Vigilante

by Laura E. Reeve

  “Pilgrimage, I assume, asked for aid under a prearranged agreement made with the Consortium? Please explain, Colonel, how they expect you to get into the system if the buoy is locked down.” Hauser’s tone was triumphant.

  Edones bent his head in acknowledgment. “Because there are encrypted overrides for AFCAW, provided the Pilgrimage III crew was able to activate them.”

  Hauser didn’t look surprised and merely gestured for an aide to hand him a slate. Oleander, however, was taken aback by this admission. She glanced at Floros, whose eyes had narrowed in triumph as if to say, “I knew it but I couldn’t prove it.”

  “If CAW’s duplicity is made public, then Overlord Three will release this statement expressing condemnation for the Consortium’s attempt to undermine Pax Minoica.” Hauser handed Edones the slate.

  “Duplicity is a strong word, considering the opening of G-145 was contracted during the war.” Edones didn’t look at the slate. “Besides, we both know the codes might not work. If the Overlords want political profit from this, I’m warning you that Senior Senator Jude Stephanos, from Hellas, is currently drafting his statement of outrage over your override codes on a buoy financed by Autonomous Worlds.”

  Both sides had overrides to sovereign buoy operation? Oleander had naively taken generational ship line “neutrality” at face value. She heard Floros snort.

  “At this time there’s no reason to release this information,” Hauser said.

  Edones smiled coldly. “Agreed. Why tarnish the reputation of the generational ship lines or take the chance of angering the Minoans? However, Pilgrimage HQ put constraints on our response. This must be a joint mission and they’ve limited the ships we can take into the system.”

  “Oh, Great Bull-shit,” Floros said in a low voice, out of the corner of her mouth. “No matter what, the civilians will make this a clusterfuck.”

  “Major Bernard and Captain Floros, I need a manifest of every ship and crew inside G-145, and an analysis of where they might be when we enter the system. Lieutenant Oleander!” Edones’s voice was clipped.

  “Yes, sir.” She sprang out of her seat.

  “Notify Colonel Aquino that the Bright Crescent must be ready to depart in eight hours, configured for Rho-Epsilon-Sigma.”

  Her forehead wrinkled, but she didn’t voice her puzzlement. The colonel was referencing the flexible battle configuration for several missions, such as reconnaissance, extraction, and stealthy surgical strikes. However, the Bright Crescent was only a medium-weight Fury-class cruiser, fitted with rail guns, swarm weapons, and kinetic missile tubes, typically for use with the Champion II or Assassinator missiles. A Fortress-class destroyer would have a wider range of weapons, plus shock troops and a squadron or two of fighters to compare to the two weaponless pinnaces carried by the Fury-class cruisers. She had figured a destroyer would be sent to G-145, if only for its intimida tion factor.

  “Why the Bright Crescent?” Leave it to Floros to publicly question the orders.

  Oleander waited. She didn’t know what type of senior officer Edones might be: one who didn’t like his decisions being questioned, or one who figured his people deserved most of the same information he had for his decisions. Luckily, Edones cocked one eyebrow at Floros’s query and proved to be the latter.

  “Pilgrimage HQ has been specific: One ship each is allowed from AFCAW and Terran Space Forces, with limited combined mass and displacement. After all, it’s their territory.”

  “But, sir, they obviously don’t know about the weapon—” Oleander stopped short when she saw the colonel’s expression.

  “Yes?” He raised both his light eyebrows, which wasn’t good.

  “And I guess they’re never going to know,” she finished.

  “Never say never, Lieutenant,” Edones said, almost cheerfully. “But for right now, we must keep the ship lines in the dark.”

  “What about our new allies?” Floros’s tone was sour and she jerked her head toward the SP, who was huddled with his aides. “How can we execute a dual-flag mission if they’re not allowed access to ship and weapon specs?”

