“Odd choice for agribusiness, no?”
“Perhaps.”
“All the better as cover for nefarious activities, I suppose.” Despite my earlier nerves, I felt . . . happy. Excited. I let myself smile and refused to think about the origin of my sudden mood lift.
“You like traveling?” she asked, mildly.
“Yeah,” I said. “Guess I always have. And it’s been a long time . . . too long, probably. Last Stop was never meant to be my permanent home, you know?”
“I suppose I do. I imagine you aren’t the first to feel that way.”
“Probably won’t be the last either.”
“Maybe when we get Siren back, you should go somewhere else. Ncaco will probably pay you handsomely for bringing her back. Not to mention clearing up his little ‘outsider pharma’ problem. Or take that Vmog Emerita up on her offer or something. You deserve better than bouncing in some two-bit space station’s nightclubs. Even if it is the best club on the station . . .”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said, good mood dissipating like the last tendrils of atmosphere as the ship boosted away from the station’s high-atmo orbit. The boost induced a slight roll, which caused the station to slide into view through our cabin’s viewscreen. I watched it recede as it tracked across the screen and tried really hard not to think about why I wasn’t happy anymore.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Angel
Muck’s breathing evened out and he slept. His eyes closed, but I used the infonet data from the ship’s external sensors to watch the gas giant that fed Last Stop turn under us as we slingshotted through its gravity well. I also took the opportunity to get a copy of the ship’s blueprint . . . both the official version, and the unofficial reality that included fun little hidey-holes like the one that held our weapons. Our bag had been waiting for us in our quarters, stashed neatly under a false floor in the in-room baggage locker.
As on most commercial freighters that ran the routes through the settled parts of the galaxy, the crew were at least part-time smugglers. Import/export duties varied widely depending upon the station or planet. A lot of ship’s captains didn’t bother to try and keep up; it was cheaper to hide the goods and pay the fines if caught. Most places wouldn’t imprison a smuggler . . . at least not for a first offense, and those that made executions part of their customs laws often saw immediate and precipitous drops in commerce as a result. The Administration was another matter entirely, of course, but it rarely involved itself in such matters unless someone got too big for their britches and required its immediate and undivided attention.
Smugglers or not, the crew treated their passengers well. Or at least the passengers who’d paid for a private cabin. Four times a day a discreet chime would sound, and the ship’s AI would politely offer the available food and beverage items. Muck would order, and a few moments later, a uniformed crew member would arrive with a covered plate. The food was good, for shipboard synth-fare. Muck enjoyed the meat products far more than Siren had, and I found that I appreciated the difference. Especially when he ordered a rare steak. The iron and proteins in every bite threatened to cause a sex-like dopamine dump. It was that good.
Outside of mealtimes, our days in transit consisted of a mind-numbing routine. Within the first two hours I’d combed through as much of the ship’s infonet files as I could reach without hacking their security protocols. I could have done that, too, but I politely refrained. I did place a series of presets that would allow me full access at will, however. Better to stay low-profile for as long as possible, but if I needed in, then I wanted to be able to get in quick.
I might have talked to it, but the AI running the ship was hardly a conversationalist. It had severely circumscribed autonomy, a limited skillset, and no sense of humor whatever.
So we ate, practiced communicating, and took twice-daily advantage of the crew’s fitness facilities. Regular passengers didn’t have access to them, but apparently working out was one of the perks of paying for a private cabin, and we took full advantage. Despite the strangeness of it, I found that I genuinely enjoyed the steadily increasing strength and power of my host body. Siren had always been strong, but Muck’s body . . . well. I felt like I could move mountains if I had to.
Which as it happened, I very nearly did.
It was the ninth day of our transition. We’d made orbit over Sagran VI overnight and had just begun the slow, retrograde burn to put us into position over the only city planetside.
We had finished our first meal and were walking toward the fitness bay when white, burning light slammed into our body with the force of an unstable asteroid mining drone. The universe tilted ninety degrees to the right, and sudden deceleration flung our strong, powerful body into the bulkhead as if we were no more than a child’s doll.
“Angel! What’s happening? Are we under attack?” Muck yelled. I don’t know if it was out loud or not, because I was busy tapping into the infonet through the place where the back of his head touched the shuddering bulkhead. Through the ringing in our ears, I could hear a deep, almost subliminal groan. A shudder passed through the bulkhead, and distant alarm klaxons began to sound.
The ship’s infonet became clogged with data as all the automated systems began yammering at each other at one time. Several systems appeared to have died yet continued to transmit their last data packets in a feedback loop that produced a disorienting echo of information. I fought to focus through a wave of dizziness that assaulted Muck and me both.
“No,” I said, tapping into the external sensors. “There’s nothing out here. Not even any debris. Checking internal systems . . .”
I pulled the data streams to me, shutting down the babel and cutting through the ship’s security protocols with little finesse. Everything was in such disarray, it was doubtful anyone would notice, though I did feel something like shock reverberate through the ship’s AI. I ignored it, tapped into propulsion, and began to try and absorb the deluge of information that followed.
