War in the Fringe - Chris J Pike Read online

  Barry did as he was told, and the two men began to move through the passages deep under the main tower. Other than color-coded conduits on the walls, the passages were entirely unadorned.

  They passed a multitude of intersections, and without facility plans, Kal was sure it would have taken them hours to find the pumping station. Given how much infrastructure was involved in getting water to the tower, he wondered how it functioned, now that its supply was gone.

  The answer never presented itself, and before long, they reached the large chamber that contained the pumping station.

  Four turbines stood in the center of the room, flecks of rust visible on metallic components, their impellers sitting in dusty vats connected by troughs to a deep channel that ran through the room and out the northeast side.

  “I guess the aqueduct never filled up,” Barry said, noting the design.

  “Could be a sluice gate further in,” Kal replied. “Though, yeah…usually the impellers are in the pipes. Maybe someone just thought this would look cool.”

  “Whatever,” Barry shrugged, and strode to a ladder that led down to the aqueduct. “Let’s go.”

  Kal wanted to spend time scanning the room, but he too was beginning to feel a sense of urgency. Though it wasn’t taking any more time than expected to get this far, he still felt uneasy, as though something terrible was going to befall them if they lingered.

  The tunnel would pass beneath The Shade in four kilometers, and Barry was already at the entrance, staring into the darkness, waiting for Kal’s drones to go ahead and scan the passage.

  “You ready?” Kal asked.

  “Fuck…what do you think?” the other man replied.

  “OK, then, let’s go.”

  The drone moved ahead, mapping the tunnel—which had walkways on either side, over the deep channel—and the pair followed after at an easy lope.

  The further they went without obstacle or any visible sign of defensive system or trap, the more incredulous Kal became. The only change was that the air was slowly gaining a musty scent, telling of standing water somewhere ahead.

  Though they saw a few puddles in the deep trench next to the walkway, nothing more was in evidence before they came to a midway pumping station that was situated almost directly under Maverick’s dome scraper.

  Two large turbines sat right in the middle of the trench, and on the far side was a drop to a lower section of the aqueduct, two more giant engines looming in the darkness below.

  “Don’t slip,” Barry said with a laugh, the sound echoing mockingly off the curved walls.

  Kal replied over the Link as he scanned the surrounding area for the surface access the plans called for. He highlighted a door thirty meters away.

 

  The pair threaded their way through ancient equipment. Kal found it curious how some systems appeared to have been repaired within the past few centuries, while others were nearly rusted to dust. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason he could discern, but he supposed there must be a rationale to the haphazard repairs.

  Barry observed as they approached the door.

  Kal nodded as he looked at the set of keyholes mounted in the door.

  He slapped a wad of motive putty onto the locks and pulled up the standard mechanical hack software on his HUD. The putty oozed into the holes and began to take the correct shapes. Once the levers were all depressed, the putty extruded two handles, and Kal twisted each one, the ancient mechanism screeching loudly.

  Barry said.

 

  Barry didn’t reply, and Kal pulled his putty out and waited for the microdrone to fly through and map the far side. The scan revealed a long corridor with doors set at regular intervals. At the far end, a lift stood open, and Kal knew it was unlikely to be operational.

  Even if it was, they wouldn’t take it. So far as Kal was concerned, lifts were mobile death traps.

  Satisfied that no one was waiting for them, and that there were no active defense systems, he pushed the door open and began to walk slowly down the hall.

  Barry asked as he followed behind.

 

 

  Despite Kal’s worry, nothing happened, and they reached the lift doors without incident.

  he said, looking around.

 

  Kal shrugged.

  Barry gestured toward the door with the universal staircase sign above.

 

  After giving Kal a curious look, Barry walked to the door and pushed it open only to jump back as a pile of rubble fell out.

 

 

  Barry turned toward the lift.

 

  The two men entered the lift, which held steady under their weight. Kal sent his drone through a crack around the roof access hatch and let out a long groan.

  Barry guessed.

  Kal shook his head. he pulled the pack off his back, fishing out his a-grav harnesses.

  Barry looked worried.

 

  The other man nodded, though he looked a few shades paler.

  MEANWHILE, IN HEAVEN

  STELLAR DATE: 10.02.8948 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Finn’s Mod Shop, Heaven

  REGION: Scattered Disk, Gedri System, Gedri Freedom Alliance

  “Gert? You get that latest shipment tagged and put away?”

