by M. D. Cooper
Petrov chuckled, “How the hell do you RMA something like this?”
CHAPTER 20
STELLAR DATE: 3227279 / 11.22.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Mars Outer Shipyards (MOS)
REGION: Mars Protectorate, Sol Space Federation
“When will she be conscious?” Tanis asked.
“Not too long now,” the medic said. “Her AI apparently linked in with some of the silbio and put her in a sort of pseudo-cryo; it used some of the stuff to seal her wounds, too.”
“Have we got anything from her AI on what happened?”
“Not yet, the AI completely ran out of power trying to sustain the cryo. It’s in hard shutdown; it’ll take the girl’s command to get it to re-init.”
“It’s always something.” Tanis sighed.
The medic blinked rapidly. “Looks like she’s coming to; let’s go see what she has to say.”
The girl—woman, Tanis corrected herself—lying on the slab was shorter than average, probably only five and a half feet. Uncommon to see in an age when nearly all children were more designed than simply “had.” She appeared somewhat dazed as she looked around the medroom; the one organic eye blearily attempting to focus on her surroundings.
“Hello, miss. I’m Dr. Anne Rosenberg. You’re on the Mars Outer Shipyards; you’ve been shot, but you’re going to be OK, thanks to your AI.”
“My AI? I…I can’t hear her! She’s not here!” A look of panic spread across the woman’s face.
“Relax,” Dr. Rosenberg said. “She ran your internal power down and you’re going to need to run her through her startup sequence—though I strongly recommend that you don’t do that until you are better rested.”
“I’m Major Richards,” Tanis said. “We don’t have any ID on you and you really weren’t expected on MOS. Do you have any idea how you ended up here?”
“Name’s…Trist. I remember being on Callisto R14…I remember dying.”
“You would have if your AI hadn’t plugged you up with the silbio. Saved your life.” Dr. Rosenberg gave Trist a soothing smile.
“I’m guessing you weren’t in that warehouse on Callisto to give our shipment your seal of approval, were you,” Tanis asked.
Trist chuckled; it was low and throaty. “Only the best in the Space Force I see. Yeah, I was there with my friend—Jesse—we were lifting some stuff.”
“The report I was delivered said that your friend took a bullet to the head. Care to elaborate on what happened?” Dr. Rosenberg shot Tanis an incredulous look and she realized perhaps a little more tact wouldn’t have hurt.
“Aw shit…Jesse.” Trist’s eye lost its focus and she shuddered, trying to keep control of herself. “Any chance I can just go back to being dead?”
“I don’t really think that’s going to get on the list of options,” Tanis replied. “I’m sorry about your friend…sorry I brought it up like that.”
Trist grimaced, but nodded slowly.
“Look, why don’t you just start at the beginning, and take me through it.” Tanis said.
Trist didn’t say a word for several minutes, Tanis suspected that she was having a conversation with her AI about their options. Then, slowly, she proceeded to explain how she had acquired the manifest of items being shipped to the Intrepid, broken into the warehouse and been ambushed by some unknown thugs. The last thing she remembered was being shot after seeing Jesse die.
“So I’m guessing that for whatever reason, the shipment still got sent here, and somehow, me with it,” Trist concluded. “How did that happen anyway?”
“Gunshots alerted a security drone that was patrolling the warehouse you had been in. It arrived on the scene to find a detonation charge planted on one of the opened crates. The charge was disabled and when crews arrived to check everything over they found that some items were in duffels, but otherwise all the cargo was still present. For whatever reason they didn’t see your body and just sealed the silbio up again—I don’t know how they thought that was going to pass muster. The official record was entered as some sort of dispute between thieves with one fatality. They surmised the other must have run off after the gunshots to avoid detection.”
Trist looked perplexed. “You’ve asked me a lot of questions, but I have one. How am I still alive? I have this distinct impression that I was dying when that loud-mouthed bitch shot me.” She ran a hand across her torso, almost as though she expected to find holes where the rounds had impacted her.
Dr. Rosenberg provided the answer. “Your AI managed to interface with the silbio and programmed it to form a seal on your wounds and put you into a semi-cryo state. It was really quite an ingenious bit of work; you are lucky to be alive.”
