Tales from the Service: The Haunted Hauler

2947-08-13 – Tales from the Service: The Haunted Hauler 

Fifth Fleet intelligence has relayed some sort of secret dossier to commanders. Most of my contacts deny having seen the so-called “Benedict Dispatch” but datasphere rumors inside and outside the fleet are full of speculation as to its contents. Several purported leaked copies of this payload are making their rounds, but as they are contradictory and unverifiable, Cosmic Background is going to play it safe and not report the contents of any of these competing versions yet, and not only because that will keep us in Naval Intelligence’s good graces. 

I will say that about a third of my contacts seem to have grown ten years older since I last talked to them, and that all these contacts are flag captains or senior officers. I’m going to take a wild guess that these are the persons who are in on the Benedict secret, and that whatever was in that file is not helping anybody sleep at night. 

There might be other things preventing Navy spacers from sleeping at night – this ghost story has been making the rounds ever since Saint-Lô had its last resupply. Apparently, it came aboard from the supply ship’s crew. 

Tyler S. stared blearily at his display and reached for the long-cold cup of synthetic coffee perched on its edge. Into his third shift without a break or a breakthrough, the ship’s maintenance woes had evolved from a thorny puzzle into a taunting demonic horror coiling through the eighty-year-old cruiser’s bowels. 

“Have you been here since I left?” 

Tyler started so violently at the unexpected voice behind him that he sloshed coffee on his uniform. The smart-fabric shrugged off the liquid easily as he staggered to his feet, but disheveled and dripping spilled coffee was no way to greet his shift lead. “Lieutenant. Is it third shift again already?” 

“Not quite.” Lieutenant Yasmine Brankovic stepped into the maintenance annex, her perfectly creased uniform at odds with Tyler’s twenty-six-hour grime. “I’m three hours early. I figured someone would still be on this... But I didn’t expect it to be you.” 

Tyler glanced back at the corner of his display to verify her claim. His shift started again in three hours, and he had not slept since before the previous one. “Mack and Penny are following cables on level six. Each time we think we have the problem patched, it only comes back worse. It’s like it’s alive or something.” 

“Captain is probably fuming.” Yasmine reached out to take the half-empty coffee cup from his hands. “We told him this would be fixed by 0800 yesterday.” 

“Thank you, Lieutenant Obvious.” The third shift on any crew always tended to be overly familiar with each other, but Brankovic encouraged a crass atmosphere on her maintenance crew which would get her written up on most crews. Since she served aboard a hastily-refitted supply hauler running equipment, her improper discipline earned nothing but rolled eyes from the senior staff. “It might be faster to go steal another hull out of a breaker’s yard at this point.” 

“We should be so lucky.” Yasmine took Tyler’s place at the console, where the first thing she did was put in a remote request for fresh coffee. “Get some sleep, I’ll cover for you until at least 0400.” 

“I’d rather stay on.” Brushing the last few droplets of coffee off his uniform, Tyler shook his head. “We’ve almost got it this time. I’m certain of it.” 

“You said that at 1530.” Yasmine tapped through the display settings until she found the map indicating the locations of the other two members of her shift crew. “And again at 1800. And...” 

“You’ve made your point.” Tyler caught a clever grin on his superior officer’s face as she bent over the console. “I’m going.” 

Heading out into the dingy corridor, Tyler headed for the ladder shaft rather than the still-broken lift. His shared cabin being on deck nine, he stopped first on deck six, wandering in the general direction of the cable runs Mack was tracing. The vaguest idea of helping for a few minutes bounced about in his head, intermixed with the scattered detritus of his triple shift. They were close – he knew it – if only he could think properly for ten minutes, he’d have it solved. 

An open access panel caught Tyler’s attention, and he stopped in the otherwise empty corridor to peer inside. “Mack! Need anything before I clock out?" 

The call echoed in the narrow maintenance tunnels without reply. Tyler checked his pockets for his comm, and cursed – he’d left it in the duty annex. There was another in his cabin, of course, but that was no closer. 

“Mack, how’s it going?” 

There was still no answer, though Tyler thought he heard a scuffing sound deep in the tunnel. Grumbling, he climbed in, determined to check in with his compatriot before surrendering to the call of the top bunk. 

