Old Ironsides Read online

  Viggo moved fast, his head shaved close, his clothes sufficiently tight to avoid getting in his way in the event of a chase. His slightly buoyant gait both betrayed the lack of gravity and also the bionetic leg enhancements concealed beneath his baggy pants. Kaylin moved steadily in pursuit and one hand subconsciously checked for the butt of the plasma blaster tucked into a holster under her left arm. Fully charged, sufficient for around twenty rounds before the chamber was emptied, the blaster was a last resort: she wanted Viggo alive, and perhaps more importantly, his dealer.

  The docks lay ahead, immense blast doors bordered with black and yellow warning chevrons and smaller access doors likewise emblazoned with caution signs. Most of the pedestrians down here were either arriving or leaving the station or worked here, and Kaylin looked up briefly to see a vertiginous, soaring view of the city’s North Quarter towers rising up toward her as she walked along the inverted gantry above the city, the brilliant blue oceans of earth framing the city’s Belt far below. New Washington maintained a geostationary orbit above the planet, purposefully designed to give the impression of a natural sky above during each rotation rather than the utter blackness of deep space or the blinding flare of the sun, and the movement created long shadows that crept permanently across the cityscape as the station spun slowly, as though night warred endlessly against day.

  ‘You want us on foot?’ Vasqeuz asked.

  ‘Affirm,’ Kaylin replied. ‘Get your butts down here and cover me, Viggo’s going in and he’s got no business being here. He doesn’t have any family planet side.’

  ***

  IV

  The stench of ion fuel hit Kaylin’s sensorium as she slipped through an access door manned by a security team who opened up as soon as they saw her badge. As Kaylin walked through a scanner swept her with a fine red beam and detected the identity implant fused into the bone of her skull. Updated every time she moved through one of the city’s myriad checkpoints, every human being was implanted at birth with a personalized Implanted Designator, or ID for short. A liquid-cell quantum storage chip, everything about Kaylin and every other person was recorded and stored if needed for future use. The law stated that no ID chip was ever to be tampered with, but a vibrant market existed for those able to afford tinkering with their ID and evading the law and the state.

  ‘Viggo’s heading for Bay Six,’ Kaylin said as she walked into the docking bays, filled with shuttles of various sizes owned by the transport companies that vied for trade between Earth, the orbiting platforms and the wider solar system. ‘Head wide and cut him off in case he bolts.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  Kaylin walked alongside a slender long-range cruiser, emblazoned with the logo of Solar Star Express, one of the major courier and transport firms based out of New Washington. Parked in ranks according to their mass, the bigger transport shielded her from view as she eased alongside it and peered around the edge.

  Viggo had reached a transport that had just landed and was taxiing through an irradiation bath, a series of lasers that swept the exterior of incoming craft to scour them of any latent radiation from their journey. She watched as the cruiser, a short range version with stubby folding wings and tail designed for atmospheric flight, exited the bath and taxied forward again toward a parking slot denoted by a large, glowing holographic indicator. The pilot eased into position, and then the ion engines whined down as the craft settled onto magnetic clamps designed to hold it in position as the passengers disembarked.

  ‘We’re in,’ Vasqeuz called. ‘Got the transport in sight yet?’

  ‘Journeyman Cadillac of New Washington Couriers, registration delta-lima-echo-four-seven, they’re disembarking now.’

  ‘Roger, inbound.’

  Kaylin leaned against the fuselage of the sleek cruiser and watched as passengers began disembarking the Cadillac to be greeted by friends and families waiting in a cordorned-off safety area near the spacecraft. Viggo waited patiently amid the throng until a tall, rangy man with stark spiky blond hair and unnaturally tanned skin emerged from the craft and walked toward him.

  ‘Got the mark,’ Kaylin said softly. ‘Tall, blond Caucasian, looks like he’s from planet side.’

  Kaylin watched as the tall man and Viggo greeted each other with a side-swipe chop into each other’s shoulder, a common gangland greeting signifying a missed attack with an imaginary blade: blood drawn but life not lost. The two began moving, and that was when Kaylin saw the holdall slung over the tall man’s shoulder.

