Space Station Acheron

by F Stephan

  At last, he reached the old pub, a former Irish Renaissance structure. It was late at night and many were finishing up their drinks in the lively place. Josh moved to the main bar and his target.

  “Good evening, Maricar. How are you?” His voice was sweet, unsettling.

  “Not good, thank you. It’s in the briefcase under my chair. Now, are we freed of our obligations?” Large tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “I won’t trouble you anymore. Nor will my employers. Enjoy your life now! We thank you.” With that, he bent, took the briefcase and left without looking back. Maricar would be drowned in the Potomac by tomorrow. Her lover would be found as well, a robbery that went wrong. Nothing to connect the two cases together.

  Josh hurried back along the corridors. Now he had to deliver the briefcase as fast as he could.

  Wilfried

  Space station Acheron, March 28, 2141

  Wilfried completed the preparation of his call. He needed the proper security, and this required a complex setup. He wasn’t an expert, but Wolm, his bodyguard, was.

  “Are we OK?” The Marine was seated to his side, out of the 3D recording field.

  “Encryption is set up. It’ll begin weaving itself the moment the call is established. Within thirty seconds, we can break the initial call and activate the second one. No one on your planet will be able to listen into this one.”

  Wolm gave thumbs-up. “Any news from Pilot Tasha?”

  “No, she has disappeared from all networks. Lelal as well.” Wilfried couldn’t do anything to reach her. It had been two days since she had broken contact. But now, he could act at last instead of constantly worrying.

  “Wolm, link me to Eduardo Cattlin.”

  A good minute passed before a man appeared in the virtual environment. He was in his mid-forties, with an olive complexion, a fine mustache, and deep green eyes. This was the first time Wilfried had seen him, but he knew someone else with the same magnetic attraction. Emily’s father.

  “Good morning,” began Wilfried.

  “I’m sorry, but you made a mistake. You wanted to meet my wife, didn’t you?” The voice was suave, with a slight Spanish accent.

  “My apologies, sir.” The picture disappeared and came back as the second call engaged itself. A chime in his ear confirmed that encryption was now active. “Sir, you’re now on a secure line, with the highest level of encryption we can provide. The initial connection has broken down.”

  “You don’t have a lot of time, boy. I can’t stay talking to you long. To the point.” The voice was sharp, commending and on edge.

  “Someone has stolen a key computer on the station. This equipment is vital and was tracked down to NorAm. We need people who can find lost things. Discreetly.” Wilfried had now taken the plunge, exposing the station and himself. If he goes public, we lose. Again.

  “Fool. You’re calling me out of the blue to ask for my help? Who says I’ll help you?”

  “Because you’re her dad, sir. You’re the one who sent her in space. You’re the only one in the family supporting space activities.”

  The voice suddenly became bitter. “You don’t know this family, do you? Go and cry on another shoulder. I can’t help you.” He broke the connection.

  Wilfried looked in confusion at Wolm, shaken by the abrupt end of the call.

  “We have to go looking elsewhere, sir. I can set up other calls. Who’s next?”

  Wilfried took a deep breath before giving another contact. Brother, how much will I pay for this?

  Leopold

  Kalgoorlie mining station, April 1, 2141

  “I will kill him,” Sara said between clenched teeth.

  “Quiet – he’s mandated by the Council. You just can’t throw him out of the airlock. And with his current report, an accident would look like a murder. He must stay alive at all costs,” Leopold answered in a murmur while maintaining his smile. The Lord was on the other side of the mess hall on Kalgoorlie Station, still presenting his conclusions to the crew, pointing out their different failings. Broken equipment waiting to be fixed, safety procedures not being respected, overdue actions piled up in the log. The meeting had seemed to last for hours.

  “Therefore I’ll stay to watch you repair everything here.” The Lord’s conclusion was straightforward yet firm. “I will not leave until this station, and the ship, while we’re at it, is up to the required standards. I know it will be hard for you, after the easy life under Mistress Marques. But that’s over. Your actions are listed in your agendas. Get to work.”

  This is going to take months. Leopold checked the actions their auditor had sent and quickly revised his estimate. Rather, a full season. And all while action is picking up on Earth. Then a sudden doubt twisted his stomach. What if this is just a means of getting Charon out of the way?

  Two days later, Sara and Leopold assembled the key leaders of their crew during the night shift.

  “We have now disconnected the main telecommunications network. The Lord has isolated us entirely. He said there were faults in the assembly. But it has never failed since Kalgoorlie began operating,” Aristide, a big black maintenance tech from Central Africa, mumbled in his deep voice. It was followed by multiple noises of assent from Taisir, the Moroccan chief of the mining equipment.

  Tom, a compatriot of Lord Burroughs, was also on edge. “He is going far beyond the traditions of our countries. His behavior is extreme. It just looks as if he doesn’t want anyone to go back to Acheron or Earth. As if he’s scared of something.”

  Azar, the Persian brunette who had replaced Anton as cargo manager, confirmed. “I’ve spoken of returning with our current cargo. He answered that he would never accept such a poor vessel to fly back. But our holds are full, and we could do a full turnaround in the time it will take to update the station. I’m with Tom on this. He doesn’t want us to fly back.”

