Steal the Demon: A Science-Fiction Novella

by Robert Roth

  She pulled the toiletries and clothing from her old gear bag, and stuffed them into her new one. Her old helmet and boots filled the extra space she’d made. Then she put her new bag into the storage locker and reset the lock with her P/N-interface. It wasn’t foolproof security, but it would at least discourage any small-time thieves from walking away with her new equipment. Hoisting her old bag over her shoulder, she walked out of her compartment and locked it behind her.

  Kimiko next set out to find a shipping station. Intersystem shipping was always something of a gamble, but it was usually a reliable one. A busy station like Davida would have cargo running daily to Ceres, at least, which was as far as she needed it to go. Shipping stations essentially acted as brokers. Ships from mega-haulers to shuttles with some room to spare in their hold would post their available cargo space to be parceled off and sold, then packed and filled with small-time stuff like Kimiko’s gear bag.

  According to the Station info directory, the Davida shipping station was located several levels down from her, so she caught a lift heading down to the transit level. Since it saw so much traffic–foot, ship, and otherwise–it was much more industrial in tone than the station’s residential decks. But it felt more familiar to Kimiko, who was used to frequenting similar areas in Motherlode back on Ceres. A bright, holographic sign in neon blue made the nearby shipping station easy to spot. The clerk on duty at the counter was friendly, maybe even a little flirty, which she enjoyed, even if she wasn’t looking to spin that way. But she played along and managed to procure a spot on the next hauler to Ceres for a small discount, which was good enough for her, considering Davida and Ceres were approaching orbital opposition. When the clerk asked if she wanted their Net address, Kimiko apologized and told them she’d be shipping out soon, but promised to catch them the next time she orbited through Davida.

  With her gear safely packaged and sent off, Kimiko had just enough time to send a message off to Kenji about her gear before heading back to the lifts. She took the first available one back up to the retail concourse, then trekked across it in search of Flamin’ Ramen. The noodle shop was also easy to find, since the familiar storefront, with its bright, backlit, red kanji and rotating ramen bowl bathed in holographic flames, was nearly the same as the one next to the old Hitomi Shipping ports. The memory brought her a moment of pause, but she shook it away. It would be difficult enough to see her old friend again, so she needed to be in a smooth orbit.

  She spotted Ernesto as soon as she walked in. He was sitting at a table near the back. She waved when he looked up, and he smiled and waved back as she walked up to the ordering station and requested a bowl of udon with vat-grown mushrooms and station-farmed greens from the real-life person behind the counter. That was another difference being on a station with money. The one she frequented in Motherlode was fully automated.

  She grabbed her tray and went over to Ernesto’s table. He stood up as she set her tray down and offered her a friendly, warm embrace. “I’m happy to see you, Kimiko.”

  “It’s nice to see you, too,” she replied, then sat down across from him. It had been many years since Kimiko last saw him. Ernesto’s thick hair had thinned some and, along with his bushy mustache, had gone from a rich black to a mix of mostly silver and gray. His midsection had thickened a bit with age, and there were crow’s feet and other wrinkles in his russet brown face that hadn’t been there before. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I wish I could say the same, but only because I know why you’re here.”

  She sighed quietly. “If you don’t want to go through with this, Ernesto, then–”

  He held a hand up to stop her. “Of course, I’ll go through with this, Kimiko. I owe your family, and it’s the least I can do. You know you’ll always be Ichiko’s little girl in my eyes.” A look of sadness shadowed across his face. “Shame what happened to him. He was always good to me. He deserved better.”

  Ernesto Montes had once been a pilot for Hitomi Shipping. He’d always been trustworthy and dependable, and her father grew to trust him as much as his own family. But after a few close calls with the CSG, and the loss of some precious cargo in a mishap over Saturn, Kimiko’s father offered Ernesto the chance to retire from the rigors of intersystem shipping and smuggling, using one of his connections to get Ernesto the position at Al-Zamani.

  “Yeah, he did,” Kimiko agreed. “But it was always the risk. He knew the game.”

  “And so should you,” Ernesto chided her, lightly.

  She laughed. “Like father, like daughter, right? But I’m glad for your help. I know it puts you in a difficult position.”

  He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. Sure, Al-Zamani has been decent to me, but I’m just another gear in their corporate machine. They’ve got no love for me, not the way old Ichiko did for us, certainly. And I’ve got no love for them. This is just a job to me, and it’s one that I’m delighted to walk away from, if necessary.”

  She nodded, pulling a credit chip out of her pocket and holding it out to him. “Speaking of which, this is for you.”

  He took it, then smiled, and suddenly she saw him as the old man he really was. She felt a moment’s doubt, then squashed it. Maybe he was helping her out of loyalty to her father, or her. Perhaps he wanted to briefly relive his glory days. It was his business, not hers. He shoved the chip into a jacket pocket. “Thank you, Mx. Hitomi.”

  “It’s Yanaka now, actually.”

  Ernesto raised an eyebrow. “After your mother?” She nodded. “I like it. It suits you.”