  ‘He’s carrying,’ Kaylin said as she began to move.

  ‘They won’t get through security if he’s got the spice on him,’ Jay said as he and Vasquez closed in from the far side. ‘He’ll be busted before they get out of the dock.’

  Kaylin frowned, wondering whether this meet of Viggo’s was indeed nothing more than a friend visiting the station. The security screening system between the docks and the station proper included scanners that could detect drugs like Shiver to one part in one billion. To boldly attempt passing through such security with a holdall full of drugs would be almost…

  Kaylin froze on the spot and scanned the other passengers who had disembarked the craft. Some were already through the scanners and on their way into the station, others queueing patiently.

  ‘It’s a double,’ Kaylin said. ‘They’re not the mules, they’re here to draw us off!’

  Kaylin looked around her and saw at least four cruisers landing at different gates, others emerging from the sequence of blast doors designed to maintain the atmosphere inside the dock and protect it from the vacuum of space outside.

  ‘We don’t have the manpower to search every gate,’ Vasquez said. ‘If there’s another mule they’ll be away!’

  Kaylin began to run straight at Viggo as she shouted across the dock, knowing that only he would know where the real mule was. ‘Police, everybody stay where you are!’

  Viggo whirled and saw her coming, and without hesitation he bolted for the security gates as Kaylin changed direction to pursue him. ‘Vasquez, he’s bolted, gate four!’

  Viggo moved with inhuman speed, ducking his head down and driving forward at a pace no standard human could possibly hope to maintain, the faint whine of electric motors powering his legs at a frenetic pace. Kaylin changed her angle as she ran along the dock, the passengers in the queue ducking aside as she sprinted past, angling to intercept Viggo before he broke clear.

  The security gates were unmanned, the entire process automated, with human teams on the far side only ready to intercept anybody who tried to break through.

  ‘Stand down, Viggo!’ Kaylin yelled as she ran. ‘There’s nowhere to go!’

  Viggo kept moving, his legs racing and his boots pounding the dock with a frenzied beat as he ran and pulled something from his jacket. Kaylin knew that for all the enhancements in the world Viggo’s heart would not be able to keep pace with his legs for much longer even in the low gravity environment.

  Kaylin reached down and deactivated her boots as she launched herself off the dock. Instantly she was flying at sprinting speed as she pulled her plasma blaster from its holster and activated the power cell. Instantly, the contained plasma in the magazine was released into the chamber, the drop in pressure causing beads of condensation to form on the back of the weapon that streamed off it in spherical globules past her face as Kaylin soared across the dock and took aim.

  ‘Last chance, Viggo! On your knees, hands in the air!’

  Viggo reached the security checkpoint and looked over his shoulder at Kaylin as she rocketed toward him, the pistol aimed squarely between his eyes. To her amazement, a bright smile flashed on his face as he held something up and tossed it into the security zone.

  ‘Bomb!’

  Kaylin’s voice echoed across the dock as passengers hurled themselves to the ground. Kaylin reached down and reactivated her boots as Viggo wrapped his jacket around his body like a cape and turned his back to the security door as he ducked his head down.
/>   Kaylin’s boots jerked downward and slammed into the dock as she hit the deck and rolled, threw her hands over her head as a deafening blast shattered the air. A brilliant flare of blue-white light blazed from the check point as the bomb detonated and smashed its way through the delicate scanners, screams of panic and fear echoing across the docks in pursuit of the infernal blast.

  Kaylin rolled up into a crouch and aimed at the smoldering doorway, her ears ringing as she searched for a target and saw Viggo flash through in a swirl of his armored jacket, his accomplice’s holdall now over his shoulder.

  ‘Kaylin, down, now!’

  Vasquez’s voice reached her and she threw herself down as two sharp cracks split the air from nearby. Kaylin barely saw the two plasma shots as they rocketed over her head with inches to spare, but she felt their searing heat as they zipped by and smashed into a support girder nearby. Thick, white-hot plasma splattered across the metal and hissed as it bit deep into the structure, clouds of acrid smoke spiralling in vortexes before spilling downward, seeking lower pressure.

