The Legacy of Earth (Mandate Book 2) (4 page)

“We both worked for T3 until last year,” Reilly said.

“T3?”

“Tandem-Tesla-Tasc,” Cyril said.

“Heavy industry conglomerate. They sent a crew into space to acquire discarded Seerva facilities. The military beat them to Seerva’s old space station, so they set up camp at the abandoned Moon outpost.”

“Wait, you don’t mean, Luna City?” Jazdie said, surprised.

“Of course, I do, that’s the only Moon colony.”

“But . . . I never heard of T3 and I grew up there!”

Reilly glanced at Cyril, who shrugged. “Well, I doubt if anyone there knows much about it. T3 took possession of Kepler Outpost. Expanded the underground domes. Offered to transport people to populate the facility. I’m sure they believe it’s
their
colony, but in fact, a corporation owns everything.”

“That can’t be true! My parents own a water processing plant. They manage it and we all help run it,” Jazdie said, feeling a little anxious.

Reilly shrugged. “If you say so. Long story short, Drake went rogue, claimed the corporation’s ship as his own, then kicked the three of us off. The bastard didn’t give us any time to prepare. He waited until we began salvaging the Black Dahlia, which was a derelict, then cut us loose. We were supposedly cycling Lunie crew back to Earth, but they turned out to be his new lackeys.”

“So, that’s how you got the Black Dahlia?” Jazdie asked.

“Sure, only she was a wreck, not a working ship. Who knows where it came from? But, there we were—me, Locke, and Cyril. No life support. No engines. We were bound to suffocate within hours.”

“Oh, no! What did you do?” Jazdie asked, feeling foolish but not denying her curiosity peaked.

“Ask me again sometime, if we survive this,” Reilly sighed.

Jazdie frowned and turned around. Cyril was smiling at her from his bridge station, which caused Jazdie to grin back.

Chapter 3
Otherwise Engaged

“Jazdie, SEND the tactical
up on the central screen,” Reilly ordered.

“Um . . . okay . . . I think,” she said, and then looked up to find the tactical data on the left screen instead. “Oops.”

“That’s okay,” Reilly said, “that’s fine, leave it there.”

“Locke, let’s have visual up front and center, maximum magnification.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, and a moment later, the center screen flickered but remained black. Then, either the exterior camera was panning or the ship was moving quite fast—Jazdie couldn’t tell which. The Moon slowly came into view on the right. First as a sliver, then it slowly filled half of the screen.

“There, I see him, right on the horizon line,” Reilly said, pointing to the center of the screen. “That bastard! What’s our course, Locke?”

“Twenty-three degrees—”

“No, I mean, relative to Drake.”

“Okay,” Locke said, “in that case, we’re heading . . . here,” and he added a trajectory marker to the display, showing the Black Dahlia’s projected course.

“Excellent, perfect—hey, how did you do that?”

Locke held his hands up and wiggled his fingers, “Magic! We’re on a course perpendicular to theirs, so they’ll have to do another heavy burn to intersect us, and by then we’ll be skimming the Moon’s surface.”

They waited. Five minutes. Ten. Then, the other ship definitely looked bigger on the screen. Reilly’s console beeped. She hit a button.

“I warned you,” Drake said over the radio. “Last chance. Power down your engines or you’re done.”

Reilly hit another button. “You traitorous, backstabbing motherfucker! You and I both know you aren’t going to fire on us. Even if you
had
weapons, you don’t have anyone to calibrate them for range. You’ll want the artifact, too.”

“Artifact?” he said.

Got you!

“Of course, the artifact we retrieved from that derelict. The idiots who looted her were too stupid to realize what they had—left it behind. Their loss, my gain. Kind of like you, Drake. You threw away the best crew in the system.”

“Right-o!” Cyril shouted.

“Damned straight!” Locke growled.

“Alright, you
bitch
! Salvage
this
!” Drake said savagely before closing the channel.

“What . . .” Jazdie whispered. “Oh, I’ve got a new blip here! What do I do? Someone help!”

Reilly walked to the navigation console and looked over Jazdie’s shoulder. “Shit,” she said in a flat tone. “That asshole never could take criticism. That velocity . . . must be a missile!”

Locke and Cyril jumped to their feet, and Phix poked his head into the bridge. “He’s not playing!” Locke said.

“Where did that sumbitch get military hardware?” Phix asked.

