Year of the Child

by R L Dean

  On the screen numerous blue and green dots crawled like ants on thin course lines, and four red ones were among them.

  Strindberg went on. "All four are independents, contracted to mine gas in Jupiter's northern polar region. Far enough away to escape the Marshal's fleet, if they leave in time."

  It was here that Alexandria was counting on human nature, or more precisely the nature of miners. UNSEC was as much a problem as a help in out-system, and given a choice to remain locked down here and subjected to an anal probing because the Marshal thought they might know something about Apex officials hiding aliens, or bolt to another drop-off station and maybe find a hauler to carry their ore back to the Moon so they could get paid, well ... it wasn't really a choice. And, eventually the containers would end up back in Alexandria's hands, along with what they contained.

  "The Martian courier is requesting permission to depart," Strindberg suddenly said.

  Alexandria let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and sat stiffly down in the closest seat. "Get them out of here." Now there was nothing to do but wait.

  39 - Mat

  Mat sat on the edge of his rack with his bare feet on the deck, Jupiter's gravity making the act feel normal. The gravity was also making him tired. He sat for a moment, blinking, then his handcomm sounded. It was probably Haydon calling to tell him that the canisters were full. It would be about time. He leaned back and grabbed the handcomm from the strap on the rack's bulkhead and answered it.

  "Hey boss," Haydon said. He was sweating. "Canisters are full, and we are secure."

  "Okay, tell Yuri to get us lined up for drop off. I'll be up in a minute."

  Rinse and repeat, as the saying went. They would drop the canisters off at Ganymede base, then pick up new ones and head back out. Yuri would probably want to stop at the base's bars. Mat's binge had emptied the Sadie's stock of alcohol and after the depot the Russian had started drinking again— heavily. But, the runs were short and Mat wanted to make a couple of more before they took a break.

  "Copy that," Haydon replied and disconnected.

  Mat took a breath, then rubbed his face with one hand and stood.

  In the galley he heated a coffee, then headed down to the Flight deck. When he pushed the hatch open Haydon and Yuri were having a heated discussion on aliens, or something along those lines.

  "... Drake's Equation tells us that there are more planets in the galaxy than stars. You have to believe something is out there. Apex could have found proof. Why the no-fly zone? They are hiding something."

  "Yuri, they're a big company, so yeah, they're hiding something. But the only thing out there is gas and rock." Haydon's voice was still strong, so they hadn't been at it long.

  Mat closed the hatch and glanced at Misaki's station. She was seated at it, studying something on her screen. He took his seat at the command station, sipped his coffee, and called up the Sadie's most recent monitoring and diagnostic reports and started skimming through them.

  "Over a hundred and sixty billion planets ..."

  Yuri went on for another ten minutes with Haydon grunting and snorting in reply, until Mat finished his review and told the contentious pilot to start burning for the base. For the next thirty minutes the gravity of heavy thrust kept talking to a minimum. Mat let his head push back into his seat, closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the ship in flight— a trick to help regulate his breathing against the imposing gravity.

  He heard Yuri's comm sound an incoming call, but didn't think anything of it.

  "This is the independent mining vessel, Sadie, receiving your hail," Yuri said.

  Yuri had the volume turned down but Mat opened his eyes when he suddenly heard angry tones.

  "Stand by," Yuri said, then turned to him, his eyes wide. "Mat, it is a UN Police Force detective, he wants to talk to you."

  He felt his heart speed up, laboring in his chest against the gravity.

  "Boss, play it cool," Haydon said. "There's no reason for a UN cop to be out here."

  Mat took a breath. "Send him to my screen."

  "This is Captain Middleton," he said, forcibly, to the man that appeared on his screen. He was a brute, his face reminded Mat of a Neanderthal that had been in a fight, and lost.

  "Captain, I'm Lieutenant Takahashi attached to the Butte UN Police Department, Criminal Investigations division."

  "Okay. What do you want, lieutenant?" The false bravado in his voice wouldn't fool a detective, but Mat wasn't about to show fear. That would be more suspicious.

