Unstable Prototypes (23 page)

"Finish the missile, give it to one of the
assault squads, and split the other warheads between them, and send
them on their way. Then get the parts for the rest of the warheads,
and for the rest of the CME Activators, and load them into storage.
Once we are fully supplied, we are moving the station to our
primary target. No more sitting around. It is time for this
operation to complete."

#

Garotte flipped through the list of items
he'd needed to acquire. Only one remained, but it was significant.
He needed a ship that could handle himself, Silo, Karter, and any
equipment that they would need, and he would need it quickly. The
good news was that New Caldwell had a reasonably well stocked
spaceship dealership. The bad news was that it was the only one in
the area, which put would-be consumers in a rather poor bargaining
position. He hopped onto a hover tram that would take him to the
dealership, which was at the very southern tip of town. The place
was primarily a massive, sandy storage lot covered with ships
ranging from little one seat recreational vehicles to what looked
like a defunct cargo hauler. Dust storms had covered everything
with a layer of dull tan soil. The sales office itself had clearly
been designed by someone upon whom New Caldwell's resemblance to
historic Las Vegas had not been lost. Despite the fact that the
building was barely large enough to accommodate a maintenance
garage, a reception area, and a few refueling hubs, the roof bore a
towering neon cowboy and a sign declaring it "Southern Jack's Ship
Shack." At some point the cowboy's arm, its thumb extended, had
been intended to move up and down. Time and a particularly poetic
piece of equipment failure had instead left it in permanent thumbs
down position.

As a final wild west affectation, there was a
handful of hitching posts along the sidewalk out front, despite the
fact that nothing even resembling a horse had likely been anywhere
near the planet. Garotte tied Ma's leash to one and pushed open the
doors. Air conditioning was thankfully being employed to the very
limits of its ability, rendering the small reception area almost
chilly. Behind a counter that was heavily laden with complementary
knickknacks bearing the dealership's logo and bowls of salty and
sugary snacks was a round, friendly looking woman. She was wearing
a very pink pantsuit with the name "Margie" embroidered on one
corner of her expansive chest and the company logo on the opposite
corner. Garotte hadn't made it fully through the door when she
turned away from one of the pair of large screens on the far wall
and began the most aggressive assault of hospitality he had ever
experienced.

"Well hello, there, stranger! Welcome to
Southern Jack's Ship Shack! My name's Marge Lancaster, but you can
call me Margie, just like the shirt says. Please help yourself to a
complementary bottle of mineral water or a handful of pretzels or
hard candies. If you're feelin' adventurous you could give this
here bowl of jerky a try. Local product, you know. Can't get it
anyplace else. Once you feel nice and comfy, just like home, then
you can let me know what it is I can help you with," she spouted in
a single southern-drenched outburst.

"Well, Miss Lancaster-"

"Call me Margie, sugar."

"Well, Margie, I am in the market for a ship.
A rather-"

"Well don't you just have the cutest little
accent."

"I suppose I do, now-"

"Is that your dog outside?"

"Well, she belongs to my girlfriend,
actually, but-"

"Well get yourself outside and untie that
poor little thing. On a hot day like today that little thing's
probably fixin' to burn up!" she scolded, teetering around the
counter on tiny, high heel-clad feet.

"I was under the impression that pets would
not be allowed inside."

"Well you just got the wrong impression,
didn't you? Now shoo, git!"

At her urging, Garotte quickly made his way
to the hitching post and returned with Ma to find Margie pouring
mineral water into a plastic bowl. Ma quickly went to work draining
the bowl while Margie crouched down and fawned over her.

"Well isn't she just the most adorable little
ball of fluff? Oh, would you look at that tail? She's a little
darlin',
she is!" she proclaimed, standing up and waggling a
finger at Garotte, "Shame on you leaving this little thing out in
the sun like that! How would your girlfriend feel if she found out
you left her little punkin outside and she keeled over dead."

"I imagine she would be rather put out,"
Garotte said in exasperation.

