Children of Scarabaeus Read online

  The concourse streamed with people rushing in every di rection. The imminent arrival of three Crib battlecruisers was out of the ordinary on any station. But the lowlifes on Barossa had more reasons than most to consider it an emergency—and hundreds of spacers and dozens of ships did not intend to hang around to find out what was going on. A mass exodus was under way.

  The security checkpoint was the barrier between the concourse and the docking bays. It only worked one way—arrivals were checked on their way in, departing spacers were not. Barossa was just outside the border of Crib space and had no interest in following Crib procedures when it came to tracking people’s movements. A couple of rovers, an escaped convict, a cypherteck on the Crib’s most-wanted list—they should have no trouble leaving.

  The woman who’d been waiting for them stood up and appraised the group. She wore clean, faded clothes and a cap on her head stamped with her ship’s logo. The no-nonsense, hard lines on her face suggested she was a seasoned space traveler.

  “This is Captain Xin,” Finn said. “She’s agreed to take us to Tallyho Station on the Medusa.”

  The captain nodded a greeting to Finn. “Are you ready to leave? We have company, it seems. The Crib doesn’t send Lines unless it means business, and I’ve no desire to get caught up in Crib business.”

  “I agree,” Finn said. “We’re ready.”

  “Then there’s just the matter of payment.” She had a thick accent. “I thought you said there were four of you?”

  Yasuo had disappeared.

  “Shit.” Cat looked around frantically. “Thought he was right behind us.”

  They scanned the crowd. In the hustle it was impossible to spot him.

  Finn handed Cat his duffel bag. “I’ll go look. You pay up and wait for me.”

  He didn’t have tell them not to board without him. That could mean a death sentence for him. Not only was the chip in his head wired to explode if Edie died, it would also detonate if they were separated by more than two thousand meters. Having recruited him as Edie’s bodyguard, the rovers had thought the setup provided a good incentive for Finn to protect her.

  “We leave in three minutes,” Xin called after Finn.

  “Kid’s probably buying a souvenir,” Cat told her with a tight smile.

  Edie knew better. Yasuo had always struck her as a bit skittish. He’d been silent during their plans over the past week, just going along with them, never really saying what he wanted to do. Now he’d finally decided to go his own way. That would’ve been fine if it weren’t for the three battlecruisers about to dock. They couldn’t risk him being captured by the Crib. Unlike Corky, he knew their intended destination.

  While Edie kept a lookout for Yasuo, Cat completed the payment with Xin. Eager to depart before Barossa shut down the docks, the captain became increasingly anxious as the seconds ticked by.

  “Four minutes until the docks are locked down,” the PA announced.

  “I’m afraid I can’t wait any longer. Follow me.” Xin looked from Cat to Edie. “Unless you want—” She stopped suddenly, staring at something over Edie’s shoulder. Her brow pinched. “We have a little problem.”

  Edie spun around to see what she was looking at. Every holobill and viz on the concourse showed the same display. Fugitive at large. Apprehend upon sight by order of Crib Central Command. Reward offered.

  Accompanying the text was a larger-than-life revolving mug shot of Edie.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Jezus…” Edie instinctively ducked her head.

  The display cycled to show more faces—Finn’s, Corky’s, Yasuo’s, Gia’s, Cat’s. Known associates. Finn’s mug shot came from his Crib serf file. The others were stamped with Stichting Corp’s logo. The Crib must have demanded the Hoi’s crew roster and personnel files from the company. Now someone on the approaching ships had jacked into Barossa’s PA system and stuck their faces on every information board on the station.

  Except that Cat Lancer’s mug shot was of someone else entirely—a gaunt blue-eyed woman with midtoned skin. The new ident that the infojack Achaiah had set up for Cat had involved using a worm to change Cat’s appearance in records across the Reach.

  Finn was suddenly at Edie’s side, his jacket collar raised in an attempt to hide the lower part of his face. His appearance broke Xin out of her trance.

  “The Crib wants you, and that’s reason enough for me to pretend I never saw you,” Xin said. “But the deal’s off. I’m sorry. You might have better luck with—”

  Finn cut her off with a quick motion of his hand. He didn’t need to hear her suggestions. “Cat, get a refund. Plan B.”

