by M. D. Cooper
said Kiyoshi.
Luke chimed in.
“He’s fine.” Sean finally got around to responding to the woman on the floor.
“I mean, he’s basically the best shot I’ve ever seen,” she corrected herself. “I don’t know. Is that fine?”
“I give it a B-pass,” said Jaimee. “Final question should be obvious. I can work my passage. Hacking systems. Ships. Networks. Whatever. It’s what I do.”
“If we needed that, it’d be useful,” said Sean. “But we don’t.”
“Sure you do. You’re about to board Virtue Station, and you’re going in through the bottom of the thing.” Jaimee shook her head. “You’ll trip an alarm. The schematics are always wrong. I can get us in a proper airlock and everything. Silence, like a baby in a coma. Give me a shot, and we’re good.”
“What’s to stop you alerting the station while we’re there?” said Sean.
“Not a lot,” admitted Jaimee. “Except maybe that I’m a fugitive on the run from OFA justice. Just like you.” She flashed a smile that said ‘never play cards with me’. “C’mon. What have you got to lose?”
“Probably nothing more than a spare suit,” said Sean. She lowered her particle cannon. “Best get yourself ready.”
“How about a gun?”
Sean laughed. “You’re a real comedian.”
* * * * *
True to her word, Jaimee got them in through a small side airlock. It was still down near the station storage level, near a maintenance hatch. No need for an emergency airlock bubble, no need for explosives, just a nice, simple seal and ‘open sesame’.
The breach team was Sean, Jaimee, and Kiyoshi. Luke stayed with the ship, because there was nothing as uncomfortable as some asshole stealing your ship while you robbed them. Luke’s job was to take the Promise out of harm’s way.
The airlock hushed opened before them, revealing a corridor with dim lighting. Emergency lamps only, which spoke well of Jaimee’s skills. She’d gotten them in, no alarms tripped. Hell, the station was so sure no one was here, it hadn’t even turned the heating up.
Jaimee shrugged, her borrowed suit a little loose on her frame, and followed Sean inside the station.
The interior of Virtue Station was not virtuous. It was dirty, grime caked every surface. Sean had a moment to ponder just how dirty the inhabitants would need to be for buildup to be so visible, then shrugged. It wasn’t a problem she needed to solve today. She needed to get her cargo—hers, dammit—and then get off this pile of rust before bad things happened.
Still, the state of the station confirmed her suspicions. No one here cleaned up after themselves. Sean ran a pirate ship, and she managed to keep that clean. How had the OFA not solved this problem? Implied it wasn’t an OFA station, not even one with a faux exterior. A civilian operation being used by the military, no doubt. Just the kind of set-up bullshit that made the OG famous.
Working her way through the maintenance corridor, Sean heard the hush as the airlock closed behind them, then the clunk-clunk as the Promise decoupled, drifting away from the station like just another piece of space junk. Sure, someone could see the ship if they looked out a porthole, but Luke would take her out a ways, making her just another speck in the dark.
They reached another airlock, which Jaimee opened for them. It slid wide to reveal a storage crate, stacked against the airlock door.
Kiyoshi suggested.
Kiyoshi let his coilgun dangle from its sling, then set his shoulder to the crate, giving it a shove. It scraped aside, revealing the expected station stores area. Textured proteins. Repair materials. Good ol’ H2O. Whatever a station needed, it was here. Probably not catalogued correctly, based on Sean’s view of the imbeciles in charge, but here nonetheless.
There was also blessed silence. No guards.
Stowaway or not, Jaimee might fit in just fine. It’d be nice to have another on the crew. Maybe. Let’s see how she does with the mission, first.
She led the way to a freight lift, which seemed to be in working order. The access pass system glared an angry red light at her, so she pointed Jaimee at it.
Jaimee got to work on the lift, bypassing the security protocols in less time than it took to order a good coffee. The lift crunched, groaned, then jerked as the car ascended a couple decks. The good part about being in a freight lift? You were unlikely to get accidental passengers with you.
The car slid to a stop with the clicking of badly maintained gears, the doors opening wide. Outside, two guards in worn OG armor stared, somehow looking surprised even with the helmets on.
It was surprising for Sean too, as the data sliver had indicated that no one patrolled this segment of the station. If she’d paid for the intel, she’d have been sorely disappointed with her supplier. Mind you, that tallied with this station not being OG: these guards were no doubt on loan for the shipment.
No matter.
Sean and Kiyoshi raised their weapons as though they were one unit, time, practice, and the history of a hundred other ops giving synchronicity.
Kiyoshi’s coilgun whine-chunked, sending one of the OG guards spinning away in a shower of broken armor plates, blood, and internals that came out their back like so much hamburger.
Sean’s particle gun hummed, a lance of brilliant light impacting the other guard. Blue cherenkov radiation danced against her vision. Her target didn’t have time to scream, glowing holes in his OG armor showing where the beam had passed through.
She led the way out of the lift, checking left while Kiyoshi took right. Nothing. Jaimee followed in their wake, reaching down to retrieve a fallen pulse rifle from one of the guards. Sean considered asking her to drop it, but decided not to. Jaimee could have brought hell on their heads already if she wanted to, but hadn’t. Good enough for now.
The data said the best route to the cargo container was down a corridor to their left. Sean set off at a quick pace, pointing the way with her particle gun.
She passed a closed door. Then she heard it open, and spun, finding another OG soldier pointing a pulse rifle at her. She had a moment to consider that this just might be how it ended before the soldier was knocked back by a blast from Jaimee’s borrowed pulse rifle.
Kiyoshi gave the other woman a look that said ‘maybe I won’t have to space you after all’, then stepped through the door, ready to put a round through the fallen OG gu
ard.
Jaimee’s hand on his arm made him pause.
Kiyoshi looked at Sean.
She shrugged.
Jaimee gave a ‘whatever’ look at his back, then went to work on the door’s panel, sealing the guard away.
They continued on, making it to the cargo bay without too much trouble. The three hunkered down in the lee of a loader, checking the scene. There was just a single large container in the bay, which had to be their target. It was long, low-slung, and had the universal biohazard symbol imprinted at regular intervals on it.
Well, shit. The Transcend is making new bioweapons. Interesting, and lucrative. Sean allowed herself a small smile.
The bay had two main docking ports, one used by the ship currently docked at the station, the other closed against the vacuum of space.
An alarm sounded, the station’s regular white illumination being replaced with an angry red, throwing everything into harsh relief. Sean glanced back the way they’d come, then shoved Jaimee to the ground as she took in a squad of OG soldiers, weapons pointed.
Five troops, looking like they had a checklist that started with ‘kill those motherfuckers’ and ended with ‘don’t bother with questions’. Kiyoshi was already spinning, his coilgun whining as he fired slugs down the corridor. A soldier exploded into bloody rain. Sean fired as well, the red lighting offset by the hard cherenkov blue of her particle gun. She got two in quick succession, causing the remaining two soldiers to dive for cover.
Sean helped her up, checking the airlock where the other ship was berthed. More soldiers, this group in mercenary motley, were exiting their ship to join the fight. If Sean was laying odds, she didn’t expect them to help the crew of the Promise. Before too long, numbers and bad attitude would wear the three of them down.
