Perilous Waif (Alice Long Book 1)

by E. William Brown

  Unlike a mass driver, the turrets for the ship’s graser cannons hadn’t held the whole weapon. They were just a huge mass of armor protecting the beam director, a giant momentum exchange device that managed the tricky feat of bending a beam of light passing through it. The beam was actually produced by an immense complex of machinery buried deep inside the ship, and reached the turret through a long tunnel lined with more momentum exchange lenses that helped focus it.

  The beam aperture was two and a half meters across, and dropped a thousand meters straight down into the guts of the battleship. As our advance scouts started their descent I stepped to the edge of the hole, and looked down nervously.

  “How much firepower do you think these guns had?” I wondered.

  I’d meant the comment for Emla, but I found Akio at my side.

  “Something like a gigaton per second,” he said. “Nervous?”

  “A little. I know it’s silly. The ship’s dead, the guns are bound to be wrecked, and even if they weren’t there’s no way they could power up without us having plenty of warning. But my danger sense isn’t happy about climbing down what’s basically a giant gun barrel. I’ve got this image in my head of exactly what would happen to me if it fired.”

  There’d be nothing left of me but a spray of elementary particles. At least I’d be dead really fast.

  He put his arm around my shoulders. “It will be fine, Alice. As you said, this weapon will never fire again.”

  I sighed, and leaned into him. “Yeah. I’ll be okay. Um, isn’t this kind of improper?”

  “Who’s going to complain about it? My marines? As long as I don’t scandalize Uncle Noburu too much we’re fine. Or was that a hint?”

  I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “No, I’m not that subtle when it comes to hints.”

  I looked up at his face, and wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

  Not now, of course. His space suit had a helmet, and anyway there were way too many people watching.

  “You’re an unusual girl, Alice,” he said. “Standing on the hull of a ship without a helmet on doesn’t bother you, but something that abstract does?”

  I’d wanted to braid my hair today, and a helmet would have covered it up. So instead I’d brought along a set of little bots that maintained a weak deflector bubble full of air around me. It was a little chilly, but my fancy clothes took care of that.

  “Blame my designers,” I said. “I think they ripped out all the stuff people are normally afraid of when they put in my threat assessment mod. As long as I’ve got power I don’t need to breathe, so why would I care if my environment bubble is a little leaky? Anyway, I don’t want to hold us up. See you at the bottom.”

  I stepped off the edge, and pushed off with a touch of my field. Emla spread her wings and dove to follow me. I grinned at Akio’s surprised look, and waved at him as I fell out of sight.

  Well, it was really more like soaring than falling. The wreck’s microgravity was trying to push me out into space, so my sense of balance tried to insist that the bottom of the shaft was really the top. But that would be too confusing, so I ignored it and just pushed myself along with my field.

  Emla came up next to me, pulling her wings in and wrapping her arms around me so we could fly side by side through the confined space while our bots trailed along behind.

  “Bet he makes a move on you soon,” she said, sounding amused. “Are there going to be Akio smoochies in your future?”

  “Maybe,” I admitted.

  “Sweet! Be sure and string him along some more first, though. We don’t want him thinking you’re a sure thing.”

  “I’m not,” I insisted.

  “Uh huh. I can see that blush fighting to come out, Alice. He’s got you all hot and bothered.”

  “What makes you think it’s his fault?” I asked. “You’re the one who’s all snuggled up to me.”

  She gave me an astonished look. I giggled, and kissed her. Her lips were soft and sweet against mine.

  “Oops, end of the line.”

  She had to let me go so we could land, and then we were surrounded by marines. I grinned at her, and moved out of the way so people could come down behind us.

  Mistress? She commed. Are you.. I mean, I thought you didn’t… um…

  I can’t let some sinister yakuza guy get further with me than my own companion, can I? I replied.

  She beamed. Guess not. Thank you, Alice. I was starting to worry we’d gotten out of sync somehow.

