Stolen Earth, page 3
“All green up here, Morales. Execute when ready.”
The captain’s words sounded loud and clear from the integrated comm in her ship suit. She glanced at the indicator next to the airlock—seal and pressure were both reading green—to confirm the accuracy of the bridge reading. She sent back a double-click of acknowledgment to the captain and turned her attention back to Federov and Bishop.
“Quick and clean,” she reiterated. “And no one gets hurt.” Bishop nodded, tightening his hands on his shotgun as the tension of their impending action quelled some of his ebullience.
Federov clapped him on the shoulder. “Now the fun starts.” The dead serious tone belied the words, but he gave Laurel a nod.
She drew a breath, squared her shoulders, and hit the button to open the airlock. The outer door cycled, and she stepped in, followed closely by Federov and Bishop. It was a tight fit; the Arcus wasn’t a particularly large vessel to begin with and its primary airlock was actually its cargo hold, designed to be loaded or unloaded under vacuum. The airlock they were using was only suited for single-person transfers, but the three of them managed to squeeze into the space with enough room for her to tap the controls to cycle the lock. Once the indicator above the outer door showed a positive seal on the inner, Laurel punched the controls, causing the outer door to recede into the hull.
That left her looking down the throat of the KSC vessel’s docking tube, an otherwise nondescript cylinder of metal and composite. She could see the outer airlock of the ship at the other end of the tube, roughly ten meters away. As she reached out to grab on to the guide rail, she tried to force the thought that a single shift in acceleration by either vessel would result in the docking tube being torn free and her, Bishop, and Federov going for the kind of deep-space swim that every member of the Commonwealth secretly feared.
She drew a steadying breath and pulled herself forward.
The artificial gravity of the Arcus vanished the moment she broke the plane of the ship’s hull and she felt the instant disorientation of freefall. She ignored it as best she could and focused on the door to the KSC ship. She pulled herself hand-over-hand along the guiderail, each movement slow and steady in recognition of the laws of the physics. She was aware of Federov moving into the tube behind her and Bishop bringing up the rear, but she kept her focus forward. She’d done extensive extravehicular activity training as part of her “station security” work, but she’d never enjoyed it.
In short order, she found herself at the hull of the target vessel. She glanced back, waiting until both Federov and Bishop had reached her. When they were within arm’s reach, she hit the exterior controls, sending the request to the bridge to open the outer airlock. She felt the tension in her shoulders as she waited. If the KSC captain got spooked or if they really were carrying contraband and decided to make a break for it, now would be the time to do so. As soon as they let the “customs agents” on board, their window of escape would vanish.
An indicator light blinked green and the door slid into the hull.
Laurel moved without hesitation, dropping into the gravity of the KSC vessel and pushing forward to the inner door. In her peripheral vision, she saw Bishop and Federov spread out to either side, the scale of the KSC lock affording them more room to maneuver. Bishop hit the bulkhead next to her and Federov slotted into place on the other side of the hatch. She hit the keys to close the outer airlock and cycle the inner. They were likely under electronic observation, and she didn’t want to give any of the crew the chance to examine their “uniforms” too closely. The outer door slid shut and the inner door began to cycle. It opened and Laurel stepped into the corridor beyond, Bishop and Federov on her heels.
The airlock was located amidships, a standard setup for a passenger or crew lock. Aftward, the corridor was empty. From the other direction, presumably on their way from the bridge, she saw a trio walking briskly toward her.
The one in front wore the kind of exaggerated uniform preferred by the various corporate services. It was full of gold braid and burnished brass affixed to a deep blue ship suit and included an honest-to-God hat, an outrageous boxy thing that sat square upon the woman’s head. Based on this elaborate affair, Laurel pegged her as the captain. The people with her must have been her junior officers judging by the fact that their uniforms boasted a similar, albeit somewhat more understated, showiness. The captain had been walking toward them with a professional smile on her lean face, but as she took in their unorthodox attire, that smile faltered.
Shit.
