“Jezus…” Edie instinctively ducked her head.
The display cycled to show more faces—Finn’s, Corky’s, Yasuo’s, Gia’s, Cat’s. Known associates. Finn’s mug shot came from his Crib serf file. The others were stamped with Stichting Corp’s logo. The Crib must have demanded the Hoi’s crew roster and personnel files from the company. Now someone on the approaching ships had jacked into Barossa’s PA system and stuck their faces on every information board on the station.
Except that Cat Lancer’s mug shot was of someone else entirely—a gaunt blue-eyed woman with midtoned skin. The new ident that the infojack Achaiah had set up for Cat had involved using a worm to change Cat’s appearance in records across the Reach.
Finn was suddenly at Edie’s side, his jacket collar raised in an attempt to hide the lower part of his face. His appearance broke Xin out of her trance.
“The Crib wants you, and that’s reason enough for me to pretend I never saw you,” Xin said. “But the deal’s off. I’m sorry. You might have better luck with—”
Finn cut her off with a quick motion of his hand. He didn’t need to hear her suggestions. “Cat, get a refund. Plan B.”
Cat nodded. She and Finn must have already discussed this while Edie had been too sick to get involved in their plans.
Finn took Edie’s elbow and guided her with purpose toward the security check. With all the bustle and panic around them, no one paid much attention to the wanted fugitives in plain sight. Yet.
“Yasuo?” she asked as they hurried along wide corridors lined with windows overlooking the docks. She had to jog to keep up with him.
“Gone. If the Crib gets him he’ll crack on the first question. We need a new ride and a new destination. Turn on your e-shield to minimum. From this point we can’t leave a DNA trace.”
Edie obeyed, wondering what plan B was and how it might affect their plans once they reached the Fringe. From Tallyho, a midsized Fringe station, they’d planned to find a ride farther out into the Reach. Cat had a few contacts from her rover missions over the last few years, and through them they’d hoped to find worlds that needed their help. They’d never told Yasuo the reason they wanted to go to the Fringe, other than to hide out—only Cat knew about the cryptoglyph—but he could still reveal names and places to the Crib. They had only minutes to change their plans entirely.
It seemed Finn had thought ahead. They’d reached the end of the docks, and the crowd thinned out. Finn turned a corner and swiped a key through a door labeled Rescue and Tug.
“Courtesy of Cat’s buddy in TrafCon,” he said in response to Edie’s questioning look.
She followed him down narrow, branching corridors. Behind them, Cat raced to catch up.
“What did you give your buddy for the key?” Edie asked Cat.
“Access codes for the Hoi’s cargo holds so he could sell the rigs before the scrap merchants picked up the ship. He’s given us more than the key. I just spoke to him—he’s clearing as many ships as he can for departure before the Crib shuts the place down.”
Cat took the lead, and after a couple more turns stopped at a numbered hatch.
“This is it.”
Finn’s key snapped open the hatch, which led to a short gangway. They piled inside. While the airlock cycled, Finn rummaged in the duffel bag and pulled out three devices that looked like narrow collars.
“Breathers,” he explained. “The ship is pressurized, but not with breathable air. Hold still.”
Before she had time to object, Finn drew the collar around the back of Edie’s neck and pressed firmly on the clip at the front. She felt a sharp pain above the beetle shell embedded between her collarbones, and yelped in surprise.
“Sorry. You’re supposed to apply a local anesthetic first.”
“No kidding.” Her throat felt scratchy, then cold as air from the storage pouch on the back of the collar began to flow directly into her lungs through the tube piercing her trachea.
Finn attached his own collar with a minimum of fuss. Cat seemed to be having trouble with the injection part of the routine. Her fingers hesitated over the clip on her collar. As the far hatch snapped open, Finn reached over and did the job for her. She scowled but muttered her thanks.
Cat led the way into the cockpit of a cramped skiff. There was barely enough room for all of them to stand, and there was no pilot’s seat.
