It’s a Living

by Peter Miller

The Pygarg dropped out of twist-space near Maxwell’s Pearl, a small globular cluster in the Shadow Reefs. As far as the ship could sense, they hadn’t been detected.

Flynn pulled up a map and checked the local traffic. There was a freighter doing the scree run out of V Point and a small military squadron of a thousand or so light armament cruisers heading off towards the Medici System but it was pretty quiet. Well, as far as legitimate business was concerned, anyway.

“The Vanishing Point must be still in twist,” said the ship, “they’re probably a good ten minutes behind us. I’m sending out alerts and some dirty radiation spectra at low level. If anyone gets close enough we look like a vapour trawler on death’s doorstep, but other than that we’re as good as invisible.”

“OK. Tell Lolot to make sure that everyone’s sharp. I don’t want any fog heads on this. When the Vanishing Point comes in she’ll be looking for trouble, so we’re going to be hitting her quick and hard.” Flynn made a final check on the empty hold. Everything fine. The Pygarg was running lean and fast.

Lolot ducked in through the sling door and began to web up.

“Ship says about ten minutes,” Flynn said.

“We’re looking good,” Lolot said “Everyone’s on best behaviour. I told them the first one to screw up gets to suck vacuum. I think they believed me this time.”

“And that surprises you?” said Flynn. After last week’s brawl at The Drop no one was likely to be underestimating Lolot’s commitment.

“This probably won’t be easy,” Flynn said. “I’m putting money on Filku being in charge and at least a military level AI on board. Once they scope us I figure we’ve got about eight minutes of surprise time before they figure out what we’re doing.”

Lolot set the Pygarg into its attack configuration. The metal blast doors extruded up and around the nose of the ship, obscuring all the forward windows. The screens flipped automatically to density imaging. All the sub light-space antennae and detectors retracted into the hull. The Pygargbecame a quarter-kilometer long jet-black stiletto.

She sat coasting, invisible in nearly every way under the smokey hooked claw of the Shadow Reefs.

“Vanishing Point in normal space” said the ship.

“Let’s do it” Flynn said, kicking the ship into maximum sub-light acceleration.

The Vanishing Point was in view in seconds. Flynn could almost feel the electric bristle of her security scans. The Pygarg approached her with nauseating speed. Flynn knew they were decelerating, but human senses couldn’t rationalize the physics involved. The ship was doing about a million things at once — matching speed with the Vanishing Point, damping the approach inertia, rolling to maximise the chosen attack site, dispatching all kinds of misleading decoy data. Months of deliberate and meticulous planning executed in something less than fifteen seconds.

They closed rapidly on the belly of the Vanishing Point about a kilometer aft of the main passenger locks. Flynn imagined that by now they’d been spotted and there was some heated discussion happening on the flight deck. The AI would already have worked it out, of course, and would be beginning defensive action any time now.

He smiled as particle weapons flickered from the dark shape above them. By the book.

“Standby for insertion,” the ship said.

Lolot’s visor shaded to black.

“Here we go chief.”

Flynn instinctively braced but there was hardly even an impression of tearing paper as the Pygarg sliced up into the hull of the freighter.

He watched the screen. They were smashing up through the bottom fifteen floors, straight as a die toward the Vanishing Point’s cargo hold. There was little sensation of movement, maybe just the odd delicate shudder. He could only imagine the destruction they were causing.

“Bet that surprised them” Lolot said, unwebbing.

“We’re in the cargo space” said the ship “The AI has mobilized an attack squad but they’ll take about six minutes to get here. Data ports are ready. You’re on your own boys.”

Flynn purged the locks. They would be in pressure, probably, but no sense taking risks. They’d made a nice big hole after all. He climbed out after Lolot.

The Pygarg was canted at a modestly steep angle through the hold floor. There was a lot of smoke and debris. The crew were running out the data cables already. They’d been fast. He was pleased.

JJ and his team peeled out from the mid deck lock, weapons ready.

“There’s a squad on its way” shouted Flynn, “Likely to enter through ...”

“The northern bay doors” said the ship in his ear.

“Northern bay doors” he shouted, pointing.

The boys picked out positions, ready for some grief.

“Two minutes down” the ship said.

He couldn’t see the data team but he hoped they’d connected by now. The wrist-thick cables snaked out into the smoke and confusion.

“Data transfer is good” the ship said.

“How long?” asked Flynn.

“There’s a lot more than I expected,” said the ship “we’re probably looking at ten minutes at least.”

“Can you sort it and take the good stuff?”

“Sorry, it’s nearly all encrypted. It’s all or nothing.”

“OK, we’ll do what we can. What’s the AI doing?”

“Not sure. They know what we’re up to now so there’s too much garbage coming down to get any sense. My guess is that they’ll be dropping drones out of the ship behind us. No way back.”

Flynn smiled grimly. Not that there was any intention of going back the way they came.

There was the unmistakeable green flicker of particle fire off to his left. A lone droid was lurching across the bay.

“Low level security” the ship said. “Acting on default. It’s not in touch with the AI as far as I can tell.”

“Blitz it” Flynn told JJ.

