by Mark Wandrey
“How much for the facility? Your advertisement does not mention a price.”
The AVA disappeared and a Tri-V image of Upsilon 4 appeared. It had started life as a roughly oblong carbonaceous asteroid 4.7 kilometers long and 3.5 kilometers wide, with some mineral deposits and a gravitation pull of less than 0.05 Gs. Mined out in ages past, the support and other structures remained though the asteroid facility had been repurposed. There was no detail on what the purpose might have been, only that it included cavernous working areas, large living quarters, extensive warehousing, and a space dock.
The Tri-V listed the facility’s assets in nice bullet points. Jim smiled a little; even aliens seemed to have PowerPoint. At the bottom, a figure appeared—126 million credits. He sighed and got up to leave. The number dropped to 12.6 million.
“Is this figure acceptable?” the AVA asked.
Jim considered. He knew Splunk had to be behind this, or at least he guessed she must be. Taking advantage of this consortium because of what his friend was doing behind the scenes was about as unethical a thing as he’d ever considered doing. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be the low water mark, either. He took out his Cartwright’s Cavaliers corporate universal account access card (commonly called a “yack”) and touched it to a glowing square on the desk. His pinplants informed him his balance sheet was now 12.6 million credits lighter.
“Thank you for doing business with Tek Consortium.”
Jim took his yack and headed for the door. He didn’t remember Splunk until the door closed behind him. He turned around to go back in and found her perched on a service robot. The machine was frozen in place. Splunk had its control access panel open and was happily pulling computer modules out and examining them.
Jim looked from her, back to the closed door, and then back to her again. “What…” he started, then stopped, not really sure what he was going to ask.
“We go home,
“Sure,” he said, and she leaped onto his shoulder. The service bot was left where it was, another victim of Splunk’s curiosity, watching them leave with its mobility systems removed.
* * *
“Prepare for zero gravity,” Captain Kim Su said, her voice echoing over the ship’s intercom. Jim reset the seatbelt almost instinctively, a habit he’d gotten used to from many trips to space. It was moments like this that Jim missed Captain Winslow. The older man had captained his previous ship, Traveler. A relic of the Cavaliers’ past from the early days of his father’s era, it had been saved from the Cavaliers’ bankruptcy by its transfer to the museum trust, which he later took control of. It had been destroyed when his merc company accidentally arrived in the middle of a space battle. Winslow had saved most of the crew, sacrificing himself in the process.
The ship he was currently on, Bucephalus, had been sold with the bankruptcy and purchased by the Winged Hussars for five credits. The Four Horsemen looked out for each other. Two years later, Jim bought the ship back from the Hussars for twice what they’d paid for it. Good thing, too, because a large merc unit without its own capital ship was not effective.
Thrust slowly fell off until it reached zero. Jim watched on the Tri-V as the ship came to a stop abreast of the Cavaliers’ newest acquisition, Upsilon 4. He’d always thought Bucephalus was big. It might only be a cruiser, but it was still 425 feet long and 100 feet wide, shaped like a hotdog with a pair of donuts near its middle—Jim used food analogies a lot. At just over 300 pounds, it was an occupational hazard. Upsilon 4 was huge compared to his ship. Massive.
“Good grief,” he said, “I own a planet!”
“Not quite, Commander,” Captain Su said, “but a rock big enough it has some gravity. We’ll have to use maneuvering thrusters to stand off. Are you sure we don’t want to dock?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Jim had done his homework on Upsilon 4. He knew how long it had been vacant, as well as its history of having squatters. The cryptic warning from Alexis Cromwell of the Hussars when she’d sold Bucephalus back to him made Jim nervous. “The Four Horsemen for Earth,” she’d said. Then the Hussars had all but disappeared from the galaxy. Just…gone. But not before they’d gotten into a brief space battle right there in the Karma system. “Something serious is going on,” he told the captain, “so from here on out we’re taking every precaution possible.”
“We’ve scouted the facility for two days,” Su reminded him. “There’s just background signatures from the station’s reactors and some transient noise.”