  “Ah, but that’s been anticipated. There’re new classification guides in everybody’s queues. By the way, Lieutenant Oleander, as senior weapons officer, you’ll coordinate armament with the incoming Terran ship and crew. You’ll need to do that from the Bright Crescent.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Edones pointed his slate toward hers and pressed the transmit button. “Since you’re heading for the ship, take these orders to admin and have the day officer execute and send them to Directorate admin. Stay there until you’ve verified they’re in effect.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She strode out of the room and in the passage, glanced at the orders she was taking to the day officer. One set of orders put Master Sergeant Alexander Joyce onto hazardous-duty pay status DI-3. The other set of orders transferred Reserve Major Ariane Kedros to active duty with the same hazardous-duty pay status. The duty location for both was G-145.

  She raised her eyebrows. As cold and uncaring as Edones seemed, he took care of his people. Joyce’s family now received additional pay and Kedros had full military medical benefits if, Gaia forbid, she was wounded in G-145. And if Major Ariane Kedros was in G-145, conducting her civilian job, then so was Matt Journey. The rescue of G-145 suddenly became personal.

  “The connection to module-two-zero-nine-eight-separated-from- Pilgrimage has been sealed. I am ready to supply an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere.” As if in response to the Minoan’s voice, the vertical airlock seal’s status light went green.

  “Hey, we’ve got light gravity.” David Ray started fumbling about his webbing. The toxic atmosphere alarm started blaring. “Open the airlock, Matt.”

  “We’ll depressurize.”

  “That’s hypoxia speaking. I can’t do this myself. I’m hurt, remember?” David Ray’s urgent tone cut through his fog of panic like a knife.

  Luckily, Matt had spacecrew barometric chamber training and he knew sudden pigheaded irrationality could be a symptom of hypoxia. Several years ago, when he’d gone through routine low-atmosphere training, his test partner refused to put his oxygen mask back on when required. The instructors had to tackle him and forcibly attach the mask. The training let crews experience mild hypoxia to reinforce the idea that, sometimes, your worst enemy could be your own brain.

  The light is green. Matt undid the webbing holding him to the floor and bounced unsteadily toward the vertical airlock. He bumped into the wall and rebounded, catching the edge of the bar. If the light is green, the airlock is sealed, he kept chanting to himself. He webbed himself temporarily to the handhold and silenced the atmosphere alarm.

  Even though the airlock sensors detected an adequate seal, the module systems knew the airlock wasn’t attaching to anything conventional, or in a manner for which it’d been designed. Matt had to insist that yes, he was sure he wanted to open the outside seal to the airlock.

  The pressure light stayed green, but the seal light started flipping between red and green. The module system became confused. It flashed conflicting messages on the wall: “Warning, inadequate seal for safe entry! Oxygenated environment detected outside airlock.”

  Matt finally convinced the system to open the lower seal. He opened the hatch and a wave of warm, humid air hit him. He breathed deeply and immediately gagged. The smell was overwhelmingly fetid for someone raised aboard a generational ship.

  “St. Darius, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but is the oxygen worth this?” However, his headache was fading and—David Ray! Thinking more clearly and feeling much steadier, he unwebbed himself and went to help the counselor.

  “Egad, that’s awful,” David Ray commented when Matt got him closer to the airlock. He looked about the module. “This humidity is going to overwhelm the module’s scrubbers and we’re going to get a lot of condensation. We’ll have to ask them to adjust their mixture.”

  Matt looked warily at the comm panel, his
heart sinking. He didn’t want to talk to them. The Minoan’s voice suddenly came over the systems, making him jump.

  “Knossos-ship has been damaged by illegally designed explosives. Are rescued-persons in module-two-zero-nine-eight-separated-from- Pilgrimage responsible?”

  Matt turned to David Ray and saw horror wash over the counselor’s face, his eyes widening.

  “Absolutely not!” David Ray shouted. “A group of criminals overtook the Pilgrimage III and they are the ones mining the buoy channels, not us.”

  There was silence.

  David Ray tapped the mute command, his fingers shaking. “Sorry, Matt, I’m rattled and I forgot some important points about Minoans. They understand and remember titles, so don’t bother with names, because it’ll only confuse them. There’ll also be uncomfortable pauses, for us, when conversing with them. We have to learn to wait.”

