Bastion Saturn

by C. Chase Harwood

  Saanvi said, “I don’t want you to break eye contact for the next three minutes. Just relax. Try not to speak.”

  After a minute or two, Caleb’s lips seemed to become a bit dry, and he gently licked them. “OK. I can feel you falling in love with me.”

  Jennifer slightly rolled her eyes.

  Saanvi said, “Focus. Both of you. Now Caleb, phenyl ethyl amine is being released into your brain. It acts like an amphetamine.”

  Caleb smiled. “Seems about right.”

  Saanvi placed two fingers on his wrist to feel his pulse. “Dopamine is also rushing about and you might be feeling slightly intoxicated.”

  Caleb licked his lips again and said, “OK.”

  Jennifer appeared to be nonplused as Saanvi continued, “The dopamine is traveling to your posterior dorsal caudate and its tail, sending warm feelings all over your body. Your heart rate is increasing, yes?”

  Caleb swallowed, and his nostrils flared. “Yes.”

  “Now, look at my eyes.”

  Caleb reluctantly broke contact with Jennifer and fell into Saanvi’s deep brown pools. She said, “Men are built with the procreative drive to have many fertile partners.”

  Her voice trailed off in Caleb’s head, the scientific mumbo-jumbo not important to him. Instead, he was aware of the women’s scent: musky yet sweet, Jennifer more citrusy, Saanvi exotically spiced. A powerful erection had taken ahold of him, but he dared not reach down and adjust it for comfort. He felt his heart practically melt into his throat as he looked deeper into Saanvi’s stunning eyes. He was hypnotized. A brief glance at her lips slightly broke the spell, and he heard her saying, “Testosterone actually inhibits men from wanting to stay in a single committed relationship. It fights against the oxytocin and vasopressin and the hardwiring in the brain that is built to take in the reward of those two hormones.” She let go of his wrist, broke the eye contact, and dropped an arm over the back of her chair while crossing a leg. “All to say that this process can be quite distracting. You have my sympathy, Caleb.”

  He blinked and said, “Huh?” He could feel his erection rapidly diminishing.

  Jennifer then jumped in. “When we reach Albiorix, my friend Natalie will have access to a drug that will moderate your more lecherous thoughts. It will make it easier for you to focus.”

  Caleb felt a rush of disappointing memories. Scattered scraps of recycled wrapping paper and a fruitless search for the one item of his desire. How many Christmases and birthdays had been dashed by the monster that had been his childhood of poverty? The alluring scent of the women faded away and he sat back from the table, putting on the false smile of satisfaction that he had molded to perfection in his early years of want. “Hardy har.”

  The women naively took the retreat at face value and offered smiles of relief and companionship in return. The point had been made. They immediately felt more at ease with him.

  After that, Caleb took to sleeping in one of the pilot’s mummy bags in the cockpit, generally only coming out for meals. The women professed missing his fellowship, but he heard it for the fallacious kindness it was. The food printer in the cockpit was nearly as good as the communal one, so he shut himself off for a week, his bruised ego letting his imagination place the two women in a wide variety of coitus furo. He considered himself a fetching fellow. He’d of course had his genes augmented against disease and malformations, as was the case with all newborns since back in the forties, but he had suffered no other enhancements. He was used to women who were attracted to him for him alone. They liked his jet black hair, his strong Roman nose and cleft chin. He naturally took on muscle, but not the bulky kind. He decided his companions were lesbian and left it at that.

  The proximity alert brought him out of a binge session watching comedy reruns from the pre-ABE days. The long range scope put up a crystal clear view of Albiorix. The oblong rock slowly rotated. He could just make out a flashing light pattern of the landing pads as the rock’s rotation sent them over the horizon line. Unlike the junker he had been originally assigned, this shuttle was fully autonomous. Nevertheless, he checked the landing data once again to be certain. A communication request flashed on the windshield. He flipped the PA switch and said, “Jen, we’re almost there. Your friends are calling. Maybe you want to put on some clothes.”

  A minute later, Jennifer floated in, still zipping up her jumpsuit. She hit the accept switch on the tight beam, ignoring the two-way button. A man’s face holographically appeared in front of the windshield. He was in the middle of speaking. “Please slow your approach. We show no transponder codes from your ship. Please identify. Do you copy?” Jen looked at Caleb for a cue.

