Safe Returns
“Just because you can imagine it, doesn’t mean it’s so.”
(Part 12 of “The Misfits” series)
Maícon proposed jumping the ship in behind the star—close. It was the type of high-risk maneuver he wouldn’t have suggested if Burch were around. With Carolina in command and Transom strapped in beside her on the flight deck, though, he knew such a dangerous move would be considered. Maícon guaranteed perfect execution, and his purpose was to bring them back into Lime Harbor unseen—a tight jump behind Aldura to coincide with the arrowheads cycling around the star’s corona. Then, as the arrowheads progressed, the Yankee-Chaos would take up a heading directly in the blind spot behind the cycling vessels. No chance of being detected.
Carolina, for her part, was certain that no one could have registered their incursion at the bank on Lime Harbor and spun up a response in the two days since they’d left the city to return Airee to Damon Mines. But Maícon wasn’t nearly so certain their return would be safe, and Transom agreed that the risk of the covert entrance to the planet was worth the dangerous approach. They could conceal the Yankee-Chaos atop the space station and descend the space elevator with the bots returning from the star. Or Transom could anyway—at least until he determined whether it was safe for Carolina in the city.
“If it’s not safe for me down there,” Carolina told them both, “it’s not safe for the others either.”
“Precautions,” Maícon announced, his processing core running through the ship’s controls once again—a more direct connection for intricate flight maneuvers like this one. “We are ready. Prepare for a bumpy ride.”
As he brought the ship into the system, Maícon positioned Yankee-Chaos almost directly above the second arrowhead relative to the star, shielding the ship from Aldura’s violent corona. And as they came around the star, he kept Yankee-Chaos lagging just behind, making it almost impossible for sensors and scopes at the planet to distinguish that there was another vessel tracking with the arrowheads, even if they were monitoring the cyclers closely. Yankee-Chaos approached the abandoned spaceport in a slow deliberate formation, exactly as planned, behind the cycling arrowheads. It gave Maícon plenty of time to get updated visuals of the city.
“A dust storm,” he reported as they approached. “I’ll confer with Barlow’s bots aboard the station for details.”
When they arrived at the station, they couldn’t even see the city below from the spaceport, mired in dust clouds as Lime Harbor had become. The bots reported that the storm had rolled in a few hours after they’d departed and was still blowing up around the city in waves, making visibility poor at best and nearly non-existent at the worst times.
“All the more reason for you to stay put until I can assess the conditions on the ground,” Transom said to Carolina. “Tell those bots I’ll be on the next car down with them,” he told the ancient AI controlling the ship.
“Very well,” Maícon replied.
“I want a report as soon as it’s possible,” Carolina said.
“I know how much you like sitting on the sidelines,” Transom responded, heading off the flight deck for the rear airlock.
“Hold,” Maícon said. “I’m getting word from the bots there’s another party on the ground.”
“Another party? Anything more specific than that?” Transom asked.
“They’re not aware. Their programming is narrow. They saw the other ship land across the city shortly after the storm arrived. But they’re not programmed to investigate such things, just to continue the work.
“Sebastian,” Maícon continued, “before you go, I suggest you bring down additional respirators. The Riche’s radiation gear is not likely to be rated to filter airborne particles.”
“So?”
“According to the bots, the dust is extremely fine. Prolonged exposure is dangerous for humans.”
“Lovely vacation spot,” Transom said. “Can’t wait to book my next stay.”
“Dust storms like this are a byproduct of the star’s deterioration,” Maícon insisted. “The storms will subside if the effort to save Aldura is successful.”
Transom shook his head. “Good to know. Be ready to get the hell out of here if things get hairy down there.”
“Like hell,” Carolina said.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Boss,” Transom replied, smiling. “If our banking friends are down there, it’s best you’re not up here.”
The bots weren’t particularly talkative on the ride down. They didn’t have any intelligence of value regarding the new ship’s arrival, nor did they have anything to report about Sōsh, Ren, or the Riches, just that Harold had been filling in adequately, keeping the spheres rolling on schedule since he’d taken up that post at the warehouse. The bots’ domain of knowledge was singularly focused on the stellar reclamation project, their cycle, their route—warehouse to space elevator, space elevator to arrowheads, arrowheads to sun—reverse; repeat.
Transom watched the planet’s surface closely from the elevator car as they descended. It was difficult to tell when his eyes were seeing true, because at times he thought he could see human structures peeking through the brown cloud cover below. At other times, he was more convinced it was just the clouds of sand shifting color as they thickened and waned. He didn’t have much desire to dive headlong into another storm after their recent experience on Pax Heavy. But he also didn’t have a choice in the matter. They couldn’t leave their people down there any longer.
When he arrived in the concourse at the base of the space elevator, the state of the atmosphere was shocking. It wasn’t a sandstorm so much as a dust storm—a dust so fine that it almost seemed it wasn’t there, a brown fog that barely even accumulated on the stone pavement outside. The concourse had opened up over the decades since it was abandoned, so the dust fog darkened the already dim light inside the building. Transom took down his nanosheet briefly, just to take in the state of the air, provoking an almost immediate coughing fit. He didn’t know what kind of gear their people had on them, but he was glad Maícon had suggested the extra respirators and nanosheets he was carrying with him.
He rode with the bots all the way to the warehouse, where Harold was still toiling away fitting and filling stellar spheres. The bots had undersold Harold’s efficiency. The warehouse was almost chock full of spheres ready to be brought up to Aldura.
“When was the last time you heard from the house?” Transom asked Harold, gawking at the bot’s prolific handiwork.
“Yesterday evening,” Harold responded.
“Nothing since? And you didn’t think to take a minute away from this to go up and check on them?”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Barlow passed yesterday morning, shortly after the dust came in. I decided the humans deserved their space, and the best thing I could do to honor the elder Mr. Riche was to continue his mission.”
“I think you made enough giant balls for now, robot. You’re coming with me to check on your people. You know another ship came in, right?”
“I was unaware until now.”
“Great.”
“I can guide you through the dust,” Harold offered.
“You stay behind me, bolts, and do exactly as I say. If there are other people here, they won’t be friendly, and I won’t have you walking us obliviously into a firefight.”
“As you say, sir.”
Transom had a sense for the city. Dust clouds or no, he could find his way back to the Riche house just as well as Harold. He even knew better than to take the shortest route, just in case the site had been compromised. What was surprising as they walked, exposed to the wind, was how mild the elements seemed. For a moment, Transom considered that it might just have been that his last point of comparison was the storm from hell at the drop mine. But it wasn’t that. The winds were mild, barely registering. Even the dust didn’t seem to be accumulating in the streets so much as floating through like an apparition.
They took a back route to the Riche home and approached the old stone mansion from the rear door. There were no lights on inside, but Transom expected no less with a second ship in the city. Transom knew Sōsh wouldn’t take any chances they could be seen. He entered quietly with the bot shadowing on his hip and began to make his way through the house, clearing rooms on the first floor methodically.
“Sir,” Harold said, tapping Transom on the arm and pointing to the floor. “Note the footprints in the dust. Consistent only with our people. And there, signs of movement.”
Harold pointed to the foot of the stairs.
