Deserter

by Mike Shepherd

  One shot, and a lovely face vanished.

  Kris crawled forward, spotted another shooter, and knocked her down with a short burst, then finished her off with a single shot to the face. To Kris’s right Jack handled similar problems. A few more wiggles, and Kris had the assault rifle. Not a Marine M-6, but it looked like a good knockoff. NELLY, CAN YOU UNLOCK THIS RIFLE’S FIRE CONTROL SYSTEM?

  NO, KRIS, IT IS HIGHLY CODED WITH LOCKOUTS.

  DAMN, DOESN’T SANDFIRE TRUST ANYONE?

  Nelly did not grace that question with an answer.

  Kris studied the manual controls. If it did mimic the M-6, this dial should jack up the power behind the darts, squirt more juice into the fire chamber. She maxed it to the right and looked around for someone to test it on. A red was working her way across the floor. Kris waited for her to make her next move. A shot to the chest sent her spinning; she did not get up.

  Super Spider Silk might stop a pistol. A slug from an assault rifle on maximum power was something else.

  She checked Jack’s quarter, found two antagonists, and brought both down. The floor became suddenly quiet as even the echos of fire died off.

  “Jack, I think we got them all.”

  “Wait one,” came back tersely.

  She did, keeping a roving eye on the gray on gray of the industrial plant. NELLY, YOU HAVE ANY SPIES IN JACK’S AREA?

  YES.

  YOU SEE ANYTHING?

  NO.

  Was Jack just spooked? Kris had a wall to drill and a plan to get moving. There had to be more trouble on its way. Time was wasting. But Jack knew what he was doing. If the hackles on the back of his neck said the bugs were missing something, Kris would trust his short hairs over Nelly’s eyes.

  A short burst came from behind Kris. She whirled to see a black-clad lump slowly tumble out of a long pipe, outfit changing to red as blood dripped slowly. A black staff, no a tube, crumbling under the fallen body.

  “That’s a blowgun, not a fighting staff like I thought,” Jack said. “They do want you alive.”

  “Yep,” Kris said, taking a look around. This floor had an office loft perched against the yard wall. Whether it was a supervisor’s lookout or control station didn’t matter; Kris wanted to be there. She pointed; Jack nodded and followed her as she trotted for it. He took short detours to pick up some ammo pouches and another long rifle.

  Kris made it to the station and up the ladder with no more shots fired. Jack slammed the door behind him, then shoved a desk up to block it. Kris zipped down her coveralls and pulled out the laser.

  “You didn’t bother with underwear today, I see,” Jack said, taking the other handle on the laser.

  “I figured Super Spider Silk ought to protect me from catching anything. What are you doing, sneaking a peek? I thought you agents were beyond that,” she said, turning the laser on and adjusting the beam down to its finest.

  “Sometimes it helps to get a good look at the body we’re protecting,” Jack drawled. “Hold that laser steady,” he added as Kris took one hand off it to give him a swat.

  They steadied the beam. Around the hole, metal turned to liquid and splattered. In the center, it vaporized, giving color to an otherwise invisible beam.

  “Kris, there is movement on the work floor,” Nelly said.

  “Can you hold this?” Kris asked.

  “Pull that chair over here,” Jack said. Kris gently gave up her hold on the laser. It dipped a bit, then Jack got it back to the hole they were working on.

  She risked a glance out the window. A fusillade from several directions shattered the glass upper half of the office, showering her and Jack, but the metal bottom sent ricochets flying. Kris slid the chair in place. It wasn’t quite high enough. She duck-walked to the desk, found some reports, and added them to get it the right height. Jack adjusted it, then reached for his rifle.

  “There are three grays at fifty meters, say ten o’clock,” Nelly told them. “A pair of reds are closer, one at one, the other at two o’clock.”

  “I’ll take the reds,” Jack said.

  “You armored?”

