Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire (46 page)

“Can we see who their guests are?”

“Wait five minutes,” said Ocha. “We’re on the wrong side, we’ll make a burn in three to bring us around.”

Helm brought up a forward image on one screen so Vanessa could see. Antibe Station was a big, round wheel, like stations everywhere. But unlike stations everywhere, this one was massive, a big export hub through which a large portion of the League’s grounded war machine had passed at one time. Now it sat lonely and bloated on Pantala’s horizon, with barely more than a skeleton crew to keep it operational.

Com was talking to station. Vanessa overheard discussions of cargo and prices. They were transmitting manifests, checking the board as they called it, to see how the prices were moving. Lots of perishables, Vanessa guessed; Pantala didn’t grow much. Most of the population wasn’t rich enough to trade, but the corporations still had money. Luxury items for the suits, while the masses scavenged.

“Look at this,” said Scan, and put a visual on a screen. It showed a ship, a big steel spine and modular tanks, small habitation circle, no jump engines visible to Vanessa’s less-than-expert eye. The engines were glowing.

“System runner,” said Ocha. “She’s leaving?”

“Yeah, heading 258, that’s Anak.”

“The shipyards?” Vanessa asked. They were out in orbit around the Pantala system’s third planet, where the asteroid belts made good ore bodies for mining.

“Nothing else out there,” said Ocha. “Big, isn’t she? Acceleration gradient?”

“Um . . .” said Scan, analysing the runner’s track. “Yeah, she’s loaded. At that thrust she’s maybe forty percent slower than empty; those holds are full.”

“With what?” Helm wondered. “Anak yards are pretty complete. There’s not much industry around there they’d need.”

Ocha made a face. “Everything deteriorates, Anak’s a rough orbit, they get micro impacts all the time, they’ll need to replace things.”

“Great,” Vanessa muttered. “They’re expanding.”

“Too early to tell,” said Ocha, entering control adjustments for the upcoming burn. “Let’s get a look at this station.” He flipped the shipboard microphone. “Everyone take hold, burn in ten.”

No one told her to strap in, so Vanessa guessed it wouldn’t be hard, and grabbed a support. Then a rumble, which grew to a gentle roar, and everything tilted. Suddenly “back” was “down,” and she was dangling from the support at a third of a G. She hooked a leg around the support and watched Helm’s screen as Scan’s station visual shifted perspective.

A minute later the burn ended. The station was passing elliptical, its docking face becoming visible for the first time. A blaze of sunlight momentarily blinded the feed, then a darkening adjustment.

“What the fuck is that?” said Scan.

Vanessa could see five ships, locked in amidst the mass of docking supports and heavy duty frameworks about the station rim. Some of those were bigger than the ships at dock, having to support thousands of tonnes of weight at the station’s full one-G. But worth it, from station’s point of view, because there was space on the rim, and very little at the non-rotating hub.

“That’s . . .” said Ocha, peering at the feed. “That’s a big fat ass on that thing.”

“Which one?” asked Vanessa.

“Berth 12. The big one, far side, just coming toward us down below.”

Vanessa could see it now, and it was tail heavy, even to an untrained eye.

“Computer says cruiser size, but that’s no cruiser,” said Scan. “I don’t see any cargo; that fucker’s all engines.”

“Not a civvie,” said Ocha, and Helm muttered something under his breath.

“It’s a warship?” Vanessa asked. “League Fleet?”

“Yeah, but nothing line. I’d recognise it.” He was squinting at the picture, a weathered, bearded face, a man who had run this ship all through thirty years of League-Federation war and had seen most things. “That’s a ghostie.”

“Yeah,” said Scan, reluctantly. “Yeah, the displacement’s all wrong for a cruiser. I mean, you can’t be all engines. You need some midships. That thing’s fast.”

“Ghostie?” asked Vanessa.

“Rim recon. Long jump range, can come in way further out from an anchor mass than most of us, sits out on the rim all silent and watches.”

“Don’t come into station very often,” Ocha added. “Or not the open traders. Dark facilities mostly, I’ve been doing this all my life, this is oh . . . the fourth I’ve ever seen?”

“Cool,” said Helm, turning to grin at his fellow crew. “How many Talee you think this guy’s seen?” Skeptical looks came back. “Oh, come on. What else is he doing out this far?”

