Chapter 22
The Privateer Ship Andromeda
Combine Space, Orlov’s Star System
When transiting between stars, an object’s velocity and momentum are not preserved. Ships that come through are left disoriented and vulnerable due to transit shock. The greatest difficulty in defending transit points is the constant expenditure of thrust required. The transit points themselves don’t orbit the stars they spawn from; their relative positions are dependent on the position of the stars in relation to one another and the strength of the quantum link between the two. They change their relative positions over time and are difficult to track.
As soon as the Andromeda appeared through the transit point, she was locked onto by a cluster of automated defense platforms. These weapons used a combination of huge solar sails and low-impulse ion thrusters to stay with the transit point and not be pulled into Orlov’s Star. They were small and low mass, but were bristling with missiles and directed energy weapons. When the ship’s communications systems came back online, the crew realized they were being hailed by the defense platforms.
A recorded message followed. The video was of a beautiful, pleasant-sounding woman. She had a flower in her hair, but wore a bland, gray jacket with a stand-up collar. Grafted to her temple was a small electronic device. She spoke Commerce English with an almost mechanical tone. “Welcome, travelers, to the People’s Combined Collective of Orlov’s Star. Whether our homeworld is your final destination or you’re just passing through, you will be pleased with our legendary hospitality. Your first stop will be the customs station, the coordinates of which are being sent with this message. We understand that space is a dangerous place. However, our system is safe and secure. As such, we require all visitors to keep their weapons powered down and offline for the duration of their stay in our system. All weapons and cargoes must be declared to the officials at the customs station and prepared for inspection. Please be advised,” the woman said, playfully wagging a finger at the camera, “that attempting to access our system network without authorization is strictly prohibited. Thank you, and have a lovely visit.”
Catherine grimaced at the recording through the pounding of her head from transit shock. “Well, they certainly seem pleasant.”
Wolfram von Spandau did not share her humor. (He almost never shared her humor.) “We must exercise the utmost caution, Kapitänin,” he said, turning his seat to face her. It was rare for both the captain and the XO to be on the command deck at the same time, but Catherine wanted her most experienced personnel on duty for this one. “I am sending their instructions to Astrogation and the Flight Deck, so that we may lay in a course and be underway. These customs officials may ask for exorbitant bribes. If we refuse to pay, they may confiscate the ship.”
Catherine’s eyes narrowed. “Like hell they will. You are correct, though, Wolfram.” She tapped one of her screens. A moment later, Mordecai Chang, the ship’s purser, appeared on her display. The screen split, and Cargomaster Kimball appeared as well.
“Cap’n,” Chang said politely. It was obvious he wasn’t feeling well either.
“Captain,” Kimball acknowledged.
Catherine sipped some water from her drinking tube and addressed her men. “Gentlemen, this is it. We’ve been given our marching orders from these defense platforms, and we’ll be underway shortly. We need to tread very carefully here. They’ll want our cargo manifests as well as a weapons inventory. Give them the ones we’ve prepared for this circumstance. If they send an inspector over, Mr. Kimball, deal with them as best you can. You are authorized to pay out additional bribes if need be. Mordecai, make sure our books are inspection-ready, please.”
“Yes ma’am,” Mordecai said. He wasn’t going to show them the real books, of course. He had special sets of books and documentation for inspection purposes.
“When we get through customs, they’ll send us to one of their commercial space stations. We need to resupply there. Remass is the number one priority, followed by rations. I want everything we bring on board scanned and inspected for surveillance devices. No matter how long we’re docked with the station, the crew is not to leave the ship under any circumstances.”
“Understood, Captain,” both men said. Catherine signed off, and addressed the others on the Andromeda’s command deck. “This is it, people, the last hurdle before we reach Zanzibar. Let’s make this as smooth as possible and get the hell out of this system. Wolfram, is our course laid in?”
“Yes, Kapitänin.”
“Very well. Extend radiators, send our flight plan to the customs station, and initiate the burn.”
* * *
It was not a short journey from the transit point to the customs station. For twenty-five hours the Andromeda pressed on through the night, matching trajectory with the customs station in high solar orbit. Her sensors were tracking over a hundred ships in the system. Orlov had a large population for a colony, over a billion, and had an incredible amount of space infrastructure. The system’s most sunward gas giant, Artyom, had a dozen moons and an exceptionally dense asteroid ring, all rich in minerals and heavy metals. Orlov’s Star was, by far, the most populous system in its sector of space.
Orlov itself was an inhospitable world, but one incredibly rich in mineral resources, including the very rare elements needed to make transit drives. The planet supported no native life beyond the equivalents of lichens, mosses, plankton, and bacteria, but had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere suitable for breathing. Orlov was extremely volcanically and seismically active. Massive volcanoes, deep rifts, and powerful quakes scarred its rocky surface. Most of the population lived near the poles, where slowly melting ice caps provided a source of water and fed large, freshwater seas.
Orlov had never been intended for permanent colonization. During the Middle Diaspora, it was a booming hub of mining and trade, but was home to relatively few permanent residents. Being so remote, the system was completely cut off from the rest of inhabited space during the Interregnum, and it was popularly believed that the stranded residents went mad during their centuries-long struggle for survival. The modern-day Orlov Combine was a tyrannical surveillance state unlike anything else in known space.
