Outriders (31 page)

Garlington Outpost 15-436 was conveniently positioned about midway between Earth and Mars, and it wasn’t exactly a sanctioned station. In fact, it could barely be considered a station at all. 15-436 had originally been intended as a staging area, more of a supply hold than anything else, for the now-defunct mining corporation. Looking at the scan data, Lincoln could still see hints of Garlington’s design and infrastructure poking out here and there from under all the graftwork. Unfortunately, the company had been one of many to overextend itself in the early, mad rush to fill space and had gone bankrupt before 15-436 had been completed. Technically, Garlington was responsible for ensuring the property was sold off or destroyed. Instead, the outpost had been abandoned. At least by Garlington.

Lincoln didn’t know the full history of the station, but at some point between the origin and now, a few enterprising individuals had claimed the half-completed structure and taken it upon themselves to make it operational. And they’d succeeded, after a fashion. Salvage rights weren’t clear on the topic, and no one on either planet seemed to have all that much interest in enforcing any laws all the way out there anyway. These days, the outpost looked less like it had been constructed and more like it had accreted from man-made space debris.

The floating mass was more popularly known as Flashtown.

Flashtown was run by a woman who called herself Mayor Jon, and everything about the place had the feel of a gangster who wanted desperately to be seen as a legitimate businessperson. They were incorporated, after all; at least according to Mayor Jon’s convoluted interpretation of interplanetary law. Predictably, Mayor Jon’s outpost had attracted a particular demographic, and as a result 15-436 had earned a reputation; they didn’t ask a lot of questions, but they did take security very seriously.

It wouldn’t be fair to call it a pirates’ haven. Flashtown was equally open and welcoming to any entrepreneurial criminal. Lincoln had never had cause to visit the station himself, and going over the schematics with the team one last time, he found himself wishing he could have kept that streak going.

“I don’t think that’s up to code,” Mike said, pointing at the 3D image and at what appeared to be half of a transport’s hull, welded into place to form a passageway.

“This is the best scan we’ve got?” Lincoln asked.

“It’s fresh as of twelve hours ago,” Thumper answered. “Whiskers went out and got as much as they could, filled in a bunch of holes.”

Lincoln pointed at all the dark patches in the projection. “Missed a few.”

“Yeah, well, the place is dense and doesn’t exactly have the nicest floorplan,” Thumper said. “Still think this is a good idea?”

“I never thought it was a good idea,” Lincoln answered. “But if you’re sure what we need is in there, there’s no reason not to go get it.”

He looked over at her.

“You are sure, right?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Sled’s up,” Wright said, pointing further down the hangar. A gunship was finally being positioned for release. The team’s low-signature delivery vehicle was tethered below.

“Two hours late,” Mike said. “Right on time.”

Lincoln shut the map down.

“This is going to be fun,” he said. “I feel good about this.”

“Are you being sarcastic right now?” Thumper said. “I can’t tell with you.”

“I can’t either,” Lincoln said with a smile. “Let’s load it up.”

F
OR MOST OF
the trip out, Lincoln left his teammates to their own devices. Like any other team, everyone had their own way of preparing for a hit. Lincoln liked to do a slow check of all his equipment, which was completely unnecessary since he’d triple-checked everything already before they’d left the
Curry.
Still, there was something meditative about the process, something reassuring about the close contact with the tools of his trade. Wright seemed to have a similar ritual. Sahil was dead asleep.

Eventually the pilot’s voice came over the ship’s internal communication system.

“Rise and shine, kids,” she said. “Sixty mikes out from separation.”

The crew chief went to work and helped Lincoln and his teammates don their suits and run through the systems check on each. Once they’d confirmed all systems green, they transferred into the delivery vehicle attached to the gunship. Technically, the delivery vehicle was called a Lamprey, but everyone in the teams had a different name for it: the Coffin. The vehicle was designed for medium-range insertion into non-permissive environments, which was milspeak for sneaking into places people weren’t supposed to go. It was a complete ship on its own, with its own thrusters and guidance systems, but being in one felt less like flying a craft and more like being packed inside a missile and fired off towards some distant target. And there was some truth to that perception: apart from navigation, other systems were streamlined to keep the ship’s signature as low as possible. That meant a bare minimum for essentials like life-support functions, and no weapon systems at all. Which was all fine, as long as no one saw them coming.

