Humanity Unlimited 1: Liberty Station

by Terry Mixon

  “Why didn’t you join them?”

  “I’ll do that tomorrow. I wanted to review what my people back on Earth have found out. There’s still no sign of Nathan, but my mother swore revenge. We need to be on our toes.”

  Jess put two steaks into the oven. “They can’t even get to us up here. I hope. I can’t wait to watch the news channels when they notice we’re leaving. It will be awesome!”

  Harry didn’t seem convinced. “I’m not resting easily until this is over. Can I toss the salad?”

  It would be a tight fit in the kitchenette, but she didn’t mind. “Be my guest.”

  * * * * *

  Nathan met the paid weasel outside the spaceport. Security was tight, so it was easier for the man to come to him. They’d broken into a small warehouse. It looked disused, so he’d taken the chance. It was large enough for his team to assemble.

  The cadaverous man looked nervous as he walked in under guard. “Mister Bennett, I can’t be gone long.”

  “You can be gone as long as I say. My mother tells me they took our reactor to the space station. I want you to tell me how I can get it back.”

  “Impossible. If it’s up there, it can’t be retrieved.”

  He punched the man in the gut, smiling as he folded and retched.

  “You don’t tell me what’s possible. You take my instructions and make them happen. How can we commandeer one of the lifters and get to the space station? Once we get up there, no bunch of scientists is going to stop me from doing what I want.”

  “You don’t understand. That’s impos—”

  Nathan slapped him. Hard. “I’m getting tired of your excuses. I understand the spaceport is at a heightened state of security. Figure out how to get my men past it to one of the pads. Tonight.”

  The man rubbed his face. He was sweating heavily. “Security is exceptionally tight, Mister Bennett. It will take me several hours to see what options we have. Perhaps if you waited a while for things to calm down, it would prove simpler to get you up there. It’s not like a space station is going anywhere.”

  “Not that I need to explain myself to you, but I might be able to steal it back if they haven’t installed it. You have four hours to get back to me. Go!”

  It took almost the full four hours for the man to return. He shook like a leaf, so Nathan was prepared just to shoot him, but the man had a plan.

  “They’re still loading personnel and supplies. There are four launches left on tonight’s schedule. Two lift within the next hour, so I can’t get you into the secure area before they go up. One of the last two is a personnel launch. It will need to be that one.

  “Security examines each vehicle going to the pad area closely, but I’ve discovered an old service tunnel that isn’t used anymore. It goes past both perimeters.”

  The man took a deep breath. “You can’t just walk in and hijack the lifter. The pilot can tell the control center something is wrong in so many ways that you’d never notice. The weapons need to go into bags. They’re stored in the cabin. Once the lifter docks on the station, you can take action. Not before. You have to pretend to be the real crew until then.”

  Nathan could work with that. “How will you get us into the spaceport?”

  “Through the employee entrance. I brought paperwork for you. There’s a bus outside. You’re new hires, already vetted by me. Once I get you in, you have to pay me off. They’ll know I helped you in.”

  “Of course. You’ll get everything you’re owed and more. Get my team where it needs to go and I’ll make the call.”

  The bus ride was stressful, but the paperwork got a dozen of his men past the guards. The spy drove them to a rundown area of the spaceport and stopped beside a decrepit warehouse. They made their way inside.

  The man gestured toward concrete steps leading down into the darkness. “The stairs go to an old access tunnel. It exits in a building much like this one.” He handed Nathan a hand drawn map. “Go west several blocks from the exit and you’ll find the main thoroughfare. A bus with people is going past there in half an hour on the way to pad one. The pad crew won’t check ID.”

  “Is that all I need to know?” Nathan asked.

  “Yes.”

  Nathan smiled. “Excellent.” He drew his knife and stabbed the idiot in the throat. He wiped the blade on the man’s jacket and sheathed it as the fool writhed on the floor, drowning in his own blood. “Say hello to all the other suckers when you get to hell.”

  His team fell in behind him as they made their way into the tunnel. It was nasty, but not as bad as the jungle had been. Rats and roaches he could handle.

  With the security lockdown, there weren’t any people wandering around the area where the tunnel led. His people were able to find the target road without any problem. They set up an ambush and waited. If this really was the last flight of the night, he couldn’t afford to miss it.

  He heard the bus coming about the time he expected and stepped out into the road. He held up his hand with authority as it turned the corner.

  It slowed to a stop and the driver stared at him in confusion. “We already passed the screening zone. What now?”

  Nathan aimed his pistol at the man and grinned. “Now you raise your hands. If you reach for that radio, I’ll shoot you dead.”

  That got everyone in a terrified, but cooperative mood. His men rushed the bus and started pulling people off. The driver and twelve passengers. They herded them back to the warehouse and returned alone. His father’s people wouldn’t find the bodies until long after this was over.

  They drove to the pad and parked. Nathan pointed to one of his men. “Drive the bus to a different area and go back out the way we came. Tell the rest of the men to head back to the US. You’re done here.”

  The preparation crew didn’t realize anything was wrong and got them all fitted into spacesuits. They helpfully loaded the bags laden with weapons and explosives into the lifter and strapped his men down.

