Steal the Demon: A Science-Fiction Novella by Robert Roth (free novels to read txt) 📕

A virtual display materialized, giving her an overwatch view of the cargo loading zone. She could see that the seal indicator on her crate was lit. After a few moments, she watched Ernesto walk back into the chamber with another person, probably a cargo tech, who was carrying a large hand terminal and wearing an Al-Zamani coverall. They spoke with each other, then the cargo tech held out their hand terminal, and Ernesto pointed at something displayed there. The loading tech nodded, then the two of them walked out of the display.

“I’ve confirmed the addition of this crate to the shuttle’s manifest,” Paradox told her.

“You’re inside of Al-Zamani’s Net?”

“No, just the local Net, where they have to rely on Davida Station’s Net-sec, which is much less aggressive than the Shipyard’s.”

In her virtual display, Kimiko watched as two other cargo techs walked over to her crate and strapped an anti-grav frame to the top of it, so she braced herself against the interior walls. The grav disappeared when one of the techs activated the device, then the techs positioned themselves on either side of the crate and began to push it out of range of the display.

It wasn’t truly anti-grav, of course, since all the grav in the station was artificially generated. It was only an inhibitor field that locally dampened the effects of the station’s grav-field, making the container light enough to be moved and carried without a loader, and without having to worry about the standard mechanics of moving about in zero-grav.

Kimiko’s virtual display screen shifted its view, showing her the interior of the shuttle bay. The near side of the closest shuttle was opened to the bay. She watched as the cargo techs pushed her crate up the loading ramp and inside of it, strapping it into place. The tug of grav returned after they deactivated the anti-grav frame. Once she was sure that the techs had left the shuttle, she adjusted her position again, knowing that the grav was only temporary. When the shuttle left the grav-field of the station, she’d genuinely be on the float.

Ernesto appeared in her view again with his helmet on, walking around the shuttle as he made his routine inspections. It was nice to see that he was still fastidious about that sort of thing. A less-careful pilot might be tempted to skip something like that since, if there was a problem, they’d always be inside the recovery envelopes of either Davida Station or the Shipyard. Ernesto finished by inspecting the seal after a cargo tech closed the shuttle loading ramp. Kimiko took a moment and double-checked her own seals, all green on her display, and then her air tank level, which still showed more than ninety-nine percent remaining. Then she saw Ernesto board the shuttle.

“Paradox,” she asked, “can you monitor Traffic Control comms?”

“Yes, indeed. Would you like to listen?”

“I would.”

After a moment, she heard the familiar, almost silent hiss of the TC comm channel. “Davida Control,” she heard Ernesto say, “this is Alpha Zulu Two-Niner Sierra requesting departure.”

“Two-Niner Sierra, Davida Control,” came the response. It sounded like an artificial voice. Davida Station must use an AI for their traffic control. “Departure authorized. Your traffic lane is clear.”

“Copy, Davida Control. Alpha Zulu Two-Niner Sierra commencing departure sequence.”

Kimiko felt the grav disappear again, as the shuttle bay’s grav-field was deactivated. She felt a muffled pop through the bottom of the crate as Ernesto fired a quick burst from the shuttle’s directional thrusters, and watched as the shuttle lifted off from the deck. There were a few more pops as he used the thrusters to push the shuttle forward through the shimmering containment field that separated the bay from open space, then the deep, humming vibration of the main engine firing. The force pushed her to the back of the crate, but not at full grav. It was a short trip, so he was probably only accelerating at half grav, which, after the turn and burn to decelerate, would put them at Al-Zamani in around thirty minutes, she guessed.

“Okay, Paradox,” she said aloud since she was alone. “Let’s take a look at your Shipyard layout again, and review the plan.”

“Good idea,” he responded. A wireframe schematic of the Shipyard’s layout appeared in front of her. Then the section representing the shuttle bays was highlighted and expanded to fill her virtual display. “We’ll obviously start somewhere around here.”

As they reviewed the layout, she filled Paradox in on some missing details that Kenji’s ex-boyfriend had provided her, including the compartments she’d chosen to check on. The two of them then identified any other likely locations for a security terminal and the possible routes she might take to reach them. There were unknowns, of course. Kenji’s ex had told her that there were both human and bot patrols, and what areas the patrols tended to focus on, but that was from memory and could’ve changed since he’d last worked for them. After around fifteen minutes, the acceleration stopped, and Kimiko felt the thrusters’ pop as Ernesto spun the ship around. By the time the main engine cut out again, she and Paradox were both confident with their plan, such as it was. With all the unknowns, they were going to have to change things on the fly. Kimiko knew that she could. Paradox assured her of the same.

One of those unknowns was her Al-Zamani coverall. “Do you think I should keep it on?” she asked.

“It’s your call, of course,” Paradox assured her. “I would recommend doing so, since it would give you the possible advantage of blending in as Al-Zamani staff, at least from a reasonable distance. Plus, you have the ID badge now.”

That was a good point. “Okay, I’ll leave it on once I’m out of the crate.”

“We’re approaching the Shipyard, Kimiko. I’m detecting a comm request from Traffic Control.”

“Al-Zamani Control,” Kimiko heard Ernesto say. Paradox must’ve relayed the comm channel to her again. “Two-Niner Sierra inbound from Davida Station on approach, requesting landing