Unstable Prototypes

by Lallo, Joseph

  "Fine. Keep the fighters on patrol. Get one gunship and one troop ship out there, too. Keep the others for reserve. Recall the Big Sigma patrol. If this fight doesn't go our way, we'll need reinforcements, even if it takes them days to get here. What do the sensors tell us about this approaching signature?"

  "Not much. It is just a minor blip. We've been getting it for about three minutes, but it wasn't until now that it was strong enough to suggest it wasn't just background noise."

  "Sounds like a stealth ship. Fine, they want stealth, let's show them what stealth really is," she said finally ending her trek across the station on the command bridge.

  A far cry from the massive, spacious rooms with giant view screens and elaborate chairs that one usually thinks of when a Commander takes the bridge, the space station's bridge was a match for the rest of the facility. It was a cramped, darkened room. The only light came from the handful of screens that dotted one wall, and the innumerable LED indicators that speckled the walls. There was room enough for the commander, the second in command, and a single tactical officer, and only if two of them remained standing. Frankly, it had more in common with the audio-video room of a public access TV station than an epic place of command. Purcell looked over the screens, covered with dots representing her ships, each tagged with designations, technical readouts, and motion vectors. Carefully her mind formulated a plan.

  "Put me on general broadcast," she ordered, speaking again when she received a nod. "TC-4, engage cloak and take up position alpha-6. GS-2, cloak and take up position omega-6. Target the enemy vessel and fire only when you achieve a weapons lock. Fighters, pair off and approach the enemy vessel from oblique angles. Target and pursue. Keep clear of cloaked ship locations to avoid collision."

  Outside the station, the veteran soldiers swiftly complied. The pair of ships, gunship above and troop carrier below, assumed their positions and activated their cloaks, vanishing from sight and sensors. Next, the fighters complied. They were small, light vehicles with little more than a pilot's cabin, a pair of small engines, and a pair of oversized cannons. If the gunship was like an eagle, the fighters were like bees; small and fragile, but they could easily be deadly if they attacked in large enough numbers or stung the right target. Two fighters peeled off and approached the slowly strengthening sensor reading from the left, the other two veering right. Just as the form of the SOB was becoming visible on the fighter's visual sensors, though, it accelerated, pulling a long, gradual turn and picking up speed all the way.

  "Lock and fire!" Purcell ordered, watching intently at her screens.

  "Negative. Can't get a lock. Sensors aren't getting a strong enough reading," came the reply from the lead fighter.

  "Fine, manual fire, wide spread!" she ordered.

  All four fighters began to unload their weapons. Piercing dots of purple light fired in staggered, irregular patterns, trading accuracy for volume. The SOB didn't even try to dodge, absorbing a handful of hits before tearing past the fighters.

  "Station shields to maximum! Turrets, target and fire, avoiding top center and friendly ships."

  The rattling tractor beam/jackhammer made a few useless taps at the shield as the SOB whipped past, the massive but slow-to-target cannons on the station firing vaguely in its direction without once coming close.

  "Target locked, firing," announced the pilot of the gunship, its more acute sensors finally managing to pick up the elusive little ship.

  The cloaked ship fired a cluster of the same missiles that had given Lex so much trouble at the array, briefly becoming visible as it did. For a few seconds the missiles drew steadily closer to the retreating SOB, then there was a dim flash of light and the same EMP pulse that had saved him the first time sent the trailing missiles twirling away uselessly. Purcell barked coded command shorthand at her pilots, using various meaningless numbers and letters to coax complex maneuvers out of her men in order to prepare for the return run by the SOB. This time it came from below, and it was the troop carrier that sent a volley of powerful shots in its direction.

  "He hasn't got the weapons to do any damage. Keep the pressure on him and we'll take him down," Purcell advised.

  "Establishing target lock, prepare-" came the beginning of a transmission from the Gunship, but it was suddenly interrupted by a blaring warning tone, "Evasive maneuvers! Evasive maneuvers, we've got-"

  There was a burst of static, and the symbol for the gunship dropped off the tactical display.

