“But this deal is contingent on my bot checking out the primary systems, understand?”
“Sure. Check away. I’ll give you a few minutes. Stop by the office when you’re ready.”
After Caebach left, I asked TenSix what he thought.
“I’m not an astromech bot.”
“I know that.”
“But—so far—the craft appears to be functional. Barely functional.”
“That’s good.”
“It will likely get us the 384,400 kilometers to the orbital station without incident.”
How likely?”
“82.4%, plus or minus 6%.”
“You call those good odds?” I asked.
“Anything over 50% is good odds.”
Suddenly, Biella’s Aura vibrated on my wrist and an incoming call flashed on the screen. It was Tadao.
“Yes?”
“I found her,” he said. “Your girlfriend.”
“She not my—”
“She’s being taken to Vortis to be placed with the other scientists.”
“When?”
“Within the hour. You get your ship yet? I can send you the flight path of the launch that’s transporting her. It’s a straight shot. Three hundred fifty kilometers southeast of Ganga Kos.”
“My ship—in quotes—is a crappy Vireo T-6 with an Excedova 150 that looks like it was pulled from a lawnmower. How am I supposed to catch a Mayir launch?”
“You don’t catch it. You get out in front of it. Ask Caebach if he’s got something you can use to shoot it down. But hurry.”
He broke the comm.
Shit.
In the office I found Caebach watching an entertainment display. Thankfully it was a cartoon.
“I need weapons,” I said. “Quickly.”
“I’m a ship dealer, not a—”
“Cut the crap. Lhiana said you sold weapons too. I need something that can take down a Mayir launch. Maybe a mini D-beam or a Benham Tri-Mark.”
“How about a phased plasma rifle while you’re at it?” Caebach scoffed. “I don’t have any big guns, boyo. I might be able to scare up an old Pace 1170 blaster in the back, but that’s the best I can come up with. Especially on such short notice.”
“I’m not going to be able to take out a launch with a handgun, am I? What about mines? You got any tropo mines? Preferably something with an EMP charge. I need to disable the launch, not blow it out of the sky.”
“You’re not listening, kid. Even if I did have some big boom toys, I doubt you’d be able to afford it. But it’s a moot—”
“I’ll pay double the price of the ship.”
Caebach probably saw the desperation in my eyes, because he paused for a second, as if lost in thought, then said, “I might have something. Follow me.”
He turned and started winding his way deeper into the bowels of the docking bay with me and TenSix right on his tail.
“A guy hocked this a few years before the Mayir showed up. I’ve been meaning to take it to the markets at Ylpau Station, but I never made it out there. It definitely would fetch a good price—for the right buyer.”
We squeezed through corridors packed with crates, big transport containers, and all kinds of loose junk. I couldn’t believe with all this crap, Caebach didn’t have a Tri-Mark with some jiggler heads.
Finally we entered a smaller storeroom and he stopped in front of what looked like an oversized casket, propped against one wall. Upon examination, it wasn’t actually a casket, but a tall equipment crate of some sort. The crate was powered, and had a control panel inset into its front. Caebach keyed in a code and the door of the crate opened with a loud hiss.
I found myself staring at a crimson-colored exosuit. It was a Welkin, but seemed like it was a few models even more advanced than the state-of-the-art exosuits Beck Salvage supplied us with for our mission into the Fountain.
“Ever seen one of these babies before?”
“Welkin armored exosuit,” I said. “Though I’m not familiar with the model.”
“Yeah, well, neither am I. I’d have to research it, but we don’t have time for that. I do know that this thing is tricked out with all sorts of goodies.”
He accessed the crate’s info beacon with his Aura, then read aloud. “The suit’s got reinforced ceramlar body armor with anti-disruption circuits, and 20x aux kinetics, magtouch repulsors, combat pulse, air jump mode, AI-targeting, and a lot more shit than I can figure out.” Caebach looked over at me. “Unfortunately that’s all I got. It doesn’t come with a manual.”
“I’ll take it!”
17
Within fifteen minutes I was piloting the shuttle, taking us up and out of the docking bay. We hovered over the bleak-looking city as I got my bearings.
“TenSix, keep an eye on the LMR—just in case Caebach’s flight authorizations are B.S.”
“Will do.”
“And were you able to interface with my suit?”
“Still working on it.”
“I need to know more about its air jump capabilities.”
“Yes, although I still think this plan of yours is extraordinarily foolhardy.”
“I’m not disagreeing, but it’s the only plan we have.”
The navsys sounded its ready alert, so I confirmed the flightpath and keyed the thrusters. The underpowered ion engine shuddered roughly as it shifted into interval mode. But we were moving—at quarter speed until we cleared the city limits.
Below us, the landscape flew by, desolate and barren of any vegetation except for some low, scrubby bushes. It looked like a continuation of the Mothaatas Wastes we had traveled through to get to Ganga Kos.
I took the shuttle up to 500 meters and leveled out. Then I instructed the navsys to alert me when we reached 200 kilometers from Ganga Kos. That was where I was going to try the intercept.
“How we doing back there, TenSix?”
“I’m in.”
I glanced back to see the little bot perched on top of the exosuit’s case with his data cable jacked into the powered armor.
“This is a Welkin JA-93 Thunderhawk,” TenSix said. “Manufactured in 2360. Service logs say it’s only been used for 8.9 hours.”
I’d never heard of the JA-93, which made sense. It had been manufactured two years after I had entered the Fountain.
“What about the air jump function?”
“Yes, service ceiling of two thousand meters. Five hundred thirty-five kilograms of thrust. But