Competent people were great when they were on your side. But damned if she didn’t hate it when the other side had professionals. As the captain’s eyes widened and her pace slowed causing her two subordinates to stumble into her, Laurel reacted. Her pistol appeared in her hand as if by its own accord and she leveled it at the approaching officers, who had stumbled to a halt maybe four meters from them.
“Keep quiet and keep your hands where we can see them,” she barked, infusing her voice with every ounce of authority and command that she could bring to bear.
One of the junior officers, his corporate-designated rank indecipherable to anyone outside of the corporations’ halls, stared at her with a dumbfounded expression on his face. The captain, every bit the professional, did the smart thing. She obeyed the commands of the woman pointing a gun at her head. The other officer, though, had either a hero complex or a death wish. Instead of obeying, he lunged forward, arms outstretched, as if to attempt to tear the firearm from Laurel’s grip by main strength.
Only to be met by the butt of Federov’s boarding shotgun square into his forehead.
The man went down in a heap and, without a word, Federov leveled his weapon at the pair still upright. A quick glance showed Laurel that Bishop was facing away from them, keeping his eyes and weapon pointed aft, covering their six. She gave Federov a slight nod of thanks. With his face shield polarized, she couldn’t see any reply, but from their time aboard the Arcus she could picture the lazy wink he threw in her direction.
“Enough of that, Captain,” Laurel said, taking some of the steel out of her tone. “There is no need for anyone to get hurt.” She glanced down at the unconscious crewman. “Anyone else,” she amended.
“What do you want?” the captain demanded. “Who are you?”
“Who we are doesn’t matter. What matters is that we have no desire to harm you or your crew. And while it’s true that we’ll be liberating some of your cargo, we have no intention of taking all of it. What we do take is insured by SolComm. So, provided you do as you’re told, you’ll all come out of this alive and well and, once you get all the paperwork filed, without any financial harm. Okay?”
The other woman regarded her, face settling into an expressionless mask. Laurel recognized it; she’d worn it herself a time or two. It was the expression of someone struggling to turn off their emotions and just do the damn job. It was a feeling she could relate to, on many levels.
“Very well. What do you want?”
Laurel nodded to the comm attached to the captain’s waist. “Make an announcement to your crew. Tell them the customs agents are going to do a full sweep of the ship, and they’re to go to their quarters. You expect it to take about an hour. They’ll be locked in to minimize the potential for interference or misunderstanding. Make it sound routine. Our computer tech will take temporary control over your systems, so that we know everyone is staying where they’re supposed to.”
“Is that all?” the captain asked. The still-conscious crewman had lost his dumbfounded expression and traded it in for one that hovered somewhere between fear and disbelief. Victims, Laurel noted, often looked that way, but she wasn’t used to being the one to cause that expression. She had to remind herself of her mission.
“That’s all. Once you and your crew are contained, we’ll be in and out of your ship as fast as we can. You have my word that none of your people nor your ship will come to any harm.”
“Your word. Of course.”
The flatness tone stung Laurel and she saw Federov’s grip tighten on his boarding shotgun. She held up a hand to forestall any precipitous action.
“You have no reason to trust it,” Laurel acknowledged. “But you also aren’t spoiled for choice. I’d much rather do things the easy way, but we can play it hard if we have to.” She glanced pointedly to the comm at the woman’s side and then the pistol in her own hands.
“Fine,” the captain said. “May I?”
Laurel nodded her assent, conscious of Federov and Bishop both tensing. If the captain complied, then they had a good chance of getting out of this mess without having to kill anyone. But if she didn’t, if she called on her crew to resist, it was going to get messy. Her stomach turned at the thought of leaving bodies behind. Laurel willed the captain to make the smart choice as she pulled the comm from her belt and keyed the transmitter.
“All hands,” the captain said, “report to your quarters. Our… guests from SolComm Customs will be doing a full sweep of all the common spaces. They assure me it’s routine, but best if we’re out of their way. They’ll be locking the doors behind us to ensure everyone’s safety. Their commander tells me it will be a brief inspection, an hour or so at most. So, let’s all look at this as a welcome break in the day.” The captain raised an eyebrow at Laurel.
