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

“Two-Niner Sierra, Al-Zamani Control. Landing clearance is granted. Alter your approach vector for landing bay Alpha-Five. Confirm.”

“Confirm for Alpha-Five, Control,” Ernesto replied. “Altering vector now.” There were several more pops from the thrusters as he changed their course.

The view of the station layout shifted in her vision, highlighting the shuttle bay labeled A-five. “Since this is our landing bay,” Paradox said, “this should be our primary target option.” A dashed line appeared on the layout, leading from the bay to one of the nearby compartments they’d identified as a possible security terminal location.

“Agreed,” Kimiko replied.

“You’ve just passed through the shuttle bay containment field. Prepare for station grav.”

She braced herself as Ernesto used the directional thrusters to bring them to a relative stop and then set the shuttle into the docking clamps on the landing bay’s deck. After a final clunk, she felt the downward tug of the grav-field coming back on in the shuttle bay. At that point, it was a waiting game. She sat in silence for several minutes, mentally reviewing her plan before she felt her grav disappear again. Then the crate was lifted and carried for a short distance before being set into place, adjusted, then locked down. Grav returned, suddenly, and she knew that the anti-grave frame had been deactivated and removed. She guessed that she had, at most, five minutes to get out of the crate before Ernesto’s shuttle was refueled for the return journey. She set a timer on her display for thirty seconds, then waited, keeping her breathing calm, as it counted down.

“I’ve negotiated access to the local Net,” Paradox suddenly announced. “I don’t have any access to security functions, but I can at least help you navigate.”

“That’s handy,” Kimiko admitted.

“You should remove that ID badge, though. They’re fitted with trackers.”

Of course, they were. Kimiko grunted, and pulled hers off, letting it fall to the base of the container. “Can you tell if the immediate area is clear?”

“Yes. There are no badges in the vicinity besides yours.”

That would have to be enough to go on. It was better than she’d planned for. Kimiko reached up and pulled the emergency release lever on the container lid. It unsealed with a loud hiss. She pushed the cover up and to the side, then held it to keep it from falling while she stood up and climbed out of the crate. As she slid the lid back into place, Kimiko saw that she was in a loading bay section demarcated by wide yellow striping painted onto the gray composite deck. There were stacks of shipping containers all around her, including the few that were offloaded from Ernesto’s shuttle.

The docking bay was a vast, cavernous, open space that must’ve stretched for hundreds of meters from side to side. Ernesto’s shuttle was still parked inside, dwarfed by the area around it, and the colossal cargo hauler positioned nearby. Kimiko was momentarily astounded. It was impossible to judge the size of a station from a distance, and she’d been unable to see it as they’d approached. But it was a shipyard, she remembered, which meant that it housed all the manufacturing and engineering facilities needed to design and construct their spacecraft. And some of Al-Zamani’s ships were very large, indeed. The interior was every bit as spotless as Davida Station had been, and the materials were of the highest quality. But Al-Zamani had paid no mind to aesthetics–at least beyond functional and utilitarian, if those even counted. The surfaces were all dark, mostly grays and charcoals, broken up by brightly painted symbols and graphics common to industrial stations and docking bays. But the bay was lit from above to an almost clinical brightness, with massive overhead lights banishing any shadows.

It was crowded, too, but no one was paying her little loading zone any attention, so Kimiko resealed her crate, then activated her guidance mini-map in the corner of her field of vision. “Where’s the exit?” she asked aloud as she visually scanned the nearby area.

“Here,” Paradox replied as an icon popped up in her display, marking a hatch on the rear wall of the bay.

Kimiko kept her head down as she quickly worked her way through the container stacks toward the hatch, but there was still a good thirty meters of open space left where she would be completely exposed. She peeked around the crates she was hiding behind, and saw that Ernesto’s shuttle was being refueled. None of the Al-Zamani workers seemed to be looking in her direction, so she sucked up her reluctance and moved. Kimiko covered the distance with a brisk walk, slapping her palm on the hatch controls when she reached them, then stepping through after the hatch slid open. She let out a sigh of relief as it slid closed again behind her. She stood in a small corridor that likely served as an airlock if the docking bay ever needed to be depressurized. The hatch at the other end was also manually operated and opened onto a large crew lounge filled with short banks of lockers arranged in a half-dozen rows, along with benches for dressing and hanging racks for gear along the compartment walls. It was empty, so she deactivated her helmet, taking a deep breath of air that smelled faintly of industrial solvents and long-chain monomers as the helmet collapsed and disappeared back into her collar ring.

She quickly moved towards the hatch on the opposite side. Her mini-map showed a route that would lead her toward her first possible target. The hatch at the far end of the compartment slid open automatically when she approached it, and she stepped out into a corridor. It was narrower than the wide-open walkways on Davida Station, with dark gray composite paneling and exposed ductwork and piping on the walls, and metal grating for a deck. The lighting was still bright, though, and it was also empty.

According to her mini-map, Kimiko needed to take that corridor to the next junction, then turn left. She moved