As the Andromeda approached, long-ranged telemetry gave the crew a good picture of the customs station. It was as bare and utilitarian as anything else the Combine built: A large drum, one hundred meters in diameter, slowly rotating to simulate gravity. Around this was a massive, spindly docking structure, with docking ports for a dozen ships, clusters of radiators, solar panels, and communications arrays. The habitat module spun in the external structure like a wheel in the fork of a bicycle.
Following directives broadcast from the station, the Andromeda opened the docking port on her nose and coupled with an open berth on the space station’s huge superstructure. The ship’s manipulator arm slid forward and clamped onto a load-bearing point, better stabilizing her as she equalized pressure with the station and prepared for inspection. Her crew moved to and fro in freefall, making final preparations for boarding by customs officials. The large stockpile of ground weapons that had been purchased for the ground team were hidden away, buried in several of the sealed containers in the cargo bay. The ship’s course logs were altered, showing her coming from Heinlein instead of New Austin, and stopping at the Llewellyn Freehold on her way to Zanzibar. None of these preparations meant the captain wouldn’t have to pay some hefty bribes to get through Combine space unmolested, but it would, hopefully, make the process easier.
The shipping manifests, flight plan, and cargo declarations were all checked electronically. Catherine remained strapped into her command chair, watching the various documents scroll across the screen as the customs computer scanned them line-by-line. No red flags had popped up yet, and so far the transit, docking, and customs taxes hadn’t been too expensive. She was beginning to hope that she’d actually make it through Combine space without being searched or having to shell out a huge bribe. They usually paid less attention to ships merely crossing their space than those who actually had business in the Orlov’s Star System.
Then an alarm chirped and the screen flashed red. Damn it to bloody hell, Catherine thought. That’s what I get for wishful thinking. The Andromeda’s falsified flight plan was flagged, though nothing in particular about it was. A baritone computerized voice told her, in Commerce English, that her ship had been randomly selected for inspection, and to stand by for boarding. The message then repeated in Classical French, Esperanto, Mandarin, and other languages before Catherine hit the mute button. Random my pale Avalonian ass.
“This is the captain speaking,” she said, piping her message across the ship. “We are about to be boarded by Combine customs officers. You all know what to do. Remain calm, be cooperative, and if there are any issues at all, do not become confrontational. Let your officers know, and they’ll inform me. I’ll handle any discrepancies myself. That is all.”
A short while later Catherine, Wolfram, and Mazer Broadbent were all clinging to handholds in the uppermost docking bay, waiting to receive the Combine customs officers. Catherine could see the tension on her men’s faces. The worst-case scenario, in this particular case, was pretty bad. There were plenty of horror stories about the Combine security apparatus, and no one wanted to learn if they were true.
As it would turn out, the two bored-looking customs officers that drifted downward through the hatch were almost underwhelming. One had very pale skin and white hair, and his eyes darted around nervously. He clutched his tablet computer as if he were afraid one of the spacers would steal it. The other customs officer, despite the electronic monitor bolted to his skull, seemed more like a normal person. He greeted the crew pleasantly, introducing himself as Corbin-17741, and asked to be shown to the cargo hold.
Customs Officer Corbin clung to one of the handholds in the Andromeda’s cargo bay and let his flunky do all the work. The pale, nervous-looking man seemed comfortable enough in zero gravity. He launched himself from cargo pallet to cargo pallet, noting the manifest and tapping entries into his tablet. He asked for two random cargo containers to be opened for inspection, which Kimball’s team did without hesitation. There was nothing in them but the rations and supplies that were listed on the manifests, after all.
Pulling himself next to Catherine, Corbin thumbed his handheld with one hand while gripping a handle with the other. “Captain, you declared that your ship is armed?”
“I did,” Catherine said nonchalantly. “The frontier is dangerous. Pirates and the so-called fleets of petty, third-rate colonies, who may as well be pirates, prey on merchant ships frequently. We are often tasked to provide security for merchant ships traveling through this sector, and our presence alone has quieted things down.”
“I imagine so,” Corbin said, sounding unimpressed, and not looking up. “Your weapons systems are . . .”
“Two rotary missile launchers,” Catherine provided, “two heavy laser turrets, and one sixty-millimeter gauss weapon.”
“You’re not carrying any prohibited weapons, such as nuclear warheads, or other weapons of mass destruction?”
“Absolutely not,” Catherine insisted, and it was true. Outside of major fleet battles and orbital bombardment, nuclear warheads were more trouble than they were worth. “All of our warheads are conventional high-explosive/armor piercing, or high-explosive fragmentation.”
“Very well,” Corbin said, tapping the screen of his device and lowering it. “Everything seems to be in order here, assuming my subordinate doesn’t find anything improper.”
“I assure you he won’t,” Catherine said, doing her best to feign sincerity. Is it really going to be this easy? It was possible. More and more merchants and traders were braving Combine space every year in search of cheap materials to resell. Maybe the Combine authorities were more interested in business than graft?
