by Brian Mansur
Her eyes widened and snapped up to the lieutenant’s face. He wasn’t looking at her, but she couldn’t help feeling like she’d been caught staring. He wore a mischievous grin as he said, “Ever been on a combat flight?”
“No.”
“Good. You’re going to love this,”he said. “Alright, here we go!”
The main fusion thrusters shot them forward. Vibrations from the rattling ship surged through her. She let herself relish the rush and the heavy, yet gently massaging sensation that pressed her body deep into the chair’s cushions.
Sean “yeehawed” like a cowboy. She wanted to laugh, but her stomach turned, and she gripped her seat.
A moment later, Sarah righted her head, feeling far more relaxed. They barreled along for thirty seconds before the drive cut out. Then the MAC coasted at around a kilometer per second away from the Tsunami. Less than twenty minutes later, they braked and docked with their third target of the day: the Lakshmian cargo ship named Feni.
Location: Lakshmian freighter Feni_
The eighty-thousand-ton bulk freighter Feni hung in space behind its three-hundred-kilometer-wide reflective sail. A pair of shields fore and aft kept the Tsunami’s vacuum-side inspection team from frying in the five-hundred-terawatt laser that pushed the ship. Normally, astronauts had difficulty staying cool in vacuum, but the shades functioned so well that Chief Benson’s spacewalkers had to stop twice to warm their hands at the hauler’s radiator fins.
Even under full acceleration, the Feni only managed around point-oh-three percent gravity. This allowed the freighter to be arrayed much as its water-going counterparts were on colonies with sea biomes. A crewed section with a small engine for maneuvering stood at the rear.
Around four thousand containers sat forward, each stacked within pressurized bays. The holds protected the cargo from radiation and meteoroids. Only a few rows of boxes with rugged items lay exposed to space. A scant two meters separated the stacks from each other and the airtight bulkheads.
In a delicate ballet, suited figures maneuvered x-ray gantries across the cargo. The dual-energy scanners from groups both inside and outside the ship fed images back to Claire for instantaneous analysis. She, in turn, forwarded the pictures to anyone who cared to double check them. With so much ground to cover, it took three hours to search the Feni for Arbiters and weapons. They found none.
Sean monitored all of this from the ship’s cockpit. He regarded a diagram of the Feni while poking at a console with his thumb. Three rectangular boxes glowed bright orange: two in the pressure hold and one spaceside. He shook his head and said to Claire, “This is getting old. Third ship with nothing. Is there at least anything unusual that they have in common?”
On his heads-up display, Claire folded her arms and tapped a foot. “Only that they are perfectly ordinary, sir. You want the team to scan them again like the last two ships?”
Sean stared the A.I. down for a count of five then said, “What I would like is to do all this work at the ports instead of in open space. Then we wouldn’t be wasting so much time.”
“Not happening today, sir. Maybe in a week, but only if enough Belian politicians can be convinced to part with some of their smuggling profits.”
“And here I thought our job security was supposed to be a good thing.”
The tone signifying a private call sounded. “Lieutenant Riley here, sir.”
Sean thought he detected concern in the woman’s dulcet voice. “What’s wrong, Sarah?”
“The deckhand I’m interviewing shared something I think you should hear.”
“Now’s not the time to be cryptic,” he said, and immediately winced at his display of impatience. Softening his timbre, he said, “Sorry, what did he say?”
Sarah graciously gave no sign that his rebuke bothered her. “He says their captain has been withholding his wages for the last year against something he accidentally damaged. He said he was given no choice in the matter and can’t leave until he’s paid off the debt. Claire says that’s illegal under Lakshmian law. We both think this is a human trafficking situation.”
Sean’s eyebrows perked up. He had been on many inspections where either he or another officer would take crew members aside to ask about their work and living conditions. This marked the second occasion he’d seen the practice identify a potentially enslaved individual.
