by M. D. Cooper
Although she did feel a hundred kilograms lighter without the case.
Maybe.
Cara climbed into the escape craft. She fastened the interior harness over her torso and pulled the cradle over her shoulders, locking herself in place.
She got one last glimpse of the collapsing apartment as the ship-killer’s body closed around her, followed by a hiss as the hull sealed.
With that warning, the ship-killer’s engine was lit, and the missile shot straight through the roof of the building and into the blue morning sky.
THE PRICE
STELLAR DATE: 3.16.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Earth, Baikanur Launch Facility
REGION: Earth, Terran Hegemony InnerSol
The entrance to the bar was a single door on the edge of a kilometer-long warehouse built of ice-crusted metal. The building was part of a massive grid of structures on the edge of the desert steppe, a yellow-grey expanse of Earth that seemed less hospitable than an asteroid.
Cara pulled the door open and was met by a blast of heat and voices. The light was low, cast by dim table lamps scattered around the room, but still brighter than the gloom outside. She blinked as she secured the door and rubbed her hands, warming them.
The bar was made of battered metal, like the building, but everything else in the place seemed collected from oversized rocketry components. Nose cowls and engine casings made tables and stools, and a collection of pipework and pressure boilers against the far wall might have been an alcohol still. The place was probably three-quarters full of women and men in maintenance coveralls, with a broad mix of ship names represented. There were a few pilots, freighters, and mercenaries scattered around, and two bored-looking soldiers in shoddy TSF uniforms sitting together at a table made from a massive cog.
None of them paid her distinct attention, but her presence was noted.
Cara stamped snow from her boots and went to the bar, taking an empty stool at the end of the row of exhausted mechanics.
The ship-killer panther—or Felix’s cat, as Cara had come to call it—was parked in an alcove between two massive fuel tanks. Apparently, he was able to use the attack-mech as a communications relay, and no longer needed the poetry book to communicate.
The bartender came over, and Cara nodded and asked for a whiskey.
“We have vodka,” the grizzled woman said. “I can throw some burnt sugar in it for you. That’ll make it brown.”
“Vodka’s good,” Cara said.
The bartender gave her a faint smile and put a pint glass on the scarred bar. She filled it a quarter full with vodka.
Cara paid and picked up the glass, choosing not to look too closely at the filtration on the liquid. She took a swig.
Yeah, that’s vodka.
She bit down the shot and pulled a deep breath through her nose. Looking up, she found the bartender smiling at her.
“What?” Cara asked.
The bartender nodded to the mechanics down the bar. “You drink like you’ve been working on engines. Keep that up, and you’ll never leave, like these fools here.”
Cara took another drink. The second swig was easier. There was no taste, only fire.
“I’m not looking to stay,” Cara said. “Actually, I’m looking for a ride. You have anyone around who does transports?”
The bartender frowned. “How did you get here?”
“I got a ride.”
“That’s unfortunate. The TSF over there, they might give you a ride if you convince them it’s for the good of the compound. These flunkies here are heading back to the main hangar when they wake up. Otherwise, there’s just Belson over there. He’s got a truck with an IC engine. Runs most of the time in the cold.”
Cara followed the bartender’s nod to find a man in a grey coverall asleep in a booth with his head in his arms.
“Does he pass out while driving?” Cara asked.
The bartender shrugged. “Just hit him. He’ll wake up. Watch him, though. He’s handsy.”
Cara raised her pint glass to say thanks and the bartender insisted on topping her off. With a half-full glass now like the rest of the locals, she navigated the bar to Belson’s booth at the back of the room.
The vodka was doing its work. She was warm again, and her face was growing appreciably numb.
Cara slid in across from the snoring man. His hair was a greasy nest inside his folded arms. Judging by his coverall and coat, he looked like he’d been dragged in mud and hung up to dry.
“Hey,” Cara said.
When he didn’t stir, she shoved his shoulder.
Belson complained in his sleep, then jerked upright, shoving his arms out straight on the table. He looked around, blinking.
He had a nose like a rocket fin, and blurry grey eyes. He managed to focus on Cara and then frowned.
“Go away, I don’t have any cash.”
“I want a ride,” Cara said. “I was told you could help me. You’ve got a truck?”
He squinted, assessing her. “You look stretched out. Where are you from?”
“What’s that matter?”
He leveled his bleary gaze on her, making an exaggerated sniffing sound. “Off-Earth?”