"I think you're the one who'd be put out,
Mister. Right out in the dog house!" she countered, ruffling Ma's
tail and muttering under her breath. "Ooh you little thing, just a
big bowl of sugar."

When she'd finally recovered from the effects
of Ma's cuteness, she straightened her clothes and adopted a more
businesslike tone.

"Now, what can I do you for?" she asked,
pulling out a datapad.

"I am in the market for a ship. Passenger
capacity of at least four. Decent cargo capacity."

"Now when you say decent, you mean decent
like enough for a picnic or enough for helpin' your neighbors move
out of their house?"

"The second one."

"What sort of range and speed did you have in
mind?"

"Interstellar. Speed isn't a concern, but I'd
like to keep travel times under a month."

"Well alright, puddin', I think we can
accommodate. If you'll just-"

She was interrupted by an alarming tone
coming from the screens behind her. The words 'Special Report'
flashed across them, fading out to reveal a local anchorman in a
busy newsroom.

"Good afternoon. We have some breaking news
regarding the unrest at a small VectorCorp transfer station a few
days ago."

"Oh, yes, did you hear about that? Terrible
thing. Some maniac blew a door off, I heard," Margie said.

"Mmm, I'd heard something about that. Now
about these ships you've got-"

"Just a minute, sugar. This might be
important."

The newscaster continued. "Prison directors
are now confirming that the crisis was caused by a man-"

Suddenly Ma yipped a few times, drawing
Margie's attention. The salesperson looked down to see the little
creature laying on her back, all four legs kicking in the air in
the closest approximation of playfulness that Ma could manage.
Despite the fact the end result looked more like a windup toy that
had been tipped over, Margie instantly dissolved into an incoherent
sequence of coos of adoration, crouching down to tickle the
invitingly furry tummy. Behind her, mug shots and descriptions of
Garotte were listed, along with detailed instructions of who to
contact and what to do if he was spotted in the area. When they had
returned to regularly scheduled programing, Ma rolled back onto her
feet.

"I could just eat that little darlin'
up,
" she said, "Now what was that ruckus in that transfer
station all about?"

"Some prisoner, or some such. Skinny fellow,
ridiculous mustache," Garotte said, "Headed toward deGrasse,
evidently."

"Humph. Never heard of the place. Better
there than here, though. Now, come right this way, I've got a cart
out back and I'll show you what we've got," Margie said, scurrying
toward the back door.

Ma turned slowly to Garotte, who gave her a
reluctant nod of appreciation. She returned it, and they followed
the salesperson.

Half an hour of driving a shaded hover cart
around their massive stock of ships had shown him quite a few
vessels that fit the needs he'd listed, but not the ones he hadn't.
In short, he needed something that he could modify to be a bit more
aggressive and formidable than consumer vessels typically allowed.
Generally he would have sought out one of his less legitimate
suppliers to get his hands on something that had conveniently gone
missing from a military storage depot, but contacts like that have
a way of going stale while one rots in prison, so this was the more
reliable choice in the short term. Finally they came upon just the
sort of ship Garotte had been hoping for.

"This little baby came to us second hand, but
never used, an odd lot from a sister dealership a few towns over.
It's a Mobius Armistice C. That's a C class reactor, so she's not
the speediest filly in the stable, but there's plenty to like.
Unlike the single seat standard model of the Armistice, this little
darlin' has seating for eight passengers plus the pilot and
navigator. She's got these big drop down doors with integrated ramp
for easy cargo loading, and another cargo door in the back. This
particular model even has the manipulator arm and gantry to make
moving those heavy crates into and out of the ship a breeze. At a
hundred and twenty cubic meters of dedicated cargo space, she'll
tote just about anything you want to bring along. You've got
standard navigational shields, a fully updated computer system, and
if you're in it for the long haul, you'll be happy to know that
this particular make and model contains a fully equipped sanitation
booth. Shower, bathroom, and clothes washer, all in one! We'll even
throw in a complementary Southern Jack's Wash and Wax to make it
look fresh and new."