  “You do the talking then. You’ve studied them.”

  David Ray nodded and Matt reversed the mute command. They both waited.

  “Knossos-ship has been damaged,” repeated the voice. Another long pause occurred before it continued. “Knossos-ship cannot support module-two-zero-nine-eight-separated-from- Pilgrimage as attached. Rescued-persons must board Knossos-ship.”

  Matt’s eyebrows rose, but David Ray quickly said, “Rescued-persons understand and comply.”

  “But—” Matt didn’t know if any mundane had boarded a Minoan ship before. He’d once suspected Edones might have, but was later convinced the supercilious colonel knew no more than anyone else about the inside of Minoan ships.

  David Ray made a shushing gesture, a big smile on his face. Matt shook his head vigorously. He’s too drunk to understand; this might be the answer to his dream, but what about me? Then Matt looked about the module and his shoulders slumped. If the Minoans claimed they couldn’t keep the module pressurized, what else could he do?

  “Knossos-ship awaits rescued-persons. Please perform your shutdown procedures.”

  David Ray helped Matt enter commands for the module systems; the precious sperm samples would have acceptable temperature control from the solar panels and batteries, since the scrubbers could be shut down. Then, for the first time, they leaned through the airlock hatch and looked “down.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me!” Matt’s voice was tight.

  The edges of the outer seal of the airlock sank into something Matt considered a cross between semitransparent primordial stew and tapioca pudding gone really, really bad. It was light olive green with internal blotches that varied between red and brown. His eyes blurred from the stench.

  “No defecation of rescued-persons is intended,” said the Minoan voice.

  Matt clenched his jaw. “Yeah, right,” he muttered through his teeth, into David Ray’s ear.

  David Ray, on the other hand, looked fascinated. He pointed to the far side of the circular puddle filling the airlock tube. “I think our atmosphere is coming through those ports. Or perhaps, pores?”

  Remembering their open comm, Matt shrugged. Considering the flatulencelike atmosphere, only Gaia knew what those pores were. He had a more pressing question.

  “How are we supposed to board?” he asked, pointing at the tapioca-like surface. “It can’t be liquid; it’s bumpy. Is it solid?”

  Help didn’t come through the comm panel, so they turned back to the airlock tube.

  “Well, I’m game. And I’m already wounded.” David Ray gripped the ladder, swung away from their small platform, and worked his way down using his arms. He only had to go about four rungs before his feet touched the puddle surface. His shoes began disappearing as if they were pressing into viscous liquid.

  “At least it’s warm.” He went down another rung and he was up to his knees in the strange stuff.

  “Watch out, it’s changing.” Matt saw internal blotches, or floating chunks, start moving and coalesce about David Ray’s legs.

  “It’s starting to pull—whoa!” David Ray threw his arms up and floundered, for only a second, like a drowning man on the surface of a lake. Then he went under with a slurp, merely a large blotch floating deeper until he was quickly out of sight.

  “Aw, hell.” Matt punched the delayed close for the airlock and pushed violently away from the ladder and down, toward the putrid puddle. He closed his eyes and held his breath as he hit the surface.

  “There’s no shuttle or ship here on the surface?” Joyce asked.

  “No. We’re not scheduled for a supply delivery for several days,” Maria said.

  “What about emergency evacuation? Are there autonomous pods or modules available?”

  “Yes, but since the surface was considered safer than shooting anyone into space, they’re fixed structures. Besides, the evacuation modules are accessed from both sides of the great hall, which is now crawling with these. . . .” She couldn’t finish with any appropriate words and vaguely gestured with her left hand.

  “Whoever they are, they have no insignia or uniforms, so we know they’re thumbing their noses at the Phaistos Protocol. They’re not military.” Joyce conserved his energy by sitting in one of the comfy office chairs.

  “I agree. I also haven’t seen any connection between the strangers and the traitors that support them.” Maria looked thoughtful. “Except, I’ve seen no women in their ranks. Not a one.”

  “Once again, we’re lacking information. We don’t know who they are, how many there are, or what they want. Unfortunately, they’re not hampered by the same problem.”

