a warm smile, gesturing for Liz to leave the lavish suite.
Darla mused as the porter walked to the door.
* * * * *
Darla altered the suite’s systems to log any use of the servitors or facilities to their room above, and Tanis took a long shower, pulling on a simple pair of black leggings and a light grey blouse afterward, enjoying the feel of the soft carpet on her bare feet.
“So much better,” she said, stretching her arms out and rolling her neck side to side. “Now I just need some food.”
Tanis considered it. “That would probably alert someone to the fact that we’re back. Though at least we don’t have to worry about any official security coming for us. Yet, at least.”
“Well, if I didn’t actually need to eat, we could use the food order as a distraction. But having all these mods burns a lot of energy. If I don’t get food in my stomach, I’m going to snack on the carpet.”
“Gah, let’s file that under ‘imminent death from starvation only’, OK?”
“Why not just order food for another empty suite and redirect the delivery drone here?” Tanis asked.
“What’s helping most? Plotting surreptitious food delivery, or random ambushes?” Tanis asked with a laugh.
Twenty minutes later, Tanis had a bottle of rather expensive wine and a platter of far less costly BLTs sitting before her on the suite’s smaller dining table that sat next to the kitchen area.
“Now this is living,” she said after taking a bite of the first BLT.
Tanis looked over the stack of BLTs, three of which had a sharp cheddar cheese added in—something she wasn’t too certain about, hence the larger order.
“Maybe?” Tanis said, then took another bite, chewing thoughtfully. After swallowing, she added. “With everything going on, who knows when I’ll get another meal, and I need to carb up.”
Tanis carefully chewed her next bite, savoring the flavor of the Marsian low-g bacon. “Well, I’ll stop when I’m full. Not like I’m going to stuff myself silly.”
Wiping her mouth with a napkin, Tanis looked at the ceiling above. “Order some food for our room, let’s see if we can set a trap.”
“That’s my plan. They think I have something from the Norse Wind. You know what that means.”
Darla gave a long, rather dainty sigh.
Tanis nodded. She hated to think that someone on the Jones would steal something from a ship they’d boarded, but it was the only thing that made sense.
Other than Connie, the entire crew was still on Vesta. Tanis had considered seeking them out and finding out if they had taken anything, but that might bring heat down on her people. Thus far, none of them had reported any incidents, so whoever was behind this was content with directing their efforts toward Tanis.
Of course, if they continue to make no progress with me, they just might start going after my crew.
She hadn’t heard from Connie yet, but her chief engineer should have landed on Cune by now. The fact that she hadn’t reached out was making Tanis more than a little nervous.
After a brief pause, she sent out a ping to Connie, knowing it would take a little over a half an hour for a response. Then she picked up her second sandwich and took a bite, chewing contemplatively.
“We have to get to the bottom of this, fast,” Tanis said after a minute. “Obviously, Deering and her Scattered Worlds compatriots want both the engine components, and quantum core—which I assume must be necessary for the GE-5412 flow regulators. We know that Deering’s not operating on the up and up, or she’d haul me in—though if they don’t get what they want soon, I bet picking me up will rise up on her list of options.”
“What’s that?”
“Shit! Why didn’t you say so?”
A dozen plans flashed through Tanis’s mind, but all of them required weapons. To subdue two SWSF officers with her bare hands would require beating them to a pulp…which she may not be capable of, and which they may not survive—a result which was not conducive to questioning…or remaining out of prison.
“Dammit, I really wish I hadn’t dumped that pulse pistol,” Tanis muttered. “I need a weapon.”
Darla said hesitantly.
“Someone selling weapons on Vesta?” Tanis asked. “So far as I know, there are only specialty sellers, who either have rare collector’s items, or shops that outfit merc contractors. Both of which are hard for me to buy from on the QT.”
Tanis knew that wasn’t a great plan.
One on one, she could take out just about anyone she came across. Most people underestimated her slight build, and coupled with her L2 reflexes and augmented muscles and bones, she could take a punch from a two-hundred-kilo, modded Earther, and still hit back.
But all it took were two armed attackers, and all her strength and speed would count for nothing. She couldn’t outrun a bullet—or dodge one fired into her back.
“You know…” sh
e mused. “Let’s go check that room they’re repairing. There’s some equipment in the hall…might be something we can use.”
She rose from the table and grabbed a BLT from the platter before striding down the hall in the direction of the room Liz had said was still out of commission.
Sure enough, the corridor leading to the room in question had several tool chests and supplies sitting at the end, plus just the thing she was looking for: a plasma cutter.
“Oh, yeah, this’ll do nicely,” Tanis purred, a grin spreading across her face. “There’s a safety valve on these that you can remove to make a nice, half-meter flame.”
“Don’t say things like that,” Tanis said with a laugh as she flipped open one of the chests. Confirming it contained what she needed to alter the plasma cutter, she shouldered the tank and the tool, and wheeled the chest back to the dining table.
After arranging the equipment on the table, Tanis helped herself to a final BLT and a glass of wine before she set to work.
“Well, you’ll order food for my room upstairs, and then we’ll see who shows up on the feeds you’ve hacked. If it’s a manageable number—two or three, tops—I’ll come in behind them and take them out…hopefully while they’re spread out, checking over the rooms. With any luck, I’ll take them down without too much damage, and get to question someone.”
“Well, it’ll solidify once I see what I’m up against,” she replied. “Worst-case scenario, I get some weapons and no questions, but I can use those weapons to go after Tora-Unger.
