Caleb climbed out of the crater and walked until his heads-up told him he was two hundred meters from the depot. He then commanded his multi-spectrum sensor to seek out one of the reflectors to guide hi–. Bingo. Ridiculously simple. Like being handed the keys to the castle.
He found himself mindlessly staring at the ground before him as his helmet read out directions: Left ten meters. Left again eleven meters. Straight fourteen meters. Then Boom, he crashed right into something. As he stumbled backward he thought for a moment that he had walked into a mirror. His arms flailed in unison with the person’s in the reflection. “What the fuck?” he exclaimed pointlessly. “What the fuck?”
“What the fuck?” he heard a man say as the communication channel automatically opened up in his helmet. Like a flipped turtle, Caleb strained every muscle to sit up. When he did, the reflection illusion was spoiled by the man opposite him, who was still struggling on his back. Caleb was up first and shoved a foot into the flailing man’s chest, pushing him back down. He kept his foot pressing down. “Who the hell are you?”
“Who the hell are you, man?”
Definitely not a cop, thought Caleb. “Listen, jag-off. I count to three and you’re spilling your shit or I ND you.” Caleb so wished he really did have a nerve disrupter right now. “One. Two—”
“Jook. I’m Jook. Please don’t kill me!”
“What the hell are you doing out here, Jook? Did you say, Jook?”
“I’m, uh. I’m uh. I’m trying not to get killed, man. Least not the way it’s happening inside.”
“You with Wang Fat?”
Jook took a long pause. “Um, no.” Then with a high register of hope, “You neither?”
“No.”
“Thank God. Those bastards are merciless. Killed everyone. Wasted the co-op ships just as they were taking off. And the fucking po-leece, man. They’re in on it. Who are you?”
“Former police. Where were you hoping to go out here?”
Jook pointed at the sky. “Up there, man. Took a handful of fun before I slipped on my helmet. Off to the starry starry night. Better’n getting lazed or worse.”
“So you’re high.”
“Almost. On the edge. ’Nother few minutes and, poof.”
“You see anyone on your way out?”
“No, man. Got lucky. They’ve been concentrating on the core. Already checked this end out. I know. I was watching from security. Wow! Right on! You’ve got a huge pink halo. That means you’re sweet, my man. Nice aura. Very nice. Lucky fuckin’ dude. I see so many green ones. Pink is rare. You’re rare, man. Be happy with that. Peace to you, brother. Hope you don’t get lazed.”
“Hold on, hold on.”
“Nope. Gotta go walkabout, my man. You wouldn’t believe what you can see while standing on a tiny moon and lifting the veil. Walkabout is the best entertainment in the universe. Only this time, I walk until either my air is gone or the handful of happy takes me down. Either is fine with me. See you on the flip side.”
Caleb watched Jook walk away for nearly ten seconds. An astonishing sight. He didn’t know whether to call it brave or cowardly. He settled on brave.
The markers continued to send him on a winding path until he got to the airlock door. He made sure to keep his head up for the rest of the way. The code was meant for the temporarily deranged so he pressed 1 2 3 4 5. Green light. Once inside, he chose to keep his exosuit on, sun visor up to see, but hopefully looking like someone who belonged, boldly walking the halls to . . . check on survivors of the cop crash.
A long tunnel led out to the depot behind him, and it felt like it took forever to get to the main trunk and the landing nexus. He passed a camera and kept his head down. He was almost at the main trunk when he spotted two of the bastards dressed in antilaser kit, standing around like they had nothing to do. They were drinking coffee for crying out loud. Both paused mid-sip to look at him. He gave a nod and walked passed.
“What’s your name, bub?”
Keep walking. You didn’t hear him. Keep walking.
“Hey, ass-wipe, I’m talking to you!”
Caleb spun on his heal. “Did you just call me ass-wipe?”
The one who’d clearly said it hesitated, while his companion gestured that it hadn’t been him.
Caleb walked back toward them pointing at the ceiling. “I got a dead officer up there, maybe two. Two bodies I gotta sift out of a burning ship. You douches want to come with?”
“Uh, no. Sorry, sir.”
