Slab City Blues - The Collected Stories: All Five Stories in One Volume (17 page)

Chapter 4

“All set?” Mina
asked in my earphones.

I placed the neural interface on my forehead, checked the diagnostic reads a final time and flexed the Pendragon’s arms. “All boards reading green,” I replied.

“Good. Standby, two minutes to launch.”

The ship’s internal comms gave me a vid-feed of the cargo bay where Jack and Uhlstan were checking their weapons: squat Ruger M-90 carbines suited to close-quarters combat. Uhlstan also had his Ithaca strapped to his back whilst Jack wore a sword-size combat knife on his thigh. They were clad in high-grade body armour and respirators, the plan being to advance behind a cloud of tear gas, thermal imagers providing an edge in the confusion.

“Don’t hang around out there when the bots start fighting each other,” Lucy told me. I could see her strapped into the pilot’s station in the core, neural interface on her forehead, hands moving smoothly over her holo-board. “Wouldn’t want to leave you behind.”

“Sixty seconds,” Mina said.

“Maddux,” Jack said, looking directly into the camera and speaking in slow deliberate tones. “Do not abuse my trust.”

“All about the work, cap’n. Ahoy and avast.”

“Twenty seconds…”

I had one last item to check, an internal addition to the starboard plasma nacelle, cylindrical in shape and forty centimetres long. The casing was lead-titanium composite meaning its rad signature was only a tenth of what it should have been, any excess would be taken for slightly elevated energy loss, well within parameters for a suit of this mark. All readings came back as normal but I couldn’t help the faint upswell of discomfort as I watched it spin in the display.

“Five, four, three, two…”

I disengaged the mag-clamps holding the suit to the deck, floating free for the final second before the airlock doors opened and the decompression took me out.

“Net configuration conforms to the expected pattern,” Mina reported via the comms laser. “You are free to engage.”

Even at four klicks distance the Malthus II was an impressive sight, brightly lit from end to end, a dim orange glow emerging from the massive processing tube as the smelting plant did its work. There were some asteroid fragments floating about but nothing the Pendragon’s nav couldn’t handle. I used up about half the CO2 reserve to get within striking distance, short bursts along an irregular approach vector, targeting icons continually sprouting on the heads-up as the suit detected more and more bots.

“Unidentified vessel, this is Exocore Security aboard the Malthus II. State your designation and purpose.” First hail from the Malthus II, relayed via the comms laser.

“Malthus II, this is deep-belt salvage vessel Dead Reckoning,” Mina responded. “We are licensed to operate in this area. I’m transmitting our ident codes now.”

“Wait one, Dead Reckoning. Please initiate full braking burn while we check these out.”

“Oh screw you,” Mina said, every bit the world-weary freelancer. “Exocore may have millions to spend on fuel, but I don’t. Our vector is well clear of your sky and you know it.”

There was a pause and another voice came on the line, female, clipped to military precision, faint West African accent. “Not clear enough for my liking, Dead Reckoning. Burn to a full stop now. This is not a suggestion and I’ll remind you we have authority to employ lethal force.”

That’s no rent-a-cop,
I decided.
Who’s really running security
here
?

“Maddux!” Mina said urgently, switching frequencies.

“Fifteen seconds to target,” I replied, the threat icon of the bot I’d chosen growing ever larger in the heads-up.

“Comply now or you will be fired upon,” the African woman stated.

“OK, OK,” Mina responded. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, sister. Disengaging secondary thrusters now.” A click as she switched frequencies. “Jack, this is starting to smell wrong.”

Last-minute caution. Not good.
“Ten seconds to target,” I said.

“I’m pretty sure we don’t have ten seconds,” Mina responded. “Jack, we should abort…“

Shit.
I engaged the plasma thrusters and accelerated towards the target bot, spraying lidar beams in a random pattern, multiple warning signals merging into a scream as the heads-up blazed red and the bots began their algorithmic dance. The target bot was now fully aware of my presence so attaching Markov’s shrike was out of the question. I blasted it with a heat seeker from six hundred metres, overwhelming its defensive sensors with a tight-focused EMP. A brief yellow flash illuminating tumbling debris and it was gone.

