by Piers Platt
She made herself smile back. “Will you ask them?”
“I will, I promise. And either way, I’ll be back in six months, at most. Hang in there for me.”
“Sir,” the guard said.
“Yes, coming.” He turned to leave.
“Don’t forget about me,” she called after him.
“Never,” he promised, and then took his seat in the air car. The guard shut the door and Dasi watched as it rose into the sky, heading back to the island, and the waiting shuttle.
9
Through the canopy, the inky black flickered once, twice, and with a final rippling shimmer, the Hurasu exited faster-than-light. Fusoria appeared before them, a blue-grey sphere, mottled with red. Captain Mikolos corrected their course, and then checked his sensors.
“Nothing in orbit. Nothing big, at least.”
“So far, so good,” Paisen noted. A moment later, a number of black dots appeared against the backdrop of the planet, coalescing into a group.
“There are the drones.” She zoomed in on the ship’s forward-looking camera. “They look like Sapient-class orbiters, about thirty of them.”
“We’re being hailed,” Beauceron reported from the rear seats, where he sat wearing a radio headset.
“Send them the distress message,” Paisen told him. Beauceron hit a button on the console next to him.
“Drones are headed this way,” Rath commented.
“Keep heading in,” Paisen told Mikolos. She checked their distance to the drones, then reached over and flipped a switch on the control panel. After a split-second delay, a cluster of counter-drones streaked past the canopy, forming into a tight wedge ahead of the ship.
“Sapient drones are forming up,” Rath said. “Looks like a small box formation in the lead, with the majority behind that in a reserve holding pattern.”
“Okay, be ready on mop-up.”
Rath took hold of the Hurasu’s nose cannon controls, flipping the safety cover off the trigger. In the vacuum ahead, lines of tracer fire extended out from the enemy drones. “Sapients are firing at our counter-drones.”
Through her neural interface, Paisen sent the micro-drones a signal. Explosive charges split each of them into eight separate drones, each just a miniaturized rocket motor with a guidance package. The micro-drones dispersed in a seemingly random fashion, blooming outwards and spreading around the Sapient drones in the lead formation. Then each lit their rocket. With a sudden burst of speed, they converged simultaneously inwards on the larger set of drones in reserve. A series of flashes appeared as the micro-drones found their targets.
“Hit the lead formation, Rath.”
“On it.”
They didn’t hear the cannon firing, but instead felt the ship vibrate as the slugs poured forward. On Rath’s targeting screen, he saw a number of Sapient drones torn apart, but the sudden debris field obscured the rest of the formation.
“Seven still active,” Paisen noted. “They’re coming at us.”
“I’m trying … it’s hard to pick them out against all the background noise.” Rath sent another burst into the formation.
“Four more, closing fast.”
Mikolos glanced sideways at Rath. “Do not let them hit my ship.”
“Two more,” Paisen said. “Okay, got him, get the last—”
Crunch. Pieces of shattered drone rattled against the canopy, scratching it in several spots.
“God damn it,” Mikolos swore.
“Anything critical?” Paisen asked.
Mikolos flipped through several screens at his station. “… no, just some hull damage.”
“Bad? Can we still withstand atmospheric entry?”
“Yes – this craft was built to fly through a meteor shower, we’re fine. But the repair is not going to be cheap.”
“I’m good for it,” Paisen assured him. “Did sensors pick up the platform yet?”
“Yes, it’s …,” Mikolos peered out the canopy, then pointed. “There. On the night side.”
“Good,” Paisen said. “I always preferred night drops. Beauceron, radio report?”
“They stopped hailing us. But sensors are picking up a lot of interstellar traffic.”
“Calling for help,” Rath guessed.
“Well, let’s pay them a visit,” Paisen said. “Captain, if you’ll take us in, I’m going to go suit up. Rath, kick the precision darts out at about sixty thousand feet, that’s their optimal altitude.”
“I know, we will. Go!”
She slipped out of the flight deck, and the door slid shut behind her. Mikolos ran several approach scenarios on his navigation computer, flying wide to avoid the swirling debris from the drone battle. Then he took them in on an aggressive entry envelope, checking the hull diagnostics obsessively as they passed through the upper atmosphere.
“Are we okay?” Rath asked, watching the hull outside the window begin to glow.
“Yes,” Mikolos confirmed. “Temperatures are a little higher than normal, but hull integrity is fine.” He tapped the altimeter meaningfully.
“Eighty-thousand feet, Paisen,” Rath radioed.
“Roger. Level off and open the bay doors,” she replied. “Okay, gentlemen. See you on the surface.”
* * *
Paisen gave her equipment a final visual check, and then stepped off the Hurasu’s rear ramp into the pitch-black night. After a second of tumbling in free-fall, she steadied herself, spreading her arms and legs to better control her descent. Below her, she saw nothing but dark, and even switching to infrared on her visual feed revealed nothing.
Cloud cover. Let’s hope the ceiling isn’t too low over the drop zone.
As she fell, she watched her altitude on her heads-up display. At twenty-three thousand feet, a packet of glowing orange objects ripped past her, hurtling down toward the surface.
There go the kinetic darts.
