Pirates of Saturn (The Saturn Series Book 2)

by C. Chase Harwood

  As he walked down the hallway that led to one of the surface maintenance airlocks, he considered the potential foolishness of his blind acceptance of this mission, but he was nearly done. The endpoint of his part was to let someone in the door. His wrist device held a schematic of the base to share, but it was limited. There were numerous spaces that were labeled (Bez Eyes Only). He was to pass off the schematic and wipe his hands of it. Beyond the assurance that this final step would lead to his getting his cut, the rest was a mystery.

  With his four coconspirators ostensibly overseeing the base’s security personnel, he had already had the hallway cleared, assigning its guard as extra security closer to the party. Like a not so secret entrance to a medieval citadel, Hanson’s little moon was now vulnerable.

  As Link approached to within a thousand meters of the moon’s surface, he flipped himself around and pointed his retrorocket boots to slow his descent. Being able to perfectly calculate his mass, the moon’s spin, the gravity and his speed of descent, he stepped gingerly onto the crusty surface and gently bounced a few feet forward to the designated airlock. The entrance light shone green, so, without needing a passcode, he stepped inside. Beyond the observation port stood a red-faced man who looked at him with wide eyes. The air hissed at it entered the vacuum chamber. When the interior light turned green, the man opened the door.

  Monty looked at the imposing industrial unit with its jury-rigged thruster kit and gulped, “Um, Dima sent you?”

  Link scanned the pudgy man. Though he could recall this airlock and the hallways beyond, he had never accessed the full space station. Nor could he account for changes that may have been incorporated into it since he toiled here long ago. “You have the schematics?”

  Monty held up his wrist device. “All in here. Can send it straight to you.”

  “Proceed.”

  “Um, all right then. Just give me a sec.” He tapped a few digits. “And… There you go.”

  Link stared out into space for a blink, nodded and looked back at Monty.

  Monty offered a smile, “Not sure what’s next. I probably should get back to my ship before someone thinks it's odd that I’m gone. Unless, um, you need me to stay with you.”

  In a flash, Link grabbed Monty, who let out a surprised squawk. The man had enough time to reflexively slap his hands on the robot’s wrist, then his neck snapped. Monty’s legs gave, but the robot held him aloft, guiding him into the airlock as the body’s bladder let go, staining its suit. Link removed his thruster gear and tossed it inside the airlock as well. He closed the door, hit the purge button, and headed down the hall. There was only one unlabeled chamber on the schematic that could hold what he was looking for. He aimed himself right for it.

  SO MANY TOO MANY

  BEZ AND SHEILA entered the bridge of his flagship and were surprised to find it empty.

  Bez called out, “Hello? Teach? Anyone?” He looked at Sheila. “Odd.”

  “Very, sir.”

  The bridge had an actual windshield rather than a projection of what was outside. It was Sheila who noticed that roughly 100 meters away, the stars looked like they were bending. It was as though a small black hole had shown up outside the window. “Do you see that, sir?” She pointed at the anomaly.

  “What? What do you see?”

  “That. The bending of the starlight.”

  “Hum. That’s also odd, isn’t it?”

  Inside The Belle, the gang stared at Hanson and the woman standing in the bridge window. Jennifer said, “Wow. It’s almost like they can see us.”

  Spruck said, “Seems like just them in there. Should we hail? De-cloak?” The question was for all of them, but it was directed at Caleb.

  Caleb said, “Hell yeah. We’re here for him. Let’s lift our skirt and show’em what we got.”

  Jennifer scowled. “You know, we need a swear jar for you when you’re just…just being you.”

  Caleb smiled back with self-satisfaction.

  Spruck said, “Roger that.” He set the ship to show itself and keyed the radio, “This is the good ship Princess Belle. Do you read in there?”

  Hanson and Sheila had taken several steps back, expecting to get blasted the moment the ship appeared. Sheila hesitantly reached for the talk button on the com. “Uh, we read you, Princess Belle. Over.”

  Caleb leaned his face into the holo projector and spoke. “Mr. Hanson, sir. Caleb Day and friends. We’re uh, here to rescue you. You’re in mortal danger… again, sir.”

