Crystal Escape

by Doug J. Cooper

  “Poker,” said Criss.

  “What was that?” asked Tommy.

  “Texas hold’em. Stakes are that you help us.”

  “It’s gotta be a whole game. One hand is blind luck.”

  “Agreed,” said Sid.

  “We play for cash. But for the final prize, you put up ownership of your ship. I’ll match with a guarantee that the whole board of governors will vote on whether we should help with your dilemma.”

  “All we get is a vote? We know now how that will turn out.”

  Tommy smiled. “It is a crummy deal. The table will be you two, me, and the other two governors. You’ll have the whole game to persuade us to help you.”

  Sid clenched his hands into fists and then relaxed them, repeating the action twice more. Criss waited for the display of fury to subside and then nodded to Sid.

  “Done,” said Sid.

  “It’s just you two,” said Tommy. “No others, and especially no synbods. They aren’t welcome here. Understood?”

  “We’ll be there,” said Criss, “and we’ll come alone.”

  When the meeting ended and Tommy’s image had dissolved, Sid looked at Criss. “That didn’t go as I expected.”

  “You notice we didn’t come close to talking about fuel?”

  “Would you be able to take control of the platform for a few days?” asked Sid. “Maybe we can lock everyone in their room until this is over.”

  “It will be difficult, but I will watch for an opportunity. Only half the residents have private rooms. Lots of them sleep in hammocks strung in common areas. Then there is the steady stream of workers heading back and forth from the active mines. The society is very dynamic.”

  Sid slumped back in his chair. “I can’t play poker for shit. You’ll have to win.”

  “I’ll certainly try.”

  Chapter 18

  Sid couldn’t get to sleep thinking about Cheryl. In their downtime before arriving at Aurora, Criss had encouraged him to rest, but his brain was too alive with worry and conjecture for that to be in the cards.

  One issue gnawing at him was the lack of contact they’d had with Lazura. Negotiations require communication. Was fuel really her top priority? What if Criss had misread her? Was Cheryl safe? And Juice?

  And if the situation transitioned from diplomacy to action, he needed a clearer sense of the opposition. Between Vivo and Aurora, he had synbod and human adversaries, but he didn’t know much about them. He didn’t even have a good mental image of the two space structures he’d need to conquer if he started any action.

  He swung his feet to the floor and mulled whether to take sleep meds or give up on rest and take stim meds. Agreeing with Criss that he should sleep when he could, he stretched back across the bed for the sleep meds in the nightstand drawer. As he did, a projected image of Criss appeared at the foot of his bunk.

  “Oh good. You’re awake.”

  “Go,” Sid snapped as he sat upright. He wasn’t telling Criss to leave. He was using shorthand to say, “My patience level is zero. Speak now. Be succinct.”

  “We are close enough to Vivo that I can connect with Chase and Justin. They are being held prisoner in a storeroom on the subdeck. Chase injured himself trying to protect Cheryl.”

  Adrenaline flooded Sid’s veins. “Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know. Chase and Justin are my links inside, but they lost contact with her when they were imprisoned. It will be later tonight before we are close enough for me to connect directly with Cheryl and Juice.”

  “I can’t believe how bad we messed this up,” said Sid, trying to unburden Criss by saying “we” when he meant “you.” Then he dismissed the four-gen. “I’ll see you on the bridge.”

  Criss’s image faded, and Sid got dressed. He’d dismissed Criss because he didn’t want to feel judged for his next action, which was to go to the nightstand and take a packet of stim meds from the drawer. He didn’t need them now, not after that shot of adrenaline. But he suspected he might before this was over.

  As he slid the meds into his pocket, he ignored the fact that, though Criss was no longer present as an image, he still watched from a dozen different vantage points. He always did. But Criss knew the game: he was never to comment on things Sid asked him not to “see.”

  Grabbing a coffee from the food service unit, Sid made his way to the bridge and sat across from Criss.

  “I’m leaning toward going straight to Vivo,” said Sid. “Waiting for them to come to us is just giving extra time for things to go wrong.”

  “We’ll be at Aurora in two hours, and they’ll arrive twenty hours after that. Or we can change course and fly straight to Vivo, which will take about eight hours.”

  “We get to them half a day faster.”

  “That’s just to get there. Then we need to get inside the dome without help from any of our confederates, and do so without putting them at risk.”

  “It sounds like they’re at risk already.”

  Criss raised his finger. “Tommy wants a word.”

  Sid nodded his assent, and a projected image of Tommy appeared, seated with them as before.

  “The other governors want to see your ship before agreeing to a game.”

  “I can project detailed images for you,” said Criss. “I’ll show you the ship inside and out.”

  “No.” Tommy shook his head. “It ain’t real if we don’t touch it. We need a quick walk-through to get a sense of size and amenities.”

  “Of course,” said Sid. “We’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  “And no credit at the game,” said Tommy. “Bring cash.” Tommy suggested an amount equivalent to a year’s salary for a middle-class wage earner on Earth. Neither Sid nor Criss reacted.

  The moment Tommy disappeared, Sid said, “No way I’m going to let them on here.”

