Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (10 page)

“God dammit! I’m never hiding again,” Jake
said. “I’d be able to take care of this myself if I were properly
geared!”

“Power down, Ronin. This will be your only
warning,” replied an unfamiliar voice. The passengers on the
shuttle fired at Jake, who barely had time to flinch before several
shots struck him in the legs and chest.

“You all right?” Minh asked, checking the
reading he had on him. Two of the shots punctured his suit, burning
his leg to the bone and obliterating his shoulder, damaging his
left lung severely. To Minh’s astonishment, the wounds healed in
seconds, regenerating back to a perfect state. He’d heard about the
framework technology, seen the results, but he’d never been
watching a status readout on Jake as it did its job. The miracle of
the technology didn’t make up for one thing, however: the holes in
his vacsuit.

Minh cringed at the sound of Jake struggling
with the pain, releasing grunts and suppressed cries for the first
few seconds that his bare flesh was exposed to the freezing vacuum
of space. “Let them take me!” he shouted.

Jake’s framework kicked in, repairing the
freezing and pressure damage, but he didn’t suffer gracefully for
long. Jacob’s screams filled the comm frequency, setting Minh’s
teeth on edge and testing his will. There was nothing he wanted
more than to rush to his friend’s aid and catch him in his Uriel’s
small but pressurisable cargo compartment.

"Warning shot, Ronin,” said the calm captor.
“We’ll get just as much money for him if he’s a smouldering
heap.”

“I’ve got to do something,” Minh said on a
private channel to Frost.

“Stand down, lad. Captain says he wants to
be taken. We leave him to this, they’ll get more than they bargain
for.”

“Can he survive this?”

“Ignore him and look at the scans,” Frost
said. “He’s keeping up with the damage.”

“Understood.” He started a focused scan of
the shuttle and everything inside as he spectated on Jake's
capture. The screams stopped, and, with a glance at his medical
scanner, he could see that Jake had passed out but he was healing
faster than before.

The shuttle slowly closed the distance
between it and his friend, then the crew dragged him inside. One of
them shot Jake several times, and Minh watched him twitch as the
door to the shuttle closed. It began to accelerate towards
Kambis.

Minh switched to a new channel. “Tamber
Navnet, I have a bogey.”

“We see you, Ronin,” replied the
non-automated operator on the other end. “A bogey on this side of
the system?”

“Aye, mark the Enforcer Heavy Transport I’m
transmitting to you now. It just captured Captain Jacob
Valance.”

“Captain Valance?” the operator replied,
surprised.

“Please, keep it professional,” Minh
said.

“Yes, Sir. I see it moving from your
position,” replied the operator. “Why aren’t you pursuing?”

“They’ll kill him if they see me in the
rear.”

“What would you like Tamber support to do,
Wing Commander?” asked the operator, sounding more than a little
confused.

“Just track him,” Minh said. He turned his
fighter and hit the thrusters; it took less than three seconds to
accelerate past the Enforcer. “I have birds on the way, but I’ll
need your eyes.”

“My supervisor just authorised the
resources,” the Operator said. “Good hunting.”

* * *

Ayan’s dress went into emergency mode the
moment it detected she was in a physical altercation, and it
snapped back to vacsuit form. Her head was completely covered with
a faceplate and a hood, her body lightly armoured. The imitation
Jacob hurled her across the room in frustration.

While it wasn’t an enjoyable tumble, it
didn’t cause her any harm. The suit prevented even the slightest
bruise. She was on her feet, furious, and looking forward to
beating the imitator when a side door opened. “Easy, Commander,”
said the blonde woman she knew as Doctor Tamera Thurge. “We have a
message for you.”

“They told me they released you,” Ayan said,
looking her up and down. She was wearing an armoured red coat with
a fitted shield suit beneath. The fabric shifted colour as the
surface tilted in the light. The man with her had dispensed with
overclothes and simply wore a shield suit, a weapon holster, and a
pack on his back. “I don’t like the idea of slavers roaming free,
but I took comfort in the thought that you’d be far from here by
now.”