  “Isn’t it a bit late to ask? But yes.” Of course, neither of them had face protection. Kris and Jack fired out. The grays and reds fired back. Glass shattered into the small room, contributing nothing but making Kris move carefully as she changed her firing position from one volley to the next. The laser heated the room, even with the extra ventilation in the now windowless office. As the heat rose, the score stayed Christians 0, lions 0, but the lions had only to wait for dinner; time was on their side. Kris grew to dislike the present status as she bounced up to shoot, then ducked incoming. It was getting routine and boring.

  “Time to do something to make life interesting,” she muttered to herself.

  “Ah gee, and I thought it already was,” Jack said, ducking down as the space he vacated filled with darts.

  “I’m bored. Can’t you come up with anything more exciting to do?” Kris said, then snapped off a dozen rounds.

  “Hate to tell you this, Princess, but this ain’t the best evening I’ve ever had, either. Think that laser is through.”

  Kris glanced at it. No new fumes rose from the cut. She switched it off, careful not to move it. The metal looked plenty hot. “Nelly, can you send a scout in?”

  “Did it as you were asking. It went through!”

  Kris retrieved the ten pounds of only slightly dumb metal from her bustle and held it close to Nelly. “Gal, slight change of plans. Can you convert some of the metal into defensive nanos, no bigger than the dust motes we want? They’ll need to fight their way in as well as contribute for the explosion.”

  “I am adjusting the construction as you wish. Seventy percent of the metal will be twenty-micron mobile units, optimum for coal or grain dust explosions. Twenty-nine percent will be defender units of forty microns. Still small enough to contribute to an explosion. One percent will be ignition units, also forty microns. Is that satisfactory?”

  “Great, Nelly. Do it. I want to get out of here.”

  “Interesting problem, Princess,” Jack said, snapping off a short volley, then settling back down. “We’ve got a solid wall to our back, albeit with one tiny hole in it, and five shooters, highly ineffective, but then I’m not really giving them much of a target to prove themselves on. I take it you have a plan?” Jack slid over, fired a few rounds, and was down before return fire could make holes in him.

  “Is air moving much?” Kris asked as she watched the ten-kilogram cylinder of gray metal begin to melt away. She thought she could catch glints of light forming a path to the hole, but she wouldn’t bet she was seeing anything but hope on the wing.

  “Don’t think so, why?”

  “Wonder what two sleepy bombs would do out there?”

  “I suspect I know what it would do in here.”

  “But I don’t plan to be here,” Kris said, settling the thinning bar of metal down in front of the hole. She picked up the laser, aimed it at the floor, and sliced a hole.

  “We going to disappear into the wall?” Jack asked.

  “Something like that.” The chunk of floor bent back when she had three sides cut away. Beneath was a storage room, full of whatever the boss man felt needed to be kept under lock and key. It smelled musty and burnt now.

  Kris dropped through and applied the laser to the next floor. It was metal also, old and apparently solid steel. It was also thin, probably predating the beanstalk, so it cost to get it here. She sliced through it quickly to find herself looking into some kind of isolated transformer room. She dropped into it, made her way quickly to the door, and took a peek out at the floor that had been the center of their firefight a few minutes before. A gray was helping a wounded comrade limp off, but no one seemed interested in policing up the wreckage.

  The gray dead gave Kris some new options.

  “Jack,” she called up.

  A quick volley answered her, then his scowling face showed at the hole. “You called?”<
br />
  She found the last two sleepy cylinders and tossed them to Jack. In the low gravity, they made lazy circles; he caught them. “Toss them out there. Then get down here.”

  There was a longer volley, a loud pop, and Jack was falling through both floors to land easily beside her. “What now?”

  “Nobody’s bothering with the mess we made down here. What do you say we blow this transformer, cop a few gray uniforms off the dead, and go cruise chicks.”

  “Now that’s a side of you I never expected to see,” Jack said as Kris brought out her last booby trap. “You mean they were falsies all this time? You’re breaking my heart.”

  “Nelly, leave a nano behind. Same drill, gray or red.