“You bet you’re sorry. I’m going to mention to Gunderson that you two are having a coffee klatch while everyone else is working their asses off securing this place.”
“But we were told to stand—”
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go find some drug farmer in some as yet to be discovered hidey-hole, and don’t let me find you standing around like a couple of water cooler girls again.” Caleb turned around with a silly grin on his face only to run smack into Gunderson. Gunderson, a slightly smaller man than Caleb and certainly carrying less mass without an exosuit, fell flat on his ass in slow motion. Caleb stared at the man, agape, thinking, Again I walk straight into someone?
Gunderson cocked his head in confusion.
Caleb reached down to him. “Uh, sorry, sir. My fault. Chewing out these two for standing around.” He pointed up again. “Going topside to investigate the crash.”
Gunderson allowed himself to be helped up and brushed off his trousers. “Who are you?”
“Day, sir. New guy, a few weeks ago. Again, sorry for bumping into you. I better get topside.” Caleb tried to walk past.
Gunderson grabbed his arm. “It’s already been investigated; Corporal Lorna Schwenk. Body . . . parts recovered. Say your name again?”
Caleb’s suit helmet packed an ultra-bright LED light good for three hundred meters or more. It could also act as an emergency beacon, viewable from orbit. He looked directly at the three men and set it on strobe. They might as well have had flashes going off directly on their retinas. The effect was enough to blind them in a temporary but very painful way. All three held up their hands to their eyes and gasped.
Caleb grabbed the laser and a nerve disrupter out of Gunderson’s holsters, pointed . . . and couldn’t do it. Couldn’t shoot a man in cold blood. The men kept their heads down as the strobe continued. The guys in laser kits tried to get ahold of their guns. Caleb snatched each gun from the stricken men’s hands and ran.
The cumbersome exosuit made him a terrible athlete. Bouncing down the hall, he fell twice, scattering the guns and scrambling to pick them up. Upon reaching the landing nexus, he surprised a cop suiting up to go into his ship and three more Wang thugs in antilaser gear. He pointed the guns at them. “All of you, into that airlock!”
The guys in antilaser kit made the quick assessment that they were nearly invulnerable to Caleb’s threat and dropped their visors pulling their own guns.
The nerve disrupter was just as useless against their armor so Caleb threw two of his laser guns at the men and with the distraction pointed the third gun at the one vulnerable cop. “Sorry.” He shot the guy through the shoulder and ran past him. Facing a split second decision: Go left and get the shuttle, but what then? It had never been very clear in the master plan what to do once he rendezvoused with Spruck on the far side of the moon, folks running through th shuttle’s docking tunnel before they all got blown to . . . Going right would take him to the ship of the cop he had just shot. He ran right, slapping the door-close button for the tube as he passed.
Charging into the ship, he closed the air-lock hatches and blew the tube connection. Safe! He looked around. This was a nice ride. Much nicer than the piece of crap that had been assigned to him at the start of this misadventure. Then he realized he didn’t have a clue what to do next. He could see through the cockpit window, spotting the Phoebe shuttle, which might as well have been on another moon. The cops ship was armed to the teeth, but it didn’t s
olve their people moving problem. He voice-texted:
Spruck, you read?
Go for Spruck, Caleb. You safe in the shuttle?
Holed up in a cop ship. A really nice one. Leather seats. Who has leather seats anymore?
Jennifer broke in:
So what exactly does that mean?
I don’t know. I’m making things up as I go. You can’t land yet.
Spruck texted:
We’ve spotted five ships searching for us. Only a matter of time before we get nailed.
I know! Give me some credit. I got this far, right? It hasn’t exactly been a cakewalk.
Sorry. So what should we do?
Caleb stood in the cockpit and scanned the controls for the weapons’ systems.
Ten minutes later, a very pissed-off-looking Henry Lo Wang, followed by Zheng, who was not used to his boss’s plans going awry, stepped into the flight control room and took in the 360 degree view provided by the above ground circular. Outside, the firefighting bot was finishing up with the crashed cop ship, and the ground around it gleamed with a combination of moisture and dirt that had been turned to glass by the heat. Hovering roughly a kilometer away. the highjacker commanded the stolen cop ship, his face visible through the windshield.
