by Terry Mixon
Chapter Twenty
A week later, Brad sat in the cramped cabin with the rest of the ship’s passengers and watched MOSO growing larger on their small screen. Their little side trip to the asteroid belt had been uneventful.
Considering the amount of trouble the Cadre had caused for him, that was surprising. He’d expected to run into several bounty hunters or pirate ships looking to collect those ten million credits.
“Someone is going to be keeping watch on the approaching ships,” Falcone said. “Our best bet is going to be squawking a different transponder code than the one they expect and docking at one of the smaller substations.”
Brad raised an eyebrow. “Does this ship happen to have more than one transponder code?”
She grinned at him. “As a matter of fact, it does. That’s one of the perks of working with the Commonwealth Investigative Agency. At this very moment, anyone observing us believes that we are a small freight carrier that was last seen leaving Venus three weeks ago.”
“And what if that ship shows up here?” Trista asked.
“It won’t. You see, that ship doesn’t really exist. I put out a tight-beam call to some of the folks I know at the Venus Control Center, and they inserted false data into the record for us. Yet another perk of working with the Commonwealth Investigative Agency.”
Dr. Duvall looked skeptical. “While this is all suitably spy-like, I’m not certain how that’s going to assist us in finding your wandering cargo. Of course, I’m only a simple doctor, so these convoluted plans seem a little silly to me.”
Lisa Simon smiled. “Actually, Doctor, going to the smaller side station is going to assist us in finding the cargo. Or at least maintain our anonymity while we try.
“Everyone who comes into Mars orbit tries to get onto MOSO. It has all the best shops, all the best brokers, and all the juiciest little bits of illegal goods that a criminal would want. The smaller side stations don’t get nearly the same attention as the big boy.
“Of course, that means the smugglers love them and lavish bribes on the controllers here. They’re already trained to look away if they see something odd. I assume you made sure to pay them to look the other way, Kate?”
Falcone nodded. “Absolutely. Once we’re into the system, we can move between stations without drawing undue attention. We won’t be listed as new arrivals, either. I included the creative editing of the logs about us, too.
“We’ll be established individuals with presence in Mars orbit. Of course, I have yet other of our associates that will make certain nothing about us stands out in our electronic footprint. Just in case we need solid credentials.”
Brad shook his head. This was a lot different from what he was used to. Mercenaries never got to change things around and blend in.
Captain Mahdi deftly guided the small courier ship through the relatively heavy traffic of Mars orbit to a small substation about a thousand kilometers away from MOSO. It was roughly the same size as Blackhawk Station but had significantly more ships—both visitors and short-range craft—moving things around.
Brad wasn’t listening in on the communication between Lion and the station, but everything seemed to go well. Captain Mahdi let them know they’d been assigned a dock. Of course, getting to it took them almost an hour because nothing was allowed to move very fast near the station.
Once the ship was docked, they all assembled near the lock. All were dressed in civilian clothes, which thankfully Brad had. He’d been in disguise on Serenity Station, so none of his people wore their customary uniforms.
That had a downside, though. None of them were carrying anything larger than a pistol. As he knew from his last trip, MOSO Security was tough. They’d never tolerate having someone with heavy weapons—which is what they considered rifles and submachine guns—just walking around.
Welcome to the Inner System.
Dr. Duvall would stay with the ship for now. Brad’s treatment had been going well, and his arm had shown marked improvement, but he wasn’t out of the woods yet. No matter what their eventual disguise ended up being, he would need to return to Lion every day.
Inconvenient but necessary.
“So, where are we going first?” he asked Falcone as they stepped onto the station proper.
She was dressed in a rather colorful tunic with dark leggings. To add more flair, she added large gold earrings that dangled almost to her shoulders. They chimed as she walked.
“To meet an old friend,” she said, not bothering to speak softly like he was doing. “He doesn’t live here, but he does a lot of work in Mars orbit. He made a side trip specifically to see if he could help us out.”
Brad took her hint and stopped trying to be furtive. As long as he kept anything he said general enough, he should be fine.
The two of them walked through the station as if they didn’t have a care in the world. It was hard not to stare at everyone around them, looking for Cadre assassins, yet none of the people going about their business seemed to pay them any mind.
Even though he suspected Falcone had never been on this station before, she moved with an easy confidence that indicated that she knew where she was going. It even hinted at familiarity, so no one would assume they were visitors now that they were away from the docks.
Her destination proved to be a small café set into the side of a working-class neighborhood plaza. It was the type of place where locals went to have lunch without paying tourist prices. It was cozy.
Seeing as they weren’t arriving during the normal dining periods, the café was only about a quarter full. As soon as they stepped inside, the scent of something frying in the back made his mouth water.
“I’m told that the po’ boy sandwiches are really good,” Falcone said as she waved at a young man sitting in a booth. “We’ll order some for all three of us and talk while we eat. I’m starving.”
