The Rush's Edge Read online

  Hal gestured to Vivi. “Astin, this is Vivi. She’s our tecker. Vivi, this is Astin. He works for TechSolutions.”

  “Good to meet you,” Vivi said.

  “So you’re the newbie, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Five by five.” Astin nodded appreciatively. “OK. Let’s get to it.” He paused to throw back the rest of the amber liquid in his glass and looked around before he began speaking. “I was going to meet Ty last night, but I was – er – held up.” There was an uncomfortable look on his face, but then he waved his hand and went on. “Anyway, I know you guys are always looking for salvage locations. You interested in a lead?”

  “How hot is it?” Hal asked.

  “ACAS hot,” Astin said. “How much scrill can you give me?”

  Hal tapped on his handheld a moment, then narrowed his eyes. “Two. It’s all I got access to right now. You know Ty, though. If it’s good, he’ll pay you the full six.”

  Astin took a moment to consider. “That’ll do.”

  “Same account as last time?”

  “Yeah.”

  Vivi watched, interested in the interplay between the two. She wanted to find out more about how the salvage business worked. This was the first time that she’d gone to run down a lead – previously, Ty and Hal coordinated these things alone.

  “I hope this is a good one,” Hal muttered, finishing the transaction by tapping on his handheld.

  “It will be.” Astin leaned in as Hal looked up. “OK. A day ago, we were called in to work on an ACAS corvette. It had broken down while coming back from the Border. They didn’t dock at Omicron; we had to approach on a shuttle, and I saw they had a salvage ship named the Relentless in tow. Anyway, as I was running diagnostics on the ACAS ship’s computers, I began to poke around. Seems like they’d found the Relentless out past the Border without a permit. When they boarded, they saw that the ship had made a big find – parts of a metalhead drive and some other things. Here’s the location.” He showed Hal his handheld, then used a motion of his hand on the screen to transfer it to Hal’s device.

  “Thanks,” Hal nodded, receiving the information.

  “Relentless was caught soon after she got there, so there wasn’t much more they could get. But it looks like it could be a big score,” Astin said. “Good luck, man.” He offered his hand to Hal, who shook it. “I gotta get gone, but hey – keep where you got that on the DL, OK?”

  “You bet,” Hal said. He watched Astin go, then he glanced over to Vivi. “We gotta get this to Ty.”

  She nodded in agreement and followed him out of the booth.

  SEVEN

  A glint of starlight on metal announced the presence of Station 41 in orbit around the gas giant Rinal. The station serviced the ACAS ships patrolling the Edge in this sector. It was home to over three hundred full-time personnel, almost three-quarters of them vats, several of whom were busily swarming on the corvette Phobos and her recent prize capture, the Relentless.

  On board Phobos, Captain Sammeal Tallin was completing his daily log entries at his desk. Other than the computer issues that had required his stopover at Omicron, the week had been a good one for the thirty year-old captain.

  Tallin had been proud when he was posted to the Phobos. For over ten years he had served in the Spiral on the Indignant, a large carrier. There he had been a small fish in a very large pond, one in the seemingly innumerable ranks of young officers seeking promotion. The Edge was the place to be; the place where looters, smugglers, and pirates offered all sorts of chances for an ACAS officer with his eyes on the upper echelon. If he could nab a few more prizes like Relentless, and maybe combat a pirate or two, his future would be secure.

  He had just typed the last sentence, describing the taking of the Relentless when the chime on his door rang.

  “Open.” He glanced up at the silhouette found in the doorway, hands clasped behind its back. He knew from her stance it was his administrative assistant, Yeoman Lucia. The dark-haired woman stepped into his quarters and stood to attention, waiting for him to further acknowledge her. Her blue and black dress uniform revealed no blemishes, nor a crease out of place. Most of the crew typically wore fatigues, consisting of a grey tee and black cargoes, but Tallin preferred to have his yeoman in a dress uniform.

