Slab City Blues: The Collected Stories

  “Got something to say, just say it.”

  “You were Fed Sec.”

  Her gloved hand paused over the keypad as the panel turned green. “Despite the propaganda, your revolution wasn’t universally popular,” she said. “I was a well paid mining engineer with an infant daughter to think of, and a husband who died when a CAOS terrorist put a bomb in his fabricator plant. We all had to choose sides, I chose mine.”

  “So they made you an intel specialist. Way I heard it, it’s a role that required surgery.”

  She turned away and propelled to the next torus.

  “Memory augmentation, right?” I persisted, following. “Instant and total recall of all accrued information. Must get crowded in there.”

  “It’s a chip the size of an appleseed sitting on my cerebellum, and it has an off-switch.”

  “No bad dreams, huh?”

  “No more than you, I’d guess.”

  “So when the war ends you scoop up Lucy and head for the Kuiper Belt. You didn’t need to run, y’know. There was a Reconciliation Council, full pardon for all crimes committed by former Fed Sec personnel, ‘cept the really heinous ones of course. The hab-massacres and such. I mean, I can understand running for it if I’d been part of that. Some crimes can’t be forgiven.”

  Her hand gave a spasmodic flex before she accessed the panel. “Didn’t want to live in your new world. Knew there’d be no place for me and Lucy there.”

  “Really? Well, that’s probably true. Fugitives Retrieval still maintains the list. The Prejudice List it’s called, individuals to be pursued regardless of cost or duration. Grows shorter every year. That grab-op back on Celestia. I thought they were after Jack, but the way they reacted when they heard your voice. Guess they were relaying it to a matcher, and it hit.”

  Her hand stopped in mid-sequence and I knew she was calculating the odds of making it back to the airlock where she’d unwisely left her .45.

  “So which one?” I asked. “Merryvale? Golden Bucket Casino? January Gardens?” I saw her stiffen at that. January Gardens. The worst atrocity of the war. The premier educational hab for the orbiting executive class. A safe place for mommy and daddy to park little Briony or Chad whilst they spent the year earning a whopping bonus to pay for it all. Over eight thousand kids dying in a hail of plasma shrikes. At the time Fed Sec propaganda claimed CAOS had hidden WMDs on the hab, lurid and unlikely tales of bio-weapons and high-yield nukes aimed at New York and Delhi. Even now the UN continued to maintain the fiction it was all some intelligence screw-up, but you’d have to search for a long time to find anyone among the CAOS population who didn’t believe it a deliberate act of terrorism, the ultimate warning: forget your revolution and go back to work. Look, even the rich kids aren’t safe from us.

  “I did wonder why you and Lucy don’t share a single facial characteristic,” I said. “But even with the face-change, the Kuiper Belt wouldn’t have been far enough. We’d still have found you. No, you had to disappear completely, victim of a dastardly attack by the system’s worst pirate. Jack finding your ship was no accident, right?”

  She didn’t look at me, profile still and oddly serene behind her visor. “Don’t tell her…”

  “Tell her what? That mommy’s a war criminal who condemned her to a life of piracy because she couldn’t face the consequences of her actions?”

  “It was all for her. What kind of life would she have had?”

  “Better than the one you made for her. Now she’s a murderer. Just like you.”

  She closed her eyes, breath misting her visor for a moment. “I didn’t know… I just ran the intel and formulated the attack scenarios. I didn’t know what they were planning… Memory suppressants keep it away most of the time, but it’s all on the chip, waiting, every time I use it… every time I dream… Bright and fresh, like I’m living it again. You want to send me to hell, go ahead. But I’ve been living there for years.”

  I’d taken the precaution of attaching a thermal lance to my tool belt, my experience with Markov having taught me to keep some kind of weapon handy. A quick-draw fire-up and her visor would blacken and crack, leaving her gasping in vac, just like all those kids on January Gardens.

  I pushed away from her, heading for the next torus. “Time’s wasting.”

  *

  The command centre main display showed the Fed Sec shipyard as a vaguely hexagonal black matrix against the yellow-grey backdrop of Ceres, now less than a hundred thousand klicks distant. “Static positioning so it’s constantly shielded from Earth-based scans,” Mina said. “I’m counting twenty more of those fake bugs plus a net of combat bots.”

