Dreaming of Atmosphere (4 page)

“I told you, Maxine,” offered Isaac, “He's a straight shooter. Always has been.”

She looked at Isaac, then back to Jenner. She seemed to be weighing her choices.

“What's the catch?”

“No catch. A simple courier job. Only one complication. A big one, I'll admit, hence the pay out.”

“You do realise,” I said, “that's pretty much what the definition of a catch is, right?”

“Semantics.” waved away Jenner.

“I'll ask again, what's the catch?” asked Max, getting more like her usual wary self.

“The destination. Ambrose Station.”

It hit me like a hammer. Memories, half repressed, half haunting me every time my mind was idle.  Ambrose Station.

Gossamer System.

“Fuck, no.” rejected Max.

4.

Ever had those moments when everything just sort of shifted focus, when your mind kind of takes a step back and it's like you're watching the world, and yourself, from two feet behind you? My mouth went dry. My skin broke out in a cold sweat. I was having trouble hearing the rest of the conversation.

“Absolutely not, Mr Jenner.” I think that was Max, but I couldn't be sure.

“I am not a man often refused, Ms Cooper.” I could see Jenner's goons moving from their perches in my peripheral vision, but I didn't know what that meant.

“It's Captain Cooper, ass-hole, and you can get used to being disappointed, we're leaving. Now.” She stood up, grabbed my arm and made to move me out of the booth so she could leave.

“Let's not do something foolish, Ms Cooper!”

“Maxine!” said someone who sounded like Isaac, “Think about it! The Dreaming could be yours!”

“Fuck you, Isaac, and fuck you too, Jenner. Move, Seth!” she gave me a shove and I almost fell out of the booth. I didn't though. I stood and in one smooth motion drew my gun and shot through the booth, hit one of Isaac's thugs who had drawn on us.

The gun he had drawn flew out of his dead hands, clattering to the 'cavern' floor. Suddenly, I was in full control of my senses once more. Action has a way of doing that to me. Jenner dove under the booth's table, Isaac almost jumped on top of him. I grabbed Max and twirled her around, almost throwing her onto the ground behind the booth as two bright energy bolts hammered into the tabletop. Jenner's goons where in high gear, grabbing cover and firing in my direction. My tactical app told me there were five of them, plus the one left over from Isaac's pathetic posse. I took a knee and rolled to the left, coming up behind a crystal formation. Three swift bolts hit the booth, the floor I just rolled over and the crystal behind which I was crouched. The last one bounced away, refracted by the crystal, and went back towards to bar causing the bar tender to hit the deck behind the counter.

I pulled out a party popper, pressed the activator and tossed it towards the nearest couple of goons on the dance floor.

POP!

A bright flash and a loud pop preceded two screams of pain as the two goons went down, their hands clasped over their ears and eyes. I glanced back at Max; she had her hold out in her hands, crouched behind the booth. More energy blasts struck my crystal and careened off in random directions. Shit, this cover is going to get me killed! Or worse; get Maxine killed! I rose, popped a trio of shots off towards the three remaining Jenner goons, and ran over to the next booth towards the exit. I felt a shot scorch my shoulder as I ran, but my ablative coat dissipated most of the energy. When I was in, I eyed Max and she nodded. I rose again and peppered shots as fast as I could towards the enemy, forcing their heads down. Max used the distraction to run towards me, firing off a shot as she went.

We were now facing off across the central bar on either side of the lounge, three Jenner goons plus one Isaac goon. Jenner and Isaac were still under the table, hopefully urinating in their expensive suits. I could still hear the two stunned goons crooning on the dance floor. I love my party poppers.

“What now?” shouted Max in my ear.

“We make a break for the door, first chance we get!”

“You know there's going to be more out there, right?”

“Yep.”

“And?”

“I'm thinking!”

“Hurry up!”

