Perilous Waif (Alice Long Book 1)

by E. William Brown

I was about ready to strangle Naoko by the time we snuck back into town. My cheap dress was muddy and ripped, we were both soaking wet, and I had a long scrape on my arm from a hexagator she’d somehow managed to step on even after I’d warned her away from it. I was carrying all four of the loaded boxes even though they were kind of heavy, because otherwise she’d have tripped and dropped them a hundred times on the way back from the marsh.

  Naoko’s smart matter dress was spotless, since it automatically cleaned itself whenever it got dirty. The mud didn’t stick to her skin either, and somehow having her hair all messed up made her look even prettier than before. I was so jealous. But I was also glad I wasn’t an android. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be so helpless.

  The moment we were back in town Naoko’s body language changed completely. She stopped in the little alley next to the overgrown warehouse, and took a deep breath.

  “That was the most terrifying experience of my life,” she said. “Thank you very much for your help, Alice. I could not possibly have accomplished that by myself, but I couldn’t bear to fail my captain so soon after my own rescue.”

  “You’re welcome, Naoko. Just tell me you’re better at flying a spaceship than finding your way around a marsh.”

  “My shuttle is perfectly capable of flying itself back to the ship,” she told me. “But yes, if an emergency should arise I am a fairly capable pilot. I’m sorry you had to see me in that state, Alice. I must have been horribly annoying.”

  “You couldn’t help it,” I said charitably.

  “Well, I still feel that I should make it up to you somehow. Come, let us hurry to the shuttle so we can get cleaned up. I feel like I could shower for a week.”

  Even though I was tired, I couldn’t help but pick up the pace as we crept through the dark streets towards the landing field. In just a few minutes I was going to be on board a spaceship. By the time dawn came we’d probably be on our way. Leaving Felicity behind, and heading out into the wide universe.

  Freedom. It was so close I could taste it.

  Naoko led me to a dark opening that turned out to be an underground street, leading out under the landing field. It was lit by dim red lights, and here and there we passed doors with signs like ‘Landing Pad A-4’ or ‘Fuel Pumps - A Bank - Authorized Personnel Only’. It seemed like no time at all before we were climbing a flight of steps up to landing pad B-11, where her shuttle was parked.

  I paused to look up at the sleek black shape. It was a good forty meters long, which seemed like an odd size. Too small to carry much cargo, but kind of big for one person. The hull was strangely contoured, too, with all kinds of bulges and projections.

  Something in the back of my head woke up, and starting pointing out what they were. The long bulges along the sides of the ship were the main thrusters, mounted that way to leave room for a loading ramp at the rear of the ship. The dome under the bow was a light mass driver turret, probably for ground support. Those near-invisible ports forward of the drive tubes would open to expose four missile launchers, each with a magazine of a dozen or so short-range missiles. The hull was obviously armored, probably ten cems thick on the belly and three or four everywhere else. There were emitters for a beefy deflector shield, and a lot of point defense lasers.

  “Naoko? That’s not a cargo shuttle. That’s a military drop ship.”

  Naoko laughed.

  “Your background is showing, dear. The Square Deal does most of its business with smaller colonies, and you can’t count on some government to protect you out in Dark Space. Tramp freighters are always armed, and my captain is more prepared for trouble than most. But I’m surprised you can tell.”

  I shrugged. “Apparently mom thought I needed a database of military hardware in my head. This is neat, Naoko. I’ve never seen real weapons before.”

  A hatch in the belly of the shuttle opened. “Come inside, and I’ll show you the controls once we’ve cleaned up.”

  She stepped under the hatch, and a lift field snatched her off the ground and up into the shuttle. Sweet! I hurried after her, and giggled when I was suddenly launched into the air. I landed in a little airlock room, with just enough space for three people.

  The hatch slid shut with a satisfying thunk, and then we were being scanned.

  “We try to be careful about decontamination,” Naoko explained. “I think the ship has had trouble with creative rivals in the past. Are you sensitive to UV? There’s going to be a bright flash in a moment.”

