Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework

by Randolph Lalonde

  Jake straightened up and recovered. “Well, this isn’t going to help. I’ll get a scrubber and we’ll get this off.”

  “Yeah,” Minh said. “I’m sticking to my guns though, we’re split. She’s getting harder and harder to keep at arm’s length. I still can’t believe she didn’t believe me.”

  “Just stop,” Jake said. “Or I’ll get started up again.”

  “It’s not that funny!” Minh retorted. “It’s actually pretty scary!”

  Jake was just starting to snicker again when a bold message appeared on his head’s up display:

  NOW! DO IT NOW!

  The elevation pad dropped two metres in half a second. The side Jake stood on lowered more, and before he could move the Uriel skidded in his direction, trapping him against the side of the elevation shaft.

  Minh tripped over one of the thruster pods, the emergency hood of his vacsuit activated before he struck his head soundly against the side. “We’ve got a malfunction with lift six!” He announced to the deck crew.

  “This isn’t a malfunction,” Jake said. He tried to push the rear thruster pod of the fighter away from him, but the left arm of his suit’s strength augmentation failed. “I’m pinned.” Just as he said it, a man wearing a grey worker’s vacsuit leaned over the opening of the short elevator shaft and dropped a roughly rewired compact battery right on top of him.

  “EMP grenade!” Jake warned.

  It went off, effecting the fighter through its open cockpit, and the systems on Jake’s lower quality vacsuit. He could feel the little artificial muscle there was layered into it stiffen. Without power, the material would be more hindrance to movement than assistance.

  “I’m pinned,” Jake said again, struggling under the weight of the fighter and the panic rising in his mind. “My suit’s keeping me from getting crushed, but it’s not doing anything else.”

  “Hold on, my suit’s okay,” Minh said. “I might be able to get you out.”

  “You’ve barely got augmentation, that’s a pilot’s suit,” Jake said. He opened a channel to Frost. “Get over here, we need your loader to pick up this fighter.”

  “Is this an accident?” Frost asked.

  “You know it isn’t,” Jake replied.

  Three grey suited workers dropped into the elevation pit, one falling on top of Minh as he was balanced on an engine pod pylon. The pair went crashing down, and that’s when Jake saw a makeshift restraint in the attacker’s hand. “Watch it, Minh!” Jake said. “He’s trying to get a restraint on you!”

  One end of the modified metal cargo tie clapped closed around Minh’s arm before he could turn over and react. He flipped from his stomach onto his back and punched his attacker in the throat. The blow would have been devastating if the worker wasn’t protected by a labour suit.

  One of the other workers moved to stand over Jake, who looked up to him and said; “I promise you’ll suffer the worst.” Panic intermingled with hate as he blindly struggled under the fighter’s engine. He took note of a green stain pattern on that worker’s legs. It made his suit unique, and Jake promised himself it would be the man’s undoing.

  The man above him didn’t reply, only pressed a button on a makeshift control box. The pressure doors above started to close just as Frost’s loader suit came into view. “I got ya, lad,” Frost said as he caught the doors in the hands of the suit. The pair of heavy doors clamped shut on its hands and severed several fingers.

  Frost would be fine, fingers intact, but no help at all. “I was sure that’d work,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll get the hatch open from up here, you just threaten and sneer, might frighten them into givin’ up.”

  “Not funny, you sonofabitch!” Jake shot back as he watched a second worker drop down and help his mate with Minh, who had gotten the upper hand and clobbered his first attacker with his half-fastened restraint. He drew his sidearm with the other hand and was just about to take aim as it was knocked out of his hand from behind.

  “How did you let hunters onto your crew?” Minh asked. He tried to scramble after his weapon but was equally preoccupied by a new set of hands trying to grab the half-affixed restraint.

  The entire scene was thrown into chaos as the elevator’s base dropped suddenly. The gravity deactivated and the air rushed out of the space, drawing Minh, Jake, and their three attackers out with it.

  Jake was free, but didn’t have so much as an emergency manoeuvring jet. He was turned away from the action. “Did you get your sidearm back, Minh?” Jake asked as he let himself turn.

