by P. K. Lentz
On reaching it Gareth narrowly avoided a collision when the hatch neglected to open for him. Worse, the controls were unresponsive to his repeated and frantic efforts to unlock it.
“Ship!” he shouted several times, to no response. Aprile tried the same with an equal lack of success.
Gareth already had a sinking feeling by the time he finished trying in vain to comm any of Lady’s crew.
The realization, no longer mere paranoia, came in a flash: Lady had not only been penetrated. It had been hijacked.
Aprile cursed. Her knuckles were white on the grip of her gun. Gareth returned his attention to the access panel, punching in sequences nearly at random and hoping for any response at all.
He quickly gave up.
“Shit, what now?” he wondered aloud, making no effort to conceal rising panic.
“You’re the fucking captain.”
Gareth fought to pull his mind out of a dizzying spiral. “Cutting tools,” he said. “We burn our way out.”
Without access to the cargo manifest they would just have to start searching. It could take hours. Days.
“What do we do once we escape?” Aprile asked.
Gareth knew what she wanted to hear, and he gave it to her: “Suffice to say that if my ship is under attack I won’t take the matter lightly.”
Aprile nodded approval. “I think we’d better have a chat with Lefty back there,” she said. “Whatever’s happening, she’s part of it.”
Before Gareth could agree, the formerly dead panel beside the door emitted a chirp. He looked over to find its small display lit with a message.
>>YOUR VESSEL IS UNDER MY CONTROL. CREW WILL NOT BE HARMED. FEEL FREE TO CUT THE DOOR, BUT BY TIME YOU FINISH I WILL BE READY TO OPEN IT. NEXT CONTACT ONE HOUR.
“Son of a bitch!” Gareth cried. “It’s them. Interim. It has to be.”
“And they can hear us,” Aprile admonished in an overloud voice. With that she launched herself back toward their captive, whose presence now was undeniably sinister.
Gareth followed, and they regrouped at the container. There Aprile raised an outstretched finger to Gareth’s face. Barely visible on her fingertip was a tiny translucent sphere. A spymote. Lady’s hijacker had eyes and ears all over the ship.
Hot with rage, Gareth called out into the air, addressing their unseen adversary. “I don’t know who you are,” he said, “but if I don’t get my ship back in five minutes, your friend here will pay for it!”
Aprile flicked the tiny spymote from her finger. “Save your breath,” she said. “Lefty is obviously expendable. Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t be glad to give her three more stumps if she refuses to talk.”
Such a crude approach remained less than appealing to Gareth, but he could hardly bring himself to object. First, however, they had to reach the prisoner, who was now trapped in a cargo container with a fused lock. Aprile began adjusting the settings on her weapon.
“You think that can cut her out?” Gareth asked.
“Narrowest dispersal might do it.”
“No need to free her completely. Just cut a hole big enough to talk...and do whatever else you have in mind, I guess.”
When Aprile finished toying with the weapon, she braced herself on a corner of the container. “Shield your eyes,” she warned, taking careful aim.
***
Erick Fyat paused briefly in his assault on Lady’s electronics upon hearing the fugitive stir behind him. A scraping sound accompanied Zerouali’s brief, futile struggle with the cords securing her wrists to the bed frame.
The movement stopped, and Fyat sensed the woman’s eyes on him. He ignored her. Her presence was secondary at the moment.
“I demand to know why I am being held,” Zerouali said calmly in Commonwealth Standard.
Without sparing her a look Fyat replied in the same tongue. “You were in my way. That you happen to be who you are is coincidence.”
This seemed to give the woman pause, albeit brief.
“You’re SES,” she said. Her vocal patterns betrayed a fear that she tried and failed to conceal.
“I’m busy.”
“Yeah, you’re SES all right,” she said more confidently. “You should be ashamed of yourselves that it took so long to find me.” She paused as if awaiting reply. When none came she continued. “So what do they have planned for me? Trial? Interrogation? Or are you just taking your time carrying out termination?”
