by Robert Culp
“I said ‘no,’” Freddie growls. Wart’s hand pauses, but resumes moving towards me. But now he’s reaching for my face, not my chest. It’s strange how the human mind works. I’m standing in a literal den of thieves. The guy standing in front of me is a filthy arms dealer, a degenerate, and a criminal. The guy standing behind me has his arm wrapped around my body, holding onto my boob. I am almost blind because of the smoke; I can barely hear because of the music. I feel Freddie’s breath on my neck, and whatever the heck that green stain on Wart’s palm is, it’s moving towards my mouth. But I’m not scared. Freddie has my back, so I’m going to be okay. Wart’s finger is millimeters from my lips. I get ready to bite him. But I’m too slow. Freddie’s hand moves to my right shoulder and I’m spinning to my left. I blink and then Freddie isn’t where he was anymore. In the literal blink of an eye, he has Wart’s arm extended in a full arm bar and has spun him into the wall, pinning him there. Wart’s wrist is bent in a direction it wasn’t designed to go. Freddie growls as the others start to move forward. Without thinking I place my hand on my pistol, and someone—I don’t see who—shoots a grazing shot across my arm. Ow! That hurt! I cup my hand over the wound to keep it from bleeding any worse.
Freddie’s lips are curled back in a feral snarl. He looks…well he looks like a rabid dog. “Okay, boys,” he growls, “We’ve all made our statements. Drop my gear over there by the door, I’ll let Wart go and then everybody goes back to whatever—or whoever—they were doing.”
Wart tries to break free but yields to the inevitable outcome. “Do what he says,” he grumbles in defeat.
“Reba, the money is in my back pocket.” That bitch could have killed me! “Reba!” Oh crud, that’s me! I reach into his pocket and pull out a wad of cash. Nice butt! I peel off forty five thousand and throw it into the fetid air. The notes disperse and flutter to the floor. The bikers all start chasing them. I figure they don’t deserve the extra five grand and I impose a five thousand-credit jerk tax. “Now, pick up that duffle and go through the door,” Freddie tells me. I sling the bag over one shoulder. It’s heavy. I can hear and feel the weapons shifting inside it. I stagger through the door. Damned heels! Leave it to a faggot to get something I can’t walk in! Freddie throws Wart at the approaching crowd, turns, snatches the bag from my shoulder, grabs me by the hand and we start running. “We have about twenty seconds.” He says quietly.
My boots clack like crazy. We duck around the next corner half a heartbeat before the shooting starts, but we are out of the line of fire. He takes a second to throw me over his shoulder in a modified Wounded Trooper carry. The mag train is at the platform. So Freddie starts to run. Wart’s buddies are spilling out of the alley. I grab my pistol and throw some suppressive fire at them, but the way Freddie is bouncing me around I can’t aim effectively. Oddly, this would be a great time for my shotgun. Freddie runs onto the train. As the doors close, we see Wart and his cronies pour from the alley. The train moves out of the station, accelerating rapidly. A few rounds ping against the train anyway.
Freddie calls Stan, “We have the bundle,” he tells him. “I got one more pickup at the starport. We’re coming back to the launch first.”
“Roger, we’ll meet you there,” Stan says.
The reality of what has just happened begins to sink in on me. Freddie pockets his perCom and turns to me. “How you doin’, kid?” I just mumble a bit. “Sonia, can you hear me?” Freddie stands in front of me, holding my face in his hands. The bag is on the bench. We’re standing up on the rushing train. He lowers me to the seat. He slaps my cheek, not very softly. My eyes focus on him.
“I’ve never been shot before,” I mumble. “Am I going to die? Isn’t that what happens when you get shot? That’s what happens in the movies, isn’t it? Don’t you get shot and then die?”
He slaps me again. “Stay with me, Princess.” His knife flicks open. He makes two small cuts in the sleeve. He gently peels away the material and exposes the wound. “Oh, please, I’ve gotten wounds worse than that with some of my rowdier boyfriends.” He puts a medi-press bandage on it and gives me two small pink capsules. “Chew one and swallow the other. Count to ten.” The pill sticks in my throat. Freddie hands me a bottle of water. I chew the second one. Mmmm! Cotton Candy! I make it to five and start giggling.