  For once, the usually discreet Noul spoke in his high-pitched voice. “Events are coming to a head back on your planet. Charon doesn’t answer to the Lord. It is Federation. And you are its pilot. What do you decide, Pilot? Do we go back and see what’s happening there?”

  He was now facing Leopold who answered in a somber voice. “What do we do with the Lord in the meantime?”

  Noul continued, “He could stay to supervise his maintenance plan. He has already asked us to dismantle the radio. He cannot alert anyone. Let’s go back to Earth and check why he doesn’t want us there.”

  Tasha

  Tigroid territory, April 3, 2141

  With the first light of dawn, the armored car stopped in a small clearing. Tasha crawled with Lelal and her small team to a little ridge just above. From there, lying flat on the ground, she reviewed the surrounding landscape. The Indigirka River had eaten away the fragile soil, creating a new twisting path toward the northern sea.

  “The river has broken all former bridges. The region is nearly impossible to cross now,” said her chief scout, Alexieva. She was a lean woman with a long face and hair tied in a short ponytail. Her dark eyes scrutinized the twisting ravines for a minute before she pointed to a small hill. “There, they have hidden a team there.”

  Tasha zoomed in on that location to see a small camp with men bustling around. It was well hidden, with a platform high in the trees just below the foliage. Only the onset of morning and the associated wake-up activities had betrayed it. Tasha rolled below the ridge, leaving her exposed position. This was the third camp they had found. They had escaped detection from the first by sheer luck, then engaged in a short reconnaissance while the rest of the party retrieved their main vehicle from the mud river where it had slid. Since then, Alexieva had been on the lookout for other camps.

  “Three access roads, three camps,” said Alexieva.

  “We can assume they are monitoring all roads toward the bunker,” answered Tasha.

  “I’d rather say, all road leading out of it. I’d guess they tried to go in, got hammered by the tigroids, and settled for perimeter monitoring.�
��

  “You’re probably right. Impressive organization. Now, one remaining question: how do we break in?”

  Lelal had already taken an old-fashioned paper map from her pocket. Tasha was used to such antiques, but she had to admit it emitted no radiations that could be picked up by modern detectors.

  “We can’t go through the different valleys without a fight. Not sure we would win but sure we would alert whoever has set up the ring.”

  “And you can assume all would immediately converge on us to forbid the meeting.” Alexieva’s leanings toward the dramatic annoyed Tasha to no end, but this time she was underplaying the mad rush that would occur if they opted for a direct confrontation.

  “We can’t use our vehicles on the ridges, the paths are too narrow for them, even for the bikes,” Tasha continued, checking the other guards. They had finished covering their own vehicles with camouflage nets and were joining them for the briefing. “And they have probably set up motion sensors which we wouldn’t detect, rushing past. How far are we from the bunker we’re targeting?”

  “Eighty klicks. Am I allowed to say I strongly dislike the way your thoughts are leading us?” Lelal looked sternly at Tasha, reminding her of her own mother.

  “I understand. But this Boris is our only lead to their organization. We need him to break this war against the Federation. Sorry, Lelal, but I cannot allow Earth to become another Filb.”

  The big bodyguard nodded wordlessly. Her world had broken away from the Federation, abandoning those who had joined it, and had used its last resources for piracy. Its ecology had completely collapsed, resulting in a mass extinction that had shaken the populations of all other planets. A few survivors were rebuilding what they could, but it would take eons before any large number of humans could live there again.

  Tasha whispered. “We leave the cars here, go by foot through the ridge and past the watchers. We build a raft and we follow the river. It should land us less than five klicks from the bunker. There we find traces of Boris and we follow them. I’d guess he’s in one of the old war centers, hidden in the forest.”

  “And what of the tigroids?” replied Lelal.

  “Our cars are no real defense against them. And this guy seems to have an agreement with them. We’ll have to convince them to let us through.”

  “You have a plan for that?”

  Tasha had once linked, somehow, with one beast. She would have to do it again. Everything inside her screamed to flee the powerful predators. But she quenched those primal urges and looked at the others, who stood mute, waiting for her order. “Yes, I have. I want only volunteers for this last stretch of road. I want at least one person to stand guard over the cars for our return.”

  “I’ll go.” Lelal was quiet, eyes steady. “In the meantime, I’ll inform our Commander. She’s going to hate this.”

  “This was once a beloved part of our country. I’d be delighted to show you around,” laughed Alexieva.

  The three other guards nodded in approval, and Tasha felt relieved by their trust. I won’t go alone.

  Wilfried

  Space station Acheron, April 4, 2141

  “Do you have any news for us?” Wilfried had tried to get hold of Anaru all week, but most of the time the diplomat had been closeted with Killian and various government representatives, organizing a coordinated reaction to the various terrorist attacks.

  “We have confirmed Maricar wasn’t drowned,” Anaru replied. “She was killed.”

  “So, she’s the one who stole our computer. And we are still no closer to finding it. What should we do?”

  “You must reduce operations and send people back to Earth with the emergency pods. At least for a while, until we can get things in order. I can’t find another way.”