“Stay here,” Transom ordered. “I’ll check the upstairs.”
At the top of the staircase, Transom cleared the bedrooms in order, arriving at Barlow’s bedroom last. There were signs they’d cleared out fast—medical equipment on the floor, clothes on the bed, sheets in the corner, discarded oxygen tubing on the furniture. Barlow’s body was gone.
Transom headed back downstairs, where Harold was trying to interpret the footprints.
“They left in a hurry,” Harold said, “suited up and carrying heavy gear. Out the back.”
“They were carrying Barlow,” Transom said, “or at least Sōsh was.”
“Where would they go, sir?”
“Beta site. Which means they saw that ship before the ship saw them.”
“That is fortunate.”
“We’ll see how fortunate when we get to the beta site.”
“I was not aware of a beta site.”
“Sōsh was. Now keep quiet and follow.”
Transom would never tell him, but he thought highly of Sōsh’s abilities. They hardly needed to discuss operational tactics. The first time they walked through the city together, the layout spoke to them in the same language. They’d decided on their fallback with a knowing look and a four-word conversation.
“That rotunda,” Transom had said.
“Nice beta,” Sōsh replied to a nod from his counterpart.
On a clear day, it would have had a good line of sight to most of the city, and it was luckily a fair distance from the banks, where Transom presumed their pursuers would be focusing their search. The dust storm outside would have covered Sōsh’s retreat with the others, but it would also mark Transom’s trail now if anyone arrived at the Riche house after him and Harold. They had to hurry.
As they approached the large stone building sporting the arched rotunda on its roof, Transom paused. Harold watched as Transom scanned the street, the fog brushing past in gentle waves. The Etteran’s instincts had flagged something in the alleyway across from the back entrance to the building.
“Zoom in on that upper corner,” he directed Harold. “The last flat on the end.”
Harold looked up to the area Transom highlighted.
“You’re correct, sir. Passive surveillance. One of our units.”
“Give our friends a wave. Sōsh’ll have seen us coming already. Smart operator.”
They crossed the street toward the back of the building, which was the former hub for the city’s public infrastructure, classically designed to match the grand style of the city its workers and bots had been sworn to serve. Thus, there were two enormous doors in the back that looked more like city gates than an entrance to a public building.
Transom knocked on the door. “Open up, metalface,” Transom said. “I’m getting irradiated out here.”
The door swung inward far enough for a head obscured by a radiation hood to poke its way out. It was Sōsh.
“We’re getting irradiated in here too,” Sōsh’s muffled voice came back through the hood, “only we’ve got a medical on top of that. What the hell took you guys so long?”
“We made decent enough time,” Transom answered, stepping inside the doorway. “A medical? What’s the issue?”
“We only had three re-breathers. Alex insisted Sisco and Ren each take one, and I had my nanosheet and tactical gear. I would have let him have my gear, but I’d be no use if I went down. Then who’d negotiate with our new friends if they decided to pay us a visit?”
“Seen any drones?”
“Negative.”
“Us neither,” Transom said. “Eyes on them yet?”
“Negative, thankfully,” Sōsh answered, leading the way across the open courtyard under the enormous rotunda.
Transom looked up.
“These people knew how to build them. How’s Alex doing?”
“Ren’s got him stable, but even breathing through a couple layers of clothing, all this dust turned into gunk in his lungs. We’ve got him down in a corner room in the basement. The dust’s not so bad down there.”
They walked quietly through the ground-floor corridor and down a flight of stairs to the basement, then all the way to the back corner of the building, where the group had been holed up for nearly two days.
Transom didn’t waste any time with pleasantries, setting down his gear and taking out an overskin that ran a nanosheet. “He’s on oxygen, doctor?”
“We’ve been able to wean him off today,” Ren answered. “What the hell took you guys so long?”
“We’ll discuss it later, doctor. Can he walk?”
“Only if it’s absolutely necessary.”
“I’m good,” Alex said, coughing.
“We’re not interested in your medical opinion, son. You’ve done well, but Dr. Ren’s calling the shots on you,” Transom said. “If we put him on O₂ under the nanosheet, would that be any better?”
Ren shrugged.
“I’d like to keep the group together,” Transom said.
“We’re not leaving Barlow,” Sisco insisted.
“Of course, we’re not leaving Barlow,” Transom said. “Harold’s going to carry him. Sōsh, can you carry Alex while I cover the group?”
Ren placed a cannula under Alex’s nose. He coughed several times after Ren and Sisco helped him to his feet. His cough was still audible, even as Ren closed the radiation hood over his head.
“Let’s do the opposite,” Ren suggested. “I want Alex upright. He can piggyback on Harold. Sōsh, can you carry Barlow, please?”
Sōsh nodded.
“Okay, are we ready to move?” Transom asked.
“Your lead,” Sōsh answered, positioning himself to lift the old man’s body. “Let’s move fast, everyone. All together.”
Sisco and Ren assisted Alex forward, as Harold, crouched down, lifted the young man onto his back. Ren and Sisco grabbed the bags they needed. Then Transom led them out into the hallway and back through the building.
From the rotunda, it was a brisk walk down to the warehouse district through wisps of brown, dusty fog. Transom knew, though, that even if it seemed good cover to the eye, if drones were monitoring that area of the city, they’d be picked up on infrared, and a safe exit would be a mere question of luck if the other ship was looking for them.
Their run down to the warehouse was uneventful, luckily. When they arrived, they took cover in the corner of the building, facing the warehouse’s large sliding doors. The group hid in that back corner together until the bots returned from their latest run. There was no sign of anyone or anything in the warehouse but the tracks from Barlow’s bots making their rounds.
When the workbots returned, Transom and Harold conferred with them. The bots loaded their trailer with a pocket of space for the five humans, Harold, and Barlow’s body. Everyone sat down except Harold, who crouched in the middle, holding up a large plank as a makeshift roof under the two empty spheres Barlow’s bots had loaded above them for cover.
“If they’re looking for us anywhere, it’ll be at the elevator,” Transom said. “Ingress and egress. Everyone stay quiet, and keep your eyes out.”
Alex began coughing along the way. It was clear he was doing his best to suppress the urge, but as the trailer bounced around on the cobblestone streets, he couldn’t hold it in. That trailer wasn’t built for stealth or comfort.
It was a quick, though bumpy, ride to the space-elevator concourse. If anyone was watching them, Transom couldn’t tell. There was nothing unusual about the bots’ behavior on this cycle versus any other. Same times, same route, same cargo—seemingly.
The bots pulled the carts into the concourse, all the way to the center of the building where the elevators loaded and unloaded. Transom kept watch out the side wall of the trailer, looking for any signs of company. He observed nothing unusual but was still wary as the bots stopped the trucks to unload the spheres.
“Us two,” Transom said to Sōsh, arming up and preparing to jump out as soon as the bots took the spheres off their makeshift roof. “Harold, use the plank to cover the group. We’ll clear the elevator and the concourse.”
Sōsh looked over at Transom warily, as if to tell him how exposed he thought they were. Transom nodded. He agreed.
