Apex (6 page)

Jalia stepped up to the booth and handed her cargo transfer slip, signed and sealed by the docking rep, to the female Presca attendant. Her thin black tongue flicked forward, tasting the air in a sign of satisfaction as she processed the bill of transfer. Jalia provided her account identification number and the credit transfer was logged in the station's computer. The attendant processed a thin data chip and gave the hard copy proof of receipt to Jalia, who nodded her thanks and walked off, slipping the chip into one of the hidden pockets in her strap jacket.

With the 2.6 credit transfer into her account logged onto the Gorovan adjunct of the intercommercial banking system (ICBS), the data was immediately transmitted to other networked ICBS databases within the Hellis System. A copy was also loaded onto the
Vernera
and every other present ship that carried a data cache module.

While the
Resolute
and other smallt ime shippers didn't carry a module of their own make, most of the larger corporate-­owned vessels did and all were paid a modest fee to do so. Each time they transited between star systems the data they carried would be uploaded into the ICBS and other data networks' local-­system hubs, updating the accounts according to the timestamps.

With no means of interstellar communications other than courier ships, account data such as Jalia's would take time to travel throughout the network, but usually the data transferred between systems faster than the owner of the account could, so overdrafts and other inaccuracies were rare for individual account holders, but in the case of megacorporations other accommodations had to be made. Often a regional account was established for each star system, but in some situations, the ‘good faith' rules had to be used.

Interstellar bankers accounted for possible frauds in their credit reserves, so system crashes were virtually unheard of, but their army of accountants often had to track down and rectify discrepancies. Their zealous pursuit of any infraction, no matter how small, usually kept ­people from trying to game the system. Eventually they would be caught and forced to pay penalties and/or face imprisonment, but some still tried, plus there were some inaccuracies arising on their own, due to the update lag.

It wasn't a perfect system, but it functioned.

Hard currency was still used, and had she requested it the mining station could have paid her in such. Standard Gorovan policy was to keep a substantial amount of credits and mics on hand at all their larger installations. Many of their customers in less developed systems and societies used the uniform currency in lieu of data transfers, then exchanged the metallic/polymer chips for their local currencies either at established ICBS facilities or ad hoc. The black markets functioned on the latter, and made up more than half the economies of all but the most advanced races/systems.

Gorovan went where the business was, so a great deal of their transactions required hard currency.

Jalia kept a small amount onboard her ship, but nearly all her business transactions were made through ICBS accounts. Normally on days like this she and her crew would hit the local entertainment facilities, do some shopping or get a bite to eat other than prefabricated ship rations, all of which they'd pay for with mics. This trip, however, there wasn't going to be any downtime, which she knew might arouse some curiosity but that couldn't be helped. She had a bad feeling and had already decided to leave the station as soon as physically possible, which meant that right after Jalia got back from the funds transfer they were debarking.

The wide umbilical attached to her ship was deserted when she arrived and the cargo ramp was still deployed with the airlock doors open. Jalia jogged up the ramp and stepped inside her ship, already starting to feel better, but with a sense of urgency nagging at her. Marren suddenly appeared to her left, still wearing his envirosuit, face shield and all, causing her to jump half a meter away out of reflex.

“Don't do that,” she said, catching her breath as she glanced around. “Where were you hiding anyway?”

“We have a situation,” he said, ignoring her question. He glanced down the side ramp into the main cargo hold.

Jalia's face tightened and she hit the ramp in a hurry. The male Cres stayed behind to guard the open airlock, disappearing from view once again.

 

Chapter 6

I
VARA
MET
J
ALI
A
in the now empty forward section of the primary cargo bay. The two women stood approximately in the center, with a small holographic map emanating between them from the palm of Ivara's hand.

“How did you get this?” Jalia asked.

“We hacked into Gorovan's information net, and from there we got into the local planetary nets.”

“Using what?”

“Some equipment we brought. Their computer systems are primitive compared to ours.”

“Did you use my ship?” Jalia asked, mildly accusing the woman.

“No, they can't track the hack back to you,” she said, sensing Jalia's worry.

“Good,” Jalia said, placing her hands on her hips, “because I really don't want to burn any bridges with Gorovan. I do a lot of work for them.”

The Cres nodded. “We understand. We also have no wish for them to be able to track this vessel, or you. Secrecy is the only weapon we now possess.”

“Alright,” Jalia said, pushing that line of thought aside. “What do you suggest we do now?”

Ivara glanced down at the small holographic device she held in her hand. It displayed the jumpship they'd arrived on, now surrounded by mercenary warships. Reports indicated that the vessel had already been boarded.

“We wait and watch,” she said coolly. “If other ships begin fleeing the system, we go as well. Until then, keep to business as usual.”

Jalia wasn't convinced. “Can you identify which mercenary unit that is?”

“There are three. Trevari's Raiders, Nevax, and the Great Death Head. The Raiders arrived via private jumpship three kips ago. According to traffic history, Nevax arrived here two cycles ago to provide security for Teesenel, and the Great Death Head apparently has an enclave on Neevet.”

