Unstable Prototypes (58 page)

"He hasn't got the weapons to do any damage.
Keep the pressure on him and we'll take him down," Purcell
advised.

"Establishing target lock, prepare-" came the
beginning of a transmission from the Gunship, but it was suddenly
interrupted by a blaring warning tone, "Evasive maneuvers! Evasive
maneuvers, we've got-"

There was a burst of static, and the symbol
for the gunship dropped off the tactical display.

"What the hell happened, the enemy ship
wasn't even close!" Purcell roared.

"I don't know, there- Commander!"

"TC-4, evasive maneuvers!"

An explosion swallowed the cloaked ship and
another icon dropped from the display.

"Sensors! I want to know where these attacks
are coming from!"

"There- there were a pair of temporary blips
at vector 013 mark 015. It's a cloaked ship, commander!" the
tactical officer realized.

"How!? Never mind. Fighters, break pursuit
and protect the Docking Hatch for Bay A. GS-1 and TC-3, deploy!
Shields up and cloaks down. I want you to turtle until that cloaked
ship fires, then target attack origin and fire! Sensors, get those
meson arrays up! If that thing is cloaked it'll be the only source
of meson emissions in the area."

"Initializing," replied the tactical officer.
"GS-1 deployed and beginning sensor sweep. TC-3 deployed and
beginning sensor sweep. Docking Bay Doors secured. Meson Array
active... We've got a Meson Emission source... Inside Docking Bay
A!"

Purcell opened her mouth. A lesser woman
might have exclaimed that it was impossible. She would have pointed
out that the doors to the docking bay had been open for mere
seconds, and that she had assigned the fighters to guard the
entrance. She would have reasoned that most of the time the doors
were open they were occupied by other ships. She would have
insisted that no one could have possibly flown a cloaked ship
through so narrow an opening during so narrow a time window without
colliding with something. The commander said none of these things,
because regardless of how ironclad the logic might have been, the
evidence contradicted it, and there was too little time to waste
any of it denying what was obviously so.

Instead, she said, "Troopers to Docking Bay
A. We have been boarded! Repeat, we have been boarded!"

#

In the Docking Bay, the now pointless cloak
hiding the Declaration of War dropped, leaving them as a very
large, very visible target in an otherwise empty bay. Fancy new
space stations had marvels of modern science to keep them running.
Things like semi-permeable force-fields allowed ships in and out
without allowing all of the air and dock workers to get sucked out
into space. This space station, despite the group's dedication to
the bleeding edge, was neither fancy nor new. A user-friendly
approach was to have individual bays and pressurized exit tunnels
that connected to the ship. This station wasn't user-friendly
either. An efficient design called for ships to remain outside the
station, interfacing with universal, air tight docking ports. Once
again, this was not a facility built with efficiency in mind. Its
primary role, prior to being co-opted by the Neo-Luddites for their
purposes, had been ship maintenance and restoration. Thus, what it
had was a pair of massive, unpressurized bays with individual
landing pads and no gravity, plus a scattering of external docking
ports in the case of evacuation. Workers, when it was necessary to
move about in the bay while it was in use, wore space suits. Anyone
who wanted to get in or out of the rest of the station had to do so
through a huge, freight elevator-sized airlock with sturdy doors
and no windows, or wait for someone to trot out something that
looked like an overgrown piece of drier vent to hook up to the ship
as a means of access. It was for that reason that there were no
soldiers currently manning the bay, but that wouldn't remain the
case for long.

The crew door of the Declaration hissed open
and three people darted out. Silo and Garotte were wearing the
sleek, snug spacesuits favored by most people who had to operate in
a vacuum with any regularity; silvery, nearly skin-tight suits with
high visibility face visors and small but efficient jet packs for
zero-g navigation. They were also heavily armed. Lex was wearing a
more distinctive textured tan flight suit and was attempting to
wrangle what looked like an inflated blowup doll, but was in fact a
third sleek-style suit with an undersized occupant.