“You’re not in custody,” Fyat said dismissively. “I told you, I’m busy. Speak all you want but do not expect a response.”
Zerouali sighed. “Fine. I’ve waited a hundred-something years, I can wait a few more hours. And by the way, thanks for the high voltage wake-up call. Typical Interim subtlety.”
***
Approaching the still smoldering ten-centimeter rend in the cargo module, Gareth positioned himself to peer inside. He took care not to touch the hot edges as he angled his head to scan the container for its occupant.
The woman within looked up with apparent disinterest from the corner farthest from Aprile’s cut.
“Hello,” Gareth greeted her reasonably in Meradi. “It seems our ship has been taken over. We need some answers quickly, and in order to get them my colleague here is ready to carve off what limbs you have left. I’d like to leave that as a last resort, so I hope you’ll save us all the unpleasantness and just cooperate. I know you understand me, so you might as well give it up with the gibberish.”
The captive stared up at Gareth in the shaft of dim light that pierced her cell. “I’m not in the mood for questions,” she said unhurriedly. Her Meradi was smooth and flawless. “But I do have some advice. Just do as Fyat says. I’d rather not see you killed. I’ve seen enough of that.”
“That’s kind of you to be concerned,” Gareth said. “But I’m more interested in who you are and what you’re doing on my ship.”
“Agent Coleridge,” she said tonelessly. “Formerly of the SES.”
“Fuck!”
This blurted curse from Aprile startled Gareth. “What’s SES?” he asked her.
“Social Engineering,” Aprile came back grimly. “Death squads. She’s dangerous, Will. Stay clear.”
Gareth looked back at the prisoner, suddenly half-expecting to find her lunging at him through the fist-sized hole in the metal container. It dawned on him now, rather belatedly, that she might have a small arsenal concealed in there. He backed away from the hole so as to avoid, or at least delay, having his head vaporized.
“I am armed,” declared the now invisible Coleridge, as if reading his thoughts. “But I don’t want to harm you. I’m tired of that.”
“I might be more inclined to take you at your word if I knew what you were doing here. Are you under orders?”
A bored sigh echoed inside the container. “If I wanted to, I could have killed you ten times over by now. You weren’t listening. I said I was former SES. As is Fyat, the one who’s taken over your ship.”
“Rogue agents?” Aprile whispered, shaking her head. “No way.”
Concurring, Gareth resumed addressing Coleridge through the hole. “We might require a little more proof.”
“Believe me, don’t believe me. It doesn’t matter much. I gave you my advice. Do what he says.”
“Thanks, we’ll consider that. In the meantime you still haven’t answered my main question. Why are you here?”
Coleridge heaved another protracted sigh. “If I explain, will you leave me alone? This is pointless.”
If not for the deadly seriousness of their current situation, Gareth might have laughed. “Sure,” he agreed.
“We want passage out-system,” Coleridge explained dully. “We intended to stow away, but once he heard about the quarantine Fyat decided we’d stand a better chance of escape with him in charge.”
“Why this ship and not another?” Gareth probed--subtly, he hoped. There were of course one or two very obvious things to set this vessel apart from others at the moment
, but did these hijackers know that?
“Fyat chose it,” Coleridge replied tersely. “You’d have to ask him. Now, you promised to leave me alone.”
“You promised explanation,” Gareth said. “I don’t have it yet. Why do you need passage out-system?”
Coleridge issued a short, humorless laugh. “You really don’t pay attention, do you?” she said. “We’re running from the Interim.”
***
CHAPTER NINE
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I.0286.05.21 14:35
Commonwealth:Politics:OPINION
The Grand Delusion - Part 1 of 2
by Adm. Karina Althauser, 3rd Fleet (Ret.)
