Indra Station

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “I’m sorry about all of that. But the fact is, I’ve missed appointments with both my girlfriend and my boss tonight, and it’s got me a little anxious. So I’d really appreciate it if I knew what sort of business Preethy was up to, so I’d know there was at least one woman in my life who I didn’t have to worry about.”

  “All you need to know is she’s working on something for me.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to need more than that,” Lex said sharply. “I’ve been bouncing back and forth between being ignored, being brushed off, and being lied to for a little bit too long. You say you know where Preethy is. And considering whenever she wanders off, she ends up finding something that may or may not be shady about this league, something tells me you’ve probably been keeping an eye on Mitch, too. A vague answer and a pat on the head isn’t going to do it this time. Tell me where they are.”

  Patel glanced at Vince, then set down his glass. “Lex, fortitude can get you far in life, but it can also get you in trouble. Preethy is still my niece, and she is still doing work for me. That makes this family and business, two things that I’m not fond of being asked questions about. I like you. I see a lot of promise in our continued partnership. Remember who you’re dealing with, and don’t make me change my mind about you.”

  “Mr. Patel. I’m very tired. I’ve been jerked around all day. I’ve been stood up by my girlfriend, again. I overdid it on the entrée at Sarafa, and as a result, authentic Indo-European spices are trying to eat a hole through my gut. I appreciate you’re trying to intimidate me, but trust me when I say this. You’re a scary dude, but you aren’t even in the top five most dangerous things I’ve come face to face with in the past couple of years. I’ve been on the wrong side of megacorporations and terrorist groups. I’ve faced down hordes of murderous robots. I’m a part-time product tester for a lunatic who makes doomsday machines in his spare time. I’ve had to deal with the existential horror of clashing with whole different timelines. I’m really not that nervous about what you have in store for me.”

  Patel looked to Vince again. For a few tense moments, no one said anything. Even Squee seemed oddly anxious at the tone of the room. The first sound to break the silence was from Mr. Patel as he released a long, hearty laugh.

  “What did I say, Vince? Fortitude. This is the sort of man you keep on the payroll. You’re crazy, Lex. I knew that from the start, too. A sane man does not drive like you do. I don’t know what half of that stuff you were yammering about was. Honestly, I don’t even care. Normally, I’d have Vince here knock your teeth out for talking to me like that. But like I said, I like you. And don’t think I’ve forgotten that part of that megacorp thing was keeping VectorCorp from wrecking this planet. You’re owed some latitude.”

  He sipped his drink. “We have been keeping an eye on Modane. Last check we had, she was taking off in that ship of yours.”

  “You don’t know where she is now?”

  “I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s pretty difficult to keep track of that ship. We just know she didn’t get back yet. As for the rest, it just so happens the info you’re after is going to be announced in less than a week, so just this once, I’ll let you in on my plans. Consider it a test. If this leaks to that lady of yours, it won’t do me any harm, but it’ll damn sure give Vince a reason to engage in the aforementioned pugilistic dentistry.”

  He freshened his glass. “Back when VectorCorp gave us what I thought was a communication infrastructure contract, you’ll remember we had to construct this massive transmitter array. You did your thing, we found out it was going to cause untold havoc with our sun, and we pulled the plug. The array was finished, though. And paid for, might I add. That left us with this huge facility, free and clear. Obviously, we couldn’t use it for what it was designed to do, but I talked to the engineers who rigged it up. They said it could be pretty quickly adapted to broadcast power. You familiar?”

  “Like what charges the slidepad wirelessly?”

  He tipped his head. “Yes and no. Different scale, different mechanism. I forget the details. This isn’t the sort of thing where the details matter much to me. But that array could be used to pump power from the surface in massive quantities. Like a laser but different. Now, we run a massive power surplus on this planet. Massive. Loads of sun. Loads of wind farms. Geothermal, you name it. We’re drowning in power, but you can’t really export it, so it hasn’t been doing us much good. With that array, we can send it up to something orbital. And putting that much energy in orbit? That’s got potential.”

  “So what, are you building a better communication satellite network? Is that why the network is down?”

  “Yes, Lex. But think bigger than that. You can run a network like that on old-fashioned solar right in orbit. If you grew up here, you’d understand it. But since you’re a newcomer, I’ll lay it out for you. There’re two thin strips of Operlo that are livable. The northern and southern habitable zones. That’s still way more than we need, but life isn’t all about getting what you need, is it? If it was, I wouldn’t have a house like this. And you wouldn’t be risking it all to get back on the racetrack.

  “The fact is, while we can’t easily use anything outside of those strips, we can’t use everything in those strips either. Big sections are scoured by dust and windstorms year round. And even the safe places get storms now and again when it’s that time of year. So you end up with situations where you can’t go north or it gets too cold, you can’t go south or it gets too hot, and if you stray too far east or west, you might get blown away. No way to live, Lex. No way to live. What we need to do is tame those storms.”

