Unclear Skies

by Jason LaPier

  Roy huffed in amusement. “COMPLEX is a toy language for operators. This equipment is far too sophisticated for that. It uses Qubidense.”

  “Oh right, of course. Qubidense.” Jax tried not to think about a class he’d failed that used Qubidense back in his college years. “That’s great. Really cool. Can you show me how it works?”

  “Well, okay.” Roy glanced at Jansen again, but the underboss’s conversation had taken him off to another console. “It’s pretty simple really. This is the UI.”

  He showed Jax a few screens on his console. Not much of anything was happening, but he pointed at various scanners and sensors and their readouts. To Jax it all looked like inert graphs devoid of data. He started to understand that was partly the nature of Epsilon Eridani: there were no ships to detect. Then Roy explained that somehow they’d tuned the equipment to specifically detect the large transport that they were expecting to appear out of Xarp in the next six to twelve hours.

  “Heya, there, Basil,” Barndoor said, interrupting them from behind. “Did you get a scan before you came in here?”

  “A scan?” Roy’s face twisted. “What sort of scan?”

  “Security.”

  Roy frowned. “So what, metal detector? X-ray? Ionization test? What sort of scan?”

  Barndoor tilted his head. “Well … there’s one box that does all of it, I think.”

  “I can assure you—”

  “Look, Basil.” Barndoor’s good arm came down heavy on the other man’s shoulder. “It’ll be over real quick. If I don’t do it now, I’m just going to get in trouble later.”

  Though his words seemed friendly, his voice was uncomfortably stern. Roy seemed to take the hint. He huffed, then gave a short nod, stood up, and excused himself.

  Once they were out of the way, Jax slid into Roy’s chair in what he hoped was a nonchalant motion, though he managed to hook his sleeve on the arm and had to take a moment to untangle himself. He tapped at the screen, but it seemed to have no effect: the same maps, readouts, and graphs hung there as if near-dead, barely twitching once every few seconds. He hadn’t seen Roy touch the screen, only use the keys below. There was no terminal prompt or on-screen help, so he must have had the control scheme in his head. Jax wished he had paid more attention to the keys Roy had been hitting instead of staring so intently at the screen that hardly changed.

  He sighed. He didn’t know how long Barndoor would keep Roy occupied, so he figured he’d better start experimenting. He tried “H” for “Help”, then went on to other keys at random, but nothing had any effect. Then suddenly the screen froze; the periodic twitching had stopped. What had he just hit? One of the number keys? He tried “1”, and the twitching resumed. There was something off about it, though. It was faster – much faster – and he could swear it was … what? He thought it might be going backwards.

  He tried “3” and the movement slowed some. At “5” it stopped completely again. At “6” it was very slow. He focused on one of the data points, a radiation counter or something or other. He watched the number combinations climb tick by tick. Then he hit “4”. The same numbers sank. It was going backwards.

  “Sonovabitch,” he whispered. The damn thing wasn’t an interface – it was a recording. The number keys controlled how fast it played. He confirmed it with some experimentation: “5” was the stopping point, “9” was the fastest forward speed, and “1” was the fastest backward speed.

  He sat back and frowned. What the hell was he looking at? If Roy hadn’t created a real interface, he’d deliberately created something that was meant to look like one. Which meant the data wasn’t real, but it was made to appear to be working. It didn’t make any sense to Jax.

  Unless Roy was no engineer. Jax had been sweating the possible assignment only a few days earlier. He knew he’d never be able to program that equipment. Maybe Roy had the same problem. If this was his solution, Jax had to admit, it was pretty crafty. But what was he going to do when it came time to look for the target ship?

  Maybe there would be no raid after all.

  He glanced over his shoulder, but no one was paying him any mind. Dava had sent him over to find out if anything was suspicious, and this definitely fit the bill. Could he tell her though? What would be the point? What if they decided to fry Roy, push him out an airlock for deceiving them? Jax didn’t want that on his hands. Plus, then Jax would be the sole “hacker” and they’d probably expect him to come up with something on the spot to make the detection work, and then he’d be in the same situation.