  "What the hell happened, the enemy ship wasn't even close!" Purcell roared.

  "I don't know, there- Commander!"

  "TC-4, evasive maneuvers!"

  An explosion swallowed the cloaked ship and another icon dropped from the display.

  "Sensors! I want to know where these attacks are coming from!"

  "There- there were a pair of temporary blips at vector 013 mark 015. It's a cloaked ship, commander!" the tactical officer realized.

  "How!? Never mind. Fighters, break pursuit and protect the Docking Hatch for Bay A. GS-1 and TC-3, deploy! Shields up and cloaks down. I want you to turtle until that cloaked ship fires, then target attack origin and fire! Sensors, get those meson arrays up! If that thing is cloaked it'll be the only source of meson emissions in the area."

  "Initializing," replied the tactical officer. "GS-1 deployed and beginning sensor sweep. TC-3 deployed and beginning sensor sweep. Docking Bay Doors secured. Meson Array active... We've got a Meson Emission source... Inside Docking Bay A!"

  Purcell opened her mouth. A lesser woman might have exclaimed that it was impossible. She would have pointed out that the doors to the docking bay had been open for mere seconds, and that she had assigned the fighters to guard the entrance. She would have reasoned that most of the time the doors were open they were occupied by other ships. She would have insisted that no one could have possibly flown a cloaked ship through so narrow an opening during so narrow a time window without colliding with something. The commander said none of these things, because regardless of how ironclad the logic might have been, the evidence contradicted it, and there was too little time to waste any of it denying what was obviously so.

  Instead, she said, "Troopers to Docking Bay A. We have been boarded! Repeat, we have been boarded!"

  #

  In the Docking Bay, the now pointless cloak hiding the Declaration of War dropped, leaving them as a very large, very visible target in an otherwise empty bay. Fancy new space stations had marvels of modern science to keep them running. Things like semi-permeable force-fields allowed ships in and out without allowing all of the air and dock workers to get sucked out into space. This space station, despite the group's dedication to the bleeding edge, was neither fancy nor new. A user-friendly approach was to have individual bays and pressurized exit tunnels that connected to the ship. This station wasn't user-friendly either. An efficient design called for ships to remain outside the station, interfacing with universal, air tight docking ports. Once again, this was not a facility built with efficiency in mind. Its primary role, prior to being co-opted by the Neo-Luddites for their purposes, had been ship maintenance and restoration. Thus, what it had was a pair of massive, unpressurized bays with individual landing pads and no gravity, plus a scattering of external docking ports in the case of evacuation. Workers, when it was necessary to move about in the bay while it was in use, wore space suits. Anyone who wanted to get in or out of the rest of the station had to do so through a huge, freight elevator-sized airlock with sturdy doors and no windows, or wait for someone to trot out something that looked like an overgrown piece of drier vent to hook up to the ship as a means of access. It was for that reason that there were no soldiers currently manning the bay, but that wouldn't remain the case for long.

  The crew door of the Declaration hissed open and three people darted out. Silo and Garotte were wearing the sleek, snug spacesuits favored by most people who had to operate in a vacuum with any regularity; silvery, nearly skin-tight suits with high visibility face vi
sors and small but efficient jet packs for zero-g navigation. They were also heavily armed. Lex was wearing a more distinctive textured tan flight suit and was attempting to wrangle what looked like an inflated blowup doll, but was in fact a third sleek-style suit with an undersized occupant.

  "All clear," announced Silo through her suit radio after a quick but thorough survey of the area. "That was some impressive maneuvering, Lex."

  "Thanks. High-speed, illegal docking while invisible. I can cross that one off the list, I guess," he said through a mouth full of gum.

  "That makes me two for two in blind targeting cloaked ships, too," Silo remarked with a bit of pride.

  "Ma, are you sure they aren't going to blow up the SOB? I'm not too comfortable with her being on automatic while things are shooting at her," Lex continued.

