And I hated surprises.
At an odd moment, when I should have been grabbing more sleep, I went over Genness’ data from the passive sensors. There wasn’t much to it, but with some old formulas I still had in my wristcomp from Gunnery class, I was able to roughly calculate the bogey’s size based on the reaction mass they used to adjust course – just a few quick puffs from their attitude thrusters here and there, but it was enough to get an impression of a ship that was roughly half again as massive as DAME MINNIE.
That was doable. Maybe.
We had to perform a one-eighty before we crossed their trail, then we held our breaths and braked hard, hoping for all we were worth that the drive exhaust, now facing away from the bogey in the other direction, was precooled enough to go unnoticed as it spread. I had them on a missile lock the entire way, based on the nearly ghostlike data from our passives, and finally picked them up on light amplified opticals as we crossed by. I didn’t know the type, but it vaguely matched the profile in DAME MINNIE’s database of an old Churchspace trader called a Maccarri. It was listed as having a moderately large cargo bay for vessels of its mass, but this had to have been a different model, because the Maccarri wasn’t supposed to have a dorsal docking platform – a dock currently hosting a tiny vessel I couldn’t resolve well enough to really see, but which was more diminutive than any useful cargo shuttle I’d ever heard of. There were other differences, too, but they seemed more like upgrades: the stealth suite, of course; port and starboard external pods, which suspiciously resembled fighter-style weapon bays; a bigger starjump array than I would have expected – implying an extended FTL range; and a ramped-up sensor suite, including what could only have been a military-class tracking dish in the bow. If they popped on their active sensors, we’d never be able to shake them.
As pirates went, she was small – but she looked mean as a hornet.
To give him his due, Bayern handled our Bechel like he was born to it. The man really had talent after all. We were approximately eighty-five kilometers ahead, and twenty or so below the Maccarri, and we were matched in velocity. Our two bow tubes were facing them, and I took the liberty to return power to my targeting comps, which were tied into the sensor feed. If those pods held energy weapons, we’d never know about it in time to do anything, but missiles would give us a heads-up of about twelve seconds.
I had a pretty good autofiring program on a datacube I owned – something a real comphead I worked under, several jobs before, had written. I’d never had any need to use it, but it simmed well. I plugged it in now, debugged the interface, and let it run. If they fired first, we’d at least be able to retaliate in kind. That could be important if they missed for some reason. It could also be set to fire at a specified time, or if they brought up main drives, or really, any trigger at all. I put in a short list of behaviors that would seem threatening under the circumstances, just to give us a little attack redundancy. If both Bayern and I failed to act, DAME MINNIE would still get her two shots in. What can I say? I’m a sore loser.
After an hour it seemed likely that we hadn’t been noticed. We held another meeting just to make sure we all understood our jobs. We let Bayern give us a pep talk, which boosted his morale anyway, and then got started. Sally and I suited up again and clipped into a couple of scoots. I carried the shape charges, while Sally brought along a bag with a variety of tools; and we each had a rifle secured carefully to the tops of our environmental packs. Extra ammo we carried in belt pouches.
We had nearly a hundred kilometers of open space to cross. Scoots are meant for bopping around the outside hull, not for actually travelling anywhere. They’d be capable of it, certainly, since we wouldn’t be running under constant acceleration, but they were hardly luxurious: just a foldable tube frame that you buckled yourself into, with a little digital control on the front, and a main thruster on the back. There were other, tiny nozzles all over the frame, too. Scoots weren’t fast, or even especially safe, but they were agile.
We’d reconnected comm for Genness, who would be monitoring us the whole time, and said goodbye to any Plan-B that might have been lurking in the background – along with the last of our power. We shifted to a channel Genness said wasn’t likely to be monitored, even by an auto-system: he set up comm going back and forth in one rotating modulation, while piping realtime data to us from the boat’s sensors on another. Then we waved to our shipmates, stepped into the port airlock, and cycled. In three minutes we were in open space.
