Chapter One - Lew
Above Earth - 2121
Climbing out of Earth’s gravity well was part physics and part sightseeing. Seeing it all became an obsession, even to a crew as experienced as Remnant’s. Sleep wouldn’t come easily until after salvage. Rested and fresh, they would descend to Earth or climb up to Luna and collect their fee, relax for a few days while spending their well-earned cash, and head back into cislunar space for another target of opportunity. Gathering the orbital trash of mankind paid really damned well. The whole scheme felt more like piracy than a legitimate business, right down to the cast of unsavory characters who surrounded them in the deep, wide black. Money, someone once said, tended to attract the wrong sorts of folks.
A quick tap-tap from the port-side reaction control system pulled Lew Armistead Holmes from her holonovel and steaming bulb of Earl Grey. “Remnant, that was an unscheduled course correction.” Not a question, to let the semi-autonomous guidance platform aboard Remnant know she was not happy.
“Negative, Miss Holmes,” the computer responded in her obvious blonde-bombshell voice—Marilyn Mansfield? Something like that. “Minor conjunction analysis showed a three-centimeter object transiting our course.”
“Just checking.” Lew sipped the tea and waited for the carefully measured rebuttal to begin. While not completely autonomous, Remnant’s onboard computer possessed a rudimentary learning algorithm, which Lew found somewhere between petulant child and whiny teenager. Combined with its breathy, high-pitched voice, there were days Lew wanted to rip her longish straw-blonde hair out while it talked.
“I haven’t corrected your navigational computations this entire mission. Haven’t I earned your trust?”
Lew raised an eyebrow. “The mission is only eighteen hours old, Remnant. You say you want my trust, but you correct me at every opportunity.”
“I understand.” Remnant sighed.
But Lew knew she didn’t. Naming vehicles and cars after females was a guy thing. Have I been out here long enough to pick it up, too? What other bad habits have I picked up? Not going home enough? Yes. Drinking? Got that one nailed. Hanging around with the wrong people? Definitely. Not to mention sleeping with the entirely wrong person.
Lew tried to blink the thoughts away, but couldn’t.
She looked around. Her small corner of Remnant’s bridge was clean and dress-right-dress. The rest of the ship, excepting her meager quarters, was another story. While not filthy, the constant mess of scattered gear, forgotten parts, and trash that littered both compartments and passageways gave the impression that Remnant was nothing more than a cobbled together garbage truck. The filth and grime bothered her, but cleaning it was all but pointless. The only other crewman was no help. Whatever she managed to remove would likely be doubled in a day because Tyler liked it that way.
Tyler Harris’ personal quarters were stacked knee-deep in filth. He claimed to know where everything in the ship was, and he’d proven this uncanny ability several times, but there were several tools and critical pieces of equipment that had gone missing beneath the trash. Rather than clean the ship, he preferred to buy another part at wholesale. There were at least fifteen laser torches onboard, and Lew remembered purchasing most of them over the last two years. Only two remained properly stowed in the cargo hold for disassembly work.
We waste a fuckton on…stuff.
Still, the money was good. Almost as good as the cislunar shuttle pilots made in their two-week journeys, three times in two months. They might fly pristine, state-of-the-art spacecraft and not a cobbled together freighter, but Lew tasted freedom. She told herself she didn’t need the resort hotels on Luna and Earth, where the shuttle pilots stayed when not in operations. Her bank account was almost where she wanted it to be. A few more months and she’d have enough for a commercial navigation license. The fee was highway robbery, but there were only two avenues to solo licensure: the Academy or the commercial route. One was expensive, and the other was a ship long sailed.
She’d known Tyler was trouble two years earlier. He’d exited the Academy commandant’s office in a flourish, peeling out of his Fleet coveralls and depositing them on the secretary’s desk. Standing in his undershirt and colorful boxer shorts, he turned to the shocked waiting room—the twelve other cadets and their legal representatives—and smiled. He’d locked eyes with Lew and winked. “You coming?”
