by B. V. Larson
As soon as the door shut, the man leaped up and locked it from the inside. At the same time, the remaining woman walked to the extreme rear corner of the control room and began to disrobe. The man quickly joined her and did the same. The two began to engage in sexual activity while still standing.
As much as Zaxby would have enjoyed observing and adding to his research on human mating practices, he had to seize this golden opportunity. Spitting a data crystal into his nest of subtentacles, he locomoted smoothly to the console farthest from the two humans. It was within their view, but they were fully involved by now, evidently determined to gain maximum pleasure within the time allowed by their comrade’s extended break.
Maintaining camouflage and keeping one eye on the two, he plugged the data crystal in and uploaded the malware he and Murdock had prepared. Assuming it functioned as planned, it would activate about ten hours from now, dead in the middle of the fortress’ night cycle.
The malware had a modification he hadn’t mentioned to Murdock. It also copied all the data it could reach back onto the crystal. Zaxby would amuse himself by combing through it for interesting nuggets of information to add to his life’s work of eventually publishing a Ruxin guide to humans and their behavior. He also might find things of operational significance, which would no doubt please Derek Straker and, more importantly, Carla Engels.
Retrieving the crystal, Zaxby lingered a moment more as he observed the humans’ movements become more and more frenetic. Human monkey-mating happened so fast he usually preferred to record and watch their activity on slow motion playback later on.
Tearing himself away took an act of will. He knew every moment of delay risked discovery. Reluctantly, he re-entered the ductwork and proceeded as quickly as possible toward his next, much more difficult target: the Mutuality battlecruiser Wolverine.
Chapter 10
Sachsen Orbital Fortress
“Lieutenant” Straker sat at a battered table of an industrial-themed bar off the fortress’s entertainment concourse. In fact, everything had an industrial theme, simply because the Mutuality didn’t seem to waste any effort on decorations, other than stylized murals of unsmiling workers and soldiers marching in lockstep toward their collective destinies. A few slogans adorned the walls, which despite attempts at poetic language always boiled down to “Work Harder!” or “Revere the State,” and most importantly, “Don’t Think About Yourself.”
“Creator! How can people live like this?” Straker said as he sipped his surprisingly good beer. Apparently Sachsen was famous for the stuff, and the breweries hadn’t yet all been collectivized and turned mediocre.
“You, my friend,” Loco said, “just can’t see the bright side of anything. Not only is this some outstanding brew, but the food smells great. And the women are…” He held up his open hands in front of his chest as if cupping breasts.
As if on cue, a scowling Sachsen barmaid, built like a boxy attack sled, slammed the two bowls of stew they’d ordered onto the table, and then a basket of bread. Straker was surprised she didn’t spit into it.
“Hey, darlin’, no need to be unfriendly,” said Loco with a wink.
The woman’s face grew less certain. “You speak strangely.” Her Earthan was tinged with the thick local accent, like the Ritter brothers’.
“We grew up in the Hundred Worlds,” Straker said, trying to put on a cordial expression. He lowered his voice. “We know how you feel.”
“You know nothing!” she declared, but without heat. “You want butter? One credit extra.”
“Sure,” said Loco. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
Straker could see the server fighting not to smile. With her plain face and body, she probably didn’t get a lot of interest, even from the usual semi-drunk clientele.
“Marta. But I do not sleep with you,” she replied, as if that would settle things.
“Don’t be so sure,” said Loco with a wink. The woman blushed.
“Hey, barmaid, we’re thirsty!” came a bellow from across the room. “More beer! Hurry up!” Four rough men and a woman in the coveralls of civilian cargo handlers sat at a round table littered with bowls, beer mugs and empty pitchers. It looked like they’d been there for hours, despite it being only early afternoon.
Marta scowled again and marched to the bar to pick up a pitcher in each hand and bring them to their table.