  Kaylin turned and saw the tall blond man with a pistol in his grasp turn to face Vasquez as crowds of civilians scattered for shelter across the dock amid cries of panic. Vasquez fired first, two shots that tore across the dock and smashed into the blond man’s chest. A hellish scream of unimaginable agony soared above the noise of ion engines as the plasma shots burrowed deep into the man’s chest, burning flesh and melting bone as they deposited their enormous energy into his body in a cloud of smoke.

  The man toppled backwards, his mouth wide open and his chest a gaping cavity of cauterized flesh and bone.

  ‘Get on Viggo!’ Jay yelled.

  Kaylin was up and moving in a flash. She sprinted through the shattered security gate and out into the marshalling area where two security personnel were lying on their backs, civilians attending to their injuries as Kayin raced past.

  ‘He went that way!’ several of them pointed toward the elevators banks.

  Kaylin ran hard through the crowds as she burst onto the main concourse but she could see no sign of Viggo. She reached down to her belt and launched herself upward at an angle as she deactivated her boots once more. She soared above the crowds, her pistol still in her hand as she sought him out, and at once she saw Viggo sprinting hard toward the elevators.

  With her free hand Kaylin unhooked a grapple from her belt, consisting of a long, high tensile wire attached with a titanium clip, and a highly magnetic clamp on the loose end. She swung the magnetic clamp in a wide arc alongside her and then let it loose toward the base of a support girder some thirty feet ahead and below her. The clamp flew through the air, unwinding the cable from a reel on her belt until the magnet slammed into the girder and held fast.

  Kaylin activated the reel and it began pulling her in, her ever-upward climb arrested as she arced back down toward the deck and toward the pillar. She aimed her boots for the ground alongside the pillar and then as she descended to within six feet of the deck she activated her gravity boots and dropped out of the air as she shut off the cable reel.

  Kaylin hit the deck running just twenty feet behind Viggo, her weapon still drawn as she yanked the magnet free from the pillar as she passed by and aimed at Viggo’s back.

  ‘Police! On your knees, hands in the air!’

  The crowd split as she ran, panicked civilians staggering out of her way as she heard sirens all around as pursuit vehicles closed in on Viggo, alerted to the blasts at the dock. She took aim as Viggo reached the elevator banks, the crowds there parting like tangled waves as he charged the banks, and she knew that she could not fire without endangering the human shield Viggo was creating for himself.

  ‘He’s using the elevators, shut them off!’ Kaylin shouted.

  Viggo reached the elevator, but then suddenly he jumped up on top of it and clambered up onto a support pillar that rose several hundred feet up into the station. Without hesitation Viggo sprinted upward, climbing the pillar vertically.

  Kaylin almost swore in disbelief as the drug runner sprinted directly upward toward the depths of the city’s Beltway far below them. She crouched down as she aimed toward the pillar and reached for her belt.

  ‘Kaylin, no!’

  Jay and Vasquez burst into view behind her as she shut off her boots and launched herself into the air. Kaylin rocketed upward above the crowd and the elevator banks as she saw Viggo sprinting vertically away from her, his body already a speck against the towering buildings and the spectacular panorama above of the blue planet filling the sky and the band of the city street’s Beltway intersecting the Earth. Kaylin soared upward as she heard the traffic now humming all around her. The vehicles were under automatic control, following invisible lanes in the air, and she twisted herself to one side as a family vehicle whizzed by, filled with horrified faces staring out at her as she soared past.

  She looked up and saw Viggo glance over his shoulder. Kaylin aimed and fired, condensation streaming off her pistol as the blue-white plasma shot crackled from the barrel and rocketed toward Viggo. The runner crouched down and then leaped into the air as the shot smacked into the edge of the pillar, fragmented and burst in a blue halo of rapidly cooling plasma.

