Aces

by Alanson, Craig

  Rick almost didn’t answer, not caring what the criminal at his feet thought of him. “I had the holoprojector attached to my belt. We figured after shooting at holograms for a while, you’d be looking for a hologram, so that’s what we gave you. Only this time, I was hiding behind the hologram, and you were stupid enough to fall for it.” Rick couldn’t resist gloating. “Tell me, what’s your boss going to think, you get captured by a group of unarmed guys? He won’t be real happy with you.”

  Mac silently glared at Rick, then looked away.

  “All right,” Nelson said, standing back and keeping the rifle pointed at Mac. “Sam, help dumb-ass here to his feet. You, you’re going to help us get the miners free, then we’re going to talk to your boss upstairs. And you better pray nobody up there got hurt. Like you said, the Navy won’t be here for a while. A lot of things can happen to you before the Navy shows up.” Nelson’s eyes narrowed, and he looked from Mac to the rifle and back. “Bad things.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Opening all the doors in a cargo section turned out to be easy, once Manny found the command listed on a menu, available from all of the door control panels. It was Jen’s card and access code that made it possible. Once he figured out how to open multiple doors, Manny had opened certain doors, all the way to the compartment where the Tinos were stored, allowing brother and sister to run the whole way there without stopping. While Kaylee was studying the hypersleep boxes, trying to figure out how to wake the tinos, Manny commanded all the doors behind them to slide close and lock again. It was, he decided, a neat trick.

  “Got it.” Dooley said, as his notepad got the door unlocked. It was still taking the same amount of time for his notepad to override each door’s locking code, but he was getting faster at running through each compartment, plugging his notepad into the control panel, and getting the code-cracking software running. Also, since they were no longer much worried about being ambushed by people with weapons, they now ducked through the doors as soon as they opened, rather than waiting to make sure the compartment ahead was clear. Dooley knew where the box was located, it hadn’t moved for ten minutes.

  As the door slid open, Dooley was the first through, and he almost dropped his notepad in surprise. The opposite door was open! “Boss!”

  “I see it, move!” The three pirates, and their robot, hurried down the compartment, guns drawn. They were only halfway through the cargo hold, when the door at the far end began to slide closed. Valjean, unencumbered by the gear Dooley and Taney were carrying, put on a frantic burst of speed, and shot through the closing door sideways, tearing buttons off his shirt on the way. As he fell to the deck, he saw the door on the opposite end was also, sliding closed. His effort was all for nothing.

  Valjean was alone. He could faintly hear pounding on the door behind him. Dooley would be working to open the door behind him, there was nothing for Valjean to do but wait. It did not improve his mood.

  “This one’s waking up!” Kaylee warned excitedly. She had activated the process for waking up the tinos, the instructions, helpfully, had been printed right on the outside of the hypersleep box. She and Manny had gotten the covers open, when the tinos woke up, all the creatures would need to do is step out onto the deck. The instructions said it would take fifteen minutes for the animal to become fully awake, and the process had been running for five minutes now. “We better get out of here now.”

  “Huh? Oh, great.” Manny said, distracted. He was sitting on the deck, where he had pulled the alien thing out of the box to look at it. Only now, he was looking at the box itself. “Kaylee, I think I know how the pirates found us.”

  “The intercom?”

  “No, not the intercom,” he said, relieved that he hadn’t been the cause of their current predicament. “This box has a radio ID tag.” He pointed to a small, shiny plate on the bottom of the box. “That’s how the crew knows where everything is, and I think it’s how the robots know where to store the cargo.”

  “So?” She was concentrating on the tino. It was smacking its lips, and its feet were twitching, like it was dreaming. Dreams were impossible in hypersleep, this animal was waking up.

  “So, the tag is still active. Kaylee, this is how they’ve been tracking us!”

  “Oh, no!” Kaylee put her hands to her mouth in horror. If she’d only taken the thing out of the box, and left the box behind- “Wait, can’t we just throw away the box now? The tag is on the box, not on the alien thing, right?”

  Manny didn’t look horrified. In fact, he had a sly look on his face. “We could leave the box here,” he paused as one of the awakening tinos gave a low, rumbling growl, “but we don’t want to. If the pirates want to track this box, I say we should let them.”

