Drifter's Run

by William C. Dietz

  As Lando stepped out of the lock and into the launching bay, Cy swooped by the pilot's visor and uttered a long drawn-up war whoop over the standard suit-to-suit radio frequency.

  Lando swore, Cy laughed, and Melissa broke her contact with the deck in order to give chase.

  "There you are," a voice said, and Lando turned to find Captain Sorenson towering above. He was framed by a bright green exoskeleton that stood twelve feet tall and caused Lando's radio to buzz with static.

  Sorenson's almost-cheerful manner and flushed face suggested more than a few drinks. Still, the older man was sober enough to do some work, and that was a first.

  "Here I am," Lando agreed dryly. "Now what?"

  "Now you play catch," the other man answered enigmatically. Cap released himself from the machine and floated free. "Your chariot awaits."

  Lando had never had an occasion to use an exoskeleton before, but he understood the theory, and decided it couldn't be that hard. Using the conveniently placed foot supports Lando climbed the exoskeleton's frame until he was even with its shoulders.

  Turning, Lando backed into place, aligned his limbs with the machine's, and felt a series of metal bands snap into place around his arms and legs. He flexed his fingers. The exoskeleton did likewise. From now on it would mimic and amplify every motion effectively quadrupling Lando's strength.

  "It was designed for maintenance work," Cap said by way of explanation, "but it makes a good catcher."

  "Catcher?" Lando asked, moving his right leg experimentally and watching the machine do likewise.

  "Yeah," Sorenson answered. "We'll pitch, and you catch.

  Pitching takes some practice, so I'm giving the easy job to you."

  Lando wanted to ask some more questions but Cap was gone, the jet pak on his back pushing him down through the hatch, with Melissa gamboling along behind.

  Moving with great care Lando took a few tentative steps toward the hatch. Electromagnets kept the exoskeleton's podlike feet securely fastened to the deck. Outside of the slight disorientation that came with Lando's increased size, walking was easy.

  Looking down through the hatch, Lando saw the lights of Utility Platform 63, and two silhouettes as Cap and Melissa touched down. The space station was huge, half a mile in every direction, and outlined with colored lights.

  The platform's function was similar to that of a dirtside warehouse, to store freight prior to shipment, and turn a profit in the process.

  Like most of its kind the platform was actually a cube. Freight could be unloaded on any one of the cube's six sides. This was normally accomplished with automated or remote-controlled mini-tugs. A series of concentric circles decorated each landing surface. Once freight was safely deposited in the middle of a bull's-eye, specially designed robots used the zero-G environment to move it down into the platform's interior, where a computerized sorting system put it away. Later, when it was time to load the freight aboard another ship, the process was reversed.

  The platform could supposedly handle up to six vessels at once, but that increased the chance of a collision, so Lando was glad that this was a slow rotation. One other ship was present with only the strobe of its navigation lights to separate it from the blackness of space.

  "All set?" Cy asked cheerfully, his spherelike body dropping in from Lando's right side. "They oughtta start tossing stuff our way any minute now."

  "Here comes!" Cap said, his voice artificially loud over Lando's suit radio. "Time to earn your pay."

  Looking down Lando saw a tiny square of reflected light separate itself from the surface of the platform and grow suddenly larger. He watched it like a spectator at first, interested, but outside the action.

  "You'd better get ready," Cy cautioned, "it looks like the captain put some zip on that one."

  "Some zip?" Lando asked stupidly, and realized the square had grown suddenly larger and was entering the hatch. Now he understood. Using the surface of the platform as an anchor, and zero gravity as a medium, Cap was pitching cargo modules into Junk's hold. Lando's job was to catch them. If he failed they'd ricochet around the inside of the launching bay until they ran out of kinetic energy. That could cause some damage, and, even more important, take his head clean off.

  Lando stepped up to the very edge of the hatch and opened his arms.

  The cargo module hit the bottom of his right arm, bounced off, and spun to the left. Shuffling in that direction the smuggler made a grabbing motion, managed to capture the plastic case between massive arms, and stood there unsure of what to do next. It was strange to hold a cargo module in his arms. After all, it was six feet long, four feet wide, and four feet deep, and, without the help of the exoskeleton, much too heavy for Lando to lift.

