Spinward Fringe Broadcast 11

by Randolph Lalonde

  ‘You don’t want me to,” the Geist said. ‘You know you want more. There is so much here, and all you have to do is release the mooring clamps. Your memories are waiting, along with whole pieces of a personality you thought were gone. I can see the landscape of your mind as it is, without these pieces. So barren, so featureless. No wonder you were so easy to train; there was nothing in there to start with.’

  “I am strong, I am whole,” Alice whispered to herself, feeling the Geist push her to stand, to turn towards the mooring system controls. She refused, focussing on staying on the deck, her hand splayed across the plating.

  “You are empty, you are weak,” the Geist said through the intercom and her mind so loudly that it felt as though she was inside a reactor.

  Alice felt herself drop her rifle, stand, turn and begin deactivating the mooring systems.

  “I can’t let you have Oz, I can’t let you transfer yourself into him,” Alice said, barely able to move her lips.

  The Exile Geist’s response was felt, not heard. It wanted to be free of its ship. It wanted to escape and return to its masters with a prize; the body of an Admiral.

  Thirty-Seven

  Raiders

  * * *

  “This plan is a little crazy,” Noah Lucas said. Minh-Chu only smiled and nudged him with his elbow. “Just for the record.”

  “The only difference between genius and madness is the outcome. Something that looks crazy fails, they say ‘he was mad!’ but when a crazy plan succeeds… well, that’s genius! Time for you to get to the hatch.” Minh-Chu didn’t really think Jake’s plan was madness, but it did have more than a touch of daring. The first half depended on Minh-Chu’s flying and Liara launching a script that would launch programs and adjust to a few variables. Minh-Chu had the hard part, as far as he was concerned, but he’d rather hold fate in his own hands, rather than leave the responsibility in another’s.

  “Aye, aye, commander,” Noah said, leaving his seat, sealing his armour and opening the rear hatch to the small bridge. He kicked a shard of metal into the door above the hinge so it wouldn’t close.

  The counter indicating their emergence from the wormhole was down to three seconds, and Minh-Chu opened a channel to everyone. “Emerging… now!”

  He heard the communications panel behind him beep and chime, indicating that their systems were broadcasting, programs were launching, and they had made several connections to different hosts. The station, and Minh-Chu hoped they were connected to the pair of interdictor corvettes that were turning to meet them. The destroyer stationed nearby was behind them.

  Streaks of energy shot by them, and Minh-Chu began his evasive maneuvers, struggling with the controls a little. “Sometimes this thing flies like a bus, other times it’s a fighter.” He knew what the difficulty was. They were moving fast, and most of the thrusters were focused on decelerating. The corvettes - snubbed nosed craft with a yawning hangar at the front of each - loomed larger along with the station behind it.

  The wisdom that he should turn away from what was firing at him was quickly quashed. “This is the plan, if we turn away now, it’ll cost us time, and then the Order ships that are in the area will get a chance to respond.”

  “Everything all right up there?” asked Jake through the comm at Minh-Chu’s ear.

  “Sorry, forgot to mute my channel before I started panic-mumbling,” Minh-Chu replied as he turned the ship into three blast hits so he could avoid a dozen or more others. Their shields were recharging fast, but already down to ninety two percent.

  “But you’re all right, right?” Carnie asked.

  “Of course I’m not all right!” Minh-Chu burst. Three missile lock warnings turned a part of his console red. “We are target practice!”

  Minh-Chu saw the wreck of an old starliner and turned towards it, earning them a little more than two seconds of cover before breaking into the open and getting raked by small explosive rounds along the bottom of the hull. His target - the better looking customs corvettes - loomed larger ahead. “When did you say your antivirus program was supposed to start working?”

  “It should already be making its way through the ships here,” Liara replied. “I don’t get why… Oh, wait, there it goes.”