No one these days can argue that the Founders of our glorious Interim were unwise in their decision to withhold the awesome might of the aptly nicknamed ‘Demon Drive’ from use by humanity at large. Scores of Reissa’s most brilliant researchers long ago correctly concluded that sudden, precipitant contact between disparate civilizations could not but prove catastrophic. And had this decision not been taken, humankind would long since have obliterated itself. At best it would lie in ruins.
Given that our humble race would appear to be the sole bearer of intelligence in our cosmos, we owe it to History to perpetuate our knowledge, our culture, our creative might, into perpetuity. Such an undeniably righteous goal can be achieved only by the imposition of a universal order that encompasses all, or at least the vast majority of, human beings in peaceful and productive coexistence. For nearly three centuries now we have gambled on our Commonwealth as that means of order.
However, while offering my utmost respect to the intelligence and sensitivity to the Founders, I am forced to conclude that our current course has reached a dead end. For proof one need look no further than the comprehensive study completed two decades ago by Zhielan and Bast. According to their data, no fewer than twenty-one planetary civilizations have suffered extinction or near-extinction since the inception of the Interim alone. Another thirty have descended into what can be accurately described as global anarchy. Perhaps worse still, there exist human societies in our cosmos in which women and ethnic minorities are treated as chattel; where lives are dominated by ancient tribal allegiances; where wholesale slaughter erupts over resources so mundane as water; where a petty clash between rival chieftains can blossom into world war.
Imagine if such madness as infects those worlds were allowed to touch Reissa or Verond or any peace-loving member of the Commonwealth. Imagine the jealousy that a native of one of these savage lands would feel upon observing our society. Raised in poverty and barbarity, he would quite easily resort to the crudest of methods, naked force, to steal for himself that which we take for granted. Failing that, his jealousy would compel him to wipe us out rather than let us enjoy what he cannot. Is such primitivism not what our histories tell us we left behind on Earth?
[Continued in Part 2]
***
Not far into Hunter in the Dark’s voyage, Simon Ascher received orders to transport an item of cargo to the medical suites. He recognized the item’s inventory code right away: it was the piece had caught his attention earlier, on departure from Reissa, the woman in the hibe capsule.
Ascher took her up to the suites as ordered and delivered the capsule there to the waiting techs.
“Are you going to revive her?” he asked the techs conversationally.
“I’m sure that’s not your concern,” one answered in mild annoyance.
Conceding with a smile, Ascher made his exit. Still he remained curious about the woman. He wondered about her as he lay sleepless during his next rest cycle, kept awake by intermittent screeching from his faulty neurilace.
During his next shift, with Hunter still a ship-day away from Merada where it would reinforce the damaged Whisper of Death, Ascher’s orders brought him yet again to the medsuites. He was to retrieve the hibe capsule and return it to the hold.
A tech he’d met earlier granted Ascher entry and directed him to the capsule. As Ascher had suspected, it was empty. He glanced casually around the suite to see if he might catch a glimpse of its former occupant. He didn’t, and not caring for another reprimand, didn’t persist. A little disheartened, he engaged the magcushion on the bulky hibe unit and prepared to leave.
Just as Ascher began guiding the capsule toward the exit, though, his attention was drawn by a door hissing open at the periphery of his vision. He turned to see a med tech enter from an adjoining chamber.
Through a half open doorway, he saw her. The woman from the capsule. She sat on a chair, dressed in a blue-green medical smock, gazing up nervously at some other unseen presence in the room with her.
Two details of the woman’s appearance particularly caught Ascher’s attention. First was the fact that at least one of her wrists was cuffed to the chair. Second, and perhaps more shocking, was the unmistakable bulge in her abdomen.
Just as the door began to shut, the dark-haired--prisoner?--turned her head to face Ascher. She’d been crying; her red-rimmed eyes were alive with panic and despair. Ascher stood frozen, eyes locked with hers until the door finally separated them. He emerged from a trance-like stare to realize that the encounter had lasted all of four seconds.
He glanced around to see if anyone had witnessed the incident. None of the med techs in the room seemed to pay him any heed.
