Space Rodeo
Interstellar Sheriff
Book 2
Jenny Schwartz
On the galactic frontier, the Federation’s wildest (and most scientific) citizens have gathered to ride in the Space Rodeo. The Navy is in charge—of the arena. But beyond the naval perimeter, there is only Interstellar Sheriff Max Smith to keep the peace. Fortunately, he has some extraordinary allies. And enemies. And then, there is his girlfriend.
Thelma Bach attracts trouble like the bunyaphi attract feuds.
She should have been safe, riding for an urself inventor in the Space Rodeo. So how did she end up in the middle of a mercenary corporation’s devious designs for galactic war?
Buckle up for a thrill ride of bandits, shadowy government agents, cyborgs, AIs and strange science.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
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Chapter 1
The human mind isn’t meant to look at itself. Staring out from her own eyes, Thelma Bach saw herself crouched on the floor of the spaceship Otua’s bridge, balanced on the balls of her booted feet with one hand down to brace herself. The image wasn’t from a mirror or hologram. It was really her.
She screamed and tore open the buckle of the harness that secured her in the captain’s seat. She landed in a crouch and spun, one hand going down to steady herself as she saw her own horrified face staring back at her from the chair.
Then the time dual-location of that spar of the comet helix collapsed and only a single Thelma remained. She’d have appreciated the resumption of standard physics a whole lot more if she hadn’t just torn free of the safety harness.
“Rat farts.” She spat the old asteroid miner curse as the Otua twisted and dived, overstraining the ship’s rudimentary artificial gravity system. With nonstandard results.
She lunged for the captain’s chair, and had scarcely gotten herself seated when an elephant sat on her chest. She forced her hands to keep moving, to refasten the harness, as blackness swallowed her vision.
She regained consciousness three minutes later. The artificial gravity system had restored itself. “Just breathe. That’s all you have to do. Just breathe.”
The Otua was fitted out with monitoring systems far more complete and efficient than its artificial gravity system. Every bit of data from riding the comet helix was captured. Thelma was simply the sentient body required for the Navy to allow the Otua’s participation in these first weeks of the Space Rodeo.
She glared at a camera. “Jerome, you owe me a ginormous favor.”
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on her body’s recovery. She was fit. Jerome wouldn’t have asked her to be the human pilot for the ride if she wasn’t, but the experience had been extreme. In a few minutes she’d open her eyes and check her current location. Meantime, the ship’s autopilot would guide her away from danger. Jerome had designed the Otua to function independently. It was only the Navy’s ruling that for the first month of the Space Rodeo only ships with an organic sentient aboard could ride the comet helices that had forced Jerome to acquire a human pilot.
As an urself, Jerome couldn’t pilot the Otua in the Space Rodeo himself. Urself physiology was such that the sudden dives of the ride were likely to trigger involuntary hibernation. Since the Navy required that pilots in the Space Rodeo report their experiences navigating the comet helices, urselves were barred from participation.
On the other hand, a human blacking out for three minutes from gravitational forces was apparently considered interesting. Thelma smiled wryly at the scientist conducting her post-ride debrief.
The man didn’t smile back. “Returning to your experience of viewing yourself during the time dual-location moment, how would you describe your emotional response?”
Thelma had had time on the Otua’s journey back to the Navy carrier that served as the docking station for Jerome’s team and eleven others to consider that very question. “Revulsion. If you’ve seen the vision, I suspect I look panicked, if not terrified. It was eerie seeing myself, knowing that the other me was me.”
“Yet you recall the event as a single, seamless consciousness.”
She gave a one-shoulder shrug.
“Interesting.” He tapped his fingers against his thigh. “The brain is remarkably plastic. It rewrites and interprets memories. It could be that you blacked out not from the gravitational forces, but to give your mind a chance to resolve the cognitive paradox of two self-perspectives.”
Another shrug seemed the most prudent answer.
She was dismissed.
Star Marine Corporal Naomi Milligan waited outside the lab door. She’d wangled escort duty. As with all Space Rodeo participants docked to the carrier, someone had to monitor Thelma’s civilian presence aboard. “You okay to eat?”
“Starving.”
They headed for the mess.
A couple of months ago, they’d fought each other. It had been a favor from Naomi, given because she’d served with Thelma’s brother Joe. Before his injuries, he’d been a Star Marine. Thelma had managed to survive seven minutes in the ring with the fearsome corporal. That had helped to establish her as more than a newbie, or dudette, in the Saloon Sector. The two women were now friends in their own right, and not because of brothers or lovers.
“How’s Max?” Naomi asked.
Thelma grimaced. Her boyfriend, who’d also served with Naomi and Joe, was not a fan of the Space Rodeo. As Interstellar Sheriff for the territory, it meant a whole heap of extra trouble, even with the Navy assuming primary responsibility for policing the comet helices. “Max is not a happy spacer.”
Max gripped his coffee mug tightly enough that the handle creaked. He set it down carefully on his desk. If Thelma was here, she’d have tactfully suggested that he’d had enough caffeine for the day…month…year. But it wasn’t the caffeine that had him wound up. The long-delayed background on the deputy whom the Chief of the Interstellar Sheriff Service for the Reclamation and Saloon Sectors had foisted on him had arrived, and it came with a note guaranteed to raise the hackles of any Saloon Sector resident.
