Shockwave

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Do you still have neuropathy? Your record says the surgery was two years ago.”

  “Yup, sometimes. Especially when other things get knocked out of alignment.” Jess waved at her shoulder. “Everything hurts like fire then too.”

  She was casual as she spoke, but she also avoided looking him in the eye. That made him uneasy, as did the idea of simply handing her something so addictive without having done an examination or being more familiar with her history. But when he looked at Dr. Otero’s notes—nobody had yet explained to Yas what happened to his predecessor, and he was afraid to ask—Yas did see that he’d given her a legitimate prescription for trylochanix whenever she’d suffered injuries.

  And there seemed to be numerous injuries. She got hurt sparring or at work often.

  Simply a byproduct of being part of this crew and going on dangerous missions? Or was it possible she intentionally got hurt so she could get more trylochanix?

  “Have you tried other medicines?” Yas asked.

  “Yeah, but nothing works as well. It’s fine, Doc. I only take it when I need it. You know, when something short circuits.” She held up her prosthetic hand and her pinky twitched a few times.

  He was fairly certain that was an intentional motion rather than a short circuit. He was also fairly certain trylochanix wouldn’t do anything to help with mechanical issues. Dulling neuropathic pain, however, was a legitimate use.

  “I see. We should schedule a full examination when you have time—and when I have time.” Yas remembered that the captain was waiting for him. “Let’s discuss this further when I get back.”

  “Gosh, Doc, if you want to go on a date, just ask.”

  “That would be delightful, but we should probably keep things professional.”

  “Sounds boring.”

  “I’m going to give you a simple analgesic for now, and you let me know if it’s not enough.” Yas selected something strong but basic and non-addictive from the cabinet. “We can reevaluate after an exam.”

  Jess frowned but didn’t object, merely accepting the tabs and hopping off the table with a, “Thanks, Doc,” before heading back to engineering.

  Yas grabbed one of the oxygen tanks from a locker of emergency air, rations, and water in the corner. Sickbay was one of a handful of independently powered areas in the ship that could be isolated from the main environmental system and act as a safe haven if primary power or life support went out. He almost grabbed one of the DEW-Tek pistols in the cabinet but opted for a tranquilizer gun from a drawer instead.

  “Do I get a guide, Captain?” Yas asked over the comm as he headed through the corridors of the ship to the airlock.

  Nobody answered him.

  He hadn’t been off the Fedallah since first stepping on—the captain had denied him the freedom to take leave, even with an escort—but he’d had the mandatory space-evacuation training on Tiamat Station and attended the yearly drills, so he felt comfortable heading out an airlock. Walking through a station full of robotic security sentries without a bodyguard was another matter.

  When the airlock cycled and the hatch to the dark station opened, he shivered at the vast emptiness ahead of him. His helmet light came on automatically, a beam piercing an open bay and playing over dark tanks, pipes, and machinery. A single unnamed mining ship was also docked to the big bay, and robots worked with hoses and pipes to unload helium, methane, and the various other gases that would have been scooped out of Saga’s atmosphere.

  None of the robots reacted to Yas’s presence, and he walked slowly into the bay, careful to keep at least one magnetic boot attached to the deck. Ahead of him, a figure appeared in the mouth of a corridor. Yas’s gloved hand twitched toward his tranquilizer gun. What he thought that would do against a robot or android, he didn’t know, but as soon as his flashlight beam shifted, he recognized the black combat armor of one of Rache’s men.

  “This way, Doctor,” Rache himself said over the comm.

  Yas hurried to join him, and they meandered through an eerie high-ceilinged maze of giant tanks and processing equipment, and pipes bigger around than he was. A mutilated security robot floated limply in the air a few feet above the floor.

  “You’ve cleared the refinery of dangers?” Yas asked.

  Rache’s faceplate turned toward him for a long moment. “You’re here to determine that, Doctor.”

  “Oh, good.”