  Sorry, Emla. No, I’ve just had a lot on my mind. But we need to get serious now. There’s no telling what kind of danger could be lurking down here, and we can’t just assume the inugami will find everything. We’ll talk more when we get home, okay?

  Okay, she replied breathlessly.

  At some point someone must have set off a nuke at the bottom of the beam aperture, because there was a giant hollow space there instead of whatever machinery should have filled the void. The marines waved us towards one of the many openings in the wall, which led into a maintenance tunnel. Our route was already marked out by compact signal relay boxes stuck to the ceiling at each intersection.

  Akio caught up with us quickly. He gave me an amused look, but didn’t say anything as his guards got themselves organized around us. They let a squad of marines take the lead, and didn’t start moving until Yamashida had finally caught up with us too.

  Moving through the wreck with all these people was surprisingly slow. The marines checked every corner and posted guards at every intersection, like we were expecting enemies to pop out of nowhere at any moment. The bodyguards were worse, and the shield bots they kept between Akio and any possible threat made it hard to get a good look at things. Fortunately a work party had already cleared out the dead bots from our route, or I’m sure they would have wanted us to wait while they checked every one of the things.

  “Is it always like this?” I asked Akio as we came to a giant open space, and his guards paused while the marines swept it for snipers.

  “Only in unsecured areas,” he assured me. “They’re a bit on edge due to the risk of heavy warbots. It’s curious that there’s no bridge across this room, isn’t it?”

  I casually poked my head out and looked around. Sure enough, none of the guards cared if I was exposed myself.

  “I think this is one of the lasing chambers,” I said. “If I remember right they use some kind of nuclear reaction to generate gamma rays for the grasers, so when the gun is fired there’s a big plasma arc across the middle of the room. It probably doesn’t even have artificial gravity, since normally no one would ever come in here but the techs.”

  “I see. You know, Alice, I’d feel better if you didn’t do that. We don’t know what might be active out there.”

  I pulled back under cover, and turned to look at him. “The marines are exposing themselves.”

  “The marines wouldn’t look like a high-value target to a sniper bot’s analysis software, Alice. You do.”

  That warm feeling was back. I smiled.

  “Alright, Akio. I’ll just stick with you, then. Did your people made any more progress while we were getting organized?”

  “Major?” He said.

  Major Wen practically materialized next to us. “No major discoveries, my lord. It looks like there was a firefight in the captain’s quarters, and the damage there is extensive. We’ve found a large section adjacent to it that was probably being used by the princess and her staff.”

  We finally started moving again as the major’s report went on. “I have recon teams searching the area for the secure hold now. Fortunately we don’t have to worry about security doors, since the boarders have already dealt with them all.”

  “So there really was a princess leading the expedition?” I asked. “That’s not just a rumor?”

  “That’s what our analysts believe, my lady,” she said. “Princess Susan Long, eldest daughter of Emperor Kazuo’s second wife, Esmeralda Long. We aren’t certai
n if she was the expedition’s military commander, or simply the intended leader of the colony… my lady? Is there a problem?”

  I realized I’d stopped dead. I shook my head, and started forward again.

  “Just an odd coincidence,” I said. “So, um, if we don’t find the mirror in this secure hold we should check her quarters, right? Someone like that might have wanted to keep it close.”

  It didn’t mean anything. It was just a coincidence. It had to be.

  Wen gave me a concerned look, but she didn’t press. “Yes, milady. I have a couple of intel types checking her quarters for safes right now. But it’s the less likely possibility. An object of this importance really demands the maximum possible security, and a lady wouldn’t want an army of guards cluttering up her private chambers around the clock.”

  I noticed that Akio was still watching me, his expression more thoughtful than concerned. Like he thought he knew something, or at least suspected.

  The datalink back to the ships was painfully slow with all those relays to go through, and my hurried search did me no good. The briefings and intel reports Akio’s people had made available for general use didn’t have pictures. I tried the Square Deal’s historical database, but that wasn’t much better. The only image of Princess Susan was from some public event before the war, and it was a long-distance shot with terrible resolution. She was just a mop of blonde hair in a flowing dress, half-hidden behind her mother.

