Confidence Game

by Britt Ringel

  Lochlain skidded to a halt and sneaked a quick look around the junction. He rapidly ducked back to cover.

  “More of them?” Brooke asked as she caught up.

  “No,” he said between breaths. “Station security. They’re running parallel to us down the main hall, toward him.”

  “Then keep mov—”

  The woman in white emerged from a shop, ahead and across the corridor, raising a pistol.

  In a blink, Brooke unleashed a hailstorm of gunfire at her, heedless of whether there were patrons inside. The fusillade forced the woman to retreat into the shop.

  “Keep us moving, Reece!” Brooke ordered. She debated briefly whether to follow or to press her fleeting fire superiority and enter the store after her adversary. Brooke’s pistol answered her question as its slide had locked back. She thumbed the magazine release and the narrow container clattered to the deck. In one smooth motion, she inserted her second, and final, magazine into the pistol well and batted the slide forward to chamber the first round.

  The crew had cleared the junction and were running down a narrower corridor with shops only on its left side. Brooke fired three more times toward the woman in white before racing after them. Despite her command to keep the group moving, Lochlain waited for her at the next intersection. He was shouting into his datapad.

  “… two lunatics with guns are shooting civilians at Level Five, Concourse Junction Alpha-One and Charlie-Five. One of them is a female decked out in white. The other is a gigantic male.”

  “Sir,” the man’s voice over the datapad’s speaker was restrained anxiety, “station security has been alerted and is on the way. You are instructed to find shelter and wait until the disturbance had been dealt with.”

  “I was standing right next to the guy! He was ranting about the Purity of Truth!” Lochlain screamed hysterically. “He said they had more followers cleansing Docking Bays Thirty through Forty! You need to send some troopers there to protect those ships!”

  “One moment, sir,” the emergency liaison replied. “I’m dispatching a response team to sweep those slips now. You need to find a place to shelter and wait until we’ve handled this.”

  “Okay,” Lochlain agreed shakily. He closed the connection and said in a calmer voice, “If these people mean to ambush us again, the watchman’s bay would be a great place. We may as well improve our odds.”

  A squad of Federation security troopers appeared around the far corner and raced down the corridor. They were kitted out with full ballistics armor and long guns. Their blue helmets completely encompassed their heads except for raised, black visors.

  Brooke quickly tucked her pistol behind her into the waistband of her pants and let her brown vest drop over it. Her back, already tortured by the gunman’s brutal assault, began to feel a different kind of heat, this time from her own weapon’s barrel.

  The lead troopers pointed fearsome carbines at the group. “Hands, now!” one ordered harshly from meters away.

  As his crew raised empty hands, Lochlain’s voice regained its hysterical tone. “Thank God you’re here!” He pointed hurriedly toward the corner. “One of them is around that corner in a shop. She was just randomly shooting at people!”

  Four of the six troopers never broke their strides and rushed past them. The two leading troopers ground to a halt in front of Lochlain and kept their aim. “Have any of you been shot?” the squad leader asked. A scarlet aiguillette encircled his armored right shoulder.

  “N-no,” Lochlain answered timidly, “we’re fine but there are still people trapped in the stores. They need your help!” A pistol’s report punctuated Lochlain’s statement. Carbine fire rapidly followed.

  “Find a place to hide,” the squad leader ordered and motioned his companion ahead. The two men dashed after their team.

  Brooke placed a hand to her back and moaned. “It’s really starting to ache.” Each footstep was its own, exquisite torture now.

  Lochlain wrapped a supporting arm around her.

  “Don’t touch my back!” she howled as she shied away.

  “Sorry, baby,” he replied and lowered his arm to support her at the waist. They began to move again.

  “Who were those people?” Lingenfelter asked while staying close to Brooke’s side.

  The group skittered across another junction unmolested. People cowering in shops peered down the corridor with a mixture of fear and confusion.

  “VSP,” Brooke answered between sharp breaths. “Very Scary People.” She grunted with every step. “That guy was a cut far above anything that a criminal ring could send after us. We need to leave this station immediately.”

  “But Casper wanted to go shopping tonight,” Lochlain kidded.

