by Joseph Lallo
Some things are difficult to fully appreciate until you’ve put them into the proper context. Twenty feet, for instance, doesn’t sound like much of a drop. And ten feet seems like a fairly short distance to jump. When the twenty foot drop is the top two stories of a fifteen story building, though, and the ten foot jump is to the roof of a temporarily stationary hovercar, the distance can suddenly seem very significant indeed. It didn’t take a fancy safety system to make time slow to a crawl this time. His brain did it all on its own, evidently deciding that if this was the last thing it was going to experience, it might as well be thorough.
Approximately three lifetimes later, he came slamming down on the roof of a delivery truck. It took three painful bounces and a few feet of sliding before his brain was willing to take enough attention away from the very important task of screaming profanities to actually try to hang on. By then he’d run out of truck. Traffic had looked like a solid wall of bumper to bumper gridlock from above, but somehow he managed to fall through two more levels of it before landing on a mid size commuter car with a roof rack. One hand wrapped in a death grip around the rack while the other did a cursory check to see if any bones were protruding from his nice new outfit.
When he was sure that all body parts were present, accounted for, and reasonably intact, it was time to figure out what was the next step in his master plan. Thus far it had been surprisingly educational. For one, he’d learned that things didn’t work out in real life they way they did in the movies. Rather than the car he landed on continuing along and carrying him to freedom, this particular motorist stopped suddenly. Most of the people behind him stopped suddenly too, and those that didn’t do so immediately did so shortly afterward when they collided with their more attentive brethren. Thus, his clever escape plan now consisted of trying to get air back into his lungs as he watched the traffic ahead pull away.
Another lesson he was learning was that, when it comes to cursing someone out, you can’t go wrong with Chinese. The owner of the car he’d landed on was delivering a scathing tirade that was only slightly softened by the fact that Lex couldn’t understand a word of it. There was a sound that he did understand, however. Sirens. He glanced up to see flashing lights weaving their way in from above.
“Sorry!” he blurted, before leaping from this roof to the next.
After a few sloppy landings, Lex started to get a feel for the footing you could expect from car hoods, windshields, and roofs as he made his way across the crowded roadway. The slowly flowing column of cars became a cacophony of exotic profanities, blaring horns, and wailing sirens. Rubberneckers gawking at the lunatic jumping from roof to roof soon became the next stepping stone. He swung from bumpers, vaulted over luggage, and cracked sunroofs in his mad attempt to get close enough to something stationary to escape. Fortunately for him, the chaos he was stirring up made it damn near impossible for the police to get close to him.
Finally a sporty coupe that had tried and failed to avoid him drifted off road and scraped against a third floor skywalk across the street from the station, which he eagerly scrambled onto. Planting his feet on something not actively trying to get out from underneath him for the first time in too long, he took off at a sprint toward what he hoped was the shipyard with his loaner. A crowded city, particularly one that had just recently had a commotion the likes of which he’d just caused, is a terrible place to have to chase down a suspect. Even sticking out as he was, any time he caught a glimpse of a cop, all he had to do was duck down an alley or two and they were long gone. Through some miracle of bureaucratic oversight, the police hadn’t sent anyone ahead to the local shipyards to keep an eye out for him. Maybe the local cops didn’t think he was worth it. Regardless, he threw a fistful of chips at the clerk, jumped into the cockpit of his ship, and skipped every start up procedure he could forgo without causing the engines to explode.
“Warning. Warning. Optimal flow rate not achieved. Engine efficiency below fifteen percent,” informed the ship.
“I know, I know,” Lex muttered.
The well maintained ship lurched up and out of the docking bay amid various complaints and groans. Cold-starting a ship like that was a bad idea for several reasons, but tops among them was the dismal power output of an engine that wasn’t up to speed. Until the DAR warmed up, it was like trying to fly a refrigerator. But it was only a matter of time before they realized it might be a good idea to lockdown the shipyards, and a flying fridge still had a better chance than a grounded ship.
