by C. G. Hatton
He could still feel the emotion from the two men sitting alongside him, with snatches of phrases here and there and a mix of conversation interspersed with private thoughts. Gallagher was worried about the repair bill and terrified of McCabe. Hal Duncan was more enigmatic, angry but a simmering anger that was understated like he didn’t want to bitch about his boss’s business in front of strangers.
LC wasn’t even tempted to join in. He let the words flow through his mind and let his breathing slow, heart rate dropping about as low as it could go. He relaxed completely. They were in deep space, well into the Between, as far from the incident at the lab as he could be, and with people who were only concerned with the politics of petty small time gangsters. He was fairly sure Sean wouldn’t try anything while Gallagher was there. For some reason she didn’t want to blow her cover. She probably didn’t want to share the bounty.
The voices faded.
What could go wrong?
He opened one eye. The crew’s mess was dark and quiet. Someone had taken the beer bottle and thrown a blanket over him. The ship was still. They weren’t moving.
He felt a hand touch his arm and sat up with a start.
“Hey, it’s just me,” someone whispered. “We’ve got a problem.”
LC ran a hand over the back of his neck. “How long ago?”
“Just a few minutes,” Thom said. “Sean’s been trying to get in touch with you. She’s furious.”
He rubbed at the cool spot where the implant lay beneath the skin. He didn’t understand why he hadn’t woken up. He’d slept through the whole docking procedure.
A headache was starting to throb at his temples. “Why didn’t Gallagher realise something was wrong?”
Thom shrugged. “I think he did. He wanted you to go with him but Sean said to let you get some rest. You were crashed out, Luka. She said you must need it. She offered to go instead but Gallagher said he’d be fine.”
“And the station just said he had to report to the office?”
“We couldn’t get any response to our request to book in for repairs,” Thom said nervously, cracking his knuckles and pacing up and down in the small space of the mess. “Gallagher said he had no choice but to go onto the station to sort it out. I went back to the engine room to sort out that son of a bitch coupling unit and the next thing I know, Sean’s calling me and saying he’s been arrested. I didn’t even know she had a wire and suddenly she’s yelling at me out of nowhere.”
A wire was what the Earth military called an implant. LC hadn’t heard it called that in a long time. Thom didn’t look like a soldier but it was possible the kid was a drop out. Plenty of kids from Earth ditched out on their year of conscription by bugging out to the Between. But drop out grunts weren’t kitted out with expensive personal communications gear.
Curious.
He looked up. “Where’s DiMarco?”
The look on Thom’s face was a picture. His immediate thought at the mention of the pilot almost made LC laugh.
“Arrested,” Thom said. “He left the ship and got picked up straight away.”
LC tried to get his head straight. All he knew about Poule was that it was an even worse place than Sten’s World – a tough as they came corporate-run mining colony that used convicts as labour, without caring too much who’d convicted them or for what, and a vicious strain of vodka that was rumoured to be toxic if drunk neat. DiMarco would be right at home.
Why they’d refuse repairs and arrest half the crew, he didn’t know. He only took notice of current affairs when they had the potential to impinge on a tab and even then he didn’t do the kind of research some of them did to get to know the ins and outs of where they were going. He always tended to wing it.
“Where’s Duncan?” he said.
“On the bridge. He’s trying to find out what’s happening.”
LC sat for a moment, reaching out to find Sean. She was furious and even through the link her voice threatened to spark the headache up again.
“This place is a shit-hole that has no idea how the rest of the universe operates,” she fumed.
LC summoned every ounce of patience he had. “Where are you? Is Gallagher alright?”
“I’m on the bridge. They’ve impounded the ship and they’re holding Gallagher and DiMarco in an interrogation room up in the station. God, these bastards have no idea.”
“Sean, it’s Poule – what did you expect? You should have woken me up.”
She didn’t reply and for a moment he thought she’d gone but then she said, “Luka, just come up to the bridge. Something hinky’s going on. God, these people are stupid bastards.”
“Why have they arrested Gallagher?”
“How the hell would I know?” she snapped back. “Oh, for god’s sake, I have to go. Just get up here.”
The connection disappeared abruptly. LC looked at Thom. “You have any ideas?”
Thom shook his head. “The only thing I’ve ever heard about Poule is that it’s a shit-hole.”
“No kidding.”
Field-ops didn’t usually get sent to places like Poule; they rarely ever contained anything of value. And if they did have to go anywhere this precarious, they usually had an extraction team or two watching their ass. He felt painfully alone and at the same time surrounded, almost claustrophobically, by people who for some reason were depending on him to pull a trick out of the bag and save them. It was upside down. He didn’t work well with people. Even Hil, who’d always obsessed about chasing him for that top spot, had never asked him for anything. And he’d never asked Hil for anything – until that last run.
“Luka?” Thom said, expectantly, as if LC was the only one who could sort this out.
He sat for a moment grinding his palms over his eyes then stood up. The aches had pretty much gone but he felt like he could sleep for another week. “Let’s get up to the bridge.”
Thom nodded and headed for the door.