  He said, “They’re your friends. Talk.” He reached forward and touched the two-way switch, sending Jennifer’s image back to Albiorix. The holograph of a man immediately scanned her face, looking to make eye contact.

  “Um. Hello to you,” said Jen hesitantly.

  Caleb frowned at Jennifer and mockingly mouthed, Um, hello?

  “Sorry. Let me start again. My name is Jennifer Boyce. I am a colleague of Natalie Beal. Is there a chance I could speak with her?”

  “I’m advising you to bring your ship to a halt. We have the necessary equipment to defend ourselves.”

  Caleb said, “Oh, for crying out loud,” while shoving in next to her. “Forgive my partner. We are in distress. Jennifer knows Natalie who can vouch for her. We need help. We are unarmed.”

  There was a long pause, then, “What is the nature of your distress?”

  “Yeah, what’s the nature of our distress?” Jennifer whispered at Caleb.

  Saanvi entered the cockpit and hovered over Caleb’s shoulder.

  Caleb sighed. “Just going to say it.” Then louder for the listener on Albiorix, “We’re refugees from pharmaceutical farms on Dione. We were attacked. We are the sole survivors. We need assistance, and Jennifer here, says that your Natalie person can vouch for her, for us.”

  “Stand by and slow to one thousand K,” came the reply. The holograph winked out.

  Caleb slipped on the pilot’s headset, thought about the command, and the forward thrusters fired, slowing the shuttle. Five minutes went by with no one saying anything. Finally, Saanvi asked Jennifer, “How well do you know this Natalie?”

  “We used to get stoned together in school. I’ve tripped through the whole galaxy with her, if you know what I mean.”

  A few more minutes passed, and then a communication request popped up on the windshield. Jennifer reached forward and pushed the accept button. The stunning face of a black woman filled the screen. “Where’s my baby doll, Jenny Jen Jen?”

  “Hi, Nat.”

  “Mmmmm, Vanilla Shake, you look paler than ever.”

  “You’re looking just right, Chocolate Shake.”

  “Who’s the coffee shake next to you? And the dude?”

  “This is Dr. Saanvi Badami and Mr. Day.”

  “Caleb,” said Caleb.

  “Jen, I figured you for dead. Everyone heard about the meteor strikes on Dione.”

  “Is that what they’re calling it? There were no meteors, Nat. We had just signed a merger contract with Wang Fat. We were supposed to have a celebration and another public signing. They showed up with a bunch of rogue cops and blew away everything. Caleb—” She paused and looked at Caleb as a friend and not a lech. “Caleb saved us.”

  Caleb shoulders relaxed with the appreciation. Saanvi even reached over and squeezed his arm. Maybe they weren’t lesbos after all. There was another pause as Natalie looked off screen and then left the screen altogether. When she returned, a look of deep concern filled her face. “Come in. Land on pad three. There’s a tube lock there so you won’t have to suit up.”

  It was a very lovely thing to step out of a spaceship unencumbered by an exosuit. The three refugees walked down a flexible tube and into a wide open airlock, which they closed behind them as was standard procedure.

  Natalie stood on the other side to greet
them. She was flanked by two men and a woman. All of them were wearing elastoware to counter the low gravity’s otherwise puffy effects on the human body. One of the men was shaved bald and had a shifting tattoo, the current pattern of which was decidedly unfriendly. Natalie and Jennifer exchanged wary smiles that slowly warmed as Natalie reached out and embraced her old friend. Natalie turned to her companions. “Guys, this is Jennifer Boyce: brilliant chemist, brave wanderer, professional ass kicker, school chum, and the only girl in those days of learning who turned me down for an experimental dive in the muff.”

  Caleb looked at Jennifer with an entirely new eye.

  Jennifer smiled and rolled her eyes, saying, “How do you do?” She turned to Saanvi and Caleb. “Natalie is a society girl who pretends she’s street, who also found better living through pharmacology. She’s also a shameless flirt and gymnast extraordinaire, and she probably still has a huge shoe collection, even out here.”

