“That’s cos I’m not.”
She hesitated then pulled herself into the chamber, scanning me from head to toe in frank appraisal.
“I don’t want any trouble with your father,” I said.
“Adopted father,” she replied. “Fished me and mom out of a wrecked liner ten years ago. Guess he felt guilty since he wrecked it. Wasn’t supposed to be carrying passengers, y’see?”
“Man of conscience. I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be. He left the crew to die in hard vac.” She angled her head provoking memories of Janet and her feline perception. I forced the image away, puzzling over how it was possible to miss someone you had known for barely a few days. War-mode.
“You’re not like the others,” the girl said.
I nodded at the 2D on the wall. “My predecessors?”
“Nah, that was there when we took this ship. Never found out who they were. I meant the other merc types he recruits for specialist jobs. They don’t see, not the way you do. And your heart-rate barely bumped when Uhlstan was about to blow your head off. Should be careful, war hero. It’ll make him nervous.”
Maddux would try it, I knew. Grab her, pull her close, steal a kiss or a grope. Laugh when she threatened to tell her father. Sexual violence was among the many vices of the man who had worn this face. “You got a name?” I asked.
“Lucy.”
“What do you want, Lucy?”
She smiled, sweet and unaffected. “I wanna ride in your Pendragon.”
“It’s no toy.”
“And I’m no kid. Who’d you think pilots this bucket around? Been doing it since dear old dad plonked me in the pilot’s seat when I was eight. Says I’m a natural. Fortunate neurons, I guess.”
Best revert to character, I decided. No way Maddux would let her anywhere near it. “The suit’s mine,” I said, turning to the microwave and plucking a meal-pack from the sticky shelf. “Get daddy to buy you one when the job’s done.”
She gave a soft huff of annoyance. “You’re no fun,” she muttered.
I allowed myself a glance as she hauled herself out of the pod, athletic form twisting as she reached for a hand-hold, trying but failing to find solace in the fact that her impending death would be so quick she wouldn’t notice.
Chapter 2
Celestia Station is about a third the size of the Slab, a spinning tube of ageing metal festooned with comms arrays from end to end, giving it the appearance of an encrusted pipe from a long-disused water pump. The only hab in the Belt capable of housing over a hundred thousand people, it’s been a CAOS member-state since the war, complete with an elected provincial government and full trading rights. In fact, it had been effectively self-governing long before then, neutral ground for competing mining corporations who needed somewhere to trade for labour and equipment beyond the prying eyes of Downside regulators. Thanks to the local authorities’ relaxed attitude to full enforcement of the CAOS Legal Code, it’s also notorious as a refuge for the Upside criminal fraternity. I could recall no less than three suspects I still badly wanted to talk to, reportedly now residing on Celestia Station, and it took some will-power not to engineer an excuse to absent myself for some off-the-clock snooping.
War-mode, I reminded myself. Not police anymore. Not here.
“Guns are strictly verboten,” Jack told me in the airlock, handing over a six-inch metal rod. “One of the few regs they bother to enforce here. Anything goes down it’ll be hand-to-hand. Assume you’re OK with that.”
I looked at the rod in my hand, thumbing the stud on the side to extend it into a yard long baton of telescopic steel. “Yo ho, cap’n.”
He squinted at me with his red-eye. “And keep a clamp on your mouth. Any and all verbals come from me or Mina, you and Uhlstan watch and react accordingly.”
Mina, Lucy’s mother and Jack’s apparent wife, seemed to occupy the role of ship’s intel analyst. She stood next to Jack, gaze intent on her smart’s screen. “Markov hacked the secure comms net,” she reported. “We’re clear of any monitoring from local law.”
“Good.” Jack raised his gaze to the camera in the ceiling. “Lucy, you know the drill. Things go bad, wait for exactly twelve minutes then burn clear.”
“You know I’d rather die than leave you,” she replied in a tone of complete sincerity, quickly followed by a mischievous giggle.
“Spare the rod,” Jack muttered, ignoring his wife’s reproving scowl.
