A LINE IN THE STARS
Martin L. Shoemaker
“This is a dumb plan.”
Shin Na grinned through my visor as she strapped my torso to the hull plate. “It’s your plan, Porter.”
“Then I should know!”
I had planned on her being sealed into the hull of the cargo pod for delivery to Beta Orbital Station. Instead, word had come from her superiors at Universal Orbital Logistics: Beta expected her to lead the security detail for this shipment. They wanted UOL’s best.
That was suspicious, but she couldn’t argue with a directive from above. Her bosses couldn’t know what we knew: Beta was preparing a thermonuclear launch platform, and UOL was unwittingly helping. Someone in UOL command was on Beta’s payroll.
Even though Shin knew Beta Station, I had to take her place. “You’ll be fine.” She strapped my arm in place. “We’ve calculated the moments. You’ll be undetectable to the cargo team. Unless you want to call the whole thing off.”
“We can’t.” And she knew it. Beta’s plan was too close to completion. If we let them finish the platform, they could start a war at any time.
Shin finished epoxying the straps, fixing me to the inner hull. I was immobile, but I could still talk, tongue my water and food dispensers, and view my displays. With voice activation, I could release my straps. And while our helmets were cabled together, we could talk.
Shin hung before me in freefall in UOL’s main bay. She was on a safety inspection, but she couldn’t take long. Beta must be nervous with their goal so close. Any deviation might make them trigger-happy.
She pulled herself to where the outer plate sat, unclamped it from the cargo deck, and tugged it into motion. It slid toward me, and Shin disappeared behind it.
“I’m disconnecting the comm line,” she said. “Good luck.” The comm channel went silent. I sat immobile as she seated the panel, cutting off the light.
I was completely isolated from every sight, sound, and person in the universe. And I would stay that way until it was time to stop a war.
Who watches the watchmen? It’s a puzzle humanity will never really answer. We are fallible creatures, and the watcher is as much of a risk as who they watch.
In the cyber age, people believed the answer was incorruptible software systems, not prone to human error. The machines promised perfect security, especially with artificial intelligence, the Serpent in the Garden. AIs were so seductive, and they did so many things right—but in ways we could never explain.
The worst decisions in the last war had been made by the machines. The deaths of hundreds of millions, and the collapse of the world economy, all due to machines responding to threats faster than humans could perceive them. No one could say if the cause was shoddy programming, flawed training, or actual machine malevolence. But the diagnosis mattered less than the cost: twenty percent of humanity wiped out in hours, and another twenty percent in the resulting collapse. The war had lasted hours, but we were still rebuilding nearly two decades later.
I heard three raps. That was Fernandez, telling me the pod was ready to launch. With him and Shin in place, my team was ready. We might pull this off.
The collapse might have been worse if it were not for orbital operations that were already delivering food and goods to Earth. Some orbitals had been targeted in the war, but not those operating in higher orbits and cis-lunar space. For a while the orbitals were heroes. We threw everything into relief efforts, rebuilding, communications, surveys, and meteorology. It’s true we wanted to help the grounders; but air and water and sweat and brains all come with a cost. When the time came to pay, the top bosses asked for concessions.
The hull hummed. The pod had launched for Beta station. This would be a slow approach, watched by Beta at every step. The orbital plan called for twenty-seven hours of insertion and approach. As soon as the boost cut out, I took a ration of water and nutrients, and I eliminated liquid waste. Then I asked the computer for a light sedative, and soon I was out.
We mostly just wanted the grounders to lift regulations we had long argued kept us from building a real orbital civilization. We wanted the prewar regulations and inspection regime eliminated, and the grounders to trust us. We’d come through when they needed us, why did they still treat us like children?
The grounders had no choice but to quietly agree. Though they never admitted it, their governments were unable to seriously regulate and inspect orbital traffic. With the world in mourning, with economies turned to subsistence and repair, there wasn’t enough money to run orbital operations the way they had before—unless we paid for it ourselves by expanding our operations.
So the grounders dressed it up in fancy language, with statements about a new orbital security partnership; but underneath all that, they trusted us to police ourselves, hoping none of us were stupid enough to kill our own customers. We could play whatever power games we wanted above low earth orbit. If we kept the food and pharmaceuticals and manufacturing coming, no one would question how we did it.
My alarm chirped in my ear, and I was instantly awake. We had three hours to transfer, where our UOL escort would drop off and a Beta escort would match course. As we got closer, Beta would rendezvous with the pod, take the pod in tow, and guide it into their cargo bay.