“Darla. People are trying to kill me—and, by extension, you. The authorities didn’t believe us the first time, and nothing official has shown up on the feeds regarding our little scuffle down in Sector 33. What does that tell you?”
The AI let out a long mental sigh that sounded a bit too close to nails dragging on a hull for Tanis’s liking.
“Well, we’ve had adventure aplenty. Are you just not sure it’s your cup of tea? Or…qubits?” Tanis asked as she pulled out the limiter from the mixing chamber and began to put the cutter back together.
Tanis took another sip of wine before turning on the plasma cutter and pulling its trigger. A blue-white lance shot out nearly a meter, and she grinned with satisfaction.
“Now we’re cooking.”
AMBUSHING THE AMBUSHERS
STELLAR DATE: 01.21.4084 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Suite 1301-1, Grand Éire Resort
REGION: Vesta, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
“Three of them,” Tanis reported as she watched the shrouded figures enter her suite—the one she was supposed to be in, not the one a level down where she was hiding out.
“I expected them to be. I need answers, Darla. I’m not just going to sit back and let these assholes try to kill me while no one takes the threat seriously.”
“I’m always careful.”
Tanis didn’t reply. The lift doors opened, and she walked down the hall to her suite. The intruders had left her door slightly ajar, likely to facilitate a speedy exit if necessary—or they were just sloppy. She hoped it was the latter.
Peering through the crack, she surveyed her suite.
Though it had been completely turned over earlier in the day, the servitors had cleaned it up as best they could. The recently delivered meal sat on the table in the sunken seating area, and the faint sounds of a running shower could be heard—courtesy of Darla.
Tanis watched as one of the shrouded intruders walked along the edge of the pool, apparently checking the water to see if she was hiding beneath the surface.
Satisfied that no one was lurking within the pool, the man disappeared down the right-hand hall.
Slowly and gently, Tanis pushed the suite’s door open and kicked away the block they’d used to keep the door from closing. Then she gently closed the door, and passed her lockdown token, sealing it against egress.
It wouldn’t stop a determined enemy for long, but sometimes seconds made all the difference.
Slipping through the kitchenette, Tanis crept into the hall, watching the solitary enemy duck into one of the smaller sleeping rooms.
Tanis replied as she hurried down the hall as quickly as she dared.
On the feeds, she could see the intruder walking past the bed to check the attached san. Deciding to take this person out by hand, she kept the plasma cutter’s torch end tucked into her belt as she darted into the room.
She ran across the bed, and used the momentum to fling herself through into the san, praying she’d timed the move correctly.
Luck was on her side, and the intruder had paused long enough in the center of the san that Tanis hit him square in the back and knocked him into the sink.
The man threw an elbow back, but Tanis had already shifted to the left, avoiding the blow. She drove her own elbow into his back, leaning into the strike.
Her enemy tried to catch himself on the sink, but Tanis kicked his left leg out from under him, and the attacker’s head hit the basin with a solid thud.
Tanis only nodded as she reached for his pistol, threading in a filament of breach nano to disable the biolock.
Tanis stopped as the feeds showed the two enemies—one man and one woman, by their builds—exit the san and move back into the master bedroom, weapons held ready.
She didn’t waste any time, not wanting to be cornered in the end of the suite with the spare bedrooms. She made it to the kitchenette, and ducked behind the counter, waiting to see if one of the enemies would get close enough.
Tanis gritted her teeth and slid the plasma cutter’s torch from her belt, ensuring there was enough play in the hoses that ran to the tank she’d slung over her back using a short strap.
Before she rose from cover, she surveyed the room through the feeds. The suite’s exit was ten meters to her left, and the sunken seating area was eight to her right. Another eleven meters beyond that was the infinity pool that ran around the perimeter of the suite.
Directly ahead was the hall that the two enemies would emerge from at any second. Between her and the hall was the main dining table, and to the left stood the bar with a pair of servitors.
The AI grunted.
Tanis didn’
t wait to see how long it would take Darla. The two attackers had reached the end of the hall, and she rose from her cover, counting on her sudden appearance to startle them as she fired the pulse pistol.
At fifteen meters, the concussive pulse wave wouldn’t do much more than a good slap, and though the pair of attackers flinched, the shot didn’t slow their advance.
“Tanis Richards!” the woman called out—by her voice, it was the same woman who had attacked Tanis in Sector 33. “We just want to talk. If you give us the quantum core, we won’t hurt you.”
Tanis had already ducked back behind the counter, and watched on the feeds lining her vision as the two enemies took up positions behind the dining table.
“Like hell you won’t!” Tanis shouted. “Your friend who attacked me the other night was looking to cut shit off first, and ask questions later, besides, I thought we already established that I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Look, Ben got out of hand,” the man said from across the suite. “Teri and I here won’t do that. We just want the core, and then we’re gone.”
“What about what I want?” Tanis called back.
“Pardon?” The woman sounded shocked. “You want something?”
“Yeah,” Tanis growled. “I want to know what the fuck is going on!”
As she spoke, she rose and fired her pulse pistol at the table, cracking the surface before ducking back down.
Predictably, the man and woman took the opportunity to advance. The man laid down covering fire, while the woman rushed around the table.
She prayed that the distraction would be enough, as she lunged out from behind her cover, and fired her pulse pistol at the advancing woman.
Tanis’s opponent had been ready, brandishing a chair that absorbed the pistol’s blasts, which she then threw at Tanis.
The flying furniture knocked the pistol out of Tanis’s hand, but she didn’t miss a beat, triggering the plasma cutter and screaming as she rushed toward the woman, whose eyes grew wide with fear as the half-meter of star stuff slashed toward her.