by M. D. Cooper
Winter set his tray onto the bottom bunk before rising to his feet. As he straightened up, the cell spun like he was on a high-g thrill ride. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something so normal…maybe it was back when his Ma and sister were still alive.
His vision wasn’t the only thing spinning, his stomach was churning too. Winter was sure he was moments from puking. He held his stomach and turned to the bars, only to see two CSF officers staring at him—well, one was staring and also pointing a rifle.
“Stand back,” the unarmed one ordered.
Winter complied and raised his hands. “What’s this about?” He gagged as his stomach clenched hard and he fought to stay upright.
“You’re coming with us,” Chief Raynes’ voice came from down the corridor, footsteps echoing far too loudly for just one person. When he came into view he wore a wicked grin. “Hello, Mr. Winter.”
Winter tried to smile, but damn well couldn’t, certain that a fever was already upon him. “What’d you put in my gelatin?”
Raynes chuckled. “Just a little something to make you easier to manage. You’ll still get where we’re going, trust me.” He motioned for the guards to unlock Winter’s cell. “After I read your record, I knew you’d fit the bill perfectly, though I did expect you to be a little hard to control.”
“Leave him alone,” Bubbs voice rang out, loud, commanding. “You want to pick a fight, pick one with me.”
“All in good time, gunner.”
“It’s Bubbs, asshole.”
The CSF agents opened Winter’s cell door and he backed slowly toward his bunk. The officer with the rifle entered first, approaching fast.
The woman should have stayed back by the bars to cover the other guard, and Winter wanted to call her an amateur, but he was half-certain he’d puke all over her if he spoke.
On second thought.
“Ama—” Projectile vomit sprayed from his mouth, globs of red gelatin hitting the woman’s face.
“Shit! Get it off!” she screamed, and Winter lunged for her weapon. Wrenching it from her grasp was harder than it should have been, but he managed to pull it free, jabbing the rifle at the other CSF officer who was rushing into the cell.
The man cried out, which told Winter he’d hit his mark—which was useful, because his vision had blurred enough that he could barely make out the figures before him.
“Idiots,” Winter heard Raynes say before a pulse blast hit him and he fell back, smacked into the wall, then struggled onto his knees.
That was when a boot hit him under the chin and his head snapped back, slamming into the bulkhead.
Winter groaned. He was faster than this, better than this. He couldn’t let a little thing like a stomach-get to him now, could he? Letting loose a battle cry that came out more like a groan, Winter surged to his feet, swinging the rifle at one of the blurry shapes, and then driving his shoulder into the other, heaving the person—the man judging from his bodyweight—into the wall.
Just as he was about to move in the direction of light—which mean the cell door—something sharp hit his neck.
Before Winter could reach up to grab it, a surge of electricity coursed through his body and he fell to his knees. The flow of energy didn’t stop, and the pain just kept coming. Winter tried to get his hand to his neck, but his body convulsed wildly, limbs out of control.
Then it stopped, and Winter found himself on his back, staring up at Raynes. “Nice moves. Too bad this was your last performance.”
“Winter!” Bubbs screamed from her cell. “What’s going on? Winter!”
“Bubbs?” Winter whispered, his eyelids heavy. He couldn’t fight whatever it was Raynes had given him. Bile rose in his throat and his vision grew dim.
“I’m afraid he can’t hear you anymore…” Raynes said, cruel glee evident in his voice. It was the last thing Winter heard before his eyes slid shut.
GOOD KITTY
STELLAR DATE: 11.04.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Holding cells, CSF Precinct 3
REGION: Chimin-1, Hanoi System (independent)
They had Winter. Bubbs had to find a way out of her cell.
Kylie had told them to wait, that she’d rescue them in transit, but Bubbs wasn’t going to wait around for that. After what had happened to Winter, she wasn’t certain they’d ever see transit to Battia.
She stood on her cot and felt along the panel joints on the ceiling with her hand and Nubby, looking for a loose corner, some defect she could exploit so she could get out of there.
Unfortunately, there was nothing and with footsteps echoing down the hall once more, Bubbs knew her time had run out.
An idea occurred to her, and she quickly dumped her gelatin and plate of food on her mattress and pulled the blankets over them. Then she sat on the bed, head in her hands, moaning softly.
A few seconds later, a CSF officer stood at her cell door, laughing quietly.
“Seriously, woman? You realize we have cameras in here, right? I have the feed of your cell on my HUD.”
Bubbs sighed and rose to her feed. “Worth a shot.”
“Whatever,” the guard said, shoving a thick belt with cuffs hanging off it through the bars. “Put it on and slide your left hand into the cuff.”
She had to admit that this guy was thinking ahead. Hard to cuff a one-armed woman.
“Where’s Winter,” Bubbs asked, not even looking at the belt that the man was holding out.
He let go of it as she took a step forward, pulling his hand back and levelling his rifle on her. “He’s already on the transport. Just waiting for you to join him.”
Bubbs crossed her arm and Nubby, giving the man her best scornful impression, something that came easily to her—she had always found frowning to be easier than smiling.