The scuffing sound, joined at odd intervals by a clinking and a rushing sound as if of venting gas, led Tyler on, deeper into the tunnel than he would have expected Mack to need to go for a simple cable trace. Something seemed off, but putting off the siren song of the bunk took most of his remaining attention. “Come on, Mack.” 

The sounds ahead stopped suddenly, and light footsteps padded on the hollow maintenance tunnel deck. Tyler couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like they were retreating away from him. 

“Mack, this isn’t funny.” Tyler redoubled his pace, just in time to trip over a tangle of cabling strewn across the half-lit deck. “What the-” 

Before he could finish his question, the pile of cables squirmed as if alive, twisting its way up Tyler’s body and binding his jaw shut. Perhaps he had been right in his grumbling – perhaps the problem wasn’t a maintenance fault. Perhaps the ship’s antiquated systems really were alive, and fighting back. 

Struggling madly against the cables, Tyler tried to scream, but the sound went nowhere. As the cables wound around him, he felt the breath forced out of his lungs – the living systems would protect their secrets, even if it apparently meant killing a few maintenance techs. Had Mack and Penny succumbed to the same malicious machinery? 

“There you are!” It was Mack’s voice. The beam of a maintenance torch blinded Tyler for a moment, and strong hands seized the cabling crushing his lungs. “What the hell have you gotten into down here?” 

Details

Tales from the Service: The Cursed Callahar

Tales from the Service: The Cursed Callahar 

Saint-Lô is going to be a far more comfortable place to watch this war than either Nojus or myself expected. It has more pressure hull volume than Anselmi spaceport in Håkøya, and a similar crew compliment.  

Nojus and I will be sharing a cabin, and our techs will be sharing a second cabin. Our team is the only media presence aboard the ship, as the other media outfits who have sent embed teams have been distributed somewhat evenly throughout the heavy elements of the Fifth Fleet. The ship's skipper, Captain Jayendra Liao, is an occasional Cosmic Background media consumer, mostly of the vidcast series, and he has been quite welcoming. 

While he can't tell us (or this audience) anything about the fleet's plans for security reasons, the captain wanted me to assure this audience that he means to provide us with a very good view of the action. I'm not sure if I like the sound of that, but Nojus is pleased that we have landed on a "fighting ship" - as if there's another kind of battleship. 

I suppose Dawnglider is another kind of battleship. The museum kind, which stays parked in orbit back at Centauri and never fires its weapons except as part of memorial ceremonies. It wouldn't be much good to cover the war from a cabin there, though. 

Today’s entry is a story I can’t confirm; Naval Intelligence is not treating it as credible, but Nojus was convinced enough to shuttle over to one of the fleet’s support ships to interview the story’s source. Having seen the interview (portions of which will be featured on the main vidcast later this week), I can only say I am convinced that the source, a junior logistics officer named Qillak Falk, believes his story to be truth. He has no images to back it up, but one of his crew-mates (who features in his account) asserts that she saw the imagery, if only briefly. The accident aboard the tanker ship which claimed the life of the skipper is very real, but it was attributed to an orbital debris collision, not to any form of attack or sabotage.

“Mister Falk, would you please explain to me what this is?” 

Qillak Falk studied his shoes for a moment, before looking up at his skipper. “Battle trophy, sir.” 

“Lieutenant, this is a victuals ship. We don’t take battle trophies.” The skipper tossed the offending object dismissively onto his desk, where it clattered to a stop just short of the edge. “Where did you get it?” 

Qillak studied his prize carefully. He had analyzed its composition the day he’d acquired it; the object was made of a rather complex titanium alloy with an odd crystalline structure. He’d proved it was safe; no nanoparticles, no circuitry on any scale, no power sources. As far as he could tell, his battle trophy was nothing but an alien ornament, scorched on one side by the fiery death of its owner. “Delaney and I found it while we were servicing Brook Montana, skipper. There was some other stuff as well, but I think he bartered all his bits already.” 

“Montana... That was a week ago.” The skipper winced. “You idiots had time to go all the way to the battle-site and sift the debris without anyone noticing?” 

“Well...” Qillak returned his gaze to his shoes. “We were out catching a tank of nutrient slurry that got loose.” It had been Qillak’s fault the tank had snapped its lines and tumbled free, but nobody had noticed. 

The look of utter disdain with which the skipper fixed Qillak informed him that his fault for the incident would be duly recorded. “Get out of my office. This gets offloaded to Intelligence the moment we get back to Maribel. If you ever go on another unauthorized salvage expedition, you will be scrubbing the bio-waste tanks with a dental pick for the rest of the tour.” 