“It’s definitely tracking us. Six hundred fifty miles. We have about two minutes,” Reilly said, returning to her command seat. Up on the tactical screen, they could all see the dot representing the missile, quickly closing the distance.

Think, Reilly. Think!

“Suggestions?”

“Head for the opposite horizon?” Jazdie offered.

“No time,” Locke replied, “it’s too fast.”

“Cut all power, go silent, maybe targeting will fail?” Cyril suggested.

“Hmm,” Reilly hummed. “Perhaps. But we don’t know what kind of targeting system that missile is using. It could be infrared, electromagnetic, laser. . . .”

“The derelict! Move behind it, get it between us and the missile,” Phix suggested, stepping fully onto the bridge.

Reilly stood and wagged a finger at him. “Yes, that just might work, Phix. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to get back to it from our present location.”

She glanced at the tactical screen again. “Ninety seconds. Damn! Where did he get a
missile
, anyway? Is it likely that it even has a warhead?”

Cyril looked at Locke who shrugged and said, “No way of knowing until it goes off . . . or doesn’t.”

“Alright, Locke, here’s what I want you to do. Adjust course straight for the missile.”

“
What?
” Cyril and Phix said together while Locke punched in the new course.

Jazdie said, “You’re heading straight for it?”

“Course ready,” Locke said.

“Okay,” Reilly said, “give it a full gee for two seconds.”

Everyone lurched at the sudden acceleration. Jazdie, who was still staring at the tactical screen, said, “Oh, no, it’s almost right on us!”

“Locke, rotate ninety degrees, perpendicular to our current course, and hold there until my signal, then—and only then—give it a full burst.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Locke said while preparing the maneuver. “We’re sliding now, broadside to the missile.”

Reilly stared at the tactical display on the front left screen, then switched to her command seat’s display.

“Thirty seconds,” Jazdie announced.

After a quiet pause, “Twenty seconds.”

“Okay, get ready for a full burn, Locke, everything she’s got, on my mark!”

“Ready, captain,” he answered, and wiped sweat from his brow.

“Get ready. Brace yourselves, everyone!” Reilly ordered, and Phix took one of the rear bridge chairs.

“Ten seconds,” Jazdie said, “nine . . . eight. . . .”

“Now! Locke, punch it!”

They were all thrown back into their seats under the high-gee thrust. Locke moaned while trying to turn his head toward the tactical display to his left. Jazdie’s chair began to vibrate and she let out a short squeal.

“Kill it!” Reilly shouted over the noise.

The thrust stopped suddenly, causing everyone to lurch forward in their seats. Phix and Jazdie weren’t strapped in, so they both fell forward. Phix flew onto his feet and stopped himself with a “Whoa!” while Jazdie caught the navigation console in her abdomen, gasping out an “Oof!”

“Status?” Reilly shouted.

“Clean miss, captain, but it’s tracking back around again for another pass,” Locke said.

“Shit!” Reilly yelled. “Phix, cut power to
everything
! Quickly, man! It’s our only chance now that it’s lost—”

“Wait, captain, it’s just disappeared off the scope. It wasn’t coming back around after all. Must have had a self-destruct safeguard after missing its target.”

“So it’s over?” Jazdie said in a harsh whisper, wincing while holding her stomach.

“You okay?” Cyril asked, half standing out of his seat.

She held a hand up to wave him away. “Yeah . . . fine . . . just got the wind knocked out of me.”

“Ready to shut down all power if you still want to, captain,” Phix said from the engineering console he had brought up at his rear station.

“No . . . I think we’re okay now, no need to go silent.”

She paused for a moment, leaning back in her chair with eyes closed. Everyone sat quietly for long seconds. She said with a calm voice, “Okay, that’s it, I’m sick of that bastard. We’re going to take his ship.”

“
Wow
,” Cyril gasped.

“I like the sound of that!” Locke said.

“How?” Phix said from the rear of the bridge.

“We’re going to surrender and bait him to dock with us. Phix, what do you make of that robot thing? Is it damaged or just unpowered or . . . what?”

“No idea. I’ll have to take a look at it,” Phix said.

“Get to it. Let me know as soon as possible. If that thing is salvageable, it will make a more compelling prize.”

“Okay.” Phix headed through the rear hatch and down the stairwell to the cargo hold, which also doubled as the engine room, rec room, and mess hall.

The comm system beeped. Reilly steeled herself for another confrontation with her old captain. Although, with a corporation involved, he had been more like a manager. When he went rogue, they had all become corporate fugitives in a stolen ship. She tapped the button.