“I’m sure,” Corbin agreed. “Now, there is one last thing we need to go over, and I have some forms you need to sign. Is there a someplace where we can discuss this in private?”
Bloody hell, Catherine fumed. Here it is. The part where he demands his bribe. Maybe he’ll be decent enough to pretend that it’s taxes or fees he’s collecting. “Ah, yes,” she said, maintaining her composure. “My cargomaster’s office, right over there, is secure. Mr. Kimball?”
“Yes, Captain?” Kimball replied, clutching a handhold and looking daggers at the pale customs officer touching everything in his cargo bay.
“I’ll leave you to oversee this for a moment. Mr. Corbin and I are going to your office to sign some documents.”
Kimball looked over at the captain knowingly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Right this way, please,” Catherine said, pushing off the wall and sailing toward Kimball’s small office.
Once inside, Corbin tapped the electronic device on the side of his head, then did something on his handheld. The tiny light on his skull-mount device went out. “I apologize for this, Captain. For the moment, we have our privacy.”
Can he do that? Catherine wondered. It was possible, she surmised, that if you were high up enough in the Combine hierarchy that you could get away with turning off the camera for just a bit. She folded her arms across her chest, floating at an odd angle from the customs officer, and glared at him. All pretenses of politeness were gone. “Let’s not mince words, then,” she said. “What do I have to do to ensure my ship crosses Combine space without incident? We have no business here. We just want to cross your space and be on our way.”
Corbin smiled. “I see you know the way of the world. Truth be told, many in my position would demand money from you. We’re not exactly paid, you see, and foreign hard currency is accepted on the black market. Other, sleazier individuals may demand something more intimate from you.”
Every muscle in Catherine’s body tensed, and she found her hand moving toward the compact pulse laser concealed beneath her flight jacket. She was of a mind to just shoot this son of a bitch, and damn the consequences.
Corbin raised a hand apologetically. “Such things are strictly prohibited, of course, and are punishable by death. They aren’t as common as many would believe, but occur often enough to sully the reputation of the glorious People’s Combined Collective. I want to assure you that I’m not here to demand a bribe or sexual favors from you, Captain.” He looked out the office’s small window, as if to ensure that his subordinate wasn’t snooping. “Between you and me,” he said conspiratorially, “I’m not actually a customs officer. I’m with Internal Security.”
Catherine’s heart dropped into her stomach. Internal Security was notorious across civilized space. They were the ones who rooted out all threats to the Combine, real or imagined, and killed or imprisoned anyone they deemed traitorous with impunity. She couldn’t have found a worse person to be having this conversation with. “I see,” she said, eyes narrowing. “As I said, I’m merely passing through. I’m not interested in the domestic politics of the Combine in the least. I just want to be on my way.”
“That’s what they all say,” Corbin said coolly. “However, I’m not interested in any contraband you may be attempting to get through the far transit point. I’m interested in your destination.”
“Zanzibar? What of it?”
“There are rumors about Zanzibar. Internal Security flatly denies any such thing is possible, but sometimes people just . . . vanish. Sometimes they go to Zanzibar and never return. There are whispers amongst disloyal malcontents that there is sanctuary there. Those with traitorous hearts, guilty of thought-crimes, they say, can escape there and be beyond the reach of Internal Security.”
Catherine genuinely had no idea what the man was on about. “I’ve never been to Zanzibar before, Mr. Corbin, nor have I been through Combine space. I don’t know anything about any of this.”
“Of course you don’t. Few do. The idea that there is any place beyond the reach of Internal Security is almost a thought-crime in itself. Doctrine dictates that the greater good of the collective will always prevail, and those who selfishly wish to pursue their own ends without regard for the needs of the collective will always fail.”
“It must be an awful burden,” Catherine spat, “trying to keep your thoughts in order so as not to commit one of these thought-crimes.”
Corbin smiled. His eyes were dark and cold. “That’s the beauty of it, Captain. We are all guilty of thought-crimes. The Proles perhaps not so much; they are a dull lot, by design. But those of us with all of our faculties have all committed crimes of thought at one time or another. It’s unavoidable, human nature.”
Bewildered, Catherine took off her cap and ran her fingers through her hair. “This is a fascinating discussion, Mr. Corbin, but I wish you would come to your point.”
Still smiling, Corbin continued, “When human nature is a crime, all men are criminals. When all men are criminals, the State has power over them as would a warden over his inmates. That is the true doctrine of the Combine, whether they would admit it or not.”
Catherine said nothing for a moment. This could easily be a trap, and attempt to snare her into saying something that would give him an excuse to confiscate her ship and put her on trial. “Again, Mr. Corbin, this is fascinating, but it has nothing to do with me.”
“But it does,” Corbin insisted. He tapped his handheld a couple of times, and presented the screen to Catherine. It was a standard customs inspection form. “I will allow you to proceed. On the far end of the system, closer to Transit Point Beta, is a commercial space platform. There you can purchase reaction mass and supplies as needed, before proceeding through the transit point and out of our space.”
“Well, thank you,” Catherine said, confused. She outstretched one arm to tap the screen, which would sign the document, but Corbin pulled the handheld away.