I retracted the baton to its previous length and consigned it to my pocket. There was a hiss as the airlock opened and we stepped through to the inner lock which irised open after a standard thirty second contaminant and weapons scan. We were greeted by a melange of smells and noise that felt both familiar and alien, a dense odorous cacophony making the Slab’s most crowded levels seem serene by comparison.
I saw the faint twitch of something that might have been a smile on Jack’s lips as he viewed the street scene beyond, maybe a nostalgic light in his human eye. Was he born here? I wondered. We knew so little about him, all records dating back only to the second year of the war when he began his career as a CAOS-sanctioned privateer. Everything before that was just a load of conjecture and lurid legend.
The Celestia populace was more diverse than I was used to, greater variance in skin-colour and a higher preponderance of Splice’s among the jostling crowds, though the locals seemed to favour alterations that were more functional than cosmetic, nary a vamp or a werewolf among them. Some resembled Markov with elongated limbs suited to working in micro-grav, others hulking stevedores with the kind of muscle only dreamed of by Downside body-builders. Here and there I saw multi-spectra adapted snake-eyes peering out from otherwise unmodified faces.
The dockside level was thick with food-stalls and hawkers, the air heavy with the aroma of a hundred or more different cuisines rising above the babble of mingled accents and dialects. Uhlstan led the way, betraying little hesitation in pushing people aside with varying levels of force, those unwise enough to object soon lowering their gaze and shuffling away when they took note of Jack. They know who he is, I surmised, wondering why he would wander through a crowded hab without benefit of disguise, immune to the threat of betrayal despite the ever-growing bounty on his head.
I received a partial answer when we passed by the only uniformed police I saw in the whole visit, a lone Demon in body-armour perched on an elevated platform, assault carbine across his chest and a scanning rig fixed to his helmet. He surveyed the teeming crowd with continual scrutiny, head moving in a slow practised sweep, pausing only once when his gaze alighted on Jack. The pause lasted a full two seconds as I saw the uniform’s lips moving beneath his visor. A small nod then he resumed his scan, turning his back to survey the other end of the street.
Allowed to come and go as he pleases, I decided. Must have the local law on retainer. Such brazen corruption chafed on my police sensibilities. No Slab Demon ever took a bribe, partly due to a basic level of professional dedication that had sustained the Department through the low wages and abundant temptation of the post-war years, but also owing much to continual financial monitoring and mandatory bi-annual sessions in the neural lie-detector.
We came to a shop doorway, the windows covered in old 2D posters forming a dense collage of faces and names from times gone past, some vaguely familiar from my infrequent viewing of the music channels. Inside a few customers stood flipping through row after row of thin plastic wrapped squares, each face wearing the expression of practiced concentration peculiar to the dedicated collector. I paused at the sight of one of the items on a display rack, recognising the blond haired character standing at the centre of the tableau of heroes and villains, light sabre raised. ‘Star Wars: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack’ the title read, partly obscured by a price tag that amounted to roughly half my salary for the preceding year. I took it from the rack, peering curiously at the edges.
“Never seen a vinyl disc before?” Uhlstan asked.
I shook my
head. “They all this expensive?”
“Some more than others. C’mon.” He jerked his head. “He’ll get pissed if you start shopping.”
I followed him to the rear of the shop, disc in hand, where Jack was exchanging a formal handshake with an elderly, mahogany-skinned man, his wrinkles partially obscured by an impressive set of grey shoulder-length dreadlocks. “New blood?” he asked, looking at me.
“This is Maddux,” Jack introduced me. “He’s on probation. Maddux, this is Mr Gold. Purveyor of just about anything.”
I held up the disc. “This price negotiable?”
Mr Gold bared gleaming yellow teeth in a smile. “Sure. It goes up ten percent for anyone who haggles.”
“Put it aside for me, will you?” I asked, handing it over. “I’m good to collect.”
“You finished?” Jack asked in a less than patient tone, staring until I did the expected and looked away.