Teesenel and Neevet were two of three major planets in the system, Jalia knew, so their mercenary presence was explainable, but for the Raiders to arrive shortly after they did and hit their jumpship . . .

“They blew up that Morrin transport to keep you on the jumpship,” Jalia declared, staring Ivara in the eye.

“Keen deduction. We came to a similar conclusion moments ago.”

Jalia blew out a hard breath through pressed lips, making a rude sound. “Three top line mercenary units, working together no less, and they have the gall to hit a Gorovan jumpship? Whatever it is you've got, someone must want it bad . . . or want to sell it to someone who wants it bad. I half thought the stories of this sort of craziness were exaggerated.”

“They don't know what we have,” Ivara said icily. “And for the moment they don't know where we are. How long that will remain the case, I cannot say.”

“So let's get moving. I assume all five of you are still aboard?”

“Yes.”

Jalia nodded and headed back to the airlock. Ivara deactivated the hologram and slipped the device into a hidden pocket somewhere beneath her grey robe, then followed the Junta at a distance.

Jalia ran lightly up the ramp and opened the airlock control panel. She keyed the close sequence and the massive doors jolted once, then began to slowly come together. Jalia walked forward just shy of the doors and looked down the long tunnel that led to the station's interior. Not a person, machine, or crate was in sight. She waited there, visually confirming that nothing slipped aboard her ship, until the airlock ground closed and locked with a large repetitive thumping sound. As soon as the last beat fell silent she walked off at a brisk pace towards the bridge, with Ivara and Marren following.

“Where is our next port of call?” the taller Cres asked, removing his helmet and tucking it under his arm as he trailed her.

“Neevet,” she answered back without looking.

T
HE
R
ESOLUTE
LEFT
the Gorovan mining station without incident and headed further insystem toward Hellis itself, getting enough lateral pull on the surrounding planets to kick the ship into a slingshot maneuver around the star. Using the gravity drive as a sort of tether, Jalia latched onto the star's gravity and enhanced the pull, enabling a superspeed low orbit that exited on a trajectory to Neevet when the drive disengaged.

It took another eight hours to get to Neevet, with the
Resolute
's drive powering up once again to brake against the planet's gravitational field. Jalia brought her ship to a standstill in high orbit, then approached the planet at a respectable speed. Diving into low orbit was considered to be rude, flashy, and dangerous . . . three things they didn't need right now.

The Junta took an extra slow and steady approach, push/pulling on the planet's gravity when needed and lining up their approach vector for the rotational speed of the planet to bring the northern continent under them when they eventually hit the atmosphere.

Using the gravity drive once again, Jalia floated her ship down to the planet's surface, using her plasma engines to match the rotational speed of the surface and then to navigate across the planet's cloudless skies. Traveling eighteen keets above the ground, the
Resolute
crossed the desert landscape until an urban environment replaced the bone dry plains and mountains beneath them. They had just crossed the boundary of Neevet's third largest city and received an automated navigational beacon ping in response.

Jalia matched her course to the beacon and followed it across hundreds of keets of thick buildings and tall spires until a vast flat region dotted with ships broke the endless sea of habitats. The city's main spaceport had more than 2,000 docking platforms, ranging from small pads for local aircraft to massive platforms for high mass starships. The
Resolute
fell somewhere in between and was appropriately assigned a medium-­sized pad.

Jalia deactivated the plasma engines and increased her chemical thrusters to full power, slowing their forward momentum and maneuvering about to align the ship with the glowing icons on the surface. There was a small building on the edge of the pad, but if she hit her marks they weren't going to be in danger of landing on it.

Once aligned high in the sky, Jalia gently reduced power to her gravity drive and the
Resolute
began to sink toward the landing platform. Halfway down she keyed for the landing gear and two dozen panels on the underside of her ship slowly opened. Thick, heavy struts extended on angled joints that absorbed the impact of landing. They bent slightly as Jalia deactivated the antigrav technology, but the hydraulics compensated and returned the ship to standard height above the ground, approximately ten meters, or two ketak, as the commerce measurements went.

Jalia remotely triggered the ventral cargo hatch which sat in the middle of the ship, next to the primary cargo hold and a series of vertical ramps leading to all levels. Next she queried spaceport control on the status of their cargo transfer. She was told that the supply convoy wouldn't arrive for at least half a day.

Typical as that was, it didn't sit well with her, but it wasn't like they had any choice. Unlike Gorovan, the owner of this cargo was a corporation that used the spaceport for commerce, but they didn't own it. Thus there wasn't anyone to deliver the goods to on hand and the truck convoy that was being dispatched would have to cross a significant part of the city before they arrived at the spaceport.

“Is there a problem?” Ivara asked.

Jalia sighed. “No . . . we just get to sit on our tails and wait all the while those mercs and who knows who else get closer to tracking us down.”

“Why then have you opened up the ship?”

