“Major, what will we need?”
“Command Squad would seem logical,” said Trace. “Light armour only— full kit would seem overdoing it. I’d like you in light kit as well LC.” Erik nodded — that was her prerogative to request. “We’ll put a platoon on the dock until we learn better, if we learn better. One complication — our hub berth is directly alongside an alo vessel. Shtikt-class warship, so advanced even we won’t want to mess with it. Alo don’t do marines, but they might not like us on their dock all the same, we’ll have to tread carefully.”
“They can lodge a complaint,” said Erik. “It’s a human station, I don’t really care what they think.”
Trace nodded. “Everything else, we can wing it. Our story is that Captain Pantillo and Commander Huang were exposed to a toxin as a sabotage from within, as a part of the traitorous leak that got us ambushed, and are currently in medical and unable to be exposed to others. It’s actually not far from the truth with our internal crew troubles, and will match our actual security posture. Our platoon on dock won’t allow anyone in, and we’ll both be in the hospitality of Debogande Enterprises, so anyone calling on available command staff should call on us there. If they want to see Captain Pantillo personally, we tell them they should have called on the way in. And if anyone does call, Lieutenant Shahaim can… what was Lisbeth’s expression? Lie like a Senator?”
“Lie like a Congresswoman,” Shahaim confirmed. “I’ve got kids, I learned the art.”
“A last thing,” Trace added, “I’d recommend we prepare some of those hacksaw carcasses for transfer to station, Hoffen have some advanced labs, but mostly we need to maintain our story. If the tale we’re telling had actually happened to us, we’d be giving them bits of hacksaws for study. And that might distract them from the rest of it.”
“Yes,” Erik agreed. “Lieutenant Shahaim, please give the order to prepare some of our hacksaw material for relocation, and contact station labs to let them know it’s coming.”
* * *
Lisbeth had helped store and study the hacksaw remains, so when the order passed through Engineering to get some out of storage after they’d docked, she left Jokono and Hiro to their com feed and went down to storage with Carla and Vijay.
“We should get out there,” Vijay insisted as Lisbeth followed Carla down the back-quarter corridor. Both bodyguards were armed with the personal weapons they’d brought aboard, Phoenix marines seeing no point in removing them. “Or someone should. They’ll be watching all Phoenix personnel on station, but they don’t know us. If we can sneak on, we could move around and talk to some people, learn what’s going on.”
“Sure,” said Carla, eyeing the passing foot traffic. “Let’s let the LC talk to our company guy here, then we’ll have some idea what to do next.”
They climbed the next level up to storage and found Ensign Remy Hale already directing several spacers about the storage racks. “Lisbeth, good!” she said. “I was thinking we’d take the third and fourth torsos, they’ve got no technology we haven’t got replicated in the others, and they’ve got some cool bullet holes that make our story look good.”
“Um, sure,” said Lisbeth, going over to help with the racks while Vijay and Carla took position at the door. “Just, I think the third torso had some really interesting heat diffusion that looked very different from the others? That’s the amazing thing, they’re all unique and…”
“Fuck!” yelled one of the spacers, scrambling back from an open rack. Everyone spun.
“Geri!” Hale demanded. “What is it?”
“It fucking moved!” Spacer Townsend said, backing away, her eyes wide. “I saw it!”
Lisbeth crouched to look at the segmented torso, suspended in netting within the sliding frame. Was it her imagination, or could she hear a faint whirring sound? The torso segment twitched, and the whole netting leaped as Lisbeth bit back a scream, and others shouted alarm.
“Get back!” Vijay shouted, putting himself between Lisbeth and the open rack, pistol levelled. “Get the hell back, all of you!”
“No wait!” Lisbeth shouted above the commotion. “It’s… don’t shoot it again, it’s dead!”
“I don’t care,” said Carla, hauling Lisbeth to her feet and pulling her to the door while Vijay covered. “We’re out of here.”
“No! No wait, it’s not… Remy, tell them it’s not…” Remy Hale gave the two bodyguards a fast nod and wave, telling them to go while talking rapidly into her com. “Dammit guys, let me go!”
