by Henry Vogel
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You would.” Michelle gave me a quick peck and pointed toward the bed.
Gathering Michelle in my arms, I said, “Well, if you insist.”
“I was pointing toward your coveralls, Matt. After all, you’ve got assets to disguise, too.”
“And we’ll need these disguises for what?” Comprehension dawned. “Oh, right, moving around the station unnoticed. Good idea. Where did you get them?”
“I just stopped by maintenance, waved my chip in front of their ID reader, and told them the security team needed them for an exercise.”
“Brilliant, babe.” I plopped down in front of my pad. “Guess what I did this morning after you left?”
“Cracked the security for the ID chip software?”
“Yep. And, if you’ll give me a few minutes, I’ll grant us all permissions access.”
“I have to show my ID a lot for work—is that ‘all permissions’ bit going to show on the screen when my chip is read?”
“Give me a little credit. I’m going to code the permissions to hide behind our regular clearance. The special clearances don’t go into effect unless your normal clearance is too low.”
Michelle patted my head. “Now who’s brilliant?”
It took but a few minutes to make the changes to our permissions. Leaning back in the chair, I said, “Okay, there’s nowhere on this station we can’t enter if we want to.”
Michelle tossed the coveralls to me. “Then get dressed and let’s get started.”
Besides the coveralls Michelle also had a maintenance data pad and box of tools. Guess who got to carry the tools?
Minutes later, we were on the tram heading out of the administrative sector. No one gave us a second look, though Michelle played the part to the hilt anyway.
She called up a station map on the data pad and pointed to the warehouse sector. “Some freight ape called in a sticking door. Karen says to get it fixed pronto.” Her voice dropped slightly. “Did you know she’s sleeping with Sam?”
My input wasn’t really needed, so I stuck to the stock man’s answer. “Huh.”
“I know! I’d sure never have guessed those two would hook up. Karen and Joe, yeah, but Sam?”
“Huh.”
“So, anyway, the door’s blocking some timed delivery freight. If we don’t get the door working the station might have to pay the fine. And we can kiss a raise goodbye. So fix it right the first time.”
“Right.”
Michelle kept that up for twenty minutes, until we got off deep in the warehouse sector. The main shift was off for the day, so there were only a handful of others working the sector. No one paid any attention as we headed into the sector.
As soon as we were completely alone, Michelle said, “Take a parental pointing, Matt.”
We didn’t risk a hot and heavy kiss, but I didn’t need one now. I cleared my mind and pointed.
“Damn, that’s deeper into the station.” Michelle recorded the direction I was pointing and added it to the map with the pointing from last night. “The two lines cross maybe two kilometers from here—over near spaceship maintenance. Well, at least we’re dressed to fit in with the ship techs.”
We walked through twisting, turning corridors and I pointed and we mapped. Slowly, a likely sector emerged from all of my parental pointings. I tried hard to contain my excitement, but simply could not. I was less than a kilometer from my parents and the entrance to starship maintenance was just ahead.
Neither of us gave it a second thought when the door ahead of us opened. As Michelle said, we were dressed to fit in anywhere. Two women and four men, all wearing flight suits, headed our way. They were busy talking among themselves and barely noticed us. One of the women smiled and nodded in greeting as we passed. I did the same.
Behind us, their conversation stopped. A woman’s hand fell on my shoulder and spun me around. Through a predatory smile, the woman said, “Well, well, if it isn’t our old friend George.”
Why did this woman call me George? Then it hit me. By a stroke of fiendishly bad luck, I’d stumbled into Flight Commander Nancy Martin, someone with no love for the cradle-robbing George persona Michelle gave me when we first came to the Pegasus system.
I sought to keep this revelation off of my face and out of my voice and strived for puzzlement. “Sorry, you’ve got the wrong guy.” I tried a smile. “I’m Matt.”