“There is one other thing you must pick up from that station,” he said. The image on the screen disappeared, replaced by that of a plain young woman in a blue coverall. “This woman is a traitor, guilty of numerous crimes of thought, possession of banned literature, and trafficking in disruptive lies. If you wish to leave this system, you will do exactly as I tell you.”
“I’m not going to kill this woman for you, Corbin,” Catherine said coldly. “You bastards can bloody well do your own damned dirty work. I’m a businesswoman, not an assassin.”
“You are not in a position to negotiate, Captain Blackwood, but you assume too much. You will take this woman on board your ship and you will bring her to Zanzibar.”
“Why in God’s name would I do that?” Catherine barked. “So you can accuse me of smuggling defectors and confiscate my ship? So I can be part of some elaborate sting operation? To hell with that, and to hell with you, Corbin. I’ve had enough of this.”
Before Catherine could leave, Corbin softened his tone, almost to a plea. “Please, Captain, you misunderstand. This woman? Her name is Lana. She’s my daughter.”
Catherine took a deep breath, and found herself once again pinching the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb. It can never just be simple, can it?
* * *
The Orlov System, though populous, wasn’t especially big by most standards. It only contained five planets: Orlov itself, two gas giants, an uninhabitable rock with marginal atmosphere, and a tiny ball of ice furthest out. The locations of transit points, however, had nothing to do with the size of a solar system. Even a comparatively “small” system could take a long time to cross. It took the Andromeda over a hundred hours of flight time to match trajectories and rendezvous with the commercial platform. It gave Catherine plenty of time to ponder her next move.
Corbin-17741 was blackmailing the Andromeda into absconding with his daughter, a young woman named Lana-90890. She had been a low-ranking officer in the Combine’s government-owned merchant fleet, and had helped smuggle refugees to Zanzibar in past. Her role in the matter was small, but simply not reporting the crime was considered an equally grave offense. This didn’t bother her father too much. He claimed that he, too, was involved in the smuggling operation. Catherine didn’t know if she believed that. He may have just been telling her that to make himself more sympathetic, and there was still the chance this whole thing was some kind of needlessly elaborate ruse.
That didn’t make any sense, though. An officer of Internal Security doesn’t need flimsy pretexts to confiscate property and incarcerate persons. According to everything Catherine had read, there was very little they couldn’t do in the name of state security, and they answered only to their own hierarchy. That left the possibility that Corbin was being sincere, and really just wanted to get his daughter out of the reach of the Combine before she ended up in a concentration camp.
“She doesn’t know that I’m aware of her activities,” Corbin had warned Catherine. “She and I are not on good terms. I never talk about what I do, but she figured it out, and she hates me for it. She’s hated me for years, ever since they took her mother away. There was nothing I could do.” He left a recorded message for his daughter, and told Catherine to tie her up and drag her onto the Andromeda if necessary. He had already gotten her reassigned to manning a commercial platform, trying to keep her out of trouble, but she just wasn’t very good at covering her tracks. Internal Security would track her down eventually, Corbin insisted, and he’d been waiting for a ship en route to Zanzibar.
There were other places he could have sent her, he said, but Zanzibar was the only place where he knew she’d survive. A lifetime subjected to the Combine does not prepare you to live with the rest of humanity. He could send her to the Concordiat, but feared that they’d interrogate her and lock her away. He could send her to an independent system like the Llewellyn Freehold, but what was she going to do there, with no money, no job, no family, no support whatsoever?
So for months, Corbin had been working on a scheme to get his daughter to Zanzibar. He’d been deliberately hindering Internal Security’s investigation of the supposed Combine refugee sanctuary there, which was easy enough because the central authorities, in their hubris, didn’t want to believe such a refuge was possible. Meanwhile, he pulled some strings to make sure his daughter was reassigned to one of the commercial platforms. It was considered a dead-end job. The platforms were manned only because of bureaucratic inertia. They didn’t actually require a human operator, and people assigned there were usually forgotten about, only rotated home for a few months out of Orlov’s long year, and left to wither away. She had been alone on that platform for many weeks by that point. Several ships had passed through, going to Zanzibar, but none had arrived at such a fortuitous time as the Andromeda.
One would think that Lana would be more than willing to run off on any ship that would take her. Corbin had warned that this might not be the case. Her first impulse, he said, would be to think it was some kind of sting operation conducted by Internal Security, just as Catherine had. Even after she saw her father’s video, she might think it to be an elaborate loyalty test. Internal Security had such a cruel reputation that few put such mind games past them. Once Catherine had Lana secured, Corbin insisted that he would see to it that the Andromeda would make it through the transit point, regardless whatever else happened.
Catherine didn’t like that “regardless whatever else happened” part. She very much didn’t like the idea of having to fight her way through God-knows-how-many Combine ships and defense platforms. Orlov’s Star was the most militarized solar system in all of inhabited space, by all accounts, and one ship couldn’t tangle with that and prevail. Despite her misgivings, however, Catherine didn’t have much choice. If she refused Corbin’s request, he could, with a single call, have her ship tracked down and destroyed before it ever made the transit point. So despite her misgivings, despite her quiet anger at being blackmailed, she went ahead with the plan to get this Lana on board her ship by any means necessary. She didn’t tell the crew about the situation, save for her officers and Marcus Winchester. There was no sense stressing the rest of the crew out over it. There was nothing they could do, and they were already on edge just from having to travel through Combine Space.
