Escaping Utopia: Part two of the Renegade Galaxy series. Read online

  Escaping Utopia

  By Steve Anderson

  Copyright © 2018 Steve Anderson

  Kindle 1st Edition

  All Rights Reserved

  For Steven – You are my Sunshine

  The Captain said, “Morning Doc. I have the bridge watch. You can finally get some sleep; dinner was great last night by the way.”

  Dr. Ezra simply nodded, the tired look in his eyes said more than words ever could. Just the same he said, “You’re welcome, Captain. We still have plenty of food, despite the long journey. I’ll leave the ship in your capable hands. Good night.”

  He was through the security door and down the ladder faster than she would have expected for a man his age. That is, she would have been surprised if they hadn’t spent so much time training together before stealing the Artemis. She looked over the displays on the bridge stations, but nothing had changed since they reached their destination. Their ordeal was far from over, but they had spent the last two months adjusting to the idea that things would never be the way they were before the ambush.

  They went from militant revolutionaries to wounded renegades by surviving the surprise attack in a remote part of the Orion system that took only a few seconds from start to finish. She and the three of her crew who survived those few devastating seconds were still on the run now. While they might never know who betrayed them in the Free Orion resistance movement, one thing became clear on their long jump here, there was no going back. What happened to them next weighed heavily on the Captain’s mind every time she thought about what led them to this moment.

  The Artemis still sat in the empty space some smugglers had carved out of the asteroid belt years ago, one of hundreds of such hidey-holes she knew dotted the outer belt. Captain LeGrande looked over the damage control display on the internal indicators one more time. The digital representation of the delta-shaped warship was still a mix of red, yellow and green symbols she had memorized over the past two months, but at least there was no new damage.

  Although there were more green-lit indicators than there had been while they were underway, the ship was still in no condition to fight. The surprise attack that had crippled the stolen ship was meant to disable her, not destroy her. The unknown attackers had nearly succeeded too. All that kept the Artemis intact was the Captain’s quick reflexes, and the ship’s one working combat system. That was just enough to keep half of her skeleton crew alive.

  The next step on their path was for the Captain to send a message to her one-time friend, Hands Hernandez. She hadn’t seen him in years, but he had saved her life then. He was part of a smuggler’s crew when she met him, and with her help had taken control of a tiny station here in the outer belt, the last she knew.

  He had no love of the resistance back in Orion or the Mirror Family, who ran most of the illicit activity here in the Utopia system. She still felt an obligation to him for the bullet he had taken for her from the Family. If there was anyone who could help them and keep those two groups from finding out about it, Hands was her best chance.

  That was, assuming he was alive, still in control of that station and willing to help her in the first place. There was only one way to find out. The Captain dialed in the carrier frequency Hands used, typed out, “Scarecrow at pothole.” Hands had a weird sense of humor about the codes for his contact messages. She encrypted it against anyone who might be listening just the same and sent the message out. All she could do now was wait.

  The Captain and the Artemis were as prepared as they could be, for the moment, but both she and her ship had seen better days. Daiyu, the lone survivor of her engineering team had sealed the aft hull breach that killed everyone around her. The Artemis still had a major breach in her forward port side, and the Captain still sported freshly healed burns to the left side of her face and neck. Dr. Ezra had done the best he could with cryogel and patience to help the Captain recover from her wounds. At least she could see out of both eyes again.

  Hours after the Captain sent the message, Rita came to the bridge to relieve her and assume the watch. Despite Rita’s reluctance to make the trip to Utopia, and the loss of her lover, Enrique in the ambush, she had done an impressive job keeping them all together once the Captain made the decision. She had thrown herself into repairing the failed repulsion field emitter, organized the disguise work on their shuttle, and remained prompt for her six-hour watch on the bridge.

  Rita said, “You look more worn out than usual. Any changes I need to know about?”

  The Captain said, “Nothing on board has changed. I sent a message to my contact here at the beginning of my watch. No response in almost six hours has me a bit worried. If something on the carrier frequency I have called up comes in, wake me right away. No matter how worn out I may be.”

  Rita nodded and was about to say something else when the comm chime sounded. Both women looked from each other the console the Captain had been waiting on for hours. The received message was encrypted text, just like her message had been. She ran a decryption algorithm she had saved on the message and sighed in relief at the response.

  It read, “The Wizard will see you. Sending a carriage.”

  Rita reading over her shoulder said, “Does that mean he’ll help or what?”

  The Captain shook her head no and said, “It means I’ll have a chance to ask for help. Hands hates to do anything without a lot of thought. He also has a weird sense of dramatic flair, he’s coming to get us.”

  Sure enough, within a few minutes of his reply, a rounded soviet style shuttle came into view. It was unmarked and had no transponder code. The comm chimed again, the Captain looked at the new text message as it decrypted.

  It said, “Lower your repulsion field. Oz, the Great and Powerful awaits.”

  The Captain dropped her field, turned to Rita and said, “I’ll go alone. The rest of you be wary. He was a friend once, but after the ambush, we know you can’t trust everyone.”

  Rita asked, “Any special instructions?”