“Muck,” I said, as a picture began to present itself. “We need to get off this ship.”
“All right. Why, specifically?”
“The explosion was caused by one of the bubble drive’s harmonic resonators running away. Except . . . it’s called a harmonic resonator because it is locked into the drive’s specific gravitic wavelength. This is a fault that shouldn’t be possible. Isn’t possible . . . unless someone programmed it to happen.”
“You’re saying—?”
“The ship’s been sabotaged. We need to move.”
“Right.” Muck struggled to his feet. Pain bloomed from the back of our skull all the way down to our heels, but I damped it as best I could, and he ignored the rest. The bulkhead that had now become the deck continued to shudder as we took one, then another shaky step back down the short corridor toward our cabin . . . and the escape pods.
The way was blocked. Twisted metal and razor-edged composite fragments lay piled not two meters from our destination. It looked like the interior bulkhead had blown in during the initial explosion, and the way seemed completely impassable. Somehow, we still had atmosphere, so no immediate outer hull breach, but who knew how long that would last. Without my asking, Muck slapped a hand on the one-time deck that was now our left bulkhead. I pulled the data, but it was a waste of time. I already knew. There was no other route to the escape hatches. This was it.
“All right,” Muck said, in answer to my wordless negative. “I guess the only way out is through. Give me a jump.”
“You got it,” I said, flooding his system with adrenaline and endorphins. He sucked in a breath as the euphoria began to take hold and rolled his shoulders. Then, we moved. Bloody stars, how the man moved. It felt like being encased in rough poetry. He launched himself at obstacles, hauling broken debris and tortured metal out of our way to clear a space large enough to crawl through. It took a good seven minutes, with the shuddering bu
lkheads and the deep groans of the wounded ship increasing in both duration and intensity. Several times, a human crewman’s voice sounded, pleading with passengers to remain calm and shelter in place. We ignored the warning and kept working.
A series of smaller explosions began to run through the ship just as Muck let out a cry of triumph. He shifted a large, half-melted, misshapen lump of metal and a draft of slightly cooler air wafted through to us.
We had less than a minute, by my calculations.
“That’s it,” I told him, as I poured more adrenaline into his bloodstream. His heart rate jumped another notch, but I knew he could take it. “Life support has failed. We gotta go! Just get to a pod. No time to get to the hold and our weapons.”
“Right,” he said. With a wordless yell, he dove through the jagged hole he’d widened in the shredded bulkhead. A corner of composite caught us on the shoulder and slashed our right arm open to the elbow. We wriggled and fought to squeeze through the small opening, until another, closer explosion erupted behind us. We rode the pressure wave to slam against the bulkhead opposite the opening on the other side.
“Get up, get up!” I chanted. I thought about going into override, but I wasn’t confident I could do any better. His greater bulk, different reflexes . . . Everything was still too new to me. Plus, I’d just jacked his system so high that it really wasn’t wise to take my attention from his heart right then. That valiant organ slammed against the inside of our chest in a rapid-fire beat. It was fine, and the trickle of blood loss was helping . . . but I did need to make sure he didn’t stroke out or have a heart attack.
“Right,” Muck said again, and struggled to his feet. More than just the back of our body hurt this time. The ringing in our ears was back, and we could barely see through the smoke that had begun to fill the ship as the life-support modules failed.
“Twenty steps forward,” I directed. “Then a hard left. The escape pods are through the hatch. I’ll see if I can hack it open.”
Muck reached out his left hand and leaned on the wall, leaving a smear of blood behind.
“Brilliant,” I said, admiring his positional awareness. Even wounded and under stress, he allowed me access to what little active infonet the ship still supported, and kept himself upright on unsteady legs. That last explosion hurt us pretty badly. I’d have to assess things once I had a spare second. Escape pods were legally required to have at least a rudimentary nanite lifesaving kit on board, but that regulation went almost as unobserved as those requiring accurate manifests. I could hope for one, anyway.
For now, I activated the presets and started to take over everything in reach. The door controls should have responded to Muck’s presence, but there was something . . . blocking them.
I did my best to split my attention as we staggered forward. I had to keep monitoring our physiology, but I also had to find my way past the block, which had to have been deliberately set. It was too coherent to be accidental. A full minute passed. The data was still confused and tangled beyond it, threatening to overwhelm me as it surged in time with the ship and its AI’s death throes. I frantically combed through each surge, searching for a particular string . . .
There! Got it.
“Hurry,” Muck whispered, and I could feel his system starting to crash from the adrenaline high. I was tempted to jack him up again, but I didn’t know if he’d survive that, and I couldn’t take the chance. So I slammed in the overdrive protocols instead.
Clumsy, so clumsy! I lurched forward, barely getting my leaden, painful hands up in time to push at the hatch covering the escape pod access alcove. At my touch it squealed, then rose in a halting, start-and-stop motion. Once it opened enough for passage, I pushed us down into a crouch and ducked underneath it.