  I closed my eyes. “It probably wouldn’t hurt anything, but I guess I’ll play it safe. What are you checking for? We don’t have diseases on Felicity.”

  “We check and sterilize anyway. You’ll find that spacers don’t usually have much faith in the pronouncements of planetary authorities. The system also looks for nanotech, microbots, stealth drones and quite a few other sneaky tricks.”

  A brilliant UV light came on, along with a dimmer violet glow and a ton of other stuff.

  “I see. Wow, we even get x-ray scans?”

  That was really weird. I could see the x-rays, somehow. Not with my eyes, but with something hidden in the bones of my forearms and shins. Naoko was a translucent ghost figure, although her skull was almost as opaque as the walls of the airlock. She turned to me, and cocked her head.

  “You can detect the x-rays, Alice?”

  The scanner shut off. Aw, too bad. I was still trying to figure out what some of those hard shapes inside Naoko were. The computing core in her head was much better armored than I would have thought, and what were those things inside her ribcage? Power cells, maybe?

  “Yeah, looks like I’ve got x-ray sensors. I’m not sure what that’s good for, since there’s never enough light to see by at those frequencies. I didn’t even realize I had them until just now.”

  “Interesting. Perhaps someone on the crew will have an idea.”

  The shuttle’s interior was just as strange as the outside. The decks and bulkheads were all bare expanses of charcoal gray armor, lit by glowing panels in the ceiling. Naoko led me down a narrow hall to a cozy little cabin with bunk beds.

  “I’m afraid there’s only one shower,” she said. “Why don’t you go first, while I get the cargo stowed and begin launch preparations?”

  “Thanks, Naoko.”

  The shower wasn’t anything fancy. Just a little cubicle with a basic six-head shower system, and a dispenser with a few hundred soap and shampoo options. But the hot water was heavenly after a night spend tromping through the marsh. I scrubbed off the mud, muck and insect repellant, carefully washed my hair, and then turned the heat all the way up and spent two precious minutes just soaking under a massage spray.

  I was tempted to stay longer, but the matrons taught us never to waste anything. Besides, it would be rude to make Naoko wait when she was doing so much for me. So I reluctantly turned off the water, and ran the dry cycle.

  Naoko came back just as I was stepping out of the bathroom, wrapped in a fluffy towel that had somehow pulled every drop of water out of my hair.

  “Thirty minutes to liftoff,” she announced with a smile. “I’ve reserved a launch window, and the shuttle is running through preflight now. That should be plenty of time to have your things delivered, right?”

  “I, um, don’t have any things, Naoko,” I admitted. “I didn’t exactly have time to pack before I disappeared. Even that dress came out of a public fabber.”

  She blinked at me uncertainly. “Oh. Oh, my. Not even a companion android, or a utility bot? But that’s terrible! Did you manage to shift your credits to an anonymous account, at least?”

  “Orphans on Felicity don’t have money, Naoko. The orphanage would give us ration tokens for the fabbers sometimes, but mostly we just make do with whatever the matrons issue us.”

  The way she looked at me, you’d think I’d told her the matrons beat us every morning for fun. She took a step, and for a moment I was sure she was going to hug me. But then she suddenly remembered that she des
perately needed a shower, and stopped.

  “You poor thing. Well, I shall have to talk to the captain about that, but I can at least make you a change of clothes. Maybe a new dress, and some ribbons for your hair? I’d definitely recommend going for a young and innocent look, if you don’t mind taking my advice. That will get you much further with the crew than trying to look tough, or professional.”

  I shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to trust you on that, Naoko. You know your community, and I’m not much good at that kind of thing anyway.”

  “Then it is fortunate that you have me to help you. Make a left in the hall, climb up the first ladder that you find, and the fabber will be in the compartment right in front of you. I’ve given you guest access to the shuttle, so feel free to explore once you’re dressed. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

  I found my way up easily enough. The fabber was in what was obviously an engineering space, crammed into a gap between the port drive tubes and what I was pretty sure was the fusion reactor. It was a good-size industrial model, with an assembly bay the size of a closet. Serious overkill for making shoes and a dress, but at least it meant everything came out at once.