The closest bots swarmed towards me, weapons active, the tell-tale yellow flares of multiple missile launches dancing across my field of vision. I waited until they were six seconds from impact, fired the plasma thrusters at maximum for a full two seconds then activated the stealth mode. The missile trails intersected less than fifty metres away, proximity fuses igniting a split second later, the momentum from the plasma burst carrying me free of the blast radius, but only just.

I kept drifting, watching the bots commence their search pattern, waiting until one came close enough. It braked to a halt less than a hundred metres away, turning with sensors blaring, provoking an electronic hiss in my ears as the beams swept over the Pendragon’s invisible carapace. The bot finished its scan then angled itself for a return to its allotted patrol zone. I disengaged stealth mode and let fly with Markov’s shrike. The bot’s sensors blared a warning but it had no time for a counter, the depleted uranium tip punching through the armored core to deliver its cargo. I judged Markov had been a little conservative in his estimate from the way the bot instantly turned and blasted its nearest comrade to pieces in a hail of mini-gun fire. Soon the space around the Malthus II was lit by multiple explosions and streaking missiles as the defensive net turned on itself.

“Net’s down,” I reported to the Dead Reckoning. “Now or never, cap’n.”

“Lucy, take us in,” Jack ordered.

“I still say we should abort…“ Mina began but Lucy had already powered up the Dead Reckoning’s secondary thrusters, the freighter blazing towards the Malthus II through a cloud of disintegrated bots. I followed at a discreet distance, ordering the Pendragon’s nav to calculate a course to the comms array.

“Brace for impact,” Lucy said a second before the Dead Reckoning turned on its tail, retros firing, the momentum slamming her hard against an airlock on the starboard side of the hab-cluster.

“Override running,” Markov reported.

A pause, then Jack came on, voice hard with impatience. “Should be open by now.”

“I know,” Markov replied. “Their security codes are a little more exotic than expected is all. Having to hack on the fly here. Wait one… Got it.”

“We’re in,” Jack said a second later, a burst of carbine fire in the background. I had a feed from his helmet cam and could make out Uhlstan’s dim bulk propelling through the haze of tear gas, lit by the occasional muzzle-flash as he ruthlessly suppressed any resistance.

“Few more than expected, boss,” he said, firing again.

“Time you earned your pay.” Jack’s carbine came up, muzzle flash obscuring the view for a moment as it blasted at a shadow in the fog. “There. The tubeway on the left.”

The cacophony of the moving firefight continued to assail my ears as I burned towards the comms array, halting at the lip of the main dish. I found an access node and ripped the covering away with the Pendragon’s powered gauntlet, plucking a probe from a compartment in the suit’s arm and plugging it into the data-port. The Colonel had hackers of his own, some that made Markov look like a remedial dumbass. The hack they had hidden in the Pendragon’s memory made short work of the Malthus II’s firewalls and I was soon looking at her navigation logs.

Job done,
I reflected as the suit downloaded the data. It was time to plant my little gift and be on my merry way, though the prospect of a seventy-two hour wait for my extraction boat was hardly edifying… I paused as something unexpected came up on the data-feed. A schematic for a ship of unfamiliar design, sinister in its sleekness, and scrolling alongside it a full set of operational parameters. To say they made for sobering reading is something of an understatement as the Colonel’s words loomed large.
It’s a myth that it ever ended.

“Bastards!” I rasped

“Say again?” Mina asked.

“Nothing.” I left the probe in place and burned towards the Dead Reckoning at full power, calling up a tactical readout of the Malthus II’s interior via the data probe.

“Maddux, what are you doing?” Mina demanded.

“You were right, OK? You should have aborted and dear old Jack is about to find out why.”

Jack’s voice came on again, “We’re at the suite. Hold them back whilst I secure the safe.”

“Pretty hot out here, boss,” Uhlstan replied. Via his cam I could see the tear gas had faded to a light mist, multiple muzzle flashes visible in the tubeway beyond.

“Thirty seconds,” Jack said, a power drill making powder of the wall around the captain’s safe.

