Nana tapped a few buttons on her console. “This ship has a standing authorization for food transportation access via the cargo decks. Haven’t used it in a few years, but pretty sure we could just sail right through any defenses back there.”
There was a bleep from her terminal and Nana’s smile broadened. “And now so can you. I’ve cloned our ID and transmitted it to you. Spoof it, and you’re in.”
“Seriously?” said Cal. “Kevin, is that a thing?”
“Applying it now, sir,” said Kevin. “Zertex scanners now see us as a food delivery vessel.”
“Alright!” said Cal. “I mean, that’s good, right?”
“Most useful, sir.”
Behind Nana Joan, Higgsy cheered. “Go Space Team!”
“Thanks, guys!” said Cal.
Jork and Higgsy did a complicated sort of fist-bumping exercise. “Secret Space Team handshake!” Jork cried.
“Space Team is the best!” added Higgsy.
“Yes, we are!” agreed Jork.
Cal blinked. “Uh… wait. What? No, but…” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, we’ll discuss it later.”
There was a sudden pain at his temples and Cal found himself back in his chair. The same image of Nana Joan’s ship was now on the viewscreen. And, to Cal’s relief, he hadn’t actually soiled himself at all, front or back.
Well, maybe a little bit at the front, but not enough so that anyone would notice.
“OK, uh, you guys stay out of trouble,” Cal said. “And thanks again.”
“We will,” said Nana. “Good luck, Nob Muntch.”
The screen snapped off. There was a long, pregnant pause before Kevin spoke.
“Oh, so no-one is going to comment on the ‘Nob Muntch’ thing?” he said.
“Later,” said Cal. “Now take us to the loading bay, and let’s go get Loren.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Just as Nana Joan had promised, the Untitled glided onto the cargo deck without so much as a twitch from the defensive turrets. The actual job of ferrying cargo around had long-since been given over to robots and drones, so there was no-one to so much as glance their way when Cal and the others scurried down the ramp, laden with weapons.
Mech’s right arm was still occasionally going fzzt, but as his fingers didn’t fit through the trigger guards of any of the rifles in the ship’s armory, he was going to have to rely exclusively on his left arm cannon. If all went to plan, though, that wouldn’t be a problem.
Cal stopped at the bottom of the ramp. “You sure this is going to work, Kevin?” he asked.
“Oh yes, sir,” Kevin replied. “My systems were purposely adapted to interact with Zertex systems. Now that I am inside, I can interface with their cameras and patch the feed through to Master Mech, as and when instructed.”
“OK, great,” Cal said. “Keep them looping while we’re moving. Cover our tracks so we don’t get spotted.”
“Will do, sir.”
Cal turned to Miz. “And you’re sure you’re up for this?”
Miz had a particularly large rifle, even by giant wolf-woman standards, hanging from a strap across her shoulders. “Get to the cells, get Loren, take her back here. It’s not difficult,” she said.
“Uh, yeah, but there might be hundreds of guards between you and her.”
Miz shrugged and extended her claws. “Like I say. Not difficult.”
“OK, good,” said Cal. “Kevin has already found where she’s being kept. He’ll guide you.”
Across the bay, an elevator door opened. “Step this way, ma’am.” Kevin’s voice chimed from inside the elevator car. “I’ll have you there in a jiffy.”
Miz glanced at the elevator, then back at Cal and Mech. “Like… You know,” she said, shuffling awkwardly on the spot.
“Yeah,” said Mech. He put a hand on her shoulder. “We know. You, too.”
“Be careful,” Cal told her.
Miz nodded once, swung her rifle into her hands, then ran for the lift. Cal and Mech waited for the doors to ping closed, before heading for a second elevator.
“And you know where we’re going, right?” Cal asked.
“Yeah, I know,” said Mech. “But you were right.”
“About what?”
“I don’t like this plan.”
Cal smirked. “Relax. I have got this all worked out.”
The doors started to close behind them.
“You know. More or less.”
As Cal and Mech’s elevator went up, Miz’s headed down. She paced in tight circles, the gun in her hand, her eyes fixed on the numbers above the door. “How long until we get down there?” she asked.
