Bypass Gemini (25 page)

“
The mob.”

“
Yes.”

“
As in organized criminals.”

“
Yes.”

“
And they were shooting at you.”

“
Yes!”

“
While you were escaping.”

“
YES!”

“
In MY ship.”

Lex froze.

“…
Maybe?” he said, holding up the case defensively.

“
Follow me,” Karter growled, turning quickly toward the door and marching out.

“
You aren’t going to try to kill me again, are you?”

“
No.”

After a moment of thought, Lex slowly stepped out after him, adding, “You aren’t going to SUCCEED in killing me, are you?”

“
The ship came back in once piece, right?”

“
Yes! Yes it did!”

“
Then I won’t kill you. I might shove my boot up your ass, though, depending on how torn up the ship is. MA! Run a diagnostic on the DAR and have it ready when we get there. And let Solby out. Time for walkies.”

Lex followed his host down the hall and, reluctantly, stepped onto the elevator with him. The two stood in tense silence as it trundled up a few floors. The doors slid open, the cute little genetic experiment scampered on, and they continued on to the top floor. When the doors opened, there was one of the mobile mechanical arms waiting.

“
Ship diagnostic initiated, scan commencing,” Ma alerted, “While you wait, I can scan and index the contents of the case.”

The arm extended, opening the gripper.

“
Don’t waste your time, once this diagnostic is done and I’m done, Lex will be getting the hell off of my planet and never coming back... Except potentially to give feedback on that reactor... and the control systems... Basically I’m going to need feedback on everything.”

“
Indexing the information will streamline the analysis, should you choose to pursue it, and will utilize otherwise idle processor cycles and peripherals in the interim. It is a waste of time NOT to perform this task at this time,” Ma said.

“
Fine, whatever,” grunted Karter.

“
Thank you!” Lex mouthed silently as he handed over the case.

Solby launched onto Lex’s shoulder as he followed Karter out onto the planet’s surface. When they boarded the waiting bus, his host eyed him sternly while the black and white fuzzball gnawed on his earlobe, licked inside his ear, and otherwise made an adorable nuisance of himself.

“
The computer likes you AND the funk likes you.”

“
What can I say, I’m a charming guy.”

“
Either that or my creations all have terrible judgment,” Karter countered, patting his lap to send the little creature launching from Lex’s shoulder.

When they arrived at the hangar, Lex hurried out of the cold while Karter took his time and Solby sprang about at random. When the funk continued to leap and frolic without any signs of stopping, Karter marched inside.

“
Let him in when he’s done, Ma,” he instructed.

“
Yes, Mr. Dee. The diagnostic is complete,” she answered.

“
Put the results on the screen,” he said as he approached the display bay with the DAR docked inside.

Lex stayed at a cautious distance as Karter read the findings out loud.

“
All systems nominal. Minor cosmetic damage to lower fuselage from small arms fire, minor stress deformation on mooring rings. Mooring grapples still attached.”

“
That last part wasn’t my fault. You were the one who made the ship yank them free,” Lex defended.

“
Excuses, excuses. Okay, fine. Things look good. Ma, perform the necessary repairs.”

“
There is one anomalous result from the scan,” Ma said.

“
What is it?” Karter asked roughly, turning toward Lex, who was now standing by the exit, ready to dodge anything that might suddenly be hurled in his direction.

“
Please investigate the area seven centimeters below the forward, port side mooring ring.”

Karter glanced at the offending spot, then selected a tool from a nearby tray and pried what looked to be a thick metallic puck free. He turned it over in his hands briefly, then approached the display screen and tapped at it for a few moments.

“
Hey Lex! You know what this is?”

“
Whatever it is, it isn’t my fault,” Lex answered warily.

“
This is a tracking device.”

“
What?!”

“
Yep! Which did you visit last, the mob, or VC?”

“
The mob.”

“
Well the mob has gotten fairly sophisticated, I guess.”

“
This is bad.”

“
Meh. I wouldn’t worry about it. The ship is fine, so you and I are good. As for these guys?They’ll probably find their way here, but the moat will keep them off the surface, and I’ve got no intention of giving them the coordinates of an entry window, so I’m safe down here. I sincerely doubt they’ll be able to blockade the whole planet, so all you’ll have to do is wait for a window on the opposite side of the planet, then floor it. In that new ship, and with your skills, you’ll get away just fine. And that’s assuming they get here before you leave, which they won’t, because you’re leaving now.”

“
But wait, what about the papers?”

“
Don’t care, let’s go.”

“
But-”

“
Approaching vessel detected,” Ma interrupted.

“
Sophisticated AND speedy. Organized crime has really gotten itself together since the last time I had to deal with it,” Karter quipped.

“
I wonder what kind of ships hitmen fly these days.” Karter mused aloud, “Ma, bring it up on the display panel when we get a visual.”

Lex, for the moment convinced that his unpredictable associate was not an immediate threat to his life, approached the panel. As he did, Karter continued.

“
In the old days they used to use converted cargo haulers for everything,” he reminisced, “Just lop off the cargo portion and you ended up with these zippy little boxes with power to spare for all sorts of add-ons. Plus, they could sell the stolen cargo. It was actually really efficient. I’ve always been a big fan of the sort of solutions people come up with when they have limited resources like that. I mean, I used to-”

“
Visual established.”

The image jumped onto the screen, Lex’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Karter raised an eyebrow.

“
Huh,” Karter said, thoughtfully, “Didn’t see that one coming.”

“
Is that what I think it is?” Lex asked.

“
Do you think it is a VectorCorp Asteroid Wrecker?”

“
Yes.”

“
Then that’s what you think it is.”

