Meng wandered near a workbench where his incubation tank hummed. He checked the progress bar. Color-shifting LEDs indicated the cloning process neared ninety percent. Status indicators read that viability still seemed positive.
An entry door beeped as the airlock cycled with a brief whoosh and eliminated any potential contaminants. Kheefal finally walked through. A paging device flashed on his hip though he didn’t seem to walk with the urgency Meng desired.
“What if this had been an emergency?” he snapped.
“Doc, you think everything’s an emergency.” Kheefal stopped short of rolling his eyes and walked past the parked passenger car at the entrance to the magsled tube.
Meng glared daggers at him. “Do I need to remind you how much I’m paying you?”
“No, sir. But you also didn’t pay me to jump at shadows.”
“Do they look like shadows to you?” Meng pointed at the screens.
Kheefal rubbed his chin as he watched the rival investigators on the looped feeds. “I know these guys… know of them, anyway… Is this stream live?” he asked.
Meng shook his head. “No, but they seem to be sniffing around at something, and they just recently left the city.”
Kheefal raked his fingers through his hair. He’d heard rumors of the Dozen’s altruism. “And they are coming here?”
The doctor shrugged. “Well… no. But they could be.”
Keeping a neutral expression, the rival Investigator asked, “Is there some link that would bring them here?”
Meng didn’t respond. His paranoia became self-evident.
Kheefal turned to face his employer. His raised eyebrows demanded an answer.
“No. Not directly… but we can’t take any chances.”
Kheefal agreed. “I ought to keep a close eye on these guys, at least.”
Meng laid a hand on the cloning pod where a new seed incubated. “Yes. A close eye, and if they start sniffing around, eliminate them.
Kheefal sighed. He’d taken the doctor’s dirty money, but he hoped it wouldn’t come down to a fight. The Dozen had a reputation for toughness. He felt certain he could take a few of them, but not even at his cockiest did he think he could beat them all at once. If it came down to it, he’d grab his cash and burn the doctor.
“Say it,” Meng demanded.
“They’ll never see me. When I choose to stay hidden, nobody can find me. I’ll keep a close eye on them.”
“And if required?”
“Eliminate them,” he lied.
19
The Rickshaw Crusader tilted into a barrel roll and dodged the barrage of incoming blaster fire. “Watch your heads!” Matty yelled into the ship-wide com after the fact.
“Looks like it’s the right place,” Vesuvius said as she grabbed tight to her chair.
The Tyger Imperial sat in front of a house on the farm site below them. Clear-cut acreage stretched out in all directions for kilometers around. Unlike typical farms, mounted laser batteries sat on the perimeter
“Light em up,” Dekker yelled into the com. He and Mustache, each sitting in a gunnery turret, began firing back. The brilliant bursts slammed into the energy wall that covered the farm like a dome. Deadly energy blips skipped across the shell like raindrops off a windshield.
The Crusader bucked as a series of concussive bursts rocked them in the sky. “She’ll hold,” Dekker reassured them. “Doc’s reputation depends on it.”
“Coming back around again,” Matty shouted.
Their ship’s guns opened fire again. Again, they had no effect, but the Crusader convulsed under another bout of gunfire.
“We can’t keep this up,” Vesuvius snarled as the jerking bouts thrashed her around in her restraints.
Matty winked at her. “Did you guys see it?” he asked into his headset?
“I saw it,” Mustache reported. “Even my old eyes spotted their shield generator. Big sucker out behind the house.”
Below them, silver-haired Azhooliens scattered and ran for the main house. They emerged again with weapons or leaned out of windows, preparing for invasion.
An Azhoolien with only a short length of silver attached to his black locks burst out from the front door. A shoulder mounted cannon rested on a mechanical frame.
“Ah crap,” Matty muttered as the weapon acquired a lock and a missile streaked out. It slipped through the force field and gave chase as Matty took evasive maneuvers.