“Like hell your name is Matt.” Nancy’s face screwed up in a snarl. “You know, George, I didn’t believe Cummings when he told me he saw you in a bar last night. I figured not even you would be stupid enough to come back here after our little talk. But here you are—and Cummings even says you’re pretending Mandy is your wife or something sick like that.”
Michelle had stopped and was leaning against the wall with her back to us, acting exactly like a bored maintenance tech waiting for her partner.
Over my shoulder, I said, “Go on, Brenda. I’ll catch up with you once I get this woman straightened out.”
“Gotcha,” Michelle replied in a husky voice. Pushing off from the wall, she sauntered toward the door to spaceship maintenance.
Turning back to Nancy, I brushed her hand off my shoulder and sharpened my voice. “Look, I don’t know George, I don’t know Cummings, and I sure the hell don’t know you. I do know my boss will have my ass in a sling if I don’t get my work done on time. Would you want me interrupting your work shift to talk about people you don’t know?” I paused for a split second as if waiting for an answer. “I didn’t think so. Now, go away and let me get on with my work!”
As I turned away, one of the guys with Nancy said, “You know, I think he looks younger than George. Less pudgy, too.”
“Maybe…” Suspicion still tinged Nancy’s voice. “Let me check something.”
Nancy and her flight crew were silent for several seconds. I resisted the strong temptation to turn around and see what they were doing and the equally strong temptation to run. When I caught up with Michelle, she wore a tense expression—probably matching my own.
“Here we go.” Nancy’s voice had a satisfied tone.
“What are you doing on HR’s site?”
“They always post pictures of the latest batch of newbies. He said his name was Matt, right?”
Under her breath, Michelle said, “Dammit Nancy, give it a rest. Matt, be ready to run.”
“There he is.” It was the other woman in the flight crew. “It does say his name is Matt.”
“Yeah, but it also says he works in CompSec.” The suspicion in Nancy’s voice was stronger than ever. “Hey, it says he’s married. Let’s check the wife’s picture.”
A split second of silence was broken by Nancy’s shout. “Come back here, you son of a bitch!”
Michelle and I sprinted down the corridor toward the slowly closing door into spaceship maintenance.
“I’m going to beat you to a pulp when I catch you, George,” Nancy screamed, rage replacing suspicion. “And then I’m going to space what’s left of you for what you’re doing to Mandy.”
Feet pounded after us as we dashed out of the warehouse sector. I scanned ahead of us, looking for an escape route.
“Keep me from running into anything, Matt.” Michelle held the maintenance pad in one hand and called up a station map with the other.
I caught her upper arm and kept sprinting. Behind us, the door thunked shut but the sounds of pursuit didn’t cut off. Obviously, Nancy and company got through the door before it shut. We could have used the seconds that would have bought us since our pursuers knew the sector and we didn’t. Too bad the gods of chance decreed otherwise.
“Have you found a bolt hole yet, babe?” We passed several side passages, but stations had far too many dead end corridors to risk taking one at random.
“Maybe. Take the second corridor on the right.” Michelle returned her concentration to running and I released her arm. “After that, take the first turn to the left
and then the third turn to the right.”
“Got it. I don’t suppose you have any weapons with you?”
“Just a stun stick strapped to my leg. Useless against that many people. I’d give half your fortune for a blaster right now.”
We cut to the right and into the corridor Michelle noted. I’d hoped for a rats warren of corridors branching from this one, but there were only three. Nancy and company made the turn just as we took the first left.
“We want the second door on the right after our next turn.” Michelle gasped. “It’s colored differently on the map, so I’m hoping we can get through it and Nancy can’t.”
Nancy had us in plain sight when we took the turn—no losing her that way. But the second door was no more than five meters down the corridor. Michelle reached it and waved her chip hand in front of the reader. It blinked red and didn’t open. Grinning in triumph, Michelle waved at the reader a second time.
“No way they’ll-” She broke off as the light blinked red again. Without another word, we sprinted on down the corridor.
