by R. A. Nargi
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I’ve got eyes, don’t I?”
“Shit.”
“You’ll have to deal with it,” the Sean bot said. “Remember, JJ. Twenty minutes.”
“JJ?” Narcissa asked.
I ignored her, and followed the Sean bot as he strode down the ramp. “Where are you going? What are you doing?”
“Demolition. Now get back in there and close it up.”
I sighed and headed back into the Vostok. “You heard the man,” I told Narcissa. “Let’s batten down the hatches and figure out how to get that arm released.”
“I can’t do that from in here,” Narcissa said.
Crap. “Okay, I’ll come with you. You’ll need an extra pair of eyes.”
I asked Chiraine to help Ana-Zhi get to the bridge.
“Run diagnostics,” I said. “And get ready to fire her up fast.”
Then I followed Narcissa out into the hangar near the Vostok’s landing gear.
“That’s what we’re dealing with, right?” It was a dumb question, because it was pretty obvious what the ten-meter-long mooring arm hooked on to our ship’s undercarriage was. The arm ran into a track recessed into the hangar deck and the track led out towards the airlock doors.
Narcissa crawled around the arm, inspecting it, and muttering to herself.
“Isn’t the ground crew supposed to release the arm once a ship is docked?” I asked.
“Depends,” Narcissa said. “A ship this big could cause a lot of damage if the hangar’s z-field generators fail. That’s probably why they’ve got her locked down.”
“How’s it controlled?”
“A couple of different ways,” she said. “There’s a flight tower, obviously, for the whole hangar. They’d have control over the landing and shunting systems. And there’s probably a terminal somewhere on the deck for the ground crew to use.”
I checked my Aura. “We’re running out of time.”
“Option three is to find the emergency release. That’s what I’m working on.”
“I’ll help. What are we looking for?”
“I’m not sure what they look like now, but in my day it was a manual lever. Possibly with a chain. Old school, you know?”
We were so intent on scouring the mooring arm assembly that we didn’t notice the cargo worker until he was right there.
“What’s the hold-up?” he asked. “I’m supposed to drive the shipment to area D in fifteen minutes and nothing’s even loaded.”
Narcissa looked at me, and kept her mouth shut. I got the hint.
“Weird radiation readings on one of the crates,” I said, off the top of my head. “We need to re-scan everything.”
“Uh huh. Then what are you doing down here?”
“There might be an energy leak from the mooring arm,” Narcissa said. “It could be messing with our equipment.”
“Well, what am I going to tell my guys?” the worker asked.
“It’s going to be a while. Couple of hours at least,” I said.
“Great.” He began to walk away, towards the cargo carrier.
“Hold up,” I called after him.
“What?”
“Where’s the access hatch?” I pointed at the recessed track on the deck. “We need to check under the ship.”
“More delays,” he groused, but then led me to a hatch that was fifteen meters away and behind a stack of equipment crates.
“Where’s your card?” he asked, pointing at the security panel set into the center of the hatch.
“I left it in the ship. Just use yours.”
He tilted his head in disbelief. “You know I can’t do that.”
I pressed my blaster into his side. “This says you can.”
“Hey, hold up, bro. No need to get hyper on me.” He flicked his card against the panel and I heard the maglocks release with a clang.
“Open it up,” I said.
Without a word, the worker did so, revealing a ladder leading down to a brightly lit, but narrow access tunnel.
I ordered the guy in, and after some complaining (which I cut short with the wave of my RB), he climbed down.
“I’m really not authorized to be down here,” he whined. “And neither are you, I’m guessing.”
“You’re right about that.”
“What?”
Then I cold-cocked him.
As I stepped over his unconscious body, I glanced at my Aura.
Only nine minutes left until we were supposed to get out of here. I needed to find that release lever.
I jogged through the access tunnel, hoping I was heading towards the Vostok. At several points, I had to squeeze past big tow units that took up most of the tunnel.