She tucked herself closer to the booth as shots pounded the booth and the ground around us. I peeked around the edge of the booth and snapped off a shot. I was rewarded with a pain filled shout, although I didn’t think it was fatal, just an arm shot. I heard one of them shout something, catching the word 'flank' and I went into action again. I switched sides with Max and fired out from the other side of the booth, almost hitting another goon as he dove across the bar and fell down behind the counter. I had an idea. I fired several shots into the liquor shelved behind the bar counter. Several of them popped and spilled their contents down onto the two below. The barman rose up in a panic and dove over the counter to crash down onto the floor below and I used the distraction to hit another goon in the chest. The other hit the deck.

“Go!” I yelled. Maxine scrambled towards the door, head down firing blindly towards the bar. A stray shot hit one of the puddles of liquid that had formed after my antics, igniting it. A swooshing sound followed by screaming told me the unfortunate goon still under the bar would also not be leaving a tip for the barman today. In the chaos, I made a break for the door as well.

As soon as I was into the passage that lead to the entrance, I stopped. Halfway up the passage was Maxine, sitting on another goon’s chest and pistol-whipping him repeatedly with her hold out blaster.

“Come on!” I yelled as a jumped over her. I got to the doors and took a peak. The streets were starting to get busy, but I could see a group of mean looking thugs waiting for us out there. They didn't seem alerted to the gunfight, however. That would change, as soon as Jenner poked his head out from under his table and called them. On the other hand, maybe not.

I rummaged through a satchel slung around my shoulder and pulled out my scrambler. I hesitated before activating it. If I set this, the local authorities won't be alerted either. Not before we wouldn’t need them anymore.

“Do it.” said Max from behind me. She didn't look too ruffled by the recent gunfight, or the beating. She was still adjusting her strap though. “Quit looking at my tits and scramble those ass-holes”

“Yes, ma'am.” I hit it, tucked it onto the counter by the entrance and casually stepped out the door, Max close behind me.

The goons, about seven or eight of them, eyed us suspiciously. As far as they were concerned, everything was fine and the meeting was over. I nodded to them. I kept walking towards the crowd. We almost made it.

The door to the Crystal Lounge burst open, the last goon, the one I'd shot in the arm earlier stumbled out and let off a spray of energy blasts into the crowd before he saw us and retrained his aim. We bolted, everyone bolted, everyone screamed. The goons shouted and ran after us. I tossed my last party popper behind me, hoping I didn't just ruin a bunch of civilians’ night for nothing and headed towards an access hatch down a side alley up ahead.

“In here!” I shouted, yanking off the grill and turning to guard the alley entrance. Two goons ran into view and I shot at them, forcing them to dive back out of the way. I could hear Max calling for me as she dove head first into the duct. I dove in after her. We slid for about thirty seconds, almost straight down. That can't be good, I thought. Max started to slow her descent with her legs and hands, but I kept slipping and falling onto her. We kept going down, and eventually a curve began to form. We slid for another minute before the curve allowed us to stop altogether. We were both banged up and bruised, covered in foul tasting water and had friction burns on our hands. We were both panting, catching our breath. Max spoke first.

“Well my strap broke. I'm pretty sure my good bra did too.”

I laughed; Max joined me for a few moments.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Down a drain, it would seem.”

“I can see that. Wow, I can smell that too! What kind of drain?”

“The kind you don't jump head first into with your mouth open.”

“Couldn't be helped. I was screaming, and I think I swallowed some of that water.”

“Me too. I wasn't screaming though, that was all you, Donny.”

“Liar, I'm pretty sure I heard a squeal as we went down.”

“That was me yelling 'Weeeeeee!' I don't squeal.”

“Like a little girl, it was.”

“Shut up or I'll punch you.”

“You mean pistol whip? That was a guy at least twice as big as you, back there, you know?”

“I think he screamed louder than you did, actually.”

“If he's alive still, I bet he'll tell Jenner it was me that did it.”

“Probably. I think one of his teeth is stuck in the barrel of my hold out. Should I keep it to prove it was me?”

“Ha, we'll more than likely need to shoot with it again before the day is out.”