  There was a metallic clicking sound as the locking pins retracted, then the door began to slide open. When Dooley came through, he couldn’t decide whether he was relieved or disappointed, to find Valjean leaning casually against a crate, waiting for him. “They weren’t in here?” Dooley asked, surprised.

  “No,” Valjean explained, “the other door closed at the same time this door closed.”

  That puzzled Dooley. “Huh. So, they’re operating the doors remotely. I mean, I checked the radio tag five minutes ago, the box is still five compartments in front of us, so they weren’t here when the doors closed. I wonder if I can do that?”

  Based on the expression on Valjean’s face, that last question wasn’t something Dooley should have said out loud. “You moron!” Valjean smacked Dooley on the side of his head. “You could have opened all these doors, instead of one at a time?”

  “I don’t know, boss! I don’t think so. They have an access card, they can do anything they want.” Dooley looked back at the door control panel, hoping for answers. “I’m not interfacing with the computer, I’m just overriding the locking mechanism on one particular door. Sorry, boss.”

  “Try it!” Valjean insisted. In the back of Valjean’s mind was the thought that, if all the doors were open, he wouldn’t need Dooley much longer.

  That thought occurred to Dooley also. Not having a real choice, he plugged his notepad in, and started working. And thinking. Thinking of a way to survive.

  Kaylee ran through one darkened compartment after another, headed toward the back of the ship. It was a long way, on legs that were already tired. Manny was supposed to give her a five minute head start, he had opened all of the doors from where the tinos were, to the very aft end of the cargo section. The box with its radio tag was in her backpack, bouncing as she ran. If the pirates wanted to chase the box, let them, had been Manny's idea, and it was a good idea.

  She skidded to a stop, startled. There was a noise behind her. It didn’t sound mechanical. The noise repeated, a low grumble. It made her hair stand up. Were the tinos walking around already? She leaped forward and ran furiously, pumping her arms and legs faster, running into the darkness.

  The first tino had rolled over, and flopped out of its hypersleep box onto the deck. The tinos had awakened much faster than expected, as they had not been in hypersleep as long as they were supposed to have been. The first tino was groggy, though less so than its handlers probably expected. Tinos were tough, not only on the outside. It shook its head, rapidly awakening, and sniffed the air. Its sensitive nose detected three other tinos, and it spun around with a snarl. The other three were also stirring, and tinos were territorial, they usually killed other tinos on sight. Now, however, the first tino had a more important priority: it was hungry. Hungry like it had never been before. The hypersleep box had kept the tino’s body alive by dripping nutrients into its bloodstream, but its belly was empty, completely empty. Hunger was all it could think about. Hunger was everything.

  It smelled food, close by. The tino, keeping a wary eye on its three awakening companions, snuffled its way across the deck, to where Manny had discarded a candy bar wrapper. The scent of the candy was driving the tino insane with hunger, a fact that also would have surprised its handlers back on O
ceania, as candy bars were not known to be a food favorite of tinos in the wild. Unable to see close up, the tino snuffled, trying to find the wrapper, and only succeeded in pushing it under a pallet. It roared in frustration, and clawed at the pallet, to no avail.

  Then it stood up, and sniffed the air. The scent of candy was strong. With a leap, it was off, bounding out of the compartment, and after the candy.

  Manny paused and checked his watch. Almost five minutes had gone by. Like his sister, he was out of breath, but his path had been across the cargo pod, rather than towards the rear. He was almost at his destination, an elevator which connected the pods. It would be much easier to ride the elevator, than to climb down, and then up, an access tube.

  He stopped at a door, and plugged Jen’s card into the control panel, quickly pulling up a menu that showed him all the doors in that cargo pod. He frowned. Many doors he had not opened, were open. The pirates had opened those doors? It had to be. If that was true, then he knew where they were, at the end of the trail of open doors. They were getting close to the tinos, he saw with a wmile.

  Manny selected a command to open, and lock open, most of the doors in the cargo pod, then blocked off the area behind the pirates, and selected a command to close and lock those doors. This, he decided, was cool. He checked his watch. Four minutes, forty seconds. Close enough. He pressed the button, and was rewarded by the sight of multiple doors sliding open.