  She smiled, then slurped up a mouthful of noodles while Ernesto laid out what she needed to know about the next day’s run. He worked the third shift, he explained, and would be starting his final run over to Al-Zamani around the time first-shifters were just waking up. Even though both Davida and Al-Zamani operated around the clock, the shift change between third and first was still the perfect time to catch people with their guard down. He would have an extra crate waiting in the loading zone that would be just big enough to fit her and all of her gear. He would help sneak her into the loading zone and into the crate.

  “Remember, this place is strictly BYOB,” Ernesto added. As in bring-your-own-bottle, but in that case, the bottle referred to an air tank. The cargo container would be airtight, so she’d need to have her own air-supply in there.

  “I’ve got it covered.”

  “I never doubted you would,” he replied.

  Once she was sealed inside, Ernesto told her, he would add the extra container to his manifest and have it loaded aboard. That would get her as far as the transfer zone in the Shipyard’s shuttle bay, where she would have ten to fifteen minutes while the manifest was processed before anyone would notice the change and check on the crate.

  “Is that enough time?” he asked her.

  “It’s more than enough, yes.”

  “And you know where you’re going once you get there?”

  “I do.”

  He nodded. “As long as you’re sure. I don’t really orbit outside of the shuttle dock, transfer bay, and the pilot’s lounge. I don’t have the clearance for it.”

  “It’s handled, Ernesto. But thank you.”

  He nodded again, then pulled out his hand terminal and tapped on the input pad. There was a chirp in her pocket, so Kimiko pulled out her own terminal to see that she’d received a data file. “I just sent you the location info. Be there, and be on time, and it’ll be smooth flying.”

  She opened up the data file. It contained station coordinates and their meetup time. “Got it. That works for me.”

  “Stellar. Do you have any questions?”

  “How are you going to sneak me into the loading zone?”

  He smiled, then picked up a small shopping bag from the floor and set it on the table. “With this.”

  She reached out to grab the bag and looked inside of it, where she saw a neatly folded Al-Zamani uniform coverall. “This isn’t yours, is it? I’d be swimming in it.”
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  He laughed good-naturedly, patting his stomach. “Oh, no, no. It is bigger than your size, though. That way, you can wear it over your flight suit.”

  She nodded. “Perfect.”

  “I don’t have an ID for you, so I’ll have to talk you past security. But that won’t be much trouble for an old smuggler like me.”

  Kimiko flashed him a grin. “You’re the best, Ernesto.”

  The old man actually blushed when she said that. In some ways, he reminded her of her father. Suddenly she had to work very hard to keep that smile on her face. But the moment soon spun away, and the two spent the rest of their meal making small talk and catching up. After so many recent changes to her once stable life, it was a pleasant few moments of normalcy for her.

  When they were finished eating, Kimiko asked Ernesto if he wanted to grab a drink or two. He declined, since he’d been planning on sleeping before his shift. He gently suggested that she do the same since they’d be getting either a very early or very late start, depending on their perspective. Then he excused himself, wishing her a good night, until he saw her again in the morning.

  Alone again, she realized that she was still in the mood for company. She thought about reaching out to Paradox, but couldn’t imagine him cutting loose at a pilot’s bar with her. Hell, she’d just been in a bar with him earlier that day, and he hadn’t ordered a thing. Not even water. And she knew Ernesto was right about getting her rest. It would at least give her some time to review the floor plans and schematics that Paradox had given her. But she was too spun up to go back to her tiny, rented compartment just yet.

  So she walked around for a little while, and ended up heading back down to the transit and shipping level. The crowd there was different than the joes up on the accommodation and retail levels. She watched seasoned system travelers as they seemed to glide through the busy space on autopilot, easily avoiding the confused and slow-moving first-timers just trying to find their way to the right ship or correct check-in point. Everyone was clean and well-dressed, which was a far cry from the busy transfer areas at Motherlode port, where greased up corporate crews orbited uneasily around their slapdash indie counterparts. There wasn’t even anyone panhandling that she could see. Although, based on the Station Security presence, she doubted a joe begging for creds would get very far at Davida before being hauled before a Compliance Magistrate for indigence.

  As she walked past an indie flight crew, joyous and laughing in their mismatched gear and half uniforms, she felt a moment of nostalgia and sadness. Losing her crew had been one of her most significant challenges following her father’s arrest. They’d all moved on, scattering around the system, since they had to keep working to survive. Jiro was still on Ceres working traffic control for one of her father’s old rivals, so he was close by. Keon and Mirabel picked up crew posts on a freighter flagged with a Martian corp, working the Mars-Saturn-Jupiter turnround. And the twins, Som and Shahpour, took a maintenance gig at a research station on Triton. She didn’t begrudge any of them for moving on and traded messages with them every so often just to stay in touch. But she missed them all, just the same. Then she noticed a couple of the indie crew joes looking at her and wondered what they were thinking, seeing her in her civilian clothes, but still navigating the crowd like she felt at home. They were probably wondering who she was and why she seemed familiar. She gave them a friendly nod and kept going. Wandering around like that made her feel a little bit more like her old self, which she enjoyed. But it was starting to remind her that she’d been forced to leave that life behind, too. Knowing that she was in danger of getting spun out about it, she sought out the closest station lift, rode it back up to the residential area, and found her way back to her rented compartment.