  The Captain smirked and said, “The Conn is yours, bring the repulsors back up after we leave. Try not to die while I’m gone.”

  She left the bridge before Rita could come back with a suitable response. She hurried along the port side corridor to the amidships break. She felt a slight thud nearby as the tubular shuttle made soft dock with the Artemis. Of course, Hands would dock on the damaged side of the ship, just to see how bad it was.

  She was waiting by the same airlock she had used to board the Artemis when they stole the ship. That already seemed like a lifetime ago. The yellow soft dock indicator changed to green to show hard seal as the circular airlock door cycled open. To her surprise, Hands was not inside. She walked into the airlock and across to the dimly lit shuttle. The doors closed behind her and she felt the shuttle detach from Artemis.

  Local gravity disappeared the moment the shuttle disengaged, and Vicky found herself floating, weightless as the shuttle banked away from the ship. She had trained in zero gravity, of course, every shuttle pilot did, in case of a plating failure and just because it’s a good idea to be prepared. She found a convenient handhold and realized this old shuttle might not even have gravity plating. At least the dated air scrubbers seemed to be working.

  She floated from the airlock, through the barely lit, but empty curving cargo hold. She drifted ahead to the bridge door but found it locked. She found an intercom panel and toggled it on. She called out to Hands to open the door but there was no answer. The shuttle cargo hold was bare of everything but a few heavy tie-down straps along the outer bulkhead. She wasn’t panicked, but the empty shuttl
e and quiet treatment from the bridge was unnerving.

  She had been floating quietly in the empty hold for what the clock on her wrist comm said was almost half an hour. She was about to start banging on the bridge door when she felt a change in the shuttle’s momentum. They were slowing down, and she felt thrusters fire to control their attitude. They must have reached their destination. Whenever that bridge door did open, she had an earful for her friend, Hands.

  As the shuttle slowed, Vicky felt local gravity assert itself around her. She gradually grew heavier until her feet held on to the curved deck and a last solid thump told her they had landed. She waited, rather impatiently, for the bridge door to open. To her surprise, yet again, it did not open. Instead, the airlock cycled open and a mild puff of air signaled that the pressure had equalized between the shuttle and where ever they had landed.

  She walked out of the shuttle to find a loading drone had pushed a grated metal ramp up to the airlock. Her boots clanked on the ramp as she walked down and looked around the cargo hangar she was in. It was cut from the greenish rock of a nondescript S-type asteroid she hadn’t seen in years.

  There was just enough room in the hangar for two shuttles and some cargo, although the staging area was as barren as the shuttle had been. In fact, except for the shuttle she had been on, the hangar was almost completely empty. She saw no one around, but there were a few more cargo drones charging their batteries in the distance.

  She looked back over her shoulder to the shuttle but there was no sign of Hands behind her. She looked back towards the only exit she could see and walked towards it. As she neared the door, it slid open and a familiar voice came over the intercom.

  Hands said, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain… Sorry about the silent treatment on your way here, Sister Vicky. I should have planned for a way to chat with you in the shuttle. In hindsight, I can imagine that would be disconcerting. I’m one level above you. Follow the passageway until it ends, there is a stairway that will bring you to me.”

  Not quite ready to yell at the man through the intercom, Vicky followed his directions and found the stairwell. She climbed the steps two at a time, feeling her adrenaline kick in. Another drone was on the landing as she made her way up the stairs, it looked to be replacing a burnt out component of some kind. She emerged into a large workshop, filled with tables full of half-finished drones, various pieces of space station equipment and other projects she didn’t have any interest in identifying.

  On the far side of all that, in a wheelchair near a soviet style command console and remote display that looked to have been taken directly from the shuttle she had been on, was her old friend Hands. His worn coveralls looked stained from both working and eating.

  A heavy looking green plaid blanket covered him from the waist down, but there looked to be crumbs and dirt on it too. His hair was long and unwashed, and it appeared he hadn’t shaved in a very long time. While she wasn’t entirely sure, she thought he might look almost exactly the same as the last time she saw him.

  Either way, he looked genuinely surprised when he saw her. His reaction gave her just a second of pause before she delivered her otherwise righteous tirade. She realized for the first time what the burn on her face, along with the crazed look in her eye might do to someone who knew her before the ambush.

  Before he could babble anything coherent at her, Vicky said, “You put me in a drone shuttle and didn’t even tell me about it? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is in an ASTEROID belt? What would have happened to me if your controls failed, or the comms went dead, or any one of a million other things that could have killed me, just so you didn’t have to leave your comfortable little nest here?”

  He held his hands up as if to ward off her questions like physical blows. When she took a breath, he said, “You were never in any danger. I have solved each of those technical problems and installed a failsafe in case I did somehow lose control. You are one of the only friends I have ever had. I would never purposely put you in unnecessary danger.”

  Vicky said, “You have a strange way of showing how much you care then.”

  Hands nodded at that and said, “I admit I don’t always take other people’s reactions into account. I do care though, or you wouldn’t be here. Did you get that burn on the busted up ship you parked in my hidey-hole?”