He was just shuddering up above the city when his luck ran thin. A pair of police cruisers rose up from between the skyscrapers and hailed him. The cruisers were little more than slightly oversized hovercars with heftier engines and a blue and white paint job. The two of them combined were almost as big as the DAR by itself, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t cause trouble for him. When you’re working against gravity, even minor collisions can cause serious issues, so a pair of little ships teaming up against a big one could easily disable or ground it if they hit the right spots. They transmitted a prerecorded, all purpose “Stop, you are under arrest” message that cycled through about fifteen different languages, giving instructions on how best to avoid getting into any further trouble. Lex had heard it so many times over the course of his rather rebellious life that he’d nearly memorized it. Evidently, if he were to allow the law enforcement professional or professionals in pursuit to escort him to the nearest retention center or processing facility he would be treated fairly and his cooperation would be taken into consideration. As tempting as the offer was, he was inclined to try his luck.
Again, he ran through his options. He was in a temporarily crippled ship in a transit hub on a foreign planet, with two low-atmosphere ships, presumably unarmed, looking to bring him in. Compared to recent history, this was going to be a breeze. All he had to do was stay mobile until his borrowed ship caught its breath. Ideally he should do some fancy footwork through the train yard below, but since that was effectively an act of terrorism, he decided against it. Likewise, doing a reckless, high speed pursuit through one of the cities was out. Doing that in a limo was one thing, where the worst he could do is total a few cars. The DAR could probably take down a building, if he didn’t handle it right. This was going to have to be a straight up dogfight, minus the guns... he hoped.
Once it became clear that asking nicely wasn’t working, the police started to run through the standard operating procedure. Having a rigid set of well practiced procedures was great for cops because it meant that they were able to coordinate well and really hone their craft. It also made them predictable. They jockeyed into their positions, setting up what in two dimensions would have been a PIT maneuver. The addition of the Z axis made things more complicated, but an enterprising offensive driver had figured something out. It involved nudging a ship or hovercar into an awkward orientation, thus forcing the pursue-ee to either waste time correcting or go plowing into the ground.
The rearmost ship edged up to Lex’s still puttering ship and made ready give him a shove. Just as he juiced the throttle, Lex pivoted the DAR on its side. The cop missed and ended up rocketing forward, nearly ramming his partner. While they were trying to work out what happened. He took a ninety degree turn and pushed the wheezing engine for all it was worth. They eventually took a wide turn and approached on either side of him to try to line him up for another try, but as soon as they matched speed he cut the throttle and fired the retro rockets, bringing him to a nearly complete stop. When the police tried to loop around, he simply flared up again, whizzing between them and choosing a random direction.
The “chase” continued in this fashion for a few more maneuvers before the cops realized that they were outclassed and took a moment to call for reinforcements. They were quick to respond, and there were a lot of them. Aside from a few dozen more cruisers, there were two big, sturdy, space-capable Interceptors, essentially younger siblings of the late Betsy. The good news was that they hadn’t had the irrespons
ibly large engines grafted onto them like Betsy had. The bad news was that this chase wasn’t going to stop at the edge of the atmosphere anymore.
“This... isn’t going as well as I’d hoped...”
The console of the ship bleeped and its voice announced, “Optimal flow rate achieved. Engine status: Optimal.”
“That’s more like it!” Lex roared triumphantly, setting a course and putting the pedal to the metal.
The better part of the Lon Djinn police force followed suit, but with the DAR engines back online, it was only the pair of Interceptors that managed to keep pace, and only just. The rush of wind outside started to die away as the atmosphere started to thin out, allowing Lex to pour on a bit more speed without his ship spontaneously combusting. For a moment, it looked like he was actually going to get away without any more shenanigans, but his ship’s sensors had two things to say about it. First, there was another pair of ships ahead, part of an orbital patrol. Second, all four ships were far enough away from populated areas to activate short range weaponry. Without thinking, Lex aimed for the nearest orbital checkpoint. They couldn’t shoot at him if he was close enough to civilians. Yes, technically he was using a human shield, but when you are running for your life, that sort of thing suddenly seems a lot less contemptible.
