The Hidden Prophet

by Benjamin Douglas

  She pressed it.

  The multitool hummed and grew warm in her hand, then almost too hot to hold. Still, she pressed it firmly against the wall. The humming rose in pitch and intensity, until it reached a plateau. Then the entire cell flashed, sparks of light blinking all along the walls, and winked out. The cell was dark again.

  Bingo.

  She halted the discharge with just a tiny percentage of power left, and hoped it was enough. Then she selected the cutting tool, and took out the bolt.

  There was no alarm. Success! She could now add “brig alarm systems hacker” to her resume, she decided, having shorted out the field with the tool without setting off the sensors.

  We do what we can.

  She pushed the door open, stepping out into the dimly lit corridor—and promptly set off an alarm.

  Chapter 5

  Most of the crew had seen Lucas’ reasoning right away. No one liked it—except maybe Adams, the engineer, who seemed to harbor a romanticized notion of what it would be like to fly a pirate ship from freighter to freighter—but everyone more or less agreed it was the most expedient way to avoid being killed, and that it might buy them an adequate hall-pass to complete their actual mission and find Taurius.

  Darren, however, dissented.

  “Your plan…” he began.

  “Won’t work?” Lucas suggested.

  “I didn’t say that.” He pursed his lips. “But it is dangerous.”

  “You don’t say?” Capsar was pacing the length of their holding cell, arms crossed in front of her. “I thought it would be a nice little family picnic like the kind folks have on Magellan Station.” She glared at him. “Since when were you averse to danger, cowboy?”

  “I have to say, I’m inclined to agree with our mysterious friend.” Private Tompkins had a way of blithely playing devil’s advocate. “I see danger written all over this. Not that I wouldn’t be an excellent pirate, mind you. Fearsome.”

  Caspar suppressed a chortle.

  Lucas held up his hands, and everyone listened. “Look, the point isn’t that it’s a great idea. It’s not. The point is it may be our only option. What are they gonna do if we refuse? Start taking us out one by one to make examples? Or line us all up for target practice?”

  “Probably just cut life support to the cell,” Darren said quietly. “Cleaner that way.”

  “Yeah.” Lucas acknowledged him with a hand. “That’s right. The clean option. So the way I see it, the only way we avoid going out into space in body-bags is to play their game, for now.”

  A new face, one of the crewmembers in the back of the little crowd that filled half the cell, raised his hand. Lucas sighed, and pointed at him. “Yes, you? Question?”

  “Uh, yeah. Sir. Yeah Sir. Hi.” He lifted his hand again in a timid half-wave. Lucas held his breath to keep from sighing again. “It’s, um, it’s just that, I thought you should know, I’m a level nine Buccaneer. Um. I mean, that is… well. You’re looking at the rootin’ tootin’ baddest mother in the galaxy.” He cranked his arm on the last few words, and his voice cracked as he grinned.

  Lucas, Caspar, Tompkins, and Mulligan all shared knowing looks of admiration. Adams looked disgusted. “Stand down, Officer Jan! For criminy, the fool things these kids spout out these days.”

  Lucas looked at Adams. “This one of yours?”

  Adams bowed his head slightly. “Engineering, yes Sir. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”

  “No.” Lucas held up his hand. “Officer Jan here has a lot of important experience!”

  “Experience in the engine room, Sir?” Adams scrunched his face up.

  “Experience in Battleworld Zeta, Adams! You know, the VR game that pits pirates against Empire Fleet forces for epic battles and bitter territory wars?” Lucas rattled off the PR line for Battleworld Zeta. He’d been an avid gamer before taking his command post, and hadn’t played BZ much, but he knew enough to understand what Jan had said.

  “If what Jan says is true,” Caspar said, “then he’s got more VR experience in the world of inner-system piracy than the rest of us could hope to understand.”

  Adams looked exasperated. “But in a game? How’s that going to help our sorry butts? Sir?”

  Lucas was smiling. “B Zeta is one of those games that scares the real flyers, Adams, because it’s so lifelike. And the worldbuilding is second to none, I’m given to understand. Right down to the use of actual pirate outfits.”

