Friends in the Stars

by Mackey Chandler

  The man had an unbelieving scowl behind his faceplate, but in the camera view a gloved hand came up and jabbed just below the camera lens. Garrett heard a faint sound and an orange light with a banner message opened along the top of his screen.

  “I should have made a bet on it,” the Fargoer said.

  “I’d have given you odds,” his buddy admitted.

  Garrett switched cameras to an airlock feed. When the inner door opened he could hear it through the open hatch to the deck below. The men opened their faceplates once inside but didn’t bother to turn their suit radios off. Garrett reached out and cut power to the lock. They had their backs to it and didn’t see the status lights change.

  “Damn this is tight. I’d go bonkers crammed in here for more than a day or two, especially if they have a Derf or two crewing. That hatch is labeled as the Captain’s quarters, but I swear most Derf I’ve seen would have to grease their big butt up to fit through that hatch. It might as well be a hot slot.”

  “Galley below,” the other fellow reported, looking through the internal hatch, “and no hatch opposite this one, so three decks only. The command deck above has a docking ring on the nose, but I can’t believe they have room for an actual airlock up there too.”

  “To business,” the one tech ordered. That was the first clue Garrett had heard that one might be in charge over the other. They sounded like bantering civilians that way, not at all like you would expect of military personnel speaking, with one clearly in charge. They sounded more like drinking buddies out for an evening, chatting about who should buy the next round or if they should take a cab to another bar.

  When the first technician popped through the hatch he was good. He really tried to be nonchalant. He didn’t jerk in surprise or look guilty. He might have pulled it off as a social hack if it were the sort of situation he was used to, scamming other Humans with nothing more than bravado.

  Garrett had picked up most of his full growth the last year and he was nudging seven hundred kilo. Suddenly facing something that big, wearing space armor with a sixteen-kilo battle ax held across his knees, the man showed just a flicker of guilty hesitation.

  “Oh! We didn’t know anyone was working aboard,” he said, too glibly and just a little bit too loudly. “No matter, I should be able to run our software checks from one of the other stations.”

  Garrett hesitated to answer just a little longer than the Human had, but it sent a different message. It shouted, “I don’t believe you.”

  “I believe the English expression is, over my dead body,” Garrett said.

  The techie smiled insincerely and kept moving towards the other rear crew station, babbling some inane chatter about system checks Garrett wasn’t even listening to now.

  Garrett let out a huge sigh and slapped his faceplate shut. That scared the man more than anything Garrett could have said. It indicated to a spacer there might be a sudden pressure event.

  “Testing,” Garrett said, to confirm he heard his own external speakers in his mic.

  “Why are you sealing up?” the man asked, alarmed.

  “The last time I split one of you juicy fellows down the middle,” he said, slightly lifting the ax for emphasis, “there was splatter everywhere. I even had the filthy stuff in my fur. It took three days to get all the blood off of the fancy engraved armor I was wearing. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  The other techie was looking in the hatch and didn’t seem disposed to rush in.

  “But… we need to test the interface to the control systems for the missile,” the fellow insisted, even though he’d wisely stopped advancing.

  “You didn’t make the targeting and control system installed on this ship, so I have no idea how you think you could run tests on it. It’s locked-out, much better than the airlock you were prepared to breach. The owner has a very strict non-disclosure agreement with New Japan about both the hardware and software. Similar to the restraints she has on disclosing the internal hardware of the missiles you just installed. You each have basic black-box models about how your systems will interface with the other, but my Lady Lee takes her agreements to keep both your secrets very seriously.

  “Besides some sort of illicit image to spoof authorization to enter the vessel, you wouldn’t just happen to have a humongous blank memory chip about you somewhere, would you? Big enough to carry away a copy of the New Japan software?”

  The man was past keeping up a façade now and looked guilty. He was however saved from having to construct some ridiculous story by the radio.

  “Mr. Cavanaugh, this is Officer of the Watch Harmony Jones. We don’t have a carrier signal or telemetry on your suit radios and you are not visible. If you do not respond I will have to declare an emergency and send a search and rescue team across to look for you. Do you require aid, sir? Can you hear me?”

  Garrett reached out and flicked a switch, but only took his eyes off who he assumed must be Cavanaugh for an instant.

  “Mr. Jones, this is the Champion of Red Tree sitting security watch on the Kurofune. You may call me Garrett. Your technicians were in the radio shadow of the ship at the main lock, and now are inside the hull. That’s why their radio transmissions cut off. Would you confirm they are not military personnel, but civilian contractors?”

  “Damn right they are zip-tab-feather merchants,” Jones replied, angry. “What the devil are they doing inside your hull without telling me they were dropping in for tea? I’d write-up even a raw newbie for playing games like that doing vacuum work.”

  “Tell me the truth,” Garrett demanded, “it’s important. Are these valid yard-birds or are they spooks? They were talking at the lock about having an image to spoof the face reader or doing a scan of the number pad for smudges and wear to try to crack an entry.”

  Jones ripped off a string of invective that was imaginative even for a pissed off Fargoer spacer. “You think they would tell me what I have aboard even if they were crooked? I have no idea if they would even tell the Old Man, but now I am going to have to wake him up in the middle of his sleep period to ask. You can imagine all the joy that incites in me to need to wake him up.”

