A Deal with the Devil's Broker

by Steve Ruskin

  Noemi respected her mech, knew its limits, and worked with its jerky mechanical movements, not against them. She could run her mech in circles around her teammates.

  In fact, it almost seemed as if her teammates had less mech experience than she did. Kett and Mackie sure didn’t drive like second-class lifters. Jeral, a first, wasn’t much better. She knew nothing about their experience. The three of them acted like old buddies and never accepted her as part of their team. They were probably happy she’d be dumped on Cassius.

  Screw them, she thought. Maybe I’ll be better off, too, when I’m out of their little club.

  Aunt Aylene had always said that mining freighters were a man’s world, anyway, and that Noemi’s childhood fascination with mechs was silly. She could almost hear her voice: “I told you so, sweetie.”

  Done packing, Noemi sat back on her little couch, wondering what to do next.

  A sudden shudder rocked the Broker, bouncing her onto the floor. Klaxons blared in the hall, and the dim, ambient light in her room suddenly flashed an energetic red.

  “HULL BREACH. ALL CREW TO EMERGENCY STATIONS.”

  Noemi leapt to her feet. Training kicked in—not the minimal training she’d received on the Broker, but the emergency drills she grew up practicing on Tiber Station. Perhaps this, too, was just a drill, but she had to follow protocol and get to her assigned station. She chose to ignore the fact that Mayve had put her on passenger status. If this was an emergency, they might need her to drive a mech, moving equipment to help seal the breech.

  The Broker shook again. Red lights pulsed like strobes, their frequency matching the urgency of the situation.

  “HULL BREACH. BULKHEAD LOCKDOWN IN SIXTY SECONDS. ALL CREW TO EMERGENCY STATIONS.”

  This didn’t sound like a drill. Her team’s emergency meeting location was the little room just outside the cargo bay where they parked their mechs. They called it the Garage, and she had to get there as soon as possible. It would be freezing, of course, but she had no choice. Perhaps once she got there, Braddock would have an extra techsuit coat she could use, though she doubted he had one just lying around.

  Braddock! Why hadn’t she thought of going to him first? He’d help her. She would explain what happened. He was a good man. If anyone could, he’d find some way to help her.

  She rummaged around in her clothes and grabbed the thick off-duty hoodie she wore in the crew lounge and tugged it over her torso. It was passive warmth—containing her body heat, not adding to it. But it would have to do. She pulled on a thick, black stocking cap that pressed her bangs tight over her eyes. They tickled the bridge of her nose, and she pushed them back behind her ears. Under normal circumstances, she might pull them to the side, so her short hair would frame her high cheekbones and dark, almond eyes. But this wasn’t the time to try to look cute.

  Over her hoodie, she pulled on her mangled techcoat. Having warmed up in her room, it smelled truly awful now, a wholly unappetizing mixture of sweat, vomit, and garbage.

  Suppressing a gag, she grabbed her gloves and medkit off the table and ran out of her room.

  The central corridor was chaos, people jostling each other as they rushed to their emergency stations. Transport bots trundled past, carrying people and equipment.

  “… an explosion in the outer hull,” someone was saying.

  “Two explosions!” shouted another. “One in Helm, another in Engineering!”

  Noemi ran faster.

  7

  Gift

  Running past Medical, Noemi cast a glance though the glass doors of the decontamination airlock. The nurses inside were scrambling, preparing to receive injured crew.

  The brunette was in there, and their eyes met. Noemi couldn’t help but scowl at her.

  “Thanks for nothing,” she muttered under her breath, then sprinted the last thirty meters to the bulkhead that separated Habitat from Cargo.

  The huge bulkhead door had already closed. But as a lifter, she would have override access.

  She took off her gloves and put her hand to the biometric panel.

  Nothing.

  She pressed harder, but the door stayed shut. She slapped her palm down again and again.

  “Come on!”

  Out of frustration, she kicked at the door and got a dull thud in response.

  Just then, the Broker shook again, and Noemi lost her footing. She slammed into the floor as the ship shifted beneath her, the breath knocked out of her.