“Aye, Skipper.” Qillak saluted and retreated into the corridor, still cringing. The ornament had no intelligence value, of course; it would be used as a paperweight on some Naval Intelligence paper-pusher's desk. He wanted something to take home, something to set next to the Taixha knife his great grandfather had claimed as a ground-pounder in the Terran-Rattanai War, and the tattered tapestry-like ornament his father had collected from a dead ship after Cold Refuge. Consigned to the logistics service, he knew the ornament had been his only chance to place a new heirloom in the family reliquary, and he’d blown it by bragging to the wrong people. 

Given the minor skirmish which had left the debris field, it was a wonder they’d found anything bigger than metal splinters. Qillak had pulled the records after he’d returned with his prize – Brook Montana and three other light cruisers had chased off a single Tyrant before it could raid a backwater colony’s orbital installations. A few drone-sized launches had been destroyed, and the Tyrant had slugged it out with one of the cruisers inconclusively before retreating. Short of a miraculous hull breach evacuating an officer’s quarters, there was no reason for an odd, decorative paperweight and a few other curios to be left behind, floating in space. 

Grumbling, Qillak boarded the lift and headed down to his quarters. He’d bragged about his prize to everyone, and now his off-shift activities would be ruined by inability to back up the tale. He had stills of the object and the odd markings on its surface, but not the hard evidence of his little expedition. Delaney would back him up, but his word was not entirely useful; the manipulator arm operator was a notorious exaggerator. 

“Gee, for a guy who’s got me waiting outside his cabin, you look pretty glum.” 

Qillak looked up at his visitor. “Good to see you, Lisbet.” The smile on her face was infectious. Petty Officer Lisbet Akiyama had occupied a place of honor in Qillak’s daydreams since the ship had left the Core Worlds, and it had taken the mostly-true tale of recovering a miraculous find for him to finally catch her attention. Now, she would never believe him. “Sorry, the skipper just got finished chewing me out.” 

“For what?” Lisbet stepped aside and let Qillak key open his cabin door. “Oh wait, let me guess. Your battle trophy.” 

“Yeah.” Qillak held the door open. “I still have still shots in the computer, but the real thing is on his desk right now, and I’m not getting it back.” 

Lisbet sighed, but followed him inside the cabin. “I told you to keep it to yourself. Still, I’m curious what it looks like.” 

She had, of course, but by the time she had, it was far too late. Humoring his promise of images was likely little more than a polite gesture. Qillak had promised an alien curio, and he had failed to deliver. His chances with Lisbet had collapsed, and he knew it. Waving her to the cabin’s tiny desk, he called up his personal archive. “Here you go.” 

The image that appeared above the desk, rendered in life-size holo-imagery, proved that Qillak had not completely made the story up, but Lisbet had no proof of the image’s unaltered state. The object looked something like a knife, though its double-curved handle resembled no functional knife he had ever seen, and its blade was a squared-off peg with no point or sharp edges. An ellipsoidal disk sat between these two parts like a guard, and its false-blade bore a complex pattern of triangular impressions, and the inside of each impression had been darkened to set them apart from the otherwise shiny metal. A severe scorch-mark marred the pattern, likely caused by whatever catastrophe had set the object adrift in space. 

Lisbet leaned in to examine the image eagerly, then drew back in alarm. “Qillak, this... This isn’t an alien curio.” 

“What?” He frowned at the image, then turned to face his guest. “What do you mean?” 

“This is a callahar. A Ladeonist calling-card. There’s a code to those tick-marks...” 

Qillak looked back at the image. He saw no trace of human markings on it, only triangular impressions in an oblong dome of alloy which the computer had not matched to any human make. “How do you know that?” 

“Listen, we need to warn the skipper. Whoever holds a callahar is marked for death, whether or not they are the intended target.” 

“Unless you think there are Ladeonists on the crew, I don’t think-” 

Lisbet grabbed Qillak’s shoulder. “We need to go warn the-” 

The hologram vanished, interrupting her terrified insistence. A moment later, the lights went out as well. Before either could react, the lights came back on, and Qillak’s desk console began to reboot. When it did come back up, it displayed a rotating error indicator rather than the image. 

The overhead speakers came to life immediately as well. “Damage control to deck three, forward!” 