Max’s new deputy was being delivered in two hours by a Covert Ops vessel.
Covert Ops, in Max’s opinion, were the devil. “They’re planting a spy on the Lonesome. They’re not even being subtle about it. Carl Jafarov.”
Lon, the AI embedded in the Lonesome, made a tsking sound of annoyed agreement. “The paucity of detail provided on Agent Jafarov is an insult. Let me see what I can discover. Meantime, remember we expected that the deputy was a ploy to infiltrate the Lonesome. We’re prepared.”
“Maybe not for this man,” Harry said, entering Max’s office and taking a seat. The Lonesome was as much his home as Lon and Max’s—and Thelma’s. They all missed her.
Harry was another AI. His core was housed in a humanoid mech body. He looked scary to anyone who didn’t know him, which in the Saloon Sector, meant everyone except those aboard the Lonesome. In Thelma and Max’s company, Harry used human mannerisms, including facial expressions, to soften his appearance.
Just under two centuries ago, Federation scientists had ceased making humanoid mechs. Maybe thirty thousand remained, from various wars, mostly either in scrapyards, military museums or as the property of people who wanted private protection of the lethal kind. Utilizing the humanoid mechs made a statement. They’d been discarded because the living, breathing soldiers who’d fought alongside them had found them too freaky. These days, mechs w
ere consciously different from all sentient species. The most common mech form was that of six or more legged, multi-segmented bodies lacking faces.
To Max, Harry was just Harry, and Thelma tended to treat him as a very resilient, tough-love grandfather. He trained her in martial arts, and tolerated her attempts to practice new dance steps with him. Along with Lon, the four of them had become a family.
Now Carl Jafarov’s arrival threatened their home.
“I recognize Carl.” Harry nodded at the headshot from the background briefing that Lon flashed up on the viewscreen. “The background that Chief Kanu provided on Carl mentions four years undercover. Carl spent at least two of those years as a mercenary on Tornado. His face was slightly different, enough to throw off a facial recognition program, but I’m positive I met him as Carl Jameston. I made special note of him since he was a cyborg.”
Max froze. “They’re sending a cyborg to our home?” His voice was a deadly whisper. Few things made him truly angry, but threatening those he loved topped the list.
He hadn’t wanted a deputy. A cyborg one coming aboard was a red-rated threat.
Lon interrupted his silent fuming. “I’ve detected the Covert Ops vessel. Its stealth shield is not as advanced as Nefertiti’s.” A hint of admiration and wistfulness colored his voice when he mentioned her.
Nefertiti was another AI embedded in a spaceship. She was currently on a highly classified, solo mission, one which the Federation government had sanctioned, but which was of particular concern to AIs. Thelma and Max were two of the rare humans who knew the truth—or some of the truth—of it. It was one of the critical secrets the Lonesome protected.
“I estimate that Carl will board in an hour.”
Max stood and grabbed his hat. “Thanks, Lon. Are we ready for him?”
“The Faradox cage I wrapped around the lounge and cell units will block all signals going in and out, apart from my surveillance and comms equipment, which I will monitor for attempts to hack it.”
Max exited the office and descended the ladder to the public deck. It was where guests were received on the Lonesome. It was also where prisoners were processed and held during transit.
Lon’s voice accompanied Max. “Words frame our expectations, and hence, the options we consider as available to us. The chief said you’re getting a deputy. Covert Ops is delivering a Galactic Justice agent. Both are true. Harry has added the unwelcome news that we’re also about to be boarded by a cyborg. I assume that Covert Ops didn’t expect you to learn that fact this early or at all.”
As an AI, Lon didn’t have to pause for breath. “But consider what is actually going to happen. Carl Jafarov will enter through the hatch and be contained in the lounge and a single cell. If you want to use a word to describe him, the appropriate one is ‘prisoner’.”
Max grunted acknowledgement of Lon’s attempt to reassure him and to offer subtle guidance. “He’s a contained threat.”
There were a number of roles the Galactic Justice agent could fill. Deputy, prisoner, spy or bodyguard were all words, titles, that could describe Carl Jafarov. Onboard the Lonesome, it was at Max’s discretion which ones Carl would be allowed to pursue.
Max put on his hat. The dark gray western hat served a dual purpose. When he wore it, Max was Sheriff Smith. He’d made the hat a symbol of his office, part of his legend out here on the frontier. Secondly, the wide brim shaded his face, thereby hiding his features. Add in Lon’s flair with hacking and there were no identifiable photographs of Max floating around.
“What I would like to know is who knew to send a cyborg to freak me out?” He had a history with the damned things—people. And that history went deeper than the stories of super-soldiers that he’d heard in the Star Marines.
Only the Federation government could authorize a cyborg procedure. People assumed that was due to the expense of the operation and because of the physical and mental toughness required of the participants.
