“It’ll be a few hours before I’m in position to do that,” Captain Fox replied. “Can you tell me what kind of rescue mission you’re on?”
“You can’t tell him,” Petro advised Crater over their private channel. “He hates the Medaris family, probably including Maria.”
“When I was aboard the Cycler,” Crater said, “I didn’t tell Captain Fox all I knew, and he was surprised by the attack that came. I’m not going to hold out on him again.” Crater nodded to the gillie to open the channel to Fox again. “Maria Medaris has been kidnapped and is being held at L5. I’m heading there to rescue her.”
“Maria kidnapped again? That girl keeps you employed, does she not? Let me tell you something you already know. The Medaris family is nothing but trouble. On the other hand, they own this Cycler, so I work for them too. All right, Crater, I’ll paint L5 for you and report back. I presume you want it to be private and encrypted.”
“Yes, sir. When you have something, give Betty a call. The gillie will be listening and will patch it through to us here.”
“Your gillie? I heard it was dead.”
“Alive and well, sir, and still illegal.”
“I believe it knows that.”
“Yes, sir, I believe you are correct.”
A few hours later, the gillie said, I have Captain Fox.
“We painted L5, Crater,” the Cycler Captain said. “We found some big objects there, presumably asteroids. Our pulsdar isn’t set up to detect warpods, but there’s a group of shadows along the edge of the L5 bowl which look suspicious. There’s also what I think is a station with a design similar to the Cycler. It’s about a hundred miles from the warpods, if that’s what they are. Here are the coordinates.”
After Crater keyed in the Captain’s report on the fuser puter, he said, “Thank you, Captain. That’s very helpful.”
“By the way, in the last hour, we’ve been told the Colonel has retired and his son is taking over the family business. What do you make of that?”
“Business is business,” Crater answered, pretending to make light of it.
“When something this big happens in the Medaris business, you can bet a lot of digital family knives are going into a lot of digital family backs. Does this have anything to do with Maria?”
“I’m not certain and that’s the honest truth, Captain. Thanks again. You were a great help.”
“Good hunting, Crater. Looks like you’re up against tough odds, but it won’t be the first time.”
After Crater hung up from Captain Fox, Petro allowed a sigh. “Warpods at L5. This is going to be rough, Crater.”
Crater’s expression was grim because he agreed with Petro. To fly nearly blind into an area loaded with asteroids and apparently infested by warpods was a desperate move. “Crescent, come up here, please,” he called.
When Crescent came forward, he asked, “Did you hear what Captain Fox said?”
“I did.”
“We’re probably going to have to fight our way in and out.”
“I expected nothing less,” Crescent said. “I ask but one thing, something I’ve asked Petro earlier. I will be brave, but do not allow me to be overly aggressive as per my genetic programming. In other words, don’t let me risk my life unless it’s absolutely necessary to fulfill our mission. There is a reason for that, but one I do not care to share.”
Crescent returned aft to the astrogator’s cabin, leaving Crater puzzled. He turned to Petro. “Does she really think I would give her life to save Maria?”
Petro’s face registered astonishment. “Of course she does, you idiot!”
Crater started aft, but Petro caught him by his shoulder.
“Don’t. It won’t make any difference. She already knows everything you might say. Don’t make it any worse than it already is.”
Crater shook off Petro’s hand. “What are you talking about?”
“She loves you, you dope. That’s the only reason she’s here. She loves you more than her own life. I’m not sure what her request is all about, but that’s the bottom line.”
Crater opened his mouth, set to argue, then clamped it shut. Of course he knew Crescent was in love with him. He’d always known, but it had made no difference when Maria got into trouble. He had essentially forced Crescent to come along. He was disgusted with himself, but it was too late for any kind of apology to make a difference. Gravity was in charge, their course set for a rendezvous with danger and perhaps death. The only thing Crater could do was make a promise to himself, to give his own life to save Maria but somehow protect Petro and Crescent.
