Carson Mach 1: The Atlantis Ship

by A. C. Hadfield

  “You’re talking about selling secrets?” He fixed Mach with a stony glare.

  “Well, is there anything that wouldn’t be too terrible to sell? What about trade agreements or something like that?”

  Babcock thought for a few minutes, tapping a finger against his chin. “I think I might have something that would be valuable to this lot. The repercussions wouldn’t be too severe. But let’s keep that as plan B.”

  “I’m fine with that.”

  The Jaguar continued its journey toward the great spinning orbital. Mach sent out a hail on all communications frequencies via the sensor array. At first, he didn’t think they would respond with words, but just blast him out of space.

  Sanchez and the twins entered the bridge and took their places. Sanchez looked up at the viewscreen. “It’s colossal. Way bigger than the CW orbitals.”

  “The vestans designed them centuries ago to act as planets,” Danick said, surprising everyone with his sudden confident delivery of useful information. “Their part of space has fewer habitable planets than any other in this sector. Before they joined the Combine, it was the only way for them to defend their home planet.”

  “Get you with the history lesson,” Sanchez said, twirling the end of his mustache. “Where’d you learn that?”

  Danick blushed, shrugged, then with a croaky, self-conscious voice replied, “I took advanced history at the CW educational foundation. We don’t all just march up and down the parade square… we do have some other talents.”

  “Easy, kid,” Sanchez said, “I’m just yanking ya chain. No need to get defensive. It’s very useful information, thank you.”

  Mach gave Danick a smile and ordered him to continue to hail the station to spare any further embarrassment. While they waited on a response, Mach had Lassea scan the area for any other signals and gravitational anomalies.

  “Mach,” the young JP said, pointing to a highlighted cluster of debris she had brought up on the viewscreen. “Look, damaged ships.”

  Mach zoomed in the image. The debris field floated approximately point eight of an AU behind the station and a small belt of asteroids. Their movements caught his attention. “Babcock, does that look like normal movement to you?”

  The older man leaned forward in his chair. His lips moved; physical manifestations of the working out going on in that curious brain of his. “I… no,” he said. “You would expect more of a uniform movement. They look to me as though they’ve been disturbed recently. You can tell something has disrupted their normal path. The asteroids on the east and west side of the belt are moving laterally, while that group there toward the middle is moving tangentially to the rest.

  “And that debris,” he added, “is horan. You can tell by the yellow and black livery. Squid, patch into the viewscreen and run a search on the serial number fragments from the debris.”

  “Running search sequence,” Squid said over the comms. Babcock’s device was still in the engine module carrying out repairs and reports.

  “You’ve done well with that one,” Mach said. “It’s a handy device.”

  “It’s… more than a device, Mach,” Babcock said.

  “I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to diminish Squid’s importance to you. It must have been extremely lonely on that old dry rock.”

  His face flushed red, Babcock looked away, inspecting the screen again.

  “Sir,” Danick said, raising his voice with excitement, “we’ve got a response.”

  “Patch them through to the comm channel,” Mach said.

  The boy did just that and the voice, a female one, boomed out of the bridge’s audio system. “Unaffiliated ship, hold your position. This is Flight Coordinator Xuxii of the Black Swan orbital; please state your intentions and last port of call. Over.”

  “Xuxii, this is Captain Carson Mach, freelancer of the…” He realized then that in his haste to test the ship that he’d not yet given her a name. He ran a few options through his mind, considering just calling it the Jaguar, but that seemed impersonal.

  “Go ahead, Captain Mach,” Xuxii prompted.

  “Sorry, freelancer of the Intrepid. We… erm, come in peace. Over.”

  “What was your last port of call, Intrepid? Over.”

  Mach looked to Babcock, who whispered, “Chrimes IV.”

  Good option, Mach thought. That was an independent planet outside of the Salus Sphere. “Chrimes IV, Black Swan. Over.”

  “And your intentions, Intrepid? Over.”

