Asymmetry

by A. G. Claymore

  “Spool up and start targeting,” he ordered. “Jump as soon as you get a green target.”

  He touched the countdown icon for his own jump and leaned back in his seat. He pulled out his knife and wrapped the strap on its hilt around his fingers.

  The rest was faster than thought.

  The icon flashed once and then the engines, his beloved engines, kicked in. Reality streaked briefly then resolved into a flash of bulkheads, stanchions and fire.

  And then it was over.

  June’s assault-shuttle– Rykeria

  “Thor…” Freya had barely registered the pencil-thin line that intersected with the enemy cruiser before the gigantic ship shattered. The pieces seemed to move faster in the initial fireball than they were now. It was probably just an optical illusion.

  “We’ve got green!” the pilot told her.

  “You heard Thor,” she said, not wanting to step on his final order. “You know what to do.”

  The Voyage Home

  “Okay,” Freya said, stepping into their quarters, “I’m here. What’s the big emergency?” She noticed the look on her husband’s face and stopped walking. “What?”

  “There’s a rebellion going on,” he told her, gesturing at a newsfeed, “back on 3428.”

  She sat, or rather dropped and a couch happened to be there for her. “Viggo?” she whispered.

  “Reports are too sketchy,” he told her, opting not to mention the one that claimed their son had been killed in the jungle.

  “We…” She shook her head. “We need to get back there! We left him alone with those snakes!”

  “He’ll be alright.”

  “How do you know that?” she demanded. “Of all the things for me not to see… What’s the use of seidr when I can’t even see a threat to my own son?”

  “He’ll pull through,” Rick insisted, leaning down to take her hand, “but we need to pass new coordinates to the fleet before we jump again.”

  “Gods!” She sprang to her feet, letting go of Rick’s hand. “We’ve only got five minutes before the next jump! I’d better order a halt while we work up an approach to 3428!”

  One jump from Weirfall and a hero’s welcome for Gabiola. Now they had two jumps – at least – to 3428 and a new fight.

  Gabs would just have to wait a little longer.

  Taking Control

  Solomon Arco, Planet 3428

  Viggo held out a hand, stopping his two companions. He turned to look at them. “Two guards outside the door,” he whispered. If he’d kept walking, he would have turned the corner and drawn their attention in the next few strides. He waved the monk and chimera back a few meters.

  “It’s a rebellion, uprising...” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “Whatever you want to call it, this kind of thing usually takes the form of a shifting landscape. Folks who promised to back a leader might just be standing behind him so they’re in the right spot to slip a knife between his ribs and take the lead job.”

  “How is this connected to the guards?”

  “I’m telling you all this because you’re going to use it to get us into the control room. In an environment like this, when a power shift happens, it happens fast and it happens dirty. Anyone whose loyalty comes into question…”

  “Like those guards,” Roj realized.

  A nod. “They were stationed outside the control center by the current power structure. If that structure is about to get toppled by an opportunistic group, then the guards can’t be relied on.

  “They’re nobodies,” Viggo continued, “in the grand scheme of the rebellion, that is, and they’re armed with rifles and possibly-outdated loyalties. The first few weeks in any coup attempt are the deadliest for all involved and door guards are no exception.”

  “Got it!” Roj closed his eyes.

  Viggo grabbed the monk’s shoulder. “Make sure they’re afraid of something from this direction as well or they’ll be screaming about a chimera loose in the city.”

  “Of course,” Roj retorted but his face had betrayed a moment of surprise. “This isn’t my first hunt, you know!”

  Viggo rolled his eyes and took his hand away.

  Roj closed his eyes again, tilting his head slightly as if to better hear what was down the hall. His right hand raised slightly, fingers extended.

  Viggo edged closer to the corner.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” a muffled voice reached him from around the corner.

  “Nell’s faction, right?” the other answered. “Those guys have been writing their own script from the start of this whole thing. You hear about the traders she sent out to kill young Rickson?”

  “Yeah, it’s all over NowThink. They told us nobody would get hurt.”

  “She’s changed the plan, hasn’t she? If you ask me, they’re in there right now changing the rest of the plan.”

  “What?” the voice sounded afraid already. “Nobody’s gone past us for hours!”

  “S’not the only way in, though, is it? The main conduit trunk runs down the outside of the building. If you have clearance to enter it on the lower floors, you can just walk right into the interface room up here.”

  “Shit! They’re in there right now, aren’t they?”

  “You got that feeling too? They’re not going to let us… What was that?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t give a shit! C’mon!”

  The sound of pounding feet followed and it receded quickly.

  Viggo grinned back at his friends. “That went well! Let’s get in there before someone else comes along and wonders where the guards are.”

  They rounded the corner and stopped at the nondescript door.

  “So this is the control room?” Roj asked. “The beating heart of the whole arco where every security feed, door control and energy flow is managed?” he gestured vaguely at the simple door.

  “Why, it’s a veritable fortress, this place! Do we just stroll in or should we bypass all this impressive security and kick a hole through the wall?”

