Star Raider

by Jake Elwood

  Armstrong owned several homes. She was interested in his "country house", a sprawling mansion a thousand kilometers away. "It's where he keeps his art," she explained to them. "He has a priceless collection. It's what we're here to steal."

  In truth she was interested in only one item. According to her research, some six months earlier Armstrong had gone to a fringe world called Bakula to visit an archaeological expedition. He had spent three days with the expedition, and when he'd returned home, he'd changed the insurance policy on his country house to include coverage for an artifact of the Ancients.

  That trip to Bakula must have been significant, because the Armstrong-Noguchi organization had launched a flurry of acquisitions. They'd purchased Arbiter Holdings, the corporation behind the expedition, and several companies that owned real estate on Bakula.

  The CEO of Arbiter Holdings was Lark's father. If the artifact Cassie had stolen from him was truly the cause of the crazy manhunt that swirled around her, then the artifacts they'd unearthed on Bakula had to be more than simply rare collectibles. Cassie had examined the lump of grey metal for hours on end and learned nothing. If she was going to figure out what was really going on, she would need the next piece of the puzzle.

  Armstrong's artifact.

  Not that she mentioned it to the others. She showed them a slightly out-of-date insurance document that described his art collection in detail, and watched their eyes light up with avarice. He had paintings from before the space era on Earth. A sculpture by Diogenes Jones, small enough to be tucked under one arm. Three of the legendary singing stones from New Atlantis. A signed printed copy of The Travels of Max Hannity. Pip Archer's journal, the hand-written original that she'd kept on the first ever interstellar flight.

  "You're dreaming," Tarkin announced when she was done going through the list of loot. He didn't look as if he wanted to believe his own words. "A haul like that will be protected better than the Prime Minister's private bathroom. We'll never get near it."

  "He's well-protected against thugs and knuckle-draggers," Cassie admitted. "Against pros like us? Not so much." That made Tarkin scowl, but it pleased the others. They liked hearing that they were the elite. "We'll set off a thousand alarms when we go in," she continued. "There's no avoiding that. But the isolated location will count for a lot. The best case for police response is eighteen minutes from the first alarm."

  That brought a low whistle from one of the sisters. Eighteen minutes was an eternity for a good thief.

  "Of course, there's not many places to run in the middle of nowhere," Cassie continued. "No crowds to blend into." She looked at Lars. "Your job will be to provide us with a starship. I want to be off-planet by the time our eighteen minutes is up."

  Lars nodded. Cassie turned to Vendredi. "Ven, you and Sam are going to increase our margin for error. There's a communication relay station about five hundred kilometers east of the house. You two are going to destroy the station just before we hit the house."

  The two sisters exchanged suspicious glances.

  "I want you to do it remotely," Cassie said, and watched their frowns smooth out. "I want you there for the actual heist. We'll need gun hands for the guards, and people to haul loot away."

  "Guards?" Tarkin said. "Now you want us murdering guards? This just gets better and better."

  The others were giving him irritated glances, Cassie noted with some satisfaction. If Tarkin was hoping to turn the group against her, he was failing. She gave him a bland smile that showed none of her rising desire to shoot him and dump his body in the grass for crows to pick at. "Robot guards only," she said. "Two for sure. The maximum number is impossible to say, but it will be no more than we can handle."

  She touched a button on the holo tank and brought up a model of the house and surrounding area. It was a sprawling, blocky mansion, three stories high, the only structure in a vast sea of grass. Statues of nymphs and satyrs decorated the front yard. Pillars as thick as hover jeeps supported a vast balcony over the front door. Everything was ornate and overdone, pretending to harken back to Earth before space flight.

  "Tarkin, you'll be providing high cover from a skimmer. I'll need you to get a zap gun, something really powerful. Not something you can pick up from the closest gun shop. Do you think you can handle it?"

  He bristled. "Sure I can!"

  She turned to Lagan. "Your job will be finding us guns and body armor. We'll need stun protection for sure. Probably lasers. Beyond that, there's no way to know for sure. As for weapons, it's zap guns all around. There's no one on the estate but robots."