“I’ve got a better question,” said Ocha. “Why the hell does New Torah allow a League warship to dock at Pantala? And why would League want to?”

Outer collar dock was cold. Vanessa huddled in her heavy coat, arms folded as Rhian manned the inner airlock door. Ari looked better for the return of gravity here at dock, but worse again for the deep freeze, his face pale beneath his newly grown black beard.

A crash from the outer airlock, grapples attaching. Rhian pressed some controls and exchanged words on the mike, watching a vid feed. She’d done this before, which made her the lead on this op. Vanessa was comfortable enough in command—she had led the attack to liberate Nehru Station from Fifth Fleet five years ago, so orbital operations weren’t completely strange to her—but her everyday experience in mundane things like how to operate a collar dock was well below that of Rhian’s. Which left Ari, with his dislike of all things offworld, but probably the most important of the three.

After some minutes of securing, the outer lock opened, and someone in a station worker’s jumpsuit appeared. Rhian saw the pressures were equalised, and popped the inner doors as well.

“Who won the Callayan football grand final?” asked the heavy set man in the airlock.

“Subianto Dragons,” said Vanessa. “Eighty-nine to sixty, pretty disappointing match.”

The man extended his hand. “Tung,” he said. “Wait ten minutes, I have to make a crew inspection, then we’ll load this stuff and leave.” He strode past the crates and boxes waiting in the corridor, and headed for the bridge.

The three new arrivals exchanged looks. They’d gone over how this should work too many times to start discussing it again now.

Tung returned in ten minutes, and they helped him load the airtight transport crates into the runner, lashing them down in the cargo space behind the seats. Then they followed him into the cold, cramped interior, found various seats and strapped themselves in. Tung’s pilot fired up the engines, then released grapples, pulling them clear. And then, with a startling silence, cut engines. Weightlessness returned, as the station’s spin carried them out and away. The pilot’s touch on the control stick kept them oriented, with a huge view of Antibe Station’s curving expanse outside the forward windows. Real windows, Vanessa marvelled, gazing out at the extraordinary view. She’d missed them; starships of course had none.

Once clear of the station’s dangerous rotation, the runner fired up engines once more and headed slowly for the station hub. Everyone stared out, even Ari, for the station at this range was quite a spectacle—a good three kilometers wide, it was said by some to exert its own minor gravitational pull. Bullshit really, most of that width was empty space between spoke arms, but to look at it, it seemed it might be true.

“That’s a Fleet ship?” Vanessa asked Tung, pointing to the ghostie where it nestled amidst a tangle of supporting gantries, like a bird caught in the vines of some carnivorous plant.

“U-huh,” said Tung. “No idea what, they won’t let us near it. Used their own docking crew and everything.”

“A year ago that might have been an act of war.”

Tung shrugged. “Torah doesn’t have its own navy, not much we can do.”

Which was a bullshit answer, because you didn’t need a navy to stop uninvited vessels from doing what they wanted in your space. Callay hadn’t abandoned its independent anti-shipping defences it had acquired five years ago during the troubles with Fifth Fleet. Modern guided missiles could make life this close to a planet extremely dangerous for any League ship, and Pantala was an arms factory world. You didn’t need an FSA briefing to figure that one out.

So who in the corporations had given this one permission to dock? And to what purpose?

Station hub had a pair of huge docking funnels, like an axle running through the rotating wheel. Huge mechanisms ran the funnels counter-spin so they didn’t rotate as fast, making for an easy docking. Various vessels were clamped to the outside, like barnacles latched onto a bridge pylon. Suddenly station orbit brought them into Pantala’s night side, and huge station lights glared as darkness abruptly fell, with a smattering of smaller lights from each docked vessel.

Tung piloted them into the end of the docking funnel, and Vanessa felt like some character from a story book, being swallowed by a giant monster. Within were more ships, several big in-system runners like the one that had just departed, numerous orbital service vehicles, and a bunch of atmospheric shuttles. Everything was lit like the interior of huge factory floor, metal ribbing everywhere, ships pressed comfortably to the funnel’s outer rim by the gentle rotation. Vanessa counted fourteen orbital shuttles, five of them big VTOL assault shuttles, no wings and all armour, for rapid ascents and descents. Pantala industries made them, too. Were they still making them? Where did the money come from, in a collapsed economy?

