Mapped Space 1: The Antaran Codex

by Stephen Renneberg

  “She’s had it!” Jase said incredulously. “I can’t believe you smoked it with a trash can.”

  “It’s a first for me.”

  The fusion beam ceased firing as a gray lifeboat shot away from the cutter, propelled by a low power thruster. We waited expectantly, but no more lifeboats launched. Even overloaded, that one lifeboat couldn’t have carried more than forty. A cutter that size should have had at least four such escape craft, but Gwandoya must have removed the others to make room for his oversized can opener.

  “Do you think Gwandoya made it out?” Jase wondered aloud.

  “People like him always do.” They were usually the first to jump ship and thought nothing of leaving others behind. I watched the cutter for a moment, noting the atmospheric plumes were thinning as Gwandoya’s ship died. It might take weeks or years, but eventually Icetop’s gravity would pull it down to a fiery end in the planet’s atmosphere. I climbed off my acceleration couch with a melancholy feeling. I knew Gwandoya and his crew had been responsible for many deaths over the years, but no one who lived in space ever liked to see another ship destroyed. “When we reach minimum safe distance, bubble for Axon.”

  “I don’t suppose I could convince you to head for Breega instead?” Jase asked. “I need some sun after all that ice.”

  Breega was an arid world, so hot that the human settlements were all located below ground or in high mountains.

  “Why there? You can only step on the surface at night?”

  “Yeah, but the only ice they have is in their drinks.”

  “Next time,” I promised, then headed to engineering where Izin was still meticulously watching our shield levels. “You can drop the shield, Izin. Did we take any damage?”

  “Nothing I can’t repair in the next few days.”

  I watched Izin de-energize the shield, then said. “Good work back there on Icetop. How did you manage to crack the auctioneer?” It was something even the EIS would find useful.

  “I didn’t. I told you, Captain, I could not break its security. I found the auctioneer passed the results to a softbot, which displayed the message. All I did was subvert the softbot, replacing Captain Vargis’ name with yours.”

  “Oh,” I said thoughtfully. “So the auctioneer thinks Vargis won?”

  “Yes Captain, not that it matters now.”

  “It will to Vargis.”

  “Why is that, Captain?”

  “Because it would have transferred the money from his vault-key, even though he got nothing for it,” I grinned thoughtfully. “I wonder if that double dealing slime ball knows?”

  “He will the next time he examines his vault balance.”

  “Good thing he didn’t check it before takeoff,” I said amused. “Rather than leave us to Gwandoya, he might have blasted us himself!”

  Chapter Four : Axon Way Station

  Free Station

  The Shroud Dark Nebula

  Outer Lyra Region

  Artificial Gravity

  1,082 light years from Sol

  18,000 inhabitants

  It took three weeks to make the seventy-eight light year voyage to Axon Way Station, a sprawling ramshackle structure that had grown haphazardly over the centuries into one of the largest free floating habitats outside Core System space. It was gravitationally anchored to the edge of the Shroud, a vast dark nebula of dust and ionized gas which in a few million years would begin spawning new stars, turning the cold dark nebula into a glowing spectacle of light and color. The station had originally been a hydrogen refinery established by the Axon Corporation over three centuries ago. Being located halfway between Hades City and the Outer Cygnus colonies, it quickly became a favored rest stop for trade ships. Once the traders came, the merchants and smugglers followed.

  Axon was a free station, a self governing commercial enterprise under corporate rather than political control. It was on friendly terms with the four Earth collective-governments, but was carefully independent of them all. That autonomy and its location fuelled the illicit trade which transformed Axon into the black market capital of the Outer Lyra region. There was a small UniPol outfit there providing a semblance of law and order to the more civilized inhabitants, while the local EIS cell operated in secret who, thanks to my purge and wipe, I had no way of contacting. The station’s location, freedom and thriving trade made it a natural choice for the Beneficial Society’s regional headquarters, which said volumes about how close the Society was to the black market. The next nearest Society HQ was months away, which was why I was betting Marie was headed to Axon.