“I know,” Jim said, “but I’m still not convinced.” The drone controllers had also said there weren’t any signs of Human/alien occupancy, but they couldn’t be sure. The lack of evidence for a conspiracy didn’t mean there was no conspiracy. “Hargrave, are we set up?”
“Just waiting on you, boss.”
“I’m on my way. Captain?”
“Commander?”
“Keep an eye on things, and be ready.” He unbuckled and floated toward the CIC’s armored door. As a fat guy, he loved zero gravity.
“Be ready for what?” Su asked.
“Anything.”
Jim sailed down the companionway and into the squad bay. The section was lined with cradles, each holding a CASPer, or Combat Assault System, Personal. The six closest to him waited with cockpits open and status lights glowing. Five had men in haptic suits floating outside their open cockpits, and one had a woman without a suit, waiting.
“About time, you big handsome man,” Adayn said as he floated toward his suit, his cheeks burning.
“Hi, sweetie,” he said as he caught a protruding strut to bring himself to a stop next to the suit. He pulled off his jacket and stuck it in between a couple of pipes; he was already wearing his haptic suit underneath. She gave him a peck on his cheek as he started plugging in leads.
“Give it a rest, girl,” Hargrave growled from the next suit over, “the kid can’t work with a boner.” The men all laughed while Jim tried to look disapproving.
“We fight, Jim,
“Maybe,” he said and glanced over to Adayn. “You didn’t let her mess with anything, did you?”
“Like I can stop her? But no, she just showed up a minute ago. Probably taking apart a shield generator.”
“If she takes a major system offline again, Captain Su has threatened to have her locked in the brig,” Jim reminded her.
Adayn grinned. “My little watchmaker would probably just take the brig apart,” Adayn retorted. Jim had a hard time disagreeing. In the few days since he’d bought Upsilon 4 at the much-reduced asking price, he’d tried to pump the Fae for information about one of her kind showing up suddenly on Karma.
They were thousands of light years from Kash-kah, where he’d found Splunk. Or rather, where she’d found him. He’d been lost and in desperate straits in an underground cavern after getting his CASPer trashed fighting raiders. The Fae appeared arboreal, with long fingers, a prehensile tail, and somewhat resembled an Earth monkey or lemur, yet their eyes were sensitive to light, and there were no trees in the caverns. He’d spotted other Fae in the caverns before finally escaping and being rescued by his men. None of the Fae ever got close enough for him to get a good look.
After returning home, he’d researched the creatures but found nothing on them; the enigmatic beings were undocumented. The fact she could mentally link with him to operate a giant Raknar robot made it all the more improbable. Now that he’d viewed the security footage of another Fae somewhere at Karma, the stories about Splunk being seen all over the station stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down began to make more sense. Had others of her kind somehow followed her to Karma?
His questioning of her had revealed exactly nothing. She’d played stupid, just like when he’d asked her about hacking the Tek Consortium AVA. She just shrugged and went on her way. He’d been trying to think of a way to look for more Fae on Karma Station, but no plan had yet materializ
ed.
Jim got the last lead into place and began wedging himself into the Mk 7 suit. The other five in his squad were all Mk 8 versions of the combat suits made by Binnig on Earth. Those CASPers were noticeably smaller than the Mk 7, which Jim preferred because of his size. A few others in the company liked the older, larger models as well; Platoon Sergeant Buddha, for example. The massive Hawaiian man weighed as much as Jim, though he was mostly muscle. The man’s big belly just seemed to be for extra fuel, and he commonly lost a dozen pounds on deployment, only to promptly gain it back upon his return to Earth and his beloved pineapples. But Buddha had Second Squad and wouldn’t be on this operation.
By the time Jim was buttoned in, the others were as well. Adayn reached in and gave Jim a quick kiss and scratched Splunk behind her unusually long and pointed ears. “Be careful,” she told him.
“Always,” he said as she backed out.
