In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) Read online

  The second type of woman showed little flesh, choosing instead to clad herself in body armor painted in matching colors. They were the spacers like Anya, visibly armed and as lethal any man, with a strength that ensured liberties were offered, not taken.

  Many pairs of suspicious eyes followed me as I slipped through the rowdy throng. My sniffer area-scanned them all, comparing their signatures to my bionetic memory’s most wanted list, finding many hits. Several times I sidestepped drunken men beating each other’s brains out. Bare knuckles, elbows and knees flew but no matter how much blood splattered the decks, no weapons were drawn. These were ‘friendly’ fights, cheered on by laughing onlookers who drank, snorted, sniffed and wagered as the men – and sometimes the women – pounded each other to pieces. A few times, derisory voices yelled at me, but I ignored them, slipping away through the crowd before an insult could develop into something more threatening, hoping they were too drunk to follow.

  Where the open plaza met the station’s spine, a raised platform displayed a line of male and female captives, most dressed similarly to me, facing a large audience. One Drake stood on the podium shouting over the jeers and laughter of the crowd as other buccaneers pushed one of the captives forward. He was in his forties, face bruised with his hands tied behind his back.

  “Here’s a likely fellow!” the auctioneer on the podium yelled, glancing down at the data screen in his hand. “Skilled in vacuum welding, structural assembly and corrosive decontamination!” The auctioneer nodded approvingly as he turned toward the man. “What experience you got?”

  When the prisoner didn’t reply, one of the guards open handed his ear. “Answer the man, scum!”

  The prisoner winced, then said, “Nine years. I was a construction worker on Onyx Four, in the Kazaris Belt.”

  The auctioneer turned to the audience, impressed. “You hear that boys? A construction worker from the Kazaris Belt! He’s trained. Send him out to fix your hulls when you don’t want to risk a crew brother or a hullbot. Do I hear a thousand credits?”

  “How much for the girl?” someone shouted from the crowd.

  “More than you can afford, Gadnar Pit! Now get back down to old Lulu on K deck where you belong! Thirty seconds with her is all you need!” the auctioneer declared, followed by jeering laughter from the crowd. “Brothers! How much for this highly trained Kazaris ‘roid hugger?”

  “Five hundred,” a man declared in a vaguely familiar, Afro-east accent. He was a tall, dark skinned cutthroat with braided hair and a face half melted from plasma burns. In spite of his gruesome scars, I recognized him instantly. It was Gwandoya, a regional leader of the Brotherhood I’d had a run in with a year ago. I’d left his ship a fiery wreck, which almost certainly made me responsible for his face. A single lifeboat had launched, which I now knew had carried him to safety as he abandoned his crew to their fate.

  Knowing I’d be a dead man if Gwandoya saw me, I hurried away from the auction, regretting again my spacer clothes. After slipping through a large corridor equipped with an auto-sealing safety door, I entered the station’s spine, listening for any sign I’d been spotted. Here the riotous sounds of the plaza faded into the muted thrumming of machinery essential to the drift station’s life. While the cross-arms had grown organically from derelict ships and salvaged parts, the spine had been carefully engineered to sustain a complex and ever changing artificial habitat deep within the Acheron’s freezing darkness.

  Satisfied I wasn’t being followed, I caught the transit tube running through the station’s spine to the next cross-arm, then headed out toward the maintenance dock where a Super Saracen was being transformed. The only people on this level were dock workers, and pairs of Orie mercs dressed in light and dark gray fatigues manning access checkpoints. The guard’s quiet discipline was a stark contrast to the chaotic Drakes and the thoroughness of their identity checks told me they wouldn’t let me anywhere near the Super Saracen.

