Star Soldier (17 page)

His nanonics dumped extra chemicals into his brain and throughout his body. Anger and bewilderment weren’t allowed. He considered his options. Gassing would commence in two seconds.

He gave the AI its instructions. Then he pushed off, floated through
Homo sapiens
blood and headed for an airlock. He would have to dispose of these three personally.

4.

Despite the gnawing uneasiness in her gut, the near certainty that Fate had given her this pilot position only to shaft her more deeply, Osadar was awed once again by the sheer gall of her job—no one traveled farther out of the Solar System.

The vast bulk of IH-49 contained fuel for the ion engines. Huge magnetic fields were needed to contain the reaction mass. Thus, fully eighty percent of the ice hauler was fuel tanks and thrusters. It was a long trip into the Oort Cloud to plunder ice comets. The majority of those comets coasted slowly one hundred thousand AU from the Sun. Earth was one AU from the Sun. Neptune was 30.06 AU away. Of course, most of the journey to the Oort Cloud would be made while asleep. Once there and in the name of the IHC, they would crawl over the space debris like a virus, attaching engines, setting up fuel feeders and placing automated missile launchers. It would take many years for the comets to arrive at IHC Pluto Receiving Station. The long history of inter-solar commerce (and piracy) demanded the automated missiles. It was tough work, lonely work, but it would pay well.

The forward part of IH-49 contained the spherical crew hull. To Osadar it seemed as if someone had magnetized the hull and run it over a junkyard. Landers, pods, jacks, missile tubes, coil lines, thruster modules, endless bundles of Wasp 1000 Missiles and a host of engines that would be frozen into the comets had all been attached to the outer hull.

Far to her left winked a green light atop the laser-link. Behind it, dominating space, hung blue Neptune with its few, wispy white cirrus clouds. Triton, the biggest moon, was a black speck against the blue gas giant. The endless space habitats, the majority of them built out of weird ice, weren’t visible against Neptune’s bulk. Even so, in 2350 A.D. this was humanity’s newest frontier, unless one counted the few commercial and scientific outposts on Pluto and Charon.

“Commander!”

“Yes, yes. Spit it out.”

Osadar heard both the commander and Technician Geller in her headphone.

“I just lost contact with the LS Officer,” Technician Geller said. The LS Officer had remained within the ship.

“What? Impossible.” Hysteria edged the commander’s gruff voice.

Osadar tried the channel. Zero. She squeezed shut her eyes and forced herself to remain calm. She was gladder than ever she’d taken time to don a zero-G worksuit. Back at the airlock, neither the commander nor Technician Geller had wanted to take the extra effort to get into one. They had donned simple vacc-suits, no doubt figuring a quick look and a wrench could fix what was wrong.

She looked back. Both men dangled in space in their silver vacc-suits. Geller had strapped on a propulsion unit and a tool kit, the commander only a tether. Both men allowed themselves to be dragged by her. Which was simply common sense.

Her worksuit was practically a miniature spaceship. She wore a rigid pressurized cylinder and a transparent helmet dome. The worksuit had an integral thruster pack that contained three hundred seconds of acceleration. Perhaps as importantly, three waldoes—remote-controlled arms—were attached for heavy-duty work. The third waldo mounted an integral laser torch, the other arms had power-locks made to grab onto a ship’s hull.

She was beginning to wonder if the worksuit’s two weeks of life support wasn’t going to be its most important feature.

“Try again,” shouted the commander.

Osadar winced, chinning down her speaker’s volume. Carefully, she gave a bit of thrust, slightly changing their flight pattern. The two men tethered to her upset the computations. She readjusted and squeezed out a bit more hydrogen. White particles sprayed out of her thrusters. She wasn’t rated pilot first class for nothing.

“Is this sabotage?” asked the commander.

“What else could it be?” Osadar asked.

“But how?”

“Or maybe even why?” asked Osadar.

“What?”

“Why bother? All we’re doing is getting water for Mars. At least I think that’s what Dominie Banbury contracted for.”

“Maybe someone wants IHC to renege on its contract,” the commander said.

“No,” said Technician Geller, “this is inside work. I bet this is part of a takeover.”

“Who in the Cartel has the muscle to take on Dominie Banbury?” the commander asked.

