by M. D. Cooper
Job boards were even posted to one side of the bar, the holodisplay slowly scrolling through several popular feeds in a repeating loop.
Calista sent Jason a location pin as she slid into a booth in the back of the bar and waved a servitor over. She was momentarily surprised when she heard Shannon’s voice in her head. She’d forgotten for a moment that the AI had asked if she could tag along via the Link this evening.
“I don’t know,” Calista sub-vocalized, looking around at the crowd. “He’s a pilot.”
Calista eyed the woman.
Shannon made a sound over the Link that sounded like fingers snapping.
Shannon made a noise that sounded awfully like a snort of derision to Calista.
Calista rolled her eyes and caught sight of the object of their discussion standing in front of her, and she was horrified to find herself blushing slightly. Which was ridiculous, because he had absolutely no way of knowing she and Shannon were discussing him.
“How did you sneak up on me like that?” Calista demanded, and Jason’s eyebrows rose as he grinned lazily at her.
“Well, hel-loooo to you, too,” he drawled, then made an inquiring motion to the seat across from her.
“Wait, just…one,” Calista held up a finger to Jason and focused on Shannon.
She heard a heavy sigh.
Jason grinned again. “Let me guess, a Chief Pilot’s work is never done?”
“Well, it beats having to check the boards every time I come in here, wondering when my next job’s going to come through, or where the flight’s going to take me,” she retorted, but without any heat.
Jason stabbed an imaginary knife through his heart. “Ouch! Need I remind you that I was gainfully employed for a good two months out of the last three? And spent them flying Enfield machines, too.”
“Well, at least we know you didn’t kill any crew in the process. Our safety interlocks are set so that even a ham-handed pilot such as the likes of you couldn’t mess things up too badly.” Calista’s eyes twinkled at Jason. “But enough shop talk. Tell me about yourself, Jason Andrews. I want to know every sordid detail.”
“You’ll have to buy me the Plasma Special for that kind of intel.” Jason settled back, throwing his arm across the empty seat next to him. “You see, I was born at a very young age….”
* * * * *
“So? Did you end up at her place?” Tobias’s voice projected into the mainspace, as Jason entered the apartment.
Before Jason could respond, Tobi entered from the kitchen and greeted Jason with a rumbling trill. She padded after him, as he walked into the living area and tossed his jacket over a chair.
“Mmmaaaaaaybe,” Jason drew out, and he could feel the grin on his face as he settled back on the sofa and kicked his heels up onto the low table in front of it.
“I do hate it when you leave me behind,” Tobias grumbled. “You always cut me out of the juicy stuff.”
“Sorry, dude,” Jason sounded completely unrepentant. “Not into threesomes.”
Tobi leapt up next to him on the sofa and sprawled halfway across his lap, purring.
Tobias snorted. “So? Details? Give ‘em up, boyo!”
“Mmm, well, she has a condo over in that trendy new development on the east side of the lake.” Jason leaned past Tobi and reached into a drawer as he spoke, pulling out a bundle that looked like thin plastic tubing. It separated into two short sections that he absently began to roll around in his hands.
“Sounds like Chief Pilot pays pretty well,” Tobias commented. “Ever considered going for a gig like that?”
“Eh,” Jason shrugged. “Plenty of time for a career later. Besides, she served several years in the ESF before landing that job.”
“Nothing says you couldn’t do the same,” Tobias countered.
The pieces of tubing glinted as thin filaments embedded in the material caught the light. Jason inserted them in his ears with practiced moves that came from years of use. He grimaced slightly as he adjusted first one, then the other.
He snorted. “Can you see me as captain—or major, for that matter—of anything, ever?”
“At the risk of sounding like I’m significantly older and wiser than you,” Tobias said in a rare moment of adulting, “Yeah, I can. Seriously, Jase. You could do anything you set your mind to.”
“Thanks, Tobe,” Jason said with a quick look of appreciation, before he began rotating his head and neck, adjusting to the disorientation he always felt when he inserted the tubes into his ears.
