Murder on the Orion Express

by Nate Streeper

  “How’s your arm?” she asked.

  He held up a wrist sans hand, perfectly healed over. “Nano kicked in,” he said. “Should be able to grow another one in an hour or two. Once we’re out of this mess.” He looked at me and winked. “Perks of being a CyberOps agent.”

  “Huh.”

  “You’re Blades,” he said. “Heard a lot about you.”

  “Don’t believe a word of it,” I said.

  He laughed. “All good things, I assure you. Hey listen, I’d offer to shake your hand, but...” He waved his stub around.

  Now I couldn’t help but laugh, dammit. His charisma was engaging. “In an hour or two then,” I replied. “After you grow a new hand, or whatever.”

  “Right.”

  Gina brought us back to the moment. “Okay, guys. Enough with the male bonding.” She reached down and tossed Stenson’s jetpack to him. “Let’s get out of this—”

  Ken suddenly leapt on top of the crate we were standing on and swung a pair of mangled arms at Gina from behind. I had no idea how he’d managed to climb out of the rubble she’d buried him under, let alone up the side of the stack we were on, in the condition he was in. He looked like a complete mess, armor plates peeling off to reveal coiled metal and iridescent wires. He was worse off than Arnold at the end of Terminator 2. But not so bad off that his wallop wasn’t enough to knock Gina off her feet.

  Before Stenson or I could reach her, he grabbed her shoulder and tore into it with sharp metal fingers. The gun unit that she had stolen from him and incorporated into her own body clicked out and unfolded as he tugged on it. Gina yanked herself from his grasp, but doing so only allowed Ken to rip the gun clean off with a final yank. He reconnected it to his own shoulder with rehearsed ease. And opened fire.

  Metal shards flew in all directions with chaotic aim. Zero aim. Something was obviously glitchy with his interface after his tussle with Gina. We were only a few yards away from him, but he wasn’t shooting dick.

  Unless you counted all the boxes of Gyora-3. He was shooting those up plenty. Every box he nailed glowed fiercer than an angry clown post party without a paycheck.

  Gina honed in on a box with her eyes. I could tell she was scanning it. “The Gyora-3’s gone critical,” she said. “It’s going to explode.”

  Well, I didn’t need a fancy cyberscanner to tell me that. I was about to close the gap to Ken, but then, what? Punch him like I punched Denreiker? Something told me that wouldn’t cut it.

  A bullet whizzed past my ear. This was ridiculous, I thought. We’re done for. Taken down by this creepy jerk. If not him, then the Gyora-3 explosion. And if not the explosion, then the fucking space pirates. We were three layers deep in a shit sandwich.

  Just as I was convincing myself there was nothing more I could have done, a giant, bipedal forklift jumped up from the rubble and slammed into Ken’s back. Ken went sprawling forward, his shoulder gun whipping around aimlessly until it got wedged against his chest and shot his own stomach with a muffled burst. His body lurched, and then ceased moving entirely.

  Despite Ken’s lifeless form, Listic lifted the forklift’s hydraulic arms above her newly acquired shoulders and swung down on him with an earthquake-inducing slam. Stenson fell over. Ken split into two pieces, his lower body flying entirely off the crate, his upper body bouncing and landing near Gina.

  “Did you see that, Alan?” Listic blared from the forklift’s speaker. “Did you see that? I totally went Ripley on his ass!”

  “That you did.”

  “I mean, this is kind of a weird body,” she went on, moving the arms around in front of the machine’s camera to scrutinize them. “Not the sexiest one I’ve interfaced with. Very gangly. But it’s utilitarian, I’ll give it that.”

  “Listic, I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see you,” Alice gushed.

  Gina tore the cannon off Ken and reattached it to her own shoulder. “Even I’ll agree to that. You done good, ORB.”

