Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars

by Melisse Aires

  She nodded. "Smuggling."

  "They don’t see it as smuggling. It’s a trade opportunity, is all."

  She didn’t know much about the GPR—the Galactic People’s Republic—just that it was another human political system, smaller than the Confederacy, with different values and cultures. As she understood it, they’d broken away from the Confederacy for some reason. There did seem to be a trading opportunity. But it still didn’t ring true.

  "But a military grade InfoDroid? It seems like overkill to me."

  Sean leaned toward her over the bench, his breath wafting beer.

  "They’re astonished anyone can ‘crack’ it. They didn’t think it was possible."

  "Oh, goody. I don’t need to be patted on the head, Sean."

  He was a good engineer himself, one of the best but she was better. And not just because she could work with Ptorix systems—which he couldn’t.

  "It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? They want the authorities to think all they’re doing is mining, so anyone examining the system will see what they want them to see. The mountain graphic that shows the mining operation only; and inventory for mining and so on. So you integrate the Ptorix systems to run the mine itself, and build the additional systems to hide what they’re really doing."

  "Sure. Understood. But—"

  Sean waved a hand, irritated.

  "Van Tongeren says that the Confederacy Fleet enforces trade restrictions. If they turn up, that’s what they’ll have. And they don’t see it as smuggling to provide people with necessities, but the Confederacy has its own opinions on those matters and it has the military clout to try to shove its values down their throats. Why do you care? You usually see these things as a fun challenge."

  She sighed. She was enjoying the challenge. But she didn’t like this place, didn’t like van Tongeren, didn’t like these lewd, crude miners and their attitude to women. Oh, well. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could go home. She started to stand.

  "How’s your boyfriend?"

  "What?"

  "Korns, that fellow you were seeing."

  She pushed down the little pang of guilt. Of course he would have known. But it was none of his business. "He’s gone. He had to leave very suddenly. His mother took very ill. And anyway, he wasn’t my boyfriend, just somebody I had a drink with a few times." He hadn’t even said goodbye, just left a message on her comlink. She felt more than a little hurt but it wasn’t his fault.

  Sean grabbed her hand.

  "Ally… why don’t you move back in with me? You really are the only one I love. We were good together, Ally."

  She stared at him. They had been. For the first few years it had been great. Great sex, fun writing clever software.

  "Come on, Ally. I miss you." His hazel eyes pleaded.

  "What about the barmaid? Or did you fancy a threesome?"

  His eyes sparkled. "Would you?"

  "Oh…" She snatched her hand away. The very thought disgusted her. "Have a good time, Sean."

  Ignoring his protest that he was only joking, she stormed off, back toward the mine, her boots ringing on the pavement. Her pace slowed as the anger drained. Now she thought about it, he must have known it was going to be a military grade InfoDroid. His explanation about the military was there, off pat. He could say what he liked; the whole set-up bothered her and she didn’t like the notion of being used to do something illegal.

  Back in her room she logged into the security system. If she was going to go exploring on her own, she’d better cover her tracks. The human resources system held data about all the workers and the sensors could be used to show each individual’s location within the mine using personal recognition algorithms as well as ID. The miners probably didn’t know how the security really worked. It meant leaving your ID somewhere wasn’t going to be enough to fool the system. In fact, anybody not wearing an ID generated an alarm in the control room and their name was displayed.

  By the time she’d finished, she could select a point where the IS would report her to be, such as the control room, her own room or anywhere else, regardless of where she really was, or she could elect not to be shown on the system at all.

  Next were the visuals, the cameras that recorded activity. It took a little longer, but Allysha was proud of her work, disappointed she wouldn’t be showing it to anybody. When the IS received the data from the cameras, if she had activated the tracking system functions she’d built, her image would be replaced with whatever the background was.

  One final chore. The main drive was permanently lit but most of the other tunnels used motion detectors so that the lights would only turn on when required. She programmed the lights the same as the cameras, so they wouldn’t switch on if she wanted to be invisible. A torch turned down to almost nothing would give her enough illumination.