Guy’s voice crackled excitedly on the speaker. “Those are Raza 9 missiles! That’s highly regulated tech from the ISW. Deep Space Mechnars used them to penetrate the hulls of capital class ships before swarming in through the breach.”
“Raza 9s?” Corgan exclaimed. “No way! Those things messed us up in the war…” the history buff pulled up a screen and started running research.
Dekker and Mustache tried to tag it with laser bursts, but the warhead sloughed them off with ease. Anything that could penetrate capital ships’ armor would turn the Crusader to melty slag with one direct hit.
Diagnostics flashed at a nearby console. Corgan yelled out, “It’s got the same kind of shields as the farm. Energy deflectors—we need something with substance!”
The Raza 9 closed in and Matty flipped the ship upside down at the last second. He killed the burners and hit the VTOL thrusters before flipping back around and rocketing off in the other direction as the missile zipped past.
He heard someone in the back puking from the high-G maneuver.
“The missile did not break target lock!” Corgan howled.
The Raza 9 turned an arc on the scanners and streaked forward again.
Vesuvius over rode the safety protocols from her console and released her restraints. “Dead-fish this thing when I tell you,” she ordered. “I’ll take care of the missile.”
She staggered through the length of the ship as it climbed for atmosphere with a rocket on their tail. Vesuvius snapped on a pair of goggles as she entered the storage bay. She started an ATV’s engine and set her jaw as the bay door opened.
Rushing wind deafened her as she caught sight of the looming warhead rushing towards them. She drew her sword and cut the restraints.
“Kill it all!” she screamed into the com, barely able to hear even her own voice. She snatched a fistful of webbing as the Crusader went into a complete system shut-off. The ATV shot out the back of the dead ship as it flipped through the atmosphere, flinging her around the bay like a rag doll.
The Raza 9 sensed the idling engine of the ATV and angled towards the vehicle while the Crusader tumbled towards the planet below, desperately trying to restart its main systems.
Missile struck ATV with a crackling detonation. The blast flashed bright and hot, flash boiling even the metal of the vehicle’s engine and body.
Every time the ship spun another loop, Vesuvius caught sight of the dirt below. Her heart raced as it grew closer and closer. Finally, the ship’s frame shuddered with a surge of power and it righted itself and climbed back for a comfortable altitude.
Vesuvius’s headset squawked as she tried to pull herself towards the button to close the ramp before the pressure difference sucked her out.
“How secure can you make yourself?” Matty asked.
“What? Why?”
“Gonna try something. A high-G maneuver. Pretty sure it’s gonna knock a few of you out for a couple seconds. Strap in, and when I say so, cut the second ATV free. Try not to die.”
Vesuvius cut all the tie-downs on the last ATV except for one and wrapped herself inside a cocoon of cargo webbing and tied her sword to her hand with a stray lanyard. She tapped her com. “If this kills me, I’m going to haunt you so badly.”
20
For such a jumpy guy, Dr. Meng wasn’t answering his com, and that made Kheefal nervous. He scanned through the mad scientist’s daily logs again. Finally, Meng answered on hands-free video mode. A tiny holographic version of him shimmered above the com; blood splatters covered his white lab coat, and he wore a
mixture of frustration and impatience on his face.
“What is it?”
Kheefal sighed heavily. He hated eating crow. “Much as I hate to admit it,” he said, “but you may have been right.”
Tiny Meng looked down his nose at him.
“About the investigators,” Kheefal explained. “I’ve been digging through your daily logs. You don’t do much and you never go anywhere so it didn’t look like there was any threat.”
Meng huffed. “Get to your point, Kheefal.”
“My point is: people have come to you… these special ‘deliveries’ you’ve gotten from the Azhoolien gangsters? It’s been a while since you had one, but they used to come regularly.”
Even at the current scale, Kheefal could tell Meng had frowned.
“I think you ought to evac, Doc. Pull back to the alternate laboratory as soon as you can. I’ll meet you there soon.”
He waved his bloody hands to indicate his lab coat and protested. “I’m kind of in the middle of something, Kheefal.”