“Sue is pretty damn clever; I bet not any AI could have pulled that off.” Trist grinned.
“I wouldn’t get too excited,” the doctor cautioned. “No one has ever done what she did with silbo, Somehow the process has caused it to bind to your DNA with consequences I can’t quite foresee. You wouldn’t be the first human to be a bit more silicon than flesh, but this is different.”
Trist grimaced, and then gave a half smile, “so when someone asks animal, mineral or vegetable I can say all three?”
Tanis found the attitude to be a bit too blasé and Angela added her own internal comment,
“You’re not a vegetable yet,” Doctor Rosenberg said. “I don’t see any immediate impact on your neurological facilities or AI interface—which appears to be illegal, I might add—but I have found some additional interconnectivity that we’ll need to look into more carefully. Quite honestly it’s a very exiting accident.”
“I’m glad it’s so beneficial to you.”
The doctor gave Trist a caustic look. “I’d say that the majority of the benefit is yours. You’d be dead otherwise.”
“I do kinda like being alive.”
Tanis took the opportunity to redirect the conversation, “and while it’s great that you’re alive, you’ve got some things to answer for.” She kept to herself that this could actually be a blessing in disguise. This woman might have seen something that would help them. “There will most likely be charges of trespass from Callisto, and then there’s the cost of our tub of silbio. I think that it will run you about a century’s wages.”
Trist sank back. “I guess there’s no running from this one is there?”
“Not even the slimmest chance,” Tanis said. “However…” She let it hang out there for a minute, watching Trist grow agitated with interest.
“However what?” Trist finally asked.
“Your testimony would be useful for starters.”
“Against who? Some guy who I can only describe as ‘the skinny guy with the bimbo squad’?”
“More or less,” Tanis replied. “We think we know who he is, and if we could gain some leverage against him he could point us in the direction of who is calling the shots. Maybe then we’d have a chance to make some headway against STR.”
Trist rose up on her elbows. “You want me to testify against STR? Are you nuts?”
“You know, Dr. Rosenberg, I think we’ve bothered our guest enough for one day. I’ll come back to see her tomorrow.”
“I was about to say the same thing,” the doctor replied.
“Lieutenant Amy Lee will be getting in touch with you to transport our guest aboard the Intrepid. I don’t want any unexpected visitors ending her time with us.”
The doctor nodded and Tanis left the MOS north sector’s med facilities.
Angela replied.
Tanis smiled to herself.
Angela made a noise that Tanis had come to identify as her signal of frustration.
Tanis leapt on the back of a cargo hauler heading across the docks toward the Intrepid.
Angela and Tanis cut their conversation short as a call came in from Joe.
“Just seems practical to me…” Tanis said to herself as the hauler sped across the loading dock to the Intrepid.
Angela commented.
Tanis didn’t respond immediately.
Tanis grunted.
Somehow the term seemed a bit more derisive than normal.
CHAPTER 21
STELLAR DATE: 3227280 / 11.23.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: GSS Intrepid, Mars Outer Shipyards (MOS)
REGION: Mars Protectorate, Sol Space Federation
Joe took a seat across from Tanis in her office. “I assume you actually have a plan now? One that isn’t just ‘we use the civilian as bait’?”
Joe, for his part, had been true to his word in demonstrating that they could work together and not have his feelings get in the way. She was still somewhat uncertain about what tone her interactions with him should take, but it was becoming easier. Especially when she was deep in her work.
She pulled her lips back in a predatory grin. “Of course I have a plan. I always have a plan.”
“I’ve made the connection, but thanks,” Joe said.
“It’s simple, really. We go to the federal buildings on Mars 1 and go before a superior court judge to get warrants signed out that Callisto can’t ignore.”
“Yeah, you said that yesterday, but it’s still not really something I’d call a plan.”
Tanis brought up maps for the MOS, the MCEE, and Mars 1. Certain sections were highlighted and she zoomed in on those.
“We’re going to take a route that while secure, passes through some places where we’ll be certain to be ambushed. I expect Trent to be involved and we’ll nab him.”
“She has a point,” Joe said. “How do you know Trent will even be there?”
“Well, if he’s not then we’ll have warrants that Callisto will have to execute. Either way we’ll flush him out.”
