by M. D. Cooper
When they reached the central lift, Andy activated the control panel and Harl led the transport inside. Half-expecting that Fugia would have shut down the elevator, Andy was pleased to find the system operational.
Andy smiled grimly.
The lift came to a halt. Harl released the brake on the transport as the door slid open. He guided the mule out onto a metal gangway that hung suspended over a wide chamber at least two stories high. Networks of metal pipe and control filament filled the space around the bridge. Ladders and smaller maglifts led down into the guts of the power generation system at regular intervals. The metal bridge led to a set of double doors on the far side of the room, which Fugia’s directions indicated was the data storage center.
As the transport rolled ahead, Andy couldn’t help glancing over the railing into the mass of pipes below. Everything looked as clean as the day it was made, none of the leaks or grime he would have expected from a working power generation system. He spotted a few diagnostic stations with tools sitting on their consoles but otherwise no sign of the workers who may have maintained the systems.
Andy nodded. Maybe that’s what bothered him about everything he had seen, from the cargo bays to the staff barracks. The place didn’t look emptied out from a retreat or withdrawal. It looked like someone had set a coffee cup or tool on their workbench fully expecting to return. Only they hadn’t.
Glancing down at the metal grate beneath his boots, Andy was surprised to see dirt for the first time. He looked back at the lift door behind them and realized the discoloration extended back the way they had come. He hadn’t noticed it before because it had completely covered the metal. Now it had thinned into streaks.
Harl reached the door to the data storage center as Andy knelt to get a better look at what he suspected was dried blood. He swept his gloved hand across the metal grate and freed a small cloud of russet flakes.
The Andersonian dropped the control yoke on the transport and slid to one side of the door in front of him. His helmet tilted as he appeared to look back at the path they had just followed.
With the transport still in the middle of the path, Andy walked around the other side from Harl and tapped the control panel. The mechanism flashed, and the two halves of the door split in the middle and slid open. Andy counted to ten, then slowly leaned to the edge of the door and looked inside.
CHAPTER THREE
STELLAR DATE: 11.22.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Shuttle approaching Laughing Fury
REGION: Near remains of Clinic 13, Terran Hegemony
Jirl couldn’t shake the image of Cal Kraft writhing on the floor, his blood forming a widening pool that he then smeared as he struggled, life fading from his eyes.
Sitting across from her in the shuttle, Petral stared ahead, lost in her Link. She cradled a silver Weapon Born seed in her lap like a kitten, pulled from the mech they had nearly destroyed. Petral’s kindness toward the AI contrasted with a second memory of the black-haired woman kneeling beside Kraft as he gasped like a fish, to say in a low voice: “That bio tracker I implanted in your stomach, Cal? You remember that?”
His gaze had grabbed at her face as his fingers clutched at his spurting neck.
“I could save you with that,” Petral had said, almost soothingly, like a lover. “But I won’t. What you did to me—and Kylan—deserves death. And I am choosing to let you die.”
The gurgling grunt he’d made haunted Jirl whenever she closed her eyes, so she kept them open, focused on the world around her, a world where she was now a killer. Without a holster, she still held the pulse pistol across her lap. Brit had shown her how to engage the safety and check the battery. Jirl obsessively checked the mechanism, doing her best to keep her hands from trembling.
In the shuttle’s pilot seat, Brit Sykes ran her hands over the controls and checked a small holodisplay showing the mess of debris that had become local space. A flutter of blue and green icons showed the remaining Lowspin, TSF and Mars ships in the area. They were headed for Ngoba Starl’s ship, the Laughing Fury.
Furious Leap was lost, they had discovered, its crew murdered and its drive disabled by mechs. The seed in Petral’s hands represented an awesome power. The thought of that jaguar-like thing waiting in space for any unsuspecting ship filled Jirl with a sense of dread. Of course, she had always known things like the jaguar had to exist, but she had never operated in a world where they would affect her. Now she found herself in a shuttle that was no more than a thin metal can, moving to another vulnerable craft full of people who could die at any moment. Everything was so vulnerable.