The filaments that relayed the secured Link to his brain curled deep into his auditory canal, preventing his ears from receiving sound waves as they normally did. This change in auditory input always caused a bit of vertigo until his brain adjusted to it.
This secured, private access Link was as close as Jason would ever get to the experience of being embedded with an AI. Somehow, the fidelity of their connection was crisper, more nuanced than a regular Link.
Tobias had told him it wasn’t quite the same as being embedded, but it was close. The filaments’ proximity to Jason’s neural net allowed the AI to pick up far more than he ordinarily would by simply connecting over a Link.
He sent Tobias a ‘wait’ signal when his Link indicated that his brother-in-law was pinging him.
Jason quirked an eyebrow at Tobias and sent to him privately,
Tobias’s avatar raised the cat’s eyebrows in a quizzical look that almost had Jason laughing out loud.
Jason shot the Tobys a look.
cal ring shuttling for them tomorrow. They have an ore hauler scheduled in from one of those mining rigs of theirs…Thiton, I think. Or was it Gliton?> Jason sent a shrug over the Link.
Wonder what’s up.
Judith had sounded fine the last time they’d talked, so that was probably not it. Jason hoped Ben wasn’t planning on dragging him into some messy family thing. If that was going to be the case, best they meet somewhere he knew Ben wouldn’t be likely to hang around for long.
Like that was the kind of food Jason had ever seen Ben eat.
Something is definitely up.
Jason dropped the bar’s location pin to his brother-in-law over the Link, and they disconnected.
“Now, I wonder what that was all about.”
SHOWTIME
STELLAR DATE: 07.03.3189 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Enfield Aerospace Docks
REGION: El Dorado Ring, Alpha Centauri System
“The Chairman of the Clean Space Initiative has announced a new goal for the coming fiscal year: legislation aimed at enforcing an expiration date on all derelict ships.
This would mean that owners are responsible for fully breaking down and recycling or incinerating all parts of decommissioned ships by a specified deadline.
It is the hope of the Committee overseeing this initiative that this will relieve the overcrowding in orbital boneyards, those space ‘burial grounds,’ if you will, for ships no longer spaceworthy.”
Calista smiled when she caught sight of the fighter being loaded into the cargo bay of the transport as she arrived. That was one sexy piece of equipment; she couldn’t wait to show it off to space command today.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” The quartermaster hailed Calista and began hurrying her way as she caught sight of her.
“Hey, Q,” she greeted the woman, who somehow managed to keep tabs on the chaos that swirled around her.
Now, she tapped an icon on a holo sheet she carried, showing it to Calista. “Our orders only listed this version of the prototype to be loaded. Did you want us to load the other fighter—the one with the ultra-coating? How about the cargo transport prototype?”
Calista shook her head. “Nope. Shannon is still ironing out the kinks on the ultra, and we don’t need the transport for the demo. Just the one you’re loading up will do.” She smiled over at the quartermaster. “But thanks for asking, Q.”
The woman nodded and hurried off to prep the ship for departure.
Calista spared the transport one last glance as she exited the dock, on her way to a final review with Shannon before taking off.
* * * * *
“Hey, Mack?” Sally looked over her shoulder at the chief of staff, who was lounging against the frame of the command center maglev car. “Antonio just pinged and wants to know what to do with the ship those AIs came in on.”
Mack shifted his weight from the doorframe and crossed his arms, scowling. “Is he sure everything’s been scrubbed? Nothing that can connect it back to a bunch of AIs?”
Sally paused as she conferred with Antonio. “He says it’s good to go.”
Mack grunted. “About time. I was getting tired of having to move that thing around every time there was a sweep.”
He walked forward and leaned over her shoulder, tapping the holo that displayed a map of nearspace beyond the ring.
