Andy wished he knew more about Cruithne Station. It had a bad reputation and he didn’t trust his ability to get the best price for the ship. There wasn’t time to hang around bars or wherever junkers could be found to negotiate a price—not with the fees the ship would be racking up in its parking slot. How much could he even expect to get? The drive repairs were at least a year’s cargo-hauling. The ship had to be worth more, but he was desperate and any prospective buyer would smell it. He considered posting something on a public forum and just letting random buyers hash out the price. Once he did that, there would be no going back.
The thought of selling Sunny Skies, of pulling the kids out of their home and taking away the place where they had lived with their mother, made him want to find something to destroy. He thought about the weapons crate and wondered how he might sneak away for some target practice.
Cara appeared in the doorway, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Are we there yet?” she asked.
“We’re there yet,” Andy replied, and turned to give her a smile. “How’d you sleep?”
“I dreamed about Alice floating away. You’d sent her out to work on the sails and she had a malfunction and just floated away from us.”
Andy stood and stretched. The upside to waiting in the cargo queue was that he had time to make breakfast. Smelling himself, he realized he should probably clean up before he had to interact with someone from customs in person.
“Alice has a pretty good location beacon,” Andy said. As he walked past Cara, he pulled her in against his side for a hug and tousled her hair.
“Dad!” Cara complained.
“That’s what hair’s for. For me to mess up. I thought you’d be used to it by now.”
“I’m not a little kid,” she groused.
Andy grinned and grabbed her nose between two knuckles.
“Your nose will still belong to me, even when you’re a hundred.”
Cara pushed away and smoothed her hair. “We’ll see about that.”
“I look forward to the challenge. Is your brother up?”
She followed him into the corridor, dragging her feet. “He’s playing a game. Something with aliens.”
“Sounds like fun. You should play with him for five minutes while I get the kitchen ready. Then you can come back and we’ll make him cook.”
“I don’t want to play a game with him.”
“Five minutes, that’s all. Little things like that, Cara, and he’ll do the dishes for you. Trust me.”
She gave him a disbelieving look that he answered by sticking out his tongue at her.
“I’ve lived a while,” Andy said. “I know things.”
“Are we going to fix the drive at Cruithne?” Cara asked.
“I’m working on it.”
“Can we go to the station? I want to see the big fountain. Did you know there’s a park with a big fountain and birds?”
“What kind of birds?”
“Finches, thrushes, wrens, orioles, and even some parrots.”
“Sounds messy.”
“It sounds wonderful. They sing all day, and the parrots repeat back things people have told them.”
“Where did you hear this?”
“I read about it on the Network. The whole history of Cruithne going back to 1986. Did you know people thought Cruithne was a moon of Earth at first? How dumb is that?”
“Someday somebody’s going to look back and call us cavemen, kiddo.” He raised a finger. “Perspective. Not something I expect a twelve-year-old to have.”
Cara wrinkled her nose. “Do you know that Cruithne has a crime problem?” she asked, as if she were talking about plumbing.
“I’ve heard that.”
“It’s not a safe place.”
“I’ve heard that too. You still want to see the fountain?”
“I’d like to hear the birds,” Cara said. “I’d like to hear them for real.”
They reached the kitchen, which reminded Andy that all he had to cook with was the last bit of flour, water, and some artificial sweetener.
“We’ll see if we can make it happen, kiddo,” he said. “But I’ll be honest, I can’t make any promises.”
She surprised him by picking her head up. “I know. It would be nice though.”
“Go play with your brother. Five minutes.” He spread his hand to show all five fingers.
Cara held up three fingers.
“This isn’t a negotiation. Make sure Tim combs his hair and puts on a clean coverall. I don’t want him smelling like dog when the Port Agents come on board.” He patted his chest. “I’m going to grab a shower myself. Tell him that.”
She made another face and turned down the corridor for Tim’s room. Andy stood in the doorway to the kitchen and looked around the little room with its worn surfaces and tiny table barely big enough for four. At least the oven had never broken down that he could remember. That was something.
He left the kitchen for his room and its shower stall, which he was fairly certain still worked.
* * * * *
Cara had been right: Cruithne wasn’t a safe place. The last he had heard, there were at least three major crime syndicates operating on the station, which made it a damned dangerous place.