  “Uh huh,” Viggo grunted, stepping closer to the hand scanner. “I suppose you’d design this door with a big sign that says ‘Control Room – top recommended destination in this month’s Invaders Weekly’’?”

  He scanned his hand. It was the first time he’d allowed his biometrics to be read since entering the city but this was the time to cast the dice. The door opened to reveal a short, two meter hallway. At the other end was a much heavier door.

  “This door’s a half meter thick and made mostly of alloy 365. It’s the real security door.”

  Alloy 365 was only made on one world and its exact composition was a closely guarded secret. Not a single microgram of the stuff ever left the foundry until it was formed into its final shape and accompanied by a company installation team.

  “So… no kicking our way in?”

  He shook his head. “They’ll have changed out the access codes as soon as they took over.” He placed his hand on a wall panel in the middle of the right-hand side of the short hall. He pressed in and to the left until he heard a click. He pushed down, left, up and, finally, to the right, each time waiting for the click.

  Another panel opened above the one he’d been pressing. “We made sure there was a way to bypass the door,” he explained. “Despite all our talk about reconciliation and trust, some of the Fletchers tried to kill my parents, shortly after they came to power. That was fresh in their minds when they designed Solomon.”

  “Does that mean you don’t really trust your young lady-friend?”

  “She’s one of the few people on this planet I’d trust my life with,” Viggo insisted, reaching in the new opening to grasp a handle.

  “You sure your brain isn’t getting overruled by your libido?”

  Viggo frowned for a moment, then looked Roj in the eye. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Yeah,” he repeated again with more force. “I’m sure.” He pulled on the handle and the door rumbled into the wall to the left.

 
He waved for his companions to wait and he stepped through the door.

  Roughly thirty security techs sat at a ring of terminals, facing outward. There were openings on four sides with an empty, round, glazed office in the center.

  Most of the techs ignored him completely but a few nearest to him looked up before returning to their screens. It felt anticlimactic.

  I would have expected more of a response, he thought, mildly alarmed. The central office’s glazing suddenly went opaque and then formed a holographic image of Martin Fletcher.

  Martin was a distant relation to Hallie, perhaps an uncle of a third cousin. Viggo had the feeling, though, that he was Barry Fletcher’s first cousin. He knew Barry wouldn’t refrain from killing him on that account, though, and he had an entire planetary expedition force of Alliance Marines on the .

  “Well, well,” Viggo drawled. He didn’t know what he was going to say but he’d seen Martin’s smirk and knew he was about to say something smug. Control of the confrontation’s flow may not seem like much but only a fool threw away easy advantages.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Viggo continued, “after the dog buried it in the composter feeds.” He sauntered closer. “Thought you were still off-world.”

  “I’m back,” Martin said smoothly, “and you shouldn’t be in that room, young man.”

  “Shouldn’t I?” Viggo asked calmly. He could see Martin was broadcasting the conversation city-wide, so he chose his words carefully. “This arco was commissioned by my parents to be the capital of 3428. They paid for its construction. The planet it sits on is an integral part of their fief and, while they’re away on assignment, their heir is the de facto lord.”

  “Viggo, it’s Hallie,” a voice intruded through his aural implant. “What the hells is going on up there? We’re down on the main concourse and the venting has all shut down. We’re running out of air!”

  “Hallie?” he subvocalized.

  “It’s a shame you’ve managed to infiltrate the control room,” Martin oozed. “Cutting off air to your own people like that…” The head shook sadly. “You’re as much a traitor as your filthy parents!”

  “Restore the ventilation,” Viggo yelled at the technicians.

  “Can’t,” replied a sullen tech. “Our terminals are locked out of the venting controls.”

  “Viggo, we can all see your conversation down here,” Hallie told him. “Folks are starting to wonder who the bad guy is…”

  “I’m working on it, Hallie,” he subvocalized. “Trust me.”

  Elder sister, he thought, this would be a good time for you to join me in here. These people need a little encouragement.

  “I’m sure the Alliance will see my side of things,” Martin said, an accusatory edge in his voice for the benefit of the public record. “Once they see how your family treats their own citizens. I can’t believe you’re trying to kill thousands of your own…”

  His face contorted in shock. “Gods, no!” His face tilted backward and he fell out of the image, accompanied by a crashing sound.

  The techs screamed in terror and tried to climb on top of or underneath their work stations as the chimera stalked into the room.

  Roj wandered in behind her but nobody noticed.

  “You all may be able to see what I’ll do in the next few seconds,” he told them, “but she’s unpredictable and she picks up on my mood, so don’t piss me off!”

  “You!” He pointed at the tech who’d told him there was nothing he could do and the man whimpered. “Restore the air circulation to the main concourse!”

  “I told you I c… can’t…”

  The chimera chuffed, a loud blast of air through her nostrils and the entire control-room staff jumped as though attached to a single set of puppeteer’s strings. The unhelpful man half-shouted something unintelligible, his hands held out palms forward in a hopeless attempt to protect himself.

  “Can’t?” Viggo roared. “Martin Fletcher is about to murder thousands of people and your refusal to help stop him makes you an accessory to their deaths.”