  Cat nodded. She and Finn must have already discussed this while Edie had been too sick to get involved in their plans.

  Finn took Edie’s elbow and guided her with purpose toward the security check. With all the bustle and panic around them, no one paid much attention to the wanted fugitives in plain sight. Yet.

  “Yasuo?” she asked as they hurried along wide corridors lined with windows overlooking the docks. She had to jog to keep up with him.

  “Gone. If the Crib gets him he’ll crack on the first question. We need a new ride and a new destination. Turn on your e-shield to minimum. From this point we can’t leave a DNA trace.”

  Edie obeyed, wondering what plan B was and how it might affect their plans once they reached the Fringe. From Tallyho, a midsized Fringe station, they’d planned to find a ride farther out into the Reach. Cat had a few contacts from her rover missions over the last few years, and through them they’d hoped to find worlds that needed their help. They’d never told Yasuo the reason they wanted to go to the Fringe, other than to hide out—only Cat knew about the cryptoglyph—but he could still reveal names and places to the Crib. They had only minutes to change their plans entirely.

  It seemed Finn had thought ahead. They’d reached the end of the docks, and the crowd thinned out. Finn turned a corner and swiped a key through a door labeled Rescue and Tug.

  “Courtesy of Cat’s buddy in TrafCon,” he said in response to Edie’s questioning look.

  She followed him down narrow, branching corridors. Behind them, Cat raced to catch up.

  “What did you give your buddy for the key?” Edie asked Cat.

  “Access codes for the Hoi’s cargo holds so he could sell the rigs before the scrap merchants picked up the ship. He’s given us more than the key. I just spoke to him—he’s clear ing as many ships as he can for departure before the Crib shuts the place down.”

  Cat took the lead, and after a couple more turns stopped at a numbered hatch.

  “This is it.”

  Finn’s key snapped open the hatch, which led to a short gangway. They piled inside. While the airlock cycled, Finn rummaged in the duffel bag and pulled out three devices that looked like narrow collars.

  “Breathers,” he explained. “The ship is pressurized, but not with breathable air. Hold still.”

  Before she had time to object, Finn drew the collar around the back of Edie’s neck and pressed firmly on the clip at the front. She felt a sharp pain above the beetle shell embedded between her collarbones, and yelped in surprise.

  “Sorry. You’re supposed to apply a local anesthetic first.”

  “No kidding.” Her throat felt scratchy, then cold as air from the storage pouch on the back of the collar began to flow directly into her lungs through the tube piercing her trachea.

  Finn attached his own collar with a minimum of fuss. Cat seemed to be having trouble with the injection part of the routine. Her fingers hesitated over the clip on her collar. As the far hatch snapped open, Finn reached over and did the job for her. She scowled but muttered her thanks.

  Cat led the way into the cockpit of a cramped skiff. There was barely enough room for all of them to stand, and there was no pilot’s seat.

  “What is this—a tug?” Edie asked as Cat punched the control panel. “We can’t get far in this.”

  “We’re only going a few hund
red meters. Usually the tug operates automatically. I can override that,” Cat said. She scanned the holoviz readout. “Okay, there are two cargo ships due to depart in the next couple of hours.”

  “Take the Lichfield,” Finn said.

  “Okay. I’m sending a message to Digger to ask him to clear it ahead of schedule. Once we’re on board, the tug will return to this dock automatically and the Crib’ll be none the wiser.”

  “Cargo? This is your plan B?” Edie looked from Finn to Cat, expecting answers.

  “We’re the cargo,” Finn said. “We’re going cryo.”

  Edie’s breath caught. Cryosleep? She’d spent the last week in a state of near death—and wasn’t ready to do it again.

  The tug gave a barely discernable shudder as the docking clamps released. Cat opened the front shutter and guided the tiny vessel away from the station, following the pylons that extended from it. Larger ships were docked at the end of the pylons, which served both as tethers and as railings for conveying cargo crates into ships’ holds.