  There was one last thing to do; he selected a series of specific doors, and commanded them to close and lock. Then, he pulled the access card out of the slot, tucked it in his pocket, and ran for the elevator.

  Dooley was stalling for time. Sure, there had to be a command menu, somewhere, that would open multiple doors. Without an access card, and the proper password, he couldn’t get to the menu. So, he was randomly pressing buttons, waiting for Valjean to get disgusted and tell Dooley to stop.

  There was a click, then a familiar whirring sound, as doors began to open in front of them. Dooley looked up in surprise, to see an approving Valjean actually smiling, and patting him on the shoulder. “I knew you could do-“

  “Hey!” Taney called out, “The doors behind us are closing.”

  Valjean’s eyes narrowed. Dooley thought up a lie fast. “I, uh, figured we wouldn’t want them getting behind us, right, boss?” He said nervously.

  “Good thinking.” Valjean said, surprised at both Dooley’s brain power, and his own reaction. Was he getting soft? Then there was a faint roaring sound, echoing in the darkness, and the three pirates spun around. “What was that?”

  Taney took a couple steps forward, trying to peer into the gloom. The sound repeated, louder. It was echoing. “Sounds far away, whatever it is.”

  “Forget about it.” Valjean ordered. “Where’s the box now?”

  Locating the box was something Dooley knew how to do. “It’s moving, boss, toward the back of the ship. Straight ahead of us, the doors are open all the way.”

  Valjean nodded. Now that all the doors were open, the children must have realized they had no advantage over the pirates, no advantage other than a head start, no choice but to run as fast as their young legs could carry them.

  “No more screwing around. Dooley, you and your tin man go to the right, Taney and I will take the left. We’ll head straight for the back of the ship, Dooley, you hang back a bit, keep checking where that box is, we’ll catch them between us. I want that damned box, and I’m tired of being played with by those brats. Does everyone understand?”

  Taney indicated his agreement by flicking his pistol’s safety off, and spitting on the deck. Dooley simply nodded.

  “Move out!”

  The plan, which sister and brother had hurriedly cooked up, called for Kaylee to bring the box to the aft end of the ship, luring the pirates far away from their shuttle, while Manny went to find out if their shuttle was still docked to the ship. The plan was working, up until the point when Kaylee realized the tinos were awake already, and they were coming after her! She wasn’t sure at first, there were roaring sounds behind her, but the sound echoed so much in the cargo pod that she couldn’t tell if the sound was getting louder or not. Until suddenly she was sure. She’d paused to catch her breath, and saw something in the distance, just a glimpse, a darker shadow in the shadows. Something moving. Coming toward her. Fast.

  She experienced a moment of shear panic. How fast could a tino move? There was the shadow again, closer. Too close!

  Their plan was for Kaylee to dump the box, then crawl through a particular access tube, a tube for which Manny had remotely unlocked the hatch. That tube led into a series of compartments that Manny had blocked off from the pirates, a series of compartments where Kaylee could safely circle back past the pirates, and make her way to another tube, where she would have to climb down, then up, into the other pod.

  Only now, she wasn’t going to make it to the hatch before the tinos caught her! Manny said the hatch was between Structural Frames 91 and 92, she was only at number 85. There was no time. The tino roared as it spotted its prey. Kaylee reacted, whipping her backpack off, spilling the box out onto the deck. She kicked the box spinning away with her foot, slung her pack over one shoulder, and hopped on top of a crate, then another, then another, climbing higher, until she reached the wall. A ladder was there, attached to the wall, leading up into the unseen shadows of the ceiling. She grabbed hold of the ladder and climbed as fast as she could. Along the way, one of her feet slipped, and she fell forward into the wall, hitting a ladder rung and bashing her lip. Though her eyes teared up from the pain, Kaylee didn’t hesitate, she got her foot back on the ladder and kept going.

  The ladder ended near the ceiling, just below a hatch. The hatch Kaylee couldn’t open, it was locked, and Manny had the access card. There was a light near the hatch, she couldn’t hide there. Tinos couldn’t climb ladders, could they?