  The Outer Lyra run was always hazardous because the Shroud created natural bottlenecks marked by navpoint beacons where ships unbubbled to make course corrections. Ravens were known to lurk around the edges of these natural choke points, occasionally picking off easy prey and running the moment a navy frigate appeared. Everyone knew there was a Raven base inside the Shroud, although no one outside the Brotherhood knew where it was. Even inside the Brotherhood, it was a closely guarded secret, known only to a handful of senior navigators, all of whom would die fighting rather than be captured by the navy.

  This time around, we had a clean run all the way to the second last navpoint, where we picked up a signature drifting at the extreme edge of sensor range.

  “Can’t tell what it is,” Jase said. “No transponder, no energy emissions. I can’t even tell if it’s human.”

  It was human. No one else used our navpoints. “Any emergency beacons?”

  “Nothing. No active scanning either. If it’s alive, it’s just listening.”

  It could have been anything from a derelict to a Raven ambush. I studied the signature warily, well aware of the tricks the Brotherhood used to lure well meaning fools to their deaths. There was no mayday signal and its reactor was stone cold, indicating it was a lifeless wreck. Even so, I hated leaving a ship adrift in case there were survivors – then I remembered my brother. He was out here somewhere, maybe in the Shroud, maybe in a place like it. Whenever I saw anything that looked like an ambush or was tempted to do something stupid, I thought of him, imagined how dangerous it would be if he were laying the trap and then I bubbled the hell out of there fast.

  “We’ll report it when we get to Axon,” I said, not that they’d do anything about it. The Shroud might have been a shortcut, but it was also a place of death, where the only favor the living could do for the dead was not join them.

  We had our course corrections down to a fine art and were soon on our way towards Axon. A few hours later, we unbubbled a hundred thousand clicks out, leaving our transponder off while we checked what ships were docked. We were outside the range of the station’s heavy weapons, which would be targeting us as a matter of course, waiting for us to identify ourselves. In the Shroud, taking a first look from long range with no transponder signal was a sensible precaution, although entering weapon’s range without revealing who you were was a fatal mistake.

  There were more than twenty ships docked, but the Heureux was not among them. Either we’d passed her in flight or I’d guessed wrong and she was heading for a more distant Society base, probably Xantis in towards the Core Systems.

  “Show them who we are,” I said, lighting up our maneuvering engines while Jase activated the transponder.

  I booked a berth with Axon Control as we approached the sprawling black structure. It was lined with thousands of points of light, marking its many viewports, although there were fewer active lights near the abandoned refinery at the center where the lowlife types fought each other for scraps. The station was constructed of dozens of vertically aligned cylindrical habitats of different lengths and thicknesses, some with their sides pressed together, others separated by connecting tubes. The ends of the cylinders mostly bristled with aerials and towers, although a few contained transparent domes covering parks and housing for the obscenely rich. Robot workers and human engineers floated like insects around several skeletal sections under construction, while dull metal gun e
mplacements ringed the station and a dozen orbiting weapon platforms showed Axon took its defense seriously. No Raven ship had approached within weapon’s range for more than a century, although they occasionally performed long distance scans of the docking zones to see who was in port.

  “Are you staying on board, Skipper?” Jase asked warily.

  “No. You are.”

  He winced. “There’ll be trouble if the Krieger brothers hear you’re on the station.”

  There used to be three brothers, famous drunks, gamblers and bullies who ran one of the local crime gangs. Thanks to a shakedown gone wrong, there were now only two, and both had sworn to kill me for dealing with their murderous brother. It wasn’t their station of course, they just acted like it was.

  “By the time they find out I’m here, we’ll be long gone,” I reassured him, certain the Krieger brother’s informants would be lining up to give them the good news if they got a sniff of my arrival.

  Jase looked doubtful. “I’ll be ready if you need help.”