“Can I have two more after these wear off?”
“No, and I think you know why.”
“Please? C’mon, ‘Mad Dog’, you know you want to nail ‘Reba.’” I fix him with as seductive a glare as I can manage. I stand and slide my hands down my torso.
“Sit. Stay. Good bitch.”
Wait a minute, “Where did this bottle of water come from?”
“Someone left it here. Seal was intact. I think.”
I start to laugh. That’s funny! Good drugs!
We get back to the launch. Stan and Needa are there. “Are you okay to get your parts or should one of us go?” Stan asks.
Needa sees the dressing. She tries to roll the sleeve up, but it’s too tight. She tells the boys to show us their backs while I shed the jacket and she examines my wound.
“I’m okay,” I say. “Let me slip my flight suit on over these leathers. I don’t want to give that sweet old man a heart attack.” I had an athletic bra and a tee shirt under my coveralls, I put them on and leave the jacket off.
“Forget him, you almost gave me one,” gripes Stan. I put my boots back on.
Freddie takes off his jacket. He rips the sleeves off his tee shirt and dons a cap. Oddly, it does quite a bit to change his appearance unless someone is looking very closely. He and I go back to the one shop without a delivery option. The parts are ready. Freddie rents us a small cart to move them on.
As we leave the shop, our perComs beep. It’s Aria. “We are leaving the system in two hours,” she says. “Get wound up and get back here ASAP.”
“Yes ma’am,” Freddie says as he looks at the clock in his perCom then me. “Just in time.”
As we go back to the launch, I start babbling a little bit. I think the drug may be wearing off. “I’m sorry for acting like a…I don’t know, a major wuss maybe?”
“Don’t sweat it. I told you before: I have your back.” He grins and adds, “Granted it’s a little smoother and narrower than I’m accustomed to. And those two lumps you have on the front…” He mimes gagging. I can’t help but smile.
“And how I tried to get more meds from you. Can we keep that between us?”
Freddie scowls at me. “Sonia, what in the nine hells are you talking about?”
“That’s what I needed to hear.” I smile; he winks. My perCom beeps. I have a text message to find Mack as soon as I get back to the ship. I also have a newfound understanding of chemical dependence. As well as compassion for anyone trying to shake it.
We get back to the launch and settle in for the ride to Night Searcher. Once we’re in space I step into the ’fresher and take off the leathers to return them to Freddie.
“Keep them,” he says “I’ll never be able to get the she stink out. And besides, you don’t look half bad in them. For a girl. If it’s bothering you, give me a hundred credits, a cold beer and we’ll call it a day. Besides, they didn’t have those extra holes in them when I entrusted them to you. I’ll never do that again.”
7 BACK ABOARD JUST IN TIME TO LEAVE
The cutter docks without incident. I gather up my personal purchases and ask one of the spacers to get the organizational components down to Engineering. On the way to the LEO, I drop my personal bags by my stateroom. Well, it isn’t on the way, but I doubt the detour is that significant. Hopefully, just opening the door, dropping the bags and walking at a brisk pace to the LEO will eat up the difference. I look in the LEO but Mack isn’t there so I go looking for him and find him in the fabrication shop, doing the last thing I expect of him: Manual labor. Welding, of all things. “You wanted to see me?” I ask.
He pushes his visor to his forehead and looks up from his piece. “Hey,
you’re back.” He points to the pile of new equipment from the shopping trip. The gear made it here before I did. That’s not really a good thing but it doesn’t appear to bother him. “I see you were able to find everything on the list. Great! I want you to start looking at the PeteArmor specs you’ve been able to gather.” The armor Peter Scholnich designed was named for him. “Get familiar with them; once we are in Transit that’s going to be your project, barring the unforeseen.” His eyes cut to the bandage on my arm and his tone hardens a bit. “After you’ve been cleared by the doctor, of course. What in the thousand worlds happened?” I follow his gaze. The drugs are definitely wearing off. It stings now. A lot.
