I
"They're approaching the station now," one of the technicians running the operations consoles aboard Gamma Outpost announced, her hands flying lightly over the controls as she entered the commands to focus all available sensors on the pair of ships that had entered the system.
"Do we have an ident confirmation?" Davis Stonelaw leaned forwards in his seat, steepling his fingers and pressing his thumbs to his lips, a silent prayer running through his head as he waited for confirmation. The ships themselves were a couple of days overdue, and since that deadline had passed, every craft that approached the outpost had set his heart racing, each one leaving an empty feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach as they were identified and proceeded to dock as normal. His ship that approached that was not his expected craft brought him closer and closer to despair. He was in charge of the station; out here in the middle of nowhere, he was the closest there came to God. The only company executive for light years around, the position was more of a token than anything else, a place for someone to be filed and forgotten while the rest of the company moved on. Gamma Outpost had been little more than a refuelling and listening outpost for years until it had been decided that a colony be established on the surface of the planet far below, and just like the position of onboard administrator, the colony was a token gesture. The planet had next to nothing to offer prospective surveyors or wildcatters; no geography that suggested fissures of fuel or precious and rare ores and minerals buried deep beneath the surface. Stonelaw had been told initially by the briefing when construction began that it was all to do with the future of Gamma Outpost: Plans were being put in to place to upgrade the outpost to a starport equipped to deal with heavier traffic, larger ships and cargo: a colony on the planet would lead to self-sufficiency and accommodation for larger rotations of work-crew.
The 'briefing' had been little more than a pre-recorded message on a data cartridge that had landed on his desk a couple of days after a courier ship had departed the station. Progress on the colony was slow, and although the air below was breathable, the building of the colony itself had been long and drawn out.
Had been.
As soon as Weyland Yutani had been informed of what was coming to Gamma, almost an entire facility had sprung up overnight on the planet, and a plethora of staff had arrived. Scientists, mainly. Research teams, some engineers and technicians.
And the man that stood silently, patiently, beside him.
"Do we have the ident?" Stonelaw repeated, standing up as he felt the eye of the silent observer beside him bore into him. Although had been sent there with the intention of being in charge of security and a military liaison once the marine ship arrived. Stonelaw felt he'd also been sent as his handler; he never seemed to be more than a couple of feet away from him, warily watching him with his dark, piercing eye. Although all the messages and reports entering and leaving the station went through the operations centre, Stonelaw suspected his silent shadow had a direct line from his docked craft, and employed it on a regular basis. Paranoia wasn't always healthy, but in a back-stabbing world or corporate espionage where billions of dollars worth of shares and exclusive rights were on the line, it didn't necessarily mean it was going to be misplaced.
"Beacons confirm that it is The Vengeance and The Eden," the operator nodded slowly, before looking up from her screens, a flustered expression on her face. "There's something wrong, they're not responding to any of our hails."
"I hadn't expected The Eden to respond," Stonelaw crossed his arms and frowned. "But I had expected to hear from The Vengeance was soon as they were within visual range. How long before we're able to guide them in?"
"Uhm…" the tech seemed to be stalling for time as her fingers danced across the controls. "That… it doesn't seem right."
"What is it?" Stonelaw demanded, his already-worn patience with the operator nearing breaking point.
"They're too far away. Telemetry indicates that they're not actually coming towards us, rather away from us – they're heading towards the dark side of the planet, away from us, and our control grid."
Behind him, Stonelaw heard a soft, mocking chuckle and he felt his hands curl up into fists. "Something to say, Regis?"
"Nothin' needs to be said," the military liaison laughed again, louder this time as he stepped forwards and crossed his arms, the leather of the form-fitting light armour he wore creaking as he folded his limbs over his chest. He went simply by the name of Regis: there didn't seem to be any indication of either surname of Christian name in his service records, his uniform bore no rank or distinguishing marks. He had an eye patch covering his left eye, a testament to the fact that he had indeed seen some action and suffered some loses in his career, and had a mass of dark brown, almost black hair swept across his head in a perfectly neat side parting, a hair style that, much like its owner, never seemed to be ruffled. "You know you've fucked up somewhere along the lines, and that's enough for me to take pleasure in," he said, his voice low and, as always, full of menace regardless of the words that came out his mouth. "You should've maintained regular contact with them, updates, live feeds. Anythin' could've avoided this fuck up, Stonelaw. Anythin' apart from sittin' in your fuckin' room fingerin' your asshole while everyone else does the real fuckin' work around you."
