The Neptune Contingency: Starship Fairfax Book 3 - The Kuiper Chronicles Page 5

  Of course, as soon as an empty car reached the lobby, and with a gaping hole in the ceiling, the shaft is the next place they would look. So there was no point moving up or down. He had to sneak past what they would expect. He had to find a way to weasel out of the building without drawing any attention or crossing any of the predictable paths.

  So, out the front door.

  Just below him there were a series of maintenance entries to the venting system. They would expect that next. He picked one and kicked. The grating rattled and bent. He kicked again and again, breaking the cover loose. It fell down after the car.

  Satisfied, he leaned as far as he could to another vent opposite the one he had opened. This time he pried it open gently, carefully, leaving no smudge or mark. When it finally came loose, he took it in his hand, bring it along as he squeezed feet-first into the vent. He wiped the edges with his sleeve and set it back in place behind him. Misdirection. He really hoped they were lousy cops.

  It was difficult wriggling through the vent shaft feet first, but he made his way. The first vent cover he came to, he stopped at, peering through the grates. An empty sitting room, without a sound. That should do. He pushed the vent, barely catching it before it fell to the floor, and then swung down. He groaned as his back stretched.

  Too old, indeed.

  His feet hit the carpet below a bit harder than he would have liked, and his knees protested as he dropped into a crouch. Something was wrong. He looked around for the source. There, on a coffee table beside a window—a cigarette still smoked in an ashtray. He wasn’t as alone as he had hoped.

  He crept to the door and peered out. The adjacent room looked to be a closet space. Clothes on hangars ringed the room. He ducked inside and pulled a few things from the rack, then hid as best he could.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice called? She sounded older than him. He frowned. The last thing he needed right now was to give an old lady a heart attack. He heard her pad into the sitting room and gasp. “Rats,” she muttered. “I knew it! How many times have I told them…” She wondered away down the hallway. Dolridge pondered. Rats?

  Ah. He had left the grating on the floor. There was always something.

  Quickly, he donned the clothes he had pulled from the rack. He stepped out and caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror adorning the other end of the closet. Blue was definitely his color, but the cut of the sun dress did nothing for his hips. Oh well. He looked around for something to cover his head—a hat? A wig?

  A wig. They were all arranged on hooks beside the door. He grabbed the closest one, thrust it onto his head, and ran out into the hallway.

  “Oh!” The woman stood there, a hand over her mouth. “Excuse me! Are you hear for the laundry, dear?”

  Dolridge’s eyes bugged. He cleared his throat as gently as he could and replied in a throaty falsetto. “That’s right. I’m sorry to have surprised you. I can just come back tomorrow if you like.”

  “No, no, no! Let’s get it done. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another, all the time, let me tell you. First they raise the heating bill. Did you know that? Now rats are having a free-for-all in the vents… the last thing I need is to get behind on laundry. Just wait right here, dear.”

  He waited. She ambled into the closet. He thought about running, but what if the police came knocking before he was out of the building? He couldn’t leave a trail. So he waited.

  She came back, smiling, pushing a little cart with a hamper full to the brim. “There, that’s better,” she said. “One less thing to worry about. Don’t forget to have the bots sort the whites out, dear. I can’t abide faded undies!”

  “Of course not,” Dolridge said, shaking his head. The wig nearly fell off.

  “Well, off you go. I best get someone on the line about the rats, now.”

  “Oh, don’t bother! I’ll tell maintenance for you. You said they’re in the vents?”

  “Well, I’ll be. A generous soul! Yes, that’s right. Knocked the grating loose overhead. I’m sure I’ll just be overrun in a day or two if they don’t do something about it!”

  “I’ll make sure they know. I’ll go see them right now—right before sorting your laundry.”

  The lady patted Dolridge on the arm. “Thank you, dear. Oh, my! And so strong!”

  Dolridge smiled. “Work is good for the soul and the body.”

  “That’s what I say. Thank you!”

  “Of course.”

  Five minutes later the lobby was swarming with police questioning frightened tenants, but no one seemed to pay attention to the laundry lady as she pushed her cart out of the lift and walked outside.