  Eight of Rache’s mercenaries waited in a control room full of gauges and panels displaying numbers that meant nothing to Yas. Some of the men stood. Others sat cross-legged above the floor, tilted at odd angles and thinking nothing of it.

  All manner of clothing and personal belongings floated among them. A toothbrush dangled near Yas’s eyes. To one side, a couple of camp beds were strung between pipes, the straps designed to keep people from floating away while they slept, but nobody was in the beds now. Two more were attached on the other side of the room, also empty.

  “Someone has been living here?” Yas thought of the docking bay with only the automated mining ship attached. If someone had been camped here, wouldn’t there have been another ship? He spotted a few magnetic crates attached to the deck in a corner, the lids thrown open, and he realized the mercenaries must have been searching for valuables. “But they left the refinery and abandoned their belongings?” Yas guessed.

  “They didn’t abandon anything.” Rache tilted his helmet back enough for his headlamp to shine on the ceiling.

  Yas sucked in a startled breath. Four bodies floated up there, snugged into the corners by the walls.

  Someone chuckled at his reaction, but most of the mercenaries were oddly quiet.

  The four unmoving bodies were all in suits, helmets still in place, with oxygen tanks attached to their backs. Had they been stuck on the refinery and run out of air?

  “Grab a corpse for the doctor, Chains,” Rache said.

  “Yes, sir.” Corporal Chains pushed off the deck, maneuvering past dangling shirts and hairbrushes, and grabbed a leg. He rotated and pushed off the ceiling, dragging his load down to the floor with him.

  “We haven’t taken them out of their suits, and I have no intention of bringing the bodies onto my ship.” Rache gripped a shoulder, pulling the corpse toward Yas. “But I want to know what killed them before we leave, and if there’s any danger to us. It doesn’t look like exposure to space, and none of their tanks are completely empty. Close, but they still had air when they died.” Rache waved at the floating belongings. “These were like this when we got here. At first, I assumed someone jumped their camp and killed them, but there aren’t signs of injuries on their faces, and there’s no damage to their suits.”

  “Your people didn’t tear the stuff out of the crates?” Yas asked.

  “Not us,” Chains said. “I walked right into those blue panties there when I came in.”

  “On purpose,” another mercenary said and guffawed. “Closest he’s gotten to a woman in… ever.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Baker. I screwed your mom just last month.”

  Ignoring the crude barbs, Yas peered through the dead man’s faceplate. Rache was right. There were no indications of petechial hemorrhaging from asphyxiation or contusions that might have hinted at brain damage, but the man did have a pained expression on his face, so Yas doubted he had died peacefully in his sleep.

  “There are two men and two women,” Rache said. “These aren’t military spacesuits. It looks like a civilian team.”

  “Captain, I found a couple more bodies,” someone said over the comm. “Two more men. Older.”

  “Did they die the same way?”

  “No. One pulled off his helmet and died of exposure. The other has a medical injector sticking out of his galaxy suit’s leg port. Looks like he stabbed himself with some drug. Dyoxynoran, it says on the side of the injector.”

  Yas swallowed, about to describe the drug and that it was used in hospitals when a patient wanted a quick end, but Rache nodded
, apparently already familiar with it.

  “Want us to bring the bodies back, sir?”

  “No,” Rache said. “We’re not taking them on board the ship.”

  Yas stirred. “I need to be able to take them out of their suits to perform an autopsy, Captain. If that’s what you want.”

  “We’re not taking them on board my ship,” Rache repeated coolly. “You can’t make any guesses? Narrow things down?”

  Yas spread a helpless hand. What did the man want? These people could have died of a million things, and he couldn’t make educated guesses with them shut up inside their spacesuits. “There are no weals, so it’s not the Great Plague.”

  “Helpful.”