  "I'm investigating a case on Butte that I think you might be able to help me with. I need to come aboard and ask a few questions," Takahashi replied.

  Come aboard ...

  "I see." Mat said. He wanted to appear decisive, but he took a breath and blinked. He needed to think. "We don't have a lot of space over here ..."

  "It's just me," the lieutenant replied. His lips stretched into a thin smile, adding to his fierce proto-human glare.

  "Alright. We're on a schedule," he said. "Send your credentials over and I'll talk to my pilot."

  He flipped the comm channel to standby and Haydon immediately said, "He's being vague."

  "Maybe he knows about the depot," Yuri said.

  Haydon shook his head. "I don't think so. He's hitched a ride out here on a miner, not an Orion corvette ... and why isn't he shoving a warrant in our faces?"

  Mat crossed his arms and stared at the still image of the ugly detective on his screen. His secrets were piling up. The question was, which one was the lieutenant here to expose?

  "Face it now, or face it later?" He asked himself. Misaki must have heard him, because she responded, "He won't find anything in the logs."

  "Later is better," Yuri said. "Much later."

  Haydon turned in his seat and looked at Mat. "This is not something we can run from, boss. Besides, he's fishing, that's all. About what is anybody's guess, but he doesn't have anything on us."

  Yuri muttered something in Russian.

  Mat made up his mind, tapped his screen and glanced at Takahashi's credentials— the Sadie's systems flashing that the UN encryption key was valid— then he resumed the call.

  "Alright, detective," he told the man. "My pilot will setup the rendezvous."

  Yuri initiated the maneuvers that would put the Sadie on course to meet the detective's ship, and Mat stared at his screen of monitoring reports. Haydon was right, this was not something they could run from. Running would be suspicious, and a suspicious detective would lead to ... problems. Whatever he was investigating— something on Butte, or exposing Mat's secrets— it was best they faced it now.

  They were twenty minutes from rendezvous, his screen now a plot of red dots and course lines, when Yuri suddenly cursed and said, "Kep, I have multiple contacts burning for Ganymede ... UNSEC transponders. At least ten ... more coming in."

  Mat's mind drew a blank, but a sense of foreboding suddenly settled over him like a shroud and he felt compelled, for some reason, to glance in Misaki's direction.

  40 - Tetsuya

  Jupiter was everything. It filled Tetsuya's screen. And on the end of a needle thin line of bright plasma the Sadie was streaking away at just over 4000 kpm, but because of the Biscotti's approach vector Middleton's ship seemed to be at a standstill over the cloudy skies of the gas giant.

  "Almost got it," Cridal said from the cockpit. "We'll match in twenty."

  Tetsuya had been terse and aggressive with Middleton when he spoke with him over the ship's commlink, relying on the weight of his badge and sheer force of will to get the other man to agree to meet with him. The key to cornering someone was surprise and speed, don't give them time to think. It had been a gamble, one that worked.

  The pilot, Yuri Petrov, had answered the call and when Tetsuya announced who he was and demanded to speak with Captain Middleton the Russian had noticeably swallowed. When Middleton appeared on the screen his eyebrows were raised and his dark face was serious. He was surprised. And
when he asked the expected question, what Tetsuya wanted, the sound of his voice was exactly like he imagined it would be. Ever since he saw the footage of the freighter being destroyed by the Sadie's missile he had heard Middleton's voice inside his head, yelling fire.

  Middleton tried to appear calm, controlling his face and voice, but after twenty-two years as a cop all criminals looked like bad actors to him. The man he stared at on the screen was hiding something, something that his conscience was at war with, and it was bleeding through to the surface as nervousness, no matter how hard he worked to mask it.

  "So you gonna arrest somebody when you get over there," Alan asked. Pulling Tetsuya from his death-stare at the screen.

  "I, ah," he began. "Well, this is more of an interview."

  What was he going to do?

  Alan nodded. "I get it. So you can be up close with them. See how they act. That's smart. But I guess you have to be, to be a detective."

  Tetsuya would have chosen the word patience, as the necessary requisite for being a detective.