  "Heads up!" Cy advised. "Here comes another module. Shove that baby toward me and I'll stow it."

  Glancing to his right, Lando saw that Cy had positioned himself in front of the aft section of the bay. Behind him there was an open area. The cargo would be stacked in there.

  Lando did as he was instructed, shoving the cargo module toward Cy, and looking down for another. It was already there, a little to the right this time, and tumbling end over end.

  As he scrambled to catch it Lando wondered if this was some sort of test, Cap's idea of an initiation, a gut check. If so, Lando decided that he'd show the drunken bastard a thing or two, and threw himself in front of the module. It knocked him backward a step, but he held on, and passed the container to Cy.

  After that it became a game, more than that a minor war, with Cap pitching modules as hard as he could and Lando catching them. Finally, after an hour or so, he detected a slight slackening in pace. Grinning to himself, Lando chinned his suit radio and did his best to sound bored.

  "What am I supposed to do between modules? Read a book? Let's pick up the pace."

  Cap made no answer, but the modules came fast and furious for a while, eventually dropping off to an even slower pace than before.

  Six hours later the job was about a third done, and as the crew took a break, Lando was pleased to see that Sorenson looked like death warmed over. It served the old geezer right for playing silly games.

  But the break was soon over. A meal, a few hours of sleep, and the whole thing started over. This time it lasted a full day, and by the time it was over, Lando was too tired to enjoy Cap's obvious exhaustion. In fact he sort of admired the older man for having the guts to stick it out. The guy was a drunk, and a poor excuse for a father, but deep down something remained. Something that might even be worth saving.

  It reminded Lando of his own father, a smuggler like his father before him, more mystery than person. Lando remembered growing up, time spent with his mother mostly, the two of them waiting for his father's return. Smugglers are gone a lot, picking up and delivering their secret cargoes, so Lando's childhood was filled with a multitude of joyous homecomings and sad departures.

  But even the good times were tinged with sadness, because just beneath the surface of his mother's cheerful conversation, there lurked the certainty of tragedy to come. She never talked about it. But with the sixth sense of children everywhere, Lando knew, and his dreams were filled with horror.

  Little did Lando know that when tragedy came it would take his mother first. And that when his father died he'd be there to see it. See it and run as fast and far as he could go. But he couldn't outrun the memories and they followed Lando into his dreams.

  Lando awoke to the strains of "All Hail the Emperor" piped throughout the ship. It was Cy's idea of humor and Lando's idea of hell. As he stepped into his fresher Lando swore a terrible revenge on the cyborg, but the hot water felt wonderful, and his mood was much improved by the time he emerged.

  Thanks to Junk's unorthodox design, Lando's cabin was much larger than what was found aboard most ships her size, and compared favorably with a Class B suite on a liner. He had a double-sized bunk with overhead storage, a comfortable lounge chair, and a nice desk with built-in comp.

  The
only thing that bothered him was a vague sense of otherness, as if the space belonged to someone else only recently gone.

  Lando raised the question over one of Melissa's instant meals, still in their original containers, and right out of the microwave. The galley was a cheerful space full of white plastic and shiny metal.

  Melissa was her usual energetic self, Cap was drawn and haggard, and Cy was elsewhere. Rehydrated mystery strips and simu-eggs don't mean much without digestive organs to process them with.

  Lando speared a strip of soggy meat and stuffed it into his mouth. "Gross, Melissa, truly disgusting."

  Melissa stuck out her tongue and made a face.

  Lando nodded his understanding. "By the way, whatever happened to my predecessor anyway?"

  Melissa looked down at the table and fiddled with a burned piece of toast.

  Cap scowled and looked up from his coffee. "Dead. A fusion plant aboard one of Sikma's OL-12 habitats blew. We were hired to round up the pieces. You wouldn't believe it, there was junk everywhere, like a cloud of metal it was. Big chunks of it, tumbling end over end, and colliding with anything that got in the way."

