by M. D. Cooper
Jack changed the subject by describing the features of the command hab airlock. Once through, the tour quickly reached the Amplified Solution’s command section.
The command deck was as impressive as Jack had promised. Osla and Harrin walked right into the two-tiered room, but Cara stood in the doorway for a minute, taking in the sweep of the work consoles, the massive holotank, and the pilot’s and captain’s stations overlooking the rest of the positions.
Without meaning to, Cara found herself imagining her old crew at these consoles, and local space in the holodisplay, as they played cat and mouse with a freighter. The three separate weapons control consoles were enough to make her drool.
“This is trash,” Osla said. He stood behind the captain’s seat with his fists on his hips. “You expect me to sit in that thing? What material is that? It looks like plascrete.”
Cara stepped fully into the room, breathing deep of the scents of new plas, metal polish, and the bit of excess moisture in the environmental controls.
That will need looking into.
Walking around the edge of the deck, she got a look at the captain’s seat to see what Osla was complaining about.
The seat was made of a rough leather amalgam, designed, she knew, to grip the body during hard-g maneuvers. The material also repelled blood.
“You sit in it,” Osla said, waving at Cara. “I can see you practically drooling over there. We’ll get a vid op. You owe me anyway.”
“I’d be happy to sit in the command position, Chancellor,” Cara said. “As long as you’re sure that’s what you want.”
“Whatever.”
“Please,” Jack said, sounding like he was afraid he was going to lose the sale. “Take the seat, Captain Sykes. I think you’ll find all systems are in excellent condition. You can also access all the workstations from the command position via Link, in the event of failure or maintenance. I think you’ll be quite surprised by how easy the systems are to control.”
Cara approached the seat, glancing at Jack again, then slid into place. The material was firm but inviting, and the chair folded around her body as she sat upright, but invited her to lean back if she wanted. It was both rigid and responsive.
“I’ll pass you the control token so you can check it out,” Jack said. He seemed happy to have someone interested in his sales pitch.
“That would be wonderful,” Cara said.
She received the security token and pulled up every command interface the Amplified Solution had.
The sensation in her Link was like slipping into warm water. She hadn’t controlled a ship since leaving her crew. The feeling of comfort and power filled her immediately as she flipped through systems, checking statuses, and comparing the Amplified Solution to Forward Momentum, which she realized was like pitting a house cat against a panther. Amplified Solution was a lithe beast, with many tricks up her sleeve that Jack had neglected to mention during his speeches.
“You’re moaning,” Jack said. “Is that good?”
Cara opened her eyes and looked at him. “Yes,” she said. “Very good. How many small orbital habs would I need to sell to get my hands on this ship?”
Jack laughed woodenly as he glanced at Osla, who was back to whispering with Harrin.
“I think you’ll find the Amplified Solution is extremely reasonably priced, once you consider everything it has to offer. That’s the great thing about buying refurbished. You get a brand new ship at less than eighty percent of the new price. And I think you’ll find that it has a number of amenities that you just can’t find on the newer models. It’s really the best of both worlds.”
“I believe you,” Cara said, grabbing the ends of the chair’s armrests with both hands. Knowledge of the ship’s capabilities coursed through her like an extension of her own body. While there wasn’t any real connection between her and the craft, Cara’s heart raced at the memories rushing through her, brought on by every system she checked, from the engines to the defensive shields. The feeling was like riding a stallion.
“Ha! I found your espresso machine,” she said.
She checked the rings of point defense cannons, the railguns, missile batteries, and even the secondary attack systems that could use the main torch as a weapon. The communications arrays offered overpower configurations that could burn through a station, while the active and passive scanning systems allowed her to check active traffic as far away as Europa without outside input.
Cara started to feel a bit drunk on the ship.
“I’ve really missed this,” she said, glancing at Jack again. He was still watching Osla and Harrin. “You think you’re going to get your sale today?” she asked.
Jack pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I thought the Andersonians would jump on it. I must have caught him on a bad day.”
“What about all those other rich folks in your lunch room?”
“They were for show. This is all for Osla. The ship was practically designed for him. He doesn’t have a flagship, and it’s well known he’s trying to project power outside Luna.”
Thinking back to the secret army, Cara could only silently agree.
A sensor in the secondary command airlock caught her attention.
“Are you expecting another shuttle to dock, then?” she asked Jack.
“Nope. We’re alone until their majesties decide to go back.”
“Interesting,” Cara said. “You’ve definitely got someone docking at the second airlock. I just tried a registry ping, and nothing’s coming back. I’d call that strange.”
Jack frowned. “That is strange.”
“You want me to alert the crew?”
“There is no crew. Just us and the stewards. Everything else is only NSAI control.”
Cara switched an internal airlock camera to the holodisplay, which came to life in time to show six people in combat armor pouring out of a shuttle.
“Is this part of the show?” Cara asked, raising an eyebrow at Jack.
The salesman had gone ashen. “No,” he squeaked.
Cara stood from the captain’s seat. She put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “You got any guns?” she asked.
He pointed a shaking finger at a cabinet beside the communications station.