  Listic glowed from her cradle on the forklift’s dashboard. “Well, thank you, Gina. And thank you, Alice.” Her voice resonated painfully from the speakers. “You know, I’d prepared a short speech for the day you offered me gratitude. It only runs fifteen minutes. Let me begin by saying it’s one thing to accept someone unconditionally, but acceptance gained through validation of one’s actions is inarguably held in higher esteem. To quote Abraham Lincoln—”

  Gina stood up. “But we’re not out of this yet. We still have an explosion to outrun.” She projected a holographic clock above her head with a countdown timer. It read:

  4:02. 4:01. 4:00.

  “Really?” Alice asked. “Like, this isn’t stressful, enough?”

  “Consider it motivation.”

  I ejected Listic from the forklift. As she floated out of the interface panel and over to me, Gina went over to help Stenson up. “You’re still with us, right?” she asked. “Stenson?”

  Nothing.

  “Stenson,” she repeated. Only, this time, it was a whisper. Blood pooled out from beneath him. One of Ken’s aimless bullets had found a mark.

  I hardly knew the guy. We’re all the center of our own universes, and hell, he arrived a little late in mine. But it only took a moment to realize he was the real deal.

  I walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Gina, I’m...”

  She reached down and closed his eyes, whispered something in his ear, kissed his forehead. Stood up and ignited her pack. “Let’s go.”

  The three of us rocketed toward the hatch. Gina’s holograph read 3:28.

  ∙ • ∙

  We climbed out of the megacrate and reemerged in the nausea-inducing zero-g cargo hold of the Orion Express. I hit the magnet button on my pack’s belt and my feet gripped the ground while I looked around for the closest freighter. The girls clamped down next to me.

  The fervent pounding from the breach vessels was deafening. They’d be through the hull in under a minute. To be honest, they probably could have breached it even sooner. They were trying to cause panic for those who were still aboard. Fucking with us. I imagined people trying to cram into the escape pods, fighting over them, trampling over each other, despite what the captain said about there being enough for everyone.

  This wasn’t the pirates’ first round-up.

  A bottle of scotch caught my eye, slowly spinning in the distance. I spotted a freighter anchored about a hundred yards beyond it. It bore the markings of the Orion Express—one of its own, and hopefully responsive to the access card I’d taken from the dead engineer behind the bar.

  “That one,” I said, pointing. The girls nodded, demagnetized, and followed my jet stream.

  The three of us cut our engines and inverted our angle as we approached the craft, aiming at it feet first. Hit the magnet button as soon as we hit its hull, clung to it like scales on a dragon. We were getting pretty good at this. Alice couldn’t help but acknowledge our acrobatic feat.

  “Give it up, yo!” she said, holding her hand up. I reciprocated willingly with a high five. I admit it, high fives are among the only stupid Earth gestures I appreciate. High fives rock.

  I pulled out the access card and waved it at the freighter’s door panel while Alice insisted on a second high five from Gina. Gina placated her by holding her hand out and letting Alice swipe at it, but her attention was on me and the door panel. I kept waving the card over it, but it wouldn’t catch.

  “Any day now, Alan.”

  “It’s these frickin’ barcodes,” I said. “Don’t always read well. It takes a bit of—” The light went green. The door opened. “—Finesse.”

  We piled in and closed the door behind us. Headed straight up the narrow hallway for the cockpit. I sat down in the pilot’s chair while Gina grabbed the copilot’s and Alice looked over our shoulders. Time to see if I really could fly one of these things.
I felt around near the steering wheel for where the ignition would be on a personal shuttle. Couldn’t find anything. Gina reached over to my side and hit a giant button that read POWER. The dashboard brightened, and a hum could be heard from the tail end of the ship.

  “Christ,” Gina said. “Wanna trade seats?”

  “I got this,” I said. “Seriously, I got this.”

  I located a box switch dangling from a cable beneath the dashboard. On it were the words EXT CARGO BAY DOORS, written in black marker on a strip of painter’s tape. I flipped the switch. We looked out the cockpit window at the gigantic double doors on the distant wall of the Orion Express’ main cargo hold, expecting them to part ways.

  Nothing happened.

  I flipped the switch again.

  Nothing.

  Gina looked at me and grimaced.

  I couldn’t help but notice the holographic countdown that still floated above her head.

  0:34. 0:33. 0:32.