Soon I arrived beneath something very large that blocked out the light from the open track above me. It must be the ship. And sure enough there was a tow unit with a mooring arm extending up through the channel.
Come on. Where was that emergency release?
The arm was smooth and bare. Nothing there that might indicate any sort of external controls.
Then I caught a glimpse of a yellow and black striped safety decal on the tow unit itself. Recessed into the unit was a fist-sized pull bar above the stenciled words: EMERGENCY RELEASE.
Could it have been more obvious?
I yanked on the bar and was rewarded with a cascade of clangs and other mechanical sounds from within the mooring arm. Then a loud hum of servos sounded and the arm began to retract into the tow unit.
Thank Dynark.
I sprinted out of there and met Narcissa at the ramp.
“Whatever you did, it worked!” she said.
“Terrific. You get up to the bridge and help Ana-Zhi. I’ll get rid of these workers.”
“Aye aye.”
Painfully aware that we were almost out of time, I wrestled all six unconscious workers on to a hover-sled, and covered them with a tarp.
“Jannigan, it’s go time!” Chiraine’s voice sounded over the hold’s comm. “We need to seal it up.”
“Almost there,” I said.
Then I drove the cart out of the Vostok and unceremoniously plopped the bodies down near the cargo carrier train—hopefully out of view from the flight tower.
My Aura said one minute, thirty-four seconds. I hope to hell Narcissa was ready to fly.
As I headed back up the ramp, I heard the clack of weapons being brought to bear behind me.
Not good.
“Halt!”
When I turned around, I found myself facing a squad of heavily-armed legionnaires.
“Hands up, asshole! Now!”
“Hey guys, what’s going on? I’m just trying to—”
“Shut it!” The lead legionnaire swung his assault rifle in my direction. “I said to put your goddamn hands—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the legionnaire’s head vanished in a fiery bloom, courtesy of a bolt from the Vostok’s ion lance.
With the air suddenly lit up with the glow of ion blasts, I dove for the cargo bay doors just as they were whirring shut.
A stray blast from one of the legionnaires hit my armored spaulder, knocking me forward into the hold. But luckily I wasn’t injured. The doors clanged behind me.
I raced up to the bridge, barely glancing at the display screens which showed a feed from the hull’s cameras. Undercarriage-mounted CQ blasters twitched as they cut down the remaining legionnaires. But more would come. I knew that for sure.
The timer alarm on my Aura started beeping as I arrived at the bridge.
“We ready?” I asked.
“Almost!” Narcissa sat in the co-pilot’s seat, while Ana-Zhi occupied the pilot’s seat. Chiraine stood in front of the scanning station, flicking through the video feed.
“You want me to move, captain?” Narcissa asked.
“No, you’re good. I’m going up to man the guns. Anyone have eyes on the hangar?”
“Another squad arrived,” Chiraine said.
“They’re keeping their distance.”
“That’s good.”
“Not really. They’ve got a shoulder-mounted void cannon.”
“Ana-Zhi?” I called.
“Thirty seconds, kid!” She frantically punched at various controls on the main datapad.
“Narcissa, get the proximity plates charged. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Aye, aye, captain!”
As I climbed up into the gun turret, I felt the rumble as the defensive baffles began to charge.
“Hang on!” Narcissa yelled. “Incoming!”
I threw myself into the gunner’s swing seat, extended the turret out, and scanned the array of viewport screens. On one display I saw the first shot as it streamed out from the legionnaire’s cannon, an electric-blue surge of energy.
Then on another, I saw the bolt smash into our starboard nacelle, which flashed with ripples of energy against the shields.
The feed from the defense console lit up with various alarms. “They hit us hard!” Narcissa announced. “Negative thirty surge.”
“That’s insane,” Chiraine said. “All that from a mobile cannon?”
“The Mayir do like their toys,” I said.
“Also our shields need more than two minutes to fully charge,” Narcissa said.
