Rocio expanded his distortion field, probing where Proctor indicated. The ship slithered into his perception as a tight kink of mass, alive with energy.
Got it,he acknowledged.
Intercept them, and order them to return.
Are they hostile?
I doubt it. Probably just another bunch of idiots who think they can live where they want instead of where the Organization tells them.
Understood. And if they don’t want to return?
Blow them to shit. Any questions?
No.
Rocio changed the distortion field again, concentrating it on a small area just ahead of his beak. Power surged through his patterning cells, and the stress he was applying leapt towards infinite. A wormhole interstice opened, and he shot through, emerging from the terminus less than two seconds later. It folded neatly behind his tailfeathers, returning local space-time to its usual consonance.
The interplanetary ship was three kilometres away, a long silk-grey splinter of metal and composite. Standard configuration of barrel-shaped life support module separated from the drive section by a lattice tower. It was decelerating at two thirds of a gee, blue-white fusion flame spearing cleanly from its exhaust. Rocio was also aware of another wormhole terminus opening five thousand kilometres away. A hellhawk slid out, deflating its distortion field immediately, and drifting inert. He resisted the temptation to hail it. Shadowing him in such a fashion to monitor his conduct was very unsubtle.
A radar pulse triggered the ship’s transponder: according to the code it was called the Lucky Logorn . Rocio matched velocities with it, and opened a short-range channel. “This is the Organization ship Mindori ,” he told them. “You’re approaching New California’s Strategic Defence network without clearance. Please identify yourself.”
“This is Deebank, I guess I’m the captain around here. We haven’t been advertising our presence in case we attracted those goddamn voidhawks. Sorry about that, didn’t mean to give you a scare. We’d like clearance to rendezvous with a low orbit station.”
“Clearance refused. Return to your asteroid.”
“Now just a goddamn minute, we’re loyal members of the Organization here. What gives you the right to order us about?”
Rocio activated a maser cannon on his lower hull, and targeted one of the thermo-dump panels plumbed into Lucky Logorn ’s equipment bay. “One. I’m not ordering you, I’m relaying an instruction from the Organization. Two.” He fired.
The blast of coherent maser radiation thumped a half-metre hole into the middle of the thermo-dump panel. Fluorescent orange shards spun away, their glimmer slowly fading to black.
“Fuck you,” Deebank shouted. “You bastards can’t keep us out here forever.”
“Realign your drive. Now. My second shot will be through your fusion tube. You’ll be left drifting out here. The only thing you’ll have to occupy yourselves with is a sweepstake. Is your food going to run out first? Or will it be the air? Then again, a voidhawk might pick you up, and you get used as research lab beasts by the Confederation.”
“You piece of shit.”
“I’m waiting.” Rocio slid closer, picking up the resentment and anger boiling through the eight people in the life support section. There was bitter resignation in there, too.
Sure enough, the fusion drive plume twitched round, sending Lucky Logorn on a shallow arc which would ultimately see it heading back to Almaden. Cancelling so much delta-V was a long, energy expensive business. It would take them hours.
“We’re going to remember you,” Deebank promised. “Time will come when you need to join us. Don’t expect it to be easy.”
“Join you where?” Rocio asked, genuinely curious.
“On a planet, dick-for-brains.”
“Is that what this was all about? Your fear of space?”
“What the hell did you think we were doing? Invading?”
“I wasn’t told.”
“Okay. So now you understand, will you let us through?”
“I can’t.”
“Bastard.”
Rocio played for the sympathy angle, marshalling his thoughts into contrite concern. “I mean it. There’s another hellhawk shadowing me, making sure I do what I’m told. They’re not certain about my commitment to the cause, you see.”
“Hear that splashing sound? That’s my heart bleeding.”
“Why doesn’t the Organization want you on New California?”
“Because they need the products Almaden makes in its industrial stations. The asteroid has plenty of astroengineering companies who specialise in weapons systems. And we’re the poor saps who have to terrorise non-possessed technicians into keeping them running. You got any idea what that’s like? It’s a crock of shit. I was a soldier when I was alive, I used to fight the kind of fascists who enslaved people like this. I’m telling you, it ain’t right. It ain’t what I was brought up to do. None of this is.”
“Then why stay in the Organization?”
“If you ain’t for Capone, you’re against him. That’s the way it works. He’s been real smart the way he’s set things up. Those lieutenants of his will do anything to keep their position. They put the screws on us, and we have to put the screws on the non-possessed. If there’s any trouble, if we start to object, or get uppity, they just call on the fleet for back up. Don’t they? You’re the enforcers, you make it all hang together for him.”
“We have our own enforcer, she’s called Kiera.”
“The Deadnight babe? No shit? I wouldn’t mind submitting my poor body to some enforcement by her.” Laughter rumbled across the gap between the ships.
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever met her.”
“Tough bitch, huh?”
“The worst.”
“You don’t sound too happy about that.”
“You and I are in the same situation.”
“Yeah? So listen, maybe we can come to some kind of arrangement? I mean, if we have to go back to Almaden, the lieutenants are going to make us eat shit for pulling this stunt. Why don’t you take us back to New California, let us off at a low orbit station, or if you’ve got a spaceplane we could use that. If we get down there to the surface, we stay. Believe me. There’d be no comeback.”
“Fine for you.”
“We’ll get you a body. A human one, the very best there is. There’s millions of non-possessed left on the planet; we’ll get one ready for possession and hold it for you. This way you get down there without any of the risk we’ll be going through. Listen, you can sense I’m telling the truth. Right?”
“Yes. But it doesn’t interest me.”
“What? Why not? Come on! It’s the greatest deal in town.”
“Not for me. You people really hate this empty universe, don’t you?”
“Oh, like you don’t? You were in the beyond. You can hear the beyond. It’s always there, just one step away on the other side from night. We have to get away from that.”
“I don’t.”
“Crap.”
“But I don’t. Really. Certainly I can still hear the lost souls, but it’s not as if they can touch me. All they are is a reminder of that nothingness. They’re not a threat themselves. Fear is the only thing that drives you to escape. I’ve got over that. Mindori belongs here in the emptiness, this is its perfect milieu. Having this construct as my host has taught me not to be afraid. Perhaps it should be you who try and find blackhawk and voidhawk bodies? Can you imagine that? It would solve everyone’s problem, without all this conflict and violence. If after you die, you were to be given a voidhawk body to possess. Enough could be grown for the lost souls, I’m sure of it, given time and commitment. Then ultimately, space would become filled with billions of us, the entire human race transformed into dark angels flitting between the stars.”