“What is this—a tug?” Edie asked as Cat punched the control panel. “We can’t get far in this.”
“We’re only going a few hundred meters. Usually the tug operates automatically. I can override that,” Cat said. She scanned the holoviz readout. “Okay, there are two cargo ships due to depart in the next couple of hours.”
“Take the Lichfield,” Finn said.
“Okay. I’m sending a message to Digger to ask him to clear it ahead of schedule. Once we’re on board, the tug will return to this dock automatically and the Crib’ll be none the wiser.”
“Cargo? This is your plan B?” Edie looked from Finn to Cat, expecting answers.
“We’re the cargo,” Finn said. “We’re going cryo.”
Edie’s breath caught. Cryosleep? She’d spent the last week in a state of near death—and wasn’t ready to do it again.
The tug gave a barely discernable shudder as the docking clamps released. Cat opened the front shutter and guided the tiny vessel away from the station, following the pylons that extended from it. Larger ships were docked at the end of the pylons, which served both as tethers and as railings for conveying cargo crates into ships’ holds.
“I really hoped we wouldn’t need plan B,” Cat muttered. “I’d rather take passage on a Fringer tin can than a drone vessel.”
“A drone…You mean no crew?” Edie asked her.
“That’s right. Fully automated. Just a bunch of cargo crates strapped to an engine, really.” A navpilot in cryo on a ship with no pilot—no wonder Cat was nervous.
“Listen, this friend of yours in TrafCon…you trust him not to turn us in?” If they got out undetected, he would be the weak link.
“Digger? Yes, absolutely. Known him for years. That’s one reason we ran to Barossa in the first place. The Crib has no reason to question him. And he has plenty of reasons to avoid talking to them.”
Behind her, Finn opened a small shutter at the rear. They were far enough from the station now that its entire curved flank was visible. Dozens of ships were leaving. One by one the larger vessels detached from their clamps or pylons and the smaller ones sailed out of hatches, reoriented themselves, and headed outward to the jump node.
A shadow swept across the side of the station. A massive black-and-silver shape descended from above—a Crib battlecruiser, on approach to one of the docks. Edie cringed, an instinctive reaction. She knew they couldn’t see her, but her heart seemed to stop.
Beyond the perimeter of the station, a second Line-class loomed. Was Liv Natesa on one of those cruisers? A week ago, Edie’s former employer had caught up with the Hoi at Scarabaeus. They’d only barely escaped.
A swarm of fleeing ships streamed past the cruiser’s sleek hull in the other direction. Every few seconds, the outgoing jump node lit up in a ring of light as a ship departed.
All those people were reacting out of fear because they didn’t understand the Crib was after her. Edie felt sorry for Beagle. He’d saved her life, and Finn’s, by stealing those meds, and didn’t deserve the trouble he was in now. Maybe he was on one of those ships, already safe. More likely he was still loading up all that precious cargo they’d given him. Rackham’s antiques and artifacts were worth a fortune, if Beagle could find a buyer for them.
“The ship we’re heading for—the Lichfield—what’s its destination?” Edie tried to stop the tremble in her voice as she contemplated cryosleep. They had no choice. The milits would be here any moment and no one else on Barossa would take them.
“Deeper into the Fringe, making stops along the way,” Cat explained. “These automated vessels fly a tortuous route through the nodes, making deliveries and pickups. Cheapest way to ship anything if you don’t care how long it takes.”
“And the Crib can’t trace us?”
“The manifest is confidential, so they’ll never know we’re on board. Even if they wanted to, the Crib can’t afford the legal hassles of checking every courier service, let alone one outside Crib space. And with all these ships fleeing Barossa, a drone ship is the last one they’d suspect.”
“Let’s hope so,” Finn said.
Cat docked the tug flawlessly. “Releasing the Lichfield’s docking clamps,” she reported. “Digger came through—it’s ready to depart. Switching to autopilot.”
The tug began its journey toward the jump node, the Lichfield in tow.
“Time to get on board,” Cat said.
