“Why’s that, sir?”
“Because I forged the orders from Colonel Alexis Cromwell herself.” Sato heard talking and held up a hand. The audio feed was picked up from more tiny sensors on the outside of the container and fed into the control system, then to his pinplants via a hard wire. It was too risky to use a wireless transmitter. After all, Virginia Hall was an intelligence cutter, and her master would be extra observant.
The container thumped several times as magnetic grapnels were attached, then the occupants felt their temporary home moving slowly in one direction, then in another.
“In a moment, we’ll know,” Sato said.
His view from the miniature cameras was basic at best, a very narrow bandwidth of data through almost microscopic electrical lines he’d embedded in the container walls. You’d have to be looking specifically to spot them. He hoped so, anyway. If they caught him, it probably wouldn’t end well. He consoled himself that this was the last time he would be forced to betray former allies.
Sato watched on his pinplants as their module was maneuvered to the side of Virginia Hall’s tiny hold, then to the door, which was standing open. In moments they were moved outside, then other grapnels took the module and moved it onto a stack of others, where it was magnetically locked into place.
“Success,” he told Rick. The suit nodded in understanding.
“Now what?”
“We wait for Virginia Hall to undock.”
Now that they were inside a large cargo dock, Sato had a much better view of their surroundings. There were cameras on all six sides of the module, and only three were blocked. Virginia Hall was at one of a dozen cargo docks where cargo could be loaded and offloaded. He could see there were various sizes, from the small one his module had been moved through, up to those big enough for the entire intelligence cutter to maneuver through. He began to believe he knew where they were.
In less than an hour, the lock to Virginia Hall closed, and the status lights ringing it flashed green several times, then went out, signifying the other side was exposed to vacuum. Their ride had left. “Okay,” he said. “We just need to be sure nobody is watching.”
As they’d waited, he’d packed a pair of duffel bags with everything he wanted to take along. The orders he’d forged had instructed the captain to pay to store the container for a year at their destination. Of course Sato didn’t know what the destination was, though Alexis Cromwell would certainly have known. For his purposes, it didn’t really matter. The storage fee wouldn’t be too much, and stacked against his other crimes in fleeing the Hussars, he doubted a couple hundred credits would make it any worse.
Sato made sure both their bags were ready, then checked the cameras again. A pair of bots checking on a power connection to a module 50 meters away were the only things that would have a view. Standard surveillance didn’t concern him. Computers weren’t smart enough to ask questions, and nobody would check the recordings unless someone came looking for him, or perhaps when the storage fee ran out. He’d be long gone by then.
“Ready,” Sato said.
“Right,” Rick replied and took both bags. The cargo bay was in zero G, but the bags were still nearly 100 kilograms each. The mass would be difficult for Sato to maneuver but would provide no challenge for Rick. He looked around a final time. There were several cases of gear still in the container, stuff he would be unlikely to need. He’d come back for them later.
Time to go.
Sato keyed in the release sequence with his pinplants, then disconnected the hard link. The module went into standby, the lights went out, and they were plunged into total darkness. An instant later, a pop sound indicated the doors were unlocked, and a hiss spoke of equalizing pressure. He drifted over to them, grabbed a handhold to the side of the doors, and pushed them slowly open. The cargo bay wasn’t well insulated, and the cold flooded into the module. He only felt it on his face, as he was wearing a Hussars-issue ship duty uniform, which was both insulated and airtight. He’d even fixed the LSU, or life support unit, to the belt and had the helmet under his arm.
No one seeing the two float out of the cargo module would give them a second glance. Sato had changed the color of his suit from the Hussars’ black and gold to a pale green, which would blend right in. The other figure looked like he was wearing a poorly fitted spacesuit, helmet in place. Any observers would note both were very much at home in zero gravity as they expertly pushed off to land by one of the cargo bay exits.
A pair of elSha were manning the doors. One was reading something on his slate, and the other was staring blankly, a sure sign he was using his pinplants. Neither so much as looked up. They were making sure nobody entered the bay without authorization. Anyone leaving was obviously already authorized to be in there. Sato floated past them and into the bustling corridor beyond.
As luck would have it, a Human was talking to a badger-like Cochkala. Rick got the Human’s attention. “Can you tell me what station this is?”
“You don’t know where you are?” the Cochkala asked. Amusement carried through the translator program in Sato’s pinplants.
“Been a long trip,” Sato said.
“Karma Station,” said the Human, an almost skeletally thin woman, likely a lifelong spacer. Without intermittent nanite treatments, her bones would have been as brittle as a 100-year-old’s. She barely took any notice of Sato’s features, but she gave Rick’s spacesuit a long look. “What’s that guy’s problem?”
“He got burned really badly a few years ago. Plasma discharge