  “No matter what happens, don’t leave the ship,” I said, certain that if Jase so much as set foot on the station, they’d grab him and offer to trade him for me, then slit both our throats. They were predictable that way.

  Jase gave me a frustrated look, but knew my mind was made up. He had no history with the Krieger brothers, and I wanted to keep it that way – for his sake.

  “Prepare docking clamps,” I said as the Silver Lining settled into the guide beam leading to our mooring position, secretly hoping the Krieger brothers’ eyes weren’t everywhere.

  I didn’t have time for games, not this trip.

  * * * *

  Dock security was non-existent at Axon. In high threat space everyone was openly armed and would fight rather than surrender their personal protection, so I was able to wear my P-50 holstered when I boarded the station.

  If Hades City was a honeycomb of well lit caverns, Axon Way Station was a labyrinth of mostly dark and grimy corridors, straining life support systems and gang controlled no-go areas. The exceptions were the white zones, at the extreme upper and lower ends of the station, where the rich lived. They were protected by private armies, were supplied with ample power, clean air and good food and lived in sprawling homes with panoramic views of the Shroud. They could have been a million light years from the lawless center of the station.

  The black zone was located in the oldest, most dilapidated part of the station, around the old refinery, where local stim-heads called ‘fynies’ would put a slug between your eyes for your boots – let alone the mountain of credits I was carrying. The fynie dominated black zone survived on minimal power and choked on air fouled by a leaking network of disused pipes and rusting gas tanks.

  Between the two white zones and the decaying black zone were the grey zones, home to illegitimate businesses and well armed vigilantes who kept the worst of the fynies sealed in their rotting slum. Elevators and walkways connected the gray and white zones and a hull skimming ferry service ran between the two wealthy ends of the station, but there was no functioning transport link into or through the black zone.

  The gray zone’s stim labs were the center of Outer Lyra’s drug trade, and its workshops manufactured every kind of weapon known to man. Scattered between the stim and weapon manufacturers was a vast array of medlabs offering an impressive selection of bizarre body mods and implants. Most infamous of all was the Cauldron in Upper Gray, the reddest red light district in five hundred light years. Everyone knew what Axon was, even the navy, but it provided a protected stopover that the navy didn’t have to pay for, so they let it stay in business.

  After paying our mooring fees at the gate, I passed through into the station without even a retinal scan, proof Axon didn’t care how many systems a man was wanted in, so long as they got paid. I took an elevator to Upper White Commercial, to visit Shipping Control to confirm the Heureux hadn’t put in at the station in the last month. Marie’s old freighter was slower than the Lining, so I held on to the slim hope I’d passed her and she’d dock in the next day or two.

  Hoping I might have better luck with the Society, I headed for their Outer Lyra regional headquarters. It was on the far side of Upper White’s retail district, a spider’s web of broad corridors lined with shops overflowing with merchandise of every description, most of it stolen. Many of the smugglers feeding Axon had Raven links, and made healthy livings out of disposing of the Brotherhood’s booty in ways UniPol found difficult to trace. The smugglers would pick-up the loot from prearranged drop zones in the Shroud and sell it in Axon, or some other black market center, before passing the funds to Raven vault-men, minus their cut of course. It was an efficient operation, where everybody got rich. Very rich.

  It was why Earth Navy couldn’t stamp out the Brotherhood, and why the Society’s regional headquarters was a well appointed fortress that forced me to hand over my P-50 before letting me in. Like all traders, I had no choice but to be a member of the Society because running cargo was their game. They owned it. The further out from Earth you went, the truer that was. They protected the vendors by underwriting every contract – for a healthy three percent skim off the top – and they ran the Exchange, which only Society members could access. It was a racket and it was legal, but we got discounts from Society endorsed dealers which eased the pain a little. Technically, the Society didn’t get a cut of smuggling money, but their skim was inflated to take a piece of that action too, although no one ever discussed it.