  “Not so much,” Minh replied. When he came into view, his hands were up. One of the workers must have gotten hold of Minh’s sidearm right before the elevator decompressed, and it was pointed at the pilot’s head.

  “Now, you’re going to be cooperative or I’m going to start shooting at your friend here,” said the worker. “Aren’t these Violator sidearms designed to cut through suits just like this?”

  Jake had nothing to say. He drifted slowly, helplessly, as he spotted a point of light in the distance. They knew too much about them, their plan was too good. There was a knowledgeable informant involved who probably even knew about Jake's regenerative abilities, otherwise they’d be pointing the gun at him.

  “Lad, bad news,” Frost said. “There’s a shuttle going in your directions. I’m headed for an emergency hatch. I've contacted our flyboys, but I don’t think either of us are going to make it in time.”

  “I know,” Jake replied. “Get to a gun emplacement on the Enforcer and contact the Carthan authorities. If they can’t intercept, I want you to get a cannon working and disable the shuttle.”

  Chapter 9

  Reaching Out

  It had been weeks since Ayan had seen Jake. Jason’s plan to keep the Samson crew, Jake especially, mixed in with the rest of their workers was only effective if they visited people they cared about as little as possible. According to Jason, if Jake or any of the crewmembers visited known associates often, then someone could track them over time and discern with fair certainty who was who, or at least who was important.

  Ayan didn’t like it, neither did the Samson crew, but Jason was right. As a result, Jake hadn’t set foot on the Clever Dream, or gone near Ayan, for weeks. He couldn’t even check his personal messages more than once every few days in case someone found a way to watch network activity.

  When Ayan realised she was actually nervous, she attributed it to that separation. As she made her way through Greydock, the strange guilt at feeling perhaps a little closer than she should to Liam Grady was pressed away by memories of Jake. He was a great communicator too, when there was time to sit and talk, and they’d done so for hours.

  If anything, she was sure her guilt with regards to Liam Grady came from the thought that she might be leading him on, by being open to his supportive presence that was made so much warmer, so much more intimate by his gentle hands. Touching someone’s bare skin on Freeground was more personal than it was in many other cultures, as they spent so much time covered up under the skin of a vacsuit. Liam might not have known, but he made her skin tingle when his warm hands made contact with the bare skin her dress afforded her. There was nothing indecent or unwelcome about his attention. In fact, he wouldn’t make her think twice if he behaved that way with other people. For all she knew, his caring hands paid attention to other people just the same.

  “But he doesn’t touch Laura that way,” Ayan muttered to herself, drawing a glance from a young man passing her in the quiet, lush, carpeted hallway. She flashed him a smile, which he returned shyly. The walls were adorned with dark hardwood planking and flickering sconces. She’d only seen anything like it in old movies and period interactives, never in person.

  It reminded her of Liam more than anything. The earth tones, dim yellow light and air of luxury were all things that she associated with him. A brief, unintentional recollection of his comforting hand on her back became a daydream. She was standing at the window in that boardroom and the
negotiator was reading aloud, but he may as well of been in a different room for all the attention she afforded him.

  Instead of embracing her anger and turning on him the moment after Liam Grady’s reassuring hand touched her back, she turned towards him, his arms and his robes wrapped around her. She imagined his embrace would be warm, firm, and that she’d have all his attention in that moment.

  Ayan brought herself back to reality, clearing her throat and shaking her head. The door to the room Jake had rented for their rendezvous was right up ahead, and she was blushing because of a daydream that brought more guilt than she thought she deserved. “Fickle, stupid girl,” she cursed under her breath to the empty hallway.

  She checked the lines of her dress, and straightened it a little before touching the entry pad. It recognised her and the door slipped open silently. There, looking out a window overlooking the other side of Greydock, was Jacob Valance. His long coat and dark gloved hands contrasted against the buildings around the hospitality tower. Long ago they had been painted green and blue, plated in silver and gold, but time had worn down their tones, their sheens. The metal beneath was red in most cases, white in others. It was old construction, still useful and sturdy, but not as appealing as it once was.

