I raise an eyebrow. It’s all I’m willing to give.
Gawyn taps one last button on the sat-link. A diagram of Earth orbit and every piece of space junk currently above the city blinks onto the screen. One of the objects is highlighted with a red circle.
“And this is?”
“How’d you ever become a cop?”
Kid’s a wise ass. I like her.
Gawyn rolls her neck and speaks quickly. “I figured that if the antimatter pulse fired on this city again that it was probably in a geosynchronous orbit above us.”
“Okay…”
“This cuts out bazillions of other possible suspect satellites.”
Rehna leans forward. “Meaning we’re left with the millions of orbiting objects currently over the city.
“Right, but not everything up there is geosynchronous and the fact that nothing in orbit was destroyed means that what we’re looking for is on the bottom layer of a half mile of junk.”
Damn kid is smart. Not even the tech-boys could have figured this out. Good thing too, now that they’re all dead.
“Now we’re left with only a few thousand targets.”
“And you’ve narrowed it down to one?” Rehna asks.
Gawyn nods.
“How?”
“It’s hot,” I say, finally catching up with the kid.
“Right, but not for long. It’s already cooling off.”
I activate the hatch and it seals down over us. “What are you doing?” Rehna asks.
“Buckle up,” I tell them.
Gawyn looks nervous. “I don’t have a seatbelt!”
I smile. “Better double up then.”
Rehna and Gawyn wrap a belt around the two of them, and I gun the throttle to the max, pulling more G’s than a Disney Universe shuttle pod. I aim for the sky, swerving in and out of airborne traffic—most of it fleeing the city. Three minutes later, we clear ten thousand feet and leave most of the traffic behind.
“Priest, what are you planning to do?” Rehna asks. I can tell she’s afraid of the answer. I try to go easy on her.
“Even been in space?” I ask.
Rehna and Gawyn stare at me blankly. The kid explodes, “Bring me back! Bring me back down!”
“I can’t,” I say as calmly as possible.
“Why not?” Gawyn shouts.
“Cause, kid, I might need you.”
Gawyn stares at me. I can feel her trying to gauge my seriousness. Her eyes narrow. “You’re right, old man. You do need me.”
“I hate to break it to you, Priest, but mobile units aren’t rated for space travel.” Rehna is trying to remain calm. I’m pretty sure that if the kid weren’t on her lap, she might fight me for the controls.
“Actually, that’s not entirely true. Up-town might not have let me change the color, but they did let me make a few modifications.” I can’t help but smile.
“Priest… What modifications?”
I respond by opening a panel next to my right knee. After flipping a switch, the mobile unit beings to shake as loud whirs and clacks emanate from the back. Sounds like we’re falling to pieces, but I know better. Rehna screams as we lose power and our ascent slows.
Just as our forward momentum ceases and gravity reclaims its pull on our mobile unit at twenty-five thousand feet, the secondary propulsion unit kicks in, slowly at first, but building in power with each passing nanosecond. Suddenly with a burst of speed, we’re flattened against our seats, skin stretching back as we enter Earth’s crowded orbit.
For the first time since I’ve joined the force, I’m wearing my seatbelt. Hard to drive in zero grav when you keep floating off the seat. The kid is having too much fun, working the sat-link upside down, drifting in the cabin. Rehna just looks mortified…or is it pissed? Kind of hard to tell with Gawyn spinning around between us.
“Which way, kid?”
“Gawyn. My name is Gawyn, old man.”
“Fine… Gawyn. Which way?”
“Well, Priest, straight-a-freakin-head.”
Through the windshield is a mass of floating objects. Some are satellites, serving some purpose to someone. Some are space-decks, orbiting apartment units for people afraid of gravity. The rest is crap—trash tossed into space by folks in the late twenty-first century when they ran out of room for their trash. They figured it would all just float aimlessly through space for all eternity. Dumb bastards didn’t count on picking it all back up a year later when they caught up with their own shit. The thought that this is only a year’s worth of trash makes me sick.
“Heat signature is faint, but we’re within fifty meters,” Gawyn says.
All eyes scan the debris field. Some of the trash separates and we enter a clearing, twenty meters wide, twenty tall. Strange.
I cut the gas and we drift forward, toward the center of the clearing, where a satellite floats alone. It’s big, the size of an air-bus. At its base, pointed toward the Earth is what appears to be a satellite dish attached to three metallic coils extending out like a solidified DNA sequence.
Fwang! A series of laser blasts ricochet off the mobile unit’s hull. The kid jumps back, away from the windshield, but there’s nothing to get cranky about. “Ratchet down, Gawyn. Lasers barely left a scratch.”
Rehna looks at me, more relaxed now that we’re seeing action. “Maybe they’ll let you change the paint color now?”
The smile on my face must tell all, because Rehna looks away quickly. Never in my life has a woman remembered something I’ve said, unless it was an insult. Of course, now might not be the best time to think about it.
Fwang! Fwang! Lasers barrage the outside of the mobile unit doing nothing more than providing a cheesy lightshow. “Must be low yield,” I say.
“Probably to deflect space junk,” Rehna adds.
I steer us toward the satellite and pull up close next to what looks like a maintenance hatch. Then it occurs to me, this might not just be a satellite…maybe it’s a space station. Someone might be alive inside this thing.
As we come within inches of the orbiting beast’s hull, the laser fire dies off. Gives me a chance to inspect the outer surface for clues as to who owes me money. “Shit,” I say, now knowing I’ll never get reimbursed for my Tac-suits.
“What is it?” Rehna asks.
“Mooners,” Gawyn spits out. “Dirty Mooners.”
Fifteen hundred years ago a moon colony was established and its population grew. Low grav made them multiply like rabbits on Dretch. But their advance in everything techie grew just as fast and they quickly adapted to supporting a massive population. It was one of the most modern facilities ever built and larger than any Earth city at the time. Damn toilets probably wiped their asses for them.
Millions were thriving when Albin was born. The bastard rose to power two hundred years after the colony was formed. He was some kind of religious zealot and fancied himself as God’s divine prophet. And the Mooners, ungrateful little whelps, whining about being controlled by us Earthers, staged a brutal and savage revolt. Under Albin’s direction, a series of hit-and-run attacks on Earth cities were carried out. The cowards couldn’t stand toe to toe with us, so they took aim at normal people, the simps, the young, the yuppies, people who never see the inside of a mobile unit. Killed thousands. They forced Earth to retaliate. Rather than wipe the Mooners clean from the moon with nukes, like I would have done, the government at the time opted to carry out a strategic strike aimed at Albin himself.
A single Earth agent managed to infiltrate Albin’s organization and rose to power from within, as a trusted General. Too bad for Albin; he lost his head while taking a crap. A single, high-caliber bullet splattered his brains against the bathroom wall. Got what he deserved too. But he died a martyr. The Mooners continued to piss and moan and soon gained their independence. Not much has been heard from them since. The colony hasn’t grown in size. No new construction has been reported…but from the insignia on the outside of this satellite, I now know that they’ve kept busy over the years.