As she approached, one of the men reached out with a foot and hooked her ankle. She managed to set one pitcher on the table even as she stumbled, but the other pitcher tipped over, launching its contents to drench the largest man, the one who had yelled, with three or four liters of beer. It then slid off the table to clatter on the concrete floor.
The big man jumped up with a roar. “Stupid bitch! Go get something to clean this up!”
Marta recovered her balance and reddened. “Somebody trip me!” She swept her eyes accusingly across the four seated, and then rested them on the one who’d done it. “You!”
“Bugger off, clumsy wench,” said the man, pouring himself a full beer from the remaining pitcher, and then filling more mugs until it was empty. “Trento said to go get something to clean up.” He glanced knowingly at the big man.
Marta stomped over to a kitchen doorway and yanked it open. As she exited the common room, the other four cargo handlers stood up, drained their beers, walked quickly toward the door. The beer-covered one, Trento, followed, glancing around warily.
The bartender raised his voice. “You haven’t paid yet!” His accent was also Sachsen, though less severe than Marta’s.
“You stinking dirtsiders ought to pay us for spilling your shitty beer on me,” called Trento, still moving toward the door. Clearly, this had been a scam to avoid paying. “Don’t make me lodge a complaint with the Inquisitor.”
The path of the five took them near Straker, who stood.
“Boss…boss…” Loco sputtered, standing with him and grabbing his arm. “Don’t get involved.”
“We wouldn’t want to leave your new girlfriend in the lurch, would we?” Straker said, shaking off Loco’s hand. He stepped into the path of the cargo handlers, lifting an arm to bar them.
“Trento…” said the woman, in the lead. “These swabbies is in our way.”
Trento moved around his posse to confront Straker, looming at least a head taller. Without bluster, the man reached to shove Straker, surprisingly quickly.
It was obvious why Trento was the leader. The move would have worked on most people—quick, accurate, powerful—but not on an enhanced warrior like Straker.
He slid aside and grasped Trento’s wrist, yanking him off balance and hauling the pivot point around in a circle to throw him across the deck. He sprawled into a table and chairs. Customers nearby moved away. Some slipped out the main entrance.
“Pay the lady,” Straker grated, pointing. “You, the one who tripped her. Pay for everything you bought, and leave a good tip.”
“Fuck you,” the smaller man said, producing a hooked netting-knife from a sleeve. He lunged at Straker, swiping fast, blade forward.
Straker stepped back enough to avoid the strike, and then leaned in and laid a snapping hammer-fist into the hinge of the attacker’s jaw. The knife-man went down like a sack of disconnected bones, and the blade skittered into a corner.
Turning to the remaining three, Straker spoke through clenched teeth. “Pay the lady,” he said again.
“Boss, the big bastard’s getting up,” said Loco from rearward. “No worries, though. I got this.”
Straker didn’t bother to turn. Loco might not be quite as fast and strong as Straker, but he was still a genetically engineered physical, combat-trained and veteran of many battles. He could handle one civilian, even a big one.
As the grunts and meaty smacks of a fistfight wafted from behind him, Straker stepped forward to within easy reach of the other three men, who blanched. “Pay. The. Lady. And tip well.”
One of them hurried over to Marta with a fistful of credits. Once h
e’d put them in the barmaid’s hand, Straker stepped out of the way and turned to see Loco finishing off his opponent with a kick to the belly that left him gasping on the deck.
Shouting and a siren could be heard approaching from the main concourse. Straker was about to walk out the door toward it when Loco grabbed him and pulled him toward the kitchen. “Let’s stay away from State Security, okay? Follow me, boss. Marta, honey, is there a back way out?”
“Yah, through kitchen into service access,” she said, pointing at the kitchen door.
“Thanks, sweetie.”
Marta blushed. “Okay, funny little guy. You go. Run fast. We see no-things.”
Straker followed Loco through the kitchen and out the back door, into a corridor that seemed to stretch behind the line of bars and restaurants. He let Loco lead him down and across to another back entrance, this one to a grocery supply shop. They slipped through, past the startled clerk, and out the front door onto a smaller concourse of retail establishments.