“Out of charge. That's the problem with these small guns. They go flat real fast.”

“No problem, here.” I tossed her one of my spare batteries, and popped mine out and reloaded.

“I thought you'd have been out for sure, the amount of wild shots you made!”

“Uh, uh. I meant to hit the bar. And the floor. And the wall behind the goons. And that table.”

“Yeah, I wasn't a fan of the décor either.” She reloaded and we began to take stock of our surroundings.

“Well, looks like it goes down, no openings that I can see.” She said.

“Down it is then.”

5.

The drain continued for another hundred metres or so before we found a grate covering an opening that dropped down into a long tunnel. I lifted the grate, lowered Max down and then dropped down after her. My shoulder was a little sore, where I’d caught a round in the firefight at the Lounge. Max saw me rubbing my shoulder and wincing.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, jacket took most of the heat, just a bit tender.”

She gave me one of her ‘looks’.

“I’m fine. Really. You’re not the lightest woman in the galaxy, you know?”

That earned me a kick in the shins, but she smiled regardless. We started to look around. The tunnel was made from some carbon composite, the kind used in massive starship and space station construction for making large sections of plumbing or other fluid transfer systems. A sludgy, pungent channel flowed through the centre of the tunnel, the fluid dark and lumpy in places. This was clearly a sewer. Max scrapped algae off some signage, revealing a directional arrow and some words.

“Water treatment. Should be able to get top side from there. Let’s go.”

She started at a brisk pace, and I was struggling to keep up with her. I kept having to steady myself, or risk slipping on the grime encrusted, narrow walkway beside the river of doom. I was a bit larger that Max, and she had plenty of room to walk. We scrambled and slithered our way like eels down a pipe towards the water treatment compartment for at least a couple of hours. Our Interface Overlays were out of range of any networks, so we didn’t have any communications with the rest of the station to warn the rest of the crew. I could see Maxine was worried, I could tell by her pace that she wanted to get out of here as fast as we could. I slipped a couple of times, falling on my arse and getting myself a healthy coating of filth on my clothes.

“Do you know how many species have pooped in this water?” I said after my latest fall.

“A few hundred, at least. You make sure you bathe before you sit down in my bridge again.”

“Yeah, thanks. I think I’ll just toss these clothes out of the airlock.”

“Well, looks like we’re here.”

Maxine was right, up ahead was a service hatch and a sluice gate. We could hear the steady thrum of machinery. Luckily, the hatch was unlocked, and we climbed through to the other side. Hundreds of pipes fed into this compartment, which was huge. There were dozens of rusted and dirty tanks resting in a quagmire of the filth from our tunnel, and several others like it interspersed around the cylindrical compartment. They all fed their loads into the plant, in waterfalls of chunky sludge and dirty water. Giant machines were churning the sewage down below. We were standing on a circular iron walkway that circumnavigated the entire compartment, and I could see a long rusty ladder a few metres away that took us up to another platform fifty metres above us. All through the centre of the compartment were pipes and tanks, strung together like modules on a cargo freighter. The occasional inspection plate allowed us to see the contents of the pipes and tanks was steadily flowing upwards.

“Are they filtering this gunk?” I asked, as we made the next platform and found another ladder, climbing higher still.

“Yeah, eventually it will be crystal clear.”

“And then?”

“What do you think? They pump it back into the station.”

“And do what with it?”

“What do you normally do with water?”

I stopped climbing, horrified.

“This is the station’s water supply?” I felt sick.

“It’s perfectly fine, most self-contained habitats use a similar process. It does vary slightly, but the principle is the same. Water reclamation, it’s called. Nature has been doing it for billions of years.”

Now I knew why the water here tasted like shit. It
was
shit. Intellectually I knew Max was right, but my recent re-hydration attempt at the Crystal Lounge…well it left a bad taste in my mouth. Literally. I’m no germaphobe, but this was more than I could stomach.