  “Our ship has suffered a number of malfunctions during a long L-jump. You’re the closest station of any sort that we could find. We’re hoping to dock to find an engineer and parts so we can be on our way. We mean to stay no longer than is absolutely necessary. Over.”

  Adira stepped onto the bridge and stood by Mach. She stared up at the viewscreen and nodded.

  “What is it?” Mach said, muting the comm.

  Squid hovered into view from behind Adira, who said, “This little guy identified those horan fragments up there.”

  “And?”

  Squid jiggled its complement of arms as if excited to have done something useful. “They were a group of Kasmian-class cruisers. Prewar ships that were decommissioned shortly after the Battle of Balsoom and sold off to a private organization.”

  “That organization wouldn’t happen to be an offshoot of the Lavernans by any chance?” Mach said.

  “The very same,” Squid replied. “And, according to my scans, they’re recently destroyed.”

  “Define recently,” Babcock said, cocking an eyebrow and pushing his small spectacles further up on the bridge of his nose.

  “Just three standard days ago.”

  “That times perfectly with my discovery of the alien signal,” Babcock said. “I think we’re looking at the wreckage of an Atlantis ship appearance.”

  “Hell yeah,” Sanchez said. “Feels like we’re on the trail of that bastard. But where’d it go?”

  “No idea,” Babcock said. “I’d need more time to study that. Let’s hope we get clearance.”

  The group chattered about their possible next move when Lassea, with a quiet, nervous tone said, “Um, Mach, there’s a gravitational anomaly roughly two AUs beyond the wreckage. I think it’s a…” She turned back to her holoscreen and scrutinized the numbers closer.

  “Go on,” Mach urged. “What is it?”

  Squid spoke up for her, saying, “I believe the girl has located the Atlantis ship’s exit wormhole.”

  “Um, yes, that,” Lassea said, smiling, pride coming through with all the eagerness of a JP passing their advanced fighter assessment.

  “Good job, everyone,” Mach said. “We’re on the right track.”

  Adira whispered into his ear, “By the way, I like the name Intrepid. Let’s hope we actually get to let her live up to her name.”

  Mach switched the viewscreen back to the Black Swan orbital and waited for a response from the flight coordinator. When she did come back online, the suddenness of her words made him start.

  “Intrepid, dock at bay fifteen. Wait on your ship, unarmed, for a security team to fetch you. Noncompliance will result in your deaths and your ship’s confiscation. Is this clear? Over.”

  “Understood, Black Swan. We’re initiating docking procedure. Over.”

  “We’re sending coordinates for your AI-nav. Come in slow and steady and don’t try anything stupid; we have you in our sights. Over.”

  The comm line cut after the Intrepid’s AI-nav computer approved the coordinates and started to maneuver toward the docking bay.

  “Not exactly a warm welcome,” Adira said. “I think I like them already.”

  “You would,” Sanchez said.

  “What are you suggesting?” Adira said, fixing him with a steely eye.

  To Mach, Sanchez said, “Can we trade her for repairs?”

  “I’d gut you before you had the chance,” Adira said to Sanchez.

  “Easy, boys and girls,” Mach said. “No o
ne is trading anyone. Let’s just play it by ear, shall we?”

  The Intrepid approached the spinning orbital, matching its rate of spin so that it seemed as though they were interlocked and no spin existed, the huge station blotting out any other elements from the viewscreen.

  The AI-nav brought her in slowly, docking into the allotted bay. Before the craft had a chance to land, a hangar door at the end of the bay opened and a group of fifteen heavily armed, heavily armored troops, wearing a mix of horan and vestan colors marched in, their rocket launchers and laser cannons aimed at the ship.

  “There’s a cold welcome,” Sanchez said, “and then there’s this. It doesn’t look too promising.”

  Mach had to agree. He okayed the AI-nav’s request to complete landing procedures and prepared to be boarded. He considered having Sanchez waiting somewhere with one of his modified rifles, but they were too outnumbered. No, he had to play this smart… for once.