“Nah, I think I’ll stay here. I like the ambiance,” Bubbs replied.
“I don’t have time to fuck around,” the man said, sliding the intensity lever on his pulse rifle forward. “Put on the belt or I pulverize you, then I put on the belt. Then I get a gurney for your sorry ass.”
Bubbs turned and slapped her ass, wiggling it at the man. “This ass? This ass isn’t sorry about anything. It thinks you’re—”
She didn’t finish her statement as she was hit by one pulse shot, then another, and another, and another. She lost count at seven, uncertain if the final count ended at eleven or twelve.
As she lay on the ground moaning, the cell door opened and she heard footsteps approach.
Bubbs’ face was out of view, and she couldn’t stop a smile from forming on her lips.
When the Genevian military had put her back together after the bombing of Aram, they had decided not to replace her badly burned organic skin, instead giving her a poly-carbon epidermis.
‘Easier to keep clean,’ they’d said.
Over time Bubbs had come to love being a gleaming black death machine. Honestly, it was a matter of embracing what you were, or going mad with anguish.
Tough as it was, even five or six pulse blasts would have broken half the bones in her body.
The man bent down behind her, placing the belt around her waist and Bubbs let out a soft groan.
“Yeah, well, next time do as your told…not that I expect you to have a ‘next time’.
“Ever heard of the ISF?” Bubbs whispered.
“What?” the CSF officer asked. “That the people who showed up to help Silstrand?”
Bubbs gave a feeble nod. “Yeah, they have some pretty amazing tech.”
The guard set his rifle down beside Bubbs as he fastened the belt’s clasp.
“Oh yeah? Well, people with crazy tech are responsible for—”
The man stopped speaking as Bubbs flipped over, her hand darting up and clamping around his neck while she knocked his rifle aside with Nubby.
“They have this really cool thing called flow armor,” she whispered, a gleeful scowl on her face. “I haven’t taken mine off since the ISF warrant office
r showed me how to use it. Sure, eleven…or twelve…pulse blasts smart, but not enough to slow me down.”
The man gasped for breath, clawing at her arm, his movements completely ineffective against her armored body.
She thought about breaking his neck, but decided to try something new, something she was learning from Kylie: kill fewer people.
With a casual toss, she flung the guard against the bulkhead and rose to her feet. She pulled at the clasp on the belt, managing to get it off before grabbing the discarded rifle.
It was biolocked, but the ISF flowarmor threaded a filament of black material into the weapon and disabled the security measure, signaling on her HUD that the weapon was now keyed to her.
“Not my good arm, but it’s a start,” Bubbs said with a happy grimace.
Bubbs stepped from the cell as alarms began to sound. The light above the security doors turned red, and she supposed that more people had been watching the feeds.
She’d examined the doors when they’d first been shown into their cells and knew that the rifle and her strong shoulders wouldn’t be enough to get through them.
Bubbs was determined to escape and find Winter, but Raynes had told them he had confiscated their weapons. That meant her good arm was nearby and she wasn’t going to leave without it.
With a final glance at the security doors, Bubbs turned and sprinted down the corridor, further into the prison looking for an alternative exit.
* * * * *
Bubbs’ search was proving fruitless. It turned out there weren’t many places to hide in a prison wing—Bubbs should have known, she’d spent enough time escaping from installations to consider it a hobby.
There also wasn’t another exit anywhere in the wing—a fire safety hazard if Bubbs had ever heard of one. There was, however, an unlocked janitorial closet.
Definitely not a maximum-security mindset here, Bubbs thought as she ducked inside.
Granted, with such a low population, and prison facilities on nearby worlds, she imagined that the cells here were meant more for drunks and unruly visitors than former special forces cyborgs.
The closet also appeared to double as a small supply room, and there were three rows of racks holding cleaning and break room supplies—plas cups, plates, forks and spoons.
Bubbs grabbed a tall floor cleaning bot and wedged it up under the door handle, kicking it solidly into place before she turned back to the racks. Her gaze swept over their contents and she considered grabbing a fork to use as a weapon. She’d heard from Kylie just how well a spork worked in a pinch, imagine how well an actual fork could perform….
Behind her, fists pounded against the door, and Bubbs cursed under her breath, “Can’t a girl get a break?”
The sounds at the door intensified, and Bubbs saw the cleaning bot slide inward a few centimeters. She checked the rifle over, ready to unleash lethal force on the first person through. Yelling and general threats joined the almost rhythmic thuds against the door.
All in all, it created quite the din, almost enough that it nearly blocked out the sound of a bell jingling overhead.
Bubbs’ head snapped up and she searched the overhead panels for the source of the sound.
No, can he really have found me? I didn’t think the tracker would make it through the dampeners here.
Bubbs ignored the sounds from the CSF officer as her eyes alighted on a grate in a far corner. She slung her rifle and climbed the shelves, shoving her fingers between the slats, making a loud kissy noise.
Sure enough, her fingers were brushed by a furry animal.
Winter, you liar! You did let my cat off the ship! If he survived whatever Raynes had done, Bubbs would kill him!
