by Ginger Booth
More to the point, the device required hookups to water, power, and soy stock, recycled and fresh. Not exactly a plug and play test. The machine didn’t feature a recycled input. He’d have to cobble one on.
He called out, “Hey, Wilder! What are you up to?”
“Comparing laser sights, cap. Could you come here?”
Ben excused himself and wandered toward his security forces. Curious, Judge trailed along. “What can I help you with, sergeant?”
“Which of these laser sights looks like the one you saw last night? On the dead guy.”
“Dead guy?” Judge inquired, eyes wide. They ignored him.
Ben considered the two red dots aimed at a tower of crates across the dock. If memory served, this was about the line of sight distance available in that curving corridor last night. “Wiggle them, like you’re trying to get a good bead on his head.” They obliged.
The captain frowned. Obviously, one of the guns had a narrower red beam. Which was the right one still escaped him. “Judge, stand over there, would you?”
“Uh…sure.”
“Safeties engaged, yes, gentlemen?” Ben prompted. They chuckled and teased Judge while he walked to position, but complied.
They repeated the test, with one gun at a time, aimed at Judge. “The second one,” Ben said confidently. “Very helpful, Judge. Thanks.” He turned back to Wilder. “What does this prove?”
“The assassin used a civilian model gun, not station security,” Wilder explained. “Hey, cap, you’re not going to invite that dude onto the ship, are you?”
“I need to test the soy printer before I can pay him.”
“That’s a soy printer? Outstanding! But he doesn’t wander free on the ship, cap. Remember what Willow said? Rego Vultures offered big money for spy eyes inside.”
“Then come watch him,” Ben invited. “Zan, you can handle taking Cope and Teke, right? Maybe Wilder and I can stay here. I’ve got work to do.”
“Not ideal, cap,” Wilder warned.
“It’s a cold and broken, dusty world, sergeant,” Ben replied. “And we want dinner.”
“Point.”
In the galley, Ben and Judge rinsed and wiped the machine, then determined that it was possible to feed soy dough through an aperture, allowing them to do a basic test with only power and water feeds. They could manage that on the prep island overlooking the dining room, which offered a small scullery sink.
Ben turned the printer on. He programmed it for nautilus ear noodles and chicken broth because he remembered the recipe offhand. The processor interface looked good.
It blinked. It groaned. It began to vibrate on a distinct diagonal. It began to creep across the counter. An exaggerated creak like the opening of a door in a horror movie preceded a disgusting plop.
Ben raised his comm to his lips. “Chief to the galley, please.”
Cope arrived and watched the machine’s antics for a moment. He flicked the power off, lifted it, and banged it on its left rear corner. Then he set it down and flicked it back on. The vibrations damped out, and the extruding sounded a bit smoother. The creaking continued.
“I know that one!” Judge offered. “May I?”
Cope adopted a slouch against the counter. “Be my guest.”
The spacer selected a thin scraper from Ben’s toolbox, and inserted it into the door latch so he could open the door without halting noodle extrusion. He swapped to his left fingers to hold the latch, to free his right hand and scraper to pry at something in back. The creaking ceased, and nautilus ears and soup began to drop at a faster rate.
“My mom had one of these,” Judge confided modestly. He rinsed and wiped the scraper dry, and replaced it neatly where it belonged. Ben and Copeland’s eyes tracked the modest implement’s every move. In fourteen years in space, Ben counted five people he could trust to put away a tool properly. Judge made six.
“Yeah, us too,” Cope agreed. “Damned things never die.” He popped open the door and pulled out the bowl of noodle soup to sample. He put one pasta ear in his mouth, chewed, spat it into the sink, and popped open an access door. “You didn’t stock the seasonings. The texture’s good. I need to get going.”
“Thanks, Cope,” Ben said sheepishly. “They’re asking two k.”
“MO bucks? Fair. Your money,” the engineer advised, and vanished around the corner.
“We can load the seasonings to make sure,” Judge urged. “I know how. I can mount it for you too. Install you some new cabinets to fill in the hole.”