“Oh, this? According to Freddie it’s nothing to get excited about. But I’ll go get another opinion. By the way, I also picked up a book on Peter Scholnich, not so much a biography, more like ‘I knew this guy.’ According to Lady Sarah Collins, he knew your ancestor. I’m hoping it will give me some insight into how his mind worked. You want to read it after me?”
“He did indeed, and yes I would. Sinnair and Scholnich were quite a team under Lord Collins. Those guys blew up more ships and rattled more rafters than anyone in those centuries.”
I raise my eyebrows. “‘Centuries’? Plural?”
“I’m not sure if it was after he mastered his psionic abilities or was named king of the ocean planet, but Lord Collins was able to slow his aging considerably. He lived for at least two hundred years.”
“Wow. Oh, also, I was talking to Freddie. He’s not happy with the interface between the Strike Armor and the high-energy weapons. Might there be a spare set of either or both I can play with or would you rather...?” I get an epiphany. “Hey, I know. Why not fix the problem at the design phase while working on the PeteArmor? Good call, Boss. I’ll get right on it. Are you married to the idea of me starting from PeteArmor or may I start from a clean slate?”
“That wasn’t my idea and you bloody well know it. Keep credit where it belongs. Here endeth the lesson. Get with Aria about access to the tech libraries. She can point you towards a lot of drawings and history that I don’t have the patience to look for. If you want to start clean, that’s fine, but I want to see your work. But remember, the Transit drives are still your top priority.”
“Of course. Those are my babies. Since you insist, I’m off to see the doctor. I’ll be back.”
On the way to the medical bay I send a COM to Aria requesting the clearances and passwords Mack was talking about. She assures me she will take care of it. Within minutes there is a bleep from my perCom. I have some temporary passwords for secure databases that will expire a few hours after initialization. Once we’re in Transit I’ll take care of that.
The more I think about Aria, the more I think of her. To be artificial—well it’s hard to believe she is artificial sometimes. I might look into robotics and the related disciplines. Maybe I can get a job building androids when this gig is over.
Doctor Traynor directs me to pull my arm out of my coveralls so she can look at my wound. She peels off the gauze and looks at it intently. “I know that’s a small graze, but those are the ones that tend to get infected the worst. That was a nice field dressing though, whoever put it on knew what they were doing. I’ll get Needa to give you something a little tidier.” She cleans it a little more than Needa did. But to be fair, Needa didn’t have a medical cabinet to fetch supplies from.
Needa winks at me as she applies the artificial skin. She heard the compliment but didn’t speak up. I can keep a secret too. Dr. Traynor hands me a blister pack containing two weeks of antibiotics and a small tube of artificial skin. “Peel off the artificial skin before every shower and apply it after you’re dry. Unless you think scars are cool of course. If you have your eye on a Trooper he might like it.” She gives me a devilish grin. “When bathing use soap on the wound, but don’t scrub too hard. It’s better if you dab or pat rather than rub. Take three of those pills a day, you might want to take them with meals. They could make for an upset stomach but aren’t known for it. If you have any pain, nonprescription meds should take care of it. But if it doesn’t, stop in and we’ll get you tended to.” She gives me a warm smile. “Now get back to work.” The doctor may be in her late fifties, but she still has the lines of classic beauty.
“Thanks, Doc, I’ll see you around,” I say as I put my arm back in my jumpsuit. I saunter into the corridor and check my perCom. Holy crap! I missed Aria’s call! We have to Transit! I race back to Engineering, yelling, “Make way!” several times. I get my helmet on as Gorb and Mack are finishing up the pre-Transit checks.
“Oh, look who decided to come to work!” Mack says to me over the private circuit.
“Shownya made squeaky noises on deck,” Gorb says with a snicker.
“Yeah, yeah, tease the new girl, make fun of the gunshot victim. Har har hardy har har. You guys are almost as funny as dead fish in the air recirculation system.”
They both start laughing. I’ll have to finish my whine and cheese party later. Aria’s calling from the bridge: “Engineering, Bridge. Report.”