  The group stopped at a lift and Truesworth activated the call button. The wait felt like an eternity. When they entered the elevator, he noted that their level was currently locked out as a destination. A minute later, the group exited the small compartment onto Zanshin’s level. The absence of people on the new level was an eerie reminder of the one they had left behind. The group walked urgently through seemingly abandoned corridors, anxious for the safety of their ship.

  Finally, they rounded the corner to Zanshin’s bay and came face to face with three security troopers. Fully armored, they had taken up positions of cover behind portable barriers erected near the destroyed crate that once served as the watchman’s desk.

  “Stop!” screamed a trooper. It was a woman’s voice. All three carbines pointed directly at Lochlain.

  Chapter 33

  Zanshin’s crew froze at the sight of the officers. Slowly and as one, they raised their hands.

  “We’re friendly,” Lochlain said in a clear and calm voice. He made the faintest of gestures with his index finger. “That’s my ship.”

  The lead trooper kept her weapon on him. “You, step forward. The rest of you, don’t move.”

  Brooke watched Lochlain obey the command. Metallic clinking at his feet pierced the silence in the bay. Her eyes began to see more than just the muzzles of the security squad’s carbines. The compartment had been demolished. Pockmarks decorated its alloy walls and shell casings littered the floor. Two, dark red puddles stained the deck and Brooke spied a trail of blood drops leading away from one pool toward the accessway.

  “Stop there,” the trooper ordered. “Let me see your datapad.” The woman moved around Lochlain and placed her barrel just centimeters from the side of his head. “Bring it out slowly.”

  Lochlain moved at a glacial pace. When the datapad finally emerged, the trooper snatched it from his hands and moved cautiously toward the docking ring. She slapped the datapad to the control panel, which flickered from red to green. The thumb pad lit up, waiting patiently for confirmation.

  The trooper’s helmet jerked marginally toward the pad. “Thumb it.”

  Lochlain complied and the docking ring opened like the eye of a mechanical beast.

  “Johnson, Daniels, cover the hall,” the woman ordered while keeping her weapon trained on the rest of Lochlain’s group. “You people board your ship and do not come out until the situation has been resolved.” Her carbine continued to track them as the group disappeared down the docking tube.

  When they stepped aboard Zanshin through the bow airlock, Brooke grabbed Lochlain’s suit jacket with her right hand and pulled him close for a fierce kiss. She smiled unreservedly afterwards and said, “Getting station security to cover our bay was pure genius, Capitan.”

  Lochlain rewrapped an arm around Brooke’s waist to support her weight. “Are we going to the med-bay or our quarters?”

  Brooke looked pointedly behind her. “Once Jack and Casper leave the compartment, Elease and you can help me peel off my top and the armor first. I don’t think any of the bullets penetrated but I still feel like I’ve been clobbered with a sledgehammer.”

  “Do you want Casper and me to prep Zanshin for casting off, Captain?” Truesworth asked from near the portal leading down the ship�
�s spine.

  Lochlain nodded vigorously. “Yeah, that would be great, Jack. You two start the process. I want to be long gone before security decides to interview us.”

  “That’s assuming they’re letting ships depart,” Naslund said. “They might have the entire station on lockdown after all that.”

  Lochlain gave the point some thought. “On any normal orbital, yes, but Vulsia’s trade station sees enough violence that nothing would ever get accomplished if they closed the docks for every incident. If we’re lucky, we can still get out.”

  Brooke delicately shrugged off her brown vest. When she caught sight of its back, she swore, “Dammit, this one was my favorite.” Her top came next in a much slower and more painful process, but Lingenfelter helped to gently remove the perforated garment with the care of a surgeon.

  Underneath her shirt, the first “S” in the large SSF logo on the back of the ballistics vest now bore six, discrete holes. In total, eight bullets cratered its back in a spread that measured less than four centimeters at its widest. Lochlain whistled. “That shooter was a real marksman.” He circled Brooke and pulled apart the vest from its right side. A thin, white t-shirt lay underneath. “You ready?” he asked Brooke.

  She nodded and tightened her face. “Go ahead, but it feels like the vest is stuck inside my back.”