  "Where's Armstrong?" It was Tarkin, sounding interested in spite of himself.

  "He spends most of his time in Achilleus." The bustling coastal city was over three thousand kilometers away. "He spends a few days a month here." She gestured at the holo. "He brings all his staff out with him, and takes them along when he leaves. I don't think he likes leaving anyone alone with his art."

  "We'll bring in three skimmers," she said. "One for Tarkin on high. One for the rest of us. One for backup." A tap on the holo tank controls played a simple animation. Everyone watched as a pair of skimmers touched down. Four tiny human figures sprang from one skimmer and raced to the house.

  "Forget the doors," she said. "We'll breach the walls in two places. I'll take care of that part." She glanced at Lagan. "Have you used a crater gun?"

  He nodded.

  "We'll have one each," she told him. "Military-grade ammo. A couple of shots should put us through the wall." In the tank, beams of light shot from two of the little figures. Ragged holes appeared in the walls. "We run in," she said. "Split into pairs. One person grabs the loot, the other one watches her back. The artwork is scattered throughout the house. We grab as much as we can in twelve minutes and get out of there." Tiny animated figures ran out through the gaps in the walls and scurried into a skimmer. "We fly north, loop east, and rendezvous with the ship a hundred kilometers out. That should put us beyond detection range of anything at the house. We'll be off-planet before the first responders arrive."

  The holo tank went dark.

  "Everything I've been able to learn about security at the house is loaded in here," she said, tapping the tank. "Go through it at your leisure. Naturally there's no way to know everything. However, this isn't the first dance for any of us. We can handle any surprises." She looked at each of them in turn. "Any questions?"

  Naturally it was Tarkin who spoke. "When are we doing this?"

  "Four days. That should be enough time to gather everything we need, and not enough time for someone to get bored and do something stupid." She looked at the others. "Any other questions?"

  "Yeah." Tarkin again. "What if Armstrong decides to visit his country house in four days?"

  "Then we hold off until he leaves," she said. "I've already planted a little spy cam in the grass. It sends me video squirts once every six hours. We'll check it just before we leave." She tapped the controls on the holo tank, and a distant image of the house appeared. Huge blades of grass waved in the foreground. Nothing else moved. The house was a tiny island of human technology in a vast ocean of grass. "This is, let's see, just under three hours ago." The video faded away. "Feel free to go through the archives. There isn't much to see."

  "This looks like it could almost work," Lars said, and flashed his teeth in a smile. "I'm glad you brought me in on this. Of course, after we've been arrested I might feel differently."

  She wasn't sure quite how to respond to that, so all she said was, "We'll do some live training when the guns arrive. In the meantime, everyone has something to work on. Ven, Sam, you're in cabins Eleven and Twelve."

  The group broke up after that. Tarkin shot her a surly look before stamping off toward his own cabin. Cassie stuck her tongue out at his retreating back, then took a seat at a little table with a view of the grass. Alone at last.

  Five minutes passed while she ran through scenarios and contingencies in her mind.

  "Good morn
ing," said the cabin AI. "You have one incoming message. Would you like to hear it?"

  Cassie looked around. She was alone. Still, she found an ear bud and stuck it in her ear, then said, "Put it through to the bud, please."

  Lark's voice spoke into her ear. "We got a ping, Cassie!" She sounded as excited as if she'd found buried treasure. "Someone looked up information on your bounty. Just now. Let me see…. The time stamp says nine fifty-two."

  Cassie sagged in her chair. The team was barely assembled and already someone was plotting her downfall. "Good work," she said dully. "Do you have any details?"

  "Just a ping on the search terms," Lark said. "Sorry. That's it."

  Roger's listening program was installed on the network uplink in the main resort building. It was the only uplink in more than a hundred kilometers. There was a village nearby, just a handful of stores and a dozen homes. Other than that, the closest human habitations were other resorts, each with its own uplink. It was barely possible that the message had originated from the village, or from a passing flitter.