The commercial platform was a large, branching structure, capable of docking and servicing up to four ships at once. Among its list of purported services were hull maintenance, reaction mass refueling, supplies of helium-3, deuterium, boron, and lithium (depending on the needs of your ship’s reactor), bulk rations for purchase, “luxurious” zero-g showers, and a gift shop/snack bar. At the station’s core was a cluster of huge hydrogen tanks, each a sphere fifty meters in diameter. In the middle of the tanks, amongst a mess of solar panels, radiators, and communications equipment, was a group of small cylinders that made up the habitat module for the station’s sole occupant. There were no rotating sections on the commercial platform; the unfortunate attendant got to spend her entire time on duty in freefall. The habitat module was larger than just a tiny living quarters. The platform advertised having a “state of the art” medical bay, wherein for a nominal (exorbitant) fee, a sick or injured spacer could be treated by an autodoc. (For the kind of money they were asking, Catherine thought, they could at least offer a human doctor.)
Taking advantage of the platform’s services was the pretext Catherine would use to go aboard. Once there, she would attempt to talk Lana into going with her. If that didn’t work, Mazer Broadbent would hit her with a stunner and drag her back to the Andromeda. Timing was critical in this operation; it would take hours to get the ship loaded up and ready to depart, and they weren’t going to make the final leg of the journey without those supplies. Grabbing Lana would have to be the last thing they did before departing, and even then, they’d have to be very fast. Everything in Combine space was monitored. Catherine didn’t know how on the ball their security forces actually were when it came to something like responding to an abduction, and Corbin had promised to run interference somehow, but she didn’t want to take any more chances than necessary. There were no other ships docked at the platform, but there was at least one military patrol ship close enough to pursue the Andromeda as she dashed for the transit point. One unknown ship was en route to the space platform and would arrive soon. Catherine’s window was rapidly closing.
Once the ship was coupled to the space station, Catherine made her way up to the docking bay, Corbin’s message on her handheld and a compact pulse laser concealed beneath her flight jacket. Marcus Winchester and Mazer Broadbent were with her, both discreetly armed, just in case. The trio floated up through the docking umbilical, pausing at the far end to let the station’s airlock cycle. The main compartment of the station was the gift shop and snack bar. Vending machines of every sort were fastened to every surface, signs flashing and screens promising good deals. A hologram of the same pretty Combine woman who had welcomed them to the system was projected in the center, prattling on about the glory and achievements of the People’s Combined Collective. Signs in six languages pointed visitors to latrines, showers, and the medical bay. One door was marked “authorized personnel only.” That, Catherine surmised, had to be where Lana was.
Getting through the sealed hatch would be a problem. Wade Bishop had volunteered to rig up another shaped charge for the purpose, but Corbin had provided for that. Uploaded to Catherine’s handheld was a set of Internal Security access codes that he said would get her through any door, grant her access to any system, everything. The trick was, the handheld would have to be plugged into the stations’ computer directly. The codes were designed to not work if broadcast via radio.
Marcus and Mazer pretended to avail themselves to the gift shop while they searched for an access panel. Everything for sale was secured in a vending machine, and they browsed through the menu screens. T-shirts, trinkets, hard copy books, toys, and a variety of electronics were all available. Marcus purchased a t-shirt with the People’s Combined Collective governmental seal, an authoritarian logo consisting of a stylized gear, olive branches, a rocket, and stars printed on it. “Annie will love this,” he said to Mazer, holding it up for the security officer to examine.
On another screen, Mazer pulled up an image of a ceramic dragon figure, twenty centimeters long. The dragon was perched on a rocky outcropping, holding a crystal orb in its claw. “Who comes all the way across inhabited space and buys a ceramic dragon from a Combine refueling station?” He asked. Meanwhile, on the Andromeda’s command deck, Luis Azevedo stood by, waiting for the word from his captain. When he received it, he would initiate the ship’s powerful electronic warfare suite. The jammers would prevent the platform for calling for help before they could shut down its communications, but turning them on would cause the Andromeda to light up like a nova on sensors.
“Captain,” Mazer said. “Come look at this. I think it’s just what you’ve been looking for.”
Catherine pushed herself off of a handhold and drifted across the compartment to her security officer. She grabbed another handhold to stop herself, and rotated forward to see what Mazer was talking about. It was a holocube, portraying a ship sitting on a launch pad on a wintry day. If you shook it, holographic snow gently fell on the ship and accumulated on the ground below it. It was an interesting trinket, but the holocube wasn’t really what Mazer was indicating. Next to the vending machine, on the wall, was a panel with the markings of computer maintenance access. “I see,” Catherine said, nodding. “It is lovely. Shall I get it?”
Mazer and Marcus both nodded. This was it.
“ECM active, Skipper,” Azevedo said into her earpiece.
Moving quickly, Catherine drew her utility knife and snapped the blade out. She pried the panel open and found the small computer access port inside, underneath a screen displaying information on the station’s computer systems. She connected a data cable to her handheld and plugged it into the port. The screen lit up momentarily as the computer tried to identify the new device attached, but before it could finish Catherine tapped her own screen and ran Corbin’s program.