Two bots approached the back, pulling the two spheres off Harold’s plank simultaneously. Transom lowered the back gate and hopped out, scanning the concourse. Sōsh stepped out the other side, moving quickly up the opposite side of the vehicle toward the elevator.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Transom said, gesturing for the group to follow. “Quickly.”
Transom gestured to Harold to carry Barlow, and they rushed into the elevator annex, where Sōsh escorted them to the corner behind the entrance. Everyone crouched down together there.
Ren pointed toward the elevator.
Transom put a finger to his face to signal her to stay quiet. The answer was that they didn’t want to get on that elevator car until they were absolutely certain no one had seen them. There was no escaping that skycar once they were inside and it started climbing.
Transom and Sōsh scanned the concourse with their scopes from the edge of the elevator annex till the last possible moment. Then, as the bots were rolling in the final spheres, they ushered the group into the skycar with them.
“We’re on our way back to you, boss,” Transom signaled up the hard line in the elevator once they were moving. “Any update on the visitors?”
“Still parked at the bank,” Maícon answered. “We were able to tap into the space station’s feeds. It seems Sōsh was able to keep our friends’ presence concealed. We await your safe return.”
Everyone got out of their radiation suits, Alex included, who was laboring to breathe but hanging in well enough. All was calm along the way, with the group’s focus mostly on getting Alex comfortable.
“My condolences on the old man, you two,” Transom said to Sisco and Alex. “I don’t say this about a lot of people, but that old man was a great man—what he did, that’s a life to be remembered.”
“Thank you,” Sisco said.
Alex nodded his gratitude, still struggling to breathe as he was.
“We’re going to need to hustle out of here,” Transom said. “Maícon will want to mirror the arrowheads on the way out, so let’s have a plan when we get to the top.”
Alex gestured urgently to Sisco.
“Barlow,” she said to Sōsh. “We need to do the memorial at the top.”
“Memorial?” Transom said.
“The old man made his wishes clear,” Sōsh explained. “One of those empty shells is for him. He wanted to ride the arrowheads all the way into the sun.”
Transom smiled, shaking his head. “As I said, a great man. Would you two object if we did the memorial on the ride up, said our goodbyes at the top, then rode out beside his arrowhead?”
Sisco smiled and Alex nodded. “Yeah. I think he’d like that.”
Both Sisco and Alex had prepared words to say over Barlow’s body. Sisco delivered her speech, followed by Ren, who spoke on behalf of Alex, who sat with Sisco, the two of them holding hands, taking in their final moments together with Alex’s grandfather. When they were finished speaking, Harold and the bots opened one of the empty shells. Transom and Sōsh carried Barlow’s body to the sphere and lowered him gently into his final vessel.
Transom pulled Harold aside and spoke to him quietly. “You instruct those bots to carry Barlow. If they roll that shell, you tell them I’ll throw them into the sun. Is that clear?”
“Clear as crystal, sir,” Harold said. “The utmost respect shall be paid, every step of the way.”
When they got to the space station at the top of the elevator, the group exited the skycar and headed for the bay directly beside the arrowhead. Maícon had parked the Yankee-Chaos there while the skycar was ascending. Ren and Sisco helped Alex onto the ship, while Transom and Sōsh remained in the outer concourse until the bots had carefully loaded Barlow’s sphere. Then they, along with Harold, floated into the ship’s rear airlock.
Ren had set up Alex and Sisco at the head of the table in the atrium so they could have a clear view of the Arrowhead on the flight toward Aldura, Lime Harbor’s fading star. Maícon dimmed the lights and played music as Yankee-Chaos escorted the arrowheads inward. Ren, too, sat with Sisco and Alex, carefully monitoring her patient through the acceleration to Aldura. He bore it well and was able to keep his focus and his sights on bidding his grandfather farewell. As they approached the corona, the bots released their payload, never one more fitting than to make the star the final resting place of the man who spent his entire life struggling to preserve it.
Soon after the bots had dropped their spheres, the Yankee-Chaos rounded the star, took a sharp turn behind it, and jumped away from Lime Harbor, heading out into open space and safety.
Ordinarily, with two passengers from Hellenia aboard, the obvious course of action would be to drop them on Gracia. Only now, Carolina and Maícon’s theft of the bank servers had complicated the issue. Yankee-Chaos had been spotted at the murder mill, where Carolina had poached their records as well. Odds were good the enemies they’d made with that stunt had connected Carolina with the ship already, and if they hadn’t, they would in short order. Their figurative heads needed to be on a swivel until they had a sense of how hot the heat on Yankee-Chaos and their little group of renegades was going to get. It wouldn’t be safe to just fly into Gracia, not in that vessel.
Nor could they simply drop Sisco and Alex at a small spaceport, as Alex was still working hard to breathe. Sisco had told them she had flight privileges with a public carrier out in that sector, but putting him on a commercial flight in his condition would have been irresponsible according to Ren.
There was much more to consider, but Carolina didn’t want to discuss the bigger picture with their guests aboard. They were stuck at an impasse at a time when they needed to be taking decisive action. She called Ren to the flight deck. Sebastian was strapped in beside her when Ren floated through the doorway.
“Come inside,” Carolina said, looking back over her shoulder at Ren.
Ren pulled herself into the cabin and was surprised when the door shut behind her.
“What’s this?”
“How’s your patient, doctor?” Carolina asked.
“Stable. One of you want to explain to the rest of us just what the hell is going on?”
“Negative,” Transom stated. “Same goes for Sōsh and Harold. The less we say with these people around, the safer it will be for us and them.”
“Can you tell me why? It’s not like anyone can overhear us.”
“For now,” Carolina said. “I need your focus to be getting those two off the ship safely. What’s the best bet?”
Ren furrowed her brow. “I don’t get it. Ever since you left with Airee something’s off. Something’s changed, and I don’t like it.”
“We don’t like it either,” Transom said. “It’s the way it’s gotta be, doctor. You’ll be filled in completely when the time is right. For now, can you give us an ETA on Alex, please?”
“If this were a hospital, I wouldn’t even think of discharging him for another forty-eight hours.”
“Could you do anything to push that up?” Carolina asked.
“It’s really the lung tissue that needs to do the work of clearing that dust. It congeals like cement in the lungs, and it was so fine, that stuff got down deep in there. He’s going to need to cough it up in his sputum. I can suction a little in a pinch, but really, it’s just rest, positioning, and oxygen if he needs it. He’ll be fine in two days, but it’s going to take two days.”
Carolina and Sebastian looked at each other in such a way that Ren could tell they didn’t like the answer.
“Who were those people in that ship, Carolina? Have we finally poked the wrong people the wrong way?”
“Barlow complicated things,” Carolina said. “I don’t want to say more right now, but those people, they got there faster than even Maícon imagined they could.”
“What should I tell Sisco and Alex? They’re not happy about how we pulled them out of there. Alex wanted to stay and continue Barlow’s work at the warehouse. Somebody needs to save that star, or else all Barlow’s work will be in vain.”
“Tell them you don’t know, and tell them to come to me if that’s a problem,” Carolina said.
Ren looked doubtful.
“Are we good, doctor?” Transom said.
“For now, we’re good, Sebastian.”
The door to the flight deck opened behind Ren, and she floated back toward the atrium to check on her patient. Transom gestured toward the door again with his head.