“What are the odds, Ejoq, that they’ll have proximity sensors or external cameras running?” Sally asked almost immediately, sounding like she’d only thought of it now and was suddenly terrified.
“Well, if they’re really intent on ambushing PONTE,” I answered, “they won’t have any actives running at all, even prox. We’re not hot enough to show up on passives until we’re really close, and we’ll be coming up on their aft, directly through their thruster exhaust trail, so we might not register at all. As for cameras…well, those are usually just used for docking purposes: pretty much only the pilot on duty during berthing sequences ever looks at them, and then only to make sure the ship is coming in straight. No one would be watching now.”
She was silent for a moment.
“You have no idea, in other words.”
“Not a one.”
More silence.
“You’re a sphincter, Ejoq!”
“Okay, I guess so, but I’m also right.”
“How do you know? How do you know you’re right?! How many times have you done this, before? Wait, I’ll tell you…zero! Nobody’s ever done this before! You know why? BECAUSE IT CAN’T BE DONE!!!”
“If you want my opinion…” Genness chimed in.
“I already know your opinion,” I shot, maybe more harshly than I should have. “Let us work this out.”
I could hear Sally breathing hard for long moments, then I finally ventured, “Feel better?”
“Yeah….yeah, I think so. This is beyond crazy Ejoq.”
“We can always go back inside, Sally. You call it.”
“Oh, now it’s my decision?! It’s your maternal-mating plan! Are you saying it won’t work now?”
“No, I still think it’ll work, but not if you aren’t committed to it. I need you, Sal. I need everyone. And PONTE needs us. For crying out loud, we’re just a bunch of losers! We’re in a remote corner of a bleak system, in a broken-down boat, and not one of us is getting paid what we’re worth. But PONTE’s going to get hit if we don’t do something. We’re losers, but we have a job here; whether or not DAME MINNIE is up to the challenge, we have to be. This might not work – okay, it probably won’t work – but I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I sat on the sidelines now. We signed up to fight off pirates. If we’re not going to do our jobs, then why do we even have them? Why did we even apply?”
“Because we all needed the work, Ejoq. But we don’t need to die.”
“Dying is sometimes part of our work. Okay, it’s corny, but we put ourselves in harm’s way for a living. If you wanted it safe, you’d have moved planetside somewhere long ago, doing whatever…fixing aircars or waiting tables. We all would have. We fight pirates and we save ships – not always our own; that’s our job.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?” Her voice was strained, harsh. “You have a soldier complex, Ejoq: you want to be a fragging hero, and you want us to go along for the ride!”
This was getting on my nerves. What I really wanted was to concentrate on the situation ahead, and this was not helping.
“Why are we having this conversation now, Sally?”
“Because I’m floating in deep space on a scoot! Because I’m not a Fleetmarine, but I’m part of an attack team! Because that attack team consists of just two people! Because I very much believe I’m going to die a very violent death very soon!”
“The fact that no one would ever try this,” I countered, starting to lose my cool, “is exactly why it
can work! If you’re really not up to it, tell me now, before we get someplace where I’ll need to rely on you.”
“Now that’s not fair, Ejoq! None of us signed on for this – including you. Everything we’re doing here is purely optional. Considering the circumstances, nobody would ever ask us why we didn’t challenge that bogey.”
“I would ask!” I shouted at last. “Every day of my life, I would ask why! Why I turned and ran. Why I didn’t want to do my job. Why PONTE was dead! You’re wrong, Sally: I don’t want to be a hero…I just want to sleep at night.”
We were both silent for a while after this.
“Sooo…what’s it going to be, folks?” Genness eventually asked, more to fill the radio void, I thought, than anything else.
“I guess we’re coming in,” I replied curtly, and started to key the airlock..
“No,” Sally cut in, “we’re going on.”
Genness sounded upset when he replied. “Are you sure, Sal? You know this is crazy, there’s no way the two of you can possibly…”
“I’m well aware of what we’re doing here, Genness,” she said, a real tone of finality in her voice. “We’re going to take this thing down.”