“Twenty seconds or so,” Kevin told her from the elevator terminal. “It’s not too late to back out, you know?”
Miz stopped pacing. “Like, why would I do that?”
“Well,” began Kevin, trying to find the most diplomatic way of putting it. “I always got the impression you weren’t Ms Loren’s biggest fan.”
“Oh, I’m not,” Miz sneered. “I totally hate her guts.” She pulled back the mechanism on the rifle, and the weapon hummed with energy. “But she’s one of us. And I’m taking her home.”
“Very good, ma’am,” Kevin said. “I shall loop the camera feed, and endeavor to help where I can, but for the moment, at least…”
The doors opened, revealing a starkly-lit corridor beyond.
“I’m afraid you are on your own.”
* * *
Cal and Mech stood in the elevator, waiting. Mech was tense and ready, his eyes fixed on the numbers above the door. Cal danced lightly from foot to foot, tapping out a rhythm on his gun barrel.
“You know what this reminds me of?” Cal asked.
Mech shrugged. “One of the many other times we’ve done something stupid?”
“Christmas Eve,” said Cal.
Mech looked at him, but said nothing.
“You know how Kroyshuk is, like, space Christmas? Well, Christmas is like that, only not in space.”
Mech continued to look at him, still saying nothing.
“It’s Earth Kroyshuk, is what I’m saying,” said Cal.
“OK, I get it. But how is this like that?”
“It’s the anticipation,” said Cal. “The not knowing. Will we bring down an evil government and stop an intergalactic war? Will I get a bike? It’s the same thing.”
“That don’t sound like the same thing,” said Mech.
“Well, no, OK. But it’s a similar thing.”
“It don’t sound like a similar thing, either.”
Cal considered this. “No, I suppose you’re right. It’s completely different. It’s the day before Hallowe’en, if anything.”
But before he could elaborate any further, the elevator stopped. Cal took cover behind Mech just as the doors opened, revealing a room full of…
Nobody.
Just a few rows of empty desks and chairs where there presumably should have been people, and a door at the far end of the room standing open.
“Man, this is weird,” said Mech. He tapped the controls on his arm. “Scanners say there are people at every desk.”
Cal peeked over the vertical divide in front of a desk. There was a ‘Zertex Corporation’ coffee mug on it, a holographic keyboard, and a soft focus picture of a smiling woman with four eyes. The chair, however, was empty.
Cal stiffened. “He knew we’d come straight here. This is a set up. This whole thing is a set up.”
From beyond the open door came the sound of a slow handclap. “Well figured out, Cal,” said Sinclair. “Please. Come in. Join us.”
Cal and Mech exchanged a look. “Any mileage in running away, you think?” Cal asked.
Mech shook his head. “Don’t think there’s a whole lot of point.”
Cal nodded his agreement, then led the way into the room. For what the place was, it was a relatively small space. Racks of glowing cubes covered the curved walls, connected together by thin, tangled wires a
nd lengths of thick cable.
Sinclair stood in the center of the room, flanked by four of the most ludicrously armored guards Cal had ever seen. Their shoulder-pads alone were wide enough to land a small helicopter on, and their full-face helmets were a health-hazard of spikes and pointy edges.
They carried weapons that looked part blaster, part industrial power tool. Saw blades sat nestled between two long, thick barrels. They weren’t currently moving, but Cal assumed a single quick button press would likely change that.
“The main server room,” Sinclair said, sweeping his arms around him. “Always the first port of call for any would-be terrorist planning an attack. From here, a competent hacker could take over the whole station. They could create chaos.”
He put the back of his hand to the side of his mouth and whispered theatrically. “But, uh-oh, big secret reveal time. That’s not true! See, the main server room, it isn’t actually all that important at all.”
Seeing the expression on Cal’s face, the president laughed. “Wait, wait… You actually thought I’d mark a place that vital on the station maps, and leave it guarded by admin staff?” He looked from Cal to Mech and back again. “You actually bought that? Ha!”
