Star Road Read online

  Annie hoped no one did anything stupid.

  Pulling a gun was stupid enough. If those two newbies raised their weapons now, they could probably take this guy down ... but likely only after he burned a hole through Annie’s skull.

  “Hey, hold on there,” she said. “There’s no need to—”

  “The Road ... is meant... to be ...free!”

  One of “those” guys, Annie thought. A “Free the Road” zealot.

  How the hell did he get a boarding-chip clearance? He must have paid a ton of credits to someone. And the pulse gun? Maybe someone planted it here for him, past the security.

  And his plan?

  Commandeer the SRV?

  Take out as many people as he could before burning his own brains out? Make a fucking statement with blood?

  “Right. I hear you, sir. But there’s no need to—”

  The man’s eyes darted back and forth now that he was off-plan.

  What’s he going to do?

  Is he considering getting everyone on the SRV, leaving here, and then... what?

  Kill them ... or hold them for ransom?

  Perhaps the idea that he was trapped, that it was already over, was beginning to dawn on him.

  In which case ...

  What the hell is he gonna do?

  He has an SRV captain at his mercy.

  A lot of passengers around.

  Not a bad statement.

  Bunch of dead bodies.

  Free the Road indeed.

  Annie took another step, maintaining steady eye contact with him, not even thinking to look at what might be going on around her, locked in this deadly standoff.

  Deadly for me, she thought.

  “Why not lower the gun, and we can talk?”

  Another small smile, but Annie guessed that her partner in this dance wouldn’t opt for that.

  Annie lowered her gaze to the man’s hand, the outstretched arm holding the weapon. Was his grip tightening, or did she only imagine it?

  Her stomach tightened. She felt like she might throw up.

  The man licked his lips and then opened his mouth.

  “Free the—”

  His voice wound up higher and then broke.

  Finger definitely tightening.

  And then, from the side, an arm flew from out of nowhere, hitting the man’s outstretched arm—and the gun—knocking both to one side.

  But too late. The trigger pulled.

  The gun shot a pencil-thin pulse at Annie’s head.

  But the intervention had moved the man’s arm just enough. A high-pitched sizzling sound whizzed by, inches from Annie’s head. The hairs above her ear actually moved in response to the charged particle burst.

  Then her savior grabbed the man’s gun hand and almost effortlessly twisted it. The gun clattered to the tile floor. Now—finally—the hapless guards were running toward them while the assailant found himself in a firm choke hold, arms pinned to his sides.

  And finally, Annie realized who her savior was.

  She walked up to him.

  “Jordan. What the hell—?”

  “Nice to see you, too, Annie.”

  Been a long time, Annie thought. A lot of water under a lot of bridges.

  Jordan. A gunner. But what was he—?

  “Someone upstairs decided you needed me on this trip,” Jordan said simply.

  “Luck of the draw? Or did you ask to be with me?

  Jordan smiled and said nothing. Then he indicated the assailant, who was now being collared. One of the guards stretched out a length of yellow-green neoprene and looped it around the man’s neck. The collar glowed as the neural interrupters made the man go as limp as a baby.

  “Orders are orders.” He smiled—barely. “So, I’m your gunner. And—”

  They both watched as the security guards dragged the man away.

  “And it looks like, once again, I’ve saved your ass.”

  Another tight grin.

  Annie shook her head. “Jordan. Damn.” Then looking at him, “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Annie smiled at that and then turned to the crowd, all of them watching as if this was some bizarre sporting event.

  “All right, folks. Show’s over. Time to finish up your drinks and get on board.”

  And then, with Jordan a few steps behind, she strode over to the ramp leading up to the opened hatch of her SRV.

  It was time to get on the Road.

  ~ * ~

  When he realized what was going on down in the lobby, Humphries left his office in a hurry.

  And Nahara finally saw his chance.

  Without any hesitation, he walked over to Humphries’s desk and sat down in the plush, leather chair. He leaned forward, his face close to the desk, and whispered, “Computer.”

  Something inside the machine clicked, and a thin red laser beam shot out from the screen and scanned his left retina. After a few seconds, the computer’s friendly female simulated voice said, “Hello, Bill. ¿Qué pasa?”

  After a nervous look around, Nahara whispered, “Download Matrix zero-eight-eight-zero.”