Carolina shut the door. “Obscure the window, please, Maícon,” she said, pausing and waiting for the door to close and the flight deck’s window to go opaque before continuing. “Here’s the surveillance we took from the station. Something tells me the ship will look familiar to you.”
“Starfighter,” Transom said, surprised by the sight. “EC-8. Tail number’s obscured in all that dust.”
“That image is the best composite I could stitch together through the dust,” Maícon said.
“So, what the hell are Etterans doing on Lime Harbor?”
“Have you heard of your people running ops this far out of Etteran space, Sebastian?” Maícon asked.
He shook his head. “In a starfighter? Never that I’ve heard of, and I think I’d have heard.”
“Sparrow had Trasp in his community, and there’s plenty of Trasp ships in the Letters,” Carolina said. “It figures there’d be an equal and opposite force out here in independent space.”
“How do you figure?” Transom asked.
“It’s how one of our kind would balance the equilibrium, and if we assume the organizing force is an AI, it’s a safe assumption there’ll be similar forces representing all of the parties to those bank transactions.”
“If there are Etterans already moving into this sector after, what? Three days? Four days?” Carolina said.
“No, that’s impossible,” Transom said. “That’s clean across Trasp space. They must have been here before. Out here and then activated, ordered to search for us. We’re going to catch heat from every angle now.”
“All the more reason to get our guests to safety,” Carolina said. “The sooner the better.”
There was a knock on the cabin door, a distinctly metal knock.
“Sōsh,” Maícon announced, clearing the screen.
“You can open it,” Carolina said.
Sōsh pulled himself into the cabin. He was surprised as the door slid shut behind him.
“So …” he said.
“Ren?” Carolina said, referring to their earlier conversation with the good doctor.
“She’s a little concerned,” Sōsh said, nodding. “I have to say, I tend to agree with her. I understand division of knowledge is useful and even necessary for tactical purposes sometimes, but let’s not forget who’s new around here, boss. We have a culture, and it’s typically not to shut up, do as we’re told, and not ask questions.”
“Understood, Sōsh,” Carolina said. “This is a rare time. Some things have changed.”
He shrugged. “We have a lot of rare times on this ship. Seems like the other kind of times are the outlier.”
“We’ll read you both in completely as soon as our guests are safely planetside somewhere.”
“Or at a hospital on a spaceport,” Maícon interjected. “I’ve calculated probabilities and contingencies as soon as you’re ready, Captain.”
“Okay,” Sōsh said. “That’s all fine. We’ll discuss it then. Let’s just leave this door open if we can when I go, shall we? It’s sending a signal to our guests. They’re already plenty curious after hiding out in a basement in a dust storm for two days. Suspicions tend to pile up fast.”
“Understood,” Carolina said. “We’ll keep it open when you go.”
Sōsh nodded.
Carolina returned the gesture and a heavy smile. “And Sōsh … you’re a good man.”
“Thanks, boss,” he answered, tapping the door, which Maícon opened.
He made his way back to the atrium. Carolina and Transom exchanged a heavy look.
“I’ll join him,” Sebastian said. “Put in an appearance. Might help to reassure our guests.”
“I’ll be up here,” Carolina declared. “Display a list of possible hospital stops, please, Maícon.”
Carolina had dozed off in the captain’s chair on the flight deck when Sisco knocked on the open frame. She hadn’t realized from behind that Carolina was asleep. Carolina snorted, looking over her shoulder to see Sisco Dreeson, her newfound distant-distant cousin from Hellenia, floating in beside her.
“Sorry,” Sisco said. “I didn’t realize you were sleeping.”
“It’s no bother. Please, strap in. We should talk, Sisco.”
Carolina waited as Sisco flipped over the chair and pulled herself down to the co-pilot’s seat. Her work as an attendant on a shuttle service had left her unusually adept in zero-G, even for spacefaring peoples.
“I’m very sorry about Barlow,” Carolina said. “And sorry that I haven’t properly conveyed my condolences until now.”
“Thank you,” Sisco said. “Though Alex is more the bereaved than I. Technically, we’re not even family yet.”
“Nonetheless,” Carolina said, offering an apologetic look. “I understand you had a rough few days down there.”
“Alex more than any of us. He’s doing well, though, now. Ren really was a godsend to us this past week. We still can’t thank you enough.”
“You can thank her. We only did what any decent people would in those circumstances.”
“Those circumstances are what I wanted to talk to you about, Carolina, because, I’ll just say, I’m confused to say the least about what happened. Who were those people who landed? What was the urgency? Why did we have to evacuate with you? Alex wanted more than anything to stay and carry on Barlow’s work.”
Carolina sighed. “I think it’s safer for you the less you and Alex know.”
“We must already know enough to be in danger, apparently. We know you went looking for those old bank servers and didn’t find them. Even so, we know that when those other folks came looking, they weren’t going to be happy about the fact you’d been there. So, my guess is we’ve got enough knowledge that some very dangerous people will want to know what we know, which is probably way too much for our own good. Is that about right?”
“All that is probably true, Sisco.”
“Are we going to be safe if we go back to Hellenia, Carolina? Or anywhere else for that matter? Plenty of people back home knew Alex and I were on Lime Harbor with Barlow.”
“I think it’s best we found an alternative for you for the time being. A place to lie low and for Alex to recuperate.”
Sisco’s eyes got wide, and she began to shake her head. “Oh, Carolina, who was after us? After you, or?”
Sisco seemed to be on the verge of genuine panic.
“Take a breath. You’re safe here.”
“Here. Now,” she said, her voice rising as she grew increasingly upset. “Carolina, we want to be able to go home without looking over our shoulders.”
“You will. I’ll make certain of it. It might take a few weeks for this to blow over, but it will blow over.”
“And what about Barlow—Alex—I mean … what about Lime Harbor? Who’s going to do the work if we can’t go back?”
“Sisco, you’re going to have to give me time to sort this out. There’s a lot happening. My priority right now is getting you two to safety. Let us figure that out first.”
“You can’t do this. You can’t just swoop into people’s lives and bring chaos like this. We were terrified, hiding out in that basement like that for two days!”
Sisco began to cry.
“Who were those people? Sōsh made it seem like they were there to kill us.”
“An abundance of caution,” Carolina insisted. “He’s a soldier, so he thinks like one. As I said, you’re both safe now.”
“For how long?”
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that, especially at such a difficult time, Sisco. I wish it could have been different. We had no idea you and Alex and Barlow were there in Lime Harbor. We were as surprised to find you as you were by our arrival. Please understand we’re doing our best to do right by all three of you. That means getting you away from us, because those soldiers will be looking for us and for our ship. We’re working on finding a safe place for you for the time being.”
Sisco was properly crying now and shaking her head. Carolina could tell it wasn’t the one issue but the sum, a release. She reached over and took Sisco’s hand. Carolina undid her waist strap with her free hand and pulled herself over to Sisco, embracing her.
“I can’t imagine,” she said. “Barlow, the storm, the star. I’m sorry, my friend. I’m truly sorry. We’ll get you settled some place safe. I promise.”
