Pico's Crush

by Carol Van Natta

  While the stacker was sliding his flitter onto the airpad, his percomp pinged with a mysterious message from Mairwen. “Bad air traffic coming.” She’d probably meant it for Luka, somewhere in Tremplin, and accidentally included him and Sojaire. Mairwen and technology weren’t friends.

  In his flitter, he selected the coordinates for a restaurant near the gun range. He could have waited on the airpad for the traffic system to connect, but out of courtesy for the next person in line, he lifted off and drifted slowly over the north edge of the building, away from the public transport stop with its multiple boarding docks for the large, fast water taxis that serviced the islands and floaters.

  Just as the one-minute countdown began, an emergency hazard warning sounded and flashed on the flitter’s control panel. Protocol said to land or get out of the way, but neither the control panel nor the viewscreen showed him what he was supposed to be avoiding. Maybe Mairwen’s warning had meant the Tremplin traffic system was acting up again.

  Or maybe she somehow knew about the five combat-modified flitters that rose in tight formation from behind the Chemistry building to the west. Their stylized red-to-gold color was wrong for the military, and their silhouettes said they carried dual wide-array beamers.

  Growling every bad word he knew in any language, he killed the traffic system request and flew his eye-catching, bright red flitter as close as he dared to the edge of the Materials Science building, while considering his options. Leaving the floater was out of the question, since Pico was still there. Andra, too. If Mairwen’s message was about the merc ships, she was likely on the floater, and there was a good chance Luka was, as well. That meant that everyone he cared about on the entire planet was in the same place as five mercenary gunships, which could only spell trouble.

  He nudged his altitude higher, just in time to see a small blue flitter launch from the airpad toward the east. He took advantage of the free airpad to land his flitter, bouncing it a little in his haste. He didn’t want it stuck in the stacker, so he eased east, off the airpad, onto a graveled area that separated the airpad from the rooftop foliage. He opened the doors and scrambled out. After a moment’s hesitation, he put on his cap and multi-pocket vest, and grabbed his gun bag, then sealed the doors. If his suspicions turned out to be baseless, he could laugh at himself later.

  He took the stairs two at a time down to the second floor, and fast-walked to Andra’s office door. It was sealed and dark; she must have already left to grab a bite and get to her next class. He sent her a fast ping message and kicked himself for not having done so sooner. For good measure, he also pinged Mairwen, Pico, and Sojaire, using his hastily applied earwire to subvocalize quick messages about what he’d seen.

  In the meantime, he needed a better view of the Chemistry building’s roof. Thanks to two days’ worth of tours through the buildings, he had memorized the reversed-J-shaped layout, so he headed up the central stairs to the big third-floor Materials Sciences lab in the southwest corner of the building. The lab’s western windows were about fifty meters from the Chemistry building, and had a clear view of the front. He wouldn’t be able to see the taller building’s airpad, but he could see whatever was in the sky above it.

  As he approached the lab entrance, he pulled his cap lower on his head and looked down, slouching his shoulders, like he was just another maintenance worker doing his job. He kept wanting to tap his earwire to make sure it was working. Someone should have responded to his pings by now.

  He slid into the open doorway and turned left, which took him toward a bank of storage lockers. No one paid him any attention, because they were all clustered at the western windows, staring at the Chemistry building.

  “What blew up?” said a dark-skinned woman with close-cropped hair. “Lavong can’t blame us this time.”

  “Knowing those morons,” said a blonde woman with a German accent, “it was another gas leak.”

  The young, bald, blue-skinned “native” man activated his wristcomp. “Wankers. My sister’s in that building.”

  Jerzi eased a few steps into the room so he could see what they were looking at. Where the third-floor Chemistry lab windows should have been, empty, scorched frames gaped, and smoke wafted out. Because he’d seen them before, he recognized the scorch marks caused by a wide-array beamer.

  Behind the smoke, he thought he saw shadows of human movement. If the university followed the procedure they’d described to Mairwen, they’d start evacuating the Chemistry building, and seal off the Materials Science building connecting doors and walkways.

  The question was, did he want to be inside the Chemistry building, where Pico might be, or stay in the Materials Science building, where Andra might be? What the holy freakin’ hell were the merc gunships doing on a university campus? And why wasn’t anyone answering his kurczę pings?

  Chapter 18

  * Planet: Nila Marbela * GDAT 3241.149 *

  Andra was halfway up the center stairs to the third floor, where her first afternoon class was, when she’d received a strange ping from Mairwen Morganthur. Andra couldn’t imagine what “bad air traffic” meant, or why she was supposed to care.

  After Jerzi had left, she’d made herself eat the sausage roll she’d brought, even though she’d felt like the bottom was falling out of her stomach. It was a stark reminder that she’d never wanted to again depend on someone else for happiness, and lose herself in grief when it was gone. Her reminders hadn’t done any good.

  The fact that she’d stopped to read the ping probably saved her life, or at least some pain. On the very next step she took, she heard the unmistakable sound of plasma rifle fire, and a scream that cut short, coming from the top of the stairs. She bounded back down the stairs and back down the hall until the curvature hid her from view. She listened intently, but didn’t hear more weapon fire, just a man and woman arguing. She couldn’t make out the words.