  "I don't feel so smart," he told Alan, and turned back to the screen. The camera pointing at the Sadie updated and the dot on the end of the trail of fire grew to the size of a fly. He didn't have to see details on the screen to envision Middleton's ship, he spent his time on the courier reviewing the security footage that Control captured while it was docked at Butte. And then he studied the pictures of each crew member, and the footage of them passing through the security checkpoint.

  Tetsuya told Middleton that he was working a case back on Butte, and just wanted to ask a few questions. The look he received from across the thousands of kilometers had been a mix of incredulous and curiosity. Middleton must have wanted to ask why he didn't send a message, if all he wanted was to ask some questions. But he didn't, instead he asked for his credentials. Then Petrov and Cridal talked.

  "Wow," Cridal suddenly said. "There's a lot of ships out there ... heading straight to Ganymede."

  "More miners and haulers looking for work," Alan said from his console seat.

  Cridal shook his head. "No. These are UNSEC patrol cruisers."

  "What?" His brother asked.

  "Yeah, like twenty. Too far out to see on the scopes, but they're coming. I guess the rumors are true."

  Tetsuya's mind tried to grasp what Cridal was saying. Twenty. Patrol cruisers typically didn't travel in fleets. His time in TA taught him that. They did their work in solitary, or in pairs— the amount of space UNSEC was tasked to keep safe was vast. "What rumors?" He asked. What could possibly bring them to Ganymede?

  Alan turned in his seat and looked at Tetsuya and said, "Well you see, Mister Taka." He gesticulated with his hands as he spoke. "Apex has been hiding aliens in that crater the Orions are guarding."

  "Yeah, Apex is gonna take over everything," Cridal added, over his shoulder. "If we let them."

  Tetsuya didn't know what he was expecting, but an alien conspiracy wasn't it.

  "Aliens ..." Tetsuya thought out loud.

  "Right," Alan confirmed. "Aliens. Apex is going to use them, somehow, to overthrow the UN. But, I guess UNSEC found out, and now they're here to stop it."

  Half of Tetsuya's brain tried to keep up with the Biscotti brothers' nonsense while the other half dismissed it out of hand and started asking questions. Why would a fleet of UNSEC patrol cruisers suddenly show up in Ganymede? Was it related to Strindberg's suspicious behavior?

  "Final approach," Cridal said, suddenly. "Glad were out here, and not on that ice ball. UNSEC won't go easy on Apex."

  Alan turned back to his console.

  Tetsuya's screen updated again, and this time he could make out the Sadie's bulging canisters and thruster assembly. There was something about its proximity that made it feel more ... tangible. Butte Control had clearer footage of Middleton's ship, but it wasn't the same. The screen continued to update and Tetsuya saw turrets where one of the canisters would naturally rest against the hull. The freighter that Middleton destroyed came back to mind, then he felt sweat form on his upper lip. Those turrets could just as easily turn on the Biscotti.

  But something told him ... something reaching out across the distance between the Sadie and the Biscotti ... that Middleton wouldn't give the order. Instinct, perhaps. Or, maybe he was simply deluding himself. Realistically he had no connection with Middleton or Misaki, or whoever was controlling things on that ship. There was nothing to say that he wouldn't fire on them. In fact, evidence suggested that he would.

  I'm becoming too emotionally attached, he told himself. I'm blinding myself. He wanted answers— closure— for what? What purpose would it serve? His duty was to report his findings and move on to the next case.

  Well, he had reported his findings. And Bratton, against all reason, had agreed to let him chase Middleton down for what amounted to nothing more than an interview that could have been done by messages. He had left Itsumi alone for this ...

  "Course and speed synced," Cridal said, then glanced at Tetsuya. "Ready?"

  On the screen the Sadie seemed to veer off, then the camera realigned and he was looking at the ship's port side ... slowly getting larger. A light suddenly flickered on, framing the airlock hatch.

  Those menacing turrets were pointed straight ahead. For some reason that made Tetsuya smile. He nodded, unstrapped, and ungracefully pushed out of his seat. Alan did the same, pulling himself along handholds and corners, lightly in the microgravity toward the rear of the ship.