She’d shaken her head, believing the commandant would hear her side of the situation, a failed physical fitness test while recovering from a sprained ankle, and let her stay. “Maybe next time.” Truth be told, she hadn’t cared for him. They hadn’t spoken until that moment. Tyler had surrounded himself with the popular girls, the prettiest girls, and Lew was neither popular nor pretty by most standards. Tall and willowy, more at home on the basketball courts than in the dressing rooms, Lew’s blue eyes and easy, shy smile pushed her to the fringe of her classmates. The place where Tyler Harris would never be caught dead talking to her, except on his way out of the Academy.
“You’ll change your mind in about an hour,” Tyler said. “The Fleet needs to cut our class by at least six percent.” He looked at the group and raised his hands like a preacher in the pulpit. “Take a look around and do the math, people. No due process today.”
One lawyer tried to say something, but Tyler was already at the door. As he left the room, he turned to Lew and nodded. Something in his eyes had called to her. She’d sought him out six months later, after her father had disowned her and sent her away from the family sheep farm in New South Wales. Her debt from the Academy was more than the family could afford, and by rights she was an adult. After a sleepless night in the Sydney Interplanetary Terminal, she caught a suborbital to Shannon. Two days later she was aboard Remnant, ready for their first cislunar salvage mission.
Twenty-two thousand miles above Earth, where the satellites spun in a geostationary orbit, matching their position to specific points on Earth’s surface, Lew took command of a spaceship for the first time. It hardly mattered that the ship wasn’t within Fleet safety standards. For a time, on the way up and down, the ship was hers to fly. The feeling of initiating that first Hohmann transfer burn to the GEO belt intoxicated her more than any drug known to man.
Looking down on the Earth a mere twenty-four hours later brought her as much satisfaction as graduation from the Academy would have. Being there with the blue, green, and white globe spinning below her was worth every bit of it. Her wide-eyed reverie was usually only broken by the need to move, or the times she and Tyler Harris were too busy doing other things in bed to notice anything outside each other’s arms.
The relationship was purely sexual, and they both knew it. The salvage business was too dangerous to get involved beyond a physical level. Besides, Lew didn’t want anything permanent with him. While Tyler was quick with a smile or joke, he took his job seriously enough to scare her. He never backed down from a fight, or a job. The more dangerous, the better. That approach had made them both successful, compared to other salvagers, but with that success came notoriety, and the unfortunate business of being targeted. Remnant proved a capable ship, despite being rammed several times and disabled more than once by cannon fire.
Lew looked up to check the radar scope. Only the target was visible within a hundred and eighty degrees of the nose. She flipped the radar to the rear and saw a myriad of objects behind them at varying distances against the backdrop of the Earth. “Remnant, defensive scans.”
A minute passed. “There are five possible targets proceeding to higher altitude along a trajectory within five degrees of our destination. One doesn’t have an official flight plan.”
Lew frowned. “Distance to the unknown contact?”
“Sixteen thousand, six hundred twelve miles,” Remnant responded. “Shall I alert the captain?”
There was a new voice behind them, from the door. “Alert me to what?”
“An unknown contact, Captain,” Remnant responded. “Its bearing is within two degrees of our trajectory, with a positive closure rate.”
Lew studied the data. “Any Earth-based, outbound launches in the last forty-eight hours?”
Tyler Harris sat in the captain’s chair and crossed his long legs at the ankles. He ran a hand through his unruly dark hair and laughed. “How many trips have we made without a shadow?”
“Fourteen in a row,” Remnant answered. “Shall I alert the proper authorities?”
Tyler shook his head. “Not until they reach ten thousand miles. Until then, Fleet won’t get involved, and then only if the trajectory matches ours within one degree.”
Lew looked over her shoulder at him. “So, we wait?”
“Exactly,” Tyler said. “Remnant? Time to close approach?”
“Eight hours, thirteen minutes, Captain.”
Tyler looked at Lew. “How close are we to our bird?”
Lew studied her display and fired a radar pulse. “Telstar Six Twelve is stable off our nose at three hundred six miles. Estimated time to target is three hours and ten minutes, give or take a minute.”