“Got it,” she said. After a second, a menu appeared on her handheld, listing the measures available to an officer of Internal Security. The first thing she did was lock down the platform’s communications systems, preventing it from broadcasting or receiving. The system would only send out a looped message stating that the station was being commandeered by Internal Security. That would keep the curious away. “Luis, their comms are down,” she said into her earpiece. “Shut down ECM.”
“Roger, Skipper.”
She then disabled the omnipresent monitoring and recording systems. Even Internal Security didn’t have the option of deleting the recordings. Next, she unsealed all of the internal hatches and sealed the other docking ports. The other ship inbound wouldn’t be able to couple with the station if it didn’t have the sense to change course.
“Done!” she said to her men, pocketing her handheld. “Let’s go.”
The trio moved through the “authorized personnel only” hatch, into the station’s cramped living quarters. “Lana-Nine-Zero-Eight-Nine-Zero!” Marcus called. “Lana! We’re here to get you out! Where are you?” Bracing himself on a handhold, he cautiously peeked around a corner where two cylindrical sections were joined. He immediately recoiled, cursing, as the loud, crackling snap of a laser weapon discharge rang out. A streak of air just past his head shimmered, and the far bulkhead flashed and smoked where the beam struck. The air stunk of ozone as Marcus pulled his 10mm pistol.
“Let me talk to her,” Catherine said, pulling herself forward. “Lana?” she called around the corner. “Lana, can you hear me?”
“Who are you people?” Lana replied, obviously afraid. “You’re not InSec. What do you want?”
“We just want to talk to you,” Catherine said.
“You can talk to the patrol when they get here!” Lana cried. “I sent out a distress call. You’d better leave now!”
“No, you didn’t, Lana. We have control of your communications. Nothing went out, and no one is coming for you. It’s just you and us. I just want to talk to you. My name is Catherine.”
“How do you know my name?” Lana sounded terrified. “Who . . . who are you? Who sent you?”
“Your father sent us, Lana.”
“My father . . . ? Are you Internal Security? I told you people I don’t know anything! I’m not a traitor! Please!” she cried. “Please . . .”
Instead of trying to talk her down, or rounding the corner and risking getting blasted, Catherine set her handheld to project. She pointed the lens at the far bulkhead, where Lana’s laser had struck, and tapped the screen.
The image of Corbin was distorted on the curved bulkhead, but it was clear enough to see. “Lana,” he began, looking far less detached than he had in person. “It’s me, your father. I need you to listen to me very carefully. Internal Security suspects you’re part of a human trafficking ring, smuggling defectors out of the system. I’ve been keeping them off your trail as best I could. I tried to keep you safe. That’s why I had you assigned here, but I can’t protect you anymore. I’ve done all I can do, and sooner or later they’re going to come for you. They’re coming for you and they’re going to make you disappear, just like they did with your mother.
“I know you hate me for what happened to her. Lana, your mother was the only woman I ever loved. If I had known that she was suspected, if there was anything I could’ve done, I would’ve stopped it. When they kicked in the door to our flat, I knew immediately what was happening, and it was already too late. That’s why I didn’t try to stop them: not because I didn’t love your mother, but because of what would happen if I had. That’s also the reason I had to publicly denounce her after the arrest. If I didn’t, they’d have come for me, and also for you. I’ve worked for InSec for years. I know how they operate.
“I’m sorry, angel. I’m sorry it took me so many years to make it up to you. I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to say this to you before. I just couldn’t bear to face you, and I still can’t. You look just like your mother. Every time I see you, I see her.
“I want you to go with this woman, Captain Blackwood. She’s going to take you to a safe place. You’ve never trusted me in your entire life, but I’m begging you to trust me this once. I have been planning for this day for a long time. Arrangements have been made, and debts have to be paid. I wish I could tell you this in person, because you very likely won’t hear from me again.
“Go with the captain, Lana. Please, go with her. There isn’t much time. I love you.”
The message ended, and suddenly it was very quiet in the weightless compartment. Catherine could hear quiet sobbing coming from around the corner. Risking a look, she peeked around the bulkhead. Lana was huddled up at the end of the short corridor, floating in a fetal position, face buried in her hands. Droplets of tears, sparkling in the artificial light, drifted away from her face as she wept. The laser pistol rotated lazily away from her.
Motioning for her men to stay out of sight, Catherine pulled herself around the corner and down the corridor, stopping a few meters from Lana. “Hey there,” she said softly. “My name is Catherine.”
Lana looked up, tears drifting off of her red eyes. She was so young, barely into her adult years. “What’s going to happen to me now?”
“Please come with us, Lana. Your father has arranged for us to get through the transit point without being stopped, but we don’t have a lot of time. He asked me to take you away, to someplace where you’ll be safe.”
“Where?”
“Sanctuary,” Catherine said, hoping to God that it was actually a real place. “On Zanzibar.”
* * *
Back on the Andromeda’s command deck, Catherine moved quickly to strap into her command chair as she scanned all of her displays. The docking umbilical was being retracted, the manipulator arm was being stowed, and the ship was preparing to back away from the station.