  After she took off her jacket and pulled off her boots, she crawled onto her bed slab and laid down. There she loaded the data from Paradox’s chip onto her hand terminal, then connected to it via her P/N-interface and reviewed the files on her HUD. The Shaitan schematics included a rendered, virtual walkthrough that Kimiko could’ve spent many hours playing with, but they didn’t tell her anything new. The Al-Zamani floorplans, though, were impressive. The plans didn’t label any of the compartments, so she couldn’t determine any security terminal’s exact location. But she was able to match up several rooms with the places Kenji’s ex had told her about. Eventually, the desire to sleep finally overtook her, so she set the alarm on her hand terminal, rolled over, and fell asleep.

  3

  Duck When All The Shooting Starts

  Kimiko woke several hours later to the relentless beeping of her alarm. After a brief moment of confusion, wondering where she was, full awareness of her situation returned. It was time to get ready for a heist. She climbed out of bed and spent a few minutes taking care of business in the compartment’s ensuite head, then cleaned herself up as best she could, including washing off the makeup she’d been wearing since the day before.

  Newly scrubbed and freshened, Kimiko worked her way back into the one-piece underlayer of her brand new flight suit, then slipped on the harness and collar ring. Once everything was properly fastened, she pulled up the suit menu and explored the different options it offered. Instead of activating the full suit, she chose a partial activation. The suit extruded downward from the harness, covering her lower body like a pair of overalls, down to the boots. She nodded, satisfied, then reached around and fixed the knife sheath to the back of the suit at waist level where it was out of the way but still easily accessible.

  She attached her slim gear bag right below the sleek, black air tank before fixing that all onto the back of her harness. Then she stuffed the QED node into a pouch on her belt. Finally, she grabbed the Al-Zamani coverall and stepped into it, running a finger along the stick-seam to close it up. It fit over everything else she was wearing well enough, but there were no full-length mirrors in her compartment to check how she looked, just the shitty mirror in the head. She assumed it wasn’t all that flattering, but it would have to do. She debated for a moment keeping the High Orbit Mechanical jacket, but there was really no need. She could always find another if she really wanted one. So she wadded it up with the rest of the clothing and boots from her disguise and stuffed them into the recycler chute. After one more look around the compartment to make sure that she wasn’t missing anything, she turned off the light, and stepped out of the room into the corridor outside. Once the rental time she’d paid for elapsed, the key in her wrist ID would automatically expire, so that was done.

  A quick time check showed her that she was right on schedule. She opened a comm channel to Paradox. “I’m headed to meet up with the shuttle pilot,” she subvocalized.

  “I’m ready for you,” came his reply. “I’m already monitoring shuttle comms, just in case there are any issues. I suggest we leave this channel open for the duration of the op.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Excellent. I’ll be here when you need me, then.”

  She connected with her hand terminal remotely and accessed the data for the meeting with Ernesto. The station coordinates indicated a location back down on the transit level. She pulled up the local Net’s station layout and discovered two main sections on that level–one for general business, and one exclusively used by Al-Zamani. She headed for the lifts and grabbed one down to the transit level, which was still as crowded as it had been the night before. Kimiko wondered where everyone was coming from. She’d never imagined that Davida would be such a busy place. But she reminded herself it was a Confederation station and, as Uncle Shinzo would sometimes say, it took a lot of parts to spin the Corporate Confederation machine. But Kimiko felt comfortably anonymous. With the Al-Zamani uniform on, she seemed to blend right in. No one gave her a second glance.

  The meetup point turned out to be a shuttered storefront. The signage had all been removed, and the holo emitters were turned off. Kimiko didn’t know what it was when it was still in business, but it either hadn’t appealed to the locals or was driven
out of business by one or another of the Confederation’s ruthless corps. She was a little early, so she parked herself up against a blank spot of wall and pulled out her hand terminal, trying to look innocuous. There was a message from Mirabel, letting Kimiko know that she and Keon had recently found themselves in a family way, as Mirabel put it. She also received a reply from Kenji telling her that, of course, he would look after her old gear, and asking what she’d replaced it with. Kimiko composed a quick reply to Mirabel, sending her congratulations and letting her know that, if she was even half the parent to her new child that she’d been with the crew, that the kid would be in great hands. She left Kenji’s message unanswered. There would be plenty of time to deal with that after the op.

  “Your contact is approaching,” Paradox announced. She looked up and scanned the area, then saw Ernesto emerge from the crowd. Paradox was taking his overwatch role seriously, which she appreciated. Ernesto saw her notice him and raised a hand in greeting. She did the same in return, then put her handheld away.

  “Sup, Kimiko,” he said once he was within earshot. “I love the new uniform. What’s that old saying about dressing for the job you want, not the one you have?”

  She smirked, then looked down at her borrowed coveralls. “Yeah, well, a joe can dream, right?”