Unstable Prototypes (48 page)

"Computer, display hull scan results."

A three dimensional representation of the
ship appeared on his screen, highlighting the tiny foreign object.
He angled the ship awkwardly and gritted his teeth.

"I'm sorry, baby," he said with a squint,
then subtly nudged the unshielded ship toward the next relay module
to go by.

A heartbreaking scrape shook the ship.

"Rescan hull!"

"Minor cosmetic damage to port side of ship.
Unknown electronic device attached to-"

Lex nudged in for another scrape.

"Rescan hull!"

"Moderate cosmetic damage to port side of
ship, Unknown electronic-"

One last grinding scrape rang out, this time
ending with a distinctive ping.

"Rescan hull!!"

"Minor structural damage to port side, aft
docking clamp. Major cosmetic damage to port side."

"No Unknown electric device! Whooo--" Lex
cried, his celebration cut short by a crackling plasma bolt
glancing across his rear stabilizer. "Shields up! Shields up!"

It took a moment before Lex got control of
the SOB again, and by then the gunship was tight on his tail. The
controls weren't quite acting the way they were supposed to
anymore, which meant the shields were forced to absorb one last
shot and collapse before Lex got the hang enough to dodge the
weapons fire again.

"Just gotta get him to lose sight of me long
enough to make the next FTL jump," he stammered breathlessly as he
listened to shrapnel from the dozens of damaged and destroyed
relays clattering against his completely unshielded ship. A
particularly large hunk of satellite dish bounced off of his
windshield. "Some navigational shields would be nice, too. Since I
don't want to die when I make the jump."

He glanced down at the shield indicator to
see that it would be at least forty-five seconds before the
emitters had finished charging enough to restore the flimsy but
essential navigational shield, and more than three minutes for the
ones that would actually keep the gunship from blowing him up. With
one hand on the controls, he commenced tapping on the display,
because it is a well-known fact that tapping on any indicator makes
it show you the information you want more quickly.

"Missile Lock Detected."

"I thought he was done with those!!" Lex
objected, putting both hands back on the controls and pulling hard
back into the rapidly dwindling rows of relays.

A well timed roll drove the pursuing missile
into one of the handy obstacles.

"Six ships are entering the proximity," the
computer announced.

"Yes! The cavalry has arrived."

His screen displayed six little dots. Because
these were law abiding ships, rather than trespassing freelancers
or murderous terrorists, they actually had their transponders
active, so each dot had a handy little label, proclaiming them to
be VectorCorp Patrol Vessels. At any other time, Lex would have
dreaded seeing them, but right now a half dozen corporate cops were
nothing short of salvation... As long as they didn't spot him.
There was very little chance of that, though. A psychopath piloting
a military vehicle has a way of demanding your undivided attention,
as Lex had just learned firsthand. The SOB, with its slick paint
job and stealth coating would just fade into the background, but
just to make sure, he directed his ship in the least debris strewn
direction he could identify, gave the engines one last rev, then
dropped them down to zero. Once he was coasting, he flipped on a
handy device called a cryo-shunt, which absorbed his engine's heat
for a few minutes. Once he'd slid back into stealth, he was
practically impossible to detect unless you knew exactly where to
look.

On his ship's display, he watched the feed
from his rear camera as the patrol took up their positions around
the gunship. Various warnings that were destined to be ignored were
broadcast on all of the usual frequencies, instructing all involved
to power down weapons and engines and prepare to be towed to the
nearest "processing station," a VectorCorp facility that would
normally be called a courthouse, except that calling it that would
mean that there would have to be the opportunity for irritating
things like lawyers and trials and due process. The gunship replied
by opening fire on the nearest ship, which prompted all six of the
VC ships to return fire. If his shields hadn't been torn up by the
scuffle with Lex, the gunship probably could have taken the hit. As
it was, there was a bright red flash, followed by a bright blue
flash, followed by the pyrotechnic masterpiece of every remaining
piece of ordinance aboard the gunship going off simultaneously. The
display went on for nearly a minute, which gave Lex time enough to
flick on his nav-shield. The VectorCorp ships still hadn't noticed
him, so as long as they didn't notice in the next few seconds, he
would be able to get the hell out of there.

He was flipping through the various settings
to make sure it was safe to do an FTL jump when he caught a glimpse
of his clock.

"6PM... Wait, what day is it..." he said
slowly.

As an answer, his slidepad chirped Michella's
ringtone. One would have thought that all of the damage done to the
array would have been enough to keep it from relaying the call. He
scrambled to answer, bringing up her face on the video screen.

"Hey baby!" he said, quickly doing his best
to tone down the various audio alerts going on.

"Hi, Trev. I know we just saw each other, but
tradition's tradition, right?"

"Yeah, and it is bad luck to break a
tradition."

"My flight has been awful so far. We
just
left. How are things going for you?"

"Oh, you know. Same ol' same ol'."

Michella squinted at him. "Is something going
on, Lex?"

"What? No."

"You look awfully sweaty."

"The AC in the SOB is on the fritz."

She leaned a bit closer. Suddenly her
expression became stern. "... You're chewing gum."

"... I needed to freshen my breath?"

"Out with it."

Lex sighed. "Remember that gunship?"

"The one from the University?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Well, it blew up."

"How?"

"You're going to hear about a VC array
getting shot up right about now. That's how."

His radio scanner quietly began to pick up
chatter between the VC patrol ships indicating they were detecting
a transmission from his general area.

"I thought you weren't going to get any more
involved in this, Trev," she reprimanded.

"I wasn't! They followed me!"

"How? Why?"

"I don't know! Listen, I've got to cut this
off and get out of here or you're going to hear about me being
apprehended and held for questioning regarding the aforementioned
array getting shot up. Are you okay? No one came after you?"

"Not that I know of."