  “Quite a hornet’s nest we’re kicking,” Lucy observed. “Not like they’re just gonna sit there when we get to it.”

  “Hence the diversion,” Jack said, turning to me. “One hundred twenty minutes before your baby nuke goes boom, right?”

  “One hundred fifteen, but who’s counting?”

  “You’re sure you can get clear in time?” Mina asked Jack.

  “Found a Galahad Class combat suit in the stores,” he replied. “It’s no Pendragon, but it’s fast enough to get me clear of the blast radius whilst our Demon lord here takes down their bot net.”

  “Their security algorithms are certain to be more sophisticated here,” Mina said. “Major installations always had generative protocols. When Markov’s hack-shrike infects one unit, the firewall will adapt to prevent it spreading. To compensate, I’ve adjusted the base code for each warhead, which should mean you’ll take down maybe five percent of the net with every hit. But even with a best-case scenario, that still leaves over sixty bots to handle with standard ordnance.”

  I pointed at the tactical holo as it ran an accelerated sim, the neat matrix of the Fed Sec security net reconfiguring into two wings, the bugs prioritising the main threat and heading for Jack in the Dead Reckoning, the bots heading for me. “But we still punch a big enough hole for the main show, regardless of how it plays out, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then that’s the only scenario that matters.”

  “You may be happy to sacrifice yourself,” Lucy said. “But I’ve got an immunity deal pending and sixty bots is still a substantial threat to our escape plan. Not to mention, way too many to take on your own.”

  “I’ll have our own bots for back up.”

  “Won’t be enough, and there’s another Galahad in the stores.”

  “Absolutely not,” Mina stated.

  “Forget it, kiddo,” Jack added.

  “Oh, screw you both,” Lucy retorted tiredly. “Been exposing me to danger my whole life, now suddenly it’s an issue.”

  “That was different…” Mina began but Lucy cut her off.

  “Different how, mom? Because we had a chance of survival? I’m not dumb, OK? I can read a probability graph. Eight percent success rating, so chances are none of us are making it back to Earth orbit to enjoy a crime-free life.”

  “Your chances are better on board with me,” Mina replied, voice hard with implacable authority. “And I haven’t spent the last ten years keeping you safe to watch you die on a tactical display. You. Are. Staying. Here!”

  “I’ll need you to remote-control our bots,” I said to Lucy, breaking the cold silence that followed. “Give me an edge, y’know.”

  Mina’s expression softened a little and I saw a faint gleam of gratitude in her eyes before she turned away. Grateful or not, I thought. You’re still facing a war crimes tribunal if we make it home.

  Lucy clenched her jaw as her eyes blazed at me for a moment. “Should be me in the Pendragon,” she grated, then pushed towards the pilot’s station. She strapped herself in and jabbed at some icons. “Thirty minutes to breaking burn. Better get suited up.”

  Chapter 9

  Jack launched first, keeping the Dead Reckoning on the Malthus II’s blindside as Lucy guided her in on an oblique approach, Mina relaying a stream of bullshit to the increasingly nervous Fed Se
c Command and Control Centre.

  “Malfunctions in the port thrusters and the ore processors,” the C&C duty officer said. Female voice, American this time with a faint Texas drawl. “Been a pretty unlucky voyage all round, huh?”

  “We’re made,” I said, sitting in the Pendragon, waiting for the airlock to open and watching the Fed Sec net form itself into an imminent threat configuration. The Scarab flotilla was already forming up on an intercept vector. “I could offer them the chance to surrender. Few more seconds confusion won’t hurt.”

  “Forget it,” Jack said. “Surprised they let us get this close. Commencing my run. Lucy, stay with your mother. I mean it.”

  The Pendragon’s heads-up showed the Dead Reckoning as a blinking yellow icon arcing away from the Malthus II at full burn. The comms net lit up with alarm signals and dire warnings from the C&C.

  “Unidentified vessel, disengage all power immediately! Malthus II, come to an immediate halt or you will be fired upon! There will be no further warnings…”

  “Oh, give it a rest,” Mina sighed, killing the feed. “Lucy, correct attitude and engage primary thrust. Chief Inspector, you’re up.”