TWENTY-SEVEN
When Riley and Tiger entered the Jan Davis, they encountered a gruesome sight. The environmental system had shut down and the six-person crew, still in their seats, were all dead. “What happened?” Riley asked. “The hull wasn’t compromised.”
Tiger noted the blue lips on the crew and checked the ship’s puter. “Asphyxiated. The environmental system is shut down. This was a rookie crew and they made a rookie mistake. I’ve seen it in simulations. They overloaded the system with too many commands from too many stations and the puter shut down. When they booted back up, they focused on weapons and forgot to put the air cycler back online.”
The Colonel and the sheriff were next inside. “Let’s get these fellows out,” the Colonel said, lifting the navigator from her seat.
“What are we going to do with them?” Riley asked.
“We’ll put them in the jumpcar,” the Colonel replied. “Maybe we can retrieve them later for a proper scattering.”
The sheriff and Riley joined together to remove the pilot and copilot from the cockpit. In zero-g, it was difficult to get any leverage, and before long, the sheriff had worked up a sweat and his helmet was fogged. “Take it easy, Sheriff,” Riley said. “You’ll bust a gut.”
“I’ve never liked it in space,” the sheriff confessed. “I feel like I’m always close to losing my cookies.”
“Just try to breathe.”
“I’m claustrophobic. This helmet seems to be getting smaller by the minute. I’m about this close to screaming.”
Riley put her helmet against his. “Look into my eyes, Sheriff. You’re fine and you’re going to stay fine. Tiger’s going to get us some air real soon. When we accelerate out of orbit, we’ll even have a little gravity for a while. Now help me with these fine young fellows who have gone to the angels. Please.”
The sheriff squeezed his eyes shut, then blinked a couple of times. He pushed his forehead forward to the helmet towel shelf to wipe the sweat from his brow. He looked at Riley, then nodded his thanks. Riley slapped the sheriff on his helmet and handed the pilot’s body off to him.
The Colonel was at the nav station, bringing up the console instruments. “Navigation seems to be working but communications are down,” he said.
Tiger floated back to look over the Colonel’s shoulder. “The comm dish is gone. I noticed that as I came over. There are short-range secondary systems but looks like they’re down too. Probably the interlink’s burned out. I can troubleshoot it.”
“How long will that take?” the Colonel asked.
“I can’t say. Some hours probably. I’ve got to get the environmental systems up first. The sensors all need calibrating after a hard shutdown. Also I need to check all the air lines and make sure they haven’t been compromised.”
“I need to communicate with L5,” the Colonel said. “Make that first priority.”
Tiger tapped on the keyboard and a document appeared on-screen. “This is the communications manual, about two thousand pages long.” He clicked on it. “There’s the troubleshooting section, only three hundred and ten pages long, including schematics. Look, Colonel, we can’t go anywhere until I get us air. If we have to, we can fix communications on the way.”
The Colonel thought it over, then conceded, “All right,” he said, “make the environmental system first priority, but I don’t want to wait until you fix it. I want to get g
oing right away.”
Riley’s eyebrows shot up. “Head for deep space with no ship air, sir? We could run out of suit air and then what?”
The Colonel smiled a grim smile. “Then I guess we’d die, Riley. Did you think this was going to be an easy mission?”
“No, sir, but I didn’t think it was going to be suicidal.”
Afterward, the sheriff, his face tinged green, managed to seek out the Colonel for a quiet word. “I’m sick, sir,” the sheriff said, “but I can still take care of either one of these birds for you. Just give me the word.”
“It may come to that,” the Colonel quietly replied. “But we need them for now. Just be prepared.”
The sheriff patted the pistol on his hip. “You know I’m always prepared.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Maria knocked on her father’s cabin hatch. When there was no response, she opened the hatch and found him lounging on a couch while watching the twentieth-century movie Starship Troopers. “A guilty pleasure,” he said, beckoning her in.
Maria sat on a chair beside the couch. When her father kept watching the movie, she said, “Could you put the movie on pause? I’d like to talk to you.”