  His critical eye brushed over her a moment; her shoulder length hair was pulled back in a regulation ponytail and her shoes and belt buckle shone immaculately. His yeoman was a perfect example of efficiency and regulation: the very reason he preferred a vat in the role.

  “Something to report?” he asked.

  “Tech Officer Bowden requests that you meet him on the bridge. He says he has found something to show you.”

  It must be something Bowden wanted to keep off the transcom, Tallin thought. “Very well. Come along, yeoman,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.” She had to walk fast to keep up with the captain’s long legs, but he did not care to slow down for her.

  Together they made their way to the lift and took it up to the bridge. Generally, they spent little time in idle small talk; Tallin couldn’t see the need. All vats were programmed the same. All had the fierce loyalty and desire to fulfill the objectives of their officers. They were a means to an end. Lose ten, and the ACAS would send you ten more just like them. They would never be as resourceful or creative as a nat, so Tallin spent little time getting to know them on a personal level.

  After taking the Relentless, the Phobos had broken down on their way back from the Border. Bowden, the tech officer, had been on base at training, forcing the ship to use a tech service on Omicron to get it back up and running. They’d returned to base and now Bowden was supervising the team checking the ship’s main computer for problems.

  A separate crew was also combing the Relentless for data. Whatever they found would be used against the criminals in court. Tallin took a dim view of salvaging without a license. Those who did it deserved to be prosecuted to the fullest, in his opinion.

  The lift door opened, admitting the captain and his yeoman to the bridge.

  Bowden was jacked into the computer, his eyes unfocused as he used a hand to flip through information being fed to him via the node behind his ear.

  Tallin tapped the man on the shoulder.

  The tecker quickly disengaged from the computer and turned to them, seeing Tallin. “Yes, sir.”

  “What have you found, Ensign Bowden?”

  “Sir, there has been a security breach.”

  Tallin narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”

  Bowden pulled up a display of data on a nearby screen. “The Phobos was hacked while docked at Omicron. This is the date and time,” he pointed it out on the screen. “I’ve pulled up the security feed for both the bridge and the auxiliary computer room, and I was about to review it.”

  “Do it,” Tallin rumbled. Several of the crew, busy with other tasks, looked up nervously at his words, then their gazes skittered away. They were familiar with the sound of Tallin’s displeasure and no one wanted to be the focus of the brutal commander’s attention. Tallin thrived on intimidation.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The three of them looked on as the security feed of the bridge played out on the small monitor. There was nothing unusual there. But the auxiliary computer room footage showed something interesting. “This one,” Bowden said, pointing at the screen. “He has to be the one that hacked the system.” The dark-haired man in the video footage was obviously jacked into the computer network and working his way through data, his hands flicking as he selected, moved, and deselected items. “He’s wearing the uniform for the support company that checked our computer systems on the station.”

  “I want to know what data he stole and who this man is.”

  “I’m already working on that, sir,” Bowden replied.

  “Send me the data as soon as it’s done,” Tallin said as he stalked off the bridge without waiting for an answer, his yeoman at his heels.

  “What did you find
out from LanTech?” Beryl asked as she entered the common area and saw Tyce was back. He held up a hand to stall her and turned up the newsfeed.

  Both knew that the Coalition skewed the newsfeeds their way. Filtering through the bi-horn shit with that in mind made it possible to get an idea of what was really going on in the Edge and the Inner Spiral.

  The vid was from an ACAS ship, fighting it out with a heavily armed freighter.

  “…The pirate ship was eventually disabled and boarded by ACAS soldiers,” the female announcer was saying. “After a firefight inside the ship, the ACAS forces subdued the crew, which was made up of vats and Al-Kimians. As you may remember, twenty-three years ago, Al-Kimia was a republic of five planets. There was a border skirmish over Shalia, a water world, and the Al-Kimians withdrew. Since then, tensions have cooled. Al-Kimia has been offered Coalition membership numerous times, but each time they have voted against it.