“Dammit, why didn’t it open?”
I had an idea but saved my breath for running. And I shouldn’t have bothered. We rounded a corner and came to the end of the corridor. It ended in a door and Michelle immediately tried her chip. The light blinked green and the door slid open. We hurried in and shut the door behind us. I hit the locking switch and we looked around. It was nothing but a parts storage room—small and with no other doors.
A thump sounded from the door as Nancy and her team caught up with us. The lock beeped, I assume because someone outside tried to open the door, but the door remained shut.
“We’ve got maybe a minute before they can find someone to unlock the door,” I said. “Have you got any ideas?”
“Yeah.” Michelle pointed to a far corner of the ceiling. “That looks like an air shaft.”
A closer check showed that Michelle was right. The lock beeped again as we pulled a heavy metal table to the corner and hopped up on it. The grating covering the shaft even had quick release catches. In seconds, I dropped it to the table.
I cupped my hands and bent over. “You first.”
“Don’t be stupid, Matt. The bodyguard goes second.”
“You stopped being my bodyguard when you became my wife. And you’re the one being stupid.” Michelle bristled at that, but didn’t interrupt me. “You’re smaller and less likely to get stuck in the shaft. And you’re better prepared to rescue me if I get caught than I am to rescue you if you get caught.”
I bent over again, hands still cupped. Michelle stepped into my hands and I boosted her into the shaft. She wriggled out of sight and then called for me to join her. I jumped up, grabbed the edge of the shaft, and began pulling myself up.
Behind me, the locked beeped again and the door slid open.
“Catch that bastard before he gets into the air shaft,” Nancy ordered.
Michelle looked back, eyes wide and fearful. I waved her on and whispered fiercely, “Go! Find me later.”
Then hands grabbed my legs and dragged me down.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Truth Comes Out
I crashed onto the table, my breath going out in a whoosh. As I gasped for air, hands grabbed my coveralls and hauled me off the table. A fist drove into my stomach, forcing out the little air I’d managed to draw into my lungs.
Then Flight Commander Nancy got into my face. “I cannot believe how stupid you are, George. What were you thinking?”
I only stayed up because two of Nancy’s flight team held me up. I gave the only answer I could—ragged gasps for breath.
Nancy cupped an ear as if trying to hear something quiet. “What was that, George? I didn’t catch it. Could you say that again?”
Through my struggle to breathe, I tried to form words. “May.” Gasp. “King.” Gasp. “Miss.” Gasp. “Take.”
“You finally figured that out, did you George?” Nancy shook her head in disgust. “Typical. Guys like you are all smooth when they’re working on some innocent little girl, but-”
I shook my head emphatically. “You.”
“Me?” Nancy’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I’m the one making the mistake?”
Still fighting for breath, I nodded.
“Let me guess, the next thing you’re going to tell me is that your name isn’t George?”
I nodded again, almost able to breathe normally again.
“And you expect me to believe a story that stupid? Remember, I’ve seen George’s and Mandy’s ID photos. I could almost accept that you just happen to look a lot like George, but there is no way in hell I’ll believe that your…wife…” Nancy’s face twisted in disgust at the thought, “just happens to look like Mandy.”
Drawing my first good breath in over a minute, I said, “I can explain, but you’ve got to listen to it all and give me a chance to show you proof.”
An expression of mock seriousness on her face, Nancy whispered, “Oh my goodness, you must be a Federation secret agent working on a case of galactic importance. Will you have to kill us after you tell us what’s going on?”
“Now who’s being stupid?”
That question didn’t go over well with Nancy. She slapped me hard. “I think you need to learn some manners.” Nancy looked around at her team. “We’re going to knock a little humility into George and then I think I’ll take Cummings up on his offer.”
I did not like the sound of that—especially the part about Cummings. “What offer?”