"Sirs?" the technician looked up from her controls, her timid voice shaking as she tried to get their attention. "It… It's worse than just that."
"How can it be worse?" Stonelaw snapped; his gaze fixed on the single accusing eye of Regis, as if breaking eye contact with him would signal a defeat. Hs opponent's eye remained fixed, unblinking, unwavering, and a smile crept across his face, his lips parting and revealing teeth stained grey from nicotine and God knew what else. One of his canine teeth was missing, while another seemed longer, sharper, as if it had been filed to enhance the air of danger and malevolence that lingered around him.
"Yes, dear," Regis spat, his thin lips parting into a wider grin, almost like a shark, circling its prey. He kept his gaze locked with Stonelaw as he spoke. "How could it possibly be any fuckin' worse than this?"
"The ships… Their course and trajectory, it looks like the ships are going to crash."
"Crash?" Stonelaw barked, tearing his gaze away from Regis and fixing it on the technician. "Crash?" he repeated his question, and the technician rapidly nodded her head, eyes wide open in terror.
"Sir, yes. On the planet."
"Of course it's going to crash on the fucking planet," Stonelaw spat. "What else would it fucking crash in to?"
The technician didn't say anything else, and Stonelaw unleashed a primal roar, kicking his seat and sending it skittering across the floor, crashing into one of the monitoring stations and causing it to erupt into a spray of sparks. A pair of male technicians leapt from their workstations and attacked the sputtering station with powder-based extinguishers, dousing the machine before any further damage could be done. Regis laughed again, louder this time, but it was without any form of amusement.
"Well, ain't that fuckin' great," he shook his head, unfolding his arms and placing them behind his back as he adjusted his stance, slipping from an alert stance to an at ease posture. "Talk about a clusterfuck."
"It's not my fault," Stonelaw protested.
"The blame has to be laid at someone's feet," Regis shrugged his shoulders as he turned and stepped towards the doors. "This is your fuckin' outpost, Davis. Your fuckin' mess."
"Where're you going?" Stonelaw demanded, his face reddening with rage and anger as his voice raised and his blood boiled. "Don't you have to stay here and spy on me?"
"Nothin' else to see here," Regis casually called over his shoulder. "Show's over, the fat lady's sang. I imagine you're gonna have some explainin' to do."
"I don't need to," Davis snapped, retrieving his seat before throwing himself into it. "You're probably going to go and write another secret report anyway, a little journal full of all your snide comments and your bullshit. Go on, fuck off, you miserable bastard. Back to your fucking ship full of your fake soldiers."
"Pitiful," Regis snapped, pausing in front of the door as it cycled open, revealing a pair of heavily armoured soldiers that stood stoically by the door outside the command centre, their weapons pressed against their chest. Neither turned to acknowledge the arrival of their commanding officer, but they visibly tensed, preparing to leave their post and accompany Regis back to his berth aboard his cruiser. "Desperate to climb the ladder, constantly stumblin' at the first step. No one to blame but yourself. I'll be puttin' in a report, yes. My recommendations…" He paused, shrugged his shoulders again. "They won't be favourable. Trust me. This has been a complete fuckin' mess, Stonelaw. There's penal colonies past the Outer Rim that are always lookin' for new caretakers. That shit's too good for you, but it's a start."
He exited the command room and the doors slid shut. Stonelaw hissed through his teeth, unaware that he'd even been holding his breath through the exchange with Regis. He shook his head grimly, raising his palms to his face and screwing the balls of his palms in his eye sockets. He pulled them away, looking at them as they shook, and sighed.
Regis certainly knew how to press his buttons.
Silence fell over the command centre, and Stonelaw waited a few seconds before addressing the room.
"Does anyone have any ideas? Anything?"
No one made an effort to reply, and Stonelaw snorted, leaning forwards and rubbing his temples.
"Actually…"
Stonelaw looked up, focusing on the female technician that had delivered nothing but bad news to him in the last five minutes.
"This had better be good."
"It looks like there's about four hours until the ships crash. With the right ship, we might be able to get out there in three, maybe three and a half hours."