  “That’s classified information, Bill,” the computer voice said.

  Nahara got up from the desk and went over to the window. Looking out, he saw Humphries down below, talking to the security guards. How long would that take? He didn’t have much time.

  Back at the computer: “I’m authorized to override security clearance with Protocol nine-six-nine-alpha.”

  After a moment: “Confirmed.”

  Nahara waited, counting seconds. His eyes kept flicking to the door to Humphries’s office. The entire front wall was made of wide panes of glass, fifteen meters high. Humphries would be able to see him as soon as he got to the top of the stairway, if he didn’t take the elevator.

  “Sometime today,” Nahara muttered, tapping his fingers on the desktop.

  “Transfer processing complete in five, four, three—”

  “For God’s sake, hurry up!”

  “Two, one. Transfer process complete.”

  From the terminal console, a thin, transparent crystal with multifaceted sides emerged. It caught and reflected the light in a faint rainbow. Nahara grabbed it, almost ripping it from the slot, and pocketed it.

  As he glanced up and started moving away from the desk, Humphries appeared in the doorway.

  He looked grim. Unsmiling.

  “Well,” he said to Nahara. “Now that that’s settled, you’d best get down there and board your vehicle. It leaves in ten minutes.”

  When they shook hands, Nahara was keenly aware of how slick with sweat the palm of his hand was. He wondered if Humphries noticed. He smiled broadly, nodded, and then turned and left.

  As soon as he was out the door and walking to the elevators, he was filled with a sudden panicked thought.

  Did I log out of Humphries’s computer?

  He took a deep breath.

  Held it.

  And kept walking, forcing himself to keep a slow, easy stride.

  Fuck it. It’s too late to turn back now.

  ~ * ~

  5

  WELCOME TO THE SRV-66

  Annie sat down on the—for her—oversized seat and looked at the massive, intimidating control board in front of her.

  Considering the size of the board, it always amazed her that the SRV actually had something that resembled a steering wheel.

  That this ... vehicle could take people across the galaxy, and if you held the wheel, and sat back in the pilot’s seat, you might think you were driving an Italian sports car.

  Except sports cars didn’t come with a panel full of lights, switches, a bank of holoscreens, computer readouts, and a “Heads-Up Display.”

  Then another part of that thought.

  And I actually know how to drive this.

  Even more amazing.

  She liked this moment—sitting i
n the chair, ready to run through her pre-journey checklist, minutes away from following Mobius Control’s checkout procedure.

  For these few moments, the SRV was all hers.

  And then Jordan entered the cockpit, hurrying up the steps from the passenger and baggage area below. He had to bow his head to avoid hitting it against the overhang.

  “How we looking?” he asked.

  She turned to him.

  “Not too shabby.”

  She waited to see if Jordan got it. That hint of innuendo. Jordan was mighty quiet but also very easy on the eyes.

  He seemed, though, oblivious or else willfully ignorant of such things.

  Innuendo? Not in his vocab.

  She turned back to the SRV control board and threw some switches, watching the displays change as the ship powered up. A faint hum filled the cockpit.

  “All good. Think we have some time before Control begins checking us out.”

  Jordan sat down in his chair, resting his hands on the console.

  SRVs didn’t normally travel with copilots. Annie imagined that was because an SRV was really more like a bus or a truck, or interstellar cab. Why have a copilot?

  But they always traveled with gunners.

  She also knew that Jordan, from both experience and training, could—in a pinch—operate the vehicle.

  And when they were between portals, there wasn’t much to do except keep the SRV centered on the ribbony twists of road, activating small jets that sprouted from all around the vehicle, little bursts that kept the SRV squarely in the center of the “road” even as it twisted and turned through hyperspace.

  Despite the hundreds of lights and switches, the thing wasn’t really that hard to operate.

  Jordan started toggling switches.

  Checking his guns...

  For a few minutes, Annie didn’t say anything. Then Jordan turned to her.

  “I’m going to check the main,” he said.

  The main.

  The massive gun at the rear of the SRV had a 360 view of the area around the vehicle.

  A holovid screen in front of the gunner’s seat showed the pod that housed the main. Smaller screens had panoramic views from the SRV, now looking down on the launch platform.

  Jordan could operate all the gun remotes from the cockpit, even the big main.

