Slab City Blues - The Collected Stories: All Five Stories in One Volume

by Ryan, Anthony

  “Net’s down,” I reported to the Dead Reckoning. “Now or never, cap’n.”

  “Lucy, take us in,” Jack ordered.

  “I still say we should abort…“ Mina began but Lucy had already powered up the Dead Reckoning’s secondary thrusters, the freighter blazing towards the Malthus II through a cloud of disintegrated bots. I followed at a discreet distance, ordering the Pendragon’s nav to calculate a course to the comms array.

  “Brace for impact,” Lucy said a second before the Dead Reckoning turned on its tail, retros firing, the momentum slamming her hard against an airlock on the starboard side of the hab-cluster.

  “Override running,” Markov reported.

  A pause, then Jack came on, voice hard with impatience. “Should be open by now.”

  “I know,” Markov replied. “Their security codes are a little more exotic than expected is all. Having to hack on the fly here. Wait one… Got it.”

  “We’re in,” Jack said a second later, a burst of carbine fire in the background. I had a feed from his helmet cam and could make out Uhlstan’s dim bulk propelling through the haze of tear gas, lit by the occasional muzzle-flash as he ruthlessly suppressed any resistance.

  “Few more than expected, boss,” he said, firing again.

  “Time you earned your pay.” Jack’s carbine came up, muzzle flash obscuring the view for a moment as it blasted at a shadow in the fog. “There. The tubeway on the left.”

  The cacophony of the moving firefight continued to assail my ears as I burned towards the comms array, halting at the lip of the main dish. I found an access node and ripped the covering away with the Pendragon’s powered gauntlet, plucking a probe from a compartment in the suit’s arm and plugging it into the data-port. The Colonel had hackers of his own, some that made Markov look like a remedial dumbass. The hack they had hidden in the Pendragon’s memory made short work of the Malthus II’s firewalls and I was soon looking at her navigation logs.

  Job done, I reflected as the suit downloaded the data. It was time to plant my little gift and be on my merry way, though the prospect of a seventy-two hour wait for my extraction boat was hardly edifying… I paused as something unexpected came up on the data-feed. A schematic for a ship of unfamiliar design, sinister in its sleekness, and scrolling alongside it a full set of operational parameters. To say they made for sobering reading is something of an understatement as the Colonel’s words loomed large. It’s a myth that it ever ended.

  “Bastards!” I rasped

  “Say again?” Mina asked.

  “Nothing.” I left the probe in place and burned towards the Dead Reckoning at full power, calling up a tactical readout of the Malthus II’s interior via the data probe.

  “Maddux, what are you doing?” Mina demanded.

  “You were right, OK? You should have aborted and dear old Jack is about to find out why.”

  Jack’s voice came on again, “We’re at the suite. Hold them back whilst I secure the safe.”

  “Pretty hot out here, boss,” Uhlstan replied. Via his cam I could see the tear gas had faded to a light mist, multiple muzzle flashes visible in the tubeway beyond.

  “Thirty seconds,” Jack said, a power drill making powder of the wall around the captain’s safe.

  I killed the plasma and glided to a halt under the Dead Reckoning’s main port thruster. The tactical showed Jack and Uhlstan as two green dots in the centre of the hab cluster surrounded on all sides by at least a hundred red, edging closer by the second. I flushed the remaining plasma from the starboard nacelle and disengaged it from the main body of the suit, power-gauntlets ripping it open to find the cylinder inside. No time for finesse. I activated the device’s mag-clamp and lodged it within the rim of the thruster, kicking back and angling towards the hull of the Malthus II. A quick scan of the tactical gave me an entry point, an exhaust port forty metres from the main airlock.

  “Got the safe,” Jack reported. “On our way back.”

  Dream on, Jack.

  I propelled towards the exhaust port on CO2, finding it sealed by a solid looking hatch.

  “Need a hack for that?” Markov asked, reading my approach vector.