“Sally…you…why…?” he responded faintly, with exasperation.
“Just keep this channel open, and the chatter down, okay?”
“Yeah…yeah, okay.” I could hear sadness in his smooth tone, and I was sure she did as well.
“Thanks, Sally…”
“You too, Ejoq. Let’s just do this.”
In ten minutes, we picked it up on suit lightamps: a bulky shape, seen from behind, with three main engine nozzles and a spidery jump array spanning out like a net of weird plumbing. The pods stretched out angrily, and the mysterious little vehicle mounted on top was just as mysterious from even this proximity.
We both keyed our suitcams, now that there was something to see, and I zoomed in on the piggybacker.
“You getting this Genness?”
“Yeah…that auxiliary boat there. Any ideas?”
“I was hoping you’d seen one before.”
“No, sorry, I…what? Um, hold on a second…Bayern…uh, Bayern says – okay! – Bayern says that’s an automated probe…a mining probe, maybe, or general science. He says he’s hauled them out to the asteroid belt for the company prospectors before, but that this one looks modified.”
“Modified how? Put him on.” There was a pause, and some inarticulate conversation as the channel went live on the pilot station.
“Captain Bayern, here.”
“No stool, you muttonhead!”
“Sally, please. How is this thing different, Bayern? What do you think these guys use it for?”
“Well…uh…hmmm…the RM tank is missing, for one. No reaction mass, no mobility.”
“Anything else?”
“Not that I can see…wait! Can you beef up your contrast, both of you? More. Yes, good. Now, Ejoq, zoom into that box on the back of the probe…no, the small one. A little closer…okay, yes. Ah-hah.”
“What is it? What’s it for?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
Sally cursed, and shouted at him for a while, then added some funny, though improbable things about his sexual proclivities.
“Could it be an explosive of some kind, Bayern?” I asked when she took a breath.
“A bomb…? Oh, I doubt it. No one would buy a probe like this, just to blow it up: they’re too expensive. Even the cheapest mining probes go for as much as a decent boat – you could buy a brand new Bechel for what one of these cost.”
“What if they stole it from somewhere? Would it be worth blowing up then? What do probes go for, used?”
“Well…probes can really take a beating out here. I’ve never seen a used one for sale, now that you mention it.”
“In other words, there’s no market for them used. Let’s err on the side of caution then, and assume they stole it but couldn’t find a buyer, so they turned it into some kind of weapon. These things have AI’s installed, right?”
“The ones I’ve seen do, yes. Special AI’s, dedicated only to one job. You can’t have real conversations with probes, but they know an awful lot about their prime function. What difference does it make, though? Missiles cost a fraction of the price of one of these – and they’re much faster than any probe. And I don’t think this one can move on its own, anyway.”
“Would the AI be active right now?” I asked.
“Um…well, when they ship them out from the factory, they’re not activated. They don’t even have prime-function software installed – it’s a separate purchase, and it’s up to the buyer to program the thing however it’s needed. “
“Hmm…Sally, what do you think?”
She was quiet for so long I thought at first she hadn’t heard. Finally, she said, “You can’t just turn an AI on and off whenever you want. They break down fast like that. By the same token…once they’re on, they can be dangerous to leave sitting idle, because they’re likely to implement their programming when it’s inconvenient, or even dangerous. If I were these guys…I’d put it into some kind of nonrepeating simulation mode. That way it would keep busy doing what it wants to do, without causing any trouble; you could store it like so much baggage, and yet you could use it at a moment’s notice.”
“It wouldn’t be running it’s own sensors then, or be getting a live feed from the ship?” I tried to clarify.
“In the scenario I just described, no. But I might be wrong, Ejoq. I’m probably wrong. There are too many variables here, too much we don’t know. “
“Let’s assume you’re right…would it be able to detect us if we started messing with it?”
