by David Ryker
“Yes, I see.” Schuster decided to take advantage of the opening while he could. “I’m curious, sir, as to why you wanted this particular group of people on this detail.”
“They, and you, have shown a unique resistance to the effects of the element.”
Schuster raised his hands in an “of course” gesture. “Right! Because if they didn’t, then obviously…”
“They would very likely go insane,” Sloane finished for him. “Or perish, possibly.”
“And you can’t send in your technicians because…”
Sloane looked at him curiously. “They are incapable of independent thought. You and the others you call Jarheads proved adept at dealing with sudden unexpected circumstances during your previous excursion to Oberon, when we emerged into this plane. Those circumstances may arise again during this excursion.”
“Right, right.” Schuster’s face was calm—at least he hoped it was—but his mind was racing. Emerged into this plane? What the hell did that mean? He looked over at the drone technicians and fought back a shudder. Until now, he had convinced himself that they had all been hypnotized somehow, or drugged. Incapable of independent thought sounded so much worse than anything he’d allowed himself to imagine.
All of it added up to one thing in his mind, something he no longer had the luxury of ignoring: the man he’d been dealing with all this time was not Kevin Sloane. Which meant Kergan was almost certainly someone else, too. How many others? And the more pressing question: if they weren’t the people they knew, what the hell were they?
Schuster caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Quinn, Bishop and Senpai Sally were making their way back toward them. Their timing was perfect, as he could see the surface rising rapidly to meet them. Soon they would activate the cannons and begin digging. After that, three of them would enter the cavern and begin extracting the element.
What would happen after that, he couldn’t begin to hazard a guess.
23
Ulysses had built his career as a criminal, and then as a gang leader, on the unflagging belief that he could deal with any situation that might arise, any time, anywhere. So as he wandered through the corridors of Oberon One, he had no doubt that, whatever the hell it was he was looking for, he’d know it when he found it.
Do recon, Quinn had said. Fuckin’ Jarhead.
For political and logistical reasons, he’d limited his crew to Maggott from the Jarheads, and a pair of Yandares named Yukio and Hana. Under normal circumstances, he would have preferred to have his own loyal men at his back, but he was practical enough to admit that they weren’t, as his daddy used to say, the sharpest tools in the shed.
As the foursome strolled casually past an unmanned, unguarded access hatch on the second level, Maggott leaned down so he could be close to Ulysses’ ear.
“This is nuts,” he hissed. “We ent seen a guard in over forty minutes. And we’re right near the fookin’ hangar bay.”
Ulysses remembered Quinn’s request—the Marine probably thought of it as an order, but Ulysses knew better—to figure out an escape route that they could use if and when it came to that. No better way than finding a direct route to the place where they kept the ships.
“Y’all got intel on the guts o’ this place, dontcha?” he asked.
Maggott nodded. “Dev Schuster’s memorized the handful of schematics he’s pinched a look at, and what he could nae find, he figured out on his own.”
“So is there a way into the guards’ side from here? I mean, if this here cattle gate ain’t gonna be guarded from now on? We need to see what the hell they’re doin that they ain’t watchin’ us.”
Maggott chuckled softly. “Yeah, except there’s a wee problem w’ it.”
“Yeah? What’s the problem?”
“Ye need a guard to open the door.”
Ulysses looked over at the two women, who seemed bored by their escapades. He was pretty sure that they didn’t buy in to what Sally had told them about the station. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure how much he believed himself. But he did know that most of the time, life on Oberon One was about as exciting as a cortical reality documentary of a sloth, and what they were doing right now was a great way to break up the monotony.
What he wouldn’t have admitted to anyone else was that he kind of trusted Quinn. Whatever was going on here, Quinn believed that they were headed for some sort of showdown. And Ulysses would be hogtied if he was going to let something like that happen without having a plan in place.
“So,” he said. “How do we go about gettin’ a guard, then?”
Mitch Tait was having trouble concentrating again.
The last thing he remembered was being in the mezzanine of the mess hall, and then suddenly he was on the shitter in the private guard’s bathroom, his uniform in a puddle around his ankles. He’d checked his chronometer, only to discover that it was 1100 hours and he was off duty. The preceding hour didn’t exist in his mind.
Now he was wandering the corridors, trying to remember the number of his private quarters. The room was no screaming hell—five meters square, with a built-in single bunk, a foot locker and a desk with a computer—but it sure beat what he’d left behind in the streets of Manchester. And after a few years on Oberon One, he’d have the qualifications to get a Tower security job, or maybe even one of the big money positions at a real space mining facility. There were half a dozen planned for the next ten years.
Yes, the future was bright for Mitch Tait. As long as he wasn’t currently losing his mind, of course.
He practically walked into the women when he rounded the curve of the corridor. They were standing with their shapely rear ends propped against the convex walls and gave him an appraising look when he appeared. One sported a pair of long blond ponytails, while the other had a shock of brilliant pink hair that stood straight up. It never occurred to Tait that they were unescorted, unrestrained Yandares in a restricted area.