  Her ears rang from the blaring klaxons, and her lungs burned as she struggled for breath. Disoriented as she was, it took her a moment to realize someone was yelling at her.

  “Hey, lifter!”

  Noemi looked up. It was the brunette nurse, standing in the corridor, just outside the doors of Medical. Her white jumpsuit looked red in the flashing lights. She was clinging to a railing on the wall with one hand and clutching her tablet device in the other.

  “I’m not hurt,” Noemi yelled above the noise, getting to her feet. She felt hurt, but she wasn’t about to admit it to her. She waved her away.

  The nurse motioned frantically.

  “I’m fine!” Noemi shouted again, but the nurse was insistent, yelling something back to her that she couldn’t hear.

  Noemi hesitated. She desperately wanted to get to Cargo and her team’s emergency meeting point. But she couldn’t get through the door, and the nurse was still gesturing urgently. On top of everything else, Noemi was once again shivering from the cold.

  A few seconds to warm up in Medical’s airlock won’t hurt, she thought. She kept one hand on the railing, in case the ship heaved again, and followed the brunette into Medical.

  When the doors closed behind them, the screeching klaxons were finally muted. Only a steady red light indicated that Medical was on alert like the rest of the ship.

  “Look—” Noemi began, still angry, but the nurse interrupted her with a cough.

  “Hell and starlight, lifter! You stink! Didn’t you take a shower?”

  “What do you want?” Noemi snapped. “I’m expected in Cargo.”

  “You can’t leave Habitat without a properly functioning techsuit. You’ll freeze. As a medical authority on this ship, I forbid it.”

  “I have to! The mech garage outside cargo bay is my team’s emergency meeting point. But the Cargo entrance is stuck shut. That seems to be happening a lot to me today.”

  “The door’s not stuck. You’ve been locked out.” The nurse held up her tablet. “I’ve just seen your updated file. The doors won’t open because you’ve been demoted to passenger status. You’ve lost access.”

  Although it should not have surprised her, this news still stunned Noemi. “That’s totally unfair! Mayve said I had a twenty-hour probationary period.”

  “Yes, Mayve’s notes are in your file. But she also wrote that you had a non-work-related injury, which automatically prevents you from working for three shifts, or until Medical clears you. It’s called a medical suspension.”

  “Let me get this straight. I have to get back to work within twenty hours, or I lose my job. But I can’t go back to work for thirty hours because of my injury?”

  “Sorry, yes.”

  “But you’ve already fixed my fingers!” She held up her hand accusingly.

  “Yes, but SCO dar Bueil marked it as a non-work-related injury. So the probation stands.”

  Noemi shook her head. “So I’m on medical probation for an injury that’s already been fixed, and by the time probation is lifted, I’ll already have been fired for not working.”

  The nurse shrugged and actually smiled.

  “And you’re enjoying this. Thanks a lot. I hate this ship.” She turned to leave the airlock.

  The nurse put a hand on her shoulder. “Wait.”

  Noemi turned. The nurse was still smiling as she reached down beneath one of the airlock’s benches and pulled out a zippered duffel. “After you left, I read over your file. It says you’re a good lifter. Really high scores�
�at least according to Foreman Braddock. One of the fastest on the ship.”

  “Yeah. Lot of good it’s done me.”

  The nurse unzipped the duffle and pulled out a bundle of gray fabric. She shook it out. It was a techcoat. Bigger than Noemi’s. But not by much.

  “This was Nik’s. He was my boyfriend. We met on the Broker when I was hired on, two years ago. He was a lifter, had been for a while before I came on. He’d worked his way up to first class. He was nice. Everyone liked him. He became Alpha team lead. Then, over a year ago, Jeral came on board, filling a vacant spot on Nik’s lift team. Mayve apparently got him the job through corporate, even though she was not yet on the ship. They’re related, you know. Nik heard it all through Braddock. Mayve talked Jeral up like he was a prince of New Carthage. Braddock had no choice but to hire him—the decision came down from corporate. From Mayve herself, I bet.”

  Noemi nodded, waiting to see where the nurse was going with this.