“Skipper!” Azevedo said excitedly. “That unknown contact just fired its engine up. It’s headed straight for us, must be pulling four Gs! Two thousand klicks and closing!”
“Weapons online, Kapitänin,” Wolfram said. “I’ve got a lock.”
“Hold your fire! Azevedo, sound general quarters!” the lighting of the command deck dimmed and changed to red, making it easier to see the multitude of displays. “Colin, get us the hell away from this station, full afterburn!”
“Yes ma’am!”
“Astrogation,” Catherine grunted, straining to speak under the g-forces as Colin flipped the ship away from the space platform, “send the flight deck a minimum time, maximum thrust trajectory for the transit point!”
“Sending now,” Kel Morrow replied. “ETA, eighty-nine minutes.”
“Engineering, spin up the transit motivator and keep it hot. I want us through the transit point as soon as we get close enough. Run the reactor hot, full power to all systems and weapons, all the way to the transit point!”
“Roger that, Captain,” Indira Nair said. “That is more than our radiators can handle. We will have to dip into the heat sinks for as long as we can.”
“Very good, Indira,” Catherine said.
Colin’s voice echoed throughout the ship, “Attention all personnel! Stand by for emergency thrust!” Seconds later, the crew of the Andromeda was crushed into their acceleration couches under the weight of eight gravities. The ship rattled and vibrated on top of an exhaust plume that lit up the night like a newborn star.
After a few minutes, the pilot backed the thrust off to six gravities, and Catherine was able to think clearly again. Her displays lit up as multiple Combine patrol ships fired up their engines and began thrusting in her direction. Targeting sensors swept the Andromeda’s hull, but the hostile ships were still too far out to engage; too far out, and too confused. They still weren’t sure what was happening.
Driving the point home, a looped transmission was being broadcast from the unknown contact on virtually every standard frequency. “We are the Vox Populi,” it said, the speech an electronic amalgamation of dozens of voices. “We are the true voice of the enslaved, the oppressed, the sovereign citizens of Orlov’s Star. The Combine believes they are watching us, but we have been watching them. Join us, fellow citizens! Tear down the cameras, smash the recorders, break your chains! Live, love, struggle, and die on your own terms, as human beings, not as cogs in the great, soulless machine! For years we have struggled in darkness, but now we are revealed! Rise up! The revolution begins today!”
Azevedo’s voice was strained as the weight of six gravities pressed upon his lungs. “Skipper, that contact is headed straight for the station! There’s no way it’s going to be able to . . . holy shit! Impact!” One of Catherine’s displays showed a silent flash of light, far behind the Andromeda, as the ship smashed into the massive space station at a relative velocity of thousands of kilometers per hour. The ship, the station, the reaction mass tanks, all of it, blazed momentarily before fading to dust and bits of hot metal.
It hit Catherine then: Corbin-17741 had arranged this, somehow. This was their cover to get out of the system. Suddenly, every non-military ship in the Orlov’s Star system was suspect. Communications chatter went wild as the massive, unwieldy Combine security apparatus tried to figure out what happened and stop more attacks from being carried out. Ships that were underway were ordered to power down their thrusters and stand by, but those orders hadn’t come from their respective chains of command. Many of the messages seemed dumbfounded, waiting for orders from central authority, asking what had happened, or insisting that one set of orders superseded another. Instead of focusing on the Andromeda, fleeing from the destroyed station, military ships were being diverted to protect critical infrastructure. According to long-range sensors, some were actually firing at other ships too slow to comply with their demands. It was chaos, beautifully orchestrated chaos.
There was still the matter of getting out of the system alive. The transit point was guarded by a constellation of defense platforms, and as the alert went out across the system, their sensors lit up and began scanning all nearby ships. “We are being targeted,” Wolfram said calmly. He paused for a moment, grunting under the strain of acceleration. “Fifteen individual defense platforms have locked onto us. At this acceleration we won’t be able to maneuver. We have the momentum advantage, and the platforms cannot maneuver at all. If we fire now, we can destroy some of them before they can effectively engage us, but . . . the odds are not in our favor.”
Azevedo chimed in. “Skipper, that Combine patrol ship is pursuing us now. I just received a message ordering us to find a stable orbit, cut our engine, and stand by to be boarded. At the rate they’re accelerating we’ll be through before they can engage us. Barely.”
This is going to be close. “Hold fire,” Catherine repeated. “Luis, broadcast the message that Corbin left us.”
“Roger, Skipper. Stand by . . . broadcasting.” He was breathing heavily. “Now what?”
“Kapitänin,” Wolfram said. “The platforms have broken their lock. They’re . . . they’re ignoring us!”
The message the Andromeda was broadcasting was a high-level Internal Security emergency code. It stated in no uncertain terms that the transmitting vessel was on urgent InSec business and was not to be interfered with in any way, punishable by death. The robotic defense platforms responded automatically, but the lone patrol ship seemed undeterred. “Our bandit is speeding up, Skipper,” Azevedo observed. “Must be red-lining their reactor. They’re pulling eight Gs now. Sensors make that a Pagan-Hotel class,” he said, referring to the ship by its Concordiat Defense Force codename. “Max acceleration is supposedly seven gravities. He’ll be able to engage us before we reach the transit point.”