* * *
Erik stood in the storage room, Trace at his side. Rooke was there, mobile scanner in hand, turning slowly about as the readings changed. Remy was there too, and Lisbeth, still fuming at having been dragged away by her armpits. Three more marines were also present, fully armed. Trace would have brought more, only there wasn’t enough room for them plus the techs and command staff.
One of the big wall racks had been extended, and a segmented hacksaw torso hung in the nets, periodically twitching. Several of the steel limbs in the vertical press racks also made an occasional rattle. Creepy didn’t begin to describe it.
“So much for them not coming alive and murdering us in our sleep,” muttered one of the marines.
“I told you,” Lisbeth said with exasperation. “They’re all disconnected, they can’t hurt anyone, they’ve no means to move and all their weapons have no ammunition anyway.”
“Sure fine,” Trace said coolly, keeping one shoulder ahead of Lisbeth, her rifle levelled as she looked slowly around. “No one get any closer.”
“No… look.” Second Lieutenant Rooke stared only at his device. “It’s… it’s definitely coming from the alo ship. It’s docked right alongside, we’re, like, right inside its primary field, the hacksaws are just echoing that field…”
“A field of what?” Erik asked.
“It’s… it’s just a very modulated form of gamma, it’s at harmless low levels but it’s… it’s present in every alo ship we have on record. The ones they operate, anyway — Phoenix doesn’t have it, there’s something different about the powerplants on the tech they give to us, and the tech they use themselves.”
“You mean they’re not doing anything?” Hale wondered.
“No, that’s just it,” Rooke insisted. “They’re not doing anything different. They’ve just got engines on standby, basic systems running. Nothing special.”
“Only no one’s ever brought a dead hacksaw this close to an alo ship before?” Lisbeth asked, wide-eyed.
Rooke lowered his device and looked at her, as though properly seeing her for the first time. “Yes.” He grimaced, as though realising the enormity of that. “Yeah. Shit.” And put a hand to his head.
“So wait,” Trace said in a low voice. “What does that mean? Alo use hacksaw technology? Or hacksaws use alo technology?”
“We don’t know,” said Rooke. “No one knows the alo. We’re not allowed into their territory, they don’t permit study, they don’t talk, they’ve flat out killed any ship that goes anywhere it’s not supposed to be in their space, ally or not. They’re a mystery, we just know that they’ve been allies with the chah'nas for a few thousand years and they’ve got the most advanced ships and technology in the Spiral. And Phoenix is based on their tech, which is why it’s so much faster than anything else we’ve got… save for a few others also based on alo tech.”
“Unbelievable,” Erik murmured. “Would have been nice to ask that queen a few questions while it was still alive and talking.” Trace said nothing. “Only thing we know is there’s no record of the alo being in space before or during the Age of the AIs. Is there any record of a connection between alo and AIs?”
“Well sure,” said Trace. “I bet someone knows. Up in Fleet High Command. Another thing we can ask them, when we get their ear.”
23
At hub dock both the midships airlock and the bow airlock could be used, but Erik did not like to have too many entrances to guard from outside intrusion
.
“We good?” Erik asked the waiting marines of Command Squad by the combat airlock, beside where Plugger’s scarred, armed face was securely stowed.
“Wait,” said Trace as he floated past them, and grabbed his belt to slow him. She then checked his webbing, his velcro pocket covers, his pistol, ammo and others, like a mother checking her child’s uniform on the first day of school. A few weeks ago Erik would have found it annoying. Now he only sighed, and rolled his eyes to the amusement of the waiting marines. Trace finally finished, and gave him a whack on the backside for effect. “All good, let’s go. Behind me, if you please.” Staff Sergeant Kono operated the inner airlock door, and they filed in. The airlock was just barely big enough for nine of them, in light, un-powered armour and weapons. “What’s that smell?”
“Aftershave,” said Erik. “You might try it.”
“Aftershave?” Trace asked with amusement. She pushed interactive glasses over her eyes, like sunglasses only with sophisticated targeting functions inbuilt.