“Satisfactory, captain. Now let’s give everyone a moment to follow your orders and then get you and your friends here situated as well.”
* * *
It took longer than anticipated. It always did. The crew of the KSC vessel responded to their captain’s orders, and once they were safely in their quarters, it was easy enough for Hayer to make sure that they were not only staying there, but that they weren’t going to be talking to anyone, either. That left the work of transferring the cargo from the KSC ship to the Arcus. It was an “all hands on deck” sort of mission, and they were just over an hour and a half in when Laurel found herself loading the last palette with Lynch. The crates of CO2 scrubbers were light enough that two people could maneuver them onto the motorized palette jacks. As they settled the last one in place, Lynch wiped his brow and sighed. He gave her a tired smile and said, “Last one. We get this done, get the Arcus buttoned up, and it should be smooth flying back to the Fringe.”
“Assuming the people we’ve got locked away don’t break free and try to stop us. We are robbing them blind, after all.”
Lynch shrugged. “True enough.”
His ready agreement surprised her, though it shouldn’t. She’d been with the crew long enough now to know that Lynch made neither excuses nor apologies for the criminal acts that the Arcus engaged in.
“But I think Hayer has them locked down tight enough that we’ll be able to get out of here without too many issues. As to the theft, the manifest said these—” he slapped the palette of scrubbers “—were bound for Phobos and Deimos. I’m not going to shed any tears for the people on either of those rocks.”
Laurel shook her head and hit the control to set the motorized cart in motion. Phobos and Deimos, the moons—if such a word could be used for what were little more than big asteroids—of Mars hadn’t been active colonies for all that long. Their irregular shapes and general inhospitableness made them unattractive as settlements. Until, that was, the ultra-rich inhabitants of Mars decided that the domes were getting too crowded, and with the “wrong kind” of people. Building new domes on Mars wasn’t enough for them; it would be too easy for the general riffraff to make the transition and begin encroaching on their newfound spaces.
“Hard to believe they went to all that effort, instead of just building new domes,” Laurel muttered.
“New domes aren’t exclusive enough,” the captain grunted as he guided the palette jack. “Transport to Mars proper is easy. Storage is even easier; plenty of room. Phobos and Deimos are more like stations—bad ones. Everything has to be imported. Everything’s expensive. A day’s ration of water probably costs ten times what it does anywhere else.”
“Wasteful,” Laurel said. It was more than that. “Shameful” might have been a better word. She might not have thought so even a few months ago. But she’d seen how some of the people lived in the Fringe.
“It is that. And it’s why I’m not shedding too many tears by lifting these scrubbers.”
“Whatever,” she said, remembering that she was supposed to be a hardened criminal. “As long as we get paid.”
“As long as we get paid,” Lynch agreed.
RAJANI
Rajani Hayer grimaced as she pulled her ship suit on. She hated wearing the thing, no matter how much she could respect the thinking behind it. It was tight, restrictive, and generally uncomfortable. But they were about to transfer the cargo they’d “acquired” from KSC to their buyers, and one scan of the ship had convinced her that the captain’s recommendation to suit up was only common sense.
The vessel was, to be generous, a drifting hulk unfit for human habitation. Except that her scans had showed exactly that—so much habitation, in fact, that it was difficult to get an accurate read on just how many people might be crammed into the wreck. Thousands of souls. Maybe tens of thousands.
When she’d walked away from her former life, she had thought she’d known about life on the Fringe. She’d expected dirt and lawlessness. She’d steeled herself for low-calorie rations. And she’d thought she understood poverty. To her, poverty had been some sort of noble ideal; it conjured images of a downtrodden working class that, fortified by common struggles, forged bonds in shared adversity and soldiered on, keeping a stiff upper lip and an unbreakable spirit. Poverty had been synonymous with fortitude and endurance. It had been quietly admired by her and her academic peers at university functions; functions, she now knew, that had burned through more calories and oxygen in a single hour than some Fringe families saw in a week.