Lisbet shook her head, stunned. “Officer’s quarters. We’re too late.” 

Qillak took her arm and rushed to the lift, taking it back up to deck three. Sure enough, they found the damage control team standing by a sealed emergency bulkhead halfway down the corridor, each of them pale as a sheet. 

“Was anyone in there?” Qillak knew the answer, but he still hoped he was wrong. 

One of them turned to acknowledge the newcomers. “Aye. The skipper, Mr. Falk. We don’t know anything yet. Let us handle this.” 

Lisbet seized Qillak’s wrist and dragged him back toward the lift. “Whoever holds a callahar is marked for death.” She kept her voice low, to keep her reminder from distracting the damage control team. “Hopefully it’s out in the void again, where it belongs.” 

Qillak, despite losing his imagery as well as his trophy, couldn’t help but agree. 

Details

Tales from the Service: Tyrant in the Mist

2947-07-30 – Tales from the Service: Tyrant in the Mist 

This week, Nojus and I crossed to the Maribel system. Though I dispatch this feed item from my bunk aboard a personnel carrier, we got our first proper look at the ship we’ll be embedded aboard, the battleship Saint-Lô. We will dock at the fleet service station and transfer aboard Saint-Lô in about five shifts, give or take any wait for berthing availability at the station. 

Our ship is hardly the newest hull in the fleet; she was laid down only a few years after the end of the Terran-Rattanai War. In fact, I did some research – the average age of the hulls in the Fifth Fleet’s heavy core is fifty-three years. Most of these ships are older than I am – and some of them, including ours, are even older than Nojus! 

Despite their age, the battlewagons of Fifth Fleet are all freshly modernized, carrying the best weaponry and defensive systems available anywhere. Most of the fleet units, and all of its heavy elements, have been refitted in the last five years. 

Several of you have submitted similar accounts to that of Price posted last week. Interestingly enough, some of the more detailed examples are dated months ago. The pattern is the same – a mysterious person with visible counter-human alterations (usually head implants) infiltrates a civilian (or mercenary) installation or vessel, commits sabotage, and escapes. Nanotechnological weaponry is used in most stories, and in some it is used in spaces with nanoparticle alarms, only triggering the alarms when the weaponry is used. 

The sabotage committed is varied – ships are crippled, manufacturing is halted, nutrient slurry fouled, computers corrupted, and so on. It seems almost entirely random, almost as if the Ladeonists – I can think of no other likely culprit for this activity, even if this type of agent is a new innovation for them – have been quietly testing the infrastructure of the Frontier in preparation for a major uprising here. 

Our Naval Intelligence representatives are interested in this trend, as am I; your submissions have been shared with them, and I am sifting through looking for one or two stellar examples to post in this space.  

This week’s account comes from a destroyer skipper whose cabin adjoined mine in transit. She had just returned from an action on the far side of the Gap which didn’t go her way, but it never could have. Most of the bridge crew survived to be picked up from the ruined ship by a service vessel which arrived just after the Sagittarians departed, but the rest of the crew was lost. 

Mirjam paced back and forth in the narrow center aisle of the destroyer’s bridge, wondering what was taking her scouting launches so long. Both had been deployed from their parasite cradles to scout the complex, dense ring system around an unnamed planet, and both had lost comms contact shortly after entering the rings. The sensor techs had showed her a report that detailed the high iron content of the ring debris, explaining the loss of signal, but their graphs didn’t make Mirjam feel any more at ease. 

If Mirjam had been able to exercise her better judgement, she would have bypassed the ringed planet, spectacular though it was. Her little destroyer and its thirty-three crew – six of them now somewhere out there in the scouts – was way out ahead of the squadron, which was itself one of only two small groups trying to patrol Confederated holdings on the far side of the vast, empty Sagittarius Gap. She had never felt more alone. Orders were orders, however, and hers were to examine every part of the system that might house an enemy listening-post. 

The two scouts – little more than stripped-down Magpie gunships with extra sensor gear bolted on – were far from unarmed, even if they were not meant as strike platforms. Theoretically, they could handle anything small enough to hide easily in the rings, and outrun anything bigger. Mirjam, of course, didn’t trust theory to hold up at the bleeding edge of things. The Sagittarians were still the masters of the Sagittarius Frontier, and they didn’t have any intention of letting something so immaterial as a theory dictate their defeat. 