  It had been a joke, if a poor one, since a hereditary vaccine had been created and distributed to most of the Twelve Systems almost two hundred years ago. The Great Plague rarely made an appearance these days. The captain did not sound amused.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I can instruct the men on how to set up a proper quarantine if you want me to examine these people here or on the ship, but I need to take at least one of the bodies out of its suit. Does your airlock chamber have a decontamination program in case we’re dealing with a disease?” Yas didn’t know of many biological organisms that could survive in the cold vacuum of space, but there were a few natural ones and more than a few manmade ones that could. Further, his helmet display told him it wasn’t as cold in the refinery as it was outside. Presumably, the machinery couldn’t operate at -250 Celsius. And he knew of plenty of organisms that didn’t need oxygen to live.

  Rache gazed thoughtfully at the bodies. Deciding whether to examine them further or simply walk away from the mystery and blow up the station?

  Yas admitted to curiosity and wanting to explore further. The mercenaries’ combat armor was as good as a biohazard suit when it came to protecting them from bacteria and viruses, and if the ship had a good decontamination system, the threat of bringing something deadly on board ought to be minimal. Even so, he wouldn’t blame the captain if he wanted to be safe and avoid further contact with whatever had caused this.

  “It looks like everything valuable was taken, sir,” the sergeant searching the cases said, “but there are some broken scanners and archaeology equipment. I turned this one on, and the screen says it’s for cataloging and dating wrecks.”

  “What wrecks would you find on a refinery?” Chains asked.

  “Maybe they were down on one of the moons and came here because…” The sergeant shrugged and looked at Rache. “Someone was chasing them? Their ship was damaged and they needed someplace to wait for help?”

  “Anything else in there?” Rache waved at the case without commenting on the speculation.

  “Uhm, there are also some storage chips,” the sergeant said. “This one has a sleeve with—I’m not sure. Are these gate coordinates scribbled on it?” He held it up, showing clusters of constellations.

  “Yes.” Rache held out his hand.

  The sergeant handed over the chips and grinned. “Maybe they contain the long-lost secrets to who built the gates and what happened to Earth.”

  Yas knew it was a joke, but it was the kind of thing archaeology teams researched. Time had fuzzed the details around the twelve gates that connected the systems, and how their Earth ancestors had originally discovered them and figured out how to send colony ships halfway across the galaxy to make use of them. No evidence of alien civilizations had ever been found by astronomers, but that didn’t keep those with imaginations from speculating about dead or hidden races that could be out there. Some also hypothesized that there was a thirteenth gate somewhere within reach, one that led back to Earth. It was just waiting to be discovered, so humanity could use it to visit their home world again and find out what had happened.

  “Gather anything else that might be valuable or informative and prepare to bring it with us,” Rache said. “But not until after the doctor runs his autopsy. Set up a lab right here, Doctor. I want to know what killed these men and if it’s a threat to us.” He waved to indicate the refinery they’d all been walking around in.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Casmir bit his tongue as he guided the robots through the airlock tube extended from the other ship. Sweat dribbled down the side of his face. Given the firefight going on in the cargo hold, he could hardly believe he’d managed to get them across it without notice. The little robots were slow and methodical. Twice, he’d had to override their hardwired program to vacuum as they went.

  The enemy ship’s airlock hatchway had a raised lip, but the robots handled it without trouble with their suction-cup treads. He guided them one after the other into the corridor beyond it, the tiny display on the remote showing the route ahead of them. The left side opened up to the cargo hold Kim had mentioned and also a shuttle bay. A bulkhead sealed off whatever lay to the right.

  “Engineering should be to the right at the first door,” Kim said, leaning over his shoulder to better see the display.

  “Good.”

  Casmir watched for the crew as he guided the robots along. All it would take was one pirate spotting the small intruders and shooting them. Dust wasn’t likely expected to fight back, so the robot vacuums didn’t have any armor.

  He rolled them into engineering, then tucked them against the wall inside the hatchway while he spun one slowly to pan the cavernous room. And cursed when he spotted a man standing in front of a console between their main engine and the huge fusion reactor. His back was to the robots, for the moment.