  My new dress was a green that nicely set off my pale skin and dark hair, with a knee-length pleated skirt and ruffled sleeves. It came with matching shoes and white socks, and a ribbon I used to tie my hair up in a ponytail. I just knew the outfit made me look like a little kid, but if that was the plan I’d play along. I found a mirror, and practiced my soulful looks for a few minutes.

  The thump of the fusion reactor igniting startled me. I felt the sudden flow of current lighting up the shuttle’s power lines, and other systems starting to power up one by one.

  Yes!

  I rushed back down to the lower deck, not bothering to use the ladder, and went looking for the bridge. Where would that be, on a ship this size? Maybe in the middle, where it would be hardest to damage?

  The doors in that direction opened onto an office, and then a room full of equipment I didn’t recognize. There was a comfy-looking elevated couch thing in the middle surrounded by ceiling-mounted gadgets, and some kind of control setup with a chair to one side. Oh, wait, was that a first aid station in the corner?

  It was. I stopped there for a minute to wake up the bot, and let it cover the long scrape on my arm with a layer of medigel. That brought a sigh of relief. I can ignore pain if I need to, but the ache in my arm had been bugging me a little.

  Past what I tentatively labeled a medical room was a larger hatch leading into the cargo hold. That was taller than the other rooms, and stretched all the way back to the big hatch at the rear of the ship. It was mostly empty, although there were some heavy bots secured to the walls back near the exit. The hothouse boxes we’d gone to so much trouble over were attached to the deck next to a row of shipping crates, and a crew of bots bustled around making sure everything was secure.

  No bridge, though. Alright, maybe towards the front?

  There was a door labeled ‘Armory’ that didn’t open for me, and then a hatch at the end of the corridor that led into a cozy lounge area. That looked like a kitchen off to port, and a couple of big pod things to starboard. VR pods, maybe? Virtual reality is heavily restricted on Felicity, but spacers wouldn’t care about that.

  I checked the kitchen, wondering if there would be food there. Naoko’s body was mostly organic, so that meant she’d need to eat. Right? Plus, the ship would have other crew.

  It was stocked, but I didn’t even recognize most of the food options. I decided to play it safe, and just grab a couple of ration bars. At fifteen hundred calories each that would make a good start on rebuilding my body’s depleted energy reserves.

  Naoko must have been taking a really long shower, because she still hadn’t shown up by the time I finished. Well, there was only one hatch left to try, on the far side of the lounge from where I’d come in. Sure enough, the room it led to had to be the bridge. There were three big acceleration couches surrounded by control panels mounted on servos, and the walls and ceiling were all one big viewscreen showing the ship’s surroundings.

  “Good morning, Alice,” a soothing androgynous voice said. “This is the Speedy Exit’s autopilot AI. Are you prepared for liftoff?”

  An AI? Sweet! I’d never met one of those before.

  “You bet I am, Speedy Exit. How about you?”

  “Preflight checklist is eighty-seven percent complete. All critical engineering systems are operating normally, and fuel levels are at one hundred and seventy-five percent.”

  “How can the fuel tanks be more than a hundred percent full?” I asked curiously.

  “The Speedy Exit mounts external drop tanks,” the AI explained. “Would you like to sit, Alice? You are authorized to use one of the observer positions.”

  “Oh, um, sure.”

  A wall panel towards the back of the bridge opened, and another seat folded out of it. This one wasn’t as big, and it didn’t have any control panels around it. But I’d be able to look out the main viewscreen, and that was more than I would have dared ask for.

  I realized I was smiling so wide it made my cheeks hurt. I was going into space! Something about that thought just felt so right.

  Dawn was breaking over the spaceport. Here and there I could see teams of bots working around the other shuttles, tirelessly moving an endless procession of giant cargo containers. A cloud of steam rose from the far side of the field, where a big cargo shuttle must have just landed. I was sorry I’d missed seeing that, but there was a sleek little ship gliding past us. Maybe they were getting ready to take off?

