What May Come

Please see chapter 1 for author's notes.

Chapter 17: Very Not Good

Harlan maneuvered carefully along the edge of the asteroid belt…Goddard had determined that it was too dangerous to remain completely out in the open so they'd taken to following the outskirts and occasionally ducking back out to query the Rockhopper. So far they hadn't gotten a response. The commander was manning the communications station, and Radu had the papers they'd found spread all over the navigation console. As far as they knew, this time Suzee was resting like she was supposed to be. "So does any of that say anything useful?" he asked the navigator curiously.

"I don't…it's hard…I don't really read Spung very well. It's not something we concentrated on. I'm having to sound out a lot of the words, and if I get the pronunciations wrong it might say something completely different that I think it does. But…if I'm right, it looks like there's some kind of major effort to block the In'Tssai escape routes."

"Well, that makes sense if they've been concentrating on evacuating prisoners," Goddard commented. "Is that why the scout ship was lying in wait?"

"Yeah. I think it had been there awhile, and I don't think it's the only one. That's how they're field testing the new drives."

Harlan frowned. If there were a bunch of the little ships just looking for people leaving the empire…. "Does it say anything else? Have they caught anyone?"

"It doesn't say. There are just charts of 'suspicious' sectors, and a list of names."

"A Spung most-wanted list?"

"It doesn't say…I don't see Aslinn or Jacie or the girl—Cleo—on here, but that may not mean anything."

"They seem to be on the outskirts; the Spung aren't as likely to know who they are as they would people who have done damage in their inner circle," Goddard pointed out. "It could also be a list of people to trust—contacts who know about this tracking program."

"That's more likely," Radu said after a moment. "Most of these names are Spung. There are some numbers after their names…code names, maybe?"

"Well, we'll pass the information on to Jacie and Aslinn when we see them, but there isn't much we can do right now. Unless…are any of the sectors under suspicion in the area we'll be traveling through?"

"One, it looks like, but not until we're on the deckship."

"Kind of unusual to keep paper copies of everything," Harlan said after a moment. "You'd think they'd just keep the information on the computers." It took up a lot less room for one thing, and it had a universal translation program that meant someone besides Radu could read them.

"I don't know…everything is marked 'secret' and the cabinets were locked."

"If the resistance has been around evacuating the Andromedan children since the war—and not getting caught at it—they've probably infiltrated fairly high into the military. This kind of compartmentalization might be a way of reducing who sees the information—try and prevent leaks."

"Or trace who is the one doing the leaking."

"That too, Mr. Band. And information on a piece of paper can't be changed as easily as if it were in a terminal." The console in front of him chimed, and he glanced at the readout. "Incoming transmission."

"This is the Rockhopper calling Goddard, and Radu, and Harlan. Do any of you read?"

Harlan relaxed as he heard Aslinn's voice. "Rockhopper, we read you. Where are you?"

"A bit farther into the belt than you…Jacie's got you on sensors now."

Goddard moved back to the weapons' station, leaving the comm line open. "I see you. Harlan, fly the ship directly into their bay."

"All right, Commander. Radu…"

"Umm…," he swept some of the papers off the console. "Course laid in."

"I'll wake up Suzee," Goddard said. "As soon as we're docked, I want to take her across to the other ship and get her checked out properly."

"Are we all going across?"

"At this point, I think so," he agreed. "At least to plan our next step. When we come out of the asteroid belt permanently to rendezvous with the deckship we'll come back over here, just in case we need to make a fast exit. Two targets are harder to deal with than one. Suzee and I will suit up now and head across as quickly as possible. You two shut the ship down, gather the papers we found, and bring them across when you've finished."

"All right, Commander."

Harlan adjusted course carefully, bringing the scout in line with the bay. As they approached, the comm line strengthened and the viewscreen flickered to life. It wasn't the same room they had been in before. "Man, what happened to you guys?"

