Renegade (40 page)

A
t hub dock
both the midships airlock and the bow airlock could be used, but Erik did not like to have too many entrances to guard from outside intrusion.

“We good?” Erik asked the waiting marines of Command Squad by the combat airlock, beside where Plugger’s scarred, armed face was securely stowed.

“Wait,” said Trace as he floated past them, and grabbed his belt to slow him. She then checked his webbing, his velcro pocket covers, his pistol, ammo and others, like a mother checking her child’s uniform on the first day of school. A few weeks ago Erik would have found it annoying. Now he only sighed, and rolled his eyes to the amusement of the waiting marines. Trace finally finished, and gave him a whack on the backside for effect. “All good, let’s go.
Behind
me, if you please.” Staff Sergeant Kono operated the inner airlock door, and they filed in. The airlock was just barely big enough for nine of them, in light, un-powered armour and weapons. “What’s that smell?”

“Aftershave,” said Erik. “You might try it.”

“Aftershave?” Trace asked with amusement. She pushed interactive glasses over her eyes, like sunglasses only with sophisticated targeting functions inbuilt.

“It’s a well known fact that female marines don’t shave,” said Kono. “They shed.”

Trace actually grinned as several of her marines sniggered, and the inner door closed behind them, everyone pulling on the loose airlock straps to keep themselves clustered tight as zero-G contact tried to push them apart. With Private Rolonde in Medbay, Trace was the only woman in Command Squad. It was impossible to know what if anything she made of the whole ‘woman in command of men’ thing, it was just one more of those topics no one had the balls to quiz her on. Now that he thought of it, Erik couldn’t remember her ever making any kind of deal about gender one way or the other. Save for the whack on the backside just now, but he’d seen her do that to young female marines too, just an adult-to-junior way to say ‘stay alert’ with a smile.

The outer airlock opened, and cold air rushed in, lights bright in the short access tube. The marines caught the hand lines provided and pulled, effortlessly aligning into formation, Kono and two others ahead, Trace and Erik in the middle, then Corporal Rael with three more behind.

Arrivals was a big tube that ran personnel transport capsules, a big one rushing past even as they entered, full of spacers from some ship further up the hub dock. Beyond, through windows making gaps in the tube, a view into the enormous hub. It was like a giant tunnel in space, protruding from the hub of the rotating space station like an extended axle from an old-fashioned cart wheel. Inside the tunnel wall was a thicket of sub-light ships and shuttles, clustered about like bats to the roof of a cave. They flittered this way and that, seeking or leaving dock, shuttles heading downworld, freighters heading to nearby bases, moons, stations or refinery facilities, maintenance tugs performing visual inspection of the many hundreds of docking ports and access tubes. The whole inner hub was lit with a thousand floodlights, many blinking a warning red or yellow.

The big starships docked about the outside of the ‘tunnel’ walls, in far fewer berths. Starships usually preferred to dock at the rim, where the huge gantries that held them in place at one-G rotation could also serve as maintenance, and the station’s huge cargo chutes and fuel hoses could see even a combat carrier like Phoenix refuelled and restocked in a matter of hours. Out here on the hub dock, the cargo and refuelling facilities were designed for smaller sub-lighters, and would take far longer. But if a ship was damaged, exposing it to prolonged one-G rotation was unwise, and repairs went far faster in zero-G where large replaceable parts could simply be floated to and from the ship.

“Lieutenant Commander Debogande!” Erik looked as he cleared the access tube, and found a dark woman holding to a railing beside the transport tube. About her were another four marines, in light kit as were
Phoenix
’s. “Captain Ritish,
UFS Mercury.
” She was secured, he was not, and she ranked him. Erik followed etiquette and floated to her, grabbing the railing to stop. Then a salute, him first, her answering. Ritish then offered her hand. “Sorry to surprise you, but command’s kind of busy, as you might imagine. Didn’t want anything discussed over coms, so they told me to come up here and see you in person.”

Erik’s heart thumped unpleasantly, but he kept his expression cool and professional. This was a different kind of threat to enemy fire. Surreal, given what he and
Phoenix
had just done, and Captain Ritish had no idea about. She’d find out soon enough, and would probably try to kill him and everyone on his ship when she did… but for now, he had to just pretend nothing had happened. Thankfully, you didn’t rise to command staff in Fleet without learning to blow smoke up superior officers’ asses from time to time.