  “Weather control? You’re talking about weather control?”

  “Yes indeed. It’s been around for years, but no one’s tried it at this scale. We’re calling it the Indra IV system.”

  “Where did you get technology like that?”

  He gestured vaguely. “Some off-world engineering firm we dug up and vetted. Again, this isn’t new tech, just a new scale of tech. It’ll help us shorten durations of storms, guide storms away from populated areas, and guarantee that storm-related damage will be minimal on the protected side of the planet. You show me another league in the galaxy that can guarantee good weather for its races, and another planet in the galaxy that can cross natural disasters off the list of potential civic problems.”

  Visible irritation flashed across his face. “When Ms. Modane accused us of money laundering, even though there was no evidence of such, we had to bring in outside contractors. The re-org has cost us time. But that’s what Preethy is up to. We send her up once a week to personally assess the situation.”

  “Why in person?”

  “Because Ms. Modane can’t be trusted to keep her nose out of things, and a system at this scale that hasn’t been tested makes people nervous. Up in the terawatt range, I’m told.”

  “That’s kind of abstract.”

  “Let’s just say that if you stretch those units out across a whole day, the amount of energy can be measured in megatons.”

  “Ah. That’s a term I know to be afraid of.”

  “She’s usually back by now, but this is one of the last scheduled visits before the final test, so it stands to reason she’d have a lot to do. Judging from the status of the network, they’ve probably run into a power system problem again. I wouldn’t expect her back before morning.”

  “Wait. Weren’t you just telling me this was all just a way to use extra power to begin with?”

  “We haven’t started shooting the power up there yet. I just got through telling you the energy involved is in the megaton range, and we’re shooting it at our own station. In situations like that, you take extra care to be sure things are absolutely ready to go before you flip the power switch.”

  “And we’re sure everything is fine up there?”

  “There are checks upon fail-safes upon procedures. If something had gone wrong, I’d know about it.”

 
“Even with the network down?”

  “Lex, I’m in construction. My company got started doing business in places where we were installing the networks. You don’t think I’ve got my ways? The emergency services are still up, even with the orbital networking on the fritz. Mech networks, drone nodes, it’s under control. Now, you’re getting dangerously close to insulting my intelligence with these questions, and you’ve got far more information than you need, so I think it’s time for you to call it a night.”

  “Will you let me know when she gets back?”

  “She’s not my secretary anymore, Lex, and I’m certainly not hers.”

  “Right. I’m sure she’ll find a way to let me know.”

  “That’s her business.” He finished his drink. “And now that my nightcap is done, I’m headed to bed. Which means you are leaving.”

  Lex nodded and turned to leave. Before he reached the door, Patel called after him.

  “Oh, Lex?”

  Lex turned. Patel was giving him a less than jovial look.

  “What happened here tonight doesn’t happen again. You’ve burned through your good graces for a while. And I know that one thing you and your lady have in common is an incurable need to go running into a battle that doesn’t concern you, so I’ll make this clear as crystal. If anything happens to that station, it’s a black eye for the league, and a shot to the wallet for me. So no matter how badly your white-knight reflexes nag you, you keep away from this whole situation.”

  “Shouldn’t be hard, since Michella’s got my ship.”

  “Lucky us. Vince, show him out.”

  #

  “This is a test. To all TIS employees, this is a test of our one-way communication system. If and when immediate deployment is required, this is the system that will be used. Message repeats,” Milliner said, speaking clearly into a microphone in the array node.

  “And that’s that,” said Anand. “The message should have gone out.”

  “You’re sure?” Milliner said. “I don’t want to be relying on this for rapid deployment and find out I’m shouting into the void.”

  “I’m sure. But we’ll find out anyway, once your guy comes back.” The tech sat in awkward silence for a few minutes. When he couldn’t bear the silence anymore, he said, “So what do you think? You think I’m going to get a good position in Kelso’s crew?”

  “I’m not a recruiter. And you’re a little chatty about it. This isn’t a job where we’re looking for someone likely to talk shop in public.”

  “Oh no. Lips are sealed, trust me. This is just because I know we’re in good company. Just members of the crew, right?”

  “Right now, there’s me, and there’s you. No crew to speak of.”

  The telltale hum of a hovervan pulled up. Both Milliner and Anand shut their mouths and turned to the door. One of Milliner’s crew stepped in with his slidepad out. It was playing the message Milliner had recorded.

  “How far out did it work?” Milliner asked.

  “I headed back as soon as I started getting it. I was about five kilometers out.”

  Milliner scratched his chin. “At least as good as the mesh network.”

  “Well?” Anand said, practically rubbing his hands in glee.

  Milliner’s man gave him a curious look. “What’s with him?”

  “He’s bucking for a promotion.” Milliner turned to Anand. “Are we sure no one else is going to be listening?”

  “It’s encrypted. If he didn’t have the key, he wouldn’t have got it. Standard communication’s stuff.”