  The armor came off but not without several winces and whimpers from its wearer. When it finally peeled away, Lingenfelter brought it around to show the inside to Brooke. “I don’t see any exits but look how deep these impacts are. The bullets must have really pummeled you.”

  Brooke’s stomach wrenched as she looked at the damage. “I’m lucky he didn’t hit my spine.”

  “Shirt’s going up, Mercer,” Lochlain warned. He began to lift the thin fabric off her back tenderly.

  “Stop!” she cried and flinched forward out of his reach. “Cut the thing off me. I don’t want to have to raise my left arm again.”

  Lochlain dug into his pocket for his multi-tool. Moments later, he sliced through the thin material at Brooke’s back and removed the shirt like a hospital gown. Brooke covered her bare chest with her arms and hands.

  “I think you should go under the auto-doc,” Lochlain stated, gaping at her back.

  “Let me see,” she answered. “If they’re just bad bruises, I’ll live.”

  Lingenfelter swept her datapad over Brooke’s back and shared the video with her seconds later. A gruesome constellation of angry, red depressions resided just left of her spine. The majority of the impacts had been to her left upper back spreading slightly toward her shoulder. As hideous as the scarlet circles appeared now, Brooke knew they would eventually merge to form a massive bruise in a putrid blossom of purple and green. After taking a tentative, deep breath, she gritted her teeth and tested the movement of her left arm. “I think I’m okay,” she proclaimed. “I’m going to stay up for a few hours though, just to make sure I don’t take a turn for the worse.”

  Lochlain quickly removed his suit jacket and placed it delicately over her shoulders. “Do you want to put this on?”

  “Yes but I don’t want to lift my arm again,” she confessed. “Leave it on my shoulders and I’ll just hold it closed. Elease can help me get to our room while you detach us from the dock.”

  “I don’t want to leave you,” he stated adamantly.

  “Zanshin needs to go,” Brooke replied while looking him square in the eye. “Seriously, Reece, those people were not regular enforcers. The psychopath on the concourse had a smartlink. That’s the calling card of an elite, heavy hitter.”

  “How heavy?”

  Brooke shuddered unintentionally. “ATAC-level heavy.”

  Lochlain’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that Appiation sent an ATAC team after us?”

  “What’s an ‘attack’ team?” Lingenfelter asked.

  “An ultra-elite squad with nearly unfathomable skill backed by a major corporation’s power and resources,” Brooke explained. “They’re the people who sneak up on ghosts, the ones who swallow stars whole.”

  Lingenfelter recoiled. “Is Appiation really that mad at you?”

  Brooke dipped a shoulder and immediately regretted it. “I honestly don’t think so. What we’ve done should be so far below the notice of an ATAC team that they’d never waste their time. It’s like using a rail gun to kill a gnat. Besides, why not just have station security arrest us?”

  Lochlain raised a finger to interject. “Unless the people behind the ATAC team don’t want to draw attention to themselves.”

  Brooke offered him a wry grin. “How’d that turn out for them?”

  Lochlain’s datapad chimed. It was Truesworth. “Captain, the station hasn’t shut down the docks, at least not yet. Orbital Departure accepted my sailplan and we’re queued to disembark in a little over twenty minutes.”

  Lochlain tapped his screen. “Will we be ready by then?”

  “Not without some help,” Truesworth answered sharply. “I can probably do most of the work up here but Casper needs a hand. The power core is running but I guess Mercer shut down the drives and he’s working from a cold start.”

  Brooke answered the next question before it was asked. “It takes an hour by the checklist.” The line of her lips turned downward. “Okay, new plan. Elease, you run ahead and grab me a shirt and bra. My stuff is in the top dresser drawer.”

  “Roger, roger!” Lingenfelter began to turn but stopped and cast a mischievous look at Brooke. “Was someone planning on getting lucky tonight?” She tittered congenially before taking off down the forward spine.

  Brooke clasped Lochlain’s jacket tighter over her naked chest and flushed as he looked at her. “The support is built into the vest. An undergarment can press and create areas of non-coverage,” she explained clinically. Lochlain wisely remained silent.