If you believe they left us to ourselves, you’re not paranoid enough. Leaders on Earth understood the risks of orbital bombardment by nuclear missiles or even just big rocks. Attacks would be undetectable until too late. Even with modern interceptors, the delta V was just too high to deflect.
So unofficially, off the record, never to be acknowledged, they had intelligence assets. Spies. Agents.
Me.
ADL Satellite Services, my employer, does machining, repairs, transport, systems planning, and more. We provide vital services to seventy percent of the orbital companies in operation.
And my small team within ADL spies for a coalition of what used to be called superpowers: the governments who still have the most to lose if somebody goes rogue.
I felt pressure against my back. The pod was boosting for rendezvous with the Beta transport that would deliver this little Trojan horse, full of food and water and printing stock . . . and me.
That’s a weak spot in any satellite operation: humans gotta eat, and stations gotta have human workers. That was the lesson of the last war: don’t rely on machines. The weakness worked in our favor now, but it had worked against us so far. Beta had staffed their scheme through clever manipulation of the recruitment drives of other orbitals. My analysts found a large number of personnel were recruited up to the orbitals, then washed out and landed in the labor pool, where spacers went for scut work that paid for air, food, and water. The labor pool is a relief valve for personnel problems.
Too many people were ending up in the labor pool—and though their work records didn’t show it, they were highly skilled. Somebody was slowly assembling a science team, spread all across orbital space.
I had infiltrated UOL, since they were a major conduit for new recruits. I had signed up for their recruitment (using excellent forged credentials) and confirmed that UOL was hiring science and combat specialists they didn’t need. These specialists funneled through the labor pool. Fernandez and his team followed them, and they ultimately ended up at Beta.
That’s when I’d taken Shin Na, head of UOL Security, into my confidence. My superiors had objected; but her record had shown she could be trusted. I had broken into her station and attempted to kidnap her so I could show her what I’d learned.
That hadn’t worked so well. I had fought past her bodyguard, Mama—the tall, bald-headed Maasai woman still hadn’t forgiven me for that—but not past Shin. She had captured me and coaxed me into revealing what I’d known.
When Shin finally realized Beta was using UOL, she was ready to declare corporate war; but I persuaded her that we needed more subtlety. I showed her the data from Fernandez and his team, and what it implied: the assembly of components and raw hydrogen for at least a dozen nuclear warheads as well as an invasion force. When Shin saw that, she realized we couldn’t afford a shooting war.
My clock showed less than two minutes before docking. After that I would use my conduction phones to listen for activity in the bay. None of us had ever been in this part of the Beta platform. Did they unload right away or set the pod aside for later processing? When could I safely make my move?
The pilot wasn’t gentle. There were three sharp boosts before a sudden clang rang through the pod. That was followed by the clack of clamps snapping into place as the pod settled.
Beta had good internal security. I’d tried to find disgruntled former employees who might be turned. Against all probability, I couldn’t find a single malcontent—not one. Once you were in Beta, you didn’t leave.
I activated my phones, listening for sounds coming through the hull. There was silence for twelve nerve-wracking minutes before I heard a hatch slide open, followed by a murmur of conversation.
The voices were muffled, though with two distinct pitches: one a higher-pitched southern American drawl, the other a deeper voice with a Dutch accent.
The voices grew clearer. “Everything’s here,” the higher-pitched voice said.
“And then some,” the other answered. “Look at this. Real meat.”
“Meat in a can.”
“Better than soy meat. I’ll bet ten Euros this isn’t for our galley.”
“Of course not,” the southerner answered. “The good stuff is for the drop troops, to keep them ready for action. You know that.”
“I don’t have to like it. And watch what you’re saying. Someone might be listening.”
The high voice laughed. “We’re the first ones in.”
The Dutchman answered, “I just get nervous. Leon and Jack disappeared. They got too loud, and the bosses didn’t like it.”
“Leon and Jack were pilfering. I saw it. And I . . .”
“You turned them in?”
“I did! I got a nice reward for it, too. You talk about your real meat . . .”
“Bastard! Turning in your own friends . . .”
“Turning in traitors. Beta’s our future. We just have to be patient.” The voice lowered. “It’s coming soon, you know.”
“What’s coming?”
There was a pause before the southerner answered. “The operation. I can’t say, but soon Beta’s gonna be in charge.”
“I’ve heard it before. Meanwhile the drop troops get all the best, and we’re eating sludge.”
“You could volunteer for the drop troops.”
“Not me. I’m too adjusted to free fall, and too old to train like they do.”
“Then you ain’t . . .” The voices faded to mumbles.
