First Dominion (Fourth Age)
Aurean Cycle no. 462 of the Macbeth dynasty, reign of Aldric II
Second Quadrant, Frontier I-II
"And… there goes our budget," Law huffed.
"Yeah, asking two hundred thousand pods for this thing is a bit stingy," Jean remarked. "It's not like we were in a licensed market. But at least… no more public transit." She clasped her hands in a little gesture of thanks.
"Well… if this works, we're set for life," Amarel reassured them.
"If…" Law sighed. "I've got a bad feeling."
The group had successfully purchased the ship (thanks also to a small financial boost from Lacrosse) and spent the last few days preparing the plan and gear needed for the long-awaited hit on Futura Life's convoy. At that moment, they'd parked the ship amid a belt of wreckage near the border between the First and Second Quadrants: a mandatory gate route for cargo ships, and a confirmed convoy stop in Snow's document.
Around the Fortwin stretched a belt of rusted satellites, small meteorites, and skeletons of abandoned merchant ships, all suspended in a funereal silence. Some bumped together slowly, tugged by imperceptible shifts in gravity; others seemed to sleep, their plating blackened by old explosions. Small lights flickered here and there like fireflies in the void.
"So, Snow's attachment says it'll look and read like a standard convoy: to the border's eyes, a routine transition."
"They want to hide in plain sight," Law deduced.
"Yeah, probably the best way not to attract attention," Jean echoed.
"Oh, and here's the clause that says 'the convoy may be monitored from a distance,'" Amarel said, scrolling on the tablet.
"Sounds like cereal warnings," Law commented.
"Anyone here allergic to guilds?" Amarel played along, which made Lacrosse laugh.
Then the boy thought again. "Wait—guilds?"
"Yeah, corporations usually do that," Jean explained. "They contact the IGO, which spins up contracts for protection, cross-Quadrant ops, or temporary reinforcements to add to their private militia."
"So what do we do?" Lacrosse asked.
"In theory, we should have enough time to get out and avoid a direct confrontation," Law reassured him. "In theory."
"Okay, roll call…" Amarel headed to the back of the ship to check the "shopping list" (tools bought mostly with Lacrosse's money). "…We've got eight EMP grenades, two each; new blasters, magnetic belts, two portable lasers, four functioning spacesuits, magnetic harpoons, masks, and… beer?" Amarel turned to the others.
"Oh, that was me," Law confessed.
After finishing the inventory, Amarel set the tablet down and stretched. Law was trying to mount the blasters onto the suits' magnetic belt mounts, but one kept dropping on him every time. Jean prepped the masks while Lacrosse tried to open one of the beers without making it explode in zero-g.
--
After a few hours of waiting, about ten kilolumes from the border, a large cargo ship emerged from a gate, marked with a stylized leaf inside a green pentagon: Futura Life's logo. Five smaller support craft with the same logo surrounded it.
The convoy moved slowly toward the border.
"Is the coffee gone?" asked the pilot of the escort ship ahead.
"No, there should be some in the back," replied a crew member who started toward it, but paused to check the radar—and noticed it was showing a ship in front of them.
"Hey, slow down," he said. "Don't you see there's traffic ahead?"
"What are you talking about?" the pilot shot back. "There's nothing ahead. Tell the ones in back to get the customs documents ready. And have a coffee yourself—you need it."
"Bran, just turn around!" the other protested.
The pilot lazily glanced at the radar, which did indeed confirm what his crewmate was saying.
"Okay, they're using some kind of anti-reflective cover. Better slow down, if we ram something it's a mess." The pilot tapped a few keys to notify the rest of the convoy. All six vehicles abruptly slowed their advance.
"…"
A few minutes passed, and everything seemed routine.
"Hey, Bran, here's the cof—" Suddenly a boom, followed by a low rumble. The escort ship's lights went out. Controls, fixed comms, artificial gravity—everything went dead.
"Oh, crap. Now?!" the pilot groaned, rebooting his earpiece and hailing the other ships.
"Convoy, Arrow 1—we're in blackout. Halt your route temporarily," he said, annoyed.