  Lying to Dava was not something he felt all that comfortable with; in fact, he felt the opposite of comfortable when thinking about it. But the truth remained: he was no gangbanger. He had no place in Space Waste. He was only trying to appear useful because it seemed like the best way to stay alive. He didn’t want to be responsible for hurting anyone, he knew that. He didn’t mind stealing; there were worse things in the universe than stealing. But this was Space Waste. They never stopped at stealing.

  A rush of air came out his lungs and he hung his head, but only for a second. He’d have to move, keep playing the game. Bright blue eyes waited for him on Terroneous. He just needed to stay alive long enough to figure out how to get back there.

  “Jack.” Dava had a terrifying ability to appear as though from thin air.

  “Oh, uh—”

  “Come on,” she said, pulling him by the arm. “What did you find out?” she whispered as they marched back to her station.

  “Well, it seems to work,” he said.

  “Seems to?”

  “There’s nothing out here right now, so it’s hard to verify.” He paused, then sensed she needed more. “He told me how it works though, and it fits together.”

  She stared, then nodded softly. “Okay. Let me ask you this,” she said. “Could you operate it?”

  “You mean using his interface?”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  He didn’t understand the question, and it led him to the worst of conclusions. Was she suggesting that she might take Roy out? And expect Jax to finish the job? Still, it would do him no good to appear incompetent. He thought of the number-keys controlling the playback. “Sure, not much to it.”

  Her eyes probed his face, and for a moment he had a thought that she could read his mind, or at least tell if he were lying. He wondered: had he lied? He could control it as Roy intended to, but not as they wanted him to. Her lips pursed and she looked away. “Good,” she said, her voice relaxing somewhat. “You probably won’t get a chance to, but I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t some power play on Jansen’s part.”

  “Power play?”

  “I mean, if no one else could control it but Roy.”

  If he’d had any doubt that the woman had trust issues before, it was gone. He thought about asking her what it was she didn’t trust about Roy, or maybe it was Jansen. But he caught himself. It wasn’t his place. He just needed to stay alive.

  Just stay alive and get back to Terroneous.

  * * *

  A frustrating, pulsing alert icon replaced the bombball highlights with a shudder. Runstom sat up in his cot. It was the only furniture in his meager guest chamber, aside from the holovid player.

  “Come on, dammit.” He swung his feet off the side of the bed to reach for the HV and muttered to himself, “I saved up those recordings so I would have something to do out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  The HV ignored his prodding, insistent on the ship-wide message it was delivering. Some kind of alert; Defense jargon that he wasn’t used to. It was like trying to understand the same language but with a heavy dialect. A yellow alert, it warned passengers to take precautionary measures. It said nothing about the nature of the concern or exactly what measures one should take.

  He sighed and stood. They had Xarped into Epsilon Eridani, the least populated of the populated solar systems, only thirty minutes earlier. He’d had one plan for dealing with the Xarp sickness: grab coffee and catch
up on bombball. He looked at his empty cup and then at the pulsing yellow icon.

  At the least, he could go hunt down more coffee.

  As he stepped into the hall, he thought that maybe they were approaching the outpost already. Outpost Epsilon was the only ModPol facility in the whole system. From there they would let him launch his OrbitBurner 4200 LX luxury ship so he could head over to Epsilon-3, where the new domes were being constructed.

  If they were almost to the outpost, he definitely needed more coffee.

  The hallway flashed an annoying yellow every few meters from ceiling-mounted lights. The occasional staff blurted at him to make a hole before jogging past. With each one, his anxiety notched upward, their urgency being transmitted to him like a disease.

  The only real contact he’d had with anyone in charge was when Lieutenant Commander Ploughy gave him a tour of the Garathol a few hours before launch. The man was a B-fourean, but other than his height and slight build was nothing like Jax. He was twitchy with a face like a rodent, and he’d given Runstom an unsettling feeling by asking a lot of inane questions and then pointedly ignoring the answers.

