Mutiny at Vesta

by R. E. Stearns

  “The Oxia workers and the scientific community aren’t all that numerous or powerful,” Iridian said, “and the governments haven’t gotten off their ’jects to do anything about the contractual employment abuses that’re already happening. You’d have to get this information to everyone in the solar system to reach enough people who will actually act and make a difference. And we should do that, because this is huge. It’s multiple-new-planets huge. But that makes it something to hold over Oxia for as long as we want, doesn’t it?” That was, Iridian suspected, Sloane’s plan since the captain learned about the project.

  There were a few moments of silence on the other ship. “You’re saying you want to keep the same secret they kept. For, I assume, profit?” Adda sounded scandalized enough to make Iridian blush. Ethics was one of the few topics that the two of them could argue each other to a truce over, and Adda sure as hell wouldn’t enjoy doing that in public. She barely enjoyed it in private, and even that was mostly because of how Iridian made it up to her afterward. “You’re right that everybody deserves to know, and we’re the only ones in the position to tell them. Next steps are a matter of method and timing.”

  “Charming as this discussion is,” Captain Sloane said, “you don’t work for ‘everybody.’ You work for me. We need the bargaining position with Oxia more than we need public opinion in our favor, or a trip to a collection of empty planets. Should that change, you’ll be the first to know.” The captain cut the connection.

  Tritheist and Captain Sloane watched Iridian with hard eyes. She tilted her head to the side and shrugged, like finally getting one up on the megacorporate thugs and then putting it to fucking use wasn’t that important to her. It was, but the priority was getting Sloane back in full control of the crew’s activities. That was what their future rested on.

  “Liu Kong will suffer more under my thumb than under my boot,” Captain Sloane said. “Besides which, revenge almost exclusively causes more problems than it solves. Inciting a popular rebellion will increase the magnitude of our problems without solving any of them. Fantasize all you like. We’ll reclaim the crew and Vesta without further endangering ourselves. And after I’m clear of the contract, you can spread Oxia’s secrets as far and wide as you wish. I was the only contracted party, and I can assure you that I’ll be the only one Liu Kong succeeds in silencing.”

  Captain Sloane stared Iridian down. She straightened her posture to military attention, hoping it conveyed respect without making her look reluctant. “Yes, Captain.”

  Oxia wouldn’t have an unchallenged claim to the system forever. Captain Sloane was already working to challenge its control, legally and otherwise. She was willing to help Sloane use the Thrinacia Project details in whatever way gave the captain more professional options after the crew was out from under Oxia. After another conversation with Adda in private, Iridian was sure she’d agree.

  * * *

  As the ship converged on Vesta, Adda kept working on her plans to release the Thrinacia Project to humanity at large. When Captain Sloane was free of the Oxia contract, she’d deploy the information immediately. At least that was the goal Iridian had gleaned from the intermittent and intense text messages Adda had been sending her throughout their return trip.

  “You know this’ll put the biggest spotlight on us we’ve ever had, yeah?” Iridian asked Adda after the officers had retired to the Casey’s residential cabin. “And I don’t just mean Sloane’s crew. I mean you and me.”

  The reply took a long time to arrive, even though the Casey and the Mayhem were near enough to each other for real-time comms. “I can handle that, I think. And I know you can. Anyway, after Captain Sloane gets the contract dissolved with the threat of exposing the interstellar bridge project, we’ll lose Oxia’s protection. We wouldn’t be under any obligation to them, and it wouldn’t be logical for them to blithely ignore our presence on Vesta. Sloane’s not leaving, which means more direct conflict is imminent given the current crew complement.”

  “So that’s why Sloane’s been building up troops.” Iridian grinned. The captain had to have a passable army by now, which Iridian had been thinking of as the most practical sort of luxury. But expecting an attack made an army an investment, not a luxury. “They’re good. Not as good as the ZVs, but better than a lot of people I’ve fought alongside. They can hold HQ against whatever Oxia throws at them.”

  “Including its fleet?” Adda somehow conveyed her incredulity by text, or Iridian just knew how she’d say that. “My point is that releasing this information as soon as possible would put even more regular people on Sloane’s side. And ours, of course, but Vestans know we’re just part of Sloane’s crew. Is something else bothering you?”