The Coffin’s aspirations of virtual undetectability included its physical profile and the vessel was therefore necessarily slender by design. As a result, the interior was so narrow passengers had to sit facing each other down the length of the ship, typically with a knee in between the legs of the occupants across from them when the craft was full. Fortunately, it had capacity for eight; the team spread out as much as they could. The pilot’s seat was up front, distinguished from the others only by its proximity to a console on its left side. Wright sat there to assume command of the ship, while Lincoln went to the rear. The others took up the seats in between.

Once they were loaded in and secure, the gunship pilot kept them informed with a countdown every few minutes until the critical moment.

“Reach 32, you are go for separation,” she said.

“Roger that, Pagan 1,” Wright replied. She looked down the line to Lincoln; he gave her an OK sign. “Reach 32 is go for separation.”

“Here we go,” the pilot answered. “Five, four, three, two, one, and… release. Reach 32 has full separation, trajectory looks good.”

“Copy, Pagan 1,” Wright said. “Reach 32 confirms good release and is systems green.”

“Copy that, Reach 32. Pagan 1 is RTB. Good luck and Godspeed, friends. Pagan 1 out.”

“Thanks for the ride, Pagan 1,” said Wright. “Reach 32 out.”

Once they’d cleared the gunship, the team switched communications over to their internal channel and did a quick commo check. Everyone sounded off, with Wright reporting in last.

“Wright, check check check,” she said. “Good copy all around. And we are going cold.” She tapped a few strokes on the console and set the Coffin to silent running, further reducing the vessel’s heat signature.

Lincoln looked down the line at his teammates. Though their suits were identical, the individuals were identifiable by their size and shape, as well as by their kit. Each had a different arrangement of gear hanging on their suits, marking their roles and laid out to exacting personal preference. Mike had even customized his with a few nonregulation images and phrases, using the digital ink that only showed up through the suit’s visor. On the shoulder facing Lincoln, he’d placed a tab that read “MEDIUM SPEED, SOME DRAG”.

But even though Lincoln could tell who each figure was, and even though he was in one of the suits himself, there was something unearthly about the faceless, armored beings sitting patiently to his right. It didn’t take much to imagine they were empty suits of armor, each animated by some dreadful avenging spirit. Knowing the people actually inside, he wasn’t sure that was too far from the truth. And he was glad they were all on his side.

They covered the remaining distance to the target in silence. Lincoln tried not to think about how great that distance actually was, or how fast they were actually moving. For all the time he’d spent in space, he was a groundpounder at heart, and he’d never quite gotten used to the exponential change in scale. When they were on approach, Wright roused the team.

“Five mikes to target,” Wright said. “Thumper, Mike, you’re up.”

Mike and Thumper stood up, folded their seats flat against the bulkhead. Mike had to hunch over to keep from hitting his head on the overhead.

“We headed out the top, or you gonna poop us out the back?” Mike asked.

“Back,” Wright said.

“Seriously, Mike, you gotta stop calling it that,” Thumper said, as they shuffled towards the rear of the craft.

“What? That’s what it feels like.”

Lincoln made room for them to get by and, as they squeezed past, wished he’d sat in the middle in the first place. The rear hatch leading to the airlock was three-quarters height. Watching Mike work his way through it, Lincoln understood Mike’s description of the process.

“Can’t you think of it like something nicer?” Thumper said as she followed Mike into the airlock.

“Like what, Thump?” Mike said.

“I don’t know… like, I don’t know, being born or something.”

“Oh sure, that works too,” Mike answered. “Forcible ejection through a canal filled with blood and water–”

“Ugh, nevermind,” Thumper interrupted. “Just shut up and go.”

Three minutes later, Wright had the Coffin in position. The first insertion point was on the lower decks, down where a lot of construction was never completed. The number of exposed beams, girders, and cables promised a significant navigation challenge to even a ship as slim and streamlined as the Lamprey. As a precaution, the team had decided to hold off a few hundred meters from the station; Mike and Thumper would freespace the remaining distance using the microthrusters on their suits.