Just then I felt the jump of our repulsors engaging and the whine of maneuvering jets extending into position.
“Hang tight, people!” Ana-Zhi said.
Where the hell was the Sean bot? Warning lights flashing on my weapons controller caught my attention. It had lost the connection with the daisy-chain targeting system. What the hells was going on?
Another cannon bolt rocked our hull, exploding into shock waves of energy visible on multiple screens.
“They’re trying to disrupt our thrusters,” Narcissa said. “This is going to be close.”
“Jannigan, why aren’t we shooting back?” Chiraine’s voice was filled with panic.
“Something’s jamming the CQ targeting module,” I said.
Then Ana-Zhi’s voice sounded over the comm. “That a good enough reason for you, princess!”
The ship lurched unsteadily as we hovered up off the deck.
“Turn us around!” I yelled to Ana-Zhi. “Give me the shot!” I’d have to go manual if we were going to defend ourselves.
“On it, captain!”
The console lights flickered as another bolt exploded against the hull.
“Negative seventy,” Narcissa reported. “Very bad.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some movement on one of the video viewports. A humanoid shape sprinted towards the ship, moving inhumanly fast, dodging blasts, rolling behind crates, and leaping up onto high-loaders.
I targeted the hull camera at the shape and activated image tracking. Then I zoomed in.
Chiraine had seen it too. “Is that…?”
“Yeah. That’s my dad.”
“Holy shit.”
I watched as the Sean bot dove between a generator pylon and a refueling station, tucking into a roll, and then sprang up and leapt over the heads of a trio of bewildered soldiers.
“Should we open the bay doors?” Chiraine asked.
“No, definitely not,” Narcissa said. “We’d have to shut down the prox plates and that would be suicide.”
“Won’t we have to shut them down anyway?” Chiraine asked. “How will he ever get on board?”
I had been thinking the same thing, but then the solution hit me.
“Keep the landing gear extended!” I yelled.
“You sure?” Narcissa asked.
“Absolutely.” Then I made a silent prayer to Dynark that the Sean bot was thinking what I was thinking.
14
The Vostok banked and we raced over the surface of the hangar, skimming just a few meters over the rows of parked Mayir craft.
I zoned out for a second, and then when I awoke I had launched a spray of mini-JAGs from our cannons. It was almost like I was on auto-pilot, peppering the line of stingrays with kinetic torpedoes. The parked starfighters convulsed and erupted in a chain of explosions.
“Woooo-hooo!” I shouted.
“Way to go, Jannigan!” Narcissa yelled.
“I thought our targeting was being jammed,” Chiraine said.
“That was all by eye, baby!” I said, hoping that the cocky edge in my voice would cover up for the fact that I had no idea of how I was able to hit those ships without a computer.
“Almost free!” Narcissa said.
I had to focus. We were not out of the woods yet. “Chiraine, we need to see the view of the landing gear.”
“I’m trying to find it!” Her fingers danced over the surface of her data pad, changing the hull camera viewport display to a different angle every second.
The Vostok lurched as we cleared the hangar’s magvac field and hurtled into space.
“Hang on!” Narcissa slammed the throttle and I felt the momentary crush of acceleration before the ship’s inertial dampeners cycled to compensate.
“He made it!” Chiraine exclaimed.
There on the hull camera display I saw the Sean bot, locked on to one of the landing struts.
“How long can he hang on out there?” she asked.
“Not long,” I said. “Tap the brakes, Narcissa!”
“On it!”
This was an incredibly risky maneuver, since we were still in range of the Baeder’s weapons, but we didn’t have a choice. We had to get the Sean bot inside.
“Narcissa, get down there and let him in,” I yelled. “Ana-Zhi, just keep us alive for three minutes!”
Narcissa’s long legs gave her enough speed to make it down to the lower hold in less than two minutes. “Cut the prox plates!” she yelled over the comms.