Tyler scratched his chin, his eyes never leaving Lew’s. The look on his face was familiar. Before Lew joined Tyler Aerospace, there had been an accident in low Earth orbit involving two recovery vessels. Tyler had been in command of Remnant, which had lost control and ended up destroying their target vehicle and damaging the other recovery ship. One person had died. He’d never spoken about it, and she’d never pushed the issue. Everyone had a past, after all. Lew could tell he was thinking about the situation going bad, especially with an unknown spacecraft on their tail. When he thought that way, he became detached and clinical. His demeanor was cold and calculating, and the way he studied her made her uncomfortable.
“Is everything all right?” Lew asked.
Tyler nodded, but the vacant look in his eyes didn’t fade. “Yeah. Telstar Six Twelve. What’s the deal?”
Lew turned to her screen, but Remnant cut in. The computer’s breathy voice made Lew sick. “Captain, Telstar Six Twelve weighs approximately sixty-five tons. Spherical, measuring approximately three meters in diameter. Mass nearly ten thousand kilograms. The satellite carries a standard communications payload for its type and manufacturing date, with shielded components. The amount of shielding—according to the company documentation, thermal shielding—is minimal.”
Gold. Lew smiled. “They always say minimal, even if it’s a few microns thick. Based on the age of the vehicle, it’s still gold, Remnant.”
“That is likely a true statement, Miss Holmes.”
“And the going rate for gold is still what? Over three thousand an ounce?”
“Affirmative,” Remnant responded. “Three thousand one hundred sixteen Euros, as of the market report this morning.”
Who would design a computer to talk like that? Lew wanted to vomit. “Last time we hit a bird this size, we pulled off two ounces of gold in sheer profit. We can expect the same.”
Gold belonged to the salvager. Governments and corporations who paid handsome sums of money to retrieve their secrets often contracted for the gold to be removed as an extra payment for the salvager’s troubles. In some cases, the amount of gold was staggering. In others, not so much.
“Is four thousand cash above the fee enough to be worth the risk if some asshole is coming to pirate it?” Tyler looked away into the blackness.
“It could be more than that, too.” Then again, it could be much less. Lew turned to her console and tried to avoid watching the moving dots. For a long time, nothing changed. When she turned back, Tyler was staring at her. “What do you want to do?”
He laughed. “We’re sure as hell not going to divert. We get to the bird first, stake a claim, and call the Fleet. If they come out shooting, we’ll be ready for that, too.” Without another word, he left the bridge. Lew watched him for a moment, then turned her eyes back to the screen. If Tyler followed his normal pattern, he’d come back to the bridge about half an hour before capture. He’d make the call to Fleet and announce the claim, bask in the praise from home base, and then retreat again to his cabin until the first extravehicular activity. Once Remnant’s diagnostics were complete and the dead “bird” declared safe, Lew would capture it with the dual robotic manipulating arms mounted to Remnant’s nose, while Tyler pulled on a suit and went in for a close inspection.
Lew relished going outside. He would only laugh and call her an overexcited newbie. Tyler Harris had about six months more time in commercial space than she had. The real reason, Lew knew, was Tyler’s ego; just like when he said they would load the cannons and fire at anyone who tried to steal their claim. All bluster and no action.
Out here, Lew thought to herself with a wry grin, being alive is all that matters. So far, luck had been on her side. Tales of catastrophic depressurization and the million other ways to die off-Earth were best kept for the seedy bars of Luna, or better still, the launch zone haunts of Earth. Looking to her left, Lew watched as the coming sunrise behind Remnant began to illuminate satellites across the GEO belt, like light catching a string of pearls. There were something on the order of a hundred thousand active satellites orbiting Earth, and at least twice that in inactive status. Most of them were at a higher inclination than the equatorial zone. Up there, ten or twenty degrees off the belt, was where satellites went to die. Out there were untold riches of defunct satellites with once-nefarious purposes that were loaded with gold. Tyler talked about going up there one day when the contracts dried up. That was a laugh, though, because the contracts never stopped. Out here, it was possible to see half the globe at once, and everyone with the capability to lift a bird to orbit was intent on doing exactly that, no matter that peace had been declared across the world six months before. Conflict was inevitable, no matter what the politicians said. It would always find the places where the righteous could do next to nothing about it.