Her father paused the film with his remote and turned toward her. “Did you come to apologize to your old man?”
“I came . . . Yes, I came to apologize.”
“This is such good news! Give us a hug.”
Her skin crawling, she let him wrap his arms around her, then counted to five and pulled back. “I’ve been talking to Truvia. She told me her real plan.”
Junior shrugged. “Truvia has grandiose dreams. She thinks I don’t know about her plan for a royal kingdom or whatever, but I do. I just ignore it. I’m a one-step-at-a-time type of fellow. For now I’ll settle for Medaris family leadership.”
“Junior, I’m not talking about that. She and Carus have sent an asteroid to destroy the Earth.”
“Nonsense. They couldn’t do something like that without my knowledge.”
“They could and they have.”
Junior picked up his remote. “Let’s watch the movie. It’s science fiction I can believe.”
“We need to warn Earth. Maybe they can stop it. It’s still a couple of days away.”
“I’ve been thinking about marrying Truvia. What would you think of her as a stepmother?”
“Junior, she’s seventy years old.”
Her father laughed. “Where did you hear such nonsense? You’re jealous, I suppose. My little kitten doesn’t like her daddy falling in love with another woman, does she?”
Her father’s condescension was like a trigger to Maria’s deep-seated anger. “I’ll tell you what your little kitten doesn’t like. She doesn’t like that you beat her mother and caused her to commit suicide. She doesn’t like that you sent her to school black-and-blue from being pinched. Your little kitten is also sure you’re batscrag crazy.”
The hatch opened and Carus, followed by a huge crowhopper, stepped inside. Junior held up the remote. “I called my guards the moment you arrived. Carus, I think my daughter needs to be locked in her cabin. She’s acting a little . . . strange.”
Truvia also came inside. “Maria, we heard what you said. So disappointing that you would tell such amazing lies to your father. I fear stronger measures may be required. If you wouldn’t mind, Junior, I’d like to transform her.”
“I suppose that would be all right, but into what?”
“I have an eighty-year-old woman in our files.”
Junior shrugged. “She was always an old woman, anyway. So serious even as a child.”
Maria lunged for the hatch but was immediately caught in the arms of the big crowhopper. Struggling, she cried out. “Junior, listen to me! I’m not lying! They’re going to hit the Earth with an asteroid!”
“Such nonsense,” Truvia tsked. “Maria, the woman you’ll be turned into had scoliosis and required a cane to get around. I imagine that will slow you down, even in zero-g.”
“Junior, don’t let them do this to me!”
“Good-bye, Maria,” Junior said, before fiddling with the remote. “Maybe after you’re changed, you’ll be more flexible, and then maybe we’ll change you back.” The movie started again.
Maria, held in the iron grip of the crowhopper, was shoved through the hatch. Truvia followed. “I guess we’ll have to postpone the coronation,” she said. “On the other hand, an eighty-year-old queen might be interesting.”
TWENTY-NINE
The Linda Terry cruised on, slowing as the moon exerted its gravitational presence but still on course to loop around to L5.
Petro explained the navigational system to Crater. “Fusers use X-ray pulsars to navigate. See those bright lights on the scope? They’re pulsars about a hundred million miles away, and the Linda’s puters are using them to precisely fix our location using triangulation.”
“Why do you need pulsars?” Crater wondered. “Why not just use the Earth and the moon to triangulate?”
“Most of the old space nav systems do,” Petro said, “but when we built the fusers and began to fly into deep space, sometimes the Earth and moon blocked one another. Distant pulsars were the perfect solution.”
Crater was interested in the navigation, in the abstract manner in which engineers are interested in everything technical, but his mind was elsewhere. “Are you sure we’re on course for L5?” he asked.
“Don’t worry. We’re going to come right down on top of L5.”
“What’s our estimated time of arrival?”
“We should be there in about twelve hours.”
Crater felt a chill of uncertainty seep down his spine. “That soon?”