  A ground car with flashing lights mounted on top curved around the moving ship, and floated towards us. The port proctors? Yes, there were two dryads in uniforms visible through the windshield. What were they doing?

  “Alice, I’m receiving a com call from that patrol vehicle,” the autopilot said. “Do you wish to reply?”

  “No,” I said hastily. “Ask Naoko what to do, and don’t tell anyone that I’m here.”

  “You have good instincts,” came Naoko’s voice from the open hatch.

  She stepped into the bridge, and I felt my jaw drop. Instead of clothes, she’d changed into a suit of what had to be powered combat armor. It fit her so perfectly that her amazing figure was still pretty obvious, but practically every inch of her was covered in gleaming armor. She’d even put on a helmet, although it left her face uncovered.

  She smiled at my expression.

  “My captain likes it when I demonstrate that I’m not just decorative,” she told me. “Are you space rated?”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Can you survive in a vacuum, dear?”

  “Oh! Um, sort of? I think I’m supposed to end up that way, but a lot of my features haven’t grown in yet. Right now vacuum would kill most of my organic parts, but I think I’d still be alive if you got me to a medical bay. Why, are you expecting a problem?”

  “No, Alice, but it’s best to be prepared for the unexpected. Please stay in your seat while we’re in flight. It will protect you if anything does go wrong.”

  “Alright, sure. What about the proctors?”

  The car had reached the shuttle while we were talking, and now a pair of dryads in black law enforcement uniforms were climbing out. Neither of them looked happy.

  “I suppose I should see what they want,” Naoko reluctantly conceded. “Computer, set up a com filter to hide Alice Long, and then answer their call.”

  “Done,” the autopilot said.

  Naoko settled herself in one of the control seats, and a com window opened on the main screen in front of her. An annoyed dryad’s face filled the view.

  “Finally! Speedy Exit, this is Proctor Lena of the Faith’s Door Port Authority. We’ve received information that you’ve been seen in the company of a wanted fugitive.”

  Naoko was definitely programmed for acting. Her astonished expression was a work of art.

 
“A fugitive? How terrible! Does this dangerous individual have a name, or perhaps a face?”

  A secondary window opened, showing a set of pictures from the orphanage. They had a good close-up of my face, and of course a rotating 3D model from my last medical scan.

  Darn. They must have a computer scanning through drone footage from the port, or something. But why were they bothering? I never thought they’d go to that much trouble to find me.

  “Her name is Alice Long. She’s believed to be unstable and quite dangerous, Miss Sokol.”

  “Ah, yes, I do recall seeing her in the port,” Naoko mused. “I’m afraid I have no clue as to her current whereabouts, but I’m sure she’ll turn up soon enough. It’s hardly a large enough town for a fugitive to remain at large for long.”

  The proctor frowned suspiciously. “What business did she have with you?”

  “She was seeking employment. Sadly, I had to tell her that my ship is not currently hiring.”

  The other proctor had been fiddling with a datapad during the conversation. Now she poked the one that was talking to Naoko, and showed her something.

  The scowl deepened.

  “I see. Miss Sokol, we have camera footage showing you walking down Conservation Lane with the fugitive barely an hour ago. I’m going to have to ask you to open up so we can verify that she isn’t on board.”

  “Do you have a search warrant for the Speedy Exit, proctor?” Naoko said evenly.

  “Felicity is a proper communitarian world, not one of your individualist hellholes,” the proctor exclaimed. “I don’t need a ‘warrant’.”

  “Proctor, the Square Deal is an independent commercial vessel operating under the auspices of the Free Trader Accords. As specified in article four, sections six through twelve, planetary authorities may freely inspect goods and persons entering or leaving a trade vessel but may not board the vessel itself without a warrant issued by the local Merchant’s Association representative. If you have not obtained such a warrant, I fear that I must regretfully decline your request.”

  “Now see here, you jumped up sexbot! I am an officer of the law, and you will obey my instructions or I’ll have you scrapped. Abort your launch countdown and open the hatch!”