Starship Repo

by Patrick S. Tomlinson

  “Make one lap around the station,” Soolie said. “And make sure we pass right over Bay Ninety-Four. I want those losers on Loritt’s crew to know who the winning team is.”

  “Yes, sir,” his four-armed helmsman said, although he barely rated the title. The Buzzmouth’s nav systems were almost entirely automated. Just plugging in destinations and working the throttle didn’t require a great deal of technical aptitude.

  The ship shook and shuddered unnervingly beneath them as power was added to the drive spikes. His people shared brief, panicked glances.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Soolie said through the tremors. “She’s just settling in is all. Like a new house.” The placation worked only because all of his employees had grown up on a space station and none had ever seen a house, much less a new one.

  Two-thirds of an orbit later, they all hooted, hollered, and displayed obscene gestures from half a dozen different cultures as they passed by the stricken Goes Where I’m Towed. Of course, none of their taunts would carry through the vacuum of space, but it was the thought that counted.

  “Set course for the high-space portal, then full speed ahead to the rendezvous point,” Soolie said, feeling like a genuine space captain. He could get used to it. Half a larim later, they were cruising through high-space, still shaking a bit but making incredible time.

  “Wish I could see that stupid girl’s face now,” the helmsman said to his buddy, whose name Soolie had never bothered to learn, either. “Bet it’s even better than earlier today when we bounced her off.”

  Soolie’s interest piqued, and he lifted his head off his hand. “What stupid girl?”

  “The human girl, First. She came by the slip earlier to start some glot, but we scared her off good.”

  “First was at the slip today?” Soolie said with rising concern. “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know, a larim and a half ago?”

  “And she confronted you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “While you were supposed to be watching the ship?”

  “Yeah.”

  Soolie rubbed his neck. “What did she say?”

  “She said, and I’m quoting her, boss, so excuse the cursing, ‘You tell Fin to lay the kark off.’”

  Soolie leaned forward and drummed the fingers of his good hand against his fin. “And it didn’t occur to you to share this information with your boss?”

  “She was just hot about Hilix, rest her bones, carving up her roommate. We took care of it, boss.”

  Soolie leaned back in his chair again. “Well, I guess that’s all right, then.” Still, he couldn’t quite shake the nagging feeling he was missing something.

  Three rakims later and forty spans below where Soolie sat, an egg timer dinged inside the crate Jrill had welded to the aft end of the Buzzmouth under Sheer’s remote direction while First and Hashin distracted the guards.

  This, in turn, closed a simple electrical circuit and sent power from a nearby battery into a small primer charge. This, in turn, ignited several kilos of chemical explosives, which deformed and liquified a copper cone, sending a jet of white-hot metal into the impulse regulator at the aft of the ship, which controlled the flow of power from the Buzzmouth’s reactor to its twin drive cones. This, in turn, cut off all the power pouring into the drive cones and sent a backwash of energy through the system, tripping breakers and burning out relays as it raced back toward the reactor like a tsunami.

  The reactor’s safeguards saw the impending disaster coming and scrambled to divert the torrent of power. They were, mostly, successful. But in so doing, the overload instead wreaked havoc on several secondary systems, including communications, gravity plating, and internal lights.

  Floating in the green of emergency gel lights amid a cacophony of alarms and damage reports, Rirez cleared his throat.

  “Fin, I think they might have found the bomb after all.”

  “Oh, really, genius?” Soolie exploded. “You don’t karking say!”

  * * *

  “Sheer,” Loritt said into the team link. “I couldn’t help but notice when I was making breakfast this morning that my egg timer is missing.”

  “Yeah,” Sheer said. “Sorry about that, boss, but you said you needed a timer, and all the stores were closed.”

  “And you didn’t have one to donate?”

  “Ish prefer our eggs raw, boss.”

  “Of course.”

  The flight plan Soolie had logged with Space Traffic Control had been less than honest, so even if anyone had known they were overdue, no one would know where to look for them.