“Always, Funwork,
Jim used his pinplants to trigger the cockpit closing sequence, and the clamshell canopy came down, sealing with a whoomph of pressurization. The inside of the cockpit became a Tri-V of the outside world, with status lights in one upper corner. They would move around as he turned his head. “Good power-up,” he said over the radio, then told Splunk, “Get comfy.” She gave a little purr, and slid down his suit into the right thigh, were there was ample room. “Squad, report.”
One by one the other five suits reported in, finishing off with his XO, Hargrave. “Good to go, boss.”
“I still don’t know why you’re along,” Jim said.
“Because my number two job is keeping you alive, son. If your old man were still around, he’d kick my ass for letting you get wasted on a non-paying op.” Jim shook his head and switched channels.
“Cartwright’s Actual to Bucephalus. We’re ready to depart.”
“Cartwright’s Actual, this is Bucephalus Actual. I read you in the clear. Stand by to depressurize the bay in ten seconds.” Jim and the rest of the squad did a visual scan of the bay to verify there were no personnel remaining, and the green light illuminated over the personnel hatch.
“We show a safe bay,” Jim reported.
“Roger that. Good luck, Commander Cartwright.”
“Second Squad is standing by,” Buddha said from another bay. He was their assigned backup on this op, in case things went sideways. That and a 40,000-ton cruiser armed with 10-megawatt laser cannons, although Jim really didn’t want to shoot up his brand new asteroid base if he could avoid it.
“Danger!” a computerized voice boomed outside. “This bay is about to decompress in five seconds…three…two…one…” A buzzer sounded and the little atmospheric alarm winked on his HUD, or heads-up display, telling him the pressure outside was dropping fast. Powerful pumps evacuated the air and the bay was in vacuum in 20 seconds.
“We’re feet cold,” Jim said, meaning the bay was depressurized. A red light began flashing along the top of the bay. A second later, the door under them began to swing open, revealing the infinite nothing of space. He released the clamps holding his suit in place and gave a couple puffs on the maneuvering jets, which caused him to transit straight down and out of the ship.
“Form on me,” Jim said and watched his suit radar paint a Tri-V image of the other five suits’ locations on his HUD. Once everyone was clear of the ship, the doors began to close above them. Another readout on the HUD slowly counted down. He now had 9 hours, 57 minutes of life support remaining. The newer Mk 8 suits the rest of the squad used had 11 hours of endurance. “Off we go.”
After a minute of floating through zero gravity under the ship, Upsilon 4 came into view. They were many kilometers away and it looked even bigger than it had on Bucephalus.
“Look at the size of that thing,” Private O’Hara, known as Mouse, said.
“Cut the chatter Red 2,” Jim said, a laugh in his voice.
“I’m sorry, Colonel?” Mouse asked.
“Nothing,” Jim said and suppressed a sigh. “Stay in formation; we don’t want any surprises.” The squad sounded off, and he concentrated on flying. He let the CASPer’s instruments watch for any signs of trouble as they crossed the intervening void.
Upsilon 4’s tiny gravity slowly accelerated them toward its rocky surface. It was enough to have them going three meters per second in a minute. Before he knew it, the team was using their suit thrusters to slow their approach.
Armed with all the station’s diagrams, which came from Tek with the transaction, Jim had chosen to enter at a remote maintenance airlock instead of “the front door,” as it were. He reached the open lock and carefully maneuvered his suit inside. He almost lost control as he floated through the door and had to use thrusters to stabilize, then again as he nearly face-planted against the far wall.
“What the hell?” he asked.
“Gravity, boss,” Hargrave reminded him.
I’m an idiot, Jim scolded himself, although he didn’t say anything out loud. Hargrave had taught him no matter how much an officer doubted himself, he never vented those doubts in front of the men. “Right, thanks,” he said instead, and oriented himself, feet down. It caused him a moment of confusion until he saw there were duplicate control interfaces on every wall. Convenient, he thought as he used the suit’s data probe to link with the panel.
