Trapped: Chaos Core Book 1 (16 page)

“We just get aboard
quick, run for the nearest node, pull one, maybe two of the smallest
computers, and run back.” The converted colony ship came into view.
It was over three kilometres long and two wide with nearly three
hundred decks. “We’ll do a close pass with the Fleet Feather, try
to get past their scramblers and then dock where we don’t see
scavengers. If this was an official claim…”

“There would be a
buoy announcing it,” Sun said. “So they’re not supposed to be
here either.”

“Right. So, we might
need the tech if we want to make our next ship untraceable, are we
getting it?”

Sun thought for a
moment, looking at the large grey and green station that filled the
cockpit window. “We split up, give ourselves half an hour and bug
out.”

“An hour, I know we
can get some serious tech in one hour. The more we bring to the table
when we meet someone who we can trade this ship in to, the better.”

“All right, an hour,”
Sun said. “No risks, if any of us run into armed opposition, we get
back here and move on. We’ll have to land somewhere in the Diori
system to drop our passengers off and ask about Quino, see if his
people got off the station.”

“Sounds good to me,”
Spin said, leaving the pilot’s seat. “You’re the better pilot.”

“We’ll have to do
something about that,” Sun said, sitting down. “You need more
practice.”

“I’ll get it.”

It was like a race,
with Nigel, Sun and her all running through the corridors on the
starboard side of the station. They stayed away from the control
centre and engineering, that is where they’d find serious
scavengers. They all took different corridors so they could get as
much as possible then get out. “I got one!” Sun said over their
encrypted channel.

“What? It’s only
been five minutes!” Nigel replied. “I’m going deeper, going to
find a real jackpot, I bet there’s even a store in this section.”

“Just get the
navigational nodes, they’ll be worth a lot more than anything you
find in a store,” Spin said as she skidded to a stop in front of a
panel. There was a node right behind it, cheerily announcing the
location, spin rate, trajectory, and other essential data to any
systems that would listen. A station that size needed that kind of
technology to keep itself together, and to make managing it much
easier for the administration. Why they used such high quality
components for a simple task was beyond Spin, but from the looks of
the darkened corridors, everything in the converted colony ship was
top of the line. As she pried the access panel loose and started
detaching the palm sized, sealed computer from its interface cables,
she wished that she’d had a chance to see the station in its prime.
“Got one,” she said as the last cable came loose. The computer
kept running for several seconds before it powered down. “This
one’s in an impact case, like a black box.”

“Mine was too,
whoever had this ship built spent more money than all of us have ever
seen put together,” Sun said. “This place is going to be crawling
with vultures like us in no time.”

“Going down a few
levels, may be out of comm range for a few minutes, see you back on
the ship,” Nigel said.

“Don’t go too far,
Nigel, these aren’t worth getting left behind for,” Sun said.
“Nigel? God dammit, he’s already out of range.”

“Ooh, my node had a
backup,” Spin said as she pried a second one loose and disconnected
it.

Navigational nodes, or
complex micro-quantum computers of the class that were scattered
across Genna Station were becoming more difficult to find all the
time. No human could effectively ensure that one was made properly on
the assembly line, it took complex computing to make them, the kind
of computing that artificial intelligences were responsible for
before they went rogue. Sure, humans would eventually develop
software that could do the same job, but that could take decades.

There was a CMQC at the
heart of every ship that served as a genuine, unique transponder, and
as long as Spin had the hardware, she could program a convincing
fake. If she could bribe an official to enter a fake transponder
built with one of those, it would become as good as real, with
records backing it up. The thought of having a ship with more than
one transponder so they could hide in plain sight made her want to
make the hour she had to loot as many of the Genna Station’s
navigational nodes as possible. If they could get more than three,
they could easily wipe out the data on them and sell the hardware as
high-end blanks.

“Running to the next
one,” Spin said as she sprinted down the hallway. Genna Station’s
gravity, air recyclers and heaters were all still running, and she
couldn’t figure out why. On a whim, she linked the computer printed
on her arm to the next service panel through her suit. “Um, Sun?
The station says that emergency self-repair systems are running.
That’s why life support is back up.” She opened her headgear and
let it slide into the pocket between her shoulders. “The air even
smells clean.”