“I don’t know how that’s going to help. He doesn’t exactly have a physical address that the ChoSec folks can show up at.”
“No, but it will restrict his movement.”
“I imagine he has ways of slipping about,” Joe said.
“I should hope so. Either way the legal ball needs to be rolling…especially since it rolls so slowly.”
“I still don’t like this. There are too many things that could go wrong. Your route here puts you in a lot of danger.”
“It does, but we can’t just contact the Federation DA and tell them to arrest the whole STR Consortium, we need to get the name of whoever gave the orders and pulled the strings. Getting our hands on Drenn would work too, but he’s been playing this game for a long time. I’m guessing that he’s lying very low right now.”
“He’d be on the first ship to Alpha Centauri if he knew what was good for him.” Joe shook his head. “By the way, I heard you went down to the surface with Captain Andrews. What was that about?”
Tanis twisted her lips, thinking about the goal of that trip. What they brought back up to the Intrepid had answered all her questions about why Terrance and the Reddings were coming along to New Eden. The knowledge was like a burr in the back of her mind, but she knew that it was imperative it remain a secret.
“Good. I gave him a hand with a few things.”
Joe’s tone remained impassive, but the curiosity was obvious in his face. “What sort of things?”
Tanis grimaced. “I wish I could say, but I can’t. I’ll tell you once we’re underway.”
They discussed other issues for several minutes before Joe left for an inspection on Blue Wing. Tanis took a few minutes to relax in the relative peace and quiet before rising to hit the officer’s mess for a late night meal before bed.
She whistled a tuneless melody as she walked through the halls of officer country. It was third shift and few people were about; Tanis was half watching where she was going, and half paying attention to some time tables that Angela was running through in the back of her mind.
She rounded a corner and thought she caught a shadow out of the corner of her eye, a blur that was there one moment and gone the next. Looking behind her she saw nothing, and, pausing, heard only the sound of air circulation coming from a nearby vent.
Something wasn’t right. Tanis evaluated her surroundings, checking for aberrant scents, sounds, and vibrations. Sure enough, the sound of the vent was too loud.
Tanis slowed her pace and leaned back against the bulkhead, pretending to have gotten a message via Link that required all of her concentration. Instead, what she was doing was sending out preconfigured noise-cancelling nano. They spread through the corridor, determining what the actual sound of the moving air was and clearing it from Tanis’s hearing. All that was left was th
e additional noise. The nano attempted to triangulate and pick up its source, but were unable to do so. It appeared to be coming from everywhere.
Then a sensation prickled within Tanis, almost as though she could sense another being’s presence, and she threw up an arm to fend off a blow. To her surprise, she actually did deflect a strike. Instinct told her where the attacker would be and she lashed out with her boot and felt it connect with an unseen body. Tanis thanked the foresight that had caused her to amp up her olfactory system; that had to be what was giving her this intuition.
“You know,” Tanis spoke aloud to her attacker. “I can’t see you, but I can smell the patterns you’re making in the air currents. Why don’t you just drop this sneaky assassin thing and we can do this the old-fashioned way?”
A figure materialized in front of Tanis, every inch covered in a skintight glossy black outfit. There weren’t even any apparent openings for the wearer to breathe or see. Most likely that was done to mask IR output from hot breath. Pretty clever, Tanis found herself wanting one.
The figure was obviously female and Tanis’s records showed that the height, weight, bone structure, and overall posture matched the woman she had fought previously on the Dawn.
No weapons were visible, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t there.
“As you wish.” The sound seemed to come from the figure’s entire body. “Would you like to do this hand to hand, or not quite that old-fashioned?” An obvious challenge resonated in the woman’s tone. Her body posture was confident and tense all at the same time.
“Oh what the hell, Kris.” Tanis grinned. “It’s been a very long time since I tore the stuffing out of anyone with my bare hands. It is Kris, by the way, isn’t it?”
“Good memory, Tanis. Now that we’re on a first name basis, shall we get on with it?”
Tanis didn’t wait for a response, but sent a TSF-issued boot—polished so even Williams would be proud—up and around in a textbook roundhouse kick to her opponent’s head. Kris wasn’t there anymore, but Tanis hadn’t expected her to be. It wouldn’t be a very fun fight if she won with a single kick.