"All clear," announced Silo through her suit
radio after a quick but thorough survey of the area. "That was some
impressive maneuvering, Lex."

"Thanks. High-speed, illegal docking while
invisible. I can cross that one off the list, I guess," he said
through a mouth full of gum.

"That makes me two for two in blind targeting
cloaked ships, too," Silo remarked with a bit of pride.

"Ma, are you sure they aren't going to blow
up the SOB? I'm not too comfortable with her being on automatic
while things are shooting at her," Lex continued.

"Your ship has been directed to leave the
area of combat until recalled, and the other ships are unlikely to
pursue while we are on board their command station. In the
meantime, I urge you to revise your list of priorities," the AI
answered, struggling a bit inside a suit that was not built with a
furry quadruped in mind.

"Yes, my boy. Very shortly we will encounter
a rather large number of people interested in killing us. Try to
keep that in mind," Garotte instructed.

"Easy for you to say. You didn't just put a
fresh coat of paint on it," said Lex.

"Enough banter. Ma, I want access to the
airlock, now. Silo, let's unload."

#

On the interior side of the airlock, a dozen
troops had gathered. Each was wearing a bulkier space suit of a
similar design. The added mass came from overlapping plates of
composite armor. Their weapons were a mismatched assortment of
ballistic and energy weapons, most representing designs that had
been abandoned for having one or two strengths that were more than
offset by dozens of major weaknesses. The first on the scene was
tapping at a control panel.

"No good, it is occupied, and being
pressurized," the scout reported.

"You heard him, boys. The enemy is inside the
airlock. Weapons ready, eyes sharp. We can end this here and now,"
instructed the squad leader.

The panel beside the door ticked various
indicators, pressure up and time down, as the soldiers anxiously
waited for the door to open and reveal their targets. Finally the
pressure was equalized and the heavy door began to pull open.
Triggers were squeezed and sights lined up as the group drew in a
breath... but when the door finished opening, there was no one
there. Rather than a few armed and dangerous targets handily
corralled into a box with no escape, the airlock revealed... a
crate. It was about a meter cubed, sturdily built, and had a lid
held tightly on by eight or so mechanical latches.

"No one fire," the squad leader ordered.
"This could be an explosive. Wilkes, cycle the airlock again and
send this thing back into space."

Wilkes worked at the control panel. "No good,
sir. They've got someone blocking the controls."

"Well unblock them! And change the cypher! I
don't want-"

He was interrupted by a heart-stopping sound.
Like falling dominoes, the latches on the crate flipped up in
sequence. When the final latch was undone, the edge of the lid
hissed with a release of pressure, causing the squad to shudder,
and one of the jumpier soldiers to fire a single reflexive blast.
The energy struck and warped the lid, causing it to leap off of the
crate and rattle to the floor. Inside, there seemed to be nothing
but old fashioned puffy packing material.

"Keep it together, soldier!" reprimanded the
squad leader. "Wilkes, investigate. I'll work on the cypher."

The unlucky underling cautiously walked up to
the crate. After a visual survey of the outside didn't turn up
anything, he reached out with the muzzle of his rifle and poked
into the box, striking something hard and metallic. His rummaging
unearthed a small plastic tube from among the Styrofoam. He picked
it out with his gloved hand.

"I've got a new cypher active. If you found
anything threatening, I'll cycle. What is it?" asked the squad
leader.

"It... I... I think it is one of those asthma
sprayer things, sir," he said, holding it up.

Whether it was fate, dumb luck, or a cruel
sense of humor, the key item in the crate chose that moment to
reveal itself. In an explosion of fluffy plastic peanuts and
gleaming metal, Zerk launched from the crate and into the cluster
of soldiers.

#

On the exterior side of the airlock, the
rescue party watched as minor dents and dings started to pepper the
heavy-duty door as the hapless force tried to deal with something
that no sane man would have dreamed of preparing for. They each
strapped blue bandanas to their arms as they did.

"Um... You know that rule about not firing
weapons inside a pressurized facility?" Lex asked.