  Kaylin cursed as she felt the air pressure begin to rise as gravity began to accelerate her wildly. Viggo had landed on the side of a large building and was already sprinting down it toward the city streets as Kaylin grabbed her magnetic lasso and hurled it at the side of the building. The clamp caught and she was jerked violently through the air as she suddenly matched the rotational velocity of the station and was then pulled in by the clamp.

  Kaylin activated her boots as the side of the building rushed toward her and she slammed into it. Her belt winch deactivated and she began running vertically up the building, observing the disorientating sight of crowds watching her from both below and above as she pursued Viggo across the side of the building.

  Viggo whirled and aimed at her, a pistol in his grasp as he fired three times. Kaylin hurled herself to one side, careful to keep one boot on the surface of the building at all times as she dodged the shots and kept pushing toward Viggo. The runner’s eyes widened in panic as he realized that he could not shake Kaylin, the bottom of the building approaching fast as they sprinted ever downward. Kaylin’s heart hammered in her chest and her breathing was labored as they ran, but with every step the air became denser and she began to grasp the advantage. Viggo’s enhanced body was too much for his heart and he was floundering already as he leaped across onto the top of another building and then vanished over the edge.

  I’ve got you now, asshole.

  Kaylin leaped across, rotating in mid-air to land right-side up on the roof. She rushed across the top of the building and altered direction so that she would not emerge into Viggo’s line of sight. She dashed to the edge of the building and looked down to see Viggo point at her, his face shining with delight.

  A soft brush of powder or gas swept across Kaylin’s face and her hard breathing hoovered it up almost before she realized that she had been hit. She staggered, the pistol in her hand coming up to aim down at Viggo, and then she stood still and stared at the man before her. There was something familiar about him…

  Kaylin looked about her at the city, heard footsteps rushing away from her at incredible speed and saw what looked like a man running away across the rooftops. She wondered briefly who he was running away from, as all around her police pursuit vehicles closed in, their sirens blaring and hazard lights flashing vividly.

  Kaylin looked down vacantly at the pistol in her hand, frowned, and then wondered how she had got on top of the building, or how the hell she was going to get back down.

  For that matter, she couldn’t remember who she was…

  ***

  V

  4th Precinct Station,

  New Washington

  Two days later

  ‘I think she’s just been putting it on to make us think she doesn’t love us.’
/>   Emilio Vasquez sat at his desk with his boots up in front of his holoscreen as he peered at Kaylin while chomping on a synthesized apple from one of the orbital station’s gardens.

  ‘Maybe she loves us so much she can’t bear it any longer, and is in denial,’ Jay Allen added.

  ‘Cut it out,’ Kaylin uttered as she pored over a physician’s report. ‘I don’t know what happened.’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ Vasquez reached out and patted her arm consolingly. ‘It’s okay to be shy, we understand. Gotta be tough to choose between the two of us, right Jay?’

  ‘An impossible decision fraught with peril,’ Jay agreed. ‘Wouldn’t want to be you.’

  Kaylin tossed the report aside and leaned back in her chair as she looked at them; Vasquez with his tightly cropped black hair, dark skin and brilliant smile; Jay with his smart suit, immaculately combed brown hair and crisp blue eyes, one eyebrow raised expectantly.

  ‘I’m off official duty,’ Kaylin said to them for the hundredth time. ‘It’s not my idea believe me, but until they figure out what the hell Viggo hosed me with they won’t let me carry a weapon.’

  Vasquez took another bite from his apple. ‘Yeah, and then they land you the plum job of heading down planet-side for a few days. Mighty convenient, wouldn’t you say Jay?’

  ‘Mightily so, Emilio,’ Lieutenant Allen chirped in perfect rhythm. ‘So, the only thing left is to let us know which one of us will be coming down below.’ Jay almost blushed, then coughed. ‘If you’ll excuse the expression.’

  Vasquez shook his head and rolled his eyes. ‘Man, you just can’t hold it up can you?’

  Jay shrugged apologetically as Kaylin replied.

  ‘Guys, it’s not up to me, okay? They cleared me in the medical and Captain Forrester wants me to head down to New York City for light duties until they finish the analysis of whatever Viggo was carrying.’