But it wasn’t as simple as Edie had imagined. The tug was attached to the Lichfield by docking clamps, not by the hatch through which they’d come. That hatch led nowhere. Nevertheless, it was their way out.
Edie listened in stunned disbelief as Finn explained their next move while he reeled out a tether.
“Depressurization drains the e-shield fast, so we need to find an access hatch quickly and break in.”
Edie’s mind was still fixated on the word depressurization. That meant…the cold vacuum of space. She shuddered and bit down on a dozen questions about safety and risks. She trusted that Finn knew what he was doing. She had to.
“We have to be inside the ship before it hits nodespace.” He attached the tether to her belt and handed the end to Cat. “If something goes wrong, we can’t return to the tug because it’ll be on its way back to the station by then. Let’s keep an open comm line. No sudden moves.”
“How long will the breathers last?” Edie asked.
“The shields will die first—we’ve got maybe ten minutes. You ready?”
She wasn’t, but she nodded.
Cat depressurized the tug and Edie felt the buzz of her e-shield as it ramped up power to compensate. As Finn cycled the hatch, Cat leaned forward, her lips close to Edie’s ear.
“Time to find out if your Saeth knows what he’s doing.”
Finn slung the duffel bag over his shoulders like a backpack and climbed out of the hatch onto the stern of the Lichfield. He held out his hand to help Edie down. The weightlessness made her stomach flip. Behind her, Cat sealed the hatch.
The long hull of the Lichfield rose up in front of Edie. From the corner of one eye she picked up the intermittent flashes from the node, signaling the departure of other ships. She didn’t dare turn to look. She watched Finn, and matched his movements by grabbing on to struts and pulling herself along. Holding on wasn’t a problem in zero-g. It was simply the terror of hanging in empty space that set in. Her heart raced, demanding more oxygen. Finn gave her a familiar look that told her to calm down. The breather provided a steady trickle of air into her lungs, but it didn’t feel like enough. Fighting back the feeling of suffocation, Edie concentrated on taking shallow, slow breaths.
Hand over hand, the three of them climbed along the hull of the Lichfield. Finn seemed to know where he was going. Maybe he’d done this a hundred times before as a Saeth rebel. She told herself that and felt a little more confident. She turned her head in time to see the tug detach and head back to the station. Filling her view was the jump node, normally an invisible portal to nodespace. It was constantly active now as ships streamed out of the system.
She was getting cold. The e-shield kept her body heat in, but it wasn’t completely efficient. A tinny beeping sound took her by surprise. She glanced down to see the warning light on her e-shield flashing. A fainter echo trailed the beep—someone else’s alarm reached her ears through the open comm line. She craned her neck and saw the light on Finn’s shield generator also flashing.
Instinctively she moved her hand to her belt to double-check the readout. Inertia spun her entire body and she fell away from the cargo ship. Too panicked to even scream, Edie clawed for a handhold and instead felt something solid across her back. Finn had reached out to grab her shoulder, his shield melding with hers. He stopped her spin and she hit the hull. He pinned her against the vessel until she found the handholds again.
“I said keep still.”
“My shield…” she managed.
“I know. You’ll make it.”
Finn moved only one more step and stopped. He pulled a device no bigger than his finger from the duffel bag and attached it to the access panel directly above him. Where did he get all this stuff? Edie had been unaware of his activities while she was sick. During that time he and Cat must have been preparing for all this.
He pulled back slightly as a puff of smoke shot out of the access panel’s handle. The panel blew open and the air inside evaporated into space.
Finn reached down and hauled Edie up. As she clambered inside, he detached the tether. She lurched against the walls of a narrow airlock as the gravplating pulled on her. Scrambling inside as fast as she could, she heard Cat climb up behind her.
Edie turned and waited for what seemed like an eternity until Finn pulled himself inside. He shut the access panel and put them in total darkness. She heard him rummaging around in the duffel again. “I need to weld this or the hull breach will set off security alarms.”
“Won’t it already have done so?” Edie asked.