“Contact!” One of the sensor techs announced. “One small ship breaking free of the rings.” The smart-glass panel at the front of the bridge highlighted the spot and zoomed in on a reflective speck. It was moving fast – too fast for the situation to be routine. 

“Ours?” 

“Affirmative. IFF exchanged. They want a direct line to the bridge.” 

Mirjam nodded. “Put them through.” 

A moment later, the bridge overhead speakers crackled to life. “Skipper, we need to get the hell out of here!” 

Even as he shouted, two more specks burst free of the ring dust, pursuing the scout ship. On the magnified display, Mirjam saw faint clouds of glowing railshot spray from the scout’s turret, trying to dissuade its pursuers. 

The panic in the pilot’s voice and the presence of Sagittarian strike ships confirmed Mirjam’s worst fears. The tiny, agile attack launches had very limited endurance; their base or ship was nearby. “Battle-stations. Cover them and get me a course for the grav limit.” 

The alarm didn’t wait for the bridge crew to process the order; it began wailing immediately. “The other scout will never make it-” 

“If they’re still alive, they know the protocol.” Leaving three spacers to drift stealthily in a hostile system until Navy forces returned cut Mirjam to the core, but she knew what she had to do. The scouts were outfitted for just such a situation, after all. 

The hum of the destroyer’s drive changed pitch, and the view in front of the bridge heeled over at a wild angle as the navigation systems plotted the most direct course to the edge of the planet’s grav shadow. The inset displaying the fleeing scout remained, however, and Mirjam watched the little ship trace wild arcs of evasive action to prevent the Sagittarian pursuers from drawing close enough for a kill-shot. The high-power energy beams used by the alien strike craft had limited range, but a direct hit could easily rip a gunship in half. 

As Mirjam watched her three compatriots fight for their lives, several more Sagittarian launches burst from the ring cloud at top speed. These angled not toward the fleeing scout, but directly toward Mirjam’s destroyer. 

“Screens! Point defense!” Mirjam knew her ship couldn’t fend off more than a few of the attackers at once, and that they were far faster than her ship. The destroyer’s only hope was to widen the distance between itself and whatever hanger they had launched from. “Emergency acceleration. Damage control to standby.” 

As the crew scrambled to fulfill her orders, Mirjam heard the rattle of railgun fire as the banks of weapons near the bridge opened up. Streams of glowing projectiles spewed forth to put up a hedge of death between the Sagittarians and their prey. It would only slow them down, but perhaps it would make the difference. 

“New drive signature on the boards.” 

The officer’s calm announcement plunged Mirjam’s cautious hope into the depths of despair. “Damn. Get it on the display.” 

Another inset appeared next to the view of the embattled scout, this time showing an innocuous part of the dusty ring. Just as she was beginning to think the report might be in error, Mirjam saw the predator’s prow of a Tyrant cruiser push its way free of the dust, its bluish armor-plate marred by clinging debris. A dozen or more motes – more strike ships – poured forth around it. “How the hell did they-” 

Mirjam never heard the rest of her subordinate’s question. Where Sagittarian strike-launches had only short-ranged weapons, a Tyrant did not. The powerful energy beam that killed Mirjam’s ship crossed the distance between them at the speed of light and tore its bowels open in the space between words. There was a crash and the rush of escaping air, and Mirjam’s world went dark. 

Details

Tales from the Service: A Stowaway Saboteur

2947-07-23 – Tales from the Service: A Stowaway Saboteur

Nojus and I will be leaving Håkøya for Maribel before the next post appears in this space. Once there, we will complete final certification (even Nojus has to go through a few of the cert-courses this time) and find out where the Navy will assign us.  

I must admit I’ll be sorry to see this system disappear behind a drive-wake. It’s quaint in so many ways, but its charming combination of modern, extensive orbital infrastructure and bucolic nature-preserve planetary surface with few natural hazards has grown on me. I’ll admit, I was certain when I shipped out of Planet at Centauri that no other place would ever feel like home – at Håkøya I found out rather quickly that I was wrong. 

One final note about the place before we get to this week’s entry. Though Hakoya contains the third-largest orbital service docks on the Coreward Frontier and so far since declaration of hostilities has been vastly over-garrisoned by the Fifth Fleet, the population has been uneasy since the foiled Ladeonist incursion several weeks ago. A segment of the population has concluded that once the fleet sorties out to hunt the perhaps dozen Tyrant ships raiding the Frontier, the system will be left exposed, easy prey for an attack. 

