Cyber Dreams 4.39 - Pirate Side Mission

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-Plum

Juliet stood in the docking bay, waiting by the airlock where she was supposed to meet the synth pilot for her little pirate side mission. When she’d accepted the job from Mary, she’d had at least a fifty-fifty intention of making an excuse to bail out on the job, but things had changed when she’d contacted TC about Nick’s automated PAI message. The synth had claimed Nick was working on a “special project” for Mary, but he’d likely be available when Juliet returned from her mission. In other words, if she wanted to see him again, she needed to do the job.

She’d been angry. In her mind, taking Nick, silencing him, and using him as leverage undid any goodwill she might have felt toward Mary and her pirate-faction, which had been pretty slim to begin with. Who sends synths with live ammunition to ambush a person as a test? No, Mary was on Juliet’s shit list, and so were the members of her crew. Still, Mary had Juliet over a barrel, and with her limited access around the base, she felt like she had to play it cool, had to play the game. She’d cut her comms to TC when he fed her the line about Nick’s special project, but after thinking about it and sounding things out with Angel, she’d called him back and tried to act cool. She was Lacy Blake, and Lacy Blake didn’t care if Nick ate a bullet.

The mission sounded a little crazy, a little out of her wheelhouse. She supposed Lacy’s background made her a good candidate for crazy missions, though the only reason Juliet felt she had a chance of pulling it off was because she had Angel. Mary didn’t know about Angel, so she must have decided Lacy was extremely talented, extremely desperate, or someone she wanted to get rid of. Juliet felt like the mission setup was too convoluted for it to be option three. If Mary wanted Juliet dead, she could’ve decoupled the docking rings from her cargo ship and turned the big cannons out in the docking cavity on her.

Further speculation was forestalled as a robotic synth wearing an old, patched-up flight suit approached. His eyes flashed as his speaker-grill of a mouth emitted a gruff, masculine voice, “All set, soldier? Here, you’ll need this.” He tossed a slender, plastic backpack her way, and as Juliet caught it, she saw it held a compressed air tank and sported six different directional nozzles—an EVA maneuvering pack.

“Thanks.” She loosened the straps to fit over her tactical vest and armor while the synth passed her by and tapped an access code into the airlock.

“You’ll want to attach your combat suit’s shunt to that air tank,” Angel said. “There’s a port near the bottom.”

Juliet did as Angel instructed, pulling the retractable tube from the lower left side of her suit out of its housing and plugging it into the tank before shrugging into the straps. After snapping the waist belt around her belly and cinching it tight over the armor plate, she asked, “How much time will this give me?”

“Depends on how long you take to EVA over to the target vessel,” the synth answered as he stepped through the docking collar and clomped toward the airlock of their ride. Juliet followed him through the short tunnel to the ship’s airlock door. It was so black that she felt a stab of panic, thinking she’d been tricked into spacing herself, but after a second glance, she realized it was just the ship’s paint.

“He’s correct. The tank is highly compressed and should be enough for a lot of maneuvering while leaving you with enough air to breathe. If you weren’t using the air to maneuver, you’d be able to breathe in a vacuum for two hours on that tank.”

“If you’re smart, you’ll plug it into the target vessel’s refill duct when you get inside.”

“You forgetting something?” Juliet watched as he typed in the access code to the ship’s airlock.

“Never.”

“What about my skeleton key? For the ship’s doors?”

“It should be in our vessel here.” The door hissed open, and he ducked through. Juliet followed and had to walk hunched over into the tiny craft; the entire interior was just one room with no separate airlock. “There, upon your seat.” He pointed to the rear of two seats, and Juliet saw a tiny metallic deck with an attached data cable. “Please put your gear and armor in the box behind the acceleration couch. You’ll need to remove the armor plates from your suit so the couch can help manage your blood flow. I will help you to quickly re-equip yourself before your EVA. I’ll pressurize the cabin, and then we’ll be off.”

“Right.” Juliet sighed and began the laborious process of removing the air pack, her vest, and all the rigid plates from her armor. Then she stowed everything in the plastic, latching box behind her seat. When she was finally done, she picked up the little deck and climbed into the acceleration couch, looking around the ship’s spartan, tiny interior. There were no viewscreens, no data terminals, and the only ship’s controls were in the pilot’s seat. It looked like some kind of foam insulation had been sprayed between the gaps of every panel, every cable duct, and even into the gaps between the acceleration couch mounts and the plasteel floor. “Yo, what’s the deal with all the blue foam? Something to help with stealth?”

“Correct. We will not radiate any heat. I’ll kill the drives well away from the target vessel, and you’ll EVA as we float by.”

“So, no active sensors or engines?”

“No, but they added some air canisters for micro-adjustments. I’m well programmed for this mission; don’t fear.” As he spoke, the door slid shut with a decisive thunk, and air began to hiss into the ship’s cavity. Juliet adjusted her position in the couch and looked for a data port.

“Where can I jack in?”

“You can’t. All unnecessary electronics have been stripped.”

“Choice,” Juliet sighed.