A woman wearing a Wang Fat jumpsuit stood at attention in front of a flight control console and held out a wireless mic to Henry Lo. “He’s listening, sir.”
Henry Lo stared up at the ship and placed the mic in front of his lips. “This is Henry Lo Wang. May I know your name?”
The highjacker’s voice came over a loudspeaker. “No, douche.”
Henry Lo’s nose scrunched at the insult.
The man continued, “I already told your monkey ball sucking flunky, but I’ll say it again to you. I’m weapons hot. And I’ll lay waste to this whole complex unless you do exactly as I say. You hearing that, douche?”
Henry Lo put his hand over the mic and turned to Zheng. “Who did you say this was?”
Zheng cleared his throat. “Day. I believe it’s Caleb Day, chief executive. The officer who went AWOL during the Dione operation. He was a last moment replacement for Officer Olsen, the bar-fight victim. Day has a thin but genuine criminal record.”
“Get me Gunderson.”
When he had Gunderson on the line he said, “How exactly is this Officer Day here in command of one of our ships?”
Gunderson’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “How or why is an unknown, Mr. Wang. As to our ship . . . a bold move on his part. There was a reason he was recruited to the force. I can’t attest to his motives other than to assume that he was and remains at odds with our mission.”
Henry Lo looked at Zheng. “Thoughts?”
Gerald Zheng had been gifted with a plastic personality that allowed him to twist into whichever direction the wind might blow. He had made his money designing and maintaining a US–based online restaurant-menu ordering system that had become the premier drone delivery takeout option for a nation bent on immediate satisfaction. Then everyone went and consigned their brains to AI, which made dining in or out relatively obsolete. While hunting around for something else to do, he finally found use for his old psychology degree with the Oakland PD as a hostage negotiator. During the quick but painful transition to the Singularity, a lot of folks did not go quietly. Hostage negotiators had been in high demand. Zheng had avoided the brain AI interface himself by getting off planet the moment an apartment opened up on a Hanson Ship. He had been still rolling in online riches at the time and got himself a two-bedroom just before a clever hacker swiped the rest of his life’s work. Zheng looked past his boss’s furious eyes and shrugged, asserting, “Let’s find out what he wants.”
Caleb’s voice came over again. “Douche? You listening?” He caused his ship to wobble side to side as a reminder.
Henry Lo uncovered the mic. “Officer Day, what can we do for you?”
“There is another ship out here full of refugees from this base. You will allow that ship to land and you will let those refugees transfer over to the nice new Hanson shuttle you see parked out there. You will then let both this ship, the refugee ship, and the shuttle depart this moon unharmed. We’ve got nothing to lose if you say no, so expect to be cratered if you do. I need your answer now.”
Henry Lo covered the mic again and looked at Zheng. Zheng really didn’t like his boss. The man was clearly a psychotic megalomaniac, a condition that wasn’t apparent when Zheng had interviewed for the Wang Fat gig. However, he was fully vested at this point with bloody dirt buried deep under his nails, so he didn’t mince words. “Lone gunman in a Mexican stand-off. He’s got nothing to offer for an exchange. I say take away his collateral and waste him.”
Henry Lo covered the mic and spoke toward the speaker grill that represented Gunderson, “Sergeant, are there resources available at this very moment to neutralize this?”
“I hate to lose another ship, but yes, we can shoot him down.”
Henry Lo moved his tongue against his teeth as though scraping off a bad taste. “Let the refugee ship he’s talking about land and unload, then shoot him down. We can space the others at our leisure.” He uncovered the mic. “Very well, Officer Day. Tell your friends they may land.”
“Uh, roger that. But, I see anything remotely hostile, and I fucking lay waste to this place. Got it? And it’s Mister Day. I’m not one of your police scum.
“You made yourself quite clear… Mister Day. Wang out.”
Caleb stared at his monitors and squirmed with unconscious discomfort. Way too easy. But then again, maybe he did hold the trump card. He voice-texted Spruck:
You get all that?
Got it. I don’t trust him any farther than I could chuck him on earth grav.