"Okay, keep your eyes and ears open. I'll
contact you when it is safe."

"Be safe, Trev."

"I'll do my best."

He closed the connection and made the jump to
FTL just as one of the patrol ships started to head in his
direction. As the view out his window stretched and blue-shifted
out of visibility, his ship getting progressively faster, his mind
started to slow down. For a moment, there was clarity. He saw what
this event meant. These terrorists were in every cranny of the
military. Could he run? Yes. He was good at running. Could he
survive their attacks? Clearly he had a fighting chance of it, at
least for a while. But what about the people around him? This had
been an unmanned array, but he could have just as easily chosen a
busy port or trading post. Every one of these destroyed arrays
could have been another ship manned by innocent, unsuspecting
people just trying to live their lives. And what about Michella?
How long before they decided to go after her? Lex was an ant, and
the Neo-Luddites had a magnifying glass. Anywhere he went there
would be a line of charred ground trailing behind, and an awful lot
of slightly slower ants burnt to a crisp. There were no two ways
about it. He would have to break the magnifying glass. Out came his
slidepad.

"Open Com Ma," he stated.

The slidepad tried to connect directly,
displaying an irritating spinning icon as it did, and finally
informed him that no network connections were available, which he
already knew. He was presented with the choice of canceling, trying
again, or the default option of doing a delayed delivery of the
message which was currently recording.

"Ma, it's Lex. Listen, we need to talk. That
gunship the terrorists used on Tessera just tried to kill me. I
think I might be in too deep to get out without help..."

Purcell stood among her men at the door to
the scientist's cell. She'd seen him do some terribly disturbing
things. She'd seen him issue commands that would kill everyone in
the room. She'd seen him calmly endure isolation and sedation that
would break any sane man. What she was seeing now managed to
surpass them all. He was... whistling. The man was locked in his
cell, deprived of his prosthetic arm and leg, and yet he seemed
absolutely thrilled with life. His one hand held the dry erase
marker he'd been permitted to keep, and with it he scrawled
equations and notations on the wall, all the while with a song on
his lips and a grin.

"Dee," she said, suspicion in her tone.

He turned and smiled. "Boss lady! How long
have you been there? I thought you'd never come out of that room of
yours."

"Why are you so happy?"

"Because I think I just broke my record for
most products prototyped in a single day."

"You were supposed to complete the designs
for the CME Activator before-"

"They've been done since a few hours after we
got the fab lab up and running. They're in the computer. I've been
drip feeding you guys the schematics and such since then. We're
just waiting on the alloy."

"You-"

Karter made a mutter of dismissal and
gestured with his pen, "Never mind that. Near as I can figure, that
transporter you guys have seems like it needs... eh, needs is a
strong word... It
uses
a carrier wave to do a coordinate
lock. The frequency wasn't included in the materials you gave me.
You wouldn't happen to know it, would you?"

"You were given incomplete information for a
reason."

"And you fudged some of the numbers, I know.
I'm pretty sure I've got that all straightened out, though. It was
fun. Like sudoku, only with the potential for somebody's kidneys to
end up eighty miles apart if you put a three in the wrong place,
which I submit was the way the sudoku guy would have wanted
it."

"Listen, if the designs are complete and
available, then I demand you give them to us!"

"You already have the designs for the
transporter."

"
For the activator!
"

"You don't have all of the parts for it yet,
so having the design won't do you any good."

"That isn't for you to decide."

"What's wrong? The guy calling the shots
getting impatient?"

She narrowed her eyes, silently wishing he
had been equipped with his arm so that she could give him a
motivating jolt toward compliance.

"Squint all you want," he countered. "I don't
put the cherry on top of that design until your boys bring back the
goods. Have you taken a look at that list of goodies I drew up for
you?"

"I've had more important things to worry
about than indulging you."

"I thought you'd feel that way, so I went
ahead and discussed it with those worker drones you've got me
palling around with. They picked some things they'd like to try.
Mostly vanilla stuff, but I guess it's tough to get the really
creative people to join your cult. They've been combing over the
designs, not being able to make heads or tails of them, and itching
to give one a try. Now you preach all of this 'we believe in trying
the newest and best' nonsense. I'm giving you the opportunity to
try out the future of warfare. You gonna take it? Are you gonna
walk the walk, or just keep talking the talk like some sort of
politician in a soldier costume?"

After a suitable amount of seething anger,
Purcell tapped at her communicator. "Engineering!"

"Engineering here."

"I'm here with Dee. He tells me you've been
looking at his designs. His... toys."

"Err... Yes commander."

"What is your assessment?"

"Well, the concepts aren't... clear. But
there are a few really interesting devices. I would like permission
to fabricate some for testing."

"Is there a chance that they are a trick?
Another escape attempt?"

"Based on Dee's tactics, that is always a
possibility, but we can minimize the threat by choosing something
with low power requirements, or something passive."

"I recommend the boots, or the shield. I'd
really like to see the shield powered up," Karter offered.

"Stay out of this, Dee," she barked.
"Engineering. Make a few careful selections and have them ready for
me to review in a few minutes. If I give the okay, fabricate them
and have them ready for demonstration in the backup docking bay
tomorrow."

"That'a girl! Let me know how it turns out,"
Karter said.

"Listen to me, Dee. This is for my men and my
cause, not to satisfy your petty desire to have your designs
tested."

"I don't care why you're doing it. Just get
to it," he said, turning away and scribbling on the wall again.

"Dee, I swear to you, I will-"

"I'm sorry Commander," interrupted Marx, "but
intelligence is getting word on the assault ship."

"Let's have it."

"The communications were cut off suddenly a
few hours ago, and now we've been getting chatter that a patrol of
VectorCorp vessels were forced to destroy an unknown ship at its
last known position, a relay array."