“It’s a well known fact that female marines don’t shave,” said Kono. “They shed.”
Trace actually grinned as several of her marines sniggered, and the inner door closed behind them, everyone pulling on the loose airlock straps to keep themselves clustered tight as zero-G contact tried to push them apart. With Private Rolonde in Medbay, Trace was the only woman in Command Squad. It was impossible to know what if anything she made of the whole ‘woman in command of men’ thing, it was just one more of those topics no one had the balls to quiz her on. Now that he thought of it, Erik couldn’t remember her ever making any kind of deal about gender one way or the other. Save for the whack on the backside just now, but he’d seen her do that to young female marines too, just an adult-to-junior way to say ‘stay alert’ with a smile.
The outer airlock opened, and cold air rushed in, lights bright in the short access tube. The marines caught the hand lines provided and pulled, effortlessly aligning into formation, Kono and two others ahead, Trace and Erik in the middle, then Corporal Rael with three more behind.
Arrivals was a big tube that ran personnel transport capsules, a big one rushing past even as they entered, full of spacers from some ship further up the hub dock. Beyond, through windows making gaps in the tube, a view into the enormous hub. It was like a giant tunnel in space, protruding from the hub of the rotating space station like an extended axle from an old-fashioned cart wheel. Inside the tunnel wall was a thicket of sub-light ships and shuttles, clustered about like bats to the roof of a cave. They flittered this way and that, seeking or leaving dock, shuttles heading downworld, freighters heading to nearby bases, moons, stations or refinery facilities, maintenance tugs performing visual inspection of the many hundreds of docking ports and access tubes. The whole inner hub was lit with a thousand floodlights, many blinking a warning red or yellow.
The big starships docked about the outside of the ‘tunnel’ walls, in far fewer berths. Starships usually preferred to dock at the rim, where the huge gantries that held them in place at one-G rotation could also serve as maintenance, and the station’s huge cargo chutes and fuel hoses could see even a combat carrier like Phoenix refuelled and restocked in a matter of hours. Out here on the hub dock, the cargo and refuelling facilities were designed for smaller sub-lighters, and would take far longer. But if a ship was damaged, exposing it to prolonged one-G rotation was unwise, and repairs went far faster in zero-G where large replaceable parts could simply be floated to and from the ship.
“Lieutenant Commander Debogande!” Erik looked as he cleared the access tube, and found a dark woman holding to a railing beside the transport tube. About her were another four marines, in light kit as were Phoenix’s. “Captain Ritish, UFS Mercury.” She was secured, he was not, and she ranked him. Erik followed etiquette and floated to her, grabbing the railing to stop. Then a salute, him first, her answering. Ritish then offered her hand. “Sorry to surprise you, but command’s kind of busy, as you might imagine. Didn’t want anything discussed over coms, so they told me to come up here and see you in person.”
Erik’s heart thumped unpleasantly, but he kept his expression cool and professional. This was a different kind of threat to enemy fire. Surreal, given what he and Phoenix had just done, and Captain Ritish had no idea about. She’d find out soon enough, and would probably try to kill him and everyone on his ship when she did… but for now, he had to just pretend nothing had happened. Thankfully, you didn’t rise to command staff in Fleet without learning to blow smoke up superior officers’ asses from time to time.
“Captain, good to see you. And you’ll know Major Thakur, of course.”
“Major,” said Ritish, with a nod of respect. Erik knew Ritish by reputation only — a relatively new captain, competent as all carrier captains were competent, but operating in an entirely different sector of the war to Phoenix. Heuron was one of those systems where many sectors came together. “You’ve come out prepared, I see?” With a glance across Command Squad.
“Well given no one would give us a direct briefing on the situation,” Erik explained. “And given what we see on the newsfeeds. Thought it best to be prepared.”
“Hell of a thing you guys being here,” said Ritish, with casual intrigue. “An ambush, an assassination attempt on the Captain from within your own crew, then hacksaws?”
