"They wouldn't replace me, I'm essential staff."
"There are always other experts. Investors have a tendency of getting their way, especially when things start falling apart. There's a lot we can do for you if you let me communicate with Triton."
"For reasons I can't get into there's no way I can allow you to directly contact your ship."
"How can I demonstrate to you that we are here to help? The Triton and crew have taken care of your raider problem at a great cost. We lost several crew members during the fight. That must gain us a little goodwill, a little trust."
"How do I know that you didn't follow the raiders here? That defeating them and taking this slave crew and their ships for yourselves wasn't the plan from the beginning?"
"We're not pirates, and if we were the last target we'd take on is a small raider fleet."
"Your ship doesn't fly a flag, there are no sponsors listed, how could you be anything but pirates? Maybe this station is just a bonus prize you stumbled into and now that you've become trapped here you don't have any other choice but to speak to us?"
Ayan rolled her eyes. "If you won't allow me to speak to my ship directly, let's speak to them together. Simply open a channel with them and we can all sort this out."
"Actually, they're sending a message right now, you just hold that thought," said the woman on the other end.
Ayan closed her eyes and shook her head.
Several moments passed before Amanda clicked her end of the intercom back on. "They're bringing the raiders in now. We'll be opening the prison processing doors and walking them straight into the holding facilities. The machines killed all our workers when they contracted a virus, now we can replenish our workforce and start repairs as our rescue fleet arrives."
"Oh shit," Victor muttered under his breath. "How the hell did I miss that?"
Ayan shook her head quickly. "Listen, you seem fairly bright, so you must know that-"
"This could be some kind of reverse trap? Of course I do! You've seen this place though, how well it keeps its people inside."
Ayan nodded mournfully and adjusted a wire inside the console. "You're going to want to put your headgear on." she said.
"What?" Amanda asked, confused.
"Not you," Ayan replied.
Victor realized she was speaking to him, brought his headgear up and sealed it.
She did the same and pressed a tiny daub of adhesive putty down over the lead end of a wire and the circuit board. A high pitched whine screamed over the intercom, their vacsuits protected them from the harsh sound. "If this intercom is their primary means of communication inside the station, they'll have to find a way to cut this room off from the system entirely before they can use it again."
"What did you do?" Victor asked, noticing that their suits were using a laserlink to communicate.
"I created a feedback loop on the circuit board. I can't believe I didn't see this coming when we first arrived. I should have suspected something was going on when there was no one here to meet or direct us," Ayan scolded herself. "We have to get back and regroup. I hope I'm wrong but I don't think Jake and the others will realize it's a prison until it's too late."
Chapter 16
The Jade Whisper drifted slowly towards the station docking clamps. The engine fire bathed the stretch of station in front of Jake and the two squads of soldiers as they watched the hull of the complex draw nearer. Jake viewed the remote feed from the main docking gangway through his link with the ship as it started locking with the station. The debarkation compartment was empty, in fact the only place that held crew was the port side airlock.
It was Oz's plan. So unlike the kind of smash and grab tactic Jake would have used, the idea had a good chance of working, only it would be costly. They'd lose the Jade Whisper for one, a serviceable vessel. The thought of losing an operational ship, even one as old as the Jade Whisper, was more than a little irritating, but Jake couldn't see any other practical way of getting close to the station.
The ship shuddered as the main docking clamps secured and the engines cut out. The lights in the main debarkation compartment turned green, and when the crew from the station entered they'd find there was no one inside. "It's time," Jake stated as he pulled his data line free of the airlock control panel. He punched the button to open the outer hatch and looked down. There was eight meters between him and the hull of the station. "This first step's the worst, careful." Jake warned as he pushed off.
It was by far the strangest and most dangerous space walk he had ever experienced from the very first second on. At twelve times ideal gravity he plummeted so rapidly that he didn't get a chance to fall properly. The armoured vacsuit compensated enough so his impact felt like nothing more than a mild bump, but he felt several outer protective plates crack under the strain. Without hesitating, he stood and ran out of the way.
The next to drop behind him made his descent look graceful by comparison, landing shoulder and head first. The suit stopped his spine from twisting and shattering. "That's insane!" He exclaimed as he stood up, checking his headgear. "I mean, one minute you're just stepping out of an airlock, then wham! Naught to a hundred klicks in a millisecond then you hit the deck like a bug on a windscreen!"
"Move so everyone else can follow."
"Yes sir."
They each made their awkward drop, one after another violently falling from the ship airlock to the surface of the station's hull. The last two had the pleasure of carrying heavy backpacks loaded with high cutting equipment. Neither of them had much control of how they fell, they could only make sure that they landed pack first.
"All right, it's safe to assume that they know the ship is empty now. They're probably aware that it's a trick. We're crossing the distance to the secondary hangar doors at a jog. Be careful not to fall. If you feel that you're about to slip, call out and try your best to get a grip on something. Mag locks and hull spikes won't work because we're too heavy, so just grab something with your hands. Remain in single file." Jake told them as he clipped his safety line to the man in front of him. "I'm taking the rear."
"This thing is huge, I barely see a curvature to the hull."
"You're right, but the surface is irregular. There's probably a lot to trip on if we don't watch our step. Everyone clipped in?"
All fourteen of the squad members checked in and Jake directed the group to start jogging. He nearly tripped over a hastily repaired reinforcement plate after only a few meters, and made an extra effort to be careful from then on.
The sounds of the synthetic muscle in his suit ground and squeaked with the rhythmical movement of his legs and arms as he ran at an easily maintained jog. He couldn't help but be reminded of his jogs with Doctor Anderson on the First Light.
Those polished hallways and smiling crew members were like ancient history. Things had been so different, it was as though they were some holomovie, the man starring, Jonas Valent, seemed so alien. He faced his problems head on and had close friends, confidants he depended on.
The image atop the statue in the centre of the Triton’s botanical gallery came to mind. It was Jonas and Ayan who were remembered there, a short lived coupling that he secretly envied. Everything seemed simpler in retrospect, even facing his own demons.
He hadn't even been down to see the monument to the man who was responsible for him coming into being, responsible for everything he had, even his daughter. How was it that he hadn't been to the rear hold to see what remained of the Samson? He wanted to, he'd even ordered all the Samson crew member's footlockers and bunks to be emptied and tagged so they could pick up their personal items.