Cara slapped his shoulder. “Excellent,” she said. “Let’s take a look. Oh, you should warn Osla’s guards.”
“Right,” Jack said. He ran for the comms console.
Osla noticed Jack’s frantic movements. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
“Hostiles in the habitat,” Cara said. “I’m checking this cabinet for weapons. You want one?”
Osla looked at Jack, who was sliding toward the exit.
“Hey,” Cara said, following Osla’s line of sight to the escaping Jack. “You were calling for help.”
“I’m sorry,” the salesman said frantically. “I have to get out of here.”
“You set me up,” Osla roared. He pulled out his pistol and shot Jack in the shoulder.
The salesman slammed against the side of the door and slid to the deck. He held up his hands helplessly.
“I didn’t. I swear. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Osla walked forward with the pistol aimed at Jack’s head. “Who hired you?”
“I work for Renovate. This is a standard sales show. I don’t know what’s going on, Chancellor. Please. I sent the emergency hail. The TSF should be here any minute.”
Shouts filled the corridor beyond Jack, followed by the sounds of pulse fire. Cara smelled burned plas.
The weapons cabinet was open in front of her, providing access to ten projectile rifles, a portable defensive shield, grenades, and a rack of pistols. Cara grabbed the shield, a rifle, and a grenade bandolier.
“Look out,” she said, pushing past Osla and Jack into the corridor.
She threw down the shield pack and kicked its activation switch. The device unfolded to form a two-meter-high barricade. The material looked barely thick enough to
stop anti-personnel rounds, but was better than nothing.
Cara pulled the grenades out of the bandolier, set them for scatter bursts, and arranged them at the base of the shield, ready to throw.
As she expected, two of Osla’s soldiers appeared around the curve of the hab ring, firing rapidly at something out of sight.
“Harrin, you fool,” Osla shouted behind Cara. “Get a rifle and get up here. We need every weapon we can get. You too,” he told Jack.
“You shot me!” the salesman complained.
“I shot you in the shoulder. You can use your other arm. Do you want to die in space? Hurry up.”
Osla yanked the thin salesman up by his shirt and pushed him toward Harrin and the weapons cabinet.
As Osla’s two bodyguards fell in on either side of him at the barricade, the retreating soldiers spotted them and sprinted for cover.
When the first one slid behind the barricade, Cara asked, “Who’s attacking?”
“Private security,” the soldier said, panting. He held his side where he had been badly burned. “They’re in light combat armor with full faceshields. Armed with pulse pistols, rifles, and a drone that keeps jumping all over the place. I think the drone got me.”
“Did they say what they wanted?” Cara asked.
The soldier shook his head. “We’re outgunned, though. They’ve got more people behind them with crew-served weapons and heavier drones. I think they were trying to take us out quietly, but we fought back.”
“You did well,” Osla said. “You’ve made me proud.”
“Thank you, Chancellor,” the soldier said. “I’ll feel better when we’re off this damned ship.”
“Me too,” Cara said.
As another Andersonian soldier sprinted around the curve of the ring, firing behind them, Cara waited with a grenade in her throwing hand.
A final Andersonian came around the corner, limping as he fired. Just behind him appeared a single attacker dressed in black armor.
“You got him?” Cara asked the soldier standing next to her with a rifle at his shoulder.
Without answering, he squeezed his trigger.
The mercenary’s helmet jerked backward, and then three more shots caught him in the shoulder and thigh. He stumbled backward, giving the soldier time to throw herself behind the barricade.
Cara sent her first grenade bouncing along the deck at ankle height. It was three meters past the stumbling attacker when it exploded. Overpressure rattled the barricade, and Cara locked her magboots to the deck as the corridor filled with grey dust.
Without enhanced optics, she was forced to let the smoke settle slightly. Movement separated from the smoke as more black uniforms entered the corridor, and she fired on every center of mass she could see.
The Andersonians joined her, shooting into the smoke.
“I need one person to come with me,” Cara said. “I’m going to cut back around to the second airlock. Let’s hope they aren’t already trying to flank us. Who’s coming?”
“I’ll go,” Osla said. “I want to know who these assholes are.”
“Chancellor,” his sergeant said. “We need you to stay with us. We can’t risk your direct involvement.”
“I’m already directly involved. You stay here and lead this fight. I’ll take one guard with me just to keep you happy.”
The sergeant nodded unhappily and pointed at one of his subordinates, a thick-armed woman with a grenade launcher.
More figures dashed out of the smoke, closer than Cara had expected. The soldiers hunkered behind the barricade and put down suppressing fire. One sharp-eyed soldier caught a grenade as it arced over the barricade, and tossed it back into the smoke. An explosive flash followed a second later.
“Let’s go,” Cara said.
When she was certain Osla was following, she broke into a jog along the inner wall of the habitat ring.
“I’m coming with you,” Jack said, falling in alongside Osla. His left side was blood-soaked from his shoulder.
“You can come,” Osla said, “but if I get even a hint that you know these interlopers, I’m blowing your head off.”
“That would be fine, Chancellor,” Jack said wearily.