They took a few pot shots with “plasma flak” charges, short range rockets that scattered white hot specks of energy that would stall his electrical system if he hit too much of it, but that fizzled out after a few seconds, leaving nothing behind to cause collateral damage. Think “spike strip in space.” He managed to steer clear of both. By the time they were ready to line him up for a fourth attempt, though, the checkpoint was in sight and the weapons disengaged. In seconds, Lex was weaving though the ships at the checkpoint, the Interceptors whisking along the outside edge of the line. He steered with one hand and fumbled for the transponder with the other. An idea had come to mind, but the timing was going to be awfully tight.
He was getting close to the end of the line now. The innocent bystanders were getting fewer and further between and the Interceptors were getting closer. A massive freight hauler was just coming in. Once they were past it, it was nothing but open space, and anything was fair game. Lex managed to flip the trash ejector open, cram the DAR transponder into it, and seal it shut. Just a few more seconds before those guys on his tail would be willing to warm up their guns again. He prepared the field generator for the FTL jump. With a tight double tap of his maneuvering rockets he managed to put the hauler between himself and the Interceptors. The very instant the system gave him the go ahead, he tapped the trash eject, sending the external transponder through a series of narrow airlocks and out into open space. A half second later he punched the FTL button. When the Interceptors made it past the hauler, their sensors told them that Lex was heading along at roughly the same speed as he had been. Their eyes told them he had vanished. Presumably they eventually caught up with the ejected transponder, but by then he was long, long gone.
Chapter 12
After the customary three random jumps to make sure he wasn’t followed, then a dozen more for the sake of paranoia, Lex took a deep breath and tried to gather his wits. In hindsight, it was an act of pure optimism to imagine he could have dropped off the case and been done with it, but when things are looking hopeless, the tendency is to revert to what you know best. Now, with that long shot put firmly to rest, he had nothing left but to face facts. They knew who he was, they wanted the case, and they killed the last person who had it. He probably hadn’t helped matters with his highly conspicuous escape just now, but once again, the last person who had the case was dead. When death is already the consequence, the thought of “making it worse” seems a little ridiculous. So the question wasn’t “What is the worst that can happen?” The question was “What am I going to do about it?”
There was no doubt it was VectorCorp that was after him, but even THEY couldn’t be everywhere at once, and judging from the fact that they’d let the relatively inept local police make a grab for him, they didn’t feel comfortable throwing their weight around in public. Not yet, at least. That meant that, whatever the reason was that they wanted him, it was something they didn’t want played out in broad daylight. Which raised another issue. He didn’t even know what it was that had driven them to such lengths. Lex’s eyes turned to the duffel.
Ever since he had learned of Ms. Jones’ death, he’d tried to avoid even looking at the silver case, as though her fate was somehow contagious, and could be avoided by minimizing exposure. At this point, though, he was already in over his head. Digging his grave any deeper hardly made a difference. The least he could do was find out what he was dealing with. One by one he peeled off the strips of duct tape that were holding the battered suitcase shut, revealing the single feeble and damaged lock that hadn’t completely failed. Two good shots with the heel of his hand dislodged the twisted clip, and the case slowly squeaked open.
Lex wasn’t sure what he had been expecting to find. Half of the time, exchanges like this ended up being blackmail articles; soiled underwear, compromising photos on a data drive, things like that. Judging from the amount of resources being dumped into the retrieval of this particular delivery, it was likely a good deal more substantial. A part of him had been hoping for something exciting, like vials of biological agents or perhaps the launch codes of some globe shattering weapon. What he found instead, to say the least, defied expectations.
It was a short stack of pages, hard copy printouts with some handwritten notes. They were gathered into two bundles. The first was a thick packet, cluttered with charts and dense scientific language. Lex didn’t understand half of what the pages said, but he recognized enough buzzwords and symbols to know that it had to do with stars, a stellar survey or the like. There were a few hundred stars detailed in total. Most of them had the sort of alphanumeric gibberish for a name that was tremendously helpful if you were a stellar cartographer and utterly incomprehensible if you were anything else. The information about each star was incredibly technical. Just about the only portion of it that had any sort of meaning to Lex was the location coordinates. The rest had to do with precise mass, magnetosphere fluctuation cycles, etc.