“What are you two doing here?” he asked. It was all that came to mind, other than the vague thought of killing them, which seemed to be his brain’s default these days. It was more than a little alarming.
“Waiting for you,” said the blonde with a demure smile. The other put a hand to her tiny mouth and giggled.
Damned if they weren’t cute. He felt the crotch area of his uniform tighten.
“Is that so?” he asked. He completely forgot what had been preoccupying his thoughts only a minute earlier.
“Your little head is so cute,” said the first one. “Like a little baby’s.” More giggles.
Tait couldn’t help but smile at that. And, of course, at the way the women’s breasts strained against the thin material of their prisoner’s jumpsuits. He’d heard about guards who got a little tail from the inmates in exchange for favors, though he’d never dreamed he would be on the receiving end of it some day.
“So,” he ventured. “You girls got any place you need to be for the next little while?”
“With you,” said the one with the pink hair. She gave him a lascivious leer. “Down in the second-level latrine.”
Whoa. Tait’s experience with sex had always been either solitary or boring, or both. This offered the promise of something exciting and dirty, and suddenly it was all he wanted.
“Let’s go,” he said, his heart starting to gallop in his chest.
“You ladies is just plain evil,” Ulysses said as he stepped over Tait’s unconscious body on the filthy floor of the latrine.
The Yandares giggled behind their hands. Meanwhile, Maggott, who had been keeping an eye on the corridor for possible interruptions, entered and shook his head.
“Ye better hope he’s as addle-brained as he seems, or we’re gonna be in the shite when he wakes up.”
“He is an imbecile,” Yukio said matter-of-factly. “We’ll kill him afterwards, if you like.”
Ulysses smiled nervously. “I’ll get back to ya on that one.”
Maggott bent and hoisted the guard over hi
s shoulder with a grunt and followed Ulysses out of the bathroom and into the corridor. The Yandares brought up the rear.
“The cameras are workin’,” Maggott observed. “The light’s r’all on. Why ent this corridor crawlin’ with officers?”
“I dunno, hoss,” said Ulysses. “I jes know it ain’t, so I’m gonna deal with the situation as it is.”
They continued for another fifty meters or so until they reached the door that led to the corridor that would take them to the hangar bay and beyond. Ulysses couldn’t believe they’d made it that far unmolested, and would be stunned if a phalanx of armed guards didn’t bust in on them at any moment, but he figured no matter what happened, they were past the point of no return.
Maggott dropped Tait unceremoniously onto the floor right next to the door.
“Bastard’s hit me wi’ his buzz stick more n’ once,” he growled as he yanked the guard’s torso upwards. He steadied the weight with his left arm while moving Tait’s hand into position over a scanning pad. A green line ran the length of his palm, followed by a red beam that projected from a disc higher up on the same pad. Maggott’s big hand gripped the back of Tait’s head while Ulysses held open an eyelid for the retinal scan. A moment later, the door slid open and Maggott dropped Tait to the floor again.
“After ye,” the big man offered, waving a hand toward the newly opened corridor.
“Giddyup,” said Ulysses. “Lessee jes’ how much shit we can step in.”
The corridor allowed them access to a dozen different branches, all of which Ulysses had no doubt led to interesting places where someone could really get up to no good. But for right now, their job was recon, and recon was what they were going to do.
Maggott took point as they stalked through the tubular space, checking the plate above each door. There was a bathroom, a gym, a common room. The door to this one was open, though the room itself was empty. Ulysses saw a couple of video terminals and a few cortical reality jacks, a large coffee urn and a vending machine full of candy that made his stomach growl something fierce.
They reached a T-intersection that branched left toward the private quarters and right toward the warden’s office. A bank of monitors was also embedded in the wall, showing various portions of the inmate side of Oberon One. The typical teams of two were watching from the mezzanines in the mess and gymnasium while others were patrolling a half dozen common areas. But the corridors outside the cells themselves were empty, and inmates walked through them with impunity.
Ulysses had only a few seconds to wonder what was going on before he saw Maggott’s eyes grow huge under his shaggy brows.
“Ah, fook me,” he breathed. “How could I be so bloody stupid?”
“What’re you talkin’ about, man?” Ulysses hissed.
“We’re in a bottleneck! Christ!”
“Make sense, dude!”
Maggott’s eyes darted over the bank of monitors, then down each corridor, making him look like a trapped animal.
“Fookin’ rookie mistake,” he muttered. “You need t’backtrack, man, right now. Go!”
At that moment, Ulysses heard a susurrus of voices, and realization suddenly came crashing in on him, too. They had been following the empty corridors right to their source, like following a dry riverbed to a dam. There had been no guards in the corridors because they were all here, in this one place.
They’d gone too deep into the snake’s den.
“What about you?” he whispered, feeling his heart rate double.
“Quinn needs ye on the outside! On yuir bike, ye pillock!”
Ulysses finally let his survival instinct kick in and he bolted back the way they had come. He rounded the first bend just as he heard Ridley’s voice crowing from the place he’d just left.
“Get on your knees or I’ll kill you!” she shrieked. “Inmate in the secure area! The big fucker!”