  “I really hoped we wouldn’t need plan B,” Cat muttered. “I’d rather take passage on a Fringer tin can than a drone vessel.”

  “A drone…You mean no crew?” Edie asked her.

  “That’s right. Fully automated. Just a bunch of cargo crates strapped to an engine, really.” A navpilot in cryo on a ship with no pilot—no wonder Cat was nervous.

  “Listen, this friend of yours in TrafCon…you trust him not to turn us in?” If they got out undetected, he would be the weak link.

  “Digger? Yes, absolutely. Known him for years. That’s one reason we ran to Barossa in the first place. The Crib has no reason to question him. And he has plenty of reasons to avoid talking to them.”

  Behind her, Finn opened a small shutter at the rear. They were far enough from the station now that its entire curved flank was visible. Dozens of ships were leaving. One by one the larger vessels detached from their clamps or pylons and the smaller ones sailed out of hatches, reoriented themselves, and headed outward to the jump node.

  A shadow swept across the side of the station. A massive black-and-silver shape descended from above—a Crib battlecruiser, on approach to one of the docks. Edie cringed, an instinctive reaction. She knew they couldn’t see her, but her heart seemed to stop.

  Beyond the perimeter of the station, a second Line-class loomed. Was Liv Natesa on one of those cruisers? A week ago, Edie’s former employer had caught up with the Hoi at Scarabaeus. They’d only barely escaped.

  A swarm of fleeing ships streamed past the cruiser’s sleek hull in the other direction. Every few seconds, the outgoing jump node lit up in a ring of light as a ship departed.

  All those people were reacting out of fear because they didn’t understand the Crib was after her. Edie felt sorry for Beagle. He’d saved her life, and Finn’s, by stealing those meds, and didn’t deserve the trouble he was in now. Maybe he was on one of those ships, already safe. More likely he was still loading up all that precious cargo they’d given him. Rackham’s antiques and artifacts were worth a fortune, if Beagle could find a buyer for them.

  “The ship we’re heading for—the Lichfield—what’s its destination?” Edie tried to stop the tremble in her voice as she contemplated cryosleep. They had no choice. The milits would be here any moment and no one else on Barossa would take them.

  “Deeper into the Fringe, making stops along the way,” Cat explained. “These automated vessels fly a tortuous route through the nodes, making deliveries and pickups. Cheapest way to ship anything if you don’t care how long it takes.”

  “And the Crib can’t trace us?”

  “The manifest is confidential, so they’ll never know we’re on board. Even if they wanted to, the Crib can’t afford the legal hassles of checking every courier service, let alone one outside Crib space. And with all these ships fleeing Barossa, a drone ship is the last one they’d suspect.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Finn said.

  Cat docked the tug flawlessly. “Releasing the Lichfield’s docking clamps,” she reported. “Digger came through—it’s ready to depart. Switching to autopilot.”

  The tug began its journey toward the jump node, the Lichfield in tow.

  “Time to get on board,” Cat said.

  But it wasn’t as simple as Edie had imagined. The tug was attached to the Lichfield by docking clamps, not by the hatch through which they’d come. That hatch led nowhere. Nevertheless, it was their way out.

  Edie listened in stunned disbelief as Finn explained their next move while he reeled out a tether.

  “Depressurization drains the e-shield fast, so we need to find an access hatch quickly and break in.”

  Edie’s mind was still fixated on the word depressurization. That meant…the cold vacuum of space. She shuddered and bit down on a dozen questions about safety and risks. She trusted that Finn knew what he was doing. She had to.

  “We have to be inside the ship before it hits nodespace.” He attached the tether to her belt and handed the end to Cat. “If something goes wrong, we can’t return to the tug because it’ll be on its way back to the station by then. Let’s keep an open comm line. No sudden moves.”

  “How long will the breathers last?” Edie asked.

  “The shields will die first—we’ve got maybe ten minutes. You ready?”

  She wasn’t, but she nodded.

  Cat depressurized the tug and Edie felt the buzz of her e-shield as it ramped up power to compensate. As Finn cycled the hatch, Cat leaned forward, her lips close to Edie’s ear.