  “Nik said Jeral wasn’t very good, but they made it work. Things were fine for a while. But then Mayve came on board. Suddenly, Nik was getting penalized for stuff he never did: violating safety protocols, failing to follow loading procedures, loading the wrong cargo. It was all bullshit. He started accruing penalty debt and was always under some kind of review or warning. Mayve kept writing him up like he was just some rookie. Oh wait, sorry …” She looked apologetic.

  “It’s okay. I’m used to it. Go on.”

  “Well, then he got demoted to second class. That never happens. And the rest of his team with him. Jeral was made team leader. So the rest of Nik’s team left the Broker, happy to take their chances finding work elsewhere. But Nik stayed. For me. Then Jeral hired on Kett and Mackie. Claimed they were good, that he’d worked with them before. Nik went from being team lead to just another lifter—an outsider.”

  Noemi didn’t know what to say. No one on the Broker had ever opened up to her like this.

  “I know how Nik must have felt. I have no idea how Jeral got to be a first-class lifter. He can barely pilot his mech.”

  A tear formed in the nurse’s eye, but she pulled herself together.

  “Nik couldn’t stand him. He even caught him rummaging through Braddock’s locker once when they were off-shift. Was sure he was up to something. After that … I mean, I know Nik was upset about the way he was being treated, but we were already making plans to find work together on another ship. He had saved some money, it was—with what I made—just enough to buy me out of my contract. He was happy about it, looking forward to us going somewhere else, somewhere together.”

  She started to cry. Out in the corridor, the red lights pulsed and the klaxons groaned faintly, but in the airlock, all was silent except for the nurse’s sobs. Noemi reached out and gripped her arm gently. Eventually, the woman pulled herself together.

  “They found him in his room. Hanged. Jeral’s report said he went looking for Nik when he didn’t show up for his shift. I was given some line about a note found in Nik’s room, saying he couldn’t handle the shame of his demotion. But that’s a lie! Nik just wanted to get off the Broker. I … I never got to say goodbye. Or even see his body.”

  She wiped her nose on her sleeve and held out the techcoat to Noemi. “Here. They let me keep this. I think they just wanted to shut me up. This coat is all I have left of Nik. It has value, and I could have sold it, but I’ve been holding onto it for, I don’t know, sentimental reasons.”

  Noemi stared at it.

  “Take it. It’s charged up.”

  “I … I couldn’t.”

  “Do it. Before I change my mind. I could trade this for a pile of credit you know.” She smiled through her tears.

  Noemi took it and smiled back. “I thought it was every girl for herself out here.”

  “Yeah, well. It pretty much is, at least on this goddam ship. But it’s a shitty way to live, I can tell you. Always watching your back. It’s better to have friends.”

  “Thank you. I’ll pay you back … somehow.”

  “Just survive. Do your thing. Prove them wrong—that you can make it on the Broker. I don’t know what this emergency is. Maybe we’ve been hit by something. We always pass through an asteroid field on the approach to Cassius.”

  “Maybe—but you’d think the asteroids would be easy to avoid. I saw them through Mayve’s office window, they’re widely spaced.” Noemi took the coat and put it on. She felt its warmth instantly as the internal webbing tightened around her torso, molding to her shape and applying heat. It was still big on her, but it worked.

  “I’ll transfer ownership of it to you as soon as I can bring up my account.”

  “Thank you—really.”

  After a few seconds, the coat turned bright lifter green. So did her gloves, interfacing with the coat through the connectors at the sleeve cuffs. Her hands warmed. It felt glorious.

  Just like that, Noemi felt good again, useful. But then her face fell.

  “What’s wrong? Doesn’t it work?”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s great—but you said Mayve put me on medical probation. So even though I can drive a mech, I still don’t have access to Cargo section.”

  “Oh, that!”

  The nurse picked up her tablet from the bench and tapped its glowing glass surface vigorously. “Let’s see here. Patient: Noemi Ochana. Status: Injuries Healed … Cleared to Work. There. This will update instantly, and you should have your access back.”

  “Won’t Mayve see that you’ve changed my status?”

