by S F Chapman
Others dealt with the prospect of the unstable megalomaniac in different ways.
It was widely reported yesterday that the citizenry of several cities on Earth and Mars carried out silent mass demonstrations. Most of these events were meant to mourn for the tremendous loss of life, but a few had a more pathetic purpose, that of preparing the residents for the grim likelihood of a long subjugation by the barbaric overlord.
The Prime Minister’s Office in Free City promised to comply with Dimitri Verhovnyi's lurid demands. Most residents of the metropolis however view that cooperation as a vile and cowardly form of capitulation. A noisy demonstration led by Enlightenment Crusaders flared up at the University. The young ne'er-do-wells bemoaned the tragic turn of events as further evidence of the steady decline of the human species.
New Roman authorities for their part have skittishly succumbed to the madman’s ever-escalating ultimatums. At least six large freighters will shortly depart from low Earth orbit bound for the Titan Palace loaded with expensive offerings for the illegitimate despot.
Meanwhile the search and rescue work continues in the vast radioactive dustbin that was once Arusha.
27. Tensions abound “Just stay away from me!” Keira flared.
Lev hastily retreated from the sleeping berth and scurried towards the neutral area of the cockpit where Ryo was busy with the seemingly endless search.
The young man slumped into the Second Mate’s seat and glanced warily back down the passageway towards the apparently now forbidden compartment.
The old Investigator studied his perplexed cohort.
“It was going so well,” Lev shook his head in dismay, “I don’t know what happened.”
“Things should get better. Just leave her alone for a few days,” Ryo muttered. “We’ve all been working far too hard for the last week on this hunt. I know it seems that we’ll be stuck together in this tiny ship forever.”
Lev rubbed his forehead in frustration and stared at the wide sweep radar display, “I hope you’re right.”
• • •
Boz idly watched her work from across the Maintenance Compartment.
Ramesh had proved to be less than worthless, Jana groused as she struggled to wire the magnetic field generator into the tiny sphere.
While she and the two other able-bodied slaves labored nearly continuously to produce the miniature weapons for their impatient and frequently abusive capturers, Ramesh stayed behind in the aft cargo bay with Erik. When he did accompany them to the maintenance compartment, he often haphazardly tampered with the three unfinished devices.
Boz had beaten Ramesh twice in the workshop for his blunders. Now the pirates seemed to prefer that the troublesome grad student remain behind in the cargo compartment.
With luck, Jana realized with some trepidation, she could soon load the finicky antimatter core into the weapons. She still had unanswered questions as to who had produced the design work for the complex devices; certainly not the pirates nor their mysterious employer.
No, she realized with a start, this was the work of a clever Advanced Physicist; probably someone that she knew.
The hatch creaked open.
Jana smiled briefly when the two slaves returned with the tattered old pirate who had watched over them as they scavenged parts elsewhere on the Lightning. Philip held up several vector compilers and Lucas showed off a thick coil of red-sheathed wire.
She nodded her encouragement and the men set the supplies aside.
Both Philip and Lucas had proven to be excellent technicians, producing far better work than the much more experienced Ramesh.
Boz methodically searched the men for contraband.
Jana watched the routine pat down with frustration, with the First Mate’s persistent vigilance, she might never have an opportunity to sabotage the three weapons.
• • •
For several seconds Ryo stared in disbelief at the flashing red incoming message light on the communication panel of the quiet cockpit. ‘Red’ meant someone nearby was attempting to contact them, he recalled doltishly as he contemplated the late night interruption.
He checked the particulars of the unprecedented dispatch; it was a heavily encoded live audio message marked ‘Top Secret for Inspector Trop Only. Biometric Validation Required.’
Who would know that he was loitering around in the Seiran in this obscure sector?
Ryo studied the radar for several seconds: nothing. Apparently the sender was well disguised.
The flashing red light continued to beckon.
He pressed the acknowledge button and slid his fingertips over the interface panel to confirm his identity.
After several seconds, an eerie fluttering hum caused by the profuse encryption filled the cockpit.
“Ryo? Ryo Trop?”
“Trop here. Who is this?”
“Zmuda. Are you alone?”
The old Inspector checked down the passageway. Lev was apparently still asleep in the improvised bunk that he’d cobbled together in the cargo compartment while Keira was slumbering alone in the coveted berth.
“Go ahead Lieutenant.”
“Excellent! We’re about three thousand kilometers above you right now traveling at just over 75 AU/yr!”
Ryo noticed a delay of about two seconds. “How are you managing that speed?”
“Secret new technology. With Kufuzu’s untimely death, the CRAMP has switched all its efforts to Dimitri Verhovnyi.”
The lag time was already noticeably longer.
“A worthy target.”
“You’ll hear soon...that the Inquisitor's Office and the CRAMP...are working together to stop further carnage. Good...luck...with locating...the pirates....”
Zmuda was rapidly slipping out of range.
Ryo smiled at the good news, “Good luck to you too, Lieutenant.”
• • •
After an especially nerve-racking day of loading the volatile antimatter into the three weapons, Jana was in no mood for the travails that were awaiting her when she and the others were rudely shoved back into the aft cargo compartment.