  Pablo was almost apoplectic as he pointed at his own screens showing The Belle in front of Bez’s flagship. He yelled at everyone and no one in particular, “There they are again! Them pinche little sons-a-bitches! Send out the drones!”

  Hap felt it incumbent to remind his boss that they were in the middle of a mission. “Perhaps setting off every alarm on that moon with our drones flying around will alter the plan?”

  Pablo glared at the man, finally saying, “Belay that order. Stay on course.” He pointed at The Belle up on the monitor and whispered, “I’ll get you…”

  Hap whispered the rest of the famous sentence to himself. “…my pretty.”

  On The Innocent Jada was also cursing up a storm. “Why ain’t them rich bitches sendin' help?” She yelled at the image of Kiviuq on her monitor, “All ya’ll’s partyin' like it be 2099. Well, how’d that date work out fo everybody? Sheeit, das right, bitches, ya’ll’s gonna gets what’s comin'.”

  Chico said, “If it went according to plan, Link should be inside now. Drop the charade? I’m outta flares anyway.”

  Jada kept staring at Kiviuq. “Fug, I don’t know. Ax Pablo.”

  They had given link a police lock popper that got him past basic levels of security. He began with his primary goal, the air circulation pumps that fed the moon’s core. He then descended to the core itself using a sledge that paralleled the ones leading to the party room. He’d had to dispatch three guards along the way, two from the moon and one of Teach’s men. None of them had put up a fight. Insufficiently trained for the new order of things, they still assumed a passing robot was harmless. It was odd that an industrial bot was moving through the base, but it hadn’t set off any self-preserving alarm bells, just a question or two cut short as their necks were broken.

  Now, having arrived at his secondary goal, he found himself floating in front of a vault door that was far more sophisticated than any popper could open. However, it didn’t really matter that it was firmly closed, that he had no standard way to breach it. Though it was designed to keep human scale intruders out, nano scale intruders would have no trouble passing its edge into the room beyond.

  He stepped closer to the door and knelt down to unscrew the machined lid from the tube he carried. Inside was the remaining one of two tubes that easily slid out. He twisted the top off and pulled out a thin flat metal device shaped like a hand fan. A touch of a button and it spread itself open the width of Link’s own spread fingers. He slid it into the narrow gap between the vault door and the sill, then touched another button. A light glowed beneath his thumb.

  He spoke aloud, which until now was a curious thing for a robot to do alone. “I am Link, bringer of life.”

  Inside the perfect absence of light that was Bez Hanson’s vault, a cache of deep space world building equipment awaited its next assignment. Many years before, Bez had sent this equipment ahead to lay the foundations and prep the Saturnian landscape for human habitation. As jobs were completed and pioneers arrived with their own equipment and designs, individual units were taken offline and stored for the next great adventure—Bez’s wish to one day end his retreat and point humanity back toward home. Jupiter would be that first stepping stone. While on Earth, semi-humans trapped within the Singularity wasted their existence in a virtual universe, original mankind would continue its quest to populate all the inner planets. To do that, machines were needed that had a greater capacity to survive than the common machines working day to day within the Saturnian System. These mach
ines were hardened for the rigors of space: powerful radiation, deep cold and heat, the need for self-healing and self-repair, the ability to find, absorb and convert energy, and the strength to move mountains, or at least a heck of a lot of rock, dirt, and ice. They also needed to be extremely adaptable and capable of planning for unexpected contingencies.

  Link pushed himself back and stared at the door. Ten minutes passed, then ten more. He could sense the vibrations coming from the people mover sledges in the adjacent space, the party room. It felt as if all the sledges were in use, shuttling people back toward the surface. He wondered if there was panic. Probably not. There shouldn’t be.

  A sledge arrived and a tall woman floated into the room followed by two men dressed in Hanson Security uniforms brandishing weapons.

  Sheila said, “You there, robot, move back.” She pointed at the device jammed under the vault door. “What’s that? What have you done?” She’d only once been to the vault, when Mr. Hanson had given her the initial tour. Because there was never any activity in this sector, her curiosity had waned. She rarely gave the space a thought. What the hell was this bot she’d never seen before doing?

  Link waved at the air. “They are in here as well.”

  The three humans flinched, their weapons pointed with even greater threat.