  “Time to find out if your Saeth knows what he’s doing.”

  Finn slung the duffel bag over his shoulders like a backpack and climbed out of the hatch onto the stern of the Lichfield. He held out his hand to help Edie down. The weightlessness made her stomach flip. Behind her, Cat sealed the hatch.

  The long hull of the Lichfield rose up in front of Edie. From the corner of one eye she picked up the intermittent flashes from the node, signaling the departure of other ships. She didn’t dare turn to look. She watched Finn, and matched his movements by grabbing on to struts and pulling herself along. Holding on wasn’t a problem in zero-g. It was simply the terror of hanging in empty space that set in. Her heart raced, demanding more oxygen. Finn gave her a familiar look that told her to calm down. The breather provided a steady trickle of air into her lungs, but it didn’t feel like enough. Fighting back the feeling of suffocation, Edie concentrated on taking shallow, slow breaths.

  Hand over hand, the three of them climbed along the hull of the Lichfield. Finn seemed to know where he was going. Maybe he’d done this a hundred times before as a Saeth rebel. She told herself that and felt a little more confident. She turned her head in time to see the tug detach and head back to the station. Filling her view was the jump node, normally an invisible portal to nodespace. It was constantly active now as ships streamed out of the system.

  She was getting cold. The e-shield kept her body heat in, but it wasn’t completely efficient. A tinny beeping sound took her by surprise. She glanced down to see the warning light on her e-shield flashing. A fainter echo trailed the beep—someone else’s alarm reached her ears through the open comm line. She craned her neck and saw the light on Finn’s shield generator also flashing.

  Instinctively she moved her hand to her belt to double-check the readout. Inertia spun her entire body and she fell away from the cargo ship. Too panicked to even scream, Edie clawed for a handhold and instead felt something solid across her back. Finn had reached out to grab her shoulder, his shield melding with hers. He stopped her spin and she hit the hull. He pinned her against the vessel until she found the handholds again.

  “I said keep still.”

  “My shield…” she managed.

  “I know. You’ll make it.”

  Finn moved only one more step and stopped. He pulled a device no bigger than his finger from the duffel bag and attached it to the access panel directly above him. Where did he get all th
is stuff? Edie had been unaware of his activities while she was sick. During that time he and Cat must have been preparing for all this.

  He pulled back slightly as a puff of smoke shot out of the access panel’s handle. The panel blew open and the air inside evaporated into space.

  Finn reached down and hauled Edie up. As she clambered inside, he detached the tether. She lurched against the walls of a narrow airlock as the gravplating pulled on her. Scrambling inside as fast as she could, she heard Cat climb up behind her.

  Edie turned and waited for what seemed like an eternity until Finn pulled himself inside. He shut the access panel and put them in total darkness. She heard him rummaging around in the duffel again. “I need to weld this or the hull breach will set off security alarms.”

  “Won’t it already have done so?” Edie asked.

  “No. The toms will investigate first, and transmit an alarm to the company HQ if it’s serious.” Toms were small multi-functional droids used mostly for maintenance jobs. “I need to fix it before the toms get here.” Finn fired up a small torch and swept it over the edges of the hatch. After a few seconds he tapped the panel, and then nodded to Cat. She opened the inner airlock door. Air rushed in.

  Cat shone a flashlight down a dark, cramped corridor. “Where does this lead?”

  “It’s a maintenance tunnel for dockside repairs,” Finn said. “Should be a panel in the floor that we can drop through. See if you can find it.” He was still checking the welded panel for leaks.

  Edie crawled a few meters down the tunnel, feeling with her hands for handles or catches. Her fingers caught on an indentation.

  “Got it.” She pushed out the panel.

  Cat’s flashlight illuminated the hole. “Looks like a main corridor.”

  Finn caught up with them. “Set your e-shields to low, just for warmth. There’s no other danger.”

  They slid through the hole onto the deck. Each of the six walls of the corridor had a railing down the center in a shallow depression half a meter deep. It matched the struts Edie had seen on standard cargo crates. These passages were essentially conveyor belts that moved cargo from the port into allocated bays in the ship, and out again when it came time to deliver.