Rider Express

UM-3/ Avalon

Hills of snow were melting as furious Gale slowly abated and the continent passed into Sede. Kray and four others in the squad he’d drawn from the company; Harley, Amhatiens, Elroy, and Booster hunkered down behind a low hill running alongside a beige, fibrocrete river that meandered across the bombarded, cratered landscape- the vehicle access running from Freeport to Solstice.

“Command knows what they’re doing here,” Booster complained and scratched at his neck. “They can get air-recon any time but no, they decide that they need some poor-sons-of-bitches like us to make a mad dash all the way the hell out here and have a little picnic,” He sat back against the wall of the Access and cradled his M-32. “Those miserable, bug-loving, smleck-eating bastards can do it themselves if they’re so curious.”

“It’s not what they know that Command is worried about.” Krays said and thought, no worries as long as they’re complaining. He focused his optics on the activity going on within the shell of the settlement. He could see GV’s moving past broken hab-domes, cruising easily over streets filled with rubble. They stopped next to the ruin of a larger, industrial type structure.

“We’re gonna have a bombardment platform on the horizon in ten minutes,” Amhatiens said and pointed at the spot where the zapper warship would pass through in its orbit. “Even odds they’ll ignore us. They usually drop only on large groups out in the open.”

“Yeah, usually,” Booster added. “There’s a first time for everything, freq-boy.”

“The node figures there’s a point oh-oh-five-seven chance.” The nodie retorted.

“Look at this and tell me what you think.” Kray said and offered his optics to Harley, who raised them and looked out toward where Kray had seen activity. Two GV’s hovered outside the wreckage of what a toppled street sign identified as the Solstice-Terratronics Research Lab. Drones moved in and out of the broken structure carrying pieces of computer equipment and scanning implements to the open entry doors of the zapper vehicles.

“It’s beyond me,” Harley said and handed the optics back. “But I saw them doing the same thing at Little Springs while you were down-and-out. They’re keying on our science and research installations. My guess is that their trying to analyze our technology. What do you think?”

“I don’t know what good it’ll do them,” Kray said and brought up the optics again. “Theirs is already ahead of ours,” He stowed the optics and reached for his water tube. “But they’re sure looking for something, no doubt about that.”

“Kray, this is Homelight.” Someone from brigade level was dialed into his freq. Kray growled and pushed his helmet-mike closer to his lips.

“Go ahead.”

“We got some lab-coats here who want you all to make a stop on your way back. There’re some critical items someplace in the spaceport landing field area, container numbers AX-eleven-one-seventeen. Don’t worry, it’s secure, over.”

“Roger that, Homelight,” Kray said and put a hand over the helmet-mike. He turned to Harley. “This goddamned planet hasn’t been secure since it was discovered.”

“Look at the bright side, Alvin,” Said Harley. “At least it’s not the E-cons this time. This way we can say we’re not fighting our fellow man anymore.”

Kray scowled and motioned for Amhatiens to call for pickup. Harley elbowed him as he passed in line and said, “Things could always be worse, Alvin.”

An ADF skimmer waited on station for their call and arrived promptly. In 10 minutes they were in the air.

***

Alpha Centauri

The prototype Starhorse drives of TIL Bonventure ripped open a hole in space/time and came out of transit 4,000,000 kilometers from Rigel Kentarus. As the hole closed and the resultant jump flare shot away to infinity. The ship slowly came to life as pre-programmed routines started running. Within 30 minutes, the lid on Ajax’s freezer was open and he was awake. He pushed himself out of the sleep pod and, rubbing twenty-four months of sleep from his eyes, changed into fresh clothes. Ronald’s pod had only started to warm and through the small observation window he could see that his chief engineer had made the trip with a disgusted grimace frozen on his narrow face. Ajax opened the hatch and pushed off for the control cabin.

“Oracle, give me an update on the crew status,” Ajax said once he was strapped into the pilot’s couch. “Nothing major, just give the basics,” He stretched and felt his now 42 year old joints pop. “Christ and Allah. It gets worse every time I come out of the box.”

Reanimation in progress, ORACLE responded. Crew is forty percent optimal. Of the eight person crew, only two of them had been fully roused from slumber. Big Norm, Ronald’s second-in-command, was also up and undoubtedly in the engine room coddling the Starhorses with baby-talk that seemed odd coming from such a large man.