With little SSF oversight, Station Security was in the pocket of the highest bidder. Back when Andy was in the TSF, he had seen several different battle plans for Cruithne Station in the event some crime lord decided to play King Arthur and unite the various armed factions, turning it into a potentially Earth-hostile location.
The asteroid came too close to Earth for about a month out of every year. During that month, the TSF placed a heavy focus on the traffic off-station, which was usually peppered with contraband on its way to High Terra or Cuno, and resulted in many search and seizures. The TSF was spread thin these days and a concerted effort from Cruithne’s private fleet of attack craft could cause Earth’s interests significant damage.
Of the three plans he’d read, all had high casualty rates. The plan that tried to capture Cruithne intact accounted for nearly fifty percent casualties, which was unheard of in modern doctrine. A robust set of shields and defense cannons meant even the attack pilots weren’t going to get away unscathed, and any missile barrage could be decimated before it got close.
In truth, Cruithne Station was a fortress run by mostly benevolent gangs who simply wanted to be left alone to do their gray- and black-market business, which may have been better than any kind of corporate control. With a corporation, you never knew what was really happening beneath the smooth facade.
As he ruminated, Andy switched on the oven and searched among the bare cabinets for something he could turn into food. He found the flour and sweetener, as well as a container of dehydrated yams that had rolled out of sight.
He was staring at the flour and yams when Tim walked through the door, holding his stuffed dolphin like a fighter craft and making engine noises.
“I’m a pilot like you, Dad!” he shouted. He ran a loop around the room and brought the dolphin to a landing on the counter next to the dried yams. As the dolphin’s nose touched the plastic bag, he stared at the yams and screwed up his nose.
“What are those?” he demanded.
“Candy. I found it in the back of the cabinet.”
Tim moved his face a little closer. “That doesn’t look like candy. That looks like vegetables.”
“It’s candy, I’m telling you. Why don’t you wash your hands and help me make some griddle-cakes?” Andy reached for the dolphin to clear space on the counter.
“No!” Tim shouted. “Dolphin stays with me.”
Andy returned his son’s angry stare, trying to remember Cara at ten. Was that when she had refused her stuffed animals, deciding they were for little kids? Tim was holding on tighter, backsliding, even. He needed more attention.
Andy sighed. “I’m moving him to the table. He’s not going anywhere. We need room to work. He can watch you from there. You want some breakfa
st, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Tim said. “I want some breakfast.”
“Then do what I tell you and come help me. We don’t have a lot of time before the people from Cruithne come to off-load the cargo.”
“Is Alice going to help?”
“Nope, Alice doesn’t need to get involved in any of that. They have their own drones to move everything off the ship.”
Tim’s face brightened. “Can we go play in the cargo bay when it’s empty?”
One of Tim’s favorite things was to fly in open spaces under zero-g. Andy didn’t know where he got it.
“I’ll think about it,” Andy said. “First we need to make breakfast. Then we’ll talk to the people from the station. After all that, we’ll think about playing. Your sister wants to see some birds on the station. What do you think about that? You want to see a parrot?”
“Parrots are loud,” Tim said.
“Yes, they are.”
Andy had just emptied the flour into the mixing bowl when a hail came across the Link.
Andy glanced at Tim, who was sniffing one of the dried yams before touching it with the tip of his tongue. The kids wouldn’t be able to hear anything that came over Link.
Andy didn’t know anyone named Ngoba Starl. He had purposely left the ship disconnected from the station’s greater communications network. He didn’t feel like getting overrun with stored messages from debt collectors.
the voice said, sounding wolfish.
A chill went down Andy’s neck. He was getting boarded. They couldn’t legally come aboard without his permission, but they could have easily hacked the security system. And if they did force their way on board, who was he going to tell?
If Starl was already at the cargo bay airlock, Andy was never going to get to the command deck in time to stop him. He could try to activate the ship’s weak security system remotely but it might attack him and the kids for all he knew. He let out a long breath.
Andy cut the connection and activated the ship’s intercom.
“Cara,” he said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. “I need you to come meet me in the kitchen.”