  “ ‘As soon as possible’ has to be after Sloane’s out of the contract. Before that, it’s not possible. So let’s just drop that idea, yeah?” Iridian smiled into her comp’s cam while something sad or wistful welled in her heart. It’d be so damned satisfying to just blast the information to all the Kuiper colonies and everyone in between. “And for the rest, it’s just . . . For a while this looked like Vesta might be home. Like, a safe home. Where kids could live. That’ll be tough if we’re fighting Oxia every step of the way. Who knows how long it’ll take Sloane to force them off the ’ject?”

  The conversation paused while Adda formulated a response. Iridian fiddled with the settings to make Adda’s still image look more realistic in the tiny projection. Her efforts brought dark circles under Adda’s eyes into focus, which meant she hadn’t been sleeping enough again. Iridian wished she’d put this conversation off until she could hold Adda in her arms. Gods, she missed that. She missed Adda.

  “Staying in one place would make our family a target.” Adda’s gentle words meant that she understood how important this was to Iridian, and that its importance made her assessment hard to deliver. “When the crew’s free from Oxia, we should talk about this again. For now, I want to finish this summary for you to talk to the captain about. This would all be a lot easier if one of Ogir’s surveillance teams were operating in Rheasilvia Station before we arrive.”

  Always on task, her Adda. Yes, ma’am, Iridian thought at her. In text, she added, “I’ll ask the captain if we can get them up and running first thing tomorrow.” She wished she could see Adda’s smile in actual size.

  * * *

  Two days later, Iridian and Adda joined Captain Sloane at the projection stage in HQ to make their report. Liu Kong kept checking something outside cam range while Captain Sloane and Adda summarized their findings. Adda’s report had prepped Sloane perfectly, and Sloane’s delivery was as convincing as ever. The captain even looked to Adda for all the right clarification points, as if Sloane had been sporadically monitoring the events from Vesta while Adda conducted operations.

  “This is even more than required. Excellent work, Captain,” said Liu Kong. “I expect your crew to remain on standby. We’ve had a . . . security incident at one of our installations.” Somehow Sloane’s small, unsympathetic smile wasn’t also smug as hell. Iridian assumed the blank and serious expression that’d always saved her when talking to superiors. “We may require your services in resolving that.”

  “As the contract stipulates, we are available as needed,” Sloane said stiffly.

  On the other side of Sloane, Adda was looking very quickly between the captain, Iridian, and Liu Kong, like the competition she was watching was uncomfortably close and she was afraid she’d miss the deciding move. Calm down, Iridian subvocalized at her, and damn, was she proud of how well their implants worked. Look at your comp. Adda consulted her comp like she’d just received a message, which was a lot less suspicious.

  Once the connection with the Oxia CEO terminated and Liu Kong’s figure disappeared from the projection stage, Sloane broke into a broad grin. “Oh, it would be fun to investigate that break-in.” Tritheist and Iridian chuckled. Adda had gotten preoccupied with something on her comp and missed the comment. “I don’t imagine we’ll be so
lucky.” Sloane slouched into a chair facing the projection stage, the grin already fading away. “I’ve received Ogir’s assessment of the situation here and at Albana Station on the other side of the ’ject. Based on reactions to Oxia’s prison conditions, I will consider your plans for the forcible removal of Oxia in conjunction with repeal of the contract. But the contract is still primary.”

  “The NEU and ITA already want us for breaking their laws,” Adda pointed out. “They’ll hunt us whether or not we’re working for Oxia, and regardless of what Oxia’s done.”

  “Our headquarters’ location on Vesta is fairly well known.” Sloane’s spread arms encompassed the room and the building that contained it. “Why, then, aren’t they here now?”

  Iridian offered the obvious answer, since Adda hated to do that. “Oxia’s paying off the ITA here.”