VectorCorp, it was generally agreed, was too powerful. They controlled virtually all of the communications, and virtually all of the transportation, in the colonized galaxy. Couple this with the fact that their employee count was larger than the population of most individual countries and their annual profits exceeded the combined GDP of many planets, and it became clear that in the not altogether unlikely event that they were to militarize, the resulting war probably wouldn’t last very long. Realizing this, a large coalition of governments got together and decided that, if VC wanted transit and transmission rights for their sectors, then they would have to sign an agreement limiting allowable combat vessels to nothing larger or better equipped than an armored personnel carrier or anti-pirate scout ship. At the time, avoiding those sectors would have been financially devastating, so VectorCorp reluctantly agreed.

A few years later, the Asteroid Wrecker was unveiled. Those trade routes, the very same ones for which they’d paid top dollar for transit rights, needed to be kept clear after all. That meant that VC had to be prepared to quickly deal with any rogue piece of space rock that might wander into their vicinity. Thus, they created a vessel with a particle cannon that could bore a hole through a mile and a half of solid iron. Asteroids tend to be found in fields of smaller debris, so to shrug that off, they gave the ship high density ballistic plating and a deflection shield powerful enough to protect a large city. Occasionally the best course of action is to push an asteroid out of the way, so it came equipped with remotely operated, high capacity payload rockets. They were essentially missiles without a warhead. And naturally, in order to facilitate controlled demolition, they kept a ready stockpile of high yield, directional shape charges. They were essentially warheads without a missile. The removal of an asteroid often required specialized vehicles, so an internal, fortified hangar large enough for a small fleet of one-man vehicles was included in the design. Manning the ship was between two and five hundred VectorCorp employees, each with specialized training in deep space, hazardous environments, and demolitions. Independently, every feature and function of the Asteroid Wrecker was entirely sensible for its stated purpose. Taken as a whole, the vessel was a utility vehicle that could go toe to toe with a warship.

And now there was one approaching.

“
Can that make it through the, uh, the moat, or whatever?”

“
Oh yeah.”

“
So what are we going to do!?”

“
I’m going to go eat some burritos and make sure Solby took a squirt. You’re on your own.”

“
For God’s sake, man! This is my life we’re talking about!”

“
Hey, you got yourself into this, whatever it is. What am I, your babysitter? Man up and deal with it.”

The panic wrapped its fingers around his spine and wouldn’t let go. It burned in his stomach and roasted his mind. Get away. That’s what he had to do. Every man for himself. Get away and regroup. Get away and hide. Just get away! Karter opened the door and shrugged against the cold, and Lex shoved past him. The gravity dropped to half when he left the building and the cold hit him like a hammer, but adrenaline has a way of pushing aside the little things like potential hypothermia. Instead, it revealed that 1g muscles working on a 0.6g planet gave sprinting a whole new meaning. He covered the short distance between the door and the school bus in two steps, slamming into the door and pulling it open. He was seated in the driver’s seat and grasping for the controls before he remembered that there weren’t any.

“
God damn it!” he screamed.

“
Those guys are seriously screwing up my moat,” Karter grumbled outside.

Lex turned and leaned out of the bus to see one of the most awe inspiring things he’d ever witnessed. The Asteroid Wrecker was approaching from behind the as yet unvisited third building in the complex. To call the thing a vehicle seemed to fall well short. It was practically a civilization. It looked like an Olympic stadium floating in the sky; a round, armor plated monstrosity. The entire perimeter was a thick tube, branching off at one point like a chopped off letter p. A long notch was cut out of the underside, the currently open hangar bay doors, and spaced regularly along the rim were thrusters. They were built in space, so anti-gravity modules were left out, favoring instead the oversized engines to keep it out of the gravity well of planets and stars when the time came. Currently the whole vehicle was wreathed in a glittering ring of violet sparkles as its shields were pelted by a constant stream of debris. The very same debris had perforated Lex’s beloved Betsy, yet from the looks of it nary a pebble of it was reaching the wrecker.

“
Minimal life signs detected,” Ma announced over the external loudspeakers of the building.

“
What do you mean? They’re all dead?” Lex yelled.

“
No. It is a primarily automated system. Only one human operator,” she clarified.

“
Why would they do that?”

“
Fewer witnesses,” Karter said simply as he boarded the bus, Solby on his usual perch, “Standard operating procedure when you’ve got wet work to do. Take an automated vehicle, cut the surveillance systems and long range communications, and hand control over to your trigger man. If things go south, you can always claim a glitch caused the AI to go rogue, and there will be no evidence to the contrary.”

The bus started up and began to whisk back toward the lab.

“
How the hell do you know that?”

“
Classified,” he said, stroking Solby and leaning back.

“
Why are you so calm?”

“
Because they’re after you, not me.”

“
Karter, these people killed a whole shuttle of people to take out the person who gave me the package. Do you really think they are going to be precise when they come after me? Clearly they don’t care about collateral damage.”

Karter stared thoughtfully at Lex for the remainder of the short ride, seemingly considering the statement. It wasn’t until the doors hissed open again and the inventor stepped out that he finally spoke, turning to his guest.

“
You’ve got a point, Lex. Fortunately, I’ve got something which ought to make them open to negotiation.”

“
Thank God! What?”

“
You,” he said, shutting the door and tapping a panel on the outside, illuminating a sign reading ‘
Door Secured.’
 

“
No. NO!” Lex screamed, banging desperately at the door, “Ma! Don’t let him do this!”

“
I’m sorry, Mr. Alexander. I will do my best to see to it that both of you survive this exchange, but currently this appears to be the only arrangement that gives a reasonable chance of at least one party maintaining life and liberty, and is thus the most ideal course of action,” the computer stated.