The Marsian general was dead, which meant Mars would be responding somehow. Would there be an embargo? Reduced entry allowances? Her son Bry was on Mars now. Would she be able to see him? Without Heartbridge, Jirl didn’t have any special influence with the Marsian government. Without Heartbridge, she would be just another lost citizen amongst the billions on High Terra. She swallowed, the ramifications of her actions tumbling over her.
She shook her head, gaze fixed on the seed and everything it represented, from illegal research to weapons sales. I did the right thing—in the end.
“You all right, there, Jirl?�
� Petral asked. “You look like you’re having quite the argument with yourself. You’re not crazy, are you?”
Jirl pulled at her seat harness. “Zero-g is making me nauseous.”
Petral chuckled. “If you puke, you better catch it in your hand.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Brit said over her shoulder. “There are bags in the cabinet above your head. If you feel sick, you should pull one out now.”
In order to keep up the white lie, Jirl gripped the pistol in one hand and reached above her head to pull down a narrow plas bag. She crumpled it in her fist to keep it from floating away.
“Here’s what I’m not tracking,” Petral said, still sounding pleased with herself. “Why would Heartbridge want to kill Kraft? Wouldn’t you know something about that?”
Jirl shook her head. “I don’t think it was us—I mean Heartbridge. Someone else thought Kraft mattered and went after him.”
“He did matter,” Brit said. “Without him, we have to attack every clinic head-on. Without General Kade and her Marsian Marines, that just got a lot harder.”
“There might be an easier way,” Jirl said.
“Before we get to that,” Petral said, “I want to hear your theory on who tried to take out Kraft. Nice work, by the way. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Petral’s piercing blue eyes were unsettling. Jirl gave her a weak nod, the memory of the close-quarters pulse blast tearing Kraft’s throat open like a burst melon.
“My boss is Arla Reed. She’s the Executive Director of Special Projects for Heartbridge and has a seat on their board. She’s been with the company at least thirty years now, I think. The Weapon Born project has been hers from the start. But she’s always used people like Cal Kraft to insulate herself from the actual projects. Kraft would manage operations among the various third-party contractors.”
“How many people like Kraft did your boss employ?” Petral asked.
“Across the years? Maybe ten. As we’ve gotten closer to the end of the project, they left. Or I suspect they were killed.”
“You think your boss had them killed?” Petral asked.
Jirl had been scouring her memories for evidence that Arla had assassinated anyone. Unless her boss had another assistant that handled those details, the evidence wasn’t there, and she had covered enough political intrigue that was potentially illegal to make her believe Arla trusted her.
“I don’t think she did. I think Heartbridge may have been under surveillance by other companies, one in particular, which has been attacking their operations. Brit wasn’t the only operative going after the clinics. There’s always been espionage at play between companies, but I think Carthage Logistics had an idealistic reason to shut Heartbridge down.”
“Why Carthage Logistics?” Petral asked.
Brit answered, “Kathryn Carthage was Kylan Carthage’s mother.”
“Kylan Carthage,” Petral said, blinking. “Our Kylan?”
“What does that mean?” Jirl asked. “Kylan Carthage is dead. That’s why Kathryn hates Heartbridge. She rightfully blames Arla for her son’s death.”
Petral gave an awkward laugh. “He is definitely not dead. Or at least a version of him is still alive. He’s a Weapon Born.” She tapped the Seed in her lap.
“He’s more than a Weapon Born,” Brit said. “He’s closer to what Lyssa is.”
“The AI that Hari Jickson stole,” Jirl said.
“That he implanted in my husband,” Brit said.
Jirl frowned, pieces falling into place. “You have more than one reason to hate Heartbridge, then.”
Brit gave a caustic laugh. “I’ve stopped listing them.”
“Don’t you mean wasband?” Petral asked, raising an eyebrow. Her tone hinted at some ongoing conversation between the two women.
Brit didn’t look back this time. “I’ve got enough crap to worry about. Labels aren’t one of them.”
Petral gave Jirl a conspiratorial smile. “She’s been out chasing Heartbridge clinics and another woman swooped in and grabbed up her former husband. It’s all very dramatic.”
“That sounds terrible,” Jirl said.
“It’s not something I dwell on,” Brit said. “We should focus. So, what does Carthage Logistics gain from trying to kill Kraft?”