  Cap gestured with his coffee cup. "Some of it was quite valuable. A few tanks of zero-G biologicals had escaped the explosion and were floating free. We tried to grab them but they were too small. The tanks didn't have enough mass for the tractor beams to lock on to. Lia, she was our pilot, went out to round them up by hand. She zigged when she should have zagged. A free-floating I-beam took her head right off."

  Melissa made a sobbing sound and ran from the room. Cap looked back to Lando and shrugged. "Mel hired Lia, so even though it wasn't her fault, she feels responsible. I told her to let it go… but she won't. Reminds me of her mother. Just part of growing up I guess."

  Hot words boiled up to fill Lando's throat, words about fathers who force little girls to make adult decisions, words about alcoholics who turn their children into parents.

  But Lando knew the words could not be heard or understood so he choked them down. Ignoring Cap's curious stare, Lando dropped his fork and left the galley. Sorenson was right about one thing. It wasn't her fault. He'd find Melissa and tell her that.

  4

  The One Who Falls Upward was tall and skinny as Finthians go, his multicolored plumage somewhat obscured by ceramic body armor and a heavy leather harness. The harness supported a variety of hand weapons. The One Who Falls Upward fingered a worn-looking blaster and watched the screen with large saucerlike eyes. The ship was a three-dimensional cylinder surrounded by three-dimensional spheroids. A few short minutes from now the ship would enter his carefully constructed ambush.

  And the Finthian knew lots about the ship, information he would've paid dearly for, but the cyborg offered for free. Well, not for free, since Willer wanted the ship's commanding officer, but almost for free.

  "Hold… hold… almost there…" The words came from the translator at the Finthian's neck and found their way into space a fraction of a second later.

  Outside, beyond the thick durasteel hull, thirty-one men and women waited to attack. Some clung to smaller asteroids. Others floated free, powered down to escape Junk's scanners, doing their best to imitate pieces of free-floating rock.

  All were mounted on hand-built single-seat fighters. No two were alike. Some were souped-up space scooters, others were ex-maintenance sleds, and many were cobbled together from odds and ends.

  But all had one thing in common. They were armed to the teeth. Energy weapons, guided missiles, even a smart bomb or two. The incoming ship was as good as dead. The pirates grew impatient.

  The One Who Falls Upward understood this, and soothed them as a Dwik Master soothes his hell hounds. "Patience, my children, patience. The wind rewards those who wait."

  "The wind blows straight from your ass," a male voice said, but the Finthian ignored him, and the pirates continued to wait.

  The One Who Falls Upward glanced to the right and left. The glowing vid screens, the banks of brightly lit controls, and the well-disciplined crew were all part of his design. As was the ancient ore barge that served as his headquarters.

  Creaky though it was the barge had its own in-system drive. That, plus a thick layer of real rock, made the barge into a mobile asteroid. A perfect disguise for working the belt, and one that had proved itself many times before.

  And now, with the addition of the incoming tug, the Finthian would have a ship equipped with hyperdrive as well. After that, who knows? A destroyer? A cruiser? Anything was possible.

  The One Who Falls Upward grinned a predatory grin and returned his attention to the screen. Humans are unpredictable, and one must watch them constantly.

  Had he missed anything? No, he'd selected the location with care. The ambush was inside the asteroid belt, but not so far in as to be dangerous.

  Over time the gravitational pull of Durna's larger planets caused asteroids to change orbits and collide. The collisions gave birth to more asteroids, or chunks of asteroids, in a never-ending cycle. A violent cycle. That's why it made more sense to steal from the roid miners than to be one.

  Another reason The One Who Falls Upward had chosen this particular site for his ambush was the system of "gates." There were twenty-seven of them altogether, carefully chosen points where conditions were fairly stable, and the roid miners could enter or leave the belt in relative safety.

  Each gate was located in close proximity to an asteroid large enough to survive a minor collision. By placing transmitters on twenty-seven such planetoids the roid miners created an informal navigation system. It wasn't perfect, but it helped a lot when some miner was trying to get home with a holed hull, or a shaky drive.