  But if anything happened, she knew Jordan would go back there, strap into the narrow seat at the rear, to be a hands-on gunner, and operate it from there.

  She knew that, having seen it happen.

  Jordan wanted to hold those controls in his hands and swing around in the seat, tracking whatever he targeted.

  And whatever he targeted almost always got hit. Annie couldn’t remember any misses when they were on the same flight, but she figured there had to have been one or two.

  Not that Jordan would ever admit it.

  She asked him once, after she saw him blast some Runners who thought they could get the jump on her small SRV.

  “You do that... go back there ... because it’s more fun, right?”

  Jordan—being Jordan—didn’t smile.

  “It has a better feel. More accurate.”

  He’s a dinosaur, Annie thought. Something out of freaking medieval times. Cowboy movies.

  Jordan had been born too late.

  Or maybe, considering things, at just the right time.

  It almost always got interesting on the Road.

  “As long as you’re heading back there, mind checking the freight? Looked like the loaders secured everything pretty well, especially after the near-miss with McGowan’s suit. But still—wouldn’t hurt to check.”

  “Got it.”

  Jordan slid out of his seat and took the gangway down to the passenger area.

  ~ * ~

  Ruth Corso looked around for a place to sit.

  She wanted quiet.

  Time to think. To meditate about this journey, about what it might mean, why it was so important to her that she left her family without saying good-bye.

  The SRV only held eight passengers—four sets of single seats on either side. She counted—what? Only four passengers so far.

  Good.

  There were bigger SRVs, but they, too, had to keep the passenger areas small. Moving freight for the colonies, supplying them ... that was the important thing. Passengers were an afterthought. Speed and mass being relative, the smaller the vehicle, the faster it would travel on the Road. And even at the impossible distances at equally impossible speeds, time was still paramount.

  But the cabin on this vehicle felt smaller than she’d imagined. Cramped.

  A stairwell in the front led up to the cockpit. The hatch was closed and, no doubt, locked from the inside. Lavatory on the left, in the back.

  She wondered about the pilot. She looked awfully young.

  After another look around, Ruth decided on the seat farthest back, on the left. The one across from that one was still empty.

  She hoped it stayed that way.

  Better to gather my thoughts.

  Just then, the cockpit door opened, and a man came down the short stairway, hurrying.

  When he looked up, Ruth caught her breath.

  No!

  Not him! Not Jordan!

  What are the odds?

  Then he stopped, looked right at her.

  She opened her mouth. But then caught herself.

  Of course he wouldn’t speak to her.

  But he looked straight at her, as if sighting her down the barrel of a gun.

  Then he hurried to the rear of the SRV.

  As he passed, Ruth somehow found the courage to reach out and touch him on the right arm.

  “Does it matter where I sit?”

  Jordan stopped. Licked his lips, his eyes skittering from side to side.

  “Not to me.”

  He looked at her a moment longer.

  Ruth smiled. He had a patch with an image of the SRV on it.

  Copilot now? she thought.

  He shook his head. “Let me guess,” Jordan said. “You’re going to Omega Nine?”

  Is it that obvious? Ruth wondered. So clear that I’m a Seeker?

  And: He doesn’t like it.

  “That’s my plan. I know there’s—”

  “Nothing but trouble. Lots of crazy, desperate people there.” Jordan’s voice stung like a whip.

  Instant anger rose up inside Ruth. There was so much she—and he— could have said ... should have said.

  But not anymore.

  Then she reminded herself... Anger isn’t the way. It never is.

  “Yes. Other Seekers have gone there. A place where—”

  Jordan turned away. She thought maybe he’d noticed that other passengers were listening to their conversation.

  He mustered a tight smile.

  “Farthest point so far. Until we go, as they say, farther.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  There was a note of awe in her voice. She realized she asked the question as if he had been to Mecca, a holy place—and if so, how could he not want to know everything about this Star Road, about the Builders? There were so many questions that needed answers—

  “Yeah, I’ve been there. Nice pile of rocks. A few communities of your people waiting for—for what? Enlightenment?” His thin smile faded. “Get ready to be disappointed. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Jordan kept moving, slipping past the other passengers who were standing in the narrow aisle.

  His words didn’t bother Ruth.

  There would always be doubters.

  She repeated one of her favorite Seeker mantras: Doubt feeds on fear, and fear feeds on ignorance.