“Cummings has a friend who captains a freighter heading to Eridani Station soon. The friend has daughters and says he’ll be happy to take you with him and personally turn you over to Mandy’s father.” Nancy leaned in close. “Just think what her daddy will do to you when he gets his hands on you.”
With a sudden grunt, the man holding my right arm pitched forward, leaving my arm free. A dull, metallic thump sounded behind me. Electricity crackled and I smelled the sharp tang of ozone as the man holding my left arm arched his back and screamed.
Nancy stared over my shoulder in shock. “Mandy? What-?”
I didn’t wait for an invitation to act. Pushing aside an unexpected twinge of guilt, I hit Nancy in the face with a left jab. She stumbled back a step and blood gushed from her nose. I stepped into a right cross and Nancy dropped to the ground. I sensed movement over my head and then Michelle landed a flying kick to the side of the head of one of the two remaining men. He staggered toward me. Grabbing his flight suit, I shoved him into the other man.
Michelle was already charging for the door out of the room. “Let’s go!”
The two men crashed to the ground, with the head-kicked one landing on top. As I chased after Michelle, the remaining woman blocked the door. She struck a fighting stance, obviously thinking she only had to delay us for a few seconds before the others could come to her aid. Michelle dove to the floor and rolled. As she came up, she shoved the stun stick into the woman’s stomach. With a scream, the woman fell to the ground, twitching. Pounding out the door, I paused just long enough to wave my ID chip across the reader, shutting it behind us.
We reached the first intersection where I expected Michelle to turn left, back the way we’d originally come. She turned right and, short of breath for asking questions, I followed. She ducked into the first corridor we came to and pulled up against the wall.
“Why-?” I began.
Michelle put a finger to my lips then pulled out her pad. Calling up the station map, she tapped for directions and surprised me by entering our apartment as the destination. I raised my eyebrows in question, but the sound of footsteps drew our attention.
“We’re almost there, Spitz. Take that hall on the right.” I recognized the voice. It belonged to Fred Cummings, captain of the solar research ship.
“You think we can talk ‘em into giving the guy to us without making ‘em too suspicious?” I didn’t recognize the voice, but Spitz was the name of Cummings’ first officer.
“That’s already taken care of. I told naive Nancy we’d send him to Eridani Station and turn him over to the girl’s father.”
As the voice faded, Michelle and I left our hiding place and followed the directions back to our apartment. We’d taken two turns when we heard Cummings’ cry echo down the corridors.
“What the hell happened in here?”
We took that as our cue to run some more.
We reached the tram safely and, breathing hard, settled in for the ride back to the residence sector.
“That couldn’t have gone any worse.” Michelle’s shoulders slumped with fatigue and dejection.
“I don’t know. It wasn’t all bad.” I took the maintenance pad from Michelle and connected to the network through one of my backdoors.
“Nancy is out to get you. Cummings is out to kill us. And they both know where we live. I don’t see a positive.”
“We found a door neither of us could open.”
Comprehension dawned on Michelle’s face. “I was so busy trying to get away from Nancy, I missed the meaning of that. Every door in the station should open to our new clearance.”
“Exactly. We never had a chance for me to take a pointing, but if we can get through that door…” I left the sentence hanging and concentrated on the pad.
As I expected, Michelle expanded on my speculation. “That still leaves us with a couple of problems—opening that door and staying free long enough to do it.” She bit her lip, gazing at the floor of the tram for a few seconds. “There’s a pretty big vagrant population on the station. Maybe we can hide among them.” She caught me staring at her in surprise and grinned. “That’s the second thing they teach you in Real Security 101, Matt.”
I couldn’t help myself from asking, “What’s the first thing?”
“Where to find the bathrooms in your patrol area.” Eyes twinkling, she leaned over and looked at the pad. “What are you doing in the housing database?”
“Looking for empty apartments. If the situation gets desperate, we can join the vagrants, but that has its own difficulties. I’ll need time to figure out how to get through the door that wouldn’t open and privacy so I can leave my chip tracking program running.”