“Well, you better finish immediately and move out. I’m outside of the Azhoolien’s compound watching that team of Investigators duke it out with them, right now. If you want to be safe, follow your backup contingency. If there’s any chance they might find a connection to you or your lab, you’d better move.”
Dr. Meng stared sharply at him through the communicator. “Meet me at the reserve lab as soon as this threat has passed. Kheefal, deal with this.”
21
Ahmed took Vesuvius’s seat in the cockpit as the Crusader shot across the farm. He reached across and jabbed the pointy end of a syringe into Matty’s neck while the pilot focused on piloting. They hoped the injection would prevent him from succumbing to the G-forces.
Matty groaned as the stimulants coursed through his veins.
Ahmed finished strapping himself into Vesuvius’s crash couch and plunged a needle into his own vein. He grimaced and then shook his head as the drugs hit his system.
“I guess you don’t want to miss this?”
Ahmed shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Everybody hold on!” Matty yelled into the com as their target loomed into view. He hit a reverse thruster, and the ship braked violently in a hard spin that racked up the G-forces.
“Cut it! Cut it,” he yelled during the move.
Vesuvius slashed through the last tie-down and sent the ATV flinging out the back at high speed right before she blacked out and fell limp in the webbing. The vehicle smashed into the shield generator with a flash of fire; the air shimmered as the energy field dissipated.
A couple guys who remained conscious in the passenger area cheered. One of them hurled.
Ahmed remotely closed the cargo doors while Matty twisted the pilot yoke and brought the ship back around. “I think I’ll have to call that move the ‘Galilee slide,’” he said.
“It’s bad luck to name it while they’re still shooting at us,” Ahmed warned.
“Bad luck! Bad luck,” Guy shouted groggily into the com.
They strafed by the farm again where the criminals worked to load the missile launcher with another Raza 9.
“Anybody got any more ATVs?” Matty asked. "Check your pockets, everyone!"
Corgan shook off the effects of the Galilee slide. His fingers flew across the keyboard. “I found the data I was looking for. There was a reason that Mechnar forces stopped using them!”
The Crusader opened up with all of its weapons and peppered the farmhouse with a fierce barrage of laser bolts. It normally would’ve been enough to grind the structure down to its foundations. Behind a second shield, the silver haired Azhoolien grinned and shouldered the cannon.
“A second shield? Who needs that much security?” Matty cried.
“Criminals,” Ahmed spat.
The Azhoolien cockily waved goodbye to his enemies.
“History lesson,” Corgan said as he tapped a key to broadcast a signal.
Before the enemy could launch the rocket it exploded and tore through the criminals’ lair. The shield system, likely rooted at a generator deep inside the building, flickered and then released the flames. Debris and bodies flung across the yard as the Raza 9 gutted the building.
Matty blinked at the carnage.
“General Briggs’s team discovered an auto-destruct signal. He baited the enemy into a battle and turned the tides of the Intergalactic Singularity War… didn’t you guys pay attention in school?”
Ahmed sat back. “Briggs—Vivian’s dad?”
Corgan nodded. “That was what made Vesuvius’s father famous.”
The Rickshaw Crusader touched down on its VTOL engines and landed right next to the shiny Tyger Imperial. Dekker led his groggy crew down the landing ramp. A handful of Azhoolien criminals scrambled for an outbuilding and disappeared inside.
“That one,” Rock pointed to the scorched humanoid flanked by a handful of minions. “He seemed like he was in charge when Guy and I first saw them.”
Dekker tightened a hand on his weapons. A loud crash echoed in the distance, even louder than the roaring flames that belched from the farmhouse. A dirty transport skiff plowed through a sheet metal wall and sped into the distance, angling so that the investigators wouldn’t be able to get a shot at them before they were safely away.
As Merrick staggered down the landing platform, Dekker swung open the door to the fancy vehicle. His cargo lay haphazardly stored around the cab.
Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.