"And do what?" Stonelaw asked. "Surely it'll be too far gone by then, too close to the impact; what good will half an hour aboard a sinking ship do that do?"
"Slow them down. Try plotting in a controlled landing. The Eden is too big a craft to even consider something like that, but if we cut it loose, we might still be able to save The Vengeance."
"We have to assume The Vengeance is out of contact and out of control for a reason," Stonelaw leaned back, the barest glimmer of hope starting to shimmer through the darkness of the situation. "Docking with the craft will be one thing. Getting through to the bridge itself, that might not be as easy."
"If the infection has spread," the technician shrugged her shoulders. "If it has, most everyone will be dead by now. Right?"
"Yeah," Stonelaw rubbed his jaw, frowning. While much of the details about the ships and their approach had been disclosed, only his closest confidents and the scientists and engineers in the colony forming below knew the full extent of the creatures that had run amok aboard the giant colony settling cruiser. As far everyone else knew, there had been a contagious outbreak that had wiped out the crew, a biohazard brought aboard by livestock somewhere along their travels, and as the closest outpost, Gamma was to be the place that would run the forensics to trace the disease back to its origin and prevent further spread. "But the chance of infection, it's too high to risk any of our personnel. Seems like this might be a perfect job for Regis and his crew."
He sighed inwardly, then shook his head.
"Patch me through to Regis, immediately."
As he strolled through the corridors of Gamma Outpost, flanked on either side by his guards, Regis typed a series of commands and directions into the palm-sized tablet he carried before slipping it into a pouch hanging from his belt, making a beeline for his craft that was docked on the far side of the station. The ineptness of the station admin was irritating, but not surprising; his being dispatched here to act as an overseer to the whole operation showed that other people were expecting failure from the onset. Regis was not only Stonelaw's handler, but he was the failsafe to make sure creatures from aboard The Eden and now, potentially The Vengeance, were secured at any cost.
His personal comlink chirped in his earpiece, and the tutted at the distraction. He knew who it was before even answering; no one aboard the station other than Stonelaw had access to his frequency.
"What?" he snapped; he didn't feel he had to extend any level of courtesy to the admin executive, regardless of his position in the company.
"There's still a chance we can pull this around," Stonelaw's voice shook a little, a mix of excitement and hope. "If we act now, we may still be able to intercept the crafts and salvage at least one of them. It may be enough for the project on the surface to continue as planned."
"I suppose you're pretty pleased at thinkin' up of that all by yourself," Regis smirked. "If you even thought of it, that is. Needless to say, I've already made arrangements for a shuttle of my men to leave me cruiser and intercept them. They may not be able to save The Eden, but they may be able to salvage something' from The Vengeance, perhaps even stop it from crashin', or at least get it down on the surface in as close to one piece as possible. I'm always three steps ahead of you, Stonelaw. Don't go gettin' delusions of grandeur; you and I both know you're position is token, at best."
Without waiting for a response, Regis killed the transmission as he entered the lift that would take him to the docking ring of the station, stepping to the rear of the cage and making enough space for his armoured guards to occupy the front of the elevator.
The drop from the operations level to the docking ring was swift and ended with a soft chime as the doors slid silently open, revealing a large circular level that encompassed the station itself and housed a number of docking clamps and airlocks. In its current state, Gamma Outpost could handle fifteen ships docked around the ring with a further five along the length of its vertical axis: if the expansion of the colony went ahead as planned, it would be able to hold more than twice as many, but Regis doubted that would happen any time soon. Even if it did, he doubted Stonelaw would be left in charge of a more vital outpost. If anything, he'd probably be shipped out to another backwater outpost in the furthest reaches of the system, out of sight until expansion and progress reached there, too. He sneered to himself, imagining the spin the loathsome corporate rep would put on his transfer. "Successfully oversaw the upgrading of a class 2 outpost into a class 5 transportation hub" is how he'd probably put it across. Repulsive little toad…
Another pair of armoured soldiers stood like sentinels by the airlock leading to his craft, and they snapped to attention as he approached, their weapons pressed tightly across their chest, their heads facing forwards, impossibly silent and static; not even their chests rose or fell with a breath.
Pawns, Regis thought with a smile as he passed effortlessly though the gap between the two guards. Dumb and impassive, but obedient to a fault.