  They made their way quickly across the work floor, Nelly directing them to first one gray, then another. Jack quickly found a uniform. “I think I goofed,” Kris muttered. All the grays, males and females, wore pants. Kris would not give up her skirt.

  “Don’t worry, young woman, you are my prisoner.”

  “Damn, and we were having such a good time.” Behind them, the transformer blew, plunging this area into darkness.

  “Guess someone had a breather mask.” Kris batted eyelashes at Jack. “Well, captor mine, what do you have in mind?”

  “Grabbing the nearest slide car and heading down station.”

  “I am kind of looking forward to hot wiring a starship and going for a joy ride,” Kris said, heading for a slide station.

  “Nelly, how good are you at jiggling controls?” Jack asked.

  “Usually quite good.”

  “I think the poor girl is having a crisis of confidence,” Kris said.

  “It is just that Mr. Sandfire is proving to be a very careful user of automatic systems,” Nelly defended herself.

  Kris found a slide station, punched for a car, and got one immediately. Jack hauled her in, strong grip on her forearm.

  “What do you have?” a voice asked. Kris looked over to see a small screen and observation camera hastily slapped onto the control board.

  “One of those idiot workers who kept jacking around rather than leaving like they were ordered.”

  “One?”

  “Short fat woman. Nothing like we’re looking for.”

  “They were shooting all over the place,” Kris whined, pitching her voice high enough to shatter flint. “Good God, man, how’s a woman supposed to find a ride out of here when there’s these red dudes running around shooting up the place?”

  “Oh shut up. Bring her down here. We got to talk to all of them now. See anything of the four we’re hunting for? Things on the floor above you are confused.”

  “Hey, man, it’s quiet on this floor. I’m just glad I wasn’t one of the first here. There’s a whole lot of dead bodies. Oh, and a transformer just blew. It’s dark!”

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s tough all over. Get down here.” The light for stop five lit up, and the car began to move sideways.

  “Docks are at stop eleven,” Kris said, prying open the service panel on the control console. “Nelly, stop us between stop twelve and eleven.” The computer reached a tendril of smart metal into the controls. The numbers flashing as stops went by suddenly stopped at “1—”

  “What’s wrong with your car?” came from the speaker grille. “I’ve lost your visual, and you’re not moving.”

  “No power,” Jack said. “Car’s stopped, I don’t know where.”

  “Looks like you’re between ten and eleven. No, nine and ten. Just relax. We’ll get you out.”

  “When?” Kris screeched. “This place is falling apart around us! I want out now!”

  “I’ll take care of this one,” Jack shouted at the speaker.

  “You can have her. I’m closing down your audio.”

  “Hmm, you’re all mine,” Jack whispered.

  “That sounds wonderful. Got a knife to open this door?”

  “All work and no play,” Jack said, putting a stout blade to the door crack. He leaned. It opened on a thin metal walk.

  “Nice place you got here. Invite folks up often?”

  “Needs a bit of cleaning,” Kris said, dropping her last red banded explosive into her ammunition satchel as she slipped out the door. She held it open for Jack to join her. “Nelly, leave a spare nano. Reactivate the car and take it to stop five. Then explode the charge.”

  Jack tossed his spare ammo bag onto the heap. Kris led him to an exit hatch, worked it open, and found herself in a small room filled with electrical cabling. A peek outside showed a corridor suited to the needs and fine tastes of the refined businessman or woman.

  It was time to start looking like a Princess again.

  24

  The dress showed amazingly few wrinkles. As Abby said, the perfect little number for this evening.

  “I’ll stay in uniform a bit longer,” Jack said and opened the door. The corridor was business charcoal and blue, very tastefully done. She led Jack, as if he was her escort, for stop twelve. There the hall emptied into a wide spiral concourse winding its way in a gentle slope toward Circle One, the outer skin of the station with its docks and ships. Being public, the concourse was carpeted in eye-appealing brown and beige. The ceiling was high, the walls impressive in what might be real marble.

  The people they passed were businessmen and women, some being hustled along by security guards, others going their way without interference. This was where the movers worked and did their shaking. They kept their calm exterior even when the station trembled. OUR CAR HAS EXPLODED, Nelly reported.

