by M. D. Cooper
Brit didn’t wait for Andy’s answer. She lobbed a grenade with her rifle’s secondary trigger and dashed across the corridor when it hit. The pirates immediately opened fire again, leaving their bleeding comrade in the middle of the floor.
Brit moved around the back edge of the cocoon with the Heartbridge woman lying inside and found the open wall panel through which Kraft had escaped. The ceramic material still appeared seamless but now a door-sized section hung open, showing a dim metal corridor on the other side. It reminded her of the clinic back on Cruithne.
She slipped into the utility tunnel. As soon as she was inside, she realized she had to make a decision about which way to go. The path appeared to run parallel to the clinic section they were just in, which meant Kraft could have gone either aft or foreword. He might go aft looking for a workshop where he could cut off the make-shift handcuffs. Forward to a lift and the command deck. She studied the deck and bulkhead, looking for any indication of which way he had gone.
Behind her, Petral appeared in the doorway.
The dark-haired woman grinned.
Brit had a hunch Kraft would go to the command section, looking for a way to communicate with someone, which meant left.
Brit said.
Brit laughed in spite of herself. The corridor was a tight squeeze and she was only able to move quickly by scuttling sideways, rifle held across her body. Other access panels led off the corridor at regular intervals, probably into other clinic areas, but none of the doors appeared to have been tampered with. Several times she had to crouch to get past junction boxes or communication nodes hung with network connections.
Brit laughed to herself, realizing they hadn’t.
The corridor ended on a lift shaft with a half-gate providing a safety barrier. Brit approached the opening slowly and first stuck the rifle into the shaft, then looked down. The shaft dropped as far as she could see, bending where the end disappeared. Service lights blinked down the length but there was also a maintenance ladder running along one side. Brit looked up, squinting against the glare of the closer service lights, and saw movement.
Somehow Kraft had gotten one hand free of the cuffs. He was climbing slowly, about thirty meters above her. From the awkward way he was climbing, holding himself close to the ladder and favoring one hand, she guessed he’d probably broken his wrist to get out of the cuffs.
Brit said.
Andy broke into their conversation.
Above her, Kraft reached a ledge she hadn’t seen before and hopped from the ladder. The sound of a door scraping open echoed down the shaft.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
STELLAR DATE: 10.03.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: HMS Resolute Charity
REGION: Europa, Jupiter, Jovian Combine, OuterSol
Breaking his thumb against the surgery wall had caused Cal’s entire left hand to swell like a sausage, pain throbbing with his heartbeat. He found himself thankful for the screaming klaxons because the sound dulled the pain. The bent metal cuff still hung from his right hand, finding every way possible to catch on nearby conduits or the rungs of the ladder, seemingly looking for a way to kill him.
The radiation warnings meant all Heartbridge personnel should be following the standard evacuation protocol and looking to escape craft. He didn’t want a pod, since he’d be trapped until someone answered its tracking beacon. He wanted a shuttle. He didn’t know the Resolute Charity well, but he knew how Heartbridge designed ships. Just like the Benevolent Hand, there should be a bay near the command section with at least four shuttles.
When he finally reached the command deck level, he fell into a light jog, trying to keep his breathing shallow. He passed several groups of scavengers in face masks, holding their ears against the alarms as they filled crates with whatever they could get their hands on. Any crew left to stop them were still too high to respond, easing themselves along corridor walls like they were terrified the floor was an abyss.
Good luck, Gala, he thought as he rounded a corner to find the command section’s shuttle bay. Through the interior airlock windows, he counted two shuttles still sitting in their berths, a wide set of bay doors sealed behind them. Cal’s vision swam as he peered through the window and he stumbled to one side, forced to grab at the wall with his good hand. The cuff scraped on the wall and he winced.
Damn, Sykes, Cal thought. He squinted at the air vents running along the deck, wondering if he had somehow come across a pocket of hallucinogen, or if he was somehow going into shock from the pain in his hand. Sliding along the wall to the control panel, he passed his security token and breathed a sigh of relief when the system responded and opened the external airlock doors. Cal slipped inside and closed the doors. He stepped back against the wall of the airlock, letting his head fall against the metal structure. He closed his eyes for a second, his pulse hammering in his ears out of sync with the klaxons.