“Give me a position check.” Ajax said and yawned. The lingering effects of cold sleep were still with him: a deep ache in his joints, the deep breaths required for his lungs to feel properly full, and lingering doubt that what he was seeing was real.

200 AU’s from center, ORACLE replied dutifully. The ship was still on the solar fringe of Alpha Centauri. Ajax groaned and tried to stretch in zero gravity. Had he not been strapped to the pilot’s seat, the action would have sent him spinning.

“Advance the reanimation schedules for the rest of the crew,” Ajax said and punched his command access code into the keypad mounted into the bulkhead near his elbow. The function required a pilot override. “I need them out of the coolers ASAP.”

Timetable recalculated, ORACLE confirmed as Ajax brought up the navigation console. X-band radar from the transmitter bulge under the Bonventure’s nose was reaching out into the cluttered Alpha Centauri system, already returning contacts; the fringe of the nearest asteroid belt, the fueling platform SOLC 15, and a dozen merchant craft- freighters or tankers- on a heading towards the work-in-progress nearer to the system core: Horseman Station.

Ajax entered a frequency into the communication system from memory. The secondary, ventrally-mounted dish turned smoothly on its mount as it tracked in on the frequency source- the PGN beacon. He stabbed at the intercom button labeled “Engine Room” and said, “Big Norm, how’re we looking down there?”

“Just fine, sir,” Big Norm called back. He usually let others do the talking. “The in-system drives are warm and I just finished my first diagnostic. There’s still a few gremlins in the system but they’re minor. We’re free to maneuver.”

“How’d you sleep?” Said Ajax.

“I can’t remember,” Big Norm said. “Two years of sleep and I don’t even remember what I dreamed about.”

“Sometimes it’s better that way,” Ajax said and floated free as he slipped the straps of his pilot harness off his shoulders. “I’m going to heat up some caff. Would you like some?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’ll be in the galley.” Ajax said and pushed away from the pilot’s seat toward the hatch. He rolled languidly in zero-g and enjoyed the freedom outside the cramped sleep-pod. Every time he emerged from one it felt as good as it had the first time. He slapped a hand against the hatch toggle and it slid open. Behind him, a PGN anchor was reporting a rise in reported cases of the strange new type of Deep Space Agorapsychosis sweeping through the Alpha Centauri system, neither cause nor cure had been identified.

***

Ajax waved a sip-cup filled with hot soy-caff under Ronald’s nose. After a moment the pained expression on his face eased and after several seconds had passed his eyelids fluttered open, the dark orbs beneath them were confused, disoriented. He looked left, right, and then down at the catheter emerging from the open zip of his thermal shorts.

“Waikee, waikee,” Ajax said and smiled as he pressed the sip-cup into Ronald’s feeble grip. “How’d you sleep?”

“Where am I?” Ronald said groggily and looked down at the sip-cup as if unsure what to do with it but closed both hands around it to absorb the warmth.

“Welcome to Alpha Centauri,” Ajax said and pantomimed lifting a cup to his lips. “Congratulations. Noone gets to be a real black ocean sailor until they’ve made their first jump. It’s the rule,” He dropped a hand onto Ronald’s arm and started to tug him out of the sleep pod. “Come on, get up and get moving. I usually do about a half-hour on the gravity bike just to get the circulation going again.”

“How’s the ship?” Ronald groaned as Ajax helped him out of the pod.

“Very cooperative,” Ajax said and chuckled as he thought of the ORACLE interface. “Big Norm found a few minor system faults but everything else looks good. We’re already decelerating at one-half G. It’s gonna take us a few weeks to get in-system though.”

Ronald’s joints crackled as he stood and stretched in the weak gravity. He took a sip of soy-caff and said, “Why so long?”

“If you thought navigating through the asteroids in Sol system was bad, Alpha Centauri has four separate belts,” Ajax said as Ronald, cup in hand, began doing deep-knee bends. “It’s a trinary system- three suns- the gravitational influences from them prevented any planets from forming,” He held out a disposal bag as Ronald removed his catheter and looked for waste receptacle. “There’s a mother-truckload of asteroids though.”

“Don’t they have lanes opened through them?” Ronald said and hobbled toward his locker. “I mean, how do bigger ships get to the station, old man?”