  Good job, well done. She could make herself invisible in the mine. Unless she bumped into somebody. If nobody was going to tell her what they were up to, she’d find out for herself.

  Saahren paced through the tunnels, following the route mapped on the tablet he carried. He walked down a gradual slope toward the gleam of natural light. The gate, built of heavy-duty material capable of taking an electrical charge, fitted the opening almost exactly. The jungle loomed, dense and dark and steaming, maybe five meters away, beyond a cleared space that must have been regularly maintained. The damp heat prickled against his hands and face even here under the rock wall. Were they claw-marks he spied in the ground, gouges in the earth? They hadn’t been there yesterday. Ludovic did mention they encouraged the karteks, but why anybody would want to go out there was difficult to understand. He checked the locks and moved on.

  Next stop, the warehouses. Racks held protective clothing, helmets, boots, shirts and jackets, sonic picks, spare parts for diggers, utensils, medical packs and all the other pieces of material needed to run a mine. The explosives were stored in a separate, locked compartment but it wasn’t secret. He gave the racks a cursory inspection in case anything had been added overnight, then moved onto the hangar where they landed supplies. Nothing to see there, either.

  But if this was all legitimate, why was a military InfoDroid here?

  When he’d finished his round he returned to the control room. His heart leapt. She was there, Miss Marten, sitting at a table with her back to the door, oblivious to any comings and goings. He hadn’t seen her since that first fleeting glimpse yesterday. There had to be some way he could meet her.

  He leaned his chin on his fist and kept half an eye on the arc of ten control room monitor screens that showed sensor data from a variety of locations. The other eye he kept fixed on the woman working on the computer system.

  She’d activated the InfoDroid and allowed it to attach to the system’s data port but she hadn’t fed it any instructions. She sat at a table, head bent over a small, oblong device. Occasionally, she looked up and stared at the front panel of the control room system with those wonderful eyes.

  What was she doing and more to the point, how? It was virtually impossible to modify systems built by InfoDroids, especially the military versions. And as for cracking their code... Maybe he should just go and ask her. He started to stand when Emment came in. Damn. He sat down again.

  Emment snagged a chair and dragged it over next to Miss Marten. "How’s it going?" he asked, draping his body in the seat.

  She sat up slowly, as if she’d been a long way away and turned her head to look at him. "It’s going well enough. But it will go faster if you leave me in peace."

  The shift manager’s florid face flushed a shade deeper. "Sorry, Miss. It’s just… you know… um."

  She raised a placatory hand "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I understand you’ll want to know what’s happening. Come back here in a couple of hours and I’ll show you what I’ve done so far."

  Emment beamed at her. "Yes, fine. Thanks. I’ll let van Tongeren know."

  She turned back to her work. Saahren cast a glance across the
monitors. He’d make certain he was back from the next rounds in time to see what she was going to show.

  He returned well before the mine manager and the shift manager arrived, keeping an eye on the monitors and her. The two men showed up on schedule, van Tongeren in particular showing an extraordinary level of excitement for first views of a management system. Perhaps there was even more to this than met the eye.

  "Miss Marten. A demonstration already?" van Tongeren said, standing over her.

  Saahren watched her face. She didn’t like that man; not one bit. "Well, I’ve been here nearly two weeks. You’d expect I’d have something to show. Just look at the screen."

  Van Tongeren and Emment pulled up chairs and sat facing the view screen on the wall.

  "This is a test system, of course," she said. "I’ve incorporated the sensors from your new system and the old Ptorix ones in the workings you’re using. See here?" She pointed. "This one’s for intrusions. If I run a simulation…" A location on the graphic began to flash red. "You can zoom in on that and the system will run the diagnostics for you. In fact, I’ll set it up so your IS will do all this and give you results. I’ll be doing that tomorrow as an interactive process with Emment’s people and your Information System’s conversation modules."

  "Impressive," van Tongeren murmured. "And the inventory?"

  "Yes, I’ve started looking at that. As I said, it’s just going to be a matter of interfacing between the two and doing the translation. Then I set up the admin so that the inventory will only show what you want it to.