  “Up until now, these attacks have been thought of as the actions of splinter groups, but now the situation looks grave. Some representatives are uncomfortable with vat soldiers being involved and have started calling into question the policy of releasing the lab-grown recruits after they have served their seven years of indenture. More on this later in the opinion segment of our feedcast…”

  Indenture. It was the politically correct term for a vat’s forced servitude. They should call it what it is, Tyce thought bitterly: slavery.

  Ty turned the feed off as Beryl came and sat down across from him. “I patched up so many vats during my years in the service. I always had a problem with how ACAS treats them,” she said. “Letting them out after seven years barely made it tolerable. What are they suggesting? Forcing them to stay indefinitely? It’s wrong.”

  Ty looked down at his hands, knowing they both were thinking of the Ivor Nash problem.

  “If ACAS has fixed the programming thing, staying in service might give vats a structure they’re familiar with. Not all of them do as well as Hal when they get out,” he said, but they were hollow words that he didn’t believe.

  “Not all of them have someone like you,” Beryl replied.

  Ty sighed. There was nothing they could do about any of it. Talking about it would only make him feel worse, so he just shrugged.

  “Find anything out today at LanTech?” she asked.

  He let his thoughts angle back to the problem at hand. “Yeah, LanTech has no permits available yet. Apparently, something’s happened that slowed the whole process to a halt.”

  “Did they say what it was?”

  “No. I even asked Cherise,” he said, referring to LanTech’s dispatcher. “Because we have a good record, she said as soon as we have our details, we’d get okayed. It would just take an extra day or so. Where’s Hal and Vivi?”

  “Haven’t seen them since after lunch,” Beryl said

  “Runa, locate Hal and Vivi.”

  Hal and Vivi have gone to meet Astin Fortenot.

  “Locate their handhelds, Runa,” Ty said, knowing it was the easiest way of tracking them.

  They are on lower level 12 but making their way back toward the ship.

  “Good. Send a message and tell them we’re waiting on their report.”

  “Here it is. K-245j – where the Relentless was picked up,” Hal told the rest of the crew. He zoomed in on the holo map Fortenot had given him so that the planet came into focus. The ship’s star map contained sketchy information about the small planet, listing it as an uninhabited world covered with mountains and forests.

  “We’ll do a quick survey with sensors when we get there – information’s lacking because the planet’s farther out than we usually go. We better switch out the mounts to rotary lasers, just in case we run into any trouble,” Ty said.

  “I already thought about that. I’ll do it first thing,” Hal said, making a note on his handheld.

  “The planet has some cave systems, and rich geological strata. Maybe we should gear up the Robotic Exploration Unit. Ever worked with one of those, Vivi?” Ty asked. The REU was basically a small device that contained a camera and some manipulators, used to explore a variety of environments. The drone could move on land, in the air and in water.

  Vivi shook her head, already searching the feeds for it. “I’ll figure it out, though. I’m a fast learner.”

  “C’mon. I’ll show you where it’s at,” Hal offered.

  “Don’t stay up too late,” Tyce warned. “If this is a good find, we might be working some extended hours. We leave tomorrow morning as soon as Cherise clears us.” He knew that Hal would work through the night if he didn’t stop him. “Obviously, I’ve only given her a rough idea of where we’re going. Should take us a few days to get out that far, so plenty of time to get all the prep work done.”

  “Aww, c’mon, Cap. Who needs sleep?” Hal said.

  “Who needs sleep? You do,” Ty replied. “And that’s a direct order.”

  “OK,” Hal rolled his eyes. “Come on, Veevs, I’ll show you the REU.”

  Now that they had a destination and an estimated time of departure, Hal seemed to Vivi to be much more relaxed. He’d been brooding for the last two days, trying to stay occupied while they waited for a permit, but once he had been given a goal, he was laser focused once again.

  They went down the hall, past the crew quarters to the equipment room. “So, how long have you shipped with Tyce?” Vivi asked.

  “You mean after the ACAS or all together?” He glanced at her as if wondering why she was asking.

  “All together.”