“Centauri Security is the police force and national guard all rolled into one,” Ajax said as Ronald stripped off the thermal garb and pulled on a fresh set of drawers, then socks, then a blue jumpsuit with the TIL logo, then a padded jacket with a patch labeled, TIL Bonventure. “They send out sweepers to clear the travel lanes pretty regularly. Little ‘roids get used for target practice, bigger ones are broken up with demolition charges and then used for target practice, but collisions still happen sometimes.”

Ronald gave him a dubious look and said, “Collisions?”

“Don’t worry,” Ajax said. “If they’re big you’ll never feel a thing and if they’re small…” He shrugged and let the thought trail off.

“What about if they’re small?”

Centauri Security has the best search-and-rescue this side of Avalon.”

***

UM-3/ Avalon

“What I want to know is,” Harley said as they picked their way through the supply dump in the pitch dark of Avalon night. “If they can see this from orbit, why haven’t they taken all this out yet?”

The flurry of shuttle landings and rapid departures the Harvest before left crates and boxes piled on the spaceport tarmac. A year’s worth of provisions for the colony, plus those not delivered to Zebra Station, sat scattered around the empty landing field, stacked in haphazard piles waiting for trans-shipment to holding facilities in more secure locations. It was a slow process not scheduled for completion anytime soon.

“No idea,” Kray said and shined the beam from his glo-stick onto the shipping tag of large crate. The call numbers were not a match. “Maybe they want to capture them. Maybe they don’t consider it sporting if we starve to death.”

Provisions were the first to be identified and moved off-site, followed by ammunition and spare parts, the stacks that were left were considered for civil requirements that would have to wait for unboxing until after defense matters were met.

Kray looked up at the twin moons in repose, fading toward eventual sunrise, and then at the stars. With the light pollution caused by the settlement removed, they filled the sky, the satellites he spotted overhead were man-made. The zapper platforms in orbit were over the horizon.

“What the hell does high command need so badly that we get stuck out here checking the call-numbers on a lifetime supply of rehydrators and electrical parts?” Harley groused as he directed the beam of his glo-lamp over another crate. He entered the list into his data-pad and was rewarded with an item description. “More office desk kits. What were we looking for again?”

“They’re called Enforcers- police robots of some kind. A dozen of them were on the invoice so they gotta be here somewhere. They got shipped from Earth so they’re probably recent tech. My guess is that they’ll be in bigger boxes.”

“Found one!” Elroy called from a few meters away. Kray and Harley moved to where he stood with a smile, holding his glo-stick close to the side of a large container. “It says a pair of them in there,” He lowered the light as Harley and Kray stepped forward, clearing away the containers stacked on and around the one they wanted. “It feels like Christmas.”

“They don’t have Christmas here, kid, they have Founder’s Day. It’s a combination of Christmas, July Fourth, and Thanksgiving all rolled into one. Go get the hand truck,” Kray said and tossed a case filled with bottled cleaning chemicals inside. “Set the cargo lift for maximum. These things look smlecking heavy.”

“Right, right.” Elroy said and turned, moving off toward the nearest weather shelter a hand truck could be found in. “Where do you suppose the other ones are?”

“This place looks like where the supply monster comes to take a shit,” Kray said as he set his glo-stick down and picked up an unboxing tool. Three pulls of the trigger and the front of the container came off. Mitsubishi Robotics shipped their products in two pieces, each encased in a cushion of hardened foam. The model had been manufactured 12 years before but still gleamed as new. “Christ and Allah. Talk about monsters- the name sure fits.”

“Not brutal enough,” Harley said and ran a finger over the Enforcers head, an empty case filled with sensors: infrared, motion detection, and millimeter wave radar. “Check it out, the gimbles at the end of the four arms have universal mounts.”

“So smlecking what?” Kray said and opened the paper bin in the foam labeled OWNERS KIT as Harley joined them. “I’m not a robot tech. Speak English.”

The unit was eight feet tall, a skeletal framed robot that rolled on treads. The standard, non-lethal attachments for police work were included in the box; foam projectors, gas canisters, tasers- things of no use at all against the zappers.

“Things like HISS guns have connectors that fit universal mounts,” Harley said and used his fingers to demonstrate how the two would fit together. “So does lots of other smleck that’s too heavy for us to carry. Put some armor on this thing and it could take way more hits than a grunt, and carry about eight times as much. I’d be afraid of anything that could pack around four HISS guns and take more hits than I’m used to giving.”

Kray nodded and said, “Me, too. I wouldn’t mind having one of these along whenever they finally start pushing into Freeport.”