“Nice maneuver, Reilly. Very nice, indeed! I’ll have to remember that one. Of course, you realize, this isn’t a one-shot popgun. Next time, you won’t have the range . . . you’ll be dust raining down on Luna City. So, how about you play nice and
kill your goddamn engines
before I
blow you out of the fucking sky!
”

Reilly shivered. “God
dammit
, I hate that bastard!”

“You’re right.”

“Huh? What was that?” Reilly asked.

“I said, you’re right, captain,” Locke growled. “Take his ship, then throw him out the airlock! I’ll do it myself. It would be a pleasure.”

Reilly hit a button, and the console beeped. “Okay,
okay,
dammit! Don’t fire! We surrender!”

They heard ambient bridge sounds from the other ship. Finally, Drake answered. “That’s more like it. Prepare to be boarded. And Reilly . . . don’t
fuck
with me. I want that artifact,” and he broke the channel.

Reilly stood and rubbed her hands together. “Alright, people, let’s get prepared. The airlock has a double lock so we can’t just wait for them to enter it and blow them into space. We need to take Drake first. I don’t give a shit about his crew, but good money says they’re loyal. So here’s what we’re gonna do. Jazdie . . . have you ever done an EVA?”

Minutes later, Reilly jogged back to the cargo hold, followed by the other three.

“Over here, Jazdie,” Locke said, walking toward the opposite bulkhead.

The cargo hold on the Black Dahlia was the largest open space on the ship. Crates of various sizes lined the walls and ceiling, held firmly with grav plates.

“Phix, what’ve we got?” Reilly said.

“Huh?” Phix said, glancing toward her and Cyril standing nearby. He had the biped-looking thing strapped to the table, and it was open at the abdomen and skull. Phix was wearing a white lab coat and augmented reality glasses, giving him the look of a modern Dr. Frankenstein.

“We’ve
got
what I suspected: an early-model AI mobile suit.”

“What’s . . . uh . . .” Cyril stammered.

“AI mobile suit?” Phix finished.

“Yeah, that.”

Phix wiped his hands on his chest. “They started turning up in major cities about ten years ago, attracting a lot of attention around the time when all the government secrets were being massively leaked to the public. Surely you saw them on the news?”

“They thought it was a hacker group,” Reilly said, “ONI, that is. That was their best theory at the time. We know now, of course, that it was a Seerva AI. I had a friend at ONI who trusted me with some classified cases, due to my relationship with a . . . um, never mind the details.”

“ONI?” Locke inquired.

“Office of Naval Intelligence,” Cyril said.

“So this guy here, Phix? What’s the story?” Reilly asked.

“It’s fully functional. I mean, that’s why it’s strapped down,” Phix said.

“Whoa! Why didn’t you say so?” Reilly said, stepping back from the table.

“Keep your panties on,” Phix said, which drew a violent stare from Reilly. “There’s no operating system. It’s in a low-power RFC state. And, there’s no point fiddling around in here,” he said, slapping the skull and abdominal panels closed, “because I don’t have any idea what makes this thing tick.”

Reilly mentally counted to ten, eyes on the ceiling. She was considering whether to keep Phix on the crew at their next port. They didn’t have another engineer, but he was too socially inept to be on a small ship with a small crew. She finally said, “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, staring at her chest—which caused Reilly to roll her eyes and fold her arms—“that the electronics and motors are a complete mystery. Nothing inside this thing makes sense. It might as well be animated by evil spirits for all I know. And, before you say anything, I have an engineering degree from Cal-Tech and worked on the software for the SF-100, so I know what I’m talking about.”

And now you’re on this crappy little freighter with us,
Cyril thought,
so what does that say about your fancy degree?

“So, can it be powered up?” Reilly said, running out of patience already.

“Didn’t I just explain that? Jesus Christ on a skateboard—”

Reilly looked at Cyril with a dumbfounded expression. “You really are an unbelievable prick, Phix. You know you have to live with other people here, right? This isn’t your personal fucking ship, is it?”

Cyril laughed. “Maybe I should call Jazdie over—”

“That’s
quite
alright!” Phix said, and he looked across the hold toward the suit locker. “Dammit, I should have stayed at Kepler! What was I thinking, coming out here on this piece of junk . . . with you back alley dumpster diving—”

“
Jazdie
, can you—”