  “With this crisis going on, I’m sure she’s got other fish to fry. Besides, it’s my duty to make sure all able-bodied workers can help out during an emergency. That’s what the company would want, isn’t it?”

  She winked.

  Noemi hugged her. “Thank you! And I’m sorry I misjudged you. I thought you were the one who ratted me out to Mayve.”

  “I had to file a report after I fixed your fingers. Even if I didn’t want to, the other nurses saw me treat you. I guess Mayve just made of it what she wanted. She can be a serious bitch.”

  “Yeah. So I’ve realized.” Noemi turned toward the door, then stopped again. “Hey, I never caught your name.”

  “Lilia. Lilia Pezal.”

  “Thanks, Lilia.”

  Lilia turned toward the interior of Medical, then stopped. “Hey … on Cassius, there’s a bar called the Second Star. Me and the other girls like to hang there when we dock. Come find us. I’ll spot you a few credits for a drink.”

  She smiled and stepped out of the decontamination chamber and back into Medical. After the interior doors closed behind her, the light above the exterior doors went green.

  Noemi reached over her shoulder and grabbed the coat’s hood, tugging it over her head and down to the base of her neck. When her head was fully enclosed, the hood’s thermowires warmed her face, and the optical mesh went transparent, allowing her to see through the enveloping fabric.

  Once more in the corridor, she ran toward the bulkhead, took off one glove, and smacked the panel with her palm. Seconds later, the heavy doors separating Habitat and Cargo opened just wide enough to let her pass.

  8

  Garage

  In the middle of Cargo section, Noemi turned off the central spine and hurried down the narrow side corridor to the mech bay. The ever-present flashing red lights and the echo of her boots clanking on the textured metal floors made the tight space feel even tighter. At least the klaxons weren’t blaring here—they seemed to be confined to the larger rooms and the bigger corridors.

  A minute later, the long, narrow mech bay—“the Garage”—came into view.

  She should have been here fifteen minutes ago. By now, both lift teams and the ore processors would have gotten their emergency orders from Braddock. They’d probably be powering up their mechs and prepping for hull repairs. According to the emergency procedures manual she’d been given and told to memorize, a hull breech was an all-hands emergency. The lifters’ job would be
to carry the patch panels and other equipment to the breech.

  Suddenly, the Broker rocked again, throwing her against the wall. A metallic clang echoed down the corridor.

  Another asteroid impact? she wondered as she lay spread-eagle on her stomach, gloved fingers desperately grasping at the traction grooves in the floor.

  No, she realized a second later as the tremors subsided. The sound was distinct, resonant. She’d heard it many times before in the cargo bays of Tiber Station when a new ship arrived. Not an impact. A docking clamp. Something’s attached itself to us.

  She lay there until the quaking subsided, then staggered the rest of the way into the Garage.

  “Sorry I’m—” Two meters inside the room, she came to a dead stop. The mech bay was a rectangular room thirty meters long and about fifteen wide, a utilitarian space of metal walls and girders decorated with irregularly spaced runs of pipe and conduit. High ceilings enabled the lifters to pilot their mechs through the room.

  On one side, wide doors led into the cargo bay. Noemi noticed that the doors were closed. Along the opposite wall were the eight alcoves where the mechs were parked when off-shift for charging and maintenance. Four of the ship’s eight cargo mechs were still tucked in their tight spaces. Hers was not. It was probably still just inside the cargo bay itself, where she’d seen it through the viewing window an hour before, when she had been on her way to visit Mayve. Braddock had probably moved it into cargo for her, charged and ready to go, so she could just hop right in and get to work with no delay.

  On the wall of the Garage nearest to her, small doors led to a locker room, where the lifters would change into their zero-atmosphere suits when the cargo bay was depressurized for deep space work.

  At the far end of the bay, a dozen chairs were scattered around a communications station, above which, on the wall, were mounted a few monitors. Normally well lit, that space was now dark. It was Braddock’s makeshift office and the lifters’ informal meeting area, where the foreman gave the lifters their work orders before a shift and monitored everything happening in the cargo and processing bays.