“A cyborg doesn’t just get replacement parts for those lost. It’s not a matter of a new leg or eye or whatever. The person’s entire body has to be modified, its natural performance enhanced to support the demands of the integrated technology. Their brain changes. Their personality changes. Families noticed. Families worried. So now, having no one is one of the criteria for the cyborg program.”
“It’s a myth that their personality is removed.” Harry had followed Max down the ladder. “Cyborgs can control their chemical secretions, their hormones. To organic sentients, that is assumed to equate to controlling their emotions. However, as Lon and I can tell you, emotions exist in the absence of hormones. Cyborgs’ manipulation, which generally defaults to suppression, of their emotions is incomplete. New cyborgs, adjusting to the altered reality of their bodies, do tend to present as detached from their emotions and their previous identity. For an individual going undercover as a mercenary, that may have helped.”
Max swore. He slapped his hat against his leg before replacing it on his head. “Okay. All that has changed is that we know the truth—some of the truth—of who he is. If I refuse Jafarov entrance because he’s a cyborg, Covert Ops will demand to know how I learned that fact, especially if he successfully hid it during his time as a mercenary.”
“He did,” Harry said.
“So we play along. The chief’s threat is real. If I refuse a direct order to take on a deputy, she’ll fire me. And right now, I’m needed here.”
The Navy had responsibility for the Space Rodeo, but outside of its perimeter, trouble in the region remained Max’s headache.
There was an abundance of trouble just waiting for a spark.
The Space Rodeo had brought people from across Federation space. The triggering event, the unheralded appearance of comet helices with their twisting of space and time, had begun nine weeks ago. Engineers and adventurers, including corporate and military types, had immediately stuffed their tech and themselves into their spaceships and converged on the Saloon Sector with all haste.
Comet helices were near mythical happenings. The last recorded Space Rodeo had been seventy plus years ago. Some people had quit their jobs rather than miss this opportunity.
But where wealth and cutting edge technology collected, so did those eager to liberate a portion of it for themselves. Some were prepared to earn their cut. A number of the mercenary corporations based on Tornado were working as security for various technology conglomerates. Others were looking for less legal opportunities. These were the thugs and thieves. And then there were the media who were here, there and everywhere like hyperactive warp wasps, questioning everything.
Max didn’t have it in him to abandon the people he’d sworn to protect at a time when they most needed him—and that was how Galactic Justice, via Chief Agnes Kanu, twisted his arm. She was a political appointee who might be relatively new to the frontier, but who had demonstrated a practiced aptitude for ruthless manipulation.
“Anubis is hailing us,” Lon said.
Max took his comms unit from a pocket and accepted the transmission.
“If you maintain your current location, we’ll come alongside in forty minutes.” The Anubis’s captain’s tone of voice made the statement a command. He had purposely failed to introduce himself beyond “captain”.
“We’ll wait for you,” Max said. “Please inform Agent Jafarov that I’ll supply weapons and all technology other than his personal comms unit. Anything he brings with him will be recycled.”
“Harsh.” And when the comment provoked no response. “I’ll inform Jafarov. He’s a good agent. You’ll find him useful, if you give him a chance.”
“I’m sure he’s useful to someone.” Max ended the transmission. He glanced at Harry. “What was Carl Jameston’s specialty as a mercenary?”
“Infiltration. He was a thief.” Harry ambled over to the outer hatch. This was the entrance the Covert Ops ship would lock to and the Galactic Justice agent enter by.
Max rocked on his heels as he studied the w
alls of the lounge and the passage that led to the cells. A food dispenser on the counter served to turn the lounge into a kitchen. A table with four chairs completed the establishment of dual purpose use for the area. It was where visitors to the ship were entertained. Some spacers, generally surveyors, avoided going planetside. They socialized ship to ship. The small lounge with its inbuilt security precautions was as open house as Max got. He had good reason to guard his personal life.
He turned back to stare at the hatch, contemplating the void of space beyond it and the fast-approaching Anubis. Covert Ops sought to take him off guard with the abrupt delivery of their agent. Thanks to Lon, they hadn’t.
“I’ve got this,” he said to Harry.
The AI sketched a salute. It wasn’t mockery, but respect. Harry strolled off in the direction of his multi-deck workshop.
Max scowled at the hatch for a few more seconds. Then, conscious of all the demands on him as sheriff, he dropped his hat on the kitchen table, dropped himself onto a chair, and resumed responding to the most urgent of the multiplying messages on his comms unit.
An hour later, Jafarov arrived. “Deputy Carl Jafarov, reporting for duty.” He wore a lifesuit with the helmet open. There was no need for the suit: lock tunnels were safe. Wearing it was simply the most practical method of carting it across—or so a naïve person would assume.
Max spotted the challenge.
By wearing the lifesuit, Carl hoped to circumvent Max’s edict that any tech he brought onboard would be recycled.
Max kept his face expressionless and his body relaxed. Carl’s briefing on Max ought to have warned him that he never bluffed. “Deputy Jafarov. Place your comms unit on the table. Any other tech you brought with you will be recycled. Beginning with your lifesuit. Strip.”
Carl smiled wryly. “It’s a good suit.” He put his personal comms unit on the table.
Lon sent two robots forward to inspect Carl’s pack and its contents.
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