  The airlock doors opened and I glided out, the Pendragon following a preprogrammed course toward the shipyard, the twenty-two remaining bots of the Malthus security net closing in around me. The heads-up showed an estimated time to engage of sixty seconds.

  A burst of static and a flicker of light from fifty klicks beyond the Malthus II told me Jack had begun to engage the Scarabs, confirmed by the increased pitch of alarm over the net.

  “Bravo One is down! Repeat, Bravo One is down!”

  “Bravo Two engaging! Fox Two!”

  Another burst of static, more lights flashing.

  “Bravo Two! Do you copy! Bravo Two, come in!”

  A soft peal of laughter over the net, Jack’s hard to miss tones following. “No offence, but you boys ’n girls are sadly in need of an education.”

  “Five klicks and closing!” Lucy said into my headphones. “Look alive Jed.”

  I switched to full stealth-mode and killed the plasma thrusters, momentum carrying me through the first bot-wave, a storm of tracer and missiles lighting the vac around me as they engaged their Malthus adversaries. I went for the closest and powered up, letting fly with the hack-shrike, watched it strike home on the machine’s armored carapace then immediately slipped back into stealth. The bot drifted for a few seconds then began firing at its compatriots, five more Fed Sec bots joining in before the firewall adapted and the battle began raging in earnest. Less than a minute later and the first wave was gone, just drifting metal trailing sparks and gas in the void.

  “We’re down to twelve bots,” Lucy reported. “Second wave twenty klicks and closing.”

  “Taking hits,” Jack reported. “Two minutes till I have to blow the hatches.”

  Lucy formed the Malthus bots around me in a spearpoint formation and we went full burn for the centre of the next wave. I managed a hit on the lead bot as it flew past but the effect was less dramatic, just three of its pals switching sides in the ensuing melee.

  “They’re adapting too fast,” I said, firing off the last hack-shrike. It was only marginally successful, but, together with the Pendragon’s cannon, secured sufficient advantage to complete the destruction of the second wave, although I had just one remaining ally by the time it was over.

  “Punching out!” Jack said. “Thirty seconds to detonation.”

  The third and hopefully final wave was still forty klicks off so I had time to watch the show as the nuke’s timer ticked down on the heads-up.

  “Prepare to board,” the C&C Texas voice ordered the apparently victorious Scarabs. “Secure prisoners for interrogation.”

  The military mindset is a dangerous thing, I recalled one of the Colonel’s many homilies. Ingrained efficiency and discipline can blind us to the threat posed by the irrational mind.

  The counter hit zero and a sun-bright flash erupted beyond the Malthus II, the comms-babble from the Scarabs ending abruptly. A brief pause before the C&C began demanding responses, answered only by static.

  “’Bye, old girl,” Lucy said softly as the nuke-flare faded. “Best tub he ever stole for me.”

  “Jack!” Mina called to the void. “Jack! You there?”

  A two second pause then a grunt, pained with heavy G. “Yeah. Don’t wanna think about my rad count though.”

  “You need to correct your vector,” she told him. “You’re ninety degrees off.”

  “Nah, I’m fine.”

  “But you’re heading straight for…”

  “I’m fine, Mina. Stay on mission.”

  “Here they come!” Lucy warned a second before my entire world became a morass of flashing tracer and silent explosions. I popped in and out of stealth-mode, staying visible only long enough to engage the thrusters and targeting systems, guns and missile launchers on auto-fire. The sensation of time slipped away in the frenzy of it all, there was just the vibration of the cannons and the flickering dance of the heads-up playing over the swirling firework display beyond the glass.

  “Three on your six,” Lucy warned. “Fire your retros and I’ll take them as they decelerate.”

  I thumbed the retro command switch, restraints digging into my shoulders, the instant G-backslap making me hyperventilate, spittle staining the visor as I fought the brown-grey mist fringing my vision; the tell-tale sign of a blackout.

  The three bots flashed by on both sides, retros firing as they spun to realign their weapons then exploded in a hail of cannon and missiles, Lucy’s remote-controlled proxy flying through the wreckage. “Get it together, Demon-guy,” she said. “Only twenty more to go.”