“I think it was something they had been trying to do for a while,” Jirl said. “It’s not necessarily related to the Resolute Charity. It’s about weakening the clinics.”
“I can buy that,” Petral said, a business-like expression back on her face. “Since we have more clinics to destroy, does that mean Kathryn Carthage might be an ally?”
“Maybe,” Jirl said. “Maybe better than the TSF or the Marsians.”
“Where is Ms. Carthage?”
“Terra. She maintains a residence in Northern Virginia.”
They fell quiet as Brit executed several adjustment burns that tossed Jirl’s stomach around like a water balloon. She smoothed the vomit bag out against her leg in case she truly needed it.
“We’ll arrive in about ten minutes,” Brit announced. “It should be smooth until I start the docking maneuvers.”
Petral stretched her neck. “You said you had another thought about how to take out the remaining clinics?”
Jirl nodded, gulping a breath to squeeze down the nausea. “The clinics report back to a central command node. They each have a failsafe order to halt all operations and abandon the facility.”
“Why would they do that?” Petral asked.
“Any number of reasons, mostly political. Change in leadership. Media issues. Sufficient drop in the stock price.”
“Deciding to do the right thing?” Brit interjected.
“That’s not on the decision tree,” Jirl said. “We need something to alert the crews to abandon in place and pull back to designated locations. It’s an emergency protocol, I guess, but it applies to overall operations.”
“What happens to the Seeds or test subjects?” Petral asked.
“There are no more human test subjects,” Jirl said quickly. “At least there aren’t supposed to be any. Arla has made that clear. It’s too much of a liability. And my understanding is that they don’t really need them anymore. They have all the initial strains they need to generate seeds for a thousand years or more.”
“Doesn’t that sound fun,” Petral said. “So, if these clinics all get the shut-down order from the main office, we still have the problem of thousands of Seeds out in the world.”
“Yes,” Jirl said. “But at least the clinics are stopped. Those would be the only seeds unless someone starts producing them again.”
“Where is this command center?” Brit asked. “And why hasn’t this been an option before?”
“I have never considered it an option because it’s suicide,” Jirl said. “It’s suicide because it’s in the innermost levels of the Heartbridge headquarters on High Terra. It’s the company’s most well-guarded area, where they maintain all secure records.”
“Have you been there before?” Petral asked, blue eyes flashing with interest.
“No. I don’t have clearance.”
“But you’re aware of this failsafe?”
“Yes,” Jirl said. “They debated creating it for weeks. I sat in all those meetings. It was torture.”
“Thank the stars for corporate fear,” Petral said. “This might actually be an option. What do you think, Brit?”
“I think anything that sounds too easy is probably a trap. Hold on, we’re docking.”
CHAPTER FOUR
STELLAR DATE: 11.21.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Psion Research Outpost
REGION: Larissa, Neptune, OuterSol
The room was stacked with bodies.
Andy kept his rifle up as he stepped into the doorway, studying the racks filled with the data storage systems. In the spaces between the racks, the desiccated bodies of the facility’s crew lay on top of each other or leaned randomly in sitting positions, like they ha
d been arranged like dolls. Maintained by the dry, sterile environment, skin had mummified so features were still visible, but each corpse still grinned with white teeth where the lips had drawn back.
Harl walked around the side of the transport to stand behind Andy’s shoulder.
Andy stepped into the room and approached the nearest body, a man in a gray labsuit leaning up against the wall. He still gripped a wrench in one hand, the skin having turned to leather around the metal. Black eye holes looked back at him from around the room.
The room was approximately thirty meters long by twenty wide and filled with storage racks. Andy lost count of the bodies.
Harl walked up to one stack and nudged them with his boot, causing the pile to fall over. A head rolled loose and bumped against the nearby stack. He looked back at Andy.
Andy set the butt of his rifle on the floor and knelt next to the severed head. He picked up the skull and rotated it in front of his faceplate. There was a fist-sized hole in the back of the head. Andy set the skull on the deck and inspected the next closest corpse—a woman with wiry blonde hair. He found the same hole in the back of the woman’s skull.
Sweat broke out on Andy’s forehead.