  He turned and practically grinned at her as he crossed the room. It was rare of him to be so openly happy, and her heart skipped a beat as she met him in the middle. Jake picked her up off her feet and whirled her, nearly knocking a serving tray off a table with her heels. “I couldn’t stay away,” he whispered against her ear.

  Thoughts of Liam fled from her mind at the sound of those words. The thought that the need to see her could break the discipline in a man like Jacob Valance was thrilling. To her, Jake was more stalwart and honour-driven than even Oz. “I missed you,” she said, a tear squeezing through her clenched eyelids.

  He put her down and held her more loosely, kissing her briefly before looking her in the eye. There was an eagerness in everything he did that was surprising, refreshing. “You’re supposed to be on the Enforcer, there are only a few hours left,” she scolded playfully.

  “You’re supposed to be in negotiations,” he retorted, imitating her.

  “We just came to an agreement. They’ve agreed to a land grant, a low but significant price for what remains of the Enforcer, most of the other things we were after, including a lift on the local warrant for you and the rest of your crew. Oh, and we’ve secured sovereignty.”

  “All that in a few weeks,” Jake said. “It felt like forever, mind you, but you reached high and I’m impressed,” he told her.

  She smiled at him because of the uncharacteristic praise, not in the fact that it came, but in how it was said. Somehow it didn’t sound like him, even in the burst messages they’d shared through Jason, the way Jacob was speaking was somehow – off. “Thank you,” she replied. “Is everything-“

  Before she could finish the question, his lips were on hers, and she knew that whoever was kissing her was not Jacob. This man’s eager manipulations were nothing like the man she knew, and she tried to pull away.

  He caught her arm and yanked her to him. “Wheeler sends his regards,” he whispered against her temple.

  * * *

  Minh closed the canopy on his Uriel fighter and it began to come to life. He kept his eye on Jacob the entire time; they were adrift outside the Enforcer, and that ship was almost in range. “I’ve got ya, Jake,” Minh said. “I’m coming to get you.”

  “Don’t use real names on comms!” erupted Lowell, the second in command for the salvage operation.

  “It doesn’t much matter now, lad,” Frost replied over the channel. “Seems like whoever’s behind this knows who’s who.”

  “Any luck getting the doors open so you can give me a hand?” Minh asked as he signalled his fighter wing. They’d be there in six minutes, maybe more. Not fast enough.

  “We’re cutting now,” Frost replied. “They burned up all the door mechanisms we’ve checked.”

  “The emergency cranks don’t work?” Jacob asked.

  “Aye, they planted burners on timers, destroyed the shafts,” Frost replied. “Must’ve taken a week or two to plant ‘em.”

  The heavy transport shuttle came around the port side of the Enforcer and into sight. It’s side loading doors were open and Minh could see three crewmen ready with weapons. He locked weapons on it right away, but held his fire. “Shuttle to my three o’clock, at one two seven by nine zero zero five three, by two zero five, you will power down immediately or be destroyed,” Minh warned. It was less than two hundred meters away from Jake, with a side loading door open.

  “God dammit! I’m never hiding again,” Jake said. “I’d be able to take care of this myself if I were properly geared!”

  “Power down, Ronin. This will be your only warning,” replied an unfamiliar voice. The passengers on the shuttle fired at Jake, who barely had time to flinch before several shots struck him in the legs and chest.

  “You all right?” Minh asked, checking the reading he had on him. Two of the shots punctured his suit, burning his leg to the bone and obliterating his shoulder, damaging his left lung severely. To Minh’s astonishment, the wounds healed in seconds, regenerating back to a perfect state. He’d heard about the framework technology, seen the results, but he’d never been watching a status readout on Jake as it did its job. The miracle of the technology didn’t make up for one thing, however: the holes in his vacsuit.

  Minh cringed at the sound of Jake struggling with the pain, releasing grunts and suppressed cries for the first few seconds that his bare flesh was exposed to the freezing vacuum of space. “Let them take me!” he shouted.