“Well, we can get the cargo off the ship and onto the deck now, but we'll still have to wait around for the client's convoy to arrive. It'll save us some time.”

The Cres nodded. “We will see to it at once.”

“Along with me,” Jalia amended. “Three walkers will work faster.”

Ivara inclined her head slightly. “You won't have a spotter.”

“I don't need one,” she said confidently.

Ivara cracked a rare smile. “Of course.”

Jalia slipped her headset on so she could keep in contact with the spaceport and headed down to the cargo hold.

T
HE
MERCENARY
SCOUT
watched from afar through an optical scope as the
Resolute
's crew unloaded dozens of large shipping crates onto the tarmac. The best the Presca could make out was three crewers operating cargo walkers, but he doubted that was the entirety of the crew. From his position atop a distant control tower he couldn't see up into the bay of the ship, but he could make out the bottom half of the boarding ramp and the cubical piles of crates being arrayed on the port side.

Adjusting the scope further, he targeted one of the walkers as it lumbered down the ramp carrying a long rectangular crate more than twice its width. The head of the pilot was visible, and appeared to be a Junta . . . the captain of the ship, according to his files. Her walker passed another heading back up into the ship, and from a side angle the scout saw its pilot was encased in a thin envirosuit.

That was curious.

The reptilian Presca clicked its jaw mandibles in interest as it waited for the third walker to exit the ship. A few moments later its large black padded feet came into view and as soon as it cleared the underside of the ship he confirmed that its pilot also wore an envirosuit.

The Death Head scout flicked its tongue once then backed off from the edge of the tower's roof, retracting and packing the surveillance scope into a small carrying case. It was time for a closer look at that ship.

E
ACH
O
F
THE
landing platforms was separated by wide trenches that doubled as roads. There were access ramps for wheeled transports, walkers, and pedestrian travel while the airborne antigrav trucks and transports simply adjusted their altitude controls and drove up and over the edges of the trenches when need be.

Encased in an optical camouflage suit, the Death Head scout walked in the shadows along the wall of one of the connective trenches. His suit mimicked the dark shadows cast by a bright white overhead sun adequately, making him invisible to all but the most discerning eye. He walked slowly and purposefully, observing all around him and acting little. The art of skulking was more about patience than guile.

Eventually the scout got as close to the Junta's ship as he could within the trench network, so he stopped and waited until the sparse traffic cleared. A few trucks were rumbling by, but once they'd passed his position the Presca gripped the high side wall with special adhesive gloves and began to climb.

When he approached the edge he reduced his movements to a bare minimum. As his hand crossed from shadow into sunlight, his suit altered accordingly to match the light grey color of the landing platform. A line of color-­change passed over his body as he slid up and on top of the platform, coming fully out of the trench.

With arms and legs spread wide, the reptilian crawled an inch above the surface. His suit made him indistinguishable from above and only his silhouette would give him away against the skyline, which was minimized by his low profile.

Sudden movement would also create an increased chance of visibility, so he kept his movements very slow and crawled a few meters in from the edge of the trench. He stopped there, settled on his chest and reached back to the case attached to the small of his back beneath a layer of the optical camouflage material. He pulled out his scope again and set it up on the ground in front of him.

The walkers were still working, having assembled twenty six stacks of crates and busy with the twenty seventh. If he adjusted his approach line, the nearest of the crates would shield him from view.

Mentally plotting out his path, he repacked his scope and lifted himself up off the ground ever so slightly, then began creeping laterally, spinning about as he did so. He moved about thirty meters off to his right into the visual deadzone created by one of the crate stacks. Once there, the scout allowed himself a slightly more rapid pace and closed in on the ship.

W
ITH
HIS
GREY
suit shifting into the deep reds of the cargo crates, the scout maneuvered from stack to stack, circling around until he was on the far edge opposite the blind side of the ramp and well away from the path of the walkers. Crouching low again, his suit shifted back to the landing platform grey and he crawled up to one of the ship's giant landing legs, circled around it, and closed on the ramp.

He reached it without detection, pulling up beneath the angled plate and crouching in the shadows while he stretched. Crawling was natural to his race, but this much was beyond the norm.

The sound of heavy footsteps was easily audible through the ramp and the Presca mentally counted the interval between one walker's passing and the next. After a while he got the pattern down, noticing a large dead zone during which two of the walkers were inside, ostensibly loading crates, while the third was out and stacking its.

The scout waited through another rotation to be sure, then hearing the third walker come down over top of him he moved out to the edge of the ramp and swung up on top of it as the walker stepped off onto the tarmac. He took a quick glance inside as his suit adjusted to the color of the ship.

All clear.

Keeping in his low, spider-­like crawl, he moved up the ramp and into the freighter, hugging tight to the wall and standing pressed against it. Distant heavy footsteps became audible as one of the walkers in the hold began its trek up to his level and out onto the tarmac.

The scout scurried along the wall down the long accessway until he came to a ramp junction. Glad for the additional cover, he slipped onto the dorsal ramp and began searching the interior of the ship.