  The weapons on the station stopped firing, as did the ones on the corvettes and to Minh-Chu’s relief, a navnet signal came through. It was a Haven Fleet navnet signal. “All right, we are docking in a minute. Today we will be pirating The Nova Concord, an Aucharian Defence Customs Corvette.” Minh-Chu ran a scan on it and was relieved to see that it was in fairly good condition, and it had quarters for everyone, life support, and it had been cleaned of corpses. “This thing has a huge brig, so everyone mind your ‘p’s’ and ‘q’s.’”

  Minh-Chu guided the Pursuer into a docking maneuver and watched as the mooring points lined up then coupled smoothly. It was such a perfect connection that he doubted anyone could hear more than a faint click. “Everyone off the bus!” he said as he double checked the tactical display and nodded to himself. There were five destroyers on their way from Iora at high speed. “We have six minutes before the Order gets three destroyers in range.” It was really seven, but he liked having extra insurance.

  Minh-Chu stood, set his controls to remote and patted the ceiling. “Thanks for the memories,” he said to the scarred ship. “I hope you weren’t too expensive.” He rushed to the main airlock right behind Noah.

  “Have fun?” Noah asked him.

  “I did,” Minh-Chu replied. “It’s not every day I get to charge towards a space station while it shoots at us and watch it change its mind.”

  “I wish I had the antivirus on me when I was down on Iora. It was Holocaust planet down there, even though there wasn’t much left that could turn on.”

  “You’ll have to tell me the rest of the stories about it sometime. You’ve only told me how you got down there.”

  “I recorded a journal. Fleet asked for it and I gave them everything that survived, filled in a few spots after the fact, so you’d have to ask them.”

  “You didn’t keep a copy? It’s not like we’re hurting for space on these things,” Minh-Chu said, pointing at his command and control unit.

  “Nah, why would I want to listen to myself drone on for hours? I was there, right? Besides; I’d rather not remind myself that I left my best buddy in a locker because I couldn’t find anyone to fix him. He got infected.”

  “Your best buddy was a bot?” Minh-Chu asked.

  “Well, yeah, the coolest ‘bot you could imagine. Well, okay, cool is pushing it, but he was a great friend.”

  “I wouldn’t have pictured you and a robot running around. Could make a good holo adventure though. The pilot: without a ship. The robot: without a clue.”

  Carnie laughed. “Are you sure you didn’t listen to my logs? There were times when that description would fit dead on, man. By the way, why did you have me wait by the emergency hatch?”

  “Just in case there was an emergency,” Minh-Chu replied with a shrug and a chuckle.

  Their turn to cross over into their new-used ship came up, and they rushed through the airlock. “Last out?” Minh-Chu asked, checking his tactical display to make sure there was no one left aboard the Pursuer III. Everyone was aboard the Nova Concord, so he locked the Pursuer’s outer airlock door, then made sure both doors aboard the Nova Concord were sealed.

  “Confirming, we’re the last out,” Noah said.

  “Let’s get to the bridge,” Minh-Chu said. They joined Jacob Valent’s group and fought to catch up.

  Thirty-Eight

  Stay Angry

  * * *

  “There are five United Core World Officers ahead. Take your next left, a right after that and you will find the back door of the Swell Starfarer,” Lewis told her through her neural communicator.

  She pushed herself to run as quickly as she could. Even with a Violator sidearm in hand, she couldn’t take out five United Core World soldiers. A grenade would ge
t the Mag Five Freelancers involved. They were crazy; hunted and killed anyone who broke the laws in the system for sport and a flat fee. Besides, she only had one hyper-thermal grenade on her.

  Lewis’ instructions were the only ones worth following. She did as she was told; down one hall, down another and through a pink door. Inside she was assaulted by a thousand colours. She let her natural eye adjust as she caught her breath. Her mechanical eye saw through the holographically enhanced zero gravity dancers. The holograms made them look like beautiful women and men, but they were projected onto blank, fleshy robotic frames. “I think I’d rather face the soldiers.”