“No. The toms will investigate first, and transmit an alarm to the company HQ if it’s serious.” Toms were small multi-functional droids used mostly for maintenance jobs. “I need to fix it before the toms get here.” Finn fired up a small torch and swept it over the edges of the hatch. After a few seconds he tapped the panel, and then nodded to Cat. She opened the inner airlock door. Air rushed in.
Cat shone a flashlight down a dark, cramped corridor. “Where does this lead?”
“It’s a maintenance tunnel for dockside repairs,” Finn said. “Should be a panel in the floor that we can drop through. See if you can find it.” He was still checking the welded panel for leaks.
Edie crawled a few meters down the tunnel, feeling with her hands for handles or catches. Her fingers caught on an indentation.
“Got it.” She pushed out the panel.
Cat’s flashlight illuminated the hole. “Looks like a main corridor.”
Finn caught up with them. “Set your e-shields to low, just for warmth. There’s no other danger.”
They slid through the hole onto the deck. Each of the six walls of the corridor had a railing down the center in a shallow depression half a meter deep. It matched the struts Edie had seen on standard cargo crates. These passages were essentially conveyor belts that moved cargo from the port into allocated bays in the ship, and out again when it came time to deliver.
Finn pulled another mysterious gadget from the duffel bag. It was clear there were no personal belongings in there, only endless Saeth tricks. He turned it on and began walking.
“Echomapper,” he explained.
A holo bloomed over the device, showing a blueprint of the corridor they were in and the cargo crates to either side with the indistinct shapes of their contents. One deck above and below were also mapped, their edges fading at the limit of the echomapper’s range.
“There should be at least a couple of crates with cryo capsules,” Finn said.
A rumbling noise came from behind them. Cat shone her flashlight. A cargo crate was advancing at an alarming speed, filling the entire cross-section of the corridor with no leeway around the edges: it would crush them.
“This way.” Finn jogged down the narrow track. He ducked into an alcove, pulling Edie in with him. Cat pressed herself into the small space just as the crate rumbled past. They peered out to see the crate stop a few meters farther along, then it moved sideways into an empty bay.
“Must’ve been loaded at Barossa,” Cat said.
Finn climbed up, and Edie realized the alcove was a maintenance access area. There wasn’t much on the ship that was built for humans, but this alcove had a ladder.
On the next deck, Finn walked up and down, mapping as much as his device could register, while Cat and Edie waited, listening for approaching crates. As Finn returned, another strange sound echoed through the ship.
Edie pressed herself back into the alcove. “Is that—?”
“It’s the engine,” Cat said. “We just entered nodespace.”
Which meant they were safe from the Crib, at least for the duration of this jump. Nothing could track a ship in nodespace. And if the node had several exits, as most did, the ship might take any one of them. Its itinerary was flexible—recalculated after every port by the nav computer. As the Lichfield moved farther into the Reach, the Crib’s search would become even more futile.
“Found what we need,” Finn said.
He led the way down the corridor and turned when it branched. They stopped at a crate that looked much like any other, except that instead of the usual loading doors, this one had a tiny airlock, locked from the inside.
“Your turn,” Finn said to Edie.
She pressed her fingers into the port and found it to be a standard mag lock. She snapped the airlock open and the three of them crammed inside. The inner hatch cycled and they stepped into the cargo crate. Ghostly blue striplights came on and illuminated the neat stacks of cryo capsules. With the plaz windows misted over, Edie couldn’t see the occupants’ features clearly. She didn’t want to. She shuddered to think she’d soon join them.
Finn checked a panel near the hatch. “We’ve got atmo.” He turned off his breather, and Edie and Cat did the same. The air was freezing and smelled of antiseptic. “The air automatically replenishes and heats a little when the hatch is used,” he said, his breath misting the air, “or when the cryo capsules turn off.”
Meaning when someone woke up. At least there were safety features.
“Who are they?” Cat asked.
Edie checked the panel, which listed the names and origins of the occupants along with short bios.