Yeah. I have this thing’s defense on auto. Hair trigger. Send me your ship’s ID so I don’t blast you when you land.
Roger that.
ETA?
Eleven. I’m ground skimming. Using the momentum from a short burst on the far side. The other cop ships are looking hard.
Yeah. I see them. my DI is screaming radar, laser, and heat lock from five different sources.
Bert wants to know what’s keeping them from blasting you once we land and are inside?
There was a long beat, then Caleb wrote back, Shit.
Bert had entered the Belle’s cabin to report on the wounded situation, the nature of which was under control. He noticed with distaste that he still wore a bit of vomit on his jumpsuit and then had a moment of astonishment that he would have any feelings of distaste at all, which led to another moment of astonishment as he contemplated having feelings period. Was that what this was?
“Bert, buddy? You were saying?” asked Spruck.
Bert snapped out of his reverie only to fall back in as he struggled with the feeling of being referred to as a friend. The feeling was of joy. What is going on?
“Bert, you okay?”
“Forgive me,” said the robot. “I seem to be experiencing a minor malfunction. Nothing significant . . . I hope.”
“Alright. So what’s your advice?”
“It’s simple really. We just need the shuttle.”
“That’s nothing new, baby,” said Natalie.
Jennifer said, “Thanks, Bert. I’m sure Saanvi can use more help.”
“You misunderstand me,” said Bert. Though in his head he was saying shut up and let me finish, which got him zoning out again over what had gone wrong with his programming.
Spruck said, “Yeah, okay. So what’re we missing?”
Bert smiled. “Per the original plan, we steal the shuttle and make a hasty escape. As noted, Hanson Shuttles are equipped with ship-to-ship docking systems. Nothing requires us to make this transfer on Albiorix. We can transfer the people off this ship at a safe rendezvous far away from here. Mr. Day, sir, will have to commit to a significant assault and we will have to peel off a large number of the enemy before using this ship’s cloaking device to disappear. Three ships goin
g three different directions, with two of them armed and attacking will significantly reduce Wang Fat’s ability to corral us. The odds are against success, but they are far greater than the one hundred percent odds of failure with the current plan. We have one advantage: Given Mr. Day, sir’s ultimatum, it can be reasonably calculated that under the circumstances, it is highly unlikely that the enemy are guarding against another breach on our part in an attempt to steal the shuttle.”
Spruck couldn’t hold back the admiration. “Since when do robots think like generals?”
Bert had the same thought. All he could do was smile and shrug.
When they explained it to Caleb, he texted back immediately:
So if I had just nabbed the shuttle instead of this cop ship?
Pretty much, texted Spruck.
Chapter Fourteen: Plan B
Jennifer couldn’t believe that she was actually climbing into the Bell’s other exosuit. The thing reeked of Ken’s fear-laced-sweat. The man, only hours before, had been hanging out in space using a rock cutter as a laser weapon. She couldn’t believe that out of all of the people on Spruck’s ship, she was the only one with pilot skills or make that, the willingness to interface her brain with the shuttle. Minutes before, she’d sounded like an airline attendant in a pilotless plane calling out to the passengers: “Excuse me. Is there anyone on board who can pilot a shuttle? Oh, and who doesn’t mind climbing into an exosuit and jumping off the ship?” Her queries had been met with definitive silence. She wasn’t much of a pilot, but as Saanvi reminded her, she had the fundamentals.
They had agreed that the only way to make this work involved one of them getting inside without being noticed. A deeply reluctant volunteer, Jennifer would have to also enter via the walkabout route. Once she’d accomplished that, Caleb would announce the new plan to the Wang Fat fuckers.
As usual, the one-size-fits-all exosuit was a bullshit hope. Yes, the thing shrank down on her body, but her feet and hands felt clumsy and foreign, and she could feel the material obstructively bunching behind her knees and inside her elbows. God, Ken had left the thing clammy. A common expired warranty issue , the dehumidifying element must have been on the fritz. She closed the hatch behind her and was satisfied at least that the seal indicator lit up as green. To maintain radio silence, she voice-texted. I’m good to go, I guess.
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