The imitation of Jake walked more leisurely
towards Ayan, and she stepped back. She cursed herself inwardly for
letting her guard down, for growing lax in protecting herself. She
didn’t even carry a weapon during the negotiations. There was
nothing she’d like more than to slag the leering imitation of Jacob
that stopped less than a meter from her.

“I planned to move along,” Doctor Thurge
said. “But Lucius was waiting for me when I was released. He knows
how to court a lady, I’ll tell you.”

“I’m sure,” Ayan said, not shifting her gaze
from the Jacob imitation.

“Not just ladies, mum. With the cash he
flashed, he could charm me off a core world prostitute,” said
Thurge’s companion.

“Classy,” Ayan said.

“He offered money and an opportunity to get
a shot at Frost, your captain, and the whole bloody crew.”

“Well said, Burke,” said Thurge. “But you’re
missing the best part. Lucius has a plan, one that even has a place
for people like you, clone.”

“I don’t want anything Wheeler’s selling,”
Ayan replied. “And I’m not a clone.”

“I don’t care what you are, all you have to
do is tell us which one of your crew has the primary command codes
for the Triton. We’ll find him and take care of the rest.”

Ayan was surprised at the request but did
her best to hide it. If there was someone with the command codes,
then they could bypass the whole mess they were in with the
Carthans. They’d have their own land as well as the Triton back in
their possession, more than she could have dreamt.

“Don’t try to lie, we know someone’s been
trying to reactivate the main computer core several times a day
since you landed on Tamber,” Thurge pressed.

“What’s stopping the transmission?” Ayan
asked, playing along just in case they actually did have someone
with the codes. Turning the situation to her advantage was
something she couldn’t pass up.

“The Carthans disconnected the core form the
ship then wrapped it in shielding. I thought you’d know, having
spent so much time in the negotiation room.”

“Never occurred,” Ayan replied. “It doesn’t
matter, I don’t know who has the codes.”

“Bullshit!” Burke shouted. “A prissy bitch
like you wouldn’t let something like that wander around outside of
her control.”

“Why the Triton? Isn’t what Wheeler’s
trading earning him enough for a ship he can manage?” Ayan asked.
“The Triton is a half broken ship and he never got her running at
her full potential in the first place.”

“Not your concern, sweetheart,” replied
Burke. “Just tell us who has the codes, and we’ll know you’re
worthy of the cash and prizes.”

Ayan noticed the butt of a handgun poking
out from the fake Jake’s coat. “I’ll think about it,” she said the
instant before she snatched at it and pushed away.

The false Jacob caught her by the throat
with inhuman speed. He flicked the sidearm out of her hand with his
free hand and grinned.

“Give her a reason to reconsider,” Doctor
Thurge said. “Time to go, Burke.”

“Yes, mum,” Burke said.

“I love you, Ayan,” the imitation Jacob said
earnestly. “So you know this will hurt me as much as it’ll hurt
you.”

Ayan’s suit kept her throat from being
crushed, but her attempts at fighting him off were completely
ineffective. Her fists struck his face, his throat, and when he
pulled her up off the floor, Ayan kicked him frantically. She knew
her suit signalled an alert the moment it changed from its dress
shape to protective mode, but there was no telling how long it
would take for help to arrive.

“I love you, Ayan,” he said again, holding
his free hand up.

“Whoever programmed you must be a real
charmer with the ladies. What are you, anyway?” she asked as she
pressed both her feet against his chest and pushed as hard as she
could. Nothing budged.

He pointed his hand at the belly of her suit
and a particle beam so fine she could barely see it began testing
the vacsuit. She writhed with renewed vigour, and found herself
pinned on the floor a moment later, one of her hands caught in his
grip. He knelt on her legs.

It didn’t take more than a few seconds for
him to catch her other arm and clasp both her wrists in one hand.
He smiled at her, a warm, loving expression that made her want to
retch.

“Don’t kill her. Do anything else Wheeler
programmed you for, but don’t kill her,” said Tamera Thurge.

“You’re going to want to give up that name
sooner, rather than later,” Burke said as the door closed behind
them.