  “I understand.”

  “How about a fire?”

  “On Aurora?”

  “Don’t they have evacuation procedures? Could you set off alarms in a way that drives them to one level or a certain area, then block everyone in? Somehow we need to own the deck area when the exchange occurs.”

  “Responders head toward a fire, and in their culture, everyone is a responder.”

  “How about if we let the governors come on board and then take them hostage?” Sid became animated as he reconsidered his earlier position. “Would the miners cooperate to save them?”

  “So we commit a heinous act because they won’t help us stop one?”

  Sid shrugged. “It would be on a much smaller scale. There are only three governors. Lazura has thirty-five people.”

  “But only two you really care about.”

  Sid felt no guilt but changed topics anyway. “Tommy isn’t behaving quite the way Pete said he would.”

  “I do see something bigger than simple greed guiding his actions. What that is, though, I don’t yet know.”

  Sid felt a decision beginning to gel. “We have one shot at this. There isn’t a second space platform if this doesn’t work.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Sid smiled at Criss’s ability to jump ahead in a conversation, here expressing his desire to join Sid on a tour of Aurora.

  “Are you going yourself?” asked Sid, expecting Criss to keep his crystal self on the scout and operate the humanoid body from a distance. He’d be equally present as an intelligence from Sid’s perspective, and it was far less risky for Criss.

  “I’m here so I have the freedom to follow the action wherever it leads. So, yes, I’m going.”

  “No worries,” said Sid, supporting the decision. Then he became practical. “I’ll be carrying.”

  Criss didn’t respond, which was unusual because he always advocated against carrying weapons into settings with significant civilian populations.

  Sid’s thoughts churned, and he changed topics. “I’m glad to see Tommy’s interests still include money. It’s something I understand and can work with.”
/>   “What do we do when the three governors ask to come aboard?” asked Criss.

  “Maybe getting them off the platform will create confusion about lines of authority. It’s something we could exploit.”

  The discussion continued, jumping from topic to topic as they brainstormed. Criss added details and alternatives to the different ideas Sid suggested, but in the end, they both knew they’d be winging it with every step.

  And then it was time.

  Criss had been spoofing Aurora’s nav tech so it appeared as if a large ship approached. “Now we become a shuttlecraft.” As he spoke, he manipulated signals so a small transport vessel—the scout in disguise—appeared to separate from the larger craft.

  “Can Lazura see any of this grand display?” asked Sid as the scout made its way to the hangar bay.

  “No, I’m blocking it,” said Criss. Then he gave a quick smile. “Masking everything in Vivo’s direction takes ten times more resources than it does to create it all for Aurora in the first place.”

  Sid nodded absently, focusing his attention on the sight of the space platform looming outside. He’d approached dozens of large space structures in his life, so he knew that while they can seem toy-like from a distance, they grow by impressive degrees as that distance closes.

  Even so, Sid was surprised by how big it was. Perhaps the simple design that looked like two soup bowls connected face-to-face tricked his eye, because a spot of light on the lip where the two bowls met revealed itself on approach to be a massive hangar with six huge bays, each big enough to hold a large mining spacecraft.

  Criss guided the scout into the only empty bay and followed a pulsing green light to a small ring pad. The moment the nimble craft touched down, the light faded and the pad took on the slate-blue industrial finish of the surrounding deck.

  Clever airlock technology allowed the other bays in the hangar to continue operating under pressure while the scout entered from the vacuum of space. Sid waited for the air to cycle up in their bay, then he lowered the stairs at the back of the scout, moved a few steps down, and viewed for himself the world inside a remote mining platform.

  He could see the other bays from his vantage point, and each held a big mining ship—a beastly spacecraft with external claws and a distended belly to hold ore. Work crews bustled around the craft, unloading rock and servicing the mechanicals before their next trip out to the asteroids.

  In spite of the chaos of activity in the hangar, most workers paused in their labors and craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the scout. Visitors were rare in this remote stretch of the solar system. That made every caller a curiosity.

  “We have company,” said Criss.

  Sid shifted his gaze to see two groups forming on the deck below. One was a squad of six beefy men dressed in black. Each held a weapon in his hands and wore a studied scowl on his face.

  Mercenaries, thought Sid, feeling angst as he assessed them as a unit. The group’s coordination and stance reflected discipline and experience. Sid guessed they were ex-Fleet, and that meant they were dangerous.

  The other was a group of three—a man and two women—dressed in khaki jumpsuits and talking among themselves. Sid identified Tommy Two-Tone as one of the trio and concluded the women were the other two governors of Aurora.

  Sid felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “Ready,” said Criss.

  He responded by hustling down the steps, with Criss following close on his heels.

  Criss’s latest cloak tech allowed the two infiltrators to see and hear each other, but it masked their presence—sights, sounds, and smells—from everyone else. When they reached the deck, they moved in a wide circle around behind the mercenaries, continuing on until they reached the governors.

  They stopped there and looked back at the scout. A lifelike Criss double—in reality a projected image—called from the steps of the craft, “Welcome aboard our shuttle, governors of Aurora.”