“What’s the story, boss?” Hargrave asked from just outside the lock. It was only big enough for Jim’s massive Mk 7 suit.
“I’m seeing if any of the codes Tek gave me work,” he said. “Wait one…”
The computer in his suit interfaced with the station’s computer and fed data to his pinplants. Met with a standard Galactic Union infrastructure data login screen, he entered the data Tek had provided. The first code didn’t work, so he used the second, and it was accepted. As information flowed into his brain through the pinplants, the first thing he noticed was what was missing.
“I don’t have any access beyond the lock management computer,” he reported.
“Is it a problem or something on purpose?” Hargrave asked.
“Don’t know,” he admitted, “I’m going to try and find out.” Now that he had access, he was able to at least work inside the lock. Jim liked the Mk 7 suit for a lot of reasons, one of which was the larger size allowed more addons. For this mission he’d included a workbot, which was a little robot that fit in the left thigh compartment, where he’d normally keep survival gear. If anything went really wrong in space aboard a CASPer, the equipment to make campfires and such was of minimal use. Splunk hung out in the right thigh.
Using the suit controls, he programmed the little robot and activated it. The compartment popped open, and the machine floated out on puffs of compressed gas. It looked a little like a miniature Tortantula, Jim thought, and was expensive at nearly 10,000 credits each. None of the robots able to function in space were cheap, especially ones that could perform complicated mechanical and electrical operations.
As he’d directed, it floated over to the panel just under the controls and began removing the fasteners which held it in place. He was able to see what it saw through his pinplants and provide instructions as necessary. As with all Union computers, its intelligence was limited. It was the same Union law regarding what Humans would call AI, or artificial intelligence.
After only a couple seconds, it had removed the cover and crawled inside. Jim concentrated his attention fully on the images the robot was sending back, illuminated by sonar and infrared light. The space looked pretty standard to him. He had the robot check the network connectors, and immediately found they’d been disconnected. Both of them. One could have worked lose, but two was intentional.
“Found it,” he transmitted, “I should be inside in a second.” He instructed the robot to reconnect the main network connection cable. As soon as the terminal contacted the computer board, the airlock exploded.
* * *
“Come on, Jimbo, you can do it, son!
”
“But I’m scared, Daddy.”
“Don’t be, Daddy’s here. Just give one…little…push…”
Spinning. Nothing.
“Jim! Talk to us, Jim!” The call repeated every few seconds. Jim tried to remember where he was and mostly succeeded. It was hard to mistake the interior of a CASPer once you’d been there a few hundred times. What he couldn’t figure out was why he was in zero gravity. His head hurt, too. Had he heard his father a minute ago? He put it down to disorientation.
“Jim okay,
“Yeah,” he said and looked around. “How about you?” Splunk said she was fine. There was a smear of blood on the side of the cockpit, and a few drops floated toward the air intake. He used his pinplants to run back the exterior camera recordings. By the time he got to the explosion, he was himself again. The suit’s bio sensors said he might have a mild concussion.
“Jim, talk to us!” This time he recognized Hargrave’s voice over the radio.
“I’m here,” Jim said.
“Thank God, kid. The lock deformed and sensors picked up an explosion.”
“You could say that,” Jim said. His suit registered damage in multiple places. He could feel Splunk at the small of his back, working inside a mechanical panel. There was a faint hiss of ozone. Pressure was steady, so no leaks. Thank God.
“We’re going to use laser cutters and breach the lock.”
“No,” Jim said right away. “I don’t know what other surprises there are.”
“All the more reason to get you out of there. I have Private Stodden standing by with a cutter.”
“No,” Jim insisted. “The blast wasn’t designed with a CASPer in mind. It rang my bell, but that’s it.” More snaps and a few status lights winked from green, to yellow, and back to green as Splunk worked. “However, I don’t know if whoever set these might have worse things in store. They could just as easily have set up a dozen blocks of K2 instead of whatever this was.” Jim knew, all too well, the binary high explosive could have turned his suit into a crumpled tin can.