  “And now I see on my board that the other fellow, the not-Cavanaugh I assume, is trying to open the lock which I have powered down,” Garrett said. He flipped a couple of switches and got a camera feed of him. “He can hear me on his suit radio, so I have to warn him if he inserts the emergency crank and tries to open it manually I’m going to be so irritated I will go down to the lock deck and chop his fingers off with my ax to stop that foolishness. Do I have to do that?” Garrett asked.

  “No,” he said back, barely audible on the circuit.

  “Ah, I can hear him too,” Jones said on the Quantum Queer.

  “Yes I plugged you into our internal chatter here,” Garrett said.

  “Well, I have a rating waking the Captain up as gently as possible. The last com tech who blasted him out of his bunk at max volume in the middle of the night spent the rest of that tour cleaning the engineering decks with a toothbrush and lens cloth. He’ll speak to you soon I think,” Jones predicted. Garrett and he waited patiently.

  “Mr. Garrett,” a new voice said, “may we have the luxury of a video feed please?”

  “Sure, no problem,” Garrett agreed. He didn’t correct the Captain’s usage of Mister. He supplied his own helmet cam intended for just such communications, and embedded two smaller windows showing the Fargoers in the corners of that feed.

  “Cut them out of our feed, please. I am Benjamin Portus, Master. I will review your conversation with my OOTW to get myself up to date and then be able to address your problem intelligently one may hope.”

  Garrett was patient. The man was interesting. He seemed the very upper end of middle age to Garrett. His name didn’t follow Fargone conventions, which might mean he was an immigrant. Now that Garrett knew about life-extension therapies, he always took that into account appraising Human appearances. It was hard to imagine Portus
could be an important naval officer and not have those treatments, so either he came to them so late they didn’t fully reverse the usual signs of aging, or he simply didn’t care to have the segments of the treatment that affected appearance. He still had dark hair, however, and massive curly eyebrows to match.

  “Very well, I’m current,” Portus announced after a couple of minutes. “If these are Fargone spies they never enlisted my aid to protect them. My personal experience is that I have twice been told my passengers were special, without them being too precise about how special, but they were in both cases simply being transported. I never had them presume to interfere with my actual operations by saddling me with an active operative. I’d certainly be upset if they are our operatives and so inept. Please tell me to what sort of authority I am speaking. What is your job? Can you explain it in terms you think I’d understand?”

  “I am head of all Red Tree military forces. Although it’s a long-term job and I’m still in training for many facets of it. My previous Champion and mentor held the job an unusually long time and chose to die in order to take out a four-shuttle force of North American Space Marines invading our Keep.”

  “OK, I’m quite aware of that story,” Portus said.

  “As I understand it, Humans often have their military subject to civilian control. I am commanded by the three clan Mothers, who tell me what they want to be accomplished, then it is my burden to achieve that. I am also the prosecutor for their legal conflicts. If another clan refuses to acknowledge a law they have published, then at the next meeting of the Mothers their Champion and I will duel to the death to see which law prevails.”

  Portus squinted and examined Garrett closer. “I haven’t lived with Derf, but you don’t look that old to me. I’ve seen older Derf. You’re the head security honcho and you’re sitting guard duty on a ship? I might be more likely to believe that if you told me you headed an army of a half dozen.”

  Garrett stifled the urge to be offended and answered factually. “I’d never say how many we can field, but we have modern infantry. We have a core of officers and most adult males have had military training and can be called upon. We have a dedicated nuclear division and a few other specialties. The clan has two warships: an enhanced destroyer and a cruiser. We can crew both with reserves. As a Fargone naval officer, I find it hard to believe you are not familiar with Gordon of Red Tree. I am his nominal superior even though I am still learning the job and would bow to his superior experience. I’m also tasked with running security for those embassies on Derfhome to which the Mothers wish to extend protection. The Voice, who the Sovereign of Central on the Moon has assigned here reciprocates our protection, and we can call upon her to perform system defense.”

  “And yet you sit guard on this odd little ship that is neither destroyer nor cruiser?” Portus said. It seemed to Garrett he was trying to provoke him a little.

  “You must carry the same missiles in your tubes. How would you like to deal with both of these launched on you by this odd little ship? They are guided by New Japan targeting systems so you don’t know how their programs will instruct them and you can’t have a back door into those systems. That’s why I am sitting here, to keep anyone from doing that. This is a private vessel for Lee Anderson. She asked the Mothers for a guard on it during the missile installation. It’s a measure of my regard for her and how favorably I know the Mothers regard her that I did not delegate it to anyone else.”

  “How do you know we don’t have a back door and destruct command installed on the missiles?” Portus asked.

  “Because you know we are going to dissect one of these and examine the code line by line both by programmers and by AI. We have the codes of earlier version missiles to compare. If there is a door in these that wasn’t in the earlier ones we’ll know it. If it existed in earlier code that would expose the missiles you carry to tampering. I doubt your command would risk that. Also, you’d be betraying Gordon of Red Tree after he allied with you and took up Fargone citizenship,” Garrett said. He didn’t have to tell the man why that was a very bad idea. Gordon had a reputation.