“You got something against spacers?”
“You smell like mud, not chemicals. That doesn’t make sense to me.”
“I’m from a swamp called Summerville,” Cara said.
He nodded. “Feet in the mud, head in the stars. That’s all right with me. Yeah, I have a truck. Why should I give you a ride?”
“So glad I have your approval,” Cara said. “I’m going out to Launchpad 51. I could make it worth your time to take me there.”
“That’s a long trip. Lots of fuel.”
He named a price. It was high, but not astronomical. Cara considered how much she should haggle…. She didn’t want Felix to think she was throwing away his cash. She threw out a number forty percent lower.
Belson stared at her and sniffled heavily. “Fifty-one is a haunted place. Why do you want to go there?”
Cara smiled inwardly. This man didn’t care about money; he was curious.
“That’s my business.” She leaned in. “You get me there, and I might show you.”
The TSF soldiers stood from their little table, stretched, and walked to the door. Belson followed them with his gaze. One of them noticed him watching, then did a double-take when he noticed Cara. She quickly raised her glass to conceal her face. The soldier watched her for another second, then left with his comrade.
“Who are you with?” Belson asked.
“That’s my business. Can you get me there?”
“I’ll take you there. But I won’t wait to bring you back.”
“Deal,” Cara said. “When?”
Belson snorted and blew his nose into his elbow. “Now. I’m awake enough.”
“You fall asleep a lot?” Cara asked.
“I like to sleep.”
He stood, stretched, and nodded at the bartender. She gave him a small wave.
Cara followed Belson out of the bar, keeping one hand on her holster. If this was a scam engineered by the bartender to get her outside so the TSF could try to jump her, they would be in for a surprise when Felix came to play.
Once outside, Belson only adjusted his coat and hunched into the wind.
“This way,” he called. “Truck’s over here.”
In twenty minutes, the vehicle was warmed up, and Be
lson eased it out of its parking spot in the lee of the warehouse. The vehicle’s oversized tires crunched in the ice as he turned onto a track that led out onto the steppe.
Staying out of sight as he followed, Felix told Cara,
Cara stared out the frost-streaked windows.
Belson hummed tunelessly to himself as he drove, a static-filled holodisplay of the immediate topography filling the space in front of his steering wheel. When the track was straight, he took his hands off the wheel to rub his eyes, grabbing it again when the donut-tires slid on packed ice.
They were thirty minutes out when Belson’s forehead hit the steering wheel. He caught himself, jerking awake, and looked at Cara with a furrowed brow.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Cara stared at him, wondering if he’d had a stroke. “You’re taking me out to Launchpad 51.”
“Fifty-one? It’s haunted. I never go out there.”
“You said that. Haunted by what?”
“Demons. Guard drones. They still cover the perimeter.”
Cara blinked. “That’s good to know. Do you know where the perimeter starts?”
Belson shook his head violently again when the truck skidded on more ice. He fought the wheel as the truck fishtailed.
“Why did I agree to do this?” he demanded.
“Money,” Cara said.
He braked, and the rear of the truck slid until they had nearly turned around. The holodisplay flickered, showing the windscreen covered in snow.
“That’s as far as I go,” Belson said. “The ice is too slick. This dry snow is like lubricant.”
“How much farther to the pad?”
Belson hit the console and the holo returned. He rotated the image, pinning their location in the center of a wide valley. He drew a line that nearly crossed the windscreen to a point at the head of the valley.
“That’s fifty-one,” he said. “Five kilometers.”
“I can’t walk that in this snowstorm.”
He shrugged. “Then you can ride back with me. But I go no further.”
Cara pulled a roll of bills from her coat and handed them over to Belson. He stared at her hand as if he didn’t remember why he was there again, then took the money.
“You must be a demon, too,” he said. “You look like a demon.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“You’re a killer. I knew it the first minute I saw you.”
“You were passed out when we met,” Cara said. “You should spend some of that on a shower,” she suggested, nodding to the roll of bills now in his grip.
She pulled her door handle, and the wind caught the door and flung it open.
“Wait,” Belson shouted. “I have something for you.”
The wind reached inside the cab and tossed trash around. Cara kept one hand on the swinging door as the wind grabbed it like a kite.
“I already paid you,” Cara shouted. “I don’t want anything from you.”