“Done!” Ana-Zhi said.
“Exterior doors open!” Narcissa said, over the comm.
“We have eyes on him,” Chiraine said.
I took a deep breath, my gut churning with anxiety.
“He’s in!” Ana-Zhi yelled. “Prox plates coming back online!”
“Get us out of here!”
I clambered down back to the bridge, then sprinted down to the lower hold. Narcissa had just closed the bay doors and cycled the atmosphere of the airlock. Then I saw the Sean bot appear through the airlock door porthole. He gave me a thumbs up and I let him in.
“Well done, JJ.” He clapped me on the shoulder with enough force to almost knock me off my feet. “You, too, new girl. Did you see those bastards?”
“Yeah, you were pretty amazing,” Narcissa said.
“Me?” he scoffed. “I’d say it was Ana-Zhi who gets the prize for this round. That was some shooting—especially while being jammed.”
“You knew about that?” I asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, it was actually me doing the shooting. Ana-Zhi flew the ship.”
“Are you serious?” he asked.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Well, that’s great. That’s just great.”
I didn’t know if it was because my father was a robot, but I kind of expected to hear a bit more enthusiasm in his voice.
“So where are we headed?” Narcissa asked.
“The Fountain,” the Sean bot said.
As we ran back to the bridge, the Sean bot explained that he had taken out the Baeder’s central targeting system and the three redundant units.
“It won’t last long, but it will buy us a few hours at least.”
“Won’t they just follow us?” I asked. “Sic some stingrays on us? I don’t think I got all of them.”
“You might be right,” he said. “Get back up on the guns.”
When Ana-Zhi saw the Sean bot, she shook her head in amazement. “You have more lives than my cat.”
“Jones is still around?” the Sean bot asked.
“Actually, it’s Jones the Third,” she said. “He’s a clone, but I hope I see the little guy again.”
“We’re working on it, Z.” He pointed to the pilot’s seat. “May I?”
“Sure.”
I climbed into the gun turret and extended it out into position. “Okay, I’m in position.”
“No sign of pursuers yet,” Narcissa said.
“They’re probably still standing there with their dicks in their hands,” Ana-Zhi said.
“Language, Z!” the Sean bot chided. “There are ladies present!”
“Sorry, gals.”
“I give them another twenty minutes,” the Sean bot said. “In the meantime, I need to find something in the hold. Jannigan, I want you to run full diagnostics and calibration on all the weapons systems, and make sure the prox plates aren’t shorting or draining or anything other than running at full opt. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said.
It felt weird to be here with my dad—or this simulation of my dad, if that’s what he was—working side by side, like I was a member of his regular crew or something.
We had never really done anything work-related together. Sure, one summer when I was seventeen I went to work on a dig Beck Salvage had on Trandrilla 3, but my dad never showed up there except when he dropped me off. And after that everyone knew who I was, which turned out to be kind of an unpleasant experience.
Once I graduated from college, old Sean wanted me to enter the Beck Salvage training program, and we had a lot of discussions about it. But by that time I had set my sights on being a professional partier and ne’er-do-well, so I really couldn’t be bothered.
But if you pressed me, I would have to admit that the past ten years hadn’t really turned out the way I imagined. Yeah, I traveled the galaxy, did a freighter full of drugs, went to roughly 3,000 utterly sick parties, and had sex with almost that many women.
Okay, maybe not that many, but a lot. More than I can remember—unlike Lirala. She has what she calls “a pornographic memory” that allows her to remember exactly which sexual acts she’s done, how many times she’s done them, and who she did them with. First name, last name, hair color, family pedigree. She remembers everyone. It’s a little scary.
But beyond the sex, drugs, partying, extreme sports, going to incredibly expensive restaurants and clubs, and bullshitting with my friends, I really hadn’t done much. Up until now, that is. I really think I’d packed a decade’s worth of really living into the past ten or eleven days or so.