  “I swear it’s the truth,” the man wailed. “We only have visuals now. Just before you came in, we were locked out of every system in the city!”

  Viggo looked at the screens. They showed every part of the city, industrial, residential, the commercial zone where his supporters were running out of breathable air, the drone swarm building the new spaceport…

  Every system in the city, he thought. IN the city…

  “Right!” he said suddenly. “We’re going to save those people. I need volunteers.”

  Fearful silence.

  “Nobody feels like helping?”

  A deep warbling rumble escaped from the chimera and everyone jumped but they scrambled back into their seats.

  “Good! Now, first step is for us to cut the feed from this room so the terrorists don’t know what we’re doing and figure out a way around it.” He figured, with the attempt to suffocate thousands of citizens, Martin and his cronies deserved the description.

  “Terrorists?” Martin exclaimed querulously.

  Viggo looked back at the office glazing. His nemesis seemed to have picked himself up off the floor, though he’d lost a lot of ground in the public relations war. He had been broadcasting the conversation on a twenty-second delay, giving himself enough time to cut it off if Viggo had said anything damaging.

  While Martin was lying on the floor, Viggo had managed to say a lot of damaging things, things that were corroborated by what the techs had been saying.

  The face disappeared.

  “We’re isolated from the broadcast queue,” a technician told him.

  “Can I get an independent confirmation on that?” Viggo asked the room.

  Several sets of hands flew over holographic keypads.

  “Yep!” A young woman nodded.

  “Nothing in or out,” another confirmed. “We’re with you, Lord. Let’s save those people!”

  Viggo looked at her in mild surprise. He’d known she was going to say that but sometimes it was more polite to react. He was relieved by the answer that was forming in her mind.

  “We all have family down there,” she said. “How can we help them if we’re locked out?’

  Viggo pointed at one of the screens. “Are you locked out of the construction menus?”

  Blank stares looked back at him for a few seconds but some of them recovered quickly.

  “We have access to the construction systems!” A young man turned away from his screen. “How are we going to use that?”

  “First things first,” Viggo stalked over to him. “Lock out the system so only this terminal can grant access. I’ll have you parcel out the work to the rest of the team.”

  “Done.”

  “Good! Now get into the deficiencies menu and take control of all the corrective units in the drone swarm.”

  “The corrective…” His eyes lit up. “The ones that do all the cutting and blasting?”

  “Exactly.” Viggo clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s keep the interlocks active so we don’t accidentally cut off critical systems while we’re cutting temporary ventilation shafts.”

  “Is this the time to worry about that?” Roj asked quietly.

  “It certainly is,” Viggo replied firmly. “No good saving them from asphyxiation only to let them starve because we cut off water or food distribution.”

  “We’ve got roughly three hundred fifty corrective drones,” the tech said. “Any more than twenty in one place is probably going to be too crowded.”

  “Split them into seventeen groups and start assigning them to the other techs.” Viggo leaned in and drew a ring around the lower part of the city and then another near the top where the concourse ended. “I want two sets of shafts created. A lower group and a higher one. With the venting system shut down, the heat levels are rising in the concourse. All those warm bodies combined with the sunlight hitting the outside shells…”

  “And that hot air will ris
e,” the tech said, passing out parcels of drones to his co-workers, “pulling in fresh air from the jungle through the lower holes we’re making, yes?”

  “Exactly,” Viggo confirmed. “Once we’ve…”

  He spun around at the sound of Martin’s voice. His face was back on the glazing. “You won’t be spreading any more lies,” Martin snarled.

  “He’s back on broadcast,” a tech said, just loud enough for Viggo to hear.

  “Hullo, Martin,” Viggo said. “Managed to find some clean pants to change into, did you?” He wasn’t sure what to make of what he saw coming. Clearly Martin was too angry and distracted to notice, though, to be honest, he wasn’t known for his precog abilities.

  “Enough!” Martin yelled. “I’ve had enough of your lies! By the gods, you will pay! I’ll show you what we do with traitors!”

  It was at this point that the front of his face exploded outward. He slumped out of sight, his eyebrows, the only recognizable feature left, still knitted together in rage.

  “Wow!” Viggo dipped his head, nodding slightly in acknowledgment. “You gotta respect Martin for carrying through on his promises. He said he’d show us… Oh, hello, Nell! Did you just shoot your own cousin?”

  Hallie’s aunt took Martin’s place in the projection. She was an attractive woman, the aging process having been slowed by the vaccination in her late teens. The effects of hard drinking still showed, though. She was thin, and her skin had a yellowish cast to it. Sweat beaded on her forehead, though that could easily be due to the stress of trying to overthrow a planetary government with only a flimsy pretext and an uncertain population.

  “You can’t stop this, Viggo,” she said.

  Something about the way she said his name made him shudder.

  “Viggo…” Hallie’s voice crackled in his aural implants. “…Something’s happening below us! I hear explosions and cutting…”

  “We’re using the construction swarm to create temporary air passages,” he subvocalized. “If you hear them they must be close.”