“Downtown, you’re good to go,” she said, using the pair’s mission codename.

“Copy that,” Thumper said. “Stepping out now.”

“Behold,” Mike said a moment later, “the miracle of life!” and then he made a revolting sound with his mouth.

A minute or so later, Thumper reported back in.

“Downtown’s on site,” she said. “Prepping Poke for entry now. We’ll hold for your call.”

“Roger, Downtown,” Wright answered. “We’re moving topside. Stand by.”

Wright moved the Coffin to the second insertion point a few hundred meters further up. Once there, she activated the protocol that had earned the vessel its designation as a Lamprey. Lincoln felt the ship roll and settle into position; a few moments later a low hum sounded through the hull as the craft attached itself to the exterior of the station. At least in this case, Flashtown’s haphazard construction played to the team’s favor. They’d identified several locations where the station was vulnerable to breach, and had selected one as an entry point. Now, the Lamprey was cutting through the external shell of the station’s hull. As long as the ship’s seal was secure, the station’s internal atmosphere would go unchanged and thus the breach would go undetected. Once the team had entered, the Lamprey’s mechanism would reverse the process before it detached, reforging the hull incision with integrity comparable to before the cut was made. And in Flashtown’s particular case, Lincoln guessed it might even be improved.

“We’re up,” Wright said. Lincoln and Sahil joined her towards the front, where the upper airlock was located.

“I’ll take point,” Lincoln said.

“Negatory,” Sahil said. “First in’s my job.”

“Whatever happened to chivalry?” Wright said.

“Bad guys always shoot high,” Sahil said. “And ain’t none of y’all can stay as low as me.”

He didn’t leave any room for argument and started up the ladder into the airlock before anyone could respond. Lincoln started forward after him, but Wright swatted his hand off the ladder and followed Sahil up. Lincoln was last in, and sealed the hatch behind him. The low-intensity red light of the airlock gave his teammates a hellish look, offset somewhat by their last names emblazoned in bright block letters across their backs. The names were visible only through the suit’s visor, and remained easy-to-read white regardless of the actual environmental lighting conditions.

“Downtown, Highrise is ready to make first entry,” Lincoln said, taking over comms as the team lead.

“Copy that, Highrise,” Thumper answered. “Poke’s still sniffing around for the exact location of the relay, but so far he’s showing clear for us from here to there.”

Thumper and Mike had a less glamorous entry point, through an arm of what appeared to be an uncompleted docking port, long ago abandoned.

“What’s your route?” Lincoln asked.

“Through the port, service tunnel up to the holds,” Thumper replied. “Then depends on what Poke finds. Hopefully we don’t have to go too deep. It’s pretty twisty in there.”

“Roger that,” Lincoln said. “We’re headed in.”

Lincoln signaled to Sahil, who nodded, drew his sidearm, and then activated the exterior hatch. On the other side waited a depthless emptiness, framed by the station’s outer hull. Sahil climbed up and into the blackness, catlike in his movements, until all that was visible of him was the NAKARMI on his back. Wright waited for his call. Lincoln looked down at the short rifle slung tight across his chest, checked it one last time.

“Clear,” Sahil said. At that, Wright moved up quickly, with Lincoln just behind. As Lincoln left the Coffin and entered the black space above, the suit’s sensor suite dialed up the visibility, compositing an image from the various spectra it could detect. There was no light for it to intensify or enhance here between the outer and inner hull of the station, but it interpreted all available radiation and translated it into a visual representation that Lincoln could understand. The result was a ghostly blue image of his teammates, amongst the station’s interhull infrastructure. Beams and girders spanned open spaces that dropped below and curved away above. This particular section of Flashtown was old, but clearly hadn’t been part of Garlington’s original blueprint, judging from some of the strange angles and variety of construction materials used.

A virtual beacon designated their inner hull breach point a few dozen meters away, one that should take them to another out-of-the-way section of the station. It would’ve been more convenient if they could have found an entry point directly beneath their external breach, but the station’s “design” didn’t allow for that. And in any case, the only time anything was ever convenient on a hit was when it was a trap.