  “About nine years. I did my first two years on five different ships that patrolled the Border.”

  “So, you got transferred a lot,” she observed.

  “Nah. More like handed off. I was considered part of a bad batch. Fought a bit too much.”

  “No!” She feigned surprise, to which he grinned.

  “Yeah. Before Ty, I spent some time in the brig. OK… a lot of time,” he said to the pointed look she shot him. “One of the Colonels decided to transfer me to Ty’s outfit. I spent my last five years with him as my captain.” Hal paused, and Vivi guessed he was thinking back to his time in service. “I did a lot better with Ty.”

  “What did Tyce do that was different?” Vivi asked.

  “Don’t know. He never made me feel like I wanted to buck him. I think he just knows how to lead people.” They reached the supply room and Hal began going through the contents of one of the lockers. “He knows how to listen if you have a better idea for something. He…” Hal searched for the right word, “values his people’s ideas. Most of the others didn’t. They didn’t think that a vat would have a thought worth hearing. But Ty… he’s different.”

  “I’m sorry the others treated you like that, Hal.”

  He looked up from the bag he was tugging out of the locker, his expression one of genuine surprise. His mouth worked for a second as if he didn’t know what to say, and his open expression was completely new to her. Hal scratched his head for a minute as if she’d totally perplexed him, then he blinked and shook it off. “Um… yeah. It’s all good. I wasn’t going for sympathy or anything.”

  She started to reply, but decided to change the subject, sensing that she’d said the wrong thing somehow. “OK, so show me this REU…”

  The Loshad was underway before 0700 the next morning, within minutes of getting the permit confirmed by Cherise. The crew had worked on getting the ship prepared for the Border most of the previous day. As soon as they shipped out, Hal set up the ship’s lasers and ran a few diagnostics from the gunner’s position on the bridge. Beryl was kept busy organizing and stowing the supplies and rations she’d had delivered to the ship the day before. By the end of their first day, Vivi had developed some competency with the Robotic Exploration Unit and managed to fly it around the cargo hold.

  Once they’d settled into their quarters for the evening, Vivi scanned the feeds for information about forests and cave systems until late in the night. She’d grown up
on an arctic planet with her family, so she had little experience with the type of biomes they would encounter on K-245j.

  She was lying on her stomach, dozing over the information in her bunk, her head pillowed on her forearm when she heard a thump. She lifted her head, looking around with wide eyes, but things were quiet. The thrum of the engines sounded normal, she thought, as she checked the time on her handheld. It was after 0100 hours.

  Yawning she sat up and powered down her device when she heard the same thump again. Then, just faintly, a voice sounded in the cabin next to hers. Hal’s room.

  Might as well check it out, she thought, tugging her tank down over her sleep pants. The metal deck was chilly on her bare feet and made her shiver. She stepped outside and over to his door where she knocked. No answer, but the talking continued.

  “Hal. I know you’re up. Everything OK?” she said, knocking again and feeling a small knot forming in her stomach. “What’s wrong?”

  There was a sudden silence, and she didn’t like that either. Hands shaking a little, she typed in an override code for the lock system. She had to key it twice before the door slid open.

  “Hal?”

  The lights in the room were low, but she could see immediately that Hal wasn’t in his bunk. The sheets and blankets had been shoved to the floor. She took two steps forward when she heard his voice to the left of her, followed by the metallic scrape of metal sliding on metal.

  “I am the fist of the ACAS… In war I am strength. I bring the justice of the Coalition to its enemies…” Hal’s voice had a blankness that made the hairs on the back of Vivi’s neck prickle. “Victory is mine. I will gladly fight to the death…” There was another scraping sound. And another. Hal was seated at the built-in table on the other side of the room, his back to her. She could see pieces of a weapon strewn about the desk in front of him. He was assembling it as he recited his warrior’s creed.

  “I do not surrender to exhaustion or fear…”

  Snap.

  “I am steadfast and tenacious in the face of adversity…”

  Scrape.