  Jake’s framework kicked in, repairing the freezing and pressure damage, but he didn’t suffer gracefully for long. Jacob’s screams filled the comm frequency, setting Minh’s teeth on edge and testing his will. There was nothing he wanted more than to rush to his friend’s aid and catch him in his Uriel’s small but pressurisable cargo compartment.

  "Warning shot, Ronin,” said the calm captor. “We’ll get just as much money for him if he’s a smouldering heap.”

  “I’ve got to do something,” Minh said on a private channel to Frost.

  “Stand down, lad. Captain says he wants to be taken. We leave him to this, they’ll get more than they bargain for.”

  “Can he survive this?”

  “Ignore him and look at the scans,” Frost said. “He’s keeping up with the damage.”

  “Understood.” He started a focused scan of the shuttle and everything inside as he spectated on Jake's capture. The screams stopped, and, with a glance at his medical scanner, he could see that Jake had passed out but he was healing faster than before.

  The shuttle slowly closed the distance between it and his friend, then the crew dragged him inside. One of them shot Jake several times, and Minh watched him twitch as the door to the shuttle closed. It began to accelerate towards Kambis.

  Minh switched to a new channel. “Tamber Navnet, I have a bogey.”

  “We see you, Ronin,” replied the non-automated operator on the other end. “A bogey on this side of the system?”

  “Aye, mark the Enforcer Heavy Transport I’m transmitting to you now. It just captured Captain Jacob Valance.”

  “Captain Valance?” the operator replied, surprised.

  “Please, keep it professional,” Minh said.

  “Yes, Sir. I see it moving from your position,” replied the operator. “Why aren’t you pursuing?”

  “They’ll kill him if they see me in the rear.”

  “What would you like Tamber support to do, Wing Commander?” asked the operator, sounding more than a little confused.

  “Just track him,” Minh said. He turned his fighter and hit the thrusters; it took less than three seconds to accelerate past the Enforcer. “I have birds on the way, but I’ll need your eyes.”

  “My supervisor just authorised the resources,” the Operator said. “Good hu
nting.”

  * * *

  Ayan’s dress went into emergency mode the moment it detected she was in a physical altercation, and it snapped back to vacsuit form. Her head was completely covered with a faceplate and a hood, her body lightly armoured. The imitation Jacob hurled her across the room in frustration.

  While it wasn’t an enjoyable tumble, it didn’t cause her any harm. The suit prevented even the slightest bruise. She was on her feet, furious, and looking forward to beating the imitator when a side door opened. “Easy, Commander,” said the blonde woman she knew as Doctor Tamera Thurge. “We have a message for you.”

  “They told me they released you,” Ayan said, looking her up and down. She was wearing an armoured red coat with a fitted shield suit beneath. The fabric shifted colour as the surface tilted in the light. The man with her had dispensed with overclothes and simply wore a shield suit, a weapon holster, and a pack on his back. “I don’t like the idea of slavers roaming free, but I took comfort in the thought that you’d be far from here by now.”

  The imitation of Jake walked more leisurely towards Ayan, and she stepped back. She cursed herself inwardly for letting her guard down, for growing lax in protecting herself. She didn’t even carry a weapon during the negotiations. There was nothing she’d like more than to slag the leering imitation of Jacob that stopped less than a meter from her.

  “I planned to move along,” Doctor Thurge said. “But Lucius was waiting for me when I was released. He knows how to court a lady, I’ll tell you.”

  “I’m sure,” Ayan said, not shifting her gaze from the Jacob imitation.

  “Not just ladies, mum. With the cash he flashed, he could charm me off a core world prostitute,” said Thurge’s companion.

  “Classy,” Ayan said.

  “He offered money and an opportunity to get a shot at Frost, your captain, and the whole bloody crew.”

  “Well said, Burke,” said Thurge. “But you’re missing the best part. Lucius has a plan, one that even has a place for people like you, clone.”

  “I don’t want anything Wheeler’s selling,” Ayan replied. “And I’m not a clone.”