by Jason Letts
Rion readied the tracers and watched the tiny flashes of light tear through the tethers.
Now free, the cargo hold immediately began to fall back and list to the side. It had no propulsion system of its own, nor any crew. The carrier was slowing down and its engines took on a shade of crimson as it attempted to make drastic changes to its velocity.
“Let’s see if we can’t get them to move along,” Rion said.
As Lena positioned the ship alongside the carrier, Rion deployed mines and satellites in the area. The satellites emitted blaster shots at the carrier’s engines in the rear, purposefully missing, while they drifted alongside the cargo ship. All they needed was some sign that the cruiser was ready to give up and scamper off.
“Would they really risk detonating all of their own equipment? If I were them, I’d let it go in the hopes that some reinforcements could get it back later. Not even the Alliance could stomach losing whole shipments like this without breaking a sweat,” Bailor said.
“That reminds me. Once we’ve latched on, we need to move out of here quick,” Rion said.
As he was speaking, the engines on the carrier returned to their more yellowish state. It was picking up speed. Whether they did so following Bailor’s logic or not, it was the end result they wanted. A treasure trove of the Alliance’s most sophisticated weaponry was theirs, for now.
“You just have to be in the right place at the right time,” Lena said. “It’s like taking milk from a baby.”
Rion looked at her and squinted.
“You mean taking candy from a baby. Why would anybody take milk from a baby?” he asked. Lena’s cheeks reddened.
“Milk is even more important to a baby than candy is. That’s what we got here. The baby’s milk, and it was easy,” she said.
“Are you talking about starving a baby? And did you think about the source of the milk and how it was taken?” Bailor asked, his eyebrows raised.
“Can we move on and take advantage of this rather than talking about what it is?” Lena asked. She wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone.
The ship rocked suddenly, sending Rion over Lena and against Bailor. All three of them began yelling and hollering. Out of the corner of his eye, Rion could see something on the scanners moving toward them. He pushed his hands out to right himself and ended up hitting something on the console.
“You just activated the auxiliary engine,” Lena said, huffing.
“It’s that fighter. It didn’t run away after all,” Bailor said. “It’s shooting at us despite all of this explosive material around.”
Rion shifted and lurched back to a seated position. The fighter’s engines had gone out and it appeared to be using its oxygen tanks to slowly close in on them.
“The engines are pushing us toward the cargo ship!” Lena said.
Rion winced.
“Can’t you turn them off and use the main engines to push us the other way?” he asked. She looked at him and pursed her lips.
“Tell me more about how you want me to use our flaring engines directly on a container full of explosives,” she said.
“What about this fighter?” Bailor asked. “It’s still firing at us.”
The fighter was only able to spit out a single shot of orange plasma every few seconds, which wasn’t a particularly threatening rate of fire, but with mines hovering around, any shot could end up triggering a chain reaction that sends the whole area up in smoke.
“We’ve got to take him out. A single shell of compressed metal should do it, but we’re at a bad angle for that. Can you spin us around?” Rion asked.
“We’re turning that way anyway. Once we bump the cargo ship you’ll be able to fire,” she said.
“There are so many parts of that sentence I don’t like,” Bailor grumbled.
Being uncomfortably close to the tinder box made for a terrifying few moments. Rion closed his eyes as he waited to feel the impact, which threatened to be the last thing he ever felt. They weren’t moving fast, but was it still fast enough to jar something loose inside? How tightly did they strap everything down in there?
The bump came and was enough to shift them to the side. A silent moment followed that was one of the most beautifully still instances Rion thought he’d ever have in his life. The ship tilted, giving him a better angle to fire at the heavily damaged fighter. The shot blew straight through, causing an explosion and reducing the craft to scrap metal.
Somehow they’d made it, and when the realization hit them that they were in the clear, broad smiles appeared on their faces. Bailor started laughing and the other two couldn’t help but follow suit. All of a sudden it seemed silly that their lives had a realistic chance of ending moments ago.
“Maybe next time we can do without leaving it up to dumb luck to survive,” Lena said.
They didn’t waste any time going about their business. Bailor was in charge of tethering their new load, and once they had it locked and secured they were ready to go.
“It’s probably around time you fill us in on where we’re taking this stuff,” Bailor said. “Around to the Marshall Force’s side of the front lines?”
Rion shook his head.
“Handing it over and letting them run wild with it isn’t in our best interests, yet. They’re going to need a little time to let what we have to offer them sink in. That’s why we’ve got to take this deep into their home turf. Besides, we deserve a little recognition from their top guy after single-handedly robbing an Alliance carrier. Set course for Pluto.”
While announcing the destination was straightforward enough, getting there was anything but. The biggest challenge was making sure they weren’t being followed, which meant going to great lengths to hide where they were going so they couldn’t be cut off on the way. After hours heading toward Jupiter, they swung around and spent a few more hours on the way to Mercury, then back out to Neptune for an entire day.