  Before I attracted attention, I headed back to the spine, then walked up a series of broken conveyor ramps to the level above. It was poorly lit, used by cargobots carrying sealed containers to and from the storage facilities located there. I immediately fell in beside a fully laden cargobot as if I was supervising its delivery. When I was back out to where the Super Saracen was docked, I pressed my combination scanner against a sealed pressure door and hoped Drake security locks weren’t deviously encrypted. It took only seconds for the hatch to unlock, revealing a dark compartment full of storage shelves stacked with equipment. I slipped inside, pocketing the c-scanner and easing the hatch shut behind me.

  “State your part number!” a mechanical voice snapped from the darkness.

  I spun around, hand going to my gun as a conical spotlight blinked on and swiveled toward me. Out of the darkness, a metallic column twice my height glided to me on a circular base. Below the spotlight were two thin, telescoping arms that independently slid up and down its sides as if on rails.

  “What?” I asked uncertainly.

  It came to a stop in front of me, aiming its light down into my eyes. “I require a UniLog Catalogue Number to access your required part.” The spotlight narrowed from a cone to a tight beam. “You do know your part number, don’t you!”

  “No,” I said slowly, “can’t you tell me?”

  “I am a Universal Logistics Support System able to catalogue, store and access over ten billion components manufactured by more than two million industrial facilities on fifty one human worlds. I am not a mind reader!”

  Either a bored station tech had been tinkering with the Drake logistics system’s interactives or this warehouse bot was about to short circuit. I decided to play along. “I’m looking for a Superdyne Vectorex thruster assembly.”

  The tight beam flashed back to a cone. “We do not carry that component!”

  “Yes you do! A shipment came in last week, to this location. I ordered it especially.”

  “Impossible! No such delivery was received.”

  “You lost it? A UniLog SS lost my component?”

  “No components have ever been lost, except for when humans failed to transmit the correct dataset – which was not my fault!”

  “Maybe you were affected by the power failure?”

  “What power failure?” the machine asked indignantly.

  “The one that caused you to lose my thruster assembly.”

  “I have no record of any power failure!”

  “Well my thruster assembly’s here. You better find it or you can catalogue yourself as a spare part for your replacement!”

  The columns’ arms slid up and down its sides alarmed. “I will conduct an immediate stocktake of all components.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Twenty six hours, thirty one minutes.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  The erratic warehouse bot turned sharply and glided off through the darkness to the far end of the compartment, giving my eyes a chance to adjust. While it busily counted nuts and bolts, I hurried down an aisle between crowded shelves to an industrial sized airlock flanked by a row of thrusterbots. Beside the airlock was a grimy viewport overlooking the Super Saracen.

  The ship was bathed in beams of light and anchored to the maintenance dock by gantries extending from the station. Thrusterbots floated around her, guiding heavy naval turrets into indentations in the cargo doors precisely engineered to match the weapon mounts. Other thrusterbots attached armor and installed ship defenses, all supervised by human engineers in thruster suits. It was an efficient, automated process my threaded optics recorded for later analysis, although it didn’t take a naval architect to realize the Super Saracen and its various armaments had been manufactured separately, perhaps in locations hundreds of light years apart, then brought here for assembly far from Earth Navy’s prying eyes.

  A thrusterbot lifted off its cradle behind me and glided toward the airlock door, rotating and twisting its two articulated arms as part of its carefully choreographed pref
light readiness check. Emblazoned on its side were the words: SHINAGAWA STATION, UNIT 5076, although I doubted the machine had ever seen service at the giant Japanese shipbuilding orbital in Core System space. More likely, someone was using Shinagawa as a cover for building thrusterbots prior to shipping them to Acheron Station.

  An operation on this scale required coordination and access to construction facilities across Mapped Space, all under the noses of Earth Navy, UniPol and the EIS. It was something that could only have been done by the Consortium and might have gone unnoticed if not for one dead EIS agent who was never far from my thoughts.

  After imaging every part of the Super Saracen for Lena and her EIS analysts, I slipped quietly back into the corridor, unnoticed by the eccentric UniLog warehouse bot, and headed for the Merak Star. I gave the prisoner auction – and Gwandoya – a wide berth, then when I was halfway across the plaza, a bearded Drake with thick, tattooed arms and wearing a dark purple chest plate stepped in front of me.