  One of the pilots—a woman—turned toward them. “Welcome aboard. We’re the last personnel flight to Liberty Station. They must’ve saved the best for last. We’ll launch in ten minutes and dock in four hours. Sit back and relax.”

  Nathan did exactly that after launch. He fell asleep. All this flying around was catching up with him.

  He woke when the lifter was settling into its dock with a thump. The pilot again turned and held up a hand. “No moving around until you have an escort, unless you’re zero-G certified. Welcome to Liberty Station.”

  The weapons were just a few feet away, so Nathan unbuckled and pushed himself toward them. He missed by a wider margin than he’d imagined possible and hit hard.

  “Sir? Are you okay?” the pilot asked. “You need to stay still.”

  Nathan opened the door and grabbed one of the bags. It didn’t matter which. They all had weapons. He pulled a pistol from inside and surprised the pilot with it just as she got to him.

  “Don’t move,” he said. “You at the controls. Touch anything and she dies now and you’ll be right behind her.”

  It only took them a moment to subdue the pilots, remove their helmets, and tie them to chairs in the passenger compartment. Their escorts opened the airlock just as they finished. They took one look inside and fled. Several of his men fired at them and missed. No matter.

  “Two of you stay here and keep our ride secure. The rest of you, bring our gear. It’s time for some payback.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Harry! Wake up!”

  He woke abruptly and blinked at Jess. She was standing over his bed. “What?”

  “We’re under attack!”

  That got him moving. He threw the covers back and grabbed a fresh set of coveralls from his closet. He briefly thanked God that he didn’t sleep in the raw. “Tell me.”

  “Someone hijacked a lifter,” Jess said, her hands gripped into a ball in front of her. “It has to be your brother. He’s here.”

  He put his shoes on and grabbed
a pistol belt out of the lowest drawer. “What’s he doing?”

  “We don’t know. The captain called me. One of the pilots was talking with them and they heard enough to realize what was going on before he cut off. They shot at men inside the ship.”

  Harry slid a pistol into the holster and grabbed his extra magazines. “Do we know where they are?” He grabbed a backup pistol and clipped the holster at his spine.

  “In the spine. Maybe he’s after the reactor.”

  “Can they take it?” He headed for the door. Time to wake his team.

  Jess followed along behind him. “No. It would take days to cool off enough to remove. But he likes blowing things up. He could destroy the ship if he wanted to. One bomb would turn it into a radioactive wreck.”

  Sandra was just down the corridor, so he pounded on her door. He explained the situation in a few words as soon as she opened it.

  The sniper cursed and headed for her bedroom. She’d gather the rest of the team.

  He focused on Jess. “What about security? Surely this ship has people trained to defend it.”

  She wrung her hands. “I don’t think they ever expected someone to get an armed group on the ship. The command team is on the emergency bridge. Nathan has to go right past it to get to the reactor room.”

  “I need to talk to them right now.”

  Jess took him into her quarters and picked up a regular looking phone from a holder beside the couch. She dialed a number and handed it to him.

  He heard it ring once before it picked up. “We’re a little busy, Jess.” It was Captain Lee.

  “This is Harry Rogers, Captain. I need your security team to gather at Jess’ room with everything they have.”

  “That won’t be much. Tasers only. We never expected an armed incursion like this. Since the pilot reported a full load of passengers, there must be a dozen of them. I don’t know how many they left in the lifter, but we can’t fight something like that easily.”

  “Where are they?” Harry asked as his people arrived at the door, heavily armed.

  “They’re in the main corridor heading toward the emergency bridge, reactor room, and engineering. I’ve ordered the other areas to evacuate and lock down, but these men can probably force the doors. I told the incoming cargo lifter to stay clear and I’m rousing the other pilots now.”

  Harry decided not to wait for the security forces. Tasers wouldn’t be of much use. “Send the pilots along with the security people. I assume you have a real weapon on the bridge. Try to hold them off for as long as you can. We’re coming.”

  He looked at Jess after he hung up. “Take the remaining lifters, if you can. Get them away from the ship. Nathan isn’t suicidal. If he has no ride home, he won’t blow up the ship.”

  Once she nodded, he headed for the corridor. Sandra, Rex, and Jeremy were waiting. “Let’s go end this once and for all.”

  * * * * *

  Nathan held back when they blew the locked hatch to the emergency bridge. A good thing, since someone inside opened fire and hit the first two men through the door. The next two spun out of control as soon as they opened fire. They must’ve hit the bastard, though. The firing stopped.

  He looked in and saw more destruction and blood than he’d hoped for. He needed people with authority and he needed them alive. This had seemed like the perfect place to look, since they’d marked it so prominently and it was on the way to the engineering spaces.

  Three of the men in the room were floating uncontrolled and bloody. Some of the control panels were smoking and the main screen was dark with a number of holes in it.

  The captain of the station was easily identifiable with his silver oak leaves, but he wouldn’t be useful. Dead men rarely were.

  One of the others was similarly dead, one badly wounded. A fourth man had his hands up.

  Nathan shot the wounded man. A mistake, as he spun out of control until someone grabbed him.