Sean struck an impressed tone designed to make up for his earlier gaffe. “Your first mission and already you’re getting people out of their darker moments. Very good catch. I’ll talk with him while you interview the next person in line. Where there’s one, there might be another. Excellent work.”
“Thank you very much,” she replied, sounding pleased with herself. “That isn’t all, though.”
“Oh?”
“I asked if he felt like anything strange was happening aboard the ship. He said he was checking the anchor straps this morning on the cargo containers in bay five. He heard thuds inside one of the boxes.”
Sean screwed up his face in confusion. “He… what? Some things manage to thud while the ship was under low gravity thrust? Had they fired a maneuvering jet?”
“I thought about that too, but he remembers the ship being completely still. The noises spooked him since nothing animate is on the manifest.”
Sean turned the possibilities over in his head. Was it outgassing from some liquid? Thermal expansion of packaging material? Maybe something had worked loose and was bouncing about.
Then Sarah asked, “Isn’t bay five where one of the flagged containers from the briefing was found?”
“It is,” Sean said, his thumb poised above a channel switch. “Sit tight while we look into this.” He flipped to the leadership net and said, “Commander Blake?”
After several seconds, the intel officer responded with a curt, “Yes?”
He quickly relayed what Sarah had told him, finishing with, “What do you think, sir?”
Blake, clearly frustrated, threw the question back at Sean, “What do you think, Lieutenant?”
Sean did not appreciate the dodge. “If I didn’t already know it was impossible, I’d think the crewman had spooked some stowaways.”
“Why don’t you think that’s possible?”
Sean’s sense of annoyance heightened. He took a bit of perverse pleasure in spelling it out for the pompous officer. “Sir, we’ve checked thermals, and the backscatter machines can penetrate up to a half meter of steel. The ship’s been scoured. There’s nothing hiding here, just like with the other two ships we’ve checked.”
“I want to open the flagged containers,” Blake said. “And all the ones around them.”
A few seconds of silence passed as Sean considered that. As flight leader, it was his call, unless the captain overrode him. At last, Sean said, “Sir, with respect, I can’t think of a good reason to haul out the master key unless we believe there’s something wrong with Claire’s interpretation of the scans.”
“Call it a hunch, Lieutenant. We won’t know for sure unless you take a real look inside. At the very least we should do that to the flagged pods in the pressure hold.”
The captain came on the line. “Commander, Lieutenant. I’ve been listening in. We’ve been watching the live scans up here on the Tsu. There’s nothing unusual aboard the Feni. Have Miss Riley and the medic finish their wellness checks quickly. We’ll offer to take on anyone who seems mistreated, but it’s time to move to the next ship. I assume your interrogation of the crew didn’t reveal anything, Commander?”
Sean heard consternation leaking through the intel officer’s teeth. “Negative, ma’am, but I’m certain we’re missing something in the cargo hold.”
Paulson said, “Their contents could have been exchanged before launch.”
Blake’s reserve faltered further, “The Typhoon’s just checked some flagged containers on the freighter Dhana. Nothing suspicious has come up. That can’t be right. Lilith’s gang had no opportunity to swap anything out at a port.”
<
br /> Sean said, “So, the intel on the shipping containers is simply bad.”
Blake took a breath before saying, “I have… reason to believe otherwise.”
For long moments, everyone listened to each other thinking. Sean stewed over the intel officer’s reticence to share potentially vital information.
Paulson said, “Claire, query the Typhoon’s A.I. Did they peek inside any of their flagged pods?”
“Yes,” Claire said after a few seconds of delay. “The one they opened was stuffed with packaged hospital equipment: exactly what its manifest promised. They unloaded three layers before giving up.”
Blake made an exasperated sound. “I’m telling you, Captain, we’re missing something.”
Sean rubbed at the bridge of his nose and said, “Mykonian sats have had scopes trained on the Feni from every angle since it launched. If anything was moved around outside, we would have seen it.”
Paulson sighed. “Get the master key, Sean. We won’t be any less thorough than the Typhoon. Have a look inside the pods on the naughty list, and try not to make a mess.”
