by Sean Danker
“That is speculation,” General Dayal pointed out.
“We don’t convict on circumstantial evidence,” Woodhouse told her. “Ma’am. But we don’t ignore it either.”
“Woodhouse, are you going to make a point?” Mao asked bluntly. “Or are you just going to make everyone nervous by talking like a New Unity sympathizer? I know you’re from Cohengard. I know you’re a physician and you’d rather heal people than kill them. I know you don’t want to be here. What do you want? Do you want me to relieve you?”
He turned on her. “Commander, I don’t need to be relieved. I can fight. I can fight because I can tell the difference between an enemy and a noncombatant, but this thing can’t.”
“We would never use a weapon like this,” Golding told him, obviously struggling not to raise her voice.
“Then why do we want it? Just to keep it out of everyone else’s hands?” Woodhouse raised an eyebrow. “Did we all just forget about New Sochi? We went there like we knew what we were doing, and when they fought back and we didn’t get our easy win, we just . . .” He trailed off, gesturing. “We just made it go away. Erased it. That’s what this is. That’s where we’re going. You think the High Command wouldn’t authorize a weapon like this? No one would ever know it was us. It’s a microorganism. Not a war crime.”
“I don’t think our people did this,” Mao told him.
“I don’t think so either. But I think it’s giving them ideas about where it would be convenient for it to happen next.”
General Dayal’s face had gone very hard.
“And you think that’s why we’re out here? To take care of these pirates so they don’t go telling stories about Oasis?” Compton asked.
Bjorn decided it was time to step in.
“It’s possible,” he said. “But we can’t know for certain, and even if we could, it wouldn’t matter.” He went back to his console and took his seat. “The big picture’s not our problem right now. We can argue later. Let’s stay on Doyle and Tenbrook.”
Mao was giving Bjorn a funny look, but he ignored her and checked his holo. She cleared her throat.
“He’s right. Let’s not get distracted by things above our clearance. We need to look at what this does to our plans. Woodhouse, your concerns are noted.”
“Doyle can’t dock,” Sergeant Golding stated flatly. “We can’t expose him to this threat.”
“We can give his work team protective nanomachines,” Woodhouse said. “The same ones we have. If they don’t work, we’re all dead anyway. I say we try it. He has to dock to be able to jump, and he has to jump to live. It’s that simple.”
“He’s right,” Mao said. “If we just limp away, we know Tenbrook will catch up with us. If we gamble here and get Doyle jump capable, that at least opens up the possibility of getting him clear without exposing him to another battle.”
“Agreed,” said Major Compton, though he was still eyeing Woodhouse warily.
“But we can’t ignore the threat. Speculation aside,” she said, not looking at Woodhouse, “we have to use caution here. Like Woodhouse said, we can’t sleep on something that could be responsible for taking down an entire station.”
“Commander, EV suits should protect us from any biohazard,” Woodhouse said. “I don’t think we’re vulnerable. There shouldn’t be anything our decon nanomachines can’t handle.”
“The colonists probably thought the same thing,” Dayal said mildly.
“I don’t like it,” Mao said. “Lydia, are there any survivors on Oasis?”
“Scan inconclusive,” the AI replied.
“We’re running into the same problem we had with the shuttle. Something in there’s interfering. I am reading movement, but it’s more in line with maintenance robotics than people. What I’m not seeing are any concentrations of power, which is what you’d have if there were survivors who’d managed to quarantine themselves,” Sergeant Golding said.
“Then we’re going to go with the assumption that it killed everyone? There were a lot of people on this station. Surely there was someone resourceful enough to survive this.”
“I’m sure as well. And I’m sure by now they’re on a ship, far away,” Woodhouse said. “People run from this thing. The question is, will they reach some other unsuspecting station? Or will our people get to them first?”
Mao chewed her lip. “Not our problem,” she said after a moment.
“Commander, even if it means certain death, we must dock.”
“Why?”
“To get into Oasis’ systems. Maybe I’m wrong,” Woodhouse said. “Maybe I’m jumping at shadows. In that case we need all the information we can get, because we don’t know that our intelligence assets in the sector are ahead of this. If they aren’t—if we really are discovering this threat—then we must document it.”
Mao’s eye twitched. “Lydia, lay out the station and find the Sunbath somewhere to dock. And get me Doyle.”
A young woman appeared on the screen. “Bridge Officer Stanley. How can I help?”
“Find Doyle,” Mao commanded. “Wake him up. Get him here. Go now.” She didn’t even give the girl a chance to reply. Mao had gone from chewing her lip to chewing her gloved thumb. “This is going to be tricky,” she muttered. “I hope the idea of doing something stupid doesn’t bother anyone.”
“We’re with you,” Major Compton replied at once. “What’s the plan?”
“If we’re docking, we’ll take full advantage of it and get as much data as we can. It’ll take Doyle time to repair his ship. We’re going to use some of that time to get the data we need. Someone has to go to Operations. Someone else is going to hit an infirmary and learn what they can. Maybe someone had the decency to take a sample before they died. Someone’s got to deliver the nanomachines to Doyle. And I don’t want anyone leaving this ship. But there’s no choice.”