  “If this is their shuttle,” said Mira, the taller, fuller-bodied female governor, “the main ship must be amazing.”

  “This is why I never settle on a price until I know what they can afford,” said Tommy. “The question now is do we add one more zero to the price of this deal, or two?”

  “Let’s go find out,” said Mira.

  As the governors started toward the scout, Sid watched the mercenaries. They stood at the ready while the governors climbed the steps. But when the scout’s hatch closed, they lowered their weapons, fell out of formation, and moved as individuals toward the back of the hangar.

  Inside the scout, projected images of Criss and Sid chatted with the governors and took them on a tour of the “shuttle.” They assured the governors that after a short ride, they would reach the enormous mother ship.

  Masterful at projection, Criss would soon have them oohing and ahhing as they walked in a small loop through the tight confines of the scout, while seeing and believing that they walked through a wondrously modern and spacious voyager vessel.

  On Aurora, Sid and Criss jogged to catch up with the mercenaries heading toward the hangar doors. “We have two hours?” asked Sid.

  “At least three. I’ll stretch out their tour as best I can to see if we can get more time.”

  Doors are choke points, and getting through them is always tricky when cloaked. Fortunately, with six men meandering through two doors, Sid and Criss had plenty of opportunity to slip inside the main containment without revealing their presence. Perhaps more important, they made it inside before the hangar bay started to depressurize, which was necessary for the scout to fly the governors to the phantom mother ship.

  Just inside the containment door was a changing room, and on the far wall someone had written “If you’re not mining, processing, or shipping, go home and make room for someone who is.” The door led out to a main passageway, and they ducked into a recess on the far side.

  “This is where we are,” said Criss, pointing to a map graphic he projected for Sid. “And based on what I’ve learned since we entered the containment, you will want to go here.” Criss highlighted a midsized room off the central section of the platform.

  “What have you learned?”

  “That the crew here did a good job of removing all data-gathering systems except for a rare few, and those were designed to mislead. This society is organized, focused, and very criminal.”

  “What kind of criminal enterprise would set up way out here?”

  “Counterfeiters.”

  Sid raised his eyebrows. “Is that something people still do?”

  “You know it is. One reason the Union of Nations still produces hard currency is because they occasionally need the services of a criminal enterprise. Hard currency lets them do business without leaving a record, something the Union wants and the criminals demand. And wherever you have hard currency, you have counterfeiters.”

  “Are they any good at it?”

  “I suspect so, but given the way they manipulate their data feeds, we should see for ourselves.” Criss motioned to the left down the corridor. “The passageways we need to use are crowded. It will be awkward if we bump into anyone.”

  Sid took the lead because he felt comfortable there. Criss guided their path from the rear, projecting arrows—invisible to the other pedestrians—in front of Sid when it was time to turn, and throwing up flashing red balls to warn him of others if he seemed distracted.

  As they made their way toward Aurora’s center, the distinctive aroma assaulted Sid’s nostrils. “It smells like a locker room,” he said, following one of Criss’s arrows around a corner. “Is everyone in on it?”

  “Everyone gets paid in shares, making them part of it and giving them a reason to keep quiet. But the only ones making real money are the governors and their inner circle.”

  “They sold the drive pod fuel. I can feel it.”

  “They did. Tommy and his partners used the money to seed the counterfeiting adventure. It’s a secret the other governors don’t
know. And it was a good gamble, so far anyway. The group makes ten times more from counterfeiting than they make from smuggling purified materials.”

  “I understand now why they don’t want strangers snooping around.”

  Criss stopped and pointed to a door. “This is their forgery shop.” He moved to a nook across the hall, and Sid joined him to wait for someone to enter or exit.

  “How does the company not know about this?”

  “A combination of timid management and bad luck. The employees have challenged management at every turn to distract them. The employees claim they should have autonomy to choose target asteroids and mining methods. They want wages linked to production. They want more privacy and less interference from AI. It goes on and on, and management wants to appear reasonable, so they hold meetings to discuss everyone’s feelings.”

  “What’s the bad luck?”

  “That Tommy Two-Tone ended up out here. Were it not for him, this mining enterprise may well have unfolded the way the corporate analysts had predicted.”

  Criss held up a finger, then moved across the hall and stood to the side near the door. “Here we go.”

  The door slid open and a man exited. Sid followed Criss as he slipped inside.

  Sid didn’t know what he expected, but the setting reminded him more of a reading area than a counterfeiting operation. To the right in the midsized room, four desks were spaced along the wall. Each had a person seated at it, and all seemed to be examining currency piled in front of them.

  A long, narrow table ran along the wall to the left. On it sat a box-shaped device about the size of a food service unit. Instead of dispensing food, though, this one dispensed neat stacks of Union notes. Every few minutes, a person tending the table would carry a stack of notes from the machine over to one of the desks.

  As Sid took in the sights, his thoughts flipped to a nagging concern, one that could derail everything. “Are we sure that Lazura’s top priority is fuel?”

  “It’s what she wants from Aurora, anyway.”

  “Nothing else is important to her?”

  “Delivering her archive to her masters is most important. The fuel is a means to get it there faster.”