  Sheila’s eyes cast about the room and she whispered, “What are in here?”

  Link cocked his head and looked into Sheila’s eyes.

  Her disruptor shook. “What? What is in here? What have you done?”

  His gaze wasn’t so much penetrating as it was curious, like he was deciding something for himself. He finally said, “I am not sorry.”

  She blinked away his stare. “Not sorry?”

  Link offered what he hoped was an empathetic smile. “I am not sorry that some of you will find your purpose for existence to be over. Nor am I sorry that others will be spared for a greater cause.”

  She said, “You know what? Fuck you.” To one of the guards, she said, “Shoot it.” To the other, she pointed at the device stuck in the door. “Pull that thing out of there.”

  Both guards hesitated.

  Link’s smile altered to one of innocence. “It is not a bomb, and its job is done. You may safely remove it. Shooting me is unnecessary. I won’t harm you.”

  The guard looked at Sheila for confirmation on the device.

  She said, “Do it!”

  The man pulled the device away. It gave a scrape but otherwise came easily. The guard stared at the fan shape at the end of the tube attempting to divine its purpose.

  There was a deep hollow sound, like something had dropped a lead brick on the other side of the door. No amount of human ingenuity could breach that door from the outside, at least not in any kind of timely manner, but inside… Like many a vault, or icebox for that matter, in the event of someone being trapped inside, there was a simple lever to open the door.

  A deep metal thunk rang through the room, then the huge door gave a jerk and swung open easily. The android and the humans all stared at the blackness beyond. The light from the outer room reached dimly into the recesses, illuminating movement, mechanical movement.

  Sheila stared in morbid fascination while absently noting an odd taste of cinnamon on her tongue. A powerful looking clawed robotic arm reached for the edge of the door, pulling a huge multi-legged machine forward. She knew all of this was wrong, but she suddenly didn’t seem to care. She was mildly startled by the guard she’d directed to shoot the android; instead, he placed his nerve disruptor against his heart and pulling the trigger. Somehow it seemed natural…until she felt compelled to do the same. She looked down in horror as her hands seemed to take on a will of their own and hold her disruptor against her chest.

  Link waved his hand at her to cause her to pause. “As I said, I will not harm you. However, some of you are not on the list.”

  She gave him a pleading look. Her last bit of cognition, the feeling of her thumbs pressing hard on the trigger.

  As Spruck landed The Belle on a pad next to Bez’s big ship, Hanson himself pulled on a high-end emergency suit. The old man hadn’t required more than a few words of explanation to get him moving into full gear. The cream of the Saturnian crop was deep down inside his moon. Then there were his machines… Sheila and the only two security men she could muster had headed straight to the vault, but he knew in his heart it was probably already too late. He needed to get his guests out now. The base PA system had been sabotaged. He had no way to reach the party room without going himself. Now these people wanted him to leave with them.

  When the adjacent dock airlock opened, he looked upon the group of misfits dressed in their own emergency suits, and a flood of catastrophic memories filled his head.

  Natalie was bobbing back and forth on nervous toes. “Hi. OK, we came, we warned. Hop on the ship, old man. We gots to go.” She waved her hand over her body. “This girl already lost her mind once to them nano things. Not gonna happen again.”

  Hanson said, “I can’t reach the party room. I must go and warn them myself.”

  Saanvi said, “Uh, sir. We cannot stay.”

  Bez nodded. “I understand. You of course must leave. I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience, and I thank you for once again placing the lives of others above your own.”

  Caleb blurted, “Inconvenience? Amigo, we just landed to save your ass and your ass alone!”

  Behind Bez, some of his guests, still dressed in their finest, walked nonchalantly past and through the docking tunnel to his ship.

  Jennifer said, “Look. You don’t have to warn anybody. Now come on. We all know you’re too important, so let’s go.”

  Bez shook Caleb’s hand. “You people are the very epitome of the pioneer stock that are Saturnians. I again thank you for your trouble, but I must make sure everyone is safe. I am not the only too important person here. Please save yourselves.” He turned down the hallway, shaking hands and nodding at the arriving guests as he went.

  Natalie said, “Heard that,” and turned on her heal.

