Outriders

by Ian Blackport

  “You don’t know a damn thing about what they want.”

  Evan leaned closer to Alexis and lowered his voice to the barest hush. “This might not be a good choice.”

  She waved him away and continued. “I know they don’t want you to give up or let yourself be killed.”

  “I failed them, okay?” Clara countered. “I led them into that ambush.”

  “They were your friends. It doesn’t matter what one of my friends did, I would never wish harm on them. They might be gone, but they always loved you. And they wouldn’t want you to stop caring or to cut yourself off from everyone else.”

  “I don’t remember asking to be psychoanalyzed by a child.”

  “I’m twenty-three.”

  “You’re a child who doesn’t know anything about the universe. Life is cold, brutal and painful. It tears families apart, it ruins lives and doesn’t stop because you’ve already had every fiber of your being beaten down. You’d better accept that before it takes away the people you love. The universe doesn’t give a shit about me or you.”

  “All the more reason for us to care about each other.”

  “You want to know how I’m planning to deal with my grief? I’m going to find another starfighter, hunt down the people responsible and kill as many of them as I can.”

  “Is that so you can bring justice to the friends you lost?” Alexa tilted her head to one side and softened her expression. “Or so you can die and stop carrying around all this guilt?”

  “Don’t try to act clever. You’re a navigator, not a therapist.”

  “I only want to know if you’re making a choice for the right reason. You’re the one who needs to decide for yourself.”

  “Deciding for myself doesn’t involve you meddling.”

  Alexis sipped her drink and nodded. “You’re right. I shouldn’t pry, and I can’t ever know how you’re feeling. I just wanted you to hear another opinion, since yours is becoming so dark.”

  “Fine,” Clara muttered. “You’ve said your piece. We can stop talking now.”

  “Okay. I won’t bother you again. Forget I said—”

  A dull, constant alarm sounded in the hangar and echoed through their freighter. A recorded voice accompanied the siren, though its words were too muffled to hear inside the galley.

  Clara tilted her head toward the ceiling. “What’s that noise?”

  “Ah, shit,” Alexis said. “Security is locking down the station.”

  “Why do I feel like this has something to do with us?”

  “Because it definitely does,” Evan responded. “The Authority doesn’t put Milesian under lockdown for minor infractions and thefts. It’ll take a major disturbance or safety concern to issue a station-wide alert.”

  “Like the discovery of information implicating their government in a war?”

  “Yeah, that’ll do the trick.”

  “We can’t wait for things to get worse.” Alexis gulped her final mouthfuls of tea and climbed upright from the chair. “Evan, get down to the engine room and prep the freighter for a hard burn, but don’t bring any systems online yet. We don’t want their security eyeing us until we’re ready.”

  “You got it, chief.”

  “Clara, with me onto the bridge. I might need another set of hands.”

  Alexis jogged down a branching corridor and hurried left at the final intersection, passing vacant crew quarters and clambering up a flight of stairs to the bridge. She lunged into her starboard-facing seat at the sensor board and brought all monitoring and communication protocols online.

  The recorded Confederacy voice emerged from speakers in the docking bay, its monotonous pace both maddening and inhuman. “—security personnel to ready stations. Do not be alarmed. The Authority Starfleet Marines have ordered a mandatory lockdown for Milesian Station to conduct a routine security sweep. All current inhabitants are obliged to remain where they are and present identification and credentials when prompted. Starships are not permitted to depart until these temporary measures have been lifted. We ask for your patience in resolving this matter. All security personnel to ready stations. Do not be alarmed. The Authority Starfleet Marines have ordered a mandatory—”

  Alexis waggled a forefinger at a chair behind her aligned with the bow. “You take Kyla’s gunnery station. I’ll reroute a couple systems to your console.”

  “Can you track anyone’s location through their UpLink?” Clara asked.

  “We disabled all surveillance software for obvious reasons. The choice has benefits, but also leaves us blind to each other in some situations.”

  “Are we at least able to contact the others?”

  “I’m not trying. We don’t know where they are yet, or who might be nearby. I’ll have to wait for them to communicate with me.”

  “There has to be something we can do.”

  “Access any public terminals or data streams you can find on the station. A place this large has news reports, status updates, gossip pages. It’s a long shot, but there might be more information available than from the irritating broadcast. Especially check the message boards and open threads that anyone can post on, no matter how disreputable or poorly managed. We may get lucky and find eyewitness accounts.”

  “What about you?”

  Alexis bit her lip and brought up all the Confederacy routines, maps and legal procedures that were publicly available. “I’m finding out what our options are.”

  “Can we fly out of here if we need to?”

  “Possible, but dangerous. Authority security regulations are primarily based around the threat of force, rather than specific physical restraints. Each landing bay on the station has at least two quad-linked cannon emplacements inside to disable starships, along with two others positioned on the exterior hull. Nothing is preventing us from lifting off, but those batteries will tear us apart if we do.”

  “Would either fleet orbiting the station launch starfighter squadrons in the event of a lockdown?”