In the twenty-first century, those places had been known as the Third World. Now, the Third World was in space. Orbital platforms, Luna, and even the plains of Mars were now the squalid homes of wretched humanity. The “haves” wanted Earth, and the “have-nots” could have the rest of the austere universe. After all, who better to live without?
The target bird lit up in the distance. Lew watched the sparkling jewel against the blackness of space for a moment and found herself smiling. They were two hours from capture. The closing ship wouldn’t reach them in time. With any luck at all, they could determine if the bird was even worthy of saving, turn around, and make for Earth before the approaching ship could determine what they were doing.
Her mind playing on the variables, she turned to her console. A message from Tyler blinked in one corner.
Busy?
Six hours ago, before the mystery ship had appeared on their trajectory, she would have run to his cabin and spent the next several hours experimenting with the gravitational algorithm’s effect on sexual positions. Now, she fingered the handle of her tea and sipped it gingerly. Something wasn’t right.
Not now.
Lew shook her head. Tyler never worried about anything. At least on the outside, she thought. Whatever had happened before she joined the company, the cavalier boy she remembered from the Academy was exactly the same as she remembered him, yet somehow very different. She had known him for years, without really knowing him. When she asked, he’d shake off the question. He was good at that. Shaking off her questions, and her affections, as easily as he routinely shook off conflict. With a last glance at their target, Lew turned back to her holonovel, intent on reading another chapter before thinking about Tyler Harris again, and whether he would ever take a stand for something he believed in, including her.
Her eyes drifted over to the key switch on the other console, and she saw the emergency thrust key was firmly in its position, awaiting the captain’s touch. The dark gray paint around the key switch was flaked and shiny. Used more often than not, the key kept them alive. One turn mixed hypergolic fuels in the combustion chamber, and the explosive mixture would thrust out of the engine bell and push Remnant faster than other ships her size. The ultimate accelerator. How ironic that Tyler Harris had two of them; one for his ship, and the other for his heart. The chances were infinitely in favor of Tyler Harris turning that key and running from his next conflict. Nothing mattered more to him than Remnant. When the time came, he’d take Remnant and run, leaving her behind. It was simply a matter of time.
* * *
The subspace radio chimed an hour later, just as Lew put aside the holonovel with dissatisfaction. There was no such thing as “happily ever after,” no matter how many books she read. No one was going to carry her off into the sunset. Lew reached for the radio controls and felt the thuds of Tyler’s boots on the deck in the passageway below. He burst onto the bridge and vaulted into his chair.
He looked at Lew. “Identify the transmission.”
Lew fingered the controls and read off the diagnostic information, “Standard Ku band transmission from Earth. Origin point known through Houston nexus. Encryption is solid Johnson Analytics with the proper keys.”
Tyler grinned. “Boss.”
Lew nodded and smiled as well. “Appears so.”
Their mysterious benefactor hadn’t called them in more than six months, but every time he’d employed them, the take had been impressive. How he was able to garner the contracts he had bordered on magic. Lew thought the man sounded like some kind of Texas oil baron. Despite the technology, his calls were always voice-only, and there was never any interaction between them and whoever he represented.
Whatever he contracted them to acquire was delivered to a private, automated hangar on Luna. The robotic ground crew would unload Remnant and send them on their way again. Anonymous cash transfers always appeared in their accounts by the time Remnant returned to lunar orbit. The first mission had earned Tyler’s company over a million Euros. The following missions were even more lucrative.
Their benefactor went by a call sign, and they talked in codes meant only for their own ears. It should have been a red flag, but the money was too damned good to pass up. A call from him could not go unanswered.
Tyler punched a few buttons on his console, and a drawling voice boomed through the speakers, “Remnant, this is Boss. Are you receiving?” The transmission ended with a chiming tone that dated back to the early days of spaceflight. The clear delineation of conversation allowed Tyler to answer.
“Boss, this is Remnant. Nice to hear from you. How can we be of service?”
A few seconds passed. “Tyler, it’s good to hear your voice. I understand you’re on a contract flight from our friend in India.”
“That’s affirm, Boss.”
“Roger, you’ve got a shadow. Are you aware of that?”
Tyler’s face darkened. “Roger, Boss. We’re aware of the bogey.”