  “Ma’am, we’ve found the vault!”

  Thank Gaia for timely distractions. I hurried over to where an excited marine was reporting the discovery to Major Wen, and stood next to Akio listening.

  “Delta squad is sweeping for threats now, but it doesn’t look like there was any fighting there,” she said hurriedly. “The bots cracked the vault door with heavy mass drivers, but once you get a few meters in there’s not much collateral damage.”

  “That sounds promising,” Akio said. “Let’s have a look.”

  The trooper bowed. “Yes, my lord. We just need to take this drop shaft down two decks, and then it’s a hundred meters down the hall. Oh, and there’s gold in the vault!”

  As it turned out, that was an understatement.

  The secure vault was a space the size of one of the Square Deal’s larger cargo holds, protected by an armored box eight meters thick. It was a good thing the bots had already blown the door, because otherwise we’d have spent weeks hammering that thing open. They must have brought heavy tankbots in through one of the vehicle access hallways, and fired hundreds of hypervelocity rounds into the same spot until finally the craters ate all the way through. Even so, the opening in the door was only a meter across. Big enough to climb through one at a time, but getting heavy equipment in and out would be tricky.

  Inside, the room was dominated by a giant shelving system of translucent diamond that ran all the way up to the ceiling ten meters overhead. The shelves divided the room up into long hallways, wide enough for cargo bots to move around comfortably. But it was the contents of the shelves that held my attention.

  They were full of cargo containers, each as tall as I was and made of transparent diamond that showed off their contents. Gold. Big hundred-kilogram bars, neatly stacked to fill the containers that kept them from drifting around. I did a rough volume calculation, and multiplied by the current price of gold. Oh, my.

  “I guess they did want a cash reserve,” I said weakly.

  Akio looked up at the endless stacks of bars, and nodded. “Apparently so. Is it all like this?”

  A very furry dog girl with a datapad in her hand bounced over. “Yes, my lord. Assuming it’s all real gold, we’re looking at almost ten billion credits.”

  “I see I’m going to be giving out a lot of bonuses this quarter,” Akio said thoughtfully.

  “Let’s not spend all the gold before we even have it,” Yamashida said. “Is there any sign of the mirror?”

  The girl’s ears drooped. “We’re still cataloguing the room, my lord. If it’s here, it’s probably over in the far left corner. There’s an armored cage there full of smaller storage containers, but the major said we should wait for you before we go through them.”

  “Quite right,” Yamashida said. “The sacred treasures are not to be viewed by those of inferior blood, let alone handled. Akio?”

  Akio frowned, but didn’t argue. Instead, he led our group across the room and down to the secondary vault. This one was a lot less secure, basically just a big cage surrounding a table and some smaller shelving. The door had been cut off at some point, and the boxes on the shelves were jumbled up like someone had searched through them. But nothing seemed to be damaged.

  I wondered what was in them. But Akio and Lord Yamashida both went straight to a pedestal at the back of the cage. There, surrounded by a bunch of sensors, sat a large flat box of ancient wood. Handmade, or it looked like it at first glance. Something about it seemed a little off, though.

  Yamashida started to reach for the box, but Akio cleared his throat pointedly. The older man grimaced, the most emotion I’d ever seen on his face, and reluctantly stepped aside.

  The case didn’t even have a real lock, just a set of camouflaged buttons that you had to press in the right combination to open it. Camouflaged to normal humans, anyway. They stood out like a sore thumb to me, and Akio didn’t seem to have any trouble finding them either. He casually flashed a burst of x-rays to outline the mechanism, and then opened it after a few moments of thought.

  So that’s what x-ray vision is good for! Wait, Mom was setting me up to pick antique locks? That didn’t make sense.

