by J. S. Morin
Pale white light shone into the room. “Carl?” Amy called. He was shadowed by the back of the couch, which faced away from the door.
“Conjugal visit or time for my rescue?” Carl replied, remaining hidden where his grin wouldn’t show.
“Technically, kidnapping,” came Esper’s voice, spoiling the mood.
Carl sighed. “Fine.”
But through echolocation, feminine instinct, or the mere fact that the room wasn’t that large, Amy found him. She grabbed him by the shirt collar and hauled him upright. “Come on. We’re getting out of here. Everyone’s headed to the Mobius. This place wore out its welcome.”
“You can say that again,” Carl agreed, shaking loose and getting to his feet. There would be plenty of time for affection and gratitude later. For now, he had more important things to worry about. “Hey. What about all my stuff? My version of this escape had someone kidnapping my dad, and it definitely had someone making sure all my stuff got on board first. I assumed you guys got my secret message.”
“What message?” Esper asked.
“I left a data crystal in the scraps of my lunch. It was supposed to get clogged in the waste reclaim, where either Roddy or Niang would find it. I had the whole thing mapped out. We were going to kidnap my dad, flee offworld, get him committed to an elder-care facility on Luna… None of this ringing any bells?”
Esper towed him along as Carl attempted in vain to convey how well he’d planned this all out.
“Sorry, sweetie,” Amy said. “Rachel planned most of this out. The rest of us pitched in to iron out a few rough spots.”
Carl glanced back over his shoulder as he was led away. “But… my stuff…”
# # #
Even with a grav sled, the load was unwieldy. Sure, the repulsors canceled out the gravitational force, but Roddy still had to wrangle it around corners, fighting momentum the whole way. It made him wish they’d stolen a higher class of grav sled that had its own maneuvering thrusters.
“That bastard better appreciate this,” he muttered. Initially, he’d only gone to Carl’s quarters to get his guitar back. But seeing all Carl’s other stuff lying scattered around, he knew it was all going to get left behind. Carl could be a cold-hearted bastard at times, but he was sentimental at heart. Roddy had come back with the grav sled and some empty crates and piled up everything he could lay his hands on.
He puffed for breath as he fought with the sled around yet another of the inexplicable turns on the ship. It was like whoever designed the Odysseus was more worried about intruders having an easy time getting around than their own people being able to traverse the ship. Bloody humans. Maybe if they’d stop invading planets for a few decades, their engineers and ship designers could come out of their reinforced polymer steel bunkers and see the disastrous failure their designs were when it came to actually living on those ships.
The EV helmet cast everything in shades of green as main power was still out. If those same designers had made better use of distributed power generation, Esper wouldn’t have been able to take it out from a central source. In fairness, a non-crashed battleship might have had a backup system or two in place. But it still seemed sloppy.
“Clear the halls,” someone shouted. The helm’s audio pickups weren’t the best, and he couldn’t identify the speaker. Picking up his blaster from the pile atop his grav sled, Roddy turned and fired. One of Chuck’s hired marine goons collapsed to the floor. His partner fumbled for his weapon, apparently not expecting this to be a firefight. Roddy dropped him as well.
Roddy leaned back and dragged the sled to a halt. Backtracking, he grabbed the blaster pistols from both guards. He patted the marine on the cheek. “No point letting these go to waste.” He tossed them into the pile with all of Carl’s personal effects.
The added weight was insignificant compared to the junk already on board the grav sled. All Roddy had to do was make it there before backup caught up with him. There was only so long the syndicate could remain in chaos.
“Hey, you there!”
Roddy finished making his turn and pushed with all his might. The sled sped up, and Roddy’s feet kept pumping, continuing to force persistent acceleration. When it threatened to pull away from him as his legs tired, with one last heave he hopped aboard. Perched atop a crate of clothes, he aimed a blaster back the way he’d come and hoped not to crash while he wasn’t looking.
# # #
The cockpit itched. Through the cockpit window, the darkened hangar pressed in. The Mobius was too quiet. Roddy had sneaked off to his quarters for some last-minute personal junk. None of the others were back yet. Comm silence was the plan, but that didn’t make the waiting any easier.