  “So who you fly with?” Mulligan asked.

  “Mostly Carmen’s Crews, back near Ceres.”

  She let out a low whistle.

  “Ever play Jupiter Wars?” Tompkins asked. Lucas held a hand up.

  “Let’s stay focused. Point is, this kid knows a thing or two about pirate politics in the inner system. That’s something to get started with. So, Jan.” He looked him square in the eye. “Tell us about the Eaters.”

  Jan fidgeted. “Ahhh… well, there’s a problem there. Problem is, I never heard of them.”

  Adams flung his hands out. “So much for the so-called expert.”

  “Will you just quit complaining for five seconds?” Caspar said.

  “Wait, I thought you said you were a level nine Buccaneer.” Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shouldn’t you have heard of pretty much everyone there is to hear about?”

  Jan nodded, a little sullen. “Can’t believe B Zeta is missing such a nasty outfit.”

  “Unless…” Caspar quit pacing. “Unless they’re just so new, they haven’t been written in yet. So far they’ve shown some pretty aggressive tendencies.”

  Lucas nodded. “Maybe it’s aggressive expansion. As in, we’re brand new on the scene, need to make an impression.”

  Jan’s face perked up a bit. “Well, that would certainly make things interesting.”

  “Piracy isn’t interesting enough for ya, you little blackheart?” Adams grumbled.

  “Take it easy, Adams.” Lucas glanced his way. “It’s a game.”

  “Maybe. But this ain’t.”

  “Sure it is. The stakes are just a bit higher.”

  “So what’s the play, Captain?” Caspar stood a little taller. The rest of the crew followed suit. Lucas ran a hand over his face, coming to terms with it.

  “I guess we join the Eaters.”

  ---

  “Heavies are all kinetics for now. Still working on acquiring the means of blaster production.” Cyclops lead them around the hull of the Fairfax, where she sat in the Eaters’ hangar bay, now outfitted with a smorgasbord of new guns.

  By “acquiring,” he meant stealing, of course. Lucas bit his tongue and swallowed his pride. They had a job to do, and this was now their cover, no matter how deep it went. Just part of the job.

  “You’re going to trust us to fly out of this hangar with all these additions, and not turn around and use them on you?” he asked.

  Cyclops gave one of his nasty grins. “All our ships have a little special sauce added to their ID codes. You aim at a friendly, and the guns won’t fire. It’s even better for missiles.” The grin got wider. “Lock a target on one of us with the missiles we’ve loaded on, and they’ll detonate while still in the launch tubes. Wouldn’t want to be onboard when that happens.” He chuckled.

  Lucas made a mental note to refrain from using missiles for a while. Shouldn’t be that hard; they’d been without them for days already.

  “What about our ID?”

  “Washed.” Cyclops stopped beside the ship and reached up to rest a hand on the hull. “Wiped clean. Don’t need to cover it anymore, because there’s nothing left to cover.”

  “And I don’t suppose you’ve given us that little secret sauce so that you can’t fire on us, have you?”

  Cyclops chuckled again. “Well, no, one can’t be too careful these days. I’m afraid we’re reserving the right to blow you out of the sky, at least for now. But if anyone runs a scan, they’ll see that you’re an old battleship that’s been repurposed for running freight,
totally legitimately, with Rome Inc.”

  Jan stopped in his tracks, his face losing color. Lucas noticed, and crossed to him. “That sound familiar to you?” he asked in a whisper. Jan nodded. “Later,” Lucas said. Another nod.

  Caspar nodded at one of the new guns. “Is it totally legitimate for freighters to carry this kind of firepower around here?”

  Cyclops shrugged. “Rome likes to protect its assets. The problem of piracy between Mars and the inner belt is well-known, well-documented. The Empire understands. This far out, us law-abiding citizens are encouraged to take the law into our own hands. Fleet forces are spread too thin.”

  Law-abiding. Lucas sniffed. Right. He rejoined Cyclops at the head of the group.

  “And just how long have you been, ah, running freight for Rome, Cyclops?

  Another grin.

  “Oh, me? It’s not my first rodeo. But I suppose you could say that Rome’s expansion is a recent development.”