"Arrow 2—blackout here as well," came the voice over the earpiece.
"Arrow 3, blackout."
"Arrow 4, same."
"Arrow 5, same situation."
"What happened?!" On the cargo ship—also blacked out—the pilot left his seat nervously and floated through the cabin, the artificial gravity out. Someone was rapping their knuckles against an emergency panel.
"Aux battery dead?"
"No, it won't come on at all. Could've been a targeted pulse."
"Are we under attack?!"
"Check the air. If it starts dropping—"
An intermittent beep flashed on the auxiliary monitor. The tech cursed.
"Pressure's dropping!"
"Contact the outside!"
"Besides the private channel, we've got no comms!"
Then the pilot's stomach lurched. "The canisters!" he cried. "Did the refrigeration system go too?!" he shouted to the crew behind him.
"It's an autonomous system. Fridge module isolated with inertia battery. It rebooted on its own right away," replied the guard posted before the cargo.
The pilot exhaled in relief.
Meanwhile, under the cargo ship's hull, Law and Amarel, both suited up, were working the lasers to cut into the floor. They'd capitalized on the confusion caused by their EMP grenades to attach two magnetic harpoons to the underside of the cargo ship, reel themselves up, and hold position to cut through. Along with their "shopping list," the group had also acquired a "desynchronizer": a tool that tampers with radar and tracking devices to show a target at a position where it isn't. They used it to project a non-existent ship ahead of the convoy so it would slow down. In addition, they used the cloaker kindly installed by the former bounty hunter who sold them the ship, to hide the Fortwin's true position from the convoy—namely, directly beneath it.
"No, no, Law, a little further over. If you cut there, the canisters will drop. Look…" Amarel advised over the private comms channel, showing him the tablet's projection of the cargo hold layout. Their spacesuits were tight and fairly thin. The black-and-red Omnitech fabric had a smooth, slightly matte finish with metallic edging. Elastic inserts were visible at the joints—knees and elbows. The corporation's mark, a stylized red hexagonal O made of broken lines, was woven in luminescent microfibers on chest and back.
"Alright, my bad." Law shifted the magnetic harpoon a little. "Let's hurry—this suit's tight," he grumbled.
"Uh… that might be mine…" Lacrosse confessed over the comms.
"Why did we bring four suits if only two of us are using them?"
After a good fifteen seconds, Law and Amarel finished tracing a rectangle with the lasers. "Get ready," Law said, pulling the blaster from his belt.
Amarel nodded, doing the same. "Okay, you can pull," he said to Jean over comms.
The ship began reeling in the harpoon cables so the laser-cut rectangle pulled free from the hull, opening a real hole.
With the breach, the vacuum violently sucked all the air out of the ship's interior. As the air blew out, the guards were hurled through the opening—and Law and Amarel shot them as they came out. Now they were just bodies drifting in the void.
When the hold's air pressure allowed, the two used the harpoon lines to push upward and successfully enter the storage bay, finding themselves before the row of canisters. Each emitted a milky vapor, as if containing something living and cold.
"A chance at real power, huh…" Amarel said, gazing at the twelve cylinders arranged four by three. A canister came up to about his waist.
"Imagine if the guy's lactose-intolerant," Law said, making Lacrosse laugh below.
Amarel smirked. "Anyway, the attachment says the canisters must be kept below a certain temperature. We can't take the whole refrigeration system, but in theory the kit includes a single-unit cooler."
"Alright, I'll look for it," Law said.
Meanwhile, on the Fortwin, Jean was at the controls, ready to engage autopilot at a moment's notice. Lacrosse was in back on the couch, video-calling his sister Clarisse on the tablet.
"Hi, Cla!" the boy greeted, excited.
After a brief, almost imperceptible smile, Clarisse arched her fine eyebrow. "Well?"
"We're in the middle of the job!" Lacrosse replied. "So far it's going great—Law and Amarel are up top grabbing the canisters. I gotta tell you, it's not—"
"BRIGHT SKIES!" a curse boomed over the ship's radio.
"THAT DICK SHOT OFF MY FINGERS!"
"???"