“Check it out, Jack,” Mr Gold was saying, placing my purchase behind the counter and extracting a disc from a smaller sleeve. The monochrome image on the sleeve showed a broad-faced man with a heavy brow, a guitar resting on his shoulder. Mr Gold placed the disc on an odd contraption consisting of a turn-table and some kind of sensor armature. He set the turn-table spinning and placed the sensor carefully on the edge of the disc, a soft lilting song soon rising from an attached set of speakers. The music was unmistakably antique, unfamiliar but compelling. Some kind of mournful warning of environmental collapse, judging by the lyrics.
I noted Jack’s expression as he listened, a mirror of the concentration evident in the other patrons. “Somebody tell you this was original?” he asked after a moment.
“Nineteen eighties reissue,” Mr Gold said.
“They lied. It was never reissued.” Jack pointed at the disc. “And the groove is way too regular.”
Mr Gold laughed and slapped a hand to the table, making the song skip a few chords. “Can never fool you, Jack.”
“No,” Jack agreed. “You never can. I take it this means you’ve confirmed our intelligence.”
“That I have.” Mr Gold plucked a smart from his pocket and thumbed up a holo. It showed what appeared to be some kind of auction, a young woman at a podium taking bids from a large crowd, the sign behind her reading ‘Christies.’
“Went for twenty million UA twelve years ago,” Mr Gold said. “One of Exocore’s investments in the collectibles sector, safer than the stock market and the value only ever goes up. They distribute them around their various Upside assets. Makes sense when you think about it, constantly mobile and heavily protected secure storage.”
The holo shifted into a ship schematic, some kind of mining vessel, but bigger than any I’d seen before, the hull a long rectangular tube protruding from a blocky hab and cargo cluster roughly equivalent in size to an up-market residential orbital.
“Big old bitch, isn’t she?” Mr Gold observed. “You really sure about this one, Jack?”
Jack ignored the question. “You find a contact for the hardware I requested?”
Mr Gold winced a little. “Manahi.”
Uhlstan gave a loud rumble of unease and Jack’s gaze narrowed. “He’s not my favourite supplier,” he told Mr Gold. “And he’s likely bearing a grudge against my associate here.”
“No-one else could source what you wanted,” Mr Gold said. “He’ll squeeze you, for sure. But put enough green on the table and he’ll soon forget all that time in traction.”
I gave Uhlstan a questioning glance. “Broke his back,” he said with a shrug. “Cage fight got a little out of hand when one of his brothers tossed him a knife.”
“Where?” Jack asked Mr Gold.
Mr Gold held up his smart, the screen showing an ident for a dockside storage unit. “Meeting’s set for one hour.”
“So soon?”
“Got on the line as soon as you arrived. Everybody on Celestia can’t get enough business from Jack. You really should run for mayor, y’know. Practically own the place, anyhow.”
*
Celestia’s dockside was much like the Slab’s, undistinguished functional architecture and mostly deserted avenues. It was also dimly lit; no point wasting power on levels largely bare of people. The storage unit entrance was flanked by two lean-looking men with matching facial tattoos and business suits, cut loose enough to conceal weapons. The markings were familiar, reminiscent of the motifs favoured by one of the more ambitious Maori gangs from the mid-Yangs, but not similar enough to confirm any association. They narrowed their gaze as Jack approached, hands coming to their sides in readiness, but made no move to stop him as he went inside without pausing to exchange a word, followed by an equally unsocial Mina and Uhlstan. I paused before entering, offering the guard on the left an affable nod. He stared back with a narrow-eyed lack of expression, save a small twitch below his eye. It was an involuntary muscular flutter and, I knew from experience, could be quite painful until it faded.
“Worked here long?” I asked.
He stepped away from the wall and jerked his head at the doorway, eye still twitching. I shrugged and went inside, finding Jack facing a well-built man bearing the same facial decoration, but much more extensive and finely applied. He wore an elegantly tailored suit of dark blue and carried an aluminium case. Two more tattoo-faced and suited guards stood in the corners behind him, silent and watchful.
“Jack,” the man with the case said, face empty of any affection.
“Manahi,” Jack nodded. “How’s the back?”
Manahi’s gaze shifted to Uhlstan, lips curling a little. “Mended. It took a long time and a lotta money.”
“A man shouldn’t gripe over just punishment,” Jack told him. “But, to demonstrate my good will, you can add your med-bill to the price. Provided you have the hardware I requested.”