The reason for these fears is simple – most of the system’s orbital infrastructure is civilian, with almost no permanent naval defenses. The Navy cannot afford to make a fortress of every colony system in range of Sagittarian raiding expeditions, especially with only a few weeks since hostilities formally began. Still, I sympathize with Håkøyan concerns along these lines, which I’m sure are echoed in many other colonial outposts throughout the region. I see no way to make everyone happy. 

Today’s entry was submitted by someone we’ll call Price, the chief of security aboard a small mercenary carrier currently in the Strand on contract with one of the system authorities. Because of the nature of the events described and their relation to ongoing intelligence matters, I cannot give Price’s real name, the name of his ship, or the system in which this story took place. Suffice to say that the incident described resulted in sabotage to the mercenary carrier sufficient to lay it up in the service dock for two weeks.

The stowaway glared through the gravitic shear-barrier of her brig cell, and Price stared back, waiting for her to talk. He was perfectly happy to sit all shift waiting; it would give him an excuse to leave the Captain’s precious new reporting regimen unfulfilled for one more T-day. A few more, and she would be forced to abandon the cumbersome scheme and return to the previous records arrangement, which operated mainly on fabrication and strained trust. 

The stowaway, as usual for the sort of off-books personnel the mercenary crew smuggled aboard, was wearing an outfit that left little to the imagination, and an attitude which dared Price to imagine what little was concealed. She was probably no older than twenty-five T-years, slightly built and with a top-heavy curviness Price had never seen except as a product of cheap bodysculpt procedures. Perhaps one of the crew or rig-jocks had paid her for her services, or perhaps she had been won over by the novelty of skulking about on a ship-of-war while it patrolled the system, but more likely, she had come aboard half-conscious, high as a satellite on whatever drug cocktail fueled the system’s party scene. 

If it weren’t for the implants, Price would have left the interrogation to one of the new security men as a test of their professionalism, to see whether they were distracted or easily flustered by sexual persuasion. Jutting from the girl’s right forehead just above the eyebrow and arcing back to vanish into her gaudily-dyed hair, an odd implant covered in blinking lights erupted grotesquely from her pale skin. Tweaker degeneracy was something Price had thought he’d seen the last of when the ship had left the Silver Strand – and he knew better than to speculate what function a bargain-priced whore would want in brain implants. 

Minutes ticked by, and still the girl glared, almost unmoving. Most of the girls the ship’s raucous compliment sneaked aboard panicked and ratted out their benefactors the moment they hit the brig; this one had the grit or prior experience to keep calm. Price had to admire her nerve, but he had no intention of rewarding it. 

They had sat unmoving for nearly an hour when Casper walked in, as always cradling a cup of coffee. The pilot’s flight suit was more grease-stained than usual, suggesting he had come from the launch maintenance bays. “Hey, Price. Heard you caught another chew-toy, a real freak.” 

Price arched one eyebrow, but didn’t answer or get up. He was busy. 

Casper walked along the small cell-block until he stood behind the security chief, then was silent for several seconds as he surveyed the scantily-clad prisoner. “Brain-tweaker. Shame, she could’ve been a sweet piece of-” 

“Casper, either fess up to bringing her aboard or get out of my brig.” Casper was the most common cause of unauthorized female personnel being discovered aboard the ship, and they both knew he was the prime suspect for this one. His low standards in women, even by mercenary rig-jock standards, had been the butt of half the crew’s repertoire of jokes ever since Price had come aboard. 

“Aww, Chief, this one’s not me.” Casper’s whinging protest brought a reflexive scowl to Price’s face. “I mean, yeah I’d have given her a go planetside, but-” 

“Not yours? Then out.” Price pointed, keeping his eyes on the calmly patient prisoner. 

“Maybe you should let me talk to her. I have a-” 

“Out.” Price held his pointing finger until the coffee-toting mercenary made a harrumphing noise and flounced out of the brig. 

“He’d have given me a pass and been turned down.” The girl in the cell tossed her head in the direction Casper had vanished. “But he probably gets that a lot.” 

Price frowned in confusion. The gravitic shear sealing the cell was supposed to be sound-isolating. Microphone arrays in the cell piped any sound inside out to the corridor, but the prisoner should not have been able to hear Casper. 