“I don’t think they’re colonists,” she said. “No specific destinations listed.”
Finn looked over her shoulder. “Migrant workers. They move from planet to planet until someone decides their skills are wanted and defrosts them.”
“So how long have they been in cryo?” Edie scrolled the list and answered her own question. “Fifteen months, nine months…Jezus, this one’s twenty-two months…”
Cat examined the capsules. “There’re half a dozen empty ones back here,” she reported. “They look fine.”
Finn went to check them himself.
“So where are we getting off?” Edie asked, still creeped out by the thought of all these sad people—so desperate for work and a home that they froze themselves indefinitely until someone needed them.
“We can’t access the ship’s route from here,” Finn said.
“Then where? Where’s the bridge?”
“There’s no bridge. There’ll be a command center in the heart of the ship, but it’s not worth the risk of raising an alarm.”
“What are you saying?” Edie felt more uncomfortable by the second.
“We need to hide among these people,” Finn said. “We’ll create bios like they have, and wait to be defrosted.”
“What if that never happens?” Twenty-two months in cryo—or more—was unthinkable.
“We can set a maximum sleep time. Say, fifteen months.”
“What?” That sounded almost as bad. “Over a year in cryo?”
“A year for our trail to go cold,” Cat said. She didn’t look happy about it either.
“The whole point is to get to the Fringe and help people,” Edie said. “A lot can happen in a year. Thousands of people will die…”
“I know you’re impatient to get started,” Finn said, “but there’s no sense rushing into this and getting caught.” He pulled equipment out of a locker. “I need you to dream up some fake stats for us, something that will appeal to impoverished planets. That way, the people who do wake us will be more likely to need our help.”
While he and Cat sorted the equipment and read over the capsule instructions, Edie jacked into the panel where all the migrant workers had recorded their stats. She created new bios for the three of them, adding bits and pieces from the other bios so that their names, planets of origin, qualifications, and various details blended with the other workers. There was room to list all kinds of certifications and idents. Many of the workers had written nothing for those, so the omission in Edie’s case didn’t seem strange. She listed op-teck as her profession, in the hope it would appeal to anyone with biocyph troubles, and grouped them as a family so they would be brought out of cryo together. Then Edie entered the maximum sleep period as fifteen months and authorized port authorities of any Fringe world to wake them sooner if they could provide employment.
Finn brought her a set of biosensors. He placed a cuff around her wrist.
Edie tried not to look at the three cryo capsules that Cat had pulled forward from the rack. They lay open—chilled coffins of white and silver. Cat helped Finn check them over one last time. Edie wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop the shivering.
Finn beckoned to Edie. For a moment they looked at each other. She wanted to say something to him, in case this was the last time she saw him alive. But no words came. He watched her steadily.
“In you go.” A smile flickered on his lips, a wordless acknowledgment that he understood. At least, she hoped so.
She climbed into the first capsule. He hooked up her sensor cuff and fired up the unit. Edie felt a spike inside the cuff slide into her vein. The cover snapped shut over her and locked with a hiss. Through the lozenge-shaped window in the front, she saw Finn checking things again. On the far side of the rack, she watched Cat climb into her capsule and its cover close.
After a few seconds Edie was aware of feeling far less apprehensive and claustrophobic than she should. The spike fed her tranqs, a precursor to the cryo fluids. She no longer felt cold, either. She concentrated on Finn’s face as their eyes met through the plaz. The crease between his brows settled into a familiar look of concern. Her blood ran ice cold and her lungs hurt. Her breath misted the window and formed delicate ice crystals across the plaz. As her eyelids grew heavy, Finn’s face blurred and faded.
Edie closed her eyes and drifted.
Something was wrong. She was burning up. In a panic, she raised her hands to push open the coffin. But there was nothing there. She opened her eyes and blinked to clear her vision, expecting to see Finn’s face, expecting to hear his voice telling her everything was okay.
But the face that looked down at her was young, serious, unmistakably military.
Unmistakably Crib.