“Dominie Yamato—”

“Knows better than to try any of his ninja tricks on Dominie Banbury’s projects,” the commander growled.

“This does have the feel of something the ninjas would try,” Osadar said. During her first weeks of training, they’d pumped her full of Cartel history.

“That’s what I’m saying,” said Technician Geller.

“Nonsense,” said the commander. “The Cartel Dominies aren’t fools. To outbid or try a takeover now would be lunacy. There’s too much money to be made.”

Osadar knew the truth of that. Ever since the Social Unity Government had broken apart in civil war there had been bonanzas of credits to be made supplying both sides. She’d heard the Highborn were winning. Maybe the Highborn didn’t want Mars to feed its Atmospheric Converters with trillions of tons of comet-water. For that matter, maybe the Social Unitarians wanted to nix the deal, too. She shrugged. She had no idea what either side really wanted. Thinking about military and political matters only reminded her of all the dead friends she’d lost in the Second Battle of Deep Mars Orbit. And that was something she avoided as much as possible.

What was that buzzing? She checked her headphones, raised gain. The buzzing increased. She lowered gain. Then she raised her eyebrows and turned back toward the commander. He waved frantically and touched his helmet. She waved a waldo arm to show she understood.

Someone jammed communications.

Now what?

Now keep going, she realized, as she stared at the millions of stars around her. In the loneliness of space you don’t stop and conjugate, you think and DO before your air runs out. Whomever their enemy was—and this was feeling more and more like creepy ninja work—the enemy knew they were out here. So she had to get to the laser-link and inform IHC what was going on. But if Dominie Yamato was behind this… a cold prickly feeling gnawed her guts. Once she sent the message, well, in her worksuit she would accelerate toward the nearest IHC station and request a pick up from a Dominie Banbury crew. Two weeks of life support would be plenty of time for someone to come and get her. But what about the commander and Technician Geller?

Maybe... she licked her lips. Maybe she could convince them to inject themselves with Suspend. Sure, that was a long shot. But they couldn’t go back into IH-49 and survive.

Suspend slowed biological functions. It could keep a badly injured person alive longer. If injected into a dying person, it retarded cell death, but only if injected before the heart stopped. That could be critical these days. There was resurrection-after-death with Suspend. Brain thieves used it all the time, supplying black-market chop shops with the needed brain tissue to construct bio-computers.

Osadar tried to calm her jack-hammering heart, but the need for speed compelled her to squeeze more thrust. She held onto the trigger too long. They accelerated away from the hull. She readjusted. Thrust again. They went toward the hull too fast.

“Easy, Osa,” she whispered. She concentrated, trying not to listen to the heavy breathing in her ears. Carefully, she squeezed another burst, braking.

She looked back. The commander and Technician Geller gained on her. The tether line was flexible and just because she slowed, didn’t mean they did. The commander gathered the extra line, looping it. Good. Smart. He was thinking. But then he was a crusty old space dog. He probably had a plan, would tell her things she should have thought of. Twinkling exhaust sprayed out of Geller’s pack. He braked and kept the tether between him and the commander taut.

Osadar shivered. She raised the worksuit temperature. In another few seconds, the commander grabbed her. She had greater bulk in her zero-G worksuit. Still, the shock of the collision jolted her. He clanked his helmet against hers.

“Osadar, can you hear me?”

His voice sounded small and far away, and it was the most glorious sound she’d ever heard. Leave it to the commander to realize they could still talk.

“I can hear you.”

He patted her shoulder, then maneuvered so they saw eye to eye. His skin looked pale, and his fear added to hers. She almost asked him if he had any Suspend. Of course, he did, but then he’d have to ask her why she asked. As he attached his vacc-suit to her, she eyed the nearing beacon. Soon they would know the worst. She turned to Technician Geller—

Something caught her eye, something dark and fast, hard to see. Geller must’ve seen it too. Hydrogen spray billowed out of his tanks. It was too late. He jerked sharply at the waist. Mist blew out of his vacc-suit, and then blood and the gory innards of what had once been Technician Geller. The vacuum of space was ruthless.

Osadar shuddered in terror.

With a jerk, the commander unhooked Geller’s line from him. Then he clanked his helmet against hers.