“Hmm…well…darn – Bayern – does this thing look like a Shinjozo Smartdrone to you? I’ve read about them, but I’ve never seen one.”
“I haven’t heard of a Sandrino Smartjozo, or whatever you said. I transported Gratch & Kheys, Storrins, and GP’s – this is a GP.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” he replied confidently.
“You’re really sure?” Sally pressed.
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re really, really sure?”
“Sally!”
“All right, Ejoq, I just hate trusting him. Probes aren’t my bag. If he is right, then we should be able to do some limited tinkering without rousing it. The Shinjozos supposedly have some sort of super diagnostics systems installed that alert them to any change in optimum status whatsoever, no matter what was being done at the time. Or so I’ve read. The article made a point of stating that no other manufacturer in the Sector could make that claim. We could probably place one of your charges on it, if that’s what you’ve got in mind.”
“No,” I replied, giving my scoot a puff of acceleration, “I don’t have one to spare.”
I couldn’t see Sally behind me, but I heard her curse quietly, which I figured she’d only do if she’d decided to follow. I eased over the rear dorsal bulkhead of the pirate, and jetted slowly to the probe, which was anchored there by four large clamps.
“Where’s the AI on this thing? Sally? Bayern?”
“Probably deep inside, in a reinforced casing,” and “Hmmm…I have no idea,” came the two answers, simultaneously and respectively.
“No external ports, and we don’t have the time to mess with it wirelessly, so counter-programming is out. Okay, let’s make this easy. Bayern, you say this thing won’t fly. Sally, do you concur?”
She scooted around the machine slowly, studying it, then simply said yes.
“Good. Genness, any changes…any sign they’ve noticed us yet?”
“Nope. It’s like they’re dead. I really hate this whole predator/prey thing.”
“You and me both,” I agreed, helping Sally maneuver back around the probe with an extra hand, that, in turn, set me to wobbling. I had to drift out a bit to get the room to stabilize, and then I scooted over to the starboard weapon pod. It was an irregular
mass of metal and plastic points and cables, two or three meters across, extending out on a long triangular spar. A forward facing missile five-pack and a stubby particle beam stood out sharply in the lightamp of the suit’s optics. The missiles were an unknown quantity until they were used, but the p-beam was of a pretty common civilian type I’d studied and simmed before. It was strictly a close range item; DAME MINNIE could be hurt by it where it was parked – maybe – but PONTE would be safe until it got much closer.
I took out one of the dinner plate sized shape charges from the box I was carrying, peeled off the plastic sheet from its adhesive backing, and stuck it to the spar. That was one down.
Sally came floating up into my view. “Want me to set one on the other side?”
“Have you ever done that before?” I asked.
“No.”
“It’s not so easy.”
“Really? Looks like you just peel it off and stick it on…or is there an important step I’m missing?”
I handed her a charge. “Yeah…don’t bang it into anything.”
She scooted over the dorsal ridge of the ship, while I went under and towards the back. I found a sealed hood that looked like a main drive access panel. Trying to open that would kick on their automated anti-intruder systems for sure. I figured though, that it was a reasonable assumption that a maintenance hatch would be located in a spot where maintenance was needed; and, that nothing that needed a lot of maintenance would be built into a ship to begin with unless it was really important. This close to the main drives, the hatch had to open on a juncture of some sort in the piping for the fuel.
As good a spot as any.
Another charge went there, right over the seam of the hatch and the hull, where the extra armor would be weakest.
“Think that bump-thing up front is the bridge?” I asked Sally as I worked.
“Either that or a fueling dock.”
“Fueling dock?”
“Yeah…they use ‘em in the Papal Territories. They have a union or guild or something that does nothing but refuel ships. Most boats and ships built over there have a dock installed just for that – makes the mass transfer go smoothly, or so I’ve heard. This looks kind of like one of those, but these guys are a long way from home, if that’s the case.”
Motherload: Stardrifter Book 01 Page 4