  An Issyrian with eyes that were human like but too large, and other features that were similarly mispresented and mis-proportioned bumped into her. “Hey honey, want some Sledge? It’s on special right now, drink two and get three more.”

  Alice never had the stuff but didn’t care for the name. “Got any Passion Splash?”

  “Oh, you’ve come to play,” the waitress nodded knowingly. She pulled a tube from her right side, a tall glass from the dispenser to her right and squirted a full helping of the pink drink into the glass. Alice enjoyed the strawberry and cherry flavour, though the excitable mood one glass of it would put her in would be a plus too. The Issyrian probably thought it would be the first of many, since the effects only intensified and extended as you drank more. It was a popular thing to do with a lover, but Alice always kept it to one drink while she was alone. It made her senses keener. She’d never actually shared the experience with anyone. “Two plat,” she said as she handed the gently fizzing glass to her.

  “Could you take cred instead? I have Shiny Tokens,” Alice said, holding a slim, silvered, three centimetre long credit chip up.

  “Fine, but it’ll be twenty nine of those.”

  “Robbery,” Alice said. “Here.”

  “Shinies have just been going down and down since the UCW soldiers came,” the waitress said as she handed Alice her drink.

  Alice accepted the twisted glass and started moving through the bar. “If I can avoid getting a contact disease here, I’ll be amazed.” Her gloves were on, there really was little chance of it, but she still made sure that she avoided the other patrons.

  * * *

  Alice screamed, breaking through the memory she was forced to live inside. The Exile Geist could transport her, make her feel as though she wasn’t remembering, but reliving. She relived a whole two day experience, when she lost Percy Andrews, a lover that joined her on the Clever Dream for a little over a month. He was taken by a debt collector who was after him for medical expenses. It wasn’t her in trouble for once, that was until she was caught hacking into United Core World records to find out where he was. Alice cut the experience short, so she didn’t know how it turned out.

  Something in the memory told her how. When she was communicating with Lewis, she couldn’t get too emotional or she’d lose the connection. Anger seemed to work with the Exile Geist. That was something she had in abundance.

  In one motion, Alice picked up her rifle and fired a spray of rounds across the ceiling above her while she embraced her rage and cried; “I’m sick of this rabbit hole!”

  The Geist was no longer in her mind. Memories of what she did while she was under its control filled her consciousness in a flash. It took control of her in Ayan’s apartment. She went from there to the port inside the building then stole a shuttle using her clearance. Once she arrived aboard the War Forge, she found some armour, a heavy rifle called the Knight Killer, and then geared up with suppression gear. The Geist knew that it wouldn’t be able to force Alice to kill her own people, but stun and sticky bombs were another matter.

  No one questioned her until she tried to gain access to the Exile. That’s when she started disabling soldiers and cracking door codes. The rest, she knew. “I’m going to split you open and set your heart on fire,” Alice said through tightly clenched teeth.

  Enraged, she ran towards the tank where the Exile Geist was being held. She had no doubt that it was where he was, she could still feel the impression he left on her mind. It was exhausting staying angry for so long. Running through abandoned decks, climbing up access shafts. She knew the ship, could see the layout in her mind as though it was left there as the Geist was trying to learn about the Phoenix project from her. “That project failed,” Alice said. “I only got into my first body because she was a psychopath with brain damage.”

  He was still trying to get in, she could feel him around the edges of her consciousness. The Geist either thought she had more to offer or wanted her out of the way, and his telepathy was the only defence it had. “Exile, this is Captain Sima of Haven Fleet. Power down or you will be destroyed,” said a voice over the intercom.

  “See? This ends in flames!” Alice shouted at the Geist she finished climbing up to the third deck, where the Geist was contained. “I might not even get to kill you myself.”

  * * *

  “Hey,” David whispered to her. “Hey. You’re having a nightmare.”

  Alice woke up in his arms, warm and comfortable. It felt like she was just screaming. “Sorry,” she said, catching her breath and relaxing against his chest.