  “For an interior security concern? Probably not, but I’d wager several squadrons will be on standby and ready to scramble.”

  “More likely several squadrons are on standby at all hours of the day. And though you may never see them, several others will be patrolling this star system’s fringes all the time. This is essentially a military installation, no different from shipyards and naval bases. But what matters to us is knowing there aren’t any starfighters circling Milesian Station right now.”

  “You have a strategy you’re interested in sharing?”

  “Like you said, I’m thinking about our options.” Clara continued scrolling through reports and various pages, closing one with a flick of her finger while she enlarged another. “Found something.”

  “From a news site?”

  “An anonymous and unverified network. But all video and photo sharing capabilities have been disabled by the administrator, so we’ll have to rely on posts without any evidence. One eyewitness alleges they saw a man die from a chest wound in the Nexus Emporium. Another person says the victim attacked marines first, someone else says he was innocent. One post claims he had a weapon and tried to hurt a bystander. Ah, here’s a poorly written, borderline illegible, profanity-laced rant about restrictive security and police states. They insult travelers from independent planets for good measure. Nice.”

  “Any official response about the supposed killing?”

  “Nothing. No mention of even a disturbance or potential safety issue.”

  “Station security is trying to keep the incident quiet,” Alexis muttered. “And that doesn’t sit well with me.”

  “Do you think—”

  Garbled words sputtered through the bridge, drowning out the incessant, annoying hangar recording. “—there? Lex, can you hear me?”

  Alexis keyed her console’s transceiver to broadcast on the same frequency. “I’m here, Rinko. Where are you? Is everyone okay?”

  “We’re all fine for now,” she answered in a voice cracklin
g with distortion. “But we aren’t sure where we are on the station. We’re in a tunnel with maintenance hatches and bolted doorways.”

  “Clara found a posting on one local InCore site. Someone claims to have seen a murder.”

  “Our contact. Marines shot him dead.”

  “Christ,” Alexis said. “Did you manage to get his information first?”

  “That’s surprisingly callous coming from you,” muttered Clara.

  “We have it,” replied Taylor. “I think.”

  Alexis frowned, as though her gesture might uncover the truth. “Wait, you think? What does that mean?”

  “We can’t access the data without some old-timey machine. Rinko can explain when we’re back onboard.”

  “What happened to you?” Alexis questioned.

  “Our damn freelancer turned out to be an employee of Confederacy intelligence, who didn’t quite have the skills he liked to believe he did. Far as we can tell, the Authority managed to identify him and shot the poor bastard dead when he didn’t cooperate. We fled the emporium after the trigger-happy marines realized he didn’t have the classified data on him.” Static sizzled over the communication before Taylor continued. “We’re safe at the moment, but don’t have the slightest clue where to go. We’re just following tunnels that all look alike.”

  Alexis closed the broadcasts from Milesian news networks and brought software suites of questionable legality online. “Tell Rinko to connect her UpLink to the Solar Flare’s transponder frequency. Then give me a minute.”

  “What are you doing?” asked Clara.

  “Rinko taught me a couple tricks. I’d never be able to subvert any systems or access top-tier classified files like she can, but I might be able to pull low-level schematics…and, yes!”

  Orange-tinged holographic diagrams and charts flooded her screens, displaying Milesian Station in full unclassified glory. All levels, facilities, personnel stations and hangar bays materialized above her consoles, along with descriptions for each section. Alexis reoriented the schematic with a clockwise spin and magnified fourfold using her nimble fingertips, zeroing in on a miniscule blue dot representing Rinko’s location.

  “Captain, you’re in the Substation Transit Hub on Level Thirty-seven,” Alexis declared. “It’s used by maintenance staff to access repair bays, climate control facilities and operations rooms.”

  “This place seems too large for station crew schlepping around,” asserted Kyla.

  “That’s the good news. The transit hub is also used to transport materials between areas on the station when any systems malfunction, which means engineers need to access the tunnel at regular intervals. And that means egress hatches and conveyor networks running parallel to where you are now.”

  “I can see hatches in the floor, opposite doorways marked in descending order,” replied Taylor. “How does that help us?”

  “The doors use an old-fashioned manual locking system you can’t bypass, but the ground hatches are unlocked electronically with keycards. Rinko can slice through the digital signature in under a minute.”

  “Clever girl. You should see Rinko right now; she’s beaming with pride.”

  “You’d be surprised what an observant person can pick up.”

  “Should we choose a hatch at random?”

  “Nope,” Alexis responded. “Not unless you want to accidentally wind up in marine barracks or someplace equally nasty. You want hatch DSC-2981B. Should be on your left about a hundred meters farther along the tunnel.”

  “Copy that. What happens once Rinko breaches it?”

  “Drop down the ladder, which will take you to a maintenance vent connected to the station’s oxygen recyclers. Watch your heads, since the shaft is only five feet high.”

  “And then what? Can you guide us back to the hangar where you are?”

  “Uh, that’ll be a problem.”

  Frustration bubbled through Taylor’s words despite the minor distortion. “Goody. Why’s that?”