Manahi placed the aluminium case on the floor, crouching to punch digits on the combo-lock and lift the lid, turning it around and stepping back. There were four objects in the case, non-reflective black cylinders resembling 20 mm cannon rounds.
Jack nodded to Mina who held up her smart, scanning the case’s contents. “Markov,” she said via her ear-piece. “These do the job?”
It was barely noticeable, a slight straightening to Manahi’s back as Mina spoke, but it was mirrored by both guards… and the flesh below Manahi’s eye started to twitch.
I turned to Uhlstan, staring until he met my gaze. I blinked once and cast my eyes at the door. He responded with a faint crease to his brow and I gave a barely perceptible nod.
“Checks out,” Markov’s voice came via Mina’s smart. “Rad level signature is a match.”
“Five hundred thousand,” Manahi said. “Medical bills come to another two hundred.”
“No,” I said with a laugh. “It’ll be more than that.”
He frowned, twitch still fluttering, then reached into his pocket. I leapt and kicked him in the face, a hard toe-jab to the nerve-cluster under the nose, snapping his head back and sending him unconscious to the floor. I drop-kicked the guard on the left as he reached under his jacket, moved in close with the baton, thumbing the button and snapping the extended rod against his hand, forcing it to release the butt of a half-drawn tazer. I pulled him around as his colleague’s tazer came free, letting him fall as the dart salvo smacked into his chest. I replied with a single shot, the dart hitting dead-centre on the spiral tattoo on guard number two’s forehead, leaving him prostrate and twitching.
Uhlstan had already moved to the door, his baton sweeping the legs from under the first guard to burst in, Jack stepping forward to deliver a kick to his temple as he sprawled. Uhlstan grabbed at the final guard’s tazer as he followed, darts phutting into the ceiling as they struggled. Jack ended it with a haymaker to the back of the guard’s head, snatched up the fallen tazer and whirled towards me, barrel levelled.
“Just cost me a lotta’ local business,” he said. “This better be good.”
I hauled Manahi from the floor, p
ulling his head back and pointing to the twitching patch of flesh below his eye. “Muscular contraction to the orbicularis. Side effect of recent face-change, no more than three days old is my guess. The real Manahi’s probably stewing in a holding cell somewhere.” I let him fall to the floor and held up the tazer I’d taken from the guard. “Madoc Industries L-Model Stunner, used exclusively by CAOS law enforcement. We need to move, they’ll know it’s gone bad by now.”
“Markov,” Mina said. “You got this?”
“Accessing environmental systems now,” the Belter replied as a warning siren began to blare outside, interspersed with a calming female voice.
“Attention Celestia citizens. A fire has been detected on this level. Please remain calm. Suppressant gas is being deployed. There is no cause for panic. Please remain calm.”
Jack waited at the door until the misty-grey suppressant clouded the exterior. “We’re on our way,” he said. “Remember the countdown.”
“Already running, Daddy,” Lucy responded cheerfully.
Uhlstan retrieved the case and went first, quickly followed by Jack and Mina. Outside everything was shrouded in swirling fog, fire-quenching chemicals stinging eyes and throat as I ran. Up ahead I heard a series of tazer shots followed by the tell-tale grunt and crunch of hand-to-hand combat as Uhlstan and Jack fought their way through the perimeter. I ducked a salvo of darts and came face to face with a female agent in body armour, tazer at her shoulder zeroing on my central mass. I dropped below her sight-line and kicked her legs away, pouncing as she fell, trapping the tazer between us as she bucked, snapping her head forward in a painful butt to the nose.
“Shit!” I slammed her hard to the floor, blood dripping onto her face as I loomed closer, hissing the recognition code for an active Covert Ops Agent. “Black Wolf. Who the fuck are you?”
She stopped struggling, initial puzzlement replaced by resentment. “Artemis,” she hissed her own code: Coalition Fugitives Retrieval Unit. “And you’re screwing up our op.”
“We have priority in all circumstances, and you know it. Now call whoever’s in charge of this clusterfuck and shut it down. No pursuit when we launch.”