Inferno Station (Helltroopers Book 1)

by Isaac Stone

  “How long have you been around?” Ester asked Barbara Ann. “You have a creation date, don’t you?” She waited to see a response.

  “I’m not brand new, if that’s what you want to know,” she responded. “I was sold to a new buyer and was on my way there when the freighter was attacked.”

  “The ore ship that wasn’t an ore ship?” smirked Kris, “This just keeps getting better.”

  5

  Kris Tannerbaum was from a resort area on Old Earth. Her family owned one of the major tourist centers outside the major population centers of the North American continent. After the wars that were carried out by proxy on the Mars colonies, they were able to hang onto most of what their family had built up over the years. The war had hurt their business, but the syndicate they belonged to made certain its members had enough money to get them through the bad times.

  Kris remembered the ocean waves on the shore and playing in the beach sand as she searched for sand dollars and seashells. The cottages on the hills were abandoned for the most part when she came of age. As she grew older, Kris was forced to understand many things she took for granted in her small community was not acceptable in the outside world. Because of the climate and origin of her village, no one wore clothes. They only time they did was for work or sanitary reasons.

  This became an issue when she would leave the village to travel with her parents. Kris found it bizarre so many people wrapped themselves up with cloth even when the weather was warm. It seldom became cold in her part of the world and no one wore clothes to the beach, although they took care to protect themselves from the rays of the sun with UV blockers. Consequently, few people in her immediate circle of friends and family were pale, regardless of their origins.

  As she came of age, Kris developed a keen interest in the way people hid things. She helped her parents install hiding places and cubbyholes all over the resort for the guests who wanted to conceal things. Since the guests seldom wore clothes in the resort, finding places to store valuables became an issue since they lacked pockets.

  This led to an interest in security systems and ways to encrypt data. By the time she was sixteen; Kris could open any lock she found on the Internet or find a better way to conceal things. It became an obsession of hers. She would spend hours trying to figure out ways to open ancient combinations using the sensitivity of her fingers. She had long legs and found she could wrap her nude body around any safe or lock box just to feel the ancient tumblers fall.

  Ash heard about her soon after he had Team Omega up and in operation. He needed someone with perfect cracking skills who could break into any database or physical safe. People talked about a tall, leggy, blond woman who worked naked. It wasn’t her clothing-optional way of work that attracted him; it was the description of her methods.

  When he found Kris, she was in her office working on the key to a complicated quantum computer lock and was almost finished. Although her office was located outside her little village, she was in her inner sanctum and sat naked on a cloth as she worked. When Ash entered her office, she looked up at him and smiled, then returned to work. All she wore that day was a wrap to keep her large breasts out of the way.

  He ended up hiring her for Team Omega with the understanding she had to wear clothes while on a mission. This wasn’t a problem; however, Kris was one of the few members of the crew who didn’t mind changing in front of everyone else. The mostly-male crew learned to expect her disregard for concealment and looked the other way, or at least pretended too.

  Theo, on the other hand, did not know who his real parents were. He was found on the beach near the Aegean Sea by an older couple after one of the many battles between the Cypriot Empire and the local city-states. He grew to manhood and assumed they were his grandparents. When he later found out his real origins, there was little he could do about it as the records from the years of his birth were destroyed in the wars.

  Theo became a deep cover operative for the Greek Army when he left home. He’d grown up around all matter of languages, as the shore was the first destination for all manner of refugees. This also allowed him to understand the nuances of whomever he was supposed to investigate. After a few years, he was one of the top intelligence agents in the army. Although he never achieved a high rank, he spent his years on many undercover missions into Cypriot, Turkish or Syrian territory.

  The wars were over by the time he cashed out of the army. The terms of the various peace treaties made him redundant for the government, so he couldn’t go work for Athens. Ash found him in a bar outside Thessalonica talking in Macedonian to some Montenegro expats and was impressed. Over the next two hours, he greeted every patron of the bar in their native language.

  It didn’t take long for Ash to run a background check on the bored man who knew more than anyone else about the warlord factions in Alexandria. He decided this had to be the person he needed to assess any mission of interest. He went back to the bar and made Theo an offer. Theo, who had olive skin and black eyes, laughed and told him it was the only job that interested him.

  Theo had brought him sensitive data on the armaments on pirate ships, hiding places of smugglers and background of counterfeiters’. He was a great asset to Team Omega and could be counted on to assess any target before Ash decided to take the job. He’d saved plenty of time and money with his knowledge of who was armed with what before they went into action.

  Theo gave Ash a look, his eyebrows raised in suspicion, letting the mercenary know that despite appearances the former army man wasn’t as taken in by the sexy new android as he might appear.

  “I know the layout of Infinity Station,” Barbara Ann announced to the crew. For some reason, she displayed little emotion when she made her proclamations.

  “How is it that you know so much about this place?” Makulah asked her. “You seem to know a lot more about this mission than you should.”

  “I know many things,” she announced. “I don’t know how I have this knowledge, but I suspect it was implanted inside me.”