She passed through a thick layer of clouds seconds later, and when she emerged, the platform revealed itself directly below her, its lights reflecting off the rippling waves. She spotted the darts again, and watched as they homed in on their targets.
Knock, knock …
* * *
Dasi couldn’t sleep. After nearly an hour of tossing and turning in her bunk, she gave up and slipped into a bathrobe and a pair of shoes, quietly let herself out of her room, and then made her way down the hall to the external hatch. The night was cool, and for a second, she considered going back to her room for something warmer, but decided against it. Instead she wrapped the robe tighter around herself and took the metal stairs two at a time until she reached the main deck of the platform.
The sky was cloudy – she could see no stars. She walked past the landing platform and across to the recreation area. The lifeboat that she had stolen, she noted, was back hanging from its winches again. A middle-aged woman was seated at one of the benches along the platform edge, so Dasi hesitated, and then walked closer. She cleared her throat to get the woman’s attention.
The woman turned, surprised, but smiled and shifted over on the bench. “Come join me. As long as you don’t mind me vaping.” She held up a mini-vape, whose tip glowed pink in the night.
Dasi shook her head. “No. But I’m … we’re not supposed to talk.” She sat down and wrapped her arms around her chest.
“Oh, that’s you, huh? Well, whatever,” the woman shrugged. “I don’t see any guards.” She took a long pull on her mini-vape. “I come up here most nights, and it seems like every time I need to add another layer of clothing. I guess we’re headed into the winter season.”
“Maybe,” Dasi agreed.
“Really makes you feel for those kids out there on the island,” the woman noted.
Suddenly, a powerful siren sounded from the platform’s tower. The two women stood up in alarm. Dasi heard the platform’s PA system click on, static humming from the speakers mounted around the platform.
All this just for talking to somebody?!
“Security
personnel to alert status,” a voice announced.
“What’s going on?” the woman asked.
“I don’t know,” Dasi said. “Did they tell you what to do if the alarms go off?”
“No, at Orientation they just covered fire drills and evacuation procedures – lifeboats and stuff.” The woman turned off her vaporizer and tucked it into a pocket on the front of her sweatshirt. “Maybe we should—”
“All personnel proceed immediately to the cafeteria,” the voice ordered. “This is not a drill.”
Dasi and the woman shared a troubled look, and started back through the recreation area. They were halfway across when a high-pitched shriek split the night, and the noise of the sirens was momentarily drowned out by a series of deafening crashes. The platform trembled and Dasi lost her footing, falling forward with a cry of alarm. From her knees, she looked up to see fire pouring out of the platform’s communications tower. To her right, some kind of turret was also burning, and as she watched, its metal base groaned, and the entire structure toppled off the side of the platform, crashing into the waves far below.
“The stairs!” the woman was at Dasi’s elbow, hauling her to her feet. “Come on, we’ve gotta get to the edge of the platform! We’ll take the emergency stairs down.”
They ran, and then scrambled down the narrow staircase.
“The cafeteria’s on Level Two,” Dasi told the woman.
“What level are we on now?” she asked, out of breath.
Dasi looked around, searching for a marker. “Umm … I don’t know.”
She glanced upwards, and over the ocean, noticed something falling. It zipped past her level, but as Dasi watched, a complex geometrical shape expanded out of it, like a flower blooming. The odd shape jerked the object to a halt in mid-air. Then, just as quickly, the shape seemed to dissolve, and the object below it dropped into the water below.
“Did you see that?” Dasi asked.
“What?”
“There, below us – there was a person, with a parachute, I think. But it’s gone.”
“Better tell a guard when we get to the cafeteria,” the woman noted.
They found the cafeteria nearly full when they hurried in, less than a minute later. Dasi looked for a security guard, but she failed to see one. She did spot Bekka talking with several other senior staffers in one corner of the room, but as she walked over, they appeared to reach a decision, and one of the men raised his hand.
“Everyone please take a seat and stop talking,” he shouted.
One of his colleagues intercepted Dasi a second later.
“Please take a seat,” he told her firmly.
Dasi frowned.
Fine, I will.
* * *
Siya Nkosi finished her glass of champagne and a waiter appeared immediately to offer her a fresh flute, the bubbles streaming from a fresh strawberry suspended in the golden liquid. She took the glass, and then surveyed the scene from her patio. In the lower gardens amongst the fountains, a group of guests sat on lounge chairs under sun canopies, listening to a trio composed of an electric harp, an old-style grand piano, and a vocalist. Closer to her mansion, the rest of the party-goers were enjoying the buffet, which was artfully laid out on white silk-covered tables nestled amongst the statues and topiaries of the upper garden. She decided she was not hungry, and started down the marble stairs toward the concert. Her senior butler intercepted her at the bottom, datascroll in hand.
“My apologies, madam, but there’s an urgent matter requiring your attention.”
Nkosi frowned, but took the datascroll he held out to her and activated it with her thumbprint. She scanned the text of the message briefly, her eyes narrowing, but she controlled herself quickly, and gave the butler a tight smile when she finished.
“Thank you. I’ll take the call in my office.”
“Of course.”