“Boss, that was a damned stupid move,” Loco said as he slowed to walk casually down the gallery. “We’re trying to do an op here. You could have blown it.”
“I know. I can’t…”
“I get it. You got a thing for bullies and punks. But by this time tomorrow, a few Mutuality credits won’t matter. Hell, we could have let those assholes walk out and paid Marta out of our own stash. Come on, you’re the Liberator! You have to stay focused on the big picture.”
Straker swallowed the remains of his anger. “Yeah, you’re right. I got sidetracked.”
“They pushed your buttons. You got to keep that shit locked down, boss. There’s too much at stake.”
“Funny, you lecturing me.”
“I learned from the best. And you know what’s ironic?”
“What?”
“We didn’t pay Marta for our own beer and stew.”
“Crap. Well, like you said, by this time tomorrow it shouldn’t matter.” Straker matched Loco’s casual pace and glanced around. “I’m still hungry. Pizza wedge?”
“Sure. They make it weird here, but it’s good.”
After eating a couple of slices of flatbread from a quick-vend, Straker led Loco to a comm-café. Soldiers, navy personnel and civilians used their own handtabs or rented netscreens to type messages, record vids or cruise the networks for information or entertainment. There were VR booths along one wall for those willing to pay more.
Straker wandered over to one of those and examined the connection to the headset. It was too much to hope that it would fit the brainlink socket concealed under his neck hair. It did have a standard universal access plug. The connection wouldn’t be as good, but the adapter Murdock gave him should work.
“Pay cash for the booth and keep watch,” said Straker. While Loco went to the counter, Straker pulled the privacy curtain, unplugged the inductive headset and plugged in his adapter, and then clicked it into his brainlink.
The ready screen appeared as if in front of Straker’s eyes, though it was actually an electronic feed to his visual cortex. The system shouldn’t detect the difference, as long as Murdock’s adapter worked as intended. The fortress network should see nothing more than a standard VR connection with the usual low-level headset access.
Though Straker was no brainiac or hacker, the software in the adapter would send out gentle electronic tendrils until it found a connection to Zaxby’s malware that should even now be propagating throughout the network.
All over the fortress, Breakers with adapters and comlinks should be doing the same, feeling for access to the compromised system—a system that would now, if handled deftly, supply them with everything they needed to take the base.
Straker waited until the Breakers’ hammer-and-carbine symbol popped up in the lower left of his view. He willed its selection and blinked, which brought up a menu of options.
Working slowly through unfamiliar territory, he found what he was looking for: a detailed, updated 3-D plan of the fortress. Once he had this, he progressed rapidly in examining certain key components of the base.
First, he identified the location of the Hok barracks. He couldn’t do anything about those on patrol, but the bulk of them should be sleeping there during the night cycle. Nearby he found the senior officers’ quarters, where the Inquisitor and the fortress commander should be housed.
Next, he identified the operational command center, from which all military functions were controlled. It lay in the center of the fortress, crisscrossed on all sides by the vast tubes of the fortress’s capital weapons: lasers, particle accelerators, and railguns more than a kilometer long.
It was weapons like these that kept warships at bay, and held the planet below in thrall with the threat of pinpoint strikes on any centers of rebellion…or, if the State deemed it necessary, wholesale destruction of the population.
Drawing a path between the control center and the Hok barracks yielded the key location he needed to control: a large, open crossroads where several tunnels met. After identifying that, he took his time analyzing the corridors and passageways until he was certain of his tactics.
Activating the secure comlink function, Straker sent a message to the team assigned to emplace the cargo his people would need. He then sent a more generalized message to all the Breakers, designating their blocking positions.
Finally, he sent a query into the system to see if Zaxby was online, but he got no response.
***
Zaxby’s vision swam with fatigue. He was already regretting not recruiting a younger, more expendable Ruxin for this mission. Yet, it was not his fault. It was Straker that had added on the attempt to infiltrate the battlecruiser Wolverine.