It was another several hours before Carolina went back to the medical bay to check on Alex. Ren was elsewhere, and Sisco was at the Atrium table with Sōsh, sharing a pouch of hot tea. Alex looked comfortable when she flew in, though more than any of them, his face was still covered in the dirt that had caked on his cheeks as the dust had mixed with days of sweat.
“Hi, Alex,” Carolina said, though she wasn’t certain he was awake he looked so peaceful, strapped to Ren’s bench at the waist.
He was dozing, lightly.
“Carolina—I mean Captain—it’s good to see you again,” he said, clearing his throat with a half cough. “Will you please call me Barlow now? It’s actually my given name, and everyone back home had started using it when I came back from Lime Harbor last year. We figured Alex was easier when you all showed up, Barlow himself being around still.”
“Sure,” Carolina said, smiling. “I like that. I think it suits you. I’ll do my best to remember.”
He seemed a little short of breath and had to pause every now and again while talking. The filtered air in the ship was doing him good, though.
“I’ve had a lot to think about since I saw you last,” he said.
“No doubt,” Carolina agreed. “I had a talk with Sisco earlier. Things happened so fast back there none of us really had time to think about the implications of everything that went down. As I told Sisco, we didn’t expect to bump into anyone on Lime Harbor.”
“I understand,” Alex replied. “Sisco’s emotional. I knew we’d be fine, but she was scared after losing Barlow that once I started struggling, she might lose me too. Your man Sōsh was very proactive keeping us out of sight of those people searching for you. I’m not sure I want to know what you folks are into or what you were looking for down in those banks. I guess I’m just wondering about Lime Harbor.”
He paused to catch his breath before continuing.
“Barlow’s work is my birthright. Sisco and I, the last time we came back, we talked with Barlow about making our family—I mean, we’re not married yet, but soon, so when I say our family—”
“I get it.”
“Anyway, that’s what we want our family legacy to be. I’m wondering if it’s going to be safe for us to go back there. The longer we wait to continue Barlow’s work, the further along the star gets toward its expiration date, the rustier the gear gets. You understand?”
Carolina smiled. “I promise you that star will outlive the strife we brought to Lime Harbor with us.”
“When, though, is what I’m asking.”
“It’s tough to say exactly, Alex—Barlow, sorry. I have an idea about where I can bring you where you and Sisco will be safe and secluded. And, it happens there’s an abundance of bored engineers who I think will jump at the opportunity to help you with Aldura. The only problem is it’ll mean you can’t go home for a little while. They don’t even like people calling out.”
Alex shrugged. “We weren’t planning on leaving Lime Harbor for a while anyway. I suppose it depends on how long you mean.”
“We’d have to come back to pick you up, I think. They definitely don’t have a regular shuttle in or out.”
“Sounds like you want to put us in the asteroids around Athos, Ms. Dreeson? Excuse me, Captain Dreeson,” Alex said, smiling. “Seems like prison.”
“No,” Carolina answered, laughing. “I actually think you’ll love it there. I just can’t guarantee we’ll get back to you for a couple months.”
“Sisco brought all the gear, which means we’ve got all the original specs from the city offices on Lime Harbor—the colony data, infrastructure; and, if what you say is true about all the bored engineers, that’d be a great opportunity to put a real working plan into place before going back. If you think it’s a good, safe option, I’m open to it. Let me talk it over with Sisco. Where should I tell her it is?”
“Ever hear of Eden?”
“Like what? The Garden of Eden?”
“Same name, but not exactly. Just explain it to Sisco the way I did, and you’ll pretty much be covered. I’m going to set a course, and unless I hear otherwise from you in the next several hours, we’ll keep heading that way.”
“Great. Thanks, Captain.”
Carolina smiled. She still wasn’t used to anyone but Yankee-Chaos’s crew referring to her as Captain yet.
“You should wash up, Barlow. You look like you lost a fight in a mud pit.”
“That’s not too far off from what I feel like,” Alex joked. “We’ll let you know soon.”
Transom was with Carolina on the flight deck the following day as they approached Eden—or at least the interstellar space outside the Moss system where Carolina expected to find it. She still hadn’t told anyone what Eden was. It wasn’t a secret, per se, but very few living people in the Battery had cause to remember Eden, much less be among the handful to have visited.
“Unidentified craft,” came the ping. “Identify yourself and your purpose immediately or you will be regarded as hostile and destroyed.”
“That’ll be them,” Carolina said, casting a smile over at Transom. “Friendly as ever.”
It took Maícon a moment to zero-in on the transmission’s source. The colony was difficult to spot, especially for a sizeable group of lumbering cylinders. Over the course of their long transit, Carolina explained, the community of engineers had made so much progress in stealth nanotech on their exterior that one had to be extremely close to spot them.
“Eden Cylinder,” Carolina returned. “This is the independent vessel Lost Star pinging. We are requesting a direct correspondence with the Consul. We are friendly. Repeat. We are friendly. We will gladly disengage at your request.”
Transom looked over at her, puzzled by the last line of her message.
“They’re a little paranoid,” Carolina explained. “They almost got blasted from space by the Trasp at the start of the war, and the Consul resolved that their colony would never allow themselves to be in that position again. So they spent the last seventy years perfecting their defenses. If you came with a thousand starfighters, they’d show you in about four minutes what a thousand wrecked starfighters floating in space looks like.”
“My kind of people,” Transom said. “How the hell do you know about them?”
“They were in the other Garvin system, and one of the Athosian mines is still there. I came with my grandfather on a diplomatic trip when I was probably eleven or twelve.”
“Lost Star,” Eden came back. “We’re not showing a match in our registry for your vessel type. You’re also not running any colors. Please give us your ship’s proper name and designation.”
“Negative, Eden. This is Lost Star. Happy to discuss on an encrypted channel to confirm identity. Awaiting channel assignment. Again, we will break off at your request at any time.”
“Standby, Lost Star.”
“Lost Star?” Transom asked. “Some sort of code name?”
“It was the name of my grandfather’s yacht, which he took on diplomatic trips. He used to expense that rather than taking a government vessel. Dreeson standards.”
“Just look at what the family has become,” Transom said, shaking his head, tapping the dash in Yankee-Chaos’s flight deck. “Are we going to be able to spring these kids back out of here later or what?”
“As I said, they’re paranoid.”
“Lost Star, channel assignment is encoded. The C-Suite is expecting a very specific person to identify herself based on vocal analysis. If you can give us that name on the encrypted channel, we will patch you through to the Consul’s office. If not, you will be turned around immediately.”
“Maícon?” Carolina said.
“Encrypted channel is secure and open.”
“This is Captain Carolina Dreeson hailing from the Letters vessel Yankee-Chaos. Greetings, friends.”
There was nearly a minute of silence, long enough that the non-response became conspicuous.
“You did make friends over there, no?” Transom said.
She nodded.
A moment later, a video channel opened. There were two faces looking back at Carolina. One, inside the C-Suite, was a middle-aged woman Carolina presumed to be the current Consul; the other was the face of the man she’d met over a decade prior when she was just a child—Artlan Bayor. He looked older now.
“Carolina? Is that really you? Captain Dreeson, Consul Lattimore’s office informs me?”