The shuttle should have a rudimentary first aid kit, he thought. Something to reset the bone, maybe. It hadn’t been a clean break, but he’d been in a hurry, grabbing the opportunity when Andy Sykes had engaged the oncoming scavengers. How a bunch of local thugs had managed to raid the Resolute Charity wasn’t important at the moment. What mattered was that they were going to provide him sufficient cover to get away. With the radiation alarms activated, every first responder between Europa and the Cho were going to be en route.
Cal may have blacked out; he wasn’t sure. He opened his eyes to meet the fury-filled gaze of Brit Sykes. He blinked, good hand going immediately to the small of his back and the hilt of one of the plas knives. He realized she was staring at him through the airlock’s monitoring window and relaxed slightly. She hammered the window with the butt of a pistol and he snapped into clarity.
He hadn’t cleared the airlock yet, so she couldn’t come through. She hadn’t shot him through the plas panel, which meant she probably meant to take him alive again, just like Andy Sykes
had tried to do.
They must have thought he could help them with their vegetable son. Maybe they were right. No one outside of Jirl Gallagher knew as much about the full scope of the Weapon Born program. Even a researcher developing the brain science couldn’t name any other research facilities or the ships with onboard surgical equipment capable of performing the procedure.
Cal could.
That’s why they’re here. Cal smirked at Brit, enjoying the look of rage on her face. That’s why Dulan was with them. They had come to pull the AI out of her head. Someone had given them the information that the Resolute Charity was a Weapon Born capable hospital facility—the closest to Clinic 46, actually.
Through the pain and lingering hallucinogenic, Cal realized: Heartbridge had a leak.
Had someone intercepted his reports back to Jirl? Could he trust Jirl?
As quickly as the smug assurance arose that he was the most knowledgeable person about Heartbridge’s weaponized AI program, his second thought was how vulnerable that position made him. The fact that the Sykeses had managed to attack, and actually disable a Heartbridge clinic, followed by one of their flagship hospital dreadnoughts—two if he counted the Benevolent Hand!—made them more dangerous than the TSF. Whoever was helping them was going to bring Heartbridge down in a flaming wreck.
Cal looked down at his broken hand, shutting out the sound of Brit Sykes yelling at him and the alarm klaxons blaring. His skin had turned purple and thin, like a rotten fruit about to burst.
He turned away from Brit to face the door into the shuttle bay. Without a second thought, he reached back to the panel on the interior door and placed it in a safety lock out, then stumbled forward to grab the manual override on the external door. With a heave of his good hand, he rotated the lock and slid the door out of the way.
The air in the shuttle bay tasted cold and clean, free of the metallic interior atmosphere. Cal took a deep breath and shook out his swollen hand. He steadied himself and walked directly from the airlock to the closest shuttle. He slapped the personnel door’s control panel, waiting for the hatch to rotate away, and pulled himself up inside.
Cal said.
A stabbing pain rolled up Cal’s arm.
Call worked his way to the cabinet, scrambled at the lock and then flung the door open. Inside, he found a basic kit with a spray-based painkiller located at the top of the container. He popped the lid off the spray and emptied the canister on his hand. The anesthetic set in immediately.
Cal said, slowing his breathing. When the pain had subsided to a bearable level, he looked out into the main cabin of the shuttle, lined with seats for personnel transport. There was a weapons cabinet at the back where he found a pulse pistol and three concussion grenades. He hung them from his belt and went back to the front of the shuttle.
Sliding into the pilot’s seat, Cal wrestled into the harness and hooked the latches in place with one hand.
Cal relaxed in his seat as the shuttle completed pre-flight checks and reported the bay doors were now open. In another minute, the square of white wall he’d seen through the front windows receded in the distance as the shuttle slipped backwards from the bay, rotated on thrusters, and activated its main engine. The Resolute Charity fell away and was gone.