  No one except Loritt, who’d fed them the fake flight plan of the nonexistent yacht they were chasing after in the first place.

  Loritt gave Soolie and his crew a couple of days to stew in their own juices before launching a “rescue” mission. By the time the Goes Where I’m Towed arrived to parlay, the situation on board the Buzzmouth had grown feral. Two mutineers had already been killed. One had been eaten.

  Loritt’s ultimatum was as straightforward as it was merciless. He’d brought a shiny new impulse regulator to replace the one Soolie’s own bomb had destroyed. Loritt would hand it over, totally free of charge, even have his people install it, provided the Buzzmouth set course for a new port and never returned to Junktion again. Or they could float in high-space until they all killed each other, asphyxiated, or froze to death.

  There was no option C.

  Even without anything to bargain with, Soolie demanded the regulator plus enough emergency food and water rations to make the two-month trip without starving, to cover for his own ineptitude and lack of adequate preparation. But Loritt was in a festive and generous mood.

  “I’m glad we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement like the gentlemen we are,” Loritt said through navigation light pulses, on account of the Buzzmouth’s coms system still being disabled.

  “Kark you, trash heap,” Soolie’s lights answered.

  Loritt smiled and turned to Jrill. “Arrange the repairs and supply delivery.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “And, Jrill”—he caught her forearm—“if they give you even a whiff of trouble, drill through their hull and vent the atmosphere. This is their very last chance to learn how to play nice.”

  “That’s cold, boss.” Jrill looked him over. “I approve.”

  When the Towed dropped anchor in Bay Ninety-Four, Loritt’s crew came streaming out of her like conquering heroes. Loritt led the procession down the All-Seal, followed by Jrill, then Hashin, then Sheer with Fenax’s tank perched on top of her carapace, and First coming last, dancing and twirling like someone who’d just given a terrible ex-boss the send-off they so richly deserved.

  Then they all got in a couple of transit pods, found the nearest microbrewery, and proceeded to drink themselves into a new dimension even string theory hadn’t predicted.

  By the time First sobered up again, she was already on a new assignment.

  CHAPTER 19

  First cracked open the cockpit of the simulator and removed the breathing mask.

  “I’ve been in here for six hours,” she complained. “Is this really necessary?”

  “You were too shallow in your entry vector on that last run by 0.8 degrees,” Fenax said. “So apparently yes, it remains necessary.”

  “I rounded up,” First said.

  “This isn’t like calculating the tip on a bar tab, First. At the speeds these sling-racers move, being shallow by 0.8 degrees means you missed the target window by thousands of ship lengths. You don’t have enough time or thruster propellant to make that kind of course correction.”

  First’s head rolled back against the seat rest. “I thought you said these things were all engine.”

  “They are. They’re stripped down to the last molecule to be as light as possible. They’re basically just a seat glued to a miniaturized reactor, drive spike, and a couple of thruster quadrants wrapped in a paper-thin fairing to keep the solar radiati
on out. But that means their propellant tanks are also tiny, just enough fuel and reactant mass to last the duration of the race course, a thimble of emergency reserve, and not a drop more.”

  “So why am I stealing one again?”

  “Because they’re custom-built for decadent thrill-seekers and cost five to ten million credits apiece, and this particular one is owned by Loritt’s former boss, who still owes him money. Honestly, I think he’d take a loss to repossess this asset.”

  “Ah,” First said. “Now that’s a motivation I understand. But why don’t we just stick you in the cockpit? You’re far and away the most experienced pilot we have.”

  Fenax waggled their ganglia. “Because there’s no automation, no interface. It’s just the manual controls and the handful of flight instrumentation you see in the simulator. There’s nothing to plug me into, and I don’t have the hands for stick-and-pedal flying even if I wanted to, which frankly I don’t. Way too primitive. Neither Jrill nor Sheer will fit in the cockpit, and Hashin and Loritt are working another job. So it’s you and me, and you’re flying.”