The second packet was a handful of shipping manifests with various components circled. The manifests themselves were pretty standard, the full contents of one of the massive cargo haulers that made the rounds throughout the galaxy. The indicated shipments didn’t seem to have an awful lot in common. They ranged from mundane stuff, like reels of copper wire and fiber bundles, to slightly more niche items, like superconductive coils, and a few hundred tons of other miscellaneous equipment. They shipped from easily a hundred different companies, on behalf of a hundred different companies. The one thing many of them shared, though, was a destination. A planet called Operlo. The name rang a bell for some reason. More than a few were addressed directly to a construction company there.
“This is it?” he ranted, “This is reason enough to murder people? Fifty pages of order tracking and star measurements?!”
He riffled through the pages a second time, just to make sure he hadn’t missed something worthwhile, like a murder confession from the CEO of VectorCorp or maybe some sort of fiendish plan for galactic conquest. Nothing but statistics and ship manifests. This wasn’t just disappointing, it was devastating. If the case had held something of actual value, he would have had options. He could have held it for ransom, or used it as a bargaining chip. To do that, though, he would need to know who would have wanted it, and he couldn’t imagine anyone in a position to help him out of this mess caring in the least about this worthless mound of paper. All he’d managed to learn by opening the case was a pair of vague likelihoods. First, it was sensitive data. That was pretty much the only reason to print something out these days. Delivering it as hard copy meant that it was impossible for network filters and sniffers to pick up on the data. The other hint was the address of the construction company. Since it was the on
ly semblance of a lead he had, Lex punched in the coordinates, plotted out a course, and jumped to FTL.
He managed to reach Operlo fairly quickly, but not because it was nearby. Operlo wasn’t near anything. That was exactly why it was so quick. In crowded areas, space was crisscrossed with VectorCorp routes which, as a freelancer, Lex had to avoid. Trying to keep clear of patrols around high traffic areas meant doing an awful lot of speeding up and slowing down, which translated to wasted time and energy, and rarely reaching maximum acceleration. Operlo had one lonely lane heading to and from it, which meant that even freelancers had a straight shot, all sprint and no juke. Of course, isolation carries with it a few other consequences.
Some planets are named after ancient gods, or at least the star they orbit and a number. Operlo got its name because the mining consortium that owned it auctioned off the naming rights to a chemical company, who named it after their new floor polish, then promptly went out of business. There wasn’t an ounce of romance or prestige in its history. The mines didn’t even produce anything particularly exotic; mostly just iron, zinc, and tin. For a long time, the only people who lived there were the miners and a few associated industries, and the only people who visited were the cargo haulers. It was an isolated crevice, far away from anything resembling law enforcement. Basically it was the planetary equivalent of a dark alley. It was thus inevitable that it would attract a certain type of person. Operlo wasn’t a vacation spot. It was a place to come if you didn’t want to be bothered. As such, there wasn’t a fancy check-in post monitoring traffic. Likely there had been some attempts, but these days about forty percent of the population was in some way associated with organized crime. That doesn’t create an environment conducive to administrative oversight.
Unlike Tessera, Operlo wasn’t exactly filled to the brim with bustling industry and vast urban centers. The planet was practically deserted, and for that matter, practically a desert. A bit larger than the planet Earth, it had a population in the millions, scattered mostly along two liveable belts near each of the poles. The rest of the planet had surface temperatures that weren’t quite high enough to make human life impossible, but they did make it miserable. All of that sun made for cheap, plentiful solar power, though. The construction company’s headquarters and shipping hub was located about three hundred miles north of a cluster of solar collectors, right at the Southern Fringe of the Northern Habitable Zone. As an illustration of the general lack of personality on the part of the city planners during Operlo’s development, those weren’t geological terms, they were the actual names on the map. The full address of the receiving building was “685 East 45.5554 Longitude Drive, Southern Fringe, NHZ.” Not a community of poets.