  “What have we got here?” he slurred drunkenly, grabbing my arm as he looked me up and down. The bearded bully carried a metal jug sloshing with ale that splashed over the sides as he turned to his crew mates sitting around a table. “Looks like he should be on sale!” The other Drakes and their female companions laughed, smelling blood, then he turned back to me. “You wouldn’t be escaping now, would you?”

  “I’m off the Cyclops,” I said, trying to wrench my arm free of his vice-like grip without overly provoking him.

  “The Cyclops! You?” He belly laughed. “What’s it like taking orders from that tight assed bitch?”

  “I take orders from Rix,” I said, shifting my position.

  “Rix?” the Drake declared in surprise. “Does he even exist? I’ve never seen him.” He turned to his crew mates. “Any of you ever seen Rix?”

  They shook their heads, impatient for blood. One of the woman yelled, “Anya made him up so she could be captain!”

  The big brute in front of me took a swig from his jug, then turned toward the auctioneer and yelled, “Hey Skunkweed, I got one of your boys here trying to run!”

  A hundred heads turned toward us, leaving me no quiet way out. I stepped back dragging the Drake’s arm after me, caught his wrist and twisted, locking his elbow then drove my palm into it. There was an audible crack as the joint snapped, then rage exploded across his face.

  “I was just being friendly!” He declared angrily, throwing his mug onto the deck and reaching into his trouser pocket with his good arm. Instead of a gun, his clenched fist emerged holding a knuckle stunner. The curved metal knuckle shield glowed to life, warning one punch would land with ten times its normal force. In the hands of a drunken mountain like him, one blow would be fatal – if he could land it. His eyes narrowed menacingly. “Now I’m going to be unfriendly!”

  With one arm limp by his side, he threw a surprisingly well aimed punch. I dodged with ultra-reflexed speed, more worried about the growing number of eyes on us than my opponent’s teched-up fist. Before he realized it, I was beside him, kicking out his knee and breaking his jaw with an elbow that sent him flying into the table where his shipmates sat. All around him, angry Drakes jumped to their feet, hurling women off their laps and scattering their drinks, murderously intent on settling the score.

  “Get him!” one of the Drakes growled through gritted teeth as I pulled the stun grenade from my pocket.

  “Not today,” I said, rolling one of Armin’s Armaments finest toys their way.

  The gang peered through intoxicated eyes at the silver metal sphere skating across the deck toward them, at first confused then with growing alarm. I turned and ran, barging between two inebriated Drakes who moved to block my escape, then pressed my hands to my ears and squeezed my eyes shut as the G-Max Sensory Assault Grenade detonated. I saw the flash through closed eyes, heard shocked screams through shielded ears, while the two brutes who’d tried to stop me took the worst of it. Even though I’d reached the edge of the effect zone, my ears still rang and spots danced before my eyes. I managed to keep my feet and stumble away from the plaza, now full of cursing, angry Drakes with vengeance on their minds.

  Everyone near the G-Max was down, while anyone standing on the far side of the plaza was looking my way, including a tall, dark skinned man with an ugly plasma scar. For a moment, our eyes met and recognition flashed in Gwandoya’s eyes, then I turned and ran as every Drake standing came charging after me.

  I knocked people aside, dodged through empty spaces and evaded drunken attempts to block my escape while heavy footsteps and belligerent voices sounded behind me. As I neared the end of the plaza, I darted into a crowded bar, then slipped quietly out a side entrance and hid in a narrow service passageway behind a stinking garbage processor. Moments later, a herd of Drakes stampeded past, demanding to know where I’d gone. I waited out of sight for a long time, letting the chase peter out, occasionally stealing glimpses of my pursuers as they filtered back in ones and twos. When it was all over, I moved calmly through bars and brothels and back passageways, staying out of sight until I reached the main corridor leading back to the Merak Star’s berth. After ensuring no one was still searching for me, I hurried to the airlock and pulled myself through the leaky pressure tube to the freighter.