  She activated her earwire and pinged an emergency priority message to building security. No one responded, but she assumed they were busy, what with people in the third-floor hallways with plasma rifles. Since security was handled remotely, during safety drills, the university expected faculty and staff to first keep themselves safe, and second, keep the students safe. This part of the second floor was mostly carved up into tiny offices for faculty, staff, and researchers, with numerous individual doors, all closed. The other side, past the stairs, had classrooms and larger lecture halls. She was as safe as anyone, for now, so they had to be her priority.

  Listening hard, she walked stealthily toward the stairs, watching for movement. She launched and sprinted past them. At the first occupied classroom, she stopped, took a calming breath, and opened the door. She told the startled professor and students that she’d seen people with guns, and to seal their door and get out of view of the door and the exterior windows and stay that way, until building security told them differently.

  She did it with each of the occupied classrooms she came to, delivering the same message with calm authority, to reduce the likelihood of panic. She was about to start doing the same in the Chemistry building when she heard the blast of an explosion. She scrambled back out of the donut walkway and saw shattered glass raining down from above, and a red-and-gold mercenary flitter firing a wide-array beamer above her, into the third-floor lab windows. The gunship rose out of sight soon after. The donuts were built to withstand powerful natural forces, but she doubted the designers had considered a military-style attack in their risk scenarios.

  At the moment, all the action was centered on the third floor of both the Chemistry and Materials Sciences buildings, and she desperately needed information on what was happening. Da’vin had been the recon wizard, but Andra could get the job done. The only scenario she could come up with at the moment was a daylight theft, though of what, she hadn’t a clue. Mercenaries were expensive and not particularly suited to punch-and-haul operations. Killing local comms, however, was definitely a mercenary trick, because they could rely on thei
r own encrypted comms. Ground-based theft crews liked tech suppressors better, because they increased the success rate for the low-tech methods they preferred.

  She carefully and quickly slid past the stairs again, then sprinted down the hall to her office, where she slapped the biometric reader. She closed and locked the door behind her fast, and opaqued its view window, then activated the deskcomp, but it couldn’t find a net connection. To be thorough, she tried the wallcomp, which was fiber-connected to the building systems, but it wouldn’t even tell her the time.

  She opened her closet and pulled out her gun bag. It wouldn’t be practical or wise to carry around her Hellrim combat rifle, because to civilians, a projectile gun and a plasma rifle were practically the same. The university security guards, when they finally arrived, would likely shoot her first and ask questions later.

  Flechette guns, on the other hand, looked almost like toys, and she had two of them. She was glad she’d kept the no-name one she’d confiscated from the hyena pack, and that it had been easy to repair and reset the biometric trigger to her fingerprint. Her larger Lipara was simpler and better, but the second gun would do in a pinch. She wished she’d had time to practice with it with the heavier Lipara flechettes, but at least she had plenty of boxes, despite having led Jerzi to believe otherwise.

  She eyed her backpack and considered its contents. Her new white-and-gold jacket was too bright, but it did have pockets, and all she had on under it was a sports bra, because the long-sleeved jacket was too hot to wear with anything else. The multi-pocket combat vest in her backpack all but screamed military. She couldn’t carry seventy kilos on a spy mission, so she reluctantly left her backpack alone. The other fun toys in it weren’t called for, at least yet.

  She swapped out her darker dress boots for the red running shoes she kept in her office. They’d improve both her traction and her stealth. She stuffed flechette boxes in her pants pockets. Too bad the speed clip for the Lipara was still in her trashed apartment. She loaded both guns with flechettes, six in the smaller gun and eight in her Lipara, then stuffed them in her jacket pockets, rather than the waistband of her pants. It would be too embarrassing if she shot herself in the ass.

  She grabbed a small mirror from her desk, then remembered the mirror on a stick the launch team had used, and fished it out of their supplies. She crouched at her door before clearing the view window and holding up the mirror. She didn’t hear or see anything, so she cautiously hand-cranked the iris open enough to stick her mirror into the hall. It was deserted.

  She pulled the mirror back and collapsed its wand before stuffing it in her upper chest pocket. She palmed open the door and sealed it behind her, then hugged the curving wall as best she could as she walked quietly toward the back stairs near the airpad lifts. Thankfully, most of the office doors she passed were closed and dark. For those that weren’t, she gave them the same instructions she’d given the classrooms: Lock the door and hide.

  The back stairway was the least bad option for getting to the third floor, since it was at the east end, farthest away from the Chemistry building. Stairway doors were always recognizable because they were some of the few ordinary, rectangular openings on the campus, owing to city fire-safety codes.

  She climbed the stairs purposefully and quietly, listening intently. If she lived through this, maybe she’d get hearing implants to go along with her oculars. Professors in quiet universities in paradise shouldn’t need such things, but mercenary units shouldn’t be shooting up said universities, either.

  She’d only just exited the door when she heard the lift doors chime. She ducked back into the stairwell and watched via her mirror through the door’s view window, leaving the door slightly ajar so she could hear. Four mercs, in red-to-gold uniforms that made them look like a gun-toting dance troupe, stepped out, various weapons at the ready.