  She heard the tino coming, heavy thumping on the deck. It came into view, and tried to stop, its paws and claws skidding on the smooth deck plates. The scene would have been comical, watching a fierce predator with its feet slipping, legs spread out, trying not to fall. It thudded into a crate, and came to an awkward stop.

  The tino sniffed the air, and Kaylee held her breath, fearful it would hear her. But it didn’t look up at all, its nose was to the deck, following a scent trail, a trail which led to-

  The box. The box the alien thing had been in.

  Why would a tino want an empty box? Kaylee had taken the alien thing out of the box. Only- the box wasn’t empty! Kaylee remembered, as a joke, she and Manny had filled it with candy bars, along with a note to the pirates. Tinos liked candy? Human candy; chocolate, caramel and nuts?

  Apparently, tinos loved candy! This tino was trying to get the box open, but it was too stupid to know how to unlatch the lid. It tried to crush the box with its jaws, the square shape of the box was hard to get a good grip on. It laid down on the deck, put the box between its front paws, and tried to pop it open with its massive teeth.

  The tino stopped and raised its head, its ears swiveled around. Something was coming. Another tino. Coming to steal its food! The tino got the box between its jaws, and bounded off toward the aft end of the ship.

  Kaylee was about to climb down, when she heard more noises, echoing in the empty compartment. She climbed back to the top of the ladder just in time, as two tinos, one right behind the other, came racing down the compartment, chasing the first tino.

  Three. That was three tinos. There had been four tinos in the hypersleep boxes, all four had been waking when Kaylee last saw them. Where was the fourth one? She couldn’t climb down, if the fourth tino was still coming.

  Clinging to the ladder, she waited fearfully.

  Rick, Nelson and Sam had marched Mac to the mining camp, and released the miners from the dining hall, where most of them had been confined by the pirates. The miners, while desperately in need of showers, were otherwise in good condition. In the dining hall, they’d had acc
ess to plenty of food and drink, and the pirates had hooked up the emergency oxygen supply, although the air flow was turned down to keep the miners lethargic. It was a good plan from the pirates’ viewpoint: most of the miners were confined in one area, with no ability to go anywhere else. All the walkway tubes connecting the dining hall to other parts of the camp had been cut, and drained of air. Without e-suits, the miners had only been able to look out the windows and make idle threats about what they would do to the pirates, someday. When the three men from the freighter arrived, they brought with them several of the miners’ e-suits, so a few miners could move about the camp and bring back more e-suits. An hour later, they were gathered in the main administration building, where Mac had apparently had lived, slept, ate, drank, and amused himself by smashing things. The office of the mining manager, a tall Japanese man named Yomuri, had been thoroughly trashed, with graffiti scrawled on the walls, and his private liquor cabinet ransacked. Five very angry miners held Mac, who had bruises and cut on his face from rough treatment at their hands.

  Yomuri glared at Mac, and explained what had happened. “He and his buddies arrived a couple hours before the distress call was sent to your ship. Their ship was in orbit, we got a call saying it was a company surprise inspection, and we should make sure all our people were gathered here at the camp. It was near a shift change anyway, so most people were already here. I guess they knew that.” He added, as if that thought had just occurred to him. “They had legit recognition codes, we scoped out their ship as best we could, it looked like the kind of yacht our company bigshots fly around in. Surprise inspections are nothing special, I’ve been through plenty in my time. They landed, the leader sure looked like a typical corporate suit, real slick, you know the type. Looks right through me like I was nothing. Nothing! I run this whole mining concession, hell, I run the whole planet!” Yomuri bit his lips, and continued. “Anyways, one of them says he’s here to check on our life support system, there was a manufacturer’s recall, or something bogus like that. I sent two of my guys with that guy, and I broke out the good whiskey to sit down with their leader. We’re sitting in my office, he’s asking me a lot of questions, nothing suspicious, wants to see my drilling records, crew log books, all that. Pretty standard for an inspection. I tell you what, these guys really knew what they were doing. We’re talking, and I start feeling funny, sleepy like. Or like I was drunk. Head spinning, that sort of thing. Turns out, that little jerk who wanted to check out our life support, knocked out my two guys with a stun gun, and put a sleeping gas in our air filtration system. The pirates had taken an antidote, I guess.”