  "I expect you’ll want to see what happens with the InfoDroid. I’ve programmed it so the system defaults to mine mode if it’s inactive for five minutes. But we can set that value. Now, if I attach the InfoDroid…"

  She turned to the grey sphere and pressed a few buttons. The machine drifted forward and slid a flexible probe into a data port. She directed the InfoDroid’s data analysis to the screen.

  "As you can see, it doesn’t see anything but the mine, as you specified."

  Saahren kept his mouth clamped closed. She’d circumvented a military probe droid. If he hadn’t seen the evidence he wouldn’t have believed it.

  A smile almost split van Tongeren’s thin face. "Brilliant. When do you expect to be finished?"

  "Oh, what with testing and everything, two or three more days. Well within the estimate I originally gave you."

  The manager nodded thoughtfully. "Excellent. Even better than I expected." He rose to his feet. "Why don’t you meet us at the tavern this evening for a celebratory drink?"

  She hesitated and Saahren would have bet she’d like to refuse.

  "I’d like that," Emment said. "Come and have a drink, Miss. You can’t be working all the time."

  "All right. After dinner?"

  "Fine. We’ll meet at the tavern."

  Saahren smiled to himself. He’d bet she wouldn’t stay long. And maybe he’d get a chance to talk to her when she left them.

  Music blared out of the tavern. Saahren strolled inside, noting the players and spectators crowded around the potball tables where two men were in a competition. A peal of raucous laughter rose from the bar. Quite a few people were pissing their pay up against a wall, but then, entertainment was limited here. The few women all seemed to have men wrapped around them. Maybe that was another way to spend your money.

  He bought himself a beer and went outside.

  Emment and van Tongeren had taken a table well away from the door. He sat at another table nearby and fiddled with his glass.

  Miss Marten arrived a few minutes later and sat on a bench opposite the two men. Van Tongeren flicked a hand at the girl behind the bar, who hurried over to take the order. The three of them chatted together for a few moments, remarking on Miss Marten’s hard work in delivering the system so quickly. Emment, it seemed, was delighted to have the job on Tisyphor. Work was scarce on Chollarc, the neighboring system where he came from. The bar maid returned with drinks. Miss Marten had ordered wine. She sipped a little, then set the glass down on the table, turned the stem in her fingers.

  Conversation flagged. She’d drink her wine and leave, then he’d get his chance to talk to her.

  "You have a really different accent. Where’s your home planet, Miss?" Emment said.

  "I’m from Carnessa. A little university town called Shernish."

  That explained the accent, lilting with rolled consonants.

  "Carnessa. That’s one of the Qerran planets isn’t it? Where that massacre happened? Brill or something?" Emment said.

  She jerked upright, staring at the fellow. "Massacre? What massacre?"

  "Hadn’t you heard? It’s on all the news services—has been for the past few days. Confederacy troops are supposed to have gone into a mining settlement there and killed about three thousand Ptorix."

  Her jaw dropped. "I was there, at that settlement, last month. Doing a system," she muttered, so low Saahren had to strain to hear. "Three thousand. That’s pretty well everybody there." She licked her lips, clearly upset. "Why would the Confederacy do something like that?"

  "They say they didn’t." Emment cocked an eyebrow. "Seems a bit unlikely to me." He spread his hands. "I mean, why would they? But the reports say a Fed trooper’s body was found there."

  Her throat worked. "I don’t believe it. Three thousand."

  "Have there been any further developments?" Emment asked van Tongeren. "I haven’t had a chance to see the news today."

  "Oh, it’s still a stand-off." Van Tongeren grinned. "Anxhou’s making aggressive noises about protecting the rights of Ptorix citizens outside the Khophirate, Bloom says he’s done his best by sacking Saahren and the Qerrans are saying leave us alone."