  Natalie shrugged. “Shoes are long gone and a fractured back put an end to the gymnastics.” She introduced her companions. “My friend with the currently angry tattoo is Lawrence. Lawrence is the guy who built this co-op. This is Winny, CFO. Spruck here, is the chief engineer. He just wants to check out your ship - motor head.”

  Caleb extended a hand to all. “Yeah, well, long story on that ship. Caleb Day. How do you do?”

  Lawrence’s tattoo shifted to something less demonic as he took Caleb’s hand and said, “Wang Fat. Don’t mean to be pushy, and we can hook you up if you’re hungry, but we need to know the deets on the Dione thing.”

  “Sure, of course.”

  Winny said, “We recently structured a deal with Wang Fat as well. They are supposed to be sending over representatives for a formal merger. Arriving in two hours.”

  “Are you freaking serious?” said Jennifer.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” said Caleb. “We just spent weeks trying to get as far away from those assholes as we could. You said you have the means to defend yourselves?”

  A couple of male workers passed. They nodded at the group, their ears clearly perked up.

  Whinny said, “Let’s take this to the conference room. Spruck, you can play with the ship later if they let you.”

  The conference room was an extravagance that Caleb hadn’t yet seen in his short stint in the system. Dome farming was standard on the moons, but the Albiorix co-op went the extra mile. The conference room was a lush tropical rain forest. As they entered, Lawrence took on the cadence of a salesman. “All rooms have dual purps. We specialize in tropical pharma.” He waved an arm proudly. “Only moon set up like this.”

  Without sitting, Winny got straight to the point. “Why did you guys sign a deal with Wang Fat?”

  Jennifer said, “Because they offered us more money to merge than we could hope to make in an Earth decade.”

  “Mmmmm hmmn,” murmured Winny.

  Saanvi said, “I was the medical liaison for our co-op. Wang Fat showed us distribution models with the big hospitals that would have enhanced our sales tenfold.”

  “That, too,” said Natalie.

  Jennifer sneered. “It was bull hockey. They landed with a police escort and proceeded to blow up the domes, killing everybody.” She glanced at Caleb, and again he felt she held him in white-knight esteem. “Caleb was one of them. One of the cops. He saved our lives. Me, Saanvi, and a few others.”

  Caleb quickly said, “I didn’t know what was going on. I was a last minute addition to the escort. Hell, brand new recruit.” He waved a hand at Jennifer and Saanvi, and, reliving the moment, added, “Their homes were being demoed and folks were getting shot down. They were running to nowhere.”

  Jennifer asked, “So what kind of defenses do you have?”

  Lawrence frowned and started pacing. “We got no indi they mean to do us the same.”

  “Neither did we,” said Jennifer.

  Lawrence scowled. “Comes to it, we’ve a phalanx gun for long range. Nerve disrupters for close. We’re not exacts military—”

  Spruck, a tall, scruffy faced white guy with greasy hair, interrupted. “The phalanx gun has barely been uncrated. The mount hasn’t been poured, and there’s enough ammo for a ten-second burst. And not one of us has used a nerve disrupter in anger.”

  A speaker near the door crackled slightly. A woman’s voice said, “Lawrence, can you talk?”

  “Fire, Belinda.”

  “Our guests are early. It’s more than one ship. The ID on the big one comes back Wang Fat. The others are all police. They are coming in fast. I estimate an hour.”

  Caleb said, “For God’s sakes we flew right back into the lion’s den! What is it with you drug people and the violence? I thought we got rid of this bullshit fifty years ago when we legalized it all.”

  Lawrence let out a long sigh. The man’s tattoo shifted patterns like an old screen saver.

  Winny said, “What do you think boss?”

  Lawrence looked at Jennifer hard. “You guys do somes to piss ’em off? I mean before they wasted your farms?”

  Jennifer shook her head.

  Lawrence looked hard at Winny. “You brought us this deal, Win. You got somes to say?”

  Winny’s face turned ashen. “Lar, I have gotten zero indication that this is anything but a legitimate deal.”

  Jennifer said, “We had the red carpet rolled out, too. Ask yourself, why the heavy escort? If it’s a signing ceremony. Shouldn’t it just be one ship?”