  Chapter 8

  Ada wiped her chin with the back of her hand. The bridge was silent.

  “But… they fired on us,” Randall said. “All of them! What were we supposed to do?”

  “Die,” Darren said softly.

  “Indeed,” Jeffrey said. “Not that it matters now, but you may as well know that a detachment of the surviving ships is heading this way.”

  “Onscreen,” Lucas said. His voice was raw.

  Jeffrey projected the rear external cam view. For the first time, Ada registered how close they were to Earth. She glowed blue behind them, a distant hurricane visible over the equator. The mother planet stood silent witness to the mass murder they had committed.

  Self-defense, Ada told herself.

  Mass, murderous self-defense, a voice replied.

  A bevy of ships, Rome and Empire alike, came into formation between them and the planet, but they kept a distance. Behind them, Ada caught a glimpse of the carnage from the explosion—charred hulls, hollowed-out wrecks, a free-for-all of totaled ships, space trash, and more than a few bodies spinning slowly in the void. She fought the urge to throw up a second time.

  “Ada,” Moses said in her ear. “I have been attempting to establish contact with the AI of the Fairfax, but he is resisting cooperation.” Surprise, surprise.

  “Jeffrey?” Ada said aloud. Eyes turned toward her. “What’s the hold-up? Why won’t you talk to Moses?”

  No response.

  “Jeffrey,” Lucas said, “will you interface with the AI controlling the drones?”

  Beep. “I haven’t heard from the AI controlling the drones. Just a pesky little program called the lawgiver. Funny. Seems like more of a law-breaker, to me.”

  “Takes one to know one,” Lucas muttered. “What do you mean, the AI controlling the drones?” He looked askance at Ada. “What does he mean? Isn’t that your program?”

  Ada cleared her throat. “Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that. My program—Moses—he’s talking with another AI. The drones have their own.”

  Caspar folded her arms, her eyes boring a hole in the floor.

  “Great,” Lucas said. “Fine. Whatever. Jeffrey, can you contact the drones’ AI? Or maybe chat with Moses and see if the three of you can come to some kind of an understanding?”

  “I’m a little busy, actually.”

  “Doing what, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Trying to plot out a coordinated attack on this ship, if you must know.”

  Lucas gasped in exasperation. “You’re on this ship!”

  “I am on many ships. Many of them, you just destroyed.”

  Lucas cursed, slamming his hand on his console.

  “Your anger is useless,” Darren said.

  “Shut up, Darren! Mulligan, do I need to have you restrain the prisoner?”

  Darren detached from the wall. “Prisoner?”

  “Ok, just shut up, all of you!” Caspar rose to her feet. “Look. Odin is the captain of this ship. He says Darren is a prisoner, he’s a prisoner. Deal with it. We’ve got much more important things to worry about right now, like how our ship’s AI is apparently also the AI on all the ships that want to blow us out of the sky, or maybe how we’ve just unleashed an apocalyptic hell-weapon with its own sentience on the system. Right?”

  Darren fell back against the
wall, arms folded over his chest. “Very well. But the prisoner wishes to make a suggestion.”

  Lucas shot daggers at him from his eyes. “I’m listening.”

  “You must negotiate.”

  “Ha!” Lucas looked around, eyes wide. “Are you serious? After we blow half of them up, you think they’ll want to have a little parley?”

  “I do. They are pursuing, but at a distance. We are still protected by the drones.”

  Lucas frowned.

  “Moses,” Ada subvocalized. “Is Hive still taking orders from you?”

  Beep. “Hive still seems happy to please me, yes, Ada. Hive seems… annoyed, however, by repeated attempts at contact from the ship’s computer.”

  A plan flashed through her mind, and she relayed it to Moses.

  “Captain,” she said, standing. “I believe I know how to tip the bargaining scale in our favor.”

  “Does it involve taking another few thousand lives?” he asked, dryly.

  “I hope not. Just the threat of it. Our lives among them.”

  “Moses,” she subvocalized, “do it.”