  A sigh hissed out of Gert’s lips and she turned to give Finn a level stare. “You mean the potato chips?”

  “Uh huh,” Finn said, not looking up from the spinal reinforcement mod he was working on. “I want to make sure that they’re all in the right order based on expiration date.”

  “You know that I’m the most talented neural modder on Heaven, right?” Gert placed her hands on her hips, green slanted eyes narrowing as she regarded the shop owner. “I have more important things to do than sort your potato chips by expiration date.”

  Finn didn’t look up from his work. “Then mod something to sort them for me, if you’re so smart.”

  Gert’s eyes narrowed further. “Maybe I would, if my jerkwad boss didn’t give me all this busy work all the time.”

  A snort burst from Finn. “Yeah, that guy’s such a dork.”

  “That’s why I stole a bag of his chips.”

  “You what?” Finn’s head shot up, eyes boring into hers. “Oh…you…ha ha. Very funny.”

  Gert shook her head, tentacles dancing across her shoulders. “You know I don’t like potato chips.”

  “And that’s how I know there’s something wrong with you,” he replied, turning back to his project.

  “That’s how you know? Not the green skin, long limbs, or the tentacles on my head?”

  Finn shrugged. “Nothing wrong with any of that. Sometimes I think about getting tentacles, too. Just a lot of work to get the brain to deal with that many digits.”

  Gert laughed, dancing her tentacles around her head. “Yeah, that took some work. I don’t recommend doing open brain surgery on oneself.”

>   “Wouldn’t need to,” he replied. “I have you on staff.”

  “Just remember that, next time you think it’s my job to sort your food.”

  Finn started to reply, but then his brow furrowed. “Someone’s in the hall.”

  “We’re not expecting anyone,” Gert said, glancing toward the inner door that led out to the shop. Beyond that was a solid door with a long hall on the other side. “How’d they get in there?”

  “I don’t know.” Finn stood. “But it’s not a good sign, that’s for damn sure.”

  Gert nodded and walked across the small lab that also functioned as the pair’s operating theatre, heading for the weapons locker. She pulled out a pulse rifle and tossed it to Finn, while her tentacles grabbed a pair of pulse pistols.

  Normally, weapons were forbidden on Heaven. The station was supposed to be neutral ground for any faction.

  In reality, greedy assholes were everywhere, and the pair always stood ready to defend themselves.

  With the rifle in hand, Finn walked out into the shop’s main room and called out, “Who the hell are you, and what do you want?”

  Gert tapped into the hall cameras and watched the man from several angles. There were a dozen systems she could activate to take him down before he even touched the door. The corridor was lined with turrets, electrical discharge rods, and hacked a-grav plates that would pull a person to the floor in seconds.

  “I’m here on behalf of the president,” the man called out, looking up at the nearest camera. “I want to have a chat is all.”

  Gert asked Finn privately.

  he replied.

 

 

  Gert pursed her lips.

  “We gave at the office!” Finn called back to the man. “Elect President Maverick. Booyah. Now go away.”

  <’We gave at the office’?>

 

  Gert snorted a laugh.

 

  “What the hell does that mean?” the man called out. “We don’t have an office, and Maverick is already president.”

  “Right!” Finn called back. “We won! Goooo us! Now bugger off.”

  A motion sensor tripped at the shop’s rear entrance, and Gert pulled up the feeds, scanning the back hall. It was empty, and no IR or EM of any sort was registering. Still, it was an odd coincidence.

 

  Before she could complete the message, the back door exploded inward, barely visible shapes darting through the smoke. One moved toward Gert, and she fired at it with both pulse pistols.

  “Fuck!” a voice cried out, and she fired again and again.

  The intruder’s stealth armor failed, and she saw a man lying on the ground, rocking back and forth, moaning softly.

  She was about to disarm him when a sound came from the front room. Gert rushed through the doorway and saw Finn struggling with an invisible attacker, two of his arms flailing at his enemy while the others still held the pulse rifle.

  She took a step into the room, ready to help, when a voice from behind her barked, “Freeze!”

  Gert tapped into the feeds and saw four more intruders flooding into the lab, weapons all aimed at her back.

  Finn stopped fighting and met her gaze. “Aww shit.”

