Read Moron's Guide to Surviving the Space Race Page 12
We settled into dock, Martha and I working with the harbor master to get us in the same docking area as the Nautilus. Being a science fiction fan throughout my misspent youth I was somewhat bothered by Fred using that name for a drug smuggling spaceship. But Nemo was a pirate, so it sort of made sense why he would choose that particular ship name.
Self-aggrandizement for the win. “Martha, are you online with the dock network?”
“Now I am. What am I looking for?”
“We need to gain access to the Nautilus navigation system. And it needs to be quiet. Jared mentioned you were capable of hacking although he didn’t really give you leave to do so.”
“I am capable and the Nautilus isn’t that well-guarded. They have standard security software. At your request I am keeping my presence quiet by convincing the computer that it is the one performing all the tasks that I am requesting of it and I am not a separate system.”
“Awesome! I need to find out where they were before they got back to Mark’s station.”
“The files have been deleted.” Martha explained.
“Can you do a data retrieval?”
“Checking.” I was sitting bolt upright in my seat, tension from doing something so dangerous setting my nerves on edge. It was two full minutes later before she spoke again. I know because I was watching the seconds tick by.
“Jim, I was able to retrieve a partial navigation picture only. I will put it on screen.”
“Drop the connection.” I ordered and watched as the star chart came up. The path that Martha was able to retrieve was woefully incomplete. Maybe six jump relays were left inside the database.
“There is a problem.” Martha commented.
I snorted. “Yeah, I know. We don’t have enough data to extrapolate their mine location.”
“No, there is another problem. You should see this.” I watched as the star chart window shrunk and in place of it, there were two halves of a video conference.
I saw Fred and Mark. Mark was just beginning the conference indicating Martha had recorded it. “You need to head to Earth.”
“What’s up?” Fred asked.
“Gabriella and Steve are becoming a problem. I want both of them dead. They’re getting reckless and I’m tired of cleaning up their messes.” Mark ordered.
“Reckless?” Fred asked.
“After the fiasco with the pilot, they’ve been hitting up people with families. There are missing person alerts going up about two of them as we speak. I told them to just focus on distribution. I want you to play good citizen and ‘rescue’ those missing persons and have those two idiots get killed in the crossfire. Make it look like they were working alone.” Mark explained.
“Got it boss.” Fred cut the comms and Mark’s image dropped at the same time.
I sat back in my chair. “How did you get that Martha?”
“I was monitoring the activity of their systems and detected an encrypted transmission. I decided to record it. Does this mean we are headed toward Earth?”
I leaned back in the chair and shook my head. “No, this doesn’t change anything.”
“Oh really?” My ears perked up, something in her voice tipped me off that I needed to be very careful with what I said next.
“Martha, we really don’t have the manpower to stop an assassination. Plus, by the time we get there, it will already be too late. Our ship is much slower than Fred’s.” I explained. “We would be wasting our time.”
“I don’t think so.” Martha told me.
“I’m not following. We’re slower, they have a group of people, they know where the slaves are kept. We would be at a serious disadvantage.” I laid out all the reasons it wouldn’t work.
“What about the Chung Crossing?” Martha sounded smug.
“WHAT?!? Martha are you crazy? The Chung Crossing drops us right in the middle of Rakshasas space! That place is guarded so heavily it would take a miracle just to get through the Jump gate, let alone making it to a gate that would lead back to human space!” My eyes were wide at the implication that my computer must have a death wish.
“If we don’t try, then we are hopelessly doomed.” Her voice bore a strong note of frustration.
“How do you justify that? We can still go after Mark, we can still take down his operation. How are we hopelessly doomed?” I asked her.
“Did you lie to me, Jim?”
“Lie to you about what?”
“About why we are doing this. How can we save your daughter if she is killed by Fred?” Martha explained.
“My daughter?!? Martha, I am not the Jim on the recording! My name is John! Besides Gabriella isn’t the reason why we’re going after Mark.” I almost swallowed my tongue when I said that.
“So you did lie. I’m not talking to you anymore.” I heard an ominous click as the announcing system shut down.
I felt the beginnings of a seriously bad headache coming. I began rubbing my temples. Maybe I was wrong about putting Martha on the ship in the first place. Right now, I was seriously thinking about pulling the server connections and just handing her back over to Jared.
I did something I hadn’t done in ages. I reached up and began rubbing the small medallion hanging around my neck. When I was a boy, I used to do this every time I was upset or worried about something. Rubbing the medallion reminded me of the woman that was the closest thing to a mother I ever had at the orphanage. Her name is Victoria Trent, and she was the one that gave me the amulet when I was around ten years old. These thoughts inevitably brought back the vivid memory of sitting in her office waiting for the hammer to drop.