  Saahren could bet on that. The very thought of his dismissal brought the rage back to boiling point. The grand admiral hadn’t wanted to sack him but he’d had no choice. President bloody Bloom had insisted. Fool. The idiot thought appeasement was diplomacy. Ptorix Governor Anxhou would push for any concessions he could get. The Qerrans were the pawns in the middle while the Confederacy and the Khophirate played ‘who’ll blink first’ over their heads.

  "Anxhou’s trying to goad us. He’s got it in for Saahren, I reckon," Emment said. "I’ll bet this is still all about Forenisi. Did you know Anxhou’s son was the admiral in charge of their fleet? Saahren absolutely blasted ‘em; smashed them and sent what was left home in a basket. A great victory, great man. Bloom sacking him was stupid, just stupid." He shook his head, frowning. "He’ll need the Iron Admiral before this is over, mark my words."

  Miss Marten’s eyes narrowed. "The Iron Admiral? That’s what you call Saahren?"

  The two men’s eyes widened. He was surprised, himself. His nickname was well known in the Confederacy.

  "Do you know what the Tors call him? Chohzu." She said the word as a Ptorix would, hissing the sibilants, her lip curled, nostrils flared, contemptuous. "In Ptorix mythology Chohzu is the great enemy, the demon who rains down wanton destruction from the heavens. Fire, famine, disease—the whole gamut. That’s what they call Saahren. Chohzu the destroyer. Billions of Tors died at Jossur. Billions."

  Emment’s face creased into a disgusted frown. "Look, lady, let’s not be too cozy about this. Plenty of humans have been murdered, too. Before Forenisi, they took over two star systems humans had colonized, threw out anyone that survived the bombardment and put Ptorix settlers there. Just as well Admiral Saahren had the balls to fight back or the same thing would’ve happened at Forenisi."

  "You mean Lex and Scrivenour?" she asked.

  He nodded.

  "That’s not what I heard." She thrust over the table toward him, finger jabbing. "I heard those worlds were returned to the Khophirate. Returned!"

  "Well, you heard wrong." Emment sat back, arms folded, glowering.

  "Come on, folks," said van Tongeren smoothly. "It’s all history and it’s too hot for all that aggravation."

  "You’re probably right. Thanks for the drink. Se
e you later." She practically leapt to her feet and stormed off, leaving the two men to trade incredulous looks.

  Saahren drained his beer and stood. Well, that had certainly given him plenty to think about. He knew about the Ptorix nickname, too. But he hadn’t expected her to equate him with a Ptorix demon. She didn’t like Admiral Saahren at all. He wondered why. Sure, billions had died at Jossur but it was a battle in a time of war.

  "Want to buy me a drink, darling?"

  He stared down at the same girl who’d been on the shuttle he’d arrived on, registering the purple lipstick, painted eyes, deep cleavage. Cheap perfume emanated from her like a cloud, apparent even over the smell of beer. "I’ve got to go."

  He tried to step past her but she hooked her arm around his, her voice a semblance of a husky purr. "I’ve been wanting to get to know you better."

  "No. Really." He disengaged himself as gently as he could. Miss Marten was a retreating figure, almost past the houses on her way back to the mine.

  "Not good enough for yer, eh?" The nasal Chollarci accent replaced the purr.

  He didn’t even answer her as he jogged down the road after Miss Marten.

  A man came out to meet her. Don’t tell me she has a boyfriend? His heart sank. But she didn’t seem to be happy. He heard ‘leave me alone’.

  Fury boiling in his gut, he ran.

  The miner had one arm hooked around her waist and the other gripped her head as he tried to kiss her. She kicked and struggled, trying to pull away from him. Saahren grabbed the fellow’s collar and ripped him away.

  The miner wheeled, snarling, "Keep out of this," and flung a punch.

  Good. Saahren dodged and jabbed his fist into the man’s face. The crunch of bone was very satisfying but not enough. He followed through with a savage, rounded punch to the side of the jaw that spun his foe around and dumped him in the soft ground at the side of the road.

  He turned back to her. "Are you all right?" He was panting, more from anger than from the brief exercise.

  She stared at him, green eyes wide, one hand clutching her torn shirt. "Yes. Thank you."