He looked to his guards for affirmation, but none of them seemed to be amused. “So… what was the plan?” Sinclair asked, rubbing his chin. He clicked his fingers. “Wait, I know! You were going to dig through my files to find the original footage of Pikkish being destroyed, and… What? Show it to everyone? Try to convince everyone that I’m the bad guy?”
Cal shifted uneasily on the spot. “Ha! No. What? As if!” he said. “It definitely wasn’t that.”
“Oh, really?” smirked Sinclair, putting his hands on his hips. “Then why don’t you enlighten me?”
Cal fumbled for a few moments. “Uh, how about you keep guessing, and I’ll tell you if you get it right?”
“How about you hand over your weapons and surrender?” Sinclair said. “If you do, I might let your hairy friend make it as far as Loren’s cell before I have her killed. If not, they both die in the next five seconds.”
He held up a phone-sized device and pressed a button. Symbols flashed on it, changing every second or so. Cal didn’t need to wait for the translation chip to tell him it was a countdown.
“Four. Three.”
Cal tossed his rifle onto the floor at his feet.
“Two. And the others.”
Moving quickly, Cal pulled two pistols from the back of his belt and let those clatter to the floor, too.
Sinclair pressed the button and fixed Cal with a devastatingly charming smile, as one of the guards retrieved the weapons.
“Very sensible,” said Sinclair. “Mature, even. I’m impressed. Space seems to be agreeing with you.” He held up the device again. “Or, it’s making you gullible.”
“No!” Cal yelled, as Sinclair pressed the button and the countdown completed. He lunged towards the president, but a whirring saw blade blocked his path, almost chewing his face right off.
“Relax, Carver,” Sinclair laughed. He tossed the device over his shoulder. “It’s a stopwatch. Your friends are fine. I don’t care about them. They can leave, for all I care. It’s you I’ve been longing to get my hands on.”
The president’s face twisted into a grin of dark delight. “Of course, some of my employees may have other ideas.”
* * *
Miz slashed out with her claws, tearing a large enough hole in the armor of the trooper in front of her to wedge the rifle barrel inside. She squeezed the trigger, launching him along the corridor, and scattering the other three soldiers who had, until that moment, been running towards her.
Someone grabbed her from behind. It was a decision he lived to regret for almost a full four seconds, before his innards became his outtards, and he wheezed and burped his way to the floor.
The rifle vomited out three more shots, disintegrating the other soldiers before they could get up. Or bits of them, at least.
Miz bounded over their remains just as a door slid open along the corridor directly ahead of her. More soldiers raised their weapons. They fired, just as the door slammed closed again, and Miz heard their strangled screams as the rebounding shots punched holes in them.
“Thanks, Kevin,” she said. Another door slid open up ahead on the right. Miz sniffed for trouble, then followed her nose into a wide room with three other doors leading off from the other walls. Two guards stood in front of one of the doors. This was not a state of affairs that lasted long. Miz fired at one, slashed at the other, and they both went down in synchronized fountains of blood.
Miz waited until the door slid open, then darted inside. Loren whimpered, just a little, at the sound of the barrier raising, then raised her head and blinked when Miz entered.
Miz made it just a few paces, then stopped. Loren’s pale blue body had been decorated in dark, brooding bruises. A string of bloody spittle hung from her bottom lip, half-hidden by the curtain of wet hair hanging in front of it.
“M-Miz?”
Miz nodded, not quite sure what to say. “Uh, yeah. I mean… Yeah. It’s me.”
She found Loren’s clothes in a heap in the corner of the room, and grabbed them before hurrying to Loren’s side. “It’s, like, I mean… It’s OK. I got you,” she said.
The cuffs around Loren’s wrists were too tough to break, but a series of quick shots from the blaster broke first the leg chains, then the ones on her arms. Loren fell into Miz, and the wolf-woman instinctively caught her.
“It’s OK,” Miz said, her voice wobbling in a way she wasn’t used to. “Like, don’t worry. No-one’s going to hurt you.”
Loren rested on her for a few moments, her arms heavy as her blood rushed to be reunited with her numb fingertips. She mumbled something, but the words were lost in Miz’s thick coat of fur.