A fuel tank suddenly ignited and shot into the air, startling the crew.
“I keep tellin ya, I’m getting too old for this nonsense,” Mustache said, massaging his chest as if he’d had a heart attack.
22
Ahmed shuffled through a mound of debris with Juice’s help. “Not so much medical stuff here, he observed.”
“Nope, but they certainly had lots of good loot here that could make the lives of the outlanders easier.”
Merrick nodded as he sifted through singed valuables that the criminals had horded. Most of it appeared broken or too burnt to be useful, but whatever was salvageable he loaded into a wagon. “They ran a lot of rackets: extortion, smuggling, trafficking, you name it.”
A few of the Dozen helped collect the appliances and equipment that Merrick had promised to distribute to those in need. “Things like these filtration systems will go a long way in the rural zones—the silver haired skin-suits have been hording them and charging outrageous prices for them, putting a stranglehold on the rural populations especially.”
Dekker and Vesuvius found a steep stairway underneath a patch of damaged flooring. They followed the concrete steps downward.
“Guy! Get over here; we may need you to blow something up.”
He hurried over to them and rummaged in his satchel for a wad of sticky explosives and a detonator. “I’m here—point me at a target.”
At the bottom of the stairwell a heavy door barred access to a buried concrete pod. The keypad lock remained unscathed.
“Can you get in?” Vesuvius asked. “It looks like a safe… or maybe a panic room.”
“Sure thing,” he said as he began applying the adhesive. “But its more likely a safe… no surveillance or ventilation. I wouldn’t want to get stuck in there.”
Dekker rubbed his chin. “So your bomb won’t damage the contents?”
Guy shrugged and stuck the lead wires into the spongy material before giving them a thumbs up to indicate that the bomb was hot. “Probably not. I’d worry more about booby traps… like the kind that destroy a safe’s contents rather than give it up to treasure seekers or prosecutors. Criminals on the expansion worlds have been known to use them to incinerate potential evidence in case constables raid them.”
Vesuvius bit her lip when Guy almost dropped the detonator.
“Take that bomb off of there,” Dekker ordered. “Hey! Anyone here know how to break into a door with electronic locks?”
Britt
on waved and trotted over. He descended the steps with Juice on his tail. “Ah,” he teased, “the new guy wants my job.”
Juice grinned and shrugged. “Nah. But I know a thing or two.”
While the team’s regular tech guru, Nibbs, was away on leave, Brit was the backup guy.
Brit retrieved a handheld device from his pack, Juice examined the brand and layout of the wires after unscrewing and peeling back the attached faceplate a few centimeters. Juice hurried up the stairs and out of earshot for a moment.
Dekker and Vesuvius traded amused glances, wondering which one could break in first.
Brit attached a few leads and tapped his screen. He screwed up his face. “Eight digits,” Brit mumbled. “Pretty heavily encrypted. This will take a while… probably hours.” He shrugged, “Nibbs could probably do it in maybe half that.”
Juice returned with a handful of odds and ends. “Gimme a shot at this?”
Brit stepped aside though the skeptical look on his face said it all.
After disassembling an old calculator, Juice taped the wire leads to a few points to act as an interface and crossed a few wires on the inside of the panel. “Eight digits,” he mumbled to himself after counting the number of places on the original lock’s panel.
He typed in buttons One Two Three Four Five Six Seven on the calculator. He grinned. “Can anybody guess what the last digit is?” He hit Eight, and the door unlocked with a click and slid ajar.
Everyone nearby traded surprised glances of approval. Juice tapped Brit on the shoulder. “Told you I knew things… mostly little exploits that come in handy now and then.”
“Good to know,” Brit laughed as they ascended the stairs. “Even if you couldda done the hacker thing, that’s okay too. It ain’t safe, what we do… its always good to have backups.”
Juice squinted and looked around at the horizon. “I hear you. It always feels a little like…”
Brit also glanced around and finished for him. “Like we’re being watched?”
Spawn of Ganymede Page 5