Both men spun as a clatter erupted from the shelter Elroy had disappeared into; a beep-beep-beeping that indicated he’d found the hand truck, and then the sound of containers falling. The zappers had stopped outside Solstice as Gale set in. Just having them on the planet made everyone paranoid.

“Damn it, Elroy, you told me you were checked out on the hand-truck!” Kray yelled over his shoulder. Elroy replied by downing another pile of containers. This time it was followed by a curse.

“That was four years ago, top. I took that orientation before my troopship left Earth!” Elroy protested as he emerged from the shadow of the shelter with the handtruck in tow. It was a powered unit by Honda with several years of service evident in the scrapes along the sides, dented fenders, and outdated control box that the Private operated with two hands.

“Get over here!” Kray said and pointed at the ground where he wanted Elroy to drop. “No excuses. If you say you’re qualified with a device, you be qualified with the device. I don’t want to get my head blown off because you thought you were putting your weapon on safe.”

“Hey, Alvin, why don’t you cut the kid a break?” Harley said as Elroy walked the hand-truck up to Enforcer. The device mounted a small boom that could be used to lift things weighing a ton or less. “You been here so long you don’t remember what it was like in cold sleep. It messes with your head.”

“Put this one wherever you find a clearing and keep looking,” Kray said and motioned for Elroy to load the robot. He activated his helmet com as Harley wandered away to look for more, setting the channel to the encrypted company-net. “We found the ‘bots. Where do you want them? Over.”

“You got your GPS on?” Came the reply from company HQ, set up at the bottom level of an underground parking garage. “Enter in ten-twenty-six, one-oh-one-eight… they’ll be some lab-coats there waiting for you, over.”

“Roger, got it locked in,” Kray said. He turned his head until the virtual waypoint showing him the direction to the coordinates blinked in his data-monocle. “I wasn’t planning on going into old town. With all eight of these things it’s going to take us a while to get over there, over.”

“The zapper bombards aren’t due back for another eight hours, Top. The labcoats are going to be real disappointed if they don’t get their toys, over.”

Kray growled as he closed the company link. He spun to see Elroy sliding the first Enforcer to the front of the hand-truck. “Double-quick time, Elroy. We got a deadline to meet.”

Elroy rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t we always?”

“That’s ‘cause noone else can get it done.” Kray said and stomped away.

“Found one!” Harley bellowed from fifty yards into the pile maze. “Tag it and keep looking!” Kray bellowed back. Eight hours was nothing. He swung the glo-stick around as a clatter rose from someplace deeper into the stacks. When he reached the spot, there was a crate of military rations ripped apart. The crate had been torn open by something with large claws. He knew of no life indigenous to Avalon that was so well-equipped. There were imports that were.

***

Alpha Centauri

“TIL Bonventure calling traffic control requesting approach clearance and docking assignment,” Ajax radioed in as the station grew larger outside his thick, armored window. Although still distant, he could see the anti-collision lights flashing from the tips of the Horseman spindle. “You should be expecting us, over.”

“Acknowledged, Bonventure. Welcome to Horseman Station. Solar conditions are stable and should remain for the duration of your approach. We have you in the queue, seventh in line for gantry two. Follow markers to your designated collar. Maintain current heading and decrease speed to one hundred feet per second inside control perimeter, over.”

“Roger, traffic control, I’ve heard it all before,” Ajax said and triggered 50 pounds of thrust from the RCS to bring Bonventure behind and slightly below the freighter directly forward; a Sukhoi 300 series with yellow and white EuroCon markings. Visible ahead of the Sukhoi were the glowing engines of other ships making for port in a staggered line formation. “It’s good to be back, Bonventure out,” He opened a voice-link to engineering. “Ronnie, come on up. You should have a look at this. You’ll never forget the first time you come into Horseman.”

“I’ll be right up,” Ronald called back and within minutes the hatch to the control cabin slid open. Several other members of the engine team floated in behind him, filling the already cramped space. “What’s all this?”

Horseman Station was from all appearances a steel tube hammered through a misshapen black walnut, one that grew to immense proportions as their distance from it shrank away. Ajax pointed toward Gantry #3, where a large freighter hung from the bottom. “That’s one of ours- TIL, I mean- it’s the Manchester Star. She’s Mammoth-class. There’s only six others like it in all of known space. Get a good look.”

“Magnificent,” Ronald said and took in the activity. “I can see why you called this place home for so long. Where are we going?”