Eventually we made it to the top platform, found a maintenance compartment and an exit on the other side of that. As we made to leave the water treatment plant from the Abyss, our Interface Overlays reconnected to the station network. Maxine quickly started pinging the crew. She couldn’t get through to them.

We hurried through the evening crowd that was moving through the streets above, stepping on toes and barging people aside. I think the fact that we stank like sewage actually worked in our favour as anyone who turned to have a go at us took one whiff and recoiled. Max flagged down a cab and we jumped in.

“Berth 232, Terrace Depot,” she barked at the AI.

“Please fasten your harnesses. Enjoy the sights of the Corus Cluster spinal corridor and surrounds…” began the robotic voice

“Shut up and drive, cab. And hurry!”

The cab sped away onto the main access corridor.

“What do you think this means?” asked Max, concern weighing heavily on her features.

“That Jenner has had our crew rounded up and either shot or locked away somewhere.” I said calmly, looking out the window at the station speeding by.

“I’m going to kill the little bastard.”

“Let’s just get back to the Dreaming, see if we can pull up some data on them, maybe they got a message through to the ship before they were taken out.”

“I’m going to cut his hands off and slap him to death with them.”

“Max…”

“I’m going to cut him open and feed him his own guts.”

“Max! We need to focus here. We need to…”

“I am focused, damn it!”

“On staying alive! On getting out of here without ending up as
galab
bait! If the crew is alive, we need to find them and get them to the Dreaming!”

“I know that!” We were screaming red faced at each other. A few seconds of staring and we both calmed down and I began scanning local news. It wasn’t long before I found a mention of the Crystal Lounge shoot out.

“You look good on the news, by the way. For an old lady.”

Maxine laughed a little and smiled at me.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re doing fine.”

“How are you holding up? Want to talk about the Lounge?”

I knew she meant when I froze up at the beginning. Or that I missed Jenner sneak up on us. I wasn’t in the mood for that kind of conversation just now, I had my mind on other things. I figured that there was no way all the crew went down without a fight of their own, and if our little scuffle warranted a news mention, maybe they got some airtime as well. I told Max my theory. We both started scanning the news.

About a minute later, Max gave a little chuckle.

“Crege, that crazy bird.” She flicked me the article she’d found. It showed a short film of a chaotic rumble in one of the Terrace Depot dockside bars, featuring our very own pilot. Apparently, as they tried to grab him he’d drawn his
lurzak
blade and fought back. A
lurzak
is a traditional Garz’a weapon, dating back thousands of years. They’d built a deadly martial art around its use, which steadily incorporated more modern techniques and styles. The modern
lurzak
contains a capacitive charge that sends a shocking burst of electricity into whomever it connects. The Garz’a fighting style favours quick strikes and early initiative. This plays into the Garz’a habit of acting before thinking, and has made them one of the most respected fighting beings in the galaxy. A properly trained Garz’a warrior is fast, nimble and deadly in close range, and most Garz’a learn at least a few years of training in the art.

By all accounts, Crege had given a good accounting of himself and eyewitnesses had mentioned that he’d held off his attackers for a good ten minutes before a stun grenade had dropped him to his knees. No less than seven thugs had piled on top of him, and he was hastily dragged into a waiting air vehicle.

Strange, I thought personal vehicles were banned inside the station? I said as much to Max. She nodded.

“Jenner’s got some pull, all right. Notice that there were no police or security forces moving to intervene either?”

“At least we know he’s still alive, or was about an hour ago.”

“We’re pulling up to Terrace Depot now.”

The cab pulled to a stop by a platform that served as a loading bay for tourists, and we stepped off after paying our fee. Max stiffened beside me, eyes wide and catching my attention. She held her hand to her ear, and I knew she was receiving a call on her interface.

“Fel! Are you ok? Yes, he’s here with me. Is anyone hurt? They what? We’re about five minutes away. Okay, it’s going to be all right, you hear me? You tell the others that for me. Promise!”

“What’s going on?” I asked

“Jenner’s got everyone at the Dreaming. Everyone’s ok, he says, besides a beating laid out on Crege. Apparently, they’ve been taking some equipment aboard the ship. About twenty guys, he said. Plus Jenner, Isaac and some woman.”