  Still, the man had been cordial enough. He’d told Runstom that if he needed anything, he shouldn’t hesitate to ask. Runstom decided to head to the bridge to see if he could find the lieutenant commander.

  After ten minutes of dizzy wandering, he finally found the command center of the ship, which turned out to be much smaller than he’d expected. Though he wasn’t sure why he’d expected more; even though the Garathol was a Colossus 9K – a massive vessel – there wasn’t much to it besides interstellar transportation.

  The bridge was flashing yellow, but less so than the halls. He spotted a coffee pot in the corner and realized he was still holding his empty cup, so he gave himself a refill before seeking out the lieutenant commander.

  Ploughy was fidgeting with a narrow console at one side of the room. He twitched when Runstom approached, but quickly turned back to his screens, tapping away at the interface.

  “Runstom.” He paused and looked at nothing for a moment. “I didn’t catch your title.”

  Runstom coughed. “Public relations officer,” he mumbled before covering his mouth with the cup of coffee.

  “Public Relations Officer Runstom.” Ploughy’s focus returned to the console. “I’m afraid non-essential personnel are not permitted on the bridge during any alert condition.”

  Runstom blinked and looked around the small room. There were six others, most in front of consoles, except for the woman he’d been briefly introduced to as Captain Yakimoto. She was standing at a podium in the center reviewing a handypad one of the others had handed her. Everyone was remarkably calm.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that you said, if I needed—”

  “Of course.” Ploughy turned and folded his narrow hands in front of himself. “What can I help you with, Public Relations Officer Runstom?”

  “Please, just Stanford,” Runstom said, feeling his own hand on the back of his neck. “I just – well, I guess I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. With the yellow alert and all.”

  “Right.” The lieutenant commander looked as though he were holding an insect between his hands, one he didn’t want to be caught with but didn’t want to continue to hold onto as it crawled around his palms. “Well, it’s probably nothing, to be honest. You can just return to your chamber and await further instructions.”

  Runstom nodded slowly and tried to steal a glance at the console. “Another ship?” he blurted when he noticed the blip on the contact map.

  Ploughy sighed through his nose and kept himself from following Runstom’s eyes to the console. “Yes, that’s right. There’s a contact.”

  “An unknown contact,” Runstom said. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be a yellow alert.”

  A twitch. “Yes. Of course. I can assure you, we have everything under control.”

  “Could it be hostile? All the way out here?”

  “Whatever it is, we’re prepared for anything.”

  “I suppose,” Runstom said, then glanced around the room. “Of course, there aren’t many weapons on the Garathol.”

  Ploughy’s mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Just something I heard from someone who knows ships better than I do.” Cadet Katsumi had grown quite chatty back on their approach to Outpost Delta, once McManus had left anyway. She’d gone on and on about the Garathol, which was visible as soon as the outpost was. “It’s the largest ship capable of Xarp. It’s all drives and cargo holds, not much room – or power – for weapons.”

  Ploughy’s whiskery mouth curled and he gave a short nod. “This is true. Nonetheless, Defense is always prepared.”

  “Lieutenant Commander?” the captain called. “Contact update?”

  The man flinched and his eyes scanned the console. He tapped sharply at it. “Contact is still unidentified,” he said. “But the computer found several matches with a non-zero potential.”

  “Any of them hostile?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said evenly. “One possible hostile. A carrier, once belonging to the Defensive Space Brigade of Triton, on Barnard-3. It was … acquired. Approximately two years ago. By—”

  “Space Waste.” She turned to someone on her other side. “Lieutenant Kilson. Go to red alert.”

  The room went bright orange and faint klaxons immediately began sounding.

  Ploughy turned to Runstom. “Apologies, Public Relations Officer Runstom.” He took a step forward. “Now you really must leave the bridge.”