Chapter Nine
STELLAR DATE: 08.24.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies
REGION: Port Authority, Cruithne Station, Terran Hegemony
The airlock scanner only returned static when he ran an occupant query. Andy wanted to punch the control panel. No wonder someone had been able to plant their own cargo at Kalyke Station. He wondered how long that system had been down as well. Why hadn’t Alice checked it?
Trying to keep himself calm, he floated in the corridor, suit leaking pinholes of air, and let his gaze roam over the scraped walls and dented struts. Maybe it was time to send Sunny Skies off to the junkers. It was probably safer as scrap. The kids could understand that. Some things got too old. Some things were inevitable and then you had to face reality. That was an important lesson for him to teach them.
A standard laser pistol rested in a holster attached to his suit’s harness. He had debated grabbing one of the TSF pistols from the hidden crate but if the weapons belonged to Starl, he didn’t want to antagonize the man by flashing them.
The kids were hiding in a storage cabinet in one of the unused rooms in the habitat. They would be able to contact him over his Link using the onboard comm system and he could subvocalize answers. Cara hated subvocals. She said they sounded like he’d become a creepy ghost in her head.
“That’s because I am and always will be a creepy ghost in your head,” he’d answered.
She had replied with a dirty look.
Andy took a deep breath—which fogged his faceplate for a second—then let it out and activated the airlock. The system cycled and then the doors slid apart, screeching on poorly-lubed tracks.
Inside the airlock stood four people in EVA suits. The first two were carrying rifles that looked like dual-purpose laser and impact weapons. A third person trailed, unarmed, stomach rounding out the front of their suit, while the person in the middle had only a pistol at their hip. That had to be Ngoba Starl. He was taller than the others, with narrow shoulders and a long face that looked gray through his helmet. His eyes were warm brown. A curly beard pressed against the lower part of his faceplate. His suit was newer than the others and decorated with multi-colored stripes.
Andy took a step back to allow them room to walk into the cargo bay, mag boots clicking on the metal floor. The two guards spread out, helmets rising to check corners and points in the ceiling for weapons systems. It’s what he would have done when boarding a strange ship, invited or not. The rifles remained muzzle-down, which was only slightly comforting.
Starl put his hands on his hips and looked around as well. His suit was easily worth a hundred times more than Andy’s, even when Andy’s had been new.
Andy glanced at one of the guards and when he looked back at Ngoba, the man was grinning at him. He had long white teeth.
Andy swallowed and shook his head.
The two toughs didn’t say anything.
Ngoba laughed. He pointed a gloved finger at Andy.
Andy started to say he wasn’t really joking when Cara asked, “Daddy, where are you?”
He subvocalized, “I’m here, honey. I’m talking with some men down in the cargo bay.”
“Do they have guns?” Tim asked.
Andy looked at Ngoba, unable to remember if he was supposed to say something or not. “Don’t worry about that,” he told Tim. “Both of you stay quiet for now. I’m trying to talk to them so we can get them out of here.”
He bit his lip, knowing he’d let too much worry into his voice.
Cara didn’t answer and he was able to turn his full attention back to Ngoba. Sweat ran down his temple.
The info drove a cold spike down Andy’s back.
Ngoba said.
Karcher and Stansil had disengaged their mag boots, which allowed them to float to the top of the central cargo stack. They moved their rifles to their backs as they hunted among the stack, supposedly scanning for the two crates at the bottom.
Andy gritted his teeth as he moved his gaze to Ngoba’s pistol. If he was going to fight, now was the time to do it. He could get off two shots at Karcher and Stansil and then a third at Ngoba. He was ignoring Jickson for now. The man’s suit was too tight and didn’t appear to leave any room for weapons. Beyond Jickson stood the airlock control panel, which presented the option of dumping the bay’s atmosphere possibly sweeping the two guards into space, or at least smacking them against the airlock as they were swept out with the air.
The weight of Andy’s pistol pushed against his stomach, reminding him it was there, urging him to do something.
Andy jerked his gaze back to the tall man’s face. The brown eyes watched him warmly, still showing more humor than anything else, as if he expected the two heavies to pull the crates out and reveal them stuffed with toys and not some biological weapon that had killed nine other crews.
Lyssa's Dream - A Hard Science Fiction AI Adventure (The Sentience Wars - Origins Book 1) Page 6