  “Yes. And Oxia’s also tying the NEU up in fuel and reliable route disputes among themselves and Ceres,” said Sloane. “Breaking my contract will annoy Liu Kong sufficiently for him to exclude us from those arrangements, as well as from any others which Oxia may be employing to keep other crews and colonies at bay. A popular uprising couldn’t compete with that many enemies, in addition to Oxia itself. Should we, by some chance, win the day, as contract breakers we’d find ourselves with a much smaller pool of buyers for what we take, never mind finding people with money and targets already in mind.”

  Adda glanced up from her comp. “I’ll have something for you by tomorrow.”

  Iridian blinked at her, but kept quiet until they were alone in their suite. “Tomorrow? Can you really get a workable plan together by then?”

  Adda raised an eyebrow. “It’s not just me. Casey’s providing a lot of information, and I’m running analyses in the workspace.”

  Iridian settled on their bed with a frustrated sigh. “I don’t get what you’d sim or analyze for this. How can you count on the Casey to help you with it?”

  “Except for that exfiltration timing issue on the datacenter ship, Casey’s been reliably on our side,” said Adda. “And anyway, information distribution, use of various channels for various communications, amount of engagement generated by various influential figures on Vesta and elsewhere . . . There’s a lot to consider.”

  Iridian let herself fall backward to lie flat on the bed. “Like what?”

  “Well, the more I look at that HR data, the more I see Oxia’s massive setup for coercing cooperation from their employees by threatening family members. We’re untangling which people are affected and where their families are now. Oxia’s Vestan fleet is still the major focus of all that coercion, which was my initial impression. Also, Casey’s been interested in marketing and political campaign data.”

  “Great, it’s got itself a hobby.” Iridian patted the bed beside her, and Adda sat near enough for Iridian to wrap her arm around Adda’s soft waist. “But the Casey doesn’t have values to judge and analyze these things, babe. What makes you think anything it produces for you will actually lead to the results you want?”

  “The Barbary intelligences value certain conditions over others. And they understand more about human behavior than I thought they did.” Adda didn’t sound sufficiently creeped out. She sounded impressed. And she kept glancing at her workspace generator, like she’d much rather be there than having this conversation.

  “But why are they so interested?” Iridian was getting frustrated, partially because Adda was so calm about the whole situation. “They could be doing anything that doesn’t require a physical human presence, and some things that do if they buy a good enough doll or projection figure. What the fuck are they following us around for? Why the fuck are they telling you how to make a bunch of spacefarers kick Oxia off the ’ject?”

  Adda shook her head. “It’s doing something for them, or we are, and I don’t know what yet. Or . . .”

  She looked like she wanted to say something difficult, or maybe she had a headache coming on. Iridian got up to bring her a fresh cup of coffee, in case caffeine would help. Adda accepted the mug with a smile and a kiss, but she’d drifted across the room toward the workspace generator again, and Iridian was tired of chasing after her.

  Adda planned to remove Oxia from Vesta beginning the minute Sloane was out of contract with the megacorporation. There were still a lot of pieces to put in place to make that happen, and, as had become the norm lately, the only way Iridian could help was by getting out of her way. She went off to find Pel and let Adda do her thing.

  Pel’s options for travel used to be staying in rooms he’d memorized, taking his chances with tactile stim clothing in the busy station, or waiting until somebody wanted to guide him. Now that he was used to his pseudo-organic eyes, he got all over the station. Iridian sent him a message just outside her and Adda’s suite: “You banging or dancing, or do you have time to chat?”

  “Ah . . . sure.”

  Iridian blinked at his audio reply on her comp and almost ran into one of the crew security gals patrolling the hallway. Pel’s voice was higher than usual, and he was breathing way too fast. “Where are you?” Iridian maintained a casual tempo to her voice, but walked faster.

  “Home.” That was definitely unlike him.

  * * *

  Iridian knocked on the door of Pel’s suite a few minutes later. When she set her palm on the lock out of habit, it flashed red and then, to her surprise, green. That meant her name was on the visitors’ list already. Either Pel had thought far enough ahead to have the system let her in at the time she was likely to arrive, or she was allowed to visit any time. In his case, the latter seemed more likely. She muttered “Huh,” and let herself in.