“Hello, Consul Bayor. It’s so good to see you again.”
“It’s Former Consul now, yes, and my, have you grown up.”
“We can do pleasantries inside, please, Consul Bayor,” the current Consul said. “Apologies for being curt, but we needed visual confirmation on your identity. You caught me in the middle of a meeting, Captain Dreeson. I must be off. The Yankee-Chaos has clearance to dock. You’ll receive instructions. Follow them exactly and be prepared to identify all your occupants once your airlock is open.”
“Acknowledged, Consul. We’re grateful for your time and hospitality,” Carolina said.
“I look forward to catching up, Carolina,” Ex-Consul Bayor said. “See you soon.”
“Yankee-Chaos out,” Carolina said, looking over at Transom.
“They want to scan all of us?”
“You haven’t been convicted of a crime in the Indies, have you?”
“Convicted? No. But I’m supposed to be dead, remember?”
“They won’t have Etteran files.”
“You sure this isn’t a prison colony?”
“Nicest one in the Battery,” Carolina joked.
On the way in, Maícon remarked that the colony’s defenses were staggering, a network of high-energy lasers mounted on the cylinder frames that could lay waste to an incoming fleet in seconds, powered by the sum of sixteen hundred heavy fusion engines. The cylinders themselves, forty in number, flew in a specific formation to guarantee there were no blind spots, no approach vector where an incoming ship wouldn’t be at the mercy of the cylinder group’s overwhelming defenses.
They found the same level of security once the airlock was open—retinal scans for all the humans, as well as capability examinations for Harold, Juice’s old bot George, and lots of questions about Maícon’s dormant bot shell. He offered to occupy the shell for the examiners, who instead insisted that he remain situated in the ship and leave the shell dormant for the duration of their visit. He happily complied.
Sōsh and Harold remained on the ship, while Carolina and Transom escorted Alex and Sisco to the current Consul of Eden’s office, along with Ren, who accompanied them to transfer care of Alex to Eden’s medical staff if they deemed it necessary.
By the time they were admitted to the C-Suite to speak with the Consul, Ex-Consul Bayor had joined them in the sitting area.
“Quite different company you’re keeping these days, young Carolina,” he said, smiling. “Fewer stuffy diplomats. I like this group much better.”
She smiled back, got up, and gave the old Ex-Consul a hug. “How is Xanthi, these days? We used to write, but I lost touch some time in our teens, sad to say.”
“He’s doing great. I’m sure he’d love to see you if you’re planning on staying for a bit?”
“Unfortunately, no, not us. Maybe when we return. I was just hoping to take you up on your offer of a safe place to stay.”
“Yes?”
“Our friends here, well, I’ll explain it all to the Consul, but some trouble that was following us found them, and I happened to know where they’d be safe, and welcome?”
“Oh, I’m sure, Carolina. If they’re friends of yours, they’ll be welcome,” the ex-Consul said. “You’re sure you won’t stay? Your group looks like they could use some time to decompress.”
“Pressing matters,” Carolina said. “But young Barlow here has brought an engineering problem with him that I’m sure will catch the interest of your people.”
The door to the Consul’s office opened, and the chief security officer gestured for the group to enter.
The meeting was brief, and mostly, the Consul listened as Carolina explained the circumstances, artfully saying enough without saying too much. Consul Lattimore asked a few cursory questions, some of which Ex-Consul Bayor provided answers for, while others were simple answers Sisco was able to provide. They were happy to be somewhere safe after the chaos of the prior week, and with Ex-Consul Bayor’s blessing, Lattimore admitted Sisco Dreeson and young Barlow Riche into Eden, even offering to make introductions to the proper people in their engineering circles once Alex was feeling up to it.
With the Consul’s schedule already overbooked, once she was satisfied the young couple wasn’t a threat to the colony, and that Carolina had returned in good faith and friendship, she adjourned the meeting. Ex-Consul Bayor invited Carolina, Sebastian, and Ren to lunch, but Carolina insisted they had time-sensitive issues pending out in the galaxy. She promised to make it up to him when she returned for Alex and Sisco, as soon as they were certain it was safe for the young couple back on Lime Harbor. Though none of them knew for certain when that would be.
They didn’t even say their goodbyes to Sisco and Alex. That’s how certain Carolina was that they’d be returning soon. Ex-Consul Bayor detected something, though, in the face of Carolina’s otherwise stoic Etteran bodyguard that gave him cause to believe much more was bubbling beneath the surface of this unexpected visit than he could ever guess.
“I hope we’ll see you again soon, Carolina,” he said, a measure of concern in his tone. “Until then, I look forward to your safe return.”
Less than four hours after they’d moored-up outside the Eden cylinder, Yankee-Chaos was underway again, back to open space.
“The Riches complicated matters,” Carolina stated once they’d all gathered around the Atrium table. “We need to go back to Lime Harbor again, and it’s likely to be dangerous. I’m sorry I’ve had to be cryptic these past few days, but I owe you all a fair accounting of the situation.”
“Why would we need to go back to Lime Harbor?” Ren asked. “Didn’t we just barely make it out of there?”
“Maybe let’s start with the big picture first,” Sōsh stated. “How about, what the hell is going on, Carolina? We’ve been taking a lot on faith these past few days.”
“Agreed,” Carolina said, nodding. “First things first. Maícon did locate and secure the bank servers the night before Sebastian, Sisco, and I went looking for them. We thought it was important that our companions were all ignorant of that fact, especially Airee.”
“Why?” Ren asked. “If you didn’t trust him, why bring him aboard?”
“It wasn’t about trust, Ren. It was about him—his personality. He’d never stop digging until he knew exactly everything we’d uncovered, and frankly, he’d get himself killed. So either we were going to bring him fully into our trust or we had to send him home with an incomplete picture. He already thought the war was a product of rich, corrupt, powerful people in our government and he still believes the same, but he doesn’t know what’s going on. As far as Sisco and Alex, they don’t know much of anything, but that wouldn’t have kept them safe if our enemies had found them on Lime Harbor.”
“Are you sure they’re not going to talk about what they did see?” Sōsh asked. “I was wondering about Barlow. All those years that close to the bank. How could we be sure he didn’t have an arrangement with the people holding those accounts?”
“That’s why we went to Eden,” Carolina said. “If Alex and Sisco had protested getting tucked away like that, I’d have suspected some obligation or desire to inform the people who came looking for us.”
“Who did come looking for us, and how, so fast?” Ren said. “What did you find in those accounts?”
“You forgot the headline, boss” Sebastian said. “The news that changes the galaxy?”
“Yeah, sorry,” Carolina said, shaking her head. “It’s a lot. The mystery account—the holder. Maícon insists it’s an AI named Nilius, an ancient, a prime. It appears he’s the architect, and he’ll be coming after anyone associated with us.”
It was silent around the table as Sōsh and Ren absorbed that news.
“I still worry about Carsten. You sure Airee’s not going to talk, Carolina?” Sōsh said, shaking his head. “Or come looking for us, for you?”
Carolina shook her head and shrugged. “He doesn’t know about the AI. He is angry about me cutting him out, though. Carsten probably hates me now.”