  "Your ship has been directed to leave the area of combat until recalled, and the other ships are unlikely to pursue while we are on board their command station. In the meantime, I urge you to revise your list of priorities," the AI answered, struggling a bit inside a suit that was not built with a furry quadruped in mind.

  "Yes, my boy. Very shortly we will encounter a rather large number of people interested in killing us. Try to keep that in mind," Garotte instructed.

  "Easy for you to say. You didn't just put a fresh coat of paint on it," said Lex.

  "Enough banter. Ma, I want access to the airlock, now. Silo, let's unload."

  #

  On the interior side of the airlock, a dozen troops had gathered. Each was wearing a bulkier space suit of a similar design. The added mass came from overlapping plates of composite armor. Their weapons were a mismatched assortment of ballistic and energy weapons, most representing designs that had been abandoned for having one or two strengths that were more than offset by dozens of major weaknesses. The first on the scene was tapping at a control panel.

  "No good, it is occupied, and being pressurized," the scout reported.

  "You heard him, boys. The enemy is inside the airlock. Weapons ready, eyes sharp. We can end this here and now," instructed the squad leader.

  The panel beside the door ticked various indicators, pressure up and time down, as the soldiers anxiously waited for the door to open and reveal their targets. Finally the pressure was equalized and the heavy door began to pull open. Triggers were squeezed and sights lined up as the group drew in a breath... but when the door finished opening, there was no one there. Rather than a few armed and dangerous targets handily corralled into a box with no escape, the airlock revealed... a crate. It was about a meter cubed, sturdily built, and had a lid held tightly on by eight or so mechanical latches.

  "No one fire," the squad leader ordered. "This could be an explosive. Wilkes, cycle the airlock again and send this thing back into space."

  Wilkes worked at the control panel. "No good, sir. They've got someone blocking the controls."

  "Well unblock them! And change the cypher! I don't want-"

  He was interrupted by a heart-stopping sound. Like falling dominoes, the latches on the crate flipped up in sequence. When the final latch was undone, the edge of the lid hissed with a release of pressure, causing the squad to shudder, and one of the jumpier soldiers to fire a single reflexive blast. The energy struck and warped the lid, causing it to leap off of the crate and rattle to the floor. Inside, there seemed to be nothing but old fashioned puffy packing material.

  "Keep it together, soldier!" reprimanded the squad leader. "Wilkes, investigate. I'll work on the cypher."

  The unlucky underling cautiously walked up to the crate. After a visual survey of the outside didn't turn up anything, he reached out with the muzzle of his rifle and poked into the box, striking something hard and metallic. His rummaging unearthed a small plastic tube from among the Styrofoam. He picked it out with his gloved hand.

  "I've got a new cypher active. If you found anything threatening, I'll cycle. What is it?" asked the squad leader.

  "It... I... I think it is one of those asthma sprayer things, sir," he said, holding it up.

  Whether it was fate, dumb luck, or a cruel sense of humor, the key item in the crate chose that moment to reveal itself. In an explosion of fluffy plastic peanuts and gleaming metal, Zerk launched from the crate and into the cluster of soldiers.

  #

  On the exterior side of the airlock, the rescue party watched as minor dents and dings started to pepper the heavy-duty door as the hapless force tried to deal with something that no sane man would have dreamed of preparing for. They each strapped blue bandanas to their arms as they did.

  "Um... You know that rule about not firing weapons inside a pressurized facility?" Lex asked.

  "I do," Garotte remarked as he looked over the floor plan displayed on the slidepad he'd clipped into the arm of his suit.

  "I can't help but notice these guys aren't obeying it."

  "If you'd ever seen Zerk in action, hon, you wouldn't blame them," Silo remarked.

  "I wouldn't worry too much about it. This old bird was built back in the days when you had to expect to take a few love taps during the average day," Garotte said, slapping the sturdy wall. "She can take a few hits and hold together."

  "Okay, and what about Karter? We're here to rescue him, right? Wasn't it not a great idea to unleash an unstoppable killing machine into the place they're holding him?" Lex asked.

