Fractal
by Tom Dillon
A Horizon Station Story
Copyright 2012 Tom Dillon
Guild Ship Arton
-01:29:18
Zero had once been told that when all you have is a spanner, everything looks like a bolt. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that it works the same way with a gun. When you’re looking at things through the weapon’s Augmented Reality system, your brain begins to classify everyone as either friend or foe. Whether it was a feature of the human brain or some feat of psychological engineering designed into the AR system, Zero wasn’t sure, and supposed it didn’t matter.
“Remember, whatever’s waiting for us in there, violence is an option, but it is the last option,” Skip said. It didn’t sound any more convincing now than it had when he had first signed on, six years and more than a hundred missions ago, but along with a well-edited version of the recordings it would save their asses should they find ourselves the target of some witch hunt.
Zero stopped listening to Skip and watched the timestamp superimposed on the corner of his vision, the red numbers counting down to contact with the target: -01:27:16, -01:27:15, -01:27:14. He could handle whatever was waiting for him in that station, he was sure that he had seen worse, it was the anticipation that did people in. Although the timestamp helped it not seem like forever, it made it hard to forget, too. He looked across at Dart, sitting on the other side of Skip, but she was reading a treatise on the mechanics of jump gates or something equally beyond the limits of his understanding. He didn’t interrupt her, she was touchy about her reading time. So he checked and rechecked his needlegun, making sure that the gauge was green. He ran his armor diagnostics for the eighth time, and it was still at full integrity. He sucked down a packet of nutri-gel, but he knew it was a bad idea. It was an indefinable combination of sweet, savory, and salty, engineered to be impossible to puke up, but not for lack of trying on his stomach’s part.
Finally, he relaxed back into the bench, and tried to meditate. It wasn’t his idea of fun, but it beat listening to Skip cover their asses.
Horizon Station, Central Control Room
“Hey Guys, you might want to get up,” Remi said. There was no response. She rang the station’s siren.
“What the hell?” Vance’s voice came through her handheld, sounding both groggy and pissed off. A moment later, Ava’s voice came through as well, echoing the sentiment.
“There’s a ship approaching that’s broadcasting a medical emergency beacon, but no transponder,” she said. She didn’t finish the thought, they all knew what it meant. Pirates.
“We knew this was going to happen sooner or later,” Ava said.
“I was really hoping for later,” Vance said. They had talked about it when they had first claimed the station, but it was one thing to talk about pirates and another entirely to actually see them approaching, growing ever larger on the screens.
“How long?”
“It looks like they’re just drifting in, so about an hour. You should both come to the Control Room.”
Five minutes later, the two of them showed up, Ava in clothes that looked slept in. Remi had put some carrots and coffee on the table that dominated one side of the room. They looked at the juxtaposition and shrugged, it was strange but strange was better than depleting their dwindling supplies of preserved food, and definitely better than dealing with pirates on an empty stomach.
“So what’s the plan?” Vance asked around the crunches of his carrot.
“I know that it’s a bad idea, but they’re broadcasting a ME beacon and I don’t want to risk someone dying because we were too afraid to open the doors,” Remi said, realizing halfway through that she had cut off Ava, who was used to being the group’s leader.
“Are you saying that you want to let pirates into our home just because they’re asking for help?” Ava asked. “If pirates had a manual, that would be page one. Are you crazy?”
“I’m not saying that we should give them the run of the station,” Remi said before Vance could interject. “I’m just not ready to stand by and let someone bleed to death while I do nothing.”
“I’m with Remi on this, Ava,” Vance said. “They might be telling the truth, but if we say no, they might also just shoot their way in.” He gestured to the picture of the pirate ship that was up on one of the screens. It wasn’t large, maybe three times the size of a short range shuttle, and it didn’t have any obvious weaponry, although with pirates, that didn’t mean much. “Besides, it looks like smugglers or scavengers, the sort of people that we may have something in common with.”
There was silence as the ramifications of what he said sunk in. Ava’s eyes unfocused and Remi could see the cogs and gears turning in Ava’s mind, as fear turned to opportunity. She flashed a smile to Vance, but he just shrugged, he hadn’t been trying to do her a favor.
“Vance, suit up and meet me in the bay,” Ava said. “Remi, I’ll need you to stay here.”
“Wait, you want to meet them in person? Why not just do it over comms?” Remi said.
“We’re going to be outgunned no matter what, safe isn’t an option,” Ava said. “Our only real shot is to make them not want to kill us, and that will be a lot easier to do in person.”
Remi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She looked to Vance.
“I wish there was some other way, Remi,” he said.
Horizon Station, Main Cargo Bay
“Welcome,” Ava said. She and Vance were standing side by side in the middle of the bay, the central shaft that led to the top deck open above them. Vance was standing slightly behind her, hopefully making her look more in control than she felt. She tried to look relaxed and assertive, with her thumbs hooked into her pockets, but wasn’t sure if it was working. Either way, it was too late to change things, if she moved her arms, it would look like she was nervous, or worse, scared.
There were three pirates standing between her and the airlock. They were wearing dark grey exo suits that looked like they had been through their share of violence. The man in charge looked at the two of them but didn’t move. His crew all had their weapons drawn, but they were pointed at the floor. A good sign, all things considered.
“So, are you a bunch of pacifists? Or do you have people waiting behind the doors?” he asked. He was comfortable with either prospect.
“Neither,” she said. “But I don’t think that you’re here for the conversation. What do you want?” A frown flashed across his face, he clearly wasn’t the sort of man who liked surprises.
“I know how this is going to sound, but one of my crew needs some medical attention,” the captain said.
“We don’t have much in the way of medical supplies or expertise,” Ava said. “But we’ll do what we can.”
“Understood,” he said. “But we do need a few parts for one of our engines, we got a little beat up recently.”
“We have some spare parts, what do you have to trade?” Ava asked.
“Trade?” he asked. One of his crew smothered a laugh. “You do realize what we do, right?”
“Yeah, but I have a feeling that you’ll come around to our view.” She realized her mistake as soon as the words left her mouth, the pirates suddenly had their weapons at the ready and were eying the doorways and ceiling.
“Is that a threat, then?” he asked.
“You just seem like a reasonable man is all,” she said.
“To me, reasonable means not paying for something I can just take,” he said, smiling.
Guild Ship Arton
-00:01:53
Zero felt the ship felt the ship come back online for the final leg approach to station X1311879, decelerating quickly enough to push them all against their restraints. Time crept by as the AI pilot aligned the ship with one of
the station’s docking ports, coming to rest against it and locking into place in near silence. Their restraints unlatched, and he stood up alongside Skip and Dart. The ship overrode the station’s security within a matter of seconds, and after cycling through the airlock, the three of them found themselves looking at five surprised faces and a body on a stretcher in the cargo bay.
Skip began to give the standard speech, “Under the order of the Syndicated Merchants Guild–” but was unable to finish before the situation went fractal.
Skip and Dart were hit with concussive rounds that knocked them back into the airlock. Zero had already started to dodge, and the round meant for him passed through where his chest had been a fraction of a second earlier, its path outlined by his AR system. A larger object followed his comrades into the ship, and he was thrown forward into a prone position by the blast. His connection to his comrades was instantly severed. He tried to