There was a clatter from the end of the corridor. LC paused, aware suddenly of a distant buzz in his head. There were people out there where there shouldn’t have been.
“Thom, wait,” he whispered, too late to stop the kid from stepping out into the corridor.
There was a yell then a shout to stop, and he could see Thom glance both ways, hesitantly raising his hands.
LC froze. He could hear weapons and the clatter of armour.
He grabbed his gun from the table and looked up. He already had a route mapped out in his head. He clambered onto the shelf above the sofa and thrust open a panel above his head, hoisting himself up and into the ventilation shaft, and dropping the panel gently back into place as the first of the intruders pushed their way into the mess.
He watched quietly as they searched the area, declared it clear then left. They were wearing uniforms with insignia he didn’t recognise. Private militia probably, the kind of mercenary units the corporations hired. The chances that this had anything to do with him were slim but not totally impossible. Twenty six million was a lot of money and Pen had warned him that there were parties interested who wouldn’t normally pursue a bounty.
He waited until they were gone and then eased his way carefully into the main shaft. The schematics he’d pulled up in the engine room had shown a ventilation system that wormed its way through the whole ship with access to the engine room and the bridge. If he went to the engine room, they’d have to tear the place apart to find him. If he went to the bridge, he could find Duncan and Sean.
He tentatively reached out to Thom, hoping the kid was smart enough not to react. An implant wasn’t a run of the mill piece of kit and if Sean was right, whatever reason the kid had for having one should mean he knew how to use it.
There was no response.
He tried Sean.
“We know,” she replied curtly. “We’re tracking them but I can’t find a way to stop them. If this ship does have an AI, I’m damned sure I can’t find it. Can you get up here? We’ve managed to isolate the bridge.”
>
He kept the link open and climbed through into the central core. “How many are on board?” he asked at one point, pausing as he heard movement in the ship below him.
“Five,” Sean replied. “Two have Thom at the airlock. The other three are searching. Hal’s trying to figure out what the hell they think we’ve done but we’re having trouble getting access to anything. Oh shit, Luka, move, they’re closing in on you.”
He ran, ducking under pipes, squeezing through vents and climbing anywhere he could get a handhold, reckoning that the engine room might be a good idea after all. If he could reach the control room, he might be able to get back into the ship’s systems.
He worked his way round and sat quietly above the main access. If they were using thermals and bioelectrics, the equipment in the engine room might cause enough interference to screw their sensors.
“Sean,” he whispered through the link, “where are they?”
She didn’t reply and for a moment he felt strangely abandoned. He always worked alone and he wasn’t used to having anyone there for him so it was weird to find himself depending on her. He shook it off, broke the connection and sat and listened.
He finally decided he was clear to move and as he got to his feet, he felt just enough of a sense of someone behind him to roll out of the way as a flashlight lit up the conduit and a small object clattered past. He ducked away as the concussion flash went off, catching the edge of it and half falling down a ladder to get away.
There were voices then, behind and up ahead, and he had no choice but to drop down into the corridor. He landed, got his balance and turned to run. An armoured figure at the corner down the hallway had a gun aimed at him already. He cursed and as he turned away, an agonising shock hit him square in the back. He fell to his knees, managed to stagger to his feet and took two steps forward before another shot hit him in the chest.
Chapter 8
The Man swept his queen across the board, aggressive play to place NG’s king in check. “The state of the colonies in the Between will be crucial in the coming times.” He sat back, hands together, fingers laced over his chest and paused, eyes almost closed, thinking. “Tell me about Poule.”
NG sipped at his wine, trying to figure out the cascading consequences of the potential moves he could make. The Man didn’t tolerate an opponent that did not commit. It was as difficult as trying to work out what to say. He’d been horrified to learn that LC had been drawn into the cesspit that was Poule. The corporations pushed the limits of human decency and the normal bounds of civilised operations in places like Poule.
“Last we heard it was being run by United Metals. Wintran. They acquired it from Zang in a hostile, and violent, takeover some time back.” He put the goblet down next to the candle, the vapour rising in a twisting swirl with the smoke from the wick. He paused and waited for the Man to look up. “We have no influence in that sector.”
The Man swept a hand over the chessboard. “We normally have the luxury of choosing where we play our pieces, NG. It’s when we don’t, when other forces interfere, that our operatives show their true instinct for survival.”
•
It felt like his heart stopped with the impact. He fell back, neurons sparking uncontrollably, and lay there, excruciating pain spreading through every inch of his body.
They ran up, footsteps echoing through the deck. “Son of a bitch took two shots to go down,” one of them said, nudging him in the side. “And he’s still not out.”
He still had a loose hold on the pistol but he couldn’t get his fingers to obey and tighten on the trigger. They kicked his hand and the gun skittered across the deck. He’d never been hit with an FTH before but Hil had bitched about them enough for him to recognise it. He could feel the effects wearing off already but before he could fight back, they rolled him over, one of them grabbing the back of his neck and pushing him down. They roughly pulled his arms behind his back, clamped something around his wrists, hauled him to his feet and told him to walk.