On the cargo ship, Law was about to grab the single cooling unit when, on instinct, he jerked back: the pilot up front had managed to withstand the air being sucked out through the hull breach and had donned an emergency respirator (Futura Life protocol gave the wearer enough time to get into the equipment spacesuits). He'd hidden for a bit, grabbed a blaster, then tried to shoot Law. As Law recoiled, the shot took only the pinky and ring finger of his synthetic arm, shearing off the two digits and pieces of the suit's glove.
Law didn't feel pain per se—it wasn't his real arm. But by design, synthetic limbs fire off a strong jolt to notify severe damage. From the severed stubs of the pinky and ring finger, an infinity of microscopic filaments fizzed with electricity (synthetic limbs run on electrical impulses and mechanical force from the rest of the body), along with a rigid core that was meant to emulate bone.
"Oh look, you're a reptilian now," Amarel joked, taking cover behind the canisters.
Law, without even looking, snapped off a shot that caught the pilot in the chest. "Oh come on, this shit costs a fortune to maintain," he groused, brows knit.
"Looks like you'll need to refit the cyber arm, Mr. Freelance," Amarel snickered.
"NO!" Law barked.
He grabbed the canister, and the two began descending into the shaft. The Fortwin had two airlock chambers (isolated rooms for entering and exiting vacuum without sucking air from the main areas of the ship), one aft and one on the roof. They used the latter since it sat directly beneath the cargo ship.
"I take it something went wrong?" Clarisse commented from the tablet. Lacrosse shrugged.
"Uh, no! No! Don't worry, Miss Rouge!" Jean called out from the cockpit, loudly reassuring her.
"Madamemoiselle Poétesse, thanks," Clarisse corrected, breezily.
"Okay, okay, we're back in. Now let's drop—oh, shit!" The canister Law was holding with the synthetic hand (the three-fingered one) slipped and landed on Lacrosse's head with a dull thunk, knocking the boy to the floor. The arm let out a brief error whine and locked up.
"…" Law stared at his arm in silence for a beat, then lifted his guilty gaze toward his partner.
"... What is wrong with you?!" Amarel shouted.
"You! You bunch of—" Clarisse was about to say something, but Jean rushed over and abruptly ended the call from the tablet.
"Oh heavens—are you okay?" Jean gently helped Lacrosse up from the floor.
"Ha! Ha! Ha! Yeah, yeah, don't worry," Lacrosse laughed, apparently unscathed.
Jean breathed a sigh of relief. Law and Amarel dropped from the airlock and landed in the ship's main room.
"My bad…" Law muttered.
"Well—we should have everything," Amarel declared.
"Okay, now let's go before the convoy ships reboot," Jean went on.
She set the route on the cockpit console for the autopilot: they'd take a gate to an abandoned mining colony a few light-years out to shake any pursuers. Then they'd head to a station—Stella Nova—where they'd take another gate after a couple of hours to finally reach Alay.
"Fifteen million…" Jean said dreamily. "Dad and I will finally be safe…"
The ship had departed and put enough distance between itself and the convoy.
"Oh heavens, we actually did it," Amarel said.
--
The ship moved in silence above the mining colony built on a pair of moons of an abandoned planet, Mexa Secundus. The scene around the Fortwin as it approached the gate was the Silver Pillars: massive columns of bluish and grayish nebulae.
Law was staring morosely at the two stumps on his left hand. "Well, I guess some of the money will have to go to—"
"Oh, crap!" Jean swore.
"What happened?" Lacrosse asked.
"Outside!" she shouted.
A few hundred lumes from the Fortwin, three small, fast black fighters had appeared.
"So they really did hire a guild…" Amarel said, worried.
"Raven," Law observed, noting the fighters' color and the emblem stamped on them: a silver wing inside a diamond. "We took too long."
"And now…?" Lacrosse asked, anxious.
"Eh, we'll think of something," Law declared nonchalantly. "I doubt tha—" The ship suddenly shook so hard it sent all four of them sprawling to the floor.
They were firing.
Glossary
Kilolume: Multiple of the lume; equals one thousand lumes.
Megalume: Multiple of the lume; equals one million lumes.