Some missions never really end until their finished. A human pack rat picks up explosives on a dead space station and almost gets caught.Almost? Another view of the future with Shut Up in mind.
Service to the Blue
By James J. Marry
Malika breathed slowly and completely. “The Queen” had learned painfully the art of patience and attention when dealing with her enemy. The Preacher made certain of that before she ever left the nest. Preacher gave all of the Scrounges a new name; for some it was easier since they started out without one anyway. Malika was one of those rarities.
She knew that she needed to slow her respiration even more. The officer would be fine-tuning all of its sensors by now. She knew the region as well as she knew the scar on Preacher’s cheek. The cyborg had simply gotten the drop on her- got lucky; she’d like to think. Lucky though? The damned automatons were not smart enough to be lucky and Malika knew it. For three of them to come this close in the past month, there was only one simple explanation. Preacher must be right- the Culture had sent more of them for the Admiral to use.
The young girl was not going to worry about the Admiral now though. Her respiration was down to three breaths a minute and her body was wrapped tight with the greased bandages that any scrounge needed to wear. She concentrated harder since two breaths would be better and better could define life and death against the officer drone. Not that they were programmed to kill. They hadn’t been yet anyway. Just to abduct with prejudice, and ouch for that prejudice.
The last run in with the four-motored hovercraft had ended with a swipe by the one armed bandit that sent Malika thirty meters. Oddly enough, her stopping point was a box filled with the riches that she had been in the cargo cell seeking in the first place. After her football field flight, the pillaging goal was quickly forgotten. Malika need to use the escape route that was a vent right behind the container. This time she didn’t have any such option. She had to outsmart the officer. Two and a half breaths and the cyborg was near ten seconds from looking directly at her with its bay of sensors. She needed to concentrate.
It was hard though. The damned things simply pissed her off. Not that she felt any nobility for her chosen trade. Hell, the little girl was a thief essentially. The fact that she had three years experience at age seventeen didn’t elude her either. Nor the fact that her thefts had little to do with survival; she was aware of the true motivation for her labors. Preacher had gestated this in her being from the beginning of her servitude. She loved the taste of the game as well though Malika knew that it kept her fed.
Not really. If anything, Preacher had too much love in him. Malika hadn’t told him about her last two run ins with the bad guys and the way things were progressing, she probably wouldn’t be able to tell him about this trip. Her breathing was down to two long sucks a minute. That ought to do it as the metallic beast turned the corner and peered at her with the cobalt blue eye. The eye that would see her through movement or through heat.
Malika could beat the heat sensors with the insulative wraps and deep greasing of her attire. With her depressed respirations gained through Preacher’s dedicated training, she should be able to beat the Cyclops as well. Concentration would be difficult to maintain as the officer searched for the waif that he fully believed should be in this abandoned compartment. She listened as the hover engines slowed to permit sound analysis.
Her mind drifted back to Preacher’s calling of the perilous series of missions. A memory of the woman was unavoidable but bitter in her mouth, since the woman had acquired Preacher’s mind as well as his body since her arrival. Malika would not speak or even think her name, since that would be more recognition than the woman deserved. Preacher had sent Malika to watch over the woman’s arrival from the outworld months ago. Malika had no idea then what a shambles this human would create in her already risky existence. There was some jealousy in all of this unwanted emotion, but it was more than just that to Malika. This woman had talked Preacher into taking chances that Malika was certain he would have never considered before- like the missions.
And it was so quickly after the arrival of the Culture’s lifeboat to the space station that Preacher had fallen into the woman’s spider web. He became helpless and then he became her property. Next her became her puppet. Malika respected Preacher in many ways- she actually thought that she might be sexually attracted to the woman herself. Malika wasn’t sure of her own sexuality since she had not offered herself to man or woman. But when the missions began, Malika quickly determined that the woman was dangerous to all of the orphans that Preacher was protecting.
The Admiral knew all of the orphans were fed and clothed by Preacher’s efforts. Sure, most of this reward was derived by hard work on engines and designs for the necessary shuttles to milk hydrogen from the Saturn atmosphere. This kept the Admiral in good with the Culture and helped to continue the secret of the space station’s living existence. Malika had to try not to smile at this bit of her own history. The robot was only a meter away and slowly scanning the room with its blue eye.
Every person under the governing of the Culture believed that the station, which Malika called home, was dead. That is every person except for those doomed to survive their lives on the Black Rock or the handful that Preacher said was in the know of the existence. And all of the knowers knew that the only reason that they were alive was to keep the shuttles serviced- to keep hydrogen flowing for Earth, for the White Rock station and for all of the other Culture installations.
The plan was madness except that it had worked perfectly for more than the last two decades. Damn it. Malika was staring to feel the wear of the decreased breathing in her back- and the officer was stopped in dead stare before her now. She felt as though she could sense the decision making process that the robot was making through the cold blue cobalt light that was running over and around her. She feared that the machine would determine her shape was close enough to warrant a further examination- say with the one long arm and maybe something extremely sharp.