“What did you say?” Miz asked.
With some effort, Loren raised her head. “I said,” she whispered. “You’re totally hugging me right now.”
Miz scowled. “Ew. As if. I am so not hugging you,” she spat. A smile tugged at Loren’s bloodied mouth and Miz rolled her eyes. “Well, maybe just a little,” Miz admitted. “But if you tell anyone else, I’ll totally kill you.”
Loren gave Miz a pat on the back. “Deal,” she said, then she took her clothes and stumbled towards the cell’s narrow – and as yet unused – bed. “Just let me get dressed. Then we can go help Cal.”
“Why d’you think Cal needs help?” Miz asked.
Loren slumped down onto the bed. “Because he’s Cal. He always needs help,” she said.
Miz shook her head. “Not this time. This time, he’s got everything totally in hand.”
Loren paused with one leg in her pants. “He has?”
“Yep.”
“You’re sure? Cal – Cal Carver - has everything in hand?”
Miz hesitated. “Uh, yeah,” she said. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
* * *
Sinclair rocked on his heels, his hands behind his back. The guards had moved into a flanking position around Cal and Mech now, with just one keeping his position next to the president. This was not going exactly as Cal had intended.
“So, come on, Cal. Put me out of my misery. Explain your plan,” Sinclair said, as if reading his mind. “You break in here, hack the system, find the footage that showed the Symmorium didn’t blow up Pikkish, then what? What did you hope to do with it?”
Cal chewed his lip for a while, then his shoulders sagged as he sighed. “Then we would show it to everyone. Prove you’d faked the whole thing. Get everyone else on the Symmorium’s side. Maybe even some of your own people.”
“That might have worked,” Sinclair conceded. “My own people, I mean. There are all kinds of factions within Zertex, and many of them would love to see me replaced.
“But you forgot one thing,” the president continued. “I faked the Pikkish footage, granted, but what’s to say anyone would believe your version over m
ine? A known fugitive showing off their ‘alternate footage’ of an event that has now been broadcast thousands of times in every system? Why would anyone believe you over me? I am the president of Zertex space. You are a small-time crook with delusions of grandeur.”
“Yeah, well what about these guys?” Cal said, gesturing to the guards. “Now they know the truth.”
Sinclair rapped his knuckles on the closest guard. It let out a hollow clang. “Robots,” he said. “I don’t think they’re going to be gossiping about this any time soon. I’ve also had almost everyone aboard this station shipped out elsewhere, leaving only a few trusted soldiers.”
“You think you’ve thought of everything, don’t you?” said Cal.
Sinclair nodded. “Pretty much.”
“But there’s one thing you haven’t thought of, Hayel. You’ve made one tiny mistake, and that will be your undoing.”
“Oh, have I?” said Sinclair. “And what might that be?”
Cal shrugged. “Fonked if I know. Mech, now!”
He ducked as Mech raised his right arm. There was a sound like a blaster bolt almost firing – a sort of abortive Ppppp that never quite made it to ew – and then Mech’s eyes went wide in horror.
“Shizz, wrong hand. Look out, it’s gonna—”
Mech’s arm exploded, launching him backwards across the room. He slammed hard into the glowing cubes, vibrated violently as electricity tore through him, then slumped into a heap on the floor.
Still ducking, Cal glanced back at the fallen cyborg. He straightened up slowly, clearing his throat and lowering his hands to his side. “And let that be a lesson to you, Sinclair,” he said, smiling weakly. “Can we try that again?”
Sinclair’s laughter was sharp and sudden. It was nothing like the laughter Cal had heard the president emit before now, and he realized this was the first time he’d ever heard the man genuinely laugh. It was not a particularly enjoyable sound.
“Oh, Cal,” the president said. “Oh, that’s priceless. That’s brilliant. The look on your face right now is truly a sight to behold!”
He gestured to Mech lying on the floor, smoking slightly. “That’s it? That was your great hope of stopping me? Wow, I’m disappointed. I mean, I kind of love it, too, but… wow. I don’t know, I guess I just expected something with a bit more panache.”
Space Team: The Guns of Nana Joan Page 23