  "Karter knows how to handle Zerk. He's the one who managed to back out the shutdown procedures. There is more than one," Garotte remarked. "Alright, it looks like the excitement has died down. Ma, let's see this airlock do its thing again, shall we?"

  "I am endeavoring to reestablish an interface with the desired systems," Ma stated from within her poorly suited piece of equipment. Her voice had the jittery, stressed quality it tended to adopt when she was concentrating. "The encryption of this system is extremely complex. My initial route of access has already been closed and secured."

  "Yes, well, military encryption tends to be rather significant," Garotte countered.

  "Not entirely military... redundant encryption schemes. Mostly corporate."

  "What the hell does that mean?" Lex asked.

  "It means we've got a delightful and entirely irrelevant mystery on our hands," Garotte said. "Just cycle the chamber."

  "Limited access restored. Activating," Ma said, the stress gone from her voice.

  After atmosphere was pumped out of the lock, the quartet stepped into the chamber, and waited for the process to reverse. Air hissed in, causing Ma's unwieldy bundle of a suit to seemingly deflate, and gravity slowly faded in. When the inner door opened, it revealed a tight corridor completely covered with bullet and energy damage and scattered with the remains of soldiers who were extremely dead, and who had been delivered to that state with great enthusiasm and creativity.

  "Uh..." Lex said with a hint of nausea as he tried to avoid looking at the remains, "I'm not feeling too heroic right now."

  "Take it from a man who does this for a living, my boy. Don't try to be a hero, just try to get the job done. To that end, you take the computer and try to find Karter. Silo and I will take care of the blasted device they were after; destroy prototypes, delete designs, things of that nature."

  "And everybody be careful!" Silo added as they ran their separate ways.

  "Which way am I heading, Ma?" Lex asked as he sprinted down the corridor in the direction with the fewest casualties, and therefore the least chance of running into their highly effective diversion. Hanging across his back was the smallest energy rifle that the others had been able to find along with a tightly bundled spare space suit, and hanging on his belt was a holster containing a small energy pistol. The rest of his belt was covered with variable strength grenades, and under his arm was the weakly struggling tangle of silver suit that contained his guide.

  "I will direct you, but while we are still unharrassed by soldiers, please remove me from this suit."

  "You sure? How will you get back to the ship?" Lex asked. />
  "At this stage, my ability to aid in the completion of the mission is of greater importance."

  "But what if-"

  "Get me out of this damn suit, Lex."

  "Your coarse language is not called for, Ma," Lex said as he carefully unfastened the triple-sealed zipper.

  Ma tumbled out from the suit, scrambled to her feet, and rustled her fur.

  "If you were covered in a layer of fur and wrapped in airtight fabric, you would agree regarding the necessity of such language. Now, affix a blue bandana to me."

  Lex removed the blue bandana from a pouch on his flight suit and shook it out, tying it around her neck. Once it was in place, Ma planted her feet, raised her head, and drew in a long, slow breath through her nose.

  "Anything?"

  "Scent tracking in a space station is non-ideal. Carefully sanitized and maintained air quality coupled with atmospheric isolation prevents scent from spreading. I am also only moderately familiar with Karter's scent," she informed him. After a moment, she darted toward a side corridor. "This way. Leave the suit. We will fetch it upon our return."

  "You caught a whiff?"

  "No. It is an educated guess."

  "... Great."

  Lex tossed the suit away and briefly considered drawing his pistol, but abandoned the idea when it dawned on him that if he was holding a gun, they might think he knew how to use it and decide to shoot first and ask questions later. Sure, the chances were good that it was their general policy to shoot first and skip the questions altogether, and it wasn't as though he was going to be able to convince them that he was a tourist who took a wrong turn, but Lex felt that as long as he was a harmless idiot, he ought to look like one. Leaving the gun on his belt took care of the harmless part, and just in case there was any doubt as to the idiot part, he set off to follow the scampering critter with a radio strapped to its back who was calling the shots by acting on a hunch.