The goal of the missions was to acquire very specifically marked packages from very old service spaces aboard the station. Malika felt sure that the increase sentries were assigned when the Admiral had determined that something on board his prison barge was being stockpiled. She didn’t believe that he knew what it was- but neither did Malika in truth. That was okay though. She was in it for the adventure and the accolades. Yeah, right. She was in it because Preacher had told her to be in it. That was enough.
The blue was locked onto her now. The sentry was as still as her breathing if not more. She sensed, saw and heard as a modem connection was made. The officer would be sending for orders from a real human being now. Maybe even requesting some dispensation from the Admiral himself or his muscle, Vasilly. The outcome could not be seen as fortuitous for Malika regardless of the man-made creature’s next move.
Malika analyzed the room without seeing her own thoughts. Movement of her eyes could easily give away her identity to the drone. Her endless knowledge of so many other spaces on the dead station could help her planning. The gamble related directly to time though.
Whereas the officer might not normally be programmed to injure or kill Malika on finding her in this space- her egress would change the stakes dramatically. The time factor was simple. If the cyborg reacted as quickly or quicker than Malika, then Malika would not get any opportunity to make one bad choice. Once she decided to move- which she would have to decide very soon- the officer would be on her. And to think, she had already acquired a large package of the booty that Preacher had desired her to appropriate. Maybe she could use the container to purchase some additional opportunity.
NOW! Malika dropped and rolled to her left. The automaton turned, followed and accelerated the quads. Malika rolled full speed right towards the packing at the far wall. She jumped before she struck the boxes as the robot caught up with her movement. She only wished to throw the package towards the sentry to prevent its quickly moving solo arm from grabbing her. With a gift of practiced aim, she left the package in mid air between her and the officer as gravity pulled her body greased self down behind the container breakfront. She reached for purchase on the grate that she knew would be before her as the world exploded.
“WHOOMPH!!!”
All of the plastic boxes were forced by the explosion to fall on top of Malika. Her breath escaped her violently as she was pressed against the grate and the wall. She was as confused as she was trapped. The impact fog left her quickly though and she began to work the cartons off of her person. Malika felt sure that the droid unit would be waiting at the outside of the containers for her to show her face. She planned to stick to her original escape plan though and slither through the vent door as soon as she could. All she could think was that Preacher would be upset.
Moving another container, she thought that the package must have been booby- trapped. That was surely the only explanation. But – why? Wouldn’t her capture be more valuable than blowing her guts upon an unused storage cell’s walls? She knew that she was confused still and she was confident that Preacher would be able to explain it to her.
As Malika wrenched the cover off of the airway, she realized that she couldn’t hear the motors of the officer running behind the stack of container detritus that the explosion had caused. The blue was noticeably missing as well. When she moved the vacant containers, she saw the reason. The robot was out of service- dead on site- and meeting it’s maker’s maker. Defunct.
Others would be on the way. She slid into the vent and replaced the grate. Ten minutes later, she slid out of the air duct at the orphanage. Her escape opening was secure from all Admiral set monitoring, and she worked quickly at unwrapping her head first. Returning to normal breathing was making her light headed and her back pain was amplified by the incident. Spots intruded in her vision with limited discomfort for her neck and skull. Tears were rolling down her face as the Preacher stepped into the cell.
“What happened?” He asked anxiously.
Malika looked at him for a few moments. Could he have known?
“I found a real good one. I thought.”
“And?” Preacher asked with more anxiety.
“The package was full enough that it slowed me down a little. One of the Admiral’s droids snuck up on me and I tried to play possum- until the bastard started talking to someone.” Malika breathed painfully.
“You don’t think that they self destructed the officer, do you?” Preacher needed to know.
“No. It was the package. I threw it at the damned thing when I went for an escape. It must have been booby-trapped”
It was an odd reaction. Preacher’s eyes widened and his jaw went slack. He seemed to become a few shades paler than life on a dead space station could normally make a man. Malika noticed that Preacher stopped breathing too.
“I’m sorry, Malika.”
She blinked twice.
“You’re sorry?”
He looked down at the floor. “It was old Cordite.”
Cordite. A good old time explosive used for mining purposes back in the real world. What it would be doing on board of the Black Rock was as good a question as why would the Preacher be sending her to collect the stuff. And since it was really old- it would be really dangerous to move around. And Preacher would have known that too.
“Were you trying to kill me?” Malika asked Preacher.
“No, my Queen. I wanted to save all of our lives. The Culture put that there back when the rest of humanity had been told that we were all dead.”
“You mean…” Malika stuttered.
“Yes. The Culture was prepared to expend Black Rock. They would have killed us all rather than admit to our existence.”
Malika sat down again and hard. If they couldn’t make believe that her home was lifeless, then they were willing to insure that they were dead. The Culture would murder all two million of the station’s population rather than expose themselves to the results of humanity discovering the slave kingdom that they had created. The Admiral would have known this also.
Malika’s head swam. And Preacher had decided that the secret was worthy enough to keep it from the person who was collecting most of the dangerous compound- Malika herself.
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Major League ballplayer Justin Moore is kidnapped from his own ballpark and transported to a foreign land. It might take high-level international negotiations to free him. Or maybe he will take matters into his own hands.
Service to the Blue