  “You’ve been moving away from our docking bay all this time, plus the Nexus Emporium was a fair distance on a clockwise spin to begin with. The point is, you’re nearly on the opposite side of the station from us, and these maintenance tunnels don’t connect continuously. You’d need to enter public transit hubs joining the spires and rings, which are all offline during the lockdown.”

  “The Confederacy doesn’t make skulking through their out-of-bounds areas easy, do they?”

  “Found the hatch,” announced Reyes.

  Rinko’s voice came through the channel, and there was a trace of confidence as she spoke. “Yep, I’ve seen these locks before. Tougher security protocols than most keycard slots, but I can crack this. Give me room. That means you, Reyes. Get out of my damn light.”

  “In the meantime,” Taylor said, “you have a solution for our distance conundrum?”

  “Working on it,” replied Alexis.

  “We’re coming for them,” Clara remarked.

  Alexis swiveled in her chair and gave the other woman a skeptical scowl. “Sorry, what was that?”

  “Did you say something, Alexis?” asked Taylor. “I can barely hear you.”

  “Give us a moment please,” she said to the captain. “Private conversation.”

  “I have a way to reach them,” Clara promised.

  Alexis felt her brow tighten with furrows. “Did you not listen to me when I told you about the no less than four quad-linked cannons eyeing our freighter? The ones that’ll rip us to shreds?”

  “Just find a hangar and tell them how to get there. We’ll handle everything else.”

  “Here’s hoping you know what you’re doing.” Alexis spun back around to face her console and accessed the schematics. “Captain, the closest docking bay to you is 59-C. I’m going to guide you there. Leave the rest to us.”

  “You’d better not be thinking what I’m afraid you’re thinking,” he answered.

  “Yeah, we are. But we don’t have many options available to us. You can’t reach us from where you are, and eventually security will find and search you one way or another. This is our only play.”

  “I liked you better when you were just our navigator.”

  “Tell me that again after I’ve saved your asses.”

  Clara vacated the gunnery chair and claimed the seat farthest forward. “Can engine controls be slaved to the pilot’s station?”

  “Yeah, but we don’t normally do that,” responded Alexis. “Evan handles some functions during flight to simplify things.”

  “I started flying freighters when I was thirteen, and I spend more time in a cockpit than out of one. Complicated isn’t an issue with me.”

  Connor’s voice erupted throughout the bridge, flavored by a combination of jealousy and annoyance. “Wait, is she sitting in my chair?”

  “Sure is,” said Alexis.

  “Then tell her to hop off and find her own.”

  “Why? She’s here on the ship. You complained you don’t go on enough adventures and demanded to wander around the station. Blame yourself if you’re unhappy your ass cheek impressions are going to be malformed.”

  “I take back everything I said before,” Connor whimpered. “I’m only truly happy while flying my precious baby. I’ll never leave her again.”

  Clara ignored his entreaties and glanced at Alexis. “Does your engineer have training with the freighter’s ventral turret?”

  “Yeah, Evan knows how to use the Hedgehog.”

  “Tell him to saddle up and wait for my instructions.”

  “I’ve overridden the electronic lock,” announced Rinko. “We’re clear.”

  Quiet until now, Harun finally issued commands. “Everyone inside the maintenance vent double time.”

  Alexis consulted the schematics and traced a serviceable route through vents, tunnels and engineering facilities. “Once inside, travel coreward - that’s to your left - approximately two hundred meters until you reach an ancillary oxygen distribution fan, which is
currently offline. That’s your path. It’ll take you through a pumping station.”

  “Are there likely to be staff or other personnel where we’re going?” asked Taylor.

  “I’m looking at schematics, Captain. They don’t tell me where people are standing. If you see someone, punch them in the face and move on.”

  “It’s…slightly more complicated than that.”

  Alexis divided the holographic display into separate sections, keeping their path illuminated with blinking route markers, and enlarged the nearest hangar. “Well, things are about to become far more complicated and you won’t like hearing this. Docking bay 59-C has three internal cannons and two external ones, all linked to a central command hub located in the flight control station. We can’t land with those online, and I don’t have any way of disabling them from here. When you reach the hangar, you’ll need to destroy or deactivate them before we can approach.”

  “You want us to commandeer a gunnery station without any weapons or tools, and then hold our position while you fly around the station?”

  “That’s a good way of phrasing it, yeah.”

  “This is goddamn marvelous,” Taylor hissed.

  “We just escaped a war, Captain. Slipping off Milesian while it’s under lockdown should be a cakewalk.”

  Kyla’s voice came through the channel. “We’ve reached the oxygen distribution fan and we’re moving through. I can see the pumping station from here.”

  “There’s an access corridor beyond pump B017,” Alexis explained, still consulting the schematics. “Once you’ve reached—”

  “Shit,” Kyla hissed. “We’ve got civilian employees here.”

  “How many?”

  “Four, from what I can see. Can’t slip past them either. Those untimely pricks are inspecting the pumps near our exit.”