  That made Portus uncomfortable enough to stop baiting him.

  “So, what do you want to do with these chaps?” Portus asked.

  Garrett hadn’t expected that at all. He was sure Portus would advance some line of reasoning that allowed him to retain the two in his own custody and take them back to Fargone. If they were Fargone agents, after all, they’d get treated well, if not, their justice system would deal with them. Garrett didn’t know enough to have any idea if that would be their military justice or the civilian courts. He didn’t know Fargone that well.

  “I assumed you would ask to submit them to your own justice,” Garrett admitted.

  “Why? They didn’t try to sneak on my ship or go slinking around where they didn’t belong. You are the offended party. That doesn’t mean I want them back. I’d shoot the both of them dead before I’d let them touch my hull again.”

  At Garrett’s shocked look he explained.

  “I don’t know whose spies they are, but I have no doubt at all they are somebody’s spies. There is just no knowing what sort of weapons or nasty surprises they may have left on my ship. When we return to Fargone it’s going to take a long hard search of every cubic centimeter of this vessel to declare it safe. Likely the entire computer infrastructure will have to have a forensic exam and be reloaded. That’s why I had you cut them out of our conversation. They might have been able to actuate something malicious just through a voice link. Even if they haven’t done that, they might try to blackmail me once aboard by claiming the ability to damage us. I won’t risk my command on it.”

  “That all seems terribly reasonable, so now I’m not sure what to do with them myself,” Garrett said.

  “They’re your problem now. I’ll give you some free advice. Spies often have either the means to deliberately suicide or are set up to be removed even without knowing they carry such a system. I would not take those two anywhere near critical infrastructure or allow them in front of valuable people. They may be able to suicide in a way that takes out as much of value as possible at the same time. The sooner you have them off your vessel the better. If you don’t know how to interrogate Humans indirectly who carry hidden systems and conditioning you will probably waste them.

  “We’ve delivered your missiles, so I don’t expect you to hinder our leaving. If you have a problem with the missiles I have no other resources to help you anyhow. My folks are shooters, not factory technicians, and these two are obviously tainted.”

  “No sir, if there is any problem with the missiles the customer can take that up with the company. She can make any complaint she wishes about the installers too. I’m here to protect the ship. Like you, I’ve done my job. I thank you for your advice freely given in that regard. I’ll go do that now, and I wish you a good return voyage.”

  Portus looked pleased and gave him a sloppy mock salute instead of saying anything else before he disconnected. If he meant the casualness of it to be offensive Garrett just didn’t care.

  “You, on the lock deck,” Garrett called out, “come up here and join us.”

  “There are two jump seats folded into the rear bulkhead either side of the hatch,” Garrett said, pointing. “Take your helmets off and toss them through to the lower deck and strap in the seats. I’m going to call for somebody to come to take you to the planet. It’s going to be a while, there’s no help for that. I will stay sealed up and I need to make arrangements. Don’t interrupt me if you don’t need to.”

  The two complied without any silly complaints.

  Garrett cut his external speakers to speak privately and called Lee directly. “I have a complex situation here. I have two Human prisoners who were bent upon gaining access to the Kurofune. They are certainly spies, possibly saboteurs, but we have no idea whose spies. The Master of the Quantum Queer absolutely refused to take them aboard again. He’d kill them first. I decided to stand guard
myself without any backup. So I’m sitting here watching two prisoners who are likely dangerous. I don’t dare try to search them for weapons or lock them out of my sight. I need at least two assistants brought up to force them on a shuttle and get them stripped and searched. Also, Captain Portus suggests the interrogation of spies is a delicate matter best done with remote sensing or they may be triggered to suicide. I wonder, do you think our new Central allies might have such skills for interrogating Humans subtly?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Lee said, “but we’ll have to see if they will admit it to me. Do you think you can stay safe and alert for another three hours or more? I can get your two fellows on the station and a reliable pilot to bring a small freight shuttle around to remove them in that time frame.”

  “Yes, that’s no problem at all,” Garrett said, and settled in to wait.

  Lee took a deep breath and made the hardest call first.

  * * *

  “We’ve had the oddest thing reported by two different ship owners now, Jeff said. “They were in transfer orbit to a lunar destination and recorded a brief encrypted message from a trans-lunar object aimed towards the Earth.

  “There isn’t a lot of scientific work being done in the current economic climate,” April noted, “and that tends to be transmitted in the clear.”

  “I don’t think it was scientific,” Jeff said. “It wasn’t deep enough to be in an unknown area of interest for anything. It was from about four times the distance of the Moon’s orbit from Earth. I think it is military.”

  Heather looked perplexed. “There’s nothing of military interest out there either.”

  “Agreed, and neither ship saw the object transmitting on radar, although the one vessel swept the area with a targeting beam. I believe these were small, heavily stealthed instrument packages, flown by our three habs, and meant to transmit the collected data from a distance that we wouldn’t associate with observing Home.”

  “Why couldn’t they do that directly without all the secrecy? April asked.