Eventually I heard the scraping sound of the hatch closing. I gave myself ten minutes for them to clear out of the cargo deck. If they saw me, my whole plan could be over. But the southerner said the operation was coming soon.
Finally I spoke. “Computer, release solvent.”
I heard a soft hiss as canisters sprayed solvent between the plates. Soon I felt my straps go slack as the epoxy softened. My arms were free.
But I was still trapped between the plates. I pressed my arms forward until I felt the release hooks. I pried them gently, the plate released, and I pushed it away. I held on, though, not wanting it to float free. With my left hand I grabbed the center hook, while with my right I tugged at my leg straps.
“Hey!” I heard the high southern voice. “What—”
I acted on instinct, with only one thought: don’t let him sound the alarm. I caught a glimpse of where he floated, and I shoved the plate at him. The man spun and took the impact on his back. I pulled out my needle gun, and blasted him with a neurotoxin load. By the time I finished freeing myself, he was dead.
I pushed loose, grabbed the plate, and rode it to the wall, bouncing back toward my niche. Then I swung around, absorbed the impact, and came to a stop. I hooked the plate back in place.
I turned and took off after the man. He was still spinning, giving me alternating glimpses of his bald skull and his painful final grimace. I brought us both to a halt at the wall and bounced us back to the shadow of the cargo pod.
The man had a comm band, but no sign of med sensors. No one should know he was dead yet. I shoved the band into my pocket. Then I looked around to see if his partner was anywhere. There was no sign of anyone, nor any cameras.
I’d gotten lucky; but if anyone found this man, they would set patrols on me. So I removed the outer hull plate, stuffed him inside, and sealed the plate behind him.
Now I was inside. I could do damage and let my team in. One man on the inside was worth ten on the outside, especially if he had a key.
And I hoped I did. Ramon, my intrusion tech, had given me two break-in boxes: specialized AIs that could infiltrate and take over an electronic lock. Somewhere out there, my team was ready for the hatch to open so they could join me. They had trailed behind me with long-distance mobility sleds, small spacecraft barely larger than a person. This gave us two avenues of intrusion.
I found the controls for the cargo hatch, opened the access panel, and hooked the patch cables in. Then I used an adhesive patch to tack the break-in box inside the panel and sealed it.
I needed actionable intelligence, as well as ways to generate chaos. If southern boy was right, they were nearing the end of preparations. And those involved drop troops: assault forces dropping from orbit in ablative capsules and combat armor. It was a way to rapidly take and hold territory while other forces took out command-and-control centers.
But Beta station couldn’t hold more than a few hundred drop troops. The Beta leadership probably planned to use the nuclear missiles to take out defensive forces and infrastructure while drop troops occupied critical command-and-control nodes. From there, they’d commandeer their hidden weapons—which they all assured us they didn’t have—and stage a standoff so the other superpowers wouldn’t object.
As I approached the access hatch, a light blinked near it, responding to southern boy’s band in my pocket. That comm band gave me access to any place he was allowed. But what if I were spotted?
There was no time for subtlety. If there were cameras, there were cameras. I was too far in to falter now.
I stepped closer, and the hatch opened. I ran a quick visual scan, and the computer identified two possible cameras in the tube running away from me, deeper into the station. Another tube ran parallel to the wall. Shin had shown me a rough map from one of UOL’s diplomatic missions here. It wasn’t detailed, but it was better than nothing.
I turned left, and the scanner showed no cameras. I pulled along on handholds and propelled myself down the tube.
This corridor was dim. Half the wall lights were out, as if conserving power. This part of the station seemed little used.
I double-checked Shin’s map. Beta Station was an ungainly “brick,” with three smaller parallel “bars” running through it. Antennas and observation towers jutted out from the brick. The cargo section was at the brick’s far end. The whole thing orbited with that section pointed down toward Earth.
We believed the launch facility was at the far end. I had to go through the entire station to get to the missile platform. That would be an impossible challenge for a stranger in a spacesuit without credentials.
That assumed I went through instead of around.
I thought I was caught when the lights dimmed almost completely; but a voice came from southern boy’s comm band. “All personnel, scheduled power rationing has begun. Make your way to your marshaling point for briefings.”
Marshaling points. Would anyone come through here, in the rear bowels of the ship?
I searched for a hiding place. Six meters back I had passed a maintenance hatch. I flipped, caught a handhold, and pushed myself back to the hatch. I used the comm band to slip inside, sliding the hatch almost closed behind me.
Just in time. I heard voices coming. One of them was familiar. Through the crack of the hatch, I recognized a beefy form floating by: McConnell. One of the troublemakers I’d followed up from Earth. I’d gotten him out of trouble once to ingratiate myself with him, and into trouble twice as part of my escape from UOL. The second time I had broken his nose. He would remember me.