  “I’ve got it.” I accessed the probe and initiated the contingency hack the Colonel’s people had included in case of primary mission failure. The Malthus II’s security network collapsed under an intense deluge of virus-ware, millions of self-replicating code-bots overwhelming the firewalls in less than a second, giving me unrestricted access to all systems. The exhaust port duly irised open and I steered the Pendragon inside.

  “Goddammit!” Jack swore, carbine firing empty before he pulled himself to cover, the tubeway behind alive with tracer. “Get more gas out there.”

  “Waste of time,” I advised, barrelling along the exhaust pipe at fifty klicks per hour. “They’re wearing full combat gear, respirators and armour. Best if you hunker down for a moment, Cap.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Trust me. Just sit tight.”

  I accessed the internal comms and had my voice relayed to the whole ship. “Attention officer commanding Malthus II. This is Chief Inspector Alex McLeod, Lorenzo City Police Department, acting with full Coalition authority. The actions of this vessel are in contravention of the Dublin Accords, rendering it subject to immediate seizure. All personnel will stand down and await lawful arrest or face executive action. This is your only warning.”

  A half-second pause as I angled the suit to account for a curve in the exhaust pipe, the air-seals opening to allow passage as I reprogrammed the internal sub-routines to recognise me as a maintenance bot.

  “Attack on a civilian vessel,” the African woman replied in my headphones. “Is also a treaty violation.”

  “Like this is a civilian vessel, Captain,” I replied. “Or is it Admiral? I’ve seen your logs. I know what you’re about. You’ve been very naughty.”

  “Then you should be aware of the odds,” she replied. “And it’s Commander. You realise I’m in no position to take you into custody?”

  “Who asked you? By the way, you should check your life support status. I shut the system down ten seconds ago. If I were you I’d be heading for the lifeboats about now.”

  The pipe terminus was rapidly approaching, widening out into a series of smaller vents too tight for the Pendragon. I checked the tactical map and confirmed my position as two decks below Jack and Uhlstan.

  “I also disengaged the fire containment system,” I told the commander. “Just so you know.”

  I pointed the Pendragon’s gauntlets at the ceiling, the smooth metal parting to reveal the cannons. A three second burst from a cocktail belt of 20 mm armour piercing and high-ex was enough to punch an adequate hole through to the next deck. I was met by a Fed Sec squad in the tubeway beyond, five of them moving in coordinated micro-grav combat formation, firing their carbines in a well-practised relay. Elite troops, I surmised. Special Recon or Assault Commandos. Hardest of hardcore.

  I saved on ammo and went through them, lashing out with power-assisted limbs in a preprogrammed martial arts display, the carbine rounds leaving little scratches on the Pendragon’s carapace as they fought to the end. Commandos, I decided as the suit’s fist crushed the skull of the last one. Recon would have had the brains to withdraw.

  “Jack,” I said, raising the gauntlet cannons once more. “I need you to move to the left about ten metres.”

  “What the fuck is going on here?” he demanded.

  “You heard my announcement,” I replied, the tactical confirming he had complied with my request.

  “Yeah, big bad Demon from the Slab. Am I supposed to be impressed? I’ve killed and eaten worse than you, boy.”

  “I’m crushed.” The gauntlets flared again, a section of tubeway disintegrating in a haze of rent and molten metal. I kicked through, cannon blazing, tearing apart another commando squad, limbs and shattered torsos spinning in the swirling smoke.

  Jack was crouched behind a b
ulkhead, empty carbine drifting nearby, his sword-like combat knife in hand, ocular implant gleaming red and hateful. “This is the only chance you’ll get,” he promised through gritted teeth.

  “How’s that for gratitude? Where’s Uhlstan?”

  Jack nodded at a bulky form floating a few feet in front of his position, body armour hanging in shreds, blood globules trailing from multiple impacts. Shielded his captain from the burst. Loyal to the end.

  A fresh bout of carbine fire from opposite ends of the tubeway told me the commander had ordered another assault. “We need to move.”

