Stolen Earth, page 5
“ ‘Last attempt?’” Bishop asked. “So there have been others. I take it they didn’t come back.”
Casey shook their head silently.
Bishop turned to Gray. “Captain, I want to help these people; I think we should help them. But I’ve heard the same rumors as everyone else out on the Fringe. Trying to poke holes in the IZ is a suicide mission. For all the stories, I’ve never met anyone who actually made it to Old Earth.”
That’s not quite true, Bishop, Gray thought. The mechanic had met at least one person who had.
RAJANI
“This is madness, okay?”
The crew were gathered in the common room of the Arcus, which featured a pair of battered couches and a couple of tables, and which doubled as both mess and meeting room for the crew. Rajani hadn’t been surprised when they’d offloaded the full cargo for less than a tenth of what they should have been paid for it. The captain wasn’t the kind of man who could let thousands of people die when he had the power to prevent it. She liked to think that she wouldn’t have stayed aboard the Arcus if he were that kind of man, though her situation hadn’t left her much choice in the matter.
Still, she had expected and even supported the captain’s decision to effectively donate the scrubbers to the nomads. She’d run the numbers; she’d been a research scientist too long not to. The few credits Casey had been able to provide would be enough to just about break even, and they’d thrown in some extra supplies. Not food, water, or air, of course—a ship like R292-A didn’t have enough of those to share—but Bishop had walked away with some spare parts for the Arcus, at least. They weren’t in a better position than before they’d pirated the KSC vessel, but by her own reckoning, they weren’t in that much worse of a position, either. In her time on the Fringe, she’d come to consider that a fairly good result.
What the captain and Bishop hadn’t shared, at least not until they had separated from the nomad vessel and put some distance between them, was the other payment the Arcus had received. Which was why they had all gathered to discuss their options.
“We can’t try to penetrate the Interdiction Zone. I don’t care how many credits we might make. We’re talking about certain death here!” She looked toward the others, hoping to see some level of support.
Federov was sprawled on one of the battered couches, taking up more than two-thirds of it. He was gnawing on a ration bar, scraping his teeth along its rock-like exterior in an effort to free some of the nutrient-rich but entirely flavorless soy-based matter. He looked unperturbed to Rajani’s eye, but then, she wasn’t certain she’d ever seen the mercenary get particularly excited about any potential job. Bishop, seated at one of the tables, looked worried, as well he should. But he’d been with the captain when they’d made the deal, so Rajani supposed he was on board with the absurdity of the notion. Morales… Morales’ expression was blank, but schooled to stillness. Maybe she didn’t want to let her fear show? Well, Rajani had no problem letting her own fear show. She glared at all of them. “It can’t be done.”
“It can be done,” Lynch said, voice quiet.
“No, it can’t. It’s the biggest network of killer satellites ever established. It has kept anything from going to or leaving from Old Earth for a century. There’s more firepower and detection technology ringing the planet than was ever present on the surface. Why in the world do you think you can make it through that network?” Rajani demanded.
“Because I’ve done it before,” Lynch said.
Rajani’s stomach dropped. If the silence that greeted them was any indicator, the rest were as stunned as she. Deep space seemed loud in comparison.
“You’ve what?” Morales demanded. The affront in her voice seemed oddly personal and her expressionless mask had slipped, revealing flat incredulity. Rajani didn’t blame her; she’d been dumbstruck by the casual statement and was still grasping to find words of her own. Bishop looked unsurprised, but even Federov had pushed himself into a less-reclined position and was staring at the captain with a hint of surprise on his broad features.
“I did a retrieval mission on Old Earth.” He raised his hands in a mollifying gesture as everyone began to speak at once. “Easy, folks. I know you have questions, but really, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot to the story. It was a SolComm-sponsored mission.” A moue of distaste twisted his lips. “Or, at least, all the paperwork was on file. It was a simple retrieval, picking up ‘cultural artifacts.’ It looked more like trash to me, honestly. If I had to put credits on it, I’d say the whole expedition was probably put together by some crooked bureaucrat misappropriating SolCommNav materials and personnel to line their own pockets. But it can be done.”