By definition, a bogey was an unknown contact with unknown intentions. Should the situation turn bad, the radar blip would become a bandit. Lew checked the telemetry from the unknown ship. There was no change in direction or speed. It was still gaining on them.
“Remnant, the trailing vehicle is not your concern. I have a change in mission for you.”
Tyler shook his head. “Negative, Boss. I have a contract.”
“Remnant, I bought out that contract. The shadow on your tail is the Rio Bravo, under contract by me to get Telstar Six Twelve. You’re going high super-sync.”
Lew’s eyebrows rose. She turned and saw that Tyler had a similar look of surprise on his face. “Is he serious?”
Tyler waved her question away. “Boss, understand you’re wanting a high super-sync transit? What’s the target?”
“I’ve got a data package uploading,” said Lew, looking at her console.
Tyler glared at her and mouthed silently, “Keep your mouth shut!”
His words, and the expression on his face, stunned Lew. She spun in her chair and studied the nothingness of space outside her windows. Hangar rumors she’d heard for years came back to her. Tyler had been super-sync only once before, and that was where the accident had taken place. His anger was not anger at all. It was fear. Tyler Harris was afraid to go higher into the graveyard orbit where satellites went to die.
The voice from Earth returned. “You should have the data package now. I presume you have the fuel for a plane change?”
If there was one thing that set Remnant apart from most of the other salvage vessels, it was that she had the fuel capacity and power to change orbital planes. For every degree of inclination gained from the equatorial belt, a tremendous amount of fuel was needed to gain the delta-vee—change in velocity—to be successful. Remnant was capable of a four-degree inclination delta-vee maneuver.
“Within four degrees, Boss.”
“This will be no problem for you. It’s going to take you a few days to get there, and you’re going to have assistance,” Boss replied. “Before you argue, you’re going to need it, Tyler. This one is too big for Remnant to handle alone.”
Lew curled a corner of her lips under. The only thing Tyler Harris liked less than conflict was sharing. She ran through the list of usual suspects the Boss would likely hire to assist that had both similar hold capacity as well as maneuvering. It was a short list.
“Understand, Boss. Are we talking a Mega Pig? Who’s coming to help?” Their code words were comical, but a necessity in the salvage business. Never let a competitor know what the target is.
There was a chuckle in the transmission. “This is the biggest pig you’ve ever tackled, Remnant. The assisting vehicle is Cardiff.”
Lew turned and saw the color drain from Tyler’s face. Ian MacLeash commanded Cardiff. There were more unsavory characters in the business, but MacLeash was right up there. Cardiff was a former Fleet freighter that still carried plasma cannons fore and aft. It was a big ship, but even MacLeash’s considerable engineering skills couldn’t manage a hold larger than Remnant’s, though it was close. Between the two of them, they would be able to disassemble something on the order of a hundred thousand kilograms and carry it to the processing facilities on Luna. And if there was that much satellite, the amount of gold shielding on the critical electrical components could be substantial. Maybe even enough to get her the hell off Remnant.
What in the hell are we going to get? Lew saw that the data package had finished downloading, and she began entering the orbital element set of the new target. The Boss hadn’t been kidding. “We’re looking at a four-day transit, minimum. We can go with a lower burn and make it seven days.”
Tyler scratched his chin. “Boss, when is Cardiff due at the target?”
“They’re pushing off from Luna in the next hour. They’ll be there in eight days via minimum burn.”
Tyler grinned, his finger off the transmit button, and said to Lew, “MacLeash will want to get there first. Put us on the four-day burn.”
“Roger that,” Lew replied and began her calculations. She saw Tyler press the transmit button.
“Boss, after conferring with Miss Holmes, we’re going to use the seven-day transit for fuel conservation. Please relay to Cardiff that we’ll meet them there.”
“Roger, Remnant. I’ll send you the standard contract on the next data burst. Please give my best to your navigator; the beautiful young woman with the name of a general never disappoints.”
Lew felt her face flush, but she didn’t turn to face Tyler as he spoke.
“Roger, Boss. She’s one of a kind,” Tyler said. And to Lew, “How long until we can burn?”
“We need a course correction immediately to take us out of Rio Bravo’s approach. From there, we can burn in eighty-two minutes,” Lew said.