Location: Lilith’s private estate, Lakshmi Colony_
Once Lilith left Rafe, sleep claimed him in a series of fitful micro-naps. He had no idea how much time had passed before two of Lilith’s henchmen returned to untie him from his seat. Without a word, they dragged him through what seemed like a small mansion, down a staircase and into a spacious room where they bound him to another chair.
The dimly lit venue held a sweep of bright monitors. Through his swollen eye sockets, he made out a plot on the central screen depicting their section of the Belian system. A flanking monitor carried several silent news feeds from a variety of regional colonies. A third display shone the telescopic view of an argosy freighter. Straining, Rafe discerned the carrier module trailing the moon-sized sail.
Where is that ship? he thought with trepidation. Is it headed for Zeus?! He thought of Gita and the girls in their home on the station: ignorant and unprepared for whatever Lilith had planned.
“Ah, Mr. Hastings,” came Lilith’s gratified voice. Rafe’s gaze jerked to the red-clad demoness as she spun to face him from a tall, black, office chair. Wearing a wide grin, she said, “Thank you for joining us. Are you ready to enjoy this evening’s entertainment?”
A male figure in a seat at Lilith’s side demanded, “Is this the Mykonian spy? Why haven’t you killed him yet?”
Rafe flinched. He recognized the prime minister of Lakshmi, Shaasti Dalip.
Lilith said, “I can’t hurt him anymore if he’s dead, Dalip,”
Through cracked lips, Rafe asked, “What’s going on?”
Lilith said nothing. Instead, she turned back to the monitors, leaving Rafe to look on with unrelenting dread.
One screen showed several suited Mykonians float into the Feni’s air-tight hold.
Rafe heard Dalip say, “How are we getting this footage?”
“I own the captain,” Lilith said. “He tapped us into the ship’s monitoring systems. Should come in very handy in a few minutes.”
“How are you coordinating everything?” Dalip queried.
“The Wardens gave me a highly capable A.I. I call her Natrix.”
Rafe could guess what that was short for. Then he noticed Henry pressing a finger to his ear and said, “It’s hard to hear them through their helmets, but they are definitely planning to open the containers. That one on the left is carrying a cutting tool.”
They watched as people gathered around a box. One marine planted his magnetic boots to its metal front and positioned a pair of long, red-handled pliers. Squeezing the levers together, he snapped the door’s lock with a glint of sheared steel.
“It’s time,” Lilith said, eagerness thick in her voice. She raised a pad from her lap and keyed something in. A large red button appeared.
Rafe’s mind spun. What should he do? What could he do?
Nothing, he knew with keen desolation. Nothing at all.
Henry said, “You told me that you would repackage the Feni’s shipment. What exactly did you put onboard?”
“You’ll see,” Lilith said in a sing-song tone.
Henry’s gaze narrowed. “Are you really so certain you want to launch the next phase now, Lilith?”
Rafe noted the restraint behind Henry’s words. No doubt he felt pressured to keep decorum around the prime minister.
Henry said, “The Warden override is feeding their scanners with false images. Let’s wait things out; finish the full set up. We only have half of our planned packages in position. Launching now won’t make matters easy on the prime minister here.”
“I’ve made up my mind, Henry,” Lilith replied sternly. “Someone will try to empty the pods at port, thanks to him.” She directed a hammering glare at Rafe. It drove another nail of dread into his heart.
“Besides which,” she continued, “this may be the only time two of their battleships are near our trapped haulers at the same moment.”
Rafe noticed Dalip watching the exchange with quiet interest. Rafe thought the Prime Minister either didn’t fully understand what was about to happen or he didn’t believe Lilith could pull it off.
Henry made one last argument. “By blowing up Zeus and a few Mykonian ships today, we may be missing out on the chance to catch nearly all of the ones at Belia later.”
“The Comandante makes a good point,” Dalip noted with abstracted concern.
Lilith said, “I don’t want to blow all of them up, Dalip.”
“What are you talking about?” Henry demanded.