I waited a long time before I opened the hatch. Like me, McConnell had played a green recruit, but he was an able spacer—and a damn good free-fall fighter. I had broken his nose, but he’d almost snapped my neck before the drill sergeant had separated us.
The tube was clear, so I pulled back out and headed left at double time. At the end of the brick, I found tubes up and down, and one forward. I sped along that one. Red emergency lights were the only lighting now.
In my rush forward, I almost passed the tube to the left. When I saw it, I grabbed the edge and pulled to a halt. I was torn. I was making good time. Maybe I could just continue through the brick.
But then all the lights came on, and a voice rang through the comm band: “Intruder alert. Intruders in the cargo bay. Security personnel to the bay.”
That was my team. They had gotten in, but they had been discovered. Fernandez and Shin and Mama and others. I had to make progress while they scattered and looked for vulnerable systems to attack. So I pulled left into the tunnel that led into the first of the bar structures.
It took me three false trails before I found a tube that led to an airlock. By that time I’d heard multiple explosions, a pressure-leak warning, and more reports of intruders.
I jumped through the hatch. The small airlock cycled quickly, wisping out air and leaving me in vacuum. A green light came on, the hatch opened, and I leaped into space.
I relaxed as I left the cramped confines of the airlock. To be out in open space, away from searchers inside the station, gave me a brief respite to think and prepare.
But then I remembered Fernandez and Shin and their team. They couldn’t relax. They were fighting to give me this opportunity, and I couldn’t waste it.
I took a sighting with the navigation scope and fired my mobility unit. It was small, but it should be enough for this mission. A puff of compressed gas from the jet at my waist propelled me forward. I had aimed above the middle bar, intending to angle over and then back on the far side of the farthest bar.
As I floated through orbital space, I got my first close-up view of Beta Station. It didn’t match our records. Had they changed it since our last approach? Or were our records compromised? There were more observation ports and airlocks. And especially more sensor antennas.
That changed my plan. I needed to stay low, below the line of the brick. I had to assume the sensors were looking outward. If they were scanning the station itself, I would be hard to miss, and it was too late to change my tactics.
So I adjusted my course to just barely skim over the flat top of the middle bar.
That led to yet another discovery, and almost a collision. The surface of the bar was dotted with small pods: the drop capsules, miniature spacecraft suitable for one armored trooper and one drop to the surface. Judging from this bar, there had to be three hundred of them.
I couldn’t get distracted. There might be watchers behind those sensor antennas, and the edge of the last bar was coming fast. But I had to know more about the drop pods.
I checked my reaction mass. I had enough for a stop. I spun in midspace, pointed my MU forward, and fired a burst to slow my rate. I grabbed one of the drop pods, and I came to a halt.
The pod was not much bigger than an airlock, with a sensor package, a bank of retros, and an ablative nose cone. There was no way to see inside. A unit like this was meant to navigate itself. You landed where it took you, ready to fight.
I searched around for any access. I couldn’t find anything like a hatch, but I found a data line. It was shielded against radiation, but not against physical access. And that gave me a slim opening in the pod’s defenses.
I pulled my other break-in box from my suit pouch, and I stuck it to the side of the pod. Then I clamped two sensor leads to the line between the pod and the station. A physical connection would be better, but the box could use inductive testing to learn the signals to and from the pod. And maybe break into them.
That would be a long process, and there was no way I could help. Hopefully I could return to the pod later and find what the box had learned by then.
I pulled myself along the hull and looked over the edge. I saw pock marks of airlocks along the bar, and I made my way to the closest.
The hatch was locked, and I had left my break-in box behind. I thought about going back; but first I checked whether Fernandez had compromised cybersecurity. I typed in my override code and waited.
The hatch slid open. “Fernandez, I owe you a beer.” I pulled myself in, cycled the outer hatch closed, and waited for the inner hatch to open. As soon as it did, I pushed out into the tube beyond.
And immediately felt a hard jolt as something smashed my helmet.
What the hell? I turned in the direction of the blow, and there I saw McConnell, feet looped into anchors as he swung a large pry bar with both hands.
I didn’t try to stop myself. The blow had given me spin, and I pulled my limbs closer to pick up speed. As my legs swung around, I extended them again, smashing both booted feet into McConnell’s face.
I saw the man wince, but he knew what he was doing in freefall. He kept his feet anchored, and he used both forearms to slap the tunnel wall, absorbing the impact. He was dazed but not out.