“Wait,” Ben said in misgiving. “Isn’t it Dawn? Aren’t you supposed to be out mining or something?” The skiff crews worked four days on, three days off. They returned to the orbital at sunset. Judge being at loose ends on Monday was no surprise, but Dawn began the workweek.
“It’s no trouble,” Judge assured him. “Hell, cap, I’d do anything to win a crew slot on the Prosper. I called in some personal days to give it my best shot. And you’re a generous man. If this thing works, I’m sure you’ll give me a fair finder’s fee on top of what the seller wants. To make up for what I’d earn this week.”
“Huh.”
They tossed the unsalted noodle broth. The next seasoned batch was less than inspiring, but the processor had overrides to compensate for taste. Hunter consulted that time, and the third batch was fairly good.
Quire wandered in with the day’s harvest basket while they measured for the new cabinets. He pleaded for a second not-so-cold cooler for a vegetable crisper. With a glass door so everyone could see the delicious fresh options instead of automatically grabbing for cookies.
“And a cheese dome, too, please?” he suggested hopefully. “I do so love cheese and mangoes.”
“Mangoes?” Judge asked, transfixed. Miners subsisted on a steady diet of recycled soy protein, with three servings of fresh produce a week.
“Tropical fruit,” Ben murmured. “We’ll look for the crisper,” he conceded to Quire. “You can figure out the cheese dome on your own.” At Ben’s tone, Quire nodded and fled.
“Is he a real Denali?” Judge asked, starstruck.
“Yeah, so was Zan out in the dock. Got three –” Ben cut himself off. “We brought them back from Denali. And their mangoes. Their guava and pineapple are pretty good.”
Wonderingly, Judge approached the closest tree, a paw paw. He picked and peeled a fruit. He gagged and spit it into the sink.
“Recycling chute.” Ben pointed mildly. “Crops are in the engine room. Any tree out here is an air scrubber. Eli doesn’t want them to have sex or something.” He rummaged in the grocery basket, and set some fruit on the counter. The heavy stuff always rolled to the bottom under the leaves. “Mango. Guava. Pear. Eat some if you want.”
“I thought he brought that from the market.”
“No, Quire’s our ship’s gardener. You have any idea how wide a ‘glass-fronted crisper’ might be? If this thing costs over eight hundred, he can sing for it. Though Quire might cover the expense himself. Well, I need a price either way.”
Dammit! What he needed to do today was secure a cargo on commission for Gorky’s ship, through a dummy corporation, newly minted for him by Abel Greer, to launder the money and get it to his dad. Converting MO-bucks to untraceable credits was a colossal hassle.
“Look, you know what? The soy printer is great, send me an invoice. Price me some cheap cabinets. And the crisper. But first, install that printer. Call me to inspect the hookups before you slide it in. Oh, and the recycled feed. Wilder, babysit this operation. Tap Kassidy or Hunter if you need more hands. I’ll be in my office.”
“Aye, cap.”
Ben hustled to resume his cargo laundering scheme. He sure wanted to keep Judge. He doubted Cope would agree on security grounds. But the guy was a master of scrounge. He even put away tools properly.
By midday on Dusk, stewing in his pressure suit, Ben was all too eager to part ways with Mahina Orbital. He slapped his comm against his gauntleted hand, waiting impatiently for
his final delivery of goods bound for sale on Mahina.
Dammit, I offered a 10% bonus for early delivery, and a 10% penalty for late! All of his cargo should have arrived early under those terms.
He and Judge stood minding their commission container in the giant cargo dock, both in pressure suits to re-attach the box when it was finally full. Zan dropped them off at the station before taking Cope and Teke back to Pollan’s lair on the shuttle. Cope’s final parts were supposed to be ready a couple hours ago. Those were running late, naturally. Gorky’s ship claimed the high-capacity dock now. Prosper stood off a few hundred meters, detached from the station.
Ben felt exposed, like he had a target on his back. This wasn’t for lack of security. A few hundred miners and miscellaneous passengers offloaded from the Heavenly Bodies yesterday. Today another couple hundred waited in a snaking line to board for return to Mahina. The whole dock reeked of sweaty bodies and last night’s booze.