“NO! NO!” Erik screamed at Ramesh. “You tricked me! YOU TRICKED ME!”
The writhing madman flailed indiscriminately at the grad student.
Lucas and Philip seized Erik and pulled him away from Ramesh.
Jana pushed the grad student roughly back towards the outer bulkhead, “What the hell is going on here?”
“He tricked me!” Erik’s voice echoed across the vast compartment.
Ramesh shook his badly scratched face, “It’s nothing, don’t listen to him.”
“He had me design a tau antimatter weapon for him!” Erik shouted.
“What?” Jana stared in horrified disbelief at the grad student.
“He said he built a bomb at the Lab for the pirates!” Erik ranted.
“He’s crazy. Months ago, I told him that I needed help with the research for my dissertation about massive particle annihilations and he put together a rendition of a sample device,” Ramesh smiled disarmingly. “He was my Faculty Advisor, after all.”
“The plans!” Her head pounded with the frightening implications of his apparent duplicity. “How did the friggin’ pirates know about the plans!”
Ramesh had the terrified look of a mischievous child caught after a misdeed had gone terribly wrong. “I was...They were going to pay me,” he stammered, “for the drawings and a working device... Then they stole both of them when they kidnaped us.”
“Hundreds were killed,” she growled like an enraged beast, “the lab was destroyed and we were abducted because you were bribed?”
Ramesh nodded remorsefully.
She shook uncontrollably.
Again and again she bashed him against the unforgiving wall of the chamber.
When it was finally done, Jana hovered over his battered corpse still seething at his self-serving betrayal of humanity.
The hatch creaked open and Boz glared angrily at t
he disturbance in the compartment.
Lucas and Philip cowered far off to the side, both tightly restraining Erik who had watched the lethal pummeling with an odd sort of demented retribution.
The pirate floated across the cell to scrutinize the body.
“What happened here?”
“He fell and bumped his head,” Jana said flatly.
In the zero gravity of the ship, Boz glanced at the bloody remains and laughed at the absurdity of her explanation.
“Nicely done,” the First Mate jeered, “it would have been you or I who eventually did the deed, I’m sure.”
• • •
“...and so those are the weapons systems,” Keira appraised the old Investigator. “In short, we certainly could disable the Butin Belle with this firepower and probably completely destroy it, if need be.”
Ryo nodded to the woman as they drifted back to the cockpit. Blasting willy-nilly at the ship would likely cause the cargo of antimatter to explode and vaporize them as well.
“What have you discovered about the Seiran’s other abilities?”
They floated past the sleeping berth where Lev was loudly snoring.
“It was designed to be a very nimble ship. I’ll show you a fascinating trick.” She settled into the pilot’s seat.
Ryo slipped into the copilot’s chair next to her.
“This controls an anti-detection system that masks us by duplicating the background electromagnetic interference.”
“Impressive.”
“We should be able to get within a few hundred meters of the Butin Belle undetected.”
“Good work, young lady,” Ryo smiled. “Now tell me what’s behind your current difficulties with Lev.”
Her shoulders slumped visibly.
“I really like him,” she whispered sheepishly, “but I just don’t think that Lev will settle down and apply himself sufficiently to ever satisfy me.”
He studied her crestfallen face.
“I think you’re too hard on him. I know that he can be a bit eccentric and promiscuous at times, but he is a good guy.”
“I know,” she confessed. “I think he just reminds me of my far less than perfect parents: all pleasure and no pragmatism.”
Ryo considered her for several seconds before continuing, “It’s not always bad to have a little mischievous fun with those that happen to surround you.”
She stared at him skeptically.
“It’s true, my dear. I had a mate long ago,” Ryo reminisced, “her name was Talya. We were married for a short time about thirty years ago.”
“What happened?”
“I was a busy young Investigator working way too many hours and Talya finally gave up on me when she realized that I wasn’t likely to ever spend those fleeting simple moments with her.”
“That’s sad.”
“It was all the result of my own selfishness and shortsightedness,” Ryo acknowledged, “that I lost someone that I’d hoped to live with forever.”
The woman nodded as she contemplated her own recent intolerance towards Lev.
• • •
She felt surprisingly heroic.
Jana had, only twelve hours earlier, murdered a man and just now she had finally succeeded in very subtly sabotaging the three weapons.
Both had been ridiculously easy, Jana gloated with macabre gratification.
Several days ago she had deduced how to subvert the will of her capturers by depriving them of the devices and any future use of the hazardous tau antimatter, all without harming or casting blame on herself and the other slaves.
When Boz had unexpectedly left her in the maintenance compartment guarded only by the cabin boy, Jana had hastily attached the automatic destruct timers that she had secretly constructed earlier.
It was really quite simple; when the timers shut off the magnetic field that kept the tiny antimatter core safely separated from the ordinary matter casing, the antimatter would swiftly collide with the casing and the ensuing blast would vaporize everything within twenty kilometers.
She had rigged the timers to cycle every 48 hours; if she didn’t reset them manually in that period, the weapons would explode. If her kidnappers launched the devices, they would surely self-destruct long before they could reach any target.