  THE SHADE

  STELLAR DATE: 10.02.8948 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Red Zone, City of Montral, Jericho

  REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance

  Barry had only hit the walls of the lift shaft twice during their ascent. Kal wasn’t exactly impressed; if they had to descend under fire, he was worried the man wouldn’t manage as well.

  If we even use the tunnels as egress.

  He didn’t like the idea of retreating to what would be an easily discernable exit point.

  The doors at the top of the shaft had proven harder to breach. They were connected to an active security system, and once through, the pair of men found themselves in a series of long-unused storage rooms.

  Most were filled with equipment for the pumping station below, but some contained other detritus, the flotsam and jetsam that accumulated over centuries.

  Like most of Montral, the ground under the Red Zone was a warren of tunnels that had seen a thousand uses over the years. The lift shaft had let them out only a hundred meters from The Shade’s tower, but still sixty meters below the surface.

  He knew that even if Yaris was lax—which he wasn’t—there would be some patrols, and certainly a suite of automated defenses waiting for the unwary.

  But Kal was not unwary.

  Four separate microdrones now roved through the passages around the two men, alerting them to automated defenses and aberrant EM signatures that could indicate sensors or hidden weapons systems.

  Despite the fact that they’d been traveling for over half a day, Kal was starting to feel a modicum of optimism. He’d always assumed that Maverick’s defenses would be impenetrable and that no one could sneak into the Red Zone unnoticed. Thus far, that belief seemed to be unfounded.

  Everyone just must assume that Maverick would have these tunnels filled with defenses…I guess rumor and fear are cheaper than actual security.

  It took twenty minutes to reach the lower levels of The Shade tower, and in that time, they only encountered one patrol and one pair of engineers, both of which they avoided by taking side passages.

  Kal said as the pair crouched behind a pile of old conduit that lay along the edge of a wide corridor.

  Barry nodded in agreement.

 

  The other man nodded.

  Kal wasn’t sure what Barry could do if they weren’t able to get the collar off. Probably stay with his sister and die horribly.

  Stars…so many ways this can go wrong. Why am I doing this again? Oh yeah, because I hate Maverick.

  He pushed that simmering rage back down to where it wouldn’t get in the way, and pointed out the two entrances to the area where the slaves were held.

 

  Barry nodded.

  Kal twisted his lips, shaking his head.

 

 

  The two men worked their way through the corridors, Kal’s drones now working to actively hide the pair by throwing up EM shields to confuse sensors, and disabling optics. There weren’t a lot of automated systems, but Kal began to worry that a savvy monitoring NSAI would spot a pattern of disturbances.

  Even so, they managed to reach the corridor that ran along the slave area’s rear entrance without raising any alarms. A pair of guards patrolled the hall, casually chatting as they walked toward the intersection where Kal and Barry waited around the corner.

  Kal instructed. He jerked his head back to a door they’d unlocked a minu
te earlier, and Barry nodded.

 

  Kal took several calming breaths, readying himself for everything to go horribly wrong. Then, timing it for when the guards were only a meter from the intersection, he stepped out and fired his pulse rifle, a wide spread of concussive waves knocking back both guards.

  Shit, armor’s better than I thought.

  He switched to a focused burst and fired a shot at the closest guard’s head, then turned to the other. The woman had managed to unsling her own rifle, and fired a pulse blast that caught Kal in the left shoulder.

  “Fucker,” he muttered and shot her in the face.

  The pulse smashed her nose, and the woman fell like a rock.

  “Smooth,” Barry said in a tone that was hard to parse.

  Kal only nodded and grabbed the woman’s arm, dragging her to the storage room, while Barry pulled the first guard after.

  Kal said as they laid the guards down inside the room.

 

  Kal replied as he pulled a transceiver out of his pack.

  As he spoke, Kal unfolded two faraday blankets and wrapped them around the guards.

 

 

  Kal shot Barry a dark look.

 

  Barry rose and strode toward the door, and Kal leapt up and clamped a hand on the other man’s shoulder, spinning him around to stare into Barry’s eyes.

 

  For a moment, it looked like the man was preparing a retort, but then a modicum of tension flowed out of his shoulders.

 

  After checking that the coast was still clear, Kal eased open the door, and the two men walked down to the slave area’s doors.