In the stillness, Juggler made out the faint thump of the cargo ramp. Who was it? The plan was loose enough, the scheduling inexact enough, that it could have been anyone. But on the off chance that it was Rachel and the kids, he hurried down like it was last call at the chow line. He raced down the narrow corridor into the common room and across to the door leading to the cargo bay. Flinging the door open, he came face to face with Luis Vasquez.
The former marine was halfway up the grated metal stairs, a duffel slung over one massive shoulder. He blinked and cringed back. “Oh. Hey. Didn’t know anyone else was—”
“Freeze!” Juggler ordered. He pulled his blaster and trained it on the marine’s chest.
“Easy there, cowboy. No need to get jumpy. Got a mission come morning, and I figured I’d sleep in my new bunk. Mind showing me the way?”
Juggler kept his blaster steady. “There’s been a change of plans. You’re off the crew.”
Vasquez shook his head a twitch. His eyes never left Juggler’s. “Got my orders from Ramsey Senior. I’m your security officer. Not sure what’s up with the power, but once comms are on line, you can ask him yourself.” His hand edged toward the blaster holstered at his hip.
“Don’t try it,” Juggler warned. “I see you’re packing a Sig Systems 1109. Just about everyone around here is. Damn ship was loaded with them. But this here is the Bronson TG-6. It doesn’t even have a stun setting. If I squeeze this trigger, it’ll put a hole the size of my fist clean through your torso. Maybe, if you had superhuman reflexes, you might be able to draw that stun gun of yours and get a shot off. Maybe… But I don’t think you’ve got it in you anymore, do you, Vasquez?” Without liters of chem in his bloodstream, Vasquez was just as human as Juggler… maybe less.
Vasquez’s hand slowly retreated from the weapon.
“Good man.”
“I’m just here on orders.”
“And as your captain for the next few minutes, I’m giving you new orders. Set that blaster down, march down to the cargo bay, force open the door to the fuel storage room, and shut yourself inside. When power comes up, you’ll be locked inside until someone with clearance comes along to let you out. But on the upside, you won’t have a hole the size of my fist in your chest. Got it?”
Vasquez nodded. He set down the navy standard-issue blaster pistol and backed down the stairs. Juggler kept a bead on him and followed as far as the cargo ramp. From there, he watched as Vasquez locked himself in the fuel supply room.
Letting out a sigh of relieved tension, he scanned the hangar. Emergency fluorescents barely lit the place in shadows, but there was clearly no one else from the crew in here yet. “Dammit. Hurry up, you guys.”
# # #
Yomin and Archie had left the junction station as soon as main power went down. Her local power supply had been enough to keep her rig and its interfaced components going for the duration of a data upload, but as soon as it was finished, she unhooked both it and Archie from the ship’s systems. Now, the two of them were in a race—not against one another, but against the prospect of being left behind.
She couldn’t say for Archie, but Yomin had a distinct impression that she was still considered probationary among the crew. She hadn’t known Ramsey for years. She didn’t have an irreplaceable skill set, no ma
tter how good she might have been at her job. And she wasn’t sleeping with anyone who met the first two of those criteria. When butts came to blasters, she could easily get left behind if things got mushroom-shaped in the hangar. Daring rescues and second chances were for Ramsey’s buddies, not the hired help.
But unlike every other haphazard part of Amy and Rachel’s so-called “plan,” she and Archie had worked out an escape route. One thing that half the syndicate seemed to forget was that the Odysseus was three dimensional. Most of the lifts had been destroyed in the crash—some wiped out entirely, others knocked out of alignment so that the pod could no longer traverse the shaft. But even empty shafts had emergency access ladders. Plus, all the maintenance crawlways had vertical junctions to get from one level to another without leaving the cozy confined of the battleship’s guts.
So while the day-to-day operations of the syndicate kept to the hangar level—which was still larger than anyone could imagine needing—the pair trailed along two decks lower.