Erik shook his head in shared disbelief. “The war was supposed to be over, right? Craziest thing I’ve seen in three years at this post… actually we’re preparing to bring some of the hacksaw parts we salvaged down to analysis on station if you’d like to see them? Just amazing things, we’re packing them for transport now.”
With a suggestive glance at the tube control panel by Ritish’s hand. She took the hint and hit the call button. “I might just do that,” she said with genuine fascination. “Casualties?”
Erik handed off to Trace. “Eighteen,” she said. “And twenty wounded. We had them outnumbered or it would have been far worse.”
“Man that sucks,” said the marine sergeant with Ritish. “And just after the damn war had finished too.”
“My condolences,” Ritish agreed. “Damn shame. But clearing a hacksaw nest with only eighteen losses… your reputation stands confirmed, Major Thakur.”
Trace nodded without comment. The tube rumbled and vibrated as a transport car approached — a big, oval capsule. Its doors matched the tube doors, then opened with a hiss of equalising air. They filed in, and found the capsule empty — the Captain’s security clearance, Erik guessed, which allowed her to call a car exclusively for them. They took hold to rails and straps as the doors closed behind, and the car began a smooth acceleration.
“And your Captain’s health, how is he?” Ritish pressed.
“He’s okay,” said Erik. “But our doc thinks the toxin may still be active so he’s quarantined for now, and Commander Huang too. It was in the food, someone brought it to them in a meeting in the Captain’s quarters. We’ve arrested the guy, he’s been interrogated.”
“And?”
“Nothing yet. Very resilient. But that’s a part of the trouble — clearly this is a plot of some kind, against Phoenix and against the Captain. The Captain insisted we should come here directly, and that Supreme Commander Chankow should be informed. Of course we had no idea that Chairmen Ali and Joseph would be here as well, but while they are, they should probably hear it too.”
Sporadic gaps in the tube offered flashing glimpses of the inner hub docks as they passed — freighters clamped to grapples, workers in exo-suits working on engines, cargo offloading into parallel chutes. Another car flashed by, heading the other way, filled with crew or station workers. Then a station stop, more crew awaiting a lift and probably annoyed that this car would not stop for them.
“So what’s the situation here?” Erik asked.
“Damn mess,” said Ritish. She was quite pretty, Erik thought — tall, long-faced with pronounced cheek bones. Age was always hard to guess these days, but
if pressed Erik thought somewhere between eighty and a hundred. It was a more typical age for a captain, and made him insecure of his own age and rank every time he thought of it. Most carrier LCs were at least fifty. “We’re rounding people up now.”
“Rounding up?”
Ritish made a face. “You’ll see. Lots of station workers with Worlder IDs suddenly got to go. Just no time to do a full investigation of who’s Heuron Dawn and who isn’t, safer to ship the lot out.”
Erik blinked. “That’ll make a mess of a lot of Spacer business operations out here. They’re going to be many hands short.” Which, as he could recently attest, was a real pain.
“They’ll manage. So who are you heading off to see?” Given that every senior person you’d like to see can’t see you, she meant.
“Mitchell Klinger,” said Erik. “Debogande Enterprises CEO for Heuron.”
“I know who he is,” said Ritish. “Is he family?”
Erik forced a smile. “We don’t just do nepotism,” he said reproachfully. “Just a company guy, but I hear he’s good.”
“What are you going to talk about?” Ritish asked.
Erik shrugged vaguely. “Whatever there is to say. This whole shit for one thing.” He indicated at the passing station outside. “Gotta get a briefing from someone, may as well be him.”
It was tempting to glance at Trace. He didn’t dare. Clearly Ritish was suspicious. Or more to the point, she’d been sent by people in High Command to talk to him personally, then report back. ‘Check him out’, they’d have said. ‘Get some clues what that sneaky old man Pantillo’s up to.’ Probably his eagerness to show her the hacksaw corpses had thrown her a little. Those were very hard to come by, and proved the most unlikely part of his story was true. And if that was true… but he knew better than to think her convinced. None of her bosses trusted Pantillo, and Erik guessed that if they’d picked Captain Ritish for the task, they considered her reliable in a way they never would have considered the Captain.
Renegade Page 36