There was a stutter of fire and the droid seized in mid stride, smouldering. Not your military issue.

“Four minutes down” said the ship, “eight minutes of data pending”.

“How we doing Lolot?” Flynn asked.

“Good shape chief. I’ve sent the data crew back on board. I’m down near the pods. No sign of the mil so far.”

There was a screaming hiss high overhead. Flynn looked up. A yellowish cloud was filling the top of the hold.

“Uh oh” said the ship “Don’t like the look of this.”

“Not much point trying to gas us,” Flynn said “Surely they’d assume we were suited up.”

“Exactly” said the ship. “That’s what worries me. Maybe they’re attempting to reduce visibility”

Flynn flicked a general warning “Everyone on instruments. It’s getting foggy” he said, as the cloud of yellow vapour reached the floor. His vision went neon blue as the UV ranging kicked in.

“The gas is mostly halon” the ship said “Looks like it’s just the fire-fighting routines coming online.”

There was a puff of flame at the bay doors, which was instantly extinguished by the halon. Two military systems stepped in, targeting. There was a blaze of particle fire from JJ’s team. Green pulses flashed through the hold, dancing ineffectually across the carbon armour of the mil units.

“That’s not right ...” Flynn thought. The air in the particle streams looked soft and smudged.

“Shit” said Lolot “the gas is smearing the beam coherence. We’re not even tickling them.”

“Means they’re hobbled as well” Flynn said.

“Not exactly,” said the ship as the droids raised their weapons. There was a deafening racket and gouts of flame and metal rained down over thePygarg’s hull.

“Projectile weapons”.

“Jeez-uz. This AI is mean. What’s the count?”

“Seven minutes down, five minutes of data still pending.”

“Can we hold them off for five minutes Lolot?”

“It’s a big ask chief. I’ll see what I can do.”

There was another assault from the droids at the bay door.

“Keep them away from the data cables, or we’re stuffed.”

“Understood”.

Lolot and a couple of the crew headed off toward the east bay doors. Flynn could see the mil units advancing cautiously into the hold. There were two more behind them.

One of the crew near him unclipped a small metal pod from his belt and rolled it across the floor toward the oncoming droids. The small object flexed and unfolded ten jointed carbon-fibre legs. Its tiny brain propelled it into motion. It briefly scanned its territory, identified its enemy and scuttled off into the darkness.

There was a moment of almost silence as the crew watched the far end of the hold. Then a phosphorescent green flame unfolded under one of the military systems, mushrooming up until it was level with the spectators eyes. The droid seemed to suck in its gut and then it spun sickeningly and imploded. The particle pulse weapons might be affected by the gas but a point-blank particle bomb didn’t seem to care.

Flynn watched another spider scuttle out from the shadows to his right. It was annihilated by a concentrated hail of titanium.

“Guess they’ve heard that one before” said Lolot’s voice in his ear.

“Three minutes of data pending” came the ship’s steady voice.

“What’s the story JJ?” asked Flynn.

“Command Performance” JJ said. “Check out the dress circle.”

Flynn looked up. One of the gantry cranes was in motion. If the mil units didn’t spot it, they were due to be crushed against the south wall in about thirty seconds.

“That’ll do it JJ. Back to the ship everyone, we’re outta here in two.”

The crew lit out for the Pygarg’s locks. The military droids stopped to shower titanium across the hold. Bad mistake. The gantry crane caught two of them in its swing, picking them off the floor and smashing them into the bay wall. Fragments of metal and flame arced across the wall and floor, straight through the closest of the data lines.

“Shit, shit, shit” Lolot came into view heading for the ship.

“Data on two lines only” said the ship. “I can’t multiplex it. Five more minutes to get it all.”

“Can’t do it” Flynn said, climbing up into the nose lock after Lolot. “We got the first of those mothers but I’ll bet my socks that there are a dozen more cuing up outside. And I think we’ve riled ’em now.”

A massive detonation broke across the nose of the Pygarg to add some meaning to his words. And then another.

“Status”

“No less than four minutes” the ship said.

“Do you have anything at all?”

“Not useful unless we can decrypt it. Can’t decrypt it unless we have it all.”

“Damn.”

“We’ve gotta go chief, I think they’ve got some new toys.” The whine of a plasma cannon stood their hair on end.

“OK. Jesus. Outta here,” Flynn said “looks like this one’s a lost cause.”

The ship trembled and they were instantly in twist.

“Kick it” said Flynn, and they dropped back into normal space about four thousand light years from where the Vanishing Point was dealing with a kilometer wide rupture in its hull.

“So near and yet so far” Lolot said “Did we get anything?”

“I doubt it” Flynn said “Ship?”

“Like I said, all or nothing. I have a hold full of garbage. We can trawl through it but I doubt there’ll be enough to split even two ways.”

“Fuck. What a waste of effort. And now they’ll come looking for us worse than last time.”

“Never mind chief, we’ve still got our health.” Lolot mugged at him.

“Yeah right” Flynn said “but no money to spend on damaging it.”

“That’s life on the high seas, boss.”

“Christ I hate your cheery good nature. Ship, set a course for Coriolus. I need a drink.”

“Done.” said the Pygarg.