"I do," Garotte remarked as he looked over
the floor plan displayed on the slidepad he'd clipped into the arm
of his suit.

"I can't help but notice these guys aren't
obeying it."

"If you'd ever seen Zerk in action, hon, you
wouldn't blame them," Silo remarked.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it. This old
bird was built back in the days when you had to expect to take a
few love taps during the average day," Garotte said, slapping the
sturdy wall. "She can take a few hits and hold together."

"Okay, and what about Karter? We're here to
rescue him, right? Wasn't it not a great idea to unleash an
unstoppable killing machine into the place they're holding him?"
Lex asked.

"Karter knows how to handle Zerk. He's the
one who managed to back out the shutdown procedures. There is more
than one," Garotte remarked. "Alright, it looks like the excitement
has died down. Ma, let's see this airlock do its thing again, shall
we?"

"I am endeavoring to reestablish an interface
with the desired systems," Ma stated from within her poorly suited
piece of equipment. Her voice had the jittery, stressed quality it
tended to adopt when she was concentrating. "The encryption of this
system is extremely complex. My initial route of access has already
been closed and secured."

"Yes, well, military encryption tends to be
rather significant," Garotte countered.

"Not entirely military... redundant
encryption schemes. Mostly corporate."

"What the hell does
that
mean?" Lex
asked.

"It means we've got a delightful and entirely
irrelevant mystery on our hands," Garotte said. "Just cycle the
chamber."

"Limited access restored. Activating," Ma
said, the stress gone from her voice.

After atmosphere was pumped out of the lock,
the quartet stepped into the chamber, and waited for the process to
reverse. Air hissed in, causing Ma's unwieldy bundle of a suit to
seemingly deflate, and gravity slowly faded in. When the inner door
opened, it revealed a tight corridor completely covered with bullet
and energy damage and scattered with the remains of soldiers who
were extremely dead, and who had been delivered to that state with
great enthusiasm and creativity.

"Uh..." Lex said with a hint of nausea as he
tried to avoid looking at the remains, "I'm not feeling too heroic
right now."

"Take it from a man who does this for a
living, my boy. Don't try to be a hero, just try to get the job
done. To that end, you take the computer and try to find Karter.
Silo and I will take care of the blasted device they were after;
destroy prototypes, delete designs, things of that nature."

"And everybody be careful!" Silo added as
they ran their separate ways.

"Which way am I heading, Ma?" Lex asked as he
sprinted down the corridor in the direction with the fewest
casualties, and therefore the least chance of running into their
highly effective diversion. Hanging across his back was the
smallest energy rifle that the others had been able to find along
with a tightly bundled spare space suit, and hanging on his belt
was a holster containing a small energy pistol. The rest of his
belt was covered with variable strength grenades, and under his arm
was the weakly struggling tangle of silver suit that contained his
guide.

"I will direct you, but while we are still
unharrassed by soldiers, please remove me from this suit."

"You sure? How will you get back to the
ship?" Lex asked.

"At this stage, my ability to aid in the
completion of the mission is of greater importance."

"But what if-"

"Get me out of this damn suit, Lex."

"Your coarse language is not called for, Ma,"
Lex said as he carefully unfastened the triple-sealed zipper.

Ma tumbled out from the suit, scrambled to
her feet, and rustled her fur.

"If you were covered in a layer of fur and
wrapped in airtight fabric, you would agree regarding the necessity
of such language. Now, affix a blue bandana to me."

Lex removed the blue bandana from a pouch on
his flight suit and shook it out, tying it around her neck. Once it
was in place, Ma planted her feet, raised her head, and drew in a
long, slow breath through her nose.

"Anything?"

"Scent tracking in a space station is
non-ideal. Carefully sanitized and maintained air quality coupled
with atmospheric isolation prevents scent from spreading. I am also
only moderately familiar with Karter's scent," she informed him.
After a moment, she darted toward a side corridor. "This way. Leave
the suit. We will fetch it upon our return."

"You caught a whiff?"

"No. It is an educated guess."

"... Great."