  “Zhànshì, bàogào zhuàngtài,” a woman barked loudly in Mandarin, ordering someone to report. A thin, dark woman stepped into view and stood at attention.

  “Still no comms, sir.” She spoke English to a tall, bald man with enough gold earrings to start his own store. “No tech suppressor controls in his office.” She tilted her head to indicate the executive suite. “One of the lab crew shot August Two before the connecting doors closed, and January Six is missing.” Mercenary companies had picked up the military habit of call names, to reduce the enemy’s ability to associate a name with a face. Interesting choice of words, “lab crew.”

  Unfortunately, the leader didn’t conveniently mention mission objectives, but at least they took their team member with them when they marched smartly down the hall toward the west. Andra eased out the door slowly and glided to the far wall. On the far side of the elevators, someone had burned a jagged hole right through the ornate iris door that led to Department Leader Vestering’s palatial office suite.

  As much as she disliked the man, she had to see if he or his admins had been hurt or needed help. She used her mirror to check the hallway, then slipped fast through the large burn hole and into the suite’s reception area.

  She found Vestering in his corner, view-window office, unharmed but shaken. He had the start of a bruise on his jaw.

  “You shouldn’t be in here, De Luna.” He seemed coherent enough, but his naturally resonant voice sounded thin, and he gripped the arms of his expensive executive chair like they were his only hold against zero gravity.

  “Sir, you need to leave.” She looked around his disarrayed office briefly. “Is anyone else here?

  He shook his head. “No. They told me to stay.”

  “Who, the mercenaries? Red uniforms? They’re busy. You need to leave now.”

  “They said they wouldn’t hurt anyone if I gave them my codes and biometrics.” He shuddered. “Thank the stars, Baerlin was at lunch, or they might have killed him when they shot the door.”

  “They’ll only keep that promise if it’s convenient. Let’s get you out of here.” She made it an order. Vestering abruptly stood. She ignored his obvious embarrassment over the fact he’d wet his pants. Even trained gunnin sometimes lost control of bodily functions when the primal brain took over.

  She led him to the ruined door, checked the hallway, and had him into the stairway in a matter of seconds. She listened for a moment, then started down the steps and motioned for him to follow.

  He balked. “My flitter is upstairs.” He pointed up to indicate the airpad above them.

  “So are the mercs. You need to be where they aren’t.”

  He frowned, then nodded and followed. He tried to walk quietly, but his spring-heeled dress sandals weren’t suited to stealth.

  “Where is everybody?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “The halls are deserted.”

  “They made me order all our classes to the big Chem lecture hall for an emergency briefing, one wing at a time. I did the third floor, then the comms went down.” He touched his bruised jaw and winced. “They got mad when I couldn’t tell them anything about a tech suppressor.”

  At the first level, she had him stand against the wall inside the stairwell while she poked her mirror out the always-open doorway. The path looked clear all the way to the Math building’s main entrance, which was only forty meters away.

  “They called for reinforcements, before the comms died.” Vestering said suddenly. “The big bald man ordered three more units to lock down the floater.”

  “Any clue why they’re here?”

  “No, but they asked if I knew where Lavong is. I told them to check his office or any of the labs.”

  “We’re going to the Math building. It’s standalone, so I’m hoping it’s a secondary objective. Your best bet is the emergency evacuation boat under the loading dock. If you run into people you know personally, take them with you.”

  He frowned. “You aren’t coming?”

  “No. I’m more useful here. Let’s go.”

  Vestering wanted to run, but she held him to a brisk walk. They’d lose time and attract
attention if he fell. She kept her left hand on the flechette gun in her pocket and darted quick glances around the sky and empty commons. She all but shoved him through the Math building’s doorway and pointed to the southern wing. “Get off the floater. Keep checking comms. The minute you can, call in the police and the military. Tell them the mercs probably have hostages in the Chem lecture hall.”

  He gave her one final, unhappy frown before turning and walking fast across the atrium. She had the feeling he’d be taking the boat by himself, but it couldn’t be helped. His executive authority would bring a faster response.

  She tried her percomp and earwire again, but wasn’t surprised when nothing happened. Someone had locked down the floater comms against the mercenaries, and she’d bet her next ten beers that it wasn’t university security.

  On her way back to the Materials Science building, she heard a commotion at the public transport stop that was to her right, between the buildings. She wavered, then figured a quick look wouldn’t hurt. She used the vegetation, which was fortunately overdue for cutting back, to cover her approach. She was puzzled as to why the dock was deserted except for one unattended people-mover boat, until she crept out a little more and saw the pair of large race boats blocking access to the sea gate, two hundred meters out. She used her oculars to confirm that the boats were well armed, and painted to look like sea monsters with teeth.

  The source of the commotion was a couple of men who were dragging an unconscious or dead mercenary, trying to get her legs free of a tangler vine. The men were dressed like students, in casual shorts and transparent knit shirts, but they were older, with typical crew body art and jewelry.

  “Den échoume chróno gi ‘aftó!” the shorter one hissed. Andra’s Greek was rusty, but she thought he said, “We don’t have time for this.”