“Shore leave?”
Mao snorted. “Even if this place was still in one piece, would you really want to go on liberty here?”
Doyle appeared on the feed.
“Commander?”
“I want you to dock at Oasis wherever my ship’s AI directs you. Do not disembark or break any airlock seals until my personnel reach you, and even then I want your work detail in full suits, and quarantined from the rest of your passengers.”
“Is there a contamination threat?”
“It’s possible. We’re going to protect your workers from it, but it’ll be up to you to make sure they don’t come into contact with your other passengers after they reenter the ship. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“How long for your repairs?” Mao asked.
“I can’t tell you exactly. A few hours.”
“I don’t need to tell you that speed’s the priority here. We’re taking a terrible risk.”
“I understand, Commander.”
“Then wait for my men.” Mao killed the transmission and turned back to her staff. “Lydia, take us in. There can’t be many berths for a ship the size of the Sunbath, but try to find one as close to us as you can.”
“You want to launch these ops simultaneously?” Compton asked.
Mao nodded. “I want us on and off that station as quickly as possible. Sergeant, go wake everyone up. Who’s on alert?”
“Kladinova,” Compton said.
“She’s on guard duty. We’ll be vulnerable with people aboard the station, so we’re shooting first and asking questions later. Make sure she understands that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Woodhouse, take Bjorn and Grigori. Get Doyle his nanomachines, and get what you need to understand the threat. Bjorn, you keep him in line. Don’t let him get carried away—make sure he doesn’t waste any time. I want you guys back before I know you’ve left.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Bjorn
and Woodhouse both got to their feet.
“Ensign Grigori,” Woodhouse said into the com as they left the bridge, “get your overnight bag. We’re going ashore.”
Bjorn split off from Woodhouse and swung into his quarters. Major Morel was dozing in his bunk. Bjorn gave him a light shake.
“What is it?” the big man asked, sitting up and blinking.
“We’re about to be alert, sir. We’ve reached Oasis and we’re running shore ops. She hasn’t hit the Klaxon yet, but you know she will.”
Morel got up without a word.
Bjorn pulled his shore belt from his locker and put it on, immediately going back into the corridor. Grigori was just ahead of him, settling her own belt around her hips. She patted her hair as she strode toward the force shield, but there was no danger of it being cut by her helmet.
As he passed the open hatch to the bay, Bjorn could see through the force shield. The Lydia was drawing closer to the station, searching for a place to put them ashore.
“LT,” Rada said, spotting him. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“We’re running errands on the station while Doyle repairs his ship.”
“I’ve never seen a station like this before. The lights are on, but nobody’s home.”
“I’m not sure anyone has.”
The hatch hissed open, and Woodhouse came jogging through, a bag over his shoulder. “Ready?”
“How are we navigating?” Bjorn asked.
“We’ll be counting on the AI. There’s still emergency power in most of these sectors. She’ll be overriding the station’s systems and tracking us.”
“She?”
“Her name’s Lydia, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never had a synthetic in a mission-essential role before,” Bjorn said.
“Weren’t you an immigration analyst? Did you not use a terminal? A holo?” Woodhouse twitched an eyebrow.
“Yeah, but in special ops?”
“Why do you think they call them special?”
The Lydia was no longer moving. Perhaps ten meters of open space separated the force shield from a mating dock on the side of the station.
“That’s us,” Woodhouse said, pointing at the airlock.
“Should we have wires?” Rada asked.
“We don’t need them for this,” Bjorn said, rolling his neck and working his shoulders. “Is there gravity?”
“Some,” Woodhouse confirmed. “The drive on a station this size would take a long time to spin down. Just follow me. The mission’s simple, and the commander has zero faith in me. But Bjorn’s here to keep me in check. What could go wrong?”
“You could choose another wildly inappropriate moment to get political,” Bjorn said.
“We can’t succeed in our mission unless we know what our mission is,” Woodhouse replied calmly. “The left hand has to know what the right is doing.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“I know.”
“What did I miss?” Rada asked, puzzled.
“Don’t worry about it,” Bjorn told her, rolling his eyes. “This isn’t the time.”
“To be continued,” Woodhouse said, grinning at Bjorn. “Lydia, open the doors,” he ordered.
The hatch opened, and there was a brief puff of escaping O2. It was a spacious airlock, but not a very clean one.
The three of them deployed their helmets. Woodhouse nodded to Bjorn, who got a running start.
Passing through a force shield never got any easier. Bjorn felt as if it was pulling him back, throwing off his jump trajectory, though it was doing no such thing.
He leapt into the open, spreading his arms and sailing effortlessly into the airlock, where he touched down. Rada’s jump was a little off, but only a little. He caught her hand and guided her in as Woodhouse swung in behind her.
The gravity was awful; it was too light, and Bjorn could feel variance from moment to moment as it shifted.