* * * * *
Brit watched the shuttle slide rear-first from the bay, barely able to stop herself from blasting the door and flinging herself after it. She looked around frantically for an emergency cabinet with EV suits but found nothing. Everything was inside the bay. It took another thirty excruciating seconds for the outer bay doors to close. Kraft’s safety lockdown on the interior airlock door still stood, and Brit felt a little satisfaction as she leveled the railgun Petral had thoughtfully pulled off her armor, and blew a hole in the airlock door. Then another, and another, until it was bent open enough for her to get through.
Brit didn’t know why Andy always asked those rhetorical questions. She held back from telling him that Cal had probably walked.
Brit realized suddenly what he meant. She had been focused on chasing Kraft and hadn’t thought about how that would look to Andy, or the kids. But Andy himself had said that Kraft was their best shot. He was within reach and every minute that passed increased his chances of disappearing forever.
he said.
She heard the hesitation in his voice.
she said.
In his voice, she heard everything they hadn’t said to each other since she had come back to Sunny Skies. He understood she hadn’t intended to come back. She didn’t know why that was true, but it was. She couldn’t respond to it herself and Andy wasn’t going to lash out any more than he already had.
she said.
Brit sprinted to the remaining shuttle and activated its emergency protocol. The personnel hatch rotated open and she climbed inside. She tried to convince the AI to open the bay doors, which would force a lockdown on the whole level, but it wouldn’t comply.
The AI didn’t respond, but lights began to flash in the bay, and the shuttle’s AI informed her that the bay doors were opening.
In another minute, she was off the Resolute Charity and following Cal Kraft.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
STELLAR DATE: 10.05.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Heartbridge Corporate HQ, Raleigh
REGION: High Terra, Earth, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
“The subject demonstrated unique resilience despite the interrupted procedure,” the woman’s voice said. “I have included all pertinent scan data. Another interesting opportunity presented itself in examining this subject because his father was present at the time of the examination.
“The father was subject to scan, and that information has been included. The father appears to be a healthy recipient of AI implantation, something I have never seen in my career, and I have been present during other test attempts which did not end well.”
Jirl paused the recording and glanced at Dr. Linden A
very’s profile on her display. The neurologist had been a Heartbridge consultant on other projects, a relationship maintained with a small stipend that had just paid for itself a thousand times over.
Across the room, Arla stood in front of the tall window looking out on Raleigh. The Earth was especially blue this morning and the sky glowed with sapphire light that made Arla look otherworldly, like the thin blade of an ancient sword.
“The problem,” Jirl said, “is the same thing we’ve already been told. Andy Sykes is either an anomaly, or the AI is an anomaly. Together they don’t provide much of a prototype.”
“Have you heard anything from your employee?” Arla asked. “What’s his name?”
“Kraft,” Jirl said. “Cal Kraft.”
“His performance review is going to be dismal.” Arla turned her head to offer Jirl an arch smile.
“He’s probably dead at this point.”
“What’s the update on the Resolute Charity?”
“Eighty percent of the crew is accounted for, the rest presumed lost. The ship appears to be on a course toward Uranus, bypassing Saturn. So if our people are still in control, the survivors aren’t headed for a facility. If it’s pirates, no one has claimed responsibility on the sub-forums where the attack broadcast first went out.”
“How did that happen again?”
Jirl sighed. “Standard ship-born virus. Typically the carrier sends the ship’s location to any local pirate sub-forum. It’s more of a prank than anything. In this case, someone broadcast the Resolute Charity’s location using the same attack vector. Pirates show up, concealing the other attack.”
“And the Resolute Charity’s crew was all high on briki?”
“Based on accounts, the environmental control system was manipulated.”
“Weren’t their three AI on that ship?”
“That’s my understanding.”
Arla nodded at the window. “I think we’re going to need more ships, Jirl. A lot more ships.”
“After the demonstrations with the TSF and Mars One, we already have orders in place.”