It occurred to him that being part of a superior species had its drawbacks. Lesser creatures, dazzled by his competence, thought he had no limitations whatsoever. They asked achievements of him beyond even his amazing capabilities.
Slowly, slowly he squeezed through the narrow air vents aboard the enemy battlecruiser. Unlike the spacious fortress ducts, these were constricted, sometimes as small as a human handbreadth. Zaxby could feel it in his brain, an organ that had only so much flexibility in its advancing age.
He paused to rest for a moment. Failure was not an option. Not only would it reflect badly on Ruxins everywhere, and on him personally, the fact that he’d never been male or female meant he had no offspring of his own fabulous genetic makeup, which would surely constitute a tragedy for the galaxy.
Therefore, he had to push onward. The universe demanded it.
Finally, he located the warship’s main computer node, a small, untended space packed with components. It was the only place he could be sure of gaining unfettered access. Fortunately, it was well vented, to dissipate waste heat.
After removing the vent cover, Zaxby plucked the data crystal from his mouth. He then extended it like a snake into the closet-like enclosure and felt for the port.
It took more than two minutes of trying, but finally he was able to slot the device into the opening and the malware began its work. Zaxby was quite proud of the reprogramming he had done in the relatively short time between sidespace transition and arrival at the fortress, alterations to make the original Trojan worm effective against the battlecruiser squadron.
First, it would worm its way past the system’s firewalls. Fortunately, from this central location, some of those were non-issues. The defenses were focused outward, against information attacks from external enemies. By design, access from the central node was simpler.
Second, it would spread throughout the Wolverine, giving anyone with the proper codes control of most of the ship’s functions—at least, until the crew overrode the automation and enabled the manual backups.
Third, the malware would send itself to the rest of the ships in the squadron, piggybacking on command updates coming from the flagship. That would still leave a few independent vessels out of the loop, but that couldn’t be helped. Even a Ruxin couldn’t do everything.<
br />
Zaxby left the crystal in place for several extra minutes, until he was as certain as he could be that it had done its job. Then he removed it and withdrew into the ventilation system once more.
He was halfway back to a toilet facility he’d spotted, and badly dehydrated, when he lost consciousness.
***
First Sergeant Heiser, in the uniform of a midgrade Mutuality navy noncom, supervised the unhurried unloading of goods from the Chun Wei’s main freight door.
Like all of the warships docked in a row, the cylindrical frigate was sidled up to the fortress like a stylus pressed into a melon. Several decks above, personnel had access to the main concourses. At this level, broad doorways linked high-ceilinged cargo bays that extended the length of the orbital base, making storage, resupply and transloading easy.
From this warren of chambers ran tall, wide tunnels, arteries reaching throughout the fortress that provided highways for the many loaders to move items quickly. Unlike on warships, where space was tight, converted asteroids like this had ample room for every purpose.
Heiser’s comlink beeped in his ear, and he lifted the headset’s single eyepiece into display position. A message from Commodore Straker marked the location the special, heavy cargo would be emplaced.
But not too soon. The fortress’s State Security personnel changed shifts at 2100 hours, and they used the standard military 24-hour day. That would be the best time to drop off the cargo: when the off-going officers were focused on ending their stint, and the oncoming bunch was not yet in place.
The op’s kickoff was set for 0300, so the items would have to remain unmolested for only six hours. During that time, Heiser and his Breakers would sweat, and hope.
Heiser hated hoping. As the commodore said, “Hope ain’t a plan.”
He checked his chrono. “Dinner time,” he called to his crew. “Take an hour. Maybe two. Make sure you check your comlinks for the intel.”
They left their loaders wherever they happened to be, scattered with the variety of freight containers across their designated cargo bay. This was completely intentional; Heiser wanted the operation to seem casual and inefficient, typical for a provincial frigate manned by mediocre personnel.