  I provided a shield as we propelled to a side tunnel. Jack had retrieved Uhlstan’s Ithaca and vented his frustration with a rapid salvo of double-aught blasts at the pursuing commandos. Completely pointless but I guess it made him feel better. Once clear of the main tubeway, I accessed the door controls and brought down airtight bulkheads on both sides of our position.

  “You really should head for the lifeboats,” I told the commander. I could see her on the internal vid-feed, a slim woman in her late thirties, handsome ebony features stern and resolute behind her visor. She was moving towards our position flanked by a squad of commandos. Not the type to stay on the bridge when combat beckoned.

  “I have my orders,” she stated.

  “Yeah. Lot of that going around. For the record, I’m sorry.”

  A slight pause then the soft androgynous tones of an automated warning began to sound throughout the ship. “Emergency venting sequence initiated. Decompression of hab and work compartments will occur within ten seconds. All crew please report to your allotted evacuation point. Emergency decompression sequence initiated…”

  I watched the commander’s last moments, seeing the spasm of fury and frustration before the final few seconds of rigid self-control. “McLeod?” she said.

  “Yes ma’am?”

  “This won’t be forgiven.”

  “I know.”

  “Then fuck y-”

  A vast clunk as over a hundred air-seals opened at once, a blizzard of debris and venting gas filling the vidscreen, then she was gone. I called up the tactical and watched the red dots blink out. I stopped counting at fifty.

  “By the way,” I told Jack. “You’re under arrest.”

  Chapter 5

  Mina and Markov were both pointing hand-guns at me as I cracked open the Pendragon back in the Dead Reckoning’s airlock.

  “Do not move!” Mina ordered, double-grip tight on an old Colt .45. Her voice was coloured by a slight quaver, but her aim was rock solid. Lucy floated in the background, face a mixture of bafflement and joyful curiosity.

  I ignored Mina and turned to Jack. “Check your hull sensors.”

  “For what?”

  “Elevated rad levels on the port thruster.” I undid the straps and floated free of the suit, arching my back and working the ache from my limbs.

  “I said don’t move!” Mina’s aim shifted to my forehead, sweat beading her skin.

  “She needs to calm down,” I advised Jack.

  “It’s OK,” he told Mina quietly, placing a hand on her forearm, easing it down. “We’ll play this out for now.”

  Mina gave an explosive sigh of frustration and lowered her gun. She twisted and propelled towards the core followed by Jack. Markov waited a moment, regarding me with an inscrutable stare, then bounded after with his effortless grace, limbs folding and expanding like a squid boosting itself through the water.

  “After you,” I told Lucy who was still displaying the same odd mix of puzzled delight.

  “Finally,” she said in a small voice. “Something new.”

  *

  “So what is it?” Jack demanded. We were in the core, watching the scanning console display a graphic of the cylinder I’d attached to the port thruster, a red warning icon revolving alongside.

  “A one kiloton nuclear device,” I replied. “It was intended for the Malthus II. CAOS Intelligence suspected she was processing helium 3 off the books in defiance of the treaty with the UN. If she went boom, it could be blamed on an ill-advised raid by the system’s most notorious pirate, at least publicly. Privately, the Downside governments would get the message that breaking our monopoly doesn’t pay. Turns out she was up to something a tad more serious, so I was obliged to improvise.”

  Jack’s gaze was steady, free of fear but the anger was plain in the bulging vein on his forehead. “And if we kill you, it goes bang, right?”

  “It goes bang in seventy-two hours whether you kill me or not. But I do have a deactivation code.”

  “I’ve broken men in a lot less than seventy-two hours.”

  I tapped the slender band secured across my forehead. “Neural interface, accessible only via the Pendragon’s controls which are bio-locked to my brain-wave signature.” I smiled. “Sorry folks, but you are all hereby deputised as operatives of the Coalition Intelligence Service. The pay’s lousy and the perks are non-existent, but you do earn the warm glow that comes from serving your nation.”

  “Your nation, Demon guy,” Jack growled. “I said goodbye to all that flag-waving shit years ago.”