"They got in a pretty good hit to the main command post," Aslinn answered with a shrug. There was a nasty gash across his forehead, and streaks of blood down his face. Jacie didn't look much better when he twisted around to face them…assorted bruises covered his face, and his arm now bore a wire cast similar to Aslinn's brace. "My console went up in front of me…he blocked the support beam that came down but it messed up his wrist some. We're working from secondary command now."

"Is your ship still functional?" Goddard asked.

"That's…entirely relative," Jacie replied. "As long as we don't need to do any complicated maneuvering we should be all right. What happened to the girl you rescued?"

"She's sleeping," Goddard said. "I'm on my way to wake her up. We're going to need some of your medical supplies."

"Sure. What have you got there?"

Radu glanced down at his console, still half-covered in papers. "It looks like the Spung are planning to cut off your escape routes. Suzee found some cabinets in their engine room with these locked inside. I can't read them that well, but Harlan and I will bring them over as soon as we finish shutting the ship down."

"Cutting off our escape routes? You mean In'Tssai escape routes? I hadn't heard anything new…" he turned to exchange alarmed glances with the Ashrach at his back.

"Me either…bring everything you found, please."

"How far did the Spung follow you?" Harlan asked as the Commander left to get Suzee.

"Not far…not much past the edge of the belt. I think they were a little more worried about the ship you stole and their missing prisoner."

Jacie turned to grin. "Good thing for us…we don't have much in the way of defense, and hull plating isn't meant to handle concussion missiles. How bad was it for you?"

"It was pretty close," Harlan answered. "They had a capitol ship."

"Damn. Talk about your lousy luck. You all okay?"

"Suzee definitely broke a couple ribs when she fell, but other than that we're okay. I have your ship on the main screen. Man, you weren't kidding about hull plating, were you?" He didn't have a very clear view, but it was pretty obvious that the 'nose' of the Rockhopper now bore a pretty serious dent.

"Unfortunately not." Aslinn tapped his console and the bay doors rotated outward. "All right, bring her in. We'll shut it up behind you."

"What happened to the other escape pod?" Radu asked curiously, glancing at the empty clamps that had held it in place.

"Ejected it." Jacie shrugged. "Not like the scout is any secret any more, and there's no point in having them around when we find your ship…just one more thing that could go wrong. 'Sides, it was another flying object to distract the Spung with."

"You think they got blown up by their own military?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Can't say I care all that much either way, as long as they aren't our problem anymore."

Jacie seemed to agree with his crewmate's assessment of the situation. "Let's get you docked and get back in the belt for as long as we can…won't be good cover for much longer but at least it's something. And I want to see those papers."

Goddard and Suzee were in vacuum suits and gliding across the depressurized bay before Harlan and Radu finished shutting down the main systems, but it wasn't long before they were making their way in through the airlock also, pushing the boxes in front of them. "Man, what did they line these boxes with, bricks?"

Radu just shook his head…no real surprise there; the guy could lift a couple tons when he wanted to. "I hope there's nothing in here that Aslinn and Jacie don't already know about."

"Yeah, me too. Like the commander said, though, there's not a lot we can do."

Jacie was waiting for them inside the hallway leading from the hatch, reaching out with his unbound arm to relieve Harlan of his load. "You make it through more or less in one piece?"

"Couple shots got close, but we're okay," Harlan agreed. "Where are the commander and Suzee?"

"In the rec room…what's left of it anyway. Haven't had time to clean up much since me and the little Ashrach's sparring match. Aslinn's in secondary command."

"That's where you and Commander Goddard were hiding when the Spung came on board, right?"

"Yeah…not as nice a layout as the primary, but that one's sealed until we get in some repair time."

He led the way through the hatch, and they found Goddard on the other side, running something above Suzee's ribs. She lay on the now-righted couch. "Gentlemen, you got the scout shut down?"

"Yes, Commander," Radu confirmed. "How's Suzee?"

"I gave her a sedative so I could use the bone setter…she'll be awake in an hour or two. Her ribs are partially healed now but she needs to take it easy for a couple days."

"We might not have a couple days," Harlan pointed out. The sooner they found the Christa and got out of Spung space the better. He turned to Jacie, who'd dropped the box he'd taken down on the floor and begun rifling through it. "Anything good in there?"