She glanced at Ari, and found he had quite casually commandeered a display panel by his seat and had plugged in. Neither Tung nor his pilot had noticed. That was sloppy. Ari would have every security system internalised by the time they docked. Ari saw her looking, quite calmly, and looked much happier in zero-G with something else to think about.

“Is this a standard traffic day?” she asked Tung, to keep his attention.

“Quiet,” said Tung. “You should have seen it before the crash, it was something.” Most of the funnel berths were empty, Vanessa supposed. She imagined it with most of them occupied, and saw what Tung meant. “Station capacity’s nearly half a million, but there’s barely ten thousand living here now. Two thirds of it are shut down to save power.”

They docked at a vacant berth with a crash of grapples, then some waiting as the tube was positioned, Tung talking to someone on the other side. Tung gestured for them to unleash the cartons behind the seats, which they did, then drifted them across the cabin. The airlock finally opened with a hiss and pop of escaping air, and everyone yawned to equalise. Tung pushed several cartons ahead of him up the tube, then gestured back for more. Vanessa sent the whole lot over, still lashed together.

Tung disappeared around a bend in the tube. They heard talking, and laughter. Vanessa hugged her arms tight, breath frosting in silver plumes. Ari was shivering, despite his layers. Being Tanushan, they were used to shirt sleeves even in winter. Rhian floated motionless, listening.

Tung returned empty handed. He gave them a thumbs up, floating easily back into the cabin. “Easy,” he said. “Give them a moment, they’ll move the stuff. We’ll take the next crawler in.”

“Wonderful customs system you’ve got here,” said Ari.

Tung grinned. “This is why governments were invented, yeah? Make some makeshift bullshit admin with six big corporations sharing everything, no one trusts the other to do proper security, everyone has their own little loopholes for goods they don’t want no customs agent to check, no one knows which customs agent is reporting to which corporation . . .”

“What was in those boxes anyway?” Ari asked.

“Don’t ask,” said Tung, tapping his nose. “We don’t. They know we’ve got more stuff here but they won’t ask further. If they see something they shouldn’t, could get messy, yeah?”

Ten minutes later they went up the tube themselves. The crawler was an elevator that traversed the length of the docking funnel. More airlocks and a tight seal, then they were trundling slowly toward the main hub. Small portholes offered a floodlit view of the funnel interior, crawling by.

“We’re clear in here, no monitoring possible,” said Tung, indicating the control panel. “Why’d you come?”

“Surprised you?” Vanessa suggested, eyebrow raised, holding to a handle in what she reckoned might be zero point-two of a G, a gentle drift toward the outer wall.

“Hell, yeah. Boss nearly blew a wire when we got the signal. FSA didn’t tell us anyone else was coming. You’re supposed to clear it first.”

“Something came up,” said Vanessa.

And that was that. Tung looked a little anxious, exchanging a quick glance with his pilot. There was wireless here, station network, but she didn’t want to risk accessing. One look at the construct told her that there was no way Ari wasn’t already in it. She glanced at him. His look back was dead level, no deviation. Very un-Ari like. Immediately she knew. One glance at Rhian, and Rhian knew also. And gave away nothing.

“She a GI?” Tung asked, nodding at Rhian.

“Yep,” said Vanessa.

“Low-des, right?”

“No low-des GIs in the Federation.”

“Is that right?” Tung looked at Rhian, dubiously. Rhian gazed out the porthole as though she hadn’t heard him.

The crawler reached the hub wall and continued into its berth like a grub burrowing into a tree hole. It paused, as airlocks crashed and clanked, then jolted forward once more, emerging into a small chamber. Big locks crashed open, and the entire side opened, allowing them to float free.

“Just through there,” said Tung, pointing to an adjoining corridor, more of a tunnel in zero-G. “My cell leader’s in there, he’ll meet with you.”

“In there?” asked Ari, pointing down the narrow space. “After you.”

“No, I’m not some big shot, best you talk with the CL alone.”

“No, I insist,” said Ari. “You come with us, be good for your promotion prospects.”

“No, buddy,” said Tung, “I assure you it won’t.”

“I insist,” said Vanessa, having floated to an advantageous position at one wall. Her pistol was out, levelled at Tung’s head. Rhian similarly covered the pilot.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said Tung, with a forced, nervous laugh. “Look, don’t be jumpy, there’s nothing down there but the people you came to meet . . .”