“I feel like a rat,” Archie muttered. “We’re marching down the sewers of ancient Earth. Did you know Paris Prime still has theirs? Buried right under the city.”
“Didn’t know that.” Yomin was paying little attention to the wizardly robot’s ramblings. She was using her datalens to track their location through the unfamiliar passages. Their boots echoed in the darkness. The faint light from Yomin’s hand lamp shone across moldy walls that were probably working overtime to gum up the environmental filters for the syndicate on the higher levels.
“Ancient legends told of crocodiles and pythons down there.”
“Huh? Oh, the Paris Prime thing. That’s got nothing to do with us.” Yomin rounded a bend, and Archie followed.
“Hasn’t it? Shut a place up and cut it off from civilization, this congregate. Varmints, miscreants, forces of shadow and venom.”
Yomin pulled to a halt, whirled, and put up a hand to block Archie’s path. “Stop it. Right now. There’s nothing down here. This ship was thoroughly cleansed of native wildlife. All means of ingress have been sealed. And if you keep talking about it, something will find its way in here despite all that and eat us—or me, anyway. It’s just the laws of the universe.”
“Sounds like magical thinking to me, and I ought to know.” The wizard scraped a finger along the wall, coming away with a dollop of mold.
“Suit yourself, but I refuse to let your mopey thinking get us killed down here. Now come on. Up two decks we’ll be in an access tunnel just outside the hangar.”
# # #
Two pairs of size Y-6 boots pelted down the corridor. Guiding the footwear were two young children tottering under the bulk of backpacks overstuffed with things that, an hour ago, they imagined they couldn’t live without. But now, faced with a headlong flight to the safety of Uncle Carl’s starship, priorities needed reexamination.
Jax stopped and dropped his hands to his knees. “My pack is too heavy,” he said. He managed to convey a note of overtired whining despite his shortness of breath.
“Mine too,” Lisa agreed. Tiny fingers worked quickly, struggling at first but releasing the buckles that held her pack in place one by one.
“What are you doing? That’s all your stuff.”
“Mom and Dad’ll get us new stuff.” She pulled her brother upright and helped him release his own pack. “There? Isn’t that better?”
He nodded.
“Let’s go!”
Lisa took Jax by the hand, and they ran down the halls of the Odysseus with renewed vigor. Hearing adult voices up ahead, they veered down a side corridor. Neither one was the least bit lost, despite the change of course. They weren’t allowed much of anywhere on the ship, so this foray wasn’t so different from their normal daily play. Their detour took them sideways for two intersections before they escaped earshot of whoever was out there looking. Then without stopping to consult, they both turned up the same hall, back in the direction of the ship.
A low hum approached. Some sort of repulsor. The two children hugged the near wall of an intersection and waited for it to go past. Jax’s hand tightened around Lisa’s as it grew ever closer. But fear changed to befuddlement as a grav sled drifted by at a running pace, piled high with all sorts of junk. Perched atop the grav sled—like Lisa and Jax were never supposed to—was Mr. Roddy. He was holding a blaster aimed back the way he’d come and wasn’t even watching where he was going.
He whipped off the EV helm he was wearing indoors for some silly reason. “Kids!” Mr. Roddy whispered urgently. He beckoned to them with a hand-like foot.
This wasn’t the time to get picky about Mom’s orders. She’d wanted them to run, to get to the ship, and to stay hidden. Uncle Roddy had already seen them, so the hidden part was out the airlock. The grav-sled was already going as fast as a run and headed toward Uncle Carl’s ship. Plus, Mom probably hadn’t meant to stay hidden from Uncle Carl’s friends, just everyone else.
Lisa grabbed Jax’s hand, and they ran. Seeing them coming, Mr. Roddy hopped down and grabbed the sled, leaning back to slow it, and allowing the two of them to catch up. One by one, he lifted and swung them up to sit atop the piled crates and stuff the sled carried. For a little person, he was remarkably strong.
Once they were aboard, Mr. Roddy slowed them further, navigated a corner, and pushed with all his might to get them going again. He muttered the whole time, using a lot of words that Mom got mad at them for repeating.