  I lined up on the densest formation, fired the plasmas and slipped back into stealth-mode. The C&C, however, must have been running some kind of reactive tactical software, because this time they anticipated the move. A salvo of missiles spiralled away from the bots and exploded around me in a preprogrammed sequence, the surrounding vac filled with an unavoidable cloud of shrapnel. I felt the impact on the Pendragon’s right leg, the energy release enough to send me spinning, damage reports lighting the heads-up as the warning signals sang a superfluous accompaniment. Auto-repair sealed the resultant leak within seconds but not before the trailing gas plume gave the bots more than ample evidence of my whereabouts.

  “Stay stealthy!” Lucy commanded. “Your momentum’s gone.”

  I drifted, not daring to touch a single switch, breath stilled through survival instinct even though my rational mind knew it was pointless. The dozen remaining Fed Sec bots chased Lucy’s proxy around for a creditable ten seconds before she gave up and kamikazed it into the closest opponent. The survivors formed into a clean and sweep formation, commencing a search pattern I knew would find me in less than a minute.

  “Reading three more Scarabs on approach,” Mina reported. “Must be outlying patrol craft responding to the distress call.”

  “Problem?” Jack enquired.

  “They’re still five minutes out,” she replied. “And the rain is falling.”

  Happy accident had brought me to within less than a klick of the shipyard, the angle of drift affording a fine view of the unfolding spectacle. I tracked the first asteroid all the way from its high velocity exit from the Malthus II’s accumulator. It seemed to slow as it tumbled past, surface glittering a little in the reflected light from Ceres. Then it was a blur again, course unhindered by the all-sides barrage from static cannon and missile stations, smashing though the ship-yard’s central spar like hail through a spider’s web.

  The vast matrix buckled as cohesion failed, twisting and straining, the clusters of Wraiths folding out like blossoms on a sun-bathed tree.

  “Launch! Launch!” the C&C was screaming. “Evacuation protocols are active! All vessels launch!”

  A few energy plumes lit the heads-up as some of the Wraiths tried to power up, ignorant of the fact that this storm was just b
eginning.

  The second asteroid shattered the shipyard’s already buckling upper-right quadrant, impacting amid a cluster of Wraiths. Some were evidently in the process of fueling their plasma tanks judging by the impressive blue-green explosion that ripped through the mooring spar, sheering it away from the main structure, severed fuel-lines coiling like headless snakes and spraying plasma over the surrounding mass of maintenance bots. I fancied I also saw a few EVA suits swallowed by the maelstrom.

  C&C went next, the Texas voice screaming orders right up until the last second. Stayed at her post, I mused in reluctant admiration as the C&C capsule took a mid-size rock dead-centre and blew apart like an overcooked egg, venting atmo and bodies in a ugly grey-black cloud.

  Three more rocks and it was done, the burning fuel lines bathing the final destruction in a confusion of flame and plasma. The last asteroid could only disturb the expanding cloud of debris as it flew through, what remained of the shipyard now spiralling down towards Ceres, dragging the few surviving Wraiths with it. I doubted there would be much left after impact.

  A warning signal shrieked in my ear as a flare exploded less than ten metres from the Pendragon. The stealth-ware would bend the resultant light, obscuring me from a visual scan, but it could do nothing about the tell-tale impact of the sparks on the outer shell, easily picked up by the Fed Sec bots’ infra-red scans. They instantly formed into an offensive formation and accelerated to attack speed.

  “Oh well,” I sighed, thumbing the switches for full power and letting the targeting systems off the leash. “At least it worked.”

  Chapter 10

  I took down two in quick succession, though I had to use up the remaining missiles to do it. I sought refuge in the resulting debris cloud, hoping the heat and myriad shards of metal would mask me enough to fight inertia up to full speed. Naturally, it was a fool’s hope.

  The first missile exploded no more than five metres ahead of me, the impact sending me into another spin, this one not so easily controlled. The heads-up blazed with damage reports, summarised in a nice easy to read graphic that told me I was venting gas from seven different punctures. I extended both arms in a cruciform pose and let go with the cannons, spraying tracer in all directions as I spun, rewarded with three more confirmed hits.