  “Okay, ladies and gents, let’s get this over and done with. No one do anything stupid… or in your case, Adira, smart.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mach tried the cuffs on his wrists, but they continued to bite deeper. He winced and slouched back against a cold metal wall. Adira was sitting next to him, projecting an air of calm and control.

  “I can’t believe they didn’t even give us a chance to explain,” Mach moaned. The armed guards had kept the others locked in the Intrepid while they took Mach and Adira away at the behest of Marlene Laverna, the so-called Black Swan, and owner of the orbital. “Do you know why they decided to take you?”

  Adira shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Sure there’s nothing you should tell me?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s super helpful. I’m starting to think I ought to have left you in solitary.”

  “You’re making me wish you did too. Do you ever just shut up for more than a minute? The Black Swan will be here eventually; it makes no sense to take us away if she didn’t want to talk about something. Just have some patience. You always were so eager and in a hurry.”

  “Not in all things,” he said. “Besides, we don’t know how long that wormhole will stay open for. I’d rather not miss our opportunity; it’s our only lead.”

  Adira moved her shoulders to the left and then the right until a crack rang out. She winced and cracked again.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Mach asked.

  “Insurance policy,” Adira said between gritted teeth. She closed her eyes with pain and lifted her right hand free of the cuffs, then the left. Her wrists bled with the shallow cuts. She wiped it away on the back of her crimson tunic. She kept her arms behind her back.

  “Nice trick, want to help me out here?” Mach said.

  “How about you let me deal with the pain of dislocating both of my shoulders for a moment. See, always so damned eager.”

  “Fair point. So would this be a good time to ask who took the contract out on me?”

  “No,” Adira said, and that was that.

  Mach leaned forward onto his knees and stood up. The cell was half a meter taller than his two-meter-tall height and less than three meters square. The door was made from extra-thick titanium with some kind of strengthening material that striped through the dull gray surface.

  A single overhead glow lamp provided a meager wash of light. The place stank of oil and blood. The floor had a series of four holes that he realized were probably areas to lock in a chair… for ‘questioning.’

  On their way to the cell, escorted by four not unfriendly guards, Mach had noticed that the orbital was massively understaffed, with decks and decks of empty rooms and hangars. They had passed one area that looked like a bar given the kind of entertainment and excited voices coming from within the gloomy room. He had thought that if they were to have any luck in finding an engineer, that’d be a good place to start.

  In all his experiences, engineers often spent as much time in bars as they did engine modules. At least Squid and Babcock being detained on the ship meant they could perhaps start work on the repairs—the ones that they knew about. They really needed to find a vestan engineer to really understand what had happened to the crystal array to blow two units like that.

  “I can literally hear the thoughts in your head,” Adira said. “What are you planning?”

  “Nothing, just considering what we need to get the Intrepid up and running.”

  “A miracle would be good.”

  “Perhaps I could trade you in for one, eh?”

  Adira didn’t take the bait. She just sat there, her eyes half-closed as though she were in a state of meditation.

  With his hands cuffed behind his back, Mach paced around the cell to keep the blood flowing through his legs. His GraphTech fatigues weren’t as good as his full suit in keeping out the cold.

  At least thirty minutes must have gone by when finally someone opened the cell door.

  The waft of cold air made Mach shiver. A silhouette of a large man appeared in the doorway. “You’re to stay to the back of the cell and not move,” the deep rumbling voice said. “Ms. Laverne is here to speak with you.”

  Mach and Adira shuffled until their backs were against the wall. Adira kept her arms in position as though she were still cuffed. Even Mach wouldn’t have guessed anything was wrong.

  The large silhouette disappeared. A small thin woman with long, flowing black locks cascading over her shoulders stepped in. She wore a black leather waistcoat over a long leather skirt that had a varied range of pleats around the hem. She wore a pair of incongruous CW-issue combat boots, their bulky shape at odds with her slim frame.