  * * *

  They must be after the cargo, Runstom thought as he was herded out the door. He’d asked about the cargo when he got his tour of the ship, but Ploughy had told him that was restricted information. Evidently Runstom didn’t rank very high in his present company.

  Still, he was an officer of ModPol Defense. Even if it was public relations officer. Shouldn’t he be privy to what they were transporting?

  The alarms grew louder as he made his way down the hall and the abrasive sound combined forces with the lingering Xarp sickness to clog his mind with mud.

  He began to look for the simple explanations. Space Waste knew the transport had something of value on board. Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they just intended to commandeer the ship itself. It was a skeleton crew, easy to outnumber. But then Space Waste would have to know that, and how could they?

  The gangbangers had shown up at Vulca, then at Terroneous when they kidnapped Jax. And now here.

  He had a sudden pang of guilt. What had happened to Jax? He missed the B-fourean. He was actually a little concerned. Somehow he convinced himself that Space Waste wouldn’t hurt him. If they’d wanted him dead, they could have easily killed him back on Sirius-5. Or they could have simply blown up McManus’s ship. But instead, they boarded and kidnapped him.

  Runstom blinked. He’d managed to wander far enough through the maze of corridors to see a map with the ship’s layout on the wall. Some of the cargo holds were off to his left, the rest off to his right. He considered looking for the kitchen. Would it be open during a red alert?

  “Dammit,” he cursed aloud. He’d left his cup, full of coffee, back on the bridge.

  He went right and approached the door of the first hold he came to. It had a biometric lock, with a retina scan.

  “Worth a shot,” he mumbled and stuck his face into the receptacle.

  To his surprise, the machine bleeped happily and turned green. His name and position flashed on the screen.

  Inside, it was cold. His teeth began to chatter almost immediately, and he hugged himself. The chill began to clear away the mud, at least. He inspected the containers that were stacked in rows all the way up the tall ceiling.

  It was all food. He’d read an infosheet that said Outpost Epsilon was currently occupied by forty Defenders and thirty non-military personnel. It looked like the precious cargo the transport was hauling was jus
t a restock of the outpost’s food supply.

  The cold finally drove him out of the hold and he wandered along the hallway rubbing life back into his limbs. The alarms were louder again, and only then he realized they’d been muffled in the hold. A trio of airmen jogged past him. When they rounded the corner, he spotted another cargo door.

  It’d worked before, so he shrugged at the thing and stuck his face into the scanner. Again, the door opened. And again, stacks and stacks of food in cold storage.

  After a few minutes he’d inspected all six cargo holds on that side of the ship, and they were all food. Enough to feed seventy people for years, he thought. What did he know about it, though? He shook his head at the thought that it made any difference. It only bothered him because he couldn’t imagine Space Waste coming clear out to Epsilon Eridani just to steal food. They could steal that anywhere.

  Right about then, he wanted to ask Jax what he thought. It wasn’t so much that Runstom relied on Jax to know any more than he did, but it was good to have someone to bounce ideas off of, to talk things out. He really hoped Space Waste wasn’t torturing the poor man. He wished he had the resources to go after him, but there was nothing he could do. Or so he told himself. But the fact was, Jax was a wanted fugitive, and when a ModPol patrol tried to pick him up—

  He stopped back at the junction between the cargo sections and stood staring into space. He’d been working off the fact that Jax had been kidnapped by Space Waste. But Jax had just been arrested. Anyone who wasn’t ModPol would have seen it for what it was: they’d rescued him from going to prison.

  He laughed then for a moment, then clammed up and looked around to make sure no one saw him standing around laughing to himself. Now he knew Jax was going to be fine. At least physically. What they intended to do with the B-fourean, he wasn’t so sure about.

  Since he had nothing better to do at the moment, he decided to check the cargo holds off to the left. The first one he came to, he tried the retina scan. It buzzed nastily at him and flashed red, ACCESS DENIED. He tried again and got the same result.

  Then the door opened, and his jaw dropped.