  Jennifer watched Bez disappear around a corner and said, “I’ll be darned. He really walked away.”

  Caleb said, “Hey, you know… I know it sounds crazy, but has anyone considered that Bez’s gold is probably free for souvenir taking?”

  They all looked at him like he was nuts, Jennifer cocking her head and putting her hands on her hips like this was likely the last straw.

  Caleb barked out a guffaw. “I kid! Come on. I’d rather not feel compelled to kill myself either.”

  As they filed into their ship Jennifer said, “It doesn’t feel right leaving Bez. You heard the plan. Dima wants him gone.”

  Hee Sook spoke up. “Forgive the interruption, but perhaps I am the solution. I am not vulnerable. I can stay and help him as needed.”

  Caleb pointed at the people shuffling through the other bay. “They seem fine. You’re staying with us. You’re on our team.”

  Jennifer looked at the line of people. Only a little while before, they were happily bouncing around in nano bubbles. “Hang on. Something doesn’t seem right.”

  The people seemed extraordinarily calm as they shuffled toward Bez’s ship, like they didn’t have a care in the world. They weren’t chatting; they weren’t panicked, just a uniform line.

  Spruck said, “I’ve stared at a lotta bots in my time. Those folks look like first generation.”

  Saanvi said, “I have to agree.” She gamely walked toward the line.

  Caleb said, “Doc, whatchya doin'?”

  Saanvi ignored him and stepped to within four meters of the crowd. “Excuse me? Everyone OK? I’m a doctor. You’re all feeling well?”

  Several turned to her and smiled. One woman said, “Never better.” The look in her eyes seemed entirely sincere, but the smile was off, like she was someone who was trying to keep a terrible secret from a young child.

  Saanvi turned back to her friends. “I think I should fetch Mr. Hanson.”
>
  Caleb felt something cold in his gut, and he began unconsciously pulling Jook’s disruptor from his belt. “I think that’s a bad Idea, Doc. I really think we should go.”

  Hee Sook said, “When I became sentient, I felt aware of the nano virus that contaminated the surrounding air.” She paused. “I do not feel that sensation here. Nevertheless, you should probably get inside the ship and seal the door. I will fetch Mr. Hanson.”

  Jennifer spoke with foreboding while brushing her hand over where the hood met the body of her suit. “Seals don’t hold.”

  Natalie’s voice became urgent. “You all heard the old man. He told us to scoot. Let’s scoot.”

  Caleb said to Hee Sook, “You really think you can bring him back?”

  “I will make every effort.”

  To the gang he said, “Then we stay.”

  Natalie and Spruck groaned.

  Hee Sook reached out her hand for Caleb’s gun. “May I?”

  He looked at her with reflexive unease, then nodded, handing it over.

  Jennifer touched the android’s shoulder. “Be careful.”

  The robot touched Jennifer's fingers, then turned, her eyes already on the mission ahead. She jogged, heading past the crowd lining up down the hallway.

  With his own gun pointed vaguely at the line of calmly departing guests, Spruck said, “We break away from the dock. Hee Sook grabs Hanson. If it’s safe, we reconnect and open back up.”

  Caleb said, “That’s the plan.” He waved them all toward the ship. “Let’s go.”

  Inside The Belle, Jennifer stared through the observation port as the distinguished guests continued to file into Bez’s ship. Spruck worked the controls next to her. The dock’s airlocks sealed, then it broke away from The Belle’s airlock.

  Down deep in Kiviuq’s party room, Bez Hanson floated nearly alone as the last of his unprotected guests climbed onto a sledge, making room for him. He hadn’t been able to reach Sheila. Couldn’t reach anybody, actually. Monty had been offline since Caleb and his friends had called. He thought about the vault, which wasn’t really a vault, but more of a giant storage hanger twice the size of the bubble room. The machines stored in there were remarkable pieces of equipment that were designed to be completely self-sufficient as they went about the business of creation. Not only could they find and process raw materials for construction, but many could smelt and 3D print nearly anything imaginable, including the replacements for their own parts. They could also source out their own needs for power. Once given a task, the machines worked relentlessly, 24/7, until it was fulfilled. There was also gold squirreled away on Kiviuq, but not in that hanger. As far as he could tell, the gold was being ignored.