“Captain, good to see you. And you’ll know Major Thakur, of course.”

“Major,” said Ritish, with a nod of respect. Erik knew Ritish by reputation only — a relatively new captain, competent as all carrier captains were competent, but operating in an entirely different sector of the war to
Phoenix
. Heuron was one of those systems where many sectors came together. “You’ve come out prepared, I see?” With a glance across Command Squad.

“Well given no one would give us a direct briefing on the situation,” Erik explained. “And given what we see on the newsfeeds. Thought it best to be prepared.”

“Hell of a thing you guys being here,” said Ritish, with casual intrigue. “An ambush, an assassination attempt on the Captain from within your own crew, then hacksaws?”

Erik shook his head in shared disbelief. “The war was supposed to be over, right? Craziest thing I’ve seen in three years at this post… actually we’re preparing to bring some of the hacksaw parts we salvaged down to analysis on station if you’d like to see them? Just amazing things, we’re packing them for transport now.”

With a suggestive glance at the tube control panel by Ritish’s hand. She took the hint and hit the call button. “I might just do that,” she said with genuine fascination. “Casualties?”

Erik handed off to Trace. “Eighteen,” she said. “And twenty wounded. We had them outnumbered or it would have been far worse.”

“Man that sucks,” said the marine sergeant with Ritish. “And just after the damn war had finished too.”

“My condolences,” Ritish agreed. “Damn shame. But clearing a hacksaw nest with only eighteen losses… your reputation stands confirmed, Major Thakur.”

Trace nodded without comment. The tube rumbled and vibrated as a transport car approached — a big, oval capsule. Its doors matched the tube doors, then opened with a hiss of equalising air. They filed in, and found the capsule empty — the Captain’s security clearance, Erik guessed, which allowed her to call a car exclusively for them. They took hold to rails and straps as the doors closed behind, and the car began a smooth acceleration.

“And your Captain’s health, how is he?” Ritish pressed.

“He’s okay,” said Erik. “But our doc thinks the toxin may still be active so he’s quarantined for now, and Commander Huang too. It was in the food, someone brought it to them in a meeting in the Captain’s quarters. We’ve arrested the guy, he’s been interrogated.”

“And?”

“Nothing yet. Very resilient. But that’s a part of the trouble — clearly this is a plot of some kind, against
Phoenix
and against the Captain. The Captain insisted we should come here directly, and that Supreme Commander Chankow should be informed. Of course we had no idea that Chairmen Ali and Joseph would be here as well, but while they are, they should probably hear it too.”

Sporadic gaps in the tube offered flashing glimpses of the inner hub docks as they passed — freighters clamped to grapples, workers in exo-suits working on engines, cargo offloading into parallel chutes. Another car flashed by, heading the other way, filled with crew or station workers. Then a station stop, more crew awaiting a lift and probably annoyed that this car would not stop for them.

“So what’s the situation here?” Erik asked.

“Damn mess,” said Ritish. She was quite pretty, Erik thought — tall, long-faced with pronounced cheek bones. Age was always hard to guess these days, but if pressed Erik thought somewhere between eighty and a hundred. It was a more typical age for a captain, and made him insecure of his own age and rank every time he thought of it. Most carrier LCs were at least fifty. “We’re rounding people up now.”

“Rounding up?”

Ritish made a face. “You’ll see. Lots of station workers with Worlder IDs suddenly got to go. Just no time to do a full investigation of who’s Heuron Dawn and who isn’t, safer to ship the lot out.”

Erik blinked. “That’ll make a mess of a lot of Spacer business operations out here. They’re going to be many hands short.” Which, as he could recently attest, was a real pain.

“They’ll manage. So who are you heading off to see?” Given that every senior person you’d like to see can’t see you, she meant.

“Mitchell Klinger,” said Erik. “Debogande Enterprises CEO for Heuron.”

“I know who he is,” said Ritish. “Is he family?”

Erik forced a smile. “We don’t
just
do nepotism,” he said reproachfully. “Just a company guy, but I hear he’s good.”

“What are you going to talk about?” Ritish asked.

Erik shrugged vaguely. “Whatever there is to say. This whole shit for one thing.” He indicated at the passing station outside. “Gotta get a briefing from someone, may as well be him.”