Once she gestured for him to sit to the inside, Brad slid into the booth. The young man they were meeting had faintly reddish hair and pale skin with freckles. He also had a winning smile.
“Kate! It’s so good to see you again. How long has it been? Six months?”
“More like six years,” she said dryly. “Randy Cartwright, meet Brad. Randy used to work with me back when I was stationed at Luna.”
Brad extended his hand across the table and the young man shook it firmly. “I’d say she’s told me so much about you,” Brad said, “but she hasn’t mentioned you at all.”
“Some of us aren’t much for talking about past assignments,” Randy said with a laugh. “Or old friends.”
A waiter showed up and took their order. Randy continued as soon as the man had left.
“I’ve been doing a little checking around since I got your message, Kate. It turns out that something matching your needs is available. Unfortunately, it’s been shipped down to the surface. You’ll have to go and check it out yourself.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s surprising. I figured I’d be able to get what I wanted here in orbit.”
“Not this time. The cargo went down to Olympus Mons three days ago. The good news is, as far as I can tell, it’s still there. I’ll give you the name of the broker who has it in his warehouse. You’ll have to negotiate with him about obtaining it.”
He slid a small data chip across the table. Falcone pocketed it without even glancing around to see who was watching. Brad admired her cool demeanor.
“So, if we want to get down to the surface without any unseemly delays at customs, do you have any recommendations?” she asked.
“It just so happens that I have a lead on a small flyer heading down today. It’s a company job, so you’ll have to work your passage. Customs won’t even look at you.
“Once you’ve completed your work, I should be able to arrange for you to get back up here without any issues.”
She glanced at Brad. “There is one potential complication. My friend here needs to get back to our ship within the next eighteen hours. I won’t bore
you with the reasons, but this is a nonnegotiable deadline.”
The young man considered that. “Depending on how difficult it is to acquire your cargo, that could prove challenging. However, if I drop a little extra into my payment to my friends below, they should be able to accommodate your needs. When are you thinking of heading down?”
“After lunch.”
He pursed his lips. “I think I can make that work, but you’re going to owe me.”
She grinned, showing him her white teeth. “Are we talking credits or dinner?”
He smirked. “Dinner, of course. And, if you have time, perhaps a little dancing. I know a place over on MOSO that’s absolutely divine.”
“We might be able to work something out, but no promises. This is a fairly delicate mission and I have to be cautious about making promises I can’t keep.”
“We’d also like to keep a fairly low profile,” Brad added. “I’ve got some old friends looking for me that I’d rather not know I was here.”
“So I gathered,” Randy said with a small smile. “Don’t worry about that. Discretion is both of my middle names.”
Brad laughed. “How peculiar. It seems that Kate has the same middle names as you do.”
“I blame our mentor. He had peculiar ideas about how we should see the world.”
He glanced at his wrist-comp. “I’d best make a few calls. If you’ll have them wrap my sandwich, I’ll drop back by and pick it up when I’m done. I’ll send Kate the dock number.”
He gave Falcone a steady look. “Be careful. The neighborhood you’ll be wandering around isn’t widely known for its low crime stats.”
“We will,” she assured him. “Any other advice?”
“Don’t dawdle,” he said as he stood. “The longer you’re there, the better the chance that someone will question your presence. If you want your business to remain private, you’ll hurry things along. Good luck.”
Once Randy had left, the server delivered their sandwiches, and the two of them spoke in low tones as they ate.
“Do we know exactly what kind of neighborhood we’re talking about?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Not really, but I can imagine. People fencing stolen goods aren’t likely to live and work in decent neighborhoods. We’re probably talking about one of the slum areas on the surface of Olympus Mons, the city.”
“Have you ever been there?”
“I passed through about five years ago. I wasn’t in the city long, but it’s not a place one forgets. I’m talking about Olympus Mons, the volcano. Impressive doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“I seem to remember reading that it was big.”
“Sure. If by the word you mean monstrously huge. The lava bed around the volcano is so heavy that it deforms the planet’s crust downward about two kilometers at the edges. It’s six hundred kilometers wide and twenty-five kilometers tall. Someone at the highest elevation can’t see the edge of the lava flow, because it’s over the horizon.
“The nested calderas at the center of the volcano are where they located the city. There are six calderas that cover an area about sixty kilometers by eighty. The atmospheric pressure on the shield is twelve percent of Martian standard, which is itself is less than one percent of Earth’s.”
“I see,” he said slowly. “If it’s so high up, even the caldera is probably cold compared to the rest of Mars. It doesn’t seem like a very hospitable place to put a major city.”
“You could say the same thing about the entirety of Mars,” she said with a laugh. “Yet the planet has the second-largest number of humans in the system. Admittedly, there are far fewer than on Earth, but a lot more than one might think.
“Martians tend to build deep. They like domes and underground chambers. That way, everything can remain pressurized and warm. If someone has to go out onto the surface, they tend to keep their business short.
