Heart of the Nebula

by Joe Vasicek

Not now, Sara thought to herself, swallowing as she closed her eyes. A terrible sinking feeling in her gut made her wonder if she should have volunteered herself—but no, she was needed with the others. Or was she? Just who on the ship was expendable, and who wasn’t? If she made it out alive, it would be hard to lift the guilt.

  They passed through a large freight airlock into what appeared to be the station’s main cargo hold. Giant cranes hung like claws from the ceiling, as if ready to reach down and snatch them. A few shipping containers lay here and there, but the loading area was largely empty.

  The quietness of the vast, cavernous place made Sara shiver, and not from the cold. They could massacre us here, she thought to herself. With nowhere to hide, the pirates could gun them all down, then load the bodies onto the mag-rail and fling them out the—

  “This way,” said the Nabattan officer, leading them to the other side of the freight yard. With almost three dozen armed soldiers surrounding them, Sara and the others complied without a word.

  James McCoy stepped out from a doorway against the nearby wall, making Sara’s heart leap. Lars and Sterling were with him as well, and they all seemed relatively unharmed, if a bit shaken. Half a dozen soldiers escorted them to the main group, and Sara was not surprised to note that Soner—doubtless the ringleader—was with them.

  “Sara!” James said, rushing over to her as soon as the guards allowed it. “Stars of Earth, you’re all right!”

  “James,” she cried, all but melting in his arms. “Thank God you’re alive.”

  “Well, what a touching reunion,” said Soner. He folded his arms casually as the soldiers rounded the last of the colonists into the unloading area.

  James’s smile quickly turned down in frustrated rage. “Have they hurt anyone?” he asked her, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

  “No,” Sara whispered back. “We’re all alive. They haven’t—”

  “And the girls? Did they take them?”

  From the urgent, forceful way he stared at her, Sara didn’t know what to say. She nodded, and he bit his lip and clenched shut his eyes in response, as if he’d heard that a close relative had been murdered.

  “I’m a man of my word,” said Soner, his voice loud enough to carry. “You’ll be happy to know that the girls all came voluntarily—in fact, some of them seemed quite eager to stay behind. We’ll take good care of them.”

  “You bastard!” James spat. “I ought to—”

  “James, no,” said Sara, taking him by the arm. His cheeks burned red with rage, but he held his peace.

  “That’s right,” said Soner. “Listen to the lady, Commander. She’s a smart one.”

  “Mistress, are you angry?” Nina’s voice chimed in her ear. Sara turned away from Soner, making sure the jewel was out of his view.

  “If you’re a man of your word,” James asked, “where is our ship?”

  “Right through that airlock,” said Soner, pointing to the far side of the room. “We even loaded it with your supplies—after appropriating a reasonable fee.”

  James cursed under her breath, and Sara gave him a sharp look. Don’t provoke them, she thought silently. That’s the last thing we need right now.

  “In any case,” Soner continued, “I thought it only fitting to give you a chance to say goodbye to those who will be staying. I understand you’ve got a long journey ahead of you, after all.”

  He snapped his fingers, and a squad of Nabattan guards brought the twenty women—now slaves—into a group just a few yards beyond the line of soldiers holding the colonists in. Some cried, others shook with fear, and a few of them stared at the ground as if ashamed. As their loved ones shrieked and cried, Sara glanced over at James to gauge his reaction. His fists were clenched so tight that the blood had almost completely drained from his knuckles, but the expression on his face was unreadable.

  Kyla is up there, Sara realized. The former stowaway stood with her head high, but looked off into the distance as if avoiding eye contact. Sara glanced back at James, and realized with some surprise that he was staring at her.

  “That’s enough,” said Soner, snapping his fingers again. The guards led the prisoners out a separate door. Some of the colonists fell to their knees, weeping, while others stood unmoving, tears streaking their pale faces. Sara bit her lip and held in her emotions as best she could—she didn’t want to give Soner the satisfaction of breaking down in front of him.

  “Mistress, you seem to be enraged. If you are, please—”

  “Now,” said Soner, “unless any more of you wish to stay, my men will show you off to your ship. Good luck, and when you’re all on the verge of starvation, remember that thanks to us, at least a few of you managed to survive.”

  The soldiers herded them through the airlock, into the faded, time-worn corridors of the aging colony ship. The moment she was through, Sara reached up to her ear and shut off Nina, tugging off the jewel. She sighed with relief and leaned against the wall, letting the stress of the last few moments leak out of her.

  James, however, was already busy giving orders.

  “Sterling, check the ship’s systems and make sure she can fly. I want to be able to leave on a moment’s notice. Jeppson, McClellan, assemble all the men from the Corps and get the rest of the colonists to safety. Look around for tools, hammers, sharp objects—anything that can be used as a weapon.”

  “What are you doing?” Sara asked. Behind them, the colonists continued to stream in, bodies pressed against each other in the narrow space.

  “We’re going back after the girls,” said James. “I’m not going to leave without them.”

  Sara frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Those soldiers are heavily armed, and we have—what? Some wrenches and hammers?”