Miners were an ornery lot. They still had scores to settle incurred during the week’s settling of scores – these things bred like rabbits. Twenty guards had their hands full keeping the queue from exploding into a riot while the medical transfers and first-class passengers boarded at leisure.
That much Ben expected. What made him uneasy was that Gorky told him three of his passengers on the way up were Rego Vulture executives, and that he’d seen them talking to new-minted miners, possibly recruiting. That didn’t bode well. Ben wanted to be done with this station so bad he could taste it.
“Acosta!” Gorky yelled across the hold. He threw his hands up in a big question. His first mate and a spare were swamped checking ID’s for transit, so he was stuck out here tarnishing his captain dignity just like Ben. “Time’s up, man!”
A last glance at the doors, and a last check on his comm for messages, and Ben surrendered. “Let’s load it,” he told Judge. He closed up the container and they powered up the grav lifts at the corners. One of Gorky’s crew jogged over to coordinate as they settled the box over the giant pressurized cargo elevator.
Naturally, Ben’s late delivery showed up just as they got the box jostled in. Ben, helmet already sealed for exit, shook his head to decline the shipment. The furious middleman, stuck with the goods, screamed bloody murder. Judge stood off against him, hollering back, until Ben yanked him into the elevator before its doors closed on him.
Ben hated riding those elevators with a cargo container. The three of them were plastered along the wall, the box only centimeters from his face. The elevator jerked downward into a drop that never ended, because the bottom was zero-g. Then they waited while the air was evacuated. Then another track of rollers took over and trundled them out of the station beneath the Heavenly Bodies. To keep from being tossed by the motion, he pressed his toes and hands against the box, and his back into the wall.
And then the wall behind him started to open to space.
“Cap, Wilder,” the sergeant hailed him from Prosper’s bridge.
Ben, newly freed from the elevator, got a D-ring clamped to an access bar and pushed out of the container’s way as it floated outward. “Busy.” He dove to detach the grav lifters. Those didn’t descend to Mahina.
“Yeah, cap, a few skiffs are approaching. You send those?”
“No. Hail them.”
“Tried that.”
“Call traffic control.”
“Tried that too. MO Control is screaming at them.”
“Dammit.” The last thing Ben Acosta wanted was to let the sergeant pilot his ship. Wilder was a menace. But no one else on board was skilled enough for the busy MO interdiction space. And Ben was over here.
“Judge,” Ben asked in sudden inspiration. “Can you talk to them? Get them away from my ship?” The spacer knew the other skiff leaders.
“I can try.”
Meanwhile Ben hustled to get the remaining lifters off the container. Finally Gorky’s wrangler waved him off with a thumb’s-up. Their grapplers had it from here. Judge’s friendly gambits and personal insults droned on in the background.
Ben took a moment to hail Cope. “Time to go, buddy. Any chance that shuttle can pick me up in the next two minutes?”
Cope snorted. “No.”
“How much longer? This place is getting downright unfriendly.”
Wilder cut in. “Rego hell, cap! They’re firing on us!”
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“Who what?” Cope demanded over the comms in Ben’s ear.
“Wilder, do not return fire!” Ben barked at him. “Cope, get me an ETA! Out. Wilder, evade and tell MO Control your status and bearing.”
“Cap, you effing chat with MO Control! I’m busy! Wilder out!”
“Dammit!” Ben yelled.
“Cap, I can get us sleds,” Judge suggested.
Ben thought fast. “Do it.” The longer Wilder was driving his ship, the greater the chance of catastrophe. He couldn’t take the con remotely, but they operated the grapplers that way all the time. Maybe… “Wilder, sit still.” Prosper was moving away now on a zig-zag course, gaining speed.
Alarms were pealing in the background when the sergeant replied. “Like hell! They burned a hole in our roof!”
“Damage control?”
Wilder dismissed this concern. “Kassidy’s problem. I’m a sitting duck.”
“Understood, sergeant, but this is an order.” Ben reeled out coordinates and told him to move there, with as wiggly a course as he’d like, but under no circumstances to exceed 400 meters from Ben’s beacon. “We will rendezvous ASAP.”