Once they were firmly in the middle of nowhere with the scanners showing nil for spacecraft anywhere around, then they decided it was safe enough to head directly to Pluto. They settled in for the long trip, doing their best to entertain each other on the way. They were in close quarters, but Rion managed to ease that issue a little by tearing open some empty storage space Reznik had used for an assortment of melee weapons beyond anything anyone would ever need.
At night, they trusted that the alarms would wake them up if anything came up in their path. Sleeping was the one activity they all couldn’t get enough of, and at any given time at least one of them was always letting time pass by while unconscious. Rion stole glances at Lena while she slept. He wondered if Bailor might be doing the same—after all Lena was the only woman around—but Bailor didn’t ever seem to have any special affinity for her.
Even while it was only Rion and Bailor in the cockpit, usually when Bailor had one of his books or was reading on a tablet, Rion couldn’t manage to bring up the topic at all. He’d been completely open with Bailor his entire life, but it would be impossible to so much as say her name without being totally transparent about his feelings.
“Is my eye twitching?” Bailor asked, looking up from the book.
“No,” Rion said.
“Then why do you keep looking at me like that?”
Rion fumbled for an excuse.
“I was wondering if you knew anything more specific about Pluto that you got from your books,” he said.
Bailor’s expression softened.
“I have been reading a little bit about it actually. I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you. Did you know that people used to think that Pluto was a full-fledged planet? They didn’t realize it was one of many small bodies in the Kuiper belt. But the idea that it was supposed to be a planet persisted, and when real estate on the other planets started to get thin, the Marshall Force decided to take on the monumental task of building it up into a planet instead of sinking all of those resources into several more space stations. That was about forty years ago.”
; “And when is it supposed to be finished?” Rion asked.
“The expected completion date is in another seventy-five years, but with a lot of their resources getting drained by the fighting, I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes twice that. Of course, that’s if the Marshall Force survives their détente with the Alliance.”
Rion tried to think about taking on a project that would last over a hundred years, well past anyone’s lifetime. So far they’d merely conducted one raid and heard some grousing about it on the communications channels. But in a way it was just another big scheme that wasn’t so different from theirs.
“What’s it like there now?” he asked. That was always something no one would tell him when he’d considered working there.
“I guess we’ll have to find out,” Bailor said.
“I knew an answer like that was coming.”
Rion figured the conversation was over and he went back to running some calculations on the console, but he noticed Bailor giving him thoughtful looks for a change. Rion raised his eyebrows, gesturing for him to spill it.
“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just…Lena.”
“Yeah?” he said, trying to play it cool.
“She spent a lot of time reading Reznik’s logs, and it occurred to me that none of us have been keeping any. Do you mind if I start writing them out? It’s possible they could come in handy for someone someday, just like Reznik’s were.”
Rion took a deep breath and sighed, glad to avoid an awkward conversation.
“I think you’d be the perfect person to keep our logs,” Rion said. “You’ve read so much history. Maybe it’s about time you write some.”
Bailor grinned and immediately got started. It was nice to be able to do something to make him happy. If it wasn’t for Bailor, Rion knew he never would’ve made it this far.
The last twenty-four hour stretch as they closed in on Pluto was the toughest. It wasn’t because they’d had any trouble on their trip, but it turned out they’d had some issues rationing that partly stemmed from the frequent napping. Whoever was up, ended up snacking as the others slept. Rion had been guilty of this more times than he could count, and now it was catching up to them.
They were going to have to figure restocking into whatever deal they struck, which would have to be done on empty stomachs.
“There it is. Finally,” Lena said.
The traffic in the area picked up. On top of ships going in a multitude of directions, they passed huge metal frames, similar to what might be found inside buildings, on their way to the dwarf planet. It seemed like there was enough construction material around and enough people working on it to crank out a planet a year, but according to Bailor everything they could see just scratched the surface of what they would need. Most of the raw materials would be coming from other rock masses in the belt, and the metal was just to string them together.
The structures floating in space began to take on the shape of a funnel, and traffic fell into line. It turned out their long wait to get here was going to be followed by more waiting. The line moved slowly and they had no idea how far they would have to go. They couldn’t see Pluto because of the darkness and the objects ahead.
They crawled forward for a few kilometers and finally caught a glimpse of something in the distance. There were bursts of light and explosions dotting the area. It was around then that their console began to beep.
“We’re being hailed on one of the channels,” Bailor said.
Rion sat back as Bailor patched them into the channel. The long sheet stretching along their left had the Marshall Force’s symbol on it, a swirl with eyes at the beginning and end for Pluto and the sun.
“Name and purpose,” came a gruff voice from a command tower somewhere.
Excited to see what kind of a reaction he’d get, Rion leaned closer to the console’s microphone.
“The Assailing Face. To speak with the Marshall Force’s highest ranking official,” he said.
Silence fell over the line, making Rion wonder if the person on the other end hadn’t believed him. Continuing to watch through the windshield, he noticed that vessels of a more militaristic style were hovering around the area among the construction vehicles.