  Cassie knew the truth, though. Someone on the team had recognized her.

  "Roger."

  "I'm here," he said immediately in her ear.

  "What are the other guests doing?" He would have no trouble hacking into the resort's outdoor security cameras.

  "Lagan is exercising behind his cabin. Vendredi and Samedi are unloading luggage from their skimmer. Lars is out of sight, but there is visible condensation on his windows. I believe he's taking a shower. Tarkin is nowhere in sight. One moment. Lark says she saw him walking toward his cabin. The probability that he is inside is quite high."

  "Make sure she stays out of sight!"

  "Yes, Cassie," the AI said with infinite patience.

  She rose and walked out the front of the cabin. She could see Cabin Ten, fifty meters to her right. Lagan was a dark shape in the front deck, moving gracefully from one yoga pose to another. He didn't look like someone who'd just sent a query to the planetary network. There was no way to be sure, of course. She had to take her best guess and act on it.

  The boardwalk echoed under her boots as she walked to Lagan's cabin. He watched her from knee level, balancing on his palms with the rest of his body suspended over the wooden boardwalk beneath him, then unwound himself and rose. "Clara," he said.

  "I could use your help with something," she said. "There's a cockroach in our cargo bay."

  He lifted his eyebrows.

  "Someone's been sending details of our operation offworld," she lied. "It's not too late to nip this in the bud."

  He was exactly her height, she noted. He gazed into her eyes. "What are you going to do?"

  "The first step is to plug the leak," she said. "I'm pretty sure it's Tarkin."

  "We should scrub the mission," he said.

  "Probably." She grinned. "We're not going to, though. Once Tarkin's taken care of, we'll move the schedule up. They aren't expecting us for four days. We'll hit them tomorrow."

  He looked at her, his expression inscrutable. "All right," he said at last.

  They didn't discuss strategy. She checked the setting on her pistol and walked up the boardwalk to the main resort building. As she headed down the next boardwalk toward Tarkin's cabin, she could see Lagan in the grass, cutting straight across.

  Tarkin was at his window, watching her approach. He came outside as she drew near, folding his arms over his chest. The look he gave her was full of belligerence. "What do you want?"

  She kept walking, closing the distance between them. Every step made the shot more of a sure thing. She kept her body loose and relaxed, her expression bland. She was within a dozen steps when the first crease of suspicion appeared between his eyebrows.

  She drew and fired in one swift motion, the stun bolt hitting his stomach just below his folded arms.

  He should have collapsed. Instead, he let out a bellow and lunged at her.

  She backpedalled, firing another shot into his chest in case he was one of the rare people who could fight through a stun shot. It didn't slow him down, so she snapped shots at his legs, trotting backwards. He was closing quickly as a shot passed between his knees, another shot grazed his thigh, and at last she hit him squarely in the knee.

  The shot had no effect. His stun armor continued all the way down, then. He was almost in grappling range when she tilted the pistol up and shot him in the face.

  He got an arm in the way at the last possible instant. He staggered, cursing, the curses slurred as splash from the stun shot paralyzed one side of his face. Before he could recover, Lagan popped up over the railing and drove a fist into his lowest rib. Tarkin grunted, his arms came down, and Lagan socked him on the back of the neck.

  Tarkin dropped to the boardwalk. He stared up at Cassie, bleary-eyed, as she stood over him. She took careful aim and shot him between the eyes.

  "What now?" Lagan asked. "Do we kill him?"

  Cassie shook her head. "There's a chance he's innocent," she said. "And I don't much want a murder rap hanging over my head." The local cops would work fairly hard to solve a major heist of a prominent citizen. They would work even harder to solve a murder. "Run to the main building, if you don't mind." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Bring me a luggage bot and a shipping crate."