“How do you want to play this?”

“He’s got us by the balls. I’m not giving up my ship. We’ll see what he wants, he could have killed them all or at least hurt them badly but he didn’t. That could mean we still got some room here.”

“I don’t like this, Max. Too many unknowns.”

“Fel says Jenner told him to call me, to tell me to come down or he starts executing the crew.”

We’d reached the entrance to berth 232, and slowed down our brisk pace. We could see down the retractable platform where the Dreaming sat, her gangway still open. Men were walking up and down the ramp, taking tools and boxes of equipment away. I could see the crew lined up below the ship, between the landing struts and the starboard emission vent. Half a dozen armed thugs guarded them with energy rifles.

Jenner stood a few metres away chatting with Isaac and a woman. She was wearing tight, black pants and a dark red blouse tucked into a wide leather belt that sported a custom holster rig and an honest to god ballistic pistol. She wore it on her hip as if she knew how to use it, her hand never straying too far from it. She stood with her hips canted to the side, in an almost seductive way, a remote of some kind in her hand with her other resting on her waist. She had short, red tipped hair and –
oof!

“Quit perving,” chided Max, punching me in the side, “put your game face on!”

“Right! I wasn’t, I mean, okay let’s do this.”

We marched down the platform towards Jenner and company, and no sooner had we stepped into sight then most of the thugs dropped what they were carrying and trained their rifles in our direction. I noticed that the six that were guarding our crew were well trained enough not to drop their guard and they remained standing watch over people. Jenner gestured to the guards and they lowered their aim, but didn’t relax completely. One of the closest goons to Jenner said something to him and Jenner shook his head. The goon sneered and it was then that I noticed his bruised and swollen features. It was the guy Max had beaten with her gun.

“I knew I should have kept that tooth.” She said out of the corner of her mouth.

“Ms Cooper! Glad you could join our little soiree.”

“What are you doing to my ship?” she demanded.

“Adding a few modifications. Please. Your weapons, if you don’t mind?”

“I mind.” I offered, taking a step forward. This earned me a dozen rifles pointed at my face.

“I insist. We wouldn’t want any of my guards to accidentally shoot one of your friends in the face. I told them you would be handing them over to us without any more unpleasant violence.”

“It’s ok, Seth, do what he says.”

I belatedly disarmed myself and held my PX-2 out for Jenner. I noticed Max didn’t offer up her gun, tucked as it was…somewhere on her person. It was then that I noticed the woman with Jenner walking around behind us, and I turned my head to keep her in my line of sight. She was smiling a predatory grin at me. Max was doing her best to ignore her. The woman stepped up close to Max and one hand snaked around her waist and roved up under her grimy vest and shirt. Max stiffened, but kept a straight face, and the women pulled her hand out from under Max’s shirt with the hold out blaster in it. She walked back around, passing behind me and running a hand across my butt. She’s going to have to wash her hands now, I thought. The woman walked back to Jenner and took my gun from him.

“Okay, you have us. You have my crew, and you have my ship. Now what?” Maxine demanded, fire in her eyes.

“What I originally offered. You take a courier job for me into the Gossamer System and deliver it to Ambrose Station. Only now, I see that I need to motivate you properly. I’ve taken the liberty to install several crippling explosive charges about your ship. Not enough to destroy it, but enough to gut it so that it will be nothing but an engineless hulk. You go out into the deep dark ocean of stars and do my job. You meander about, take too long, and the charges go off. You tamper with the charges, they go off.

“I’m sending my agent, Ms Artemis Derris, along with you to act in my interests. If she deems you unworthy of the task, she’ll remotely activate the charges. If they go off for any reason, be it through failing to meet any of my demands or by Artemis’ hand, I’ll be notified, I’ll send a heavy transport full of mercenaries to reclaim my package and Ms Derris, and then we’ll scuttle your ship along with all of you.