Cara slid toward the open door, then jumped out into the wind. She shoved the ice-crusted door closed with both hands.
“Goodbye, demon!” Belson shouted as the door locked in place.
“Go to hell,” Cara muttered.
She pulled up her hood and adjusted her coverall’s warming controls, which didn’t completely block the biting wind, but helped a little. She was still wearing the prison armor and regretted not bringing the helmet along. It might have still been sitting in the skiff back in Summerville, or in a gator’s belly at this point.
Cara peered into the wind, taking stock of her situation. She had a weak location signal through her Link, and oriented as the topography built in her mind. The wind blew a wall of snow every direction she looked, but her Link gave her a direction of travel.
In just a few meters, the truck was invisible in the snow. Belson revved the engine and then disappeared completely.
Sniffling, Cara trudged through the snow. Her face was numb and her finger ached, no matter how deeply she shoved them under her suit-warmed armpits. Snow found its way inside her boots and her feet were soon wet, forcing her to fight for each step forward into the blinding wall of snow.
Out of the white, the black form of Felix’s ship-killer walked up beside her.
Felix seemed pleased by the idea.
Cara shivered.
Cara shook her head as the sound of crunching ice reached her, the black form of the drone following soon after.
MURMURS ON THE MESH
STELLAR DATE: 3.16.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Lucky Dust Mining Facility (Abandoned)
REGION: Luna, Terran Hegemony InnerSol
Camaris wasn’t on Luna.
This was not bear-foraging effectiveness.
Dammit. Not at all.
Rondo stared at his data set, a shifting fractal on the display that changed continuously as he watched. The image was a representation of the non-sentient agent he had been using to track Camaris, and it wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t good enough.
No, no. Stop it now.
Rondo rose from the chair where he had been sitting for hours and stretched, his back creaking. Adama meowed from behind a display screen but didn’t get up.
“You must not be very hungry, then,” Rondo said. “You can wait. Me, I’m thirsty.”
He had finished his work on the cosmodrome, a sixteen-hour hack job that had required repairing the ancient communications system through a drone, then applying a hardware transcoder that allowed him to talk to the archaic software. Once those tasks were complete, it had been a matter of reverse engineering the administrative controls, gaining access to a robust fleet of maintenance drones, and checking the entire launch area.
Most of the nug work had been carried out by Rondo’s favorite NSAI, but he checked in several times over the course of the project to adjust and redirect.
He’d filled his holodisplay with a model of the rocket, all long curves and bundled boosters. The most amazing part was that the dry climate and sealed launch dome had preserved everything in near pristine condition.
While he waited, Rondo studied the history of Baikanur, followed the expansion of the railhead into a major launch area that later became a city, and then a mass of corporate headquarters as the history of off-Earth transport expanded. The original launchpads were covered in domes to protect from orbital attack, and later sealed completely and abandoned once the heavy-lift space elevators came online. He ran time-lapse vids of the area back and forth, ant-like people building and tearing down as he shifted time. Baikanur told a story of nearly nine hundred years of space travel.
After sending Fugia his update on the rocket, he spent twenty minutes searching through his meager food stores, foraging for tea, water and a few supplement biscuits. His stomach growled as he pulled open the food packets, and he munched a cracker while he made tea.
Despite his unruly hair and oversized clothing, Rondo was all lean muscle under the disguise. He couldn’t hide his height, but he could conceal the fact that he had been in the Mars 1 Guard most of his life, and wore the muscle and scars to prove it. He had spent years transitioning between gravity wells, moving up and down Olympus Mons, as well as years conducting covert operations on Earth.
He had undergone the memory suppression process of the Mars 1 Special Forces, and while that had been decades ago, he still felt glitchy sometimes. He hated that his first thought when faced by evidence of a personal failure, like the fractal, was that he was broken somehow and couldn’t see the cracks.
His untrustworthy memory was one reason Rondo loved the Mesh. While data certainly wasn’t inviolate, it was better than human memory by far, and he could track data degradation while his mind silently betrayed him with nothing to prove it had ever worked in the first place.
Opening the cabinet that had been storing the bulk of his food, Rondo studied its empty shelves as he came to the realization that he would need to leave his hidey-hole for supplies. He wasn’t excited about the idea, as there was no way to ensure he wouldn’t be followed back to his equipment. Drones could be tracked and deliveries were out of the question. He would die before he compromised his connection to the Mesh.