  With Charon stuck at Kalgoorlie, many production sites bombed on Earth and the console still missing, the future of Acheron seemed gloomy.

  “How’s Nashiz taking it?”

  Anaru flushed red. “I’ve been trying to restrain him. He’d have the Marines attacking every EarthFirst civilian building he can find.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a bad idea.” Wilfried was upset by the destruction that had wrecked so many lives, the first war on Earth in several decades.

  Still red, Anaru snapped, “It’d be a terrible idea. Whoever is behind EarthFirst has launched a war from the shadows. Those puppets we see are mostly innocent, and it would bring public opinion back in their favor. Wilfried, we must win over the population and show those people for what they are. Not act like terrorists.”

  “So, we cower and hide until the people can see for themselves the other guys are the bad ones.”

  Wilfried couldn’t stand doing nothing. He shut down the connection.

  In a 3D window behind him, the news played in a loop. Susanna was standing in front of the spaceport in Mexico with her drones showing the empty launchpad.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “our sources show the station is now crippled, and human lives are at risk above us. Yes, there have been attacks against different plants on Earth. But this goes beyond that. Men are not meant to survive alone in space without support from Earth, and our equipment is failing one piece at a time. We cannot refill the station. Our single spaceship is at Kalgoorlie for repairs. We cannot communicate with the mining station. Can we continue risking lives and wasting energy on a hopeless cause? Why does the Federation still insist we maintain an anchor where we do not belong?”

  Annoyed by the journalist’s constant attacks, Wilfried turned to his work. Whatever Susanna said, he would prove her wrong. He had water in the station’s cistern, purified from an asteroid Charon had brought earlier. He had food from the moon. He had raw materials. But he needed to rotate people to the moon to reduce pressure on the station. His head throbbed with all the tasks he had to juggle.

  Hours later, he woke, startled by an incoming communication. In a reflex action, he activated his 3D and arrived in a darkened room. The sounds were scrambled, the lights distorted. His head ached, but through the fog of pain, he could see someone in front of him.

  “My apologies for this intrusion, sir. I won’t take much of your time. I understand from common acquaintances that you are aware of shadows in our world. Some would even say akin.” A short, distorted laugh. Wilfried nodded, thinking fast. His brother?

  The other person continued in a strange voice, “You know that once upon a time, one of us married a highborn woman out of NorAm. She had wealth, he had contacts in the underworld. They could achieve anything. But, there was a shadow. He had Emily, a daughter born before their wedding. His new wife hated her, as she represented competition for her own daughter. So, he entrusted Emily to friends, someone who would act as her uncle, and she grew among shadows, an iron rose within our ranks. A bit like you did. Then, the Federation came with their exam, and the wife feared for her child.” Tasha had shown Wilfried a picture of Elisabeth Cattlin and her daughter. “She forced him switch their daughters, who had the right genotypes. Emily succeeded and rose in the light, bright and powerful, and now she flies, the best of us.”

  Wilfried swallowed hard. He had always been ashamed of his own origins compared to the modest Brian or Leopold, and compared to their bright stars, Emily and Tasha. Lowborn, former smuggler compared to the highest born on Earth. And now, in a stunned moment, he was being told that Emily was just like him?

  The man didn’t stop. “Her father called us a few days ago. He doesn’t want the station to stop. Neither do we. Just for her. We have heard of strange stories which might interest you.”

  “What do you expect in return?” Wilfried blurted, wondering what price he would have to pay.

  “For this time, and this time only, we ask only a small favor. Send her a message telling her that her uncle helped you and that she has friends to come back to, the day she needs them.”

  Wilfried was lost. “Why?”

  “Because she needs to know we stand by her. Her stepmother rejected her
. We don’t.” The other person laughed knowingly, neither mocking nor bitter. “Now, to the point. A fast submarine has been diverted from its business course for an urgent run from Cuba to St Andrews.”

  “Submarine?”

  “Yes – there are a few left, still running trade for us. It left Washington a week ago. We don’t know its destination, but your chief should be able to find it.”

  Wilfried felt as if he had been punched in the chest, his breath coming shorter. He was sure Maricar had stolen his computer. And she had died in Washington.

  “Can I call you again?”

  “No. We are thwarting powerful interests here. We will be on the run for a while. You cannot reach us.”

  The communication dissolved around him, leaving Wilfried breathless for a long while. Then he rushed out of his cabin.

  Tasha

  Siberia, April 4, 2141

  They crawled under the bushes, where Alexieva disarmed three motion sensors in swift, precise moves. After ten long minutes, they reached the end of the ridge. Immediately, Lelal prepared the hook for climbing down the cliff. Tasha monitored the region with her night goggles while her two guards, Andrei and Vassily, slid down quickly. The enemy camp was on the other ridge, with no direct view on the path they had chosen for their descent.

  “Are you ready for this?” murmured Alexieva.

  Tasha nodded, took the rope and began rappelling down. Tasha had hated climbing during her youth, but her father had requested she trained with the best. She had learned the hard way and now, with her nanites, fifty yards of descent presented no difficulty.

  Ten minutes later, they gathered at the foot of the cliff, still hidden.