“Unhappy?” The synth spoke in a droll, deadpan, and Juliet wasn’t sure if he was messing with her or if he was just being polite despite a desire not to talk. She decided Lacy wouldn’t respond. Instead, she pulled the cable out of the little deck and plugged her own in.

“Check this thing out and maybe just copy the code so I don’t have to carry it around,” she subvocalized.

“On it. It’s a fairly simple program, but it has encryption codes that must have been procured from the manufacturer of the access panels on the refinement vessel. I can’t test them—they’ll either work or they won’t.”

“Okay, cool, but I don’t need the deck anymore, right?”

“Correct.”

Juliet pulled her cable out and then wedged the deck between some foam insulation and the plasteel under her acceleration couch. The synth must have caught her movement out of the corner of its eye. “Is there something wrong with the access device?”

“No, I copied it.”

“Excellent. Hold tight. We’ll burn hard for the first quarter of the journey. I have a trajectory and burn schedule that will make us look as though we’re flying well past Ganymede before I kill the drive and start using the air thrusters to redirect us.”

“Cool.”

“They must have cannibalized a lot of internal space to house air tanks. Depending on how much he decelerates, the maneuver he’s describing could require tons of compressed air.”

“Yeah. I guess I won’t be able to keep track, considering I can’t jack in.” Juliet leaned back in the couch, gripping the sides, and prepared for the burn. It started faster than she’d expected. The synth got them out of the docking cavity of the ancient dreadnought pretty quickly, and then he didn’t waste any time kicking it into gear. She couldn’t see the readout on the ship, but Angel did a good job estimating the Gs.

As they ramped up past two and then three, the synth asked, “Are you fairing well?”

“Fine.” Thanks to her time flying with Nick, three Gs didn’t feel like much, though she didn’t relish an extended time under that kind of pressure. Unfortunately, the synth took her at her word, and the forces continued to climb and didn’t settle until Angel’s reading on her AUI read three-point-five. Juliet focused on her breathing, focused on her muscle contractions, and let the couch do its thing, massaging her limbs and torso, pushing her blood through her veins. The synth kept the hard Gs up for almost an hour, then it relented and dropped them down to one-point-five Gs, and Juliet groaned with relief.

“We’ll resume hard burn in thirty minutes. Practice your high-G compression recovery techniques during this time.”

“You’re . . . sadistic,” Juliet grunted as she stretched and fought her muscles’ desire to spasm. The synth didn’t respond, so she buckled down and put his recommendation into action, methodically working her way through her body, flexing every joint, tightening and relaxing every muscle, and, all the while, taking deep, controlled breaths. She’d barely gotten through the activity a handful of times when, like clockwork, the synth pilot resumed the hard burn. They repeated that process five times, and when it was over, Juliet had no idea where they were; three of those burns had been to decelerate, and now she was exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and her bladder was begging her for release.

“I’ve gotta go to the head.”

“There isn’t one. Please urinate in your suit.” The synth didn’t even look at her.

“I . . .” Juliet was lost for words; she felt stupid for not expecting anything this rough for her delivery, but also very annoyed that she’d been so ill-prepared by the people sending her.

“Your combat suit is equipped with a fluid waste recycling and management system, Juliet—the inner layer of smart-fabric interfaces with a gel-based, zero-displacement absorption layer. It will sanitize and recycle all fluids you excrete into your emergency reservoir.”

“I didn’t realize . . . you mean this pouch?” Juliet touched the empty fluid bladder above her waistline. “I thought I was supposed to fill that.”

“You can, but it also gets replenished from your sweat, blood, and, yes, urine.”

“Are you speaking to your PAI?” The synth turned to glare at her with its amber LED eyes.

“Yes, asshole. Thanks for warning me ahead of time about this shitty flight. Do you have any food or fluids on this can?”

“Check the compartment on the left side of your seat.” Juliet slapped her hand down against the plasteel seat frame, and sure enough, there was a little knob. She twisted it, and a compartment popped out. She leaned over the side of her chair to peer within and saw five juice pouches and a package of ten vanilla-flavored nutrient wafers.

As she punched a straw into her juice pack, careful not to let any fluid out—they were at zero Gs—she muttered, “I take back the asshole part.”

“Are you going to urinate?” Angel asked, and Juliet could hear the concern in her voice.

“I’m working myself up to it. I’ve never peed my pants on purpose before.”

As if he could read her mind, the synth spoke up, “I’m sorry about the toilet closet being removed. If you don’t have a suit capable of handling the situation, you should know the acceleration couch is equipped to handle large amounts of liquid and even solid waste.”

“Yeah, thanks. Do me a favor, and don’t talk for a while.” Juliet switched to subvocalizations, “Put on a playlist. I need to tune out the noises of the ship.” Angel complied, and, almost like magic, Juliet found herself beginning to relax. She closed her eyes, and without hardly trying, she relieved her bladder. It was uncomfortable at first, the warmth of her urine against her skin, but, as Angel had promised, her suit rapidly wicked it away. Sighing with relief, she tore into a pack of nutrient wafers. As she munched, she asked, “Angel, if I have to kill some synths on this ship, how guilty should I feel? Are they, like, close to true-AIs?”