“Hates?” Sōsh said, a dubious look on the living half of his face. “That’s another word for it.”
“He won’t be a problem,” Carolina said. “I know him. Trust me.”
“Besides,” Transom interjected. “What’s going down because of the bank is going to happen soon.”
“And what’s that?” Ren said. “Why would we rush back to Lime Harbor if they’re looking for us there?”
“Because we need to find them,” Carolina said. “The money’s one piece of the puzzle. We need to learn about Nilius’s network—how the money translates into action. And we go to Lime Harbor because it’s the last place they’ll think we’ll go now. Plus, anyone who shows up there, we can assume is part of Nilius’s network. It’s our best chance to get real-world intel on our adversaries.”
“An AI?” Sōsh said. “Orchestrating the war?”
“It makes sense if you think about it,” Sebastian said. “Who else could pull so many strings over so long a time?”
“To what end, though?” Ren asked. “Why? Isn’t that against your protocols or programming or whatever, Maícon?”
“My last contact with Nilius was nearly a thousand years ago,” Maícon’s voice piped into the room. “To what end he is orchestrating the war, I am as uncertain as you. We primes and our progeny were created as companions and protectors of the human race. I don’t have an acceptable explanation for his orchestration of this conspiracy, but we must get to him and get those answers. The sooner, the better. And that begins, most likely with those fighters at Lime Harbor.”
“Shouldn’t we tell someone? Or tell everyone?” Ren said. “I’m just so … I don’t even know. This is so unbelievable I don’t even know what to think.”
“Certain pieces of knowledge break the worlds, ruin civilizations, end epochs,” Maícon said. “I know enough history to know to tread lightly on such grounds, doctor. Worlds should not be broken lightly for fear of what follows.”
They approached Lime Harbor for the third time in less than two weeks. It was beginning to feel familiar. The fighters—Transom, Sōsh, and Maícon—had discussed as many combat scenarios as seemed plausible along the way: outnumbered by several ships, outnumbered by many ships, system crawling with ships, the system entirely empty, numerous commandos on the ground, hundreds of commandos on the ground. They had contingencies for every scenario, most of which involved Yankee-Chaos jumping the hell out of there again before they were spotted. They’d accounted the actual situation that greeted them so unlikely they’d barely discussed it: the same one ship that had landed during the dust storm still sitting there at the banks, all alone.
Maícon had managed to fly them in again undetected, hidden behind the arrowheads. The storm had blown over completely. Clear skies all the way to the ground. And there they were out there in the piazza in broad daylight. Two strikebots and two commandos walking around without a care. They weren’t even running any drones.
Transom, Sōsh, and Carolina gathered at the coms station outside the atrium, staring at the surveillance on screen.
“What do you want to do?” Sōsh asked Transom.
“Ordinarily, I wouldn’t hesitate to drop some ordnance on their heads, grab as much data from their ship as we could scrounge up, then be done with the place.”
“Yeah, your own people, though,” Sōsh said. “I can imagine that might stir some reservations.”
Transom looked puzzled. “Just because you can imagine it, doesn’t mean it’s so. Thing is, we need them talking, metalface, but the second they talk to me, they’re going to wonder who I am, and that’s only if they don’t know already. And, as I keep telling you people, I’m supposed to be dead.”
“I suggest crippling their ship and their defensive capacities before descending,” Maícon said. “They seem entirely unaware of our presence. I suggest we take that advantage.”
“What’s Burch got in the old toolbox?” Transom asked.
Ren wandered over behind them, looking dubiously on the same lone ship—the one that’d had them hiding in the basement of the municipal building for two days.
“Anybody else feel like this is just too bloody easy?”
Transom shook his head. “They probably got orders to secure the scene and sit on it. Last thing they’re expecting is us to come back to it, especially if they think we got what we came for. Believe me, this far from a combat zone, on a sleepy little planet like this, most operators would be on vacation down there too.”
“You know Etteran tactics better than I do,” Sōsh said. “What do you suggest?”
“Screamers for the engines, the small arms locker, and the strikebots. Then we drop a swarm of drones over those operators right as we walk up on them. Let them know we want to talk on our terms, and if they want to fight, we drop them one by one until somebody decides it’s in their interest to talk.
Ren looked over at Carolina, who clearly didn’t enjoy having to manage this side of the Captain’s ledger.
“I defer to you two,” Carolina said. “You have my permission to do whatever you think is best.”
“Careful saying that to me,” Transom said, not even looking up from the screen.
“What he said,” Sōsh agreed.
“You going to body up with us, sprockets?” Transom asked Maícon, who was still occupying the ship.
“Negative. I’ll stay here. Two skillful operators with drone support and the element of surprise can handle that unit. In the unlikely event that a trap is sprung on you, I will almost certainly be more valuable piloting the Yankee-Chaos than standing beside you inside it.”
“Fair enough,” Transom said. “I’ll set the weapons, we’ll go down the elevator again, and you can drop our screamers when we close on their perimeter.”
The remaining details he specified when he programmed the weapons package. Then, all that remained was the op itself.
Barlow’s bots were no more talkative than before. They reported that the visitors hadn’t taken any interest in their work. Beyond that, they had nothing to share. They’d continued to move the surplus spheres Harold had backloaded into the warehouse.
“I wonder what they’ll do when those run out,” Sōsh said as the elevator approached the city once more.
Transom shrugged. “Rust?”
“Seems a shame if this old city just got left to fry.”
“Why? You looking for a place to settle down? Find a half-metal girl, have a couple cyborg kids?”
“I have been thinking about it, actually,” Sōsh said. “I was hoping for one full human one full robot, though. Me and the Mrs., we’ll love them both the same.”
Transom snorted out a laugh. “Touching.”
A few seconds later, the elevator hissed to a stop at ground level.
This time, rather than hitching a ride with the bots, the two fighters set out across the city on foot. They maintained coms silence in case the Etteran fighters were monitoring for signals. They trusted Maícon to alert them from above, though, if anything major on the ground changed.
They progressed quickly and quietly across the stone bridge that connected the space elevator with the old city. Transom didn’t break the silence to ask Sōsh what he thought, but for him, approaching his own, he found it difficult to believe them so oblivious to his approach. He’d done a lot of ops, even quiet, useless ones that amounted to nothing. But he’d never have allowed this level of complacency to set in. The closer he and Sōsh got, the less he could believe it.
Yet as they approached the perimeter he’d set to trigger the screamers—several hundred meters from the square where the starfighter was parked—there was still no sign the operatives had set up any surveillance. It didn’t even appear that they’d sent the strikers out to have a look around the city or even put up drones.
Transom gave Sōsh a hand signal, directing him inside a building at the edge of the perimeter. He wanted another look.
They climbed through the old building to the third floor, where a large window overlooked the far side of the open square—a clear line of sight to the starfighter. The optics in their helmets enhanced what their naked eyes could have told them with slightly greater strain—the two human operatives weren’t even keeping a post anymore. They’d either gone inside one of the buildings, or they were back inside the ship.
Transom and Sōsh knelt and took off their helmets.
“The radiation?” Sōsh suggested. “Only thing I can guess.”
“What the hell are they still doing there?”