It was followed by the sound of more guards becoming aware of Maggott’s presence, and quickly on the heels of that, the low, droning buzz of batons being electrified. Finally, he heard the voice of Kergan himself.
The last thing that Ulysses heard before he finally closed off his mind to the sounds was Maggott wailing like a lost child.
“Get on your knees or I’ll kill you!”
Maggott did as Ridley ordered, knowing it was the only way to keep them from pursuing Ulysses. If he’d known what was to come next, he might have made a different choice, but he hadn’t.
The corridor was suddenly awash in bodies clad in brown uniforms and carrying eighteen-inch clubs, some of which were already glowing blue and thrumming. They had flowed out of the room in front of him, which he now saw was the warden’s office.
“Hold on,” said a familiar voice from behind Ridley. She stepped out of the way to reveal Kergan approaching him. Even on his knees, Maggott was almost as tall as the guard. Not that it made him feel any safer, especially when he saw a grin spread across Kergan’s face.
“Give them an inch and they take a mile,” said Kergan. “We decide to give you all some leeway by spending more time in our meetings, and trust a Jarhead to take advantage of our generosity.”
“What the fook is goin’ on here?” Maggott barked. He knew there was no way he was walking out of the situation; he might as well demand some answers first. “What are ye bastards up to?”
“You know,” Kergan said with chilling good humor, “one of your friends recently asked me a question in similar circumstances. He wanted to know what attenuation was. I neglected to answer him.”
Maggott felt a dagger of ice in his belly as Kergan ambled closer and locked eyes with him.
“I’ll answer you, instead.”
The air began to ripple around him, and an instant later, Maggott was hoisting a massive boulder and staring down into the pleading eyes of an innocent man. Somewhere, he heard someone screaming.
Thankfully, the experience lasted only a few moments before blood began to spurt from his nose, and he crumpled into a heap on the floor.
Then complete and utter blackness as his conscious mind disappeared.
24
“What’s our optimal angle of approach?” Schuster asked.
He and Sloane had moved to the bridge once the Raft was fully in the grip of Oberon’s gravity, and he was looking at the big screen that showed the video feed from the front of the ship. About a kilometer in the distance was the faint blue tinge and the depression in the surface that indicated the larger of the two craters.
Sloane was looking at a display projected by his wristband, showing a computer simulation of the terrain they were currently flying over.
“The element is here,” said Sloane, pointing to a spot below the crater. “We must clear the surrounding surface in order to access it.”
Schuster raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I realize that. But if we don’t approach at the proper angle when we start blasting with the cannons, we’re just going to kick up big clouds of dust that’ll settle back into place before we can get into the openings we make. If we angle it right, we can make sure the debris flies outwards, away from the opening. Then we can get in and start extracting a lot sooner.”
As Sloane listened to him, Schuster saw the tech’s brows twitch and his eyes dart around the bridge. It was a reaction Schuster hadn’t expected from a guy who, up until this point, had seemed to have all the answers.
“Sir?” he asked. “Is everything all right?”
Sloane didn’t answer for several seconds. Finally, he said: “Yes. Efficiency will be greatly increased if the ship’s angle is optimal.” His fingers worked the ship’s control panel, entering the instructions into its computer.
Schuster felt the corresponding shift in the ship’s attitude through his boots that were locked to the floor. But it wasn’t just a physical tilt he was experiencing—his mind was suddenly off-balance as well. Sloane hadn’t realized that the angle was important. The guy had modified the engine of the Raft to do something Schuster didn’t even rea
lize was possible, and they were looking for an element that human physics couldn’t even conceive of, and yet something as basic as flight geometry had slipped his mind?
Schuster thought back to Sloane telling him that he needed him, even though there was a group of techs who were more familiar with everything than he was. That they were “incapable of independent thought.” Did that mean they could follow orders but not come up with ideas? And what about Sloane? He obviously had access to advanced knowledge somehow—but was he limited in how he could use it?
The questions would go unanswered as the ship slowed near the rim of the crater. Again Schuster was impressed by the Raft’s ability to hover in place without displacing the surface directly underneath.
“Excavation will now commence,” Sloane said. “Crew, prepare for extraction when ordered.”
He manipulated the controls and a flurry of red explosions shot from the nose of the Raft toward the crater. Schuster stared in fascination at a secondary screen that showed the plasma cannons in operation, rotating almost faster than the eye could see as thousands of superheated charged projectiles flowed in a steady crimson stream.
On the main forward screen, he saw the surface exploding silently, blasting clouds of dust into an expanding ring around the point of impact. The effect of the blasts was far more powerful than any plasma weapon Schuster had seen during the war.
“Holy shit.” Bishop’s voice over the radio was hushed. “That’s incredible.”
“UFT command would have given an arm and a leg for a weapon like that,” Quinn echoed.
“Quiet,” said Schuster. He wasn’t sure if Sloane expected him to actually take control of his crew, but he figured he’d best keep up appearances.
The barrage lasted about five minutes before Sloane waved a hand and brought it to a halt. Schuster had been watching the dust settle for about ten more minutes when an idea struck. It was a way to test his theory.