  “All right, all right, I get it.” First closed the cockpit canopy and gave the thumbs-up to start yet another simulation.

  * * *

  The closest Class One Sling Racing made it to Junktion was the Percolete system, almost a month away through high-space, even on the fastest, most expensive commercial liner. The Towed was marginally faster than that, but it was otherwise engaged.

  With only First and Fenax aboard, there wasn’t much to do in those weeks except stream shows, work out, and perfect her sling piloting in the simulator, which they’d moved into the cargo bay before departure. Loritt had apparently bought it outright, which would probably come in handy down the road. The workouts weren’t just to pass the time, either. The slings had no counter-grav systems on board, another mass-conserving measure. Pilots felt every g during turns and burns. The simulator had a built-in gravity generator to mimic the effects, but it was capped off at six g’s for safety reasons. Still, First often peeled herself out of the cockpit with fresh bruises from the crash webbing and seat. But at least her ribs had time to heal completely.

  Race day bordered on a planetary holiday for almost every system lucky enough to be selected for a stage on the circuit. Local space traffic was suspended for everything except the racers, their chase slips, emergency responders, and the press covering the event. If you hadn’t landed by the day before, you waited it out in a parking orbit.

  Where there wasn’t an inhabited body or station, asteroids were diverted from their natural orbits to serve as observation points for every turn, sling, and course adjustment. Sometimes these temporary abodes were paid for by the dominant governmental body of the host system, more often by enterprising individuals who charged outrageous sums for admission to a hastily constructed facility that would be relevant for no more than a single larim of a single orbit before being evacuated and abandoned.

  And yet still people paid with gratitude. Some of the wealthiest sling-racer aficionados even chartered private high-space transports between the various observation posts so they could watch every turn, slingshot, and burn of a given race in real time.

  Which, as it happened, was how the Goes Where I’m Towed acquired credentials for the event.

  “I’m not taxiing one more load of these entitled karking debutants to another warmed-over glot-rock,” Fenax announced on their final final approach to Percolete Prime. “I don’t care what they’re paying per seat. We’re officially closed for business.”

  “What you do between now and the rendezvous is your business, Fenax,” First said as she stuffed her racing suit and helmet into her overnight bag. “Just so long as you get this crate in position to crack open a high-space portal and grab me after turn two.”

  “Count on it.”

  “You haven’t failed me yet.”

  “I suppose not. Are you ready?”

  First laughed. “To infiltrate an elite group of the galaxy’s best sling-racers based on nothing but bravado and good looks? No, not really.”

  “That’s why it’s going to work,” Fenax said.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because it’s so stupid that no one will believe you were attempting it dishonestly.”

  First’s shoulders went slack. “I really wish that wasn’t a perfect description of most of our plans. People will catch on. It won’t work forever.”

  “Just needs to work today, then we’ll think of something else.” Fenax opened the inner door to the All-Seal. “Good luck.”

  First stepped out of a side passage and blended into the small cadre of a few dozen paying aliens the Towed had ferried to the geosynchronous space elevator station above Percolete Prime playing host to the start line of this stage of the Class One tour. First quickly found herself drowned out among the crush of fans and hangers-on. The frenzied pace of the crowd was oddly comforting for her. It felt exactly like the promenade back on Junktion at rush hour.

  The common areas were the easy part. Beyond them, where the media and race crews dominated in the handful of spaces on board carved out for them, would be far more difficult to navigate, despite being far less populated. Or perhaps because of. A huge, throbbing crowd offered a degree of anonymity First had grown to appreciate since leaving her parents and PCB behind. You never saw crowds like this on Earth’s colony worlds; there just weren’t enough people. Yet.