  Jack provided Kris all the probity she required. No one approached her; still, she kept within an easy dash of the right-hand wall with its occasional cross-corridors. Here and there a baggage cart sat parked and out of use for the last week, a few loaded with forlorn packages. Kris kept her pace down, her breath slow, covering the distance to Circle One. Get there, find a yacht or fast transport, and she was out of here.

  A door opened in a cross-corridor; Tom stuck his head out, saw Kris, and waved. A moment later, Penny hurried out of the stairwell, a worried glance backward telling Kris all she needed to know. She waved Tom away, pointing him down the corridor and away from the concourse, while taking a step back and turning toward the wall herself.

  Kris had broken contact. The last thing she wanted now was a shoot-out drawing ninjas and grays to this quiet and ignored section of the station. “Jack, get a baggage cart. Large, loaded, if you can.”

  The second nearest filled the bill. Jack pushed it; Kris pointed him down the corridor, then followed him. A lady putting her security to good use as a bellhop.

  Two red-clad women bolted from the stairwell, dismissed the baggage cart with a glance, and spotted Tom and Penny as they disappeared around a corner. They took off running, but Jack tripped and sent the baggage cart careening into one, knocking her into the other. Kris had watched Sandfire’s harem girls move with liquid grace, but these two were not expecting to tangle with a cart full of boxes. Both went down, one hard.

  “My leg, you idiot gray-skull. Look where you’re going.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jack said, all contrition and head down as he approached them, Kris in his shadow. “I tripped.”

  “Over your shoelaces, no doubt,” the leader snapped, helping the other to her feet. “Can you run on that?”

  The other took a step that turned into a hobble. The ankle of her tight body armor expanded to make a splint. “I’ll try to keep up. You chase them.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry,” Jack said, reaching out to offer support to the limping one.

  Kris came around Jack, arm out for the other one, wrist limp to hide her automatic. “Listen, I know they rented me the worst excuse for security on the Rim, nothing like back on Earth. I feel like I owe you—”

  The leader’s eyes grew big. “You’re—”

  “Yes, I am,” Kris said, putting three sleepy darts into her. At lowest power, her automatic was hardly louder than a series of pops. At this range
, it shattered her skull. Jack gave the other one the same treatment. Quickly, they loaded the reds onto the cart and buried them under boxes. Tom ducked his head around the corner, grinned, and he and Penny hurried back.

  “Anybody seen or heard from Abby?” Kris asked. Penny shook her head. In their travels, the other two had acquired new clothes as well. Penny now wore Security gray. Tom had acquired a light blue dinner jacket and red cummerbund that went well with his uniform pants. “Tom, you and Penny stay on this side of the concourse. Jack and I will edge toward the left. If anyone gets in trouble, we’ll help as we can.”

  They got to where Concourse Twelve emptied onto Circle One with no further trouble.

  “Abby says the private yacht basin is left,” Nelly said.

  “When?” Kris asked.

  “I do not know, but she left a small message nano at the corner to tell me that.”

  Kris turned left.

  The spin of the station was slow enough that huge freighters and liners had no problem catching their first mooring hitch and being pulled into the pier. Yachts and runabouts, smaller and more maneuverable, were expected to find their places along several landings that made up Pier Eleven. Kris wanted a large ship. That meant selecting one that paid extra for an outer birth. Finding the right one could take time she didn’t have.

  Abby exited a ladies’ room, twelve steamer trunks docilely trailing behind her. “You’re right on time,” she told Kris. “There’s a large yacht out on landing D. There’s a slightly smaller one on landing C. Which do you want?”

  “Which has the lighter security?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know. It didn’t seem wise to be noticed casing the place, what with all the trouble some people were causing.”

  “Ever the courageous one,” Jack growled.

  “We’re all still alive,” Abby pointed out cheerfully.

  “Let’s take the bigger one. I have a plan for getting through their security,” Kris said.