“Can he follow us through?”
“Negative, Skipper. Not transit-capable.” The Pagan-class was little more than a cylindrical can with an engine cluster on one end and massive radiators coming out of the sides. It was not atmospheric, nor was it particularly elegant, but the Combine military supposedly had hundreds of them in reserve.
Minutes ticked by, agonizingly slowly, as Catherine ran the numbers on her console. The command deck grew noticeably hot, and streams of sweat ran down her head under the high gravity. Running at this acceleration for half an hour was burning through the reaction mass she’d just paid a king’s ransom for, and was straining the ship’s cooling systems. The radiators could only radiate heat away so quickly, and the internal heat sinks could only absorb so much. Once their capacities were exceeded, emergency cutoffs would engage. If those safeguards were overridden, the ship would overheat and systems would start to fail. The interior could become too hot for the crew to function in. The trajectory Kel Morrow had given her was the fastest route to the transit point, and if that Pagan-H kept up its relentless pursuit, she’d have no choice but to engage. Right on schedule, the Andromeda’s engines cut, plunging the crew back into the relief freefall. The pursuing Combine ship followed suit a moment later.
The transit point grew nearer and nearer. Despite the Internal Security broadcast, the Pagan-H continued on its intercept trajectory, constantly issuing demands that the Andromeda stand by to be boarded. On Catherine’s display, two circles represented the ships’ respective targeting envelopes, drawing inexorably closer like a nascent Venn diagram. As they drew near one another, she ordered Azevedo to engage the ship’s electronic countermeasures. The ECM couldn’t do anything to hide the Andromeda’s massive thermal signature, but it could play hell with incoming missiles’ terminal guidance. The crew was already at battle stations; Catherine and her officers on the command deck were still in their flight suits, but those crewmembers who had time to do so had already been ordered don their spacesuits in the event of a hull breach. All crew not on duty were secured in their individual berths, which all had emergency life-support systems of their own.
After thirty minutes of coasting and cooling, the engines fired again, accelerating for the final dash to the transit point. The pursuing Pagan-H responded in kind. A long moment passed, then warning tones sounded as she fired off a volley of missiles.
“Skipper!” Azevedo said excitedly. This was his first time in combat. “Incoming volley designated Salvo-Alpha, time to impact, six minutes!”
Catherine nodded. “Wolfram, target the incoming missiles, fire at will. Luis, deploy countermeasures. Try using the radar to fry their guidance systems.”
“Targeting missiles,” Wolfram confirmed. “I have a lock on the Pagan itself.”
“Hold your fire,” the captain ordered. “This is bad enough without us starting a war with the Combine. Defensive fire only. We’ll engage the ship as a last resort. Luis, what’s the capability of their laser weapons?”
“Database says they’re pretty light on lasers and have no railguns. They’re missile carriers, Skipper.”
“Excellent. Colin, keep us on course for the transit point. Engineering?”
“Standing by, Captain,” Indira Nair replied, sweat dripping down her face. “Transit motivator is spun up, stable, and running hot.”
“Very good. It’s going to be close. As soon as your boards are green for translation, engage the motivator. Do not wait for my order.”
“Yes ma’am!”
“Incoming missiles locked!” Wolfram said. “Firing!”
“Splash one!” Luis announced, as a powerful beam of coherent light caused one of the incoming missiles to detonate. “Splash two!” he said as another, damaged, veered off course. Another was spoofed by the countermeasures.
“Last one destroyed, Kapitänin!” Wolfram announced proudly. It had been a long time since he’d manned the weapons station, and Catherine could see her exec was in his element.
An alarm sounded again. “Bandit is firing a second volley, Skipper! Salvo-Bravo, count . . . eight incoming missiles!”
Catherine’s lip curled into a humorless grin. “Not very sporting of them, eh?”
“Skipper! Third volley! Salvo-Charlie! Another four missiles!” Far away, across the void of space, the four rotary missile racks of the Pagan spat out missile after missile, ripple-firing the warheads not directly at the Andromeda, but toward where the Andromeda would be when they intercepted her. “They must be dumping their magazines!”
“Engaging!” Wolfram said. Invisible beams lanced out into the night. Brilliant countermeasures spat out of dispensers across the Andromeda’s hull, trying to confuse and beguile the incoming warheads. Numerous missiles were damaged, knocked off course, or destroyed outright by the defensive laser fire, but they were still coming. The Pagan, seemingly possessed of an inexhaustible supply of the weapons, vomited out another volley. The crew was floored with G-forces as Colin skewed the ship, consuming some of the incoming missiles in the inferno of the Andromeda’s exhaust plume.
Damn it all, Catherine cursed, wishing she would have just shot Corbin with her laser. “Wolfram,” she said, resolved to do what had to be done. “Arm missiles. Send our friend a volley, three rounds rapid, on my mark. Maintain lasers for defensive—”
Before she could finish her command, the Andromeda plunged into the quantum foam and vanished from the physical universe. The final missiles, no longer having a target, continued harmlessly into oblivion.