“There are lots of mass-transit tubes under the surface. Walkways, too. Honestly, the surface of the city isn’t where you’ll find the cream of society, which is why I suspect that’s where we’re going to be skulking about.”
Brad took a bite of his catfish po’ boy. It was good. Really good.
They didn’t have a lot of time to waste appreciating the meal, but he enjoyed it anyway. After all, if things followed true to form, the next several days would probably be unpleasant and dangerous.
At best, they’d be breaking into a criminal enterprise, trying to locate where stolen goods were going, who was being paid for them, and what supplies might be going in the other direction.
At worst, the Cadre would find them and there’d be a fight. Here in the Inner System, the criminals would have the heavy weapons while he and his friends were limited to pistols and blades. If that happened, Brad wouldn’t be enjoying many more meals like the one before him now.
They stretched the meal out to a leisurely twenty minutes, and then headed out as soon as she received the dock number. It was time to go down to Mars.
Chapter Twenty-One
Brad discovered that Randy’s idea of working their way down to Mars meant cargo loading. He had no objection to hard work, but portions of the process were somewhat challenging with his reduced dexterity.
Thankfully, Falcone took up the slack. She worked tirelessly at his side, proving that she had more than a passing familiarity with freight.
Once they had the small craft loaded, the pilot told him to strap down near the cargo while he inspected the load.
He grinned at them once he finished. “I sure hope you secured the cargo well. If not, it might shift when we hit atmosphere. That could end up being a mite…heavy.”
“As in we’d be squished,” Brad said with amusement. “No worries. It’s right and tight.”
“As you well know,” Falcone added. “You’re just trying to scare the newbies.”
“Everyone needs hobbies,” the pilot admitted as he headed toward the cockpit. “Depending on how full the traffic pattern is, we should be on the surface in about ninety minutes.”
There must’ve been more traffic above Olympus Mons than the pilot had expected, because it was almost two hours before they touched down.
Brad and Falcone made short work of unloading the cargo and seeing it loaded into the transports. The spaceport was inside a massive dome nestled against the wall of the caldera—or so Falcone told him—so the area was fully pressurized.
Once the trucks were on their way, Falcone led him away from the loading zone. They walked through common areas used by employees from a number of different cargo companies, dodging powered lifts moving crates most of the way.
Only once they were clear of the landing area did she slow down and consult her wrist-comp.
“Here’s where things get complicated,” she said. “There are several methods of accessing the warehouse we want. If we go through the pressurized zone belowground, there’ll be more people to hide among, but that will also be how they’d expect anyone to come at them.
“Or we can go onto the surface and attempt to access the building from that direction. That means less people but also increases the possibility of booby traps to an almost certainty.”
He considered the options for a moment. “When you say booby trap, exactly how deadly are we talking?”
“Potentially very deadly but probably low-key. They wouldn’t want to get the kind of attention something like explosives would get. As you might imagine, Olympus Mons City, takes decompression risks very seriously. And unless you want to sound like a tourist, just refer to it as ‘the city.’”
“So, we’re talking about something in the nature of guns, monofilament, or electrical discharges. That sort of thing. The question I have is, how much of a rush are we in? I’d rather do the job right rather than do it fast.”
She gave him an odd look. “I’m surprised to hear you say that. Doesn’t the Cadre have your girlfriend?”
“You’re well informed. They do, but I’m not going to rescue her if I’m
dead. I’ve got to balance my desire to rush ahead with enough caution to make sure I reach the finish line.”
“I’d expect nothing less from you,” she said with a nod. “I got the information from Trista, by the way. Not as gossip but as background information.”
“That’s okay, I suppose. I know she doesn’t talk out of school.
“No matter what we do, this job is going to take longer than eighteen hours. Why don’t we plan on scoping the place out and finding ourselves a local room where we can hide? That way, I can head back up tomorrow for my next treatment once we’ve been here half a day.
“If things look promising, we can come back tomorrow with a much better idea of how we’re going to break in and who we will be dealing with. And speaking of dealing with, exactly who owns this import/export business? Someone associated with the Cadre, I assume, but that leaves a lot to the imagination.”
She dug into her pocket and produced the data chip that her friend had given her. “We’ll find out as soon as I get some privacy to read this. Perhaps we should begin by finding a local room that won’t draw any undue attention. I use the comp there to go over the data, and that might give us a better angle of attack on the problem.”
With that in mind, the two of them found a lift.
He eyed the number of buttons on the panel. “Twenty-two floors? Just how deep does the city, go?”
“A lot deeper than twenty-two levels,” she assured him. “Though the city does seem to be getting somewhat restrictive on going down any farther. If you believe the conspiracy theories, they’d found chambers deep in the volcano with strange runes carved all over the walls.”
Brad raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“I did say conspiracy theories,” she said with a grin. “Don’t believe everything you read on SysNet. Anyway, the depth is all dependent on the section of the city you’re in. Someone is always digging deeper below the best parts of the city, and the wealthiest citizens are relocating as they do.