“That’s nice, did
you get the next node? We don’t have time for sightseeing.”

“Okay fine, grabbing
this node and moving on,” Spin said. “I almost feel bad though,
it’s not like the station will miss a couple dozen of these, there
are hundreds throughout, but if a few more scavengers go after the
nodes, there could be trouble.”

“The next crime lord
who takes this place can worry about that. It’s not like this place
was home to the finest people in the galaxy,” Sun said.

“You have a point,”
Spin said as she dropped another pair of nodes into her hip pocket.
“That’s four for me.”

“I have five, we
might just call it quits soon and retreat while the getting’s good.
We’re already ahead of what we thought we’d get.”

“And that’s not
including whatever Nigel is into right now.” Spin ran down the
hallway, chasing a bright blip on her scanner that told her that the
next node, or pair of nodes were several hundred metres down the long
corridor. “Still, I’d rather make use of the whole hour, who
knows how much we’ll find if we risk just a little.” The sounds
of her thigh-high boot’s heels clacking against the deck rang in
her ears. The longer she used the things, the more she hated them.
Finding some sensible boots was starting to become a priority.

She slowed to a walk
for a few moments to catch her breath, admiring the thick transparent
metal hull to her left. The view of the stars with little light to
interfere was stunning. The brightest part of the galaxy shone before
her eyes, a luminescent cloud of stars. For the first time, thinking
of Larken, and how she wished he could be seeing that with her didn’t
only sadden her. She knew him well enough to imagine an expression of
wonder. Out of the two of them, he was the one inspired by visual
things, and this would have sent his imagination on a wonderful
tangent. “I’ll see the sights for both of us.”

“What’s that,
Aspen?” Sun asked.

“Nothing, just took a
minute to catch my breath,” Spin replied, turning towards the
corridor that would lead her to at least one node. A four way split
in the hallway was coming up. Her scanner beeped a warning as she
noticed something move in the darkness, and drew her sidearm as her
boots failed to get a good grip on the deck. Spin slid to a stop,
still on her feet, brandishing her sidearm at a thickly muscled short
man carrying a massive rifle. He aimed it at her, his eyes wide with
surprise and stopped as he realized that she’d beaten him to it,
and already had her weapon pointed at his head. “Don’t move,”
she said, noticing that he had a taller, much bigger friend to his
left.

To her right, the
shadows seemed to move in the gloom, and someone in a heavy helmet
drew her weapon, pointing it at the largest of the group. “This is
definitely not where I saw myself ending up today. Standoffs with
three strangers are not on my list of favourite things,” Spin said,
holding her inertial multiplier sidearm – a vicious looking thing
with a five-centimetre-wide pulse emitter on the front – as steady
as she could. She loved seeing a standoff in entertainment. The
tension, the suspense, and at the end of every great standoff,
someone always fired, setting the whole thing off. It was her first
time being in one for real, and she was quickly gaining an
understanding of the real danger, hoping for a very different ending
than the one she usually cheered for.

“What? Did you say
you’re in a standoff, Aspen?” Sun asked through her comm. Spin
was very happy her question couldn’t be overheard.

“I’m Spin, just
passing through,” Spin said. “Leaving, in fact, unless someone
has something to say about it.”

“I might,” the
short, muscled rifle bearer said. There was something familiar about
his voice.

“I’m coming, I have
you on my locator,” Sun said.

The tallest of them
twitched his weapon to the left, so it was aiming at the helmeted
comer, who flicked her pistol’s aim at him in return. “I am
absolutely, positively certain that I do not have a dog in this
fight, no grudge with any of you and I don’t want what’s here
enough to lose my head.”

“Scavenger?” the
rifle bearer said, and from the sound of his voice she finally
realized who he was. Lin Shae, an acquaintance of the captain of the
Cool Angel.