Breaking into a sly smile, she reached up to brush her lips with two fingers. “Lip reading. Pretty easy to pick up if you’ve got a little patience.” 

“I see.” Price didn’t bother to engage the microphone outside the cell; if she was telling the truth, she didn’t need it. 

“As fun as this is, you’ve got to have better things to do, Chief.” The girl lay back on the cell’s narrow bunk, arching her back and peeking out of the corner of her eye to see if he noticed. “I’ve got nothing for you anyway. My name’s Paz and I don’t remember even coming aboard, much less with who.” 

“Drugged?” This time, Price keyed the button which would carry his voice into the cell. 

“Oh, I don’t doubt I decided to let someone help me aboard.” Paz closed her eyes and shivered with remembered pleasure. “Last thing I remember is buying a three-day supply of Annuska. You’ve got to try that stuff some time, Chief.” 

“I really don’t.” Price stood up. “That’ll be all, Ms. Paz.” 

“Will it?” The girl sat back up. “You’re just going to leave me here until this tub limps back to the spaceport?” 

“Only because it’s less paperwork than putting you out the airlock.” Price turned away, wondering whether the drug charges or the criminal punishment for unlicensed implant usage would keep her in prison longer. 

“If you say so. See you later, Chief.” 

Price returned to the security office and spent the last half of his shift consciously avoiding the captain’s new paperwork with a number of low-priority tasks. When the second-shift security officer came to relieve him, he wasted no time clocking out and retiring to his cabin, where the last third of a gripping datasphere novel had waited for him all day. 

When the cabin door slid open, Price knew something was amiss immediately, but it took him several crucial seconds to realize why. By the time he realized the probable source of the odd scent in the air, he had already taken three steps inside, and it was too late to avoid the figure which erupted from the shadows and knocked him over. Before he could reach for his sidearm, the tip of a blade pricked his neck just beside the jugular artery. 

“Easy, Chief.” The throaty, jaunty voice was that of the stowaway tweaker Paz, and the lithe, soft figure which draped itself over his body to take his pistol could only be hers. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. I just need your comms code to call a lift.” 

Price tried to arch his neck away from the knife, but Paz kept its tip resting on his skin. “No.” He eventually replied. He had no idea how she’d escaped the brig without raising the alarm. 

The girl made a clicking noise with her tongue, and the lights on her implant all began to glow green. “Just no? No bargaining? What sort of mercenary are you?” 

Price scowled, but refused to answer the question. He was technically an employee of the mercenary company; his pay was steady and he got no contract bonuses because ship security had nothing to do with combat contracts. Paz, of course, wouldn’t care about any of that. 

“Would’ve been a lot more fun for both of us.” Paz held up Price’s gun, and to his horror it melted into metallic sludge in her hand. “Arms over your chest, big guy.” 

Price grudgingly complied, trying not to panic. He’d seen nano-disassembly routines before, but a swarm dense enough to dissolve a handgun in two seconds couldn’t be safe for human contact. Too much could go wrong. How could Paz direct such a sophisticated nanotechnological system so easily? 

As the young woman pressed the putty-like nanotech slurry to Price’s arms, he made the connection with her implant. A direct neural link to a nanotech control system – that was wildly illegal in any jurisdiction, even on the Frontier. Despite appearances, Paz was no mere bargain-price whore. “Who are you?” 

The remnants of the gun spun out into a spiderweb of filaments that bound Price’s arms securely in place, which anchored themselves to the deck. As this ad-hoc restraint system tightened, Paz withdrew her knife and leaned in close until her full lips hovered just above his. “Just a bad dream, Chief. Could have been a good one, though.” 

Price shook his head. “You wish.” 

“What can I say? I like leaving a good impression.” Paz got off Price and hunted through his pockets until she found his comm scrambler, and he struggled uselessly against the restraint-web she had made out of his gun. He stopped short of suggesting that the device was useless without his biometric signature; perhaps she wouldn’t realize that until he’d freed himself to raise the alarm. 

“All I need.” Paz pocketed the scrambler and stood up. “Room comms are disabled for two more hours, so get comfortable. It’s been fun, Chief.” 

With that, she hopped over Price, keyed open the door, and vanished into the corridor. Though he expected an alarm to sound any moment when someone else detected her escape or she tried to use his scrambler, none ever did.

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