“Boss, we’ll make our first burns in the next ninety minutes. Give the Rio Bravo our best. We’ll see you on the other side.” Tyler ended the transmission. For whatever reason, all pilots were like that. They quoted the pioneers all the time, many of them never knowing the original context.
Lew finished the calculations and double-checked the simulation results. “I can get us there in four days, seven hours, and thirty-two minutes.”
Tyler smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Fair enough.”
Lew turned in her seat and folded her arms under her breasts. She cleared her throat. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
Lew shook her head. “You’ve had how many super-sync flights? And what about MacLeash?”
Tyler stood. “More flights than you. I’ll worry about MacLeash, and you damned well better get us there before him.” Before she could respond, Tyler stomped off the bridge toward his cabin.
I guess that means I’ll have a couple of days to myself, Lew thought. He’d eventually come calling, apologizing and wooing her back to his bed. Most times, she’d play angrier than she was and draw it out. This time was different. For the first time in her tenure onboard, Lew felt her stomach twist.
“Miss Holmes?” Remnant chimed at her.
“Yes?”
“Your navigational calculations are verified. I can begin programming the engines for an immediate course correction burn. A lateral thruster firing for one point two seconds should provide adequate clearance for the Rio Bravo to skirt our position. A port side burn will give us a slightly better position for our transfer burn.”
“I concur, Remnant. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Holmes. Burn commencing in three, two, one, mark.”
The tapping of the port-side thrusters made Lew smile. “I do appreciate the help, Remnant. May I ask why?”
The ship took a moment to respond. “Miss Holmes, how familiar are you with the captain’s only other mission to high super-sync?”
“Not very,” Lew replied.
“My current databank starts two months after the accident,” Remnant replied. “I’m concerned about the mission. The captain’s response showed a significant emotional connection.”
Lew sighed. “That makes two of us, Remnant.” For several moments, there was no conversation. The ship’s computer expressed concern over the mission. What does that say about Tyler and the accident he never talks about? Lew scratched her head and chewed on a fingernail. The bad habit always returned when there was a problem she couldn’t find an answer for.
Tyler Harris had gone to work for his father after the Academy. What had happened when he’d gone super-sync had nearly bankrupted the business. Tyler was a capable captain, to be sure, but no one would hire him. Brash and irresponsible. Too risky. All she knew about it was whispers heard at the bars in Luna, from the men who pitied her for being stuck on his crew while they tried to lure her to their beds. She always declined, but then found herself sharing a bed with her captain and hating herself for it. Will it ever stop?
Remnant asked, “May I ask you another question? You are indeed named for the officer who fought and died in the American Civil War?”
Lew nodded. “My father is a historian at Trinity University in Melbourne. General Lew Armistead fought on the side of the Confederacy during the war. During Pickett’s Charge, his unit reached the Union line on Seminary Ridge before he was mortally wounded. During the chaos, he asked about General Winfield Scott Hancock, a close friend of his. My parents named me after him to remind me that there’s nothing more important than love. Armistead and his friend truly cared for one another.”
Remnant replied, “Hancock was severely wounded, but survived the battle. He went on to a semi-successful career in politics.”
Is there such a thing as a successful career in politics?
Lew held up her hands. “Enough chatter. Let’s get you stabilized and ready for that transfer burn. Once we get there, we’ll do a fuel consumption analysis.”
“No need, Miss Holmes. When we reach our destination, I’ll maintain a fuel supply capable of taking us to the Colonial Asteroid Belt and back to Earth. Twice.”
“Okay,” Lew said, surrendering. “Let’s do a conjunction analysis of our burn trajectory instead. I don’t want to scar up your paint job more than we have to.” The joke went unanswered, and Lew knew why. They both knew that a single strike from a piece of junk floating through the vacuum at high speed could mean death. Remnant was shielded to the maximum extent possible to maintain her cargo volume and maneuverability, but anything larger than a grape, and the flight could be over.
A million ways to die in space, Lew thought. For the moment, Tyler Harris’ problems would have to be his own. There were more important things to do. They had less than eighty minutes to make sure they’d reach their destination.
* * * * *