Mr. Fizzle Pop’s face appeared between the grate’s slats, one yellow eye widened as it stared at her. “FOUND YOU. FEED ME,” he meowed.
“Mr. Fizzle Pop, I will. I promise,” Bubbs whispered, rubbing her fingers against his paw. “Lower your head so I can get your collar off first.”
“NO.”
“Well, then I can’t get out and feed you. They took my gun-arm. I’m under arrest.”
Her cat’s eye widened further. “WOW.”
“Yeah, so c’mon, help me out. I’ll get you fish.”
“FISH? DEAL.”
The cat complied with her instruction, lowering his jingly bell through the slats. Bubbs spun the collar and fumbled with its clasp as a screech sounded behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the bot had slid further forward—enough that fingers were able to make it through the gap in the door.
Drawing a deep breath, Bubbs forced herself to be calm, and managed to get the clasp undone. She pulled the collar through the grate and folded it over once, then gave it a sharp flick. The Jack of all Trades—one of her favorite toys—became rigid, and Bubbs slotted it into the tamper-proof fasteners on the grate.
Four deft twists later, the grate was free and she pulled herself through, her flow armor shedding a few rounds as the CSF officers burst into the supply room.
She found herself in a low maintenance tunnel that appeared to run beyond the bounds of the prison wing. Mr. Fizzle Pop’s ears were folded flat and he took off to the left.
“LET’S GO, ASSHOLE. GET MY FISH.” He ran on ahead, tail high in the air.
Bubbs chased after him. “Not yet. I have to get my good arm. It’s probably in their evidence lockup room. Then I have to find Winter. The trail’s going cold.”
The cat paused, looking over his shoulder as his tail swished angrily. “EVIL ASSHOLE. SCARED ME.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” Bubbs said with a sigh as she squatted next to the cat and put his collar back on. “Look, mommy has to go to work and I don’t want you in danger. You can find me if you need me, but I really need you to get back to the ship.”
The idea of letting Mr. Fizzle Pop run around on Chimin-1 was enough to give Bubbs hives—if such a thing was possible—but staying with her was even more dangerous.
He’d found her here, she had to trust that he could handle himself.
The cat stared up at her with his mouth parted in displeasure, then his tail swished side to side and he hurried off. “BYE ASSHOLE. FOOD.”
“Ship!” Bubbs called after him. “Go to the ship! I’ll bring fish to the ship.”
“FOOD,” she heard him meow as he scampered away.
Bubbs turned back and saw a woman’s head poke into the maintenance tunnel.
“I see her!” the woman called down, then took a shot in the head from Bubbs’ pulse rifle.
“And now you don’t, idiot,” Bubbs muttered as she reached the grate and fired into the room below. The sounds of people scampering for cover came from below, and Bubbs used the distraction to pass over the opening and head in the other direction.
Hopefully the last thing they’d expect would be for her to go further into the precinct.
Bubbs hoped that the rest of the crew was doing better than her and Winter. She didn’t want to have to rescue everyone. Plus, someone had better be back at the ship to let her cat in.
COLD STORAGE
STELLAR DATE: 11.04.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Winthrop
REGION: Chimin-1, Hanoi System (independent)
Sneaking onto the freighter was a breeze, given the ISF’s flow armor. Though he felt naked when wearing it, Rogers couldn’t argue with its effectiveness.
It had only taken him and Ricket a few minutes to get to the Winthrop, and Ricket had the ship’s airlock open in just a few seconds.
Rogers shrugged, then realized with his armor in stealth mode, she couldn’t see him. He returned it to the
standard blue and shrugged again.
Ricket shimmered into view a moment later, and Rogers couldn’t help the tightness that formed in his chest at the sight of her.
Stars…seeing her in that skintight armor will never get old, he thought as it flowed away from her face, revealing a knowing smirk on her lips. Crap, hand caught in the cookie box again.
Ricket just shook her head and turned away, moving deeper into the ship.
“Even if it was the goon express, this is a courier ship,” Rogers said. “We should check the message banks to see if there’s anything in them.
They reached the bridge and Rogers hopped into the pilot’s seat then brought up the flight console. Beside him, Ricket combed through the scan and comm systems.
“Anything?” Rogers asked.
Ricket shook her head. “All of the logs have been deleted. Even internal security vids are wiped clean. I can’t even find record of who piloted this piece of junk or where it came from last.”
Laura added.
Rogers stroked his chin as he dove further into the flight console’s memory banks. They might have wiped all the logs, but pilots often kept scratch boards with common formulas, hacks, and tricks they used to maximize efficiency. Perhaps something there could help.
Despite being familiar with the operating system used to fly the Winthrop, Rogers couldn’t find anything in regular data hidey holes. Not even a breadcrumb trail to a breadcrumb trail.
Damn, this is frustrating!
“There’s nothing here.” Rogers sighed and leaned his head back into the headrest. “There’s no mail, no crew, barely even signs that their freaking software was used to fly here. It’s like a ghost ship.”
“There has to be something,” Ricket muttered “We saw those people come off the ship. People aren’t perfect, they leave clues. We just have to keep digging.”