  “We’re running out of time,” I said, looking back at the control panel for an answer.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” She looked back toward an access hatch lining the ceiling of the hallway behind the cockpit. She got out of her chair and headed for it, reached up and slammed a button next to it. It spiraled open with a chirp. “Alice, boost me.” She looked at me. “Alan, aim for the cargo bay doors, and punch it. Full throttle.”

  “Gina, what are you—”

  “Do it!”

  Alice grabbed Gina’s feet and boosted her up. Not that she really needed her to, given her cybernetic strength, but it got her up there a microsecond sooner. And this was probably one of those scenarios where microseconds counted.

  I flipped forward, found the throttle, and punched it. As directed.

  I heard Gina extend her newly acquired, shoulder-mounted, rapid-fire cannons. She locked onto the freighter’s hull with the jetpack’s magnetic device. I imagined her standing up there, riding the ship like an ancient gladiator in a war chariot. “Shut the hatch below me!” she yelled.

  Alice looked up through the open circle. “But you’ll die! If you blow a hole through the hull, the cargo bay will lose its atmosphere! You’ll freeze! Or suffocate! You’ll—”

  “Alice!” she interrupted, then looked down through the hatch one last time and winked. “Cyborg.”

  Alice smiled. “Oh, yeah. Cyborg. Right.” She hit the button. The hatch spiraled shut. Alice raced back to the cockpit.

  I accelerated the ship at maximum thrust, heading straight for the closed doors, sweating profusely. I kept hitting the EXT CARGO BAY DOORS button in case it kicked in as we neared it. Though even if it did, we’d probably smack into the doors before they parted enough. Then I heard Gina’s micro-flechette cannons open fire, and watched the door ignite in a hail of bullets. Those were mean fucking cannons. She directed her aim to the right, targeting what looked like a lock along the edge of the door. I kept hitting the button. It finally came to life with a hermetic surge. She kept firing. The doors began parting, but it didn’t look like they were moving quickly enough. We were going to crash into them. Alice gripped my shoulder. I directed the ship as much as I could toward where the doors bisected, a wide slice of deep space. It was going to be tight. Too tight. I flinched and shut my eyes. We were about to die.

  Three seconds passed. Four seconds. Nothing.

  I lifted an eyelid and saw the vast expanse of stars.

  “Yes!” Alice and I shouted at the same time.

  A soundless explosion erupted with light behind us. Our ship jolted from the shockwave, but kept flying forward. I looked at the rearview monitor on the dashboard and saw what appeared to be a small supernova growing gradually distant. About three dozen pirate ships, lumbering beasts decorated with skull and crossbones along their hulls, were caught in the explosion. But a handful of them had been further out and managed to pull away in time.

  I could also see hundreds—no, thousands—of escape pods jettisoning away from the scene, like a cloud of shooting stars. Out of danger. At least, for now.

  Gina!

  I ran back to the top hatch and was about to open it, but Alice grabbed me by my shirtsleeve and stopped me short. “No! Alan, don’t!”

  Right. We’d lose all our oxygen, not to mention get hurled out into space, assuming the damn lock would even consider letting me open it under these circumstances.

  I placed my hands on the ceiling, held them there. It was as close to her as I could get. “Gina,” I said softly. Was she okay? Did the explosion fry her? Did she get dislodged from the ship? “Gina, I never told you—”

  “Told me what?” she said, walking up behind me a little worse for wear, but otherwise fully intact.

  “How did you...”

  “I walked around the fuselage to the airlock underneath.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, then. That was an embarrassing display on my part.”

  Gina jabbed me in the side. “You sympathetic jerk, I knew you had a—”

  “Um, guys?” Alice crept into the co-pilot’s chair, perplexed by a readout on the dashboard. “Guys? I think we have a problem. Those pirate ships that didn’t explode?” She pointed at five red dots on the scanner. “Yeah. They’re coming after us.”

  ∙ • ∙

  Gina and I approached the dashboard and looked at the scanner. A readout to the left gave a convergence estimate. Fifteen minutes.

  “Can’t this thing go any faster?” Gina asked.