  “How progressive of you.” I turned to Lucy. “Calculate the journey time to Ceres for the Malthus II.”

  “What’s at Ceres?” Mina asked.

  “Our new mission objective.”

  “One hundred twenty-two hours, standard burn,” Lucy reported from the nav console. “Sixty-eight at maximum, but she’ll be down to five percent fuel reserves when we arrive.”

  “Not a concern. Get this tub parked in her cargo bay and report to the bridge. Life support should be fully restored in an hour.” I pitched towards the exit. “I’ll be taking a nap.”

  “What’s in this for us?” Markov enquired.

  I paused. “The opportunity not to become cosmic dust.”

  “I want immunity,” he said. “A full pardon.”

  I sighed around a laugh. “You’re all guilty of more crimes than can be easily counted. Should’ve been on the Morningstar job, right Lucy? Five security guards were killed when you blasted into that cruise liner. Not Fed Sec commandos, just working stiffs, men and women with families.” I met Markov’s gaze. “Any cooperation you provide will be taken into account at your trial and the judge will pass sentence accordingly. Should spare you the death penalty, maybe even a chance at parole in a few decades.”

  “That’s not much of an incentive,” Mina pointed out. “And I have a daughter to consider.”

  “She’s a big girl and this is not a game.”

  “The nuke’s on the Dead Reckoning,” Jack pointed out. “What’s to stop us just taking the Malthus?”

  I tapped the neural interface again. “I’ve got sole access to her control system. No-one gets to throw a single switch without my say so and with me dead she’s not taking anyone anywhere.” I pushed towards the exit. “Call me when you’re ready to start for Ceres.”

  *

  “There’s nothing there, y’know?” Lucy said. She was strapped into the nav console on the bridge of the Malthus II, cocooned in a shell of holo-screens each displaying a bewildering array of shifting data. She seemed to have no difficulty reading it all at a glance. A semi-transparent projection of Ceres revolved in the centre of the bridge, a pale yellow and grey ball of dusty ice.

  “Largest asteroid in the solar system,” Lucy went on. “A dwarf planet really. It’s a protected site on account of that complex hydro-carbon gloop they found in the ice a few years ago. Off limits to mining operations and tourists aren’t permitted closer than a hundred thousand klicks.”

  I skipped through the security feeds to check on my other crewmates. Jack and Mina had elected to busy themselves clearing out the few corpses still floating around the ship’s interior. So far our passage to Ceres had been marked by a trail of ejected bodies. I took some comfort from the fact that none had turned out to be genuine Exocore employees, Fed Sec operatives all.

  I had to flick through quite a few cam-feeds
before locating Markov foraging through the tech stores, a large hold-all bulging with liberated doodads trailing from his shoulder as he made his way along the shelves. Stocking up. Not planning on incarceration any time soon.

  “How long before your dad tries to kill me, d’you think?” I asked Lucy.

  “He’ll probably wait till we’re at Ceres. He’s a surprisingly patient man. This snare of yours might have trapped him for the moment, but he’ll be constantly looking for a way to gnaw his leg off. And when he does…”

  I gave a vague nod and called up the schematic for the Malthus II’s power system. Dynamic Industries fourth gen fusion core with a depressingly impressive list of fail-safes, the back-up however…

  “What did you look like before?” Lucy asked as I ran sims. “I mean, that’s not your real face, right?”

  “Ugly with plenty of scars.” Not enough fissionable material in the mix, I mused as the sim concluded. I checked the storage manifests, scrolling through lists of various metals until I found it. Only fifty grams, but it should be enough.

  “It was my screw-up,” Lucy said.

  “Huh?” I ran another sim with the new ingredient, grunting in satisfaction at the spectacular outcome.

  “The Morningstar. I miscalculated the approach velocity. Those guards died because of me.”

  “Be sure to play up the contrition for the judge, might shave off a few years.”

  “Jack says prison’s not so bad. Said he did a five-year stretch when he was about my age. They plug you into accelerated immersion, right? Ten years in the dream is only one in reality.”