The Pawns were little more than mindless automatons, the cheapest of androids that could follow basic orders, but lacked the programming to act upon stimuli or emotional responses around them. A step up from the early models of Worker Joe units that were mass-produced decades ago, the bulky synthetics boasted thicker limbs and torsos filled with a denser skeletal structures and joint enhancers that made them primarily designed for heavy industrial work, or ore extraction and mining. Some facilities across the universe had ten Pawns for every one human, and the blank and emotionless solid plastic faces of the androids intimidated many people, even more so than the other androids that attempted to learn and mimic human emotions in an attempt to blend in. Rooks, Bishops, Knights… The whole situation was laughable in Regis' eyes; they were all tools, machines, and a means to an end. Men and women had a natural and innate fear of androids in general and the horror stories that often followed in their wake. Some tales were myths, rumours, an evolution of the ghost ship stories from centuries ago when boats were found floating amidst oceans, the crew missing without a trace or a hint at what had happened. Other instances involved corporate cover-ups, research facilities and weapon developments. How many were true, Regis couldn't say, but the fear behind the Pawns and their appearance and demeanour led him to believe that using them as his own private militia would only help maintain control of any and all situations he found himself in. His crew consisted of androids in one form another – forty Pawns heavily armoured and armed, programmed with basic combat simulations that could be activated by the operator and modified in real time. He had a small maintenance crew that could maintain and repair the battalion of droids, it being three Rook engineering model synthetics, and a Knight combat model tasked with operating and creating of basic battle programs. A moderately expensive crew tasked with maintaining a relatively cheap workforce, he'd worked out the expenses and had convinced his financer it was still cheaper than an all-human crew: though training was comparably cheaper than buying synthetics in the outset, food, clothing and medical supplies quickly mounted up. The cost-cutting option had been the most appealing.
His craft was an old Lockmart Bison M-Class star freighter, retrofitted to suit his needs with more powerful engines and a selection of offensive and defensive capabilities. While it was a fast craft, it wouldn't be fast enough to make the interception with The Vengeance. He'd already been in touch with his assistant and requested a full list of ships docked on the station, and was presented it as he entered his quarters. He murmured a thanks and scrolled down the data on the tablet, throwing himself down onto the bed while his assistant stood impassively by the door to his quarters. Regis tapped the screen, nodding.
"Look, there's an Omega-class starliner in berth seven. It won't be fast enough, but accordin' to the manifest, it's carryin' a decommissioned UD-4B Cheyenne in its dockin' bay. Thing's lighter and faster than the average dropship, not encumbered by weapons pods or anythin'. Get a squad of Pawns over there with Rook One, take it and intercept The Vengeance. Maybe we can still salvage somethin' out of this fuck-up of Stonelaw's."
"Of course, sir," his assistant hammered a series of commands into the small communications device strapped to her wrist. She nodded curtly, her blond hair bobbing back and forth as she nodded her head, the briefest glimpse of a smile appearing on her lips. "Done. Would there be anything else you want me to do?"
Regis looked at her and smiled. An expensive haircut, a skin-tight bodysuit accentuating the curves of her perfect body, and a smile most men would kill for. Thick eyelashes enclosed her pale blue eyes that she could flutter at just the right time to lure an unsuspecting man to his doom. She had been the only addition to his crew that he'd had to pay for himself, so if he had to do that, he was going to make sure he got everything he wanted in an assistant. Regis liked to refer to her as Liz, a joke most people with an ignorance of history seemed oblivious to, but when she'd been rolled off the assembly line, her official designation had been Queen. Organised and efficient to a fault, he'd had her programming modified to go beyond the top-tier administrative duties that was her basic core programming, and had installed a number of basic self defence and military tactic modules, as well as some black-market modifications including muscular and skeletal enhancements and a full database of sexual practices and kinks. Queen Liz was his own private administrator, confidant, communications officer, body guard and, when needed, his lover.
"Yes, have them contact me and confirm when they're aboard The Vengeance, I want to see what it's like when they get there."
"Affirmative, sir. Will that be all?"
"No," Regis shook his head, reaching for the release catches of his armour. "Take of your clothes."
"Of course,' Liz responded emotionlessly as she reached for the zip of her jumpsuit.