  I sat back down in the pilot’s chair, tapped the velocity throttle. “Already maxed out. Per your instructions.”

  Gina looked past the controls and out into the void of space. “Come on, guys. Where are you?”

  At first, I thought she was talking about the pirates. But then I realized she must have been referring to SpaceFleet. Stenson’s distress beacon. Wishful thinking. The pirates would be caught up with us in minutes. SpaceFleet wouldn’t be here for days.

  A tear in space suddenly caught my eye, and a gigantic battle cruiser bristling with weapons emerged, heading straight for the remnants of the Orion Express. And then another. And another. Within ten seconds, the panorama was filled with a flotilla of battle cruisers.

  “My boys!” Gina shouted. “To the rescue.”

  “How’d they get here so—” I interrupted myself. “Of course. They’ve been following us in subspace the whole time.”

  “I didn’t tell you that?”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  The collection of mile-long warships overshot us as they headed toward what was left of the pirate armada. I spun our ship around so that we could take in the scene through our cockpit window rather than the rear monitor, but inertia continued to take us further away. We were essentially hurtling backwards. In the distance, beyond where the Orion Express used to be, we saw a messy network of partially disassembled cruisers connected by webs of flexible tubing, floating listlessly in space. The pirate’s base of operations, cobbled together by stolen loot and netted starships, maintained by captured slaves. I imagined portions of it were part of the Herculean Parrot. Other parts, the Titanic IV. In fact, there was even a chance, however slight, that—

  “My parents,” Alice said. “They might still be alive.”

  “Possibly,” I said. “Hopefully,” I corrected.

  “They’ll know to come back and get us, right?” Alice asked. “The SpaceFleet ships, I mean?”

  “They will,” Gina answered. “But probably best if we kept our distance for a bit, let them clean house. Wouldn’t do any good to get caught in the crossfire.”

  I reengaged the main thruster until we came to a complete stop. We hung there, watching the scene unfold beyond the main window. Burning sterns of SpaceFleet battle cruisers maneuvered to engage the pirates. Dark and angry rail cannons laboriously aimed at skulls and crossbones�
�handy targets if ever there were any.

  “Would you look at that?” I gestured starboard. Beyond the immediate conflict spun a pale blue crescent reflecting the light of this star system’s sun. Clouds swirled in its atmosphere. Land masses decorated its oceans with islands. An Earth-like planet. The rarest of finds. The sight brought us peace. And hope.

  A certainty crossed my mind. Planet Mannigan would need a better name.

  17

  Fresh Take

  The air washed over me as the shuttle’s door opened—humid and sweet, the smell of syrup and flowers. A brilliant pink-blue sky greeted my eyes.

  New Gaia. My old home.

  A woman in a long white dress approached me and held out a sash. “Welcome,” she said, placing it around my shoulders. Another similarly clad woman draped one around Alice, and then Gina. Every passenger received the treatment as they exited the ship. I think that custom alone increased tourism ten percent.

  SpaceFleet had transported us the remaining leg of our journey. Their ships were loaded with almost as many engineers as rail cannons, and they managed to bang out a sparkly new subgate in a couple weeks.

  For the first few days, I watched the beginning of its construction from the window of my luxury suite on board a SpaceFleet battle cruiser. The ring looked like nothing more than a collection of spider webs at first. As days passed, the gate became more substantial—the threshold of a new region where humanity would flourish.

  Eventually, they offered us shuttle passage to the new planet—dubbed Victoria, rather than Mannigan, on account of the SpaceFleet Captain’s daughter—while the subgate construction continued. As a thank you for our part in taking down Denreiker and Mannigan, and putting a halt to Cluster Redistricting Gone Wild, SpaceFleet not only gave us a fresh set of clothes—ours had gotten rather ripe—they also granted Alice, Gina, and me an entire island of our very own. We picked a nice one along Victoria’s equator that’s sure to remain a balmy twenty-six degrees Celsius most of the year. Listic insisted we name it Expialidocious, so we did. The planet was gorgeous—on par with, if not even more beautiful, than New Gaia. But once the subgate was finished, it was time to get Alice back to Margo.