  Once he’d righted himself, he glared at the remaining crewman. “You’ve made things harder than they needed to be. Where’s the reactor you stole?”

  “In the reactor room,” the man said, obviously terrified. His nametag gave Nathan a name.

  “Williams, you’ll want to be more specific than that if you want to live. Where’s the room?”

  “Aft of here on the main corridor.”

  “Good. Bring him,” he said to one of his men.

  The captain’s aim had been good. The two men he shot were dead. Nathan’s incursion party was down to eight.

  Two of his men struggled to move the prisoner slowly through the zero gravity. All of them struggled, truthfully.

  The reactor room was clearly marked. Nathan pointed his pistol at the man’s head. “Open it.”

  Williams held his palm over the plate beside the door and the hatch slid open. Expecting more gunfire, Nathan sent his men in first.

  The room was unoccupied. “Where is the crew that belongs here?” Nathan demanded.

  “The captain ordered them to run.”

  Nathan grunted. Effective and inconvenient. He didn’t know anything about nuclear reactors, but this one looked like it was operating. That couldn’t be good for his plan to steal it back.

  “What is the status of the reactor?”

  “They brought it online last night,” the prisoner said.

  No, stealing it back wasn’t an option. There were probably more of them than he had bullets, too. Eventually, they’d overpower him and his men. Mother wasn’t going to be happy.

  He shot Williams in the head, making sure to grab something as a brace first. The blood spatter in zero-G was impressive.

  “Plant the explosives.”

  * * * * *

  Jess rallied the security people and led them into one of the spokes. It let out into the main corridor of the spine, which was a dangerous place, but there were access panels leading to some of the maintenance crawlspaces. They were tight, but safe, methods of getting close to the docking arms.

  She’d sent pilots to get the craft on the opposite arm free. Several others remained with her party to get the rest, if they could. A dozen meters of vacuum was as good as being on the other side of the planet.

  Jess had brought her pistol and was steeling herself to the probability she’d need to use it. Those bastards had hostages. Of course, if she did, the lifter would almost certainly lose pressure. They’d need to act fast.

  Once they were close to the compromised docking bay, she peered out from an access panel. The airlock to the hijacked lifter was open and no one was in sight. There were several crates secured to the deck. They’d provide a little cover once the security team exited the crawlspace.

  She turned to the man behind her. “Spread out once I go in. I won’t lie. Some of us will probably get shot, but we can’t let them have a way off this ship or everyone dies.”

  He nodded grimly. “We’re behind you.”

  Jess looked at the pilots. “You get the other lifters clear.” She floated to the crates. She’d only just arrived when a man came out from the lifter’s airlock. The security man pulled the access panel closed behind her while the intruder was looking up the arm.

  The mercenary scanned the compartment and floated there, blocking her way into the lifter. If he stayed, there was no possibility of getting in quietly. She’d have to shoot him and that would warn any of his compatriots still inside.

  She quietly took one of the bullets from her spare magazine, estimated the angle she’d have to toss it to hit near the arm, and gave it a light push.

  The bullet floated slowly enough that it didn’t grab the eye. It bounced off the bulkhead beside the arm. The sound of metal on metal got the guy’s attention. He made a clumsy jump to one of the crates close to the airlock and peered around it.

  Jess pushed off and sailed across the docking bay toward the airlock. She hoped she didn’t have to shoot him, because that would send her tumbling in some unexpected direction.

  She touched down
beside the lock as softly as she could and slipped inside. He wouldn’t be able to see her if he looked back now. This was the time to act.

  “Everything okay, Zack?”

  Jess made a guess of which direction that voice came from and slapped the airlock controls. The hatch behind her slid shut and locked. That gave the guy some warning, but he wasn’t expecting her to come out shooting.

  Because it was insane. Her first shot missed him as he opened fire on her. The loud whistling sound told her that she’d probably shot one of the viewports up front. If it failed catastrophically, she’d die quickly and horribly.

  His bullets tore into the side of the lifter. Some of the ricochets must’ve went back into the cabin, because someone screamed.

  Jess jumped for the first seat and shot the mercenary center mass. He grunted and fired until his weapon ran out. Jess bounced off the bulkhead, grabbed a pipe, and shot the man until he stopped moving.

  The sound of leaking air came from all around her. Someone was pounding on the airlock. Probably the other mercenary.

  One of the pilots slumped in the acceleration couch they’d tied him to while the other struggled to free herself. “He’s hit. We need to get out of here and give him first aid.”

  She untied the woman. “I’ll look at him. Disengage the docking clamps and get us away from the ship.”

  “We’re leaking air and one of the ports is cracked. You don’t have a suit. If it blows, you’re dead.”

  “I’ll make do. Hurry.”

  Jess examined the pilot’s wounds while the woman put her helmet on and climbed into the cockpit. The man was in bad shape. Really bad. She had to get him out of his suit to treat him, and that meant the dropping atmospheric pressure would kill him. A no-win scenario.

  “We’re free,” the pilot said. “The cargo lifter is holding position just ahead of us. We’re at 60% pressure and falling fast. You don’t have more than a couple of minutes.”

  Jess wracked her brain for a plan.