  First spotted her exit on an overhead sign and peeled away from the crowds. Now, it was game time, but she was prepared. Her badge wasn’t just a standard ticket but press credentials, which granted her access to a much wider range of areas, including the hangars. Provided nobody put it through too much scrutiny …

  The hangars were just ahead now, behind a substantial security checkpoint.

  “Deep breath,” First admonished herself. “Smile. Make eye contact. Project confidence. You know the drill. Piece of cake.” She fought back the sudden urge to riffle through her bag as the checkpoint drew closer. A knot of fans and enthusiasts crowded just outside the hangars, trying to get a glimpse of the racers or their machines.

  First took charge and held her badge up, loudly proclaiming, “Press!” and “Media!” as she pushed through the onlookers, flashing the counterfeit credentials in the faces of particularly immovable patrons. She believed her, they believed, so why wouldn’t the guards?

  With some considerable effort, First pushed and shoved herself to the other side of the mob and gazed at the guards on the other side of the barricades with pleading eyes. One of the bigger ones, a Turemok, waved her forward.

  “Credentials,” they said in a businesslike tone. First took the lanyard off her neck and handed the badge over. “Outlet?”

  “Frequency Forty-Six, Junktion Station,” First said with polished practice. “The Voice for the Void.”

  “I didn’t need the tagline,” the guard said. “Open up the bag.”

  First shrugged and unzipped her bag, then pulled it open to show the small cache of recording equipment they’d packed as part of her cover story, but the guard’s hands dove past them and deeper into the bag.

  “Hey,” First objected. “That’s sensitive recording equipment. Be careful with it or you’re getting the replacement bill.”

  The Turemok yanked out her flight suit and helmet. “What’s this, then?”

  First drew herself up. A year earlier, she would’ve been terrified of being within a hundred meters of a Turemok, but after butting heads with Jrill for months, the fear had worn off. “It’s my uniform, for the interviews and photo shoots in the pits. Put it down before you tear a hole in it with those clumsy claws.”

  The guard glared at her. “Arms out.”

  “Oh, come on; I was felt up enough by the crowd on the way in here.”

  “Arms. Out,” they repeated. “Please.”

  “Well, since you said please.” First held out her arms and worked very hard not to shiver as the guard’
s hands passed down her sides, back, and inside her legs. It was professionally done, no lingering in inappropriate places or grabbing of sensitive areas. Still, First was glad she didn’t have a weapon at hand.

  “Satisfied?” she asked sweetly.

  The guard took one more sideways glance at her credentials, then thrust them back at her chest and waved her through with a grunt. She pointedly didn’t thank him for his time as she repacked her bag. Sure, his paranoia was entirely justified and not actually thorough enough, evidenced by the fact she’d gotten past him, but customer service was still a thing, wasn’t it?

  First zipped up her bag and pushed past the checkpoint in a calculated huff. She was a small-market media celebrity, after all, and her ego had been assailed by a flunky. Beyond the checkpoint, the crowd disappeared, replaced by frenetic mechanics scurrying for parts and tools, bloviating sling jockeys of a dozen species trash-talking each other, their fawning attendants of various genders falling on their every word, and the actual press struggling to capture a tenth of the mayhem swirling around them. The air was heavy with the smell of lubricants, cleaning solvents, and hydrazine.

  First didn’t care about any of it. She was fixated on a singular purpose: get inside her sling-racer and take legal possession of it. That was her goal. But there were still appearances to maintain, so she dug into her bag, pulled out a small drone camera rig, and activated it.

  Four arms with tiny counter-grav units at their corners popped out of the palm-sized unit before it sprang into the air.

  “Follow behind me to the left, record everything,” First instructed it, then went looking for her quarry. She didn’t know which berth her sling had been assigned to, and there didn’t seem to be any guide signs. The race organizers weren’t making the job any easier.

  “Excuse me,” she asked an Ish in coveralls streaked with black grease and bright red coolant stains. They looked like they were on break. “Can you tell me where Sigmalo Fullok’s sling is?”