  Lucas nodded at the confirmation.

  The hatch opened up, and they entered their ship. Only, it hardly seemed like their ship anymore. There had been a paint job. Fewer lights. And there seemed to be a camera in nearly every corner. “Nice to see you care about aesthetics,” Lucas said.

  “Well, can’t have her looking like she just flew in from the Colonies, if anyone, eh, official should have cause to board.” Cyclops smirked.

  “Like to keep an eye on us, too?” Caspar nodded at a camera.

  “Like to keep an eye on our freight. Speaking of which—” He pulled a data stick out from his pocket and handed it to Lucas. “This’ll have orders for your first run. And it is just freight, don’t worry. You won’t be doing much else for a little while. Not until we think we can trust you, anyway. Which, you know how that is. May be never.” Grin. “You’re to go to those coordinates, pick up the shipment, and take it to the destination, also plotted out. You do not collect payment. Credits are transferred electronically.”

  “Understood.”

  “Your dispensers have been refitted, so you should all survive the journey. Oh, and the ship’s AI—what was that thing called? Shirt? Shorts?”

  “Sock. Not an AI, strictly speaking. Just a program.

  “Right.” Cyclops sneered and muttered “amateurs” under his breath. He cleared his throat. They had come up through the center of the ship, and now stood at the doors to the bridge. He buzzed them open. “Anyhow, she’s been given a significant upgrade. Thank me later.”

  He stepped aside and gestured inward. Lucas and the bridge crew stepped into the bridge, but Cyclops did not follow.

  “You’re now officially on assignment for Rome Inc. Good luck, Captain Harris.” He stressed the name, ever so slightly, and left them on the bridge. Lucas’ skin crawled.

  Chapter 6

  The klaxon sounding throughout the corridor was deafening after the silence. Red and yellow lights flashed, waking everyone up in their cells, making it impossible to pass unnoticed. So far Ada’s escape was off to an auspicious start. She grimaced.

  She dropped to the ground and slithered as quickly as she could to a corner, where she backed up behind the door, the only entrance to this hallway. She hoped no one had seen her who would out her.

  A voice blared over the overhead comm. “Station is under attack. Repeat, station is under attack! All personnel, man stations. This is not a drill!”

  Odd, Ada thought. Maybe the security system had its wires crossed? Her escape should have triggered a “prisoner loose” alarm, not a “system under attack” alarm. She heard the sound of boots hitting the floor, and risked a glance through the tall, narrow window in the doorway. Security troops were passing by on the other side, but they weren’t coming into the brig. They were heading out.

  Slowly, it began to dawn on her. She hadn’t triggered an alarm, at all. She just had amazing timing.

  A distant boom sounded, and the floor rocked beneath her. She checked the window again, saw the line of troops had ended, and tried the door. It opened.

  Another boom, and she struggled to stay on her feet as she passed into the next hallway. Who was bombing Carmen’s station? An Empire Fleet raid? Ada’s understanding was that most of the pirate outfits had an understanding with one another, and typically stayed out of each other’s way. But then, strange things seemed to be happening lately.

  She made a couple of wrong turns scrambling to get out of the brig wing, but eventually found herself standing again at the front desk where she’d first been processed on her way in. It wasn’t manned. Really is all-hands-on-deck, she thought. She ran to a console perched on the wall and pulled up a station map. There. A hangar deck housed shuttles two levels up and down just a couple of corridors. Shuttles weren’t ideal for distance, but maybe it would be best for slipping away unnoticed. After all, she was in the belt. Surely she could get someone to pick her up. Anyone but Carmen would do, for now.

  Another boom, another quake, this one stronger, and the lights blinked off for a few seconds. She’d just arrived at a lift, but the console beside it had gone dead. No dice.

  She panted, racing up the stairwell instead. Images of fallen rock and dust passed before her mind’s eye. Her mother’s voice on the comm. The sound of the shot that had ended her life. No more underground habs, she decided. Not even on asteroids. The next time she was on a decent-sized ship, she was staying on it.