She considered removing her high heels to be able to walk faster, but decided immediately against it. Instead, she forced herself to walk calmly back up the stairs, and deliberately made her way across the patio. By the time she was back inside the house, her hemobots had neutralized all of the alcohol in her system, eliminating the mild buzz she had been enjoying. As she rounded the corner into the foyer, her brother grabbed her by the arm.
“Siya,” he said.
“Let go, Efrim,” she told him impatiently.
“Great party, little sister,” he slurred.
She scowled at him with distaste. “You’re drunk. Let go.”
“Where are you going? Are you bailing on your own party?”
“No, of course not. But I have urgent business to attend to.”
“Oh … sounds important.” He rolled his eyes.
“It’s important enough that you couldn’t be trusted with it.”
He looked hurt, but then gathered his wits enough to lash back at her. “You’re a little girl playing at a man’s game. The first and only girl in the family to get to run the family business,” he snorted. “Whatever. Just because you got to run the Guild and I didn’t, doesn’t mean you can push me around.”
She glanced quickly around. “Lower your voice,” she hissed. “Have some discretion, for once in your life.”
“Why did they choose you, anyway?” he asked, ignoring her reprimand. “What’s so special about you?”
“Discretion, dedication, and intelligence,” she told him. “For starters. But most of all, they recognized that I’m the only one left in this family with the balls to run the business effectively.”
She wrenched herself free from his grasp, and strode down the hall into her office, locking the door behind her.
“Open a secure line to Headquarters,” she commanded. The viewscreen on her wall came to life, and several seconds later, an encryption symbol appeared, closely followed by the face of her Chief of Operations.
“Fusoria?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Feykin replied.
“Did you scramble the response team?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“What do we know so far?”
“A modified scout vessel exited faster-than-light travel close to the planet. They sent a distress signal – a diversion, nothing more. Then they neutralized our drone defense network with a fairly sophisticated attack, and entered the atmosphere. We lost contact with the facility soon afterwards.”
“What’s your assessment of the threat?”
“The ship is small – at most, it can carry a platoon-sized element. So we believe it’s a raid, and not a seize-and-hold operation. It’s certainly not Interstellar Police. There’s a chance we’re dealing with an ambitious competitor, looking to deal a blow to our supply chain … but the Crisis Team feels strongly that it’s our rogue contractors, and I have to agree with that estimate.”
“339 and 621?”
“And the detective from Alberon, assuming he’s still aiding them.”
“What’s their play?” Nkosi asked.
“Revenge,” Feykin suggested. “Or perhaps they hope to steal equipment or supplies, or hold our people ransom.”
Nkosi shook her head. “No. I’d believe revenge. More likely they’re simply searching for more information about the Group. And we can’t discount the possibility that they’re viewing this as a recruiting opportunity. How many candidates and trainees are on Fusoria right now?”
“No trainees – the last of them completed Training Phase last week and were flown off-world when we rotated the medical staff out. But there are eight candidates in Selection right now.”
“Where’s 700?” Nkosi asked, changing subjects.
Feykin frowned. “He was on Aleppo, tracking down that astronomer. But that was a while ago.” He checked his computer for several seconds. “Ah, I see what happened. He was on Aleppo during that IT stand-down, when we had the communications outage. He likely tried to report in, but we were rebooting the encryption servers. He hasn’t reported in since then … and it’s been nearly a week. It l
ooks like he’s in transit somewhere.”
Nkosi raised an eyebrow. “Assuming the astronomer helped our rogue contractors locate Fusoria, he would have learned that, as well. He may be en route there now.”
* * *
Mikolos skimmed the Hurasu low over the waves, yanking back on the stick at the last second to pull them up several hundred feet. Rath checked his targeting computer, then let loose a string of cannon shells, which rained down on the air car parked on the platform’s landing pad. Mikolos banked hard and added power, turning away from the platform and dipping back down to the waves. A line of tracer fire followed them away.
“Those looked like small arms,” Rath noted. “All of the anti-air emplacements were on fire or destroyed, from what I could see.”
At his station, Beauceron panned the ship’s rear-facing camera over the platform as it receded from view. “Yes, the emplacements are out of commission. And Rath, you hit the air car, I don’t think it’s operational any more. But we’ve got at least one guard on the upper platform now.”
“Okay,” Rath said. “One more pass.”
They swept in from a different angle this time, and Rath walked his cannon fire carefully along the row of lifeboats lining the edge of the platform, ripping them apart. Rifle rounds clattered off the Hurasu’s hull as they sped away.
“That will have to do,” Rath said. “Too many guards on the platform to risk any more cannon fire.”
“Stay close?” Mikolos asked.
“Yeah. Do a couple more fly-bys – just keep making close passes until we get Paisen’s signal.”
* * *
Paisen hit the water hard, and let her momentum carry her well beneath the surface. As she slowed, she twisted onto her back, peering back up at the waves through her helmet. She could see no evidence of the parachute at the surface, which meant that it had disintegrated as programmed. She shrugged out of the empty harness, found her bearings, and swam over to the nearest pylon. The massive metal cylinder was crusted with marine growth, and in the murky dark it took several seconds to orient herself in relation to the platform.