“If Mary Moon’s intel is correct, not even remotely. Industrial synths designed to perform a singular task category are among the most simplistic of pseudo-AIs. They’re ranked even lower than most commercial PAIs. Corporations utilizing such labor sources are not interested in providing entertainment, regular rest, or the mental decompression time that more sophisticated limited-AIs require.”

“So they’re basically robots.”

“Correct.”

“Okay, turn down my music a little, will ya?” As her music faded to a relaxing background noise, she asked, “How long ‘til I need to get ready?”

The pilot immediately responded, “We’ll be maneuvering via air thruster for the next two hours, and it will be another five hours until we make our flyby.”

“I’m gonna try to get some sleep.”

“Very good.” The synth didn’t seem to care; he just kept touching the little buttons on the flight stick with his plasteel fingers, gently adjusting the maneuvering jets on the tiny ship. Juliet might have tried to stay awake to observe, even just to get an idea of their location relative to Jupiter or its moons, but with no access to the ship’s sensors or cameras, there wasn’t much she could do. In any case, she was exhausted; putting aside the last brutal half a day of hard Gs, she’d hardly slept the night before, worried about Nick, about the job, and about what the hell she’d do about Antigone and her billionaire dad. She still didn’t have a plan, but she’d decided to take it one step at a time. Step one was to get this job done so she’d have a little goodwill among the pirates.

Everything considered, it wasn’t surprising when she almost immediately fell asleep. She always slept easily in an operating vehicle. The hum of the ship’s systems coming through the couch into her bones relaxed her and reminded her of taking long road trips with her mom and sister when she was a little kid. When she’d been a little girl, the idea of riding somewhere distant with her mom and sister was sort of like a vacation from reality, regardless of the purpose of the trip. In that car, on the highway, there wasn’t a chance her mom would be missing when she woke up. There wasn’t a chance that her sister would be gone, off somewhere with her friends, no little sisters invited. She could sleep and know everyone was together, and they’d be there when she woke. Somehow, that cozy feeling translated to spaceships, which was probably a big part of why Juliet loved them.

She must have slept quite soundly because Angel had to wake her. “Juliet! The pilot just indicated that it would be wise to begin preparations.”

Yawning, Juliet stretched and slowly began to climb out of the couch. She had to move very methodically and carefully in the zero-G environment, but at least it seemed the pilot was done making flight adjustments. He turned to her and stood from his seat. “I will help you attach your armor. Your EVA window opens in nine minutes and forty-seven seconds.” Angel provided a big, neon-orange countdown on her AUI.

“Cool, thanks.” Juliet started working on the armor plates for her legs, and the synth quickly and efficiently began to attach the ones to her back.

“Interesting! Your upper back plates are equipped with two small drones.”

“Yeah, I’m aware.”

“I haven’t seen this sort of armored suit on any of the denizens of Hereford’s Vengeance.”

“Good to know.” Juliet grunted as she bent to pick up her gun belt, snapping it around her waist. Then she picked up her tactical vest and asked, “Done with the back plates?”

“Yes. I shall begin working on your left arm.”

“Let me get this vest on first.” Juliet shrugged into it, zipped it up, and then picked up her shotgun, looping the harness over her helmet. Thus laden with gear, she stood still while the synth did his work, snapping the rest of her armored plates into place. When he stood back, she nodded and picked up the air pack, putting it on and clipping it in place. She turned her back to the synth. “Plug the air hose from my suit into the pack, please.” When he complied, and she saw the pack’s air level populate on her AUI, she nodded and hunch-walked toward the rear hatch. She had four minutes before she had to jump into space. “They haven’t noticed us?”

“No sign that they have. If they even notice us, we should look much like a stray hunk of rock.”

“All right.” Juliet knew her palms would be sweating buckets if not for the gloves covering them with the same moisture-wicking properties as the rest of her suit. She looked again at her helmet’s status on her screen—air pressure was good, no leaks. Her air pack was at ninety-nine percent.

“Sending the ship’s position and orientation data relative to the target vessel to your PAI. I’m also sending the rendezvous information should you prove successful in liberating one of the ship’s shuttles.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll prove successful. Just be there.”

“Shall I manage your maneuvering jets?” Angel asked.

“Yeah, absolutely!” Juliet didn’t want to take any chances, considering the consequences of failing to get to the gas collector’s airlock in time.

“With the data the synth provided, I project we’ll reach the airlock with seventy percent of your air remaining.”

“Sounds good to me.” Juliet glanced at the countdown—two minutes. She watched those numbers tick down, trying to regulate her breathing, trying not to think about what she was going to do when they hit zero. When the count reached one minute, the air began to hiss out of the cabin.

“Depressurizing.” Juliet glanced at the synth and saw him back in his acceleration couch, still not wearing a helmet.

“Don’t need to breathe, huh?”

“Not at all.” The counter read ten seconds, the latches on the door thunked open, and it slid to the side, revealing the black expanse of space.

“Five . . . four . . . three . . .” Juliet tuned the synth out; she could see the countdown. When it said one, she stepped out the door and drifted into nothing.