Pointing to the Guatavita boneyard, he grinned. “Didn’t Verda tell Customs that’s where it was headed to begin with?” He waved his hand expansively. “Wouldn’t want to make a liar out of her now, would we?”
Verda grinned over at him from her station. “You calling me a liar, Mack?” She batted her eyes at him.
“Guess not, V,” he said amiably. “Tell him to dump it in with the rest of the crap out there.” He turned and resumed his slouch against the frame as Sally sent Antonio the response.
* * * * *
Being CEO hath its privileges, Terrance thought with a smile as he sat in one of the jump seats behind the transport crew. In this case, it made going over his proposal to win the El Dorado Space Force’s contract a lot more pleasant.
The ship—carrying its one-of-a-kind prototype—had just disengaged from the ring and was making its way out to the interdicted area reserved exclusively for the ESF.
Traversing the Special Use Space/Military Operations Area—or SUS/MOA, for short—was never a good idea, unless you had received prior approval. That their destination was the MOA just made it more fun to be in the cockpit, as far as he was concerned.
He glanced over at Calista, who was flying co-pilot. For her, this was old, familiar territory. He, on the other hand, still got a bit of a thrill out of being somewhere he normally oughtn’t.
Well. Best to get on with it, he thought in reference to the excuse he’d used to be sitting up here in the first place.
he began over a private connection to Calista. Her avatar nodded once.
Terrance was about to discuss Calista’s agenda for today’s meeting, when the pilot drew their attention with a ‘huh’ and a swift zoom in on the holo tank’s view.
“Check that out,” the pilot said, pointing to an icon on the holodisplay before him. It highlighted as he tapped on it, and the flight engineer obligingly zoomed in. It was a lone ship, and appeared to be headed away from the rarely used space elevator on the opposite side of the ring.
The ship looked as if it had seen better days. Scarred and incapable of holding atmosphere in places, Terrance assumed it was most likely en route to one of the boneyards for scrap.
“Huh,” the flight engineer muttered again as he brought up the ship’s ident. “Hey, Shannon, you recall a ship named the New Saint Louis? That thing’s claiming Sol registry, and it rings a bell….”
“I wonder what became of them,” Calista murmured thoughtfully.
“Maybe they sold the ship after they got to wherever they were going,” the flight engineer suggested. “They could’ve been in Proxima all this time, and passed off the ship to a mining or shipping company.”
He pointed to the habitat cylinder. Normally, it would be rotating to generate an artificial gravity for its passengers, but that would have been pointless in this instance; the habitat looked a bit like an old tin can that had been pried open on one end.
“Maybe they were using it as a long-hauler, with an AI crew. No breathable air, but the cargo areas look intact.”
Suddenly the pilot cursed, and the transport went into a steep dive. “What the fuck—”
“Pinnace out there, running dark.” Calista’s words were clipped as she flicked her hands through the holodisplay. “Advising El Dorado Tower now.”
“Looks like it’s registered to a private cab company,” the pilot said. “And flown by an idiot who can’t see a big white Enfield transport shuttle.”
“Tagging and filing a complaint with STA now,” the flight engineer confirmed as he made a copy of the holo the transport automaticall
y recorded.
Seeing the crew had enough on their hands, Calista Linked back to the passenger cabin. Her team wanted to know what in the hell had just happened, and she wanted to know how that dodge had affected their special cargo.
* * * * *
Jason was delivering his final load of cargo from Avalon Mining’s outer shipyards when he heard Calista’s voice, talking to the tower on one of the open channels. He brought up the tower’s feed and quickly spotted the Enfield transport, headed out to the ESF military operations area.
Jason glanced down at the cat, sprawled on the hauler’s floor between the pilot’s seat and the empty co-pilot’s seat.
“Good thing, too,” Jason agreed as he configured the shuttle to land, while checking the chronometer. He still had a good three hours before he was to meet Ben planetside. Just enough time to run Tobi back up to the apartment and maybe get in a quick game of darts at the bar before his brother-in-law arrived.