“Watch,” Lilith said as she pressed the button on her tablet.
12
Location: Lakshmian freighter Feni_
Sean insisted on being the first one to dig into the flagged container inside Bay 1 while the marine lieutenant, Gabriella Figueroa, led a contingent to crack the suspect one in Bay 5. Chief Benson and his group would take the one outside.
From a force protection point of view, he should have delegated the task. He was worth more to the fleet than a private. For all that he disliked Claire, however, he trusted her abilities. If she said there was nothing unusual in the pods, then that was enough for him. Just in case though, he felt strongly that officers should judiciously share the risks their subordinates took.
Muscles tightening, Sean wedged a single, palm-sized box loose from the inside only to dislodge the entire stack it belonged to. A wall of packages tumbled lazily out. He suppressed the urge to swear. It would take at least five minutes to coax the lot back into place, and he saw another layer further within.
“Damn it!” he heard Lieutenant Figueroa say on the net. Along with a squad of marines, she performed the same exercise in futility four bays over.
Resigning himself to the task, Sean repositioned his magnetized boots and reached for the next row. A beep heralded a call on the command net.
“Paulson to Feni. The Tsu’s NAV, WEPCON, and ECW are down.”
The captain’s composed manner belied the alarming significance of her words. Sean’s eyes stretched wide. They’d lost their ability to shoot, move and conduct electronic warfare. His gloved fingers lingered on a cardboard package’s smooth surface.
“Copy that, ma’am,” he said. “Any idea why?”
Claire interjected, “I’ve also lost the Feni’s internal security feed to a Warden-level lockout.”
The MAC pilot came on the line. “Same problem here, Tsunami. Half my control board went dark a few seconds ago.”
A nasty sense of foreboding stirred in Sean’s innards. Something seemed to have surgically blocked Claire’s control over several key systems. The only way he knew to cause that was to rewrite her software—something only the Wardens could do. “Okay, Captain,” Sean said, forcing himself to sound calm. “That’s officially bizarre. What would you like us to do?”
Before Paulson could answer, Claire spoke up. “Movement on the Feni’s dorsal hull.”
Sean’s unease morphed
into genuine fear. Chief Benson’s team was checking a container in that area. A split second later, Benson exclaimed, “The doors to one of the cargo pods just blew off! There’s a mess of debris and…” His voice trailed off before shouting, “What the hell? Is that thing a Warden bot?”
Claire reported, “I don’t recognize it, and it’s not broadcasting a registry.”
Sean said, “Claire, show us his helmet cam.” A visual from the astronaut appeared in Sean’s HUD. He gawked as Cervantes’s light shone upon a black, four-limbed machine. As it crawled out, the obsidian form bent forward, revealing a high-caliber Gatling turret mounted on its back.
The impossibility of the image stunned Sean. Cervantes humans had never been allowed large, weaponized robots before. And Claire, having been programmed—as all A.I. were—by the Wardens, should have been able to identify it. Since the droid lacked the iridescent finish of a Warden mech, that meant it had to be under someone’s control. And that meant—
“Ambush!” Sean hollered atop Figueroa’s command to open fire. As they delivered their warnings, the robot magnetically latched its forward manipulators onto the adjacent pod’s corrugated doors. Its meter-long gun trained on the supply chief’s position.
The marines shot first. Glints from a spray of bullets peppered the giant machine. In the same breath, a rapid succession of flashes issued from the mech’s muzzle.
Static burped over the command net making Sean wince. He felt a wave of nausea as the camera view rolled. The form of another astronaut passed through the screen. Glittering shards floated from the figure’s shattered helmet bubble. Then Benson’s rotation brought the camera to bear on a cargo pod’s surface. With sickening revulsion, Sean beheld red, pink, and yellow chunks splattered across its newly pitted surface.
Only the master buzzer roused him from shock. His eyes snapped to the HUD’s scrolling alerts. Their glowing crimson text confirmed the worst: Benson’s team was dead.