“How?” Morales asked, voice intent. “How did you—how can we—possibly penetrate the IZ?”
“Penetrating the IZ was easy enough. We were given onetime use codes that identified us to the IFF network.”
“There is no Identify-Friend-Foe network,” Morales said. “Not on the Old Earth side of the barrier. Anything that crosses that line is destroyed.” She sounded certain, and Rajani wondered how she could be. Her own research had focused on Old Earth science, particularly the development of the artificial intelligences known as the Six, but in all her delving into the dark corners of the net and, in some extreme cases, to actual physical books that had either survived the End or been reconstructed in the intervening years, she hadn’t come across much information at all on the Interdiction Zone. It was surprising; the IZ had taken on near-mythical proportions in SolComm. It was the last bastion of defense against all the horrors humanity, in its arrogance, had unleashed upon Old Earth. It was the ultimate protection and the ultimate security blanket. And no one asked too many questions about how much it cost, where the money came from, or how effective it might actually be. After all, if the IZ didn’t work, they would all already be dead.
Perhaps that’s where Morales certainty originated, in the mythic protections that everyone knew were in place.
Lynch shrugged it off. “We broadcast the codes we were given. And we didn’t get blown to hell. There are holes in the network; maybe they’re more back doors than holes, but they exist.” Rajani could see the disbelief and shock in the slack expressions and wide eyes of the rest of the crew. Lynch could, too, apparently, because he continued. “I know it sounds crazy. But I’ve been there. It can be done.”
“I can’t believe you’ve actually set foot on Old Earth,” Bishop near-whispered. There was a note in his voice, a wistfulness, that Rajani completely understood. Humanity’s birthplace may have fallen during the End, but it still held a mystique for the species that once called it home: wonder at what had been lost, but shame at the thought of the billions that had been left behind.
When the proto-SolComm had begun their evacuation operations, they hadn’t been able to save everyone. Not a tenth of the planet’s population. There were few families within the Commonwealth that didn’t have a story of an ancestor trapped on Old Earth. After the construction of the Interdiction Zone, built to prevent the chaos that still gripped Old Earth from spreading any further, all those who remained on Old Earth’s surface were presumed dead. It was easier that way.
“Briefly,” Lynch admitted. “We were in and out in under an hour. A tense hour.”
“Nobody… y’know, alive down there?” asked Bishop hopefully. “Old Earth people?”
Hayer let out a laugh of derision. “Bishop, have you been reading the conspiracy wackos on the darknet again? There’s no way anybody could survive the End. The land was poisoned and the air was full of viruses, gene warfare…”
“So you say, but—”
“So, it can be done,” Federov grunted, ending the discussion. “What is this employer paying?”
“That’s not clear yet. In fact, we don’t know the scope of the job at all.” Lynch sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. Rajani looked at him, really looked, and realized that the captain was… worn. Not just tired, but something more. Stressed. Worried. “I wasn’t going to leave that ship without giving them the scrubbers. Condemning those people to die was never an option, not for us, and not for them. For all their talk, I doubt they would have let us leave if we couldn’t come to some sort of arrangement. We made the best deal we could.
“We’re running out of credits. We’ve got enough fuel to reach a Fringe station and we’ve got enough calories to keep ourselves alive until we get there. But at that point, we’ve got to start making hard choices. Choices like fuel or food, because we’re not going to have enough credits to fill up on both.”
He drew a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. “We walked away from R292-A with barely enough credits to break even. We had to.”
Rajani felt herself nodding along.