Her eyes had been rather forcibly opened in those first few weeks.
She’d had no idea where she was going when she left the university. All official channels were closed to her: institutes of higher learning, large corporations, Commonwealth jobs, and anyone and anything that might file little things like employment paperwork or tax returns or make electronic note of her presence. All those systems were subject to unquestioned and unlimited review by the SolComm Internal Security Bureau. Popping up in those databases would make it all too easy to find her when the other shoe finally dropped. That hadn’t left many options. She could have found a remote station and tried to make a name for herself on the darknet doing corporate espionage or creating false identities. But that would draw exactly the kind of attention she didn’t want.
The captain had found her on Heritage station. By that point, she had been exhausted: what few hard credits she’d possessed had been spent getting as far away from the core of SolComm as possible and she could no longer use any method of payment that could be tracked. She had put out a few tentative feelers around the station, looking to put her coding skills to work—no questions asked—to earn some cash. Of course, she had also been terrified that the SCISB would be on her the second she did.
Luckily, Captain Lynch had appeared first. He’d had work and she’d needed it. It hadn’t, strictly speaking, been legal work, but she figured that ship had left port when Manu escaped. A tightness gripped her chest at the thought of Manu; she did her best to crush it, telling herself for the ten thousandth time that Manu hadn’t been a person. She had taken the job and she had done it. And done it well. She hadn’t been expecting the captain’s next offer, to join the crew of the Arcus. But at the time, it had seemed heaven sent. A ship, she’d thought, would be just the thing. She would be a lot harder to find—by Manu or SolComm—if she was always on the move somewhere in the vastness of space. The captain had explained how the Arcus worked: equal shares; no questions.
It seemed like the perfect fit. That had been two years ago, and things had been going well enough. Better than she had any right to expect, given the circumstances.
But she still hated cramming herself into the ship suit.
* * *
R292-A was even worse on the inside than the scans had indicated.
The crew had gathered in the cargo bay, packed between the crates of CO2 scrubbers. Rajani noted that the captain, Federov, and the new girl all wore guns on their hips. Bishop, at least, seemed more reasonable and had no visible weapon. Rajani barely knew which end of a firearm was the dangerous one, despite Captain Lynch insisting that she learned the basics. She certainly wouldn’t be touching one any time soon.
“Listen up, people,” the captain said, gathering their attention. His words had taken on the deeper tone and clipped cadence that she thought of as his “captain’s voice.” “The air inside this tin can is going to be bad. Bad enough that if we don’t keep the rest of the Arcus buttoned up, we might need new scrubbers of our own. It’s right on the edge of dangerous; past it, really, if you’re here for more than a few hours. But these people are proud and stubborn.”
“Aren’t we all,” Federov muttered. “Wouldn’t be out here, otherwise.”
“True enough,” Lynch acknowledged as the others chuckled. Rajani didn’t. “The point is, the polite thing to do is keep our hoods off. It’s going to be unpleasant, but it won’t kill us. We’re only here for an hour; these poor bastards live like this. Understood?”
That garnered nods all round and the captain hit the control to open the cargo bay doors. Rajani steeled herself for the worst, but she wasn’t close to prepared. There was a faint hiss of shifting pressure as the Arcus’s cargo bay and R292-A reached equilibrium. Then the stench—and that was the only possible word—hit her with a near-physical force. It was a horrendous brew of smells; the inevitable odor of humanity living in close proximity and with limited water that pervaded every colony, ship, and station was to be expected. The acrid tangs of lubricants and metals underscored with the tang of rust was unsurprising. Either would have been unpleasant, but when combined with the raw sewage and putrescent mold smell of a failing environmental system, it was all Rajani could do not to gag. Almost as bad as the stench was thinness of the air. Small shallow breaths left her feeling lightheaded, and she had to choose between not getting enough oxygen or drawing full lungsful of the atrocious concoction. It took a conscious effort of will to not immediately deploy the hood of her ship suit.