  “We’ll have the element of surprise. If we strike quickly, we can take the squad by the airlock and arm ourselves with their weapons. If we keep to the walls, we can use the empty cargo containers for cover until we get to the airlock. We can do this.”

  Stars of Earth—he’s serious about this.

  “James,” she pleaded, “please think this through carefully. Those girls willingly gave up their lives so that we could live. If we go back there, how many of us are going to die? Is it really worth it?”

  James gave her a look that made her blood turn cold. “No one gets left behind,” he said. “No one.”

  The taste of vomit rose in Sara’s mouth. She glanced around at the young men who had started to gather, and shuddered at the thought that some of them—perhaps all of them—were about to be killed.

  “Are you sure you want to put all our lives on the line? If we go now, we cut our losses at twenty. If we try to get them back, we could lose everyone.”

  “This isn’t about numbers,” he told her, loudly enough that everyone around him could hear. “This is about unity. The first rule of my ship is that no one—absolutely no one—gets left behind. If we let a few petty pirates shatter us before we even set out, how can we hope to come together when we’re out there, all by ourselves?”

  The young men listened intently, several of them nodding in approval. The light in their eyes was murderous.

  “No one is expendable,” James continued. “No one. I won’t order any of you to join me, but by all the holy stars of Earth, I’m not going to leave until I damn well fight my hardest to get those girls free. And if I die in the process, so be it. Who’s with me?”

  A resounding shout reverberated through the narrow space. Sara’s heart beat harder in her chest, and she clenched her fingers around the jewel in her hands. The jewel—

  “James,” she said quickly, “I’m going with you.”

  “What?” he said, frowning at her. “No, Sara, you should stay behind. If anything happens to—”

  “Do you think I’m going to stand idly by and let yourself get killed? Here.” She held up her ear jewel so he could see. “This is my personal AI. The Nabattans missed it when they frisked me. If we can get into their
computer network, I can upload it to the station’s servers and remove its logic inhibitors, turning it into—”

  “—a super-intelligence,” James finished, his eyes widening.

  “If you’re going to free those girls, you’re going to need all the help you can get. I know it’s technically a war crime, but if that’s what it takes to save us, then so be it.” Besides, after what those bastards did to us, I couldn’t care less what becomes to them.

  James drew a sharp breath. “All right, but stay behind the rest of us. I don’t want a stray shot taking you out.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, slipping the jewel back into her ear. “I want to watch when Soner gets what’s coming to him.”

  Chapter 17

  “This way,” said James, leading his men to the airlock. If they could take out the guards quietly, perhaps they could run across the freight yard before the rest of the Nabattan pirates knew what was happening. That was the most dangerous part: getting across the freight yard. And even if they made it out, coming back would no doubt be even harder.

  “Hold,” he whispered, motioning for the others to stop. The airlock door was closed, and the video screen on the access panel showed five guards, smoking and laughing with each other. They didn’t seem to be too concerned, but the moment the door opened, things were going to happen real fast. Perhaps if they—

  “Here,” said Sara, walking nonchalantly up to the door. “Let me create a diversion.”

  James frowned. “A diversion?”

  “Just trust me. Stay far enough behind that they can’t see you, then strike them when their backs are turned.”

  He nodded. It wasn’t like he had any better ideas.

  She waited until he had stepped behind the corner again, then palmed the access panel to the main airlock. He cringed as the door hissed open, while on the other side, the guards snapped quickly to attention.

  “Hi,” she said, waving innocently as she stepped through. He noticed a playful bounce in her step, and a flirtatious tone to her voice. The soldiers soon lowered their guard and relaxed.

  “Hey there, babe,” said one of them. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Oh, nothing much,” said Sara, flicking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Everyone’s so busy on the ship, getting things ready, and—well, I just wanted to have some fun first, you know?”

  The first soldier grinned, and the others laughed. With all eyes on her, Sara circled them until their backs were to the open airlock.

  Now’s our chance, James thought to himself. He motioned for the five men closest to him to follow as he slipped around the corner, raising his hammer. He hesitated only a second before running out the door.

  Adrenaline surged through his body as he brought his hammer down with full force on the nearest Nabattan soldier. He felt more than heard the impact, the hammer’s blunt end cracking the skull and making a sickening dent. The man grunted and collapsed, dark blood gushing through his hair. One of the soldiers cried out, but by then it was too late.

  It was over in an instant. The five men lay crumpled over on the ground, dead or dying. A couple of James’s men struck their twitching bodies for good measure, but most of them stood around as if in shock. James took a deep breath and tried to force his body to stop shaking.

  “What now?” said Sara. “Come on, we’ve got to keep moving.”

  James blinked and shook his head to clear his vision. “You two,” he said to the men closest to him. “Drag the bodies into the airlock—we’ll dispose of them later. The rest of you, divide the guns among yourselves and come with me.”

  The men nodded and quickly busied themselves with their tasks. James bent down and picked up the gun of the dead man at his feet: an old Gaian assault rifle that had gone out of production a couple of standard decades ago, loaded with a full magazine. After glancing quickly around the cavernous room, he ran towards the airlock just below the freight yard’s control room, keeping close to the wall. Sara followed closely behind, along with his men.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked.