  CHAPTER 17

  The second meeting of the team convened half an hour later. "Tarkin tried to blow the whistle on us," Cassie told the assembled thieves. "He's been taken care of. We go in tomorrow, before anyone can respond. I won't lie to you," she lied. "The job just got more dangerous. We won't have Tarkin's help, we won't have as much time to prepare. I don't think he got a clear message out to anyone who matters, but it's impossible to be certain. But we've got the mini cam in the grass. We'll know if the cops come in to lay a trap. I think we can still pull this off. So. Who's pulling out, and who's still in?"

  The other four looked at each other. Then Samedi said, "How did you take care of Tarkin exactly?"

  "He's in a crate on its way to Newfolk Island." The planet had a completely automated shipping network. No one would hear Tarkin's piteous cries until the crate reached its destination in a couple of days.

  Samedi chuckled. "Well, that will do it, I guess. You've got style, Clara. I'll give you that." She glanced at her sister. "We're still in."

  "There are no guarantees in this business," Lars said. "We never know that it isn't a police trap. We never know that we haven't been betrayed. Never." He took a moment to glare fiercely at the others. "This changes nothing. We will check the camera very carefully before we launch. And we will continue."

  Everyone looked at Lagan. He shrugged. "I recommend we abort," he said. "However, my greed has overwhelmed my good sense. I am in as well."

  "That's great," Cassie said. "Now. Who can get us five good zap guns by tomorrow?"

  A series of crates arrived just after sunrise the next day. They had innocuous labels like "Cat Food" and "Carpets: Small", but one crate contained mesh tunics that would stop lasers and stun shots. Another crate had Omega One zap guns, bulky pistols that could immobilize robots with an electric shock. There was a particle beam shoulder gun for long-range shots and a selection of zap grenades.

  "This should be adequate, unless the number of robots is ridiculous indeed," Lagan said, strapping a gun belt around his hips. He examined a zap gun, then tucked it in the holster. He already had the particle beam gun beside him. Samedi would take the other crater gun.

  "There's still nothing on the camera," Samedi announced. "Lars says he's standing by."

  "I think that's everything," Cassie said. "Don't leave anything behind that you want to keep. We won't be coming back to this place."

  They made a last equipment check and trouped outside. Vendredi and Samedi had already returned their expensive skimmer. There were two larger skimmers parked beside the resort, each one big enough for four thieves and a pile of loot. Everyone boarded one skimmer. The AI in the second skimmer would take off with them an
d accompany them for the trip.

  Cassie sat near the back. She usually preferred to be at the controls, but she didn't want this bunch behind her. She watched them, seeing how they handled pre-mission jitters, and wondered if one of them was a traitor. There had been no more hits on the listening program. Probably it had been Tarkin.

  Please, let it be Tarkin.

  The resort fell away behind them. Lark and Roger were already gone. She'd sent them away within an hour of getting Lark's message. She had reduced her exposure as well as she could. There was nothing left to do but to continue the heist and hope for the best.

  Vendredi was chattering, a steady monologue about her hair and what stress did to it, how she was trying a new regimen of washing her hair only every third day to give the natural oils time to recover. She seemed to be directing the monologue at her sister. Samedi was ignoring every word, sitting with her eyes squeezed shut, her fingers drumming endlessly against her thighs. Lagan looked perfectly relaxed at first glance, but the tiniest hint of a tremble in the toe of his boot showed that he was quietly fidgeting with his toes.

  Cassie, who was tapping her fingers restlessly on the arm of her seat, smiled in grim amusement at these displays of nerves. It seemed like the appropriate level of stress. Everyone was revved up to a high level, but no one was falling apart.

  The team was as ready as they could be.

  The skimmer swept in low across the grass, the backup skimmer a few meters to port. She watched the house loom suddenly ahead, and a thrill of fear ran through her. She was fresh out of time to abandon this mad project. They were all out of time.

  Throughout the cabin the fidgeting and muttering tapered off. Everyone was still and silent for several long seconds, looking wide-eyed at one another as they waited for the action to begin. Lagan picked up the particle gun and cradled it in his hands. Cassie checked her gun belts. Her own pistol was on her right hip, the zap gun on the left. The crater gun was by her feet.