  Unfortunately the system worked in favor of the rock pirates as well, since it allowed them to prepare an ambush at any of the twenty-seven gates, and do so with a good chance of success.

  The miners knew this and countered with occasional Q-ships. Q-ships were heavily armed destroyers disguised to look like freighters. The pirates would attack them, take a terrible beating, and run off to lick their wounds.

  But time would pass and the pirates would return. Like right now. The ship called Junk was easing through the gate. Junk! How like the humans! A ship, any ship, deserves a true name. He would name it The Wind Which Pushes All Before It, and give it honor.

  When he spoke the Finthian's voice was no more than a whisper. "Hold my children… hold. The ship is almost there…"

  Lando squirmed in his seat. The possibility of an ambush was very much on his mind as Junk passed through Gate Eighteen and entered the belt.

  The trip from Snowball to the asteroid belt had taken three standard days. Simple days during which Lando was free from fear. There were no cargo modules to catch, no bounty hunters to escape, and no police to throw him in jail.

  Not until Gate Eighteen that is. Now Lando felt a lead weight riding low in his stomach.

  Though not a warship, Junk was well armed. Her weapons, and weapons control systems, had been stripped from a pirate cruiser. A real pirate cruiser, not one of the flying jokes the rock pirates used.

  For reasons unknown the pirates had dropped into the Durna system for a look around, ran smack dab into an Imperial battlewagon, and lost the ensuing battle.

  Picking the resulting wreck up for a song, Melissa's mother had salvaged about fifteen percent of the cruiser's weapons, and installed them in Junk. Even fifteen percent of a cruiser's total weaponry is a lot for a tug so Junk was well armed.

  Lando knew this but it did little to reassure him. Weapons are one thing, but competent operators are another, and given Junk's crew they were few and far between.

  Okay, assume Cap was sober, a questionable proposition but assume it anyway. He was ensconced in the top weapons turret, and if the pirates attacked, he might give a good account of himself. Fine. That left Melissa and Cy. Melissa was stationed in the port weapons blister, and Cy in the starboard. A little girl and a floating brain. How would they do? Sweat
trickled down Lando's back as he watched the scanners.

  The One Who Falls Upward hooked taloned thumbs into his harness. It was now or never. "Attack!" As the word left his beak thirty-one fighters launched themselves in Junk's direction.

  The fighters showed up as thirty-one points of light on Lando's plot. The computer quickly assigned each one a threat value, a target number, and requested permission to fire.

  Lando swore, released the ship's automatic weapons systems, and yelled over the intercom. "Thirty plus incoming hostiles. Engage with secondaries. Engage with secondaries."

  As Junk's primary weapons lashed out they killed seven pirates in two seconds. Lando smiled. It was a turkey shoot so far. Another few seconds and the pirates would be history.

  The smile faded as a hundred points of light blossomed within the tac tank. What the hell? Then he realized what they were, some kind of decoys, meant to draw fire from the ship's primary armament while allowing the fighters to close untouched.

  And it was working. All along Junk's hull energy weapons burped light and auto launchers hurled missiles at bogus targets.

  Meanwhile the real pirates were firing and scoring hits that weren't likely to destroy the tug but were doing damage nonetheless.

  "Ignore the new targets," Lando shouted over the intercom. "They're fakes! Fire on all targets numbered thirty or lower."

  Then Lando ordered the primary weapons systems to do likewise. The ship's fire control computer classified his order as an operator error and continued to fire at the bogus targets.

  Deep within his converted ore barge The One Who Falls Upward allowed himself a tiny moment of triumph. The ruse had worked! Eighty-four percent of his custom-made decoys had activated on command. Even now they were destroying themselves, and in the process generating enough heat and electronic activity to resemble a small ship.

  Of course skilled use of the ship's secondary armament could still win the battle, but Willer had assured him that the ship was woefully undercrewed, and that would work to his advantage. Without the tug's secondary armament to stop them his fighters would close in and lock themselves to Junk's hull. A few minutes with a torch, a quick death for most of the ship's crew, and The Wind Which Pushes All Before It would be his.