  “Why did you decide to just now tell us?” Ester demanded. “It would be nice to know these things in advance.” The crew had moved back to Barbara Ann’s side of the control center.

  “Because I saw this,” Barbra Ann announced. She pointed at the registration plate on the side of the hull. It had the standard number and encoded serial number all space-worthy vessels were required to have on board.

  Both Pete and Theo looked the plate over. They’d seen it many times before. It had the same information you would find on any other vessel that made the run between planets. Just the name of it and the numbers and specifications on size. There was also the date of manufacture.

  “I don’t see anything strange about this,” Peter announced. “You see these plates all over the place. Every ship has one.”

  “It triggered a memory,” she explained, her green eyes sweeping the room. “I’ve had implants in my memory which need things to unlock them. Until I saw this plate, I had no knowledge of the layout of Infinity Station.”

  Ash found her latest revelation to be troubling. What else did this artificial human know? Was she wired to explode when they reached a certain location? He never trusted his clients. Although they would never kill one of their operatives out in the open, there were several cases he knew about where a sudden explosion eliminated a corporate need to pay someone. It also meant the corporation didn’t have to reveal more information than they cared to make public. He hated being in a bind like this, with so much cash on the table and an android claiming to be able to help him get it, and yet his instincts were still screaming at him to just shove her out of the damn airlock and be done with it. From the looks of the rest of the crew Ash knew some of them were thinking the same thing.

  “You have any background on the station, Theo?” Ash asked his intelligence officer. Theo pulled himself over to his workstation and brought up a special database he wasn’t supposed to have.

  “Not a whole lot of it bos
s,” he responded after a few minutes. “The place was built by EAC years ago, but nobody seems to know why. There was some talk and speculation they were trying to get around the neutrino experiment bans with it. It’s too far away to be investigated by the rangers unless they have some firm reasons. Appears to be huge and built into a small asteroid. Whatever takes place in it, they want it kept quiet and have paid for that privacy.”

  “Officially, it was built as a research center,” Barbara Ann began to speak. “The board of directors needed a place to undergo trial runs on a new form of the power packs they sell all over the known planets. It’s huge, but far larger than the kind of work it does require. I see many levels going down through the center of the asteroid. It’s very secure in the middle. I have more knowledge of the place, but they will only reveal themselves as I locate the codes that unlock them.”

  “So how do you find these unlock codes?” Kris asked Barbara Ann. The whole thing sounded suspicious to her.

  “I don’t. They find me. When I see one, the memory becomes active. I expect more will be revealed when we reach Infinity Station.”

  Ash could see the crew had changed their minds about the job. Barbara Ann’s revelation made a difference and piqued everyone’s interest. Now the money became attractive, even though they knew little about what awaited them upon arrival. He decided to wait and see what they would decide with this new bit of information. Money makes people do crazy things, and if accepting the irksome help of a suspicious and deadly android that just happened to be in possession of mission specific knowledge meant they got the huge payday, Ash figured most of them would still bite.

  Barbara Ann continued to talk about the Infinity Station, its size, location, firms that designed and built it, year of construction, and the number of ships it received on an annual basis. Once again, she repeated the information in a singsong voice and appeared to reveal it as it was given to her. In some ways, she reminded Ash of a toy that would spout information at the push of a button.

  “If she has this much on the place,” Theo announced. “I’m voting to take the job.”

  “You can count me in,” Ester added. “The money is sweet and at least we have a guide who can get us to where we need to go.”

  “Do you know where our quarry is located inside this station?” Makulah, still suspicious, asked her.

  “I have no information on this person,” she responded. “However, that is not to say I won’t when we arrive.”

  “I vote yes,” Kris announced. “It suddenly became a big deal.”

  “I don’t want to be the odd man out,” Peter told them, “so I’ll vote ‘yes’ with the others.”

  Everyone’s eyes turned on Jack. He’d been silent throughout Barbara Ann’s revelation. He held himself in place by one hand and looked at her eyes. Ash could see the skepticism in his eyes. They needed Jack’s full support if this job would become a reality.

  “It strikes me as very convenient,” he said, “We take out a pirate ship that just happens to have a killer android on board who knows about a job we only just found out about. Also, rather curious you were stored as freight on an ore transporter. How fortunate for us you were able to kill every one of those pirates by yourself. As a matter of fact, why were we allowed to attack that pirate ship when you’d already killed them?”

  “These are questions I cannot answer,” Barbara Ann told him.

  “Okay,” Jack announced. “I’ll vote ‘yes’, but I want everyone to know I think we are headed into something pretty messy.”

  “If their money spends then EAC can have its corporate intrigue and weirdo androids as far as I’m concerned,” added Pete, “Impact guns can sort out most trouble we might find anyway.”