  The androids all turned around as Akio carefully cracked open the ancient case, and peeked inside. Sure enough, it held an ancient-looking disk of polished metal. Pretty underwhelming, although I guess it’s kind of neat to think that people could make things like that even way back in the dawn of prehistory.

  Akio closed the case, and locked it again.

  “This is a momentous day for the Masu-kai,” he said.

  Yamashida managed a thin smile. “No one will be able to question the legitimacy of our claims now. We should secure it at once.”

  “I suppose you’re right, Uncle. Major Wen, detail a team to transport this case back to the ship and secure it in my personal vault. I want a full squad on guard there at all times until we return home.”

  “Yes, milord!”

  A pair of marines floated over, and reverently picked up the case. Something about it was still bothering me, though. It looked like wood, but there was a faint pattern of discoloration that put the lie to that illusion. Lines of material laid just below the surface that were a slightly different color in the infrared spectrum, and arranged with way more precision than human hands could ever manage. As the marines carried the box past me I realized that the lines formed a set of kanji, repeated over and over.

  It said ‘replica’.

  I pretended to rub my nose to cover a smile. It was a fake. A pretty good one, if it fooled Akio, but you can do amazing things with fabricators. Heck, it might even be an atomically perfect facsimile. That would explain why they needed to label the case, to keep it from getting mixed up with the real one.

  Only, why was the box labeled in a way no one but me could even see?

  That horrible suspicion came back, stronger this time. But I pushed it away. I watched the marines leave, still trying to decide if I should tell them what I’d seen.

  “I wonder what’s in the rest of these boxes?” Akio said.

  “A question for another time,” Yamashida said smoothly.

  His com sent out a packet to the relay one of the techs had just set up on the wall behind us. Copies immediately bounced back to all of the androids around us, and for a couple of milliseconds almost all of them froze. Then they started moving again, but they were suddenly trying to keep their expressions blank.

  I had a bad feeling about this. I floated back a few cems so that I was brushing up against Emla, and moved a shie
ld bot to hide my hands from the marines at the cage door.

  Emla, give me the package!

  The guys were still talking, although it felt like the conversation was moving in slow motion now. “What do you mean, uncle?” Akio asked, with a slight frown on his face.

  Yamashida slowly shook his head. “Lord Hoshida has become a fool in his old age, and it seems his heir is no better. Did you really think I was going to let a careless whelp like you push me aside, and steal all the glory?”

  Here it is! Emla sent, pressing a tiny capsule into my hand. I palmed it, and crossed my arms. Another slight shift, and no one could see the access port hidden below my left armpit open. I hurriedly pushed the capsule full of tritium into place.

  “Careless?” Akio replied mildly. “Do you think I came here unprepared, Uncle?”

  “I know all about the warbots lurking behind us, and the sniper team out on the hull,” Yamashida said. “But your youthful attempts at subtlety fall well short of the mark. Did you know that my techs were the ones who developed our marine training program, fifty years ago?”

  Now Akio finally looked concerned. He glanced around, and took in the blank faces around him.

  “Major Wen?” He said cautiously. “Who do you serve?”

  “The shadows will always belong to Lord Yamashida,” she said. A smile full of malicious glee broke out across her face, and she sent a signal to her troops. Their warbots all turned to cover us.

  “So that’s your plan?” Akio sighed. “Trap yourself in a confined space with a supersoldier who has nothing to lose?”

  “Silly boy. You’re talking to a meat puppet. Major Wen, you may kill them now.”

  Chapter 27

  I honestly don’t know what I would have done, if he’d said ‘kill him’. But if he was getting rid of witnesses too then there wasn’t any choice. If I wanted to get out of here alive I was going to have to fight.

  Someone had just cut Akio’s datanet connection, but it looked like the android in charge of that hadn’t gotten to me yet. So I jumped my mind to maximum speed, and sent an urgent warning to Captain Sokol with a recording of the last few minutes attached. I wasn’t sure how much danger the ship was in, or what emergency plans the captain might have, but hopefully the advance warning would do him some good.