“Too easy,” the captain said, turning to look back at the Lydia. The slender white ship looked larger than expected when viewed from the outside. “We’re in,” he said over the com.
21
BJORN had been trained to operate in more scenarios than he could conveniently remember, but he’d never seen anything like what waited for him on Oasis.
It was dark. There were emergency lights, but they weren’t all operational. Some were broken, and others appeared to have failed purely from lack of maintenance. Bjorn had never even heard of a station so grimy and decrepit, much less seen one.
They let themselves through the security screening gate and into the harbor itself. Signs of a hasty evacuation were everywhere. The harbor was in poor condition, but most of the damage and blemishes didn’t look especially recent.
This would have been light security even with people manning it. They made their way past the barriers and the detectors, out into the commercial area. Space was at a premium on every station, and doubly so on Oasis. The cramped corridors were filled with debris, and lined with an almost unbelievably large number of doors. The rooms beyond couldn’t be more than closets, and they had all manner of uses. There were personal lodgings next door to businesses, and businesses next door to pods that could be rented by the minute.
The walls were covered with plastic advertisements; there wasn’t much smart carbon here, and there were few hologram projectors, so people had to print physical flimsies to post data. Bjorn and Rada were both taken aback by the crass, open nature of business on Oasis. Advertisements for the chemical market, the pleasure trade, and even the business of buying and selling human beings were plentiful and explicit.
Things weren’t any better in the atriums. Rooms and structures were built out of everything from supply crates to old shuttles. Unstable-looking buildings teetered upward toward a carbon dome so clouded that Bjorn could barely see the stars beyond it. On a more respectable station there would be streets after a fashion, but here there were only what could be charitably called alleys.
In the dark it wasn’t very welcoming. Bjorn could imagine what it looked like lit up and bustling with people.
The station was quiet. Air vents cycled, and metal groaned. Advertisements played in endless loops, echoing off the bulkheads and through the passages. “Who could live in this place?” Rada asked, shining her light over a storefront with a dented, defaced shutter.
“Lots of people,” Bjorn replied, holding up a bundle of cords so she could get past. Ahead, Captain Woodhouse was deep in conversation with Lydia. The AI was struggling to put a correct course into words. Her maps of Oasis were sadly out-of-date, and the layouts of these atriums had changed over time.
“Criminals,” Rada said.
“Anyone who ended up here. Anyone without anywhere else to go.”
“But the Empress welcomes anyone.”
“Not quite,” Bjorn replied, following her. “The whole station isn’t like this.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“There are people here with a lot of money. I’m guessing some of the atriums probably look almost Evagardian.”
“I doubt that,” Rada replied, making a face at some particularly vile artwork.
“This is the lift we want,” Woodhouse said, pointing. “It’ll take us to the harbor. We can find Doyle from there.”
They hurried down the narrow alley to a small clearing. A sales kiosk had been smashed to bits, and the walls of the metal buildings were deeply scoured and corroded.
“This looks recent,” Rada said.
“Must’ve been some panic during the evacuation stage of things,” Woodhouse said.
Rada paused and looked down, then knelt. There was something on the deck. “I keep seeing this.”
Bjorn joined her; there was something like sand underfoot. Rada picked some up, watching it fall through her glov
ed fingers.
He’d seen it as well, but he didn’t know where it could’ve come from.
“But where are the bodies?” Bjorn got to his feet and turned in a full circle, panning his light around.
“What?”
“You know there couldn’t have been enough ships here to move everyone.”
Woodhouse considered that. “The majority of the bodies will be in one place, wherever the people left behind gathered to try to stay clean. I wouldn’t expect to see a lot of them in the street, so to speak.”
“But none?”
“I know, LT.” Woodhouse looked back the way they’d come. “But I don’t have an answer for you. Keep moving.”
It wasn’t far to the lift.
“This doesn’t look very safe,” Rada observed, giving the shutter a push. It rattled loudly, and the echoes took several seconds to fade.
“We’ll climb,” Woodhouse said, opening the gate and stepping past the carriage. He pointed his light down at the service ladder.
“That’s a long way down.”
“Let’s not shame the Empress by complaining,” Woodhouse said dryly. He swung on and slid down, disappearing into the dark. Bjorn shrugged at Rada and followed.
Bjorn would have preferred to simply climb, but Woodhouse dropped effortlessly, using only gravity and his own strength. Bjorn used his suit’s cling to make it easier.
Woodhouse called a halt a short distance down; Lydia must have tipped him off that they were at their destination. He checked with his light, then jumped off the ladder, motioning for them to follow.
They made their way through a corridor, across an atrium, then into another harbor checkpoint. Bjorn saw plenty of evidence of people, but still no bodies.
The viewports were cloudy, but not cloudy enough to hide the Sunbath. The cruiser seemed even more gargantuan up close. Bjorn stood at the shield and stared out at it. Rada swept her light around the dock while Captain Woodhouse approached the hatch to the Sunbath.