Garotte grinned. The Mobius Armistice C was
the consumer version of its military cousin, the Mobius Aggressor,
and it shared precisely the same frame and structure. Wings for
unpowered reentry, a big boxy interior, and oversized thrusters.
Designed to be made quickly and repaired easily, pure practicality.
That also meant that it was a new power plant and a handful of
knocked out hull panels away from being fully compatible with a
vast array of military hardware, and one seldom needed to look for
long to find suitable options on the black market. In short, it was
a do-it-yourself armored personnel carrier.

"This will do the job quite nicely," he said
with a nod.

"I thought you might feel that way. Now for a
pristine little beauty like this, honey, the price is 19.5 million
credits," she said with a smile.

"Mmm. I was hoping to pay just a bit less
than that."

"Well we at Southern Jack's always do our
very best to work with our customers. What sort of down payment
were you looking to give?"

"As a matter of fact, the realtor I work for
just drew up a partnership with a bunch of builders. This is to be
their renovation truck of sorts. As such, I've been given
permission to purchase the ship in full."

Margie's eyebrows rose.

"Well, sugar, that changes things, doesn't
it? Let's get back to the office, out of this heat. I think we can
work something out."

The trio returned to the office where, over
the course of an hour, background and credit checks were run, a
contract was drawn up, and Margie stuffed Ma to capacity with
jerky. Garotte was initially nervous about the thoroughness of the
checks, but it would appear that when Ma prepares an identity, she
is staggeringly thorough. Gervais Pilkington had a clean criminal
record, except for three parking citations and a littering charge,
he had a marriage certificate, a realtor's license, and a credit
history. He even had a high school diploma. In no time at all, he
had transferred over 14 million credits in exchange for a brand new
ship. Handshakes were exchanged, a tummy rub was given, and after a
trip through their automated wash system, the ship and its
passengers were on their way.

"This ship is not equipped with artificial
gravity measures. Please help to restrain me during the zero
gravity portion of the trip," Ma stated as they lifted off.

Garotte ignored her. After repeating the
request and failing to be acknowledged, Ma scrambled to the
navigator's seat. With some difficulty, she managed to buckle one
of the leg restraints against the chair, feed her leash beneath it,
and tug out the slack on each. It wasn't ideal, but it kept her
from drifting helplessly about the cabin once they were out of the
gravity well. With judicious application of teeth and paws, she
managed to pin herself down to the chair and select a statement
from her slidepad.

"Your lack of cooperation has been noted and
will not be without consequence," she stated ominously, "You are
now officially on my S-List."

"And what might that be?"

"The term 'S-List' is the censored
alternative to a colloquialism that refers to a list of persons of
extreme disfavor. The expanded form of the term utilizes a term for
fecal matter generally considered to be vulgar, but sharing the
indicated initial."

"Ah. Well then, please consider me suitably
intimidated," Garotte said with little interest.

He began to punch in his course. Say what you
will about that Lex character, he was willing to completely forgo
the mapped transit routes. It took a daredevil, a virtuoso pilot,
or an imbecile to risk that sort of thing with any regularity. Lex
was potentially all three. Garotte liked to think that he was none
of the above. If one had an adequate cover story and the right
credentials, there was seldom any reason to avoid the main routes
unless you were carrying cargo or passengers illegally. Currently,
that was not the case, so VectorCorp's routes were carefully
plotted and he flipped the ship to autonomous.

Aside from the significantly reduced risk of
catastrophic collision, there was one other major benefit to using
the traditional travel routes. Special communication pylons were
scattered along the way that allowed communication even while
moving at Faster-Than-Light speeds. This was extremely useful,
since despite his earlier estimates, Garotte knew full well that he
couldn't afford to waste any time removing Karter from the clutches
of the mystery group. In the interest of expediency, multitasking
would certainly be required.

"I certainly hope you've got another identity
at your disposal, Ma, because we have a number of rather sizable
purchases to make from a source that could well sully the name of
the good Mr. Pilkington."