It was tempting to glance at Trace. He didn’t dare. Clearly Ritish was suspicious. Or more to the point, she’d been sent by people in High Command to talk to him personally, then report back. ‘Check him out’, they’d have said. ‘Get some clues what that sneaky old man Pantillo’s up to.’ Probably his eagerness to show her the hacksaw corpses had thrown her a little. Those were very hard to come by, and proved the most unlikely part of his story was true. And if that was true… but he knew better than to think her convinced. None of her bosses trusted Pantillo, and Erik guessed that if they’d picked Captain Ritish for the task, they considered her reliable in a way they never would have considered the Captain.

The car arrived at the station hub, enfolded within the colossal metal bulk in a sudden rush of close steel and gantries, then halting with a gentle force that sent them swinging on their straps. Doors opened onto a near wall with more railings and handlines, and Erik pulled himself out, as Captain Ritish talked to some station hands on the point of entering. Several looked like medics, and all wore hazmat suits with the hoods currently down.

Trace gave Erik a concerned glance. “Captain?” Erik asked. “Are these guys heading out to
Phoenix
?”

“That’s right,” said Ritish.

“I’m sorry, we’re sealed tight to all non-
Phoenix
personnel, Captain’s orders.”

“Lieutenant Commander,” said Ritish with a frown, “you’ve been subject to a medical and possibly a chemical attack, and Fleet regulations say both should be attended by suitable personnel ASAP upon station arrival.”

“Unless the vessel’s captain declares his ship sealed,” Erik countered. “I’m not aware of any external authority that can override a captain’s command of entry to his own deck.”

“Lieutenant Commander, I think that under the circumstances…”

And she stopped, as Trace interposed herself, drifting to Erik’s side. “Don’t fuck around,” said Trace, “you know the regs as well as we do. Captain says we’re sealed — we’re sealed.”

Ritish stared at her, clearly unaccustomed to being spoken to in that tone by anyone. And suffered perhaps a dawning flash of realisation, staring into that impassive, dark-visored gaze, exactly whom she was speaking to. And how that person might naturally feel about some
other
captain, telling
her C
aptain who should and should not step upon
Phoenix
’s deck. “Very well. But this will go on my report higher up.”

“Good that something should,” Trace said pointedly. “They know where to find us.”

Ritish waved at her marines to leave, and the hazmat personnel went with her. The
Mercury
marine sergeant gave Trace a final glance that Erik half-expected to turn into an apology… but didn’t. Then he turned and over-handed his way along a railing to the exit.

“They know,” Erik murmured. “There’s not a marine in Fleet who wouldn’t love to get in your good books, but that guy just passed. They’re not sure what they know, but they know something's not right.”

“Major?” said Corporal Rael from nearby. “We’re not gonna have to shoot at other marines, are we?”

Trace gave him a hard look. “You see a crystal ball anywhere on my person, Corporal?”

“No Major,” said Rael in a small voice.

“Come on. Let’s not keep the LC’s rich and powerful buddy waiting.”

Hoffen Station hub was one of the largest indoor microgravity environments Erik could recall moving through. Pressurised access from the personnel tubes lead past humming walls of machinery, and inset windows overlooked massive zero-G pumps feeding from fuel and coolant tanks. Handlines hummed, dragging strings of passengers along in rapid time, while station-hands flew independently on compressed air hand-thrusters or body rigs. There must have been a hundred thousand people in the hub at any time, Erik thought. Hoffen was not human of course — tavalai had built it several thousand years ago, taking nearly a century to complete. There was simply no way to do this scale of engineering quickly, but now Hoffen Station dominated and centralised the Heuron V system economy, creating a distribution hub for people and products to the hundreds of smaller stations and bases about the gas giant’s moons and rings.

Main hub ring had two speeds of handlines, and the
Phoenix
party took the inner, faster line, flying about the huge, inner wall bundles of pipes and cabling as they overtook the slower traffic. The outer wall was a line of enormous magnetic railings, where the stationary hub wall met the rotating outer wheel, and millions of tonnes of mass whisked past each other for no friction or torque whatsoever. It did produce a sizeable magnetic field, however, and the hub rim was notorious for being the place where all kinds of electrical devices developed glitches. The side walls were lined with offices, restaurants and even hotels, stacked in three-dimensional space in a way they could never be down on the rim. Display signs flashed colour and graphics, and the odd massage parlour offered tricks to those who wanted a different kind of adventure in zero-G.