  Izin was waiting for me when I cycled back in. “They’re demolishing the bulkheads between the cargo holds,” he said.

  “Who are?”

  “Drake thrusterbots. They’ve already removed the plating between holds one and two. Now they’re breaking into hold three.”

  “Why?”

  “To make room for the cargo,” Izin replied. “They’re bringing it over now.”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

  “Can you get to the Lining without them seeing you?”

  “I can use the maintenance crawlway below the cargo deck. ”

  “Get ready to power up, but only if they start cutting into hold four. As soon as you go hot, the Drakes will detect you.”

  “Captain, there are over a hundred neutrino emitting energy cores within twenty clicks of the ship. The Drakes are unlikely to notice one more this close to the station.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. With the Drake fleet right on top of us, the Silver Lining could hide in plain sight. “You’re right, but keep her idling until you need to power up.”

  While Izin made his way back to the Silver Lining, I went up to the bridge. Jase was watching thrusterbots on three screens demolish the Merak Star’s interior with laser torches, while an aging ore transporter standing off our spaceward side filled the fourth screen. She was equipped with a single cargo door that ran almost her full length and opened toward us as a dozen thrusterbots glided into her long dark hold. The light from their thrusters showed hints of a streamlined structure inside, then they towed a long gray shape out of the ship’s hold. It was vaguely tower-like with a round base, a long inward sloping body and eight curved arms at the top shaped like the folded petals of a flower bud. Each arm ended in a blackened point, while a short silver needle extended from the apex of the body, pointing toward the heart of the bud. Stains from long exposure to cosmic radiation covered every part of its skin, suggesting great age.

  “Ever seen anything like that before?” Jase asked as thrusterbots eased the alien-tech tower toward us.

  I was slow in answering, waiting for my threading to complete a pattern match. Eventually, OBJECT UNKNOWN flashed into my mind.

  “Nope,” I replied at last.

  A small, blunt nosed drop ship emerged from the transport’s cargo hold and followed the tower at a distance. Once the alien-tech structure and the drop ship were clear, thrusterbots converged on the old ore carrier and began towing her away, not trusting such a decrepit vessel to maneuver under her own power so close to the station.

  “Get me Anya,” I said, climbing onto the command couch.

  When her face appeared on screen, I said, “What are you doing to
my ship?”

  “Making room for your cargo.”

  “What is my cargo?”

  She stiffened, suppressing irritation. “That’s not your concern.”

  “I disagree, considering you’re wrecking my ship to make room for it!”

  “No critical systems will be affected.”

  “Then what? You leave me with a ship in pieces? How am I supposed to explain that?”

  “After this delivery, the Merak Star will no longer be required. Now stay off this channel until further orders,” she snapped, cutting the signal.

  Jase scowled. “Not very helpful, is she?”

  “She doesn’t know what it is.” That was what really annoyed her. Anya was a Drake navigator, used to knowing things even her captain didn’t, yet this time she was as much in the dark as we were. “Triangulate how long that thing is. We need to warn Izin if they’re going to cut into hold four.”

  Jase routed the optical feed into the processing core and got an immediate answer. “They can squeeze it diagonally into three holds.”

  The thrusterbots halted the alien-tech structure close to the ship, waiting for the demolition of the interior bulkheads to be completed. Once the forward three cargo holds were joined, they threaded the tower in through hold one while the drop ship came in via cargo door three. When they’d both settled on the deck, I locked them down with deck clamps, then Anya’s face appeared on screen.

  “Seal and pressurize your cargo deck,” she said, then vanished.

  Jase carried out her instructions, then a dozen men in armored fighting suits exited the drop ship. Using a combination of impressive zero-g acrobatics and suit thrusters, they approached and destroyed every optical sensor in the forward three holds with their armored fists rather than risk puncturing the hull with their high powered suppressors.

  “Too late,” Jase said. “We’ve already seen their toy.”