  Around her waist Mach noticed a Stiletto—a discreet, but powerful laser weapon—hanging in an ornamental belt that looked like it was studded with the very stars that surrounded the orbital.

  “Your IDs checked out,” the woman said, closing the door behind her so that she stood over them. “But what I can’t work out is why you, Mr. Mach, are transporting a known killer and now a wanted prison escapee.”

  “That’s because it was me that broke her out,” Mach said, smiling up at the middle-aged face that featured a pair of green eyes that wouldn’t be out of place on a bird of prey and a petite, upturned nose that told of her selected breeding. Her small chin dimpled slightly when she spoke.

  “You have us at a disadvantage,” Adira said politely. “May I enquire as to whom we’re speaking?”

  “Sure you can,” the woman said. “Though it shouldn’t take a genius, really. You can call me Ms. Laverna. And this is my orbital. You say you’re only here for repairs and then you’ll be on your way.”

  Mach didn’t assume it was a question and kept quiet, preferring to let the Black Swan dictate the direction of the conversation. He thought that would be the fastest way out—if there was one.

  Adira was a backup option.

  Ms. Laverne continued, “So tell me, why is it that your ship scanned a considerable area beyond the station before hailing us? And why were you scanning far outside of regular communication frequencies? It’s clear you were looking for something. What is it? What’s your true destination? Who sent you?”

  “No one sent us,” Mach said. “As I told your flight coordinator, we’re unaffiliated freelancers and just trying to make a living. We were trailing a reported sighting of the Atlantis ship, knowing it’s all a load of crap but hoping we’d find something worth salvaging—we had come from the Retsina system after something destroyed Orbital Forty, leaving behind lots of valuable scrap. We were planning on selling it to the shipbuilders in Feronia.”

  Ms. Laverna scoffed. “Those two-penny tight-asses wouldn’t give you anything for scrap metal. They’ve got it all locked up from the Axis Combine’s upgrade program.”

  She seemed bitter about it, but given the rumor she was booted out of the family, it didn’t come as a huge surprise. “Look, Ms. Laverna, I don’t know what else you want from us, we’re just trying to get our s
hip fixed and then we’ll be on our way. I’m sure we can work out some kind of deal.”

  The woman tapped the toe of her boot on the floor as she thought, all the while regarding Adira with a canny eye. “This one has a reputation,” she said, pointing to Adira. “That could come in handy for a small problem I have. You see, there are some deluded fools on this orbital who think they could do a better job, regardless of the fact that under my stewardship we repelled an attack of this so-called Atlantis ship.”

  The mention of it made Mach’s heart beat a little faster. He tried to remember what Adira said and controlled himself so he didn’t look to eager. He feigned surprise and said, “It was here too?”

  “A ship jumped here, yes. Was it that old myth? I doubt it very much.”

  “So what did destroy your fleet of horan cruisers?” Adira said.

  “That’s a good question. I have no answer—yet. I’m looking into it, but first I need to deal with you two and that ship of yours. It’s an interesting design. I’ve not seen one like it before. Vestan, isn’t it?”

  Mach could tell she was fishing. He didn’t want to go into too much detail of what it was, or how he procured it; he couldn’t tell whether she still might have loyal connections within the orcus.

  “Yes,” Mach said. “A new design of assault ship. An old contact of mine managed to procure it during the Axis’ recent upgrading of ships.”

  Ms. Laverna eyed him up with a suspicious look, but then her face relaxed. “War’s imminent. I suppose you know that.”

  “We do,” Adira said. “Which is why we’re trying to make as much eros as we can now so we can be far away when the shit really hits the fan. Look, Ms. Laverna, can we just cut to the chase here. We don’t care what you’re doing here; we don’t care about Atlantis ship sightings or any of that bullshit, we just want to get our ship fixed and scoot out to some safe little rim world until the next war is over.”