  The grainy camera didn’t show a lot of detail, but Casmir thought a pair of heavy pistols hung from the man’s belt. He wasn’t wearing combat armor, but he also wasn’t wearing a uniform. Pirates seemed as good a guess as any for these guys, but would pirates care about who sold what weapons to whom in a war?

  War. His mind still boggled at that notion.

  He’d heard stirrings and seen news reports about colonies and governments in other systems fighting with each other, some eager to retain their freedom and others wanting to return to the old days when the Kingdom had ruled and set laws over all, but he hadn’t thought anything was far enough along to be considered a war. Odin was safe, and their system was stable and always had been, unless one counted the assassination of King Jager’s father more than thirty years earlier. But, Casmir realized, the Kingdom had always controlled System Lion, so of course it wouldn’t be in flux now. It was the only system that hadn’t broken up and pulled away after the century of Golden Rule, as the Kingdom referred to the brief era when it had controlled the entirety of the Twelve Systems.

  “Are you going to just stare at that guy’s butt?” Kim waved at the small screen on the remote as she glanced toward the hatch in the lounge. “Or do you have a plan?”

  “Butt-staring can’t be a plan?”

  “Not when our lives are in danger.”

  “But at other times?”

  “Casmir.”

  “I’m looking for a vulnerable spot to plant the one with the explosive. On the engine housing? Or their reactor? A reactor breach would be easy for them to repair, but if we got lucky with the engine, we might mangle something that requires spare parts. Spare parts that they don’t have.”

  “Do people go into space without the ability to manufacture new parts?” Kim asked. “I know our military takes materials printers along even on short voyages.”

  “Maybe pirates aren’t as prepared. At the least, it’ll take them time to make and install replacement parts. We can change course slightly and hope they don’t know where we’re heading.”

  Casmir made sure the crewmember’s back was still turned, then navigated his robot toward the engine. He wished he knew more about spaceships. He accessed his chip, did his best to capture the view the robot was giving him, then ran a search for information on the particular engine.

  They weren’t close to Odin anymore, but most of the planet’s encyclopedias and academic databases were on redundant servers on satellites t
hroughout the system, so it only took a few seconds for a response to come back. The schematic of the engine appeared on his contact.

  “Perfect,” he whispered, easing the robot up the side of the housing.

  “What’s the other one going to do?”

  “Be a distraction.”

  After he placed the first robot, hopefully in a spot where the engineer wouldn’t notice it in the next five minutes, Casmir toggled to the second one. He guided it back into the corridor and located the ladder well Kim had mentioned. His robot couldn’t climb rungs, but it had no problem walking up the wall opposite them. Not quickly, unfortunately.

  “A distraction on the bridge?” Kim guessed.

  “Yes, I’m hoping to—”

  Muffled voices came from the corridor outside the lounge.

  Casmir cursed and lunged for the far side of the table. Numerous tools and robot parts were scattered across the top. He sat in the chair and tucked his arms under the table to hide the remote.

  Kim ran toward the cabinets, but the hatch opened before she reached the latch. She spun, pressing her shoulder to them and crossing her arms over her chest, as if she’d meant to be found all along.

  Two armored men strode in dragging Qin and Lopez. Lopez glowered in Casmir’s direction. Qin appeared to be unconscious.

  Casmir stared bleakly at them. He’d hoped he could set off his distraction before he was caught, or that he wouldn’t be caught at all.

  The men dumped the women on the deck and looked at Casmir.

  “The sergeant said to get…” One man’s faceplate tilted toward the tool-littered table. “There was supposed to be a robot.”

  “Yes.” Casmir smiled cheerfully and gestured with one hand toward the mess. “I’m working on it.”

  Under the table, he manipulated the robot out of the ladder well and headed it toward the bridge.

  “That’s just a bunch of junk.” The man looked at his colleague. “Can we shoot them? Shoot all of them?”

  Fortunately, his buddy was too busy staring at Kim to answer. “Where did she come from?”

  “It looks like you need all manner of assistance when it comes to searching for things,” Casmir said.