  She burst out of the stairwell and ran for the hangar. A massive sound and accompanying flash forced her to throw her arms up over her face, and the quake that followed knocked her to the floor. When the hallway stopped shaking, she looked up. Through the little viewing window in the door, she could see that the hangar she had been heading toward had just been completely destroyed. Charred twisted ends of metal reached out into the void, and debris flew out into space. Another alarm sounded, this time announcing a station breach and imminent life support systems failure.

  Great.

  “Hey! You!”

  She turned to see who was yelling, and spotted a woman perhaps no older than herself peering at her from around the corner. She waved a dark arm at Ada. “C’mon, kid! You’re our pilot. Chop chop!”

  Ada raised an eyebrow. She was fairly certain she had never seen the woman before.

  “I’m with Bone Crusher! He gave you my multitool. I’m tracking it, so I know it’s you. He said you can fly. C’mon, we gotta get outta here!”

  The lights flickered out completely, and emergency LEDs sprang to life along the base of the walls. There wasn’t time to worry about the woman’s identity. Ada had to get off the station before it was in pieces.

  She followed her around the corner and up another flight, then down a long hallway and up once more. When they emerged, it was to a smaller, but intact, hangar deck. In the middle sat what looked like a souped up comet-hopper, but a little bigger. A ramp extended to the floor, and Bone Crusher peered out from inside.

  “Ada, ya made it!” He grinned.

  “Evidently so. Thanks for dinner, Crush.”

  “Thought you’d like it.”

  She followed the woman up the ramp. They passed through a small cargo area, a much smaller living area, and into a cramped little bridge. It was little more than a glorified cockpit, really, but there was room for a co-pilot and a little standing area behind the seats. The woman sat to the right, and nodded to the chair on the left.

  “So, think you can fly this thing?” she asked.

  Ada looked around, scrunching up her face. “What is this? It’s too big to be a fighter, but too small to call a freighter, so far as I can tell.”

  “Oh, she’s a freighter, all right.” Bone Crusher rested a hand on the wall of the cockpit, smiling. “Custom job. Real cute and little, ain’t she? But she’s got it where it counts. And she can do distance travel.”

  “If you don’t mind living without personal space for a few weeks at a time,” the other woman muttered. She flung a hand out to Ada. “By the way, Joyce. I take it you’re Ada.
”

  Ada shook Joyce’s hand, still looking around to get her bearings. “Looks like a comet-hopper from the outside, but a fighter from in here.”

  Another boom, another quake.

  “Can you fly her?”

  Ada frowned. She reached under the console and found a switch that felt right, and flicked it. The ship hummed to life, running lights illuminating the bridge and consoles flaring up. “Looks like everything is manual,” she said.

  “That going to be a problem?”

  “Well, not necessarily, but a little help would go a long way toward—” She stopped herself, having a sudden thought. But would it work? No way to know but to try. She reached down into the pocket sewn inside the belt of her pants. Yes, the data stick was still there. She fumbled for it a moment, pulled it out, and found a port to plug it into. There was a beep, more humming, and a few seconds later, a male voice over the cockpit comm.

  “New vehicle assimilated. Ready, Ada.”

  Ada grinned. “Hiya Moses,” she muttered. “Long time, no flying. But that’s about to change.”

  Joyce gave her a sharp look. “Program?”

  “More or less.” Ada shrugged. “Mostly more.”

  “You know, AIs are illegal for a reason.”

  “We can debate their merits and perils once we’ve gotten off this station alive. Moses, initiate launch. Please get us off this station as quickly as feasibly possible.”

  A beep. “Order confirmed. Vehicle prepared. Launching in five, four, three…”

  “Hang on to something,” Ada said. “Moses likes a little drama in his takeoffs.”

  Chapter 7

  Lucas was sitting in his chair again, back on his bridge, running a checklist of the pros of the situation in order to try to distract his mind from the cons. They were alive, for one. They were back onboard the Fairfax. They were armed again, even if there was a decidedly nasty pirate outfit they couldn’t use their guns against, and even if that nasty outfit was now the most likely outfit to come after them, and if they did, there would be no way to stop them from blowing the Fairfax out of the sky and condemning him and his entire crew to death by space explosion.