The imitation Jake’s beam cut across her
chest, leaving scars across her vacsuit and raising alarms on her
visor. She kept struggling as her eye movements directed her
communications and command bracelet to begin materialising compound
35B. Before it complied, it warned her that it was a highly illegal
substance on Tamber.

Her assailant swept his cutting tool down
her belly, and celebrated a small opening over her belly button
with a lecherously gleeful expression. “Don’t resist, Love,” it
said. He shoved his fingers into the hole and tried to tear it
open.

Ayan hurriedly signalled her command and
control unit to bypass the safeties and begin manufacturing the
compound. She gnashed her teeth and fought harder at the sound of
the false Jacob ripping her vacsuit enough to get a grip on the
tear in her suit’s belly with his other hand.

His leering, excited eyes were focused on
that opening, his expression filling her with rage and disgust. She
wailed on him with her fists, and when her comm unit announced that
it had finished manufacturing an eighth of a gram of compound
thirty-five, she held her bracelet up to his eyes and ordered the
miniature materialiser within to apply an electric charge.

With a flash of heat and incredible pain,
the explosive went off.

The lights went out on most of the Triton's
decks two weeks earlier. The army of investigators and repair
personnel took their turn with the ship for four weeks solid. There
wasn't a minute where a portion of the ship wasn't being examined
or serviced for storage. It took their best over a week to ensure
that all systems were powered down, and three more to secure
everything aboard for a long storage period. Considering how
different the Earth technology was compared to their own, it didn’t
take them long.

The Carthan Engineering Corps couldn't take
all the credit, however. Larry made sure they found instructions
and repair schematics for the entire ship. If they wanted to waste
their time and resources preserving the Triton, he was more than
happy to make sure they did it right. There were no secrets to
betray. Most of the technology aboard was between fifty and seventy
years old; Sol Defence had since moved on to even better
technology, so the fact that the Carthans learned a few things
while they were rebuilding wouldn't displease Larry's superiors -
much. He stayed out of their way. It was like dodging a herd of
glowing elephants. Even when the repair people were dead quiet,
they had no concern for stealth. Everyone believed that the old
Triton crew was gone, that they were servicing an empty ship.

An hour after the repair people left, the
cleaning crew started to arrive. They were even easier to avoid. He
even pretended to be one of them for two days, cleaning several
crew quarters himself so he could get access to the safe in Captain
Valance's old quarters, where he found exactly what he was looking
for. He sunk back into the shadows that night, watching as the
cleaning crews used special equipment to scour the blood and other
evidence of carnage from the decks. The repair crews were efficient
and came in force, but they didn’t work on damaged portions of the
ship, only made sure its condition wouldn’t degrade if it was left
in port. At one time, the ship's passive security sensors reported
over twelve hundred crew armed with little helper drones scouring
the ship. Two hundred experts and support staff accompanied
them.

The Carthans sent a testing team aboard on
the last day of cleaning. They ran the Triton's built-in diagnostic
tools and decided the ship was ready for long-term storage. It was
then that Larry began to formulate a plan to dissuade the Carthans
from taking possession of the ship. He wouldn't let an unknown
captain take command, not when he knew exactly who he and Sol
Defence would want sitting in that chair. To his surprise, they
simply shut all but the life support systems down and left. They
didn't enter a senior officer into the ship record, try to hack
into the computer's cold backups, or even post a scanning patrol
aboard. The airlocks were sealed with Carthan sensor tape. The
lights went out, and they moored the Triton somewhere inside an
orbital dock around Kambis.

For the first time in his life, Larry was
completely isolated. For several days, he didn't dare to deactivate
his cloaksuit. Not even to use the privy, even though he despised
what the Freegrounders called 'built-in plumbing,' which took care
of human waste. He recalled Ashley talking about it in the galley,
when she managed to explain the mystery of the built-in plumbing
perfectly to a newer crewmember. "No, no," she said. "You don't
figure the private bits of your vacsuit out. They figure YOU out.
You shoulda seen my face the first time I put on a - how did
Captain put it? Right, a fully equipped suit." He laughed along
then, but as he wandered the ship, he couldn't help but miss using
a toilet.