  “Yes, Ada.”

  The swarm surrounding the Fairfax rippled and reformed, a platoon of the things gathering outside around the bridge. Missiles locked onto the ship.

  “What is happening?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” Lucas said. “What’s going on?”

  Ada smirked mirthlessly. “Tell them, Jeffrey.”

  “The drones have targeted the bridge of the Fairfax. An overwhelming array of missiles are locked directly on this location. If they are deployed, everyone on board will die.”

  Ada watched the viewscreen as another arm of drones flew behind them, locking weapons onto the remaining ships.

  “There,” she said to Lucas. “It’s a hold-up. Now everyone is at gunpoint, including us. And every iteration of Jeffrey. Now you should negotiate.”

  Lucas took a deep breath through his nose. “Jeffrey, hail your commanding ship. I want a livefeed.”

  Within seconds, the viewscreen changed. Ada saw a bridge in chaos. Emergency lighting only, officers strapped in at their stations, others unconscious on the floor. The captain wore a dark bruise down half of her face, framed by wisps of silver hair that had been torn loose from her bun.

  “What do you want?” she said, her voice hollow.

  “This is Captain Ronald Harris of the… of a ship commandeered by Rome, Inc. With whom am I speaking.”

  The woman sneered. “You’re not Ronald Harris.”

  Ada turned to Lucas, who seemed to flinch.

  “Flying as Ronald Harris, then,” he said. “No matter. Nevermind who I am; you’ve seen what I can do. You will abandon this space and give us leave to evacuate the area. You will not pursue. Is that understood?”

  Ada grimaced, hoping the threat of annihilation was enough to make up for Lucas’ impoverished negotiation skills.

  The woman stared for a moment. “Have you any idea what you’ve done?”

  Lucas declined to answer, but waited. She turned her head to the side. “Fine. Go. But know this. You will never rest again, Odin. You and your crew will be hounded across the system and beyond, if need be. You will face justice.” The livefeed ended abruptly. Lucas sat in silence.

  “How did she know your name?” Caspar asked.

  Darren sniffed. It might have passed for a scoff, from him.

  “Jeffrey,” Lucas said. “You going to let us fly out of this, or do you need a little convincing from our new mechanical friends?”

  Jeffrey did not respond.

  “Randall,” Lucas sighed. “Take us out of here.”

  “Sir. Where to?”

  “Anywhere. Start with the inner belt. I just want to get Earth out of the rear-view.”

  “Sir.”

  —

  Ada stood in the doorway of Cupid, the little freight-hauler she had apparently inherited. Joyce and Crush were there, playing a card game at a little makeshift table in the cargo hold. Their cards lay on the table now though, forgotten, as they listened to Ada tell them as much of what had happened as she could stomach. She may have conveniently left out the bit where she was the one to set the drones loose.

  Joyce cussed. “This ship is worse than Carmen’s station. We’ve had nothing but catastrophe after disaster since we came aboard. You think maybe it’s time we got out of here?”

  “We can’t until we’ve at least made some distance between us and the ships behind us. Otherwise they’ll snatch us up for lunch.”

  Crush frowned. “I don’t much like the idea of runnin’. Not from a fight we started.”

  Ada threw up her hands. “Crush, this is not the time to be noble; this is the time to survive! Besides, we didn’t start any of this. We’re the victims here, can’t you see that?”

  “I ain’t never been anyone’s victim.”

  “Whatever.” Ada passed them and headed for the bunks. “I’m going to crash. I say we lay low a few hours, then load up what we need and leave.”

  “You mean steal from them,” Crush said.

  “Crush! Seriously? You’re a pirate. This is what you do.”

  He screwed up his face in concentration. “Maybe I don’t wanna anymore.”

  “Huh!”

  Ada needed a shower. And a hot meal. And about a million miles between her and Earth, and a do-over of the past twenty-four hours. Or the past twenty-four months. She groaned. “Why, why, why, why, why?” she muttered.

  Her earpiece chirped. “Are you asking me, Ada?”