Petro shrugged. “You were the one who was in a hurry to get there, Crater.”
Crescent floated up and strapped herself into the jumpseat. “What’s up, gentlemen?”
“It’s time we made a plan,” Crater said, mentally throwing off his uncertainty. “Let’s review where we are. We’re coming in from deep space with the hope the L5 station won’t see us. Our kinetic guns are armed and ready and so are our nukes, although what we’ll use those big blasters for, I don’t know. In any case, our goal is to rescue Maria, who is, as far as we know, located inside the L5 station. With those knowns, here’s the unknown. How do we get her off of the station and safely inside this fuser?”
“Threaten them,” Crescent suggested. “Tell the people on the station we’re going to blast them if they don’t give her to us.”
“They’ll know we’re not going to do that. We would kill Maria.”
“What if they think we don’t care?” Crescent said. “What if they think we’re bounty hunters?”
“I like Crescent’s idea,” Petro said. “If we tell them there’s a big reward for Maria, they’ll think we’re just mercenaries.”
Crescent added, “We can tell them if they don’t hand Maria over, then that is fine with us. We’ll just kill them and collect the bounty on their heads.”
“What about the warpods?” Crater asked. “We can’t just waltz in there and lower our guns.”
“We should attack the warpods first,” Petro said. “This old girl’s a proven warpod killer.”
Crescent agreed, saying, “We might be able to bag them all before they know what’s happening.”
“That’s wishful thinking, I’m afraid,” Petro said. “Even if their crew is asleep, the puters on warpods are always on a war footing. They’ll be looking for anything coming their way.”
“How far away will they be looking?” Crater asked.
“A few hundred miles. Otherwise, their alarms would be going off every time a stray asteroid or defunct satellite crossed by.”
“What if they thought we were a friendly spacecraft?” Crater asked.
“Fusers and warpods don’t tend to be friends.”
“Then we need to go after their puters first,” Crescent said. She patted the gillie in her pocket, and it came out and rested on her shoulder. Y
ou woke me from my nap for what purpose?
“Can you hack into a warpod puter?”
When it hesitated, Crater’s gillie woke up from its resting place on the cockpit console. The problem with hacking a warpod puter is a matter of getting into it. They are designed to be internalized only. There are no links to them from the outside.
“Well, that lets the gillies out,” Petro said.
However, Crater’s gillie continued with emphasis, even though hacking warpod puters is not possible, we can still fool them into thinking we’re not a fuser but something else. How we do that is to send out a pulsdar signal at low strength with a distortion added that makes us look like whatever we want. For instance, another warpod or an asteroid.
Brilliant, oh ancient gillie, Crescent’s gillie said with deep admiration.
Awful Thing, it is well you understand my genius.
Oh, I do, my father and mother.
Don’t lay it on too thick, child, Crater’s gillie said, although it was preening as it said it.
“Hush, gillies,” Crater admonished. “But thanks for the idea.”
“I don’t know,” Petro mused. “Quite a coincidence for an asteroid the size of a fuser showing up!”
“At least it might confuse them,” Crescent pointed out.
If there is more than one warpod’s pulsdar signal, Crater’s gillie said, the Awful Thing will have to help me.
I will do as you ask, Crescent’s gillie said.
You will do as I tell you, Crater’s gillie corrected.
So be it, Crescent’s gillie conceded.
“You gillies hush,” Crater said.
“If we come in and start maneuvering, the warpods and the L5 station will guess what we are,” Crescent said.
Petro considered that, then said, “Debris has fallen into L5 for eons. We could avoid maneuvers and just let ourselves be sucked in. Once we’re in the horde, we could skip from asteroid to asteroid, hiding behind them as we go. Then, after we get into position, we can attack, all guns blazing.”
Crater ran the scenario through his mind, then said, “All right. I like it. We’ll first go after the warpods and then confront the station as bounty hunters.” He turned to Petro. “It’ll take some fancy flying, but I know you can pull it off.”