Cara kept moving, passing closed doors to living areas and a second galley with its own espresso maker. The crack and boom of combat on the other side of the ring were the only sounds she heard, until a voice rang clearly from just out of sight.
“What do you mean they haven’t taken the command deck,” a woman demanded angrily. “That was supposed to happen at t-plus five. What’s taking so long?”
“You sent idiots, that’s what’s taking so long,” Cara called out. She walked around the corner with a grenade in her hand, ready to throw.
She had pulled her arm back to toss when she realized the woman who had been speaking was Amanda. Jentry and Pedro stood just behind her at the airlock, all three dressed in black combat armor. Jentry’s nose stood like a rudder above his snarling grin.
“Idiots, huh?” he demanded.
Cara stared at the agent. “What are you doing here? Are you here to help? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Amanda and Pedro raised their weapons and moved away from the airlock.
Cara frowned, not understanding what they were doing. She expected the mercs to come around the corner any second.
“You just can’t die well enough, can you?” Jentry asked. He raised his pistol and fired a three-round burst at Cara’s head.
PLAN NUMBER TWO
STELLAR DATE: 3.23.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Near-Luna Orbit, MSS Amplified Solution
REGION: Luna, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Cara jerked to the side and the rounds caught a soldier behind her. He fell, gasping.
There was no cover between the two groups. Cara raised her rifle and fired on the Terrans, until the weapon went into a cooling sequence. She kept moving.
The TSF spies had nowhere to go but back into the airlock. Pedro hugged the edge of the door and squeezed off rounds from a scatter rifle, forcing Cara and Osla back around the hab’s curve. When she was just out of sight of the airlock, Cara sent a grenade rolling along the floor toward the doorway.
“What did you set it for?” Osla asked.
“Another mass concussion. It shouldn’t damage the airlock.”
The grenade exploded, sending a flash of fire down the corridor.
“That wasn’t a concussion blast,” Osla complained, covering his head.
Cara patted out flames in the ends of her hair. She shrugged and nodded at the soldiers. “Come on.”
“They follow me,” Osla said. He raised a rifle he’d grabbed from one of his fallen soldiers and charged into the drifting smoke.
“All right, then,” Cara said. She ran after him, with the others just behind.
Cara spotted Pedro with his hands over his ears, eyes squeezed closed. Blood covered his cheeks. Amanda leaned against the edge of the airlock, an arm over her eyes.
Osla ran directly up to Pedro and buttstroked him with his rifle, then turned to point the weapon at Amanda, who didn’t register his presence.
The chancellor smiled, realizing she had been blinded by flash burns. He dropped the rifle to one hand and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her. Then he threw her down at his feet.
“You’re all going to die in one of my prisons,” Osla said.
Amanda looked up at the sound of his voice, still squinting. She bared her teeth.
From out of nowhere, Jentry drove his shoulder into Osla’s back. The chancellor sprawled forward, dropping his rifle, and stumbled into the airlock. In another rush of movement, Jentry hit the airlock security control and sealed the door.
Cara raised her rifle, drawing a bead on Jentry.
“Let him out,” she commanded.
Jentry raised his hands, smiling at her. He stepped away from the panel.
Cara walked forward. Osla was on his feet, banging against the plas window in th
e airlock door. He pointed at Jentry, mouth moving angrily, but no words made it through the reinforced door.
“I can’t control the airlock,” Jentry said.
The sergeant came around Cara and punched the spy in the mouth. “You locked him in,” the Andersonian said. “You can get him out.”
Jentry fell against the wall. He waited there with his head down, then wiped his bleeding lip. He put his hands on his knees and looked up at them.
“I’ll tell you what. I can’t open the airlock, but I can do something about the ship on the other side.”
“Wait,” Cara said as his plan became clear.
The wall vibrated, metal moaning with strain. Cara turned to look through the door at Osla just as the exterior wall of the airlock was torn away. Space appeared at the edges of the broken wall as the transport turned away from the Amplified Solution.
Osla grabbed onto a safety handle inside the airlock as the atmosphere rushed out. He managed to hold on while the tear was only a meter wide. But as soon as the transport pulled away completely, he lost his grip.
His eyes met Cara’s as he tried to adjust his hands, then slipped free altogether.
The chancellor blew out into space.
Cara stared in disbelief.
Maybe Osla is just meant to die?
The Andersonian soldiers shouted with fear and terror. They crowded the airlock window, while the sergeant turned his attention to systematically beating Jentry, his fists falling on the spy like hammers.
“Hold on,” Cara said, catching the sergeant’s arm. She leaned toward Jentry. “Why did you do this? Is it assassination? Or is someone picking him up out there?”
Jentry’s face was mush. He shook his head loosely. “Nobody’s picking him up. Osla is a dead man.”
“You told me not to hurt him.”
Jentry spat blood. “You should have been dead already.”
Conflicting anger bounced in Cara’s mind. On one hand, she wanted Osla to suffer for what he’d done to her, manipulating her for what had apparently been his amusement…but she also wanted to inflict that suffering herself. Jentry and the TSF had used her to create this second assassination attempt.