“What’s that you’re towing?” the voice asked, plainly enough but with a hint of skepticism.
“That’s a good question. We don’t know. This is part of an Alliance weapons shipment that we stole from them before coming here. Could be seekers, concussion mines, fighter upgrades. Go up the chain to the top dog and ask him if he’d like to open it with us,” Rion said.
He sat back and crossed his arms. He expected another long pause, but the response was almost immediate.
“The Force’s supreme commander is Ultima Pauline Verche,” the voice said with a note of condescension.
“Ask her then,” Rion said less confidently.
Lena shook her head.
“You and your sexist assumptions.”
She was teasing him, but he still didn’t like being caught in a faux pas. This time the silence stretched on for a good twenty minutes. In the meantime, the ship in front of them had moved on in the direction of a one-man shuttle, leaving them a more open view of the dwarf planet and the attempts to expand it. The cobbled-together mass was like balls of mud held together by sticks floating in space. Some of the balls had bubbles and were inhabited, but most of them were caught up in the construction and had nothing but debris around.
A few areas seemed to have foregone any planning at all and appeared to be nothing more than masses of rock and steel held tightly by cable netting. It was possible this place would one day qualify as a real planet, but it would never avoid being cold and desolate.
“Proceed,” the voice said and immediately another shuttle appeared to lead them.
“Here we go,” Lena said. Her reluctance was palpable.
The shuttle traveled slowly enough through the construction zones near the dwarf planet that Rion got a good look at the work he might’ve been doing. All of those little flashes were welders out in space suits floating around and fixing things together. It didn’t seem much different than blasting dirt off of old ships or pounding rivets into new ones. He wondered about their vacation time and opportunities for advancement.
“Where are they taking us? If I didn’t know better I’d say we were circling around over and over,” Bailor said.
Rion got the feeling he was right. Though there were countless shapes and areas to Pluto, some of them did start to look familiar.
“Maybe they’re still trying to figure out what to do with us,” he said.
“Or they’re leading us around until they can close in on us,” Lena said. “I don’t trust them.”
Rion glanced at her.
“You don’t trust anyone,” he scoffed. “We know what we’ll have to do if things get ugly, but until then let’s sit tight.”
Whether they were doing laps or not, they eventually shifted into an area that appeared a little more finished than the rest. One section of the planet had clear floors with windows extending out quite a ways. Its docking bay ports were busy; when one opened up the shuttle signaled for them to take it. When they latched on and the door slid open, giving them access to an airlock tunnel, the three of them looked at each other.
“I’ll take trigger duty,” Bailor said, waving them off. “If anybody comes near the cargo hold, they’ll need another twenty years to finish building.”
Rion patted him on the shoulder as he got up, and Lena ran her hand through his hair, bending all of the spikes. While Rion was glad to have more time with Lena, he knew not having Bailor’s smarts around could cost them.
Inside the Marshall Force’s station, where logos had been painted on the walls every few meters and the floor was dotted with gently flashing lights, people came and went in several different directions but none of them stopped to say anything to them. Their guide apparently was not coming in.
After a few odd looks from passersb
y, Rion began to get antsy.
“Any ideas?”
“I say we wander into random rooms and ask everybody if they’ve seen Pauline,” Lena said.
After a few more people walked by, Rion began to get an inkling of what was going on. The lights on the floor weren’t flashing at random. They were leading people around. One spot a meter or so to their left flashed with the most regularity.
“I think the trail starts here,” Rion said. “Follow that dot.”
As soon as they began walking toward it, the light stopped flashing and was replaced by another farther along. It led to a narrow hallway with black, shiny walls. The lights stopped at a lift, which they saw had no buttons as they got in. The lift rose on its own and reached a section of windows giving them a spectacular view of the docking bay’s exterior and some nearby construction zones.
“Do you think he’ll be all right without us?” Lena asked.
“Bailor? He’s impervious,” Rion said, even though he had his doubts about if that were true.
“I can tell you two mean a lot to each other. I want you to know I think it’s great,” she said.
Rion hadn’t been expecting a candid moment. It caught him off guard and he struggled to tie what he wanted to say to her compliment. Getting mesmerized by her bottomless black eyes didn’t help.
“He’s not the only one who means a lot to me. “You’re…” he stammered.
“I know,” she said. “I’m part of the group too and all that. As long as I can carry my own weight I’ll be fine.”
“That’s not what I…”
The lift stopped abruptly and with enough force to make Rion momentarily lose his balance. The doors slid open an instant later to reveal a woman with white hair in a suit emblazoned with military pins. Her white hair wasn’t like Commander Hobart’s; she had to be nearly seventy years old at least.
Despite her apparent age, she stood there with her head tilted to the side and her hands balled up into fists like she was about to get into a brawl. Her withered face had a severity to it that made Rion think she hadn’t smiled or laughed in years.
“So you’re the thieves. This had better be good. I don’t break meetings for anything, especially not for people like you, but I like to be—what’s the right word? Accessible. I like to be accessible when something falls into my lap,” she said.