Jacie ignored him. "Radu, give me those."

His search through the next two boxes was more frantic, and Harlan began to get worried. "So…not good news?"

He held up one sheet. "Very not good. I think they've targeted nearly all our transition sectors—they have all the ones I know about for sure. If they've got scouts in all of them…at best we're going to be crippled, at worst they'll capture or kill most of us. I have no idea how they got this much…we're careful. Really careful. We have to be."

"What about the list? If those are the people who know about the program, maybe you could just…get rid of a few of them. If there's no one left to run it, they might cancel it," Harlan offered.

"List?"

"It's a bunch of Spung," Radu said, kneeling to search through the boxes for it. "We think it's the listing of people who know about the program."

Jacie nodded. "Yeah, some assassination is an option. If nothing else, we need to buy some time to alter our routes and get word to the people inside. Aslinn, you hearing all this?"

"Loud and clear…unfortunately," Aslinn's voice came from the comm system. "If we can contact the trio, Cleo's our best bet for a quiet assa—" He broke off as Jacie began to snarl fiercely. "Brother? What's wrong?"

"It's not a list of them, it's a list of us! They tagged us, Az. Don't know how, but they've got Solanin, Rhiase, Brava, Terrik…a bunch of others. I don't know all the names, but it there's enough to be almost everyone on the inside…Taver's on here, Aslinn. And there are dates next to most of the names."

"Oh, hell. What do you mean they have them? Captured already?"

"No, at least I think we'd have heard, but I think they're being watched pretty closely. If they've been following them and picking up on our rendezvous points…if that's how they got all this information…" He shook his head.

"We're as good as dead," Aslinn finished. "Forget relaying…we have to warn the others now. Get as many of us out as we can. Are the dates the times they were identified, or…"

"Don't think so…but they might be arrest dates. The earliest one was two days ago, most aren't for the next couple days."

"Who was it?" Aslinn asked quietly

"Merei."

"Damn. Cleo said they were going in on an emergency the other day, and Rei and Chaya were pretty good friends…. All right, where is the nearest point we can break back into the network?"

"We have to find the Christa!" Harlan objected.

Blank eyes met his, and Jacie shook his head. "Get back to the scout and we'll launch you, but we have to move on this now."

"You said you'd help," Radu tried to protest.

"If they're in a position to take out the resistance, we've got almost 500 people to warn," Aslinn snapped. "Best case with all relays working it takes a week to get a message to the innermost levels. The ones listed on that sheet? They probably don't even know they've been targeted! Rei, at least, would have come out with Chaya and the others on their last run if she'd known. Hell, even assuming we can get hold of these people, someone—meaning us and a couple others—are going to have to be working pretty much constantly on the relays getting them out since they aren't exactly going to be able to hop on the nearest transports."

"You have plenty of fuel in the scout," Jacie interrupted. "Just rendezvous with the Centauri yourselves. I'll give you the comm codes to the others…they aren't going to be secure much longer anyway. We told them who you are, who you're looking for…contact them as soon as you're aboard and maybe they'll know something new. Aslinn, if we cut back towards Gavarta, we should be able to locate Ryxi…she can call in the rest of the transports from the rim and point us towards the ones who'll need immediate evacuation."

"Wait," Goddard interrupted. "How do you know this isn't some kind of elaborate plot by the Spung to draw you out? If you pull out your entire resistance network, you'll be destroying your own ability to fight them."

"If it's a plot, it's the best damn plot I've ever heard of," Jacie snapped. "These aren't random people on their Spung-to-watch list; these are some of our top operatives! And if we leave them inside to get killed, that really doesn't help our network much either. Even if they don't have absolute proof, Spung aren't always real discriminating in their death sentences."

"The odds of them pulling most of our rendezvous sectors out of some hat are pretty damn low too," Aslinn agreed, "so they've got proof of something. I've go the course change laid in. I suggest you four get back to the scout."

"Suzee isn't even conscious!"

Jacie rolled his eyes. "Then carry her. I'll put together a better medpack than our normal portables for you."