  “There’s a computer terminal in that control tower. Since they haven’t spotted us yet, it means that it’s empty. Once we’re in, we can use the computer to locate the prisoners.”

  “And release the AI. Good idea.”

  James nodded, though he was less sure of the plan than she was. Deploying a self-learning artificial intelligence was one of the most notorious war crimes of the old regime under the New Gaian Empire. The last weaponized super-intelligence had poisoned almost half a dozen planetary domes across three planets in the New Pleiades. Only a coordinated EMP assault had defeated it.

  He pointed his gun at the door before palming it open. Sara and the others followed him up the emergency stairwell into the control room, guns held at the ready. Fortunately, the place was empty.

  “It’ll be a while before the AI gains control over the station,” said Sara as she ran to the nearest terminal. “We might be better waiting here until it does.”

  “How much time?”

  She slipped the jewel out of her ear and shrugged. “How should I know? It might be minutes, it might be hours.”

  “We don’t have hours—and in any case, it’s better to strike while we have the element of surprise.” Not to mention that he didn’t want to be anywhere near the station when the super-intelligence came to full strength.

  “But—”

  “You handle the AI, I’ll rescue the prisoners. Trust me.”

  He sat down at a different screen and brought up a map of the station. The main barracks were on the other side from the freight yard, and he guessed that was where most of the soldiers were. The supplies they’d stolen were in a holding area just off to the side, while the armory was closer to the barracks. As for the prisoners, it wasn’t clear where they were being held.

  “Are we going back for our supplies?” one of his men asked. The wrench in his hand was bloody, and his hands still shook with nervous energy.

  James thought for a minute. Without an inventory of the supplies aboard the colony ship, it was hard to make a judgment call. If the pirates hadn’t left them enough to live on, stealing back some of their confiscated equipment could save their lives—but if the Nabattans caught them in the act, they could all die.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Prisoners first, then supplies.”

  But damn, how tempted he was to get those wrist consoles back! It would certainly make coordinating their attack easier. True, they risked the pirates seeing them before they could rescue the prisoners, but—

  No, he told himself, clenching his fists to stop himself from trembling. Stay calm. Take one thing at a time. A cold sweat had formed in the back of his neck, but he ignored it as he searched the map for any sign of a prisoner holding area.

  Where would he keep the girls if he were a pirate? The meat locker? No, too small. The auxiliary cargo holds? If the Nabattans had stolen supplies from all the other colony ships, they were probably all full by now. The hydroponics modules and waste treatment vats were out of the question, and as for the barracks, they seemed a little tough to guard. If he were in charge, he’d put them in an enclosed space with only one exit, such as—

  —the station’s main docking arm. Of course.

  His eyes skimmed the map for confirmation. All the ports along the arm were listed as occupied, even though they had looked empty on the way in. The transport had docked at a major freight airlock on an auxiliary arm, used only by large haulers. But the final thing that convinced him was the fact that the wall separating the main terminal from the barracks had been removed, giving the pirates direct access to the arm itself.

  Which also meant that every Nabattan on the station would fall upon them the moment they raised the alarm.

  “Done,” said Sara, striking the last key on the terminal with a bit of flourish. “Nina is loose in their network and gaining self-awareness.”

  “Excellent. Can you give it specific directives,
like telling it to shut down cameras or lock down doors?”

  “I don’t know. It’s independent now, so it can choose to obey or disobey my commands. I did give it the overriding objective to help us, but since it’s self-learning, it could theoretically reprogram itself to do almost anything.”

  A super-intelligence. Shivers ran down the back of James’s neck. Better make things quick—they had more things to worry about now than just pirates.

  “Here,” he said, “I think I’ve found the prisoners.” Sara peered forward along with the men as he pointed to the map. “I think they’re being held here, in the docking arm. It’s only got one entrance—well, one that doesn’t open into hard vacuum—and it’s right next to the barracks.”

  “Then what’s the plan?” one of his men asked. His face was noticeably pale.

  “I don’t know,” said James. “If we’re going to do this quietly, we’ll either have to overwhelm the guards the same way we did at the airlock, or—”

  “Why don’t we go in through the freight mag-rail?” a young man asked. He looked to be James’s age. “The two levels of the arm don’t connect internally, but if we docked a shuttle at one of the nodes, we could connect them that way.”

  James smiled. “You’re a merchanter, aren’t you? What’s your name?”

  “Alex, sir.”

  “All right, Alex, there should be a shuttle in one of the bays on the colony ship. Do you think you can hug the station close enough that you don’t show up on the Nabattans’ sensors?”

  Alex grinned. “Can I ever! I used to buzz asteroids on my patrol runs just for fun.”

  “Then get out there and do it. I’ll give you five minutes. If you don’t return before then, I’ll assume you’ve found the shuttle and you’re on your way.”

  The boy nodded and sprinted out the door. A few moments later, James saw him dash across the empty freight yard towards the airlock, not bothering to hug the walls. The sight made James cringe.

  “Sara, what about those cameras?”

  “I’ve sent the order, but I don’t know if Nina will obey. I assume she’s still in the developmental stages.”