I killed the plasma and glided to a halt under the Dead Reckoning’s main port thruster. The tactical showed Jack and Uhlstan as two green dots in the centre of the hab cluster surrounded on all sides by at least a hundred red, edging closer by the second. I flushed the remaining plasma from the starboard nacelle and disengaged it from the main body of the suit, power-gauntlets ripping it open to find the cylinder inside.
No time for finesse.
I activated the device’s mag-clamp and lodged it within the rim of the thruster, kicking back and angling towards the hull of the Malthus II. A quick scan of the tactical gave me an entry point, an exhaust port forty metres from the main airlock.

“Got the safe,” Jack reported. “On our way back.”

Dream on, Jack.

I propelled towards the exhaust port on CO2, finding it sealed by a solid looking hatch.

“Need a hack for that?” Markov asked, reading my approach vector.

“I’ve got it.” I accessed the probe and initiated the contingency hack the Colonel’s people had included in case of primary mission failure. The Malthus II’s security network collapsed under an intense deluge of virus-ware, millions of self-replicating code-bots overwhelming the firewalls in less than a second, giving me unrestricted access to all systems. The exhaust port duly irised open and I steered the Pendragon inside.

“Goddammit!” Jack swore, carbine firing empty before he pulled himself to cover, the tubeway behind alive with tracer. “Get more gas out there.”

“Waste of time,” I advised, barrelling along the exhaust pipe at fifty klicks per hour. “They’re wearing full combat gear, respirators and armour. Best if you hunker down for a moment, Cap.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Trust me. Just sit tight.”

I accessed the internal comms and had my voice relayed to the whole ship. “Attention officer commanding Malthus II. This is Chief Inspector Alex McLeod, Lorenzo City Police Department, acting with full Coalition authority. The actions of this vessel are in contravention of the Dublin Accords, rendering it subject to immediate seizure. All personnel will stand down and await lawful arrest or face executive action. This is your only warning.”

A half-second pause as I angled the suit to account for a curve in the exhaust pipe, the air-seals opening to allow passage as I reprogrammed the internal sub-routines to recognise me as a maintenance bot
.

“Attack on a civilian vessel,” the African woman replied in my headphones. “Is also a treaty violation.”

“Like this is a civilian vessel, Captain,” I replied. “Or is it Admiral? I’ve seen your logs. I know what you’re about. You’ve been very naughty.”

“Then you should be aware of the odds,” she replied. “And it’s Commander. You realise I’m in no position to take you into custody?”

“Who asked you? By the way, you should check your life support status. I shut the system down ten seconds ago. If I were you I’d be heading for the lifeboats about now.”

The pipe terminus was rapidly approaching, widening out into a series of smaller vents too tight for the Pendragon. I checked the tactical map and confirmed my position as two decks below Jack and Uhlstan.

“I also disengaged the fire containment system,” I told the commander. “Just so you know.”

I pointed the Pendragon’s gauntlets at the ceiling, the smooth metal parting to reveal the cannons. A three second burst from a cocktail belt of 20 mm armour piercing and high-ex was enough to punch an adequate hole through to the next deck. I was met by a Fed Sec squad in the tubeway beyond, five of them moving in coordinated micro-grav combat formation, firing their carbines in a well-practised relay.
Elite troops,
I surmised.
Special Recon or Assault Commandos. Hardest of
hardcore.

I saved on ammo and went through them, lashing out with power-assisted limbs in a preprogrammed martial arts display, the carbine rounds leaving little scratches on the Pendragon’s carapace as they fought to the end.
Commandos,
I decided as the suit’s fist crushed the skull of the last one.
Recon would have had the brains to
withdraw.

“Jack,” I said, raising the gauntlet cannons once more. “I need you to move to the left about ten metres.”

“What the fuck is going on here?” he demanded.

“You heard my announcement,” I replied, the tactical confirming he had complied with my request.

“Yeah, big bad Demon from the Slab. Am I supposed to be impressed? I’ve killed and eaten worse than you, boy.”

“I’m crushed.” The gauntlets flared again, a section of tubeway disintegrating in a haze of rent and molten metal. I kicked through, cannon blazing, tearing apart another commando squad, limbs and shattered torsos spinning in the swirling smoke.

Jack was crouched behind a bulkhead, empty carbine drifting nearby, his sword-like combat knife in hand, ocular implant gleaming red and hateful. “This is the only chance you’ll get,” he promised through gritted teeth.