Judge appeared to have conjured two sleds out of thin air. More likely he knew where they were stowed by the elevator mouth. “On our way. Acosta out.”
For once, Ben was too worried about his ship to waste time on being terrified of the sled. He bought one of the things once, thinking the toy would be fun. No doubt it was gathering rust under a banana tree in the engine room.
The odious contraption looked like bicycle handlebars, with a spotting scope sticking out the middle. Thruster jets fired from both back-facing handles. A sort of triangular cradle snapped onto the chest of his pressure suit. The controls were entirely too simple – line up a destination in the cross-hairs, squeeze the handles, and go. He snapped it on, aimed at the Prosper, and gave it a little thrust. As usual, the sled’s ability to hold a bead while Ben gave it gas, sucked.
“Target me, not the ship,” Judge tutored him.
Ben tried his advice, and found it worked better than trying to keep the distant ship in the cross-hairs. Judge was weaving, but at least Ben was following. In consternation, he realized the spacer was aiming not for the ship, but the closest of the skiffs, this one holding station relative to Prosper.
In abrupt decision, Ben shifted his aim to his rear passenger airlock, with a veer so sharp he feared his harness locks would release as his legs whiplashed around. Then he turned his head to watch what Judge was up to, but that made him suddenly swerve out of control. He compensated and concentrated on his driving. Oh, hell. “Judge! Remind me how you stop this thing!”
There were no brakes in freefall. Force forward needed to be canceled by force backward.
“On three,” Judge replied. “Press the buttons above the hand-holds. That flips you into reverse on your current bead. A range finder sets your deceleration. So be damned sure you’ve got the ship lined up in your cross hair first. One, two, three.”
Ben nearly had his arms yanked out of their sockets as the sled died. Then it swung him around on a gimbel, and auto-fired to brake. Mortality among miners was high. In Ben’s opinion, the wonder was that they survived at all.
“Cap, ready to cut out on three,” Judge sang out. “One, two, three.”
Ben remembered this part. He disabled the sled with a thumb slide, then hit the brake buttons again to gimbel his orientation back to face the approaching wall of the Prosper. His speed remained faster than he cared to hit a wall, but Judge’s guidance served him far better than his own skills would have. H
e let go of the handlebars and spreadeagled, then pulled in an arm to tilt himself away just a touch. The sled’s chest harness hit the hull with impressive shock absorbers to dull his bounce. Tethered magnets shot out from the sled on impact. On most of Ben’s sled trips, this was the point at which the sled bounced back out to dangle on its magnets lines while he awkwardly pulled himself in, hand over hand. But Judge called it right. The sled stayed on the ship in the first place. Not a bad spot, either – Ben was about 5 meters aft of the bridge, almost on top of the ship.
Clambering across his hull from here was trivial from long practice. In another minute, he bypassed the pressurization cycle to speed himself through the airlock. Judge could collect the sleds. A few more strides took Ben to the engineering podium, from which he could fly the ship if he had to. The lack of a proper instrument panel made that so very unappealing.
However – Wilder drives like a lunatic. “Sergeant, I have the con.”
“Thank all the little bunnies in heaven,” he acknowledged.
Ben chuckled appreciation, but kept his eye on his business. Another laser hole in his hull had joined the first. But interior pressure was rising instead of falling, so apparently Kassidy had that under control. One skiff was retreating, the one Judge dropped in on. Two others wheeled around. The Prosper was more-or-less zig-zagging in place, taking a random bead between 6 fixed positions and holding each course for between 3 to 12 seconds.
Ben surmised that the AI came up with that one – math wasn’t really Wilder’s style. He overrode it to follow a predictable 3 headings in sequence, 12 seconds per leg. Which would bring him closest to…that one. He reached out with the grav grapples and snagged himself a skiff. With a dexterity born of long practice, he immediately tumbled the load to point nose-out so they couldn’t fire at him.
The skiffs only carried fixed guns in the bow, rudimentary like the sleds – point the vessel and shoot. Granted those guns could pulverize an asteroid.