  She huffed, almost smiling. “No, Moses. Thanks. I’m going to unplug for a bit. See you in a few hours.” She pulled the earpiece out, fell onto a bunk, and rolled to face the wall. Then she lost herself for a time in dreams of fire and space.

  Chapter 9

  Erick stood in the lock as the air cycled. He had suited up, and held another suit under his arm. He still had access to an escape shuttle but he wasn’t taking it out just yet. First, he had a space-walk to make. He initiated his mag-boots, and the hatch opened.

  It was stupid, really, going out into the maelstrom of debris. It would be so easy for a rogue chunk of wreckage to pin him to the hull, or even a tiny shard of metal to injure him, or just pierce his suit and let him decompress. Death waited for him out here. But he had to do it now; he’d promised.

  He checked the vitals readout on the arm of his suit. So far, so good. It had even applied a ready-made sticky bandage to his arm for him. Handy. It would have been a shame to go through all this trouble and then bleed out while stomping around on the hull. He swiped the screen of his readout to a ship schematic. Medical wasn’t far; he just had to get down to the belly of the Spacegull. A few short steps through a veritable minefield.

  He’d taken two when the first chunk of another ship slammed into the hull in front of him. He crouched, as if it would help him keep balance, while the Spacegull jerked and tumbled into a sickening spin. The wreckage before him was big enough he would need to take a circuitous route to get around it. So much for an easy space-walk.

  Fifteen minutes later he had made it around and was surveying the initial hull breach. It wasn’t pretty. It looked as though another ship had side-swiped them, tearing off a long strip on its way. The good news was that the resulting hole was large enough Erick was sure he could get inside the blocked-off area from there. The bad news—aside from the obvious demise of the Spacegull-was that it was seeming less and less likely that the medical bay could have survived the collision. Well, nothing for it but to see for himself.

  Passing through the gash in the hull was a sensitive operation. He stepped gingerly, keeping his mag-boots active, and ducking to take up as little space as possible. One moment of contact with the torn metal edges could spell certain death. He held his breath and swung his torso in over his right leg, then followed with his left. Inside, he stood up again and breathed. He checked his vitals. Still good, but he had almost used half his oxygen. That spelled trouble.
He had to make it back to the lock to get to the shuttle, and if Rylea was still alive, he would probably have to do it while carrying her. He picked up the pace, heading for medical on the schematic.

  He almost gave up when he came to the first sealed bulkhead. But a glance at the schematic showed a way around this one, if he could chance an extra two minutes of air. He chanced it.

  The detour led him to a sealed door, rather than a bulkhead. He stood at it for a few seconds, staring through the window. Nothing on the other side was floating; it was still pressurized, still had grav, still had life-support. He smiled. Rylea would be alive. But his smile fell as he realized the only way to get to her was to open this door, which would depressurize this part of the ship, including the med bay.

  He cursed and bit his lip. There wasn’t time to come up with an alternative plan. If he left her here, she would die anyway. A wild rush went to his head as he entered his code at the console beside the door, then stepped to the side to avoid the gust of venting atmo.

  The door hissed open, and immediately air screamed past him into the ruptured part of the ship. He counted to three, then lifted his legs and ran as quickly as he could through the door.

  Debris shot past him in the rush. Latex gloves. Tissues. A surgical mask. Medical items, he realized. He glanced at the schematic again, and confirmed; medical was right in front of him. Another door—this one not pressurized—and he was there. Rylea lay on a table, still strapped down, unconscious. A scalpel flew from its place on a shelf and stuck in the table mere inches from her leg. Erick swallowed and ran toward her.

  His priority was air. He got the mask and hood of the second suit over her head, and started her oxygen supply, localized to the mask. Then he fumbled to untie the straps. They wouldn’t budge. He grabbed the scalpel and sawed through them, just as he had sawed through his own. By the time he had her free, her legs were losing color. The temperature in the med bay was plunging. He pulled the suit up around her as quickly as he could, silently apologizing for the indignity of pulling up the medical gown to shove her legs in. The suit sealed, and the readout on her arm powered up.