  Milliner turned back to his man. “Get the word out to make sure everyone’s got that key on their pads. Then deploy the field crew. Just in case something needs doing down here, I want people spread out. Things are pretty fragile until we pull the big switch. I want to be able to get to where fires need to be put out just as soon as humanly possible.”

  The underling nodded and headed out. Milliner turned to Anand.

  “I think it’s just about time you got that engineer in here.”

  “Sure, sure. Sure thing. You just remember all the good I’m doing, right? Put in a good word for me, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Make the call.”

  Chapter 7

  A door on the space station slid open, and Michella poked her head inside. It was dark, like much of the station. The door itself had no view window. After scanning the perimeter of the room, she spotted a pair of service conduit hatches.

  “Okay. Good. The coast is clear and there’s a way out if we get cornered. We’ll hide here for now,” Michella said.

  Preethy drifted in behind her, and Michella carefully secured the door.

  “I would have preferred to find a place with a maintenance console so we could keep an eye on them,” she said.

  “Now that we are hidden, would you kindly explain yourself?” Preethy said.

  “A little gratitude wouldn’t be out of line. I did just rescue you.”

  “We are still in the station without a means of escape. We aren’t rescued, we are just trapped together.”

  “We’re free to move and I have access to the system. That’s better than you had.”

  “I had just finished persuading my captor to betray her cohorts and get me to safety when you came along, zapped her into unconsciousness, and stuffed her bound body into a supply locker. Were it not for you, I would be free right now.”

  “And just how exactly was I supposed to know that?”

  “You shouldn’t have needed to know it, because you weren’t supposed to be here. Now, an explanation, please.”

  “How about we figure out what we’re going to do, then we fight about it?” Michella countered.

  Preethy crossed her arms. “If you’ve got access to our systems, I assume you’ve got one of our dongles?”

  “Naturally. You really ought to improve your security screening.”

  “Our security screening was impeccable until spurious claims of financial malfeasance forced us to replace our own employees with hastily secured off-planet contractors in order to avoid missing deadlines.”

  “There was every reason to—”

  “We’d agreed to figure out what we’re going to do before fighting. May I please use your slidepad and dongle?”

  Michella resisted the childish urge to point out that Preethy had started it. Instead, she handed over the two devices.

  “I have administrative access to the system. If they haven’t deactivated the internal data network, I should be able to load the remote console and limit their access further. That will slow them down.” She entered in some credentials and worked her way into the system.

  “Just what are they trying to do?”

  “They are trying to secure full access to the station and its capabilities.”

  “Obviously. But what are those capabilities.” Michella fetched her pad. “From what I’ve been able to work out, either this is a very fancy weather station or it’s a weapon.”

  “Both are accurate descriptors, depending on the person in charge. I’ll be brief. The device can create and/or control large weather systems, and it is the hope of David Kelso and/or Ramses Hatch to use that capability to extort my uncle.” She finished tapping through settings. “There. I have reset all of their settings changes and locked them out of the system.”

  “Does that mean we can call for help?”

  “No. They physically disconnected all transmitters powerful enough to do so. We’ll have to reconnect one or get access to a ship if we hope to get help.”

  Michella flipped through the menus on her slidepad. “Why don’t I have admin access?”

  “Because I logged out. There have already been enough outsiders accessing our systems. I don’t need you rooting around in them.”

  “Look, I don’t think you—”

  Preethy spoke over her. “What shall we do to deal with this situation, Ms. Modane?”

  Michella cl
enched her fists. “I have a ship. It’s Lex’s ship. It’s out there, somewhere.”

  “Somewhere?”

  “I couldn’t very well leave it in the docking bay. If I wanted enough access to the station to learn anything useful, I needed to hide out. So I sent it out of sensor range.”

  “And why haven’t you called it back?”

  “Because this stupid station is screwing with the slidepad’s signal. I can’t get through to it.”

  Preethy nodded. “The ship has energy absorbent shielding. In full operation it will be powered by microwave transmitters on the surface. They absorb signals from standard transmitters.”

  “What about you? You came in a ship, didn’t you? Can’t we use yours?”

  “During the power down, both my ship and the crew I brought with me were disabled.”

  “Disabled?”

  “They all, including the ship, are either dead or incapacitated.”

  “Then it seems like one way or another our plan is to get to a transmitter. Either to call for help or to call in the ship.”

  “Indeed. I believe the transmitters capable of reaching the surface are on the schematics with an LRT prefix. There are weaker transmitters that might be able to reach Lex’s ship. Those have the MST prefix.”

  Michella poked at the slidepad. “Oh. So I still have my original access. At least you didn’t take that away.”

  “Yes, for the sake of escape, I have allowed you to keep the access level you stole.”

  She thumbed through the options the remote console gave her. “It isn’t going to be easy to keep tabs on people and plan safe routes using this version of the console.”

  “It can be set up to trigger a warning when there is motion close to the device.”