“We were already in a tight spot to begin with.” He offered a rueful grin. “Not that that’s a new position for any of us. But we have an opportunity.” Bishop and Federov both started to object, but he stopped them. “I’m not suggesting we take it sight unseen. What I’m proposing is that we head to the rendezvous point at Newtopia. If we get there and the deal is bad, then we’re stuck searching for other work. Hell, we might even have to get whatever make-do jobs we can on station just to pay the docking fees until something comes along. Or, we forget Newtopia, make for another station, and it’s the same shit, different location. Only, we don’t have the possibility of a job waiting for us.”
“Sure,” Rajani muttered, trying, and failing, to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “No job. But also, no trip through a murder wall to land on a planet populated in equal parts by killer robots and deadly nano-viruses. There is that to consider as well.”
“Fair,” Lynch acknowledged. “Though we can always say no to the job after we have the details. But if our minds are set that a foray to Old Earth is out of the question, we can head for somewhere a little closer than Newtopia. Might save us a few credits on fuel if nothing else.” He looked around the room, meeting eyes with each of them for a moment.
It was Morales who spoke first. “I vote Newtopia,” she said. Rajani looked at her in frank surprise. Lynch had made his case, and it couldn’t hurt to hear out the offer—probably. But she wouldn’t have expected the station security expert to be the first to jump on board. She shrugged. “If Lynch has penetrated the IZ before, then maybe it can be done. We’re operating on vapors and crumbs as it is, so we might as well hear them out. Like the captain said, if we don’t like the details, we don’t take the job.” She threw a taunting glance at Federov. “Surely you’re not too scared to find out more about it, big guy.”
Federov snorted. “I’m not stupid enough to fall for that.” He paused, seemed to consider. “Still, would not hurt to find out how many credits we are talking. Would be nice to not worry about next meal or if the air is running out.”
“I’m not too keen on the idea of running the Arcus without a proper maintenance cycle, Captain,” Bishop chimed in. “Whatever we do, we need something that’s going to give us enough up-front credit for more than fuel and food. The parts from R292-A help a bit, but they won’t keep us flying for long. That holds doubly true if we’re doing anything strenuous.” He didn’t say, “like trying to infiltrate the IZ.” He didn’t have to.
“Okay, okay,” Rajani said. “I don’t like it. But I get it. We don’t have a lot of choices. I suppose I’d rather go to Newtopia and see what’s on the table. Provided, that is, that we’re all in agreement that if this turns out to be a suicide mission, we don’t take the job.” That got firm nods all around, which made Rajani feel at least a little better about the whole affair.
LAUREL
Newtopia was a shithole.
As she walked alongside Lynch through the corridors of the station, Laurel wondered if the name was meant to be ironic. Or had the residents’ utopian ideal been sucked into the nearest singularity? Like most Fringe stations, it was one part haven for criminals and smugglers, one part collection of stubborn fools who traded in the security of SolComm proper for a life of depravation and called it freedom, and one part brewing rebellion. It was the kind of place where you could find a dozen crimes within the first ten minutes of setting foot through the airlock—but she wasn’t here to clean up the Fringe.
She still hadn’t decided if Lynch’s claim of a previous infiltration of the Interdiction Zone was legitimate or invented to convince the crew that undertaking this mission was not, in fact, a death sentence. No. That wasn’t exactly fair. In her time with the Arcus, Lynch had demonstrated a concern for his crew and their well-being that she thought was legitimate. So, if he was lying, that wasn’t the reason. What then? Wrack her brain though she might, she couldn’t think of another explanation. And her read on Lynch made lying to the crew an unlikely proposition at best. Could he be telling the truth? Could SolComm have sanctioned a mission to Old Earth, put everyone at risk of contagion or worse, all for no better reason than to line the pockets of some bureaucrat or politico, somewhere?
It bothered her that she didn’t find the notion completely unbelievable. From what she knew of history, politicians had always been willing to risk someone else’s life for personal gain. But penetrating the IZ? If what she had been taught was true, in addition to being impossible, it was also the kind of action that could put every man, woman, and child in the Commonwealth at risk.