He called out silently to Thom and Sean, trying to get a reply from someone.
There was nothing from Thom.
Sean just hissed, “Give me a minute.”
She sounded stressed.
Whatever, it sucked and he wasn’t going to get caught this easily. He tested the restraints. They felt like simple plasticuffs, the kind anyone else needed a knife to break and the kind he could snap out of in seconds, but as he twisted his arm slightly, one of the guys shoved him brusquely and wrapped a fist around his wrists, catching both in one firm grip.
They marched him to the airlock where Thom was waiting, similarly restrained and looking miserable, flanked by two other uniforms, more mercenaries from the look of them.
He could see a patch on the side of Thom’s neck that explained why the kid hadn’t answered. LC tried to give Thom an encouraging look but the kid just slumped his shoulders and shook his head, like he knew he should have done better.
LC was pulled to a halt and one of the grunts waved a broad wand up and down to check him over. It beeped at his wrist and the guy roughly twisted his arm to check that the band there was harmless. It beeped again, higher in pitch, as it passed over his neck.
They slapped a patch over the implant, negating it completely and isolating him from any contact but the constant buzz in his head from the proximity of the group. He couldn’t pick out anything specific and he didn’t try. They were working to orders and didn’t care about anything other than securing the ship and taking the crew up to the security deck on the station. It wasn’t routine.
He tried to shrug free from the guy holding his arm and got a slap to the back of the head. He shifted his feet slightly, subtly adjusting his balance, and looked sideways at the guy holding him. “Don’t you people knock?”
“Funny,” the guy who seemed to be in charge said, taking a step closer then turning to the others. “Watch this one.”
Someone grabbed LC’s shoulder and thrust him forward into the airlock. They crowded in behind and he felt the ship’s artificially controlled gravity vanish with a lurch, his weight suddenly gone and his feet off the floor, stomach turning. There were shouts and curses, weapons raised, and for a minute he thought that was it. The hand on his shoulder squeezed hard but as quickly as it had gone, the gravity was back, magnified and as one they all crashed to the deck.
The pressure was almost unbearable. Someone landed on top of his legs and their weight was immense. No one could move to even complain. He felt the panic from the bodies lying around him and pulled out all the tricks he knew to slow his own breathing, taking as much oxygen as he could from the limited breaths he could manage. He couldn’t see Thom but he could sense the kid kicking in a concerted effort to stay calm; someone somewhere had trained him well.
It felt like it lasted an age then as it began to lift, he heard a quiet command to stay still and twisted his head round to see Hal Duncan standing in the corridor, covering them with a massive pistol aimed steadily at the centre of the group.
“Cole, Garrett, get up,” he said quietly.
The gravity was still higher than usual and it was tough to get free, get to his knees and struggle to a stand. The guys in armour had it even harder and even though a few of them were wriggling, they weren’t going to jump up and grab their weapons in a hurry.
LC made it to the doorway. Stepping through was like falling into a cloud. He gasped in a breath and twisted his hand in a dextrous movement that freed it from the plasticuff with a snap.
Thom crawled through and got to his knees as he made it into the normal gravity. LC pulled the knife out of his boot and took hold of Thom’s wrists, freeing them from their bindings.
“We need to go,” Duncan said, backing away from the airlock.
“No arguments there,” LC muttered and followed him, keeping the knife in his hand and casting a glance back at the militia pinned to the deck. He didn’t care who they were so long as he was free.
The airlock
door slammed shut behind them trapping the intruders and isolating the ship from the station.
When they reached the bridge, LC took the seat at the main control panel. He’d already torn the patch off his neck and he hooked straight in to the ship, no messing. If there was an AI, he wanted to find it.
“What are we doing with those guys?” Thom asked behind him.
Duncan edged into the seat next to LC. “They can stay where they are.”
LC hit the barrier he’d encountered earlier and winced as it shut him out with a spike. He tried again and the surge that was fired back at him sent his vision spinning into black for a moment. He sat back with a soft curse.
“What are you doing?” he heard Thom say and heard Duncan hush him gently.
He tried a different route and came up against the same wall, nudging it this time and sending a query spiralling around it. The guild had experts in the best systems available. They built some of the most sophisticated systems out there and they trained the field-ops in how to break them. Half the tabs they ran were to acquire insubstantials, information, data, nothing you could fit into a neat package, but more valuable than most of the kit they were sent after. He’d been taught by the best and he was one of the best they had.
This system was like nothing he’d ever encountered.
He took a risk and delved deeper, reckless and careless, ignoring the fact that he had no safe route out.
Time stopped.
LC closed his eyes and felt the shift. It let him in and opened up access to the entire ship and the whole station. Something was wrong. The security level on the station was too high.
He nudged. Information suddenly streamed at him faster than he could process. He tried to slow the flow and felt it fight him, as if something was saying, you wanted this, well here it is. He tried to track through the station to find Gallagher and DiMarco but he was dragged back to the docks, an array of data from every ship berthed there flowing in so fast that he couldn’t distinguish one vessel from the next.