The final spiteful touch to the scheme was the tamper-proofing, Jana mused; any attempt to alter the timers without going through a complex and counterintuitive procedure would set off an explosion.
Boz returned with the others from a scavenging expedition. The cabin boy stared dumbly at the First Mate before departing the workroom.
The pirate drifted over to inspect the progress that she had made during the morning.
“What’s that?” Boz pointed at the doomsday autotrigger.
“It’s just the containment bubble timing cycler,” Jana answered in a contrived huff.
“The first device that your dead friend made for us didn’t have one,” the pirate noted suspiciously.
“I’m sure it was smaller and much more sophisticated,” she evaded.
Jana smiled disarmingly at the First Mate. “We’ve had to make do with the bits and pieces that the boys could find around the ship.”
“Whatever works,” Boz shrugged indifferently.
28. The tip “The first thing that I’m going to do,” Lev wearily reported to his cohorts as they pulled open the hatch of the Seiran and staggered into the landing dock lobby of the Lutetia Asteroid Mining Facility, “is to enjoy a hot shower.”
That particular luxury, Ryo grumbled as he inspected the austere outpost, was mostly likely unavailable at any price.
Several unsavory regulars scattered around the entryway studied the exhausted newcomers. Two showed especially keen interest in Keira as the trio trudged to the visitor’s accommodations checkin.
While they waited for an attendant, Lev laid his head on the dusty countertop and dozed off, Keira stood taciturn and transfixed in the dull and utilitarian surroundings and Ryo drooped achingly from the weeks of frustrating work.
For fifteen bleary days they had endured the numbing tedium of the so far fruitless search for the fugitives. When Ryo discovered Lev repeatedly drifting off while monitoring the wide sweep radar two days ago, the old Investigator realized that his companions required a respite.
Ryo determined that the isolated mining station on Lutetia was the only acceptable facility in the vicinity and the Seiran diverted to the asteroid. As he studied the loitering locals, Ryo was now regretting the selection.
“Hi folks, it’s good to see you.” A heavily scared old man limped to the counter, “We don’t often have visitors.” He eyed the well-outfitted threesome, “At least visitors who aren’t miners. Will you be staying the night?”
“Yes, three rooms for two nights,” Keira answered for the exhausted travelers.
They had agreed beforehand that she would largely speak for the group in her role as a Liaison Officer. Ryo had gone to great lengths beforehand to conceal their identities and the true nature of their mission in the Asteroid Belt.
“That’s quite a ship you have,” the attendant noted as he studied the Seiran through the wide spaceport windows while the dockhands moored the sleek vessel.
Keira nodded halfheartedly, “We’re doing some equipment endurance tests on this new model for the shipyard. It’s really boring work.”
She was carefully sticking to the story that they had repeatedly rehearsed before the landing.
“Way out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Usually we run the tests near the Moon, but with all that’s going on around Earth now, we’re supposed to stay out of everyone’s way.”
“Well this is about as far out of everybody’s way as you can get.”
Ryo nudged Lev and the young man awoke from his impromptu nap.
“Three rooms for two nights,” the attendant handed Keira a payment interface, “that’ll be three hundred Units.”
She forced a smile a
nd slid her fingertips over the device, “300 Standard Units charged to Victoria De Marchi of the Tranquility Shipyards.”
“The rooms are just down the tunnel to the right. If you need anything, Vicky,” the old man winked salaciously at Keira, “I’d be more than happy to help you out.”
• • •
He felt much better, Ryo realized. Nearly twenty hours of sleep had certainly improved his disposition, although he was now ravenously hungry.
The old Investigator wandered out of his minuscule room in search of food and his companions. The swing shift at the mine had apparently just ended and a mob of rowdy and rambunctious workers crowded into the complex from the maze of tunnels below.
After several minutes of bumping and jostling, he made his way to a lunchroom. The demure sign in the front of the workaday eatery suggested the preferred order of services to the patrons: Cards and Food.
While the regulars clustered around the card tables and buffet trays, Ryo studied the establishment. More than a few of the clientele apparently spent most of their money and surplus hours gambling at the well-worn blackjack tables.
He spotted Lev with two other greenhorns at a ‘Three Unit Minimum’ table in a glum corner of the crowded room. His cohort’s dour expression advertised his lack of luck at the pastime. Ryo gestured to the man between hands and Lev nodded. The young man played one more round before giving up on any slim chance of retrieving his lost fortune.
Lev trudged over to an empty table and Ryo joined him with a plate of steamy and entirely too greasy food.
“How did you do at the card table?”
The young man grimaced, “Lost nearly six hundred Units.”
Ryo tentatively prodded an unidentifiable brownish slab on his plate, “It won’t be a problem.” He sampled the dreadful fodder and wisely switched to a more promising pool of lumpy greenish goo, “Remember, ‘Mr. Clawson’ we have a full expense account for this endeavor.”
After several seconds of bewilderment at the use of the unfamiliar name, Lev nodded knowingly, “Oh, that’s right!”
“Where’s Ms Di Marchi?”