Which meant that either the top brass of SolComm was willing to do exactly that to increase their own wealth and status or what she had been taught about Old Earth wasn’t true. Neither prospect was pleasant, and she felt the warm fire of anger that burned just beneath her frustration. Worse, if one of the elite had violated the most stringent laws of the Commonwealth, she knew from personal experience that bringing them to account for it was a near-impossibility. Corruption investigations happened in SolComm, but they invariably came about because someone higher up the food chain needed a scapegoat or because some Machiavellian plot had come to its fruition, freeing someone to tear down a political rival. Outside of that, the political elite was damn near untouchable.
“I can’t stand these stations,” Lynch muttered at her side.
His words drew her from her reverie and back to the present. They were on their way to meet with Casey’s nebulous contact. Laurel had volunteered for the mission, and her supposed past as a former station security operative made her the perfect fit to act as Lynch’s second. He’d agreed to take her while the rest of the crew oversaw the task of trying to make the few credits in the ship’s accounts stretch as far as possible toward refit and resupply.
The meeting provided some unique opportunities. She needed to ascertain if the contact was legitimate and whether they were operating alone or as part of ring. And she needed to know just how in the hell they planned on infiltrating the IZ. She was eager to get that intel. It had been a long, long assignment.
“Why?” she asked Lynch in response to his statement. She wrinkled her nose. “I mean, apart from the smell.”
“Look around,” he said. “Look how these people live.”
They had made their way past the main docking ring of Newtopia and were now moving through a promenade. She saw vendors doing brisk business: food, water, ration tickets, alcohol, weapons, and second-hand clothing seemed to be the hottest sellers, in that order. At the edges of the promenade other vendors peddled less savory wares. She saw drug deals, though from the distance she couldn’t tell if they were for legal pharmaceuticals—always in short supply—or more recreational narcotics. Men and women worked the edges of the crowds, engaging in a much older profession. She had no problem with adults choosing sex work, but some were young enough to make the term “adult” questionable.
Beggars squatted in the shadows or called out from along the bulkheads. Everyone she saw was dirty, disheveled, and half-starved, but the beggars looked like they were at death’s door and just waiting for an invitation.
It was the kids she felt sorry for. The adults on Newtopia had chosen their lot—any of them could make their way back to SolComm proper and find gainful employment mining the belt or working the hydroponics farms. It was backbreaking and largely thankless labor, but they’d be guaranteed ration tickets and health care, and they’d have the satisfaction of knowing that they were doing their part to keep the species alive. The kids didn’t have that option.
“Why would anyone choose to live like this?” she wondered, trying to keep the emotion from her voice as one rail-thin child reached imploringly toward her. She had nothing to give him and could only lower her eyes in a mix of sorrow and a nagging sense of shame.
“You know why. You’re out here, too,” Lynch said, voice barely above a whisper. “Some of them are personae non gratae in SolComm. Some dared to question the basic tenets of our society and got hounded for it, all the way to the Fringes of space. Some are just people who can’t abide living under anyone’s control, even if it that means safety.” He offered her a wry grin. “And more than a few are out here because they think they can take advantage of all those other things and set themselves up as petty kings and dictators, recreating the same system that they’ve no doubt raged against.”
“None of them would be starving, though,” Laurel said. “I’ve got my issues with SolComm, sure, but if I could go back and my other option was living like this—” she waved at the poverty and desperation around her “—I’m not so sure it’s what I’d choose.”
“Then we should consider ourselves fortunate that we have choices,” Lynch rejoined. “While remembering that we’re about one failed mission away from being in the same ship as these folks. This is the only way they can live without someone else telling them what they can eat, when they can drink, or how much air they get to breathe. They may have chosen a life of privation, but at least it’s a choice. Without it, every one of them would have had their lives planned out by someone else from the moment they reached adulthood. It takes a lot of strength to do what many of them have done. Strength that I wish I’d had years ago.”