  The pair moved down the spine as fast as Brooke’s back would allow. Sixty meters later, Lingenfelter rejoined them, clothing in hand. With the young Svean’s assistance, Brooke regained her decency.

  Lingenfelter pulled out a shiver-stick from her back pocket. “I stopped by the med-bay and cracked open the first response case.” She looked apologetically to Lochlain and said, “I hope that was all right.”

  “Absolutely,” Brooke answered for him. “Hit me.”

  Lingenfelter pressed the twenty-centimeter wand lightly to Brooke’s upper back. The pressurized injection would easily pass through her thin shirt. Lingenfelter activated the implement and moved to a new spot on the other side of Brooke’s wounds for a second application. “Is that better?”

  Brooke felt the tide of pain subsiding. “Definitely,” she sighed. “Now someone tell me why we didn’t do that first?” she asked rhetorically.

  Lochlain took the shiver-stick and said, “Elease, you help Mercer to Engineering and I’ll give Jack a hand up top. If that ATAC team comes back—”

  “They’ll slice through those three troopers like tissue paper,” Brooke finished. “Let’s get moving.”

  The journey to Engineering proved much swifter after the pain management injections. Even without support, Brooke moved down the aft spine at a quick shuffle. When they finally reached the catwalk, she saw a frenetic Naslund racing around the compartment.

  “The Home Defense Force has arrived,” Lingenfelter cried out. She quickly wondered if Naslund would recognize the Appiation navy’s moniker.

  The frantic engineer’s head jerked up to the metal catwalk. “Mercer! I’m trying to bring the Tolands up but the coolant recycle pump is taking forever.”

  “Just start it turning,” Brooke advised him, “and keep going down the checklist. When the coolant heats up, it’ll expand and help push itself through the system.” She turned to Lingenfelter and said, “I can make it down the stairwell. Why don’t you head up and keep the boys from freaking out.”

  Lingenfelter shot her a quick smile and tore off for the bridge.

  “Casper, skip everything on the checkl
ist related to the tunnel drive,” Brooke ordered as she descended the stairs awkwardly. “We’ll have plenty of time to bring it up later.”

  “Won’t that trigger a bunch of master cautions?” The man’s voice came from the rear of the compartment, behind the pulsating power core.

  “Better get used to that. We’re going to get a lot of them,” Brooke promised.

  Chapter 34

  Zanshin cruised at .15c. She had been under power for nearly fifty minutes and Vulsia’s trade orbital was a full 4lm behind her. The freighter was now sailing in the major navigation lane between Vulsia-4 and the Menali tunnel point, where a single Federation patrol craft orbited lazily. It was an ancient Lasso-class ship constructed without a shuttle hangar. The design deficiency precluded an inspection unless the ship’s captain chose to directly dock his ship with Zanshin. Lochlain, sitting on the bridge, felt the evening’s tension ebb from his shoulders.

  “Captain,” Lingenfelter uttered, breaking the quiet, “Casper says the tunnel drive is up and running.” She glanced at her board. “We’re still a good three hours from the tunnel point.”

  “That’s fine, Elease. Tell him to put it in standby mode if he hasn’t already done that.” He looked casually at the system plot on the wall screen. Zanshin’s escape beckoned 31lm in the distance. There was no control station, just a navigation buoy orbiting with the tunnel point. The dive to Menali would last less than forty-eight hours and would deposit them inside an uninhabited star system. They would traverse the desolate system and then dive at the Carinae tunnel point. From there, the true danger would begin.

  Lochlain had studied the route in detail. The Menali-Carinae tunnel would take one hundred hours to cross at the universe’s speed limit of .1c inside tunnel space. The first fifteen percent of the journey would be the safest inside the tunnel. However, for the remaining eighty-five hours, Zanshin would penetrate the Izari Nebula and the ship and crew would be inside a hyper-condensed emissions zone that would work hard to kill them all slowly. The crew would take standard anti-radiation protocol pouches obtained with the provisions for the trip to avoid the long-term consequences of exposure. Zanshin, herself, would likewise be protected by her navigation shield from the hazardous emissions. However, with the levels concentrated inside tunnel space, the freighter’s shield would only fend off a percentage of the emissions and every minute of every hour the ship would take increasingly higher doses.