As Ascher guided the empty hibe capsule out of the medsuites, he took with him also a very real sense of uncertainty.
***
“I don’t believe her for a second,” Aprile said when she and Gareth had moved out of earshot of Coleridge’s makeshift prison. Of course, the knowledge that her fellow hijacker, Fyat, could eavesdrop on them at will via his network of spymotes made the change of location seem rather pointless.
“We have no reason to believe her,” Gareth agreed. “But what does she hope to gain?”
“Time.” As she spoke Aprile cast regular glances back at the container, as though expecting Coleridge to burst free at any moment. “The longer we talk circles with her, the more time her accomplice is loose on our ship.”
“I’m afraid he’s loose regardless of what we do down here.”
“If you believe that then they’ve already won.”
“No. Assume for a second she’s telling the truth, that we really have been boarded by at least two rogue Interim agents--”
“Then we must have some sort of beacon to attract rabble. It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Watch it,” Gareth chided, for Aprile’s comment hinted at another foreign presence on Lady. Even if Zerouali were already captured or dead, they had to continue to feign ignorance of her. “Not necessarily. This system is in chaos. If someone needed to get out fast, there aren’t more than thirty ships to choose from, and we’d be one of the first in line if not for the quarantine.”
Gareth couldn’t say as much, but he sensed that if Fleet really were aware of Zerouali’s presence they would go about extracting her differently. An injured agent with a scarcely-believable cover story just didn’t sit right.
“This is exactly what they want!” Aprile burst. “While we scratch our heads looking for logic where there is none, they act! Whatever this bitch is doing here it can’t be good. She’s admitted to being an Interim assassin. I don’t care if she’s had an attack of conscience, she still has no right to be here. I say we get what we can from her, then...” A grave look finished Aprile’s sentence without the need for words.
Sensible as such a course might seem, Gareth’s brief conversation with Coleridge had left him less willing to resort to naked brutality. Why did she seem so cooperative? Granted, given her line of work she must be a practiced liar, but her story had the ring of truth.
“Maybe you’re right,” Gareth said at length. “Maybe we’d be better off without her. But I’m not willing to stake her life on it. If she really does want out, she deserves the chance
. In any case I won’t start torturing and killing to save my own skin. I won’t let them turn me into that.”
After a few false starts at rebuttal, Aprile reluctantly conceded. She propelled herself back toward Coleridge’s cell. As he made to follow, Gareth’s comm chimed. Ten seconds later it chimed again.
“You getting anything over your comm?” he called to Aprile.
“Nothing. You?”
“Signal tones. Someone’s trying to get my attention. Fyat, I presume. I’m going back to the panel.”
“I’m with you.”
As he began the trek back to the hold’s entrance, Gareth was startled by a burst of light and the sound of a muffled explosion from behind. He twisted mid-flight to find Aprile sailing toward him.
“You okay?” he asked. “What was that?”
“Concussion grenade,” Aprile said impassively, gliding up to overtake him. “I gave your new friend one to play with.”
Gareth accelerated to catch her. “Was that really necessary?”
“She’s a trained killer who infiltrated our ship. You really trust a cargo container to hold her?”
“Guess not. You sure you didn’t kill her?”
“I don’t know what SES agents are made of, but judging by those injuries of hers, they can take a beating. Don’t forget what she is, Will. It’s time to think with your head and not whatever else it is you use.”
Gareth accepted the rebuke without protest. When they reached the hold’s exit hatch, a simple message awaited them.
>>HAB MODULE, MEDLOUNGE.
Gareth gaped at the words in despair. Unless Zerouali had an incredible talent for escape, she was now dead or captured. It wasn’t clear to him yet exactly how this affected their situation, but it did not bode well.
“Why does he want to talk face-to-face?” Gareth wondered aloud.
“Same reason we weren’t using comms. Security.” Looking up at nothing in particular, Aprile raised her voice to address their faceless enemy. “I’m coming with him,” she demanded.
Within moments a reply appeared.