I would take dazed. I drew my limbs in again, picking up speed until my hands reached a grip. Then I pushed myself past McConnell. On the way, I punched him in the groin. The impulse pushed me back toward the tunnel wall, which I caught on my shoulders. The strike made him double over and lose his anchor on the wall.
He recovered quickly, pushing off the wall with both feet, coming at me with the bar held between both hands. He rammed into my midsection, knocking the wind out of me.
But this put us in grappling range. As long as he didn’t grab my tubes or connectors, I was better equipped for wrestling than he was. He started to bounce away, but I grabbed the pry bar and twisted. He held on, not realizing that I wasn’t trying to take it away. He twisted with it, and so he had his back to me. Then I grabbed both ends of the pry bar and pulled it toward me. Suddenly his neck was against my chest plate, and the bar was against his trachea.
Then I said, “Suit, amplify pulling strength. Two hundred percent.” The artificial muscles in the suit did the rest. He thrashed and flailed. Finally his windpipe was crushed, and he stopped moving.
The man was smarter and more aware even than I had suspected. Probably Beta intelligence, not just a soldier. Maybe he had information from Fernandez and Shin. If they were captured, I had little time left.
Soon I was at another hatch. Southern boy’s credentials didn’t work here, so I needed another way in. I tried the override code. I guess I owed Fernandez two beers. The hatch opened.
As soon as I was through, I slid the hatch shut and spun the manual lock. I wanted to slow down any pursuers as best I could. It was dark in the bay, but the time for secrecy was past. I turned on my helmet lamps.
Expecting hydrogen warheads isn’t the same as seeing them. My stomach churned as I looked at a dozen missiles, each tipped with a bulbous payload.
We’d been right. Beta was getting ready to nuke a superpower. Now that they knew we knew, they would have to use their advantage soon, or lose it.
And I’d come all this way with no clear way to stop them.
A dozen missiles. A dozen warheads, command systems, engines. What vulnerable point could I attack from here in the time I had left?
I saw one choice, and it might prove fatal. But if it came down to me or a few hundred million on Earth . . .
I wasn’t sure I could do it. But I had to try.
Ramon had filled my data pack with everything he knew on detonation systems, and my suit AI was a good assistant. I opened up the nearest warhead and scanned the circuitry. It took the AI ten minutes to confirm the detonation path. By that point, there was already hammering at the hatch. I was running out of time.
The AI confirmed that it knew what to do. If I hooked it into the command circuitry, it could do the rest.
Of course, that would leave me without a suit computer; but I would take that chance. I hooked the AI into the circuits, slammed the access panel shut, and headed to the launch hatch. I couldn’t open that; but I found a maintenance airlock, and I cycled through. I was back in space.
Not that that would spare me. A hydrogen bomb going off this close wouldn’t give a damn about hull plates.
This was our last chance. Win or lose, it was time to scramble if we could. I tapped my team circuit, a broadcast antenna powerful enough to reach everywhere in the area—even inside the station, if Fernandez had deployed his relay. I shouted, “Artifice!” That was our code word to bug out.
Would they make it? Would I? Checking my chronometer, we had nine minutes to find out.
Without the AI, my mobility unit missed my drop pod by more than thirty meters. I worked my way hand over hand back to the pod.
If I could’ve taken my helmet off, I would’ve kissed the break-in box. It had control of the pod. I executed a maintenance mode to detach the pod from the hull, and I opened the hidden hatch. As soon as I was inside, I triggered the escape jets without even waiting for the hatch to close.
But I made sure I shut it in time. Seven minutes later, Beta Station became a new star in the sky.
Shin almost didn’t escape. She went back to rescue Fernandez and his team, who were caught in a crossfire and couldn’t get down the tube. She’d gotten them out and onto their maneuvering sleds.
Mama, the beautiful Maasai who had always given me hell, never made it out. The last word Shin heard was that Mama was jamming the computer systems to keep Beta from finding me. I never got to tell her how important she was to this team.
Beta’s plan could hardly stay secret. An orbital hydrogen blast can’t be hidden. There are noises from the grounders that they’re going to take a more active role up here, starting with an investigation to find out what really happened at Beta.
Of course, the people who need to know already do. They have my report.
It’s been fun having freedom out here while the grounders went about their business and ignored both the risks and the opportunities of space. But it couldn’t last forever. Humanity keeps gazing outward. There’s not much we can do to stop it: Government is coming with their bureaucrats, their paperwork, their inspectors, and their police.
And probably their intelligence forces. Maybe I should apply with them. Stopping World War IV will look pretty good on my resumé . . .