  Pel’s place was smaller than her and Adda’s, decorated in bright blues and purples, and furnished hab-style with half the furniture designed to stack on top of the other half. He sat in front of, not on, his living room couch, with his knees pulled up to his chest, fists clenched around his elbows, breathing like he’d just finished a run. And he was not the exercising type. She’d seen this before, among survivors of missions with casualties.

  “Hey there, Pel Mel.” She sat on the floor next to him. “Want to try breathing a bit slower?”

  “Can’t.” He wheezed through half a laugh, and seemed to run out of breath for more.

  “Sure you can,” Iridian said. “But I’ll get Chi down here if you want.”

  “No. I bugged her yesterday.” Pel gulped. It made an audible break in his gasping breath.

  Iridian shifted toward him until their shoulders touched. “Can you breathe along with me? I’m feeling pretty chill right now. It might help.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  Adda would’ve sat quietly and peacefully until he got down to her level, but listening to him wheeze made Iridian imagine the worst ways this situation could play out. “Hey, did you see that vid going around with the blue kittens that cost as much as a hab on Earth?”

  Pel nodded. “Blue on the insides, too. Copper or something. Blue tongues.”

  “Still cute. Can’t go wrong with kittens.” It took a few more minutes of harmless chat until he looked like discussing the problems at hand wouldn’t kill him. “So, you still going to therapy?”

  Pel shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s not really helping anymore. I guess I fucked up on the last two ops. I mean, I did. Because they were really hard, and I kept . . .” He sighed, and used his now-unclenched hands to pantomime reorienting his attention left and right. “I keep looking over my shoulder. Or not looking over my shoulder, because there might be someone actually there, and . . .” Pel inhaled and exhaled purposefully, counting under his breath for a few beats. “I’m so fucking useless at everything. I don’t know why I’m still here.”

  That sounded more final than the “still on the station” kind of here. Iridian frowned. “So we haven’t found the right job for you yet. I was coming to ask you about that. You want to tell us what people are saying about Sloane’s crew?”

  “What people?”

&nbs
p; “Everybody,” Iridian said. “Club people, social feed people, people you talk to while you’re buying lunch. Like you were asking about what they thought of a story you follow, only instead of the story, you’re asking about the crew.”

  He blinked at her exactly the way Adda sometimes did. “Why?”

  “We’re talking about kicking Oxia off Vesta, at least in a governmental capacity.” Iridian grinned at him. His head was up and he was looking at her now, instead of staring at the floor. The smile was also a good sign. “We need to know who’s backing us, and who’ll screw us if they can. And we might need you to drop subtle hints that they ought to be with us, if they’re not yet.”

  “Yeah, okay! That could be fun. Ogir was always telling me not to talk to people when we were working. I think it’s because he doesn’t like people, and he doesn’t think anybody else should either.”

  Iridian chuckled. “Personally I think he treats them all like a traffic controller with ships or an enviro engineer with O2, grav, and light: a series of processes with relatively predictable behavior, but stuff you have to keep an eye on and redirect sometimes.”

  “It’s just like that with him.” Pel smiled a bit wider. “And, um. Thanks.”

  “Anytime. Really, call me or Adda if you feel like this and want company, anytime.” She stood and gave Pel a hand up. “Have you told your therapist you’re not feeling better anymore?” When Pel shook his head, Iridian said, “Tell ver. Maybe ve can try something new.”

  * * *

  When Iridian got back to her and Adda’s suite, Adda and Ogir were drinking on the couch in front of the projector stage. Both of them glanced up, waved unenthusiastically, and returned their attention to the projector stage. Iridian hoped Adda had cleaned the couch before offering it, given their activities on it that morning, but that seemed unlikely.

  Nice to see you spending time with a human, she subvocalized to Adda.

  Adda smiled slightly without looking away from the stage and replied, You’re a human.

  The projector stage appeared to be showing a paused explosion with large chunks of labeled fragmentation. On closer inspection, the fire was a gradient visualization of influence or cost connecting various parts of Oxia and the two Vestan stations’ infrastructure. “I can’t tell if it’s coming together or coming apart,” Iridian said on her way to getting a beer of her own.