  Lawrence rubbed his hands up and down his face and finally said, “Shit. Um, Belinda?”

  “Yes, sir, standing by.”

  “Sound the decompresh alarm and, um, announce . . . announce we’re doing a stow it drill, but it’s not a drill. You and everyone else with owner’s shares get rides. Put out a private with that to all the owners.”

  “Hey! What?” said Spruck in alarm. “What do you mean owners only?”

  Lawrence pulled a slim nerve disrupter from inside his jacket. “Life, Spruck. You know as well as I that the shutts can’t fit more than the owners with product.”

  Natalie said, “Larry, you can’t be that big of a bastard.”

  Whinny said, “We don’t even know that Wang Fat is going to do us the way they did them.”

  Lawrence waived the weapon at everyone except Whinny. “Everything I have is here on this rock. If I have to leave, I’m takin’ what’s mine. There’s no starts-overs again out there.” He flicked the disrupter at Caleb. “Sorry, we’ll need your shuttle, too.”

  A blaring alarm went off. Belinda spoke loudly over it, announcing Lawrence’s order. Caleb stared hard at Lawrence and took a step forward. Lawrence’s voice cracked “Last warning!” He started pulling Whinny toward the door while keeping the weapon aimed at Caleb. “Sorry. I’m sorry, but I will use this!” They let the door close, leaving the others in the room.

  Saanvi said, “What do they mean owners only?”

  Spruck said, “The ones who have a physical shar—the product, the equipment and whatnot. Nat and I are labor. We don’t own an actual stake so we don’t get a ride. And neither do you, cause they’re stealing your shuttle.”

  “OK, now that’s fucked,” said Jennifer.

  Caleb said, “We still have a card.” He tapped a com-link that Jennifer wore in her ear. “Get the bot on the line. He needs to keep the door locked. Can’t let anyone on board.”

  When she got ahold of Bert, he responded, “I’m sorry, Jennifer Boyce. If a human commands me to open the door, I must open the door.”

  “But I’m commanding you not to.”

  “The announcement stated that this is an emergency and the alarm indicates a decompression. Despite our arrangement, I am required to put human life first.”

  “Give me that!” Caleb yanked the come out of her ear. “Listen, you pasty white twit! You keep them out until we get there or we die. We die. Get it!”

  “I am not programmed to make triage decisions, sir. However, in a life threatening situation I am t
o help those nearest.”

  “Then bring us our weapons, and we’ll deal with it.”

  “I am not allowed to touch weapons, sir.”

  Spruck tapped Caleb on the shoulder. “I’ve got a ship.”

  Caleb stared at the com-link in his hand with incredulity. He glanced at Spruck. “Huh?”

  “It’s small. It’s something that I tinker with. It’ll hold the five of us.”

  Natalie said, “That thing is in pieces in the storage hangar.”

  Spruck hesitated. “It’s mostly together.”

  Natalie continued, “And we don’t have any exosuits.”

  Spruck threw up his hands. “The food printer hasn’t been loaded, either. All I said was, that I have a ship.”

  “In pieces.”

  Caleb, Jennifer, and Saanvi watched this exchange like ping-pong fans.

  “So I put the pieces together. Two hours of work, tops.” He looked at the outsiders. “Any of you weld?”

  “Weld?” asked Natalie. “Honey, the bad guys land in an hour.”

  “Wait!” said Caleb. “You’ve got a ship that can fly in two hours? For real?”

  “Tops . . . if you know how to weld.”

  Caleb spoke back into the link. “Bert?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Can you bring us our exosuits?”

  “I can.”

  “Excellent.” He asked Spruck, “Where’s your ship?”

  “The storage and product launch hangar. There’s only one.”

  Caleb spoke back into the com-link. “Bert, bring Miss Jennifer’s, Dr. Saanvi’s, and my suits, and grab two more.” He sized up Spruck, who was tall but slight with a wispy brown beard. “Both women’s, size large.”

  Both Spruck and Natalie protested, “Hey!”

  Caleb continued with Bert. “Access the station’s directory and meet us at the storage hangar.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Caleb handed the com-link back to Jennifer and turned to Spruck. “Let’s check out your ride.”

  Chapter Ten: The Killers Are Coming