  “We’re awake,” he said, gently sweeping the hair out of her face. “Tell me about it?”

  Alice thought for a moment. Her name was a curse. There were powerful people after her, and she didn’t want him to share her trouble. Even so, she wished she could tell him her real name, that she wouldn’t be around much longer, and why she had to leave. “My father,” she breathed.

  “He didn’t treat you right when you were younger?” David asked, concerned.

  “No, he’s a good man. I haven’t seen him in years. I worry,” Alice said. “It’s okay, I know I’ll find him someday.”

  “Does he know you’re looking for him?”

  “Probably not. He probably thinks I died a while ago or abandoned him.” She yawned. “Tired, can we sleep?”

  “Wow, I almost got in there,” David whispered against her forehead. “Maybe someday you’ll let me in on some of those deep secrets or tell me about a little mystery from your past.”

  Alice looked up at him, wishing she could share, but there was no point. She’d already been in the solar system too long, met too many people, done too many jobs with the Clever Dream. Asking him to follow her wasn’t an option either. His crew and their families depended on him to make a living. There was no way he’d leave and let them down. He was too good for that, probably too good for her. “I love you,” she said. The words surprised her as much as they surprised him and the tears that followed were just as startling.

  It was true, she’d had partners before, but David was one in a billion. A truly honest, good man. The kind of person she didn’t want to involve in her troubles.

  * * *

  “Stop it!” Alice screamed, her vision blurred by tears. She picked her rifle back up and fought to become furious again. It was easy. David was dead. His crew were dead. The Holocaust Virus got them all, the records were on the Stellarnet. She’d never meet David again, never feel as safe as she did with him again, his family, his friends, his crew would never draw breath again. Alice opened an emergency access panel and jabbed the commands to deactivate the ship’s engines onto the controls. Next, she shut the power down. The darkness in the hall was utter.

  “There, this ship is dead. You’re next,” she said. A large hand landed on her shoulder, and she knew who she was facing. “Oz,” she breathed.

  With force that only an armoured suit could deliver, Oz’s other hand punched the back of her helmet, sending her forehead abruptly smashing it into the control panel.

  Thirty-Nine

  The ADF Nova Concord

  * * *

  Jake was surprised at the condition of the ship. He hadn’t run into the Holocaust Virus as much as others. What he saw of the white, brown and gold interior was in perfect repair. Most of the robots aboard - mostly thick half-pillars w
ith arms that ended in various tools - were motionless as the antivirus made corrections to their systems.

  Like other places where the Holocaust Virus had time to run its course and the bots were allowed to behave independently once the humans were dead, the bodies had been removed. According to what he knew of their typical behaviour, they were either spaced or incinerated. They finally arrived at the bridge and Jake felt like he stepped backwards in time.

  Two soldiers had picked Liara up as they ran, forcing her to keep up with everyone. “I’m sorry Sir,” she gasped. “Finn and I are going on fitness meds as soon as we get cleared by medical.”

  “I’ll make sure you get some training too,” Jake said. “Just to make sure your reflexes and stamina are up to snuff.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Liara said as she sat down in the Captain’s seat and pulled a small control pad out of the arm. “Running our flag program.”

  Minh-Chu and Noah were staring at the pilot and navigator stations at the front of the circular bridge. It was two tiered, with an upper section along the outside, lower section in the middle and a dais for the captain’s seat. “Which one’s navigation, and which is for the pilot?” Noah asked.

  “Well, there’s tactical controls there, and a lot of screen space,” Minh-Chu said. “But there are also two control sticks and pedals. Now this…” he looked at the other station more closely. “Ah, five hardware throttle controls, a flight stick, pedals, and panels for extra control.” He sat down. “This feels right.”

  Noah shrugged and sat at the other station. “Now, how do I turn it on?” he asked.

  “She turns it on,” Minh-Chu said.