  “Yes, they are.” Maria smiled. “Aether Exploration made such a mess of things with their layered contracts, no one knows who’s supposed to be down here or who works for whom.”

  Joyce frowned at her until she looked away and muttered, “Okay, some of the fault is ours.”

  It certainly was. If SP Parmet and his staff hadn’t forced Kedros to sign leases over to Terran companies—but then, if the Minoans hadn’t applied pressure, there wouldn’t be Minoan-owned contractors here either. Joyce shook his head. No sense in assigning blame, when they had to focus on getting up to Beta Priamos.

  “Apparently the only way off this rock is the elevator. Do we have any weapons?” he asked.

  “Only this.” She pulled a personal ministunner from her pocket. It was civilian and it didn’t have a lethal setting, plus its range had to be less than twenty feet.

  This was so incongruous he had to laugh, quickly muffling himself with his hand. Catching his hysteria, Maria chuckled quietly as she put the ministunner back in her vest. They quickly sobered.

  “We’re not going to scare anybody with a personal stunner, considering they’re running around with flechette pistols. So scratch any thought of overpowering the guys running the elevator.” Joyce leaned back further and the chair adjusted, making him think about how much he’d like a nap, a few delicious moments of sleep. “Could we wait them out? Until a hostage exchange or whatever they’re planning?”

  Maria shrugged. “Problem number one: We don’t know that they plan to negotiate with any authorities. Problem two: I saw them inventorying our supplies and making themselves at home in our kitchen, so they think they’ll be here for a while.”

  “Key words are they think, because once the outside worlds figure out—”

  “What if they’ve got control of the buoy?” Maria’s voice was blunt. “Then no one’s getting into the system.”

  Joyce raised his eyebrows. He had to give Maria credit for thinking big, but his initial reaction was to scoff at the idea. However . . . it was disturbingly plausible. Because he worked for the Directorate of Intelligence and had high clearances, he knew about the overrides negotiated between the ship line and CAW. However, the possibility of rescue came down to one issue: Did the Pilgrimage crew download the command to allow overrides?

  “We can take over their message center,” he suggested.

  At the same time, Maria said, “We can hitch an elevator ride to Beta Priamos, going EVA.”

&nb
sp; Neither spoke immediately, appraising the other’s plan behind lowered eyes. His was suicidal, given their lack of weapons, but hers had problems also.

  “You’re not EVA-qualified anymore.” He was obliquely referring to her Tantor’s Sun disease. She had equipment to provide her positive air pressure and oxygen when sleeping, which traveled with her in a large case—when she didn’t need that case for kidnapping victims off habitats, he reminded himself. She’d used her equipment case to smuggle an unconscious Major Kedros off Karthage Point. Later, he found the equipment broken down into small pieces and stuffed in ventilator shafts and trash compactors.

  Maria shrugged and pointed to the implant in her forearm. “I get continual medication that prevents the respiratory problems—it’s controlled similarly to asthma. If I set the EVA suit to slightly higher oxygen than normal, there’s little chance of an attack.”

  “But there’s still a chance. How long before you run out of meds?”

  “A couple days. I was supposed to receive my quarterly shipment on the resupply ship tomorrow. Gives me incentive to kick these guys out of here, doesn’t it?”

  “Is there an in-system source?”

  She shook her head. “Even the Pilgrimage’s labs can’t manufacture it. If our ‘captors’ have truly shut us off from the outside worlds, then we’re all dependent upon the Pilgrimage for everything, from food to light manufacturing.”

  Joyce pictured a future filled with crèche-get food: processed algal bars, hydroponically grown pastel vegetables, and bland noodle dishes. The glimpse nearly made him gag.

  “That’s enough incentive for me,” he said. “Where are the EVA suits stored?”

  CHAPTER 15

  When an unbeliever faces an arc of retribution, tailored to their sins and completing their just punishment, they will hesitate. It becomes the responsibility of the believer to agent that arc of retribution, and the believer will be rewarded, their kismet enhanced . . .