I double-check the board. I look at Mack. He gives me a thumbs up.
“Bridge, Engineering. You are green for Transit,” I report.
“Roger.”
Ten minutes later the Execute button is pushed and the Transit drives roar to life. Between the three of us the post-Execute checks go quickly. Once we’re finished, Mack leaves. Once I get a few seconds I get on my workstation holoCom. I alter the temporary passwords Aria gave me. Hopefully, the I-forgot-my-password hints I set for myself won’t get me in trouble.
Before I realize it, my shift is over. This has been a busy day. And this will be a busy trip. We have several stops to make.
Back in my stateroom, I look into my holoCom and download some manuals to which I am now allowed access. Since my notepad doesn’t have enough available space, I upload them to a portable data reader. Not surprisingly, there’s an overwhelming scarcity of information on Peter Scholnich and even less on PeteArmor. Apparently, he never filed patents on his creations. I won’t make that mistake. If I have some profitable ideas, I intend to profit by them. I do, however, now have complete specifications on the Strike Armor that Freddie and the others wear. It’s time for me to do some reading. I settle down with the book the Lady Collins wrote, a milkshake, and my notepad.
Four days later I have plans and a materials list for what I think is a buildable prototype. Now I dig into the problem of the heavy weapon interface. I see where it is in the specs and it looks like it’s as good as one could… wait a minute. Why did they do that? Maybe if this connected here and here instead of there. I make a few changes in my version. That should be just a little better. I’ve put it off long enough, it’s time to call the boss.
“Mack? Sonia. I can build a prototype of the PeteArmor. You might want to sit down for my parts list. I’m going to need a suit of Class VII Strike Armor, enough Lacior to cover an adult human, twelve class thirty-two servos. I’m going to be increasing the gross weight with approximately four pounds of circuitry and other apparatus and I can fix the heavy weapons interface as well if I add another twenty pounds of miscellaneous parts to the suit, as it exists now. That will of course require beefing up the exoskeleton and the batteries. The good news is I have a formula for a lighter material, which will decrease the net weight. But I stand by the upgrade for the exoskeleton and batteries.” Lacior is a fibrous mesh. It is very light, very strong, very supple, and very expensive. A square meter goes for about what they are paying the Engineering department for this trip, maybe twice. “You still with me, Boss?”
“Wow,” he finally answers. “Okay, I’ll have a suit of Strike Armor sent to workshop two. The Lacior won’t be a problem. Well, it won’t be your problem. I’ll have to get the Old Man’s approval for that kind of expense. So don’t use any you don’t need and don’t waste a nanogram of it. Unfortunately, I don’t have any spare hands I can detail to you so not only are yo
u building it in your spare time, but also you’re doing it solo. The good news is you won’t have to share accolades with anyone. If that helps?”
“It doesn’t hurt. That’s about as good as I can ask.”
Mack puts on his fatherly face. “Take care that you don’t spend too much time or money in the workshop. All work and no play makes Jane a royal pain in the ass.”
“It’s either work in the shop or fend off would-be suitors with sticks. Anyway, it keeps me occupied. Thanks again. MacTaggert out.”
Just looking at this, Scholnich must have been praising his Creator every day. There is no way he could have done what he did without a multi-trillionaire funding him. I probably should have told Mack that I’m going to need a lot of Lacior. “Experimentation” will certainly be the word of the day.
It’s time for another call. “Hi Freddie, Sonia. Remember you were telling me about the problem you were having with the heavy weapons interface and your Strike Armor?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“So, when can we get together for you to tell me how what you want is different from what you have? And who’s your boss? ‘Platoon sergeant’ I think you call them. So I’ll know whose toes I’m stepping on.”
“Right now, it’s me. Mel took leave at Saxon. You may get to meet her when we pick her up on the way back. I’m sending you the spec for the targeting reticles. They’re individual equipment, so in theory, once the reticle is zeroed to the Trooper, the weapons shouldn’t need boresighting. But they always do. Meet me in the Commons about 2130 and we’ll talk more.”
“Thanks, bud. Y’know for a pillow biter, you’re okay.”