“Stop right there! You’re coming with us.”
The voice shouted from the dark corridor, the opposite way down from the corner they’d just turned. In the dim green light, Lisa could make out a pair of men heading their way. “What do we do?”
Mr. Roddy grunted. “I’m already doing it. Your dad’s at the ship. We make it there first, he can help.”
Lisa peered over the collection of debris on the sled, getting her bearings. She turned back to watch their pursuers. “I don’t think we’re going to make it in time.”
“Maybe… if you two… lent a hand here…”
Lisa pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. Mr. Roddy was much stronger than her, and she was stronger than Jax—not that he’d ever admit it. She didn’t see how she could possibly help push the grav-sled any faster than Roddy could manage by himself.
Then she noticed the blasters.
Lisa and her brother had grown up around blasters. She didn’t own one of her own, but Mom and Dad had made sure she knew how to fire one. This one was just like the ones all the navy people carried, and it was lighter than it looked, though still heavy enough for a young girl’s arms. Lisa held the pistol in two hands, the way Dad carried his rifle, except the pistol didn’t have a stock to butt against her shoulder. The safety was already off. It was 75 percent charged, which was more than half, so she didn’t need to worry about running out. It was set for stun, which gave Lisa a moment’s pause. Dad always said never to aim a blaster at anyone she didn’t want to kill. She left it on stun and squeezed off a few shots, using her initial misfires as tracers to lock in her aim.
“Wow! Can I try?” Jax asked, reaching to grab the weapon from her hands.
She shoved the second blaster at him. “This one’s mine. Here.”
“Jesus Water-Skiing Christ, you two,” Mr. Roddy said, ducking even though the shots were way over his head already. “Put those things away.”
“But you said—”
Incoming blaster fire startled Lisa into abandoning her sentence.
“They’re still following us,” Jax said. His blue stun bolts were spraying down the hallway, but the moving targets were eluding him. “These blasters need to be more scary.”
“What are you doing?” Lisa demanded.
Jax’s answer came in the form of angry red blasts of plasma sizzling down the corridor behind them. “See? They’re running!”
“Are you two crazy?” Mr. Roddy shouted.
“No, he’s right,” Lisa said. She flipped her own blaster from stun to leth
al and joined in, adding cover fire of her own as the guards fell back. “We’re going to make it!”
# # #
She could hear them up ahead. Rachel couldn’t make out words, but the cadence and lilt of those innocent voices were unmistakable. She knew better than to rush headlong, even with the sound of live fire buzzing in the air. Haste was more likely to put the kids in danger than help them. Little Jax and Lisa knew where to go. And worst case, they’d be captured, not harmed. These people might be many things, but she couldn’t imagine them hurting the children.
Then the sound of blaster fire shifted for the ominous. Soft, fuzzy hums of stunning fire gave way to a mix that included the harsh, angry snarl of lethal plasma. Someone was shooting at her babies!
Rachel broke into a run. Even with the odd echoes from multiple offshoots and side corridors, she homed in on the sound of the firefight, which was drifting away even as she sprinted to catch up. For a flash, she wondered if she could spare the time to free herself from the weight of her pack. But the time she took slowing to work the clasps would only repay her in a long chase. She wanted to catch up now.
Rounding a corner, she spotted a pair of syndicate personnel, outlined in the pale glow of the phosphorescents and backlit by occasional bolts of red plasma.
“Are you two crazy?” Roddy shouted from somewhere down the hall, around the corner the guards were cowering from.
More red blaster fire blanketed the hallway, and the guards reached their weapons around to answer with blind fire. Stun bolts. Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. Much as she hated the idea of anyone shooting at her kids, at least they weren’t the ones facing lethal plasma.
Stalking up as quietly as she could, Rachel approached the guards from behind. At point-blank range, she squeezed off two quick head shots. Both men lay stunned on the floor before either reacted to her presence. From close range, even a stun bolt could potentially cause neurological damage, but she couldn’t risk them having dissipative armor on under those new uniforms.