  After settling up the commissions I owed the Society, I requested a heads up if the Heureux docked. Members could always contact each other through the Society, with no questions asked, no records kept. I then checked which of Axon’s merchants were Society authorized vendors, and as such, required to offer me discounts. The run in with Gwandoya had left me feeling the Lining was underdressed, especially now that I was doing double duty for the EIS. As luck would have it, Armin’s Armaments was still on the list. Everybody bought from him, because his gear was premium grade and came with permits – probably forged – but good enough to pass Earth Navy inspection.

  I retrieved my gun on the way out and took the elevator down to Upper Gray, where the streets were crowded and the air was a kaleidoscope of fragrances, not all of them pleasant. Everyone down there was carrying, except for a few well dressed richies who were escorted by heavily armed guards in body armor. Stim-dealers worked the street corners and a few grubby looking fynies skulked in back alleys, but generally everyone was well mannered.

  Politeness tends to accompany a plethora of guns on hips.

  A bunch of under nourished idlers lounged outside Armin’s. Not fynies, but bottom feeders nevertheless. One was barely conscious, pressing a dark colored stim tube into his neck, pumping toxins into his blood stream at a steady pace. Another wore a brain wave modulator with the visor down and was using his hands to simulate firing a weapon as he lived through the helmet’s scripted gun-fantasy. A third sat on a low, graffiti laden wall staring at a small device in his hand. When I reached the entrance, he aimed the device at me. Too late I realized it was an alpha wave scanner, recording the identities of everyone who passed within range. He looked up at me, eyes wide, thinking of all the credits he was about to make, then jumped to his feet and ran. I considered shooting him, but DNA locked him instead before he fled into an alley.

  The idler poisoning his blood supply with the stim tube turned his glazed eyes in my direction, pointing his fingers at me like a gun and mimed shooting me. Thanks for the warning. I considered removing his larynx with the stim tube, but he was so toxxed, he probably would have enjoyed it. The smart thing to do would have been to get back to the ship, but I really needed to sharpen the Lining’s teeth, so I went inside expecting a reception committee when I came back out.

  Armin’s Armaments was a warehouse covering three levels with armed guards at every door and autoturrets in every ceiling. I didn’t have to hand in my gun as I entered – there was no need. Signs ev
erywhere warned customers not to touch their weapons, otherwise the autoturrets would open fire. For my personal safety, they would immediately kill anyone who acted unsafely – including me. Very comforting! It was hardly surprising Armin’s had a reputation for being the most peaceful place in either gray zone. A pity there was only one way in or out.

  Being careful to keep my hands where the autoturrets could see them, I wandered through ordered galleries displaying everything from tiny pinhole stunners small enough to fit inside a woman’s purse to holographic displays of ship based heavy weapons that would have been at home on an Earth Navy battle cruiser. For several hours, automated vending machines explained in excruciating detail the technical specs of dozens of ship borne weapons small enough to replace the Lining’s feeble particle cannon.

  Eventually I found a vending machine talking my language.

  “The Celestial Dynamics KD-496 Proton Burst Cannon may be optionally fitted with a fully insulated, multi-phase capacitor guaranteed to limit thermal emissions to less than one point eight percent during charge cycles.”

  In other words, a stealth cannon – exactly what I was looking for. The price was obscene and the cycle time slow, but the sneaky charge capacitor allowed the burster to power up undetected by Earth-tech sensors. The Tau Cetins would know in a nanosecond if the weapon was active, but as I was never going to do anything as stupid as shoot at them, that hardly mattered. The burster hit like a weapon three times its size at a respectable range, which made it a good match for the Silver Lining’s main defenses: her speed and her shield.

  Kicking an adversary in the pants and running like hell was my kind of fighting.

  It made no sense to put such an expensive piece of kit on a ship as small as the Lining, which is why no potential foe would expect it. Fortunately, Lena could afford it – and I figured she owed me. After receiving Armin’s rock solid guarantee the weapon would be delivered to the Lining’s cargo hold within the hour, I made a significant dent in the EIS vault-key’s balance, then went downstairs to the urban warfare section and bought an apple.