“To the right, by the exhaust port.”

Osadar scanned the area. She was going to be sick. Then her eyes narrowed as something moved. She shrieked.

A man with a skintight, almost rubber suit leaped in their direction, even though he had to be over three thousand meters away. He sailed for them, gaining fast.

“Hang on!” she screamed at the commander.

She squeezed thrust in controlled bursts when what she really wanted was to hold the trigger down and blast off. But she was too much a pilot for that; too trained in ways she couldn’t change. The man cradled something in his arms that looked like a spear gun. He aimed it at them.

Osadar swung the waldo laser around. It was meant for repair work, but in a fix could double as a close-quarters weapon.

“You think he’s a robot?” the commander asked.

“He doesn’t look like a bot.”

“Not even a Highborn is powerful enough to accelerate that fast in a single bound.”

Osadar should have thought of that. The man came on fast nonetheless, his weapon tracking them. The tip of the “spear” was a half-moon blade, as if it was meant to rip open spacesuits and let vacuum do the dirty work.

Osadar understood none of this as she moaned dreadfully. Leaping men with spear guns didn’t make any kind of sense in space. He would pass harmlessly underneath them by fifty meters—she’d easily maneuvered out of his flight path. She rotated her zero-G suit to keep the commander away from the gun. Her worksuit couldn’t be breached by something as primitive as a spring-driven spear.

The man—if man he was—removed the half-moon crescent blade and attached what looked like an adhesive pad. He aimed and fired, and a filament line trailed the pad. It attached to the foot of her suit. He pressed a stud and reeled himself toward them.

Osadar shrieked again and swung the laser arm. It couldn’t reach the spidery line! Her stomach went hollow as she readjusted the laser, aiming it at… what was he?

Through his faceplate, he looked like a robot with shiny flesh, with fake human eyes. He neither smiled nor grinned nor scowled nor frowned. He watched them impassively as he approached, the way a lizard might watch as it sunned itself on a rock.

Osadar clenched her teeth and turned on the laser. It harmlessly beamed past him. For with his arms alone, on the rifle that reeled him in, he swung his body forward, out of the way of the laser, and let go. He propelled himself through space. He wore no security line or any pack other than a slim breathing tank. If he missed them, he’d sail off into space. The risk—no spacer could do that so effortlessly and without a change of expression.

With a pry bar that he’d taken off her suit, the commander jabbed at the man’s faceplate. Their enemy latched onto the bar and pulled himself upon the commander. He slid something thin and bright into the commander’s suit.

Osadar twisted within her rigid cylinder to see what was happening. The commander’s face grew slack. His eyes fluttered.

Grimly, she swung the work-laser.

The man pulled another of his uncanny maneuvers, and sailed upside down over the laser-arm and above her helmet. She craned her neck to look up at him. His fingers were long and spider-like. He reached out. She flinched away from his fingers. Then she grinned tightly. His would be an effort in futility to try to latch onto her bubble helmet. Then, to her horror, small adhesive pads on his fingertips pressed onto her helmet top. With a jerk, it stopped his flight. Gracefully, like a perfect killer, he brought himself parallel with her as if they were lovers. He stared at her. There was no gloating or triumph, no ‘Did you see that?’ in his eyes. He stared impassively. Anyone but this obvious non-human would have crinkled up the corners of his lips. She’d never see such flawless, uncanny, zero-G maneuvering, and she’d been around plenty of hardened space-hounds.

Although vomit burned the back of her throat, although she knew it wouldn’t matter, she brought up a waldo clamp to try to crush him. It wasn’t in her to go down without a fight.

He shoved a gleaming steel needle into her elbow. She yelled. Then a great weariness settled over her.
Why
, she wondered. Why go to so much trouble when a simple plasma rifle could’ve taken care of everything? It didn’t make any kind of sense.

5.

Like some obscene, overgrown monkey, Toll Seven rode the zero-G worksuit, braking with particles of hydrogen spray as he brought both captives to his ultra stealth pod. The vessel was as black as night and spherical, and only a little larger than an old-style garbage Dumpster of the Twentieth Century. The ceramic hull gave the lowest sensor signature of any vessel in human space, and it was crammed with the latest Onoshi Electronic Counter-Measure equipment and decoys.