She didn’t answer,
but eyed the muzzle of his massive rifle for a moment, her eyes
finally adjusting to the scant light. He didn’t have any bags with
him, neither did his friend, so they weren’t here to pick at the
bones of the great ship. Did he track her here? Was he moonlighting
as a slave hunter?

Her shoulder complained
at how long her arm was outstretched holding the inertial multiplier.
It was a large weapon for a handgun, but surprisingly light. No, it
wasn’t the weight of the thing that had her arm aching, it was how
long she’d been aiming it at Lin Shae’s head.

He had a much more
intimidating weapon, a pulse rifle that looked like he’d torn it
off the side of some old starfighter. The other two, one who pointed
at Lin, the other who pointed at her, she didn’t know. One was
probably a henchman for Lin, that was the one that pointed at her, he
had a blue and green Mohawk and an absent look on his face – she
expected him to start drooling any moment. The other, the one who
quickly shifted her aim back to Lin, she didn’t know, and it didn’t
seem like Lin knew the woman in the blacked out helmet either. The
thing had bars running down the front in a V and from her body
armour, Spin guessed it was a woman, but it was hard to tell for
sure. It could have been a small man, or a short alien.

“Aspen.” Lin said,
his forehead creasing in irritation. “Why’s a girl like you
stealing from a place like this?”

“Why are you here?”

“That’s my
business,” Lin said. “Just unlucky enough for you to catch up
with me. Am I wanted dead, or alive?”

Spin’s confusion only
deepened as she realized that Lin thought she was tracking him.

“This suspense is
killing me, why don’t we blast it out and see whose armour is
better?” asked Lin.

“I have the best
armour, question answered,” said the dark helmet. It waved its
plasma blaster from Lin, to Spin, to the Mohawk, who actually looked
a little intimidated for a quarter second, then back to Lin.

“I’m almost there,”
Sun said through the comlink she had buried in her jawbone. “God,
this ship’s big.”

“I’m just waiting
to see who tires out first. You brought the biggest gun, Lin. You
might be regretting it now, though. Just wondering, why are you on
this drifting heap?”

“Salvage, my wrecking
crew is going to latch on to this old heap any second now.”

“Nothing on scans,”
Sun said, out of breath from running down a corridor somewhere else
in the old colony ship. Hopefully somewhere close. “If he had help
coming, they’re really late or they’re already so close to the
station that their location is being hidden by the jammers.”

“You never could
bluff, Lin,” Spin said.

“When did you get a
chance to see me gamble?”

“You don’t remember
playing Seven Star on the Cool Angel? The officer’s game?”

“Oh, now I remember,
you were serving drinks and slinging snacks, some kind of petty
officer.” Lin adjusted his grip on his outrageously large rifle.

“Getting a little
hard to hold on there, Lin?” Spin asked with a smirk.

“I’ve got hours
left in me,
hours,
don’t
worry.”

“So, who’s the guy
with the unfortunate haircut?” she asked.

“My nephew,” Lin
replied. “Boy will do anything for me.”

His nephew smiled
broadly, nodding, his eyes not quite focusing right.

“Family’s
important. You know, if you’re just doing salvage, I’ll just
leave you to your work after we get a few parts for our ship. There’s
someone else here though, their jammers are keeping me from seeing
where they are though.”

“My handiwork. I say
you just move along,” Lin said without hesitation.

“We only want a few
nav nodes, won’t mean anything to your bottom line.” Spin said.

“Okay, fine. Did you
just come here for salvage? Most people don’t even know this place
was abandoned yet.”

“Actually we were
looking for Quino, this used to be his place, right?”

“Well, yeah, he
shared with a couple other outfits, but not for about nine months. He
moved on to Wayland Prime, running an even bigger operation there.”

“So, you’ll put
that down if I promise to grab a couple parts and move on?” Spin
said.

“Well, yeah,” Lin
said.

“Then why did you
draw on me?”

“You drew on me
first, remember?” Lin asked. “Why is that, anyway?”

“You surprised me,
besides, don’t you hunt slaves as a side business?”