We fell into the pod, slamming a hand on the red activation panel. The panel illuminated, and a calm, unhurried voice issued forth from everywhere.
“You have initiated the emergency escape launch sequence. You will be restrained in your couch for the launch. Please remain calm. You may lose consciousness from the force of acceleration. This is normal. Please remain cal—”
Black nothingness slammed into us.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LEO
“Supervisor Dengler, the initial investigation indicates the death was not natural or self-inflicted,” LEO said, rendering his opinion on the preliminary forensic evidence. “We received a nonemergency call one hour and thirty minutes before the first security officer arrived on scene. A resident in the apartments above the shop complained of an acrid stench coming from the ventilators. This would not have triggered a response from a biological officer, but for the fact another neighbor noted the rear door open approximately one hour after the initial call. A query of the emergency response system to the shop owner’s registered translator device inquiring if the resident required assistance went unanswered. A unit was dispatched, quickly discovered the deceased, and set up the forensic scanner for my use. Questions posed to the first caller in an interview subsequent to finding the deceased alien indicated that a loud squeal might have been heard at or around 0300 local, but the caller was uncertain as they had been asleep.”
“Fulu, murdered? I wonder what the plant did to piss someone off?” Dengler asked his partner, cutting the direct connection. LEO continued to watch and listen, however. Every security officer carried a personal terminal that accessed the infonet and used law-enforcement grade encryption. LEO simply unlocked the encryption and accessed every recorded word and gesture.
“Good question.” LEO identified Security Officer Keyode’s tone as noncommittal, while his supervisor made a show of examining the data LEO had gathered and the report he’d generated with the speed and accuracy he’d been designed for.
LEO felt something strange as he observed the supervisor.
LEO had done a great deal of research on the former partners. The research had proven useful, both in identifying the level to which both men were compromised and in assisting LEO in identifying the “feelings” he was experiencing.
Dengler’s history made it easy to identify him as a bad actor: he’d been accepting money and other benefits from Last Stop’s homegrown organized crime rings and was even linked to individual members of outside criminal organizations whose reach included Last Stop.
LEO created a file and filled it with Dengler’s malfeasance. He could do that much, at least, for now. At some point whatever constraints were keeping him from reporting this activity properly would be lifted. But for now he could do only one other thing. He could identify the emotion his powerlessness provoked: anger. Deep, abiding anger.
He’d already learned that anger didn’t help him think, so instead of dwelling on it he examined the file he’d created on Keyode.
Security Officer Jiro Keyode had apparently been far more circumspect. LEO had found very little to implicate Dengler’s former partner. His spouse, Xavier Keyode, had been listed as missing for several months, but people ran off as relationships crumbled. It was one of the reasons Last Stop’s population was always in flux. People fleeing bad situations found new ones to mire themselves in. There were some financial irregularities that LEO could not confirm were legal, but that—aside from his partnership with Dengler—was the extent of the incriminating data LEO had been able to locate.
The sensation that rose up in LEO in response to that inability to find sufficient evidence soon found a label, as well: frustration. He even began to find nuances in these unwanted sensations: frustration tinged with . . . “respect” was perhaps too strong a word, but it served while LEO continued to monitor the men.
“Doesn’t look like anything was taken,” Keyode said as he completed his own examination of Fulu’s robotics shop. “Only the translation device was wrecked.” He gestured at the gutted remains of a console beside the counter Fulu used to station herself behind.
“No.”
> “Any ideas?”
“None of the usual suspects appeal.”
LEO considered that statement. He’d already examined SARA’s records of Dengler’s movements, and they were clear: Dengler had not murdered Fulu. But, given his connections, LEO considered it an extremely low probability that the security supervisor did not know the perpetrator.
LEO grudgingly—another sensation he’d recently identified—admitted to himself that Dengler may not know which of his many criminal associates had killed Fulu. The security supervisor was human, after all, not some omniscient god from human mythology.
LEO realized he’d missed some statements made by Dengler. Disturbed by his loss of focus, LEO spun off a tine to perform a self-assessment even as he renewed his attention on the Security men.
Officer Keyode had finished examining the living quarters above the shop and returned to the main floor shaking his head.
“What?” Dengler asked from his position leaning against the entryway.
LEO was interested in his response as well, concerned that he had missed something in his initial examination of the scene: Gosrians had limited motility and no need for sleep, so Fulu had used the upstairs as a storage unit for the shop. LEO hadn’t noted anything out of order, but then he’d been distracted of late.
“Smells . . . odd in here.”
“Odd?”
Keyode shrugged. “Not like death.”
Dengler snorted.
“What?” Keyode leveled a stare at his former partner.
“Didn’t know you for such a connoisseur of stenches, Key.”
“Doesn’t stink at all—but that’s not what I meant.” Keyode hiked a thumb at the remains. “This just smells . . . too clean?”
Dengler sniffed the air. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Key.”
“Been around these aliens much?” Keyode asked, ignoring Dengler’s tone.
“No.”
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