  Alan helped him into the central access tube, floating at the airlock junction and pulling him down by his leg. When they reached the airlock he opened a locker beside it and pulled out a worn vac-suit.

  "You can use our spare," Alan told him, unsealing the back of the vac-suit.

  Tetsuya's heart felt like it was going to pound outside of his chest. Through the airlock and exterior hatch window, across a few meters of cold void, he could see the culmination of his investigation.

  Alan wiggled the suit and said, "Don't worry, it's just to keep the cold off you."

  Tetsuya snapped out of his reverie. "Oh, sorry."

  Vac-suits were something that he, Itsumi, and Kaori had to learn to use when he was transferred to Butte. It was a safety regulation. There were a couple of emergency drills on the transport they took. He turned, allowing Alan to pull the suit around in front of him, then he stepped into it.

  "Releasing vestibule," Cridal said, through the overhead.

  As Alan slipped the helmet over his head, he said, "Don't take too long. Cridal'll start griping about the fuel."

  The Biscotti brothers were not going to turn around and take him back to Ganymede after his conversation with Middleton. No, he had to spend the next week with them aboard the ship while they harvested gases in Jupiter's atmosphere. It was not a pleasant thought, but for the answers on the other end of the extending vestibule he would endure.

  A light flashed on the airlock's control pad and Alan locked the clamp down on the helmet, then gave him a thumbs up.

  Tetsuya took a deep breath as the airlock cycled open. What am I going to say? He asked himself. Why am I really here? He stepped into the airlock and a moment later the hatch closed behind him.

  His suit's external mic picked up the sound of hissing air, then the inside of the airlock turned green and the control pad beside the exterior hatch lit up.

  Tapping the panel he waited for the hatch to open, then grabbed the cable running down the side of the vestibule and pulled himself out. There was a growing nausea in the pit of his stomach, and he kept his eyes forward on the dull metal hatch of the Sadie's airlock.

  Hand over hand he pulled himself along the cable, the sound of his own breathing loud in the helmet. When he was almost to the hatch it slid open soundlessly, revealing the airlock interior, and as he pulled himself inside, through the opposite hatch window he saw a man standing outside the airlock. Haydon James. The former UNSEC soldier medically discharged for Complex PTSD, now Middleton's mechanic. That wa
s all he could learn about the man, his records were sealed by the Office of Military Affairs. From the corridor beyond the airlock James watched him through the window— his eyes steady and his face devoid of expression.

  Tetsuya set his magboots on the deck and waited as the hatch closed behind him, the airlock cycled. When the internal hatch opened he fumbled with the helmet clamps until the seal came loose and then lifted it off his head.

  James was standing a couple of meters inside the corridor, his legs spread apart solidly, one hand resting on the bulkhead, and the other behind his back. He seemed out of place in the coveralls that were so common to miners. What felt right was the fact that the hand behind his back was holding a gun. Tetsuya didn't need to see it to know it.

  They stared at each other across those few meters, Tetsuya's nose flaring at the sudden change in smells from the Biscotti to the Sadie. "You going to shoot me with that gun you're holding?" He asked. "I'm a cop, I transmitted my credentials when I talked to Middleton."

  James dropped the polite facade and leveled his arm at his side, the pistol was military issue. How apropos, Tetsuya thought. Then the ex-soldier shrugged and said, "Those things can be faked."

  Tetsuya licked his lips. "Yeah, I'm learning that. Look, I'm not here to ... I just want answers. That's all ..."

  What did he want, really? Was this a legitimate police investigation? This is what happens when a detective becomes emotionally involved with a case.

  "Answers. Is that a fact?" James asked, tilting his head slightly and frowning.

  Tetsuya sighed. He was standing in the Sadie's airlock with no warrant and no clear purpose ... nothing tangible that he could explain to Middleton's muscle man.

  He held his arms out at his sides. "I just want to talk."

  James seemed to mull it over, his frown deepening, then he asked, "You carrying?"

  He nodded slightly, the vac-suit's neck restricting him. "My service pistol, inside my vest ... I can't reach it, unless you help me out of this suit."

  "Leave it on," James told him, then stepped out of the way.