“You want to ask them?” Sōsh said, gesturing toward the piazza with his head.
“Yeah, kinda,” Transom said. “At least, I don’t really want to dump screamers on their ship with them in it, no matter how surgical Maícon thinks he can be.”
“I was being sarcastic,” Sōsh said. “I don’t really want to ask them.”
“Let’s draw them out.”
“Set a charge here? Give them something to investigate?”
“Something minor, break a couple windows maybe, just enough to perk them up and have a look outside.”
Sōsh shrugged. “You’d know best, I guess.”
Sōsh set a small charge on the windowsill, and they exited the building. They moved across their perimeter, careful not to approach the square. Transom positioned Sōsh on the roof of a second building with a line of sight to the square and instructed him to stay concealed until the strike bots were disabled. Then he retreated to the street below.
Transom gave Sōsh the signal to blow the window, which, in that silent city, immediately drew the attention of the strikers. The bots didn’t press forward immediately, which, Transom knew, meant they were awaiting direction from the human OIC on the ship. Seconds later, he got visual from Sōsh’s visor that the two human operatives were exiting the ship to investigate with the strikers.
Transom made for the square, crossing their perimeter, the trigger to the Yankee-Chaos to unleash the weapons package. From the space elevator’s observation stream, Maícon had a clear view. With Transom moving in, he shot the screamers down—too small and too fast for any of the Etteran passive systems to pick them up before it was far too late.
Ahead in the piazza, the strike bots seemed to flash and explode before the two unsuspecting Etteran fighters, followed by the deafening high-scream of the soundwave, arriving just behind them. The operatives instinctively averted their heads, only to see their ship, smoldering from the three simultaneous strikes that had destroyed their engines, weapons control, and the gear hall, neutralizing the small arsenal an ops team like that always traveled with. They were clever enough to know what a strike like that meant. Both operatives looked to the sky above to see the drone coverage settling over them. Exactly what they’d have done themselves.
The Etteran operatives stopped, dropped their weapons, and put up their arms, scanning the piazza with their eyes for their assailants. Transom was watching them from around the corner, unseen, ten o’clock from the two piles of metal that were formerly Etteran strikebots. He was close enough to be within earshot. He’d seen their kind of disbelief before. He could recognize it in their body language, helmets on. They weren’t ready to admit what had happened to them, even though they had to know.
“Strip!” Transom projected his voice into the piazza. “You’re covered ten different ways, you dumb, oblivious bastards.”
Seconds later, he heard his own robotic words rain down from the drones onto the square. The two operatives looked at each other, and reluctantly began to take off pieces of their armor, tossing it to the cobblestones in front of them. Transom directed them to keep stripping till their armor was off and they were down to their base layer, hardly enough fabric to conceal a well stashed blade. These two—an older male operative and his female subordinate—he could tell they weren’t even thinking that way anymore. They were on holiday here on Lime Harbor.
“Walk!” Transom said. “Step toward your three o’clock, right down High Street till I tell you to stop.”
Transom walked too, watching them from the drone footage and from Sōsh’s visor. Periodically, he exhorted them to keep walking, even as he was approaching the wrecked starfighter himself. The ship’s standing security countermeasures had been disabled by the screamers, Transom knew, because Yankee-Chaos’s drones were hovering overhead providing coverage without resistance. The starfighter was a dead ship.
Inside, he quickly discovered, were two dead Etterans—two more operatives, barely clothed, in their racks, caught by shrapnel from the secondary explosions when the gear hall had gone up. Kids. That’s what they looked like to him. Dead kids.
He shook his head, filled a bag with what few useful items he could think to pinch, and headed back outside to interrogate their captives.
By the time he got out there, they’d made it to Sōsh’s position. Sōsh was standing on the roof at the edge of the building with his bolt rifle trained on them, directing the two Etterans to kneel in the middle of the empty street. They turned their heads slightly, reacting to Transom’s footsteps on the cobblestones behind them. The male operative was shaking his head in disbelief, presumably at how this mission, of all ops, had gone sideways.
“I guess you’re not our ride out, then,” he said, kneeling. “You didn’t need to blast the ship. It was dead anyway.”
He turned his head further.
“Stop,” Transom said, the helmet’s audio projecting a generic robotic tone. “Face forward.”
“This isn’t a combat zone,” the operative said.
“And you’re not in uniform, soldier.”
“We were,” the female operative said.
“Now you’re in your underwear, kneeling in the street in a dead city, two thousand light years from where anyone gives a damn about you, if anybody does.”
“Are you Trasp?” the male operative asked.
“What are you doing out here?” Transom asked.
“Some bullshit mission,” the Etteran operative answered. “Comms silent. We got sent to search a bank that’s been closed a hundred years, halfway across the Battery from any front that means a damn thing, and the goddamn dust storm blew up our IAs, thrusters, and damn near fried our engine. Then you assholes finished the job.”
“Who are you working for?”
“What?”
“Don’t make me ask twice,” Transom’s robotic voice answered.
“We’re Etteran. Can’t you tell? Eastern Field Command.”
“Bullshit. Who are you working for?”
“Grice. Commodore of the Eighth Fleet.”
“You’re on an op?”
“Obviously. What the hell else would we be doing out here, man?”
Transom circled around in front of them, looking down on the older operative.
“Who ordered it?”
“Who do you think? As I said. Grice.”
“Sir?” the female operative said.
“Don’t worry, Lieutenant,” he said to her, shaking his head.
Transom could read the sidelong look he shot back at her.
“He still thinks you’re going to kill us, Lieutenant,” Transom said. “That’s why he’s talking to me. He just doesn’t understand who he’s talking to yet. He doesn’t understand that I’m not too stupid to have cleared your ship before walking up here. He also doesn’t know your two other operatives are dead.”
She shook her head, staring down at the dusty, cobblestone street in front of her.
“What the hell are you doing out here, Fields? And how the hell could you be so sloppy, getting those kids killed?”
Transom turned his back to the two Etterans, took several steps away from them and took off his helmet, setting it down on the street in a crouch.
When he stood and turned back around, the Etteran operative’s face went white. Then, his eyes filled with rage. He leapt up, and before he could charge Transom, Sōsh put three bolts at his feet in quick succession, causing the young female operative to turn her face, shielding it from the shattering cobblestone pavement with her arm.
“You son of a bitch,” Fields said, the fury resonating in his tone. “I knew they’d never kill you, asshole. You kill your own now, do you? Although, come to think of it, that was never a problem for you before you were dead, was it?”
The young woman looked up at Transom’s face, a spattering of blood now trickling down hers. Transom looked down at her, assessing.
“You know these guys, Fieldstone?” the female operative asked.
Transom pulled a cloth cravat from his left pantleg and tossed it to the young woman, gesturing to the cut under her eye. She picked up the bandage, opened the package, and held the cloth tight to her face, just below her eye, wincing slightly.
Fieldstone stood there, fuming.
“You’ve been fighting so long you’ve forgotten what you’re fighting for, Fields,” Transom said.
“Fieldstone?” the young woman shouted.
“Yeah!” he said. “I know him. This deserting scum. This traitor who kills his own. This no good son of a bitch. This is Transom.”