  Vicky sagged her shoulders a bit at the mention of her face and the Artemis. She nodded back and said, “I stole her from the shipyard at Orion. She was supposed to be the flagship of a rebel fleet, but I was ambushed before I could fully arm her or take on crew.”

  Hands bushy eyebrows went up at that explanation. He said, “I heard someone stole a new frigate from the North Americans. They are looking everywhere for that ship. Well, not here, but I’ll bet they are offering enough reward that even the Family would consider ratting you out.”

  She said, “That’s why I’m here. I fought off the ambush but took heavy damage, as you no doubt saw. I was hoping we might fix her together, find some ammo for her guns, and figure out somewhere I could relocate after that.”

  Hands said, “Sister LeGrande, there is nowhere safe for you in that ship. Surely, you know that. The minute the USNA figures out where you are, they will hunt you down and blow that ship to bits. It’s a matter of pride, you made the all-powerful North Americans look like fools, and by now they have agents everywhere looking for any sign of that ship.”

  Vicky said, “What should I do, just blow her up myself? She is the only thing I have left from my old life. I can’t go back to the resistance. For all I know, Marcus set me up. I’m not cut out to be a smuggler, and like you said, that ship is too conspicuous to stay in one place long enough to be reported to any Earthling authorities.”

  Hands said, “She is beaten up, but I looked over the scan data before I even answered your message. She is in good shape despite the three hull breaches. The North Americans build good ships.”

  She said, “So are you saying you’ll help me fix her?”

  Hands hesitated before he answered. She had never seen him unsure about what he would do before. After a long pause, he said, “I’ve recently found myself in need of some help. I made a request even I found unsavory. If that arrangement proves any more unsavory, I will also have to relocate. So perhaps, it is fortuitous for both of us that you came along with a warship when you did.”

  It was Vicky’s turn to raise her eyebrows this time. She said, “You called the Family, didn’t you?”

  Hands looked down into the blanket on his lap and said, “Looking back, it seems rather foolish of me. I haven’t heard from any of my sources that Mother has put a price on my head, but she might not have told any ears who listen for me. Even if I’m in the clear now, that could change at any time.”

  She said, “So not only will you help me, you want to go with me when I leave the system.”

  As if that statement settled the matter, Hands said, “As I see it we have three problems. You need to repair your hull, arm your guns and find some crew. I can fix the hull, certainly fabricate plenty of railgun rounds, but there aren’t ten trustworthy souls in the belt to crew that ship. You need to automate, the way I have automated this station.”

  Vicky asked, “You want me to put drones where I count on people?”

  He said, “It’s a necessary evil I’m afraid. We don’t have many people we can trust, and drones can do the job. I don’t mean off the rack loading drones or fancy vacuum cleaners. I have more sophisticated plans than that. I live alone here, and my drones take care of almost everything, so I can work uninterrupted.”

  Vicky shook her head and asked, “What about materials, you don’t have steel foam hull plates anywhere do you?”

  Hands waved that objection off and said, “We can steal what we need. I don’t have to be a good neighbor if I’m not staying in the neighborhood after all.”

  Vicky said, “I’m ok with taking what we need, I did steal the ship in the first place after all. I don
’t want to kill a bunch of innocent spacers though. Stations with kids are definitely off limits. Also, although not anywhere close to a full crew, I do have a few crew members with me already. People from the resistance who can’t go back to Orion, like me.”

  Hands grimaced and said, “I’m sure they are wonderful people, but I’m not exactly a social creature. How many are there, a dozen?”

  Vicky said, “Just four of us. Four died in the ambush. They were all good resistance fighters.”

  Hands eyebrows went up again, as he said, “You got that busted ship from Orion to Utopia with only four people? You are braver or more desperate than I gave you credit for!”

  She shrugged and said, “Sometimes courage and desperation can look the same if you don’t have many options.”

  Hands said, “I am beginning to appreciate that as well. Let us get started on this ship of yours. What is she called again?”

  She said, “The USNA named her Artemis, but I’m not so sure that name fits her any more.”

  Hands said, “Well, I can fabricate railgun ammo easily enough, what about missiles? Do you have any of those?”

  She said, “Impactor missiles are all she had, it took eight of them to kill our bushwhackers.”

  Hands whistled at that and said, “I see you still don’t mess around, Sister. Ok, with working missiles I can build replacements. Drones can handle most of the operation and maintenance work. We will have to do the repairs, but the drones are still good for the heavy lifting. I’ll need room for a workshop over there, and we’ll have to save the hull breaches for last. I’ll need samples of your intact hull. The North Americans inject nanites to repair micro-fractures.”

  Vicky said, “We have plenty of room on board. Each of us has a stateroom to sleep in, and that leaves all the berthing spaces for you to set up shop in. We can convert some of that room to storage too if that will help.”

  Hands nodded and said, “I’ll get specs from your ship and then plan out what modifications I’ll need. I expect I will have to strip this station bare and transfer most of my equipment and materials to your empty spaces. I think my hydroponics compartment might be a good fit too, a ship can only store so much food at a time.”