  Pete Costa was from Rio De Jairo. At the time he was born, the city was still part of the same monarchy that ruled much of the South American Continent. He came of age in a shantytown that had a good view of the ocean and not much else. The monarchy ruled most of the parts of South American still industrialized after the Popular Anarchy Movement of the previous century destroyed the infrastructure in the name of Green Earth. Once the power plants and farms were decimated, much of the population starved in the interior or turned back to savagery to survive. The instigators of the movement were hunted down and lynched by the starving population wherever they could be located. In many cases, all the government had to do was publish your name on a list to guarantee your family would end up the guest of honor at a human barbecue.

  His city was divided up into several zones of interest by the warlord factions that ruled it. Pete didn’t remember his parents much as they were killed in a shoot-out between rival factions. He ended up at twelve working for a pistolero who hired himself out to different gangs that controlled the city. By then it was difficult to tell what differentiated a gang from a militia. He would later find out his patron was a former Brazilian army officer who decided to freelance with his weapons and men.

  In the years he worked for his patron, Pete Costa survived many encounters with gunrunners and raids from rival gangs. When Ash found out about him, Costa was relaxing on a cabana bar at a popular resort in Costa Rica. The new Costa Rica Republic occupied much of Central American and didn’t fool around when it came to foreign toughs who wanted to operate on their soil. After they publicly fed some gunmen from Uruguay to the sharks, there was no more trouble. All manner of foreign mercenaries and gunners visited the republic to vacation, but they knew better than to bring guns along.

  “See that man?” one of the bartenders said to Ash about Pete Costa once the merc made it clear he was looking for a hired gun, “He’s Brazilian and wants to find a job which will give him peace of mind.”

  “How do you know?” Ash questioned the bartender, an older man in his fifties.

  “I can tell,” he replied. “Look at the way he’s starring at the surf. There’s someone who’s seen one carnage too many. Plus his accent is from the slums. He wants out.” The bartender knew Ash wanted a man who could handle a gun.

  “You want to get out of the racket you’re in?” Ash asked Costa when he walked up to him. “I hear you want a better job.”

  Pete looked up at him. “Does this involve killing people?” he asked.

  “Only if they shoot first,” Ash told him. “Unless they’re pirates, in which case it’s open season.”

  “Pirates?” Pete asked. “You leave the planet for your work?”

  “Yes. I have a company that provides security and recovery services to the galactic corporations,” answered Ash, “The idea is that we’ll be so busy there won’t be time to bother coming back planetside.”

  Pete Costa went to work for him that day.

  6

  Makulah thought for a minute. “Alright,” he announced, moving his hand away from his pistol and giving the android a weak smile. “I’m in with the job. It strikes me as fishy, but the money makes it worthwhile. And she might be able to help us.

  Makulah Hatch came from Africa.

  He grew up on the seacoast of East Africa and loved going to the shore to watch the boats sail out to the horizon. His father owned a shipping company that sent the goods produced on the African landscape all over the world. A century ago, his family was part of the wave of Africans who returned after generations in bondage in the new world. They still had some stories of the wretched past, but it was long over.

  Not far from where he lived, was a major spaceport. The port began with mass drivers used to hurl objects into orbit from a hollowed-out mountain. After the laser engines were improved to the point of reliability, the mass drivers were used less and less. These days, they were only used on special occasions and people would turn out to watch them in use. When the laser hit the ice propellant in the projectiles, the light shone all over the veranda.

  His father obtained him a position in the merchant space marine academy, but he wanted more. As a Makulah, dreamed about travels to the stars and trips to other planets. Interstellar travel was j
ust a pipe dream and interplanetary travel was too expensive for most people. He was forced to take a job piloting a shuttle that took people to and from orbital stations around Earth.

  Makulah answered an advertisement he saw about a small company who had need of experienced pilots for deep space projects. This turned out to be Team Omega and he was met a local coffee shop near his hometown by Ash.

  “You ever fly a gunship?” Ash questioned him. He could see the look of disappointment in Makulah’s face.

  “No,” the man answered. “I’ve only flown shuttles from orbit to Earth. I’m qualified to fly everything up to a tug-puller. Did you want someone with combat experience?”

  “It would help,” Ash returned over a cup of spicy coffee, “but it’s not essential. Combat veterans are hard to find and most are hired by the corporations. I run a private security company that handles retrieval and interceptions for corporate clients. How would you feel about flying a gunship under fire?”

  Makulah almost fell over with excitement. Fly a gunship in the heat of battle? His father had refused to let him join the military. He’d come of age watching videos about brave gunship pilots who went against the scum of the solar system. This was a dream come true!

  “When could I start?” he asked with a cup that shook in his hand.

  It wasn’t until he was three months on the job that it hit Makulah he didn’t even ask about how much the position would pay. By then, he’d already flown in two rescue operations.

  It only took Ash’s crew six hours to make the course corrections for Infinity Station. Although the charts showed the place to be isolated and not involved in any kind of military research, Ash decided to ensure the forward EMP guns were fully charged. They had plenty of missiles and bomblets left over from the attack on the pirate ship. Ash was still irritated they’d wasted them on a dead ship, but there was no way they could have known what Barbara Ann did before the attack. If indeed she was telling the truth at all. Could androids be programmed to lie?